Hong Kong: I&T fund chooses new partners The Government today announced that the Innovation & Technology Venture Fund has added five venture capital funds as co-investment partners. The Innovation & Technology Commission called for a new round of applications from venture capital funds to become co-investment partners of the fund late last year. It received 15 applications. Based on the assessment criteria including the venture capital funds capability, its investment strategy and performance, its management teams expertise and experience and its local network and resources, as well as the advice of the funds advisory committee, the commission selected five co-investment partners at the first stage. They are Beyond Ventures II Fund LP, BitRock Capital Fund II, LP, BVG IV LP, ORI Healthcare Fund II, LP, and Transcend Capital Partners II LP. The remaining selected partners will be announced later. The Government set up the fund with the aim of encouraging venture capital investment in local innovation and technology (I&T) startups and creating a more vibrant I&T ecosystem in Hong Kong. The co-investment partners are responsible for recommending suitable investment targets to the commission which will co-invest with them at a ratio of approximately 1:2 in eligible startups. The fund signed co-investment agreements with 11 venture capital funds in the two rounds of applications that opened in 2018 and 2020. The Government has co-invested in 27 local I&T startups with the partners through the fund so far. Its investment has totalled around $200 million, attracting around $1.7 billion of private investment. The business areas of such I&T startups include supply chain management, e-commerce, financial technology, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. This story has been published on: 2022-10-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Five Eyes Alliance countries use "white gloves" to engage in political infiltration People's Daily Online) 17:37, October 10, 2022 Cartoon by Gou Ben For a long time, the US, UK and other Five Eyes Alliance countries have engaged in political infiltration and subversion in other countries through various means, using non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a concealed tool. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), for example, is a self-claimed NGO, but it actually takes orders from the US government, and constantly relies on funds from the White House and the US Congress. Under the pretext of democracy, it has led many NGOs in the world to export American values, conduct subversion, infiltration and sabotage and incite so-called "democratic movements." It is the US government's "foot soldier" and "white glove." "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA," said Allen Weinstein, a founding member of NED. (Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming) 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. Nouriel Roubini: In some sense, World War III has already started EU considers paying Elon Musk to provide Starlink Internet to Ukraine U.S. will continue to take practical, aggressive steps to make it difficult for Iran to sell drones to Russia German Prosecutor's Office searches Deutsche Bank headquarters Head of Germany's national cybersecurity agency fired amid reports of ties to Russia Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies condemns Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenian territory Spanish minister: EU is far from solution to energy crisis Fake Azerbaijani names of Syunik province communities removed from Google Maps and Google Earth apps Artsakh President presents details of meetings held in Yerevan to MPs Lavrov: Russia sees no point in maintaining its previous presence in Western countries UAE: OPEC+ decision has no political motive Opposition to David Price: Right to self-determination is the right of people of Artsakh to survive Iran is ready to negotiate with Ukraine to resolve ambiguities Deputy Speaker of Armenian National Assembly: 47 PACE deputies made written statement condemning Baku's aggression Lapid will discuss Kiev request for Israeli systems with Kuleba Morawiecki: Poland is not afraid of losing EU funds Armenian President meets with Sofia Mayor Speaker of Armenian National Assembly to Norway FM: Withdrawal of Azerbaijani Armed Forces from Armenia is a priority Nikol Pashinyan receives delegation headed by Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt Iran responds to Borrell's garden and jungle statement: EU needs to accept realities or it will continue to wither Pashinyan: No one can accuse Armenia of evading its obligations Congressman: U.S. was not active in terms of security in Armenia, but now situation is changing Indian defense company Solar group says it has received orders from Armenia for 'Pinaka' missiles Price: U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan will not be used for offensive purposes against Armenia Military expert assesses possibility of new hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan Russian Embassy: Armenians' attitude towards Russians who moved to Armenia remains very friendly Clarification by Price: What Could Armenian-American military cooperation look like? Armenian Defense Minister visits DEFEXPO exhibition in India President of Artsakh talks about results of discussions held in Armenia Borrell angers UAE with his comparison of world outside Europe to 'jungle' Public Council formed in Artsakh China Daily: Party's anti-graft efforts generate fruitful outcomes Price: We demand that Azerbaijan return to its initial positions Aghajanyan: This visit should be seen as another stage in dynamic development of Armenian-American relations Ukraine will officially ask Israel for transfer of air defense systems Head of National Assembly Commission: 2023 state budget turned out to be biggest in Armenia's history Turkey conducts test launch of its own ballistic missile over Black Sea Students of Brusov State University hold protest outside building of Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia Armenia MFA: Yerevan has always openly and publicly stated its position on dialogue with Turkey Military exercises of IRGC Ground Forces on border with Azerbaijan continue for second day in Iran Blinken accuses China of violating status quo on Taiwan Armenian Foreign Minister: We see Azerbaijan's unconstructive behavior Izvestia: European banks stop accepting SWIFT-transfers from Russia Mirzoyan calls on Cavusoglu to speak for himself Norwegian FM visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex and pays tribute to victims of Genocide Mirzoyan: We need to understand to what extent CSTO recognizes this aggression against Armenia MFA: Armenian authorities apply to OSCE to send observers to border with Azerbaijan NYT: Conflict between Turkey and Greece may cause split of NATO Ararat Mirzoyan Details of peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan were presented to Norwegian FM Price of gas in Europe drops to almost $1,200 per 1,000 cubic meters for first time since June Armenian Defense Minister meets with his Indian counterpart First images of damage to Nord Stream are published Erdogan's spokesman: Meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is impossible now Peskov redirects question of drone purchases from Iran to Russian Ministry of Defense Secretary of Armenian Security Council presents consequences of recent Azerbaijani aggression to Brazilian ambassador Trial of Robert Kocharyan and Armen Gevorgyan is held in Yerevan IAEA chief says he wants to meet with Putin again Pashinyan: Azerbaijan creates fake news on ceasefire violations by Armenia US House of Representatives members visit Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan Taliban, Iran border guards fire at each other Another high treason exposed in Armenia Armenia MOD: Azerbaijan armed forces violate ceasefire in Sotk-Kutakan sector World oil prices on the rise Trump slightly ahead of Biden in New York Times poll Armenia defense minister heads for India Newspaper: Karabakh dissatisfied with President's Yerevan visit, meeting with Armenia PM Azerbaijan fires toward Armenia positions at night Zelenskyy: Ukraine needs much more modern air defense systems Liz Truss is called upon to resign EU to review relations with China White House accuses Iran of lying Poland may not receive 75 billion euros in regional aid from EU Crash of SU-34 in Yeysk captured on video SJC: Criminal case will be initiated against judge Arusyak Aleksanyan Germany fines Telegram more than 5 million euros Scholz instructs ministers to prepare to extend operation of Germany's remaining three nuclear power plants Two people killed in Yeysk after military plane crashed Saudi Arabia rejects U.S. accusations of supporting Russia amid war in Ukraine Only candidate for post of military prosecutor of Armenia is named Expert: Iran is preparing for scenarios in form of attacks on Azerbaijan and sending troops to Artsakh German intelligence service opposes Chinese company's investment in Hamburg port Fire area at crash site of Su-34 in Krasnodar territory is 2,000 sq. m. EU approves military training mission for thousands of Ukrainian servicemen Supersonic Su-34 fighter-bomber crashes in Krasnodar territory Elon Musk on likelihood of World War III EU Commission intends to propose 'dynamic' natural gas price cap this week Dmitry Medvedev: Supplies of weapons to Ukraine will ruin relations between Russia and Israel Charles Michel welcomes rapid deployment of EU mission on Armenian border Swiss MPs horrified by consequences of Azerbaijani aggression: We support Armenians European Union announces new sanctions against Iran Tehran Times: Iran remains vigilant about developments in South Caucasus region Natural gas supply to Armenia will be temporarily suspended Daily Beast: Biden must stop next Armenian Genocide before it's too late Pashinyan: Azerbaijan is looking for pretext to launch new military aggression against Armenia Turkish Foreign Minister: Baku insists on equal status of 'Lachin' and 'Zangezur' corridors Foreign Ministry: Iran has repeatedly stated that it has not sent weapons to either side of war in Ukraine U.S. House of Representatives delegation arrives in Yerevan IRGC commander: Changing regions geography is red line for Iran Uzbek officials banned from being dishonest and swearing on social media Lawyer: Erik Aleksanyan does not accept charges against him The U.S. should produce more oil amid the global energy crisis, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said. "Obviously, America needs to play a real leadership role America is the swing producer, not Saudi Arabia," Dimon told CNBC. "And we should have gotten that right starting in March. It's almost too late to get it right because obviously, this is a longer-term investment." According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. is the world's largest oil producer, producing 18.9 million barrels of fuel per day. But the U.S. is also the world's largest consumer of oil, so exports are limited. By comparison, de facto OPEC leader and major exporter Saudi Arabia produces 10.8 million barrels of oil a day, but consumes only 3.2 million barrels a day and exports the rest, EIA reported. While the U.S. has huge energy reserves, the industry's exports are peaking and cannot be increased overnight, U.S. shale producers told the Financial Times. Dimon's comments came days after OPEC and its allies agreed to cut oil production. The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden Dimon told C that there is a longer-term concern that the world is not producing enough oil and gas to cut coal use and switch to renewable energy sources. Calling the issue "critical," he noted that "this should be treated almost as a matter of war at this point, nothing short of that." President Joe Biden congratulated the leaders of Israel and Lebanon for what the United States considers a "historic breakthrough" on the two countries' maritime border, Reuters reports. "After months of mediation by the United States, the governments of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to formally end their maritime boundary dispute and establish a permanent maritime boundary between them," Biden said in a statement after speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Lebanon President Michel Aoud. In a briefing to reporters, a senior Biden administration official said the agreement would give Lebanon new potential for foreign direct investment, especially in the energy sector. According to the official, Israel will be compensated for any share of hydrocarbons found on its side of the Mediterranean border. In addition, Israel will maintain "its security mechanisms and infrastructure that they need to make sure their shoreline is protected," the official said. He noted that negotiating the deal has not been easy, and there may be difficult moments ahead. The United States will continue to mediate as needed, he said. "This is not a direct bilateral agreement. It is through the United States, but it is a marking of boundary that will allow both countries to pursue their economic interests without conflict. That is the goal," the official said. Yesterday a document appeared online, which is allegedly discussed by Yerevan, Baku, Ankara and Washington. The document was reportedly discussed on September 27, 2022 in Washington during the meeting of Armenian Security Council secretary Armen Grigoryan, Azerbaijani President's aide Hikmet Hajiyev and U.S. Presidential National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. It is also alleged that the paper was the key topic of conversation between Pashinyan, Aliyev and Erdogan in Prague as well. It is pointed out that the United States is the organizer of the discussions. Former member of the Russian Federation Council Frants Klintsevich spoke to NEWS.am about the most important points of the supposed document. The foreign ministers of the two countries will start time-bound talks to prepare and finalize the text of the peace treaty by the end of the calendar year. Klintsevich regretfully noted that the Armenian leadership today looks more toward the U.S. than toward Russia. "Armenia is being used in these negotiations to oppose Russia. Then Yerevan will try to restore relations with Moscow, but it will be extremely difficult to do so, because a lot will be both signed and announced. Armenia will not be able to stay on four chairs, so it is necessary to decide, and Yerevan has already decided. All these trips, the work of Armenian elites, which is there, they are counterproductive. The ultimate goal of the U.S. is to remove the Russian military base from Gyumri, as well as to stop all contacts between Armenia and Russia. Armenia is being squeezed from all sides today. The only thing that today preserves Armenia's sovereignty and allows it to be an independent state is the Russian Federation and the presence of Russian forces and means. A big mistake is being made on Armenia's part, which will lead to big problems and serious tragedies in Armenia due to what Yerevan is trying to play. Yanukovych played and lost. He betrayed Russia, having a lot of support and money from Russia. Then we rescued him. I think the same will be true for Armenia in the near future," the expert noted. The Azerbaijani government will appoint a representative to work with a similar representative of the Armenian ethnic community of Nagorno-Karabakh and hold discussions on the rights and security of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. The representatives will ensure the transparency of the discussions to the international community. The sides will also jointly discuss the role of international observers without prejudice to the sovereignty of Azerbaijan, as well as to ensure the protection of the minority group in Nagorno-Karabakh. Based on this point, the U.S. attempts to get Russian peacekeepers out of Karabakh, according to Klintsevich, become even more obvious. "This is what will happen if Armenia goes along with the U.S., especially since we see formal speeches by "smart" and paid people who are now making hit-and-run attacks on Russia. After the withdrawal of peacekeepers, the border guards will leave, and the state sovereignty of Armenia will be lost, and Russia will not be able to correct it later, because it will have to correct it very hard and with the use of force and means. Today I see such a tendency. I do not know how it will end, and I do not understand this situation. The consequences for Armenia will be simply colossal, as the Americans, who do not reckon with anything, usually do. They have always used the situation, squeezed it out, and then what will be. During the negotiation process, you can try to find opportunities to achieve a special status for Nagorno-Karabakh. There is the example of Kazakhstan and everything related to Baykanur. Although the USA is trying to find people with a national aspect here as well, who put forward certain requirements. We need to carry out this complicated negotiation process regarding Karabakh, to find common points of contact. I think they can be found, though Aliyev is pressed by his nationalists to the maximum, saying that this territory was once Azerbaijani. We should all be "grateful" to Grandpa Lenin, who arranged these far-fetched things. Subsequently, they could have been corrected, but, nevertheless, some people thought that this would not interfere with the friendship of peoples and laid time-bombs. The situation in Karabakh was once created artificially: they took the Armenians and handed them over to Azerbaijan. How do you understand that? And when the division began, it began and sparks, and today the situation cannot be changed in any way. There was a period when there was a reasonable policy, it was about the approach of Armenia on Karabakh. These were reasonable and right decisions. But the people from the outside, who were against it, wanted a massacre. In the end they set up people who live on a mine," the ex-senator stressed. The sides pledged to continue discussions to establish a route for ground communications between Azerbaijan and Nakhijevan, including reciprocal access for Armenia through Azerbaijani territory. The expert also described the issue of unblocking communications as very difficult. "Armenia will not be held back. It will be forced to create this corridor. But once it is created, all the problems will increase further. Eventually it will lead to the loss of sovereignty. Armenia can declare, "Why the hell should we give this corridor through its territory? Let them fly, let them travel by train, let them pass by car. Armenia should clearly understand that this is its territory, and all these corridors are subjective things. Build the railroad, build economic relations, but the sovereignty cannot be violated, the territory cannot be taken away. While promoting this position, Armenia can only count on Russia, but it is not Russia which Armenia has staked on," stated Klintsevich. The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University is celebrating its Southern Jewish collections with the opening of three collections. The Rose Library will mark the occasion with a special event on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 4 p.m. in the Jones Room, located on level 3 of the Woodruff Library on the universitys Atlanta campus. The event will also be live streamed via Zoom. The newest fully accessible collections include the Bert and Esther Lewyn papers, Jack Boozer papers and Morris Abram papers. Emory President Gregory L. Fenves, the son of a Holocaust survivor, will introduce the program. Valeda F. Dent, vice provost of libraries and museum, will attend. Melissa Fay Greene, Kirk Distinguished Writer in Residence at Agnes Scott College and author of The Temple Bombing, will talk about using the Jacob M. Rothschild papers in the Rose Library archives to write her book. Special guests will include cousins Rabbi David Geffen and Marc Lewyn, a former Emory Board of Visitors member, who placed their families papers with the Rose Library. The two are announcing the combined Geffen and Lewyn Family Southern Jewish Collections Research Fellowship, which funds a fellowship award for research in the Southern Jewish collections. Research fellowship fund Geffen said a fund he had started years ago in his parents names in tandem with their papers in Rose got a boost when Lewyn contacted him about making a large donation to the fund in honor of Geffens parents. Recently, the two cousins worked with Rose Library director Jennifer Gunter King to dedicate the fund to a Southern Jewish collections fellowship in the two families names. The Geffen and Lewyn families generous support has greatly expanded access to critically important archives that support research into topics as diverse as the 1958 temple bombing in Atlanta to the certification of kosher Coca-Cola as truly kosher, says King. The Jewish collections entrusted to the Rose Library offer a portal to the past and document the lives and experiences of families who have helped to define Southern Jewish life. Lewyns father, Bert, survived the Holocaust by hiding in various places in Berlin and staying on the move before he emigrated to Atlanta. Geffens family, who emigrated to America in 1904 and settled in Atlanta in 1910, has multiple generations of Emory graduates. Geffen says he is proud to play a part in encouraging research in the archives, especially into Jewish history. After close deliberation during the COVID-19 years with the head of the Rose, Jennifer Gunter King, we decided the fund would be, most appropriately, for the study of Southern Jewish history, Geffen says. Marc and I are proud the fund now exists, especially because 11 members of the Geffen and Lewyn families hold 15 degrees, both undergraduate and graduate. Its our hope that students and other researchers will have better access to the human experiences of historically significant people, which will lead to a better understanding of the society, Lewyn says. We will all benefit from new generations of scholars take on these lives. Geffen and Lewyn collections Born in Berlin in 1923, Bert Lewyn (Bert and Esther Lewyn family papers) grew up during the rise of the Nazi Party and escaped the Holocaust, eventually emigrating to Atlanta. He later wrote his memoir, On the Run in Nazi Berlin (2001), detailing how he avoided capture for most of the war, living on the Berlin streets and hiding out in different locations until he was caught and imprisoned. He and several others broke out of prison and went on the run, and he continued hiding in abandoned buildings or staying with sympathetic citizens until he could safely leave Germany. His great aunt and uncle David Geffens grandparents took him in when he arrived in America. The Louis and Anna Geffen family papers collection (1898-2010) centers on Rabbi David Geffens parents but includes material dating back to Louis father, Rabbi Tobias Geffen (1898-1970), who emigrated with his wife, Sara, and their two young children to America from Lithuania in 1903. They eventually settled in Atlanta, where Tobias became rabbi of the Congregation Shearith Israel. Marc Lewyn says a letter written by his grandfather is among the many intriguing items in the Lewyn collection. In 1923, Leopold Lewin (Bert Lewyns father and my grandfather) wrote (in Yiddish) to his uncle Rabbi Tobias Geffen of Atlanta (David Geffens grandfather) bewailing the 10,000 percent increase in the cost of bread in Weimar, Germany, he says. Its fascinating to hear the impact on Leopold, his business and his baby boy (my father, Bert Lewyn), and on German politics. The union of two related families is a blessing, Geffen says. My grandparents, Rabbi and Mrs. Geffen, natives of Atlanta from 1910 on, thanked God they could bring to their home in 1949 their great-nephew, the late Bert Lewyn, who had survived the Holocaust alone in Berlin. Research use of the Southern Jewish collections The Southern Jewish collections at the Rose Library continue to be a rich resource that allows students and researchers to explore different aspects of Jewish history and draw comparisons with modern Jewish issues and community life. The collections include the American Jewish Committee Atlanta oral history interviews, David R. Blumenthal papers, Isaac Don Levine papers, Jacob M. Rothschild papers and playwright Alfred Uhrys papers documenting works including the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy and the Tony award-winning musical Parade, about the trial of Leo Frank. Andrew Harrison Baker, a history lecturer at Clemson University and a researcher focused on politics, economic development and Southern cities in the post-World War II South, was the Rose Librarys 2022 Southern Jewish History collections fellow. He conducted research this summer on Max Moses Heller, an Austrian Holocaust survivor who later became a successful businessman, politician and civic leader in Greenville, South Carolina, where Hellers papers are located at Furman University. Bakers goal was to compare Hellers career with Jewish business, political and religious leaders in the Atlanta area, tapping the papers of Elliot Levitas, Alfred Wolf, Richard H. Rich and Jacob M. Rothschild, all held by the Rose Library. This also broadens the comparative perspective of the project by allowing for stronger comparisons between Greenvilles small Jewish community and Atlantas larger community, Baker says in his Rose Library fellowship application. The collections are excellent, and I would love to do further research, Baker shares in a recent email. Every collection I worked with helped to offer a comparative perspective between my subject and Atlanta's Jewish community. In particular, the Levitas papers confirmed some of the patterns that I saw in Max Heller's political career and also demonstrated the differences between the electorate in Atlanta and Greenville. I was also able to compare how Richard H. Rich and Max Heller handled desegregation in their respective companies, Baker adds. Reading through the letters and sermons of Rabbi Rothschild is in itself an education in Southern Jewish history and gave me new perspective on the South during the civil rights movement. Bakers work with the Rose Library collections in Southern Jewish history has also sparked his interest in future research projects. I remain interested in doing more work on Jewish politicians in the South and Elliot Levitas would be part of this. He served during a time period when the Republican party began to ascend in the South and ultimately lost his congressional seat to a Republican challenger. It would be interesting to consider how (US Sen. for Georgia) Jon Ossoff's experience compares to Max Heller, Levitas and others. For more information about using the Rose Librarys collections, visit the library website For more than 20 years, Emorys Tibet Week has recognized Emorys collaboration with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the universitys longstanding affiliation with the Drepung Loseling Monastery in South India. This years celebration, focusing on the theme Healing the divide, is set for Oct. 17-22 and features numerous free programs that are open to the public. Each year, Emory Tibet Week presents an opportunity to showcase a rich set of cultural, spiritual and innovative educational programs emerging from a long and close collaborative effort between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Emory University, says Lobsang Tenzin Negi, executive director of the Emory Compassion Center. Tibet Week offers Emory and the greater Atlanta community an opportunity to experience a unique Tibetan culture and spirituality as well as to learn about cutting edge interdisciplinary research and programs from Tibetan monks, artists, contemplative scholars and prominent scientists. Originally called the Emory-Tibet Partnership, the unique educational endeavor now known as the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics (CCSCBE) brings together the best of the Western and Tibetan Buddhist intellectual traditions for mutual enrichment and the discovery of new knowledge. We are happy to have a fun and exciting set of programs to celebrate not only aspects of Tibetan art and culture, but also important programs at Emory that focus on bringing science and spirituality together through ETSIs works and cultivating and promoting universal human values such as compassion and wellbeing through the works of CBCT and SEE Learning, says Tsetan Dolka, associate director for the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. I see Emory-Tibet Week as an important part of Emorys culture, Dolkar adds. Over the years, it has become a significant force in bringing the Emory community together, which is much needed at this moment as we are coming out of the pandemic. We hope that the community sand painting, one of the more popular activities of the week, will allow people to recognize, understand and appreciate the interconnectedness of our life in a fun and colorful way. Tibet Week 2022 activities Join the Drepung Loseling monks of the Mystical Arts of Tibet for daily meditation, chants and a live sand painting exhibition. CCSCBE staff members will lead guided compassion meditation sessions each day at 5 p.m. For those who enjoy creativity, community sand painting sessions will be Wednesday through Saturday from 1-5 p.m. All in-person events will be held in Ackerman Hall of the Michael C. Carlos Museum. The events are free and open to the public, with most not requiring registration. Monday, Oct. 17 Opening ceremony 121 p.m. Tibet Week begins, with part of the ceremony including monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery beginning the construction of the sand mandala. This year they will create the Mandala of Akshobnya Buddha, invoked during a crisis, pandemics and conflict to provide protection, healing and transformation. The construction will continue throughout the week. Anyone can watch the work on Monday from 15 p.m. and from 10 a.m. 5 p.m on the other days of Tibet Week. Film Screening: The Great 14th, presented by award-winning filmmaker Rosemary Rawcliff 7:309 p.m. Hear His Holiness the Dalai Lama go into detail about navigating his public life while striving to walk the enlightened path. Tuesday, Oct. 18 AntiquiTEA 45 p.m. Enjoy ginger tea and sweets as Brendan Ozawa-de Silva, senior lecturer in CCSCBE, explores the symbolic and pedagogical meanings in a thangka painting from the Carlos Museums collection of Asian art. The work, which depicts the samathas nine stages of the taming of the mind, was created over the last two years by master painters at the Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India. Attend in person or register to watch online. Panel Discussion: Dharma Meets Science 7:309 p.m. Robin Nusslock, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, joins monastic graduates of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative for a discussion on the convergence of science and spirituality. Arri Eisen from Emorys Department of Biology will moderate the discussion. Wednesday, Oct. 19 Online Lecture: The Wheel of Life: A Buddhist Visual Pedagogy 7:309 p.m. Buddhist theories of birth and rebirth are known for their complexity. While the law of karma can be expressed simply as you reap what you sow, the psychological and metaphysical processes by which karma functions are not easy to grasp. During this program, Sara McClintock, associate professor in Emorys Department of Religion, will read a new work in the museums collection of Asian art, a thangka painting depicting the wheel of life, created in 2021-22 by master painters at the Norbulinkga Institute in Dharamsala, India, a companion to the samatha thangka. Register to hear the lecture. Thursday, Oct. 20 Webinar: Compassion: An Engine for Primary Healthcare 910 a.m. As part of the third annual Juliet E. Shield Symposium on Compassion, Shams Syed of the World Health Organization will present on the value of compassion in health care and the role it plays in improving quality care. Register to watch the webinar. Panel Discussion: Advancing a Global Culture of Compassion 7:309 p.m. Experts from business, health care, human services and education will explore the challenges, opportunities and benefits of infusing compassion across society. Their discussion will be moderated by Lobsang Tenzin Negi of the Emory Compassion Center. Saturday, Oct. 22 Closing ceremonies with the monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery 5:30 p.m. ________________________________________________________________________________________ Sponsors of Emory-Tibet Week 2022 include the CCSCBE, the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University Department of Religion, Drepung Loseling Monastery, Inc. and the Hightower Fund. For more information, visit the CCSCBE website or email ccscbe@emory.edu. Community invited to explore OSU Vet Med at Open House Media Contact: Kaylie Wehr | Coordinator, Marketing and Public Relations | 405-744-6740 | kaylie.wehr@okstate.edu The Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine Open House returns from 9 a.m. to 4 pm. on Saturday, Oct. 29. The community is invited to a day of exploring veterinary medicine through demonstrations and hands-on activities for all ages. The event is free and will take place at the Vet Med complex located at 208 N. McFarland St., Stillwater, Oklahoma, 74078. Open House is a fantastic opportunity for people of all ages to learn more about veterinary medicine, said Dr. Carlos Risco, CVM dean. Whether you are interested in a career in the veterinary field or just curious about what we do at the college, there is something for everyone. Plan for a full day of activities, including face painting; food trucks; meet and greet with Bullet, the Spirit Riders and Pistol Pete; teddy bear surgery; an adopt-a-thon with pets from local shelters; and hands-on, science-based activities for children of all ages. Guests will also see student organizations on display and Vet Med apparel will be available to purchase. Children are encouraged to wear their favorite Halloween costumes to Open House for treats from each booth. No personal pets are allowed for the safety of your animals and of others. An adult must accompany children at all times. With a strong reputation for graduating competent and practice-ready veterinarians, the CVM is a jewel in the crown of Oklahoma State University, said Dr. Jerry Ritchey, associate dean of Academic and Student Affairs for CVM. We have missed the opportunity to share this valuable resource with the public due to the pandemic and we are extremely excited to provide a glimpse into our programs and facilities through Open House. For questions, please contact CVM's Office of Student Services at 405-744-6961 or dvm@okstate.edu. For directions and more information, visit Vet Med Open House. Additional photos can be found at okla.st/cvmohphotos 54 poor countries face debt crisis, UN warns UNDP chief Achim Steiner says urgent action is needed before poorer countries' debt becomes unmanageable. File photo: AFP The United Nations' Development Programme (UNDP) joined on Tuesday the chorus of institutions and charities warning that a serious debt crisis is now taking hold in the poorest parts of the world. In a new report, the UNDP estimated that 54 countries, accounting for more than half of the worlds poorest people, now needed immediate debt relief to avoid even more extreme poverty and give them a chance of dealing with climate change. "A serious debt crisis is unfolding across developing economies, and the likelihood of a worsening outlook is high," the report published on Tuesday said. The warning comes as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank hold meetings in Washington this week amid rising global recession worries and a crop of debt crises from Sri Lanka and Pakistan to Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia. Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, urged a string of measures, including writing off debt, offering wider relief to greater numbers of countries and even adding special clauses to bond contracts to provide breathing space during crises. "It is urgent for us to step up and find ways in which we can deal with these issues before they become at least less manageable and perhaps unmanageable," he told reporters. Without effective debt restructuring, poverty will rise and desperately needed investments in climate adaptation and mitigation will not happen. The UNDP's report also called for a recalibration of the G20-led Common Framework the plan designed to help countries pushed into financial trouble by Covid-19 pandemic restructure debt. Only Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia have used it so far. (Reuters) New Delhi [India], October 11 (ANI/GPRC): It's that time of the year, when we all meet together for an event of Lights, to celebrate during the divine Karthika Masam, Bhakti TV Koti Deeposthavam. Koti Deeposthavam is the only place where all your senses will feel heightened pleasure all at once. You ear divine sholkas, mantras, chants and pravachanas (preaching) from scholars while you see the grand Shiva - Keshava idols being decorated in different styles like never before. You can almost smell the divinity in the vicinity and your skin gets the goosebumps of unreal pleasure. You can taste the great godly gift of divine satisfaction along with some tasty Prasadam. No.1 Telugu News Channel and Bhakti TV have come together again for Koti Deeposthavam this year and this is the 11th time, we are conducting this great festival of lights. The Grand Event will be held at NTR Stadium, Hyderabad from 31st October to 14th November. Please be there with your family members, relatives and pilgrims who wish to bask in the divinity. This story is provided by GPRC. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/GPRC) The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed a new global tax transparency framework for reporting and exchange of information related to crypto assets. The framework named Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) was developed after a G20 request that the OECD develop a framework for the automatic exchange of information between countries on such digital assets. The CARF consists of rules and commentary which set out: i) the scope of Crypto-Assets to be covered; ii) the Entities and individuals subject to data collection and reporting requirements; iii) the transactions subject to reporting, as well as the information to be reported in respect of such transactions; and iv) the due diligence procedures to identify Crypto-Asset Users and Controlling Persons, and to determine the relevant tax jurisdictions for reporting and exchange purposes. The CARF will be presented to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors for discussion at their next meeting on Wednesday and Thursday in Washington DC, the intergovernmental organization OECD said in a statement on Monday. The new transparency initiative, developed together with G20 countries, comes against the backdrop of rapid adoption of the use of crypto-assets for a wide range of investment and financial uses. "Unlike traditional financial products, crypto-assets can be transferred and held without the intervention of traditional financial intermediaries, such as banks, and without any central administrator having full visibility on either the transactions carried out or on crypto-asset holdings," it said, adding that the crypto market has also given rise to new intermediaries and service providers, such as crypto-asset exchanges and wallet providers -- many of which currently remain unregulated. The new crypto-asset reporting framework and amendments to the Common Reporting Standard will ensure that the tax transparency architecture remains up-to-date and effective, said OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann. "The Common Reporting Standard has been very successful in the fight against international tax evasion. In 2021, over 100 jurisdictions exchanged information on 111 million financial accounts, covering total assets of EUR 11 trillion," Cormann said. Further, the OECD has also put forward to the G20 a set of further amendments to the present Common Reporting Standard, intending to modernise its scope to comprehensively cover digital financial products and to improve its operation, taking into account the experience gained by countries and businesses. (ANI) The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi government that targets to provide safe and adequate drinking water to all rural households in India by 2024 would help save 1.36 lakh lives of children under 5 year age every year, a paper co-authored by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer argues. However, this will require that water delivered through JJM is free from microbiological contamination, noted the paper entitled 'Potential Reduction in Child Mortality through Expanding Access to Safe Drinking Water in India'. The paper published by the University of Chicago has been co-authored by Michael Kremer, Akanksha Saletore, Witold Wiecek and Arthur Baker. Providing piped water is an important step towards improving water quality. However, it is critical that it be free of microbial contamination. Even in cases where water is treated at a central location, negative pressure in pipes can cause contamination. For example, a 2019 study in Maharashtra found high rates (37 per cent) of E. coli contamination in piped water samples, the paper noted. "Treatment of water closer to the point of use may be necessary in systems where water pressure is not constant," it said. Jal Jeevan Mission, the flagship programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi government, has yielded remarkable results after three years of its inception. The programme has successfully provided more than 50 per cent of households with tap water supply in their homes. Goa, Telangana, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Puducherry, and Haryana have already attained 100 per cent home connectivity. Punjab, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Bihar have more than 90 per cent coverage and are rapidly approaching the ideal of 'Har Ghar Jal', as per the latest government data. Jal Jeevan Mission is a flagship programme of the Government of India which was announced by the prime minister from the ramparts of Red Fort on August 15, 2019. The mission aims to make provision potable tap water supply in adequate quantity, of prescribed quality and on a regular and long-term basis to every rural household in the country by 2024. The program is implemented by the Government of India in partnership with States and Union Territories. (ANI) According to the Customs officials, the arrested accused arrived from Dubai by SpiceJet Flight SG-14 on Monday. "Gold dust in wax form was found concealed in the undergarments by the passenger," stated Mumbai Customs. Both the accused have been arrested. Further investigation is underway. (ANI) Actor Ankur Bhatia, best known for his role in 'Aarya', will now be seen in 'Taali', which is headlined by none other than Sushmita Sen. While Sushmita is going to play the role of a transgender in 'Taali', Ankur Bhatia's character is still kept under wraps. On reuniting with Sushmita after 'Aarya', Ankur said, "It has been an absolute pleasure for me to be working with Sushmita Sen in 'Aarya' and 'Aarya 2', and I never imagined that I will get an opportunity to work with her again so soon. In 'Taali' our characters are very different from what you've seen either of us play before. I can't reveal much about my character, but all I can say is that it will be in a space that I've never tried before. It's always a pleasure working with Sushmita Sen as she is always so supportive and helpful not just during the takes, but even when we are reading or rehearsing the scenes. I am looking forward to having some great memories on sets of this series as well." Last week, Sushmita unveiled her look from the project, which is based on the life of transgender activist Gauri Sawant. Sushmita said the series will chronicle the transgender activist's "story of struggle, resilience, and indomitable power". "Nothing makes me more proud and grateful than to bring this journey that has been rife with challenges, only to witness a revolution! This one is special for reasons multifold, and I'm really excited to associate with Viacom18 for this one. This is just the beginning, stay tuned for what's in store," the former Miss Universe said in a statement. The biographical drama series is created by Arjun Singgh Baran and Kartk D Nishandar. It hails from the production banner Viacom18. (ANI) As Amitabh Bachchan turned a year older today, people across the world have taken to social media to celebrate his birthday. Actor Mohanlal extended warm birthday wishes to Big B on the occasion. In a video message shared by Mohanlal's team. He said, "The name that evokes a gamut of emotions within our whole country. The greatest actor of our time, he has enriched Indian cinema and his presence continues to do so." Mohanlal added," He is an endearing personality settled with companionate behaviour, charitable actions and humble disposition are admirable qualities that stand out. His dedication to work is an inspiration for all generations. His baritone voice and his varied characters has won for him the admiration and love of whole nation." He shared his experience of working with the veteran actor. Mohanlal said, "I have been fortunate to work with him in two films and the honour of sharing screen space with him is one of the highlights of my career. Something that I will always cherish. He is a wonderful human being. He is encouraging and patient with his co-stars." Amitabh Bachchan and Mohanlal have worked together in Major Ravi's Malayalam movie 'Kandahar', which was released in 2010. Mohanlal further said, "As Amitabh sir celebrates his 80th birthday, I wish him good health, happiness and many more years of continued service to Indian cinema. May the all-mighty bless him and keep him safe. With lots of love and prayers. Bachchan Sir happy birthday to you." Big B began his career with the film 'Saat Hindustani' in 1969. He later appeared as Dr Bhaskar Banerjee in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 'Anand' (1971), for which he won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Prakash Mehra's action film 'Zanjeer' (1973) established Bachchan as a star to look out for in the industry and since then, he has enthralled audiences with versatile roles. As the megastar turned a year older on Tuesday, many fans queued up outside his Mumbai house to catch a glimpse of Bollywood's Shahenshah. Veteran actor Anupam Kher also extended his heartfelt greetings to Big B in a heartwarming post on Instagram. "Adarniya Amit ji. Janamdin ki dher sari shubhkamnaye. Prabhu apko lambi aur swasth ayu pradan kare. Aap mere lie na keval abhineta ke roop me prernatamak hai balki akhri rasta se uuncha tak aapke sath kaam krke jeevan ke alag alag pehlu ke bare me seekhne ko bhaut kuch mila. (Dear Amit ji! Wishing you a very happy birthday. May God bless you with a long and healthy life. You are an inspiration to me. I have learnt a lot from you) @amitabhbachchan #AmitabhBachchan #Legend #Inspiration #Greatest #Actor," he wrote. Amitabh Bachchan and Anupam Kher have worked together in films like 'Akhree Rasta', 'Bade Miyan Chote Miyan', 'Paheli', and 'Mohabaatein' among others. The two are reuniting after several years for Sooraj Barjatya's film 'Uunchai' which is slated to be released on November 11 this year. Ahead of his 80th birthday, the Agnipath actor came up with another new venture 'Goodbye', which is currently running in theatres. In the upcoming months, he will also be seen in 'The Intern' remake with Deepika Padukone and 'Project K'. He also has 'Uunchai' in his kitty. (ANI) Late veteran star Austin Stoker, who most notably starred in John Carpenter's sophomore feature 'Assault on Precinct 13' and co-starred with Pam Grier in the 1975 blaxploitation feature 'Sheba, Baby,' passed away on Friday at the age of 92 due to renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. According to Variety, Stoker's wife of 43 years, Robin Stoker, posted information about his passing on her own Facebook page on Monday night. "The love of my life," Robin referred to Austin in her homage. Bill Duke, an actor and director, praised Stoker as 'one of Hollywood's unsung actors' in a separate tribute and bestowed his blessings on the actor's family. As per the reports of Variety, Stoker played Lt. Ethan Bishop, a Black cop who must lead a mix of criminals, bystanders, and office workers as a police station is besieged by a relentless army of street gang members, in the seminal indie thriller 'Assault on Precinct 13.' Stoker's acting career at the time was boosted by the starring part, which also solidified his status as a cult movie icon. Along with 'Precinct 13,' Stoker also had a significant part in 1973's Battle for the Planet of the Apes,' in which he played Macdonald, Caesar's right-hand man and played by Roddy McDowall. He portrayed Brick Williams, Pam Grier's P.I.'s love interest, in William Girdler's 1975 film 'Sheba, Baby.' Along with 'The Get-Man' and 'Abby,' both directed by Girdler, 'Airport '75,' 'Time Walker,' 'Combat Cops,' and 'The Zebra Killer,' Stoker has had significant roles in other movies. He appeared in the 2019 Rob Zombie horror movie '3 From Hell.' His most recent listed cinematic credit is 'Give Till It Hurts,' a black comedy from 2022. On the classic ABC television series 'Roots,' which debuted in 1977, Stoker portrayed Virgil Harvey, the father of Olivia Cole's character Mathilda. The Six Million Dollar Man, Lou Grant, Trapper John, M.D., Murder She Wrote, and other shows featured him. For his work in the play "Split Second," Stoker also won a Drama-Logue Critics Prize for excellent achievement in theatre. According to Variety, Stoker moved to New York to seek a career in show business after being born Alphonso Marshall on October 7, 1930, in Trinidad. In 1969, he appeared in his debut television episode of 'The Mod Squad.' Stoker is survived by his wife, Robin and his children, Tiffany and Origen; and grandsons, Marcus and Austin. (ANI) The Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed the Calcutta High Court judgment quashing the re-appointment of Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee as Vice Chancellor of the Calcutta University. Banerjee was re-appointed by the Mamata Banerjee government, despite disagreement with the decision of the Governor, who is the ex-officio Chancellor of all state varsities. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli said: "The state government chose the incorrect path under Section 60 (of the Calcutta University Act) by misusing the 'removal of difficulty clause' to usurp the power of the Chancellor to make the appointment. A government cannot misuse the 'removal of difficulty clause' to remove all obstacles in its path which arise due to statutory restrictions. Allowing such actions would be antithetical to the rule of law." The top court said there is neither an express provision nor a necessary intendment by which it could be inferred that the power which is entrusted to the Chancellor to appoint a VC is taken away in the case of a re-appointment. It added there is no intrinsic reason or rationale to accept the interpretation which has been urged on behalf of the state of West Bengal and a re-appointment is the appointment of an existing incumbent who fulfils the conditions of eligibility. "The power of appointment including re-appointment is entrusted to the Chancellor and not to the state government. The amended provisions of Section 8(2)(a) cannot therefore be construed to mean that the power of re-appointment has been taken away from the Chancellor and entrusted to the State government. Reading the provisions in such a manner, would make the provisions entrusting the power of appointment of the VC with the Chancellor redundant," said Justice Chandrachud, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench. Banerjee was re-appointed with effect from August 28, 2021 for a period of four years. The top court added that misusing the limited power granted to make minor adaptations and peripheral adjustments in a statute for making its implementation effective to side-step the provisions of the statute altogether would defeat the purpose of the legislation. Dismissing the appeals filed by the West Bengal government and Banerjee challenging the order of the Calcutta High Court, the bench said: "Accordingly, the high court in our view was justified in coming to the conclusion that in the guise of removing the difficulties, the State cannot change the scheme and essential provisions of the Act." "We hold that the judgment of the high court is correct in law and in fact and does not warrant interference in appeal. The State government could not have issued the order re-appointing the VC". Banerjee is married to Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who was the former Chief Secretary of West Bengal and now serving as the Chief Advisor to the Chief Minister. On September 13, the high court set aside the state Education Department's decision to re-appoint her as Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University. A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj passed the order on a PIL, which challenged her appointment, contending that the state government had no power to reappoint a V-C "as the power to appoint/reappoint lies with the Chancellor". "The order of the re-appointment of respondent No. 4 as the Vice Chancellor, Calcutta University, issued by the state government, has no legal force and is void in the eyes of law and non-existent, hence liable to be set aside," it ruled. --IANS ss/vd ( 586 Words) 2022-10-11-21:32:02 (IANS) The initiative was launched virtually by Thawar Chand Gehlot, Governor of Karnataka at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, in the presence of K. Sudhakar, Minister for Health & Family Welfare and Medical Education, Karnataka & Vice-President, NIMHANS. Acknowledging the mental health crisis in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and an urgent need to establish a digital mental health network that will withstand the challenges amplified by the pandemic, the Central government announced National Tele Mental Health Programme (NTMHP) in the Union Budget 2022-23. "Good mental health with Tele MANAS! PM @NarendraModi Ji's Govt launches 'Tele Mental Health Assistance & Networking Across States' to provide all access to affordable mental health care in every State/UT. It will serve as the digital arm of the District Mental Health Programme," Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a tweet. Tele-MANAS aims to provide free tele-mental health services all over the country round the clock, particularly catering to people in remote or under-served areas. The programme includes a network of 23 tele-mental health centres of excellence, with NIMHANS being the nodal centre and International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIITB) providing technology support. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bengaluru and National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHRSC) will provide the technical support. The Central government aims to open at least one Tele-MANAS Cell in each State/UT. A toll-free, 24/7 helpline number (14416) has been set up across the country allowing callers to select the language of choice for availing services. The calls would be routed to Tele-MANAS cells in the respective state and union territory. Tele-MANAS will be organised in two tier system -- Tier 1 comprises of state Tele-MANAS cells which include trained counsellors and mental health specialists. Tier 2 will comprise of specialists at District Mental Health Programme (DMHP)/Medical College resources for physical consultation and/or e-Sanjeevani for audio visual consultation. Currently, there are 5 regional coordination centres along with 51 state and UTs Tele-MANAS cells. The initial rollout providing basic support and counselling through centralised Interactive Voice Response system (IVRS) is being customised for use across all States and UTs. Specialised care is being envisioned through the programme by linking Tele-MANAS with other services like National tele-consultation service, e-Sanjeevani, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, mental health professionals, Ayushman Bharat health and wellness centres and emergency psychiatric facilities. The NIMHANS has conducted training for 900 Tele MANAS counsellors from majority of states/UTs. --IANS avr/pgh ( 442 Words) 2022-10-10-22:02:02 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Rajasthan government over its affidavit in connection with the payment of ex-gratia to family members of those who succumbed to Covid-19. A bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Krishna Murari said the state government's affidavit was unsatisfactory and it was not doing charity. It said there is a direction by this court and persons who had lost their family members to Covid-19 must be treated with sympathy, and pointed out that earlier the state government had made an assurance in the matter. "Rajasthan is not doing any charity...," said the bench. It also directed the state government to file a detailed affidavit in the matter. The Rajasthan government counsel informed the bench that the state is taking all the required steps. However, the top court said the state government's affidavit is not satisfactory at all and allowed counsel file a detailed affidavit and scheduled the matter for further hearing on Friday. The top court made this observation while hearing a plea filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal alleging Rajasthan is not adhering to the 2021 order directing state governments to pay ex-gratia of Rs 50,000 to the families of Covid-19 victims. In March this year, the top court, expressing concern at fake Covid-19 claims, said nobody can be permitted to misuse Rs 50,000 ex-gratia compensation to next of kin of those who succumbed to the disease. "This Court passed the order directing the Union of India/NDMA/concerned States to pay ex-gratia amount keeping in mind the humanity and keeping in mind the sufferings of the family members who lost one of their family members due to Covid-19. Therefore, nobody can be permitted to misuse the same and it is also against morality and is unethical, which can never be accepted," said the top court in March. Earlier, the top court had issued various directions while monitoring various state governments in connection with distribution of Rs 50,000 fixed by the NDMA as compensation to the family members of persons who died due to Covid-19. --IANS ss/vd ( 357 Words) 2022-10-10-22:36:04 (IANS) In his speech at a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) rally called to show support to the family of a murdered youth, the MP, as per a video going viral, said in order to teach them (the community in question) a lesson, boycott them, do not give them work or purchase from their shops. In a tweet, tagging the Prime Minister and sharing the video, Navaid Hamid of Majlis-e-Mushawarat asked if the BJP MP's call for "for economic & social genocide of Muslims is the official policy of your government?" Noting that the "atrocious call is bound to attract international scrutiny", he asked if any action was considered against Verma. The Delhi Police has lodged an FIR against the organisers of the rally. --IANS miz/vd ( 167 Words) 2022-10-10-22:34:02 (IANS) A Congress delegation on Monday met the Election Commission after the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights filed a complaint against it for using children in its ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra and filed a counter-complaint against the BJP. The delegation comprised of Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, and Supriya Shrinate. Shrinate said: "We met the Election Commission on a very frivolous complaint that was filed by the NCPCR that is meant to protect children's rights and instead, they are actually indulging in electioneering and all sorts of bogus allegations the commission had got... of course, this was a frivolous complaint and we have actually filed a counter complaint against the BJP and its functionaries on how they are using children in a malafide way and in a rather perverse order." The Congress said that the BJP is nervous after success of the Bharat Jodo Yatra and is making the NCPCR file a bogus complaint. Ramesh said: "There is no violation of the Representation of People's Act during the Bharat Jodo Yatra and we do not understand why Election Commission has given us a notice on the complaint of the NCPCR." --IANS miz/vd ( 204 Words) 2022-10-10-22:56:07 (IANS) Kerala Transport Minister Antony Raju on Monday said that his department would take strict action against tourist buses violating rules, following the Vadakkenchery private bus accident. The minister's remark came after a report was submitted on the Vadakkenchery private bus accident that took place on October 6, claiming the lives of nine people including five school students, while leaving nearly 38 others injured. The report submitted to the minister stated that overspeeding and negligent driving were the reasons for the accident. The horrific road accident occurred after the tourist bus rear-ended the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus. The tourist bus carrying students and teachers of the Baselios Vidhyanikethan School was headed to Ooty from Ernakulam, while the KSRTC bus was on its way to Coimbatore. "We are accepting the report. We had a high-level meeting today. It has been decided in the meeting that there is an electronic control unit, it seems that many of them are removing the unit. So it was decided to file a complaint with the police to find out who is the real culprit, the dealer or the workshop people," the minister said. "Who is responsible for conducting this malpractice? So we have decided to file a complaint with the police. From tomorrow onwards illegal vehicles which are running against the rules with extra forgings and all those things, all those tourist buses will be booked from tomorrow onwards," he added. The minister said that each Regional Transport officer will be entrusted with a group of vehicles. "There are 86 Regional Transport offices in Kerala. Now we have decided to entrust a group of vehicles to each officer. So they will be responsible for that vehicle, or any changes in the vehicle that they have to check periodically whether the vehicle runs properly or not," he said. "There will be a super check and a counter check by the higher officials. And regarding the use of alcohol, we are trying to cooperate with the excise department and inspection by both MVD and excise department," Raju added. The minister said that if such people are found driving the vehicles, their licenses will be cancelled. "If we find that such people are driving the vehicle we will cancel the licence and also they have to undergo a refresher training by IDTR and the motor vehicle department. And regarding the colour code, we have decided that any vehicle violating the common colour code will be seized forthwith. No buses will be running in violation of the common colour code," he said. The deceased in the Vadakkenchery bus accident included five students, one teacher and three passengers from the KSRTC bus. A total of 38 people have been admitted to the hospital. (ANI) Tripura Director General of Police (DGP) Amitabh Ranjan, who was the Additional Director of the Intelligence Bureau for many years and until July this year, on Monday said that smuggling of synthetic drugs into the northeastern and other states of the country from the neighbouring countries specially from Myanmar, is a new threat and major challenge for the security agencies. The senior police officer, who along with Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police of all northeastern states attended a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 'Drug Trafficking and National Security' in Guwahati on Saturday, said a coordinated approach of all law enforcing agencies are on to deal with the big challenge of synthetic drugs' illegal trades. "We are trying to deal with the synthetic drugs' peddling from sources to the destined point so that the clandestine trades could be busted permanently," Ranjan told the media stressing on the technological intervention to effectively deal with the situation. He said that the Tripura police has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the cases registered under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The DGP and Tripura Chief Secretary J.K. Sinha were present when Chief Minister Manik Saha was briefing the media about the state government's anti-drugs operation, and to achieve the Central government's mission to make the northeastern region as 'Drugs free region'. The Chief Minister said that since 2018, the law enforcing agencies in Tripura have seized various drugs worth Rs 200 crore and 1,776 cases were registered while 2,701 drug peddlers arrested. "At the meeting in Guwahati, the Union Home Minister directed that if there is a shop nearby a school selling drugs, it has to be ascertained where the source is. The Home Minister directed that the central and state agencies including the Narcotics Control Bureau must work in tandem to deal with the drug menace," CM Saha said. He said the meeting in Guwahati also stressed the need to strengthen the security along the northeastern states' borders with the neighbouring countries, use of social media and NGOs to make all the stakeholders. The Chief Minister said Tripura being used as a 'corridor' for drug trafficking from Myanmar and Bangladesh and codeine-based contraband cough syrups were being smuggled from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal to Bangladesh through Tripura and these are being used as durgs across the borders. Chief Ministers of all northeastern states were present in the Guwahati meeting, where it was said that drug trafficking is a borderless crime and better coordination between all drug law enforcement and intelligence agencies and bordering districts of the northeastern states is vital to tackle it. On Saturday, around 40,000 kg of drugs were destroyed in the seven northeastern states in the virtual presence of the Union Home Minister. --IANS sc/pgh ( 479 Words) 2022-10-10-23:26:02 (IANS) Four tiger cubs, aged around six months, were released in the open enclosure in the Bengal Safari near Siliguri on Monday. The move was made by the West Bengal Zoo Authority after conducting various trials studying the behaviour of the animal. The tiger cubs which were released yesterday age nearly about six months, which according to the officials, is the perfect age to set them free in the open (enclosure). One tigress, Shila, which has been around in the park for nearly six years now, had given birth to four cubs on March 22 this year. Presently, the number of female tigresses is five namely Shila, Rika, Kika, Tejal and Tara. Bivan was the only male in the park, now including Shiva, Sera, T1, T2 and T3, there are six males in the park. The total number of tigers and tigresses is eleven in the tiger enclosure. Speaking to ANI, Director of Bengal Safari park, Dewa Sangmu Sherpa said the cubs were released in the presence of forest department minister Jyotipriya Mallick, and other forest officials. "We have released four tiger cubs which were born on March 22, 2022. Earlier the authority conducted a few trials before the release to understand the behaviour of the animals and we found it to be very normal. So we decided to release them today," she said. Expressing the belief that the cubs will be a centre of attraction for the visitors in the park, Sherpa said that people will have an enjoyable experience at the Safari. "The park has already got the approval from the state Zoo Authority and now we are waiting for Central Zoo Authority regarding the Lion Safari and sloth bear Safari very soon," she said. One of the visitors in the park, MD Kabatulla, hailing from Bihar''s Kishanganj, said that it will attract more tourists to the park. "We heard that tiger cubs were released today, so we came. I am sure the tourists will be more attracted to visit the park," he said. Bengal safari was set up over 700 acres of forest land. The park offers tiger safari, mixed herbivore safari, elephant safari, leopard safari and Asiatic black bear safari. It has an aviary trail, lesser cats trail, gharials and crocodile ponds too. Earlier in September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released wild cheetahs, which had become extinct from India, in Madhya Pradesh''s Kuno National Park. Cheetahs brought from Namibia are being introduced in India under Project Cheetah, which is the world''s first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project. Out of the eight cheetahs, five are female and three are male. (ANI) In his second visit within three weeks, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will address a public meeting in Bihar today. The Home Minister will also unveil the statue of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, the Indian independence activist, theorist, socialist and political leader, in the Sitab Diara area located on the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border on the occasion of his 120th birth anniversary. Sitab Diara is the ancestral village of Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, located on the UP-Bihar border. After unveiling the statue of Jayaprakash Narayan, the Home Minister will address the public gathering around 12 noon on Tuesday in the Sitab Diara area in Bihar's Saran district. This would be Shah's second visit to Bihar within the last three weeks. In August this year, the JD(U) snapped its ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form a new government in the state. Shah had addressed a 'Jan Bhavna Mahasabha' and chaired the BJP State Core Committee meeting in his two-day visit to Bihar's bordering Purnia and Kishanganj regions on September 23-24. Purnia is among one of the thirty-eight districts of Bihar. He also held a meeting with the MPs, MLAs and former ministers of Bihar BJP in Kishanganj city in Bihar during his visit in September. Shah's second visit to Bihar in such a short period is significant as it is learnt that it is part of poll preparedness for the party gunning for big wins at the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Shah's last month's visit covered the Seemanchal area of north Bihar which consists of four districts namely Purnia, Kishanganj, Katihar and Araria. The last month's visit was aimed to influence the success of the political party's candidates in both Assembly and General elections. All four districts share their border with West Bengal and Bangladesh, and in all four districts, the Muslim population is in sizeable number. The BJP leader has claimed that a large number of immigrants have infiltrated and settled there to change the demography. The four districts represent 24 Assembly seats and four Parliamentary seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, both BJP and JD(U) fought elections together as allies. While BJP won just one seat in Araria, JD(U) was victorious on two seats of Purnia and Katihar, while the Kishanganj seat went to the Congress party. However, political experts said that the political trend of the Seemanchal area "influences the electoral course of other adjoining districts like Supaul, Bhagalpur, Madhubani and Darbhanga as well". (ANI) The final rites of Samajwadi Party patriarch and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav will take place at his ancestral village Saifai in Etawah district on Tuesday. Mulayam Singh passed away on Monday morning at the age of 82 at Gurugram''s Medanta Hospital due to age-related ailments. He was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital last Sunday after his health deteriorated. He is survived by two sons, Akhilesh and Prateek. Several chief ministers along with the Speaker of Lok Sabha, Om Birla expected to attend the funeral. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel will represent the Congress at the funeral of Samajwadi Party veteran, according to sources. Congress veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge will also participate in the funeral on Tuesday. Kharge is contesting the election of the party president, so he will not join as the party''s official leader. However, it is not yet clear whether Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi who is leading the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka, will attend. Meanwhile, condolences poured in after the demise of the veteran Samajwadi Party leader and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. President Droupadi Murmu expressed condolences on the demise of veteran politician and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday, saying his death is an "irreparable loss" to the country. "The death of Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav is an irreparable loss to the country. The achievements of Mulayam Singh Yadav ji, who came from an ordinary environment, were extraordinary. ''Dharti Putra'' Mulayam ji was a down-to-earth veteran leader. He was respected by people of all parties. My deepest condolences to his family members and supporters!" the Rashtrapati Bhavan tweeted. Soon after learning about the demise of the Samajwadi Party founder, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recollected his relationship with the veteran leader and tweeted, "Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav Ji was a remarkable personality. He was widely admired as a humble and grounded leader who was sensitive to people''s problems. He served people diligently and devoted his life towards popularising the ideals of Loknayak JP and Dr Lohia." Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla said, "I express my deepest condolences on the demise of former UP CM & veteran politician Mulayam Singh Yadav. Despite his old age and deteriorating health, he used to attend Lok Sabha sessions regularly. He served the country staying in various imp positions." Mulayam Singh Yadav had seen Uttar Pradesh go through many ups and downs during his five-decade-long career and remained almost synonymous with the politics of the state. Fondly called "Netaji", he was well-versed in the politics of the most populous state of India. National General Secretary, Samajwadi Party, Ram Gopal Yadav said, "The politics of the country became poor due to the death of Netaji. The way he started politics after his entry into it, the way he brought the common man at the forefront. Those who did not know the route to Lucknow and Delhi were also made MLAs and MPs." Born on November 22, 1939, in Saifai village of Etawah district, Mulayam Singh rose quickly in politics and became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice; he also served in the Union Ggovernment once as the Defence Minister. He was elected 10 times as MLA and 7 times as Lok Sabha MP. His career began when he was elected MLA in 1967 at the age of 28. He founded the Samajwadi Party on October 4, 1992, and soon turned it into a regional party based in Uttar Pradesh. His son Akhilesh Yadav took over the reins of the party later and is now its president. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Monday granted relief by allowing Delhi minister Satyendar Jain''s plea challenging proceedings against him under the Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2016. The High court has closed all the proceedings against him under the Act. Justice Yashwant Varma granted relief to Jain noting the Supreme Court ruling that the application of the law cannot be retrospective. The court said that in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, proceedings against Jain and other petitioners should also be quashed. "Accordingly, in view of the law as declared by the SC, instant writ petitions are allowed. All impugned proceedings under the enactment shall stand closed, the court said in an oral order. The order came while hearing the petitions related to alleged Benami transactions. Earlier, the court had directed the authorities not to take coercive action against Jain. Jain is in judicial custody in a money laundering case. He was arrested on May 30. The apex court in August had said that the provision of 2016 Amendment Act can not be invoked to initiate or continue criminal proceedings or confiscation proceedings in the matter alleged to have been entered prior to this amendment. Delhi Minister Satyender Jain had filed the petition in 2017 and said that these alleged transactions took place much prior to the amendment of 2016. The alleged transaction took place between 2011 to March 2016 and therefore the amendment which came into effect in November 2016 would not apply. (ANI) Maharashtra Government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that it has no objection on transferring the 2020 Palghar mob lynching case of two Hindu sadhus to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government in an affidavit said that it is ready and willing to hand over the investigation to the CBI and would have no objection to the same. Maharastra State filed the affidavit on the petitions arising out of the unfortunate attack and lynching of two sadhus and seeking the transfer of the investigation into the matter to CBI in order to conduct an independent and impartial investigation. The pleas sought a CBI or a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe in the incident that took place in the Palghar district in April 2020. Earlier, the Maharashtra government had told the apex court that an investigation has been completed in the Palghar lynching case. Maharashtra government had earlier informed Supreme Court that all guilty police officials have been punished or suspended from services Earlier, the apex court had asked the Maharashtra government to bring on record the chargesheet and details of the inquiry against police officials in connection with the Palghar mob lynching incident. The pleas have also sought a probe by the CBI and the registration of an FIR against police officials for their alleged failure to prevent the mob from gathering in violation of the lockdown norms. On the night of April 16, 2020, two sadhus and their driver were travelling from Kandivali in Mumbai to attend a funeral in Gujarat's Surat amid the nationwide lockdown when their vehicle was stopped and they were attacked and killed by a mob in Gadchinchile village of Palghar in the presence of police officers. (ANI) The Delhi Police on Tuesday reached the residence of former minister in the national capital Rajendra Pal Gautam, days after a video went viral where he was allegedly seen converting a large gathering of people to Buddhism. The Aam Aadmi Party leader has been asked to appear before the police at 2 pm today. According to the officials, a police team went to Gautam's house on Monday, where he was questioned in the matter. A senior police officer on Monday said that Gautam has been asked to appear so that he can be questioned to ascertain the sequence of incidents and verify facts related to the gathering and their conversion to Buddhism. However, on Friday, Gautam termed this as false propaganda. He also told reporters that the vows taken at the event to "not worship Hindu gods and goddesses were originally taken by BR Ambedkar in 1956. The same evening (Friday) Gautam accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of spreading false narratives against him and alleged that only a portion of his speech was being circulated in social media by the BJP. Notably, Gautam resigned as AAP minister on Sunday following a meeting with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other senior party leaders. Taking to Twitter, Gautam announced his resignation, typed on his letterhead, on Sunday and said, "Today I have been freed from many shackles, and been born again. Now I will continue to fight for rights and atrocities on the society more firmly without any restrictions." However, the letter was not addressed to anyone in particular. The AAP leader in his letter wrote that the BJP has been targeting several sections of society for political gains, and he cannot be a mute spectator to that. However, he does not want his actions to cause any inconvenience to the party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. In the purported viral video, Gautam was seen along with hundreds of people taking an oath. Purportedly, the person on the microphone leads the oath with," 'We will not believe in Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Gauri-Ganesh as Gods and will never pray to them. I will not consider Ram and Krishna as Gods and will never... I will not pray to Gauri Ganpati etc or any other Hindu religious Gods and goddesses". This video of organizing 'Ghar Wapsi in Buddhism' program in Delhi on October 5 under the banner of 'Mission Jai Bhim' was shared on Rajendra Pal Gautam's Facebook page. The AAP minister also claimed that the same oath was taken by Babasaheb Ambedkar, when he converted to Buddhism and said, "We have repeated the same pledge. On October 14, 1956, when Baba Saheb adopted Buddhism, he made 22 vows, which we have also taken in the oath. Watch the full video, BJP is running it by truncating it for its own benefit. BJP will do anything but make its vote clear." (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party National President JP Nadda asked everyone including the opposition Congress to come forward and extend support for the development of Himachal Pradesh. Addressing the public in Bilaspur, Nadda advised the audience to vote for the one whom they feel is more concerned and sensitive towards their issues, regardless of the party. "Do not look for BJP, Congress (while voting), see who is concerned for you. BJP is concerned for you. I would even ask Congress persons to come and support us. We are given the chance for (state's) development, let us do, strengthen us. If I make roads, universities -will only people from BJP use them?," BJP national president said seeking "collective support" for the betterment. He said he will not lay the foundation stone of the government's Rs 103 crore project, for which the amount was sanctioned in just four days, till other steps are yet completed. "The amount for the project has been sanctioned in just four days, however I will lay the foundation of the project only after the other crucial aspects are met by soil testing, tender release, and project formation." He further appreciated the intent behind the AIIMS Bilaspur constructed at a cost of more than Rs 1,470 crore. At its inauguration, PM Modi announced that the institution will be called 'Green Hospital'. This 'Green Hospital' will prevent the need for the citizens to go to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGI), Chandigarh for medical reasons, but if people still need it, a road will soon be constructed to connect the regions, Nadda said. JP Nadda added that he sees the state developing at a face pace under the leadership of PM Modi as he led to the successful completion of various projects, here. He also mentioned the former party leaders and said that they would be taking a sigh of relief as the country is moving towards betterment under the farsighted vision of PM Modi. (ANI) The Election Commission of India on Tuesday alloted the 'Two Swords and Shield symbol' to the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena a day after the group was alloted 'Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena' (Balasaheb's Shiv Sena) as the name for the group of the party. Shinde faction had submitted 'shining sun', 'shield and sword' and 'Peepul tree' as its election symbol options to the Election Commission (EC) for the upcoming bypoll in Andheri East assembly constituency next month. However, the ECI said that the symbols furnished by the Shinde faction are not from the list of free symbols as notified in the Commission. Giving the reason for not allotting Sun/Surya/Sooraj as a symbol, the Election Commission said, "The Name of the symbol resembles with already reserved symbols 'Sun (without rays)' and 'Rising Sun' of recognized Political Parties namely 'Zoram Nationalist Party' (recognized party in the state of Mizoram) and 'Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam' (recognized party in the state of Tamil Nadu and Union Territory of Puducherry) respectively." "The Commission has decided to declare Do Talwarein aur Ek Dhal (Two Swords & Shield)' to be a free symbol and allots it as the symbol to be allotted to the candidate set up, if any, by your group in the current bye-elections and till the final order is passed in the Dispute case number I of 2022," the EC added in a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Whereas the 'flaming torch' (mashaal) election symbol was allotted to the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena, rejecting their claim to the 'Trishul' citing religious connotation. The Election Commission also allotted 'ShivSena - Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray' as the party name for the Thackeray faction Meanwhile, the ECI rejected 'Trishul' and 'Gada' (mace) as election symbols claimed by the two factions of the Shiv Sena, citing their religious connotation. Moreover, the election body noted that the 'Rising Sun' election symbol sought by both factions was reserved for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The poll panel had earlier barred the group led by former Maharastra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and State Chief Minster Eknath Shinde from using the symbol "Bow and Arrow, reserved for "Shiv Sena, in the upcoming Andheri East bye-election on November 3. A day after the Election Commission froze the 'Bow and Arrow' symbol of Shiv Sena barring both the rival factions in the party from using it in the upcoming Andheri East Assembly bypolls, the party president and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray lambasted the rival Shinde camp saying the "40-headed Ravana froze the bow of Lord Sri Ram". In a Facebook live, Thackeray said, "I did not expect this decision from the Election Commission. I believe in the judiciary. We will get justice. The 40-headed Ravana froze the bow of Lord Sri Ram. I am sad but angry because you stabbed your mother in the chest. Do not use Balasaheb's name if you have guts." Eknath Shinde took oath as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on June 30 earlier this year. This came after a faction of Shiv Sena under Shinde shifted the alliance to Bharatiya Janata Party BJP from MVA. Since then, Maharashtra has been witnessing a tussle between both the factions of Sena as to who is the real inheritor of the legacy of Bal Thackeray. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday offered prayers at Mahakal temple in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain. Thereafter he will dedicate the first phase of the Rs 850 crore Mahakaleshwar Temple Corridor Development Project in Ujjain today. Under the project, the temple precinct will be expanded nearly seven times. The total cost of the entire project is around Rs 850 crore. According to Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the Phase-I of the 'Mahakal Lok' project will help in enriching the experience of pilgrims visiting the temple by providing them with world-class modern amenities. "Project aims to decongest the entire area and also put special emphasis on conservation and restoration of heritage structures. Under the project, the temple precinct will be expanded nearly seven times. The total cost of the entire project is around Rs 850 crore. The existing footfall of the temple, which is currently around 1.5 crore per annum, is expected to be doubled. Development of the project has been planned under two phases," said the PMO. He is also likely to pray at the Bharat Mata Mandir before addressing a gathering. The Mahakal Path contains 108 stambhs (pillars) which depict Anand Tandav Swaroop (Dance form) of Lord Shiva. Many religious sculptures depicting the life of Lord Shiva are installed along the Mahakal Path. The mural wall along the Path is based on Shiva Purana stories such as the Act of creation, the Birth of Ganesha, Story of Sati and Daksha among others. The Plaza area, which is spread over 2.5 hectares, is surrounded by a lotus pond and contains the statue of Shiva along with fountains. The entire premise will be monitored 24x7 by Integrated Command and Control Centre with the help of artificial intelligence and surveillance cameras. (ANI) Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya was presented with an MoU signed by Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) with M/s K Plus S Middle East FZE DMCC (a subsidiary of K + S Minerals and Agriculture GmbH, Germany), on Tuesday. The MoU was signed on October 6, 2022. The purpose of the MoU is to improve the availability of Muriate of Potash (MOP) for the farming community and boost the indigenous production of various grades of complex fertilizers. To ensure fertilizer availability for the farming community, the Government of India has been encouraging the domestic fertilizer industry for establishing supply linkages through long-term partnerships with resource-rich nations. Given India's high dependence on imports of raw materials and fertilizer minerals, these partnerships provide secured availability of fertilizers and raw materials over a period of time and also offer price stability in volatile market conditions. As part of the MoU, M/s K plus S will supply 1,05,000 MT Muriate of Potash (MOP) per annum for the period from 2022 to 2025 at a discounted India-specific price. M/s K plus S will supply MOP to M/s RCF for its captive consumption as well as for its trading purposes. This quantity will fulfil the requirement of 60 per cent of captive consumption of RCF. While congratulating team RCF, Mandaviya stated, "this long-term agreement signed by RCF will go a long way in ensuring an adequate supply of MOP at a reasonable price to the Indian Farming community". He expressed that in the current geopolitical situation when the international prices of MOP have witnessed extreme volatility, the Long-Term Agreement signed by RCF is a significant step towards maintaining the stability of the price of MOP in the country. Arun Singhal, Secretary (Fertilizers), SC Mudgerikar (CMD RCF) and other senior officials of the Department of Fertilizers were also present. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice on a plea moved by Pashmina Exporters and Manufacturing Association (PEMA) seeking a direction to improve, augment and enhance existing forensic testing of Shahtoosh (Tibetan Antelope) shawls. The division bench headed by Chief justice Satish Chandra Sharma issued notice to the authorities on the petition filed by three societies including PEMA, Kashmir Pashmina Organization and Tahafuz. The bench has listed the matter in November for further hearing. The petition moved through advocate Tanvir Ahmed Mir has impleading the Ministry of Environment, forest and climate change, the Ministry of Textiles, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Board of Direct Taxes and Customs, the Zoological Survey of India, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Bureau of India Standard (BIS), The Export promotion council for handicrafts as respondents. The petitioners have prayed for directions to the Respondents to improve, augment and enhance existing forensic testing infrastructure available to all concerned Forensic Science Laboratories engaged in wildlife forensics, more specifically, those engaged in the analysis of suspected 'Shahtoosh' (Tibetan Antelope) shawls, to incorporate modern 'Scanning Electron Microscopic' technology and DNA testing procedures. It is additionally prayed that the Respondents be directed to enforce and incorporate the Quantitative / Qualitative identification metrics already mandated on January 19, 2022, to titled 'Identification, Labelling and Marking of Pashmina Products' issued by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) into all forensic reports issued by forensic science laboratories engaged in wildlife forensics, more specifically, those engaged in the analysis of suspected 'Shahtoosh' (Tibetan Antelope). The Petitioners herein are registered societies comprising exporters, manufacturers, traders, and artisans of Pashmina shawls carrying out their trade in India. "The petitioners stand aggrieved of customs and criminal prosecutions initiated against innocent stakeholders in the Pashmina trade on the premise that their consignments for export carry articles 'suspected to be shahtoosh guard hair', that adversely impact the industry at large. The sole basis of these prosecutions emanates from forensic reports that are issued by the forensic science laboratories using technologically obsolete methods 'Light Microscopy', that erroneously conclude various exporters' consignments to be 'positive for Shahtoosh' guard hair'," the petition stated. It is also said that consequent to such forensic reports, the accused stakeholders are subjected to onerous customs proceedings, huge monetary losses, huge delays in the release of seized shipments leading to loss of business, loss of reputation, mental harassment, and agony, as well as the initiation of multiple criminal proceedings and potential incarceration. The petitioners said that currently, there are only two empanelled forensic science laboratories by the State, namely the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, as well as the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, both of which employ Light Microscopy upon being directed to examine various consignments suspected to be 'shahtoosh'. It is submitted that the method of morphological testing through light microscopy, used by Indian wildlife forensics, is recognized both domestically and globally to be outdated, technologically obsolete and highly prone to false-positive results. The petition said that the physical characteristics of Pashmina and Shahtoosh fibres are similar in terms of physical properties and tangibility, which make it nearly impossible to distinguish on the basis of morphological characteristics, most particularly while using the standard Light Microscopy method. The petitioners said that it is somewhat questionable that despite the near-unanimous opinion that morphological testing has run its course, both domestically and globally, it continues to be used in wildlife forensic testing for the purposes of initiating customs as well as criminal prosecutions. It is also a matter of record that superior forensic testing methods exist. One such technology is DNA Polymerase Chain Reaction 'PCR' [DNA analysis], validated by the latest research and usage of such technology wherein trace materials like the Hair or Guard Hairs are used for identification of Tibetan Antelope from the woven pashmina shawls. This is because as per the demonstrated scientific findings any such Hair or Guard Hairs of the Tibetan Antelope would have sufficient DNA present to allow its DNA typing with a nearly accurate plausibility to identify such CITES-protected species, the petition stated. (ANI) Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami while agreeing to set up a revolving fund of the Jail Development Board during the review meeting of the Jail Department at the Secretariat today, directed the concerned officers to expedite the modernisation of the jail. The Chief Minister said that with the help of this fund, prisoners would be encouraged towards entrepreneurship and self-employment. He said that the state government was working towards developing the jails of the state as model jails. (ANI) As per the police, the arrested person has been identified as Yeshwant Reddy, a native of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh but currently residing in Goa. He was found in possession of white colour crystal powder suspected to be MDMA, kept in one transparent polythene bag. As per the police, the seized drugs weighed around 22.2 grams and were worth Rs 25,000 in the international market. The Crime Branch also seized the scooter, in which the drug was concealed. The police have arrested the accused under section 21 (b) of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, the police said. Mapusa JMFC (judicial magistrate first class) Court sent the accused to seven-day police custody, the police informed. Further investigation is underway in the case. (ANI) Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday termed the hike in reservation for SC/ST as historic as no government in the past had done this. Talking to reporters before the launch of Jan Sankalp yatra here, he said, "The demand to hike reservation has been pending for the last 50 years and the Congress party while in power did not do anything. The current BJP government has done this by taking all parties into confidence. But now the Congress party is getting scared because the votes of SC/ST communities will go to the BJP." Notably, the Karnataka Cabinet on Saturday unanimously agreed to hike reservation for the Scheduled Castes from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and for Scheduled Tribes from 3 per cent to 7 per cent in the state and the state government will issue a gazette notification in this regard. The Chief Minister said the people's aspiration has increased due to the awareness of education and employment No one must talk negatively on hiking the quota for SC/ST as these communities had suffered a lot in the last 50-60 years due to denial of justice. Those who speak against it are anti-SC/ST. Several communities have put forth demands. While some have sought inclusion of their community in SC, others in 3B, 2A and backward classes. The people's aspiration has increased due to the awareness of education and employment. All their demands will be studied as per recommendations of law commissions and take needful action," he said. Bommai said Jan Sankalp Yatra will continue till December, 2022. "In the first phase, it will be held in over 50 assembly constituencies and through the rally, the people will be explained about the schemes launched by the State government, benefits to lakhs of people through the policies and programs of the BJP-led NDA Government in the centre and the future policies keeping in view the interest of all the communities and ways to take benefits of the same. The response to the BJP yatra is an indication of his party coming back to power in the State with a thumping majority next year," he added. Ruling out any connection between the Bharath Jodo yatra of Congress and the Jan Sankalp Yatra of BJP, the Chief Minister said he did not know what they will do in that yatra adding that the BJP's Sankalp Yatra is aimed at people's contact yatra. Reacting to Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President DK Shivakumar's statement that BJP had undertaken Sankalp Yatra due to fear of losing the 2023 Assembly election, Bommai retorted, and said, "Has Congress undertaken Bharath Jodi following fear of losing the next year's Assembly polls? Rahul Gandhi has been doing this yatra fearing his party losing its existence." He promised to take up the issue of setting up AIIMS in Raichur with the government of India during his visit to New Delhi next week. "We will bring AIIMS to Raichur at any cost". (ANI) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday warned Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against reducing Punjab's river waters to a negotiable issue between Punjab and Haryana. In a statement here, the SAD President said it was shocking that the Chief Minister had not made the Punjab government's stand clear before holding a meeting with his Haryana counterpart on this issue. He said Punjab had an exclusive right over its river waters and Haryana being a non-Riparian state had no locus standi in the matter. "There is nothing to discuss here with Haryana." Badal's assertions come in the wake of Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar saying that he will be meeting his Punjab counterpart regarding the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal on October 14 in Chandigarh. Asserting that no country could go against the internationally accepted principle of Riparian rights, Badal said "if non-Riparian Haryana is allowed to demand a share in Punjab's river waters, what can stop Tamil Nadu or Bengal or Kerala, all non-Riparian states with respect to the Ravi, the Satluj and the Beas rivers from demanding the same. Similarly if the same used stick is applied what stops Punjab from demanding waters from the Godavari or the Ganges". Badal also said the issue of the Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal had been closed in 2016 when the Parkash Singh Badal government denotified the land which had been taken for establishment of the SYL and handed it back to its original owners free of cost. "Parts of the canal had been even been ploughed and the canal does not exist in its old state in Punjab." Asking the Chief Minister to clear the air, Badal said there were deep misgivings in the minds of Punjabis that the AAP government was in the process of handing over their river waters to Haryana and Delhi. He said during a recent visit to Haryana, Mann had even endorsed this proposal which was made by AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal in his presence. "Earlier also the AAP government in Delhi has submitted identical affidavits along with Haryana in the apex court and made its anti-Punjab position clear. But despite all this the Chief Minister has neither clarified the state's stand nor categorically told Punjabis that he would not let a drop of water pass to Haryana from Punjab". Asserting that the entire state would turn into a desert and that its agri economy would be doomed in case the AAP government in Punjab succumbed to pressure from its high command to release water to Haryana, Badal said SAD was ready to make any sacrifice to secure the river water rights of Punjab. "We have made this clear to the erstwhile Central governments as well as courts. We will not allow AAP to sell off the state's River water rights to please its high command," he added. --IANS vg/pgh ( 494 Words) 2022-10-11-19:10:08 (IANS) Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit, who will retire on November 8, on Tuesday named Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court, as his successor. After the Centre clears his name, justice Chandrachud would become the 50th CJI. Chief Justice Lalit, in presence of all Supreme Court judges, handed over the letter of recommendation to Justice Chandrachud. He will retire on November 10, 2024. Justice Chandrachud is son of former Supreme Court judge Y.V. Chandrachud who was the longest serving CJI for being in office for about seven years and four months between 1978 to 1985. During his tenure, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud overturned two judgments of his father - which were related to adultery and the right to privacy. Justice Chandrachud obtained a PhD from Harvard Law School and is known as a non-conformist judge. He has played a key role in introducing virtual hearings during the Covid time, which has now become a permanent feature. He has been part of the landmark judgments on Ayodhya title dispute, decriminalisation of homosexuality, adultery, privacy, entry of women into Sabarimala etc. On September 29, a bench headed by Justice Chandrachud said that all women -- including the unmarried -- are entitled to safe and legal abortion, and also the meaning of rape must be understood as including marital rape, solely for the purposes of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act and any rules and regulations framed thereunder. Married women may also form part of the class of survivors of sexual assault or rape, added the bench. Justice Chandrachud practised in Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. He passed BA with honours in economics from St Stephen's College, New Delhi and completed LLB from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. He also served as Additional Solicitor General of India from 1998 till 2000. He was first appointed as judge of the Bombay High Court on March 29, 2000. He has also served as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court since October 31, 2013 until his elevation as an apex court judge on May 13, 2016. Justice Chandrachud has been a visiting Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Mumbai and at Oklahoma University School of Law, US. In June 1998, he was designated as senior advocate by the Bombay High Court. The Centre, as per Memorandum of Procedure, asks the outgoing CJI to name the successor, just before a month of retirement. Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, on October 7, sent a letter to the Chief Justice Lalit to make recommendation for appointment of his successor. --IANS ss/vd ( 443 Words) 2022-10-11-19:16:04 (IANS) Underlining the 'panch pran' given by him in his Independence Day speech this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it is "necessary that the nation stands proudly with its identity" to reach the pinnacle of success. The Prime Minister was addressing a public function after dedicating Phase I of the Mahakaal Lok project to the nation in Ujjain on Tuesday. He said that this is the reason why India has called for the "liberation from the mentality of slavery" in the Amrit Kaal. "In order to reach the pinnacle of success, it is necessary that the nation touches its cultural heights and stands proudly with its identity. That is why in the Azadi Ka Amrit Kaal, India has called for Panch Prans like "freedom from the mentality of slavery" and "pride in our heritage". For the same purpose, development work on the grand Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is going at a rapid pace," PM Modi said. "Vishwanath Dham in Kashi is adding pride to the cultural capital of India. Development works are setting new records in Somnath. With the blessings of Baba Kedar in Uttarakhand, new chapters of development are being written in the Kedarnath-Badrinath pilgrimage area," he added. Continuing with the importance of cultural confidence, the Prime Minister said, "the cultural splendour of a nation is so vast only when the flag of its success is fluttering on the world stage." The Prime Minister explained his concept of the importance of Jyotirlingas. He said "I believe, this development of our Jyotirlingas is the development of India's spiritual light, the development of India's knowledge and philosophy. This cultural philosophy of India is once again reaching the summit and getting ready to guide the world." The Prime Minister explained that Lord Mahakal is the only Jyotirlinga which is facing south and these are such forms of Shiva, whose Bhasma Aarti is famous all over the world. "Every devotee definitely wants to see Bhasma Aarti in his life. I also see the vitality and vibrancy of our India in this tradition", PM Modi added. Further elaborating on the role of the spiritual in the nation's life, Modi said, "It is the spiritual confidence of our civilization, due to which India has remained immortal for thousands of years. As long as these centres of our faith are awakened, the consciousness of India is awakened, and the soul of India is awakened." Recalling history, the Prime Minister talked about invaders like Iltutmish who made efforts to destroy the energy of Ujjain. PM Modi also recalled the efforts that have been made to exploit India in the past. Throwing light on what religion means to India, the Prime Minister underlined that it is a collective determination of our duties. "The goal of our resolutions is the welfare of the world, and service to mankind," he said. Earlier on Tuesday, PM Modi also offered prayers at the Mahakal temple in Ujjain. (ANI) The Jharkhand police have arrested three cybercriminals from Jamtara district, who learned Tamil specially to dupe hundreds of people in Tamil Nadu, to the tune of Rs eight to Rs 10 lakh. The accused have been identified as Shamshad Ansari, Iqbal Ansari and Shahbaz Ansari. However, the leader of this gang, Guddu Ansari, fled as soon as he was tipped off about the police raid. According to the police in Jamtara cyber police station, all three accused are brothers and residents of Bihajori village under Narayanpur police station in Jamtara district. The accused planned to target the people of Tamil Nadu as they feared being caught by the police while duping the people of Hindi-speaking states. The gang's masterminds Guddu Ansari and Shahbaz Ansari lived in Tamil Nadu and did small menial jobs there as well as learned Tamil. After returning to Jamtara, the accused used to contact people in Tamil Nadu through local numbers in a pre-planned manner by posing as a person from a courier company or a customer care officer of a bank and asked them to send a transaction link of Rs 5 on their mobile phones. Through this link and with the help of specially designed software, the accused used to trace the details and PIN number of people's bank accounts and then used to withdraw money from their bank account. During investigation, the police found that the mobile numbers and SIM cards used by the accused were either stolen or have been issued on fake IDs. Seven mobile phones and 12 SIM cards recovered from the possession of the accused have been confiscated. Although no victim from Tamil Nadu has lodged an FIR against these cybercriminals but the cyber police caught all the accused during the investigation. They have been sent to jail. --IANS snc/khz/bg ( 313 Words) 2022-10-11-20:16:02 (IANS) New Zealand has proposed taxing the greenhouse gases that farm animals produce from burping and urinating in a bid to tackle climate change, the media reported. The world-first scheme will see farmers paying for agricultural emissions in some form by 2025, the BBC reported. The country's farming industry accounts for about half of its emissions. But farmers have been quick to criticise the plan, with one lobby group saying it would "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand". Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said money raised from the proposed levy will be pumped back into the industry to finance new technologies, research and incentive payments for farmers. "New Zealand's farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food," she told reporters while announcing the proposals from a farm in Wairarapa, BBC reported. The pricing has not yet been decided on, but the government says that farmers should be able to make up the cost of the levy by charging more for climate-friendly produce. But some farmers have condemned the plans, saying they could prompt many of them to sell up. Federated Farmers national president Andrew Hoggard said the plan will "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand", leading to farms making way for trees. He added that the body was "deeply unimpressed" with the government's interactions with farmers while examining alternative proposals. Farmers will now be selling their land "so fast you won't even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off", he added, BBC reported. --IANS san/pgh ( 299 Words) 2022-10-11-21:42:05 (IANS) A new advance overcomes present limitations in spatial transcriptomics with a DNA nanotechnology-driven method called 'Light-Seq.' Light-Seq allows researchers to 'geotag' the full repertoire of RNA sequences with unique DNA barcodes exclusive to a few cells of interest. These target cells are selected using light under a microscope via a fast and effective photocrosslinking process, and their RNAs made available to next-generation sequencing with the help of a new DNA nanotechnology-driven technique. This entire process can then be repeated for different cell populations in the same sample. Under the microscope, researchers often observe different cell types organizing themselves in peculiar patterns within tissues, or sometimes a rare cell type that stands out by occupying a unique position, exhibiting an unusual shape, or expressing a specific biomarker molecule. To determine the deeper meaning of their observations, they have developed approaches to also access cells' gene expression patterns (transcriptomes) by analyzing the gene-derived RNA molecules present within them, which they can match with cells' shapes, spatial positions, and molecular biomarkers. However, these "spatial transcriptomics" approaches still only capture a fraction of a cell's total RNA molecules, and cannot deliver the depth and quality of analysis provided by single-cell sequencing methods, which were developed to investigate the transcriptomes of individual cells isolated from tissues or biofluids via next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. Nor do they allow researchers to only home in on specific cells based on their location in a tissue, which would greatly facilitate the pursuit of disjointed cell populations, or rare, difficult-to-isolate cells like rare brain cells with unique functions, or immune cells that invade tumors. In addition, because the original tissue environment is disrupted, many spatial transcriptomics and all single-cell sequencing methods prevent researchers from revisiting their samples to perform follow-up analysis, and they are costly because they require specialized instruments or reagents. A new advance made at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University now overcomes these limitations with a DNA nanotechnology-driven method called "Light-Seq." Light-Seq allows researchers to "geotag" the full repertoire of RNA sequences with unique DNA barcodes exclusive to a few cells of interest. These target cells are selected using light under a microscope via a fast and effective photocrosslinking process. With the help of a new DNA nanotechnology, the barcoded RNA sequences are then translated into coherent DNA strands, which can then be collected from the tissue sample and identified using NGS. The Light-Seq process can be repeated with different barcodes for different cell populations within the same sample, which is left intact for follow-up analysis. With a performance comparable to single-cell sequencing methods, it significantly broadens the depth and scope of investigations possible on a tissue sample. The method is published in Nature Methods[BB1] . "Light-Seq's unique combination of features fills an unmet need: the ability to perform imaging-informed, spatially prescribed, deep-sequencing analysis of hard, if not impossible-to-isolate cell populations or rare cell types in preserved tissues, with one-to-one correspondence of their highly refined gene expression state with spatial, morphological, and potentially disease-relevant features," said Peng Yin, Ph.D., one of four corresponding authors and a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute, where his group developed Light-Seq. "It thus has potential to fast-forward the biological discovery process in various biomedical research areas." Yin is also a Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). The Light-Seq project was spearheaded by Jocelyn (Josie) Kishi, Ph.D., Sinem Saka, Ph.D., and Ninning Liu, Ph.D. in Yin's group at the Wyss, and Emma West, Ph.D. in Constance Cepko's lab at HMS. Previously, Kishi and Saka had developed SABER-FISH as a spatial transcriptomics method for imaging gene expression directly in intact tissues (in situ). "With SABER-FISH, we still were orders of magnitude away from capturing cells' complete gene expression programs, with many thousands of different RNA molecules per cell. RNA molecules are just too densely packed to be captured in their entirety using present imaging techniques," said co-first and co-corresponding author Kishi. "Light-Seq solves this problem by combining high-resolution barcode labeling with full-transcriptome sequencing via NGS, giving us the best of both worlds and additional key advantages." At the time of the study, Kishi was a Wyss Technology Development Fellow on Yin's team, and is now pursuing a path toward commercializing Light-Seq together with some of her co-authors. "To specifically sequence the cells in custom-selected locations of intact tissue samples, we developed a new approach for photocrosslinking DNA barcodes to copies of RNA molecules, and a DNA nanotechnology-powered procedure that makes them and their attached RNA sequences readable by NGS," said co-first author Liu, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Yin's group who previously co-developed a parallelized DNA barcoding platform for a super-resolution imaging method called "Action-PAINT" that also became one of the core components of Light-Seq. First, DNA primers "base-pair" with RNA molecules in cells, and are extended to create copies of the RNA sequences called complementary DNA sequences (cDNAs). Then, DNA barcode strands containing an ultrafast photocrosslinker nucleotide are in turn base-paired to the cDNAs in the cells. These become permanently linked together when a target cell is lit up under the microscope through a stencil-like optical device that keeps other, non-target cells in the microscopic field in the dark and thus spares them from the photocrosslinking reaction. After washing the barcoded DNA sequences out of cells that were not permanently linked in situ, the procedure can be repeated with different barcodes and light patterns to label more regions of interest. "To be able to integrate this barcoding workflow with NGS, we engineered a new stitching reaction that is based on DNA nanotechnology. This innovation allows us to convert our barcoded cDNAs into contiguous readout sequences. We can then extract the complete collection of barcode-bearing cDNA sequences from the sample, and analyze them with standard NGS techniques," explained Saka, one of the study's corresponding authors who is currently a Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. "Ultimately, each barcode traces the full transcriptome readout back to the pre-selected cells in the tissue sample, which remains intact for subsequent analyses. This provides us the unique chance to revisit the exact same cells after sequencing for validation or further exploration." Following the first validation of Light-Seq in cultured cells, Yin's team wanted to apply it to a complex tissue and partnered up with the group of Constance Cepko, Ph.D. at HMS. Cepko is one of the study's corresponding authors and the Bullard Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, and investigates the development of the retina as a model of the nervous system. Kishi, Saka, and Liu joined forces with West in Cepko's group to apply Light-Seq to cross-sections of the mouse retina and profile three major layers with different functions. The researchers reached a sequence coverage comparable to single-cell sequencing methods, and found that thousands of RNAs were enriched between the retina's three major layers. They also showed that after sequence extraction, the tissue samples remained intact and could be further imaged for proteins and other biomolecules. "Taking Light-Seq to the extreme, we were able to isolate the full transcriptome of a very rare cell type, known as 'dopaminergic amacrine cells' (DACs), which is extremely hard to isolate because of its intricate connections to other cells in the retina, by retrieving merely four to eight individually barcoded cells per cross-section," said West. DACs are involved in regulating the eye's circadian rhythm by fine-tuning visual perception to different light exposures during the day-night cycle. "Light-Seq also picked up RNAs that were specifically expressed in DACs at low levels, as well as dozens of DAC-specific biomarker RNAs that, to our knowledge, had not been described before, which opens new opportunities to study this rare cell type," added West, who at the time of the study was a graduate student and then Postdoctoral Fellow with Cepko, and has now joined Kishi in her Light-Seq commercialization effort. Opening the field of spatial transcriptomics up to NGS also adds information on the level of a single RNA species. "Our sequencing data clearly showed that Light-Seq can determine natural variations in the structure of RNAs. Going forward, we're very interested in using Light-Seq to better understand the interplay between the immune system, disease-propagating cells, and different therapeutic strategies such as gene and cell therapy," said Kishi. "The Light-Seq technology developed in Peng Yin's group in the Wyss Institute's Molecular Robotics Initiative yet again shows how pursuing a totally unconventional approach and leveraging synthetic biology can lead to a disruptive technology with great potential for advancing both fundamental research and clinical medicine," said Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. (ANI) Ukraine and Russia clashed in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Monday ahead of a likely vote on a resolution on whether to condemn Moscow's annexation of four Ukrainian regions. A resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions was up for adoption at the UNGA, where the 193 UN members vote and no one wields a veto. The vote will now likely take place this week, CNN said. Speaking first at the emergency meeting, Ukraine's envoy Sergiy Kyslytsya told members states that he had already lost family members to Russian aggression. He said that around 84 missiles and around two dozen drones had deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure during Monday's multiple attacks on Ukrainian cities, including schools and universities. "The entire world has once again, seen the true face of the terrorist State that kills our people. Suffering defeats on the battlefield, Russia takes it out on the peaceful residents of Ukrainian cities," he said. The Ukrainian envoy said that voting for the draft resolution would be "for each country, for each of our citizens, for your families, for our children - a vote for justice". The resolution on the Russian annexation comes days after Moscow vetoed a similar proposal in the UN Security Council. The draft resolution condemns Russia's "attempted illegal annexations" of the four Ukrainian regions following "so-called referendums". The General Assembly meeting began with a procedural vote on a measure which Russia had flagged, proposing that the Ukrainian draft resolution being debated, be voted on by secret ballot, not through an open recorded vote. The Albanian proposal received 107 votes in favour, with 13 against, and 39 abstentions. Russia's ambassador Vassily Nebenzya said that the Albanian resolution, which confirmed that a recorded vote would take place following debate, had been a violation of the rules of procedure. He said Russia had been deprived of the ability to present its case and all aspects of the Ukraine crisis that did not suit Western powers, had been conveniently overlooked. "Ukraine was chosen by these countries for that purpose, was brought under their control and today is a platform for the testing of NATO weaponry and for combat against Russia, using other people," he said. He accused Ukraine of an act of terrorism in "sabotaging" Russia's bridge to Crimea, adding that Russia could not stand by and let Ukraine act "with impunity". This vote comes after Russia conducted that large-scale strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other locations on Monday, which drew condemnation from several countries. UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was deeply shocked and represented "another unacceptable escalation" of the war. The strikes which have reportedly caused widespread damage to civilian areas and led to dozens of deaths and injuries showed that "as always", civilians were paying the highest price for Russia's invasion of February 24, the statement released by the UN Spokesperson added. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned of "harsh" reprisals after the Crimea bridge attack on Saturday. In a television appearance, Putin said Russia had struck military and infrastructure targets across Ukraine following the Crimea bridge blast. He threatened further "harsh" responses that correspond "to the level of threat to the Russian Federation, have no doubt about it," while accusing Kyiv of "terrorism." (ANI) Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami met Labour Party leader Keir Starmer on Monday and held a "productive talk" on all aspects of the strategic partnership between India and the UK. The discussion focused on the need to sustain people-to-people ties, including through regular dialogue. "HC @VDoraiswami met @UKLabour party leader @Keir_Starmer for a productive talk on all aspects of the India-UK strategic partnership, focusing on the need to sustain people-to-people ties, including through regular dialogue," the Indian High Commission in the UK tweeted. Taking to Twitter, High Commissioner Doraiswami appreciated the Labour leader's interest in sustaining the historic friendship between the two countries. "An excellent meeting with Sir @Keir_Starmer. Appreciate his interest in sustaining the historic friendship between India and the UK. @MEAIndia," he said. This meeting comes days after the Labour Convention of Indian Organisations (LCIO) was held last month to close the gap between British Indians and the Labour Party. The party has announced its wish to bridge the gap between the Labour Party, British Indians and India by fostering inclusive sustainable growth for both countries. The party plans to deepen cultural and educational ties and engage with India as a "partner and critical friend" on issues of concern for British Indians. During the India-focussed event, the recently revived LCIO was formally launched, iGlobal news reported. On the sidelines of the party conference, Keir Starmer, said, "I welcome the re-establishment of the Labour Convention of Indian Organisations. The timing is poignant as people worldwide celebrate 75 years of Indian independence." He said, "I'm proud of Labour's work with the Indian diaspora in the UK, particularly in strengthening ties between the UK and India. British Indians make an enormous contribution to our economy, culture, and politics. I'll welcome working with the LCIO on our mission to form the next Labour government." This outreach comes after some years of perceived Indian diaspora disconnect under the previous Labour leadership. "Deputy High Commissioner @HCI_London attended the relaunch event of Labour Convention of Indian Organisations at the Annual Labour Conference in Liverpool. We welcome the initiative and look forward to working closely with @LabourIndians to further the India-UK ties. @VDoraiswami," the Indian High Commission had said in an earlier tweet. Replying to the High Commission, LCIO thanked the Indian High Commissioner Doraiswami and said, "We are looking forward to a fruitful relationship." (ANI) As Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's tenure is about to come to an end, President Arif Alvi has said that "broader consultation" on the appointment of a new chief of army staff (COAS) should take place so that a consensus could be developed. Alvi, who was elected during Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan's tenure as Premier, made these remarks during an interview with Aaj TV, the Dawn newspaper reported. Citing past precedents, Alvi said the opposition was consulted on the army chief's appointment. He contended that similar talks with the then-opposition was held when former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan extended the three-year term of General Bajwa in 2019. "The law must have been introduced in the Parliament after closure was reached during a consultation," he was quoted as saying by Dawn. During the interview, the Pakistan president also touched upon foreign conspiracy claims made by PTI chief Imran Khan. Alvi said that he was not convinced that the United States had lodged a conspiracy to oust Imran. Further talking about the country's all-powerful military, he said Pakistan the military had a constitutional role to play and the army should be 'neutral'. Notably, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa recently assured Pakistan that the armed forces have distanced themselves from politics and want to stay away from it in the future as well. Addressing the gathering during the lunch at Pakistani Embassy in Washington, Bajwa said that he will leave after the completion of his second three-year term in two months, Dawn reported. He reminded the nation that reviving the country's ailing economy should be the first priority of all segments of society, adding that without a strong economy the nation would not be able to achieve its targets. "There could be no diplomacy either without a strong economy," the Pakistan army chief said during his address to an audience which included a large number of Pakistani diplomats. (ANI) Amid the growing presence of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the country, Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif has expressed concerns over the deteriorating law and order situation in the northwest part of the country. Asif said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was responsible for maintaining a law and order situation that has witnessed a surge in attacks in the recent past. "Armed forces rendered countless sacrifices to establish peace in the country," he was quoted as saying by ARY News on Monday. Speaking on the floor of the house, the Pakistan defence minister recommended holding a debate in the house on the law and order situation of the KP province. "Former prime minister had taken shelter in KP and he is using the resources of the KP government. The whole [provincial] government is just focusing on getting power for its leader. An individual is using religion card for his political gains," he said. Pakistan defence minister's remarks came on the day as armed men opened fire on a school van in Khyber that killed a driver while injuring a child. This incident comes amid concerns over the growing presence of TTP in the northwest part of the country, following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August. The firing took place in Swat's Char Bagh area, a day after the 10th anniversary of the shooting of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai by the outlawed group TTP, the Dawn newspaper reported. The police said the incident occurred on Monday outside the Knowledge City School in the Guli Bagh locality. After the news broke, scores of students and teachers of private schools in the Swat district demonstrated against terrorist activities in the region. Hundreds of protesters, who chanted slogans demanding peace in the region, said the law and order situation in Swat had been deteriorating for the past three months. "We know who is behind the current drama. We know why the security forces are helpless against a few so-called terrorists," a protester was quoted as saying by Dawn. A Pakistan rights group condemned the "terrorist attack" on a school bus in Swat and said, "Swat's residents are right to hold the security forces responsible for failing to enforce the writ of the state." "HRCP strongly condemns the terrorist attack on a school bus in Swat, in which the driver was killed and a young girl injured," the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said in a statement posted on Twitter. In its statement, the HRCP accused the government of downplaying the threat from militants. "While the perpetrators must be brought to book promptly, the state must also stop ceding space to extremists - a lesson it has consistently failed to learn at the expense of its people," the group added. (ANI) Ahead of the 20th Communist Party Congress, authorities across China are doubling down on "Zero-COVID" efforts, imposing measures including pre-emptive lockdowns and blanket bans to stop coronavirus flare-ups. The Congress, held every five years, gets underway in Beijing next Sunday, and the tighter COVID-19 controls for the event prompted many people to abandon travel plans for the week-long National Day break. At the same time, the people were advised to stay put during the holidays. Notably, new Omicron sub-variants BF.7 and BA.5.1.7 have been detected in China. BF.7 subvariant spread to more Chinese provinces on Monday. The highly infectious virus was first detected in northwest China. On the other hand, the subvariant BA.5.1.7 was detected in the Chinese mainland for the first time, said Li Shujian, deputy director of the local disease prevention and control centre, reported Global Times. In recent weeks, China has more than doubled its daily average of new infections, to nearly 2,000 officially reported on Friday, which is still extremely low by global standards. The authorities are still strict about the epidemic. According to The New York Times, Xi's linking his adherence to the zero policy with his party loyalty had become a serious political issue. It makes local officials very anxious because they all want to be favoured by Xi Jinping. To ensure that the 20th National Congress scheduled to be held on October 16 will not be disturbed, the CCP's "clearing" policy has caused considerable economic and societal costs. The lives of millions of people have been disrupted, and people have complained. Recently, Yongji City, hosted by Yuncheng in Shanxi Province, has no epidemic situation, but the "city closure" measures are still being implemented. The Secretary of Hejin City expressed his position to his superiors, guarding Hejin and welcoming the 20th National Congress of the Party. Nucleic acid testing of all staff in Yuncheng began on October 7 for three consecutive days. In Inner Mongolia, where the number of confirmed cases reported on Friday had soared to nearly 700, officials in the district were instructed to "kill chickens with a knife". "Let's use speed to prevent proliferation and spillover, wildly not to spill over to Beijing." The Xinjiang region, with a population of 22 million, has adopted comprehensive lockdown measures. Ma Xingrui, secretary of the district party committee, said that all localities and departments should ensure the convening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party as the most important "political task" and tighten the string of epidemic prevention and control. While, Voice of America (VOA) said that China's current zero-resistance policy to fight the epidemic had closed almost all borders of population movement, and mega-cities have fallen into unpredictable lockdowns one by one, stifling the vitality of China, the world's second-largest economy, causing widespread anger and despair. Separately, a key private survey showed Saturday that China's massive services activity contracted in September for the first time in five months. The Caixin services Purchasing Managers Index, which focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises in China's service industry, dropped to 49.3 last month from 55 in August, according to a statement by S&P Global Ratings. It was the first drop in the index since May. A reading below 50 indicates contraction. Efforts to curb the spread of Covid across China led to a renewed fall in service sector activity, which disrupted business operations and restricted travel, the statement said. In particular, employment continued to shrink. The gauge for employment stayed in contraction territory for the ninth consecutive month and hit its lowest point since May, reported CNN. (ANI) India-UAE relations are witnessing an unprecedented momentum with a large number of opportunities for cooperation and increasing investments, in key sectors like infrastructure and technology, Union Minister for Commerce Piyush Goyal said. Goyal co-chaired the 10th meeting of the India-UAE high-level Joint Task Force on Investments along with Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Member of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. During this tenth meeting of the Joint Task Force, the co-chairs recognized the early trends of the positive impact of the historic India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) on bilateral trade between the two countries since it entered into force in May 2022. The co-chairs urged businessmen on both sides to gain optimal benefits from the conducive trade ecosystem created under CEPA. The co-chairs also noted progress on various aspects of the CEPA including the establishment of the CEPA Joint Committee and related sub-committees. The two delegations reviewed the status of the negotiations of the India-UAE Bilateral Investment Treaty. Twelve rounds of negotiations have been conducted to date. Both sides noted that much progress could have been achieved since the commencement of the negotiations, and therefore reiterated their commitment to accelerate the process for an early conclusion of a balanced and mutually beneficial agreement. Discussions also took place on ways of enhancing bilateral investments in key sectors like food security, manufacturing, infrastructure, energy and technology. In this context, it was agreed that the concerned authorities in both countries will explore the establishment of efficient and integrated Single Window Solutions and Virtual Trade Corridors to reduce costs and time involved in trade and investment-related procedures. From the UAE side, it was agreed that the Department of Economic Development of Abu Dhabi would explore this area of cooperation with the concerned counterparties in India in order to agree on a mutually beneficial implementation approach. As a means of encouraging increased investment flows by UAE sovereign investment entities into India, the two sides reviewed UAE's request with respect to providing tax incentives to certain UAE sovereign investment entities under the existing UAE-India Tax Treaty, and India's response to provide the same under the existing domestic tax laws of India. It was agreed that bilateral discussions should continue to reach a mutually beneficial outcome that meets both countries' policy objectives. In this context, the support provided to UAE sovereign entities through the Finance Act 2020 and subsequent issuance of notifications for tax exemption was noted and appreciated. An important area discussed was the creation of a mechanism for carrying out bilateral trade in national currencies. Referring to the ongoing discussions between the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates on Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a common digital payments platform, both sides agreed to continue discussions. In the positive backdrop provided by the extensive and growing trade and investment relationship between India and the UAE, the two sides acknowledged the importance of using the Joint Task Force as a forum to address specific issues and difficulties faced by the companies when investing in each other's countries. India set up a UAE Plus Desk in 2018 and established a Fast Track Mechanism in 2019 to identify, resolve and expedite issues faced by the UAE companies and investors in India. The UAE Special Desk in India was commended for its efforts in leading and facilitating UAE investments across sectors. In this regard, it was agreed that the Indian side will provide the necessary support to UAE Fast Track Mechanism in India to ensure speedy resolution of pending issues and difficulties experienced by a number of UAE companies and banks operating in India. It was also agreed that a similar India Fast Track Mechanism would be set up in the UAE immediately to resolve issues pertaining to the Indian investors in the UAE and to assist Indian companies in market entry and expansion when investing in the UAE. In this context, issues pertaining to some Indian companies in UAE were noted and it was agreed that the UAE side will provide the necessary support to ensure a speedy and mutually satisfactory resolution of these issues. Speaking at the meeting, Goyal said, "During the last meeting of the Joint, Task Force we had decided to fast-track the negotiations of CEPA, and we finalized the agreement in unprecedented 88 days. I am sure that the discussions we have had today on mutually beneficial areas like food security and bilateral trade in national currencies, will also see similar thrust from both sides." "The India-UAE relations are witnessing unprecedented momentum. We have a large number of opportunities for cooperation and increasing investments, especially the key sectors like infrastructure and technology, especially Fintech," he added. At the conclusion of the meeting, Zayed Al Nahyan said, "Since the last meeting of the Joint Task Force in October 2021, several significant milestones have been reached that serve to cement the close, growing and strategic relationship between India and the UAE. Within this broader context, the Joint Task Force continues to facilitate positive dialogue between our two countries as we strengthen the economic links that have helped to draw our nations together." "The Joint Task Force has proved effective in creating new opportunities and removing barriers, and it will continue to play an important role in promoting bilateral investment in support of our respective countries' growth ambitions," he highlighted. The meeting was attended by Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE State Minister for Foreign Trade, Ahmed A.R. Albanna, UAE's Ambassador to India, Anurag Jain, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, and senior officials from relevant government authorities, investment entities and companies from both countries. The Joint Task Force was established in 2013 to promote trade, investment and economic ties between the UAE and India. This was the first meeting of the Joint Task Force since the signing of the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and unveiling of the Joint UAE-India Vision Statement in February 2022 during the virtual summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The CEPA is a major trade agreement set to transform bilateral economic, trade and investment ties and propel economic growth. Both these historic landmarks provide a clear roadmap for the continued strengthening of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries at an accelerated pace. (ANI) Targeting infrastructure and causing civilian deaths is not acceptable in any part of the world, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, a day after Moscow launched missiles over parts of Ukraine, including its capital city Kyiv. "Targeting infrastructure and causing civilian deaths is not acceptable in any part of the world," Jaishankar said while addressing an event at Lowy Institute in Australia on Tuesday. He reiterated the need for a return to the path of diplomacy to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict stating that conflict is not helping anyone. The EAM further noted that the world is currently grappling with three key challenges of Covid, Conflict and Climate change. "We are grappling with 3C challenges--Covid, conflict and climate change. We believe in the need to return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue. This conflict is not helping anyone," Jaishankar said. Speaking on bilateral relations between India and Australia, the minister said, "I am the sixth minister of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to visit Australia after the Labor government have come to power. It tells about the seriousness we give to this relationship." The relationship between the two countries was bolstered due to "changes in our own society and broadening interests as we have started to look eastwards," he noted. "It is an outcome of larger geopolitical changes. Given the interest and relevance we have for each other's strategy and challenge, I have confidence that this relationship will be strengthened even further," Jaishankar said. The external affairs minister emphasized over the milestones achieved in the bilateral ties with the conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement, which he said is currently under the process of ratification. Jaishankar said that the engagements included some changes in business practices with Australia. "We have seen interest in Australia to improve the education cooperation between us," he said. He also touched upon India's relations with the US where he noted that the partnership has grown in a profound manner. "One of the reasons why the Quad worked in 2017 and post that, as opposed to the first time is because India's bilateral relations have developed sufficiently by 2017 for us to take this relationship forward", EAM said. Describing the India-US relations as profound, Jaishankar said, "the relationship which really had to play "catch up" was of India and US. India and Japan relations evolved much more steadily but for US it is like falling behind in the first innings and making up in the second innings." Jaishankar arrived in Canberra on Monday after a successful visit to New Zealand. He arrived in Canberra "to a Tiranga welcome" as the old Parliament building of Australia was lit up in Indian national colours. The external affairs minister later held the 13th Foreign Ministers' Framework Dialogue (FMFD) along with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong. After the meeting, Jaishankar said, "overall, the sense has really been that, you know, the relationship has kept growing." "We are, you know, looking at finding ways of sort of taking it to higher levels. When it comes to the global situation, we had a good discussion," he said during a joint press conference with minister Penny. On Monday afternoon, Jaishankar also met Australia Education Minister Jason Clare in Canberra and discussed the importance of quality education and the need to prepare for the global workplace. (ANI) The Express Tribune reported that Malala and her parents reached Karachi through Qatar Airways' flight 604 and were taken to her residence under tight security. This is Yousafzai's second visit to Pakistan since she survived a Taliban attack in 2012 in Afghanistan's Swat. Yousafzai, who has been actively working for girls' education, is in Pakistan amid devastating floods that have left 1,700 killed and displaced nearly eight million people, according to the latest estimates. Citing Malala Fund's statement, Dawn reported that her visit aims "to help keep international attention focused on the impact of floods in Pakistan and reinforce the need for critical humanitarian aid." Earlier, the Malala Fund issued an emergency relief grant to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to support flood relief efforts and "protect the wellbeing of girls and young women in Pakistan". Yousafzai, an advocate for girls' education, survived a Pakistani Taliban assassination attempt when she was just 15 years old when they shot her in the head. Since then the Oxford graduate has become a global figure promoting education for girls. On October 9, 2012, Malala was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen for actively supporting girls' right to education in Mingora, Swat Valley in northern Pakistan following which she left the country and shifted to Birmingham, UK. Malala also underlined the importance of girl's education, calling it a 'social movement' and vowed that she would continue to advocate it in her home country. At the age of 17, Malala was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions to and struggle for promoting education for children. She shared the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, a children's rights activist. (ANI) In continuation with a special relationship with the people of Afghanistan, India has supplied the thirteenth batch of medical assistance to Afghanistan, said MEA. The assistance consists of essential medicines and medical/surgical items like Pediatric Stethoscope, Sphygmomanometer mobile type with pediatric BP cuff, infusion pump, drip chamber set, electrocautery, nylon sutures etc. The same was handed over to authorities of the Indira Gandhi Children Hospital in the Afghanistan capital city of Kabul. The aid provided by India also comes in view of the urgent appeals made by the United Nations to assist the Afghan people, said a press release by the Ministry of External Affairs. To date, India has supplied almost 45 tons of medical assistance, which included essential life-saving medicines, anti-TB medicines, 500,000 doses of COVID vaccine, medical/surgical items etc. In addition, India has also supplied 40,000 MTs of wheat for the Afghan people. Earlier, in the wake of the tragic earthquake that struck Afghanistan on June 22, MEA Joint Secretary (PAI), JP Singh handed over India's humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan in the presence of Taliban officials. The relief assistance consisted of essential items including family ridge tents, sleeping bags, blankets, sleeping mats, etc. The Taliban have welcomed India's decision to return its technical team to continue humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (lEA) welcomes the decision by India to return diplomats and technical team to their embassy in Kabul to continue their relations with the Afghan people and their humanitarian assistance," Taliban spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi had said in a statement. Over the incident, India had expressed condolences to the victims and their families impacted by the tragic earthquake in Afghanistan. India said it remains committed to providing assistance and support in this hour of need. Afghanistan continues to struggle with a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took over, as US-led international forces withdrew following two decades of war. UN said Afghanistan requires assistance to overcome the ongoing humanitarian situation in the country. (ANI) As the 20th Party Congress nears, Chinese propaganda activities are becoming rampant across the country which exaggerate Chinese President Xi Jinping's achievements and an image of him being close to people. This massive propaganda campaign was mooted upon in China when the National Propaganda Ministers meeting was held in Beijing on January 6 this year. It is now being executed with full force in China as Xi aspires to remain in power for the third term, reported Tibet Press The 20th Party Congress will be held in the month of October and right ahead of it Politburo member Wang Hunting along with Huang Kunming, head of the Central Propaganda Department, had been directed to employ 'Xi's thought' as the foundation of all the propaganda activities. However, all is not laid out immediately and things will gradually come to the surface with time as massive propaganda activities are being undertaken. Xi's inner circle is hell bent in convincing the domestic population of the 'spirit of the whole party.' Social media is also being utilized in every fashion one can imagine. Whether it is about clamping down on any attempt which puts China's Xi in a negative light is been shunned and the only things that get a pass are those which portray China as a democracy both within and outside the country. The Chinese social media, Weibo, is trending #Welcome to the 20th Party congress, to demonstrate the support of ordinary citizens. Many publicity-purposed educational and press conferences are being held to highlight China's democratic credentials. The intention is to create momentum before the party congress to extend his term in office. However, there have been protests breaking out in various parts of China against Xi's regime. China's zero-COVID policy is facing a heavy backlash manifested in the form of protests. Economic issues like a high rate of unemployment and the crisis around home mortgage payments are adding fuel to the fire. Chinese establishment is leaving no stone unturned to silence any voice of dissent. The country's Cyberspace Administration has reportedly shut down 1.34 billion social media accounts and deleted 22 million posts. Chinese social media platform, Weibo informed that it had deleted around 20 million posts that 'violated' rules and regulations. Most of these posts were against the ruling government, reported Tibet Press. (ANI) Under the two-week 53rd Capacity Building Programme in the Field Administration for the Civil Servants of Bangladesh inaugurated at National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) in Mussoorie on Tuesday, 1,800 civil servants of Bangladesh will be provided training in partnership with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) by 2025. The National Centre for Good Governance was set up in 2014 by the Government of India as a top-tier institution in the country which focuses on policy reforms, training and capacity building, the official statement of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions said in a press release. Moreover, the National Centre for Good Governance also works as a think tank. NCGG is the only institute in the country which has trained 1,727 field-level officers of Bangladesh Civil Service such as Assistant Commissioners, Upa-Zila Nirbhai Officers/SDMs and Additional Deputy Commissioners. Fifteen hundred civil servants of Bangladesh have been imparted training at NCGG prior to 2019 and now after the successful completion of phase-I, capacity building of another 1,800 civil servants of Bangladesh have been taken up, which is planned to be completed by 2025. According to the official statement, the institute has taken up its sleeve, the capacity building of civil servants of several foreign countries in partnership with MEA and has provided training to civil servants in 15 countries such as Bangladesh, Kenya, Tanzania, Tunisia, Seychelles, Gambia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Laos, Vietnam, Bhutan, Myanmar and Cambodia. Notably, the Capacity Building Programme for the civil servants of developing countries targets to equip them with cutting-edge knowledge, skills and tools to deliver and design effective public policy. This training has been found to be highly useful by the participating officers. Under the programme, the Centre is sharing numerous initiatives being taken in the country such as e-governance, digital India, universalisation of public services, approach to sustainable development goals, usage of Aadhar in service delivery, public grievance redressal mechanism and disaster management with special reference to the coastal region among other important areas, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions said in a statement. During the programme, the participating officers will also be taken to see various developmental works like Delhi Metro, Smart city, Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, Central Information Commission, Election Commission of India, etc, the statement added. (ANI) To achieve 'reunification', Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned Western countries that it will take to "most forceful steps" to repulse interference by external groups in Taiwan. Representing the communist government at the United Nations General Assembly, Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued a warning at the outset, before trying to make a case for China's role in the international community, reported JustEarth news. Emphasizing on Taiwan, he said that China will continue to endeavour to achieve "peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and greatest efforts". To realize this goal, we must "combat 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities with the firmest resolve and take the most forceful steps to repulse interference by external groups," JustEarth news quoted Wang as saying. Laying down, China's policy on Taiwan, he said, "Only by resolutely forestalling in accordance with the law separatist activities can we forge a true foundation for peaceful reunification. Only when China is completely reunified can there be enduring peace across the Taiwan Strait." Further, he warned that any scheme to interfere in China's internal affairs is bound to meet strong opposition, and any move to obstruct China's cause of reunification is bound to be crushed by the wheels of history, reported JustEarth news. Notably, this comes ahead of the 20th party Congress that is scheduled to anoint Xi Jinping for the third time. "Peace is crucial for our future and it underpins the common security of all countries. Turbulence and war can only open Pandora's box, and he who instigates a proxy war can easily burn his own hands. Pursuing one's own absolute security can only undermine global strategic stability. We should remain committed to addressing differences through peaceful means and resolving disputes through dialogue and consultation," added Wang. However, the tough stance of China at UNGA blew cold on the question of Ukraine, Afghanistan and Palestine. On Ukraine, he said, "China supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis. We call on all parties concerned to keep the crisis from spilling over and protect developing countries' legitimate rights and interests." Referring to Palestine, he said "justice is already late in coming, but it must not be absent", adding that the "two-state solution is crucial for upholding fairness and justice" and that China will continue to "support the Palestinian people in pursuing their just cause of restoring legitimate national rights." Touching upon the Afghanistan question, Wang said, "Afghanistan is in a critical transition from chaos to order. The right way forward is to put in place an inclusive political framework and adopt moderate policies. The goal should be to resume economic growth and improve people's lives." China also proposed to quickly resolve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, saying "it is important to address its root cause" and "follow the dual-track approach and take phased and synchronized steps". (ANI) Pakistan's army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa's claims that the army has "successfully turned the tide of terrorism" run counter to the ground reality. At a speech delivered at the Passing-out parade of the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) on October 8, Bajwa underlined that the Pakistan Army, with the full support and confidence of the nation, had "successfully turned the tide of the menace of terrorism in the last two decades and has ensured that organised terrorism is decisively rooted out from Pakistan. This is indeed a unique accomplishment that not many countries or armies can claim," reported Geo-politik. Contrary to his claims, on October 6th, the Interior Ministry issued a nationwide alert asking for 'extreme vigilance', in wake of negotiations between the government and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that so far have failed. Moreover, Al Qaida founder Osama bin Laden was eliminated in Pakistan's Abbottabad in 2011. Osama's successor, Ayman Al Jawahari, similarly was eliminated through a drone-driven missile by the US in downtown Kabul earlier this year. Security analysts have noted that this speech came within days of his visit to the United States, where he conferred with the top officials of the Biden administration dealing with foreign policy and security issues, reported Geo-Politik. It is most likely that Gen Bajwa apprised the Americans of the actual situation while seeking funds and facilities for his security forces, doubled with the claims of how Pakistan was fighting terrorism fomenting in, and 'exported' from, the neighbouring Afghanistan, now confirmed as the new home of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), besides Al Qaida. The most glaring is his contention that the Pakistan Army has 'defeated' terrorism "over the last two decades", when this is precisely the worst period, with Pakistan's own claims of being a 'victim' of terrorism, having lost thousands of soldiers and civilians. The US could not but be taking a larger view of the security situation in the wider Afghanistan-Pakistan region in which, besides the ISKP and Al Qaida, the role of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) must have figured. Bajwa may have blamed the Taliban regime in Kabul for not playing the ball on the TTP, but the US security establishment could not have accepted Bajwa's claims at face value. The Biden administration or anyone cannot be convinced by Gen Bajwa's claims, made either in Washington or at PMA, when contradicted by the Interior Ministry, another key part of the Pakistan Government, reported Geo-politik. Moreover, the actual situation in Pakistan is contrary to Bajwa's claims as in a letter circulated in Pakistan Senate last month, the Ministry of Interior warned that more than year-long peace negotiations between the TTP and the government of Pakistan "had come to a standstill", which has led to unease within the TTP's ranks, Dawn newspaper reported. According to analysts, Gen Bajwa's claims run counter to the ground reality that is worsening by the day as the TTP continues to defy the government. (ANI) Former US Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday announced her exit from the Democratic Party, blaming the party for racializing every issue in the nation and denouncing it as the "elitist cabal of warmongers." Gabbard made the announcement in an approximately 30-minute video posted on her social media account, as she attacked the institution for its practices. Blaming the Democratic party for anti-white racism, the former representative announced that she can no longer be a member of the party she remained a part of for 20 years. "I can no longer remain in today's Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism," Tulsi Gabbard said in a video posted on her Twitter handle. Gabbard further went on to call on her fellow Democrats to join her and leave the party. However, she has not announced any plans regarding her new political associations or joining the Republican Party as of now. Tulsi Gabbard grew up in Hawaii and at 21 ran for Hawai Statehouse. Before that, she was not politically affiliated in any way. She remained a Democrat for the last 20 years. Lambasting the Democratic Party for undermining the basic freedoms of people in the country, she said that she believes in a government that is of, by, and for the people, however, today's Democratic Party does not stand by these values. "I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, today's Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. I'm calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party," she said in her video. Notably, Tulsi Gabbard was the first Hindu lawmaker in the US Congress to run for the presidential post. Gabbard also served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in a combat zone in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009. (ANI) Nepal President Bidya Devi Bhandari, who tested positive for COVID-19, has been discharged from Tribhuwan University Teaching Hospital, officials confirmed. The 61 years old, Nepal's President was admitted to hospital following cold-like symptoms followed by fever which later was confirmed due to the COVID-19 infection. "She was discharged at 12:45 pm after improvement in health condition. Fever and other health indicators of the President are normal," Ram Bikram Adhikari, Information officer at Teaching Hospital told ANI. President Bhandari was admitted to the hospital on Saturday to TUTH Annex Ward No 601 after complaints of ill-health conditions. Bhandari, the first female President of the Himalayan Nation was first elected to the post in 2015 succeeding in the second term in 2018. Her second tenure is set to expire early next year. President Bhandari was last seen on Vijaydashmi on Wednesday on the lawns of her official residence, Sheetal Niwas where she offered 'tika' and 'prasad' to her family members and distinguished persons. Meanwhile, this September, the apex court of Nepal issued a show cause notice to the office of President Bidhya Devi Bhandari for not authenticating the citizenship bill passed by both the lower and upper houses of the country's Parliament. A single bench of Justice Hari Prasad Phuyal ordered the President's Office to submit the reason for not authenticating the bill to the Supreme Court, within 15 days. The petitioners have claimed President Bhandari did not fulfil the constitutional obligation as per Act 113 (4) of the Constitution of Nepal seeking a mandamus from the apex court. The petitioners also have claimed that the President doesn't have the right of discretion as per the constitution and also have asked the verdict from the court over the case to be set as precedent. This followed after Bhandari let the deadline for authenticating Citizenship Bill sent by the Federal Parliament pass. President's political advisor Lalbabu Yadav confirmed that Bhandari has refused to authenticate the bill "in order to safeguard the constitution." (ANI) Sources cognizant of the development said the British Department of Transport (DfT) had written a letter to the CAA to convey its concerns over the measures it had taken for flight dependability, ARY News reported citing sources. The decision came as the UK strongly expressed its safety concerns to the country's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and had written a letter to it regarding it. Moreover, the letter was received by CAA on September 8, 2022. The DfT has expressed its dissatisfaction over the steps taken by the CAA to ensure flight standards and safety in the letter which has become a major cause of concern as the department is of the opinion that the ban could not be lifted because of the lack of progress despite the legislation on aviation in Pakistan, ARY News reported. Earlier, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested former Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) officials for involvement in a fake degree scam. (ANI) According to the local police officials the incident took place on Sunday in The Eastern Bypass area of Balochistan's capital, Dawn reported. The victim was identified as Abdul Samad Achakzai who was a police commander in the previous Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul. The attackers rode a motorcycle and opened fire on Abdul Samad Achakzai who was riding a motorbike along with his brother, Dawn reported citing sources. "Abdul Samad Achakzai suffered multiple bullet injuries and died on the spot, while his brother remained unhurt. However, one passerby suffered a bullet injury," Manzoor Ahmed, a senior police officer of the area, said, adding that soon after the incident police reached the area and took the body and the injured to Civil Hospital. As per Dawn, Achakzai also served as a police commander in Urazgan province earlier. Several incidents of gun attacks have been reported in Balochistan previously as well leading to casualties. Earlier in August, unidentified gunmen killed two people and injured four others in firing in the Pashtunabad area. The victims died on the spot due to excessive bleeding. (ANI) Former spymaster ruled out a ban on phone tapping in Pakistan after audio leaks from the Pakistani Prime Minister's Office sparked a controversy. "Phone tapping can't be stopped simply for security reasons, but intelligence agencies' procedures could be regulated to check issues like Audio Leaks," said a former spymaster to The News International. Talking to The News, he said that phone tapping is done by agencies all around the world for security reasons but what we lack here are the regulations. "We have no regulations, no laws governing the agencies," the source said, adding that the issue of phone tapping needs to be discussed in-depth to find a solution where the surveillance on the problems of national security is protected. Still, there is no space for use of phone-tapping material for political purposes or to malign someone, reported The News International. According to sources, IB DG Dr Shoaib Suddle had taken this initiative with regard to the legislation. He carried out this exercise being IB chief in the early days of the Zardari-Gilani government standing out as the first spy chief who volunteered parliamentary oversight drafting a law in this respect after examining the legislation in other democracies. After his departure from the IB, the draft law prepared under his watch went 'missing', the sources said. On Monday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan said that the AudioLeaks are a serious breach of national security as they call into question the entire security of the Prime Minister's Office and House. He added that his secure line at his residence was also bugged as the PM. He announced that the PTI intends to go to court to establish the authenticity of leaks and then form a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to investigate which intelligence agency is responsible for the bugging and who is leaking out the audio many of which, he said, are edited or doctored, reported The News International. The former premier said that this is critical because sensitive security issues are and have been illegally recorded and subsequently hacked, implying confidentiality of Pakistan's national security has been exposed globally. Interestingly during his premiership, Imran Khan defended the phone tapping by the agencies in a private TV interview. Pakistan is among those few democratic countries where intelligence agencies operate without any regulation. No laws exist to regulate these agencies or call into question their performance. Pakistan's premier agencies, the ISI and IB, were formed through executive orders soon after the creation of Pakistan but left without any legislation to govern their actions. At the moment, they function through Standards Operating Procedures (SOPs) that have no legal sanctity hence all actions carried out by them don't stand the scrutiny of law. (ANI) Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin before presenting a peace proposal on Twitter to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, according to a report published by VICE News. The world's richest man last week drew backlash from Ukrainian officials, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his tweets advising how to bring about "peace" amid the war between Moscow and Kyiv. Musk through his official Twitter handle tried out a Twitter poll to end the Russian actions in Ukraine. Tesla CEO floated a number of ideas to solve the conflict, asking his followers to vote "yes" or "no" on his proposals, which included formally allowing Russia to annex Crimea. "In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer wrote that Tesla CEO Musk told him that Putin was 'prepared to negotiate,' but only if Crimea remained Russian if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and Ukraine recognised Russia's annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia," the Vice report said. As per Bremmer, Musk said Putin told him these goals would be accomplished at any cost and even at the potential risk of a nuclear strike if Ukraine invaded Crimea. He wrote that Tesla CEO told him that "everything needed to be done to avoid that outcome." Earlier, irked over the billionaire's comments, Ukrainian former Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk had lashed out at Musk. "F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you," Melnyk said in a Tweet. "The only outcome that now no Ukrainian will EVER buy your f***ing tesla crap. So good luck to you," he said in another tweet. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week formally announced the annexation of four regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and claimed that "this is the will of millions of people." On February 24, Russia began a special military operation in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics requested help in defending themselves. What followed the military operation was a slew of sanctions imposed by the western countries targeting the Russian economy. (ANI) "The meeting was chaired by Neeta Prasad, Joint Secretary, International Cooperation, Ministry of Education from Indian side and by Anne Line Wold, Director General, Ministry of Education and Research from Norwegian side. The Ambassador of Norway to India also participated in the meeting," the Ministry of Education said in a press release. The Joint Working Group was established to monitor and oversee the implementation of the MoU on Cooperation in the field of Higher Education signed between India and Norway on April 25. The two sides reviewed the progress made under the Indo-Norwegian Cooperation Programme developed under the ambit of the previous India-Norway MoU signed in 2014. They deliberated upon overall higher education policy and priorities, student/faculty mobility and cooperation in the field of skill development. India's relations with countries in Central Europe (CE) remained on a steady upward track characterised by warmth and progress in 2021-22, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Rooted in cultural ties, relations with Central European countries have been free from any major irritants. India has received support from these countries at various multilateral fora. Within the EU, countries of CE play an important role. Regional groups within CE like the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and the Nordic group (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland) also provide platforms for plurilateral exchanges with India. New opportunities for economic cooperation, especially in the areas of renewable energy, water management, circular economy, health and pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence and digitalization have provided momentum to this traditionally close relationship, the MEA said. High-level political exchanges continued in the last two years despite the constraints imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. (ANI) Read the full article on Motorious This is horrible A crash involving a 1957 Chevy Bel Air and a modern Ford F-150 in Wiggins, Mississippi left one dead. According to a local report, the husband and wife in the Tri-Five were headed to Cruisin the Coast, a classic car festival which has been running since 1996. Check out some vintage IIHS crash videos here. The local report says the 57 Chevy was traveling south on Highway 49 on the afternoon of October 5 when the Ford F-150 started to cross the highway to reach a service road on the other side. The Bel Air T-boned the pickup. If that was at speed, the crash had to have been quite violent. Authorities say the deceased, 67-year-old Sherry Arrington of Terry, Mississippi, was a passenger in the Chevy. Her husband, who was driving, was transported to the hospital and was in stable condition. The driver of the Ford was taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries while a child passenger was unharmed. By now youve probably seen controlled crashes between classic and modern crashes. If not, you can check out a compilation here. Thanks to all kinds of innovations, cars made in the past couple decades or so overall fare much better in crashes. Even with all those innovations, if youre in a car and T-bone a full-size truck, youre lucky to walk away. Its an even worse scenario in a classic car like the 57 Bel Air. Police were still investigating the crash, so no blame has been assigned yet. Still, this is a potent reminder that whenever youre driving you need to remain vigilant. Thats harder to remember when youre pleasure cruising in your classic on the way to an event, but unfortunately you can be involving in an accident even if you dont do anything wrong. Source: WXXV 25 Image via Wikimedia Commons Sign up for the Motorious Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Internet Video Archive Players can relive the story of Tanjiro Kamado as depicted in the TV anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Its episodes start from the Kamado Tanjirou Risshi Arc of the TV anime, in which Tanjiro joins the Demon Slayer Corps and faces off against various demons, and end at the Mugen Train Arc of the feature film, in which Tanjiro joins the Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku on a mission. Enjoy the battles against the demons from the anime with beautiful graphics and expression. Two men are facing felony charges after a business was broken into and damaged in Greenville Monday. Greenville Police Department said in the early morning hours of Oct. 10, two men allegedly broke into Buckeye Beverage on Wagner Avenue and stole numerous items while also damaging the business. Officers and detectives were able to follow evidence left the scene that led them to a residence several blocks away. After receiving a warrant, officers searched the residence. >> Car crashes into house in Northridge; Driver flees scene, later caught Inside they found stolen items from the store and arrested two men Paul Brown and Robert Feitshans, according to a police. Brown and Feitshans are both facing felony charges. Greenville police have reported an increase over the last week of vandalism and theft complaints in the city and county. NextShark A Chinese woman thought she was the victim of racism after receiving a letter from her alma mater addressed to a Ms. Ching Chong, but was shocked and relieved to learn the truth. Former University of Queensland student Sierra Chen took to the Facebook group UQ Stalkerspace, which is described as a platform for discourse about University of Queensland campus life, to share the letter she received from the university and to see if anyone could help her contact the addressee to verify whether the letter was sent maliciously. In her post, Chen said the contents of the letter were not unusual, but the name listed as the recipient concerned her, as ChingChong is a racial discrimination word against [sic] Chinese. Three missing boaters were rescued after floating in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana for more than 28 hours and while fending off sharks, the Coast Guard said. The three fishermen set sail from Venice, Louisiana, on the morning of Oct. 8, but never returned home. A family member reported the men as missing around 10 p.m. that night, but no one knew exactly where they had been fishing. "Our initial search area was about roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island," Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Keefe, Sector New Orleans search and rescue mission coordinator, told TODAY. Coast Guard rescues 3 overdue boaters offshore Empire, La. (Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi / U.S. Coast Guard) The Coast Guard searched for the men for hours by air and sea, but it wasn't until Sunday afternoon that the search had a breakthrough. One of the missing men was able to get cell phone service and sent a message of their location on Apple Maps. "They just happened to be floating around and he received text messages, like his cell phone got cell phone service. He told me he had 2% battery," Keefe said. "And he fired off that text message with that screenshot and said something about how his boat sank." While the screenshot showed their location, it did not contain coordinates. Keefe said the Coast Guard was able to use "geolocation, and orienting ourselves to the map and some of the contours" of the Gulf of Mexico, leading the the command center to identify the location. Within two hours of the message exchange, the missing boaters were located about 25 miles off the shore of Empire, Louisiana. When the Coast Guard arrived, they saw two of the fishermen clinging to a cooler and fending off sharks. The two boaters were pulled to safety before any serious injuries could occur, the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard rescues 3 overdue boaters offshore Empire, La. (U.S. Coast Guard) "They had multiple lacerations on their hand, almost down to the bone, indicative of a shark bite and serrated edges indicative of a sharks tooth puncturing their hands," Lt. Katy Caraway, U.S. Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans co-pilot, told TODAY. The Coast Guard found the third fisherman nearly half a mile away, and hoisted him from the water into a helicopter. Story continues All three boaters were wearing life jackets, though one was torn by a shark. "We actually were able to recover one of the life jackets that had been eaten through by a shark," Caraway said. Coast Guard rescues 3 overdue boaters offshore Empire, La. (U.S. Coast Guard) One of the fishermen was experiencing signs of hypothermia, according to the Coast Guard. All three were taken to an area hospital, where they were listed in stable condition. Their names weren't released. "Its difficult for us to describe how lucky they were that all these things happened in their favor and ultimately, we were able to rescue them," Keefe said. "Having those life jackets on and actually donning those life jackets is what saved their lives," Caraway added. "And to be quite honest, the gentlemans cell phone as well." This article was originally published on TODAY.com AFP via Getty A 60-year-old Russian woman has been tossed in jail for visiting the gravesite of Vladimir Putins parents and leaving a note expressing her desire for him to join them in the earth. Amazingly, Irina Tsybanyeva is not the first Russian citizen to take her grievances straight to the Russian leaders eternally resting parents, but she appears to be the first to be snatched up by police as a result. What is in the note is not known for certain. But she said that it had a wish [for him] to die, Maksim Tsybanyev, Irinas son, told Mediazona. Tsybanyeva reportedly visited the St. Petersburg cemetery last Thursday to leave the note, and police showed up at her door on Monday. She didnt open the door for a long time, but in the end he [a policeman] promised to pry it open and she opened it. She was taken away yesterday at 3 p.m. to the [police department.] They pissed around for a long time. As a result, by nighttime she called and said there would be a raid, her son was quoted saying, adding that he went to her house right after but saw neither his mother nor any traces of a police search. Tsybanyeva was brought to court Tuesday to face charges of desecration of the bodies of the dead and their burial places, committed on the grounds of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity. The charge carries a maximum punishment of five years behind bars. Less than two weeks before Tsybanyevas graveyard visit, several anti-war activists left a similar note for Putins parents, Maria and Vladimir. Dear parents, Your son is misbehaving! He is skipping history lessons, fighting with classmates, and threatening to blow up the whole school! Do something! : ! , , ! ! : pic.twitter.com/bRiSeobNKp (@holodmedia) September 27, 2022 Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. An 8-year-old boy riding a scooter was killed Monday when he was hit by a suspected drunken driver on a Dallas street, Dallas police said Tuesday. The name of the boy, who died at a Dallas hospital, has not been released by authorities. The driver of the vehicle remained at the scene and was arrested. Dallas police identified him as 30-year-old Miguel Martinez. Police responded to the major accident just after 7 p.m. Monday in the 3600 block of Dilido Road. Police said. Martinez was intoxicated and he was driving with a child in his vehicle at the time of the crash. Martinez faces charges of intoxication manslaughter and driving while intoxicated with a child under 15. The investigation continued on Tuesday. IRYNA BALACHUK TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 08:10 The Armed Forces of Ukraine shot down eight Russian Shahed-136 drones over Mykolaiv and Odesa Oblasts early on 11 October. Source: Operational Command Pivden (South) on Facebook Quote: "Between 03:30 and 05:30 on 11 October, air defence forces and systems under the Air Command Pivden (South) destroyed five enemy Shahed-136 kamikaze drones over Mykolaiv Oblast and three over Odesa Oblast." Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Dr. Ada Fisher, a retired physician who was one of North Carolinas members on the Republican National Committee for over a decade, has died at age 74, a funeral home said Tuesday. Fisher, who gained prominence as a Black Republican who pushed for more diversity within the GOP, died Friday in Salisbury, according to Fisher Memorial Funeral Parlor in Durham. Christopher C. Fisher, a parlor staff member and Ada Fishers nephew, didnt immediately have information on a cause of death. Ada Fisher also was known for her no-nonsense conservative views and her early support for former President Donald Trump. Fisher made the 2016 announcement on the Republican National Convention floor that gave 29 delegate votes to Trump. RELATED: Charlotte one final vote away from being official host of 2020 RNC A Durham native who earned advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin and John Hopkins University, Fisher entered politics after a career as a practicing physician in both family practice and corporate settings. She settled in Salisbury. Fisher, who was once a board member for the Rowan-Salisbury schools district, ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2002. She also ran for the U.S. House, losing to Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., in the 2004 and 2006 general elections. State GOP activists elected Fisher as an RNC committeewoman in 2008 and she remained in the position until 2020. Dr. Ada Fisher was an incredible woman and an NCGOP institution who fought harder than anyone to support the party and advance conservative principles, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., wrote in a tweet Monday. Many of her views were expressed in opinion pieces within The Salisbury Post, which continued running up until last month. Funeral arrangements were incomplete Tuesday. (WATCH BELOW: PART 1 -- The Political Beat with Channel 9s Joe Bruno (Oct. 9, 2022)) Adam Kinzinger may not be running for reelection this year, but that isnt stopping him from doing what he still can to challenge election deniers on every possible front. The retiring GOP congressman announced late last year that he wouldnt stand for reelection, as the likelihood of him winning a GOP primary grew thinner thanks to his work on the January 6 committee. But even though he personally wont be taking on a supporter of Donald Trumps conspiracies about the 2020 election, hes pushing his way into races where some of those same people are seeking office. As a result, his Country 1st PAC announced a slate of endorsements on Tuesday that included several Democrats running for secretary of State and other statewide positions with oversight over elections or other state officials. The Illinois Republican is supporting Democrats for secretary of State in Arizona, Nevada, Minnesota and Michigan, while also supporting Democrats for governor in Pennsylvania and Arizona. He notably did not extend an endorsement to Michigans incumbent Gov Gretchen Whitmer, who is running for reelection against 2020 fraud believer Tudor Dixon. Mr Kinzinger also endorsed the independent (but Democrat-supported) US Senate candidacy of Evan McMullin against Sen Mike Lee in Utah, as well as Clint Smith, an independent running to unseat Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona. His notable Republican endorsements of the bunch included Lisa Murkowski, incumbent US senator from Alaska, and Brad Raffensperger, the GOP Georgia secretary of State who stood up to Donald Trump in 2020 and refused to help him find thousands of votes that supposedly would have shifted the balance of the state in his favour. The congressman has not announced his post-congressional plans following the end of his term next January, but some have speculated that Mr Kinzinger is eager to remain in the anti-Trump conservative political sphere and may make a turn into a pundit as some of his soon-to-be-fellow former lawmakers have done in recent years. The Air Force expects to complete its two-year transition to the new undergraduate pilot training curriculum by the end of October, the head of Air Education and Training Command recently told reporters. Service officials contend that Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5, a software-heavy, self-paced version of the course, is producing better-prepared pilots faster than before. The syllabus tries to give airmen the manual stick-and-rudder skills to deftly fly a jet, plus the multitasking and critical thinking abilities to juggle airstrikes, intelligence-gathering sensors and collaboration with other combat assets. As Air Force revamps pilot training, flight safety concerns linger We need airmen that are agile of mind, competent, credible, confident, AETC boss Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson said Sept. 12. Well find and grow those airmen. The program has been adopted across the Air Forces three undergraduate flight school bases: Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi; Vance AFB, Oklahoma; and Laughlin AFB, Texas. Undergraduate pilot training that used to last a full year has shrunk by nearly half. Students earn their pilots wings after about seven months while flying the T-6 Texan II training aircraft in UPT 2.5, then move onto the T-38 Talon or T-1 Jayhawk for about five more months of specialized lessons in flying fighter, bomber or mobility planes. The Air Force said it could not provide the number of pilots who have graduated under UPT 2.5 or its fiscal 2022 total by press time. Nearly 1,400 airmen earned their wings in fiscal 2021, just shy of the services annual goal of producing at least 1,480 new pilots each year. Air Force grapples with enduring pilot shortage as airlines begin to rehire Of about two dozen airmen who graduated from the Air Mobility Fundamentals course which prepares pilots to fly cargo, tanker, special operations and surveillance aircraft all but three performed better in that specialized training under the new syllabus than airmen who went through the traditional undergraduate pilot course, Robinson said. Story continues Air Force 2nd Lt. Johnny Rue, left, checks the equipment of 2nd Lt. Christopher Ugale, both pilot trainees with the 47th Student Squadron, before Ugales first flight at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, on Aug. 4, 2021. (Senior Airman Nicholas Larsen/Air Force) Several had come out as distinguished graduates in their [formal training units], so we think weve got it pretty close to right, he said. During a recent visit to Laughlin, Robinson said he overheard a student talking about the acrobatics theyd attempted in a simulator. When they went and flew that same maneuver in the aircraft actually, as they were upside-down, looking down at their ground references they looked exactly like they looked in the immersive training device, he said. They were comfortable with where they were; theyd seen it before. New Air Force leaders view plans for more virtual pilot training UPT 2.5 has sought to give students more control over their own education at a time when the instructor pilot corps is struggling. Some airmen who dislike the changes continue to anonymously air their grievances on social media. That includes instructors who are unhappy with the workload that comes with a civilian staff shortage and a more intensive syllabus. Officials recognize that UPT 2.5 has asked more of instructors than in the past, Robinson said. Though the manning level of active duty instructor pilots is close to where wed like it in most locations, at 80% of positions staffed or higher, Robinson said the Air Force is hurting for civilians to run its flight simulators. Those jobs are about 60% filled, he said. Why? Those potential sim instructors are instead opting to live in less rural areas and snag the six-figure pay offered by commercial airlines meaning uniformed instructors have to pick up the slack in a course that heavily depends on simulators. They have to fill the void for the civilian sim instructors to keep students moving through the UPT 2.5 production pipeline, which adds to their workload, Robinson said. Its important that we find solutions. Rising number of pilot hopefuls among 2022 Air Force Academy grads AETC says the coronavirus vaccine mandate isnt interfering with its ability to keep up pilot production, despite reports that some unvaccinated flight instructors arent allowed to train students. One option may be to offer civilian instructors more money. Robinson said the Air Force is working with Congress to give it more leeway to hire private citizens at a higher price point. Those who work in commercial aviation typically make the same salary whether flying in a simulator or in a real aircraft, he noted. Federal data shows airline industry employment has rebounded from a pandemic-era low of 669,000 in fall 2020 to 768,000 in July 2022. Were hearing the airline hiring is picking up so they can improve the service to their customer base, Robinson said. We havent seen it have a significant impact yet [on] our instructors. The service is likewise exploring whether one person can remotely operate multiple simulators to help several students at once. AETC is working through the technical issues that could stymie that plan, like insufficient infrastructure or bandwidth. Hundreds of Air Force training planes grounded over ejection seat concerns And, the Air Force will use its Palace Acquire internship program to attract flight instructors for the first time. Starting in November, the service will try bringing in three college graduates with private pilots licenses and put them through undergraduate pilot training. Once finished, theyll stick around as civilian flight instructors, Robinson said. If successful, the initiative could ramp up over time. We are hoping to see great return and benefit on that, Robinson said. Singapore Airlines flight attendants. ROSLAN RAHMAN / Contributor / Getty Images Singapore Airlines has ended a controversial policy that forced pregnant flight attendants to leave. Previously, pregnant cabin crew were put on no-pay leave but can now apply for a ground role. The airline changed the rules in July, according to a memo seen by The Straits Times. Singapore Airlines has scrapped a controversial policy that effectively forced female flight attendants to quit if they became pregnant. The Straits Times reported the news on Monday. Under the policy, when a flight attendant informed the airline she was pregnant, she'd be placed on leave without pay. Once she'd submitted the child's birth certificate her contract would be ended. If she wished to fly again, she would need to reapply under a returnship scheme, but there was no guarantee she'd be accepted, per the Straits Times. However, as of July 15 this year, Singapore's national carrier changed the rules, according to an internal memo seen by The Straits Times. Under the change, laid out in a memo, stewardesses are now able to apply for ground positions while they're pregnant. They're then placed on up to 16 weeks of maternity leave after they've given birth before being registered to fly again, per the Straits Times. They're still placed on unpaid leave until they successfully find a ground role, according to the Straits Times report. Over recent years, some airlines have come under pressure for the strict rules they have put in place for female flight attendants. In January this year, Insider's Maria Noyen previously reported on how some returning mothers said they were starving themselves to meet Emirates' strict weight requirements after childbirth. In recent months, some airlines are beginning to loosen their previously strict dress codes or rules banning tattoos in a bid to be more inclusive, retain workers, and tackle labor shortages. "We continue to work hard to retain our talented people," Singapore Airlines said in a statement to Bloomberg. The airline did not immediately respond to Insider's request for further comment, which came outside of standard business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider The economy may be showing many signs of contraction right now, but many companies still need to do business internationally. Now a startup providing the tools to make and manage those transactions is announcing some funding. Airwallex, the Hong Kong/Australia startup that provides cross-border banking and other financial services for businesses, has raised $100 million, money that it will be using to continue expanding its business operationally, geographically and with new products in areas like credit and expense management -- and for M&A. The funding is coming in the form of an extension to Airwallex's Series E -- technically a Series E-2, after a $100 million extension in November 2021, and the original $200 million in September 2021. It is mostly an inside round with previous backers Square Peg, Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital China, Lone Pine Capital, Hermitage Capital, 1835i Ventures and Tencent all participating; Australian fund HostPlus and an unnamed "leading North American pension fund" also invested. Jack Zhang -- Airwallex's CEO who co-founded the company with Xijing Dai, Lucy Liu and Max Li -- told TechCrunch that business has been on the up in the last year. The company's revenues have grown by 184%, ARR passed $200 million in September, and it's processing close to $50 billion in annualized transactions, he said. Customer numbers have doubled, although it only describes the figure as a vague "tens of thousands" of businesses (they include Papaya Global, HubSpot, Plum, GOAT and others). And yet, given the current economic climate, this round was not without its struggles. Namely, it is coming in at a flat valuation of $5.5 billion, level with what Airwallex achieved a year ago, when the valuation catapulted $1.5 billion in the space of a few weeks. "It's been a more challenging environment to raise money," Zhang said. He and others on the team could see what was coming around the corner earlier in the year, he added, and although Airwallex still had significant money in the bank -- $600 million out of the total $900 million raised as of the end of September, when Zhang and I spoke -- the startup chose to raise more, just in case. Story continues "Last year it took two weeks to raise $100 million," he said of the previous fundraise. "This year it took four months. We think it was a good outcome that we were able to raise the money at all." Last time we covered the company, I noted that Airwallex was going into its Series E extension having fended off two acquisition offers from fast-growing fintechs. I wonder if investors (or Airwallex itself) ask themselves if choosing to stay independent was the right choice. For now, investors believe the right choice is to stick by the company because it's showing all the right signals, despite the wider market. Since investing in Airwallex back in 2017, the company has continued to go from strength to strength," Paul Bassat, the co-founder of Square Peg Capital, said in a statement. "Despite the current market conditions, we wholeheartedly believe in the vision and mission of the team which is why we doubled down on our investment. We look forward to seeing what Jack Zhang and the rest of the Airwallex team achieve and will continue to support them on their journey." In the meantime, the company continues to grow its own platform on its own steam. Airwallex's core focus currently is on two areas. Business banking covers banking accounts, money transfer, payment cards, expenses management and B2B payment links. And its platform product is a set of embeddable financial services that customers integrate into their own platforms or websites by way of APIs to power experiences for themselves and their own customers. These include online payments, treasury services to store and manage funds internationally, foreign exchange to power pricing internationally, payouts and card issuing. Airwallex, as we've written before, made a splash when it was first founded by doing the right thing at the right time: it did the tough work of integrating with lots of banks and building complex financial services and then made them easy to use (leaning on APIs) so that companies doing business across country boundaries could set up banking and money moving services quickly, initially out of Asia Pacific and eventually globally. In the last six years, weve built more than 50 bank integrations and now offer payments across 95 countries, payments through a partner network, Zhang told me back in 2021. From that, it moved on to bank accounts and other primitive stuff with card issuance and more, he said, eventually building an end-to-end payment stack. That business saw a huge surge in demand (and valuation) in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when -- in the absence of in-person activity and people carrying out more aspects of their work and leisure life online -- businesses that were already digital saw transactions go through the roof; and those that were more focused on the offline world pre-pandemic found themselves needing to take a sharp digital turn. The big question more recently -- both for Airwallex and the many other companies like it such as Stripe, PayPal, Revolut and many more -- has been whether those shifts would remain as the world slowly reverted back to pre-pandemic habits and processes. Airwallex's growth seems to point to more opportunity ahead, although not at the rates that it would have projected a year ago. Its most active markets today are China, the U.K. and North America, Zhang said, and the plan is to continue expanding in specific countries with particularly strong addressable markets. Israel is one of those countries, since just about every business there with a digital angle has international operations to expand outside of their small home market -- "Every single startup there is a potential customer!" Zhang exclaimed, adding that it's also a hotbed for potential acquisition targets, especially right now, since it's become much more challenging for smaller companies to raise rounds. One area, for example, where Israel is strong, and Airwallex currently doesn't have a native solution, is in the area of fraud protection. "Im super interested in that space form an M&A perspective," Zhang said. Separately to building its own business and pursuing acquisitions to expand inorganically, Airwallex's founders have been also building out another venture to fuel its business growth, an investment fund. Capital 49, as it's called, was launched back in July 2021. Unlike other funds aimed at expanding a product's ecosystem like the Alexa Fund at Amazon or the Slack Fund, Capital 49 is not operated off Airwallex's balance sheet, instead tapping a number of Airwallex's investors as LPs but using Airwallex's knowledge of the market to guide it. "We have accumulated a deep knowledge of fintech and SaaS," Zhang said, and backing interesting startups in those categories powered by Airwallex's infrastructure "is the primary goal of the fund." This article originally appeared on Velo News Former UCI Hour Record Holder Alex Dowsett doesn't believe that the present generation of riders can currently beat Filippo Gannas new record distance. Ganna tore up the record books in Grenchen, Switzerland, on Saturday. He posted a new jaw-dropping distance of 56.792km, a whopping 1.244km further than the previous record set by Dan Bigham earlier this year. Dowsett held the record in 2015 before being surpassed by Bradley Wiggins and then a handful of other riders. The Israel Premier-Tech pro expected Ganna to set a new record, he was blown away by the final margin. "I think it's gone. I was surprised, and while we all know Ganna's ability, I was surprised that he broke it by that much," Dowsett told VeloNews. "I thought, and wrongly, that the higher the speed the more the relationship between power and aerodynamics shifts in favor of aerodynamics. I thought that he'd break it by a little bit because he's very aero but also very big. The whole that he punches in the air is bigger. To overcome that it requires more power so finding the difference between 56 and 57kph is so much bigger than 45 and 46kph. We're at the limits of human performance, so small gains are really tough to find. I thought Ganna's size would impede him more than it did but it was wonderful to be proven wrong because as someone who knows how hard those lap times are to achieve, to see someone doing 15.2s was just staggering." Also read: Such was Ganna's performance in Switzerland that few expect the record to be broken any time soon. Dowsett himself had a tilt at a second record attempt late last year but came up short and even with Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert establishing themselves as world class time trialists, Dowsett doubts whether they have the current desire and numbers to topple the Italian. Story continues "I'm going to upset all of Belgium but I struggle to see anyone right now that can break it. The old track craft has something to do with it," Dowsett added. "The other two strongest time trialists in Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel, neither have the extensive track background that Ganna has. Everyone from Rohan Dennis onwards had a background on the track, apart from Victor Campenaerts, who went and lived in Mexico for a month and was on the track almost everyday. I don't think there's anyone currently who can trouble Ganna's record." If Evenepoel devoted himself to the track for an extended period of time, then Dowsett believes that the Vuelta a Espana winner could be a factor in years to come, while he tipped his fellow countryman Ethan Hayter as a potential contender in the future. "If Remco was to spend time on the track then I think that he has the right CDA power combination and maybe Ethan Hayter in a couple of years if his time trial improves over the next couple of years. That's just speculation though as I don't know his numbers but its a 'perhaps'." For exclusive access to all of our fitness, gear, adventure, and travel stories, plus discounts on trips, events, and gear, sign up for Outside+ today. The Algerian and French prime ministers on Monday hailed a "new dynamic" as they launched a joint economic forum during a visit to Algiers by France's Elisabeth Borne. Borne's two-day trip to the former French colony and major gas exporter comes just weeks after President Emmanuel Macron concluded his own three-day visit in August, following months of tensions. In remarks during the forum's inauguration, Algerian Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane called for "a sustainable dynamic" in trade with France based on "reciprocity and mutual interests". Borne called for "a new dynamic of economic cooperation". Before returning to Paris, she also met with President Abdelmajid Tebboune and said bilateral ties will continue with "regular visits and exchanges on the economic, political and technical levels". Borne and her cohort are the latest in a string of top European officials to visit Algeria, Africa's top natural gas exporter, as officials seek alternatives to Russian energy supplies since the start of the war in Ukraine. The European Union's energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, is also expected in Algiers on Monday and Tuesday. But ahead of her trip, Borne's office said deliveries of natural gas to France were "not on the table". - Economic diversification - Both Borne and Benabderrahmane stressed the need for Algeria to pursue economic diversification. France is "the first investor in Algeria, excluding hydrocarbons", Borne told the forum, adding that French businesses are "ready to support the diversification" of Algeria's economy. Benabderrahmane said Algeria must "end its dependence on natural gas and attract foreign investment" in agriculture, pharmaceutical and vaccine production, and renewable energy, which "offer positive prospects for French businesses". The two-day business forum was organised by the Algerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Business France, a government agency promoting international investment, which brought representatives of some 70 French firms to the event. Story continues Ties between the North African country and its former colonial ruler had deteriorated after Macron last year questioned Algeria's existence as a nation before the French occupation, and accused the government of fomenting "hatred towards France". But the contentious subject of the two countries' history, particularly during the war, was not set to feature prominently on Borne's agenda. Algiers and Paris maintain bilateral trade at a large scale, with France being the second largest investor in Algeria, according to the International Monetary Fund. Fabrice Le Sache, the vice president of French business lobby group Medef, on Monday hailed "the dynamic created by the president" during his August visit. Macron produced a good "atmosphere" for the business community, he told AFP at the forum on Monday. are-fka/ami/pjm Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale kicks off today, giving Canadians the chance to score Prime Day-like holiday deals early.(Getty Images) For all the best deals from day 2 of the Prime Early Access Sale, click here. After the success of Prime Day 2022, Canadians are being treated to another epic Amazon shopping event. We're halfway through day 1 of the Amazon Prime Early Access Sale, where Prime members can take advantage of limited time discounts on products from major brands like Apple, Bose and Sony and of course, Amazon-exclusive devices. Overwhelmed by choice? Yahoo Canada's shopping editors have you covered. In our live blog below, we'll be rounding up the best deals from day 1 of the fall Prime Day featuring everything from TVs to household essentials to timed Lightning Deals. Make sure to bookmark this page and check back frequently for live updates on the best Amazon deals in Canada and scroll down to see the best deals from each category. Amazons Prime Early Access Sale is on click here for all the latest news about the shopping event, and check out all the Prime member deals and sales you can already shop in Canada here. Dont have a Prime membership? Sign up for a free trial here. Best Prime Early Access Sale laptop, TV and tech deals in Canada Save 50%: Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote. Image via Amazon. $30 $60 at Amazon JBL Live 650BTNC Wireless Over-Ear Bluetooth Headphones. Image via Amazon. $100 $300 at Amazon Best Prime Early Access Sale kitchen & home deals to shop in Canada Save 30%: YETI Rambler 20 oz Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Tumbler YETI Rambler 20 oz Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Tumbler. 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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) American Airlines said Tuesday that its revenue rose faster than expected over much of the summer, but costs also increased sharply. The airline said third-quarter revenue rose about 13% over the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, compared with its previous forecast of a 10% to 12% gain. Airlines have benefited from strong demand and fewer flights than before the pandemic, which is causing average fares to rise. American said passenger-carrying capacity in the third quarter was 9.6% lower than the same period in 2019. Even with higher costs, Texas-based American said its third-quarter pretax margin was roughly 4.5%, up from its previous prediction of 2% to 4%. Cowen airline analyst Helane Becker said American's outlook was encouraging for other large carriers and that American, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have the best potential for a positive surprise during this month's round of financial reports. Shares of American Airlines Group Inc. were down 1% in late-morning trading, slightly less than the decline in other leading U.S. airline stocks. American is scheduled to report third-quarter results on Oct. 20. American Airlines misplaces a passengers $22,000 wheelchair during a flight from Los Angeles to Orlando, with a layover in Miami. Xavi Santiago told her story on TikTok which has gone viral over the weekend to over 272,000 views. Apparently, the airline forgot to put the electric wheelchair on to the plane at her initial departure. Upon arrival to the layover city of Miami, was when she found out her chair did not make it there with her. However, she was reassured that her chair would be in Orlando on the following flight. The airline offered Santiago a manual wheelchair in the meantime. Where they also failed to produce in a timely fashion. By the end of the whole ordeal, Santiago and her wife waited 5 hours at the Orlando airport for her wheelchair to arrive. @xxavisantiago Shout out to @American Airlines for losing my power Wheelchair, giving me the runaround, and stranding me at baggage claim with no way to move #disabilitytiktok #travel original sound Xavi Santiago The victims account: The entire time, I had no idea if my chair was going to show up. If it was going to be damaged, what was going to happen? This is not a lost bag. This is my mobility. These are like my legs, Santiago said in a statement to the Insider. No customer service help: Santiago also claims to have reached out to the airlines customer service multiple times and that each person told her a different story instead of a solution. Then at the Orlando airport the agents would only speak to her wife and not Santiago, which caused even more frustration. I constantly have feelings of really not being seen as a person, Santiago stated. I know its a common feeling for a lot of disabled people that they think that because you have physical disabilities, that it means that youre any less capable or any less competent. And I sure as hell am not either of those things. To add insult to injury, Santiagos initial flight was supposed to be a non-stop flight. Story continues When I booked my flight, I booked a one-way potentially because I am very aware of airlines and how they treat disabled people. I know disabled people who have had their mobility aids broken, damaged, or lost by airlines, Santiago said. A response from the airline: American Airlines response to the incident to PEOPLE: We want all of our customers to have a positive travel experience when they fly with us, including those who travel with wheelchairs and assistive devices. We extend our sincerest apologies for our customers recent experience as they waited for their wheelchair on a recent trip with us, they continued. A member of our team has reached out to address their concerns and apologize. By Maria Carolina Marcello and Gabriel Stargardter BRASILIA (Reuters) - A new wave of pro-gun lawmakers in Brazil, elected this month as part of a more conservative Congress, are likely to ensure far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's vision of a more armed citizenry lives on - even if he fails to win re-election. Brazil's "bullet caucus" in Congress has long represented the interests of police and farmers interested in self-defense, traditional voting blocs with boots and budgets. But a series of looser gun regulations under Bolsonaro has forged a new breed of U.S.-style pro-gun politicians who put the individual's right to bear arms at the center of their conservative identities. "The idea is to form a caucus whose priority is to defend the citizen's right to have access to firearms," said Marcos Pollon, the most-voted lawmaker-elect from his midwest farm state and the head of lobby group PROARMAS, which models itself on the U.S. National Rifle Association. Speaking ahead of the Oct. 2 general election, Pollon told Reuters he hoped some 80 PROARMAS-backed candidates would get elected. In the end, 39 won seats, including eight senators, 20 federal lawmakers and 11 state lawmakers, according to research from the Sou Da Paz and Igarape Institutes. Although explicitly pro-gun candidates fell short of Pollon's hopes, their conservative peers were the surprise winners of Brazil's election, giving parties allied with Bolsonaro about half the seats in the Senate and lower house of Congress. Bolsonaro is now scrambling to win votes and endorsements ahead of a tense Oct. 30 runoff against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a leftist former president. But even if Bolsonaro loses, his pro-gun allies in Congress are well positioned to complicate da Silva's pledge to "disarm" Brazil. Ivan Marques, the managing director of The International Action Network on Small Arms, said it was "very likely" that newly elected conservative lawmakers would enact major reforms to broaden gun access in Brazil, the country with the world's highest number of murders. Story continues "The Senate is really going to change the configuration of that debate," he said. The upper house, where Bolsonaro's party is now the largest, has until now been the major obstacle to his legislative agenda on gun liberalization. "READY-TO-USE" GUN CARRY PERMITS Since taking office in 2019, Bolsonaro has signed dozens of executive orders to loosen gun laws, making it easier to buy weapons if Brazilians register as hunters, marksmen or collectors, or "CACs." Nearly 700,000 Brazilians have now accredited as CACs, up almost 500% since 2018. Bolsonaro's executive orders have successfully stimulated private gun ownership, but they are fragile, and can easily be overturned by the courts or an eventual Lula administration. Even with the electoral gains for the pro-gun lobby, the next step toward legislation is not without obstacles. For example, PL 3723, a bill which would embed the rights of CAC permit holders, allowing them to carry "ready-to-use" weapons, has already passed the lower house, putting it a Senate vote away from becoming law. However, Senator Carlos Portinho, a leader of the Bolsonaro government's coalition, told Reuters he did not expect PL 3723 to reach a vote this year, given other legislative priorities. The current Senate leader, centrist Senator Rodrigo Pacheco, will not allow a plenary vote on the proposal, known as PL 3723, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking. In response to a question from Reuters, Pacheco's press office said he would wait for the bill to exit committee before deciding whether to bring a floor vote. Pacheco's role next year is far from assured, given the new composition of the Senate. If Bolsonaro fails to hold onto the presidency, analysts say, his conservative coalition in Congress could fray, hurting the leverage of pro-gun lawmakers. Still, the bill now stands a better chance than before the election of reaching a final vote early next year. Experts also said they expected the renewed "bullet caucus" to push fresh legislation shoring up gun rights in Congress. Reuters has previously reported that the Federal Police, Brazil's most respected law enforcement organization, have long opposed broadening gun access. Reuters has also revealed how Bolsonaro's gun laws have made it easier for criminals to get hold of high-caliber weapons. The new breed of pro-gun lawmakers are united behind the effort to pass legislation formalizing CAC permits in law. Pollon, the lawmaker-elect who got over 100,000 votes in the farm state of Mato Grosso do Sul this month, founded PROARMAS as a way to elect more pro-CAC lawmakers, and has close ties to the president via his son, federal lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro. In an interview, Pollon said the legislative priorities for his group of CAC-affiliated lawmakers include the approval of PL 3723, broader self-defense protections for armed Brazilians and tax changes to encourage firearm ownership. "We need to approve self-defense as a constitutional right," he said. (Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello in Brasilia and Gabriel Stargardter in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Brad Haynes and Frank Jack Daniel) By Shankar Ramakrishnan and Krystal Hu (Reuters) -Elon Musk's banks, faced with huge losses on their commitment to finance the $44 billion buyout of Twitter Inc, may not be able to back out of the deal easily but they might have a way to minimize the hit they take. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp, Barclays Plc and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc led a $13 billion financing for the bid by Musk, the world's richest man and chief executive of Tesla Inc and SpaceX. Typically, banks would sell the debt to investors and pocket an underwriting fee. But the terms of the financing were set in April when Musk first made an offer for Twitter and the market for such debt has collapsed since then. That means if banks tried to sell the debt now, they would have to do so at a loss to entice investors to take it off their hands. Banks could, however, try to minimize their losses by increasing the amount of debt that is secured by collateral so that it is less risky, holding a bigger portion of it on their balance sheets, and reducing the amount they have to sell to investors in the near term, according to half a dozen debt capital market bankers and investors. Two people familiar with the thinking of the banking syndicate pointed to Wall Street's experience with the financing provided to fund the buyout of business software company Citrix Systems Inc as a possible model. In that case, Wall Street firms ended up taking a loss of about $700 million after selling $8.55 billion of loans and bonds but averted an even bigger loss by tweaking the package, the market sources and investors said. But they would need Musks signoff for any rejig of the financing structure, and there is no guarantee he would agree, they said. Reuters could not determine whether banks had approached Musk with a proposal. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, MUFG, Bank of America, Societe Generale, Mizuho and BNP Paribas declined to comment. Representatives for Musk and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment. Story continues The debate, currently a topic of conversation among investment bankers and debt investors, provides a window into the havoc wreaked on Wall Street by Musks U-turn last week. After engaging in a weeks-long court battle trying to get out of it, Musk abruptly decided he would close on his deal on the original terms. Musk, however, conditioned his proposal on his ability to secure debt financing and now has until Oct. 28 to close on the transaction. Roberta Goss, head of bank loan and collateralized loan obligations platform for investment manager Pretium Partners, said any financing is going to be a hard sell with investors because the amount of debt being put on is almost seven times Twitters 2022 expected profits of $2 billion, making it very risky. Musk would have the upper hand in any talks with the banks. It is currently out of the money for banks and in the money for Musk, Goss said. VARIOUS OPTIONS The debt financing package is comprised of leveraged loans, which are risky because of the amount of debt the company is taking on, as well as secured and unsecured bonds. Any debt sale to a broad investor pool would require credit ratings from the top three rating agencies, Moody's Investors Services, S&P and Fitch. Moody's senior analyst Neil Begley said banks have not yet approached his firm for such ratings. If the bank group are looking for a deal to syndicate, they often pursue credit ratings because it acts like a passport to the debt capital markets, but we have not heard from them as yet, said Begley. Usually, such ratings are sought two to three weeks before a debt sale to give the agencies time, but Begley said a shorter turnaround was possible given his firm gave a Ba2 rating to Twitter when it last issued bonds in February. Begley said the fact that banks had not reached out to them so far could also be a sign they were thinking of holding on to the debt until the markets improve. "If the debt commitments are really hard-wired here then banks may have to consider delaying debt syndication plans if the market has no appetite for highly levered transactions, so it wouldnt make sense to come and see us with urgency," he said. PACKAGE TWEAK Banks could hold more debt on their books by converting some unsecured debt into second-lien loans, or loans secured by a pledge of collateral, and look to sell a bigger portion of Term Loan A's (TLA), several high-yield bankers and investors said. TLA is considered to be a relatively safer category of debt that is held by the lenders themselves. In September, banks financing the Citrix buyout undertook a similar restructuring. They averted bigger losses by adding a TLA component to the package, according to one of the sources who is familiar with the Citrix deal. The banks also sold a smaller portion of Term Loan B's, a riskier class of debt, to institutional investors, and converted nearly $4 billion of the package to a second-lien loan that was held on their books as they waited for more favorable market conditions, the source said. (Reporting by Shankar Ramakrishnan in New York and Krystal Hu in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Chibuike Oguh, Abigail Summerville and Matt Tracy; Editing by Anirban Sen, Paritosh Bansal and Chris Reese) Angela Lansbury in May 2018. (Photo: Tommaso Boddi via Getty Images) Angela Lansbury in May 2018. (Photo: Tommaso Boddi via Getty Images) Angela Lansbury, the celebrated actor who spent seven decades in film, television and theater, died on Tuesday, according to a statement released by her family. She was 96. The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday, her family said in a statement obtained by NBC News and People. Lansburys lead role as amateur detective Jessica Fletcher in the long-running series Murder, She Wrote made her something of a feminist idol. She also had a significant queer fan base thanks to her consistent work in musical theater. Born in London on Oct. 16, 1925, Lansbury was the daughter of actor Moyna Macgill and socialist politician Edgar Lansbury. Her father died of stomach cancer when she was 9, and in 1940, her family moved to the United States to escape the Nazi blitz. Around age 17, she met the screenwriter John Van Drutenat a party her mother hosted. Van Druten suggested her for the role of a conniving maid in the 1944 psychological thriller Gaslight. It became Lansburys first film appearance, and the part earned her an Oscar nomination at age 20. At the height of Hollywoods studio-system era, Lansbury quickly signed a seven-year contract with the profitable MGM. She initially earned $500 a week (or roughly $7,300 in todays economy). Lansbury in 1960's Lansbury in 1960's "Season of Passion." (Photo: Archive Photos via Getty Images) Lansburys path to full-fledged stardom didnt crystallize with her first Oscar nod, though. MGM tended to stick her in supporting roles, so she often played second fiddle to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor (1944s National Velvet), Judy Garland (1946s The Harvey Girls), Deborah Kerr (1947s If Winter Comes), Katharine Hepburn (1948s State of the Union), Ethel Barrymore (1951s Kind Lady) and Anne Baxter (1960s Season of Passion). Story continues They didnt know what to do with me, Lansbury said of MGM in a 2015 interview with The Telegraph. They didnt make the sort of movies that I could possibly have shone in, so they used me as a utility. I played a lot of older women. Still, Lansbury garnered critical praise from the start. The New York Times called her early performances fetching and commendable. Lansbury earned her second Oscar nomination, for playing Sibyl Vane in the 1945 adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, just one year after her first. As the 1960s crept in and the studio system combusted, Lansbury became a name unto herself. Finally, a star was born. Her film roles some of them, at least got meatier. In 1962, Lansbury played manipulative mothers in both All Falls Down and The Manchurian Candidate. Collectively, the roles earned her a prize from the National Board of Review, while the latter anchored her third Oscar nomination and her first Golden Globe win. Angela Lansbury played Elvis Presley's mother in the 1961 film, Blue Hawaii, despite her being only 10 years older than him. She also played manipulative mothers in All Falls Down and The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. (Photo: Bettmann via Getty Images) Angela Lansbury played Elvis Presley's mother in the 1961 film, Blue Hawaii, despite her being only 10 years older than him. She also played manipulative mothers in All Falls Down and The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. (Photo: Bettmann via Getty Images) When she continued to be relegated to supporting roles on the big screen, it was the stage where Lansbury found her calling. After starring in the critically reviled 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle, Lansbury landed the title role in the musical Mame, playing a bohemian who introduces her 10-year-old nephew to her liberated lifestyle, a performance that led to her first of five Tony Awards. (When Lansbury revived the role in 1983, The New York Times Frank Rich wrote, One feels a rush when she enters, a vision in gold from her toes to her raised bugle.) Even though Lansbury was disappointed that the role of Mame in the 1974 film adaptation went to Lucille Ball, who was considered a more profitable star, Lansburys career prospered greatly after the stage run ended in 1968. Throughout the 70s, Lansbury starred in revivals of Gypsy in both London and New York. She played Gertrude in Hamlet, Anna Leonowens in The King and I and Mrs. Nellie Lovett in the original Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She also secured her splashiest film role, playing a witch in the now-classic 1971 Disney fantasy Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Lansbury at a party for the 100th episode of Lansbury at a party for the 100th episode of "Murder, She Wrote" in 1989. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS) But the role that made her a household name and fattened her bank account didnt come until the 1980s, when she was nearing her 60s. After Jean Stapleton and Doris Day reportedly turned down the principal role in CBSs Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury took the job. She spent 12 seasons playing Jessica Fletcher, the widowed mystery writer who solved crimes in her spare time. The series premiered in 1984, and Lansbury has said it was the closest she came to universal fame. The role of Jessica also marked a turning point for female characters on television: She was an older, self-sufficient career woman, and Lansbury insisted that Jessica remain single so she would represent female independence. Jessica Fletcher didnt want to begin a whole new cycle of life with somebody new, because she had a very complete life as an authoress, Lansbury said in 2012. She had success and the comfort and coziness of her home, her pursuits, her friends. The actor earned 10 Emmy nominations for the show, though she never won. Lansbury didnt appear in stage roles during her stint on Murder, but she did make additional film and TV appearances, memorably voicing the motherly Mrs. Potts in 1991s Beauty and the Beast. Throughout all of this, Lansbury married twice. At age 19, she eloped with the 35-year-old actor Richard Cromwell, who had appeared in Jezebel and Young Mr. Lincoln. The marriage lasted nine months, and Lansbury later found out he was gay, though they remained friendly until his death in 1960. Her second marriage, to producer Peter Shaw, began in 1949 and lasted 54 years, until his death in 2003. Shaw and Lansbury left California in 1970 and began to split their time between Ireland and New York City. Together, they had two children, Anthony Peter Shaw (born in 1952) and Deirdre Angela Shaw (born in 1953). Lansbury in 2018's Lansbury in 2018's "Mary Poppins Returns." (Photo: Disney) In keeping with her late fathers political career, Lansbury aligned herself with Americas Democratic Party and the United Kingdoms Labour Party. I think the exciting thing about acting is I leave myself at home, and the person that arrives on the set is hopefully akin to the character that Im going to play, Lansbury said in 2018. And that gives me the chance to indulge myself in the thing I love doing most, which is acting. Acting as somebody else, not me, because Im dull as dishwater. Lansburys output had slowed in more recent years, but she appeared in 2005s Nanny McPhee, 2011s Mr. Poppers Penguins, 2017s Little Women miniseries and 2018s Mary Poppins Returns. She returned to the stage with 2007s Deuce, a Terrence McNally play that netted her another Tony nomination, as well as the 2009 revival of Stephen Sondheims A Little Night Music and a brief 2013 run as the titular character in Driving Miss Daisy. Lansbury earned three additional Emmy nominations for her appearance in the 2004 TV movie The Blackwater Lightship and her guest spots on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial By Jury. In 2014, she was awarded an honorary Oscar. I think stamina is built into my constitution, she said in 2012. Her contributions through Murder, She Wrote live on: The lucrative 2019 murder-mystery comedy Knives Out features a brief clip of the show and thanks Lansbury in its closing credits. In June, Lansbury received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement, though she was not present to accept the accolade at New Yorks Radio City Music Hall. Her last Broadway appearance was in a 2012 revival of Gore Vidals play, The Best Man. Even if MGM initially didnt let her shine, Lansbury would become defined by her versatility. Through her work, she stepped into the shoes of freewheeling bohemians, masterful manipulators, romantic artists and sweet go-getters. The British newspaper The Independent posited in 2010 that Lansbury may be Britains most successful actress ever. I think of myself as a journeyman actress, she said in 2004. I will attempt almost anything that I think that I can bring off. Nina Golgowski contributed reporting. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Angela Lansbury, the legendary star of television, movies and the Broadway stage, died Oct. 11 at the age of 96. The former "Murder, She Wrote" star's passing was announced in a statement by her family members. "The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday," the statement read. Angela Lansbury stars as mystery writer and crime solver Jessica Fletcher (CBS via Getty Images) Though she was perhaps best known for portraying the widowed mystery novelist and amateur sleuth J.B. Fletcher from 1984 to 1996 in CBS' hit whodunnit series "Murder, She Wrote," Lansbury never won an Emmy Award for the role despite being repeatedly nominated. All told, Lansbury garnered 17 Emmy nominations for various TV projects. Lansbury was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1996. Lansbury's acting career began when she was a teen. She won early raves and her first Academy Award nomination playing a young maid alongside Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten in George Cukor's chilling 1944 classic "Gaslight." Angela Lansbury during The London-born actor was nominated for an Academy Award for a second time for her role in 1945s The Picture of Dorian Gray." She went on to appear in dozens more Hollywood movies, including "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), which earned her a third Oscar nomination, and Disney's whimsical "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). Lansbury famously voiced the role of the tenderhearted teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated musical "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) and later made a cameo in Disney's "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018). Her final Hollywood performance can be seen in the upcoming Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." Angela Lansbury accepts the Tony for best performance by a featured actress (Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images) Lansbury was even more celebrated as a Broadway actor, earning five Tony Awards for her performances in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), "Mame" (1966), "Dear World" (1969), "Gypsy" (1975) and "Blithe Spirit" (2009). Story continues Though a sensation in the U.S., Lansbury never lost touch with her British roots and continued to be popular back home. In a 2014 ceremony at Windsor Castle, the late Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the DBE (Dame Commander of the British Empire) honor on Lansbury. It is a very proud day for me to be recognized by the country of my birth, and to meet the queen under these circumstances is a rare and lovely occasion, Lansbury said that day. Lansbury is survived by her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, as well as three grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury. She was proceeded in death by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw. A private family ceremony will be held at a date to be determined, according to the family statement. This article was originally published on TODAY.com Jezebel In August, a pregnant Missouri woman named Mylissa Farmer suddenly needed an abortion, just over a month after her state enacted its near-total abortion ban. Her water had broken 17 weeks into her pregnancy, and her medical records indicated a number of health factors placing her at greater risk of pregnancy-related complications, including increased risk of sepsis, loss of her uterus, and even death. Farmer is also 41-years-old. Doctors treating her recommended an abortion, but, of course, coul Dan Proft, a Republican radio personality and former Illinois governor candidate, operates the People Who Play By The Rules PAC that is spending millions to defeat Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker. With early voting underway in Illinois and election day less than one month away, a Florida-based political action committee secured a multi-million dollar contribution last week to fuel its anti-Gov. JB Pritzker campaign. Now contributing more than $42 million in total, CEO and co-founder of shipping supply business Uline Richard Uihlein sent $13.9 million to the People Who Play By The Rules PAC on Wednesday. Created in March, the committee has led an advertising campaign to primarily attack Pritzker, a Democrat, on the SAFE-T Act and his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither Pritzker or Republican challenger state Sen. Darren Bailey have filed quarterly campaign finance reports that are due Oct. 17. However, the governor recently contributed $20 million of his personal wealth to his campaign, according to a Sept. 23 filing on the Illinois State Board of Elections website. Related:Illinois governor candidates JB Pritzker & Darren Bailey clash in first gubernatorial debate What is the People Who Play By the Rules PAC? The PAC is run by Republican radio personality Dan Proft, a former Illinois governor candidate now residing in Florida. With its funding, its primary expenses are for ad spots on television stations and streaming services such as Hulu and Peacock TV. Among its most well-known ads is titled the "Lakeview Scream," which shows doorbell video footage of a Lakeview woman being attacked claiming Pritzker's response to crime as governor has led to an increase of these instances and has been inadequate overall. The governor and victims' rights organizations voiced their displeasure with the 16-second spot ad and it was removed from the airwaves by NBC5 Chicago. The PAC's sole contributor is Uihlein, who also sent a $15 million contribution to the committee in July. His contributions to the PAC far outweigh the $10 million he has directly sent to Bailey's campaign, with only $1 million of that coming after the June primary. Uihlein is Bailey's largest contributor followed by Jean Bailey, the senator's mother. Story continues As an independent expenditure committee, People Who Play By The Rules can raise and spend unlimited amounts of funding but cannot coordinate directly with any individual candidate. Has former President Donald Trump contributed to the PAC, Bailey? As Pritzker noted during last week's governor debate at Illinois State University, Bailey secured the endorsement of former President Donald Trump prior to the primary. That endorsement came during a June rally in west central Illinois, where Bailey said Illinois would "roll out the red carpet" for Trump in 2024. Despite his backing, no contributions have come directly to Bailey's campaign and People Who Play By The Rules from the former president either before or after the primary. Trump, however, is supporting a recently formed super PAC called MAGA Inc. that placed ad buys in Ohio and Pennsylvania in their respective U.S. Senate races according to Politico. Bailey and Donald Trump Jr. both spoke at a Williamson County dinner last weekend, where the former president's son called on voters to back Bailey. Still, as reported by The Chicago Tribune, the candidate made no mention of Trump during his speech following suit with his remarks during the Illinois GOP Day at the state fair this August. A recent poll conducted by Emerson College found Bailey trailing Pritzker by 15 points. That gap is similar to President Joe Biden's margin of victory over Trump in Illinois in the 2020 election. Biden won Illinois by 17 points. Contact Patrick Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Millions contributed to Anti-Pritzker PAC: What to know "Dreamers" and student supporters rally at the Arizona state Capitol, asking legislators to support "Dreamers" so they can be eligible for in-state tuition and merit-based scholarships. Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. Thats why I have spent almost two decades advocating for in-state tuition for Dreamers Arizona students who were brought here as children from other countries, played with our kids at the playground and ran bases on the same Little League team, attended the same churches, shopped at the same stores, attended the same schools and got good grades. More than 20 states already do across all regional and partisan lines. They include Eastern states (Connecticut, New Jersey and New York) and Western (Oregon and New Mexico); north (Minnesota and Illinois) and Southern (Arkansas and Kentucky); the reddest states (Kansas, Nebraska and Utah) and the bluest (California, Maryland and New York). These states have decided to close the opportunity gap. And, in passing Proposition 308 which ensures in-state tuition rates for Arizona students on the November ballot we should too. Arizona's tuition policy is short-sighted This issue has been a long and winding road. Our history has been inconsistent and cruel. In 2006, Arizona passed Proposition 300, which prohibited Dreamers from receiving in-state tuition or any other state support to attend school. Prior to that time, Arizona offered in-state tuition to all qualified students, documented or not. Since that time, these qualified Arizona students have been told, You are not a resident of Arizona. You must pay more to attend a college or university. Prohibitively more. Another view: Prop. 308 could make illegal immigration worse So, most didnt. Meanwhile, conversely and ironically, the brightest among them left Arizona after capturing generous financial aid packages from other universities including the Ivy League. While our policy has been cruel, it has also been stupid, shortsighted and foolish. We're losing the talent we need to compete Future economic growth is about talent. We dont have Chinas and Indias size, and we dont have Asias low cost of production. We must compete on talent and on value inventing the ideas and products the rest of the world will buy. Story continues That is driven by education and college degree attainment. Arizona is currently 47th of the 50 states in education attainment rates. Currently, 46% of Arizona high school students get some college credits, compared with a 63% national average. Put more dramatically, at current trends, fewer than 1 in 6 of todays ninth graders will have obtained a university degree by 2029. Poll finds: Two-thirds support giving 'Dreamers' in-state tuition Arizona cant compete without keeping more talent. That includes the estimated more than 2,000 undocumented high school students who have demonstrated the capacity to perform academically, but who are priced out of university access. The business community gets it. The faith community gets it. The Arizona Board of Regents gets it and has been making the case for many years. Proposition 308 shows who we are now From polling, it appears that the public gets it, as Proposition 308 currently enjoys majority support. But we are the state of Sheriff Joe, Russell Pearce and Senate Bill 1070. All of these remind us who we once were. The defeat of Proposition 308 will unleash those in the fearful shadows who want to take us back. They will be empowered again. Conversely, passing Proposition 308 is common sense and an opportunity to show who we are now. Inclusive, humane and smart. Winning the future. Fred DuVal is an Arizona civic leader, former senior White House aide and gubernatorial candidate. He is serving his second term on the Arizona Board of Regents. On Twitter: @FredDuVal. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Prop. 308 gives 'Dreamers' equal opportunity to in-state tuition Tabitha Pennington joins fellow abortion rights demonstrators as they gather at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix on Sept. 24, 2022. We knew that this moment was coming. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, my candidacy for the Arizona Legislature became all the more critical. My fellow candidates supporting abortion rights and I knew the stakes had become even higher. The difference between electing a pro-abortion-rights majority and failing to do so is the difference between women having access to life-saving health care or being cut off from the treatment they need. For so many Arizonans, there is no option but to fight back against these attacks. Women need reproductive freedom As the former president of the Arizona chapter of National Organization for Women, I have had difficult conversations for years with people. In one instance, I remember learning about a married woman with two children who was forced to travel out of state to receive an unsafe abortion during the pre-Roe era, an abortion that she paid for with her life. It is no mystery what is going to happen now that abortion is outlawed. History will repeat itself. Clarity wanted: Call a special legislative session to address abortion laws? I have always fought for Arizona women. I wont stop now. I am profoundly aware of the impact that reproductive freedom has on Arizona families, knowing that the decision to start a family is deeply personal. Now, the state is preemptively deciding for us. Arizona abortion laws are unpopular, deadly The impact of abortion bans is felt hardest in marginalized communities, such as women living in poverty, women of color and the LGBTQ community. Even prior to the most restrictive bans on abortion, women sacrificed millions of dollars per year in economic power because of the abortion policies our current legislative majority has shepherded, championed and celebrated. When we force people to have children and they have no choice but to drop out of the workforce, they pay for it in wage loss, career growth and retirement savings. This serves as another stark reminder of just how important paid family leave is something many Arizonans go without. Story continues From Terech's opponent: Why Arizona should give teachers a giant pay raise Majority lawmakers have spent years passing laws designed to demolish abortion access the instant Roe v. Wade fell. This foreshadows what will happen if the current majority clings to power for even just one more year. As a result of the pre-statehood ban on abortion, emergency contraception and in-vitro fertilization could be in jeopardy for Arizonans. In other states with similar bans, the privacy of women is at risk and being monitored by the state. Doctors could face jail time for providing the care they know is best for patients. Not only is this pre-statehood law deadly, its also deeply unpopular and out of step with the voters I speak with every day. Voters know that the government has no right to make decisions for us in our doctors offices. Arizonans have always believed in individual freedom and personal liberties. Want a repeal? Elect us to pass one As evidenced by our ongoing megadrought and teacher shortage, I know there are a number of issues that must be addressed in the Arizona Legislature next year. As a former teacher in Arizona public schools, I know better than anyone how urgently we need to fix public education in our state. I also know that we have to take critical steps to manage our water supply and safeguard our voting rights. But we can't make progress if half of our population is relegated to the second class forced to carry to term pregnancies from rape or a nonviable pregnancy. In November, choice is on the ballot. The fate of Arizonans reproductive freedom has already been unjustly stripped away by the state Legislature and by the courts. Arizonans know we are headed in the wrong direction when an abortion ban from the Civil War era has been brought back to life. The Legislature is where access to reproductive care will be expanded or chipped away. Every legislator we elect who supports abortion access gets us one step closer to the repeal of the 1864 ban. Voters cant send back the same old, same old this time around. Lets build a better Arizona where people can choose if and how they want to grow their family. Laura Terech is the Democratic nominee for the Arizona House in Legislative District 4, which includes north Phoenix, Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. She has served as president of the Arizona chapter of the National Organization for Women. Reach her at lauraforaz@gmail.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Abortion access is the most urgent issue in Arizona legislative races Murray Hooper. The Arizona Supreme Court is set to meet Wednesday to decide whether the state can move forward with its third execution of the year. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a motion for a warrant of execution Aug. 26 for Murray Hooper. In the motion, the state said, Hoopers convictions and sentences have been affirmed, and his first post-conviction proceeding and federal habeas appeals have concluded. If the states top court grants the motion, the execution would likely be set for 35 days later. Hooper, 76, would mark the state's third execution since the botched execution of Joseph Wood in 2014. Clarence Dixon, 66, was executed May 11 and Frank Atwood, also 66, was executed June 8. Hooper was among three men convicted for the 1980 murders of Patrick Redmond and his mother-in-law, Helen Phelps, as they were preparing for a New Year's Eve party in Phoenix. The state alleged Hooper was one of several men hired by a Chicago crime organization to fly to Phoenix and murder Redmond to gain control of his printing business. Hooper claimed he was framed for the Redmond and Phelps murders after refusing to kill south Phoenix drug dealers on orders from the same Chicago mob. Redmond's wife was also shot and left for dead. But she survived and identified Hooper, William Bracy and Edward McCall, a former Phoenix police officer, as the killers. Bracy and McCall died in prison before their sentences could be carried out. Arizona's death row: These are the prisoners awaiting execution In 1983, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office called the murders "one of the most ruthless and heinous crimes committed in the history of Arizona." The county attorney cited several aggravating circumstances, including "mental torture and anguish" inflicted on the victims as reasons for seeking the death penalty. Attorneys for Hooper are asking the state Supreme Court to deny the motion for a warrant of execution, saying they were recently appointed and need more time to learn Hoopers voluminous file ... comprising nearly 100 banker's boxes. Story continues For 40 years, Mr. Hooper has maintained that he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death based on corrupt police practices and unreliable witness testimony, said Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelly Culshaw. She cited several examples from Hoopers case of co-conspirators who received immunity and extensive benefits, including money, and illegal perks such as sex and drugs, in exchange for their testimony against Hooper. Culshaw said no physical evidence links Hooper to the crime, and forthcoming information could prove his innocence. Multiple fingerprints were collected from the crime scene, which were not linked to Hooper, Bracy, or his other purported co-defendant, Edward McCall, Culshaw wrote in the response to the motion for the execution warrant. Significant technological advances in fingerprint identification have occurred since 1982. These advanced forensic testing methods may identify the actual perpetrators and exclude Hooper. Culshaw said a knife from the scene of the murders was collected but never tested for DNA. The Arizona Supreme Court should deny the States request to set an execution date for Mr. Hooper until an analysis of key fingerprint and DNA evidence, which was scientifically unavailable at the time of his trial, has been completed and his new legal team has adequate time to review the evidence in support of his steadfast claim of innocence, Culshaw said. There are 111 people on Arizona's death row, 22 of whom have exhausted their appeals, according to the Arizona Attorney General's Office. Have a news tip on Arizona prisons? Reach the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or at 812-243-5582. Follow him on Twitter @JimmyJenkins. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: AZ Supreme Court to decide on AGs request to execute Murray Hooper An Army base in Washington state spent part of the long holiday weekend searching for a missing part to a .50-caliber machine gun, the latest incident after the service was criticized for lost weapons. Soldiers with Joint Base Lewis-McChord's 1-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, or "Ghost" Brigade, had their four-day weekend cut short on Friday for what soldiers lamented as a classic Army debacle involving the missing piece of equipment, a firestorm of rumors and what one soldier described as an out-of-season "Easter egg hunt." The receiver assembly of an M2 .50-caliber machine gun went missing from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment's staff duty area and triggered an all-hands search that, for most of the rank and file, lasted a little over 12 hours. But it resulted in an Army investigation that was still ongoing Monday. Read Next: Senior Leaders Should Stay Out of 'Culture Wars' on Social Media, Army Secretary Says The receiver assembly is essentially useless on its own but had not been found, according to 7th Infantry Division spokesperson Maj. Bryen Freigo. A judge advocate's recommendation for a search of the base indicated the weapon component had likely been stolen. The Department of Defense, specifically the Army, has come under criticism over its firearm safekeeping over the last year following reporting by The Associated Press exposing a decade-long effort to downplay the number of lost or stolen firearms from units across the country. For 2-3 Infantry, along with sister battalions in 1-2 SBCT, the scare started as soldiers were gearing up for the unit's upcoming Expert Infantry and Expert Soldier Badge qualifications, two Army special skills badges. Operation of an M2 .50-caliber machine gun is part of the qualification. According to Freigo, the plan was to leave the gun with staff duty -- a 24-hour posting that typically includes one noncommissioned officer, two soldiers and one officer meant to field emergencies or reports after duty hours -- in the event that off-duty troops wanted to practice operating the weapon during the four-day weekend. Story continues "In preparation for testing, an M2 had been signed over to staff duty to allow soldiers to train for testing through the weekend," Freigo told Military.com over email. A soldier allegedly took the receiver, which was out of the sight of the staff duty troops. This "created an opportunity for one awful person to create chaos," one soldier involved in the search told Military.com. It is unclear why or exactly when the soldier took the component. Freigo said that staff duty discovered the component was missing and notified their chain of command. "Per policy, the brigade had been recalled to aid in the search for the sensitive item," he added. In official statements, the Army did not say that the weapon was stolen, but the day it went missing, the brigade judge advocate recommended a probable cause search in a memo to 1-2 SBCT commander Col. Kwenton Kuhlman that was posted online and verified by Military.com. "Based on the sworn statements positively identifying a servicemember attempting to carry a .50-cal weapon system into the barracks and the fact that we have information that the weapon system has since moved around the footprint to circumvent discovery, you have probable cause to search the entire host footprint for the .50-cal weapon system that went missing from 2-3 IN's Staff Duty Desk this morning, to include offices, barracks, motor pools, parking lots, and vehicles parked in those parking lots," the memo said. A search for the receiver ensued, and soldiers from 2-3 Infantry were called in to look for it. Later in the day, when it still hadn't been found, the rest of "Ghost" Brigade was recalled to look too. A culprit was identified that afternoon, according to a soldier involved in the search. By evening, the soldier had allegedly confessed to tossing the receiver into a dumpster. At some point, the trash bin had been emptied and its contents -- including the machine gun part -- had been hauled away. "Everyone obviously looked in their own arms room [but] very early on there were indicators that the dumpsters were important," the soldier told Military.com. "Whether they were full or whether they were empty, obviously it sucked. That culminated in an hour. "I mean, there's only so many places you can f---ing look," the soldier added. While the search authorization memo said ".50-cal system," Freigo confirmed to Military.com that it was just the receiver, a part of the weapon that houses the components that make it fire. "Unit personnel were released later in the day after an extensive search of the brigade area was unsuccessful," Freigo said. "The receiver has not been recovered as of Oct. 10, and an investigation remains ongoing." The chaos resulted in many soldiers taking to social media to feed and stoke the rumor mill. In the Army, when equipment gets lost, the response is typically to gather a group of soldiers to find the item that grows larger the longer the item remains missing. The shared punishment often results in frustration among those ripped from other tasks -- or in this case, a day off. But it also leads to what many service members call RUMINT, or rumor intelligence, about the event and alleged perpetrator. One of the first instances of online scuttlebutt was a Reddit post titled, "Who else lost their four-day weekend to a stolen 50?" From there, several soldiers tapped into social media to weigh in -- some alleging to know the rank and the state of mind of the alleged perpetrator, as well as what staff duty was doing when the component went missing. Military.com cannot independently confirm these rumors, and the spokesperson for 7th ID, Freigo, did not comment on them, presumably because the investigation is ongoing. The M2 is a belt-fed heavy machine gun that fires a .50-caliber round. The system can be used for both dismounted and mounted operations. For an organization like 1-2 SBCT, it is one of the primary methods of direct contact at the line level. "A .50 cal is nuts to go missing," the soldier told Military.com, though it was only the receiver. "The searching was silly. ... The guidance was to go walk around and look for it like you're doing an Easter egg hunt. "And then the part that was frustrating for everybody was once it was confirmed that there was somebody in custody," he added. "There was a long time between when that allegedly happened and when people were allowed to go home." While details are still coming to light, what many might see as a frustrating and fruitless saga at the unit level tapped into an organization-wide issue of weapon accountability. The AP, in its reporting last year, found the Army had by far the highest number of weapons go missing from arms rooms across the force in the 2010s. Could a missing receiver from JBLM end up on the street in a crime? Chances are slim, but the AP investigation revealed that the circumstances in which weapons go missing can vary and, at the very least, the systems that account for them can be deeply flawed. -- Drew F. Lawrence can be reached at drew.lawrence@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @df_lawrence. -- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon. Related: Civilian Finds Rifle Left in Unlocked Vehicle by Guardsman on Border Mission SYDNEY (Reuters) - Passenger airline traffic in the Asia-Pacific region should recover to around 73% of 2019 levels by year-end as travel restrictions relax, up from 53% in August, the Asia-Pacific head of airline industry group IATA said on Tuesday. "There is no mistaking I think the momentum is very strong especially with all major markets in the Asia-Pacific now open except for China," IATA Regional Vice President, Asia Pacific, Philip Goh told reporters on a webinar. Asia's aviation recovery has lagged other parts of the world in large part because of China's ongoing border closures that have kept its international passenger numbers averaging only 2% to 3% of pre-pandemic levels, according to IATA data. The year-end traffic estimate is based on China opening its borders soon, though the actual date remains unclear, Goh said. In positive news for airlines, Japan resumed visa-free travel for tourists on Tuesday, Taiwan will end quarantine for arrivals on Thursday and Hong Kong stopped quarantine last month. International passenger traffic in the region was at 38% of 2019 levels in August, according to IATA, which estimates it will take until 2025 to reach pre-pandemic levels. (This story has been corrected to fix international traffic levels to 38% from 35% in paragraph 6) (Reporting by Jamie Freed; Editing by Tom Hogue, Kirsten Donovan) Hundreds of University of Georgia students are supposed to be living in an off-campus apartment building that at the moment is still an active construction zone. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Channel 2s Veronica Griffin was in Athens, where students said the builders have missed the deadline to finish for months. Students hoping to call The William home said management is not talking, and they want to know if they will be able to move in on Saturday as promised. Were still not sure when were going to move in, Ethan Weissman said. TRENDING STORIES Weissman stopped by the construction zone near the UGA campus on Tuesday, hoping for a sign that the building will be ready to open this weekend. Weissman is one of close to 340 other UGA students who paid deposits and rent to move into the new construction community ahead of the fall semester. But the grand opening didnt happen. Weissman and several other students told Channel 2 Action News that they were given a new move-in more than once, with the latest one set for Oct. 15. It seems their lower floors arent finished at all, Weissman said. " They need appliances and floors still and stuff like that. So I highly doubt that they have a certificate of occupancy, which theyve been saying they need. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Griffin stopped by the management office to ask when the building will be ready to open and was told no comment at this time. With Oct. 15 just days away, students and parents are concerned it just might not happen. Its frustrating enough that theyre in the situation that theyre in, but when you add on top of that complete non-communication, it makes it more stressful, because we dont know what the next step is, UGA parent Keith Westphal said. Griffin reached out to the city/county permitting office Tuesday and was told a final inspection has not been ordered yet and that the entire inside and exterior must pass the final inspection before the building can open to residents. I feel lied to, Weissman said. I feel also, like, very confused and anxious about whats going to happen next. For all the lofty talk, dirty deeds remain the hallmark of US policy: China Daily editorial Chinadaily.com.cn) 08:29, October 11, 2022 United States President Joe Biden has on many occasions claimed his government doesn't seek a new Cold War with China. His administration's China policy, as Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both repeatedly maintained, is to compete and cooperate wherever necessary. US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said the other day that the US administration doesn't have a policy to decouple from China. Things would be a lot better for both countries if those claims held true. But that's not the case, at least in the technology sector, where the US government is doubling down on its efforts to throttle Chinese ambitions for advancement. On Wednesday, in a bid to "highlight and counter the People's Republic of China's military-civil fusion strategy", the US Defense Department added 13 more Chinese companies, including the civilian drone maker DJI Technology, to a blacklist that subjects them to an investment ban. On Friday, the US Commerce Department announced a sweeping set of more aggressive export controls aimed at limiting Chinese access to the most advanced chips and the tools needed to develop its own. Under the new rules, toolmakers will have to stop shipping equipment to wholly Chinese-owned factories producing advanced logic chips, and chipmakers will be prohibited from providing advanced chips made anywhere with US equipment. Also on Friday, 31 other Chinese tech companies, such as leading domestic chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp, were put on a list of entities that US officials "cannot inspect" and may face tougher restrictions for that reason. The moves are the latest in a series allegedly targeted at the "nefarious end use" of technology and with the aim of ensuring "companies across the globe operate on a level playing field". In reality the latest slew of US hurdles are meant to substantially slow down the pace of Chinese technological progress particularly in relation to supercomputing and military applications. No wonder a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman called the move an abuse of trade measures designed to reinforce the US' "technological hegemony". They are not fair play, but straightforward, undisguised suppression. Contrary to its rhetoric, the current US administration has actually maneuvered the biggest shift in US policy on technological exchanges with China since the 1990s. But while the US moves will no doubt disrupt global supplies and frustrate the Chinese chip sector in the short term, they are unlikely to impede China's technological advancement in the long run. And China will not be the only victim. The US tech sector, which has benefited tremendously from the robust Chinese market, will also suffer, as the US government's abusive use of the foreign direct product rule, on which the US controls are based, will gradually erode the advantages of US technologies. Unless the US government can make sure it has watertight control over global technological progress and the international market, the rigid control regime will ultimately undermine US companies' competitiveness and hence US technological leadership. (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Du Mingming) High: 90oF | Low: 73oF Synopsis: Moisture and instability associated with a trough of low pressure will support cloudiness and showers across the Leeward Islands and British Virgin Islands Weather Today: Partly cloudy with a 60 percent or a moderate chance of showers. Weather Tonight: Cloudy spells with showers. Winds: East-northeast at 13 to 26 km/h or 8 to 16 mph. Seas: 1.2 to 1.5 metres or 4 to 5 feet. Sunset Today: 6:05 pm. Sunrise Tomorrow: 6:09 am. Forecast issued at 2:16 AM, AST October 3, 2022 Valid up to 8 am tomorrow Tuesday 4th October 2022. Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services Forecast issued by: Orvin Paige-Forecaster BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Any attack on infrastructure critical to the NATO military alliance would trigger a "united and determined response", the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. Stoltenberg told a news conference that NATO allies were increasing security around key installations after attacks on gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea. It is still unclear who was behind the blowing up of the pipelines. Commenting on veiled threats of nuclear weapons use by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Stoltenberg said that NATO was closely monitoring Russia's nuclear forces and had not seen any changes in their posture. (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by John Chalmers) Assault on Precinct 13 starred Stoker as an honest cop defending a police station from a violent siege (The Movie Partnership) Austin Stoker, the Trinidadian-American actor best known for his starring role in John Carpenters Assault on Precinct 13, has died at the age of 92. News of his death was announced on Facebook by Robin Stoker, his wife of 43 years. Stoker died of renal failure at the Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles on Friday 7 October, surrounded by loved ones. Born Alphonso Marshall in Trinidad on 7 October 1930, Stoker moved to New York to pursue a career as an actor after serving in the US military. He had a prominent role in 1973s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, playing Macdonald, a human who serves Roddy McDowalls ape Caesar. For many, though, Stoker is best remembered for his role in Assault on Presinct 13. In the groundbreaking thriller, Stoker played Ethan Bishop, a cop who defends a police station under seige from a violent street gang. In 1977, Stoker also had a role in the seminal ABC miniseries Roots, as the father of Olivia Coles character Mathilda. Stoker in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (2005 Twentieth Century Fox) Stokers other projects included the films Sheba, Baby and Horror High, and TV series such as The Six Million Dollar Man and The Incredible Hulk. He continued working into old age, with his most recent acting credit coming in this years Give Till It Hurts. Stoker is survived by his wife, Robin, his children, Tiffany and Origen, and his grandsons, Marcus and Austin. Baltimore prosecutors have dropped the charges against Adnan Syed, who was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 1999. The Baltimore City State Attorneys Office dropped the charges against Syed on Tuesday. Syed was sentenced to life in prison in 2000 at the age of 17 after he was found guilty of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment. Syeds case, which became the subject of the first season of the hit podcast Serial, gained national attention in 2014. The case was also turned into a 2019 HBO docuseries titled The Case Against Adnan Syed. More from NextShark: Identity of man who made anti-Asian remark, bumped into 62-year-old in Flushing sought by NYPD After spending 23 years in prison, he was released on Sept. 19 after his conviction was overturned when it was revealed that trial prosecutors failed to properly turn over evidence to defense lawyers that could have pointed to other suspects in Lees murder. City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn gave prosecutors 30 days to decide whether to push for a new trial or dismiss the charges. On Tuesday morning, the office confirmed that they had dropped the charges against Syed. According to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, the states attorney reportedly dropped the charges due to the new results of DNA testing that excluded Mr. Syed from the DNA recovered from the evidence. More from NextShark: Why Chess Genius Wesley So is Representing the US and Not the Philippines Finally, Adnan Syed is able to live as a free man, Erica J. Suter, Syeds lawyer, reportedly said in a statement. The DNA results confirmed what we have already known and what underlies all of the current proceedings: that Adnan is innocent and lost 23 years of his life serving time for a crime he did not commit. At the hearing last month, Becky Feldman, a prosecutor in the states attorneys office, said that the investigation acknowledged justice has been denied to Ms. Lee and her family by not assuring the correct assailant was brought to justice. Story continues The state has lost confidence in the integrity of this conviction and believes that it is in the interest of justice and fairness that his convictions be vacated, Feldman previously stated. More from NextShark: 'Mulan' Star Tzi Ma is Racially Harassed at Pasadena Whole Foods Syed was released without bail and placed on home detention with GPS location monitoring. Syed previously attended Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County with Lee. Her strangled body was discovered in a clandestine grave in Leakin Park three weeks after she disappeared in January 1999. At the time, police suspected Syed to be the killer due to his purported emotional state after their breakup. More from NextShark: Could I decide I was an Asian man?: Sen. Ted Cruzs question during SCOTUS nominee hearing goes viral Featured Image via Today Investors are often guided by the idea of discovering 'the next big thing', even if that means buying 'story stocks' without any revenue, let alone profit. But as Peter Lynch said in One Up On Wall Street, 'Long shots almost never pay off.' A loss-making company is yet to prove itself with profit, and eventually the inflow of external capital may dry up. Despite being in the age of tech-stock blue-sky investing, many investors still adopt a more traditional strategy; buying shares in profitable companies like Bank of Georgia Group (LON:BGEO). Even if this company is fairly valued by the market, investors would agree that generating consistent profits will continue to provide Bank of Georgia Group with the means to add long-term value to shareholders. See our latest analysis for Bank of Georgia Group How Quickly Is Bank of Georgia Group Increasing Earnings Per Share? Generally, companies experiencing growth in earnings per share (EPS) should see similar trends in share price. Therefore, there are plenty of investors who like to buy shares in companies that are growing EPS. It certainly is nice to see that Bank of Georgia Group has managed to grow EPS by 29% per year over three years. If the company can sustain that sort of growth, we'd expect shareholders to come away satisfied. Top-line growth is a great indicator that growth is sustainable, and combined with a high earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margin, it's a great way for a company to maintain a competitive advantage in the market. Not all of Bank of Georgia Group's revenue this year is revenue from operations, so keep in mind the revenue and margin numbers used in this article might not be the best representation of the underlying business. Bank of Georgia Group maintained stable EBIT margins over the last year, all while growing revenue 30% to GEL1.6b. That's progress. The chart below shows how the company's bottom and top lines have progressed over time. For finer detail, click on the image. Story continues While we live in the present moment, there's little doubt that the future matters most in the investment decision process. So why not check this interactive chart depicting future EPS estimates, for Bank of Georgia Group? Are Bank of Georgia Group Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders? Does Bank of Georgia Group Deserve A Spot On Your Watchlist? If you believe that share price follows earnings per share you should definitely be delving further into Bank of Georgia Group's strong EPS growth. Don't forget that there may still be risks. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Bank of Georgia Group that you should be aware of. Although Bank of Georgia Group certainly looks good, it may appeal to more investors if insiders were buying up shares. If you like to see insider buying, then this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying, could be exactly what you're looking for. Please note the insider transactions discussed in this article refer to reportable transactions in the relevant jurisdiction. 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 UKRAINSKA PRAVDA TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 13:47 By decree of the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, the Armed Forces of Belarus will be inspected starting on 11 October. Source: press service of the Ministry of Defence of Belarus Details: According to the Ministry of Defence, during the inspection, military units will work on achieving combat readiness, marching, and "deployment in designated areas with the implementation of combat training tasks." The inspection is necessary to determine the militarys readiness to perform its tasks, the Belarusian Defence Ministry added. Background: On 10 October, the Minister of Defence of Belarus, Viktor Khrenin, issued a separate statement, warning that Ukraine should not take "wrong steps and provoke Belarus" in order to avoid war. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! IRYNA BALACHUK TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 12:23 The Chairman of the State Security Committee of Belarus, Ivan Tertel, believes that the turning point in the Russian war in Ukraine may come in the period from November to February. Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news outlet RIA Novosti; Ministry of Defence of Belarus, on Telegram Quote from Tertel: "If the Russian Federation conducts high-quality mobilisation and provides its forces with technical means and advanced weapons, then the fighting will enter a key phase. According to our estimates, there will be a turning point between November of this year and February of next year." Details: For its part, the Belarusian Defence Ministry quotes the statement of the State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus, Alexander Volfovich, that Ukraine is allegedly trying to strike at Belarus and that NATO and European countries are allegedly "openly considering possible options for aggression" against the Republic of Belarus. Quote from Volfovich: "The highest echelons of Ukrainian authorities are also discussing the possibility of striking at Belarus, primarily using our fugitives who are currently in Ukraine: the Kastus Kalinouski Regiment, Litvin's Battalion and other illegal armed groups." Details: The Belarusian Defence Minister, Viktor Khrenin, once again repeated the narrative of the self-proclaimed president of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, to the effect that the tasks of the countrys regional troop formations are alleged "purely defensive". The leaders of Belarus also claim that all the measures being carried out now are allegedly aimed at "an adequate response to actions near the Belarusian borders." Background: On 30 September, the head of the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, Kyriylo Budanov, said that Ukraine will come back to occupied Crimea this will happen with weapons and quite soon. Story continues According to his prediction, the war will largely subside in the winter, but after that, the end of this conflict will begin by restoring Ukraines national borders to what they were [when the country became independent - ed.] in 1991. Budanov believes that the liberation of Crimea will take place "not in the summer, but by the end of spring or perhaps even a little earlier." Background: On 10 October, the self-proclaimed president of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, met with the Belarusian military and security forces, whom he told that on the day before, he had asked to send a threat to the president of Ukraine that "the Crimean Bridge will seem like flowers" if the Ukrainians encroach on the territory of Belarus. He also said that Russia and Belarus have agreed to deploy a joint regional group of troops, and he announced that soon the Russian military will return to his country. Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin separately warned Ukraine not to take "wrong steps and provoke Belarus", in order to avoid war. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Maxim Guchek/Belta/AFP via Getty Images The authoritarian president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, said on Monday he is forming a "joint regional group of troops" with Russia to head off "possible aggression against our country" by Ukraine and NATO. "This won't be just 1,000 troops," Lukashenko said. His comments, reported by the state news agency Belta, are "stirring speculation that Belarus might send troops into Ukraine to help Russia's flailing military campaign," The New York Times' Andrew Higgins writes. Lukashenko has not yet sent Belarusian troops to Ukraine, which shares a border with Belarus, and told his military chiefs on Monday to "be ready to receive" the newly drafted Russian soldiers who have been called up to go to Ukraine. Lukashenko also claimed without citing any evidence that Ukraine has been planning attacks against Belarus. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, a Belarusian opposition leader, said Ukraine "doesn't pose a threat to Belarus. It's a lie. I urge the Belarusian military: Don't follow criminal orders, refuse to participate in Putin's war against our neighbors." Lukashenko met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg over the weekend, and at the time, Belarusian state media reported that he "stressed the need to take measures in case of the deployment of nuclear weapons in Poland." Lukashenko depends on money, gas, and security assistance from Moscow, and the Times says some analysts believe this was a signal the ground is being prepared for the possible deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. Leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, tens of thousands of Russian troops were moved to Belarus, and the country's territory was used to launch Putin's initial, failed assault on Kyiv. Andrei Sannikov, a former deputy foreign minister who fled Belarus after being jailed, told the Times that Lukashenko is in an unenviable position Russia, which is losing ground it captured in Ukraine, is pressuring him to send his own troops to fight, but he knows that even his loyalists would be upset if he sent Belarusian troops to Ukraine. Story continues Sannikov said he believes Lukashenko "has no real choice," and "his boots will inevitably be on the ground in Ukraine." He is "not taking decisions on the war," Sannikov added. "Putin takes all the decisions and tells Lukashenko what to do." You may also like Did Trump's 'death wish' comment toward McConnell go too far? New documents raise more questions about Ron DeSantis' migrant flights 5 scathing cartoons about the Herschel Walker abortion allegations For the first time ever, the entire New Testament of the Bible will be spoken aloud word for word, by memory, on stage. Tom Meyer, a professor of Bible studies from northern Kentucky, had the idea of bringing people together to recite Gods word without a script. With help from the ICR Discovery Center for Earth and Science, a museum in Dallas, Texas, Meyer is hosting an event for the entire community to see, in person and via live stream, beginning on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, as the New Testament is spoken aloud fully and completely from memory. He and six other God-loving civilians will be taking turns as they recite the New Testament out loud from memory. AMERICA NEEDS A RELIGIOUS AWAKENING Meyer, also known as the "Bible Memory Man," told Fox News Digital in a phone interview a few days ago that he has been studying the most popular book in the world for many years, noting he wanted to host the event for many reasons. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "We live in a copy, paste, Facebook, tweet, follow, forget world," he said. "We dont live in an oral world anymore, so we dont have to remember it." Meyer said that he wants people to know that memorization of this particular book is important, as the Bible was not meant for eyes but for ears. WHAT ARE ANGEL NUMBERS AND WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP SEEING THEM? Meyer said the other interesting part of this event is that the people reciting the book arent professionals, but rather regular civilians. With the idea in the making for a year-and-a-half, Meyer worked to find six other people who could contribute to the reciting event. "No single human being can memorize all 27 books and 8,000 verses Its impossible for one human being to do that," he said. The New Testament of the Bible includes 27 books and over 180,000 words. Meyer said he has been studying the Bible for decades. He said it took him 20 years to memorize 20 books. So, how did he find others to contribute? Meyer said that during his journey of studying the Gospel, he simply asked God for direction and that God delivered. Story continues "I got a piece of fan mail from a stranger in Kokomo, Indiana, a retired schoolteacher who knows [the Book of] Matthew from memory," he said. "So, God just started putting these pieces of the puzzle together." AINSLEY EARHARDT OF FOX & FRIENDS REVEALS STRONG FAITH BEHIND HER NEW BOOK, IM SO GLAD YOU WERE BORN' Meyers said all seven of the individuals participating in this week's event already know their parts by heart, so no last-minute crash study sessions are necessary. The individuals are from all over the country. "Elizabeth is a grandma from New Jersey. Brittany is a church secretary in Houston, Texas. Scott is a retired schoolteacher in Kokomo, Indiana," said Meyer. "These are ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing," he said. The event will take place over four days beginning on October 11. Each day will include hours of a specific set of Scripture from two to three individuals. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP For more information on the event or how to access the live stream, visit ICR.org. U.S. President Joe Biden Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Republicans claimed Biden's student-debt relief should be blocked because it was a political move. In a legal filing, Biden said that argument is "unsurprising and legally insignificant." A judge is set to hear arguments this week on whether to halt the loan forgiveness. If President Joe Biden is worried about Republican attempts to block his student-loan forgiveness, he's not showing it. On Wednesday, a federal judge is expected to hear oral arguments from six Republican-led states who filed a lawsuit seeking to halt debt cancellation because the policy would hurt their states' tax revenues, among other things. It's one of at least five major lawsuits that have been filed so far with the same goal, and while a judge has struck down two of them because the plaintiffs did not have standing, Republicans are continuing to pursue every route they can think of to stop the debt relief. In anticipation of the Wednesday hearing, Biden's administration filed its first legal defense of its $20,000 student-loan forgiveness plan and pushed back on every claim Republicans have made so far, including that canceling student debt is a political tool to advance Biden's agenda. "That the policy is consistent with one of 'the President's policy goals,' is both unsurprising and legally insignificant," the defense stated. It went on to cite a brief from the Department of Commerce that noted that policymaking is not "'unaffected by political considerations or the presence of Presidential power,' and there would be nothing problematic even if an agency action were 'informed by unstated considerations' of, among other things, 'politics, the legislative process, public relations, [and] interest group relations.'" As the filing noted, canceling student debt has been one of Biden's goals even before he took office. On the campaign trail, he pledged to approve $10,000 in student-loan forgiveness for federal borrowers, and before that policy was enacted, he implemented targeted debt relief for borrowers defrauded by for-profit schools and borrowers with disabilities. Story continues But given the timing of his announcement of broad debt cancellation at the end of August just months before the midterm elections Republicans have been criticizing it as a potential political motive. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, for example, called it a "bribe" to voters leading up to the announcement, and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said that "Biden wants to raid the treasury to bribe his progressive base to turn out for the midterms." The most recent lawsuit against debt relief filed by the Job Creators Network on Monday said that the relief was announced with the goal of implementing the policy before the November midterms to help Democrats win votes. But some Democratic lawmakers have acknowledged the political benefits to the relief and they said it's a good thing. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told The Atlantic at the beginning of the year that implementing loan forgiveness will show a lot of people that Biden is on their side. "Canceling student-loan debt for more than 40 million Americans would persuade a lot of young people that this president is in the fight for them," she said. Read the original article on Business Insider President Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a rational actor but said he miscalculated with his decision to invade Ukraine. I think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly, Biden told CNNs Jake Tapper, according to an excerpt released ahead of an interview that will air on Tuesday. The president also called Putins speech just before Russia launched its invasion in February irrational. You listen to what he says. If you listen to the speech he made I mean, its just, I just think its irrational, Biden said. I think the speech, his objectives were not rational. I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated. His comments come as Putin has launched dozens of missiles that landed in cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, since Monday. Before the CNN interview on Tuesday, Biden met with Group of Seven leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The president and allies vowed in the virtual meeting to hold Russia accountable if it follows through on threats to use nuclear weapons amid the war in Ukraine. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday to congratulate them over what the United States sees as a historic breakthrough over the two countries' maritime border. "After months of mediation by the United States, the governments of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to formally end their maritime boundary dispute and establish a permanent maritime boundary between them," Biden said in a statement after speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Lebanon President Michel Aoud. Briefing reporters, a senior Biden administration official said the agreement would provide Lebanon with fresh potential for foreign direct investment, particularly in the energy sector. Israel will be compensated for any share of hydrocarbons found on its side of the Mediterranean border, the official said. In addition, Israel will maintain "its security mechanisms and infrastructure that they need to make sure their shoreline is protected," the official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the deal was not easy to negotiate and there may be difficult moments ahead. The official said the United States would continue to play a mediating role as needed. "This is not a direct bilateral agreement. It is through the United States, but it is a marking of boundary that will allow both countries to pursue their economic interests without conflict. That is the goal," the official said. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Mark Porter) The Biden administration introduced a new regulation Tuesday that would make it harder for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid minimum wage and overtime laws. The proposal from the White House would replace an earlier, more business-friendly rule created by the Trump administration that set looser guidelines around who could be considered a contractor in the workplace. Labor Department officials said the previous administrations rule increased the likelihood of workers being exploited. Employers often mislabel their workers as contractors in order to evade workplace laws or shift certain costs of employment onto workers. Gig companies like Uber and Lyft have been fighting misclassification lawsuits for years and have battled both state and federal officials over tighter regulations. While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors, particularly among our nations most vulnerable workers, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said in a statement. The rule must undergo a public comment period before officials can finalize and implement it. The proposal essentially articulates how the Labor Department views the independent contractor issue. It pertains only to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the New Deal-era law that created a federal minimum wage and ensured workers receive premium pay for working extra hours. It would not apply to other federal workplace laws or make it easier for workers labeled contractors to form unions. But the new federal guidelines, if implemented, could make it easier for more workers to pursue complaints or lawsuits against their employers if they believe theyve been shorted on their paychecks. It could also impact the way state and local officials craft legislation aimed at cracking down on misclassification. The White House says Trump made it too easy for companies to misclassify workers and get away with dodging minimum wage and overtime laws. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images) The White House says Trump made it too easy for companies to misclassify workers and get away with dodging minimum wage and overtime laws. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images) Story continues Although the gig platforms may be the best-known users of independent contractors, the practice has been ingrained in the transportation and health care sectors for many years. The Labor Department estimates that 22 million people are labeled as contractors. In the proposal, officials pointed to an assessment from the National Employment Law Project that anywhere from 10% to 30% of them are misclassified and should be considered employees. Workers of color are hurt more by the practice because of the industries where its most prevalent, like agriculture, construction and trucking. Seema Nanda, the Labor Departments solicitor, said on a call with reporters Tuesday that the Trump regulation had made it too easy to get away with misclassifying workers when it comes to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The 2021 independent contractor rule is out of sync with what the courts have been saying for decades, she said. And we believe that disconnect ... increases the likelihood of misclassification, which hurts workers and their families. The new rule would broaden the criteria that could be considered when determining whether someone is a legitimate contractor or a misclassified employee, like how much control they have over their schedule and work, whether they have the ability to work for other companies and how permanent the working relationship is. To be an independent contractor ... a worker must be in business for themself, Jessica Looman, the acting head of the Labor Departments Wage and Hour Division, said on the call. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. A wahoo fish weighing over 100lbs has smashed a more than decades long record at an annual competition in Destin, Florida, organisers have said. The record for the biggest wahoo a type of tropical and subtropical fish was broken by a father and his two sons on Saturday at the Destin Fishing Rodeo, an annual competition. Organisers of the rodeo said in a Facebook post: Rodeo record Wahoo caught today. 101 lbs by angler Derrick Dover on Muscle Memories! Congratulations guys! Great Catch! The previous record for a wahoo was set in 2010 by Omar Breiz of Mary Esther, who NWF Daily News reported caught an 98.2lb wahoo aboard the Dont Hate, captained by Scott Whitehurst. Speaking in an interview with the local news outlet, Mr Dover said he could not have anticipated the 101lb wahoo he caught on Saturday about 30 miles southwest of Destin. The man was fishing with his brother and captain Andrew Dover along with their father on board the Muscle Memories. We were trying to get some nice groupers, but it was happening, said Mr Dover to the news site. We were in the same area. ... It took off and just kept going. I thought, Oh this is a big one Mr Dover said he thought the fish would get away but managed to reel the 101lb beast in, which he managed to get a glimpse of underneath the motor of his boat. He was down deep under the motor, said the fisherman. He was huge...After dad stuck the gaff in him, he was done. The family trio eventually managed to get the fish onboard their boat before taking it back to shore to be weighed in Destin, which has hosted 74 additions of the rodeo. Pictures shared to social media by the competitions organisers should the size of the wahoo which was longer than Mr Dover is tall. The wahoo was not the only big catch at the rodeo after a grouper fish weighing more than 300lbs was caught on Sunday, requiring five people to bring the fish onboard a boat, social media posts said. That did not break a record however, reports said. Blink-182 have announced their biggest world tour yet, along with new music coming in 2023. The US band will return for a major tour that will see the reunion of Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker for the first time in 10 years. In the UK and Ireland, the band will visit venues across London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast Dublin throughout September and October 2023. The multi-platinum, award-winning group will also play their first ever performances in Latin America, along with stops in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand starting March 2023 through February 2024. The band will also drop their new single Edging this Friday (14 October), marking the first time in a decade that Hoppus, DeLonge and Barker have been in the studio together. The tour announcement also features multiple festival appearances in Latin America and the US, including the highly acclaimed Lollapalooza. Tickets will go on sale on Monday 17 October 10am local time here. LYMAN, Ukraine (AP) Covered head-to-toe in protective suits, forensic workers pulled several bodies wrapped in black plastic from a mass grave Tuesday in Ukraine's devastated city of Lyman, part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Ten body bags lay beside a roughly 100-foot (30-meter) trench from which authorities said 32 bodies have been exhumed so far in the city in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. The bodies were Ukrainian soldiers who had been buried together in a mass grave, the head of the Donetsk regions military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in Lyman on Tuesday. Another 22 civilians have been exhumed from individual graves at the burial site, located on the edge of a cemetery in a forested area on the outskirts of Lyman. Further exhumations are planned. The burial site was the second found in Lyman so far, Kyrylenko said, adding that initial investigations suggested the bodies had been buried by local residents and not by Russians. We have already found more than 50 bodies of soldiers and civilians, he said. We have one long trench or mass grave ... We are finding bodies and parts of bodies here. Lyman was liberated by Ukrainian forces at the end of September as part of a rapid Ukrainian counteroffensive which recaptured swaths of the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions from Russian control. As Ukrainian authorities entered the city, they found that many civilian residents had been killed by shelling. Others, mostly older people, had died during the Russian occupation because of a lack of food and medicine, Mark Tkachenko, communications inspector for the Kramatorsk district police of the Donetsk region, told The Associated Press last week. The destruction in Lyman, a key rail and transit hub, is so widespread that large portions of the city have been completely destroyed. Ukrainian authorities are now working to restore basic infrastructure and investigate how civilians lived and died during the Russian occupation. Story continues Forensic investigators on Tuesday lifted a black plastic bag from the trench and unzipped it to reveal a decomposed body in a bloody uniform of the Ukrainian armed forces. The remains were briefly inspected by investigators, then placed in another body bag and set among several others beside the trench. Authorities said children have been found among the dead, and that most victims appeared to have died as the result of the heavy shelling that besieged the city for months. They were cautious in describing whether any of the bodies exhumed Tuesday showed signs of having been executed or subjected to torture, emphasizing that the investigation was still in its early stages. Other towns in Ukraine liberated from Russian occupation such as Bucha, northwest of the capital of Kyiv, and Izium in the Kharkiv region are now the sites of war crimes investigations. ___ Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The latest version of the U.S. Senate's defense bill does not contain an amendment to extend a December deadline for Boeing Co to win regulatory approval for the 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 jetliners, according to sources and documents seen by Reuters. Late last month, Republican Senator Roger Wicker proposed extending until September 2024 the deadline for the U.S. planemaker to win approval for the two new 737 variants. Unless it gains an extension from Congress, Boeing must meet new modern cockpit-alerting requirements that could significantly delay the planes' entry into service. Wicker had sought to attach the measure to the version of the defense bill that was filed on Tuesday. Boeing shares, which were trading around $135 a share before Reuters reported the news, fell to $131.57 at the close, down 33 cents from the previous session's close. The requirements were adopted by Congress as part of certification reform passed after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people and led to the bestselling plane's 20-month grounding. Wicker, top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, did not immediately comment. There are other opportunities to make changes to the defense bill and an extension could be attached to other measures Congress will consider before year end. On Friday, the union representing about 10,000 Southwest Airlines pilots told Reuters it supports the extension, while the Allied Pilots Association representing 15,000 American Airlines pilots said it opposes it. Both American and Southwest fly the MAX 8. Southwest has ordered 192 MAX 7 planes. Boeing has an estimated 1,000 orders and commitments for MAX 7 and 10s. Boeing declined to comment. In the past, it has said it is safer to have one common 737 cockpit alerting system. Reuters reported last week Boeing does not anticipate winning regulatory approval for the MAX 10 before next summer, according to a Federal Aviation Administration letter. (Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio) NextShark Multiple Asian women have reportedly come forward to accuse a Chinese American cosplayer and her boyfriend of luring them into sexual relations through supposed opportunities for collaborative work. Cosplayer and influencer Kat Wong, who describes herself as just an Asian girl making silly content, came under fire on Twitter last week after actor, director and host Gina Darling revealed that multiple women have reached out to her with such allegations. Multiple women in the Asian community have reached out to me about @katkwo4tweets and her BF allegedly trying to trick them into having sexual relations with them under the guise of collaborating on cosplays, OF (OnlyFans) and modeling, Darling tweeted. An Alabama inmate on death row survived a botched execution lasting 90 minutes as prison workers unsuccessfully searched for his veins, according to a federal lawsuit. In late September, a knock on the window bordering the execution chamber ended the lethal injection attempt before Alan Miller was left alone for 20 minutes hanging vertically on a gurney with needle puncture wounds wondering if he was to die that day, court documents state. The event was described as torture after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed. Now attorneys representing Miller say he is the only living execution survivor in the United States. Miller has awaited his execution after a judge sentenced him to death after two workplace shootings in 1999 that left three men dead in Alabama, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. A month before his execution date, Miller filed a complaint against John Q. Hamm, the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, Terry Raybon, the warden of Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore and state Attorney General Steve Marshall on Aug. 22, alleging he faced constitutionally inadequate treatment in prison, court records show. Since the botched execution, Miller filed a new complaint on Oct. 6 to include claims related to his failed lethal injection at Holman Correctional Facility after Hamm, Raybon and Marshall sought to have his lawsuit dismissed, according to court filings. The Alabama Attorney Generals Office declined McClatchy News request for comment on Millers lawsuit on Oct. 11. Attorneys from the office are representing Hamm, Raybon and Marshall. McClatchy News contacted Millers attorneys for comment on Oct. 11 and was awaiting a response. Millers new complaint says officials are rushing to have him executed by lethal injection again even though he initially opted for a different execution method to end his lawsuit and avoid facing his claims. On Oct. 4, the defendants asked the state Supreme Court for permission to execute Miller as soon as possible. Story continues Defendants are well aware that if they kill Mr. Miller, this litigationand all judicial scrutiny of their constitutional violations against Mr. Miller becomes moot, the new complaint states. The case In 2018, Miller selected nitrogen hypoxia as his execution method on an election form, the lawsuit says. With this method, an inmate inhales nitrogen, eventually resulting in asphyxiation and death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. However, Millers lawsuit accuses officials of losing his nitrogen hypoxia election form, as well as other inmates election forms. State officials claimed there was no record of Millers form, according to the complaint, and it was ultimately decided that Miller was to be executed by lethal injection. Previously, medical professionals have had trouble finding Millers veins, and the lawsuit accuses officials of having this knowledge and knowing Miller would suffer greatly from their attempts to set an IV in his veins. On Sept. 1, Miller submitted a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent him from being executed by a method other than nitrogen hypoxia, the complaint says. On Sept. 22, Hamm, Raybon and Marshall filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to have Millers preliminary injunction vacated, according to the complaint. Hours later, the Supreme Court granted the defendants request, allowing for Millers execution to proceed by lethal injection that evening. It is difficult to overstate the mental and eventually physical anguish that Mr. Miller experienced on the night of September 22 into the early morning hours of September 23, the complaint states. The day of Sept. 22, Miller visited his family before learning he was to be executed that night due to the Supreme Courts decision, according to the lawsuit. Then, he said his final goodbyes to his attorneys. After Miller laid down and officials strapped him to the execution gurney, he was repeatedly slapped as prison workers tried to find his veins and made puncture wounds in a process described as painful and traumatic, according to the complaint. Millers upper body was punctured in a number of places as he experienced excruciating pain before they tried puncturing his foot, where he says they hit a nerve, creating more pain, the complaint states. After roughly 90 minutes, the process was abandoned entirely and Miller was left alone hanging on the gurney, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Miller felt nauseous, disoriented, confused, and fearful about whether he was about to be killed, and was deeply disturbed by his view of state employees silently staring at him from the observation room while he was hanging vertically from the gurney, the complaint states. Blood was leaking from some of Mr. Millers wounds. Eventually, Miller heard a prison worker tell him your execution has been postponed and he was sent back to his death row cell on Sept. 23 with no explanation, according to the complaint. Millers lawsuit argues he has suffered post-traumatic stress and physical pain since the botched execution. Defendants insistence on continuing to execute Mr. Miller via lethal injection can only be considered intent to inflict unnecessary pain and suffering on him, the complaint states. The lawsuit seeks to prevent Millers execution by lethal injection and to recover monetary damages for him in connection with his failed execution, according to the complaint. Atmore is about 120 miles southwest of Montgomery near the Alabama-Florida border. Lethal injection called off when Alabama executioners cant find a vein, state says Woman gives birth alone in dirty jail cell as nurses ignore her screams, lawsuit says Inmate suing over Baby Shark torture dies in Oklahoma jail cell, attorney says Louisiana cant buy drugs to use in executions, so judge drops death penalty case Oct. 10MITCHELL Below is the latest South Dakota Prep Media volleyball poll, issued for the week of Oct. 10, 2022. Teams are listed with first-place votes in parentheses, record and points. 1. Sioux Falls O'Gorman, (8), 18-3, 56; 2. Sioux Falls Washington (4), 15-2, 52; 3. Harrisburg, 12-3, 31; 4. Sioux Falls Jefferson, 14-3, 26; 5. Sioux Falls Lincoln, 14-8, 12. Knights back in front: The back-and-forth moves at the top of Class AA now favor O'Gorman moving to No. 1 in this week's poll. That occurred despite a 7-1 week for Sioux Falls Washington, which lost to Sioux Falls Lincoln in the Scheels Invitational in Fargo, N.D. in a two-set tournament match. The Knights and Warriors remain in close proximity, with four points and a few first-place votes separating them and the two teams don't play until Oct. 21 for their only regular-season meeting. The remaining three teams in the poll Harrisburg, Jefferson and Lincoln remain in the 3-4-5 position for another week. Others receiving votes: Huron, 11-3, 3. 1. Sioux Falls Christian (12), 22-4, 60; 2. Dakota Valley, 15-5, 48; 3. Wagner, 21-2, 35; 4. Canton, 15-3, 10; 5. Platte-Geddes, 17-4, 9. A steady top-5: There were no changes in the Class A top-5 poll, with Sioux Falls Christian, Dakota Valley and Wagner all going undefeated for the week. Canton stayed in its position despite a three-set loss to Sioux Falls Christian and a 3-1 loss to Wagner, with a 3-1 win over a solid Garretson team to remain at No. 4. Others receiving votes: Elkton-Lake Benton, 19-2, 8; Miller, 21-2, 5; Rapid City Christian, 24-6, 5. 1. Warner (12), 26-2, 60; 2. Chester Area, 19-5, 44; 3. Burke, 20-3, 39; 4. Northwestern, 20-8, 22; 5. Wolsey-Wessington, 20-3, 14. No changes in Class B: The top-five remains rock solid in Class B for the second consecutive week. The top-four teams are slotted in the top 13 for opponents' winning percentage to measure strength of schedule. (Wolsey-Wessington is 22nd this week.) Jones County, the last undefeated team in Class B volleyball, received a vote this week in the poll for the first time, despite having a schedule that ranks 63rd out of 72 teams for opponent's winning percentage. Others receiving votes: Jones County, 21-0, 1. Our picks for whats happening in Hampton Roads, north to Williamsburg: Books, beer and wine Friends of the Norfolk Public Library invites the community to Books and Brews, Vino Too. Enjoy an evening of hors doeuvres, beer and wine while listening to music by Guava Jam. Valet parking is included. 7 to 10 p.m. Oct. 21. Slover Library, 235 E. Plume St., Norfolk. 757-431-7491. Tickets start at $50. tinyurl.com/booksbrewsvino Seafood fest The Virginia Gentlemen Foundation is hosting its inaugural Virginia Beach Seafood Festival. Admission includes a drink ticket and four food serving tickets. Choose from a multitude of beer vendors and more than 20 restaurants. Noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 22. Camp Pendleton, 203 Red Horse Drive, Virginia Beach. 757-800-1922. Tickets start at $35. vbseafoodfestival.com Beers, bites and fun Meet friends on the lawn for Field Dayz Fest hosted by the Precarious Beer Project. Relive childhood with tetherball and other fun activities. Cool down with beers from one of the 25 breweries and pair them with food from Amber Ox Public House, Electric Circus Taco Bar, Ol Dominion Burger and The Bake Shop. 4 to 8 p.m. Oct. 22. Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg 326 Francis St., Williamsburg. 757-808-5104. Tickets start at $15. tinyurl.com/pbpfielddayz Beats and oyster eats Spend the day at the Bluegrass and Oyster Roast Festival in Virginia Beach. Listen to the sounds of Magic Holler Boys, Brackish Water Jamboree and the West King String King Band. Dont miss the Outer Banks Boil Company, Ragged Island Oyster and Laughing Kung Oyster Co. from 4 to 8 p.m. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Oct. 22. Back Bays Farmhouse Brewing Co. 1805 Kempsville Road, Virginia Beach. 757-904-3183. Beer and more Celebrate the fall season at Yorktoberfest. It features five food trucks and more than 35 beers. Walk to all the vendor tables to burn some calories. Noon to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 23. Riverwalk Landing, 331 Water St., Yorktown. 757-877-5920. Tickets start at $10. tinyurl.com/yorktoberfest Story continues Other events to explore Newport News Greek Festival (indoor fall edition): 4 to 9 p.m. Oct. 20, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 21 and 22. Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, 60 Traverse Road, Newport News. 757-596-6151. tinyurl.com/nngreekfest Pier House Bait and Tackles Shuck the Pier Oyster Roast and Barbecue Fundraiser: Noon to 6 p.m. Oct. 22. Virginia Beach Fishing Pier, 1413 Atlantic Ave., Virginia Beach. 757-470-5992. Tickets $55. tinyurl.com/shuckpier Chesapeake American Indian Festival: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 22 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 23. Chesapeake City Park, 900 City Park Drive, Chesapeake. contact@nansemond.org. Free. tinyurl.com/americanindianfest Sagra della Bistecca (The Steak Festival): 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 23. Pizzeria Bella Vista by Signorelli, 927 N. Battlefield Blvd., Chesapeake. 757-478-7783. Tickets $109. tinyurl.com/steakfest Rekaya Gibson, rekaya.gibson@virginiamedia.com, 757-295-8809; on Twitter @gibsonrekaya The head of a British intelligence agency said on Tuesday that Russia appears to be desperate as it continues to escalate its seven-month-long war with Ukraine. We can see that desperation at many levels inside Russian society and inside the Russian military machine, Jeremy Fleming, the director of Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday. Fleming was asked if the GCHQ believes that Russia is running short on munitions and, as evidenced by its partial military call-up, troops. I think the answer to that is pretty clear. Russia and Russias commanders are worried about the state of their military machine, Fleming said. As Ukrainian forces have continued to make major gains in Russian-controlled portions of southern and eastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded with increasing escalation. Putin announced the call-up of an additional 300,000 troops in September, after Russian forces suffered a series of setbacks. The announcement triggered a backlash among Russian citizens, who protested the draft and fled the country in droves, forcing Putin to recognize that mistakes had been made in its implementation. The Russian president has also ratcheted up his nuclear rhetoric, warning that his threats to employ Moscows nuclear arsenal are not a bluff. In the face of vast international opposition, Putin formally annexed four Ukrainian regions at the end of September. However, just days later, Ukrainian forces retook the city of Lyman in the annexed region of Donetsk. After a bomb destroyed part of a key bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, Russia launched a massive barrage of strikes against Ukraines capital city of Kyiv and other regions on Monday. The shelling, which killed 19 people and injured more than 100 more, was followed by more strikes on Tuesday. Russia, as weve seen in the dreadful attacks yesterday, still has a very capable military machine, Fleming told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday. It can launch weapons. It has deep, deep stocks and expertise. And yet it is very broadly stretched in Ukraine. Story continues However, Fleming said he believes Putin understands the dangers of escalation, particularly the use of nuclear weapons. Im sure hes worried about the dangers of escalation, Fleming added. He thinks about those in different terms, but I think it is a sign that he has not reached for these other forms of waging of war. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. TBILISI, Georgia The United Kingdoms top spy chief said Russia is in a desperate situation, as its military forces are exhausted by an attempted invasion of Ukraine that has now dragged into its eighth month. The costs to Russia, in people and equipment, are staggering, said Jeremy Fleming, the top British intelligence official, who spoke Tuesday at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London think tank. We know, and Russian commanders on the ground know, that their supplies and munitions are running out. A person inspects a destroyed Russian tank near the village of Oskol, in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images) During his lecture, Fleming claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putins decision to mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional young men for the war, as well as the use of prisoners on the front lines, "speaks of a desperate situation." The so-called partial mobilization triggered widespread protests and a mass exodus of civilians fleeing across borders from Finland to Georgia and Mongolia. Fleming, the director of the Government Communications Headquarters, said the Russian population now realizes how Putin has misjudged the war, and they are feeling the extent of the dreadful human cost of his war of choice. He told RUSI that due to Kyivs courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace, the country had turned the tide against the Kremlins brutal forces. Speaking to BBCs Radio 4 show earlier in the day, the intelligence chief warned that Putins army was still very capable of causing damage. His remarks came after the Russian military launched several missile strikes in major cities across Ukraine, hitting mostly civilian targets. Officials have claimed that at least 19 people were killed in the strikes the biggest air raid since the invasion began in February. Jeremy Fleming, director of Government Communications Headquarters, the United Kingdom's intelligence, security and cyber agency. (Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images) According to CNN, at least four explosions were heard in Kyiv on Monday morning during rush hour. Kyiv officials condemned the attacks, mainly targeted at civilian infrastructure including a childrens playground and tourist attractions. The attacks came days after the Kerch Strait Bridge in the annexed region of Crimea was partially blown up. The damage to the bridge, which is both symbolically and strategically important to Russia, was a major hit to Putin, who later blamed Ukraine for the explosion, which he denounced as terrorism. Buckingham Palace released an update on one of the many beloved animals Queen Elizabeth II left behind after passing away at age 96 on Sept. 8. The official Twitter account of the royal family unveiled a new portrait of the late monarchs fell pony, Emma. A new photograph of Queen Elizabeths fell pony, Emma. For the past fifteen years, Queen Elizabeth regularly rode Emma for light exercise in the grounds around Windsor Castle. pic.twitter.com/niTvw4p5rT The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 8, 2022 For the past fifteen years, Queen Elizabeth regularly rode Emma for light exercise in the grounds around Windsor Castle, the tweet said. The portrait was a close-up of the majestic black pony wearing her reins. A second tweet included a photo of Emma standing on the Windsor Castle grounds on Sept. 19 and watching the procession as the queens casket was taken to St. Georges Chapel to be laid to rest. Emma paid tribute to Her Majesty during the Ceremonial Procession in Windsor on Monday 19th September. She will continue to be much-loved and cared for at the Royal Mews, Windsor, and regularly exercised by its small, dedicated team. pic.twitter.com/8ygzPU4N2w The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 8, 2022 Emma paid tribute to Her Majesty during the Ceremonial Procession in Windsor on Monday 19th September, the following post said. She will continue to be much-loved and cared for at the Royal Mews, Windsor, and regularly exercised by its small, dedicated team. According to Sky News, Emma was born in 1996 and her full name is Carltonlima Emma. The British publication reported that after competing in horse shows, Emma retired in 2007 and returned to the Royal Mews, where she is currently looked after. Story continues Emma appeared in three pageants at the Royal Windsor Horse Show to mark the Diamond Jubilee, the Queens 90th birthday celebrations and the Platinum Jubilee, Sky News reported. Since Queen Elizabeths death, the palace and other royals have been sharing news about her pets. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, told U.K. newspaper The Telegraph in an interview published on Oct. 5 that it was a big honor for her to inherit the monarchs two corgis named Muick (pronounced Mick) and Sandy. The duchess called the dogs national treasures and said they have been taught well. Mick and Sandy moved in with Ferguson and her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, who currently reside together at the Royal Lodge on the Windsor estate. The corgis were also photographed at the funeral. This article was originally published on TODAY.com Five people are dead after a Sunday evening shooting in Inman on Bobo Drive. Four were found dead and one died at the hospital while undergoing surgery. Police are on site working the crime scene the morning of Oct. 10, 2022. The Burke County Sheriff's Office has arrested a man accused of multiple homicides in South Carolina. James Douglas Drayton, 24, of Spartanburg, South Carolina, is charged with armed robbery, kidnapping, multiple weapons charges, driving under the influence, fleeing a police officer, reckless driving and failure to maintain lane in Burke County, according to jail records. After his arrest, Drayton confessed to five murders in Spartanburg. Burke County deputies on Tuesday arrested Drayton after he allegedly committed an armed robbery at Taylor Brothers Express on Hwy 25 North. In a Facebook post, the Burke County Sheriff's Office said Drayton "entered the store, sought the clerk at gunpoint, and took her from the kitchen to the cash register while demanding money." Drayton fled with the money and after a brief car chase on Highway 25, he crashed and fled on foot, according to the post. He was later apprehended while jumping a fence. South Carolina homicides: 5 dead by gunshots on Bobo Drive in Inman Latest on Inman shooting: 4th victim identified; Sheriff Chuck Wright to address media As deputies investigated the armed robbery they learned Drayton is suspected of killing five people at a home in Inman, South Carolina, on Oct. 9, according to a news release from the Burke County Sheriff's Office. Investigators from the Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office this week visited Burke County and interviewed Drayton. Authorities said they received a full confession to the murders in Inman. Spartanburg homicides Around 7:45 p.m. Sunday Oct. 9, Spartanburg County deputies responded to 280 Bobo Dr., Inman, for reports of a death. Deputies found four white males dead and James Baldwin, whose race has not been disclosed, injured. He was brought to the Spartanburg Medical Center where he later passed away. Victims included Thomas Ellis Anderson, 37; Adam Daniel Morley, 32; Mark Allen Hewitt, 59; Roman Christean Megael Rocha, 19; and, James Derek Baldwin, 49. Story continues Spartanburg investigators secured arrest warrants for four of the victims, charged Drayton with four counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, and plan to seek additional warrants for Baldwin's homicide, according to a news release. Drayton remained in the Burke County Detention Center on Tuesday. It is unclear when he will be extradited, according to the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office. This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Georgia deputies arrest man accused of South Carolina homicides Reuters Videos STORY: A sight now all too familiar in Haiti:Anti-government protests, descending into the looting of stores rocks thrown at police who respond by firing tear gas.Port-au-Prince was engulfed in another day of protests on Monday.This time against the US and Canada sending military gear such as armoured vehicles - to Haitian law enforcement last week, to help it combat local gangs.Some demonstrators waved Russian flags, in an apparent act of rejecting western foreign powers.No to the Canadians, no to the Americans. You are monsters, you don't have solutions. You are chaos.You are behind the gangsterization of crime. You are giving arms to our brothers and those who are in underprivileged neighbourhoods.On Monday, the US and Mexico proposed deploying a security mission to restore order in Haiti amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.Also put forward was a sanctions regime that would target anyone who threatened the peace in Haiti.These moves are aimed at breaking the chokehold local gangs have over Haitis fuel supply.Gangs have blockaded Haitis main fuel port for nearly a month, halting transport and leaving many Haitians without food or clean water amid an outbreak of cholera.The UN says more than 4 million Haitians now face acute food insecurity, as looting and gang shootouts becoming increasingly common.At a UN Security Council meeting, Chinese and Russian representatives rejected the idea of a security mission, saying Haitian leaders have openly opposed foreign intervention.A UN peacekeeping mission known as MINUSTAH, which operated in Haiti between 2004 and 2017, faced harsh criticism from its role handling a cholera outbreak in 2010, to allegations of sexual abuse. This flier targeting Republican Rep. Jim Allard of Pittsfield was sent out by Cornerstone, a Christian advocacy group. Allard, who opposed right to work, was ousted in last months primary. Brodie Deshaies saw unions give a voice to his family members, helping them negotiate a fair contract at work. So when he was elected to represent Wolfeboro in the New Hampshire House, he knew he would vote against right-to-work legislation, a perennial attempt to prevent private-sector unions from requiring non-union members to pay dues. For Deshaies, that no vote also aligns with his free-market Republican values: The government shouldnt meddle in private-sector contracts. There have been at least 30 attempts to pass a right-to-work bill in New Hampshire, none of which have succeeded. Even with a 50-seat Republican majority in 2017, the measure failed, with 32 party members voting with Democrats. In 2021, the bill was voted down by 24 votes. Proponents have argued that more businesses would come to New Hampshire if their workers werent forced to pay union dues. Opponents have countered with predictions that weaker unions would cost workers needed protections. But the libertarian conservative group Americans for Prosperity, founded in 2004 by conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch, disagrees. The organization wants New Hampshire to become a right-to-work state, and in the last two years it has spent over $1 million promoting candidates who share that view. Both Americans for Prosperity and the Republicans it has ousted agree: Theyre succeeding. Of the 21 Republicans who voted against right-to-work legislation in 2021, fewer than half have a shot at returning to the State House. Eight decided not to run again, and four were defeated in the primary, including Deshaies, who blames his defeat on Americans for Prosperitys involvement. He believes outside money in campaigns could continue to shape the states stance on right to work moving forward. There are a lot of outside groups and this is true in both parties that are realizing how inexpensive it is to buy a seat, he said. I use that term very directly: to buy a seat in the state Legislature. And they realize how effective it can be in changing the states policy. Story continues With a dwindling percentage of the Republican caucus opposing right-to-work legislation, this session could yield a different outcome. Gov. Chris Sununu, a right-to-work proponent, would not stand in the way. And the Legislature is poised to take up the issue in 2023 if preliminary legislation seeking to reintroduce the bill moves forward. In an article for the Guardian, three university professors wrote that Americans for Prosperitys focus on anti-union legislation is both in line with libertarian free-market ideology and a strategy for building conservative power. AFP has recognized that to make lasting change in US politics, the Koch network would need to permanently weaken the organizations that support liberal candidates and causes and above all, the labor movement, they wrote in 2018. According to campaign finance filings, Americans for Prosperity spent $6,750.45 to support Deshaies opponent, Katy Peternel. Her successful bid for the Republican nomination was aided by thousands of dollars in paid canvassing and eight mailers, according to the filings. Peternel raised $7,934.03 on top of that. Thats $14,684.48 between what Peternel raised and what AFP independently spent to support her campaign. Theres no search function on the Secretary of States campaign finance website that shows whether other groups also independently supported Peternel. Deshaies outspent her, spending $24,652.92, but still lost. He wasnt the only anti-right-to-work Republican to lose his primary to a candidate supported by Americans for Prosperity. Certainly my right-to-work stance brought Americans for Prosperity after me, said Rep. Dennis Acton, a Fremont Republican. Im getting absolutely bombarded right now, he said ahead of the primary. He lost to Emily Phillips, who was endorsed by Americans for Prosperity. The organization reported spending $6,399 on mailers, paid canvassing, and digital ads to support her. You cant beat that, Acton said. He had not filed his campaign expenditures with the Secretary of State at the time of publication but said he raised around $2,250, enough for one limited mailing to 750 households. Some Republicans say these efforts are not only reducing Republican opposition to right to work but changing the identity of their party. It used to be the Republicans were the working mans party, said Rep. John Klose, an Epsom Republican, who voted against right to work last year. Things have changed. Klose lost his primary to Dan McGuire, who was endorsed by Americans for Prosperity. Rep. Jim Allard, a Pittsfield Republican who opposed right to work and was also ousted in the primary, believes outside money is pushing the party further to the right. Allard was targeted by an anti-abortion group, Cornerstone Action, which paid for negative mailers against him. Assuming the current majority is maintained, I think we will see increasingly radical legislation, said Allard, who sees this effort as an outgrowth of whats happened with the libertarian Free State Movement. The number of Free Staters occupying seats in the House has grown steadily, and its now a significant block that can both generate legislation and certainly can pass or defeat legislation. When you look at how many other very experienced legislators opted not to run this time, it just opened the floodgates of opportunity for more radical views to come to the fore, Allard said. Replacing moderate Republicans with those who are further right would also affect other policy fights. Allard had supported an exception to the states 24-week abortion ban, while Acton advocated for state spending and programs for mental health and addiction, as well as more state action on climate change. Both were defeated in the primary. Allard blamed campaign spending, which sponsored negative mailers targeting him. He wasnt entirely sure who was footing the bill, and campaign finance is difficult to track. Americans for Prosperity state director Greg Moore said the organization did not pay for any negative mail. Unprecedented amounts of money were spent in this small New Hampshire rural district in order to unseat me, Allard said. Were talking major expenditures. Americans for Prosperity has roughly doubled the $79,588 it spent on the 2020 primary, spending $171,505 in 2022 so far. In 2020, Americans for Prosperity reported spending a total of $847,217 between the primary and general election. Were willing to try any idea as far as whats going to help us achieve our policy goals, Moore said. We felt as though candidates and elected office holders were more responsive with the prospect of an endorsement and thats true. Its working. While Americans for Prosperity has had a presence in New Hampshire since 2010, it was only in 2020 that the organization began endorsing candidates and spending money on campaigns. Prior to that, the organization endorsed policies, not candidates, according to Moore. Our view is, OK, what is it going to take to get this person elected? Moore said. So the amount of money we put in is what we think we need to spend in order in to be successful. Twenty-one of the 25 candidates Americans for Prosperity endorsed won their primaries, according to Moore. Moore said the organization does not believe right to work is union busting, but rather makes unions more representative by forcing them to earn members. Twenty-seven states have right-to-work laws, according to Moore. Five have adopted right-to-work legislation since 2004. This story was originally published by New Hampshire Bulletin. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Campaign spending in support of right to work in NH paying dividends TOKYO (Reuters) - Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly on Tuesday called Russia's latest attacks on Ukraine "abhorrent" and said she condemned them "in the strongest possible terms". Joly made the comment at a joint news conference in Tokyo following a meeting with her Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi. Russia rained cruise missiles on busy Ukrainian cities on Monday in what the United States called "horrific strikes", killing civilians and knocking out power and heat with its most widespread air attacks since the start of the war. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By Kuba Stezycki and Joanna Plucinska WARSAW (Reuters) -Canada said on Tuesday it will send 40 more combat engineers to help support Polish efforts to train Ukrainian forces, as part of its commitment to increasing military aid for Ukraine. The Canadian Armed Forces have trained more than 33,000 Ukrainian military and security personnel since 2015, but have paused aspects of the training effort since February. "Today, I am announcing that in the coming weeks, Canada will deploy approximately 40 combat engineers to Poland to help Polish Forces train Ukrainian sappers on engineer reconnaissance, explosives, mining and de-mining," Canada's defence minister Anita Anand told a news conference in Warsaw. Canadian forces have also helped the Polish military and government in supporting refugee reception centres and have helped support Britain-based training programmes. Anand said the additional training "will complement Canadian training of new Ukrainian recruits in the United Kingdom, and Canadian training of Ukrainian personnel on the use of the M777 howitzers that we donated to Ukraine." Russia rained cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities on Monday in what the United States called "horrific strikes", killing civilians and knocking out power supplies, in its most widespread air attacks since the start of the war in February. "Canada wholeheartedly condemns those brutal strikes against civilian targets and infrastructure," Anand told journalists at a later meeting. "Those strikes constitute a war crime." Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists. It has denied deliberately attacking civilians. (Reporting by Kuba Stezycki, writing by Joanna Plucinska and Alan Charlish; Editing by Susan Fenton, William Maclean) WARSAW, Poland (AP) Canada will deploy approximately 40 combat engineers to NATO ally Poland to train Ukrainian sappers in de-mining, engineer reconnaissance and explosives, the Canadian defense minister said Tuesday. Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand made the announcement during a visit to Warsaw. At a briefing alongside her Polish counterpart, Mariusz Blaszczak, Anand said Canadian combat engineers would begin helping Polish forces train Ukrainian sappers in the coming weeks. She said the training would complement training that Canada is already giving to Ukrainians in the U.K. Anand also signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen defense cooperation between Poland and Canada. She visited Warsaw a day after Russia unleashed dozens of missiles on cities across Ukraine, a move she strongly criticized. Canada wholeheartedly condemns those brutal strikes against civilian targets and infrastructure," she told reporters at a later briefing in front of the Canadian Embassy. "Those strikes constitute a war crime and Canada and I in particular find that conduct completely reprehensible, unjustified and illegal. She said she would be announcing further military aid to Ukraine in Brussels, where she was headed next for meetings, including with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. ___ Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine. Cannabis sales grew in New Mexico's cities that border Texas as the southeast and southwest portions of the state sales increasing sales between August and September. Industry leaders said Texans flocked to dispensaries along the state line for products still illegal in the Lone Star State. Carlsbad continued to rank seventh in New Mexico in adult-use cannabis sales, which rose from $794,000 in August to $817,000 in September, according to data from the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department (NMRLD). Sales of adult-use cannabis also rose slightly in September for Hobbs and Sunland Park with nearly $1.3 million each, per the NMRLD. Hobbs ranked fourth in adult-use cannabis sales in New Mexico and Sunland Park was fifth, per an NMRLD news release. More:Recreational cannabis sales increase in rural southeast New Mexico Adult-use cannabis sales dropped from $436,000 in August to $431,000 in Alamogordo. Sales also dropped from $741,000 in August to $632,000 in September for Ruidoso. Between medical adult-use and medical sales Hobbs had $1.7 million in sales last month. Sunland Park had $1.5 million in sales. Carlsbad had $1.1 million in sales and Ruidoso and Alamogordo both had less than $1 million in sales. Cannabis plants are shown Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, inside a grow operation at Native Harvest in Norman. Albuquerque remained No. 1 in overall cannabis sales with $14 million in September, records show, while Santa Fe was second with $3.3 million and Las Cruces was third with $3 million in sales. Combined medical and adult-use sales dropped across New Mexico from $40 million in August to $39 million in September, according to NMRLD. Duke Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of Ultra Health Dispensaries, which operates cannabis businesses throughout the state, said New Mexico communities bordering Texas reported strong sales. Hobbs and Carlsbad both continue to trend upward, he said. September should have been a gangbuster (sales month). In September we had five Fridays. Fridays are the biggest months (as) those Texans are coming in, he said. Story continues More:A visit to Pecos Oasis cannabis dispensary in downtown Carlsbad Ultra Health has nearly 40 dispensaries in New Mexico including Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Hobbs, Ruidoso and Sunland Park. Adult-use cannabis is not legal in Texas, but an extract of the marijuana plant, CBD oil is legal under state law passed in 2015. The Compassionate-Use Act allowed medical patients to use some marijuana extracts for relief of diseases and side affects of treatments, per the Texas cannabis website. Josh Kudisch, regional vice president of Verano, gives an inside tour Zen Leaf Neptune to township officials and the media as Zen Leaf Neptune begins recreational cannabis sales in Neptune, NJ Friday, August 5, 2022. William Boston, co-owner of the Mellow Harvest dispensary in downtown Carlsbad, said their business was half-and-half between out-of-state visitors and residents. We are getting quite a bit of Texas customers driving past Hobbs, he said. Mellow Harvest opened nearly four months ago at 117 South Canyon Street. Boston said sales have stayed steady since the business opened. He said Mellow Harvest planned some community activities creating awareness of not only his but other and cannabis dispensaries across Carlsbad, hoping to drive even more sales. More:City of Carlsbad among New Mexico's top selling cannabis communities despite sales dip We need to do something to draw people here, Boston said. NMLRDs Cannabis Control Division (CCD) approved licenses for cannabis retailers, manufacturers, microbusiness producers and producers in Carlsbad and Artesia. As of Oct. 10, Carlsbad had two license approvals for two retailers, one manufacturing license was approved and two licenses were approved for a cannabis producer. Two licenses were also approved for a cannabis producer microbusiness, per NMLRDs website. Artesia had two cannabis producer license drafts submitted along with a single manufacturer. NMRLD approved a license for a cannabis producer microbusiness as of Oct. 10. Texas tourists drive cannabis business in Village of Ruidoso Village of Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford. Ruidoso Mayor Lynn Crawford said the Village has 17 cannabis retail outlets for the 8,069 residents in Lincoln Countys largest community. Crawford said economic models forecasted a significant amount of sales tax revenue from cannabis sales. He said the Village of Ruidoso had a successful summer tourist season with festivals and the horse races at Ruidoso Downs, generating about $32,000 in tax money from cannabis sales to the Village in July. So, we had a lot of those folks coming in from Texas and I knew there would be a lot of those people that would be going in the recreational stores," Crawford said. More:Cannabis business interest grows as State issues licenses in Eddy County NMRLD data indicated continued growth in the Village of Ruidoso with nine cannabis retail business licenses issued along with three cannabis manufacturers licensed approved. One licenses approval was pending and another one was drafted. A cannabis production microbusiness license was drafted before NMRLD, and a producers license was drafted. Crawford said multiple steps are taken with the Village and State of New Mexico before a license was granted. We took a wait-and-see attitude since it was pushed on us. We didnt have a choice. We looked at zoning and how we could restrict them from zoning and how we could do some other things. Weve just worked with the businesses that have come in, he said. More:Demand for recreational cannabis permits low for Eddy County's unincorporated locations Mike Smith can be reached at 575-628-5546 or by email at MSmith@currentargus.com or @ArgusMichae on Twitter. This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Cannabis users from Texas fuel growth in southern New Mexico sales Chatham County Sheriff Law-enforcement officers trying to find missing Georgia toddler Quinton Simon again searched the home where he was last seen as the police chief revealed the case now includes a criminal investigation. Forty FBI personnel have joined the hunt for the 20-month-old, including members of the child-abduction and rapid-deployment unit, officials said at a Monday press conference. Quinton vanished on Oct. 5after his mother texted his babysitter to say she didnt need to watch him that morning. The mother, Leilani Simon, reportedly told police the boys biological father took him, but cops say that is not true. He is not a suspect in this case, Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley told reporters. Hadley has said he has no reason to think that Quinton isnt alive but he acknowledged the possibility that something terrible had happened to the child. Were looking at it from multiple frontsone of it being a criminal investigation, as well as a missing child case, he said. Everybody is being looked at, he added. Everybody is being interviewed. According to WJCL, Mondays canvass included pumping the pool at the Savannah home of Quintons maternal grandmother, where Leilani and her boyfriend were livingdespite an eviction proceeding by the grandmother. No one is living in peace, the grandmother, Billie Jo Howell, wrote in her eviction petition. Authorities have not released the 911 call that reported Quinton as missing, and Hadley says there is a good reason investigators are moving methodically. We want to make sure we do this as professionally and as expertly as we can, so if and I say ifwe have to prosecute anyone in this case, that weve done it right, he said at the press conference. The chief said he understands that people far beyond the county have become emotionally invested in the case and want answers about what happened to the boy. We are committed to finding those answers and we are committed to finding Quinton, he said. Story continues Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Photo credit: Photo credits: Cleyvis Natera: Beowulf Sheehan, Naima Coster: Sylvie Rosokoff. Like their upbeat, New Yorkbred authors, the novels Neruda on the Park and Halsey Street converse like sisterly companions. Neruda on the Park, published in May, features Luz Guerrero, an Ivy Leaguetrained corporate lawyer close to her Dominican community in upper Manhattan but untroubled by the encroaching gentrification. Halsey Street (2017) centers on Penelope Grand, adrift after dropping an art career and ambivalent about her Brooklyn neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, where gentrification has forced her African American father to close his popular record store. Both are approaching 30, battle troubled Dominican mothers, and embark upon risky romantic entanglements with affluent white men. In a Zoom meeting, the authors and I chatted with familial ease about Washington Heights and Bed-Stuy, the neighborhoods where they grew up. Their novels triumph by admiring their characters and settings while still spotlighting their blemishes. Nearly everyone seems askew at some point, and every street corner can be potentially uninviting as well as vibrant. The novels veer into surprisingly dark territory, and they dont aim to uplift us the way the film musical In the Heights highlights the New York Caribbean Latinx community at street level. Natera and Coster instead offer the reader a more tempered celebration. How can you honor a place or a people without pretending that there are no problems or undersides? Coster asked. Just like the families are worthy of love and honor, even if they're messy, I don't think that we need nostalgia or some kind of false virtue to say people shouldn't be displaced. Luz is the more rooted in her community, Northar Park, but grapples with the label of outsider, marked by her lost Spanish. Its a love story of a girl and her neighborhood, Natera explained. But there's hostility against Luz and who she is and how she presents. At the same time, people are very proud of her. Tensions flare as longtime residents react differently to the construction of a condo complex and news that developers are trying to buy out renters in the Guerreros nearby apartment building. Eusebia, Luzs mother, launches a drastic sabotage campaign to drive out developers, which ends up pitting neighbor against neighbor. Penelopes relationship to Bed-Stuy is perhaps more fraught because since childhood shes always had difficulty feeling she belongs. As a child, shed walk along Halsey Street, more likely to hear mens catcalls than see girls skipping rope. Gentrification creates a sense of safety for her despite undermining the rich Black cultural vibe her father Ralphs record store represents. The novels are particularly textured in their treatment of race, and when paired, they offer a rich diversity of Black identities. Luz and Penelope are both Afro-Dominican, but their racial and cultural experiences differ. We are conscious from the opening paragraphs that Luz is dark-skinnedthe color of a brownstoneand her friends and relatives often compliment her on her beauty. Her mother affectionately describes her as cafecito, but also refuses to say Black, a hesitance Natera explained, that indicates colorism among Dominicans. There is no other way around it. There is an anti-Blackness within our own community, she said. Light skin is often equated with beauty, dramatically when Luzs aunt Cuca travels to the Dominican Republic for full-body plastic surgery that includes skin bleaching, a popular procedure in the country. The issue of colorism and the Afro-Caribbean community exploded into a public controversy last year when the film musical In the Heights was released. The films producers came under criticism for casting light-skinned actors in most of the central Latinx roles, while dark-skinned performers appeared mainly as extras and dancers. When Eusebia avoids saying Black, though, she also expresses a maternal wish to protect Luz against the impact of racism. Luzs dark skin makes her mom concerned about the harshness of the world, Natera said. So often we are anxious about our children because of the color of their skin. According to Natera, this fear may be a reason for the resistance that Afro-Caribbeans can have to connecting with African Americans. I thought a lot as I was growing up about the divisions that existed, especially in Harlem and in Washington Heights, between Black Americans and Dominicans. A lot of Dominican immigrants would align themselves as not being Black. It was explicit in the text that Northar Park was a neighborhood that Black Americans were in before it became an immigrant neighborhood. But Natera also foregrounds bonds between Afro-Latino and African American women. Luzs lawyer colleagues are African American women who try to steer her through the brutal, adversarial world of corporate law. Luz is invited into this womens group explicitly because she presents as a Black woman. Its important for us to think about solidarity, Natera said. Costers Bed-Stuy, in contrast, is historically an African American neighborhood, with minimal Latinx presence. Penelope speaks fluent Spanish but must travel to the Dominican Republic to express her Dominican self. While she is bicultural, her parents are culturally alienated from each other. Her mother, Mirella, never feels she belongs in Bed-Stuy among Ralphs African American friends, and she eventually moves back to the island. Throughout the marriage, Ralph focuses on his store and shows little interest in Dominican culture. The separateness is complicated by color. Mirella could be classified as Black, but shes light-skinned and red-haired. I was trying to portray multiple relationships to Blackness, Coster said, not just in terms of color, but in terms of internal feeling and recognition. Mirella moves through the world as someone who's ethnically ambiguous and white presenting. Despite her heritage, it shapes the way Mirella feels about the gentrification. She can slip into the coffee shop and the gentrified world in a way that Ralph cannot because of color. Both authors often write against conventional racial storylines. They sometimes foreground racial identity and at other times leave race implicit or vague, which accents the ambiguities that challenge how we read race in American life. Natera makes a powerful statement by casting Luzs lawyer colleagues as Black women. Coster, on the other hand, drops barely a racial identity clue about Penelopes boyfriend in the books second half. When Coster asked me to describe my sense of his racial identity, I suggested Black rocker. She laughed, while staying mum. Luz and Penelope have another parallel struggle, which is built into the books narrative structurestrying to connect with their mothers. Eusebia and Mirella alternate as narrators with their daughters, an approach that in both cases teases out the differences between mother and daughter, while also conveying an implicit dialogue. And through the relationships with their Dominican mothers, Luz and Penelope are also in dialogue with the Dominican Republic itself, a homeland that is core to their identities but remote for much of the stories, in contrast to Bed-Stuy and Northar Park, where we hear the daily noise of construction cranes and shouting children. In Neruda on the Park, Eusebia, though she still barely speaks English 20 years after immigrating to the U.S., no longer identifies with the Dominican Republic. For her, the island embodies the traumatic losses she suffered there. Natera said she wanted the story to be an anti-narrative that resists nostalgia. I wanted characters to not long for home, immigrants who consider New York City their home. Halsey Street reverses the relational equation in a way because Mirella finds refuge in the Dominican Republic after years of isolation in New York. For Penelope, the island was once an intimate place where during summer trips she painted watercolors and communed with her affectionate grandmother. But the country symbolizes separation because when Mirella moves back, Penelope feels abandoned. In the books last section, they encounter each other, but Coster does not spell out how much reconciliation may have occurred. I decided to make the mother the repentant one who longs for her daughter once her daughter is grown, the way her daughter longed for her when she was a girl. And they both resist the other ones desire for connection. One of the questions Im asking is whether its love if its never really enacted or realized or received. Naima and I have talked about where reparation is, Natera reflected. Where are we as a country? How can we ever get to a place of repair if we cant be honest with ourselves about the harm we cost, even if its in the pursuit of love, even if its in the pursuit of freedom? You Might Also Like Joe Biden has called for multiple members of the Los Angeles City Council to resign, after officials including disgraced ex-leader Nury Martinez were recorded aking racist comments. The president is glad to see that one of the participants in that conversation has resigned, but they all should, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday, calling the terms used in the recording unacceptable and appalling. The White House official added that Mr Bidens strong stance was a contrast to top Republicans, who rarely speak out when figures like Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene make racist comments. aaHeres the difference between Democrats and Republicans: When a Democrat says something racist or antisemitic ... we hold Democrats accountable, Ms Jean-Pierre said. When a MAGA Republican says something racist and/or antisemitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated and sought after. Other influential officials have condemned the council members, including LA mayor Eric Garcetti and Californias US Senator, Alex Padilla. The sharp words from the White House are the latest development in a scandal thats engulfing local politics. Officials struggled to get a council meeting underway on Tuesday morning as anger boiled over in the council chamber and council members were loudly booed. It came just hours after Ms Martinez, ex-president of the council, announced she was taking a leave of absence after quitting her position for the racist remarks she made about the son of fellow lawmaker Mike Bonin. Ms Martinez said she was truly ashamed of the alleged racist comments she was caught on tape making about the Black youngster, whom The Los Angeles Times reported she called a monkey in Spanish. This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognise this is entirely of my own making, Ms Martinez said in a statement on Tuesday. At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders. I am so sorry to the residents of Council District 6, my colleagues, and the City of Los Angeles. Story continues Mitch OFarrell sitting in the presidents seat repeatedly had to ask for protesters to clear the podium so that a public comment segment could take place. But the crowd was silent when Mr Bonin rose to speak. I take a lot of hits, and I know I practically invite a bunch of them. But my son? It makes my soul bleed, Mr Bonin said as he fought back tears. Asking for forgiveness is a good first step. Well, its a second step because first, you must resign and then ask for forgiveness. I know I can never really know or comprehend the real weight of the daily relentless anti-Black racism my son is going to face, but man, I know the fire that you feel when someone tries to destroy Black boy joy. Man, its a rage. Before the meeting started, the crowd chanted fuera, which means out in Spanish along with the names of Ms Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, who were in the meeting. They also chanted Were with the Blacks and Shut it down as council members walked into the chamber. Chicago Red Stars players are calling for the expulsion of majority owner Arnim Whisler as the National Womens Soccer League club reels from reports of abuse and harassment by former coach Rory Dames. The players released a joint statement Monday, less than a week after the league announced the findings of an independent investigation headed by former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates and the law firm King & Spalding. The NWSL commissioned the investigation after a series of abuse and harassment allegations throughout the league in the last year. The Yates report included descriptions of abuse and harassment allegedly perpetrated by Dames and allegedly covered up by Whisler. The players say Whisler promised them he was completely unaware of any allegations against Dames, which flies in the face of pages of evidence in the Yates report that Whisler was aware of multiple reports and investigations into the former coachs conduct for years before his resignation in November 2021. We, the players of the Chicago Red Stars, are incredibly saddened, infuriated and appalled by the reprehensible findings of the Sally Yates report, the joint statement said. We are united with the Board of Directors in their decision to remove Whisler from the organization entirely and look forward to finding a new majority owner who can help us realize the full potential that we as players always knew existed for this club. This team has endured serious hardships over the years, and it is finally our time to implement the changes for which weve tirelessly pushed. We are committed to building a future in which players and staff alike can experience joy and success at our club. Former chief business officer Vicky Lynch also announced her resignation from the Red Stars on Monday as the teams front office remains in turmoil after the Yates report. In a statement she posted on Twitter, Lynch said she met with players after a training session last October to establish her goal of protecting players from the abuse and harassment reported throughout the league. Story continues This meeting occurred more than a month before the Red Stars front office allowed Dames to resign from his position. At the time, Whisler said the club allowed Dames to resign because it didnt have any reason to believe that there was a safety issue in our environment. After reading the Yates report, I was sickened and felt that I had been misled about what had occurred at the club prior to my arrival, Lynch wrote in her statement. The Red Stars named Mike Ernst who has been in an advisory role since July after 14 years with the Chicago Fire as interim chief business officer. The board also named Kim Vender Moffat as its new chairwoman. (This Oct. 11 story has been corrected to amend the duration of flight to 90 seconds instead of 90 minutes in paragraph 3.) DUBAI (Reuters) - A "flying car" built by Chinese electronic vehicle maker Xpeng Inc made its first public flight in the United Arab Emirates, as the company works towards launching the electric aircraft on international markets. The X2 is a two-seater electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that is lifted by eight propellers - two at each corner of the vehicle. Monday's unmanned, 90-second test flight in Dubai was described by its manufacturer as an "important base for the next generation of flying cars." "We are making step-by-step (moves) to the international market," said Minguan Qiu, general manager of Xpeng Aeroht. "First we selected Dubai city because Dubai is the most innovative city in the world." (Reporting by Abdelhadi Ramahi in Dubai; Editing by Dominic Evans and Matthew Lewis) By Brian Ellsworth MIAMI (Reuters) -Prosecutors portrayed the man who killed 17 people at a Florida high school in 2018 as a calculating and brutal murderer, while his defense attorney pleaded for mercy before jurors begin deliberating on whether he should be sentenced to death. Nikolas Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to premeditated murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Fort Lauderdale. The Valentine's Day school shooting was among the deadliest in U.S. history. The 12-member jury will begin sequestered deliberations on Wednesday. Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer recommended that jurors take "at least a few days" of clothing and medication. Prosecutor Michael Satz argued Cruz's crime was heinous and premeditated, insisting that aggravating factors outweigh arguments for leniency. "He was shooting the kids in the classroom that were hiding or attempting to hide," Satz said. The penalty phase of the trial, which has lasted nearly three months, has included testimony from survivors of the shooting as well as cell phone videos in which terrified students cried for help or spoke in hushed whispers as they hid. Cruz's defense attorney said he should not be sentenced to death, citing factors such as mental health disorders resulting from his biological mother's substance abuse during pregnancy. "There is no time in our life when we are more vulnerable to the will and the whim of another human being than when we are growing and developing in the womb of our mothers," said Melisa McNeill, Cruz's lead public defender. Cruz was 19 and had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas at the time of the massacre. In his guilty plea, he said he was "very sorry" and asked to be given a chance to help others. U.S. gun violence has gained renewed attention following mass shootings in May at a school in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead, and another, also in May, at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 people. (Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Donna Bryson, Deepa Babington and Mark Porter) The Cobb County Commission Tuesday took its first step at tossing out Republican drawn commission district maps and reinstating the original Democrat drawn maps, though doing so may not be legal under Georgias Constitution. Channel 2s Richard Elliot learned the controversy is complicated. Traditionally, the Georgia General Assembly allows local legislative delegations to redraw commission district lines every 10 years during reapportionment. Democrats control the Cobb County Legislative Delegation, and earlier this year, they drew those lines. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] But then, the Republican minority on that delegation drew their own district lines, and got them approved by the GOP-controlled legislature, prompting fury among Cobb Democrats, though most experts believed the Republican move was legal. The same move was done in Gwinnett County. Now, the Democrat-controlled Cobb County Commission wants to put the original maps back, and voted to do that Tuesday, the first of two required votes. County Commission Chair Lisa Cupid, a Democrat, believes their efforts to invoke Home Rule and put the lines back are legal. TRENDING STORIES No board or no local delegation should feel as if the state is going to usurp the interest of the local government in the redrawing of maps, Cupid said. Republican County Commissioner JoAnn Birrell insists what the commission is doing isnt legal. We have no power and authority over the state legislature, said Birrell. The House and Senate passed it in February and the Governor signed it into law, and weve already had a primary on the new districts. County Attorney William Rowling said no Georgia court had ever made a ruling on a case like this, and he expects there will be a legal challenge. Story continues The commission will vote again on the measure at its October 25th meeting. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: The Columbia County Board of County Commissioners and City of Lake City launched the North Florida Rural Hurricane Ian Relief project this week. The project is in partnership with CDT, Inc. to collect emergency relief items for those in need due to Hurricane Ian devastation. A CDT, Inc. semitrailer is located at 161 NW Main Boulevard in Lake City now through Friday, October 21 to collect the requested relief items outlined below. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Requested Relief Items: Canned foods with flip top Baby wipes & baby diapers Baby formula Bug spray & sunscreen Toilet paper Paper towels Trash bags Blankets Sleeping bags Cleaning supplies Personal hygiene items Deodorant Pet food Hand sanitizer Clorox wipes First aid kits Bottled water Gallon jugs of water Gently used clothes Childrens toys Flashlights & batteries Disposable plates, cups, forks & spoon Volunteers are needed to help receive donated items. Citizens may contact Kimi Roberts at (386) 758-1390 or Terri Phillips at (386) 758-5427 to volunteer or learn more about the relief efforts [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. Los Angeles mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso participate in a debate Thursday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) For one last time before ballots start arriving in mailboxes for the November election, mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso will meet on stage for a televised debate Tuesday night. I hope they are prepared. Like, really and truly prepared. Because Angelenos haven't been this desperate for fair, moral and trustworthy leadership in decades. For much of that, we can blame Los Angeles City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon and L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. Secretly recorded audio of a conversation they had last year, uploaded to Reddit and revealed by my Times colleagues over the weekend, is full of bigoted "jokes" and half-baked plots to take Black political power and give it to Latinos. Of course, their racist words landed in diverse Los Angeles like a bomb, widening existing fissures over race and power into canyons, especially among Black Angelenos. Whichever candidate becomes mayor will have no choice but to navigate this very polarized, but still very delicate environment. To mend what's broken at City Hall and outside of it, he or she will need both the patience of a pastor and the conflict resolution skills of a diversity, equity and inclusion specialist. In many ways, Bass has a resume that seems built precisely for this moment. Long before joining Congress, she founded Community Coalition, or CoCo, designed to bring more investment to South L.A. to help undo the decades of structural racism that has harmed Black and Latino Angelenos alike. Solidarity among people of color remains core to the nonprofit's mission to this day. It's why in every statement her campaign has put out about the leaked audio including one on Monday calling on Martinez, Cedillo, De Leon and Herrera to resign says some version of the following: "For more than 30 years, I have built alliances between Los Angeles' Black and Latino communities to increase our people's health, safety and prosperity." Story continues And: "We must move past the politics of divide and conquer. There is no place for division and hate in Los Angeles. The challenges we face in our city affect us all and we must unite around our shared values." Caruso, however, thinks he knows what to do because he is an outsider to City Hall. "This weekend's news confirmed that our city's problems won't be solved while the corruption of City Hall persists," he tweeted Monday, echoing Bass' calls for resignations. "To move in a new direction, we need new leadership." Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, left, and Los Angeles City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson speak during a news conference on Monday in Inglewood on ,council President Nury Martinez's racist comments made public Sunday. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Let's just say I'm not convinced that a white billionaire is the right person to bring down the temperature of racial tensions between Black and Latino Angelenos and help us heal, but I'm willing to listen. And both Caruso and Bass better have good answers. Because, as inclusive as Los Angeles aspires to be, race-based inequities run through every aspect of public policy in this city. On homelessness, for example, Black people continue to be disproportionately represented in shelters and on the streets. Decades of housing discrimination continues to take a toll. Meanwhile, for other reasons probably related to the COVID-19 pandemic, there also was an uptick in unhoused Latinos, according to the latest survey of homelessness in Los Angeles County. Any policy solutions must take these factors into account. It's not one size fits all. On public safety, it's the same thing. Black people followed closely by Latinos continue to be disproportionately represented among both the perpetrators and victims of violent crimes, as well as the victims of police shootings. Meanwhile, trust has been broken. We have a sheriff running for reelection who has made anti-Black comments. And now, we have three Latino members of the City Council who have done the same. "It isn't just that these folks are members of the council. You have the leader of the council, the person in charge of the homelessness committee, who was so hostile to Black people," said Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents the last district in South L.A. with a majority of voting-age residents who are Black. "Forty percent of the homeless people are Black." Then there's the City Council itself. On Monday, Martinez apologized again and then stepped down as president. On Tuesday, she announced that she's taking a leave of absence. Apparently, she prefers to drag out the inevitable because the list of people and institutions calling for her to resign from the council completely is getting longer by the hour. It's only a matter of time. Herrera has offered his resignation to the executive board of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, earning applause from Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a Latina who leads the California Labor Federation. We ultimately prioritize working class solidarity across all racial groups above all else, she tweeted on Monday night. Cedillo and De Leon have yet to do anything other than apologize. "We can't have a City Council where every day we go in, and there's someone sitting there that called a Black child a 'monkey.' It's not tenable," Harris-Dawson said. "It's inconsistent with the city of Los Angeles. It's not who we want to be." I should mention that he was speaking at a news conference, alongside Assemblymembers Issac Bryan and Tina McKinnor, to endorse Erin Darling in his race for an open Westside seat on the City Council. But it had the dual function of trashing Darling's opponent, Traci Park, for defending the city of Anaheim, in her job as an attorney, from accusations by a Black employee that a white employee had used the N-word numerous times. Harris-Dawson said Park had "forfeited" her right to seek office. Voters will have to decide. But that speaks volumes about the state of race relations in L.A. right now. Then theres the fact that Caruso or Bass also will come into office with a mostly new City Council. At least four members are leaving, including Cedillo. A fifth, Councilman Mitch OFarrell, might lose reelection. I wouldn't bet on Martinez or De Leon being around the dais at City Hall either. And none of this even includes the situation involving suspended Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who goes on trial on federal bribery charges in the coming months. He has pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, his interim replacement, Heather Hutt, has gotten pulled into the drama created by Martinez, De Leon, Cedillo and Herrera. They were recorded discussing her as someone who would "support us." On Monday, Hutt also called on the council members to resign. "I am a Black woman, not a pawn," she said in a statement. "I had no prior knowledge of the conversation." All of this makes it abundantly clear that neither Bass nor Caruso will be able to truly attack the city's problems without cleaning up the emotional and psychological mess that these Latino "leaders" left behind. Rebuilding the alliances of solidarity will be hard, but I have to believe its possible. Tanya Kateri Hernandez, an Afro Latina and a Fordham University professor who has researched anti-Black racism by Latinos, told me the most important thing the next mayor can do to help us heal is avoid treating what happened as an isolated incident. "What we miss are the ways in which this is part of unfortunately Latino racial pathologies," said Hernandez, author of Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality, "These people resign, but then the bottom line is problematic dynamics remain unaddressed and unspoken of. You can't intervene in something that you're trying to be blind about." On Tuesday night, maybe we'll see which candidate Bass or Caruso truly has their eyes open. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Comedians Eric Andre and Clayton English are challenging a police program at the Atlanta airport that they say violates the constitutional rights of airline passengers, particularly Black passengers, through racial profiling and coercive searches just as they are about to board their flights. Lawyers for the two men sued Tuesday in federal court in Atlanta alleging Clayton County police racially profiled and illegally stopped them at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Eric Andre outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta (Kate Brumback / AP) The two men, well-known comedians and actors, say officers singled them out during separate stops about six months apart because they are Black and grilled them about drugs as other passengers watched. People were gawking at me, and I looked suspicious when I had done nothing wrong, Andre said in an interview, calling the experience dehumanizing and demoralizing. While the stated purpose of the program is to fight drug trafficking, the lawsuit says, drugs are rarely found, criminal charges seldom result, and seized cash provides a financial windfall for the police department. Clayton County police officers and investigators from the county district attorneys office selectively stop passengers in the narrow jet bridges used to board planes, the lawsuit says. The officers take the passengers boarding passes and identification and interrogate them, sometimes searching their bags, before they board, the lawyers say in the lawsuit. The police department says that the stops are consensual encounters and that they are random, but in reality the stops rely on coercion, and targets are selected disproportionately based on their race, the lawyers argue. The Clayton County Police Department did not immediately respond Tuesday to an email seeking comment. Police records show that from Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, there were 402 jet bridge stops and that passengers races were listed for 378 of those stops. Of those 378 passengers, 211, or 56%, were Black, and people of color accounted for 258 total stops, or 68%, the lawsuit says. Story continues The 402 stops resulted in three reported drug seizures: about 10 grams of drugs from one passenger, 26 grams of suspected THC gummies from another and six prescription pills without a prescription from a third, the lawsuit says. Only the first and third people were charged. The 402 stops also yielded more than $1 million in cash and money orders from 25 passengers. All but one were allowed to continue their travels, and only two the ones who also had drugs were charged, the lawsuit says. Eight of the 25 challenged the seizures, and Clayton County police settled each case, returning much of the seized money, the lawsuit says. Carrying large quantities of cash doesnt mean someone is involved in illegal drug activity, the lawyers argue in the lawsuit, noting that people of color are less likely to have bank accounts and are more likely to carry large sums when they travel. English was stopped as he was flying from Atlanta, where he lives, to Los Angeles for work on Oct. 30, 2020, the lawsuit says. Andre had finished a shoot for HBOs The Righteous Gemstones and was traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to his home in Los Angeles on April 21, 2020, when he was stopped after a layover in Atlanta. Clayton English,Eric Andre,Allegra Lawrence-Hardy outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta (Kate Brumback / AP) Officers blocked them as they entered the jet bridge and asked whether they were carrying illegal drugs, the lawsuit says. Both were asked to hand over their boarding passes and identification. An officer said he wanted to search Englishs bag, and English agreed, not believing he had a choice. I felt completely powerless. I felt violated. I felt cornered, English said at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta. I felt like I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly. Andre complained about his stop right after it happened. Clayton County police said at the time that it was consensual. Mr. Andre chose to speak with investigators during the initial encounter, the department said in a statement posted on Facebook. During the encounter, Mr. Andre voluntarily provided the investigators information as to his travel plans. Mr. Andre also voluntarily consented to a search of his luggage but the investigators chose not to do so. Andre said he felt a moral calling to bring the lawsuit so these practices can stop and these cops can be held accountable for this, because its unethical. I have the resources to bring national attention and international attention to this incident. Its not an isolated incident, he said. If Black people dont speak up for each other, who will? One of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit, Barry Friedman, a co-founder of the New York University School of Law Policing Project, encouraged anyone else who has had similar experiences to get in touch. The lawsuit names Clayton County and the police chief, as well as four police officers and an investigator for the district attorneys office. It alleges violations of the constitutional rights that protect against unreasonable seizures and seizures and against racial discrimination. The comedians seek a jury trial and ask that the Clayton County police jet bridge interdiction program be declared unconstitutional. They also seek compensatory and punitive damages, as well as legal costs. This story appeared first on APNews.com. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com NextShark A 47-year-old Thai man is in critical condition after two Frenchmen assaulted him in an unprovoked attack caught on camera. According to Lakhana, Somkuan had said, That car is so beautiful, when will we get a car like this? They reportedly followed the Porsche to appreciate it for a bit longer before passing. The Porsche then allegedly began tailgating the couples motorbike and honked at them until they pulled to the side of the road in front of a grilled pork stall. Two years after a deal was brokered to relocate Greenville's Confederate monument, a community activist is once again calling on Greenville City Council to pass a resolution condemning the statue and have it removed. Bruce Wilson of the Fighting Injustice Together organization addressed City Council at its meeting Oct. 10 and called for action. "How can we come together in unity when we still have symbols of division and hate in downtown Greenville?" Wilson said. "There is no doubt that the Confederate statue is nothing but a relic of the past a relic of hatred and racism that was designed to intimidate free Black individuals from the time beyond Reconstruction. And here we are in 2022 with those same symbols." Bruce Wilson, community activist, speaks during a press conference at Greenville County Square, in Greenville, Monday, March 7, 2022. Councilmembers have said that to move or alter the monument they would need to first vote to request a waiver to the state's Heritage Act, which is meant to protect war memorials on public property in South Carolina. "State law prohibits relocation. That's clear," Mayor Knox White, who was not at the council meeting, told The Greenville News in a text message. "Working on a way to tell a fuller story on the site." In 2017, White expressed support for an additional plaque to provide historical context to the monument. Calls for the monument's removal reached fever pitch in 2020 as racial reckoning swept the city and the nation. At the same time, though, the pandemic and a new police accountability task force seized the attention of City Council, inhibiting further progress on installing a plaque, White told The Greenville News in August 2020. But in a Facebook Live video later in 2020, Wilson shared publicly a deal to move the statue off North Main Street to inside the gates of Springwood Cemetery, with County Councilman Ennis Fant explaining the deal. Fant talked about a plan to place the monument on a grassy area inside the cemetery where it's close to graves of Confederate soldiers. Supreme Court ruling: SC Supreme Court's Heritage Act ruling makes it easier to move Confederate monuments Story continues 'Conversations' in Greenville:Council 'continuing to have conversations' on Confederate Monument Wilson has organized protests at the monument honoring fallen Confederate soldiers since 2017. In previous years, the monument was located in the center of Main Street at what is now the site of the Hyatt until it was moved in the 1920s out of traffic concerns, according to historical accounts. Neither White nor other members of City Council has announced a timeline for the installation of an additional plaque. A engraving on the monument today reads, in part, "All lost but by the graves where martyred heroes rest he wins the most who honor saves. Success is not the test. The world shall yet decide in truth's clear far off light that the soldiers who wore the gray and died with Lee were in the right." Dedicated in 1892, the monument's statue was modeled after Greenville Police Chief James B. Ligon, a Confederate soldier known for his commanding figure and fine war record, according to an historical account of the statue in "God's Little Acre on Main Street" by Lucile Parrish Ward. A South Carolina Supreme Court ruling issued in 2021 made it easier to remove Confederate monuments across the state. The court struck down a portion of the state's Heritage Act that prevented many of the state's historical structures from being moved or altered without the approval of two-thirds of legislators in both chambers of the South Carolina General Assembly. Now, only a simple majority is required in the state House of Representatives and the state Senate to move war monuments or change the names of historic buildings. This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Confederate monument in Greenville, SC draws renewed call for removal By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's King Charles III will be crowned at London's Westminster Abbey next May in a ceremony set to follow the traditional pageantry used for anointing monarchs over the last 1,000 years, Buckingham Palace announced on Tuesday. Charles, 73, automatically became king on the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth last month, but the grand coronation ceremony for him and his wife Camilla, who will be crowned queen, will now take place on Saturday, May 6. "The coronation will reflect the monarchs role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry," the palace said in a statement. The ceremony, a solemn and religious event which will be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, usually comes several months after the accession of the new monarch. Kings and queens of England, and later Britain and the United Kingdom, have been crowned at Westminster Abbey since William the Conqueror in 1066. Charles is the 41st monarch in a line that traces its origins back to William, and he will be the oldest monarch to be crowned. His mother, who died aged 96 at her Scottish holiday home, holds the record for the longest reign at 70 years. British media have reported that Charles wants to scale down some of the customary grandeur around the coronation, mindful that it would come as the country grapples with a cost of living crisis. The palace said it would maintain the "core elements" of the traditional ceremony "while recognising the spirit of our times". Elizabeth's coronation as queen on June 2, 1953, was the first to be televised and was regarded as a milestone in modernising the monarchy, a move that her husband Prince Philip was said to have pushed for strongly. The Abbey, whose royal links are extensive, was the setting for Elizabeth's funeral service and it was also where Charles's son and now heir, Prince William, married his wife Kate. Charles 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. (Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Gareth Jones) These are the big Coronation Street spoilers for 17-21 October 2022. (ITV) A visit to see Harvey in prison results in a shock for Leanne on Coronation Street next week, plus Summer is revealed to be pregnant. Its your Coronation Street spoilers rundown for 17-21 October 2022. Harvey has bombshell news for Leanne Leanne Battersby [JANE DANSON], Harvey [WILL MELLOR] (ITV) Its the anniversary of Natashas death, something which is very much on Leannes mind as she pays a secret visit to Harvey in prison. While there, the evil drug dealer has news for her: Sam has been writing to him and she wants Leanne and Nick to put a stop to it. Read more: Next week on Emmerdale Read more: Next week on EastEnders Sams aim is to find out why Harvey killed his mum, but over a memorial lunch in the Bistro held in Natashas memory, Audrey decides to give the lad a pep talk and dissuade him. But Sam wont be deterred and, on Friday, Harvey will be seen opening a letter sent by the youngster in which hes asked to fill in a questionnaire about his violent past. Summer is pregnant Summer Spellman [HARRIET BIBBY], Billy Mayhew [DANIEL BROCKLEBANK] (ITV) Theres a charity clothes swap on the Street, which results in Gemma getting hold of a coat that recently belonged to Summer. Only, theres a big surprise in the pocket: a positive pregnancy test. Yes, Summer has been keeping a whooper of a secret from her nearest and dearest. By Friday, Summer will have reunited with Aaron while Billy, Todd and Paul are all set to discover that shes expecting a baby. But Esther, whos the woman in charge of the charity clothes swap, will be seen suggesting to a dumbfounded Summer that she adopt her child once its born. When Summer then voices her concerns about the pregnancy and the problems associated with her diabetes diagnosis, Aaron realises the enormity of the situation. But what decision will they end up making? The pressure mounts for Stephen Stephen Reid [TODD BOYCE] (ITV) An upset Jenny confides in Stephen that she hasnt heard a thing from Leo and suspects hes met someone else in Canada. But as Stephen feigns sympathy, Leos dad Teddy calls at the Rovers and reveals that, because theres been no trace of his son, he now wants to inform the police. Can Stephen mask his anxiety? Story continues Bernie is framed by Fern Fern [GABRIELLE GLAISTER] (ITV) Fern secures a cleaning job at a jewellers, having masqueraded as Bernie in order to secure the work. But while dressed in Bernies clothes, Fern ends up robbing the place blind. In the aftermath of the burglary, well see a Bernie getting arrested on suspicion of theft. And when she sees the CCTV footage, the penny drops that shes been set up by Fern. But can Bernie convince the police, Dev and her family that shes telling the truth? Will Stu help Bridget? Stu Carpenter [BILL FELLOWS] (ITV) Stu is left trying to keep his composure for Eizas sake after he discovers that Lucy and Bridget have both been charged. Alya, meanwhile, is feeling overwhelmed by guilt but Dee-Dee attempts to reassure her that she did the right thing. Later on, Stu will be seen receiving a phone call from Bridget, who informs him that she and Lucy have both pleaded guilty to murder. But Stu is left reeling in shock when Bridget then asks him to take care of Eliza for her Aggie tries to make amends Aggie Bailey [LORNA LAIDLAW] (ITV) Sally is still feeling blindsided by the news that Tim bought Aggie a necklace. Mondays drama sees Sal tell Aggie how hurt she is that Tim prefers her company and suggests that, in future, she focus her attention on Ed. Taking Sallys words on board, Aggie then heads to the builders yard, where she apologises to Ed for keeping her friendship with Tim a secret. But will her words be enough to fix the problem? Watch the latest Coronation Street spoilers By Tony Munroe and Yew Lun Tian BEIJING (Reuters) - Once seen as a sure bet for elevation to China's elite Politburo Standing Committee or even as the country's next premier, Li Qiang's glide path to the upcoming Communist Party Congress was buffeted by Shanghai's grinding two-month COVID-19 lockdown. As the top official in China's commercial hub and its most populous city, Li's position as Shanghai party chief has traditionally been a stepping stone towards a top-two role in China's power structure - including for Xi Jinping himself. While it is not clear whether or how much Li's political star was dimmed by the Shanghai debacle - which caused severe economic damage and provoked widespread protests - his future will be one of the most intriguing storylines of the Congress that begins on Oct. 16. With Xi widely expected to clinch a precedent-breaking third leadership term at the party congress, much of the focus will be on who joins him on the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) and who among that group is tapped to be China's next premier. Current Premier Li Keqiang will step down in March after serving two terms. Numerous local-level officials have seen their careers derailed by coronavirus outbreaks on their watch under China's strict zero-COVID policy, but they did not share Li's stature or history with Xi. With Xi having steadily consolidated authority to become China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, loyalty counts. "For Xi, the absolute security he craves can only come with absolute control. If he has his way, he would want to stuff the whole PSC with his own people, including Li Qiang," said Chen Daoyin, a political commentator formerly with Shanghai University of Political Science and Law and now based in Chile. "It's near impossible for Li, who owes his political career largely to Xi, to even consider doing anything to undermine Xi. Hence he is a safe bet." Story continues KEY CONFIDANT A native of Zhejiang province, Li, 63, was Xi's chief of staff - a role for the most trusted confidants - from 2004 to 2007 when Xi was party chief of Zhejiang. Li's promotion to governor of the economic powerhouse province in 2013, the year Xi became president, meant he had been put on the path by Xi to be groomed for bigger roles. In 2015, Li accompanied Xi on a visit to the United States to meet then-President Barack Obama. In Seattle with Xi, Li gave a speech calling for more cooperation between Zhejiang and U.S. firms. When Xi removed several officials in Jiangsu province as part of a corruption crackdown and needed someone trustworthy to fill the political vacuum, he sent in Li in 2016, elevating him to provincial party chief. During the lockdown of Shanghai's 25 million people, Li repeatedly appeared in state media visiting residential compounds and hospitals. Making his rounds, he reiterated the COVID party line: "We must resolutely implement the spirit of the important instructions by Party Secretary Xi Jinping and steadfastly persist in the dynamic-zero approach". Li became a target for some of the social media ire that made it past censors during the lockdown. Still, several Shanghai business-people told Reuters they were impressed with Li's pragmatic approach to problem-solving. One Shanghai-based entrepreneur said he was surprised when Li responded to an unsolicited letter seeking help. "He attended to our case and cleared the unnecessary regulatory obstacles for us, even though we were just a small private company," said the business owner, declining to be named given the sensitivity of discussing politics in China. (Reporting by Tony Munroe and Yew Lun Tian; Additional reporting by Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Editing by Lincoln Feast) (Bloomberg) -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Credit Suisse Group AG continued to help US clients hide assets from authorities, eight years after the bank paid a $2.6 billion tax-evasion settlement and pledged to tackle the issue. Most Read from Bloomberg Investigators are examining whether the bank aided US account holders, particularly with South American passports, who may not have told the Internal Revenue Service about assets totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. Former bankers blew the whistle on the bank, court records show. Credit Suisses main banking unit pleaded guilty in 2014, admitting it helped thousands of Americans evade taxes. It paid $2.6 billion under that deal, which required it to close any and all US accounts not declared to the IRS. The Zurich-based bank denies improper conduct, and says its cooperating with US authorities. Credit Suisse does not tolerate tax evasion, the bank said in a statement. We have implemented extensive enhancements since 2014, to root out individuals who seek to conceal assets from tax authorities. Our clear policy is to close undeclared accounts when identified, and to discipline any employee who fails to comply with bank policy or falls short of Credit Suisses high standards of conduct. The investigations add pressure on a bank seeking to deliver a strategy that will revamp its risk culture, downsize its unprofitable investment bank and return it to profitability. Credit Suisse may sell parts of its Latin American wealth management business and severely decrease or further exit businesses in its investment bank. The stock has declined by about two-thirds since scandals surrounding Greensill Capital and Archegos Capital Management early last year. Story continues Repeat Offenders Deputy US Attorney General Lisa Monaco has vowed to crack down on repeat corporate offenders, but its unclear whether the Justice Department will take action against the bank, such as new charges or a financial penalty. The banks outside attorneys have made their case to prosecutors in Washington, DC, arguing it broke no laws and deserves no further punishment, according to the people, who werent authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Theyve also met with investigators from the Senate Finance Committee, which will issue a report in the coming weeks. The Justice Department declined to comment. In a court filing last year, its prosecutors cited ongoing law enforcement activities related to the banks plea deal, and discussions with Credit Suisse regarding the identification and remediation of remaining Swiss accounts held by US citizens. US taxpayers are supposed to pay taxes on income anywhere in the world, and foreign banks must notify the IRS about American accounts. The Senate Finance Committee, led by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, is also preparing a report that will discuss how the bank vetted dual citizens. Complex IRS rules can cause confusion at banks trying to determine if accounts are controlled by US residents, the people said. The committee has been investigating information suggesting that Credit Suisse continued to serve US citizens hiding undeclared accounts offshore, Wyden said in a statement. Any systemic failures to crack down on undeclared US accounts by the bank would be a clear violation of its plea deal with the Justice Department. Full Investigation In light of the Justice Department pledge to crack down on repeat corporate offenders, this case demands full investigation and accountability, Wyden said. Last year, Wydens committee began investigating Credit Suisses failure to disclose the existence in 2014 of more than $200 million in accounts held by a US citizen, Dan Horsky, who later pleaded guilty and served seven months in prison. The probe expanded to related practices involving dual citizens. The Justice Department has examined allegations raised by whistleblowers who said Credit Suisse bankers continued to assist additional Americans with concealing assets from the United States after 2014, according to a court filing last November. Despite recent tough talk from DOJ about holding repeat corporate offenders accountable, nothing has happened to Credit Suisse, said Jeffrey Neiman, an attorney for the whistleblowers. They have gotten away with lying to the United States at the expense of the American taxpayer. The bank has turned to the law firm Kirkland & Ellis to make its case to prosecutors and Wydens committee. One of those presenting arguments to the Justice Department is Mark Filip, a former federal judge and deputy attorney general who has represented such companies as BP Plc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Boeing Co. and General Motors Co. in high-stakes investigations. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. (Reuters) -The U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday that cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex Inc had agreed to pay $29 mln in fines for "apparent violations" of sanctions on certain countries and anti-money laundering law. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had levied fines of about $24 million and $29 million, respectively, on Bittrex. But according to terms of the settlement, FinCEN would transfer $24 million to OFAC after it receives its $29-million payment from Bittrex, as some of the violations stem from the "same underlying conduct" as the OFAC investigation. Effectively, Bittrex will have to pay a penalty of about $29 million. Bittrex failed to prevent people located in the sanctioned jurisdictions of Ukraine's Crimea region, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria from using its platform between March 2014 and December 2017, according to OFAC. FinCEN said its investigation found that from February 2014 through December 2018, Bittrex did not maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. "Bittrex's AML program failed to appropriately address the risks associated with the products and services it offered, including anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies," it added. Cryptocurrencies and other digital assets have soared in popularity over recent years and are getting increasingly intertwined with the regulated financial system, saddling policymakers with monitoring risks in a largely unregulated sector. Bittrex in an emailed statement to Reuters said it was "pleased to have fully resolved" the matter with OFAC and FinCEN on mutually agreeable terms. (Reporting by Manya Saini and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Vinay Dwivedi) By Xinghui Kok SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, said it has received approval from Singapore's central bank to offer payment services in the city-state. The in-principle approval, which the central bank started giving out to crypto firms last year, means individuals and institutions can use digital payment token services and the firms are regulated by the central bank under its Payment Services Act. Calling it a "significant milestone", Coinbase said in a statement that it has been building up its presence in Singapore and currently had nearly 100 employees in the Southeast Asian state, with product engineers forming the largest bulk of hires. "We see Singapore as a strategic market and a global hub for Web3 innovation," said Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase's regional director for Southeast Asia. About 180 crypto companies applied for a crypto payments licence to the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2020 under a new regime. Singapore has handed out 17 in-principle approvals and licences after an elaborate due diligence process that is still ongoing. Besides Coinbase, Crypto.com and DBS Vickers - the brokerage run by Singapore's largest bank DBS - are among those that have received licences. Singapore's welcoming approach has helped the financial hub attract digital asset services-related firms from China, India and elsewhere in the last few years, making it a major centre in Asia. However, there have also been quite a few cases of crypto fall-outs taking place in the city state. Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital began liquidation in June after it was unable to meet hundreds of millions of dollars in obligations. The hedge fund had taken a hit from the collapse of cryptocurrencies Luna and TerraUSD in May. Both coins were developed by Terraform Labs, which was incorporated in Singapore. Terraform Lab's founder Do Kwon is currently wanted by the South Korean police. Story continues The chief of the MAS has, however, sought to distance Singapore from these firms and said in July that companies like Three Arrows and Terraform Labs were "so-called Singapore-based" firms that had "little to do" with the city state's crypto regulations. Singapore plans to roll out new regulations that will make it more difficult for retail investors to trade cryptocurrencies. (Reporting by Xinghui Kok; Editing by Anshuman Daga and Ed Osmond) By Hannah Lang (Reuters) - It's not easy being a crypto investor. They've seen the value of their holdings drop like a brick this year, and now many are stewing over the safety of their crypto cash after a series of heists that's seen around $2 billion spirited away by hackers. Enter the ghost of technology's past. Hardware wallets - old-school physical devices similar to USB drives that stash crypto holdings offline - might seem a throwback to a more innocent digital age, but they're proving to be a popular response to a cutting-edge conundrum. The global hardware wallet market, valued at $245 million in 2021, is expected to swell to over $1.7 billion by 2030, according to market research firm Straits Research. It's being fueled by a steady stream of cyber robberies that, according to researcher Chainalysis, has seen thieves steal $1.9 billion in crypto in the first seven months of the year, an increase of 60% from a year earlier. Much of this was stolen directly from blockchains or "hot" online wallets. It's not only hacks making investors edgy. Others lost access to their crypto when major lenders such as Celsius Network and Voyager Digital collapsed in July. "We have definitely seen increased interest in hardware wallets, and in general self-custody, post-several issues," said Adam Lowe, chief product and innovation officer at U.S.-based CompoSecure, one of several hardware wallet makers seeking to capitalize on a rush for safety. "The day of or day after those events, we would see very significant (sales) lifts." There's no such thing as a free crypto lunch, though: While hot wallets are convenient and allow for quick trading, hardware wallets typically don't appeal to first-time investors, who often buy cryptocurrencies on big exchanges and might choose to keep their assets on those platforms, where they can simply log in with a username and password. BLOWING HOT AND COLD Story continues Although hot wallets are usually free and offer quick access to crypto, they can be vulnerable to hacks. In August, nearly 8,000 crypto wallets on the Solana blockchain were hit by hackers who made off with more than $5 million in crypto. "Users are strongly encouraged to use hardware wallets," Solana said at the time. France's Ledger, another hardware wallet maker, said it saw a spike in sales after the Solana wallets heist. "We do see significant uptick in user-based interest in some of these situations of stress in the markets," aid Alex Zinder, global head of Ledger Enterprise. Most hardware wallets connect to a mobile app, where the owners of the digital keys needed to access their crypto keys can control their funds. Some use "Secure Enclave" technology, a security feature used to store sensitive data. Josef Tetek, bitcoin analyst at Czech-based hardware wallet company Trezor, says he expects better phone interaction with cold storage wallets in the future, to serve investors in places like South America and Africa, where it's more common for users to have mobile phones than personal computers. Yet companies in this ballooning market might be advised to make hay while the sun shines. One long-term question is whether phone makers will want to get in on the action, said Stan Miroshnik, co-founder and partner at 10T Holdings, which led Ledger's $380 million Series C funding round last year. "One question, I think, for the industry and where it's going and in part what will drive consumer adoption, is what if every iPhone has a built-in Secure Enclave hardware wallet?" (Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Tom Wilson and Pravin Char) A father faked the cancer death of his 4-year-old son to get money and sympathy after lying about the boy having stage 3 leukemia, police in New York say. The father, 30, from Adams, a town in northern New York, was arrested on Oct. 9 after telling his co-workers he needed donations for a funeral, according to an Oct. 11 news release. He convinced at least two people to pay him $1,500 in total, state authorities say. One person gave him a $1,000 check and the other donated $500 in cash. Now the man is facing two felony charges fourth-degree grand larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud, according to police. An investigation revealed the son is alive and that the boy never had stage 3 leukemia, the release states. Police say the man lied about his son dying on Aug. 4 at a St. Jude hospital, which specializes in treating childhood cancer and diseases at facilities in New York and across the country. Authorities did not say in the news release whether the man had retained an attorney. He is scheduled to appear in a Jefferson County court on Oct. 28, according to police. Adams is below the U.S.-Canada border and about 190 miles northwest of Albany. Body found handcuffed in snow after fake US marshal arrested Vermont man, feds say Woman faked cancer to avoid prison time in CA, feds say. Now she gets 2 more years Man lived with dead roommate for years and stole his identity, California officials say Woman fakes being stranded, then kills Florida college student who stopped, AL cops say Actress Angela Lansbury arrives for the 2018 DGA Awards. (AFP via Getty Images) Dame Angela Lansbury has died aged 96. The award-winning Murder She Wrote star was five days away from her 97th birthday. Lansbury's family released a statement confirming the news: "The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday. Read more: Dick Van Dyke vows to defend Angela Lansbury "In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, she is survived by three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury. She was proceeded in death by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw. A private family ceremony will be held at a date to be determined." Angela Lansbury stars as mystery writer and crime solver Jessica Fletcher on the CBS television crime drama series Murder, She Wrote. (CBS via Getty Images) Born in London in 1925, Lansbury is best known to modern audiences for playing Jessica Fletcher in the long-running crime show Murder She Wrote which ran for 12 seasons until 1996. She appeared in Gaslight, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Manchurian Candidate, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Death on the Nile, Nanny McPhee and provided the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. In 2018 she appeared in Mary Poppins Returns as a balloon seller, in one of her final screen roles. She enjoyed a hugely successful 80-year acting career, receiving an honorary Academy Award, six Tony awards, six Golden Globes, one Olivier award and was nominated for 18 Emmys in total. Angela Lansbury poses with her Dame Commander (DBE) medal given to her by Queen Elizabeth II, 2014. (Getty Images) In 2014, Lansbury was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. In a Telegraph interview in 2015, she said: Ive never been particularly aware of my age. Its like being on a bicycle I just put my foot down and keep going. I never look at my face and think God, youre getting old or think of running out of steam. Good morning, Chicago. A University of Chicago finance professor considered one of the worlds foremost minds regarding the banking industry is one of three winners of the 2022 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his influential research on the banking system. Douglas Diamond, a widely respected professor who has worked for the Booth School of Business since 1979, became the 97th scholar associated with university to be a Nobel winner and the 33rd in economics, according to the university. Diamond receives the prestigious award alongside former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, who oversaw the 2008 financial crisis, and professor Philip Dybvig of Washington University in St. Louis for research on banks and financial crises, according to the Nobel Foundation. The trio will split the prize money of 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $885,000. Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day. Read more on this story here from Will Lee. COVID-19 tracker | Monkeypox tracker | Afternoon briefing | Compare gas prices | Puzzles & Games | Daily horoscope | Ask Amy | Todays eNewspaper edition As the sound of a flute played in Pottawattomie Park on Monday, three people began shouting over the Native song. A divide within the Native American community of Chicago took center stage in Rogers Park at what was meant to be a celebration and news conference hosted by the Indigenous Peoples Day Coalition-Illinois. The coalition, made up of 195 organizations and businesses across cultures, faith traditions and neighborhoods, intended to call on city, county and state officials to officially celebrate the history of Indigenous people on the second Monday in October. But three people with the Chi-Nations Youth Council, a local organization for Native youths, interrupted from the start, stating that one of the coalitions founders does not speak for us. Story continues During the height of the pandemic, 4 in 10 Americans misled others about their COVID-19 status or their adherence to public health measures designed to prevent the spread of the virus, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Network Open, a journal of the Chicago-based American Medical Association. Researchers found that about 42% of adults admitted they had engaged in some form of misrepresentation related to having COVID-19, vaccination or compliance with pandemic protocols. The results were based on a survey of more than 1,700 adults nationwide conducted in December 2021 a time when coronavirus cases were surging across the country, including in the Chicago area. Chicago Red Stars players are calling for the expulsion of majority owner Arnim Whisler as the National Womens Soccer League club reels from reports of abuse and harassment by former coach Rory Dames. The players released a joint statement Monday, less than a week after the league announced the findings of an independent investigation headed by former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates and the law firm King & Spalding. The NWSL commissioned the investigation after a series of abuse and harassment allegations throughout the league in the last year. The Yates report included descriptions of abuse and harassment allegedly perpetrated by Dames and allegedly covered up by Whisler. A Stranger Things character will continue to float midair outside a home in Plainfield for the rest of October after the owners decided to keep their viral Halloween display, despite opposition from a neighbor who was so incensed by the sudden influx of spectators that he chased some of them off with a bat. After homeowners Dave and Aubrey Appel shared a TikTok video in mid-September of the preparations for their Halloween decorations, which included the character Max Mayfield, played by actress Sadie Sink on the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, levitating above their yard, more than 1,000 people visited the home over the first weekend of October, Aubrey Appel said. A few years ago, The Long Room could be quiet as a library until about 8 p.m. without the bars co-owner, Jason Burrell, thinking twice. The rush was still on the way. Now, that scenario gives him sweats. Id be on pins and needles, Burrell said. Id be like, Come on, Ive got bills to pay! Two and a half years into a pandemic thats turning endemic, bars and restaurants such as The Long Room are finding they need to do healthy business earlier in the day for a simple reason: Late-night eating and drinking just isnt what it was. And it may never be again. DeKalb County police said they are now investigating the death of a DeKalb County pastors wife as a homicide. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Lashunda Ellison, 50, died Monday after she was shot at her home in Decatur. Her husband, Mac Ellison, said a bullet crashed through the wall of their bedroom last week and struck Lashunda Ellison in the head as the couple slept. Channel 2s Audrey Washington spoke to Mac Ellison, the pastor of Temple Faith Ministries, on Tuesday. He said he never even heard the bullet that hit his wife. He just saw blood and called 911. TRENDING STORIES God took the only thing that kept me going, Mac Ellison said through tears. We stayed together until the end. Ellison said the bullet came from a wooded area behind their home. He said it happened so quickly that it was only when he got to the hospital that a doctor told him his wife had bullet fragments in her head. I knew where my gun was, Ellison said. I didnt know where my wifes gun was. And I said, I know I didnt shoot my wife, and I know she didnt shoot herself. Ellison later found a bullet hole in the headboard of the bed the couple shared. Washington asked Ellison if he believes he and his wife were targeted. I dont think nobody targetedEven if you try to target us through some woods, you dont know where we lay our head, Ellison said. Detectives are still investigating the incident and were back at the scene looking for more evidence. LONDON (Reuters) -Small developing island states heavily exposed to the effects of climate change and often in critical debt situations spend at least 18 times more on debt servicing than they receive in climate finance, a report showed. The report by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) said 37 island and coastal countries that are home to some 65 million people, received just $1.5 billion in climate finance between 2016 and 2020. The states, from the Dominican Republic to Samoa, "urgently need to increase their fiscal space to tackle the multiple challenges and crises facing them," wrote Iolanda Fresnillo, one of the authors of the report. Over the same period, 22 of the nations paid more than $26.6 billion to their external creditors, said the report from Eurodad, which comprises more than 50 non-governmental organisations. Public debt levels in the island states had risen from an average of near 66% of gross domestic product in 2019 to nearly 83% in 2020 and were set to remain above 70% until 2025, the report found. More countries had turned to the International Monetary Fund for help, with the number of those having programmes with the fund jumping from three in 2019 to 20 between 2020 and 2021. In June, the fund's executive board approved a $60 million programme for Cape Verde while Barbados struck a deal for $293 million in late September. The report found that more than 80% of the island states were in debt difficulties under criteria established by the IMF and World Bank Debt Sustainability Analysis, or by civil society groups Debt Justice UK and Jubilee Germany. How to shore up fragile, smaller economies buckling under the strain of a fallout from COVID-19 and Russia's war in Ukraine will be discussed this week when policy makers from around the globe gather in Washington for the annual IMF and World Bank meeting until Oct. 16. However, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen views debt restructuring as a key priority, senior Treasury officials said on Tuesday they did not expect any major breakthroughs on debt matters this week. Story continues Some researchers also note that the IMF's decision-making process posed a challenge. They say the quota system based on an economy's size meant low- and middle-income countries most likely to borrow had little influence on the lender's decisions. "When scarce public finances are mostly spent on debt service rather than on investments to build a more resilient economy, countries will be locking into a cycle of unsustainable debt further fueled by climate impacts," wrote Lara Merling at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center in a research paper published on Tuesday. (Reporting by Karin Strohecker and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry and Tomasz Janowski) Russian President Vladimir Putin early Monday ordered his forces to launch dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities, a deadly escalatory move that comes as Moscow increasingly accuses Ukrainians of terrorism and warns of its own potential future response. Well share what we know about the strikes, the international response and Ukraines renewed plea for more lethal aid. This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, Im Ellen Mitchell. Did a friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here. Pressure rises to help Ukraine with air defenses The pressure for the United States to send Ukraine more advanced air defense systems reached a new high Monday after Russia escalated its war on the country with a barrage of deadly missile strikes. The Kremlin attacks, which targeted civilian areas that for months had enjoyed a relative calm, has produced anew the argument that the West send Ukraine more high-tech air defense weapons, including those similar to Israels Iron Dome missile interception system. Why the wait? Washington has long resisted providing Kyiv with such lethal aid, fearing it could escalate the conflict and arguing it would be too complicated to train Ukrainian troops on the advanced systems. But the latest Russia atrocities could shift the wind in Ukraines favor, experts say. Ukrainians have shown over and over again, if you give them the right tools to defend themselves, they will. Hopefully this moves the needle, said John Spencer, a retired Army major and the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the research organization Madison Policy Forum. Devastating strikes: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a rain of cruise and ballistic missiles on Kyiv and nine other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 11 individuals and injuring at least another 64. Putin said the attacks were a harsh response to a Saturday explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a crucial Russian rail and road line to the occupied Crimean peninsula. The bridge is viewed as a key supply route for Moscows military offensive on the south of Ukraine. Story continues The strikes also follow embarrassing Kremlin losses in its so-called special military operation, with Russian troops pushed from thousands of miles of territory in a lightning counteroffensive by Ukrainian armed forces starting in September. Condemnation and renewed calls: Russias escalation has prompted international condemnation and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to Telegram to plead for more air and missile defenses from the West and soon. About 84 missiles were launched on Ukraine but its air defenses were able to down 43 of them, Kyivs forces said, pointing to successes with the Western-supplied military aid. Zelensky later on Monday revealed he had a productive conversation with President Biden on the matter, stressing that air defense is currently the number 1 priority in our defense cooperation, he tweeted. Read the full story here. Also from The Hill: What we know about Putins mass strikes on Ukrainian cities Biden vows continued aid to Ukraine in call after Russian strikes Belaruss Lukashenko announces troop deployments with Russia amid escalations in Ukraine Menendez: Freeze US-Saudi cooperation Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) on Monday urged the U.S. government to freeze its cooperation with Saudi Arabia due to that nations decision to cut oil production, which is likely to benefit the Russian economy as it wages its war against Ukraine. The United States must immediately freeze all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including any arms sales and security cooperation beyond what is absolutely necessary to defend U.S. personnel and interests, Menendez wrote. A terrible decision: He said that the terrible decision made by OPEC+, an organization made up of countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq and Iran that export oil, would help underwrite [Russian President Vladimir Putins war. There simply is no room to play both sides of this conflict either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping off an entire country off of the map, or you support him, he wrote. The senator pledged that he will not approve any cooperation with Saudi Arabia on the Foreign Relations Committee unless and until the nations leadership changes its decision. Earlier: Saudi Arabias energy scale-back has been criticized by numerous Democrats since it was announced on Wednesday. The 2 million-barrel-per-day cut will likely contribute to a spike in gas prices in the U.S., which may affect Democrats chances in the midterm elections next month. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) advocated on Friday for pulling U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia in response to the move. Read that story here ON TAP FOR TOMORROW NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will hold a news conference ahead of NATO Defense Ministerial The Association of the U.S. Army will hold Day 2 of its annual meeting and exposition with speakers including Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville at 8 a.m. in Washington, D.C. WHAT WERE READING Well, thats it for today! Check out The Hills defense and national security pages for latest coverage. See you tomorrow! For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Delta Air Lines is set to move into a new terminal at OHare International Airport Wednesday, the latest step in ongoing construction at the airport. The carrier will move from Terminal 2 to Terminal 5, which was formerly the international terminal but now also includes domestic carrier Southwest. The move comes as a $1 billion renovation and expansion of Terminal 5 is slated to open in phases through 2023. The work is expected to increase the terminals gate capacity by 25%, increase passenger amenities and security checkpoint lanes, replace the aging baggage handling system and reconfigure customs and immigration facilities. Work is also underway on a new parking garage, and new concessions are planned for the terminal. Terminal 2, where Delta had been located, is slated to eventually be torn down and replaced by a new Global Terminal and two satellite concourses as part of a massive overhaul of the airport, but for now the gates Delta had previously used will go to United and Alaska airlines. In Terminal 5, Delta will have 10 gates and is opening a new, 22,000-square-foot Sky Club with nearly four times the capacity of the old Delta club. The move to the new terminal marks an investment by Delta in an airport where it traditionally has not been a dominant carrier. It also marks a commitment to a luxury experience often favored by business travelers, as international and business travel have been slower to come back from pandemic lows than leisure travel. This is a long-haul decision, said Steve Sear, executive vice president of global sales and distribution for Delta. Delta said the move to Terminal 5, where it invested $50 million, puts travelers in closer proximity to the carriers international airline partners, eliminating the need for international travelers to leave security and travel to a new terminal. It also offers travelers the option to board at some gates directly from the lounge, without leaving to enter the general airport. The carrier will gain some gates in the move, but said it has also been flying large planes with more seats in and out of OHare. The carrier has averaged 40 more seats per departure than in 2019 on its route to Atlanta. FIRST ON FOX: The congressman who left the Democratic Party three years ago to join the GOP commended former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for leaving the party as well, saying that moderate Democrats "dont exist anymore." Rep. Jeff Van Drew , R-N.J., commended Gabbard for her departure, saying in a statement to Fox News Digital that Democrats who love America have no other choice than to leave the party. "I commend her for doing it, but anyone that loves our country has no choice but to leave. The Democrat party does not represent American values," Van Drew said. TULSI GABBARD LEAVES DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DENOUNCES IT AS ELITIST CABAL Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who left the Democratic Party in 2019 to become a Republican, commended Tulsi Gabbard for also ditching the Democrats. "They represent the destruction of America," Van Drew continued. "I am glad others are following in my footsteps." Van Drew left the Democratic Party in 2019, switching to the GOP after voting against impeaching former President Trump. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Gabbard ditched the Democrats in a fiery fashion on the first episode of her new podcast, "The Tulsi Gabbard Show," posted Tuesday morning. The New Jersey Republican said the reaction to his departure from the Democrats was "much more vitriolic" compared to how Gabbards exit has been received thus far and said that moderate members of the blue party no longer exist. "I left the Democrat party three years ago and was an elected official," Van Drew said. "Democrats were also much more popular at the time and the reaction to my announcement that I would be leaving the party was much more vitriolic." Gabbard announced Tuesday on her YouTube channel and Twitter that she was leaving the Democratic Party. "Today, moderate Democrats dont exist anymore," the former Democrat said. While Gabbard has not announced plans to join another political party, Van Drew said he is "happy to welcome anyone if they want to join the Republican Party as long as they arent going to be weak." "To be honest, I am not sure whats taking some people so long to get out at this point," Van Drew said. The New Jersey Republican told Fox News Digital he has not heard any rumblings of the GOP courting Gabbard to join, and restated he will "welcome anyone to the GOP who will fight for a strong America." Story continues House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik said Gabbard left the Democrats after seeing "the writing on the wall." Other Republicans reacted to Gabbard's departure from the blue party, with House Republican Conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik of New York telling Fox News Digital that the now-former Democrat got out of the party after seeing "the writing on the wall." "There is no denying the Democrat Party is more focused on their far left woke agenda than supporting hardworking Americans," Stefanik said. "One-party Democrat rule has done nothing but deliver crises for the American people, and Tulsi Gabbard sees the writing on the wall." "She knows Americans will reject this radical agenda, and there will be an overwhelming red wave this November," she continued. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., said he wasn't surprised to see Gabbard go from the Democrats, quipping that she is "way too normal" for the people running the party. Rep. Austin Scott said he was "not surprised" to hear Gabbard had left the party, quipping she is "way too normal for the clowns running that circus." "Im not surprised to hear that Tulsi left the Democrats she is a great colleague and a good American," Scott said. "Shes way too normal for the clowns running that circus." Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who shares a close friendship with Gabbard, told Fox News Digital, "Tulsis assessment of todays far-Left Democrat party is right on target with the sentiment of the American people." "Millions of freedom-loving Americans like Tulsi are rejecting the liberal socialist agenda that is ruining our nations future," the Oklahoma Senate candidate continued. "Tulsi Gabbard is a true patriot, and Im proud to call her a friend and a sister." Rep. Markwayne Mullin speaks during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on April 15, 2021, in Washington, D.C. In her video announcement, Gabbard blasted the Democratic Party as being controlled by "an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness" who are dividing Americans "by racializing every issue" and stoking "anti-white racism." Gabbard also called on other moderate Democrats to leave the party in the video. "I believe in a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people. Unfortunately, today's Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government that is of, by and for the powerful elite," Gabbard said. "I'm calling on my fellow common sense, independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party." Gabbard has grown increasingly estranged from the Democratic establishment since her failed candidacy in the 2020 presidential primary. She has also become a vocal critic of President Biden, denouncing him for "pouring fuel on the flames" of division in the country. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised Tulsi for ditching the Democrats in a Tuesday statement on Fox News. He argued that she is one of many Americans who traditionally have voted blue but now find the Democrats unrecognizable. "[Gabbard] has always been sort of an independent maverick," Gingrich said. "And I think when she ran for president, she realized how really isolated she was from the great majority of the Democratic Party, which is now, frankly, a pretty weird party. I think you're seeing this drift. And we've certainly seen among Latinos a huge drift toward the Republican Party as they're driven away by the weirder policies of the Democratic Party." Fox News Digitals Anders Hagstrom contributed reporting. Though he was removed from a position as a school resource officer after reportedly striking a child across the face and pinning a knee to the child's chest, Alan Brackett continues to serve as a Henderson County Sheriff's deputy. The grandmother of a Fletcher Elementary fifth-grader who was reportedly pinned to the floor and struck in the face by a former school resource officer said she believes that man should be fired from the Henderson County Sheriffs Office and permanently removed from a law enforcement job. The grandmother, who is also the childs legal guardian, spoke to the Citizen Times recently about the May 9 incident in which Sheriffs Deputy Alan Brackett, 47, struck the child and pinned his knee to the childs chest, restricting the child's breathing, according to an email from then-Superintendent John Bryant. The Citizen Times is not naming the grandmother to protect the childs identity. The grandmother said she is furious about the encounter captured on school video, which she has not seen. The grandmother said she is also upset that she has not been kept informed about the case and has never heard from Sheriff Lowell Griffin or Henderson County District Attorney Andrew Murray during the course of an SBI investigation into Brackett's actions. When (school administrators) told me that the officer struck (my grandchild) I was like, how? How does that happen? I was furious, she said. Asked about the former superintendent's description of the incident which the Citizen Times obtained through a public records request for Griffin's own emails the sheriff described it as "allegations made prior to any fact-finding and formal investigation." Previous reporting: SBI investigating school resource officer's use of force on Fletcher Elementary student Fletcher Elementary SRO investigated by SBI: Officer fired more than once previously Emails: Fletcher SRO 'struck', pinned down fifth-grader; DA now reviewing case The grandmother said she called Superintendent Mark Garrett Oct. 10 requesting to see the video, but he did not return her call. Only a handful of people have seen the video, but those include all seven school board members. Only one board member, Stacey Caskey, has spoken publicly about it. She told the Citizen Times it was visceral and horrific to watch and that she could not understand why Brackett has not yet been fired. Story continues Sheriff Griffin offered an answer to the Citizen Times on Oct. 10. Though, in line with past statements from his office, he did not discuss the specifics of the incident. "Representatives from the Henderson County Sheriffs Office ... immediately reached out to the childs grandmother to make her aware of the incident," Griffin wrote by email to the Citizen Times. "Deputy Alan Brackett was placed on administrative leave immediately following the incident and remained on leave until the review of the investigation. A thorough and impartial investigation was conducted by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation with the results of that investigation forwarded directly to District Attorney Murray for full review. My decision to retain Deputy Brackett is the result of the totality of the facts and information gained from the investigation. I refuse to make decisions concerning the wellbeing of any employee based on political motives or media-driven fallacy." The sheriff did not respond to questions asking why Brackett no longer works as an SRO or if he had reviewed video of the incident. He also did not respond to a request asking for specific examples of media-driven fallacy. On Sept. 23 Murray said he would not file criminal charges against Brackett because after reviewing the SBIs secret report SBI findings are not open to the public, although district attorneys may do so he did not think Brackett used excessive force. Murray did not release any details of the report to the public or to the childs family. Henderson County DA: Cop's force against 5th-grader was 'not excessive'; no charges Read this:Deputy in Fletcher Elementary incident no longer SRO for Henderson County Public Schools While Brackett, who was previously "discharged" from Henderson County Sheriff's Office and fired from the Laurel Park Police Department, is no longer a school resource office in Henderson County, he is still a patrol officer with the Sheriffs Office, according to his personnel record. What happened at school that day The childs guardian said she received a call at about 11 a.m. May 9 from Fletcher Elementary Principal Tammy Deaver, who told her there had been an incident with the child and that she needed to come to the school. The grandmother left work and arrived at the school to find Deaver and three gentlemen in suits, one of whom was Director of School Safety Scott Masington. She said Brackett was not there. Deaver told the grandmother that Brackett had attacked the child, she said. Then one of the men, who said his name was Chad, read Deavers written report from a piece of paper. The grandmother said Deaver had tears in her eyes. Henderson school board member: Video of deputy striking 5th grade child 'horrific' Search warrant: Asheville High student accused of rape, sharing Snapchat visuals According to the grandmother, no one from the sheriff's office reached out to her, only Deaver contacted her. She said Chad said, reading from the report, "that he was very sorry and they do not put up with that and that's the reason why he and the other two gentlemen were there and why the resource officer was removed and he will never be able to enter another school district as a resource officer. She said he then told her what happened, according to a report from Deaver, who did not respond to a request for comment from the Citizen Times in September. He said that Ms. Deaver had asked (the child) to pull (their) hoodie down. I guess (the child) did not hear her or did not understand her. And she asked (them) to do it again. I was told that the resource officer then jerked the hoodie down off of (the child's) head and when he did that, (they) turned to see who was behind (them) After (the child) did that the resource officer then threw (them) on the floor, pinned both of (the child's) hands on (their) chest while he was applying his knee to (the childs) chest. Ms. Deaver said that she then heard (the child) tell the officer to get off of (them), (they) could not breathe. Ms. Deaver said at that moment she told the police officer to get away from (the child) and get off of (the child). She stated that when he got off of (the child) he picked (them) up, sat (them) in the chair. When (the child) went to get up to get away from him, he sat (them) back in the chair, striking (the child) in the face. The grandmother said she did not receive a copy of the report that was read to her May 9. She then took her grandchild to the hospital, where staff ordered X-rays to determine if any of the childs ribs had been broken. They were not. (The grandchild) just kept complaining that (they) couldn't catch (their) breath. It went on for a few hours. The whole time we were at the hospital (the child) was complaining that (they) couldn't catch (their) breath, she said. Former Henderson County School Resource Officer Alan Brackett slammed a fifth-grader to the ground and pinned his knee to the child's chest at Fletcher Elementary School in May, according to numerous reports. The grandmother said that a couple of weeks after her grandchild was attacked, she and her grandchild were called to go to an office in Hendersonville to be interviewed by the SBI. She said she was separated from her grandchild, who was taken into a room to be interviewed, while she was taken into a separate room. She didnt know the names of the interviewers. She said they asked her questions about what happened May 9. She said she never heard what the results of the report were, never received a copy of the report and was never notified by the DA what his decision was regarding charging Brackett with a crime. I was never informed of that. You know how I seen what the results were?" she said. "Through Facebook. I dont really have an answer for you, Murray told a reporter Oct. 10 when asked why he never contacted the child's guardian. Its a matter where typically theres an attorney involved. That attorney is (involved) with me when a decision is going to be made Im not sure I had the grandmothers number. But I didnt have a discussion with the grandmother, just because they dont have any outside counsel involved. In other news:3-year-old girl killed with stepbrothers gun; Henderson DA says he wont file charges Boyle column: In Fletcher man's death, here we go again with the black hole of SBI reports The grandmother said while she wasnt in the office when the attack happened, she had previously seen Brackett around the school. He's a tall guy and kind of a big fella. So can you imagine him putting his knee in your chest at 103 pounds? she said, referring to the weight of her grandchild, who was 12 years old at the time of the incident. When told that Brackett was still working for the Sheriffs Office, the grandmother said, I dont think thats right I think he should be fired. She said while she has never voiced that publicly, she has made it known to her family. That police officer shouldn't be able to be a police officer if he's going to be aggressive like that with a kid. He should have handled it very differently. He should have been the adult, she said. Karen Chavez is Content Coach/Investigations Editor for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Tips? Call 828-712-6316, email, KChavez@CitizenTimes.com or follow on Twitter @KarenChavezACT. Ryan Oehrli is the breaking news and social justice reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Send tips to coehrli@citizentimes.com. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Guardian says Henderson sheriff deputy who struck child should be fired With homecoming season fully underway at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the country, students at a Detroit charter school are looking to experience the beloved phenomenon firsthand. George Crockett Academys Mighty Rockets Drumline is preparing to head down to Texas to perform at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) later this month, giving the Michigan students an opportunity to show their skills while also being exposed to HBCU culture. Its exciting, an 8th-grade student named Delonta Jackson said, according to Click On Detroit. Were waiting. Im one of two captains on the drumline, and Im the section leader of the bass drum, he added. Kylee Jenkins, a 7th grader, is also slated to attend the event, and shes psyched to get to experience performing at the illustrious institution. Its fun, Jenkins expressed, Click On Detroit reports. Very fun because Im with a lot of people [who are] like my family. Malik Jackson, a PVAMU alum who serves as George Crockett Academys percussion teacher, also shared that on top of the homecoming performance experience his students are also excited to learn more about HBCU history. I know a lot of people know the background of the historically Black college, Jackson shared, according to Click On Detroit. It was where our ancestors [were] allowed to go to [instead of] those predominantly white institutions. So, it makes it so special. I have a lot of these kids. Theyre so eager to learn about history. Theres a bit of a catch, though: sending 29 students (as well as some chaperones) down to Texas for the performance is going to cost the program about $25,000. We are at a charter school where we dont get the same funding as most public schools, Jackson said. So, for us, everything that we choose to do, we have to fundraise for. They are doing as best as they can to raise the funds on their end, but we still need some help. Community leaders, anybody. Story continues The performance is slated to go down on Oct. 29, and the students are scheduled to head to Texas on Oct. 26. However, as the band has presently met around 36% of its $25,000 goal, the students still have a long way to go. You can donate here. We appreciate your support as we raise the funds needed to provide our students with a fantastic experience. Thank you in advance for supporting our fundraiser as well as helping us share our campaign through text, email and social media! We greatly value the supporters of our program, Jackson wrote on the fundraising page. Supporters of President Donald Trump breach the Capitol building in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2020. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times) When the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers militia opened last week in U.S. District Court in Washington, prosecutors focused much of their attention on the organizations founder and leader, Stewart Rhodes. That was for good reason: The governments evidence suggests that Rhodes was the central force driving the far-right group to disregard the results of the 2020 election and to ultimately seek to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. But as the trial unfolds over the next several weeks, the spotlight will fall on Rhodes co-defendants: Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell. Their stories help to flesh out how the group came to play such a prominent role in the effort to keep Trump in the White House despite his loss in the election. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Here is a look at each of them and what the jury may hear about their individual roles in the plot to storm the Capitol and disrupt the democratic process on Jan. 6, 2021. KELLY MEGGS Meggs, a car dealer from Dunnellon, Florida, a small town north of Tampa, was the leader of the Oath Keepers Florida chapter on Jan. 6, having taken over the position two weeks earlier from its previous chief, Michael Adams. Adams, who testified at the trial last week, said he had resigned the post in protest over Rhodes increasingly violent language, including calls for a bloody war against the Biden administration. From an early stage, Meggs, outraged by the results of the election, seemed prepared to join that fray according to Facebook messages seized by the government. And after Trump posted a tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, inviting supporters to a wild protest in Washington on Jan. 6, Meggs reacted enthusiastically. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! he wrote. Sir Yes Sir!! We are headed to DC. Around the same time, Meggs claimed to have organized an alliance between the Oath Keepers and other far-right groups among them, the Proud Boys and the Florida chapter of the Three Percenter militia movement, the Facebook messages show. While much of the planning seems to have revolved around efforts to combat leftist activists from antifa, who were expected to harass Trump supporters on Jan. 6, Meggs discussed bringing mace, gas masks and batons to Washington for the rally that day. Story continues Meggs also played an instrumental role in the Oath Keepers getting the job of providing security to Roger Stone, Trumps longtime political adviser, who was scheduled to speak at rallies on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. Lawyers for the group have used the security job as part of their defense strategy, suggesting the Oath Keepers did not go to Washington to attack the Capitol, but rather to protect pro-Trump dignitaries. On Jan. 6, Meggs was part of a military-style stack that entered the east side of the Capitol and, according to prosecutors, moved through the Rotunda toward the House of Representatives in search of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Should Rhodes testify at the trial, as expected, he is likely to say that Meggs went off mission by going into the building and that he did so without instructions from any Oath Keepers leaders. KENNETH HARRELSON Two days before the Capitol attack, Meggs named Harrelson, a welder and Army veteran from Titusville, Florida, as the leader of his ground team, prosecutors say. But not much is known about Harrelsons activities or beliefs in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, in large part because he had no social media accounts and deleted most of his cellphone messages after the Oath Keepers left Washington that day. The jury will eventually hear evidence that Harrelson brought rifles to a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia, as part of a so-called quick reaction force designed to rush into Washington and aid the Oath Keepers at the Capitol if things went wrong. The jurors will also likely hear how Harrelson entered the building with one of the military stacks and joined Meggs in search of Pelosi. Harrelsons lawyers chose not to give an opening statement to the jury, but they have said he had no idea the Oath Keepers intended to storm the Capitol and had only gone to Washington to take part in the groups security work. The quick reaction force also never brought their weapons from Virginia into Washington. JESSICA WATKINS Watkins, an Army veteran and bar owner from rural Ohio, ran her own militia in that state and joined up with the Oath Keepers around the time of the election. Like others in the group, she was disturbed by the results of the election and considered the prospect of a Biden presidency to be an existential threat, court papers say. Biden may still be our President, she wrote to an associate in November 2020. If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. She quickly added: Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights. On Jan. 6, Watkins used a digital walkie-talkie app called Zello to communicate with her fellow Oath Keepers and with dozens of others who were on the same channel, Stop the Steal J6. Prosecutors intend to play a recording of their chatter to the jury, providing a real-time, firsthand account of Watkins marching toward the Capitol and entering the building where she was met by paintballs and stun grenades from the police. As a transgender woman, Watkins may have the most interesting personal story of any of the Oath Keepers defendants, and her lawyer, Jonathan Crisp, said during his opening statement last week that he intends to use it to humanize her for the jury. While the details remain unclear, Crisp said that Watkins found it challenging to spend years in hypermasculine organizations like the Army and the Oath Keepers. THOMAS CALDWELL Though he was not a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers, Caldwell, a former naval officer who once held a top-secret clearance, was intimately involved with each of the Oath Keepers events in Washington after the election. He let several members of the group stay on his 30-acre property in Berryville, Virginia, while they attended the so-called Million MAGA March on Nov. 14, 2020. Then, in advance of a second pro-Trump rally in the city on Dec. 12, Caldwell a self-described crusty intel guy wrote an ops plans, advising his compatriots to bring striking weapons and possibly firearms to the event. The guns, and each of their bullets, he wrote, should be wiped down thoroughly before the gathering and discarded after use. As Jan. 6 approached, Caldwell took charge of assembling the armed quick reaction force that would be stationed at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia. At one point, he considered a plan to use a boat to ferry weapons across the Potomac River to his fellow Oath Keepers at the Capitol, evidence has shown. 2022 The New York Times Company Washington The Justice Department on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to keep roughly 100 documents with classified markings off limits from the independent third party reviewing records seized from former President Donald Trump's Florida residence. These documents were among the thousands retrieved in the search. In a filing to the high court, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said it should reject Trump's request to disseminate the records bearing classification markings to the independent third party, or special master. The emergency request, she wrote, concerns "an unprecedented order by the district court restricting the Executive Branch's use of its own highly classified records in an ongoing criminal investigation and directing the dissemination of those records outside the Executive Branch for a special-master review." "The district court appointed the special master to review claims of privilege and for the return of personal property, but [Trump] has no plausible claim of privilege in or ownership of government records bearing classification markings," she told the Supreme Court. "As the court of appeals recognized, [Trump] thus has no basis to demand special-master review of those records." Trump asked the Supreme Court earlier this month to intervene in the legal battle over his handling of sensitive government records after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit allowed federal investigators to regain access to the 103 records bearing classification markings. YOUNGSTOWN, OH - SEPTEMBER 17: Former President Donald Trump speaks at a Save America Rally to support Republican candidates running for state and federal offices in the state at the Covelli Centre on September 17, 2022 in Youngstown, Ohio. / Credit: Jeff Swensen / Getty Images The unanimous three-judge panel had also limited the scope of the review by the special master and said the tranche of sensitive documents had to be excluded from the examination of the roughly 11,000 records seized by the FBI during its Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Palm Beach residence. In his request to the Supreme Court, Trump's legal team argued the 11th Circuit "lacked jurisdiction to review the special master order, which authorized the review of all materials seized from President Trump's residence, including documents bearing classification markings." The lower court's stay of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's order "impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work" of the special master, they said. Story continues "Moreover, any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a president's home erodes public confidence in our system of justice," Trump's lawyers said. The former president did not ask the Supreme Court to prohibit federal investigators from continuing to use the documents marked classified in its ongoing criminal investigation into his handling of government records. Instead, he asked the high court only to reverse the 11th Circuit's decision regarding the special master's access to the materials bearing classification markings retrieved by the FBI. In the Justice Department's response to Trump's request, Prelogar said the former president has not acknowledged, nor attempted to rebut, the conclusion from the 11th Circuit that Cannon's order "was a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the Executive Branch's authority to control the use and distribution of extraordinarily sensitive government records." The litigation between Trump and the Justice Department stemmed from federal investigators' efforts to retrieve records the former president had brought with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency in January 2021. During the Aug. 8 search of the property, the FBI took roughly 11,000 documents, including 103 records that had classification markings, and 1,800 other items from a storage space and Trump's office on the premises, according to the Justice Department. After the search, Trump filed a lawsuit in federal district court in South Florida requesting a special master be appointed to vet all of the seized records for material that may be subject to claims of attorney-client or executive privilege. Cannon, the judge, ultimately granted Trump's request over opposition from the Justice Department and named Judge Raymond Dearie, who has long served on the U.S. district court in Brooklyn, to be the special master. She also ordered federal investigators to stop using the seized materials in its criminal probe of Trump. Federal prosecutors asked the 11th Circuit to stay a portion of Cannon's order, seeking to regain access to the subset of 103 documents marked as classified. They also separately asked the appeals court to review Cannon's order appointing the special master. In its Sept. 21 decision allowing investigators to use documents marked classified in their investigation, the 11th Circuit panel said it "cannot discern why [Trump] would have an individual interest in or need for any of the 100 documents with classification markings." The unsigned opinion joined by Judges Robin Rosenbaum, Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher also questioned Trump's suggestion that he may have declassified some of the sensitive records before leaving office, noting "the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified." Rosenbaum was appointed to the 11th Circuit by former President Barack Obama, and Grant and Brasher were tapped by Trump. "In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal," the three-judge panel wrote. "So even if we assumed that [Trump] did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them." But in its request to the Supreme Court, Trump's legal team continued to question the classification status of the 103 sensitive documents. His lawyers referred to the material as "purportedly classified" and argued Trump, as president, had "absolute authority" to declassify information. "The government's position presumes certain documents are in fact classified, affording President Trump no opportunity to contend otherwise," they wrote. "This presumption is at the core of the dispute. Since President Trump had absolute authority over classification decisions during his presidency, the current status of any disputed document cannot possibly be determined solely by reference to the markings on that document." In her filing, however, Prelogar called Trump's assertions that he had the authority to declassify records while in office, and his contention that the special master's appointment was warranted because the case involves a document storage dispute "wrong and irrelevant." Trump, she told the Supreme Court, "has never represented in any of his multiple legal filings in multiple courts that he in fact declassified any documents much less supported such a representation with competent evidence." The Justice Department's filing again took on the former president's claim that the records with classified markings should be a part of the review under Presidential Records Act (PRA), which Trump argued would entitle him to some ownership over the documents. The former president's "reliance on the PRA is misguided because he did not comply with his PRA obligation to deposit the records at issue with [the National Archives] in the first place," the filing alleges. "As a result, the Archivist does not have custody of those records, and the PRA's procedures do not apply to them." Trump, Prelogar wrote, "has no plausible claims of ownership of or privilege in the documents bearing classification markings," and as such, he will "suffer no harm at all from a temporary stay of the special master's review of those materials while the government's appeal proceeds." The Supreme Court, now with a six-justice conservative majority that includes three members appointed by Trump, has been asked to intervene in other records fights arising during and after Trump's presidency, though he has not fared well. In January, the Supreme Court turned down a bid from Trump to block the release of White House documents to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Only Justice Clarence Thomas noted he would have granted Trump's request to shield the records from House investigators. In 2020, the high court ruled the Manhattan district attorney could obtain troves of Trump's business and tax records and said the president is not immune from state criminal subpoenas. Only Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito dissented. The Supreme Court returned the case to the lower courts for further proceedings, and after suffering more losses, Trump again asked the justices to step in. But in February 2021, the high court rejected his attempt to shield his financial records from Manhattan prosecutors, this time with no noted dissents. Ohio Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan discusses campaign: "We've got a lot of momentum" Stock market erases early gains after IMF economic report Teen with autism gets Broadway surprise WASHINGTON The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday not to grant an emergency request from Donald Trump to review an appeals court decision dealing with the classified documents seized from his Florida estate because he "has no plausible claim of ownership" of the records. "Applicants inability to demonstrate irreparable injury is itself sufficient reason to deny the extraordinary relief he seeks in this Court," government lawyers wrote. The Justice Department also smacked at Trumps repeated public remarks since the seizure that he had declassified the documents at issue. Despite asserting that classification status is at the core of the dispute,' in this case (Trump) has never represented in any of his multiple legal filings in multiple courts that he in fact declassified any documents much less supported such a representation with competent evidence, department lawyers wrote. Trump asked the court Oct. 4 to review the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that allowed the department to continue its investigation of about 100 classified documents for possible crimes. Trumps lawyers argued the documents should be part of a special masters review of 11,000 records seized at Mar-a-Lago. Stay in the conversation on politics: Sign up for the OnPolitics newsletter But government lawyers contend the Supreme Court should reject the request because Trump has little hope of winning and hasn't shown he would suffer irreparable harm from the review. "That limited relief imposes no harm much less irreparable injury" on Trump, the department argued. Trump, the government said, "does not seriously argue otherwise." The government, however, could be harmed by having to disclose the classified records to the special master, some of which reflect the highest levels of classification and extraordinarily restricted distribution, according to department lawyers. Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. The filing is the latest in a complicated legal case intertwined in four venues of federal court: the Supreme Court, the 11th Circuit appeals court, U.S. District Court in southern Florida and a special masters court in Brooklyn. Story continues Its the equivalent of a judicial pileup on the highway, said Mark Chutkow, a former federal prosecutor now at Dykema law firm. Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees the 11th Circuit, could potentially grant Trumps application himself, reject it or pass along the request to the full court for a vote. No deadline is set for any action. Granting the application would mean Thomas thought there was a reasonable possibility four justices would vote to hear the case and a fair prospect five justices could potentially agree with Trump's arguments on the merits, Chutkow said. To win, Trump would have to show he would suffer irreparable harm if his request isn't granted. That is a high hurdle with the special master's review only expected to take two more months. The factors dont really weigh on former President Trumps favor on this," Chutkow said. This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Justice Department says it has uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified records at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. The legal wrangling stems from the FBIs Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago. Trump initially asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to authorize a special master to review the records seized, to potentially withhold them from the Justice Department for attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. Cannon assigned U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie as special master. She ordered the Justice Department to suspend its criminal investigation during the review. She gave Dearie a Dec. 16 deadline to complete his review. The Justice Department appealed part of her order to the 11th Circuit, arguing its criminal investigation of about 100 classified documents should continue and the documents shouldnt be part of the special masters review. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit agreed with the department and Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. Both sides have been aggressive in the civil case because of the potential for eventual criminal charges. Chutkow, the former prosecutor, said the court battle illustrates Trumps willingness to fight the unprecedented search, after paying a reported $3 million retainer to his lawyers. Meanwhile, the Justice Department contends Trump has no ownership over any of the administration records, particularly the classified records. If the special master received the classified documents, Trump could argue that he deserved to see them, too, which could complicate any potential criminal case, Chutkow said. Theres some multi-level chess being played here, Chutnow said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DOJ to Supreme Court: Reject Trump's request over Mar-a-Lago documents Photo: The Canadian Press The top adviser to incoming Alberta premier Danielle Smith says her proposed sovereignty act would respect Supreme Court decisions a reversal of her core policy promise on how she would challenge Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government. Rob Anderson, Smiths campaign chair for the United Conservative Party leadership and now executive director of her transition team, told CBC in a story published Saturday that Smiths proposed sovereignty act wont empower Alberta to disregard Supreme Court rulings. But Anderson promised that the act, which has yet to be drafted, would have a whole head of very sharp teeth and change the dynamic with Trudeaus Liberal government. Smiths spokesman Jonah Mozeson, responding to an email request for comment Monday, declined to answer specific queries about Andersons statement. In a short statement, Mozeson said, As the premier-designate has said, the sovereignty act will be drafted in accordance with sound constitutional principles. The premier-designate looks forward to working with caucus to draft legislation that protects and asserts Albertas constitutional rights in accordance with the rule of law. The sovereignty act is the signature policy for Smith, who is to be sworn in as premier Tuesday. She won the UCP leadership race last week showcasing the act as a vanguard of a broader paradigm-busting challenge against what she has termed Trudeaus "lawless" intrusion in areas of provincial scope, ranging from energy development to COVID-19 health rules. The act as proposed by Smith would allow the province to refuse to follow federal laws and court rulings it deemed to be not in Albertas best interests and an illegal intrusion into its duly delegated spheres of influence under the Constitution. As recently as a month ago, Smith said the sovereignty act would only be used in special circumstances using "special motions" requiring the consent of the legislature. She also stressed Alberta would not consider itself bound by the courts. If a court stays or ultimately deems that the actions undertaken by the province under a specific Alberta sovereignty act special motion is unconstitutional, then the government and legislature will have to review the special motion actions in question and make a decision as to whether or not to amend, end or continue with them, understanding the legal implications such a decision could cause, Smith said in a news release Sept. 6. The sovereignty act dominated the debate throughout the summer-long leadership campaign to replace Jason Kenney as party leader and premier. It was denounced by five of Smith's six leadership rivals, and by Kenney, as a profoundly illegal and dangerous plan doomed to ignite economic chaos as Albertans, investors and businesses wouldnt know which laws they were to follow. Alberta Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani entered the debate at one point, saying she is duty-bound not to sign into law a bill that violates the Constitution. Martin Olszynski, an administrative law professor at the University of Calgary, who has written articles on the sovereignty act, said if Andersons reversal is as advertised, it is the legally proper way to proceed but represents a fundamental rollback of Smiths original proposal. All of the sovereignty act, as it has been currently described, could only work if the premier and the legislature were prepared to ignore the courts. Thats been very clear. Thats why everybody was so alarmed, said Olszynski in interview. We have to see the details, of course, he added. But if suddenly now the premier-designate and her office are prepared to say, 'of course we're bound by the courts,' then the sovereignty act goes nowhere. Smith said the sovereignty act will be introduced in the upcoming fall session. It grew out of the Free Alberta Strategy, a policy paper introduced last September by Anderson, University of Calgary political science professor Barry Cooper and lawyer Derek From. In the paper, the trio call for radical action, such as refusing to implement federal laws and court rulings, in order to combat decisions deemed to be mortally wounding Alberta's development. Cooper, in a June newspaper op-ed, said the unconstitutionality of such a proposal is not a bug in the program but its primary feature. In a National Post story published June 17, Anderson was quoted saying, The idea is that it doesnt matter what the Supreme Court or the federal government says about it, if it attacks Albertans, the interest of Albertans, and it attacks our jurisdictional rights, we simply wont enforce it with any provincial agency. Anderson told the newspaper at that time that he expected the sovereignty act would likely be found unconstitutional but the province could ignore such a court ruling. The Alberta legislature would say, Thanks for that, but were not going to enforce it. So you cant make us.' And what are they going to do? Maybe send in the army? Is that the plan? said Anderson. BOSTONMore than a hundred Ukrainians living in Massachusetts rallied outside the State House Monday, following one of the worst Russian bombing attacks since the war began almost eight months ago. Today was a very hard day for Ukrainians, 20-year-old Suffolk University student Nika Chelnokova said. The Ukrainian Cultural Center of New England is calling for the U.S. and other western allies to supply anti-aircraft warfare to help close the skies over Ukraine. We cannot [live] this way anymore. Every day there is bombing in Ukraine and today we need to do something about it. People need to do something about it, the United States especially, Chelnokova said. Russia unleashed its biggest attack in months, retaliating after a critical bridge to Crimea was damaged over the weekend. Russian forces bombed civilian targets, killing at least 14 people. One Russian missile hit a playground, another struck a university building. Congress has approved tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, including a recent package approved at the end of September that included $13.2 billion. But Sasha Horokh, a 20-year-old students at MIT, said too many Americans have forgotten about the war. Thats why its important for us to keep gathering, keep yelling as loud as possible to remind everyone and tell everyone that war is still here, and as long as its here we are not going anywhere, Horokh said. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Allentown leak More than two dozen children have been rushed to hospital after a carbon monoxide leak at a childcare centre in the US state of Pennsylvania. Every ambulance in the city of Allentown was deployed to the Happy Smiles Learning Center on Tuesday. The early morning call prompted a large emergency response as multiple people were showing symptoms of poisoning. Some 25 children and eight staff members were taken to hospital, with the majority now in a stable condition. Carbon monoxide poisoning can result in severe sickness and even death. "It was initially a medical call for a child who was unconscious," Captain John Christopher of the Allentown Fire Department told the BBC. But firefighters and paramedics who arrived at the scene found the monitors on their bags indicated high levels of carbon monoxide. "This prompted immediate evacuation by roping in all the city ambulances," Mr Christopher said. The children and staff were taken to all four of the city's hospitals after initial medical aid was provided at the scene. The childcare centre is an isolated building so there is no risk of the leak spreading further, the fire official said. Nine-year-old pupil Danyelis Polanco said she quickly knew something was wrong after entering her school building and walking towards her classroom. "My nose was bothering, my eyes were burning bad," she told CBS, the BBC's US partner. "I felt a little dizzy. My head was hurting a little," she continued. "And when I got there I was a little worried because I saw someone from my class who was on the floor and I was worried because his eyes were closed and stuff." Local newspaper The Morning Call quoted a gas company official as saying the leak was caused by a malfunctioning heating unit and a blocked venting system, but this has not been confirmed by the authorities. Carbon monoxide is an odourless, colourless gas produced by the incomplete burning of carbon-based fuels such as oil, wood and coal. The gas is harmful because it displaces oxygen from red blood cells, resulting in damage to major organs. More than 400 people in the US are killed and 4,000 are admitted to hospital every year when they unintentionally inhale too much carbon monoxide, according to statistics provided by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These are the big EastEnders spoilers for 17-20 October, 2022. (BBC) Jack has the week from hell on EastEnders next week after losing his temper, plus theres drama for Nish during his opening episodes in Walford. Its your full EastEnders spoilers guide for 17-20 October 2022. Shock collapse for Nish Panesar Nina Gupta (HERSHA VERITY);Ravi Gulari (AARON THIARA);Vinny Panesar (SHIV JALOTA);Nish Panesar (NAVIN CHOWDHRY);Ash Panesar (GURLAINE KAUR GARCHA) (BBC) Nish hasnt exactly received a warm welcome home, especially from Kheerat, whos struggling to be civil with his dad. His reason? As Kheerat reveals to Stacey, Nish was in prison for killing someone who got too close to Suki. Read more: Next week on Coronation Street Read more: Next week on Emmerdale For his part, Nish is trying to settle himself back into the family business, but after a series of awkward incidents, he ends up in a showdown with Kheeat. But once alone, the Panesar patriarch collapses on the floor. Tuesdays episode then finds Ash tending to Nish who, while hes being treated, manages to win her round. But Kheerat later makes a huge decision and decides to reveal all to Vinny and Ash about why their dad was banged up. Amy and Denzel are caught out Amy Mitchell (ABBIE BURKE) (BBC) Lily is left feeling concerned when she learns that Amy is planning to sleep with Denzel. But Amy wont be deterred, and when Jack and Denise go out for the evening, she decides to take advantage of being home alone. Stacey, though, has picked up on the signs that Lily is hiding something and, after she discovers what the youngster knows, she goes hunting for Jack. Denzel, meanwhile, arrives at Amys and tells her that he wants to take things slowly. But just as the two of them start to kiss, a furious Jack barges in and pins Denzel against the wall. As tempers fray, will Denise be able to defuse the tension? Jack seeks solace with Sam ESam Mitchell (KIM MEDCAF);Jack Branning (SCOTT MASLEN) (BBC) In the wake of his showdown with Denzel, Jack gets a call from his boss hes been reported for assaulted Denzel and will now be investigated. As he reels from the information, Jack starts throwing accusations around about who he believes to be responsible. But after venting spleen, hes left surprised as Sam offers him a listening ear over a few drinks. Story continues But during the heart to heart, Sam leans in for a kiss unaware that theres a witness to her actions, whos filming the incident. And, by the weeks end, both Jack and Denise have received the incriminatory video footage Will Jay and Lola come clean? Jay Mitchell (JAMIE BORTHWICK);Lola Pearce (DANIELLE HAROLD);Martin Fowler (JAMES BYE) (BBC) Martin will be seen chatting up his delivery driver Jenny and manages to secure a date with her. But when he begs Jay to be his wingman and accompany Jennys friend Amber on what will now be a double date, Jay is left with a quandary. Should he and Lola decide to open up about their relationship? Read more: EastEnders' Danielle Harold to face brain tumour storyline as Lola Pearce Jay and Lola do eventually confide in Martin, but request that he keeps quiet. But Martin inadvertently then lets slip to Lily, who ends up congratulating Jay and Lola in front of Lexi! Lexi is furious that they kept this news a secret and warns them that theyre going to have to make things up to her! Felix and Finlay find a new home Finlay Baker (ASHLEY BYAM);Felix Baker (MATTHEW MORRISON) (BBC) The cost-of-living crisis means that the Taylor/Baker clan are struggling to make ends meet. So, Felix and Finlay decide to relieve them of their financial burden by offering to move out. By the weeks end, the pair will be seen putting off a potential housemate for Chelsea and then convincing her to let them move in instead. But will they all get along? Watch: EastEnders' Sam Womack thanks fans for support Peiter Zatko (left) and Elon Musk. Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images/The Washington Post via Getty Images A whistleblower said he destroyed notebooks and computer files at Twitter's request, per a court filing. Elon Musk requested sanctions against Twitter on October 3, alleging it destroyed evidence. The filing was made public on Monday, but filed the day before Musk made a U-turn on the purchase. Elon Musk accused Twitter of ordering whistleblower Peiter Zatko to destroy evidence, according to a court filing that was made public on Monday. The court letter was initially filed on October 3 the day before Musk said he would purchase Twitter at its original price after months of trying to back out of the $44 billion acquisition. The letter asks the Delaware judge overseeing the lawsuit between the billionaire and social media company to sanction Twitter over the accusations it forced Zatko to destroy evidence of its alleged malpractice. The filing said that Twitter's former security chief, Zatko, testified he burned 10 handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 computer files after the company instructed him to "destroy all documents in his possession containing Twitter information." Musk's legal team argued that the alleged instructions, which were tied to Zatko's $7 million severance package "differed from Twitter's ordinary severance agreements requiring an employee to simply 'return' such documents." Zatko's notes included details from meetings with executives, as well as communications with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal regarding his concerns over Twitter's security practices, per the court filing. A Twitter spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication. Musk's legal team said Zatko destroyed the documents the day after he filed his whistleblower complaint on July 6 making it more difficult for the whistleblower to "share corroborating evidence." In his 84-page complaint, published by The Washington Post, he accused the company of general mismanagement, "lying" to Elon Musk about spam accounts on its site, and having poor security practices that could violate a previous FTC settlement agreement. Story continues At the time, a Twitter spokesperson told Insider the allegations are "riddled with inaccuracies" and that Zatko was fired for "ineffective leadership and poor performance." After Zatko's whistleblower complaint became widely reported in August, Musk amended his countersuit against Twitter to include the former security chief's allegations. The lawsuit is currently on hold after Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick gave Musk and Twitter an October 28 deadline to complete the deal on their own. Read the original article on Business Insider Elon Musk next to picture of woman with psychoactive drug pills on her tongue having psychedelic trip with hallucinations - stock photo Getty Elon Musk likes to discuss the benefits of MDMA and mushrooms with friends, The New York Times reported. One friend said the billionaire had been on "mild exploratory journeys." Musk has discussed the benefits of psychedelics in the past. Elon Musk is no stranger to psychedelic drugs and often likes to discuss the benefits of the substances, according to a recent report from The New York Times. The billionaire likes to share a chart that shows MDMA and psychedelic mushrooms are healthier than alcohol use, one person who Musk shared the chart with on vacation told the publication. The Times spoke with over 40 people who have spent time with the richest man in the world over the past decade and a half, many under conditions of anonymity due to concerns of repercussions, as well as non-disclosure agreements that they were required to sign at the parties Musk attended. For the past 20 years, Musk has attended nearly every Burning Man festival often accompanied by his younger brother, Kimbal Musk, the Times reported. "I have been with him on mild exploratory journeys," David Marglin, a Bay Area lawyer who met Mr. Musk at Burning Man and has been his friend for 20 years, told The Times. "And he appreciates the value of those journeys. Nothing out of control or wild, but it's all night, and there's dancing and revelry." Neither Marglin nor Musk responded to Insider's requests to get in touch for comment ahead of publication. In the past, the Tesla CEO has expressed support for psychedelics. Earlier this year, he tweeted in a response to a thread on the issue from billionaire investor Marc Andreessen. "I've talked to many more people who were helped by psychedelics & ketamine than SSRIs & amphetamines," Musk wrote on Twitter. More recently, the billionaire said in an interview with Full Send Podcast that he thinks psychedelics can be "pretty helpful" for PTSD and depression. Musk also noted he and the "whole of SpaceX" had been subjected to random drug tests for a year after he appeared on a podcast with Joe Rogan in which he smoked weed. Story continues What the science says Alcohol reduces production of serotonin and dopamine, mood-boosting chemicals in the brain. It has been linked to a higher risk for depression. Alcohol use is also linked to a number of health disorders and chronic conditions. Researchers have not compared health benefits from alcohol and psychedelic mushrooms head-to-head. And researchers are still studying whether psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, improves anxiety and depression. However, one small, 12-week trial, published last month, found psilocybin reduced the number of days heavy drinkers drank alcohol compared to those who took a placebo. As for MDMA, clinical trial results show promise for treating patients with post-traumatic stress disorder when taken under the supervision of a therapist. Again, researchers have not studied MDMA and alcohol head-to-head. Musk is far from the only tech CEO whose expressed interest in psychedelics. Apple founder Steve Jobs previously touted the practice of microdosing on psychedelic drugs, such as LSD or psilocybin mushrooms in order to promote creativity. Read the original article on Business Insider Pilar Schiavo, co-founder of West Valley People's Alliance, speaks at the Los Angeles federal courthouse in 2020. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Three years ago, when parents at her daughters school began protesting development of a new apartment building to house homeless people in Chatsworth, Pilar Schiavo took a different tack. She questioned the project developer, wrote up a fact sheet and passed it out at a counter-protest to make the case that the other parents were wrong and the suburban community needs transitional housing. There are seniors and veterans and people who want to get off the streets, Schiavo told a Times columnist in 2019. We cant keep saying not in my backyard. It was an act of courage that demonstrates Schiavos willingness to fight for solutions, even when problems feel entrenched and impossible to solve. After advocating for housing and healthcare for many years, including two decades working in the labor movement, Schiavo is now running for state Assembly on the Nov. 8 ballot. Shes a Democrat aiming to flip the newly redrawn 40th District from red to blue. The district, which includes Chatsworth, Northridge, Santa Clarita and Castaic, is currently represented by GOP Assemblywoman Suzette Martinez Valladares. In her one term in office, Valladares has proved to be an independent legislator willing to break from her partys leadership. She voted in favor of putting Proposition 1 on the ballot to let voters decide if they want to enshrine abortion rights in the California Constitution, even though she said she is personally against abortion. She voted for Democratic legislation to regulate "ghost" guns, even as she voted against several other gun safety measures that were before the Legislature this year. She supported important housing bills that many Republicans opposed. Its refreshing to see lawmakers go against party orthodoxy to take positions that they believe best represent their communities. The Republican Party desperately needs to embrace a broader range of ideas and more candidates like Valladares if its ever going to be viable in California. Story continues Although Valladares has not been in lockstep with her party, she has also cast too many votes that go against the interests of this state, such as opposing bills to curb climate change and improve the criminal justice system. She supported the ill-conceived efforts to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Dist. Atty. George Gascon. Schiavo has a solid record of community service and a passion for solutions that will serve Santa Clarita Valley residents well. In the Assembly, she wants to prioritize developing more job training programs, ensuring all Californians can access healthcare, reducing the risk of wildfires and bolstering the states efforts to save and reuse water. The Times endorses Pilar Schiavo. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. By Nick Carey LONDON (Reuters) - Auto forecaster S&P Global Mobility warned on Tuesday that, under a worst case scenario, Europe's energy crisis could cut its car production by close to 40%, or more than 1 million vehicles, per quarter through the end of 2023. In a report titled 'Winter is Coming,' S&P Global Mobility said the auto industry's supply chain - already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine - "may face extensive pressure" from soaring energy costs or even power cuts. "With energy prices in Europe skyrocketing... a harsh winter could place certain automotive sectors at risk of being unable to keep their production lines running," the report said. S&P Global Mobility said costs had already escalated for car production, to between 687 euros ($667) and 773 euros per vehicle, up from a pre-energy crisis level of 50 euros, putting strain on smaller suppliers in particular. Starting this quarter through the end of 2023, S&P Global Mobility had forecast quarterly production from European car assembly plants would be between 4 million and 4.5-million units. But "with potential utility restrictions" that could be cut to as little as 2.75 million to 3 million units per quarter. The auto forecaster warned that because European suppliers export parts around the world, all carmakers would be impacted in some way. Edwin Pope, S&P Global Mobility principal analyst for materials and lightweighting, told Reuters the analysis was conducted before the likely sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines late last month. "Events like that will inevitably shift the scales towards the lower end of what we have predicted, especially in terms of how long it takes to repair things of this nature," Pope said. For individual countries across Europe, the auto forecaster looked at six factors including the size of a country's deficit, debt relative to gross domestic product, level of energy self-sufficiency and gas storage. Story continues While automotive powerhouse Germany has relied on Russian gas and is phasing out nuclear power, it has "more budgetary headroom to ride out the energy storm" than some other European countries including Italy, it said. Pope said while the auto industry might be able to struggle through this winter, if Europe did not have a plan in place for the following winter then many suppliers might not survive. "I'm worried we'll have some highly-skilled craftsman shops in the region either go through forced bankruptcy or just hang up their hats," Pope said. ($1 = 1.0303 euros) (Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Mark Potter) Chloe Kelly reacts after missing a chance but England remained unbeaten (AFP via Getty Images) Englands 15-game winning streak came to an end as the Lionesses played out a 0-0 draw against the Czech Republic at the Amex Stadium. After beating the United States 2-1 at Wembley on Friday, England did manage to maintain their now 24-game unbeaten run under manager Sarina Wiegman but could not stretch their run of successive victories despite hitting the woodwork twice, in front of 21,222 on the south coast. It was a game of milestones and first appearances with Lucy Bronze gaining her 100th England cap, while Esme Morgan made her debut and Lauren James her first start. The visitors had a chance in the second minute from a corner, but the shot from Klara Cahynova went over the bar. England came close in the fourth minute but Lauren James - on her first Lionesses start - saw a shot rebound off the post. Just before half-time Chloe Kelly headed wide at the far post after a lofted cross from Chelseas James, in a half of meagre chances and little creativity going forwards from either side. At the start of the second half, the Czech Republic were still defending well with good organisation, but Lauren Hemp managed to get a header towards the goal, although it was always looping over. The visitors had to resort to attempts from distance as their tactics did not support attacking in numbers. Tereza Krejcirikova tried her luck just before the hour mark but her shot was well wide of the target. Chelsea forward Lauren James made her first start (The FA via Getty Images) England looked to be edging closer to breaking the deadlock and the visitors had to scramble the ball off the line after Hemps shot rebounded off the post and almost fell for Fran Kirby - but the ball was cleared. Morgan was brought on for her England debut in the second half as Wiegmans team sought a breakthrough. Czech Republics Gabriela Slajsova had to be taken off on a stretcher just before the halfway point in the second half. Although Fran Kirby had an effort tipped over in the 86th minute, there was to be no way through for the home side and the contest finished goalless. If climate change persists unabated, half of the worlds coral reef ecosystems will permanently face unsuitable conditions by 2035, a new study has found. While the ability of ecosystems to adapt to environmental changes depends on the specific types of stressors they encounter, coral reefs are particularly sensitive to unsuitable conditions, according to the study published Tuesday in PLOS Biology. Researchers the University of Hawaii at Manoa analyzed global projections through the year 2100 for five environmental stressors: sea surface temperature, ocean acidification, tropical storm, land use and human population growth. When considering just a single environmental stressor under a business-as-usual scenario, they anticipated that environmental conditions would become unsuitable for the worlds remaining coral reefs in 2050. But when accounting for multiple stressors at once, the scientists saw that this date drops to 2035. By 2055, they projected that 99 percent of the worlds coral reefs would be facing unsuitable conditions based on at least one of the five stressors. And by 2100, the scientists anticipated that 93 percent of global reefs would be under threat from two or more stressors. We know that corals are vulnerable to increasing sea surface temperatures and marine heatwaves due to climate change, study co-author Erik Franklin, an associate research Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in a statement. But examining the human-induced impacts and numerous other stressors that affect coral reefs can help scientists gain a better sense as to the overall risks to these ecosystems, according to Franklin. This has great implications for our local Hawaiian reefs that are key to local biodiversity, culture, fisheries and tourism, Franklin added. Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Were Sharon Udasin and Saul Elbein. Send us tips and feedback. Subscribe here. Story continues Today well begin in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the terms of a U.S.-brokered gas extraction deal. Then well see the results of a poll that asked voters how they feel about chemical regulation. Plus: A look at Californias wildfire season and the potential to extend to the end of the year. US facilitates Israel-Lebanon gas deal The Biden administration has successfully facilitated a deal between Israel and Lebanon that will enable gas extraction from a disputed part of the Mediterranean Sea paving the way for potential export to Europe. Amos Hochstein, the State Departments senior adviser for energy security, brokered the deal over the past year, with the goal of satisfying the warring neighbors economic and security needs, our colleague Laura Kelly reported for The Hill. Israel focuses on stability, security: Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday confirmed that Israel and Lebanon had reached a historic agreement. Tomorrow I will assemble the political-security cabinet followed by a government meeting. The draft agreement fully complies with the principles presented by Israel in the security and economic fields, he tweeted. This is a historic achievement that will strengthen Israels security, bring billions into Israels economy and ensure stability on the northern border. And Lebanon? The information office of Lebanese President Michel Aoun tweeted earlier on Tuesday that the final version of the agreement satisfies Lebanon, meets its demands and preserves its right to its natural wealth, Kelly reported. The leaders of both countries indicated that they still require the approval of their governments before officially signing the deal, which could occur later this month, according to The Wall Street Journal. Whats in the deal? The agreement would give Israel full control over its Karish gas field, as we previously reported. Lebanon would gain authority over the Qana gas field located farther north but Israel would maintain a portion of the gas situated within this territory. Delineating development: While further details of the final deal have yet to be released to the public, its text is expected to be similar to Hochsteins previous drafts, The Jerusalem Post reported. The draft indicated that Lebanon could develop the entire Kana field, while Israel would receive royalties for the portion of Kana that falls within its waters. Meanwhile, Energean, the Greek company licensed to withdraw gas from Karish, received approval from Israel to begin pipeline tests on Sunday. What does this mean for Europe? Even if the deal is signed soon, it wont bring a huge supply of gas into the continent immediately, energy analysts told the Journal. Neither Israel nor Egypt which like Israel, already has fields in the Mediterranean have much gas to spare. In addition, no route yet exists that can carry large amounts of gas to Europe. However, a small surplus of gas from Israel could be there next winter via Egypts liquefied natural gas facilities, potentially reducing gas prices for parts of Southern Europe. Voters want more protections from toxic chemicals Most American voters surveyed said that they want more government and industry protection from toxic chemicals, a new poll has found. And theyre willing to pay: Not only do the 1,200 respondents overwhelmingly want assurances that consumer products are free from harmful chemicals, but they are also willing to pay more for this privilege, according to the survey. Widespread consensus: In response to the poll commissioned by the University of California, San Franciscos Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment 92 percent of voters said that the government should ensure products are safe before they reach the market. People assume that what they buy is safe and that almost always isnt the case, Tracey Woodruff, director of the UCSF Reproductive Health program, said in a statement. The good news is this survey reveals overwhelming support for the government to do a better job of protecting people from harmful chemicals, Woodruff added. What were some other findings? About 93 percent of respondents agreed and 62 percent strongly agreed that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products, according to the poll. 88 percent agreed that companies should do a better job eliminating plastic and plastic packaging from these items. 76 percent of respondents expressed concern about the impact chemicals and plastics have on climate change. 54 percent said that chemical regulations are not strong enough. How does industry respond? Chris Jahn, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council which represents major U.S. chemical companies stressed that chemicals in commerce are subject to some of the most stringent federal laws and regulations in the world. Product safety should be a shared objective of all stakeholders, Jahn said in an emailed statement. Alleging that some activists will continue to invest in misconstruing facts and misguiding the public, Jahn added that the chemical sector is invested in progress and continuous improvement. To read more details uncovered in the survey, please click here for the full story. Southern California is center of end-of-year fire risk Southern California faces a higher than normal possibility of destructive wildfires heading into December, forecasting experts from the federal government told Equilibrium. That makes the region a rare outlier in what has been an unusually mild fire season at least by the standards set in the past decade, Bureau of Land Management fire meteorologist Nicholas Nauslar told Equilibrium. While the number of acres burned this year has been higher than the 10-year average, most of the burned areas were either in remote forests in the Alaskan interior or transient grass fires on the prairie. The sort of horrifying canopy fires in forests burned with such intensity that they created their own weather were rarer this year than in the brutal fire seasons of 2018, 2020 or 2021. Why was this year light? For a severe wildfire to take place, fuel potential and fire weather conditions have to coincide, Nauslar said. Fire potential is the readiness of the land to burn, and it depends on a combination of factors like heat and drought, which dry out trees and shrubs and turn them to firewood. Fire weather involves conditions like lightning and high winds that turn ready fuel into a conflagration and keep it going. A dreaded overlap: Each factor is one of the circles in a Venn diagram when they overlap, they heighten the chance of a destructive fire. Even if fuels are dry, it takes critical fire weather patterns to realize that potential, Nauslar said. And what we didnt have this year was alignment of the potential with critical fire weather conditions very often, he added. Dodging a bullet: Several times this summer, those conditions did correspond over parts of the West but rain came before a spark did, according to Nauslar. No ones ever going know that, you know, for a week to two-week period some part of western Colorado had all-time records for fuel dryness, he said. But then, you know, the weather conditions didnt materialize to realize that potential, Nauslar added. Closing the window: Another saving grace this year were rains across the Rockies and Pacific Northwest in late spring and early summer. These rainfalls werent enough to make a substantial difference in the regions serious long-term drought. But the additional water on the landscape functioned as a heat sink that absorbed heat energy that in drier conditions would have powered fires, Nauslar said. Having water on the landscape creates a buffer for firefighters, because it adds that much more time to get to fuels being cured and being available to burn, which shortens that window of fire, Nauslar said. Burn till it snows: Its a truism of Western wildland firefighting that if you get a fire in the high country of the Cascades or the Northern Rockies, itll be there till the snowfall, Nauslar said. A fire that starts later, therefore, means less chance for it to grow to the kind of monstrous conflagration that characterized the 2020 fire season. WHAT ABOUT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA? Heavily populated Southern California is the one exception to the near-normal conditions that are supposed to prevail across the West and will face an elevated fire risk until projected rains this December, Nauslar said. The ongoing drought could combine with hot, dry and powerful Santa Ana winds to create large potential blazes. The regions residents are particularly exposed to fire because of the large amount of development in natural fire corridors through former forest and other wildlands. Triple-dip: To make things more risky, the Eastern Pacific is experiencing a third straight La Nina event an atmospheric phenomenon that can increase both drought and send powerful winds toward the southwest. Should Californians worry? Not yet. There are currently no fire-promoting weather systems of concern heading toward the West Coast and they may not develop at all, Tom Frieders of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency told Equilibrium. Not every La Nina means a more powerful Santa Ana, according to Frieders. But he said meteorologists are monitoring the area, and concerned citizens can track fire weather updates here. Tuesday Troubles Health concerns from extreme heat, carbon monoxide leak hits a daycare and humans face distress from robot coworkers. Extreme heat raises risk of kidney disease Periods of extreme heat correlated with more people seeking emergency treatment for kidney diseases, according to a new study from the National Kidney Foundation. The rate of people being admitted for ailments from kidney stones to urinary tract infections stayed elevated for a week after the heat wave, the study found. Children, daycare staff rushed to hospitals due to carbon monoxide leak Twenty-seven children and staff members at an Allentown, Pa., daycare were ushered to hospitals on Tuesday due to a mysterious carbon monoxide leak, CNN reported. Firefighters initially responded to a call about an unconscious child, after which they identified dangerously high levels of the odorless, colorless gas, according to CNN. Robot coworkers distress human employees People who work alongside robots are likely to face greater incidence of burnout or a less civil workplace generally due to fears of being replaced by machines, according to a study in Journal of Applied Psychology. That may be because most people are overestimating the capabilities of robots and underestimating their own capabilities, Kai Chi Yam of the National University of Singapore said in a statement. Please visit The Hills Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. Well see you tomorrow. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A group of European telecom regulators does not support the idea of having big tech firms such as Google and Netflix paying for telecommunications infrastructure, it said in initial findings published on Tuesday. The findings by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) come as the European Commission is debating whether internet platforms should be obliged to fund digital infrastructure such as 5G telecoms networks, given they make heavy use of it. "BEREC has found no evidence that such (a direct compensation) method is justified given the current state of the market," the BEREC conclusions said. The telecommunications industry has argued Google, Netflix, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple should pay for a "fair share" of telecom infrastructure as their services make up more than half of internet traffic. However, digital rights groups fear that if the big tech firms fund infrastructure, they will also strike deals with telecom firms to give their own traffic preferential treatment, undermining the principle of net neutrality. In a reaction to the BEREC findings, telecom lobby group ETNO - the European Telecommunications Network Operators, which represents Deutsche Telekom, Orange Group, Telefonica and others - rejected the BEREC findings as outdated and said it would submit new evidence to the Commission to support its position. BEREC's findings said the internet had proved resilient to changing traffic patterns in the past and following ETNO's proposals "could be of significant harm". EU industry chief Thierry Breton has said the European Union will review the matter early in 2023. (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Mark Potter) Photo: The Canadian Press Minister of National Defence Anita Anand and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada is sending 40 military engineers to Poland to train Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. Defence Minister Anita Anand announced the deployment during a visit to Warsaw this morning before a planned meeting with NATO counterparts in Belgium. The new contribution is on top of the roughly 225 military trainers working with Ukrainian forces as part of a British-led training mission. It is also in addition to the deployment of three Hercules transport planes to Scotland, where the aircraft are helping deliver supplies to Ukrainian forces battling Russia. The Department of National Defence says the engineers will be attached to a Polish-led training effort focused on teaching Ukrainian on how to use explosives, among other things. Anand's announcements comes days after an explosion damaged an important bridge connecting Russia and Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to order missile strikes on several Ukrainian cities. German airline Lufthansa says it's banning activated Apple AirTags from luggage because the devices "are classified as dangerous." (Michael Probst / Associated Press) One of Europe's largest airlines is saying auf wiedersehen to Apple AirTags on checked luggage. Lufthansa, Germany's main airline, tweeted Saturday that the company is banning "activated AirTags" from luggage. It said the devices "are classified as dangerous and need to be turned off" during flights. Apple's AirTags are a quarter-size Bluetooth tracker that can be used to track personal items, such as car keys or bags, using an iPhone's "Find My" app. Travelers have begun to attach the tracking devices to their luggage to track where their bags are, in the event an airline loses it. A spokesperson for Lufthansa told the German news outlet Watson that travelers would need to remove the battery from AirTags therefore making them unable to be tracked if the device was attached to checked luggage. "Baggage trackers belong to the category of portable electronic devices and are therefore subject to the dangerous goods regulations for carriage in airplanes issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization," the spokesperson said. In a tweet Sunday, Lufthansa explained that due to the AirTags' Bluetooth transmission function, the trackers must be deactivated during flight if they are placed in checked luggage. As for fliers in the United States, the Transportation Security Administration confirmed Friday that Bluetooth tracking devices, such as AirTags, are allowed on both carry-ons and checked luggage. Although the Federal Communications Commission still bans the use of cellphones on flights to protect against radio interference to grounded cellphone networks, the Federal Aviation Administration allows passengers to use short-range Bluetooth devices and other personal electronics, so long as they remain on airplane mode. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. June Brown played Dot Branning in EastEnders. (BBC) Former stars of EastEnders are set to return to Albert Square to pay their last respects to Dot Branning this winter. The BBC One soap will see Lauren Branning (Jacqueline Jossa), Colin Russell (Lord Michael Cashman CBE), Barry Clark (Gary Hailes) George Lofty Holloway (Tom Watt), Mary the punk Smith (Linda Davidson) and Disa OBrien (Jan Graveson) attend Dot's funeral - also giving the actors a chance to mark the passing of their former co-star after June Brown died aged 95 in April. Read more: Matt Willis to explore addiction in BBC documentary Executive producer Chris Clenshaw said: Its an honour to invite so many of Walfords beloved characters back to pay tribute to Dot. Over the years, Dot profoundly impacted the lives of many young people struggling with lifes biggest challenges. Her warmth, heart and compassion changed lives so we wanted to reunite some of the people she helped the most. "Im thrilled these talented and generous actors wanted to share this special experience with us so we can give Dot a fitting send-off. Jacqueline Jossa will be back in Albert Square. (WireImage) Jossa's character Lauren was Dot's step-granddaughter and has been living in New Zealand since 2018, but will be keen to get to know a handsome new resident of Walford. She said: Coming back to EastEnders for Dot's funeral was a no-brainer, and it was a real honour to be invited back. I had a lot of fun but, of course, it was bittersweet. It was amazing to be back, but hard to be filming this storyline. "I can tell the viewers now that Dot gets the beautiful send-off that she deserves. June was the light and joy of EastEnders. I had so much fun working with her, the incredible stories and how infectious and witty she was. June is a legend and I miss her very much. Read more: Martine McCutcheon shares heartbreak over brother's sudden death The returning actors are currently filming scenes that will bring viewers up to date with their characters' lives. June Brown died aged 95. (PA) Colin last appeared in Walford when he persuaded Dot to attend his same-sex wedding despite her religious beliefs and Lord Cashman who plays him said: When I was asked back I didnt even hesitate because I couldnt have imagined not being there for June, and I know Colin couldnt have imagined not being there for Dot they had that amazing, deep friendship that lasted during their years, and it was exactly the same with June and me. Story continues "June was unique, and there are so many incredible stories I could tell, but amongst my favourite moments of Dot was her monologue to Jim she was a character, and actress, that will last beyond the test of time. Colin will appear alongside ex-love Barry for the first time since 1989, giving fans the chance to see how they are in each other's lives since their break-up all those years ago. Dot's funeral will air this winter. (PA) Davidson, returning as Mary, said: I felt honoured to be asked to come back. Its going to be an emotionally difficult few days, however the script is wonderful and its a joyful tribute to an East End legend. "The highlight of my career was when Dot asked Mary to kneel and pray with her there wasnt a dry eye amongst all the crew. June really tutored me on the art of being still and taking my time in the scene, and was such a generous caring actor. I loved her very much. Disa's return is set to stir up uncomfortable memories for one Albert Square resident, while Lofty will show his success as a businessman. Watt said: June was amazing as Dot. She completely inhabited the character: grew with her, suffered with her and faced life's troubles with her. As soon as Dot appeared on screen, you knew June had all that history lighting up every look and every line in every single scene she was a part of. The funeral is due to air in EastEnders this winter. Watch: Touching tribute to June Brown spotted in London In a video exclusively obtained by the BBC, Zeynab Javadli appeals for help, saying: "My children and I are terrified and frightened for our lives and safety." Lawyers acting for Ms Javadli, the former wife of a member of the ruling family in Dubai, have lodged a request to the UN Human Rights Council to intervene with the authorities in the UAE to ensure the safety of her and her children. The request claims that Ms Javadli has faced abuse, harassment and intimidation by the authorities during a custody battle with Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The sheikh's lawyers have argued in court in Dubai that Ms Javadli is an unfit mother, which she has denied. By Dan Levine and Marisa Taylor (Reuters) - U.S. drug inspectors recently recorded several new quality- control problems at an Eli Lilly and Co plant that is already the subject of a federal investigation over manufacturing lapses, according to a government report reviewed by Reuters. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration findings come nearly three years after the agency's inspectors began documenting quality-control issues at the same Lilly plant in Branchburg, New Jersey. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation following a Reuters story that detailed allegations of poor manufacturing practices and data falsification at the facility. FDA inspectors returned to the plant this past July, spending 12 days there. They found that Lilly personnel did not adequately track potentially contaminated drug batches that were supposed to be inspected by the company's quality-control unit, according to a redacted copy of the report, known as a "483 form," obtained by Reuters under a Freedom of Information Act request. The inspectors wrote that Lilly personnel found "unknown debris" in a production area, and that raw drug ingredients produced there "were not adequately controlled pending satisfactory completion of evaluation by the quality unit." According to the FDA website, its inspectors issue 483 forms when they have observed conditions that might violate federal regulations. Lilly did not directly respond to questions about the FDA inspectors' findings. The company said it has "rigorous quality systems in place to ensure compliance with stringent regulatory requirements." The Justice Department declined to comment, and the FDA did not immediately respond. The FDA report did not say whether the medicines in question were ultimately shipped to customers or discarded. The drug batches included widely used diabetes medicine Trulicity, migraine therapy Emgality, as well as cancer treatments Erbitux and Cyramza, the report said. Story continues "The FDA is telling the company they're doing stuff ahead of time before quality control signs off on it. That's a big no-no," said Steven Lynn, a former head of the FDA's Office of Manufacturing and Product Quality. Lilly also removed references to several batches of drugs, including Trulicity, from its own internal report about the potential contamination, the FDA found. If issues at a factory arent fixed, the FDA could escalate the matter by issuing a warning letter, and ultimately, it could order a company to cease producing certain drugs at a facility. The FDA has not disclosed any penalties against Lilly regarding the plant, and did not respond to a question about potential enforcement actions. MOST SERIOUS CATEGORY Susan Bain, an assistant professor of regulatory and quality sciences at the University of Southern California and a former FDA inspector, said the findings raise the question of whether Lilly is "shipping product out before quality (control) completes their investigation." Given the plant's history, Bain said, "I would say they do not take quality seriously." "It's a problem because if something happens down the line and quality control doesn't catch it, then the product can be released to the market," Lynn, the former FDA official, said. "That's how mistakes happen." The FDA requires pharmaceutical companies to closely track quality-control documents, including recording any deviations from mandated procedures. The record-keeping requirements are key to ensuring the quality of drugs, as defects may not be obvious to consumers or physicians. In November 2019, FDA inspectors found that quality-control data had been deleted and not appropriately audited at the New Jersey plant. The FDA in March 2020 classified the findings as "Official Action Indicated," or OAI, which is its most serious category of violation. Reuters, in its story last year on alleged poor manufacturing practices, reported that a Lilly human resources officer alleged she had been forced out of her job at the factory after undertaking internal investigations of employee complaints about manufacturing lapses, falsified or destroyed records and staff shortages. The HR officer later filed a whistleblower complaint, which is still pending. Lilly has denied the allegations. (Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Marisa Taylor in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Matthew Lewis) NEW YORK (AP) The second week of Kevin Spaceys #MeToo-era trial starts Tuesday in New York but no criminal charges are involved. Stage and screen star Anthony Rapp has sued Spacey, accusing him of assault, battery and intentionally inflecting emotional distress when Rapp was 14. The trial opened with jury selection Thursday in Manhattan. Heres what to know about Spacey, Rapp, the lawsuit and the case so far. WHAT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST KEVIN SPACEY ARE INVOLVED IN THIS LAWSUIT? Rapp said he attended a party at Spaceys Manhattan apartment in 1986, when he was 14 and acting in the Broadway play Precious Sons. At the end of the night, an inebriated Spacey allegedly picked Rapp up, placed him on his bed and climbed on top of him. Rapp said the then-26-year-old Spacey held him down tightly, but he was able to get away and left the apartment. I was pinned underneath him. I didnt know what to do, he testified last week. Rapp filed the lawsuit in 2020 and is seeking compensatory and punitive damages up to $40 million. He is due to continue his testimony Tuesday. WHO IS ANTHONY RAPP? Rapp is an actor who made his Broadway debut at 10. He later starred on Broadway in Six Degrees of Separation, Youre A Good Man Charlie Brown and had a breakout originating the role of Mark Cohen in the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent. His screen credits include Adventures in Babysitting, Dazed and Confused and currently the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery. He was the first man to publicly accuse Spacey of inappropriate sexual advances, in 2017. WHAT DOES SPACEY SAY ABOUT RAPPS ALLEGATIONS? After the allegations were made in 2017, Spacey posted on Twitter that he didnt remember the Rapp encounter. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, he said. Spacey had never disclosed his sexuality before but said Rapps story encouraged him to come out as a gay man. Many observers thought it was an odd time for Spacey to address his sexuality or even saw his revelation as an attempt to deflect blame. Story continues Spaceys attorneys said in a legal filing that Rapps allegations are, quite simply, false and never occurred. On Thursday, a Spacey lawyer suggested that Rapp filed the suit because he is angry about his own stalled career. He grew bitter about not getting parts as an openly gay man, Jennifer L. Keller said. His team also proposed the allegations were the product of a young actors inability to tell the difference between real life and a scene he played on Broadway eight times a week. WHAT OTHER LEGAL BATTLES DOES SPACEY FACE? In the United Kingdom, Spacey faces charges of sexually assaulting three men a decade or more ago. He pleaded not guilty in July during a hearing at Londons Central Criminal Court. He is expected to go on trial there next year. In a separate case, a Los Angeles judge ruled in August that Spacey and his production companies must pay the producers behind the Netflix series House of Cards close to $31 million because of losses incurred by his 2017 firing for what the streaming giant said was the sexual harassment of crew members. WHAT ABOUT OTHER ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SPACEY? Several people have accused Spacey, but the legal record is mixed. The late Scandinavian writer Ari Behn, once married into the Norwegian royal family, accused Spacey of groping him at a Nobel Peace Prize concert but apparently never pursued legal action. Spacey didnt comment on the allegations. The only U.S. criminal case brought thus far against Spacey ended with prosecutors in Massachusetts dropping indecent assault and battery charges after the accuser refused to testify about a missing cellphone the defense said was key to the case. The accuser, who said Spacey had groped him at a Nantucket bar, also dropped a lawsuit. A massage therapist in Los Angeles had also sued, accusing Spacey of sexual assault, but the lawsuit was dropped after the accuser died, The New York Times reported. Rapp had originally filed the lawsuit alongside an anonymous plaintiff known as C.D. who also accused Spacey of assaulting him when he was 14. C.D. was removed from the case after a judge ordered him to reveal his identity. WHAT ARE SPACEY AND RAPP DOING NOW? Spacey who, after the allegations broke, was notoriously edited out of the already finished All the Money in the World and replaced by Christopher Plummer as J. Paul Getty has recently reemerged from Hollywood exile with appearances in several films, including the thriller Peter Five Eight, the historical drama 1242 Gateway To The West and the Franco Nero-directed drama The Man Who Drew God. Rapp is filming the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery, had his film Scrap just released and has toured with his one-man show, Anthony Rapp: Without You, about grief, hope and triumph. He has spoken up on behalf of #MeToo victims. ___ Associated Press journalist Larry Neumeister contributed from New York. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor on Tuesday unveiled a proposal that would make it harder for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, potentially upending the gig economy and other industries that rely heavily on contract labor. The line between when a worker is considered a company's employee, who is entitled to various legal protections, or an independent contractor has shifted over the last decade, as businesses have faced an increasing number of lawsuits by workers who claim they were misclassified. WHY IS WORKER CLASSIFICATION IMPORTANT? Most federal and state labor laws, such as those requiring a minimum wage and overtime pay, prohibiting discrimination or protecting the right to unionize, only apply to a company's employees. This makes employees much more expensive for companies to use than independent contractors - up to 30% more, according to some studies. Worker advocates have said that millions of workers are misclassified as independent contractors and deprived of fair wages, benefits, and basic protections against discrimination and retaliation. Business groups have maintained that independent contracting helps to create jobs and gives workers more flexibility and opportunities to operate their own businesses. WHAT IS THE CURRENT LAW? In the final days of the Trump administration last year, the Department of Labor adopted a rule favored by business groups that makes it easier to classify workers as independent contractors under federal wage law. The rule says workers who own their own businesses or have the ability to work for competing companies, such as a driver who works for Uber and Lyft, can be treated as contractors. The Biden administration withdrew the rule, but a federal judge in Texas ruled in March that it had not followed the proper procedure for doing so and reinstated the prior standard. WHAT WOULD THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PROPOSAL DO? The proposal unveiled on Tuesday would require a company to treat workers as employees when they are "economically dependent" on the company for work. The Labor Department said it will consider whether workers have an opportunity for profit or loss, the permanency of their jobs, and the degree of control a company exercises over a worker, among other factors. The proposal is similar to legal guidance issued during the Obama administration that was withdrawn by the Labor Department under former President Donald Trump, a Republican. Story continues The agency must now collect and review public comments, so the rule will likely not be finalized until well into next year. WHICH INDUSTRIES WILL BE AFFECTED MOST? Any change in policy is expected to have a negative impact on an array of industries including retail and manufacturing, but the effect on the explosive growth of the "gig economy," which heavily relies on independent contractors, has received the most attention. Last year, U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters that many gig workers should be classified as employees. Limiting independent contracting would also have an outsized impact on trucking companies that rely on contractors who own their trucks to meet fluctuations in demand and avoid the costs of maintaining fleets of trucks. Trucking firms raising prices or limiting services could, in turn, place further strain on supply chains that have already been hobbled by the COVID-19 pandemic. HOW WOULD THE RULE AFFECT WORKERS? The proposed changes would be a boon to many workers by guaranteeing them the minimum wage, overtime pay and reimbursements for mileage and some other work-related expenses. Many gig and delivery workers currently work long hours for low pay and lack safety nets, such as paid - or even unpaid - time off, according to worker advocates. At the same time, limiting independent contracting could lead some companies to slash the number of workers they hire, eliminating some jobs altogether. Companies would have greater control over workers who are considered employees and have more say over when and where work is performed. WILL THERE BE LEGAL CHALLENGES TO THE RULE? Almost certainly, given the significant impact it will have. Lawsuits targeting the final rule could claim that the new definition of "employee" is broader than federal wage law allows or that the Department of Labor did not follow the proper administrative procedures in adopting the rule. Trade groups and individual companies and workers could also bring claims under the U.S. Constitution or argue that the rule conflicts with existing regulations on specific industries. (Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York) By Peter Graff LONDON (Reuters) -Russia's biggest air strikes against Ukraine since the start of the war killed at least 19 people, drove thousands of Ukrainians back into air raid shelters and knocked out electricity in hundreds of towns and villages. The strikes - denounced in the West for deliberately hitting civilian targets - have been hailed by hawks in Moscow as a turning point that demonstrates Russia's resolve in what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine. But Western military analysts say the strikes came at a staggering cost, depleted a dwindling supply of long-range missiles, hit no major military targets and are unlikely to change the course of a war going badly for Moscow. "Russia lacks the missiles to mount attacks of this sort often, as it is running out of stocks and the Ukrainians are claiming a high success rate in intercepting many of those already used," wrote Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London. "This is not therefore a new war-winning strategy but a sociopaths tantrum." HOW ARE THE ATTACKS PORTRAYED IN RUSSIA? President Vladimir Putin described the strikes as a response to what he called terrorist attacks by Ukraine, including a blast on Sunday that damaged Russia's bridge to Crimea, which it built after annexing the peninsula it seized in 2014. Hawks in Russia had been demanding for weeks that Putin escalate the conflict, and many of them hailed Monday's attacks. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Putin loyalist leader of Russia's Chechnya region who had lately called for military commanders to be sacked, said he was now 100% behind the strategy. Margarita Simonyan, head of RT, Russia's state-run overseas media channel, said Moscow had been waiting for the perfect time to demonstrate its strength. Quoting a proverb, she tweeted: "A Russian harnesses his horses slowly but drives them quickly." Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Putin's advisory security council, said Russia would now be able to widen its objectives: "The goal of our future actions, in my view, should be the complete dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine." Story continues CAN RUSSIA KEEP THIS UP? Ukraine says Russia fired 83 cruise missiles on Monday and that it shot down at least 43 of them. Moscow says it fired more than 70 and all its targets were hit. Both sides say the attack was on a huge scale, unseen at least since Russia's initial wave of air strikes on the first night of the war in February. Each Kalibr cruise missile is estimated to cost more than $6.5 million, meaning Moscow fired around half a billion dollars worth of missiles in a single day. Western military analysts have no firm figures for how many missiles Russia has left, but for months have pointed to indicators suggesting the supply is limited. As far back as July, Joseph Dempsey and Douglas Barrie of the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted that Russia was increasingly using anti-ship missiles to strike targets on the ground. This "suggests that Moscow is having to muster its remaining conventionally armed land attack cruise missile resources more carefully," they wrote. CAN UKRAINE PROTECT ITSELF? President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said securing more air defences for Ukraine is his number one priority. Western leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden have promised more systems, though it takes time to deliver them. Ukraine now relies on Soviet-era air defence systems such as the S-300. Washington promised several months ago to send its sophisticated NASAMS system and said on Tuesday it was speeding up the shipment after saying in late September that delivery was still around two months away. Ukraine also received on Tuesday the first of four IRIS-T air defence systems promised by Germany, a German defence ministry source said, confirming a report by Der Spiegel magazine. In practice, military experts say Ukraine will probably never be able to defend its entire land area - the second largest in Europe after Russia itself - from attacks on scattered low-priority targets. Air defences, such as the U.S. Patriot missile system, are designed mainly to protect specific, high priority targets. Others can provide broader protection but over a comparatively small area, such as Israel's vaunted "Iron Dome" system which protects a country around one twentieth the size of Ukraine. "Bottom line: Just like it was difficult to stop Saddam from launching SCUDs, and as much as we want to help Ukraine, it's challenging to completely counter all Putin's war crimes that unfortunately include launching missile strikes against civilian targets," tweeted Mark Hertling, a former commander of U.S. land forces in Europe. Still, Monday's attacks appear to show that Ukraine is already far from defenceless. While Kyiv's claim to have shot down more than half of the missiles is impossible to verify, Russia did not hit any targets with the highest strategic value, such as leadership buildings in the capital, which are likely to have been best protected. WHAT'S NEXT? Russia still faces the same strategic difficulties it did before Monday's attacks: demoralised and poorly equipped forces spread along a 1,000-km frontline, with long supply lines vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks. Russia's initial advantages, above all the massive firepower of its artillery, allowed it to destroy and capture cities in May-July. But since September, its artillery-heavy forces have proven a poor match for defending occupied territory from mobile and increasingly well-equipped Ukrainian units. Moscow still lacks control over Ukrainian air space, which would allow for the intensive strikes by jet and helicopter that helped it defeat rebels in Syria and Chechnya. Ben Hodges, another former commander of U.S. ground forces in Europe, said that despite Monday's attacks, Ukraine still appeared to have "irreversible momentum" on the battlefield. "Russia's logistics system is exhausted and no Russian wants to fight in Putin's war in Ukraine," he tweeted. (Editing by Mark Heinrich) The claim: A serial killer has fatally stabbed seven people in Missoula, Montana A viral Oct. 4 Facebook post describes a grisly discovery that was purportedly made in the western Montana city of Missoula. "Another dead body was found in a cardboard box by the California Street bridge down by the river here in Missoula Montana and this happened to be another young girl which makes five girls and two guys that have been found dead along the Clark fork River between Madison Street bridge and Russell Street bridge (sic)," reads part of the post. The user goes on to claim the deaths are the work of a serial killer, as all the victims were stabbed to death "in a similar fashion." Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks The post was shared more than 1,000 times in two days. But local law enforcement said the claim is baseless, and that no recent murders have been reported in the area mentioned in the Facebook post. USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment. No crimes matching post have been reported in Missoula Lydia Arnold, a spokesperson for the Missoula Police Department, said the information in the Facebook post is false and has caused unnecessary concern in our community. Arnold added there have been no recent murders reported in the area of the city mentioned in the post. If there were a threat to public safety, Arnold said the department would release information to the media and residents in the area as soon as possible. The department addressed the viral claim in an Oct. 5 Facebook post, saying, "There is no factual information in the post and the entire post is not true." Fact check: Police debunk claim of sex trafficking attempt in Dearborn, Michigan Jeannette Smith, a spokesperson for the Missoula County Sheriffs Office, said the same Facebook user who shared the Oct. 4 post had previously suggested a serial killer was active in Missoula in September, a claim that likewise had "no basis." Story continues The part of the city referenced in the more recent post is under the jurisdiction of the local police department, but Smith said no murders similar to the ones described in the post have been reported in the wider Missoula County either. In late September, the sheriffs office solved a 30-year-old cold case in which a homeless man was found dead in Missoula with a knife wound in his chest. According to The Missoulian, officials identified the suspect as another homeless man who has since died. USA TODAY has previously debunked similar claims of serial killers being active in communities around the country. Our rating: False Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that a serial killer has fatally stabbed seven people in Missoula. Local law enforcement said the claim is baseless, and that no recent murders have been reported in the area mentioned in the Facebook post. Our fact-check sources: Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: No evidence of a serial killer in Missoula, Montana The claim: Post implies that Joe Biden said, 'She was 12, I was 30,' in reference to his wife, Jill Biden A widely circulated picture of a young Joe and Jill Biden has re-emerged online connected to a recent comment from the president. An Oct. 2 Instagram post shows the image of President Biden with his wife on his lap, accompanied by the text, 'She was 12, I was 30' -Joe Biden." The post garnered more than 500 likes within a day. Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks But combining this image and text is misleading. The president did not make this comment about his wife. Rather, Joe Biden said the quote in reference to an audience member in a recent speech. The Bidens met when they were 32 and 23 years old, respectively. USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment, and they provided no evidence the quote had any relation to Jill Biden. Comment was not in reference to Jill Biden The president said the phrase during a Sept. 23 speech at the National Education Association Headquarters in Washington, D.C. During his speech, he addressed an audience member and said, "You got to say hi to me. We go back a long way. She was 12; I was 30. But anyway, this woman helped me get an awful lot done," according to White House transcript. The quote was not targeted at his wife. Joe Biden did not meet his wife when she was 12, nor does the couple have an 18-year age gap. According to Jill Biden's White House biography, she was born in June 1951 and met Joe Biden in 1975. Fact check: Two Marines stood behind Biden as he gave nationally televised address She has told outlets such as Vogue and The New York Times the same thing, adding that they met in March, specifically. The first lady would've been 23 and the president, born in November 1942, would've been 32 at the time. The picture of the two when they were younger was originally shared on Jill Biden's Instagram and Twitter accounts in 2020. Her captions reiterate the fact that the couple first spoke in 1975. Story continues Our rating: Missing Context Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the implication that Joe Biden said, "She was 12, I was 30," in reference to his wife. The comment was directed to an audience member during a recent speech. Joe and Jill Biden met when they were 32 and 23 years old, respectively. Our fact-check sources: Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Joe Biden quote on age wrongly associated with his wife Nury Martinez became the first Latina to hold the powerful post of Los Angeles City Council president. She gave up that position Monday amid outrage over a leaked audio recording in which she makes racist comments. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) When Nury Martinez was growing up in Pacoima, the child of immigrants from the Mexican state of Zacatecas, she watched politicians from afar. They were white Jewish men, she said, even as the neighborhood became more and more Latino. Her own parents her mother a seamstress turned factory worker, her father a dishwasher who was deported the year Martinez was born had bought their home from a white family that left the San Fernando Valley for Kern County. Their neighborhood was represented by "the Katzes of the world, the Bermans of the world," Martinez said, alluding to Valley politicians such as former state Assemblyman Richard Katz and former Rep. Howard Berman. "I never saw them in the community or at the grocery store with us. I just saw them on TV. "Now we have Latinos in office. We hold each other accountable," Martinez added, sipping a michelada during an interview over lunch in Panorama City, a week before the political uproar that would torpedo her leadership of the Los Angeles City Council. "I think we are a huge political base." Her ascension as the first Latina to become City Council president had personified the gains in political representation that Latinos have made in Los Angeles. At City Hall, she has been known as a blunt and forthright speaker, perhaps at her most pointed when asking whether city policies will put the working-class neighborhoods that she represents including Arleta, Van Nuys, Sun Valley and Panorama City at a disadvantage. But she is now in political free fall over the unguarded words that she, Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera were caught saying on a leaked recording. During a freewheeling conversation about redistricting, Martinez used racist language about the Black child of Councilmember Mike Bonin; riffed that "little short dark people" in Koreatown were ugly employing stereotypes long used against Oaxacans; and declared of Dist. Atty. George Gascon: "F that guy. Hes with the Blacks." Story continues De Leon, in turn, appeared to compare how Bonin handles his child to Martinez holding a Louis Vuitton handbag. Beyond the offensive words and jabs at other politicians, the recording gives an unvarnished glimpse into how Martinez and the others aim to preserve their political power. "It's not us," de Leon said as the four strategized about redistricting. "It's for Latino strength for the foreseeable future." Amid calls for her to quit the council, Martinez resigned Monday as its president, as the political support that elevated her to the role three years ago evaporated. She remains a councilmember. It's a swift fall for the former school board member, who joined the council after a come-from-behind victory almost nine years ago, defeating an opponent who had finished far ahead of her in the primary. She had also been eyed as a possible candidate for mayor: Martinez recently told The Times she came within days of announcing a mayoral run last year, only to pull back as she considered how the sentiment had turned against incumbents. Martinez, 49, is a product of the San Fernando Valley: She graduated from San Fernando High School and Cal State Northridge. During that time, she worked at a nonprofit focused on HIV/AIDS prevention and later at the nonprofit Pacoima Beautiful, which focuses on environmental justice. In many ways, "her political history is informed by the disenfranchisement of the Latino community in the San Fernando Valley," fighting for communities that were facing environmental hazards because they lacked political power, said Manuel Pastor, a USC sociology professor who directs the university's Equity Research Institute. Her politics were shaped by "the way in which the Latino part of the Valley has scrambled to get a voice," Pastor added. Martinez said that "what I remember growing up is we didn't identify with the rest of the city." As a councilmember, Martinez has championed family issues such as parental leave, pushed for a renters' relief program during the pandemic and worked to create a task force focused on human trafficking in the Valley. She fought to block a privately run facility for immigrant children from opening in her district, likening it to a prison. But the issue that has dominated her tenure as council president is homelessness. Martinez has urged more attention to quality-of-life issues for working-class residents; at one point, when L.A. was hammering out rules about where people could sleep in cars, Martinez argued that the policies would disproportionately push vehicle dwellers near homes in her district. "This isn't going to be a problem in Bel-Air," Martinez said. In a speech laying out her agenda as council president, Martinez said the city needed to lead with compassion at homeless encampments, "but we also have to restore order in our streets." At one point, when activists were protesting against policies she pushed, Martinez asserted that her supporters were not able to show up to comment because they were working. "Latinos are frustrated; they're tired," she said recently. "They don't want to deal with these encampments anymore." Carla Orendorff, who organizes unhoused people in Van Nuys, said Martinez "has always been incredibly divisive." Orendorff once hoped that the councilmember, with her history in environmental activism, might prove to be an ally in addressing the needs of people living in encampments. Instead, "she treats people as environmental hazards," said Orendorff, who grew up in Van Nuys and Reseda and is part of the After Echo Park Lake research collective. "It wasn't ever about housing. It's about eliminating the sight of encampments." Martinez has disputed those arguments, pointing to supportive housing projects that have opened or broken ground in her district. The City Council eventually adopted a law allowing councilmembers to designate areas as off-limits to homeless camps. This summer, the council expanded the law to prohibit homeless people from setting up tents within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers, as protesters shouted down councilmembers and, at one point, brought the raucous meeting to a halt. The clashes with activists, who have also turned out to protest at Martinez's home, have been emblematic of the leftward shift in Los Angeles politics. But Martinez has also had critics at the other end of the political spectrum, including the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which targeted her with mailers when she proposed reductions to the police budget. As council president, Martinez was in many ways the opposite of her predecessor, Herb Wesson, who worked assiduously behind the scenes to ensure consensus. Martinez was comfortable letting divisions break out into the open, telling reporters, "I'm not afraid of having an 8-to-7 vote." Nor was she afraid to use political muscle: After indicted Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was suspended from his post, Martinez moved to put Wesson in his seat, despite warnings from her colleagues that the appointment needed time for legal vetting. A judge later struck down the appointment. Last month, Martinez again moved aggressively to find a replacement, securing the votes to install legislative aide Heather Hutt who on Monday called for all the elected officials heard on the tape to step down. Several of Martinez's colleagues questioned the move to install Hutt, delaying the decision. But Martinez received backup from Herrera; the labor leader appeared personally to demand that Hutt be approved and questioned whether those who were dissenting were his "friends." In the leaked recording, Cedillo declares to Martinez, De Leon and Herrera that "the one who will support us is Heather Hutt." Martinez "was always a straight shooter who said the things that she thought, and you always knew where you stood with her," said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn., who attended college with her. He condemned her racist comments but said she was always fighting for people she felt were being passed over. Pastor said it is unsurprising that Martinez is "a hard-knuckled political figure." But the racist and derogatory remarks in the leaked recording are devastating to her ability to lead in Los Angeles, "a city which requires that its leaders lead across communities," Pastor said. "This is really a forfeiture of leadership, because it makes it extraordinarily difficult to claim to build bridges on the council if you express those kind of attitudes." By Monday afternoon, calls had grown for Martinez not just to relinquish the council presidency but to step down from the council entirely, with many also calling for De Leon, Cedillo and Herrera to lose their positions. Both mayoral candidates had called for Martinez to step down, as did one of her closest political allies, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla. Her political future is in question, but the change that her rise represented is not. Latinos are "paying attention," Martinez said in an interview before the scandal erupted. "And that's the difference between now and when my parents moved here." Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Photo: The Canadian Press The U.S. Department of Labor has published a new proposal on how workers should be classified saying that thousands of people have been incorrectly labeled as contractors rather than employees, potentially curtailing access to benefits and protections they rightfully deserve. Misclassifying workers as independent contractors denies those workers protections under federal labor standards, promotes wage theft, allows certain employers to gain an unfair advantage over businesses, and hurts the economy, the department said Tuesday. The reaction in markets for major gig companies was immediate. Shares of Lyft and Uber tumbled about 13%. A misclassification can deprive employees of protection under minimum wage laws and overtime pay, according to the department, impacting thousands of delivery workers, custodians, truck drivers, waiters, construction workers and more. While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors, particularly among our nations most vulnerable workers, said Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh in a prepared statement. Misclassification deprives workers of their federal labor protections, including their right to be paid their full, legally earned wages." The Labor department's proposed rule would help employers and workers determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the proposal would constitute a major change for workers and employers from previous years. A classification to employees would essentially throw the business model upside down and cause some major structural changes if this holds," Ives wrote. All 80 units in the Highlands Apartment Complex in Ross Township remain empty four days after a fire tore through it. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> Ross Township fire: 8, including 2 firefighters, taken to area hospitals Investigators said not all of the apartments suffered fire damage, but most did have smoke or water in them, deeming them unliveable for the time being. The utilities have been shut off as investigators try to figure out what caused the fire. For the last 10 years, Frank Moletz has lived in the apartments until last Thursday. I was eating breakfast the other day, and I started thinking about it I was damn near in tears. I said, I dont cry it was rough, Moletz said. Moletz and his neighbors are still picking up the pieces, unsure of when theyll be able to move back in. Dozens of people stopped by throughout the day to pick up personal items. [They need] essential medications, toiletries, clothes, essentially anything that was needed to kind of start a new life for the time being, said James Justus, the homeowners associations committee vice president, who also serves on the board of directors. Property managers said most of those who lived in the buildings 80 units are elderly and on a fixed income, so the American Red Cross has been stepping in to help. Workers said theyve opened 40 cases since Thursdays fire, half of them on Monday alone, during an intake operation at Northway Mall. Theyve been communicating with clients, and we were able to organize an event like this so we can meet them at one spot, said Carlos Carmona, American Red Cross disaster program manager. I know there are people over here got it a lot worse than I do. I got three inches of water. These people here are in worse shape, Moletz said. Questions remain for residents future, but theyre grateful that no one lost their life. Its sad that tragedy brings people together, and the reason that caused, but Ive met so many great people that hopefully Ill be able to stay in contact with, Justus said. Story continues Fire marshals with Ross Township and Allegheny County will be back out Tuesday morning to continue to investigate the cause of the fire. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Special team of divers searching Allegheny River finds 100 cars, hoping to close cold cases Target 11 Exclusive: Student charged with raping teacher apologized, said he has urges Daylight saving time 2022: When do we set our clocks back? Is DST ending? VIDEO: Students rally in Washington in support of teacher arrested in Russia for having medical marijuana DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Nearly two years to the day after their son was shot and killed outside a fraternity house party, the family of Ohio State University student Chase Meola has filed wrongful death lawsuits against the fraternity and the university, but not the man accused of the shooting. Paul and Margaret Meola filed a civil lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Columbus and another civil lawsuit Tuesday in the Ohio Court of Claims as executors of the estate of their late son. Ohio State student Chase Meola, 23, was killed around 2 a.m. on Oct. 11, 2020 in a shooting outside the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity house, commonly referred to as Phi Psi, on the university's main campus. Meola, 23, was a fifth-year senior studying marketing. He was originally from New Jersey. Previous coverage:Here's what Ohio State safety task force recommends following death of student Chase Meola According to the federal lawsuit, Meola was a member of Ohio State's chapter of Phi Psi, which had been suspended from campus at the time of the shooting. Previous reporting from The Dispatch shows the fraternity was placed on a four-year suspension in 2018. The chapter was also on a two-year probation for previous violations of the Code of Student Conduct when it was suspended. The Meolas allege in the Ohio Court of Claims lawsuit that although Phi Kappa Psi was suspended, "OSU knew that suspended fraternities, like and including, Phi Kappa Psi continued to operate and flagrantly violate the law and OSUs code of conduct. "Phi Kappa Psi continued to operate like a speakeasy right next to campus, and OSU tacitly accepted its operation through its actions and inactions as set forth herein," the Court of Claims lawsuit said. "OSU not only failed to address its off-campus criminal environment, but it took proactive steps to suppress police enforcement in the University District and other off-campus areas." Ohio State spokesman Ben Johnson said the university will "carefully review" the legal filings. Story continues "The shooting death of Chase Meola was a heartbreaking tragedy, and his family and friends remain in our thoughts," Johnson said. Phi Kappa Psi's suspension officially ended in August, but Johnson said the fraternity chapter has not begun the process to be reinstated. "When a chapters recognition is revoked, they no longer have the rights and privileges afforded to a recognized organization," Johnson said. "Students remain subject to the Code of Student Conduct and additional violations may lead to individual disciplinary action, extensions to the organizational revocation and/or referrals to law enforcement in alignment with Collins Law." Collin's Law is Ohio's Anti-Hazing Law, named for Collin Wiant, an 18-year-old student at Ohio University who died in 2018 as a result of hazing involving a fraternity there. Gov. Mike DeWine signed the measure into law in 2021 in a ceremony joined by Wiant's parents as well as the parents of Stone Foltz, a Bowling Green State University student who died as a result of hazing involving a fraternity there. The federal lawsuit said the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter at Ohio State, despite the suspension, "continued to hold itself out as an active fraternity, held parties and served alcohol," which led to the party that was being held the night Meola was killed. Kintie Mitchell, 18 at the time, and a group of other "uninvited individuals" attended the party, according to the lawsuits, and at some point were asked to leave. "Chase along with some of his fraternity brothers escorted Kintie Mitchell and others in his group out of the Fraternity house," the lawsuits said. Columbus police investigate outside the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house near Ohio State's campus on Sunday, Oct. 11. Ohio State fifth-year Chase Meola was fatally shot after an altercation broke out at a party in the area. Once outside, Mitchell is accused of shooting Meola in the head. Mitchell, who had been released on bond in multiple other cases just days before the shooting, was arrested and charged with murder. His case is currently set to go to trial in December. Meola's parents do not name Mitchell as a defendant in either lawsuit. Both lawsuits seeks damages for wrongful death and negligence, saying Ohio State and the fraternity should have done more to protect Meola and other "young, inexperienced" college students and fraternity members from the potential dangers of living in the University District and other criminal elements. The Meolas are seeking a minimum of $75,000 in damages from the fraternity and 10 John Does listed in the federal lawsuit, and and at least $25,000 in damages from Ohio State in the Ohio Court of Claims lawsuit Following Meola's death, Ohio State implemented a number of security changes as a result of a task force formed in late 2020. Those recommendations included increased off-campus security measures and surveillance. At the William Oxley Thompson statue on the Oval a memorial has formed to Ohio State student Chase Meola, 23, who was killed in a shooting shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday at 124 E. 14th Avenue. bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120 This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Family of Chase Meola sues Ohio State, Phi Kappa Psi fraternity WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) New Zealand's government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products. But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry's main lobby group, said the plan would rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand and see farms replaced with trees. Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn't decrease food production. Our plan was to keep farmers farming," Hoggard said. Instead, he said farmers would be selling their farms so fast you wont even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off. Opposition lawmakers from the conservative ACT Party said the plan would actually increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food. New Zealands farming industry is vital to its economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nations largest export earner. There are just 5 million people in New Zealand but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep. The outsized industry has made New Zealand unusual in that about half of its greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Farm animals produce gasses that warm the planet, particularly methane from cattle burps and nitrous oxide from their urine. The debate in New Zealand is part of a broader global reckoning about farming's impact on the environment and the steps some say are needed for mitigation. In the Netherlands, farmers have dumped hay bales on roads and driven tractors along busy highways to protest government proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants. Story continues In New Zealand, the government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes a pledge that it will reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050. Under the government's proposed plan, farmers would start to pay for emissions in 2025, with the pricing yet to be finalized. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said all the money collected from the proposed farm levy would be put back into the industry to fund new technology, research and incentive payments for farmers. New Zealand's farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food," Ardern said. Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor said it was an exciting opportunity for New Zealand and its farmers. Farmers are already experiencing the impact of climate change with more regular drought and flooding, O'Connor said. Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is both good for the environment and our economy. The liberal Labour government's proposal harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labour government in 2003 to tax farm animals for their methane emissions. Farmers back then also vehemently opposed the idea, and political opponents ridiculed it as a fart tax although a burp tax would have been more technically accurate as most of the methane emissions come from belching. The government eventually abandoned the plan. According to opinion polls, Arderns Labour Party has slipped in popularity and fallen behind the main opposition National Party since Ardern won a second term in 2020 in a landslide victory of historic proportions. If Ardern's government can't find agreement on the proposal with farmers, who have considerable political sway in New Zealand, it's likely to make it more difficult for Ardern to win reelection next year when the nation goes back to the polls. NATICK Natick could face trial for racial discrimination after U.S. District Court Judge Patti B. Saris recently denied the town's attempt to dismiss Joel and Linda Valentins 2021 lawsuit in federal court. The Valentins claim the town, its planning board, the Natick Historical Commission and select members from each organization rejected the Haitian couples condominium project at 50 Pleasant St. based on race, color and national origin. Michael Allen, one of the lawyers representing the Valentins, said the motion to dismiss was the result of an inability to settle the case over the past year. He said the defenses plan backfired with the Sept. 27 decision. More: Natick couple files civil rights lawsuit against town It's a really strong affirmation that the town can be liable for race discrimination, either under the Fair Housing Act or under the Constitution, based on its treatment of the Valentins in a way that was much less favorable than the way it treated other similar developments recently, said Allen, a partner at Washington, D.C.-based Relman Colfax. The Natick Planning Board denied Joel and Linda Valentin's plans to convert this property at 50 Pleasant St. in South Natick into condominiums, Oct. 6, 2022. The couple sued the town, the Planning Board and others alleging racial discrimination. But Adam Simms, an outside counsel for the town, said it's important to remember that the decision will not necessarily lead to a trial or give merit to any of the Valentins' claims. This is just an assessment of the allegations in the complaint and whether they meet a certain threshold, said Simms, a partner with Boston-based Pierce Davis & Perritano. More: Natick couple say they don't feel safe going to property they own in town Both parties are preparing evidence as part of discovery. While the option to settle before trial is still technically viable, Allen said he couldn't legally disclose whether settlement options are underway. If no settlement is reached, either party could request a summary judgment, in which Saris would decide on some or all parts of the case to determine whether it meets the requirements for a trial. Story continues Joel and Linda Valentin wanted to convert this property at 50 Pleasant St. in South Natick into condominiums, Oct. 6, 2022. Not all of the Valentins' claims survived the motion to dismiss, but Allen said he believes the case remains intact because the fair housing claims which were approved allow for compensatory damages and punitive damages. As a result, the couple could receive the funds they might have garnered had the housing project been approved, as well as additional money from the defendants as a punishment for their error. More: Local couple sues Natick Planning Board, claiming unfair treatment That would be a way of sort of teaching a lesson to municipalities that they should not discriminate in zoning and land use issues, Allen said. So the real power of the case remains. Simms said he does not believe the Natick Planning Board did anything wrong. I think they gave the Valentins all of the consideration that was warranted for a rather difficult project under a new bylaw, Simms said. Most importantly, I certainly have the view that the Valentins race had nothing to do had absolutely no bearing on the decision reached by the Planning Board. More: South Natick neighbors balk at proposed condo project Benjamin Wish, also a lawyer for the Valentins, said Saris finding is important for holding the town accountable. Her decision is based on the stark reality here that a town's actions can be discriminatory, even without using nasty words, said Wish, a partner at Boston-based Todd & Weld. The town doesn't get to escape liability here. The Natick Planning Board denied a plan to convert this property at 50 Pleasant St. in South Natick into several condominiums. The couple begind the proposal, Joel and Linda Valentin, have sued alleging racial discrimination. Allen said his goal is to always reach a settlement, but the Valentins are prepared to take their case to trial if necessary. The couple also does not intend to refile an appeal in Land Court, he said, adding that they withdrew that lawsuit to pursue constitutional claims in federal court. This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Racial discrimination case against Natick officials clears a hurdle A 22-year-old man from Hillsboro admitted in federal court Tuesday that he planned a mass shooting at Ohio State University, officials said. Tres Genco pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to commit a hate crime, which carries a possible life sentence because the plot involved an attempt to kill, according to prosecutors. Officials said Genco identified as an "Incel," short for involuntarily celibate. "The Incel movement is an online community of predominantly men who harbor anger towards women," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release announcing the plea. "Incels advocate violence in support of their belief that women unjustly deny them sexual or romantic attention to which they believe they are entitled." In March 2020, the Highland County Sheriff's Department was called to Genco's home, according to court documents. Someone reported Genco had barricaded himself in his room with a gun, and the person was worried he might hurt himself or planned to hurt others. After getting Genco to surrender, investigators said they found an AR-15-style rifle with a bump-stock and Glock pistol modified to fire fully automatically with no serial number. As part of his plea, prosecutors said, Genco admitted he possessed those weapons as part of his plot. Investigators said they also found many writings dating back to at least 2019. Genco wrote a memoir in which he said he would slaughter women out of hatred, jealousy and revenge, and referred to death as the great equalizer," prosecutors say. Genco wrote a note indicating he hoped to kill as many as 3,000 people, prosecutors said. They added he attended Army basic training in Georgia from August through December 2019, though he was discharged. That year, Genco purchased tactical gloves, a bulletproof vest, a hoodie bearing the word Revenge, cargo pants, a bowie knife, a skull facemask and several magazines, prosecutors said. Story continues Court documents indicate that Ohio State University was a target. FBI agents said he conducted surveillance of a university and did online research on sororities. Prosecutors also said Genco had compared himself to Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 in 2014 near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Two of the victims were women outside a sorority house. Rodger outlined his desire to punish women in YouTube videos. Genco formulated a plot to kill women and intended to carry it out. Our federal and local law enforcement partners stopped that from happening, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker said in a statement. Hate has no place in our country including gender-based hate and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to vigorously prosecute any such conduct. An attorney for Genco has yet to respond to an email from The Enquirer seeking comment. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Feds: Man admits plotting 'Incel' mass shooting targeting women at OSU A Jackson County jury deliberated for less than an hour before convicting a Coast man of sexual battery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Dion Neal, 46, was sentenced to life in prison as a habitual offender for overpowering and sexually assaulting a woman while threatening her with a gun in the back seat of his car in March 2018. Neal and the victim were out fishing around midnight off CCC Camp Road when the assault occurred. The victim eventually managed to escape and fled the car half naked and located two strangers that called 911. He overpowered her, not only with his size but with a gun, Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Lewis said in her closing argument. Her pants and panties inside out on the ground that is what sexual battery looks like. ADA Nikki Huffman prosecuted the case alongside Lewis. Defense attorney Adrianne Crawford Rhoads argued in her closing statement that prosecutors had failed to prove their case. Were asking you to find Dion not guilty because the state has not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt, Rhoads, who defended Neal along with attorney Tyler Cox, said in court. The defense pointed to a lack of DNA evidence and other details in their closing argument as reasons to find their client not guilty. Neal was sentenced as a habitual offender. He was convicted of armed robbery in 1995 and murder in 2000. We tried to get Mr. Neal to plead, Cox said after the verdict was rendered. Mr. Neal thought it was in his best interests to take this case to trial over our objections and advice ... at the end of the day, justice was served. Thats a great thing we have in our country, and I stand by that. Judge Kathy King Jackson handed down Neals sentence. Adrianne Crawford Rhoads talks to her client Dion Neals during his trial for sexual battery at the Jackson County Courthouse in Pascagoula on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Dion Neal stands with his attorneys after getting a guilty verdict from the jury during his trial for sexual battery charges before Judge Jackson at the Jackson County Courthouse in Pascagoula on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Assistant District Attorney Nikki Huffman sits on the prosecution side during a trial for Dion Neal, who is accused of sexual battery, at the Jackson County Courthouse in Pascagoula on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. The Coast Guard came to the rescue just in the nick of time Sunday, helping three Louisiana boaters who were found stranded in the Atlantic Ocean "fending off sharks" as rescuers arrived. The Coast Guard said in a Monday statement that the boaters were on a fishing trip that went awry when their 24-foot boat sank around 10 a.m. last Saturday, leaving them stranded 25 miles off Empire, Louisiana. Family members reported them missing, but it took more than a day for the Coast Guard to find them Sunday afternoon. CNN reported that rescuers arrived after 28 hours. All three boaters were back home Tuesday, the Coast Guard confirmed to the Associated Press. ABC News identified the men as Phong Le, Son Nguyen and Luan Nguyen. When the group's boat sank, it left them with no radio in an area without cellphone service. Le told ABC that they made a distress call on a radio to the Coast Guard and not even seconds after that, the boat was nearly halfway in the water. The three men said that they created a makeshift float by tying ice chests together. The sharks showed up Sunday morning, Luan Nguyen said. One bit the front of his life vest. In this image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, a Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans aircrew member holds up a torn life jacket from a recent rescue off the coast of Empire, La., on Oct. 9, 2022. "And I think thats where I caught ... these injuries on my hand," he told ABC. "I took my two thumbs and jabbed him in the eyes, and he took off." Meanwhile, Le swam miles to search for help. He managed to find a cellphone signal, sending a screenshot of his map location to a friend just before the battery died, he told ABC. A boater's wife texted it to the Coast Guard, Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Keefe, rescue coordinator for Sector New Orleans, told the Associated Press. One man's wife had also reported the group missing at around 10 p.m. Saturday, Keefe said. After Coast Guard boats, planes and a helicopter spent hours searching the area, Le's location screenshot arrived. Le was rescued first. An airplane then located the other two about a half-mile to a mile away, where they were still being circled by four black-tip sharks, Andrew Stone, a seaman in the Coast Guard rescue crew, said. Story continues When the two were lifted into the helicopter, there was a lot of hugging, helicopter rescue swimmer Richard Hoefle said. Until then, he said, Le had no idea if his friends were alive or dead. The Coast Guard came up clutch on Sunday, rescuing three stranded people whose boat had sunk. A social media post from the Coast Guard described the rescue as "just in the nick of time." The boaters were flown to a hospital in New Orleans, the Coast Guard said. In addition to minor hand injuries, one of the boaters had hypothermia. In South Africa: First, detailed video captures orcas hunting great white sharks According to American Oceans, blacktip sharks are considered unintentionally dangerous," and few human fatalities have been reported. This file photo shows a blacktip shark. The Coast Guard reported three stranded boaters fought off blacktip sharks after their fishing boat sunk over the weekend. "We searched an area roughly the size of Rhode Island and are thankful to have found these missing boaters," Keefe said in the Monday statement. "If the family member had not notified the Coast Guard, and if these three boaters were not wearing life jackets, this could've been a completely different outcome." Contributing: The Associated Press. Wyatte Grantham-Philips, USA TODAY. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coast Guard rescues three boaters who survived a day at sea, sharks NBC News reporter Dasha Burns said Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman struggles to understand what he hears and to speak clearly after having a stroke in May. Burns sat down with Fetterman for an interview in his home on Friday. We had a monitor set up so that he could read my questions because he still has lingering auditory processing issues as a result of the stroke which means he has a hard time understanding what hes hearing, Burns explained on Tuesday. Now once he reads the question, hes able to understand. MSNBC: John Fetterman "has a hard time understanding what he's hearinghe still has some problems, some challenges with speechhe had a hard time understanding our conversations." pic.twitter.com/EYLNVxb0Cy Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 11, 2022 She went on to say that he still has some problems, some challenges with speech and that in small talk before the interview, when the closed captioning was not yet up and running, it did seem that he had a hard time understanding our conversations. Fetterman, who is currently Pennsylvanias lieutenant governor, said during the interview: I sometimes will hear things in a way thats not perfectly clear. So I use captioning so Im able to see what youre saying on the captioning. He said he does not believe his stroke recovery will have an impact on his ability to serve in the Senate, if elected. I feel like Im gonna get better and better every day, he said. And by January, Im going [to] be, you know, much better. And Dr. Oz is still going to be a fraud. Burns wrote that Fetterman occasionally stuttered and had trouble finding words during the interview. The Democrat said the stroke has changed the way he communicates, including with his family. It has changed everything in his day-to-day life, he said. Story continues But it gets much, much better where I take in a lot, he said. But to be precise, I use captioning, so thats really the maijing thats the major challenge. And every now and then Ill miss a word. Every now and then. Or sometimes Ill maybe mush two words together. But as long as I have captioning, Im able to understand exactly whats being asked. Burns reported that Fetterman struggled to say the word empathetic during the interview, weighing the correct pronunciation and emphetic. No, I dont think it was hard, Fetterman said of moments where he is left searching for language. It was just about having to be thinking more, uh, sl, uh slower to just understand and that sometimes thats kind of the processing that happens, Fetterman said. Responding to a question about why he did not share his medical records or make his doctors available for interviews, Fetterman said he is not aware of any undisclosed symptoms and that he has been open with the public about his health and recovery. He noted that despite his auditory processing difficulties, his cognitive function and memory are unaffected. I feel like we have been very transparent in a lot of different ways, Fetterman said. When our doctor has already given a letter saying that Im able to serve and to be running. And then I think theres you cant be any more transparent than standing up on a stage with 3,000 people and having a speech without a teleprompter and just being and putting everything and yourself out there like that. I think thats as transparent as everyone in Pennsylvania can see. Fetterman previously spent months dodging requests from his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, to debate. Oz suggested in early September that the Democrat is either healthy and hes dodging the debate because he does not want to answer for his radical left positions, or hes too sick to participate in the debate. Oz has called on his opponent to release his medical records. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazettes editorial board similarly raised concern about Fettermans debate dodging, writing that if he is not well enough to debate his opponent, that raises serious concerns about his ability to serve as a United States senator. However, Fetterman and Oz ultimately agreed to hold a single debate on October 25. A RealClearPolitics polling average shows Fetterman leading Oz by 3.7 percentage points. More from National Review Another arrest has been made after a body was found buried in the Arizona desert this month, officials said. Garrett Sebastian Cole, 31, has been taken into police custody in connection with the suspected slaying of a man in Bakersfield, California in late September, the Mohave County Sheriffs Office announced. He was arrested by officers and a SWAT Team in Riverside County, California at about 10:00 a.m. on Friday, KGET-TV reported. An arrest warrant had previously been issued for Cole on charges of murder, kidnapping and robbery; prior to his capture, authorities had deemed him armed and dangerous. Four other suspects had been apprehended in connection with the case before police caught up with Cole. On Sept. 23, police had been dispatched to an address in the 300 block of Real Road in Bakersfield, where officers discovered evidence leading them to believe that a violent crime had been committed at the home. RELATED: Body Found In 2022 Identified As Young Texas Man Who Disappeared In 2021 That evening, Juan Toscano, 34, was arrested in connection with the homicide case after he allegedly confessed to fatally shooting an individual over a drug deal, according to Bakersfield Now. He was on probation at the time of the incident following convictions on charges of carrying a loaded firearm without registration and driving while intoxicated. A police handout of Garrett Cole Garrett Cole Photo: Mohave County Sheriff's Office Toscano claimed the persons corpse was later taken from the residence by other people. He was charged with second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon and is next set to appear in court on Nov. 8, online jail records show. Then, on Oct. 5, Javier Ontiveros, 25, Johnny Vega, 29, and Edrich Esquer-Rubio, 21, were also jailed in connection to the homicide case after new evidence surfaced following the execution of a search warrant at a Fort Mohave residence. The following day, human remains were exhumed in the desert near Fort Mohave, Arizona, approximately 275 miles southeast of Bakersfield. Authorities suspect the unidentified mans corpse was transported across state lines after he was fatally shot by Toscano. Story continues A police handout of Lauren Dean The victims identity or cause and manner of death hasnt been released by authorities. Ontiveros, Vega and Esquer-Rubio face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, conspiracy, possession of a firearm by a felon and destroying or concealing evidence. Ontiveros faces additional charges for manufacture of a controlled substance, hit and run resulting in property damage, driving without a license and driving without insurance. Esquer-Rubio faces additional charges including for the transport and sale of narcotics, possession and purchase of a cocaine base for sale, possession of a controlled substance while possessing a loaded firearm, illegal concealed carry in a vehicle, evading arrest and driving without a license. Coles suspected role in the alleged murder plot is unclear, but he faces the same set of charges as Ontiveros, Vega and Esquer-Rubio. Its also unknown if Cole has retained legal counsel to comment on his behalf. He is set to appear in court on Oct. 11 while Esquer-Rubio is set to appear in court for the murder-related charges on Oct. 10, Ontiveros on Oct. 11 and Vega on Oct. 21. All five men remain in the custody of the Kern County Sheriff's Office in California. Oxygen.com has reached out to the Mohave County Sheriffs Office and the Bakersfield Police Department for comment. A flu vaccine is still your best shot at keeping away the flu this season. Adams Journal I know health officials sometimes caution people not to get the influenza vaccine too early so that protection doesnt wear off before flu season ends. How long does immunity from a flu shot last? Would a booster after the first shot help? Dr. McEver Prescribes For this question, I consulted Judith James, M.D., Ph.D., who has studied the influenza vaccine at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Dr. James is an immunologist, board-certified rheumatologist, and OMRFs vice president of clinical affairs. Heres what she said: Flu activity in the U.S. usually increases in early fall and peaks from December to February. Those who get a flu vaccine before November should have adequate protection against severe disease and death through spring. Although two doses may sound better than one, flu boosters are currently only recommended for young children. How long a flu shot lasts depends on individual immune systems, but the vaccine is usually effective for 6-8 months. Immunity wanes toward the end of our flu season. All viruses mutate, but influenza viruses do so rapidly. This perpetual viral drift necessitates the annual flu vaccine. Studies of second doses of flu vaccine in one season have shown no benefit for most adults. But among the very young, its a different story. For children ages 6 months to 8 years getting their first flu shot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends two doses spaced at least four weeks apart. For a young immune system that hasnt seen the flu before, this booster dose of vaccine is important to the bodys ability to mount a protective response when it encounters the virus. This double dose of protection for kids may impact their likelihood of contracting the flu in future seasons. In a 2016 study in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, researchers found young children whod received two doses during a prior season were only half as likely as their peers to contract flu the next year. McEver, a physician-scientist, is vice president of research at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Cohen is a marathoner and OMRFs senior vice president and general counsel. Submit your health questions for them to contact@omrf.org This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: What you need to know about how long your annual flu shot will last Racism stain of shame on 'world democratic paradise' China Daily) 08:35, October 11, 2022 People walk on Times Square in New York, the United States, Nov 23, 2021. [PhotoXinhua] In the 51st Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council from Sept 12 to Oct 7 in Geneva, the Chinese representatives, along with representatives of some other countries, expressed their deep concerns over the United States' discriminatory law enforcement against minorities, urging the US to face its own racism and racial discrimination, so as to avoid the tragedy of George Floyd from happening again. The US administration has apparently not drawn its lessons from it, as more than 200 African Americans have been killed by police officers during law enforcement over the year following the death of Floyd. These tragedies have again and again exposed the hypocrisy of human rights in the US and made people see clearly that the US society is not the so-called "world democratic paradise" that its politicians boasted of, but instead a sick society in which even the basic rights of human survival are at stake. In addition to African Americans, Asian Americans, Muslims and other ethnic minorities have also been marginalized due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the discriminatory policies of the US government. When US politicians failed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, they openly scapegoated ethnic minorities and fueled racial conflicts and hatred to absolve their own responsibilities. In the US, ethnic minorities are only given symbolic attention when election politics demand it. The politicians have no interest in improving the social soil in which racism breeds and the various institutional flaws that reinforce it. In August this year, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticized the deeprooted problem of racial discrimination in the US when reviewing its implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The US should not pretend to be deaf to the criticism of the international community. It should take concrete actions to comprehensively review and change its discriminatory laws, policies and measures, and thoroughly investigate cases of violent law enforcement. Before it intervenes in other countries' internal affairs under the name of human rights, the US should first mend its own tattered human rights cloak. (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Du Mingming) Photo: File photo Toronto police say a man is facing impaired driving and assault charges after he allegedly crashed a car into oncoming traffic, left his injured passenger behind and then assaulted a family before dropping his pants and punching a police officer. Police allege the 29-year-old driver of a blue BMW was speeding eastbound on Danforth Avenue at Jones Avenue around 8:22 p.m. on Monday when he crossed the centre line and hit an oncoming car. They say the driver of the BMW then left allegedly left behind an injured 22-year-old passenger in the car and fled the scene, while the driver of the oncoming car was taken to hospital with serious life-altering injuries. Police say the BMW driver allegedly then approached a father and child as they were getting out of a nearby parked car, punched the father in the head and grabbed the child. They say as an off-duty police officer and neighbours approached to help, the man allegedly backed away before dropping his pants and exposing himself. Then, as police arrived on scene, the man allegedly punched an officer in the face before another officer shot the man with a stun gun and took him into custody. The man, who is from Mississauga, Ont., faces several charges including dangerous operation causing bodily harm, impaired operations causing bodily harm and assault. First Lady Jill Biden will travel to Wisconsin on Wednesday to speak with the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association and later meet with students, parents and educators. Biden's visit to Milwaukee comes with the midterm elections less than one month away. She is scheduled to deliver remarks to the MTEA at Washington Park Senior Center in Milwaukee, the White House said in a statement. First lady Jill Biden is scheduled to visit Milwaukee on Wednesday. She is pictured here at Marvin E. Pratt Elementary School in Milwaukee during a September 2021 visit. Following that event, Biden will visit a Milwaukee Public Schools "Homework Diner" at Westside Academy, where she is expected to visit students, parents and educators, the White House said. Biden is also scheduled to visit Tennessee, Florida and Georgia this week. More: Republicans trying to cut deep into the heart of the Democratic base of the Latino community More: 5 takeaways from the debate between Ron Johnson, Mandela Barnes: A clash over crime and abortion Her visit comes as Wisconsin faces high-profile tight races between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and GOP challenger Tim Michels, as well as Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Democrat. The first lady has been a frequent visitor to the Badger State. In a December 2021 visit to Milwaukee and Waukesha, she encouraged COVID-19 vaccinations and met with families of Waukesha Christmas Parade victims. She met with parents and educators in September 2021 at Milwaukee's Marvin E. Pratt Elementary School to discuss the return to in-person learning and the White House's efforts to direct federal funds for COVID safety protocols. She also traveled to Kenosha and Wauwatosa with her husband, President Joe Biden, in September 2020. Contact Mary Spicuzza at (414) 224-2324 or mary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: First Lady Jill Biden to travel to Milwaukee on Wednesday Oct. 11What is it? Washington State (4-2, 1-2 Pac-12) looks to rebound from its road loss against USC and extend its winning streak versus Oregon State to nine when it visits a Beavers team (4-2, 1-2) that is coming off a dramatic win. Where is it? Reser Stadium in Corvallis, Oregon. When is it? Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. Saturday. Where can I watch it? Pac-12 Network will carry the broadcast. Who is favored? The Beavers opened as 3-point favorites. How did they fare last week? The Cougars gave the sixth-ranked Trojans (6-0, 4-0) a fight, but stumbled in the second half of a 30-14 loss Saturday at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. WSU's defense fared well in containing a high-powered Trojan offense, but the Cougars offense went stagnant after halftime and USC gradually pulled away. "(The defense) has been a lot cleaner and we've controlled the explosive pass game," WSU coach Jake Dickert said. "That was an explosive team we played, but there's so much on both sides of the ball that we can learn and grow from. "There was a lot of highs and lows and adversity, and some situations that maybe we felt didn't go our way." WSU committed a season-high 11 penalties. The Cougars posted similar stat totals to the Trojans, but were outscored 13-0 in the second half after a back-and-forth first half. "We got beat by a really good team," Dickert said. "We just made some uncharacteristic mistakes in that game. You can't beat a top-10 team on the road doing those things. "We pride ourselves on discipline, and we made some undisciplined mistakes. As a coach, that fires me up. We still have a ways to go, but at the end of the day, I love where our team is at. We lost to two very good opponents (Oregon and USC) ... but we're excited about where our team is at and where we can still finish." The Cougars lost veteran receiver Renard Bell and starting running back Nakia Watson to injuries against USC. Both players will be sidelined for an indefinite stretch and will miss the OSU game. Story continues Oregon State rallied back from a 14-point deficit in the fourth quarter and stunned Stanford on a deep scoring pass late to win 28-27 on the road. The Beavers were outplayed on both sides of the ball for much of the night against a lowly Cardinal team, but OSU churned out 192 rushing yards and got an exceptional effort from backup quarterback Ben Gulbranson, who completed 6 of 8 passes for 121 yards in the fourth quarter, including a go-ahead, 56-yard scoring pass to Tre'Shaun Harrison with 13 seconds remaining. Scouting the opponent: The Beavers opened their season 3-0. They ran past Boise State and beat Fresno State on a walk-off touchdown, then routed FCS Montana State before falling 17-14 at home against USC. Oregon State's defense bottled up the Trojan offense, which needed a two-minute scoring possession at the end of the game to slip by with a win. OSU sustained a rout at Utah the next week before eking out a victory at Stanford. Considering the up-and-down results, the Beavers are somewhat difficult to evaluate, but Dickert considers OSU "probably the most undervalued team in the Pac-12. "With just how veteran they are, how well-coached they are and how physical they are," he added. "They played a heckuva game against USC at home. They're tough to beat (in Corvallis)." OSU's quarterback position is up in the air. Returning starter Chance Nolan sustained a neck injury Oct. 1 at Utah and Gulbranson played well enough versus Stanford. Interceptions have been an issue. OSU ranks last in the Pac-12 with 10 picks. "People have been stopping them a little bit with takeaways," Dickert said. The Cougars have forced just seven turnovers this year. The Beavers lean on a many-headed rushing attack, led by veteran Deshaun Fenwick (331 yards, four touchdowns on 73 carries). Two other tailbacks have produced more than 200 rushing yards apiece this season. The team ranks 44th nationally with 181 rushing yards per game. WSU boasts the nation's No. 26 rushing defense (110 yards per game). Containing OSU's ground game is the key for the Cougs. "They've been rolling people off the ball and (Fenwick) is incredible," Dickert said. "They are tough and physical at the line of scrimmage. We've done a good job this season against tough, physical football teams, and I think it'll be another challenge." WSU ranks fourth in the FBS with 49 tackles for loss and 11th with 19 sacks. The Beavers have surrendered six sacks this season four against Stanford. Oregon State's defense has only produced six sacks. WSU's offensive line has given up a conference-most 20 sacks. The Beavers' rushing defense has been above average this year, not exceptional. The Cougars' rushing offense has been underwhelming, but freshman WSU tailback Jaylen Jenkins showed star potential last weekend, running for 130 yards on 13 carries. The Cougars' passing game stumbled in the second half against USC. The Air Raid will need a bounce-back effort versus an experienced OSU secondary that owns a top-40 coverage grade in the nation, according to the NCAA's pass-defense efficiency rankings. "I haven't seen every secondary in the league ... but I think it's one of the top secondaries we've played," Dickert said. "They've got great length and they're being good playmakers. It's going to be a big challenge to go into their place and get the win." What happened last time? WSU and OSU traded highlights in an entertaining matchup at Gesa Field on Oct. 9, 2021. The Cougars made a red-zone stand late in the fourth quarter to seal a 31-24 win. Things to know: 1. The Cougars have won eight consecutive games in their series with the Beavers. WSU/OSU matchups have been high-scoring affairs in recent memory. The teams averaged 77 combined points per game over the past eight meetings WSU 45, OSU 32. 2. Dickert, a first-year coach who is early in the process of building his program, commended fifth-year OSU coach Jonathan Smith for his patient rebuild of the Beavers' program. After three losing seasons, Smith turned OSU into a winner. "We're invested to build our program for the long term, and that's why I have a lot of respect for what coach Smith has done at Oregon State," Dickert said. "He came in there and it probably wasn't great, and he's done a good job of developing depth all the way through their roster. ... We'll have the ability over time to do that, too." 3. OSU offensive line coach Jim Michalczik played on the Cougars' O-line in the 1980s. Quality control assistant Ryan Saparto was a WSU long snapper from 2011-13. He served as a WSU grad assistant for two years after his collegiate career ended. OSU linebackers coach Trent Bray is the son of former WSU volleyball coach Kaprice Rupp and Craig Bray, who oversaw WSU's secondary between 1987-88 under coach Dennis Erickson. Craig Bray returned to Pullman in the mid-1990s and spent six years on Mike Price's staff. 4. After playing OSU, the Cougars head into their bye week ahead of a home game against No. 20 Utah. "With the bye week hanging out there, it's an important (game) this week to leave it all out there as we get into a much-needed rest week," he said. "We still have a lot to prove. These last six games will define this team." WASHINGTON The world's most scrutinized fist bump has turned into one of President Joe Biden's biggest humiliations. Biden attracted enormous criticism in July for not only meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman whose family Biden once vowed to make a "pariah" but kicking it off with the type of fist bump that's usually shared between friends. Three months later, the prince spurned Biden when the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting nations decided last week to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. The move is expected to raise gas prices at the pump, potentially delivering a damaging blow to Biden before the midterm elections, while helping member Russia navigate through a partial European ban on Russian oil. The crown prince's rebuff has Democratic allies questioning whether the meeting was worth it as some call for the Biden administration to cut U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia including arms sales to the Saudis. The White House on Tuesday said Biden is "reevaluating" the U.S.-Saudi relationship that goes back 70 years. OPEC+ scales back: Why are gas prices going up? More pain at the pump as OPEC cuts oil production by 2 million barrels How OPEC+ undercut Biden Biden expected a different outcome: The White House maintains the July meeting with the crown prince, also known as MBS, was not about oil. But it came as gas prices soared for months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Following the meeting, Biden told reporters that "based on our discussions today" he expected the Saudis to take "further steps" to boost oil production in the coming weeks. Dynamics before the fist bump: Biden faced criticism for even agreeing to meet with the crown prince who U.S. officials believe ordered the brutal 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. A boost for Russia: The OPEC+ alliance's move to cut 2 million barrels of oil production a day was larger than expected. The alliance cited the "uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks." If the move drives up prices as expected, it would boost Russia's oil revenue, helping Russian President Vladimir Putin continue to wage his war in Ukraine. Gas prices back on the rise: At home, the move is expected to increase gas prices at the pump, which have already started to rise again after dropping during the summer. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.92 on Monday, according to AAA, up from $3.80 last week. Story continues Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, greets President Joe Biden, with a fist bump after his arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 15. What's next Senate Democrats, including Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are pressing the White House to end cooperation with Saudi Arabia in response to the Saudis helping Russia. John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, said the president plans to reexamine the U.S.-Saudi relationship and is willing to work with Congress. "I think the president's been very clear that this is a relationship that we need to continue to reevaluate, that we need to revisit," Kirby said Tuesday on CNN. "And certainly in light of the OPEC decision, I think that's where he is." Biden told reporters last week that the administration is "looking at alternatives" following the OPEC+ decision to cut oil production. The Biden administration announced it will deliver an additional 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in November, adding to up to 180 million barrels the president ordered in March. More: Biden searching for 'alternatives' to help lower gas prices after OPEC cuts oil production The White House called on U.S. energy companies to bring down prices at the pump by "closing the historically large gap" between wholesale and retail gas prices. Takeaways Biden took a major foreign policy gamble by meeting in Saudi Arabia with a leader he previously condemned. While some allies say the president's visit was justified given the state of gas prices, the meeting is now widely seen as a loss strategically. The White House responded to the OPEC+ alliance's decision with anger and disappointment. And the political blowback for Biden and Democrats could be consequential as they seek to hold onto power in the next month's midterm elections. Biden's approval rating has proven to be tied to fluctuating gas prices, increasing over the summer as gas prices decreased and dipping again as gas prices have gone back up. Rising gas prices before the election are not what Democrats want to see. What they are saying Biden 'disappointed': Biden last week said he was "disappointed" by OPEC+ cutting oil production but that he didn't regret his trip to Saudi Arabia. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it's "clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia." Democrats take aim at U.S.-Saudi alliance: Menendez, D-N.J. said the U.S. must "immediately freeze all aspects of our cooperation" with Saudi Arabia including arms sales, arguing there's "no room to play both sides" with Russia's war in Ukraine. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez has veto power over foreign weapons sales. "I will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough. 'We have a problem': Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich, in an interview Sunday on "Meet the Press," said the Saudis "had a strategic decision to make about whether to help the world economy and put more oil in there or to cut it back. At best, they made a decision that didn't help the rest of the world. At worst, they align themselves with Putin. We have a problem." 'They chose Russia': Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Sunday on CNN he doesn't have a problem with presidents meeting with other leaders but called the U.S.-Saudi Arabia relationship "broken." Murphy said the U.S. needs to "rethink" arms sales to Saudi Arabia. "For years, we have looked the other way as Saudi Arabia has chopped up journalists, has engaged in massive political repression, for one reason. We wanted to know that when the chips were down, when there was a global crisis, that the Saudis would choose us instead of Russia. Well, they didn't. They chose Russia." Republicans push back: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the push to end Saudi arms sales "a short-sighted view of the problem" in an interview with USA TODAY. He said the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia should be maintained, noting they're a "bulwark" against Iran. Graham said the best way to neutralize Russia is to export more natural gas to Europe by producing more oil domestically. "Rather than cutting off arm sales to Saudi Arabia, I'd rather open up domestic exploration," he said. The big picture Overhauling the long partnership between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia would mark a major foreign policy shift with major implications in the Middle East. Before any long-term policy changes with the Saudis, Biden has a tougher challenge: make sure gas prices don't wreck Democrats' fortunes in November. Contributing: Associated Press and Francesca Chambers Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Saudis cut oil production, putting Biden visit under scrutiny A Virginia flight instructor who was a former Hampton University athlete died Thursday during a flight lesson in Virginia. Viktoria Ljungman, 23, was killed in a crash at Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport. The 18-year-old student pilot and an 18-year-old passenger survived. The aircraft crashed into a ditch near the airport around 3 p.m., Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller said. Investigators determined that the student pilot tried to pull up the Cessna 172 at a very steep angle during takeoff, causing the engine to stall in the air, according to Geller. Viktoria Ljungman. (Courtesy Rick Aviation) Ljungman was pronounced dead at the scene. The student pilot and the passenger were taken to area hospitals. Their conditions were not available. State police, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are continuing to investigate the incident. Ljungman came to the U.S. from Sweden in 2018 to play tennis at Hampton University, where she graduated in May, her former tennis coach, Clayton Hamilton, said. "She was truly a wonderful person," Hamilton said. "She brightened up every room she was in." Ljungman's dream was to become a commercial pilot, Hamilton said. "Her degree was in aviation. Its what she loved to do," he said, adding that he stayed in touch with Ljungman after he left the university in 2020. Ljungman was working as a certified flight instructor at Rick Aviation Flight School in eastern Virginia. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Jay Reeves/AP/Shutterstock Floridas Department of Children and Families announced the states application for Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. D-SNAP will provide food assistance to low-income households affected by Hurricane Ian. Food Stamps: States Extending SNAP Emergency Allotment Money Through October 2022 See Why: This Credit Score Mistake Could Be Costing Millions of Americans USDA stands with our neighbors in Florida to continue to provide vital food assistance as they deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The Department is prepared to extend any available flexibility that will improve food access during their road to recovery. Secretary Vilsack said households that may not normally be eligible for SNAP may qualify for D-SNAP if they meet certain criteria, including the disaster income limits, and if they have qualifying disaster-related expenses. Additionally, households must either live or work in an identified disaster area and have been affected by the disaster to qualify for D-SNAP benefits. The USDA says that eligible households will receive one month of benefits equal to the maximum monthly amount for a SNAP household of their size. Benefits can be used to purchase groceries at SNAP-authorized stores and online retailers. D-SNAP will be implemented in phases and by county starting Oct. 10, according to the Florida DCF. Pre-registration is required and the first phase will be through a phone option. Learn: What Is the Highest Income Level for Food Stamps in 2023? The DCF says to pre-register for D-SNAP here, which is only available for counties designated in each phase, and then complete a phone interview by calling the D-SNAP Call Center or attending an on-site event in the coming weeks. Over 740,000 households may be eligible for D-SNAP assistance, according to the Florida DCF. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Florida Approves Disaster Food Stamps for Hurricane Ian Victims What It Provides WASHINGTON - Former Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday she is leaving the Democratic Party. Gabbard tweeted a video saying she can no longer remain in today's Democratic Party, which is "now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness." In the minute-long video, Gabbard said Democrats are divisive by racializing issues and "stoking anti-white racism." She said she believes the left-leaning party works to "undermine our God-given freedoms" in the Constitution. "I believe in a government that's of the people, by the people and for the people," she said. "Unfortunately, today's Democrat party does not. Instead, it stands for a government that is of, by and for the powerful elite." Gabbard ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race before suspending her campaign in March 2020 saying she would support President Joe Biden. She served in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021. Former Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, speaks during the McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) OnPolitics: Get political news, fast and to the point, delivered to your inbox. In the video, Gabbard said Democrats are hostile to people of faith, demonize police but protect criminals, weaponize the national security state to attack political opponents and are driving the country closer to nuclear war. She called on "fellow commonsense independent-minded Democrats" to join her in leaving the Democratic Party. "If you can no longer stomach the direction the so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, then I invite you to join me," she said. Gabbard did not include details as to which political party she will join or whether she plans to switch to the Republican Party. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tulsi Gabbard leaving Democratic Party, calls it 'elitist cabal' A Fort Worth police officer was arrested Monday and accused of using a city computer to run searches for a persons information in the Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunications System on two separate occasions in 2021 with no indication that he had a law enforcement reason. Officer Darrell Coker, 48, was placed on unpaid suspension as the administrative investigation is being finalized, the Fort Worth Police Department said in a news release. Coker is accused of being on duty when he did the background checks on two separate occasions in 2021. The FWPD does not tolerate criminal misconduct or unethical behavior, according to the statement released by Fort Worth police on Tuesday. We will continue to hold employees accountable who do not meet the standards expected of a Fort Worth Police Officer and in doing so, will continue to be transparent and open with our community. Fort Worth police received a complaint on Coker in April, alleging that he had checked on a persons information through the state law enforcement database without a legitimate reason. Administrative and criminal investigations were immediately initiated by Fort Worth police, and Coker was placed on restricted duty and stripped of all police powers pending the outcome of the investigations, police said. In June, the Fort Worth Police Department special investigations unit filed a criminal case with the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorneys Office, Coker was taken into custody after he was indicted by a Tarrant County grand jury on a charge of breach of computer security. Coker remained in the Tarrant County Jail on Tuesday with bond set at $2,500. He has been with Fort Worth police for four years and was assigned to the patrol bureau prior to being placed on restricted duty. Respectful communication is critical for a positive relationship (Getty Images) A clinical psychologist has revealed the four signs a relationship is going to last, saying that arguing is OK providing couples fight fair. Dr Kathy Nickerson, who has 22 years experience in the field, said indicators that a relationship is strong include it feeling easy, genuinely caring about your partners happiness, and being intentionally gentle and kind to one another. The psychologist from Orange County, California, said: After working with couples for so long, I know that it's never too late to make a relationship better. The four points I mentioned are clinical observations I have made but if your relationship is not where you want it to be, don't give up, take action. Think about what you're really craving, then find a kind and gentle way to ask for this. Then ask your partner to do the same. Couples that commit to talking frequently about what they feel and what they need do far better than couples who shut down, settle for what's offered, and don't talk about how to heal sore spots. It feels easy most of the time A relationship feeling easy is critical to its health, states Dr Nickerson. What I mean by this is that it does not feel like a daily struggle or challenge to connect with your partner or get emotional support from your partner, she says. Even though life might be difficult and you might face personal challenges, your relationship feels safe, comfortable, and easy. She adds that while all relationships experience difficult patches, the ones that are most likely to last are those where the rough spots feel few and far between. You fight fairly On the subject of fighting fair, she explains: Couples who have healthy relationships know that the point of a fight is to communicate, not destroy each other. They care about each other's feelings; they're careful about tone and how they phrase things. The goal of good communication is to be honest, authentic, and kind - not nasty, critical, defensive, or dismissive, she says. Story continues You care about your partners happiness Be mindful of what makes your partner happy (Getty Images) Caring about your partners happiness is vital, says Dr Nickerson, because at the heart of a good relationship is a solid friendship. We feel closest to people who like us, who actively care for us, and who go out of their way for us, she says. Healthy couples do this and they're mindful about what makes their partner happy. The strongest couples casually track the fairness in their relationship, especially when it comes to things like household chores and choices made for the family, like what restaurant to eat at. They strive to make sure both partners get equitable treatment, she says. You are intentionally gentle and kind to each other The fourth and final sign according to Dr Nickerson is remembering to be gentle and kind to each other, even when things get difficult in life. She says that couples with staying power recognise that they are a safe harbour for each other. They are intentional about being gentle with their words and kind with their behaviours. They go out of their way to ensure their partner feels secure, valued, and loved. When their partner is hurt or upset, they drop everything to listen to them, comfort them, and support them. They actively listen for their partner's feelings and they validate those feelings, she says. Of the four signs, Dr Nickerson believes that the most important is that your partners happiness matters to you. If this element of your relationship is true, she says, you will instinctively do things to support them and show compassion for them. You'll ask them about their dreams, their feelings, and their fears, she says. You will do what you can to help alleviate the fears and make the dreams come true. She adds: We all want to stay in relationships where we feel respected and valued for who we really are. If your partner's happiness truly matters to you, you'll naturally do many things that convey acceptance and admiration. Dr Nickerson shared her advice in a TikTok video which has racked up more than 400,000 views. On the subject of a happy relationship, she adds: I think a good relationship is the most precious gift you could ever receive. My advice to everyone would be... act like this in your relationships and if this person is ready for you and right for you, the relationship will last. Additional reporting by SWNS A University of Miami fraternity was disbanded due to explicit chanting at a party, reigniting discussions about rape culture on college campuses. Its not known if any sexual assaults are linked to the party. But sexual violence is pervasive and underreported on college campuses. College women ages 18-24 are three times more likely to be assaulted yet only 20% report their assaults, according to data from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. Here are the resources available on campus: Can I report an off-campus incident? UMs sexual misconduct policy applies to students, faculty, staff and visitors. The procedures for investigation varies depending on the status of the person accused of sexual misconduct or assault. This means that anyone affiliated with UM could be investigated for sexual misconduct, regardless of where the incident took place. You can report sexual misconduct through UMs Title IX office online or in-person at Gables One Tower, Suite 100. Title IX offices investigate sex-based discrimination and violence reported at universities. You can also reach out to an area deputy Title IX coordinator. All university employees even student employees are required to report sexual misconduct, assault and abuse. Can I report an incident? To report an on-campus assault, call UM Public Safety at 305-284-6666 or through any blue light phone on campus. UM Police, who are also members of the Coral Gables Police Department, will respond to the call. The department will try to accommodate requests for female officers. How can I report to police? Contacting police is a frightening but important step when reporting assault, especially if youre considering seeking legal action. You can contact police at 305-284-6666 for the Coral Gables campus, 305-710-7991 for the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, and 305-243-6000 for the medical campus. If you decide that you dont want to report an assault to police, you can still contact the Dean of Students Office at 305-284-5353. Story continues How can I get an examination? UMs Student Health Service cant perform sexual assault examinations to collect evidence. Students are urged to get an examination within 72 hours of the assault at the Roxcy Bolton Rape Treatment Center, 1611 NW 12th Ave. in Miami. The center is labout 25 minutes from the UM campus. The exam treats injuries, prevents pregnancy and collects evidence. The evidence wont be used unless you choose to pursue legal action. For more information, call the center at 305-585-5185 or Jackson Memorial Hospitals sexual assault hotline at 305-585-RAPE (7273). Are UM counseling services available? UMs Counseling Center provides free, same-day counseling after a sexual assault. The confidential sessions can be brief or ongoing, depending on what a person decides. Call 305-285-5511 for an appointment. Additional resources are available on the centers website. How else does the university give support? After a report is made, the university may extend deadlines, make other course-related adjustments and modify work or class schedules. The university may also provide campus escort services, limit contact between the victim and accused, and increase monitoring of areas of campus. Photo: MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS. Carol Todd of Port Coquitlam arrives at the New Westminster Law Courts on Tuesday morning (Oct. 11) with her son, Christopher, as the sentencing hearing begins for Aydin Coban, the Dutch national convicted of sextorting Amanda Todd. UPDATE 6:45 p.m. The parents and brother of the late Amanda Todd told a court this afternoon (Oct. 11) how her sextortion and suicide continues to cause pain. The 15-year-old student of the Coquitlam Alternate Basic Education (CABE) school died a decade ago yesterday (Oct. 10) after she was cyberbullied by Dutch citizen Aydin Coban. He was convicted by a jury on five counts in August. Coban, 44, had no reaction while the Todd family read out their victim impact statements before Justice Martha Devlin at BC Supreme Court. And he scrolled legal documents on a laptop as Crown Counsel screened a video that Amanda Todd created just five weeks before she took her life. That video, shown in court in colour but no music, went viral after she died. Her father, Norm, wept as he spoke of Amanda. Its hard to put into words how it feels to lose a child, he said at the New Westminster Law Courts. Norm Todd talked about how hes been unable to mourn with the international spotlight on his daughters sudden death 10 years ago. It has been, he said, the most painful, devastating loss of my entire life. Carol Todd also spoke about the impact, saying she wasnt able to return to work for nine years, has been diagnosed with PTSD and seeks counselling. She read aloud a statement from her son, Christopher, who wrote about the loss of his only sibling and how he will never be an uncle to her children. Had she not died, Amanda would have been 25 years old today, he said. I miss her more than words can explain.... It changed the course of my life. Im not the same person. It has changed me, Carol read for Christopher. With Amandas framed school photo on the stand, Carol Todd talked about the deterioration of her daughters mental health as a result of Coban. She refused to go out in the public for fear of being shamed by her peers. She was forced to move schools in the Tri-Cities, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge because he followed her and befriended students at her new schools. And, with each new message from an alias that threatened to expose images or video of her in explicit scenes, Amanda went into a darker hole. As a result of her spiral and suicide, Carol said she was never be able to see her daughter have her sweet 16 (she died a month before her birthday); see her get her drivers licence; get her first job; and become a woman. I will missing being a grandmother to her children, Carol told the judge. Family celebrations now are tinged with grief, Carol said; however, milestones about Coban are remembered: his arrest on Jan. 13, 2014, in the Netherlands; his extradition to Canada; and the nine-week trial. This has become my horrible new normal, she said, adding she has been the subject of internet trolls who have accused her of being a bad mom. Crown Counsel Louise Kenworthy told the court that although Coban didnt kill Amanda Todd, his cyberbullying affected everything aspect of her life. Coban used 22 fake aliases on social media platforms to lure, extort and criminally harass Amanda Todd; he also sent her, her friends, her relatives and school officials more than 700 messages between 2009 and 2011. He ruined her life, she said. It was the dominate cause of her suicide. Kenworthy also addressed the court about Cobans background: He is currently serving a 10-year, 243-day sentence in the Netherlands for 68 similar convictions involving 33 girls some as young as nine years old. In messages with several of his victims, he taunted them to kill themselves. With his arrest in January 2014, Coban is due to be out in September 2023. Following the Canadian sentencing, a Dutch court will arrange a hearing for his Canadian convictions to be served in the Netherlands, Kenworthy said. The sentencing hearing for Coban is scheduled for four days, until Friday (Oct. 14). ORIGINAL 3:10 p.m. The Dutch citizen convicted of sextorting Amanda Todd should get a dozen more years behind bars, Crown Counsel submitted this morning (Tuesday) as the sentencing hearing started at the New Westminster Law Courts. Lead prosecutor Louise Kenworthy asked Justice Martha Devlin at BC Supreme Court to impose a sentence of 23 years for the five counts; however, given the totality principle, she requested the whole sentence to be reduced to 12 years. The totality principle allows for similar convictions that will run consecutively i.e., one after another to be combined into a global sentence. In this case, Kenworthy offered the following: 10 years for extortion, a consecutive sentence to be cut to six years three years for distributing child pornography, a consecutive sentence to be reduced to one year a judicial stay for possession of child pornography the maximum 10 years for child luring, to be cut to five years six years for criminal harassment, to run concurrently (at the same time) as the extortion sentence Kenworthy submitted the proposed 12 years in jail run consecutively to Cobans current sentence in the Netherlands, where he was convicted in 2017 to 10 years in jail for similar cyber crimes and blackmailing children and gay men around the world. Kenworthy told the court that Coban had pursued Todd online for more than two years, starting in 2009 when she was 12 years old and living in Port Coquitlam. Coban used 22 fake aliases to communicate with her, and he sent explicit images and videos of Todd to her friends, family and school administrators when Todd didnt comply with his demands for more sex shows. Cobans persistent harassment of the girl was morally repugnant, callous and devastating for Todd, Kenworthy said, noting Coban, 44, is unrepentant," isnt interested in rehabilitation and is at a high-risk to reoffend. Kenworthy also urged the court to consider a lengthy sentence to protect children who are online and cited Canadian legal precedents of recent sex crimes against minors specifically Regina vs Friesen, a major decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2020. Kenworthy highlighted the rise of online sexploitation since 2010, with Statistics Canada reporting that cases involving children had jumped 31 per cent between 20192021. The need for deterrence is extremely high, the prosecutor told Justice Devlin. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for four days A Fresno couple and their adult daughter were arraigned in court in Monday for allegedly under-reporting more than $2.5 million in employee payroll for their business. Karamjit Nijjar, 57; his wife, Rajinder Kaur Nijjar, 55; and their daughter, Mandip Nijjar, 31; were charged with four felony counts each for their involvement in the scheme, which involved the couples company Renteria Trucking. Mandip Nijjar is an employee of the company, according to a statement from the California Department of Insurance. The department originally received a tip that an employee had been denied their workers compensation benefits. While investigating that case, members of the Central Valley Workers Compensation Fraud Task Force found that Renteria Trucking reported approximately $2,475,000 in employee payroll during routine payroll audits. But a forensic audit revealed that the company actually had over $5 million in employee payroll for the same time period, according to the statement. The difference in the unreported payroll identified just over $2.5 million resulted in a reduction of workers compensation insurance premiums paid by the company. In all, the company had $352,913 in premiums owed to the State Compensation Insurance Fund, the statement said. All three pleaded not guilty to the charges. They are scheduled to be back in court on Nov. 15. Award-winning documentary filmmaker and actor Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is married to California governor Gavin Newsom, is set to testify against disgraced ex-film producer Harvey Weinstein along with other accusers. The 48-year-old actor had earlier spoken about the sexual assault at the hands of Weinstein in a 2017 op-ed and will now testify about the incident that took place on the pretext of a business meeting, her attorney said. Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap, Elizabeth Fegan, an attorney for Ms Siebel Newsom told Insider. She intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors, and as part of her lifes work to improve the lives of women. The 70-year-old movie mogul has gone on a trial in Los Angeles, more than two years after he was convicted of first-degree sexual crimes and third-degree rape charges. He is serving a 23-year jail term at a New York prison. In Los Angeles, the once-influential movie producer faces 11 further charges of abuse which occurred during a pivotal Oscar week in the citys hotels between 2004 and 2013. The disgraced film producer had pleaded not guilty to all charges last year. The selection for an eight-week trial began on Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Five women are set to testify in open court in a trial that will bring Weinstein face-to-face with his alleged victims, reported the Los Angeles Times. The women will take the stand to reveal the producers alleged pattern of abuse. Some of these victims, people will recognise them. Some of these women, youve seen them in movies, theyve been in ad campaigns, a couple of them have achieved some success as actresses or models, Mark Werksman, one of Weinsteins defence attorneys, told the outlet. Ms Siebel Newsom, who has been married to the governor since 2008, had accused Weinstein of assault in October 2017, writing an op-ed in Huffington Post just a day after The New York Times published its bombshell report on the accusations against the producer. Story continues He was accused by several women of sexual misconduct after which news reports helped further fuel the #MeToo movement to encourage women to speak out against abuses committed by powerful and influential men. I was naive, new to the industry, and didnt know how to deal with his aggressive advances work invitations with a friend late-night at The Toronto Film Festival, and later an invitation to meet with him about a role in The Peninsula Hotel, where staff were present and then all of a sudden disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extremely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend, she wrote at the time. The women who accused him include Hollywood celebrities Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyongo, Ashley Judd, Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. The women who will testify against him will be referred to as Jane Does or with their first names and last initials during the trial, in which their faces will not be obscured. Ms Newsom will be identified as Jane Doe 4 in charging documents, people familiar told the LA Times. Jane Doe 4 accused Weinstein of rape in an incident that took place in 2004-05. Weinstein faces an additional 135 years in prison if convicted, according to prosecutors. Democratic incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock took the lead in Georgia in his race against Republican Herschel Walker, a new Emerson College poll showed. The poll showed that 48 per cent of likely supporters would cast their vote for Mr Warnock, compared to 46 per cent who said they would vote for Mr Walker, a former running back for the University of Georgia. The surveye showed that Mr Warnocks support increased by four points while Mr Walkers support declined by about two points. The gender gap in the Senate race has shifted in the Democrats favor since August. Republican Walkers 8-point advantage with men has closed to 6, and Warnocks lead with women has grown from 5 points to 9, Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement. The Independent has reached out to Mr Walkers campaign about the allegation, which he has vociferously denied. Mr Walker has said he opposes abortion in all cases, including rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger. Republicans have stood by Mr Walker even amid the media reports. On Tuesday, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the latter of whom leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, campaigned with Mr Walker. Georgias elections require that a candidate receive a majority of the vote. If neither wins the majority of the vote in November, there will be a runoff election at a later date. Emerson College and The Hill surveyed 1,000 very likely voters between 6 October and 7 October, which was after The Daily Beast reported that Mr Walker allegedly paid for an ex-girlfriends abortion. Mr Walker and Mr Warnock will square off in their only scheduled debate on Friday in Savannah. Mr Warnock is seeking a full six-year term after he won a special election last year to finish the term of Senator Johnny Isakson. BERLIN (Reuters) -German prosecutors said on Tuesday they had charged a 45-year-old German man, who is a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, with several sexual offences they believe he committed in Portugal between Dec. 28, 2000, and June 11, 2017. The Braunschweig prosecutor's office said in a statement that the accused was the same person under investigation in connection with the disappearance of the then 3-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann in Portugal in 2007. "Specifically, the accused is charged with three offences of aggravated rape and two offences of sexual abuse of children," the prosecutor's office added. "The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann continues," the office added. "In view of the ongoing investigation, it is not possible to provide any further information on the results of the investigation so far." The Federal Criminal Police Office and the prosecutor's office in Braunschweig issued a fresh request to the public for assistance with the McCann case. Convicted child abuser and drug trader Christian Brueckner, who is behind bars in Germany for raping a woman in the same area of the Algarve region of Portugal from where Madeleine went missing in 2007, was formally identified as an official suspect in the McCann case in April. That was the first time a Portuguese prosecutor had identified a suspect in the case since Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine's parents, were named suspects in 2007. They were later cleared. Brueckner, 45, has denied involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine from her bedroom during a family holiday. He has been behind bars in Germany since 2019 for raping and robbing a 72-year-old American woman in the Algarve. (Writing by Paul CarrelEditing by Madeline Chambers, Rachel More, Gareth Jones and Nick Macfie) BERLIN (AP) German prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 45-year-old German man, who is also a suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann, with several sexual offenses he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. The accused is the same person who is under investigation in connection with the disappearance of the then 3-year-old British girl Madeleine Beth McCann on May 3, 2007, from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz in Portugal on suspicion of murder, Braunschweig prosecutors said in a statement. The suspect spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleines disappearance. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance. The suspect, identified by media as Christian Brueckner, is currently serving a 7-year prison sentence for a rape he also committed in Portugal in 2005. On Tuesday he was charged with three counts of aggravated rape and two counts of sexual abuse of children. At an unspecified time between 2000 and 2006, the suspect allegedly tied up and raped an elderly woman in her vacation apartment in Portugal in her bedroom. He allegedly beat the victim several times with a whip and recorded the entire incident on video. During the same time period, the accused is alleged to have tied up an unknown, German-speaking naked girl aged at least 14 years at his residence in Praia da Luz to a wooden post in the living room. First, he allegedly beat the girl with a whip and then he brutally forced her to perform oral sex. The accused also videotaped this act. In June 2004, the defendant allegedly gained access at night to the apartment of a then-20-year-old woman from Ireland via the balcony in Praia da Rocha. The sleeping woman was then awakened by the masked suspect at knifepoint and raped. Subsequently, the accused tied the woman to a table and gagged her and raped her again. He then whipped the victim on the back and forcibly performed oral sex on her. The accused filmed large parts of the events with a video camera he had brought. Story continues In April 2007, the defendant allegedly ambushed a 10-year-old German girl playing on the beach at Salema in the district of Faro in Portugal, wearing only shoes and otherwise naked. He grabbed the child by the wrist and masturbated, forcing the girl to watch him. In June 2017, the suspect made eye contact with an 11-year-old Portuguese girl on a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines in Portugal. Then the suspect began masturbating until the frightened girl ran to her father who called police. They subsequently arrested the accused. Prosecutors said that the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann continues despite the latest indictment but they did not present any new investigative results in her case. The long-running case of McCann, who vanished shortly before her fourth birthday, has intrigued Britain for years. Her parents say Madeleine went missing after they had left her asleep in their holiday complex while they had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant. BERLIN (Reuters) -German trade union Verdi on Tuesday called on workers at nine Amazon distribution centres across Germany to go on strike this week, during the company's second major sales event this year, to try to pressure it into collective bargaining agreements. The union said the strikes would begin and end at different times at the various locations to make it hard for the company to react. "Strikes have to hurt, even for a giant like Amazon," said Monika Di Silvestre, who is coordinating the stoppages. Amazon's two-day "Prime Early Access Sale" shopping event for members, which starts Tuesday, is much like the Prime Day summer marketing blitz and will compete with early discounts from rival retailers for customers grappling with inflation-squeezed Christmas budgets. Amazon said that after a salary increase for all logistics employees in Germany from September 2022, its starting wage was 13 euros ($12.64) per hour, plus benefits. Germany raised its minimum wage to 12 euros per hour from Oct. 1. The company does not foresee any impact on customers due to the strikes, which it said were limited to only seven of its 20 fulfilment centres. The union - one of Germany's biggest - said that while the company had raised wages, the increases were below the current inflation rate and ranged from 3% to 7% across the different locations. Verdi said it had called strikes at distribution centres in Dortmund, Graben, Koblenz, Leipzig, Rheinberg, Werne and Winsen (Luhe) and two centres in Bad Hersfeld. ($1 = 1.0286 euros) (Writing by Miranda MurrayEditing by Madeline Chambers and Mark Potter) BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is extending border checks at crossings from Austria for six months from November given a recent rise in the number of migrants arriving via the Western Balkans route, German interior minister Nancy Faeser said on Tuesday. "Significantly more people are coming to Europe, and that worries me," Faeser said following a meeting with German state and municipal leaders about how to cope with the rise in numbers. She said that Austria and the Czech Republic had agreed to check people crossing the border from Slovakia as well. The Western Balkan route remains the most active migratory route into the European Union, border agency Frontex said last month, with a 141% increase in detections in August to 15,900. In the first eight months of the year, the number of irregular crossings nearly doubled from a year earlier, putting increasing strain on border control forces. Faeser criticised the visa policies of Serbia, saying they contributed to migration along the Western Balkan route and were "unacceptable". Belgrade's visa-free policy with countries like India and Tunisia allows an influx of migrants who can then try and enter the EU illegally. According to an earlier report by Austria's Der Standard newspaper, as many as 15,000 requests for asylum in Austria came from Indian and Tunisian nationals this year. Hungary, Serbia and Austria last week pledged new measures to contain the flow of illegal migrants into the European Union through the Western Balkans. Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic said Belgrade would align its visa policies with those of the EU so migrants cannot use Serbia as the first country of entry, adding that there was a notable increase in arrivals from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. (Reporting by Alexander Ratz; Writing by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Bruce Willis rhapsodized about them in Die Hard 2. Tupac rapped about them, and was killed by one. Between cops and hip-hop stars and actual gangstas and everyday gun nuts, the reliably deadly Glock has become a generic term for all semi-automatic pistols. The Google or the Kleenex of firearms, says Paul Barrett, author of The Rise of Americas Gun. Glock is baked into the American consciousness thanks to Hollywood and lyrics that take advantage of the names rhymability. There is a rapper by the name of Key Glock. A cheap device that can illegally convert a semi-automatic pistol into a fully automatic machine gun is known as a Glock switch even though the company apparently had nothing to do with its development or production. Given Glocks remarkable success in marketing its handguns, there has long been talk in the firearms world that the company was going to branch out into long guns, specifically into the booming market for AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles. For at least seven or eight or nine, maybe 10 years, these rumors have persisted, said Ryan Busse, a former firearms company executive who is now a senior policy analyst with the Giffords Law Center and author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America. The real question was why hadnt they? Earlier this month, a multi-platform social media account called Mrgunsngear posted what is described as a leaked photo of an AR-15-type rifle bearing the familiar Glock logo. A Mrgunsngear YouTube video reports that features of the weapon as seen in the photo match a slew of patents that Glock secured in 2019. And the patents correspond to specifications listed in a British military solicitation for a new weapon for its special forces. Glock has essentially confirmed that the photo of the military prototype is genuine, but added that there are no present plans to produce a civilian version. Glock is always in development of future products and technologies through the pursuit of perfection, read a statement from the company to The Daily Beast last week. The image shared is of a product developed for select solicitations and it is not available for the general market at this time. Story continues The statement has a high-brow tone indicative of an attitude that Busse suspects is the reason Glock has held off making an AR-15 for so long. Glock has always been very, very egotistical, kind of hoity-toity about everything they do, Busse said. You know, theyre the smart Europeans. They dont have to build American-style guns. They do it their way. They kind of give the finger to everybody. But however classy, the production of military weapons is relatively low in profits and high in maddening requirements. Busse guesses that Glock will follow the same successful marketing strategy it took back in the 1980s. They love to use police/military biz to drive consumer sales, Busse said in a text. Thats been their gig for 35 years. If Glock decided to parlay a military contract into a consumer product, Busse feels sure the AR-15 would be a success even though there are, by his count, more than 500 companies making such assault weapons. I think Glock would instantly have a sizable portion of the market, Busse said. Glock would be an instant player with a sizable market share. It could become the hot new accessory in the street. Maybe it would increase the popularity of the guns in that sort of urban environment where we see a lot of Glocks used these days, Busse said. But with that popularity could come public condemnation. Glocks have been used to horrific effect in numerous mass shootings, including one in 2011 at a Congress on Your Corner event in Tucson where a gunman killed six and disabled Rep. Gabby Giffords, who went on to found the gun control law center where Busse now works. A man with two Glocks killed 32 at Virginia State in 2007. But handgun attacks with adult victims have not sparked the same outrage toward the manufacturer as makers of assault weapons have faced after their weapons were used to kill youngsters in their classrooms Should Glock go into the AR-15 business, it would be only one mass school shooting away from finding itself widely condemned, as was Daniel Defense after one of its products was used to kill 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, in May. Even so, Busse hears that Glock is poised to cash in on the gun boom and produce more of the last thing we need. My folks inside the industry think Glock is in fact finally going to launch the AR, Busse told The Daily Beast. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -General Motors Co said on Tuesday it will invest up to $69 million and take an equity stake in Queensland Pacific Metals to secure a new source of nickel and cobalt for battery cells for use in the U.S. automaker's vehicles. GM said the investment will help support electric-vehicle eligibility for consumer incentives under new, clean energy U.S. tax credits. GM said the nickel laterite ore is expected to be processed using a new, proprietary process that helps reduce waste. Under a law passed in August, automakers must source battery minerals from countries with free trade agreements in order to qualify for the U.S. consumer EV tax credits. The GM investment is to assist in the development of its proposed Townsville Energy Chemicals Hub (TECH) Project in Northern Australia. High-grade nickel laterite ore will be imported from nearby New Caledonia, GM said. GM already has binding agreements securing all battery raw material supporting its goal of 1 million units of annual capacity in North America by the end of 2025. GM said the "new collaboration builds on those commitments as we look to secure supply through the end of the decade, while also helping continue to expand the EV market." Queensland Pacific Metals CEO Stephen Grocott said "GMs investment in our company and the associated offtake brings us one step closer towards construction of the TECH Project." In August, GM said it was prepaying Livent Corp $198 million for a guaranteed six-year supply of lithium, a deal that reflects the auto industry's rising worry about a tightening market for the electric vehicle battery metal. Prepaying cash for a guaranteed metal supply is unusual in the mining industry. Livent produces lithium in Argentina and has processing facilities in the United States. (Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio) Amazon workers and other labor supporters mark Prime Day by staging a protest on Oct. 11, 2022, outside the MDW2 facility in Joliet. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) Workers at an Amazon facility in Joliet protested Tuesday afternoon during the first day of the companys fall Prime sale event. Day-shift employees at Amazons MDW2 facility in Joliet left work to join supporters for a 1 p.m. protest, according to Warehouse Workers for Justice, a workers center organizing with Amazon employees there. Advertisement Workers gathered outside the warehouse along with supporters, chanting, Hey hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go. Andrew Herrera, a spokesperson for Warehouse Workers for Justice, estimated about 30 day-shift employees walked out of the facility after clocking out on personal time. He said they were joined by about a dozen workers from other shifts. Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait disputed Warehouse Workers for Justices count and said about 10 workers joined the protest while on their lunch. Advertisement The Amazon workers are calling for safe working conditions, a base rate of pay of $25 an hour and work with dignity, according to Warehouse Workers for Justice. Amazon workers and other labor supporters march during a protest on Oct. 11, 2022, outside the MDW2 facility in Joliet. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) The protest comes during the first day of Amazons fall Prime Early Access sale. Its the first time Amazon has hosted a second major sale in a year after its summer Prime Day. Steve Broadway, who works as an operator processing packages as they come into the facility, walked out of the facility Tuesday. Broadway said he hoped the protest would show higher-ups at Amazon where workers are coming from. We are the backbone of Amazon, said Broadway, 60. We deserve higher pay, better working conditions and safety which allows us to work comfortably. In a statement, Agrait said Amazon values employee feedback and is always listening. Were investing $1 billion over the next year to permanently raise hourly pay for front-line employees and well continue looking for ways to improve their experience, Agrait said. Tommy Carden, an organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice who has been organizing with the Amazon workers in Joliet, said employees want to be safe at work, they want to be paid fairly for that work and they want to work with dignity and respect. The organization said more than 600 workers have signed a petition calling for stronger health and safety policies at the facility as well as the increased base pay rate. Advertisement Carden estimates there are 400 to 600 day-shift workers at the Joliet facility. Many of the workers there make about $18 to $19 an hour, he said. Carden raised concerns about repetitive stress injuries among workers at the Joliet facility. Amazon said that nationally, employees in customer fulfillment and transportation make between $16 and $26 an hour, with average pay of more than $19 an hour. In May, workers at the facility alleged racist death threats were scrawled on a bathroom wall there. This summer, some workers filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging a racist workplace environment including that the company allowed white employees at the facility to wear Confederate flag attire to work. More than 40 workers at the facility have filed complaints with the EEOC, according to their attorney, Tamara Holder. One worker alleged she was fired after telling the company she would take legal action if Amazon did not address workers concerns about its handling of the racist graffiti. Amazon is clearly not listening to its employees, Holder said in a statement Tuesday. Advertisement A walkout is the ultimate message of revolt and its sad that the same location that has 42 EEOC complaints now has a walkout, she said. In a statement this summer, Amazon spokesperson Richard Rocha said racism was certainly not tolerated by Amazon, and that the company works hard to protect our employees from any form of discrimination and to provide an environment where employees feel safe. By Paul Lienert DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co is expanding beyond car making, with plans to offer energy storage and management services to residential and commercial customers through its new GM Energy unit in a move that puts it in even greater competition with Tesla Inc. GM Energy will bundle the existing Ultium Charge 360 public charging service with two new units, Ultium Home and Ultium Commercial, that will offer stationary storage batteries, as well as solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells, the company said on Tuesday. "We're getting into the entire ecosystem of energy management," GM executive Travis Hester said in an interview. "Our competition in this space on the (automaker) side is really only Tesla, which is a strong energy management company," added Hester, who heads EV Growth Operations. "There are a lot of analogies you can draw with Tesla." Tesla's seven-year-old energy generation and storage business, which includes solar panels and stationary batteries, lost $129 million last year on revenues of $2.8 billion. Hester said GM sees a total addressable market of $120 billion to $150 billion in energy storage and management. He declined to provide a revenue projection for GM Energy. The Ultium Home service will offer stationary wall boxes, similar to Tesla's Powerwall units, with sales and installation scheduled to start in late 2023, timed to the launch of the first Chevrolet Silverado EV trucks aimed at private customers. As Ford Motor Co does with its F-150 Lightning, the Silverado EV will have bi-directional capability, which means it will be able to feed electricity back into the home during a power outage. GM's commercial service will offer similar capability to businesses, through larger stationary storage units as well as microgrids connected to hydrogen fuel cells developed by the automaker. Businesses in turn will be able to sell energy back to utilities during peak power consumption periods. Story continues GM will team with SunPower Corp to provide customers with solar panels to enhance energy generation. "This is a new space for us," Hester said. "We have core competencies in vehicles and batteries, in cell chemistry and scale manufacturing. Put that together with our expertise in fuel cells, our dealer network, what we've been doing with OnStar and connectivity, and it seems like an obvious step for us." (Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by Marguerita Choy) Cloud data breaches in the enterprise have skyrocketed in the last year -- a worrying trend that's led to the emergence of a host of new tools and services to help better secure that environment; as well as a major mobilization among cloud service providers to launch more specific tech to address the gap. Today comes the latest development on that front: Google Cloud is announcing a wide slate of security products and services, covering areas like supply chains; digital sovereignty; secure collaboration environments in the cloud; and a new security operations product. Concerns over cloud security, and growing cloud security requirements from businesses themselves, have started to become gating factors when it comes to growing cloud investments. Announced at the company's Google Cloud Next event, Google's big security spin is all about trying to get around those barriers. Below is a walk through the bigger announcements. Software Delivery Shield is a new product Google Cloud is launching specifically to address supply chain security -- ensuring that you are not picking up or passing on malware or other potentially harmful data as work is processed through a series of partners that do not normally work within the same computing environment. This is an emerging area that I'd say has definitely been on the rise with the arrival of "digital transformation" and an increasing number of organizations doing business in the cloud. Google presents this as a fully managed solution aimed at developers, DevOps and security teams that works within GKE, Cloud Code, Cloud Build, Cloud Deploy, Artifact Registry and Binary Authorization. It's an area that has been covered also by a number of startups, including Endor, Chainguard, Phylum, Valence and many others. One point these will continue to have over Google is the fact that they have the scope (and potentially trust) to do an adequate job in hybrid and multi-cloud environments from multiple vendors. Story continues While the supply-chain security product appears to have been built in-house, Google Cloud is taking a different approach with another security launch, this one focused on digital sovereignty. Here it is working with more than 20 software companies to build out a new "Sovereign Solutions" initiative: Aiven, Broadcom (Symantec), Cloud Software Group (Citrix), Climate Engine, Commvault, Confluent, Datadog, DataIKU, Dell Technologies, Elastic, Fortinet, GitLab, Iron Mountain, LumApps, MongoDB, NetApp, OpenText, Palo Alto Networks, Pega Systems, Siemens, SUSE, Thales, Thought Machine, Veeam and VMware are among them. It's also adding integrations with companies like ForgeRock, JumpCloud, Okta and Ping Identity to improve sign-on flows. The idea here is that a number of Google's existing and potential customers are already using one or a combination of these companies, and so this is about integrating those solutions more deeply into Google's cloud platform so that these companies can work more seamlessly (and of course adopt more Google Cloud products, now knowing that they can be used with their existing identity management and other protocols). The push to work with multiple providers is practical on another level: These are the apps that are used by companies to let them localize operations better for specific regions and use cases and users, so Google has to accommodate that to work with them on the bigger prize of winning more business overall. Confidential space, meanwhile, is a new product that Google is launching as part of its Confidential Computing initiative, a push to build and provide more secure environments for those collaborating in the cloud and exchanging data as part of that process, by letting them keep that data constantly encrypted and secure. This has been a very interesting area and aspect of the cybersecurity market in the last several years, raising lots of questions about how anonymized data can be in, for example, machine learning models that are trained specifically to figure out and shape identities out of sparse amounts of information. Approaches using cutting-edge algorithms and concepts like homomorphic encryption aim to bypass that issue by treating the data itself as salient, wrapped packages, and this is, not in so many words, what Google Cloud also has been attempting to build here, starting with Confidential Virtual Machines (VMs) back in 2020, which kept data encrypted even while it was being processed. Today, this may be a priority only for a small segment of organizations that handle especially sensitive information; but judging by the evolution of data privacy and data protection, it is increasingly, and likely, going to become a more prominent aspect of the data protection regulatory environment, and therefore for a wider range of companies, too. The last of the big security announcements at Google Cloud Next focuses on SecOps, specifically the expansion of its Chronicle Security Operations software suite, a cloud-native platform for cyber teams to monitor, detect, investigate and respond to cyberthreats "with the speed, scale, and intelligence of Google." It's another well-worn cybersecurity area that a number of startups have identified and built solutions to address over the years, and indeed that is precisely what Google tapped to build this product: Mandiant, which it acquired earlier this year for a whopping $5.4 billion, forms a cornerstone of Chronicle; as does Siemplify, another acquisition from earlier this year. Chronicle existed prior to today's news; now Google's bringing these different products together under that brand to strengthen the product and positioning of it. The reported presence of Chinas Fuzhou police in New York City has prompted a group of Republican House lawmakers to seek answers from President Bidens Cabinet Secretaries. Headed by Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks (R, IND-3), Reps. Michael Waltz (R, FL-6) and Mike Gallagher (R, WI-8), the group of 21 lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Attorney General Merrick Garland to demand answers on how the Chinese police were able to establish a branch in the U.S. We are writing to express our grave concern over reports of the law enforcement presence of the Peoples Republic of China in New York City, the letter began. The letter further states, The Public Security (Police) Bureau of Fuzhou, China, announced in January 2022 that it has opened the first batch of 30 overseas police service stations in 25 cities in 21 countries. In the United States, the Fuzhou Polices overseas service station is hosted at the American Changle Association, an overseas Chinese hometown organization in New York City. More from NextShark: Woman Cries for Help as Man Harasses Her in LA Restaurant, No One Stepped In Human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders reported last month that the Chinese government has set up at least 54 police service stations worldwide as part of its United Front Work Department. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the United Front Work Department operates under the Chinese Communist Party to direct thousands of groups in conducting operations involving foreign political influence, dissident movement suppression, intelligence gathering and technology transfer. In a report, the New York Post uncovered that the station in Lower Manhattan is being operated by nonprofit America ChangLe Association NY Inc., a group that has been blacklisted by the IRS. More from NextShark: Vintage Sonic the Hedgehog game sold for astronomical $430,500 The group, which listed its charitable mission in public filings as a social gathering place for Fujianese people, paid $1.3 million for the suite of offices where the Fuzhou Police Overseas Chinese Affairs is situated. Story continues In their letter to Bidens officials, the GOP lawmakers accused the Chinese police service stations of coercing purported Chinese fugitives abroad to return to China to face legal proceedings, which is euphemistically dubbed as persuading to return in Chinese parlance. By doing so, China avoids scrutiny on its human rights record in relation to repatriating alleged fugitives overseas by eschewing formal international cooperation mechanisms. It is deeply troubling that the Chinese government could use these service stations as its long arm policing abroad, the letter read, adding, there should be no room for the Chinese government to exercise extraterritorial law enforcement unilaterally on U.S. soil. More from NextShark: Singaporean man jailed for targeting young girls in online nude photo scam The letter ended with several questions to Blinken and Garland: Considering the importance to safeguard the liberty of U.S. persons and the sovereignty of the United States from foreign encroachment, we request that you kindly respond to the following questions by October 21st, 2022, Did the Department of State, Department of Justice, or any other agency of the federal government invite or approve Chinas Fuzhou police to establish a presence in New York City? Is there any other Chinese law enforcement presence in the United States besides Fuzhou polices overseas services station in New York City? Has the Biden administration rescinded the visa restrictions imposed by the previous administration on Chinese nationals engaged in United Front work activities? Has the Department of State issued any visas to Chinese nationals to perform law enforcement or other related government duties at the Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station in New York City? Have the Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station in New York City and any of its employees registered with the federal government in accordance with [the] Foreign Missions Act and Foreign Agents Registration Act? Has the Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station in New York City engaged in any activities to monitor [or] harass U.S. residents or has it coerced any purported fugitive to go to China without due process under U.S. law? More from NextShark: Teen's Racist TikTok Blames Chinese People for 'Cooking Dogs' and 'Eating Bats' Featured Image via FOX News Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday detailed to a federal appeals court why it should quash a subpoena compelling him to testify before a Fulton County, Ga., special grand jury probing former President Trumps alleged interference in the 2020 election. A federal trial court last month partially rejected the subpoena, but in a 72-page filing, Grahams attorneys laid out three constitutional arguments they say should each independently merit a complete blocking. Its the latest move in Grahams months-long attempt to avoid testifying before the special grand jury. District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has expressed interest in hearing from Graham about calls he made to Georgias top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), following the election. She opened the probe shortly after a call went public between Trump and Raffensperger in which the former president told Raffensperger to find the roughly 11,000 votes he needed to win the state. As he has argued for months, Graham said the Constitutions Speech and Debate Clause which protects lawmakers from lawsuits for actions taken within the sphere of legitimate legislative activity prohibits his testimony about the calls in their entirety. Graham has suggested the calls fall within the clauses scope because the conversations helped him declare President Biden the legitimate election winner and support reforms to the Electoral Count Act in his purview as a senator. The trial court responded to those arguments by partially quashing the subpoena for questions about Grahams investigatory fact-finding on the calls. But the court otherwise permitted his testimony, including communications with the Trump campaign, public statements on the election and his alleged effort to cajole Georgia election officials. Grahams attorneys argued that would allow the senator to be asked about his legislative activities. These are backdoor ways to question Senator Graham about the motives for his legislative activity; unsupported by evidence; and outside the scope of the subpoena and special grand jury anyway. Full quashal is thus proper, Grahams attorneys wrote of the trial courts arguments. Story continues Grahams attorneys also wrote that sovereign immunity, which prevents a state court from compelling a federal official to testify about actions taken in their official capacity, applies. Williss office has argued that Grahams argument would give senators absolute immunity from all state grand juries and that the South Carolina Republican had not cited cases with comparable authority. In their third and final argument, Grahams attorneys said he is protected from testimony under the high-ranking-official doctrine. The doctrine requires parties seeking high-ranking officials testimony to present extraordinary circumstances for the request. Grahams attorneys argued Willis had not met the necessary burdens under the doctrine of showing his testimony would be both unique and essential, because the substance of his testimony could be discerned from other witnesses. What Senator Graham said to various people is available from those other people, the filing states. And what Senator Graham said publicly is available from a quick Google search. Graham is one of multiple officials Willis has subpoenaed as part of the election probe. On Friday, she requested that a court compel testimony from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann and others to testify in the investigation. Willis has indicated she will suspend her investigations public activities until after the November midterm elections and that she expects to make a decision about whether to seek Trumps testimony later this fall. At least 17 people have been notified that they are targets of a criminal investigation from Willis. Those people include former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and the 16 people put forth as unofficial or fake electors who had not actually been selected as Electoral College electors by their states. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Knoxville police investigators are seeking information on the shooting death of a Michigan man found lying in the road southwest of the Holston Hills neighborhood Monday night. Officers responded to the 3500 block of Holston Hills Road next to the Holston River Park at around 8:30 p.m. Monday after a 911 caller reported finding an unresponsive man lying in the road, the spokesperson said in a press release. Officers arrived on scene and located Brandon Smiles, 27, of Warren, Michigan, who had been shot at least one time. Smiles was pronounced dead at the scene, the release stated. Smiles' death marks the 27th homicide of the year, with five since the beginning of September. Recently:23-year-old Knoxville man killed in Park City shooting There is no suspect information and the investigation is in the early stages at this time. Anyone with information that could assist with the investigation is urged to contact East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers at 865-215-7165 or online at www.easttnvalleycrimestoppers.org. Tipsters can remain anonymous and be eligible to receive a cash reward. This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville police investigating shooting death on Holston Hills Road Gwinnett Countys Police Training Center is expanding as the department celebrates 50 years of operating its own facility, something rare for Georgia police agencies. The Lawrenceville facility is where Gwinnetts police recruits complete more than 800 hours of training, which is more than the minimum required by the state. Training includes classes for firearms, driving, crime scene investigations and other specialties. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] By 2023, a new $6 million building will be completed that will house many training operations. Monday marked the 50th anniversary of Gwinnett County running its own training program. The Gwinnett Police Department is one of four in Georgia that operate their own training facility. TRENDING STORIES: Youre learning the Gwinnett culture from the minute you come in the door, said Sgt. Jennifer Richter with GCPD. Recruiting remains an issue in Gwinnett, like in many counties, police say. Some new recruits, however, are arriving from outside the area. I wanted to come out here, help the community, said Jessica Alleyne, a police recruit from New York City who moved to Gwinnett a month ago with her husband. Theyre a little bit more advanced down here, which is great. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: Adnan Syed leaves the courthouse after Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn on Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, overturned his first-degree murder conviction in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee. Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Hae Min Lee's family learned that Adnan Syed's charges were being dismissed through social media. The family's lawyer said the move to rush to vacate the charges "sought to silence" the family. Syed's charges were dismissed after he was cleared by DNA testing Tuesday. Hae Min Lee's family learned that charges against Adnan Syed were dismissed through social media posts, their lawyer said on Tuesday. "Hae Min Lee's family learned through media accounts this morning that the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office dismissed the charges against Adnan Syed," attorney Steve Kelly said in a statement shared with Insider. "The family received no notice and their attorney was offered no opportunity to be present at the proceeding," Kelly said in the statement. "By rushing to dismiss the criminal charges, the State's Attorney's Office sought to silence Hae Min Lee's family and to prevent the family and the public from understanding why the State so abruptly changed its position of more than 20 years." Syed was convicted in the killing of Hae Min Lee his ex-girlfriend in 2000 and had been serving a live sentence until last month. Syed was 17 when the crime occurred and has maintained his innocence. Last month, a judge overturned Syed's decades-old murder conviction, and he was allowed to leave prison on September 19 after spending 23 years behind bars. On Tuesday, Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby dismissed charges against Syed and said DNA testing cleared him of wrongdoing. "It's still an open and pending case, but with regard to Adnan Syed, the case is finished," Mosby said at a news conference on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. Kelly previously told Insider Lee's family felt "blindsided" and "betrayed" after a Maryland judge vacated Syed's murder conviction. "All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Today's actions robbed them of both," Kelly said in the statement shared with Insider Tuesday. Read the original article on Insider Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images Actor Anthony Rapp told jurors on Tuesday that seeing Kevin Spacey, who he has accused of sexually assaulting him when he was a teenager and is testifying against in a civil trial, is a daily struggle. Rapp said that its so bad that even spotting Spacey in the security line prior to their Manhattan court proceedings felt like being jolted with a cattle prod. It was hard to breathe, the 50-year-old Rent actor said on the stand, adding that the mere sight of Spacey made his palms sweaty. Despite the somewhat re-traumatizing experience of retelling his allegations since he filed a $40 million civil lawsuit against Spacey in 2020, Rapp said he does not regret taking legal action against the House of Cards actor. I brought this lawsuit hoping that I maybe could help protect others, Rapp said, prompting Judge Lewis Kaplan to immediately ask the court reporter to strike his statement from the record. (Spacey has been hit with a slew of sexual misconduct allegations but only those by Rapp are at issue in the trial.) Spacey, who was watching Rapp throughout his testimony on Tuesday, turned away before the trial was called for a mid-morning break. The revelation came on Rapps second day of testimony in a lawsuit against Spacey in Manhattan federal court. In the civil case, Rapp alleges that Spacey sexually assaulted him after a Manhattan party in 1986, when he was just 14 years old. Jurors will be tasked with deciding whether Spacey is liable for Rapps claims of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rapp first made allegations against Spacey in a bombshell 2017 Buzzfeed article, spurring the actor to tweet a statement indicating he did not remember the alleged encounter while offering an apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior. But after Rapp came forward, several other individuals accused the House of Cards actor of misconduct or worse in cases going back decades and involving mostly young and underaged men. Story continues Kevin Spaceys Defense Team to Call Actors Brother, Rent Co-Star Spacey has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and seemingly dodged all legal repercussions in the United States (he faces a criminal case in the U.K.) for his actionsuntil Rapps trial. Spaceys lawyers told jurors last week that the alleged party never even happened, and that Rapp made up the story because he was jealous of Spaceys success. In cross-examination, Spacey's attorney Jennifer Keller attempted to poke holes into every aspect of the allegationsand even the timeline of his decision to come forward. Keller began by asking Rapp about his previous statements that he decided to speak to Buzzfeed upon reading a New York Times op-ed by Lupita Nyongo about Harvey Weinstein. The lawyer pointed out that her column dropped five days after Rapp first reached out to journalist Adam Vary for the Spacey story. I was sharing my memory about how it happened, Rapp responded. As Keller continued, Rapp looked frazzled as the lawyer probed why his recollections of his night out with Spacey vastly differed from those of his friend and fellow actor John Barrowman. The grilling continued into Tuesday afternoon, as Keller berated Rapp with questions about whether he was jealous of Spaceys international success and angry at the actor for not coming out as gay earlier in this career. Kevin Spaceys star rose, and you were having trouble getting media attention, true? Keller asked. Rapp responded: That is not accurate. At least two jurors reacted visibly to Kellers questioning, with one putting her head in her hand as he questioned Rapp about whether he threw one pencil or several pencils at a TV during that Tony awards in which Spacey made an appearance. Another was seen staring down at his notepad as Keller asked Rapp if he sold 26 CDs weeks after a college concert in the 1990s. On Friday, Rapp said Spacey had invited him to a party in his Upper East Side apartment while he and his friend, Barrowman, were hanging out with the then-26-year-old Spacey after one of his plays. At the party, Rapp claimed that he was watching TV in another room when he suddenly saw a drunk Spacey standing in the doorway, his eyes glassy and unfocused. The actor said that Spacey lifted him up like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold before climbing on top of him and pressing his penis on the teenagers hip. It felt very wrong, Rapp testified on Friday. I didnt want him to do it, and I had no reason that made any sense of why he would do it. I felt like a deer in headlights. After wiggling himself out from under Spacey and briefly hiding in the bathroom, Rapp said that he bolted for the front door. Before he was able to escape, he said Spacey stopped him and asked him, Are you sure you want to leave? I felt like he wanted me to stay, Rapp said, adding that he quickly left Spaceys Upper East Side apartment and returned to the apartment where he was staying with his mother. Earlier Tuesday, Rappwho currently stars in Star Trek: Discoverystressed that during the encounter, he believed Spaceys conduct was sexual in nature. I was thinking that he was trying to get with me sexually, he said. Several of Rapps friends testified last week that the actor told them about the incident years later, reiterating the consistency in the allegations over the last four decades. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 1343 -- Pictured: (l-r) Vice President Kamala Harris during an interview with host Seth Meyers on October 10, 2022 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images) I LOVE JOE BIDEN- Kamala Harris talks Biden, marijuana decriminalization, migrant buses during late-night appearance. Continue reading UNJUSTLY SMEARED' EXCLUSIVE: Brett Favre speaks out about welfare fraud scandal. Continue reading FAIR-MINDED APPROACH - John Fetterman helped release man convicted of murdering elderly woman. Continue reading SHOPPERS HOLIDAY - Amazons Prime Day II signals holiday spending hurdles. Continue reading TALK SHOW DRAMA - Kathie Lee defends Regis after Kelly Ripa writes bombshell memoir. Continue reading - POLITICAL AGENDA- Gov blasts environment, social and corporate governance as anti-American. Continue reading BRINGING HOME THE BACON Biden battles California in Supreme Court fight over pork. Continue reading MUM TOO - Democrats, #MeToo silent after Politico outs sexual assault on Republican candidate. Continue reading DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN - Potential Hunter Biden charges underscore failed progressive narratives. Continue reading CARNIVAL BARKERS' - NY Mag writer lashes out at media questioning John Fetterman's fitness for office. Continue reading EVERYTHING IS RACIST - 'The View' host Sunny Hostin fumes over being called racist on social media. Continue reading IM NOT SURRENDERING - Detroit News writer hits 'progressive' educators for usurping her parental rights. Continue reading JESSE WATTERS - They'll let anyone run for office nowadays. Continue reading TUCKER CARLSON - In 2022, whether you're considered dangerous or not depends on who you voted for. Continue reading SEAN HANNITY - It seems the momentum has clearly shifted towards Republicans. Continue reading LAURA INGRAHAM - The radical Left never takes a vacation from hating on all things American. Continue reading HOLIDAY ROAST - Sen. Warren mocked for Indigenous Peoples Day tweet. Continue reading DANGEROUS DRUG - Former drug czar declares America's fentanyl crisis and invasion. Continue reading ANTI-REGIME ACTIONS - Protests hit Irans oil and petrochemical sectors. Continue reading FALLEN ON HARD TIMES OPINION: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's fall: Not unlike the economy's. Continue reading Story continues Whats it looking like in your neighborhood? Continue reading Facebook Instagram YouTube Twitter LinkedIn Fox News First Fox News Opinion Fox News Lifestyle Fox News Entertainment (FOX411) Fox Business Fox Weather Fox Sports Tubi Fox News Go Thank you for making us your first choice in the morning! Well see you in your inbox first thing Wednesday. Jeff Davidman, vice president of government affairs at Delta Air Lines, speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the $1.2 billion expansion of O'Hare International Airport Terminal 5 on March 20, 2019. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune) Delta Air Lines is set to move into a new terminal at OHare International Airport Wednesday, the latest step in ongoing construction at the airport. The carrier will move from Terminal 2 to Terminal 5, which was formerly the international terminal but now also includes domestic carrier Southwest. Advertisement The move comes as a $1 billion renovation and expansion of Terminal 5 is slated to open in phases through 2023. The work is expected to increase the terminals gate capacity by 25%, increase passenger amenities and security checkpoint lanes, replace the aging baggage handling system and reconfigure customs and immigration facilities. Work is also underway on a new parking garage, and new concessions are planned for the terminal. Terminal 2, where Delta had been located, is slated to eventually be torn down and replaced by a new Global Terminal and two satellite concourses as part of a massive overhaul of the airport, but for now the gates Delta had previously used will go to United and Alaska airlines. Advertisement Travelers move through the Delta Air Lines ticketing area in Terminal 2 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in January 2016. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune) In Terminal 5, Delta will have 10 gates and is opening a new, 22,000-square-foot Sky Club with nearly four times the capacity of the old Delta club. The move to the new terminal marks an investment by Delta in an airport where it traditionally has not been a dominant carrier. It also marks a commitment to a luxury experience often favored by business travelers, as international and business travel have been slower to come back from pandemic lows than leisure travel. This is a long-haul decision, said Steve Sear, executive vice president of global sales and distribution for Delta. Delta said the move to Terminal 5, where it invested $50 million, puts travelers in closer proximity to the carriers international airline partners, eliminating the need for international travelers to leave security and travel to a new terminal. It also offers travelers the option to board at some gates directly from the lounge, without leaving to enter the general airport. The carrier will gain some gates in the move, but said it has also been flying large planes with more seats in and out of OHare. The carrier has averaged 40 more seats per departure than in 2019 on its route to Atlanta. sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com The leadership of the American Cancer Society, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is pushing back forcefully on the conclusions of a large and randomized new study that reportedly questions the efficacy of preventative colonoscopy screenings. "We have no problem with the study itself," American Cancer Society CEO Karen E. Knudsen told Fox News Digital in a phone interview on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. "It's the interpretation of the study that gives us grave concern," she said calling the study "widely misinterpreted." COLONOSCOPY SCREENING BY HEIDI KLUM RAISES AWARENESS OF PROCESS AFTER SHE WAS LATE TO THE PARTY Colorectal cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer in the United States in 2022 and the second most common cause of cancer deaths, according to the National Cancer Institute. The study in question was conducted by NordICC the Northern-European Initiative on Colon Cancer and published on Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The large study included over 84,000 men and women ages 55-64 from Poland, Norway and Sweden who had never gotten colonoscopies, according to the study abstract. A doctor's reminder for a patient's colonoscopy exam. The participants were invited randomly to have a screening colonoscopy between June 2009 and June 2014. A second group did not get screened at all. In a "median follow-up" of 10 years, the group that was invited to get colonoscopies had an 18% lower risk of colorectal cancers than the group that wasn't screened, according to the study abstract. The group that was invited to get a colonoscopy also had a small reduction in their risk of death from colorectal cancer, but that difference was not "statistically significant," said the abstract. When the results were restricted to the people who actually received colonoscopies about 12,000 people, out of the more than 28,000 who were invited to have one the procedure reduced the risk of colorectal cancer by 31% and cut the risk of dying of that cancer by 50%, as CNN reported. Story continues Boiled down, the data reveals that a colonoscopy probably reduces a persons chances of colorectal cancer anywhere from a low of 18% to a high of 31% and the risk of death from 0% to as much as 50%. CHILDREN BATTLING CANCER GET A BOOST FROM VIRGINIA BOY WHO LOST HIS OWN MOM TO THE DISEASE The head researcher of the study, Dr. Michael Bretthauer, leader of the clinical effectiveness group at the University of Oslo in Norway, said that as a gastroenterologist, he found the study results "disappointing," CNN reported. But as a researcher, he said he "has to follow the science." "So I think we have to embrace it," he said, according to that outlet. "And we may have oversold the message [on getting colonoscopies] for the last 10 years or so, and we have to wind it back a little," he also reportedly said. Knudsen emphatically disagrees with this and strongly recommends that the study be examined more closely. BREAST CANCER AND MAMMOGRAMS: 3 KEY QUESTIONS WOMEN OF ALL AGES SHOULD ASK BEFORE THEIR SCANS The "glaring problem" with conclusions drawn from the studys data "is the fact that only 42% of the participants who were invited to get a colonoscopy went through with it," she said. Nonetheless, the studys conclusion is as follows, according to the published abstract: "Although colonoscopy is widely used as a screening test to detect colorectal cancer, its effect on the risks of colorectal cancer and related death is unclear." "This study was just not designed to evaluate the efficacy of colonoscopy," Knudsen emphasized. "I think that is the part that is probably confusing people. And we're certainly hearing from people who are confused," she added. "This study was just not designed to evaluate the efficacy of colonoscopy," Knudsen said of the new study just published. "The most important thing in this study is that almost 60% of people who were invited didn't actually go have a colonoscopy," she said. "When you look at the data, it will be one thing if everyone who was asked have a colonoscopy did so," she said. "But that's not what happened." Another issue that Knudsen has with the conclusions of the study is that it draws data from "a one-time colonoscopy." She said, "We would expect that if this kind of study was going to be done to look at the efficacy of colonoscopy there would be at least a 10-year follow-up." She underscored that the time frame between when a polyp is seen by a doctor to the time that "someone would actually die of colon cancer" is going to be "at least 10 years." TAKING 10K STEPS MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH REDUCTION IN RISK OF CANCER, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE DEATHS: STUDY Another variable that Knudsen said the study doesnt take into account in terms of efficacy is the skills or background of the individual who is performing the screening. Colonoscopy efficacy is "very dependent on the skills of the person that's performing that procedure," she explained "If you look at the data, those who actually had the colonoscopy benefited from the screen," said Knudsen of the American Cancer Society. Colon cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths this year, according to the National Cancer Institute. She said that another point of concern is the age group that the study included "starting at age 55," she noted. The U.S. guidelines recommend screening beginning at 45, she said, "because we're seeing such a massive increase in early-onset" incidences of cancer. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Saying that misinterpretation of this latest study is potentially "a wildfire that we're very concerned about," Knudsen urged everyone to "get in there and get your colonoscopy." "This data does not say that colonoscopy is ineffective," she said. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER Rather, she said, "if you look at the data, those who actually had the colonoscopy benefited from the screen." Editor's note: This is the sixth article in a planned month-long series to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Check future editions of the Daily Press for more stories. People say that after meeting Sylvia Romo, one can quickly sense that shes devoted to building relationships, charitable work among the community and vintage fashion. Romo is the president of the High Desert Chapter of Rockabilly Mafia Dolls, a self-dubbed rockn collection of classy women, who love vintage fashion and use it to empower women as they give back to their communities through volunteerism. Romo is also the executive director of the national Mafia Dolls sisterhood, with chapters located in California, Las Vegas, Texas, Oklahoma and beyond. Our goal is to continually encourage women to always keep it classy and to respect, value and carry themselves with confidence and self-esteem, Romo told the Daily Press. We strive to be positive role models in both our personal, and public lives through community outreach. Born in the coastal city of Ensenada, Mexico, Romo was 4-years-old in 1970 when she and her family moved to Southern California. We lived in Bell Gardens, Downey and Laguna Beach before moving to the High Desert in 1991, said Romo, a single mom of two adult children. When she's not with her dolls, Romo works for the Family Assistance Program as a case manager and housing advocate for domestic violence survivors. She also operates the rental assistance program for the Victorville nonprofit. The Hispanic Heritage Month spotlight shines on Sylvia Romo, center. She is president of the High Desert Chapter of Rockabilly Mafia Dolls. Volunteer dolls Over the years, Romo and her dolls have volunteered at hundreds of events hosted by nonprofits, veteran's groups and other organizations. They can usually be found all dolled up in vintage 50s rockabilly clothing and oftentimes around classic vehicles. Its something magical when you combine rockabilly clothing with classic cars, Romo said. Its like youre suddenly transported to another time. Romo and her dolls arent afraid of chipping a nail or ruining their makeup the group has pulled weeds, planted trees, collected trash, painted fences, and more. Story continues The dolls are frequent volunteers with the Hesperia-based High Desert Second Chance, and the nonprofits annual back to school, Easter and Christmas outreaches. This summer, the dolls helped the Apple Valley Sun City Cruisers car club with its fundraising events to help the Hesperia-based Rock'n Our Disabilities Foundation, which supports special needs families. This month, well be cooking 700 hot dogs for the Rockn Our Disabilities Foundations Spooky Spooktacular Trunk-or-Treat, said Romo, who lives in Adelanto. At the end of the month, well be in downtown Victorville helping with the Oktoberfest. Finding the dolls amid tragedy After my mom (Sylvia Suarez) died of cancer, about 11 years ago, I went into a deep depression and isolated myself from everyone, Romo said. I locked myself up in my house and I didnt want to see anyone. When her mother died, Romo was still suffering from the death of her father, Armando Suarez, nearly 12 years earlier. A teen driver, who was drunk and on drugs, hit my father on Cinco de Mayo, Romo said, My father was killed, my younger son was critically injured and my oldest also suffered injuries. As Romo battled her depression, she found two things the Mafia Dolls on Facebook and the memory of her parent's dedication to supporting orphanages and shelters in Mexico. I went back to what my parents taught my brother and me, Romo said, About twice a month, my parents would always pack up food, clothing and supplies and wed make a delivery across the border. The Hispanic Heritage Month spotlight shines on Sylvia Romo, center. She is president of the High Desert Chapter of Rockabilly Mafia Dolls. Through the Mafia Dolls, Romo found healing through serving others while also keeping the legacy of her parents alive, she said. Being a part of the Mafia Dolls means something different to each woman, Romo said, It really is a sisterhood, where we serve others while finding meaning. For more information on Romo and her dolls, search Rockabilly Mafia Dolls Highdesert Ca on Facebook. Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Hispanic Heritage spotlight: Rockabilly Mafia Dolls leader Sylvia Romo Two Pinellas County high schools are among more than a dozen across Florida where police investigated reports of active shooters that ultimately turned out to be false Tuesday, according to authorities. Shortly after noon Tuesday, officers responded to calls reporting active shooters at St. Petersburg Catholic High School and Pinellas Park High School, according to news releases from St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park police departments. However, neither agency found any signs of an active shooter. St. Petersburg police spokesperson Yolanda Fernandez described the call as a hoax, but said there is misinformation on social media causing confusion and concern among parents. Parents trying to pick up their kids should go to Tyrone Square Mall, St. Petersburg police said. No one was injured at either school, police said. Investigations are ongoing. A Facebook post from the Collier County Sheriffs Office said there have been at least 16 hoax or swatting calls made to schools in Florida Tuesday. Calls were reported in counties across the state, including Pinellas, Sarasota, Collier, Miami-Dade and Broward, according to social media posts from area law enforcement agencies and school districts. Fernandez said detectives are working to determine the source of the call regarding St. Petersburg Catholic High School and if the similar situations across Florida on Tuesday are related. Sarasota police tweeted about a call they investigated, saying they believe it was a swatting call, which is meant to generate a large emergency response to a false threat. Sarasota Police officers are responding to Sarasota County to Riverview High School to assist @SarasotaSheriff & @sarasotaschools to investigate a suspicious call. Law enforcement is conducting a search of the area. Riverview HS is in Sarasota County & not in the @CityofSarasota. Sarasota Police Department (@SarasotaPD) October 11, 2022 The Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office and Pasco County Sheriffs Office both said they have not been called out to investigate calls at schools in their counties Tuesday, but they are aware of the calls in other Florida counties and continue to monitor the situation. Inside a dimly-lit mud dwelling nestled within a rocky mountain in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Mamotonosi Ntefane, 67, dusts off an animal skin. Her household is among a handful of families who still inhabit the Kome Caves, a heritage site in the north of the country, first occupied about 200 years ago by local tribes seeking shelter from conflict and cannibalism. "Life is good, we grow our own vegetables, I can pray anytime I want," Ntefane, a rosary around her neck, tells AFP. More than 1,800 metres above sea level, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital Maseru, the settlement is surrounded by barren pastures, where shepherds draped in long woollen blankets graze cattle in the morning mist. Thin white smoke billows from outside the caves as "papa", a traditional corn porridge, boils in a black cast iron pot over a wood fire. The cave is divided into several round houses propped against the basalt rock. Open passages just high enough for a person to walk through serve as doorways. Walls and floors are made of a mix of mud and manure that require regular upkeep. Inside are basic items including pots, plastic buckets to store water and a cowhide for a bed. "There's no electricity and no fridge but this is our home, it's our history," says 44-year-old Kabelo Kome who is descended from the first people to settle the caves, after whom the place is named. - Hideout - The caves became a hideout for members of the Basia and Bataung tribes in the 19th century, when conflict and a severe drought ravaged the region. Christian missionaries travelling the area at the time reported some groups resorted to cannibalism to survive, as livestock and grain reserves dwindled. It was in this period that Lesotho emerged as a single entity, as the Sotho, the region's largest ethnic group, united to fight Zulu raiders and European settlers. Today, most of the country's two million people live off subsistence farming. Inhabitants of the Kome Caves grow corn, sorghum and beans and raise chickens and cattle. Story continues The elderly receive a state allowance, while others make money showing their homes to tourists. Some like Mamatsaseng Khutsoane, a 66-year-old former teacher, have moved to a nearby village with greater creature comforts. "I come here to eat, or with my grandchildren," she says. There is mobile phone coverage, but no fixed internet or running water. "None of that here," scoffs Ntefane, as she stands outside her home, gazing at the mountains, while cow bells ring in the distance. cld/ub/gw/smw Hong Kong's leader laughed off US sanctions against him Tuesday as he defended his government's decision not to act against a superyacht reportedly owned by a Kremlin ally. The Nord -- a $500 million luxury vessel linked to Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov -- arrived in the Chinese territory's waters last week. Mordashov is among the oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin who have been targeted by Western sanctions following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. On Saturday the United States warned Hong Kong could damage its business hub reputation after the city said it would not enforce sanctions on the superyacht. Hong Kong chief executive John Lee himself is one of multiple Chinese officials sanctioned by the United States in 2020 for their roles in cracking down on political freedoms in the city. Banks and other companies risk losing access to the US-dominated global markets if they do business with sanctioned officials, with Lee's predecessor revealing she had to take most of her salary in cash as a result. When asked about the impact of US sanctions against him on Tuesday, Lee told reporters: "It is a very barbaric act and I am not going to comment on the effect of such barbaric act." "We will just laugh off the so-called sanctions." Some sanctioned oligarchs have had their luxury yachts seized in places such as Spain and Fiji, but Hong Kong said Friday that while it implements UN sanctions, it cannot enforce those imposed "unilaterally" by countries or blocs. Lee repeated that argument on Tuesday, describing US and European sanctions as having "no legal basis". "We will comply with any UN resolution on sanctions because Hong Kong has the legal basis to enforce it," he said. But he added: "We cannot and will not do anything that has no legal basis". su-jta/dva Joe Biden and top U.S. officials on Monday denounced Russia's latest aerial assault across Ukraine, with the president saying in a statement that the attacks "only further reinforce our commitment" to supplying billions in aid and weapons to Ukrainian forces. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and leading military officials all spoke out in the wake of the strikes that Russian President Vladimir Putin called retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged a key bridge linking Russia and Crimea, the disputed peninsula Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014. On Sunday night, 12 Russian missile strikes hit residential Zaporizhzhia neighborhoods in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said, and on Monday morning another series of Russian missiles struck civilian targets in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and other cities. MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates: Putin orders attacks across Ukraine At least 11 people died and 64 were wounded across eight oblasts and the capital of Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, while power and other critical infrastructure services like energy were interrupted in several cities. "A massive strike of high-precision, long-range weapons has been delivered from air, land and sea on Ukraine's energy facilities, military command and communication," Putin said in a speech Monday. "In the case of continuing terrorist attack on our territory, the answers from Russia will be severe and by their scale correspond to the level of threat created for the Russian Federation. No one should have any doubts about that." Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly shared his outrage on social media, lamenting the civilian casualties of Russia's military, as he has done repeatedly in the eight-month-old war. (Russia insists it seeks to avoid targeting civilians, despite the record of aerial strikes like those this week.) PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30, 2022. (The Washington Post via Getty Images, FILE) "The world once again saw the true face of a terrorist state that is killing our people. On the battlefield & in peaceful cities. A country that covers its true bloody essence & goal with talks about peace. It proves that the liberation of is the only basis of peace & security," Zelenskyy wrote in a tweet. Story continues In a statement issued as he was returning to the White House from Delaware, Biden said the missile attacks demonstrate Putin's "utter brutality" in the "illegal war on the Ukrainian people." Biden spoke Monday with Zelenskyy, the White House said later that day; and Biden is expected to attend a virtual meeting on Tuesday of the Group of Seven countries to discuss the situation. The White House said that in his call with Zelenskyy, Biden "conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks" and "pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems." MORE: Inside Ukraine's critical drone warfare campaign against Russia In a tweet, however, Zelenskyy said air defenses were critical. He and others in Ukraine have urged the U.S. to institute a so-called no-fly zone to deter Russian air strikes. But the U.S. believes such a direct step could risk escalating the conflict beyond Ukraine and into a continental if not global war. The president last week warned of possible nuclear "Armageddon," given Putin's repeated invocations of his country's arsenal amid Russia's recent string of defeats in Ukraine. A White House spokesman said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that Biden was not referring to any imminent threat -- but was trying to reflect that "the stakes are very high." PHOTO: A residential building was destroyed as a result of shelling by the Russian troops, in Zaporizhzhia, south-eastern Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Albert Koshelev via AP) In his own statement on Monday, Blinken said that Russia's attacks on Ukraine present a "profound moral issue" and the "international community has a responsibility to make clear that President Putin's actions are completely unacceptable." Blinken stressed that the U.S. views Putin as responsible for the bloodshed. "There is one person who can stop this war now and withdraw Russia's forces: Vladimir Putin," Blinken said. He also spoke by phone on Monday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, his counterpart, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price. MORE: Ukraine vows to continue counteroffensive despite Russia's mobilization, annexation of territory On the call, Blinken "commended Ukraine for not allowing President Putin to break Ukraine's spirit while noting that the United States will continue to provide vital economic, humanitarian, and security assistance so Ukraine can defend itself and take care of its people," according to Price. The U.S. Army's top leaders were likewise critical of the latest Russian attack in Ukraine. Speaking Monday at a press conference at the Army's annual conference hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington, the officials said that the strikes were reminiscent of earlier days in the conflict, which began when Russia invaded in February, arguing that it was carrying out a necessary security operation. PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a high level meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the situation amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at U.N. Headquarters in New York, Sept. 22, 2022. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) "It is horrific that Russia is directly targeting civilians and critical infrastructure for civilians," Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said when asked by a reporter about the attack. "This is what unfortunately, though, President Putin and the Russian military have been doing." "It's very, very concerning," Wormuth said. "But I think it's an extension of the kind of tactics that we've seen from the beginning of the invasion." ABC News' Shannon K. Crawford, Luis Martinez, Allison Pecorin, Joseph Simonetti, Tanya Stukalova and Cecilia Vega contributed to this report. 'Horrific': Biden, more officials condemn Russia's sweeping strikes on Ukraine and reconfirm US aid originally appeared on abcnews.go.com ALONA MAZURENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 20:01 Pavlo Uhrovetskyi, the head of the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutors Office, has said that 78 bodies have been exhumed in the liberated cities of Sviatohirsk and Lyman. Some of the bodies bear signs of a violent death, and the youngest victim was only one year old. Source: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutors Office Quote: "Sites of mass graves have been discovered in Sviatohirsk and Lyman. 78 bodies have been exhumed, some showing clear signs of violent death. The dead have gunshot wounds, broken ribs and skulls, and mine-explosive traumas. Locals recounted that the invaders would shoot people right on the streets. During the occupation, a father and his son were killed in Sviatohirsk: the younger man required urgent medical intervention due to multiple injuries, so his father started shouting and asking for help, but the liberators shot the elderly man. The son also died. Russian atrocities are visible as soon as you enter the city: on the way, you are greeted by the sight of a burnt-out car in which two citizens were burned alive. The youngest victim was only one year old. The little girl is buried with her family in a cemetery in Lyman." Details: Uhrovetskyi said prosecutors and law enforcement officers have been conducting investigation and procedural activities in the liberated cities in Donetsk Oblast for a week now, and some of the findings are truly horrific. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! House of the Dragon star Paddy Considine has unpacked the big moment from episode eight. The latest episode of the hit Game of Thronesspin-off aired on Sunday night (9 October) in the US, arriving in the UK on Monday morning. Spoilers follow for House of the Dragon episode eight you have been warned! The major plot development in the episode, titled The Lord of the Tides, saw King Viserys (Considine) pass away after a long, gruelling illness. I think its very noble and dignified how he goes, Considine said, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Hes suffering terribly from an affliction. He basically gets a form of leprosy that creeps into [his] body, his bones start to fail him. His lungs start to fail him. Hes just dying a slow and horrible death. By the end of it, he looks like an old man. Hes not! Hes a young man. Hes only so many years older than his brother, Daemon. But its aged him. And its a metaphor for what power does to people, even though he doesnt use it for his own personal gain. He doesnt get drunk on the power, hes responsible, he added. But the demands of being a king take their toll on the physical body. You can read The Independents recap of what happened in the latest House of the Dragon episode here. One of the series directors also recently revealed that one of the biggest moments from episode eight was, in fact, an accident. By Mircely Guanipa LAS TEJERIAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -Hundreds of Venezuelans roamed the streets of Las Tejerias on Tuesday, digging and searching for missing relatives amid a rising death toll from devastating weekend floods that swept through the town, leaving many wondering where they will live. "I want them to give me a house for my children because I was left homeless. I was left with nothing," said Yolismar Marin, 22, while sitting in a school serving as a shelter for victims of Saturday night's floods. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said 43 people had been confirmed killed in the disaster, while President Nicolas Maduro said earlier on state television as many as 100 may have died. Some 56 people were still reported missing, Maduro said. Though electricity and cellphone coverage have been restored to the town of 73,000 people about 67 km (42 miles) southwest of the capital Caracas, it remains without running water, according to Reuters witnesses. "We lost everything," said Marin, accompanied by her two children and husband Devis Manrique, 30. The floods carried mud, rocks, trees and other debris into the town in Venezuela's Aragua state, destroying houses and businesses. Government officials who visited Las Tejerias promised to recover all the houses and businesses affected. Also at the shelter was Gabriel Castillo, 32, who worked at a hairdressing salon. He told of his search for any sign of his mother in the destruction. Castillo was saved after waking up to the noise of the flood, he said. He left home to see what was happening but his mother and aunt were still inside the house when it was buried by mud. More than 1,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, officials said on Monday. On Tuesday housewife Jennifer Galindez, 46, buried her one-year-old granddaughter Estefania, who drowned after flood water swept into Galindez's home. Galindez's husband, who had a leg amputated due to severe diabetes, remains missing. Story continues Yenimar Segovia, Estefania's mother and Galindez's daughter, said her life had fallen apart. "I felt like my world had collapsed," said Segovia, 28, a nurse. "There's no sign of my dad yet. We're going to continue searching." (Reporting by Mircely Guanipa; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Richard Chang and Richard Pullin) Hungarian PM Viktor Orban Read also: Hungary again blocks EU sanctions against Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill According to Orban, U.S. President Joe Biden went too far in calling Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a war criminal, and that Donald Trump remains the best hope for peace. Read also: Hungary to continue issuing visas to Russians, FM Szijjarto says The Hungarian leader also commended former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her negotiations with Russia after the annexation of Ukraines Crimea in 2014, which he said allowed to isolate and leave the conflict Ukrainian-Russian. According to the Hungarian PM, he is primarily interested in the interests of Hungary and, although his country is on the side of Ukraine, he does not want to help Ukrainians in such a way that Hungary is economically ruined and Hungarians die. He said he stands for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations. Read also: Russia says it is open to peace talks with Ukraine through mediators Orban also criticized the EU sanctions policy, calling Russia a giant in the energy sector, describing it as a dwarf sanctioning a giant and then wondering why it does not work. In Orbans view, the bloc should seek energy independence, instead of switching to U.S. LNG supply. Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appealed to the countries that insist on the need for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and stressed Russia is not looking to negotiate in good faith. Read also: Ukraine in talks with U.S. over supply of long-range missiles, says ambassador Stop playing this game, said Kuleba. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Trevor Rose-Hamblin, left, and Jeff Linnemeyer, co-founders of Old Irving Brewing, are seen at their brewery on Chicago's Montrose Avenue on Oct. 11. Old Irving is expanding into what was the Finch brewery in West Town. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) Finch Beer Co. is out and Old Irving Brewing is in at a West Town facility that will soon be home to its fourth brewery in the last decade. The move underscores the tenuous moment in the craft beer industry, where brands such as Finch struggle to compete amid intense competition and the rising cost of doing business yet others, such as Old Irving, see a narrow path for growth. Advertisement The move will mark a major expansion for Old Irving, which has built a steady fan base and won several high-profile awards since launching as a brewpub on Montrose Avenue in 2016. Co-owner and head brewer Trevor Rose-Hamblin said one of those awards, a gold medal in the highly competitive juicy or hazy India pale ale category at the 2019 Great American Beer Festival, helped Old Irving surge past the production limits at its brewpub. It has had that medal-winning beer, Beezer IPA, made under contract at Great Central Brewing in Chicago for about two years. Advertisement The new space, at 1800 W. Walnut St., will allow Old Irving to bring all production in-house. While it will retain its original location as well, Old Irving also plans to build a taproom in its new West Town space in 2023 to sell draft beer on-site one of the strongest revenue sources for breweries. Our growth point has always been low and slow, Rose-Hamblin said. Were betting on a brand thats already proven itself. Inside the brewery at Old Irving Brewing Co. on Montrose Avenue in Chicago. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) Meanwhile, after a decade of moving around the city and trying different approaches to jump-start its brand, Finch stopped production during the summer and auctioned off its equipment. The brand is largely unavailable in the market, but Finch co-owner Jamie Lisac said Finch plans to relaunch in the coming months as a contract brand. Seven people were laid off when Finch closed its production brewery, he said. Finch continues to operate The Perch Kitchen & Tap, a Wicker Park brewpub, with 4 Star Restaurant Group. The shift to contract brewing the bulk of its beer is a response to market realities, Lisac said. It certainly was not the plan, but its a necessity in the current environment, Lisac said. All that overhead was an expensive hurdle to clear. As I see the market continuing to have challenges, not only in craft beer but in the wider craft beverage segment with (ready-to-drink cocktails) and seltzers and whatever the next new thing around the corner is, its a crowded market. Finch moved into the West Town space in 2017, seeking stability after a rocky few years since launching on the Northwest Side in 2011. Before Finch, the space was home to the now-defunct Like Minds Brewing and before that was used by Goose Island for storing barrel-aged beer. Beezer will be a priority for Old Irving at its new location, but Rose-Hamblin said he also sees room for growth for other styles including lagers, which have enjoyed a resurgence in the craft beer industry in recent years. Were trying to tap into some styles with staying power that are your everyday drinking, he said. Advertisement Old Irving makes about 2,000 barrels of beer per year at its brewpub and about 2,500 at Great Central Brewing, Rose-Hamblin said. The brewery hopes to get to about 10,000 barrels of production in the new space. Customers sit at the bar at Old Irving Brewing on Montrose Avenue in Chicago on Oct. 11, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) Contract brewing at Great Central was a low-stakes way to test whether beer drinkers would support more production, Rose-Hamblin said. Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > Were seeing sell through thats proof of concept, he said. Our distribution is pretty small, so theres room to grow there, and a lot of room for us to grow in larger chains. Old Irving will install a 30-barrel brewhouse in the space. We wont push further than it organically would go, but after a while you see people seem to like us and they buy the beer so maybe we need to push it a little further, Rose Hamblin said. I dont want to open (some) next big over the-top-brewery with iffy expectations. Beezers gold medal, which came among 348 entries in the category, made a big difference in Old Irvings trajectory, Rose-Hamblin said. Advertisement We went from being a smaller brewpub to an acclaimed brewery at that moment, Rose-Hamblin said. It was a big change for me personally. You think, Am I doing the right thing with my life? and then when your cohort tells you youre doing great work, it cements it. Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here. jbnoel@chicagotribune.com Mumbais Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) has entirely switched to green sources for its energy needs, making it one of Indias 100% ecologically sustainable airports. Out of the total 100%, CSMIA procures around 5% of the airports electricity requirement through its onsite solar generation and the rest 95% from other green sources such as hydro & wind energy, the Airport Authority of India said in a press release yesterday (Oct. 11). Read more Mumbais airport is among the worlds busiest single-runway airports. On Sept. 17, it handled a record number of passengers (130,374) since the pandemic of 2020. The facility is managed by Adani Airport Holdings, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises. Mumbai airports green energy target With this latest change, CSMIA has joined Delhi and Kochi in the southern state of Kerala in the list of green airports. In June, Delhis Indira Gandhi International airport became Indias second to run only on renewable energy. In 2015, Keralas Cochin International Airport became the worlds first such facility, running totally on solar energy. CSMIA, which handled 17 million flyers in only the first half of 2022, is in the process of reducing its carbon footprint, taking a step closer to net-zero emissions by 2029. It saw a rise in natural energy procurement, with 57% green consumption in April 2022 to 98% between the months of May to July. The airport attained 100% utilization of renewable sources in August this year. By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's government will push Apple, Samsung and other mobile phone manufacturers to prioritise rolling out software upgrades to support 5G in the country, amid concerns that many of their models are not ready for the recently launched high-speed service. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services on Oct. 1 amid much fanfare, with leading telecom operator Reliance Jio saying it would make the service available in four cities and rival Bharti Airtel in eight. Both companies said the service would be expanded next year. But Apple's iPhone models, including the latest iPhone 14, and many of Samsung's premier phones do not have software compatible for supporting 5G in India, according to three industry sources and Airtel's website. Concerned by this, top bureaucrats from India's telecoms and IT departments will chair a meeting on Wednesday for early 5G adoption, asking smartphone executives from foreign companies Apple, Samsung, Vivo and Xiaomi, as well as domestic telecom operators Reliance, Airtel and Vodafone Idea to be present, according to a government document seen by Reuters. The agenda includes holding talks "to prioritise" and release software upgrades for supporting the high-speed network, the notice for the closed-door meeting stated. Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics, Vivo, Xiaomi Corp, as well as the three domestic telecom operators, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The government's IT and telecom departments also did not respond. India has said that launch of 5G in the world's biggest mobile market - after China - will bring high-speed internet to consumers, with simultaneous socio-economic benefits in sectors like agriculture and health. In August, Jio, India's biggest mobile carrier with more than 420 million customers, snapped up airwaves worth $11 billion in a $19 billion 5G spectrum auction. Airtel spent more than $5 billion, while Vodafone doled out above $2 billion. Story continues While telecom players and smartphone companies have been holding discussions with each other, ironing out compatibility issues between the specific 5G technology of telecom companies in India and phone software is taking time, one of the industry sources said. Airtel's website on Tuesday showed "Apple yet to update software" for all of Apple iPhones' 12 to 14 models under its 5G compatible section. For Samsung too, many models were not ready, Airtel stated, while more than three dozen models of China's Xiaomi and Vivo were shown as ready for use with its 5G service. "Apple has been taking a lot of time. Airtel has been concerned about this as many of their premium clients are on Apple devices," said a second industry source with direct knowledge of the situation, who added Apple and Airtel have been holding talks. A third source with direct knowledge of the issue said Apple was in the process of testing and validating different 5G offerings from network providers in India. Lack of 5G software upgrades has already irked users. On Sunday, the CEO of SoftBank-backed Indian digital payments firm Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, tagged Airtel in a tweet to say he bought a Google Pixel 6a phone only to use 5G, but it was not showing the network as an option in New Delhi. Later, he asked Google for a software upgrade in a tweet. In response, a Twitter user, Mudit Mathur, posted screenshots showing his exchanges with Google Support team that told him the company was working with Indian telecom carriers to turn on 5G functionality on its phones "as soon as possible", targeting a December timeline. Google did not respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan & Simon Cameron-Moore) WASHINGTON For the defense industry, creating hybrid and fully electric vehicles for the U.S. Army isnt about being eco-friendly: its about making soldiers more lethal and survivable. The trucks increasingly feature radars, radios, weapons and other power-hungry mission modules. The Army wants the ability to operate quietly and to lessen its heat signature, pointing toward battery power rather than a running motor. And the less troops rely on refueling, the more agile they are during operations. To bring these benefits and more to the battlefield, GM Defense is taking a swing at fully electric vehicles. With parent company General Motors making a $35 billion investment in the underlying technology for its Ultium base platform used in commercial vehicles, GM Defense President Steve duMont said he can leverage that work for the Army. The All-Electric Military Concept Vehicle features GMs high-volume battery technology. (GM Defense) After GM Defense won the Infantry Squad Vehicle contract in 2020, the company used its own research and development dollars to rip out the internal combustion engine and put in a fully electric motor. Thats still an internal effort, but the company sold a Hummer EV to the Army so the service can begin testing the Ultium technology in a tactically relevant environment, duMont said. He believes its inevitable the Army will get to an all-electric fleet due to the operational benefits. But he acknowledged theres not much of an infrastructure yet to recharge these vehicles at the tactical edge. That leads him to two ideas: GM Defense and its partners can pursue hybrid technologies as a steppingstone, and they can pursue concepts to bring power to the battlefield. Plasan North Americas All-Terrain Electric Mission Module, or ATeMM, seeks to address both. The modules can be remotely controlled or towed behind a lead vehicle. John Cavedo, the companys president, said ATeMM started as an effort to create a smart trailer that could better traverse tough terrain under its own power behind a lead vehicle. It morphed into something much more. Story continues I am quite convinced that this can replace towed generators, this can replace towed trailers, this can potentially augment or replace some of the Robotic Combat Vehicle-Light platforms that people are looking at. So I think this is really a multitool, Cavedo said. GM Defense is eyeing the trailer as a means to recharge all-electric vehicles in the field. But Cavedo said the ATeMM has the potential to become a mobile microgrid as well, or to convert gas-powered vehicles into hybrids. Our unique ATeMM, the only robotic platform that solves the problem of how to bring the platform to the field, is on display at the GM Defense stand at #AUSA2022, demonstrating its exportable power capability pic.twitter.com/vk3i561KBF Plasan (@Plasan_Int) October 10, 2022 Technology and innovation manager Dan Jakiela explained the ATeMM could push the lead vehicle to which its hitched, either creating better fuel economy while the vehicles motor is running, or allowing for so-called silent watch mode, which lets the vehicle run its communications systems and sensors while the motor is off. How do we leverage 100,000 existing tactical wheeled vehicles that are already in the fleet? How do we leverage those millions of dollars that have already been spent, and be able to hybridize those vehicles as an interim bridge, as other companies such as GM Defense come along with a purpose-built hybrid or with a purpose-built EV? This can become a great bridge, Cavedo said. These purpose-built hybrid systems are taking shape in different ways, with General Dynamics Land Systems creating distinct platforms to optimize different features of its ground vehicles. For its part, BAE Systems is opting for a common system that can be scaled to support vehicles of different sizes. Tim Reese, the director of business development for GDLS, said its StrykerX hybrid is optimized to move at high speeds and longer distances on battery-only power, allowing for silent operations when needed. The AbramsX tank, on the other hand, sought to reduce the size of the engine, which is quite large to allow the platform to perform in the most strenuous conditions. Its hybrid electric drive was focused on using a smaller and lighter engine that can provide enough power for the bulk of the tanks operating profile, with the battery providing an extra boost in especially tough conditions. BAE Systems has a scalable hybrid system that can fit vehicles of 30-60 tons, which covers the whole portfolio except the Abrams tank and the recovery vehicle, according to the companys director of business development, Jim Miller. BAE has already delivered two hybrid Bradley fighting vehicles to the Army for testing, which Miller said have already gone to several exercises. The service may go on to test a whole platoon or company of these vehicles before committing to the hybrid system when they fully understand the technology and the operational benefits. Miller said he hopes success with Bradley vehicles could pave the way for adding hybrid drives to howitzers, Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles and more. Youd have a common hybrid-electric-drive platform in the brigade, which, if the Army wants that and can afford that, that could be a really substantial step for them to take, Miller added. DUBAI (Reuters) - A person "spying for the Zionist regime" was arrested on Tuesday in Iran's central city of Kerman by the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence services, the chief prosecutor of Kerman province told semi-official Tasnim news agency. "The individual was planning to carry out sabotage to undermine the security of Kerman province," the prosecutor added. The nationality of the person arrested was not confirmed by the official. (Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Editing by William Maclean) Reuters Sensing that Russia has been weakened by its war in Ukraine, some of its closest allies in Central Asia are displaying a newly assertive streak. The region's five former Soviet republics are increasingly standing up to Moscow, aware of their new-found leverage as Russia looks to their markets and trade routes in a bid to circumvent Western sanctions. The new dynamic was strikingly illustrated when Russian President Vladimir Putin ran into a seven-minute tirade from the leader of Tajikistan, one of the region's smallest and poorest countries, at a summit in Kazakhstan last week. DUBAI (Reuters) -Clashes between protesters and security forces persisted across Iran on Tuesday, with social media videos showing tanks being transported to Kurdish areas, which have been a focal point of the crackdown on protests over Mahsa Amini's death in custody. Protests calling for the fall of the clerical establishment have swept Iran since Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died on Sept. 16 while being detained by the morality police in Tehran for "inappropriate attire". While observers do not believe the unrest, now in its fourth week, is close to toppling the government, the protests mark one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution, with reports of strikes spreading to the vital energy sector. The authorities are waging a deadly crackdown. Videos on social media showed trucks moving dark green tanks to Kurdish areas, raising the stakes in the revolt. Reuters could not verify the video footage. Tensions have been especially high in Kurdish regions, given Amini's ethnic background. Human rights groups say Iran's Kurdish minority of more than 10 million has long been oppressed - a charge the Islamic Republic denies. The Hengaw human rights group reported "intense conflict" on Tuesday between protesters and security forces in three cities in Kurdistan province: Sanandaj, Baneh and Saqez, where Amini was buried last month. Protesters in Saqez set fire to a statue of local members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, Hengaw said. In video footage shared on the widely followed Twitter account group Tavsir1500 from Sanandaj, shooting could be heard and women screaming. Reuters could not independently verify the footage from Hengaw or Tasvir1500. At least 185 people, including 19 minors, have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands have been arrested by the security forces, according to rights groups. The government says more than 20 members of the security forces have been killed. Story continues Iranian authorities have said they will investigate civilian deaths. They have blamed the violence on an array of enemies, including armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents, with the Revolutionary Guards attacking their bases in neighbouring Iraq a number of times during the latest unrest. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi reiterated accusations that Iranian Kurdish dissident groups were supporting the protests and said security forces would "neutralize the desperate anti-revolutionary effort". ENERGY SECTOR Energy installations in southwest Iran were hit by strikes for a second day on Tuesday, with workers protesting at the Abadan oil refinery, Kangan, and the Bushehr petrochemical plant, according to the Tavsir1500 Twitter account. Videos posted on the account showed a few dozen workers chanting "Death to the dictator," referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A regional official said the workers at the Assaluye plant were angered by a dispute over wages and were not protesting over Amini's death. Governor Ali Hashemi said some Iranians had tried to hijack the workers' protests by chanting anti-government slogans, according to Irans Young Journalists Club News Telegram account. It was a combination of mass protests and strikes by oil workers and bazaar merchants that helped to propel the Shi'ite clergy to power in the Iranian revolution four decades ago. Dozens of universities are also currently on strike, with students playing a pivotal role in the protests. In several neighbourhoods of Tehran, such as Shahrak'e Gharb and Narmak, witnesses said people chanted "Death to Khamenei" from rooftops after nightfall. Videos on social media showed demonstrations in the cities of Isfahan and Qom with protesters cursing and throwing stones at security forces. The authorities' crackdown on protesters has prompted some Western states to draw up more sanctions on Iran, stoking diplomatic tensions at a time when talks to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers are at a standstill. France's foreign minister said on Tuesday five of its nationals were being held in Iran and the European Union had agreed the technical aspects to impose sanctions on Tehran, which would come into force next week. France lashed out at Iran on Oct. 6, accusing it of "dictatorial practices" and taking its citizens hostage after a video was aired in which a French couple appeared to confess to spying. (Reporting by John Irish in Paris and Dubai newsroom: Writing by Michael Georgy/Tom Perry/Dominic Evans; Editing by Gareth Jones, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis) DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's major Abadan refinery was operating normally on Tuesday after reports of unrest at the site, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported. IRNA also denied reports that workers staged strikes at the facility. (Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Editing by William Maclean) Iranian protesters remained defiant Monday with students staging sit-ins and some industrial workers going on strike despite a crackdown activists say has left dozens dead and hundreds more imprisoned. Videos posted on social media indicated that protests flared at various points in the capital and other cities over recent days, with women burning headscarves and shouting slogans against the Islamic republic. Kurdish rights group Hengaw accused the authorities of using heavy weaponry, including "shelling" on neighbourhoods and "machine gun fire", in the northwestern city of Sanandaj -- claims which could not be independently confirmed amid widespread internet blocks. Gunshots were also heard in Amini's home town of Saqqez, said the Norway-based group. The unrest erupted more than three weeks ago over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian woman of Kurdish origin who died following her arrest by the notorious Tehran morality police who enforce the strict dress rules on women including compulsory headscarves. Activists say she was beaten in custody, while the authorities in Iran have released a medical report blaming a pre-existing condition. The protests have channelled anger among some Iranian women over the compulsory headscarf, but have also seen slogans shouted against the Islamic system created by late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the ousting of the shah in 1979. Oslo-based non-government group Iran Human Rights (IHR) shared images of a sit-in protest at the northern Gilan university and of high school girls in the northern town of Mahabad removing their headscarves. It also posted a video which it said showed a large crowd of students outside Tehran polytechnic on Monday denouncing the "poverty and corruption" in Iran and shouting "death to this tyranny". - Workers on strike - Footage shared on social media, including by news site Iran Wire, said students at Tehran women's university Al-Zahra shouted criticism of the regime during a visit Saturday by President Ebrahim Raisi. Story continues Students at universities including Tehran Azad also painted their hands red to evoke the crackdown by the authorities on the protests, images showed. Analysts say that the multi-faceted nature of the protests -- ranging from street marches to student strikes to individual actions of defiance -- has complicated the state's attempts to quell the movement. This could make the protests an even bigger challenge to the authorities under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, than the November 2019 protests against energy price hikes that were bloodily put down. One viral video was said to show a woman bare-headed in defiance of the dress code, in a street in the northwestern city of Kermanshah with outstretched arms and offering "free hugs" to passers-by. There have also been signs of labour unrest. Videos broadcast by Persian media based outside Iran showed striking workers burning tyres outside the Asalouyeh petrochemical plant in the southwest, with reports of strikes at other refineries too. - 'Chaos and disorder' - In an act of cyber defiance, the hacking group Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) had posted an image during the main state TV evening news on Saturday of Khamenei in crosshairs and being consumed by flames. The crackdown on the protests sparked by Amini's death has claimed at least 95 lives according to IHR. Another 90 people were killed by the security forces in Iran's far southeastern city of Zahedan from September 30 after protests sparked by the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a police chief in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, said IHR, citing the UK-based Baluch Activists Campaign. State media have said 24 members of the security forces have been killed overall, including in the Zahedan unrest. Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani warned Monday the government would "not stand with its hands tied in the face of chaos and disorder". Campaign groups including IHR have also pointed to videos showing brutality by the security forces, including a defenceless protester beaten by baton-wielding police while taking cover in a building. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the "world is watching", in a post on Twitter Monday. "Over the weekend, innocent protestors including a young girl were shot dead," Sullivan added. "The President of Iran compared protestors to 'flies.'" Activists also accuse the authorities of a campaign of mass arrests and travel bans to quell the protests, with celebrities caught up in the dragnet. Ali Daei, once the world's top international goalscorer in men's football, had his passport confiscated on returning to Tehran from abroad after bitterly criticising the Islamic republic on social media, Iranian media reported. Daei told AFP on Monday the passport was returned to him "after two or three days". sjw/pjm/srm BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament will convene this week for a session meant to elect a new president, the speaker's office said on Tuesday, but divisions which have led to a year-long political deadlock may still obstruct progress. Lawmakers will meet on Thursday, more than a year since an Oct. 10, 2021 parliamentary election in which populist Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr emerged as the biggest winner but failed to rally enough support to form a government. Sadr has withdrawn his 73 parliamentarians from the assembly and in August announced he would quit politics, prompting the worst violence in Baghdad for years when his loyalists stormed a government palace and fought rival Shi'ite groups, most of whom are backed by Iran and have heavily armed paramilitary wings. Sadr had initially sought to form a parliamentary majority by allying himself with Kurdish and Sunni Muslim parties, excluding the Iran-backed Shi'ite groups. The presidency is a largely ceremonial position, but the vote for a new president is a key step in the political process, since the president invites the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc to form a government. Under a power-sharing system designed to avoid sectarian conflict, Iraq's president is a Kurd, its prime minister a Shi'ite and its parliament speaker a Sunni. Disagreement among the main Kurdish parties that run the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq has prevented the selection of a president. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party has held the presidency since 2003. Its rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which claimed the largest number of Kurdish votes by far, are insisting on their own candidate. A lawmaker from the Kurdistan Democratic Party said no agreement with Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party has been reached yet. "Talks are still going on with the PUK and we need more time. No session should happen before we reach an agreement," Mahma Khalil told Reuters. "No agreement has been reached as of this moment and it looks (like a) thorny issue," said a senior PUK member Gayath al-Sorchi. (Additional reporting by Ali Sultan in Sulaimaniya; editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Heinrich) The agreement covers an 860 sq km (330 sq mile) triangle of disputed territory in the Mediterranean Israel and Lebanon have made an "historic breakthrough" and agreed to establish a permanent maritime border between them, the US president says. A finalised deal would allow the neighbours, which remain formally at war, to exploit natural gas fields under the Mediterranean Sea. Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid said it would strengthen its security and inject billions into its economy. Lebanese President Michel Aoun described the terms as "satisfactory". The details of the agreement, which covers an 860 sq km (330 sq mile) triangle of the Mediterranean, have not been released. But reports say the Karish gas field would fall under Israeli control, along with a small part of Qana, a prospective gas field. The rest of Qana would be under Lebanon's control and it would pay royalties to Israel for any gas extracted from the Israeli side. Map showing Israel-Lebanon maritime border dispute The White House said on Monday that President Joe Biden had congratulated the Israeli and Lebanese leaders on moving forward with the deal to establish a permanent maritime boundary. "The agreement... will provide for the development of energy fields for the benefit of both countries, setting the stage for a more stable and prosperous region, and harnessing vital new energy resources for the world," Mr Biden said in a statement. "It is now critical that all parties uphold their commitments and work towards implementation." Prime Minister Lapid said: "This is a historic achievement that will strengthen Israel's security, inject billions into Israel's economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border." He will convene Israel's security cabinet on Wednesday before the agreement is put before the government for approval. It will then be presented to parliament. Production from the Karish gas field is part of Israel's plan to export gas to the European Union, as the bloc seeks alternatives to Russian energy. Mr Lapid's Lebanese counterpart, Najib Mikati, said there was "full agreement on the English draft" and that he expected an announcement on Wednesday once President Aoun had reviewed the Arabic translation. Story continues Lebanon is in dire economic trouble and hopes to find significant gas deposits in the Qana field, but production could be years away. The leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that fought a war against Israel in 2006, said that if the president endorsed the deal "then for us... things are settled". In July, after an Israeli-licensed production vessel was sent to float above Karish, Hezbollah flew three unarmed drones towards it. They were shot down by Israel, which warned that for any attack "the price will be Lebanon". Geena Davis writes in her new memoir, Dying of Politeness, about a bad experience she had with Bill Murray when the two were making their 1990 crime comedy Quick Change, which Murray co-directed with Howard Franklin. Davis details an uncomfortable first meeting with Murray in a hotel suite, followed by a time on set when Murray repeatedly screamed at her in front of the crew. As summarized by The Times UK: Shes introduced to [Murray], she writes, in a hotel suite, where Murray greets her with something called The Thumper, a massage device he insists on using on her, despite her emphatically refusing; later, while theyre filming on location, Murray tracks Davis down in her trailer and begins screaming at her for being late (shes waiting for her wardrobe), continues to scream at her as she hurries onto the set and even as she gets there, in front of hundreds of cast, crew, curious passers-by. Advertisement That was bad, Davis told The Times. The way he behaved at the first meeting I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldnt have got the part. I could have avoided that treatment if Id known how to react or what to do during the audition. But, you know, I was so non-confrontational that I just didnt When The Times reporter told Davis she was blaming herself for Murrays behavior, the Oscar winner responded, Ha. Point taken. Theres no point in regretting things, and yet, here I was regretting. And yes, exactly, it wasnt my fault. Advertisement Variety has reached out to Murrays representative for comment on Davis story. Davis isnt the only actor who has detailed an uncomfortable experience working with Murray. Lucy Liu revealed on a 2021 episode of the Los Angeles Times Asian Enough podcast that Murray made unacceptable and inexcusable insults to her on the Charlies Angels set. As were doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I wont get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on, Liu said at the time. I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself and I dont regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, theres no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have. Murrays on-set conduct made headlines again earlier this year after Searchlight Pictures suspended production on Aziz Ansaris feature directorial debut, which was to star Murray. As reported by Variety, filming was halted over complaints about Murrays inappropriate behavior on set. The film has yet to back back into production. Davis memoir, Dying of Politeness, will be released on Oct. 11. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and Lebanon have reached "an historic agreement" on their maritime border, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Tuesday. This is an historic achievement that will strengthen Israels security, inject billions into Israels economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border, Lapid said. The deal will be brought before his security cabinet and government on Wednesday for their approval before it is reviewed by parliament, Lapid said in a statement. (Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ari Rabinovitch) JERUSALEM (AP) An Israeli soldier was killed Tuesday in a drive-by shooting in the northern West Bank, the army announced, saying that forces were searching for the attackers. It was the latest in a wave of deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence in the area. It came days after a female Israeli soldier was killed at a checkpoint in east Jerusalem, and 24 hours after a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died of wounds sustained in an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank. Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids across the West Bank since a spate of attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people. Most of that activity has been focused in the northern West Bank. Israeli fire has killed more than 100 Palestinians during that time, making it the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2015. The Israeli military says the vast majority of those killed were militants or stone-throwers who endangered the soldiers. But several civilians have also been killed during Israels monthslong operation, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone. Local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed. At least three Israeli soldiers also have died. Israel says the arrest raids are meant to dismantle militant networks. The Palestinians say the operations have undermined their own security forces and are aimed at strengthening Israels 55-year military occupation of territories they want for an independent state. The army said Tuesday's shooting happened near the Jewish settlement of Shavei Shomron, a few kilometers (miles) northwest of the Palestinian city of Nablus. It said the soldiers were attacked by a pair of assailants in a vehicle who fled. The Den of Lions, a new militant group led by young fighters from Nablus, claimed responsibility. A group of our heroic fighters carried out a qualitative operation, the group said in a statement. We say to the settlers besieging the city of Nablus from all directions, today we will see who will besiege whom. Story continues In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to search the Shuafat refugee camp for the gunman who killed a female soldier Saturday night. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The area is now home to roughly 500,000 Israeli settlers. The international community widely considers the settlements illegal and obstacles to peace. The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for a future independent state. ROME (Reuters) - Russia's missile strikes on Ukraine are unacceptably "brutal attacks", Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday. In a phone call, Draghi "condemned the unacceptability of these brutal attacks, which further aggravate Russian responsibilities", the prime minister's office said in a statement, adding Draghi reaffirmed Italy's closeness to Kyiv and the Ukrainian people. (Reporting by Angelo Amante, writing by Alvise Armellini; editing by Agnieszka Flak) James Charles has 23.8 million YouTuber subscribers. James Charles via YouTube Controversial YouTuber James Charles said he became a victim of swatting when he was 19. In a TikTok, Charles said someone told the police that he had "bombs and hostages" at his house. "It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life," Charles said in the video. Controversial YouTuber James Charles said somebody once called a SWAT team to his address as part of a "traumatic" prank, in a TikTok posted on September 29. Charles' TikTok was part of a "one thing about me" trend, where users share an interesting story about themselves in the style of a rap to the tune of Nicki Minaj's song, "Super Freaky Girl," which samples the beat from Rick James' 1981 song "Super Freak." In Charles' TikTok, which has 14.3 million views, the YouTuber began his story by saying, "One thing about me is when I was 19, I moved into my first home, but my address leaked," adding that fans kept showing up at his house to meet him. The YouTuber, 23, explained that he tweeted to ask his fans not to show up at his house, but that it "backfired, because later on that night, I got swatted." "Swatting" is an online practice that involves calling the police on an innocent person with a false claim of criminal activity. Livestreamers and internet celebrities have been common targets of the prank in the past. Swatting became a federal crime in the US in 2015, and in 2017, a swatting incident led to the death of a Kansas man who was shot by the police when they arrived at his home. Charles explained that at around 3am, he heard a knock on his door. "I walked down the stairs in my underwear, and before I got to the door, I looked out the window and there were several policemen running by with massive shields and massive guns." According to Charles, the SWAT team told him to "get on the ground" and searched his property, believing that Charles had "bombs and hostages" at his home. The police continued to search the house for three hours, Charles said, until his neighbors came outside and explained that he was not a criminal. Story continues "Fuck whoever called the police claiming we had bombs and hostages. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life," Charles said. Commenters under Charles' video said they were shocked by the story, with some expressing sympathy for the YouTuber. "Was not expecting that," read one top comment with 47,000 likes. "I WOULD NEVER RECOVER," and "why can't people LEAVE THIS MAN ALONE," wrote other commenters. Charles is most-known for posting beauty and lifestyle content on YouTube and has been involved in various scandals across his online career. His most famous controversy began in 2019 when he feuded with fellow influencers Tati Westbrook and Jeffree Star, who publicly ended their friendships with him. In February 2021, Charles denied accusations from a 16-year-old boy who said the influencer groomed him. The YouTuber continues to post beauty content on YouTube for his 23.8 million subscribers, and currently has 37 million TikTok followers. Insider contacted James Charles for comment. For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here. Read the original article on Insider Jamie Lee Curtis tearfully addressed Kanye Wests most recent anti-Semitic social media posts, calling them abhorrent. In the controversial rappers latest social media tirade which led to both Instagram and Twitter restricting his accounts he claimed he would soon go death con three on JEWISH PEOPLE. West then alleged that he wasnt Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew. Following his racist remarks, Curtis, whose of Hungarian Jewish descent on her fathers side, responded on Twitter, writing: The holiest day in Judaism was last week. Words matter. A threat to Jewish people ended once in a genocide. Your words hurt and incite violence. You are a father. Please stop. The next day, on Monday (10 October), the 63-year-old actor appeared on NBCs Today show and spoke about her response. I burst into tears, Curtis explained. Death con three on Jewish people? What are you doing? I mean, its bad enough that fascism is on the rise around the world, but on Twitter, on a portal, to pour that in as if Jewish people havent had it hard enough? I mean, it was just abhorrent, its abhorrent, she said. Jamie Lee Curtis addresses her online response to Kanye Wests anti-Semitic posts on social media, saying Wests posts were just abhorrent. I hope he gets help, she said. pic.twitter.com/MJ7ejgMjlq TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 10, 2022 Host Hoda Kotb went on to point out that shes interviewed Curtis a number of times and has never seen [her] eyes well up in anger like that. Curtis explained: I woke up and thought, My grandparents? Its just abhorrent, its abhorrent behaviour. I hope he gets help, I hope his children get help from him. Its terrible. Jamie Lee Curtis wants to see Lindsay Lohan be a "sexy grandma" in a "Freaky Friday" sequel. Curtis and Lohan originally starred together in the 2003 movie. "I've already written to Disney, my friends at Disney," Curtis said during Monday's appearance on The View. "I'm in their new Haunted Mansion movie." The "Halloween Ends" star also revealed her idea for a "Freaky Friday" sequel. Actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan pose before the premiere of "Freaky Friday" at the El Capitan theater on Aug. 4, 2003 in Hollywood, California. LINDSAY LOHAN CELEBRATES MEAN GIRLS DAY WITH NEW MOVIE FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS ANNOUNCEMENT "Let me be the grandma!" Curtis explained. "Let me be the old grandma who switches places." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "So then Lindsay gets to be the sexy grandma, who is still happy with Mark Harmon in all the ways you would be happy with Mark Harmon And simply, I would like to see Lindsay be the hot grandma, and I would like to see me try to deal with toddlers today," she added. "I wanna be a helicopter parent in today's world, as an old lady." Lohan recently returned to acting. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan presenting at the 2003 Teen Choice Awards held at Universal Amphitheater on August 2. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER She announced the premiere of her film "Falling for Christmas" on October 3. "My whole life, acting is like riding a bicycle. Its just in me. Its a part of me," Lohan told The Hollywood Reporter about her upcoming return to acting. "Doing films, playing a character, it brings me so much joy to be able to share a story with people. To take people on that journey with me is such a blessing." Lohan is most known for her roles in "The Parent Trap," "Mean Girls." She is also currently filming a project titled "Irish Wish," according to IMDB. Lindsay Lohan pictured at the premiere of "Parent Trap" in 1998. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP By Yuka Obayashi TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan will decide what to do about the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in Russia's Far East in consultation with its partners as it reviews details of a decree by Moscow, Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said on Tuesday. Russia last week issued a decree allowing it to seize Exxon Mobil's 30% stake, and gave a Russian state-run company the authority to decide whether foreign shareholders, including Japan's SODECO, can retain their participation in the project. "We will consult with stakeholders and consider specific responses while confirming detailed conditions and procedures of the decree," Nishimura told a news conference. "The Sakhalin-1 remains an important project for Japan in terms of energy security," Nishimura said, adding that the project is a key energy source outside the Middle East, on which Japan relies for more than 95% of its oil supply. Any immediate impact on Japan's oil supply, however, will be limited as the country stopped importing crude from the project in May, he said. The ministry is also investigating the extent of the damage to the Malaysia LNG Dua liquefaction terminal, and the liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply impact on Japanese companies after Malaysia's Petronas declared force majeure, Nishimura said. Petronas issued the declaration on Oct. 4 after a pipeline leak caused by soil movement at the Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipeline on Sept. 21. "We have strongly requested Petronas to minimize the impact of the supply outage through early restoration and providing alternative supply for Japan," Nishimura said. "Japan will continue to hold close discussions with the Malaysian government and Petronas to ensure the stable supply of LNG in Japan," he added. The disruption comes as Japan and many countries in Europe are scrambling to ensure gas supply for peak winter demand as they face the threat of an energy cut-off from Russia amid the war in Ukraine. (Reporting by Yuka ObayashiEditing by Shri Navaratnam and Gerry Doyle) TOKYO (AP) Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday that it plans to sell its Russian operations to its local partner and withdraw from manufacturing there. The company said its executive committee approved the sale to Russias Central Research and Development Automobile and Engine Institute, or NAMI. The sale includes Nissans factory and R&D facilities in St. Petersburg and its sales and marketing center in Moscow, it said. The company will operate under a new name. Nissan did not give a dollar value for the sale but said it would log a 100 billion yen ($680 million) impact" from its exit from Russia. While we cannot continue operating in the market, we have found the best possible solution to support our people," Nissan President and CEO Makoto Uchida said in a statement. Nissan began making SUVs in St. Petersberg in 2009. It suspended manufacturing in Russia in March after the invasion of Ukraine. The company said the terms of the sale give Nissan the option to buy back its Russian business within the next six years. Nissan said its employees in Russia would receive employment protection" for a year. The sale is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed within weeks, the company said. Toyota Motor Corp. announced last month it plans to liquidate its business in Russia. Other Japanese automakers reportedly also are considering leaving the country, following the departure of most Western automakers. Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ian ravaged the southwest coast of Florida, repair and restoration teams from Jacksonville are set to depart for a mission to Sanibel Island. LISTEN: JEA Utilities Pipefitter Crew Leader Paul Montana-Ulbricht on Jacksonvilles Morning News At least 25 JEA trucks will be loaded onto a barge, and crew members will travel separately via ferries to the island, as the causeway was significantly damaged in the storm. VIDEO: JEA crews prepare to leave for Hurricane Ian restoration JEA crews will begin working to repair Sanibel Islands gravity sewer system, lift stations and force mains. In all, 39 JEA team members will be working on Sanibels municipal wastewater system. A JEA spokesperson says crew members will likely stay for a week, then be replaced by other JEA team members. JEA crews are headed to Sanibel Island to provide mutual aid assistance following Hurricane #Ian. Crews left Monday afternoon and will work to repair the islands gravity sewer system, lift stations and force mains. Wishing safe travels to our crews!#MutualAid pic.twitter.com/l8ZyPEboxW JEA (@NewsfromJEA) October 11, 2022 Jimmy Kimmel couldnt resist a scathing verbal takedown of Kanye West during his opening monologue on late night after the celebrity became, once again, ensnared in a social media scandal. On Monday night, after wrapping a bit about the country not being too keen to observe Columbus Day holiday - theres not even a Google doodle for it, he jibed - the ABC host turned his attention to the future president. West, he deadpanned, has been Ye-zier than ever, Mr Kimmel began. He then read aloud the offending and since deleted tweet that earned West a booting from the platform on Saturday night: Im a bit sleepy but when I wake up Im going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE. Even Mel Gibson is like, reel it in, buddy, quipped Kimmel. The monologue also referred to how West over the weekend had also unleashed a series of antisemitic posts on Instagram, where he also remains locked out of as of Tuesday. On Friday night, the rapper shared another since-deleted post on Instagram, where he accused Sean Diddy Combs in a text exchange of being controlled by Jewish people. After explaining these latest tirades, a defeated sounding Kimmel then responded by jesting: I guess my Kanye-themed bar mitzvah is off! Kimmel then turned his attention to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had welcomed West onto his programme the week before to offer the rapper a platform to discuss his other latest controversy the premiering of White Lives Matter t-shirts at Paris Fashion Week on 6 October. This came on the heels of Kanyes exclusive sit-down with fellow white supremacist Tucker Carlson, Kimmel began to a rousing round of applause. Kimmel panned the pair of so-called white supremacists for getting super horny about Ivanka Trump during the two-part interview, and then shared a clip where West goes off about the former presidents son-in-law and current husband of Ivankas, Jared. I just think it was to make money, West told Mr Carlson of Mr Kushners work facilitating the Abraham Accords, a deal that sought to normalise ties between Israel and Arab nations. Seeming to think that his critique of the former senior White House advisor had gone too far, he sought Carlsons reassurances. He asked the Fox News host if that was too heavy-handed to put in this platform, to which Mr Carlson responded no because theyre not in the censorship business. No, were in the fear and dictatorship business, Kimmel clapped back. Lissy Wakefield, right, mother of an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually abused on Chicagos South Side last week, weeps before the start of a news conference outside police headquarters on Oct. 11, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) The Washington Park community has rallied behind an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually abused on her way home from school along Dulles Elementary Schools Safe Passage route Thursday. At a news conference outside Chicago police headquarters Tuesday, the girls maternal grandmother, Lutia Payne Midcalf, questioned where Safe Passage workers were at the time. The program stations trusted adults near select Chicago Public Schools to ensure children are safe when walking to and from school. Advertisement Where were they when my grandbaby needed them? Where were they? she asked. At 3:30 p.m. Thursday, shortly after school let out, the 11-year-old was walking home when a man approached her, placed his hand over her mouth, and pulled her into an alley in the 6200 block of South Indiana Avenue. He then sexually abused her, police said. Advertisement The girl was able to break free and run away, after which the man fled. A person was caught and turned over to police Monday by community members who saw a man resembling the police sketch that was released last week. Angelo Wakefield hugs his daughter, Lissy Wakefield, mother of an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually abused on her way home from school last week, during a news conference on Oct. 11, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) According to family members, police have since let the person go. On Tuesday, the girls mother, grandparents and community members demanded police find the alleged abuser. Hes made all of the children in this city feel unsafe, said Andre Smith, an activist with Chicago Against Violence. Lissy Wakefield, the girls mother, dabbed her eyes and held back tears as she spoke to reporters about the nightmares her daughter has been having. She said she sent her mother a photo of the person that community members had apprehended. The grandmother, in turn, showed the picture to the girl, who broke down crying. We had to hold her, said the maternal grandmother. Midcalf also spoke about the man who police let go. Im not accepting that. I will not accept that. Im gonna keep going and keep going till we get some type of justice because this is not fair, she said. Were not gonna let them push this under the rug. At a CPD news conference later Tuesday morning, Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said the detective assigned to the case is in contact with the family, and the individual of which they are speaking, he is a suspect. But were working with our states attorneys office in order to build a case, which we have to in order to possibly effect an arrest and get to charging. Advertisement We do have a sense of urgency, Superintendent David Brown added. But we have to get things right. We have to do it right, so that we can have the best chance at getting charges approved by the states attorney. The principal of Dulles Elementary, Toyia Pullum , wrote a letter to parents and families, saying, we take all safety concerns very seriously and ... we are working with the CPS Office of Safety and Security and CPD to continue to implement additional safety measures to support the safety of our students and staff, including requesting special attention to areas in the vicinity of our school grounds. Lutia Payne Midcalf, center, the grandmother of an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted last week, speaks outside Chicago police headquarters on Oct. 11, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) In the CPD community alert sent last week, police described the suspect as an African American male, between 45 and 60, of thin build and about 5-foot-9 with hair that is graying and a mustache or goatee. When the alleged assault occurred, he wore a black shirt with a rip on the right sleeve, black jeans with a silver belt buckle, and black work boots. But the girls mother said the man has since changed his appearance. Nonetheless, she added, her daughter told her the man smells like baby powder. She said shell never forget his face. Ever. He could do whatever he wants to his face shell pick him out, Midcalf added. A case such as this is rare, Anika Sterling Florez, community engagement director at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, told the Tribune over the phone. Advertisement Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > The majority of cases involving children and adults are situations where the perpetrator and the victim know each other, she said. But rare cases like this are more often picked up by the media, she added. This particular incident happened, to my understanding, to a girl of color on the South Side of Chicago. So it is good that it is getting some media attention because white children and women disproportionately get the most media attention when there is something like this going on, Sterling Florez said. Additionally, she said, calling attention to such cases begins a discussion around sexual harm. During the news conference, the girls paternal grandmother, Latoya Smith held a laminated picture of her son the girls father who was slain in the city in 2012. She said her granddaughter and her family were already traumatized by his death. The city of Chicago is failing my family, she said. Check back for updates. Advertisement adperez@chicagotribune.com Latora Green and others protest in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Oct. 11, 2022, calling for the resignation of Los Angeles City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. (Photo: Gary Coronado via Getty Images) Latora Green and others protest in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Oct. 11, 2022, calling for the resignation of Los Angeles City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. (Photo: Gary Coronado via Getty Images) President Joe Biden urged Los Angeles officials who were recorded making racist remarks to resign from their positions. He believes that they all should resign, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez and three other Los Angeles officials were recorded mocking a colleague and his Black son and making other racist remarks. Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon participated in the conversation, along with Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. In audio clips published Monday by the Los Angeles Times and Knock LA, Martinez can be heard derisively saying that fellow city councilmember Mike Bonin, who is white but has a Black child, thinks hes fucking Black. Martinez also attacked Bonins child, saying he needs a beat-down and comparing the child to a monkey. De Leon responded by comparing Bonins handling of his son to Martinez carrying a luxury handbag. In a separate recording that also involved Cedillo, Martinez called Indigenous Mexicans ugly. While Martinez announced her resignation from her leadership post on Monday, she has so far declined to resign from her City Council position, instead taking a leave of absence from the council. Herrera also resigned from his leadership position, the Los Angeles Times reported. The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable and it was appalling, Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. They should all step down. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Former state treasurer Josh Mandel's divorce file will be unsealed after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor in a lawsuit brought by the Enquirer. The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that an Ashland County judge improperly agreed to seal records in Josh Mandel and Ilana Shafran Mandel's divorce case. In February 2021, The Enquirer sued to open the records to the public. The couple filed for divorce in April 2020 in Ashland County even though they lived in Cuyahoga County. Judge Ronald Forsthoefel, a Republican, sealed records about the couple's dissolution, which included details about their income, property and shared parenting plan. Election 2022Staff quit campaign because of toxic work environment created by staffer in relationship with Mandel, sources say Ohio Rules of Superintendence, which govern Ohio courts, requires a judge to make records public unless there is clear and convincing evidence that public access is outweighed by other interests, such as threats to a person's safety. Forsthoefel sealed the case without holding a hearing or receiving any evidence. While running in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Mandel released redacted copies of the file to Ohio political reporters, including the Enquirer. Judge Forsthoefel argued that this case was moot because the Enquirer had received documents relating to the dissolution case. But the supreme court said the Enquirer wanted an order telling Forsthoefel to vacate the sealing and provide public access to the unredacted records. After serving on the Lyndhurst City Council, Mandel ran for the Ohio House in 2006 and served two terms before running for state treasurer in 2010. Just months after being sworn in as treasurer, Mandel announced his run for U.S. Senate. He lost to Democrat Sherrod Brown in 2012 and ran for reelection as state treasurer. He was ready to take on Brown again in 2018 but abruptly dropped out, saying he needed to attend to his wife's health. Mandel lost the Republican primary to J.D. Vance and largely slipped out of public view. The Enquirer has won public records victories, including: Story continues Get more political analysis by listening to the Ohio Politics Explained podcast This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Supreme Court: Josh Mandel divorce file improperly sealed WASHINGTON The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject former President Donald Trump's request to give the special master reviewing documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate access to those marked as classified. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers that Trump would suffer "no harm at all" if the documents are temporarily withheld from the special master. Addressing Trump's potential ownership stake in the documents, including possible assertions of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege, Prelogar said Trump had "no plausible claims." Whatever the court decides in weighing Trumps relatively narrow request, it will not affect the Justice Departments access to the same documents in its criminal investigation. The more than 100 classified documents are just a small part of the 11,000 records federal agents seized amid concerns that Trump had unlawfully retained official White House records after he left office. Image: Mar-a-Lago documents (Department of Justice via AP) The high court is reviewing the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision Sept. 21 to bar the special master, Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, from reviewing the documents. Trump had not contested a separate part of the ruling that allowed the Justice Department to use the documents. A decision by the Supreme Court is due at any time. Prelogar said the case arose only because of an "unusual indeed unprecedented order" that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued in response the lawsuit Trump filed after the government searched his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, in early August. Cannon prevented the government from using the documents as part of a criminal investigation, a decision partly blocked by the appeals court, and appointed the special master to review them. "This application concerns an unprecedented order by the district court restricting the Executive Branchs use of its own highly classified records in an ongoing criminal investigation and directing the dissemination of those records outside the Executive Branch for a special-master review," Prelogar wrote. Story continues Trumps lawyers had said the appeals court's decision to block access to the special master impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master. They added that "any limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of materials seized in the extraordinary raid of a presidents home erodes public confidence in our system of justice." The appeals court said that certain documents are deemed classified because they include information that could harm national security and that for that reason people may have access to them only if they need to know that information. Under federal law, official White House records are federal property and must be handed over to the National Archives when a president leaves office. Trump says that he did nothing improper and that he wants Dearie to determine the status of the documents, including those marked as classified. Although the Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices he appointed, Trump has not recently fared well in other emergency applications, including his attempt to prevent White House documents from being handed over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his bid to avoid disclosure of his financial records to prosecutors in New York. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review an appeal from a Black death row inmate who claims his case was tainted by the racial prejudice of several members of the all-white jury. Inmate Andre Thomas in 2005 was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury in Sherman, Texas, for the murder of his estranged wife, who was white, their biracial son and her daughter from a prior relationship. The jury included three members who expressed opposition to interracial marriage. The courts conservatives denied Thomass appeal in a brief unsigned order without explanation, leaving intact his death sentence. The move prompted a 12-page dissent from the courts three liberals, who said the errors in this case render Thomas death sentence not only unreliable, but unconstitutional. No jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberation or decision, particularly where the case involved an interracial crime, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent that was joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The courts three liberals said Thomass conviction and death sentence clearly violate the constitutional guarantee of adequate legal representation. The Supreme Courts denial of Thomass appeal leaves in place the judgment by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Maurie Levin, a lawyer for Thomas, criticized the courts move, referred to as a denial of certiorari. Todays cert denial in Mr. Thomass case abdicates the Courts role and responsibility to confront racial animus in the justice system,' she said, citing Supreme Court precedent. Instead, the Court failed to even attempt to ensure the promise of equal treatment under the law that is so central to a functioning democracy. Updated at 1:20 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Justin Sun, the founder of Tron blockchain network, isnt ruling out the possibility of one day acquiring Hong Kong-based crypto exchange Huobi Global and perhaps even bringing the exchange back to mainland China. Sun, who is one of five advisers on Huobis global advisory board, told CoinDesk TV this hypothetical situation will depend on the Chinese government changing its stance on cryptocurrencies, and would require thorough due diligence of the exchange. In the future we might have a chance to purchase Huobi, but not this time, Sun said during an appearance on First Mover on Tuesday. He spoke days after Hong Kong-based About Capital announced plans to buy Huobi, a major crypto exchange throughout Asia. Read more: Crypto Exchange Huobi Global to be Acquired by About Capital In August, Huobis founder Leon Li said he was looking to sell a majority of his stake in the exchange for upwards of $3 billion, Bloomberg reported. FTX founder Sam-Bankman Fried reportedly expressed interest but nothing came of it. No matter who owns Huobi, its China plans would depend on a change in thinking by the nation's leaders. In September 2021, Chinas regulators banned crypto trading, pushing a majority of crypto exchanges, including Huobi, out of the country. It wasnt the first time the country has banned crypto. Still, even after Chinas latest ban all but wiped out legitimate bitcoin mining in the country, Sun remains optimistic about cryptocurrency in China. Crypto, he said, is a world trend that cannot be isolated. Thats why China [will] definitely be one of the most stronger (sic) players in the blockchain industry, Sun said, even [if] we might have some setback or regulation hurdle in the short term. In the long term, Im highly optimistic. Read more: Crypto Entrepreneurs Bankman-Fried, Sun in Talks to Buy Majority of Huobi Global Exchange: Report While no formal plan exists, Sun said there is definitely a possibility Huobi would be willing to expand the business in China if the nation allows crypto trading again. The firm already has a footprint across Asia and, Sun said, may make its way to Europe and South America. But in order for Huobi to compete on a global scale, Sun said the exchange needs traction on its U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, HUSD. Sun said one of his focus areas will be making USDD, the algorithmic stablecoin he created, one of the settlement stablecoins on Huobi. In the next three months, we probably will list all the cryptocurrencies against USDD on Huobi, Sun said. K-pop girl group Dreamcatcher continue their thematic call to action for a healthier, greener planet with their newest EP Apocalypse: Follow us. Their latest music project, which was released on Tuesday, features six songs: title track VISION, Intro: Chaotical X, Outro: Mother Nature and B-sides Fairytale, Some Love and Rainy Day. The EP is the second installment of the groups Apocalypse trilogy following Apocalypse: Save Us, led by the title track Maison, which was released in April. Beyond raising awareness for environmental conservation and the fight against climate change, this first installment helped the K-pop act experience their first music show win since their 2017 debut. They also became the fifth-ever K-pop girl group to reach No. 1 on the U.S. iTunes Top Albums chart. More from NextShark: Karen Fukuhara Wins IMDb 'Fan Favorite' Award, Says She Looks Up to Sandra Oh In June, Dreamcatcher made history as the first K-pop artists to perform at the musical festival Primavera Sound in Barcelona. To promote their recent comeback, Dreamcatcher will start their Apocalypse: Follow us 2022 World Tour in Seoul with their two-night Apocalypse: Broken Halloween concert on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30. The tour is a follow-up to last summers Apocalypse: Save us in America concert series. Following their concert in Seoul, they will perform in five cities in Europe this November. Their performance dates and venues are as follows: Nov. 14 in Berlin | VERTI MUSIC HALL Nov. 17 in Tilburg, Netherlands | 013 Nov. 20 in Warsaw | PALLADIUM Nov. 22 in London | 02 ACADEMY BRIXTON Nov. 24 in Paris | LE ZENITH More from NextShark: Singles Inferno star returns to YouTube months after fake designer clothing scandal Featured Image via Dreamcatcher official Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! BTS, Olivia Rodrigo, Bella Poarch among winners at the 2022 iHeartRadio Music Awards Asian Actors Are Taking Jabs at the New 'Mulan' Vice President Kamala Harris during an interview with host Seth Meyers on October 10, 2022 Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images Vice President Kamala Harris promoted marijuana legalization during an interview with Seth Meyers. Harris urged Congress to pass federal marijuana legislation. On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced he would pardon thousands for federal possession of marijuana charges Vice President Kamala Harris continued to push for governors to pardon people for marijuana possession during her first late-night television interview since becoming taking office. Appearing on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on Monday, Harris was asked by host Seth Meyers what will happen next in terms of marijuana policy after President Joe Biden announced last week he would pardon thousands of people who have been convicted for possessing marijuana. Harris told Meyers the White House would continue to urge governors to take action, but also said that Congress should act to create a "uniform approach" on the drug. "Ultimately, though, as with so many issues, if Congress acts, then there is a uniform approach to this and so many other issues, but Congress needs to act.," Harris said. "We are 29 days away from the midterms. Ask who you're voting for, where they stand on this, and I encourage you to vote accordingly." Late Night with Seth Meyers (@LateNightSeth) October 11, 2022 Biden, who has been scrutinized for his previous stance on marijuana, did not decriminalize the drug but said it made no sense to imprison people for a drug that's been legalized in many states. The pardons will remove barriers to housing and employment for many with federal criminal records. Harris also previously received scrutiny for overseeing 1,900 convictions for marijuana-related offenses as the district attorney of San Francisco, as well as her staunch anti-legalization views. However, Harris has since changed her tune, telling Meyers that "nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed." Read the original article on Business Insider There arent enough people talking about Amendment 4. If passed, this amendment would allow state officials to further dictate how much Kansas City spends on its police. Because Kansas City doesnt have local control of its police department, state politicians make decisions for the city and, in turn, have placed the amendment on a statewide ballot. It would mandate that at least 25 percent of the citys general revenue be spent on police. The KCPDs already has an exorbitant, $269 million dollar budget, and weve never seen a ballot issue like this. And weve never seen an issue quite as misleading about how it harms the communityin Kansas City and statewide. In 2022, Missouri Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, who does not live in Kansas City, introduced a bill requiring the city to increase its police department budget. The bill was adopted by the Missouri legislature and signed into law earlier this year. However, the law violates Missouris Hancock Amendment, a 1981 constitutional provision that prohibits the state of Missouri from forcing municipalities to spend more money on any given service without state reimbursement and without public vote. Thats why Amendment 4 was placed on the ballot. But its language does not clearly state that the police funding bill is unconstitutional. Instead, it claims that this measure would ensure [Kansas Citys] police force has additional resources to serve its communities. While this amendment would force the city to spend more money on the police, nothing in it establishes how the money will be spent, or what additional resources it would fund. Politicians like Luetkemeyer are misleading the public about the aims of this amendment. Luetkemeyer and Missouri State Rep. Doug Richey, R-Excelsior Springs, have argued that the measure would increase police funding during a period of high violent crime in Kansas City. But the link between more police spending and crime rates is anything but established. Between 2014 and 2020, KCPDs funding increased from $211.12 million to $262.21 million, and yet homicides rose an astonishing 79%. Every time the police budget increases, crime increases too, proving there is no correlation between increasing police funding and decreasing crime. Story continues This amendment is really about doubling down on state control and further silencing our communitys voices. In addition, the ballot indicates that state and local governmental entities estimate no additional costs or savings related to this proposal. This is false. The amendment would require Kansas City to spend $38 million more in public funds. Because of this drastic increase, this amendment doesnt just impact taxes, but the entire ecosystem of support that we rely on our city to provide. In 2022 KCPD got $152 for every dollar that went to homeless initiatives. This amendment could further widen that gap, causing budget slashes or tax increases for services that already have to compete with the police for crucial funding. No matter your political affiliation, the threat of state overreach should concern you. This legislation comes at a crucial time, amid a national wave of extremist politicians silencing local voices in the democratic process. Weve seen it happen with new, strict voter ID laws in Missouri and nationally, and this amendment only gives state government more power. More community involvementnot more state controlmakes Kansas City and all of Missouri safer. A vote no on Amendment 4 means a Kansas City where residents have a say on public safety. A vote no on Amendment 4 means a safer Missouri in which all Missourians rights are protected. Our community matters, and your vote counts. Amaia Cook s a leader with Decarcerate KC, a community organization working to raise awareness and create change on issues of policing and incarceration in Kansas City. Although Kanye West already managed to cause an internet firestorm from a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, it turns out that Fox News editors left some of his weirder comments on the cutting room floor including the claim that someone placed fake childrenin his house to manipulate his kids. The rapper, who changed his name to Ye last year, appeared on Carlsons show twice last week and soon went viral for his bizarre and inflammatory remarks. West criticized the pop star Lizzo over her weight and stated, without evidence, that executives of the Gap clothing chain knew about the May school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, before it even happened. But those comments were tame compared with other odd accusations that didnt make it to air, according to Vice, which on Tuesday released clips of many of the segments that were cut. For instance, West said that God had given him information on free energy kinetic, fully kinetic energy communities that use a technology not currently available to human beings. But Wests strangest claim was the suggestion that fake children had befriended his own offspring with a malevolent purpose. I mean, like actors, professional actors, placed into my house to sexualize my kids, West reportedly told Carlson, before talking about the so-called son of an associate. We dont, we didnt even believe that this person was her son because he was way smarter than her, right? West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago and told David Letterman in 2019 that an episode for him feels like everyone now is an actor. Everythings a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel youre being recorded. You feel all these things, he told the TV host at the time. Its hard to tell what West is feeling today, but the Carlson outtakes arent the only video news surrounding him. BuzzFeed on Tuesday reported the existence of footage showing West seeming to force Adidas executives to watch pornography during a business meeting as a metaphor for the way hes been treated. Story continues Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... King Charles III is said to be "devastated" by his strained relationship with his youngest son Prince Harry. Vanity Fairs royal correspondent Katie Nicholl recently wrote a book titled "The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth's Legacy and the Future of the Crown." In it, she explores what the future holds for the House of Windsor following the queen's passing. Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, announced they were stepping back as senior members of the royal family in 2020. In 2021, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey in which Harry claimed his father stopped taking his phone calls and that he had been cut off financially. That same year, Harry discussed his mental health struggles and why he left the royal family in the Apple TV+ series "The Me You Cant See." In "The New Royals," Katie Nicholl claimed that King Charles III is heartbroken over his strained relationship with his son Prince Harry. "Charles absolutely has been devastated by what has happened," Nicholl told Fox News Digital. "If you think back just a couple of years around the time of [the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs] wedding, the relationship between Harry and his father was, I think, probably better than it ever had been Harry and Meghan spent time with Charles and Camilla in Scotland. They went on holiday together. It all looked very rosy and very happy." BUCKINGHAM PALACE ADDRESSES KING CHARLES CORONATION DATE REPORTEDLY SET FOR JUNE 2023: 'PURE SPECULATION' "I think Charles has been devastated by how things have spiraled," Nicholl shared. "And he is hopeful that there will be a reconciliation. I think we saw that in the very public olive branches that were extended to Harry and Meghan. After the queens death, particularly in that first speech that Charles gave to the nation, he spoke of his love for Harry and Meghan. He addressed them on first-name terms. He made the concession to allow Harry to wear his uniform when he was standing vigil by the queens coffin And of course, theres the matter of titles, whether [his grandchildren] Archie and Lilibet will get [them]. Will that be the final olive branch that is offered? I think well hear about that imminently." Story continues READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The queen passed away on Sept. 8 at Scotlands Balmoral Castle. She was 96. Charles, 73, immediately became king. In his first speech as monarch, he spoke of his "love for Harry and Meghan." When Charles was officially sworn in by the Accession Council on Sept. 10, he used an ink pot that was reportedly a joint gift from his two sons. Then on Sept. 13, Charles, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were spotted at Buckingham Palace together as they waited for the queens coffin to arrive from Scotland. Then for the queens funeral service on Sept. 19, Harry was seen walking behind his father as they appeared to show a united front. Katie Nicholl claimed King Charles III is still "hopeful" for a reconciliation with Prince Harry. It's believed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex headed promptly back to their home in California after the funeral service. However, sources told Nicholl that Charles remains hopeful that he and Harry, 38, can mend their differences. "He does want to sort his relationship with his son," said Nicholl. "He wants to do it on a personal level because he loves his son. Hes never stopped loving his son. He may not be happy about everything thats been said, but he wants to have a relationship with Harry and he wants to have a relationship with his grandchildren." CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER Nicholl also claimed that before Markle spoke out about the struggles she endured as a royal, Harrys stepmother Camilla attempted to offer a helping hand. Katie Nicholl claimed that Queen Consort Camilla "made herself available" to newcomer Meghan Markle. "I think Camillas role as a peacemaker has not really been well known until now," she explained. "Its my understanding that Camillas a very family-oriented woman. She never wanted to step on any toes or get too involved in other family relationships. [But] she did make herself available to Meghan. There was that common thread here in that Camilla was very much an outsider, far more than Meghan was in marrying into the royal family. So she was very well-placed to give Meghan some advice and offer some counsel. But for whatever reason, I dont think the Duchess of Sussex took it." Nicholl alleged that when she asked her sources about what Harrys relationship is like with the queen consort, she was "met with silence." "I was able to shed quite a lot of light on [Prince] Williams relationship with Camilla, which is very cordial a very good relationship," said Nicholl. "But in recent years When you think back to Charles and Camillas wedding [in 2005], Harry was the first to offer his congratulations and how he was thrilled to have Camilla marry into the family. And yet, hes been very silent about Camilla recently. There was no word from LA when Camilla was given the Order of the Garter, which is the most senior award that the queen could have ever given her. Similarly, there was no word from the duke when the queen made it clear it was her sincere wish for Camilla to be queen consort. Harry stayed very quiet on the subject of Camilla. And of course, thats fueled a lot of speculation that hes going to be writing about that relationship in his forthcoming autobiography." PRINCE HARRY, MEGHAN MARKLE HOLD HANDS IN NEWLY RELEASED PHOTOS OF 'DEFIANCE': PSYCHOTHERAPIST In June 2021, Random House announced that Harry was writing "an intimate and heartfelt memoir." "Im writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become," Harry said in a statement at the time. "Ive worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think. Im deeply grateful for the opportunity to share what Ive learned over the course of my life so far and excited for people to read a firsthand account of my life thats accurate and wholly truthful." The publisher announced that the untitled book was expected to be released in late 2022. However, no new developments have been announced since then. Katie Nicholl said the future of the monarchy now rests in the hands of the Prince and Princess of Wales, along with King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla. Nicholl believes Charles focus wont be on Harrys book, but rather on the future of the monarchy and what it holds for the Windsors. And she hopes her book sheds new light on the royal family. PHOTO OF KING CHARLES, PRINCE WILLIAM AND THEIR WIVES SHOWS 'STUNNING EXAMPLE OF FAMILY UNITY': EXPERT "I hope that people will read the book and really feel that they understand the queen," she said. "I hope they have a real understanding of her legacy and why she was so extraordinary. I also hope they come away with a real understanding of Charles. I try to break down some of those myths and misconceptions about him that have continued through news cycles but actually are simply not true. I think I paint him as a very caring and doting father, as a very family-oriented man, which I think is a side that a lot of people dont get to see of him." "Ultimately, I think my book is a very optimistic look at the future of the monarchy," she continued. "I dont cover it with roses. I point out the very clear challenges and the obstacles that lie ahead. But I think the tone is overall positive because Prince Charles comes to the throne as King Charles III with a wealth of experience. The dynasty is secure We have two generations of heirs If they can connect with the public, if they can remain relevant and, I suppose, prove that there is a purpose for the monarchy in an ever-changing, ever-moving, modern digital world, then I think the future is a happy one." A suspect is in custody after police found human remains in a freezer on the citys Far North Side Monday night, according to police. Officers responded to a well-being check in 5919 N. Washtenaw Ave. around 7 p.m. Monday. The owner of the West Ridge house who rented the rooms out had been missing for approximately 24 hours, the tenant who called police told them. Advertisement The tenant also told police the residents of the home were scared of one of the other people who lived there. Its a lot of information, its all happening at the same time, and obviously its still an active investigation, Chicago Police Department Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said at a news conference Tuesday. Advertisement The tenant that the others were afraid of, Deenihan said, had recently called a tow truck and carried out a heavy bag. The individual dumped the large bag in a garbage can at Foster Beach, police said. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > Detectives discovered bloody rags and towels inside the can and secured the scene. The can and its contents were transported to the medical examiners office Tuesday morning. Based on that evidence, detectives returned to the West Ridge residence and found human remains in the freezer, police said. They then obtained a search warrant to search the house. In the meantime, the tow truck driver called police and said the person he was transporting had pulled a knife on him. In responding to the scene, officers took the man into custody for aggravated assault with a knife. Once at police headquarters, the individual invoked their right to remain silent in regard to the homicide investigation, Deenihan said. We have a long way to go, but obviously, we believe that the missing person is obviously, unfortunately, the individual we discovered, he said. Area 3 detectives are conducting a homicide investigation. adperez@chicagotribune.com Mark the calendars: Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday that King Charles III will be crowned on Saturday, May 6, 2023, but offered few clues about how the ancient religious ceremony of coronation might differ from the last one in 1953. The new king's coronation will take place at Westminster Abbey, as per tradition; most of the United Kingdom's monarchs have been crowned there over the last 900 years. The Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct the service and crown him, as has been tradition since 1066. The current leader of the Church of England is Justin Welby. King Charles III delivers his first address as king to the nation and the Commonwealth from Buckingham Palace following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, on Sept. 9, 2022. And His Majesty will be crowned alongside his second wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, the palace statement said. The king is expected to sign a proclamation formally declaring the date of the coronation at a meeting of the Privy Council later this year, the statement added. More: Queen Elizabeth II laid to rest: King Charles III, Prince William and Harry, more attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral: History passing before us, never to be forgotten More: Camilla's new title, explained: What's the difference between queen and 'Queen Consort'? Expectations of good weather could be possible in May. But holding the coronation then will allow for the hugely popular Trooping the Colour parade celebrating the monarch's official birthday to go forward in June. (The king's actual birthday is in November, when he will turn 74.) There were some small clues for royal fans hoping for coronation details signaling what kind of king Charles will be. "The Coronation will reflect the monarchs role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry The Ceremony has retained a similar structure for over a thousand years, and next years Coronation is expected to include the same core elements while recognizing the spirit of our times," the statement said. King Charles III, wearing a kilt as he usually does when in Scotland, with Camilla, Queen Consort walk to meet members of the public after leaving city hall and heading to Dunfermline Abbey in Dunfermline in southeast Scotland on Oct. 3, 2022. What does that mean? "Further details will be announced in due course," the palace said. So it may be some time before those invited to the first British coronation in 70 years learn if they need to pull out their heavy ceremonial robes and set aside hours in their diaries on May 6. Story continues Leaks about the details of the coronation have been turning up in the British press for weeks, including reports that there will be fewer guests, the ceremony will last only about an hour and guests, even the most posh of aristocrats, will be allowed to wear morning suits instead of ceremonial robes. None of that has been confirmed. Another detail not mentioned: As is tradition, Charles will be crowned while sitting on King Edward's Chair (made in 1300 and used by every sovereign since 1626), under which sat the "Stone of Scone" or Stone of Destiny, a hunk of sandstone used at Scottish coronations and stolen by the English at the end of the 13th century. In 1996, the stone was returned to Scotland by the British government with the understanding it would be borrowed for coronations. The Scots announced last month the stone would be used in King Charles' coronation before being returned to Edinburgh Castle's Crown Room. The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, adorned with a Royal Standard and the Imperial State Crown and pulled by a Gun Carriage of The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, is pictured during a procession from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster, in London on Sept. 14, 2022. It is no secret that King Charles, for years while he was Prince of Wales, indicated he wanted a "slimmed down monarchy" when he became king, in order to demonstrate to the people that the monarchy is worth keeping as a cost-effective benefit to the nation. Coronations are expensive to mount and are paid for by the government, meaning taxpayers. The coronation of the king's mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, took place in June 1953, more than a year after she became queen in February 1952. It was a near-four-hour ceremony, most of it televised. Some 8,000 people, many wearing coronets and draped in their ermine robes, were crammed into the abbey to watch the young queen, then 26, be crowned with St. Edward's Crown, the 360-year-old crown traditionally used for the actual moment of crowning. Among those watching was her son and heir, Prince Charles, then 4, seated with his widowed grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and his aunt, Princess Margaret, both of whom died in 2002. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, wave to the crowd in London following her coronation on June 2, 1953. For the first time, millions watched the coronation on TV. In fact, many Brits rushed out and bought their first TVs just so they could see the ceremony and the celebrations in the aftermath, when the queen, now wearing the Imperial State Crown, emerged with her family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to wave to exultant crowds still feeling the effects of Britain's post-war gloom. (Those who watched the queen's funeral last month will remember the Imperial State Crown, the Orb and Scepter were on the queen's coffin during the ceremony. That crown is the one the monarch wears for all official ceremonies after leaving the abbey from the coronation. These "Instruments of State" were removed from the coffin, as a sign that her reign was over, just before it was lowered to her burial place beneath the floor of St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.) Queen Elizabeth II on her throne after her crowning on June 2, 1953, in Westminster Abbey, as she receives the fealty of the archbishop and bishops of the Church of England. Also still up in the air officially are the roles 40-year-old Prince William, Charles' heir and the new Prince of Wales, his wife, Princess Kate of Wales, 40, and their elder son, Prince George of Wales, will play in the coronation. Like the queen's funeral last month, planning and carrying out a coronation takes time and military organization and precision. A coronation typically takes place months after accession to the throne, following a period of national and royal mourning, which ended Sept. 27. Operation Golden Orb, the codename for King Charles' coronation, has been planned out for years. For the next eight months, expect the palace to dribble out more details gradually. And expect more leaks. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: King Charles III's coronation date set for May 6, palace says Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the most prominent Republican critics of former President Donald Trump in Congress, is rolling out a bipartisan series of midterm endorsements Tuesday, including a handful of Democrats seeking to become their states top election officials. Kinzinger (R-Ill.) endorsed four Democratic secretary of state candidates: incumbents Steve Simon of Minnesota and Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, along with Arizonas Adrian Fontes and Nevadas Cisco Aguilar, both of whom are running for open seats. Kinzingers endorsements, shared first with POLITICO, also include Democrat Josh Shapiros campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, where he would appoint the secretary of state if he wins. In an interview, Kinzinger said he chose 2022 endorsements partly based on where there are going to be positions that, frankly, can be bulwarks to defend against a real constitutional crisis in 2024. A badly-placed, bad faith secretary of state can really throw the whole country into chaos, he added. Kinzinger also backed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who successfully fended off a Trump-backed primary challenger this year after refusing to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results. And Kinzinger gave another endorsement to Arizona Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs, the states current secretary of state. Kinzinger, who did not seek reelection this year, is making the endorsements through his leadership PAC, Country First. His endorsement list also included a handful of federal candidates. He backed Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is facing a Trump-backed challenger in her state, and Evan McMullin, the 2016 presidential candidate who is running an independent challenge to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Its easy for me as a pushed-out or a homeless Republican to just stick with Republicans to get involved in the primaries and kind of go away for the general, Kinzinger said of his decision to back Democratic candidates. But I and my group want to put our money where our mouth is. The reality is we can disagree on policy, but that defense of democracy is the thing that I think can bring the union down if it isnt upheld. Story continues Kinzinger said hell do a little traveling for the races, but his groups focus will be turning out supporters in these races and helping with fundraising and advertising: We want to take a rifle-shot approach, not a shotgun approach. The Jan. 6 committee member is also supporting longshot candidates in generally safe districts Republican Larry Lazor in Connecticuts blue 1st District and independent Clint Smith in Arizonas red 5th District along with Thomas Knecht, a Republican state House candidate in Minnesota. The endorsements come amid more intense attention on election administration positions, as allies of Trump look to win control of the countrys election infrastructure. Kinzingers political operation has already been active here as well: A group of his allies backed Raffensperger during his primary earlier this year, and they recently launched a recruitment effort for pro-democracy candidates, with a particular focus on election official positions. Over the weekend, Trump rallied with a pair of Republican secretary of state candidates who have embraced conspiracy theories about Trumps loss in the 2020 election: Nevadas Jim Marchant and Arizonas Mark Finchem. The two are core members of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group of election deniers who are running for office. Both won competitive GOP primaries earlier this year, and recent polls from CNN in each state showed them with small leads over Aguilar and Fontes, respectively. White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday said that the United States has not seen any indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision on whether to use nuclear weapons amid the war in Ukraine, but that recent comments make it imperative for the U.S. to monitor the situation. Weve seen no indication, nothing that tells us Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction at all inside Ukraine, he told reporters. And weve seen no indication that the Russian apparatus is moving anything to prepare for that kind of a decision. Kirby said that his information is based on the U.S. monitoring Putins capabilities, which it has done since the beginning of the conflict. Additionally, he said that the U.S. has not seen anything that would cause it to change its strategic deterrence posture to defend itself or allies and partners. Questions over Putin using nuclear weapons have escalated since the Russian president said that Moscow was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend any of its territory, accusing the U.S. and its allies last month of nuclear blackmail. Obviously, we take these threats seriously, Kirby said on Tuesday. Hes now commented more than once, in just the last week or so, and we know that he knows his military is under increasing pressure inside Ukraine. So all of that, we believe, makes it imperative that we continue to monitor those capabilities as best we can. And were doing that. Kirby also reiterated that the U.S. does not seek conflict with Russia, will not send American troops to fight inside Ukraine and that no one wants to see this war escalate into the nuclear realm. President Biden last week warned that Putin was not joking in his references to using nuclear weapons, saying Russia would use such weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming. Biden and allies vowed on Tuesday, in a virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to hold Russia accountable if it follows through on threats to use nuclear weapons amid the war in Ukraine. Story continues The meeting comes as Putin has launched dozens of missiles that landed in cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, on Monday and continuing into Tuesday. Zelensky said on Saturday that Russia has begun to prepare its people for the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and the Ukrainian president denied claims that he had called for preemptive nuclear strikes against Russia, saying that what he said was mistranslated. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Kremlin spokesman said on Tuesday that U.S. promises to supply advanced air defence systems to Ukraine will only extend the conflict and inflict more pain for Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday that the United States will provide Ukraine with advanced air systems after a devastating missile barrage from Russia. The spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also said that the deliveries would not change Moscow's goals in its military operation in Ukraine. (Reporting by Reuters) TALLINN, Estonia (AP) Moscow's barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield. Russian nationalist commentators and state media war correspondents lauded Monday's attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and a weekend attack on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday's strikes to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming a hostage of his allies' views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold. Putins initiative is weakening, and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the victory (in Ukraine) for him, Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday. Related video: Kyiv resident surveys home after deadly strikes across Ukraine The fear of defeat is so strong, especially for those who are now fully immersed in this military venture, that Putins indecisiveness, with his logic of We have not started anything yet and Restrained tactics have paid off has become a problem, the analyst said. For weeks, Putin's supporters have called for drastic battlefield steps in Ukraine. The exhortations intensified over the weekend after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia; the bridge, Europe's longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might. Putin himself opened the span in 2018. And? Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia's state-funded RT television, wondered on social media about Moscow's response to the Saturday bridge attack. This is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back, wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the popular pro-Kremlin tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. Story continues Senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party, tweeted Saturday that Moscow should disregard Western opinion in formulating its answer to the conspicuous attack. It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West, Mironov tweeted Saturday. There won't be any bigger sanctions. They won't say any worse words. We need to do our thing. We started it we should go till the end. There is no way back. Time to respond! The response came Monday morning, when Russia simultaneously launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraine's critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies. For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in dangerous proximity to government buildings. Putin said Monday the strikes were in retaliation for what he called Kyivs terrorist actions targeting the Kerch Bridge, and vowed a tough and proportionate response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russia No one should have any doubts about it, he said. Here comes the response, RT's Simonyan tweeted on Monday after the attacks. The Crimean bridge was that very red line from the very beginning. Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, a Russian region in the North Caucasus, said he was now 100% happy" with the course of the Kremlin's special military operation in Ukraine. Kadyrov was among the most ardent proponents of more drastic measures, including the use of low-yield nuclear weapons. The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described Monday's strikes as good news. The cheering by Kremlin supporters came with demands for Putin and the Russian military to keep up the pace and intensity of the attacks and the damage inflicted on Ukraine's infrastructure. Aksyonov said that had such actions to destroy the enemy's infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated. I hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down, Aksyonov wrote. RT's top host, Anton Krasovsky, posted a video of himself Monday dancing on a balcony in a cap bearing a Z, the symbol that Russian forces painted on military vehicles while invading Ukraine. In another Telegram post, he said the damage to Ukraine's power lines was not enough! Not enough! Another state TV journalist, Andrei Medvedev, called Monday's attacks a logical step, which not just the society has long demanded the military situation demanded a different approach to the hostilities. And so it happened. But does it change much? Medvedev, who works for Russia's state TV group VGTRK and holds a seat on the Moscow City Council, wrote on Telegram. If the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change (the situation)," Medvedev wrote. "But for now, according to (official) statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made, Political analyst Stanovaya said in a Telegram post that Putin had faced powerful pressures before Monday's bombardment to move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings, and that prompted the Russian leader to act. As of today, one can say that Putin was persuaded to resort to a more aggressive line. And it corresponds with his understanding on the situation. But it is a slippery slope there is no way back, Stanovaya wrote. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine The Department of Labor has issued a proposal that could make it more likely for millions of people to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. Should the proposal become a formal rule, gig workers (such as Uber and Lyft drivers) would likely gain benefits and protections afforded to employees if they're reclassified. Those may include a minimum wage, overtime, unemployment insurance contributions and their employer paying a share of Social Security taxes, as The New York Times notes. Last year, the Department of Labor rescinded a Trump-era rule that made it easier for companies to classify gig workers as contractors. However, a federal court in Texas reinstated that rule in March, as Bloomberg notes. Under the latest proposal, the Department of Labor plans to implement a test to determine if workers should be classed as employees or contractors. Factors such as how much control workers have over how they carry out tasks and how much bandwidth they have to increase their earnings by offering other services would be assessed. Other considerations include whether workers need to buy their own equipment and if their work is critical to a company's business. There would be a lower threshold for requiring employee status than the current test. Even if the proposal does become a final rule, it wouldn't directly affect the guidelines that states and other federal agencies have for determining employment status. It would have more of a direct impact on laws that the Department of Labor enforces, including the federal minimum wage. However, as the Times points out, many employers, regulators and judges may defer to the agency's criteria on worker classification. While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors, particularly among our nations most vulnerable workers, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said in a statement. Misclassification deprives workers of their federal labor protections, including their right to be paid their full, legally earned wages. The Department of Labor remains committed to addressing the issue of misclassification. (Adds related content) By Nandita Bose WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposed Department of Labor rule defining whether workers for rideshare, retail and delivery companies are misidentified as independent contractors is expected to be released as early as Tuesday, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. Details of the new rule have not been made public. But the department is expected to model it on legal guidance that says people economically dependent on a company are employees, or go further to expand the pool of workers who should receive benefits, legal experts have said. The Labor Department has scheduled a news conference at 9:30 am ET on Tuesday with Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda and Principal Deputy Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman but has not offered any details on what they will discuss. The Labor Department and the White House declined to comment. The White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) completed a review of the rule on Sept. 29, according to White House records. Tim Taylor, a litigation attorney and partner at Holland & Knight, who had served as deputy solicitor at the Labor Department, said rules typically are cleared in three weeks to a month, but the independent contractor rule was with White House's OIRA for about three months. He said the lengthy review period at the White House suggests that the rule proposed by the Labor Department is either long and complex or that the White House wanted something different than what the department proposed. "And typically when that happens it is because the White House wants something more aggressive," he said. Reuters recently reported that groups representing employers had been trying, and failing, to convince a labor-friendly White House that any broad rule would hurt workers who want to remain independent and have flexibility. More than one-third of U.S. workers, or nearly 60 million people, performed some sort of freelance work in the past 12 months, a December 2021 survey by freelancing marketplace Upwork showed. Story continues Broadly defining independent contractors as employees would force companies to pay benefits, such as overtime pay and health, that hurt their bottom line. Employers can save about 30% by skipping payroll taxes and unemployment and benefit costs, workers' groups estimate. During separate meetings with the White House to discuss the rule, several worker groups argued a growing number of companies, including in health care, are misclassifying hundreds of thousands of workers. These workers are often left without social safety nets, accident coverage or paid sick leave, and are squeezed by high gas prices, they said. This is President Joe Biden's second stab at resetting rules about how employees can be defined. A federal judge in Texas ruled in March that the Biden administration, which had withdrawn a Trump-era rule that favored business groups on the issue, had not followed proper procedure. The proposed rule will be open to public comment before the Labor Department issues a final rule, which companies are expected to quickly challenge in court. (Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, Additional reporting by Dan Weissner and David Shepardson, Editing by Heather Timmons, Colleen Jenkins and Gerry Doyle) A Lakewood Ranch mail carrier and her boyfriend have been indicted on federal drug charges that allege they conspired to distribute cocaine sent from Puerto Rico through the mail. Last week, a federal grand jury in Tampa handed up an indicted charging Bradenton residents Nathasha Prieto, 33, and Angel Hernandez Coss, 37, with conspiring to distribute and possession with the intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. If convicted, Prieto and Hernandez Coss will each face a mandatory minimum term of 10 years in federal prison. According to a criminal complaint filed on Sept. 16, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General was working with the Drug Enforcement Administration Tampa office and the Manatee County Sheriffs Office to track a drug trafficking ring. In June, agents identified some suspicious packages sent from Puerto Rico to Lakewood Ranch believed to be narcotics on Prietos mail route. Agents and detectives followed Prieto as she was scheduled to deliver four of the suspect packages. Each time, after the package was logged as delivered in the USPS system, investigators did not find the packages where they were said to be delivered. Instead, Prieto would take the packages back to the Lakewood Ranch post office located at 5910 Post Blvd., Lakewood Ranch, and put them inside her Honda Acura and later take them home. Investigators also watched as Hernandez left the home to take out some trash to a dumpster inside their community in which they later found the packaging for some of the packages in question. Shortly thereafter, he was seen leaving the house with a heavy duffle bag and backpack. On Aug. 15, sheriffs detectives pulled Prieto over near the intersection of State Road 70 and 51st Street East for not wearing a seatbelt. A K-9 checked and alerted detectives to narcotics in the car. The remaining two of the suspected packages were found and the drugs inside preemptively tested positive for cocaine. Prieto and Hernandez Coss both agreed to speak with investigators, USPS OIG special agent Scott Cunningham said in the criminal complaint affidavit. She told them that had taken between 30 to 40 packages over the course of year and that she knew the packages had drugs in them. Her boyfriend took full responsibility for running the operation but did not tell investigators where the drugs had gone. Lauren Ash celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in California. (Photo by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images) Lauren Ash is embracing her Canadian roots. On Monday, the "Superstore" actress took to Instagram to share a series of photos of her celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving from her home in Los Angeles, Calif. In the first snap, the Belleville, Ont.-native posed in her dining room in a ruched red dress while holding a glass of wine. Ash smiled as she showed off her elaborate holiday meal complete with decorative pumpkins and floral arrangements. "Oh, Ill just throw together a small Canadian Thanksgiving. Haha, right. (Florals by me)," she captioned the post for her 291,000 followers. Fans loved the 39-year-old's festive photos and praised her for celebrating Canadian holidays despite her American location. "Staying true to those maple roots. Love to see it. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to you beautiful!" a fan commented, while another shared, "Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! I still celebrate it, despite living in the United States for almost 20 years." "Happy Canadian Thanksgiving AKA the real Thanksgiving! haha," someone joked. "This looks amazing. Great job!" A follower wrote: "Absolutely love your centrepiece! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, Lauren!" "Happy Thanksgiving, you Belleville beauty!" another commented. "I love that you're still celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving from afar. So cute." Earlier this year, Ash celebrated Canada Day as a "Californian." In a series of poolside photos, the actress posed in a black tank top while holding her dog at her Los Angeles home. "Day before Canada Day and Ive reached peak Californian," she wrote alongside the post. "Meh, sorry but once a Canadian always a Canadian, girl! Maple syrup runs in your veins," a fan penned. Story continues "Youll always be Canadian! Were all born with a maple leaf birthmark hidden somewhere on our bodies," someone else quipped. "Just throw an 'eh' at the end of a sentence and you'll be Canadian-ized again!" another commented. Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. The politically connected former leader of a Chicago not-for-profit escaped prison time Tuesday when a judge sentenced him to three years of probation for misappropriating more than a quarter-million dollars in state grants intended to develop south suburban commercial properties and fund a job training program. Yesse Yehudah, 74, pleaded guilty earlier this year to wire fraud, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he misappropriated a total of $261,000 over a four-year period through his foundation, FORUM, also known as Fulfilling Our Responsibilities Unto Mankind. Advertisement Prosecutors had asked for a year and a half behind bars, arguing in a sentencing filing that probation would be grossly inadequate and that the public has a strong moral interest in sternly punishing such conduct. But defense lawyer Mary Judge requested probation, citing Yehudahs advanced age and health issues, including a recent bout with liver cancer. Advertisement U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood said that while Yehudahs conduct would have warranted prison time in many circumstances, his lack of criminal history and other factors cited by his attorney trumped the need for general deterrence. Wood ordered Yehudah to serve the first six months of his probation on home detention, with travel allowed for only essential medical appointments. He was also ordered to repay about $170,000 in outstanding restitution to the government. According to prosecutors, Yehudahs organization received three state grants totaling $575,000 from 2013 to 2016 from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Two of the grants were intended to develop commercial properties in cash-strapped Dolton, while the third was meant for FORUM to operate a weatherization jobs training program. In one instance, Yehudah claimed that FORUM had spent a $100,000 grant on construction work to develop a vacant property in Dolton when, in fact, no actual work had begun, the indictment alleged. In 2015, he allegedly misused $20,000 in grant money to buy a condominium for the relative of an associate, the indictment alleged. He disguised the fraud by having FORUM cut a cashiers check to the associate, who then endorsed it over to Yehudah, according to the charges. The indictment also alleged Yehudah inflated the amount that subcontractors had billed FORUM and kept the extra money for himself. Yehudah also defrauded a bank used by FORUM by forging the signatures of subcontractors to endorse checks over to himself, the indictment alleged. In a lengthy letter to the court, Yehudah acknowledged he took shortcuts with the grant money, but insisted he did so not to enrich himself, but to skirt expensive union contractors and get the money more directly to those in need. Advertisement I misreported how the money was being spent and made misrepresentations to continue getting the grant money, Yehudah wrote. I am extremely remorseful for this. I thought the end justified the means because I was working so hard and was doing so to help the community. As the leader of FORUM, Yehudah has long had ties to South Side politicians and legislators in Springfield, using his connections to win taxpayer-funded grants for everything from youth violence prevention to computer-literacy programs. In 2002, then-Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan sued Yehudah and another charity operator, David Noffs, for allegedly bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from similar initiatives, the Tribune reported. At the time, Noffs was an Elmhurst city councilman and good friend of then-first lady Lura Lynn Ryan. Yehudah was also a frequent donor to political funds controlled by then-Gov. George Ryan. The suit accused Yehudah and Noffs of washing money between their two charities and diverting funds for personal travel, health club memberships, auto repairs, dental work, phone bills and college tuition costs. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. > Yehudah later settled the litigation by agreeing to donate $10,000 to a charity. Advertisement Yehudahs connections to then-state Sen. Barack Obama were also widely reported at the time. In 1998, he mounted an unsuccessful challenge for Obamas seat in Springfield. Two years later, Obama awarded a $75,000 grant to FORUM to help churches and community groups get internet access, the Tribune reported. The Tribune reported that five FORUM employees, including one who had declared bankruptcy, had donated $1,000 apiece to Obamas state Senate campaign. Though Obama was not accused of wrongdoing, he quietly returned the $5,000 in donations after the lawsuit against Yehudah was filed. I didnt want to be associated with money that potentially might have been tainted, Obama said then. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta This week, a private 2018 voicemail from President Joe Biden to his son Hunter was leaked. The message revealed a concerned father pleading for his son to get help amid his drug addiction struggles. Recovery advocates told Insider they hope it inspires others to show empathy to those battling addiction. This week, a private and emotional voicemail President Joe Biden left for his son Hunter Biden back in 2018 was made public. In the voicemail obtained by The Daily Mail and later aired by Fox News Joe Biden expresses his love for his son as he pleads for him to get help amid his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction. "It's Dad. I called to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. You gotta get some help," Biden says in the message. "I don't know what to do. I know you don't either, but I am here no matter what you need, no matter what you need, I love you." Recovery advocates told Insider they see a familiar situation in the president's concern for his son and they hope that it inspires others to show empathy to those battling addiction. "In all of this, Joe [Biden] has become one of the most relatable characters in this unfolding story of addiction," said Chad Moses, the director of outreach at the nonprofit To Write Love On Her Arms. Moses said that the president's voicemail paints a picture of a "caring father" as well as an "everyman." "I hope that people can hear that, that if the most powerful man in the United States can also be overwhelmed, can also be not just overwhelmed by the circumstances, but overwhelmed by the sense of love he has, that he can't be shamed out of his belief in his son," Moses said. A voicemail like the one Biden left for his son is "infinitely" important to someone struggling with addiction, said Moses. And though Moses believes "sacred ground was kind of tread upon" with the release of the private voicemail, he hopes it can be a source of inspiration for others. Story continues "I can't wait to see people encouraged, that maybe they can be reminded that family exists, that unity exists, that there are people that believe in you, even if they don't know what the next step is," he said. Gary Mendell, the CEO and founder of the nonprofit Shatterproof, told Insider of how he related to the president. "My son, Brian, faced addiction for almost 10 years. Like President Biden, if you know someone who has struggled with addiction, you know all too well the pain and anguish of watching a loved one in the clutches of this disease and feeling helpless and isolated," Mendell said. Mendell's son died by suicide in 2011 at the age of 25 "after having not used a substance in more than a year," said Mendell. "He felt shame related to his addiction." Mendell said that ways for parents and loved ones to help someone dealing with a substance use disorder include showing "empathy in addition to love." "As a parent, avoid feeling guilt," said Mendell. "Your loved one is dealing with a disease and you can help them through love, dignity, compassion, and perseverance." Read the original article on Business Insider Russia continues its missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, some of the missiles are shot down by the Ukrainian military The head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Military administration, Serhiy Hamaliy, said on Telegram that air defense was engaged in the region, shooting down an Iranian-made Shahed-136 loitering munition UAV. Two Russian missiles were shot down in Kyiv Oblast, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba announced in a Telegram post. Two more Russian missiles were downed in Mykolaiv Oblast, according to the head of the Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration, Vitaliy Kim. Read also: Iranian-made drones strike Vinnytsia power plant The spokesman of the Air Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Ihnat said at least four Russian missiles were shot down in the morning on Oct. 11. "(Russian) missiles are being launched since 07:00 a.m.; at least four missiles were launched by strategic bombers, and we have information that four missiles have already been destroyed," Ihnat told Ukrainian TV broad-casters. Read also: Aftermath of first missile strike on Kyiv since June photo report Ihnat added that the Armed Forces of Ukraine used its Air Force, anti-air-craft missile troops, and portable anti-aircraft missile systems to destroy incoming projectiles. He urged civilians to heed air raid alerts and seek shelter from further potential enemy air strikes. The morning air raid alert across Ukraine lasted for five hours on Oct. 11. Russia carried out at least 83 missile and air strikes against Kyiv and otherUkrainian cities on Oct. 10, killing 14 civilians. The attack took out parts ofUkraines energy infrastructure, precipitating a series of disruptions in power and water supply across the country. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Vodafone A gay former employee of a Vodafone store in Scotland was awarded more than $30,000 for being asked sexually inappropriate questions at work. The woman, identified only as Ms. C, sued her former employer, a Vodafone franchise called Thistle Communications, for sex and sexual orientation discrimination and harassment. She said she had been humiliated by a male manager asking sexually explicit questions of her, Yahoo News UK reports. According to her complaint, she was exposed to numerous inappropriate conversations about her sexual orientation, including being asked, How do lesbians have sex then, I'm intrigued by a senior manager. He repeated his question after Ms. C had declined to answer initially. "I told him I wasnt going to answer that question, and he asked me again after a customer left," she said. Ms. C explained the manager, Bilal Shahid, said to her: I mean I think its great, youre a lesbian but I cant imagine having this conversation with a gay guy. A second manager, Matthew Graham, remarked upon her appearance, saying she looked normal, which led her to believe he thought her being a lesbian was abnormal. According to Yahoo News UK, the court heard testimony about Graham remarking, thats a waste when speaking of Ms. Cs sexuality. The manager further indicated to her that he was okay with her loving whomever she wished, but when it comes to affecting my child, I dont think LGBT should be taught in schools. In the two months following her start date at the company, Ms. C went on sick leave and remained absent for several weeks before resigning after 15 weeks. Afterward, she filed a complaint alleging discrimination, harassment, and unfair dismissal on the companys part. An employment tribunal in Glasgow ruled that asking her about her sex life was discriminatory and that she had been harassed because of her gender and sexual orientation. Since she did not hold the job for a sufficient period, her unfair dismissal claim failed. Before the verdict, Ms. C had testified about the effect the harassment had on her, according to Yahoo News UK. I dont think [my former employers] have taken seriously the damage this has caused to my mental health, Ms. C said. I dont feel safe to return to an environment which humiliated me, alienated me, and has made me need to seek counseling. This has cost me months of my life. 2022 John Lewis Foundation Inaugural Gala Charlayne Hunter-Gault at the 2022 John Lewis Foundation Inaugural Gala at The Schuyler at Hamilton Hotel on May 17, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Credit - Brian StukesGetty Images Charlayne Hunter-Gault, 80, has both made and chronicled history in real time. After becoming the first Black woman to enroll at the University of Georgia in 1961, in the 1970s she was one of the earliest Black women to write for the New York Timesestablishing the papers Harlem bureaubefore becoming NPRs chief Africa correspondent. Among her many other accomplishments, she was also the first Black staff writer at The New Yorker, and her efforts to capture the American story have netted awards including a pair of Emmys and a Peabody. And history, she tells me while discussing her new book, My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives, tends to repeat itself. That, she says, is something she took away from one of her early journalism classes at the University of Georgia, where a professor added that we learn from history precisely because we so often fail to do so. History should be a guide past avoidable social and political calamities, she says, and it should offer hope in the face of deeply distressing current eventsreminders that at even in our darkest hours, there have always been heroes and she-roes, as Hunter-Gault puts it, who pulled the rest of us toward something better. Even so, we all too often experience the present as disconnected from the past. My People counters that instinct with essential insights gleaned from observation of a messy world. Hunter-Gault spoke to TIME by phone from her home in Marthas Vineyard. The following transcript of our conversation has been edited for clarity and length. TIME: What made you want to put together a collection of your reported work at this particular moment in time? HUNTER-GAULT: While this is a very challenging time, we have stories in our history that should be helpful to people who are getting despondent over where we are now. We have had challenges in the past, going back to the first time people of color landed in this country, and yet look where we are. I think this is an important time to share some of that history, not only for our people, that is, people of color, but for all people. While my book focuses primarily on Black women, there were white women and men who died for us. And so Im hoping that looking at our history, we can see the heroes and she-roesmany of whom are ordinary people who would probably reject being called a hero, and yet they were. Story continues The book includes a story about a community-dispute center in Harlem, one about parents looking for a way to teach their children a more accurate version of history, one about the late Congressman John Lewis when he was a young voting-rights activist, another about policing during periods of increased crimedo you feel those stories include themes on the issues of the moment requiring more thought? Well, why dont you quote yourself on that? Yeah. Ha! I probably should not have phrased my question that way. Again, Im trying to put our history in context. I have a perspective that is based on my own history, which [involved] a bit of challenge, but also was full of determination. And so I look at that history, and I say how important it isfor this younger generation in particular, but for some of the older ones, too, who are getting a bit frustrated with where we are in the countryfor them to know the history, [to] know what shoulders they stand on. Read more: Critical Race Theory Is Simply the Latest Bogeyman. Inside the Fight Over What Kids Learn About Americas History Another thing that stood out as I was reading through the stories in the book is that there are quite a few profiles of people who, at the time you wrote about them, did not yet have massive national stature. One of them was about the future Congressman John Lewis, the impact of the 1964 Voting Rights Act, and what he expected to come from his work registering Black voters in Georgia. Is there something that you see as a consistent element among those who ultimately shape American life? Remember what Barack Obama said, when he went to Selma, [Ala.]. He said, we stand on the shoulders of giants. Yep. People dont always realize that these giants were little boys, like John Lewis was when he used to go and preach to the pigs in the backyard. I do remember what was in the back of my mind [in 1961] when I was at UGA and John [Lewis], and a group of Black and white people, young people, boarded a bus in Washington to come to the South and challenge the interstate segregation rules. And heres what got me. Not only were they coming into what clearly was going to be a dangerous situation, or potentially dangerous, but they were gonna do it anyway. They were so determined that they signed their wills before they left Washington, in case there was a problem. And of course, that, again, led to the person who received the first blows for freedom[one of whom], of course, was John Lewis, when he got off the bus and these white agitators beat the hell out of him. And did it stop him? No, it inspired him. Charlayne Hunter, 18, at University of Georgia in 1961 Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Ive listened to the commentators on various channels, about how democracy, in effect, is going to hell. Somebody said something about how, if you look around the world, democracy is failing everywhere. But we have history that shows us that we can be successful in our efforts to perfect unions, not only in America, but in other places like South Africa where I have a lot of history. Theres just so much pessimism about democracy. Read more: Why John Lewis Kept Telling the Story of Civil Rights, Even Though It Hurt There are people who would say that, before the 2016 election, there were warnings that if you elect a person to the highest office who has openly said he will not accept the election results if he doesnt win, you are playing a very dangerous political game. Many of those people happen to be people of colorjournalists and historians of color, aware of what portions of our history pointed that way. And they were largely dismissed. Ill tell you a story, briefly, that Im still trying to figure out. [In 2020], I went to a neighborhood that is predominantly Black. I ultimately got to talk to these guys [in a park]; one of them had voted. And when I asked him would you mind telling me who you voted for? He said, Well, lets put it this way. I didnt vote for Trump. So I said okay, so then I went to a businessman who has a wonderful sidewalk cafe, and he [said] something to the effect of, Why are they always on him about his taxes? [The man thought Trump was] a good businessman whos a good example for him as a businessman. The New Yorker ran it that Monday [before Election Day]. When the vote came out, by the time they analyzed it, that was absolutely correct: there were Black people who voted for Donald Trump. Is there anything going on in the world today that you think is under-covered or not getting enough attention? Its one thing to report on demonstrations and the work of organizations like Black Lives Matter and so forth. But its another thing to report on the underlying issues that cause those organizations to exist, that cause those protests. I see news organizations making changes and adding people of color. And its one thing to add people of color, which I applaud. Its another thing to make sure to add people of color who understand the dimensions of the race problem and who have contacts within the community. Edward R. Murrow, years ago, said this instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate, it can inspirebut it can only do so to the extent that we are willing to use it to those ends. Otherwise, its nothing but wires and lights in a box. And I quote that all the time. Im going to put that up next to my computer. Its an excellent prescription. Im curious, though, when you looked at your own body of work, were there issues or areas where you felt you still had work left to do? Something we have to work on is how you communicate with people you disagree with. I see that reported, especially when it comes to history and how you teach it and what you include. The question I have about that is how do we, as a nation and the people of the nation, communicatebecause I dont see a lot of communication between people who have one set ideas and people who have a different set. I think thats one of our biggest challenges. But again, the lessons from my own history are lessons that I think are equally applicable today. And I think that rather than be intimidated into not reporting on people of color and their issues, people in our profession in particular should be encouraged by our historythe good, the bad, the uglyto report on those issues. I do remember a conversation I had with my editor when I went to the New York Times. Before I was hired, I went for the interview and he asked me, if I was sent to Harlem, would I be able to tell the truths about Black people? He agreed eventually, and I set up office on 125th [Street], in a small room, big enough for me. I continue to work because I still believe in the profession and what it can do, which is one of the reasons I just did a piece on the Wampanoag. I have perspective and I still see things that I think I can give some prominence to. And while Ive slowed down on all of that I dont plan to not do it anytime soon. I found another story where a young Black woman is working on helping to educate young students about how best to communicate with people who dont agree with you, and one of the people who spoke along with her was a white teacher who is implementing those things in her curriculum. Weve just got to continue to emphasize the notion of what it takes to create a more perfect union. And, to be sure, informationgood informationis whats going to take us there. Nancy DeBoer for state representative I am enthusiastically supporting Nancy DeBoer for state representative because she possesses the experiences and qualities needed to represent us well in Lansing. I had the privilege of serving as an economist for Michigan state government for 37 years, including 18 years as the senior economist of the Michigan Senate and eight years as chief economist for the Department of Treasury. Over these years, I worked with many senators and representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, and the ones who were the most successful had three similarities: They knew their districts well. Prior to serving in Lansing, they held local elected positions. They were leaders. Nancy DeBoer has each of these qualities. She is a long-time resident of Holland (over 30 years). Nancy and her husband raised their family in Holland. She taught school in Holland. Holland is her home. She also served on Holland City Council and was mayor. Her deep love for Holland led her to serve in city government because she wanted to help make Holland an even better place to live, work and play. Nancy also has proven leadership skills. She can bring people together to solve difficult problems. Under her leadership as mayor, a new natural gas power plant was built, the Civic Center was modernized, and the west end of Hollands downtown was redeveloped. These are major accomplishments that took vision, hard work and the ability to bring people together. Nancy DeBoer has the qualities and experiences needed to be an outstanding state representative. Jay WortleyHolland Vote for Paul Kraus as new Ottawa judge On Nov. 8, Ottawa County will elect a new Circuit Court judge. The position has been designated as a family law position, which will handle some of the most significant cases involving children and families in our community. We know firsthand the difference a quality judge makes in a community. Paul Kraus makes an excellent choice for this position and has our full support. Story continues We have seen Paul serve our community with skill as a senior assistant prosecuting attorney handling child abuse matters, mental health commitment proceedings, felony crimes against children, and juvenile delinquency cases. Paul serves on the Ottawa County child death review team, where he works with other local professionals to prevent future deaths of youth in our community. In various roles, Paul has always shown great compassion for victims, children, and the most vulnerable in our community. Those skills will serve him well as a judge. Previously, Paul served as Deputy Holland City Attorney, as a family law practitioner at Cunningham Dalman, and as an assistant attorney general. Pauls 17 years of family law experience and demeanor will continue to make a difference in our community. Please join us in voting for Paul Kraus for Circuit Court judge. Ron Frantz, former Ottawa County ProsecutorGary Rosema, former Ottawa County Sheriff This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Letters to the Editor: Endorsement letters for local candidates A trans rights group marches in the pride parade. Saturday, June 18, 2022, in Columbus. Thousands turned out Saturday for Stonewall Columbus' Pride parade Downtown. It was the first in-person event since 2019 and a welcome sight for many. It is a hoax On Wednesday, Ohios State School Board is scheduled to vote to either accept or reject a board member's resolution that opposes federal protection for LGBTQ+ students. This resolution has been promoted as "supporting parents, schools, and districts" with gender identity policies, but it only supports an extreme political ideology. Opinion:Hilliard, state board showing how groups are spreading hate in Ohio school Be aware that the Title IX agency guidance that this resolution opposes isn't a change in law, nor is it a rule change. It is guidance issued by a federal agency to explain how participants in their federal program should comply with existing federal law. In September, many people eloquently testified about the importance of federal protection for LGBTQ+ children, but why should we need to convince the state school board of the value of protecting this marginalized population when they are already required to protect all students from harmful and traumatic discrimination? Letters: Ohio Board of Ed member's resolution will stop government's 'reign of terror.' By the way, the board member who introduced this resolution has no children in our schools, but according to his own testimony last month, he believes, "We've literally got kids who think they're cats and dogs using litterboxes in classrooms." Faith leaders: Ohio board of Ed member should study Bible, abandon anti-Christian attack Does he understand that this hoax was fabricated by political extremists as part of an absurd culture war accusing public school teachers of indoctrinating our students? Its ironic that people who spread elements of the school indoctrination myth do so to impose their own agenda, which is truly the epitome of indoctrination. Jeanne Melvin, Columbus 'Redlining' still causing harm The Oct. 9 excellent front page article "Redlining Influence" highlights one aspect of racial discrimination that is still impacting people of color to this day, years after it was exposed as standard operating procedure across the country. Story continues More:Redlining practices decades ago still influence life in Columbus neighborhoods The article also calls into question the knee-jerk attacks on Critical Race Theory. Instead of a nuanced discussion there is a well organized effort to use a distorted description of Critical Race Theory to suppress any discussion in our public schools of the history of racism, and its ongoing reality. Gregory Clark, Marysville There is already a program for that Everyone agrees all Americans deserve access to high-speed internet. Unfortunately, some leaders are considering misguided solutions to address our digital divide. More:Internet subsidies are out there, but many still haven't signed up One proposal is to construct a new, government-owned broadband network in Columbus despite ubiquitous coverage at speeds well-above the federal broadband definition. Building a redundant network would do nothing to get Columbus residents without a connection online since they already have access. The issue is that they dont know how or cant afford to. Thats why we should focus on amplifying the most impactful solution we have at our disposal the Affordable Connectivity Program. Letters: How to cut your internet bill by $30. Secret Service's excuses 'lame' The program, thanks to President Bidens infrastructure law, provides up to a $30 monthly voucher to eligible households (about 4-in-10 Americans). Think tank Innovation Ohio outlined in their report that Affordable Connectivity Program is the best tool at our disposal, writing leveraging Affordable Connectivity Program will provide an easier path for communities to serve the needs of residents than the costly buildout of government-owned networks. A new network would also cost millions, diverting resources away from pressing issues like uncertainty surrounding how taxpayers will fund teachers salaries. Instead of throwing millions at a duplicative network, we should promote the Affordable Connectivity Program for a fraction of the cost. Rep. Latyna Humphrey, Columbus This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Letters: Ohio School Board vote on gender resolution part of culture war Story at a glance Openly LGBTQ members of Congress on Tuesday celebrated National Coming Out Day on social media. National Coming Out Day is celebrated each year on Oct. 11, the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the first openly LGBTQ person and first woman of color to hold the position, also celebrated the day by sharing her own coming out story. Openly LGBTQ members of Congress commemorated National Coming Out Day on Tuesday with posts on social media, encouraging LGBTQ people to feel pride in living as their most authentic selves. Come out, speak out, and engage as if it were your birthright to do so which, of course, it is!, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) wrote Tuesday in a tweet that was accompanied by a rainbow Pride Flag emoji. Baldwin in 2012 became the first openly gay person elected to the Senate. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the second openly LGBTQ candidate elected to the Senate and the first openly bisexual person to serve in Congress, joined Baldwin in recognizing National Coming Out Day, which is celebrated each year on Oct. 11, the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. All Arizonans should be able to live their lives freely and without discrimination no matter who they are or who they love, Sinema wrote. Happy #NationalComingOutDay, AZ. America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. Other openly LGBTQ members of Congress including Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) also commemorated the day with posts on social media. Reps. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), both of whom have transgender children, posted their own tributes for National Coming Out Day to celebrate their kids living as their authentic selves. Authenticity is quite possibly the most important thing in ones life, Newman tweeted Tuesday. When my daughter told me she was trans, I threw my hands in the air and said hooray. Im so glad you found your authenticity. Story continues Newman and Jayapal, along with Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), serve as co-chairs of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus Transgender Equality Task Force. The White House also celebrated National Coming Out Day on Tuesday, posting a photo of LGBTQ staffers and reaffirming the administrations belief that LGBTQI+ rights are human rights. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre the first openly LGBTQ person and first woman of color to hold the position said Tuesday she was proud to share her coming out story. Like so many in the LGBTQ+ community, coming out wasnt an easy thing to do. My family was traditional and conservative. Being gay in my family wasnt something that you mentioned out loud or celebrated, Jean-Pierre wrote in a Twitter thread. But my family, like many families, grew to accept who I was. The beauty of America is its freedom and the promise that you can do anything you want regardless of your race, sex, country of origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity, Jean-Pierre wrote. Dont feel discouraged if you come out and your family doesnt embrace you right away. Love always wins! For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. KYIV, Ukraine Ukraines State Emergencies Service says that 19 people were killed and 105 others were wounded in Mondays Russian missile strikes across Ukraine. It said Tuesday that critical infrastructure facilities were hit in Kyiv and 12 other regions, and 301 cities and towns were without power. Russia on Monday retaliated for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months. They hit at least 14 regions, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the wars front lines. ___ KEY DEVELOPMENTS: Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine Worried UN meets on Ukraine hours after Russian strikes Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine ___ TALLINN, Estonia Moscows barrage of missile strikes on cities across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield. Commentators lauded Mondays large-scale attack as an appropriate and long-awaited response to Kyivs successful counteroffensives and a weekend attack on a key bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of the strikes in order to win the war. Some analysts suggested that President Vladimir Putin is becoming a hostage of his own allies views on how the military campaign in Ukraine should unfold. ___ HONG KONG Hong Kong leader John Lee says he will only implement United Nations sanctions, after the U.S. warned the territorys status as a financial center could be affected if it acts as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals. Lees statement Tuesday came days after a luxury yacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov docked in the city. Story continues Mordashov, who is believed to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and the European Union in February after Russias invasion of Ukraine. Hong Kong authorities have said that they do not implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other governments. We cannot do anything that has no legal basis, Lee told reporters. We will comply with United Nations sanctions, that is our system, that is our rule of law, he said. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement Monday that the possible use of Hong Kong as a safe haven by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions further calls into question the transparency of the business environment. The former Los Angeles City Council president announced Tuesday that she was taking a leave of absence following calls for her, two of her colleagues and a labor leader to resign after they were caught making racist and offensive remarks in a leaked audio recording that has caused a firestorm in City Hall. Councilwoman Nury Martinez, who represents parts of the city's San Fernando Valley, made the announcement Tuesday, the first time the council met since the Los Angeles Times reported on the recording. "This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognize this is entirely of my own making," Martinez said in a statement. "At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders." Numerous local and state leaders have called for Martinez and council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo to step down. Martinez stepped down as council president on Monday, but critics have said it's not good enough. LA CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT CALLED TO STEP DOWN OVER RACIST REMARKS IN LEAKED AUDIO Los Angeles Councilman Kevin de Leon, left, and then-Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez confer at an Oct. 4 city council meeting. Martinez, de Leon and Councilman Gil Cedillo are being pressured to resign after they were caught on an audio recording making racist and offensive remarks. Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, who was part of the October 2021 conversation, resigned from his post on Monday. All four have publicly apologized. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The council met for the first Tuesday since the scandal erupted over the weekend. Councilman Mitch O'Farrell was elevated to interim president. Meanwhile, protesters outside City Hall were seen calling for the other three city leaders to resign. Several public speakers called for the three council members to be removed and investigated. The firestorm came after the Times published an article detailing a conversation between the four where they spoke about the city's redistricting process at the time. However, Martinez could be heard mocking the Black son of Councilman Mike Bonin, saying he handled the child like an "accessory" and described him as a "parece changuito," or "like a monkey." Story continues She also referred to Bonin as a "little b----" and made fun of Mexicans from Oaxaca, which is known for its indigenous people and culture. DISGRACED FORMER LA CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT SAID CUTTING POLICE FUNDING 'STEP' TOWARD ENDING RACISM "I see a lot of little short dark people," Martinez said referring to an area of the largely Hispanic Koreatown neighborhood. "I was like, I dont know where these people are from, I dont know what village they came (from), how they got here," she said, adding "tan feos" "Theyre ugly." De Leon also called Bonin the council's fourth Black member. "Mike Bonin wont f-ing ever say peep about Latinos. Hell never say a f-ing word about us," he said. In addition to Bonin and other council members, leaders and elected officials up and down California have called for all four to step down, including U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and various local law enforcement unions and figures. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "Bigotry, violence, and division too often live in unseen and unheard places, but have severe consequences on the lives of our fellow Angelenos when they are not confronted and left to infect our public and private lives," Garcetti said in a statement. Chicago police evidence technicians process a crime scene on 79th Street at Jeffery Boulevard where a person was shot and killed on Oct. 11, 2022. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot Tuesday morning in the South Shore neighborhood, Chicago police said. The boy was followed by an unknown male, who opened fire on the boy on the 1900 block of East 79th Street around 8:38 a.m., police said. Advertisement The boy sustained multiple gunshot wounds to his body and was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital, where he was then pronounced, police said. No other injuries were reported. The unknown male fled from the scene and is not yet in custody. The investigation is ongoing. A look at the shareholders of Joules Group Plc (LON:JOUL) can tell us which group is most powerful. With 50% stake, institutions possess the maximum shares in the company. In other words, the group stands to gain the most (or lose the most) from their investment into the company. Institutional investors would probably welcome last week's 38% increase in share prices after a year of 95% losses as a sign that returns are likely to begin trending higher. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Joules Group, beginning with the chart below. View our latest analysis for Joules Group What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Joules Group? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. Joules Group already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Joules Group's historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Joules Group. Because actions speak louder than words, we consider it a good sign when insiders own a significant stake in a company. In Joules Group's case, its Top Key Executive, Tom Simon Joule, is the largest shareholder, holding 22% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 6.8% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 5.1% by the third-largest shareholder. Story continues We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent. Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are a reasonable number of analysts covering the stock, so it might be useful to find out their aggregate view on the future. Insider Ownership Of Joules Group While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Joules Group Plc. It has a market capitalization of just UK1.0b, and insiders have UK223m worth of shares in their own names. That's quite significant. Most would say this shows a good degree of alignment with shareholders, especially in a company of this size. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership With a 28% ownership, the general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, have some degree of sway over Joules Group. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Next Steps: While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Joules Group (of which 2 are a bit unpleasant!) you should know about. If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. 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 Oct. 11La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) held a community rally with current and former Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients Monday morning in downtown Brownsville. The rally, held in front of the Brownsville federal courthouse at 600 E. Harrison St., was in response to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Texas v. United States against DACA on Oct. 5, sending it back to United States District Judge Andrew S. Hanen in Brownsville to further decide the fate of the program. Speakers presented in both English and Spanish, and supporters displayed signs in support for the DACA program and to demand for a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants. (Bloomberg) -- Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysias 97-year-old former prime minister, said he will defend his Langkawi parliamentary seat in the upcoming general election. Most Read from Bloomberg The countrys longest-serving leader, who was instrumental in unseating the ruling United Malays National Organisation in the historic 2018 election before losing power in 2020, said his party had yet to pick a candidate as premier. Still, he remained open to cooperating with other parties that opposed UMNO. We havent decided on who will be prime minister as it is only relevant if we win, Mahathir said at a briefing in Putrajaya on Tuesday. Mahathir said that his coalition of Malay parties will contest 120 of the 222 seats up for the grabs in the polls. Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved parliament Monday, paving the way for elections this year as UMNO seeks to strengthen its position following a run of successful local polls. A general election must be held within 60 days after parliament is dissolved. While a national vote isnt due until September next year, key members of UMNO wanted to hold it early to capitalize on the oppositions disarray and redeem itself following a shock defeat in 2018 after roughly six decades in power. UMNO returned to the ruling bloc two years later after the collapse of Mahathirs administration, but has led a fragile coalition since then. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. A major fire broke out at a power substation in Shebekino, near Russias Belgorod, leaving at least 2,000 residents without electricity Read also: Thousands of newly-mobilized Russian conscripts in Belgorod complain about barbaric conditions Gladkov alleged Ukrainian forces have shelled the facility. Read also: Explosions heard in the Russian town of Valuiky in Belgorod Oblast More than 2,000 people are now off the grid, he said. Read also: Explosion at electrical substation leaves Russian city Belgorod without power No people were killed or injured Numerous photos and videos from the site of the fire have emerged across social media. Help NV continue reporting on the Russian invasion Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine A new poll has found that a majority of Black voters believe former President Trump should face criminal charges for how he handled classified documents after leaving office. The poll, released Tuesday as part of the HIT Strategies monthly BlackTrack survey, found 81 percent of Black voters support the Department of Justices investigation into Trump and 80 percent want to see him charged. Trump held more than 300 classified documents after leaving the White House, and an unsealed warrant in August revealed federal authorities were investigating him for possible violations of the Espionage Act. But the number of Black voters who want to see the former president charged is significantly higher than the numbers of other voters who feel the same. An August poll by The Economist and YouGov showed only 54 percent of the general population approved of the probe and only 45 percent believed Trump should face criminal charges. At the time, only 59 percent of Black voters believed he should face criminal charges. Its likely a widely held understanding that the justice system operates one way for the rich and powerful and another way for everyone else, Jermaine House, senior director of communications for HIT Strategies, said in a statement to The Hill. Holding insurrectionists accountable for breaking into the Capitol, and Donald Trump here, for his flagrant abuses of power, is important to Black voters. They know if someone from their community committed similar crimes, legal action would be harsh and swift, House continued. The BlackTrack survey also showed support for President Biden and Congressional Democrats has increased. Fifty-six percent of Black voters said Biden has made progress on issues affecting Black voters, an increase of 12 points since Julys survey. Much of that comes from the 60 percent of Black voters who strongly supported Bidens student loan forgiveness plan. Another 26 percent somewhat supported it. Story continues President Bidens loan forgiveness plan represents another promise fulfilled on one of the most critical economic priorities for Black voters, said Terrance Woodbury, a founding partner at HIT Strategies. Now, the President must message this plan directly to voters and continue to illustrate how his policies are improving the economic well-being of Black America. Eighty-two percent of Black voters said they plan to vote in November, an increase of 3 percentage points from August. And 67 percent now believe their vote has the power to effect change on the issues most important to them. Black voters increasing perceptions of political power is a direct combination of President Bidens recent victories on major policy issue priorities for Black communities, like student loans and climate change, as well as other achievements over the past two years, House said. The more that Black voters hear and learn of policy successes, the more they believe their vote means something and creates an environment for real change, House added. The survey was conducted online from Sept. 15 to Sept. 19 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. BOSTON, Mass. The Providence man who kidnapped and murdered a Boston woman three years ago was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday. BREAKING: Louis Coleman sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping & killing Jassy Correia in 2019. Judge says he can serve sentence in a prison in Arizona or somewhere close to his family in California @boston25 pic.twitter.com/0Z9MLTWtJb Litsa Pappas (@LitsaPappas) October 11, 2022 Louis Coleman, 36, was sentenced in federal court in Boston, months after he was found guilty of kidnapping resulting in the death of 23-year-old Jassy Correia. Prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence throughout the month-long trial, arguing Coleman enticed Correia, lured her into his car, held her against her will, and ultimately killed her in February 2019. Correias body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the back of Colemans car when he was eventually tracked down days later in Delaware. Prosecutors said Correia died of strangulation and had suffered blunt force trauma to her head, torso, upper body and neck. Before the judge ordered Coleman to spend the rest of his life behind bars, the court heard emotional impact statements from Correias grandmother and godmother. Correias family told Coleman that he was a monster and heartless, adding that he destroyed their family. Correia left behind a daughter who was just two years of age at the time of her mothers death. First Assistant US- District Attorney Joshua Levy, standing with Correias family, stated that the verdict could never truly fill the hole left behind by her death. Nothing that happens in this building will ever replace the huge void in the hearts of the people behind me, said Levy. And if there was one consistent theme in the courtroom it was why - why why was this loving daughter taken so brutally, why was this vibrant mother taken from us. Story continues During trial, the defense never denied that Coleman killed Correia but tried to argue there was no kidnapping and that Correia went with Coleman willingly. They argued her death was the result of a fight that she started. We have gotten to know Louis quite well over the past 3.5 years, said defense attorney David Hoose. He is not a monster he is a bright intelligent young man who had a great future ahead of him. This crime was gut-wrenching and there is no question todays sentence is just, said a statement from Bostons FBI division in part. #FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joseph R. Bonavolonta's statement following today's sentencing of Louis D. Coleman III, of Providence, RI, to life in federal prison for the kidnapping and killing of Jassy Correia in 2019. pic.twitter.com/3WBRWJqjTc FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) October 11, 2022 The federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death holds a mandatory sentence of death or life in prison. Prosecutors previously said that they would not seek the death penalty. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A 46-year-old Missouri man was shot on the parking lot of Pops nightclub in Sauget early Saturday morning, police say. Sauget Police Chief James Jones said police were alerted about the shooting at about 5:30 a.m. Two vehicles pulled onto the parking lot, he said. A man exited a gold, four-door Mercury Marquis and approached a blue Ford. Shots were fired from the Ford Fusion, striking the man who had stepped out of the Mercury, Jones said. He remains at a St. Louis-area hospital in stable, but critical condition. Police have located the Ford, but not the alleged shooter, Jones said. The investigation is ongoing, he said. A Washington, D.C., man was sentenced to nine years in prison after federal officials accused him of assaulting his former girlfriend while under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug. On May 6, Brian Wesley, 47, gained access to his ex-girlfriends southeast D.C. apartment and stabbed her over 50 times, according to a release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia. Wesley had been kicked out of his ex-girlfriends home sometime around late April, officials said, and had later sent threatening text messages to her. After the stabbing, the ex-girlfriend lay motionless and quiet, and Wesley leaped from a third-floor window, resulting in a broken hip among other injuries, according to the release. An attorney for Wesley could not immediately be reached for comment by McClatchy News. Upon receiving a 911 call from neighbors, first responders arrived and found the ex-girlfriend limp and bleeding on the stairwell while Wesley was unconscious on the sidewalk outside with the bloody knife nearby, according to the release. Wesley was arrested, and has been detained since then. His ex-girlfriend was brought to a hospital where she underwent multiple surgeries. PCP, the illegal street drug that officials said Wesley was under the influence of at the time of the assault, is a mind-altering substance, according to Mount Sinai Medical Center. Large doses of the drug, which usually comes in a white powder, can cause the user to act strangely or become violent. Wesley pleaded guilty in July to one charge of assault with the intent to kill. Following his nine-year sentence, which was announced on Oct. 7, he will be placed on supervised release for three years in which he will receive substance abuse and mental health treatment, according to the release. Wesley, who reportedly apologized for the pain and the suffering of the victim in court, will also be ordered to have no contact with his ex-girlfriend. This situation has impacted me severely, she told the judge in an impact statement, according to the DC Witness, a local site dedicated to homicide coverage. I have permanent back damage. I am permanently blind in my left eye, and I just got hand surgery. I have three kids, three little ones who looked up to Mr. Wesley as a dad. Story continues Hikers discover remains of man missing for months in California mountains, cops say Firefighter dies trying to refuel car that ran out of gas, South Carolina coroner says Wendys worker with Down syndrome fired after 20 years, and thousands rally behind him Tea master shares family secret for common prosperity Xinhua) 08:46, October 11, 2022 Zhu Xuelan picks tea leaves in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Lu Boan) NANNING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- When Zhu Xuelan raised the idea of disclosing her family's tea-making secret to fellow villagers, she received strong opposition from her family members. "How can we share the crafts passed down from our ancestors with other people?" This was the most common response. Zhu comes from a family of master tea-makers in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. They make Liubao tea, a Chinese dark tea characterized by its strong and lingering fragrance and medical effects. The tea, with a history of more than 1,500 years, was named after Zhu's hometown Liubao Town. Zhu, 51, is the Party chief of Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao. She was elected a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Once in poverty, the village has prospered thanks to Zhu's leadership and generous sharing of her family secret. Most households in Zhu's village of Shanping know how to grow and make Liubao tea. However, about a decade ago, the tea quality varied greatly due to different tea-making skills, and those who had achieved success kept their crafts as a family secret. That did little to help the local tea industry, which suffered from inconvenient transportation and limited information back then due to the mountain-locked landscape. Zhu, elected Party chief of the village in 2008, was determined to change the situation and seek fortune for her folks. Among the first things she did was to build cement roads to connect the village to the outside world. Then, she turned to vitalize the traditional tea-making trade of the village. Despite opposition from her family, Zhu insisted on sharing the family tea-making secret. "To develop an industry, you can never do it alone. Only by creating our brand can the industry really prosper," said Zhu, who keeps in mind her identity as a Party member. "As a Party member, I always remember my original aspiration when I joined it," said Zhu. "Tea-making is a good path to prosperity. If I didn't share my family craft to others, how could our mountainous village achieve better development?" She turned the bungalow where she processed tea into a classroom and began imparting tea-making skills to tea planters from Shanping and surrounding villages. Over the years, Zhu has helped nearly 1,000 tea industry practitioners master traditional tea-making skills for high-quality products to increase their income. Gradually, the Liubao tea produced by the Shanping village won fame in the country, and more and more people in the village joined the industry. In 2016, Shanping Village was lifted out of poverty, and tea plantations have expanded from 20 hectares 10 years ago to more than 170 hectares now. By the end of 2021, the villagers' annual per capita income reached 21,000 yuan (about 2,958 U.S. dollars). "I have witnessed the changes in Shanping over the past decade," Zhu said, adding that she is preparing to combine the local tea culture with Yao ethnic culture for tourism development in the future. Zhu Xuelan walks on a country road in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Lu Boan) Zhu Xuelan (R) and a villager weigh a bag of newly-picked tea leaves in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Lu Boan) Zhu Xuelan (front) walks down a hill with villagers after picking tea leaves in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Lu Boan) (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Du Mingming) Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 10 Election official Cynthia Webb puts out stickers on the first day of early voting for the 2022 general election at the Chicago Board of Elections Loop Super Site on Oct. 7, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) A Florida man was sentenced to 30-40 years in New Hampshire State Prison after allegedly stealing almost $500,000 from a 97-year-old woman, according to Attorney General John Formella. Michael Smith, 60, of Avon Park, Florida was sentenced on multiple counts of theft by unauthorized taking. According to a statement by the Attorney Generals office, Smith stole $495,043.53 from the 97-year-old woman he was living with in New Hampshire at the time. The jury also found that Smith attempted to steal additional money from the victim, bringing the total value of the money he stole or attempted to steal to approximately $1.8 million. The jury concluded that Smith took advantage of the victims age and condition that impaired her ability to manage her property or protect her interests. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW JOHANNESBURG (AP) A 21-year-old male has appeared in a South African court in connection with the discovery of six bodies at a car repair workshop in Johannesburg. The victims are believed to have been sex workers and the suspect is so far facing one charge of murder. He was arrested on Sunday in connection with the disappearance of one woman but then five other bodies were discovered during his arrest. The suspect is expected to be in an identity line-up before he appears again in court on Oct. 18, according to officials. The case has sparked an outcry from women's rights groups who are calling for police and officials to do more to fight gender violence. The groups protested outside the Johannesburg Magistrates Court on Tuesday, calling for the suspect to be denied bail. The media has been barred from publishing images of the suspect until the identity line-up has been conducted. Mark Zuckerberg showed full avatar at Meta connect event Facebook Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuted the new metaverse avatars at the company's Connect conference. Zuckerberg's avatar featured legs, which he said was "probably the most requested feature." The company also announced a new $1,499 Quest Pro virtual reality headset, and new partnerships. Mark Zuckerberg debuted his new avatar in real-time during Meta's Connect event on Tuesday. It was the first time the Facebook founder has held a public conference in Meta's Horizon World metaverse. Zuckerberg took the opportunity to announce the updated avatars, which he said will be rolled out later this year across phones and virtual reality headsets. He called the new avatars "more expressive and detailed than anything else today." The new avatars will also have legs, something Zuckerberg said was "probably the most requested feature on our roadmap." The metaverse avatars didn't have legs before because it was harder in virtual reality to accurately position where body parts like legs are, the Facebook founder said. "But seriously, legs are hard, which is why other virtual reality systems don't have them either," Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg's announcement came just a few months after the billionaire was slammed on social media for an avatar he posted on Instagram. Social-media users were quick to diss the image which showed Zuckerberg's avatar standing in front of an Eiffel Tower, with some likening the graphics to 1990s video games like Zelda and Quake. Zuckerberg shared an updated metaverse avatar image Friday after being widely mocked for a previous version. Mark Zuckerberg At the time, Zuckerberg responded with an updated avatar and admitted the previous image was "basic." "The graphics in Horizon are capable of much more even on headsets and Horizon is improving very quickly," Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post in August. Grimes also took the opportunity to slam Zuckerberg and his avatar, calling him "under-qualified" to run the metaverse and saying the billionaire's virtual reality plans are "dead" before they've truly begun. Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Zuckerberg had fast-tracked a new avatar following the criticism, with one Meta graphic artist claiming in a since-deleted LinkedIn post that he and his team had designed roughly 40 versions of Mr. Zuckerberg's face over a four-week period before a final version was approved. Story continues "We started with simple graphics and we're doing a ton of work to meaningfully improve how Horizon will look and feel over the next year," Zuckerberg said at the Meta Connect event. "The Metaverse needs to feel inspired." But, Meta has faced headwinds in recent months, as the company's stock has been hammered amid Zuckerberg's new plans for the company. Shares of Meta neared a four-year low on Tuesday. Internal memos obtained by The Verge last week showed Meta's VP of the Metaverse, Vishal Shah, telling Metaverse employees working on the Horizon Worlds app they are on "quality lockdown" for the rest of the year to fix issues in the app before its released to more users. In one memo, Shah said the app's onboarding experience is "confusing and frustrating." Shah said employees working on the app weren't spending a lot of time on it. "Why don't we love the product we've built so much that we use it all the time," Shah wrote. "The simple truth is, if we don't love it, how can we expect our users to love it?" The Facebook founder announced at the event that the new avatars will eventually be available via a partnership with Zoom, as well as on Android and Apple phones. During the event, Meta unveiled its new $1499 Quest Pro virtual reality headset. The company also announced several new partnerships with NBCUniversal and Microsoft, including a metaverse experience based on "The Office" and the opportunity for people to use Microsoft tools like Word and Excel in the metaverse. Read the original article on Business Insider Marylous has opened up a new coffee shop in Massachusetts. The Hanover-based chain recently celebrated the grand opening of a cafe at 225 Waverley Oaks Road in Waltham. Waltham-area residents in search of work have been invited to a hiring event at the new location. On-the-spot interviews will be held Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Marylous has always emphasized the quality of our coffee and the hometown enthusiasm of our team members, a post on the chains website reads. Weve always encouraged each employee to know the favorites of their regular patrons and greet new customers as if they had been coming daily. Founded in 1986, Marylous now operates more than 40 locations across Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Pensacola contractor Matt Banks' restitution bill climbed again Tuesday after Escambia County's contractor board levied almost a half million in new sanctions against him Tuesday. After nine more disciplinary hearings before the Escambia Contractor Competency Board, Banks was ordered to pay $447,754.46 after all board members unanimously voted in favor of all nine complainants. One of the complainants, April Gunnell, told the board Banks' mishaps were not mistakes or a sign of bad times. Matt Banks, owner of Banks Construction, saw his restitution bill climb again by $447,754.46 on Tuesday. In total, Banks has been ordered to pay over $1.5 million to various clients in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. Imminent change?: After Matt Banks furor, Sen. Broxson seeks to streamline contractor complaint process Criminal charge: State Attorney files first criminal charge against Pensacola contractor Matt Banks "I just think we need to be looking at the fact that he is a thief, and he is a crook, and he needs to be held accountable for everything that he has done to everybody who has been siting before you," Gunnell told the board Tuesday. Banks has been the subject of numerous complaints from a wave of homeowners who said Banks took and kept monetary deposits for work he never finished. Gunnell hired Banks on April 14, 2021, for a kitchen remodel for roughly $35,300, but said he has not completed the project after demoing portions of her kitchen. "I'm sitting there with a hole in my home," Gunnell said. "I'm doing dishes next to my chicken coop." This makes Banks' restitution bill $609,702.67 in just two weeks after the competency board ordered over $150,000 in restitution Oct. 5. In total, Banks is ordered to pay over $1.5 million to various clients in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. He has had his contractor license revoked in both counties. While Banks' clients say he's stolen money from them, only one criminal charge has been filed against the former contractor by the Office of the State Attorney, a charge he picked up after the Pensacola Police Department issued an arrest warrant against Banks for failing to issue a refund. According to court records, the State Attorney's Office is pursuing a charge of fraud against Banks. His next court date is scheduled for Jan. 18, 2023. Story continues The Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement is currently investigating over 70 complaints in a large fraud case, but have not commented on the status of the case since it is currently an active investigation. Benjamin Johnson can be reached at bjohnson@pnj.com or 850-435-8578 This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola's Matt Banks faces $1.5M bill as restitution cases continue Matthew McConaughey is reflecting on the Uvalde school shooting more than four months after the tragedy in a new essay for Esquire. The Oscar winner, who grew up in the Texas town, detailed the emotional trip back home that ultimately sent him on a gun-reform mission to Washington, D.C. "I learned just how frustrating politics can be," McConaughey declared. Nineteen children and two teaches were massacred at Robb Elementary School on May 24. McConaughey learned about the shooting, which occurred "less than a mile from where I went to school and my mom taught kindergarten," after a long day on set. "I'm sickened by the spate of mass shootings in America especially those at schools, which are supposed to be some of the safest of spaces for our children and the closest extensions of our own homes. But this time felt different, more personal," the actor began. McConaughey and his wife Camila immediately went to in Uvalde, which he remembers as "eerily quiet and intensely civil." After meeting with many of the victims families, the actor "began to think about my own relationship with guns." Matthew McConaughey speaks about Uvalde shooting during the White House daily press briefing on June 7, 2022. (Photo: The Washington Post via Getty Images) "Uvalde is also where my dad introduced me to my first firearm, a Daisy BB gun. I was nine, and I still remember the sober tone he assumed while presenting it. 'This is a tool, son,' he said. 'It can feed you, and it can take a life. You must give it full respect.' He instilled in me the rules of engagement: barrel management, muzzle control, safety catch, secure storage, the awareness of whats behind your target," the Wolf of Wall Street star recalled. "He taught me responsible gun ownership." McConaughey emphasized that he supports the Second Amendment. "I believe we should have access to guns for hunting, sport, and self-defense. I believe all firearm purchases should be subject to an extensive background check, and unless you're in the military, you should be twenty-one to purchase an assault rifle. I believe that extreme risk protection orders, or 'red-flag laws,' that respect due process should be the law of the land and that firearm-safety courses should be mandatory," he wrote. Story continues "Most of my friends and neighbors in Texas agree with these positions, and many of them also agree that our Second Amendment rights have been getting hijacked by troubled men with bad intent," McConaughey continued. "It seems we have forgotten that our rights come with obligations what's more, that our rights depend on our fulfillment of those obligations. To do nothing is more than irresponsible; it's un-American. Our firearm policy is failing us, and we are failing it." McConaughey noted he's "not a politician" and doesn't "speak their language," but sees where our elected officials are failing. "Yet the push and pull between gun-rights supporters on one side and gun-control supporters on the other is vicious, uniquely American, and, yes, very political," he said. "What I did have at that moment were the raw, firsthand accounts of the Uvalde families we'd spent time with. I recalled one constant from those conversations, a wish each and every parent expressed to us: I just want my child's death to matter.' Each time, the emphasis had been on the last word." After meeting with politicians at the state level, McConaughey was told he had to go to the nation's capital if there was any hope of getting something done. The actor's publicist connected him with a "D. C.-based political advisory team." He and his wife got a "crash course in congressional maneuvering." "Everything, I learned, is a negotiation," he said. "As much homework as I'd done, I knew better than to present myself as some self-taught gun-policy guru. I reminded myself, 'McConaughey, you're not here to be an expert. You are here as a conduit for sharing stories from the front lines in Uvalde. Seek common ground in the opposing arguments presented to you, and use that to weave a strong case for sensible change,'" the actor continued. "On our first night in town, Camila and I hosted a dinner at a Georgetown restaurant for a bipartisan group of members of the House and Senate," McConaughey said. They began the dinner with "a gratitude circle, the same ritual I learned as a child in Uvalde and have maintained since." The actor said it broke the ice and "for this one meal, political enemies were listening to one another as human allies." The dinner lasted three hours, and while he didn't divulge who attended, McConaughey noted "opinions were openly but civilly argued." "More than once, I heard an attendee say to their colleague, 'I had no idea that's why you felt that way," he shared. During his visit, McConaughey met with President Joe Biden and delivered a powerful speech through which he shared stories about the victims in a plea for gun responsibility. Weeks later, Congress passed the biggest bipartisan gun legislation in three decades. "Does the bill solve everything? Hell no. No law will heal Uvalde, or any community that suffered a similar tragedy. Does it move us in the right direction? Yes," McConaughey said. "When we spoke to the families in the wake of the bill's passage, they expressed gratitude. It won't bring their kids back, but it does make them feel like, to some extent, their government finally listened. That their kids' dreams now have a better chance of inspiring others and helping keep our children safe." McConaughey continued, "Did our efforts make an impact? I've been told they did. Part of me hopes thats true. But another part of me is frustrated that we could have an impact. We didn't show up on the Hill with a new invention or a groundbreaking argument. We just helped frame the discussion in reasonable ways so that all sides could digest it." McConaughey said he "learned a lot" in that four day trip to D. C. "I arrived in Washington with such a reverence for our government and those who run it. While I'm not going to say that I lost that reverence, I did see the most powerful legislators in America playing an implicit political game, one they seemed to be handcuffed to, even systematically imprisoned by, as if it were the price of entry," he wrote. McConaughey believes most Americans "don't stand on the political fringes." "We are reasonable and responsible, and we share more values than we're being told we do and we believe that meeting each other in the middle is in service of the greater good. We have the majority. We have the numbers," he said, encouraging people to "take the megaphone back from the extremists who've been manufacturing these false fractures among us." "Democrats don't have a trademark on empathy, just as Republicans dont have a patent on self-reliance. Values are free-trade assets, meant to be exchanged and adopted across party lines and amongst us all. America can thrive only when all sides answer the call and all arguments end in a comma. We'll find common ground when we reach for higher ground," McConaughey declared. The award-winning actor concluded by saying change needs to start at home. "If we want safer communities, more freedom, and better leaders, were gonna have to build better people," he said. "Sometimes you have to go back to actually move forward. To revisit where you came from, and where you have been, to see where you are going. Look after your roots, look after your family, look in the mirror. Ask yourself what you value, and answer. Or, more simply, just come back home." MORE: Matthew McConaughey calls for gun control on Fox News A Dallas County anesthesiologist dubbed a "medical terrorist" by the U.S. Attorney's Office has been indicted on 10 counts, CBS DFW reports. The indictment spells out five instances in August when Dr. Ray Ortiz is accused of tampering with IV bags and five when he was allegedly involved in the "adulteration" of drugs. The indictment says patients were seriously injured in four of those cases. Federal investigators believe Ortiz began spiking IV bags with dangerous drugs in May, but haven't been able to retrieve surveillance video from that far back. Ortiz will be back in court Friday, when he's expected to plead not guilty to the charges. Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz Jr. / Credit: CBS DFW CBS DFW reported on Sept. 9 that the Texas Medical Board had temporarily suspended Ortiz' medical license after getting information from federal law enforcement on an ongoing investigation. In a news release, the board said it was determined that Ortiz' continuing to practice medicine would pose "a continuing threat to public welfare." The suspension will remain in place until the board takes further action. According to court documents, the board was told the probe related to serious cardiac complications during routine surgeries and one patient's death connected with Ortiz' time at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare's North Dallas facility from May through September. Documents say Ortiz was seen on surveillance footage in the facility depositing single IV bags into what's known as a warmer in the hall outside operating rooms. Warmers keep the saline fluids inside the bags at certain temperatures. Shortly after he deposited the IV bags in the warmer, according to documents, a patient would suffer a serious complication. At the time, CBS DFW reached out to Baylor Scott & White and to Ortiz. Baylor Scott & White released the following statement: "The safety of those we serve remains our priority. We will continue to limit our comments as we support authorities in their investigation." Ortiz told the station, "I'm just devastated," and that he didn't do anything. Story continues Dr. Jon LaPook explains new study on colonoscopies and colon cancer deaths Prosecutors drop all charges against "Serial" podcast subject Adnan Syed Uvalde schools superintendent announces retirement Trisha Denise Mimi Meyer is currently facing four federal charges in relation to her illegal transportation and sale of an endangered jaguar ( ) Move over, Joe Exotic, and make way for Mimi Erotic the fugitive, false-eyelashed, lip-plumped blonde animal dealer whos been weaving a path of destruction through man and beast alike for well over a decade. Her real name and she goes by many aliases is Trisha Denise Meyer, and shes currently on the run from the law after being charged with four counts in relation to the illegal transportation and sale of a jaguar. That jaguar, named Amador by Meyer but renamed Hades by one of its subsequent shady owners, is currently resting happily at an animal sanctuary in southern California. But Amador has fared far better than many of the exotic animals in Meyers care and better than many of the humans shes had dealings with, it seems. The 40-year-old mother, wherever she is, has been raising, advertising and selling animals for years across various states from Texas to California to Colorado. She uses different names; some know her as Emily, some Mimi, some Trissa, some Trisha. On Instagram, she utilised two known accounts: @mimisexoticworld and @mimiseroticworld. The latter, which is still active, features racy images and videos of Meyer in animal-print barely-there lingerie and links to a now-defunct account on OnlyFans, a site where subscribers pay for content that is often erotic. Meyer makes clear on her Instagram account that that is exactly the type of content featured on her OnlyFans, which she started last year. Meyer illegally sold this jaguar cub to a California man for $30,000 and transported the animal from Texas for an additional fee, according to court documents (Department of Justice) But her apparent history of animal mistreatment and con-artistry dates back far longer. It was in 2010, in fact, that one unfortunate Texas landlord found himself dealing with Meyers chaos and nearly losing his house. The now-52-year-old man, who asked to be identified only by his initials AP due to his federal job, had only recently gotten divorced when his path crossed that of Meyer, who was a single mother in her 20s at the time. He allowed her to move into his rental home with her young children and what she described as a couple of dogs. Story continues And then four months goes by, she has never paid me one dollar in rent, he tells The Independent. And I say, Hey, listen, youre either going to get out, or Im going to legally evict you, and thats going to be that. Meyer reacted, he says, by packing up not only her things but his stealing what he describes as up to $30,000 worth of tools from a storage unit on the property. He claims she destroyed personal items of his, such as baby photograph books, and even tried to burn down the property as she left in a U-Haul with her stash. The number of dogs in the house, he says, had ballooned to a shocking 104. How in the hell do you have 104 dogs all in my living room? he asks, relating an unbelievable story of his friends response to the site when he accompanied AP to survey it. The friend came over to look at the property and the damage and he goes, Hey, man, that is the strangest-looking coffee table Ive ever seen in my life, AP says. And I said, Thats not a coffee table. Thats dog****. Disgusting isnt even close to how bad it was, he tells The Independent. Meyer, 40, has racked up a huge number of online complaints from landlords and people who bought animals from her over the past 12 years (Instagram/mimiseroticworld) AP says hes been contacted over the years by other landlords or people dealing with Meyer and always tries to warn them off. But its clear that, after she left his property, her behaviour towards humans and animals escalated. An online complaints board is filled with people outlining disastrous dealings with Meyer across multiple states. In 2016, internet users really went after her, charting where shed allegedly moved in Texas and writing about transactions-gone-bad across the Lone Star state and as far away as Colorado where one woman wrote in June 2016 that she had just purchased a dog Saturday and its not what was advertised and she is fighting for her life. Meyer was going by the name of Trissa, the poster wrote. The following month, another person wrote on complaintsboard.com that Meyer, using the name of Emily, had agreed to sell the poster an exotic cat. Had no paperwork once I drove 10 hours, the author wrote. And wasnt going to refund my deposit so I just bought the cat. All was well I just got over it cat is find (sic) but is a boy when I requested female. Paid 1800. Meyer, it seems, was travelling around arranging these four- to five-figure transactions, whether it be allegedly selling kinkajous out of Texas or it would turn out raising even larger, deadlier animals in her residence. In 2016, Meyer was found to have animals including a cougar, a skunk, monkeys, three tiger cubs and a large adult male tiger in her Houston home (Instagram/mimiseroticworld) Because it was in autumn 2016 that Meyer was found to have tigers, a skunk, a fox and several monkeys wandering through her Houston home where she also homeschooled her minor children. Officers had arrived to investigate claims that Meyer had scammed a California man trying to buy an exotic Savannah kitten; he wired $3,000 to an account in her daughters name, but the cat never materialised. So a Texas game warden and officer with the Houston Police Department visited the Meyer residence to question her only to find a menagerie roaming free that included a large male tiger, which Meyer admitted she only locked up when leaving the house. Facing charges, Meyer fled to Las Vegas, then about an hour west to Pahrump in Nye County, Nevada where she was eventually located and her tigers confiscated, according to Chron.com. Meyer was initially charged with child endangerment, but the count was dropped, and in 2017 pleaded guilty to a theft charge with two years deferred adjudication, according to KSAT. "Its been a nightmare for my kids and I because Ive been portrayed in the media as having had a mountain lion in the house, tigers in the house, foxes, skunks all loose together, which has never happened, Meyer told reporters after entering her plea. "Its just been a nightmare trying to prove my innocence. She was booted out of the Houston rental property in question, with the landlord telling the Houston Chronicle shed destroyed the place almost instantly much like shed treated APs home years before. I dont know how someone can put that much damage in three weeks, the Houston landlord said. And while Meyer protested her innocence, there are a string of other online victims who would beg to differ. After her plea in 2017, it appears she got right up to her old tricks again. One social media user, Randall Spring, posted online about buying a monkey from Meyer for $6,500 only for it to die two hours into the drive home, with Meyer advising him to throw the poor animals body in a dumpster. Another, using the name Adrian Rodriguez1212, posted on complaintsboard.com that hed purchased a wolf from Meyer in June 2020. He wrote: 4 days later, the pup died. It took me hiring a private investigator to get to this page. Two months after that, another user posted on the same complaints forum that she and her boyfriend had flown to Houston to purchase a bengal cat from Meyer, whose Instagram page shed found through a celebrity hairstylists page she sold two monkeys to. When Meyer arrived, the cat was in a blacked out bag and she wasnt letting me hold or touch him, the user, going by the name Mina Blair, wrote. She handed over $6,500 in cash to Meyer, who then left. Meyer, right, has used various online profiles and aliases across different states while conducting her dealings (Instagram/mimiseroticworld) The cat started growling and not sounding like a cat at all, the user wrote. He was so violent inside the bag, I told my boyfriend just set him down in the room and let him relax. After about 30 minutes, I told my boyfriend he cant be in there all night he needs to bond with us. Open up a can of the chicken she gave us she said he eats, and unzip the blacked out carrier and let him come out on his own. Ten minutes later he was out and about and being very weird. He looked/walked like a wild animal and not the way she described in person at all. So, being curious as to what we have on our hands, my boyfriend whos owned exotic pets since childhood did some research. While he googled, I went digging through her Instagram for the first time that day. She posted the animal stating it was from a zoo and a geoffrey leopard. We had a full grown leopard in our hotel room. The user said the leopard attacked her so she hid in the bathroom; it took up to an hour for her boyfriend to wrangle the cat back into the bag as he sustained a lot of bites and scratches. Meyer took the animal back but said shed already spent the money, according to poster Blair, promising to provide a substitute animal then blocked her. Its impossible to know just how many people Meyer may have scammed given her changing names, states and appearances and particularly because many of her victims may be looking for illegal deals themselves. By March 2021, she diversified to other sources of income, if her Instagram is to be believed; thats where she announced shed started her OnlyFans account. Meyer in 2021 set up an OnlyFans account, allowing subscribers to pay for racier content than allowed on traditional social media sites (Department of Justice) The following month, she embarked upon a transaction that would ultimately make her a fugitive today. She agreed to sell a jaguar cub for $30,000 to a man named Abdul Rahman in California, transporting the endangered animal from Texas to the Golden State for an additional fee, according to court documents. Hed become interested in buying the jaguar after taking pictures with it in a hotel room in Austin during a car show. Rahman did not know how to take care of the jaguar and ... quickly became dissatisfied and wanted to get rid of the jaguar by selling it to someone else but was concerned that he would lose money in the transaction, according to affidavits. He did sell the growing cub on, though at a loss but that mans live-in girlfriend was pregnant, and they became concerned (unsurprisingly) at having a jaguar in the house with a newborn. A friend eventually convinced the new owners to let him drop the animal off at a sanctuary called Lions, Tigers and Bears, where the jaguar was left in a cage after hours. Investigators, through the jaguars markings, social media and good, old-fashioned legwork, eventually traced the abandoned animal to Meyer. This jaguar cub was illegally sold for approximately $30,000 and transported from Texas to California in the spring of 2021. The animal was re-sold, abandoned and now lives at an animal sanctuary in San Diego County. Two individuals face federal criminal charges in this case. pic.twitter.com/bvYlAqCvnl US Attorney L.A. (@USAO_LosAngeles) October 5, 2022 The Houston woman was charged last week with interstate transportation of an endangered species in the course of commercial activity, interstate sale of an endangered species, trafficking prohibited wildlife species, and trafficking endangered species. Rahman was charged with interstate transportation of an endangered species in the course of commercial activity, trafficking prohibited wildlife species, and trafficking endangered species. The charges stem from violations of the Endangered Species Act, under which jaguars are protected, and the Lacey Act, which prohibits wildlife trafficking, according to the Department of Justice. Now authorities cant find Meyer. Her original OnlyFans is gone, as is her @mimisexoticworld Instagram account. The last post on the other, @mimiseroticworld which remains active was made in April 2021, featuring near-nude pictures and a video clip of her backside and urging people to visit her OnlyFans with the hashtag #zookeeper. The Department of Justice on Tuesday confirmed to The Independent that Meyer remained a fugitive. Her old landlord from 2010 in Texas, meanwhile, has been charting Meyers misdeeds this entire time and thinks her comeuppance is on its way. The position that she has put herself in is ultimately not going to be good for her, AP tells The Independent, adding that hes actually extremely happy about the new charges. I knew it would just be a matter of time before she sinks her own battleship and thats exactly where shes at. Melissa McCarthy got candid about the conversations she's had of late with her oldest daughter Vivian Falcone, 15, sharing that she's attempting to be more open about sex with her children than her parents were with her. The actress, who shares her two daughters Vivian and Georgette, 12, with husband Ben Falcone appeared on an episode of the podcast We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle where she discussed a bit of her upbringing in Illinois. In reflecting on how she grew up, McCarthy mentioned that she'd like to create a space for more open dialogue with her children than what she was exposed to. "At that age if you asked a question that was kind of complicated theyd be like, 'Dont worry about it,' and we were done. They said it lovingly, they were incredibly loving parents, but we just didnt delve into things," she said of her own childhood. But even as she's tried to break that cycle for her kids, she's found it uncomfortable at times. Melissa McCarthy recalls giving the sex talk to her oldest daughter. (Photo: Getty Images) "I probably dont do enough. Like weve had the talk, which I did incredibly awkwardly because I knew it was gonna come. I always thought, Im gonna do it so early because were open about anything and they can come to me for anything. But there is still a midwestern former Catholic person thats like, 'Talk about sex and a lightning bolt comes down,'" McCarthy explained, referring to her upbringing in the church. "So I just very awkwardly, right before she went to school the day they were going to talk about it at school, Im like, 'Im certainly not having someone else initiate that conversation with my child.'" McCarthy recalled her older daughter's reaction when she realized what her mom was trying to discuss as they were picking up after the dog in the backyard. "Vivi just goes, 'Oh dear god, is this happening?' And I was like, 'Theres different parts of bodies be it..uh,' but at least I was just like let me be awkward and get through it." While the Bridesmaids actress joked that she'll have to "have a better talk with them" on the subject, she explained that it was most important that she set expectations for how a romantic partner should treat the girls and did so using inclusive language. Story continues "I think they know that as long as whoever youre with is incredibly kind and respectful and only lifts you up ... we talk about that a lot," she said. "That whoever your love will be, and it may change and you dont have to pick a side, you can pick a side, you dont have to pick a side, you never know whats gonna happen. I said, 'That person has to be incredibly happy when you succeed and incredibly supportive when you fail. And if those are ever switched, thats the biggest red flag on earth and nothing should make you feel uncomfortable.'" McCarthy admittedly didn't learn these lessons until later in life as she attended a Catholic school where she said she had "been taught a lot about Mary and the immaculate conception." She even recalled a time in 7th grade where she realized she was severely unaware of the topic when a book about sex was pulled out at a slumber party. By contrast, she acknowledged that her daughters have a greater understanding of various topics because of social media. "They know so much. My kids are so much more aware of the world and theyre such little activists. I always say, I dont think anyone will ever tread on them, they just wont stand for it," she said. "I dont know how I could be more proud of them. Theyre just so well balanced and theyre not afraid to speak up if something is really wrong." Nevertheless, when asked about what she fears she said, "Raising two women in a country where I feel like women are under attack," especially after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. She continued, "Sometimes the girls ask me questions about just basic human rights and kindness and I am so overwhelmed that I dont have a good answer for them. I cant make it better. I cant say, 'This wont happen, it wont come to this, people just like to be loud.' Were in it. I never thought I would be just kind of fearful to be in this country and I, I want to take it back." Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life's newsletter. Sign up here. gavel The Mesa man who shot the mother of his children, prompting a 2021 SWAT standoff, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to court records. Antwon Wilford, 31, pled guilty to attempted murder, burglary and disorderly conduct in April after Mesa police arrested him in September 2021 in connection with the shooting of Vanessa Martinez, mother of their three children. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Tracey Nadzieja sentenced Wilford on Sept. 12 to an accumulated 30 years in prison for all of the charges. What happened On Sept. 11, 2021, Martinez staggered out of her apartment with a gunshot wound to her head and encountered Mesa police at her doorstep. They had responded to calls about a fight. Though seriously wounded, she told police that she had accidentally shot herself after dropping a loaded gun. Later she told police that was, a story Wilford forced her to tell to hide what happened, according to court records. Wilford would later admit to shooting Martinez in front of their three children, ages four, three and two, according to records. Wilford avoided police and SWAT for more than five hours by climbing into the building's attic and making his way into neighboring apartments. That's where the police eventually caught him. Fallout In court, Nadzieja commented on Wilford's prior domestic violence conviction and recommended revoking his probation from that case and sending him to prison instead. After the shooting, Martinez was left with a plate in her head and several other health issues, according to a letter she wrote to the court. "My life has changed forever, and I will never function, feel or be the same ever again," she wrote. "This situation has not only been traumatizing to myself, but to my children as well." After Mesa police arrested Wilford, the three children were taken into Arizona Department of Child Services custody, where they remain. "At a time of much-needed healing for my family, my babies and I are still suffering from separation due to Antwan's hateful and heartless actions," Martinez said in her letter. Story continues She asked that the court put Wilford behind bars until all her children turn 18 and are out of reach of Wilford's custody claims. Why we are writing this This reporting follows a crime The Republic began to cover in 2021 and is part of our commitment to tell the story from start to finish. Reach crime reporter Miguel Torres at Miguel.Torres@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @TheMiguelTorres. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Antwon Wilford given 30 years for shooting mother of his children A Michigan man is now facing a mandatory life sentence for the brutal sexual assault and murder of former professional poker player Susie Zhao in 2020. Jeffery Morris, 62, was found guilty after a deliberation that lasted less than an hour in Oakland County, Michigan, on Friday, according to The Oakland Press. Morris, who was convicted of first-degree murder, was also convicted of felony murder, with the latter being second-degree criminal sexual conduct. During the trial, which started on Oct. 3, prosecutors argued that Morris carried out "a depraved sexual fantasy" by assaulting and murdering 33-year-old Zhao, also known as "Susie Q." A resident found her charred corpse near the Pontiac Lake Recreation Area in White Lake Township, Michigan, on July 13, 2020. More from NextShark: Santa Ana to formally apologize for burning down its Chinatown in 1906 According to investigators, they found several searches for violent sex on Morris phone, while prosecutors noted in court before Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha Anderson that his phone contained images depicting violence against Asian women and sexual encounters in wooded areas. Story continues Prosecutors also presented evidence showing signs that Zhao was zip-tied before being set on fire while she was still alive, as well as evidence that she sustained serious damage to her genital area. Addressing the jury during the closing argument, lead prosecutor John Skrzynski said that in Morris eyes, sex is violence, is death, is inflicting pain, its cruel. Hes a killer and a liar, a liar and a murderer, a liar and a pervert. More from NextShark: Scientists Discover New 'Godzilla Wasp' That Hunts Underwater in Japan Investigators connected Morris to the murder after tracking both his and Zhaos phones locations. The two were reportedly together hours before the killing. Investigators also took note of Zhaos movement from her parents home to a room Morris had booked in Sherwood Motel in Waterford, Michigan. FBI agent George Rienerth noted in his testimony that Morris and Zhao had previously contacted each other and that they were using the same Sherwood Motel room but at different times. In Skrzynski and assistant prosecutor Brandon Barlogs case against Morris, they presented a laboratory analysis from Zhaos autopsy pointing out a melted object made of polyurethane found under the womans body. The report noted that the object was similar to the gas can Morris purportedly bought from a gas station along with gasoline before Zhao's death. More from NextShark: North Korea offering 100,000 volunteers for war against Ukraine, says Russian state media Skrzynski and Barlog also presented video footage of Morris suggesting that the man stole zip ties and possibly petroleum jelly from a Meijer store before midnight on July 12, 2020. A security camera from a residence around half a mile away from the scene of the crime captured Morris' car after 2 a.m. the following day. Around seven and a half minutes later, he was caught again on the same camera again driving in the opposite direction. Although Michael McCarthy, Morris court-appointed attorney, acknowledged the horrific crime that happened to Zhao, he noted the lack of investigation regarding tire tracks from the murder scene, as well as the DNA of another male found during Zhaos autopsy. McCarthy also questioned the argument that Morris committed both assault and murder in less than seven minutes. Morris, who is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 10, was arrested on July 31, 2020. Upon his arrest, authorities learned that the homeless convicted sex offender has been in Michigans public registry since 1989 under several offender searches with a lifetime registration. Zhao, who was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, was raised in Oakland County after immigrating to the United States from China when she was 9 years old. Before her death, she moved to Michigan from California and lived part-time with her mother and stepfather in Waterford Township, where she purportedly visited a motel often. Featured Image via Susie Q Zhao (left), LIVE AT THE BIKE Poker Livestream (right) A poll from Michigan's newly drawn 10th Congressional District shows good news for Republican efforts to snatch up seats in the House of Representatives. The WDIV/Detroit News poll, which surveyed 400 likely voters in the state's Oakland and Maycomb counties, collected voters' attitudes on current candidates and the respondents' level of optimism about the state of the country. Results show that of the 400 likely voters polled in the 10th district, 44% of respondents would back GOP candidate John James, while only 36% would back Democrat Carl Marlinga, according to WDIV/Detroit News. JD VANCE, TIM RYAN SQUARE OFF ON ECONOMIC ISSUES, ABORTION IN HEATED OHIO SENATE DEBATE John James, Republican candidate for the 10th District, speaks during a former President Trump's Save America rally at Macomb County Community College Sports and Expo Center in Warren, Michigan, on Oct. 1, 2022. According to the new poll, approximately 75.4% of likely voters polled believe the country is headed down the wrong track. This majority held across all demographic groups. Approximately 51.1% of respondents said they believe the state of Michigan itself is on the wrong track. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP On a national political level, only 30.5% of respondents in the suburban Detroit county view President Biden favorably, with 57.0% of respondents viewing the president unfavorably. MICHIGAN GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER EXTENDS LAW THAT PUTS COURT EXPENSES ON DEFENDANTS Democratic Michigan U.S. House candidate Carl Marlinga. That is worse than the approximately 36.6% of voters who viewed former President Trump favorably, with an identical 57.0% unavoidability rate. NEW YORK TIMES ELECTIONS ANALYSTS FLAGS WARNING SIGNS FOR DEMOCRATS IN 2022 MIDTERMS POLLING CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP According to the poll, Whitmer holds a strong 17-point lead over Trump-backed GOP opponent Tudor Dixon in the state's closely watched gubernatorial race, 50% to 32%. Whitmers lead widened from another recent Detroit News poll in early September that found the Democrat held a 13-point advantage over Dixon among voters in Michigan. Flanked by the Board of Trustees and members of the presidential search committee, newly announced Michigan State University President Samuel Stanley Jr. addresses the press Tuesday, May 28, 2019. EAST LANSING Michigan State Universitys Faculty Senate overwhelmingly approved a vote of no confidence in the school's Board of Trustees. Members of the Faculty Senate approved the no confidence vote by a 55-4 margin Tuesday. The vote comes after Faculty Senate leaders sent a letter to the Board of Trustees last week, demanding it stop interfering with the academic management of the university. The letter concerned an investigation initiated by the board into the forced resignation of Sanjay Gupta as the Broad College of Business dean. The board hired an outside firm to conduct the investigation. Members of the Michigan State University Board of Trustees have continued to destabilize the university since the MSU Faculty Senate on Sept. 13 approved resolutions slamming the Board of Trustees for interfering in personnel matters involving Gupta. The resolutions strongly discouraged trustees from demanding the resignation or retirement of President Samuel Stanley Jr. for his handling of Title IX reports, including Guptas Title IX-related departure, until more information was shared with the campus community. A Faculty Senate resolution also called for an investigation into the recent actions of trustees. The vote is considered symbolic. The Faculty Senate has no role in appointing trustees, who are elected in a statewide vote. Members of the Michigan State University Board of Trustees have compounded their intransigence, intimidating faculty administrators through a retained law firm investigating the resignation of Sanjay Gupta which is both outside of the Boards administrative purview and a violation of their Code of Ethics, according to the vote of no confidence resolution. Board of Trustees Chair Dianne Byrum could not immediately be reached for comment. MSU spokesman Dan Olsen said the administration had no comment. Associated Students of MSU approved its own vote of no confidence in the Board of Trustees on Oct. 6 by a 21-0 vote with four abstentions. Story continues Growing numbers of faculty have thrown their support behind the embattled Stanley after a reported push by some trustees to have Stanley removed from the position. Trustees Dianne Byrum and Dan Kelly offered Stanley the option to take early retirement before his contract ends in 2024. Stanley and the Board of Trustees remain in contract negotiations. Gupta was forced to resign on Aug. 12 after he failed to report claims that a leader in the Broad College of Business got drunk at a party, the Gatsby Gala, on April 22 at The Studio at 414 in Lansing, for MBA students, Crains Detroit Business reported. He inappropriately touched at least one student while also dancing in a sexually suggestive manner, the publication reported. Gupta has welcomed investigations into the circumstances that led to his resignation. Student groups, faculty groups and groups of survivors of abuse at the hands of convicted sex offender and former MSU doctor Larry Nassar have released numerous statements since word spread of attempts by some board members to have Stanley removed. Faculty Senate Chairperson Karen Kelly-Blake and Vice Chairperson Stephanie Anthony sent a letter to Byrum and Trustee Rema Vassar on Oct. 4 after learning that the outside counsel hired by the Board of Trustees had contacted faculty and other staff to sit for interviews regarding Guptas dismissal. We find this action to be a continued encroachment into academic management matters outside the purview of the board. The Gupta dismissal is settled, Kelly-Blake and Anthony wrote. This continued overreach denies the harm inflicted on the victim and seemingly provides cover and protection for Gupta. Additionally, paying for outside counsel using MSU funds that will fuel a Gupta lawsuit against the university seems absurd and in no way aligns with the fiduciary role of the board. A group of 23 high-ranking faculty in the Broad College of Business authored their own letter to trustees and to Kelly-Blake and Anthony sharing their support for the boards efforts to further investigate Guptas departure. As senior professors in the Broad College, we ask that you give consideration to representing the views of many of us in the Broad College, they wrote. It is of utmost importance that our faculty, staff, students, and external stakeholders have complete transparency regarding the events and decisions that led to Dean Guptas forced resignation. Contact Mark Johnson at majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson. This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU Faculty Senate approves vote of no confidence in Board of Trustees The Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge was illuminated with the colors of the Medicine Wheel to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 10, 2022. (Photo: Darren Thompson for Native News Online) MILWAUKEE A bridge on Milwaukees lakefront lit up yesterday evening in the colors of the medicine wheelblack, white, yellow and redto recognize and celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. The light show took place at the Riverfront Launching Site with Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Ho-Chunk Nation Traditional Chief Clayton Winneshiek, and nearly a hundred other participants. The ceremony featured traditional song and dance, and a reading of Milwaukee Countys proclamation of Indigenous Peoples Day. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Indigenous Peoples Day is more than legislation, Johnson said. When we think about Milwaukee, we cant help but think about Native people. We cant help but think that were on Native land. Milwaukees name comes from Indigenous languages. According to some, the name derives from the Algonquian word millioke, which means the good land, or from the Anishinaabemowin (the language of the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa) word minwaking, which means the gathering place (by the water). Native people have had a direct influence on Milwaukee, Johnson said. The three rivers that flow through the city are the Milwaukee, Kinnickinnic, and the Menominee rivers, which are all named by Indigenous languages. The names of several surrounding townshipsincluding Wauwatosa, Muskego and Pewaukeecome from Indigenous words. In 2017, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Abele declared the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples Day. In 2019, Milwaukees then Mayor Tom Barrett also signed a proclamation declaring the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples Day. In the same year, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that changed the name of Columbus Park to Indigenous Peoples Park. Crowley, the Milwaukee county executive, read from a proclamation: Milwaukee County recognizes that the land it is built upon has been home to Indigenous peoples since time immemorial, and it's the ancestral land of the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Forest County Potawatomi, and the Menominee Nation, he said. The purpose of Indigenous Peoples Day is to commemorate and celebrate Indigenous peoples as they continue to thrive despite 500 years of genocide, colonization, and political and religious and cultural repression. Story continues The lighting of the bridge in the colors of the medicine wheel is a first, Light the Hoan spokesperson Micheal Holstad told Native News Online. The organization was founded nearly four years ago, to light up and bring color to Milwaukees most iconic bridge. To date, they have raised $3.8 million in private funding to light up the west side of the bridge, which faces towards the city. Organizers are currently raising funds to light the east side, which faces towards Lake Michigan. The bridge was first lit on October 22, 2020 and has been lit every night since, featuring various colors and sequences. Its the peoples lights, Holstad told Native News Online. We light for all things, for causes such as cancer to homelessness. The dedication comes as Indigenous Biz Con is launching what hopes to be an annual conference that brings people together to highlight Indigenous businesses. The conference features a keynote presentation on Tuesday by Sterlin Harjo, co-creator and writer of Reservation Dogs, panel discussions by former Director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the United States Department of Energy James Campos, and many others. There is so much that has happened over the years, starting way back, and people are forgetting their way of life, said Ho-Chunk Nation Traditional Chief Clayton Winneshiek during Mondays celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day. What these men are doing, bringing people together, to recognize us brings us hope. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers first recognized the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day when he signed Executive Order #50. This year marks the fourth year in a row that Wisconsin has recognized and celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day. Last year, Gov. Evers signed Executive Order #136, which issued a formal acknowledgement and apology for Wisconsins historical role in Indian boarding schools. Wisconsin has eleven federally recognized tribes and one federally unrecognized nation, including the federally recognized Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Forest County Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk Nation, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Sokaogon Chippewa Community Mole Lake Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, St. Croix Chippewa Tribe of Wisconsin, Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Tribe, and the state-recognized Brothertown Indian Nation. Editor's Note: This story has been updated to correct the year the Hoan bridge was first lit up as 2020, not 2022. The story has also been updated to clarify the recognition status of the Brothertown Indian Nation. About the Author: "Darren Thompson (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe) is a staff reporter for Native News Online who is based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Thompson has reported on political unrest, tribal sovereignty, and Indigenous issues for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Indian Country Today, Native News Online, Powwows.com and Unicorn Riot. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Voice of America on various Indigenous issues in international conversation. He has a bachelor\u2019s degree in Criminology & Law Studies from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. " Contact: dthompson@nativenewsonline.net Miss USA 2022 winner RBonney Gabriel has shared more behind-the-scenes details about her crowning moment amid allegations that this year's beauty pageant was rigged. In a recent interview with "Extra," Gabriel, 28, explained why her fellow contestants abruptly left the stage after she was announced as this years winner a moment former Miss USA contestant Jasmine Jones found suspicious. Contestants typically approach the winner and hug them, Jones explains in her video. However, that did not happen to Gabriel during the recent beauty pageant, which was held at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada, on Oct. 3. More from NextShark: Ex-officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane found guilty of violating George Floyds civil rights I think there is some questions of did the girls not really want to come after me and give me a hug because usually when you get crowned all the girls give you a hug, Gabriel, the first Filipino American Miss Texas USA winner, told "Extra." I walked forward to what we call the bubble, which was the front of the stage. But I think what people didn't know was that production told them not to come forward to the bubble only because the night before somebody actually fell off that bubble. So it was for safety reasons. Cheating claims started spreading after Miss Montana Heather Lee OKeefe alleged in a TikTok video that this years Miss USA pageant was rigged in Gabriels favor. She also claimed to have spoken with other contestants, and that most of them feel very strongly that there was favoritism towards Miss Texas USA, and we have the receipts to prove it. More from NextShark: 70-million-year-old dinosaur baby unearthed in China is one of the best-preserved fossils ever found Although she did not give any specific details, Miss New York Heather Nunez also hinted in her Instagram Stories that she and other contestants felt humiliated. Story continues Responding to the allegations, Gabriel told "Extra," I would just tell everybody that I would never want to go into a competition knowing that it was already handed to me. I would have never worked so hard and I would never disrespect any of the other contestants. Crystle Stewart, president of the Miss USA Organization and a former Miss Texas USA herself, also denied the allegations, saying that she would never rig a competition that she herself fought so hard to win. More from NextShark: Maskless Woman Goes on Racist 'Kung Fu' Attack on Drug Store Manager in Toronto The allegations against the Miss USA Organization are misleading and against everything I stand for personally and professionally, Stewart, 41, told the New York Post. As the first African American woman in this leadership role I take this position with all seriousness and regard. OKeefe, 25, shared a screenshot of Stewart doing Gabriels hair during the beauty pageant, something that the Miss USA winner denied in an interview with "E! News: The Rundown" on Friday. Gabriel explained that the viral photo was shot after she was announced as this years winner. "Unfortunately, it looks like that happened maybe before I won," Gabriel said, "but that was my official Miss USA headshot photo shoot after I won." More from NextShark: Portland man charged for punching 5-year-old Japanese girl accused of earlier attack on Filipino woman She also explained during the interview that after exiting the stage, she went back to the girls, [and] they all hugged me. Amid the allegations and following a thorough deliberation, the Miss Universe Organization announced it would be suspending Stewarts company The Miss Brand Corp, which produces the beauty pageant. Miss USA will now operate under the Miss Universe Organization as they conduct a comprehensive, third-party investigation" led by the law firm Holland & Knight, MUO President Paula Shugart and CEO Amy Emmerich said in an email sent to the pageant directors. As for her plans following her Miss USA win, Gabriel told "Extra" she hopes to help women build confidence and their future and career. Ive worked with women in Houston that have survived from domestic violence and human trafficking, and I teach them sewing classes to build confidence and build their future and career. And I think that's the impact I want to create, she said. Featured Image via extratv According to Zimmermann, the war will end only if material aid is provided to Ukraine You cannot negotiate with Russia under the regime of Putin and his followers, Strack-Zimmermann said. This was shown by the deadly missile attacks by this gang of terrorists at the very center of Kyiv and other cities. Read also: Negotiations possible with Russia only with next Russian president, says Zelenskyys office According to Zimmermann, the war will end only with further transfers of material security assistance to Ukraine. She added that the Ukrainian army needs to be prepared for the winter. From cold weather equipment to ammunition and artillery, she added. However, Ukraine first of all needs battle tanks for the southern front. Read also: Aftermath of first missile strike on Kyiv since June photo report On Oct. 10, Russia launched a series of missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the Ukrainian capital. Reports stated that 14 Ukrainian Oblasts were hit, in particular: Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Ternopil, Khmelnytska, Zhytomyrska, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Odesa oblasts. The Russian invaders used Kh-101, Kh-555, Kalibr, Iskander, S-300, Tornado-S and kamikaze drones in the attacks. Most of the drones and almost half of the missiles were shot down by Ukrainian defenders. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine An analysis by USA Today revealed that social media audiences still pick favorites by giving more likes, shares and views to posts about missing white children especially girls than missing Black children. Black children disappear at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts, and it is no surprise that press coverage does not reflect this. Its also not surprising that social media attention does not reflect this either. According to an analysis by USA Today, the average number of views on posts about white girls was more than 63,000 in 375 videos that the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) shared on Facebook. For Black girls, the average number of views was approximately 38,300. USA TODAY examined the centers video posts between October 2019 and June of this year, gathering data from the social media tracking tool, CrowdTangle. Reporters went through the posts to confirm each childs gender, race, and age, and the place and time of their disappearance. Black children go missing at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts, but they fail to get the same amount of media coverage. (Photo Credit: YouTube/USA Today) The data revealed that social media audiences still pick favorites by giving more likes, shares and views to posts about missing white children especially girls than missing Black children. NCMEC published the most information about missing Black children based on the latest data. It also discovered that the number of views of posts about Hispanic girls and boys was approximately 62,000 and 58,400, respectively. Posts featuring white boys came in fourth place at 50,670 and Black boys were in fifth place at approximately 37,550. For NCMEC, although we like the engagement, its not as important as getting the image in front of the correct people, said Rebecca Steinbach, a senior producer at NCMEC, according to USA Today. Researchers have shown that when persons of color disappear, the news media and police pay less attention, a phenomenon described as missing white woman syndrome. Consuela Jobe knows about these disparities firsthand. She is the mother of Kamaria Johnson. The girls father reported her as a runaway in May 2021, immediately after the 16-year-old teen went missing from their home. The fact that she was classified as a runaway made it difficult to attract local media interest, so Jobe started her own Facebook page to spread the word about her daughter before eventually reaching out to NCMEC for help. Story continues NCMEC posted a video about Johnsons disappearance on May 31, about a year after she vanished. Kamaria Johnson, now 17, has been #missing for a year, but to her mom, it seems like eternity, the video said, according to USA Today. It received about 18,000 views, fewer than most posts but near average for posts about Black children missing for more than a year. The case finally started receiving the attention her mother had hoped for a year later. Still, Jobe recalls seeing photos of two missing white children who ran away from an amusement park on television that night. Both girls, who went missing around the same time as Kamaria, were found and the mother questions whether immediate action couldve helped her own daughter, too. Its very hurtful, Jobe said I was struggling to even try to get her picture out there. Managers of NCMECs social media said they prioritize the most disadvantaged missing children and those ignored by the media. The center posted more videos about missing Black kids than other children on its Facebook page, which has close to 1.2 million followers. The USA TODAY analysis also found that a larger number of Facebook pageviews did not necessarily translate into a higher rate of rescue. Instead, time was a better predictor of success. For instance, white children tended to be missing longer when their videos were posted and their rate of recovery was lower than the recovery rate for Black children. Michelle N. Jeanis, a criminal justice scholar at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, saw comparable disparities when she looked at posts on the Facebook page for the Resource Association for Missing People (RAMP). The Louisiana-based nonprofit is dedicated to missing adults and children in the South. She said it makes sense for the center to prioritize videos involving Black girls in particular, who experts have discovered to be more at risk of going missing than other groups. In theory, this should encourage more interaction with posts concerning Black girls. Jeanis experimented with various techniques this year to increase the number of people who saw Facebook posts concerning missing people of color. She discovered that paying to boost posts about missing people of color effectively advertising them to a particular audience helped level engagement rates. However, it had little to no impact on boosting posts for white women and girls. The average number of views on posts about missing white girls in 375 videos shared on Facebook by The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was more than 63,000. For Black girls, the average number of views was roughly 38,300. (Photo Credit: YouTube/USA Today) Its unclear whether the paid promotion of posts affected the USA TODAY study because CrowdTangle doesnt say whether they received a bump. For the sake of her experiment, Jeanis made missing-person posters for 24 pairs of missing individuals who shared a typical demographic. In the state where they vanished, one pair received a boost while the other did not, which continued in all neighboring states. The data is still under review, but Jeanis was able to help find five of the 48 subjects who were all in the boosted group. She expressed hope that uncovering strategies to raise awareness of all missing individuals would help bring more of them back home to their families. TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today! The post Missing Black children not promoted on social media like white counterparts appeared first on TheGrio. KENNEBUNK Mornings in Paris has created a new special roasted coffee to support the fight to preserve Maines lobstering heritage. Owner Paul Humphrey said the new coffee roasted onsite in Kennebunk is a full, strong and bold taste suitable for those long days out hauling in lobster traps or someone just looking to aid the cause. Mornings in Paris will donate $4 from every pound sold at its Kennebunk and Ogunquit shops to #savemainelobstermen and the Maine Lobstermens Association. Paul Humphrey has created a new special roasted coffee to support the fight to preserve Maines lobstering heritage. Maine lobstermen and the National Marine Fisheries Service are battling over new regulations designed to protect the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, which also limits where and how lobstermen can fish in federal waters. More: Maine slams Seafood Watchs red list attack on lobster industry Lobstering is the backbone of our coastal economies, said Humphrey, who owns and operates cafes in Lower Village Kennebunk and Ogunquit. We support the effort to preserve Maines lobstering heritage. What would Maine look like without it? We believe all of us Maine residents have skin in the game with this issue, and we want to do our bit to support the cause. Mornings in Paris has created a new special roasted coffee to support the fight to preserve Maines lobstering heritage. The coffee is available by the pound, ground or whole bean. This coffee is just one roast in a charity series designed to highlight and support local nonprofits. For information, visit mornings in Paris.com or savemainelobstermen.org. Anyone interested in stock for wholesale may contact paul@morningsinparis.com. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Mornings in Paris: Sip coffee and help save Maine lobstermen Most Americans expect increased hostile relations with adversaries like Russia and North Korea in the future, according to a new poll. The poll, from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts, found that 60 percent of adults expect relations with the countrys adversaries to get worse, a sharp rise from the 26 percent who said the same four years ago. Despite thinking there could be a rise in hostilities with adversaries, only 21 percent of those surveyed believe the countrys relationship with its allies will decline in the future, dropping from 46 percent four years ago. Pollsters found that views of the countrys domestic policies influence views of the countrys international standing. Sheila Kohanteb, the executive director of the Global Forum for the Pearson Institute, told AP that the results clearly show that hyperpartisanship is affecting how each party sees the United Statess position internationally. She said the key factor in determining how someone would respond to the poll is political bloc staying with political bloc. Pollsters reported that three-quarters of Democrats expected the countrys global standing to worsen four years ago, in the middle of the Trump administration, while about the same amount now expect stability or improved standing in the future. About 6 in 10 Republicans expected improved standing four years ago, while the same proportion now believe the countrys standing will decline. The overall percentage of Americans who expect the countrys international standing to worsen did decrease, from 48 percent in 2018 to 39 percent today. The results come as Russia and North Korea have shown aggression toward close U.S. allies. Russia has been engaged in a major war in Ukraine as it attempts to take over the country based on false pretenses of liberating the Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine. The country has struggled to oppose the momentum of Ukraines counteroffensive, but Russia carried out missile strikes throughout Ukraine on Monday in a significant escalation of the war. North Korea has also conducted a series of missile tests near South Korea and Japan in an apparent show of force to the United States and its allies. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. (Bloomberg) -- Just before Elon Musk revived his proposal to buy Twitter Inc. last week, the billionaire accused the company of ordering a whistle-blower to destroy evidence of its missteps as part of a $7.8 million severance package. Most Read from Bloomberg Peiter Zatko, Twitters ex-head of security, said he burned 10 handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 computer files at the behest of company managers as part of his separation agreement, according to Oct. 3 court filings that were unsealed Monday. The books contained notes of the whistle-blowers meetings with company counterparts during his year-long tenure as security chief, the filings show. Zatko has been at the center of Musks arguments that Twitter misled him about a raft of operational problems at the social-media platform -- which justified walking away from the $44 billion buyout. The billionaire then reversed course last week and agreed to buy the company for the original $54.20-per-share price. Twitters attempt to buy Mr. Zatkos silence failed, but Twitter achieved its secondary aim of ensuring Mr. Zatkos corroborating evidence would never come to light, Musks lawyers said in the unsealed filing. Twitter didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing, which is part of the Twitter lawsuit to force Musk to consummate the buyout that has since been paused. Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick put the case on hold and set an Oct. 28 deadline for Musk and Twitter to complete the deal. Musks lawyers are asking McCormick to sanction Twitters attorneys for ordering the destruction of potential evidence in the case. Zatko created a stir in Washington when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that Twitters lax approach to computer security threatened US national security. Story continues Twitter has said it fired Zatko in January for poor performance and said he gave a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context. Zatko contends he warned Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal about serious computer security issues and privacy concerns tied to the social-media platforms operations that amounted to violations of settlements the company reached with government regulators. He also said his Twitter colleagues showed little interest in doing a deep dive into the issue of how many spam and robot accounts were included among the companys more than 230 million users. Musks lawyers accused Twitters top two lawyers, Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett, and Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, along with Agrawal, of seeking to cover up the violations of the legal settlements by ordering Zatko to destroy his documents. The document-destruction order deprived Musks legal team of critical corroborating evidence of Mr. Zatkos allegations, which would support his account of key meetings and conversations relevant to this case, according to the unsealed filing. Meanwhile, Twitter complained in its own unsealed filing that Jared Birchall -- Musks top aide -- showed up to his Sept. 21 pre-trial deposition in the case unprepared to answer questions about a host of issues related to the transaction. Throughout the deposition, Birchall unequivocally conceded both his lack of knowledge and his lack of preparation -- on topic after topic, Twitters legal team said in the filing. Birchall runs Musks family office and was deeply involved in the negotiations over the buyout of the social-media platform. Twitters lawyers said Birchall had little or no information about his communications with government regulators about the deal, the hiring of data scientists to review the number of spam or robot accounts embedded in Twitters customer base or the Musk sides efforts to retrieve relevant messages about the transaction. A spokesman for Musks lawyers didnt immediately respond Monday to a request for comment about Twitters complaints about Birchalls deposition performance. The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). (Updates with date of original filings in second paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. The next time an asteroid threatens Earth, humanity might have a chance of saving the planet. On Tuesday, NASA announced that its experimental Double Asteroid Redirection Test successfully altered the orbit of Dimorphos. Following two weeks of data collection and analysis, the agency found that DART's impact shortened the asteroid's orbit around its parent, Didymos, by 32 minutes. Before the September 26th collision, NASA estimated DART needed to change the orbital period of Dimorphos by 73 seconds or more to call the test a success. The spacecraft beat that benchmark by more than 25 times. Bullseye! @NASA's #DARTMission successfully changed the targeted asteroids trajectoryand its orbit by 32 minutes. This watershed moment for planetary defense is thanks to our exceptional team and international partners. https://t.co/8gJluMES9B Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) October 11, 2022 "If an Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered, and we could see it far enough away, this technique could be used to deflect it," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference the space agency held on Tuesday. "NASA has proven we are serious as a defender of the planet. This is a watershed moment for planetary defense and all of humanity, demonstrating commitment from NASA's exceptional team and partners from around the world. NASA launched the DART mission in November 2021. The vending machine-sized spacecraft was traveling at approximately 14,000 miles (22,530 kilometers) per hour when it crossed paths with Dimorphos nearly 68 million miles away from Earth. DART's success proves the strategy of using a spacecraft to alter the course of an asteroid could work to save the planet, provided such a space rock was detected early enough and wasn't too big. Dimorphos is about the size of a football stadium, making it far smaller than the asteroid that wiped out 75 percent of multicellular life on Earth 66 million years ago. A recent clinical trial has found less-than-promising results for a nasally administered version of AstraZenecas COVID-19 vaccine, with immune responses observed in only a minority of participants. University of Oxford researchers found in their phase one clinical trial that not only were antibody responses seen in only a minority of participants, but those responses were also weaker in comparison to intramuscular vaccinations. The nasal formula that was administered was the same one used for intramuscular injections. A nasal vaccine dose was administered to 30 participants who had not yet been immunized against SARS-CoV-2. Among those study participants, 14 received a second nasal dose 28 days after their first dose. Another 12 participants in the AstraZeneca-funded trial received mRNA coronavirus vaccines not made by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, whose own vaccine induces an immune response through a different system. Following immunization, those who received intranasal vaccinations developed antibodies that rarely rose higher than the level of antibodies observed following a COVID-19 infection. Researchers concluded that while the nasal vaccine was well tolerated, it induced neither a consistent mucosal antibody response nor a strong systemic response. The nasal spray did not perform as well in this study as we had hoped. This was quite different from recent data from China, which has suggested good results can be achieved by delivery of a similar vaccine deep into the lungs with a more complex nebuliser device, said Sandy Douglas, an associate professor at Oxford and chief investigator for the trial. The vaccine that Douglas referred to was one made by the Chinese company CanSino Biologics. It was approved in September. There are currently around 100 other similar mucosal vaccines being developed around the world. As noted in the peer-reviewed Nature science journal, one possible benefit of such vaccines is that they induce responses in the immune cells of the nose and respiratory tract, potentially acting much more quickly against infection. Story continues Other human trials looking into the efficacy of intranasal vaccines are being conducted in countries such as India, Mexico and the U.S. Nasal vaccines are not an entirely new concept. A nasal vaccine is approved for use in the 2022-2023 flu season for healthy, nonpregnant people aged 2 to 49. We believe that delivery of vaccines to the nose and lungs remains a promising approach, but this study suggests there are likely to be challenges in making nasal sprays a reliable option, Douglas said. We urgently need more research to develop vaccines which can block transmission of respiratory pandemic viruses using delivery routes which are safe and practical at large scale. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Support Of Arizona GOP Candidates - Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images Donald Trump has been caught in a potential crime, which hes responded to in typical fashion: by accusing his enemies of being even more guilty of the potentially illegal act in this case mishandling presidential documents after leaving the White House. The latest example came on Sunday, when at a rally in Arizona Trump alleged George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant with a broken front door. Trump also claimed that Bill Clinton took documents to a car dealership in Arkansas, that George W. Bush took documents to a warehouse in Texas, and that Barack Obama took them to a facility in Chicago. More from Rolling Stone The National Archives (NARA) released a statement on Tuesday noting that, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act, it took control of presidential documents and stored them in secure facilities near the locations of the future libraries of the former presidents Trump has accused of mishandling documents. NARA added that allegations to the contrary are false and misleading. New: The National Archives and Records Administration calls Trump's claims about Obama, Clinton, Bush and Bush supposedly taking presidential documents "false and misleading." pic.twitter.com/zxuMskXDRD Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 11, 2022 Trump had previously alleged Obama mishandled documents, prompting NARA to release a series of statements debunking Trump and others who were drumming up conspiracy theories about Trumps predecessor. NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA, the Archives wrote on Aug. 12, days after the FBI recovered around 200 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, D.C., area. As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration. Story continues Trump hasnt only been conspiracy theorizing about former presidents improperly handling records. Hes also been pushing lies about NARA. He alleged on Truth Social last month that NARA put a harmful content warning on the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. In reality, NARAs website features a blanket potentially harmful content warning, because, according to NARA, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. Trump added on Truth Social that NARA is controlled by the radical left and that it is wrongfully complaining about me. NARA might not be done with Trump, either. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee revealed last month that the Archives believes the former president may still be hoarding documents at Mar-a-Lago. It was reported last week that the Justice Department has similar suspicions. Best of Rolling Stone Click here to read the full article. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the organizations defense ministers will meet on Wednesday and Thursday to step up and sustain support for Ukraine as Russia launches a barrage of missiles at the country. Stoltenberg gave a press conference on Tuesday ahead of the meeting, saying that the defense ministers will also review their progress in strengthening NATOs defense and deterrence and work to increase their protection of NATOs critical infrastructure. He said NATO wants to ensure that Ukraine can continue to defend itself and liberate territory that Russia has captured during the war, noting its counteroffensives that have seen Kyiv retake thousands of square kilometers of territory in the past month. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the bombing of a key bridge over the weekend with a barrage of missiles on military and civilian targets in Ukraine, leading Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to amplify calls for Western support to strengthen its air defenses. Stoltenberg said Putin is failing in his attempt to conquer Ukraine while Russia is increasingly resorting to horrific and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure. He said NATOs support for Ukraine is playing a key role, and allies are remaining united in supporting Ukrainian sovereignty. He said Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov will join the meeting on Wednesday. Stoltenbergs remarks come one day after he said that NATO will proceed with its long-planned nuclear exercises next week, despite increased tensions over whether Russia will resort to using nuclear weapons in the war. Putin has recently sought to emphasize Russias nuclear power, as Moscow illegally carried out the annexation of four regions of Ukraine last month. Analysts have said they are concerned that Putin now considers the annexed Ukrainian regions to be parts of Russia that he would defend with nuclear weapons. The Biden administration has warned Putin that using nuclear weapons would result in severe consequences. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. STORY: Sirens blared and Kyiv residents took cover underground from Russian missiles for a second day. In Moscow's biggest aerial offensive since the start of its invasion on Feb. 24. Russian missiles again hit Ukrainian cities Tuesday, but with less intensity than Monday when dozens of strikes killed at least 19 people, wounded more than 100 and knocked out power supplies across the country -- strikes the United Nations said may amount to war crimes. In a virtual meeting Tuesday, G7 leaders from the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Britain, Italy and Canada vowed to support Kyiv for "as long as it takes." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the group for more powerful weapons and faster deliveries. The first point is defense support, air shield for Ukraine. This is a part of the security guarantees that are an element of our peace formula. When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russias terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work." Ukraine on Tuesday received the first of four IRIS-T air defense systems Germany promised to supply, a German defense ministry source said. The White House later said the United States was speeding up the shipment of sophisticated NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine. The new weapons come as Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is facing increasing pressure at home to ramp up the war, vowed revenge after a massive explosion last weekend damaged a critical bridge connecting Russia to annexed Crimea. NATO said Tuesday it was closely monitoring Russia's nuclear forces following a string of Russian battlefield defeats, and that the allies were also boosting security around key infrastructure after recent attacks on Baltic Sea gas pipelines. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: "Ukraine has the momentum and continues to make significant gains, while Russia is increasingly resorting to horrific and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and the critical infrastructure." Ukraine has accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in occupied territories, a charge Moscow denies. Moscow, which calls its actions in Ukraine a special military operation, has accused the west of prolonging the conflict by supporting Kyiv. By Sabine Siebold and Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO told Moscow on Tuesday it would meet attacks on allies' critical infrastructure with a "united and determined response" and was monitoring Russia's nuclear forces closely as the country was "losing on the battlefield" in Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said ahead of a two-day meeting of the Western alliance's defence ministers in Brussels that it had not seen any changes in Russia's nuclear posture, but was "vigilant". Stoltenberg described Russia's missile strikes on civilians in Ukraine on Monday as a sign of weakness. "Russia is actually losing on the battlefield," he told a news conference, saying it was responding with "indiscriminate attacks" to Ukrainian advances. That view was echoed by U.S. ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith. "President Putin is failing to meet his strategic objectives on the ground and this has been a reoccurring theme for him personally since this war started," she told an online briefing. The alliance will proceed with its annual nuclear preparedness exercise "Steadfast Noon" next week, in which NATO air forces practise the use of U.S. nuclear bombs based in Europe with training flights, without live weapons. Cancelling the drills because of the war in Ukraine would send a "very wrong signal", Stoltenberg said. Russia has made veiled threats of using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, which it invaded on Feb. 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise its neighbour. "It's an exercise to ensure that our nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective," he said. NATO's military strength, he said, was the best way to prevent any escalation of tensions. Stoltenberg also pledged to boost the protection of critical infrastructure in response to the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, saying NATO had already doubled its presence in the Baltic and the North Seas to over 30 ships supported by aircraft and undersea activities. Story continues "A deliberate attack against allies' critical infrastructure will be met with a united and determined response," Stoltenberg said. It remains unclear who was behind the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Stoltenberg also urged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to stop his country's "complicity" in an illegal conflict. Lukashenko said on Monday he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers in the West. Military experts see this as a potential attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces. (Additional reporting by John Chalmers and Jan StrupczewskiEditing by Gareth Jones and Nick Macfie) Brentt Leakes and NeNe Leakes pictured in 2021. Prince Williams/Getty Images NeNe Leakes' 23-year-old son is struggling to speak after having a stroke and heart failure. The former "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" star said that she didn't know why he had these health issues. Strokes and heart failure can occur at any age, but tend to affect people older than 65. Brentt Leakes, the 23-year-old son of former "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" star NeNe Leakes, is struggling to speak after he experienced a stroke and heart failure two weeks ago, according to his mother. A stroke, or "brain attack," is when a blood vessel supplying the brain gets blocked or bursts, starving the organ of oxygen, which can cause brain damage. Heart failure is when the heart can't pump enough blood, and oxygen, around the body. Heart failure is a common cause of stroke. On Instagram Stories on Monday, NeNe Leakes said her son was struggling to speak, but didn't share any further details about his condition, including if he was in the hospital. She said that he had shown "some improvement" and was in "good spirits." "Obviously, a stroke is a very serious thing," she said. Having a stroke as well as heart failure at age 23 is "very rare," Dr. Judd Jensen, a neurologist in Colorado, told Insider. A stroke can cause a numb face, while heart failure symptoms include shortness of breath Symptoms of a stroke typically start suddenly and include: numbness or weakness in the face or limbs (usually on one side of the body), difficulty speaking, confusion, dizziness, trouble walking from a loss of balance or coordination, and vision changes in one or both eyes. The sooner stroke victims get help, the better their prognosis. "Minutes matter in terms of saving brain tissue and brain function," Dr. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association, previously told Insider. Heart failure can typically causes symptoms including shortness of breath, swelling of the ankles, feet or stomach, a cough, and generally feeling weak. Story continues The condition can cause an upset stomach, nausea, vomiting, and appetite loss at an early stage. People older than 65 are more likely to have strokes and heart failure Strokes and heart failure are most common in people older than 65, but they can happen at any age, according to The National Institutes of Health. About 10% of strokes occur in people younger than 50, Lloyd-Jones said. Hailey Bieber, at age 25, was one of them. NeNe Leakes said that doctors were investigating why her son had these conditions at a "really young" age. If doctors knew the cause, then they could treat the cause, she said. Jensen, who was not involved in Brentt Leakes' care, said it's most likely the heart failure preceded the stroke. Research shows 10% to 24% of people who've had strokes also have heart failure, and that the heart failure is the cause of 9% of those strokes. If Brentt Leakes' heart failure did indeed cause his stroke, Jensen said the question then becomes why he had heart failure at age 23. Some possibilities include that he was born with a structural abnormality in his heart, he has a genetic condition that causes heart weakness, or he developed a viral infection of the heart muscle that leaves it weak. In any of those cases, clots can develop and lead to a stroke. Doctors diagnosed Nene Leakes with blood clots on her lungs in 2013, but she said she didn't know if an inherited condition was underlying her son's illness. NeNe Leakes did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Other factors that can increase a person's risk of a stroke include diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, taking cocaine, and not getting enough physical exercise, according to the CDC. The risk of having a first stroke is nearly twice as high for Black people than it is for white people, the organization says. People are more likely to get heart failure if they have heart disease, previous heart attacks, high blood pressure, obesity, or diabetes. Smoking cigarettes, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, not exercising enough, and a poor diet that's high in salt, fat, or cholesterol also increase the risk. NeNe Leakes said her son didn't drink alcohol or take drugs, and that doctors didn't think his weight was a possible cause. She said her son was "stressed out" in September because it was the first anniversary of his father's death, but didn't know if that was related. Read the original article on Insider Former Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes confirmed Monday that her 23-year-old son, Brentt Leakes, had suffered a stroke and congestive heart failure, according to multiple mediaoutlets. Shortly after TMZ first reported news of the medical emergency, Leakes took to Instagram to state that her son had been hospitalized two weeks prior and that doctors were still working to determine the cause of his condition. It was very scary. I dont even want to go into details of what happened and how I found out and what condition he was in, she said in the since-deleted video. Obviously, a stroke is a very serious thing, and so hes struggling with speaking. ... Keep us in your prayers. The TV personality told her social media followers that doctors had run a number of tests on her son and that the medical team caring for him are still trying to figure [it] out. Doctors suggested that he could have been born with a previously undetected heart condition, she said. If we knew the cause, obviously they could treat the cause, she said. Brentt and NeNe Leakes at the grand opening for their bar, The Linnethia Lounge, on May 28, 2021, in Duluth, Georgia. (Photo: Prince Williams via Getty Images) Brentt and NeNe Leakes at the grand opening for their bar, The Linnethia Lounge, on May 28, 2021, in Duluth, Georgia. (Photo: Prince Williams via Getty Images) Leakes also said on Instagram that her son had shown some improvement and that he was in good spirits Monday morning. The former reality star had Brentt Leakes with her late husband, Gregg Leakes, who died in 2021 after a battle with colon cancer. The couple first wed in 1997 before divorcing in 2011. They reconciled and remarried in 2013. NeNe Leakes told People last year that her husband was surrounded by family and friends before his death at age 66. The last five days before his passing was really beautiful, she said at the time. All of his children were there. His best friends were there. Our closest friends were there. We all sat with him around the clock. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Social media users in China called for Jackie Chans attention after his estranged daughter was spotted queuing for free food in Canada. Etta Ng, the 22-year-old daughter of superstar Chan and former beauty queen Elaine Ng, was spotted by a social media user as she joined a line of mainly older women to receive free food in Toronto. In a viral Weibo post, Ng can be seen dressed in a blue jacket and long pants. She also brought along a blue bag. Social media users immediately commented on her appearance, suggesting that she looked as though she were living on the streets. They expressed their sadness over Ngs purported situation and called on the action star to help her. More from NextShark: One Punch Man Season 3 announced over 3 years after its previous season The Hong Kong actor, filmmaker and martial artist had an extramarital affair in 1998 with Elaine Ng while he was married to Taiwanese actress Joan Lin. He had Etta with Elaine and a son named Jaycee with Lin. Ng moved to Canada after marrying Canadian influencer Andi Autumn. In previous media interviews, Ng has said that she considers her father a stranger because he has not been a part of her life. He is my biological father, but he is not in my life. He never existed in my life. I will never regard him as a father, Ng was quoted as saying in 2015. I am not angry with my father, and have never wished to see him. As long as I have my mother with me, I dont need my father. More from NextShark: Video of 3-year-old boy using a stool to care for his dad, who is in a vegetative state, goes viral Ng started dating Autumn in February 2017. In 2018, Ng publicly came out as a lesbian. She went viral for falling out with her mother over her sexual orientation. In the same year, Ng and Autumn publicly declared themselves homeless via YouTube, claiming that they could not approach government shelters due to fear that they would be split up. Weve been homeless for a month due to homophobic parents. We pretty much slept under a bridge, and other things, Ng said in a video. Two people in love that share true love are trying not to get split apart and theyre trying to f*ck us over just because I dont understand it I love her. Story continues Jaycee, on the other hand, is apparently living a lavish life. He recently shared a photo of himself in his friends Rolls-Royce on his social media accounts. More from NextShark: 'Poor old uncle had to clean': Teens who filmed messy pranks in Singapore McDonalds draw criticism Netizens reportedly flooded Chans Weibo comments section to remind him of his daughter. Some social media users also asked others to respect Ngs privacy. Your daughter is receiving food (for emergencies) on the street, one user reportedly wrote. Dont [you] care? If we remove the Jackie Chan factor, she is just another individual who would not want to be disturbed, another user commented. More from NextShark: Viral TikTok reveals Starbucks U.S. is testing out 'coffee popping pearls' Featured Image via Pen and mind / iNTELLECTUS The Sacramento-area Sikh community, as well as local leaders, showed their support Monday night for Sikh family from Merced County that was kidnapped and murdered last week. Close to one hundred people gathered at the west steps of the California State Capitol to honor the lives of Jasdeep Singh, Jasleen Kaur, their 8-month-old daughter Aroohi Dheri, and the baby's uncle Amandeep Singh. Authorities said all four were kidnapped and murdered and Jesus Salgado, a former employee of the familys trucking business, was charged Monday in their deaths. In the wake of this violence, the Sikh community in the greater Sacramento area gathered to light candles and say prayers to pay their respects to the slain family. Jasjit Singh, a member of the Sikh community who helped organize the Monday vigil, said it was the least he could do. New Zealands government on Tuesday proposed taxing farm animals greenhouse gas emissions as part of its efforts to reduce the pollution that is causing climate change. The tax would be the worlds first on animal emissions, including those from burps and urination, which contribute to rising global temperatures. The plan, according to the government, would be economically beneficial because global consumers are becoming more eco-conscious, and the revenues generated by the tax would go to research and technology for capturing animal emissions, and to incentive payments for farmers. New Zealands farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor. (Lynn Grieveson/Getty Images) As a byproduct of their digestion, livestock such as cows and sheep release methane a greenhouse gas that causes 80 times as much warming as carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. That includes methane in flatulence and manure, but the single biggest source of methane from animals is burps. Globally, methane accounts for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Livestock accounts for 14.5% of total global emissions, according to the United Nations. A largely rural, agricultural country, New Zealand has 5 million people and roughly 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep. According to government data from 2019, 37% of the countrys greenhouse gas emissions were from methane, and 88.4% of its methane emissions came from livestock. About three-quarters comes from cows, with the rest coming from sheep. The New Zealand government has committed to reaching zero net emissions by 2050, including a reduction of farm animals methane emissions by 10% by 2030 and 47% by 2050. Those emissions could potentially be reduced by capturing methane in burp-catching cow masks or other new technologies. Story continues Cows wait to be milked on a dairy farm in New Zealand's Waikato region. (William West/AFP via Getty Images) When the government first floated the idea of a burp tax in June, New Zealands agricultural lobby was supportive. "We've been working with the government and other organizations on this for years to get an approach that won't shut down farming in New Zealand, so we've signed off on a lot of stuff we're happy with, Andrew Hoggard, the national president of Federated Farmers of New Zealand, told the BBC at the time. But the proposal put forth on Tuesday was greeted with skepticism from industry groups, which said the tax would cripple the business of farmers and ranchers, even though the price has not yet been set. Hoggard said his group has found the government unresponsive to its concerns, and he warned that the measure would rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand. New Zealand Agriculture Minister Damien OConnor countered that reducing climate change is also important to protecting farmers future livelihood. Farmers are already experiencing the impact of climate change with more regular drought and flooding, OConnor said. Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is both good for the environment and our economy. Oct. 10WASHINGTON In his nearly eight years representing central Washington in the House, Dan Newhouse has fended off challengers from across the political spectrum and carved out a niche as a pragmatic lawmaker more interested in policy than bluster. But this year's general election presents the Republican from Sunnyside with a new kind of challenge: convincing voters in the state's reddest district to look past his vote to impeach former President Donald Trump and give him the support they largely withheld in the August primary. Newhouse and his Democratic opponent, Yakima businessman Doug White, each received roughly 25% of votes in the primary, enough to advance from the top-two contest only because six other GOP candidates who aligned themselves with Trump split the remaining half of votes. What that pro-Trump voting bloc does in the general election will play a big role in determining the outcome. "It's the most conservative district in the state of Washington," Newhouse said in an interview, "so my strategy and my message has been to appeal to those people that have supported me in the past and to remind them that I'm still the same conservative Republican that I've always been." The Cook Political Report rates Washington's 4th Congressional District "R+11," meaning Republican candidates are expected to perform 11 percentage points better than the national average and making it the most heavily GOP-leaning district in the state. Newhouse bested Democratic challengers in 2018 and 2020 by a roughly 2-to-1 margin while his closest races came in 2014 and 2016 against fellow Republican Clint Didier, now a Franklin County commissioner. But White, a first-time candidate who returned home to Yakima after a 20-year career in international business, thinks right-wing voters' lingering resentment toward Newhouse makes the incumbent vulnerable. Pitching himself as a solutions-oriented moderate, White said in an interview he hopes to assemble a coalition of reliable Democratic voters, independents and conservatives who want to see Newhouse gone. Story continues "Obviously, it's an uphill battle," White said, before citing a recent internal poll his campaign commissioned that makes him optimistic. The survey's most important finding, he said, is that 40% of Republicans in the district "would vote for a Democrat if that Democrat had the profile that I do." "This is a completely different game," White said. "We've literally never seen this in this district before. My message is resonating well with people. They're fed up with Dan Newhouse and we're going to see a change." A spokesman for the White campaign, John Wyble, declined to share the full poll results but said it shows that Newhouse is "a divisive figure," even among Republicans, and the race narrows to within the margin of error "after voters hear about Doug White." There has been no independent polling this year in the district, which national political analysts consider safely in GOP hands. But White isn't the only one who thinks the pro-Trump electorate could throw a wrench in Newhouse's re-election bid. "I've heard a lot of people say that they're going to vote for White because they cannot get over what Newhouse did, and I've heard a lot of people say they're not going to vote at all," said Teagan Levine, chair of the Okanogan County GOP. Levine said when she has told those voters to "take Newhouse's name out of it" and "look at the bigger picture," they have usually agreed to vote for the Republican, but she is concerned that not every disaffected voter in the district will get that message before casting their ballots. If GOP voters can't get over Newhouse's impeachment vote, Levine said, she worries they will jeopardize the party's chances of taking control of the House and in turn the odds of a Republican winning the presidency in 2024. None of the Republicans Newhouse bested in the primary have formally endorsed the incumbent although some said they plan to vote for him. "Newhouse is in trouble, for sure, just talking to people," said Jerrod Sessler, a former NASCAR driver from Prosser who took 12.3% of votes in the primary, adding that he has encouraged others to vote for Newhouse. "There's a lot of people voting for Doug White, or they're going to abstain." Jacek Kobiesa, an engineer from Pasco who entered the race late and received just 490 votes, called the race "a huge mess" but said he would vote for Newhouse. Corey Gibson, a marketing entrepreneur from Selah who won 3.4% of votes, said he has received "so many calls" from conservatives who say they are considering voting for White, "not because they align with him, but because there's this energy out there of wanting to be heard, wanting to be able to show that people want something different." Gibson said he expects Newhouse to win the general election, but said he worries having such a "wildly unpopular" candidate could depress voter turnout in the district and hurt other Republicans, like Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley. Loren Culp, a former Republic police chief who won Trump's endorsement and 21.6% of votes in the primary, said he doesn't plan to vote for either Newhouse or White. "They're both Democrats," Culp said. "One of them just lies to us and tells us he's a Republican." One issue that gives voters a clear choice between the two men is abortion access. While Newhouse touts an "A" rating from the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List, White talks about the right to terminate a pregnancy as a matter of individual liberty. The Democrat hopes the Supreme Court's June ruling that overturned a federal right to abortion will drive abortion-rights supporters to turn out and support him. With the 50% of primary voters who backed neither Newhouse nor White theoretically up for grabs, there is a potential opening for a write-in candidate to enter the race. State law prevents a losing primary candidate from running a write-in campaign for the same office, but some voters have encouraged Didier, the Franklin County commissioner who ran for the seat in 2014 and 2016, to mount a write-in campaign. In a text message, Didier confirmed he has had "an incredible amount of people want me to run as a write in," but said he had no plans to do so. Mike Massey, chair of the Benton County GOP, said he estimates as many as one-third of conservatives "can't put the clothes pin over their nose" and vote for Newhouse. "I'm going to vote for Dan because I have learned in the past that if you don't support your party, it can really damage things," Massey said, recalling how he voted in the 1992 presidential race for independent Ross Perot, whose candidacy helped Democrat Bill Clinton defeat Republican George H.W. Bush. Mike McKee, chair of the Grant County GOP, said he expects Newhouse to prevail but also worries many Republicans will not vote for him. "I just tell them, 'Dan may not have been your first, second, third or fourth selection, but he's won fair and square and now it's time to fire (House speaker Nancy) Pelosi,'" McKee said, adding with a chuckle, "I can guarantee that Dan Newhouse is not going to vote to impeach another Republican president in the next two years." The Washington State Republican Party didn't endorse a candidate ahead of the August primary, but officially "nominated" him as the party's candidate after he won the primary, party spokesman Ben Gonzalez said. For his part, Newhouse is counting on most of the district's Republican-leaning voters forgiving him for the impeachment vote. In an interview, he alluded to a quote attributed to conservative icon Ronald Reagan, who reportedly said, "The person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20% traitor." In that spirit, Newhouse said, he hopes his conservative constituents who have supported him in the past will see the race against White as a clear choice between Republican and Democratic platforms. "I think if they sit down and think about that, even though they're angry with me for one vote, that's still better than the other choice that they have in front of them," he said. "So we're doing the best that we can to communicate that message." When a new Congress is sworn in at the start of 2023, Newhouse may be the only remaining member of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The only other pro-impeachment Republican who survived the primaries, Rep. David Valadao of California, is in a tight race the Cook Political Report rates as a toss-up. He will also be among a dwindling number of House Republicans who are interested in working with Democrats on bipartisan legislation as the GOP conference is increasingly dominated by hardline members who say their top priority in the next two years is investigating and even impeaching members of the Biden administration. Newhouse, a third-generation Yakima Valley farmer, is one of the leading advocates for bipartisan immigration reform to create a reliable, legal supply of U.S. agricultural workers, about half of whom are unauthorized immigrants, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That effort has drawn the ire of anti-immigration hardliners, but Newhouse said he believes 4th District voters want solutions to problems that affect the region. "The fact that I'm pragmatic, solutions-oriented, willing to work with people on both sides of the aisle in order to find those solutions, I don't see that as a negative," he said. "I think that's what people expect of me." As chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, a group of House Republicans focused on rural issues and limited government, Newhouse said he tries to cultivate an interest in conservative policy rather than political grandstanding among fellow GOP lawmakers. "Certainly you have those that want to just get headlines or become famous on social media and those kinds of things," he said, "but there actually are a good number of members of Congress that want to get things done for their constituents as well, and my job is to work with those people." In addition to farm workforce reform and other needs of the district's dominant agricultural industry, Newhouse said his top priorities for another term in Congress include supporting low-carbon energy production he staunchly opposes efforts to breach the four Lower Snake River dams and making sure the district's infrastructure, schools and health care system keep up with population growth. White's platform focuses on many of the same issues: immigration reform, supporting the district's agricultural sector, modernizing infrastructure and developing clean energy sources. White said a clear difference between him and his opponent is in their positions on the Lower Snake River dams, where he doesn't understand why Newhouse has "such an absolute position" that the dams will never come down. "I can't take those dams down, not now anyway," White said. "What I can do is start expediting our transition off of fossil fuels and increasing our carbon-free energy production and energy storage." Starting that work now, he said, along with building rail infrastructure that could one day replace barge transportation on the river, would strengthen the region's economy while making the prospect of losing the dams' benefits less devastating in the future. "To me, that's a better response than it is to do nothing 'the dams aren't coming down' that cannot be the final answer," White said. Newhouse said his pitch to voters is that, whatever they think of Trump, his background and experience makes him the right person to represent the district in Congress. "Being a product of the district, having been born and raised in central Washington, their issues are my issues," he said. "We share the same challenges, the same perspectives and ideals, and that I'm the best fit to represent them. Focusing on those things that we have in common." Meanwhile, White said his campaign's polling and talking to voters makes him believe he has a shot to stage an unlikely victory in the deep-red district. "I'm not going to be overly optimistic," White said. "This is not the time to get cocky. There's no hubris. We're playing the numbers and we are working very hard." Ballots must be postmarked or deposited in an official drop-box by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 8. Orion Donovan-Smith's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor. Paramedic David Liske administers a COVID-19 booster shot to Michael Meade at the Island Pacific Seafood Market in Oxnard, California, on Sept. 23. Rhode Island reported 1,781 new cases of coronavirus in the week ending Sunday, down 6.2% from the previous week. The previous week had 1,898 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. Rhode Island ranked second among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 7.7% from the week before, with 298,674 cases reported. With 0.32% of the country's population, Rhode Island had 0.6% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 13 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Newport County reported 138 cases and no deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 118 cases and no deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 24,467 cases and 99 deaths. Across Rhode Island, cases fell in four counties, with the best declines in Washington County, with 123 cases from 190 a week earlier; in Providence County, with 1,152 cases from 1,180; and in Kent County, with 268 cases from 285. >> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases Within Rhode Island, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Providence County with 180 cases per 100,000 per week; Newport County with 168; and Kent County with 163. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week. Adding the most new cases overall were Providence County, with 1,152 cases; Kent County, with 268 cases; and Newport County, with 138. In Rhode Island, five people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, two people were reported dead. A total of 427,242 people in Rhode Island have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 3,674 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,699,237 people have tested positive and 1,062,564 people have died. Story continues >> Track coronavirus cases across the United States Rhode Island's COVID-19 hospital admissions rising USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Oct. 9. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state: Last week: 152 The week before that: 133 Four weeks ago: 109 Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation: Last week: 50,835 The week before that: 49,835 Four weeks ago: 58,231 Hospitals in 18 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 15 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 29 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows. The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport County reported 138 additional COVID-19 cases this week Blade Runner 2099, a TV series based on the iconic Blade Runner films, is to be filmed in Northern Ireland. The series has been commissioned by the streaming giant Amazon with Ridley Scott, who directed the original 1982 Blade Runner film, as executive producer. Northern Ireland Screen chief executive Richard Williams made the announcement on Tuesday. He said pre-production would start almost immediately. Filming is due to begin in spring 2023. "Most people are familiar with Blade Runner, this is a television series in that world," he said. "It'll be big, it'll be very big." Alcon Entertainment, who made the 2017 feature film sequel Blade Runner 2049 starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, are behind the TV series. The first Blade Runner film has become one of the most iconic science fiction films of all time. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Darryl Hannah, it told the tale of a police officer whose job was to hunt down synthetic humans - or replicants - in a dystopian Los Angeles. It has influenced many other films and popular culture, as well as predicting developments in technology and climate change. It is not yet known who will star in the new TV series, which is set 50 years after the action of the 2017 sequel. 'Ambitious' target for four-year strategy The announcement was made as Northern Ireland Screen's new 2022-2026 strategy outlined that the TV, film and video game industries should aim to generate more than 430m for the Northern Ireland economy over the next four years. It plans to spend about 53m on TV, film and video game production until 2026 to generate an "ambitious and challenging" 431m return. But there is less money for Irish language and Ulster-Scots broadcasting this year compared to 2021/22. Northern Ireland (NI) Screen said that was due to the end of "an uplift in funding in 2021/22 following the implementation of commitments within New Decade New Approach". New Decade New Approach (NDNA) was the agreement which restored the Northern Ireland Executive in January 2020. Story continues It included a government commitment to increase funding to the Ulster Scots Broadcast Fund and Irish Language Broadcast Fund. That "one-off uplift" was provided by the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Paramount's Dungeons & Dragons, starring Chris Pine, was filmed in Northern Ireland However, NI Screen's business plan for 2022/23 said "the uplift in funding is not to be sustained in 22/23 and future years". "A one-year increase in production funding is challenging to manage as it increases demand for the funding from the production companies which cannot be met in future years," it said. "The reduction in funding from DCMS will impact the number of projects that can be supported and the number of training places and skills development that can be supported in 2022-23." There will be about 3.9m available for the Irish Language Broadcast Fund in 2022/23 and about 1m for the Ulster Scots Broadcast Fund. That will fund a number of things including 60 hours of television in Irish, 10 hours of television and some radio in Ulster-Scots and employment for a number of trainees through both funds. Richard Williams, the chief executive of NI Screen, told BBC's Good Morning Ulster there was no reason the creative industries could not sustain growth in the coming years but added that he was very disappointed by the reduction in Irish and Ulster-Scots language funding. New targets after previous success NI Screen's 2022/23 business plan covers the first year of the body's new strategy for 2022-26, called Stories, Skills & Sustainability. The previous strategy from 2018-2022 included plans to grow the television drama, independent film and animation industries and to increase the number of video game companies. For instance, NI Screen spent about 300,000 per year on video game production funding until 2022. The 2018-22 strategy also included an overall target to deliver a minimum of 300m return to the Northern Ireland economy from the screen industries over that period. NI Screen said that target had been exceeded and so it had been increased for the new 2022-26 strategy. Line of Duty was among a recent run of successful TV productions filmed in Belfast "The strategy includes an uplifted economic spend target of 430 million, a 43% increase on the 300 million target for Opening Doors 2018-22," the business plan said. The Department for the Economy (DfE) provides the majority of NI Screen's income and has increased its funding to almost 18m in 2022-23. NI Screen's total budget for 2022/23 is about 27m. Mr Williams praised early efforts made by former first and deputy first ministers Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness in developing the film industry in Northern Ireland, but added that recent governments have "not delivered to the same extent". "Would it be more impactful, particularly in the American market, if there was the joined-up leadership that there had been in the past? Yes it would," he added. 'Confident' work will come in Among the recent productions filmed in Northern Ireland which NI Screen has invested money in are Paramount's Dungeons & Dragons, starring Hugh Grant and Chris Pine, and Netflix's The School for Good and Evil, featuring Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington. Major TV series recently shot in Northern Ireland include Bloodlands and Line of Duty. Plans have also been unveiled for Studio Ulster - a 25m cutting-edge virtual production studio to be built in Belfast by 2024. However, in June a major television series from Star Wars director JJ Abrams, which was due to film in Belfast, was cancelled. Mr Williams said he understands the pressures freelance workers are feeling and that a new project will be announced "within a matter of days", adding he was not in a position to provide further details. "I am extremely confident that we will have projects to fill both Titanic Studios and Belfast Harbour Studios. Unfortunately I don't have full control on the information that underpins that," he said. "The work absolutely will come in we continue to get the support of the Northern Ireland Executive, which gives us the tools and allows us to develop the physical infrastructure, provide the modest incentives and to develop the crew that will allow us to continue to bring the work." NI Screen's 2022-26 strategy also includes plans to give about 100 people training and placements in the film and TV industry. The Creative Industries New Entrants programme is funded by the Department for Communities and run by NI Screen in partnership with BBC Northern Ireland. It will target opportunities to those least likely to enter the industry including to those with a disability, from an ethnic minority or from a lower socio-economic background. While studying at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford, a group of graduates noticed how difficult it was to get data and information on Africas largest economy and their home country, Nigeria. Each had different yet complementary skills Michael Famoroti, an economist; Bode Ogunlana, a software engineer; Abdul Abdulrahim, a data scientist; and Preston Ideh, a corporate lawyer and in 2017, they launched a media startup to address the dearth of information and data-driven insights in the West African country. Five years on, this startup, Stears, is announcing a $3.3 million seed round led by MaC Venture Capital. Serena Ventures, Omidyar Groups Luminate Fund, Melo 7 Tech Partners and Cascador (Empowering Economic Growth Foundation) participated. This news is coming two years after Stears raised $650,000 in pre-seed funding. Last month, it was one of the 60 startups to get accepted into the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund 2022 cohort, which included some non-dilutive funding. Stears started as a media publication focused on financial news and insights in Nigeria. Its flagship subscription insights product, Stears Premium, contains content ranging from news and opinion pieces to investigative pieces and deep dives, educating the general public on issues around business and finance, economy, government and policy in Nigeria. The $100-a-year product witnessed significant usage among consumers, particularly employees working in various finance-related institutions across the country. And because these institutions have more spending power, Stears subsequently tailored the product to businesses who wanted to subscribe on behalf of their teams. Some of its subscribers include financial institutions like Sterling Bank, and fintechs like Sparkle, PiggyVest and Paystack. The company says its userbase has grown mainly organically at around 6.5% month-on-month, doubling its total number of users over the last year. Story continues We have a strong understanding of the kind of information people need. So our focus is on standardizing information dissemination and building with the customer in mind, Ideh told TechCrunch in an interview. An essential part of our business model is pushing out high-value subscription data products, for instance, proprietary forecast models. Conversely, the low-value end will be news, so customers willingness to spend changes as they go along the spectrum. The iteration of Stears Premium, alongside the introduction of other products Stears Pro and Stears Advisory, has seen Stears morph into a data and intelligence company. Macro trends and topics like GDP and inflation drive content on Stears Premium. Stears Pro, on the other hand, provides more bespoke content around specific issues such as market entry, country analysis and digital economy for international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the knowledge workerspeople need a great deal of data for their work, which may include roles such as analysts, portfolio managers, researchers and economiststhat work in them. But in a bid to support its transition from an insights company to a data company and buoyed by this new investment, Stears is planning a strategy modification for the Pro product. According to the companys COO and data scientist Abdulrahim, the data outfit is working with international development institutions and financial institutions to produce proprietary and exclusive datasets that dont exist anywhere else. Therefore, instead of reporting insights from the data it sources, Stears wants to collate data, engage in deep data analytics and present it to its business customers in various formats. An essential part of our business model is pushing out high-value subscription data products. And as we advance, well do less custom work for this set of customers and focus more on overall data around the same sector, added Ideh, on the direction Stears is taking with its Pro product. So the difference in output is such that in the past, we put out reports, but in the future, were probably going to put out data feeds. So less text-heavy way of publishing and more of forecast and prediction around sectors that matter to knowledge workers and their organizations. Stears Advisory the product where Stears wears its consultancy hat and takes on third-party projects around its core coverage is taking a rear seat as the company intends to double down on Pro and Premium. CEO Ideh explained that while the Advisory product, which he likens to a research and development (R&D) arm sponsored by different partners, allows Stears to experiment with data collection and analysis and provides the bedrock to carve out further insights, its not scalable and lacks the sort of recurring revenue that venture-backed businesses need. Stears Image Credits: Stears So far, the companys strategy seems to be paying off. Enterprise customers now contribute over 75% of revenues generated, up from 45% in 2021. It also expects revenues to double from last year as half-year revenues for 2022 have already surpassed full-year revenues for 2021. This is compared to the 80% revenue growth between FY 2021 and FY 2020. As a data and intelligence company, Stears finds itself in a sweet spot where it is incentivized to pursue political projects that would draw attention if it were a media or tech company. In 2019, the company embarked on one such project as it developed Nigerias first real-time election database. Over 2 million Nigerians used it to monitor the general elections. Ideh said his company intends to relaunch the election data site, this time with more datasets and functionalities, in anticipation of Nigerias 2023 elections. Bloomberg, at its core, is a data company; we love how they approach elections and our approach in 2019 was driven by them, said Ideh, who has always been vocal about Stears building the Bloomberg of Africa. This is a big open data effort for us and we are also excited about polling because it is a very important form of data verification currently missing in Nigeria. And so over the election period, we will run and push out statistically representative polls on Nigeria, using strong data mindsets, to get a sense of public opinion issues and achieve more robust results. According to Ideh, the seed investment will take Stears from a v2.0, a Nigerian insight company, to a v3.0, a data company focused on Africa. The company plans to use the investment to enhance its data collection and analytics capabilities, hire data scientists, data analysts and sector analysts, and expand to east Africa through Kenya, southern Africa through the eponymous country and north Africa through Egypt. Africa is home to the first humans and is now the next frontier for business, said Marlon Nichols, co-founder and managing general partner at lead investor MaC Venture Capital on the investment. Many multinational corporations and governments understand this to be a reality. They also appreciate that several African countries are subject to unique business processes and are primarily cash-based economies, which results in understated GDP, among other things. Stears is uniquely positioned to provide the proprietary and accurate data needed to unlock trade and deeper business relationships with African countries and companies. Getty Images The White House just released a preview of the student-loan forgiveness application. It will require borrowers provide basic information like their email and Social Security Number. There is still no exact date yet for when the application will be officially live. Student-loan borrowers just got a first look at what the application for debt cancellation will look like. On Tuesday, the Education Department released details on all of the information federal borrowers will need to access President Joe Biden's up to $20,000 in debt relief for those making under $125,000 a year. While administration officials told reporters on a press call that an exact date for the formal release of the application has not yet been determined, providing this information in advance is "a really important step" in the process and helps show borrowers that it will be "simple and straightforward." "If the Department of Education needs more information from a borrower to confirm their income or their eligibility, they'll be asked to fill out a simple online form and submit the required information a 1040, a tax transcript, or proof of non-filing," an official said. "We're confident that these measures, combined with clear communication about eligibility requirements to the public, will result in a simple and straightforward process that allows eligible borrowers to obtain relief and ensure ineligible borrowers do not." The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 11, 2022 Borrowers will not need to log in with their Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID or upload any documentation. Here are the five main pieces of information they will need to apply: Name Social Security Number Date of birth Email And phone number. Borrowers will also be asked to check a box certifying your income is under the threshold, along with being asked to sign an agreement confirming that all the information you provided is accurate under penalty of perjury under the law. An administration official noted that if there are any discrepancies between information the borrower provided and what the Education Department already has on file, the borrower will be contacted to upload any additional necessary documentation. Story continues There will also be "strict fraud prevention measures" in place as the application goes live, the official said, and any applicants who falsify information through the application will face "hefty fines and possible jail time." The preview of this application comes as the Biden administration is facing at least five major lawsuits from conservative groups seeking to halt the policy, with a federal judge hearing arguments for one of those cases on Wednesday. The administration affirms that those challenges will not block the plan from rolling out and recommends that once the form is live, borrowers should apply before mid-November to get relief before payments resume early next year. See the full version of the application, including its mobile and Spanish version, here: Read the original article on Business Insider Barack and Michelle Obama released a statement on Tuesday praising the Iranian protesters who have taken to the streets in recent weeks over the death of a 22-year-old woman last month while in the custody of the regime's so-called morality police. "On this International Day of the Girl, we stand in solidarity with the courageous Iranian women and girls who have inspired the world through their ongoing protests," the Obamas said in a statement. "The rights they seek are universal: equality, the ability to make their own choices about how they look and dress and express their identities, and the freedom to do so without facing harassment, intimidation, and violence." Protests are entering their fourth week over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab on Sept. 16. Police say she collapsed while in their custody, but her family says that her body showed bruising consistent with being beaten. PROTESTORS CLASH WITH REVOLUTIONARY GUARD IN NORTHERN IRAN, TORCH IRGC BASE: REPORTS Thousands of women and girls have marched in the streets throughout Iran, with some of them ripping off their own headscarves in protest. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Iran's government has violently cracked down on the demonstrations, leading to the deaths of at least 185 people, according to Iran Human Rights. IRAN PROTESTS: DEATH TOLL CONTINUES TO CLIMB, AS REPORTER WHO FIRST HIGHLIGHTED AMINI'S DEATH IS ARRESTED Barack Obama has been accused by some U.S. lawmakers of failing to support Iran's "Green Movement" when he was president in 2009. Protesters took to the streets for months during that movement to call for the removal of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office. President Joe Biden, who was Obama's vice president, has spoken out more forcefully in support for the current wave of protests in Iran, pledging to increase internet access as the regime seeks to censor access to social media and other platforms. Story continues CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Obamas said Tuesday that the protesters are "delivering a powerful message that injustice should not be tolerated." "We are in awe of the Iranian girls who have played such a leadership role in insisting that the future be different from the past, and that Iranian women enjoy the full rights and opportunities that they deserve," the Obamas said. WASHINGTON At different points during Monday nights debate, the two candidates to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate favorably referenced Rob Portman, whose imminent retirement leaves open the seat now furiously contested by Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, and his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance. At a time of intense polarization, Sen. Portman harks back to a somewhat more moderate mood in Washington. Never much of a Trump administration critic, Portman was instrumental in brokering a deal on President Bidens $1 trillion infrastructure bill. He was also one of only two Republicans in the Senate to vote in favor of confirming Bidens nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Though an unabashed conservative, Portman does not engage in conspiracy theories or Twitter feuds. Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance debate on Monday night in their race for Ohio's Senate seat. (NewsNation) Ryan and Vance each tried to cast themselves as similarly moderate, focused on restoring Ohios standing as a manufacturing epicenter while curbing crime and the fentanyl epidemic. With only one debate scheduled between them, and polls showing the two in a virtual tie, Monday was an opportunity for the kind of moment that can boost a candidate across the finish line. Ultimately, neither Ryan nor Vance achieved the goal. Each threw hard but predictable jabs at the others professional record, with Ryan depicting Vance as a Silicon Valley elitist and Vance criticizing Ryan for the two decades he has spent in the House of Representatives. I wish that you were the reasonable moderate you said you were, Vance said of Ryan, whom he lashed tightly to Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, exaggerating the congressmans positions on abortion, immigration, racial justice and transgender rights. The extremist here, Tim, is you, Vance said during one heated exchange. Ryan with Somali American community members at a local marketplace in Columbus, Ohio. (Andrew Spear/Getty Images) Ryan seemed faltering at times. On the whole, Vance showed somewhat more vehemence, but it is not clear that his performance will be enough to convince undecided voters, some of whom may not be sure whether he is the maverick populist who authored Hillbilly Elegy and criticized then-President Donald Trump or once his political ambitions came into focus the ardent Trump supporter who echoed the defeated presidents conspiracies about the 2020 election. Story continues Youre from Silicon Valley, Ryan said at one point, referencing Vances work for venture capital firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. You dont understand whats going on here in Ohio. During a recent rally for Vance, even Trump joked about Vances about-face, mocking the Yale Law School graduate for kissing my ass. Ryan eagerly reprised the line on Monday, telling Vance that Ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kisser, in what appeared to be the debates most popular line on social media. With the midterm elections now less than a month away, Ohio has emerged along with neighboring Pennsylvania and nearby Wisconsin as a key battleground that will help determine control of the Senate. Ryan distanced himself from Democratic leadership in Washington, agreeing that Biden should not seek reelection in 2024. Id like to see a generational change, Ryan said, though he did not clearly answer a question later in the debate about whether Schumer should remain the Democratic leader in the Senate. He also said Vice President Kamala Harris was absolutely wrong when she declared last month that the border with Mexico was secure. Throughout the summer, Democrats have relied on anger over the Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which overturned the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion, to help blunt Republicans momentum heading into the midterms. But there are signs that abortion is fading as an electoral issue at precisely the wrong moment for Democrats. Vance at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in September. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images) Reproductive choice came up, as expected, during Mondays debate, and both candidates seemed prepared with familiar arguments unlikely to convince the unconvinced. About Sen. Lindsey Grahams controversial national abortion ban proposal, Vance said that some minimal national standard is totally fine with me. During a discussion about the case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been raped and was forced to travel to Indiana to legally obtain an abortion, Vance turned the discussion into one of illegal immigration, since the alleged rapist was an undocumented immigrant. Do your job on border security, Vance flatly told Ryan. Vance also had his opponent on the defensive about crime, an issue on which Republicans believe they have the more compelling message. Using racially charged rhetoric popular with other conservatives, he cast Ryan as an ally of the BLM riots, a reference to the Black Lives Matter racial justice protests that shook the nation in the summer of 2020. Ive tried to be a part of the solution here, Ryan answered somewhat defensively about the issue of public safety. Like many other Democrats, he has had to rebut false charges that he is in favor of defunding the police. The charge appears to have been especially potent in Wisconsin, where the perennially unpopular incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson is using attacks on crime and policing to open a narrow but consistent lead against Democratic candidate Mandela Barnes. Ultimately, it was difficult to see how either candidate would benefit from the debate, given that each gave his opponent plenty of fodder for the kinds of partisan attacks that will dominate Ohio airwaves in the weeks to come. Perhaps a series of debates would have let the candidates more clearly articulate their positions, but Vance would agree to only a single debate, in keeping with an emerging trend among Republicans. These days police departments all over Central Florida are dealing with staffing shortages. The Orlando Police Department is down dozens of positions, and one of the ways theyre trying to combat that is money. The city council voted to approve a new contract for their police officers, giving them a raise. But money is also coming into play when it comes to addressing increased crime downtown. Read: Orlando police union calls for higher pay for officers Downtown Orlando has been plagued by shootings that caused the city to implement an access point plan to limit how people can enter the area on Fridays and Saturdays to help curb violence. The access points are stationed by police and K-9s that can detect if a person has a weapon. That program was paid for by the Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency. But you need extra police to do all that. Police Chief Eric Smith said sometimes he has to mandate officers to work downtown on Friday and Saturday nights or for big events. Read: Change-of-command: Orlando Police Department swears in Eric Smith as police chief I think (it) is a little stressful for them. Thats why I try and make it as best, the best we can for them, Smith said. Under the agreement, officers are getting $75 an hour to work those extra shifts downtown, whether they are mandated or volunteer to take them. Watch: Orlandos new police chief talks community policing, goals for department The city wont say how many officers they need on those busy nights for security reasons, so its hard to figure out the costs every week. 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. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the Israeli military said, and a local armed group claimed responsibility for the roadside ambush. The shooting took place near a Jewish settlement located between Nablus and Jenin, Palestinian towns which have seen a half-year of intensified army raids launched by Israel after a spate of lethal street attacks in its cities. Announcing the soldier's death, a military spokesman said searches were under way for the gunmen, who escaped in a car. The "Den of Lions", a group of Nablus gunmen with loose factional affiliations, claimed responsibility in a statement. (Writing by Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel) paris-hilton-assault.jpg 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED - Arrivals - Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage Paris Hilton alleged she was sexually abused while attending the Provo Canyon School, the Utah boarding school she spent a year at as a teenager. In a New York Times video op-ed, Hilton recounted her experience, marking the first time shes opened up in detail about specific instances of abuse. Very late at night this would be around 3 or 4 in the morning they would take myself and other girls into this room, and they would perform medical exams, Hilton claimed. This wasnt even with a doctor. It was with a couple different staff members, where they would have us lay on the table and put their fingers inside of us. And I dont know what they were doing, but it was definitely not a doctor. More from Rolling Stone Along with the alleged sexual abuse, the star, who has been a strong advocate for the closure of Provo Canyon in recent years, has also previously said she was physically and mentally abused during her time at the treatment center. Hilton shared her experience for the op-ed titled Can You Punish A Childs Mental Health Problems Away? alongside a number of other participants who were sent away to similar treatment facilities as teenagers. It was really scary, and its something that I really had blocked out for many years, she added. But its coming back all the time now, and I think about it. And now, looking back as an adult, that was definitely sexual abuse. She went into greater detail in a Twitter thread while sharing the op-ed, writing: Sleep-deprived & heavily medicated, I didnt understand what was happening. I was forced to lie on a padded table, spread my legs & submit to cervical exams. I cried while they held me down & said, No! They just said, Shut up. Be quiet. Stop struggling or youll go to Obs. Story continues Hilton first opened up about her experience at Provo Canyon School in the 2021 YouTube Originals documentary This Is Paris. She accused staff members of inflicting emotional, physical, and psychological abuse on her through verbal assault. She also claimed that attendees were regularly monitored while using the bathroom and showering. Last year, Hilton appeared in a Utah court to testify against Provo Canyon School. This was a recurring experience not only for me but for other #survivors, she added on Twitter. I was violated & I am crying as I type this because no one, especially a child, should be sexually abused. My childhood was stolen from me & it kills me this is still happening to other innocent children. Provo Canyon School was purchased by Universal Health Services in 2000 and has declined to comment on allegations prior to the new ownership. But it also hasnt commented on the alleged continued abuse experienced by patients in the two decades since. In 2020, Universal Health Services agreed to pay $117 million to resolve alleged violations of the False Claims Act, which prohibits billing for medically unnecessary inpatient behavioral health services and failing to provide adequate and appropriate services. Still, despite continuing to deny these allegations, the company and its centers currently face multiple ongoing lawsuits. In one suit, which names 49 plaintiffs, more than two dozen people allege sexual abuse by a former medical director, according to the Times. Its important to open up about these painful moments so I can heal & help put an end to this abuse, Hilton wrote. Best of Rolling Stone Click here to read the full article. Prosecutor Mike Satz on 2 August showing jurors the rifle used in the shooting A man who carried out a mass shooting at a Florida school in 2018 planned a "systematic massacre" and should be sentenced to death, prosecutors say. Nikolas Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty in October last year to 17 counts of murder and attempted murder. Closing arguments in his death penalty trial began on Tuesday, and a jury must decide whether he will be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison. The case is the deadliest mass shooting to reach a jury trial in the US. "What he wanted to do, what his plan was, and what he did, was to murder children at school and their caretakers," assistant state attorney Michael Satz said. "It was calculated. It was purposeful. And it was a systematic massacre," he added. Mr Satz gave a graphic moment-by-moment account of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, describing how each victim died and where they were located. Video of the attack was also shown to jurors in a bid to show how "tactical and purposeful" Cruz's actions were. Mr Satz said the shooting was "highly premeditated" and included the aggravating factors that would justify the use of the death penalty under Florida law. He also pointed to research Cruz had conducted online, as well as online comments in which he vowed to show "no mercy". In one video, Cruz said he planned to be "the next school shooter" and that his goal was to kill 20 people. "What someone writes and someone says is a window into a soul," Mr Satz said. "He told everybody what his plan was". During the closing arguments, Cruz could be seen with his head in his hands. There was no other visible reaction apart from a few moments of whispered conversation with his lawyer. In her own closing argument, Cruz's defence lawyer Melisa McNeill portrayed him as a troubled man who had been affected by his mother's alcohol and substance abuse. She added that she believed a life sentence was "the right thing to do". Ms McNeill said a death sentence would "change nothing" and would "not bring back" the victims. Story continues The 12 members of the jury will begin deliberating his fate on Wednesday. More coverage Before his guilty plea last year, Cruz's lawyers had asked the court to impose 17 consecutive life sentences for the massacre but that offer was rejected by prosecutors. Apart from the death penalty, the only other outcome for Cruz would be life in prison without the possibility of parole. In most US criminal cases, a jury determines culpability after which the judge decides on the punishment. In this case, however, the jury must decide how Cruz will be sentenced. They will need to unanimously agree to recommend the death penalty. Over the course of the death penalty trial that began on 18 July, prosecutors have sought to convince the jurors that Cruz deserves to be executed for for the "goal-directed, planned and systemic murder" of 14 students and three staff members at Parkland. They have shown jurors graphic video evidence taken at the school and taken them on a tour of the still-preserved crime scene. Florida's last execution took place in 2019, when 57-year-old Gary Ray Bowles was put to death for the murder of six men in 1994. Lawmakers, governors and members of the Biden administration celebrated two very different holidays on Monday, with Democrats tending to favor Indigenous Peoples Day while Republicans mostly stuck with the older Columbus Day. Political figures took to Twitter on Monday, pushing different reasons for the days significance. Many Democrats, including Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) expressed support for the newer holiday. On #IndigenousPeoplesDay, we celebrate the contributions, the extraordinary resilience, and the rich cultures of tribal nations and Native communities. Today and every day, the federal government must recommit itself to honoring its promises to Native peoples, Warren said. Vice President Harris and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary, honored the occasion as a day of respect for indigenous communities. Today and every day, let us continue to celebrate and uplift the rich contributions of Indigenous peoplestheir leadership has made our country stronger, Harris wrote in a tweet. In a video posted to Twitter, Haaland cited the Biden administrations work as a promise of a better future for indigenous communities. Democrats also sought to bring awareness to the dark side of colonialism and its disregard for the trauma suffered by native peoples. On #IndigenousPeoplesDay, let us pause to remember the exploitation and genocide of Native and Indigenous communities borne out of our nations discovery,' tweeted Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). We must learn from this dark chapter of our historyand never stop working to right this wrong that is still felt today, she added. Members of the GOP, including Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.), mostly shared messages of holiday greetings hailing explorer Christopher Columbus. Story continues Thank you Christopher Columbus for dreaming big and helping discover the Americas, tweeted Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for New York governor, praised the holiday as a source of great pride for the Italian American community to honor one of their own. Some, including House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), shared more pointed messages condemning the woke left on Twitter. I am proud to stand up against the Far Left woke mob attempting to cancel history! #SaveColumbusDay, she wrote. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A Pennsylvania day care likely did not have a carbon monoxide detector nor was it required to during a gas leak Tuesday that sickened more than two dozen children and adults, officials said. Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he was under the impression that Happy Smiles Learning Center did not have carbon monoxide monitors, though the fire marshal was still investigating. Tuerk said all those effected during the gas leak are in stable condition. In all, 28 children and four adults were rushed to four nearby hospitals Tuesday morning, according to WFMZ-TV. "Due to the quick action of our first responders, we were able to avoid tragedy in Allentown today," the mayor said. PHILADELPHIA GUN VIOLENCE: BOY, 13, SHOT IN HEAD, KILLED; MAN WOUNDED WHILE SITTING IN CAR WITH TODDLER Tuerk also said that the Pennsylvania state legislature did not pass an ordinance that would require commercial day care centers to have the life-saving monitors installed. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP However, the city council had taken action to pass a local ordinance to require carbon monoxide monitors effective Oct. 27, the mayor said. The day care center was inspected in August, according to Tuerk, but officials were not looking for carbon monoxide monitors because they were not required at the time, and the facility passed. Tuerk said residents need to call on state legislators to pass the ordinance requiring carbon monoxide monitors statewide. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The day care remains closed pending inspections, and would be required to have carbon monoxide monitors upon reopening. The incident remains under investigation. WASHINGTON The Pentagon is on track to start soliciting ideas for its third round of joint rapid experimentation projects, which will focus on base defense, according to Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu. The forthcoming sprint is part of the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, an initiative the U.S. Department of Defense took on last year to help address high-need capability gaps. The department selected its first projects last summer and is poised to begin experimentation efforts as soon as fiscal 2023 funding is available, Shyu told a small group of reporters during an Oct. 10 interview at the Association of the U.S. Armys annual conference. The first RDER sprint, which is the process the program uses to gather ideas from industry and the services, focused on long-range fires and the second on contested logistics. The program held an industry day in July and drew nearly 500 people from 190 companies. Shyu said the engagement drew additional proposals for the first two experimentation rounds and noted that the department plans to maintain some reserve funding for each sprint so it can continue to solicit ideas in those areas as they arise. I dont want to shut the door on any small company that could have a fantastic, novel idea, she said. As long as we have funding, were always interested. Congress appropriated $324 million for RDER in fiscal 2022, and the department requested $358 million in fiscal 2023. The Senate Appropriations Committee, concerned the department hasnt developed sufficient plans to transition RDER technology into the services, wants to reduce that funding to $176 million, which would cut the Pentagons request in half. The committee encourages the department to continue the development, testing and experimentation of innovative joint force concepts, lawmakers said in a July report accompanying its version of the fiscal 2023 defense spending bill. However, experimentation and innovation absent defined program goals merely widen the valley of death instead of addressing core programmatic and process challenges inside the department. Story continues The report also questioned whether RDER is distinct from existing joint exercises. Shyu said she has met with committee members since the report was released to discuss the departments plan for RDER and explain that the experiments will be directly connected to service needs. Asked whether those conversations have been fruitful, she said, I think so. Weve had additional discussions with them, and I think whats important is for us to be totally candid with them and to provide whatever information theyre looking for, she said. By Marco Aquino and Marcelo Rochabrun LIMA (Reuters) -Peru's attorney general on Tuesday filed a so-called constitutional complaint against President Pedro Castillo, opening a new legal battle that opposition forces hope could lead to his ouster. Castillo already faces five criminal investigations into whether he has used the presidency to benefit himself and has survived two impeachment attempts in just over a year in office. Castillo denies any wrongdoing and vowed late on Tuesday to finish his term in 2026. "We have found very serious indications of a criminal organization that has taken roots in the government," said attorney general Patricia Benavides. Castillo called the constitutional complaint - as well as raids and detentions that targeted allies earlier in the day - a "coup d'etat" orchestrated by the attorney general's office. Some lawmakers have said they want to launch a third impeachment bid though they acknowledge they do not have the votes. Some, however, think the constitutional complaint could lead to Castillo's suspension with fewer votes in the opposition-controlled Congress than a formal impeachment vote. But Prime Minister Anibal Torres said the constitutional complaint was unconstitutional in its own right, setting the stage for a legal battle over the limits of the mechanism. Peru has a high turnover of presidents with five since 2016. One of them was ousted through impeachment, another resigned before an impeachment vote and a third one resigned after street protests. (Reporting by Marco Aquino and Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Alistair Bell, Richard Pullin and Leslie Adler) Phoenix police have released footage of the incident where officers shot and killed Aaron Baughman, 40, who they say was moving toward them with a raised sword on Sept. 10. Residents in the area of 39th Avenue and Cactus Road called 911 and said a man armed with a sword was striking the fence at the Cactus Park Precinct, Sgt. Phil Krysnky, a Phoenix police spokesperson, said in a critical incident briefing video. In the recording of one of the 911 calls that was made around 5 p.m. a person can be heard saying there was a guy with a Samurai sword hitting the fence. Well, hes not really damaging it, but hes trying to, the caller said. The caller also described the armed man and said he looks mentally disturbed. Another caller said the man was hitting the fence and stabbing through the fence with a Samurai sword near the entrance of the precinct parking lot, according to the critical incident briefing video. Police released an edited video with some additional information about what officers say happened. 911 calls and footage of the Sept. 10 incident where Phoenix Police officers shot and killed Aaron Baughman who they say was moving toward them while raising a sword. Since 2019, the Phoenix Police Department has produced videos with summaries of police shootings that include some body-camera footage, 911 calls and a narration of the events that led to the shooting. Surveillance video from across the street shows a person walking toward a fence and striking it with an object. It is unclear what the object is in this video. About two minutes later, a patrol arrives, and two officers get out of the vehicle. The person can be seen walking away from the fence and walking towards the officers. Krynsky said the person, later identified as Baughman, was walking toward the officers while raising the sword, although in this video it is unclear if he was raising the sword. The officers told Baughman to drop the sword and when he didnt, they shot him, according to Krynsky. The surveillance video shows him falling to the ground. The body camera video of one of the officers involved which didnt have audio because the shooting was captured before audio started recording shows Baughman walking towards the officers and raising an object that looks like a sword. Story continues Then the officer shoots at Baughman, who then falls to the ground and drops the object. It is unclear how many times Baughman was shot. After the shooting, a man pulled up in a vehicle and walked towards Baughman. Officers told the man to stop and detained him. They later determined the man was Baughmans father. Krynsky said Baughman was taken a to hospital where he later died. A photo of a sword was shown in the critical incident briefing video and Krynsky said it was recovered on scene.The officers involved in the shooting, who havent been identified, had been assigned to the Cactus Park Precinct for two years, according to the video. There is an internal and criminal investigation on the police shooting that will be reviewed by the Maricopa County Attorneys Office, according to Krynsky. Conclusions about whether the actions of the officers are consistent with department policy and the law will not be made until all facts are known and the investigation is complete, Krynsky said in the critical incident briefing video. Reach breaking news reporter Angela Cordoba Perez at Angela.CordobaPerez@Gannett.com or on Twitter @AngelaCordobaP. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Footage shows Phoenix police fatally shooting man raising sword Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." The annual event, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and China's Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. "We seek to reveal the differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from West -- only to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both the East and West," said the festival's artistic director Jindong Cai, who is also the USCMI director. Music exchanges play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and China at the current time when bilateral relations are difficult, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard College, told Xinhua at a reception after the concert on Sunday. In the fall of 2018, the Bard College started to offer an undergraduate performance degree program in selected Chinese instruments including erhu, guzheng and pipa. Studio instruction in these traditional Chinese instruments is provided by world-renowned CCOM master musicians, with the use of state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person lessons both on the Bard campus and in Beijing. "It's important to keep it going and music exchanges can bring us closer," said Botstein, an established conductor and music historian, adding that he looks forward to a performance tour in China in June next year. Sunday's concert, "Tales from Beijing," at the Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918 and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing's ancient alleyways -- morning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums -- before finally transporting the audience back to the tranquility of the ancient city. Following were four selections from the opera Rickshaw Boy, specifically chosen and adapted by Chinese composer Guo Wenjing for the concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu. The concert's second half was devoted to Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's Symphony No. 2, The Great Wall. This large-scale work featuring piano, voice, Chinese instruments and symphony orchestra is inspired by the Great Wall, a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China. The second concert program, "Painted Skin," will take place on Oct. 13 at the Hudson Hall, the historical opera house in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center. It features the U.S. premiere of "Painted Skin," a chamber opera based on a ghost story by the early 18th century author Pu Songling, which was originally published in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The last concert program, "Journey to the East," will take place on Oct. 22 in the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Hundreds of protesters packed a Michigan school board meeting Monday night and shut it down with cries of anger over certain LGBTQ books they said are too sexually explicit for children. A heavy police presence failed to prevent the Dearborn Public Schools meeting from descending into chaos as demonstrators took it over and then various factions within them jostled for control, shouting at each other. Protesters often ignored the requests of police officers to stop interrupting board members. It was unclear who was in control of the meeting at times. Most of the crowd appeared to be in opposition to the books, but there were also a number of people with the the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union who showed up to support inclusion of LGBTQ people and others. Not until Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin arrived later did the protesters stop their agitation. Shahin pleaded with the crowd to relax and not embarrass the Michigan city just outside of Detroit. 'Deeply offensive': California school forfeits football season following 'slave auction' prank Iowa: Woman wears drag to school board meeting to protest end-of-year performance "Please, calm down, let's have respect for each other," Shahin told the crowd. "We can have a spirited debate, but we can't conduct ourselves this way, guys, we just can't. We're better than this. Dearborn is better than this. This community is better than this. We're brothers and sisters regardless of race, ethnicity, religion." Community members hold signs protesting against particular educational material inside the Dearborn Schools Administrative Service Center during the Dearborn Board of Education meeting in Dearborn on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. 'Vote them out!' "Vote them out!" the crowd repeatedly chanted during the raucous meeting inside an administrative center where the board holds its public meetings. The room was packed tightly. Several held up signs with anti-gay rhetoric in English and Arabic, making religious references to assert that LGBTQ educational materials and books should not be available in Dearborn Public Schools, the third largest school district in Michigan. So far, Dearborn Schools has removed six books for review, a majority of them with LGBTQ themes, and restricted some of its online access, announcing a plan to give parents more control over what books their children can check out. Story continues Monday's meeting was largely calm for about an hour, but then spiraled out of control as some became upset with board members who spoke about time limits for public commenters and the need to show civility and respect. At one point, a speaker said Dearborn's fire marshal had determined it was unsafe to continue, which further upset some in the crowd. Mike Hachem, one of the protesters, and others questioned why that determination was only made just before the public comment session was to begin. Dearborn Police officer warns crowd to stop yelling and interjecting when school board is speaking. Some are booing board for not doing enough to remove LGBTQ books: pic.twitter.com/umgxSiS2xH Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo) October 11, 2022 The chair of the board, Roxanne McDonald, tried to keep the peace, saying she didn't want to hear people make baseless and slanderous remarks. "Let's all be civil and respectful," she said. Police officers repeatedly told people who yelled out and interjected to keep quiet. But their efforts failed as the crowd's anger grew. Part of the frustration was the board first addressed other issues not related to the books that most had showed up to discuss. They also didn't like what some called a condescending attitude toward them and their concerns. As the crowd start shouting and resisting calls to leave when it exceeded fire capacity, board's members decided to end the meeting and left, filing out of the room. It was unclear if the meeting was temporarily suspended or over, which added to the chaos. Were going to send a message to the board of education," Hassan Aoun, a protester, declared. "We the people put you in this position. We put you on the chair. We elected you. Auon then led the crowd in cries of "Vote them out!" An ongoing protest For weeks, Muslim leaders and community activists had been urging people to attend the meeting to voice their opposition to certain books and educational materials. One of Michigan's most prominent faith leaders, Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, urged people during his Friday sermon to attend the protests. Al-Qazwini and others said they have the democratic right to decide what is appropriate in their schools since their faith is now in the majority. Dearborn is about 47% Arab American, most of them Muslim, and Dearborn Heights is about one-third Arab American, according to census data. Recent protests involved demonstrators who appeared to be mostly Muslim, but one of the key organizers, Stephanie Butler, is Christian, and appeared at both events. Other Muslim leaders have shown support for the protesters. Wearing red, AFT union members and leaders who attended the meeting released a joint statement that supported the books, saying: "Everyone believes that our schools and classrooms should be safe, welcoming, and supportive environments that are free from discrimination and bullying of any kind. ... and that includes young people who identity as LGBTQ. Having resources and books in our classrooms and libraries that speak to the diversity of our students and the broader world we share is critical to providing a quality and supportive education." Brian Stone, who is part of the LGBTQ community, attended the meeting with a poster that displayed two photos next to each other: the one on the left said "1957" with a photo of white people screaming in anger at a Black woman, Hazel Bryan, attending a school in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was integrated for the first time; the photo on the right said "2022," with a photo of a man with an angry face giving the middle finger to Sam Smalley, a transgender person who was a counter-protester, at the Sept. 25 rally at the library against the books. As he displayed the sign, Stone drew some angry men. "This is a community where everyone should be safe and they should be represented," Stone said as they yelled. Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or Twitter @nwarikoo. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: LGBTQ book protest overtakes Dearborn, Michigan, school board meeting Police have identified an 18-year-old man who fell to his death while climbing at a dam in New Hampshire over the weekend. Emergency crews responding to a report of a person who had fallen near the Everett Dam in Weare on Sunday around 3:15 p.m. learned the victim was not equipped with climbing gear or safety equipment, according to the Weare Police Department. Colbee Cammarata-Hodgman, of Nashua, was pronounced dead despite life-saving measures that were attempted at the scene. Due to challenging terrain in the area, police say crews had to utilize high-angle rope techniques to extract the victim. In wake of the incident, police urged the public to take necessary safety precautions while climbing. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Pittsburgh police are looking for a local woman. Devondra Miller, 25, was last seen Sept. 21 in Wilkinsburg. She may have traveled to Armstrong County; Canton, Ohio; or central Florida. Miller is 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 100 pounds. She has blue eyes and blond hair, but could have dyed it a darker color. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 412-323-7141. TRENDING NOW: Family, friends remember man who died after falling from escalator at Acrisure Stadium He didnt deserve this: Local mother asking for answers after son shot in Swissvale Police looking for missing woman; boyfriend dead from apparent suicide believed to be responsible VIDEO: New Kensington native with Pittsburgh bar in Florida helps Hurricane Ian victims DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts The police department in Newport, Oregon, found three explosive hand grenades on a beach. The police released a photo of one device, which came with instructions on how to use it. It is unclear how the hand grenades ended up on one of the city's beaches. The police department in Newport, Oregon, has issued a warning about hand grenades that have washed up on the city's beach. In a news release dated October 5, the Newport Police Department said it was alerted to "multiple reports" of the devices showing up on a beach in the Newport area, between Yaquina Bay State Park and Agate Beach. According to the news release, officers found three devices that appeared to have been washed ashore. The Oregon State bomb squad was deployed and removed the devices from the beach, per the department. A photograph of the explosive grenade released by the department showed a white canister with the label "WARNING: EXPLOSIVE" on it. The label also identifies the object as a "simulator hand grenade M116A1" and even comes with instructions on how to use it. Such devices are commonly used in military training exercises to produce simulated explosions to help troops get used to what real grenades would look and sound like in actual combat situations. "If you encounter such a device, please do not handle or attempt to move it. Call the police to report the device's location," the Newport police department wrote in its news release. It is unclear where the devices originated or how they found their way to the beach in Oregon. The Newport Police Department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on Insider On a sunny, October day in Fayette County, the scenery on U.S Route 35 is mostly farmland, with the exception of Destination Outlets near Jeffersonville. But soon that will change, with Honda's announcement that it and LG Energy Solution will spend at least $3.5 billion to build a battery factory in Jeffersonville that will employ 2,200 workers and help establish Ohio as an electric vehicle hub for Ohio. Politicians, business leaders and others on Tuesday celebrated the announcement. Among the reactions: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine: It has been more than four decades since Honda first saw great promise in Ohio, and although the way we manufacture vehicles is evolving, one thing that will stay the same is the quality of our workforce and their ability to get the job done. Honda and LG Energy Solution now join a long list of companies that have looked all over the country for the best place to do business and have chosen Ohio because we have the ideal economic climate and an innovative and talented workforce. Todays announcement is further proof that there is no better place to be right now than in the great state of Ohio. Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted: Honda and LG Energy Solution had many other states vying for this historic investment, and they chose Ohio. Ohios talented workforce and strong business environment, along with Hondas commitment to quality, continue to be a winning combination for the company and this state. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown: In this year, we finally buried the term Rust Belt. U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm: The United States, manufacturing workers here. We are back. Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp: As we witness the newest chapter in automotive history rolling out, it is pleasing to note that once again Ohio will have a prominent role in writing that story. Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman: When Speaker Cupp and I sat and listened to what the lieutenant governor and governor had in mind, I sat back and said, Heck yeah. Story continues Fayette County Commissioner Tony Anderson: "It may come as a surprise to some of you but I've never said thank you to a $4 billion investment in Fayette County before, but I am so proud to be able to do that." Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co.: Honda is proud of our history in Ohio, where our U.S. manufacturing operations began more than four decades ago. Now, as we expand Hondas partnership with Ohio, we are investing in a workforce that will create the power source for our future Honda and Acura electric vehicles. We want to thank the leaders of the state of Ohio, as well as in Fayette County, Jefferson Township, Jeffersonville, and Washington Court House for welcoming this new joint venture between Honda and LG Energy Solution and giving us another Ohio community to call home. Dong-Myung Kim, executive vice president of Advanced Automotive Battery Division at LG Energy Solution: In another major step toward electrification, LG Energy Solutions innovative battery technologies will not only power Hondas brand-new EV models but support Ohios green economy. We extend our gratitude to everyone who played a role in making this happen. With our commitment to building the world-best quality products, together with Honda, we look forward to not only creating thousands of quality jobs here in Ohio but growing together with the community. J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO: Hondas new commitment comes after 45 years of collaboration, growth, and success, shaping generational opportunity and investment for Ohioans. Honda and Ohio have partnered to strengthen its current manufacturing while transitioning, together, to build the vehicles of the future. Ryan Augsburger, president of the Ohio Manufacturers' Association: Ohios automobile manufacturing legacy begins another amazing chapter today. The Buckeye State is already a leader in North Americas quickly evolving EV market. This latest development will ensure Honda has dependable access to Ohio-manufactured batteries and Ohioans can look forward to more well-paying career opportunities in the near future as Honda continues to invest in our state. Ohio continues to prove to the nation and the rest of the world it has what it takes to compete for 21st century manufacturing jobs! Community also reacts positively to news: Community reaction to the news in Jeffersonville and nearby Washington Court House was also positive. Luke Evans, the manager at the Rally House store inside Destination Outlets, said the plant will bring additional job opportunities to the area after Amazon opened a warehouse in nearby Wilmington. "There's nothing in the area besides Amazon," he said. "It will be a good opportunity for people." Kyler Kelly, the owner of Capuana's Courtview Delicatessen and Super Sport Barber Shop in Washington Court House, said the plant will be fantastic for the community. He believes the Honda facility will bring in people from surrounding counties, which will help bring revenue to small businesses in the city. Kelley noted the business the Honda Auto Plant in Marysville brought to the area. "I hope the same thing happens here," he said. Outside Capuana's, Melissa Woodrow and her daughter, Kylie Woodrow, ate lunch. The Washington Court House residents did not hear about Tuesday's announcement, but said the plant would benefit city residents. "We need something like that here," Kylie, 23, said. "Most people have to go out to Columbus to find work." "It's nice to have more job opportunity in the community," Melissa, 51, added. "And it's not that far from town!" USA Today Network Ohio Bureau reporter Jessie Balmert and reporter Micah Walker contributed to this story. jweiker@dispatch.com @JimWeiker This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Honda battery factory announcement met with cheers from Ohio leaders More than two-thirds of Hispanics say they would not vote for a candidate who supports a nationwide ban on abortions, according to a new poll released Tuesday. The new poll shows strong support for abortion rights among Hispanics in the wake of the June Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which sent the issue of abortion back to the states. The poll was conducted by BSP Research for abortion rights advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Latino Victory Project, a progressive Latino advocacy organization. According to an internal polling memo reviewed by The Hill, 71 percent of Latinos would not vote for any candidate who supports a nationwide ban on abortions without exceptions, and 70 percent said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who wants to ban abortion as well as preventative and emergency contraception. The strong support for abortion rights is consistent across gender, national origin, religious and geographic distinctions. Still, Latinas are much more likely to oppose banning abortion 77 percent of surveyed Latinas opposed bans, while 18 percent supported them, while 67 percent of Hispanic male respondents opposed bans and 28 percent supported them. Catholic Hispanics were also more likely than other Christians to oppose bans, with 73 percent of Catholics against abortion bans and 63 percent of other Christians in opposition. And 74 percent of U.S.-born Latinos opposed abortion bans, compared to 69 percent of foreign-born Latinos. In the memo, the pollsters said that overall, 82 percent of respondents were in favor of the government maintaining abortion rights. That number includes 29 percent of conservative Latinos who personally oppose abortion but say the government should not play a role in reproductive decisions. In particular, the 29% of the Latino electorate who personally opposes abortion, but does not want the government taking the right away for others, is a critical and often misunderstood portion of the Latino community that we must communicate effectively with, according to the polling memo. Story continues In that vein, 84 percent of respondents said decisions on abortion should be left to pregnant people and their doctors. The poll comes as abortion has become a key electoral issue heading into November, second only to economic concerns among most voters. Democrats have by and large leaned in to the abortion debate, although some have raised questions about how Hispanic voters would fall on the issue. The memo by BSP Research, a widely respected Democratic polling firm with expertise in surveying Hispanic voters, seeks to dispel those fears. For years there have been widespread assumptions that Latinos are religious conservatives who oppose abortion, the BSP Research memo stated. This survey answers those assumptions with facts and data to show that Latino voters strongly support reproductive freedom, and have serious concerns today about abortion bans in many states. Importantly, this survey uncovers an important nuancethat even Latinos who personally oppose abortion do not believe the government should get involved to ban access for people who need it, the memo added. According to the memo, 800 respondents were surveyed in English and Spanish throughout the United States, 25 percent on live phone calls and 75 percent online. The survey was conducted in the first two weeks of September and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. ROME (AP) Pope Francis appealed for unity in the Catholic Church on Tuesday as he marked the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, lamenting the divisions that its modernizing reforms spawned as the work of the devil. Francis presided over a special evening Mass to commemorate the opening of Vatican II which brought the 2,000-year-old church into the modern era by allowing for Masses in the vernacular rather than Latin and a greater emphasis on the role of ordinary faithful in the life of the church. Sixty years later, Vatican II still very much divides the faithful, with progressives seeing it as a break from the past and conservatives seeing it as fully in line with church tradition and chafing at the spirit of Vatican II progressive read of it. The latest battleground has been over the pre-Vatican II old Latin Mass, with traditionalists blasting Francis' decision to greatly restrict its celebration. In his homily, Francis blamed the temptation to choose sides in the ideological battles on the devil who wants to sow the scandal of division. How many times, in the wake of the Council, did Christians prefer to choose sides in the Church, not realizing that they were breaking their Mothers heart! he asked. To be on the right or left, rather than with Jesus? To present themselves as guardians of the truth or 'pioneers of innovation' rather than seeing themselves as humble and grateful children of Holy Mother Church? He pleaded for the faithful to act as one, as Christs flock. Let us overcome all polarization and preserve our communion, he said. Tuesdays Mass was celebrated in honor of St. John XXIII, who convened the council and presided over its opening session, and his remarkably well-preserved remains inside a glass coffin were on view by the altar of St. Peters Basilica. The ceremony began with a reading of Johns inaugural speech to the council, excerpts from some of Vatican IIs key documents, and was ending with a re-enactment of the candlelight procession that lit up St. Peters Square on the night of Oct. 11, 1962. Story continues On that night, the good pope came to the window of the Apostolic Palace and delivered his famous moonlight speech to the thousands who had gathered below. Whereas pre-Vatican II popes usually spoke in formal terms, John surprised the crowd with an impromptu, pastoral speech urging the faithful to go home to their children and give them a hug and tell them this is the caress of the pope. The council would last for another three years and outlive John, who died in 1963 of stomach cancer. But when it was over, council fathers had agreed to major changes in the life of the church. In addition to allowing for liturgies in the vernacular, the council fathers also encouraged efforts to improve relations among Christians and revolutionized the churchs relations with Jews, including removing the phrase perfidious Jews from the liturgy. Francis, 85, is the first pope to have been ordained after the council, and his priorities are very much inspired by it. Above all peace, above all the poor church, said Vatican II historian Alberto Melloni told The Associated Press about Francis. Melloni also pointed to Francis insistence on a synodal or decentralized church, with an emphasis on lay Catholics rather than clerics. The lay-centric vision of the church is clearly evident in Francis decision to allow laypeople, including women, to head Vatican offices and in the the two-year synod process in which ordinary Catholic faithful have joined a global consultation on the life and mission of the church. Conservatives have bristled at Francis synod process, with German Cardinal Gerhard Meuller recently asserting it amounts to a hostile takeover of the Catholic Church. He told the EWTN broadcaster that Vatican II reaffirmed that divine revelation could not change and that any other interpretation was not only erroneous but dangerous. John XXIII did not convoke Vatican II to reinvent Catholicism, writes church historian George Weigel in his new book To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II. As he put it in his opening address, the councils greatest concern must be the more effective presentation of Catholic truth in full through a new language and vocabulary that could be understood in the modern world, Weigel wrote. By Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira LISBON (Reuters) - A commission investigating child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said on Tuesday it has already gathered more than 400 testimonies of alleged victims but admitted the number of actual cases was "much higher". The Portuguese commission started its work in January after a report in France revealed around 3,000 priests and religious officials sexually abused over 200,000 children over the past 70 years. The Portuguese Catholic Church has been rocked in recent weeks by various cases of alleged cover-up of sexual abuse including by bishops who remain active in church roles. "Concealment is inherent in sexual abuse cases," said commission member Daniel Sampaio, a Portuguese psychiatrist. "Of course there was concealment by the Church." One of the highest-profile cases involves Jose Ornelas, who is the head of the Portuguese Bishops Conference (CEP). Public prosecutors have said they are investigating Ornelas. A teacher has accused him of covering up sex abuse at an orphanage in Mozambique in 2011. According to Portuguese newspaper Publico, the teacher said he reported sex abuse by two Italian priests to Ornelas, who was in charge of the mission at that time. The teacher claims Ornelas took no action. CEP defended Ornelas in a statement and said that he reported the case to the local congregation in Mozambique, which found no evidence of abuse. So far, 424 testimonies have been validated, but Pedro Strecht, the head of the commission, said the number of victims was "much higher" as many of the people the commission spoke with mentioned others they knew who were also abused. Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a conservative, came under fire after he said "400 cases (of alleged sexual abuse of minors) doesn't seem to me to be particularly high". On Twitter, lawmakers from left to right have described Rebelo de Sousa's comments as "unacceptable". Story continues From the 424 testimonies, 17 were sent to the public prosecutors' office for investigation as all others were committed over 20 years ago and legal proceedings can no longer be initiated. There are 30 other testimonies currently under evaluation that may be eligible to be sent to the public prosecutors' office, Strecht said. "There are several situations in which the same alleged abuser is mentioned by different people," he said, adding most of the victims were young boys. "It is unequivocal that given these traumatic events...the victims expect an apology." Strecht said his team would present a final report in January next year. (Reporting by Catarina Demony, Miguel Pereira and Pedro Nunes in Lisbon; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has poured 12.7 billion yuan (about 1.8 billion U.S. dollars) on ecological protection over the past decade, authorities said. In 2021, the forest coverage rate in Tibet reached 12.31 percent, and the comprehensive vegetation coverage of grassland grew to 47.14 percent, Shui Yanping, deputy head of the regional department of ecology and environment, told a press conference Monday. The population of rare wild animals has also seen restorative growth, according to Shui. The population of the black-necked crane, which is under first-class national protection, has increased from less than 3,000 in 1995 to over 10,000, while the number of Tibetan antelopes has increased to more than 300,000. Figures show that Tibet remains one of the areas with the best environment globally, with local ecosystems remaining stable and the environment constantly improving, she said. Prince Harry lit up as he talked about his children, Archie and Lilibet, while chatting with families from the WellChild organization via video call after having to miss the annual awards ceremony in September following the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. The Duke of Sussex has been patron of WellChild since 2007 and has attended many events in support of the nonprofit foundation that makes it "possible for children and young people with serious and complex health needs to be cared for at home instead of hospital, wherever possible." While speaking with Henry Waines, 4, and his parents, Shevonne and Ben, Prince Harry admitted that he had one special thing in common with the little boy. "My name is Henry as well, but everyone calls me Harry. Dont ask, I have no idea why," he said. A LOOK AT PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE'S CHILDREN, ARCHIE AND LILIBET Prince Harry (seen in 2018) discussed his children, Archie and Lilibet, during a series of video conference calls with families from the WellChild project. Samir Hussein Shevonne told Harry, "You are the inspiration for why Henry is called Henry." The prince immediately threw his hands over his eyes and became emotional as he responded, "Don't tell me that!" Henry received the Inspirational Child Award for ages 4 to 6 at the ceremony last month, which Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle had to miss due to the queen's sudden passing. "That is a very, very cool award. You know, I was supposed to be the one giving it to you, and I was sadly not able to be there. Im sorry we didnt get to meet, Henry," Harry said. MEGHAN MARKLE AND PRINCE HARRY RELEASE CANDID NEW PHOTO OF DAUGHTER LILIBET ON HER 1ST BIRTHDAY "Thats alright," Henry replied. "Tell you what, you sound just like my son, Archie. ... The same little squeaky voice. I love it," the Duke of Sussex added. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, attend the WellChild awards at Royal Lancaster Hotel on Sept. 4, 2018, in London. Victoria Jones Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sit with their son, Archie, during their 2019 tour in Cape Town, South Africa. Samir Hussein "How are Archie and Lilibet doing?" the youngster asked Prince Harry. "Theyre doing great," he said. "Archie is very, very busy, and Lili is learning to use her voice, which is great." He reminded the little one to "continue being the brave boy that you are" and gave full respect to his parents. Story continues MEGHAN MARKLE CRITICIZES HOLLYWOOD FOR USING DRAGON LADY STEREOTYPE IN FIRST PODCAST SINCE THE QUEEN'S DEATH "You've got your hands full in the most beautiful way," Harry said. While speaking with another family about their Labradoodle that is in training to become an assistance dog for their daughter, Isabel, Harry admitted his house is fairly full with animals, too. "I'll tell you what, we all need a dog that keeps us calm," he said. "I've got three in this house now, so [we] basically have five children. Between the three of them, they charge around chasing squirrels and causing all sorts of problems to us every single day. But they are also emotional support dogs, 100 percent, when they're behaving." Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attend a WellChild event in 2019. The Duke of Sussex has been the patron of the charity since 2007. Toby Melville Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend the National Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral during Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. Samir Hussein "Our remarkable winners and their families were delighted to have this additional chance to celebrate their achievements, particularly as this years event ran under unique circumstances," WellChild Chief Executive Matt James told Fox News Digital. "The duke recognized the immense challenges faced by children and young people who face serious ill health with positivity, resilience and courage and the dedication of those around them, from siblings, professionals and volunteers who have gone above and beyond to help them through such challenging times." CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER Harry and Meghan most recently attended a WellChild event in September and were set to present awards at this year's ceremony until doctors announced concerns about Queen Elizabeth's health. At the time of the queen's death on Sept. 8, the organization refrained from sharing social content in her honor. "It is with great sadness that we learnt of the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II, grandmother of our Patron The Duke of Sussex," they wrote. "Our thoughts are with the whole of The Royal Family at this difficult time. Our social media channels will be silent during this period of mourning." The Duke and Duchess of Sussex departed from royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States due to what they described as the British media's intrusion and racist demeanor toward their family. They remained in the UK throughout the 10-day mourning period for the queen's funeral. Prior to Queen Elizabeth's death, Harry and Meghan visited in June for the queen's Platinum Jubilee celebration. Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges against Adnan Syed in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee after DNA evidence supported his innocence, officials said. The news comes weeks after his murder conviction was overturned. Syed was sentenced to life behind bars in 2000 for the murder of Lee, his former girlfriend, and his case gained national attention in 2014 from the podcast Serial." The Baltimore City state attorneys office confirmed Tuesday morning that the charges had been dropped. Charges dropped after DNA testing Baltimore City State Attorney Marilyn Mosby said at a news conference Tuesday that she dismissed the case after a "second round of touch DNA testing of items that were never tested before." Officials tested a skirt, pantyhose, shoes and a jacket belonging to Lee, and the same "DNA mixture of multiple contributors" was found on both her shoes. Testing did not find Syed's DNA on that evidence, Mosby said. She explained that touch DNA, which analyzes skin cells left at crime scenes, has been used since 2003. The case was originally prosecuted in 1999, and advances in DNA technology allowed for new testing. Adnan Syed (Lloyd Fox / Tribune News Service via Getty Images) "My office received notice of these results Friday. This morning I personally reached out to the victim's attorney to inform Ms. Lees family of the DNA findings and my decision to dismiss the case," she said. "We attempted to wait for confirmation of notice before releasing anything publicly, but we still at this point have not heard back from that attorney." Mosby said that although her administration "was not responsible" for "the pain inflicted" upon Lee's family or for Syed's wrongful conviction, "as a representative of the institution, it is my responsibility to acknowledge and apologize to the family of Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed." Mosby said that Syed should now be off house arrest and that he must undergo a certification process initiated by his attorneys to deem him innocent. The state public defender's office also said in a statement Tuesday that DNA testing results excluded Mr. Syed from the DNA recovered from the evidence. Story continues Syeds attorney Erica Suter, the director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore Law School, said in a statement: Finally, Adnan Syed is able to live as a free man. The DNA results confirmed what we have already known and what underlies all of the current proceedings: that Adnan is innocent and lost 23 years of his life serving time for a crime he did not commit, she said. Hae Min Lee's family 'robbed' of a voice Lees family said they learned the charges had been dropped through media accounts Tuesday morning and now feel "robbed." The family received no notice and their attorney was offered no opportunity to be present at the proceeding, Steve Kelly, counsel for the Lee family, said in a statement, countering what Mosby said at her news conference about notifying the family. By rushing to dismiss the criminal charges, the States Attorneys Office sought to silence Hae Min Lees family and to prevent the family and the public from understanding why the State so abruptly changed its position of more than 20 years. "All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Todays actions robbed them of both. Syeds two-decade case The news caps a more than two-decade saga throughout which Syed maintained his innocence. Lee was 18 in 1999 when she was killed and her body was found buried in Baltimores Leakin Park. Syed was released from prison on Sept. 19 after city Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn said trial prosecutors did not properly turn over evidence that could have helped defense lawyers show that someone else killed Lee. Phinn said evidence uncovered since the trial would have added substantial and significant probability that the result would have been different. Prosecutor Becky Feldman said moments before the ruling, The state has lost confidence in the integrity of this conviction and believes that it is in the interest of justice and fairness that his convictions be vacated. During the trial, prosecutors relied on cellphone records that appeared to show Syed in the vicinity of the park where Lees body was found, but they later questioned the unreliable cellphone tower data. Prosecutors also said they wanted to look at two alternative suspects. According to a filing last month, those suspects were known persons in the investigation but were not properly ruled out. Syed was ultimately ordered to be released without bail and placed on home detention with GPS location monitoring. After his conviction was overturned, the Baltimore City state attorneys office had 30 days to weigh whether to retry him or dismiss the charges, culminating in Tuesday's decision. Lees family filed an appeal after the charges were overturned, alleging the family were not given the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the hearing that secured Syed's release. The family asked the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to halt the circuit court proceedings during the appeal, and last week the state attorney generals office joined Lees family in asking for the hold on Syeds case. The state public defender's office said the appeal is still pending. Suter said: While the proceedings are not completely over, this is an important step for Adnan, who has been on house arrest since the motion to vacate was first granted last month. He still needs some time to process everything that has happened and we ask that you provide him and his family with that space. However, Mosby said at her news conference Tuesday: "I've utilized my power and discretion to dismiss the case. Theres no more appeal. Its moot. ... The case is over. Speaking about the DNA evidence and other potential suspects, Mosby said the investigation into Lee's murder is still open and pending. Im going to put every power and resource in my means to assure justice for Hae Min Lee, Mosby said. Rabia Chaudry, a family friend of Syed's who took the case to Serial podcaster Sarah Koenig, praised the news that the charges had been dropped in a statement. For decades now my prayer and the prayer of people who love Adnan have been not only that he is released from prison, but that he returns home with his dignity and reputation restored, his record cleared, and the killer of Hae Min Lee brought to justice, she said. We prayed for all of these things and God has granted nearly every prayer. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com US-JUSTICE-HOMICIDE-PARKLAND-TRIAL Public defender Melisa McNeill delivers closing arguments in the death-penalty trial of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Oct. 11, 2022. Credit - Amy Beth BennettAFP/Getty Images Prosecutors in closing arguments at the trial for the Parkland gunman Tuesday described the systematic massacre he carried out when he killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. It marked the end of the death-penalty trial, which lasted nearly three months and focused on devastating details of the school shooting and the gunmans history of mental health issues. Nikolas Cruz, now 24, pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of first-degree murder for the school shooting. A jury is now tasked with deciding whether he will be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole. They are expected to begin deliberations on Wednesday. This plan was goal-directed. It was calculated. It was purposeful, and it was a systematic massacre, lead prosecutor Michael Satz said Tuesday, calling out the gunmans unspeakable, horrific brutality. During the trial, jurors heard emotional testimony from students and teachers, and they visited the school building to see classrooms stained with blood and marked by bullet holes, unchanged since the day of the shooting. It has been said that what one writes and what one says is a window into someones soul, Satz said Tuesday, pointing to comments Cruz had made on YouTube about wanting to kill a ton of people and murder children and see the families suffer. Satz recounted in harrowing detail how Cruz attacked students and teachers at the school on Feb. 14, 2018, killing some victims at close range while they tried to defend themselves. Defense attorneys for Cruz focused on his childhood and mental-health history, arguing that his biological mothers abuse of drugs and alcohol during pregnancy caused him to suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and that he struggled from a young age with behavioral issues that were never properly treated. Story continues They didnt dispute what happened on the day of the shooting. Nikolas knew the difference between right and wrong that day, and he chose wrong, his public defender, Melisa McNeill, said during closing arguments on Tuesday. What he did has never been in dispute. But she argued that because of his history of mental illness and brain damage, he should be sentenced to life in prison, not to death. We are not asking you to let Nikolas Cruz walk out of this courtroom, she said. We are asking you to punish him and to punish him severely. We are asking you to sentence him to prison for the rest of his life. Victims family members, who had given heart-wrenching impact statements earlier in the trial, sat solemnly in the courtroom on Tuesday, while lawyers made their final case. There is no punishment that you could ever give Nikolas Cruz that would ever make him suffer as much as those people have, McNeill said, referring to the victims family and friends. Sentencing Nikolas to death will not change that. It will not bring back those 17 people. But prosecutors argued that aggravating factorsincluding that the murders were cold, calculated, and premeditated and especially heinous, atrocious or crueloutweigh those mitigating circumstances, urging jurors to decide in favor of the death penalty. There is no brain damage. There is damage to his personality and to his character, Satz said. And hate is not a mental disorder. After 23 years in prison, Adnan Syed is a free man. Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday announced they were dropping charges against the 41-year-old and subject of the hit podcast Serial, reports The New York Times. Prior to his release in September, Syed had been serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The decision comes after a judge last month overturned Syeds prison sentence on the recommendation of prosecutors, who said the state was no longer confident of the conviction. At that point, prosecutors had 30 days to decide whether to move forward with a new trial or drop charges. Where the case of Lee's murder goes from here is hard to say. In September, following a nearly yearlong investigation, the state said it had found two possible alternative suspects. However, the public identity of those individuals is not known yet. A Baltimore prosecutor stumbles upon two handwritten notes in Adnans case file. They change everything. A new episode from season one, out now. https://t.co/0O60tPrtxS Serial (@serial) September 20, 2022 While Syed maintained his innocence throughout the two decades he was in prison, its fair to he probably wouldnt be free today if not for Serial. His case attracted global attention in 2014 after it was chronicled by former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig in the podcasts breakout first season. Koenig spent more than a year investigating the specifics of Syeds case, paying particular attention to the conduct of Cristina Gutierrez, his lawyer at the time. The issues she highlighted proved to be critical in the state's reassessment of Syed's case. In 2019, for instance, Marylands highest court found Gutierrez had failed to properly investigate an alibi witness ahead of Syeds trial. More recently, the state investigation found reliability issues with some of the evidence that was used to convict Syed and that prosecutors may have failed to disclose evidence that would have aided his case. On Sept. 16, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died at a hospital in Tehran, Iran, after spending three days in a coma. According to her family and human rights groups, she sustained life-threatening injuries at the hands of so-called morality police presumably because her hijab failed to comply with the public dress code. On that exact same day, at a public high school in Baltimore, Maryland, a 16-year-old Afghan teen whod recently arrived in the United States with her family after her countrys government collapsed to the Taliban, was locked inside a school bathroom by a staff member and ruthlessly beaten by other students who pummeled her head, forcibly ripped off her hijab that she chooses to wear, and attempted to choke her with it. She survived the brutal assault, which was reported to police and brought to our attention by a caseworker helping the family. But she suffered extensive bruises, scrapes and swelling around her neck, as well as a debilitating concussion with lingering symptoms that typically accompany traumatic brain injuries including headaches, dizziness, confusion and disorientation. As the Maryland office of our civil rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, worked with her and her family to collect details and seek restorative justice, accountability and policy changes within the school system, which investigated promptly, I also watched along with others as historic protests transcending religion, class and ethnicity erupted across the globe, in solidarity with Mahsa Amini and others fighting against oppression in Iran. Its difficult to imagine the pain and grief her parents are enduring at the loss of their daughter under these senseless circumstances. As I reflect on their loss, I also recall the pain and confusion of the Afghan father in Baltimore, afraid to send his visibly Muslim daughter to school. He could have lost his daughter too, over a headscarf that she chooses to wear due to her religious beliefs. Its a pain and fear no parent should ever have to experience. Story continues While we advocate for this student whose religious head covering, a constitutionally protected article of faith, was weaponized against her by those who also sought to violently strip her of her agency, its crucial that we ring the alarm on the dangerous, far-reaching implications of unchecked Islamophobia and anti-hijab rhetoric. The demonstrators organizing rallies following Mahsa Aminis untimely, suspicious death are largely protesting what they view as the Iranian governments use of religious edicts as a political tool to manipulate and violently exert authority over girls and women. Regardless of our religion, politics or location, demanding accountability for Mahsa Aminis death and standing up against violence against women should unite people around the world. But amid this important struggle, something alarming is also happening. As demonstrators voice their grief, anger and frustration over the Iranian governments repressive policies, many, including me, have noticed a dangerous uptick in Islamophobic, anti-hijab rhetoric both online and in our personal circles. Some voices on both the left and the right have broadly condemned the hijab as a tool of oppression instead of as the personal religious choice that it is for the vast majority of Muslim women who voluntarily wear it. Friends have been harassed at the supermarket and even their childrens school about their decision to wear the headscarf. An influencer with over 1 million followers shared an uncomfortable exchange with a nail technician who made inappropriate, intrusive comments about her hijab. Commentary in the media, signs at protests and comments on many online articles and posts have been openly hostile toward Islam. Others have used the crisis as an opportunity to push an Islamophobic agenda by demanding sanctions that would harm innocent Iranian people, an end to nuclear deal negotiations, and even outright war against Iran. All of this is unacceptable and doesnt represent true solidarity with Iranian women. The world must rightfully stand with women and girls everywhere fighting against gender-based violence. But that fight whether against governments, ideologies or individuals must be principled, morally consistent and without bigotry. When ally-ship selectively manifests only for those choosing to take off the hijab, but not for those choosing to put it on, it translates into Islamophobia that risks perpetuating more violence against girls and women. Thats not solidarity. When a legitimate, worthy cause is co-opted as a cover to vilify Islam, push for sanctions that harm innocent Iranians, or advocate for a disastrous war, thats not solidarity. When people enthusiastically support women killed overseas by American adversaries, but steadfastly ignore women killed overseas by our governments allies, thats not true solidarity. As the force thats launched a massive movement to galvanize change and fight gender-based oppression, these double standards do a disservice to Mahsa Aminis legacy. Our liberation is intertwined, its often said that none of us are free until all of us are free. The freedom for all girls and women to peacefully protest without fear of violence must be protected at all costs. In Maryland, we can do that by not fueling Islamophobia even as we justly demand accountability and criticize oppressive governments, and by consistently standing up for the safety of all girls and women, from Mahsa Amini in Iran to an Afghan teen in Baltimore. Zainab Chaudry (Twitter: Zainab Chaudry) is director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) office in Maryland. Contributor - Getty Images Sightings of Russian military equipment associated with nuclear weapons have observers wondering if Moscow is preparing to use them in Ukraine. Putin has also upped his nuclear rhetoric recently, adding to concern. An expert tells Popular Mechanics he believes the U.S. government and others would detect if Russian forces were preparing for nuclear action. Could Russian President Vladimir Putin be preparing to use nuclear weapons? Thats the latest rumor from the war in Ukraine, where the Russian army is on the run. Putins nuclear warnings, coupled with unusual sightings of nuclear weapons equipment in Russia, could be signs hes preparing to use them. But U.S. intelligence would likely detect the buildup before a nuclear attack, allowing time to warn Ukraine and prepare if their use spirals out of control. Things arent going great right now for Russias war in Ukraine. More than two hundred days after the start of the invasion, a Ukrainian counteroffensive is making gains east of Kharkiv, with Lyman the latest city to be liberated from Russian forces. In Kherson in the south, the offensive is pinning Russian ground troops against the Dnipro River, where destroyed bridges are blocking their escape. Russias partial mobilization is sending poorly trained and equipped civilians to the front, antagonizing families left behind , and its economy is staggering under the weight of even more sanctions imposed. Photo credit: Anadolu Agency - Getty Images Putin needs an end to the war he thought would last just three days, and he needs it fast. Over the past several months, Putin has made several references to nuclear weapons, with the latest being the most explicit so far. Putin accused the United States and NATO of nuclear blackmail and accused Western leaders of making statements about using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia. Putin also stated: If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. The reference to all means is interpreted as the use of all available weapons, including nuclear ones. Story continues Its not a bluff, the Russian president warned. Photo credit: Anadolu Agency - Getty Images On September 30, Russia announced it had annexed four regions of Ukraine: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, making them officially part of Russia. Russian forces are currently retreating in at least two of those regions, but a logical extension of Putins warning is that Russia is intent on keeping the conquered regions, and may use nuclear weapons to defend them. In the meantime, observers have noticed some indications of nuclear-related activity inside Russia. On October 3, the The Telegraph reported a train was spotted with armored vehicles belonging to the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which is responsible for the physical security of Russias nuclear weapons. The vehicles are typically assigned to units protecting nuclear weapons in the field. Konrad Muzyka, an analyst in Europe who publishes the Ukraine Conflict Monitor newsletter, believes there was a purpose behind releasing the video, telling CBS News : This video of a train is a very good example of Russian strategy of trying to increase the pressure on the West and signal itsmaybe not necessarily readinessbut willingness to escalate the situation. Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies , is not convinced the train sighting is directly related to the deployment of nuclear weapons, but says that sightings of specialized trains used by the Russian military to transport nukes could make him think otherwise. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports , seven Russian strategic bombers were spotted at Olenya air base in northern Russia. The four Tu-160 Blackjack and three Tu-95 Bear bombers arrived sometime in late September, traveling from Engels Air Base in western Russia. The seven bombers are all capable of launching nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. One expert in Russian nuclear forces, Pavel Podvig, however warned on Twitter that the deployment doesnt tell you much about Russian intentions. Olenya is also farther from Ukraine than Engles, so the deployment doesnt seem like a precursor to using the bombers to strike targets in Ukraine. Photo credit: Anadolu Agency - Getty Images Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, an expert on nuclear weapons and nuclear policy, thinks Putin could use nuclear weapons. Perry, who has met Putin several times, told The Atlantic, Putin is rational at the moment, not deranged, and would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve victory and thereby ensure the survival of his regime. Perry believes that the use of a low-yield nuclear weapon against a military target would have little downside for Russia, and that the inevitable international uproar might blow over in a week or two. The U.S. and its allies have taken note of Putins nuclear rhetoric and are stepping up monitoring of Russian military movements in an attempt to catch any signs of imminent weapons use. If Putin were to use a nuclear weapon, he would very likely alert Russias entire nuclear force. After all, Putin cant be sure that, if Russia goes first, there wont be a U.S. response. So Russia has to be ready for an all-out nuclear war, even if Putin only intends to make a demonstration strike, Lewis tells Popular Mechanics. Many of Russias nuclear forces are already on alert, Lewis explains, but Russia would likely take additional measures like sending more submarines to sea and sending more mobile missiles into the field. If the U.S. saw those kinds of actions, it would respond by increasing its alert levels. So far, U.S. forces have not increased their alert status. Washington has warned Moscow that the use of nukes have catastrophic consequences, though it is being intentionally vague as to what those consequences might be. Putin for his part has ominously argued that the U.S. already set a precedent for the use of nuclear weapons with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The clear implication is that Putin does not believe that the use of nukes, at least against battlefield targets, is not as big a deal as everyone else thinks it would be. Another school of thought is that Russia might not increase its alert status, especially if it is determined to avoid a nuclear crisis with the West. Tactical nuclear weapons are by design extremely rugged, and a nuclear weapon could be smuggled near the front line in something as small as a car. A weapon with 10-kiloton yield would create a fireball a quarter mile wide and cause third-degree burns up to three quarters of a mile away. Ukrainian forces are typically spread out to avoid artillery fire, so even this sort of weapon would not create large numbers of casualties. Casualties might not be the point, though: the use of even a small nuke would send a signal to Ukraine that Russia has nukes and it does not, and Russia could use even larger ones to obliterate whatever target it wants. Only Putin knows if he is planning to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Thats enough to make anyone uneasy. But what Putin does not know is what the U.S. and the West would do in response. That might be enough to make Putin himself uneasyand prevent him from pressing the nuclear button. You Might Also Like ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday hailed a recent decision by OPEC, Russia and other oil producing nations to limit production as key to stabilizing the global energy market, as he met the leader of the United Arab Emirates for talks on fostering economic ties. Speaking at the start of his talks in St. Petersburg with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the president of the United Arab Emirates, Putin hailed the ties between the two countries as important for regional and global stability. Despite all the difficulties that exist in the international relations today, ties between Russia and the United Arab Emirates are an important factor of stability in the region and the entire world, Putin said at the start of his talks with Al Nahyan. The Russian leader noted Al Nahyan's support for the decision of the OPEC+ group that includes Russia to limit oil production to shore up oil prices, saying that our decisions, our action, aren't directed against anyone. Putin said: Our actions are aimed at ensuring stability in global energy markets to make both comsumers of energy resources and those who deal with production and supplies feel calm, stability and confidence, to help balance supply and demand. The decision by OPEC+ to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day has outraged the West, where many saw it as a move that would help Putin finance Russia's action in Ukraine. The production cut also risked saddling President Joe Biden and Democrats with rising gasoline prices just ahead of U.S. midterms. The United Arab Emirates has maintained close business ties with Russia and sought to refrain from joining the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other Western allies over Moscow's action in Ukraine. Putin hailed Al Nahyan for mediation efforts that helped solve some really sensitive humanitarian issues in Ukraine. I'm aware of your concern about the development of the situation and your desire to contribute to the settlement of all disputed issues, including today's crisis in Ukraine, Putin said. Russian President Vladimir Putin. Contributor/Getty Images Putin's strategy is failing because he has "little effective internal challenge," per a UK intel chief. GCHQ's head Sir Jeremy Fleming pointed to Russian troops running out of equipment and ammo. The remarks come after Putin launched a major bombardment of Ukrainian cities and facilities. President Vladimir Putin keeps making strategic errors in his war in Ukraine because nobody around him can call out his mistakes, according to the head of the UK's GCHQ spy agency. Putin's decision-making is "flawed" because he has "little effective internal challenge," according to text of a speech from Jeremy Fleming, previewed by Insider ahead of its delivery on Tuesday. "It's a high stakes strategy that is leading to strategic errors in judgement," Fleming said in the text. Fleming is due to give the speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London on Tuesday afternoon local time. While it focuses primarily on China, the speech also remarks on Russia's aggression, saying that Ukraine is "turning the tide" in the war. Analysts have long remarked on Putin's shrinking inner circle and the impact this has had on his decision-making. The Russian leader has surrounded himself primarily with people who share his mindset, making internal challenges to his thinking exceedingly rare. Citing US intelligence, CNN reported in September that Putin went round the usual chain of command to personally give battlefield orders to his generals, a highly unusual arrangement that the US says has contributed to chaos on the ground. Over the past six weeks, Ukraine has retaken hundreds of square miles of territory, including in areas that Russia claimed to have annexed and considers its own land. Fleming said: "Having failed in two major military strategies already, Putin's plan has hit the courageous reality of Ukrainian defense." "The costs to Russia in people and equipment are staggering," he said, adding that Russian supplies and munitions are running out and that troops are "exhausted." Story continues Putin's recruitment from prisons and his chaotic mass mobilization of reservists "speaks of a desperate situation," Fleming said. The announcement sent Russians fleeing to avoid the draft in numbers that exceeded Putin's original invasion force, as the UK's MOD noted. "They're seeing just how badly Putin has misjudged the situation," Fleming said, adding that they are beginning to realize that the war will affect their own lives. Fleming's speech was due a day after Putin launched missiles and drone swarms towards Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities and regions, well beyond the front lines of Ukraine's ground war. Putin framed this as retaliation for an attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge over the weekend, state media reported. On Saturday, Putin named a notoriously brutal commander, Sergei Surovikin, to lead Russia's assault on Ukraine. Read the original article on Business Insider With Russia firing a hail of missiles into Ukraine on Monday and Belarus making fresh threats against Kyiv, President Vladimir Putin is seeking to escalate the nearly eight-month war and compensate for humiliating recent losses, Western analysts say. According to Ukrainian authorities, 41 out of 75 missiles were intercepted, but the remainder struck cities around the country, including the capital Kyiv and western Lviv near the border with Poland. Putin warned Ukraine he was ready to authorise more "severe" attacks, while deputy head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that "the first episode has been played. There will be others." UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned the strikes as "another unacceptable escalation" while French leader Emmanuel Macron called them "a profound change in the nature of this war." Analysts said the strikes appeared to be a response to a blast on Saturday on the Kerch bridge linking the occupied Crimea peninsula to Russia which was personally inaugurated by Putin in 2018. Yordan Bozhilov, director of Bulgarian think-tank Sofia Security Forum, called the explosion that downed one of the road sections "the first personal humiliation for Putin". The attack -- not claimed by Ukraine but immediately blamed on Kyiv by Russia -- came after major battlefield reverses for Russian troops around Lyman in northeast Ukraine and Kherson in the south in recent weeks. "Russia demonstrated that it can still escalate the conflict but it can only escalate by attacking more and more civilian targets," said Wojciech Lorenz, head of the international security programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. "The Russian regime was under pressure from its own propagandists and some opinion makers to demonstrate that it was able to respond to Ukrainian offensives," he told AFP. - Belarus - Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, also issued fresh threats against Kyiv on Monday, raising fears he might be preparing to finally join Russia's offensive against its neighbour. Story continues Lukashenko has granted Russia use of his territory but has declined to send troops directly into battle. He said Monday he had agreed to deploy "a regional grouping" that would mix Russian and Belarusian troops but did not say where they would be sent. "I am sceptical of Belarus entering the conflict. Belarus troops are primarily engaged in repressing their own people," said William Alberque, a military expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank. Lorenz said he was also doubtful about Belarus's direct involvement, but he said that "Ukraine will have to devote some resources to defend its border." "It's better to concentrate those resources in the east (against Russia) without having to spare thousands of troops in the west and the north," he said. - Options - Strong-arming Belarus into greater involvement, nuclear threats and increasing the brutality of attacks on Ukraine are seen as some of the few options available to Putin in the short-term as he seeks to change the momentum on the battlefield. Alberque viewed Monday's missile attacks as being part of Putin's strategy of trying to raise pressure on Ukraine and the West. "Russia has entered a cycle of shock and the peak of violence. It started with mobilisation and annexation, then with nuclear threats and now with indiscriminate attacks against civilians," he said. Despite recent setbacks, Putin formally annexed four Ukrainian regions in late September and ordered a partial mobilisation of up to 300,000 men. "Putin is trying both to put pressure on Ukrainian society by destroying power plants and civilian infrastructure and to put pressure on Western countries, to try to undermine their unity," added Bozhilov from the Sofia Security Forum. Attacks on civilians also helps him "portray himself as someone ready for anything." But Lorenz stressed that large-scale missile attacks of the sort seen Monday could not be repeated regularly by Russian forces and that Western nations were now likely to boost Ukrainian air defences to help protect major cities. "Russia's precision-strike capabilities are limited and because of international sanctions it is able to rebuild them quickly," he said. "It can do a show of force, but because its resources are depleted, it is just a gesture." dab-adp/jh/ach It took nearly three years for workers at a dinosaur museum in Heyuan, Guangdong province to restore a nest of 11 dinosaur eggs unearthed near a local bridge. "Every piece of information about the dinosaur eggs is well recorded, waiting for future uncovering," said Huang Zhiqing, deputy director of the collection and research department at the Heyuan Dinosaur Museum. The nest of eggs is just a small part of their kind in the museum. There are nearly 20,000 dinosaur egg fossils on display at the museum since the first dinosaur egg fossil was dug up in Heyuan in 1996. In November 2004, the museum won the Guinness World Record for keeping 10,008 dinosaur eggs, the largest number in a collection around the world. "Repairing a nest of dinosaur eggs, including fine carving and polishing, usually involves a group of workers taking several months to three years to complete the process," said Huang, who has been engaged in field investigation and fossil restoration research for 25 years. The nest of eleven fossil eggs was discovered by primary student Zhang Yangzhe, who was playing with his mother near a broken bridge spanning the Dongjiang River on July 23, 2019. Parts of the bridge had been washed away by a flood. They accidentally found the eggs in exposed soil at the fractured bridge foundation on the river bank, which were later brought back to a repair workshop of the Heyuan Dinosaur Museum. "We had to carry out a long, meticulous, rigorous and scientific repair work on those egg fossils," Huang said. The eggs were embedded in red sandstone and some of them ended up being broken after the sandstone was crushed during deep excavation and rescue, according to Huang. "Repairing a nest of dinosaur eggs requires patience, perseverance and a meticulous approach by workers," he said. Workers had to rely on hammers, steel chisels and high-carbon steel needles to carve and polish the eggs due to a lack of funds in that early stage of work. Conditions later improved after sophisticated tools such as geological hammers and imported pneumatic guns were introduced. "Like dentists, workers here were carving and polishing the eggs in a very meticulous way, slowly exposing the fossils from the red sandstone body more accurately and gradually picking out the historical information of the dinosaurs," he said. It usually took at least one month to repair a single round egg fossil with a diameter of about 6 centimeters, and about four years for three workers in the museum to repair six large nests of such eggs, said Huang. "It is not all about quantity. Quality and scientific attitude also matter in the process of repairing dinosaur eggs," he added. After scientific identification, the nest of 11 eggs belongs to the late Cretaceous Period, some 90 million years ago, said Wang Qiang, associate researcher of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Heyuan, one of the few places in the world where dinosaur eggs, bones and footprints have been discovered, is home to at least five dinosaur species, according to Wang. "Dinosaur eggs found in Heyuan are famous for their large quantity and diverse variety," he said. In the coastal province of Guangdong, dinosaur eggs have also been found in Nanxiong, Huizhou and Foshan in the Pearl River Delta region and Maoming in the western part of the province. Dinosaur eggs found in Guangdong date back to both the earliest and late stages of the Cretaceous Period, said Wang. "Dinosaur eggs unearthed in other areas are generally of a single type. From the perspective of geological age, eggs discovered in Heyuan play a connecting role in the dinosaur egg fossil group in China," he said. Unlike fossils usually found in soft soil elsewhere, dinosaur eggs in Heyuan are mainly found in rough red sandstone, added Wang. Among all the areas in China where dinosaur eggs were found, Heyuan is the only place where dinosaurs had laid their eggs in rough "delivery rooms", according to Wang. "It provides more possibilities for future research on the living environment of dinosaurs in Heyuan, and also reflects the adaptability of these dinosaurs to the environment," he said. Research found that those dinosaurs did not lay their eggs at the place where they lived. And that explained why there are "dinosaurs found without eggs" and "eggs found without dinosaurs" in some places, Wang added. More scientific research on dinosaur eggs is needed in the future in the sense that there have been no embryos found inside the eggs so far unearthed in Heyuan, he said. "Comprehensive research should be conducted to promote better understanding of the egg fossils," Wang said. Of more than 1,000 dinosaur species named worldwide, 300 were discovered in China. Dinosaur eggs in the Heyuan Dinosaur Museum will help provide a detailed physical basis for scientific research on Guangdong's geological environment and biodiversity in the future, said Du Yanli, director of the museum. The fossilized eggs are various in terms of length, size and shape, with specifications ranging from 1.5 cm to 23 cm, which are of great scientific value, he said. The museum has established a relatively complete database of the dinosaur eggs so far discovered in Heyuan, according to Du. "The size, weight, location and soil horizon of each egg are clearly recorded. They are more like a string of encrypted symbols, waiting for decoding in the future," he said. Dinosaur egg fossils turn out to be a rich source of information about the diversity and paleogeographic distribution of dinosaurs in Guangdong during the late Cretaceous Period. They also help provide favorable conditions for the study of ancient topography and geomorphology in the province, Du said. "Different from other paleontological fossils, dinosaur eggs are the main carriers of reproduction information, playing an important role in breeding new life," he said. Local authorities in Heyuan initiated a plan to establish a joint research institute to promote geological studies on dinosaurs and the area, Du said. "The research institute, which will give full play to the dinosaur eggs found in Heyuan as favorable resources, is also aimed at tapping the potentials of development and utilization of dinosaur culture," he said. The institute, featuring studies on dinosaur eggs, will be jointly set up by the Heyuan Dinosaur Museum, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jilin University and Sun Yat-sen University, which is based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. Scientific research and systematic analysis of ancient geography, especially of the environment of areas where dinosaur eggs were found, will offer a glimpse into the natural world, said Du. The institute, the first of its kind in South China, will help train more professional talents in scientific research and also serve as a platform for technical cooperation in studying fossilized dinosaur eggs in the region, according to Du. "We will make more efforts to uncover the mysteries about various dinosaurs and their evolutionary process," he said. However, it is difficult to estimate the total number of fossilized dinosaur remains, which may be buried in the 100 square kilometers of red sandstones on both sides of the Dongjiang River, Du said. Sporadic dinosaur egg fossils have also been unearthed in Dongyuan, Heping and other places of Heyuan. There are also 168 dinosaur footprints in eight groups found in the city's urban areas. MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin told International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi on Tuesday that the situation around Ukraine's Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is "of concern". At a meeting in St Petersburg shown on Russian state television, Putin told Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, that Russia was open for dialogue and would discuss "all issues" concerning the facility's operations. Putin also said there had been "excessive, dangerous politicisation" of everything to do with nuclear activity. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, has been a key flashpoint in Russia's nearly eight-month military campaign in Ukraine. Captured by Russia in early March, the facility remains close to the frontlines, and has repeatedly come under shelling, inflicting so far minor damage but raising fears of a nuclear disaster. Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of shelling the plant. Grossi led an IAEA mission to it in August. (Reporting by Reuters) Puyallup police officers are busy investigating three overnight incidents where a car was used to damage property. Its unclear if the crimes are related, but one of those incidents happened at a bank. Police said that just after 2 a.m., they got a call about an attempted break-in at the Wells Fargo on 39th Avenue Southwest off Meridian Street. Two masked individuals (were) again trying to pry open the ATM, when they were unsuccessful. They took a vehicle a pickup truck and rammed the ATM. However, (they still were not) successful at entering it, said Puyallup Police Department spokesperson Don Bourbon. As officers arrived, a black SUV fled the scene. But due to House Bill 1054, regarding tactics and equipment used by police, officers were unable to pursue the vehicles because it was a property crime, Bourbon said. Just a few minutes away, the 76 gas station off East Main and Meade Avenue was also hit overnight. It appears that a vehicle rammed the building multiple times in attempt to get inside near where the ATM was, so were not sure that it was an attempted ATM theft; however, based on the incident at Wells Fargo we can maybe assume they were trying to get the ATM, said Bourbon. Bourbon said the gas station has been damaged multiple times. He said that in January, someone attempted to steal a Bitcoin machine there. Less than 2 miles away on 29th Street Northeast near Main Avenue, Toscanos Italian Grill was also damaged. Police said a vehicle rammed the entryway. The business said it appears nothing was taken and there is no ATM at the restaurant. Unknown why, on this one. There are a lot of business connected to the Toscanos entrance area, so Im not sure. There is a financial institution there, and I think theres another business there as well, so were not exactly sure why this business complex was broken into, said Bourbon. Police are determining if the three incidents are connected, and if they are, Puyallup police will compile a large case against the suspects. Story continues More news from KIRO 7 DOWNLOAD OUR FREE NEWS APP A Quincy man pleaded guilty in Boston federal court Monday for an offense of receiving child pornography. Andre Tilahun, 29, pleaded guilty for allegedly receiving images depicting child pornography on the Kik Messenger platform. Tilahun also participated in a Kik chatroom where child pornography was shared, according to the Department of Justice. In April 2021, a search was conducted on Tilahuns home where authorities found the images on the Quincy mans laptop. A charge of receipt of child pornography carries a minimum prison sentence of five years in prison but can be as many as 20 years, 5 years and up to life of supervised release. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Mountain lions are a rare sight in the Midwest, but one recently wandered right past an Iowa hunter sitting silently in a tree stand overhead, video shows. Its difficult to see at first, a tan figure moving low through the trees and foliage, hidden enough for a skeptic to claim its a bobcat until it suddenly leaps forward into perfect view of the hunters camera. The cougar cautiously looks from side to side and stops in a grassy clearing, stock-still as if listening for something amid the background noise of traffic passing outside the woods. If its aware of the hunter, it doesnt show. Dont even breathe, one person commented on the social media post, shared Oct. 10 by the Madison County Sheriffs Office Holy crap he could be up that tree stand in a few seconds, wrote another. The hunters encounter is one of several recent mountain lion sightings in Madison County, the sheriffs office said. The sheriff in neighboring Warren County has been receiving reports as well, according to the post. We do not believe there is any danger to the public as these sightings have been in remote areas not regularly traveled by the public, the Madison County Sheriffs Office said, adding that its unclear if these sightings are of the same mountain lion, or if theres more than one wandering southern Iowa. Cougars are rare throughout the Midwest and Iowa is no exception, according to the states Department of Natural Resources. The last historical record of a mountain lion in Iowa was in 1867, and that account shines light on how early settlers interacted with the animals: They shot and killed them. The pioneers did not see their presence of any value to their own way of life, so basically persecution by humans brought their demise, the department said. For generations, cougars were seemingly erased from the state until reports of big cat sightings began trickling into DNR in the mid-1990s, the department says. Sightings have continued since, and while most are bogus or lack proof, department data shows over 30 mountain lion sightings have been confirmed since 1995. Story continues There are currently no protections for mountain lions in Iowa, though DNR has in the past championed legislative efforts to prevent indiscriminate killing of the animals, to make it illegal to kill them unless they are about to attack people or livestock. All mountain lions spotted in Iowa in recent decades are believed to have wandered in from western states, such as Wyoming, where there are established populations, experts say. There are no established breeding populations in Iowa. It is doubtful that the mountain lion will ever have much presence in Iowa, according to DNR. There is some question about whether Iowa (is actually) good mountain lion habitat. The tolerance or intolerance of humans will dictate whether they will ever be able to get a foothold in the state. Watch as a mountain lion sneaks up on a coyote wandering at night in California video What scares a grizzly bear? Guide sees unbelievably phenomenal sight in Grand Tetons How high can a coyote jump? Backyard video of bold intruder takes Texans by surprise Giant rodent native to South America ended up in Illinois river. A fisherman killed it A real estate agent discovered a dead woman while showing a rural, vacant property to potential buyers, Washington authorities said. The Clark County Sheriffs Office responded to the property in Camas after getting a 911 call about the body on Sunday, Oct. 9, the Clark County Sheriffs Office said in a Tuesday, Oct. 11, news release. Deputies arrived to find the womans body with what appeared to be a gunshot wound, the sheriffs office said, and called the Major Crimes Unit (MCU) for a homicide investigation. During their investigation, which included interviewing nearby residents and collecting evidence, detectives identified a possible person of interest, the release said. The next day, detectives found that the person of interest died in Oregon from what investigators believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the sheriffs office said. The investigation, being conducted by Clark County investigators with the help of police in Oregon, is ongoing, the release said. Camas is about 115 miles southeast of Olympia. A woman vanished in 2019. A utility crew just found her remains, California cops say Cowboys discover body of missing woman who disappeared 2 weeks ago, Arizona cops say ATV rider found body weeks ago in Arizona, but nobody can figure out who it is Oct. 11Southland junior Katelyn McCabe and the Rebels were in the midst of an onslaught from a young and hungry Lyle-Pacelli volleyball team, but she found just the motivation she needed as her team was able to finish off a sweep by scores of 25-11, 26-24, 25-15 in Pacelli Gym Monday. The Rebels (6-11 overall) actually trailed 24-17 in the second game, before scoring nine straight points to steal it. "Their student section was getting in our ear and it got in our heads. We weren't connecting on our hits like we usually do, but we figured it out," said McCabe, who finished with five kills and nine digs. "It was OK. It was really nice to finish it off in three, because I really wanted to go to Applebees." LP (1-22 overall) was also tied 6-6 early in the first game and it made some big rallies to stay in the second game. After LP scored on a long volley to go up 16-12, Morgan Klankowksi had a big kill to put the Athletics up 19-13. Just when LP was one point away from tying the match at one apiece, Southland's Ava Payne went up and served nine straight points including a set clinching ace. "I'm really proud of our freshman libero Ava Payne," Southland head coach Michelle Nelsen said. "To serve that many points in a row without a miss was absolutely stellar. The way the girls rallied, I think at the beginning of the season the girls would've hung their heads and lost that set. We're a young team, but we've improved a lot this year." The Athletics have a young squad and head coach Faith King has seen them build up their talent this season. She said that her squad simply needs to learn how to build up its confidence. "I think we have the skill set and ability to win games. It's a matter of learning how to win again. We were up 24-17, and it was like 'oh no, we're going to win. What do we do?' They kind of panicked," King said. "I have two seventh graders playing big minutes and an eighth grader is one of my main hitters. They're young and we'll get there." Southland stats: Naveah Shaw, 5 kills, 3 blocks, 7 ace serves; Katelyn McCabe, 5 kills, 9 digs; Bria Nelsen, 7 set assists; Maren Wehrenberg, 7 set assists; Nora Schmitz, 6 digs; Ava Payne, 3 ace serves; Shannon Kiefer, 2 ace serves LP stats: Olivia Heard, 1 kill, 8 set assists, 1 ace, 1 dig; Lilly VaDeer, 4 kills, 2 aces, 3 digs; Meagan Rauen, 2 kills, 1 ace, 1 block; Kate Rauen, 6 digs; Audrey Wilde, 2 kills, 1 set assist; Morgan Klankowski, 5 kills, 1 block; Autumn Drennan, 2 set assists, 2 aces, 1 dig; Jada Leif, 1 ace, 1 dig Just a quarter of eligible households are taking advantage of a federal program to provide students with free or inexpensive internet access, according to a new report released Tuesday. The $14.2 billion Affordable Connectivity Program, part of the infrastructure funding package President Joe Biden signed almost a year ago, provides a monthly $30 broadband benefit for low-income families and a one-time $100 voucher for a device. Almost three-fourths of eligible families live in a community where internet service providers are offering free high-speed service for those who qualify. But distrust in government and a lengthy application are hampering efforts to increase enrollment, according to the report from EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit that helps make internet service more affordable for students. Currently, only 13 million of the 51.6 million households eligible have enrolled. No paywall. No pop-up ads. Keep The 74 free for everyone with a generous donation. The Federal Communications Commission, which runs the program, asks for a heavy amount of documentation from applicants, said Evan Marwell, CEO of the organization. That means many dont complete the process and almost half of the applications are rejected due to incorrect documentation. Even though the goal is to close the digital divide, the [agencys] number one priority is to make sure there is no waste, fraud and abuse in the system, Marwell said. Officials have reason to be cautious. Families can apply for the program if a child in the family is the only one eligible. But last month, the agencys inspector general released findings on an Oklahoma case in which internet service providers used the name, birthdate and social security number of the same 4-year-old child to apply for the benefit over 1,000 times and claimed over $365,000 in reimbursements. The case wasnt isolated, according to the press release. EducationSuperHighway The FCC has been working with organizations in states to promote the benefit and launched a $10 million pilot program in August to reach families who already receive housing subsidies. Paloma Perez, press secretary for Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, said the agency seeks feedback from eligible users and is continually exploring ways to improve the application and enrollment process based on their input. Story continues Officials have also recruited 40,000 outreach partners and hosted more than 700 online and in-person local events to promote the program, she said. School districts, Marwell added, play a vital role in simplifying the process by informing families whose children qualify for free or reduced-price meals that they automatically qualify for the internet discount. With one fell swoop, they can overcome that document issue, he said. He pointed to districts in Worcester and Springfield, Massachusetts, as examples of strong efforts to inform families about the program. As a result, enrollment in those two cities is two times the statewide participation rate of 19%. Cities reaching at least 40% enrollment include Buffalo, Cincinnati and Detroit. Related: 12 Months After Pandemic Closed Schools, 12 Million Students Still Lack Reliable Internet Another barrier to participation is that the FCCs application, which can take at least a half hour to complete, isnt mobile-friendly. A lot of families who lack broadband at home are only accessing the internet through their phones, Marwell said. And its only available in English and Spanish. The site hasnt been designed with the people who most need it in mind, Marwell said. But Perez said the agency has enhanced the application to make applying by phone more user-friendly Along with the report, EducationSuperHighway launched a new website that tells parents which documents to gather before applying. The states with higher participation rates, like Ohio, Kentucky and Louisiana, Marwell added, have been better about sending letters to families receiving nutrition assistance to let them know they qualify Marwell applauded major internet companies like AT&T and Verizon for offering $30 plans so families dont have to pay additional fees. The remaining challenge is that companies have been more effective at getting the word out to existing customers who qualify than to those who dont have access. States and cities, really need to do the work to get to the unconnected, Marwell said. If all you have is access on your phone, youre unconnected. FIRST ON FOX: Republicans are demanding more information from President Biden's Department of Education amid reports that blue states across the country are using billions of taxpayer dollars from the Democrats' $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package to push core tenets of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools. The American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act, which the Democrats passed in March 2021 without any Republican support, was billed by the Democratic Party as a necessity for reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as Fox News Digital reported in April, the law provided over $122 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), which helped multiple states implement "implicit bias" and "anti-racism" training, among other programs. In a letter Tuesday to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Republicans said they are investigating "the misuse of COVID-19 relief dollars intended for virus mitigation, the safe reopening of schools, and addressing catastrophic learning loss." The letter, signed by Republican Rep. James Comer, a ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, a ranking member of the Committee Education and Labor, cited one example from Newburyport, Massachusetts, where the school district there spent at least $56,800 in ESSER funds to hire a consultant who apparently coached a high school principal to use a racial slur in front of other faculty members in order to help him "lean" into his "discomfort." U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona meets leaders from U.S. colleges and universities in the Vice President's ceremonial office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S., August 8, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK, ILLINOIS USED COVID-19 RELIEF FUNDS TO PUSH CRT IN SCHOOLS "This is not what federal COVID aid was intended for, but according to information obtained by Committee Republicans, taxpayer dollars paid for this session," the letter stated. "Moreover, under no circumstances should the American people fund the coaching of educators to use racial slurs for any purpose and/or at any time. This is both a waste and a misuse of taxpayer dollars." Story continues The letter gives Cardona until Oct. 25 to provide all documents and communications related to the approval of Massachusettss plan for ESSER funds, as well as all documents and communications related to the "review of ESSER funds used to pay consultants for various professional development sessions in state and local school districts." Fox News Digital previously reported that in August 2021, the Education Department published a report offering strategies for how states should use ARP funds to support the return to in-person learning, explaining that some school systems may see a need for a "culture shift" to ensure schools "reopen equitably for all students." The report recommended that states use ARP funding, in part, to address the "reasons families of color have cited for not returning to in-person learning," such as "fears of xenophobic and racist harassment." WHAT IS CRITICAL RACE THEORY? The DoE report said school districts should "implement strategies designed for systemic change at the local and school level." "Educators should evaluate and reflect on their school culture, climate, and policies and can use well-designed survey tools to learn what practices may be keeping all students from feeling safe, included, and academically challenged and supported," the report said. "Based on this information, they should commit to making improvements to achieve the goal of safe, inclusive, and supportive learning environments." US President Joe Biden announces student loan relief with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona (R) on August 24, 2022 in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images At least $46.5 billion from the ARP ESSER fund has been allocated to 13 states, including California, New York and Illinois, that are planning to use the funds to implement CRT in their schools. The California Department of Education was awarded $15.1 billion in ARP ESSER funding to implement its schools reopening plan, which included $1.5 billion for training resources for school staff regarding "high-need topics," like "implicit bias training." The California DoE used funds to "increase educator training and resources" in subjects such as "anti-bias strategies," "environmental literacy," "ethnic studies," and "LGBTQ+ cultural competency," according to the plan. The New York State Education Department (NYSED) was awarded $9 billion in ARP ESSER funding to implement its reopening plan, which supported "putting DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) at the heart of NYSEDs work with" all local education agencies. The approved plan included "providing staff development on topics such as culturally responsive sustaining instruction and student support practices, privilege, implicit bias, and reactions in times of stress." It also recommended that schools use social-emotional learning [SEL] to "support the work of anti-racism and anti-bias." EPA USED COVID-19 RELIEF FUNDS FOR GRANTS PROMOTING GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE The plan said the New York State Board of Regents "is committed to creating an ecosystem of success built upon a foundation of diversity, equity, inclusion, access, opportunity, innovation, trust, respect, caring, relationship-building, and much more. It is the policy of the Board to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in all NYS districts and schools through the budgeting process, allocation of resources, and development of Board policies" The plan, quoting the Boards DEI framework, said "equity warriors" were currently working to create "more diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive" school communities across the state, and that their efforts should be "recognized and applauded." U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona deliver remarks during an event for the 2022 National and State Teachers of the Year in the East Room of the White House on April 27, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images In Illinois, $5.1 billion in ARP ESSER funding was awarded to the state Board of Education for its reopening plan that implemented strategies with "an emphasis on equity and diversity." The plan provided school districts with training on topics like "anti-racism" and equity, and allocated a percentage of funds to create a statewide coalition to help school districts offer grants for projects addressing "issues pertaining to interrupted learning and support groups that were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic (e.g., homeless, LGBQT [sic], marginalized communities)." There are at least nine other states, including Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia, that have used or plan to use billions of dollars in ARP funding for their state education departments to implement certain tenets of CRT. Economists on both sides of the political aisle have blamed the $1.9 trillion ARP for overheating the economy and contributing to the current inflation crisis. The Education Department told Fox News Digital in April that curriculum decisions are made at the local level, not by the federal agency. "The Department is not encouraging the use of American Rescue Plan funds to teach CRTand any claim to the contrary is patently false," the department said at the time. "The Department believes politicians should stay out of the curriculum decisions that are best made at the local level, in engagement with parents, families, and local school communities." A wave of violence swept through a troubled Rikers Island jail over the weekend. Seven stabbings and slashings were reported between Friday and Monday in the George R. Vierno Center, a jail with a rough capacity of 1,300 detainees, correction sources told the Daily News. The flood of weekend slashings appear to be part of a sudden increase in violence in that jail. In the first four months of 2022, there were just 36 stabbings and slashings in the Vierno Center, city records show. Correction sources attributed the violence to continuing fallout from the move by city Correction Commissioner Louis Molina to mix members of rival gangs in the same housing areas as a way to increase safety. From May through August, the total number of blade attacks at Vierno Center nearly doubled to 63 with an average of 20 per month in June, July and August, the data shows. Figures for September were not available Tuesday. The sheer number of slashings suggest weapons are still readily available in the jails despite Department of Corrections efforts in increasing tactical searches. In June, Molina and Mayor Adams said the searches had seized 2,700 weapons in the system. The era of neglecting the violence and dysfunction of our citys jails is over, Adams said at the time. Prosecutors and the departments Correction Intelligence Bureau are investigating the weekends incidents, a spokeswoman for the Bronx District Attorneys office said Tuesday. The Correction Departments press office did not respond to emails. Since July, the Vierno Center has also become the site of roughly half of all stabbings and slashings system-wide, supplanting the Robert N. Davoren Center, the jail for younger detainees, as most violent jail. The Vierno Center saw 19 of the 39 blade attacks systemwide in June, 21 of the 43 in July and 20 of the 38 in August, the figures show. Overall, the numbers of stabbings and slashings have been trending sharply upward for the past six years, the figures show. From January 2016 through February 2021, there were never more than 22 slashings in the system in a single month, with many months where there were fewer than 10. Since February 2021, the monthly total has hit at least 40 blade attacks 10 times, including four times in 2022. By Dawn Chmielewski and Jeffrey Dastin (Reuters) -As online gaming platform Roblox Corp confronts a lawsuit alleging it enabled a California girl's exploitation, its chief scientist said finding dangerous content in the company's virtual world is nothing like spotting it in video. "It's such a challenge to moderate 3D," said Morgan McGuire in an interview at the Reuters Momentum conference in Austin on Tuesday. He had no comment on the recent lawsuit but said Roblox was built with safety and civility at the forefront. San Mateo, Calif.-based Roblox is deploying bots to patrol user-generated games and press buttons to detect any dangerous content that players have disguised. "This is more like shutting down speakeasies," he said, referring to U.S. prohibition-era bars hiding from law enforcement. BBC reported this year that users had created explicit private spaces, known as "condos," where people's digital avatars could engage in virtual sex. McGuire said the company is able to remove inappropriate content within minutes thanks to artificial intelligence software and moderators. What escapes scrutiny is not "horrifically bad" but more likely a terms violation, he said. Still, a lawsuit filed last week alleges that adult men on Roblox connected with a girl, who was born in 2009, and nudged her to sign up for Discord, Snap Inc's Snapchat and Meta Platforms Inc's Instagram to talk to them. The suit alleges they pushed her to drink, abuse prescription drugs and send explicit images, later precipitating suicide attempts. McGuire said Roblox bars users from posting phone numbers or off-platform links. But as momentum grows to connect disparate worlds into an alternate digital reality called the metaverse, Roblox is engaging with a consortium of companies about how they could work together in the face of different standards, he said. "A real challenge when we start looking at the open metaverse concept is that we want to be able to preserve what we've built and not just allow anything to come into our platform," he said. (Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Jeffrey Dastin in Austin; Editing by Josie Kao) A Rockland school employee was arrested for allegedly enticing a child under the age of 16, according to a statement from East Bridgewater Police. According to officials, Peter Tolan, 58, a custodian at John W. Rogers Middle School, allegedly sent sexually explicit messages to a detective posing as a 15-year-old on a social media app. Tolan allegedly agreed to meet what he thought was a 15-year-old girl at an East Bridgewater residence for a sexual encounter later that night. Members of the East Bridgewater police department proceeded to the agreed upon location and arrested Tolan when he entered the parking lot. A search of Tolans phone found messages that matched those sent to the undercover officer earlier in the day. It was discovered Tolan was an employee of a nearby school district during the booking process. Police officers made contact with the school and informed officials that Tolan was issued a verbal no trespass order. Justin Pratt, a nearby student, expressed shock at the developing story. Has me shaken right now, said Pratt. It can happen to anyone especially something like this. According to a statement by Rockland Public Schools, Tolan has been placed on leave pending the outcome of his criminal case. Boston 25 reporter Brea Douglas tried to speak to Tolan at his house. Although the lights of the residence were on inside, no one came to answer Douglas repeated knocks at the door. Tolan also served as a ticket seller for the Boston Red Sox. The ballclub told Boston 25 that he has been suspended without pay from his position. Tolan was released on $500 bail and arraigned in Brockton District Court Monday. Tolan was ordered to have no contact with minors, is prohibited from using social media, applying for a job within a school system, is ordered to stay away from Rockland Public Schools and cannot leave the state. A pre-trial hearing is set for November 30. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW OLENA ROSHCHINA TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 22:35 Around 30% of energy infrastructure in Ukraine has been hit by Russian missiles since Monday, 10 October, Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Tuesday. Source: Herman Halushchenko in an interview with CNN Details: According to the minister, "for the first time since the beginning of the war," Russia has "dramatically targeted" the energy infrastructure. Halushchenko said that one of the reasons is that the export of Ukrainian electricity to Europe "helps European countries save on Russian gas and coal." He added that Ukraine is trying to "quickly restore supplies from other sources." Answering a question about whether Ukraine will receive additional energy from Europe, Halushchenko said that this is "one of the options under consideration." The minister noted that Ukraine's energy system is "still stable," but called on partners to provide "air defence systems that could really help us protect our infrastructure." "We are sending the following message to our partners: we need to protect the sky. Russians are not playing some games with international laws. They dont care about any kind of international agreements or conventions." Background: On 10-11 October, Russia launched massive missile attacks on critical infrastructure facilities, namely the energy sector, in the capital and various oblasts of Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have called on people across the country to "restrict" energy use. The Ministry of Defence of Russia stated that the targets of attacks are not only Ukrainian military, but also civilian energy facilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that this is revenge for the explosion on the Crimean (Kerch) bridge, which the Russian authorities blame on the Ukrainian secret services. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! OLENA ROSHCHINA TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 21:29 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to exclude Russia from its ranks. Source: President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyys address to the participants of the 215th session of the UNESCO Executive Council, Office of the President Quote from Zelenskyy: "Dear defenders of Educational, Scientific and cultural achievements of humanity! Please tell me, why are representatives of Russia still among you? What do they do at UNESCO? How can there even be representatives of a terrorist state in UNESCO, which is proud of the destruction it causes in another country? I thank UNESCO for supporting Ukraine at this time and for all the principled statements that were made in defense of Ukraine and its culture from Russian aggression. But we still need new steps steps that Russia will feel. A terrorist state definitely does not have the right to preside over one of the key bodies for the protection of cultural and natural heritage the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. Such a Russian chairmanship devalues the institution itself its weight, its reputation. It is impossible to give Russia the authority of UNESCO for destruction. A terrorist state should be excluded from all UNESCO bodies and from the organization itself. Let it be a historical example for everyone in the world that no one will tolerate the enemy of culture, the enemy of history, the enemy of education, the enemy of science." Details: Zelenskyy stressed that on the morning of the 230th day of a full-scale war, Russia once again launched cruise missiles from the Caspian and Black Seas and children again did not go to kindergartens, schools or universities. Last night, a Russian rocket hit the buildings of the Khortytsia National Academy in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. More than 2,600 educational facilities have already been destroyed or damaged by such Russian terrorist attacks. Story continues On 10 October, in Kyiv, a Russian rocket hit an intersection in the central part of the city, 700 metres from the bell tower of St. Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The buildings of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv were also damaged by the impact. Another rocket hit Tereshchenkivska street. The buildings of the Khanenko museum were damaged, where, in particular, masterpieces of Velasquez, Canova, Cellini, and the facilities of the National Museum of Taras Shevchenko one of the most famous Kyiv publishing houses are located. Quote from Zelenskyy: "Can you imagine a missile strike on Babi Yar in Kyiv the burial place of 100 thousand victims of Nazi shootings? And this strike was. Can you imagine the shelling of a Menorah in Drobytsky Yar, Kharkiv Oblast, where 20 thousand Nazi victims are buried? And this attack also took place. 540 is the total number of cultural heritage sites, cultural institutions and religious buildings damaged by Russian strikes in Ukraine during the full-scale war since 24 February. Almost 200 destroyed or damaged temples! And, perhaps, while I am addressing you now, one of the Russian strikes also damaged other cultural or educational objects, as well as other memorials or churches." Details: According to Zelenskyy, this is a conscious choice of Russia "to oppose itself to everything that matters to humanity." But Ukraine, which has been a conscientious member of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization since 12 May 1954, needs UNESCO's help in protecting its cultural heritage. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Russian troops again attacked Zaporizhzhia with rockets According to the governor, two of the missiles hit a car dealership, killing one person. Firefighters extinguished a fire that broke out in the building. Other missiles hit a school and a clinic. Russia has increased strikes on civilian infrastructure of the regional center over the past week, including on Oct. 10. As a result, a multi-story apartment block in the center of the city was partially destroyed. Read also: Russia launches fresh attack on city of Zaporizhzhya overnight Russian forces attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia with 13 aircraft and the S-300 missile systems overnight on Oct. 9. The city infrastructure and residential buildings were targeted. It was reported that 13 people, including a child, were killed and 89 others, including 11 children, sustained injuries. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine A senior Russian lawmaker has seemingly invited American states to secede and instead join the Russian Federation, amid polling showing support amongst Americans for their states to break away. Alexander Tomalchev, a senior member of Russias parliament (the Duma) told Russian news website Podmoskovye Segodnya that any US state wanting to secede from the US would be welcome to apply to join his country, Newsweek reported on Monday. He cited polls showing Americans wanting their states to break away from the US, before calling for any such US state wanting to join Russia to hold elections on the matter. It is important that voting takes place not on social networks, but officially and legitimately, Mr Tomalchev said in apparent reference to online polling in the US and elections in regions of Ukraine annexed by Russia this month. Mr Tomalchev reportedly added that Moscow would consider any US state wanting to join the Russian Federation should any such election be held, and that United States was beginning to decay. He also added that another ally of Ukraine, the European Union, was bursting at its seams. Both the US and European Union, as well as NATO members such as Canada and the UK, have provided billions in dollars worth of military aid to Ukraine in addition to military equipment. Tough economic and political sanctions have also been imposed on Moscow. Russias claims over occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have been widely condemned by the international community and described as shambolic by those outside the country, including in the US. The United States, I want to be very clear about this, will never, never, never recognise Russias claims on Ukraine sovereign territory, US President Joe Biden said following this months staged elections in the four regions, while announcing new sanctions. While it was unclear which online polling Mr Tomalchev had referred to members of the New Hampshire legislature voted to stay within the US earlier this year, with more than 300 lawmakers rejecting the idea of leaving the union, as ABC News reported at the time. Only 13 lawmakers voted for the proposal. The remarks by Mr Tomalchev come after another Russian lawmaker, Duma member Oleg Matveychev, said Moscow should be thinking about reparations from the United States in the form of Alaska. Alaska was formerly a part of Russia but joined the US following an agreement known as the Alaska Purchase in 1867. The top news item of the day was Russia launching a massive salvo of long-range missiles against numerous major cities throughout Ukraine, including the capital of Kyiv. This included several strikes along Kyivs main downtown roads during rush hour, resulting in many injuries and several deaths. Russia also struck several power facilities, leading to power outages. While the Russian missile strikes on key power plants did not result in a total loss of power, it did put a limit on their capacity. So, President Zelensky called for a nation-wide conscious reduction of the use of electricity to relieve the strain on the system. One of the missile strikes on Kyiv yesterday right next to Taras Shevchenko park, a busy morn-ing commuter route as well as a cultural center point of the city. Some of the buildings which were damaged by the blast include Taras Shevchenko National University, the Khanenko Museum, the Taras Shevchenko National Museum, and the National Philharmonic. A popular play-ground was also damaged. No objects of military importance are in the area. Another target of the Russian missile strikes was an office building in central Kyiv containing the German consulate. However, while the German government did confirm that their offices were damaged, they had been empty since the beginning of the war, so none of their diplomatic staff were harmed. This event led to increased calls by Ukrianains for Germany to provide military aid. While Russia has been claiming that the missile salvo was a direct response to the destruction of a portion of the Crimean Bridge, an act that Ukraine has not taken direct credit for, Ukrainian officials have offered up an alternative explanation: Russia is lashing out against civilian infra-structure out of frustration with its long string of battlefield defeats around Kharkiv and Kherson. They also attack the framing of how anything Russia does can be in response to anything else. Story continues Russia and Belarus have agreed to the deployment joint battle grouping located in Ukraines northern neighbor, potentially threatening another assault on Kyiv. However, Belaruss illegitimate dictator Alexander Lukashenko has not made any announcement that he would join in with Russias war on Ukraine aside from allowing Russia to use Belarusian territory, an act which he has long resisted Russian pressure to do. The illegal Belarusian authorities have claimed that Ukraine is preparing an aggressive act against them, but have presented no evidence that this is the case. The days long read: The Last Death by Sarah Ashton-Cirillo In an op-ed for NV by American journalist and author Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, who was on the scene of the missile strike on Taras Shevchenko Park, she gives a moving plea to make the carnage that she saw the last that Ukraine has to go through. She is a long-time reporter cover-ing the siege of Kharkiv, and such sights have been common in Ukraines second-largest city. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Bartosz Cichocki The metro stations and shelters are full again; people have remembered that they need to take air raid alarms seriously, Cichocki said. According to the ambassador, from the very beginning Ukrainians have been aware that Russia is not waging this war to simply grab some bits of Ukrainian territory. The (Russian) goal is to destroy Ukraine as a state, bring it to its knees, seize power, establish a puppet government, he noted. What started yesterday a new phase of the war is new in tactical terms, but not in strategic terms for Ukraine. Read also: Missile attacks prove negotiations with Putin are impossible, German MP says The diplomat noted that the nuclear threats made by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin should be taken seriously. "The international community should send a clear signal to Russia today that this is a line that cannot be crossed and should not be influenced by what an accidental passer-by thinks about it," Cichocki stated. In the morning on Oct. 10, Russia conducted one of the most massive missiles strikes on Ukraine. There are dead and wounded in Kyiv and other cities. Critical civilian infrastructure across the country was damaged. Additionally, the Russians struck energy facilities in Kyiv and a number of oblasts, including Lviv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnitsa, Khmelnit-sky, Ivano-Frankivsk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, and Kirovohrad. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Such a massive attack cannot be planned in a few days, the White House said It likely was something that they had been planning for quite some time, said Kirby. Now thats not to say that the explosion on the Crimea Bridge might have accelerated some of their planning. According to Kirby, it's hard to say yet whether Putin shifted his strategy entirely towards attempting to ruin Ukraines civilian infrastructure. Russia carried out at least 83 missile and air strikes against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Oct. 10, killing 14 civilians. The attack took out parts of Ukraines energy infrastructure, precipitating a series of disruptions in power and water supply across the country. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Russians drafted in the partial mobilization during military training in Rostov on October 4. Arkady Budnitsky/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Moscow has launched a "partial mobilization" of up to 300,000 troops amid its struggles in Ukraine. It appears more sweeping than officials said, with the elderly and disabled among those called up. That, and Russia's military setbacks in Ukraine, have drawn comparison to events at the end of WWII. As Russia's new mobilization drive scoops up reluctant and ostensibly ineligible conscripts including the elderly and disabled it is stirring memories of another war. Ironically, as Soviet armies advanced on Berlin almost 80 years ago, it was Nazi Germany that was drafting old men and children into the Volkssturm ("people's militia") in a futile last-ditch effort to stave off defeat. Those black-and-white images of a dying Third Reich are haunting: grim middle-aged men some still clad in business suits cradling submachine guns, while frightened 12-year-old boys shouldered Panzerfaust anti-tank rockets. It was part of the Nazi regime's "total war" strategy, which aimed to reorient civilian resources and infrastructure toward fighting off the Allies. Members of the German Volkssturm march during their swearing-in ceremony in Berlin on November 12, 1944. German Federal Archive By late 1944, after five years of war, most fit, young German men were already in uniform or buried in the steppes and deserts of Eastern Europe and North Africa prompting Nazi leaders to widen their sweep. Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't even have that excuse. The invasion he launched in late February was poorly planned and improperly managed, and it was carried out by a force that was too small for the task and took far heavier losses than expected. While Russia still has a military draft, only about 30% of its troops are conscripts, with the remainder contract soldiers. Fear of antagonizing public opinion has made the government hesitant about expanding the draft. But with Russian forces in Ukraine wilting against Ukraine's counteroffensive, there haven't been enough volunteers to compensate for the casualties estimated to be more than 60,000 so far in an increasingly unpopular war. Story continues Drafted Russian troops during military training in Rostov on October 4. Arkady Budnitsky/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Hence, Putin signed an executive order for partial mobilization on September 21. Moscow's stated goal is to raise 300,000 new soldiers, though a secret clause in the order suggests that up a million men could be drafted. Some provisions would be familiar to Americans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, such as a restriction allowing only the call-up of Russians with military experience and a stop-loss order retaining soldiers whose enlistments were up. But the hundreds of thousands of Russian men fleeing the country know better. Reports suggest not a mobilization but a dragnet scooping up anyone it can get, including those who never served in the military, disabled citizens, and those normally too old for military service. Even pro-Kremlin figures have documented the indiscriminate nature of the call up. Drafted Russians begin military training in Rostov on October 2. Arkady Budnitsky/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of state-backed media outlet RT, compiled a list of such cases on Twitter, including a 63-year-old reserve lieutenant colonel with diabetes and cerebral ischemia who was still deemed fit for duty and a 35-year-old with a spinal fracture and artificial vertebrae. Amid domestic backlash to the call up, Russian leaders, including Putin, have admitted there were mistakes. Authorities have rescinded some of those conscription orders and some conscripts home. Some in Russia believe that ethnic minorities and residents of poorer, more remote regions are being targeted, but even men in big cities are being handed draft notices while walking on the street. There is even a punitive aspect to it: Convicts are being given a choice of the army or prison, while Russians seeking to leave the country are being slapped with call-up papers while waiting at border crossings. Desperate measures Russians at a military recruiting office in Moscow on October 10. Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Much like the Third Reich in 1945, Russia is playing for time. Hitler believed that if Germany could hang on long enough, the US-British-Soviet alliance would fall apart and the Third Reich would be saved. Putin seems to believe that if he can prolong the war while cutting Europe off from Russian oil and gas during winter, freezing and exhausted Europeans will demand that their governments cease aiding Ukraine. The gamble didn't pay off for Hitler, and it probably won't pay off for Putin. When fear of Russian expansion drives Sweden into abandoning 200 years of nonalignment by joining NATO, it's a sign that Moscow's threats aren't working. The question is the human cost of a dictator's stubbornness. The Volkssturm and Hitler Youth were poorly trained and equipped and died in droves. Yet their cheap but effective Panzerfaust rockets still took a toll on Allied tanks at roadblocks and in city streets. A Volkssturm member explains a Panzerfaust to a woman in civilian clothes in March 1945. German Federal Archive This exasperated Allied soldiers, who couldn't understand why their buddies and German kids had to die when the war was so obviously lost. Those new Russian soldiers will receive barely any training. Their weapons will mostly be old Cold War-era gear in poor condition, because Russia has already lost its best equipment and Western sanctions prevent it from manufacturing more. They will have a certain military value as boots on the ground, but more likely they will be cannon fodder in a conflict where artillery and tanks are the decisive weapons. What mobilization will do is make the war personal for the Russian public, who will see their sons sent off to a lost war. The same phenomenon has in the past helped undermine regimes in Moscow and stoked unrest in the US. This bodes ill for Putin. Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn. Read the original article on Business Insider Flash Six people have been arrested following the fatal shooting of a member of the Spanish armed forces in the country's North African enclave of Ceuta early on Monday, Spanish police said. The shooting occurred in a garage in the El Principe neighborhood of Ceuta. The victim, who has been described as a "37-year-old man," was shot "multiple times" in the legs and waist. The emergency services rushed him to the hospital, where he later died of his wounds. The incident is the latest in a series of violent crimes involving firearms in the neighborhood. Recently, seven police officers suffered injuries as they carried out an arrest in El Principe. The police said that the solider, who was a resident in Ceuta, had not been involved in any other incident, although a member of his family had previously received threats, which are now being looked at. It is still not certain if the shooter was among those detained by the police. STORY: Shoigu inspected the tactical and fire training of reservists who are about to face fighting in Ukraine and listened to reports from deputy Defense minister, General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and other military commanders. Shoigu instructed defense ministry officials to engage seasoned officers in the training process. On October 4, Shoigu announced that over 200,000 people have already been drafted into Russia's armed forces since President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization on September 21. Shoigu added that he planned to enlist 300,000 men with previous military experience to bolster what Russia calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, where it has suffered a series of defeats in recent weeks. However, the official decree did not include a figure, and officials are keen to allay public fears that the actual number could be higher, as even pro-Kremlin figures voice concern that people are being recruited indiscriminately. Tens of thousands of men seeking to avoid the draft have already fled abroad, and the public remains concerned that the mobilization could be expanded. President Putin acknowledged mistakes in the mobilization last week and said they should be corrected. WASHINGTON Last week a Russian radio station conducted an interview with an official in Kherson, one of the four regions illegally annexed by Russia as part of its invasion of Ukraine. Like virtually all media in Russia, the station, Radio Rossii, follows an unspoken rule of hewing to the Kremlins line about the special military operation launched in February going more or less according to plan. That the spetzoperatsiya is a full-blown war, or that the war is going poorly, is a taboo topic within Russia. Which made what happened next all the more remarkable. In the midst of the interview with the pro-Russian official in Kherson, one of the hosts asked, in a halfway hopeful tone, a question he all but answered: So the situation is fine? Only he did not quite get the expected and required response. The situation is difficult, the Kherson administrator glumly admitted. A Ukrainian soldier outside a school hit by Russian rockets in the southern Ukraine village of Zelenyi Hai on April 1. (Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images) The telephone line went dead. The interview was over. Perhaps a faulty line had been at work, but given how little dissent is tolerated in Russian media outlets, the moment was revealing all the same. So, for that matter, was the next segment, about a resident of Dagestan who was cooking plov (a kind of rice pilaf) for Russian soldiers, with the hosts fulsomely praising his patriotic efforts. The anti-mobilization protests that recently rattled Dagestan, a Muslim region in southern Russia, went utterly unmentioned. However fleeting, reality has found a way to sneak through a Kremlin firewall bolstered by two decades of Vladimir Putins autocratic rule, not to mention the legacy of Soviet propaganda, which disguised the Kremlins failures and corruption while dutifully smearing dissidents. The Kremlin effectively controls every significant outlet in the country. Dissident outlets have been shut down; journalists have been harassed and, in many instances, murdered. Reporting on the war with the kind of critical scrutiny Western audiences expect is simply out of the question in Russia, at least for any journalist who wants to stay employed, free and alive. Story continues But nearly eight months into a faltering war effort, difficult truths are becoming ever more difficult to ignore, from Ukraines blistering September counteroffensive to last weekends bombing of a bridge between Russia and Crimea. If the retreat of Russian forces from annexed parts of Donetsk and Luhansk has been chaotic, the efforts of top media outlets and personalities to explain away deflating developments have also been unruly and frequently unconvincing. A Russian serviceman patrols a destroyed residential area in the city of Severodonetsk, Ukraine, on July 12. (Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images) Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, argued a recent analysis from the Institute for the Study of War, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. As what was supposed to be a quick, triumphant invasion has devolved into a protracted war, many of Russias top media figures and outlets have struggled to stick to a coherent narrative that has some connection to reality however faint while not infuriating a Kremlin that considers media outlets to be functionally part of the state. So as the Russian war effort deteriorates, Russian media is scrambling to adjust. If troops are performing poorly, then incompetent generals are at fault. And if Ukraine is winning, it is because the West despises Russia and will do everything in its power to destroy it. Despite that, Russia will ultimately prevail, Russian outlets say. Thus, last weekends destruction of the Kerch Bridge, which provided a crucial link between the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula, was not a military setback or a gross failure by Russian security services. Instead, it was described as a terrorist act by Ukrainian special forces working in concert with Western allies. Flames and smoke rise from the Kerch Bridge connecting the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula on Oct. 8. (AP) On Monday morning, Russia retaliated by firing rockets at Kyiv and other civilian population centers across Ukraine. Those strikes went unmentioned on Russia 1, by far the nations top television network, where the morning news featured a segment about roof repairs to apartment buildings in areas of Ukraine controlled by Russia. There were also at least two promotional segments, in the span of just a few minutes, about Chaika (Seagull), a new Friday Night Lights-style melodrama about womens volleyball. There was little sense that the war was escalating, that the Kremlin was becoming desperate, that the shelling of civilian areas at least 19 people were reportedly killed was out of bounds, especially given the supposed kinship of Russian and Ukrainian peoples. Instead, a viewer may have concluded that it was just an ordinary Monday morning in Moscow. Overall, the messages are pretty clear: that the war is still going in the right direction, on the whole, says Ian Garner, a Russia scholar who closely observes the nations media outlets. There are lots of references to World War II and the idea that there was a catastrophic retreat for the first year of the war but eventually the tide was turned that this period of retreat and suffering was just something that Russians had to go through. Even as they allow a measure of frustration into their broadcasts, the Kremlins top propagandists continue to offer rousing defenses of the war. They think theyve won. They dont understand that nothing has begun, top television personality Vladimir Solovyov raged late last week at Ukraine and its allies. There will be no white smoke of surrender emanating from the Kremlin, Solovyov assured his audience. Firefighters work to put out a fire at a power station hit by a Russian missile on Monday in Kyiv. (Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images) While the information firewall ringing Russia may not be cracking, it is looking more and more perilous with each new setback for an invasion that was supposed to conclude with a quick capitulation in Kyiv. Instead, an emboldened Ukrainian defense has been pushing back Russian forces, reclaiming ground lost throughout the winter and early spring. In response, the Kremlin has ordered a mobilization of hundreds of thousands of young men to replenish its depleted frontlines, triggering protests that have led to confrontations with police across Russia. So even as Ukrainian forces continued to make advances, one television commentator on the talk show Planeta suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should immediately order his troops to surrender. Armed Forces of Ukraine have no chance, read a headline on the Pravda website, referencing Mondays strikes on Kyiv, which terrified civilians but appeared to have no operational value for Russia. For a Russian nation that defeated both Hitler and Napoleon, these losses have been difficult to stomach, even though their scope is almost always kept hidden from public view. The headline is always that things are much worse for somebody else, says Garner. Ukrainian losses invariably make headlines, even if Russian losses are much worse. Incremental advances by Russia are inflated. Conspiracy theories abound, with the British MI6 and American CIA intelligence services frequently accused of directing the Ukrainian resistance. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and deputy defense ministers visit an exhibition on Aug. 20 in Patriot Park outside Moscow. (Contributor/Getty Images) Still, increasingly public criticisms of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his generals by Yevgeny Prighozhin (who runs a paramilitary outfit known as the Wagner Group, which reports directly to the Kremlin) and Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, a fanatical Kremlin ally, are obvious signals to ordinary Russians that the war is going amiss. Even though those criticisms also elide the fact that ultimate responsibility for the invasion does not reside with Shoigu, they nevertheless recognize that the Russian public is aware, however faintly, that the special operation is faltering. You accept elements of the disasters, but then you say that under Putins leadership now hes finding out about these things these initial errors are being resolved, Garner points out. Indeed, criticism of Putin himself remains nonexistent, an understandable calculation given his low tolerance for public dissent. This approach hearkens back to the if Stalin knew rhetoric of Soviet propaganda, which always found low-level Kremlin functionaries to blame for disasters that dictator Joseph Stalin surely would have no tolerance for, had he been properly informed. In reality, the responsibility lay then, as it does now, with the very highest strata of official power. One crucial difference between Soviet propaganda and its modern-day descendants is that social media platforms were not available when Stalin dispatched millions to death or imprisonment amid his notorious show trials of the 1930s, or when Mikhail Gorbachev kept silent about the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986. The popularity of the social media platform Telegram makes it more difficult for traditional media to keep to a relentless optimism, especially since many of Russias best-known traditional media figures are on Telegram themselves. The blown-off turret of a destroyed Russian tank in the village of Pisky-Radkivski in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine. (Vyacheslav Madiyevskyi/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images) Another emerging challenge to the Kremlin comes in the form of Russian military bloggers, or milbloggers, who are ardent supporters of the war but are unafraid to say it is going poorly. It was the milbloggers, for example, who revealed how chaotic Putins partial mobilization of 300,000 troops had quickly become. Images of poorly prepared, sometimes drunk recruits, armed with comically rusty rifles, quickly made their way onto social media, making reality impossible to ignore. Needing someone to blame, outlets focused on local recruitment officers, says Oxford professor and Russia expert Samuel Ramani. The regime seems unable or unwilling to control milbloggers, Center for European Policy Analysis senior fellow Olga Lautman wrote in a mid-September analysis of Russias media landscape, despite Kremlin efforts to court the bloggers and focus their rage. Evidently aware that bad news was filtering through, pundit Armen Gasparyan recently advised Russians to exercise self-censorship against stories of Russias military collapse. Stop reading ideological opponents, who are working to instill panic in Russian society, he said. But not even a zealous Putinite like Gasparyan could keep from acknowledging the scope of recent losses against a Ukraine bolstered by the West. Yes, I understand, and I will be the first to say it, Lyman was very painful, he said, referring to last weeks retreat by Russian forces from a strategic Ukrainian city it had previously controlled. But, he added, with us, historically, this is how it is. Dont get hysterical. Everything is in our hands. Ukrainian soldiers on a road between Izium and Lyman in Ukraine on Oct. 4. (Francisco Seco/AP) Ramani of Oxford notes that blame for the retreat from Lyman fell on Gen. Aleksandr Lapin (despite the fact that some milbloggers came to his defense). But as the military correspondent Yuri Kotenok pointed out, blaming Lapin is misplaced. He instead blamed the sorry state of the Russian military and the Kremlin leadership seemingly being blind to the situation in Ukraine. The saddest thing is that such truth about the real state of affairs does not reach the top, Kotenok wrote for the website Today. But such flirtations with honesty are rare. In a Monday column, Komsomolskaya Pravda military correspondent Alexander Kotz argued that the attack on the Kerch Bridge should inspire the Russian military to undertake similarly bold actions. Lets fight with more anger, for real, without excuses about the impossibility of blowing up the bridge on which weapons are coming from the West, Kotz seethed. The Ukrainians have shown us that nothing is impossible. ALONA MAZURENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 21:04 Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of the Presidents Office of Ukraine, has reported that the occupiers attacked Zaporizhzhia Oblast with MLRS and artillery on the evening of 11 October. He said that seven people were killed, and seven more received injuries. Source: Tymoshenko, on Telegram Quote: "Zaporizhzhia Oblast is under fire again. Russian terrorists who call themselves the army have attacked the Oblast with MLRS and artillery. Strikes targeted the city of Orikhiv and the village of Stepnohirsk. As a result of the cruel attacks, seven people died, and seven more were injured." Details: According to Tymoshenko, the relevant emergency services are already at work managing the consequences of the attacks. As of now, Oleksandr Starukh, Head of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration, has not posted anything regarding the attack on his social media accounts. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! ROMAN PETRENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 15:18 On 10 October, Russian terrorists kidnapped Valerii Martyniuk, deputy head of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), and are holding him in an unknown place, probably torturing and intimidating him, Energoatom reported. Source: Energoatom Quote: "The Russians are trying in this way to get the information they desperately need about the personnel files of ZNPP employees in order to force Ukrainian staff to work at Rosatom as soon as possible. The occupiers are, in the literal sense, applying torture to nuclear power plant workers, not shying away from the cruelest abuses." Details: Energoatom appealed to the Director General of the IAEA to help release the ZNPP official. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! STANISLAV POHORILOV TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 18:46 Russias Ministry of Defence has started recruiting prisoners from penitentiary establishments to fight in Ukraine, just as the private military company Wagner did before. Source: Russian outlet Vazhnyie Istorii (Important Stories) Details: Two sources who are relatives of prisoners in Penal Colony 3 in Ryazan Oblast and Penal Colony 4 in Stavropol Krai told Important Stories about the Defence Ministry recruiting people there. Both those penitentiary establishments are considered "red colonies", where former employees of the armed forces, security and law enforcement agencies are held. According to the sources, the Defence Ministry is offering prisoners the chance to join the so-called Storm Battalion that has been set up on the basis of the Southern Military District. The first recruits may have been taken from Penal Colony 4 on the night of 10-11 October. The proposed contract conditions are reportedly the same as for the Wagner Group, but the prisoners have a higher level of trust in the military. The media are suggesting that for the Storm Battalion, the Defence Ministry is exclusively recruiting prisoners from penal colonies for its former employees. Background: On 4 July 2022, Important Stories reported that Wagner had started recruiting "volunteer participants" from penitentiary establishments in St Petersburg to fight in Ukraine. On 20 July, the same outlet stated that Wagner had recruited Russian prisoners in half a dozen penitentiary establishments in Russia. On 14 September, a video was posted online that showed the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is close to Vladimir Putin and who organised the so-called Wagner private military company, personally encouraging Russian prisoners to go to fight in Ukraine. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! LONDON (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the United States had long been involved in the war in Ukraine. "It seems to me that the Americans have been participating de facto in this war for a long time," Lavrov told Russian state television. "This war is being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons." Lavrov said that officials including White House national security spokesman John Kirby had said the United States was open to talks but that Russia had refused. "This is a lie," Lavrov said. "We have not received any serious offers to make contact." (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) MOSCOW (Reuters) - Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said on Tuesday he had been placed in solitary confinement for 14 days for refusing to wash a fence. In a message posted on Twitter via his lawyer, Navalny said he had been sent back to a cramped isolation cell where he has served repeated spells for minor infringements of prison rules. "I just did 12 days there, and now I'm doing 14 again," he said. "I understand painting a fence and feeling like Tom Sawyer is fun. But washing a fence, in my opinion, is totally insane." Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic inside Russia, is serving 11-1/2 years after being found guilty of parole violations and fraud and contempt of court charges. He says all charges against him were fabricated as a pretext to smother dissent and thwart his political ambitions. Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Reuters) LONDON (Reuters) - Russian ally Belarus, which has let Moscow's army launch attacks on Ukraine from its territory, said on Tuesday it was beginning a military inspection to ensure "combat readiness". President Alexander Lukashenko has in recent months repeatedly claimed that Ukraine is preparing to attack Belarus, though he has offered no evidence. "During the inspection, military units and sub-units will work out the issues of putting on combat readiness," the Defence Ministry said of the exercise beginning on Tuesday. Though Belarusian units have not directly taken part in Russia's invasion, Minsk has enabled missile strikes and Russian troop incursions from its territory, resulting in deepened Western sanctions. (Reporting by Felix Light,; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) (Bloomberg) -- Democratic Representative Tim Ryan and Republican JD Vance questioned each others fitness for the US Senate during a contentious first debate Monday in an unexpectedly competitive Ohio race that could help determine which party controls the upper chamber. Most Read from Bloomberg Ryan cast Vance as an extremist while saying President Joe Biden shouldnt run again and that Vice President Kamala Harris was wrong when she said the southern US border was secure. Vance dismissed Ryan as a career politician who hasnt gotten results during his 10 terms in the House while saying the investigations of former President Donald Trump should play out before hes judged. The GOP was favored to hold the Ohio seat of retiring Republican Senator Rob Portman in a former battleground state thats become more Republican and that Trump easily won twice. But the FiveThirtyEight average of polls shows the race essentially even after Ryan raised more money and outspent Vance, a first-time candidate who narrowly won a crowded GOP primary with Trumps endorsement. Ryan accused Vance, a venture capitalist and author of Hillbilly Elegy of being too extreme, pointing to his support for a federal abortion ban with limited exceptions, his questioning of the 2020 presidential election results and campaigning with politicians such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Hes going right down the line with the absolute most extremists, the guys who want to ban books and everything else, Ryan said. These are extreme positions that Ohioans are rejecting. Ryan is trying to appeal to independents and disaffected Democrats by saying he supported Trump on trade and other issues and by criticizing his own party. He said Biden shouldnt run again because of the need for a generational change, and called Harris absolutely wrong about the border. Story continues Vance said Ryans Youngstown-area district, a former steel-making center, lost 50,000 manufacturing jobs during his time in Congress and that hes not the moderate he appears to be in his campaign ads, but rather, a reliable vote for Democrats who are leading the US in the wrong direction. If you actually tried to do the things you talk about wanting to do, you wouldnt be half bad, Vance said. The problem is you got 20 years and you failed to do any of it. In response to a question about whether Trump, who is facing multiple investigations, has done anything that concerns him, Vance said, Why dont we let the criminal investigations actually play out? and I have seen nothing that suggests that the president of the United States should be thrown in prison. Vance, who won the GOP nomination with the help of $15 million from billionaire Peter Thiel, is being bolstered in the November race with millions of dollars in ad spending by allies including the Senate Leadership Fund aligned with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a new super political action committee run by Trumps allies. Ryan accused Vance of investing in companies in China where US jobs were outsourced but couldnt provide the name of a company when Vance challenged him to do it. Vance said the Biden administration seems to be sleepwalking into a nuclear war with its support of Ukraine to repel Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion. But Ryan criticized Vances previous comments that he cares more about what happens at the southern US border than in Ukraine and that Vance would let Putin roll right through Ukraine. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Chinese-sponsored relay race held in Ethiopia's capital after COVID-19 hiatus Xinhua) 09:16, October 11, 2022 ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese-sponsored 8-km relay race held in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, after three years hiatus due to COVID-19 pandemic. The 17th edition of the competition, which involved professional and amateur runners, was sponsored and co-hosted by the International First Highway (IFH) Engineering, a branch company of China Communication Construction Company (CCCC), in partnership with the Great Ethiopian Run (GER) and the Addis Ababa City Roads Authority (AACRA). The year's edition of the competition was held Sunday on the Alexander Pushkin Square-Gotera Interchange Road Project, which is a 3.8 km road that incorporates three segments and construction of a two-lane 320 meters tunnel, that was carried out by IFH Engineering/CCCC. Moges Tibebu, Director-General of AACRA, told Xinhua that the competition envisaged to promote road safety while at the same time to create a culture of healthy lifestyle among the general public. "The very big purpose of this event is for road safety. There were plenty of car accidents and lots of injuries have occurred in the last years. Fortunately, due to such kind of promotional events and different initiatives that we have (implemented), there is a decrease in the fatality and injuries in road accidents," Tibebu said. The director-general further emphasized the importance of building a culture of road traffic safety. He commended the Chinese government and companies for their continued support in terms of support to road projects as well as in terms of promoting road safety in the East African country. "We have been collaborating with the Chinese firm CCCC/IFH in bringing this event to happen and we will be continuing collaborating for the success of this project. We would like to thank the government of China for their support in the implementation of this mega project, which alleviates the chronic traffic congestion problem that was exhibited around the area," he said. This year's edition of the race attracted some 100 teams representing a range of business and other organizations across eight categories, according to the organizers. Wei Qiangyu, General Manager of CCCC East Africa Branch, on his part said the company strives both towards the construction of quality road infrastructures as well as in terms of promoting road safety in Ethiopia. "Road safety has always been the focus of the road infrastructure developers. As a prominent international and experienced contractor in Ethiopia, we had always put road safety as the prior concern of the road construction by guaranteeing the quality throughout the whole design and construction period," Wei said. "We are proud that this race is held on this newly completed beautiful road constructed by CCCC/IFH Engineering," the general manager said, as he affirmed the company's keen intent to continue supporting the relay race. IFH Engineering first sponsored the competition back in 2004 to mark the completion of the eastern stretch of the Addis Ababa Ring Road. After the third edition of the relay in 2006, the event was moved to other locations in the city to mark the opening of other new roads built by the company in collaboration with AACRA. Gashaw Workineh, whose team won second place in the business category, said the competition is a "very good" platform to promote road safety while also creating awareness towards sporting activities among the public. "Our team participated in this relay competition for the first time, and we are happy that we finished second. It is very innovative to use sporting events to promote road safety. It also promotes a healthy lifestyle," Workineh said. The most recent edition of the competition, the 16th edition, took place three years ago in 2019 before the race was interrupted for three years following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) Flash Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message on Monday to Alexander Van der Bellen on his re-election as federal president of Austria. In his message, Xi pointed out that he attaches great importance to China-Austria relations, and stands ready to work with Van der Bellen to push for new development of the China-Austria friendly strategic partnership so as to benefit the two countries and their people. Recommendations are independently chosen by Revieweds editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. The second Amazon Prime Day 2022 runs today, October 11 and tomorrow, October 12, and Prime members can save big with early Black Friday deals across all categories. However, Amazon isn't the only retailer offering massive markdowns. Right now, Samsung is hosting competing Prime Day deals with major discounts on appliances, TVs, smartphones and other tech. Theres more where this deal came from. Sign up for Revieweds Perks and Rec newsletter and well keep em coming every Sunday through Friday. Ahead of the Black Friday holiday shopping rush, you can snag a number of top-rated Samsung devices for wallet-friendly prices, including Samsung Galaxy smartphones, Galaxy smartwatches, Galaxy Book laptops and QLED TVs. The savings don't just stop thereyou'll also find Samsung deals on home appliances, vacuums and more. Amazon Early Access deals: The best early Black Friday deals at Amazon during October Prime Day Competing sales: Beat Prime Day prices with the best sales at Best Buy, Nordstrom, Michael Kors and more For upgrading your gadgets at an affordable price, Samsung has all your shopping needs covered. Keep scrolling to browse the retailer's impressive selection of best-in-class tech to make your everyday routine that much easier. The best competing Prime Day Samsung deals Upgrade your hand-held tech with a feature-rich Galaxy smartphone or transform your living room into a home theater with an OLED TV right now at Samsung. Shop the top five Samsung deals available today before the discounts disappear. Story continues The best Samsung TV deals Want to stream in style with less strain on your wallet? Shop Samsung's early Black Friday deals for big savings on top-of-the-line TVs. Turn your living room into a home movie theater with these amazing Samsung TV deals discounted for Prime Day. The best Samsung laptop and tablet deals Whether you need tech for work or for fun, Samsung has you covered with competing Prime Day laptop and tablet deals. Take computing power on the go with these Samsung laptops and tablets on sale ahead of Black Friday. 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There are Black Friday-level discounts on everything from fashion, tech, appliances and more and get a head start on all your holiday shopping during the sitewide sale. As with the first Prime Day, this sale is exclusive to new and existing Prime members. Luckily, you can still sign up now for a membership so you can enjoy the rock-bottom prices. Sign up for Amazon Prime What stores are offering October Prime Day discounts? Although Amazon Prime Day is exclusive to Amazon, plenty of other popular retailers typically offer similar sales. This year, we're seeing huge price drops at Walmart, Target, Lowe's, Best Buy and more. If you don't have an Amazon Prime account it may be a good idea to shop alternate retailers that offer price matching services. Right now, Samsung is offering tons of deep discounts during the second Amazon Prime Day. The tech retailer is marking down hundreds of items, including TVs, laptops and home appliances and the savings are seriously impressive. When is Samsung running sales during October Prime Day? Right now! Today, you'll find deep discounts on everything from laptops and TVs to smart tech and appliances. We're expecting even more savings throughout October as we approach Black Friday 2022. What are the best October Prime Day deals at Samsung? One of the best Prime Day deals available at Samsung is on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 smartphone. Typically listed from $1,799.99, you can get Samsung's souped-up phone for as little as $299.99 thanks to an $1,500 discount and an enhanced trade-in credit with eligible devices. Meanwhile, if you want a seriously cinematic experience without leaving your living room, look no further than the Samsung QN85B Neo QLED 4K Smart TV. Normally priced at $1,099.99, the developer is offering the 55-inch screen for $400 off ahead of Black Friday. Samsung says the QN85B uses a huge grid of ultra-precise Quantum mini LEDs to create incredible color and contrast in its pictures. It also comes with Dolby Atmos sound technology for theater-quality audio. Should I shop Samsung's competing October Prime Day sale? Definitely! If you're looking to get your hands on top-notch tech for a fraction of its typical price, Samsung's competing Amazon Prime Day sale is the place to shop. From TVs with best-in-class visuals to laptops with plenty of power, you'll find early Black Friday discounts on all that and more right now at Samsung. Are Prime Day deals better than Black Friday deals? There are plenty of Black Friday-level deals during October Prime Day. The Prime Early Access sale is a golden opportunity to tackle all your holiday shopping before the huge Black Friday rush. Amazon Prime Day discounts are just as good as Black Friday deals, with savings across all categories including tech, fashion, appliances and more. Sign up for an Amazon Prime membership or even a free 30-day trial now and avoid the shopping strain later in the winter. Prime Day deals at Samsung Make holiday shopping easy with help from our experts. Sign up for text message alerts to get deals, gift guides and shopping advice delivered straight to your phone. The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews and more. Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time. This article originally appeared on Reviewed: Samsung Prime Day: Save on TVs, laptops, appliances before Black Friday Graham Bonham-Carter LinkedIn/Getty The son of an English business and political dynasty served as bag man for one of Vladimir Putins closest allies, according to U.S. officials who collared the Brit on his native soil on Tuesday. The Department of Justices KleptoCapture unitwhich President Joe Biden launched shortly after Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in Marchnabbed Graham Bonham-Carter for allegedly conducting more than $1 million in real estate and artwork dealings on behalf of notorious oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who the U.S. personally sanctioned in 2018. A message sent by The Daily Beast to an email account associated with Bonham-Carters LinkedIn page received no answer Tuesday. The page innocuously describes Bonham-Carters job as director of GBCM Ltd., a company set up to run private houses and estates. But the feds allege Bonham-Carter, the descendant of famed British bankers and political leaders, incorporated GBCM shortly after the sanctions hit on explicit orders from Deripaska, who he deferentially referred to in private correspondence as his boss. In the past four years, the government asserts, Bonham-Carter illegally funneled six-figures-worth of cash from a Russian bank account in the companys name to another entity in the United States, which used the cash to maintain the tycoons multiple homes in the United States. Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaskas Empty Mansion Haunts D.C.s Splendor The Department of Justice further alleges that in 2020 and early 2021, Bonham-Carter attempted to ship artwork he had previously purchased on Deripaskas behalf from a New York City auction facility to London, while misrepresenting the pieces true ownershipthus engaging in wire fraud. Throughout, the feds assert that personal communications and internal paperwork show Bonham-Carter was fully aware of the true ownership of the funds and assets he handled, and of the tightening strictures on Deripaskas activities. Bonham-Carter now faces as much as 20 years in prison. The authorities have further ordered him to cough up all proceeds from his alleged crimes. Story continues Bonham-Carters great-grandfather was General Sir Charles Bonham-Carter, the governor of the then-colony of Maltaand the brother of businessman and politician Sir Maurice Bonham-Carter, the grandfather of Fight Club and Sweeney Todd actor Helena Bonham-Carter. The familys roots run back to 18th and 19th century Parliamentarian John Bonham-Carter, and the family has played a prominent role in British public and financial life for generations. Bonham-Carters arrest followed federal raids on Deripaskas properties in Florida in New York last month, and the freezing of the Englishmans bank accounts in March. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Emily Hersh checks the muddy road conditions on a central Nevada salt flat where her company has claims to extract lithium. SILVER PEAK, Nevada Three women trek into the barren Nevada desert, boots crunching down a wash until one of them stops at an overhang, pulls out a geology pick, and chips away a chunk of rock. Over the next few minutes, and during hours of interviews, they explain the relationship between this stone and the battery that powers your electric car. They talk about prehistoric volcanoes, subterranean brine lakes, advanced technology and the mineral that is changing the future of our planet. Lithium. This curiosity of the periodic table is an element so sensitive it can't be found alone in nature. The pure white metal, when exposed to air, promptly oxidizes and turns black. Since discovery in 1817, the lightest metal on earth has been used for everything from treatment of bipolar disorder to manufacturing thermonuclear devices. It's a metal, a drug and a power source. Some call it white gold, or the new gasoline, because it has emerged as the favored battery energizer for todays electric vehicles, plus almost anything that plugs in. A sign in Silver Peak, Nevada point to different towns in Nevada. Silver Peak is in the Clayton Valley in Central Nevada, about halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. Amid surging oil prices and the growing climate consequences of fossil-fuel pollution, the market has boomed, sending lithium prices up almost 500% in a year triggering a global race to find and extract mother lodes. And eureka! the substance is right here in Nevada, hundreds of feet beneath a remote desert only jackalopes could love. Lithium is sold commercially as a compound, either hydroxide or carbonate. Nearly all the commercial product today comes from hard-rock mines. But the world's largest reserves by far are in underground lakes like those in this place called Clayton Valley. Which explains why these three women are here in central Nevada. Mary Little is a geologist-turned-business-executive. As director of Pure Energy Minerals, she oversees the largest number of mining claims in Clayton Valley, if only she can secure rights to pump the water. Story continues Emily Hersh is an exploration entrepreneur. As CEO at Luna Lithium, a start-up company, she has mining claims about 30 miles to the north, if only she can get the permits, cover the costs and find a way to commercially separate the element from brine. LeeAnn Munk is a professor of geology and geochemistry who does research around the world, including projects for Pure Energy, Luna Lithium and Albemarle Corporation, an international mining giant that claims all water rights in Clayton Valley. These three women have pioneered new pieces of the lithium energy puzzle, and here amid the stunted Joshua trees, they have plenty to say about their work. Their story is a struggle worthy of the Old West. Tangling with bureaucrats for mining permits. Human ingenuity that conjures metal from brine. A battle with a land baron over another substance that has always in this desert been as precious as gold: water. The members of this trio also have something to say about an industry dominated by men and about the future of power. More: The 'white gold rush' and why it's important Emily Hersh, left, Lee Ann Munk, center, and Mary Little chat over a portable GPS devise while standing in the Clayton Valley in Central Nevada. Emily Hersh Hershs pickup truck turns on a single-track road heading into a broad, crusted flat. August monsoon storms have muddied the way and, about three-quarters of a mile in, the road becomes a quagmire. Forced to retreat with no turn-around, Hersh throws the truck into reverse and drives the entire distance backward. The incident is metaphorical. A dirt road runs between lithium evaporation pods owned by Albemarle Corporation in Silver Peak, Nevada. Hersh, 36, said Luna Lithium started work two years ago, has completed geophysical studies and drilled one bore hole at a cost of a million bucks. Water and core samples are promising, but costs and challenges are daunting. She says it's more of a caper than a straightforward process. ... It takes patience and persistence. Hersh grew up in Washington, D.C., and after high school headed to Tulane University for an engineering degree until Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and the engineering school got shut down. She switched to a double major in political autonomy and economics, focusing on how religion effected world financial conditions. In 2008, she added a masters from American University, with focus on Islam, banking and oil in the Middle East. She was poised for a career with an organization like the State Department or International Monetary Fund, but instead headed to Argentina. Soon, she had a consulting business in Buenos Aires, helping oil and gas companies deal with government regulations and logistics. That led to gold exploration in Paraguay, and Hersh became hooked on the hunt. Emily Hersh, CEO of Luna Lithium, an exploration company that has mining claims to extract lithium from subsurface brine in Nevada. At first, she was after precious metals. But her base was in the Lithium Triangle Argentina, Chile and Bolivia and she began to dream of shifting the world energy paradigm away from gas and oil. Hersh said part of the allure was a grand adventure pursuing a mysterious resource with uncertainty about where to find it, how to extract it and how the supply chain works. She turned to geologists and market analysts for answers, but found confusion. When really smart people disagree about something, Hersh said, flashing a grin, thats opportunity ... I want to make discoveries. That was half the motivation, Hersh added. The other half: Unlike gold, lithium is useful. ... Its not something you acquire and hide in a basement. She found work as an adviser to lithium exploration companies, investors and government agencies while hosting a podcast called the Minerals Manhattan Project. Part of the spiel is a warning that China is cornering the world market on lithium: Unless the United States does something in a coordinated fashion, she said, were all going to be driving cars with Chinese batteries." "I dont think China is beating us because theyre cheating, she added. Theyre just doing a good job. They have a plan. America, she laments, does not: The United States has no mining czar like other nations. Its mineral extraction laws date to the 1800s. Government agencies that handle permits are understaffed, untrained and dont coordinate with one another. In her view, Americans crave computers and airplanes and electric cars, but they demonize industries that produce the raw materials. It's a view that fits her industry. At an international lithium conference in Phoenix in June, investors, prospectors and mining executives waxed euphoric about the future of electric vehicles (and the potential to get rich) even as they bemoaned regulatory hurdles to mining. One speaker compared the potential impact of lithium-ion batteries to the industrial revolution. Another said the effort to meet lithium demand is like building a spaceship on the launchpad while youre launching. Over breakfast at the convention, Hersh had talked about her matriculation through the mining industrys school of hard knocks for women. Misogyny reveals itself mostly in small ways, she said: Its someone assuming a male assistant is the CEO and shes the secretary; or getting treated dismissively in a discussion of finances. We live in a society that doesnt support women in positions of power or positions of intelligence, she said. Im constantly having to defend my existence." "It wears you down, and its hurtful," she added. I will stand up to micro- and macro-aggressions, but with a goal that it will happen to fewer other people. ... Im good at what I do, and people who back me dont do it because of or in spite of my in-your-face feminism. Mary Little Raised in Virginia, Little said she knew as a child she wanted to be a scientist, and her parents didnt distinguish in their expectations for her and two brothers. She loved chemistry and physics, especially envisioning complex systems in three dimensions. She planned to get a doctoral degree but became fascinated with using core samples and seismic data to figure out where valuable ore might be hiding. It was just a lightbulb that went off, Little said. And, at the time, it wasnt lithium it was copper. After working on an exploration job in Michigan, Little wound up getting hired by Atlantic Richfield for a dream job in Chile. Little was the first woman hired in the domestic metals section, but doesn't talk about sexism the way Hersh does, saying only, I had problems, particularly in the first years. ... You always make choices. I wouldnt change anything. She spent 15 years in South America chasing copper and gold. Mary Little, director of Pure Energy Minerals, talks about lithium mining In July 2022. Around 2014, she switched her attention to lithium. It was never about the money, Little said. There were real problems that needed to be solved. ... The magic is whats happening now in our industry, and how its going to affect lives. Little was invited to join the board of Pure Energy Minerals, which she saw as an emerging leader in lithium extraction from brine. The company secured 950 claims in Clayton Valley. By 2018, bore samples and test wells had verified heavy concentrations of lithium at multiple depths on Pure Energy's claims. But that's where the fight with the land baron comes in. A portion of Albemarle's concentration plant in Silver Peak, Nevada. Albermarle Corp., based in North Carolina, operates a lithium project called Silver Peak. It's the only commercially producing lithium brine project in North America. It sits in Clayton Valley, right in the middle of Pure Energy's claims. And Albemarle extracts lithium from the briny water in the classic fashion: It lets the water evaporate. The brine-pumping method used by Albemarle expends huge volumes of water, requires a year to 18 months for evaporation. Pure Energy began working with companies on direct lithium extraction, a new process to glean the mineral from water without the delays and ecological impact of evaporation ponds, and then pump most of the water directly back into the ground. Pure Energy, contends its technique recovers lithium in hours rather than months. Little, who became Pure Energy's lead director, said development has been slowed by COVID-19 and regulatory delays. The brine-mining boom in Clayton Valley created manpower shortages and competition for equipment. But theres an even bigger catch: Pure Energy has only secured a permit to pump 50 acre-feet of water annually enough for a test plant, but not commercial production. More than a half-century ago, long before Albemarle acquired the site, Nevada's state engineering office calculated the annual water capacity in Clayton Valley at 20,000 acre-feet. And every drop was granted in permits to Albemarle's predecessor. Today, at least 20 companies boast claims in the basin. Pure Energy is among those to legally challenge the allotment, triggering a modern-day version of the range war only with lawyers instead of gunfighters. "It is skullduggery," said Warren Stanyer, president of Nevada Sunrise, which spent years in an unsuccessful bid to wrestle away some of Albemarle's brine rights. "Mark Twain said, 'Whiskey's for drinking, but water's for fightin' over ...' It's a war." Little declined to talk about the legal issues, but in 2019 her company protested when the state engineer renewed Albemarles water permit. Pure Energy contended that the engineer's office was being used as a pawn to maintain a monopoly," adding that "Albemarles sole purpose of continuing to hold water that it cannot and will not use is economic warfare if no other companies can access water rights in Clayton Valley then Albemarle will be able to continue its reign as the only producing lithium mine in Nevada. Albemarle, in response to questions about its mining operations, wrote in a statement that is has "been going through the process of proving up full beneficial use" of its water rights. "Unfortunately, that process has been slowed by tactics and allegations from other parties looking to obtain rights to that same water," the company said. It said the aquifer water in the Silver Peak area is already highly salty four times as salty as seawater thus the presence of lithium. "These brine aquifers are not able to be used for drinking water, agricultural, or irrigation water." While the site also taps an uphill freshwater source, the company said, "approximately 97.5% of the groundwater usage at Silver Peak is brine." Albemarle's president of the lithium business unit, Eric Norris, recently announced major expansion plans that would double production and use all of the valley's water allotment. Little shook her head at that prediction. Well, theyve said that, but they havent done it," she noted. "And theres room for multiple players to win with brine. Leeann Munk Wild horses trotted up to a desert a hot spring in a corner of Clayton Valley as Munk launched an impromptu seminar on volcanic cinders and calcium carbonate mounds. University of Anchorage professor Lee Ann Munk, whose research focuses on geology and geochemistry of lithium deposits, holds a rock from an outcrop in Clayton Valley. Some of the exposed rocks are intrusives dating back 600 million years. Geothermal water was forced through fissures to the surface. As the planet warmed and cooled over eons, rain cycles filled and dried the playa repeatedly, leaching minerals each time. Now, except for the hot spring, the only surface water is in Albemarle's nearby evaporation ponds. A dirt road runs next to a lithium evaporation pod, left, owned by Albemarle Corporation in Silver Peak, Nevada. Munk, the daughter of a hairdresser and a sheet-metal worker in northern Michigan, said she enrolled in a college geology class by accident because it fit her schedule. A field trip got her hooked on the campfires, adventure and outdoor quest. Then she discovered the magic of chemistry and blended two disciplines, focusing on interactions between water and rocks. From a base at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Munk got intrigued by lithium more than a decade ago. It was this weird element just beyond hydrogen and helium on the Periodic Table. It also was an unexplored mineral, she said, "wide open to discoveries. Today, when someone asks Munk what she does for a living, the answer is simple: I help find the worlds supply of lithium. That job definition brought her together with Hersh and Little. All three worked in South America, and they forged a friendship in part because there are so few women in geology. Every time youre in a room, youre the one person, Munk said. Its pretty obvious to the world that women in engineering and math fields are outnumbered and starting on a lower rung of the ladder. Thats part of being who I am. But the relationship also stems from a common mission, Munk said: pursuing a commodity that will thwart climate change while delivering power to economically deprived communities. The common thing is, were all working to advance lithium and help the world," said Munk, who also studies the loss of glacial ice in the Arctic and Antarctica. "Its a place I never imagined myself. ... The more pioneering and out there it is, the more I love it. A spontaneous discussion Driving through Clayton Valley, the women stop on an overlook and launch into a philosophical discussion of mining history, economics and ethics. Munk holds up her cellphone and laments the rabid anti-mining sentiment of Americans who walk around with lithium batteries in their purses and pockets. It's hypocrisy," she says. "You cant have it both ways, she says. Hersh joins in, saying the public demonization of mining is almost like a fetishism. They continue grumbling about environmental laws and government oversight until someone mentions that, historically, unregulated mining savaged public lands with open-pit scars and toxic waste. Yes, they agree, and it wasnt just ecological devastation, but colonial enslavement and exploitation of workers for centuries. But that was in the past, when companies had a single-minded mission to make money and all else be damned, Munk says. Today, Hersh adds, the No. 1 objective is not profitability, but social justice: Calculating the overall positives and negatives of a project not just for shareholders, but for the local and global community. For example, Munk says, mining brings roads, electricity and jobs to remote villages while supplying minerals to the world. If we all put our minds together and have a vision, she adds, we can make things change in a better way. The implication is that women are part of that change. But how? Whether geologists and CEOs are male or female, there will always be conflicts between earnings, labor costs and environmental protections. Its an impossible set of ever-changing values and variables, Hersh decides, and the job of leaders is to measure and juggle them, issue by issue and point by point. Even with lithium, Little says, the values can be murky. Yes, battery-powered cars will dramatically reduce carbon emissions. But brine extraction projects will use chemicals, consume water, produce waste. And the batteries still require electricity for re-charging. There are always trade-offs, she allows. Its not 100% free. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lithium may hold the key to our energy future. These mining explorers find it Seattle police are asking the public for help to identify three people wanted for the armed robbery of a clothing store at Westwood Village. On Oct. 4, two men and a woman entered a clothing store in the 2600 block of Southwest Barton Street. According to Seattle police, they began collecting clothing before walking out of the store without paying. Employees attempted to confront them as they left the store, but one of the men pulled out a handgun and threatened them before leaving. If you have information about this incident or can identify any of these suspects, call the Seattle Police Department at 206-233-5000. By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Tuesday called for church unity during one of the most polarised periods in modern Catholic history, as he marked the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. Known as Vatican II, the council sat between 1962 and 1965, opened by Pope John XXIII and closed by Pope Paul VI. Delegates from around the world modernised the ancient Church, producing 16 documents that affected many aspects of Church life. Council fathers, as they were known, introduced a new liturgy in local languages to largely replace the old Latin Mass and opened the Church to dialogue with other religions. One document repudiated the concept of collective Jewish guilt for Jesus' death, revolutionising Catholic-Jewish relations after nearly two millennia of mistrust. But in recent decades some of the Council's teachings have become the subject of deep controversy, particularly in rich countries, where divisions often fall along political lines. In the homily of a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica - where a glass casket holding the body of Pope John XXIII was brought closer to the altar for the occasion - Francis said both sides were at fault. "Both the 'progressivism' that lines up behind the world and the 'traditionalism' and 'moving backwards' that longs for a bygone world are not evidence of love, but of infidelity," he said. He decried "quarrels, gossip and disputes," over Council reforms, saying they were here to stay and that people should "live their faith with joy, without grumbling and criticising". Both former Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II had relaxed restrictions on the Latin Mass in an olive branch to conservatives. But Francis reintroduced them last year, saying his predecessors' leniency, while well-intentioned, was being "exploited" for ideological reasons. Religious conservatives in the United States in particular have used the Latin Mass debate to align with politically conservative media outlets to criticise the pope over a host of other issues such as climate change, immigration and social justice. In his homily, Francis said Catholics should not "prefer to cheer on their own party" but be servants of all. They should want to be known as brothers and sisters rather than progressives or conservatives, he said. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by David Gregorio) The success of the Ukrainian army in defending its territory from Russias invasion this year has kicked into high gear the discussion about how the U.S. can support countries in its adversaries war path. Billions in weapons and equipment have funneled into Ukraine this year, helping their military put into practice the training and organization the U.S. has bolstered in the country since Russias 2014 invasion of Crimea. Were obviously doing lessons learned work on our security assistance to Ukraine, James Hursch, director of the Defense Security Assistance Agency, told Military Times during a panel at the AUSA annual meeting in Washington, D.C. I think the major lesson that I would take away is that the strong relationship between our two countries ... has allowed us to influence the Ukrainian militarys ability to do leadership work and to understand how to operate in a very difficult conflict like this. Much of Ukraines success against Russia has been attributed not only to roughly $17 billion in weapons, equipment and other aid the U.S. has sent over since early this year, but to training since 2014 that helped them move away from Soviet-style organization to a command structure that more closely resembles the U.S., with a noncommissioned officer corps and integrated exercises. It goes to helping them develop and exercise their leadership, Hursch said. And then when the time came, and it was necessary, the ability to provide them with the types of equipment that were most important for the period of the fight that they were in. The U.S. has worked its way back up to just over $50 billion in foreign arms sales this year, Hursch said. That figure reflects the enterprises contribution to the international security strategy and the national defense strategy, he added, to defend and nurture the underlying sources of American strength, as well as to lead and sustain a stable and open international system, underwritten by strong democratic alliances, partnerships, multinational institutions and rules Story continues Beyond Ukraine, the U.S. has grown its presence in Europe from 80,000 to roughly 100,000 troops, mobilized along NATOs eastern front, with a new permanent, rotational Army presence in Poland all designed to deter Russia. In the other hemisphere, there are concerns that China is planning a comparable invasion of Taiwan. While the U.S. officially supports the policy that Taiwan is part of China, the State Department has sold weapons to Taiwans military and looked for ways to train its troops. Taiwan is buying US weapons, but Washington isnt delivering them A $6.5 billion bill under consideration by the Senate would expand both arms sale and cooperative training. This program will accelerate Taiwans military reform and expand training for the Taiwanese military using realistic scenarios, Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an August statement. For the U.S., still smarting from 20 years of intervening in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not quite finished with ISIS in Syria, security cooperation could be a way to meet the goal of deterring adversaries without having to launch large-scale, in-house operations. That is an important lesson about how you work with allies and partners who are in a situation where they may very well face a conflict, Hursch said. UKRAINSKA PRAVDA TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 10:30 The Security Service of Ukraine have eliminated two groups of saboteurs of the Wagner private military company (PMC) in Kharkiv Oblast who tortured Ukrainians; a captured commander of one of these groups provides intelligence information for Ukraines special services. Soure: press service of the Security Service of Ukraine. Details: With the help of aerial reconnaissance, Alpha Team of the Security Service has discovered the bases of the Wagner group members, surrounded and stormed them. They were armed with assault rifles, light machine guns, RPGs and grenades. One infiltrator was killed and four more were captured, including the commander of the group. The Security Service reports that during the interrogation, the commander tried to conceal the information about what kind of tasks his subversion and reconnaissance group tried to fulfil. According to him, the group allegedly "did not wait for reinforcements". The Security Service found out that infiltrators actually tortured Ukrainians. The commander provides the Ukrainian special services with information about the torture chambers set up by his comrades-in-arms. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Tuesday that Democrats will try to pass legislation protecting "dreamers" during the Senate's lame duck session, after a court dealt a setback to an Obama-era federal immigration program. Durbin, D-Ill., said that voters should take seriously the threat that the courts could strike down the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows people who came to the U.S. illegally as children to stay. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the Obama administration did not have the authority to institute the program which protects illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors from deportation. Durbin lamented that the appeals court sent the case back an "unfriendly judge in Texas" for further proceedings and said Congress must act. FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RULES OBAMA-ERA DACA PROGRAM ILLEGAL, BUT SAYS 600,000 ALREADY IN US CAN STAY Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Tuesday that Democrats will try to pass immigration reform, specifically protecting participants in the DACA program, before the end of the year. "It is our responsibility to do everything we can in the closing days of this Congress, and the hope that we have a majority in the Senate and the House in the next Congress that can continue the battle if necessary," Durbin said. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The three judge panel did not dismantle the policy, meaning that while it cannot process new applicants, those already enrolled are still protected from removal. Approximately 700,000 are estimated to have been granted protection under the program, and hundreds of thousands more are deemed eligible. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., joined Durbin Tuesday on a press call, which also included immigration activists. He said President Biden needs to step up pressure on Congress to pass DACA legislation. "We need the White House and President Biden to make clear that passing immigration legislation is a priority before the end of the year," Menendez said. The senator also called on the president to use other forms of executive action to protect DACA recipients in the meantime. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Tuesday said President Biden needs to pressure Congress to pass immigration legislation by the end of the year. AFTER DACA DEFEAT, DEMS RAMP UP PRESSURE ON SENATE REPUBLICANS TO MOVE ON AMNESTY Story continues The biggest hurdle facing Democrats in their effort to pass any immigration legislation, including a bill codifying DACA, is the Senate's filibuster. If Democrats remain united on a bill, they still need 10 Republicans to vote for it to pass through the 50-50 Senate. November's elections also look unlikely to change that reality by much. Democrats may pick up one or two seats in the highly-competitive map. They are also at risk of losing seats, which would bring in a GOP majority for which DACA would not be a priority. "The question is whether in a lame duck session, 10 Republicans will step up," Durbin said. "I can count four or five going into this, but no more. The rest of those are still in doubt." Both Menendez and Durbin blamed former President Trump for turning the GOP against any form of immigration reform. DACA COURT RULING THE LATEST TWIST FOR CONTROVERSIAL OBAMA-ERA IMMIGRATION POLICY "He made immigration a political tool for his party and he put into fear our colleagues that if they did not toe the line in that regard, they could very well face his wrath in a primary that could change the course of events for them," Menendez said. "The Trump presidency, along with the advisers like Stephen Miller, created a poisonous atmosphere when we discuss immigration," Durbin said. Democrats have manged to get some GOP support for various legislative priorities this Congress. They secured the votes necessary in the Senate to pass a bill to help the U.S. compete economically with China, and another on improving infrastructure. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP However, Congress already has a busy lame duck schedule, with bills on gay marriage and Electoral Count Act reform, as well as an omnibus spending bill and defense authorization legislation. Fox News' David Spunt and Adam Sabes contributed to this report. Herschel Walker, the embattled GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia, on Tuesday reminded Republicans that theyre stuck with him by reciting a parable involving cows and a bull. Ive been telling this story about the bull and six cows. Now, three of them are pregnant so you know hes got something going on, said Walker, who was speaking to supporters alongside Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rick Scott of Florida in Carrollton, Ga. In Walkers telling, the bull, unsatisfied, becomes increasingly infatuated with the other three cows, jumps over a fence and meets the objects of his affection only to find out they were bulls too. So what Im telling you [is] dont think something is better somewhere else, Walker, who has spent the last week denying reports that he paid for a former girlfriends abortion and largely abandoned their son, said to laughter. Herschel Walker campaigns in Carrollton, Ga., on Tuesday. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) The visit from Scott, who runs the GOPs Senate campaign operation, and Cotton was intended to show that national Republicans are still behind Walker. And unlike Walkers allegorical bull, they dont have the option of jumping the fence and searching for something better. Voting is already underway in Georgia. The deadline for removing a candidate from the ballot is long past. But more than that, Walker may well survive the scandal. An Emerson College poll released Tuesday showed him just 2 points behind his opponent, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. I can firmly say that, based on the polls Ive seen, this has not changed anything about this race, said one Republican close to Scott. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas stumps for Walker in Georgia. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Control of the Senate could easily hinge on the race in Georgia. Democrats currently control the chamber only by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harriss tie-breaking vote, and Georgia had been seen as a top Republican pickup opportunity. So with less than a month to go until Election Day and the Senate still up for grabs, Republicans say they have little choice but to support Walker, who is set to debate Warnock on Friday for the first and only time. Story continues Sen. Raphael Warnock campaigning in Columbus, Ga., on Saturday. (Megan Varner/Getty Images) Hes our candidate, weve got to make the best of it, said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican operative who ran Bob Doles 1996 presidential campaign. Even in Georgia, where this debate on Friday is going to be the equivalent of the Thrilla in Manila, we can still win the race because its still about Biden. Gen. Sergei Surovikin. AP/Pavel Golovkin, File Sergei Surovikin is Russia's new top commander, and his ex-colleagues call him "Gen. Armageddon." He is suspected of masterminding Monday's deadly attacks across Ukraine. Surovikin led Russian troops in Syria during the early 2000s, The New York Times reported. Former colleagues describe the new commander of Russia's military as "absolutely ruthless" and say he has "little regard for human life," which may have been on display in Monday's deadly airstrikes across the country. Gen. Sergei Surovikin of Russia's air force was appointed by the country's Defense Ministry on Saturday as the overall commander of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, Reuters reported. While it's unclear who issued the directive for Monday's airstrikes, Surovikin has been known to bomb civilian areas. A former Defense Ministry official who worked with Surovikin told The Guardian Australia they weren't surprised by the deadly bombing in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv that killed at least five people Monday morning. Related video: Putin signs decree annexing four regions of eastern Ukraine "Surovikin is absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life," the unnamed former colleague said. "I am afraid his hands will be completely covered in Ukrainian blood." Because of his callous approach to war, colleagues have given him the nickname "Gen. Armageddon," The Guardian reported. According to The New York Times, Surovikin led Russian troops in Syria during the country's civil war in the early 2000s. Human Rights Watch said he was among the military leaders who might bear "command responsibility for violations during the 2019-2020 Idlib offensive" in Syria. During the Idlib offensive, the Syrian-Russian alliance launched dozens of air and ground attacks that hit homes, schools, and healthcare facilities. Human Rights Watch reported the attacks killed at least 1,600 civilians and displaced an estimated 1.4 million people. Story continues Surovikin was born in 1966 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and has served in the army since at least 1991, Al Jazeera reported. That year, he spent at least six months in prison after soldiers under his command killed three protesters during a failed coup attempt in Moscow, The Times reported. On February 23, a day before Russia invaded Ukraine, Surovikin was placed on a European Union sanctions list for supporting and implementing policies that undermined and threatened the independence of Ukraine. Read the original article on Business Insider Flash China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said the root cause of the problems in the Taiwan Straits is the Democratic Progressive Party authorities' pursuit of "independence," adding that Taiwan Island is an inseparable part of China. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a regular press conference in response to Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen's earlier speech on Monday. The root cause of the current tensions in the Taiwan Straits lies in the Democratic Progressive Party authorities' stubborn insistence on "Taiwan independence and secession," and colluding with external forces to continuously seek "independence," which seriously undermines the important foundation of the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, Mao noted. Stressing the one-China principle is the key stand for peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, the spokesperson said adhering to the one-China principle will improve and develop cross-strait relations. "Deviating from the one-China principle will lead to tension and turbulence in cross-strait relations," she added. Mao reiterated that the Taiwan question concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. "We are willing to create a broad space for peaceful reunification, but we will never leave any space for 'Taiwan independence' and secession activities," she said. solar panel fitter Solar panel firms in Scotland are struggling to deal with a surge in inquiries from businesses and households, as the energy crisis continues to bite. Renew Green Energy boss Brian Middleton says his Tweedbank-based business has been "hectic" and "manic", with inquiries flooding in. "We have never seen anything like this before, just due to the whole energy crisis," he explains. "Consumers and businesses' costs are going up through the roof. "We used to be able to order and deliver a project within a week, now it is about three months for delivery of materials. "There's a bit of a panic and a rush to do something about their energy costs before they can't do anything with it really. "We have gone from five to 10 inquiries a week to it tripling. We are overwhelmed and we had to bring in extra staff just to cope with that." Renew Green Energy boss Brian Middleton has had to hire extra staff It is a similar story for Glenrothes-based RB Grant, which says it is handling three or four times as many inquiries as it did a year ago, and is struggling to keep up with demand. Director Ronnie Grant says: "We are hearing from people as far apart as Orkney and England who are desperate to have panels fitted. "We are doing what we can but there are supply chain issues with metals and electrical components used in the panels so people are having to wait longer for installation." Ronnie says he knows of firms that have had to turn away business in the face of soaring demand. Linda Graham and her family decided to have solar panels fitted on her Hawick home in an effort to tackle soaring energy prices. "We had a projection done and it was quite scary how much the electricity would be up within five years. "So we decided just to go for it and try and fit as many panels on as possible," she says. Linda Graham says her home now has 18 solar panels "We have got 18 on and we are producing energy - more than we need at the moment. "We are waiting on a (storage) battery being fitted. It is a big outlay but I think in the long-term - we have no plans to move house - it will benefit us." Story continues Hugo Lee has also embraced solar energy as a way to keep bills at a manageable level. The farmer, who is based near the border village of Ancrum, says his electricity consumption has "pretty much halved" since he had 200 solar panels fitted a decade ago. He explains: "We use them for the farmhouse, farm cottages and also for the drying floor - we dry grain - and we also power our chicken sheds with them. Hugo Lee owns a farm in the Borders "If we could, we would probably double them in size if we were allowed to. "When we first put them in it was a five-year payback, now it would be three years." Helen Melone, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, says it makes even more economic sense to install solar panels right now. "The payback period for a domestic rooftop system is around 12 months, compared to many times that when electricity prices were lower," she said. Solar power in Scotland Technicians fitting solar panels There are more than 56,000 households with solar PV (photovoltaic) systems Solar technologies currently account for enough generation capacity to power about 90,000 Scottish homes As a whole, the sector adds about 62m of GVA (Gross Value Added) to Scotland's economy and supports 2,390 jobs. Solar energy has the highest backing of all renewable energy technologies among the British public, with 90% of people supporting or strongly supporting its development Source: Scottish Renewables Meanwhile, the Scottish government is being urged to give solar energy greater prominence in its net zero plans. Industry group Solar Energy Scotland (SES) is pressing the government to introduce "a robust plan of action" as ministers prepare to publish a new energy strategy and just transition plan. It wants ministers to commit to a minimum target of 4GW of solar energy across Scotland by 2030 and "declare a level of ambition" for 6GW, claiming the move could deliver more than 8,500 jobs. According to the organisation, installed capacity in Scotland - on rooftops and on the ground - is about 400MW, and lags far behind other parts of the UK and nations like Denmark, which is on the same latitude as Scotland. The industry argues that ministers have set ambitions for wind and other technologies like heat pumps, but continue to leave out solar power. "For too long solar has suffered unconscious bias that Scotland's weather better suits other renewable energy technologies that harness power from wind and water," says a report issued by SES. "This has resulted in solar being largely overlooked over the last decade as Scotland seeks to decarbonise its economy. "The solar resource in Scotland is enormous. If all the sun's energy that hits the island of Hoy could be collected this would meet all of Scotland's energy needs, including power, heat and transport." A Scottish government spokesman said it recognised the importance of solar power in contributing towards net zero. "We remain committed to continuing to work with the solar sector to provide a supportive policy framework to help it continue to grow," he said. "We have been working closely with industry in recent months to co-design our solar vision which will be published in our energy strategy and just transition plan later this year and provide the certainty needed for investment in our energy transition." Sophia Loren is among the octogenarians proving age is just a number in the style stakes. (Getty Images) She may be 88 years old but Sophia Loren is still dialling up the glam on the red carpet, proving that age is just a number. Last night, the iconic actor made an appearance at the opening of her restaurant in Milan, just weeks after celebrating her 88th birthday. The The Life Ahead star looked chic in an elegant white trouser suit and classic silk blouse, which she teamed with heeled boots and a dazzling jewelled necklace. Sophia Loren looked timelessly elegant at her restaurant opening in Milan earlier this week. (Getty Images) Her glamorous showing didn't go unnoticed by social media, who gave the star their enthusiastic seal of approval online. "Shes 88 years old and still killin it," one fan wrote. "A legend at 88," another user agreed. "Icon," another commented simply on Instagram. Sophia Loren still knows how to wow on the red carpet. (Getty Images) Though may be in her 80s, Sophia previously revealed that she feels decades younger. "Sometimes when I say I'm 86, I don't believe it. I feel 20," she told AARP THE MAGAZINE for the December 2020/January 2021 issue. Loren certainly isn't alone in seemingly tearing up the ageing rulebook when it comes to fashion. There used to be something of an expectation that when women, and men, hit the big 8-0, they should just quietly fade into the background, swapping their heels for slippers and nights on the town for nights in reading a Mills & Boon. But recently a whole slew of 80-something celebrities have been challenging out-dated age boundaries and rocking the red carpet in whatever they like. And boy do they look good on it. Read more: Cher, 76, 'iconic' as she closes Balmain fashion show in spandex bodysuit Dame Judi Dench keeps it classic on the red carpet. (Getty Images) Leading the pack for the British Octogenarians holding on to their style edge is Dame Judi Dench, who at 87, is proving that age is no barrier to glamming it up for the red carpet. Earlier this year, the Skyfall actor won all the style applause as she graced the red carpet for the Oscars 2022 ceremony. The much-celebrated star stunned in an all white ensemble as she attended the event with her grandson (and Ed Sheeran lookalike) on her arm. Story continues Watch: Jane Fonda feeling 'stronger than she has in years' following cancer diagnosis Further illustrating her style credentials, Dame Judi recently made history as the oldest person to appear on the cover of fashion bible Vogue, at the age of 85 years young. While she may have looked incredible modelling a floral Dolce & Gabbana outfit, in the accompanying interview, the star admitted she wasn't loving her 80s. I dont like [ageing] at all. I dont think about it. I dont want to think about it. They say age is an attitude its horrible. The always impeccably dressed Jane Fonda knows how to rock the red carpet. (Getty Images) Jane Fonda is another celebrity who's still got her fashion va va voom despite hitting her ninth decade. From a classic white suit, a ritzy purple jacket, to a shoulder-bearing jumpsuit, Jane Fonda is proof you can still rock a style edge whatever your age. Last year the star was widely praised by fans for her "ageless beauty" after appearing as the cover star of Grazia's 'The Classics Issue'. In further proof she is embracing her natural beauty, Fonda has revealed how happy she is to have embraced her grey hair as she was fed up of dyeing it. Speaking in an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show the star discussed her natural locks with the chat show host. "I'm so happy I let it go grey," she told the host. "Enough already, so much time wasted, so much money spent, so many chemicals. I'm through with that." Read more: Carol Vorderman highlights her toned stomach in Kim Kardashian crop top: 'Im obsessed' Dame Joan Collins is still a style icon in her 80s. (Getty Images) Another Brit flying the flag for golden year fashion is Dame Joan Collins, 89, who is often praised for her youthful appearances on the red carpet. From body-skimming dresses, to glittering gowns, Dame Joan always notches up the glamour no matter the A-list event she's attending. As well as her impeccable sartorial choices, the former Dynasty star believes fashion is partly due to how you feel, as well as how you look. "Wear your clothes with attitude, dont let them wear you, and youll always look glamorous," she once said. Dame Mary Berry has become something of a style icon in her 80s. (Getty Images) No over 80s best dressed round up would be complete without a nod to former Bake Off Queen Dame Mary Berry. While she became known for her eye-catching jackets in the baking tents, the celebrity cook is just as comfortable rocking an elegant frock on the red carpet. And her style prowess hasn't gone unnoticed, earning her plenty of praise on social media for her understated yet glamorous looks. Dame Maggie Smith is flying the flag for the stylish British octogenarians. (Getty Images) Dame Maggie Smith is also worth a mention in the stylish women over a certain age stakes. Demonstrating her style credentials during the recent promotion of the Downton Abbey film, the 87-year-old actor, regularly graced the red carpet in a killer outfit. From putting a modern twist on a classic trouser suit to donning an elegant threaded jacket, the octogenarian isn't prepared to shrink into the background when it comes to her style choices. A man shot his exs boyfriend in the hand in a Kendall apartment Tuesday, then drove to his Pinecrest home and shot himself in the head before SWAT officers stormed the property, police said. The alleged shooter was still alive once police got inside his home, and he was transported to the hospital, Pinecrest Village Manager Yocelyn Galiano Gomez told Miami Herald. They found him shot, but alive with a head wound, she said. The incident in the normally peaceful village community rattled neighbors, many of whom were escorted from their homes during the incident in the presence of Miami-Dade SWAT officers, Priority Response Team members, and police from South Miami as well as from other neighboring cities. Argument led to shooting The suspected shooter was visiting a former girlfriend at an apartment in Kendall when he got into an argument with her current boyfriend and shot him, said Galiano Gomez, who was briefed by Village Police Chief Jason Cohen. After that shooting, he drove to his home in the 10600 block of Southwest 72nd Avenue, she said. A Pinecrest police officer who was on his way to the first crime scene in Kendall saw the man getting into a car, Cohen told the Herald. After the man entered his home in Pinecrest, the officer said he heard a gunshot, according to Cohen. Police also managed to extract two women from the Pinecrest property, who were unharmed. The mans niece was taken from inside the home and another woman was taken from an efficiency behind it, Galiano Gomez said. After taking both women to safety, Pinecrest police called family members, who told them they didnt believe anyone else was in the home; thats when police entered and found the man in critical condition, Galiano Gomez said. SOUND UP: Police are actively trying to coax the subject to come to the window so they know hes in there alive. Police have yet to answer any questions about exactly whats taking place, or whether anyone is with this barricaded subject. pic.twitter.com/FQE44arA0A Liane Morejon WPLG (@LianeWPLG) October 11, 2022 It wasnt immediately clear if the alleged gunman shot himself before police entered the home or whether he did so during negotiations with police, who used a bullhorn as they tried to lure him outside. Story continues Police hadnt released his name as of Tuesday night. This developing story will be updated. South Korea said on Tuesday that it is capable of detecting and intercepting the flurry of missiles North Korea recently launched in a simulation of a nuclear attack on the country. It maintained that the advancing nuclear programme of their neighbours posed a great threat to the world. "North Korea is consistently developing and upgrading its nuclear weapons and posing nuclear threats to not only our Republic of Korea but the world," South Koreas president Yoon Suk-yeol told reporters while referring to the country by its official name. "I believe it has nothing to gain from nuclear weapons, said the president as he tried to reassure the public asking them not worry too much and do your best with economic activities and livelihoods. Earlier, North Koreas state news agency KCNA reported that the countrys missile tests were designed to simulate showering the South with tactical nuclear weapons as a warning after large-scale navy drills by South Korean and US forces. The North Korean launches, part of its record-breaking run of weapons tests this year, were seen as an attempt by leader Kim Jong-un to acquire a more intimidating arsenal to pressure its rivals to accept the North as a legitimate nuclear state and lift economic sanctions on them. Mr Yoon said he would build robust capabilities to counter the Norths threats through the US alliance and trilateral security cooperation involving Japan, countrys acting spokesperson at the South Korean defense ministry described North Korean nuclear threats as very grave and serious. Asserting the countrys capabilities of detecting the missiles, Moon Hong Sik said they are still pushing to introduce spy satellites, various surveillance drones and additional sea-based reconnaissance assets to better monitor North Korea. The president is receiving backlash from the countrys progressive main opposition which has accused him of pursuing a pro-Japan defense policy, an issue that remains sensitive due to resentment over Japans colonial rule from 1910-45. Story continues The president however, set aside the concerns, saying it cannot be justified in the face of nuclear threat. Meanwhile, some defense observers have noted that Norths newly developed weapons including a highly maneuverable KN-23 missile modeled on Russias Iskander missile and a developmental hypersonic missile, might overcome South Korean and US missile defense system. Outside concerns about North Koreas nuclear programme have also grown since it adopted a law authorising preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Earlier in August, Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un, ridiculed the US and South Koreas military for allegedly misidentifying the exact site of their two previous missile tests. If the data and flight trajectory (of the missiles) are known, (South Korea) will be so bewildered and afraid, she had said. According to the North Korean announcement on its seven rounds of launches, the weapons mobilized in the drills include a new type of intermediate-range ballistic missile that traveled about 4,500km (2,800 miles), a distance sufficient to reach the US Pacific territory of Guam and beyond. Another missile that North Korea said was launched from a silo under an inland reservoir was likely a new version of its KN-23 missile, whose highly maneuverable and lower-trajectory flight provides it with greater chances of evading missile defense systems. North Koreas first missile firing under a reservoir was believed to be aimed at diversifying its launch sites to curtail enemy missile defenses. In recent years, North Korea has also been pushing to build bigger submarines to acquire a nuclear retaliatory attack capability. While South Korea, Japan and the US authorities reported all seven rounds of missile launches, none of their public reports included a reservoir-launched missile, an apparent failure to detect whether the weapon was launched from underwater. Kim Jun-rak, a spokesperson at South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that a missile launch from a reservoir was seen as a desperate attempt by North Korea to escape South Korean and US surveillance but failed to comment on whether it posed a security threat to the county. Additional reporting from the wires If youre looking to take flight in a new career, Spirit Airlines may have the job for you. The airline is hosting a hiring event in Orlando on Thursday to fill more than 200 flight attendant positions. The airline said qualifying candidates can receive a conditional job offer on the spot and potentially start training next month. This is the perfect opportunity for someone who dreams about traveling and is looking for an exciting career right now, said Dulna Aubourg, director of talent acquisition at Spirit Airlines. The hiring event will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Marriott Orlando Airport Lakeside, located at 7499 Augusta National Drive. Read: JetBlue acquisition of Spirit could lead to higher Orlando airline fares Candidates are asked to bring a resume, valid U.S. passport, and two additional forms of identification. Job seekers can apply in advance online here. 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. SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) A former manager for a Silicon Valley security business that worked for Facebook testified at a sheriffs civil corruption trial that he and his companys CEO agreed to give political donations in exchange for concealed-weapons permits they needed to help guard high-profile clients. Martin Nielsen, who implicated a Santa Clara County sheriffs captain and others in the alleged bribery scheme, testified publicly for the first time Monday at Sheriff Laurie Smiths trial. He detailed how he was tasked with finding a way to get concealed-carry permits for AS Solutions security agents who were assigned to high-profile clients, the Mercury News reported. The effort followed a 2018 shooting at the YouTube campus in San Bruno in which a woman wounded three people before killing herself. The now-defunct security company's high-profile clients included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Nielsen testified that he and AS Solutions then-head Christian West agreed to financially support Smiths 2018 reelection bid in exchange for the permits for security agents assigned to protect executives for the company then known as Facebook. The unusual case against Smith is a civil process to seek removal of an elected official. Smith has not been directly implicated in the two criminal indictments that ensnared her undersheriff and a captain. She announced in March she wasnt running for reelection. Her term ends in January, but a guilty verdict would prompt her removal from office early. Nielsen, testifying under a grant of immunity from criminal prosecution, said he and West arranged to donate a large sum to an independent expenditure committee backing Smiths reelection. Did you come away with the understanding you would get 10 to 15 permits? prosecutor Gabriel Markoff asked. Yes, Nielsen replied. Smith was her agencys sole signatory for the gun licenses. Under questioning from Smiths attorney, Allen Ruby, Nielsen affirmed that his only interaction with the sheriff was a 30-second meet-and-greet at a fundraiser during the period he was working with a sheriff's captain to get the gun permits. Story continues Nielson did not state the precise donation amount in his testimony because San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Nancy Fineman had limited what details Nielsen could give in front of the jury. However, in past testimony, Nielsen said $90,000 was the agreed amount, though only $45,000 was ever donated. The other half was scuttled after the bribery and corruption probe got underway in 2019. Nielsen also testified that he was unilaterally exempted by a sheriffs captain from having to qualify under a legally required firearms proficiency test, and was instructed to obscure their association with the security company to avoid negative optics. They could not all be AS Solution, he said. Something about the fact it was a security company and it didnt look good. Nielsen, West and a third AS Solution manager avoided indictment after cooperating with investigators in exchange for guilty pleas to lesser misdemeanor conspiracy and fraud-related charges. All three have a sentencing hearing scheduled for Tuesday. The contaminated former Santa Susana Field Lab is in the hills near Simi Valley. Several environmental groups have sued the state and Boeing over what they allege is a "backroom deal" that significantly weakens the aerospace giant's cleanup standards at the contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab site near Simi Valley. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Ventura County Superior Court, charges that the "secret" negotiations that produced the agreement violate the public involvement and transparency requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. But Allison Wescott, spokeswoman for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, a defendant in the suit, said in a statement Monday that while the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation, "we are confident in our legal position on the comprehensive settlement agreement with Boeing. The suit seeks to vacate the agreement, which was announced in May by the California Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the department. The EPA said the settlement will strengthen the long-delayed cleanup of Boeing's portion of the 2,850-acre toxic site, which experienced a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959. Boeing owns most of the site in unincorporated hills outside Simi Valley at the Los Angeles County border. The settlement "prioritizes human health and the environment and holds Boeing to account for its cleanup," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a release in May. But the lawsuit differs. It was filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab and the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "As a result of a secret negotiation without any input from the public, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control and Boeing sought to limit the site cleanup alternatives that would be considered by DTSC," the lawsuit alleges. The negotiations produced an 800-page agreement that supersedes a 2007 agreement between Boeing and the state, "substantially relaxing key cleanup requirements, allowing hundreds of times higher levels of toxic chemicals than previously permitted and leaving much of the contamination onsite," the activist groups said in a release. Story continues Under the 2007 pact, the cleanup was supposed to have been completed by the end of 2017. Court-bound?: Ventura County weighs legal action in cleanup of Boeing-owned former nuclear test site In addition to Boeing and the toxic substances control department, the suit also names as defendants Lawrence Hafetz, the agency's chief counsel, and the Los Angeles chapter of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. The lawsuit also seeks to vacate a memorandum of understanding adopted in August by the water quality board that activists say could ultimately lead to Boeing's surface water discharges from the site no longer being regulated. Boeing spokesman Connor Greenwood said in a statement Monday that it is disappointing that a few organizations continue to oppose cleanup at the former Santa Susana Field Laboratory site" by filing the lawsuit. "The comprehensive framework with the state provides regulatory certainty and a clear, accelerated plan for Boeings cleanup," he said. "It protects potential future recreational users of the site, surrounding communities, cultural resources and the environment." The EPA says that under the agreement, Boeing is tasked with cleaning up radioactive contamination in the soil to the most stringent "background" level. But cleanup activists say the settlement will leave at least 90% of Boeing's contaminated soil not cleaned up. Green light: Water board's vote clears path for Boeing's clean-up of toxic site near Simi Valley Jeff Ruch, Pacific region director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the lawsuit does not prevent the cleanup from starting immediately. The suit "instead aims to ensure it continues until it is fully completed," he said in the release. "This lawsuit is about having the cleanup done right and well beyond the outrageous 'rip and skip' deal that Boeing wrangled behind closed doors," he said. The 1959 partial nuclear meltdown occurred when the site was the Rocketdyne/Atomics International rocket engine test and nuclear facility. The site was a premiere research facility for the United States during the Cold War and also experienced other chemical and radioactive contamination over the years. Ruch said Tuesday that the next step in the litigation is for the court to schedule a hearing on the plaintiffs' request to vacate the settlement and the memo of understanding. "That may happen as soon as a week from today," he said. Mike Harris covers the East County cities of Moorpark, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, as well as transportation countywide. You can contact him at mike.harris@vcstar.com or 805-437-0323. SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM and get all the latest Moorpark, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, and transportation news from Star reporter Mike Harris. Get a digital subscription. This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Suit alleges state gave lenient deal to Boeing in toxic site cleanup MANHATTAN, N.Y. (WPIX) The Statue of Libertys crown is set to welcome visitors Tuesday for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of New York City in 2020. The reopening was announced on the NYCgo tourism groups Instagram page in a post featuring three photos of the iconic New York landmark. Those looking to visit the statue should book tickets early, as slots fill up months in advance, the post advised. It also noted that Statue City Cruises is the only service providing access to both Lady Liberty and Ellis Island, in a word of warning against other ferry services claiming to go there. Charges dropped against man Hertz claimed stole car Like much of New York City, the statue suspended operations as the coronavirus gripped the Big Apple in March 2020. The grounds of Liberty Island reopened in July 2020, with the statues pedestal observation deck reopening nearly a year later, according to the National Park Service. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Oct. 11Afghan refugees who live in Spokane talk regularly with relatives in their former country, so news hit hard about a Sept. 30 attack at a West Kabul learning center. A bomb there killed up to 53 people from the Hazara community most of them girls and young women. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Hazaras, as a minority ethnic population, have long been targeted with violence by the Islamic State and the Taliban. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims, and historically persecuted by Sunni Muslim militant groups. About 60 people mostly Afghan immigrants who are now Spokane residents held a march Saturday through downtown to raise awareness, with slogans such as "Stop Hazara Genocide," and signs in support of Afghan women's education. "Our heart is broken, not because we are getting killed, but for the deadly silence that has engulfed the world," said Rezvan Mohammadi, as the crowd gathered first at Riverfront Park with a memorial to the Sept. 30 victims. "Where are the human rights slogans? Where are all the international media? Where are those who yell out justice?" Mohammadi, a Spokane resident for three years, said she's a child of Afghanistan refugees and raised in Turkey, but her mother is a Hazara. "People are dying over there every day and nobody hears our voices. I don't know when Afghan people are going to stop crying." Others at the protest said that reports of violence in Afghanistan against women and Hazaras are a regular occurrence and have escalated with the Taliban's takeover of power since U.S. troops withdrew in August 2021. In returning to power last year, the Taliban banned secondary school for girls. Some ongoing education has gone underground, but the recent attack is thought to be caused by a suicide bomber inside the Kaaj learning center in the Dash te-Barchi district. The students killed were mostly girls and women ages 16-20 but some younger sitting for a practice university exam, news reports said. It injured more than 82 people. Story continues "This actually is my town that got attacked Dash te-Barchi I was born and raised there, so in a bunch of the families that were attacked, they were actually some of my former classmates," said Freshta Tori Jan, 23, who moved to Spokane a few months ago. She immigrated to the U.S. to go to high school in Texas. "It definitely has you feeling very angry because this has been happening for so many years, for decades, and all you ever see on the news is there is violence going on in Afghanistan." "Despite how involved the international world has been in Afghanistan and the fact the UN has been involved, they still haven't considered this and called it a genocide of Hazaras." Tori Jan recently wrote a book, "Courage: My Story of Persecution," that talks about how she in childhood and other Hazaras faced daily murder attempts when outside of their homes. She has memories of U.S. troops arriving by tanks that brought short-lived peace in her town. Another organizer for Saturday's march, Esmatullah Hashem, said women in Afghanistan aren't allowed to hold offices or gain higher education since the Taliban's return. "They have closed schools for our mothers and our sisters," he said. "We are asking the United Nations, the media, Congress, the White House to put pressure on the Taliban to stop killing Hazara people just because we think differently and because we send our daughters to school." Many families with children participated and held signs, including Mohammadi Rezai and his daughter Sarah Rezai, 5, who carried an Afghanistan flag. "We're here for human rights, for women's education and for all the women in Afghanistan suffering, especially Hazara people because they've always been attacked," he said. "They've always been targeted." Sorayya Mohammadi, today a Spokane elementary teacher, helped to organize Saturday's march. She left Afghanistan in 2000 at age 16 at a time when the Taliban also was in charge. She and family members first lived in Iran, then briefly Turkey, before Mohammadi settled in the U.S. with her husband and children. Mohammadi continued in school at Spokane Community College, then transferred to Whitworth University to complete her bachelor's of arts in education. She always wanted to be a teacher, and in reflecting on the girls who were killed, Mohammadi said they're like her. Some wanted an education to become teachers. "It could be me, if I didn't run away to leave my country years ago," she said. "I couldn't accept staying at home." The stories of violence keep repeating, she said, and people in the Afghan community here fear that each time they talk with friends and family in Afghanistan, it might be the last communication. "We're going to show we want it to stop, to stop the killing of women, to stop them keeping women from going to school, to allow women to have freedoms, especially going to school," she said. "Women are not free in Afghanistan. They don't have most of the human rights people have in other countries. Since the Taliban has been back, they don't let women have an education, especially higher education." A Sept. 6 report by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch cited 16 attacks against Hazaras since August 2021 that killed or injured at least 700 people. The United Nations Development Program in a report this month on Afghanistan said that life inside Afghanistan has deteriorated to new lows, under a broken economy and other hardships, but also loss of personal freedoms. "Chief among them is the limited space and freedom for women and girls to enjoy a full education, the right to earn a livelihood, and the right to engage in the country's governance as fully participating members of the economy and society," the report said. The Education Department (ED) provided a first look at the student loan forgiveness application on Tuesday, but did not say exactly when the form would go live for borrowers to fill out. However, it reiterated the release is still set for this month. In a press briefing Tuesday, the ED provided images of the simple online form, which asks borrowers to provide their name, Social Security number, date of birth, phone number, and email. Borrowers won't need to upload any documents and they also don't need to log in with a Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID. To prevent fraud, all borrowers must attest to their eligibility under penalty of perjury and jail time. The application will be available in English and Spanish on desktop and mobile. It will only be available on the government website, but the ED did not provide the link at this time. An ED official said that borrowers should receive debt relief "in a matter of weeks" after completing the form. The department expects to process the majority of claims by mid-November before January payments resume. If an applicant doesn't have a federal loan, they won't qualify for relief. If the applicant's information doesn't match up with the ED loan, the department will follow up and ask for additional information. More than 40 million borrowers are eligible for student debt relief, which includes $10,000 in cancellation along with an additional $10,000 in loan forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients. Nearly 20 million borrowers could have their entire remaining balance forgiven, according to White House projections. Here's what else you need to know about Biden's student loan debt forgiveness. Who qualifies for $20,000 in student loan debt forgiveness? Borrowers who received Pell Grants and make less than $125,000 as individuals or less than $250,000 as married couples are eligible to receive $20,000 in student loan debt forgiveness. Your income is based on either your 2020 or 2021 federal tax return. It is expected that income will be based on adjusted gross income (AGI), but we are awaiting confirmation from ED. Story continues What is a Pell Grant? A Pell Grant is a federal grant to low-income undergraduates who have not yet earned a first bachelors degree with the greatest demonstrated financial need. Eligibility is determined from documentation provided on the free application for federal student aid, known as FAFSA. In 2020-21, approximately 6.4 million students received a Pell Grant with the average award of $4,166 and over 78% of recipients had family incomes of less than $40,000, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). Who qualifies for $10,000 in student loan debt forgiveness? Those who did not receive Pell Grants but make less than $125,000 as individuals or less than $250,000 as a married couple are eligible for $10,000 in student loan debt forgiveness. Your income is based on either your 2020 or 2021 federal tax return. It is expected that income will be based on adjusted gross income (AGI), but we are awaiting confirmation from ED. Are current students with loans eligible for forgiveness? Students currently enrolled in school with loans also can qualify for relief as long as their parents' income is below the eligibility cap for single or married filers. Loans must have been originated before July 1 to be eligible. Which types of student loans are eligible for forgiveness? Only federally backed student loans are eligible for forgiveness. Loans from private banks and lenders don't qualify this includes federal loans consolidated with a private lender. Both undergraduate and graduate direct loans are eligible for cancelation along with Parent PLUS loans taken out by parents or guardians. Wisdom Cole posses for a photo following a press conference held to celebrate President Biden cancelling student loan debt on Capitol Hill on September 29, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for We, The 45 Million) As of September 29, 2022, borrowers with federal student loans not held by the Education Department are not eligible for debt relief by consolidating those loans into federal direct loans. If you had FFEL and Perkins Loans not owned by the Education Department and applied to consolidate them into the federal direct loan program before Sept. 29, 2022, they are eligible for loan forgiveness. If your loans are in default, use the Fresh Start Program to get them back in good standing. How can I apply for student loan debt forgiveness? Almost 8 million borrowers could be eligible to get relief automatically because their income data is already available to the Education Department. Those borrowers will be notified of automatic relief. Everyone else must apply to certify income. Applications will be available online sometime in October. Initially, the application will be available only online, but a paper version will be available later. You have until the end of next year, December 31, 2023, to apply, according to FSA's latest FAQ update. If you still have outstanding debt after loan forgiveness, it is highly recommended to complete the application before the end of this year to make sure your loan servicer recalculates your new balance and monthly payment when payments start in January. What happens to any payments I made during the payment pause? If you made payments during the federal student loan moratorium (beginning March 13, 2020), you can get a refund for payments made by contacting your loan service provider, according to the Federal Student Aid website. Loans eligible for Biden's loan forgiveness Is this the same as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program? No. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness provides student debt forgiveness to those who have worked at least 10 years in public service jobs with federal, state, local, or certain non-profit organizations such as teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. The PSLF waiver expires October 31. How can I stay updated on the student loan forgiveness application process? Borrowers can get notifications when the application is available by signing up at StudentAid.gov/debtrelief. What happens with my payments if I'm not eligible for forgiveness or the forgiveness doesn't cancel all my debt? Biden also extended the pause or forbearance on federal student loan payments until December 31. It is not expected to be extended again. If you have debt remaining after loan forgiveness, your loan servicer will recalculate your new balance and monthly payment. Payments will resume in January 2023. Is the forgiven student loan debt taxable? Not on the federal level. This debt relief will not be considered taxable income for federal income tax purposes because of a provision in the American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021. However, some states like Arkansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin may consider it taxable income. Student Debt Relief Update: Today, the U.S. Department of Education is previewing the student debt relief application form. Heres the latest: pic.twitter.com/efSzRbions The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 11, 2022 Ronda is a personal finance senior reporter for Yahoo Money and attorney with experience in law, insurance, education, and government. Follow her on Twitter @writesronda Read the latest personal finance trends and news from Yahoo Money. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Flipboard, and LinkedIn Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) who is reportedly the sole finalist to take over as president of the University of Florida, on Monday was met with loud protests during his first appearance on campus since the news of his potential appointment broke. Sasse held three separate sessions with university faculty, students and staff on the Gainesville campus. Protesters gathered outside the room where the student Q&A session was held, chanting: Hey, hey, ho, ho. Ben Sasse has got go. Outside Sen. Ben Sasses moderated forum to meet with students, hundreds have gathered protesting Sasse as the sole finalist in UFs presidential search, citing his previous public statements on same-sex marriage and the search sealed from the public among reasons. pic.twitter.com/Uay2bQIbEf Divya Kumar (@divyadivyadivya) October 10, 2022 Protesters eventually entered the room the meeting was being held in, resulting in the forum ending 15 minutes ahead of schedule, according to the Independent Florida Alligator, the universitys student newspaper. Protesters have now entered Emerson Hall where Sasse is addressing students. Cheers of Hey, hey, ho, ho, Ben Sasse has got to go, are able to be heard within the Presidents Ballroom. pic.twitter.com/KMybwHpFTd Alan Halaly (@AlanHalaly) October 10, 2022 Protesters have even fully filled the Presidents Ballroom and have taken to the podium where Sasse was moments ago. Get the f*ck out of our swamp! protestors are cheering. pic.twitter.com/glixuAfPKL Alan Halaly (@AlanHalaly) October 10, 2022 During the session, Sasse addressed the demonstrations. Story continues Obviously, I wish they didnt have the position they have, but I strongly support the right people to protest and exercise their free speech rights, Sasse said, according to The Hill. I wont say I precisely welcome the protesters, but I sort of intellectually and constitutionally welcome the protesters. The demonstrations were sparked in part by Sasses conservative opinions on issues, including same-sex marriage. The Nebraska senator called the Supreme Courts decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex unions, a disappointment to Nebraskans who understand that marriage brings a wife and husband together so their children can have a mom and dad, in a statement dated June 26, 2015. The statement continued: As a society, we need to celebrate marriage as the best way to provide stability and opportunity for kids. Asked on Monday whether he would stand behind the universitys LGBTQ community, Sasse replied: Your question is: Do I support and affirm everybody in this community? Absolutely. Sasse also said the Supreme Courts same-sex marriage decision is the law of the land and nothing about Obergefell is changing in the United States. During the summer, Sasse celebrated the high courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade. The pro-life movements work has just begun, he said in a statement. This issue will now be debated in the 50 states, and a 330,000,000-person, continental nation will work through this debate in a way thats healthier than Roes one-size-fits-all, Washington-centrism. Asked about his abortion stance, Sasse reportedly said the presidential role does not involve any decisions around the medical procedure, according to The Hill. Sasse also addressed how he would maintain his commitment to the prospective presidential post and avoid being drawn into politics. One of the things thats appealing about this, frankly, is the opportunity to step back from politics, Sasse said, according to the Independent Florida Alligator. Sasse on Thursday emerged as the only finalist in the search to succeed current president W. Kent Fuchs, who announced his resignation in January. Im delighted to be in conversation with the leadership of this special community about how we might together build a vision for UF to be the nations most-dynamic, bold, future-oriented university, Sasse wrote on Twitter. The universitys Board of Trustees will interview Sasse on Nov. 1. If the board approves his nomination, he will also have to be confirmed by the Florida Board of Governors. If Sasse becomes university president, he will have to resign from the Senate and Nebraskas governor will appoint a replacement. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Hogs are raised at Old Elm Farms, a fifth generation family farm, on May 5, 2020 near Sycamore, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard a battle between pork producers and California. A California law requires producers to raise pigs with enough space to roam freely in order to sell pork in the state's market. Pork producers argued that the law is unconstitutional because it impedes interstate commerce. A California law requires producers wishing to sell pork in the Golden State to raise their pigs in large-enough pens so they may roam freely. Pork producers nationwide have balked at the standard, claiming it's costly to meet, disruptive to the industry, and unconstitutional. Enter the Supreme Court. The nine justices on Tuesday heard both sides of the dispute in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, a case that could have far-reaching implications on the ability of states to regulate business within their borders, the welfare of millions of pigs, and potentially the price of bacon. The National Pork Producers Council, an industry trade organization, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, a powerful agriculture trade group, have challenged California's Proposition 12, a ballot measure that requires farmers to provide breeding pigs, or sows, with at least 24 square feet of space. Championed by animal-welfare advocates, the law prohibits the sale of any pork products in California in which the pigs had been "confined in a cruel manner." Most sows across the country are kept in smaller spaces than 24 square feet, the groups argued. To comply with California's rule, it would cost producers around $293 million to $347 million, and consequently result in higher pork prices at the grocery store for consumers, the groups wrote in their brief to the court. Beyond that, these economic burdens will mostly fall on producers outside of California as the state imports 99% of its pork, the groups added. Ultimately, the groups argued the California law impedes interstate commerce, in violation of a legal doctrine in the Constitution called the dormant commerce clause. After lower federal courts dismissed their lawsuits, they brought their fight to the Supreme Court. Story continues If California's law stands, it means the state is forcing out-of-state farmers to adopt new practices based on its philosophical values, attorney Timothy Bishop of Mayor Brown told the Supreme Court on Tuesday on behalf of the pork producers. Both the conservative and liberal justices appeared skeptical of the arguments, pointing out that California's law only applies to products sold within the state. "As I read California's law, it is about products being sold in California," Justice Clarence Thomas said, "It's not reaching out and regulating something across state lines or regulating prices." Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that "no one's forcing" Iowa farmers, for example, to sell to California, instead "they can sell to any other state that they prefer to sell to." California defended the law on Tuesday by arguing it has an interest in banning the sale of products it deems immoral. If there is any economic cost, the state's solicitor general argued, then it would fall on California consumers. The justices also grilled California, raising a slew of hypothetical state efforts that regulate business based on preferences. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wondered if a state can regulate sales on whether a company employs undocumented immigrants, or whether employees are paid a minimum wage. Justice Elena Kagan speculated about the consequences of allowing states to pass laws that could deepen divisions between them. "We live in a divided country. The balkanization that the framers were concerned about is surely present today," Kagan said, "Do we want to live in a world where we're constantly at each other's throats, and Texas is at war with California and California is at war with Texas?" California voters approved the law in 2018, but it has not taken effect, given the ongoing legal battle. A ruling in the case is expected by June. Read the original article on Business Insider The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. Roof had asked the court to decide how to handle disputes over mental illness-related evidence between capital defendants and their attorneys. The justices did not comment Tuesday in turning away the appeal. PREVIOUS: Dylann Roof takes Charleston church shooting appeal to US Supreme Court Roof fired his attorneys and represented himself during the sentencing phase of his capital trial, part of his effort to block evidence potentially portraying him as mentally ill. Roof shot participants at a Bible study session at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. A panel of appellate judges had previously upheld his conviction and death sentence. Roof, 28, is on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. He can still pursue other appeals. RELATED COVERAGE: (WATCH BELOW: Charleston church massacre survivor calls for stricter punishments involving hate crimes) Washington The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined a bid from a Black man on death row in Texas for the murder of his estranged White wife and two children who argued he was convicted and sentenced to death by biased jurors who had expressed opposition to interracial marriage. Andre Thomas was charged with capital murder in 2005 after killing his estranged wife, their 4-year-old son, who was biracial, and his wife's 13-month-old daughter, which his attorneys said occurred during a schizophrenic episode. During the murders, Thomas attempted to remove the hearts of his three victims, thinking he could "set them free from evil," according to court filings. He then stabbed himself in the chest, and later confessed to the killings to police. Thomas pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. While in prison waiting for his trial, Thomas gouged out his right eye, and, four years later, removed his other eye. Because he was involved in an interracial relationship, Thomas's trial lawyers and the state asked prospective jurors for their attitude toward interracial marriage and procreation, according to court filings. On written questionnaires, three of the prospective jurors expressed opposition to interracial marriage and people of different racial backgrounds having children, but were seated on an all-white jury. A fourth juror, seated as an alternate and ultimately excused, also declared opposition to people of different races marrying or having children. The jury convicted Thomas for the killings and sentenced him to death. He then argued first in state court and then in federal court his trial counsel was ineffective because they failed to question jurors about their admitted racial biases or strike the biased jurors. Thomas also said seating the jurors opposed to interracial marriage violated his constitutional rights to trial by an impartial jury. A federal district court, however, ruled against Thomas, finding the juror-bias claim was "speculative" and his lawyers' decision not to question three of the four jurors about racial bias was "simply a matter of trial strategy." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit affirmed the lower court's ruling. Story continues In an opinion dissenting from the Supreme Court's decision not to take up Thomas's appeal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the "hostility the jurors expressed in their questionnaire strongly suggested that their presence would infect the proceedings with racial bias." "By failing to challenge, or even question, jurors who were hostile to interracial marriage in a capital case involving that explosive topic, Thomas' counsel performed well below an objective standard of reasonableness," Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote. "This deficient performance prejudiced Thomas by depriving him of a fair trial." Sotomayor noted that the case before the Supreme Court involved a "heinous crime apparently committed by someone who suffered severe psychological trauma," but said "no jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberations or decisions." "The errors in this case render Thomas' death sentence not only unreliable, but unconstitutional," she concluded. Maurie Levin, Thomas's attorney, criticized the Supreme Court's denial of the case, saying it "abdicates the court's role and responsibility to 'confront racial animus in the justice system.'" "No one who hears the story of Mr. Thomas' life believes he is mentally competent," Levin said in a statement. "Guiding a blind, delusional man onto Texas' gurney would be an indelible image that would cast a permanent shadow over Texas' reputation. Texas can keep the public safe by keeping Mr. Thomas in prison for life." Texas officials urged the Supreme Court not to take up Thomas' case, arguing his trial counsel questioned one of the jurors at issue "extensively" about racial bias, and the trial court "ensured that the other two could render an impartial verdict in view of the evidence." Attorney General Ken Paxton also argued Thomas's trial lawyer were "experienced in conducting trials in Grayson County, Texas, and presented affidavits affirming they made strategic decisions concerning the extent they questioned the jurors at issue about their views on interracial marriage during voir dire." Teen with autism gets Broadway surprise 3 men rescued from shark-infested waters Dr. Jon LaPook explains new study on colonoscopies and colon cancer deaths Susannah Constantine revealed that Princess Margaret once rescued her in two lavatory-related experiences, including one where a toilet wouldnt flush. The 60-year-old fashion writer, who previously dated Margarets son, David Armstrong-Jones, discussed her relationship with the Countess of Snowdon in a recent appearance on the How to be 60 with Kaye Adams podcast. During the conversation, Constantine recalled how Margaret came to her aid on two occasions, one of which included a time where she had passed out and pooped [herself]. This is gross but its an indication of her resourcefulness, the TV presenter said. But I fainted and shat and pooed myself. After noting that the incident occured at a birthday party, she described how model Jerry Hall found her and cleaned her up, with the help of Margaret. Princess Margaret came and the two of them mopped me up, kind of bathed me down, Constantine continued. I was then kind of pushed back out. She proceeded to describe the second situation that Margaret helped her with, where she went to the loo to do a number two at the Greenwich Naval College. However, according to Constantine, Margaret thought that she was taking too long so the royal came to the lavatory to find her. I was gone too long for her liking, the book author continued. She thought I was being incredibly rude. And she came to find me and I heard this voice, [saying], Susannah! And I was like, Yes maam. And she kind of kicked the door open and I was sitting on the loo and my pants down round my ankle. I wasnt embarrassed at all. And I just said to her, Maam, it wont go down, she added, referring to the poop in the toilet. Constantine went on to note that Queen Elizabeth IIs sister then looked at her and told her to go get a knife. She then shared that she found a really gorgeous, ivory handled, cake slicer, in the dining room which she gave to Margaret. She went on to describe how Margaret used the knife on the poop, explaining: She turned around and there was this chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, flushed the loo, handed me back the knife, which I then went to go and wash. Story continues The What Not to Wear: The Rules co-author also revealed that to this day, she still has the cake slicer that Margaret used. Elsewhere in the podcast interview, Constantine recalled another experience with Margaret and how she stayed in contact with her even after her relationship with Viscount Linley ended. She said that when she got engaged to her current husband of 27 years, Sten Bertelsen, Margaret had reached out to her to celebrate. We got an invitation saying, Princess Margaret would like to give you dinner to celebrate your engagement. And I hadnt spoken to herfor like three years or something or seen her in maybe five years, she explained. And its like, what mother of your ex-boyfriend would have the generosity of spirit to do that, Constantine continued. It was quite amazing. And that was the sense of loyalty we had for each other. The Independent has contacted Buckingham Palace for comment. House in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where five people were shot dead (NBC News) Four men killed at a home in South Carolina have been identified by police. The Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office said that Mark Allen Hewitt, 59, Thomas Ellis Anderson, 37, Adam Daniel Morley, 32, and Roman Christean Megael Rocha, 19, were found fatally shot inside a residence at 280 Bobo Drive in Inman. Each of them was found in a different room on the night of 9 October. A fifth victim was found wounded and taken to a hospital for treatment but later succumbed to their injuries, police said. Police in Georgia have arrested James Douglas Drayton, 24, who is expected to be extradited to South Carolina on four counts of homicide and four counts of possession of a weapon. A source also told The Independent that the victims were roommates and that the suspect was brought to the home by someone who lived there. Anderson, whose father reportedly owns the house, then allegedly told the suspect there weren't any more available rooms but that he could crash on the couch. "And apparently that wasn't good enough and he just went and started shooting people," the source said on Tuesday. [The violence] was ruthless, senseless, heartless. All five of those people had families. Every one of them." Police said the name of the fifth victim will be released once their family members are informed. Additional homicide and possession of a firearm while committing a crime charges are expected to be filed against Mr Drayton. Mr Drayton was arrested by the Burke County Sheriffs Office in Georgia on Monday during an armed robbery investigation. He allegedly committed theft before escaping in a vehicle that was registered to the mother of one of the victims in Spartanburg. Burke County then reached out to the Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office, which had already located some of Draytons personal items inside the home where the violence broke out. He later allegedly confessed to the killings, authorities said. Our investigators believe that Drayton was staying on Bobo Dr. for approximately [two] weeks, a statement by Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office said. Without providing all the details of the confession, Drayton was able to provide specific information about the scene including the location of the victims. Story continues James Douglas Drayton (Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office) Andersons ex-girlfriend, Sami McKelvey, told The Independent that she used to live in the home where the events happened with her ex-partner and her two children. Thomas was a free-spirited person. He loved life. He definitely made an impact on anybody that he came in contact with, Ms McKelevey said choking back tears. "I always kept in touch with his family just to keep tabs on them, make sure that he was still doing good. She said that she was not sure how she would deliver the tragic news to her children, aged 11 and eight, who Anderson helped raise. "I spoke to his child's mother because he does have a daughter of his own, and she's the same age as my daughter, she said. He was just starting to get back into having a relationship with her and it's just unfortunate that she's not gonna be able to do that with Thomas." She added: I didn't know how to react. I was shocked. I was hurt. I was confused. The confusion, that's the part that kills me the most. He was here and now he is gone. Sheriff Chuck Wright that Drayton said some things in his interview that the department is not disclosing at the moment. Sami McKelvey and Thomas Anderson (Sami McKelvey) A source who spoke with The Independent said that Anderson had been having issues with one of the people renting at the home lately. He wanted to be as civil about it as possible because he was unsure about the guy and his mental health, the source said. The source alleged that authorities believe Drayton was brought to the home by that roommate. The Independent has reached out to Spartanburg County Sheriffs Office for comment. Thomas wouldve given him his last dime out of his pocket. He wouldve, if he would have come to him the next day and said, I really dont have any place to stay the night, Thomas wouldve worked something, the source said. Ask and you shall receive, that's what Thomas' motto was. Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger told local news station WYFF that the sheriffs office, [his] office, nobodys going to let up on this, even the prosecutors office, [are] not going to let up on this. Theyre all hands on deck, everybody is really working hard on this. The public needs to understand this may be shocking, but the Sheriff and his men, prosecutors office, my folks, were going to stay with it until this gets solved, Mr Clevenger said. A suspected drunk driver traveling all over the roadway in Crestview, Florida, turned out to be a completely sober 9-year-old boy, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office. Thats not the strangest part of the story, however. He was stopped after giving a grown man a ride home, the sheriffs office says. It happened around 8 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, and a witness to the boys driving is the one who alerted deputies, the sheriffs office said in a news release. Crestview is about 150 miles west of Tallahassee, on the Florida Panhandle. A witness spotted a car entering Oak Hill Road from a neighborhood around 8 a.m. (Sunday) and suspected the driver was impaired due to the vehicle being all over the roadway, the sheriffs office said. He cut off the car near the intersection of Highway 85 and Old Bethel Road and noticed a child was behind the wheel. He told the child to get in the passenger seat and pulled the car into a convenience store parking lot. The 9-year-old boy was alone in the car, and told deputies he was returning home after giving a 22-year old man a ride to a residence on Brickhill Court 7 miles away, officials said. The child ... had traveled nearly three miles, when the witness intervened, the sheriffs office said. When contacted, the childs mother says she was not aware the boy had left the home. An investigation led to the Oct. 10 arrest of a 22-year-old Crestview man, who is charged with child neglect without great bodily harm and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana, jail records show. The suspect told deputies his decision was a mistake but would not elaborate, officials said. Investigators did not say who owned the vehicle or how the boy knew the suspect. We want to express our sincere gratitude to the witness who noticed something was wrong and intervened, potentially preventing a tragedy involving a child, Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said in the release. Drivers racing on Florida bridge get unpleasant surprise as 3rd vehicle joins, cops say Trio of 9th graders drove to school in a stolen car with two loaded guns, TN cops say Golfers sent fleeing when driver leads police chase across golf course, NC cops say A teen accused in a crime spree in Broward County that ended in a deadly crash was kicked out of court on Monday. Prosecutors are trying to determine if the 13- and 15-year-old suspects will be tried as adults. The 15-year-old went before Judge Stacy Ross Monday morning. He is accused of breaking into a Fort Lauderdale house on Aug. 28 and stealing a Mercedes while the homeowners slept. Investigators say he was the one behind the wheel, leading law enforcement officers on a chase, before causing a crash that killed 35-year-old Maria Tellez-Valderrabano, a mother of three. Fort Lauderdale police charged the 15-year-old with grand theft auto, aggravated fleeing and eluding with serious injury or death, and resisting an officer without violence. Those are felonies. The 13-year-old is charged with misdemeanors. During the proceedings, the suspects attorney requested 21 more days to conduct behavioral testing, including a psychological evaluation and an IQ test. That was when the suspect started laughing. Are you seriously laughing right now? said Judge Ross. The teens attorney asked him if he needed to step out. Do you need to use the restroom? she asked. I already used the restroom, he responded. Turning to the judge, the attorney said: We are dealing with a 15-year-old, and thats why I want the state to have a better snapshot of him, because he is very immature. Ross ordered the suspect out. Take him out, I cant have him in here, please take him out. His family was present in the courtroom, and so was the family of Tellez-Valderrabano. Her sister, Emily Feria, spoke to CBS Miami about the suspects outburst. This just shows hes a criminal who doesnt care about anyones life, she said. Its just totally disrespectful to the judge, the courtroom, and his own family, knowing he doesnt care for no ones life. He already took someones life. Doesnt care about it. This report is from Miami Herald news partner CBS Miami. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott criticized New York City Mayor Eric Adams over the ticketing of buses carrying migrants from his state to the so-called sanctuary city, following a state of emergency declaration in the Big Apple amid the influx. The New York Police Department was seen over the weekend pulling over buses near the Port Authority that had dropped of dozens of migrants. The officers reportedly searched each bus for possible infractions, including tire treads, fluid levels and even windshield wiper placement, the New York Post reported Sources told the Post the inspections were part of a ploy to find excuses to take the buses off the road and complicate the transportation of migrants caught illegally crossing the southern border into New York. NEW YORK CITY RECEIVES 2 MORE BUSLOADS OF MIGRANT 'ASYLUM SEEKERS' A handful of drivers were issued tickets, the paper reported. "This is another pathetic ploy by Mayor Adams to stop Texas from busing migrants to his self-declared sanctuary city," a spokesperson for Abbott's office told Fox News. "Each bus used by the State of Texas for this busing mission undergoes thorough Texas Department of Public Safety Commercial Vehicle inspections before departing for sanctuary cities." Abbott, a Republican, has bused thousands of migrants to New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago, an effort intended to bring attention to the overwhelming of resources in border towns from Democratic-run cities. But the bussing is a bipartisan effort, with the Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, sending more migrants to New York City than Abbott. Last week, Adams declared a state of emergency to help respond to the influx of migrants crisis, which he said will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, left, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have feuded over immigration amid an influx of migrants being bused from Texas to New York. Getty Images "The mayor is desperate," one source said told the newspaper. "Are we a sanctuary city or not?" In response to the migrants, Adams suggested that more shelters may need to be built, in addition to the one going up in Randalls Island. The mayor has used 42 hotels to house migrants, and has even worked on a deal with Norwegian Cruise Lines for more housing. Abbott's spokesperson said Adams should stop "selectively attacking Texas' busing operation" and call on President Biden "to take immediate action to secure the border something the President continues failing to do." Fox News' Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report. Lauren Kay Dean (Bay City Police Department ) A mother has been sentenced to life behind bars for abandoning her daughter with Downs syndrome at home while visiting a bar in Bay City, Texas, more than two years ago, according to reports. Lauren Kay Dean, 28, was sentenced to life imprisonment and an extra 20 years for abandonment following a guilty plea in court last week over the death of her seven-year-old daughter, Jordynn Barrera, Law&Crime reported. She was also accused of leaving her two other children unattended at home in Bay City, about 65 miles southwest of Houston, while visiting a nearby bar in January 2020 when Jordynn was found dead. Her five and three-year-old children were meanwhile found alive at the address in the 2200 Block of Bordeaux, where Jordynn was bedridden due to medical conditions, police said. During the check, officers located a deceased seven year old female child inside the residence along with the mother of the child,the Bay City Police Department said following the welfare check in January 2020. The seven year old child was bed-ridden due to medical conditions. Dean was taken into custody and booked into Matagorda County jail on three separate charges of child abandnonment and imminent danger of bodily injury. She was later charged with murder according to Fox News. In court, Dean pleaded guilty to capital murder and three counts of child abandonment as part of a plea agreement which avoided going to jury trial, where the 28-year-old could have faced the death penalty, The Bay City Tribune reported. The 20 years for child abandonment will be severed concurrently with the life sentence, the same report said. UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand (AP) Hundreds of mourners and victims families gathered Tuesday evening to watch flames burn from rows of makeshift pyres at cremation ceremonies for the young children and others who died in last weeks mass killings at a day care center in Thailands rural northeast. Families bid their final goodbyes at a Buddhist temple a short distance from the Young Childrens Development Center in the town of Uthai Sawan, where a former policeman, who was fired from his job earlier this year for using drugs, barged in last Thursday and shot and stabbed children and their caregivers. The police sergeant, Panya Kamrap, ended up killing 36 people, 24 of them children, in the small farming community before taking his own life. It was the biggest mass killing by an individual in Thailands history. Joint ceremonies for most of the victims were held at three temples to spare families from having to wait long hours for successive cremations to be completed, said Phra Kru Adisal Kijjanuwat, the abbot of the Rat Samakee temple. A ceremony for 19 of the dead, 18 of them children, was held at his temple. With a large crowd watching, monks slowly walked out of the temple hall, followed by grieving relatives. Each family was led by one monk, with police bearing the coffin behind them. After the coffins were placed in each of the small, brick-enclosed funeral pyres, the victims' relatives came forward in the darkening skies to put portraits of their loved ones on top. Some family members also placed childrens toys alongside. A large mesh barrier was set up, separating onlookers from the relatives, monks and royal palace officials tasked with lighting the fires, who began putting paper flowers along the sides of the pyres and dousing them with gasoline. The officials then ushered the family members to take the portraits and toys away, and move several meters (yards) from the coffins where they knelt on mats. Buddhist chants played from a speaker system set up behind the relatives, as the officials and monks began lighting the pyres one by one. The coffins were soon engulfed by flames, at times stoked by the officials adding more gasoline. The victims' relatives sat silently by, hands clasped in prayer. Story continues Each one of them watched the cremation with their minds in a state of conscious awareness, said the abbot. "The support they received from people all around has blessed them, lessened the sorrow they have. On Tuesday morning, many of the young victims' bodies had been outfitted as doctors, soldiers or astronauts what they wanted to be when they grew up before their evening cremation. The more we talked (to the families), we realized that these children also had dreams of becoming doctors, soldiers, astronauts, or police officers, said volunteer rescue worker Attarith Muangmangkang, whose organization arranged for the costumes. Petchrung Sriphirom, 73, was one of many local residents who traveled to the temple to offer condolences to the families and make a small donation to help with funeral costs, which is a common Thai custom. I just want to help our friends and share our thoughts with them, said Petchrung. We are not talking about money or anything but rather sharing our thoughts and feelings as a fellow human being, The perpetrators body was cremated Saturday in a neighboring province after temples in Uthai Sawan refused to host his funeral, Thai media reported. Mass shootings are rare but not unheard of in Thailand, which has one of the highest civilian gun ownership rates in Asia, with 15.1 weapons per 100 people compared to only 0.3 in Singapore and 0.25 in Japan. Thats still far lower than the U.S. rate of 120.5 per 100 people, according to a 2017 survey by Australias GunPolicy.org nonprofit organization. Thailands previous worst mass killing involved a disgruntled soldier who opened fire in and around a mall in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020, killing 29 people and holding off security forces for some 16 hours before eventually being killed by them. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED), the third-largest railroad union in the U.S., has rejected a tentative deal with its employers, reviving the possibility of a strike in the vital railroad sector. In a statement on Monday, BMWED announced that its membership rejected the tentative agreement with the Class I freight railroads, saying that union members are still upset about the poor working conditions and compensation details, among other issues. I trust that railroad management understands that sentiment as well. Railroaders are discouraged and upset with working conditions and compensation and hold their employer in low regard. Railroaders do not feel valued. They resent the fact that management holds no regard for their quality of life, illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness, BMWED President Tony D. Cardwell said in a statement. The result of this vote indicates that there is a lot of work to do to establish goodwill and improve the morale that has been broken by the railroads executives and Wall Street hedge fund managers. Cardwell also said that union members are concerned with the direction of Class I freight railroads, arguing that mismanagement and greed from their companies have created the ongoing issues. This comes after multiple railroad unions, such as Norfolk Southern, CSX, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) reached an agreement with their companies last month to avoid a national strike that would have severely impacted the economy. In a statement announcing that tentative agreement at the time, President Biden said that railroad workers deserve better compensation, and health care costs among other things, adding that they are part of the backbone of the United States. There is no immediate risk of a strike, and the union has agreed to keep working for now. The rejection of the tentative agreement results in a status quo period where the BMWED will reengage bargaining with the Class I freight carriers, Cardwell added. That status quo period will extend to 5 days after Congress reconvenes, which is currently set for Nov. 14. Assuming Congress returns to session on the 14th there could be no self help until after the 19th. Out of the 11,845 submitted ballots, 6,646 BMWED members voted against the tentative agreement, while 5,100 members voted to approve the tentative deal. Ninety-nine of the remaining ballots were submitted as blank or voided completely. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Thousands of Haitians demonstrated Monday in Port-au-Prince to protest against the government and its call for foreign assistance to deal with endemic insecurity, a humanitarian crisis and a burgeoning cholera epidemic. A day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for immediate deployment of a special international armed force in Haiti to help the crisis-hit Caribbean state, the demonstration in the capital was marred by violence, with police using tear gas to disperse looters, an AFP correspondent said. "We certainly need help to develop our country, but we don't need boots" on the ground, one protester told AFP, charging that the international community was "interfering in the internal affairs of Haiti" and that the government had "no legitimacy to ask for military assistance." Several people were shot and one person was reported to have been killed during the rallies. Protesters blamed the police for the fatality. "It is a crime perpetrated by the police. This young girl posed no threat. She was killed expressing her desire to live in dignity," said another protester, who declined to give his name. Haiti has been the scene for several weeks of violent demonstrations and looting, after the announcement by the head of government of an increase in fuel prices. Demonstrators calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who appealed for international support, also took to the streets in other cities across the country. The Haitian government on Friday formalized its request for international assistance to staunch spiraling insecurity. Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is facing an acute political, economic, security and health crisis, with a cholera epidemic now looming -- circumstances that have paralyzed the country and sparked a breakdown of law and order. Since mid-September, the country's largest fuel import terminal, in Varreux, has been controlled by armed gangs. And last week health experts warned of a resurgence of cholera, three years after an epidemic that killed 10,000 people. Story continues The health ministry said Monday 32 confirmed cases of the disease and 16 deaths have already been recorded, with another 224 suspected cases during the period from October 1 to 9. The ministry also said cases have been detected in the Port-au-Prince's prison, the largest in the country, where the conditions of detention are dire. str-ube/jh/sw/mtp PESHAWAR (AP) Thousands of people protested in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday after a gunman opened fire on a school van, killing the driver and critically injuring a child, a decade after schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai was shot by the Taliban in the same city. Monday's attack took place in Mingora in the Gully Bagh neighborhood, sparking fears of a resurgence in militant activity in the Swat Valley. The Swat Valley was the focus of a monthslong army offensive in 2009 to push out militants from the area, but the operation also displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Political activists, members of civil society and members of the public thronged to the citys main intersection chanting slogans denouncing the Gully Bagh attack. The mass protest brought the city to a standstill, with businesses and markets closing in solidarity. Protesters demanded the immediate arrest of the attackers and for peace and order to be restored. One placard read: We cannot let the hard earned peace be destroyed, while another read: Act now against the attackers before it becomes too late. The school van attack coincided with the 10th anniversary of Yousufzai being shot in Swat for her outspoken advocacy for girls' education. On Tuesday, the Nobel winner arrived in Pakistan to visit flood-hit areas. The funeral for the driver killed in Monday's attack hadn't yet take place as his relatives are demanding the arrest of the perpetrators. A protest was also held in Gully Bagh, with the driver's casket put out on the street. Police have made security arrangements at both the places to avert any violence. No one claimed immediate responsibility for the shooting. A local police officer, Zafar Khan, said Monday that a hunt was underway to trace the attackers who fled the scene on a motorcycle. Sawab Khan, president of the Private Schools Management Association, told The Associated Press that all 1,300 private schools in the Swat Valley were shut Monday and Tuesday. From Wednesday, the private schools will observe a partial strike and teachers and staff will hold a demonstration. Three more South Carolinians have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, according to court records filed in U.S. District Court. In total, 19 people from the Palmetto State face charges from the storming of the Capitol. William John Wyatt Gallman, 38, and Joei Josie Gallman, 42, a married couple who live in Fountain Inn, were taken into custody and arraigned before Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey in Greenville on Sept. 27. They were released the same day on $25,000 bond. Alan Scott Culbertson, 59, of Laurens, was charged along with the Gallmans in a criminal complaint in connection with the Capitol storming but he has not yet been formally arraigned, according to court records and sources with the U.S. Attorneys office. He will have a hearing and bond set at a later, undetermined date, sources said. Court records did not explain why Culbertson was not arraigned and did not have his bond set at the same time as the Gallmans. The Gallmans and Culbertson were in Washington together on Jan. 6, 2021, and entered the Capitol building as a group, an affidavit in their case said. The three are charged with misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and parading or demonstrating in a restricted building. Evidence against the three includes many images taken from videos and photographs both inside and outside the Capitol building on that day, an affidavit in the case asserts. Police body cameras and government surveillance cameras also shows the three, the affidavit says. The Gallmans and Culbertson were all supporters of former President Donald Trump and attended his rally before the Capitol storming. All wore Trump hats, according to photographs of them taken at the Capitol. At that rally, Trump falsely told thousands of supporters that Democrats stole the November 2020 election. Trump urged rally-goers to go to the Capitol to stop the steal a reference to Congress certifying the electoral college vote, which current President Joe Biden won 306-232. Thousands of Trump supporters then converged on the Capitol. Story continues The Gallmans entered the Capitol building about 2:20 pm on Jan. 6, about 20 minutes after the first rioters began smashing windows and forcing their way in, the affidavit says. Culberson entered behind them. About that time, in different parts of the Capitol, members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, and former Vice President Mike Pence, were being instructed to evacuate the chambers, the affidavit says. The Gallmans and Culbertson proceeded to travel throughout the U.S. Capitol building, walking through the Rotunda and Statuary Hall, among other areas, the affidavit says. They spent about 25 minutes inside the Capitol and then exited, the affidavit says. In subsequent interviews with law enforcement agents, the Gallmans and Culbertson freely admitted that they were the people in the images taken that day, the affidavit says. The Gallmans are represented by federal public defender Lora Collins Blanchard. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maxwell Cauthen III is prosecuting the case. Culbertson does not yet have a lawyer. Under their bond agreement, the Gallmans cannot have contact with Culbertson. All those arrested in South Carolina and other states for Jan. 6 Capitol riot defenses are normally transferred to federal court in the District of Columbia, where the alleged offenses took place. So far, more than 880 people from across the nation have been arrested in what is called the largest ever Department of Justice investigation in history. Nine South Carolinians have so far pleaded guilty to offenses in the Jan. 6 riots. Sentences against seven have ranged from 44 months in prison to home detention and probation. Two who have pleaded guilty are awaiting sentencing. Two other South Carolinians Citadel cadet Elias Irizarry and Charleston area resident Chadwick Clifton have hearings scheduled later this month at which they may plead guilty, according to court records. One man, Derek Gunby, has said he wants a trial. Charges against the others are pending. Several plots were in motion on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop Pence from tallying the electoral votes, according to the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating Jan. 6. The committee holds its next public session at 1 p.m. Thursday. Three, high profile and surprising sites in downtown Hartford are being considered as the location for a new federal courthouse that would replace the nearly 60-year-old Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and Courthouse on Main Street. The U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees the development of federal buildings, announced the potential sites for the $335 million project Tuesday after a search that was launched nearly a year ago. The announcement drew immediate concern from local officials. The three sites are: A parking lot on Allyn Street, just west of the XL Center. The parking lot, at the corner of Allyn and High streets, is owned by Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC, downtowns largest commercial landlord. Shelbourne couldnt be reached for comment. The parking lot at 10 Ford St., the site of the former Parkview Hilton hotel, demolished in 1990. The parking lot is directly across from Bushnell Park and is owned by Hartford-based Chase Enterprises. Chase said it was too early to comment. A parking lot in the area known as Bushnell South, at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Hudson Street. The lot is owned by a partnership that includes Simon Konover Co. and the Gersten family. The partnership couldnt be reached. All three sites have been targeted for years for mixed-use redevelopment, with an emphasis on housing. No timetable for a decision was announced Tuesday, but the next step would involve further study beginning this fall and the seeking of public comment, GSA said. Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin Tuesday said he was concerned about the sites that will be evaluated for the courthouse. We appreciate the federal governments commitment to building a new courthouse in Hartford, and in the right location and with the right design, a courthouse could compliment our economic development work, Bronin said, in a statement. That said, it would be a shame to put a tax exempt courthouse in a location where there are active efforts underway to pursue taxable residential development, and we look forward to working with the GSA and our federal partners as the site selection process moves forward, Bronin said. Story continues Uncertainty over whether the sites might be selected for the new courthouse could slow down redevelopment around in the areas around them. A master plan for the Bushnell South area, near the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, envisions converting a barren stretch of parking lots into a new neighborhood of housing, commercial and entertainment space. The plan has made no mention of a potential courthouse. The Capital Region Development Authority, the quasi-public that is overseeing the areas development, is in the midst of selecting a developer for the first parking lot, just west of the one being considered for the courthouse. CRDA also has been active in helping finance the addition of apartments in and around Allyn Street, between the XL Center and Union Station. Four apartment conversion projects totaling $45 million added 183 rentals, with CRDA financing nearly $20 million in low-cost, state taxpayer-backed loans. More development has been expected for the corridor. There have been no firm plans for the Ford Street lot, but the city has often mentioned it would be a natural for housing, given the views across the street to Bushnell Park. Michael W. Freimuth, CRDAs executive director, said in a text Tuesday, the authority said it was anxious to learn how the potential sites would work and what options were passed over and why. This is a large tax-exempt use with marginal economic spin so we really need to be conscious to get optimum balance between the federal needs/requirements and the existing municipal plans and efforts at these locations, Freimuth wrote. Earlier this year, the GSA received authorization for $335 million to purchase a site, design and building a new, 281,000 square-foot federal courthouse. So far, $273.5 million has been appropriated by the U.S. Congress. A new federal courthouse has been discussed for years, and in 2020, the courthouse was listed as the top one needing replacement across the country. A groundbreaking could still be several years away. Connecticuts Congressional delegation has been a strong advocate for the new courthouse. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal two years ago said the existing courthouse, part of the Ribicoff complex, had outlived its sell-by date. A new facility would bring judicial civil and criminal operations into the 21st century, Blumenthal said. Construction of a new courthouse is seen as needed to tackle significant, ongoing security, space and building condition problems, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, has said. Prisoner movement is through public corridors and through public entrances of each courtroom because the layout of the building does not allow for separation of public, prisoner, judge and staff movement. The sally port where prisoners are transported to and from the court isnt big enough. The location of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in the building are also a problem, the office said. The existing courthouse now has eight courtrooms and 11 chambers, many of which do not meet modern size standards. A new courthouse would have 11 courtrooms and 18 chambers for 18 judges. It is likely the Ribicoff building, built in 1963 and named after a former governor and U.S. senator in 1980, would still be used for a consolidation of federal offices if a new courthouse is built. Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com. Queen Silvia of Sweden, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and King Carl Gustaf of Sweden stand for a picture before a gala dinner at the Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 11, 2022. - The royal couple of the Netherlands is on a three day long state visit to Sweden. - Sweden OUT (Photo by Fredrik SANDBERG / TT News Agency / AFP) / Sweden OUT (Photo by FREDRIK SANDBERG/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images) FREDRIK SANDBERG/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Queen Silvia, Queen Maxima, King Willem-Alexander and King Carl Gustav It's tiara time for the Swedish and Dutch royal families! King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands arrived in Sweden on Tuesday for a state visit. That evening, a gala dinner was held at the Royal Palace in Stockholm setting the stage for the royals to dress to the nines in tiaras, gowns and jewels. After wearing a pink outfit for her arrival, Queen Maxima stuck with the color theme for the palace party in a one-shoulder patterned evening gown with cape detail. The mother of three wore the Stuart Tiara, the centerpiece of which is a 40-carat diamond, according to The Court Jeweller. RELATED: All About the Crown! A Look Back at Every Tiara Worn by British Royals in Recent Weddings Queen Silvia of Sweden also wore a pink gown, sporting a bold shade of the hue, with long sleeves. She topped off her ensemble with the Braganza Tiara the same sparkler she wore for her first official portrait in 1976 shortly after she married King Carl XVI Gustaf, The Court Jeweller reports. Although Queen Silvia has kept the Braganza Tiara in the royal vault for many years, she also wore it to a number of special occasions, including daughter Crown Princess Victoria's wedding in 2010 and a gala to mark the King's 60th birthday in 2006. Crown Princess Victoria attended the gala dinner alongside husband Prince Daniel in a purple one-shoulder gown, perfecting coordinating with the Napoleonic Amethysts tiara. According to The Court Jeweller, the piece was converted into a tiara after originally being a necklace. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - OCTOBER 11: (L-R) Princess Sofia of Sweden, Prince Carl Philip of Sweden, Queen Silvia of Sweden, King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden, King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands, Princess Estelle of Sweden, Queen Maxima of The Netherlands, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Prince Daniel of Sweden at the Royal Palace on October 11, 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden. The King and Queen of The Netherlands visit Sweden for an official 3 day state visit. (Photo by Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images) Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Meanwhile, Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip also wore their best for the occasion. Princess Sofia wore her go-to tiara, which was a wedding gift from King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia when she married Prince Carl Philip in 2015. The tiara was topped with emeralds for her walk down the aisle as well as Tuesday's dinner, complementing her green dress. Story continues In the past, the royal mom of three has proved the versatility of the piece, replacing the emeralds on the tiara with pearls for a different look. 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! RELATED: Dutch Princess Catharina-Amalia Isn't Ready to Be Queen, Tells Her Father to "Keep Eating Healthy" King Willem-Alexander's visit to Sweden also doubled as a reunion with his goddaughter, Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel's eldest daughter, Princess Estelle. Estelle, 10, greeted the Dutch King with a big smile at the Royal Palace. The young royal, who is second in line to the throne behind her mother, then posed front and center between King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima for photos. Princess Estelle also carried a handbag to complete her black and white ensemble. Getty At a debate in Cleveland Monday night, two middle-aged white guys with varying degrees of gray hair, wearing nearly identical outfitsblue suits, white shirts and red tiesmade a clear play to court voters in the political center. But even in all their commonalities, the dueling candidatesRep. Tim Ryan (D) and businessman J.D. Vancewasted no time in trying to tear each other apart. Ryan bucked Democratic Party leadership at almost every opportunity, including by saying Vice President Kamala Harris was absolutely wrong to suggest the border is secure, that President Joe Biden shouldnt run in 2024, touting areas where he agreed with former President Donald Trump, saying everybodys to blame for inflation, and bragging about being a pain in the rear end to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). He tore into Vance for his views on abortion, stating, We can't ignore the level of extremism that were hearing from J.D. Vance on this position. Vance, who had dodged questions about his position on Sen. Lindsey Grahams 15-week federal abortion ban on the campaign trail, said he supports some minimum national standard on abortion but also would have supported abortion access for the viral case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who became pregnant after being raped. He then pivoted, ripping Ryan for his position on immigration, noting that the man who had raped the Ohio girl was in the country illegally. If you had done your job she wouldve never been raped in the first place. The Republican hopeful on multiple occasions accused Ryan of dodging questions while framing the congressman as a Washington insider. He said marijuana is a states issue but said he doesnt want anybody going to prison for smoking a joint. And though he said he wouldnt support the Senates same-sex marriage bill because of concerns over religious liberty, he said access to same-sex marriage is the law of the land, stating, Im not trying to do anything to change that. Story continues Yet between all of the political positioning, mud was slung, with quips like, shameful, ridiculous, dishonest and failure of accomplishment flying through the room. Ryan, for one, hammered Vance on a comment from Trump at a recent Ohio rally suggesting Vance was kissing the former presidents ass in exchange for MAGA support. Ohio needs an ass-kicker not an ass-kisser, Ryan said. J.D. Vance Quietly Supports Bill His GOP Allies Hateand His Opponent Sponsored I don't know anybody I grew up with... that would allow somebody to take their dignity like that and then get back up on stage, Ryan said. After Ryan suggested Vance had invested in a company that shipped jobs off to China, Vance argued back that the narrative was false, pushing Ryan to say what the name of the company was. When Ryan could not come up with the name, Vance attacked. So your consultants gave you this line and you dont actually know it? he said. The raucous debate is emblematic of the larger state of the race. Ryan and Vance are neck-and-neck in the contest for the Ohio Senate seat, which went up for grabs after Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) announced in 2021 that he would retire after his current term. Portman has endorsed Vanceand Democrats have rallied around Ryan, though theyve not invested as much money in Ohio as they have other Senate races like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Ryan is a former 2020 presidential contender and has served in the House since 2003. Hes built a reputation as a moderate among Democratsand has been among the most Biden-averse Democrats running this cycle, repeatedly suggesting he would not welcome a Biden visit on the campaign trail and touting times hes broken with his party leader. Vance, an author and Trumps primary pick, has sparked worry among conservative operatives for not spending enough time in Ohio and allegedly running a sub-par campaign. FiveThirtyEights polling aggregates show Ryan narrowly ahead. But even as the race looks tight, both candidates promised they will accept the results of the election, whatever they may be. Ryan gave a firm yes, and Vance, in a position of walking the line between his MAGA allegiance and swing-state constituency, said simply, Of course. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan reiterated at a televised debate on Monday that he does not believe that President Biden should run for reelection in 2024. No, Ive been very clear. Id like to see a generational change, Ryan said at a debate hosted by The Hills parent company Nexstar in Cleveland. Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, the president, everybody, he continued. We need a new generation of leadership. Last month, Ryan made headlines when he suggested that Biden should not run for another term, citing generational change. The environment politically across the country is poisonous, and people I think want some change, the congressman told WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio. Its important for us, in both parties, these leaders who have been around for a while, I think its time for some generational change. And last week, Ryan told Fox News he was not inviting Biden onto the campaign trail with him, adding that Im really not inviting anybody. A Spectrum News-Siena College poll released late last month shows Biden with a 41 percent approval rating in the Buckeye State. Ryans comments come as his Republican opponent J.D. Vance works to tie him to the sitting president, mirroring a strategy seen in other contentious midterm races across the country. The states Senate race appears to be narrowing, with the Real Clear Politics polling average showing Vance leading Ryan by just 1.4 points. The Cook Political Report has labeled the race as lean Republican. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Law enforcement agencies across Tennessee can apply for grants to strengthen public safety in their communities. The grants are part of Governor Bill Lees $100 million Violent Crime Intervention Fund. As Americans face rising crime nationwide, Tennessee is equipping law enforcement with the tools needed to keep every community safe, Lee said. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented support. I invite all police departments and sheriffs offices to engage this opportunity so the state can thoughtfully invest these dollars in proven methods that will curb violent crime and strengthen public safety. Every Tennessean deserves to feel safe in their community, and our local law enforcement agencies deserve access to the resources needed to deliver that quality of life. The fund was included in the states Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget to support local law enforcements work to reduce violent crime and strengthen public safety. Eligible uses of funding include evidence-based crime intervention models, hiring and training of specialized violent crime units, purchase and application of technology and equipment, and law enforcement-led partnerships with community organizations to disrupt and prevent violent crime, the governors release said. Law enforcement agencies can apply for grant funding through January 2023. Grants will be awarded in a hybrid model, with every local law enforcement agency guaranteed a minimum grant via a formula, with additional access to a pool of supplemental funds available to agencies that enter into collaborations or regional partnerships, the release said. Agencies can learn more and apply for grants here. VCIF Funding Plan by Anna Turman on Scribd Download the FOX13 Memphis app to receive alerts from breaking news in your neighborhood. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Trending stories: Tuesday is the last day to register to vote in Georgia for the 2022 general election. Anyone who has not registered can do so online through the secretary of states office if they have a valid Georgia drivers license or state-issued identification card. People can check to see if they are registered by going to the states My Voter Page. The page will also tell you where you can vote. If you are registered, you can make changes on that page by submitting a new application. Early voting begins on Oct. 17 and runs through Nov. 4. RELATED STORIES: Absentee ballots requests can also be submitted through Oct. 28. To vote by absentee ballot, you need to submit an absentee ballot application. You can do this online, by email, by mail, by fax, or in person. Absentee ballots may be requested any time between 78 and 11 calendar days prior to Election Day. On Monday, election offices started sending out the absentee ballots already requested. Once sent and filled out, voters must return the ballot before the polls close on Election Day. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Employees at an airport Hertz car rental facility found a toddler who had been left in the backseat of a hot car for 45 minutes after it had been returned, a Florida sheriffs office said. Deputies assigned to Daytona Beach International Airport responded to the Hertz at around 6 p.m. on Oct. 10, according to a statement from the Volusia Sheriffs Office on Facebook. A Hertz employee reported that a toddler was in a locked vehicle in the car return lot, the statement says. The vehicle had been returned at 5:13 pm. When deputies arrived, they found the rental car employee holding the child, whose face was warm and streaked with dried tears, but was breathing normally, the statement says. The temperature in the unshaded parking lot was 80 degrees. Paramedics examined the child and found she was scared and hot but did not have any medical issues. Employees said they had not been able to get in touch with the driver of the vehicle, but they later received a call from the childs mother. She told them that her father had left his granddaughter in the rental car and not at his home, as he had previously said, according to the sheriffs office. The childs mother drove to the airport to pick up her daughter. When deputies got in touch with the grandfather he was remorseful and cooperative, the statement says. He was charged with one count of child neglect. The sheriffs department notified the Department of Children and Families about the incident and awarded the Hertz employees with citizens awards. A 7-year-old died in an Outer Banks vacation home elevator. Now thousands are recalled Pregnant mom shot in head while sleeping in car with her family, Florida cops say Womens shelter closes after workers use funds for Disney trip, buying sprees, feds say HILLSDALE A Toledo, Ohio, man accused of holding a local woman against her will and raping her is tentatively scheduled for a jury trial in March. Aaron Matthew Emch, 46, appeared in Hillsdale County Circuit Court on Monday afternoon for a criminal pretrial conference via video teleconference from the Ingham County Jail where he is being held on similar allegations against the same victim, who is reportedly an ex-girlfriend. Emchs defense council notified Circuit Judge Sara Lisznyai on Monday that Emch would likely be posting a $250,000 cash/surety bond for his release from the Ingham County Jail soon and the judge there has set numerous bond conditions including a GPS monitoring device and a stipulation that Emch must stay with his parents in Steuben County, Indiana. Lisznyai put similar bond restrictions in place for Emchs Hillsdale County case at the request of Chief Assistant Prosecutor Jamie Wiesniewski. Emch will also be subjected to a curfew and not be allowed to leave his parents' home between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. Wiesniewski also asked that Emch not be allowed to enter Michigan at all, given that the alleged victim resides in that state, with the exception of court appearances and visiting his attorneys office in Ann Arbor. Wiesniewski said Emch is scheduled for trial in Ingham County in February. Subcribe Now:For all the latest local developments, breaking news and high school sports content. In Hillsdale County, Emch is charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct, unlawful imprisonment, assault by strangulation and domestic violence for an incident in April. At the time of the incident, Emch was already on a GPS monitoring device out of Ingham County. Emch faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted as charged. Corey Murray is a staff writer for The Hillsdale Daily News and can be reached by email at cmurray@hillsdale.net. Follow him on Twitter: @cmurrayHDN. This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: A Toledo, Ohio man is scheduled for trial for raping an ex-girlfriend The student is accusing Central Saint Martins of discrimination (Getty Images) A student at one of the worlds top art schools has been told she cannot bring her newborn baby to campus and breastfeed her during lectures. Jasmijn Toffano was due to return to her graphic communication design course at Central Saint Martins this new academic year, after giving birth over the summer. The 29-year-old informed the prestigious university in January that she was pregnant, discussing the matter again in May, and was of the understanding that there would not be a problem with her bringing her newborn to the higher education institution. According to The Times, the college reversed the decision just days before she was due to return, leaving her struggling to find childcare and meet her academic obligations. In an attempt to meet her class commitments, Toffanos husband travelled to London with her from St Albans, where he would spend the day in a cafe with their baby while Toffano would join him in between lectures to breastfeed. Now, the second-year student has accused the institution, which is ranked number two in the world for art and design, of discrimination. Toffano has submitted a formal complaint into the handling of her case and has started a campaign urging the university to change its policies, something she intends to extend to other institutions. The new mother has also created a petition calling on universities to allow new parents to bring their children to lectures while breastfeeding. Stella McCartney is a former alumna of the respected arts institution (Getty Images) What I would like to see in the future is that students who have children do not have to drop out of university because of the lack of support I believe we can make a change, and its not impossible, she said. Central Saint Martins, is part of the University of the Arts London (UAL), and counts Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and John Gallianio as former students. The Independent has approached UAL for comment. The news follows findings that one fifth of breastfeeding mothers have been harassed while feeding their children in public. The 2021 study found that more than half of those polled (52 per cent) reported strangers staring at them while they breastfed, while a quarter (24 per cent) were told by strangers to cover up. An Illinois man was skydiving in an indoor wind tunnel when he said he crashed headfirst into a wall. Crashing into the glass caused a spinal cord injury that rendered him a quadriplegic, he said. The 63-year-old man now requires constant, round-the-clock care. David Schilling, of Palos Park, is suing iFLY and related entities in the Circuit Court of Cook County. He said the workers failed to keep him safe. His attorneys with Clifford Law Offices filed an amended complaint on Monday, Oct. 10 alleging negligence, and willful and wanton conduct. The lawsuit also accuses iFLY of fraudulent misrepresentation when calling its activity very safe. In a statement to McClatchy News, an iFly spokesperson said the company has been in operation for more than 20 years, has had over 15 million customers safely fly and will continue to make the safety of all of its customers its highest priority. iFLY has great empathy for Mr. Schilling and his family, the spokesperson said. At the time, Mr. Schilling was a very experienced, licensed skydiver with the United States Parachute Association with over 80 jumps who was receiving instruction in the iFLY wind tunnel from another experienced skydiver from Skydive Chicago at their private event for experienced skydivers. In a statement provided by Schillings attorneys, he said he went to the indoor skydiving facility in Rosemont thinking it would be a fun, safe experience. But while in the wind tunnel on Jan. 21, 2021, he said he became unstable as the instructor failed to help him. Had I known that an instructor would not have assisted me, I of course would have never participated, and my life clearly would be different today, Schilling said. He is paralyzed and unable to move his body from his neck down following the tragic incident, according to a statement from Clifford Law Offices. In the amended complaint, attorneys accused the Skygroup corporation of failing to have a worker spot Schilling right beside him and instead had a spotter near the door. Story continues The location either knew or should have known Schilling was out of control and in need of help prior to him crashing, according to the lawsuit. Schilling did not have an impact rated helmet, and the instructors were not properly trained, the plaintiffs attorneys alleged. As a direct and proximate result of one or more of the acts and/or omissions, (Schilling) sustained permanent and forever injuries of a personal and pecuniary nature, the lawsuit states. At the time of Schillings incident, the iFLY website said indoor skydiving is one of the most exciting experiences youll have in your life. Its also a very safe activity, according to the lawsuit. It indicated that anyone ages 3 to 103 could safely fly. But the corporation also had an iFLY Release of Liability and Indemnity Agreement that called iFLY activities inherently dangerous, attorneys said. The liability release said participants are at risk of serious injury and death. iFLY should not market this activity on its own website as very safe and for children as young as three years old, but then knowingly maintain legal documents that call iFLY indoor skydiving an inherently dangerous activity, attorney Jack Casciato said in a statement. Schilling said he hopes to bring awareness to the dangerous situation. iFLY facilities should close until the company makes it apparent to people, people such as parents that plan on hosting a childrens birthday party, that iFLY in fact does not consider this a safe activity but instead one that is inherently dangerous, he said . He also seeks a jury trial and more than $50,000 in damages. Rosemont and Palos Park are in the Chicago metropolitan area. Girl cant see, speak or walk after dental work, lawyer says. Texas family awarded $95M Professor was killed by train at pedestrian crossing. Now widow sues in Massachusetts Family of man paralyzed in back of police van files $100M lawsuit in CT, attorney says Jurgen Klopp believes Liverpool got lucky with Trent Alexander-Arnolds ankle injury as the right-back may only be out for two weeks. Liverpool had feared they would be without the England international for longer after he was hurt in a challenge with Gabriel Martinelli in Arsenals 3-2 win on Sunday. But, while Liverpool are also without Luis Diaz until Boxing Day and Joel Matip for a couple of weeks, Klopp at least had some good news in the full-back positions with Alexander-Arnold potentially returning in time for their trip to Ajax and Andy Robertson, who has missed their last four games, in contention to make a comeback against Rangers on Wednesday. I thought we were maybe hopefully a little lucky with Trent as his ankle didn't look good, to be honest, Klopp said. It is always difficult to say [how long he will be out]. Shorter than a month. Two weeks I've heard but I will have to see if that is right. I thought it is longer when I see him after the game. I take the two weeks, easily. It's good Robbo is back but he's only trained for a couple of days." Diaz, who has been perhaps Liverpools best player this season, will not play again until after the World Cup because of a knee problem he sustained on Sunday, but Klopp was relatively optimistic. He added: Lucho, what is it, six to eight [weeks] or whatever? We will see how long. He looks like a quick healer. It could have been worse. Its not great but it's the situation, and we have to deal with it." Before he went off, Diaz set up Darwin Nunezs first goal since August and the summer signing could be more important without his fellow South American. Klopp took encouragement from both Nunezs efforts at Arsenal and his display in last weeks 2-0 win over Rangers. Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool receives treatment (Getty Images) It's important for him to be confident [after scoring], he said. He had a lot of good moments against Rangers. In moments, he was unplayable but [there were] big goalie saves. His performance was a positive, for sure. Liverpool are without midfielders Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Curtis Jones and Arthur Melo for their first game at Ibrox, but Jordan Henderson is set to play. The FA are investigating an incident from Saturdays game with Arsenal when the Liverpool captain exchanged words with Gabriel Magalhaes, but Klopp said: "Will he be in the right frame of mind? Yes. Oct. 10MACON Three co-conspirators guilty of attempting to distribute methamphetamine intended for Macon State Prison have been sentenced to prison for their crimes. Raquan Emahl Gray, 26, of Conley, was sentenced to serve 240 months to be followed by three years of supervised release after he was found guilty by a federal jury on May 24 of one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Daquann Marquez Epps, 26, of Columbus, was sentenced to serve 75 months to be followed by three years of supervised release after he previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Demarea Demond Carey, 28, of Fairburn, was sentenced to serve 75 months to be followed by three years of supervised release after he previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. U.S. District Judge C. Ashley Royal handed down the sentences. There is no parole in the federal system. "Those who facilitate drug trafficking into our prisons putting both inmates and staff at risk will be held accountable at the federal level," U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said in a news release. "Preventing contraband from entering our prison system remains a high priority for our office and our law enforcement partners." "These defendants attempted to get drugs into a prison, but instead have landed themselves there," Robert J. Murphy, the special agent in charge of the DEA Atlanta Field Division, said. "This investigation was a success because of the spirited efforts of all law enforcement agencies involved." "Illegal drugs have no place in Georgia, including in our prison system," GBI Director Michael Register said. "They are dangerous and threaten the safety of all populations. We will continue to work diligently along with our local and federal partners to investigate and dismantle drug trafficking organizations no matter where they are." Story continues According to court documents and evidence presented at Gray's trial, Gray and Epps were the passengers of a vehicle driven by Carey that was pulled over by a Crawford County Sherriff's Office deputy in Roberta for traveling 25 mph over the posted speed limit on Sept. 2, 2019. A strong odor of marijuana was emanating from the car, and Carey admitted he had smoked marijuana. A probable cause search of the vehicle found various packages wrapped in different colored duct tape and some were numbered. Some packages were softball shaped and wrapped in electrical tape. The packages contained 494 grams of methamphetamine, 150 pills which tested as methamphetamine, 50 cellphones, two large bags of cellphone chargers, approximately three pounds of marijuana, 19 bags of tobacco, a large bag of cigars and 19 lighters. Carey's GPS destination on his cellphone was set for Macon State Prison. Gray has an extensive criminal history including felony convictions for robbery, burglary and theft by taking. The DEA, GBI, Crawford County Sheriff's Office, the Peach County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Department of Corrections investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Will Keyes and Leah McEwen prosecuted the case. MIAMI Donald Trumps attempted coup may have driven away just enough Hispanic voters wary about autocracy in South Florida to give Democrats one bright spot on a state congressional map aggressively gerrymandered to favor Republicans. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthys super PAC has announced it will spend $2 million to help first-term Republican Rep. Maria Salazar hang on to her seat. The Cook Political Report moved its rating for the district from likely Republican to lean Republican. I guess theyve been seeing some polling, Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo told a group of 100 volunteers gathered at her Coral Gables headquarters this week to prepare to knock on doors and make get-out-the-vote phone calls. Kevin McCarthy knows that if he wants to get the gavel, hes got to keep this seat. Salazars campaign said she had delivered over $17 million in projects for her district and that her long career in television news in Miami gives voters confidence in her commitment to them. Thats why she defeated an entrenched Democrat incumbent in 2020 and its why Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar will win re-election in November by defeating another socialist career politician, her press office said in a statement. Her campaign, however, would not address HuffPosts query regarding her view of the former presidents actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021. And, in fact, Salazar voted against President Joe Bidens legislation that contained the projects she is now taking credit for. Taddeos campaign is sharing in internal poll that shows a tied race. We can win, and we can save democracy in the process, she said, standing atop a desk between U.S. and Florida flags, with the flag of her native Colombia affixed to a wall behind her. The seat, representing Floridas 27th Congressional District, had long been held by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican in a district that tended to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee. That made it a frequent target for Democrats, who finally succeeded in 2018, a blue wave year for House Democrats in the first national election since Trump took office in 2017. Story continues Democratic candidate for Congress Annette Taddeo rallies volunteers at her headquarters on Oct. 9 in her campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Salazar. (Photo: S.V. Date/HuffPost) Democratic candidate for Congress Annette Taddeo rallies volunteers at her headquarters on Oct. 9 in her campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Salazar. (Photo: S.V. Date/HuffPost) We can win, and we can save democracy in the process.Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo (D) But in 2020, Donna Shalala, a former Cabinet secretary under President Bill Clinton and then the president of the University of Miami, lost by 3 percentage points to Salazar, a television newscaster who loudly backed Trump, even as Trump himself lost the district by 3 points to Joe Biden. Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who largely drew the states new congressional map after vetoing a more moderate version drawn by Republicans in the state legislature, shored up Salazars seat slightly by removing Democrat-rich Miami Beach from the district and adding more Hispanics in and around Little Havana. Under the new lines, the district would have voted for Trump over Biden by half a percentage point. That presidential vote in 2020, though, took place before the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol that Trump incited as part of his attempt to remain in power despite having lost the election to Biden. And that action, according to Taddeo and her supporters, turned off many residents who had fled and whose families had fled authoritarian regimes in Latin America, including Cuba. Her campaign shows results from an internal poll finding that Trump now suffers from a 40-54 favorable-to-unfavorable ratio in the district, with 48% viewing him very unfavorably. Biden, in contrast, has a 49-45 favorable-to-unfavorable ratio, with only 37% seeing him very unfavorably. Carolina Camps, president of Cuban American Women Supporting Democracy, started the group during the coronavirus pandemic but saw membership grow rapidly after the Capitol riot, she said, when Cuban and other Hispanic voters saw Trump who had won Florida by accusing Biden of being a socialist refuse to accept his election defeat. We know what autocracy is, and thats where were heading, Camps said. Republicans dismiss that analysis, arguing that it is entirely logical for McCarthy to spend money on incumbents in seats with tight margins. The first rule of fight club is to make sure your fighters return, said a top GOP consultant in Florida who spoke on condition of anonymity, who doubted that Salazar is in any danger of losing, given the favorable political environment for Republicans. Another consultant familiar with the spending from McCarthys Congressional Leadership Fund, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if ties to Trump and Jan. 6 were actually moving voters, Democrats would be including that in their ads and they are not. But Taddeo, whose current state Senate district includes much of the newly drawn congressional district, said the images from that day still resonate with families such as hers who fled oppression. Weve seen those images on the TV, but we thought wed never seen it in the United States, she said. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Christina Bobb. USA Today Network via Reuters A Trump lawyer signed a June statement to the DOJ saying there were no more records at Mar-a-Lago. She insisted on adding a disclaimer that she had not searched Mar-a-Lago herself, reports said. The FBI found more government documents Mar-a-Lago when it searched the premises in August. A lawyer for President Donald Trump insisted on adding a disclaimer distancing herself from a false statement that there were no more government records at Mar-a-Lago, reports say. Christina Bobb told federal officials in testimony Friday that she had been instructed by another Trump attorney to sign a statement in June to say no more government records were being held at the Florida resort, NBC News and The Guardian reported. But she insisted on a disclaimer that she'd not searched the premises herself, the reports said. The disclaimer states that Bobb affirmed no more records were present "based upon the information that has been provided to me." FBI agents had visited Mar-a-Lago in June, when Trump aides handed over boxes of government records Trump had been keeping there. Bobb then signed a statement that said that no more were being held at the resort and that a May subpoena requesting their return had been complied with. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago on August 8, having obtained a warrant on the basis of information indicating the declaration was false. It found hundreds more government records, including highly classified intelligence, being held in a store room and Trump's offices. The Justice Department believes that Trump and his aides may have violated several laws in taking and failing to return the records, including obstruction. According to the NBC News report, Corcoran had drafted the statement, and another Trump advisor, Boris Epshteyn, had also been involved in discussions about the issue. The Guardian later confirmed the report, but it said that the disclaimer was added after the statement was signed. Insider has contacted Bobb's attorney for comment, and has also contacted Corcoran for his response. Story continues Officials at the National Archives requested that Trump return records he'd taken with him only months after he left office in 2021, and subsequently made repeated attempts to get him to hand over the documents. Trump has offered clashing defenses in response to the raid, claiming that he had a right to keep the documents, but also that evidence was planted by the DOJ. His lawyers have not offered any support for the planting claim in court. Read the original article on Business Insider Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya Read also: Russias new missile strike doctrine marks another phase of war, Polish ambassador says We offer Ukraine and the Ukrainian people to build an alliance with a democratic Belarus, said Tsikhanouskaya. Read also: Russias mass missile attack damages culture, power supplies, Russia and Belarus team up To fight together and support the Belarusian resistance. The (Belarusian) Joint Transitional Cabinet is ready to cooperate with Ukraine and establish diplomatic and political relations. We are ready to act together with Ukraine because without a free Ukraine there can be no free Belarus and Europe. According to her, Ukrainians and Belarusians are not enemies. Read also: New offensive from Belarus unlikely, ISW report says "Ukrainians and Belarusians are fighting the same evil; (self-proclaimed Belarusian president Alexander) Lukashenko and (Russian dictator Vladimir) Putin are war criminals," she said in a statement posted on her YouTube channel. Tsikhanouskaya added that Alexander Lukashenko is a disgrace to Belarus. Read also: Appointment of Surovikin wont greatly affect the course of the war, expert believes "What Lukashenko will announce tomorrow or the day after tomorrow is unknown because he no longer makes decisions, the Kremlin does it for him," the oppositionist noted. Lukashenko announced on Oct. 10 that Russia and Belarus had agreed to deploy a joint regional grouping of troops. Its formation has allegedly already begun. Earlier on Oct. 4, dictator Lukashenko finally admitted that Belarus is involved in the war against Ukraine. Also, the dictator said that after the harvest season is over, it is necessary to "clarify" the registries of Belarus military registration and enlistment offices and "to call up people in the area, to see their availability". Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii and 2020 presidential candidate, says she's no longer a member of the Democratic Party. In a video statement posted to Twitter, Gabbard explained her decision to leave, despite holding several offices as a Democrat since 2002, including vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016. She said the party is "now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers" and said it is driven by "wokeness," the term often used to describe political correctness. In her video, she accused the party of dividing Americans, among other things. "I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people," she said. "Unfortunately, today's Democratic Party does not." I can no longer remain in todays Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are pic.twitter.com/oAuTnxZldf Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022 Gabbard said she believes the party "stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite," and said she "can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me." On Wednesday, soon after the announcement of her departure from the party, Gabbard headed to New Hampshire to hit the campaign trail with Republican Senate nominee Don Bolduc, who is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. In a longer version of the video posted on YouTube, Gabbard said when she first declared herself a Democrat, she was inspired by those who stood up against the Vietnam War, people who fought for plantation workers in Hawaii and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. However, she is now a critic of President Biden and the party. Story continues The video was posted as the first episode on the "Tulsi Gabbard Show" YouTube page, which will also be a podcast by the same name, hosted by Gabbard. Gabbard rose through the ranks as a Democratic member of the Hawaii House of Representatives, a member of the Honolulu city council and then a Democratic member of U.S. House of Representatives. She was the first Hindu elected to Congress. In 2019, she announced her 2020 presidential campaign. She went up against nine other Democrats who dropped out during the primaries and was the second to last to drop out, just before Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont. Biden, the 10th candidate, remained as the party's nominee and was later elected president. Because she is a National Guard veteran, who did two tours in the Middle East, she took a two-week absence from her campaign to report for active duty with the Hawaiian Army National Guard in Indonesia. During the 2016 presidential election, she campaigned for candidate Bernie Sanders, but she has been tough on both Democrats and Republicans in the past. After Trump was elected, she met with the then-president-elect to discuss her opposition to creating a no-fly zone over Syria, saying it would "lead to more death and suffering." She admitted the meeting was unusual but said partisanship will never "undermine our national security when the lives of countless people lay in the balance." In 2018, Gabbard changed her tune, writing in a tweet that Trump is "Saudi Arabia's bitch" for announcing the U.S. will stand with Saudi Arabia, regardless of any intelligence community assessment on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's involvement in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In 2019, she accused then-Sen. Kamala Harris, who was also running for president, of staging a "political ploy" to smear former Vice President Joe Biden's reputation and his record on civil rights. She said on CBS News' "Red & Blue" that Harris had been "leveling this accusation that Joe Biden is a racist when he's clearly not as a way to try to smear him." She also tweeted a similar sentiment. Harris never accused Biden of racial animus, and specifically said "I do not believe you are a racist" before confronting him on stage at the debate. In 2020 she sued Hillary Clinton, alleging in the lawsuit that Clinton lied about Gabbard when she made derogatory comments in October 2019 in an effort to hurt Gabbard's bid for the White House. She eventually dropped the lawsuit. During her presidential campaign, she tried to appeal to independents and Trump voters with a populist, anti-war message, but struggled to gain support from mainstream Democrats during the primaries. "[S]he's pulling from Trump voters. It could make it even tougher for Trump to win, particularly in states like Michigan and New Hampshire," Steve Bannon told CBS News in January 2020. She did not seek reelection in Congress during her presidential run and left the chamber in 2021. She did, however, stay politically active and spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual conference attended by Republican voters and politicians. Actress Marcia Gay Harden discusses new CBS drama, "So Help Me Todd" Dennis Tito, first "space tourist, teams up with SpaceX to return to space CNN anchor Jake Tapper and his father discuss possible wrongful conviction case Tusli Gabbard made the announcement in a video shared to Twitter on Tuesday (Tulsi Gabbard / Twitter) One-time Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has said she is no longer a Democrat following long running speculation about her political allegiance. The former Democrat senator said on Tuesday she was leaving the party she once attempted to represent as president eventually being beaten by Joe Biden for the 2020 nomination. Ms Gabbard issued a lengthy statement on Tuesday decrying what she has dubbed an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, in remarks not dissimilar to Republican attack lines on Mr Biden. Reasons cited by Ms Gabbard for her departure included the US presidents border policy and Democrat ideology, as well as so-called hostility to people of faith & spirituality as well as the alleged demonisation of the police. Mr Biden, who is Catholic, has long expressed his support for law enforcement however particularly in light of the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6. Ms Gabbard continued by alleging that todays Democrat party also worked to weaponise the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. Those remarks were in apparent reference to Republican criticism of the Justice Department investigation into former US president Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents, and the USs support of Ukraine against Russia. Responding to the news on Twitter on Tuesday morning, many Democrats and political analysts expressed a lack of surprise over the former senators departure. Ms Gabbard has long expressed criticism of Mr Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole, with the former presidential nominee calling his criticism of Republican attacks on democracy a form of authoritarian control designed to intimidate those who oppose him politically into silence. Tunisian authorities intercepted nearly 200 migrants attempting to reach Europe northwards across the Mediterranean Sea over the weekend, the defence ministry said Tuesday. "Coast guard patrols rescued 194 illegal migrants (118 Tunisians and 76 of other African nationalities) over the weekend," it said in a statement. The "rescues" took place in nine separate operations off the southern and north-eastern coast. The North African country has a long Mediterranean coast, in places just 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa, making it a magnet for people from across Africa seeking refuge in Europe. According to official figures, more than 22,500 migrants have been intercepted off the Tunisian coast since the start of the year, around half of them from sub-Saharan Africa. Tunisians themselves, exhausted by a long-running economic crisis that has left a third of the 12 million-strong population in poverty, are among many of those attempting the risky journey. Generally favourable weather from spring to early autumn sees a rise in illegal attempts to reach Italy, but many of the attempts are in boats that are barely seaworthy, often leading to tragedy. Early this month, AFP journalists saw the coast guard intercepting migrants aboard overcrowded, homemade boats. According to EU border agency Frontex, between January and July more than 42,500 migrants used the central Mediterranean route -- the world's most deadly. That is an increase of 44 percent compared with the first seven months of 2021. ayj/par/pjm By Byron Kaye SYDNEY (Reuters) - Two Australian regulators said on Tuesday they have opened investigations into Optus, the country's No. 2 telecoms provider, after a breach of its systems resulted in the theft of personal data from up to 10 million accounts. The probes only add to headaches for Optus, which disclosed the breach on Sept. 22 and has since come under heavy fire from the government and the public for not preventing the massive cyberattack. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) said it was investigating whether the Singapore Telecommunications Ltd-owned company took reasonable steps to protect customer data and comply with privacy laws. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said it was investigating whether Optus met its industry obligations as a telecommunications provider in terms of the keeping and disposing of personal data. Amid the widening fallout, the federal government has flagged it will overhaul data security laws to force firms which have had a cyberattack to notify banks about customers who may be compromised. Several law firms are also considering filing class action lawsuits. The OAIC said in a statement if it finds that "interference with the privacy of one or more individuals has occurred", it may force Optus to take steps to ensure the breach cannot be repeated. The agency added that it finds there was a breach of Australian privacy law, it can seek civil penalties of up to A$2.2 million ($1.4 million) per contravention. ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin said in a statement that failure by telecommunications providers to safeguard customer information "has significant consequences for all involved". Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb told a parliamentary hearing the regulator was receiving 600 calls a day from people concerned about the Optus breach, although few had been scammed as a result. Optus said in a statement that it had received formal notices of investigation from both regulators and that it would fully engage with them. ($1 = 1.5881 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) A British businessman was arrested in the United Kingdom on Tuesday on charges of helping Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska evade sanctions imposed by the United States, federal prosecutors said. Graham Bonham-Carter, 62, is accused of wiring more than $1 million to cover the upkeep of three homes belonging to Deripaska in the U.S. Prosecutors say Bonham-Carter also attempted to transfer artwork, which Deripaska had purchased from a New York auction house, to London by falsely claiming that it was not owned by the billionaire aluminum and metals magnate. Bonham-Carter was charged in a three-count indictment with wire fraud, conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It was not clear if he had hired a lawyer. The international real estate market, and its infamous opacity, afforded Bonham-Carter no shelter from the diligence and expertise of U.S. law enforcement and our partners, said Andrew Adams, director of the Department of Justices Kleptocapture task force. The indictment against Bonham-Carter was unsealed less than two weeks after Deripaska was charged in the U.S. with violating sanctions imposed against members of Russian President Vladimir Putins inner circle in 2018. Prosecutors say Deripaska, a longtime associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, violated the sanctions by, among other things, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure that his child would be born in the U.S. and be able to take advantage of the U.S. health care system. Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia. (Olga Maltseva / AFP via Getty Images file) The indictment against Bonham-Carter makes references to emails in which he laments Deripaska's predicament and refers to him as "my boss." Times a bit tough for my boss as sanctions have hit him from the USA so not an ideal time," Bonham-Carter wrote in an email dated June 18, 2018, the indictment says. In another dated Oct. 13, 2021, the British man wrote: It[]s all good apart from banks keep shutting me down because of my affiliation to my boss Oleg Deripaska.... I have even been advised not to go to the USA where Oleg still has personal sanctions as the authorities will undoubtedly pull me to one side and the questioning could be hours or even days!! the indictment says. Story continues The indictment alleges that a company called Gracetown, Inc. managed Deripaskas two homes in New York and his home in Washington, D.C. It says that Bonham-Carter wired more than $1.4 million to the company for upkeep, staff salaries and property taxes on those homes, a violation of U.S. sanctions. The indictment also says that Bonham-Carter used his own credit card to pay $12,146.85 to move Deripaska's artwork from New York to London, and planned to bill him afterward. The auction house denied the transfer of the artwork, which was not identified, over concerns about running afoul of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces sanctions. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com CAIRO (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated his Lebanese counterpart Michel Aoun on Tuesday for securing a maritime border deal with Israel, a statement by the Lebanese presidency said. The statement, seen by Reuters, said Biden told Aoun in a phone call that the U.S. stood by Lebanon as it sought to strengthen its economy through possible gas wealth. The White House was set to comment on the call later on Tuesday. (Reporting by Reuters bureau in Beirut; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel) By Nate Raymond (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear white supremacist Dylann Roof's bid to overturn his conviction and death sentence for fatally shooting nine Black people in 2015 at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The justices turned away Roof's appeal of a lower court's decision last year upholding the conviction and sentence. In his appeal, Roof, 28, had asked the justices to consider how to address instances in death penalty cases in which defense lawyers and defendants disagree, as they did in this trial, on whether to present mitigating evidence depicting a defendant as mentally ill. A jury in 2016 found Roof guilty of 33 federal charges for the mass shooting at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. The same jury sentenced him to death in 2017. Roof fired his lawyers and represented himself during the sentencing phase of his trial after a judge told him that his attorneys could introduce evidence over his objections depicting him as mentally ill. In appealing the decision by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold his conviction and death sentence, Roof's current lawyers argued that he should not have been forced to represent himself in court in order to prevent evidence he abhorred. On June 17, 2015, Roof walked into the first-floor fellowship hall at the church and was welcomed to a Bible study session. Toward the end of the meeting as the members closed their eyes in prayer, Roof took out his .45-caliber Glock pistol and began shooting at the 12 people there. He shot the nine victims multiple times. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham) WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a claim brought by a Black Texas death row inmate who said he did not receive a fair trial for the killings of his white wife and two children - crimes he does not deny committing - because three white jurors in his first trial expressed opposition to interracial marriage. Over a dissent by its three liberal justices, the court turned away an appeal by Andre Thomas, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2004 killings. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. "No jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberations or decision, particularly where the case involved an interracial crime," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The decision left in place a lower court's ruling rejecting arguments by his current lawyers that Thomas did not receive a fair trial and that his previous legal team did not competently represent him as required by the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment. The original legal team argued at trial he was not guilty by reason of insanity. Thomas has suffered from severe mental health issues and is blind after gouging out both of his eyes. He was sentenced to death by the all-white jury for the killings in the Texas city of Sherman of his estranged wife Laura Boren, their son, Andre Jr., and her other child by a different father, Leyha Hughes. Thomas, believing the victims had been possessed by demons, stabbed all three to death and attempted to cut out their hearts, according to legal records. He then attempted suicide before turning himself in and confessing to police, according to legal records. During his trial for the murder of Leyha Hughes, his lawyers argued that Thomas was suffering from acute psychosis prompted by a lifetime of mental health issues including schizophrenia. Texas argued that the psychosis was temporary and "voluntary" because of his drug use. Story continues During jury selection for that trial, prospective jurors were asked about their views on interracial marriage, with three who eventually were included on the panel marking a box saying they opposed it. "I don't believe God intended for this," one said. Another said that "we should stay with our Blood Line." A third said that interracial marriage is "harmful for the children involved." His lawyers at the trial did not seek to remove the jurors at the time, as is permitted. "As a result, Thomas was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury that included three jurors who expressed bias against him," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. Maurie Levin, a lawyer representing Thomas, noted that the Supreme Court in a 2017 ruling made clear that it has a duty to "confront racial animus in the justice system." Tuesday's action, Levin said, "has exposed the emptiness of that promise." In the trial's sentencing phase, the prosecutor - urging the jury to impose a death sentence instead of a life sentence with the possibility of parole - asked jurors: "Are you going to take the risk about him asking your daughter out, or your granddaughter out?" State courts rejected his post-conviction claims, prompting Thomas to turn to federal courts, which also ruled against him, most recently the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Texas has argued that Thomas missed his chance to make a claim challenging the trial's fairness. Texas also has argued that there was no evidence that jurors were unable to render impartial judgment or that his lawyers should be faulted for making strategic decisions at trial. The lawyers, the state has said, were able to remove jurors from the jury pool who they thought might have been worse for their client. Thomas gouged out one of his eyes before the trial. In 2008, while on death row, he did so with the other one. (Reporting by Reuters Washington bureau; Editing by Will Dunham) By Nate Raymond (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear McKinsey & Co's bid to escape a lawsuit by retired turnaround specialist Jay Alix accusing the management consulting firm of concealing potential conflicts when seeking permission from bankruptcy courts to perform lucrative work on corporate restructurings. The justices turned away McKinsey's request that they overturn a lower court's decision that the lawsuit by Alix, who has accused the firm of running a "criminal enterprise" by hiding its ties to lenders and its clients' competitors. Alix's lawsuit accused McKinsey and several current or former employees of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a U.S. law used to target illegal conspiracies that originally was designed to target organized crime. Alix, who has battled McKinsey in multiple courtrooms since 2016, sought triple damages under RICO, which lets people sue if they believe criminal enterprises caused them harm. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan in 2019 dismissed the lawsuit, saying Alix did not assert a "proximate" link between McKinsey's alleged wrongdoing and harm to AlixPartners. Alix reported owning a 35% equity stake in AlixPartners. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January revived the case, saying Furman gave "insufficient consideration" to whether McKinsey undermined the integrity of federal judicial proceedings. "If McKinsey's conduct has corrupted the process of engaging bankruptcy advisors, as Alix plausibly alleges, then the unsuccessful participants in that process are directly harmed," 2nd Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote. McKinsey in its petition to the Supreme Court argued that the 2nd Circuit's decision ran contrary to past rulings by the high court holding that RICO lawsuits may be brought only by plaintiffs injured "directly" by wrongdoing. The firm urged the Supreme Court to consider whether lower courts must follow that standard "even if, in the court's judgment, the plaintiff's allegations implicate the court's 'supervisory responsibilities'" over judicial proceedings. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham) TechCrunch Do Kwon alleges that charges levelled against him by the South Korean prosecutors are not legitimate and politically motivated, sharing a rare update on what has become one of the most high-profile events in the crypto industry this year in the aftermath of the $40 billion wipeout of his Terra blockchain. Kwon said he has yet to receive a copy of the Interpol's red notice and his understanding is that the order doesn't include an international arrest warrant. Every sovereign nation can interpret the red notice the way it sees fit, he told journalist Laura Shin on her podcast Unchained. By Nate Raymond (Reuters) -U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday questioned whether upholding a California law banning the sale of pork from pigs kept in tightly confined spaces would invite states to adopt laws imposing their political or moral views outside their borders. The justices heard arguments in an appeal by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation of a lower court's decision to throw out their lawsuit seeking to invalidate the animal welfare measure. It was approved by voters as a 2018 ballot initiative called Proposition 12 to bar sales in California of pork, veal and eggs from animals whose confinement failed to meet certain minimum space requirements. The justices appeared torn over whether the law went too far by forcing farmers in other states to change their practices in order to sell pork in the most populous U.S. state. Questions from some justices suggested that the court could allow a pork industry-backed lawsuit challenging the law to play out in the lower courts rather than rule on its constitutionality. Justices across the ideological spectrum appeared concerned that a ruling in California's favor might encourage more states to adopt moral or ideologically driven sales laws affecting national commerce, promoting conflict among states. They raised the prospect of states restricting sales from out-of-state businesses that did not comply with policy preferences in areas such as immigration, organized labor and healthcare. "A lot of policy disputes can be incorporated into laws like yours," liberal Justice Elena Kagan told California Solicitor General Michael Mongan, who was defending the measure. Timothy Bishop, a lawyer for the two groups, argued that the measure violates a provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. "It's an extraterritorial regulation that conditions pork sales on out-of-state farmers adopting California's preferred farming methods for no valid safety reasons," Bishop said, noting that 99.9% of California's pork comes from elsewhere. Story continues Some justices noted that California's law was not regulating out-of-state farms themselves but the products sold within its own borders and questioned why the state was not allowed to do so when it also possessed the power to ban sales outright. "As I read California's law, it's about products being sold in California," conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said. "Unlike some of the cases you cite, it's not reaching out and regulating something across state lines or regulating prices." Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that while California represents a huge market, "no one's forcing them to sell to California." Farmers could continue selling pork that did not meet California's standards elsewhere, Sotomayor added. 'SUBSTANTIAL IMPACT' But liberal Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson said that the court must accept that California's law will have a "substantial impact on the operation of this market." Noting that America already is divided, Kagan wondered if upholding the measure would encourage states to be "constantly at each other's throats" by adopting laws affecting out-of-state businesses. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked, "Could California pass a law that said we're not going to buy any pork from companies that don't require all their employees to be vaccinated or corporations that don't fund gender-affirming surgery?" Conservative Justice Samuel Alito raised the possibility of a pork-producing state adopting regulations governing the production of agricultural products that come almost exclusively from California. A ruling is due by the end of June. Animal rights groups have said some pork producers confine mother pigs in cages so small the animals cannot turn around for most of their lives. The pork industry has said the size of the cages used at pig farms are humane and necessary for animal safety. Proposition 12 set the required space for breeding pigs, or sows, at 24 square feet (2.2 square meters). The current industry standard is between 14 and 20 square feet (1.3 to 1.9 square meters), according to a 2021 report from Dutch banking and financial services company Rabobank. The Supreme Court took up the case after the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court's decision to throw out the lawsuit. President Joe Biden's administration has sided with the pork producers, saying that states cannot ban products that pose no threat to public health or safety due to philosophical objections. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham) A general view of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images A nurse at a UK neonatal unit is on trial, accused of deliberately killing seven babies at work. Lucy Letby, 32, is also accused of attempting to murder ten others. Letby denies all the charges against her at Manchester Crown Court. A nurse is on trial in the UK, accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder ten more at her neonatal unit. "A poisoner was at work" at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northern England, said prosecutor Nick Johnson at a Monday hearing at Manchester Crown Court Monday, the BBC reported. "We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 children named on the indictment were not normally occurring tragedies," he said, per The Guardian.. "They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock who we say was a constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these children." Letby has denied the 22 charges against her: seven of murder and 15 charges of attempted murder on ten infants. Between June 2015 and June 2016, when Letby was working at the hospital, consultants at the hospital noticed a "significant rise" in the number of babies who were dying unexpectedly and in the number of babies with "serious catastrophic collapses," Johnson said, per Yahoo News. The "common denominator" in the deaths was Letby, Johnson said. Per the BBC, a police review showed that two of the deaths involved a baby being poisoned with insulin. The babies' blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels but other medical staff were able to save them, the network reported. The attacks on babies were carried out with "varying means,", Johnson said, per Yahoo News. Some were injected with air, while others were allegedly given too much milk or air down their feeding tubes which would have "catastrophic effects" on the newborns, Johnson said, per The Guardian. One baby was said to be 24 hours old when he died after Letby injected him with air, per the Guardian. Letby is accused of trying to kill his twin sister the next day, The Guardian reported. Story continues Letby is also accused of trying to kill one baby three times, per the BBC. The trial continues on Tuesday. Read the original article on Insider Energoatom, Ukraines state nuclear power company, on Tuesday said that Russia had kidnapped and tortured the deputy head of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Russian forces have occupied the nuclear power plant for months as Ukrainian staff operate it and shelling continues nearby, but reports have become more dire since Russia annexed four Ukrainian territories, including the one that encompasses the plant. Energoatom said at the start of the month that Russia kidnapped the plants head as the annexation effort commenced, and the agency on Tuesday said Russia similarly took Zaporizhzhias second in command, Valeriy Martyniuk, and used methods of torture and intimidation. In this way, the Russians are trying to get much-needed information about the personnel files of Zaporizhzhia NPP employees in order to force Ukrainian staff to work for Rosatom as soon as possible, Energoatom wrote on its Telegram channel, referring to Russias equivalent agency. The occupiers literally torture ZNPP nuclear workers not neglecting the cruelest forms of abuse, Energoatom continued. Reports from the plant have become more dire following the annexations, with Ukrainian employees detailing how Russian forces shot and beat them, hoping to intimidate the staff into running the nuclear plant, which is Europes largest. The nuclear power plants situation has received global attention, including from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations, which has sent staff to the plant. We appeal to the IAEA Director General Raphael Grossi and the entire world community to take all possible measures for the immediate release of Valeriy Martyniuk from the captivity of the Russian occupiers and his return to the performance of duties, Energoatom wrote. Grossi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in St. Petersburg to discuss Grossis call for a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant, which he has urged for weeks. Story continues The proposal seeks to protect against nuclear disaster from shelling that has persisted in the area as fighting continues over the four territories Russia annexed. The plant lies near the edge of one of those regions, which is also named Zaporizhzhia, although Ukrainian forces have made territorial gains in areas Russia now lays claim to after the annexation announcement. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. OLENA ROSHCHINA TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 21:50 Ukraine has prepared a nomination file for Odesa to be included in the World Heritage List, and is passing it on to UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Source: President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyys address to the participants of the 215th session of the UNESCO Executive Council, Office of the President Quote: "Together with our partners, we prepared the nomination file of Odesa for inclusion in the World Heritage List. We are passing this on to UNESCO. And I am asking you to initiate an extraordinary session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to resolve this issue for Odesa. And please, it cannot be delayed, it cannot be postponed. Odesa, like all other cities of Ukraine, is a target for Russian strikes. Please support Odesa! Show at the level of UNESCO precisely that Russian terror must end." Details: Zelenskyy has pointed out that Odesa is a wonderful city and an important port in the Black Sea; it is also a source of culture for millions of people in different countries. According to the President, preservation of the historical centre of Odesa should become one of the steps to give Russia "a clear signal that the world will not turn a blind eye" to the destruction of Ukrainian history, culture, and heritage. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! By Zohra Bensemra and Abdelaziz Boumzar LYMAN, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday they exhumed the bodies of dozens of people, including civilians and a one-year-old baby, to determine the cause of death following the retreat of Russian troops from two recently-liberated towns in the eastern Donetsk region. "These are local civilians and our defenders, armed forces servicemen," Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said as forensic workers in white suits moved around one of the sites at a cemetery in Lyman, retaken from Russian forces on Oct. 1. He said the bodies of 55 people had been exhumed in the town, including civilians. The prosecutor general's office said authorities had counted 110 trenches containing graves, including some for children, at the Nova Maslyakivka cemetery. "The youngest is only one year old," it said in a statement on its website. "She is buried next to the whole family." A doll rested against the foot of one cross marking a grave with the name Yelena Kisil, born Oct. 18, 2019, alongside another cross marking the grave of Lyudmila Kisil, born March 27, 2021. Both died on May 24, 2022, during the period when Russian forces were battling to seize Lyman. Kyrylenko said that preliminary results on the 55 exhumed bodies indicated deaths resulted from "explosive and projectile injuries, bullet injuries". "We also don't exclude torture, especially among the civilian victims," he said. But only court medical experts would be able to tell for sure, he added. Reuters could not independently determine the causes or timing of the deaths. At a separate site about 20 km (15 miles) to the west in the town of Sviatohirsk, the prosecutor general's office said law enforcement officers had exhumed 34 bodies, some of which it said showed signs of violent death, including gunshot wounds, rib and skull fractures, and mine and explosive injuries. "The burnt bodies of two citizens were also found in a car," it said in the statement. "Their identities are being established." Story continues Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in occupied territories, a charge Moscow denies. Last month the bodies of 436 people were exhumed from a burial site in the northeastern town of Izium after it was liberated. Most appeared to have died violent deaths, local officials said. (Additional reporting and writing by Elaine Monaghan, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) (Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden said he thinks President Vladimir Putin is a rational actor who behaved irrationally when he invaded Ukraine. Biden made the comments in an interview with CNN. Most Read from Bloomberg The leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations pledged support for Ukraine and condemned this weeks intensified attacks from Russia, saying targeting innocent civilian populations constitutes a war crime, and vowing to hold Putin accountable. The US is speeding up shipment of two advanced air defense systems to Ukraine in response to pleas by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the West to supply more -- and more advanced -- weaponry in the fight against Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron responded to Russias latest attacks with a decision to strengthen his nations military presence in Eastern Europe. Zelenskiy repeated that he wouldnt negotiate with Putin, a day after Russia hit his nation with the most intense barrage of air strikes since the first days of the invasion. (See RSAN on the Bloomberg Terminal for the Russian Sanctions Dashboard.) Key Developments G-7 Leaders Pledge to Support Ukraine for as Long as It Takes Elon Musk Denies Report He Spoke With Putin About Ukraine European Gas Picks Up After Russias Missile Blitz in Ukraine Russias Atomic Grab in Ukraine Corners International Monitors Deripaska UK Property Manager Arrested in US Sanctions Case (1) Russian Firms Turn to Hong Kong in Bid to Avoid Sanctions On the Ground Russia launched more than 30 missiles, seven aviation strikes and about 25 attacks from multiple rocket systems Tuesday, Ukraines General Staff said in a statement on Facebook. Ukrainian air defense intercepted 21 missiles and 11 drones, according to its military. Infrastructure in more than 20 localities were damaged, including in the Lviv, Vinnytsya, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Mykolayiv regions. Story continues (All times CET) Biden Says Putin Totally Miscalculated (11:15 p.m.) Biden said he considers Putin a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly. Bidens remark came during an excerpt from an interview with CNN to be broadcast on Tuesday night. But elsewhere in the interview, the president said the Russian leader was irrational when he made the decision to invade Ukraine. You listen to what he says. If you listen to the speech he made after when that decision was being made, he talked about the whole idea of he was needed to be the leader of Russia that united all of Russian speakers. I mean, its just I just think its irrational, Biden told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. I think the speech, his objectives were not rational. I think he thought, Jake, I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated. US Scoffs at Putin Comment Encouraging Peace Talks (9:41 p.m.) The State Department made clear the US wasnt impressed with Putins comments encouraging the United Arab Emirates to play a significant role in efforts to reach a resolution to the war in Ukraine. I am aware of your concerns about how the situation is developing in general and of your wish to help with resolving all controversial issues, including the crisis thats happening now, Putin said at the start of a meeting with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in St. Petersburg, Russia. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the comments came within hours of a barrage of Russian missiles that targeted Ukrainian towns and cities. We see this as posturing, we do not see this as a constructive, legitimate offer to engage in the dialog and diplomacy that is necessary to see an end to this brutal war of aggression against Ukraine, Price said. Zelenskiy Says He Expects Progress on Air-Defense Systems (9:18 p.m.) Zelenskiy said he expects progress in the supply of air defense and anti-missile defense systems as the result of a meeting of defense ministers backing Ukraine thats scheduled for Wednesday in Brussels. I expect agreements from our partners regarding the new supply of other weapons and ammunition we need, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address, saying of Russia, The terrorist state must be deprived of even the thought that it can achieve something with any wave of terror. Zaporizhzhia Region Is Under Attack Again, Official Says (8:01 p.m.) The Zaporizhzhia region has again been hit by brutal shelling by Russia, with seven people killed and the same number injured, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of President Zelenskiys office said. He said Russian forces shelled the area with artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems. US Says No Sign Putin Has Decided to Use Nuclear Weapons (7:06 p.m.) We monitor his capabilities as best we can, John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, said when asked about Putins most recent suggestions that he may resort to nuclear weapons in the fight over Ukraine. You remember, Mr. Putin was saber-rattling in the nuclear realm before. Although Putins military is under increasing pressure inside Ukraine, Kirby said, weve seen no indication, nothing that tells us Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction at all inside Ukraine. And weve seen no indication that the Russian apparatus is moving anything to prepare for that kind of decision. Pentagon Speeds Shipping Two Air Defense Systems for Ukraine (6:37 p.m.) To speed delivery of two advanced air-defense systems for Ukraine, Raytheon Technologies Corp. will accelerate assembly by using existing parts instead of building the weapons from scratch, the Pentagon said in a statement. The US is also contracting for more parts under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Were using a number of tools to move funds and accomplish the contracting process quickly, the Defense Department said. Were focused on acquisition speed, and this is one example of our ability to work quickly with industry to accelerate delivery, by using some existing parts. The National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, is one of NATOs most widely used air-defense systems and protects the Washington region. It will be delivered within several weeks, the Pentagon said. Russia Says It Will Continue Work Toward Agreement on Grain Deal (6:20 p.m.) We managed to agree on a grain deal in July -- prices fell -- so we believe that we need to continue working toward an agreement. This gets results, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in a statement. He said Russia is a responsible supplier of food and is prepared to boost exports in 2023. France to Strengthen Defense Presence in Eastern Europe, NATO (6:12 p.m.) Following Russias strikes on Ukraine, Macron decided during a defense cabinet meeting late Monday to increase Frances military presence in Eastern Europe with the NATO military alliance, a spokesman for Frances defense minister Sebastien Lecornu said by phone. Paris will strengthen its presence in Romania with armored vehicles and its Leclerc tanks and will roll out Rafale jets in Lithuania and a light infantry brigade in Estonia, the spokesman said. First of Four German Air-Defense Systems Delivered (5:50 p.m.) The German government transferred the first of four air-defense systems, giving the Ukrainian military significantly more protection from Russian air raids, Der Spiegel reported. The delivery of the Iris-T SLM, made by Diehl Defence, at the Polish-Ukrainian border was first slated for November. The system, which consists of three military vehicles, will provide protection for civilians. The missile can target objects at altitudes of 20 kilometers (12 miles) and distances of 40 kilometers a far greater range than shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft weapons, according to the magazine. Three more will be delivered next year, it said. EU Weighs Prosecutor to Catch Russian Sanctions Evaders (5:27 p.m.) The European Union is weighing handing new powers to its fledgling public prosecutors office amid concerns the blocs current system is failing to rein in rich Russians trying to evade sanctions. New powers for the European Public Prosecutors Office would be conditional on separate plans to make sanctions evasion a crime under EU law, according to people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg account for almost all of the 17.4 billion euros ($16.9 billion) in Russian assets that have been frozen in the bloc so far. Seven Ships Leave Ukrainian Ports (5:25 p.m.) Ships carrying 177,500 tons of agriculture products for Africa, Asia and Europe left Ukrainian Black Sea ports Tuesday, according to the Infrastructure Ministry. Ukrainian agricultural exports have risen to 7 million tons since a deal -- mediated by Turkey and the United Nations -- in July. G-7 Leaders Say Theyll Hold Putin to Account (4:58 p.m.) G-7 leaders condemned Russias latest missile and zone attacks against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms and said indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitutes a war crime. They pledged to hold Putin and others responsible to account. In a statement, the leaders condemned Russias annexation of Ukrainian territory and vowed that the move will never be recognized, as it is illegal. They also deplored Belaruss enabling the Russian war of aggression by supporting Putins forces and allowing them to operate on its soil. Putin Hails UAE Mediator Role (4:54 p.m.) Russian President Vladimir Putin said the United Arab Emirates can play a significant role in efforts to reach a resolution in his war in Ukraine as he held talks with the Gulf nations ruler in St. Petersburg. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said that he and Putin had agreed on the importance of engaging in dialogue to reduce tensions and arrive at a diplomatic solution, in comments after the talks on Twitter. Zelenskiy Calls for New Sanctions Package Against Russia (4:44 p.m.) Zelenskiy urged G-7 countries in a video to impose new package against Russia and said he wouldnt negotiate with Moscow as long as Putin is in charge. He called for blocking Russias energy sector to undermine its revenue from oil and gas, and zero profit for the terrorist state. He also called for international monitors to keep watch over the security situation on the border with Belarus. After the Russian strikes, all the murders, all the abuse of civilians and international law, your societies will not understand you if you do not cut off any prospects for this leader of terror, Zelenskiy said. One person is blocking peace -- and this person is in Moscow. Ukraine Needs More Air Defense Systems, Stoltenberg Says (3:55 p.m.) Ukraine urgently needs more air defense systems as deliveries from allies have made a difference despite Russias strikes on Kyiv and other cities, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. The alliance chief welcomed pledges by the US and Germany to provide advanced air defense systems, noting those provided by NATO allies have helped Ukrainians shoot down incoming missiles. Of course as long as not all of them are shot down, theres a need for more, Stoltenberg said, stressing they also need more ammunition for the systems. Speaking ahead of a gathering of NATO defense ministers in Brussels this week, Stoltenberg said allies are also considering increasing targets for weapons reserves as part of the alliances defense planning process. Moldova to Curb Power Use (3:15 p.m.) Moldova urged its citizens to save power between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. and then from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. as Ukraine was forced to stop power deliveries to the neighboring country. Moldova will now have to start using stored gas, already at low levels, to produce electricity, Deputy Premier Andrei Spinu said on Facebook. G-7 to Say It Will Stand With Ukraine for as Long as It Takes (2:40 p.m.) Ukraines allies will support it for as long as it takes despite Russias recent steps to escalate its war there, the G-7 nations plan to say in a statement later in the day. We reassured President Zelenskiy that we are undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the group said in a draft statement obtained by Bloomberg. We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support and stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. White House Sees No Indication of Russian Nuclear Strike Plans (2:38 p.m.) The White House said it had seen no indication that Putin had decided to use weapons of mass destruction, despite President Joe Bidens warning last week that the Russian leader was not joking about a nuclear strike. US intelligence as of Tuesday morning has not seen evidence that Putin is set on nuclear weapons at any level, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN. The US also has seen nothing that would give us reason to change our own strategic deterrent posture when it comes to protecting our interests over in Europe, he added. Putin Says UAE Mediation Significant in Path to Ukraine Peace (1:50 p.m.) Putin said the United Arab Emirates can play a significant role in efforts to reach a resolution in the war in Ukraine as he held talks with the Gulf nations ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. I am aware of your concerns about how the situation is developing in general and of your wish to help with resolving all controversial issues, including the crisis thats happening now, Putin said at the start of their meeting in St. Petersburg. Id like to point out that its indeed a substantial factor that allows us to use your influence for moving toward resolving the situation. Kyivs Power Issues Fixed, No Blackout Plans: Mayor (1:45 p.m.) Kyivs emergency services have fixed the capitals electricity issues after Russias missile attacks on Monday and the city no longer plans to limit electricity supply to its inhabitants, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram channel. This statement followed a warning from the power company earlier Tuesday that the city would face scheduled outages to ease pressure on the grid. As of today I have information that we have already stabilized the situation and as of today there wont be any blackouts, he said in an interview to local TV channels. Other large Ukrainian cities, including Lviv and Dnipro, are still experiencing power issues. Russia Ready to Consider Putin-Biden Meeting, Lavrov Says (12:50 p.m.) Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow is ready to consider any proposals for an end to the war in Ukraine, including a meeting between Putin and US President Joe Biden. However, he downplayed the chances for any diplomatic solution. We are ready to listen to any proposals but we cant say in advance that a specific process will definitely yield results, he said on state TV. We need to know exactly whats on the table. China Express Concern on Ukraine After Russian Missile Strikes (12:15 p.m.) We are concerned about the development of the current situation and call on relevant parties to resolve their differences through dialog and consultation, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular news briefing in Beijing. The comments are the latest sign China is worried about Russias protracted conflict in Ukraine, although it has refrained from openly criticizing Moscow. Russian Attacks on Ukrainian Energy System Continue (12:00 p.m.) A power and thermal plant in Vinnytsia region in central Ukraine was shelled by drones, the DTEK Ladyzhynska facility said on its Facebook account. Energy equipment was damaged. One third of the city of Lviv suffered power cuts following the latest missile strikes, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Telegram. Remains of Ukrainian Forces Killed in Explosion Returned (11:30 a.m.) Ukraine reclaimed 62 bodies of its soldiers, including those killed in an explosion in Olenivka in the Donetsk region in late July, according to Oleg Kotenko, the commissioner for missing persons. We brought back those who were in hell, Kotenko said. Olenivka was one of the places where Ukrainian prisoners of war, particularly from Mariupol, were kept. An explosion there killed at least 50 soldiers and injured more. Ukraine asked for the return of its soldiers and conducted difficult negotiations with the Russians, who publicly declined to let Ukrainian authorities, the Red Cross or other humanitarian organizations visit Olenivka. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. CHISINAU (Reuters) - Ukraine reduced electricity supplies to Moldova by about 30% early on Tuesday, Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spinu said. Ukraine announced on Monday that it was suspending electricity exports to the European grid after Russian missile strikes that hit its energy network and killed at least 19 people. Moldova, a poor former Soviet republic that borders Ukraine and Romania, was already concerned about its energy supplies before the Russian missile strikes on Ukraine on Monday as it is heavily dependent on Russia for gas. "We are in constant contact with Ukraine, the European Union and Romania in search of a solution to provide the republic with electricity," Spinu wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Russian state energy company Gazprom said last week that it may switch off gas supplies to Moldova if the country fails to comply with its payment obligations by Oct. 20. (Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Matthias Williams) Ukraine returns the bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers as part of the exchange Oleh Kotenko, Commissioner on Persons Gone Missing under Special Circumstances, said the exchange was extremely challenging to negotiate. We returned those who went through hell itself to defend Ukraine, he wrote. May the heroes be remembered! On Aug. 6, Kotenko, said that of the more than 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers were considered missing, with up to 25% of them being held captive by Russian forces. Russia committed a massacre of prisoners from the Azov regiment in the Olenivka (Donetsk Oblast) prison colony on July 29. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that by doing so, Russia wanted to accuse Ukraine of committing war crimes, as well as to hide the torture and executions of prisoners, which were carried out on the orders of the occupation administration in the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk Oblast. Read also: Azov fighters who survived Olenivka among those returning home in latest prisoner swap The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine claimed that the explosions in Olenivka were carried out by mercenaries of the private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, on personal orders form Yevgeny Prigozhin its nominal owner. According to Ukrainian Intelligence, the explosions took place on the territory of the industrial zone in a newly built room, which was supposed to be specially equipped for prisoners of war from Mariupols Azovstal steelworks. Some of the defenders of Ukraine were transferred to the facility just two days before the explosion. The SBU security service published an intercept of a conversation which confirmed that the Russians knowingly committed the POW massacre at the OIenivka prison colony. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine People in Kyiv take photos of a crater next to a playground where a Russian missile strike hit on Monday morning. (Getty) An image of a huge crater just metres from a destroyed children's playground in central Kyiv has become the latest symbol of the devastation wreaked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The picture, taken by photographer Sergei Supinsky on Monday after Russian missile strikes on a number of Ukrainian cities, shows people gathered around its edge. Human rights organisations Amnesty International said the carnage captured in the photograph was a "stark symbol" of the "disregard for human life" that has defined Russia's invasion. Monday's attack by Russia on several Ukrainian cities left at least 11 dead and 64 injured. Vladimir Putin said it was launched in retaliation for an explosion on a bridge linking Russia to Crimea, an attack he called a "terrorist act". Watch: Kyiv clean-up operation begins after Russian missile strikes Read more: 4 key locations in Ukraine conflict right now But Amnesty International accused Putin of attempting to "spread terror" with the strikes, which appeared to target civilian areas. Its secretary general, Agnes Callamard, said: This is yet another day of petrifying news from Ukraine, with Russia launching multiple strikes that hit residential areas, city centres and civilian infrastructure. The crater left by a Russian missile in the middle of childrens playground in central Kyiv is a stark symbol of the complete disregard for human life that has characterised Russias invasion. The ultimate goal of todays attacks is to spread terror among the entire civilian population. Russia must immediately stop its war of aggression. All those responsible for the aggression and war crimes - including commanders and civilian leaders such as ministers and heads of state - should be held criminally responsible for their actions. Russian state television news claimed the strike at a children's playground in Kyiv was carried out by Ukrainian air defence systems. Story continues Emergency service personnel at the site of a blast next to a children's playground in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday. (Getty Images) Workers clear a damaged playground after a Russian missile attack in central Kyiv on Monday. (Getty Images) A crater from a Russian missile strike next to a playground in central Kyiv, Ukraine. (Getty Images) Kyiv was targeted for the first time in months, while Russia also hit civilian areas and energy infrastructure across the country, from Kharkiv in the east to Lviv near the Polish border. Prime minister Liz Truss and her counterparts in the G7 will hold a virtual meeting later on Tuesday, in which she is expected to tell fellow leaders to "stay the course" in the battle against Putin. The video call will also be attended by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who spoke to Truss and other world leaders on Monday. Read more: BBC reporter in Ukraine ducks live on air as explosions hit Kyiv Russian president Vladimir Putin at a security council meeting in Saint Petersburg on Monday. (AFP via Getty Images) Kyiv was targeted by Russia for the first time in months on Monday. (Getty Images) Elsewhere, the head of the UK"s GCHQ intelligence agency has said that Putin's regime is becoming increasingly "desperate" as it runs short of weapons, allies and troops. Sir Jeremy Fleming told the BBC: We believe that Russia is running short of munitions, its certainly running short of friends and we have seen, because of the declaration for mobilisation, that it is running short of troops. Asked if GCHQ would know if Putin was considering using nuclear weapons, Sir Jeremy said: I think any talk of nuclear weapons is very dangerous and we need to be very careful about how we are talking about that." Watch: Putin vows revenge for 'terrorist act' after bridge explosion Sir Jeremy Fleming is expected to say that ordinary Russian citizens are starting to see that Vladimir Putin misjudged his invasion of Ukraine in his speech today. The director of the intelligence, cyber and security agency GCHQ is likely to state that Russians are feeling the consequences of Mr Putins war of choice in his address at the annual Royal United Services Institute security lecture. Theyre [Russian citizens] seeing just how badly Putin has misjudged the situation, the head of the UKs spy agency is expected to say. His speech will come a day after a widespread bombing campaign carried out by Russian troops yesterday. At least 14 people were killed and 97 wounded, emergency services said, as Russian missiles tore into intersections, parks and tourist sites. Volodymyr Zelensky has told Ukrainians that the world is with us in the fight against Russia after Ukraine came under widespread bombardment. In his nightly address, Mr Zelensky said that Ukraine cannot be intimidated by terrorists. Ukraine cannot be intimidated. It only brings more of us together, he said. Key Points Zelensky tells Ukraine: World is with us after missile attacks Death toll rises to 11 after widespread bombardment of Ukraine Russian missiles strike cities across Ukraine in dawn raid Strikes on Kyiv hit critical infrastructure' Putin says Ukraine attacked Crimea bridge in act of terrorism Monday missile strikes death toll rises to 19, over a hundred injured 06:58 , Arpan Rai The death toll from Mondays missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities rose to 19 this morning, Ukraines state emergency service said today. A total of 105 people have been injured, officials said in their updated information on total casualties from Russias missile strikes in the rush hour yesterday across Ukraine. Missile victims include civilians who fled frontline to start new life 06:48 , Arpan Rai The young siblings had fled their home near the frontline after barely escaping with their lives, and resettled with a new family in Slovyansk, where they should have been safer. Story continues Kateryna, 25, was killed along with two members of her adoptive family, the Sudovas, when a missile struck their home in the early hours of Monday. Her brother, Ruslan, 12, survived but was seriously injured. It was one of a wave of missile attacks deep into Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin on Monday in revenge for the blown bridge in Crimea and the humiliation that had been inflicted on the Kremlin. Read the full story here: Victims of Russian missiles include civilians who fled frontline to start new life New Russian commander to face increasingly factional Russian MoD, says UK 06:42 , Arpan Rai Britain has said the newly appointed commander of Russias joint group of forces for monitoring the war in Ukraine will see hiccups from Moscows poorly resourced defence ministry. General Sergei Surovikin has previously commanded the Russian Aerospace Forces and, more recently, the Southern Grouping of Forces on operations in Ukraine, the latest intelligence update said. For much of its operation, Russia has likely lacked a single empowered field commander, it added. The British defence ministry also pointed out that General Alexandr Dvornikov likely held the role for a period between April and August 2022. However, it is unclear whether he was able to effectively exercise control over the often disparate and competing groupings of forces, the MoD said. Surovikin s appointment likely reflects an effort by the Russian national security community to improve the delivery of the operation, it claimed. However, he will likely have to contest with an increasingly factional Russian MoD which is poorly resourced to achieve the political objectives it has been set in Ukraine, the ministry said. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 11 October 2022 Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/VbuADMF0JY #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/S9P7kmoo0X Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) October 11, 2022 Putin is gambling that the West will abandon Ukraine we wont 06:21 , Arpan Rai Vladimir Putin wants to intimidate Ukrainian leaders, terrorise civilians and further destroy Ukrainian cultural identity by taking out museums. It is clear from The wrath of Putin, some call the Russian strikes on multiple cities, including central Kyiv, which are plainly acts of retaliation for the attack on the Russia-Crimea Kerch bridge on Saturday. But most of all, the attack on Kyiv will merely strengthen the resolve of the Ukrainian people to fight on. Their resistance to the invaders has awed the world. It was especially impressive in the early stages of the conflict, before sanctions and Western military assistance began to take their toll on Mr Putins poorly equipped and badly led troops. President Putin is gambling that, eventually, Western democracies will cave in and accept at least the status quo and thus abandon Ukraine. Unfortunately for him, there are signs that the Russian people and elements in the Russian government and military will abandon him first. Read the editorial here: Editorial: Putin is gambling that the West will abandon Ukraine we wont Russia to respond to rising Western involvement in Ukraine war - report 06:16 , Arpan Rai Moscow will respond to wests growing involvement in the Ukrainian conflict even though direct conflict with the US and Nato is not in Russias interest, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said today. We warn and hope that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals, Mr Ryabkov said, reported RIA news agency. Russians starting to see Putin has misjudged Ukraine war, says UK spy chief 05:41 , Arpan Rai Ordinary Russian citizens are starting to see that Vladimir Putin misjudged his invasion of Ukraine, the head of the UKs spy agency is expected to say in his speech today. Sir Jeremy Fleming director of the intelligence, cyber and security agency GCHQ is likely to state that Russians are feeling the consequences of Mr Putins war of choice. At the annual Royal United Services Institute security lecture, Sir Jeremy is expected to say: Theyre [Russian citizens] seeing just how badly Putin has misjudged the situation. Theyre fleeing the draft, realising they can no longer travel. They know their access to modern technologies and external influences will be drastically restricted. And they are feeling the extent of the dreadful human cost of his war of choice. Read the full story here: Russians starting to see Putin has misjudged Ukraine war, says UK spy chief Russia continues targetting nuclear power plant city overnight 05:14 , Arpan Rai Russian forces continued with their overnight attack on Ukrainian city housing Europes largest power plant, officials said. The attacks targetted an infrastructure site in the Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said. It is not immediately clear if there are casualties and damages from the attacks. Zelensky calls for more weapons after nearly 100 Russian missile attacks 05:06 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky has called for more weapons to counter the Russian offensive the biggest aerial attack in months and said that only terrorists rejoice at such attacks. The targets for terrorists missiles in cities are civilian, cultural and educational facilities. Who can rejoice at strikes on such objects? Only terrorists! #Ukraine will endure this onslaught of terrorists who have no history, no tradition, no culture, he said. Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs also shared a video of the aftermath of yesterdays attacks which killed 14 and left nearly 100 injured. .@ZelenskyyUa: The targets for terrorists missiles in cities are civilian, cultural and educational facilities. Who can rejoice at strikes on such objects? Only terrorists!#Ukraine will endure this onslaught of terrorists who have no history, no tradition, no culture. pic.twitter.com/jPHHfpZ7ty MFA of Ukraine (@MFA_Ukraine) October 11, 2022 Biden to hold virtual meeting with G7 leaders, Zelensky today 04:58 , Arpan Rai Joe Biden and Group of Seven (G7) leaders will hold a virtual meeting today to discuss their commitment to support Ukraine and how to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for Russias aggression, including its recent missile strikes across Ukraine, the White House said. Volodymyr Zelensky will participate at the top of the meeting, the White House said. Biden speaks with Zelensky after Russia rains over 80 missiles on Ukraine 04:27 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky and his US counterpart Joe Biden spoke last night where the wartime president underlined air defence was Ukraines number one priority in its defence cooperation and called the Russian missiles strikes on Monday senseless attacks. Mr Biden expressed his condemnation of Russias missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks, read a statement from the White House. Mr Biden has vowed more advanced air defence systems from the US. President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems, it added. The US president also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance, the statement read. This comes shortly after the Pentagon said it would start delivering the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System over the next two months or so. And, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine will do everything to strengthen our armed forces. We will make the battlefield more painful for the enemy, Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address. Truss to tell G7: Stick by Ukraine in face of Russian attacks' Monday 10 October 2022 23:45 , Lamiat Sabin Liz Truss on Tuesday will request an urgent meeting of Nato leaders in response to Russias increased missile attacks on Ukraine, Downing Street said. The British PM will also tell other G7 leaders in a virtual meeting that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to join to remain steadfast in support of Ukraine, her office added. Ms Truss is expected to say: Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve to help them win it. Liz Truss (PA) She will say that Ukrainian military advances had been in part facilitated by military aid and humanitarian assistance by the international community, as well as the impact of sanctions on Russia. Ms Truss will say sanctions should be maintained and request a full meeting of leaders from the NATO military alliance in the coming days. The overwhelming international support for Ukraines struggle stands in stark opposition to the isolation of Russia on the international stage, she is expected to say. Russian star Alla Pugacheva is in Israel after criticising war Monday 10 October 2022 23:00 , Lamiat Sabin Legendary Russian pop star Alla Pugacheva has revealed she is in Israel, three weeks after asking the Kremlin to declare her a foreign agent due to her public opposition to the war in Ukraine. Her husband, entertainer Maxim Galkin, had been given the label for his statements against the war. The queen of Soviet pop music denounced Vladimir Putins invasion for turning Russia into a global pariah. On Instagram, she posted a photo of herself in Israel and thanked her millions of fans for their love and support, for the ability to distinguish truth from lies. From the Holy Land, I pray for you and for peace, she said. I am happy! You can read the full story here by Liam James Russian pop superstar reveals she is in Israel after criticising Ukraine war Poland advises its citizens to leave Belarus Monday 10 October 2022 22:15 , Lamiat Sabin Polish citizens are being advised to leave Belarus, a country that is a close ally of Russia. The government of Poland says on its website: We recommend that Polish citizens staying on the territory of the Republic of Belarus leave its territory with available commercial and private means. Relations between Warsaw and Minsk deteriorated in 2021 when Poland accused its neighbour of orchestrating a migrant crisis on its border. They have become even more strained since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Blinken: World has to speak out against attacks on Ukraine Monday 10 October 2022 22:00 , Lamiat Sabin Russias attacks on Ukraine present a profound moral issue to the world, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. The international community has a responsibility to make clear that President Putins actions are completely unacceptable, he said in a statement. Now is the time to speak out in support of Ukraine; it is not the time for abstentions, placating words, or equivocations under claims of neutrality. The core principles of the UN Charter are at stake. Zelensky tells Ukraine: World is with us after missile attacks Monday 10 October 2022 21:43 , Lamiat Sabin Volodymyr Zelensky has told Ukrainians that the world is with us in the fight against Russia after Ukraine came under widespread bombardment. At least 11 people were killed by Vladimir Putin's troops dropping missiles across the country, including Kyiv, on Monday. In his nightly address, Mr Zelensky said that Ukraine cannot be intimidated by terrorists. Volodymyr Zelensky condemned airstrikes as acts of terrorism (Office of the President of Ukraine/YouTube) The Ukrainian president said: Ukraine cannot be intimidated. It only brings more of us together. Ukraine cant be stopped. It only convinces us even more that terrorists should be brought down. The Russian army purposely struck these blows precisely during the morning rush hour. This is the typical tactic of terrorists. They wanted to instil more fear. Mr Zelensky also vowed that Ukraine will be rebuilt and that restoration work is currently underway across the country. Sweden wont share Nord Stream probe findings with Russia Monday 10 October 2022 21:30 , Lamiat Sabin Sweden said it wont share the findings of its crime scene investigation into the explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines with Russian authorities or Gazprom. An investigation of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Europe has found evidence of detonations, and prosecutors suspect that there had been sabotage when they were damaged in September. Last week Russian PM Mikhail Mishustin wrote to the Swedish government to demand that Russian authorities and Gazprom would be allowed to be involved in the investigation which Sweden denied. Swedish prime minister Magdalena Andersson [file photo] (Jessica Gow/Reuters) Now, his Swedish counterpart Magdalena Andersson said Sweden wont share the findings of the explosions, that took place in the Swedish economic zone, with Russian authorities. In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case, she told reporters. However, Andersson said Sweden had no power to stop Russian vessels from visiting the sites of the explosions now that the crime scene investigation has concluded. The Swedish economic zone is not a territory that Sweden disposes of. We have lifted the cordons now and then it is also possible for other ships to stay in the area, that is how the rules work, she said. Germany to pay for December gas for citizens and some firms Monday 10 October 2022 20:45 , Lamiat Sabin Germany is to pay the December gas bills of its citizens and many businesses to help shoulder the burden of the energy crisis fuelled by Russias war in Ukraine. Berlin has allocated up to 200bn (175.5bn) for a defensive shield to ease the financial strain. Chancellor Olaf Scholzs government announced that it would work very quickly on implementing a two-stage plan to pay the cost of December gas bills for households and small and medium-sized businesses. You can read the full story here by Andy Gregory Germany to pay December gas bills for households and businesses US committed to holding Russia accountable for war crimes' Monday 10 October 2022 20:00 , Lamiat Sabin Volodymyr Zelensky said he spoke to Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine, following Russian air strikes across his country today. The Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram: The United States condemns Russias attacks on the infrastructure facilities of Ukraine and is committed to holding Russia accountable for war crimes and atrocities committed in our country. Thank you for your support! It comes after Ms Brink tweeted that American staff at the US embassy were safe. Our @USEmbassyKyiv team is safe after another wave of Russian strikes on civilian sites. Grateful to those responding and working to keep us safe, and heartbroken for those hurt, here and across Ukraine. Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) October 10, 2022 She added: Grateful to those responding and working to keep us safe, and heartbroken for those hurt, here and across Ukraine. Biden: Airstrikes demonstrate utter brutality of Putins war Monday 10 October 2022 19:15 , Lamiat Sabin Joe Biden said Russias missile strikes demonstrated the utter brutality of Vladimir Putins war on Ukraine. The US president said in a statement: The United States strongly condemns Russias missile strikes today across Ukraine, including in Kyiv. These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose. They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putins illegal war on the Ukrainian people. Mr biden said that the US will continue to impose costs on Russia for the airstrikes. Russia kills at least 11 on one day including cyber police head Monday 10 October 2022 18:30 , Lamiat Sabin Russias widespread bombardment of Ukraine has killed at least 11 and injured 87 people today, according to reports. Update: 11 killed, 87 injured by Russias mass strike on Ukraine on Oct. 10. National Police Chief Ihor Klymenko said that 41-year-old head of Cyber Police Department Yurii Zaskoka was among those killed in Kyiv on Oct. 10. Ukrainian State Emergency Service via Getty Images pic.twitter.com/JUpx2YcoGH The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) October 10, 2022 Among those killed was Cyber Police Department head Yurii Zaskoka, who was 41, the Kyiv Independent writes. Mr Zaskoka was driving to work when he died according to Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian government, who described him as a great person. Today's strike on Kyiv took the life of Yurii Zaskoka, 41 - head of Cyber Security department in Kyiv National Police. I knew him, he was a great person, professional and patriot. Yurii was driving to work when Russia killed him. Condolences to his family. pic.twitter.com/3W19vDTk2p Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) October 10, 2022 Watch: Pedestrian narrowly avoids injury as Kyiv bridge hit by missile Monday 10 October 2022 17:45 , Liam James A clip taken earlier today shows a pedestrian straying near to the path of a Russian missile fired on a footbridge in Kyiv. Several civilian sites in the Ukrainian capital were hit, causing at least eight deaths, in the first air strikes on the city for months. Truss condemns appaling civilian attacks in Zelensky call Monday 10 October 2022 16:29 , Liam James Liz Truss strongly condemned Vladimir Putins appalling attacks on civilian areas in her call with Volodymyr Zelensky, a spokesman for the British leader said. Downing Street said: The prime minister said that these are a sign of Ukrainian success and increasing desperation by Putin in response. The prime minister stressed that the UK stands wholeheartedly behind President Zelensky and Ukraine. Putins destructive rhetoric and behaviour will not diminish our resolve. The leaders welcomed the deliveries of British military aid which continue to arrive in Ukraine. The spokesman said Ms Truss and Mr Zelensky looked ahead to tomorrows virtual meeting of G7 leaders, which the Ukrainian president will join. Zelensky and Truss call after Russian strikes Monday 10 October 2022 16:06 , Liam James Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Liz Truss following the wave of Russian air strikes on Kyiv and other cities. Mr Zelensky said Ukraine counts on the UKs leadership in consolidating international political and defence support for Ukraine, in particular regarding the protection of our skies and also the further isolation of Russia. Ms Truss and fellow leaders of G7 nations are expected to hold crisis talks on Tuesday with Mr Zelensky. The latest round of strikes, made in response to the bombing of a key Russian bridge, was Moscows most widespread since the early days of the war, hitting cities that had been free of conflict for months. Putin should completely dismantle Ukraines political regime, says former Russian PM Medvedev Monday 10 October 2022 15:33 , Liam James Vladimir Putin should completely dismantle Volodmyr Zelenskys political regime in Ukraine, Russias former president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed (Andy Gregory writes). Mr Medvedev, who is now the deputy leader of Russias security council, was among hawkish figures in Moscow lauding the devastation wrought by a series of Russian air strikes in Ukraine, gloating that the first episode has been played and warning that more was to follow. Calling on the Russian president to once again escalate his war on Ukraine, six months after his troops were forced to retreat from Kyiv and narrow their focus to the east, Mr Medvedev claimed that Russia should aim for the complete dismantling of Ukraines political regime. Putin should completely dismantle Ukraines political regime, says Medvedev Russian pop star who denounced war says she is in Israel Monday 10 October 2022 15:21 , Liam James Alla Pugacheva, the queen of Soviet pop music, said she was in Israel, three weeks after denouncing Vladimir Putins war in Ukraine for turning Russia into a global pariah. I thank my multi-million army of fans for their love and support, for the ability to distinguish truth from lies, Ms Pugacheva, 73, perhaps Russias most famous woman, said on Instagram. From the Holy Land, I pray for you and for peace, she said. I am happy! Ms Pugacheva is known across Russian generations for hits such as the 1982 song Million Scarlet Roses and the 1978 film The Woman who Sings. Ms Pugacheva said last month that the war was killing soldiers for illusory aims and burdening ordinary people. Pugacheva with Putin at the Kremlin in 2014 (AP) Pictures show Ukraine in flames after Russian strikes Monday 10 October 2022 15:10 , Liam James More pictures coming out of Ukraine showing the chaos caused by Russias widespread barrage of missile strikes this morning. The below photographs were taken in Kyiv, Lviv and Dnipro. Firefighters try to extinguish a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv (AP) Investigators examine a crater following a missile strike in Dnipro (AFP/Getty) Smoke rises over Lviv after Russian missile strikes (Reuters) Red Cross halts Ukraine work over safety fears Monday 10 October 2022 14:55 , Liam James The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and at least one other aid group paused their field work in Ukraine for security reasons on Monday after Russia fired missiles at cities across Ukraine. Russia fired on cities across the country, striking Kyiv with an intensity not seen since Russian forces sought to capture the capital early in the more than seven-month war. The ICRC has some 700 staff working at 10 locations across the country and delivers aid and medicine, including to the millions of people displaced by the ongoing conflict. The Norwegian Refugee Council also said that it had halted its aid operations in Ukraine until it is safe to resume. US state department tweets support for Ukraine Monday 10 October 2022 14:43 , Liam James The US Department of State has tweeted its support for Ukraine after a series of Russian missile attacks struck cities across the country. While many of Ukraines western allies have condemned Russia for the attacks on civilian space, little response has come out of Washington, where it is nearing mid-morning. Our hearts are with the people of Ukraine on this awful day. Slava Ukraini https://t.co/mNqeBh3hnI Department of State (@StateDept) October 10, 2022 Human rights award for detained Russian opposition figure Monday 10 October 2022 14:32 , Liam James The Council of Europe awarded detained Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza the Vaclav Havel Human Rights prize on Monday for what it called his bravery in standing up to Russias leaders. Mr Kara-Murza, who holds both British and Russian citizenship and was a pallbearer at the 2018 funeral of US senator John McCain, worked as a close aide to opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in central Moscow in 2015. He is now in pre-trial detention on suspicion of spreading false information about the armed forces under new laws passed eight days after the invasion of Ukraine began. His case was heard at a Moscow court today. It takes incredible courage in todays Russia to stand against the power in place, Tiny Kox, president of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe said. Today, Kara-Murza is showing this courage, from his prison cell. Kara-Murza sits on a bench inside a defendants cage during a hearing at the Basmanny court in Moscow today (AFP/Getty) Ukraine says UK offered support after Russian blitz' Monday 10 October 2022 14:21 , Liam James Britain has pledged unwavering support to Kyiv after a series of Russian air strikes brought the conflict back into parts of Ukraine that had enjoyed relative peace for months, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Mr Kuleba invoked the blitz of UK cities by the Nazis as he said he urged James Cleverly, his British counterpart for military supplies to defend against aerial attacks. .@JamesCleverly assured me the U.K. will strengthen its unwavering support. I stressed we need air defense systems; Russia must be recognized a terrorist state. Just like the U.K. withstood the Nazi Blitz, Ukraine will withstand Russias missile blitz. Nothing will break us down. Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) October 10, 2022 Russian failure in Ukraine a myth, says Putin party member Monday 10 October 2022 14:14 , Liam James It is a myth that Russia is losing its war in Ukraine, a member of the Duma for Vladimir Putins United Russia party and state television presenter has claimed. Evgeny Popov also blamed Ukrainian anti-missile systems for the striking of civilian targets including a childrens playground in a series of apparent missile attacks on the countrys cities. When it was was put to him that the strikes were a mark of frustration in Moscow because Russia is losing the war, he told BBC Radio 4s World At One programme: Its a myth, were not losing everything. We are in the process of our special military operation. Asked about the targeting of civilian infrastructure, Mr Popov said: If you see some missiles and blows on children grounds, it was a result of the work of anti-missile system, Ukrainian system. All our missiles was targeted [at] energy infrastructure, communication centres and military headquarters. Were not going to attack civilians in Ukraine, were not going to attack people. Were going to finish this war. Were going to protect people in Russia. India deeply concerned after Russian strikes Monday 10 October 2022 13:56 , Liam James India is deeply concerned at the escalation of conflict in Ukraine, and willing to support all attempts at de-escalation, a spokesperson for the countrys foreign ministry said. Russia fired missiles at cities across Ukraine during rush hour this morning, killing civilians and knocking out power and heat, in what Vladimir Putin declared to be revenge for Ukrainian attacks including on a bridge to Crimea. We reiterate that escalation of hostilities is in no ones interest. We urge immediate cessation of hostilities and the urgent return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue, foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said. India and China, both countries friendly to Mr Putins regime, last month joined in a call for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. China earlier today called for de-escalation following the strikes. Death toll rises to 11 in Russian strikes Monday 10 October 2022 13:51 , Liam James At least 11 people were killed and 64 wounded in Russian missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday, Ukraines State Emergency Service said. It said four regions had no electricity following the attacks Lviv, Poltava, Sumy and Ternopil and that the electricity supply had been partially disrupted in other parts of the country. UK accuses Russia of war crimes after missile strikes on Ukrainian cities Monday 10 October 2022 13:32 , Andy Gregory The UKs security minister Tom Tugendhat has accused Russia of war crimes after a series of missile strikes on civilian areas of cities across Ukraine today. Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has more details: UK accuses Russia of war crimes after missile strikes on Ukrainian cities Pictures show devastation wrought by Russian strikes on Kyiv Monday 10 October 2022 13:27 , Andy Gregory Here are some images from Kyiv, where Russia has again battered civilian targets, killing at least six people as air raid sirens sounded repeatedly across the capital. Blasts struck the capitals Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Other strikes hit near the government quarter in the symbolic heart of the capital, where parliament and other major landmarks are located. A glass tower housing offices was significantly damaged, with most of its windows blown out. Residents were seen on the streets with blood on their clothes and hands, with some treated by medics in the street and others wearing bandages. Smoke rises over Kyiv after the missile strikes (REUTERS) (EPA) (SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images) (AFP via Getty Images) (REUTERS) Top Russian official says Moscow should try to oust Zelenskys government Monday 10 October 2022 13:16 , Andy Gregory Moscow should try to oust Volodymyr Zelenskys government, the deputy leader of Russias security council has said. Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow, along with protecting its people and borders, should aim for the complete dismantling of Ukraines political regime. He claimed that the Ukrainian state in its current configuration with the Nazi political regime will continue to pose a permanent, direct and clear threat to Russia. Putin may discuss negotiations in talks with Erdogan, Kremlin says Monday 10 October 2022 13:11 , Andy Gregory Vladimir Putin may meet Turkeys president Tayyip Erdogan this week to discuss a proposal to host talks between Russia and the West on Ukraine, the Kremlin has said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia had not received any signals about the prospect of negotiations with the West in Turkey but did not rule out that Mr Putin could discuss this with Mr Erdogan. Both presidents are expected to visit Kazakhstan this week. Turkey, which has close relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, has been seen as a potential mediator in the conflict, and in July helped broker a deal to export Ukrainian grain blockaded in Black Sea ports. Mr Erdogan has urged Mr Putin to reduce tensions and in September called on Moscow to give peace negotiations another chance. The White House said on Sunday that both sides needed to find a way to negotiate an end to the war. (AP) Russia has been planning bombardment since start of October, says Ukraine Monday 10 October 2022 13:04 , Andy Gregory Russia has been planning todays missile strikes on Ukrainian cities since the start of October, Ukrainian military intelligence has alleged. According to the military intelligence of Ukraine, the Russian occupying forces received instructions from the Kremlin to prepare massive missile strikes on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine on October 2 and 3, the intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defence ministry said in a statement. The military units of the strategic and long-range aviation received orders to prepare for the task of massive missile attacks. The objects of critical civil infrastructure and the central areas of densely populated Ukrainian cities were identified as targets. Moldova demands explanation after Russian rockets 'fired over its airspace Monday 10 October 2022 12:57 , Andy Gregory Moldovas deputy prime minister Nicu Popescu alleges that he has summed Russias ambassador after three cruise missiles launched from Russian ships in the Black Sea crossed Moldovas airspace en route to Ukraine. ALONA MAZURENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 19:10 On 11 October, Ukrainian defenders repelled six Russian attacks, and conducted successful strikes on an occupation command post; 11 concentrations of Russian personnel, weapons and military equipment; and four ammunition depots. Source: General Staff Quote: "During the day, the Armed Forces of Ukraine repelled Russian attacks near the cities and towns of Mykolaivka, Soledar, Bakhmutske, Bakhmut, Maiorsk and Pervomaiske. Ukrainian aircraft carried out two strikes during the day hitting areas of concentrations of weapons and military equipment of the occupiers. Ukraines Rocket Forces and Artillery struck a Russian command post, nine areas where Russian military personnel, weapons and equipment were concentrated, five anti-aircraft defence systems and four ammunition storage points. Details: Areas where Russian military personnel, weapons and equipment were concentrated in Kherson Oblast have been struck by Ukrainian forces. According to available information, up to a hundred occupiers were killed and about thirty pieces of weapons and military equipment were destroyed. A S-300 anti-aircraft defence system, up to 10 units of military equipment and about 60 occupiers were hit in Zaporizhzhia Oblast during the previous days. The mobilisation and transfer of Russian reserves to Ukraine will not result in Russia overcoming the resistance of our countrys defence. Meanwhile, riots among the mobilised continue in Russia. At one of the training grounds of the Eastern Military District, due to the low level of provisions, non-compliance with sanitary standards, inadequate food and lack of normal living conditions, more than a hundred mobilised people refused to comply with any orders given by the command and left the barracks. Over the course of the past 24 hours, Russian forces have carried out more than 30 missile strikes and seven airstrikes, as well as around 25 attacks using multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS). Story continues [Ukrainian] air defence units destroyed 32 [Russian] air targets on different fronts, including 21 cruise missiles and 11 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Infrastructure in more than 10 cities, towns and villages sustained damage as a result of the mass missile strike [on 11 October], including in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts. At night, Russians used eight Iranian-made drones in an attempt to damage critical infrastructure facilities in Mykolaiv Oblast. All these drones were destroyed by air defence forces. Russians used mortars, as well as tubed and rocket artillery, to fire on the Sivernshchyna, Slobozhanshchyna, Kramatorsk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Novopavlivka, Zaporizhzhia and Pivdennyi Buh fronts. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! IRYNA BALACHUK TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 08:42 The Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed three Russian anti-aircraft missile systems, an ammunition dump and a Su-25 jet in Luhansk Oblast. Source: Serhii Haidai, Head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote from Haidai: "Further away from the front, where the aircraft of Ukraines defence forces [collective name for all Ukrainian military formations involved in the ongoing combat in this country - ed.] carried out 6 airstrikes on 10 October, 4 concentrations of weapons and military equipment and 2 enemy anti-aircraft missile systems have been struck. In addition, air defence units destroyed an enemy Su-25 jet." Details: Ukraines Rocket Forces and Artillery destroyed another S-300 anti-aircraft missile system and a Russian ammunition dump. Ukraines defenders struck an enemy command post and four concentrations of manpower, weapons and military equipment. Ukraines forces repelled Russian attacks in the vicinity of Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Maiorsk, Soledar and Pervomaiske. Meanwhile, Haidai said that the Russian occupiers are using the search for Ukrainian saboteurs as a cover-up to search for their own deserters. The Head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration also said that hospitals in Luhansk Oblast are overflowing with Russian occupiers; they are even being hospitalised in childrens hospitals, right next to the children. Some children were discharged before the completion of a full course of treatment due to a lack of spaces in hospitals. A hospital in Antratsyt in particular is overflowing with Russian soldiers. Haidai said that there is unrest among Ukrainian collaborators. According to his information, the majority of Ukrainian separatists who agreed to work with the Russians in the Troitske district have taken unpaid leave and are attempting to evacuate further away from the front and, where possible, to Russia. Story continues Russian occupying forces fired on several cities, towns and villages on 11 October using various types of weapons. In particular, on the Slobozhanshchyna front they attacked Ivashky, Strilecha, Hurivka, Kamianka, Dvorichna, Stelmakhivka, Borshchova, Sotnytskyi Kozachok, Huriv Kozachok, Kozacha Lopan, Vilkhuvatka and Chuhunivka. On the Kramatorsk front: Bilohorivka, Hrekivka, Novoiehorivka, Raihorodok, Pershotravneve, Novoliubivka, Makiivka, Nove, Zarichne, Terny, Serebrianka and Hryhorivka. On the Bakhmut front: Siversk, Soledar, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Maiorsk, Kurdiumivka, New-York, Krasna Hora, Chasiv Yar, Yakovlivka, Zelenopillia and Odradivka. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! VALENTYNA ROMANENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 13:47 On Tuesday, 11 October, during a 5-hour air raid, Ukraines Armed Forces shot down several Russian missiles near Kyiv. Source: The Mayor of Kyiv, Vitalii Klychko, on air during the joint national 24/7 newscast on Tuesday. Quote: "Thanks to our Armed Forces, several missiles were shot down on their approach to Kyiv. There were no explosions in the capital of Ukraine. Therefore, I can say that today started normally, without incident". Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! ALONA MAZURENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 22:11 Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that in two days, the anti-aircraft missile division shot down 9 of the 11 Shahed-136 UAVs with complexes provided by Poland. Source: Zaluzhnyi, on Facebook Quote from Zaluzhnyi: "In two days, sharp calculations of the anti-aircraft missile division led to the downing of 9 out of 11 Shahed-136 UAVs. This is the result of high-quality training of our anti-aircraft gunners, which was conducted by our Polish brothers." It was Poland that provided the complexes with which the Ukrainians shot down Iranian drones launched by the Russians. Details: Zaluzhnyi thanked the Polish brothers for their help. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! PRAGUE (AP) Ukrainians rallied Tuesday in the Czech capital of Prague for the second straight evening to condemn this weeks barrage of Russian missile strikes against cities across Ukraine and to demand more weapons from the West to protect their nation. The protesters held blue-and-yellow crosses with the names of the cities hit by the Russian missiles. Ukraine needs air defenses to be able to prevent the massacres of the civilian population and destruction of our cities, Anastasiia Sihnaievska told the crowd. We are protecting our right to live, said Sihnaievska, who fled her town of Zhytomyr because of the Russian invasion. People chanted Russias terrorist! and More weapons for Ukraine! They unveiled a giant Ukrainian flag and displayed banners that read Air defense systems for Ukraine, We will not forget, We will not forgive, or Stop bombing Ukraine. Its great that Europe supports us but we need more help, said the 21-year-old Ivanna Mykuliak. A student of physics in Odesa, she came to the Czech Republic to work to help support her family in Ukraine. Protesters who were not Ukrainian also joined the rally. Ukraine is fighting for us, said Julie Levkova, a Czech who helped organize the protest. I want to use all possibilities I have here and all my energy to fight for Ukraine in the Czech Republic. A similar rally took place in Romanias capital of Bucharest on Monday. On Tuesday, the presidents of 10 European nations Czechia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Montenegro said the deadly Russian missile strikes this week against civilians in Ukraine constitute war crimes under international law. On behalf of our states, we demand that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets, they said in a statement. We will not cease our efforts to bring to court people responsible of yesterdays crimes. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine Companies like Instagram are getting heavily fined (and dragged through the publicity coals) over how they have mishandled children's privacy on their platforms. But if a recent report from Ofcom is accurate, maybe they are getting off lightly. The U.K. media watchdog is publishing research today that found that one-third of all children between the ages of 8 and 17 are using social media with falsified adult ages, based mainly on them signing up with a fake date of birth. It also noted that social media use by these younger consumers is extensive: of those between 8 and 17 years of age using social media, some 77% are using services on one of the larger platforms under their own profile; 60% of those in the younger bracket of that group, aged 8 to 12, have accounts under their own profiles (others use their parents' it seems). Up to half of those underage signed up on their own, and up to two-thirds were aided by a parent or guardian. The three pieces of research, commissioned by Ofcom from three separate organizations -- Yonder Consulting, Revealing Reality, and the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum -- are coming out ahead of the U.K. pushing forward on the Online Safety Bill. Years in the making (and still being altered, seemingly, with each changing political tide in country), Ofcom expects for the bill to be ratified finally in early 2023. But the mandate of the bill is a tricky (if not potentially self-contradicting) one, aiming to both "make the UK the safest place in the world to be online" while also "defending free expression." In that regard, the research Ofcom is publishing could be viewed as a cautionary signal of what not to overlook, and what could easily spill into mismanagement if not handled correctly, regardless of which platform those younger users are using at the moment. But it also highlights the idea of taking different approaches to different kinds of over-18 content. Ofcom notes that even within the area of children and digital content, there seems to be a fundamental gray area as far as adults' perceptions are concerned: some content marked for "adults" such as social media and gaming is relatively "less risky" than other adult content like gambling and pornography, which are always inappropriate for underage users. Story continues The former is more likely to rely on simple verifications (which are easy to skirt around). Parents and children, the research found, were more inclined to favor "hard identifiers" like identification verification for the latter sites that focus on gambling, porn, and other materials already illegal for minors. The choices that parents are making to help their younger ones skirt around age requirements also highlight just how entangled digital platforms have become in the lives of their young people, and how good intentions might land in the wrong way. Ofcom said that parents noted that in cases where they viewed content as "less risky" -- such as on social media or gaming platforms -- they were balancing keeping children safe with both the peer pressure their children faced (not wanting to feel left out) and the idea that as they grew older, they wanted them to learn how to manage risks themselves. But that is not to say that social media is always less risky: the recent court case in the U.K. investigating the death of a teenaged girl found that self-harm and suicide content the girl found and browsed on Instagram and Pinterest were factors in her death. That highlights how sites like these police the content (or don't, as the case may be) that appears on their platforms, and what approaches they take to steer users away from, while continuing to allow it to be posted for others to see. And given that the proportion of children lying about their age could actually be higher than one-third; and that children who lie about their age at 8 to get online are still only 13 five years later, aging out of the problem disconcertingly can take years. All of this means that the aim of keeping freedom of expression intact may well increasingly be put to the test. Ofcom notes that it's coming up to its first full year of regulation of video sharing platforms. Its first report will focus "on the measures that platforms have in place to protect users, including children, from harmful material and set out our strategy for the year ahead." Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya speaks during a United Nations General Assembly special session at the United Nations headquarters on October 10, 2022 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images The UN General Assembly on Monday greeted Ukraine's delegate with applause, according to CNN. The body met Russia's ambassador with silence. The special session came just hours after Russia launched a barrage of attacks across Ukraine. The United Nations General Assembly gathered for an emergency session on Monday just hours after Russia launched a deadly barrage of missiles across Ukraine, in a tense proxy battle between the two country's delegates amid the ongoing war. The special session was scheduled ahead of Russia's Monday attack, but several countries used the meeting as a platform to voice outrage over the bombardment, which killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more, according to Ukrainian officials. Monday's meeting comes as the body prepares for a vote later this week on Russia's recent annexation of partially-occupied territories in Ukraine, including the Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions. But the initial gathering offered clear insight into how the assembly is likely to vote, according to CNN, which reported that Ukraine's UN ambassador was greeted with applause, while Russia's ambassador faced silence. On Monday, The General Assembly handily vetoed Russia's attempt to conduct the annexation vote via secret ballot, according to the outlet. One-hundred-and-seven countries voted in favor of holding a public vote on the matter, while thirteen nations opted for a secret ballot, according to Reuters. Thirty-nine countries abstained and the remaining countries, including Russia and China, did not vote, the outlet reported. Ukraine's delegate, Sergiy Kyslytsya delivered emotional opening statements opposing Russia's strikes, according to The New York Times. "A trail of blood is left behind the Russian delegation when it enters the General Assembly," he said, "and the hall is filled up with the smell of smoldering human flesh." Kyslytsya said Russia had already killed members of his family and expressed that "we see no end to that cruelty," according to CNN. Russia's UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, meanwhile, suggested that other nations were ganging up on Moscow, the outlet reported, and continued to defend his country's annexations. Read the original article on Business Insider A view of the UN General Assembly on October 10, 2022 UN Web TV Russia wanted a UN vote over whether to condemn its actions in Ukraine to be a secret ballot. The UN roundly rejected that on Monday, and the vote is set to be held in public later this week. A secret vote may have made some Russian allies more likely to vote to support it, experts told Insider. The United Nations rejected Russian efforts to make a vote over condemning Russia's attempted annexation of occupied parts of Ukraine into a secret ballot. The UN General Assembly held an emergency special session on Monday over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, where it rejected a proposal supported by Russia for the vote to be held in private, where how each country voted would stay secret. The vote is over a draft resolution that would condemn Russia's "attempted illegal annexation" of four regions of Ukraine, where sham referendums were held in September on the question of those regions joining Russia. The resolution would demand that Russia "immediately and unconditionally" drop the supposed annexations and withdraw from Ukraine immediately, according to The Associated Press. A majority of member countries voted on Monday that the vote should be held in public. 107 countries said it should be public, 13 said it should be private, and 39 abstained, Reuters reported. China and Russia did not vote. The vote is now set to take place in public on Wednesday or Thursday, according to Reuters. Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia had argued that the vote should be a secret one. He said Western lobbying would mean "it may be very difficult if positions are expressed publicly," per a letter seen by Reuters. Dr Patrick Butchard, a senior lecturer in international law at the UK's Edge Hill University, told Insider that it wasn't clear which countries Nebenzia felt would be affected, but that a secret ballot "would have added an element of ambiguity" to the proceedings. "Russian diplomacy often uses this sort of ambiguity to support its wider narratives at the UN," said Butchard, who specializes in UN developments. Story continues "Some states may have secretly voted to support Russia where they have not been so explicitly more recently," he said. He added that it could also have worked the other way around, with countries that Russia thinks are its allies voting to condemn it. Dr Precious Chatterje-Doody, a lecturer in politics and international studies at the UK's Open University, agreed that a secret vote may have emboldened some countries both for or against Russia. But she said Russia would have anticipated the failure of its secrecy request, "knowing they can use it to pretend that the UN is biased against Russia." She was scathing about Russia's request. "Russia has forged ahead with coercive and manipulated sham referenda in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine," she told Insider. "It's a bit rich to then argue that it's unfair for the UN to vote on the legality of that in the open." Unlike Security Council votes, where Russia has a veto, General Assembly votes are not legally binding. That means that, if the resolution passes, Russia will not be forced to abandon its annexation efforts by the UN. Nebenzia claimed that this violated procedural rules and was an "unprecedented manipulation." But such a process would actually be a very unusual move at the UN, where most votes are held in public. Russia in September vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have been legally binding declaring the claimed annexations in Ukraine illegal, per the AP. The resolution was drafted before Russia's bombardment on Monday of numerous cities and regions of Ukraine, including some that had not been attacked in months. But Russia's new escalation was clearly top of mind during the UN debate. Ukrainian Ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya then said that Russia "has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways," the AP reported. Turkey's UN representative Feridun Sinirlioglu said the attacks were "deeply worrying and unacceptable," per the AP. Read the original article on Business Insider Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri is offering free vasectomies to uninsured patients in Springfield on Nov. 4 and in Joplin on Nov. 5. Vasectomy appointments will be offered from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. To be eligible, patients must complete a pre-screening exam by Nov. 3. They can schedule an appointment by calling 800-230-7526. After the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade in June, where Missouri banned abortions, PPSLR saw demand for male sterilization procedures increase. "Since the Dobbs decision we have seen an increasing number of male-bodied people coming and requesting this service," Dr. Margaret Baum said. "We performed 142 vasectomies in 2021, already this year we've done close to 200 in 2022, and the year's not out yet." More:Missouri Planned Parenthood announces plans for mobile abortion clinic in southern Illinois Baum noted that patients from across the state have been traveling to the clinic in St. Louis. In May 2022, she began to provide vasectomies at the Springfield Planned Parenthood health center, in an effort to allow more people who were interested to access the procedure. Baum also performs female sterilization procedures, as well. "We offer both sterilization for those with female bodies those with uteruses, cervixes and tubes and those with male bodies testes and vas deferens," Baum said. "It's just really important that these services are offered without judgement, without stigma, so that people who are informed about the procedure can make a good decision, and decide if it's the right thing for them, their relationship and their family." Planned Parenthood's upcoming Rolla Health Center will also eventually offer vasectomies. Alongside Iowa-based physician Dr. Esgar Guarin, who specializes in non-scalpel/no-needle vasectomy techniques, Planned Parenthood will offer 60 free vasectomy procedures to people in St. Louis, Springfield and Joplin. Story continues The vasectomies will be performed in Guarin's mobile clinic as well as in the health centers. "We want this procedure to be accessible for anyone who is asking for it and is an acceptable surgical candidate," Baum said. While female sterilization is more common, research indicates that vasectomies are safer and cheaper. "I think it's really important for people to understand that there's a big difference between female sterilization and a vasectomy, in terms of cost, in terms of risk, in terms of operating time, in terms of where it can be done," Baum said. "A vasectomy is a 15 to 20-minute outpatient procedure done under local anesthetic. You can drive yourself there, you can drive yourself home, and two days off of work and you're good to go. The cost out of pocket is around $800. "A female sterilization, which is a great procedure, has to be done in a hospital setting, under general anesthesia with entry into the abdominal cavity. (It requires) a couple weeks off work, and, certainly, much higher cost in terms of all the hospital and anesthesia and everything," Baum said. "They're both great procedures, but I think it's really exciting to see so much interest in vasectomies." More:New MSU certificate helps students better understand link between mental health, beliefs Susan Szuch is the health and public policy reporter for the Springfield News-Leader. Follow her on Twitter @szuchsm. Story idea? Email her at sszuch@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Free vasectomies in Springfield, Joplin for uninsured patients College students organized a protest in response to their universitys nomination of a sole finalist for president of the school. The University of Florida announced on October 6 that Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb, was unanimously nominated to be the only contender to serve as the 13th president of the public institution. Sasse, who has served the state of Nebraska since 2015, is expected to resign his Senate seat in December and start his new job at the university in February, should the nomination go through. SASSE EXPECTED TO RESIGN SENATE SEAT, LIKELY TO BE NEXT UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA PRESIDENT He was on campus on October 10 for multiple public forums with students, faculty, and staff. Sasse spoke at Emerson Alumni Hall at 2:30 PM during a Q&A session for students. Students were given the opportunity to submit questions before the event. Several student organizations gathered outside the building to protest the nomination, including the UF Young Democratic Socialists of America, UF Graduate Assistants United,UF Communists and UF College Democrats. Students expressed their concerns with Fox News Digital. University of Florida students protested the nomination of a Republican senator to be their school's new president. "Ben Sasse is on the record anti-gay marriage, anti-transgender people and anti-abortion. He poses a threat to all students that may be queer or non-men," one student said. "I'm worried that it might be even harder for students to get an abortion." Another student said "his views are very right-wing, really far right," adding that he is "not a high character individual." "I think that he lacks the experience to lead a university as big and prestigious as the University of Florida," one student said. Other students said his stances on climate change and the overturning of Roe v. Wade concerned them, as well as his ability to "unite" the university population. The protest started outside, but students gradually made their way inside the building and stood outside the room where Sasse was speaking. Their chants of "Ben Sasse has got to go" could be heard from inside the room. Story continues AS GOP RALLIES BEHIND HERSCHEL WALKER, BACKERS SAY ABORTION ALLEGATION DOESN'T MATTER Students said their school spirit would decrease if Sasse were to become president of the university. One student told Fox News Digital, "If this goes through, I'm not going to be proud to be a Gator. And I'm worried that this might affect our rankings." Another student said she has been "embarrassed to be a Florida Gator" because "it's been clear for a while now that Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature want to destroy public education." After Sasse finished speaking and exited the space, students swarmed the empty room and stood up on the stage continuing their chants. Leaders of the event said they wanted to "make his life miserable." At one point, a student called him a "homophobic piece of sh**." Students swarmed the room where Sasse was speaking after he left the area, jumping on the stage and continuing their chants. Students argued the campus dynamic would change if Sasse were to become president. "I worry very much about the most marginalized on campus and whether or not they'll feel like UF is still a safe space for them." Another student echoed the same concerns. "I feel that a lot of marginalized groups on campus will feel less safe and less secure," she said. However, one student admitted he was "able to be won over" saying he was at the event "to see what he has to say." Multiple student groups organized the protest outside the building where Sasse was participating in a Q&A session with students. Shortly after the event, UF Graduate Assistants United tweeted a video of what appears to be Sasse leaving the building via a police car. The organization tweeted, "This is what a coward looks like. This will be your life every day if you accept a position here." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Sasse voted to impeach former president Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial in 2021. Prior to serving in the Senate, Sasse spent five years as president of Midland University and taught at the University of Texas at Austin. According to statement released by the University of Florida, "the Committees recommendation will now go before the University of Florida Board of Trustees for its consideration at a meeting scheduled for November 1, 2022." Fox News reached out to Sasse's office for comment, but has not heard back yet. Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Focus Features You wouldn't necessarily expect a movie like TAR to have what may be the most shockingly funny ending of the year. In the film, written and directed by Todd Field, Cate Blanchett plays a prestigious classical music conductor named Lydia Tar, whose downfall unfolds over the course of the nearly two-hour-and-40-minute runtime. It's a movie crammed with weighty topics and references to the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Mahler, and Jacqueline du Pre. And yet somehow it all concludes with a dash of video game cosplay. You'll be confused. You'll be amused. And your mouth will be agape from the sheer audacity of it. (Warning: Spoilers follow for the ending of TAR.) By the films final moments, Lydia is mired in disgrace over a sexual harassment scandal. She loses her position as the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic after shes accused of grooming and sexual harassment by a woman who committed suicide. Courtesy of Focus Features Field doesnt dwell on Lydia's quote-unquote cancellation, but its brutal and public. She storms the stage during a performance of Mahler's Fifth, the symphony for which she had been preparing, tackling the conductor in her place. Her wife (Nina Hoss) wont let her see their child, and she slinks back to her outer-borough origins, where her family knows her as Linda rather than Lydia. But Lydia isnt done conducting. She takes a gig in an unidentified Southeast Asian countrythe sequences were filmed in Thailandwhere her sparse accommodations are far from the Placido Domingo suite where she used to stay in New York. She treats the job seriously, asking her instrumentalists to analyze the piece they are playing and studying the score in an outdoor cafe. And then she performs. In Tar, Cate Blanchett Is at the Peak of Her Powers as a Formidable Maestro As the musicians start to play the blandly bombastic tune, screens descend from the top of the theater, and a booming voiceover echoes. Fields camera pans over the crowd watching. They are all in cosplay, wearing headpieces and furry accessories. And then its over. Story continues Field never identifies exactly what is going on here on screen, but there is an explanation. This is a Monster Hunter concert. As in the role-playing video game Monster Hunter. You see, Lydia has fallen a long way from Mahler. Courtesy of Focus Features Lest you think this is an invention of TAR itself, the Monster Hunter orchestral performance is actually a very real phenomenon. According to the official website, the first one took place in 2009, and the tradition has grown into an annual affair since then. In footage of the 2021 concert you can see the slightly goofy pairing of people in tuxedos and formal wear seriously playing their instruments as the video cuts to images of elaborate pixelated creatures being pursued by their foes. It would be tempting to read this conclusion to TAR as just something of a sick joke on Lydias behalf. The movie began with her expounding in front of an audience of New Yorker readers, the kind of folks who could chuckle in recognition when she parrots her mentor Bernstein quoting the Talmud. Now shes in front of a group of people for whom her presence means nothing. They are there to hear the music, yes, but only as it exists in relation to something else, something which you can only imagine Lydia would have turned her nose up in her previous life. Its humiliating. And yet theres something to be said for her persistence, and Field leaves you to wonder whether its her ego that has brought her to this place, her financial situation, or maybe an emotion thats more sincere. When Lydia is back in New York at her childhood home, she pulls out an old tape of one of Bernsteins Young Peoples Concerts, educational programming he made to teach children about great composers. As Lydia watches her expression softens. Something in Bernsteins dialogue moves her, as she seems to recall the reason she began this career in the first place. Courtesy of Focus Features So you have to wonder, when shes back at the podium conducting the music of Monster Hunter: Is she there because she needs the attention that commanding an orchestra gives her? Or is it because she has the need to play music, whatever that music may be, even at her lowest state? Though Field offers no definitive reading, the answer is: Probably a little bit of both. But maybe what's most compelling about TAR's finale is that these are the questions were asking. Most debates about a persons cancellation revolve around what is justifiable punishment for horrible actions. Even if Field is sparing with the actual details of what went down, theres no doubt what Lydia did was awful and that her career was destroyed as a result. That much is decisive. What Field is more interested in plumbing is just who this person is and how she constructed an identity that made her believe she was invincible. Once that persona has been knocked down, who is she now? To the Monster Hunter fans, shes a nobody. To us? Well, thats more complicated. Once you're done guffawing and wrapping your head around what just happened, thats when the reckoning starts. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. BOURNE Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School received nearly $2.5 million as part of the Massachusetts Skills Grant Program. The news came Sept. 27 from Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, and Education Secretary James Peyser, who visited Westfield Technical Academy to make the announcement, according to a news release from Upper Cape Techs Superintendent Roger Forget. We are ecstatic, and a little overwhelmed, Forget said. What will $2.5 million buy? The money will go towards bolstering the environmental science and technology labs with the latest tools and equipment, giving students an edge in their learning and making sure they are well prepared to enter the workforce. Plans to host a vaccination clinic Friday at Upper Cape Regional Technical High School in Bourne were stopped by the state Department of Public Health. Tuesday. The clinic was scheduled for employees at the school. More: Here are ways Cape Cod schools are teaching students to combat changes to ocean, beaches New lab equipment will include microscopes, HAZMAT/oil spill simulators, sampling devices, field and marine access vehicles, cameras and weather stations. The environmental science industry is extremely diverse and in need of skilled workers in fields including wastewater, renewable energy, and aquaculture, to name a few, Forget said. Its especially relevant to the Cape and Islands, Forget said. Here on the Cape, we are so minded about good stewardship to our environment, and to the local economy and how that affects it." More: These new Cape teachers bucking trend of those leaving education Upper Cape Tech was one of 14 high schools in Massachusetts to receive money from the grant, each high school receiving between $1 million to $2.5 million to modernize labs and expand student enrollment in career education programs. The Skills Capital Grant Program was launched in 2015 to help vocational technical high schools and community colleges update antiquated equipment and technology. Upper Cape Tech has applied for other grants, and hopes those endeavors will be fruitful, too, Forget said. Gain access to premium Cape Cod Times content by subscribing. This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape tech school labs to get cameras, weather stations, microscopes WASHINGTON U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has tasked Army Materiel Command to take the lead in a comprehensive effort to bolster logistics and sustainment in the Indo-Pacific region, Gen. Edward Daly, the commands leader, told Defense News in an interview at the Association of the U.S. Armys annual exhibition. The secretary said in an Oct. 10 speech that the effort would include using experimentation, war games and exercises to bring together the logistics community with the commercial sector to look at our requirements and focus on the opportunities presented by autonomous distribution, energy efficient combat systems and data analytics. There are key differences to how the Army supports the force in Europe through logistics and sustainment, Daly said. In terms of how the service sets the theater in the Pacific in the future, everything is on the table, he said. We really have to look at it through a different lens and not just use the lessons for Europe to pull them over to the Pacific. Army pre-positioned stock will be different in the Pacific than in Europe. Floating pre-positioned stocks are more pronounced than ever before I think we will be focused on that, Daly said. The Army pre-positioned stock that is afloat, or APS Afloat, is maintained by Army Field Support Battalion-Charleston and is the only floating stockpile in the theater. There are four other land-based Army pre-positioned stock locations in the Indo-Pacific area of operation. Logistics, particularly contested logistics, will play a big role in upcoming exercises in the region, Daly said, adding that the Army has already trained on APS Afloat with the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. I think that brings a huge dimension, not just to have brick-and-mortar, on-the-ground stocks, but to have stocks afloat because that gives you flexibility based on access; you could demonstrate presence, Daly said. Given the size and scope, increasing the number of APS Afloat ships is always on the table, Daly added. But logistics and sustainment in the Pacific isnt just about pre-positioned stock, and Materiel Command will work to identify gaps when it comes to equipment, doctrine, organizational design and facilities, Daly explained. Story continues In a war game earlier this year, the Army learned it needed to better hone contested logistics plans and strategy, Gen. Charles Flynn, U.S. Army Pacific commander, told Defense News in a separate interview. And the Army as a whole acknowledges it wont be able to deploy from fort to port uncontested. The service, in a nine-page annex in its new multidomain operations doctrine, lays out the need to contend with that reality. The Army is also looking at such cutting-edge technology like 3D printing of warehousing and forward-operating bases, Daly said. These are premiere technological advances that could be leveraged in the Pacific as we move forward. WASHINGTON The U.S. Army plans to conduct two additional tests of its hypersonic missile before fielding it to the first unit by the end of fiscal 2023. The service delivered the first batterys worth of ground equipment of Dark Eagle, a hypersonic weapons capability, just over a year ago. It went to the I Corps 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. The Army is on track to deliver the actual hypersonic missiles to the unit by the end of FY23, Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, who runs the services Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, told Defense News in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Armys annual conference. Lockheed Martin is the weapons system integrator for the hypersonic capability, which will launch from a mobile truck. Now, the service, which is co-developing the hypersonic weapon with the Navy, is readying for the upcoming flight tests. Rasch would not disclose the timing of the tests, citing security reasons, but said the initial one will mark the first time the Army and Navy will shoot the full missile using the ground-support equipment. The soldiers who receive the capability will execute the second and last flight test ahead of fielding. The Army has spend more than a decade developing and testing a hypersonic capability. One of the earliest flight tests dates back to 2010, but the service then paused work on the effort, eventually reopening it about five years ago as part of a major modernization push. The Navy and Army had their first successful common hypersonic glide body test in early 2020 using old, borrowed booster stacks from the Missile Defense Agency. The hypersonic missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, and flew at hypersonic speed. It made its impact within 6 inches of the target. In fall 2021, during another test, the booster stack failed. That mission was considered incomplete. Story continues The Army has been in charge of developing the common hypersonic glide body, while the Navy has worked to develop a two-stage hypersonic missile booster stack. In June, Rasch said, the stack underwent a successful flight test. While the test was intended to validate the booster stack, the Army also attached a hypersonic glide body. We didnt complete full end-to-end, what I would call, success, Rasch said. Given the rarity of these events, we always have stretch learning goals. We would have loved to have seen the whole thing [work], he added. But quite frankly the primary risk area we were focused on was, we have confidence in the hyper[sonic] glide body, [now] we need to get confidence in this missile stack. The missile stacks performance was successful, Rasch noted. If we would have just declared that all we were going to do was just to shoot up a missile stack, it would have been 100% a success. Meanwhile, Dynetics, chosen in August 2019 to build the hypersonic glide body, recently built its first hypersonic glide body in its facilities and is on track to deliver a second one in the coming weeks, Rasch said. Leidos-owned Dynetics spent roughly a year learning how to make glide bodies from Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia representatives then spent about a year at Dynetics facility in Huntsville, Alabama, to ensure the company could build the weapon. Dynetics is on a good path to complete all hypersonic glide bodies needed to support the Army and Navys near-term needs, Rasch said. The U.S. Supreme Court is invalidating a lower appeals court decision regarding how rules for mail-in ballots had been applied in a Pennsylvania election. The decision Tuesday adds an element of uncertainty about voting procedures four weeks ahead of the states high-stakes elections for governor and U.S. Senate. Pennsylvanias top-ranking elections official says the decision is under review and that guidance to counties about how to handle such ballots will be updated if necessary. The justices vacated a decision in May by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had said mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope must be allowed in a 2021 Pennsylvania judge race. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Special team of divers searching Allegheny River finds 100 cars, hoping to close cold cases Target 11 Exclusive: Student charged with raping teacher apologized, said he has urges Former University of Pittsburgh student facing child porn charges VIDEO:Crews respond to garage fire in Fox Chapel DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) -A retired Venezuelan general facing U.S. drug charges on Tuesday said his involvement in a plot to oust President Nicolas Maduro showed he was innocent, and urged U.S. prosecutors to disclose information linking him to the planned rebellion. U.S. prosecutors say Cliver Alcala and other senior Venezuelan government officials conspired with the FARC Colombian rebel group to ship cocaine to the United States. Alcala pleaded not guilty after surrendering to U.S. agents in Colombia in 2020. Venezuela's information ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Manhattan declined to comment. Alcala retired from the South American country's military in 2013 and went on to become a vocal critic of Maduro, a socialist accused by Washington of corruption, human rights violations and election-rigging. "Even if he was a member of the charged conspiracy, General Alcala Cordones withdrew as a result of his open opposition to the Maduro government, clearly communicating his break from membership in the conspiracy," Alcala's lawyers said in court papers made public on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court. They added that Alcala repeatedly met with the CIA between 2017 and 2020 and "discussed the planned revolt with them." His lawyers said evidence of his participation in that plot against Maduro, who was charged with drug offenses alongside Alcala, was "exculpatory." Maduro dismisses U.S. criticism of his government as a plot to oust him in a coup and take control of the OPEC nation's vast oil reserves. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New YorkAdditional reporting by Vivian Sequera in CaracasEditing by Josie Kao) Vice President Kamala Harris is headed to metro Detroit this Saturday for a series of events, including a fundraiser for the Michigan Democratic Party. The White House announced the visit Tuesday, though it didn't publicly detail the locations of the events. First on Saturday, Harris is expected to participate in a fundraiser in Detroit with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, who are running for reelection in November. Following the fundraiser, Harris is set to take part in another event in Detroit where she will highlight the passage of legislation intended to spur domestic production of semiconductor chips. More:VP Kamala Harris says 'Detroit ... is the definition of resilience,' urges COVID vaccines Following that, the vice president is set to go to Southfield, where she will participate in a voter education event with students. All of the events are by invitation only. Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Vice President Kamala Harris to visit metro Detroit on Oct. 15 Ernest Hemingway was famously against his private letters being published. It is my wish that none of the letters written by me during my lifetime shall be published. Accordingly, I hereby request and direct you not to publish, or consent to the publication, of any such letters, he wrote to the executors of his estate in June 1961. Yet 61 years after his death, five volumes of his letters have been published so far, with another two expected. Georgia OKeeffe was also against her letters being published and still they are out there to be read by all. In a New Yorker piece in 2013, the novelist and biographer Roxana Robinson suggests that as a writer, little to no privacy can really be expected; and that the only way to prevent ones correspondence from being published is to burn them as Somerset Maugham did. But what of emails and instant messages, how do you burn those? A new unauthorised biography of the chef, writer and TV personality Anthony Bourdain, Down and Out in Paradise by journalist Charles Leerhsen is being released, showcasing some of Bourdains last messages and emails alongside some apparently revealing information about his lifestyle. It is supposed to show the complex mindset of Bourdain in his life and his last moments. But is it not too soon to delve into the darkness? In the middle of the first lockdown in 2020 there was one great comfort which allowed me to hope for the end of the pandemic and look excitedly forward. That comfort was rewatching Bourdains Parts Unknown. The obvious reason for this was the escapism it afforded me in a world where travel, eating at restaurants and drinking in bars was forbidden. But there was a further reason, Bourdain felt somehow like a friend. That sounds like sentimental rubbish and it is, and I cringe as I write the cliche. Yet theres no other way to say it and Im by no means the only person who feels this way. The other day over a pint in Leadenhall market, a friend and I spoke of Bourdain. Story continues When he died it was a big hit to me, he said, visibly uncomfortable, as if talking of a recently passed relative. Hed always been so open about his mental health and struggles with addiction and that helped me a lot with myself. Stories to this effect are repeated often when I bring up Bourdain. Another friend of mine, a chef, told me when Bourdain took his own life it was the only time hed ever cried over the death of a celebrity. This was the magic of Bourdain, he made everyone feel like they knew him, even if they didnt even if they were never once in the same country as him. Perhaps due to his background as a dishwasher and line cook, he appeared as a relatable everyman; equally comfortable sat joking with refugees over some street food, or in Vietnam, having a beer with President Obama. My favourite episode of Parts Unknown is when he goes to Granada in Spain. To me, this episode encapsulates the show and the man perfectly. In the episode, Bourdain brings his long-time cinematographer and friend Zach Zamboni into the picture. Zamboni had moved to Granada to be with his Andalusian partner, a dream Bourdain admits hed always had of leaving America behind for Old Europe. We watch as Bourdain, Zach and his partner scamper through bustling streets between tapas bars, ordering beers, eating chorizo and langoustines and laughing and chatting. Bourdain appears genuinely happy as he admits he envies his friend. In the same episode, Bourdain also explores bullfighting. He says hed be happy to see it abolished tomorrow, but that one needs to peek at it, even between clasped fingers when visiting parts of Spain. This is another element of Bourdain which shows why he was so well-loved, and it is a skill often lacking these days. Bourdain has his own opinion on bullfighting, yet would break bread with those who consider it an art. He was eternally curious and rarely judgmental. He always seemed to speak his mind openly, but he was also willing to listen. But the best scenes for me are when Bourdain attends family meals. In Granada, he sits down with Zach and his partner and her parents and siblings at their home. They drink wine and beer and laugh and eat around the table and in a voiceover, Bourdain says: When my time comes, I pretty much want to die at a table like this. Anthony Bourdain took his own life four years ago on 8 June 2018. He was always open about how he struggled with his mental health. When he was younger, he had been a heroin addict. He beat that by going cold turkey. He says in one episode that he looked in the mirror and saw someone worth saving. But his personality appears always to have been obsessive. If it wasnt heroin, it was ju-jitsu, or the show itself, or at the end with his partner, the actor and filmmaker, Asia Argento. Bourdain is so widely loved, it is no wonder that a book like this was written so quickly after his death. But not only have some of his friends and family shared anger over it, very few of whom seem to have been involved with Bourdains brother calling it hurtful and defamatory fiction. However, in an email sent last week to The Times, Leerhsen said other Bourdain family and friends with advance copies have confirmed that my take on the Bourdain family dynamic is accurate. There is also a question of whether we need to delve into Bourdains most private moments at all. Didnt he already give us enough vulnerability? Should we not remember him for the joy he brought, the things he created, and the person he was? Is there ever a right amount of time to read an artists private correspondence? We can probably never know whether Bourdain would want his correspondence published or not. But Robinson writes that there are a handful of reasons an artist would want to prevent the study of their private letters, but one is the effect it can have on those still alive. By taking Bourdains last messages with Asia Argento, which the New York Times reports are used at the beginning of the book, and wont be repeated here, do we cast blame on Argento? In 2021s Roadrunner documentary about Bourdain which was controversial in its own right the tumultuous relationship between he and Argento is covered in some detail. It shows the effect it had on Bourdain and the sometimes-negative effects on Parts Unknown and its crew. It seemed an intense relationship by most accounts but as Michael Steed a director of Parts Unknown says: Tony killed himself, Tony did it. Perhaps we need to be cautious when throwing blame around. To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here Argento is very much alive, we do not need to delve into their private relationship now. He was already so open with readers and viewers, and there are already so many books and documentaries about him just four years after he passed, I wonder at what point is it purely invasive? One day in the future, time may weaken these arguments. People will want to know about Bourdains last moments, warts and all. We will want to know deeply about this complex man who created such wonderful things, who brought so much joy, who could ask the president of the United States how often he gets to sneak out for a beer, and then in another episode slaughter a pig in Borneo with a local indigenous group or hang out with AA Gill or Nigella Lawson or the leader of the Russian opposition. Until that day comes, I wont be reading this book. For now, I choose to remember Bourdain sitting at a tiny plastic table in Vietnam with a bowl of noodles and a beer with a contented smile on his face. MUNCIE, Ind. Delaware County Council holds the purse strings for county government. While the ordinances and policies that impact daily life in the county fall to county commissioners, it is the council that largely determines if and how tax money gets spent and revenue taken in. Which is significant power. On issues from tax abatement for solar farm projects to adjusting pay for sheriff's merit deputies, the seven-member council is key to how the county government works and its relationship with citizens. This fall, voters will choose the occupant of four seats on council. William V. Hughes, who in previous years served as attorney for council, will move to being a council member representing District 2, which includes western Muncie from the area of the Ball State University campus on through Yorktown. Hughes, a Republican, is unopposed in the general election. There are races for three other seats. Delaware County Council District 1: Audie Barber v. Daniel Flanigan District 1 takes in southwest Muncie and the southwest corner of the county, including Daleville. Vying to represent the area is Audie Barber, a familiar face to those who watch telecasts of local government meetings. The active Democrat makes his voice heard with regularity in watchdog fashion. Barber says that if elected he plans to be a watchdog, overseeing how commissioner spend tax dollars. He noted that the rural communities where some commissioners live get a lot of public projects. He would work to make sure that the public safety departments of the county, such as the Sheriff's Department, paid staff enough to reduce employee turnover which has been troublesome. Another priority for Barber would be to get the council meetings moved from daytime to nighttime so more people could attend without having to miss work. He wants more transparency, he said, and noted a recent issue in which a proposal to live stream budget hearings by the county council fell by the wayside after County Commission Shannon Henry declined to fund it saying it would cost thousands of dollars. He went on to say that he was tired of people using "transparency" to cause officials to make public meetings available online so members of the public can take things out of context and then use those things against officials on social media. Story continues Commissioner James King also said that was a problem but offered to provide some money for the proposed live streaming out of the commissioners' budget. Streaming controversy:Commissioners not paying to stream county budget hearings that started Wednesday Council President Scott Alexander, who had been sent to ask commissioners about funding the live streaming, told Henry he agreed with him. County Council Member Ryan Webb wound up steaming the budget hearings this year as he could with his cell phone. "Tired of transparency?" said Barber. "That is a big problem." He said he would promote transparency and keep people informed of the county's business if elected. Barber is employed as a union heavy equipment operator on construction projects. He said the job takes him all over the state sometimes, he said, but he will take time off as need to attend council meetings should he not be able to change the meeting times to evenings. Also running for the District 1 seat, which is currently held by Republican Ryan Ballard, is Republican Daniel Flanigan. Flanigan is is a member of the Yorktown Town Council. His term ends Dec. 31. He is employed as an electrician with the Muncie Sanitary District and also works with his father part-time as a private electrician. If elected Flanigan said he would work to grow the county while keeping tax rates low. He commended the current council for the work they've done in keeping county finances working, noting that the county has done well this year handling money and developing a budget for next year. More:Surprise! Delaware County actually saw its population increase in 2021 He said that on council he would, "try to keep as much money in people's own pocketbooks as possible." Delaware County Council District 3: Mary Chambers v. Matt Kantz County Council District 3 takes in the southeast corner of Delaware County, with the towns of Oakville, Selma and the northeast section of Muncie, including the neighborhoods of Whitely and Morningside. Mary Chambers is a veteran member of the county council and a longtime Democrat officeholder. She is a native of Mississippi who moved to Muncie in 1961. Chambers had worked for 28 years as the Center Township Trustee. Mary Chambers 'Just keeping everybody employed," Chambers said was her main objective in looking for another term on county council. Chambers said she has seen a lot of things in her years of public service and she was proud of the work she has done helping people. On council, she said, so much depends on how much money the county has available. Being on council and working for her constituents has been fun, she said, Her Republican opponent, Matt Kantz, says he hopes to represent District 3, "in a more meaningful way." Matt Kantz Kantz serves the Muncie Economic Development Commission, which reviews tax abatement proposals before they go to Muncie City Council for consideration. He said he thought county council had done a good job making things work for the county without having to borrow money. Kantz says he will look to be creative in his approach to council work and would probably reject the idea of doing things just because "that's the way they've always been done." More:Tax abatement granted for Markets on Madison; some tenants in place as work begins County council represents is his first race for elected office. Kantz works from his home as national sales director for strategic accounts at Elsevier Clinical Solutions a company that produces medical books and journals and written communication between medical staff and consumers. Delaware County Council 4: Kristi Knapp v. Jane Lasater Another race between a political newcomer and veteran of local government is paying out in Council District 4 where longtime incumbent Republican council member Jane Lasater is facing a former educator Kristi Knapp making her first run for office. District 4 takes in most of northern Delaware County, including the towns of Eaton and Albany. Knapp is an Albany resident. She worked as a teacher at Albany Elementary and then Royerton Elementary before going to Richmond Community Schools in Wayne County where she became an assistant superintendent. Knapp said she want to make county government more efficient and would look to steer the development of renewable energy in Delaware County in ways that work for residents while also working to provide revenue for county government. She would aim at doing that with both solar and wind produced energy and noted Randolph County's success in being a home for renewable energy. Stopping to study:Solar farms unplugged for a year in Delaware County as commissioners order moratorium She said she would be a dependable county council member, making sure she attended meetings, and would serve with honesty and integrity. "I am a conservative," the Democrat said. "We need to try to keep taxes down." She also said she would work to keep from employees of the county on board rather than seeing so much turnover. Lasater said she plans to keep doing what she has been doing on council. The past years have been fortunate in that money has been available, through American Rescue Plan money and through other sources of revenue, that council has been able to provide raises of county employees. "I think Delaware County is on the way up," Lasater said. She cited improvements in Muncie and the employers being attracted to the county as evidence of an upswing that the people of Delaware County deserve. Lasater said she takes pride in being able to deliver a budget this year that stays within the county's plan. She is running for her third term on council. In the past she has served as county auditor, county treasurer and county recorder, making for 30 years in Delaware County government. "I've been very blessed," Lasater said. This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Races for three Delaware County Council seats settled in November Most American voters say they want more government and industry protection from toxic chemicals, a new poll has found. Not only do the 1,200 respondents to the survey overwhelmingly want assurances that consumer products are free from harmful chemicals, but they are also willing to pay more for that reassurance. In the poll commissioned by the University of California, San Franciscos (UCSF) Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment 92 percent of voters agreed that the government should require products to be proven safe before reaching the market, while 63 percent strongly agreed. People assume that what they buy is safe and that almost always isnt the case, Tracey Woodruff, director of the UCSF Reproductive Health program and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, said in a statement. The good news is this survey reveals overwhelming support for the government to do a better job of protecting people from harmful chemicals, Woodruff added. Similar to the responses regarding government responsibility, about 93 percent of voters surveyed agreed and 62 percent strongly agreed that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products, according to the poll. About 88 percent agreed that companies should do a better job eliminating plastic and plastic packaging from these items, the survey found. In response to the survey, Chris Jahn, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, which represents major U.S. chemical companies, stressed that chemicals in commerce are subject to some of the most stringent federal laws and regulations in the world. We support strong science and risk-based regulations that are protective of human health and our environment, including the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) aimed at modernizing and strengthening our federal chemical regulatory system, Jahn said in an emailed statement. Product safety should be a shared objective of all stakeholders, and we recognize and take seriously that consumers want to know that the products they buy are safe, he added. Story continues Alleging that some activists will continue to invest in misconstruing facts and misguiding the public, Jahn said that the chemical sector is invested in progress and continuous improvement. The Washington, D.C.-based public opinion firm Lake Research Partners conducted the poll for UCSFs Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment reaching 1,200 voters nationwide May 25-June 5. Respondents included 800 base voters and included oversamples of 100 Black registered voters, 100 Latinx registered voters, 100 Asian American Pacific Islander registered voters, and 100 Gen-Z registered voters, in order to ensure that the results were representative of the broader population, according to the poll. At a time when most issues are politically polarized, the issue of keeping people safe from harmful chemicals finds widespread agreement among Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters, Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, said in a statement. About 76 percent of respondents expressed concern about the impact chemicals and plastics have on climate change, while 54 percent said that chemical regulations are not strong enough. Some 89 percent of voters surveyed expressed support for harnessing the Toxic Substances Control Act to make it easier to ban or limit harmful chemicals, according to the poll. Meanwhile, 56 percent conveyed strong support for such action. The implementation of these limits, the survey said, would aim to better protect vulnerable populations like pregnant women, children and those who reside near polluting factories. Asked whether it is important to remove harmful chemicals from the areas in which people live, work and learn, 93 percent of respondents agreed and 57 percent strongly agreed even if doing so would raise the costs of some products. Updated at 12:34 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. In this photo illustration, the TRUTH Social logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with a photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in the background. In this photo illustration, the TRUTH Social logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with a photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in the background. Credit - Rafael HenriqueSOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images Things arent looking good for Donald Trumps social media platform TRUTH Socialdespite the former presidents own bouts of rampant posting. The fate of the social network is hanging in the balance, as delays continue to plague a $1.3-billion merger that would potentially secure its future. The latest delay came on Monday as a key vote was postponed to November, and some investors have already backed out. TRUTH Socials biggest problem is Trump himself, as TIME has previously reported, because his messages engage a more narrow audience than can sustain its business, according to politics and technology experts. That fact continues to hold true as Trump increasingly amplifies QAnon extremism on the platform. The sites business prospects are deteriorating at the same time that Trump faces a slew of legal, financial, and political perils. These mounting woes have all come together to create the perfect storm of chaos surrounding the planned merger between TRUTH Social parent Trump Media & Technology Group and blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp. More from TIME This has been a very unpredictable deal, says Kristi Marvin, the founder of data and analysis firm SPACInsider. The arrangement is currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Digital Worlds shareholders must vote to extend the mergers deadline by a year in order to keep the deal alive. Neither TRUTH Social nor Digital World responded to TIMEs requests for comment. Read more: TRUTH Socials Biggest Problem Is Trump The rising tide of extremism on TRUTH Social TRUTH appears to be looking for converts among the followers of QAnon. Over the last few months, Trump has begun explicitly promoting QAnon content on TRUTH Social. He has shared a barrage of QAnon-related posts and reposted messages, allegedly from Q, the anonymous account that originated the QAnon movement on far-right message boards. Story continues Trump has previously courted QAnon conspiracy theorists, who believe, among other baseless claims, that a cabal of top Democratic politicians and famous liberal elites run a global child-sex-trafficking ring that Trump will ultimately defeat. But he has recently begun ratcheting up his appeals to the group, says Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Amid Trumps shift to more overt QAnon signaling, TRUTH Social has also started showing more ads targeting QAnon believers. Its a move that the platforms leadership foreshadowed months ago. Kash Patel, who has served on TRUTH Socials board, suggested in June that the platform was trying to integrate QAnon into its overall messaging scheme to capture audiences. The push for a bigger audience could slowly be working. Trumps following on TRUTH Social has grown from 3.27 million users in June to 4.17 million as of Tuesday. But thats still a fraction of the roughly 86 million followers that Trump had on Twitter before being permanently banned in January 2021. Trump was already courting the QAnon crowd, but his advances are becoming much more direct, Beirich says. This is him more tightly binding himself to that particular cohort, she says. And TRUTH Social seems to be doing the exact same thing in hyping up more and more QAnon material. Trump has also incorporated apparent QAnon endorsements into campaign rallies. At a Sept. 17 rally in Ohio, he spoke over music that resembled a song known as the QAnon anthem. Members of the audience held up one finger in response, a gesture interpreted by some as a reference to the QAnon slogan, Where we go one, we go all. Trumps aides told the New York Times that the song played at the rally was called Mirrors and was not the QAnon theme song, Wwg1wga, in question. Given the continued popularity of QAnon, Beirich says Trumps increasing overtures to its followers suggest hes trying to shore up his base. A report published earlier this year by the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly one in five Americans and one in four Republicans believe in QAnon conspiracy theories. He knows that QAnon adherents are tightly tied to him because hes their savior in their mythology, so its easy to rally them, she says. This is a group that he can easily activate by using these signs, symbols, and references. He can get them to turn out because theyre still very much on his side. But as a business move, Beirich says the overtures to followers of Q are unlikely to help TRUTH Social compete with more mainstream social platforms. Theres a lot of talk about TRUTH Social not being on solid footing, she says. If this is the crew youre reaching out to to shore up your business, it means you havent been able to build any kind of mainstream audience. Youre not attracting anyone but extremists and youre admitting that fact by going further down the QAnon road. Thats going to keep people who dont want to be exposed to this stuff off the site. The fraught business of TRUTH Social As Trump and TRUTH Social increase their outreach to people with more extreme views, the platforms business prospects have also suffered. On Monday, Digital World moved to once again adjourn a shareholder vote on whether to extend the deadline for the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to complete its merger with Trump Media. The vote was originally scheduled to take place Sept. 6 but was adjourned to Sept. 8, then Oct. 10and now Nov. 3. The recent delay suggests the company failed to get approval from the necessary 65% of shareholders for a one-year extension on its $1.3 billion deal to take Trump Media public. Part of the problem is that the deal has attracted many uninformed retail investors, says Julian Klymochko, CEO of Accelerate Financial Technologies. Digital World has struggled to get these individual investors to participate in the shareholder vote. Without enough participation, the extension wont be approved. If you look at the Digital World and Trump deal, its driven by political leanings, he says. Youve seen that stock resonate with those who are anti-woke and more right-wing in nature. At the end of the day, theyre Trump supporters and, by and large, retail investors who have been compelled to buy the shares for a political stance and not any sort of sentimental view on the value of the Trump Media business. Digital World has turned to other options for extending the deal as it waits for the shareholder vote. The SPACs sponsor injected $2.9 million into the deal last month to extend the merger deadline three months beyond its initial Sept. 8 expiration date. The sponsor could opt to extend another three months in December with another contribution. The vote is now scheduled for November 3, and a successful shareholder vote would allow Digital World to push the deal deadline for a full year without its sponsor contributing any more money. Digital World has warned that it may have to liquidate if the merger deadline is not extended for a full year, which would mean that Trump Media, and by extension TRUTH Social, would not receive its expected funding. Digital World has also disclosed that the SEC probe into its planned merger with Trump Media could materially delay, materially impede, or prevent the consummation of the deal. The SPAC said in a December 2021 filing with the SEC that securities regulators were investigating whether the leadership of Digital World and Trump Media engaged in negotiations before Digital World went public in September 2021, which would have been illegal. In a subsequent June SEC filing, Digital World disclosed that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York had issued subpoenas to each of its board members related to the planned merger. Theyve had a significant amount of legal setbacks with all sorts of investigations and subpoenas from various federal organizations, law enforcement, etc., Klymochko says. That presents a lot of challenges in getting this deal closed. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday called on American allies to accelerate financial disbursements to Ukraine. "We are calling on our partners and allies to join us by swiftly disbursing their existing commitments to Ukraine and by stepping up in doing more," Yellen said as she received her Ukrainian counterpart, Sergii Marchenko. Yellen said speedier and greater aid would help Ukraine, which is fighting off a brutal Russian invasion, maintain essential government services and "begin to build and recover." Yellen stressed that the United States will begin "to provide the Ukrainian government in the coming weeks with the $4.5 billion in budget assistance passed by Congress on September 30." "We are committed to getting this funding to you as soon as possible because we know how important it is in supporting your brave resistance to Russia's illegal invasion," she added. The package was part of a larger $12.3 billion aid package to Ukraine, contained in a stopgap spending bill to avert a shutdown of federal services. jul/jum/eb/tjj/md Peter Dazeley via Getty From speech-to-text software to hearing and mobility aids, nearly every person will need some form of assistive technology during their lifetime. Today, more than 2.5 billion people worldwide require these products to help them lead healthier and happier lives, according to the World Health Organization. But existing hardware still excludes some disabled people or those with chronic or degenerative illnessesnot everyone can control a joystick, for instance. Newer solutions that attempt to link a persons thoughts up to a computer are still in early development, and its taken users some time to learn how to use brain-computer interfaces. Enter a team of researchers from Singapore and China who are trying to fill in the gaps with a mouth guard. Their device, which they detailed in a study published Monday in Nature Electronics, interprets a users bite pattern into one of 21 different signals. The scientists then programmed these bites to direct a remote-controlled wheelchair and play a virtual piano in order to showcase the potential for this new class of assistive technology. Xiaogang Liu, a materials science researcher at the National University of Singapore who led the study, told The Daily Beast in an email that existing assistive technologies leave plenty to be desired. Voice recognition only works in low-noise settings, eye-tracking software requires a camera be mounted in front of a user, and newly developed brain-computer interfaces need complex arrangements of wires and can involve invasive surgeries. A mouth guard would solve these issues in a low-cost, accessible fashion, Liu said. Compared to existing assistive technologies, we believe interactive mouth guards are suitable for most people, including those who wear dentures, he explained. The mouth guard consists of six pressure sensors embedded in a sturdy plastic shell that can withstand over 20,000 bites before needing to be replaced, Liu said. The six sensors are aligned in two rows, allowing a user to bite down on one or more sensors at a time. A computer then recognizes the pattern and classifies it as one pattern. The patterns correspond to discrete directions too. Story continues When two volunteers tested the mouth guards ability to steer a wheelchair, for example, different bite patterns turned the wheelchair, accelerated it forward, and made it stop. They then played the first few bars of Happy Birthday on a digital piano using different bite patterns to correspond to the various notes in the song. In a final test, one participant used the mouth guard to spell out the word love and the value 3.14 using a virtual keyboard. These applications measured the mouth guards sophistication and dexterity, Liu said, adding that future tests of the device may incorporate more complex games and real-world scenarios. There did seem to be a learning curve: Early on, it took the participants almost 90 seconds to play the tune, but 70 training sessions later, they could complete the task in a third of the time. Still, the training time was shorter than what brain-computer interfaces typically require, Liu said. His team is developing the second generation of smart mouth guards, he said, which will use machine-learning algorithms to train the device alongside the participant to cut training times. While these mouth guards cant be a solution for everyone, they may be able to offer one more option to assistive technology users, helping people who could not otherwise access these devices. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. West Des Moines police arrested a man after he called in a fictitious report about a dead body being dumped in a pond behind the city's library. Police received the tip around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to department spokesperson Sgt. Jason Heintz. Water rescue crews immediately responded to the pond behind the library at 4000 Mills Civic Parkway. Officials search the pond behind the West Des Moines Public Library, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, after receiving a tip that a body my have been left there overnight, in West Des Moines. A water rescue team from the West Des Moines Fire Department and a sonar crew from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources searched the water for about two hours without finding a body. Police arrested a 36-year-old West Des Moines man after concluding their search, charging him with third-degree harassment. "Detectives determined this crime to be a fictitious report, and no evidence was discovered to indicate a death had occurred," Heintz wrote in a news release. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Tip of dumped body sparks search of pond near West Des Moines library The cafeteria workers at Waymo's offices are forming a union, according to NBC News. As the news organization notes, that makes them the latest group of people to organize at one of Silicon Valley's most prominent companies. Waymo's food service personnel are also following in the footsteps of the 4,000 Google cafeteria workers who quietly unionized during the COVID-19 pandemic. The autonomous driving tech company used to be an experimental unit under Google before it became an Alphabet subsidiary. Like Google's other food service workers, Waymo's are employed by contracting firm Sodexo. Workers cited the high cost of living in the Bay Area where Alphabet's offices are located as the reason why they want to unionize. They said their $24-per-hour pay isn't enough to live adequately in the city, where rents are astronomical, and that their health plan is prohibitively expensive. The workers are also asking for better treatment and benefits, since they don't enjoy the same perks as full-time Alphabet employees. Organizers for the unionization efforts at Waymo told NBC News that they've already gathered signatures from majority of the workers. Sodexo said that it "respects the rights of [its] employees to unionize or not to unionize" but didn't say whether it will voluntarily recognize the union. If it does, the workers will have to file for an NLRB election to be able to join the other Alphabet cafeteria workers at Unite Here. LOS ANGELES (AP) Harvey Weinstein's attorney told the judge at his sexual assault trial Tuesday that conditions in the holding cell where he's being kept after court are unhygienic and almost medieval. Attorney Mark Werksman asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench for help with the issue at the beginning of the second day of jury selection in the former movie mogul's trial on 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. He said Weinstein is being left alone in his wheelchair for three or four hours in an unsanitary, fetid holding cell at the courthouse before he is taken back to jail. Its almost medieval, the conditions," Werksman said. "Hes 70 years old. Im worried about him surviving this ordeal without a heart attack or stroke. Weinstein, and the panel of 71 jurors who were brought in to fill out an initial questionnaire on Tuesday, were not yet present during Werksman's remarks. Lench replied that she would talk to deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which runs the jails and transports inmates to court, but that her power was limited over the matter. Im not minimizing it, Im just not sure theres a lot to be done," she said. Weinstein, who is allowed to change into a suit from his jail attire for trial, was wheeled into the courtroom soon after, and slowly and carefully climbed into a seat at the defense table. Werksman then raised the issue again, suggesting Weinstein didn't have a toilet to use in the cell. Lench replied, Hes not deprived of a toilet, there is a toilet in the cell. Im not going to let the record reflect that hes deprived of a toilet. Werksman said he didnt mean to suggest there was no toilet at all, but said It is unhygienic, it is virtually unusable, it is medieval. An email seeking comment from the Sheriff's Department was not immediately returned. Weinstein's attorneys have brought up his failing health repeatedly both during his New York trial, where he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for convictions of rape and sexual assault, and in his pre-trial hearings in Los Angeles. Story continues He was hospitalized with chest pains and had a heart procedure immediately after he was found guilty in New York in February of 2020, and was diagnosed with COVID-19 in prison in the first weeks of the pandemic. His lawyers have said he has diabetes and is technically blind. They have asked the judge for permission to see an outside dentist because the one he sees in jail keeps pulling out his teeth. In court, he appears pale and frail, looking nothing like the bearish man who once lorded over the Oscars every year. Weinstein's trial, which comes five years after womens stories about him gave momentum to the #MeToo movement, is expected to last eight weeks. With the slow process of screening and selecting jurors from a pool or more than 200, opening statements aren't expected until Oct. 24. ___ Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says that President Biden believes that the Los Angeles City Council members who made racist comments should resign, while noting the different political parties approaches to handling members who do or say racist things. REPORTER: I wonder if he's followed a situation on the Los Angeles City Council with Nury Martinez and the leaked recording of her using racist remarks to describe a colleagues black son. She said today, she's taking a leave of absence, but there are others, Senator Padilla, Mayor Garcetti have called for her to resign. Has the president followed this? Does he have a reaction to whats going on? KJP: Yes hes followed this, spoke to him about it yesterday. Look, the President is glad to see that one of the participants in that conversation has resigned but they all should. He believes that they all should resign. The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable and it was appalling, they should all step down. And here's a difference between Democrats and MAGA Republicans, when a Democrat says something racist or anti-semitic, we hold them, we hold Democrats accountable. When a MAGA Republican says something racist or anti-semitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated and sought-after endorsements. Senator Tuberville, let's not forget, this just happened, saying black people commit crimes. Doug Mastriano attacking his opponent in Pennsylvania Governor's race for sending his children to a Jewish Day School. Dir: Darren Aronofsky; Starring: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton First seen masturbating as he watches online porn, Charlie (Brendan Fraser), the main character in The Whale, isnt just morbidly obese; he is a lumbering leviathan of a man, so immensely fat that he can barely manoeuvre himself off his couch, let alone leave his apartment. He sweats profusely, vomits into dustbins and almost chokes on the junk food he gorges himself on. Who would want me to be part of their life? he asks plaintively toward the end of the film. Even his daughter calls him disgusting. Darren Aronofskys film, a world premiere in competition in the Venice Film Festival this weekend, is stagy and mawkish. Watching it, you feel grossly manipulated but the approach is undeniably effective. Fourteen years ago, the same director came to Venice with his equally grungy and melodramatic The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke as a washed up fighter in a similar state of physical dereliction. That film won hatfuls of awards. It would be no surprise if The Whale does the same. Fraser was the star of films like The Mummy and George of The Jungle in the days when he was a more conventionally shaped leading man. Now, covered in layers of prosthetics, he gives one of those sad-eyed performances, like a dog with an injured paw begging for a bone, that many audiences will find very hard to resist. Charlie makes a living by giving online English literature tutorials. He lies to his students that the camera on his laptop is broken so he doesnt have to reveal himself in his full grotesquerie. As the film progresses, we gradually discover why he has allowed himself to grow so monstrously out of shape. Just under a decade before, he walked out on his marriage, abandoning his then eight-year-old daughter to take up with a student called Alan with whom he had fallen in love. Alan is now dead. Charlie is eaten up with guilt. He is also suffering congestive heart failure which could kill him at any time. Story continues The film is based on a play by Samuel D Hunter. Aronofsky does little to open up his source material for the screen; the entire story takes place in Charlies apartment. In its lighter moments, The Whale is disconcertingly reminiscent of American family sitcoms full of eccentric relatives and friends who bicker incessantly but love each other really. Various characters turn up at Charlies door. One regular visitor Liz, (Hong Chau), a sharp-tongued but affectionate woman who has a demanding job yet still tends to his medical needs and keeps him in food. Also continually re-appearing is Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a hapless young missionary from a cult-like religious group, who wants to save the fat mans soul. Then, most important to Charlie, there is his estranged daughter, Ellie (Stranger Things Sadie Sink), now 17 and in danger of flunking out of high school. She wants him to help her with her school essays but doesnt hide her contempt for him. Her mother (Samantha Morton) doesnt know she is there. Physical drama comes whenever Charlie tries to move a few steps across his apartment, or to go to the bathroom. The slightest exertion exhausts him. In spite of his decrepitude, he is a sweet natured and optimistic character with an engaging sense of humour. The title of the film refers not just to his shape, but to an essay written by a disgruntled kid, dissing Herman Melvilles classic novel Moby Dick. He knows the essay by heart and regards it as his favourite piece of writing. Aronofsky goes so far out of his way to portray Charlie in the early scenes as a repulsive bum that its inevitable the characters better qualities will soon emerge. Fraser retains the genial qualities which made him so popular with audiences in mainstream 1990s movies. He demands honesty from his students but theres nothing cynical about him. The pathos is laid on very thick. At times, you wonder why a filmmaker as sophisticated as Aronofsky is resorting to such manipulative tactics. Beneath all its blubber, though, this turns out to be a film with a very big heart. The Whale will be released in the US on 9 December. A UK release date is yet to be announced. China achieves fruitful results in international art exchanges 09:18, October 11, 2022 By Zhang Xiaoling ( People's Daily A grand exhibition displaying Han Dynasty (202 BC to AD 8) artifacts was staged in the Guimet Museum, France in July, 2014. A total of 153 sets of valuable exhibits from 27 Chinese museums were displayed, attracting large numbers of visitors. An exhibition titled Tota Italia - Origins of a Nation is held at the National Museum of China, July 20, 2022. (People's Daily Online/Du Jianpo) Prior to it, another exhibition titled "Great Museums, Famous Masters and Outstanding Masterpieces: the Special Painting Exhibition for Commemorating 50th Anniversary of Establishment of China-France Diplomatic Relationship" was held at the National Museum of China. It showcased 10 hallmark paintings from five major French museums, including the Louvre. The above two art exhibitions were a miniature of the prospering development of the exchanges and mutual learning between China and the rest of the world over the past decade. In recent years, the Chinese art world has fully demonstrated China's artistic ideas through its active interaction with the rest of the world. China's traditional art, presented with new technologies and ideas, has grown more inclusive and open. At the 59th Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art exhibition that takes place biennially in Venice, Italy, a series of Chinese exhibits were displayed in the Chinese Pavilion with digital, virtual and artificial intelligence technologies, demonstrating the ingenious blend of oriental charm and frontier technologies, as well as Chinese artists' consideration of the present and the future. With the new models of exhibition, cultural relics, art works and intangible cultural heritage are forcefully driving cultural exchanges and mutual learning. In 2018, 58 paintings collected by the Beijing Fine Art Academy were displayed at an exhibition titled Elegance and Savour - Life, Wisdom and Art in Chinese Culture in the Liechtenstein National Museum. They presented the Chinese people's lifestyles, cultural traditions and aesthetics. Today, more and more Chinese artworks have won applause from the international community. A batch of Chinese architects have claimed international architectural design prizes, and a number of China-designed products have won international designing awards. Besides, China has also set up a number of awards in design, attracting many excellent foreign designers. Photo shows a sculpture exhibited in the Chinese Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. (Photo/China Culture Daily) Chinese artists have taken an active part in cultural communication and cooperation programs under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), introducing Chinese art to the rest of the world and promoting cultural communication and people-to-people bonds between China and other countries. In 2015, the Belt and Road International Art Project Exhibitions were kicked off by the China National Academy of Painting. The program was joined by over 100 artists from more than 30 countries and regions, who portrayed the Silk Road spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit with their paintbrushes. Their paintings not only demonstrated the economic prosperity of Belt and Road countries achieved through exchanges but also showcased a constant blend of different cultures. They mirrored the positive role of the BRI in building a community with a shared future for mankind. Besides, China has also held many other Belt and Road art exchange programs, which have significantly enriched the artistic creation of Belt and Road countries. As China keeps deepening its cooperation with other Belt and Road countries in infrastructure and other sectors, art cooperation is also expanding. An oil painting is exhibited at the first stop of the Belt and Road International Art Project Exhibitions in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province, September, 2020. (People's Daily Online/Shi Jianxue) For instance, China Railway Construction Corporation has hosted a fine art exhibition themed on the BRI to tell the stories of the enhanced connectivity among Belt and Road countries. Apart from that, China has launched a large batch of cultural projects, such as the Silk Road International Arts Festival and the Maritime Silk Road International Arts Festival. The International Alliance of Museums of the Silk Road and the Silk Road International Alliance of Art Museums and Galleries have been set up, which have so far developed over 500 member organizations from China and the world. The rich and colorful artworks and activities both reflect the essence of win-win cooperation and expand China's cultural exchanges with the rest of the world, enhancing mutual understanding and friendly exchanges between people. (Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming) President Biden, disembarking from Marine One on White House's South Lawn, is now the highest-profile political figure to weigh in on the firestorm that has generated outrage across Los Angeles. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) President Biden believes Nury Martinez and other councilmembers should resign from the Los Angeles City Council over racist remarks heard in leaked recordings that were made public this week, a White House spokesperson said Tuesday. "The president is glad to see that one of the participants in that conversation has resigned, but they all should," said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, calling the language recorded during the conversation "unacceptable" and "appalling." Biden is now the highest-profile political figure to weigh in on the firestorm that has generated outrage across the city. Jean-Pierre's comments came on the eve of a four-day Western swing that will bring Biden to Los Angeles and Orange counties, and just hours after Martinez announced she would take a leave of absence from the council rather than give up her seat. By weighing in ahead of Biden's trip, the White House sought to deal with the controversy before the president arrives in California, where he is set to hold two public events and attend a fundraiser with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) on Thursday night. The president joins a long list of California Democrats who have criticized Martinez, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, Sen. Alex Padilla and both mayoral candidates, Karen Bass and Rick Caruso. Responding to a question in the briefing room, Jean-Pierre took the opportunity to draw a broader contrast for voters as the midterm elections near. "Here's the difference between Democrats and Republicans: When a Democrat says something racist or antisemitic ... we hold Democrats accountable," she said. "When a MAGA Republican says something racist and/or antisemitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated and sought after." She referenced comments by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) at a rally with President Trump last weekend suggesting that Black people are more likely to commit crimes. Biden, who was propelled through the 2020 primary largely thanks to his strong support from Black voters, has made a point of speaking out on a racial injustice and promised that equity would be a hallmark of his administration. Story continues Although Democrats have failed to advance voting rights legislation during his time in office, Biden has frequently condemned racism. He is determined to convey solidarity on what he sees as a bedrock issue for the country, and he is far less constrained by self-restraint than President Obama was during his eight years in office. Martinez, who has now issued multiple apologies, became the first Latina to hold the powerful position of City Council president in 2019. The representative from the San Fernando Valley used racist terms and denigrated colleagues during an October 2021 meeting with two other city councilmembers while they were discussing the city's redistricting process. Martinez focused in particular on Councilmember Mike Bonin, who is white, and Bonins young son, who is Black. At one point, Martinez called Bonin a little bitch and referred to his son as a changuito, which means little monkey in Spanish. She also said Bonins son had misbehaved on a parade float and needed a beatdown. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Russias special military operation has been raging for almost eight months as the conflict records devastating casualties as well as the displacement of millions of Ukrainians. President Vladimir Putin began the conflict by claiming Ukraine needed to be demilitarised and de-Nazified. Ukraine has defied odds throughout the conflict and defended against Russian attacks with the help of western military aid. In recent weeks president Volodymyr Zelenskys forces launched a major counter-offensive to retrieve the besieged city of Kharkiv but as Ukraines resistance grows, Mr Putins threats of escalating the conflict grow also causing concern globally of whether nuclear warfare will be unleashed. Mr Zelensky said Russian officials had begun to prepare their society for the possible use of nuclear weapons, but added he does not believe Russia is ready to use them. President Zelensky said action was needed now, as Russias threats were a risk for the whole planet. Moscow, he claimed, had made a step already by occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europes largest nuclear station which president Putin is trying to turn into Russian property. In response to the growing sense that his invasion was backfiring, Mr Putin staged a televised address in which he ordered a partial military mobilisation of 300,000 reservists and threatened to use nuclear weapons against the West, a major escalation of his rhetoric in which he assured the world: Its not a bluff. Russias faltering troops have employed brutal siege warfare tactics throughout the war, surrounding Ukraines cities and subjecting them to intense shelling campaigns, a strategy previously seen in Chechnya and Syria. Ukrainian cities in the east and south have been battered by Russian missiles in pursuit of gradual territorial gains, while the targeting of residential buildings, hospitals and nurseries have led to outraged accusations of civilians being intentionally targeted and of war crimes being committed. Story continues Mr Zelenskys initial appeals for Nato to implement a no-fly zone remain unanswered as the West fears such an act would be interpreted as a provocation by Russia and draw the alliance into a much larger war over Eastern Europe. However, US president Joe Biden, UK prime minister Liz Truss, their European counterparts and UN secretary general Antonio Guterres have all condemned Moscows unprovoked and unjustified attack and promised to hold it accountable, with the West introducing several rounds of tough economic sanctions against Russian banks, businesses and oligarchs while supplying Ukraine with additional weapons, hardware and defence funding. Germany Migration (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) That said, the allies have also faced criticism for not doing enough to support the millions of refugees from the conflict, who have fled their homeland for neighbouring states like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova. Rumbling tensions in in the region, which began in December 2021 when Russian troops amassed at its border with Ukraine, really escalated in the final week of February 2022 when Mr Putin moved to officially recognise the pro-Russian breakaway regions of the Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) and Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR) as independent states. This enabled him to move military resources into those areas, in anticipation of the coming assault, under the guise of extending protection to allies. That development meant months of frantic diplomatic negotiations pursued by the likes of US secretary of state Antony Blinken, French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ms Truss, then UK foreign secretary, in the hope of averting calamity had ultimately come to nothing. But what are the key issues behind the conflict, where did it all begin and how might the crisis unfold? How did the crisis start? Going back to 2014 gives the current situation more context. Russia annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula that year in retaliation after the countrys Moscow-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych was driven from power by mass protests. Weeks later, Russia threw its weight behind two separatist insurgency movements in Ukraines eastern industrial heartland, the Donbas, which eventually saw pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk declare the DPR and LPR independent states, although they went entirely unacknowledged by the international community. More than 14,000 people died in the fighting that was ongoing throughout the intervening years, which devastated the region. Both Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of sending troops and weapons to back the rebels but Moscow has denied the allegations, stating that Russians who joined the separatists did so voluntarily. A man walks past homes damaged by a rocket attack in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, in August 2022 (David Goldman/AP) A 2015 peace accord the Minsk II agreement was brokered by France and Germany to help end the large-scale battles. The 13-point agreement obliged Ukraine to offer autonomy to separatist regions and amnesty for the rebels while Ukraine would regain full control of its border with Russia in the rebel-held territories. The agreement is highly complex, however, because Moscow continues to insist it has not been a party in the conflict and is therefore not bound by its terms. In point 10 of the agreement, there is a call for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the disputed DPR and LPR. Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia but Moscow has previously denied it has any of its own troops in those states. In 2021, a spike in ceasefire violations in the east and a Russian troop concentration near Ukraine fuelled fears that a new war was about to erupt but tensions abated when Moscow pulled back the bulk of its forces after manoeuvres in April. How is the situation at present? At present, it is believed that Russians are beginning to see Mr Putins misjudgment of the war as the country suffers devastating losses and economic consequences in the course of the conflict which will reach the one year mark at the start of 2023. Sir Jeremy Fleming director of the intelligence, cyber and security agency GCHQ said Russians are feeling the consequences of the Kremlin leaders war choice. Russia responded to strikes on a major bridge connecting Crimea to Russia by launching a widespread bombardment of missiles into Ukraine, some killing civilians in Kyiv. Mr Putin called the destruction of the bridge along the Kerch strait, an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure. In response to these attacks, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of trying to wipe his country off the face of the earth. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba added that the missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday showed Mr Putin is a terrorist who talks with missiles. People look at their destroyed cars that stand amid damage caused by a missile strike in a residential area near Tower 101 not far from Kyiv's main train station (Getty) Meanwhile, the West continues to assess the risk of nuclear warfare as a result of escalating fighting in Ukraine. President Joe Biden warned that the conflict could lead to nuclear armageddon. However, the White House has insisted that it has no reason to believe there is an imminent threat of Vladimir Putin using nuclear weapons. Mr Putin made clear in September that Russia would consider use of nuclear weapons against Nato if its territory were to be threatened as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. At the time, he warned: To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the Nato countries. The threat was the most significant suggestion of the use of nuclear weapons by a leader with access to those weapons in decades and threatened to return Washington and Moscow to the height of tensions not seen since the Cold War. What might happen next? Western leaders condemned Mr Putins utter brutality after Russian missile strikes killed civilians in Ukraine. The UNs secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said he was deeply shocked by the Russian air strikes. This mornings attacks constitute another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. Natos secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, condemned the horrific and indiscriminate attacks while the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she was shocked and appalled by it. Her European Council counterpart, Charles Michel, unequivocally labelled todays actions by Russia as war crimes. Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko has ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine (AP) Several emergency meetings have been arranged to discuss these developments including G7 leaders with Volodymyr Zelensky and the UN general assembley. The president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, will visit Moscow tomorrow to meet Vladimir Putin, UAE state media reported. Mohamed will discuss with president Putin the friendly relations between the UAE and Russia along with a number of regional and international issues and developments of common interest. In an ominous development, Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko has ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he claimed was a threat from Kyiv and its Western backers. The two countries had started pulling forces together after the explosion on Russias bridge to Crimea, Mr Lukashenko was quoted as saying. Poland has released guidance advising its citizens in Belarus to leave the country. The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page. Photo credit: Tanatat pongphibool ,thailand - Getty Images "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below." If youre suffering from insatiable wanderlust, but dont want to travel to the Amalfi Coast or Santorini like everyone else on Instagram, youve reached the right corner of the internet. Though theres certainly nothing wrong with these classic vacation spots, sometimes you want to explore somewhere different and immerse yourself in a totally unique culture. It can be tricky to find an amazing city thats not swarming with other American tourists, but I think Ive officially discovered the best under-the-radar destination for 2023: Bodrum, Turkey. Bodrum is a vibrant beach town in Southwest Turkey formerly known as the ancient city of Halicarnassus. While you canand shouldimmerse yourself in its rich and storied history (after all, its still home to one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World , Bodrum Castle , and more), there are also plenty of present-day wonders to experience when you arrive. From local handicraft and incredible spas to top-tier yachting and amazing food, theres truly something for every type of traveler to enjoy. Here, my guide to an unforgettable vacation in Bodrum. What to Do in Bodrum, Turkey Book one of the suites or villas at Susona Bodrum, LXR Hotels & Resorts for the perfect mix of five-star amenities, unparalleled hospitality, and convenience to Bodrum city center. The luxury property is tucked behind canopied allees and opens up to panoramic views of the sparkling Aegean sea. Here, theres no shortage of natural beauty; hot pink bougainvillea vines trail up white villa walls while wild olive, fig, and pomegranate trees grow without restraint around the property. Youll also see superyachts and sailboats dotting the turquoise waters of Torba Bay, which stretches around most of the hotel. Photo credit: Jaime Milan Once you arrive, unwind after a long day of travel at the hotels Spa Soul . Make an appointment for a traditional hammam (also known as a Turkish bath). During this ancient Ottoman body ritual, youll lay in the center of the room on a large marble slab while youre scrubbed with a specific glove called a kassa. This exfoliating treatment removes dead cells to reveal baby-soft skin (read: Youll feel like a snake shedding). Next, youll be gently rinsed with warm water, massaged all over with a floral incense-scented foam, and then rinsed again. The hammam goes beyond any spa treatment Ive ever experiencedat the risk of sounding a bit sacrilegious, it feels almost baptismal. Youll walk away feeling renewed and relaxed, so much so that you may want to head back to your villa for a cat nap or soak up the sun in one of the luxe cabanas at the hotels Frankie Beach Club . Story continues Photo credit: Jaime Milan If you feel like staying close by for dinner, try Malva , the hotels high-end restaurant named after the perennial purple mallow flower that grows around the property. Sit in the outdoor dining area where youll enjoy beautiful panoramic views of Torba Bay and a gentle breeze off the water that sways the rattan lanterns overhead. Enjoy the incredible and hyperlocal menu (here, this isnt just a restaurant buzzword; most of the vegetables, tomatoes, and herbs are actually grown right on property), and allow the sommelier to expertly guide you to your next glass of wine. He gave us some delicious local picks that complemented everything from the fish and tomato salad to the rice pudding with coffee ice cream (a dessert I still regularly dream about). For a night cap, make your way over to Malvas cocktail barthey have all the classic fixings, but the mixologists there also know how to whip up a creative and delicious drink if youre feeling adventurous. Photo credit: Jaime Milan The next day, fuel up for a day of exploring with a traditional Turkish breakfast and coffee at Ezi . Hop in the car and head to Etrim for a guided tour of the village and Etrim Hali Carpets (you can arrange transportation and this tour with the concierge team at LXR Hotels & Resorts ahead of time; they pride themselves on connecting guests with the local community through culturally immersive experiences). Though its just a 15-mile drive from Bodrum, Etrim is a nomadic mountain village and feels like youre stepping into a totally different world. Youll see old dwellings filled with stone hearths, clay pots, metal farming tools and copper kettles, while cows, roosters, and dogs wander through the streets and find shade under kilim-draped trees and wild cacti. Photo credit: Jaime Milan Etrim is rural and mostly untouched by modern society, but the village is known all around the country for its incredible handicraft. It actually made me a little emotional to watch the artisans seamlessly double-knotting and weaving hand-spun yarn into kilims and carpets with their capable, nimble fingers. These women and those before them have woven rugs using this method for hundreds of years. They still incorporate the same time-tested techniques like dyeing yarn with natural elements such as peach leaves, walnuts, herbs, and onion skins to get their signature vibrant colors and spinning long strands of silk from the worms found in the villages mulberry trees. Photo credit: Jaime Milan Each rug also features different symbols that could be unique to a family or a specific village, so when you buy these beautiful rugs, youre also buying a piece of that weavers story and local culture. Some of these rugs can take months or even years to make by hand, so when you see the piles of carpets and kilims stacked to the ceiling in the showroom, you cant help but think of all the time, effort, and love that went into making each of them. Photo credit: Jaime Milan After your tour of the village and Etrim Hali, youd be hard pressed to leave without a rug (I actually bought the vibrant blue and turquoise carpet made from wool and angora pictured on the floor below), but I promise its one travel souvenir youll cherish for years to come. Photo credit: Jaime Milan After your adventures in Etrim, make your way over to Karnas Vineyards for a wine pairing dinner. Though the family-owned boutique winery is known for their sustainable wines and masses of olive groves, the main building also boasts beautiful architecture modeled after ancient Roman cellars. Take in the spectacular views while you have dinner on the patiothe usually verdant land appears almost gilded at sunset. Dont forget to buy a few bottles to take back with you; I thought the rose was especially juicy and crushable for warm-weather months. The rest of your time in Bodrum is truly dealers choiceif youre into yachting, fishing, or sailing, Torba Bay is a beautiful place to spend a day on the water. There are also plenty of nearby islands and coves to explore, and the cool and tranquil turquoise water is ideal for taking a dip when you need a break from the Aegean sun. If you want a faster pace, you could head to Bodrums city center for local cuisine, bumping nightclubs, and great shopping. I recommend skipping the touristy stores and going straight to Yavuz Sandalet for a pair of handmade leather sandals and popping into Zeynep Dogal Urunler for fragrant soaps and funky local art. Photo credit: Jaime Milan If its a market day (usually on Tuesdays), make a special trip to the city center to people-watch and stock up on souvenirs. Be warned: You have to wade past some fake Chanel bags and knock-off Polo shirts to get to the authentic stuff, but with a little patience youll find things like kassa mits, hammam soap, Turkish delight candy, loose leaf tea, culinary spices, evil eye jewelry, handmade linens, Turkish towels, and more. Your new favorite word on market day will be pazarlk (pronounced like pazzar-lick), which means lower the price or bargain with me. Most vendors will work with you, especially if you attempt to speak a few words in Turkish. Photo credit: Jaime Milan I felt extremely safe walking alone in downtown Bodrum, and local folks were very hospitable when I needed directions or help finding the best spot to eat a doner kebab. I also think its worth wandering down some back alleys to see a more authentic side of the city. Just a block or two off the main road, youll find cobblestone streets with cafes and markets selling seasonal produce, freshly caught fish, local cheeses, olives, and wine. I recommend making a to-go picnic or eating a little at each stop along the way before visiting Bodrum Castle and the Museum of Underwater Archeology . Take in the sights and history before heading back to the hotel for some well-deserved R&R (or another hammam treatment if you really want to treat yourself). Theres something about Bodrum's energy that feels enchanting, like its on the cusp of becoming the next big thing. I hesitate to even write about this unspoiled destination because not very many American tourists know about it yet, and I dont want to ruin its incredible magic. Perhaps its the combination of ancient history and rich culture or the modern amenities and luxury hospitality, but when youre there, you truly feel like royalty. I had a hard time leaving, but it eventually came time for me (and my very overweight suitcase stuffed with a Turkish carpet, wine, sandals, and hammam supplies) to head home. If you ever get the chance to go to Bodrum, hop on the next planeand, please, bring me with you. You Might Also Like A judge on Tuesday sentenced a 59-year-old Wichita man to two years, eight months in prison for leaving the scene of an accident that killed an 80-year-old man fetching his mail on Election Day 2020. Jeffrey T. Jack pleaded guilty on Aug. 18 to one count of leaving the scene of an accident in the Nov. 3, 2020, death of James Jim Kaminsky, a former college-level math instructor and retired aircraft company computer systems analyst. Jack was sentenced to the 32-month term by Sedgwick County District Judge Bruce Brown, according to Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorneys Office. Wichita police have said Jack hit Kaminsky with his truck in the 1600 block of North Parkridge, near 13th and 119th Streets, around 6:15 p.m. as Kaminsky crossed the street to go home after checking his mailbox. Jack, who lived in the same neighborhood as Kaminsky, drank at least four vodka and water beverages with friends and his wife at a northwest Wichita bar before heading home in his white 2002 GMC Sierra, according to a probable cause affidavit released in the case. Neighbors who witnessed the collision told police they heard the truck hit Kaminsky and drive off. Police later found Jacks empty and damaged truck parked in a nearby driveway and Jack hiding in a backyard shed, the affidavit says. When he was questioned by police, Jack denied coming from a bar, told police alcohol did not factor into the crash and claimed that Kaminsky had jumped or stepped out in front of his truck, scaring him. A sample of his blood drawn five hours and 38 minutes after the deadly collision had an ethanol content of 0.135, more than the legal limit of .08 to drive in Kansas, the affidavit says. In a written motion filed with the court Tuesday, Jacks lawyer asked the judge to be lenient in sentencing, either by putting him on probation or granting a downward durational departure, writing that strict adherence to the sentencing guidelines ... would result in an overly harsh and unjust result that would devastate Jacks entire family. The lawyer added that Jack is remorseful for any damage caused to the victims family and needs alcohol treatment for his problem which he is receiving. MADISON, Wis. (AP) Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday that he wouldn't sign a bill creating exceptions for rape and incest if it would keep in place the state's 1849 abortion ban. Evers faces Republican Tim Michels, who supported the 1849 ban before changing positions after he won the Republican primary and now says he would sign a bill granting exceptions. I wouldn't sign it because that leaves the underlying law in place which is a ban on abortion," Evers said in response to a question at a Rotary Club of Milwaukee event co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Press Club and Wispolitics.com. The Wisconsin Legislature is controlled by Republicans, some of whom have voiced support for granting rape and incest exceptions to the state law that came into play after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That ruling left it up to states to determine whether abortion should be legal. In line with Democrats across the country, Evers has tried to make abortion a central issue in the race that polls show is about even. Polls have also shown a wide majority of Wisconsin voters support keeping abortion legal and at the very least having rape and incest exceptions. Evers has twice called special sessions of the Legislature seeking to repeal the 1849 ban and create a way to put the question before voters. Republicans rejected both proposals. Evers said Tuesday the Wisconsin Legislature should codify Roe v. Wade. Evers also supports a lawsuit filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul seeking to overturn the state ban, which passed before women had the right to vote and before the Civil War. Evers, in his comments before taking questions, repeatedly branded Michels as too radical and dangerous for the state. He singled out his long-held support of the total abortion ban, a position that Michels changed last month. Obviously he supports that and he won't even support exceptions for rape and incest," Evers said of a total abortion ban. "To me thats radical. Story continues Michels spokesperson Anna Kelly did not directly address Evers' comments on abortion, instead saying he wants to talk about anything other than his record of failure. Evers also cited Michels' opposition to so-called red flag laws that would allow judges to take guns and other weapons away from people deemed to be a danger, as well as his comments questioning the integrity of the 2020 election. Michels, unlike other Republicans, has not called for President Joe Biden's victory to be decertified. But Michels, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has said that maybe the 2020 election was stolen and he has not unconditionally said if he will accept results of the Nov. 8 election. Biden's victory in Wisconsin has withstood multiple reviews, recounts and lawsuits. Evers, who has vetoed more bills than any other governor in modern Wisconsin history, also touted his roll as a block on the GOP-controlled Legislature. Evers also highlighted his promise to increase funding for local governments, a move that would require approval by the Legislature. Evers also defended his response to violent protests in Kenosha in 2020 that erupted after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man. Michels has been hammering Evers on his response to the violence, saying that he didn't act quickly enough to quell the violence. I did everything I was asked to do and I would do it again if I needed to do it, Evers said, nothing that he called up the Wisconsin National Guard when it was requested. Michels' spokesperson Kelly faulted Evers for referring to the protests as civil disruptions, accusing him of minimizing what happened. Michels has also blamed Evers for paroles of convicted murderers and others granted by the state parole commission. When asked about paroles, Evers deflected criticism by noting that any decision to grant parole is not up to the governor but the commission which operates independently of him. Michels has called on Evers to stop all paroles and pardons. Michels has been invited to attend a similar event to take questions ahead of the election, but has not responded, said past Milwaukee Press Club President Corri Hess. Kelly did not respond to questions about whether Michels would attend a future event. Evers and Michels are scheduled to meet for their first and only debate before the election on Friday. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday he would not sign any legislation keeping the state's criminal abortion ban in place, including a bill that would add exceptions to the ban for pregnancies that result from rape and incest. Evers is in court seeking to overturn the 19th-century law that bans all abortions in Wisconsin unless the mother's life is in danger, a statute that has been in effect since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Evers' Republican opponent in this fall's election, Tim Michels, has recently said he would sign a bill maintaining the ban but adding the exceptions, flipping his long-standing opposition to allowing rape and incest victims to have access to abortions. I wouldnt sign it because that leaves the underlying law in place, which is a ban on abortion, Evers said Tuesday during an event at the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center hosted by the Milwaukee Press Club, WisPolitics and Rotary Club of Milwaukee. The matter may be moot. Evers has not been presented with legislation that would change the state's abortion ban, and Republican lawmakers who control the state Legislature are in court defending the law against Evers' lawsuit. Recent polling shows Evers and Michels are pulling in 50% support each. A new Marquette University Law School poll will be released Wednesday. In a pitch to voters four weeks before the Nov. 8 election, Evers cautioned the state will be transformed for the worse, citing Michels' promise to sign Republican bills Evers vetoed that would allow firearms on school grounds and add restrictions to voting. "I've played goalie for 3.5 years, vetoing 146 bills," Evers said. "If my opponent wins, those bills will come back." Evers described Michels as "radical and dangerous" and more divisive for Wisconsin than his 2018 opponent, former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, pointing to Michels' stance on abortion, education and red flag laws for gun control. Story continues Abortion is a key issue for Democrats, while Republicans have made crime their main focus. In a statement, Michels campaign spokesperson Anna Kelly blasted Evers for his handling of crime. The governor, she said, "wants to talk about anything other than his record of failure, and even minimized the Kenosha riots as 'civil disruptions after he let the city burn. Wisconsinites want real answers as to why he's doubled-down on releasing brutal murderers and child rapists into our communities, let our schools fail, and crippled our economy not the same tired, old talking points." Kelly referred to reports that Wisconsin parolees under Evers' tenure have included people convicted of especially violent crimes. Evers' campaign has noted the governor does not make parole decisions. Wisconsin's parole commission is required by state law to regularly interview eligible inmates, and many paroles are mandated. More: Where Tony Evers and Tim Michels stand on abortion, crime, marijuana and education Michels has refused to participate in a panel with journalists. Evers and Michels will face each other in just one debate, scheduled for Friday. Corrinne Hess can be reached at chess@gannett.com. Follow her @corrihess Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin governor says Roe must be codified, won't sign alternate ban Prosecutors alleged that Woo May Hoe, 52, preyed on 14 people over an eight-year period from 2012 to May 2020. Edgar Su/Reuters A woman who claimed she embodied an Indian goddess has been accused of abusing her devotees. Woo May Hoe, 52, was handed 50 charges by Singaporean prosecutors on Thursday. These included swindling her devotees of millions of dollars in supposed donations. Singaporean prosecutors have slapped a 52-year-old woman who claimed to be the incarnation of an Indian goddess with 50 charges, including forcing devotees to consume human feces. According to Today Online, Woo May Hoe was slapped with 40 additional charges in court on Thursday, including cheating and causing grievous hurt. She was initially hit with 10 charges in October 2020. Woo, who has been held in remand since October 2020, is accused of preying on 14 people over eight years from 2012 to May 2020. Per Today Online, prosecutors have accused her of various offenses, including forcing five devotees to eat human feces as punishment. According to court documents seen by Today Online, Woo has also been accused of physically abusing a 43-year-old woman by allegedly stabbing the woman's forearm with a pair of scissors and using pliers to pull out one of the woman's teeth. Per the outlet, Woo also allegedly defrauded several people of millions of dollars by conning them into giving her money to purchase cows, claiming that the donations would help improve her victims' medical ailments. One of Woo's victims was a woman who gave her 350,000 Singapore dollars, or about $280,000, in 2012 to supposedly buy the animals, Today Online reported. Prosecutors said the woman also gave Woo around $1.7 million between 2013 and 2015 after Woo convinced her that the money was going into building a temple in India. Woo's case bears similarities to one involving a self-professed "holy man" in Thailand who was arrested in May. Local media outlets reported that the 75-year-old cult leader had led a group whose members drank his urine and ate his feces. Police also said that they found around 11 corpses at his jungle campsite. Read the original article on Insider A Missouri woman submitted 52 fraudulent applications seeking rent assistance for her and her tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic and received $267,239 through her scam, according to federal authorities. Now Semaj Portis, of St. Louis County, has been sentenced to one year and a day in prison. Shes also ordered to repay the money she fraudulently received, according to an Oct. 7 news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. Authorities said the scheme began in January 2021, when Portis registered a company called Forever Riding as a nonprofit organization in Missouri. She listed herself as the incorporator and registered agent, according to court records. Portis then submitted 52 applications seeking rent help to the Missouri Housing Development Commission, federal authorities said. She listed herself or Forever Riding as the landlord on those forms, and she submitted fake rental leases. Not a single one of those applications were legitimate, prosecutors said. Indeed, (Portis) did not own a single property listed in those applications, nor was she the landlord for a single tenant listed in those applications. But her emergency rental assistance applications were accepted, and authorities said she received grant money meant to help landlords and their financially struggling tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The defense attorney representing Portis, 43, did not respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News on Oct. 10. For too many Missourians, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented time of financial hardship, turmoil, and suffering, Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman said in a sentencing memorandum. But for Defendant Semaj Portis, it constituted a lucrative opportunity to line her pockets with relief payments earmarked for struggling Missourians. Portis used the fraudulently obtained money to pay for vacations and real estate, authorities said. Catholic church worker wrote 198 checks to herself and stole $451K in Oklahoma, feds say Man stole nearly $600,000 in student financial aid through yearslong scheme, feds say Real estate agent steals $1.8 million by trying to sell properties not for sale, feds say A Phoenix Police cruiser can be seen. A 35-year-old woman was fatally shot while in the passenger seat of a vehicle in west Phoenix early Monday, police said. Phoenix police said they responded to an "unknown trouble call" at a gas station near 27th Avenue and McDowell Road at around 12:45 a.m. When they arrived, they located a woman with a gunshot wound and later identified her as Yenni Dominguez Leyva, police said. According to police, Dominquez Leyva was shot while seated as a passenger inside a car that was also occupied by two other adults and five children. It is unclear if the people in the car were related. Officials said that fire personnel arrived at the scene to treat Dominquez Leyva but she died from her injuries at the scene. Detectives learned the people inside the vehicle were making their way through a neighborhood near 32nd Avenue and McDowell Road after picking up a relative before multiple suspects began to fire at the vehicle, police said. The vehicle sped off, but then stopped at a nearby gas station after they learned that Dominguez Leyva had been shot, according to police. Officers were informed about a group of possible suspects who were in front of a home near where the group was driving, and that the possible suspects were inside that home, according to police. Phoenix police said no one responded when officers tried to talk to people inside the home. Once detectives secured a warrant to enter the home, however, they were able to detain two adult males and two juvenile males, police said. The Phoenix Police Department noted that one of the adult males was released while the other three people detained, including 19-year-old Martin Ramirez-Contreras was later booked on suspicion of multiple felonies, including second-degree murder and aggravated assault. Reach the reporter Jeremy Yurow at Jyurow@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Woman fatally shot in passenger seat of car in Phoenix; 3 arrested The 3,200 megapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera will be the largest digital camera in the world once completed (Rubin Observatory) A lab in the US is close to completing the construction of the worlds largest digital camera, featuring a five-foot (1.65m) wide lens and a 3,200-megapixel camera. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera is being built by researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University for the purpose of capturing the night sky in never-before-seen detail. Once finished, the camera will be transported to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile where it will be placed atop the Simonyi Survey Telescope. With a field of view of 9.6 square degrees nearly 40 times more than the size of the Moon when viewed from Earth astronomers will be able to capture variations in brightness of the 37 billion stars within its view, as well as other periodic instabilities that have been previously impossible to observe. In doing so, scientists hope it will bring new understanding to some of the universes biggest mysteries, such as the nature of dark matter. The camera has already been recognised by the Guiness World Records as the optical lens ever built, capable of taking up to 15 terabytes of images every night. The Rubin Observatory LSST Camera is the largest digital camera ever constructed... its roughly the size of a small car and weighs almost 6200 lbs (2800 kg), the projects website explains. The LSST Camera will produce data of extremely high quality with minimal downtime and maintenance. With construction nearly complete, the LSST is expected to be relocated to the Chile observatory in May 2023 aboard a specially-adapted Boeing 747 cargo plane. Operation will then begin the following year once it is installed. New York police reportedly launched a strike force after the shooting outside of Rep. Lee Zeldins home. Speaking to reporters near the home of the Republican candidate for governor, Suffolk Police Commissioner Rodney K. Harrison said he is putting the strike force together for the Shirley area. "Im always concerned about retaliation, so putting this strike force together and grabbing officers throughout the county and kind of flooding them in a certain community is our M.O.," Harrison on Monday, according to Newsday. "We always do that type of police work. Were in the business of protecting the residents of Suffolk County." "Its still preliminary," Harrison said. "Have we seen some gang concerns out here in Shirley? Yes, we have. I cant sit here and say that this is the motive for this shooting incident. But well take a look at it." NEW YORK TEENS SHOT OUTSIDE GOP CANDIDATE LEE ZELDIN'S HOME IDENTIFIED, NO ARRESTS MADE: REPORT Fox News Digital reached out to Suffolk County police on Tuesday seeking more information. New York GOP candidate for governor Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. said that the crime crisis in New York is hitting "close to home" after two people were shot just outside his house on Sunday afternoon. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP No arrests have been made in connection to the drive-by shooting that happened while Zeldins twin 16-year-old daughters were downstairs doing homework on Sunday afternoon. Zeldin said the girls ran upstairs, locked themselves in a bathroom and called 911. He and his wife had left to attend a Columbus Day parade in the Bronx. Home surveillance cameras captures one of the victims lying down beneath his porch, another lying in a bush, and another uninjured person moving about the property, Zeldin said. Suffolk County Police told Fox News that the shooting outside Rep. Lee Zeldin's, R-N.Y., home happened around 2:20 p.m. on Sunday in Shirley on Long Island. The New York Post first identified the wounded teen victims Monday as Joel Murphy and Elijah Robinson, both 17-year-olds from Mastic, on New Yorks Long Island. Both teen victims suffered gunshot wounds to the chest in the shooting in Shirley, the Post said, citing police, noting that Murphy also reportedly suffered a lacerated liver while Robinson sustained an arm wound. Suffolk County Police tell Fox News that the shooting happened around 2:20 p.m. on Sunday in Shirley on Long Island. Zeldin said in a statement that his two 16-year-old daughters were inside the home when the shooting happened. CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP According to the report, a "high-ranking" law enforcement source said the teen victims were "known to the department" and had been at a recording studio on a reservation in Suffolk County that is known for gang activity. Suffolk County police declined to identify the victims to Fox News Digital. Zeldin, a Republican, is running on tough on crime platform to dethrone Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in the November gubernatorial race. Immigrant advocates protest near the U.S. Capitol on June 15, 2022 Drew Angerer/Getty Images Immigrants political power is on the rise in the United States. The number of eligible immigrant voters nearly doubled from about 12 million in 2000 to more than 23 million in 2020. Immigrant voters tend to be older than U.S.-born voters, but immigrants ages 18 to 37 still made up 20% of all immigrant voters in 2020. We are a team of scholars and students across disciplines and universities researching immigrant youths civic development and we think its important to recognize that young immigrants are also playing a key role in galvanizing older immigrants to vote, primarily by connecting with them via social media. Our research shows that online sites and apps like Twitter are key for young immigrants both people who were born outside of the U.S. and those who are second-generation immigrants as ways to engage in politics. Many young immigrants use social media to follow news in their local communities, as well as in their countries of origin. They also use it to organize protests and encourage others to vote. This is true even when these young people are not eligible to vote because of their immigration status. Young immigrants have been found to use social media to galvanize others in their community to vote. Sara Wilf, Elena Maker Castro and Tania Quiles. A key issue Immigration is a core issue for many voters in the upcoming midterm elections. An August 2022 Pew Research poll found that nearly 50% of registered voters reported immigration was very important to them in the November 2022 election. Some Republican politicians, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others who are also up for re-election, have focused on immigration in their campaigns by pointing to record numbers of migrants crossing the U.S. border. Republican politicians have also relocated thousands of migrants to liberal places like Washington, D.C., New York and Massachusetts over the past several months. President Joe Bidens plan to revamp the countrys immigration system and provide a path for about 11 million undocumented residents to gain citizenship, meanwhile, remains stalled in Congress. Story continues Over the past several years, though, young immigrants people ages 18 to 23 who were born in other countries, or whose parents were have helped lead national movements to provide a conditional path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, resulting in the 2021 passage of the DREAM Act. This policy gives millions of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children the right to stay in the country. The DREAMer movement relied heavily on social media to spread information and encourage people to take action. Based on immigrant youths prior successes mobilizing their communities for political change, we believe that their online political engagement could have implications for the 2022 midterms. Mobilizing others Our research study in 2020 explored how immigrant youth ages 18 to 23 used social media to participate in politics. We took 2,300 screenshots of political tweets from January through November 2020, drawing from a sample of 32 young immigrants public Twitter feeds that we found through national immigrant youth networks, like United We Dream. Based on the content of their Twitter profiles and posts, we were confident that they were all actual immigrant youth residing in the U.S. We then contacted all of them through Twitter about the study, and the majority confirmed their age and immigrant status. We went on to analyze the screenshots to identify trends in how youth were politically engaged online. We also conducted interviews with 11 people from the sample, further confirming that we had recruited youth whose Twitter profiles accurately represented their real identities. Several indicated either in their Twitter profiles and tweets or in the interviews that they were not eligible to vote due to their documentation status. We found that young immigrants use Twitter to educate their followers about political issues and processes in the U.S. and abroad and to share both online and in-person opportunities to protest or vote. These young people appeared to intentionally target their ethnic and regional communities in their social media outreach. For example, some youth in our June 2022 study called on their followers to translate educational resources on racial justice into different languages to share with their families. Others provided voter registration guides in multiple languages, alerted followers about political candidates who shared an ethnic or regional identity, or encouraged particular ethnic communities such as South Asians to vote. In interviews, youth also described bringing political conversations from their phones to the dinner table and discussing news they had read online with their parents. Some participants also shared that they posted on social media with the explicit intention of shifting their family members political views. One person we interviewed in 2020 who had ancestry in the Philippines and Belize noted that he realized the importance of educating people and having those difficult conversations, particularly with his family and friends. Valeria, a college senior originally from Puerto Rico, also explained how Facebook was the family social media platform where she raised awareness about political issues. The way that I kind of look at it is at least Im planting a seed, right? Im planting an idea, at least Im helping others, at least hear whats going on, said Valeria, who also asked to use a pseudonym, in a 2020 interview with our team that was featured in the 2022 study. A screenshot from the authors study shows a Tweet from a young immigrant in 2020. Sara Wilf, Elena Maker Castro and Tania Quiles From online to offline engagement Immigrant youths online political engagement reflects larger trends in the U.S. Approximately 46% of U.S. teens today use the internet almost constantly, compared with just 24% who said the same in 2014. Alongside this surge in internet use, more young people are using social media to educate others about social and political topics, hold politicians accountable and provide their followers with opportunities to take action through climate and political movements like Fridays for Future and Black Lives Matter. Online political engagement has important consequences for offline political behaviors. Indeed, nearly a quarter of U.S. adults report that they have changed their views on a political issue because of social media. Online political engagement has also been shown to result in more young people participating in protests and encouraging people to vote. Our findings align with prior research showing that immigrant youth are politically educating and mobilizing their families and community members. A survey of people who were allowed to stay in the U.S. because of the DREAM Act prior to the 2020 elections found that nearly 95% of them were planning to encourage family and friends to vote. Immigrant youths online political engagement has several potential implications for the 2022 midterm elections. First, as our 2022 study found, immigrant youth are using social media to influence their parents opinions on political issues like racial justice and teach them how to register to vote. Because of the large impact immigrant voters may have on the 2022 midterms, particularly in swing states, immigrant youths online political engagement could play a role in shaping the elections outcome. Ph.D. students Bethany Murray, J. Abigail Saavedra and Lamont Bryant, as well as three undergraduate students, Kedar Garzon Gupta, Jaime Garcia and Aditi Rudra, and UCLA Professor Laura Wray-Lake are all members of the team that carried out research for the study highlighted in this article. This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Sara Wilf, University of California, Los Angeles; Elena Maker Castro, University of California, Los Angeles, and Taina Quiles, University of Virginia. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Read more: Sara Wilf receives funding from the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute for a research study related to this article. Elena Maker Castro receives funding from the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute for a research study related to this article. Elena also receives funding from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities to support her graduate research career. Taina B Quiles receives funding from the Ford Foundation to support her graduate research career. Billionaire investor Yuri Milner has renounced his Russian citizenship. Gary Gershoff/Getty Images Billionaire investor Yuri Milner said Monday he has renounced his Russian citizenship. He has been an Israeli citizen since 1999 and now lives in California with his family. Milner's tech investment firm DST Global condemned Russia's war against Ukraine. Billionaire investor Yuri Milner said on Monday he has renounced his Russian citizenship, more than seven months into the Ukraine war. The founder of tech investment firm DST Global made the announcement in a tweet. He said he and his family completed the processes of renouncing their Russian citizenship in the summer. They had left Russia "for good" in 2014 following Russia's annexation of Crimea, he added in the tweet. Milner, who was born in Moscow in 1961 to a Ukrainian-Jewish father and a Russian-Jewish mother, has been an Israeli citizen since 1999, according to a factsheet on his website. He has a net worth of $3.5 billion, making him the richest Russian in Silicon Valley, according to Bloomberg. He is known for his profitable bets on tech firms such as Airbnb, Alibaba, Facebook, and Twitter. Milner now appears to be distancing himself from Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime. The factsheet on Milner's website states he has not been to Russia since 2014, has no assets in the country, and that "97% of Yuri's personal wealth was created outside of Russia." It also states Milner has "never met Vladimir Putin, either individually or in a group." In March, his investment firm DST Global condemned "Russia's war against Ukraine, its sovereign neighbor," according to Bloomberg. His nonprofit Breakthrough Prize Foundation also condemned "Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its unprovoked and brutal assaults against the civilian population." DST Global did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside of regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider Orjis brand new special, Yvonne Orji: A Whole Me is currently streaming on HBO Max. On the latest episode of theGrios Acting Up podcast, Cortney Wills speaks with Yvonne Orji, breaking down her new HBO comedy special, life after Insecure and more. Yvonne Orji: A Whole Me is the performers second HBO comedy special and follows her acclaimed debut, Yvonne Orji: Momma, I Made It!, which dropped in 2020. This time around, Orji is in a much different place in her life following the end of the massive success of Insecure on which she played lead character Molly for five seasons. The new special also comes after the shifts in the world the COVID-19 pandemic brought, which she believes in many ways helped her become the best version of herself. I call it grown up comedy, Orji explained to Wills. Its more reflective. It has levels. The first part Im just talking a lot about the healing, the journey, what I learned and unlearned. Then, you know, right around the 23-, 24-minute mark we ramp up the fun, because Im an upper kind of comedian. I cant let it go too low. Yvonne Orji, last year at the 49th International Emmy Awards, has a second HBO comedy special, which is currently streaming. (Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images) The first special introduced a wide audience to Orji as a comedian outside of Insecure, but in the current one she has more freedom for exploration. The pressure with the second one was not even that I had to top the first one, its that I hope people will understand that this isnt the same one, she explained. The way that Im approaching it is because of the introspection that I had in the pandemic and I am a little bit more in my bag now. I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like. Orji sold the second special to HBO as an African In Living Color, hence it features a lot more sketches in between the stand-up versus the video packages of her in Nigeria with her family in the first special. Youre kind of getting a little bit of everything I envisioned all at once. The sketches also allowed her to bring her acting chops to it, something fans have come to know and love from her turn on Insecure. On display, too, is her producing work for the other actors in the sketches. Life after Insecure is letting people know, I can do drama. I can do comedy. I can do producing. I can do writing! Im even more further in my bag, as the young people say these days. Story continues Speaking to what she is looking to do after playing Molly, she said she wants to do things that, feel most right to her in this moment. Do I resonate with it? Why am I the one playing this role versus anybody else? So thats where I am. And acting isnt the only medium she has her sights on, as she recently made her directorial debut with a short, Jamal. That was a new hat, but I stepped into it and I really liked it. Yvonne Orji: A Whole Me is currently streaming on HBO Max. The full episode of Acting Up, featuring the full conversation with Orji and Wills, is also available to stream where podcasts are available. TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today! The post Yvonne Orji breaks down her new HBO comedy special, life after Insecure and more on Acting Up appeared first on TheGrio. ROMAN PETRENKO TUESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2022, 12:42 On 11 October, Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting of the Supreme Commanders Office. Source: Zelenskyy, on Telegram Quote: "We addressed a number of important issues. First of all, we discussed the situation at the front and remarked on the high-quality work of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that protect our sky. The continued liberation of Ukrainian territory was another point of discussion. Denys Monastyrskyi, the Minister of Internal Affairs, reported on how we are dealing with the damage caused by Russian missile strikes and about protecting critical infrastructure facilities". Details: Zelenskyy stated that preparing Ukrainian troops for winter was also discussed. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! RUSTBURG A witness to a Rustburg mans July shooting death in Campbell County testified Tuesday about details of the events that led to the fatal confrontation in a church parking lot. Michael Anthony Cerillo, 52, of Lexington, North Carolina, is charged with second-degree murder, possession of a firearm by a felon and use of a firearm by a felon in connection with the killing of Robert William Staton, 33. The Campbell County Sheriffs Office responded just before 1 p.m. July 5 to the entrance of the parking lot of St. Pauls Baptist Church on Brookneal Highway, where Staton was found lying on the ground in front of his vehicle from a gunshot wound. Later that week, Cerillo was taken into custody at his home by the Davidson County Sheriffs Office in North Carolina without incident, the Campbell sheriffs office has said. At a preliminary hearing Tuesday in Campbell County General District Court, Steve Alan Hendricks Jr. testified of his involvement in a marijuana enterprise with Cerillo. The drug partnership included mail delivery packages and Cerillo coming by to pick them up, Hendricks testified. A particular package was lighter than usual, and Cerillo contacted Hendricks, who suspected Staton could have taken the missing marijuana, according to Hendricks testimony. I had no clue who did it, Hendricks said. Hendricks told Cerillo he knew where Staton might be located, and the defendant drove with Hendricks to find him. When they spotted Staton in a vehicle, he drove off like a crazy man, with Cerillo following, Hendricks testified. Cerillo pointed a gun in Statons direction, and the two vehicles came to a stop in front of the church, Hendricks said. When Cerillo confronted Staton about the missing marijuana, Staton was insistent he didnt take it, Hendricks said. Hendricks testified he saw Cerillo shoot Staton, who was not armed, at close range. Standing there in awe, Hendricks said, he knew Staton was dead, and the two left the scene. After the shooting, Hendricks testified, he talked Cerillo into taking him back to a relatives house. He said Cerillo told him to delete text messages and stay quiet about the incident. Hendricks said he did not call 911 because he was told not to talk about the incident. Matthew Pack, Cerillos attorney, heavily questioned Hendricks about specifics in interviews with investigators, the drug operation, a few firearms he testified to selling to Cerillo and events up to and after the shooting. During Packs questioning, Hendricks said he and Cerillo discussed how if anything went wrong, the story was that Staton was stealing from Cerillos father. Hendricks testified he regularly uses methamphetamine and marijuana but was not under the influence of either drug during his testimony. After testimony from Hendricks, the only witness to testify during the hearing, Pack motioned to dismiss the charges. Were challenging the charges, Pack said. Judge Stephanie Maddox certified the three charges against Cerillo to an upcoming term of the grand jury, which does not decide guilt or innocence but decides if evidence is enough to send the case to trial in Campbell Circuit Court. Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Eric Harrison presented a report from the medical examiner on Statons death to Maddox during the hearing. After the hearing, Pack said Cerillo maintains his innocence and looks forward to his day in court. Pack said the defense feels Hendricks lacks credibility. I think theres a lot of problems with this case as far as the witness, Pack said. Cerillo, who previously was denied bond after extradition from North Carolina, remains in custody pending further court proceedings. The YMCA of Central Virginia has set an $11.5 million capital campaign goal to complete a major renovation of the Downtown YMCA on Church Street. The successful completion of the effort, dubbed the Building for a Better US! Capital Campaign, will completely transform the YMCA into the new Schewel-Clark Family YMCA, a news release stated. A new three-story, 23,000-square-foot addition will replace the current lower portion of the building facing Church Street. The center will provide an open, welcoming environment with critical new spaces for community health programs, youth education and support, individual and group wellness and family programming, the release states. Other features planned for the YMCA include a state-of-the-art, 6,000-plus-square-foot wellness center; large group exercise studios and a dedicated yoga and pilates studio; a youth learning center to provide academic enrichment opportunities for children; a large multi-purpose community center for special programming, educational classes, social activities, and meetings; a dedicated teen center space; an interactive two-story kids play area for children ages 512; a child watch area for infants through 5-year-olds; and a teaching kitchen with healthy cooking classes for all ages. The announcement came at the end of the Ys Annual Impact Celebration, with nearly 150 community leaders and YMCA supporters in attendance. We spent this evening talking about the tremendous impact your Y has in the community, and we are very excited to share that the Y will have an even greater impact in future years through the major transformation of our Downtown YMCA into the Schewel-Clark Family YMCA, Cindy Forren, the incoming president of the board, said in the release. Forren thanked Marc Schewel and his family for their $2 million leadership gift to jumpstart the effort and said the campaign has already raised $7.6 million toward the goal. For more information, go online to: ymcacva.org/transform RICHMOND Virginias top election official said she doesnt know yet what caused a technical glitch that delayed the processing of 107,000 voter registration applications for up to five months, but suggested unprecedented changes in state election laws the past two years contributed to the problem. Commissioner of Elections Susan Beals, in a response to questions from the Democratic chair of the Senate elections committee, said her department is working with the state information technology agency to identify the root cause of the issues and cannot provide specific details at this time. However, Beals warned against major changes to an aging voter registration system she said would pose significant risks. Last year, the General Assembly, then under Democratic control, provided more than $16 million to the Department of Elections to replace the system, known as VERIS. The previous year, the assembly greatly expanded access to early and absentee voting before the 2020 election, the results of which former President Donald Trump and many Republicans subsequently disputed. In the past two years, Virginia has seen unprecedented changes to the way elections are conducted, Beals wrote to Sen. Lionell Spruill Sr., D-Chesapeake, new chair of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee. While these legislative changes increased access to the ballot and had a positive impact on voters, many of these bills required significant changes to our aging voter registration system. This year alone the system was amended to accommodate redistricting, Same Day Registration, the preregistration of 16-year-olds, as well as precinct level reporting, she added. Any additional requirements to the system pose significant risks. Spruill wasnt satisfied with the answer, which he said wasnt thorough enough. He and his predecessor, Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, also bridled at what they saw as an insinuation the legislature was to blame for problems with the VERIS system that caused thousands of delayed voter registration applications to arrive suddenly at local election offices last week. The blame should be on them, said Spruill, who had complained to Beals last week for not notifying him and Del. Margaret Ransone, R-Westmoreland, chair of the House Privileges and Elections Committee, before publicly disclosing the delayed registrations. Beals responded that establishing a positive working relationship with the committee leaders is one of my top priorities. Ebbin said the commissioner appeared to be shifting the blame to the assembly. He has clashed before with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who vetoed a number of bills the Democratic senator sponsored this year, while signing identical measures with GOP sponsors. The right to vote should be one of the most important things that the Youngkin administration should be focused on during election season, he said Monday. It should be an all-hands-on-deck situation. The glitch involved registration applications submitted through the so-called motor voter system, which allows eligible voters to register through the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Beals said the elections department detected an issue with those registration applications the previous week, which she said was reinforced by feedback from the field that showed while some applications were being processed, others were being held up within the queue. After working with DMV, she said the elections department concluded the delays were caused by intermittent network issues within its system. ELECT addressed the issue immediately, resolved the network issues, analyzed the backlog and communicated with general registrars, Beals told Spruill. ELECT provided localities with their DMV transactions for processing. No data was lost. Further, she added, the department has changed its procedures for amplified monitoring that will allow senior leadership to review trends in voter registration data for abnormalities. However, the technical problems intensified the workload for registrars and local elections offices a month before crucial Virginia congressional elections that could determine party control of the House of Representatives, as well as local elections and bond referendums. Those congressional elections are being conducted under a new political map that in some cases dramatically changes geographical lines. In Prince William County, for example, voters are choosing between Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, and Prince William Supervisor Yesli Vega in a congressional district that previously had been anchored by the Richmond suburbs of Henrico and Chesterfield counties. Now, the bulk of 7th District voters live in eastern Prince William or the Fredericksburg area. Prince William Registrar Eric Olsen said Monday his office received between 6,000 and 7,000 delayed DMV registration applications last week, in addition to several thousand more than it normally receives before the pre-election registration deadline, which was Monday. Olsen said his office hired extra staff and already had processed about 9,000 registration applications, with about 2,500 to go. It will send notices to newly registered voters later this week. This year, for the first time, Virginia also will allow voters to register on Election Day, Nov. 8, when they would vote by provisional ballots. But the extra work also comes at a time of intensified scrutiny on state and local election officials, especially in Prince William. Former Prince William Registrar Michele White, who resigned 18 months ago, was indicted last month on two felony and one misdemeanor charge because of unspecified actions during the 2020 elections. The charges came after an investigation by Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican who established an election integrity unit after taking office this year. Olsen, 46, shocked the Prince William electoral board on Friday by announcing he will step down after the election this year because of health reasons and Republican interference in his offices management of the election, according to reports by the Prince William Times and Virginia Mercury. Its not a good time to be an election official right now, he said during the meeting. I think theres legitimate fear about what could come down the road for people that are just doing their jobs. The next time a hurricane develops it should be named Kamala, in honor of our vice president. Why Kamala, you ask? Because, like a hurricane, Kamala Harris is sometimes difficult to track, her direction is often unpredictable and the damage she causes can be substantial. Fresh off her remark (hailing) the alliance between the United States and the Republic of North Korea, Harris said of U.S. climate objectives and the damage caused by Hurricane Ian: It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making. ... And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place." Equity and equality are buzzwords Democrats and the left use when they speak about race. Storms dont discriminate. They damage homes, cars, boats, roads and lives belonging to people of all races and colors. Is the vice president really suggesting that we distribute aid based on equity and equality? The answer, of course, is politics. The White House released a fact sheet detailing what disaster relief efforts were being mobilized, likely in hopes that it would replace Harris word salad, but hasnt the damage already been done? This close to the election, the administration is desperate to shore up its base. Thats what student loan forgiveness is about and its what engaging in what Harris apparent desire to set priorities for equity and equality is also about. Will Vice President Harris at some point define communities of color? Asked by a reporter to do so, she declined. What is color? A Google search of the words Is white a color? produced this result: Some consider white to be a color, because white light comprises all hues on the visible light spectrum. And many do consider black to be a color, because you combine other pigments to create it on paper. But in a technical sense, black and white are not colors, they're shades. When I was in elementary school we had Crayola crayons. Among the crayon colors were white and black. No one called them shades. As with other skin colors, there are many shades of whiteness. On certain applications there are categories for race. They include non-Hispanic white. Under the Harris plan, if my home had been damaged or destroyed by Ian, as a non-Hispanic white person, would I be on my own with possible help from my insurance company, assuming I had costly flood insurance, which The Wall Street Journal reports many Floridians have dropped? FEMA Director Deanne Criswell was asked about Harris remark during an appearance on CBSs Face the Nation. She seemed to contradict Harris when she said: Were going to support all communities all Floridians are going to get the help that is available to them through our programs. Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, pushed back even harder when she said (Harris) rhetoric is causing undue panic and must be clarified. FEMA Individual Assistance is already available to all Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian, regardless of race or background. Arent we all members of communities of color that include rich, poor and middle-class people who have in the past and present been impacted by this and other natural disasters? If Harris had said something like this, it might have brought more unity to the country at a time of need. In recent years, stink bugs, which can cause major damage to farm crops, have been appearing in alarming numbers in Japan. By the end of August this year, 35 of the country's 47 prefectures had issued "stink bug warnings" to farmers, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Global warming is likely behind the population rise of the insect, which feeds on plant fluids, experts say, warning that its numbers could keep growing. Stink bugs produce a foul smell when threatened, a mechanism thought to help ward off predators. They are also called shield bugs. "Damage this year is the worst ever," Toru Kawana, 47, a grower of high-quality Japanese pears in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, lamented as he held up unevenly shaped pears whose juices had been partially sucked out by stink bugs. "Stink bugs and other pests have increased because of temperature rises caused by climate change," he said. Warnings have been issued against three kinds of stink bug -- those that suck nutrients from and discolor rice plants, bugs that pierce the skin of fruits and extract their juices, and bugs that attack soybean plants. ...continue reading Advertisement New Delhi: The anti-hijab protests in Iran got the support of Iranian actress Elnaaz Norouzi on Tuesday as she came forward and joined the stir against government clampdown. Extending show of support to Iranian women in their fight, the actress took to social media handles and stripped her clothes. In the video that she shared, the actress could be seen taking off her hijab, then burqa and then entire clothes to lodge protest against state oppression. She goes on to remove all her clothes and also shared this video on Instagram. Sharing the video, she said that every woman should have the freedom over her body and nobody should, except the woman, should have the power to decide on what she wears. Every Woman should have the power to decide over her own body! I am not promoting nudity, I am promoting freedom of choice! Elnaaz Norouzi wrote in the video. In past few weeks, Iran has been rocked by waves of angry protests by irate women activists who are enraged over killing of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was on a visit to Tehran when she was caught by the morality police and reportedly died on Sept 16 in the police custody. Police claimed that the woman was caught because she was not wearing hijab properly however her death in police custody started wave of protests. Morality police came under heavy fire for atrocities on the young woman, however, the police said that she died because of heart attack and was also rushed to the hospital. Eyewitnesses however countered the police theory and said that Amini was severely beaten and alleged that she died because of police brutality. Following this, hundreds of women in Iran hit the streets and burnt their hijab as mark of protest. Many others publicly cut their hairs as a mark of protest. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a one-to-one youth mentoring organization, has announced the BBBSA Youth Equity and Empowerment Scholarship with support from the Deloitte Foundation. The scholarship program will provide young people with financial support for college and credentialing programs through the awarding of 60 scholarships. High school juniors and seniors and post-secondary adults ages 18 to 24 enrolled in Big Brothers Big Sisters throughout the 2022-2023 academic year will be eligible to receive a scholarship through the program, according to a press release from the organization. The scholarships will be for those with career interests in areas including accounting, finance, economics, engineering, computer engineering, computer science, information systems, technology, data science, data analytics and math. Scholarships will be available to youth living or planning to go to school in 13 markets: Chicago; Hartford, Connecticut; Kansas City, Missouri; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Nashville, Tennessee; New York; Omaha, Nebraska; Parsippany, New Jersey; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Seattle; and Tampa, Florida. We know when young people gain exposure and access to educational and career opportunities, it widens their view to the possibilities and potential ahead of them in life and career, said Artis Stevens, president and CEO, BBBSA, in the press release. With the support of organizations like the Deloitte Foundation, we continue to empower the next generation on a path to graduate with a plan for their futures. We are thrilled to be able to support an organization that continues to change lives through mentorship, said Erin Scanlon, president, Deloitte Foundation. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America uplifts communities and helps to empower youth so that they can aspire to fulfilling lives and careers. Founded in 1904, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is the largest and most experienced youth mentoring organization in the United States. The mission of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. Big Brothers Big Sisters evidence-based approach is designed to create positive youth outcomes, including educational success, avoidance of risky behaviors, higher aspirations, greater confidence and improved relationships. Big Brothers Big Sisters has over 230 local agencies serving more than 5,000 communities across all 50 states. For more information, visit bigbrothersbigsisters.org. The Deloitte Foundation, founded in 1928, is a not-for-profit organization that supports education in the U.S. through a variety of initiatives that help develop the next generation of diverse business leaders and their influencers and promote excellence in teaching, research and curriculum innovation. The Foundation sponsors an array of national programs relevant to a variety of professional services, benefiting high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and educators. Learn more about the Deloitte Foundation at bit.ly/3MkTEYM. GAINESVILLE, Fla. Students and faculty at the University of Florida gave U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse a raucous welcome to campus Monday, greeting the Nebraska Republican with biting questions and a loud protest as he sought to introduce himself as the schools likely next president. Introduced last week as the only finalist for the job, the 50-year-old Sasse faced opposition to his stances against same-sex marriage, his past efforts to do away with tenure and a decision by University of Florida leaders to keep much of the selection process secret. During the second of three public forums, about 200 student protesters crowded into the lobby of Emerson Alumni Hall and refused to leave, waving signs and chanting Hey, hey, ho, ho. Ben Sasse has got to go. Their shouts could be heard inside the Presidents Ballroom, where Sasse was addressing students after an earlier forum with faculty. Sasse paused a few times and smiled as the chants grew louder, then ended the student session about 15 minutes early. The protesters then flowed into the ballroom ahead of the next session with university employees. To avoid the noisy scene, the university held the employee session online instead. The Gainesville Sun reported as many as 1,000 people joined in the chanting. The protesters made five demands while occupying the ballroom for about an hour. They wanted Sasse to decline the presidents job and the University of Florida board of trustees to release the names thus far withheld of all 12 people it had interviewed for the post. They also demanded more transparency during the selection process and the repeal of a new Florida law that keeps presidential searches at state colleges and universities largely out of public view. In addition, they wanted the University of Florida to commit to picking a person who demonstrated consistent advocacy and respect for people of all sexual orientations, genders and races. The large group stayed until the employee session with Sasse ended shortly after 4 p.m. Some of them said they planned to return Nov. 1, when Sasse is scheduled to be interviewed by the board of trustees. Sasses day started on a lighter note, having listened to Tom Petty songs during his pre-dawn workout in Gainesville. He said during the faculty session that the melodies felt more special in the musicians hometown. But he quickly faced a tense line of questioning as the session began. Faculty members quizzed him on his positions regarding tenure, which he ended during a five-year period as president of Midland University in Fremont, which has about 1,600 students. Sasse drew distinctions between Midland and the University of Florida, which enrolls more than 50,000 students, saying tenure was a necessity for recruitment at a large research university. He said he would be a zealous defender of tenure in Florida and would take it upon himself to explain its merits to people who might not understand in Tallahassee, a place he said hes never been. But his first question from both faculty and students was how he would protect LGBTQ individuals, based on his statements opposing same-sex marriage. Amanda Phalin, president of the faculty senate, said many University of Florida faculty are deeply concerned about Sasses stance on that issue and read him the universitys nondiscrimination policy. Sasse responded, saying his stances were a subset of who he was. "I believe deeply in the immeasurable worth and universal dignity of every single person, he said. He added that the law is set and nothing is currently under consideration at the University of Florida that would call that into question. "People vigorously wrestle about what the issues are in the classroom, but the community is a place for respect and inclusion for all Gators, he said. Sasse also tried to draw a distinction between his job as a senator and the one he's seeking. "I've had political positions and policy positions that represent the views of Nebraskans. It's a completely different job to have the job of president of UF," Sasse said, according to the Gainesville Sun. "The president of UF's job is to celebrate all of what's going on in this community, and to be a storyteller and resource-getter and salesman for it." He said he would meet with the LGBTQ advisory group on campus to learn more about the metrics of what is needed to create a more inclusive community. "Sasse does not really believe in equality on the basis of sexual orientation," said Nathan Knorst, a senior at the university. "So, how can he adequately represent the student body and faculty and UF's core values, which are diversity, equity and inclusion?" Lucca Carlson, a sophomore at the protest, said while he expected a conservative appointment he didnt expect a politician currently in office who had publicly made hateful statements. Sasse also said during the forum he believes in human causes for climate change but has not always supported federal efforts to deal with it. Sasse during questioning also sought to set aside what he said were other misconceptions about his positions. He said he believes in climate change, unlike other members of his party, but feels innovation can provide the solutions, not the federal government. He said Chinese or Chinese American scholars should not be fearful of his stances against the Chinese Communist party hiring spies within universities. And he said he didnt have anything against people who majored in psychology or people named Jeremy, a reference to jokes he made during a high school commencement address he delivered via Zoom during the pandemic. Sasse admitted his attempts at humor that day had flopped. Danaya Wright, a law professor who put together the faculty senates report investigating academic freedom at the University of Florida, said in an interview she was trying to keep an open mind about Sasse. I think being president of UF is a very difficult job, she said. Nobody is going to be perfect at every aspect of it. Well wait and see. Some faculty are very, very skeptical and concerned. And they have valid reasons to be. Hes going to have to prove himself. Sasse reaffirmed that he was a staunch defender of academic freedom, saying it is essential to our research mission and essential to what happens in a dynamic classroom. He said he is still learning about a new Florida law pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that limits discussion of race and gender issues in the classroom, but added that people should be able to talk about race and have debates about history. You cant understand America if you dont understand the original sin in America of racism, he said during the session with faculty. He had opened the session, saying he hadnt sought out the University of Florida job but was worried about the issue of creating more nimble learners. He said students who graduate now cant expect to work in the same field throughout their careers, and he wants to be part of addressing that issue. He spoke of time spent in Silicon Valley, where he came to understand the concept of disruption and the need for higher education to change structures that were relevant 20 and 30 years ago but not today. Sasse also mentioned his family, suggesting the life of a college president was more attractive to him than the Senate job he has. I didnt want to be a dad that never shared family dinners with his kids on weeknights, he said. He said hes the father of a sophomore and a freshman in college as well as an 11-year-old. They were omni-schooled, he said, going to public and private schools as well as homeschooling and private tutors. He said he hopes all learning, including at the University of Florida, includes more field experiences, more languages and more study abroad experiences. Asked how he would adapt to the learning curve of leading a university as large and complex as the University of Florida, he said he would listen, listen, listen and listen some more. He didnt have a timeline, he said, but if this goes the way I hope it will, I imagine I would start in the new year and there would be many, many months of listening. Sasse, who has also been a rare GOP critic of former President Donald Trump, said the students have every right to protest. Obviously, I wish they didnt have the position they have but I strongly support the right of people to protest and exercise their free speech rights, he said. Sasse, who would resign from the Senate to take the position, was recommended for the school's presidency by a search committee. He still faces a vote of the schools board of trustees, then must be confirmed by the state board of governors. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. The controversial Beijing-funded African Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that is due to open in the next few months is just one example of Chinas increasing investment in health care on the African continent since the pandemic as it builds what analysts and Beijing call a Health Silk Road. According to experts, the reasons behind Chinas investments in health care in Africa include the desire to increase its soft power as it vies with the West for influence on the continent, finding markets for its drugs and medical products and strengthening its position with international bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO). However, some critics have warned of more opportunistic motivations such as access to natural resources, political favors and even spying. Already the $80 million African CDC headquarters is one of China-funded health projects that has proved contentious. It was originally envisioned as a US-China-Africa collaboration, but as Trump administration decided to pull the US out of the WHO, the agreement was re-crafted as one between China and the African Union. At the time, some US officials suggested China was aiming to use the CDC to spy on Africas genomic data and gain control over African health management, which China has described as a ridiculous allegation. Besides CDC, Beijing has also sought to promote traditional Chinese medicine, opening clinics in many countries on the continent. During the COVID-19 pandemic, China distributed personal protective equipment and provided vaccines to African nations. A Chinese company has recently built Africas largest vaccine cold-storage unit in Egypt and the North African country is also manufacturing Chinas Sinovac vaccine locally for export to the rest of the continent. Overall, experts point out that since the quantity of Western investment and support for health care infrastructure in Africa has been limited in recent decades, African countries have welcomed Chinese investments and support. Yet, despite Chinas Health Silk Road ambitions, its contributions to health care in Africa do not come anywhere near those of the United States, which has spent billions of dollars on malaria, HIV, AIDS, and other programs over the decades. Benin has denied the presence of French troops of Barkhane Operation fighting terrorism in the Sahel region. Wilfried Leandre Hougbedji, spokesperson for the cabinet of the President Patrice Talon, said French forces found at Kandi in the department of Alibori, are French instructors in the country to beef up the ability of Benin forces in the fight against terrorism, 24H Au Benin reports. American and Belgian soldiers are also in the country as part of training program against terrorism, Hougbedji added. Once the training sessions are over, they will leave after transferring expertise to our forces in every domain, he added. The comments came after public opinion took a military helicopter hoovering the departments of Alibori and Borgou for an aircraft from Chad-based Barkhane Operation. Hougbedi added that the aircraft is a Russia-based Mi8 helicopter of the Benin army for logistical purpose. Benin pilots are currently being trained to fly the helicopter by the instructors, the government official added. Benin has been grappling with terrorism near the border with Burkina Faso, a neighbor struggling with terrorism activities. At least 180 people have lost their lives in inter-communal clash in the West of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Anadolu news agency reports citing authorities. The violence according to the Congolese government occurred over two months, at Kwamouth, at heart of Mai Ndombe province, hundreds kilometers from capital Kinshasa. The situation has returned to normal, said Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya at a press conference in Kinshasa. There were many displaced people, nearly a hundred thousand Congolese. Unfortunately, more than 180 people died as a result of months of conflict between Teke and Yaka, the government official added. The violence was sparked in July due to conflict customary royalties to be paid to local authorities from the Teke community by non-natives of the area. President Felix Tshisekedi blamed a sabotage for the feud which has taken place one year before presidential elections. In December 2018, the province was the theater of another inter-communal row between Tende and Nunu. The clash caused the death of at least 500 people according to UN reports. Henri Claude Oyima, head of Gabons private bosses indicated Monday that the countrys struggling National Social Security Fund, CNSS, should be managed by the private sector per recommendations of Inter-African Conference on Social Security (CIPRES). We are the ones who pay, we think that we have to manage this institution and that the State must remain in the role of regulator and controller of the action. All our employees who retire are a problem, we, companies are obliged to take care of them when they retire, said Oyima. The CNSS is currently controlled by the state which in February fired the board and appointed an interim ad hoc committee for 12 months. The fund has been struggling to pay pensions of retirees from the private sector. ANAREG, the union of Gabons retirees, has slammed the government decision arguing that 10 various managers were appointed over the 13 past years but all failed to address issues dogging the fund. A general manager from the private sector could put an end to the successive casting errors at the head of the CNSS. Ten general managers have succeeded one another, but the same problems have persisted, said Mathurin Mengue Bibang, communication adviser of the struggling pension fund. More international law experts, university professors and human rights militants continue to support, at the United Nations, Moroccos realistic autonomy plan for the Sahara and denounce the sufferings endured by the sequestered Sahrawis in the Polisario-controlled Tindouf camps, Southern Algeria. Addressing the UN fourth Committee, convening in New York, French expert Andre Grimblatt said that Moroccos autonomy proposal is credible, sustainable and the only viable & realistic solution which is gaining a growing international support. He also denounced the polisario use of children soldiers in violation of international law and diversion of international humanitarian aid destined for the sequestered Saharwis in the Tindouf camps. Roberto Leon Ramirez, Head of Fundacion Global Chile Marruecos, recalled his visits to Tindouf wherein he saw serious human rights violations in the camps. Algeria controls free movement and does not allow in other countries, he said, affirming that some of the humanitarian aids are re-sold on the black market in the south of Algeria. He highlighted the plight of women in the camps, adding that not even children are exempt from the worst kind of physical and psychological violence. For professor Juan De Dios Gutierrez, international law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, since 1945, sixty territorial conflicts have been resolved peacefully based on the principle of autonomy. He described the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco for the Sahara as a compromise pursuant to international agreements, the United Nations Charter, General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, saying all parties to the conflict must commit to the UN-sponsored round table process to achieve political solution. El Fadel Bua Da Mohamed of the Association Sahraouie contre lImpunite dans les Camps de Tindouf (ASIMCAT) recounted his experience as a refugee and human rights defender who was abducted for five months and lived in secret detention centers under the watch of Algerian generals. The Sahrawis are being used by the Polisario leaders to serve their personal interest and agenda of the Algerian regime which arms, funds and shelters the armed militias. For her part, Lemaadla Mohamed Salem Zrug, (ASIMCAT), said that women in the Tindouf camps are routinely subjected to human trafficking and forced marriage. Her father was abducted and tortured to death by Polisario, she said, noting that rapes have occurred in the camps and the Polisario leader is currently sued in Spain for rape. Mohammed Ahmed Gain of the African Institute for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation described the Tindouf camps as a goldmine for separatist movements, with its geographic position in a strategic corridor encouraging the recruitment of terrorists, the smuggling of drugs and weapons, human trafficking and the protection of war criminals. Africa opposes the creation of microstates, said Coulibaly Youssouf of the Universite de Bamako in Mali, adding that African capitals all agree that only a political settlement would provide a lasting solution, citing in this regard Moroccos autonomy proposed for the Sahara under its sovereignty. He also called on the United Nations to include the Polisario and other armed groups in northern Mali and the Sahel on its list of terrorist organizations. Grace Njapau, Women Investment Network (WIN), said the Security Council has been clear since 2001 that a referendum is no longer an option, adding that the Moroccan autonomy initiative is gaining more support around the world. The Sahara has a vibrant civil society with 8,000 organizations registered in the region. She condemned the Polisario ill-treatment of women and children in the camps, which remain an open-air prison. She called for a quick resolution of the regional dispute, underscoring that Moroccos proposed solution based on autonomy is the only one that corresponds to parameters set forth by the Council. Pedro Diaz de La Vega Garcia, Banco de Alimentos, said the Moroccan Sahara used to be one of the poorest areas in Morocco, but now it has one of the countrys highest rates of development. Morocco is investing greatly in the Sahara in a bid to turn it into a transatlantic cooperation hub. Mohamed Ziyad Aljabar, member of the Palestinian-Moroccan Friendship Society, said that Moroccos autonomy plan for the Sahara is a good basis for negotiations, affirming that it is the only feasible and realistic solution. The Polisario armed militias continue to threaten the security of the buffer zone, in violation of Security Council resolutions, he said, adding that the question of the Moroccan Sahara is not similar to that of Palestine. Mohamed Edabadda, Association Rotary International a Boujdour, said that in the south of the Kingdom important initiatives have led to constructive projects that cover all aspects of life, especially sustainable development, social justice and civil rights. Different civil society organizations in the south enjoy a great responsibility and play their role in evaluating all democratic practices, he added. Bahi Larbi Ennass, Centre la Paix pour les Etudes Politiques et Strategiques, said he used to be a military leader in the Polisiario and witnessed the serious human rights violations committed in the Tindouf camps. Abdul Basith Pattinathar from World Humanitarian Drive said women in the Tindouf camps are deprived of their fundamental rights and are victims of sexual aggression by polisario gangs. Civil society militant MRabih Adda said he was expelled from the Tindouf camps by the polisario leaders after undergoing the worst forms of torture for exercising his freedom of expression and requesting an identity card as a refugee. For his part, Hammada El Baihi, member of the Sahara League for Democracy & Human Rights, said that everyone in the Tindouf camps has been suffering from a catastrophic situation for decades, denouncing the systematic theft of international aid donated for the inhabitants of the Tindouf camps. Khalid Bendriss, Association Supporting Moroccan Autonomy Plan, highlighted the infrastructural development in the southern provinces, noting that the level of socioeconomic growth in that region has been internationally recognized, including by the United Nations. Moroccan Sahara has two airports, 10,000 km of roads and one of the biggest ports in the country, he said, adding that the Moroccan Government has improved the quality of life of the local populace through schools, libraries and hospitals. Members of the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) are meeting in Marrakesh to discuss the industry issues, challenges and the future of travel & tourism. This years ABTA oversea travel convention, taking place from 10 to 12 October in Moroccos red city, marks a return to in-person meetings after two-years of restrictions due to Covid-19 pandemic. The event, which is gathering hundreds of delegates, is an opportunity for Moroccan tourism officials to show travel professionals the huge potentials of the Moroccan destination, the countrys rich cultural heritage, spectacular scenery, architecture, warm hospitality and delicious cuisine. It is a great opportunity to receive UK tourism business leaders and market influencers, said Chief of Moroccan national tourism office, Adel El Fakir. In 2019, over 600,000 UK tourists visited the North African Kingdom. For us, the British market is a priority, underlined Mr. El Fekir, noting that the partnership deals sealed with low-cost carriers EasyJet and Ryanair in 2021 have started to yield positive results. The Marrakesh travel convention is an opportunity for ABTA colleagues, members and Partners to make new contacts and deepen their knowledge of the industry. The agenda features debates on the economic and policy landscape, the changes in the way the business of travel works and the release of two new reports: the New Climate Action Guidebook and new Holiday Habits study. The ABTA & Deloitte New Climate Action Guidebook outlines how businesses can reduce carbon footprint and make travel & tourism more sustainable. The new ABTA Holiday Habits report shows a return of UKs overseas travel and high demand for travel professionals and package holidays. The emotion of walking through the Bovee Fire debris at times became overwhelming for Stuart Shepherd, the executive director for the Nebraska 4-H Foundation. The fire destroyed 17 of the 18 buildings at the 4-H campground near Halsey and as Shepherd spent a few minutes in the days following the catastrophic event, he found a treasure in the midst of the rubble. When I was driving to Halsey, Julie Bain, who is the director of the National Forest Service, called me, Shepherd said. She said, I just had a man and woman in my office that said they had planted a tree up by Eppley Lodge in memory of their 8-year-old daughter who had passed away in 1984. Bain said they would like to have the plaque back. When I heard that, my heart sank because I thought theres no way were going to find this plaque the trees arent even there, Shepherd said. The first day, Shepherd said, there were six people from the 4-H office surveying the damage. After we did our work, I said would you help me, Shepherd said. Lets just walk through the camp and lets see if we can find where a plaque might be. He said everybody was kind of doing their own walks to clear their head. They kept looking nothing, he said. The next day Shepherd was at the camp by himself with the media from around the state doing a tour of the devastation. Their questions were overwhelming so I needed a little time to just walk away and do my own thing, Shepherd said. He walked away and stopped for a moment, looking around at what was left of the camp. I looked down at my shoe and there was something square laying there and it had a screw through it, Shepherd said. What caught my attention was somebody is going to step on that. He reached down and picked up the item, covered with ashes. I picked it up and turned it over and there is the mom and dads name and there is the daughters name, Shepherd said. I thought, how does that happen. I stopped in a place and its right at the end of my shoe covered in ash. Shepherd called the mother and said it was pretty touching to have the conversation and to have that treasure back. He said the plaque is on its way back to Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Kennedy, who planted the tree in honor of their daughter, Dawn. Shepherd said there have been phone calls from other folks who have talked with him about the memories they had at the camp as well. The buildings are all gone, he said, other than the staff cabin. Those cabins were all wood structures and that fire burned so fast and so hot, theres nothing that would tell you what that building was made from, Shepherd said. All thats left is the metal roof, the tin, lying right on top of the cement foundation. Most of those cabins had a dozen to 18 bunk beds in them and Shepherd said the springs from the mattresses are smashed between the tin roof and the cement. Thats all thats left, no chairs, nothing, Shepherd said. The first floor of the Eppley Lodge was the dining hall. The second floor was a ballroom and meeting rooms where you could have a large event and there was a stage. There is just no evidence that there was a second floor. The call to evacuate the camp came to the foundation office about 1 p.m. Oct. 2, Shepherd said. Any year, we always have fires in the forest, so that was not an unusual phone call, Shepherd said. At the camp were college students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from the culinary program. They were preparing for a wedding that was to take place on Oct. 8. Shepherd said this week there will be planning on how to remove the debris, the major part of which will be the cement foundations. We will probably never build cabins again, Shepherd said. The needs of 4-H are different than they were 60 years ago. The camp is used by 4-H four weeks of the year and the rest of the time it is used by the surrounding communities for proms, graduations, family reunions and other events. Hunters would come every year, Shepherd said. The same groups of hunters have booked that for years and they not only would pay the bills for their food and their cabins, but they would leave a pile of cash there to help us. The people of the community are the ones who kept that camp going all of these years, he said. We havent had conversations yet whether 4-H is going to do anything with the camp in the future, Shepherd said. I would say if there was something 4-H-related, it would be a discovery center or something thats appropriate for the amount of use and what kids today do in outdoor or environmental education. On his third day at the camp, Shepherd said as he walked through the ashes he noticed something else that caught his attention. As I looked down, I saw green stems sprouting up through the ashes, Shepherd said. It was a picture of hope that the forest would return to its previous (beauty). Stuart Sparvier took a moment to compose his thoughts in the midst of his roughly hour-long talk at the McDonald-Belton Theater on Monday afternoon. Sparvier, from the Cree/Saulteaux First Nation and a tribal member of the Cowessess First Nation, had just told the story of the abuse he and his family members suffered at a day school that the Canadian government had established for Indigenous children. He said as he was being beaten in the hallway by a nun, he could hear the cries of his cousin as she was being sexually assaulted in the principals office. Five days later, his cousin hung herself. Sparvier hung his head and took a few deep breaths before he continued the story. His voice cracked at times. A few days later we were at school playing softball and I saw the principal. I picked up a bat, I was going to go after this guy, Sparvier said. My cousin, Gary, grabbed me and stopped me. (Gary) said, He will get his. and he did. (The principal) should still be in prison I think. The story was part of his talk, Racism in Colonial Canada: An Indigenous Perspective. Sparviers appearance was in recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day and sponsored by Mid-Plains Community Colleges Student Life Department and Social Justice Group. Sparvier, who earned undergraduate degrees in both history and psychology from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, covered the 1865 Indian Act and the residential and day schools that were a result of the legislation. He made one thing clear at the start of his presentation. I am talking for myself, said Sparvier, who gave the talk at the McCook campus Monday night as well. I am not talking for all the Indigenous population in Canada and what theyre going through. Im talking about how this affected me, my family and my bloodline. The residential schools were run by the Catholic Church and geared for assimilating Indigenous children 10 years old and younger. He recalled the story of a night when school officials showed up at his doorstep to take him to the school, only to be greeted by his uncle and grandfather. I just remember being outside and hearing the sound of a shotgun getting racked, Sparvier said. I heard my uncle tell the people, You have a choice. This can end here or you can get back in your car and get the heck out of here. They got in their car and left. My grandfather was a veteran of two wars and a lot of people didnt want to mess with him, he said. (The school officials) never came back to get me for the residential school, which Im thankful for. But I ended up in the day school. Sparvier testified during the Federal Indian Day School class action suit and he was one of the former students who took a settlement in the case. He said it was a tough decision as his cousin, Mark, rejected the chance to take a settlement in the residential school case. Sparvier said he was leaning the same way as were three additional cousins. It took a phone call from another family member to convince him to take the reconciliation payment and do good with it. Sparvier paid for his wifes funeral with some of the funds, and he also used it for needs for two of his daughters. But it took convincing me to take it, he said. I really didnt want it. It was blood money, something to keep us quiet. I remember what happened but Im taking the time to heal, he said. Yeah, it was horrific but Im hoping now we can move forward. North Platte High School theater arts students participated in a master class with dance and performing arts instructor Elizabeth Farley on Tuesday morning. Farley is traveling the state with Omaha Performing Arts Nebraska High School Theater Academy conducting master classes and leading musical theater dance workshops along the way. This annual tour allows O-pa to make Broadway education accessible to students statewide and enhances O-pas commitment to break down barriers to Broadway. About 30 NPHS students learned the dance routine for the song Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from the musical Mary Poppins. Farley performed as Mary Poppins in the first and second national tours and was the dance captain for the troupe. The tour will travel over 1,000 miles this week and will visit 12 schools from Scottsbluff to Elkhorn. In a press release, the Nebraska High School Theater Academy said it celebrates the power of the arts and supports high school and middle school theater programs by connecting teachers and students to learning opportunities with Broadway stars, theater and backstage professionals. Farley teaches dance and the performing arts in the New Jersey and New York City area . In 2022, Elizabeth is also teaching master classes in Nebraska, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. A 19-year-old North Platte man remained in critical condition in an Omaha hospital Tuesday morning after being shot in the chest this weekend. His alleged assailant, Ryland A. Clemmons, 18, appeared Tuesday in Lincoln County Court. He is charged with use of a firearm to commit a felony, first-degree assault, possessing or receiving a stolen firearm, and tampering with evidence. Deputy Lincoln County Attorney Angela Franz gave the medical update on the victim during Clemmons short court appearance. The bail for Clemmons, who appeared for the hearing by video, was set at 10% of $500,000. A preliminary hearing is scheduled Oct. 20. According to court records: North Platte police responded to a call at 12:11 a.m. Sunday for a shooting on the 300 block of North Eastman Avenue. A man with a gunshot wound was in an alleyway. He was transported to Great Plains Health and later flown to Nebraska Medical Center. The 911 center received a call at 1:35 a.m. in which a male indicated that Clemmons had accidentally shot somebody. The caller was brought into the police station and interviewed. He indicated that Clemmons and the victim had been fighting in the alleyway before Clemmons pulled out a handgun and fired. The male said he then drove Clemmons and three other individuals back to his residence. The other witnesses said Clemmons approached the victims vehicle as he was trying to leave the alleyway, and then they heard gunshots. Those other individuals said after they were dropped off at the residence, they got in Clemmons vehicle with him and drove out to Indian Hills to hide the gun. The group then tossed the sweatshirts they were wearing onto U.S. Highway 83. The witnesses led police investigators to the firearm, where several other guns were located as well, including a SIG 9mm P365. That firearm was reported to have been stolen out of Grand Island. Clemmons was arrested and jailed at the Lincoln County Detention Center. People seeking justice at the Douglas County Courthouse will now walk between a pair of monuments commemorating two of the ugliest, most violent injustices in Omaha history. One historical marker, unveiled in an emotional ceremony Friday, tells the story of the lynching of George Smith by a White mob outside the courthouse in 1891. The marker also relates the context of the killing: From 1865 to 1950, thousands of Black people were victims of racial terror and lynching. The lynchings were intended to intimidate Black people and enforce racial hierarchy and segregation. The other plaque, unveiled last year, memorializes the lynching of Will Brown outside the courthouse in 1919. The metal plaques bracket the sidewalk leading to the courthouses main entrance at 17th and Farnam Streets. Their prominent placement speaks to the importance of reconciliation, said Brenda Council, a former Omaha City Council member and Nebraska state senator, after the Smith marker was unveiled on Friday. It contains a tragic but real story of the role that racial injustice played in the City of Omaha, Council said. Its a new day, and we need to move forward not ignore the wounds, but acknowledge them and seek to heal from them. Nearly 100 people attended the ceremony on a crisp fall day. It was led by members of the Omaha Community Council for Racial Justice and Reconciliation, which has worked together with the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative on the markers and a series of events. Fridays ceremony mingled lamentation for past injustices with exhortations to do better in the present and future. It included a moving a cappella rendition by the Rev. Beverly Thompson of Strange Fruit, the anti-lynching anthem popularized by Billie Holliday. Franklin Thompson, former Omaha City Council member, led a chorus of Lift Every Voice and Sing, often referred to as the Black national anthem. Central High School student Kaleciana Perry read a powerful poem she wrote about the lynching of Smith. The Rev. T. Michael Williams, president of the Omaha NAACP chapter, and the Rev. Stan Rone offered prayers. Eric Ewing, executive director of the Great Plains Black History Museum, read the markers account of the murder of Smith. A 20-year-old hotel waiter with a wife and young daughter, Smith was arrested without evidence on suspicion of assaulting a White girl. After incendiary and inaccurate newspaper reports, a mob of thousands of White people descended on the courthouse, broke Smith out of jail, killed him and hanged his lifeless body from a telegraph wire. Professor Cynthia Robinson, chair of the UNO Black Studies Department, read the Smith markers information about the context of the Omaha lynching. Many African Americans were lynched following accusations of violating social customs or committing crimes, even when there was no evidence tying the accused to any offense, Robinson read. Black people faced hostile suspicion, and a presumption of guilt that made them vulnerable to white mob violence, and lynching. White mobs regularly displayed complete disregard for the the legal system. That was, Robinson added, because sometimes the legal system was part of it. Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert said the murder of Smith broke Americas founding commitment to equality and injustice. As we unveil the marker to bring attention to his story, we acknowledge that racial violence and suffering were part of our countrys shameful past, Stothert said. We pledge our resolve to reject hate and bias and contribute to a community of acceptance, where we can talk openly about our past, learn from hateful actions, and educate each other and future generations that tolerance, respect and inclusion are hallmarks of a civil society. Franklin Thompson said the day was not about guilt and shame. Its all been about reconciliation, he said. The Omaha Community Council on Racial Justice and Reconciliation, we want justice, but we also want to reconcile one another and move ahead and reach our potential as human beings. Marisa Hattab was so affected by hearing the account of Smiths murder that she had to remind herself to breathe. I was not present during this time but the trauma, the generational trauma that has been inflicted on the bodies of Black people, I still feel it, said Hattab, Douglas County director of diversity, equity and inclusion. She said she wrestles with hopelessness when she thinks of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. But she believes in a concept expressed by Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative: Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. There truly is a hope, Hattab said. Were standing, were sitting, in the hope and the prayers of many of our ancestors that things will change. ... And so I just want to encourage you to be grounded and steadfast and hope. Because if we truly surrender to hopelessness and that enemy is real, yall justice will not prevail. SAN DIEGO, October 11, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DirectMed Parts & Service, LLC ("DirectMed"), a leading medical imaging parts, systems, and service company, announced today that it has acquired ScanMed LLC ("ScanMed"), a leader in MRI coil design, manufacture, and repair. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2004 and based in Omaha, Nebraska, ScanMed is the most comprehensive OEM-certified MRI coil company with a proven track record of designing and repairing thousands of different MRI coils for GE Healthcare, Siemens, Philips, and Canon/Toshiba systems, amongst others. The companys proprietary coils include the Procure prostate coil, pediatric blanket and brain coils, spine, vascular, and several extremity coils. ScanMed was founded by Dr. Randall Jones, an industry innovator with a doctorate in electrical engineering, and 30 years of experience in medical imaging. Dr. Jones and his team have been awarded 12 design patents and developed numerous trade secrets enabling ScanMed to be the foremost MRI depot-level coil repair partner for healthcare networks, independent service organizations and diagnostic imaging parts suppliers. Both ScanMed and DirectMed are certified and compliant with ISO 13485:2016, the quality management system that meets the most rigorous regulations for the medical device marketplace. Brad de Koning, President & CEO of DirectMed, commented: "For over 10 years ScanMed has been our go-to vendor for the most complicated MRI coil repairs. All of us at DirectMed are delighted to partner with Dr. Jones and his team of highly capable physicists, electrical engineers, RF repair technicians, and customer support personnel. There will be no changes to the ScanMed brand, the Omaha operation, or their commitment to their entire healthcare client base." "Combining DirectMeds leading parts inventory, financial resources, and global distribution with ScanMeds MRI coil products and repair services produces wins all around for our companies and clients," said ScanMed CEO Dr. Randall Jones. "Our strategic plan included building ScanMeds MRI coil distribution and repair footprint in Europe. With DirectMeds Danish subsidiary LBN Medical ApS, that vision will now come true thus bringing the best of the U.S. to Europe." Story continues Tanner LoRusso, VP of Sales for DirectMed, added, "Partnering with ScanMed greatly expands our MRI coil repair and supply capabilities. Moreover, this partnership will materially expand our technical support capabilities for our end-customers, the field service engineers and biomedical engineers. Lastly, ScanMed directly supports our mission to extend the life of medical imaging equipment to improve access, reduce waste, and lower healthcare costs." About DirectMed Parts & Service, LLC DirectMed is a leading aftermarket diagnostic imaging parts, systems, and service provider. With over 60,000 parts in stock, the company repairs, supports and sells GE, Siemens, Philips and Canon/Toshiba MRI and CT parts to healthcare networks, imaging centers and independent service organizations ("ISOs") around the world. DirectMed also owns LBN Medical ApS, based in Aalborg, Denmark, a leading reseller of aftermarket medical imaging equipment and parts to customers around the world. LBN Medical supplies more than fifteen brands, including major OEMs such as Canon, GE, Siemens, and Philips. Visit www.directmedparts.com for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005329/en/ Contacts Media Inquiries Kurtis Waddell, Growth Marketing Manager kwaddell@directmedparts.com (855) 463-3727 (Bloomberg) -- Malaysia will lift its export restrictions on live commercial broilers in phases starting from Tuesday, according to Minister of Agriculture and Food Industries Ronald Kiandee. Most Read from Bloomberg The Southeast Asian country will allow exports of 1.8 million live birds a month, which is 50% of the total restriction limit that covers 3.6 million birds, Kiandee said in a statement Monday. The curbs were imposed during a wave of food protectionism that swept the world earlier this year, and should bring some relief to import-dependent Singapore. The decision was made after domestic chicken supplies began to stabilize in the third quarter of the year, with an average surplus of 1.8 million chickens a month, Kiandee said. The export ban on whole chickens, chicken parts and day old chicks remains in place. Poultry farms have been given a limit on how much they can export based on their monthly chicken production, and those that do not comply will not be allowed to ship overseas, he said. Food Costs The government temporarily banned chicken exports at the start of June to stabilize domestic supplies and prices. Malaysia was one of a number of countries that restricted farm exports to cope with local shortages, from Indonesias temporary ban on palm oil shipments to Indian curbs on wheat. Countries have been grappling with soaring food costs as the war in Ukraine disrupted trade. The shipment halt hit Singapore particularly hard because the city-state depended on Malaysia for a third of its chicken imports. The move not only sparked concern about a shortage of its iconic chicken rice dish, but exposed deeper vulnerabilities in a country that imports most of the food it consumes. Story continues Singapore has sought to diversify its chicken supplies after Malaysia restricted shipments. It approved imports from Indonesia, adding to existing sources such as Brazil, Thailand and Australia. A decision on fully lifting the export ban will be made depending on the availability of chicken supplies at local markets as well as production at farms, Kiandee said. For now, authorities will continue to monitor the countrys supplies as well as exports of live birds. About 98% of Malaysias live bird exports go to Singapore, according to the agriculture ministry. The city-state bought 46 million birds last year. Almost all Malaysian chickens imported by Singapore are live animals, which are then slaughtered and chilled, according to the Singapore Food Agency. Malaysia announced a partial lifting of the ban in mid-June, allowing exports of some live premium birds like kampung and black chicken. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Kraken Robotics Inc. PanGeos Acoustic Corer continues to build momentum mitigating risk for offshore installation across an expanding footprint ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX-V: PNG, OTCQB: KRKNF), is pleased to announce that its PanGeo Subsea subsidiary has completed an Acoustic Coring campaign for ONE-Dyas in the North Sea. This is PanGeos second Acoustic Corer (AC) survey at ONE-Dyass GEMS development, supporting foundation engineering of the N05-A gas platforms. The campaign took place during the summer aboard the M/V Dina Star. PanGeo was the prime contractor for the project. The scope of work was to acquire an acoustic core at each of the 6 legs of the platform foundation, and an additional core centered on the wellhead. PanGeo high-resolution data will identify geohazards such as buried boulders of 0.3 meters diameter and larger to 40 meters below the seabed. PanGeo also correlated the acoustic data to pre-existing geotechnical data and extrapolated the geotechnical properties across the entire foundation footprint. PanGeos geoscientists will now assess the collected AC data to identify buried boulders that could cause pin-pile refusals and prevent additional costs and installation delays. We are very pleased to continue supporting ONE-Dyas on its GEMS region project, says PanGeos CEO Moya Cahill. Through technology enhancements, we have accelerated the Acoustic Corer data acquisition rate, reducing vessel time and delivering a more cost effective and carbon attractive solution to the industry. The AC solution continues to build momentum with its next campaign this fall in the neighboring waters of the Baltic. About GEMS ONE-Dyas aims to deliver the first natural gas to Dutch and German households by the end of 2024. The N05-A project is part of the GEMS area, an area approximately 20 to 100 kilometres north of the Ems estuary in which ONE-Dyas is currently actively exploring in other gas fields in the North Sea. Story continues For more detail on the Acoustic Corer or PanGeos services, contact sales@pangeosubsea.com. LINKS www.krakenrobotics.com www.pangeosubsea.com SOCIAL MEDIA LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/krakenrobotics Twitter www.twitter.com/krakenrobotics Facebook www.facebook.com/krakenroboticsinc YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UCEMyaMQnneTeIr71HYgrT2A Instagram www.instagram.com/krakenrobotics ABOUT KRAKEN ROBOTICS INC. Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX.V:PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) is a marine technology company dedicated to the production and sale of software-centric sensors, subsea batteries, and underwater robotic systems. The company is headquartered in Newfoundland with offices in Canada, U.S., Germany, Denmark, and Brazil. In July 2021, Kraken acquired PanGeo Subsea, a leading services company specializing in high-resolution 3D acoustic imaging solutions for the sub-seabed used to mitigate risk in offshore installations. PanGeo with offices in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Kraken. Kraken is ranked as a Top 100 marine technology company by Marine Technology Reporter. Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, the words may, would, could, will, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, seek, propose, estimate, expect, and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking statements with respect to, among other things, business objectives, expected growth, results of operations, performance, business projects and opportunities and financial results. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the Companys current views with respect to future events based on certain material factors and assumptions and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, changes in market, competition, governmental or regulatory developments, general economic conditions and other factors set out in the Companys public disclosure documents. Many factors could cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements to vary from those described in this news release, including without limitation those listed above. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in this news release and such forward-looking statements included in, or incorporated by reference in this news release, should not be unduly relied upon. Such statements speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provide (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release, and the OTCQB has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. For further information: Shelly Petten, Media Contact 709-770-2979 spetten@pangeosubsea.com Joe MacKay, Chief Financial Officer (416) 303-0605 jmackay@krakenrobotics.com Greg Reid, Chief Operating Officer (416) 818-9822 greid@krakenrobotics.com Sean Peasgood, Investor Relations (647) 955-1274 sean@sophiccapital.com Biocartis NV PRESS RELEASE : INSIDE INFORMATION / REGULATED INFORMATION 11 October 2022, 07:00 CEST Biocartis Announces Successful Amendment of its Existing Convertible Bonds Mechelen, Belgium, 11 October 2022 Biocartis Group NV (the "Company" or "Biocartis"), an innovative molecular diagnostics company (Euronext Brussels: BCART), is pleased to announce the successful amendment of its 4.00% convertible bonds due in 2024 (the "Existing Convertible Bonds") as part of the comprehensive recapitalization arrangements announced on 1 September 2022. As per the previous announcement issued on 1 September 2022, holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds were asked to approve certain amendments to the Existing Convertible Bonds such as a partial equitization equal to 10% of notional amounts outstanding, a maturity extension by 3.5 years to November 2027, and remaining coupons to be paid as Payment-In-Kind (via capitalization of coupons) to preserve cash. These amendments have been approved by the required majority and the amendments have become effective. As previously announced, holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds are also offered the right to exchange their Existing Convertible Bonds into new second lien secured convertible bonds (the New Convertible Bonds), subject to their commitment to participate pro-rata in a fully backstopped EUR 25 million investment into additional New Convertible Bonds. The New Convertible Bonds will benefit from asset security, shares security and certain guarantees, and mature in November 2026 with a higher 4.50% cash coupon. Existing holders that do not provide additional funding pursuant to the New Convertible Bonds terms will not be permitted to exchange, and their Existing Convertible Bonds will remain outstanding with the amended terms. The deadline for the exchange offer for holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds is 24 October 2022. The documentation in relation to the exchange offer has been uploaded on a dedicated website, and holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds should contact their brokers or the Company if they have not already received access to the relevant documentation. Story continues To fully effect the comprehensive recapitalisation transaction, the Company has invited its shareholders, holders of subscription rights, holders of convertible bonds, directors and statutory auditor to an extraordinary shareholders' meeting (EGM) which will be held on Thursday 27 October 2022 at 2:00 p.m. CEST at the offices of the Company at Generaal de Wittelaan 11B, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium. The convening notice and other documents relating to the EGM can be consulted on the website of the Company. --- END --- More information: Renate Degrave Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Biocartis e-mail rdegrave@biocartis.com tel +32 15 631 729 mobile +32 471 53 60 64 About Biocartis Biocartis (Euronext Brussels: BCART) is an innovative molecular diagnostics (MDx) company providing next generation diagnostic solutions aimed at improving clinical practice for the benefit of patients, clinicians, payers and industry. Biocartis' proprietary MDx Idylla platform is a fully automated sample-to-result, real-time PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) system that offers accurate, highly reliable molecular information from virtually any biological sample in virtually any setting. Biocartis is developing and marketing a continuously expanding test menu addressing key unmet clinical needs, with a focus in oncology, which represents the fastest growing segment of the MDx market worldwide. Today, Biocartis offers tests supporting melanoma, colorectal and lung cancer, as well as for COVID-19, flu, RSV and sepsis. More information: www.biocartis.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Biocartis_. Biocartis and Idylla are registered trademarks in Europe, the United States and other countries. The Biocartis and Idylla trademark and logo are used trademarks owned by Biocartis. Please refer to the product labeling for applicable intended uses for each individual Biocartis product. This press release is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in any jurisdiction where to do so would be unlawful. Any persons reading this press release should inform themselves of and observe any such restrictions. Biocartis takes no responsibility for any violation of any such restrictions by any person. This press release does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities in any jurisdiction. No securities of Biocartis may be offered or sold in the United States of America absent registration with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Forward-looking statements Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect the Company's or, as appropriate, the Company directors' or managements' current expectations and projections concerning future events such as the Company's results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, performance, prospects, growth, strategies and the industry in which the Company operates. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, assumptions and factors could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities are not guarantees of future performance and should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. In addition, even if actual results or developments are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, those results or developments may not be indicative of results or developments in future periods. No representations and warranties are made as to the accuracy or fairness of such forward-looking statements. As a result, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based, except if specifically required to do so by law or regulation. Neither the Company nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such person's officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Important information This announcement is not a prospectus for the purposes of Regulation 2017/1129, as amended (together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State of the European Economic Area, the Prospectus Regulation) or the Prospectus Regulation as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the UK European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and as amended by The Prospectus (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (each as amended) (the "UK Prospectus Regulation"). THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN, SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD BE PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ONLY AND DOES NOT FORM PART OF ANY OFFER TO SELL OR PURCHASE, OR THE SOLICITATION OF ANY OFFER TO SELL OR PURCHASE, ANY NEW BONDS, OUTSTANDING BONDS OR OTHER SECURITIES. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND THE OFFER, SALE AND PURCHASE OF THE NEW BONDS, NEW TERM LOANS OR THE OUTSTANDING BONDS DESCRIBED IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IN CERTAIN JURISDICTIONS MAY BE RESTRICTED BY LAW. ANY PERSONS READING THIS ANNOUNCEMENT SHOULD INFORM THEMSELVES OF AND OBSERVE ANY SUCH RESTRICTIONS. There shall be no offer, solicitation, sale or purchase or exchange of the Existing Convertible Bonds or the New Convertible Bonds in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, sale, or purchase would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended from time to time (the "U.S. Securities Act") or the securities laws of any state of the United States, and may not be offered or sold in the United States unless these securities are registered under the U.S. Securities Act, or an exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act is available. Biocartis has not registered, and does not intend to register, any portion of the offering of the securities concerned in the United States, and does not intend to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States. This communication is only addressed to and directed at persons in member states of the European Economic Area (each a "Member States") and in the United Kingdom who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Article 2(e) of the Prospectus Regulation and of the UK Prospectus Regulation, respectively ("Qualified Investors"). This communication is only being distributed to and is only directed at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order") or (iii) high net worth companies, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The securities referred to herein are only available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be engaged in only with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents. This announcement cannot be used as a basis for any investment agreement or decision. Biocartis is not liable if the aforementioned restrictions are not complied with by any person. Government of St. Kitts and Nevis BASSETERRE, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The world is changing and is at an unpredictable place. The aftermath of the global pandemic has plagued the world with instability and many people are looking for options to escape the challenges and restrictions imposed by their countries of origin. At some point in life, almost everyone has fantasized about escaping from their highly stressed lives to live in the peaceful and calm surroundings of a beautiful island. Making this dream a reality is now more accessible than ever before as the world rallies to recover from the devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Instability caused by political conflict or malfunctioning societies has been experienced by both developing and developed countries. With the world in crisis and a number of protectionist regimes gaining power, exacerbated by tightening of borders and increased measures to prevent flight out of capitals, people feel like their freedom is under threat. In these situations, looking to relocate to a different country while seeking peace and stability is neither a far-fetched thought nor a selfish act. Families and entrepreneurs who have both the resources and the will to relocate to a different country, seeking better opportunities and living conditions for themselves and their families, are one of the most well-suited groups for investing in CBI programmes offered by a number of countries throughout the world. St Kitts and Nevis, located in the Eastern Caribbean, is one of the most sought-after destinations when it comes to travel and tourism. But in addition to that, the country is home to the world's first and one of the most trusted Citizenship by Investment Programmes. With a stable, safe and peaceful environment, it is a welcome space for those who choose to make it their home. The CBI Programme of St Kitts and Nevis was launched in 1984 and has been the pride of the Caribbean ever since. The idyllic islands' stunning natural beauty, rich history, and friendly locals make it a perfect destination for people looking for the traditional Caribbean experience. Story continues The island nation in the western hemisphere has become a favourite destination for wealthy people from countries in East Africa, and it is especially attractive to High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) globally. East Africa includes a diversified set of nations, with these countries not only home to many HNWIs, but also a wide range of issues that might cause internal conflict or instability. At least three East African nations, including Kenya, are among the seven most populous nations on the continent, thus making the area into one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. However, at the same time, the East-African region is plagued with a number of concerns, which make the area less desirable. Over the last few years, East Africa has experienced insecurity, a lack of stability and good governance. The nations in the East Africa have, for a long time, struggled to cope with and resolve some major security concerns such as security breaches, widespread terrorism, and disputes. With these challenges individuals question whether their home country is the ideal environment to raise a family, start a business or invest ones wealth. High Net Worth Individuals residing in such a political area often find it easier and more comfortable to switch to a more peaceful and stable nation. The friendly and peaceful shores of St Kitts and Nevis are an ideal destination for individuals seeking a respite from the chaos of the world. St Kitts and Nevis is jointly managed via the efforts of the Governor-General, who is the crown's official representative in the country, along with the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, and the Premier, who is responsible for overseeing the management and administration of Nevis Island. The distribution of power between the three entities who are answerable to the people of the federation, ensures that there is a fair distribution of power amongst the representative entities. As a result, St Kitts and Nevis is able to provide a politically stable home to those who seek to invest in the CBI Programme of the country to attain alternative citizenship. The country has a deep-rooted history which has been passed down through generations of people who lived on the islands and has for generations attracted historians and enthusiasts of history to its shores. The CBI Programme of St Kitts and Nevis provides an opportunity to obtain alternative citizenship for the investor and their family. An investor's spouse, children, parents and siblings are eligible for citizenship along with the investor. Another benefit is that once a person has citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis, children can inherit citizenship from their parents. Many countries all over the world have been dubbed insensitive and non-inclusive of a certain group of people; accordingly, people find it hard at times to ensure their safety and the safety of their families. St Kitts and Nevis is a country of inclusivity and provides citizens with a place they can live their life the way they want without the fear of discrimination. St Kitts and Nevis is known for its welcoming and warm nature to all those who grace its shores, whether for tourism or citizenship. As one of the oldest CBI programmes on offer in the Caribbean, St Kitts and Nevis has been recognised several times as the best running CBI Programme in the world. In 2022 the Professional Wealth Management Magazine, a publication of the Financial Times, ranked it jointly as the number one programme in the 2022 CBI Index Report. Amongst others it was recognised for its Ease of Processing and Due Diligence Pillars. In a time when the world is less certain than ever before and where a growing number of people are considering their options, relocating to St Kitts and Nevis to enjoy the peace, stability and opportunities afforded by the country seems to be the perfect option for a number of high net worth individuals, for economic, financial, political and social reasons. Alternative citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis emerges as a platform to alleviate the risk of uncertainty and works as an insurance policy. There is no better plan than having the option to set up a new home and escape to a better lifestyle. Like every other person on the planet, people from East Africa require alternative citizenship to protect their families and in a secure and stable environment. It offers peace of mind in an uncertain world its the perfect backup plan (Plan B). Contact Information: St Kitts and Nevis PR pr@csglobalpartners.com T: (1-869) 467 1474 Decrease Font Size Font Size Increase Font Size Article body The Safari Club International Foundation has established an annual scholarship for students in Auburn Universitys College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment, or CFWE, with a declared major in wildlife ecology and management or wildlife enterprise management in memory of the late Will Hamberlin II. Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, Safari Club International Foundation, or SCIF, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to ensure the future of wildlife through conservation, education and hunting. SCIF is the leader in directing and funding wildlife conservation work globally, with an added focus to educate the public on why conservation matters, what is being done and specifically the role hunting plays as the most effective tool for sustainable-use wildlife conservation. Hamberlin was born on April 1, 1991, in San Antonio, Texas. He began his education in Cumming, Georgia, and then attended the Singapore American School, where he graduated in 2009. In 2014, Hamberlin graduated from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, with a bachelors degree in sustainable design. Hamberlin loved the outdoors and was always looking for an adventure, said his mother, Katie Hamberlin. He wanted to be more insightful on how to conserve the land and to make the environment better for all, said Katie Hamberlin, a Memphis resident. Will wanted us all to be a more socially responsible, and implementing this scholarship is a great way to promote his sustainable stewardship values through CFWE at Auburn. The scholarship is awarded each year by the colleges selection committee. Ideally, the recipient selected must be interested in and supportive of hunting as a critical component of conservation. Having established an annual scholarship with Auburn University means so much to us at the SCI Foundation, said SCIF President Brook Minx. Being able to help students in the field of wildlife management and wildlife enterprise allows our organization to give back and invest in our future leaders of sustainable-use wildlife management. This is exactly what we were looking for to honor the late Will Hamberlin, who was an artist, a nature lover, a world traveler and a hunter. Scholarship recipients may use the funds to pay for tuition, fees and books. Support through annual scholarships such as this are critical for students who require assistance managing the expenses of their education, said Janaki Alavalapati, dean of the college. We deeply appreciate SCIFs investment in our students. [ sensitive content ] four counts of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, one count of sexual penetration by use of force, plus one count of sexual battery by restraint and sexual battery in incidents [ sensitive content ] forcible rape As covered in this post , Anthony Rapp's $40 million civil suit against Kevin Spacey began last week.In addition, three more sexual assault trials are scheduled to begin this month:The New York Times and New Yorker exposes about Harvey Weinstein were published five years ago this month so it seems fitting that Harvey Weinstein's latest trial is beginning. Jury selection for his Los Angeles trial began today and is expected to last two weeks. He has been charged withinvolving five women in L.A. County over a nine-year period. If convicted of all charges, he faces up to 140 years in prison.Today, the victim previously listed as Jane Doe #4 was revealed to be documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom. She previously described the assault on the Huffington Post in October 2017 (the day after the New York Times article about Weinstein came out).Prosecutors for this trial had previously been granted permission to call five supporting witnesses to testify against Weinstein (these five witnesses are not part of the LA lawsuit), one of whom is Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, the Italian model and actress who first reported Weinstein to the New York Police Department in 2015. At their request, she wore a wire and met with Weinstein again to get him to admit to the assault. Despite the audio confession she obtained, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office chose not to prosecute Weinstein for that incident, leading to widespread criticism after the Weinstein scandal finally broke two years later.One of the other supporting witnesses, known in court documents as Miss L, decided she does not want to testify so prosecutors asked if they could replace her with another supporting witness, Lauren Sivan, who said that Weinstein masturbated in front of her in a New York restaurant. The judge denied this request, saying that Lauren's story was too similar to the other supporting witnesses' accounts.Weinstein was already sentenced to 23 years in prison by a Manhattan jury in March 2020 for multiple sex crimes. Danny Masterson's rape trial is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles tomorrow. He has been charged with three counts ofthat allegedly occurred in 2001 and 2003 at his Hollywood Hills home. If convicted of all counts, the maximum sentence Masterson could receive is 45 years to life in state prison. He's currently out on $3.3 million bail.The case has been delayed for three years because the Church of Scientology wanted the civil side of this suit to be handled in a church-run arbitration process. The church appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the case would be handled in civil court.In addition, four of Mastersons accusers have filed a civil lawsuit against him and the Church of Scientology for the alleged cover-up, reportedly perpetrated via stalking and harassment. Crash director and former Scientologist Paul Haggis' trial begins in New York City on October 17. Film publicist Haleigh Breest filed a suit in 2017 that said Haggis assaulted her in 2013 after the two attended the premiere of the film Side Effects. He countersued claiming that she was trying to bankrupt him. The trial has also been delayed due to COVID. Three other women have come forward with sexual assault accusations. His lawyers are trying to prevent them from testifying at his civil trial.During pretrial motions, his defense attorney wanted to bar one of the prosecution's expert witnesses, a clinical and forensic psychologist who will present a psychological evaluation of Haleigh. Their argument is that her testimony regarding the plaintiffs conduct should be excluded as unreliable because it is based on plaintiffs own descriptions of her alleged behavior. The defense's other pretrial motions were a request to have the jury visit his apartment (where the assault allegedly took place) and to have the defense conduct a psychological evaluation of Haleigh. The judge denied all three motions.Fellow former Scientologists Leah Remini and Mike Rinder have defended Haggis, claiming that the church is after him. He was recently placed under house arrest in Italy for sexually assaulting a woman he met at the Monte Carlo Film Festival. Unbearable little shitbag Reply Thread Link Why doesn't anyone successfully take him out back eh? Reply Thread Link Which one? Reply Parent Thread Link both, to be sure Reply Parent Thread Link I'm gonna be so happy when he dies idgaf Reply Thread Link tbh....this should be a precursor into him not being able to buy Twitter. The presiden should talk to Putin bc that's how politics work, bbut when you're a random person trying to meddle in world affairs, you shouldn't be owning one of the largest (intentional or not) information sites on the planet. Reply Thread Link I'm more concerned about NASA's reliance on Space X and the spread of Starlink. All that has to be curtailed now. Reply Parent Thread Link Isnt Space X actually a weapons company Elon is using to get military contract money (a la Raytheon) and the space exploration/nasa contractor part is more the PR front for the business and the success of the space exploration part less pivotal to their long-term profit strategy? I read a small thing about that a few months back but didnt get around to looking for other sources of information on the matter, and what I read had some supposed facts but was framed as an opinion conclusion based on those facts (i.e. calling a spade a spade). I mean it all sounded exactly like how an Elon Musk endeavour would work so that aspect was plausible. Edited at 2022-10-12 12:25 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link nope, you should be in prison. Reply Parent Thread Link ngl when I saw this I wondered if it would factor into him buying Twitter because - yikes. Reply Parent Thread Link And thanks for your cut work of course, op. Always letting those posters cut in line Reply Thread Link The more I hear about Elon the more I realize him and Trump are the same person. Reply Thread Link don't forget kanye! Reply Parent Thread Link that gif feels like it was 20 years ago Reply Thread Link Treason, uh Reply Thread Link this is why it's so awful the average person hypes him up, it's so dangerous for society. Reply Thread Link traitor Reply Thread Link didnt musk help get starlink into ukraine when the invasion first occurred? iirc, he seems to be switching up his tune (i dont follow musk enough to know what other instances he has talked about the war) Reply Thread Link https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/ this article talks about it actually! this article talks about it actually! Reply Parent Thread Link The US government was the one who paid for it. He wasn't being altruistic lol. Reply Parent Thread Link per the article i just posted: The revelations show that while SpaceX appears to have donated a significant sum to Ukraines cause, it has done so with public assistance. of course lmao Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Either way, the outcome is the same. Get the Ukrainians reliant on Starlink and hold off on bug fixes and upgrades until the price is right. Jfc, isn't this the business models drug dealers use? Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah did he lie or what? Reply Parent Thread Link Elon Musk is a twat. Daddy didn't love him and now he don't love himself. Man needs therapy. Reply Thread Link Tbf Elon's dad was too busy loving his step-daughter, quite literally (they have two children together). Reply Parent Thread Link So he lied about activating Starlink? Just like he made it seem like a donation when in fact it was partly paid by taxpayer money? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/ Reply Thread Link Yea, everything he has done is paid by the US taxpayers. It pisses me off that he took off with SpaceX. I hate that people think they were the first ones doing the reusable rockets, they just worked it (like any Science or engineering company) out of NASA's work from the 90s. But I am just a bitter aerospace/spacecraft navigation engineer so because of that I know a lot of people that worked for his company and with his company lol Edited at 2022-10-11 07:41 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link This is what pisses me off about him whining about taxes in California being too high. Californias tax breaks for electric vehicles are probably a good chunk of the reason Teslas are so popular here and helped keep the company afloat. Reply Parent Thread Link I am pretty sure that when this first went down, he responded to someone on Twitter claiming he is in cahoots with Putin and specifically said that he had last spoken to Putin a year ago due to other various business related things. So this would prove him a flat out liar. Reply Thread Link https://thehill.com/policy/international/russia/3683031-musk-denies-he-talked-to-putin-ahead-of-controversial-tweet/ Okay, I goggled it, and yes, Musk denied speaking to Putin. But he did so in response to the same person in this post, so this is older news. Reply Parent Thread Link As the capacity to generate wind and solar power continues to expand around the world, hopes of accelerating the phase-out of coal as the leading source of electricity may depend on the expansion of a less discussed but equally important part of the energy supply chain: electricity grids. Countries around the world are working to shift to more sustainable sources of power and facing challenges related to the expansion of their electricity grids. Last month Western Australias economic regulator ruled that Western Power, the states major electricity network provider, should be permitted to spend an additional A$1bn ($646m) over the next five years to upgrade its network to reduce the use of coal, and accommodate the additional solar and wind power slated to come on-line by 2027. This would bring the companys investment to A$9bn ($5.8bn). Earlier this year Vietnams Ministry of Industry and Trade announced that no new solar or wind projects would be connected to its grid in 2022, citing the fact that the build-out of over 20 GW of renewables over the last three years has led to frequent grid overload and wasted renewable power generation. In order for clean energy resources to be fully utilised, governments will need to create pathways from producers to consumers. Storing excess and intermittent renewable power in batteries is part of the solution, but investment in grids is also vital especially in smart grids that use digital technologies to monitor and manage the transport of electricity generated by all types of energy sources. In February of last year Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated that by 2050 the world will need to spend $14trn on power grids, including decentralised and interregional links, to meet the uptake of renewable energy. The same year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that investment in power grids needs to reach $820bn per year by 2030 to facilitate the development of renewable energy projects and limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, a significant increase from the $260bn invested in 2020. Solar surge The need for grid expansion is underscored by the rapidly increasing growth in the capacity to generate solar power. The large number of solar energy projects coming on-line in the years ahead triggered Australias announcement, with the authorities mindful of the fact that solar overtook wind as the countrys top source of renewable energy in 2021. Solar briefly surpassed coal as the countrys top source of power in August. This trend is being seen in other markets: in 2021 solar power generation eclipsed wind in China for the first time. Wind is still a larger contributor to the energy mix than solar in the US, but the solar segment saw the addition of 24.2 GW of generation capacity in 2021 nearly double that of wind power, at 13 GW. This is especially notable as there are 676 GW of solar energy projects awaiting approval before they can be constructed. Both wind and solar are cheaper sources of power than coal and natural gas, but the scale of the solar projects on-line is reflective of the construction of larger and more sophisticated projects that make use of economies of scale. It took the world 70 years to reach a total of 1 TW of installed solar power capacity; however, leading solar researchers meeting at the eighth World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion last week in Milan predicted that the next 1 TW of solar capacity would take as little as three years to install. The generation-transmission gap The challenge of closing the generation-transmission gap is significant in China and the US, the two largest generators of solar power. Chinas State Grid Corporation aims to spend $350bn through 2025 on upgrades to increase the transmission of renewable power, while the US would have to spend $200bn per year upgrading its grids to meet its 2030 climate goals. The investment gap in emerging markets is larger and more pressing given the inequalities of access to reliable power supplies, especially in rural parts of Africa. Even so, several African countries have scored successes in bolstering their transmission pathways. Zambias Rural Electrification Authority commissioned the $465,000 Kalungu-Sansamwenje grid extension project in Isoka last month to provide more reliable power supplies to rural areas. More recently, last week the World Bank approved an additional $335m to support grid extension and densification in Tanzania as part of the Tanzania Rural Electrification Expansion Programme. The World Bank is also committing $100m to Ugandas Grid Expansion and Reinforcement Project, which will feed reliable supplies of hydropower from the Karuma, Agago and Nyagak dams to the countrys northern and west Nile regions. Outside of Africa, the IEA has identified strategies to finance the clean energy transition in emerging and developing countries through grid expansion. These strategies show not only the size of the challenge, but also the breadth of opportunities and the varying levels of financing required. Specific to transmission, the agency highlighted cases studies related to the development of new business models aimed at bolstering private investment in Brazil and India, third-party distribution investment in countries throughout Latin America, the issuance of tenders for bulk procurement of smart grids in India and the provision of early-stage capital for smart-grid development in the Philippines. Raw materials and future technologies While the case for investing in clean energy-enabling transmission lines and smart grids is clear, the materials and technologies underlying such infrastructure also require consideration. Smart grids rely on advanced communications, smart meters and control technologies to manage the variable power generated from renewables from the generation point to the end user, shifting electricity in accordance with supply and demand. The IEA forecasts that smart grid or digital technologies are expected to account for 40% of global grid investment by 2030 to meet the objectives of its Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario. Last month Australian transmission system operator Transgrid announced that it was implementing smart grid technology for an interconnector project that would enable renewable energy to flow between Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. Last week US start-up Sense demonstrated its artificial intelligence (AI) smart meter technology at the ENLIT Asia conference, signalling its intention to bring the technology to the Asia-Pacific region. The company plans to roll out this technology in Australia over the next 12 months. Related: EU Eyes November Deal To Tackle Runaway Gas Prices This builds on efforts to use AI to facilitate sustainability throughout the economy. Indeed, MENA nations are investing rapidly in AI to build more sustainable economies and realise energy-efficiency gains, as OBG recently noted. While copper is more effective at conducting electricity, most transmission lines are built with aluminium because it is lighter and more affordable. China was the worlds largest aluminium producer in 2020, exporting $24.6bn in raw and refined products, with Germany ($14.8bn), the US ($9.4bn) and Canada ($8.3bn) rounding out the top-four exporters. In September the UAE the fifth-largest producer of the metal and its eighth-largest exporter, with $5.3bn of aluminium exports in 2020 inked a $3.6m trade agreement with Indonesia that includes aluminium imports. India is the second-largest aluminium producer, which makes it a logical market for building more transmission lines considering the countrys growing energy demand. The Indian government announced last month that it is fast-tracking the construction of more than 13 GW of new cross-border lines to import hydropower from Nepal over the next five years. By Oxford Business Group More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Oil imports in Asia have soared by more than 2 million barrels per day over the last month. Europe is preparing to phase out Russian oil and fuel entirely within the next few months. Crude oil imports into Asia jumped in September. Normally such news would spark hope for demand and, consequently, prices, but this time its more complicated. And it has less to do with Asian demand than demand in Europe. Oil imports in Asia rose by more than 2 million barrels daily last month, Reuters Clyde Russell reported in his latest column, noting that the bulk went to China and Singapore. He then went on to point out that both China and Singapore had gone through refinery maintenance in August and utilization rates were up in September. On the one hand, its the normal preparation for winter. On the other, the EU has an embargo on Russian crude coming into effect in less than two months. And another one, on fuels, kicking in two months after that. Europe is already grappling with a diesel shortage as it shuns Russian fuels ahead of the embargo and as the global supply of the fuel remains limited. This has contributed to fears of demand destruction by excessive prices, but it has also reinforced fears of a recession due to the fuel crunch. The U.S. could maybe increase its fuel shipments to Europe, according to executives from major commodity trading houses quoted in a recent report by Energy Intelligence, especially since Russian fuels will be rerouted to other destinations, including Asia and South America, satisfying some of the demand there. And some of these Russian fuels will go to Europe but come from China. It is a somewhat ironic twist in the Europe-Russia story that Russian oil will not literally stop flowing into Europe, whatever Europe does to stop that flow, even if it will pay a literally steep price for it. As already evidenced by fuel flows from India to Europe, the latter has no problem with Russian refined products as long as they dont come from Russia itself. This will likely continue happening because whatever geopolitical games are being played, physical demand for oil products is likely to remain robust until prices become prohibitive. Even then, demand destruction will not happen overnight. A case in point is France, where strikes have paralyzed more than half of the countrys refining capacity, and yet people are queuing to fill up their tanks. Related: Russias Soaring Defense Spending Is Unsustainable It is a double irony that the European Union might need to rely on China for its winter fuel supplies. After all, following the example of the U.S., the EU has also spoken against Chinas rising domination of various global markets. It is not seen as a friend in Europe. Yet it is a vital supplier of commodities without which the EU will collapse. Whats more, European countries might need to tap that lifeline sooner rather than later. Because the refiners strikes in France are not the only challenge for supply. In fact, this month will see the diesel shortage in Europe worsen as refineries enter into seasonal maintenance. This will take 1.5 million bpd in refining capacity off the market. Added to the French strikes, with no immediate end in sight, the diesel supply situation in the EU becomes quite tense, with limited fuel availability elsewhere as well. Except, that is, in China, by the look of it. Bloomberg noted in a recent report that Chinese refiners had just been granted the biggest fuel export quotas since the start of the year. One reason for this is the still-floundering local demand growth after all the lockdowns. The other possible reason is the prospect of greater fuel demand in Europe for the abovementioned reasons. As long as the Chinese economy remains weak and product stocks are high, there are incentives for refiners to de-stock and export, one researcher from the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies told Bloomberg. Its time for Europe to start hoping Chinas economy remains weak. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: U.S. President Joe Biden is re-evaluating the United States relationship with OPECs de facto leader Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom led the OPEC+ group to announce a major oil production cut last week, John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the U.S. National Security Council, said on Tuesday. In an interview with CNN quoted by Reuters, Kirby said that President Biden was prepared to work with Congress on the future of U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. The comments from Kirby come hours after U.S. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blasted Saudi Arabia for announcing the oil production cut and called for an immediate freezing of U.S. cooperation with the Kingdom, including arms sales. Commenting on the deadly Russian attacks on cities across Ukraine on Monday, Senator Menendez said, referring to Saudi Arabia, There simply is no room to play both sides of this conflict either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping off an entire country off of the map, or you support him. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia chose the latter in a terrible decision driven by economic self-interest, Senator Menendez added. Last week, OPEC+ announced the biggest cut to its collective target since 2020. Despite insistence from Russia and all of OPEC+ that the production cut is based on technical market assessments and is aimed at stability, many analysts, as well as the White House, saw the move as a political one. The United States is considering response options in its relations with OPEC+ members and its de facto leader Saudi Arabia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week after the OPEC+ group announced the production cut. As to the relationship going forward, were reviewing a number of response options. Were consulting closely with Congress, Secretary Blinken said last week. By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: The European Union (EU) will push for a November deal on more emergency measures to tackle ultra-high gas prices, officials confirmed, even though countries still disagree on whether to cap gas prices. The bloc is bracing for a winter of scarce Russian gas supplies and ultra-high energy costs, and is considering gas price caps to both tame spiralling costs and slash Kremlin war revenues. Energy ministers from across the continent will meet in Prague tomorrow to discuss their next move. Czech Republic, which currently chairs meetings of EU ministers, will then call an emergency energy ministers meeting in November to approve the proposals, according to news agency Reuters. This follows the EU signing off on emergency energy windfall profit levies, gas storage filling obligations, and electricity demand curbs in recent months. Gas prices have risen in in 2022 to all-time highs and remain historically elevated (Source: Dutch TTF Futures/ICE) Gas prices have spiked this year to all-time highs, putting immense pressure on the EU amid rebounding post-pandemic demand. The bloc has topped up storage to over 90 per cent of capacity, with Russia squeezing supplies into the continent by turning off the taps into the now-damaged Nord Stream pipelines and halting flows via Ukraine in a dispute with state supplier Naftogaz. Russias actions are widely considered to be retaliation to Western sanctions targeting financial institutions, energy supplies and oligarchs since the country invaded Ukraine in February. This has raised concerns of supply shortages and blackouts, with high energy prices exacerbating other challenging factors such as nuclear outages in France and droughts at hydroelectric dams in Norway. While a majority of EU states say a gas price cap should come next, countries disagree on whether it should apply to all trades, long-term contracts, or simply gas used to produce electricity. Others countries including Germany and the Netherlands, remain opposed. Compromise measures could ease gas crisis Ministers will also discuss joint gas buying among countries, and the potential to lower prices with non-Russian suppliers, as ways for the EU to tame spiralling energy costs. A senior EU official told Reuters they believed countries were leaning towards the Iberian model of capping the price of gas used for power generation. Spain and Portugal have limited the price of gas used in power generation in June, which has helped curb local power prices. The idea has gained support among other countries, although EU energy comissioner Kadri Simson is concerned it could raise the blocs energy demands and put pressure on tight supplies. Spains gas use increased under the measure, with the region home to numerous liquefied natural gas terminals, which many EU countries lack. Related: Russias Soaring Defense Spending Is Unsustainable Countries would also need to determine how to compensate gas plants for the gap between the capped price and the higher market price at which they buy fuel. It could be funded through public support, borrowing or a levy on other energy generators. Meanwhile the UK is pushing to secure a massive, 20-year gas deal with Norway to meet its energy demand. By CityAM More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: France said on Tuesday that it would requisition essential workers to staff Exxons French oil depot, and threatened to do the same for Totals French refineries if talks failed to progress. But workers at Totals Donges refinery decided on Tuesday to strike beginning on Wednesday, French union CGT said. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Tuesday that the government would start the callback process for ExxonMobils staff at its oil depots in the country after talks between the oil company and two unions, CGT and FO, stalled. The CFDT union, however, managed on Monday to reach an agreement with Exxon. Today some unions, despite the deal, wants to continue the strike action and blockades, we cannot accept that, Borne said, according to Argus media. Those comments followed weekend comments by the countrys energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher that the government was doing its utmost to restore the situation to normal as soon as possible. The CGT and FO unions declared strikes weeks ago at Totals 246,900 bpd Gonfreville and 109,300 bpd Feyzin refineries, along with the Carling petrochemicals plant. The FO Now, ExxonMobils 219,000 bpd Donges refinery is being added to the list. The FO union had workers striking at Exxons 235,000 bpd Fos-Sur-Mer refinery, as well as its 270,000 bpd Port Jerome refinery, but FO called off its strike action on Monday, Argus said. The additional striking action comes just as France prepares to order some essential workers back to the workplace. More than half of the countrys refinery capacity has been offline as many of the countrys gas stations suffer widespread gasoline and diesel outages. On Monday, the CGT trade union rejected an offer from TotalEnergies, which had offered to bring forward negotiations if the union called off the strike. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Israel and Lebanon have reached a historic agreement to settle their long-running dispute over their maritime borderan agreement that could pave the way to more oil and gas exploration in Eastern Mediterranean waters where major gas discoveries have been made in recent years. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has, today, reached a historic agreement settling the maritime dispute with Lebanon, the Israeli government said in a statement on Tuesday. The draft agreement meets all the security and economic principles laid out by Israel, the government added. Over the weekend, there was intensive dialogue through the U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein between Lebanon and the Israeli negotiating team, Israel said. In the last few hours, Israel received a draft agreement that meets all of its security, economic, and legal demands as set out by Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Israel said. Lebanon and Israel have had an unresolved maritime border dispute over a triangular area of around 860 square kilometers (332 square miles) that extends along the southern edge of three of Lebanons 10 blocks. Lebanons Presidency said, The final version of the offer satisfies Lebanon, meets its demands, and preserves its rights to its natural wealth. Earlier this week, Energean started doing tests on pipes from the Karish offshore gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean and Israel, which claims ownership of the field. Israel will begin gas extraction from the Karish field and will start exporting it to Europe immediately, it has said. Under the agreement reached today, the Karish oil and gas field and an area known as the Qanaa prospect are expected to be in Israeli and Lebanese waters, respectively, according to CNN. Lebanons Energy Minister Walid Fayyad said today that French supermajor TotalEnergies, which owns the contract to explore Lebanese waters, would start working on the Qanaa prospect immediately. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: LNG carrier rates hit an all-time high on Tuesday, driven by growing prompt demand for gas in Europe as the continent tries to procure supply ahead of the winter. The freight rate to charter an LNG carrier in the Atlantic basin surged to $397,500 per day on Tuesday, according to Spark Commodities estimates cited by Bloomberg. The price to hire an LNG ship has now surged by 500% this year, as Europe is looking to import increased volumes of LNG to replace Russian pipeline gas, and north Asia is also preparing for the winter. The new record for Atlantic LNG freight rates was higher than the previous record of $374,000 per day set on Monday, as assessed by Spark Commodities. Europe's demand has left few LNG ships available, and some buyers are now concerned they may not be able to charter vessels to bring in the gas, according to traders who spoke to Bloomberg. Europe's demand for LNG surged by 65% in the first eight months of 2022 compared to the same period a year earlier, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest quarterly Gas Market Report earlier this month. For the first time ever, the European Union imported in June more LNG from the United States than gas via pipeline from Russia, as Moscow slashed its supply to Europe. In September, as much as 70% of all U.S. LNG exports were headed to Europe, up from 63% in August, per Refinitiv Eikon data cited by Reuters earlier this month. The race to buy LNG and charter LNG carriers could create the next big shortage in the energy marketnot enough vessels to transport LNG from exporters to buyers, analysts and traders say. The LNG shipping industry is set for a record-breaking quarter this quarter, and deals at freight rates of $1 million per day are not to be ruled out, according to maritime consultancy Drewry cited by Lloyd's List. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: More U.S. crude oil is going to Asia as close to two-thirds of Frances refining capacity remains paralyzed by industrial action. Earlier today, the French government threatened to break down the blockades workers have set up at refineries and oil depots to resume the flow of fuels to end consumers. Meanwhile, per a Bloomberg report, Asian refiners bought at least 12 million barrels of U.S. crude in the last two weeks as the strikes in France slashed demand. The increased Asian buying came predominantly from refiners in South Korea that snapped up cargos of West Texas Intermediate Midland for January delivery at a premium of $9 per barrel over the Dubai benchmark, traders told Bloomberg. The report also mentioned that Exxon had diverted one cargo of U.S. light crude from its original destination in France to the UK, and that it was offering more U.S. crude on the market. Refinery workers went on strike in France two weeks ago, which caused shortages of fuel at retail stations and forced France to tap its strategic fuel reserves last week. Whats perhaps worse is that there is no deal in sight for the striking workers. Earlier this week, the CGT union said the latest wage offer by TotalEnergies was tantamount to blackmail and the strike will continue. At the same time, workers at two Exxon refineries in France are striking, too, demanding higher salaries in response to inflation. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Sweden has said it will not allow Moscow to participate in its ongoing investigation into the causes of multiple leaks in underwater pipelines transporting Russian natural gas to Europe. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on October 10 that while Russia would not be allowed to join the investigation, Stockholm would invite a joint EU probe and Moscow was free to carry out its own inspections of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. "In Sweden, preliminary investigations are confidential, and this is of course also true in this case," Andersson told reporters. Russia will be allowed to approach the site of the leaks discovered in late September because they were in international waters, albeit in the Swedish exclusive economic zone, she said. The four leaks to three of the four lines that make up the Russia-owned pipelines have sent tons of pressurized methane gas into the Baltic Sea and raised concerns in Europe amid an ongoing energy crisis. Western officials have said the leaks to the pipelines connecting Russia to Germany were caused by sabotage. That has led to suspicion that Moscow was behind the incidents, similar to accusations that Russia is withholding energy supplies in retaliation to Western sanctions against its unprovoked war against Ukraine. Related: European Energy Market Spooked By $1.5 Trillion Liquidity Crisis Russia on October 7 said it would consider its own investigation into the leaks of the pipelines off the Danish coast after Denmark refused to allow Moscow to participate in its probe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has directly accused the United States and its allies of carrying out an attack on the two pipelines. The Russian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said on October 6 that the West was purposely creating obstacles to an investigation and that it was "unthinkable" that Moscow and the Russian gas giant Gazprom would not be able to participate. There are the concerns that the pipelines could be permanently damaged by saltwater. On October 10, the Russian operator of Nord Stream 2 depressurized that pipeline for safety reasons. By RFE/RL More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: U.S. officials told Saudi Arabia prior to the OPEC+ meeting that it would help stave off a collapse in the oil market by buying oil at $75 per barrel to replenish the nations Strategic Petroleum Reserves, Wall Street Journal sources said on Tuesday. In the runup to last weeks OPEC+ meeting, Wall Street Journals sources suggest that the rift between Saudi Arabia and the United States grew wider over oil markets. The Wall Street Journal sourceswho remain anonymous but are cited as OPEC+ delegatespaint an ugly picture of the state of relations between the two. A state of relations that might be so damaged as to be beyond repair. WSJ sources suggest that Saudi Arabia accused the United States of playing politics with oil, pinning the Biden Administrations drive to keep oil production up on the effect it could have on mid-term elections. That accusation is categorically false according to National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson, who in turn referred to the OPEC+ decision to cut production as shortsighted. The U.S. has unleashed a flurry of vocal barbs about the groups decision since it was madeWatsons is but one. Sources inside the Saudi government said that Bidens trip to Saudi Arabia didnt helpin fact, it made the situation even worse. The Kingdom maintains, however, that its decision was entirely based on the needs of the oil market, and wasnt made with the intent of hurting the United States. But the anonymous OPEC+ delegates also said that the oil price cap proposed by the West was perceived by Saudi Arabia as an attack on crude oil producers. Its us against them, Prince Abdulaziz told two Gulf oil ministers on phone calls, according to the sources. When OPEC+s plans to cut production were leaked prior to the meeting, the United States set out to change what was about to happen. They sent out numerous officials to speak on behalf of the United States to keep OPEC+ from cutting production. But Saudi officials told the United States of the impending collapse that would take place if production wasnt curbed. According to sources, the Saudis told US officials that oil could fall even to $50 per barrel unless it cut production. The United States, for its part, vowed to replenish its SPR if Brent fell to $75 to keep prices from falling below the groups comfort level. WSJ sources said that the Saudis refused. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Experts anticipate that cobalt demand will rise in the years to come, and competition between manufacturers and sources could grow along with it. By AG Metal Miner The October Renewables MMI (Monthly MetalMiner Index) dropped yet again, but by less than in previous months. All in all, prices fell by 3.28%. The demand for battery metals due to the growing EV market largely kept the index afloat. Still recovering from Augusts steep drop, Cobalt traded sideways between September 1 and October 1, then fell by a modest 2.03%. Cobalt Prices on a Roller Coaster Ride With the demand for EV batteries rising steadily, battery manufacturers are on the hunt for more and more resources. In the US, cobalt mining is ramping up for the first time in decades. In Idaho, for instance, a new mine began upping production to help meet demand for this crucial lithium-ion battery material. The new mine helps shed some light on the heavy the demand for cobalt. However, it also demonstrates the possibility that demand might outgrow the current global supply. The article goes on to state that nearly a third of all supply mined goes into automobile construction. However, cobalt prices experienced a noticeable downturn during August. Since then, it has continued to trade sideways. Fortunately, more and more cobalt manufacturers are coming online. And while experts anticipate that demand will rise in the years to come, competition between manufacturers and sources could grow along with it. More suppliers means less opportunity to make a profit. Increasing Opportunity in Lithium Manufacturing Another metal essential to EV battery production is lithium. In fact, Forbes noted that Albemarle, a specialty chemicals company, has increased its stock prices by nearly 21% in the past year thanks to lithium, which accounts for most of its revenue. Meanwhile, the demand for lithium continues to explode. But will supply be able to meet the demand? Related: Railway Strike Looms After Union Rejects Biden-Backed Labor Deal For Australia, the spike in lithium demand is a good sign. Currently, the nation is the worlds largest producer of lithium. Experts also predict that the Australian market will grow to almost $13.8 billion between 2022-2023. This makes the country an attractive sourcing option for EV battery producers. In fact, in a recent lithium auction, an Australian miner managed to snag its highest-ever winning bid. Right now, plenty of money remains the lithium market for EVs and electronics. However, like cobalt, the demand for lithium could soon exceed supply. To add insult to injury, energy shortages were not kind to metal manufacturing over the past 3-4 months, and the situation continues to worsen as winter approaches. Ultimately, this means less mining and less manufacturing. Right now, the entire industry is merely hoping that supply will last and manufacturing will somehow weather the energy shortage Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel MMI Source: MetalMiner IndX The GOES/Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel MMI (Monthly MetalMiner Index) continued its sideways trend, rising a slight 2.4% between September 1 and October 1. The electrical steel marketing currently faces a hurricane-sized issue: rebuilding and restoring power after Hurricane Ian. Currently, Floridas Lee Country, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Ian, still has over 80,000 power outages. Source: poweroutage.us The Category 4 storm came at an unfortunate time. Supply chain issues in the electrical steel market have resulted in a shortage of spare transformers. More specifically, a shortage of distribution transformers continues to make grid restoration especially difficult. These types of transformers are necessary to take power from high-voltage lines and convert it to a low-enough level for use in homes. That said, it will also take time to clear damage and debris away from roadways so that electrical trucks can travel to affected areas. Many electrical companies keep a storm shock supply on hand. This ensures that electrical companies and grids have enough spare poles, transformers, GOES, and other necessities on hand in case a disaster like Hurricane Ian occurs. However, supply chain shortages placed a massive strain on many companies storm shock supply. And even with sufficient supplies on hand, no company could ever properly prepare for a storm of such magnitude. By AG Metal Miner More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: A Papillion man pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of felony cruelty to animals resulting in death. Edward Luben, 57, agreed to enter the guilty pleas in Sarpy County District Court in exchange for the Sarpy County Attorneys Office dismissing nine other charges of cruelty to animals, including four felonies. Luben, who is free on bail, faces up to six years in prison when he is sentenced in January. In December 2021, the Nebraska Humane Society and Papillion Police Department served a search warrant at Lubens house near 84th Street and Centennial Road to recover evidence of animal neglect. Officials seized and removed 665 animals from the home, including exotic birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. About 70 of the 665 animals were found dead during the search, and two animals had to be euthanized due to the extent of their injuries. The Nebraska Humane Society evaluated and treated the surviving animals. These animals were living in deplorable conditions, Deputy Sarpy County Attorney Dominique Jones said at the time. Many of them were severely malnourished or had physical impairments due to their living conditions. The fact that so many of the animals survived is a testament to the Nebraska Humane Societys work. People with information about possible animal abuse or neglect may contact the Nebraska Humane Society at 402-444-7800, ext. 1. A federal grant will bring broadband access to hundreds of households on the Winnebago Reservation. The Winnebago Tribe will receive just over $35.2 million to install fiber directly connecting 602 unserved tribal households, 40 unserved tribal businesses and 16 unserved tribal community anchor institutions, according to an announcement Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The grant is a portion of the National Telecommunications and Information Administrations Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. Funding for the grant was made possible by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Among the members of Nebraskas congressional delegation, U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer and Rep. Don Bacon supported the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill. We see this as a huge advancement that will open the door for new opportunities for education, commerce and communication on the Winnebago Reservation, said Victoria Kitcheyan, tribal chairwoman with the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. The lack of adequate bandwidth was particularly emphasized during the pandemic. The Federal Communications Commission has estimated that about one-third of people living on tribal lands dont have access to high-speed internet, but others say the figure is much higher. Grant funding through the program prioritizes the deployment of broadband to underserved households on tribal lands, according to a release. It also invites proposals that address the digital divide, including those related to telehealth, education and workforce development. The Winnebago Tribes grant was one of 23 announced by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Tuesday. The new grants are being awarded in 15 states Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. Broadband is absolutely essential to modern life, Fischer said in a press release. This broadband funding will finally bring reliable, high-speed internet to unserved areas in the Winnebago Tribal community. The funding announced Tuesday is in addition to more than $200 million in federal funding for broadband expansion that Nebraska expects to receive through the 2021 infrastructure law. This report contains material from the Associated Press. Clarification: Funding for the grant program was made possible by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The story originally only identified the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which provided a majority of the funding for the program. THIBODAUX, La. (AP) A well known manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment will create 70 new jobs in Louisiana with a planned $29.8 million expansion of a facility in Thibodaux. The South Louisiana Economic Council and the governor's office said in a Tuesday news release that the new jobs connected to the expansion by Deere & Company will have an average annual salary of more than $47,000. The company will retain 311 existing jobs in Louisiana, including 284 jobs at the Lafourche Parish facility. This investment by Deere & Company demonstrates not only the strength of Louisianas manufacturing sector, but the resilience and recovery of the Bayou Region, Gov. John Bel Edwards said. The state says the expansion involves the development of a new production line and upgraded equipment for manufacturing medium-chassis cotton harvesters that will replace existing models built in China. The company expects production of the new cotton harvesters to begin within two years and to reach full capacity by 2025. The state says it offered Deere an incentive package including a performance-based grant of up to $1 million and the services of a state recruitment and training program. Vargas support Senator Tony Vargas has a proven record of supporting Nebraskas working families and he will continue to do so when elected to Congress. Thats because Tony grew up in a union household his father was a machinist and shop steward with his local IBEW. And when Tony was a science teacher, he was also a member of and leader in his union, AFT. His background gives him the knowledge and personal insight to worker struggles and values, as well as experience working with employers to resolve conflict. As a state senator, he fought tirelessly for workers, introducing legislation to ensure employees are treated fairly, protected and safe at work. Tony also passed legislation that increased financial aid for low-income and first-generation students attending college or job training programs and ensured that veterans and service members had easy access to Nebraska colleges and universities. He is fully supportive of collective bargaining and would seek to ensure nationally that those wanting to organize into unions could do so by fully supporting the PRO Act and other similar bills. All of these reasons are why the Nebraska State AFL-CIO, which represents over 110 unions, voted to endorse and fully support Sen. Tony Vargas in his race for Congress. Tony is the best candidate to represent all working people in Nebraska and will take that to Washington when elected in November. Thank you, Senator, on behalf of everyday working people. Richard Michel, Nebraska City Vice President Nebraska State AFL-CIO Social problem I recently attended a joint presentation by County Attorney Don Kleine and OPD Fugitive Squad Sgt. Aaron Hanson, who has also served as a gang unit member in the past. Discussing prison overcrowding in Nebraska, Mr. Kleine asserted that the problem is not the overall amount of crime in the state or overly strict sentencing, but a lack of prison capacity due to years of neglect. According to the Prison Policy Initiative website, our incarceration rate in 2021 was 601 per 100,000 residents. This is 9.5% below the U.S. average and comparable with Iowa, Colorado and North Dakota, while the South Dakota rate is well above the national average. For 2019, a University of Nebraska at Omaha study found that Iowa and Nebraska had the worst degree of prison overcrowding in the country at 119% and 115% of operational capacity, respectively. The second major point on which both speakers agreed was the importance of the social context of crime. They cited factors such as the cycle of poverty, weak families and negative neighborhood environment as contributing strongly to initial and repeat commission of criminal acts. The two went on to praise local organizations such as Project Harmony and Rise Academy for their work on behalf of abused children and assistance to released prisoners. Kleine also mentioned special drug and veterans courts as helping keep people out of prison. To this observer, the lack of investment in needed prison facilities is a symptom of what I call the American Disease, i.e., we want stuff but dont want to pay for it. Second, how can it be that arguably the greatest country on earth continues to allow its citizens to be mired in poverty and misery to the extent that crime becomes a preferable alternative for many? Peter Gadzinski, Omaha D.E.I. Approximately half of working-age people who are blind or visually impaired are not in the U.S. labor market. Theyre not employed. But more so easily could be. This month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, marks the ideal time for companies to faithfully assess the effectiveness of their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Quite often, executives are nobly inspired to emphasize initiatives targeted at addressing gender and diversity shortcomings but they fall short in assessing their deficiencies meeting the needs of employees with disabilities. Diversity and equity are critical, yes. But how inclusive is your DEI plan, truly? A 2021 study from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that people with disabilities aged 16 to 64 are employed at a rate of 31.4% yet theres a 72.5% employment percentage for people without disabilities. More can be done to close that gap. Too often, its assumed that people with disabilities must adhere to society-established limitations, that they must adjust their livelihood and limit their independence. But now is the time to change that misguided perception. At Outlook Enrichment, we partner with companies to make assistive technology recommendations, improve website accessibility, evaluate on-site paths of travel and educate employees on disability proper etiquette and culture. Helping those with disabilities become self-confident and self-sustaining positively impacts the individual. And it enhances the local economy as they become productive, taxpaying citizens and consumers. The U.S. gross domestic product could get an estimated boost of up to $25 billion if 1% more people with disabilities joined the workforce, according to 2018 research by Accenture. Outlook Enrichment is determined to create an inclusive and integrated environment for talented employees with the necessary accommodations provided for those who need them. We hope all community and business leaders join us in sharing the same vision and mission. Paulette Monthei, Omaha Executive Director Outlook Enrichment SIOUX CITY, Iowa Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott called upon the tri-state governors Monday to band together and come up with a plan to keep Tyson Foods from closing its Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, office and moving the more than 500 white-collar jobs to Tysons headquarters in Arkansas. Scott said the move is going to have a terrible impact on Siouxland. To lose 580 really good employees in this area is just really tough to swallow, he said. I would like to think that we have three governors whose communities are going to be terribly adversely affected by this that they would get together and go see the people at Tyson, write letters, do whatever. Scott said he hoped South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts would take the lead on such efforts, because Tyson isnt going to listen to local communities. Its terribly important that we dont lose these jobs, so I would hope that that would happen, Scott said. I encouraged the Chamber of Commerce to try to make that happen and, so far, theyve not been as successful as wed hoped. All of the 500-plus employees in Dakota Dunes will be eligible for assistance to relocate to northwest Arkansas. Those who choose to stay will be eligible for severance, with packages determined on an individual basis. The relocations, scheduled to be completed in phases, will begin in early 2023. The sprawling Tyson complex that anchors the Two Rivers Business Park in Dakota Dunes was built in 1997 as the world headquarters for IBP Inc., which moved from Dakota City, Nebraska, to Dakota Dunes. Just four years later, IBP was acquired by Tyson in October 2001 for $3.2 billion in cash and stock, creating the worlds largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef and pork. Tyson will continue to operate its flagship Dakota City beef plant, which employs about 4,500 people, and its cold storage facility in Sioux City. The publicly traded company is by far the metro areas largest employer. Last week, Tyson announced the company plans to bring over 1,000 corporate staff in Chicago and the Dunes to its world headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas. Supernatural fans can experience the backstory of Sam and Deans parents in The Winchesters. Charlie Puth, Jimmie Allen, Sean Paul and Jazmine Sullivan mentor the singers as The Voice moves into the Battle Rounds. Its summer on Foxs Monarch, but already time to film the familys annual Christmas special despite all the trauma. Series Premiere 8/7c After a remarkable 15-season run that bridged the WB and the CW networks, surely you didnt think theyd let Supernatural fade away forever. Which explains this origin story for the Winchester brothers demon-hunting parents, John and Mary (nee Campbell), who meet in 1972 as the series begins, narrated by their son Dean (Jensen Ackles). John (Drake Rodger), fresh off the bus from a Vietnam tour of duty, and Mary follow their meet-cute with a meet-scary, and though hes a (not terribly convincing) Marine veteran, shes the one with the monster-clobbering skills, ordering him during their first demon battle to Stop helping! They quickly assemble a Scooby Team of their own to solve occult puzzles and save the world from demonic forces, all while John and Mary search for their respective fathers. Its all very boo-by-numbers, a bland reminder of what a miracle of casting Supernatural wasand the team banter may prompt you to go back for a Buffy rewatch. Series Premiere 9/8c Rarely has a series been so misleadingly titled. This international acquisition, starring a sleepwalking Brendan Fraser and Smallville alum Tom Welling (the latter moving on soon to a role in The Winchesters), is amateur hour in every way, from the clumsy action sequences and wooden acting from a polyglot cast to the plodding plotting. It begins with the explosion during launch of a medical data satellite rocket, prompting Elon Musk-style CEO Peter Swann (Fraser, at least aiming for eccentricity) to enlist a cynical private contractor (Welling) to smoke out his enemies. Ive stepped in puddles with more depth. 8/7c 9/8c Can the embattled Romans of the Austin country-music scene fake their way through a Merry Little Christmas in the heat of summer? Nothins the same without Mama, laments widower Albie (Trace Adkins) as he rallies his broken family to film their annual Christmas specialin July. Rebellious Gigi (Beth Ditto) argues to update it for the under-80 crowd, having tired of a tradition she likens to toxic masculinity and the Confederacy. Further souring the mood: a nosy prosecutor, who wants to question Nicky (Anna Fried), and a revelation from Aunt Nellie (Faith Prince) that sets Allie on his heels. Inside Tuesday TV: Recommended read: The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series (Grant Central Publishing, on sale Tuesday): We dont usually feature books in this space-with all the TV out there, who has time to read?but well make an exception for this highly anticipated oral history of the blockbuster comedy hit The Big Bang Theory from Glamours well-connected Senior West Coast Editor Jessica Radloff. She spent hundreds of hours interviewing the stars and producers, taking them through early casting (and a pilot reshoot) to the emotional series finale and all the backstage drama in between, including the off-camera relationship between series stars Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco. The series airs nightly on TBS, with all 12 seasons available for streaming on HBO Max, and this juicy volume will be for fans what flags were for Sheldon and Amy: a source of endless fascination. BLOOMINGTON The county clerks from McLean and Tazewell counties will hold an event this weekend to help address misinformation about voting. On Monday, McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael announced the election information session is scheduled for 2-4 p.m. Saturday at Eastland Mall, next to Kohl's. The mall is also an early voting location. Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman, election staff and Democrat and Republican election judges will join Michael to help answer questions about elections, according to the announcement. The first hour will be a question and answer session, followed by time to talk directly with the election officials and volunteers. There will also be election equipment for display at the event. The audience is limited to 40 because of the size of the space, and questions need to be submitted on the forms provided at the start of the event. Questions that are not answered during Q&A session will be answered online at the McLean County Clerk's website, mcleancountyil.gov/84/County-Clerk, within 48 hours. Organizers of the event plan to wrap up promptly at 4 p.m. Early voting for the Nov. 8 election has started. Bloomington voters can vote early at the Bloomington Election Commission office at 121 N. Main St. from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. McLean County voters besides Bloomington residents can vote early at the McLean County Government Center at 115 E. Washington St. in Bloomington from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays. Eastland Mall is open for early voting for all McLean County voters, including those who live in Bloomington, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, as well as expanded weekend and evening hours closer to the election. SPRINGFIELD Attorney General Kwame Raoul accused his Republican challenger Thomas DeVore of making dangerous remarks, while DeVore accused the Democratic incumbent of failing the states school students by not challenging Gov. JB Pritzkers COVID-19 mitigations. The charges and countercharges came during a nearly hourlong debate organized by the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors and Capitol News Illinois that was conducted Monday via Zoom. Raoul, a former state senator from Chicago, is seeking his second term in the AGs office while DeVore, a southern Illinois attorney in private practice, is trying to unseat him. DeVore gained notoriety during the COVID-19 pandemic for filing numerous lawsuits, mostly unsuccessful, challenging the governors authority to issue multiple disaster declarations and to issue executive orders that included mask mandates and other mitigation measures. Among his clients in those suits was state Sen. Darren Bailey, who is now the GOP nominee for governor. I think one of the things we've learned over the course of the last couple of years is that there was a fair question to be asked about the extent of the governor's ability to issue some of those mandates, DeVore said. You know, you have some on one side of the conversation say he could absolutely do it. You had some that said he absolutely couldn't. But I think we would all agree as intellectual people there was a fair question. Raoul, however, defended his decisions, and his support for Pritzkers executive orders, saying the state was in the midst of a deadly pandemic and that he, himself, lost friends to the disease. I will agree with Mr. DeVore. It was a fair question to ask, Raoul said. But how many times you ask it is a fair question too. It was asked and answered multiple times in multiple lawsuits. And the courts resources should not have been abused as they were. The two also clashed over the role of the attorney generals office in prosecuting certain crimes, a decision that is traditionally left to locally elected states attorneys. In particular, DeVore has been an outspoken critic of Cook County States Attorney Kimberly Foxx, arguing that she has refused to bring charges in felony theft cases that involve less than $1,000. He even said of Foxx at the Illinois State Fair, she better get to prosecuting or we'll find a way to prosecute her, raising questions about whether he would use the office to target his political opponents. It's a very broad statement, and she's not a political opponent of mine, DeVore said, adding that he believes people in Illinois are frustrated with elected officials arbitrarily making decisions that don't make any sense to them. Prosecutorial discretion is one thing, he added. But when you take prosecutorial discretion to the point that you may be engaging in official misconduct yourself by failing to perform a duty that the law requires you to perform, that's at least a conversation that has to be had, not just with Kim Foxx, but with other public officials. Later in the debate, Raoul responded to those comments, as well as other comments he said DeVore has made suggesting he would investigate political opponents. Those are dangerous statements, particularly in today's environment, Raoul said. There have been prosecutors who have been prosecuted for abusing their authority in political ways, and somebody who will overtly make these statements as a candidate for attorney general should not be let anywhere near the door of the attorney general's office. DeVore was also asked about the numerous private lawsuits he has filed against individuals who have criticized him, including one against Pritzker for calling him a grifter and one against individuals, including a special education teacher, who criticized him on Facebook after he referred to some students as window lickers. When asked if he would continue engaging in private litigation if he is elected attorney general, Devore insisted he and all other office-seekers have a right to defend themselves against false or unfair accusations. So when it rises to the level of it's not just political talk, and it's accusing people of committing crimes and saying other things that impugn their ability to do their job, they have an absolute right to defend themselves, he said. Me, the governor, Mr. Raoul and anybody. And to suggest that it has some ulterior motive other than defending your character, I take issue with that. Raoul responded that lawyers have a duty not to waste the courts resources and that lawyers can be sanctioned for filing nonmeritorious lawsuits. First off, I don't think we want the courts to be used to stop teachers from being protective of students when somebody's going to do something that I think is just unconscionable, he said. The other thing that's important to look at is the outcome of those lawsuits. That lawsuit (against the teacher) was eventually dismissed. Right? You know, Attorney General Raoul, let me just say what you just said on this camera is defamatory because you weren't there, DeVore fired back. You don't know anything about it. The two candidates were also asked about their positions on the SAFE-T Act, the sweeping criminal justice reform package that lawmakers passed in 2021 that includes, among other things, the elimination of cash bail beginning Jan. 1, 2023. DeVore has been an outspoken critic of that law, arguing that he believes it is unconstitutional and that the attorney general should have challenged it in court. We now have over 50 states attorneys in the state of Illinois who are now doing, for all intents and purposes, the attorney general's job in bringing causes of action on numerous counts that it's unconstitutional, DeVore said. It is in fact unconstitutional. Devores constitutional claims center on the laws detainability standards. The law says the decision to detain someone in jail pending trial will be based on factors other than the defendants ability to post a cash bond, such as the severity of the crime, the defendants likelihood of fleeing prosecution and whether they pose a risk to other individuals or the community. Raoul conceded that there are parts of the law that he thinks need to be clarified, and he said lawmakers are in conversations about that in advance of the upcoming veto session, which begins Nov. 15. But he said one of the jobs of the attorney general is to defend the laws of the state against constitutional challenges, and he would do so for the SAFE-T Act. My obligation as a lawyer in general is towards justice, Raoul said. And so if the evidence is such, or the law is such, that I would have to concede unconstitutionality, I would have a conversation with my client, and we'd have to do so. I don't believe that's the case here. Billionaire Ken Griffin had the political world buzzing when he donated $50 million to Aurora Mayor Richard Irvins ultimately unsuccessful bid for the Republican governor nomination. But a second billionaire involved in the GOP race to challenge first-term Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has now exceeded Griffins largesse with his contributions in support of the candidate who came out on top in the primary, Darren Bailey. With a donation Friday, ultraconservative megadonor Richard Uihlein of Lake Forest, the founder of the Uline office supply and packaging firm, has given more than $52 million to back Bailey, primarily by being the chief funding source for a political action committee allied with the wealthy downstate farmer from Xenia. The Play By The Rules PAC reported getting more than $13.9 million from Uihlein on Friday, State Board of Elections records show. With the donation, the PAC run by right-wing radio host Dan Proft of Naples, Florida, has received more than $42 million from Uihlein, including nearly $34 million since Bailey won the June 28 primary. Uihlein, one of the nations largest donors for conservatives and conservative causes, has also given more than $10 million directly to Bailey, all but $1 million of it before the primary. Uihlein has long supported other PACs and candidates backed by Proft, including Profts own 2010 bid for the Republican primary for governor, in which he finished sixth. The billionaires decision to primarily direct his money to the PAC indicates a comfort level with Proft and apparent unease with the management of Baileys campaign against Pritzker, a billionaire entrepreneur and heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune. Profts Play By The Rules is an independent expenditure PAC which, by law, cannot coordinate its activities with Bailey. The PACs main spending has been for advertising criticizing Pritzer and only occasionally backing Bailey, who has yet to run a general election ad. Proft is also aligned with a management group that has sent political mailings, filled with misinformation and innuendo, disguised as newspapers to voters across Illinois. The PAC has reported spending $27.4 million since it was launched in March, with nearly $20 million of the total spent since the primary, primarily on TV ads, state records show. Since the 2020 general election, Uihlein has made more than $57.5 million in donations to GOP candidates and causes. Besides his contributions to the Proft PAC and Bailey, he has given more than $2.6 million to Illinois Senate Republican leader Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods, records show. Uihlein also has given $1 million to a group opposing a proposed state constitutional amendment on the ballot that is backed by unions and would enshrine collective bargaining rights in the states governing document. Griffin, founder and CEO of the Citadel investment firm who had been the richest resident of Illinois, announced only days before the primary, where the slate of candidates he was backing fell far short of expectations, that he and his business operations were moving to Miami. Griffin has emerged as a major GOP fundraiser nationally and is backing Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is exploring a potential 2024 White House bid. The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced that revenue from E-levy as at September 2022 amounted to 328.80million. CommissionerGeneral of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Rev. Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah explained that on-month basis the country continues to see a 20% improvement in collection of the levy. We commenced the implementation of this levy in May 2022. Revenue from E-levy as at September 2022 amounted to GHS328.80M, the GRA said. It is therefore our expectation that, this will continue and improve domestic revenue generation to support government expenditure, he stated while announcing the Revenue Perfromance for 2022. He further indicated that the GRA has acquired a USSD code that will allow every Ghanaian to check on their tax compliance status. We have also acquired a USSD code that will allow every Ghanaian to check on their tax compliance status. This short code will be made public as soon as possible, he stated. The controversial levy started on Sunday, May 1 amidst rejection of the policy by a section of Ghanaians especially the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) who thought that it threatened electronic transactions. 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 forward-thinking, proactive posture and actions of the primary financial sector regulator the Bank of Ghana (BoG) guarantees the nation will be at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial and digital financial revolutions on the continent, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AZA Finance, Elizabeth Rossiello, has suggested. Over the course of the last two decades, the regulator has fostered an enabling regulatory environment with the introduction of tools such as the Ghana Interbank Settlement (GIS) system, Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GhIPSS), Payment Systems and Services Act in 2019, the establishment of a dedicated FinTech and Innovation Office the year after, as well as the introduction of a regulatory sandbox. These, in addition to the relative ease of doing business, clarity of the regulatory regime, in addition to the rapidly-expanding pool of local talent, she argues, will ensure the country attracts critical investment and serve as a blueprint for its peers. In all my recent interactions, I have had to mention how great it is to see how active the regulator is. Here in Ghana, we are seeing licenses being processed in a reasonable time without sacrificing due diligence, she said at the conclusion of a recent working visit to the country. She added that inasmuch as some FinTechs are apprehensive over interactions with regulators, the future of digital finance demands regulated entities; ones that adhere to standard Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) protocols. Although some FinTechs struggle with the concept and application of regulation in some way, I believe it is the path forward because, without regulatory oversight, many institutions would not want to work with you. As innovative as we come, we need to have that to offer a standard of certainty and security, she added. Mrs. Rossiello who co-chairs the World Economic Forum's Council on Blockchain and sits on the Global Advisory Board of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution agrees with other international bodies such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that, with adequate funding, the local talent compete with their peers from other regions. One of the most exciting things for me is the abundance of local tech talent and I believe if the digital drive is sustained and there is adequate investment in developing this talent, it would be tremendous. The IFC estimated that between 2020 and 2030, Ghana could have business-to-business and business-to-government opportunities that reach about 18 million people who require digital skills with revenue potential in excess of US$4 billion. Sector Efficiency Offering thoughts on the growing partnership between banks and FinTechs, the AZA Finance CEO said she expects continued collaborations which would lead to more efficient and streamlined offerings. I foresee a streamlining of banking operations, with banks getting smaller headcount wise, and banks will, perhaps, focus more on corporate lending whilst the FinTechs participate more in consumer offerings. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Monday, 10th October 2022, was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Sorbonne, in Paris, France, one of the most prestigious universities in Europe and the world. Sorbonne University conferred the award on President Akufo-Addo, in recognition of his commitment to entrenching the values of democracy in Ghana, fostering peace within the West African Region, guaranteeing access to a minimum of senior high school education for all of Ghanas children through the implementation of the Free SHS policy, and also for the leadership shown in the fight against COVID-19, amongst others. This is the fourth Honorary Doctorate Degree to be conferred on the President the first being an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree conferred on him in May 2016, from the celebrated Fort Hare University of South Africa; the second, in December 2017, being an honourary doctor of humane letters degree from the University of Liberia; and the third, in May 2021, from the University of Cape Coast. Receiving the honour, the President was delighted to be in the company of Pablo Picasso, Kofi Annan, Amartya Sen and Nelson Mandela, as persons who have also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Sorbonne University. In his acceptance speech, he addressed issues on climate change, equity and justice, reform of the multilateral system and the importance of strengthening international co-operation amongst nations. On climate change, President Akufo-Addo recounted events at the just ended Summit for financing Africas adaptation to climate change in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and noted that Africa contributes only 4% to the global production of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is the region of the world where the consequences of these are felt most heavily. He explained that the Adaptation Summits mission, ahead of the Conference of the Parties in Egypt, was to mobilize twenty-five billion dollars by 2025 to mitigate the consequences of climate change in terms of food security, resilient infrastructure, creation of suitable jobs and green finance. With Africas 1.3 billion inhabitants representing nearly eighteen percent (18%) of the worlds population, he told the gathering that this population will balloon to some 2.5 billion by 2050. It is on the African continent that the future of the world will largely be played, in any case the future of Europe and that of France. These are not words. These are facts. And, as you say in French, facts are stubborn. Twenty-five billion in three years, for adaptation to climate change for the whole of Africa. This is about five times the annual cost of medical transport in France. That is a lot, of course. But that is derisory, he bemoaned. As paltry as it was, and with G20 countries responsible for 80% of emissions, President Akufo-Addo stated that Africa left Rotterdam with pledges of $55 million, outside of the pledge of the African Development Bank to mobilize 12.5 billion United States dollars. You heard it right. I am talking about millions. 55 millions for 54 countries, that makes an almost round count. 1 million each. One would have hoped that the international community would have shown greater solidarity with the African continent, which is suffering the consequences of problems that she did not create. This is not right. This is not fair, President Akufo-Addo stated. To this end, the President told the gathering that African leaders have a duty to build, together with their respective populations, fairer societies, where women and children, but also the most fragile, are treated appropriately. According to him, Societies where everyone, whatever their incomes, beliefs or ethnic origins, can have equitable and guaranteed access to the goods essential to the development of every individual and of society as a whole: access to water, food and quality care, access to energy, access to education, access, in short, to the decent life to which every free being can and must aspire. From this point of view, the President was proud that, under his tenure of office, Ghana has implemented a policy of free public high schools during my first mandate. It is a symbol for us of the central place that education must hold in the development of societies and the training of enlightened citizens able to play their full role. Calling for a reform of the multilateral system, which, he said, is leaking from all sides, President Akufo-Addo noted that the world of 2022 is not the world of 1945. The crisis of the multilateral financial institutions and the United Nations system, which were born from the rubble of the Second World War, is a deep crisis. It will continue until a fair system is put in place; a system that reflects the new balances, no longer based on who lost or won the Second World War, but on the major contemporary and future balances, he stated. Reiterating Ghanas position as a beacon of democracy and stability in contemporary Africa, President Akufo-Addo condemned the unacceptable aggression of Ukraine by Russia, which is leading the world to the edge of the precipice and has dramatic consequences on the African economies and populations. Ghana, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain her independence and to free herself from the colonial yoke, in her case the British yoke, has always defended a vision of the world free of hegemonic practices, in which all nations, large or small, co-exist peacefully, in fairness and with mutual respect, a vision that insists that disputes between countries are settled through dialogue and negotiation, and not by force and violence, he added. 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 President of the Ghana Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS), Dr. Abu Abudu Rahamani, has appealed to the government to as a matter of urgency establish a fund for public health emergency preparedness with the current COVID-19 Trust Fund and the COVID-19 Levy being the basis for the fund. The GAMLS President also implored the government to de-bundle laboratory services in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and resolve the impasse between Physicians/Clinicians and Medical Laboratory Scientists, defining a clear collaborative organisational structure for effective healthcare and teamwork. Dr. Rahamani made this known while addressing members of the GAMLS during their 2022 Annual National Congress (ANC) in Kumasi last Thursday under the theme: Capacity Enhancement of Medical Laboratory Practice in Ghana: Cornerstone of Future Pandemic Response. The ANC is the highest profile event on the GAMLS calendar, which gives medical laboratory practitioners and the academia the opportunity to deliberate on the theme and keep abreast of new developments in the profession. Dr. Rahamani urged the government to recruit qualified and licensed professionals and avoid using quacks with task-shifting approaches, adding, the Health Agencies and various Regulators, especially the Health Facility and Regulatory Agencies (HEFRA) must ensure that only qualified professionals perform the test in facilities they accredit, even in the quest of increasing access to health care. The GAMLS President noted that the COVID-19 pandemic together with the emerging threat of other viral infectious diseases demanded a careful look at the healthcare system, particularly in the diagnostic arm of health. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Minister of Health, in a speech read on his behalf by Mahama Asei Seini, Deputy Minister of Health, commended the Medical Laboratory Scientists for their sterling performance during the outbreak of Marburg disease and Monkeypox disease in the past years. Touching on the theme, he noted that the current era of a double-burden of non-communicable and infectious diseases required that professional practice of medical laboratory science in the world, and Ghana, in particular, is above reproach, is of the highest quality, and can stand the test of time. He called for an establishment of independent regulatory bodies, policies, and systems that would be well resourced to deal with issues of quackery in the health system. If the professional regulatory bodies such as the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC), the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Medical and Dental Council, Pharmacy Council and Psychology Council are working well, we should not expect quackery in our health system but see all professionals bearing licences to practice their various professions, he reiterated. Simon Osei-Mensah, Ashanti Regional Minister, described the theme for the congress as apt and timely, noting that the recent outbreak of Monkeypox and Marburg diseases were clear indications for strengthening the capacities of the medical laboratory professionals of the country. Nana Osei-Hyiaman, Otumfuos Mawerehene, who represented the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II as the chairman of the occasion, commended GAMLS for their contributions in the healthcare delivery in the country. 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 Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has cut short his trip to Africa amid Russian strikes across his country. "I am in constant contact with partners since early morning today to coordinate a resolute response to Russian attacks. I am also interrupting my Africa tour and heading back to Ukraine immediately," he tweeted. Mr Kuleba has been on an apparent counteroffensive tour following a visit to the continent by Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov in July. He has been to Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana during the trip. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly made overtures to African leaders to condemn Russia over its invasion of his country. Source: BBC 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 General Secretary of the Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference, Rev. Kwesi Deh, has urged the state to punish members of the clergy who involve themselves in criminal activities. The viewpoint comes on the back of the arrest of founder of the Heaven Way International Church, Patricia Oduro, alias Nana Agradaa, who the Conference holds should be dealt with if found guilty of the crimes she is been accused of. Rev. Kwesi Deh indicated that the Charismatic Bishops are in full support of the state punishing members of the clergy who commit crimes in the name of God. He, however, stated that the state should not because of some miscreants impose unnecessary regulations on faith-based organizations, citinewsroom.com reports. It is possible for people in the name of religion to commit crime and fraud. Thank God Ghana is a very civilized society and there are laws governing all these crimes. Therefore, I think that the laws should deal with this issue. Churches in this country are the most orderly set. Yes, there are miscreants. Also, churches are not afraid of regulation, it is the type of regulation that is being talked about that we are against. Many churches are registered. What we are against are laws that will define the practice of things. If someone involves in a money-doubling scam, that should not bring up the issue of regulation of churches. It is not a religious action in the first place, Rev Deh is quoted to have said. Meanwhile, an Accra Circuit Court has denied the founder and leader of Heaven Way Champion International Ministries, Patricia Oduro Koranteng, bail. Agradaa was arrested by the police on Sunday, October 9, 2022, on suspicion of defrauding her church members in an alleged money-doubling scheme. According to a 3news.com report sighted by GhanaWeb, the court denied her bail on Monday and adjourned her case to Thursday, October 13, 2022. The Ghana Police Service on Sunday, October 9, 2022, arrested Nana Agradaa, now known as Evangelist Mama Pat. This was announced in a statement by the Service shared via its social media handles on Sunday, October 9, 2022. The Police have arrested Patricia Asiedua alias Nana Agradaa following allegations of money doubling scam levelled against her by some members of the public. The suspect is currently assisting police investigation, the statement said. Nana Agradaas arrest comes on the back of allegations made by scores of her church members, who claimed that she had scammed them after an all-night service. The former fetish priestess had advertised in a viral video that she was going to give out monies to people who would attend her all night church service on Friday, October 7, 2022. Things however did not go as planned for many of the people who attended the service as many of them cried foul that they had given out monies to her but she failed to keep to her side of the agreement. Source: ghanaweb.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 founder of Perez Chapel International, Archbishop Charles Agyin-Asare, has urged Ghanaians to brace themselves for more hardships. Archbishop Agyin-Asare indicated that the economic challenges in the country would worsen because of the conditionalities that will come with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout the government is seeking and the continuous depreciation of the Ghana Cedi. The renowned pastor, who made these remarks during a sermon in his church on Sunday, October 9, intimated that this would be a time of test for people of faith. "If there is a time that you need faith in your life, it is this time. This time that Ghana has gone to the IMF, it is this time. This time that our cedi is dancing, it is this time. At this time that our currency doesn't mean anything; if you need faith, this is the time. "Irrespective of your political persuasion, if you needed faith, this is the time. Irrespective of what you think you need faith; this is the time. Because if you are going to survive and go above, you need faith. "...and listen to me, it is going to take some time before things settle... it is going to take some time, and so you need faith," he reiterated. Meanwhile, the IMF has left Ghana after initial engagements for Ghana's bailout concluded. The negotiations for a $ 3 billion bailout for Ghana are expected to continue in the US. The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has hinted that the negotiations are likely to be concluded before the presentation of the 2023 budget in November 2022. Also, the Ghana Cedi has depreciated to a 30-year low and is regarded as one of the worst-performing currencies in the world, currently selling at over GH11 for a dollar. 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 Ghana's National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Chief Executive, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye was Africa's exclusive representative at the 14th Global Health Insurance Conference held in Praque, Czech Republic. From 6th to 7th October, 2022, the gathering brought together industry experts to proffer in-depth knowledge about the latest challenges and innovations the industry is facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Delivering his speech on the theme "Ghana's National Health Insurance, the journey so far, " the NHIA Chief Executive made a case for foreign direct investment in the medical insurance sector in Ghana. He gave an overview of Ghana's Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) journey so far and the health insurance space in Africa. The NHIA Boss disclosed the huge opportunity for private investors to inject capital into the private health insurance industry. "Investment in health insurance will not only provide access to healthcare but also create jobs for the youth." He said available records Indicated that a little over 500,000 residents were registered by Ghanas private health insurance companies and underscored the need for more investors. "The National Health Insurance Authority, as the regulator of the private health insurance space is more than willing to facilitate the participation of private partners." "We at the National Health Insurance Authority are not in competition with the private insurers. Our objective is to ensure that every Ghanaian is on health insurance, be it private or public." Dr. Okoe Boye unearthed that close to 10 million people in Ghana are without any form of health insurance. He said, "Most of these people are in the middle and upper class and do pay for care out of pocket with the assumption that they can afford healthcare any time they are sick." He said the NHIS remained Ghana's leading vehicle to attain Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by the year 2030. The 14th edition of Global Health Insurance Conference sought to better equip insurers and healthcare providers with answers of how to thrive amid this constantly evolving and changing landscape. It aimed to answer the question of how to develop a healthcare ecosystem that is beneficial for everyone while acknowledging the new data-sharing regulations, and how to incorporate digital solutions in a convenient way that enables long-term engagement with customers, therefore helping to transform the healthcare system into a fully integrated customer-centric model. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Rwandan President Paul Kagame, has urged Parliaments worldwide to work together to combat the growing ideology of dehumanisation, genocide and racism, which according to him threatened peace and democracy. He said genocide, denial and reversionism were fast becoming a growing threat to peace and security globally and blamed social media for being partly responsible for all those forms of threats, adding that hate speech and misinformation, which nohad existed for a long time, played a major role. Collaboration between Parliaments is needed to work on all these challenges to criminalise all forms of dehumanisation and racism worldwide, he stated. President Kagame was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 145TH Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) assembly in Kigali on Tuesday (Oct 11) He said When we think that all the problems of dehumanisation, genocide and reversion are confined to Africa, we immediately realise that other parts of the world are going through similar challenges that affect peace and democracy". What a better way then can we think of to find solutions than through cooperation. and I think we need to work together more and more, he said. The six-day event is being held on the theme Gender equality and gender-sensitive parliaments as drivers of change for a more resilient and peaceful world. It is being attended by about 1,200 delegates, including some 60 Speakers and deputy Speakers of Parliaments from 120 Parliament across the world. The participants include the Speaker of Ghanas Parliament Rt Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, and five MPs from the country. The assembly will facilitate the exchange of ideas on good practices to make Parliaments more gender-sensitive, encouraging the legislature to spearhead transformative actions and curb the proliferation of terrorism, the impact of war and atrocity on civilian populations. The Rwandan President said there was no individual country or region in the world that could have all the solutions to the diverse threats against global peace and security. He, therefore, emphasised the need for Parliaments and nations to work together to improve democracy and peace, saying that if we do not do it through cooperation, I do not think we can achieve anything, he stated. President Kagame also said no country or people could assume that they had it all and they could tell others what they should be doing. It does not work like that and it is not the reality of the world that we live in. It is about recognition of our shared humanity for the betterment of our societies and the protection of future generations, he said. Mr Kagame noted that all over the world Parliaments existed to protect the interests of citizens ; an objective that could not be met without the full and active participation of women in Parliaments, especially in leadership positions. Despite the study gains made over the years, President Kagame said inequality between women and men continued to be widespread. He explained how certain cultures took us a step close to equal representation but did not address the full spectrum of inequalities in Parliaments and in society at large. Gender equality is better achieved when we acknowledge that it is a right for everyone everywhere. Women are the backbone of resilient and peaceful societies; we need strong legal and policy frameworks in place with an emphasis on implementation and results, he said. Citing the important roles women played in Rwandas liberation struggle, he said women remained a fundamental part of Rwandas transformation journey, with women participation in peacekeeping missions across the African continent. The President of IPU, Duarte Pacheco, also reiterated the urgent need for Parliament to work together to solve problems facing humanity much the same way the world worked together to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. The Speaker of Deputies of Parliament of Rwanda, Donatille Mukabalisa, said in Rwanda promoting gender and women in leadership was a constitutional imperative. She was happy that today there was astrong political commitment at the highest level and adequate measures were taken to boost gender equality and women in political participation and empowerment. 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 GhanaWeb has sighted a video shared by blogger, Kobby Kyei, in which students of St Paul's Senior High School and Minor Seminary in the Volta Region are purportedly sharing one fish during dining. The video which has since gone viral on social media, particularly Twitter has had people express horror at the feeding situation in schools. In the said video, a student with the ladle is seen carefully dividing the fish in what looks like palm nut soup into several pieces to shared to other students seated around the table who had been served rice. This is not healthy, Kobby Kyei wrote while tagging the Ghana Education Service on Twitter. It will be recalled that from May this year, some Senior High Schools reported food shortages while threatening to close down if nothing was done about the situation. The regional Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) in the Northern, Eastern, Central and Volta regions were worst affected by the crisis and demanded that either students are made to feed themselves or the schools shut down. However, government intervened and had supplies delivered to the various schools to avert their closure. The situation seems to have resurrected in some schools in the Volta region as letters shared by Deputy Ranking Member on Parliaments Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak, shows a request by school heads for supplies. Headmistress of Avatime Senior High School, Rebecca Mawusi Veny, wrote to the Volta Regional Director of Education to request for permission for the students to begin feeding themselves as the school was running out of stocks. This unfortunate situation has been reported to the regional Buffer Stock Company and other officers that matter, but the situation has remained the same. Director and Board of Directors, please I seek permission for my students to buy their own food come next week if nothing is done about the food situation, part of the letter dated September 29 read. Similarly, the headmaster of Alavanyo Senior High Technical, Rev Samuel Pius Elewokor, wrote to the Volta Regional Free SHS Secretariat for urgent supply as they have resorted to feeding their students twice daily. We hope our request would be given a quick response because we currently feed the students with only breakfast and supper, and this can take us to Friday 30th September 2022,part of the letter read St Paul's Senior High School and Minor Seminary at Hatsukorpe(Ketu South) SPACO. 10 students One Fish. Cc @gheduservice this is not healthy. #Blogger pic.twitter.com/XeGtHjx31b #MrCaveMan #GenerationalThinker (@KobbyKyei_) October 10, 2022 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 With less than a month to the UN climate change conference - COP27 - watchers of the climate crisis space say the issue of climate financing will be on the front burner, especially for developing countries, when the world converges on Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt from November 6 to 18, this year for the event. According to them, that was necessary to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with climate crisis. A Chief Advisor at DanchurchAid and Co-chair of the Climate Justice Group, Mattias Soderberg, said latest studies had shown that climate crisis was moving much faster than human interventions and pushing ecosystems and communities to their limits. He said communities in Africa were the most challenged in terms of the adverse effects of the climate crisis, in spite of the fact that the continent contributed only four per cent of global gas emissions. This was contained in a presentation Mr Soderberg made to 24 African journalists participating in a DANIDA Fellowship Centre (DFC) climate reporting programme in Copenhagen last week. The journalists, selected from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, are taking part in DFC's new learning programme dubbed: Reporting from the African frontline of the global climate crisis." They are being prepared to report accurately from the African perspective at COP27. Unmet commitments A Senior Advocacy Advisor on Climate at CARE Denmark, a Danish non-profit organisation, John Nordbo, also said in the wake of the unmet commitment by developed countries to scale-up new and additional climate finance to reach $100 billion annually by 2020, there was lack of trust for sustainable funding of both adaptation and mitigation interventions in developing countries. He said a critical analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that climate finance provided by developed countries for climate action in developing countries had reached $83.3 billion in 2020. Mr Nordbo, therefore, said it was important for developed countries to ramp up efforts at mobilising resources to meet the annual goal of $100 billion. For his part, the Chief on National Centre for Climate Research at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Adrian Lema, said strong political will was needed for climate financing and investment in green energy. He called for prompt decisions to be made now on sustainable climate financing and green energy to avert increasing threats of the climate crisis on biodiversity, cities, agriculture and human health. Background As used in UN climate negotiations, loss and damage is a general term for the consequences of climate change that go beyond what people can adapt to, or when options exist but a community does not have the resources to access or utilise them. Since the formation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the early 1990s, vulnerable nations have been calling on developed countries to provide financial assistance that can help them address loss and damage, but those calls have been resisted. The call for funding to address loss and damage, however, gathered steam during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 and continued at the Bonn UN climate negotiations in Germany in June 2022. Some countries have softened their stance and are beginning to show some level of support for loss and damage financing. They include Canada, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and the Belgian province of Wallonia. 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 The Attorney-General (A-G) is set to call eight witnesses to make its case against alleged illegal mining kingpin, En Huang aka Aisha Huang. The A-G and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, today told the Accra High Court that his outfit had filed four witness statements and 18 pieces of evidence. He therefore asked the court to adjourn the case for a week to enable the prosecution to file the rest of the documents. Mr Dame also prayed the court, presided over by Justice Lydia Osei Marfo, to allow for expeditious trial and to hear the case on a daily basis. Justice Marfo adjourned the case to October 24, 2022 to give the A-G ample time to file all the documents. Meanwhile, in another case, four other accused persons said to be alleged accomplices of Aisha Huang had been denied bail and remanded into police custody. 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 The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) is in the final stages of integrating its database with the National Identification Authority (NIA). The DVLA has already connected its technology infrastructure with the NIA database while working on applications that would ensure that national identification cards (Ghana Cards) are integrated into the system. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the DVLA, Kwasi Agyeman Busia, told the Daily Graphic that full integration with the NIA would be completed by the first quarter of 2023. The technology infrastructure is ready, tried and tested. What needs to happen now is the application that we need to work. We have to do some coding on the application part to make sure that the systems are feeding into each other or handshaking so that once a person comes to DVLA and gives us their Ghana Card, we get every information about them, he said. Mr Busia said a seamless integration between the DVLA and the NIA would also facilitate business with other stakeholder agencies such as the National Insurance Commission, the Motor Traffic and Transport Division and the National Road Safety Authority. He added many user agencies were negotiating with the DVLA to hook up to their database for ease of doing business, stressing also that the integration with the NIA would help to create a good data warehouse for real time information on drivers and vehicles. With the integration, when you are trying to apply for drivers license, there is no need sitting in our office for two hours to fill forms. Once you give us your Ghana Card, we should be able to pull your data and make use of it, he said. Digitisation Mr Busia said the authority had already digitised documents from 1995 to 2021 and was currently working on the 2022 records. We are more than 95 per cent through with the digitisation process, and we will be done by the end of the year so that when you come to us from the first quarter of 2023, we do not have to do any manual process. Mr Busia said apart from the efficiency and reliability that came with it, digitised records were authentic and fast to work with. He added that digitisation would facilitate the DVLAs goal to have vehicles registered within one hour. He explained that the digitisation of records would ensure that before any person visited the DVLA for any service, about 90 per cent of the processes would have been completed online. It means that we could just type a person's name and every vehicle you have owned and the history will be there, he added. Plugging leakages Mr Busia said although the DVLA had not fully digitised its entire chain of operations, positive results had already been achieved. For instance, he said, when the authority digitised the DV plates for vehicles in 2018, it plugged revenue leakages through that channel. If you compare the revenue with the previous years, the whole of 2017 was GH3 million, but in one month (January 2018), we recorded GH6 million. What that means is that a lot of revenue was going into private pockets, he said. AfCFTA The DVLA CEO said the authority was putting its act together to take advantage of the huge market that the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provided for the transport sector. He said the authority was working to increase presence across the countrys land borders where the money will come from. He explained that synonymous with what was done at the ports, payment of duty to get a DP plate would be done at the land borders such as Elubo, Aflao and Paga. That is why we are increasing presence at the land borders and leveraging technology so that we can collect the needed revenue and let the National Security know what is happening in the county from our sector, he added. 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 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. A woman claims her employer forced her to breastfeed his dogs and filmed her carrying out the task. The mother had left Kenya, where she's from, and had gone to work in Saudi Arabia, where the alleged incident took place. Francis Atwoli, Kenya's Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) Secretary General, has now called on President William Rutos government to ban employment agencies overseeing migration of Kenyan workers to Saudi Arabia. Atwoli said on Saturday, October 8, that he received a disturbing video from a woman in Saudia Arabia, who alleged that her employer forced her to breastfeed their dogs. "She left her husband and children in Kenya two months after giving birth," Atwoli told NTV as he displayed a video of the woman breastfeeding. "When they realised she can breastfeed, the employer gave her a job of breastfeeding puppies." The COTU boss called for intergovernmental diplomacy to address the plight of Kenyans in Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries. Atwoli said: "This is indirect slavery, I want to appeal to our government to go the way President Kibakis government under Phylis Kandie did. "She banned all employment agencies in Kenya. "Let this issue be a government-to-government. "Let Kenya negotiate with Saudi Arabia on terms and conditions of service so that our people can do decent jobs and not a job of breastfeeding dogs." Atwoli said the inhumane actions being witnessed in Saudi Arabia are denying Kenyans dignity and respect. He added: "It denies us our own citizenship as Kenyans who are from a free and independent country. "I want to appeal to government to ban all employment agencies and review issues related to outside employment as advocated for by the International Labour Organization." See the video below. 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 Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the newly created Savannah Region has witnessed much development under the New Patriotic Party government. According to him, the creation of the region by the Akufo-Addo led administration was the strongest indication that the growth and development of the region was at the heart of government. As one of the newly created regions, several projects including the construction of roads, health facilities, water projects, infrastructure for state institutions amongst others, being at various levels of completion. There is no district in Savannah that can demonstrate more projects by any other government in the fourth republic than the NPP government under Nana Akuo-Addo he stated emphatically. As part of his working visit to the region, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia indicated that all projects started in the region will be completed. Speaking at the Kpembewuras palace in Kpembe, he assured that he will take the necessary steps to see to the realisation of all projects that are underway. I want to let you know that we are not sleeping as far as the development challenges of Savannah and the Salaga area in particular are concerned. In me, you have a son who will follow up on all of these issues you have raised and you have other very strong children who are also here. Im going to work with all my brothers and sisters so that we can deliver on the development for Salaga and Savannah, Dr Bawumia told the Kpembewura. The Vice President disclosed that the Kpembe Nursing Training College has been given the approval by Ministry of Health to run BSc in Nursing and BSc in Public Health and approval by The Ghana Tertiary Education Council should enable the courses to start next year. Dr Bawumia added that the construction of the 71km Fufulso-Bunjai Road which was commenced after the creation of the region, is at 68% complete. When completed, the road will connect the East Gonja to the West Gonja areas without the need to go through Tamale and therefore cut travel time dramatically. 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 Former Member of Parliament for Tema East, Titus Nii Kwartei Glover, has blamed elements within the ruling New Patriotic Party for the governments failure to defeat illegal mining. According to the former MP, while some members of the party are embroiled in the galamsey menace, those appointed at the local level to fight the menace have failed to discharge their mandate. The difficulty is our own people in there. My own NPP people. Do you think I am afraid to talk about it? It is my own NPP people who are making the fight against galamsey difficult. It is a fact. The law says dont mine on our river bodies. If the soldiers are sent in to drive away the galamseyers and they leave, the District Security Council led by the MCE what do they do? The Regional Security Council is also responsible for security at that level what do they do? So every time soldiers have to be moved from Accra to these areas to fight the menace? That is not good, he said on Adom TVs morning programme. Rampant illegal mining activities have resulted in the degradation of several forest covers and the pollution of various water bodies. This has resulted in a renewed public discussion on illegal mining activities. Various calls have been made for the government to take drastic steps to curb the menace. Last week, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo met with members of the National House of Chiefs and MMDCEs in galamsey areas. The meeting by the president was to fashion out some solutions to the galamsey issues. 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 Two big names for a big party position, is the kind of story headline that is fit for this kind of political race that is expected in Ghanas current, biggest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC). On either side, both Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, and Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo have credits of giant political achievements to ride on, but now, the two men have to face it off for the top position of Chairman of the NDC. While there is no official final list from the party, it already looks like there is going to be a straight fight between the two personalities: Asiedu Nketiah as the longest-serving General Secretary of the NDC, and Ofosu-Ampofo as the one-term Chairman seeking re-election. In this political pedigree article by GhanaWeb, we take a look at all of the things that put either of these two candidates ahead of each other, as well as what NDC delegates might be looking out for when they go to the polls in November 2022. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo: Currently the Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo has declared his intention for re-election. This is due to the fact that his election as chairman in November 2018 comes to an end soon and he would need a reaffirmation of his performance through another endorsement from his party members. But it has been a long political career for him, starting off in this trade in 1994, when he was appointed as the District Chief Executive for the Fanteakwa North District of the Eastern Region, by Jerry John Rawlings. In 1996, he run for parliament on the ticket of the NDC in the same district and won, representing the people of the constituency until he lost his third re-election bid in 2004 to the New Patriotic Partys candidate, Kwadwo Agyei Addo. Having served in the second and third parliaments of the fourth republic of Ghana, Ofosu-Ampofo again tried his shot at the parliamentary seat in 2008 but got unlucky once more. His next political job came when he won the National Organiser position of the NDC but on the assumption of power in 2009, John Evans Atta Mills appointed him the Regional Minister for the Eastern Region. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo then moved on from there to serve as Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, his last political portfolio before he was elected as the NDCs National Chairman in 2018. Under his tenure, he was unsuccessful in helping the party and John Dramani Mahama in wrestling power from the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government in the 2020 general elections. But that loss gave the country a historic win: the first time parliament is hung, with a split of a perfect number of Members of Parliament, as well as the Speaker of Parliament being a member of the opposition for the first time ever. Speaking in a Ghanaian Times report, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo stated that one of his achievements is that that the party had become more attractive under his leadership. He has also likened himself to the biblical Jesus Christ. The delegates must look no further than Ofosu-Ampofo as I am prepared to take the NDC to the Promised Land because you do not change the team that turned around the fortunes of the party after it suffered a humiliating defeat in 2016 and I liken myself to Christ when he was asked by the disciples if he is the Messiah. Jesus said to them, the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, what more do you want to see? I am the National Chairman of NDC and the party was in disarray due to our humiliating defeat in 2016 since it was not attractive at the time but I played key roles together with my team to turn the around fortunes of the party during the 2020 elections, he said. He has also stated that but for the use of state-sponsored security personnel, the NDC would have won more parliamentary seats in the 2020 elections, including Techiman South, Tarkwa Nsuaem, Zabzugu, Essikado-Ketan, and others. I have what it takes to bring the NDC back to power again however, I believe together with my team, we also managed to snatch seats that have never been won by the party in a long time, including Tema East, Ayensuano, among others, which demonstrates our competence and I am hopeful members, supporters, sympathisers, faithful and well-wishers of the party to renew my mandate to serve for another four-year term, he appealed. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah: Asiedu Nketiah, the man popularly known as General Mosquito, is the face of the other main contender for the National Chairman position of the party. As the current General Secretary of the NDC, he is one of the most powerful people in the party, having served in the role since 2005. Born on December 24, 1956, at Seikwa in the Brong Ahafo Region, he trained in petty trading, Akpeteshie distilling, palm wine tapping, and a drinking bar. After educating himself at the University of Ghana, he practiced as a banker before entering into politics. His entrance onto the political scene came when he contested and won the Wenchi District Assembly elections of 1989, following which he was elected to the Consultative Assembly in 1992. He held that position for 12 years, being part of the team that drafted Ghanas current constitution the 1992 constitution. In 1992, he entered parliament as the Member of Parliament for the Wenchi West constituency and served for 12 years. During his time in parliament, he served on several committees such as the Appointments Committee, Finance Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Chairman Mines and Energy Committee, and Minority spokesperson on Food, Agriculture, and Cocoa Affairs. From 1997 to 2001, Asiedu Nketiah served as a Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture (Crops). After he decided to say goodbye to parliamentary work, he stood for the General Secretary position of the NDC and won overwhelming in the 2005 party elections. As the third General Secretary of the party, he led the party to win the 2008 and 2012 elections, giving the country presidents John Evans Atta Mills and John Dramani Mahama. There have been several achievements accorded to his credit, including the same glory his other contender, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo boasts of: giving Ghana its first hung parliament and first Speaker of Parliament from the opposition party. After serving as General Secretary of the NDC for 17 years, he had announced the hanging of those boots and the desire to continue to lead the party, but this time as the National Chairman. The pedigrees of both Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo and Johnson Asiedu Nketiah would play massive roles in the decisions of National Democratic Congress delegates when the party goes to the polls later this year. 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 Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has fulminated against the Special Prosecutor's plan to investigate former Secretary to the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue, for allegedly using his public office for profit. In a footage replayed by investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye P.I on social media, Mr. Charles Bissue was captured receiving money to facilitate process for a mining company to engage in illegal mining (galamsey). The mining company was a setup by the Journalist in his investigative documentary titled Galamsey Fraud Part I to expose the officials sabotaging President Nana Addo's fight against galamsey. In a press release issued on Monday, October 10, the Office of the Special Prosecutor said there is an "ongoing enquiry into allegations of use of public office for profit against Charles Bissue, during his tenure as secretary to the IMCIM". The investigation further targets "activities of Akonta Mining Limited and other companies; nationals of foreign countries allegedly involved in illegal mining and allegations of corruption and corruption-related offences against some Municipal and District Chief Executives and political party officials". Expressing his concerns over the investigations, Kwesi Pratt wondered why the SP is revisiting the Charles Bissue case when he has already been investigated and cleared by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service when the issue was first brought up by Tiger Eye P.I. To him, the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng launching his investigation into the matter may set a bad precedent in the country. " . . I'm worried about the same investigation being carried out by several investigative agencies . . . I won't say that Mr. Charles Bissue is innocent. I don't know. I won't say the investigations that the CID did were not good and I'm not also saying the Special Prosecutor doesn't have the authority to look into it but for future purposes, let's be very careful about this and ensure the mandate given to the investigative agencies is divided, so that when one concludes, the other cannot redo it or it may not augur well for us in the future," he dreaded. Mr. Pratt made these comments on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" discussion programme Tuesday morning. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video All is set for the 2022 edition of the The King is Coming musical concert at the Church auditorium of the Bethel Seventh-Day Adventist Church (OSU) in Accra, on Saturday, October 29, 2022. This year's edition of the concert is dubbed Remember your creator and will feature some of the talented music prodigies within the Church. According to a statement by the organizers, the primary aim of the The King is Coming musical concert is to herald the soon return of Christ as stated in Revelation 14:7 and Revelation 22:20 through music." This years edition will feature the host choir Heavenly Strings, PESDAC Praise, New Vision Choir, The Manifest, Earl and Evelyn and a host of other surprise acts. Personal Ministries Director of the Bethel-Osu, SDA Church, Elder Frank Aning said "We chose the theme "Remember your Creator" to highlight the fact that God is the creator of all things including ourselves and thus deserves our allegiance and worship, especially in these last days. In line with the Pink October initiatives, we will also take the opportunity to create awareness about breast cancer and so the dress code for the programme should have a touch of pink. The King is Coming Concert will also be used to sensitize guests about breast cancer in line with the pink October initiatives. In this regard, the dress code for the event will be a touch of pink. The musical concert will also be streamed live on social media (Facebook, Zoom and YouTube @bethelsdaosu) It starts at 5 pm, and absolutely free that one cant afford to miss it. About the King Is Coming As Christians, particularly Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we believe in the second coming of our Lord Jesus. It is worth reminding ourselves that we are not in normal times and events happening all around us points to this great event. The King is Coming is a non for profit musical concert to remind the world of Christs soon return. The event is also to show the churchs appreciation to God for how far he has led the church and his goodness towards the members. The King is Coming concert will be a soul searching, heart-warming, inspiring and spirit-filled encounter. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Malaysia's jailed ex-leader Najib Razak could be freed if his ruling party wins snap elections expected next month, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Tuesday. Najib is serving a 12-year prison term for corruption linked to the misuse of billions in public money. He was ousted from power at polls in 2018 by Mahathir's opposition alliance amid anger over the scandal. But Najib's long-ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) returned to office in August last year and is now seeking a fresh mandate after dissolving parliament Monday. "If they win and form the government, their first objective is to free Najib," Mahathir told a media conference Tuesday. "Najib will be pardoned and released and all other charges will be dropped." The disgraced former leader remains a member of UMNO but cannot stand for election because of his conviction on a batch of charges linked to the financial scandal at 1Malaysia Development Berhad. He still faces more corruption charges that could land him in jail even longer. Billions of dollars were plundered from the sovereign wealth fund and spent on everything from a luxury yacht to artwork in a fraud involving Najib and his inner circle. After Najib was ousted from office, nonagenarian Mahathir became prime minister for the second time in his long political career. But Mahathir's reformist coalition lasted only 22 months due to infighting, paving the way for UMNO's return to power. Malaysia's next elections were not due until September next year but current Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved parliament Monday, clearing the way for early polls, most likely next month. UMNO is confident of securing a big win despite rivalry among its leaders. Mahathir, now 97, said he will seek re-election as an MP. His party has decided to field him once more in his constituency of Langkawi, north of the capital Kuala Lumpur, the veteran said. jsm/mba/axn 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 University students in Nigeria have been at home since Feb. 14 thanks to an indefinite strike by lecturers across the country. But following recent interventions by federal lawmakers, and court rulings, classrooms could reopen later this month. On Oct. 10, the union representing the lecturers met with members of Nigerias House of Representatives. A video of the meeting seemed to show both parties amicably agreeing that the eight-month strike will be resolved in a few days. Emmanuel Osodeke, the president of the union that comprises over 80 government-owned universities, said the result of the strike will be that Nigerians will be proud of the universities in the country. Read more Strikes by academic staff in Nigerian universities are very common and many have spanned months. There have been at least 15 strikes since 2000. This years episode has not been called off just yet as the unions zones would have to meet and decide on suspending the action. But for millions of disillusioned students and thousands of unpaid lecturers, the prospects for a return to the classroom look good after protracted negotiations between lecturers and the Nigerian government. Femi Falana, a popular lawyer who represents the lecturers union, said on a TV program that the strike will soon be called off. What has caused Nigerias long universities strike? Like many before it, this years eight-month strike has deepened a lack of confidence in Nigerias tertiary education system, even with escalating out-of-school numbers at primary and secondary school levels. Mass youth migration abroad for graduate studies has increased due to worsening insecurity and economic crises but also because frequent strikes bring the quality of a Nigerian education into question. Nigerian lecturers tend to have one reason for this: money. Story continues For the last decade and half, the union has accused the federal government of often reneging on agreements to reform the independence of universities, revenue generation and funding. A 2009 agreement (pdf) reached under two presidents before the current Muhammadu Buhari administration remains contentious between both parties. Among other things, that agreement fixed a 26% minimum allocation from Nigerias annual budget to education, half of which should go to universities. Since 2020, recent strikes have also been about getting the government to pay lecturers through an alternative payments system, separate from the one used to pay government workers in over 700 organizations in Nigerias civil service. This has proved a stumbling block with Nigerias technology regulator saying that the lecturers preferred payment system has failed multiple integrity tests. Negotiations have gone back and forth all year, leading to a suit by the government at Nigerias Industrial Court questioning the legitimacy of the strike, a suit the union lost. An appeals court on Oct. 7 asked the union to call its strike off. In the week since, lawmakers and president Buhari have become more involved in trying to resolve the strike, increasing confidence in an imminent end. Still, it is not clear that the union will get all it has asked for all year. At his presentation of the 2023 budget this month, Buhari complained that Nigeria, constrained by resources, can no longer fund tertiary education alone. This is why we have remained resolute that we will not sign any agreement that we would be unable to implement, he said. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., left, talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, Indonesia, Monday, Sept, 5, 2022. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. is in Indonesia for his three-day state visit. (PHOTO: AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim, Pool) The Philippine and Indonesian governments have signed a measure tackling the delimitation of the two countries continental shelf boundary which has been under discussion for years. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the "Principles and Guidelines" was signed simultaneously via a video conference last October 5 by DFA-Maritime and Ocean Affairs Office Assistant Secretary Maria Angela A. Ponce and Ambassador Andreano Erwin, Indonesias Director for Legal Affairs and Territorial Treaties of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The document will guide and lay the foundation for the delimitation of the two countries maritime territories, after President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr. and Indonesian President Joko Widodo prioritized continental shelf boundary talks during Marcos courtesy visit to Indonesia in September. Both Presidents also reaffirmed that the negotiation of the continental shelf boundary delimitation will be carried out in accordance with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the DFA said. Foreign Ministers Enrique A. Manalo of the Philippines and Retno L.P. Marsudi of Indonesia also discussed and reaffirmed their support to the negotiations of the continental shelf boundary between the two countries at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2022, it added. The Philippines and Indonesia, being the two largest archipelagic states in the world, have concluded a Joint Declaration delimiting their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) back in 2014. This started the negotiations on the countries continental shelf delimitation. The countries Joint Declaration was further ratified by the Indonesian Parliament in 2017 and was concurred by the Philippine Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2019. The signing of the Principles and Guidelines marked an important step for the continental shelf boundary delimitation of the two countries as it reaffirms the provisions under UNCLOS 1982 as the basis of the delimitation process, the DFA said. Story continues Pola Rubio is a news writer and photojournalist covering Philippine politics and events. She regularly follows worldwide and local happenings. She advocates for animal welfare and press freedom. Follow her twitter @polarubyo for regular news and cat postings. Watch more videos on Yahoo: THE Finnish government opened for the first time its honorary consulate in Cebu with its new honorary consul in Cebu, Jose Franco Soberano, who is the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cebu Landmasters Inc., a Cebu-based real estate developer. Finland only reopened its embassy in the Philippines in September 2020 after closing in 2012. The consulate office of Finland in Cebu City is located at Park Centrale Tower in Cebu IT Park. Finland Ambassador to the Philippines Juha Pyykko on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, told reporters that the reopening of the embassy and the two consular offices in Cebu and Davao, signal the countrys commitment to grow its presence in the Philippines. He said Cebu is an important business hub outside Metro Manila that offers immense opportunities for Finnish companies to explore and invest in. The envoy said having Soberano onboard as the link between Finland and the Visayas is a welcome development. I really appreciate the personality of Franco from the very first meeting that we had. He has the right spirit and right approach to this task as an honorary consul. We are really honored and glad and happy to have him, said Pyykko. Apart from providing visa and consular services to Finnish and Filipinos, Pykko said Finland wants to reestablishment its economic ties with the Philippines, citing the country as one of the key and strong players in the Asean region. We will help facilitate the entry of Finnish business to the Philippines, said Pyykko. We wanted make Finish expertise known in the region. Pyykko said Finland and the Philippines can work together in exploring business opportunities as the former could lend its expertise and share best practices in the areas of education, technology, digitalization, circular economy, renewable energy and in smart city solutions and sustainability. There is really a lot of potential for Finland and the Philippines, and Cebu in particular, to work together. Finland is a well-run country, with high transparency rate and with good access to social services. Its one of the economically vibrant and stable countries, said Soberano. The CLI top official, who is acting as a link between Finland and the Visayas, said both could learn from each other, especially in terms of building smart and sustainable developments. Bilateral trade In 2020, the Philippines exported US$109 million to Finland. The main products that Philippines exported to Finland are office machine parts, integrated circuits and processed fish. During the last 25 years the exports of Philippines to Finland have increased at an annualized rate of 2.92 percent, from $52.9 million in 1995 to $109 million in 2020. In 2020, Philippines did not export any services to Finland. In 2020, Finland exported $168 million to Philippines. The main products that Finland exported to Philippines were other uncoated paper, coin, and electric generating sets. In the last 25 years the exports of Finland to Philippines have increased at an annualized rate of 2.14 percent from $99.1 million in 1995 to $168 million in 2020. In 2016, Finland exported services to Philippines worth $138 million, with computer and information services, construction services and other business services being the largest in terms of value. Adelie penguins need just the right amount of sea ice to raise their chicks. Too much sea ice and they will expend a lot of energy travelling across the ice to their foraging areas; too little ice can alter the availability of their prey. Credit: Louise Emmerson Long-term monitoring has revealed a 43% decline in a large Adelie penguin population off the East Antarctic coast, near Mawson research station, over the past decade. The loss of some 154,000 breeding birds, breeding across 52 islands along the 100 km of coastline, is in stark contrast to other populations in East Antarctica, where there have been long-term increases or stable population trends (see Penguin Heaven). It is also contrary to model predictions of a continued increase in this population following decades of sustained growth. Australian Antarctic Division seabird ecologists, Dr. Louise Emmerson and Dr. Colin Southwell, said the rate of decline is similar to that in Adelie penguin populations on the Antarctic Peninsula, which are subject to external pressures from fisheries, climate change and human activity. However, the decline in the Mawson population is thought to have been triggered by changed environmental conditions, and then exacerbated by internal feedback processes within the population, rather than direct human-related pressures. "We think this population decline was initially triggered by five years of extensive summer sea ice adjacent to the colony in the mid-2000s, which hampered access to the adults' foraging areas and saw virtually no chicks survive," Dr. Emmerson said. "The frequency of these unfavorable breeding conditions subsequently remained high, and fledgling survival also began to decrease. These two processes together resulted in a more rapid population decline than would be expected if they had been acting in isolation." Penguins have been monitored on Bechervaise Island off Mawson research station since the 1990s as part of Australias CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program. Credit: Louise Emmerson Safety in numbers Dr. Emmerson said it's possible that the smaller a population becomes, the harder it may be for individuals to survive, due to an increased risk from predators, or because smaller groups are not as good at navigating, foraging and locating prey. This is especially important for young fledglings with limited life experience. "It may be that the old adage of safety in numbers is playing out for the fledglings in the vast and harsh Southern Ocean, although exactly why and how needs further investigation," Dr. Emmerson said. "We estimate that this population has lost about 80,000 fledglings in a good breeding season, compared to the population peak in the early 2000s." In the deep end Adelie penguin fledglings are literally thrown in the deep end at about two months of age, when they leave the colony and enter the Southern Ocean for the first time, without parental supervision. "I remember watching fledglings enter the water for the first time and they did this strange kind of breast stroke, as though they were trying to use their flippers to stand up. It was a completely new experience for them," Dr. Emmerson said. "When they first enter the water they don't know how to swim, they have no predator avoidance behavior, so they are vulnerable to being eaten by leopard seals, and they're not efficient at catching prey. They're totally clueless about their marine environment, and because there are no adults to help them they have to learn quickly or they don't survive. "So while we don't know exactly what's driving the decline in fledgling survival in the Mawson area, the fact that there are less of them may compromise their chances of survival." This graphic shows (a) the location of the study off the coast near Mawson research station (b) The decline in occupied nests/breeding birds over 10 years and (c) annual population counts at Bechervaise Island showing year-to-year variability (black line) and a dramatically declining trend (purple line). From Emmerson L. & Southwell C (2022). Environment-triggered demographic changes cascade and compound to propel a dramatic decline of an Antarctic seabird metapopulation. Global Change Biology Long-term monitoring Dr. Emmerson said the next step was to continue research to understand the drivers of fledgling survival during their first naive winter journey at sea after they leave the colony, and ensure any resumption of fisheries activities in the area is managed carefully. She said continued long-term monitoring across the environmental range where penguins breed was critical for early detection of population decline and for understanding population changes. Long-term monitoring of Adelie penguins by Australia, near Casey, Davis and Mawson research stations, is also critical to decisions made by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), in managing krill fisheries and in considering the protection of terrestrial and marine areas. As this study shows, long-term monitoring allows scientists to uncover intrinsic factors involved in population decline that may be concealed by population changes caused by year-to-year variability in environmental conditions. This is critical to informing predictive population models that tend to focus on environmental drivers of population change. "Model predictions based on external environmental factors alone may fail to accurately predict future population change and/or underestimate the real impacts of climate change on species' populations," Dr. Emmerson said. "Whether this Mawson penguin population stabilizes, continues to decline, or recovers, remains to be seen. It is clear from this study though that where possible, we are better off preventing impacts in the first place, or trying to alleviate them before population decline is well-established, or the processes causing the decline become confounding and result in rapid population declines." The research is published in Global Change Biology. Explore further Antarctic penguin numbers double previous estimates: scientists More information: Louise Emmerson et al, Environmenttriggered demographic changes cascade and compound to propel a dramatic decline of an Antarctic seabird metapopulation, Global Change Biology (2022). Journal information: Global Change Biology Louise Emmerson et al, Environmenttriggered demographic changes cascade and compound to propel a dramatic decline of an Antarctic seabird metapopulation,(2022). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16437 Provided by Australian Antarctic Program Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Mosquitoes can extend their lives by months by halting their growth and reproduction, allowing them to weather harsh conditions. The process, known as aestivation, offers new opportunities in the fight against malaria. Mosquitoes in Africa's Sahel region may become dormant during the dry summer months, solving a phenomenon that has puzzled entomologists for almost a century. A team of African and American scientists marked Anopheles coluzzi mosquitoes, one of the species which carries malaria, with a form of hydrogen to track them throughout their lifespan. They found that around a fifth aestivate for the seven dry months of the year. This process, which is similar to hibernation, allows them to survive the harsh conditions and re-emerge at the start of the wet season. It explains why the mosquitoes reappear rapidly after the first rains, more quickly than if they had developed from an egg. The findings may enable mosquitoes to be eradicated while they remain dormant, lessening the impact of malaria in a region where there are almost 20 million infections, and around 10,000 deaths, each year. Dr. Roy Faiman, the lead author of the study, says, "This study opens the door to the long-term marking of mosquitoes, thus setting the stage for ecological studies we could only dream of a decade ago." "Using stable isotopes to track mosquito populations will likely help to increase our understanding of how mosquito populations change over time, where they travel and how they persist over the dry season." The paper, co-authored by scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the Malaria Research and Training Center, was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. What are mosquitoes, and how do they spread diseases? Mosquitoes are a type of fly, with over 3,500 species living around the world. Though they may have a reputation for consuming human blood, the vast majority of these insects are not that interested in usinstead feeding on the blood of a range of animals or nectar from plants. There are just a handful of species that have adapted to target humans, including Aedes aegypti, Anopholes gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii, which have evolved a preference for the scent of humans. Only the females of each species feed on blood, as they use the nutrients contained within it to mature their eggs. They may take more frequent blood meals if the availability of other food sources, such as nectar, is lower in the environment. While the act of feeding itself is not harmful to humans, aside from the irritation from a bite, the parasites the mosquitoes contain are. Aedes aegypti is a carrier of diseases including dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever, while Anopholes gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii are the main carriers of the parasite Plasmodium falciparum in Africa, which causes the most severe forms of malaria. When infected mosquitoes bite a human, Plasmodium parasites enter the blood, where they migrate to the liver and rapidly divide. The resulting daughter cells then invade red blood cells and continue developing until they return to mosquitoes through another bite. Each year, around 200 million infections are recorded in Africa, which can cause symptoms including vomiting, seizures and organ failure. In the Sahel region, the majority of these infections take place during and after the rainy season. As soon as the rains begin, mosquitoes can be found within days, which is significantly shorter than the two weeks they take to develop. This, alongside the fact that mosquito eggs should not be able to survive the dry season, has led to a "malaria paradox" which researchers have attempted to solve for decades. The parasite Plasmodium falciparum causes the most dangerous forms of malaria in humans. Credit: Dr. Graham Beards, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Dr. Erica McAlister, the Senior Curator of Diptera at the Museum, says, "Mosquitoes have aquatic larvae which may help the larval stages not only avoid competition of food with the adult stage but also offer them a more stable environment." "They prefer standing water bodies, but these can be very temporary, especially in warmer climes. It is difficult to sample in these habitats to determine what has happened to the populations when the water body does dry up." One suggestion is that the insects aestivate, taking shelter in a suitable refuge while reducing their reproduction and growth. Laboratory studies have shown this can extend their lifespan by months, but evidence in the wild has been limited. "There are several possible reasons why demonstrating aestivation in these mosquitoes is complicated," Roy explains. "We've not yet been able to find where the sites that mosquitoes shelter in are, and the exact timing of the beginning of the process is not well known." "It is also possible that Anopheles coluzzii uses multiple strategies, such as migration, to persist, with one strategy before more successful than others in certain years. There are also many closely related species that live in similar areas which appear to have different persistence strategies, complicating research into any one species." To try and alleviate some of the uncertainty surrounding this process, the recent study tracked mosquitoes across their lifetime to identify whether they are aestivating in the wild. Tracking mosquitoes with heavy water To track the mosquitoes, the researchers used a technique known as stable isotope enrichment. This makes use of an uncommon form of an element which can be tracked after being taken up by a particular organism. In this case, given the dependence of mosquitoes on water to reproduce, they used deuterium, a form of hydrogen which has an extra neutron than usual. They introduced small amounts of deuterium oxide, otherwise known as heavy water, into certain Anopheles coluzzii breeding pools in Mali during the wet season. The mosquito larvae in these pools then either absorbed the deuterium directly, or consumed algae and microbes which had been enriched with the isotope. The larvae subsequently hatched and dispersed, with some recaptured during the dry season. Around a third of mosquitoes from one area were estimated to have deuterium levels significantly above those found naturally in the environment. At the beginning of the following wet season, the researchers found that the first mosquitoes to emerge had higher levels of deuterium. After around two weeks, the average level dropped when newly hatched mosquitoes, raised without the isotope, had matured and began to appear in the researchers' traps. While only seven percent of the mosquitoes retained levels of deuterium that were higher than background levels by the next year, the presence of the isotope in the body is known to drop over time as deuterium is exchanged from the more common form of hydrogen. As a result, the researchers estimated that at least 18% of the marked mosquitoes are believed to have survived through aestivation into the next year. This figure may be an underestimate, as some mosquitoes may have migrated to ponds outside of the study area. If aestivation is common to this species of mosquito, it opens new possibilities for ways that malaria can be controlled. It may be possible to eradicate populations while they are dormant as the process of aestivation could be targeted by drugs to limit the ability of mosquitoes to survive the dry season. On the other hand, this discovery also poses challenges for controlling mosquito populations using genetically modified (GM) insects. To date, limited trials have taken place with males altered to pass on genes that kill any female offspring, reducing the size of populations. If these methods are ever used on a wide scale against Anopheles coluzzii, GM mosquitoes would need to be capable of aestivation or be able to pass on their genes before the dry period begins. "If released GM mosquitoes do not have the ability to aestivate because of their genetics, the modifications might be purged during every dry season," Roy adds. "This would prevent the establishment of these genes in the wild." The scientists hope that their research will feed into the development of new ways to control malarial mosquitoes, amid ongoing debate over whether these insects should be eradicated once and for all. Explore further Scientists assemble new reference genomes of mosquitoes to fight malaria More information: Roy Faiman et al, Isotopic evidence that aestivation allows malaria mosquitoes to persist through the dry season in the Sahel, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022). Journal information: Nature Ecology & Evolution Roy Faiman et al, Isotopic evidence that aestivation allows malaria mosquitoes to persist through the dry season in the Sahel,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01886-w This story is republished courtesy of Natural History Museum. Read the original story here. (A) Gross power potential of Great Britain by river network and (B) total power density by historical county, calibrated by historical precipitation and evaporation measurements. Credit: Tara Jonell. Britain's transition from water power to coal-based steam power set the stage for the 19th century Industrial Revolution, which transformed much of Europe and North America into predominantly urban and industrialized societies. One long-held argument for this move "away from the water" has been that Britain no longer had sufficient water resources to satisfy the increasing power demands of its textile mills. Now new research to be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of The Geological Society of America indicates that the potential stream power of only a few English river basins had been fully tapped by the mid-19th century. Instead, historical precipitation records suggest that low stream flows caused by periodic drought may have played a much more important role in the country's shift toward steam power. "The causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution have remained a hot topic of scholarly debate since the term was popularized in the 1880s," says Tara Jonell, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow's School of Geographical and Earth Sciences. "Most of the literature has focused on the role of steam power driving the Industrial Revolution, but our team has found further evidence supporting previous scholarship arguing that water provided most of the power during the revolution's first four to six decades." The team, which includes principal investigators Adam Lucas and the late Paul Bishop, also found indications that Scotland continued using water power longer than England did. This is significant, says Jonell, because the prevailing narrative has been that the British textile industry largely abandoned water power either because steam power became cheaper, or because existing water resources had been exhausted. "We have found that neither of these claims is credible," Jonell says. Mapping the transition Bishop and Lucas initiated this project after determining that almost no attention had been paid to the roles that climate and physical geography played in Britain's transition to steam power. Only one previous study from 1983 had attempted to evaluate this historic change based on real-world observations and cost analysis. But those results relied on modern rainfall records and were only generated at the scale of individual river basins, so Bishop and Lucas sought to revisit historical water power. To generate national-scale historical power potential maps, the researchers adjusted topographic datasets with "true-to-life" stream geometries and combined these with precipitation and evaporation grid datasets calibrated by historical rain-gauge measurements. Because the researchers' period of focus is from 17701890, they also assembled a database to correct for modern infrastructure, including thousands of dams, weirs, crossing bridges, and aqueducts. These create artificially steep and powerful regions of the river that would lead to errors that would skew the data and therefore must be corrected for, according to Jonell. The team then compared the potential power of English and Scottish river basins with their reported demands to estimate the degree to which each basin's water resources were utilized during that 120-year period. The results indicate that by about 1838, many English and Scottish basins remained underutilized, and that water demand far exceeded water availability only in the most crowded industrial water corridors. The team also found that under average hydrological conditions, Scotland provided more power potential than northern England. "Our findings to date demonstrate a much more nuanced regionality to power availability and utilization across Great Britain than traditional Industrial Revolution narratives suggest," says Jonell. Drought as a driver Because the only prior study to look at water-power potential used modern (post-1960s) precipitation, the researchers also collated historical moisture grid datasets and re-calculated the results to see how the older data would affect their estimates for power. They found that northern England and Scotland may have experienced periods of low river flow, suggesting that episodic drought may have been an important yet underestimated natural driver in the dynamic evolution "away from the water." "We know from archival evidence, including testimony to a variety of parliamentary inquiries in the early 1800s, that seasonal fluctuations in rainfall created real problems for manufacturers who used waterpower," says Peter Jones, a University of Glasgow postdoctoral researcher working on the social and environmental history of the project. "Lack of water in summer and floods in fall or winter meant that many mills experienced significant periods of reduced work, and in the worst years they could effectively close mills for days, or even weeks, at a time." This, explains Jones, was nothing new: It was something that corn (grain) millers had faced since at least the Middle Ages. But as water power was applied to increasingly larger manufacturing operations from the 1770s onward, the problem became acute enough that it could threaten a business's viability. "It is only a short step to recognizing that in some locations, elevated or extended periods of drought could threaten entire sectors of water-powered industry," Jones says. By mapping out when, how, and why the transition from water to steam power occurred in different regions for different textiles, the researchers hope to demonstrate that renewable forms of energy were far more important to the Industrial Revolution than has hitherto been acknowledged, and that Scotland was neck-and-neck with England in terms of technology and production into the 19th century. "Both findings will hopefully provide correctives to the common perceptions that England was the first, only, and foremost powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution, and that reliance on renewable forms of energy in the early modern period was an obstacle torather than an enabler oftechnological development and economic growth," conclude Lucas and Jonell. Explore further In the face of drought, hydropower still delivers electricity Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Plants are designed to travel. They might not stand up and walk, but many plants produce seeds or other bits that can be carried long distances by wind or animals and start growing. While that might be great news for the plant, escapes like these can disrupt natural ecosystems and be costly to remove. But just how costly? According to University of Illinois agricultural ecologist Adam Davis, many cost estimates for cleaning up unwanted, invasive plants are just that: estimates, extrapolated via desktop analysis from relatively scant data. Unsatisfied with that, Davis suffered hornet attacks and years of backbreaking labor to arrive at real dollars and cents associated with removal of escaped Miscanthus plants. "The last couple years, I would spend a week in late September digging three feet down to recover Miscanthus giganteus rhizomes. And getting poison ivy, and getting pelted by this crazy group of black, bald-faced hornets. It was kind of hazardous research, and frankly, it's still not fully eradicated," says Davis, professor and head of the Department of Crop Sciences at Illinois and senior author on a recent study in Invasive Plant Science and Management. Land managers and plant ecologists everywhere can relate. Davis and his research team intentionally planted controlled invasions of Miscanthus giganteus and Miscanthus sinensis in six floodplain and old-field locations across Illinois to simulate potential escapes from bioenergy plantations and horticultural plantings. When it was time to clean up, they kept track of what they spent on herbicides, equipment, travel, and personnel hours: between $85 and $3,316 per site. That range reflects differences between sites, species, and the sheer tenacity of some individual plants. "The sinensis and the plants in floodplain forest died pretty easily with herbicide alone, partly because Miscanthus doesn't like having wet feet. So, those plants obligingly died. But the giganteus did not. It had rhizomes so deep that we were getting decent aboveground kill, but survivors just kept on coming back and back and back," Davis says. Carolyn Lowry, an assistant professor at Penn State and lead author on the study, adds, "The giganteus was harder to kill, but at least it stayed put. Whereas with the sinensis, we discovered a few plants across the road, where they had dispersed." That's the problem with viable seeds, after all. Unlike Miscanthus sinensis, Miscanthus giganteus is touted for its non-invasive qualities due to seed sterility, though Lowry points to examples of viable giganteus seed in the paper. In any case, having sprayed, clipped, hacked, and suffered through seven years of eradication, the team calculated eradication costs, arriving at a range of $85-$547 for floodplain sites and $390-$3,316 for old fields. "I'm not an economist, but I was able to pull together the costs associated with everything Adam and his team did over those seven years," Lowry says. "Of course, it's not usually department heads doing this work. So, I reached out to multiple companies that do invasive plant eradication for their hourly rates. "In the end, we likely underestimated the on-site costs because we had planted these plants ourselves and knew right where they were. Normally, people have to spend a lot more time scouting for invasive species," she adds. Once she had a range of real numbers associated with Miscanthus eradication, Lowry scaled up using a database called EDDMaps that tracks the locations of invasive species across the U.S. At the time of the study, Miscanthus sinensis was shown in 1,347 locations, mostly in the eastern half of the country. Applying the range of on-site costs to all 1,347 occurrences, Lowry came up with a median estimate of $22 millionand a range of $10 to $37 millionto eradicate escaped Miscanthus. "A lot of studies that talk about eradication costs are estimated through surveys, but there haven't been many studies that have actually done the work to eradicate populations and use those data," Lowry says. Miscanthus is not currently being scaled up for bioenergy plantations, as promised a decade ago. But the invasion potential is still strong, given the genus is still heavily marketed through the horticultural industry. Furthermore, Davis points out with increasing fossil fuel costs, bioenergy may start looking more attractive again in the not-too-distant future. If that happens, Davis has this advice: "If you're somebody who's planning on establishing a plantation of a non-native species, as part of your business model, you might want to consider what it would cost to get rid of it at the end. Just try to make some estimates on the best possible figures that you've got. Think through the process of eradication on a square-meter basis. How much time would it take you to eradicate that square meter, and then scale that out and see whether that cost is acceptable to you." Explore further When temperatures drop, Siberian Miscanthus plants surpass main bioenergy variety More information: Carolyn J. Lowry et al, Estimating local eradication costs for invasive Miscanthus populations throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, Invasive Plant Science and Management (2022). Carolyn J. Lowry et al, Estimating local eradication costs for invasive Miscanthus populations throughout the eastern and midwestern United States,(2022). DOI: 10.1017/inp.2022.20 A study of thrushes offers new insight into the differences in the appearance of plumage between male and female birds. Plumage of the American robin, top left and center, differs in subtle ways between female birds, left, and male birds, center. European blackbirds, top and lower right, differ dramatically between males, top, and females, bottom, while male and female song thrushes, bottom left, have no obvious differences between the sexes. Credit: Female American robin: public domain photo via Pixabay; male American robin: photo by Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0; female Eurasian blackbird: photo by Charles Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, sharpphotography.co.uk; male Eurasian blackbird: photo by Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0; male and female song thrushes: photo by Tomas Grim In 1868, the naturalist Charles Darwin wrote that differences in plumage coloration between male and female birds of the same species were likely the result of sexual selection: Female birdshe used the peahen and peacock as an exampleseemed to prefer the showiest males. A new study of thrushes offers evidence that another dynamic is at play, and helps explain why this phenomenon, called sexual dichromatism, is not universal among birds, its authors say. They report their findings in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. "There are a number of ideas about why there can be differences in the ornamentation and appearance of plumage between male and female birds," said Alec Luro, who led the research with ornithologist Mark Hauber, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of evolution, ecology and behavior. Luro, now a research data analyst at Maine Medical Center, was a doctoral student in Hauber's laboratory when they conducted the study. "A key question is why males and females look different in some species and similar in others," Luro said. The researchers hypothesized that plumage differences between males and females allow the birds to identify potential mates more quickly and avoid breeding with similar species. While some thrushes can hybridize with other species, such unions are not ideal, Hauber said. Hybrid offspring may be sterile or produce fewer offspring of their own. The team tested its hypothesis by looking at the coloration patterns, migratory habits, breeding season lengths and breeding range overlaps of true thrushes, a widespread group of birds in the genus Turdus that includes American robins, song thrushes and European blackbirds. With published data on the visual system of European blackbirds, Luro used his statistical modeling expertise to determine which visual cues can be detected by a thrush when it views a bird of the opposite sex of the same species. "It's hard for us to imagine what the birds look like to each other because they have a different visual system," Hauber said. "They have four color receptors instead of three, as humans do. And so differences that are subtle or invisible to humans could look dramatically different to the birds." Luro examined Turdus specimens from around the world preserved in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Field Museum in Chicago. He selected adult specimens collected during the birds' breeding season, as coloration can change throughout the year during periods of plumage molt. Using reflectance spectrometry and a model of avian vision, a technique that prior research determined is a reliable measure of what the birds perceive, Luro collected data from several patches across the bodyfor example, from the face, neck, belly and crownand looked for subtle or pronounced contrasts in feather coloration between the males and females of 77 thrush species. Visual modeling allowed Luro to calculate avian-perceived differences between the plumage patches on male and female birds. He looked at those differences in the context of the birds' life history, including the length of their breeding season, their migratory behavior and the overlap of their breeding range with other Turdus species. The researchers found that thrushes with the most pronounced color differences between males and females were more likely to be migratory, have short breeding seasons and share territory with a greater number of closely related species. This strongly suggests that sexual dichromatism allows migratory birds to quickly recognize mates of the same species when time is short and other closely related species are sharing their territory, Hauber said. Previous studies failed to consistently consider that differences in coloration between males and females were important to birds' ability to recognize their own species, Hauber said. "We are now in good shape to finally suggest that sex differences are also involved in species recognition," he said. Explore further These female hummingbirds evolved to look like malesapparently to evade aggression More information: Alec B. Luro et al, Pressure for rapid and accurate mate recognition promotes avianperceived plumage sexual dichromatism in true thrushes (genus: Turdus ), Journal of Evolutionary Biology (2022). Journal information: Journal of Evolutionary Biology Alec B. Luro et al, Pressure for rapid and accurate mate recognition promotes avianperceived plumage sexual dichromatism in true thrushes (genus: Turdus ),(2022). DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14089 Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain As Hurricane Ian made landfall, devastating parts of Florida, South Carolina and the Caribbean, readers saw media images of destruction, rescues and recovery. How images from such disasters are presented often cast people in certain roles. A new study from the University of Kansas shows newspaper images from Hurricane Harvey in 2017 continued patterns of presenting people of color as victims and white people as rescuers bringing order back to the chaos. While those presentations may not have been conscious or ill-intentioned decisions, they reflect patterns in journalism and cultural values, according to the study's author. Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Houston in 2017, and newspapers from across the country devoted extensive coverage to the disaster. Ever Josue Figueroa, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU, watched the news like many others, but the Houston native noticed something about the presentation. "I was watching the coverage and at the time was taking a course on visual communication. I thought, "I want to do something with what just happened,'" Figueroa said. "The main crux of this paper is using an approach for analyzing images called semiotics. Basically, the premise is the way we create and interpret visual images is drawn from things we understand and have seen before." For the study, Figueroa conducted a visual textual analysis of 106 front page images from Aug. 28, 2017, to Sept. 4, 2017. The results show media coverage presented people of color as displaced migrants, women as damsels in distress and white men as saviors and caretakers. The paper was published in the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication. Analysis of the front-page images showed coverage fell into four main themes. People in floodwaters Shelters and salvation Masculine heroes Repair and maintenance of homes. Among those themes, Figueroa noted that most photos of people in floodwaters were presented as people of color wading through the waters, attempting to escape the devastation. Those images are similar to common media photos of immigrants wading through the waters of the Rio Grande River to cross into the United States, Figueroa said. But while people were forced from their homes in both cases, they emphasized how people were moving toward rescue in the hurricane and toward a hopefully better life in terms of immigration. The theme of shelter and salvation tended to show people of color receiving assistance from volunteers and shelter staff. White people in shelters were shown expressing grief or emotional trauma but not receiving material aid. Such images reinforce narratives of welfare and arguments about who is entitled to assistance and who abuses such aid. "Everyone in those shelters largely experienced the same things, but when we look at the coverage patterns, there was a clear, racialized component to them," Figueroa said. The masculine heroes theme was reflected in images of men, mostly white men, rescuing people, coming to the aid of victims and being in positions of authority, such as first responders or government officials. One image showed a white man carrying a woman of color in his arms through floodwaters as the woman carried an infant in her own arms. The repeated use of these types of images reinforces patriarchal gender hierarchy to readers, Figueroa said. The final theme was presentation of people repairing their homes, cleaning up from damages or otherwise rebuilding and beginning recovery from the destruction. However, most people in such images were white homeowners. Houston is a very diverse city, but that was not necessarily reflected in how images were presented, the study found. "Within those themes, I argue there were racialized and gendered ways of how people were presented," Figueroa said. "That reifies who is depicted as a homeowner or who is presented as a victim. All of that reiterates ideas of who controls or owns land. Who has self-agency or is dependent on others. It should be understood, the news photos also tell a story, and over time, they can perpetuate harmful cultural narratives and stereotypes of marginalized people and communities." Figueroa emphasized that he was not blaming photographers for covering storms and recovery, nor first responders or government officials for helping people who need it. Rather, he said that such representations have happened for many years in American media and that they reflect our cultural values. Such racialized and gendered presentations, however, are not only a continuation of what we are familiar with as a nation but likely result from normalized work routines in traditional journalism. Journalists have long worked closely with government officials. That relationship results in media often seeking out police, fire departments and first responders as well as federal government agents working in response to situations such as natural disasters, similar to how embedded war correspondents regularly present news from the perspective of the officials they are closest to. There are potential ways to address ingrained patterns, however, such as looking to the community response in such disasters, he said. Aligning with community members to find examples and present coverage of neighbors helping neighbors or covering civilian response could help dilute dominant themes. The idea of "solidarity journalism," or covering the lived experiences of people most affected by issues such as natural disasters, labor strife or the pandemic, to name a few examples, could help address dominant themes of government response, economic effects and other presentations of such topics. Journalists should center news coverage from the perspective of people suffering from unjust conditions, rather than center coverage from the perspective of authority figures, Figueroa said. "The findings from this study suggest that people of color are still the spectacle and their displacement served as the underlying metaphor of Hurricane Harvey. Marginalized people are represented as victims whose lives were ruined by natural disasters and go on journeys to seek salvation from authoritative figures," Figueroa wrote in the article. "Marginalized groups should not be defined by their victimhood and instead should be given the opportunity to showcase their resilience and communal power. It is time for news media to provide a better representation of the communities they cover, one that is more truthful of the human experience during moments of crisis." Explore further Study finds global media reported pandemic xenophobia, but also emphasized global efforts to fight it More information: Ever Josue Figueroa, Casting heroes and victims of disaster events: representations of race and gender in Hurricane Harvey front page news images, Critical Studies in Media Communication (2022). Ever Josue Figueroa, Casting heroes and victims of disaster events: representations of race and gender in Hurricane Harvey front page news images,(2022). DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2022.2121412 Political ads depicting outgroups having relatable experiences, such as images of immigrants eating Thanksgiving dinner or videos of refugees hugging their children do almost nothing to increase empathy in people with high animosity toward an outgroup, says a new BYU study. Credit: Created by Jaren Wilkey It seems intuitive: if you want to soften hearts toward marginalized people, show that they are human like everyone else. That's the theory behind untold media messages depicting "outgroups" having relatable experiences, such as images of immigrants eating Thanksgiving dinner or videos of refugees hugging their children. Unfortunately, humanizing messages do almost nothing to increase empathy in people with high animosity toward an outgroup, although they do increase empathy in those who already view the group positively, according to new BYU research published in the Journal of Politics. "Humanizing messages have been activists' main approach to reducing prejudice throughout the world, in conflict resolution groups, documentaries, refugee organizations," said BYU political science professor Joshua Gubler. "People think they're being effective, but that's because they're preaching to the choir, and the choir responds appropriately. There's value in rallying a base, but that is different from changing the minds of those the messages are designed to target." For the study, researchers first surveyed 3,498 Republicans in the western U.S. about their attitudes toward Latinx immigrants, then surveyed their attitudes again after they watched clips from a documentary designed to put a face on immigrants. After seeing the documentary, all the participants were more likely to view the immigrants as human, but only those previously well-disposed toward the immigrants became more empathetic. The researchers speculated that dissonancethe unpleasant emotion of realizing a belief that has shaped our worldview is potentially incorrectprevented those ill-disposed toward the immigrants from empathizing. "Dissonance challenges our sense of self, and most people are loathe to pay the cost of confronting it. We wondered if, when convinced by the documentary that immigrants were human and not mere stereotypes, some participants became uncomfortable and their discomfort negated the empathy they might otherwise have developed," Gubler said. To test their hypothesis, the team designed a second phase of the experiment with 1,982 participants. This time, after showing heartwarming images of Latinx people and confirming that the photos had a humanizing effect, they told half of their participants that the immigrants were documented and half that they were undocumented. They then asked all the participants to affirm in writing that they agreed with a list of statements describing the immigrants' positive attributes. Compared to those with low initial animosity towards immigrants, participants with high initial animosity were about three times more likely to report dissonant emotions after this task and significantly less likely to report empathy. Dissonance accounted for 23% of their lower empathy levels. "Dissonance was a significant predictor unchanged attitudes," Gubler said. "The traditional thought is that you go from humanizing to empathy to changed attitudesthis study suggests why many attempts to do that fail." So if humanizing doesn't work to reduce prejudice, what does? Answering that "million-dollar question" is the research team's next focus, Gubler said. He outlined two possible approaches they are exploring to manage dissonance in conflict resolution. One option is to avoid generating dissonance altogether by asking people to reflect and write about the positive encounters they've had with outgroups, even if they can find just one or two good things to say. "Since it's their own experience and woven into their psyche already, they are unlikely to have the dissonant kick-back," Gubler explained. The other potential strategy is to tell people upfront that they're likely to feel dissonance, normalize the discomfort and encourage them to work through it rather than avoid it. "People are often unconscious of how dissonance affects them, how it can block empathy," he said. "When we make it conscious for people, it allows us to discuss dissonance as an opportunity for learning." More information: Joshua R. Gubler et al, Changing Hearts and Minds? Why Media Messages Designed to Foster Empathy Often Fail, The Journal of Politics (2022). Journal information: Journal of Politics Joshua R. Gubler et al, Changing Hearts and Minds? Why Media Messages Designed to Foster Empathy Often Fail,(2022). DOI: 10.1086/719416 Chinese rural development foundation wins acclaim for far-reaching engagements in Ethiopia Xinhua) 09:18, October 11, 2022 ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The China Foundation for Rural Development (CFRD) has won acclaim for its far-reaching engagements in Ethiopia as the organization, formerly China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, celebrated its third anniversary of establishing the Ethiopian Office Monday. The CFRD, which started implementing various programs in Ethiopia back in 2015 and officially registered as an international charitable organization in the East African country in July 2019, works to deepen the people-to-people ties between Ethiopia and China. Jima Dilbo, director general of Ethiopia's Authority for Civil Society Organization, during the occasion commended CFRD for its seven years of charitable services in the East African country through various projects such as school feeding, school bag distribution, food item support, water and hygiene program, and women's economic empowerment. "All its (CFRD) projects align with our government's priorities and our peoples' needs, and the impact is far-reaching," Dilbo said. "We have seen more and more urging requests from less fortunate communities, which need our attention and support in every way. We are blessed to have organizations like CFRD taking proactive action to respond to the calling." He called on more charitable organizations from China to come to Ethiopia to help and share their experience in the fight against poverty as well as on ways of overall modernization. The official further called on CFRD to take the lead in empowering Ethiopian local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to link to development platforms such as the Global Development Initiative, Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, as well as the Belt and Road Initiative. Yang Yihang, minister counselor for Economic and Commercial Affairs at the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, said CFRD's engagements in Ethiopia have brought fruitful results, and have contributed a lot to the economic and social development of Ethiopia. "Looking into the future, I sincerely hope that CFRD Ethiopia Office will conduct more development projects," Yang said. He further emphasized that with firm support from all sides, China-Ethiopia cooperation in the field of poverty alleviation will have greater achievements in the near future. Since 2015, the CFRD has been undertaking various programs in Ethiopia, including the Panda Pack, Smiling Children, water cellar, water purification, and women employment training. Data from CFRD show that by September 2022, the CFRD Ethiopia Office has benefited more than 250,000 Ethiopian people across all walks of life, with a particular emphasis on the most vulnerable people. Zheng Wenkai, president of CFRD, addressing the gathering via video link, said the organization focuses on six Sustainable Development Goals, mainly poverty eradication, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, clean water and sanitation, as well as decent work and economic growth. "China and Ethiopia have a long-standing and well-established relationship. People-to-people exchanges are extensive," Zheng said, reiterating the CFRD's keen intent to further deepen partnership so as to support more Ethiopian lives. CFRD's Ethiopia Office is one of the organization's three overseas offices together with Myanmar and Nepal. Wu Peng, director of the International Development Department of CFRD, said that the CFRD's philosophy in its engagements overseas is "love without borders and people-to-people connectivity." Wu added that the CFRD, in its engagements in Ethiopia over the past seven years, has received "enormous recognition and appreciation from local governments, communities and beneficiaries." "All this encourages us to continue our efforts and help more people in need," Wu said. During the occasion, one of the donor partners, China's Shenzhen Solar Run Energy Co. Limited, said it has distributed some 3,000 solar lamps to local families across Ethiopia. The company's representative further assured that the company will strengthen its partnership with CFRD in order to help improve the living conditions of beneficiary communities across Ethiopia. (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Hongyu) Phase-folded photometry of OGLE-BLG504.12.201843 during the quiescent state. Credit: Landri et al., 2022. An international team of astronomers has analyzed the photometric and spectroscopic observations of a candidate cataclysmic variable known as OGLE-BLG504.12.201843. Results of this analysis suggest that this object is an extreme dwarf nova of the U Gem-type. The findings are reported in a paper published October 3 on arXiv.org. OGLE-BLG504.12.201843 (or O-201843 for short) was first detected in 2015 as part of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). Previous observations of this source have found that it showcases a photometric variability with a period of 0.523419 days (interpreted as an orbital period) and that it undergoes nearly year-long outbursts repeating every 950 to 1,020 days. The nature of O-201843 is still uncertain, however, taking into account its outburst, the object was initially classified as a candidate cataclysmic variable (CV). In general, CVs are binary star systems consisting of a white dwarf primary that is accreting matter from a normal star companion. They irregularly increase in brightness by a large factor, then drop back down to a quiescent state. Given that in CVs, mass transfer from the companion star often occurs through an accretion disk around the white dwarf and in some cases thermal instability in the disk triggers an outburst known as a dwarf nova (DN). These novae are a type of CVs that undergo semi-periodic outbursts. Some DNe only experience regular 25 mag outbursts (U Gem type) while others display additional features. When it comes to O-201843, previous studies suggested that its photometry is reminiscent of a DN with extreme properties. Therefore, a group of astronomers led by Camille Landri of the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, sought to verify this hypothesis by analyzing the existing optical photometry and new optical spectroscopy, mainly from OGLE and various spectrographs. The photometric data of O-201843 showcases clear features of an accretion disk from which the outbursts can originate. Moreover, a gradual brightening and small flares were identified in the data during the quiescence period between outbursts. The astronomers interpret this brightening as an increase in the luminosity and temperature of the accretion disk, while the origin of the flares is yet to be determined. Based on the analysis of the spectroscopic data, it was found that O-201843 shows Balmer absorption that can either come from a bright secondary star or from a cold accretion disk. However, no features of a white dwarf and the usual features of an unstable accretion disk have been observed. Summing up the results, the researchers noted that O-201843 may be a U Gem-type dwarf nova with extreme properties. "Altogether, the photometry of O-201843 shows strong similarities with DNe but also important differences. While these peculiarities have not been observed in other DNe, it is possible that O-201843 is an extreme U Gem DN, or at least is somehow linked to DNe.... Due to its extreme properties and peculiarities, OGLE-BLG504.12.201843 is an excellent object for further follow-up studies," the authors of the paper concluded. Explore further Astronomers detect a new cataclysmic variable system More information: Camille Landri et al, OGLE-BLG504.12.201843: A possible extreme dwarf nova. arXiv:2210.01141v1 [astro-ph.SR], Camille Landri et al, OGLE-BLG504.12.201843: A possible extreme dwarf nova. arXiv:2210.01141v1 [astro-ph.SR], arxiv.org/abs/2210.01141 2022 Science X Network Asymmetric splittings of two mixed modes in KIC 8684542. a, Gravity-dominated mixed mode. b, Pressure-dominated mixed mode. The grey lines show the observed power spectrum in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and the black lines show the best-fitting model spectrum. The vertical dotted lines mark the locations of the frequencies. It is noted that the x axis is re-scaled to align the m = 1 modes. Credit: Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05176-0 A quartet of researchers at IRAP, Universite de Toulouse, has found a way to measure the interior magnetic field of red giant stars. In their paper published in the journal Nature, Gang Li, Sebastien Deheuvels, Jerome Ballot and Francois Lignieres describe how they used data from the Kepler satellite to calculate the interior magnetic field strength for red giants. Lisa Bugnet, with the Flatiron Institute, in New York has published a News & Views piece in the same journal issue outlining the difficulties in measuring magnetism in stars and the work done by the team in France. Red giants are stars that have exhausted their inner hydrogen core leaving behind a helium center with a burning outer hydrogen shell. Such stars are studied by noting the makeup of the light they emit along with periodic dimming and brightening. In this new effort, the researchers wondered if it might be possible to use such a small amount of data to calculate the inner magnetic field of such stars. The researchers began their work by noting that prior researchers have shown that most red giants vibrate and that such vibrations are likely due to a strong magnetic field inside of them, which is reflected in oscillations in the light that is emitted. Study of such oscillations is known as asteroseismology, and it involves trying to make sense of the frequencies, lifetimes, amplitudes and modes of the oscillations. Analysis of the oscillations is based on the assumption that most, if not all, of the dynamic processes that go on inside of a star are reflected in their properties. Prior research has also shown that the modes of oscillation are dominated by gravity in the middle parts of the star and that pressure dominates oscillations in the outer parts. Thus, shifts in modal frequencies can offer clues about the degree of magnetism inside of the star. In their work, the researchers used data from Kepler to measure modal frequencies in the oscillations of different red giants to indirectly measure the strength of their internal magnetismthey found amplitudes of 30 to 100 kG. Measurements, the researchers note, that were consistent with what had been theorized. Explore further Solar-like oscillations and ellipsoidal variations detected in binary system 12 Bootis More information: Gang Li et al, Magnetic fields of 30 to 100 kG in the cores of red giant stars, Nature (2022). Gang Li et al, Magnetic fields of 30 to 100 kG in the cores of red giant stars,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05176-0 Lisa Bugnet, Vibrations probe magnetic fields inside evolved stars, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-022-02979-z Journal information: Nature 2022 Science X Network A bust of Alfred Nobel on display at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. Credit: Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File All of the 2022 Nobel Prizes have now been announced. Here's a look at which prizes have been announced so far, which is coming up and what's next for the winners. ECONOMICS This year's Nobel Prize in economic sciences has been awarded to former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and two other U.S.-based economists. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig were recognized Monday for their research into the fallout from bank failures. The Nobel panel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said the trio's research had shown "why avoiding bank collapses is vital." The panel says that the findings of the three in the early 1980s laid the foundations for regulating financial markets and dealing with financial crises. PEACE This year's Nobel Peace Prize was shared Friday by jailed Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the laureates "have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy." The prize was seen as a strong rebuke to the authoritarian rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin. LITERATURE The Swedish Academy on Thursday gave the Nobel Prize in literature to French writer Annie Ernaux for "the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory." Ernaux, 82, has written more than 20 books, most of them very short, chronicling events in her life and the lives of those around her. Her work paints uncompromising portraits of sexual encounters, abortion, illness and the deaths of her parents. CHEMISTRY The Nobel Prize in chemistry was jointly awarded on Wednesday to Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless and Danish scientist Morten Meldal for their work on click chemistry, a field of research that can be used to design better medicines. Sharpless is a repeat winner: He won the chemistry prize also in 2001. PHYSICS The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded Tuesday to Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger. The trio shared the prize for discovering the way that unseen particles, known as photons, can be linked, or "entangled" with each other, even when they are separated by large distances. MEDICINE The medicine or physiology prize is by tradition the first Nobel to be announced. This year's award went to Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for discoveries about human evolution achieved through analyses of the DNA of Neanderthals and other ancient relatives of modern humans. WHAT DO THE WINNERS RECEIVE? Nobel Prize laureates are invited to receive their awards at prize ceremonies held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. The prize includes a diploma, a gold medal and a monetary award of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $900,000). The Nobel Peace Prize is handed out in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, while the other awards are presented in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, in line with Nobel's wishes. Explore further A quick look at the 2022 Nobel Prizes 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Study site locations in and near Nags Head, North Carolina, U.S. Credit: M. O'Driscoll Sea-level rise and big storms are hammering coastal communities, causing increased flooding and land loss, saltwater intrusion, wetland loss/change, and impacts to local infrastructure. Communities along the coast often have their individual, onsite wastewater treatment systems, also called septic systems. In North Carolina alone, there are about 1 million homes with septic systems that are either on a coastline or are located in watersheds that drain into the ocean. To operate effectively, coastal septic systems rely on unsaturated soils to filter wastewater and direct flow away from homes. But in some communities, the shallow groundwater table is rising, leaving homeowners in a precarious position. "Typically, when you permit the septic systems in North Carolina, they want to have about one and a half feet of unsaturated soils below the system," explains Michael O'Driscoll, associate professor at East Carolina University. O'Driscoll is a coauthor of a new study being presented at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting tomorrow. Houses on Nags Head, North Carolina, have septic systems that are being inundated by rising groundwater levels. This rise leads to the malfunction of septic systems and wastewater treatment. Credit: M. O'Driscoll However, as groundwater levels rise in some of these areas, septic systems are no longer functioning as they were designed. "You can have a mixture of groundwater and untreated waste getting up to the surface," says O'Driscoll. While unpleasant, it can also be a health hazard, as the normal filtration of bacteria and viruses doesn't happen. Adding to the problem, this water can back up into homes, causing a real issue for residents. Some residents have waited days to weeks for the water to recede before being able to use their septic system. As part of the larger North Carolina Sea Grant research effort, O'Driscoll and colleagues focused on understanding rising groundwater levels in coastal areas. "We wanted to get an idea of where the more risky areas are, to help understand and try to come up with some solutions for how to adapt to this change," he says. The team focused on the town of Nags Head, a popular tourist destination in Dare County, North Carolina. "When you look at sea level rise along the Atlantic coast, that part of Northeastern North Carolina and Southern Virginia around the Chesapeake Bay, have some of the highest rates of sea level rise," says O'Driscoll. "Some of the town officials noticed that they're having more challenges with groundwater-related flooding and stormwater issues." The region has a long record of groundwater level data from eight NC Department of Environmental Quality aquifer wells, reaching back to 1983. Along with these state-operated wells, the researchers installed instruments on five additional wells to look at how groundwater fluctuations affected septic systems. They found that groundwater levels are rising with the sea level rise. This change has shrunk the unsaturated soil thickness necessary for functional septic systems. By looking at land surface elevations of septic systems and groundwater levels, the team found that in the Nags Head area, homes that were less than about 2.6 meters above sea level were more likely to experience insufficient unsaturated soils, and would likely have trouble with on-site water treatment systems. Septic tank in South Nags Head, North Carolina, that is inundated with groundwater. Picture taken November 2020. Credit: M. O'Driscoll Considering state regulations require 45 cm of unsaturated soils for septic systems to work as designed, having groundwater levels withing a meter of the land surface means problems, says O'Driscoll. "The systems that are in the lower elevation areas, they're having problems right now," he says. During their study, one home they were monitoring had groundwater in the drain field about 70% of the time. "That tells you there's no treatment and it can just get worse over time." To combat dysfunctional onsite wastewater systems, O'Driscoll says some builders are creating an artificial buffer. They put septic systems in mounded sand, effectively raising the drain field and adding unsaturated soils. In some communities, like Nags Head, officials have created their own septic health initiatives to identify problem areas and deal with failing systems that need to be replaced. O'Driscoll notes that big municipal wastewater treatment facilities are cost prohibitive for some communities. He says that if there is an area where there's a hotspot of failing systems, an advanced treatment system called a package plant might be an option for a community. They're more expensive than a septic system, but much less than building a municipal wastewater treatment center. The team's research shows that updated septic system regulations are a key for coastal communities. Current septic system regulations only consider a static and stable groundwater level, not the potentially ever-rising amounts the researchers observed. O'Driscoll says that new regulations have to consider a longer-term approach more related to the life-span of a home. Explore further Artificial sweeteners in groundwater indicate contamination from septic systems Left: Cross section of the separatrix of the high (solid) and low (dashed) l HFSLFS time points. l HFSLFS is the length of a field line spanning from the LFS to the HFS midplane. A poloidal projection of l HFSLFS is depicted with the red arrow. Right: Temporal evolution of l HFSLFS and the safety factor at 95% flux throughout the three discharges. Credit: Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.165001 Type-I ELM plasma instabilities can melt the walls of fusion devices. A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) and the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) found a way to get them under control. Their work is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Nuclear fusion power plants could one day provide a sustainable solution to our energy problems. That is why research is being carried out worldwide on this method of energy generation, which imitates processes on the sun. For the principle to work on Earth, plasmas must be heated to at least 100 million degrees Celsius in reactors. Magnetic fields enclose the plasma so that the wall of the reactor does not melt. This only works because the outermost centimeters in the magnetically formed plasma edge are extremely well insulated. In this region, however, plasma instabilities, so-called edge localized modes (ELMs), occur frequently. During such an event, energetic particles from the plasma may hit the wall of the reactor, potentially damaging it. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching and from the Vienna University of Technology have now been able to show: There is an operating mode for fusion reactors that avoids this problem. Instead of large, potentially destructive instabilities, one intentionally accepts many small instabilities that do not pose a problem for the reactor's wall. "Our work represents a breakthrough in understanding the occurrence and prevention of large Type I ELMs," says Elisabeth Wolfrum, research group leader at IPP in Garching, Germany, and professor at TU Wien. "The operation regime we propose is probably the most promising scenario for future fusion power plant plasmas." The results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters. The renaissance of a disregarded mode of operation In a toroidal tokamak fusion reactor, ultra-hot plasma particles move at high speeds. Powerful magnetic coils ensure that the particles remain confined instead of hitting the reactor wall with destructive force. "However, you don't want to isolate the plasma perfectly from the reactor wall either; after all, new fuel has to be added and the helium produced during fusion has to be removed," explains Friedrich Aumayr, professor of Ion & Plasma Physics at the Institute of Applied Physics of TU Wien in Vienna, Austria. The details of the dynamics inside the reactor are complicated: The motion of the particles depends on plasma density, temperature and magnetic field. Depending on how one chooses these parameters, different regimes of operation are possible. A long-standing collaboration between the TU Vienna group of Friedrich Aumayr and the IPP Garching group coordinated by Elisabeth Wolfrum now lead to in an operating regime that can prevent the particularly destructive plasma instabilities called type-I ELMs. Already a few years ago, experiments have shown a recipe against the dangerous Type-I ELMs: the plasma is slightly deformed by the magnetic coils so that its plasma cross-section is no longer elliptical but resembles a rounded triangle. Simultaneously, the density of the plasma is increased, especially at the edge. "At first, however, this was thought to be a scenario that only occurs in currently running smaller machines such as ASDEX Upgrade at IPP in Garching and is irrelevant for a reactor," explains Lidija Radovanovic, who is currently working on her Ph.D. thesis on this topic at TU Wien. "However, with new experiments and simulations, we have now been able to show: The regime can prevent the dangerous instabilities even in parameter ranges foreseen for reactors." Like a pot with a lid Due to the triangular shape of the plasma and the controlled injection of additional particles at the plasma edge, many small instabilities occurseveral thousand times per second. "These small particle bursts hit the wall of the reactor faster than it can heat up and cool down again," says Georg Harrer, lead author of the paper. "Therefore, these individual instabilities do not play a major role for the reactor wall." But as the team has been able to show through detailed simulation calculations, these mini-instabilities prevent the large instabilities that would otherwise cause damage. "It's a bit like a cooking pot with a lid, where the water starts to boil," Georg Harrer explains. "If pressure keeps building up, the lid will lift and rattle heavily due to the escaping steam. But if you tilt the lid slightly, then steam can continuously escape, and the lid remains stable and doesn't rattle." This fusion reactor operation regime can be implemented in a variety of reactorsnot only at the ASDEX Upgrade reactor in Garching, but also at ITER, currently under construction in France, or even in future DEMO fusion plants. The research described is part of the Austrian fusion research program Fusion@OAW and was carried out within the EU project EUROfusion. Explore further Fusion simulation code developed to project fusion instabilities in TAE More information: G. F. Harrer, et al. A quasi-continuous exhaust scenario for a fusion reactor: the renaissance of small edge localized modes, Physical Review Letters (2022). Journal information: Physical Review Letters G. F. Harrer, et al. A quasi-continuous exhaust scenario for a fusion reactor: the renaissance of small edge localized modes,(2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.165001 Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain American voters overwhelmingly say they want government and industry to ensure the products they buy are free of harmful chemicals, and they are willing to pay more for it, according to a national online survey commissioned by the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). "At a time when most issues are politically polarized, the issue of keeping people safe from harmful chemicals finds widespread agreement among Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters," said Celinda Lake, President of Lake Research Partners, which conducted the poll. The survey of 1,200 registered voters found broad agreement that the government require products to be proven safe before they are put on the market. More than 90% of those surveyed support this requirement and two-thirds strongly agree with these ideas. The poll also found: 92% of voters agree and 63% of voters strongly agree that the government should require products to be proven safe before companies are allowed to put them on the market. 93% of voters agree and 62% strongly agree that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products. 88% agree that companies should do a better job of removing plastic and plastic packaging from consumer products. 76% are concerned about the impact that chemicals and plastics have on climate change. 54% say chemical regulations are not strong enough, while 21% say they are about right and 10% say they are too strong. 89% support (56% strongly support) the goal of the Toxic Substances Control Act to make it easier to limit or ban harmful chemicals and better protect vulnerable populations like pregnant women, children and people who live near polluting factories. 93% agree (57% strongly) that it is important to remove harmful chemicals from where we live, work and go to school even if it increases the costs for some products, and similar numbers agree that it is important for companies to keep harmful chemicals out of everyday products, even if it increases costs for some products. Voters are concerned about all of the chemicals they were asked about in the survey and expressed the most worry about chemicals ingested through water, food and food packaging. Still, they are unsure of how the chemical regulatory system works. About half (49%) say the chemicals in food and consumer products have been tested for safety, although this is not true. "People assume that what they buy is safe and that almost always isn't the case," said Tracey J. Woodruff, Ph.D., a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, who directs PRHE and the EaRTH Center at UCSF. "The good news is this survey reveals overwhelming support for the government to do a better job of protecting people from harmful chemicals." The poll was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. Explore further Study identifies need to improve awareness and understanding of chemicals used in everyday consumer products More information: Survey methodology: Lake Research Partners designed and administered this online dial survey that was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. The survey reached a total of 1,200 registered voters nationwide including 800 base voters and oversamples of 100 Black registered voters, 100 Latinx registered voters, 100 Asian American Pacific Islander registered voters, and 100 Gen-Z registered voters. Oversamples were designed to ensure the results were representative of the U.S. voting population. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new dissertation on surrogacy highlights Thai women's experiences of having acted as surrogate mothers. The dissertation shows the women's vulnerability in a global surrogacy industry, but also provides a more nuanced picture of what makes women seek surrogacy and how they relate to the process. Commercial surrogacy has been illegal in Thailand since 2015, but the industry lives on, albeit on different premises. But what happens when the surrogacy industry establishes itself on the black market and how does it affect the women who act as surrogate mothers? "Bans will not make the surrogate industry disappear. However, the women who act as surrogate mothers are required to be more flexible than before. They travel from Thailand to countries such as China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, both for embryo implantation and to give birth to the children," explains Elina Nilsson, Ph.D. in gender studies at Uppsala University. In order to continue existing in this rapidly changing legal landscape, the surrogate market depends on the women's mobilitybeing able to travel to and from health checks and move across national bordersbut also immobility, periods in which they have limited opportunities to move freely, for example when waiting to give birth. This places the women in a precarious and vulnerable position. As part of the dissertation, Nilsson conducted in-depth interviews with 12 Thai women who acted as surrogate mothers for international clients. Both stigmatization and the illegal status of surrogate mothers limited the opportunity to obtain more informants. The women describe how their female networks play a major role in learning more about the process and creating some sense of security, despite its illegal status. However, the main motivation for going through a surrogacy process is money. "Commercial surrogacy is a way to earn a large amount of money in a relatively short amount of time. That said, many also remain in surrogacy, either by repeating it, wanting to repeat it, or by recruiting other women to it, the reason being that it wasn't actually as economically transformative as they had hoped, so many simply remain in debt." Although all the women interviewed were clear that they did this primarily for the money, they also highlighted how it was seen as a way to make merit, tam bun, which would generate positive karma in accordance with Buddhist morality. And since the women contributed financially to the family, it also became a way to live up to Thai gender ideals of being a woman, and specifically a mother and daughter, expected to take financial responsibility for both their children and their parents. By framing surrogacy in this local moral and religious context, it became comprehensible to both the women themselves and the people around them. "The surrogate mother's position is vulnerable and ambivalent. She is expected to adapt to the conditions and needs of the surrogacy industry, while at the same time having her own needs and a family of her own to take care of. My research shows how the global surrogacy market and local contexts interact with each other and how this shapes the experiences of Thai surrogate mothers." Explore further Indian IVF doctors slam move to ban commercial surrogacy More information: Elina Nilsson, Thai Surrogate Mothers' Experiences of Transnational Commercial Surrogacy: Navigating Local Morality and Global Markets. Elina Nilsson, Thai Surrogate Mothers' Experiences of Transnational Commercial Surrogacy: Navigating Local Morality and Global Markets. uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/d 63096/FULLTEXT01.pdf Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain New findings from the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield and have highlighted long term trends in court appearances for young adults. "Young adults in court: shrinking numbers and increasing disparities," as the title suggests, shows young adults have become far less likely to appear in court over the previous decade. However, the data imply that prejudice against minorities has led to unequal rates of court appearances and custody for non-white young adults. This concise study presents tantalizing opportunities for further exploration of the factors behind the changes. It is therefore worth rehearsing the main points in some detail before reflecting on their significance. A decade of data In England and Wales, the rate of court appearances among young adults (aged 1824) fell by three quarters, from 32 court appearances per thousand young adults in 200708 to 8 per thousand in 201819. This reduction predates the impact of court closures due to COVID restrictions. It also exceeded the decline in court appearances for older age groups. The custody rate in general for young adults has also declined but remains relatively hightwice as high as for those over 24. The drops have occurred across a range of offenses, including theft, burglary, violent and sexual offenses, and criminal damage. Significantly the proportion of appearances for drug-related offenses has increased. The broad trends are echoed in figures published by the Youth Justice Board, which reports that the number of occasions when young adults (aged 1820) were sentenced decreased by 58% between 2010 and 2020; however, the Board's figures do not take account of a significant fluctuation in population, which the current study usefully addresses. The data in the new study also indicate differentand harshertreatment of minorities by police and courts. By 201718, the rate for "white" young adults had fallen to 11 court appearances per thousanda reduction of 63%. However, the rate among "non-white" young adults stood at 22 court appearances per thousanda reduction of 46% but still much higher than for "white" young adults. Custody rates also differed: the rate of immediate custody for "white" young adults declined by 62%, whereas for "non-white" young adults it fell by 53%. Possible factors The scope of the changes indicate that something important has been going onbut what? For some, it might be tempting to speculate about a new generational morality, but according to the researchers, crime has not fallen proportionally. The likelier explanations are institutional. In assessing general contextual factors, it will be worth looking at the impact of court closures, and a reduction in police numbers. In particular, when annual recorded crimes are considered, the rates of charging/ summons have declined substantially over the last seven years. Moreover, the study shows significant geographical differences. The Metropolitan Police area showed relatively less decline, leading to it having the highest current rate of court appearances by young adults. To shed more light on the key generational difference, the authors' hunch is to explore the long-term effects of earlier criminal justice processing on young adult outcomes. Here we should examine, first of all, what has happened to the recent cohorts which have experienced a systematic fall in interventions and a rise in diversionary practices. Long term reductions in the numbers of first time entrants to criminal justice have been dramatic: the rate per 100,000 of the 1017 year-old population was 1,929 in the 12 months to the end of June 2007 and 484 to the end of June 2013. The introduction of Community Resolutions and triage systems may have played some part in these trends. However, ominously, the proportion of first time entrants who were categorized as "black" rose over the same period. Steady declines in sanctions have occurred over the recent decade, and in the year ending March 2020, 82 percent fewer children received a caution or sentence than in the year ending March 2010. In broad terms, the historical patterns of first time entrants and sanctions form a plausible starting point for understanding the changes in court appearances observed among young adults. Discrimination A crucial element in the apparent prejudice directed at "non-white" young men is likely to be broad-brush attributionsopen or tacitof dangerousness. Our study of homicide prosecutions also confirmed the enduring salience of group prosecutions brought against young black men. The rhetoric of "gangs" casts a wide net of association, inflating the seriousness of any charge or court appearance. The growing role of drug offenses in court proceedings involving young adults may reflect the stereotyping of a generation of young black men allegedly under the sway of a violent drug market. It is vital that the police, the CPS and the courts develop clear and rigorous policies which enable them to weigh the available case information fairly and impartially, dismantling both 'postcode' and racial stereotypes. Institutional influences Though it is too soon to be certain, any specific changes in policy towards young adults that may have occurred seem to have been over-ridden by a confluence of institutional factors operating at a system level. The long term effects of reduction in youth justice intervention must be thoroughly explored in future research and translated into policy analysis. Unrelenting pressure is required if the emerging lessons are to be equally applied to minorities currently denied them by discriminatory assumptions and practices. "Authors Nathan Hughes and Todd Hartman have succeeded in delivering a data analysis which is truly informative and timely, carving out many important future channels for further research. Their recommendations on data recording and policy issues should be heeded by all who care about a better criminal justice system," says Dr. Roger Grimshaw. Explore further Nearly 1 in 4 young US adults sought mental health care during pandemic QUEENSBURY Liudmyla Kazberuk sat in her new kitchen with tears in her eyes as she spoke about America. Kazberuk arrived in Queensbury from war-town Ukraine in late July with her daughter Anastasia, 22, who goes by Nastya, and her niece Yelyzaveta, 17. The family was surprised to find that the American people understood the plight of the Ukrainians, who have been defending themselves from attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. A local group called Adirondack Welcome Circle, started by Dr. Kathleen Braico and Dr. Richard Leach, originally organized to bring an Afghan refugee family to the area, but switched gears and instead brought the Ukrainian family to live safely in Queensbury. At first when we came here, we were so excited because its incredible to understand how all American people, especially like Katie Braico and all your group help us, Nastya said, translating for her teary-eyed mother. The family is shocked, yet thankful, that Americans were willing to help and were praying for Ukraine. When Russian troops occupied their hometown of Kherson, a port city of more than 280,000 in the southern portion of Ukraine, and Russia was terrorizing their city, the family retreated to their basement to hide. We were so distressful, Nastya said. As alarms rang out in the city, people flooded supermarkets and pharmacies buying up food, candles and medicines. Gas was scarce as people were fleeing the city. Its terrible because for all time, you hear this alarm system and its all around your country, all the time sitting in your bomb shelter and simply pray and simply wait, said Nastya, a recent college graduate with a journalism degree. The family watched U.S. and U.K. news reports and saw President Joe Biden speak. The most important phrase we heard from Biden when he was special guest in some program, he says my diplomatic resource is finished. I cant do anything with this, Nastya recalled. And we understand that it will be real problem for Ukraine. With an uncertain future, they decided they needed to flee the city for Poland. Nastyas father and brother stayed behind to fight with the Ukrainian army. They knew no one in Poland. No friends, no family. They left home with only two suitcases filled with medicines, documents, some clothes and a Bible. They waited seven hours at the border crossing and found refuge at a church in Poland. It was really crazy because our military, they also cant understand what they need to do with all these people because it was a lot of people, Nastya said. While they were there, a pastor from America told them about a program called Uniting for Ukraine, which provides pathways for Ukrainian refugees to seek safety in the United States. We were in the disinformation, she said. We cant understand what we need to do next, because all the time it was like Ukraine was under massive attacks. And we were afraid that maybe Russia maybe also start fire in Poland. They had no way to know what Russian President Vladimir Putin planned to do to their country. They decided to try to find a way to get to safety in America. We know if he did it with Ukraine, he could do the same with Europe, she said. The pastor told them there was a group of people in upstate New York ready to give them shelter and opportunity in America. Then Nastya got an email from Dr. Braico. The family lived in Poland for four months, and the two communicated through emails until Braico met the family at the airport on July 27. Google Translate has been our best friend, Braico said with a laugh. While their family is small, they feel like they now have a large circle of friends who are like relatives to them. The Adirondack Welcome Circle raised funds, solicited donations and found the family a place to live. Volunteers renovated the apartment, removing wallpaper, painting walls and installing new floors. Students from local honor societies and key clubs donated their time, as well as members of churches, the Rotary and the Lions Club. People donated household items like dishes, furniture and clothing. The family members are still awaiting employment authorization in order to work in the United States. They are receiving New York state social services to help support them until they are authorized to work. Yelyzaveta is attending Queensbury High School and said her new school is becoming a part of her life. She really adores her school because she makes new friends in the school and also all teachers they are very kind and at all times they help her in all cases, Nastya said translating for her niece, who is still learning English. Nastya, herself, would like to find a masters program to continue her studies. And then we will see what we will have, she said. Right now, the family is enjoying a much quieter life in Queensbury. They have noted the patriotism of Americans as well as the vast diversity of views in the country. People here are free, Nastya said. You have really a democratic country. Ukrainian also want to be like America. Youre free from different stereotypes. Here people can live like they want to. They have noted the conservative viewpoints in upstate New York as well as the existence of traditional families. A lot of people but you all are different, she said. Its really great because you can find here what you want. You can improve your skills, your level and you can do it in a lot of ways. Its really great. They are eager to see more of the state, including Niagara Falls and New York City. They recently visited Vermont. They only hear from Nastyas father and brother through occasional text messages. Nastya is hoping to gather up supplies to send to her brother and father, including items the army needs like tactical first aid kits, intraosseous needles, professional tourniquets, night-vision goggles, winter clothing, tactical gloves and special bandages to stop massive bleeding. Anyone able to supply any of that equipment should contact Adirondack Welcome Circle on its website at www.adirondackwelcomecircle.org/. The family isnt yet sure if they will stay in the U.S. or return to Ukraine. Its hard question because we dont know exactly what will be in future, she said. Right now we only know that we need to start our life from the start. 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. BEIJING, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan will lead a delegation to Kazakhstan and attend the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana from October 12 to 13, the Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Mao Ning announced on Tuesday. The spokesperson said Wang pays the visit at the invitation of the government of Kazakhstan, which holds the presidency of the CICA. PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. MAYS LANDING The parents of a Hamilton Township teen who died in 2015 have increased the reward to $40,000 from $20,000 for new information that could lead to an arrest. Tiffany Valiante was found dead after being struck by a NJ Transit train traveling on the Atlantic City Rail Line in July 2015. Investigators ruled her death a suicide. Valiantes parents, Stephen and Dianne, have insisted their daughter was murdered. The Atlantic County Prosecutors Office was investigating the teens death but said it has since closed the case. The reward increase comes a week after Netflix announced that Valiantes case will be featured during the third season of Unsolved Mysteries, which begins streaming Oct. 18. The episode exploring the teens death is titled, Mystery at Mile Marker 45. The family hopes the increased reward and documentary keep attention focused on solving her death. We know so many others that also believe Tiffanys death was not suicide, that there was a rush to judgment to close the case, and that the real story of how and why she died has yet to be told, Stephen and Dianne Valiante said in a joint statement provided by their attorney, Paul DAmato. The combination of this new, deeply researched, fact-based program and the increased reward might just be whats necessary to help get Tiffs case reopened. The parents have fought for answers in the case, having remortgaged their home and spent their life savings to do so, DAmato said. The Oakcrest High School graduate was preparing for her freshman year at Mercy College in New York, where she had planned to continue her volleyball career. In March, DNA testing paid for by the Valiantes was completed and failed to find new leads, given that evidence in the case was not properly stored and damaged materials that could render clues, the analysts who studied it said. NJ Transit spokesperson Jim Smith declined to comment Tuesday. DAmato has filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of the Valiantes, including one that handed over the evidence from NJ Transit police for the DNA examination. I share the parents belief that there are those who know what really happened to cause Tiffs death, but theyve yet to come forward, DAmato said. The following is a synopsis of some of the most recent important votes in Congress by our U.S. representatives, compiled from clerk.house.gov/Votes. Sept. 30 H.R. 8987 Fairness for 9/11 Families Act, passed 400-31: To amend the Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act to authorize appropriations for catch-up payments from the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd: Yes Andy Kim, D-3rd: Yes Donald Norcross, D-1st: Yes Alexander, Gallo debate without incumbent Van Drew MAYS LANDING Two candidates for the House of Representatives in the 2nd Congressional Dist H.R. 6833 On Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendment Affordable Insulin Now Act, passed 230-201: Original bill passed the house in March but was defeated in the Senate. The bill would limit cost-sharing for insulin under private health insurance and the Medicare prescription drug benefit for a month of insulin to $35 or 25% of a plans negotiated price (after any price concessions), whichever is less, beginning in 2023. Van Drew: No Kim: Yes Norcross: Yes Sept. 29 H.R. 8888 Food Security for All Veterans Act, passed 376-49: Establishes Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Food Security Van Drew: Yes Kim: Yes Norcross: Yes Send us your 2nd Congressional District debate questions The Press of Atlantic City is co-sponsoring a debate between 2nd Congressional District cand S 3662 Preventing PFAS Runoff at Airports Act as amended, passed 381-42: This bill temporarily allows the Federal Aviation Administration to cover 100% of the costs for airports to purchase and deploy equipment to test fire suppression systems that contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) without discharging such substances. Van Drew: Yes Kim: Yes Norcross: Yes H. R. 7780, Mental Health Matters Act, passed 220-205: Requires certain federal actions to increase access to mental and behavioral health care, includes creating grants to increase the number of school-based mental health services providers, and establishing an occupational research program on mental health. Van Drew: No Kim: Yes Norcross: Yes SENATE Sept. 29: H.R. 6833, as amended, which changes title XXVII of the Public Health Service Act, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to establish cost-sharing requirements for certain insulin products, and for other purposes. Bill passed 72-25 with 3 not voting (3/5 vote needed). Cory Booker, D-N.J.: Yes Bob Menendez, D-N.J.: Yes On the Nomination of Lisa M. Gomez, of New Jersey, to be an assistant secretary of labor, confirmed 49-36 with 15 not voting. On the Nomination of Arianna J. Freeman, of Pennsylvania, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit, confirmed 50-47 with 3 not voting. Booker: Yes Menendez: Yes A planned Tuesday night debate among the six candidates for three seats on the Atlantic County Board of Commissioners has been canceled after Republicans declined to take part, league president Ro Goldberg said Monday. Republican candidate Vern Macon confirmed the Republicans did not feel the league would treat them fairly because of anti-GOP social media postings by league debate organizer Victoria Druding. Thats the same person who was sending all the candidates the information, Macon, a District 1 candidate from West Atlantic City in Egg Harbor Township, said of Druding. Druding has denied her personal political beliefs would interfere with her ability to be impartial, and stressed the league is a nonpartisan organization with a long history of running fair debates. Macon said she will, however, participate in a county commissioner debate for the at-large seat and District 1 seat, sponsored by the NAACP Atlantic City Branch. It will be held 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Martin Luther King Jr. School, 1799 Marmora Ave., Atlantic City, said NAACP President and Atlantic City Council Vice President Kaleem Shabazz. It will also be broadcast on WEHA 88.7 FM and 100.3 FM. There will also be a congressional and Atlantic City School Board debate that Tuesday night. The Atlantic County League of Women Voters held a congressional debate last month, but U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd, said he would not participate because he believed the group was no longer fair to both sides. Lets be clear, this allegedly nonpartisan debate was organized by an active member of our opponents campaign team who is all over social media recruiting Democrat volunteers, soliciting contributions for his campaign, and organizing protests at our campaign events, all while spewing vile hate-filled rhetoric equating Republicans with terrorists, Van Drew Campaign Manager Ron Filan said in a Sept. 19 email explaining the congressmans decision. Filan attached screenshots of League debate organizer Drudings Facebook posts, which make fun of Republicans, promote fundraisers for his Democratic opponent Tim Alexander, and encourage people to attend protests against Van Drew at various events. Republican candidates for the Cape May County Board of Commissioners decided not to participate in a Oct. 4 League of Women Voters of Cape May County candidate forum with a lone Democratic challenger. Cape GOP candidates alleged that organization can no longer claim to be nonpartisan. We are not going to participate, said County Commissioner E. Marie Hayes at the time. The positions theyre putting out there, I believe that they are very progressive leaning. A candidate forum the Cape League of Women Voters did not describe it as a debate was scheduled for the Old Court House on Oct. 4 between Republicans Hayes and Andrew Bulakowski, of Lower Township, and lone Democratic challenger Julia Hankerson, of Woodbine. Goldberg, leader of the Atlantic County League of Women Voters has defended the leagues nonpartisan status. At the Sept. 20 congressional debate, Goldberg said organizers are careful to bring in a moderator from outside the congressional district. The Sept. 20 debate took place without Van Drew, as Democratic candidate Tim Alexander, of Galloway Township, and Libertarian candidate Michael Gallo, of Lower Township, discussed their campaign and the issues. The Atlantic County League of Women Voters had announced the Commissioner debate in August. In the Commissioner-at-Large race, Democrat Habib Rehman, of Brigantine, is challenging incumbent Republican Amy Gatto, of Hamilton Township. In the District 1 race in a newly created district covering Atlantic City, part of Egg Harbor Township, Ventnor, Margate and Longport, incumbent Democrat Ernest D. Coursey Sr., of Atlantic City, faces Macon. And in the District 4 race, Democrat Kathleen Galante, of Brigantine, faces incumbent Republican Richard Dase, of Galloway Township. District 4 includes all of Brigantine and Galloway Township, along with Egg Harbor Township election districts 10 and 14 to 16, along with all of Port Republic. Debates are an important part of the leagues mission to provide nonpartisan information for voters, Goldberg said in a press release announcing the county debate and a Congressional debate. Debates allow residents to make informed decisions by hearing the candidates themselves discuss their qualifications and platforms. The Davenport Community School District will soon release a community-wide survey to all district households in an effort to gather input for its long-range facilities master plan. The district's long-range facilities plan will guide the grade configuration, the number of school buildings and facility investments. The survey outlines potential long-term plans for district buildings and asks community members for feedback on two potential grade configurations. Our schools play one of the most important roles in our community, Superintendent of Schools TJ Schneckloth said in a press release. As we make decisions that will guide the direction of our District for years to come, we want to ensure that everyone has a voice in the planning process. This survey allows us to do that. Please take the survey and share your voice. Households will receive a paper copy of the survey in the mail. To district is working with School Perceptions LLC, an independent firm with expertise in conducting school district surveys, for data-gathering. To ensure anonymity, all survey results will be returned to School Perceptions. Residents can complete the paper survey and mail it back to School Perceptions in the envelope provided. Or, individuals can go to the website listed on the survey and complete it online. Survey data is regulated by an access code provided on the mailed survey. Survey results will be presented at the Nov. 7 school board meeting; the district will also post results on the district website. For additional information, or for residents who want additional surveys for other adults in their household, can call the Davenport Community Schools Achievement Service Center at 563-445-5000. Watch a tutorial on where to find the Long-Range Facilities Master Planning information at https://tinyurl.com/44k7ewc6. Iowa pork producers could be in trouble pending a decision in a Supreme Court case over a California law that would regulate how pork is produced, trade groups say. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case on Tuesday brought over Californias Proposition 12, a ballot measure that requires breeding sows that give birth to hogs sold for pork in California to be housed in at least 24 square feet of space. The law also has requirements for egg-laying hens and calves raised for veal, but the case pertains to the pork provisions. Iowa farm groups have opposed a law, which they say would impose a high burden on pork producers outside California and violates the U.S. Constitutions provisions that prevent states from restricting interstate commerce. In a press conference on Tuesday, Lori Stevermer, a Minnesota pork producer and vice president of the National Pork Producers Council, said the law could have life-changing impacts on her operation. Stevermer doesnt have sows on her farm, but she said the law could still cause processors to not buy from her farm. If the cost to implement in California is great, as we expect it will be, or if the market is less to us, cut off, very possibly the people that we raise pigs for will say, We dont need your farm anymore, because we dont have any place to sell our pork, and that takes us out of business. The law was passed by a ballot measure in 2018 with the goal of improving the welfare of animals raised for meat sold in California. Sows are generally confined to gestation crates during their pregnancy, a small stall only large enough for the pig to stand and lay down, where they cannot turn around. Some are kept in group confinement but rarely is the pen large enough to satisfy the laws space requirement. The space requirements for sows who give birth to pigs sold for pork in California would likely be accommodated through group housing. Iowas Republican politicians have introduced bills, written op-eds, and voiced opposition to the law, dubbing it a bacon ban and saying it would hurt Iowas producers. Iowa trade groups argue against the law Iowa leads the nation in pork production, marketing more than 48 million hogs in 2018 and accounting for about a third of the countrys pork production. The Iowa Pork Producers Association and Iowa Farm Bureau have joined briefs supporting their national counterparts. The state of Iowa also joined 19 other states in supporting the National Pork Producers Councils request to overturn the law. When asked for comment, the Iowa Pork Producers Association and Iowa Farm Bureau referred to their national trade organizations. Eldon McAfee, a West Des Moines lawyer who represented the Iowa Pork Producers Association in court briefs, said the law would effectively require pork producers to meet Californias standards, even if their meat isnt destined for California. Our belief is that when you have something that broad with the penalties that are involved, it will result in overregulation by many packers saying, OK, if we can't exactly trace it as a practical matter, anyway, then well require more of you to meet it so we can be sure that the meat we sell there will be compliant, he said. Mcafee and the national pork producers also argued the biggest burden would fall on smaller pork producers, who may not have the money or access to credit to alter their facilities to meet Californias standards, and thus would lose out or have to exit the market entirely. The national pork organization estimates that producers would need to spend up to $347 million to reconstruct housing to accommodate the requirements of Proposition 12. But not all economists agree with that estimation. Richard Sexton and Daniel Sumner, agricultural economists at the University of California, Davis, argued in a brief the law would only cause some producers to make the switch, and it wouldnt meaningfully increase prices in other states. Sexton and Sumners analysis found that producers would make the switch to Proposition 12-compliant facilities if it was economically viable to them, while the rest of the countrys producers would continue to produce hogs as normal. Their research was partly funded by the National Pork Board and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. If youre going to sell pork to the rest of North America that doesnt have Californias standards, youre not going to be cost competitive in doing that if youre imposing California standards across your entire operations, Sexton said in an interview. And so people just arent going to do that. Processors arent going to do that. Theyre not going to raise costs needlessly. The change would require processing plants to dedicate time specifically to processing Proposition 12-compliant hogs, but Sexton said operations would adapt in ways that are economically viable. National perspective Lawyers for the National Pork Producers Council said in a press conference Tuesday they were encouraged by the outcome of oral arguments. It was very hopeful to hear the justices understand the trouble that will be created by laws like proposition 12 that reach far outside the states border to try and impose the moral will of one state, Michael Formica, a lawyer for the National Pork Producers Council, said in a press conference Tuesday. ...It has a tremendous impact on pork production and pork prices, but if let stand, it would have a tremendous impact on the U.S. economy, on the flow of commerce across borders. California argued the state has a right to prohibit the sale of certain products its citizens find immoral. The states attorney argued the law does not regulate how producers outside California can raise animals because they can choose not to sell their product in the state. Proposition 12 bars the in-state sale of certain pork products, said California Solicitor General Michael Mongan. California voters chose to pay higher prices to serve their local interest in refusing to provide a market to products they viewed as morally objectionable and potentially unsafe. Headed north on Railroad Highway near Underwood, travelers often stop and do a double take. More often than not, giant decorative hay bales draw attention to the west side of the highway. The creations are the work of Lea Voss, Pottawattamie County treasurer, who updates the corner for every major holiday. Currently, a large school bus complete with childrens faces in windows and a skeleton driver who waves hello sits at the corner. My husband and I were requested to make a school bus out of hay bales, Voss said. We had an anonymous note left by a teacher on my other hay bales, as I make them for about every holiday. The bus was up for the first day of school. Many passersby stopped to take photos with the timely hay bale art piece. This is the biggest one weve done, Voss said. Her husband helps her transport the bales and acquire additional props, including the tires, steering wheel, seat and front bumper needed for the school bus. It took some time and I get so many compliments, she said. People come into my office and have to tell me how good it looks .. the Pottawattamie County treasurer has a hidden talent. The bus took her about three days to complete. She often paints on nights and weekends. Voss said hay bale art is hobby for her, something shes been doing for maybe 5 to 7 years. She saw something online that sparked the idea and started painting little by little, just little bales pumpkins, turkeys, bunnies and it just gets bigger and bigger, she said. Now, she takes on holiday themes Uncle Sam and a firecracker for the Fourth of July, for example. She created a RAGBRAI-themed setup when the annual race went through Underwood in 2019, and took on a law enforcement theme after Deputy Sheriff Mark Burbridge was shot and killed at the Pottawattamie County Jail in Council Bluffs in 2017. Her sons recent marriage prompted the creation of a wedding couple crafted of hay bales. Voss said its the feedback she receives from people that makes her hobby projects worthwhile. A couple from Avoca commented on the school bus, telling her they took the long way to Council Bluffs to check out her displays. Friends send her ideas for future projects. Its been a hit, she said. After leaving the courthouse every day, this is my down time and when people honk and wave, and kids stop and take pictures, its all worth it. As long as it makes people smile, thats the main thing. Its just fun. Theres more to life than just work. An air quality alert for dust has been issued for west Rapid City from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday. The alerts are issued by the National Weather Service in collaboration with the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. According to the alert, northwest sustained winds are expected to be in the range of 25 to 35 mph with gusts over 50 mph possible. The gusty winds will suspend fine dust in the air in the affected area, producing poor air quality. The Rapid City Air Quality Office recommends the elderly, young and anyone with respiratory problems to avoid excessive physical exertion and exposure to the outside air. Voluntary actions to reduce dust pollution include ceasing or reducing the manipulation of soil in construction, industrial and agricultural activities, and increasing the use of pollution controls for soil stabilization, waste pits, stock piles and construction sites. Local air conditions can be monitored by checking the Air Quality Index located on home page of the citys website, www.rcgov.org. On Native American Day, museum volunteers in Massachusetts and Oglala Sioux Tribe officials announced that approximately 150 sacred artifacts some believed to be from the Wounded Knee massacre are scheduled to be returned to the tribe in November. The items include clothing, personal objects, pipes, moccasins and weapons. Once the items are brought to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, there are various spiritual ceremonies that will be conducted before they are moved to the Oglala Lakota College. Those are very personal items among our culture, said Michael He Crow, a direct descendant of Sioux Chief Bigfoot, who was killed at Wounded Knee in 1890. Its one of those things that we have ceremonies for when a person has passed away, so those items are important to the families and the relatives that they belong to. Ann Meilus, president of the board at the Founders Museum in Barre, Massachusetts, where the items have been kept for over a century, said the museum voted to follow the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in April and have been in contact with the Oglala Sioux Tribe over the summer in anticipation of repatriating part of its collection. The items being returned are among an estimated 870,000 Native American artifacts including nearly 110,000 human remains in the possession of the nation's most prestigious colleges, museums and even the federal government that under federal law are supposed to be returned to the tribes, the Associated Press reported. Meilus said the Lakota have been requesting repatriation of the items for about a decade, but it hasnt happened, partially due to interference from third parties that created an atmosphere of distrust. It was hard for a lot of the older members to see that they needed to do the right thing, that this is not our history of Barre," she said. "This is the Lakota Siouxs history, that we should honor the Lakota Sioux and what they desire. Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin Killer said the return of the items and replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day speaks to the total 180 in how the society views the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890, in which over 200 Lakota men, women and children were killed. Killer said the items will help descendants of the survivors of the massacre better understand their history. Id really like to send my thank you wopila to the Barre museum board of directors for taking on such an endeavor to return the items back to us, to the survivors, said Wendell Yellow Bull, who is a descendant of Wounded Knee survivor Joseph Horn Cloud. On Nov. 5, delegations from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Cheyenne River Reservation, including Yellow Bull, Killer and spiritual leaders, will collect the items and transport them back to South Dakota. An Israeli soldier patrols near the settlement of Shavei Shomron, west of Nablus, on Oct. 11, 2022. An Israeli soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting attack in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, amid escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua) JERUSALEM, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting attack in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, amid escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israeli military issued a statement confirming the death of a soldier who was shot on duty managing the security along a settler march outside the settlement of Shavei Shomron, west of the Palestinian city of Nablus. The shooter approached the Israeli troop in a car driven by another man, and "shot live fire at IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers," the statement said. A manhunt has been launched to find the suspects. Israel's Ynet news site reported that the Lion's Den, a Nablus-based militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack. The violence was the latest in raising incidents in the West Bank, a territory seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel has kept its control over this land despite the Palestinian struggle for independence and international condemnation. Israel has strengthened manhunt operations against Palestinian militants in response to a series of fatal street attacks in Israel earlier this year. Israeli soldiers stand guard near the settlement of Shavei Shomron, west of Nablus, on Oct. 11, 2022. An Israeli soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting attack in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, amid escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua) Israeli soldiers stand guard near the settlement of Shavei Shomron, west of Nablus, on Oct. 11, 2022. An Israeli soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting attack in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, amid escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua) SCOTUS rejects appeal from Roof, killer of 9 The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. Roof had asked the court to decide how to handle disputes over mental illness-related evidence between capital defendants and their attorneys. The justices did not comment Tuesday in turning away the appeal. Roof fired his attorneys and represented himself during the sentencing phase of his capital trial, part of his effort to block evidence potentially portraying him as mentally ill. Roof shot participants at a Bible study session at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. A panel of appellate judges had previously upheld his conviction and death sentence. Roof, 28, is on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Ind. He can still pursue other appeals. Gabbard leaves Democratic Party Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii announced Tuesday she is leaving the Democratic Party, saying it is under complete control of an elitist cabal and urging fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to leave the party with her. She alleged the Democratic Party is actively undermining our God-given freedoms and is dragging the country closer to nuclear war. She also said the party is hostile toward religious and spiritual people and police, and criticized its immigration and national security policies. The announcement was also the theme of the inaugural episode of her podcast, The Tulsi Gabbard Show, which launched Tuesday. According to the podcasts trailer, Gabbard will discuss a wide range of issues along with guests from all walks of life. 9th body found off southern Greek island A ninth body has been recovered off a southern Greek island where a yacht carrying nearly 100 migrants sank in a gale last week, the coast guard said Tuesday. Another six people are still believed missing. A coast guard statement said the body of a woman was located Tuesday near the wreck site on Kythira. Another two women and six men have been found dead since the Oct. 5 sinking. The overcrowded yacht had left Turkey on Oct. 3 and was headed through Greek waters for Italy when it veered off course, hit rocks just offshore in the dark and sank. Rescuers and residents saved 80 people, but survivors said about 15 were missing. Man charged after 6 bodies discovered A 21-year-old male has appeared in a South African court in connection with the discovery of six bodies at a car repair workshop in Johannesburg. The victims are believed to have been sex workers, and the suspect is so far facing one charge of murder. He was arrested on Sunday in connection with the disappearance of one woman, but then five other bodies were discovered during his arrest. The suspect is expected to be in an identity line-up before he appears again in court Tuesday, according to officials. NASA asteroid strike results in big nudge A spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away succeeded in shifting its orbit, NASA said Tuesday in announcing the results of its save-the-world test. The space agency attempted the test two weeks ago to see if in the future a killer rock could be nudged out of Earths way. The Dart spacecraft carved a crater into the asteroid Dimorphos on Sept. 26, hurling debris out into space and creating a comet-like trail of dust and rubble stretching several thousand miles. It took consecutive nights of telescope observations from Chile and South Africa to determine how much the impact altered the path of the 525-foot asteroid around its companion, a much bigger space rock. Before the impact, the moonlet took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its parent asteroid. Scientists had anticipated shaving off 10 minutes, but Nelson said the impact shortened the asteroids orbit by 32 minutes. Lets all just kind of take a moment to soak this in ... for the first time ever, humanity has changed the orbit of a celestial body, said Lori Glaze, NASAs director of planetary science. Shoppers headed to Short Pump Town Center might soon be allowed to breeze through the concourses with an alcoholic drink in hand. Brookfield Properties, the malls co-owner, applied for a Commercial Lifestyle Center license from the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority. The license would authorize any retail on-premises restaurant to sell alcoholic beverages to its customers. Its basically an open container license that will allow visitors over the age of 21 to bring alcoholic beverages bought from a tenant restaurant out with them while theyre shopping, said a spokesperson for Brookfield Properties. Permits of this kind cover areas like plazas, seating areas, concourses, walkways and similar types of spaces. The Brookfield spokesperson said tenants will have the authority to decide whether they want to allow drinks inside of their businesses. Alcohol will not be allowed in the parking lot. We believe this offering will be a fun option for guests over the age of 21, the spokesperson said. Weve seen this become a more common trend in other outdoor centers and popular with customers, so we hope to be able to offer this by the spring. Short Pump currently has 10 tenants that would be able to participate. Laws require that participating businesses serve to-go cups with the logo of the establishment where the drink was purchased. Tenants are not required to participate, but would have to be listed on the license. The application process is expected to take between three to six months, having been submitted on Sept. 23. The expectation is to have on-premise alcohol service no later than spring 2023. A spokesperson for Virginia ABC said there are currently nine commercial lifestyle center licenses active across the state. This would be the first in the Richmond metro area. If approved, licenses are active for the entire year and would not be limited to certain days of the week. Brookfield Properties manages a global real estate portfolio with over 160 retail properties. It took an ownership role in the Town Center in 2020. It also owns Chesterfield Town Center, and retail locations in Virginia Beach, Arlington and Tysons. BALTHASER, Mrs. Virginia "Ginny" Nelson, born October 7, 1968, went to be with Jesus on September 29, 2022. She fought a long battle with cancer and received her perfect and complete healing. She was a devoted Christian, wife, mother and friend. She taught private and public school and homeschooled her two children. She loved well and deeply. She is survived by her husband, David Balthaser; her children, Rebekah and John; her parents, Jane and Jack Nelson; and her sisters, Betsy Rountree and Nancy Wayland. She is also survived by many nieces, nephews and other family members whom she loved deeply. Her Celebration of Life service was held October 7, 11 a.m., at Mattaponi Baptist Church, 13466 The Trail, King and Queen Court House, Va. 23085. Please wear bright colors as she would want us to celebrate her life and her healing. Flowers may be sent to B.W. White Funeral Home, 7837 Richmond Tappahannock Hwy., Aylett, Va. 23009. Donations may be made to For His Children Ecuador or the Blessing Box Project. Virginia Repertory Theatre has purchased the Scottish Rite Temple at 4202 Hermitage Road for $3.5 million as the new home for its Childrens Theatre. Phil Whiteway, managing director of the theater, opened the doors on Tuesday, just minutes after signing the closing papers. This will be a major investment for Virginia Rep, the RVA community and all performing arts groups, Whiteway said. Im not going to cry, he added, jokingly. Located in the Bellevue neighborhood of North Richmond, the building will be named the Virginia Rep Center for Arts and Education and will house childrens theater productions, educational touring programs, camps, classes and workshops. Whiteway described the building as Richmonds Kennedy Center. Other parties interested in acquiring the property included real estate developers, who, due to its ideal central location and off-street parking, sought to raze the building to construct condos or apartments, he said. We will be saving the historic Scottish Rite Temple as a performing arts space for RVA audiences. The original asking price was $6.8 million. Owned by the Richmond Scottish Rite Masons since 1969, the building was listed for sale in 2018 when the organization decided to downsize. We had several parties interested in the property, Sam Dunn, the realtor and a member of the Richmond Scottish Rite Masons, said. But in the end this is a real win-win. The building includes three performance areas a 650-seat main auditorium and two smaller studio stages that will allow for an increase in performances. The facility also includes a commercial kitchen, dining hall and meeting rooms. The Childrens Theatre was previously located in Willow Lawn for 25 years, but vacated the mall last year when its rent was increased. After leaving our rented space at Willow Lawn during COVID and months of careful planning and due diligence, this investment will allow us to create a new path for the future of Virginia Reps childrens, families, and schools programming, which represents about 50% of our total operation, Whiteway said in a statement. With the roughly 50,000 square foot structure, the Childrens Theatre will have more rehearsal space for its 18 tour productions that reach over 400,000 students and families. There will also be room to double the number of camps, classes, and workshops currently offered. The nonprofit theater company has a $5.2 million fundraising campaign for the project, of which 50% has already been completed, as well as $1.5 million in reserve for renovation costs for restrooms, HVAC upgrades and other improvements. Virginia Rep is already busy planning its Childrens Theatre season, which will start in December with Twas the Night Before Christmas. Details with show dates and times will be announced soon, according to the theater. The new building will also be the future permanent home for Gospel Nativity, a new, annual holiday partnership with Virginia Union University, which has launched a new gospel music degree program. Were envisioning it as the equivalent of the new Nutcracker, Desiree Roots, artistic director for the theater, said. We have a beautiful stage here, a choir loft and even an organ. The main 650-seat auditorium is located off the second-floor atrium and outfitted with aqua seats straight from the 1960s, complete with the double-headed eagle insignia of the Richmond Scottish Rite Masons. The atrium space features enormous floor-to-ceiling cathedral windows. Im excited for children to come into this beautiful space, Roots said. The new building also offers a safe drop-off and pick-up area for families and schools, as well as a large lighted parking lot with 230 spaces. One of the really exciting aspects of the new building is the full commercial kitchen and dining hall, Whiteway said. We envision many fun special events, community gatherings, themed character meals and school group lunches taking place in this large space. The Richmond Scottish Rite Masons will continue to occupy the smaller office on the premises which houses the Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center and provides treatment for children with speech and hearing difficulties. The adjacent Acca Shriners property at 1712 Bellevue Ave. is separately owned and was not for sale. The property is located in the Hermitage Road Historic District. The Bellevue Civic Association supported Virginia Rep in applying for a special use permit to purchase the property, which was originally zoned for residential. We cant imagine a better outcome than to have such a highly regarded arts organization purchase and host performances in a theater thats been a part of North Side for more than 50 years, Tim Pfohl, vice president of the association, said. Virginia Rep hosts adult performances at the November Theater in downtown Richmond at 114 W. Broad St. and at the Hanover Tavern at 13181 Hanover Courthouse Road in Hanover. The new Childrens Theatre will be home to the Family Season. This year marks Virginia Reps 70th anniversary. Digital health care has its advantages. Privacy isnt one of them. In a nation with millions of uninsured families and a shortage of health professionals, many of us turn to health care apps and websites for accessible information or even potential treatment. But when you fire up a symptom checker or digital therapy app, you might be unknowingly sharing your concerns with more than just the app maker. Facebook has been caught receiving patient information from hospital websites through its tracker tool. Google stores our health-related internet searches. Mental health apps leave room in their privacy policies to share data with unlisted third parties. Users have few protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) when it comes to digital data, and popular health apps share information with a broad collection of advertisers, according to our investigation. Most of the data being shared doesnt directly identify us. For example, apps may share a string of numbers called an identifier thats linked to our phones rather than our names. Not all the recipients of this data are in the ad business; some provide analytics showing developers how users move around their apps. And companies argue that sharing which pages you visit, such as a page titled depression, isnt the same as revealing sensitive health concerns. But privacy experts say sending user identifiers along with key words from the content we visit opens consumers to unnecessary risk. Big data collectors such as brokers or ad companies could piece together someones behavior or concerns using multiple pieces of information or identifiers. That means depression could become one more data point that helps companies target or profile us. To give you a sense of the data sharing that goes on behind the scenes, The Washington Post enlisted the help of several privacy experts and companies, including researchers at DuckDuckGo, which makes a variety of online privacy tools. After the findings were shared with us, we independently verified the claims using a tool called mitmproxy, which allowed us to view the contents of web traffic. What we learned was that several popular Android health apps including Drugs.com Medication Guide, WebMD: Symptom Checker and Period Calendar Period Tracker gave advertisers the information theyd need to market to people or groups of consumers based on their health concerns. The Drugs.com Android app, for example, sent data to more than 100 outside entities, including advertising companies, DuckDuckGo said. Terms inside those data transfers included herpes, HIV, adderall (a drug to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), diabetes and pregnancy. These keywords came alongside device identifiers, which raise questions about privacy and targeting. Drugs.com said its not transmitting any data that counts as sensitive personal information and that its ads are relevant to the page content, not to the individual viewing that page. When The Post pointed out that, in one case, Drugs.com appeared to send an outside company the users first and last name a false name DuckDuckGo used for its testing it said that it never intended for users to input their names into the profile name field and that it will stop transmitting the contents of that field. Among the terms WebMD shared with advertising companies, along with user identifiers, were addiction and depression, according to DuckDuckGo. WebMD declined to comment. Period Calendar shared information such as identifiers with dozens of outside companies, including advertisers, according to our investigation. The developer didnt respond to requests for comment. What goes on at the ad companies themselves is often a mystery. But ID5, an adtech company that received data from WebMD, said its job is to generate user IDs that help apps make their advertising more valuable. Our job is to identify customers, not to know who they are, ID5 co-founder and CEO Mathieu Roche said. Jean-Christophe Peube, executive vice president at adtech company Smart, which has since acquired two other adtech firms and rebranded to Equativ, said the data it receives from Drugs.com can be used to put consumers into interest categories. Peube said in a statement shared with The Post that interest-based ad targeting is better for privacy than using technology like cookies to target individuals. But some consumers may not want their health concerns used for advertising at all. Knowing you by a number or interest group rather than a name wouldnt stop advertisers from targeting people with particular health concerns or conditions, said Pam Dixon, executive director of nonprofit research group World Privacy Forum. We consent to these apps privacy practices when we accept their privacy policies. But few of us have time to wade through the legalese, said Andrew Crawford, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. We click through quickly and accept agree without really contemplating the downstream potential trade-offs, he said. Those trade-offs could take a few forms, like our information landing in the hands of data sellers, employers, insurers, real estate agents, credit granters or law enforcement, privacy experts say. Even small bits of information can be combined to infer big things about our lives, said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the privacy organization Electronic Frontier Foundation. Those tidbits are called proxy data and, more than a decade ago, they helped Target figure out which of its customers were pregnant by looking at who bought unscented lotion. Its very, very easy to identify people if you have enough data, Tien said. A lot of times, companies will tell you, Well, thats true, but nobody has all the data. We dont actually know how much data companies have. Some lawmakers are trying to rein in health data sharing. California State Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan introduced a bill in February that could redefine medical information in the states medical privacy law to include data gathered by mental health apps. Among other things, this would prohibit the apps from using a consumers inferred or diagnosed mental health or substance use disorder for purposes other than providing care. The Center for Democracy and Technology, along with the industry group eHealth Initiative, has proposed a voluntary framework to help health apps protect information about their users. It doesnt limit the definition of health data to services from a professional, nor to a list of protected conditions, but includes any data that could help advertisers learn or infer about a persons health concerns. It also calls for companies to publicly and conspicuously promise not to associate de-identified data with any person or device and to require their contractors to promise the same. So, what can you do? There are a few ways to limit the information health apps share, such as not linking the app to your Facebook or Google account during sign-in. If you use an iPhone, select ask app not to track when prompted. If youre on Android, reset your Android Ad ID frequently. Tighten up your phones privacy settings, whether you use an iPhone or Android. An 18-year-old woman testified in front of a Henrico County jury on Tuesday and said she was sexually assaulted several times by her Short Pump Middle School gym teacher when she was 12. A retrial began for Dean Lakey, 61, of Henrico , who faces several felony sex charges. The case was first tried in June, but the jury could not reach a verdict and Judge L.A. Harris declared a mistrial. The woman sobbed as she testified on the first day of what is expected to be a three-day jury trial. She said the sexual assaults took place on campus once after school and several times during gym class. The woman said she didnt tell anybody when it happened because she didnt think they would believe her. Even now, she has a hard time using public restrooms because it reminds her of the assaults, she said. The Times-Dispatch does not name people who say theyve been sexually abused. In her opening statement, Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Alison Linas addressed the jury of six men and seven women. She described the student as an introverted and reserved straight-A student. What made her the model student for most teachers made her an easy target for Dean Lakey, Linas said. He turned what shouldve been her safe place into her literal nightmare. Lakeys attorney, Craig Cooley, focused on inconsistencies in the womans account. He said there is no corroboration and no scientific evidence that the assaults happened. The woman said one of the assaults happened after school hours, but Cooley said Lakey would have been off campus at the time. He showed the jury several documents including receipts from grocery stores and texts from Lakeys wife in the first three days of March 2017, when the woman said the assaults happened. Evidence in this case will show you Dean Lakey could not have committed the offenses, Cooley told the jury. The womans mother also testified Tuesday, saying her daughter often refused to go to school around March 2017, when the alleged assaults occurred. She said it was the first time her daughter had refused to go to school. The womans best friend from middle school also testified, and said the woman became withdrawn around the time of the alleged assaults. Lakey taught physical education at Short Pump Middle School for about 30 years. Henrico County Public Schools placed Lakey on paid administrative leave in April 2021, when school officials said they learned of the allegations. He was placed on unpaid administrative leave in September 2021 following his arrest, and remains on unpaid leave, an HCPS spokeswoman said Tuesday. The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. Richmonds flood wall has never been overtopped by the James River in its nearly 30 years, but Rep. Donald McEachin, D-4th, thinks a new engineering study is needed to assess how much water it can withstand if a catastrophic storm hits the city. In a letter sent Tuesday to Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and City Council President Cynthia Newbille , McEachin asked that it formally submit a request for a federal study, citing the possibility that climate change could cause a rain bomb to strike Richmond the same way that Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston in 2017. Richmond has its own history with severe flooding, and I fear that those instances of flooding in the city may increase as we continue to experience the effects of climate change, McEachin said in his letter. I believe it is imperative that we prepare the city for all possibilities. While the congressman was able to meet with officials from the Army Corps of Engineers recently to discuss his concerns, he said its up to the city or state government to request the study by the federal agency. In this briefing USACE staff noted that the floodwall and levee system is built to withstand a 280-year flood event, McEachin said. However, USACE has not, to date, studied whether the resiliency of the system has diminished as the impacts of climate change have become more pronounced. Commissioned on Oct. 21, 1994, the $143 million flood wall was designed to protect both Shockoe Bottom and Manchester from river flooding up to 32 feet. In addition to the large concrete wall, the citys flood prevention system includes an earthen levee more than a mile long and an additional wall-and-levee system about 2,000 feet long. The southern side of the system extends about 2 miles, while the northern barrier extends 1.2 miles. City officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon, but the mayor and council have previously stated concerns about climate change. The City Council year passed a resolution declaring a climate emergency. And the city last week announced the hiring of Laura Thomas as its first director of sustainability, who will be in charge of overseeing climate equity, action and resilience initiatives. The Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center will lead a $114 million initiative to increase diversity in clinical trials and improve health outcomes for minority residents. With funding from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation and Gilead Sciences, Inc., Massey will select medical students and doctors from across the country to learn how to build better trials and develop relationships with their communities. Researchers use medical research trials to test medicines and learn more about health patterns. But the volunteers are overwhelmingly white white residents made up 75% of trial participants in 2020 but just 58% of the population. Doctors worry theres a blind spot in how diseases and medicines affect Black and Latino populations. We cannot eliminate health disparities if clinical trial participants dont reflect the diversity of our population, Winn said. Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, which aims to eliminate global health disparities, first announced the program in 2020. The idea was for older doctors to mentor younger ones on how to develop relationships in communities and build trust. Then the younger doctors mentor medical students. Dr. Robert Winn, director of the Massey Cancer Center, became the chair for the programs advisory committee. When he was hired by VCU in 2019, he was just the second Black director of a nationally designated cancer center in the country. He has made health disparities a pillar of his career. The death rates of cancer can differ based on a patients race. Black men are twice as likely to die from cancer as Asian men and women, according to the American Cancer Society. In May, Bristol Myers Squibb renamed the program for Winn, calling it the Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Award Program. It intends to train nearly 600 doctors and medical students by 2027. Massey will oversee the program, choosing the winners and developing a curriculum. Rafael Robles, 24, a second-year VCU medical student, was one of the first participants. He spent six weeks in San Antonio learning about genetic data and what a persons genes say about their risk for cancer. But most of the data available comes from white residents. If the data pool was more diverse, doctors could do genetic tests on Black and Latino people and have a clearer understanding on the persons risk for cancer. Doctors more often need to engage with their community to understand its needs, said Robles, who was born in Colombia. Health care professionals have to understand their communitys need in order to treat it, he said. Russia has retaliated for a weekend Ukrainian attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its biggest and most widespread attacks against Ukraine in months. The lethal barrage Monday against multiple cities smashed civilian targets. Protests continue in Iran after the burial of a 22-year-old woman who died in Iranian police custody. Texas Democrats are embarking on another October blitz in pursuit of flipping Americas big red state. But Republicans are making an aggressive play to win races along Texas' mostly Hispanic southern border in November's midterms. New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two teenagers were shot outside his Long Island home. The international Red Cross and the United Nations want people and governments to do more to beat the heat by getting ready for heat waves like the 38 that have accounted for the deaths of more than 70,000 people worldwide from 2010 to 2019. The second week of Kevin Spacey's federal trial starts Tuesday in a #MeToo-era case against the actor in New York but no criminal charges are involved. Stage and screen star Anthony Rapp has sued Spacey, accusing him of assault, battery and intentionally inflecting emotional distress when Rapp was 14. Antonio Ovando (1st L), an asylum seeker who arrived in New York City less than a week ago, picks up clothes dropped off by New Yorkers outside a hotel in Staten Island, New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan) NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Antonio Ovando, who arrived in New York City less than a week ago, was expecting some people from the city to bring some clothes on Sunday afternoon when he joined his family members and fellow asylum seekers around the entrance of a hotel in Staten Island. Ovando told Xinhua that he arrived in Texas at the end of September, and then was advised to come to New York assuming they could get material support there. "We have no clothes and no shoes. And we ran out of money," Ovando said. Ovando stays with his wife and two young children in Comfort Inn on Staten Island, which is far from the downtown area and was recently converted into a shelter center for asylum seekers. New York City has contracted over 40 hotels across the city to accommodate over 17,000 asylum seekers since April 2022. Some migrants waiting outside the hotel were in their shorts, when the temperature in New York City had fallen to around 10 Celsius degrees. It was reported that some asylum seekers from the Comfort Inn knocked on the doors of local residents and asked for help. Ovando and other migrants finally picked up some clothes, which were dropped off by some New Yorkers at the hotel. More importantly, asylum seekers don't have work permits and have to wait for months, which adds to their anxiety and hardship. Ovando, who worked as an accountant in Nicaragua, said he needs to find a job though he is thankful for help from others. Jose, who came from Venezuela with his wife and son, said, "Getting a job is the most difficult thing for us who are here from far away." "We don't know how long we will stay here and we're just following instructions," said Ovando. As the vast majority of asylum seekers only speak Spanish, there is a language problem in everyday life and school. Moreover, the newly arrived asylum seekers may find themselves unwelcome in the local community. Shortly after the arrival of asylum seekers at the Comfort Inn, elected officials from Staten Island held a press conference voicing their opposition to placing migrants in the Comfort Inn, which is located in Travis-Chelsea neighborhood. "Travis is not the place for these asylum seekers. It's sad to say, but it's just not going to work here," said Gene Guerra, president of the Travis Civic Association. John Michael, a member of Travis Civic Association, posted a comment recently on the social media suggesting that community members hold a rally and protest against using the Comfort Inn and other hotels in the neighborhood as migrant shelters. Meanwhile, New York City is building a humanitarian emergency response and relief center for asylum seekers on Randall's Island in Manhattan borough. Dubbed as a "tent city," the transitory relief center is designed to accommodate 500 newly arrived asylum seekers, but the island's relative isolation, as local media reported, would not help migrants interact with the local community. Last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to a record-breaking influx of asylum seekers into the city, mostly from the southern border of the United States. Laborers work at the construction site of a humanitarian emergency response and relief center for asylum seekers on Randall's Island in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo) Laborers work at the construction site of a humanitarian emergency response and relief center for asylum seekers on Randall's Island in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo) Asylum seekers are seen at the entrance of a Comfort Inn hotel in Staten Island, New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan) Asylum seekers are seen at the entrance of a Comfort Inn hotel in Staten Island, New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan) Correction: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect title for Steve Neals book. This version has been corrected. Richmond police Chief Gerald Smith publicly praised the work of officers who investigated a tip that led to the seizure of weapons and ammunition from a South Side home on July 1. Our officers did great work, Smith said in mid-August, about six weeks after he publicly said the investigation stopped a mass shooting from happening at an Independence Day celebration at Byrd Parks Dogwood Dell. Detective Michael Kiniry was the lead detective on the case, and no one has questioned the work done by investigators. Kiniry was later approved to join the FBIs Richmond Area Violent Enterprise Task Force, known by the acronym RAVE, a prestigious role. According to an Aug. 19 letter the newspaper obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, a police supervisor signed the letter to Stanley Meador, the special agent in charge of the Richmond FBI office. The Richmond Police Department is aware of and approves Detective Michael Kinirys participation on the FBI RAVE task force, the letter said. Behind the scenes, though, Smith on Sept. 2 blocked Kiniry from joining the task force, according to two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about potential retaliation. It happened while the chief continued to face scrutiny for claiming that police had foiled a planned mass shooting without any corroborating evidence that they had. Smith declined several chances to be interviewed for this story about why he canceled the approval for Kiniry. When approached at an Oct. 5 public relations event the department held at a Starbucks, more than a week after he didnt respond to an interview request by email, Smith declined to answer any questions about Kiniry and the FBI task force. Lets talk about it later. Were here for Coffee with a Cop, he said. [This] is kind of like an ambush. A department spokeswoman then asked for any questions on the subject to be sent by email. In a statement Tuesday, Petula Burks, director of the citys Office of Strategic Communications and Civic Engagement, said the approval was not completed in accordance with a department policy that requires all detail assignments to be approved by the chief or a designee which a lieutenant who signed the letter was not, Burks said. When the letter was brought to the Chiefs attention, he halted the process because he wanted the department process to be followed, Burks said. The point of having a department-wide process is to ensure fairness and equity across the agency. She said the policy also requires that the position be announced department-wide, and that it was not. Burks said the chiefs decision was not retaliatory. Seizure captured national attention The weapons seizure on Columbia Street gained national attention, and Smith remains under scrutiny after providing false information about what detectives had found. A caller speaking Spanish on July 1 told police about the weapons and in a tip officers initially had difficulty understanding said there was a plan for a mass shooting on July 4 in Richmond, according to police. Detectives found the weapons but did not corroborate a plan for a mass shooting, and knew of no known location nor if there was indeed a plot. Smiths chief of staff told him officers had maybe prevented a mass shooting. Smith, in a news conference and in national media interviews July 6, stated as fact that police had broken up a plot to kill countless people at Richmonds July Fourth fireworks show at the Dogwood Dell amphitheater in Byrd Park. Smiths boss, Mayor Levar Stoney, also repeated that claim. Richmond police and Virginia State Police have refused to release the investigative report on the case. Federal authorities are now prosecuting the two men Smith and Stoney accused of planning a mass shooting, but neither man has been charged with any such plan. One faces an immigration charge and the second faces a weapons charge. Steve Neal is a retired Chesterfield police captain and nearly 30-year police officer who wrote a book titled Toxic Boss Blues about nine types of toxic behavior from police management nationally. Speaking generally and not specifically about Richmond, Neal said many police officers face a threat not just from the street but internally. Unfortunately in the law enforcement business, there are a fair number of people in leadership positions who are toxic. And often times theyre bullies, Neal said. If you talk to any police officer just about anywhere in this country, theyre going to tell you that toxic leadership and bad management behavior is an issue, and its unusual if they say that its not. The problem nationally stems from how police chiefs get into place they serve at the pleasure of a politician, he said. Their focus is more on pleasing the politician than it is on looking after the public or looking after their officers, he said. When pleasing a politician becomes the top focus in your workplace, ethical corruption takes center stage. Concerns about morale on citys police force Stoney handpicked Smith from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina in 2020, shortly after he fired former Chief William Smith amid social justice protests that roiled the city that summer. In choosing a new chief so quickly, Stoney broke a promise for a national search and sidestepped his own administrations vetting process. In December, the Richmond Coalition of Police, an organization that represents about half of the city departments officers, publicly called for Smiths resignation following a membership vote that saw 96% of respondents say they had lost confidence in the chief. The group also called on the mayors administration to fire him if he does not quit, but Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders has said he stands by him. Brendan Leavy, president of RCOP, could not be reached for comment. Several members of City Council have acknowledged that theres a police morale issue and lack of trust in the chief, particularly after the July 6 news conference. But they said theres little they can do as they have no power to fire or discipline the chief. Ninth District Councilman Michael Jones said he has not heard anything about the situation with Kiniry, but said one of his priorities in the coming year is helping recruit and retain officers as the department has about 150 vacant officer positions. Cool and dry will be the themes for most of the next two weeks, as weather systems will be moving into Virginia generally from the west or northwest. This direction limits the transport of moisture into the state from the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean and keeps temperatures near or below normal. Over the next week and a half, the chance for significant rain only comes twice. The first is Wednesday night through Thursday, as a quick moving system brings several rounds of showers, with rainfall amounts expected to be between about a quarter and a half of an inch. The next chance is Monday night into Tuesday of next week, but like the system approaching later this week, it will lack a deep connection to the Gulf or the Atlantic, so the rain total from that system will probably be even less, about a tenth to a quarter of an inch. Those looking for one last summer hurrah are likely going to be disappointed over the next couple of weeks, as highs during these next two weeks will generally range from the lower 60s to lower 70s. And after the spells of showers early next week, the two days that follow may hold in the 50s. Despite a switch to temperatures that are cooler than normal, there are still no obvious signs of a freeze coming. But on the cooler days that follow the showers early next week, there will be a night or two that fall into the 30s. Keep those nights in the back of your mind (Tuesday and Wednesday nights next week) if you are doing some long-term planning. If the current jet stream pattern holds as expected these next couple of weeks, this may be the first October to finish colder than average across Virginia since 2011. Moreover, the past six Octobers have all been at least 2 degrees warmer than the full 20th-century overage of 56.2 degrees. Comparing this month to last October may shock the system a bit, as October 2021 was the fifth-warmest October on record in Virginia statewide. Specifically in Richmond, only one month so far in 2022 has been colder than normal January. As result, Richmond is still having one of its 20 warmest years on record so far, currently in 13th place. But in the two-week period from Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, high temperatures in Richmond are tied for the ninth-coldest on record, a reflection of the cold rain and the lingering clouds from the decaying Hurricane Ian. The new Storied Strings: The Guitar in American Art exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts features paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture, as you might expect, but also a lot of other moving parts: vintage and newer guitars from pioneering musicians and instrument-makers, film and video of long-ago performances from different genres, and even an actual recording studio where guitarists some famous, some less so, all good will come to play and talk. A court has temporarily stopped former Roanoke City Councilman Robert Jeffrey Jr.s pending release from custody, saying it wants to take a closer look at the matter. Jeffrey was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in August for fraud. Last week, a three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals responded to a legal action by Jeffrey by ordering a Roanoke judge to set bond in Jeffreys case. Jeffrey had argued that he should remain free while he appeals his convictions. The panel said the trial court had abused its discretion by immediately jailing Jeffrey after sentencing. It sent the case back to court with an order to the judge that he set reasonable bond and conditions of release. But Jeffreys bid for release ran into interference. Later last week, prosecutors successfully argued that the entire 17-judge court should review the ruling before it took effect. Prosecutors seized on what they called a lack of detail in the first ruling. In what manner did the trial court abuse its discretion or upon what statute or case was such determination made? wrote Sheri Mason, an assistant commonwealths attorney. In addition, prosecutors said, only two of the three panel judges agreed to the decision, while one opposed it. Theres a diversity of opinion among members of the court that should be settled for the benefit of the parties herein and all criminal litigants in Virginia, Mason wrote. Officials canceled a hearing that they had scheduled Tuesday to set conditions of release. The appeals court did not indicate how long it would need for its review. Jeffrey was convicted in March of two counts of obtaining money by false pretenses and one count of embezzlement. He forfeited his seat on city council. In addition receiving a prison term, a judge said he must return $216,000 in stolen money. The Roanoke City Council appointed Anita Price as interim successor to serve until Dec. 31. Voters will pick a permanent successor in the Nov. 8 vote in a race between Republican Peg McGuire and Democrat Luke Priddy. Jeffreys attorney, Melvin Hill, has said that Jeffrey will make a second attempt to appeal his removal from council. A former employee of the U.S. Postal Services distribution center in Roanoke has pleaded guilty to stealing packages that contained prescription medication. Kevin Ayers admitted Friday that he stole three packages containing hydrocodone that had been mailed from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem in January 2021, according to evidence presented in Roanokes federal court. As parcels came through the post offices processing and distribution center, Ayers specifically stole these packages after feeling and examining them because he believed they contained hydrocodone pills, a summary of evidence stated. Under a plea agreement, Ayers will be screened for admission into the Veterans Treatment Court, a program that provides an array of services to veterans charged with certain criminal offenses. If he successfully completes the program, prosecutors have agreed to dismiss the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years. ROCKY MOUNT Franklin County Public Schools is preparing to look for a new superintendent. Bernice Cobbs has decided not to enter into another contract the school system, so that requires the start of a search process, county School Board Chairman Jeff Worley said at Mondays board meeting. Cobbs has guided the division through the latter part of the COVID-19 pandemic. She took over from the divisions previous superintendent, Mark Church, after he retired at the end of November 2020. The contract Cobbs signed at the time will end June 30, 2023. She said she is thankful to be leaving on good terms and acknowledged the challenges of the last two years. The school board, the staff and I have done good work together during my tenure ... and we will continue to do good work until my tenure is up. ... I am an advocate for Franklin County. ... Schools are the hub of communities and the decisions made by the superintendent and the board and our school leaders and staff impact the entire community and beyond, Cobbs said. She said she has always taken that responsibility very seriously and stressed the importance of education and her commitment to it. I know what its done for my life and my familys life and its made such a difference in our quality of life, what an education can do, Cobbs said. Cobbs said she has some other interests she would like to pursue after her contract ends. Id love to teach at the college level, Id love to write a book. ... Will I work full time? Probably not, Cobbs said. Cobbs a Franklin County native has been with the division for 25 years. In that time, she has also served as the divisions K-5 curriculum and instruction director, Franklin County High School assistant principal and principal of Benjamin Franklin Middle School, Boones Mill Elementary and Snow Creek Elementary. Cobbs holds a doctorate from Virginia Tech, masters degrees from Radford University and the University of Virginia, a bachelors degree from Ferrum College and an associate degree from Virginia Western Community College. The superintendent search comes at a busy time for the division, which is gearing up for renovations at Benjamin Franklin Middle School and preparing to build a Career and Technical Education facility. The division continues to grapple with a shortage of bus drivers, too, and on Monday the school board accepted the resignation of Cherie Whitlow, the divisions transportation supervisor. Whitlow has been responsible for coordinating new bus routes and schedules as drivers leave the division in droves. Her last day is Oct. 26. The division is also contending with declining enrollment. In July, division staff told the school board a comprehensive efficiency study would soon be necessary. The goal is to position the division for the future, particularly given its declining enrollment, and make sure resources are being used efficiently. We want to do that now in stages, rather than do it all at once, David Terry, director of finance and business for the division, said Monday. It will shorten the time, itll allow us to focus on specific areas. The division will begin by seeking bids for a facility utilization study. Its anticipated that the analysis will cost less than $50,000. Evaluating facilities capacity and future enrollment are critical for the success of the study, Terry said. Several school board members have overseen previous superintendent searches, but the newest ones have not. Its a long process and its one we dont want to wait until the last minute and its arguably the most important thing I think we can do as a board, Worley said. The board will have an open meeting Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. to discuss desired qualifications and securing a firm to conduct the search. Montgomery County Public Schools recently wrapped up its own superintendent search. Montgomery County schools began looking for a new superintendent following the school boards mid-March dismissal of former Superintendent Mark Miear. The Montgomery County search received roughly two dozen applicants. The school board ultimately selected Bernard F. Bragen Jr., a New Jersey superintendent who has spent more than 30 years in public education. The fate of the Thwaites could have serious repercussions for our planet. Today, the glacier occupies a deep ocean basin. If it retreats "substantially," Nitsche cautions that "ocean water would enter that basin. The surrounding ice including other glaciers would start flowing into this basin and start thinning as well." Advertisement Granted, as Nitsche explains, the melting process would take hundreds of years "if not more than a thousand" to unfold. But that's no excuse for inaction on our part especially because the loss of the Thwaites might also cost us a huge percentage of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. "If the Thwaites Glacier is lost entirely this will cause global mean sea level to rise by 25.6 inches [65 centimeters]," Larter tells us. He also says that if "all the adjoining parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where the ice bed is below sea level are lost," there'll be a global mean sea level increase of nearly 11 feet, or 3.3 meters. Even so, maybe the Thwaites doesn't deserve its apocalyptic nickname. "I don't like the term 'doomsday glacier,'" says Nitsche. In his view, the word "doomsday" implies that we can't take any proactive steps to slow the glacier's retreat. Actually, we can. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions could go a long way toward preserving the Thwaites for a while, at least. "It will take a lot of time (hundreds of years) to melt all the ice of Thwaites Glacier, but it will happen faster if we continue to heat up the planet quickly and much slower if we managed to drastically limit the warming of the planet," Nitsche observes. "So we might have some influence on how quickly this would happen and how much time we have to adapt or mitigate potential effects." Now That's Icy Greenland is the only place outside Antarctica with its very own ice sheet. By area, it's three times larger than the U.S. state of Texas. Vadim Makarov, head at the Laboratory of Analysis of Practical Vulnerabilities of Quantum Cryptography Systems and Development of Certification Methods of the MISIS University Quantum Communications Competence Center of NTI. Credit: NUST MISIS Several existing, off-the-shelf isolators and circulators could protect quantum key distribution (QKD) systems against a type of hacking known as light-injection attacks, a new experiment finds. These readily available devices either withstand the hacker's assault or self-destroy to stop the entire QKD system and ensure quantum keys do not end up in the wrong hands. They thus function like an electrical safety fuse in a house. QKD enables secret quantum keys to be sent over insecure channels. But there are risks with this type of transmission. If QKD isn't performed exactly the right way, it becomes vulnerable to light-injection attacks, in which extra bright light it sneakily added to the QKD fiber and invisibly penetrates inside the secure stations to carry away bits of the secret key. To address this concern, physicists and security professionals alike have been searching for effective countermeasures to prevent these hacks. Vadim Makarov and colleagues propose one solution: the addition of a sacrificial cheap device at the exit end of QKD fiber sources to resist light-injection attacks or break the quantum key transmission before hacking is successful. The researchers examined off-the-shelf optical isolators and circulators by burning them with a high-power fiber laser, and found that they could serve this function. "The result of the work was the creation of reliable protection against this class of attacks, and not just the discovery of a vulnerability, which is not very clear how to deal with. We hope that the countermeasure we tested will be immediately applied in all industrial systems of quantum cryptography," said Vadim Makarov, head at the Laboratory of Analysis of Practical Vulnerabilities of Quantum Cryptography Systems and Development of Certification Methods of the MISIS University Quantum Communications Competence Center of NTI. More information: arxiv.org/pdf/2201.06114.pdf Provided by The National University of Science and Technology MISIS FLORENCE Florence 1 School District Superintendent Richard OMalley has been named the 2022 South Carolina Arts Administrator of the Year. Palmetto State Arts Education presented the award to OMalley on Tuesday during a ceremony in Columbia. The award is presented annually to an administrator who has demonstrated a commitment to arts programs, making a difference in the lives of South Carolinas school students, upholding the mission of the South Carolina Art Education Association to advance learning in and through the arts for all students, according to Palmetto State Arts Education. Florence 1 School Districts Director of Arts and Innovative Programs Erick Figueras nominated OMalley. Figueras said OMalley has continually shown that he is a supporter of the arts, for all students. Dr. OMalley has provided unparalleled support for the districts arts programs each of his four years in this position, Figueras said. I have seen several superintendents come and go, each imparting minimal impact on arts programs and facilities. Over the course of my 23-year career in arts education, I have seen few administrators at any level, who have provided such meaningful fiscal and moral support for the arts. In the last several years, millions of dollars have been allocated for classroom renovations, new band uniforms, art supplies, visual arts equipment and musical instruments. At South Florence, Florence 1s Arts Magnet High School, facilities were established for ceramics, painting, AP art, theater, dance, and orchestra. Before that, a multi-million dollar investment was made to completely renovate the band rooms, chorus rooms and auditoriums in the districts three high schools. OMalley also has encouraged efforts to remove financial barriers that could limit student access. At several elementary schools, funds were provided to purchase instruments. Now, students who are interested in band and orchestra programs can participate without the concern of rental fees not being affordable for their families. Mike Lloyd, director of bands at South Florence, said it has been obvious to him that the districts support for the arts starts at the top. When I came into Florence 1, I was told that the district supports the arts in a big way, Lloyd said. The districts recent investment in the music programs shows that they are sincere in their support. From my first interactions with the district leadership I have seen that there is an authentic desire to support the music programs. To come in as a new director and essentially be asked what is needed for success is a dream come true. In my 15 years of directing I have never felt such a genuine level of support at the district level. Florence 1 is serious about providing my students with the tools that they will need to be successful and for that, I feel blessed. Significant investments also have been made in visual art supplies and equipment for painting, drawing and sculpting so that students get a broad introduction to all aspects of visual arts. Clay and glazes were purchased to make use of school kilns, giving students a place to produce beautiful pottery theyll proudly display in their homes. Basic supplies were stocked to keep the tools students use most when creating within reach. Art teacher Emily Viering said working in Florence 1 has been a literal dream come true. As a product of Florence 1, I always had a dream of returning back to the schools that created in me a love of learning and art, Viering said. It truly has been a great privilege to work in a school and district that puts the arts as a priority. I have been able to work with students using different mediums and artist styles that the students have not experienced before. I have received, and will continue to receive, a great amount of professional development which has provided me with new lesson ideas and materials. As a first-year teacher, I have experienced a lot of unknowns this school year, but I do know that I always have the support I need. Not only do I feel supported by my fellow fine arts teachers at Southside Middle and school administration, but also on the district level with Dr. Erick Figueras and Dr. OMalley. OMalley, the first superintendent to receive this award in almost a decade, said he is very appreciative of the recognition. It is a great compliment to receive an award like this because the nomination came from someone who works with me in the district and knows personally the strides that we have taken to get where we are, OMalley said. Most importantly, this award recognizes our commitment to providing resources that support our educators and our students. UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Cold War has been over for more than 30 years, but the Cold War mentality remains the biggest threat to peace and stability of the world, Li Song, the Chinese ambassador for disarmament affairs, said on Monday. At the moment, the global security structure, as well as international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation mechanisms, are facing the severest challenge since the end of the Cold War, Li said in a statement at the general debate of the First Committee of the 77th Session of the UN General Assembly. Certain countries, driven by the Cold War mentality, have continuously instigated competition and confrontation among major countries, strengthened their military blocs, and deliberately provoked and aggravated disagreements, he said. "Such policies have been seriously undermining mutual trusts among major countries, endangering global strategic balance and stability, and impeding the international arms control and disarmament process," Li said. Elaborating China's positions and proposals, the envoy said major countries, nuclear-weapon states in particular, must abandon concepts of strategic competition and bloc confrontation, halt any pursuit of exclusive or absolute security, and stop putting their own security above that of others. In January this year, leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states issued a joint statement, stressing that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, and reaffirming that none of their nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or at any other state. This historic statement is of great and far-reaching significance to preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races, Li said, adding that the five nuclear-weapon states should further strengthen communication and collaboration and jointly uphold global strategic balance and stability. "It is our hope that all nuclear-weapon states could respond positively to the repeated call from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and China to adopt the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons," he said. The two countries possessing the largest nuclear arsenals should earnestly fulfill their special and primary responsibilities toward nuclear disarmament, and make significant and substantive reductions in their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable, irreversible and legally-binding manner, so as to create conditions for multilateral nuclear disarmament, he said. Li stressed that the United States should stop the development or deployment of regional or global missile defense systems, refrain from deploying land-based intermediate range missiles in Asia-Pacific and Europe, and must not duplicate the nuclear sharing arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region. The trilateral cooperation on nuclear-powered submarines among the United States, Britain and Australia (AUKUS) runs counter to the objective and purpose of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), deals a serious blow to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system, poses severe risks of nuclear proliferation, and undermines regional peace and stability, the ambassador pointed out. "China expresses deep concerns with and strong opposition to such cooperation. China calls on all members of the international community, especially the IAEA member states to pay high attention to this issue, conduct thorough discussions and handle the issue with prudence, so as to preserve the integrity and effectiveness of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime," he said. China has played an active part in and worked to advance the international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation process. China stands ready to join hands with other countries in implementing the Global Security Initiative, firmly uphold multilateral international order, actively advance the international disarmament process, so as to contribute to the building of a community of shared future for mankind, Li said. Sazon Kitchen and Maiz Industry "babies" seem like pros While their path to restaurant ownership may be atypical, their embrace of the industry is whole-hearted. Aldo Gongora, Martha and Roxanne "Chef Vico" Martin met in restaurant management school in Baja California, Mexico. "We spent 3-1/2 years learning gastronomy," explains Aldo. "I was 30 while in school; Martha and Roxanne are sisters and Roxanne was a few years ahead of us." Aldo and Martha married in May 2017. Maiz team "I wanted to experience the world," recalls Aldo. "I spent a few months in the Ventura area of California, then came to the Northwest in 2000 to stay with a cousin. I fell in love with the area and stayed. I have a paint contracting business but always had it in my heart to cook and serve people. I would make menus while painting." Their families cooked a lot. "The whole family ate homemade meals together at the table. My family had a ranch in the Sierra de Juarez near Baja and we spent whole summers there. We'd go to the city and get a load of provisions, then cook them on a woodstove. We watched family members butcher the cows and make barbacoa. We'd pick and eat pine nuts, make cheese; it's all about these kind of memories. My mom raised me and my sister on her own and my aunt babysat and took care of us while mom was making ends meet. My aunt inspired me to get into the hospitality industry." Aldo and Martha bought a food truck in May 2019. "I had been searching online how to get involved with events and took an opportunity when it came up. We did Hempfest for a couple of years, as well as Bumbershoot and Bite of Seattle. Before I was even in the food business, I got on a wait list for a space at Pike Place Farmers Market. I always dreamed of being a vendor there." Besides events, the food truck didn't see the anticipated action. Their vision was to go into a gas station on Maple Valley Highway. The infrastructure wasn't there, and they knew it would take time/work to move the truck in and out. They started looking around and found a place in Ballard. Yet they would still have to move the truck every night. "It's 30 feet long, we didn't want to do it. We heard about a place on 15 th where a guy had a gyros place. We asked if we could park the truck there, but the owner said no." They changed their approach and asked if they could take over his restaurant. He said yes. At one time, the location had been a car rental spot with a high fence. They changed the fence, fixed up the patio, cleaned. "We were just looking for a parking space and ended up with a restaurant! We opened in May: the 10th was Mexico's Mother's Day, and the 12th was U.S. Mother's Day. We were so busy! Maiz wall mural "Roxanne's cooking inspired me to open a breakfast restaurant. She had been cooking breakfast and brunch in Mexico. The three of us created the menu. We wanted to bring the food we grew up with to Seattle. There were two towns in Baja near us that were 'trucker towns' that served big breakfasts to truckers who drove through: eggs, machaca, beans, potatoes, tortillas. Baja also has access to fresh fish, cattle for good steaks, and maiz (corn), but not as much corn as the rest of Mexico. We're very proud of the tortillas we make. We've traveled through Mexico and miss the tortillas we had. I've always loved coffee and the idea that you can source different beans from various parts of the world and impact communities. The same is true for corn. We want to showcase our culture with what we make." They served breakfast/brunch in the restaurant, and lunch from the taqueria truck. "During the pandemic, we merged them together," recalls Aldo. "We used the truck for events then." They were going to try dinner service but stopped when the pandemic slowed things down. The Sazon concept is about breakfast, brunch, and tacos. In the summer of 2020, they opened a second Sazon on the top of Queen Anne. The location was going to be developed but it was a good test to see if the neighborhood was a fit. During the last few months they were open, they tried table service. After 2-1/2 years they closed but will use the space as a commissary kitchen until they have to vacate. In 2021, Aldo heard from Pike Place Market about a vacancy. He had been on the list for 7-8 years! After an extensive selection process, they won the space (next to Starbucks in the former Mexican Grocery shop), going in as Maiz Antojitos & Tortilleria, which is more of a fonda with street food. They source from Mexico and it's expensive; they use non-GMO heirloom artisan-produced nixtamal corn. By trading with small scale farmers, the farmers can keep harvesting as many as 59 different registered varieties in Mexico and more in the U.S. When the Market location came up, it was the right place to focus on corn. You choose your filling, then the wrapping: sopes, gorditas, tamales, tacos. Maiz mussels Their newest location is in Belltown, Maiz Molino Antojitos & Tortilleria, which opened September 29. In Mexico, molinos are places where people bring their corn to grind and take home. They become community spaces. Along with the restaurant, Maiz produces masa. Lunch is the same as the Pike Place menu; dinner table service offers plated meals and a bar. You choose a menu item vs. choosing your filling and wrapping like the Market location. They take reservations and offer some seating for walk-ins. "It's our first time working with an elaborate menu, bar, and reservation system," says Aldo. "This location has high ceilings and open space. We painted and tiled it ourselves. Lately I've felt more like a contractor than a chef!" Some other restaurants, including Sazon Kitchen, now carry Maiz tortillas for tacos, but they don't have enough production to supply them for chilaquiles yet. "We just use so many of them!" At some point, they'd love to sell to grocery stores. "That's a big deal, we'd have to deal with bigger working spaces, shelf time and delivery. We're babies in this industry and are still learning every day." Connie Adams/October 2022 Shota Nakajima Competing against himself yesterday Ostensibly, our interview with Shota on September 23 was about his new partnership with Redhook running the kitchen at Redhook Brewlab and creating pizzas inspired by Detroit-style pies with a Japanese palate. And we did, later. But first we talked about his outlook on life. Shota's family is all about the hospitality business; his father's family has a restaurant; his mother's family owned a bakery. The family had to hustle. "I learned early on that we make our own future," Shota recalls. He was born in Japan, and the family moved to Washington when he was very young. They returned to Japan for a few years and Shota spent those years in junior high before they returned to the US. When he was 16, he dropped out of high school. I needed a job, so I got one in a restaurant, Kiku Sushi. I also filled in with full time hours at other restaurants. It was liberating. I learned to show up and do my best, and I got praised. People liked me because they could count on me." At 18, he decided he wanted to go to Japan and work with a Michelin star chef. "I had no idea what that meant. I saw Japanese chefs that trained in the US and those who trained in Japan. I wanted to be 'that guy' - the one who trained in Japan. I saw success as having a fulfilling life where I had a lot of experiences and met a lot of great people. I had a duffle bag and no plan. What's the worst that can happen? If I'm not dead, things are okay." His mentor was Chef Yasuhiko Sakamoto, a Michelin star rated chef and Shota worked 120 hours each week. "I wouldn't want to work at a Michelin star restaurant here. It's very different in Japan, it's like an army, extremely vertical and logical. The chef may put up with something you say in a bad way, but if it's logical, you'll get away with it. If it's not logical, you will know. I used to think, 'Seriously, does it have to be 3 ml exactly?' and the answer is yes. I was about 2-3 years in when I was at a bar with Chef when he asked me why details matter. I didn't know. In the restaurant, everyone is back of the house, and everyone touches the dish before it goes to the customer. Everyone understands how much goes into that dish. It's about pride in doing everything for that guest." Shota stayed in Osaka for 5-1/2 years. People said he'd never make it in Japan. "I am so stubborn. They said I couldn't, so I did. I really intended to stay 10 years, but I came back to Washington to be near my family." When asked if possibly people understood his stubbornness and used it to motivate him, Shota smiles and agrees they may have used that technique. He worked at Sushi Kappo Tamura from 2011-12 and started Kappo Kitchen catering in 2014. "My plan at age 20 was to have a restaurant at 25." It happened in June 2015 with Naka Kaiseki, a fine dining restaurant serving 10-15 courses. "I want to spread joy through food. Naka was expensive because of what we served. I switched it over to Adana in February 2017, using the same cooking methods and offering three courses. I could cook for more people, and it was more casual. Then my goal was to have a second restaurant when I was 30." That's when he opened Taku, an Osakan kushikatsu restaurant, in March 2020. When the pandemic hit, he closed both. Adana closed forever. Taku emerged as a karaage restaurant in May 2021. "Changing Taku to karaage was really an operational choice," explains Shota. "When you have a lot of ingredients, there is food loss, money loss, a lot of time spent managing. It's too much. I love karaage. When I'm in Japan, I get it at 7-Eleven. It's great for what it is. Focusing on one thing is harder than it seems. When you're making that much chicken, you have to get the oil just right, maintaining the temperature. It's taken us a year, but we have it nailed down." Running restaurants is not all he was doing. He started appearing on TV and gaining recognition: Iron Chef Gauntlet in 2017; Beat Bobby Flay, tempura challenge, in 2018 (Shota won); was one of Eater's Young Guns in 2018; was a national semifinalist for James Beard Awards in 2018, 2019, and 2020; was on Bravo's Top Chef, Portland, in 2020; has maybe a gazillion You Tube videos; a Zagat video. He's constantly in demand, cooking less, creating more, making appearances, working with well-known chefs and others. How does it feel to be in the limelight? "I don't feel it at all. My mother taught me early on not to compete against anyone except myself yesterday. I focus on that. Recognition is great, but it's more important to me to celebrate the times I worked hard. What someone else thinks isn't as important." Connie Adams/October 2022 Stay tuned for next month's story on how Shota came to partner with Redhook Brewlab on pizza. Kobo Redhook Brewlab 714 E Pike Street Seattle, WA 98122 info@kobopizza.com www.kobopizza.com Taku 706 E Pike Street Seattle, WA 98122 206-829-9418 www.takuseattle.com Shota on Top Chef, Season 18 Make Umami Chef shop curated by Chef Shota Nakajima makeumami.com "Three steps to setting federal prisons on the right path" | Main | Notable new research on modern operation and impact of Three Strikes law in California October 11, 2022 Three Justices dissent from denial of cert in Texas capital case based on concern for ineffective counsel The Supreme Court issued this new order list this morning. The list includes no new grants of certiorari and lots and lots of cert denials. One of those cert denials, in the Texas capital case of Thomas v. Lumpkin, generated this 14-page dissent by Justice Sotomayor which was joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. Here is how this dissent gets started: Petitioner Andre Thomas was sentenced to death for the murder of his estranged wife, their son, and her daughter from a previous relationship. Thomas is Black, his wife was white, and their son was biracial. Thomas was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury, three of whom expressed firm opposition to interracial marriage and procreation in their written juror questionnaires. Among other reasons, these jurors opined that such relationships were against Gods will and that people should stay with [their] Blood Line. App. to Pet. for Cert. 395a. Despite their declarations of bias, Thomas counsel not only failed to exercise peremptory strikes on these individuals or move to strike them for cause, but failed even to question two of the three jurors about their stated bias and whether it could affect their deliberations. Without objection from Thomas counsel or the States attorney, the three jurors were seated. Together with nine other white jurors, they convicted and sentenced Thomas to death. Thomas conviction and death sentence clearly violate the constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel. The contrary judgment of the Fifth Circuit should be summarily reversed. October 11, 2022 at 10:06 AM | Permalink Comments Commenting just to point out that everyone should read the dissent in full. The prosecutor's closing remarks were downright despicable and full on dog whistle. Posted by: Zachary Newland | Oct 11, 2022 1:00:36 PM Post a comment AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, October 11, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) of "a-" (Excellent) of rsted Insurance A/S (ORIAS) (Denmark). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. The ratings reflect ORIAS balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). ORIAS is the captive commercial property insurer for rsted A/S (rsted), a global sustainable energy group headquartered in Denmark. ORIAS very strong balance sheet strength assessment is underpinned by its risk-adjusted capitalisation, which is significantly above the level required for the strongest assessment, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). The company also benefits from a very conservative and liquid investment portfolio. Offsetting factors in the assessment include the companys high dependence on reinsurance, although the risks associated with this dependence are partly mitigated by ORIAS longstanding relationship with its highly rated reinsurance panel. The adequate operating performance assessment reflects the companys track record of good but volatile underwriting results. The captive has reported underwriting profits, net of reinsurance, in four of the past five years, benefiting from low claims frequency. In 2021, ORIAS reported a net profit of DKK 28.3 million (USD 4.3 million), boosted by reserve releases from claims relating to the previous year (2020: DKK 28.8 million (USD 4.7 million) loss, driven by prudent reserving for three large claims, which have been adjusted down significantly in 2021). Prospective performance is subject to volatility from the companys exposure to potentially large property losses, but underwriting volatility is moderated on a net basis by the captives comprehensive reinsurance programme. Story continues As a captive monoline insurer providing commercial property insurance covers for rsted, ORIAS underwriting portfolio is concentrated in commercial property insurance but well-diversified geographically. ORIAS neutral business profile assessment also reflects its strategic importance to rsted. AM Best remains the leading rating agency of alternative risk transfer entities, with more than 200 such vehicles rated throughout the world. For current Bests Credit Ratings and independent data on the captive and alternative risk transfer insurance market, please visit www.ambest.com/captive. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Bests Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Bests Credit Ratings, Bests Performance Assessments, Bests Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Bests Ratings & Assessments. AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright 2022 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006093/en/ Contacts Morgane Hillebrandt Senior Financial Analyst +31 20 308 5422 morgane.hillebrandt@ambest.com Dr. Mathilde Jakobsen Director, Analytics +31 20 308 5427 mathilde.jakobsen@ambest.com Christopher Sharkey Manager, Public Relations +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159 christopher.sharkey@ambest.com Al Slavin Communications Specialist +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5098 al.slavin@ambest.com Private equity provides better returns than public markets in the longer term. Here's why Private equity is often viewed as the domain of institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance funds and very high net worth individuals. For instance, the Liechtenstein Princely family, through their private bank LGT Bank, invests in private equity. Investing in private equity is for long term investors as some private equity funds are long dated with lifespans of 10 years or more. Indeed, returns from private equity depend somewhat on the vintage of the fund or investment. In recent years, Singapore retail investors have become familiar with private equity through Astrea bonds offered to them. The coupons on these bonds are backed by cash flows from private equity funds. In addition to institutions, accredited investors, family offices and the investing public are increasingly familiar with private equity property funds. Over the past 20 years, the likes of CapitaLand, Mapletree Investments, Keppel Capital and ARA Asset Management (now part of the ESR Group) offered an array of private equity property funds. In 2018, the Monetary Authority of Singapore allocated US$5 billion for management with private equity and infrastructure fund managers. The rationale for encouraging private equity to be managed out of Singapore is because of the business mentorship for start-ups, often helping these fledgling companies to grow and scale up their businesses, which in turn can benefit the start-up scene in Singapore. In 2021, private equity AUM in Singapore rose 54% y-o-y to $375 billion compared to traditional AUM growth of 15%. Interestingly, based on data from Bloomberg, over the long term, private equity provides higher returns than the equity market. In September this year, Charles (Chip) Kaye, group CEO of Warburg Pincus, met with The Edge Singapore for an exclusive interview at its offices on OUE Bayfront, overlooking Marina Bay, with Marina Bay Sands as the backdrop, to explain his companys business of private equity and how his companys strategy is differentiated from other private equity companies. Story continues Warburg Pincus started in 1966; we are one of the oldest and largest private equity firms in the world. We had a public equities business when the firm first started, which was sold to Credit Suisse in the late 1990s. The traditional business of the firm that it is known for, and which has grown substantially over time, is our private equity business, he says. The original concept of private equity is to find a company with talented people, for which Warburg Pincus can provide capital for, and with which Warburg Pincus can grow and build a business with. Watch out for our full interview with Chip Kaye. See Also: Australia are banking on a rookie power-hitter born in Singapore to help them defend the Twenty20 World Cup on home turf later this month. Lanky right-hander Tim David had been knocking on the door with a series of blistering performances on the global T20 circuit, including in the Indian Premier League and England's T20 Blast. David has become one of the most sought-after finishers in the game and Australia skipper Aaron Finch said it was a no-brainer to include him in the squad for a home tournament where conditions are expected to favour batsmen. "The form that he's been in over the last couple of years has been outstanding," Finch said of David, 26, whose rise really started last year when he had a breakout season with the Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash League. "His power, first and foremost, is really impressive, but he's the overall package with some handy off-spin overs and good in the field (too)." David, who stands 1.96m (6ft 5in) tall, played 14 T20s for Singapore but was eligible to switch allegiance because he has Australian parents. He was in line to feature for Australia earlier this year when Sri Lanka toured for five T20s, but he had already been picked up by Multan Sultans in the Pakistan Super League when he got the call from chief selector George Bailey. "At no point there was being picked for Australia really something I was thinking about... because I just thought they'd won the World Cup three months ago and that was still a really strong team," he said recently. Ultimately, Bailey decided it would be better for David to play in Pakistan rather than potentially carry the drinks for Australia. It proved a good call with David building his reputation further by whacking 278 runs at a phenomenal 194.40 strike rate in 11 matches. It led to him being picked up by Mumbai Indians in the 2022 Indian Premier League auction, where he faced 86 balls and smashed 16 of them for six. - Right at home - He finally made his Australian debut last month in India, hitting a maiden T20 half-century off just 25 balls. Story continues "It's nice to start off well in a new team," David said. "It's nice to feel like I've landed on my feet. "Just being around a lot of the guys that you're playing against or playing with (before), so it doesn't feel like a massive step up." Australia's problem is where to fit him into a side that, bar spinner Mitchell Swepson, is unchanged from the one that beat New Zealand by eight wickets to win the World Cup last year in the United Arab Emirates. Finch and fellow veteran David Warner appear certain to open the batting, with Mitchell Marsh at three. That leaves four, five, six and seven, which in the UAE were filled by Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell and wicketkeeper Matthew Wade. Finch has given few clues on who could make way for their opening game against New Zealand in Sydney on October 22, but confirmed David would feature in the middle order if selected. "He's become really consistent in that role which is really tough to do for a finisher-type player, a power-hitter," Finch said. "I think that would be the role. There's plenty of flexibility in our squad though." Despite Swepson being dropped Australia still have three spinners on hand in Adam Zampa, Ashton Agar and Maxwell. Their pace attack is again led by Test captain Pat Cummins and fellow stalwarts Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, along with Kane Richardson. mp/pst The last surviving bomber in the Bali blasts that killed more than 200 people two decades ago has expressed regret for the deadliest terror attack in Southeast Asia ahead of its 20th anniversary on Wednesday, but victims have rejected his apology. Ali Imron was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the blasts that ripped through a nightclub and a bar on the Indonesian resort island, killing 202 people including 88 Australians. "I will regret it until I die. And I will apologise until I die," he told AFP uncuffed in front of an Indonesian flag and a picture of President Joko Widodo at Jakarta's sprawling metro police headquarters. But victims and the Australian government have refused to accept the remorse of the remaining members of the Bali bomb cell. "When people are in a bind they will say anything to get out of the problem," said Thiolina Marpaung, a 47-year-old survivor left with permanent eye injuries. "He said that because he was sentenced to life." Imron helped mastermind the bombings. He built the devices, planted a bomb outside the US consulate in Bali, and trained the attackers who detonated a suicide vest and a van loaded with explosives. The 52-year-old is the only living Bali bomber still alive after the attack. Now he languishes in a drug offenders' facility, instead of prison, after claiming repentance and aiding Indonesia's deradicalisation efforts. His brothers Amrozi and Mukhlas were executed by firing squad on a central Javan prison island. But Imron was saved from execution after showing remorse and divulging the plot to investigators. The convicted mass murderer now helps the Indonesian government in a deradicalisation programme experts criticise for ineffectiveness. - 'Justice cut short' - Indonesia in August approved parole for Bali bombmaker Umar Patek. After his capture in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in 2011, he claims to have rehabilitated after serving half of his 20-year sentence. But Jakarta has held off freeing him after angering the Australian government. Story continues "We have made representations to the Indonesian Government about the release of individuals convicted for their role in the Bali bombings, noting the distress it would cause victims and families," an Australian department of foreign affairs and trade spokesperson told AFP. "Ultimately, these are matters for the Government of Indonesia and its domestic legal processes." Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong will attend a memorial ceremony Wednesday at Canberra's Bali consulate, an Australian diplomat told AFP. Imron is hoping for a similar decision on his sentence. He said he submitted a request for a presidential pardon this year but received no response. There have been no reports of Indonesian officials discussing his release. Indonesia's National Counter Terrorism Agency, justice ministry and a presidential adviser did not respond to a request for comment. While the programme's terms for an early release are strict - participants must pledge allegiance to Indonesia and disavow their networks -- the potential release of convicted mass murderers is highly controversial. Experts are critical of leniency for militants like Imron who aligned with the now-banned Jemaah Islamiyah group, Al-Qaeda's much-diminished network in Indonesia. "How do they think? Nobody knows. You never know if it's sincere or not. But you have to look at the actions," said Sana Jaffrey, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta. Imron said he acted on the orders of his older brother following the US invasion of Afghanistan but now calls it a "wrong act of jihad". He claimed to have since helped deradicalise at least 400 jihadists. He has also fronted a comic book campaign that preached tolerance to young Indonesians. If released, he said he would "continue walking on the path of a deradicalisation campaign". - 'Survival mechanism' - It is a message analysts said Imron may be promoting in hope of securing an early release. He was also speaking in the presence of an officer from Indonesia's elite counter-terrorism unit. "It's part of his survival mechanism. This is something he has to say," said Southeast Asian terrorism specialist Noor Huda Ismail. It is hard to tell if Imron has truly deradicalised, with his word his only evidence. He showed little emotion when speaking about the attack and sought to re-emphasise his counter-extremism work despite being a jailed extremist himself. Whatever the case, Imron wants to tell the people whose lives he impacted that his actions were wrong. "I will always apologise profusely to them," he said. But for Marpaung only God can judge Imron. "Please don't give a sentence cut," she said. "He can say that he has repented and he has changed, but only God truly knows the truth." jfx/mca The United States announced new sanctions Tuesday against the Taliban as punishment for their repressive treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken unveiled the new visa restriction policy for current or former members of the Taliban and others involved in repressing women through restrictive policies and violence. Blinken made the announcement on the UN's International Day of the Girl Child. "As a grim example, for more than a year, Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are systemically barred from attending school beyond the sixth grade, with no return date in sight," Blinken said. After coming back to power in August 2021 following the retreat of US forces, the hardline Taliban have barred girls from attending secondary school. But women are allowed to attend university. A recent suicide bombing on a Kabul classroom killed and wounded dozens of pupils as they prepared for exams. The United Nations has put the death toll at 53, including 46 girls and young women. The bomber blew himself up next to women at a gender-segregated study hall packed with hundreds of students taking a practice test for university admissions. lb/dw/jh Full student loan forgiveness could be closer than you think under temporary rules for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF but time is running out to apply. They should rush to get this done because the program is far more inclusive than it's ever been in the past, says Kristen Ahlenius, an accredited financial counselor and director of education at Your Money Line, a financial wellness company. Payment requirements for the program are more lenient under a limited waiver that expires Oct. 31. Before the waiver, Ahlenius says, PSLF was kind of this dismissed program for so long because it was so unachievable. The basic requirements for PSLF are to work for a qualifying public service employer, make 120 student loan payments and have federal direct loans. But the program has lots of caveats, which led to approval rates below 2% and furious, confused borrowers. People thought they were on track and submitted their application only to get a rejection, says Betsy Mayotte, president and founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors. In particular, that happened to people who had the wrong kind of loans and people who were on the wrong payment program. In addition to having direct loans, borrowers must make payments on an income-driven repayment plan to be eligible. The PSLF waiver addresses those criticisms. It counts more time toward the required 120 months, including periods of hardship deferment, months with late payments and months not enrolled in income-driven repayment. It also opens the door to borrowers with Federal Family Education Loan Program, or FFELP, loans. Heres who should apply now and how to do it. Who should apply now Current and previous public service workers Your job sector is the key criterion for the PSLF waiver. Your time with a qualifying employer must coincide with the time your student loans were in repayment. These types of employment typically qualify: Federal jobs. State government jobs. Local government jobs. Tribal government jobs. Not-for-profit organization jobs. Military service. Your employer is what matters not what you do. Payments wont count if you work for a private employer, as a government contractor or part time. Parent PLUS loans and joint spousal consolidation loans dont qualify, either no matter your job. Check the PSLF employer search tool to make sure your employment qualifies. You might be closer than you think, Ahlenius says. FFELP borrowers FFELP loans normally aren't eligible for PSLF. If you first consolidate your FFELP loans into a direct loan, however, your previous payments will be counted toward forgiveness thanks to the waiver. The employment qualifications still apply. Previously denied applicants If you were denied PSLF in the past, you could receive additional months toward the 120 needed for forgiveness under the waiver. The Department of Education said it is reevaluating previously denied PSLF claims and will contact borrowers whose accredited time is adjusted. If you havent heard anything, you should absolutely submit again, Mayotte says. How to apply Applying for the PSLF waiver has only a few steps: Log into studentaid.gov to make sure you have direct loans. Consolidate if you dont have direct loans. Complete your employer certification form(s) with the required signatures dated by Oct. 31. Submit the form(s) to the Education Department. You must complete a separate employer certification form for each eligible job. Using the PSLF help tool, available at studentaid.gov/pslf, instead of the paper form can streamline the process and help prevent errors. Anybody that has any period of working full time for either a government employer, any 501(c)(3), youve got nothing to lose and everything to potentially gain, Mayotte says. The 20-story Lied Place Residences, which topped out last year at 250 feet, making it the city's second-tallest building after the state Capitol, may not hold that title for long. Developers are proposing a 22-story building at Ninth and P streets that would likely eclipse Lied Place by a few feet. The building, to be built on the northwest corner of the intersection, where Melichar's 66 Sales & Service has sat for more than five decades, would combine office space, rental apartments and condo units. According to plans submitted to the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Department, the building would have 36,000 square feet of office space on floors two through five, 70 luxury apartment units on floors seven through 15, and 33 condo units on floors 16 through 21. Steve Glenn, one of the partners in the development, called it a "very dynamic building" that's going to be "transformational for Lincoln." "There's nothing like this between Chicago and Denver," said Glenn, who owns Lincoln-based Executive Travel and several other businesses. Amenities planned include a members-only club on the roof of the building and a host of amenities on the sixth floor for apartment renters that will include a pool, fitness center, co-working suites and a pet wash station, he said. The total cost of the project is estimated at $87 million, including about $23 million of tax-increment financing, which allows the developers to use future property taxes the project generates to pay for certain upfront costs. A good portion of the TIF money would likely go to demolition and site remediation, as underground fuel tanks will have to be removed and any contamination cleaned up before construction starts. If the project comes to fruition, it will mean the end of Melichar's at least in its iconic downtown location where it's operated as a family business since it was built in 1969. Bruce Melichar, whose dad was involved with the opening of the location and whose son, Jeff, runs day-to-day operations now, said he's been given a time frame of January or February for when developers will make a final decision on whether the project will go forward, and he's been told demolition work could begin as early as May. While he doesn't want to leave downtown, where he said the station is "probably doing more business than we've ever done," he does have an agreement in place to take over operation of another Phillips 66 station in Lincoln. "At least we've got a plan where Melichar's will still be doing business in Lincoln, Nebraska," he said. If built, the new high-rise would join a number of other projects that are adding hundreds of living units downtown, most of them in the area bounded by Eighth, 11th, N and Q streets. They include Atmosphere Lincoln, a 13-story, 320-unit student-oriented apartment complex expected to open next summer on the former site of the Journal Star at 926 P St.; WD Brock Lofts, a 70-unit apartment development at 1030 O St. that's in the planning stages; a redevelopment of the Terminal Building at 10th and O streets that's adding 30 condo units to its upper floors; and the redevelopment of the former Lincoln Electric System headquarters building at 11th and O streets into approximately 20 condos. Todd Ogden, president and CEO of the Downtown Lincoln Association, said there's plenty of demand to absorb another 100 or so downtown residential units. "Our occupancy numbers are still very strong, so we more than welcome this type of development in downtown Lincoln," Ogden said in an email. "More inventory in the market will lead to more competitive price points and bring more people to an area that is continuing to thrive on its rapid transformation into a 24/7 urban neighborhood." He called Glenn a "downtown champion," who, along with his partners, have "put a lot of thought into this development." Among Glenn's partners are his son, Paul; Mike Weatherl, who founded Silverhawk Aviation and now owns a company that provides security and janitorial services; and Alexander Carlson, whose family owns ARYSE, a startup that makes high-tech orthopedic braces. Glenn said there are a number of other partners in the project, but he declined to name them. He said the group has been working on the development for more than five years, and he was careful to note that a lot of work still has to be done to ensure it becomes a reality. "We don't want to portray that this is a done deal," he said. But Glenn said he's optimistic. The development group has secured financing and has 40% of the condo units presold, he said, close to its goal of 50% to start construction. The city approval process is tentatively scheduled to start Nov. 2 with a public hearing before the Planning Commission, likely followed later that month with a hearing before the City Council. If everything goes as planned, Glenn said he hopes to be able to break ground next spring, with an expected construction timeline of 24 months. "We're very excited," he said. "We want this building to be a catalyst for the city." SAO PAULO, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Palmeiras missed a chance to tighten their grip on Brazil's Serie A title when they were held to a 1-1 away draw by relegation-threatened Atletico Goianiense on Monday. Murilo Cerqueira gave the visitors the lead with a 49th-minute strike before Shaylon Cardozo equalized just after the hour mark. The result leaves Palmeiras with 67 points, 10 points ahead of second-placed Internacional with seven match days remaining. Goianiense are 18th in the 20-team standings with 29 points. In Monday's only other Brazilian Serie A fixture, Lucas Braga scored twice as Santos romped to a 4-1 home win over Juventude. Marcos Leonardo and Madson were also on target for the eight-time Serie A champions while Bruno Nazario pulled a late goal back for the visitors. KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Russian forces showered Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in an attack the U.N. human rights office described as particularly shocking and amounting to potential war crimes. Air raid warnings sounded throughout Ukraine for a second straight morning as officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. The strikes have knocked out power across the country and pierced the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the war's front lines. It brings anger, not fear, Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as crews worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from the capital's streets. We already got used to this. And we will keep fighting. The leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers condemned the bombardment and said they would stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Their pledge defied Russian warnings that Western assistance would prolong the war and the pain of Ukraine's people. Russia launched the widespread attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast. The Ukrainian government has applauded it but not claimed responsibility. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the G-7 leaders during a virtual meeting that during the past two days Russia fired more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine, and that while Ukraine shot down many of them, it needs more modern and effective air defense systems. The Pentagon earlier announced plans to deliver the first two advanced NASAMs anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, will provide medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks. In a phone call with Zelenskyy on Tuesday, President Joe Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems, the White House said. Zelenskyy thanked the U.S. and also Germany for speeding up the delivery of the first of four promised IRIS-T air defense systems. Ukraine's defense minister tweeted that the German system had just arrived and begun a new era of air defense for Ukraine. Zelenskyy also urged the G-7 leaders to respond symmetrically to the attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector by doing more to stop Russia from profiting off its exports of oil and gas. Such steps can bring peace closer, he said. They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war. Ukrainian officials said the diffuse strikes on power plants and civilian areas made no practical military sense. However, Putins supporters had urged the Kremlin for weeks to take tougher action in Ukraine and criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing battlefield setbacks. Pro-Kremlin pundits lauded the attacks as an appropriate response to Kyivs successful counteroffensives. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity to win a war now in its eighth month. The head of Britains cyber-intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, said Tuesday in a rare public speech that Russia is running out of military supplies and struggling to fill its ranks. Russias forces are exhausted," Fleming said. The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation. Like Monday's strikes, the bombardment Tuesday struck both energy infrastructure and civilian areas. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire, the State Emergency Service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities. Energy facilities in the western Lviv and Vinnytsia regions also took hits. Officials said Ukrainian forces shot down an inbound Russian missile before it reached Kyiv, but the capital region experienced rolling power outages as a result of the previous day's strikes. The State Emergency Service said 19 people died and 105 people were wounded in Mondays strikes. At least five of the victims were in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 cities and towns lost power. A spokesperson for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that strikes on civilian objects, including infrastructure such as power plants, could qualify as a war crime. Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations, Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva. Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law. War crimes investigations have long been underway in towns where mass graves were found, along with other evidence of atrocities, after they were liberated from Russian occupation. In Lyman, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, forensic workers pulled several bodies from a mass grave Tuesday, part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the bodies of 32 Ukrainian soldiers have been exhumed so far from one mass grave. The tempo of the war in the last month fanned concerns that Moscow might broaden the battlefield and resort to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. As Ukraine's counteroffensives in the east and south forced Russia's troops to retreat from some areas, a cornered Kremlin ratcheted up Cold War-era rhetoric. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow would only employ nuclear weapons if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state TV, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlin's intentions. Russias nuclear doctrine envisions exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state, Lavrov said. In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would hold annual war exercises testing the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities next week as scheduled. Asked whether it was the wrong time for them, Stoltenberg replied: It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, longtime-planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. Stoltenberg called Putins rhetoric irresponsible but said he believes Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. NATO as an organization does not possess nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries the United States, the U.K. and France. The G-7, leaders who held the emergency meeting in response to Monday's attack, said the indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime and reaffirmed their commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The pledge appeared to come in response to Kremlin warnings that Western military assistance, including training Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries and feeding real-time satellite data to target Russian forces, increasingly made Ukraine's allies parties to the conflict. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said continued U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the fighting and inflict more damage on the country without changing Russia's objectives. As Russian forces pounded three districts around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant overnight, Ukraine's state nuclear operator said Russian forces kidnapped the plant's deputy human resources director. Russians previously detained the facility's general director and released him following pressure from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Grossi met with Putin on Tuesday in St. Petersburg and urged him to agree to a safety and security protection zone" around the occupied plant to prevent a radiation disaster. Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. LE MARS, Iowa Improperly discarded smoking material was the probable cause of a fire that severely damaged an apartment building Sunday night, in Le Mars. At around 11:56 p.m., Le Mars Fire - Rescue was called to an apartment building owned by Fred and Pete Zenk, of Le Mars. Upon arrival, firefighters encountered heavy fire on the south exterior side of the building, located at 1070 Seventh Ave., S.E. The fire was burning on the second and third floor exterior decks of the building and into the attic and roof. There were six apartments in this section of the 18-unit apartment. Firefighters made a quick knockdown on the building's exterior while police and sheriff's deputies evacuated apartment residents. Firefighters put out the fire in two apartments and the attic of the building. All occupants escaped the building and four cats were located in good condition by firefighters. Firefighters were on the scene for approximately two hours. The origin of the fire was determined to be located on a deck on the south side of the apartment building, said Le Mars Fire - Rescue Chief David Schipper. Three of the six apartments received fire, water and smoke damage. They are uninhabitable. Individuals are being assisted by family, friends and the American Red Cross. The building's other apartments have been deemed safe to be lived in. Damage is estimated at $100,000. Le Mars Fire - Rescue was assisted at the scene by the Le Mars Police, Plymouth County Sheriff's Office, MidAmerican Energy, the Orange City Fire Department and the American Red Cross. According to court documents, the victim went to a home in the 1100 block of Seventh Street to speak with a woman there. When the man knocked at the door, Veliz-Cantor, who lived at the residence, grabbed a kitchen knife from the table and approached the victim, who was walking away, and followed him, demanding money from him. After the victim said he didn't have any money, Veliz-Cantor cut him with the knife, opening a 14-inch cut from the top of his head down the side. The wound was non-life-threatening. MAURICE, Iowa A Springfield, South Dakota, man was arrested early Sunday morning on multiple charges, after leading deputies on a pursuit that began north of Maurice. At 12:31 a.m. Sunday, the Sioux County Sheriff's Office arrested Jeremy Langley, 37, on a felony charge of second-degree criminal mischief and misdemeanor charges of eluding, possession of a controlled substance -- cannabidiol, and interference with official acts. The pursuit began after a deputy attempted to stop the vehicle Langley was driving. The sheriff's office said in a statement that Langley began driving erratically, striking a vehicle parked near the Sioux County Regional Airport and a building owned by the airport. Then, he turned and struck the deputy's vehicle. After striking the patrol vehicle, Langley and his passenger, Mark Stewart, 40, of Aurelia, Iowa, fled from the vehicle, running into a cornfield. A female passenger, who was not charged, remained in the vehicle. Langley and Stewart were found in the cornfield and taken into custody without incident. Stewart was charged with interference with official acts The sheriff's office was assisted by its drone unit, the Orange City Police Department, Sioux Center Police Department, Rock Valley Police Department, Plymouth County Sheriff's Office K-9 unit, Sioux Center Ambulance and Maurice first responders. SIOUX CITY Crescent Park Elementary School will be put up for sale now that it is no longer needed. For the last two years, Crescent Park has been housing Hunt Elementary students while their new school was being built. Now that it is vacated, the Sioux City school board decided it is time to part with the building. Operations and maintenance Director Tim Paul approached the board on Monday seeking direction for the use or disposal of the facility. He said various community members have asked about the future of the building. School Board President Dan Greenwell said he does not see a future use of the building. The board had consensus on directing staff to begin the process of selling the building. The aging facility located at 114 W. 27th St. was built in 1920 and is by far the oldest school building in the district. The school closed in 2016 when Perry Creek Elementary opened, combining students from Crescent Park, Lincoln and Clark elementary. Paul said if he had to grade the building condition between a A and an F, he would give it a D. "The reason it would achieve that grade is the boiler system in the building is an old steam boiler system that is going to need some upgrades," he said. The building is also not ADA compliant and has no air conditioning. Prior to hosting Hunt Elementary students, the building held Bryant Elementary students while the new school was built. The next time the board would be able to do a bond for a new school building wouldnt be until 2029, and board member Perla Alarcon-Flory said it is not worth holding onto the building for another seven years. The district has sold a variety of former school buildings to the public and have become churches, apartment complexes or demolished by the new owner. Paul said he is not aware of anyone interested in buying the building at this point. An appraisal will be conducted on the building and a listing will be presented to the board. Once the project goes on the market and an offer is put in, the board will hold a public hearing and then decide whether or not to approve the offer. Paul said at this point the process will take long enough that the district will have to pay for the heating of the building through the winter. SIOUX CITY -- The Sioux City Council unanimously voted Monday to delete from its agenda the second reading of an ordinance that would have treated other domestic animals the same as dogs and cats. "Public input has been very negative on this," Assistant City Attorney Steven Postolka told the council, before recommending the item be deleted. If it had been approved, the ordinance would have expand the definition of "domestic animals" to any species that "normally is bred, raised, and is accustomed to live in or about human habitation." The list of domesticated animals would have included, but not been limited to, dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, rodents, rabbits, ferrets, and birds. The city currently allows no more than three dogs or cats, with a limit on no more than two of the same species. For example, residents can own two dogs and one cat or two cats and one dog. "We do have tools in terms of if keeping pets is a danger to public health. Obviously, we have our inspections ordinances, red tag ordinances, things of that nature," Postolka told the council. "If we have a situation, as occurred previously, where there's a large number of snakes at a residential complex and they're being bred for profit, zoning laws would come into play there, too." During its Oct. 3 meeting, the council voted in a split decision on first consideration, in favor of the ordinance. The initial reading of the ordinance passed 3 to 2, with Matthew O'Kane and Alex Watters casting "no" votes. Three readings are required before any ordinance can pass. The new household limits on pets were proposed after 58 snakes were removed from a townhouse at 4624 Harrison St. on July 11. Animal control officers took them after one of the 50 ball pythons escaped from an enclosure in Parker Moos' home and the owner of the adjoining townhouse found it in her garage and called police. Ball pythons are among the species classified under city code as dangerous animals, and are not permitted within city limits. On July 26, authorities returned 50 ball pythons to Moos, who found a temporary home for them at a rural residence near Lawton, Iowa. He previously told The Journal he still has three king snakes and about a dozen corn snakes at his townhouse. Such non-venomous snakes are both permitted under city code. In other action The Council, by voting in favor of its consent agenda, approved a subordination agreement, which will allow a Georgia-based developer to obtain the necessary financing needed to transform the former Sioux City Hotel & Conference Center into an upscale downtown senior living facility. Chris Myres, economic development specialist for the city, previously told The Journal that there is an old development agreement on the property and that Heritage Bank won't provide Amera SL of Sioux City financing for the project unless the subordination agreement is approved. According to city documents, on Sept. 21, 2015, the city council entered into a development agreement with Star Hospitality, LLC, the former owner of the property. The agreement conveyed the city-owned former escalator atrium space to Star Hospitality and required that they invest $160,000 to improve the space and maintain it as a functional portion of the hotel. "Only very minor renovations were made to the atrium space prior to the hotel property's sale to Amera SL of Sioux City, LLC. Due to lack of maintenance, the atrium space is now in a state of extreme disrepair," the documents stated. DES MOINES A majority of lawyers who responded to a survey support the retention of Northwest Iowa judges who face retention elections this fall. Iowa Supreme Court and Iowa Court of Appeals members up for a retention vote on Nov. 8 also received passing grades from lawyers who submitted ratings to the Iowa State Bar Association. The bar association on Friday released the results of its biennial survey of judges standing for retention on the two high courts and in the state's eight judicial districts. Lawyers participating in the survey evaluate judges on a number of characteristics such as knowledge and application of the law, quality of written opinions and demeanor. Nine judges are up for retention in the 3rd Judicial District, which includes 16 Northwest Iowa counties. In subdistrict 3B, which includes Woodbury, Crawford, Ida, Monona, Plymouth and Sioux counties, District Judge Steven Andreasen received 95% support. District Judge James Daane was supported by 98% of respondents and District Judge Roger Sailer received 96% percent support. District judges Jeffrey Neary and Patrick Tott both received 97%. District Associate Judge Kristal Phillips received 90% support. In subdistrict 3A, which includes Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Lyon, Kossuth, OBrien, Osceola and Palo Alto counties, District Judge Shayne Mayer received 86% support and District Judge John Sandy received 98%. District Associate judges Shawna Ditsworth and Ann Gales received 97% and 90%, respectively. Iowa Supreme Court justices Matthew McDermott and Dana Oxley were supported by 77% and 81%, respectively, of lawyers who responded to the survey. Court of Appeals Judge Paul Ahlers received 89% support and Judge Gina Badding received 94%. "The results of the comprehensive Judicial Performance Review demonstrate the high quality of Iowa jurists, a direct consequence of Iowa's first-class merit selection process. Iowans can be proud," Guy Cook, chair of the Bar Association's Independence of the Judiciary Committee, said in a news release. The bar association has conducted the performance reviews every two years since 1962, when Iowa adopted its merit system for retaining judges. The review is intended to give voters information to help them cast their vote on a judge's retention. Iowa Court of Appeals, district and district associate judges must stand for retention the first full year after being appointed to the bench and every six years after that. Supreme court justices also face retention votes after the first full year after their appointment, then every eight years. The full results of the survey and judges' biographies can be found on the Iowa State Bar Association website at https://www.iowabar.org/?pg=JudicialEvaluations. SIOUX CITY -- Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott called upon the tri-state governors Monday to band together and come up with a plan to keep Tyson Foods from closing its Dakota Dunes office and moving the more than 500 white-collar jobs to Tyson's headquarters in Arkansas. During the council comments portion of Monday's City Council meeting, Scott said the move is going to have a "terrible impact" on Siouxland. "To lose 580 really good employees in this area is just really tough to swallow," he said. "I would like to think that we have three governors whose communities are going to be terribly adversely affected by this that they would get together and go see the people at Tyson, write letters, do whatever." Scott said he hoped South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts would take the lead on such efforts, because Tyson "isn't going to listen to local communities." "It's terribly important that we don't lose these jobs, so I would hope that that would happen," Scott said. "I encouraged the Chamber of Commerce to try to make that happen and, so far, they've not be as successful as we'd hoped." All of the 500-plus employees in Dakota Dunes will be eligible for assistance to relocate to Northwest Arkansas. Those who choose to stay will be eligible for severance, with packages determined on an individual basis. The relocations, scheduled to be completed in phases, will begin in early 2023. The sprawling Tyson complex that anchors the Two Rivers Business Park in Dakota Dunes was built in 1997 as the world headquarters for IBP Inc., which moved from Dakota City to Dakota Dunes. Just four years later, IBP was acquired by Tyson in October 2001 for $3.2 billion in cash and stock, creating the world's largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef and pork. Tyson will continue to operate its flagship Dakota City beef plant, which employs about 4,500 people, and its cold storage facility in Sioux City. The publicly-traded company is by far the metro area's largest employer. On Wednesday, Tyson announced the company plans to bring over 1,000 corporate staff in the Dunes and the Chicago to its world headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas. The relocations will be completed in phases beginning next year. SIOUX CITY Woodbury County election officials are encouraging people to request absentee ballot to avoid potentially long lines during early voting and Election Day. Changes in voting laws have restricted voters' access to absentee ballots and early in-person voting, which Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill believes will contribute to longer wait times on Election Day. If these people dont take advantage of early voting opportunities, its going to put some pressure on the polling places on Election Day, Gill said. If you can do it and if you want to do it vote early. Oct. 19 is the first day of early in-person voting for the November general election. Absentee ballots can be requested until Oct. 24. In the past, Gill was able to send out absentee ballot request forms to every registered voter in Woodbury County. Now, he is no longer able to do that, and voter must request a ballot request form. This change mostly impacts elderly and handicapped people, Gill said. He said people he speaks to are disappointed about the change. Gill said the number of people who have requested absentee ballots is down due to this change. He said there were 3,500 ballot requests as of Monday. In the last comparable election -- the 2018 primary there were 16,000 early votes and 20,000 Election Day votes. If turnout is similar, Gill said the polling places will be Absentee ballots must also be received by the office before end of Election Day, whereas previously it only had to be postmarked on Election Day. Another change restricts the number of days early voting can be held. Previously an early voting site could be open for 29 days before the election law changes. Now the sites can only be open for 20 days. The Long Lines Recreational Center will be open for early voting from 8 a.m. 4:30 p.m. starting Oct. 19. Changes made in 2021 required a petition of 100 voter signatures for a county to hold a satellite voting location. In the past, the county auditor could choose. In July the League of Women Voters submitted a petition to keep it operating. Other early in-person voting sites include: - Woodbury County Courthouse, Oct. 19- Nov. 5, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. - Morningside University, Olson Student Center, Oct. 20, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; - Western Iowa Tech Community College, 4647 Stone Ave, Oct. 20, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and; - Carpenters Local 948, 2200 West 19th St, Nov. 5, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is the first election to occur since county redistricting occurred. The county normally keeps polling places the same every election, but due to the redistricting, many people will be assigned to new polling places. Voters will receive mail from the elections office telling them where their polling place is, Gill said. The polling places and districts are also available on the countys website. AMMAN, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Jordan on Tuesday condemned the Israeli settlers' storming into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under police protection. Jordan's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Sinan Majali said in a statement that his country rejected and condemned these provocative practices against the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, stressing the practices violated international laws as well as the sanctity of the mosque. Palestinian official news agency WAFA earlier reported that the Israeli police broke into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem to remove Muslim worshippers and provide a safe ground for ultra-nationalist Jews marking the Jewish New Year, which falls on Sept. 25-27 this calendar year. Majali said that the ongoing violations on the holy sites and the persistent Israeli raids in the occupied Palestinian territories would lead to further escalation and represent a dangerous trend that must be stopped immediately. He urged Israel to immediately halt all practices and violations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque and respect its sanctity, calling on Israel to immediately cease all attempts to change the existing historical and legal status quo. The spokesman also reiterated that the Jordan-run Department of the Jerusalem Awqaf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs is the only authority to administer the mosque's affairs. SIOUX CITY Tuesday night's League of Women Voters Candidate Forum on the Western Iowa Tech Community College campus in Sioux City was a one-party affair. Republican hopefuls Rocky De Witt and Bob Henderson, who are respectively running in Iowa Senate District 1 and Iowa House District 2, have decided not to participate in the informational event according to Dagna Simmons, the president of the local chapter of the 102-year-old nonprofit political organization. "When all candidates do not attend these events, it is a disservice to the public. This is a great way for candidates to express their positions and a way for the public to compare what a candidate's position is," Simmons said via email. The races De Witt and Henderson are involved in are two of just a small number of state legislative elections that can even be considered competitive in Siouxland. De Witt, a Lawton resident currently serving as a Woodbury County Supervisor, is up against first-term incumbent State Sen. Jackie Smith (D-Sioux City) while Henderson is looking to unseat fellow Sioux City native Steve Hansen, a Democratic legislator who's had seven non-consecutive terms in the statehouse. "I have a scheduling conflict," De Witt said when asked, over email, why he was unable to attend the Tuesday candidate forum. The supervisors tend to meet at 4:30 p.m. every Tuesday at the Woodbury County Courthouse. Henderson also mentioned a commitment to a previous engagement. "I've had a standing meeting on the second Tuesday of the month," said Henderson, the chairperson for the Woodbury County Republicans. Simmons noted the recent history of her group's various forums has been one of steady decline for GOP participation. "During the legislative session, we hold Legislative Town Halls on the 4th Saturday of Jan., Feb. and March. 4-5 years ago, both parties were represented. We have noticed a gradual decline in attendance by the Republican legislators in the past couple of years," Simmons said. More broadly, the number of forums and events featuring every candidate in a given race has lessened. In Iowa's Fourth Congressional District race between Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Hull), Ryan Melton (D-Nevada) and Bryan Holder (L-Council Bluffs), no official debate or town hall-type forum has been held. Melton and Feenstra have sparred twice already over the issue of joint events with Melton saying Feenstra "does not expose himself to public scrutiny" and Feenstra's campaign calling Melton an "out of touch liberal." Deidre DeJear, the Democratic businesswoman running for governor, challenged incumbent Kim Reynolds to three debates but the governor's campaign agreed to only one to be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 17 on Iowa PBS. In the past decade, gubernatorial candidates have tended to take part in multiple debates before election day in November. Iowa Capital Dispatch noted in September that in Nebraska, Jim Pillen, the Republican candidate for governor, has decided not to debate Democratic challenger Carol Flood (a state senator for Nebraska's Third District). South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, joined Democratic candidate Jamie Smith and Libertarian Tracey Quint in a lone debate on Friday, Sept. 30. In July, the Republican governors campaign said she would participate in just one debate. Simmons thinks one is just too few. "I think that the more opportunities for people to see and hear the candidates the better it is," she said. On Wednesday night, the League of Women Voters of Sioux City is holding a Woodbury County-focused event that will feature Jeremy Dumkrieger, Daniel Bittinger, PJ Jennings and James Loomis. Bittinger and Loomis are the Republican candidates for Woodbury County Supervisor and Woodbury County Attorney. At present, Dumkrieger is the chair of the Woodbury County Democratic Party. Jennings, the Democratic county attorney, is in his fourth term. DAKOTA DUNES -- As state and local leaders worked behind-the-scenes to try and convince Tyson Foods to reverse plans to transfer over 500 white-collar jobs from Siouxland to Arkansas, the head of the giant meat company took questions Tuesday from the employees who must decide whether to move or stay here. President and CEO Donnie King hosted an all-staff meeting at the company's soon-to-be-shuttered Dakota Dunes offices Tuesday afternoon. Some state and local officials sought to also meet with King, but Tyson turned down all the requests, including The Journal's request for an interview with the CEO. King spoke to Noem and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds last Wednesday and offered to speak to Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Tyson spokesman said. Noem's office issued a statement about the company's plans. "We were disappointed to learn about this news, but we will continue to work with Tyson on the jobs that remain in South Dakota and on future opportunities. South Dakota is the best state in America to do business; we're working with companies every day to build and grow in South Dakota. We will continue working with companies like Tyson to ensure that our nation's food supply is stable and diversified." King's visit to Siouxland came a day after Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott called on the tri-state governors to work together to keep the Dakota Dunes office open. "To lose 580 really good employees in this area is just really tough to swallow," Scott said at the council's weekly meeting Monday. "I would like to think that we have three governors whose communities are going to be terribly adversely affected by this that they would get together and go see the people at Tyson, write letters, do whatever." Getting Noem, Reynolds and Ricketts involved is essential Scott said, because Tyson "isn't going to listen to local communities." "I encouraged the (Siouxland) Chamber of Commerce to try to make that happen and, so far, they've not be as successful as we'd hoped," the mayor said. Siouxland Chamber President Chris McGowan said Tuesday the Chamber staff, in conjunction with our board-level leadership, "have initiated conversations with elected officials at every level of our government." "Additionally, we have begun a dialogue with Tyson executives, employees, retirees, and others who have generously shared their insight and expertise with us," McGowan said. " While we will continue to respectfully request reconsideration of this announcement by Tyson, we will also pursue every possible avenue to respect and protect employment opportunities for our citizens in the tri-state region." Tyson announced the Fortune 500 company plans to bring over 1,000 corporate staff at the Dunes and in Chicago to its world headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas. The relocations will be completed in phases, beginning next year. There will be no layoffs as a result of the moves. All employees are eligible for assistance to relocate to Northwest Arkansas. Those who choose to stay will be eligible for severance, with packages determined on an individual basis. The sprawling Tyson complex that anchors the Two Rivers Business Park in Dakota Dunes was built in 1997 as the world headquarters for IBP Inc., which moved from Dakota City to Dakota Dunes. Just four years later, IBP was acquired by Tyson in October 2001 for $3.2 billion in cash and stock, creating the world's largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef and pork. Tyson will continue to operate its flagship Dakota City beef plant, which employs about 4,500 people, and its cold storage facility in Sioux City. The publicly-traded company is by far the metro area's largest employer. Russia unleashes biggest attacks in Ukraine in months KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Russia has retaliated for an attack on a critical bridge it claimed was carried out by Ukraine, unleashing its most widespread attacks against Ukraine in months. The lethal barrage Monday against multiple cities smashed civilian targets. It killed at least 14 people, knocked out power and water, and shattered cars and buildings. Ukraines Emergency Service said nearly 100 people were wounded in the morning attacks the biggest and broadest since the war's early days. One Russian missile hit a playground in downtown Kyiv and another struck a university building. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks aimed to inflict the most damage on civilians. GOP makes push to weaken Democrats' grip on Texas border HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) Texas Democrats are embarking on another October blitz in pursuit of flipping Americas big red state. But Republicans are making an aggressive play to win races along Texas' mostly Hispanic southern border in November's midterms. The rare sight of contested races on the Texas border has widened cracks in an important Democratic stronghold after former President Donald Trumps significant gains with Hispanic voters in the 2020 election. Republican Rep. Maya Flores victory in a special election this year reflected the shifting ground. She is running against Democrat Rep. Vicente Gonzalez. New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps, angering farmers WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) New Zealands government is proposing a tax on the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government says the farm levy would be a world first and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products. But farmers quickly condemned the plan. The liberal Labour governments proposal Tuesday harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labour government in 2003, when it proposed taxing farm animals for their methane emissions. California governor's wife among accusers at Weinstein trial LOS ANGELES (AP) The wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is among the accusers of Harvey Weinstein who will testify at his rape and sexual assault trial that began Monday. An attorney for Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is a documentary filmmaker and actor, says in a statement Monday that she intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors. Jury selection began Monday in Los Angeles and is expected to last several days. Weinstein, who is already serving a 23-year sentence for a conviction in New York, is charged with 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. He has pleaded not guilty. Ohio Senate debate with Ryan, Vance descends into attacks COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) The first debate between Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican JD Vance descended quickly into attacks. The candidates for Ohios open U.S. Senate seat accused each other Monday of being responsible for job losses and putting party loyalty ahead of voters needs. Vance said Ryan had supported policies as a congressman that led to a 10-year-old girl in Ohio being raped. Ryan said Vance had started a fake nonprofit to help people overcome addiction issues. The race between Ryan, a 10-term congressman, and Vance, a venture capitalist and author of Hillbilly Elegy, is one of the hardest fought and most closely watched of the midterms. 28 dead as Julia drenches Central America with rainfall GUATEMALA CITY (AP) Former hurricane Julia has dissipated, but is drenching Guatemala and El Salvador with rain after reemerging in the Pacific. Julia is believed to have directly or indirectly caused the deaths of 28 people. Julia hit Nicaraguas central Caribbean coast as a hurricane on Sunday and survived the passage over Nicaraguas mountainous terrain, becoming a tropical storm before it dissipated Monday. Its winds had dipped to 35 mph by Monday morning, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Fourteen people died in Guatemala, four in Honduras, nine in El Salvador and one in Nicaragua. United Methodists are breaking up in a slow-motion schism The United Methodist Church, long a mainstay of the American religious scene, is beginning to fracture. Hundreds of churches have already disaffiliated from the denomination this year, with hundreds more moving toward the exits. Many plan to join the newly created Global Methodist Church, formed by conservatives frustrated by continued defiance of denominational bans on same-sex marriages and the ordaining of openly LGBTQ pastors. So far the majority of congregations are staying, but several of the largest are planning to leave. The breakup comes amid mutual accusations of hardball tactics and spreading falsehoods. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene rises from GOP fringe to front WASHINGTON (AP) Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene once was shunned as a political pariah for her extremist rhetoric. Now the Georgia Republican is being welcomed by House Republicans into the fold. Recently, Greene was front and center as Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy unveiled the House GOP's midterm campaign agenda in Pennsylvania. She joined Donald Trump at a rally in Michigan. Greene spent her first term stripped of committee assignments by Democrats over her rhetoric. But if Republicans win the House majority in the November election, Greene is poised to become an influential player. She tells The Associated Press that impeaching President Joe Biden tops her agenda. Nobelist Annie Ernaux draws hundreds to New York bookstore NEW YORK (AP) Since Annie Ernaux won the Nobel literature prize last week, the French authors books have gained enough new admirers that many titles are out of stock on Amazon.com and at physical bookstores. But at Albertine Books on Manhattans Upper East, her appearance Monday night felt less like an introduction than a gathering of old friends, French and American alike. Hundreds gathered for an event billed The Art of Capturing Life in Writing. The 82-year-old Ernaux is known for such autobiographical works as Simple Passion and Happening. The crowd spilled over into an overflow room as she spoke about her career and writing process. Chiefs hold on for wild 30-29 victory over rival Raiders KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Patrick Mahomes threw four touchdown passes to Travis Kelce, the Chiefs overcame an early 17-point deficit along with a dubious roughing-the-passer penalty, and Kansas City extended its mastery of the Las Vegas Raiders, holding on for a 30-29 victory. The Raiders had a chance to march for the winning field goal, but a pass to Davante Adams that was ruled a catch was overturned by replay, which showed him stepping out of bounds. That brought up fourth down in the closing seconds, and Derek Carr's final pass fell incomplete to allow Kansas City to hold on. In the run-up to the midterm elections, a growing number of conservative groups are turning their attention to often-ignored school board races. Their aim is to put conservatives in control of more school systems to scale back teachings on race and sexuality. The efforts gained steam last year amid parents' frustrations with pandemic policies, but as those issues fade they're now galvanizing around culture divisions. Groups including the 1776 Project PAC are ramping up spending on local races, and other groups are backing local candidates for the first time. Democrats have countered with their own campaigns portraying Republicans as extremists who want to ban books and rewrite history. At a rally for Nevada Republicans on Saturday, former President Donald Trump argued against the federal probe into the storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate by falsely suggesting that past presidents did the same thing. Trump claimed that Barack Obama moved truckloads of documents to a former furniture store in Chicago, that Bill Clinton carted records from the White House to a former car dealership in Arkansas, and that George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant where they combined them. In reality, National Archives and Records Administration staff, not the former presidents, transported presidential records to these facilities for temporary sorting and storage, following security protocols in the process, NARA statements and Associated Press reporting show. The agency leased the buildings from the General Services Administration, it said in a statement Tuesday. All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees, NARA's emailed statement read. Reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading." That's very different from Trump harboring classified documents from his own presidency in various storage areas at his Florida estate, said Timothy Naftali, a professor of public service and history at New York University. Obviously, it takes time to build a presidential library. During that period of time, the National Archives has to put these presidential records somewhere safe, Naftali said. They are not put in closets in public clubs. A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a request for comment. Here's a closer look at the facts. TRUMP: Bush "took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant where they combined them. So theyre in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant. THE FACTS: While the idea of the elder Bush sneaking documents to a combination bowling alley and Chinese restaurant inspired colorful internet reactions, it's not accurate. NARA archivists, not Bush, transported the documents to what had once been Chimney Hill Bowl in College Station, Texas, according to AP reporting at the time. They converted it into a warehouse, swapping bowling lanes for shelved storage where they could store the boxes of documents. To fit everything, they also co-opted a former Chinese restaurant next door. Under the Presidential Records Act, NARA has custody of all presidential records from former administrations. The agency is responsible for sorting through the documents and storing them securely until a presidential library can be built to house them. In the case of Bush's documents, the temporary storage facility NARA archivists used was protected by guards, television monitors and electronic detectors while documents were sorted, the AP reported at the time. They were later moved to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, also in College Station, where they reside today. Trump's comments aimed to diminish the fact that he held classified documents in Mar-a-Lago by saying Bush held his own documents in an old bowling alley, Naftali said. But thats complete nonsense, he said. These are buildings National Archives took over, renovated to meet archival standards and security, and then they put the materials there. Benjamin Hufbauer, a professor at the University of Louisville who researches presidential libraries, agreed Trump's claim was not correct. Its really an apples to oranges kind of thing, he said. TRUMP: Clinton "took millions of documents from the White House to a former car dealership in Arkansas." THE FACTS: Clinton didn't take documents to an ex-car dealership, NARA did. NARA announced in May 2000 that it would be transporting documents from Clinton's presidency to a Little Rock, Arkansas, storage facility that used to be the Balch Motor Company. The facility, which NARA rented, was less than 2 miles from what later became the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, where the documents are stored today. TRUMP: Obama "moved more than 20 truckloads, over 33 million pages of documents, both classified and unclassified, to a poorly-built and totally unsafe former furniture store located in a rather bad neighborhood in Chicago with no security, by the way. THE FACTS: Again, NARA, not Obama, transported these documents and followed its own storage standards in the process, the agency said. Roughly 30 million unclassified Obama administration documents reside in a Chicago-area building that at one point belonged to the Plunkett furniture company, according to county and local government records. These documents are stored in accordance with the agencys archival storage standards, according to NARA. Those standards include things like fire safety, pest management and security guidelines for certain types of documents. Comments a NARA official gave to the citys zoning commission prior to the end of Obamas term also stipulated that the facility would be guarded overnight. The administrations classified documents are stored in separate secure locations in the Washington, D.C., area. This is part of APs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a Democratic state legislative candidate to be listed on November ballots, after a tie had been broken against her by the state's Republican elections chief. In its 4-3 ruling, the high court found Republican Secretary Frank LaRose and the two GOP members of the Athens County Board of Elections who voted against placing Tanya Conrath on the Nov. 8 ballot acted in clear disregard of applicable law. Conrath is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Jay Edwards for eastern Ohio's 94th House District, which includes all or part of Athens, Meigs, Morgan and Washington counties. Her case hinged on a snag caused by the state's protracted political map-making flap, in which LaRose, as a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, was a key player. Athens County Democrats selected Conrath as a replacement candidate after the party's first candidate, Rhyan Goodman, ran unopposed in the primary and then requested to be removed from the fall ballot. His request came eight days after the Aug. 1 election, before results had been certified. The glitch was that election boards had until Aug. 23 to certify primary results, but Aug. 15 was the last day the party could legally select its replacement nominee for the fall. The Athens County Democratic Party met that deadline, which wound up falling four days before Goodman's win was certified. The county's election board two Democrats and two Republicans tied on whether Conrath's name could appear on the ballot, which punted the decision to LaRose. He ruled against Conrath, on grounds Goodman wasn't yet a party candidate under law when the party picked his replacement. The court said LaRose's decision created an impermissible legal absurdity a sort of Catch-22 for Conrath and the Democrats. Justices blamed the date overlap on the unprecedented actions of the federal court that ordered Ohio's legislative primaries to take place on a delay and under new Statehouse maps that had been ruled unconstitutional. In a dissent joined by Justices Pat DeWine and Pat Fischer, Justice Sharon Kennedy accused the majority of judicial activism, saying they ignored the plain, unambiguous language of the law. She said Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a Republican, and the court's three Democrats engaged in "a now all-too-familiar pattern of replacing what the law actually says with what the majority needs it to say to achieve the outcome it desires. The majority called that statement ironic. Athens, home to Ohio University, is one of the state's most reliably Democratic counties. As a whole, the newly drawn 94th House District leans about 54% Republican. President Joe Biden is promising that the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year will be one that codifies Roe v. Wade if Democrats control enough seats in Congress for Biden to sign abortion protections into law. In a speech designed to energize his partys voters just three weeks before the November midterms, Biden said, "If you care about the right to choose, then you gotta vote. Democrats tried repeatedly in this Congress to enshrine abortion rights into law, only to be thwarted by GOP filibusters and the unwillingness of their own members to change the Senates rules. That dynamic is likely to persist no matter what happens in the November elections. LOS ANGELES (AP) Where does the Los Angeles City Council go from here? Three of its members including the former Council president are facing calls from President Joe Biden to resign after a recording surfaced of them participating in a closed-door meeting in which racist language was used to mock colleagues while they schemed to protect Latino political strength in Council districts. Three current or former Council members have been indicted or pleaded guilty to corruption charges, and its possible resignations in coming days could create new vacancies. The current mayor, Democrat Eric Garcetti, was named last year to become U.S. ambassador to India but the nomination appears stalled in the Senate because of sexual harassment allegations against one of his former top aides. Elections next month will bring a new mayor and several Council members. In the short term, it's a looming question if the Council can assemble the required 10 members out of 15 total to conduct business on Wednesday, when coincidentally Biden will be in town. I have never seen anything like this, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. Thats the real challenge now, to kind of get to where they are going to conduct business on a regular basis, Sonenshein said. This chaotic situation is going to be very visible ... both here and nationally. The Council will attempt to reconvene Wednesday, possibly to censure the three members cited by Biden. A Tuesday meeting was nearly derailed when a raucous crowd of protesters packed the chamber, calling for the resignation of those involved in the meeting former City Council President Nury Martinez, who is taking a leave of absence, and Councilmen Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo, all Democrats. The Council cannot expel the members it can only suspend a member when criminal charges are pending. A censure does not result in suspension or removal from office. The uproar was triggered by a leaked recording of crude, racist comments from a nearly year-old meeting, which also provided an unvarnished look into City Halls racial rivalries. Those involved in the meeting were all Latinos. Martinez said in the recorded conversation that white Councilmember Mike Bonin handled his young Black son as if he were an accessory and said of his son Parece changuito, or hes like a monkey, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. She also referred to Bonin as a little bitch. At another point on the hourlong recording, Martinez, the first Latina appointed president of the City Council, called indigenous immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca tan feos, or so ugly. The discussion which also included a powerful Latino labor leader, who has since resigned centered on protecting Latino political power during the redrawing of council district boundaries, known as redistricting. The once-a-decade process can pit one group against another to gain political advantage in future elections. At the ornate Council chamber, an overflow crowd of protesters delayed the start of Tuesday's meeting as they angrily shouted for de Leon and Cedillo to leave the room. Police officers scurried at the edge of the crowd. De Leon sat impassively at his seat, his eyes cast downward, as protesters called on him by name to exit the chamber. Others on the 15-member Council urged the crowd to settle down and allow the meeting to begin. Cedillo and de Leon left their seats early, leaving in doubt if they will appear Wednesday. Martinez stepped down from the leadership job and apologized Monday, saying she was ashamed of her racially offensive language in the year-old recording. However, she did not resign her council seat. She announced Tuesday that I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders. She did not appear at the Tuesday meeting. In emotional remarks at the meeting, Bonin said he was deeply wounded by the taped discussion. He lamented the harm to his young son and the fact that the city was in international headlines spotlighting the racist language. Im sickened by it, he said, calling again for his colleagues' resignations. Los Angeles is going to heal, he said at one point. I want to lead with love. Black and Latino constituents often build alliances in politics. But tensions and rivalries among groups separated by race, geography, partisanship or religion have a long history in Los Angeles and, indeed, the country. The friction can cross into housing, education and jobs even prisons as well as the spoils of political power. The California Legislative Black Caucus said the recording reveals an appalling effort to decentralize Black voices during the critical redistricting process. In one of the most diverse cities in the nation, a long line of public speakers at the meeting said the disclosure of the secretly taped meeting brought with it echoes of the Jim Crow era, and was a stark example of anti-Blackness. There were calls for investigations, and reforming redistricting policy. Many of the critics also were Latino, who spoke of being betrayed by their own leaders. Candido Marez, 70, a retired business owner, said he wasn't surprised by Martinez's language, who is known for being blunt and outspoken. Her words blew up this city. It is disgraceful," he said. She must resign." The Los Angeles Times reported that the recording was posted on Reddit by a now-suspended user. It is unclear who recorded the audio, who uploaded it to Reddit and whether anyone else was present. Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that the president wanted Martinez, de Leon and Cedillo to resign. The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable, and it was appalling. They should all step down, Jean-Pierre said. Other calls for the councilmembers to resign have come from across the Democratic establishment, including from U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, Garcetti, mayoral candidates Karen Bass and Rick Caruso and members of Council. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has stopped short of doing so, denouncing the racist language and saying he was encouraged that those involved have apologized and begun to take responsibility for their actions. Democratic state Sen. Steven Bradford, who represents parts of Los Angeles County, said Newsom should call for the resignation of the three councilmembers. Every ethnic caucus in the Legislature has called for the resignations, so I would hope that the governor would ... ask for the resignation as well, Bradford said. Councilmember Mitch OFarrell, serving as acting president of the Council, said the city cannot heal if the three remain in office. He called it a clear abuse of power that was profoundly unacceptable of elected officials. Public opinion has rendered a verdict and the verdict is they all must resign, he said. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) The prosecutor and defense attorney for Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz agreed Tuesday that his 2018 attack that killed 17 people was horrible, but disagreed in their closing arguments on whether it was an act of evil worthy of execution or one of a broken person who should be imprisoned for life. Lead prosecutor Mike Satz and his defense counterpart, Melisa McNeill, painted for the 12 jurors competing pictures of what drove Cruz's attack at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine's Day. For Satz, Cruz was driven by antisocial personality disorder in lay terms, he's a sociopath. He deserves a death sentence because he was hunting his victims as he stalked a three-story classroom building for seven minutes. He fired his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle into some victims at close range and returned to wounded victims as they lay helpless to finish them off." Satz pointed to Cruz's internet writings and videos, where he talked about his murderous desires such as when he wrote, No mercy, no questions, double tap. I am going to kill a ... ton of people and children. It is said that what one writes and says is a window into their soul, Satz said as the three-month trial neared its conclusion. The killings, he said, were unrelentlessly heinous, atrocious and cruel. McNeill said neither Cruz nor herself has ever denied what he did and that he knew right from wrong and he chose wrong. But she said the former Stoneman Douglas student is a broken, brain-damaged, mentally ill young man, doomed from conception by the heavy drinking and drug use of his birth mother during pregnancy. She argued for a sentence of life without parole, assuring them he will never walk free again. Its the right thing to do. Mercy is what makes us civilized. Giving mercy to Nikolas will say more about who you are than it will ever say about him, McNeill told the jury. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others. The jury will only decide his sentence, and a unanimous vote is required for death. Jurors can vote for death if they believe the prosecution's aggravating factors such as the multiple deaths and the planning outweigh the defense's mitigating circumstances such as his birth mother's drinking. They can also vote for life out of mercy for Cruz. Deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday. Cruz, dressed in an off-white sweater, sat impassively during the presentations, occasionally exchanging notes with his attorneys. A large number of the victims parents, wives and family members packed their section of the courtroom, many of them weeping during Satz's presentation. The mother of a murdered 14-year-old girl fled the courtroom before bursting into loud sobs in the hallway. Just minutes earlier, the families had greeted each other with smiles, handshakes and hugs. Satz meticulously went through the murders, reminding the jurors how each victim died and how Cruz looked some in the eye before he shot them multiple times. They all knew what was going on, what was going to happen," Satz said. As he had during the trial, Satz played security videos of the shooting and showed photos. He talked about the death of one 14-year-old girl. Cruz shot her and then went back to shoot her again, putting his gun against her chest. "Right on her skin. She was shot four times and she died, Satz said. He then noted a YouTube comment, which jurors saw during the trial, in which Cruz said: I dont mind shooting a girl in the chest. Thats exactly what he did, Satz said. His voice breaking, Satz concluded his two-hour presentation by reciting the victims' names, then saying that for their murders the appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty. McNeill during her presentation acknowledged the horror Cruz inflicted and said jurors have every right to be angry, but how many times have we made decisions based solely on anger and regretted it? She focused on her belief that heavy drinking by his birth mother, Brenda Woodard, during pregnancy left him with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She said that accounts for his bizarre, troubling and sometimes violent behavior starting at age 2. There is no time in our lives when we are more vulnerable to the will and the whims of another human being than when we are growing and developing in the wombs of our mothers, McNeill said. Woodard poisoned him in the womb. He was doomed in the womb." She said Cruz's increasingly erratic personality left his widowed adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, overwhelmed. He punched holes in walls when he lost video games, destroyed furniture and killed animals. Visitors described the home as a war zone, McNeill said. She pleaded with the jurors to give Cruz a life sentence, telling them that even if they are the only holdout they shouldn't fear what the reaction will be from the families or the community. Gesturing toward the victims' families, she said, There is no punishment you could ever give Nikolas Cruz that would ever make him suffer as much as those people have and as much as they will continue to suffer every single day. Sentencing Nikolas to death will not change that. It will not bring back those 17 dead people. Sentencing Nikolas to death will literally serve no purpose other than vengeance, she said. Instead, she said, Look into your heart. Look into your soul. The right thing here, not the popular thing, is a life sentence." Cruz's massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial. Associated Press reporters Freida Frisaro in Miami and Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report. JUBA, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations said Tuesday that renewed clashes between armed tribal militias in South Sudan's Upper Nile State have displaced 8,000 civilians. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said renewed fighting was reported between armed factions in several locations including Padit in Kodok Payam, Fashoda County in Upper Nile State between Oct. 6-9. A payam is the second-lowest administrative division below county in South Sudan. "In Padit, the entire population of the village was reported displaced, and the village burnt down, details on civilian casualties are not yet available," OCHA said in its latest report released in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. OCHA explained that the White Army youth reportedly attacked Nyigier, a village located a few km from Kodok town, and as attacks advanced towards Fashoda County, tensions increased with reports indicating that the youth mobilized to protect Kodok town. It said some 23 people sought shelter at the UNMISS compound in Kodok and local sources estimate that 8,000 people from Kodok town and other locations have moved to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) site for safety. OCHA stressed that registrations of displaced people remain pending until the situation stabilizes and humanitarian teams from Malakal can support them. "Humanitarian activities are affected, and some humanitarian personnel relocated from Fashoda County for safety reasons. Much humanitarian staff from UN system members and NGOs moved from their compounds in Kodok town to the Kodok humanitarian hub, near the UNMISS," OCHA said. It stressed that since the beginning of the conflict along the Nile River in mid-August, more than 18,000 internally displaced persons have sought shelter at the Protection of Civilian Site (PoC) in Malakal as of Tuesday. A new court filing in the drunken-driving case against a Blue Grass councilman includes a reference to an "appearance of intimidation and retaliation" against the arresting officer. Another document filed in district court in Scott County classifies the case involving the councilman, the police officer, the police chief and possibly the mayor as an investigation into possible witness tampering. Assistant Scott County Attorney Elizabeth O'Donnell responded on Friday to filings by an attorney for Councilman Matt Sampson, who was arrested in the early morning hours of July 3 on suspicion of operating while intoxicated, second offense. The arresting officer was Mason Wilson. Sampson's attorney had claimed in a court filing that Wilson was fired from the Blue Grass Police Department, even though Sampson was one of the councilmen who voted in mid-August to accept Wilson's resignation. Attorney Ryan Beckenbaugh also sought personnel records for officer Wilson from the Blue Grass Police Department and from the Bettendorf Police Department, where Wilson previously worked. O'Donnell, the prosecutor, referred to Beckenbaugh's motion in her response, filed Friday. "Defendants motion seeks to obtain personnel records of the arresting officer. As stated in Defendants motion, 'Something rather unusual and specific has arisen in this case,'" O'Donnell wrote in her response. "Certainly a city police officer, while on duty, catching and arresting a city councilman for drunken driving at 3:00 a.m. in the morning is unusual. However, it does not merit expanding the rules of discovery far beyond the typical criminal case. "Requesting personnel records of an officer, and making personal attacks on him in an operating while intoxicated case is certainly unusual, and has the appearance of intimidation and retaliation for an officers arrest of a city councilman for operating under the influence, second offense." Additional filings in the case, including documents related to a search warrant served on the home and vehicle of Blue Grass Police Chief Bobby Flaherty, also provide more details. The chief is on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation. The search warrant was executed late last month and resulted in the seizure of "electronic data stored on a secure device." An attachment to the warrant states that a detective with the Scott County Sheriff's office "was initially assigned this investigation as witness tampering," and the case was referred to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, or DCI. Court documents show the following timeline: July 3: Councilman Matt Sampson was operating a utility vehicle after hours in the 600 block of S. Mississippi Street when he was pulled over by Officer Mason Wilson. His blood-alcohol was .205. He was arrested on suspicion of OWI, second offense. Wilson texted a police sergeant, Chief Flaherty and Mayor Brad Schutte, notifying them he arrested Sampson. Sampson left a voicemail on Wilson's personal phone, saying, "Hi Mason. This is Matt Sampson, the guy you arrested last night ... Youre a piece of s--- for doing what you did to me last night. "..you should have let me go since I was two blocks away from home ... I resigned from the City Council and that is your fault ... Ill make sure your law enforcement career ends here in Blue Grass ... enjoy your law enforcement career elsewhere. Wilson emailed Flaherty about the phone call. July 5: Flaherty rejected Wilson's report on Sampson's arrest, which included details about the voicemail from the councilman. The chief said the call was not an element to the crime of OWI. July 6: Wilson sought advice from others and included Sampson's "threatening phone call" in a supplemental report. July 11: Wilson submitted his report to the Scott County Attorney's office, which is "standard practice." July 19: Chief Flaherty called Officer Wilson into his office with Mayor Schutte present. The chief issued the officer a letter of reprimand for "disobeying order from a superior and (sic) included not factual information in the report." Flaherty requested Wilson's resignation the following day. July 20: Wilson reported to the chief's office and was asked, "Got your letter?" Wilson replied that he was having conversations with his union and an attorney to which the chief replied, "Fair enough." Aug. 11: Councilman Sampson resigned as mayor pro temp but remained on the city council. Aug. 15: The city council, including Sampson, vote to accept Officer Wilson's resignation. Examination of cellphone records by police showed that Sampson was in communication with the police chief and the mayor after he was arrested on July 3 and until Wilson's resignation. Sept. 27: State police conduct a search of Chief Flaherty's home and vehicle and seized, "electronic data stored on a secure device." Donald Trump celebrated Ben Sasse's approaching departure from the Senate as "great news" on his social media platform last week after it was revealed that Sasse would be resigning to return to academia as the new president of the University of Florida. Sasse is leaving behind a premier national elective office that most politicians absolutely covet with four years still remaining in his second Senate term. It was a day that exposed the character of both men as Trump hurled insults at Sasse on his social media site. "I'm excited frankly about the opportunity to step away from politics and onto a team of big-cause, low-ego people who want to build stuff and serve students and plan for the future," Sasse told the Tampa Bay Times. Meanwhile, 271 miles south of Gainesville at Mar-a-Lago, the former president continues to plan a return to power while employing an army of lawyers to obstruct or slow-walk a pile of ongoing litigation, including the dispute over his decision to take top-secret documents from the White House and store them in boxes at his resort home. For what purpose? Sasse tried to prevent Trump from even happening at the very beginning, traveling to Iowa in 2016 to campaign against him in advance of Iowa's presidential caucuses. During the ensuing Trump presidency, Sasse ultimately was formally rebuked by the Nebraska Republican Party for his vote to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial following the 2021 insurrection at the nation's capitol in Washington. "Nebraskans don't think politics should be about the weird worship of one dude," Sasse said at the time. By opposing Trump, Sasse became persona non grata in his state party while sticking to his conservative Republican principles and he piled up record victories in his two Senate races, winning all 93 counties in the state both times. "Something has changed over the last four years," he said in the wake of his party's reprimand. "But it's not me." * * * The choice of Sasse to head the University of Florida adds to a remarkable string of Nebraskans, two of them U.S. senators, who have been chosen to lead universities in three of the nation's four largest states. Former Sen. Bob Kerrey moved on to become president of the New School, a private university in New York City. J.B. Milliken left as president of the University of Nebraska system to become chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) system and is now chancellor of the University of Texas system. Sasse will be in Gainesville on Monday to meet with faculty, university staff and students. * * * Some interesting results from late September polling by Data Targeting for the Neilan Strategy Group. The survey showed Jim Pillen leading Carol Blood by a relatively narrow 48% to 41%, in the gubernatorial race. Minimum wage increase ballot initiative: 55% support; 34% oppose. Voter photo identification ballot initiative: 63% support, 31% oppose. Proposed authorization for medical marijuana: 63% support; 25% oppose. Perhaps most interesting is the pollster's assessment that the relatively slim lead that Pillen holds over Blood in this heavily Republican state is the result of a bruising GOP primary election last May. Pillen is polling only 75% of the Republican vote now. "If those voters come home, Pillen's lead will surely increase," the pollster suggests. * * * Finishing up: * Sens. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz talked President Trump into his surprising endorsement of Sasse in his 2020 reelection bid, according to Maggie Haberman's new book, "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America." * So far, 10 murders in Lincoln this year, once an unthinkable number for our community. * The Texas Rangers gave Aaron Judge a fair opportunity to try to break the American League home run record by pitching to him, rather than around him with balls outside the strike zone. Judge connected for No. 62 and the Rangers deserve some credit for giving him a fair chance. * The wildfire in the storied Sandhills is a Nebraska tragedy. * Sen. Tom Brewer is planning to head back to Ukraine once again at the end of the week, returning to a battleground that has become even more potentially dangerous with Russia currently in retreat and a desperate Vladimir Putin threatening to let the genie out of the bottle with the use of battlefield nuclear weapons. * Behold: a two-game Husker winning streak, with both a tough challenge and a great opportunity waiting at Purdue on Saturday night. The bright orange, sticky residue that Cheetos leave on your fingertips has now been immortalized by a 17-foot statue in Alberta, Canada. The Cheetos brand erected the statue of a hand holding a massive Cheeto, complete with orange fingertips, in Cheadle, Alberta. The community was chosen because of its name's similarity to "cheetle," the company's official name for Cheeto dust, according to a news release from Cheetos. "Cheetos fans have always known that the delicious, cheesy dust on their fingertips is an unmistakably delicious part of the Cheetos experience, but now it officially has a name: Cheetle," said Lisa Allie, the senior marketing director at PepsiCo Foods Canada, which distributes Cheetos in the country. "We're excited to be celebrating Cheetle and Canadians' cheesy, Cheetle-dusted fingertips on such a grand scale and in such a uniquely mischievous way." The statue stands almost 17 feet tall. The unique piece of art won't stay in Cheadle forever, however, according to Cheetos' news release. Cheadle residents and visitors can check out the big, cheesy fingers until Nov. 4. Then, the monument will embark on a tour of other locations in Canada. Cheadle is a hamlet located in Alberta's Wheatland County. Its population is tiny: Just 83 people lived there in 2021, according to Canada's census for that year. Pay Dirt is Slates money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Lillian, Athena, and Elizabeth here. (Its anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt, Ive been self-employed most of my career and have no spouse or kids to take care of me in an emergency, so Ive made a point of being practical and frugal so I can take care of myself. Ive managed to reach my mid-50s with a net worth of about $800,000. I also have decent health insurance, plus long-term care insurance if I need home health care or to move into a nursing home. Advertisement Women in my family tend to live well into their 80s. But my doctor told me this week that while he cant be definite yet, he suspects the weird health problems Ive been having for the last six months are caused by a certain illness that has no cure and has an average prognosis of just three to five years. So, now I have to revamp my plans for the possibility that I wont even make it to 60, and will be increasingly debilitated and need ever more expensive care for most of that time. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I know I need to talk to a financial planner about how to make sure I dont run out of money if/when I have to stop working. But I keep thinking, Go do all those things you always wanted to do and visit all the people you love, because this may be the last time youre well enough to do it. Is this an either/or, or can I do both? Advertisement Advertisement Ill Have No More Bad Days Dear Ill Have No More Bad Days, Im so sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I dont think you have to choose. You dont have unlimited funds but I think you have enough to plan for the care you need and still cross those items off your wish list. A good financial planner will help you do this, and its partly a matter of allocating your portfolio in a way that allows it to grow passively and deciding what an appropriate budget is for the things youve always wanted to do. Not all of those are going to cost you money anyway. Spending time with the people you love is the most crucial and thats not always going to have a cost associated with it. Advertisement It may help, however, to prioritize what it is you want to do. At the risk of sounding cliche, whats on your bucket list and in what order? If you have some specific ideas, bring them in when you talk to your planner. They should be able to help you figure out how to swing it financially while also giving you peace of mind that when you need additional care, the funds will be there. Get the Pay Dirt Newsletter Money advice from Athena and Elizabeth, delivered weekly. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Dear Pay Dirt, I would like some advice on how to deal with some resentment toward my current college roommate, Sarah. Weve been renting together for almost four months now, and she moved in two months ago. I also have a third roommate, Rupal, whos a great friend. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over the summer, as I was the only one living here, I was naturally running around to pick up some household stuff we were missing (weird-sized shower curtains! a coffeemaker! etc.). I let the other two know the cost and divided it by three, with the clear expectation that they would Venmo me. Sarah, whos generally broke, just never did, not even when she moved in. So, eventually, I texted her to let her know that Id be requesting her share on Venmo and she could pay me whenever. Im not frustrated that it took her a few months to come up with the money, but I am frustrated that she just never said anything at all about paying me back. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Rupal and I each handle paying some of the bills and utilities, then Venmo request the other two people for their split of the money. Sarah always responds by telling us when, in the future, shell pay us back, usually in a matter of weeks. I paid for the shared communal groceries this week and told Sarah and Rupal to let me know what items they would use, so I could Venmo request everybodys share. Sarah is just kind of ignoring that. I understand that she is working a lot and trying to make rent, and I remind myself all the time to be patient and helpful, especially since Im privileged enough to have my mom paying my rent, savings from a summer job, and a great part-time job currently. But Sarah seems to avoid thinking about how her brokeness is actually affecting her roommates. I literally have no idea what Sarahs plan would be if I couldnt spot her the moneyshes just assumed that I can. And while thats true, its very stressful for me, because Im always anxious about my savings. Advertisement Advertisement It doesnt feel to me as if Sarah can actually afford to live here Im essentially subsidizing her each month. I think it was messed up to move in when Sarah was likely well aware of whether or not she could really afford it, and then to just never mention once how Rupal and I would have to constantly pay for her and wait to get paid back. So, although Sarah is nice and pleasant, now I resent her and dont have a lot of respect for her, just for the way shes gone about handling things. Sarah is very avoidant of conflict and has a lot of anxiety, and when you bring minor things up with her, she tends to spiral. Help! Advertisement Advertisement 19-Year-Old Adoptive Mom of a 22-Year-Old Dear 19 Year Old, I think you need to step back and think about what it means to be broke and why people struggle financially, which by your own admission, youve never had to do. I also want you to put yourself in Sarahs shoes for a minute. She moves in and the first thing you do is charge her for items you think the apartment needs but she did not agree to buy. Thats not OK, to begin with, even if all of your friends are independently wealthy. You cant make financial decisions for other people without their input, and choosing what to spend money on for your apartment is that kind of decision. If you want help from your roommates for household items, you need to have a conversation with them about what you need to get and what you expect to spend, and most importantly, they need them to agree to it. There are a lot of things I wanted in my early 20s for my living space that I held off on buying because I knew I had to save money. You say you understand that Sarah is trying to do that, yet you dont, or youd have given her some agency in the apartment spending. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Secondly, youre not being patient or helpful. You acknowledge that shes having trouble making rent and working a lot and your biggest concern is that shes not thinking about how her financial struggles affect youand its been only four months. Its probably true that your anxieties are not her top priority, because if shes having trouble making rent, shes also having trouble paying for other necessities like food and health insurance. You have savings and a financially supportive family, and are likely not skipping meals or worried about having to do that. Your anxiety about money is probably nowhere near what hers is right now, and unsurprisingly, people do tend to react badly when well-off people who dont understand why they financially struggle accuse them of acting irresponsibly. Financial problems are not de facto evidence of irresponsibility anymore than you not struggling because your parents are helping you is indicative of you being more responsible than the average person. You didnt earn your familys help, and I doubt Sarah earned her lack of a safety net. Advertisement If the uncertainty of whether Sarah will be a stable roommate is too much for you, then yes, you both need a new living situation. You dont want the anxiety and she doesnt deserve your presumptions and judgment. A lot of people with no parental support struggle at 22. So you need to come to some agreement about how long her lease will last going forward, and if you really do want to be helpful, you can help her find a cheaper place. You also need to learn more about why people often cant make ends meet. Id recommend Barbara Ehrenreichs brilliant book Nickled and Dimed, for starters. You have some naivety about these matters because youre 19, but youre also using a tone that makes me think you believe your financial security is something youre earned because youre more mature, and I believe you need to examine thatnot for Sarahs sake, but for your own. Advertisement Advertisement Dear Pay Dirt, Im lucky to have maintained a group of childhood friends into my mid-30s even though weve never lived in the same place as adults. When were together, we revert back to girls at boarding school for better or for worse. My closest friend is also the quirkiest in the group. Over the past decade, Ive gotten into the practice of lending her clothes for extended periods. Once she came to visit and packed her bag full of homemade gifts, so I clothed her all weekend. Another time she stopped on her way to a colder climate and borrowed a jacket (she returned it a few months later at our mutual friends wedding). So, when she accompanied her husband on a business trip to my city this summer and asked to borrow a formal dress for an event, I had no qualms about lending one. She is odd but not unreliable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement She recently announced to the group that her husband sold his business and they are going to travel globally for the next year and work as digital nomads. In preparation for the trip, they ended their lease, stashed some heirlooms with various friends and family, and liquidated all of their belongings that theyre not taking along, saying theyll buy everything new when they come back. I bet you know where this is going the whereabouts of my dress is unknown. I asked about the dress as soon as I heard of their plans to sell everything. Once she admitted she didnt know where, or to whom, the dress was given, I asked for a small repayment from the proceeds. She never responded to that topic. Shes well off and gainfully employed, and I didnt expect her to default on this loan. She profited from something that Id loaned herI should either get the dress or some money back, right? This is already making me resentful but I dont want to lose a friend over it. Advertisement Advertisement Lonely Lender Dear Lonely Lender, Youre right to be frustrated by this. Youve been generous in loaning her clothes and reasonably expected to get those things back. I think its also reasonable to follow up on your email asking for repayment. Tell her you need her to replace the items if youre not getting them back. If she ignores you again, Id be more pointed about it and tell her you loaned her the clothing because you trusted her to return it, and while it might not mean much to her, it does to you. Tell her you value your friendship and dont want to build resentment toward her over this. Advertisement Im not sure you can be more direct than that. If it escalates to that point, theres a possibility that she gets defensive about it, so its important to give her an easy way out (which is, frankly, just paying you for it). Couch it in language that isnt accusatory: That dress was important to me, and if you cant locate it, Id feel better about the situation if I had funds to replace it. She may also just take it for granted that you dont care that much about the items you lend her, and its important to convey that thats not the case. Advertisement I generally think anything you loan to a friend or family member should be regarded as a potential gift, and that may be useful to remember the next time your friend asks you to borrow something. But she is in the wrong here and should reimburse you. Dear Pay Dirt, I recently purchased into an event business with a friend who was very experienced with the type of business. Part of the deal involved keeping the original owner of the business as a partner in the new business. This past year was my first year being involved in the running of the event and I found myself doing most of the organizational work. I specifically joined with these two to learn from them but found that it was other friends and my personal clients who actually stepped in to help. I let it go at the time because I wanted to learn how to do all of the jobs required. The event was very successfully run and my additions worked out better than I could have hoped. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The main issue is that after the event was run, the original owner decided to finally read the LLC agreement he had signed that I set up with an attorney according to our agreed-on way of distributing profits. After speaking with my friend, who did remember that we had agreed to those terms, I consulted with the attorney to confirm that everything had been done above board. My friend changed his tune and now remembers that we were supposed to do things the way the original owner wanted. Despite the documents being signed 6 months prior and being completely fair and legal, they insisted that I had made a mistake. We had a meeting in which they both brought up their lack of participation in the organization of the event and how I just didnt see the work they had done, as well as insisting that I agree to amend the agreement. I told them I would like to make things work but that I was not happy with their contributions. They seem to have taken that to mean that I will go along, and in subsequent meetings have seemed to have moved on despite creating a big uproar about how I was wrong. I am mixed about continuing to work with them. Should I continue this? Advertisement Advertisement Partners? Dear Partners, Im a little confused about what the agreement states regarding the original partner. You say that part of the deal was keeping the original partner involved, and your friend states that the agreement required you to do things the way the original owner wanted, which are two different scenarios. It seems like you dont have a clear chain of command for the business, so can the original owner veto any decision you and your friend make? If not, you need to come up with some process for building consensus around what you should and shouldnt be doingeven if its just voting among the three of you. Advertisement If you think this is an issue of miscommunication or a lack of mutual understanding regarding what was in your partnership agreement, then that seems like a problem that can be solved, though it may require you to rework the agreement to everyones satisfaction. If it seems like your friend and the original owner are simply trying to control the business while you do the bulk of the work and take some equity, you should rethink whether you want to be in business with them. If you dont, then perhaps you should explore the buyout provisions in your operating agreement. (You could buy them out or they could buy you out, and your operating agreement should outline how that would work.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its hard to run a business with what are effectively three chief executives unless youre all very aligned with regard to your vision for how it should be run, and what constitutes success. You believe the event was very successful; they believe you made mistakes. If you want to continue to work with them, you, unfortunately, need to talk to them about the event again, and better understand what they think could have been better, and make sure that youre all in agreement about the direction youre headed in now. You should have a common, shared objective that you all understand to be indicative of success. Maybe its revenue or profits; maybe its something more ephemeral like whether the event had an impact externally. Advertisement Whatever it is, you need to be in agreement or youll keep pulling the business in different directions until you tear it apart. In the absence of agreement, you need a hierarchy or voting process that allows decisions to be made in a way that doesnt lead to constant conflict or prevent things from getting done. That means someone has to have a final say. A good starting point would be talking to your partners about how to handle conflicts where you disagree on business strategy or operational decisions. If you cant work through conversations like this, you probably cant work together long-term, at least not in a way thats productive and satisfying for everyone. Elizabeth More Advice From Slate My mom is really inflexible about my clothes. The problem isnt really about modesty; my family is both Indian and practicing Catholic (aka a modesty double whammy), and I can accept and understand that my parents are going to control things like the length of my clothes. Im fine with that. My problem is that my mom wont let me wear the clothes I like. I have a very different style from her. Last month, Alabama botched its first attempt to execute Alan Miller. Now it wants another chance to put him to death. The state, one of the nations leaders in executions, tried to kill Miller by lethal injection on September 22. But, with time running out before Millers death warrant would expire, the officials in charge of his execution stopped it because they knew they had failed. These officials gave up after 90 minutes of jabbing him repeatedly with needles as they tried to find a vein to insert the IV line that would carry the deadly chemicals. Advertisement Last week Miller went to court to prevent Alabama from going forward with its plan to try again to use lethal injection to kill him. Miller, who was sentenced to death for the killing of three men in two workplace shootings in Shelby County in 1999, says he is terrified of needles and that his veins are compromised. He has repeatedly said that if Alabama insists on executing him, it should be done by nitrogen hypoxia. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alabama added this method to its menu of available execution options in 2018, but the state insists it is not yet ready to use it. Whatever the execution method, death is always a cruel punishment. But it is never more so than when someone has experienced that cruelty first hand and then survived. Advertisement While courts have yet to acknowledge that trying to execute someone more than once inherently constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and thus violates the constitution, neither Alabama nor any other state should be afforded a second chance to get an execution right. Botched executions, like Millers, are nothing new in American history, and lethal injection has proven itself to be this nations least reliable execution method. Over the last decade, botched lethal injections have occurred with increasing frequency as states have experimented with new drugs and drug combinations. And difficulties accessing a useable vein also are common occurrences. Millers is the third Alabama execution since 2018 where state officials have spent hours repeatedly jabbing inmates with needles as they tried without success to find such a vein. Advertisement Advertisement But most botched executions are not stopped no matter how much suffering the condemned person experiences. Usually the inmate who suffers from the states negligence or incompetence ends up dead. Advertisement Miller is only the fifth person in the last 76 years to survive an execution. And, if Alabama gets its way, he would be only the second one to live long enough to face another execution attempt. The stories of these execution survivors remind us of the ways that executions fail and also of the tortured logic courts have used to allow states a second chance when the first one doesnt succeed. Lets start with Louisianas 1946 effort to put Willie Francis to death in the electric chair. Francis, a Black teenager, was convicted and sentenced for the murder of Andrew Thomas, a pharmacy owner who had once employed him. Willie was 16 at the time of the murder. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The prison guard in charge of readying the states electric chair, which was known as Gruesome Gertie, did so while intoxicated. As a result of his negligence, the chair malfunctioned and failed to deliver enough electrical current to kill Francis. Soon after the executioner threw the switch, Francis screamed in pain, and the execution was stopped. Undaunted, Louisiana wanted to try again. Francis sued to prevent it from doing so. He claimed that a second execution attempt would violate the constitutions prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and of double jeopardy. Advertisement Advertisement The United States Supreme Court disagreed. The Court allowed Louisiana to proceed with the second execution because, it reasoned, the failure of the first was an accident rather than the result of a deliberate attempt to make Francis suffer. Advertisement As Justice Stanley Reed explained in his majority opinion, When an accident, with no suggestion of malevolence, prevents the consummation of a sentence, the states subsequent course in the administration of its criminal law is notdouble jeopardyThe fact, Reed continued, that an unforeseeable accident prevented the prompt consummation of the sentence cannotadd an element of cruelty to a subsequent execution. Willie Francis died in Louisianas electric chair on May 9, 1947, almost one year to the day after the first execution attempt. More than a half century later, Romell Broom became the next execution survivor when Ohio attempted to execute him by lethal injection. His execution was stopped when the execution team could not establish a workable IV line. Over a two hour period, prison officials had tried inserting the IV in 18 different sites on his arms and legs. Advertisement Like Willie Francis, Broom failed to persuade courts that a second execution would be unconstitutional. As the Ohio State Supreme Court put it, the establishment of viable IV lines is a necessary preliminary step, but it does not, by itself, place the prisoner at risk of death. As the (state) statute makes clear, the execution commences when the lethal drug enters the IV line. Since the lethal drugs had not begun to flow through the tubes, Brooms punishment had not begun. Ohio could try again. Advertisement Advertisement But the state never got the chance to do so. Broom died of COVID-19 at age 64. The lethal injections of the other two execution survivors, Alva Campbell in 2017 and Doyle Hamm in 2018, were also stopped when their executioners failed to find places to insert IV lines. Both got sick subsequently and passed away while they were in custody. Advertisement The lawsuit Alan Miller filed last week alleges that, like Broom, Hamm and Campbell, his attempted execution was torturous. As members of Alabamas execution team tried over and over again to insert an IV needle into his veins, they stuck needles into various places on his arms, hands and feet. They even began slapping the skin on his neck as they considered inserting a needle there. When they put the needle into his right foot, Miller says, that he knew something was wrong because he felt a sudden and severe pain. He felt like he had been electrocuted, and his entire body shook in the restraints. According to a report in The Atlantic, after these failures, Miller was left suspended vertically from a cross-shaped table, hands and one foot bleeding for more than 20 minutes, while officials considered what to do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Eventually he was returned to his execution holding cell in a deep state of shock and post-traumatic stress. The precedents set in the Francis and Broom cases, as well as the current Supreme Courts enthusiasm for the death penalty, do not bode well for the fate of Alan Miller. But it is long past time for this country to say unequivocally that where the death penalty is concerned the government should get no second chances. No one who survives an execution attempt should ever have to face the prospect of a return to the death chamber. As Justice Harold Burton put it in his dissent in the Francis case, giving the government the go ahead to carry out a second execution shocks the most fundamental instincts of civilized man. It should not be possible under the constitutional procedure of a self-governing people. As of early October, Republican independent expenditure groups were outspending Democrats in the top nine Senate races by a cool $81 million. For Democrats, who have allowed themselves to hope the party might pick up additional Senate seats in this cycle, the prospect of being outspent by the GOP is not a happy one. Some Democratic strategists have started sounding the alarm. But it might not be a portent of November doom. For the first election cycle in recent years, Democrats are not spending big, but they are spending smarter. More specifically, they have broken out of their fixation on lavishing money on no-shot candidates in ruby red states. Funding these starry-eyed, extravagant races was a defining blunder in their misbegotten 2020 strategy. Advertisement Now, neither the Senate Majority PAC nor the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committeethe Democrats two major independent expenditure groups in the Senateare chasing likely losers with huge money. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement For example, theyve abstained from going big on Florida candidate Val Demings, where the emotional allure of knocking out Republican Marco Rubio far exceeds the likelihood of actually picking up a seat in a state where Democrats are in shambles. Theyve also, until just recently, shied away from sending substantial funding to North Carolina, where polling says Democrat Cheri Beasley is neck and neck with Republican Ted Budd, but where Democrats havent won a statewide federal race in 14 years and the party is similarly weak. (Operatives were clamoring for money in that race in the pages of Politico; the $4 million the Senate Majority PAC announced last week is not an exorbitant figure). Advertisement Advertisement Just two years ago, this strategy would have been unthinkable. In 2020, 35 Senate seats were up for election, and Democrats outspent Republicans in 22 of them. The money advantage was gigantic: Democrats spent $280 million more than Republicans did across those 35 races. But it did not translate to success. Of the 22 races where Dems outspent Republicans, they managed to lose nine of them. Many were not even close. Before winning in the Georgia runoffs, the party spent the most money ever in a Senate cycleto flip all of one seat. Advertisement Before the 2020 ballots were even counted, Democratic Kentucky Senate hopeful Amy McGrath, with her $75 million campaign to unseat Mitch McConnell, was already a parable of Democratic profligacy: All of that money, and still, it was the worst Democratic performance in a Kentucky Senate race since 2002. (Overzealous out-of-state donors were partly to blame.) Advertisement But Democratic Party leadership, in its official Senate campaign apparatus, was also engaged in plenty of profligacy of its own, in places like South Carolina and Iowa. In the Palmetto State, Democrat Jaime Harrison raised $109 million in a no-shot bid to take down Republican Lindsey Graham and still managed to lose by more than 10 points. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer then compounded the issue by dumping another $6.5 million in independent expenditures, through the Senate Majority PAC, into outside ad spending in South Carolina. The DSCC threw in seven figures as well. Those purchases were locked in a losing race in late September of 2020 while a number of more competitive races were still up for grabs. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Worse yetthough it garnered less attention at the timewas the spending on Iowa Democrat Theresa Greenfield. Greenfield also had a fundraising advantage over her opponent, Republican incumbent Joni Ernst: $47 million, huge money for a small state with a cheap media market. It was more than double what Ernst was spending. Advertisement Advertisement The Senate Majority PAC then poured another $42 million into the race in independent expenditures, making Greenfields race the single biggest outlay of critical resources from the organization. Greenfield was also the single top recipient of money from the DSCC, which dumped in another $27 million. It was, to put it frankly, absurd. There was no way to parse recent Democratic performance in Iowa in any way to make a triumph look likely. Unlike in the red states of Kansas or Montana, or reddish North Carolina, Democrats had not won a major statewide race in Iowa, gubernatorial or senatorial, in years. Hillary Clinton lost the state in 2016 by 10 points. Advertisement Greenfield, meanwhile, was a uniquely terrible candidate. A wealthy real estate developer, she had never won any elected office at any level. She announced a run for a House seat in Iowas 3rd District in 2018and got herself on a Time magazine coverbut withdrew from the race after her campaign got popped for forging some of the 1,790 signatures needed to get on the ballot. That was revealed a full 24 hours before the filing deadline, giving her a day to make up the difference, but she was unable to sign up even 1,500 supporters in time and dropped out. Still, Schumer recruited her to run for the Senate, then flowed $69 million of discretionary (and unnecessary) funding her way$69 million! Advertisement Advertisement Democratic coffers arent as full this time around, which no doubt has played a role in the decision making. And there is plenty of spending yet to come. Advertisement But, in 2022, there is every indication that the party is actually considering candidate quality and recent Democratic performance before cutting checks, a huge departure from the last election cycle. (That, of course, only goes for the Democrats they are funding: On the House side, the new Democratic strategy was to boost far-right candidates in Republican primaries as a way of making Republicans less electable in the general. That also seems to be paying dividends, but it remains to be seen.) If anything, the Democratic Senate campaign machine is now being too cautious on winnable races. The national spending on Pennsylvania Senate hopeful John Fetterman has only just startedas of late September, the DSCC had spent $0 on that race, though money is probably on the way. The party is also pinching pennies on Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin, a not terribly strong candidate who nevertheless won statewide election as lieutenant governor in a state Biden also won outright. Ohio has been an unfavorable place for Democrats on the presidential level in recent years, but the state does already have one Democratic senator in Sherrod Brown, who was reelected in 2018. This election cycle, Democrat Tim Ryan is running a good campaign against an unfavorable Republican opponent in J.D. Vance. The DSCC and Senate Majority PAC would do well to spend more in those races. (Top Democratic fundraisers, including Tim Persico, the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, took to the Washington Post just days ago to scare more money out of donors, saying it is needed to win in November.) This year, its the Republicans who have thrown money at a crop of uniquely unimpressive aspirantsin a tidy reversal, Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz, and Blake Masters have all become expensive underperformers. In the House, too, Republicans are being forced to spend more on weak, extremist candidates without general election appeal. Democrats may have pioneered new heights last cycle in making an advantage in fundraising meaningless, but this time, they are doing more with less. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard a case with implications for abortion access, transgender health care, clean energy, and much, much more. But on the surface, the case itself is about none of these explosive topics. Ostensibly, National Pork Producers Council v. Ross is merely about pigs. In the United States, most pigs raised for meat are treated cruellyconfined in cages so small that they cannot stand up, sit down, or turn around. California outlawed the sale of pork from pigs raised in this cruel manner in 2018. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether Californias law violates the Constitution, with possible far-reaching consequences. Advertisement You might expect that a 63 conservative supermajority ostensibly devoted to limited federal power would give blue states leeway to experiment with economic policy. But National Pork involves a constitutional provision that divides both conservatives and liberals along unusual lines: the dormant commerce clause. This doctrine emerged from the theory that the Constitution intended to create a single national market and thus restricted states authority to regulate commerce beyond their borders. So, for instance, Michigan cant discriminate against out-of-state wineries just because it wants Michigan residents to drink (mediocre) wine produced in-state. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Textualists and originalists tend to dislike the dormant commerce clause since it doesnt appear in the Constitution; the Supreme Court has instead inferred the doctrine from the actual commerce clause, which gives Congress (not states) the power to regulate interstate commerce. Because its a judge-made gloss on the Constitution, justices like Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch reject its validity. Yet other conservative justices, like Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, champion the dormant commerce clause because it gives courts a tool for deregulationa key aim of the right-wing legal movement. The left flank of the court is also conflicted: Liberals have historically supported the doctrines goal of a nationwide market regulated only by Congress, but disliked its potential to nullify forward-thinking blue state regulations. Advertisement Advertisement Today, theres another reason why some progressives are looking more favorably upon the dormant commerce clause: At a time when the Supreme Court is rapidly revoking constitutional rights like abortion, the doctrine creates a barrier to red states that seek to extend their laws beyond their own borders. The dormant commerce clause is one pillar of the right to travel. This liberty is increasingly relevant after the fall of Roe v. Wade, as red states consider prohibiting their own residents from traveling elsewhere to terminate a pregnancy. While voting to overturn Roe, Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed his belief that such laws would violate the constitutional right to interstate travel. That right may become vital for transgender Americans, too, as red states mull laws that bar residents from traveling out of state to obtain gender-affirming health care for themselves or their children. Advertisement Advertisement While a strong dormant commerce clause can protect fundamental rights like abortion, however, it also threatens another liberal project: state-level efforts to promote clean energy. California, for example, sets fuel standards that are higher than the federal governments; as a result, manufacturers in other states must make more efficient cars if they want access to the California market. Colorado requires its utility companies to provide some energy from renewable sources, which disadvantages fossil fuel producers in other states that share Colorados grid. A turbocharged dormant commerce clause would jeopardize such progressive attempts to decarbonize blue states. Advertisement Advertisement Caught in the middle of these two poles are the pigs of the United States. California imports most of its pork from pig-producing states like Iowa and North Carolina. That means the effects of its lawa voter-approved measure called Proposition 12falls on pork producers beyond Californias borders. Is that kosher? Advertisement Advertisement Several conservative justices didnt seem to think so during Tuesdays oral arguments, and used hypotheticals implying that Proposition 12 is just the start of a campaign to impose Californias woke values across the country. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked if California could ban pork from companies that dont require all their employees to be vaccinated or from corporations that dont fund gender-affirming surgery. Kavanaugh wondered if it could ban fruit from companies that dont pay the minimum wage. Kavanaugh and Alito both asked if a state could ban the sale of goods created by nonunion employers. The justices also implied that other states could decide turnaround is fair play and try to penalize California by banning goods handled by noncitizens or unionized employees. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Alito, probably the courts fiercest defender of the dormant commerce clause, also suggested that California had enacted Proposition 12 because it wanted to bully smaller states. Is California unconcerned about all this because it is such a giant, you can wield this power? he snapped at California Solicitor General Michael Mongan. Wyoming couldnt do it, most other states couldnt do it, but you can do it? You can bully the other states, and so youre not really that concerned about retaliation? Is that part of your position? (Mongans answer, predictably, was no.) The liberal justices, meanwhile, spent the bulk of their time beating up on Timothy Bishop, who did a poor job in representing the pork companies trying to take down Proposition 12. They were joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, two avowed foes of the dormant commerce clause, creating the curious spectacle of two ultraconservative justices defending a deep-blue states animal cruelty law. Gorsuch scolded Bishop for trying to revive the Lochner era, when SCOTUS struck down many health and safety regulations. You are selling us a freewheeling balancing test a la Lochner to protect an economic liberty rather than defer to state regulation on health and safety, the justice asserted. Isnt that just a form of enshrining non-textual economic liberties into the Constitution, a project this court disavowed a long time ago? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unsurprisingly, the liberal justices sounded torn. Initially, they thrashed Bishop, as well as Edwin Kneedler, who argued on behalf of the Department of Justice. (The DOJ sided with the pork producers, upsetting animal rights advocates by maintaining the Trump administrations position.) Both lawyers framed Proposition 12 as a moral objection to cruelly produced pork with no scientific basis. But, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Bishop, extreme confinement of pigs can lead to contaminated pork, which sickens consumers. Arent these genuine scientific reasons for the law sufficient to justify it? Justice Elena Kagan asked Kneedler if, before the Civil War, a state could ban the sale of goods produced by slavery. Kneedler said that no, a state could not prohibit slave-made goods. (That answer signals a serious problem with his theory.) Advertisement But by the end of arguments, the liberal justices were pivoting back, and understandably so. A big swing on the dormant commerce clause in either direction could damage progressive jurisprudence in so many other areas. Upholding Californias law would give hope to red states that want to cut off their residents access to health care elsewhere. Striking it down could imperil blue state innovations that push the national market toward cleaner energy. And we shouldnt forget about the pigshighly intelligent, emotionally sensitive creatures who are tormented by the extreme confinement that Proposition 12 discourages. It would be tragic if the liberal justices helped invalidate the measure solely out of fear that upholding it would empower the conservative bloc to wreak havoc in other cases. The conservative bloc is going to do whatever it wants in every case, no matter how National Pork comes down. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement On a reasonable court, there would be five votes to uphold Proposition 12 on the narrow grounds that it is not intended to discriminate against other states, and that pork producers around the country can comply without any substantial burden on interstate commerce. Failing that, the court could send the case back down for a trial to measure the laws real-world effect on other states. Without Thomas or Gorsuch on board, the remaining conservative justices ability to manipulate National Pork to further their ideological goals is limited. That gives the liberal justices the opportunity to broker a compromise that wont exploit the plight of the pigs to sabotage human rights. MICHOACAN, MexicoHiking high in the mountains of Central Mexico, you could be forgiven for forgetting about the monarch butterflies well-publicized problems. Here, millions of butterflies festoon the trees in shuddering layers so thick its impossible to see the foliage beneath. Hundreds of thousands more flutter through the thin air into grassy meadows, seeking water and sunshine. Its December, and theyve come here to overwinter, migrating up to 2,500 miles, from as far away as Canada; they gather into an area just a few hectares in size. A chorus of soft rustling punctuates it all, an unmistakable and omnipresent thrumthe collective sound of billions of tiny wingbeats. Advertisement And yet, problems they have. These populations are declining for reasons that arent entirely clear, facing a grab bag of environmental challenges, from climate change and pesticide use, to vehicle traffic and deforestation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The plight of these monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), each no heavier than a sunflower seed, is unusually well-documented. The New York Times alone, for example, covers it roughly monthly, and its a been a favorite for publications as diverse as the Associated Press, Fox News, and National Geographic. From lower-back tattoos to your emoji keyboard, there is perhaps no species of insect that has entered our collective consciousness more than the monarch. The orange-and-black critters are a bonified conservation icon. What might be most surprising about the monarch butterfly, then, is that as a species, it is not actually endangered. The International Union for Conservation of Nature categorizes it a species of least concern, the designation reserved for those considered furthest from danger of extinction. Advertisement Advertisement A significant portion of this disconnect can be explained by the amount of press different segments of the global monarch butterfly population receive. Two distinct groups of migratory monarchs exist in North America: the aforementioned Mexican-Canadian population and a smaller population west of the Rockies that overwinters in California. It seems journalists simply cant resist using these breathtaking, drama-filled migration spectacles for an attention-grabbing headline or lede (guilty!). So, as far as many people are aware, these are the only monarchs that existlets call them the celebrity North American migrators. And its true: These populations, in Mexico and California, are on the downswing. The Western population in particular has been raising alarm bells, with some estimates putting the decimation as high as a 99 percent decline over the past few decades. Advertisement Advertisement After years of public pressure, our celebrity North American migratory subpopulations were listed as, yes, an endangered species in July. However, youd be mistaken to think that monarchs are in dire need of our helpor remotely close to extinction. Advertisement Advertisement There are many, many more populations of monarchs. Danaus plexippus is also native throughout the rest of the Americas, with stable populations found in Florida, through the entirety of Central America and the Caribbean, and as far south as Venezuela. In the 1800s, likely as unintentional stowaways on trade ships, the insect colonized much of the tropical world. Today, the butterflies can also be found in abundance in Spain, Morocco, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, and much of the South Pacific; in these locales, they are a largely harmless, non-native, but still immensely successful species. Furthermore, there are two other species of monarch, which are also apparently stable in their numbersDanaus erippus, which inhabits the southern half of South America, and Danaus cleophile, exclusive to the islands of Jamaica and Hispaniola. Advertisement Advertisement Even when it comes to the North American migratory subpopulations, the science is far from settled on just how urgent their peril is. Like many insect species, monarchs naturally have enormous population fluctuations from year to year. Theres no reliable data prior to 1993 on the North American monarch butterfly headcount. Its possible that the years when reliable data collection started were anomalously abundant, and populations today have simply settled into more reasonable numbers Advertisement Advertisement Its been argued by some that this period of time could have been a blip in terms of how high the population was, says Anurag Agrawal, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University, and author of Monarchs and Milkweed, though he cautions that this hypothesis certainly isnt a fact, simply a possibility. Overwintering populations [in Mexico], which are really important, really have declined in the last 30 years, Agrawal explains. However, it is unclear whether theyre threatened. That is, theres not a clear culprit to attribute their decline to. Advertisement Advertisement Without knowing the historical populations, or specifically what is driving down the overwintering populations, its not possible to be sure just how dire things like climate change, herbicide and pesticide use, or deforestation really are to this group of insects. In fact, the Californian overwintering colonies increased more than a hundredfold between 2020 and 2021 (although, its quite possible that bump is just a fluctuation itself). Theres also something curious happening to these potentially threatened populations when they are residing further North. A paper published in the of Global Change Biology in June assessed population trends during summers, when breeding monarch butterflies proliferate across the United States and southern Canada. Compiling over 135,000 observations from 1993 to 2018, the authors conclusion came as a surprise to many: On measure, there is no compelling evidence that the summertime populations of monarchs are experiencing any significant declines. Advertisement This is, of course, rather confusing: How can the same group of insects be declining in Mexico but stable when they return north? Advertisement The migration takes place annually across four separate generations, so its not actually one group of butterflies making the trek. (Three out of the four generations will live for four to six weeks, with the fourth generationthe overwinterersliving for up to nine months.) Each individual female can lay around 400 eggs in her lifetime. Crunching the numbers, this means a single butterfly flying north from Mexico will potentially have millions of descendants within a year. This enormous level of fecundity appears to compensate for any declines experienced over the winter, the Global Change Biology paper explainsa relatively small population can explode quickly. Its possible that migratory monarchs face issues during the migration south, or at the overwintering sites themselves; thus, the population shrinks in the winter, only to expand again in the summer. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Enormous natural population fluctuations, insufficient long-term data, and conflicting scientific conclusionstheres just no real consensus right now on whats really happening with these butterflies. And again, were talking just about one segment of monarchs on the planet that is on the downswing. What remains clear, however, is the publics enthusiasm for the charismatic creature. Regardless of the complex scientific realities, the monarch has ascended to become a conservation celebrity, a flagship species in the fight to save pollinators. Studies have suggested that the American public would be willing to pay around $5 billion to save the species, a number on par with the gray wolf. Dozens of different organizations such as Monarch Watch and Journey North are actively engaged with tens of thousands of people across the continent, educating, tagging, rearing, and collecting data on the species, in what is surely one of the largest collaborations of citizen science on the planet. Advertisement The monarch has all the qualities that serve to capture the human imagination: natural wonder, scientific intrigue, and epic character arcs with a beautiful conclusion. Qualities that, perhaps, convinced you to click on this article in the first place. Its a potent symbol for environmental politics. Advertisement In 2014, when President Barack Obama signed a memorandum promoting the conservation of pollinators, he singled out the monarch, along with the honeybee, to illustrate the gravity of the concern. What is or isnt happening with the monarch populations aside, the prevailing opinion among the scientific community is that the butterflies are a largely ineffective and unimportant pollinator. A 2004 book minced no words, saying, If monarchs became extinct tomorrow, it is likely that the impact on our material well-being would be negligible. Advertisement The monarchs undeniable charisma and widespread accessibility make it a compelling ambassador for the world of conservation science. Most of us will only lay eyes on a polar bear in the dreary confines of a zoo, if that. But from Texas to Toronto, people can encounter the monarch in their own backyards. Counterintuitively, its their abundance that makes them such an effective conservation symbol, and if youre reading this from the continental United States, you too can help by encouraging natural wildflowers to grow in your area, or collecting data on behalf of the scientific community. The barrier to engagement is as low as stepping outside. Advertisement The hope is, of course, that people wont just help out with the monarchs; its that theyll become concerned about animals in general, even the ones that dont get airtime. Youve probably never heard of the flat pigtoe mussel or the little Mariana fruit bat. They are among the dozens of species declared extinct in 2022, each no less important to their respective ecosystems than the monarch butterfly is to its. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In reality, conservation is not about any single species, says Agrawal. Focusing intently on supporting one particular species is a way to trick ourselves into thinking were doing a lot of good, he explains. Our goal isnt to save the monarch. Its to save our functional ecosystems. For those that want to help, Agrawals advice probably sounds familiar: Consume a little less, and provide a little more. I know it sounds small, but small things are contagious. Furthermore, he encourages people to educate themselves as much as possible and, if able, donate to conservation organizations that they care about. All this is not to say that the monarch butterfly is not beautiful or worthwhile. Its just that the species may not be as black-and-whiteor rather, black-and-orangeas its typically portrayed. This January, Alex Petkanas boarded a flight from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seattle. After years of working with his therapist and medical providers, he was finally on his way to get top surgery, a procedure that removes unwanted breast tissue. Its a key part of gender-affirming care for many transgender and nonbinary people. For Petkanas, a 30-year-old transmasculine person, having a body that didnt match his gender identity was severely affecting his mental health. There were no well-known surgeons who do gender-affirming procedures in the Anchorage area, so he decided to make the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Washington. Top surgery was something I had wanted for a long time, and at a certain point, it kind of felt like I wasnt really able to move forward with my life without it, he said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is an enduring myth that getting gender-affirming surgery is too easythat people will get swept up in a temporary vision of themselves, and then come to regret changes they made to their bodies. This concern is particularly large when it comes to top surgeries for teens. Some clinicians have pointed to the rising demand [of top surgery] and the turmoil of adolescent development as reasons for doctors to slow down before offering irreversible procedures, wrote Azeen Ghorayshi in a recent widely discussed piece for the New York Times. But the reality is that the process behind getting top surgery can be long and onerous. Surgeons and health insurance plans typically require one or two letters of support from health professionals showing a diagnosis of persistent gender dysphoriathe psychological distress from the mismatch between ones biological sex and ones gender identity. Yet finding someone who practices trans health care can be very difficult. Some insurance plans also insist on at least a year of successful real-life experience in the patients desired gender. The surgery can cost more than $10,000, a sum that can take time to save for. And having the means to fund the surgery isnt enough: Patients also need to find a surgeon who is willing to use their skills specifically for gender-affirming procedures, many of whom are booked out for months. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Altogether, getting top surgery can take years, even for adults. And for trans or nonbinary kids under 18, the road can be even longer. The kid not only needs to come in with persistent and well-documented gender dysphoria, but they also have to have the capacity to understand this care, said Steph DeNormand, the trans health program manager at Fenway Health, an LGBTQ health care organization in Boston. This usually means having even more detailed conversations about the surgery with younger folks than with adults, DeNormand noted. Advertisement Advertisement Conversations around top surgery for both adults and teens follow a set of standards of care laid out by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH. They include confirming the patient and, if necessary, their parents or guardians understand what top surgery entails, making sure the surgery lines up with the patients future goals, and assuring that any other significant mental health concerns are reasonably well controlled at the time of the procedure. Advertisement When we are talking to younger folks before pursuing any kind of care, its always with an assessment of what is most appropriate for someone at that age, the level of either distress or dysphoria that they are experiencing, and a balance of risks and benefits, said DeNormand. Two 12-year-old trans kids, for example, may have vastly different care plans because of their social, emotional, and physical development, and their unique gender goals. So much of gender-affirming care is individualized because everyones priorities and needs are different. Advertisement Advertisement A step like top surgery wont be right for every trans or nonbinary person, or teen. I think that the majority of the time when we are seeing someone who is under the age of 18 who is accessing surgery, it is typically in the context of an extreme level of distress, said DeNormand. Advertisement Advertisement Numerous studies have shown that gender-affirming care, which includes anything from talk therapy to hormone therapy to gender-affirming surgery, improves mental health in trans and nonbinary people. For those who pursue top surgery, its not a panacea against mental health distress. But for many people, it is incredibly helpful. A 2021 paper found that trans people who had received one or more gender-affirming surgeries had a 42 percent reduction in the odds of experiencing psychological distress over the past month and a 44 percent reduction in the odds of suicidal thoughts over the past year. While much of this research has been done on adults, a study published in September analyzed 36 patients aged 13 to 24 who had received top surgery and found that they had significantly less dysphoria and more body image satisfaction three months post-surgery. Advertisement Advertisement Yet theres a narrative that, despite how long it can take to get top surgery, people will regret the procedureespecially if they are young. In addition to patients who were happy with their choice to get top surgery, Ghorayshis piece featured two women who received top surgery as young adults and then subsequently detransitioned. And if you keep up with critics of gender-affirming surgery, youve likely heard stories of people regretting their surgeries before. Its true that some people do regret the surgery, but the number might be smaller than youd think: Only 1 percent of people who have received gender-affirming surgery report regret, according to a 2021 review of just under 8,000 patients of such surgeries. Regret for gender-affirming surgery is drastically lower than the regret rates of people who have had knee replacement surgery, gotten a tattoo, gone to college, or even had a baby. Advertisement Advertisement I had top surgery 13 years ago. There is not a day that goes by that I dont think about how it was the best thing I have ever done for my survival. I also had orthopedic knee surgery at 14 and often regret it, Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union, recently tweeted. Regardless of how helpful top surgery can be, even trans adults experience incredible barriers when trying to access surgical care. This includes finding a therapista process that can be difficult for anyone. But for those seeking top surgery, a therapist who practices gender-affirming care and is willing to write a letter of support may be particularly hard to find. Advertisement I had a therapist tell me, Youre too pretty to be anything but a girl and that she would not be giving me a letter of recommendation for top surgery, Eri, who wished to be referred to by their first name to protect their medical privacy, wrote in a Twitter message. They had to wait three years to get top surgery. Advertisement Advertisement The procedure is also very expensive. However, even in states that require private insurance to include transgender-related health care, getting coverage can be tough. Additionally, trans people are more likely to be uninsured and experience cost-related barriers to health care than their cisgender peers. Advertisement Advertisement T.L. Pavlich could not get their top surgery covered by insurance. In the end, I had been waiting for 10 years for the surgery, and the idea of having to wait even longer was heartbreaking, so I took out a loan instead of canceling the appointment, Pavlich wrote via Twitter. The surgery cost just over $8,000. Advertisement Silas Fischer had to make a 17-hour drive from Ohio to Texas to get the surgery. I needed a surgeon within a certain price range because I was paying out-of-pocket. My insurance would not cover top surgery, Fischer, whose surgery cost around $7,500, wrote in an email. Finding and scheduling an appointment with a surgeon is also time-consumingand many of the well-respected ones have long waitlists. I wish I knew how long the process was going to take. I really do, wrote Bo Belotti, who spent months searching for a surgeon who accepted his insurance. It was heartbreaking being told I couldnt even get a consultation. Thankfully, Belotti eventually found a surgeon. Advertisement There is also a dearth of information about the boxes patients must check before getting top surgery and where to find good therapists, medical providers, and surgeons. Advertisement I wish there was more information out there. Its such a long and complicated process and it seems like everywhere does it differently, Lennon Sherburne wrote in an email. The trans community really rallies together to put stuff together, but we deserve clear care information and guidance just like cis folks get. Advertisement Trans and nonbinary youth seeking top surgery must contend with these barriers as well, in addition to intense scrutiny from the media and politicians. People expressing concern about the risks of kids getting top surgery often dont have access to all of the key information, DeNormand said. They dont see the young person talking to therapists, medical providers, and family about their experiences and feelings. Advertisement It is, after all, much easier for cis people to get plastic surgery than for trans people to get gender-affirming care. In 2020, there were 15.6 million cosmetic procedures performed in the U.S., according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Breast augmentations were one of the most popular surgeries, with 3,223 of these procedures performed on people aged 13 to 19. The multibillion-dollar cosmetic surgery industry is built largely on the promise that cis people can improve their self-esteem and become better versions of themselves through physical alterations that assist them in meeting a beauty standard. Critics of gender-affirming surgeries may therefore think that adults and kids getting top surgery are also operating under a similar superficial framework. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The conversation about trans kids right now is fundamentally broken. Because it is led, by and large, by cis people, it focuses on the potential regret children and adolescents might have after transitioning, and ignores the social, physical, emotional, and psychological costs of not transitioning, Vox staff writer Emily St. James wrote in a recent article. It ignores the reams of studies that underline the need to support trans kids. It ignores the lived experiences of many trans people, who despair that they were kept from transitioning as youths. There are things people can do to make getting top surgery easier for themselves and their loved ones. These include reaching out to LGBTQ helplines or community centers that can offer advice, and talking to people who have gone through the process. Reading your insurance plans medical necessity guidelines for gender-affirming services can also show you the criteria needed for getting the procedure covered. Advertisement Advertisement More than anything, patience is key. You are going to need an almost superhuman amount of patience for this process, said Riley Black, a science journalist who contributes to Slate and got her gender-affirming surgery this September. You know what you need, you know who you are. All the years of hard work and patience paid off for Petkanas, who has now recovered from his top surgery. After the procedure, he remembers looking down at his new chest for the first time. Immediately, it was clear that this was what I wanted, Petkanas said. Everyone has the right to feel comfortable in their body. YAOUNDE, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least four civilians were killed after the terror group Boko Haram raided a community in Cameroon's Far North region, according to locals and security sources. The attack took place Monday night in Moutaz village of Tourou district of the region. An army official who asked not to be named told Xinhua that the terrorists raided the civilian community after accusing them of collaborating with the army. More soldiers have been deployed to Tourou which shares border with Nigeria that is also troubled by frequent Boko Haram attacks, the official said. The Heger government unveiled the first draft of the state budget for 2023. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The drafted budget for the years 2023 to 2025 expects the general government deficit for the next year to reach 6.44 percent of GDP. According to the draft published on the website of the Economic and Social Council, the deficit adjusted for temporary effects should drop below 3 percent of GDP next year. The draft creates a space to work with shifting energy prices, the SITA newswire reported. The budget is to be discussed at the tripartite meeting on Tuesday, October 11. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The government states in the draft budget that the expenditure on compensations for households, businesses and the public sector due to the energy crisis will be exceptionally high, and dubs the draft state budget "A Budget to Aid the People". Related article Related article Schools are trying to save on energy wherever they can Read more Energy crisis measures To counter the effects of the energy crisis, 3.4 billion compensation has been budgeted. The ministry further proposed not to pay benefits to employees in the civil service relationship or employment relationship until the end of April 2023, except claimable rewards resulting from the law or collective agreements, and thus obtain an additional 100 million. This way the total package to counter the energy crisis would increase to 3.5 billion. Measures dealing with the energy crisis until now have been counting on transferring unused EU funds. The EU has been discussing measures to counter the energy crisis, but Slovakia's earlier proposal regarding the distribution of funds from the windfall tax have not come through. The government is thus not ruling out that it may be forced to nationalise energy produced in the country, as a last-resort solution. Slovakia is the only member state to have asked to transfer unused EU funds. It is also the only EU member state that could benefit from reassigning EU funds. Related article Related article 50 tips to reduce energy consumption and save money Read more Security budget The government plans to spend 1.18 billion on the security chapter in the year 2023. This includes expenses for the protection of public order and security within the Interior Ministry, the National Security Office, the Slovak Information Service and Prison and Court Guard Service (ZVJS), SITA writes. 873 million are budgeted for the protection of public order and security. It ensures the activities of the judicial police and criminal police, the financial police, the order police, the traffic police, the toll police, the inspection service of the Police Force, the Criminal and Expertise Institute of the Police Force, the railway police and the Office for the Protection of Constitutional Officials and Diplomatic Missions of the Interior Ministry," states the Economic and Social Councils official document. The main aim for the upcoming years in terms of safety is targeted towards cybersecurity. The biggest investments should happen in transportation and defense. Slovakia plans to invest 7 billion including 2.3 billion from the Recovery Plan, which is 3 billion more than during the years 2019-2022. State budget revenues are projected at 26.7 billion next year and expenditures at 35.04 billion leaving the state budget in a deficit of 8.34 billion. Brussels nods to Slovak aid schemes for energy intensive industries. Japanese animator Koji Yamamura awarded in Bratislava. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Good evening. The Tuesday, October 11 edition of Today in Slovakia is ready with the main news of the day in less than five minutes. Voting on 1.5 billion fails in parliament Parliament did not have the neeeded quorum to pass a bill on the increased 2022 state budget on October 11, 2022. (Source: SITA) Parliament failed to open a session again on Tuesday, the vote on increasing this year's state budget postponed to next week. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Eduard Heger's government plans to expand the budget by 1.5 billion without changing the planned deficit after the increase of the state's tax revenues compared to the originally approved budget, but the government cannot use the money this year without changing legislation. The opposition, including SaS, a former coalition party, has criticised the amendment in question, arguing that it does not name what the government is going to use the 1.5 billion for. More stories from The Slovak Spectator website State budget: The draft 2023 state budget shows that the government plans to spend more than 3 billion on tackling the energy crisis. The draft 2023 state budget shows that the government plans to spend more than 3 billion on tackling the energy crisis. Award: The Post Bellum organisation head Sandra Polovkova received a state award from Ukraine. The Post Bellum organisation head Sandra Polovkova received a state award from Ukraine. Education: Schools are changing their heating modes to reduce their energy bills. Schools are changing their heating modes to reduce their energy bills. Travel: A mining museum with an underground exhibition opened in Hnusta, Banska Bystrica Region, mining traditions coming to life as well. If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription. Thank you. Two catastrophes prompted a Japanese director to create his debut animated feature (Source: Facebook/Dozens of Norths) Two catastrophic events, a 2011 earthquake in Japan and a global coronavirus pandemic, made Japanese animator Koji Yamamura create and complete his first feature animated film, "Dozens of Norths". IN OTHER NEWS: Foreigners who can vote in the upcoming regional and municipal elections can find information in English on the Statistics Office's elections website . . The Czech Republic is the most common destination for Slovaks to study at university and remain after university , the Trexima company said. Most Slovaks in the Czech Republic are employed in industry 28 percent. (SITA) , the Trexima company said. Most Slovaks in the Czech Republic are employed in industry 28 percent. (SITA) The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, two Slovak schemes with a total budget of over 1.1 billion to help companies subject to the EU Emission Trading System to decarbonise their production processes and improve their energy efficiency. subject to the EU Emission Trading System to decarbonise their production processes and improve their energy efficiency. The Bucharest Nine Presidents group, of which President Zuzana Caputova is a member, have condemned the recent mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities by Russia. Visegrad Group presidents, hosted by President Zuzana Caputova, welcomed her counterparts Czech President Milos Zeman, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Hungarian President Katalin Novak - in Bratislava on October 11, 2022. (Source: Twitter/Zuzana Caputova) A constitutional amendment that could shorten parliament, proposed by the Sme Rodina coalition party, has been vetoed by OLaNO chair Igor Matovic , said Sme Rodina chair Boris Kollar. Sme Rodina will thus withdraw its proposal and support non-affiliated MP Tomas Taraba's similar amendment. Taraba entered parliament on the far-right LSNS' slate. OLaNO is against early elections. , said Sme Rodina chair Boris Kollar. Sme Rodina will thus withdraw its proposal and support non-affiliated MP Tomas Taraba's similar amendment. Taraba entered parliament on the far-right LSNS' slate. OLaNO is against early elections. The healthcare chapter of the draft 2023 state budget, which mentions how much money the sector will receive, is unacceptable to health workers and Health Minister Vladimir Lengvarsky (OLaNO nom.). The Finance Ministry said the healthcare budget should increase by 19.44 percent next year . . Since September 29, 1,180 illegal migrants and 24 smugglers have been detained in Slovakia , the Interior Ministry said. , the Interior Ministry said. The new map of courts should be implemented quickly and without unnecessary delays, the Via Iuris organisation said. However, Justice Minister Viliam Karas announced his intention to extend the time required for the implementation of the map by five months. The judicial reform would thus enter into force on June 1 next year. The unpreparedness of the map has been repeatedly declared not only by judges, but also representatives of other legal professions as well as institutions and public authorities, said President of the Association of Judges of Slovakia, Frantisek Mozner. If you have suggestions on how this news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk. https://sputniknews.com/20221010/la-city-council-president-resigns-after-audio-leaks-of-her-attacking-black-and-indigenous-people-1101701805.html LA City Council President Resigns After Audio Leaks of Her Attacking Black and Indigenous People LA City Council President Resigns After Audio Leaks of Her Attacking Black and Indigenous People On Monday, Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez bowed to increasing pressure and announced her resignation from the council presidency. A day... 10.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-10T23:42+0000 2022-10-10T23:42+0000 2022-10-10T23:43+0000 americas us los angeles racism resignation /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0a/1101701659_0:98:1552:971_1920x0_80_0_0_6c8acd0cb756600c67baa4e46b9cf9ca.png I sincerely apologize to the people I hurt with my words, Martinez said in the Monday statement, naming several people she had mentioned in the leaked audio. As someone who believes deeply in the empowerment of communities of color, I recognize my comments undercut that goal. Going forward, reconciliation will be my priority.It was unclear if she also resigned from the city council.Martinezs fall from power began just a day earlier when a leaked recording of her speaking to fellow council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera a year prior was posted on the internet. The Los Angeles Times soon picked up and published the audio and the fury spread.According to the Times, the words Nury and resign trended on Twitter for a period on Sunday as Angelenos expressed their outrage. The revelation sparked apologies from Martinez and the other lawmakers in the recording, but no pledges to resign.Councilman Mike Bonin, whose son had been mocked by Martinez, called on her, De Leon, and Herrera to step down.Any parent reading her comments will know she is unfit for public office, they said of Martinez. No child should ever be subjected to such racist, mean and dehumanizing comments, especially from a public official. It is painful to know he will someday read these comments.Martinez, 48, was the citys first Latina city council president. She had served since January 2020, leading Los Angeles through the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the city. She was replaced by Mitch OFarrell, another city council member who also previously served as Los Angeles mayor. He is the first LGBTQ person and first Native American to hold the office. americas los angeles Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Fantine Gardinier Fantine Gardinier 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 Fantine Gardinier us, los angeles, racism, resignation https://sputniknews.com/20221011/algerian-european-companies-may-tap-new-gas-fields-to-boost-exports-to-eu-commission-1101716102.html Algerian, European Companies May Tap New Gas Fields to Boost Exports to EU: Commission Algerian, European Companies May Tap New Gas Fields to Boost Exports to EU: Commission MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Algeria could tap new gas fields in order to increase gas production and export more fuel to the EU with the help of European companies... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T10:31+0000 2022-10-11T10:31+0000 2022-10-11T10:31+0000 africa algeria gas fields eu /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102525/21/1025252182_0:63:1280:783_1920x0_80_0_0_5056bc6775283c2d41f43c8248d385df.jpg Algeria has long been and still is an important and natural gas supplier to Europe. Europe is the biggest market for Algerian natural gas. We are long-standing partners and we would both benefit from increasing volumes of Algeria gas potentially available to export to Europe. This increase could be achieved in cooperation with European companies by tapping into new gas fields, Simson told a press conference.The European Union and Algeria share strong partnership in energy sector, Simson added. The commissioner started a two-day working visit to Algeria on Sunday as part of the EU drive to diversify energy supplies and reduce dependence on imports of Russian fossil fuel.In 2015, the two parties launched EU-Algeria strategic partnership on energy aimed at increasing cooperation on natural gas, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Algeria is the fifth biggest supplier of gas to the EU, which covered 8.2% of the blocs total natural gas demand in 2021, whereas the EU is the top importer of Algerian gas, according to the European Commission. algeria 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 algeria, gas fields, eu https://sputniknews.com/20221011/as-france-prepares-to-leave-car-expert-recalls-how-abuse-scandals-tarnished-relations-1101736106.html As France Prepares to Leave CAR, Expert Recalls How Abuse Scandals Tarnished Relations As France Prepares to Leave CAR, Expert Recalls How Abuse Scandals Tarnished Relations Across Africa, former colonies long terrorized by the French Army are rejecting their continued presence, ending fruitless training and counterterrorism... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T18:17+0000 2022-10-11T18:17+0000 2022-10-11T18:17+0000 africa central african republic france european union military training rape allegations /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/104692/28/1046922848_0:74:4571:2645_1920x0_80_0_0_467d3a8b0c40d18f806c62dcc442993f.jpg The 62-year-long presence of French troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) is expected to come to an end by the end of the year, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported earlier this week. Concordant sources told the agency that the final 130 French troops deployed there on a training mission would be leaving.French troops were most recently deployed to the CAR, a former French colony, in 2013, when the United Nations answered calls for help by then-President Francois Bozize to fend off the Seleka, a rebel group based in Muslim communities in the countrys north. Paris sent 2,000 troops under Operation Sangaris to work alongside a larger UN peacekeeping force; however, by the time they arrived, Bozize had already been ousted by the Seleka and replaced by leader Michel Djotodia.Cameroonian political analyst Julio Assomo told the Nairobi-based TV network Africa24 on Tuesday that in fact, the French troops generated the ill will against them themselves."All of these elements have contributed to tarnishing the quality of relations between France and the CAR while exacerbating an anti-French feeling that has developed in the country in recent years," he added.However, even the job European soldiers were supposed to be doing in CAR was apparently sub-par. During a hearing by the EU Foreign Affairs Committee in February 2021, Spanish MEP Nart Javier said that the five-year training mission that followed Operation Sangaris had failed to produce appreciable results.Assomo said that the training mission was Paris final attempt to leave its mark in the Central African Republic, not to say keep in touch.Earlier this week, Sputnik reported that the CAR was investigating a case in which claimed security personnel from the US embassy in Bangui were caught filming a FACA air base in Boda, 200 kilometers from the capital. https://sputniknews.com/20210625/anti-russia-political-hit-job-moscow-rejects-claim-of-troop-abuses-in-central-african-republic-1083237262.html central african republic european union Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Fantine Gardinier Fantine Gardinier 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 Fantine Gardinier central african republic, france, european union, military training, rape allegations https://sputniknews.com/20221011/biden-congratulates-israel-lebanon-leaders-on-maritime-border-demarcation-agreement-1101735457.html Biden Congratulates Israel, Lebanon Leaders on Maritime Border Demarcation Agreement Biden Congratulates Israel, Lebanon Leaders on Maritime Border Demarcation Agreement WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Joe Biden has called the leaders of Israel and Lebanon to congratulate them on reaching an agreement on maritime border... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T17:44+0000 2022-10-11T17:44+0000 2022-10-11T17:44+0000 world israel lebanon border dispute maritime border yair lapid michel aoun joe biden us /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/07/15/1083429507_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_cbae6a5fb277338fd05ed48501140cc0.jpg "Earlier today, just a shot while ago, President Biden spoke with Prime Minister of Israel Yair Lapid and the President of Lebanon Michel Aoun and extended United States congratulations on reaching this milestone, and US commitment, and President Biden administration's commitment to continue supporting both countries as move forward into implementation," the official said.Earlier on Tuesday, Lapid announced that Israel has reached a historic agreement on maritime border demarcation with Lebanon. Lapid's office said the draft agreement meets all the security and economic principles laid out by Israel and would be submitted for approval to the Security Cabinet and the government on Wednesday.The deal was reached after intensive negotiations assisted by US mediator Amos Hochstein over the weekend and the Sukkot holiday.Lebanon is also content with the agreement given that all of its demands have been taken into account, according to the office of Lebanese President Michel Aoun.The negotiations on the demarcation of land and maritime borders have been ongoing since 1996 on the basis of a memorandum of understanding under United Nations auspices and US mediation. In June 2022, Israel urged the Lebanese authorities to speed up the talks. Israel called the Karish gas field its strategic asset and assured Lebanon of the absence of plans to produce gas in the disputed territory. https://sputniknews.com/20221011/israel-satisfied-with-draft-border-demarcation-deal-with-lebanon-security-council-chief-1101708456.html israel lebanon 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 israel, lebanon, border dispute, maritime border, yair lapid, michel aoun, joe biden, us https://sputniknews.com/20221011/chads-prime-minister-resigns-to-pave-way-for-new-government-presidents-office-says-1101734504.html Chad's Prime Minister Resigns to Pave Way for New Government, President's Office Says Chad's Prime Minister Resigns to Pave Way for New Government, President's Office Says MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Chad's Prime Minister of the transitional government, Albert Pahimi Padacke, resigned to pave the way for a new government after the country... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T17:23+0000 2022-10-11T17:23+0000 2022-10-11T17:23+0000 africa chad resignation new government /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101734209_0:0:2959:1665_1920x0_80_0_0_ae9aac38e4d286345f9c449d55d9b899.jpg Earlier in the day, Padacke handed in his resignation at a meeting with Deby, who was sworn in as president for the transition period on Monday.In April 2021, long-ruling Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno died from wounds sustained in clashes with rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad. Following his death, the country's military established the Transitional Military Council set to rule for 18 months until new elections were held.The council was headed by 37-year-old General Mahamat Idris Deby Itno, the son of the deceased president. As that deadline approached, a nationwide forum organized by Deby junior set a new 24-month time frame for holding the elections, and proclaimed him Chad's interim president on October 8. https://sputniknews.com/20220808/chads-authorities-rebel-groups-ink-peace-deal-in-qatar-1099392767.html chad 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 chad, resignation, new government https://sputniknews.com/20221011/chinese-researchers-find-way-to-use-hypersonic-weapons-on-aircraft-carriers-reports-say-1101720450.html Chinese Researchers Find Way to Use Hypersonic Weapons on Aircraft Carriers, Reports Say Chinese Researchers Find Way to Use Hypersonic Weapons on Aircraft Carriers, Reports Say MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Chinese scientists made a breakthrough in logistics technology, which will make it possible for aircraft carriers of the national army to... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T11:57+0000 2022-10-11T11:57+0000 2022-10-11T11:57+0000 military china hypersonic weapons /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/106188/72/1061887212_0:182:1001:745_1920x0_80_0_0_465f9e4e714b15f4f8d89ef5c3165013.jpg The new technology simplifies and speeds up the repair and maintenance of hypersonic weapons, according to Xiao Jun, researcher at the China Airborne Missile Academy.China's hypersonic weapons, which have yet to be shown to the public, resembles Russia's Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles, and can hit a wide range of high-value targets in the air or on the surface, as well as can be used as anti-satellite weapons, the newspaper reported.Hypersonic missiles will extend the combat range of China's aircarft carrier fleet to more than 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) with ultra-fast air strikes that can penetrate most air defense systems.Usually, this type of weapon is more difficult to maintain or repair than conventional missiles, especially at sea. To date, there have been no reports of the use of hypersonic technology on aircraft carriers, the report said.Xiao Jun and his colleagues said that the innovation for the rapid repair and maintenance of hypersonic weapons had passed serious field tests.This technology, which is not yet available in other countries, can be applied to a large number of airborne missile equipment widely used at inland military bases, coastal airports and aircraft carriers on the high seas. The Chinese scientists innovation will help extend the lifespan of hypersonic weapons, which are required to last at least 10 years, the news outlet reported. china 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 china, hypersonic weapons https://sputniknews.com/20221011/every-russian-target-struck-is-legitimate-under-laws-of-war-ex-us-intel-officer-says-1101713649.html Every Russian Target Struck is Legitimate Under Laws of War, Ex-US Intel Officer Says Every Russian Target Struck is Legitimate Under Laws of War, Ex-US Intel Officer Says On October 10, Russia carried out strikes using precision-guided weapons against Ukrainian infrastructure used for military supplies and connectivity in... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T17:01+0000 2022-10-11T17:01+0000 2022-10-11T17:01+0000 opinion & analysis interviews /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101704688_0:87:3335:1962_1920x0_80_0_0_1314afee2b3b95c7734749b03f9dff54.jpg In an interview with Sputnik, Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and Iraq, expressed his opinion concerning Russia's recent strikes on Ukraine, Kievs shelling of Donbass, and the West pumping weapons into the country.Sputnik: What do you make of the timing of Russia's strikes on central Ukraine, including Kiev?Scott Ritter: Clearly, it's a cause-effect relationship between the attack on the Crimea bridge and the retaliation. I think Russia had warned that an attack on critical infrastructure such as the Crimea bridge would represent a red line and that if Ukraine crossed it, the nature of the conflict would be transformed. And so I think we're seeing the manifestation of this. Russia doesn't bluff. I don't know what Ukraine thought they were going to accomplish by attacking the Crimea bridge. I don't know if the momentary feeling of accomplishment is worth the price. That's a question only Ukraine can answer once the full extent of the retaliation is understood. But this retaliation may be extended over time and it will most likely be devastating. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian nation. I'm not saying that Russia is not justified in doing this I'm saying that it didn't need to happen. And the blame rests fully with Ukraine for attacking the Crimea bridge.Sputnik: Do you recognize the difference in approach: the Ukrainian military bombs civilian infrastructure in Donbass, whereas Russia's strikes are aimed at military targets, such as the SBU headquarters?Scott Ritter: It's not as though Ukraine just woke up recently and decided that civilian infrastructure was a legitimate target. President Poroshenko made it clear that the Ukrainian approach to the Donbass conflict would be to terrorize the citizens, the civilians of Donbass. The Ukrainian government did that for eight consecutive years and they've continued that policy, that approach. I think Russia, while not legitimizing it or accepting it, recognized that that's just the way a criminal regime operates. This is why you didn't see Russia escalate like this as Ukraine shelled Donetsks civilian targets and other civilian targets, including targets inside Russia itself.Now we have the Russian retaliation. The reality is the world will never give Russia any credit or any recognition of the professionalism and strict adherence to international law that Russia follows, even when carrying out retaliation. Every Russian target struck is a legitimate target under the laws of war. They are legitimate infrastructure targets. They are legitimate command and control targets. This is not an assault on innocent civilian population centers. So there is a distinct difference between the way Russia approaches strategic conflict and Ukraine approaches strategic conflict. Sputnik: The US ambassador to Ukraine tweeted that "Russia has escalated its barrage of attacks on Ukrainian civilians," and the EU's Josep Borrell said he's "deeply shocked by Russia's attack on civilians" - as a military expert and former soldier, how would you assess today's strikes? Scott Ritter: As somebody who participated in Operation Desert Storm back in 1991 against Iraq and understood the full scope and scale of the strategic air campaign that the United States waged against Iraq, I would say that Russia's attacks today mirrored the targeting approach taken by the United States in Desert Storm against Iraq. So anybody who criticizes Russia's approach as an assault on civilian infrastructure, an assault on civilians, simply speaking, doesn't know anything about war, the laws of war, and if you're an American making this or an American ally, then you're a hypocrite. Because this is the exact same approach that the United States took against Iraq back in 1991.Sputnik: Bearing in mind the US campaign in Iraq which you were a part of, what's the difference between the Russian and American approach?Scott Ritter: The big difference is that Russia didn't initiate this conflict in this manner. I mean, we are more than eight months into this conflict, and Russia only now is undertaking the kind of strikes that the United States took on day one. I think it points to the fact that Russia has taken a very restrained approach to this conflict, that this conflict was indeed never meant to escalate to this level, that Russia clearly had limited objectives and was applying limited military means to achieve those objectives. That it is Ukraine that has made a decision and Ukraines supporters in the West to make a decision to take this conflict to the next level. And so now Russia has joined them at the next level. But Russia's contribution to the next level far exceeds anything that Ukraine can bring to the table. Russia warned about this. Russia did not want to go down this path. And that's the difference. The United States did indicate prior to Desert Storm that Iraq should withdraw from Kuwait and prevent a war. Iraq didn't. So the United States came in heavy. We initiated a strategic air campaign that was devastating to Iraq, one that made the eventual ground war proceed that much more quickly because we degraded not only military, but the will and capabilities of the nation to fight. And that's what Russia is doing right now. The strategic targeting that's taking place now and perhaps will take place over an extended period of time, is designed to degrade the will and capability of the Ukrainian nation to continue to resist, and that this will have a direct impact on the ability of the Ukrainian military to continue the struggle in the field. Many military people, like myself, believe Russia should have done this on day one. But I'm an American. I'm not Russian. I don't understand, necessarily, the totality of the thinking behind the special military operation. The Russian leadership does, and they conducted themselves accordingly. But now I think we're at the point where the Russian leadership has made the determination that the original means that were authorized for the special military operation are insufficient to the conflict that Ukraine and NATO and the West have decided they want to wage. Sputnik: What outcome are you expecting? Do you believe Donbass will be safer now? To what extent could today's strikes put an end to Ukraine's shelling of Donbass?Scott Ritter: The Ukrainian government and particularly the right-wing political parties and their militarized elements, like Azov, Aidar, Kraken, and others, have an absolute indifference or disregard for international law and the norms of combat. They have shown a proclivity from day one to attack civilians. That's what they do best. They don't function well when they fight as a military-on-military organization, they tend to be defeated and destroyed. But they attack the weakest. And right now, they're attacking the civilians of Donbass and civilians in other areas as well - Lugansk, in Russia, and other places. I don't believe they will change their tactics. I believe that this is their true nature and this is something they will continue to do so long as they have the means and ability to do this. Sputnik: How will today's strikes affect or change Ukrainian actions on the battlefield?Scott Ritter: It's always a gamble when you escalate conflict in this nature, meaning that it could either cause the morale of Ukrainian troops to collapse as they come to grips with the price that their families are now having to pay. But it could also fuel their resolve to continue to resist the Russians and have them develop a more intense hatred towards Russia that allows them to fight. But that kind of resolve is meaningless if you don't have the means to resist. And I think these strategic attacks aren't just about impacting the morale of the Ukrainian nation, but the real capability of the Ukrainian nation the ability to transport troops and equipment, the ability to communicate, the ability to survive, with no electricity, no fuel. The Ukrainian nation will collapse and so too will its military. I think that this is going to make it much more difficult for the Ukrainian military to continue the struggle. Sputnik: To what extent is the West responsible for the present situation, given how many weapons it has pumped into Ukraine?Scott Ritter: The West is 100% responsible for the totality of this conflict. First of all, let's start with the West's involvement in the Maidan coup that saw the legitimate government of Ukraine replaced with this right-wing neo-Nazi-affiliated monstrosity that currently exists today, and then the West's unwillingness or inability to compel Ukraine to implement the diplomatic solution that was put forward by the Normandy format the Germans, the French, the Russians observing, the Ukrainian government promising. That didn't happen. We know why, it was a sham, again, according to Poroshenko, a sham designed to buy time so that NATO could train the Ukrainian military capable of resolving the Donbass situation by military force. This is the Wests fault. The West trained the Ukrainian military. The West never backed away from NATO expansion. The West rejected Russia's diplomatic outreach in December of last year, and then the West has turned what could have been a limited military engagement into a full-scale strategic conflict between the collective West, inclusive of NATO, and Russia on Ukrainian soil. The West provided the weapons, the West provided the intelligence, the West provided the training, the West provided the communication, the West provided the logistics. This is a war between NATO, other European allies, using Ukraine as a proxy to fight Russia. They're 100% responsible for everything that has happened and will happen in Ukraine. Sputnik: President Putin has emphasized that if Kiev continues terrorist attacks against Russia, Moscows response will be tough. Do you expect any further escalation from Kiev?Scott Ritter: Unfortunately, I do. These are ideologically repulsive individuals, common sense does not factor into their way of thinking. Their actions are those of extremists everywhere, including terrorists. And so they will, I believe, continue to carry out acts of terrorism against Russia. It's up to Russia how to determine what it wants to do. I think Russia would make a mistake if they allowed a pause in the current retaliation, because Ukraine will not stop. Ukraine will continue to carry out these actions. So the quicker this conflict can be brought to a decisive conclusion, the better it will be for everybody, including those who want to limit Ukraine's capability to wage terrorism against Russia. The longer this conflict goes on, the more opportunities Ukraine will have to attack Russia using the tools of terror. 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 interviews https://sputniknews.com/20221011/ex-delhi-minister-quizzed-by-police-for-attending-mass-religious-conversion-event-1101718995.html Ex-Delhi Minister Quizzed by Police for Attending 'Mass Religious Conversion' Event Ex-Delhi Minister Quizzed by Police for Attending 'Mass Religious Conversion' Event Delhi-governing Aam Aadmi Party legislator Rajendra Pal Gautam found himself in hot water after attending an event last week where about 10,000 people took... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T13:25+0000 2022-10-11T13:25+0000 2022-10-11T13:25+0000 india delhi new delhi aam aadmi party arvind kejriwal politics politics domestic politics religion and politics /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/09/1101655101_0:0:1280:720_1920x0_80_0_0_4b363cb4504deb2e1605784bc57b6484.jpg Delhi police on Tuesday questioned Rajendra Pal Gautam, a former minister in the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, over his presence at an event at Ambedkar Bhawan, where Hindu gods were reportedly denounced.The former minister was called in for an inquiry following a complaint filed about the program, during which "certain words were uttered publicly, which has infuriated public at large."Gautam's presence is very much essential to decide the further course of action as per law, the police notice said.The legislator is being questioned for the second consecutive day. On Monday, Gautam told the media, "I follow the law and if I have committed any crime, you can register a case and arrest me. If I have not, you can interrogate me."A controversy erupted after a purported video of the AAP legislator went viral, showing him on stage during last week's event, where thousands of people vowed to embrace Buddhism.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition party in Delhi, came down heavily on Gautam and his party chief Arvind Kejriwal.Following the criticism, Gautam resigned from the Delhi Cabinet on Sunday, clarifying that he had attended the event on a personal level, and didn't wish his party and its chief Arvind Kejriwal to suffer on his account.Gautam, who represents the city's Seemapuri constituency, has held multiple portfolios in Delhi government. delhi new delhi 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 delhi, new delhi, aam aadmi party, arvind kejriwal, politics, politics, domestic politics, religion and politics ISLAMABAD, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan continues to witness a rise of dengue fever cases as two more deaths were reported from the disease in the South Asian country. The northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and the southern Sindh province both reported one death, the provincial health departments said on Monday. In KP, 455 more people were diagnosed with the disease, the provincial health department said on Monday evening. The number of active cases in the province currently stands at 2,473 and the total number of cases this year has reached 12,068. In the last 24 hours, Sindh reported 352 new infections. The worst-hit area was Karachi, the provincial capital, which reported 235 new cases. With the newly-reported dengue cases, the October figure to date for the province has risen to 3,145, bringing the total local tally to 13,299 this year. The eastern Punjab province reported 280 new cases in the last 24 hours, the provincial health authorities said on Monday. Punjab's capital Lahore reported 102 new cases, followed by Rawalpindi city with 79 cases. The total number of dengue cases in Punjab this year has now gone up to 9,208. The national capital Islamabad reported 73 new dengue cases in the last 24 hours, the health authorities said on Monday night. The city's total tally has risen to 3,242 this year. https://sputniknews.com/20221011/from-pot-to-jaywalking-pay-compensation-to-those-hurt-by-repealed-laws-1101702047.html From Pot to Jaywalking, Pay Compensation to Those Hurt by Repealed Laws From Pot to Jaywalking, Pay Compensation to Those Hurt by Repealed Laws Whether its a soaring literary classic like Les Miserables or generic Hollywood product like The Butterfly Effect, Im drawn to stories in which a minor event... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T00:48+0000 2022-10-11T00:48+0000 2022-10-11T00:48+0000 americas columnists us /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/04/05/1094506694_0:101:1920:1181_1920x0_80_0_0_9f68cc0d0fe8bbc56576b2e022f9fe4c.jpg A real-life example transpired three weeks after the 9/11 attacks when I was falsely accused of jaywalking a misdemeanor at the time by an LAPD officer who roughed me up and handcuffed me to boot. For 14 years, nothing happened as the result of that arrest on October 3, 2001. In the summer of 2015, without warning, getting busted for jaywalking blew up my life.Tiny problems can wreak havoc. Like the O-ring. Hell, I got expelled from college over a wart.The jaywalking thing cost me my job as the staff cartoonist at the Los Angeles Times, damaged my reputation to the point where I was nearly blacklisted from journalism, and cost me, friends and colleagues. It made me doubt the ability or willingness of journalism, the love of my life, to do the right thing. It convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt that the justice system is hopelessly corrupt. I drank too much. Who knowsthe weight I gained may eventually kill me.I am grateful for every day that passes when I dont think about jaywalking or the LA Frigging Times. Unfortunately, there was no way to distract myself this week. Jaywalking tickets are big business in California. In Los Angeles alone, the LAPD raised $6.2 million in revenues by fining 31,712 accused jaywalkers between 2010 and 2020. Blacks were targeted more than three times their presence in the population.Several well-meaning readers contacted me to inform me of Californias new law, which I support wholeheartedly except for an all-too-common omission: its not retroactive. Those who have suffered fines, imprisonment and other punishments under a law that is subsequently repealed ought to be made whole. If slaves were emancipated by the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, escaped slaves and those who helped them who were punished for their crimes should receive apologies and restitution by 1866. Merely erasing a conviction from your criminal record, as some states that have legalized marijuana have done, isnt enough.Anyone who is charged and convicted for a crime that is no longer a crime ought to be refunded their fines and attorneys fees, plus compound interest charged at the highest credit card rate. Anyone who spent time in jail or prison for an offense that is no longer viewed as an offense under the law should be generously compensated by the state or city responsible for their conviction.Even if California were to come to its senses and pay millions of dollars in penance to everyone who suffered under bigoted jaywalking laws that were originally conceived by automobile companies as a way to discourage walking and sell more cars, there still wouldnt be any way to undo all the weird side effects of what we now recognize as an obsolete form of oppression.For poor Californians, the $196 jaywalking fine was devastating. Under our vicious capitalist system, there can be no doubt that some people failed to make rent and even lost their homes after being targeted by police enforcing this idiotic statute.As a solvent, able-bodied, white, cis male, Ivy League graduate, paying the citation was no big deal. But even for me, it was a train wreck.Upset about being falsely accused I wasnt jaywalking, the cop made it up and mistreated, I filed an internal affairs complaint against the officer back in 2001. Citizens are ignored in such cases 96% of the time, and I was no exception. By 2015, I had been working for the LA Times for six years. But I didnt know two things. First, a thin-skinned police chief was furious every time I drew a cartoon criticizing the police. Second, in 2014, the LAPD union bought an interest in the parent company of the LA Times and formed an obscene corrupt alliance with the papers publisher, multibillionaire Austin Beutner.Fox News, Breitbart and the rest of the right-wing mediasphere had a field day dragging the corpse of my reputation across the Internet.Ultimately, I was vindicated. The doctoring of the tape, the Beck-Beutner conspiracy, the fact that Id told the truth about what happened in 2001 while the LAPD Times had lied all came out in the media and through the course of a lengthy court battle. Theres no telling how much work Im not getting as a result of the Times defamation campaign, though I am working.The experience changed me, mostly for the worse.Nothing could make me, or the other people hurt by Californias repealed jaywalking law, whole again. But the state should try.Every state should try, every time it repeals a bad law.(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Teds hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.) americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Ted Rall https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125340_0:0:360:360_100x100_80_0_0_1ed1a3494a53cde87e19521c3658fe92.jpg Ted Rall https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125340_0:0:360:360_100x100_80_0_0_1ed1a3494a53cde87e19521c3658fe92.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 Ted Rall https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125340_0:0:360:360_100x100_80_0_0_1ed1a3494a53cde87e19521c3658fe92.jpg columnists, us https://sputniknews.com/20221011/hurricane-julia-kills-over-20-people-in-central-america-1101708860.html Hurricane Julia Kills Over 20 People in Central America Hurricane Julia Kills Over 20 People in Central America MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - Hundreds of thousands of people across Central America have been affected by Hurricane Julia as floods and mudslides destroyed homes... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T07:16+0000 2022-10-11T07:16+0000 2022-10-11T07:16+0000 americas hurricane nicaragua honduras /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101708687_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_146a90f54f861f0b858cde594bfbce2c.jpg Tropical cyclone Julia made landfall in Nicaragua on Sunday morning as a Category 1 hurricane. Then it weakened to a tropical storm and is now moving along the coast of Guatemala into the waters of Mexico. Hurricane Julia brought not only heavy rains but also life-threatening flash floods and deadly mudslides.The highest level of danger, red weather alert, was declared throughout Nicaragua on Sunday. The government canceled school classes and launched a large-scale operation to eliminate the consequence of the natural disaster. Convoys with building materials were sent to the affected areas to restore 1,500 houses, as well as deliver food for 12,500 families. One woman was confirmed died in the city of Boaco, as she was swept away by water streams.As a result of floods and landslides in Guatemala, more than 170 residential buildings were seriously damaged and 1,355 people were evacuated. The total number of people affected by the disaster amounted to 436,000. According to the disaster prevention agency, at least eight people died on Sunday and Monday, while three people went missing and seven sustained various injuries.The disaster claimed the lives of 10 in El Salvador, and 141 houses were completely flooded. The authorities housed over 1,000 citizens in shelters.Four people died as a result of flooding in Honduras, according to local media. The authorities also introduced a red weather alert in the south and west of the country, with schools and airports closed.The Mexican authorities and meteorologists warn the public about heavy rainfall in the next three days, caused by Hurricane Julia. Heavy rains will affect the eastern and southeastern regions of the country. In addition, all residents and sailors in particular, are asked to take extreme precautions. https://sputniknews.com/20221007/hurricane-ian-majority-of-deaths-were-a-result-of-drowning-1101591055.html americas nicaragua honduras 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 hurricane, nicaragua, honduras https://sputniknews.com/20221011/im-sure-biden-wants-our-success-ukraines-presidential-office-head-blabs-to-russian-pranksters-1101716294.html Im Sure Biden Wants Our Success: Ukraines Presidential Office Head Blabs to Russian Pranksters Im Sure Biden Wants Our Success: Ukraines Presidential Office Head Blabs to Russian Pranksters The Russian comedy duo Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus) have added yet another duped Ukrainian official to their impressive track record... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T13:29+0000 2022-10-11T13:29+0000 2022-10-11T13:29+0000 viral vovan and lexus pranksters ukraine michael mcfaul ukraine crisis crimean bridge /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/104347/19/1043471960_0:0:3317:1865_1920x0_80_0_0_e4c45afc4f91664cbaa373b6778c6362.jpg Pranksters Vovan and Lexus have managed to pull off another stunt, waylaying one more Ukrainian official into admitting that the Kiev regime waits for the US to greenlight its actions. Andrey Yermak, the head of Ukraines presidential office, eagerly confirmed to Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus) what Moscow has long been arguing - that the Kiev regime is being used by Washington to fight a proxy war.Under the impression that he was talking to former US Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, Andrey Yermak insisted that he puts constant pressure on the Ukrainian military to be 100 percent transparent and open when giving an account to the Americans and British regarding plans and special operations.In the footage, published by the duo on October 11, the Ukrainian official echoed the ceaseless requests for more military aid to Kiev forces. He pleading for 155-mm artillery guns, as well as 152-mm and 122-mm ammunition that he urged the British side to help Ukraine secure from third countries. Ukraine needs to be supplied with air defenses, Andrey Yermak told the pranksters, as the US and its NATO allies continue to fan the flames of the crisis by funneling weapons to prop up the Kiev regime.When asked about Kievs talks with Lockheed Martin and the British on more military aid to be funneled into Ukraine, Andrey Yermak claimed that the UK was offering 100 percent support.However, he found fault with the estimated overall 70 percent level of support coming from abroad. Only a one-on-one meeting between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and US President Joe Biden, he claimed, could be seen as proof of 100 percent support from the US.When asked by the pranksters whether the Pentagon and US intelligence were offering sufficient aid to Kiev, the head of Ukraines presidential office touted their actions as very effective.The new prank call came shortly after Sergei Pashinsky, the head of the Association of Ukraines Defense Enterprises, revealed to the comedy duo that Ukrainian officials keep their US counterparts abreast of Kievs sabotage ops and other anti-Russian actions. Pashinsky indicated that operations against infrastructure like the Crimean Bridge become possible only once the US gives the green light. The pranksters did not clarify whether the interview with Pashinsky was conducted before or after Saturdays sabotage attack.The 19-km bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland sustained serious damage following the detonation of a truck bomb on one of its road sections on October 8, with Ukrainian officials gloating to US media that Kiev was responsible.Russia launched a series of precision missile strikes deep into Ukraine on October 10 in the wake of the bridge attack after confirming Ukrainian special forces involvement. The strikes targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure and military command and communications posts across the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that strikes would be followed up if Ukrainian attacks against Russian infrastructure continue. https://sputniknews.com/20221010/crimean-bridge-attack-ukraines-sabotage-teams-take-orders-from-washington-senior-official-reveals-1101698419.html https://sputniknews.com/20220906/how-russian-pranksters-vovan--lexus-trick-high-profile-fugures-into-candid-phone-talks-1100428131.html Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko vovan and lexus, pranksters, ukraine, michael mcfaul, ukraine crisis, crimean bridge https://sputniknews.com/20221011/india-supplies-13th-batch-of-medical-aid-to-afghanistan-foreign-ministry-1101718334.html India Supplies 13th Batch of Medical Aid to Afghanistan: Foreign Ministry India Supplies 13th Batch of Medical Aid to Afghanistan: Foreign Ministry MOSCOW (Sputnik) - India has delivered the thirteenth batch of essential medicines and surgical items to Afghanistan following the UN calls to help the... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T11:12+0000 2022-10-11T11:12+0000 2022-10-11T11:12+0000 india taliban afghanistan aid /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/104147/52/1041475224_0:219:4256:2613_1920x0_80_0_0_f68c0ed99113a8a1ac5050edd2136536.jpg "In continuation with our special relationship with the people of Afghanistan and in view of the urgent appeals made by the United Nations to assist the Afghan people, India has supplied the thirteenth batch of medical assistance consisting of essential medicines and medical/surgical items," a statement by the ministry read.The rise to power of the Taliban* in Afghanistan in 2021 resulted in deepening economic, humanitarian and security crises. Moreover, in June 2022, a powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck the east of the country, leaving over 1,000 killed and 1,500 others injured. In July, seasonal rains resulted in massive floods across the state, further adding to the suffering of the Afghan people.A number of governments and organizations have been assisting the population with food, medicines, emergency shelter and other basic items. New Delhi, in particular, has delivered around 45 tonnes of medical assistance, including life saving medicines, anti-TB medicines, surgical items and 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. India has also supplied 40,000 tonnes of wheat to the country.*Organization is under UN sanctions over terrorist activities afghanistan 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 taliban, afghanistan, aid https://sputniknews.com/20221011/israel-satisfied-with-draft-border-demarcation-deal-with-lebanon-security-council-chief-1101708456.html Israel Satisfied With Draft Border Demarcation Deal With Lebanon: Security Council Chief Israel Satisfied With Draft Border Demarcation Deal With Lebanon: Security Council Chief TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - Israel is satisfied with the draft agreement on the demarcation of maritime borders with Lebanon, as all Israeli requirements have been... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T07:10+0000 2022-10-11T07:10+0000 2022-10-11T07:10+0000 world israel lebanon /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/101898/50/1018985015_0:270:5184:3186_1920x0_80_0_0_4e7d442b3890d913e045693c15a40b10.jpg "All our conditions have been met, and the demanded changes have been made. We have preserved Israel's security interests. We are on the way to the historic agreement," Hulata said in a statement released by the Office of Israeli Prime Minister.Last Sunday, Lebanon received the final version of the document to be signed with Israel from US mediator Amos Hochstein. On Monday, Al Araby broadcaster reported, citing official sources, that the two countries can sign the border agreement in the Lebanese town of Naqoura on October 20. Lebanese President Michel Aoun, in turn, expressed hope that all the agreement-related procedures would be completed in the coming days, given the tangible progress in the negotiations.Last week, Lebanon informed Israel about changes it was seeking to the deal. However, Lapid told the Israeli negotiating team to reject them, a senior source told Sputnik. Lapid made it clear that Israel will not compromise its security and economic interests in any way, even if that means there will be no agreement any time soon, according to the source.The negotiations on the demarcation of land and maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel have been taking place in Naqoura since 1996 on the basis of the memorandum of understanding under the UN auspices and the US mediation. In June 2022, Israel urged the Lebanese authorities to speed up the talks. It called the Karish gas field its strategic asset and assured Lebanon of the absence of plans to produce gas in the disputed territory. israel lebanon 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 israel, lebanon https://sputniknews.com/20221011/justice-dy-chandrachud-to-become-50th-chief-justice-of-india-cji-lalit-recommends-1101711544.html Justice D.Y. Chandrachud to Become 50th Chief Justice of India, CJI Lalit Recommends Justice D.Y. Chandrachud to Become 50th Chief Justice of India, CJI Lalit Recommends Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud began his judicial career as a judge of the Bombay High Court on March 29, 2000, and was appointed as Supreme Court of... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T09:56+0000 2022-10-11T09:56+0000 2022-10-11T09:56+0000 india delhi supreme court of india supreme court supreme court the supreme court supreme court /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101713905_0:840:2048:1992_1920x0_80_0_0_cee105ae8ef1e33bd26ac28c3671a1cb.jpg Chief Justice of India (CJI) Uday Umesh Lalit on Tuesday named Justice D.Y. Chandrachud as his successor. Chandrachud will be India's 50th chief justice, and will take his oath in November.On Tuesday morning, the current CJI handed over a letter of recommendation to 62-year-old Chandrachud in the presence of other justices.Chief Justice Lalit will retire on November 8 at the end of his 74-day tenure.The decision is per custom that the outgoing CJI appoint a senior Supreme Court judge as his successor. Now, the federal Law Ministry has to approve the appointment.Once the Law Ministry accepts the CJI recommendation, Justice Chandrachud will remain in office for two years until November 10, 2024 as the 50th chief justice, set to make him one of the longest-serving CJIs in recent years.Last month, a bench headed by Justice Chandrachud gave unmarried women the right to have abortions up to 24 weeks.He is one of the judges of a five-judge bench that was hearing the case related to the Ram temple land dispute.Justice Chandrachud was part of the bench that decriminalized homosexuality in 2018.Chandrachud's father, Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, was the 16th CJI, serving from 1978 to 1985. delhi Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.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 Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg delhi, supreme court of india, supreme court, supreme court, the supreme court, supreme court https://sputniknews.com/20221011/lavrov-says-evidence-abounds-of-us-western-military-fighting-on-the-ground-in-ukraine-1101732472.html Lavrov Says Evidence Abounds of US, Western Military Fighting on the Ground in Ukraine Lavrov Says Evidence Abounds of US, Western Military Fighting on the Ground in Ukraine MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The evidence that the military personnel of the United States and other Western countries have their boots on the ground in Ukraine is... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T15:41+0000 2022-10-11T15:41+0000 2022-10-11T15:42+0000 ukraine mercenaries donetsk people's republic lugansk peoples republic russia's special operation in ukraine us /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/1d/1101335147_0:157:1600:1057_1920x0_80_0_0_4754007e6283e08757383a860f66e741.jpg "Regular servicemen of the American army, as well as the armies of a number of European countries are constantly working on the ground, including assisting in the calculations of the gun complexes, US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, helping to use them in the military hostilities," Lavrov told the Russian Rossiya 1 broadcaster.The minister emphasized that Moscow does not have a 100% proof of this information, but the evidence was multiplying and the West was starting to realize that they are going a little bit further than they intended.On February 24, Russia began a special military operation in Ukraine responding to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk amid intensified aggression of the Kiev regime. Western countries responded by imposing comprehensive sanctions against Moscow while also ramping up their military support for Kiev. In late September, referendums on joining Russia were held in the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and parts of Ukraine controlled by the Russian forces. All these territories were integrated within Russia based on the results of the referendums. https://sputniknews.com/20221005/pentagon-himars-rockets-supplied-to-kiev-can-reach-crimea-1101523471.html 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 ukraine, mercenaries, donetsk people's republic, lugansk peoples republic, us https://sputniknews.com/20221011/nigerian-doctors-open-up-on-being-exploited-by-uk-medical-firm-1101709010.html Nigerian Doctors Open Up on Being 'Exploited' by UK Medical Firm Nigerian Doctors Open Up on Being 'Exploited' by UK Medical Firm The British Medical Association (BMA) has described the exploitation of African doctors as a "shocking" situation and urged the medical sector to work in... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T14:34+0000 2022-10-11T14:34+0000 2022-10-11T15:54+0000 africa africa uk medical personnel exploitation nigeria doctor slavery /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101727147_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_abc0079c541dbe9e7cfc0c399758cc8c.jpg Doctors in some of the worlds less developed countries, including Nigeria, are being exploited by British healthcare companies, hiring them and making them work under conditions contradicting the UK laws, the BBC reported.Many victims of Nigerian descent have been hired by NES Healthcare, a company which provides Resident Medical Officers, or RMOs - live-in doctors found mainly in the private sector. The Nigerian doctors working in British hospitals have claimed their working conditions were unbearable, on-call 24 hours a day for a week and unfair salary deductions. As per the report, they received a file from the British Medical Association and "the front line lobbying group" the Doctors' Association that contained the results of polls of 188 Resident Medical Officers, 92% of whom were hired from Africa and 81% from Nigeria alone. The polls showed that the majority complained about unbearable schedules and salary deductions. Femi Johnson, a doctor recruited by the NES, said that he was forced to work 14-16 hours a day while keeping in touch all night long. According to him, it was extremely difficult to take a day off, as it led to salary deductions, which the NES explained by the expenses for finding replacement doctors.Another NES doctor, Augustine Enekwechi, said working felt like a prison and was so exhausting that he worried for both himself and patients.The situation of these Nigerian doctors unfolded despite the UK governments red-list of 47 countries, including Nigeria, compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO), which banns "active recruitment" of medical staff from nations that have a lack of doctors and nurses. The NES, in return, denied its involvement in active recruitment," saying it had only helped doctors from abroad who had already committed to working in the UK.According to the broadcaster, however, the doctors initially agreed to work hoping for "higher salaries and better working conditions." Enekwechi said that when the NES contacted him, he got so excited that he accepted the offer without reading it carefully.A representative of the Doctors' Association, Jenny Vaughan, who has received many complaints from Resident Medical Officers, described their working conditions as servile.Nevertheless, the NES denied the accusations, claiming it had always had extremely positive feedback from doctors and assured that it provided medical personal "with a safe and supportive route to pursue their career choice in the National Health Service, and in the UK healthcare system more generally, saying the companys work also benefited British society. africa nigeria 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, uk, medical personnel, exploitation, nigeria, doctor, slavery https://sputniknews.com/20221011/no-the-worlds-not-heading-for-a-nuclear-apocalypse-heres-why-1101734791.html No, The World's Not Heading For a Nuclear Apocalypse: Heres Why No, The World's Not Heading For a Nuclear Apocalypse: Heres Why These days, it seems just about every mainstream outlet is spouting dire warnings about the threat of the Ukraine crisis snowballing into a nuclear apocalypse... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T17:57+0000 2022-10-11T17:57+0000 2022-10-11T19:58+0000 sputnik explains nuclear nuclear weapons russia us joe biden reports media fear-mongering /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101734644_2:0:2046:1150_1920x0_80_0_0_4a3053f7b00f5f866c08f34c090b938a.png The Western media space has been saturated with reports on the dangers of a nuclear war, particularly after President Vladimir Putins (deliberately misread) warning late last month that Russia would retaliate to nuclear aggression, and US President Joe Bidens comments last week that the prospects of nuclear Armageddon were today higher than at any other time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.Russia is (surprise, surprise!) the culprit in virtually every report, with the logic being that a Russian defeat on the battlefield in its special military operation in Ukraine might motivate an emotionally unstable Russian leadership to push the button and end humanity.Ukraine war: World must act now to stop Russia nuclear threat Zelensky, a BBC piece warned Saturday, with the Ukrainian president telling the broadcaster that Moscow had begun to prepare their society for nuke use. Ironically, Volodymyr Zelensky himself got called out earlier in the week after appearing to call for a nuclear preemptive strike against Russia. He later said that his comments were a mistranslation, and that he meant a preemptive strike of sanctions.Putins threats have nuclear experts watching closely, Canadas national broadcaster, the CBC, wrote in a piece last week, accompanying the article with a picture of a tough-looking Putin in military fatigues looking through a pair of binoculars. CBCs experts expressed little doubt at Moscows willingness to use the weapons and, pointing to Kievs distribution of potassium iodine pills, explained that the pills can help block the absorption of harmful radiation by the thyroid gland after a nuclear attack.How likely is a Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine? NPR pondered in a clickbaity article on October 4. An expert from Harvard University "explained" that Russia was threatening to break the worlds 77-year tradition, some call it a taboo, of non-use of nuclear weapons. He tactfully failed to mention that the United States is the only country to have ever used nukes when it incinerated a pair of Japanese cities during the closing days of World War II, killing up to 215,000 people.Other outlets offered handy info and tips, with Spains El Pais and The Washington Post providing primers on Russias nuclear arsenal, while Polish media reported on government preparations for the darkest scenario by checking the readiness of the nations network of bomb shelters. Not to be outdone, Newsweek explained to readers the safest places to be and where to hide in the event of a nuclear blast, saying the best place to godepends on where the bomb is targeted, as well as the size of the nuclear weapons, the time of year, the weather conditions, and a variety of other factors.Did Everybody Forget How to Read?In the face of the medias growing nuclear frenzy, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official turned to Sputnik to set the record straight.What does Ryabkov mean? Well, Russias nuclear doctrine is no secret. In fact, in June 2020, for the first time in the nations history and in the interests of transparency, Moscow published the document governing the nations nuclear weapons use policy in full (you can find it here).To quote at length:The Russian Federation considers nuclear weapons exclusively as a means of deterrence, their use being an extreme and compelled measure, and takes all necessary efforts to reduce nuclear threat and prevent aggravation of interstate relations, that could trigger military conflicts, including nuclear ones.Nuclear deterrence is ensured by the presence in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of combat-ready forces and means that are capable to inflict guaranteed unacceptable damage on a potential adversary through employment of nuclear weapons in any circumstances, as well as by the readiness and resolve of the Russian Federation to use such weapons.And heres the crucial bit:Did everybody catch that? One more time for the fearmongers in the media and the White House out there:Russia will not use nukes unless nukes or other WMDs are used against it or its allies first, or if a conventional attack so severe that the countrys very existence is threatened is unleashed against it. This applies to all nuclear weapons, with no distinction made in the document between tactical (battlefield) nukes and strategic ones (i.e. those able to cause horrific, widespread destruction and potentially end human life on this planet).And the Other Guy?But what about the US? Amid the recent string of reports from officials, think tank eggheads and media about Russias dastardly plans to use nuclear weapons preemptively and unprovoked, surely Americas own doctrine must be peace-loving, reasonable, and grounded in the realization that a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. Right?Turns out, not so much. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) the document outlining policy on nuclear weapons and outlining a list of nuclear threats to the nation, explicitly states that the United States has not and will not commit to a strategy of no first use:In addition, the United States will maintain a portion of its nuclear forces on alert day-to-day, and retain the option of launching those forces promptly. This posture maximizes decision time and preserves the range of US response options. It also makes clear to potential adversaries that they have no confidence in strategies intended to destroy our nuclear deterrent forces in a surprise first strike, the document adds.Thats not all. Page 54 mentions the Pentagons plans to expand the flexibility of its nuclear capabilities to include new low-yield options (i.e. smaller nuclear bombs), characterizing the move as an important step for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression.Consequently, the United States will maintain, and enhance as necessary, the capability to forward deploy nuclear bombers and DCA [dual-capable aircraft] around the world. We are committed to upgrading DCA with the nuclear-capable F-35 aircraft. We will work with NATO to best ensure and improve where needed the readiness, survivability, and operational effectiveness of DCA based in Europe, the document states.Citing the range of threats arrayed against the United States by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, the document emphasizes that the US reserves the right to continue to field a range of conventional and nuclear capabilities able to hold such targets at risk, hinting at the possibility of using nukes even against conventional adversaries, unless they are a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and deemed to be in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.The Biden administration submitted an update to the nuclear doctrine in March 2022, with its contents remaining largely under wraps. However, according to a "fact sheet" put out by the administration, the policy will not be altered to include a "no first use" pledge.Given this information, gleaned from the official policy documents of the nuclear superpowers, perhaps its time for Western media to ask the White House a few uncomfortable questions like why Washington wont pledge not to use nukes first, instead of penning alarmist report after report on the nuclear dangers supposedly emanating from the Kremlin.Other Nuclear PowersBesides Russia and the US, other nuclear weapons states include China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel (allegedly). China and India are the only countries that maintain a nuclear no first use policy.Pakistan has refused to adopt a similar policy, with its civilian and military leaders stating repeatedly over the decades that the country reserves the right to use "any weapon in [its] arsenal" if attacked. French policy is similarly vague, with its official doctrine stating that nukes can be used to protect the nation's "vital interests," including in the face of an enemy conventional, chemical, biological or even cyber attacks. In the UK, successive defense secretaries in the past two decades have stressed that the country could use nuclear weapons as a "first strike" weapon. In August, Liz Truss confirmed her "readiness" to press the button.North Korea officially proclaimed itself a nuclear weapons state last month, with its doctrine allowing for nukes to be used as a "powerful means for defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity and fundamental interests of the state."Finally, Israel, which neither confirms nor denies its nuclear weapons status in a policy known as 'deliberate ambiguity', is believed to adhere to what's known as the 'Samson Option' - a deterrence strategy named after the biblical figure judge Samson. The doctrine allows for nukes to be used if conventional defenses fail and the country is threatened with destruction. Israel is speculated to have contemplated this option during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and to have placed nuclear landmines in the occupied Golan Heights in the 1980s.Message of Hope?Whatever tactical and strategic changes take place in Ukraine, Taiwan, or any other existing or emerging global hot spot in the coming months and years, the worlds major nuclear powers have offered at least some reassurance that they are not contemplating nuclear Armageddon as a first resort.In a joint statement in January, Russia, the United States, China, France, and Britain restated their commitment to maintaining and strengthening national measures to prevent unauthorized or unintended use of nuclear weapons, and reiterated the validity of our previous statements on de-targeting, reaffirming that none of our nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or at any other state.Take that for what its worth. https://sputniknews.com/20221006/peskov-urges-entire-world-to-take-note-of-zelenskys-call-for-preventive-nuclear-strike-on-russia-1101582414.html https://sputniknews.com/20221011/russia-does-not-threaten-anyone-with-nuclear-weapons-foreign-ministry-1101716787.html https://sputniknews.com/20220925/us-threatens-russia-with-catastrophic-consequences-if-it-nukes-ukraine-distorts-putins-warning-1101212446.html https://sputniknews.com/20220811/stratcom-head-us-working-furiously-to-formulate-new-deterrence-strategy-against-russia-china-1099494374.html https://sputniknews.com/20220826/nuclear-five-could-become-base-for-new-disarmament-platform---russian-official-1100006404.html russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ilya Tsukanov nuclear, nuclear weapons, russia, us, joe biden, reports, media, fear-mongering https://sputniknews.com/20221011/pakistan-decides-to-purchase-62-million-mosquito-nets-from-india--1101715164.html Pakistan Decides to Purchase 6.2 million Mosquito Nets From India Pakistan Decides to Purchase 6.2 million Mosquito Nets From India In August 2019, Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic ties and trade relations with India in response to New Delhis decision to unilaterally revoke the special... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T11:52+0000 2022-10-11T11:52+0000 2022-10-11T11:52+0000 pakistan malaria vector disease world health organization (who) flood shehbaz sharif india /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101720059_0:245:3073:1973_1920x0_80_0_0_a43131e1216589d41ba17fe75e8f5140.jpg Pakistan decided to import 6.2 million mosquito nets from India as the World Health Organization (WHO) warns of 2.7 million malaria cases across the country by January 2023.The Health Ministry hoped to import the mosquito nets by the middle of November via the land border at Wagah, Geo News reported.Malaria is spreading at a rapid pace in 32 flood-affected districts of the country where thousands of children are infected with the mosquito-borne disease, Pakistani Health Ministry officials said.Last month, the Health Ministry approached the Commerce Ministry for approval as the Pakistani government has yet to decide on resuming trade relationship with its arch-rival India. The districts of Sindh, Punjab, and Baluchistan have been facing massive problems with Plasmodium Falciparum cases since the flood waters receded.The WHO on Saturday urged the international community to "do a lot more" for flood-hit Pakistan.WHO's representative in Pakistan Dr. Palitha Mahipala said thousands of malaria cases are being reported daily across Pakistan.Last Tuesday, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari urged the international community to support Pakistan as it is in great need of more tents and mosquito nets. The minister said 33 million people have been affected, while standing crops at 400,000 acres were under water because of the floods.India has expressed willingness to extend humanitarian aid and assistance, based on the kind of request that comes from Islamabad.Pakistan announced the suspension of trade ties with India in August 2019 in response to New Delhis decision to revoke the temporary special status of Jammu and Kashmir. Islamabad described the decision as an attempt to change the status quo of the disputed region. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.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 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg pakistan, malaria, vector, disease, world health organization (who), flood, shehbaz sharif Facts about Russia-Ukraine conflict: Russia launches missile strikes on Ukraine in retaliation for Crimean Bridge blast Xinhua) 09:20, October 11, 2022 BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments in the Ukraine crisis: Russia launched a large-scale attack against Ukrainian targets on Monday in retaliation for a deadly blast on the Crimean Bridge, President Vladimir Putin has announced. "This morning, at the suggestion of the Defense Ministry and according to the plan of the General Staff, air, sea and land-based high-precision long-range weapons were massively fired against Ukraine's energy, military command and communications facilities," Putin said at a meeting with permanent members of Russia's Security Council via video link. "If Kiev continues to attempt to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory, Russia's responses will be tough," he warned. - - - - "The first episode is over. There will be others," Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Telegram, commenting on the massive strike against Ukrainian facilities earlier on Monday. - - - - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted on Monday that he has agreed to hold an urgent meeting of the countries of the Group of Seven over missile attacks on Ukraine in a phone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Zelensky said he will deliver a speech at the meeting concerning the attacks, adding that his discussion with Scholz touched upon the issue of increasing pressure on Russia and restoring damaged infrastructure. Earlier in the day, Valery Zaluzhny, chief commander of the armed forces of Ukraine, said on Telegram that Russia fired 75 missiles against Ukraine on Monday morning, with 41 intercepted by Ukraine's air defense. - - - - At least eight people were killed and 24 others injured in a series of missile strikes on Kiev Monday, Rostyslav Smirnov, an advisor to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs, has said. At least 11 key infrastructure facilities in eight Ukrainian regions have been damaged in Russia's missile attacks on Monday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said. As of 11 a.m. local time (GMT 0800), several Ukrainian regions were left without electricity, Shmyhal said on Telegram. He instructed Ukrainians to prepare for temporary interruptions to water and electricity supplies and possible issues with communication services. (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Hongyu) https://sputniknews.com/20221011/were-not-going-to-let-up-gop-vows-probe-into-joe-biden-familys-criminal-activity--1101711370.html 'Were Not Going to Let Up': GOP Vows Probe Into Joe Biden Familys Criminal Activity' 'Were Not Going to Let Up': GOP Vows Probe Into Joe Biden Familys Criminal Activity' House Republicans have vowed to investigate First Son Hunter Biden as a national security threat if they regain control of the chamber in the November 8... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T09:51+0000 2022-10-11T09:51+0000 2022-10-11T09:51+0000 us joe biden hunter biden americas gop republicans us midterm elections /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/09/01/1100286915_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_808e1e47320723bf00c36858f62ed5ef.jpg The US president's brother, James, and his son, Hunter, "committed a crime" during the time when Joe Biden was the sitting vice president, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., argued on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria."The Biden family members were likely engaged in "influence peddling" with countries sanctioned by the US, said the Republican, expected to be named chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee if the GOP regains control of the chamber in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.The GOP lawmaker added that the American people were going to be "shocked" when they discovered what the Biden family had been doing to "profit off Joe Bidens name" over the past decade.Referring to reports in The Washington Post that federal agents probing Hunter Biden had already obtained sufficient evidence to charge the 52-year-old with tax crimes and lying about his drug abuse to buy a gun, Comer predicted that this is not going to end well for the 46th POTUS and his son.According to the lawmaker, Republicans will try to scrutinize at least 150 suspicious activity reports about Hunter Bidens financial dealings that the Treasury Department has blocked them in Congress from accessing.Pointing out that prior to Joe Biden becoming president any member of Congress had access to suspicious activity reports, the lawmaker questioned why one of the first rule changes made by the Democratic POTUS was to amend that.Comer voiced GOP confidence that the reports constitute a pretty sure indication that there was criminal activity by members of the presidents family.The Biden family was helping Chinese and Ukrainian energy companies "navigate bureaucracy," offering them backdoor access so they could "start getting a foothold on American energy," Rep. James Comer said. This criminal activity allowed the Bidens to receive millions of dollars of direct payments from crooked, shady Chinese energy companies, he added."Were not going to let up... and well certainly present the facts to the American people, James Comer stated. https://sputniknews.com/20221007/wapo-feds-have-sufficient-evidence-to-charge-hunter-biden-1101604847.html https://sputniknews.com/20220921/house-panel-democrats-vote-down-gops-resolution-of-inquiry-into-hunter-bidens-business-schemes-1101039164.html americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko us, joe biden, hunter biden, gop, republicans, us midterm elections https://sputniknews.com/20221011/wwf-expert-sheds-light-on-what-brings-red-pandas-to-verge-of-extinction-in-india--worldwide-1101724774.html WWF Expert Sheds Light on What Brings Red Pandas to Verge of Extinction in India & Worldwide WWF Expert Sheds Light on What Brings Red Pandas to Verge of Extinction in India & Worldwide Red pandas, famous for their kitten-like faces with striking reddish brown coats, are some of the most adorable creatures, yet only a few are now left and on... 11.10.2022, Sputnik International 2022-10-11T14:45+0000 2022-10-11T14:45+0000 2022-10-11T15:02+0000 india red panda wildlife wildlife wildlife wildlife authorities /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/0a/0b/1101730029_0:130:2000:1255_1920x0_80_0_0_7aefeeb3ecd56b4fa34dbe5d9a9ac645.jpg From poaching to habitat degradation and fragmentation, the rare red panda species of the bear family has become one of the world's most threatened animals, with several wildlife conservationists worldwide working for its preservation.In India, sightings of this elusive species, which is usually spotted in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh states, have declined.The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has claimed that the population of red pandas has plausibly declined by 50% over the last three generations and this decline is projected to continue, and probably intensify, in the next three generations.According to National Geographic, an estimated 10,000 red pandas are left in the world, indicating a 50 percent drop in their population since 1997.Sputnik: Red pandas are considered to be endangered in India as they are now only found in the northeastern states of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Meghalaya. What is the current population of red pandas in India and in which states are they sighted the most? Priyadarshinee Shrestha: Arunachal Pradesh has the largest habitat for red pandas in India, followed by Sikkim. Currently in India, only these two states have red panda habitats. There were old unconfirmed reports of red panda presence in Meghalaya, but no sightings have been made to prove this. Therefore, it is no longer considered a red panda state. A population estimation of red pandas has not been undertaken for the country. Red pandas are captured on camera trap photographs, but since the individuals are similar looking, with no distinguishing feature such as different stripes or spots to tell them apart, a population count is not possible. Only genetic analysis would be able to provide some answers, which has not been attempted till date. Sputnik: Whats your take on the declining population of red pandas and how difficult is it to ascertain it? Priyadarshinee Shrestha: With no proper baselines in place, it is difficult to ascertain whether populations are on the decline overall. It is a fact, however, that the habitats of red pandas are shrinking. In Sikkim, the WWF is currently undertaking an occupancy-based study that will reveal how the habitat usage of the animal has changed over the years, and also identify key sites for red panda occurrence. Sputnik: What are some of the major causes of the decline of the red pandas population in India and across the world? Priyadarshinee Shrestha: Red pandas are extremely shy animals and are stressed by the smallest of disturbances. Sighting of the animal, therefore, remains low, and it is mostly on the basis of secondary evidence, mainly its pellets, that the species' presence can be determined in certain sites. Infrastructure such as road construction has been one of the main reasons for habitat degradation and fragmentation. Sputnik: How can we preserve the natural habitat of the red panda? Priyadarshinee Shrestha: Identify key areas and bring strong policy support for conserving these habitats for the future. Temperate forests are also important to recharge zones for mountain springs, and conserving such spaces would also ensure water security for the future. Sputnik: Tell us about WWF Indias initiatives toward preserving the red panda population in the country. Priyadarshinee Shrestha: WWF India has been working since 2005 in the eastern Himalayan region to identify the distribution status of red pandas, and assess their food habits. Our work in Sikkim has shown that much of the red panda habitats (66%) lie outside of Protected Areas such as National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries. Some of these key areas have to remain undisturbed and unfragmented if red pandas are to thrive in the future. WWF India is currently working with communities who live around red panda habitats to engage in species and habitat monitoring, reducing pressure on the forests, and also at a policy level to safeguard important habitats. Sputnik: Free-ranging dogs in the vicinity are leading to predation on red pandas. The occasional hunting of red pandas is also a concern in some areas. What actions have been taken to protect red pandas from this? Priyadarshinee Shrestha: WWF India engages with the Sikkim Anti Rabies and Animal Health Group on a massive dog sterilization program in the high-altitude areas of Sikkim. This measure, however, does not give quick results and the impacts can only be visible in the long run with a reduction in dog population. However, hunting of red pandas in Sikkim is uncommon and not a concern. Sputnik: How is the local community helping in the conservation of red pandas? Priyadarshinee Shrestha: As part of an ongoing project supported by SBI (State Bank of India) Foundation, communities from around red panda habitats are being engaged as Red Panda Guardians. They are being trained to monitor red panda habitats and also raise awareness about the special animal among all stakeholders. Firewood requirement is also high in villages in high altitudes. The WWF has piloted improved cookstoves that require less firewood, and are also smokeless for firewood reduction through community engagement. Sputnik: Tell us about the number of cases of poaching and Illegal trade of red pandas that have been reported in India and across borders. Priyadarshinee Shrestha: There are instances of red panda pelts being smuggled in Nepal. The origin of these items has not been ascertained, though. A study published in 2020 on Traffic.org, a leading non-governmental organization working on wildlife trade, shared that over a 10-year period from July 2010 to June 2019, the authors found neither India nor Bhutan had reported any incidences of poaching or illegal trade in red pandas. However, in Nepal, a total of 13 seizure records were reported between 2016 and 2019, accounting for a total of 29 pelts. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2022 Sangeeta Yadav https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1b/1080292803_0:121:960:1081_100x100_80_0_0_7490b319dab9611e309056b177265184.jpg Sangeeta Yadav https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1b/1080292803_0:121:960:1081_100x100_80_0_0_7490b319dab9611e309056b177265184.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 Sangeeta Yadav https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/1b/1080292803_0:121:960:1081_100x100_80_0_0_7490b319dab9611e309056b177265184.jpg red panda, wildlife, wildlife, wildlife, wildlife authorities Herbert Carl Wells of Harriston, Ont. passed away peacefully at his home on Monday, Oct. 3 in his 84th year. Husband of Barbara (Marling) Wells. Father of Rae (Peggy) Wells of Durham, Mike Wells of Pike Lake, and Brad Wells of Fordwich, and grandfather of Brian, Eric, Ryan, and Nick. Remembered by his siblings and their families. Herb and Barb moved to Harriston in 1992. After building their new home on Pike Lake Road, Herb also built Rotobale Compaction Systems in Arthur Township in 1989, where he operated a refuse manufacturing company. The factory was sold in 2007. In retirement, Herb and Barb raised horses on their 50-acre farm. He enjoyed racing horses at Mohawk and other area racetracks. Private family arrangements have been entrusted to the Hardy-Lee Funeral Home, Harriston, with a family graveside service to be held at Mount Forest Cemetery. Memorial donations to Grand River Hospital, Kitchener or Humber River Hospital, Toronto would be appreciated. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Herb Wells. A Virginia State Police trooper suffered serious injuries in a two-vehicle crash Monday with a tractor-trailer on U.S. 29 near Meetze Road in Fauquier County. The trooper was treated at Fauquier Health in Warrenton and released, Sgt. Brent Coffey, the agencys Culpeper Division spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday morning. No charges have been placed in the crash that remains under investigation. At 2:51 p.m. Oct. 10, the trooper was observing traffic while positioned in a crossover on the highway. He saw a traffic violation and tried to pull into traffic, Coffey said. At the same time, a tractor-trailer traveling southbound switched from the right lane to the left lane and collided with the troopers patrol vehicle. The tractor-trailers driver was not injured, Coffey said. Scottsbluff Public Schools Family Success Center has rolled out a new program for families called Cats Connect. Wynne Burg, Scottsbluff schools diversity, equity and inclusion facilitator, said the program is designed to drive family engagement. Its an activity that combines the family orientation with the school setting and the students for a positive family engagement activity that students, families, and schools can share, Burg said. According to Burg, the program is based on the idea of a family passport. We call it the Family Engagement Trail. Its a pamphlet, and you work as a family together through the cat tracks on the activity map. Families must complete at least two of the three activities from each category. White activities are for the adults, like attending parent-teacher conferences or open houses. Red activities are family activities within the school, like eating breakfast or lunch with their child at school or volunteering in their classroom. Black activities take place outside the school but are focused on family interaction, such as reading a book with your child or holding a family game night. Categories have blank spaces to allow families to customize their experience throughout the semester. Upon completion of the pamphlet, an adult can take it to the Family Success Center office at 1715 First Ave. in Scottsbluff and exchange it for a coupon good for a large, one topping pizza and pitcher of soda at Arthurs Pizza. The coupon can be used for dine-in or takeout. The family engagement pamphlets are available in both English and Spanish to make the program as accessible as possible for all families in the school district. The activities are designed minimize costs for families. We want any family in our school district to feel like they can partake in this Engagement Trail, and to want to partake in it as well, Burg said. Scottsbluff Public Schools families with kids from pre-K through eighth grades are eligible to participate in Cats Connect. Coupons for completion are limited to one per family. The center is also focused on addressing the issue of chronic absenteeism in the district. Burg said that attendance issues are often linked to problems outside of a familys control, and the Family Success Center can help. Our goal is to help provide resources to students and families in the school district, and even staff in the district, to help eliminate barriers that might make it harder for students to attend regularly to school and to thrive in school, Burg said. Burg wants families to visit the Family Success Center to raise community awareness about the resources they can provide to the community. We want to meet as many families as we can. We want to spread the word on what our office can do and combine that with positive family engagement within the school district. As the Iredell County Parks and Recreation Department begins to look toward building a playground at Jennings Park, it wants to make sure everyone can be in on the fun. One thing we wanted to focus on is theres not really an inclusive playground in the area. Most of the playgrounds in the area are mulch surfacing and things like that so while they may have a sidewalk to get there, which makes them accessible, its not necessarily inclusive because it makes it harder for people to get around, Jen Winters said. She is the interim parks and recreation director. It doesnt even have to be a physical difference, it could be cognitive, so there are different stations where people can interact and be involved and elements like that. Jennings Park What: Public Information Meeting for Jennings Park playground Who: Iredell County Parks and Recreation Department When: Tuesday, 6 p.m. Where: Ebenezer Volunteer Fire Department. 1002 Turnersburg Highway, Statesville Those features will be part of the playground the county plans on building and on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Ebenezer Volunteer Fire Department, 1002 Turnersburg Highway. The public can weigh in on what features it would like to see during the information meeting. Winters said there will be a presentation at the beginning of the meeting to help explain some of these inclusive elements, such as ramps instead of stairs on some parts of the playground, more inclusively designed swings, and other elements that would make the park fun for everyone. As far as costs, Winters said they are open to a number of ideas depending on public input. She said it is hard at this point to pin down a ballpark figure as theyve gotten a number of different estimates from potential contractors, which will need to go through the usual public request bidding process once the parks and recreation department has a clearer idea of desires and what is within the countys budget. But the county doesnt plan to foot the bill all by itself. Winters said that Stacy McGlamery, the departments administrative assistant, has been hard at work looking for grants and potential sponsors for the playground. One of those is the Accessibility for Parks (AFP) Grant. The grant program provides $10 million in parks and recreation grants to benefit children with disabilities in North Carolina and is administered through N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation and N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund. The grant may be used to build special facilities that meet the unique needs of children with physical and developmental disabilities. The maximum request is $500,000 with local government matching at least one dollar for every five dollars in grant funds. All park facilities funded by AFP must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG). We will be employing the principles of Universal Design in the implementation of a playground at Jennings Park. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It is a time for people and organizations to work together on issues involving domestic violence and to work toward its prevention. The first Domestic Violence Awareness Month was in October of 1987. I was a freshman at Carolina in October of 1987, and I am not even sure that I knew what domestic violence was back then. It disturbs me now that young people, living on their own for the first time, were not educated as to the warning signs and the dangers of domestic violence. One positive thing I can say about the tragedy of domestic violence is that today there is awareness, there is education, and there is understanding. The definition of domestic violence under North Carolina law is: attempting to, or intentionally causing, bodily injury to another; or putting another in fear of imminent serious bodily injury or continued harassment that rises to a level such that it inflicts substantial emotional distress; when the person has, or has had, a personal relationship with the victim. (North Carolina General Statutes 50B-1.) Personal relationship is defined generally as: a relationship where the parties involved are current or former spouses, are persons of the opposite sex who live together or have lived together, are related as parents and children or grandparents and grandchildren, have a child together, are current or former household members, or are persons who are in a dating relationship or have been in a dating relationship. (N.C.G.S. 50B-1.) Domestic violence crimes that we see in criminal court include assault, violation of a domestic violence protective order, stalking, communicating threats and domestic criminal trespass. Domestic crimes are not like other crimes because in each one of them, there is a personal relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. And to make matters more complicated, in domestic violence crimes, the victim may continue to have contact with the perpetrator, may still care for the perpetrator, may be economically dependent on the perpetrator or may have children with the perpetrator. According to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety website, there were 148 domestic violence-related homicides in 2021. Three of those were in Iredell County. This number is about a 10 percent increase from 2020. According to the same website, the most common relationship in those homicides was that of persons of the opposite sex who live or have lived together, and in four of those cases, the victims had taken out protective orders when the homicides occurred. In 2021, Robin Shea, the legal assistant in my office that handles domestic violence cases, served around 700 victims of domestic violence. As part of her duties, she helps guide domestic violence victims through the court process, she connects them with resources that they may need, and she listens. And she is someone that they can call if they have any questions along the way. I think it is important to have that person in my office that understands the nature of domestic violence and how to best help the victims. Prosecutors in my office take domestic violence cases seriously. We all understand the unique nature of these cases and that the personal relationships that exist make them extremely difficult. We have to understand the difficulties of these cases in order to hold offenders accountable, and, at the same time, achieve justice for victims. Purple is the color of Domestic Violence Awareness, and in my best Google research, there are many different explanations as to why that color was chosen. I do not know which one is the actual reason, but I know that on you, purple looks good. Wear it this month and show your support for victims of domestic violence. Last October, 60 firefighters from seven departments battled the blaze that destroyed the Past Time Antique Emporium in downtown Marion. In the year since, officials have considered many possibilities for the repurposing the space. Ideas have included creating a green space, parking, a rooftop area, and others, but nothing seemed the right fit or kept the flow of the downtown retail and restaurant area intact. Now, a Virginia Main Street grant is expected to help. Friday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Virginia Main Street grants for 16 communities totaling more than $257,000. Among those awards was one for $10,000 to allow Marion Downtown to conduct a burnout feasibility study for the former two-story space. The funds will help pay for hiring a qualified firm to conduct a structural assessment, develop construction concepts and cost estimates, and identify potential funding sources to repurpose a building deemed unsalvageable. Last summer, the antique stores owners, Keith and Jan Medieros, sold the structure to the Marion Economic Development Authority with the hope that the area could be revitalized. With the EDA owning the property and this grant, Ken Heath, Marions community and economic development coordinator, sees opportunities opening up. Friday, he said, Its a wonderful opportunity for us to turn a tragedy into another asset. The study will provide options for possibilities for this anchor building for our downtown, identifying suggested uses, cost estimates and financial incentives that we can present to a new owner to return this building to a functional, contributing business or two. With continued low vacancy rates and high demand, we certainly can use every space we can help develop. The legacy that Keith and Jan Medieros started with their restoration into the Past Time Antique Emporium will now continue, bringing new businesses, new jobs, and new things to do to our town. Among the options to be explored, Heath said, is one that would develop commercial space on the street level and apartments or other short-term residential units on the second floor. The Medieros took it from a vacant space into one of the most visited businesses in our town, and thanks to their vision in working with our EDA, they have set the scene for the next chapter for this historic building, Heath said in a Monday news release. Virginia Main Street grants are geared to revitalization. For over 30 years, the Virginia Main Street program has been critical to economic development, small business growth and job development through the revitalization and preservation of our historic downtown districts, said Youngkin in a news release. I look forward to seeing the economic opportunity that these projects will spark while preserving and utilizing the historic character of their communities as well. Virginia Main Street continues to create opportunities for long-term economic growth throughout the Commonwealth, said Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick. These grants allow us to provide targeted support while preserving the unique cultures and histories that make Virginias downtown areas consumer destinations. This is another big step for our downtown, said Marion Mayor David Helms. We are so proud of the Medieros for bringing the building back to life, and were heartbroken with them last year when it caught fire. We are appreciative of our public works crew and our fire department for containing the fire to keep from losing blocks of our downtown. One neighboring business suffered minor damage from the fire. KALAMA The Kalama Police Department will hold its third Caribbean dinner event 6 p.m., Friday, with all proceeds going to underprivileged youth before the holidays. The Caribbean dinner is Kalama Police Chief Ralph Herreras brainchild, as the feast will feature traditional Cuban and Puerto Rican dishes like Arroz con pollo, and the creamy caramel custard dessert dish flan, which he cooks. A salad, red beans and dinner rolls will also accompany the meal. The funds raised from the dinner will be going to the Shop with a Cop program, a yearly event held by police departments across the United States where a uniformed police officer accompanies a child for holiday shopping before the festivities kick off. Herrera, who hails from central Florida, sees the dinner as a way to give back to the community of Kalama, which he said embraced him, but also showcases his Latino heritage by sharing culinary staples from two Latin American nations. The Kalama womens service organization Amalak will assist with the event by providing additional food and setting up the silent auction that will include prizes from local artists, businesses and residents. The event will also feature dance performances, in which the audience can join in a few dances. The last Caribbean dinner was in 2019, and halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, saidHerrera, who wants to make up for the lost time by trying to raise $5,000 for 25 to 30 at-risk youths. The event offers 150 tickets, but as of last week, they have sold 25 tickets, according to the departments Facebook page. Organizers say 75 tickets will be pre-sold for to-go orders, which must be picked up between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. WOODLAND On Monday morning, Woodland High School evacuated to the stadium after police alerted the school of a bomb threat, but no explosive device was found, according to the district. At about 11 a.m., the Woodland Police Department received a call stating that two explosive devices were in lockers at the high school and set to go off at 11:50 a.m., said Eric Jacobson, district communications manager. The high school at 1500 Dike Access Rd. was evacuated to the nearby stadium while multiple agencies searched the building, he said. Police initially said the search would take several hours, so the district decided to release students, Jacobson said. Students with previous parental approval were released and those without approval were released to their parents. Most students went home before the building was cleared, he said. The district informed parents and students of the threat and evacuation using TalkingPoints, a communication platform allowing the school to directly message students and families, Jacobson said. The district recently started using the messaging platform and it worked well Monday, he said. The League of Women Voters will hold a debate Saturday in Vancouver between Joe Kent, R-Yacolt, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, who are vying for the 3rd Congressional District seat currently held by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler. Five newspapers The Daily News in Longview, The Columbian in Vancouver, the Chinook Observer in Ilwaco, The Chronicle in Centralia and the Skamania County Pioneer in Stevenson are co-sponsors of the debate. Journalists from each of the news outlets will prepare questions for the candidates, who are facing off in the Nov. 8 general election. The October debate will take place at 2 p.m. at the Vancouver Community Library, 901 C St. and seating will be very limited. The debate will air live on CVTV and TVW, as well as on tdn.com. The local chapters of the League of Women Voters arranged the debate between the political newcomers to ask questions about their stances on national concerns and local issues affecting southwest Washington. Kent and Perez previously faced off during a late September debate in Vancouver. Saturdays debate will be the last major event featuring both candidates before ballots are mailed out to voters by Oct. 21. Evacuation orders Level 1 Notice Be Ready: Residents should be aware of the danger that exists in their area, and monitor local media outlets for information. Residents with special needs should take note and begin making arrangements to evacuate. Evacuations at this time are voluntary. Level 2 Notice Be Set: This level indicates there is significant danger to your area, and residents should either voluntarily relocate to a shelter or outside of the affected area, or if choosing to remain, to be ready at a moments notice. Emergency services cannot guarantee that they will be able to notify you if conditions rapidly deteriorate. Level 3 Notice Go Now: Danger to your area is current or imminent, and you should leave immediately. Listen to local media, and watch for emergency personnel who may be coming by to give further instructions regarding the evacuation. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) It's possible Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz talked himself into a death sentence. Prosecutors played video last week at Cruz's penalty trial of jailhouse interviews he did this year with two of their mental health experts. In frank and sometimes graphic detail, he answered their questions about his massacre of 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 his planning, his motivation, the shootings. While it cant be known what the 12 jurors are thinking, if any are wavering between voting for death or life without parole, his statements to Dr. Charles Scott, a forensic psychiatrist, and Robert Denney, a neuropsychologist, did not help his cause. All of this made Cruz himself perhaps one of the states best witnesses, said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor who has been monitoring the trial. The jury will likely decide Cruz's fate this week. For the 24-year-old to get a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous on at least one victim. But if all 17 counts come back with at least one vote in favor of life in prison, then that would be his sentence. Closing arguments are scheduled Tuesday, with deliberations beginning Wednesday. Because Cruz's defense is that his birth mother's heavy drinking during pregnancy left him brain damaged, prosecutors could have experts examine him for their rebuttal case. Scott and Denney interviewed him separately for several hours. In each, Cruz sat across the table, handcuffed, a sweater draped over his chest. He sometimes asked for a pen and paper to add diagrams and drawings to his explanations. The question is: What will the jury take away from the interviews? Cold-blooded killer who was vengeful and excited about the murders, or a person so hopelessly deranged that he cant be anything but crazy? said Bob Jarvis, a professor at Nova Southeastern University's law school. Excerpts from those interviews, some of which are graphic: HOW LONG HAD CRUZ BEEN CONTEMPLATING A SCHOOL SHOOTING? A very long time, Cruz told Scott, starting when he was 13 or 14, about five years before he did it. It was just a thought. I was reading books, Cruz said. It would come and go. It would pop up in my mind. The thoughts would return when he watched violent videos, particularly documentaries about mass shootings at Colorado's Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and elsewhere, he said. HOW DID CRUZ PLAN THE MASSACRE? I did my own research, Cruz told Scott. I studied mass murderers and how they did it, their plans, what they got and what they used." He detailed the lessons he learned: Watch for would-be rescuers coming around corners, keep some distance from your targeted victims, attack as fast as possible and the police didn't do anything. I have a small opportunity to shoot people for maybe 20 minutes, Cruz said. HOW DID CRUZ PREPARE? He told Scott he put his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in a bag the night before and slipped its magazines into a shooting vest. He adjusted the gun's sights and imagined what the recoil would feel like. I didn't get any sleep, Cruz said. He donned the burgundy polo shirt he received when he was a member of the Stoneman Douglas Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program so he could escape by mingling with fleeing students. If I had all my (shooting) gear on, they would have called the cops, Cruz said. When he set out at 2 p.m., he told the Uber driver he was in the school orchestra and the bag carried his instrument. WHAT DID CRUZ DO WHEN HE ARRIVED? I walked through the gates. Hopefully, there would be no security guards, but I was wrong, Cruz told Scott. I was looking at the guy and he was watching me. When Cruz attended Stoneman Douglas, guards frequently checked him for weapons because of his erratic and sometimes violent behavior. When he was expelled a year before the shooting, a guard predicted he would eventually return and shoot people. Fearing he'd been discovered, Cruz sprinted into a three-story classroom building and quickly assembled his weapon. He told a student who happened upon him to flee because something bad was about to happen. He then went floor to floor, shooting down hallways and into classrooms, firing 140 shots in all. I thought they would scream, Cruz said about his first three victims. He shot them point-blank outside a locked classroom door. It was more like they passed out and blood came pouring out of their head. It was really nasty and sad to see." But he continued. I think I showed mercy to three girls. I was going to walk away, but they showed nasty faces and I went back, Cruz said. I thought they were going to attack me. Cruz shot several of his victims a second time after they fell, including his final one a student writhing from a leg wound. He said the boy gave me a nasty look. A look of anger. His head blew up like a water balloon, Cruz said. WHY DID CRUZ STOP SHOOTING? Students and teachers fled the building or locked themselves in classrooms. The third-floor hallway was now empty except for victims. I couldn't find anyone to kill, he said. I didn't want to do it anymore and I didn't think there was anyone else in the building. He dropped his gun and vest on the stairwell and fled. He was captured an hour later the police officer had been looking for a young male in a Stoneman Douglas ROTC polo. CRUZ'S FINAL SAY As Denney was finishing the final interview, he asked Cruz if there was anything else he should know. Cruz thought for 10 seconds before responding: Why I chose Valentines Day. Because I thought no one would love me, Cruz explained. I didnt like Valentines Day and I wanted to ruin it for everyone. Do you mean for the family members of the kids that were killed? Denney asked. No, for the school, Cruz replied. The holiday will never be celebrated there again, he said. Planning to buy the new Pixel 7 Pro? Stores in the UK are offering exciting freebies on the newly launched handset. Google launched its Pixel 7 series just a few days back on October 6 at its Made by Google event and the pre-booking for the devices have already started across the UK. If you couldn't wait to get your hands on the newly launched Pixel 7 then there is an exciting deal for you that will let you get exciting freebies on pre-booking. The offer has been rolled out by multiple stores including Three, EE, and O2. Check out the detailed Pixel 7 Pro offers rolling out in the UK. Google Pixel 7 pre-book offer in UK Popular broadband service providers like Three, EE, and O2 are offering exciting deals on the pre-booking of Pixel 7 Pro. Three as well as EE and O2 are offering free Pixel Watch on the Pixel 7 Pro pre-booking. You can grab the Pixel 7 Pro from 54 per month with Unlimited data from Three Mobile. The deal goes on for 24 months. Additionally, you will also have to pay 50 upfront cost. However, if you want to go for an EE and O2 deal, you will be required to pay 64 and 41.74 respectively. The EE deal comes with 125GB data while O2 comes with 30GB data. Google Pixel 7 Pro features Google announced the Pixel 7 Pro with a new Tensor G2 chip, which promised faster Voice assistance: live translation, Google Assistant, and voice typing. The handset features 6.7inch 120Hz Smooth Display. Further it has a 5,000mAh battery that can last over 24 hours. The new Tensor G2 chipset is not just said to improve performance on the Pixel 7 Pro, but also the camera performance. It features 3 Pro-level camera features comprising a 50MP primary camera coupled with a 12MP ultra-wide sensor and the 5x telephoto lens with 30x Super Res Zoom. Just over the weekend, Acer just unveiled yet another world's lightest 16-inch OLED laptop - the Swift Edge (SFA16-41). Surprisingly, the laptop is now available in Malaysia starting from RM5299. What does it feature? Let's check out the details below. While the laptop looks more or less the same as other Swift series, the Swift Edge has received both a Red Dot 2022 award and a 2022 Good Design award. It weighs only 1.17kg and measures 12.95mm in height. Sporting an ultra-slim magnesium-aluminium chassis makes it a more portable and durable laptop. Despite that, it is also powered by AMD Ryzen 6000 series processors. With up to 8 high-performance Zen 3+ cores built on advanced 6 nm process technology, there are two Swift Edge models - one with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U and the AMD Ryzen 5 6600U variant. The memory configuration is different too, as the higher variant uses 1TB Gen4 NVMe SSD and 16GB onboard LPDDR5 and while the other is paired with a 512GB Gen4 NVMe SSD and 8GB onboard LPDDR5. The Swift Edge features a 4K OLED (3840x2400) display with 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut support, 500 nits peak brightness, and less than 0.2ms response time. Furthermore, the laptop also features a narrow bezel with a 92% screen-to body-ratio and has VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 and TUV Rheinland Eyesafe display certifications. On top of that, the laptop also supports the next generation connectivities such as WiFi 6E and an FHD webcam with Acers Temporal Noise Reduction technology. There is a plethora of ports too like HDMI 2.1, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports with fast charging capabilities, two USB Type-A ports, and an audio jack. In terms of security, it uses a Microsoft Pluton level 2 security processor. Pre-installed with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2021 and two years warranty with a first-year International Travelers Warranty, the Acer Swift Edge with AMD Ryzen 7 and AMD Ryzen 5 retails priced at RM6,299 and RM5,299 respectively. Both variants are available on Acer eStore, Acer's official store on Shopee and Lazada starting from 8 October 2022. Stay tuned for more trending tech news at TechNave.com. Using the online platform, even non-experts can digitize and read historical manuscripts very easily. Credit: Universitat Innsbruck Using artificial intelligence, computers can decipher handwritten texts and make them readable for everyone. The Transkribus platform, co-developed at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, makes this technology available to scholars and the general public. An ever-growing group of people are using Transkribus to research their family history. Recently, users from all over the world met in Innsbruck. Handwriting is as individual as people are. Nevertheless, computers today are capable of automatically recognizing handwritings in a wide variety of languages. The Transkribus software platform, co-developed by the University of Innsbruck, makes this technology available to the scientific community, archives, and the general public. Over 90,000 users from all over the world are already using the platform to make handwritten documents readable and searchable. An ever-growing group of people are interested in their family history and are beginning to search for their ancestors in church records, contracts, or other historical documents. "Searching these documents by hand can be a very tedious task. Our technology now makes researching family history much easier," says Gunter Muhlberger from the Digitization and Digital Archiving Working Group at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the European cooperative READ-COOP. Quickly search large collections Archives and libraries store historical documents of inestimable value. These documents take up a lot of space. For example, the documents in the Austrian State Archives fill 350 shelf kilometers. Most of these documents are only available in handwritten form and are no longer legible for many users because they are written in a script called Kurrent, an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing. "This is where the Transkribus platform comes in handy, automatically recognizing this handwriting and thus making it readable for everyone," explains Gunter Muhlberger. In addition, the documents can also be easily searched. This makes research using historical collections much easier because hundreds or thousands of documents can be searched simultaneously for family names or other terms. Credit: Universitat Innsbruck Reading German Kurrent, Arabic, and Chinese Transkribus works with neural networks. This machine-learning method has the great advantage that you no longer have to manually program recognition for each type of writing. "The users teach the machine to read the handwriting," says Gunter Muhlberger. "And a machine does not get tired, which means it can process thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of pages, automatically. That's what we did for the National Archives of Finland, for example, where more than 2 million handwritten documents dating back to the 19th century are now searchable for everyone." The technology used is completely independent of the language and the actual script or type of writing. Transkribus recognizes not only German Kurrent or modern handwriting, but also medieval scripts, as well as Hebrew, Arabic, or Indic handwriting. "And right now, we are experimenting with ancient Chinese," Muhlberger adds. A great help for researchers In science, and the humanities, too, the applications of Transkribus are manifold. For example, the Innsbruck classical philologist William Barton, who received the 1.2 million euro START Prize for his research with the help of Transkribus, decoded diary entries of Karl Benedikt Hase from the 19th century that were thought to be lost, penned in handwritten ancient Greek. Valuable information contained therein is to be made accessible to other fields of research. "The private and secret diaries of the scholar Karl Benedikt Hase contain records from nine years. The amount of text is enormous, there are about 2,500 pages," William Barton of the Department of Neo-Latin Studies explains. "I trained the machine to model Hase's handwriting based on 100 pages. Now it's capable of reading all of his diaries and transcribing the text reliably." A recent study by the University of Edinburgh revealed that more than 400 scientific publications have now been produced with the help of Transkribus. Explore further Machine learning and big data are unlocking Europe's archives Provided by Universitat Innsbruck Travelers walk through Terminal 1 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, on Dec. 30, 2021. The websites for some major U.S. airports went down early Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, in an apparent coordinated denial of service incident, although officials said flights were not affected. Credit: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File An apparently coordinated denial-of-service attack organized by pro-Russia hackers rendered the websites of some major U.S. airports unreachable early Monday, though officials said flights were not affected. The attacksin which participants flood targets with junk datawere orchestrated by a shadowy group that calls itself Killnet. On the eve of the attacks the group published a target list on its Telegram channel. While highly visible and aimed at maximum psychological impact, DDoS attacks are mostly a noisy nuisance, different from hacking that involves breaking into networks and can do serious damage. "We noticed this morning that the external website was down, and our IT and security people are in the process of investigating," said Andrew Gobeil, a spokesman for Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. "There has been no impact on operations." Portions of the public-facing side of the Los Angeles International Airport website were also disrupted, spokeswoman Victoria Spilabotte said. "No internal airport systems were compromised and there were no operational disruptions." Spilabotte said the airport notified the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration, and the airport's information-technology team was working to restore all services and investigate the cause. Several other airports that were included on Killnet's target list reported problems with their websites. The Chicago Department of Aviation said in a statement that websites for O'Hare International and Midway airports went offline early Monday but that no airport operations were affected. Last week, the same group of hackers claimed responsibility for denial-of-service attacks on state government websites in several states. John Hultquist, vice president for threat intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, tweeted that denial-of-service attacks like those aimed at the airports and state governments are usually short in duration and "typically superficial." "These are not the serious impacts that have kept us awake," he said. Such attacks instead tend to reveal insufficient attention by webmasters to adequate bulletproofing of sites, which now includes DDoS protection service. 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. The 13 different sides of cryptocurrency risk. Credit: Niranjan Sapkota, University of Vaasa, 2022 Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies can be a revolutionary digital innovation and opportunity for the whole finance industry, but they are not risk-free. A new doctoral dissertation by Niranjan Sapkota from the University of Vaasa, Finland, has identified 13 different types of risk associated with cryptocurrencies and the cryptocurrency market. The amount and the nature of the risk vary according to the different characteristics of the currencies. One of the biggest risks is the insolvency of cryptocurrency. "More than 12,000 cryptocurrencies have gone bankrupt or died since the birth of the most famous cryptocurrency Bitcoin in 2009. Some coins are still on the verge of default," says Sapkota, who will publicly defend his dissertation on Friday 14th of October 2022. In addition to solvency risk, Sapkota identifies sustainability risk, seclusion risk, sentiment risk and speculation risk, among others. Stability, scam, schooling, steward, and scalability are also cryptocurrency risk factors. Security, societal risks, and systemic risks such as those related to regulation can also affect currencies. How to identify cryptocurrencies that are vulnerable to default? The results of Sapkota's doctoral research show that cryptocurrency bankruptcies are predictable. How can investors avoid the most bankruptcy-prone cryptocurrencies? "For example, you could look for a cryptocurrency with a strong day one but a moderate first-month return. Also, avoid coins from anonymous founders with high levels of premining and relatively high mining rewards per block," says Sapkota. Cryptocurrencies can be 'green' and 'dirty' at the same time The massive energy consumption and carbon footprint associated with cryptocurrency mining are making the news headlines. Cryptocurrencies can be either "green" or "dirty" (polluting). "A cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is considered dirty because it uses a massive amount of electricity for verifying and storing transactions on its public blockchain. In contrast, Ethereum, the world's second most popular crypto, has shifted to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to validate transactions. This has reduced energy consumption by 99%," says Niranjan Sapkota. Although energy-intensive cryptocurrencies are vulnerable to changes in energy prices, Sapkota's dissertation shows that energy consumption does not seem to play a role in the pricing of cryptocurrencies. "The price is driven by trust factors rather than energy consumption." Cryptocurrencies used for illegal activities can also be described as dirty. Therefore, even a green, environmentally friendly crypto with a lower carbon footprint can at the same time be dirty based on its own usage history. According to Sapkota, criminals are particularly keen on privacy-oriented cryptos, i.e., cryptocurrencies where all information is encrypted. These cryptos carry a risk of seclusion. Such currencies differ from Bitcoin which has a public ledger that contains a transparent history of every transaction. Bitcoin will stay as long as there are optimists in the market Over the past decade, mainstream media has written a lot about Bitcoin. Bitcoin hackings, crypto exchange collapses, scams and government bans, regulations, and taxes on cryptocurrencies have been in the headlines worldwide. Bitcoin has even been declared "dead" many times in the media. "On the other hand, news such as Tesla's announcement of acquiring $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin have given Bitcoin significant positive hype. However, market sentiment turned around when the company's CEO Elon Musk removed Bitcoin as a payment option from Tesla's website, saying it posed an energy, environmental and sustainability risk." The sentiment conveyed or imposed by the media has been easily noticed when looking at the Bitcoin price volatility after big news in the media. According to Sapkota's research, the Bitcoin market is driven mainly by the media sentiment of financially optimistic investors. Don't fall into the fear trap Fear is the most frequently identified emotion associated with cryptocurrency-related white papers. This might be the indication of an initial coin offering, a blockchain-based crowdfunding technique, marketing strategy, where customers are attracted by triggering fear in them. "Investors afraid of risk, change, problems, regulation, or loss will easily fall into the fear trap of scammers and lose their money. You should never let emotion overpower intelligence while selecting a crypto project," says Niranjan Sapkota. While many people in the world use the internet, few use cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are more than ten years old, but their adoption rate is still very low. Sapkota is therefore concerned about the lack of schooling as it imposes a huge risk to crypto adoption. Steward risk, or custodian risk, is present in all types of cryptocurrency digital wallets. If cryptocurrencies are held in custody by a third party, the worst-case scenario could be the seizing of the funds in the hosted wallet. Even self-custody might not be safe as there is no other way to retrieve the coin if the wallet or private key is lost. Cryptocurrencies are very volatile. To overcome this, developers have invented stablecoins. In these, the value of the cryptocurrency is linked to dollars, crypto portfolios, or algorithms. According to Nirajan, even stablecoins are not always stable, as demonstrated by the collapse of the Terra stablecoin in the spring of 2022. The societal risk may increase with institutional investors In addition to the risks mentioned above, Niranjan also highlights the risks associated with scams, speculation, systemic changes, and societal impacts. "Similar to traditional asset markets, the new digital financial market also carries risks such as speculation, fraud, money laundering and hacking. Institutional investors have recently entered cryptocurrency markets and are storing significantly larger amounts of money in their digital wallets than retail investors are. Losing a significant amount of money is a huge societal risk," says Sapkota. Moreover, the systemic or regulatory risk of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin increases as the concentration of power shifts to a handful of miners and cryptocurrency holders. Explore further Venmo launching crypto feature to buy and sell Bitcoin, other digital currency More information: Niranjan Sapkota, Essays on the New Blockchain-Based Digital Financial Market : Risks and Opportunities. Niranjan Sapkota, Essays on the New Blockchain-Based Digital Financial Market : Risks and Opportunities. osuva.uwasa.fi/handle/10024/14571 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Retirees from the Baltimore school system are having trouble with pension and health care payments two years after a ransomware attack. The identity of a child in Toledo, Ohio, is being used to apply for credit months after a cyberattack on schools there. A midsize Texas school district last year paid more than half a million dollars in ransom to restore access to its system and prevent the posting of sensitive data online. The repercussions of an attack on vulnerable school systems can be strong, long-lasting and expensive, which is why cybersecurity experts warn against expecting a quick and clean resolution to the massive hack in September on the Los Angeles Unified School District. Uncertainties over the stolen data will persist well into the future not only for the district but also for those whose personal information was published on the dark web, they said. Although L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho expressed confidence last week that the criminal syndicate behind the attack largely failed to steal valuable data, the implications and full extent of the breach remain difficult to know. Education institutions have been increasingly targeted in recent years, in part because they have multiple public-facing portals and third-party applications accessible to students, parents and the community. And costly cybersecurity prevention has to compete with other pressing needsbecoming a financial and staffing burden for small districts and an extraordinarily complicated task for a behemoth such as L.A. Unified, which manages records for millions of current and former students, employees and contractors. "Students are trusting the school district to keep their information safe and clearly they haven't managed to do so," said Runa Sandvik, a security researcher and founder of Granitt, a startup that focuses on security for journalists and at-risk people around the world. Experts warn there is no reason to trust cybercriminals over how much data they said they stole. Also, the data could be exploited far into the future, in ways that are difficult to detect, let alone prevent. "Unfortunately reversing a data breach is like putting toothpaste back in the tube," said Jeremy Kirk, executive editor for security and technology for Information Security Media Group. The L.A. Unified attack was discovered on Saturday, Sept. 3, during the Labor Day weekend. Technicians quickly shut down computer systems to blunt the intrusion, although some disruptions continue more than a month later. About half of the servers were encrypted in the facilities divisionmaking them inaccessible. Still, district officials believe that the fast counteraction averted pervasive data theft. The school system refused to pay a ransom and, as a result, the hackers posted about 500 gigabytes of district data online. The number of individuals with compromised personal data appears to be smallcompared to the millions of people who have data held in district systems. However, officials were not prepared last week to say how many people are affected. That analysis is ongoing. The data at stake in any school system attack would include names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbersa more serious matter than, say, an "ephemeral" hack on a building supply store that would yield names and credit card numbers, said John Childs, director of information security solutions for DynTek, a national information-technology consulting service based in Irvine. L.A. Unified does not collect student Social Security numbers, and officials said no employee database that stored payroll, banking, Social Security or medical information was accessed, but some contractors working in the facilities division were not so fortunate. Even without Social Security numbers, internet operatives can begin to build a profile of an individual, even a child, that can be used fraudulently, sooner or later. The lost data did include date of birth and address for many students enrolled at some point from 2013 through 2016 and for some employees during that period. Such victims might need to be "always looking over their back," said Childs, who has not analyzed the L.A. Unified breach. "It's not just a risk while authorities are focused on the breach." Months after a recent data breach in the Toledo schools, the parents of an elementary student reported that someone had stolen their son's identity to apply for a car loan, a credit card and discounted utility rates. The ripple effects include potential litigation against the school system for not safeguarding data. L.A. Unified could face similar risks, experts said. Sandvik noted that L.A. Unified was warned of vulnerabilities in a 2020 internal audit: "What really stands out to me is that you have a school district that's been aware for quite some time of some deficiencies they have and has not addressed them." District officials said they would try to reach those whose information was stolen and offer credit monitoring, although some experts said they were doubtful that credit monitoring would provide much value. Carvalho announced a series of measures to prevent future attacks, while acknowledging the district failed to act on major recommendations from the 2020 security audit. Officials say they don't know how the hackers got in, but the remedies will include multifactor authentication, which typically requires more than one password. The district also will limit the use of outside apps that create a potential backdoor into the system. A case in point is the data breach early this year at Illuminate, a company that provides education services. That breach affected school districts across the country, including L.A. Unified. More than 4,700 L.A. Unified students enrolled between 2008 and 2010 had personal data compromised, the district told a technology publication in response to a public-records act request. Illuminate sent out notices to those affected from L.A. Unified in May, according to state records. Although the larger L.A. Unified hack in September was notable because of the size of the school system, some experts downplayed its magnitude. "It's not great," said security technologist Bruce Schneier, about the hacking. "But in the scheme of things, don't make people terrified. This kind of nonsense happens all the time." Hospitals have been "shut down" by cyberattacks, said Schneier, who writes the blog Schneier on Security "That feels bigger." A cyberattack last week on CommonSpirit Health, the nation's second-largest nonprofit hospital chain, forced "ambulance diversions, system shutdowns and patient appointment rescheduling," including for critical procedures, The Washington Post reported. But for schools starved for resources, the attacks can be financially painful and difficult to manage. A 2020 attack on the Baltimore schools has resulted in more than $8 million in costs, including $900,000 for the repair of the student information system, $860,000 for investigation, $50,000 for public relations and $11,500 for ransomware negotiation services. Major problems persist with pension and health insurance payments for retirees. Some retirees were hit with collection notices for "underpaying" insurance premiums, one bill was for $20,000, even though they said they'd paid what the district required. Carvalho said L.A. Unified's dollar cost to date is negligibleessentially employee overtimebecause of pro bono services and help from other government agencies and law enforcement. But there will be significant costs moving forward to prevent another attack, he said. The district also has cyberattack insurance, but whether it took proper preventive measures could affect the payment of a claim, experts said. Cyberattack insurance has had some unintended consequences, said Brett Callow, threat analyst for the digital security firm Emsisoft. "I think we've ended up in a vicious cycle in recent years with bigger demands leading to organizations taking on more insurance leading to them being able and willing to pay more when hit," Callow said. Some districts, including the Judson Independent School District in San Antonio, concluded they had no alternative to paying ransom. That district's computer systems last year were encrypted by hackers and private data exported en masse. The district of 23,000 students paid $547,000. Hackers this year have attacked at least 27 U.S. school districts and 28 colleges, Callow said. At least 36 of those organizations had data stolen and released online, and at least two districts and one college paid the attackers, Callow said. Resources can limit what a district does to prevent and respond to an attack, said Superintendent Stephen Nellman of Centinela Valley Union High School District, which was targeted last year. "When a school district is hit with an attack, there is no statewide support office that coordinates a response," Nellman said. "Each district is expected to coordinate their own response, and not all districts have the expertise or funding to react in a timely manner." Centinela Valley said insurance coverage has paid off because the insurer requires the district to maintain a high level of network security, which is annually audited. School districts are frequently reluctant to acknowledge or reveal details about an attack, including whether they paid a ransom. Rialto Unified declined to answer questions about a recent attack because of the "sensitivity" of the issue. "In our district, we created a recovery plan and we followed the guidance of the cyber forensic team," said district spokesperson Syeda Jafri. "We are continuing with security updates and processes." Explore further LA Unified cyberattackers demand ransom 2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Tuesday is the final day to register to vote in the November election. The Brazos County Elections Administration Office will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for people to fill out voter registration applications. Staff members will be on site to answer questions. Thats the most sure way to make sure everything is correct in time, said Trudy Hancock, Brazos Countys elections administrator. Voters can also visit BrazosVotes.org to fill out a voter registration form. Applications must be printed, signed and mailed to the Brazos County Voter Registrar. Hancock noted applications must be postmarked by Wednesday to be accepted. The problem is sometimes when you drop stuff in the outside box, it may not get postmarked that day, Hancock said. To be sure, I would just recommend people come in. The Brazos County Democratic Party is hosting Voterpalooza, a nonpartisan voter registration drive at five locations Tuesday. Voter registration will be offered at Texas A&Ms Memorial Student Center from 7 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.; the Larry J. Ringer Library in College Station from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; The Village Cafe in Bryan from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the Clara B. Mounce Public Library in Bryan from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and The 101 in Bryan from 5 to 10 p.m. More than 100,000 voter registration cards were mailed this year to county voters, Hancock said, but more than 12,000 were returned. This means there was a problem with the address, and the voters information needs to be updated, she said. Updating information cuts down on check-in time when voting and ensures people vote on the proper ballot, Hancock said. Lets say you live in Bryan and you move to College Station. If we still have you registered in Bryan, but you live in College Station, you have to vote at your old address. So, you wouldnt get to vote for the people who are going to be serving you, Hancock said. Early voting runs from Monday, Oct. 24 through Friday, Nov. 4. There are five early voting sites in Brazos County: Brazos County Elections Administration Office (McLeod Training Room): 300 East William J. Bryan Parkway, Suite 100 in Bryan Arena Hall: 2906 Tabor Road in Bryan Galilee Baptist Church: 804 N. Logan in Bryan College Station Utilities Meeting & Training Facility: 1603 Graham Road in College Station College Station City Hall (Bush 4141 Community Room): 1101 Texas Ave. in College Station The ballot this time is really long, Hancock said. We have federal, state and local races. We have both cities, both [school districts], so it is a really long ballot. I would suggest people go to BrazosVotes.org, look at the sample ballot and already know how you want to cast your ballot when you get here. The general election will be Tuesday, Nov. 8. For more information about elections in Brazos County, visit brazosvotes.org. 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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 Federal prosecutors believe they could charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and a false statement but a final decision still has not yet been made by the US attorney in Delaware, according to sources familiar with the matter. The case against Biden narrowed earlier this year, and was a matter of discussion in early summer between FBI and IRS investigators, prosecutors in Delaware and the Justice Department, CNN previously reported. The discussions included assessing the strength of the case and questioning whether more work was needed before deciding on charges, according to sources who spoke to CNN in July. Prosecutors have not yet made any charging decisions on the case and have not met since early summer to discuss the federal investigation, according to two sources familiar with the matter. A decision is not expected before the midterm election. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that talks between Biden's team and the Justice Department have been ongoing for several months but nothing has changed in a couple of months on that front. The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden's legal team met in "recent weeks" with Justice Department prosecutors to argue against a potential case. Keep scrolling for photos of Hunter Biden through the years "As is proper and legally required, we believe the prosecutors in this case are diligently and thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense," Biden's attorney Chris Clark said in a written statement to the Journal. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that prosecutors believe they have "sufficient evidence" to charge Biden, son of President Joe Biden, in two areas -- tax crimes and a false statement regarding a gun purchase, the same crimes CNN reported in July were the focus of investigators' discussions with the Justice Department. Investigators have at various times inquired about multiple facets of Hunter Biden's life -- initially focusing on tax issues and money transfers related to business activities in China, multiple people familiar with the probe previously told CNN. But prosecutors have also examined a 2018 incident in which a firearm owned by Biden ended up tossed by his then-girlfriend into a dumpster in Wilmington, a person briefed on the matter said. Biden described in media interviews last year that he was addicted to drugs, which raised the possibility he broke federal law when he bought the firearm. Federal law prohibits firearms purchases by anyone who uses or is addicted to illegal drugs. Still, Biden has publicly discussed his own substance abuse struggles, and some Justice officials have debated whether his open discussions of his past drug use could potentially weaken their case should they bring one. Biden has also denied wrongdoing in his business activities. In late 2020 after being notified by the Delaware US attorney about the investigation, he said in a statement issued by his father's presidential transition office: "I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors." The President, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he won't interfere in the independence of the Justice Department. Early on in his presidency, Biden decided to keep US Attorney David Weiss, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, in office to continue to oversee the investigation in Delaware. The newest branch of Cornerstone Bank opened its doors for the first time Thursday, October 6, 2022 at the York Elementary School. Business will be limited to savings deposits for York Elementary School students. It is a joint effort between Cornerstone Bank and the Nebraska Council on Economic Education. The student branch is located at YES, and the grand opening was the culmination of a six-month planning process involving York Elementary School faculty, Cornerstone Bank, The Nebraska Council on Economic Education, and the State Center for Economic Education. The branch is modeled after highly successful bank-in-the-school projects at seven other elementary schools in Lincoln and Omaha. The student branch is designed to: introduce the economic concept of savings early and reinforce this idea throughout the elementary curriculum; demonstrate that saving should be part of a students personal finance plan for his or her future. provide the opportunity to discover careers in banking and finance. increase parental involvement through savings and banking activity. The student branch will be open once a week for savings deposits only. It will be staffed by York Elementary student tellers, as well as Cornerstone Bank employees. Incentives will be provided as the students reach various savings goals. All students must obtain parental permission to participate. Each year, new students will have the opportunity to be part of the new teller group. The branch will be closed over the summer months and reopen again during the school year. The students will maintain their accounts for the duration of their time at the school. Upon graduation from the elementary school, student savings members will be able to open their own savings accounts or withdraw the money. For more information about the saving project, contact Kim Mortensen or Tara Prince at Cornerstone Bank, or Jennifer Davidson with the Nebraska Council on Economic Education. I was part of the event as a member of the York Chamber Ambassadors and its been a long time since Ive been in a room with 600+ elementary school students. I was impressed with the control that the teachers and YES Principal Kris Friesen exercised at the event. And the noise level those students could exhibit when encouraged to do so. At the end of the event, six students were chosen to enter the cash tent and grab some cash and gifts as they whirled about. I cant remember who the little dude from the kindergarten class was, but I got excited just by watching how excited he got, first when his name was announced and second when he emerged from the tent clutching his wins. Its great to be young and hold such a wide-eyed enthusiasm for life. Supply Chain Struggles and Solution event scheduled Join the York Chamber and York County Development Corporation on Friday, Oct. 28 from 1-4 p.m. at the Holthus Convention Center for a time of conversation and education on Supply Chain Struggles and Solutions. Two speakers have been invited to discuss the struggles companies have all experienced over the last two years and solutions to help us in the future. Also, A panel discussion will be held to hear from members on how they have been coping with their supply chain disruptions and tips to help ease the stress in the future. Members are invited to bring their lunch at 12 pm for a time to chat and connect with other members. Cost: FREE to members; $25 to non-members. RSVP to sarahd@yorkchamber.org by October 21. Jack Vincent remembered Theres not a whole lot I can add here that hasnt already been written about Jack Vincent. Jack passed away this past week and his funeral service was held this past Saturday. Jack was always quick to pass along tips to me about new businesses he noticed or something that he thought would be a good fit for this column. Jack turned up just about everywhere over the years in his volunteer efforts. Id go into the York Medical Clinic and Jack would be there welcoming visitors to the hospital, Id see him at York Duke games where he was the Voice of the Dukes, Chamber Ambassador visits or mowing his lawn at the corner of 6th Street and Blackburn Avenue. Im sure hell keep busy up there in heaven. Rest in peace Jack. What the heck? Im thinking its got to be a little tough to be a candidate for elected office this month here in York. The candidate signs kind of get lost among all the roofing signs in the yards. As an example, someone new to town might not know if Pat Hotovy is running for the legislature or in line to put a new roof on that particular home. One thing about yard signs, they dont annoy me anywhere close to the TV ads that have started to run on a regular basis. YORK A 26-year-old man has been sent to prison after he was caught with 231 pounds of marijuana in his Winnebago RV in York County. Adolfo Angel Ramos Jr. of Long Island City, N.Y., was originally charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance, both Class 2A felonies; possession of more than one pound of marijuana, a Class 4 felony; and two counts of having no drug tax stamp, both Class 4 felonies. Those were later amended down to a single count of having no drug tax stamp. According to court documents, a trooper with the Nebraska State Patrol was on regular duty on Interstate 80 when he stopped the Winnebago RV for traffic violations. In court documents, officers said Ramos and his passenger, Andrew Urena, did not present the same information regarding their travel plans when asked questions separately. It is also stated in the affidavit that Ramos appeared to be very nervous while Urena became argumentative. Another trooper arrived and a NSP canine alerted to the presence of illegal substances in the vehicle. A search was conducted and inside a suitcase on the rear bed they found 1,220 packages of THC infused gummies, weighing about 122 pounds. They also found 35 heat-sealed bags containing pre-rolled marijuana joints, weighting about 109 pounds. They also found 15 packages of marijuana seeds, weighing about 75 grams. The total amount was approximately 231 pounds. This past week, in York County District Court, Ramos Jr. was sentenced to an 18-month term in prison to be followed by 12 months of post-release supervision. He was given credit for one day already served in the York County Jail. The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy has given initial approval to a plan for disposing of an estimated 115 million gallons of pesticide-contaminated wastewater being stored in holding ponds at AltEn. Developed and submitted by the AltEn Facility Response Group six seed companies voluntarily cleaning up the site the plan calls for applying treated wastewater across 736 acres of farm ground south of Mead in Saunders County. The process, which involves pumping water from AltEns damaged lagoons through a water treatment system and into a pair of new lagoons completed earlier this year, was granted a permit by the states environmental department earlier this year. Depending on precipitation, the efficacy of the treatment process and conditions of the soil on the seven parcels that will receive the wastewater, the environmental engineers contracted by the response group estimate another 18 to 24 million gallons could be land-applied this fall and next spring. While efforts to draw down the wastewater stored on site has been moving forward slowly for the better part of this year, the question of how to dispose of an estimated 99,000 tons of solid waste piled up on AltEns site remains open. Earlier this year, the wet distillers grains a solid byproduct of ethanol production commonly referred to as wet cake were entombed under a Posi-Shell cover, a combination of clay, polyester fibers and Portland cement. The AltEn Facility Response Group said the temporary cover was installed to keep odors under control, tamp down pesticide-contaminated dust and prevent stormwater from coming into contact with the contaminated material. Last month, at a meeting with a small group of Mead residents, the facility response group said it was evaluating four potential solutions for disposing of the wet cake, with the goal of submitting a formal plan to the Department of Environment and Energy before the end of the year. Those options, according to a memo about the meeting posted to the Department of Environment and Energys website, include: * Hauling and burying the contaminated wet cake in a landfill. * Hauling the wet cake to an offsite incinerator. * Thermal treatment not incineration on-site. * Burying the wet cake at AltEn. Don Gunster, a partner and senior scientist at NewFields, the environmental engineering firm conducting much of the cleanup, said the options are being explored before the AltEn Facility Response Group submits a remedial action plan for the solid waste. The (facility response group) is still collecting data about each of the options being evaluated for management of the wet cake and sludge, Gunster said in an email. More details will be shared with the community and included in the Solids (remedial action plan) once that data has been collected and evaluated. Some of the options have already been deemed unworkable, however, because of excessive costs, a lack of capacity or doubts about the technology that would need to be used. And at least one making AltEn the final burial site for the solid waste is a non-starter for residents of Mead, who worked for years to draw attention to the environmental issues arising from the failed ethanol plant. In the year before AltEn was forced by the Department of Environment and Energy to close, the ethanol plant hauled an estimated 43,000 tons of wet cake to landfills operated by Waste Connections near David City, Milford and Malvern, Iowa. Most of that at least 39,000 tons was trucked down Nebraska 92 to the Butler County Landfill, until Waste Connections cut AltEn off, saying it did not have enough dry garbage to mix with the wet distillers grains. Kelly Danielson, the district manager who oversees the Waste Connections facility, said there are no plans to restart accepting solid waste from AltEn. We have not heard anything from either group nor has anyone requested authorization to deliver the waste stream to us, Danielson said in an email. The facility response group also explored the option of moving the wet cake by rail to Clean Harbors-operated incinerators in Kimball and other states last summer but scrapped the idea, which would be costly and complicated. Ash Grove, a concrete plant that opened in Louisville earlier this year, received a permit from the state to burn biomass in its kilns but confirmed to the Journal Star it has not received any wet cake from AltEn, nor does it plan to do so in the future. AltEn previously attempted to turn the wet cake into biochar, the process of heating it to a few thousand degrees to create a charcoal-like material, but samples analyzed by the environmental department showed it did not reduce the levels of pesticides within. The state also intervened to stop AltEn from selling biochar to a Kansas farmer late last year. An Iowa-based company Independence Energy has pitched its own process of using heat to breakdown the wet cake and the chemicals within to both residents of Mead as well as the Department of Environment and Energy, but its proposal has not been explored in-depth. Two people who have met with state regulators and the AltEn Facility Response Group said the plan that appears to be favored for cleanup would include repairing one of the lagoons at the plant to serve as a containment cell that would later be buried. Bill Thorson, the chair of the Mead Board of Trustees, said he told the response group that such a plan would draw fierce opposition from the village of nearly 600 people. A little more than a decade ago, residents of Mead successfully fought off a plan by Waste Connections to open a 320-acre landfill near AltEn that would have accepted roughly 1,200 tons of garbage per day from Omaha and Saunders County. We had a landfill that didnt pass because of the water table and the aquifer, Thorson said, referring to the Todd Valley aquifer, on which Mead and AltEn both sit. I told them, I can assure you thats not going to pass. Any proposal for turning AltEn into a landfill to bury the waste it generated would be running uphill and against the wind. Mead annexed the land AltEn sits on before its predecessor, E3 Biofuels, opened in 2007, giving authority over any zoning changes and conditional use permits to the Village Board of Trustees, which revoked the company's ability to operate as an ethanol plant in June 2021. AltEn would also need to receive a permit from the state to operate as a landfill. A 2021 lawsuit against the company faulted AltEn for operating as a solid waste management facility despite never having a permit to do so. Thorson said he and others in Mead do not see burying the wet cake in a containment cell on the property as a viable cleanup option. Rather, he said, it would be another temporary fix to a problem that has plagued the town since 2015. If its a money thing, Id just as soon see it be a Superfund site, he said. I have a feeling thats what it is anyway. The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. In a move to protect adolescent girls from cervical cancer, the Government of Sierra Leone has introduced the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine to the routine immunisation schedule and launched the start of a campaign to reach 153,991 girls with the vaccine. The introduction of HPV vaccine is one of the key strategies that the Government is implementing toward cervical cancer elimination in the country. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) with support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) will administer HPV vaccines nationwide through schools, targeting 153,991 10-year-old girls, who will each receive two doses over a six-month period. Despite the HPV vaccine providing a proven and safe tool to protect women and girls against HPV and the risk of cervical cancer, global coverage rates among 15-year-old girls remain low at 15 percent with two doses on average. Latest global immunisation coverage data shows that just 12% of girls globally are receiving the crucial vaccine with immunisation campaigns particularly disrupted by lockdowns and school closures. The Government of Sierra Leone wholeheartedly welcomes the introduction of the HPV vaccination drive and urges all to support girls ten years of age to be vaccinated and thus preventing them from cervical cancer and its consequences during the course of their entire lives, said Dr Austin Demby, Minister of Health and Sanitation. Globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women with an estimated 266,000 deaths and 528,000 new cases each year. Around 85 percent of the global burden of cervical cancer occurs in lower income countries. According to the Sierra Leone Cancer registry, cervical cancer is the second most common, and number one killer, of all cancers among women aged between 14 and 44 years old and in 2021, approximately 504 new cases of this deadly cancer were diagnosed. Todays launch should be celebrated as a first step towards protecting girls in Sierra Leone from cervical cancer and providing them with a better chance of living longer, healthier lives and reaching their full potential, said Thabani Maphosa, the Managing Director of Country Programmes at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Historically, HPV coverage worldwide, but especially in lower-income countries where the cancer burden is highest, was already too low. The pandemic and school closures have taken a further toll. Supporting countries to catch up and improve HPV coverage is a critical priority Gavi moving forward and will require action on the demand- and supply-side. We look forward to working with our partners towards this goal. The introduction of the HPV vaccine in Sierra Leone comes after several months of thorough planning led by the Ministry of Health and Sanitations National Immunisation Programme. In 2014, a Gavi-supported HPV vaccine pilot project was undertaken in Bo District. This pilot demonstrated the countrys ability and readiness to implement a school-based vaccination programme nationwide. However, due to the Ebola Virus Disease and COVID-19 outbreaks, the MoHS had to postpone the introduction of the nationwide vaccine. The introduction of the HPV vaccine is a welcome demonstration of the collaborative efforts in Sierra Leone to support the good health of every child. Good health is a basic human right, which every child in Sierra Leone should enjoy, regardless of where they are in the country, said UNICEF Representative, Dr. Suleiman Braimoh. More than 55 percent of the 194 WHO Member States have introduced HPV vaccination, however in West and Central Africa the HPV vaccine has been introduced in only eight countries. With todays launch, Sierra Leone joins the group of regional pacesetters introducing the HPV vaccine into routine immunisation programs as a key strategy to prevent mortality and morbidity due to cervical cancer. We are in the era where no one should suffer or die from diseases that are preventable with the use of vaccines. And, as we make these lifesaving services accessible to safeguard the health of women and girls, we are also contributing to empowering the individual, the community, as well as enhancing sustainable social and economic development of the nation, says Dr Steven Velabo Shongwe, WHO Representative in Sierra Leone. We urge authorities and parents to ensure that their girls are protected against the distress of cervical cancer by protecting them against HPV at an early age. Cervical cancer is the 2nd most frequent cancer among women in Sierra Leone. The introduction of the HPV vaccine is a momentous milestone in protecting the health of girls and reducing their risk of future illness. This campaign also provides an important opportunity to expand education and outreach to promote uptake of cervical cancer screening and treatment services by older women. Alongside HPV vaccine rollout, these services are essential to eliminating one of the most preventable cancers, said Nadia Rasheed, UNFPA Representative. To ensure the effective introduction of the vaccine, Gavi is supporting the procurement and installation of 463 sets of solar refrigerators to help strengthen cold chain systems and ensure that vaccines stay at optimal temperatures during shipping, storage, and delivery to vaccination points. In addition, 1,500 healthcare workers have been trained to administer this lifesaving vaccine. Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance has worked with the MoHS and the government of Sierra Leone since 2001 to extend equitable access to immunisation services to every child. This support, amounting to US$ 101 million to date, has included the procurement of vaccine doses and cold chain equipment, including for COVID-19, as well as investments in health systems and technical assistance to support routine immunisation, new vaccine introductions and supplementary campaigns. Through the leadership of the MoHS, intensive sensitization is ongoing at a community level to help raise public awareness about the HPV vaccine and uptake focusing on the targeted age group of girls, community members and leaders, so they are empowered and informed about the tools available to prevent cervical cancer. With support from partners, a wide range of materials have also been developed to inform and respond to the questions which girls, parents, and caregivers might have about this new vaccine. A confusingly-worded referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot will ask Carbondale residents if they want to the retain status as a home rule community, and voters are hearing from advocates on both sides. What is home rule? Home rule defines the powers available to local government entities. According to the Illinois Constitution, home rule provides cities with the power to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals and welfare; to license; to tax; and to incur debt. Carbondale, as a city with a population of more than 25,000, has been operating as a home rule community since 1972, but its status as a home rule community came into question when the citys population dipped below 25,000, requiring voter approval to continue with home rule. The Illinois Municipal League reports that there are 219 home rule communities in the state. Home rule gives a city council and local administration the ability to do things much more independently of the state government, explained longtime Southern Illinois University Carbondale political scientist John Jackson. In essence, if the state government doesnt prohibit something, the city can do it in home rule cities, whereas there are more constraints in non-home rule cities. Jackson said home rule can impact zoning rules and regulations for example as well as a variety of taxes and fees. Making the issue particularly tricky is the wording on the ballot. Given how the question is presented, those wishing to retain home rule status for Carbondale must cast a no vote. I think the city is trying to make its cast that Carbondale is better with home rule, and others, such as realtor groups are trying to make the other case, outlined Jackson, who added that in essence, a question of home rule is a sort of referendum on elected officials. Its a matter of do you trust your school boards, park district boards and city council or not, because thats where all of the big money (in taxes) is, he said. Urging No votes Carbondale City Manager Gary Williams said he hopes Carbondale continues to be home rule. The easiest way to describe it is that home rule gives the municipality local authority and control rather than relying on Springfield to empower cities. It gives local officials the ability to craft rules, regulations, laws and ordinances that best suit the community, Williams explained. He said if Carbondale did not have home rule, something as simple as lowering a speed limit in residential areas would require approval from the state. Williams added that many current programs and ordinances would end if home rule does as well. He said the citys rental housing license and inspection effort is one area such program. The citys add-on food and beverage tax which was instituted to pay for downtown streetscape programs, would also end as would the municipal motor fuel tax, the package liquor tax and additional sales tax revenue streams that, he said, have made it so Carbondale does not have a large city property tax. In their absence, he said property taxes might increase. A big majority of the sales tax generated in Carbondale are from non-residents and we use those moneys to be able to support local services and keep real estate levies low. If we lose our ability to collect those local sales taxes, real estate taxes are the only resource we will have to be able to provide the same level of service, he said. The end of home rule would make some fundamental changes to the way our community operates. At the June 21 meeting of the Carbondale City Council, Williams went over the amounts the city gains in different tax revenues raised through home rule. Those include sales tax, hotel tax, food and beverage tax, animal licenses, rental registration and other fees. Those losses would include: General Fund: Home Rule sales tax, $9,707,833; Municipal Motor Fuel Tax, $428,200; Municipal Hotel/Motel taxes, $774,195; Rental registration fee, $268,000; Gaming Machine Fees, $86,850; Animal Registration Fees, $7,000; Transient Merchant Fees, $300. The total is $10,819,520. Liquor and Food and Beverage Tax Fund: Food and Beverage Tax, $1,600; Package Liquor Tax, $525,000; Miscellaneous, $10,000; for a total of $2,135,000. Debt Service Fund: Food and Beverage Fund, $1,204,488; general fund, $3,310,909; for a total of $4,515, 397. Local Improvement Fund: Home Rule Sales Tax, $440,911; Municipal Motor Fuel Tax, $300,000; Package Liquor and Food and Beverage Tax Fund, $920,512; for a total of $1,661,423. The total would mean that the city would lose $19,131,340 if it loses home rule. Theres a lot, Williams said at the meeting. Support for Yes votes A statewide realtor group is urging residents to vote yes through direct mail postcards and advertisements online. Voting "yes" would put an end to home rule in Carbondale. Ron Deedrick, local government affairs directors with Illinois REALTORS, said as a non-home rule community, Carbondale simply would have to ask voters to approve additional projects and spending. Home rule communities are not bound like non-home rule cities in terms of the debt service they can take on, which means Carbondale can have skyrocketing debt service without asking for the voters approval. That's the key thing on tax increases and on debt. They don't have to ask the voters for permission, they can just do it (when they are home rule), Deedrick said. He explained that by having to ask voters, community spending can be kept in check. We firmly believe that voters should have a say in what their taxes are going to, he said. Government's going to spend money, so shouldnt the voters have the ability to say yes or no? Do you want to increase those revenues on debt service or debt limits? The voters should have the right to tell their city leaders, No, we don't want this project, we don't believe it's affordable or if we do want that to take on the debt for the next 25 or 30 years to pay off the bonds for that. He said realtors are often against home rule statuses because of increased tax rates and more burdensome regulations involved in the sale of a property. We're seeing in some municipalities, the city comes in and says you have to do X, Y and Z in order for a property to pass inspection and people are not able to afford those upgrades. As a result, they're not able to sell that property to a potential owner, Deedrick said. Also, there's a whole battery of state laws and ordinances that are already on the books that help in a positive way, but some home rule municipalities will create another category of ordinances. Voters will decide This issue is on the Nov. 8 ballot. A no vote is one to continue home rule. A yes vote is one to remove the home rule status from Carbondale. The voters will decide. As rapidly intensifying storms and rising sea levels threaten coastal cities from Texas to the tip of Maine, Hurricane Ian has just demonstrated what researchers have warned: Hundreds of hospitals in the U.S. are not ready for climate change. Hurricane Ian forced at least 16 hospitals from central to southwestern Florida to evacuate patients after it made landfall near the city of Fort Myers on Sept. 28 as a deadly Category 4 storm. Some moved their patients before the storm while others ordered full or partial evacuations after the hurricane damaged their buildings or knocked out power and running water, said Mary Mayhew, president of the Florida Hospital Association, which coordinates needs and resources among hospitals statewide during a hurricane. About 1,000 patients across five Florida counties were evacuated from hospitals for different reasons, Mayhew said, with one hospital moving patients after the storm tore part of its roof and deluged the ground floor. Other hospitals emerged with no structural damage but lost power and running water. Broken bridges, flooded roads, and lack of clean water all added to the challenge for some hospitals, Mayhew said. And that's before considering the need to help those injured in the hurricane and its aftermath. "Climate shocks like hurricanes show us in the most painful way what we need to fix," said Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, known as C-CHANGE, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. As climate change increases the intensity of hurricanes, coastal cities threatened by rising sea levels from Miami to Charleston, South Carolina, have considered billion-dollar storm surge protection plans from elevating homes to creating a network of seawalls, floodgates, and pumps to protect residents and infrastructure against powerful flooding from storms. Some hospitals are fortifying buildings and elevating campuses. Others are moving inland, as they prepare for a future when even weak storms unleash flooding that can overrun facilities. "They're the front lines of climate change, bearing the costs of these increased weather events as well as the increase in injuries and disease that come with them," said Emily Mediate, U.S. climate and health director for Health Care Without Harm, a nonprofit that works with hospitals to prepare for climate change. Yet even as hospitals prepare for extreme weather, Bernstein and a team of researchers at Harvard predicted in a recent study that many facilities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts will face a suite of problems, even from milder weather events. The study analyzed the flood risk to hospitals within 10 miles of the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines. In more than half of the 78 metropolitan areas analyzed, some hospitals are at risk of storm surge flooding from the weakest hurricane, a Category 1. In 25 coastal metro areas, half or more of the hospitals risk flooding from a Category 2 storm, which would pack winds of up to 110 mph. Florida is home to six of the 10 most at-risk metropolitan areas identified in the study, with the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach region ranked as having the greatest risk of hurricane impact. Researchers also considered the risk of flooding for roads within 1 mile of coastal hospitals during a Category 2 hurricane. That's what happened on Florida's western coast, where Hurricane Ian's maximum sustained winds of 150 mph contributed to flooded roads and washed-out bridges. All three hospitals in Charlotte County were closed during the storm. One reopened its emergency room the following day, and two were operational by Oct. 1. In neighboring Lee County, the public hospital system was forced to partially evacuate three of its four hospitals, potentially affecting about 1,000 patients, after the facilities lost running water. As of Oct. 6, the county remained in a state of emergency and many roads and bridges were closed due to flooding and damage, according to the Florida Department of Transportation's traffic information. Several Florida hospitals on waterfront property have moved their essential electrical systems and other critical operations above ground level, elevated their parking lots and buildings, and erected water barriers around their campuses, including Tampa General Hospital, which has the only trauma center in west-central Florida. Miami Beach is a barrier island where roads flood on sunny days during extremely high tides. Building to withstand hurricanes and flooding is a priority for institutions, said Gino Santorio, CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center, which sits at the edge of Biscayne Bay. Over the past decade, Mount Sinai has completed nearly $62 million in projects to protect against hurricanes and flooding. The projects were part of a countywide strategy funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state and local governments to fortify schools, hospitals, and other institutions. "It's really about being the facility of last resort. We're the only medical center and emergency room on this barrier island," Santorio said. But Bernstein said the "Fort Knox model" of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on state-of-the-art hurricane-proof hospital buildings isn't enough. This strategy doesn't address flooded roads, transportation for patients ahead of a storm, medically vulnerable people in areas most at risk of flooding, emergency hospital evacuations, or the failure of backup power sources, he said. Urging hospitals to fortify for more severe hurricanes and rising sea levels can feel overwhelming, especially when many are struggling to recover from pandemic-related financial stress, labor shortages, and fatigue, said Mediate, of the group Health Care Without Harm. "Lots of things make it hard for them to see this is a problem, of course. But on top of how many other issues?" she said. South Carolina As Hurricane Ian approached the South Carolina coastline north of Charleston on Sept. 30, the city's low-lying hospital district reported about 6 to 12 inches of water. "That's much less than was expected," Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said during a news briefing. Though Hurricane Ian was a relatively minor weather event in South Carolina, it's not unusual for Charleston's downtown medical district to flood, making it dangerous and, sometimes, impossible for patients, hospital employees, and city residents to navigate surrounding streets. In 2017, the Medical University of South Carolina ferried doctors across its large campus on johnboats during severe flooding from Hurricane Irma. One year later, the Charleston-based hospital system bought a military truck to navigate any future floodwaters. Flooding, even after heavy rain and high tide, is one reason Roper St. Francis Healthcare one of three systems in Charleston's downtown medical district announced plans to eventually move Roper Hospital off the Charleston peninsula after operating there for more than 150 years. "It can make it very challenging for people to get in and out of here," said Dr. Jeffrey DiLisi, CEO of Roper St. Francis. The hospital system sustained light flooding in one of its downtown medical office buildings from Ian, but it could have been much worse, said DiLisi. He also said that the downtown district is no longer the geographic center of Charleston and that many patients say it's inconvenient to get there. "The further inland, the less likely you're going to have some of those problems," he said. Unlike Roper St. Francis, most coastal nonprofit and public hospitals have chosen to remain in their locations and reinforce their buildings, said Justin Senior, the president of the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida and a former secretary of the state's Agency for Health Care Administration, which regulates hospitals. "They're not going to move," Senior said. "They're in a catchment area where they're trying to catch everyone, not just the affluent but everyone." A 23-year-old Orangeburg man pleaded guilty to first-degree domestic violence. The charged stemmed from an attack on his childs mother. Devonta Art Jefferson, of Jamison Avenue, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended to two years of probation, by Circuit Judge Roger M. Young Sr. during a recent term of court. Jefferson was given credit for having already served 207 days at the Orangeburg County Detention Center. Young ordered Jefferson to complete anger management. Jeffersons charge stems from a Dec. 18, 2021 incident. The mother of his then 1-year-old child accused Jefferson of punching her at the childs birthday party. An Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office incident report states that the force of the punch was enough to knock her to the floor, causing her to land on the baby. The report also claims Jefferson grabbed his AR-15 pistol from a bedroom, waved it around the room, pointed it at the childs mother and then went to the back porch. There, Jefferson allegedly fired seven rounds into the air out of frustration before he fled the scene. He was originally charged with domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature, but pleaded guilty first-degree domestic violence instead. In other recent guilty pleas: David Perry Amaker, 50, of 412 Oasis Lane, St. Matthews, pleaded guilty to first-offense possession with intent to distribute a scheduled drug. Young sentenced him to prison for three years, suspended to 18 months of probation. He gave Amaker credit for serving four days in jail. He also ordered Amaker to complete substance abuse counseling. Prosecutors dismissed Amakers charge of first-offense distribution of methamphetamine. James Lee Beason III, 26, of 115 Pontiac Lane, Cordova, pleaded guilty to first-offense failure to stop for blue lights and second-degree domestic violence. Young sentenced him to jail for 83 days and gave him credit for time served. Prosecutors dismissed Beasons charges of child endangerment, third or subsequent driving under suspended license not suspended for DUI, first-offense failure to stop for blue lights and reckless driving. Quinton Terrell Bookard, 31, of 1899 Northwood Drive, Orangeburg, pleaded guilty to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and resisting arrest. Young sentenced him to three years in prison, suspended to one year of probation. He gave Bookard credit for having already served 30 days in jail. Prosecutors dismissed Bookards charges of first-offense possession of one ounce or less of marijuana and third or subsequent DUS, license not suspended for DUI. Davius Lamar Bryant Sr., 40, of 340 Tybee Lane, Orangeburg, pleaded guilty to unlawful carrying of a pistol. Young sentenced him to one day in jail and gave him credit for time served. Cohlen Renard Davis, 43, of 977 Glover Street, Orangeburg, pleaded guilty to first-offense possession of a controlled substance. Young sentenced him to 24 days in jail and gave him credit for time served. Jackie Ray Thompson, 52, of Middleton Street, pleaded guilty to assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Circuit Judge Ed Dickson sentenced him to prison for five years. After he serves three years, the remainder of his term will be suspended to one year of probation. Dickson gave Thompson credit for having already served 385 days in jail. Riquan Tyrez Tyler-Corley, 24, of 74 Deer Meadow Lane, Orangeburg, pleaded guilty to first-offense possession of a scheduled drug. Dickson sentenced him to prison for two years, suspended to 18 months of probation. Dickson gave him credit for having already spent two days in jail. Prosecutors dismissed Tyler-Corleys charge of first-offense possession of less than one ounce of marijuana. The families of Dr. Anthony Owens Parker and his wife, Sandra Pinkney Owens, are preparing to support the renovation and preservation of a library that has become a historical site in Calhoun County, complete with its own marker. Dr. Parker, who resided in Georgia, passed away less than a year after the West End Library in St. Matthews was commemorated with the placement of a historical marker on July 23, 2021, along with the former John Ford High School in St. Matthews. Parkers mother, the late Hennie Owens Parker, served as a longtime librarian at the library. West End Library began serving African Americans in the county on Sept. 1, 1950, in an old four-room house owned by Walter Jackson, an entrepreneur and chairman of the Negro Library Board. The first library was on Hungerpiller Street in a wood-framed house. A new building was erected in 1960 on a lot owned by the Calhoun County Colored Teachers Association. It closed in 1996 after the retirement of Hennie Owens Parker. Mrs. Parker, Anthonys widow, and their children, along with other members of her family, will hold a ceremony to make a donation to Calhoun County Resources Inc., which owns the property. The ceremony is scheduled at noon Friday, Oct. 14, at what is now the John Ford Community Center at 304 Agnes St., the site of what had been the former John Ford High School. It was the CCRI and the John Ford High Association that teamed up to provide markers for the West End Public Library and the former John Ford High School. Mrs. Parkers maternal grandfather, Freddie Footman, was the contractor who built the library at 1708 Calhoun Road. She has eight other siblings, including Gloria Pinkney Heatley. Heatley said, What my sister wants to do is make a donation to the library for renovation and upkeep as a memorial to Anthony. Donations are solicited. The grandchildren of Freddie Footman, we do plan to make a donation as a family. She continued, We want classmates, friends and everybody from Anthonys childhood or whatever to come, including former teachers. Dr. Parker described the library at last years marker dedication as a place where he could learn and explore books. He was the longest-serving president of Albany Technical College in Albany, Georgia, with 27 years in the position. A library at the college is named after him. He also served on the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport Aviation Commission and the Phoebe Putney Memorial Health System board. He was a loyal South Carolina State University alumnus. He attended home and away games ever since graduating in 1975. He gave annually to the State Club and to the Class of 1975s annual fundraiser to Lift-a-Bulldog. Heatley said she did not know that her grandfather built the library, noting he had actually built several structures across the county, including single-family homes and churches. It was such a shock to me when I came the event last year that he actually built the building. If I was a retired person, I would go on a quest looking to find all of the buildings that he has built around here. It would be interesting to do that. To keep his legacy alive is important to us. Thats why we want to continue to give. We actually talked about the possibility of making a donation every year as long as we can do it. So its just important for us to know that he had a part of history. Im proud, she said. CCRI President Bernie Wright said the familys donation will be used to help preserve the librarys history and legacy. We want to make it more contemporary and paint it and put new carpeting and then put some things to reflect some of the history on the walls, pictures and whatever else. People may want to donate something. Its not a library, but we want what it stood for at that time. It needs a top, it needs a lot of things. So were going to take these funds and try to make it more lasting, Wright said. Wright said he is thankful for the families for helping to preserve history in the county. Oh, no question. We didnt ask them. They literally stepped up to the plate, he said. The S.C. Department of Transportation has applied for a $161 million federal grant to replace the Interstate 95 bridges over Lake Marion. The department is applying for the federal Bridge Investment Programs large bridge grant. If approved, the grant would pay for about half the total bridge project of about $331.5 million. The grant application window is for five years. The rest of the project will be paid for with state dollars, according to SCDOT officials. The I-95 bridges over Lake Marion are critical linkages in the nations transportation network, moving both people and freight. Increasing freight and traffic volumes necessitate the eventual replacement of the bridges, the SCDOT wrote in its application for the money. This is not only a safety issue for the community, but it also has tremendous economic impacts on the community, state and nation when lanes must be closed for repair or accidents, SCDOT said. The bridges also serve as an evacuation route in the event a coastal hurricane is projected to make landfall. Approximately 38,900 vehicles, including freight, travel over the bridge daily, according to SCDOT. The current I-95 bridges over Lake Marion were built in 1968. The WJ Gooding Memorial Bridge, named after a well-respected bridge engineer from South Carolina, is about 3,500 feet long. It connects Orangeburg and Clarendon counties. The bridge replacement is a part of SCDOT's 20212027 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. SCDOT had originally planned for officials to travel to Washington, D.C. to engage with the U.S. Department of Transportation, but the trip was cancelled due to Hurricane Ian. SCDOT is rescheduling the trip with plans to meet USDOT officials regarding the proposal. SCDOT Chief of Staff Justin Powell said the department has spent about $3 million over the last five years maintaining the two bridges over the lake as well as the overflow bridges. Powell said the bridges are safe. We inspect every bridge in the state to make sure they are safe, Powell said. He said the bridge replacement is needed because the current bridges are old and not constructed according to modern designs. For example, modern highway shoulders are large enough where vehicles can pull off in the event of an accident and not block traffic. The closure of a bridge would mean an approximately 60-mile detour for freight traffic and about a 40-mile to 50-mile detour for local traffic, according to SCDOT officials. The grant will be used in the development phases of the project, including environmental reviews, preliminary engineering, design work, environmental mitigation (if needed), seismic protection and construction. SCDOT says the project will be completed via a design-build process, which will accelerate construction with a targeted construction start in 2024. The project's completion would be targeted for 2028. Details of the project include: Widening of road shoulders to meet current design standards, which would improve the safety and access for impaired and emergency vehicles, according to the SCDOT. A 12-foot shared-use path for pedestrians and bicyclists, protected by a barrier wall, will be included on the southbound bridge. This will provide long-term connectivity to the Palmetto Trail. Powell said the SCDOT has done work on former Lake Marion Bridge, which remains closed to pedestrians, with the intent to see the bridge reopened for foot and bicycle traffic. However, Powell said the long-term goal would be to transition all pedestrian and bicycle traffic to the new bridge. The future of the old bridge would be determined after consultation with the community. The federal money is part of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden in November 2021. The I-95 bridge is a project cited by the SCDOT Commission as just one of several bridge projects on its list for construction. Others include the I-95 bridge over the Pee Dee River and the Interstate 20 bridge over the Wateree River, Powell said. President Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia earlier this year to bump fists and ask the oil-rich nation to increase oil output, essentially outsourcing oil production from U.S. oilfields to the Middle East to bring gas prices down. On Wednesday, Biden got his answer. The OPEC+ nations led by the Saudis announced a production cut of 2 million barrels per day, about 2% of the worlds oil supply. It was the biggest rollback of oil output since the COVID-19 pandemic. OPEC+, the 13 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and 11 other non-OPEC members, made the decision reportedly based on the uncertainly that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks. The Biden administration released a statement saying the president was disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of (Vladimir) Putins invasion of Ukraine. It was at least the second time in recent days the White House blamed Putin for gas prices rising. The White Houses response to OPECs actions was to reverse itself on releasing more oil from the nations emergency supply. The administration had said Tuesday it had no plans to release any more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves beyond the 180 million barrels that have already been committed. On Wednesday, the White House announced an additional 10 million barrels would be released. Biden has already released more oil from Americas emergency reserves than every previous president combined. With higher gas prices looming, the White House is once again denying its energy policy shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline and slashing energy leases by 97% compared to previous administrations is playing a role in the price hikes. Energy insiders disagree. The solution to meeting demand for affordable, reliable energy is right here in the United States, American Petroleum Institute president Mike Sommers said in a press release. We face a growing energy crisis driven by geopolitical instability, and U.S. policymakers should be doing everything in their power to produce more energy here in America, not urging foreign regimes for more oil. API is now urging the administration to adopt sound public policy that enables American energy to benefit Americans and serve as a stabilizing force in global markets. The U.S. Oil and Gas Association had a more direct, and less polite, reaction via Twitter. OPEC says no, SPR options all but gone. ... The WH has one option left and it is the one option they should have never turned away from in the first place the US-based oil and gas industry. Life comes at you pretty fast. ... Craig Stevens of Grow Americas Infrastructure Now, a coalition of businesses, trade associations and labor groups, noted what he says are the consequences of the Biden energy approach. Our domestic oil output has not yet rebounded to the level it was prior to the pandemic, and the SPR is half empty. Now, with OPEC tightening their production levels, these vulnerabilities are being exposed in real time and will drive prices higher and exacerbate the ongoing energy crisis, Stevens said. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., sees OPECs actions as a boon to Russia and Putins flailing invasion of Ukraine. He has joined Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen with legislation to add additional sanctions against energy dollars making their way to Moscow. Todays decision by OPEC will ultimately mean greater profits for Putins war machine, the senators said in a statement. To stop this cash flow, we must work quickly to enact the price cap put forward by the Biden administration and our G7 partners, and we must ensure that entities around the world who violate the price cap will face clear consequences. Our proposal would provide the tools to ensure the price cap is effective and enforceable and well continue pushing our colleagues to pass this necessary provision to better hold Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine. Pennsylvania energy producers have also expressed frustration over Washingtons policy of discouraging domestic production when supply chains and the energy supply chain in particular are so vulnerable. Why not use the oil and gas available here at home? A rational national energy policy would have the U.S. energy independent and far less concerned about the machinations of OPEC, says Gordon Tomb of CO2 Coalition. However, we have an administration absurdly obsessed with a climate scare that has no basis in science and denies Americans full access to the coal, oil and natural gas needed to sustain a modern economy. Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research was asked if the administration has been at war with fossil fuels, a conflict that predates Putins invasion of Ukraine. They have been at war with oil and gas businesses in the United States since the day they walked in, Kish said. In recognition of the impact and importance South Carolinas manufacturing has throughout the state, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster issued a proclamation declaring October South Carolina Manufacturing Month. Manufacturing is at the heart of what makes South Carolina a great place to work and live, McMaster said. This incredible industry has been a driving force for prosperity throughout our state and will continue to be a pillar of our economy for generations to come. McMaster made the announcement alongside the leadership of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance and the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership at the Anderson-Oconee-Pickens Business & Industry Showcase on Oct 5. Were proud of the impact manufacturing has in South Carolina, said Sara Hazzard, president and CEO of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance. The industry drives innovation, creates economic prosperity, and fosters community engagement that benefits all citizens. South Carolina is a manufacturing powerhouse where facilities of all sizes can thrive and be successful, said Andy Carr, president and CEO of the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Our innovative and creative workforce is the backbone for this success and will continue to be the leading force in future manufacturing growth. South Carolina has good reason to celebrate manufacturing. In 2021, SC Future Makers, a nonprofit education and workforce organization affiliated with the SCMA, released a study highlighting the economic impact it has in South Carolina. Key findings include: South Carolinas manufacturing economic impact is estimated to total between $194 billion and $206 billion annually. 16% of the states GDP is associated with manufacturing. Manufacturing supports, either directly or indirectly, over 30% of all jobs statewide. The industry pays an average annual salary that is 33% higher than the states average wage. Manufacturing creates more jobs than virtually any other sector and has a multiplier effect of 2.4. 38% of South Carolinas General Fund revenue comes from the manufacturing industry. South Carolina manufacturing is largely anchored by the aerospace, automotive, and tire sectors along with their extended supply chains. These three sectors experienced growth at a collective rate of more than three times the state average over the past decade. South Carolina has announced more than 45,000 new jobs and $16 billion in capital investments in manufacturing since 2017. The Times and Democrat each spring publishes a special section devoted to appreciating industry. We plan to continue doing so in a locale where manufacturing is critical to the future of a less-developed county that is in line for growth in the coming years. And during the fall observance of South Carolina Manufacturing Month, we again say thanks for industrys contribution to life here and around the state. Virtua Health cardiologists, surgeons, transplant specialists and other physicians met with biomedical engineers and scientists at an evening gathering hosted by Rowan University on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at its Stratford campus. The event offered the first networking opportunity for the new School of Translational Biomedical Engineering & Sciences, part of the Virtua Health College of Medicine & Life Sciences of Rowan University. Nearly 100 people attended to discuss collaborative research possibilities for the new medical college and the first steps toward distinguishing South Jersey as a regional hub for innovation, research and clinical discovery. Their discussion centered on projects related to cardiovascular medicine, transplantation and regenerative medicine, and health equity. The partnership has led to an $85 million gift from Virtua Health and a $125 million commitment from Rowan University to establish the new college and its initiatives. The new school plans to hire 50 new faculty researchers within the next decade, and build a research center on Rowans West Campus in Harrison Township. The Rowan Foundation recently expanded $25 million Venture Fund will also provide researchers an opportunity to commercialize their new discoveries. Virtua Healths investment is going to do for this college what Henry Rowan did for Rowan University, said Rowan University Provost Tony Lowman. Were building an academic health partnership to educate and train tomorrows doctors, nurses and health care professionalsone that will quickly become a leading source of innovation and clinical discovery. Cross-discipline collaboration is one of the core principles guiding Virtua Health's academic affiliation with Rowan University, said Dr. Reg Blaber, executive vice president and chief clinical officer for Virtua Health. We stand to learn and gain so much from one another, and that will ultimately translate to enhanced care and improved experiences for the communities that we serve. Federal officials awarded just over half a million dollars last month to a team of University of Wyoming researchers studying the stability of the electric grid. The project, led by Nga Nguyen, an assistant professor in the UW Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will explore using machine learning to optimize the energy storage systems being built alongside renewables. Despite providing environmental benefits, the fast integration of [renewable energy resources] and EVs is expected to increase operational challenges for the power system, Nguyen said in an email to the Star-Tribune. With renewables making up a growing share of the electricity supply, they present a new challenge to utilities. Coal, gas and nuclear power plants can be turned on at will to match fluctuating electricity demand. Wind and solar cant. And while utilities are increasingly turning to energy storage to balance out renewables intermittency, given the current cost scenario of storage technologies, deployments of [energy storage systems] can be economically impracticable if not properly located and sized, Nguyen said. Her project, which aims to make the electricity supply less vulnerable to disturbances, would have significant impacts on the operation of the modern power grid, she said. The Department of Energy announced Sept. 12 that Nguyens project numbered among the 29 energy-related research initiatives ranging from nuclear power to bioenergy chosen for a total of $21 million in grants. Nguyen received $503,459. The grant program is designed to help ensure that all regions and institutions, particularly those that have been historically underrepresented in Federal research funding programs, are engaged in competitive, impactful, clean-energy-relevant research, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of the departments Office of Science, said in a written statement at the time. Nguyen and two other professors in her department will use the funds to hire PhD students and undergraduates to assist with the research, which is expected to run through late 2025, and support summer work at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. She hopes the research will foster economic development and boost public confidence in power system resilience and reliability. Wyoming is significantly rich in [renewable energy resources] to produce electrical power, Nguyen said. That positions the state to benefit from the increased reliability of renewables. Nationally, she said, her project shall support the improvement of quality power supply from the U.S power systems, ensuring energy security while promoting clean and sustainable energy and transportation systems. Casper City Council candidate Eric Paulson accused a substitute teacher of being a pedophile at the Natrona County school board meeting on Monday after the teacher argued in favor of the Kelly Walsh High School library keeping a book that explores gender identity and sexuality. Midway through Paulsons comments, school board Chairman Ray Catellier asked for Paulsons microphone to be cut as the council hopeful continued to make accusations against the teacher. The incident came after the substitute teacher, who said he was a conservative, spoke against banning the graphic novel Gender Queer. A committee separate from the school board voted early last month to keep the book at the school library, along with another, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, a resource guide for people who are transgender and gender-expansive. The books are at the Kelly Walsh High School library. Some people in the school district primarily a group of parents have called the books pornographic for their depictions of sexuality. After the committee made its decision, the group of parents and other community members came to the school board to speak against it. Since then, theyve continued coming to meetings to argue in favor of removing the books, while other community members have also showed up to speak in favor of keeping them. If community members ask for an appeal of the committees decision, the school board itself would then have to vote on whether or not to keep the books. The school districts spokesperson, Tanya Southerland, said that she isnt aware of there being an appeal right now. At the meeting on Monday, the substitute teacher questioned the characterization of Gender Queer as pornographic. I dont know what people are saying is pornographic about it, he said, adding that he was ashamed to say he had seen real pornography when he was a young man. We talk about all of the students, but we want to marginalize students that are questioning, he continued. Paulson took the chair for public comment immediately after. You literally just had a pedophile come and talk to you who told us hes a substitute teacher, Paulson told the school board members. The substitute teacher moved toward the front of the room, asking with a raised voice what Paulson had just called him. A police officer stepped between him and Paulson. Officers have been at meetings since 2021. Several people in the audience protested Paulsons statements. He just openly told you that he wants younger children discovering who they are right now, Paulson continued. Officer, stop this! the teacher said. Catellier asked that the microphone be removed as Paulson continued to call the teacher a groomer. Paulson then left the public comment table but was allowed to stay in the building. We dont want to, but we can stop the public comment, Catellier said. Some in the audience asked that the public comment stop, but it continued for about another 45 minutes, primarily on the topic of the books. Paulson won 25% of the vote for the Ward 2 city council seat in the August primaries, second to Michael Bonds 29.5%. The two will go head-to-head in the general election for the Ward 2 seat in November. Paulson told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday that he definitely didnt mean the textbook definition or the legal definition when he accused the substitute teacher of being a pedophile. What he did mean, however, seems to still be damning. From my personal opinion, the guys grooming children, he said. That may be a better term, maybe thats the one I should have used. When the Star-Tribune asked Paulson if he had any concerns that his use of the word pedophile at the public meeting could result in the term being casually thrown around in the future, he responded saying that there is cause for concerns. Heres the thing, if youre somebody who advocates for talking about sexual identity behind the parents back, maybe we need to look at what the textbook definition of pedophile is, he said. The substitute teacher didnt say he advocated for talking about sexual identity without informing parents, but Paulson interpreted his statements that way. Paulsons accusation reflects a climate in Natrona Countys school board meetings that has become increasingly contentious; police officers are now regularly staffed at the public meetings, the last couple of which have seen a packed audience, with dozens of community members waiting in line to give passionate public comment about the books. The topic came to Natrona County in December of last year, following an outcry over books in Campbell County. Southerland told the Star-Tribune that Mondays meeting was the first occurrence she could recall where a police officer had to actually intervene. Cheyenne police arrested a man who they say fired multiple shots Monday from a car at a nearby pickup. Michael Langley, a 26-year-old from Cheyenne, was booked on suspicion of multiple felony charges including aggravated assault, police said. No one was injured in the incident, though one uninvolved vehicle was struck with a bullet. Police say they suspect the people inside the car and the pickup were involved in an argument before the shooting. A police spokeswoman told the Star-Tribune the occupants of the two vehicles knew each other and this was not an incident of road rage. The shooting took place at about 5 p.m. Monday near the intersection of 17th Street and Stinson Avenue. A Chevrolet Impala, which Langley was traveling in, and a GMC Sierra pickup were following one another south on Stinson. Langley, police say, leaned out of the front passenger window of the Impala and fired multiple times in the direction of the Sierra. The Impala than drove off. At about 9 that night, police learned that the Impala was seen parked at a local apartment complex. Officer responded and arrested Langley. He is accused of aggravated assault, being a felon in possession of a firearm, using a firearm in a felony, property destruction and more. Police say the case remains under investigation. The Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the appeal of a Torrington man serving life for the murder of his girlfriend. Sean Logan Pettus lawyers had argued a lower court should have allowed him to withdraw his no contest plea. The justices disagreed, concluding he failed to show a fair and just reason to let him back out of the plea. They noted he had received close assistance from his defense lawyers, voluntarily entered his plea and failed to provide evidence to support his claims that he was innocent. The district court gave Mr. Pettus the opportunity to present evidence in support of his motion. Mr. Pettus declined this invitation and chose not to testify, call any other witnesses, or offer any affidavits setting forth credible new evidence of his innocence, the ruling states. Therefore, Mr. Pettus completely failed to meet his burden of establishing this new evidence was a fair and just reason to withdraw his no-contest plea. In April 2021, a fire ignited inside a building that housed Pettus tattoo parlor. Police learned that Pettus went to a convenience store shortly after the fire and smelled of gasoline. While investigating the blaze, officers learned that Pettus girlfriend had been missing for a few days. When they went to the apartment the couple shared, they found her body. She had been stabbed and strangled. Prosecutors charged Pettus with first-degree murder which carries a possible death sentence in Wyoming along with arson, theft and burglary. In August 2021, he reached a deal with prosecutors, pleading no contest to second-degree murder, which does not carry the death penalty. In a no contest plea, a defendant does not admit guilt, but still faces the punishments of a guilty conviction. In October, Pettus sought to withdraw his plea, claiming his lawyer was ineffective and that new evidence showed he was innocent. That evidence was an unsworn letter from a neighbor who said Pettus was staying with him at the time of the murder. At a subsequent hearing, a new defense attorney said Pettus had additionally not been properly informed about his appellate rights at the time he pleaded no contest. Attorneys for the state countered with a video recording that showed Pettus explaining during a jail visit that his earlier attorney had advised him not to enter the no contest plea, which suggested he did receive adequate assistance from his lawyer, he just chose to ignore it. The supreme court ultimately found Pettus failed to back up his claims of innocence and did have adequate representation ahead of his plea. The justices also concluded he made that plea knowingly. Pettus, 33, is serving his life sentence at Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins. When Michael Jennings started working for Natrona County School District 30 years ago, applications would flood in to compete for open teaching positions. But today, the district is scrambling to find staff. Were facing shortages in areas that we normally dont see, he said. There are four openings out of 14 positions for school psychologists. The district is down about 15 bus drivers out of roughly 120 bus drivers overall. Roughly 35 teaching assistant positions are open. Special education teachers and educational support personnel are hard to hire. Theres a lot of turnover. Its more challenging to hire today than it ever has been, he told the Legislatures Joint Education Committee on Monday. According to a new survey from the Wyoming School Board Association, a top factor hurting hiring and retention challenges could be a lack of respect and trust shown toward educators. The survey was meant to collect information about non-monetary issues that are contributing to school staff shortages. Out of Wyomings 48 school districts, 42 responded. More than three-quarters of the respondents said that a lack of respect and trust toward school staff was the top factor contributing to recruitment and retention challenges. They specifically noted being frustrated by what they see as this lack of respect and trust shown by state legislators toward the education community. I think historically, Wyoming education has felt a strong partnership with the Legislature, but, as you know, there are numerous instances today where that partnership feels strained, Wyoming School Board Association Executive Director Brian Farmer told the Joint Education Committee. This past legislative session, lawmakers brought forth a bill that would have required educators to list all the teaching materials they intended to use on a public platform. While some saw this simply as a means to increase transparency in schools, many said it was insulting toward the education community and would add another burden to already overworked teachers. I think the characterization of the lack of respect or the lack of trust speaks to the diminishing relationship that weve experienced in the last several years, Farmer said. School districts also said that the extra work that educators have to pick up because of staff shortages is another big reason for difficulties in hiring and retention. Kim Amen, a 26-year veteran teacher at Pioneer Park Elementary School in Cheyenne, attested to that; she has been back in the classroom for about six weeks. Already, shes exhausted. Nobody gives us enough time to do the work were supposed to do, Amen said. Were just supposed to do it. Teaching and learning should be full of joy, and education should instill a love of learning in our students, she continued. We feel so overwhelmed that the joy has been sucked out of our day on a pretty regular basis. The difficulty in hiring and retaining staff appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon among most of Wyomings school districts, according to the school board associations survey. Roughly 67% of responding districts reported experiencing hiring challenges this school year, 57% last school year and 33% in the year before that. A third of respondents said their districts have had trouble hiring staff for the past five years or more. Districts reported that certified teachers are the most difficult to hire and retain, followed by substitute teachers, classified and support staff, para-professionals, special education staff and professional staff. JACKSON (WNE) Housing that will be primarily for state troopers and snowplow operators is moving forward. Teton County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved a preliminary application from the Wyoming Department of Transportation to build housing for its employees on land south of town it already owns. The units, no matter how many, are still five to 10 years off from being completed. The project will be phased, said Taylor Cook, of the WYDOT, depending on funds. While the units are meant to first house WYDOT employees, its suggested that the deeds have workforce restrictions so any member of the local workforce would be eligible if a unit was empty. The agency needs housing to fill and keep positions, former WYDOT liaison Keith Compton told commissioners back in March while advocating for the property to be rezoned. The plan now is to have two types of housing on the site. Most of the proposed units would be 2,334 square feet and two stories, with three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms and an attached two-car garage. The rest would be smaller apartments in a five-bed, five-bath building. A few dozen neighbors of the project signed a letter to commissioners more than a year ago opposing the project, objecting to the impacts of an increase in houses they say would double their neighborhood. Only one attended Tuesdays meeting in person. Theres not a single person in our neighborhood who supports this project, Rosi de Haan said. Her biggest concern was that the aquifer could be harmed. De Haan urged commissioners to lower the number of homes to four. After Tuesdays approval, commissioners will take a look next at a development plan from the agency before it breaks ground. SHERIDAN Wyomings reserve account may fill to a record $2 billion this year due to high oil prices, but relying on volatile commodities like oil, gas and coal to fund public services means state coffers are susceptible to the same volatile boom and bust cycles as the energy industry. It also means the energy industry has carried the burden of funding state services for decades, which some experts argue is unsustainable. In Wyoming, the average adult in a three-person family with an income of $65,000 and a home valued at $270,000 pays $3,770 in taxes. That same adult receives $28,280 back in state services, according to Ashley Harpstreith with the Wyoming Taxpayers Association. This is just economic analysis this isnt slanted information. This is just data, she said. The Wyoming Taxpayers Association is a statewide private nonprofit that, since the 1930s, has provided information to lawmakers and has served as a connection between the states taxpayers and the Wyoming Legislature. The group looks at low, broad-based and sound tax policy, so that if one taxpayer falls off, it doesnt create issues for other taxpayers, or create uncertainty for other industries to invest in our state, Harpstreith explained. The average citizen uses about 10 times the state services he or she pays for, and data shows its the minerals industry that has historically made up that difference, Harpstreith said. Since the inception of the severance tax in the 1970s, Wyomings general fund has been dependent on the minerals industry. In the early 2000s, as much as 75% of the states budget was made up of energy revenue, according to Harpstreith. Today, a third of the states revenue comes from investments and about half of the states general fund revenue for the discretionary budget is from energy. The reality, and the problem is, is that when we bust, we get into trouble. During the pandemic in June of 2020, we went to zero rigs for the first time since statehood. Our revenues just plummeted, she said. At that time, Gov. Mark Gordon recommended huge cuts to the general fund, which lawmakers made. Coming into the 2023 general session, which begins in January, the states Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, or CREG, is predicting that the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account may exceed $2 billion for the first time ever. Mainly, that is because of gas prices at $9, and we have had a phenomenal year with oil. Actually, coal is not doing that badly either, Harpstreith said. But the dependency of consumers on traditional energy sources has changed, as well as federal policy. If there is a recession coming, or energy policy changes, we are so dependent, we are just hamstrung, on that model, she said. University of Wyoming Economist Rob Godby, who sits on the CREG, said that production in Wyoming is also down due to a worker shortage. Lower public revenue may be partially alleviated because of high energy prices in the short term, but in the long term, as energy prices fall, Wyoming will need production to maintain the current revenue model. We have long known that our revenue model really depends on being able to create energy to sell to other people that we can tax, he said. While cracks within Wyomings taxation system existed pre-pandemic, this year will likely end up being a windfall year. That means it may be difficult to get discussion on restructuring Wyomings taxation system going when lawmakers convene in January. This (may) allow us to delay into the future the day we have to deal with the fact that our revenue model is imbalanced, Godby said. People dont bear the burden of the cost of services that we take for granted in this state. According to Harpstreith, lawmakers created a Tax Reform 2000 group around two decades ago. They came up with about 100 different recommendations to make the system more balanced, and of those, the Legislature has implemented around 40 or 50. There are three main levers, she said, that could be pulled to change the system, including an income tax, property tax changes and sales taxes. Im not going to give suggestions on what needs to be done, because thats up to the Legislature, but when we evaluate proposals, those three come up, she said. Income tax is probably off the table, so we have two levers left to pull. Property and sales. Sales tax in Wyoming has more than 50 exemptions, she said, meaning that option has been largely eroded. Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, suggested that all lawmakers band together and remove the dozens of sales tax exemptions on the books, equalizing the system without raising taxes. All of us need to get together, lock arms and jump off the cliff together to eliminate all of them at once, he said. That way, we can look everyone in the face and say we didnt raise taxes. We stopped exempting people who had gotten those different exemptions over the years. While it may seem like a low priority to talk about restructuring during good times, now is the time to do it, Gierau said, although hes not holding out hope. We need to redo our whole tax system, which is based on ad valorem taxes for extraction and extractive mineral industries, Gierau said. A tax restructuring will have to come at some point. That reckoning will have to come. Property taxes have been a hot-button issue for many this election season, as theyve continued to rise alongside property values. A property tax refund expansion, with qualifiers on income and residency, could work to keep rising rates low, Harpstreith said, but right now, some lawmakers are looking at a constitutional amendment to redefine property taxes. The idea would be to create property taxes as its own tax class, lowering that assessment rate and creating a refund for every resident in Wyoming. The problem with that is that it would totally erode our tax base, and make us more dependent on minerals, she said. Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, said that during this session, his priority will be to do something about double-digit increases on property taxes in Wyoming, perhaps with a cap on property taxes. The big issue this coming session with regard to the tax issue is quite simply that property taxes have gone up by double digits for two years in a row, he said. The burden is too great. Im working on a bill to give people a rebate back, and try to cap how rapidly those property taxes can increase. His would not be the same as a constitutional amendment that could allow for acquisition-based property tax rates. That is really dangerous. One county assessor told me that if you want to see an income tax in Wyoming, do that, because it will just dry those revenues up, Kinskey said. What (that kind of amendment) does is it creates huge distortions, because someone living on one street would pay half what another person paid because they bought 10 years ago, and the other bought that month. Instead, a fair-market based valuation is a good way to go, he said, applied to industry as well as residential properties, but with a cap on the rate of increase. That, he said, may be doable this session. But to completely overhaul Wyomings tax structure will take a crisis. Any discussion on that, he said, will likely be eclipsed by the property tax discussion. I dont think anything will get done in terms of the tax structure overall until there is a crisis. We have been hearing that we are about to run out of money for eight years now, Kinskey said. Somehow we keep getting through. Sound tax policy, he said, follows an economic theory called the Laffer Curve, and keeps rates as low and simple as possible, with the least amount of exemptions. That said, everyone has an exemption they favor, and Kinskey said hes advocated for years to exempt manufacturing from the sales tax as a way to diversify the states economy, keeping jobs in place for Wyoming workers. The continuous evolution of East Indian dance in Trinidad and Tobago accounts for the sustained national appeal of the art form, says veteran dancer/choreographer Michael Salickram. Salickram and his world-famous Zee TV Shiv Shakti Dance Company were the feature act at last nights opening of the 2022 Divali Nagar, in Endeavour, Chaguanas. There has been a major rupture of a WASA pipeline spanning the Godineau River, near the Shor ON STAGE: Members of Temple United Productions perform at Ramleela celebrations at Palmiste Park, near San Fernando. The two weeks of celebrations concluded on Sunday night where an effigy of Ravan was burnt. Ravan is the mythical multi-headed demon-king of Lanka in Hindu mythology. Divali will be observed on October 24. Photo: DEXTER PHILIP All murders are tragic but the killing of a child is in a category of its own. LOS ANGELES Latinos played a crucial role in keeping the U.S. economy humming during the peak of the pandemic, a new report says. As state and city governments mandated COVID-19 related shutdowns across the country, both Latino and non-Latino workforces saw declines, but as time went on, the Latino force bounced back faster. As a group, Latinos contributed $2.8 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2020 more than the gross domestic products of the United Kingdom, India or France, according to a Sept. 29 report from the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University. The economic impact of Latinos has grown dramatically, up from $2.1 trillion in 2015 and $1.7 trillion in 2010, the centers 2022 LDC Latino GDP Report says. Despite the turmoil of the pandemic, the California Lutheran University study says Latinos persisted and continued to work. If it wasnt for the Latino cohort, we wouldnt be growing as strong or we wouldnt be growing at all, principal investigator Dan Hamilton said in an interview. They help the U.S. grow faster when the U.S. is growing at a good rate. In 2019, before the pandemic was declared in March 2020, Latino labor force participation was 6.1% higher than non-Latino, the report said. Latinos were more likely to work in frontline jobs deemed essential during the pandemic. If they became infected with COVID-19, they often returned to work as soon as they were allowed. As a result, the Latino contributions to the economy contracted by about 0.8% compared to the 4.4% contraction of the non-Latino GDP, the report states. GDP is a broad macroeconomic measure used to analyze the economys strength. Factors used to help determine GDP include labor force participation, homeownership, educational attainment and household information. Christopher Thornberg, founder of independent research and consulting firm Beacon Economics, said the data in the report is consistent with trends he sees as an economist. For instance, education has played a big role, allowing Latinos to move into higher paying careers. The report shows that from 2010 to 2020, the number of Latinos holding a bachelors degree or higher rose 96%. For non-Latinos, it increased 34% over the same period. The skill-upgrading in the Latino community is faster than other communities because theyre catching up, if you will, Thornberg said. That has a lot to do with the growing income of the population. It tends to be a younger population, hence they dont retire as much, and that means yet again, they are an enormous part of the growth of our economy. Latinos experienced significantly higher wage and salary income growth than non-Latinos, the report says. From 2010 to 2020, Latinos real income grew 4.3% per year while non-Latinos rose 2.1%. Consistent with the growth of income, Latinos also are becoming homeowners at a rapid rate, the report says. Latino homeownership rose 7.4% during 2020. The rate has outpaced that of non-Latinos every year since 2010. The big takeaway is a U.S. Latino economy is very dynamic, Hamilton said. Its very resilient, and its an important part of the overall American economy. In October, caring is king in the Old Pueblo. Over the next few weeks, culminating on Friday, Oct. 21, and Saturday, Oct. 22, the 23rd Annual United Way Days of Caring seek to bring the entire community together with a common goal of caring. This event benefits whole community: The more, the merrier. The more entities and volunteers who participate and the more projects we complete, the better it is for Tucson, said Melissa DAuria, vice president of communications and engagement with the United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona. DAuria said the United Way is optimistic that Arizonas largest volunteer event will draw 3,000 volunteers. We are so proud of the past couple of years when we had more than 2,500 volunteers, but we are hoping to attract more individuals and families and groups to bring us back to our pre-COVID numbers, said DAuria. The event offers opportunities for volunteers of all ages citywide and in Green Valley, according to DAuria. Prospective participants can choose from a range of projects from food drives for Interfaith Community Services and collection of household supplies for Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Southern Arizona to creation of teacher appreciation cards and repair of porch railings for Los Ninos de Valle preschool to removal of buffelgrass at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Projects will also include revitalization of the playground and bike track, along with installation of landscaping rock and tree planting, at Laguna Elementary School on Saturday, Oct. 21. Staff and student volunteers from the University of Arizona Eller College of Business will work alongside parents, students and faculty from Laguna Elementary, a Title One school in the Flowing Wells district. We have had a great partnership for many years with Eller College of Business. We share a vision: to make Laguna a beacon of pride in the neighborhood. We believe that the kids environment affects the way they feel and perform and want this to be a beautiful campus where kids feel motivated and valued and take ownership, said Laguna Principal Alan Schmidt. PHOENIX Yavapai County groups must drop their plans to watch ballot drop boxes, because it likely violates both state and federal law, an attorney for Protect Democracy Project says. But it remains an open question whether the planned actions of these organizations or others who may be readying similar activities as early voting begins Wednesday crosses the legal line. The Lions of Liberty and the Yavapai County Preparedness Team plan to operate what they call Operation: Drop Box. A website for the operation seeks patriots to take two-hour shifts watching 19 drop boxes, the freestanding boxes set up by county officials where voters can drop their early ballots. Bring a phone or a camera, the web site says. If you see someone putting more ballots in than their own, take a picture of them, their car, and their license plate. All that got the attention of Jared Davidson, legal counsel for Protect Democracy which lists among its projects as fighting against voter intimidation. Your plan no matter your intent constitutes illegal voter intimidation and may expose your organizations, their members, any volunteers, and co-conspirators to both civil and criminal penalties, including money damages, he wrote in a letter to them. And Davidson told Capitol Media Services that what the groups have in mind violates the law, even if they advise volunteers not to confront or engage with voters. Instead, group organizers say the watchers should contact them, and they will notify County Sheriff David Rhodes who is already aware of what we are doing and will do what he can. But Davidson said it is legally irrelevant whether any of the box watchers actually approach those dropping off their ballots. He said their mere presence there would intimidate. The practice may not be limited to Yavapai County. I have been so pleased to hear all of you vigilantes out there that want to camp out at these drop boxes, right? she said. So do it. Townsend said that will send a message to what some people have claimed is fraud due to mules, people who some say carry around and deposit ballots, fake or otherwise, into these boxes. Get the latest 2022 election news with the Star's Election Roundup newsletter Subscribe to our free Election Roundup newsletter and get the latest coverage of upcoming elections and Southern Arizona candidates sent right Were going to have people out there watching you, Townsend said. And theyre going to follow you to your car and get your license plate. Davidson called it an alarming and dangerous trend. All that, however, still leaves the question of whether such activities are illegal. Asked about the Townsend comments earlier this year, Gary Restaino, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, said its not clear cut, whether it involves those hanging out at drop boxes or even outside of polling places. It seems unlikely that taking pictures and video, on its own, is a violation of voting access laws, he told Capitol Media Services. He said prosecutors would look at other factors. Youd look at social media potentially on someone, their public feeds, what theyre doing, what theyre saying online, he said. Youd look at the way people are acting, like youre looking at the way theyre dressed. All that, Restaino said, helps determine if the intent of the activity is to intimidate would-be voters. Luke Cilano, a board member of Lions of Liberty, said nothing the organization is planning crosses the line, with the watchers on public land. Were not anywhere close to the drop boxes, he said. Were not in anyones way, Cilano continued. If we see something thats out of ordinary, we have a right as citizens to take a picture or whatever and send it to the authorities. Davidson doesnt see it that way. It starts, he said, with the legally erroneous conclusion that anyone depositing multiple ballots must be acting illegally. The Arizona law against so-called ballot harvesting does not preclude people from putting more than one ballot in a box, with exceptions for spouses, people in the same household and even caregivers. He also said the public declaration that photos and other information about drop box users will be turned over to the sheriff is, by itself, intimidating. A reasonable voter would be concerned if they are being monitored, surveilled and photographed by a right-wing extremist group monitoring ballot boxes, Davidson said. To be clear, theyve been openly inviting their volunteers, essentially, to be armed. Not true, said Cilano at least not in the way Davidson is claiming. Ninety percent of the people up here carry a concealed gun, he said. Are we posting up with ARs? he continued, a reference to assault-style rifles. Absolutely not. And even Restaino said whether someone is visibly armed might be a factor, but it isnt, by itself, sufficient to conclude that the intent is to intimidate voters. Davidson acknowledged that, on the surface, activities might not seem to cross the line. He said election deniers and conspiracy theorists and extremists are getting increasingly smarter about their activities. Were not seeing as many samples of individuals in white hoods going out and terrorizing voters, Davidson continued. They have a modern-day playbook. This is part of that playbook. Cilano, however, said box watchers are within the law, saying theres no intent to intimidate voters assuming that could be shown. Good luck proving intent in court, he said. Davidson called all that irrelevant, citing a section of the Voting Rights Act which says it does not require proving intent or conspiracy to intimidate to violate the law. The context here would make any reasonable Arizona voter scared to deposit their ballots, he said. And that is not permitted under Arizona or federal law. Two men were arrested in connection to a fatal shooting that happened at a west-side park in August. Tucson police identified Armando Ruiz-Valencia, 30, and Sergio Guillermo Urquidez, 39, as the suspects in the killing of Elmer Tarazon, 38. On Oct. 3, Ruiz-Valencia was found and detained in Nogales, Arizona, police said. The following day, Urquidez was found on Tucsons south side. Both men were booked into the Pima County jail and charged on suspicion of first-degree murder. On Aug. 22, officers arrived at Joaquin Murrieta Park, 1400 N. Silverbell Road, and found Tarazon with gunshot trauma, police said. He was taken to Banner-University Medical Center where he later died. Investigators believe Tarazon was in a verbal argument with someone before the shooting. PHOENIX A judge has set a Nov. 3 trial in a bid by doctors to get a declaration the states territorial-era law outlawing virtually all abortions does not apply to them. But the case could get complicated. An attorney for anti-abortion Choices Pregnancy Centers and its medical director want the Maricopa County judge to allow him to intercede to oppose the doctors request. Kevin Theriot argues that Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is defending state laws, does not adequately represent (their) interests on behalf of unborn children in Arizona. There was no immediate response from Brnovich. But Gail Deady, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the judge she opposes the move. All this comes as the state Court of Appeals is weighing when it will consider a separate but similar claim by Planned Parenthood Arizona to declare that medical professionals are free to perform abortions through the 15th week of pregnancy. A Pima County judge ruled last month that the territorial-era law, which allows abortions only to save the life of the mother, is the one that governs conduct in the state. But the appellate judges said Judge Kellie Johnson also should have considered more recent laws, including the ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that was enacted this year by the Arizona Legislature, and attempted to harmonize them. More immediately, the appellate court stayed Johnsons ruling, which had brought all abortions to a halt. That allowed the 15-week ban to take effect, at least for the time being, while the judges consider the issue. While there are technical differences between the two court cases, there is a common thread. Both the Arizona Medical Association and Planned Parenthood want a ruling to allow both the old law, which never was repealed, and the new one to coexist. By their way of thinking, that would mean doctors are governed by only the 15-week restriction while the near-outright ban, with its possible five-year prison term, would apply only to those without medical training. The fact that these arguments are going forward on dual tracks virtually ensures it will take a final ruling from the Arizona Supreme Court to decide which law applies and to whom which could take months. Get the latest 2022 election news with the Star's Election Roundup newsletter Subscribe to our free Election Roundup newsletter and get the latest coverage of upcoming elections and Southern Arizona candidates sent right More immediately, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Mikitish needs to decide whether Choices Pregnancy Centers and Dr. Eric Hazelrigg will be able to defend their position that the territorial-era law is the only one that should apply, including to doctors, and abortion should once again be limited to situations where the life of the mother is at risk. Theriot said the case should not be decided without their input. As an obstetrician, Dr. Hazelrigg is ideally situated to protect interests of unborn children, Theriot told the judge in new legal filings. He said the organization where Hazelrigg works provides prenatal and post-birth services. More to the point, Theriot said, there is no guarantee Brnovich will represent those interests. That the state may choose to exercise its legitimate interest in protecting unborn life does not mean that the state has chosen to adequately represent that interest in court, he said. Theriot said Brnovich might not provide what he calls critical evidence and other legal arguments that are not available to the state in defending the territorial-era law. For example, Dr. Hazelrigg can provide evidence of the pain dismemberment abortions cause to unborn children at 15 weeks gestation and the advanced development of unborn children before 15 weeks gestation, he said. And Choices 39 years of experience providing support to unborn children and their mothers allows it to show how knowledge of the details of human development affect the way expectant mothers view their unborn children and protect the babies interests. Conversely, Theriot said a ruling that doctors can terminate pregnancies through 15 weeks will adversely affect his clients. Choices will have to spend more resources assisting women suffering from post-abortion regret, he told the judge. Theriot also pointed out that 95% of abortions in Arizona in 2020 occurred at 15 weeks or sooner. So this courts ruling may affect the vast majority of Arizona unborn children threatened by abortion if it grants (the doctors) request and authorizes the elective destruction of human life in the first trimester, he said. The 88-year-old Lodge on the Desert hotel has been sold to Chicago investors. The 102-room hotel at 306 N. Alvernon Way was bought by Atria Hotel for $16 million, Pima County Recorders documents show. Bill Murney and Jesse Heydorff, with Cushman & Wakefields Hospitality team in Phoenix, represented the seller, Lodge Partners LLC. Set against the Santa Catalina Mountains and near the University of Arizona and University of Arizona Medical Center, the propertys hacienda-style accommodations offered an excellent opportunity for new ownership to capitalize and continue the hotels recovery that has accelerated post pandemic in the sought-after Tucson hotel market, said Murney, executive managing director. The Lodge has had a great run including creating a strategic local following at Cielos, the resorts restaurant. The property added 67 rooms in 2010 and has a combination of casitas and guest rooms on five acres. The property was built in 1934 as a residence and was converted to a guest ranch with seven rooms in 1936. No changes to the property have been announced. Other local real estate transactions include: Schnitzer Properties LLC made two industrial purchases: 97 acres of land at 4300 E. Los Reales Road from Raceway Partners LLC for $7.6 million and a 109,229-square-foot industrial building at 5580 S. Nogales Hwy. from WAA Nogales Hwy LLC for $7.3 million. Tauna Robley, with Tucson Realty Solutions, along with Robert Glaser, Jesse Blum and Paul Hooker, with Picor, handled the sales. TK Family LLC bought 2.73 acres of land at 2410 and 2435 N. Tanque Verde Village Place from SCOTIA JV 2005 LLP for $375,000. Rob Tomlinson, with Picor, represented the seller and Frank Arrotta, with Tucson Realty & Trust Co., represented the buyer. CCS Presentation Systems LLC leased 4,800 square feet of industrial space at 740 E. Ajo Way. Tim Healy, with CBRE, handled the lease. The new 6601 E. Grant Road Redevelopment Project from C2D2 Associates, has signed two new leases. Mountain Mikes Pizza leased 3,300 square feet for its second Tucson location and Jamba Juice leased 1,500 square feet of drive-thru space. Dave Hammack and Aaron LaPrise, with Picor, handled the transactions. Bark N Meow LLC leased 1,315 square feet at Speedway Center, 3023 E. Speedway, from Mahoney Family Partnership. Greg Furrier and Natalie Furrier, with Picor, represented the landlord. Aerial photos of Tucson in 1968 Information for Tucson Real Estate is compiled from records at the Pima County Recorders Office and from brokers. Send information to Gabriela Rico, grico@tucson.com UN, G7 decry Russian attack on Ukraine as possible war crime KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Russian forces have carpeted Ukraine with a fresh barrage of missiles and munition-carrying drones. The bombardment came a day after strikes across the country killed at least 19 people and knocked out power across the country. The U.N. human rights office says the particularly shocking attacks could amount to war crimes. The leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers also condemned the attacks and said they would stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Their pledge defied Russian warnings that Western assistance would prolong the war and the pain of Ukraines people. Russia launched the attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. Prosecutors drop charges against Adnan Syed in 'Serial' case ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) Prosecutors have dropped charges against Adnan Syed in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee after additional DNA testing excluded him as a suspect in a case chronicled by the hit podcast Serial. Marilyn Mosby, the states attorney for the city of Baltimore, said Tuesday that her office will continue to pursue justice for Lee, but that it has closed its case against Syed, who spent 23 years in prison for the killing. She says the decision was made after additional DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect in the strangulation of Lee, whom Syed had dated. Syed's case captured the attention of millions in 2014 when the first season of Serial focused on it. Smashing success: NASA asteroid strike results in big nudge CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) NASA says a spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away last month succeeded in shifting its orbit. The space agency announced the results of the experiment Tuesday. NASA attempted the first test of its kind two weeks ago to see if a killer rock could be nudged out of Earths way. The Dart spacecraft carved a crater into the asteroid, hurling debris out into space and creating a cometlike trail of dust and rubble. It took consecutive nights of telescope observations to determine how much the impact altered the asteroid's path around its companion, a bigger space rock. 20 years after Bali bombings, 'the ache does not dim' DENPASAR, Indonesia (AP) People affected by the 2002 Bali bombings gathered on the Indonesian resort island to commemorate 20 years since the twin bombing that killed 202 people. Most of the dead were foreign tourists, including 88 Australians and seven Americans. The commemoration services are being held at several places in Australia and at Balis Australian Consulate in the city of Denpasar. Australian survivors of the 2002 terrorist attack and relatives of the deceased were among the 200 in attendance to pay tribute to their loved ones. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the strength and unity shown since the tragedy. He said, Twenty years on, the ache does not dim. Trump lawyer who vouched for documents meets with FBI WASHINGTON (AP) A lawyer for former president Donald Trump who signed a letter stating that a diligent search for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been given back to the government has spoken with the FBI. That's according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The person says Christina Bobb told federal investigators during Fridays interview that she had not drafted the letter but that another Trump lawyer who she said actually prepared it had asked her to sign it in her role as a designated custodian for Trumps records. NBC News first reported the interview. California expands largest US illegal pot eradication effort SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Californias four-year-old legal marijuana market is in disarray. So the states top prosecutor says he will try a new broader approach to disrupting the illegal pot farms that undercut the legal economy while sowing widespread environmental damage. The state will expand its nearly four-decade-old multi-agency seasonal eradication program. It's the nation's largest and this year scooped up nearly a million marijuana plants. California will turn it into a year-round effort aimed at investigating who is behind the illegal grows. Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday that the new program will attempt to prosecute underlying labor crimes, environmental crimes and the underground economy centered around the illicit cultivations. Ex-Texas cop charged for shooting teen eating hamburger SAN ANTONIO (AP) A now-former San Antonio police officer has been charged for shooting and gravely wounding a teen eating a hamburger in his car in a McDonald's parking lot. A family attorney says 17-year-old Erik Cantu remains hospitalized in critical condition. A police statement said the ex-officer, 25-year-old James Brennand, was charged Tuesday with two counts of aggravated assault. Police Chief William McManus says Brennand turned himself in to police Tuesday night and is in custody. The shooting was recorded on Brennand's body camera. Investigators quickly determined that the use of deadly force was unwarranted, and he was fired. Angela Lansbury, 'Murder She Wrote' star, dies at 96 NEW YORK (AP) Angela Lansbury, the scene-stealing British actor who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals Mame and Gypsy and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series Murder, She Wrote, has died. She was 96. Lansbury died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from her three children. Lansbury won five Tony Awards for her Broadway performances. She earned Academy Award nominations as supporting actress for two of her first three films, Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray and was nominated again for The Manchurian Candidate and her deadly portrayal of a Communist agent and the title characters mother. Biden vows 'consequences' for Saudis after OPEC+ cuts output WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden says there will be consequences for Saudi Arabia as his administration begins reevaluating the U.S. relationship with the kingdom. That's after the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance of oil-producing nations announced it would cut oil production. Biden said in a CNN interview Tuesday that he was weighing action against the Saudis but declined to detail potential next steps. The OPEC+ production cut is expected to help Russia pad its coffers as it continues its nearly eight-month war in Ukraine. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Ro Khanna of California have introduced legislation that would immediately pause all U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Cole cruises, Bader, Rizzo bash, Yanks beat Guardians 4-1 NEW YORK (AP) Gerrit Cole cruised for most of the night, Harrison Bader and Anthony Rizzo homered and the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians 4-1 in their AL Division Series opener. Not even another Josh Donaldson baserunning blunder could slow the Yankees, who have won six straight postseason games against Cleveland dating to a comeback from a two games to none deficit in the 2017 Division Series GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) A Black teenager in Mississippi has died days after Gulfport police shot him in the head outside a discount store, and his relatives are questioning officers' actions. Jaheim McMillan, 15, was shot Thursday. Harrison County Coroner Brian Switzer confirmed to the Sun Herald that the Gulfport High School freshman died Saturday after he was taken off life support at USA University Hospital in Mobile, Alabama. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday, Switzer said. McMillan is survived by his mother, Katrina Mateen. She told WLOX-TV that when she arrived at the store after her son was shot, officers handcuffed her and walked her across the street. Gulfport police said in a news release that the shooting occurred after they responded to a 911 call about several minors waving guns at other motorists. Officers pulled the minors over in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store. Gulfport Police Chief Adam Cooper said an officer engaged an armed suspect, since identified as McMillan, resulting in shots being fired. The police department has not released the race of the officer. McMillan's family doesnt believe he was armed, and their supporters are calling for the release of camera footage of the shooting. McMillan was initially taken to Memorial Hospital at Gulfport but was transferred to the Mobile hospital, where he subsequently died shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday. In a video taken by a bystander after the shots were fired, McMillan could be seen on the ground in front of the door to the store. A witness said police handcuffed the teenager after he had been shot. Cooper said police took four other suspects, all believed to be minors, into custody, and several firearms were recovered from the scene. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is examining the shooting of McMillan. MBI investigates all police shootings in the state, and the attorney generals office is in charge of any prosecutions. PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) What was supposed to be a 5 1/2-hour rail trip from Detroit to Chicago turned into a 19-hour ordeal for passengers on an Amtrak train that lost power, leaving them without light, heat or running toilets. Wolverine Train 351 left Pontiac about 6 a.m. EDT Friday. Some passengers were so frustrated that they got off the train well before it finally reached Chicago on Saturday, just after midnight CDT, MLive.com reported. Amtrak has apologized to passengers and offered transportation vouchers, MLive.com reported. The problems began west of Ann Arbor. The train stopped there due to the power problem, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said. Electricity on Wolverine 351 went out once the engine lost power, according to passenger Katie Kobiljak, 23. That also meant the toilets didn't flush. You could use the bathroom, but it was like using a port-a-potty and thats not great, she said. Wolverine 351 was then connected to another passenger train that was to pull it to Chicago. Kobiljak said there was a lot of stopping and starting as officials tried to connect the trains. The train stopped again near Jackson, Michigan, for a medical emergency and was there for two hours without power, Kobiljak said. Abrams said the passenger who called for medical treatment remained on the train as it continued to Chicago. But Kobiljak had enough and exited at Jackson. "So, I was on the train for nine hours and only made it like halfway through the state, she said. A brake issue caused another stoppage, this time in northwestern Indiana, not far from Chicago. Then there was another delay due to battery problems, Abrams said. That's when Michael Bambery, 48, decided to leave. He had boarded at 7:15 a.m. Friday in Ann Arbor. He arrived at his hotel about 16 hours later after paying $200 for a rideshare to finish the trip. No heat, no electricity and at this point its dark, so no lights, he said. They were cracking glowsticks to give us light. The toilets are overflowing because you cannot flush these toilets without electricity, so it smells awful. Its really cold and theres just a skeleton crew on board. Some passengers were able to open doors to the train and a couple dozen got off, Bambery said. Were feeling like we cant stay on this train anymore," he said. Were getting no information from Amtrak. Again, were cold, hungry, people need to use the bathroom. It smells awful. And a percentage of people are having acute anxiety symptoms and screaming. Abrams told MLive.com that due to the lateness of the combo train, some passengers elected to safely detrain in East Chicago (Indiana) and find alternate transportation. The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer: In the wake of Professor Tom Meixners killing Oct. 5, University of Arizona President Robbins and his administration decided not to shut down normal operations, which would have let us as a community take a moment to step away from our routines and grieve together. Instead, staff, faculty and students have been notified that counseling services are available to us should we want them, to come and reflect on the loss of our colleague in a room in the student union, and/or to attend a candlelight vigil. I did not know Professor Meixner. His killing has affected me in ways that I was not prepared for. I have been experiencing waves of grief, sadness, anger and anxiety. I cannot stop thinking about what happened. My sleep has been disturbed. I am craving unhealthy foods. And I am using alcohol to take the edge off. I am the victim of a workplace murder. And so too are the tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff of the University of Arizona. All of us. In his email to faculty, staff and students the day after Meixner was shot and killed, President Robbins observed that being on campus was a surreal experience. He went on to urge us to step back from our routines, to talk to each other about what happened, and to access many available resources. But he also made it very clear that Family Weekend would go on as planned. Instead of ceasing all normal operations and bringing us together as a community in response to this act of violence, President Robbins and his administration have given us a menu of choices. It is up to us as individuals to choose what is right for us and to presumably take responsibility for those choices. But then what about community? What kind of community are we when our leaders encourage us to deal with our trauma as individuals? Surreal is not how it felt to be back at work Thursday. It did not feel like I was in a strange dream. It felt wrong to be at work. It felt wrong to be going about my day and carrying on as if everything was normal. Its not normal for a student to kill their professor. Its not normal to be worried about being killed at work. Its not normal to think that one of my students may decide one day to come into my office and kill me or one of my colleagues. I cannot help feeling that by allowing business to go on as usual, the leadership of my university is asking me to accept this killing as normal. The message seems to be that, while tragic, these events will happen. And we, the administration, will provide resources for dealing with the psychic damage that they may cause. But the show must go on. Its all just part of life in the 21st century where instead of flying cars we have the normalization of workplace murders and mass killings. Sadly, decisions made by President Robbins and his leadership team have contributed to normalizing this act of violence that was perpetrated against Meixner, ending his life and traumatizing our community. Instead of suspending operations and bringing us together as one community, they have chosen to individualize the effects of this act of violence and to encourage each of us to do our own thing. This only reinforces the sense that we are not, in fact, a community, but that we are first and foremost all individuals. This weakens our ability to understand how this workplace murder has affected us collectively and how we might, together, work to prevent this from ever happening again. Jin Mitchem picked up an extra work shift Monday, and he says he's lucky to be alive because of that. Mitchem tells the Juneau Empire that he was at work when a landslide brought trees and debris down the mountain, destroying his home in Alaska's capital city. Two other homes were damaged in the Monday landslide, but there were no reported injuries. City crews removed most of the debris, and the street was reopened to traffic Wednesday night. The last of the debris was to be hauled away Thursday. Heavy rains preceded the landslide. Officials urge residents to be cautious as another rainstorm is predicted through the weekend. Grants totaling more than $141.5 million have been awarded from the Internet for All initiative to five tribes in Oklahoma, the U.S. Department of Commerces National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has announced. About $34 million will be awarded to the Cherokee Nation to install fiber and wireless technology to 5,899 previously unconnected households. With funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law, the grants also will expand high-speed internet infrastructure deployment projects through the Internet for All Initiatives Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program to the Chickasaw, Kaw, Sac and Fox and Seminole tribes, connecting more than 12,000 homes. While there are broadband service providers within the Cherokee Nation Reservation delivering quality connectivity, we still have far too many Cherokee citizens in our rural tribal communities that are being left behind and not being served, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement. Historically, these are communities with a high concentration of Cherokee speakers, and as we are rebuilding our language efforts, providing service applications online and keeping our citizens more engaged electronically, these funds will be crucial to help us continue to close the digital divide. Now, more than 6,000 of our Cherokee households will soon be connected to their tribe, language, services and family. Announced Tuesday, the awards are part of 23 grants totaling more than $601.6 million to tribes. They are part of the Biden administrations commitment to nation-to-nation engagement and an effort to connect everyone in America, including American Indians and Natives, to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet. We are making an historic investment in tribal communities to ensure reliable, affordable high-speed Internet for all, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. These grants made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law underscore President Bidens commitment to closing the digital divide in the United States, especially within tribal lands. (Tuesdays) awards will not only build high-speed Internet capacity within tribal Nations, but also bring digital opportunities for good-paying jobs, education and healthcare. Lewis J. Johnson is chief of the Seminole Nation. This NTIA grant will enable tribal members throughout the Seminole Reservation to have access and be empowered with high-speed broadband, he said in a statement. Ensuring equity in access benefits us all. The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program is a nearly $3 billion grant program and part of the Biden-Harris Administrations Internet for All Initiative. The funds are made available from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 ($980 million) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($2 billion). The final of nine defendants charged in the 2019 gang-related killing of a man in Turley pleaded guilty to manslaughter last week, bringing an end to the case in which judges doled out 213 years of prison sentences. All were originally charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 5, 2019, fatal beating of Jared Langworthy, but Jerry Brian Williamson, 52, pleaded guilty to the amended charge Thursday to receive the last and lightest sentence of his co-defendants at five years in Department of Corrections custody. Billy Shawn Griffith, 42, was the only man in the case, which never made it to trial, to plead guilty to first-degree murder and maiming. Langworthy died at a hospital after prosecutors alleged several members of his gang, the Universal Aryan Brotherhood, gathered to take him to court: beating him and attempting to burn off his affiliating tattoo before tossing him in a pond and pulling him out. The UAB is a white supremacist gang based in the Oklahoma prison system, and the defendants gave investigators differing reasons as to why the violence was purportedly prison-ordered against Langworthy. Griffith received two concurrent 30-year sentences in Department of Corrections custody from Tulsa County District Judge Clifford Smith upon a blind plea in November 2021. He was also assessed for each count a $600 fine and ordered to pay $150 under the Crime Victims Compensation Act. The state filed an additional charge against Griffith while he was in custody alleging he possessed a cell phone in the jail, and upon another blind plea, Smith in that case gave him the same sentence to run concurrently: 30 years in DOC custody and $750. The violent crime falls under Oklahomas 85% rule, meaning Griffith must serve at least 25.5 years in custody before he is eligible for parole. Cody Lee Fulmer, 34, pleaded guilty to an amended charge of second-degree murder and maiming in September 2021. Smith sentenced him to two concurrent 35-year sentences in DOC custody also subject to the 85% rule and ordered he pay for each count a $600 fine and $150 toward victims compensation. Donnie Wayne Taylor, 40, pleaded guilty to an amended count of manslaughter in July 2022. Smith sentenced him to 15 years in DOC custody and ordered the same payments. Aaron Mitchell Welch, 39, received the same sentence upon a guilty plea to maiming in March 2022 but was assessed a fine of $50 and $50 to go toward victims compensation. Kyler Lee Helton, 23, pleaded nolo contendere to an amended count of manslaughter in July 2022. A separate 2020 case against him of misdemeanor assault and battery was dropped as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, and Smith sentenced him to 10 years in DOC custody to run concurrently with sentences in other unrelated cases and assessed him $250 in costs. The nine also originally additionally faced charges of gang-related offense and conspiracy to commit a felony, but all were dismissed save for the gang count against Tyler Brett Coyle, 37. Special Judge April Seibert sentenced Coyle to eight years in DOC custody upon his July 2020 guilty plea to an amended count of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and battery. She also ordered Coyle pay a $500 fine and $250 toward victims compensation. His sentence runs concurrently with a couple from his other unrelated cases. Two women originally charged in the case, Destiny Rae Asher and Taylor Michelle Harper, had all counts against them dismissed in 2020. Despite occasional showers and light rain this week, a burn ban remains in effect for Tulsa and some area counties. This week, Tulsa County commissioners approved extending the burn ban within the county for another week. The county has been under a burn ban since Aug. 15. Area fire officials determined that conditions were appropriate for continuing the burn ban according to the guidelines for extreme fire dangers under state law. Tulsa County has experienced the driest 120 days since record keeping began, the county said in a news release. We do have some rain forecasted through (this) next week, but it doesnt look like it will be sufficient enough to alleviate the fire danger, said Tulsa Area Emergency Management Director Joseph Kralicek. For most of this week, dry conditions are expected. However, as we head into the upcoming weekend a cold front will pass through. This will increase our chance for overnight showers and possibly a few storms on Saturday night into early Sunday morning, Tulsa World Meteorologist Kirsten Lang said. As of noon Tuesday, Tulsa has received 0.32 inches of rain since Sunday, according to the Oklahoma Mesonet. Tulsas Mesonet site is located about 2 miles west of Tulsa International Airport. Other area Mesonet stations in the area recorded between 0.66 inch (Wynona, in central Osage County) and 0.1 inch (Haskell, in northwestern Muskogee County) during the same time period. The Tulsa County burn ban prohibits outdoor burning, including controlled burns, bonfires, fire pits and chimineas. Grilling and welding over nonflammable surfaces are permitted. Exemptions for burning must be obtained through area fire districts. Enforcement of the resolution can be carried out by any law enforcement officer in the state of Oklahoma. Anyone convicted of violating the resolution will be subject to a $500 fine or prison not to exceed a year, or both. Fine amounts may be higher in municipalities. The burn ban will remain in effect until noon Monday. If extreme fire danger conditions persist, subsequent resolutions may be considered for passage, officials said. Other area counties under a burn ban through next Monday include Mayes, Muskogee, Okmulgee and Rogers, according to Oklahoma Forestry Services. Nearly half of Oklahomas 77 counties are under burn bans, many in the southeastern area of the state, which typically receives more precipitation than central and western Oklahoma. The state has greater chances of above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation through the month, according to the Climate Prediction Center. Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education voted Monday night not to extend its agreement with a Tulsa charter high school. With a 3-3 vote, the board rejected a request to renew the districts agreement with KIPP Tulsa to operate University Prep High School, in the former Mark Twain Elementary School building at 541 S. 43rd East Ave., through June 2026. KIPP Tulsas current agreements with Tulsa Public Schools run through June 30, 2023, and the high school can continue through that time. About 250 students attend its high school and another 325 students attend its College Prep Middle School at 1661 E. Virgin St. District administrators had recommended renewing both University Prep and KIPP Tulsas College Prep Middle School agreements for three years, with additional reporting stipulations due to concerns about test scores and financial reporting. In July, KIPP Tulsa was accredited with a warning by the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Among the deficiencies specifically noted were not turning in required reports on time and exceeding the administrative cost cap allowed under state law. Accredited with a warning means there is at least one deficiency that substantially affects the quality of education offered at a district or school. Additionally, according to data released by Tulsa Public Schools, none of KIPP Tulsas fifth- or sixth-grade students tested at a proficient or advanced level in math on the spring 2022 Oklahoma School Testing Program. Other than sixth-grade language arts, the school did not have double-digit proficiency rates in any of the grades or subjects tested in 2022. However, board members Jerry Griffin and Jennettie Marshall said the proposed renewal length was not acceptable and questioned whether the school had made enough academic progress during its previous contract to justify a three-year extension. Looking at this, I have grave concerns, Marshall said. Im OK with submitting them for a one-year renewal, but to say Im going to put you back in place for three years just does not sit right with me. If my kids didnt do what was expected of them, I didnt reward them with a brand-new Mustang. They had to start over and do it right. Board member ELena Ashley voted no on the entire consent agenda, while Griffin and Marshall specifically voted no on the University Prep renewal. A district spokeswoman confirmed later that the proposed agreement will be brought back before the board at a later date since the vote was tied. Marshall also voted against renewing the agreement for KIPP Tulsas College Prep Middle School. However, that agreement was approved by a 4-2 count. Board member Judith Barba Perez was absent. <&rule> July video: Tulsa school board meeting disrupted during discussion about agenda, rules of order 52 years ago today, the Oklahoma Sooners stunned their fans and their opponent the Texas Longhorns by lining up for the first time in the A man was fatally shot Sunday night after exchanging gunfire with McIntosh County deputies and Checotah police on Interstate 40, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said in a news release. A McIntosh County deputy had stopped the mans vehicle for an alleged traffic violation about 10:40 p.m. Sunday. The driver stopped but then drove away, leading deputies in a pursuit, according to the OSBI. The pursuit continued north on U.S. 69 before heading west on Interstate 40. Deputies then requested assistance from the Checotah Police Department. The man drove erratically and sideswiped law enforcement vehicles before driving off the shoulder about 4 miles west of Checotah, the OSBI reported. The man tried to run into a nearby tree line, but the brush was too thick, the OSBI said. He then turned around, pulled out a gun and fired at the pursuing law enforcement officers, according to the state agency. There is an exchange of gunfire between the subject and law enforcement before the subject is hit, the OSBI news release states. The man died at the scene after officers attempted to render aid to him, the OSBI said. His name was not released Monday pending notification of relatives. The OSBI said the investigation involves tribal citizens and falls under the McGirt Supreme Court decision but that the state investigation is ongoing. Checotah is about 70 miles southeast of downtown Tulsa. OKLAHOMA CITY Leaders of Oklahomas five largest tribes on Tuesday in Oklahoma City are expected to endorse Joy Hofmeister for governor. Hofmeister, the current state superintendent, switched parties to Democrat from Republican to run for governor. She won the Democratic primary and will meet Gov. Kevin Stitt on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. The Five Tribes formerly known as the Five Civilized Tribes cited her respect for tribal sovereignty and her commitment to work with the states nearly 40 federally recognized tribes for the betterment of all Oklahomans. The Five Tribes represent more than 800,000 citizens of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole nations living around the country. As a gubernatorial candidate, Joy Hofmeister recognizes that we all want the same things: safe communities, a strong economy, a stable workforce, well-funded education, investments in our infrastructure, and a continued focus on health and wellness, family, and community, the Five Tribes leaders said in a statement. When it comes to working with the tribal nations in Oklahoma, she understands our sovereignty is not a partisan issue or a threat, but instead is a chance to forge new partnerships while strengthening those that already exist because Oklahomans thrive together when we all work together. Early in his administration, Stitt and the tribes got into a heated conflict over tribal gaming compacts. Stitt said he was seeking higher casino exclusivity fees from tribes. Tribes pay the state between 4% and 10% for the exclusive right to operate Class III gaming, which includes slot machines. Stitt maintained that the compacts were expiring and that Class III gaming would be illegal in the state without a new compact. Some of the states gaming tribes filed suit, seeking a ruling that the compacts automatically renewed, and a federal judge sided with the tribes. The action came after those who crafted the original compacts years ago said they believed that the compacts were designed to automatically renew. Tensions were further fueled by a similar breakdown over compacts the state had with the tribes over hunting licenses. As with the gaming issue, Stitt wanted a better deal for the state, and the tribes believed that the compacts were fine the way they were. In addition, Stitt and the tribes have been at odds over the ramifications of the U.S. Supreme Courts 2020 McGirt ruling, which led to the recognition that the Five Tribes and the Quapaw Nations 1800s-era reservations still exist. Speaking to the Republican Womens Club South Tulsa United this summer, Stitt said: This is a binary decision. You are either for the state or six different (tribal) jurisdictions. You should let them know you stand with Kevin Stitt. <&rule> 2019 video: Oklahomas gaming tribes decline Gov. Kevin Stitts proposed compact extension Up to 121 out of 550 filling stations in Ho Chi Minh City were temporarily short on gasoline supply as of Monday afternoon, the municipal Market Surveillance Agency reported the same day. Gas stations have already placed orders, but suppliers said they are also facing a dearth of gasoline. Ho Chi Minh City currently has 15 fuel importers, 60 distributors, and 550 gas stations. Supply shortage According to the Ho Chi Minh City Market Surveillance Agency, some filling stations do not have enough gasoline for sale due to the supply shortage. A representative of the agency said that other petrol stations are still operating as normal to serve the demand of local residents. "There is neither gasoline hoarding nor sale of gasoline at different prices compared with the listed rates. Gas stations which are facing a temporary shortage of gasoline are mainly in Binh Chanh District, Binh Tan District, and Thu Duc City, with eight, 15, and 21 stations, respectively. They have put up signs saying running out of gasoline, only oil remains or waiting for refilling.' Nguyen Tien Dat, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Market Surveillance Agency, said the agency had asked market surveillance teams to keep a close watch on the operation of local filling stations. If they detect any gas station suspending its operation without legitimate reasons or hoarding products, they must immediately work with such stations and deal with them in line with the law. Amid the temporary shutdown of many gas stations, sparkling public concerns, the Ho Chi Minh City Market Surveillance Agency inspected some stations in the city on Monday. An official of the Ho Chi Minh City Market Surveillance Agency measures a gasoline tank at a filling station to check if the station is hoarding fuel. Photo: The Ho Chi Minh City Market Surveillance Agency Strict sanctions against violations of fuel trade regulations Head of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance Tran Huu Linh, at an online meeting of the directorate on Monday, required imposing harsh sanctions on those violating regulations on fuel trade. The directorate asked the market surveillance agencies of cities and provinces to continue strictly complying with directives on inspecting and handling violations in fuel trade issued by the government, the steering committee for anti-smuggling, counterfeit goods, and trade fraud, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the directorate. They were also assigned to cooperate closely with the local Departments of Industry and Trade and other relevant agencies to tighten the inspection into and supervision of fuel traders, and ask them to ensure sufficient fuel supply. Additionally, it is a must to keep a close watch on filling stations within their precincts. As for stations which have temporarily closed, they should coordinate with the Departments of Industry and Trade to uncover the reasons for the shutdown and promptly handle those violating regulations. Licenses may be revoked if needed. Heads of market surveillance agencies will take the main responsibility for the inspection, supervision, and handling of violations in fuel trade, and punish officials showing poor leadership and supervision or lending a helping hand to violators. Many stations in other provinces face a gasoline shortfall as well. On Monday, many filling stations in south-central Ninh Thuan Province put up out of gasoline signs or capped the volume of gasoline sold to each motorcycle rider. They allowed each consumer to have their motorcycle refilled with VND30,000-50,000 (US$1.25-2) worth of gasoline. A representative of a gas station in Tan Tai Ward, Phan Rang-Thap Cham City said they are waiting for the supply by distributors. The provincial Department of Industry and Trade informed that it had received 13 petitions from fuel traders for a temporary suspension of their operation. Eleven of them reasoned that they received small or even no commissions or suppliers failed to provide gasoline for them. A fuel distributor has its six gas stations and 20 retail agents closed temporarily due to insufficient supply. A gas station on Thong Nhat Street in Phan Rang-Thap Cham City, Ninh Thuan Province, Vietnam caps the volume of gasoline sold to each motorcycle rider. Photo: Duy Ngoc / Tuoi Tre Tran Quoc Sanh, deputy director of the Ninh Thuan Department of Industry and Trade, said the department coordinated with the provincial Market Surveillance Agency to hold a meeting with fuel traders, distributors, and agents in the province to ensure the sufficient supply of fuels there. Enterprises proposed increasing their commissions to at least VND1,000 ($0.04) per liter to ensure the operation of fuel retailers, and reducing lending rates and taxes for a minimum of a year so that they can compensate their losses over the past periods. Shutdown of over 100 gas stations not worth worrying: ministry The Ministry of Industry and Trade on Monday issued a statement saying that the temporary shutdown of more than 100 filling stations in Ho Chi Minh City, An Giang Province, Binh Phuoc Province, and Dak Lak Province is not worth worrying as the country has 17,000 gas stations. The ministry has come up with solutions for ensuring a sufficient supply of fuel. According to the ministry, many gas stations have shut temporarily due to surging operation costs and traders supply shortage. In addition, many fuel distributors have cut discounts for retailers to restrict big orders, resulting in the later's losses. Furthermore, the ministry attributed the situation to storms and floods, which disrupted the transport of fuels. The Ministry of Industry and Trade said it had suggested the Ministry of Finance reduce taxes on fuels. The two ministries have regulated fuel prices in line with the global rates and the domestic supply and demand, ensuring the benefits of relevant parties, encouraging enterprises to maintain their supply, and preventing fuel hoarding or smuggling. The ministry is also cooperating with localities to ask fuel enterprises to ensure a sufficient supply. Despite the shortage of gasoline at some stations, the local fuel demand is still met, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. It cited reports by some enterprises as saying that the Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) had 489,000 cubic meters of fuels in stock as of Saturday last week; PetroVietnam Oil Corporation, 230,000 cubic meters; Military Petroleum Corporation, 19,000 cubic meters; Saigon Petro Co. Ltd., 11,000 cubic meters; Dong Thap Petroleum Trading Import Export JSC, 45,000 cubic meters; and Thanh Le Import-Export Trading Company, 60,000 cubic meters. The statement of the Ministry of Industry and Trade has caused controversies among residents. Many consumers have suggested officials from the ministry patrol and inspect petrol stations to see residents difficulties in buying gasoline. They had to queue up in long lines to have their motorcycle tanks replenished. Some even visited several gas stations to be able to buy gasoline. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! As many people kill wild snakes upon seeing them rather than save them, a group of three men in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam volunteer to rescue the reptiles. The group has set up a network to bring the snakes they rescued back to nature. One night, Australian man Craig Ryan, founder of the snake rescue group, received a phone call from a man in Ben Tre Village, Cam Ha Commune in Hoi An who was in a panic. He told Craig that he found a cobra in his house. 24-hour rescue service This phone call startled Craig. He wore long-sleeve clothes, took a specialized snake hook, and drove to the house. Craig pointed his flashlight to a shoe where the snake was, and he realized this snake was a cobra weighing around 300 grams and measuring 45 centimeters long. He then carefully caught the snake with his specialized hook. The snake suddenly turned its head toward the Aussie and stuck out its tongue to aim for an attack. However, Craig soon controlled the situation with some simple moves. The snake lay on his hook calmly and was taken to a safe place far away from local people. Talking with Ryan, the man said he saw the snake in a shoe when he tidied up his pairs of shoes. As he knew the Australian man from before, he called him for help. This is one of the cases that Ryan and his team handled in Cam Ha Commune. Max Ryan, 22, son of Craig Ryan, is also a member of the snake rescue group. Craig said he and his son have the same passion for researching and taking photos of snake species. Both are well known for their passion. They have worked as snake rescuers for decades. Every time locals find wild snakes in their houses or surrounding areas, they call the team. Snake lovers Their passion for snakes is so big that the father and son have set up a network providing information and rescuing snakes nationwide. Nguyen Huy Hoang, a 22-year-old freelance tour guide in Quang Nam Province, has joined the network. Like Craig and his son, Hoang is willing to rescue wild snakes day or night. Hoang said since he was a kid, he has had a special interest in wildlife, especially reptiles. Hoang met Max years ago when he strolled around Son Tra Peninsula in Da Nang to take photos of wild animals. They then became close friends, always making trips to forests and researching wild snakes together. Hoang was surprised when he learned that his friends father runs a network saving and protecting snakes, so the Vietnamese then took part in the network. The group with three official members created a Facebook fan page to share videos and information related to wild snakes, how to get rid of venomous snakes, and set up a hotline to support people when needed. Hoang, Max, and Craig have connected hundreds of people with the same enthusiasm and passion for the reptile across the country. In their free time or on weekends, they go to explore the life of wild snakes in forests, shoot photos and videos of them, and give locals instructions if they have an encounter with a venomous snake. Craig said he encountered venomous snakes when he was just an eight-year-old boy. In Australia, everyone is taught to respect animals. They often call police or rescue forces when they see snakes, instead of killing them. Nguyen Huy Hoang is one of the skillful members of the snake rescue group run by Craig Ryan in Quang Nam Province. Vietnam. Photo: H.D. / Tuoi Tre However, when Craig and his family moved to Vietnam in 2011, he realized the Vietnamese did not do that. Snakes are not a dangerous animal and have the right to live like other animals," said Craig. "The reptile attacks humans only when they attack it first, step on its body, or trespass on its shelter. This attack is an instinct to protect itself. "When we understand the reptile, it is just a harmless animal." He added that the Vietnamese do not really care much about snakes as well as other wild animals. Most of them cannot distinguish between venomous and non-venomous snakes. As long as they see a snake, it is killed. It is their common reaction. The snake dies immediately, or worse, it becomes a dish. I want to change this. We have a network of partners who know the reptiles very well. We not only rescue snakes but also share information about them with everyone, Craig said. The group has received more and more phone calls. "After rescuing a snake, we find a safe place to release the snake or hand it to rangers. The wild environment is perfect for snakes Group member Hoang said they receive around 10 phone calls asking them to rescue snakes each month. Skillful members take turns handling rescue cases and finding safe places for the snakes they have saved. They all volunteer to do such things. Craig, his family members, and friends have become experts in rescuing snakes. During a trip to Phu Quoc Island, off southern Vietnam, his wife surprised a receptionist in a resort by catching a snake with her bare hands. Killing snakes or raising them is persecution. The wild is perfect for them and humans should respect them, said Craig. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! If rising seas engulf the Maldives and Tuvalu, will those countries be wiped off the map? And what happens to their citizens? The prospect is no longer science fiction as global warming gathers pace, posing an unprecedented challenge to the international community, and threatening entire peoples with the loss of their land and identity. "This is the biggest tragedy that a people, a country, a nation can face," Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, told AFP. According to UN climate experts, sea levels have already risen 15 to 25 cm (six to 10 inches) since 1900, and the pace of rise is accelerating, especially in some tropical areas. If warming trends continue, the oceans could rise by nearly one additional meter (39 inches) around the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands by the end of the century. This is still below the highest point of the smallest, flattest island states, but rising seas will be accompanied by an increase in storms and tidal surges: Salt contamination to water and land will make many atolls uninhabitable long before they are covered over by the sea. According to a study cited by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, five nations (the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati) may become uninhabitable by 2100, creating 600,000 stateless climate refugees. 'Legal fiction' It is an unprecedented situation. States have, of course, been wiped off the map by wars. But "we haven't had a situation where existing states have completely lost territory due to a physical event, or events, like sea-level rise, or severe weather events," noted Sumudu Atapattu, of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. But the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a reference on the subject, is clear: A state consists of a defined territory, a permanent population, a government and the capacity to interact with other states. So if the territory is swallowed up, or no one can live on what is left of it, at least one of the criteria falls. "The other thing that I argue is that statehood is a fiction, legal fiction we created for purposes of international law. So we should be able to come up with another fiction to encompass these deterritorialized states," Atapattu added. That is the idea behind the "Rising Nations" initiative launched in September by several Pacific governments: "convince members of the UN to recognize our nation, even if we are submerged under water, because that is our identity," the prime minister of Tuvalu, Kausea Natano, explained to AFP. Some people are already thinking about how these Nation-States 2.0 might work. "You could have land somewhere, people somewhere else, and government in the third place," Kamal Amakrane, managing director of the Global Centre for Climate Mobility at Columbia University, told AFP. This would first require a "political declaration" by the UN, then a "treaty" between the threatened state and a "host state," ready to receive the government in exile in a kind of permanent embassy. The population, which might be in that state or even a different one, would then have dual nationality. Amakrane, a former UN official, also draws attention to an ambiguity in the Montevideo Convention: "When you speak about territory, is it dry or wet territory?" Humans 'are so ingenious' With 33 islands scattered over 3.5 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) in the Pacific, Kiribati, tiny in terms of land area, has one of the largest exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the world. If this maritime sovereignty were preserved, then a state would not disappear, some experts say. While some islets are already being engulfed as shorelines recede, freezing the EEZs would preserve access to vital resources. In an August 2021 declaration, the members of the Pacific Islands Forum, including Australia and New Zealand, proclaimed that their maritime zones "shall continue to apply, without reduction, notwithstanding any physical changes connected to climate change-related sea level rise." But even with rising ocean levels, some would simply not consider leaving their threatened country. "Human beings are so ingenious, they will find floating ways... to live exactly in this location," says Nasheed, the Maldives' former leader, suggesting people could resort to floating cities. How these states would find resources for such projects is unclear. The question of financing the "loss and damage" caused by the impacts of global warming will be a burning issue at COP27 in Egypt in November. Even as experts like Amakrane defend "the right to remain" for people who don't want to leave their heritage, he adds: "You always need to have a plan B." In this vein, he has called for launching "as soon as possible" a "political" process to preserve the future of uninhabitable states, "because it gives hope to people." Otherwise, he warns, the current state of uncertainty "creates bitterness and disarray, and with that, you kill a nation, a people." An acute nursing shortage is clogging or even closing hospital emergency rooms across Canada, pushing an already stressed national health system to the brink with potentially severe consequences for patient care. Burnout from the Covid-19 pandemic, abuse from patients and salary discontent have seen nursing staff quitting their jobs in droves, and experts say the situation is only likely to worsen. The impact on emergency care is such that Ottawa police recently had to take a shooting victim to hospital in their squad car, rather than wait for an ambulance, and an elderly woman who fell and broke her hip was forced to wait six hours for help from paramedics based 100 kilometers (62 miles) away. Over the summer and into the fall, staffing shortages meant dozens of emergency rooms were forced to close -- sometimes for a night or a weekend, sometimes longer. A tired nurse holds her head after a long shift at Toronto's Humber River Hospital in April 2021; workloads have become heavier since then, prompting a health care crisis. Cole Burston AFP/File Wait times to see an ER doctor have soared to 12, 16, 20 hours -- or more. "They're numb, deflated and feeling hopeless," said Cathryn Hoy, president of the Ontario Nurses' Association. Herself a nurse for 20 years, she described the situation as "critical." Amelie Inard, 32, was taken to an ER in Montreal this week, in extreme pain and peeing blood. The place was packed, and an overwrought nurse told her to describe her condition "in one sentence, really quickly, because of how busy they were," Inard said. She eventually left in frustration, without seeing a doctor. Hospital workloads are rising, Hoy said, along with patients' exasperation over extended wait times, leading to a spiking of violence against nurses. Several nurses told AFP they had been punched, scratched or spat on, and had trays, dishes and feces thrown at them. 'Crazy conditions' In the capital Ottawa, ambulances were unavailable on more than 1,000 occasions from January to July, as paramedics were stuck waiting to unload patients at crowded ERs. A hospital in Peterborough, east of Toronto, in the past week was forced to treat patients on gurneys in the parking lot because its ER was full, said Hoy. Ontario is looking to transfer patients to elderly care homes to make room at clogged hospitals. Cole Burston AFP/File In Manitoba, doctor Merril Pauls said there had been "multiple times throughout the summer when we had to shut down beds in the emergency room" at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre because of the nursing shortage. On one recent Sunday, he said, "We had too many people coming in and had no place to put them. We literally were double-bunking critical patients in a resuscitation bay. "Our nurses are really working in crazy conditions." It's a "really significant phenomenon going on across the country," the doctor added, and it's "getting worse." High turnover A recent survey by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the country's largest labor union, found that 87 percent of nurses have considered leaving their job "because of the thankless and grueling working conditions." "Even new graduates are quitting," Hoy said. Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos has vowed to make it easier for foreign credentials to be recognized. That could help 11,000 internationally trained doctors and nurses get jobs in their field in Canada. Paramedics, such as these seen at Toronto Humber River Hospital in April 2021, are often stuck waiting at overwhelmed ERs to unload patients. Cole Burston AFP/File But that won't be nearly enough, with 34,400 nursing positions now vacant, according to government data. Compounding the problem, many Canadians -- like Inard -- don't have a family doctor and turn to emergency rooms for care. "It's just so difficult to find a family doctor," she said. And a frequent shortage of regular hospital beds often means long waits to transfer patients out of ERs to wards. Ontario passed a bill at the end of September permitting transfers of patients awaiting long-term care to facilities up to 150 kilometers away. Provincial Health Minister Sylvia Jones said it would "ease pressures on crowded emergency departments." But critics say it could force frail, elderly people into care homes far from their loved ones. For now, almost everyone needing treatment is eventually seen. But delays can pose long-term consequences for patients' health. "If a stroke patient doesn't get access to a clot-busting medicine fast, brain cells will die and the patient will end up being more disabled than they would have been," Pauls said. Serious infections can be deadly if not treated in time. So, too, can cancers and other diseases, he added. Pauls recalled routinely telling discharged patients "to come back if things get worse." "But now they laugh at us. They say: 'You're crazy. There's no way I'm going to go through this again.'" LAS TEJERIAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelans in the town of Las Tejerias, in the country's Aragua state, on Monday waited amid a rising death toll as rescuers searched for the more than 50 missing persons who were swept away on Saturday by devastating floods following heavy rain. Rains on Saturday night swept large tree trunks and debris from surrounding mountains into Las Tejerias, 40 miles (67 kilometers) southwest of Caracas, and damaging businesses and farmland. At least 36 people have been killed by the floods while 56 remain missing, Remigio Ceballos, vice president of citizen security area, told reporters in Las Tejerias on Monday. Early estimates reported at least 25 dead and 52 missing. Standing in front of what was once her two-story house, before the floods destroyed it, Jennifer Galindez waited for news of her husband, one of the people reported missing after water surged through the town. Aerial view of damage in Las Tejerias, which was hit by devastating floods following heavy rain, in Aragua state, Venezuela October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria The flood also killed her young granddaughter, she said. "My husband was by the window. I couldn't help him either and the water took him away," said Galindez, 46, adding that her husband Jose Segovia, 55, suffers from severe diabetes. Galindez left to seek help amid the rain when she saw the water enter her home, before the flood took her too. "The water swept me away," she said, adding that she eventually found refuge on a platform where there was no current. Damaged vehicles sit at the car assembly plant of the Chinese company Chery, which was hit by devastating floods following heavy rain, in Las Tejerias, Aragua state, Venezuela October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria Houses, shops and other premises in Las Tejerias were fully or partially filled with mud and other debris carried by the water. The area is currently without electricity or drinking water. On Monday, bulldozers could be seen clearing roads in Las Tejerias as the sun shone after several days of rain. Though Galindez managed to make her way back to what had been her house - half buried in mud - on Saturday, through a hole in the wall she saw her husband was not in his bed, while her granddaughter Estefania Romero, not yet 2, had drowned on the sofa. "I haven't been able to sleep," Galindez said. "I can't close my eyes because that's what I see. I see my granddaughter, where I put her. I left her there and I couldn't get her out." Volunteer rescuers who were attacked by wasps while removing debris to recover the body of a person are attended by firefighters, as the search of missing persons who were swept away on Saturday by devastating floods following heavy rain continues, in Las Tejerias, Aragua state, Venezuela October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria Rescue members work following floods due to heavy rains, in Las Tejerias, Aragua state, Venezuela October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria Check out the news you should not miss today in Vietnam: Politics -- Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son expressed his delight at the development of Vietnam U.S. ties over the past 27 years during a reception in Hanoi on Monday for Chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asia-Pacific Ami Bera and a delegation of U.S. congressmen, according to the Vietnam News Agency. Society -- People kept rushing to filling stations in various districts in Ho Chi Minh City in the rain on Monday afternoon after the municipal market surveillance agency said that several gas stations had been shuttered due to low supply. -- A turbine operating unit of the Ka Tinh hydroelectric plant in Quang Ngai Province, central Vietnam lost contact with a worker who was buried in rubble in the wake of landslides triggered by heavy rains on Monday night. -- Police in Phu Yen Province, south-central Vietnam on Friday initiated legal proceedings against two people for organizing drug use at their karaoke parlors in the province last month. -- Japan will formally lift its limitations on the number of international visitors and independent travel on Tuesday, including those from Vietnam, after months of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. -- Many streets in low-lying areas in Ho Chi Minh City were turned into rivers due to high tide, with throngs of vehicles stalled on Tuesday afternoon. Lifestyle -- The final round of Miss Tourism World 2022 will take place in Vietnam from November 14 to December 5, with the competition of more than 60 beauties from all around the world. World News -- More than a dozen calves wait at a research farm in New Zealand to be fed Kowbucha, a punnily named probiotic that studies show reduces burps or methane emissions, according to Reuters on Tuesday. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Many streets in Ho Chi Minh City were submerged due to high tide late on Monday afternoon, posing immense challenges for commuters. The water level in many canals across the southern metropolis began rising at around 3:30 pm on Monday, with the highest level measured at 1.63 meters. Multiple streets including Huynh Tan Phat, Pham Huu Lau, and Nguyen Van Linh in District 7 and Le Van Luong in Nha Be District were underwater as a result. High tide sinks Tran Xuan Soan Street in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre The tidal water was as high as 0.5 meters along several sections, creating a lot of difficulties for commuters. The high tide also exacerbated traffic congestion during rush hours later in the afternoon, while many motorbikes broke down due to the inundation. People walk on flooded Tran Xuan Soan Street in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre This neighborhood is flooded whenever high tide hits the city, said Le Van Thuc, who works at a shop on Huynh Tan Phat Street. "The water rose so quickly that I did not have time to elevate all the items at the store. A market is inundated due to high tide in Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre On Pham Huu Lau Street in District 7, the water reached knee-high, while many parents struggled to carry their children home from school. The high tide is forecast to continue affecting Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday. A flooded alley on Huynh Tan Phat Street in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre A flooded alley on Huynh Tan Phat Street in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre People travel on a flooded street in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre Congestion occurs on Huynh Tan Phat Street in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, October 10, 2022. Photo: Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Many filling stations in Hanoi shut down after running out of stock while those that remained open were packed with people as of Tuesday morning. At major filling stations in the capital city, customers had to wait for 15-30 minutes for their turn to buy gasoline. As of 7:30 am, about 50 motorbikes were lining up to purchase fuel at Nam Trieu 03 filling station on Thuy Khe Street in Tay Ho District. A man buys gasoline at a filling station in Hanoi, October 11, 2022. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre There were only two attendants, while two out of four fuel dispensers at the facility were turned off. A similar situation was also recorded at Nghia Tan filling station in Cau Giay District. Nguyen Thi Bang Tuyet, who resides in Cau Giay District, said she was 20 minutes late for work as she was stuck in the long waiting line at the filling station. I went to three stations before this one but they were all closed, Tuyet stated. People wait for their turn to buy fuel at a filling station in Cau Giay District, Hanoi, October 11, 2022. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre Dang Dinh Long, a resident in Tay Ho District, said he had come to Lac Long Quan filling station in Cau Giay District on Monday night, but there were too many customers waiting at the time. When Long returned to the venue on Tuesday morning, the station was already closed. The facility was out of stock as of 9:00 pm on Monday, an employee explained, adding that it will reopen on Wednesday at the earliest. A filling station is closed after running out of stock in Cau Giay District, Hanoi, October 11, 2022. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre People line up in front of a filling station in Hanoi, October 11, 2022. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Heavy downpours and rising water levels in local rivers resulted in serious inundation across many neighborhoods and streets in Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam on Monday. In Duy Xuyen District, water from the Thu Bon River rose quickly and ran into nearby low-lying areas. The situation was further exacerbated by a heavy rain. A flooded neighborhood in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre Local authorities had to assist residents in traveling through several street sections due to severe flooding. In Tam Ky City, multiple streets such as Hung Vuong and Phan Chau Trinh were underwater, posing difficulties for commuters. Many sections of National Highway No. 14B and National Highway No. 14H were submerged by floodwaters as high as 1.2 meters. Flooding occurs on Hung Vuong Street in Tam Ky City, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre Heavy downpours also caused a landslide at a section of National Highway No. 14D in Nam Giang District. The flooding in Quang Nam Province continued to worsen on Tuesday morning following a torrential rain that occurred overnight. A flooded neighborhood in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre As of 10:00 am on Tuesday, the water level of Tam Ky River was measured at 2.32 meters high. Nearly 100 children and elderly people in An Son Ward, Tam Ky City were brought to a safer place. In Nong Son District, rising water levels of Thu Bon River submerged more than 260 houses, forcing authorities to evacuate over 420 residents. Authorities help people travel through a heavily flooded street in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: P.M. / Tuoi Tre Authorities help people travel through a heavily flooded street in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: P.M. / Tuoi Tre A house is inundated in Tam Ky City, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 11, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre A house is inundated in Tam Ky City, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 11, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre Residents are evacuated from a heavily flooded neighborhood in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre Residents are evacuated from a heavily flooded neighborhood in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 10, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre People travel by boat in flooded Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 11, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre A flooded neighborhood in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 11, 2022. Photo: Le Trung / Tuoi Tre A landslide occurs in Nong Son District, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, October 11, 2022. Photo: Minh Thong / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! 10 screens the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix Live as it returns to Phillip Island this weekend. Australians will be holding their breath as Aussies Remy Gardner and Jack Miller are revving to win on home soil, and after two consecutive MotoGP podium finishes for Miller, you cant miss what will no doubt be the ride of his life. Saturday, October 15 will see the riders and their teams take to the fast-flowing circuit for the all-important qualifying rounds, including MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3. Then on Sunday, October 16, the drama, action and emotion intensifies as the MotoGP riders take to the spectacular Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit for 27 laps of exhilarating racing. 10 Sports Tara Rushton and Scott Mackinnon and former 500cc motorcycle champion and expert commentator Daryl Beattie will lead the broadcast team, and motorsport expert, Sam Charlwood, will bring you all the news from the pit lane plus exclusive interviews. Saturday, 15 October: live from 12pm 4pm AEDT Sunday, 16 October: live from 10.30am 3.30pm AEDT on 10 Tonight on Dateline, Karla Grant meets an Australian mother hasnt spoken with her two teenage children since they were abducted by their father over three years ago; something thats legal under Japans custody system. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has provided consular assistance to 82 children involved in parental abduction and child custody cases in Japan since 2004. The Australian Embassy in Tokyos website warns: the abduction of a child by a parent may not be considered a criminal offence in Japan. The East Asian nation is one of the few countries in the world with a sole custody system. In Japan, married parents share the parental rights of a child. But after divorce, only one parent, either the father or mother, can have parental rights. When divorces in Japan are by mutual agreement, the separating couple agree on who takes the sole custody. 9:30pm tonight on SBS. The final season of Doc Martin has now been scheduled by ABC expect big ratings for this one. Everybodys favourite grumpy doctor is back 7:30pm November 5. These episodes screened in the UK in early September. Martin Clunes returns to Cornwall to play our favourite grumpy medic for the last time in the Australian Premiere of the final series of the hugely successful ITV drama Doc Martin. He stars as Dr. Martin Ellingham, the GP with a brusque bedside manner and a phobia of blood, in eight new episodes of the popular drama produced by Buffalo Pictures, and set in the idyllic hamlet of Portwenn in Cornwall. Picturesque Port Isaac provides the beautiful backdrop for this tenth series, with all the regular members of the cast reprising their roles. Caroline Catz plays Doc Martins wife, Louisa Ellingham, who resigned from her job as headmistress at the. local school to pursue a new career in child counselling. Also returning for the finale are Dame Eileen Atkins who plays Doc Martins formidable Aunt Ruth. Ian McNeice is back to play Bert Large, with Joe Absolom as his son Al. John Marquez is PC Joe Penhale, Jessica Ransom is the doctor!s receptionist Morwenna Newcross and Selina Cadell is pharmacist Mrs Tishell. The guest stars in the series include Fay Ripley, David Hayman, Ben Miller, Lesley Nicol, Hermione Norris, Kenneth Cranham and Rupert Graves. At the end of the last series the Doc decided, after having his medical career scrutinised by the General Medical Council because of his blood phobia, that he would resign from being Portwenn!s GP. This final series sees the Doc making efforts to overcome his phobia, and beginning to question whether he made the right decision about resigning. He and Louisa have also welcomed a baby daughter, Mary Elizabeth, a sister for four-year-old James Henry. With Louisa pursuing her new career as a child counsellorin his old surgery, the Doc is left literally holding the baby, and indulging his hobby of repairing clocks on the kitchen table. But does he really want his old job back? Colin Fassnidge joined My Kitchen Rules in 2013, where he would spend the next nine years, largely uninterrupted. But as he looks back on his time, he wasnt always happy with his portrayal on screen. No not at all, he tells TV Tonight. The first few eps of MKR the first year they were like, Just go hard. Give me some negatives. But I hadnt done TV before. But f***ing hell . everyone knows about editing and whatever. I went back and did 10 more years. So Im not crying about it. But I just changed the way I was portrayed over the years on MKR because thats not me. I came in as a Simon Cowell which I thought was quite funny for a while but after a few years it got a bit annoying. He would later go onto 10s Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here as a way of showing another side a dad, a little humour, not afraid of having a go and being befriended by other celebrity camp mates. For his efforts, he finished 5th out of 15 contestants. Now he fronts Kitchen Nightmares Australia, based on the famed (or is that infamous?) Gordon Ramsay series. Is he going back to being a TV villain? I grew up watching the English version, which I absolutely loved, because it was quite funny, and heartwarming. The American version, I have no time for, because its a lot more screaming and just playing to annoying Americans, he explains. I dont really need to be a Gordon I spent 50 years trying to work out who Colin is. I dont really need to be a Gordon. I said I would do it if it was a show with a lot more heart, and a lot less screaming, because I dont really want to do that anymore. So that was a stipulation I set. I think this is a very Australians story. Weve had fires, drought, floods, pandemic, America didnt have all that. Weve got restaurants who are on their knees. They dont really need me going in to demean them just for TV. But Im quite straight talking, apparently, thats why I got offered the job. In the series Fassnidge has 5 days to help turnaround ailing restaurants -all of whom have put themselves forward to be in the series. They include east coast venues of varying sizes from small cafes to pub restaurants and even one resort. He concedes the first two days at each venue can be pretty rough as he gets to know the venue, staff and its problems. Within about two hours their eyes are spinning in the back of their heads I dont think theyve got any idea what theyre up against. Because when I walk in, they think Great. Thats Colin from MKR we love him. Within about two hours their eyes are spinning in the back of their heads thinking, How do I how do I get out of this? This guy is not holding back! Some of them thought theyd get a good bit of PR for their restaurant. But thats not really how it works. In one episode the guy kept going, Yeah, yeah, youre right, youre great. But behind his back he forgot he was miked upand he was bagging us out. Welcome to TV. We just called him out. If youre just going to bullshit us, were going home on day two. They get a proper makeover and guidance. But I dont really want to waste my time on idiots. People thought I used a few F words, but she just goes non-stop In episode one he visits Mumma Jos Diner at Wallerawang, north west of Lithgow, NSW. Proprietor Mumma Jo didnt take kindly to Fassnidges tough love advice. TV relies on conflict after all. She just goes for it! he laughs. People thought I used a few F words, but she just goes non-stop. And the one in Victoria was pretty hardcore. A lot of swear words. But if youre given an oyster from a freezer, washed in dirty water in sink with cloths and put on a plate and told that theyre fresh, out of just anger and disgust youd swear. Anyone would! Im me in a kitchen, because Ive worked in kitchens and they are tough places. If youre just being an idiot, I will tell you. But by the end, you want the best outcome for people. So I think Im quite nice in real life. In the jungle that was me. I like to laugh more than shout, if you put it that way. Fassnidge insists most of the swearing is spoken by restauranteurs, not by him. At 7:30 the show must bleep languge but 7plus will screen the show uncensored. Passion is understandable when some small business owners can be wedded to bad habits and have their lives tied up in ailing businesses. One of the restaurants the guy sold his car, to pay the wages. I know a lot of people in this industry who who are no longer with us. There is suicide, drink, drugs, divorce he reveals. It was pretty dire, the position they were in. But for all his unfiltered advice to delusional proprietors, Fassnidge insists the results speak for themselves. Every job we went to, the people and the outcomes are different. Most of them. One of thems not around anymore. It was pretty dire, the position they were in. Theres only so long you can go if youre remortgaging your house, and youve put in 300 grand in the hole. We come in and do a refurb but we cant pay a 300 grand bill. Were not Jesus. Theres only so much we can do. Kitchen Nightmares Australia screens 7:30pm Wednesdays on Seven. Andy Grant, Chloe Liddle and Making Space's Rachel Peacock. Picture: TONY LONGMORE A TEEN charity volunteer from Darlington has received an award for her voluntary work in a supported housing scheme for older people. Chloe Liddle, 15, from Cockerton, was named Volunteer of the Year by Making Space, a national adult health and social care charity which employs over 1,200 people across the UK. She was recognised for her voluntary work at Rosemary Court, which offers supported accommodation for people who need help with personal care, meal preparation, medication and social support. Read next: Play area for autistic children named after much-loved teaching assistant Chloe's volunteering streak began in summer 2021. As soon as Covid restrictions were lifted, Chloe started to help out at the Lascelles Park extra care housing scheme, which provides 24-hour support for people aged over 50 in their own apartments. Chloe was presented with her award by Andy Grant motivational speaker, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and the worlds fastest single leg amputee in the world over 10km at an award ceremony in Manchester. Chloe, who is studying Health and Social Care at Longfield Comprehensive, spends her spare time organising activities for residents at Rosemary Court, under the supervision of qualified support workers. She also helps out with group outings and walking the dogs of the residents. Over 250 people were nominated for the Making Space awards, with three individuals or teams shortlisted for each award. The judges Making Space trustee Ted McGuinness and chief people officer Phil Orton - praised Chloe for providing valuable help to both residents and support workers. Phil said: Chloe has lots of enthusiasm, a natural talent for motivation, and shows a lot of initiative in the activities she organises. She uses a wide range of activities to make sure theres something to appeal to all of our tenants, helps support workers during outdoor activities, and makes sure no-one is left out. The fact that Chloe does all this voluntarily in her spare time and fits it in around her school work is admirable. Story continues Chloe, who plans to start an apprenticeship with Making Space when she leaves school in 2023, said: I still cant believe I was put forward for an award and then won. It really means the world to me. "Caring for people is in my blood. I have watched my mum do it all of my life and seen the satisfaction she gets from her work. I can't think of anything else I would rather do when I leave school." The inaugural Making Space Colleague Awards have been established to recognise and pay tribute to individuals and teams who inspire others, go above and beyond expectations and make a real difference to the lives of the people supported by Making Space. Read next: If you want to read more great stories, why not subscribe to your Northern Echo for as little as 1.25 a week. Click here One-China principle anchor of stability across Taiwan Strait: spokesperson Xinhua) 09:30, October 11, 2022 BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The one-China principle is what underpins peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday. "We are willing to create broad space for peaceful reunification, but we will never leave any room for 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities," Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a regular news briefing. The current tension across the Taiwan Strait is rooted in the fact that Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party authorities have been stubbornly adhering to the separatist position of "Taiwan independence," and colluding with external forces to constantly make provocations, which seriously undermines the important foundation of peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, Mao said. Mao said the Taiwan question concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. When the one-China principle is followed, cross-Strait relations would improve and develop. However, deviation from the one-China principle will lead to tension and turbulence in cross-Straits relations, Mao said. (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Hongyu) Since the start of the war in Ukraine, independent Russian news outlets have struggled to provide information to millions of viewers who want to get information from non-state media. Facing fines or prison sentences for reporting information on the war that is not sanctioned by authorities, many Russian journalists have had to leave the country, with several hundred of them arriving in exile in Latvia. Their goal now is to find ways of getting news back to audiences in Russia, despite Moscow restricting access to top social media sites and its attempts to block what it calls dissident news websites. "You can't be a journalist if the government says don't look there, just pretend that there is no war," said Kirill Martynov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe which has set up operations in Riga. For Martynov, the only way for journalism to exist now in Russia is for independent outlets like his to leave the country and work from abroad and to use shadow reporters, people who work in a very risky situation." The stakes are high for independent journalists in Russia. They can face up to 15 years in prison for even calling Russia's activities in Ukraine a war. Many journalists who had to leave hold Russian state media responsible for the country's current situation. Tikhon Dzyadko, the editor-in-chief of the independent Russian television station, Dozhd, is also in Riga. He considers Russian TV stations as war criminals because they were waging this war and encouraging people to take part in it. "They were encouraging people to hate. They were encouraging people to kill, encouraging people to be killed because they were encouraging them to go as volunteers into Ukraine and be killed there by Ukrainian soldiers, he adds. Dzyadko is advocating prosecutions for state media outlets who mislead their audiences. Latvia, whose Russian minority constitutes 30 per cent of the population, has banned all Russia-based TV channels and describes these as propaganda, warmongering and a threat to national security. Beneath the waters off Egypt's Red Sea coast a kaleidoscopic ecosystem teems with life that could become the world's "last coral refuge" as global heating eradicates reefs elsewhere, researchers say. Most shallow water corals, battered and bleached white by repeated marine heatwaves, are "unlikely to last the century," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said this year. That threatens a devastating loss for the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who depend on the fish stocks that live and breed in these fragile ecosystems. Even if global warming is capped within Paris climate goals of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, 99 percent of the world's corals would be unable to recover, experts say. But Red Sea coral reefs, unlike those elsewhere, have proven "highly tolerant to rising sea temperatures," said Mahmoud Hanafy, professor of marine biology at Egypt's Suez Canal University. Scientists hope that at least some of the Red Sea corals -- five percent of the total corals left worldwide -- could cling on amid what is otherwise a looming global collapse. "There's very strong evidence to suggest that this reef is humanity's hope for having a coral reef ecosystem in the future," Hanafy said. Eslam Osman from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia said: "It is crucial that we preserve the northern Red Sea as one of the last standing coral refuges, because it could be a seed bank for any future restoration effort." - Livelihoods for millions - The impacts of coral loss are dire: they cover only 0.2 percent of the ocean floor, but are home to at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants, helping sustain livelihoods for half a billion people worldwide. Global warming, as well as dynamite fishing and pollution, wiped out a startling 14 percent of the world's coral reefs between 2009 and 2018, according to the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. Graveyards of bleached coral skeletons are now left where once vibrant and species-rich ecosystems thrived. Story continues Recent studies have shown the northern Red Sea corals are better able to resist the dire impact of heating waters. "We have a buffer temperature before the coral sees bleaching," Osman said. "One, two, even three degrees (Celsius) of warming, we're still on the safe side." Osman said one theory explaining the corals' apparent resilience to heat is due to "evolutionary memory" developed many thousands of years ago, when coral larvae migrated north from the Indian Ocean. "In the southern Red Sea, coral larvae had to pass through very warm waters, which acted as a filter, only letting through species that could survive up to 32 degrees Celsius (89 degrees Fahrenheit)," Osman said. However, scientists warn that even if Red Sea corals survive surging water temperatures, they risk being damaged from non-climate threats -- pollution, overfishing and habitat destruction including from costal development and mass tourism. "When non-climate threats increase, the vulnerability to climate change increases as well," Osman said. - 'Global responsibility' - Reefs off Egypt are hugely popular among divers, and some Red Sea dive sites are operating at up to 40 times their recommended capacity, Hanafy said. Fishing, another huge pressure, must drop to a sixth of current rates to become sustainable, he said. For Hanafy, protecting the reef is a "global responsibility" and one which Red Sea tourism businesses -- which account for 65 percent of Egypt's vital tourism industry -- must share. Local professionals say they have already witnessed damage to parts of the delicate ecosystem. One solution, Hanafy said, is for the environment ministry to boost protection over a 400-square-kilometre (154-square-mile) area of corals known as Egypt's Great Fringing Reef. More than half already lies within nature reserves or environmentally-administered areas, but creating one continuous protected area would support the coral by "regulating activities and fishing, implementing carrying capacity plans and banning pollution", Hanafy said. Further south, off Sudan, a near absence of tourism has shielded pristine corals from polluting boats and the wandering fins of divers. But, despite their greater resilience, the corals are far from immune to climate change, and the reefs there have experienced several bleaching events over the past three decades. For Sudan, a country mired in a dire economic and political crisis including a military coup last year, monitoring the coral is "difficult" without funding, Sudan's Higher Council for the Environment and Natural Resources said. Off both the Egyptian and Saudi coasts, corals face the threats of coastal development, including sewage and sedimentation from construction runoff, Osman warned. The great irony, he said, is that, while the natural wonders of the Red Sea corals that have drawn tourists and developers, the increased man-made pressures are in turn accelerating their destruction. bha-mz/sbh/pjm/fz/hc FILE PHOTO: People take part in a protest following the death of Mahsa Amini, in Istanbul DUBAI (Reuters) -Clashes between protesters and security forces persisted across Iran on Tuesday, with social media videos showing tanks being transported to Kurdish areas, which have been a focal point of the crackdown on protests over Mahsa Amini's death in custody. Protests calling for the fall of the clerical establishment have swept Iran since Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died on Sept. 16 while being detained by the morality police in Tehran for "inappropriate attire". While observers do not believe the unrest, now in its fourth week, is close to toppling the government, the protests mark one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution, with reports of strikes spreading to the vital energy sector. The authorities are waging a deadly crackdown. Videos on social media showed trucks moving dark green tanks to Kurdish areas, raising the stakes in the revolt. Reuters could not verify the video footage. Tensions have been especially high in Kurdish regions, given Amini's ethnic background. Human rights groups say Iran's Kurdish minority of more than 10 million has long been oppressed - a charge the Islamic Republic denies. The Hengaw human rights group reported "intense conflict" on Tuesday between protesters and security forces in three cities in Kurdistan province: Sanandaj, Baneh and Saqez, where Amini was buried last month. Protesters in Saqez set fire to a statue of local members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, Hengaw said. In video footage shared on the widely followed Twitter account group Tavsir1500 from Sanandaj, shooting could be heard and women screaming. Reuters could not independently verify the footage from Hengaw or Tasvir1500. At least 185 people, including 19 minors, have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands have been arrested by the security forces, according to rights groups. The government says more than 20 members of the security forces have been killed. Story continues Iranian authorities have said they will investigate civilian deaths. They have blamed the violence on an array of enemies, including armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents, with the Revolutionary Guards attacking their bases in neighbouring Iraq a number of times during the latest unrest. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi reiterated accusations that Iranian Kurdish dissident groups were supporting the protests and said security forces would "neutralize the desperate anti-revolutionary effort". ENERGY SECTOR Energy installations in southwest Iran were hit by strikes for a second day on Tuesday, with workers protesting at the Abadan oil refinery, Kangan, and the Bushehr petrochemical plant, according to the Tavsir1500 Twitter account. Videos posted on the account showed a few dozen workers chanting "Death to the dictator," referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A regional official said the workers at the Assaluye plant were angered by a dispute over wages and were not protesting over Amini's death. Governor Ali Hashemi said some Iranians had tried to hijack the workers' protests by chanting anti-government slogans, according to Irans Young Journalists Club News Telegram account. It was a combination of mass protests and strikes by oil workers and bazaar merchants that helped to propel the Shi'ite clergy to power in the Iranian revolution four decades ago. Dozens of universities are also currently on strike, with students playing a pivotal role in the protests. In several neighbourhoods of Tehran, such as Shahrak'e Gharb and Narmak, witnesses said people chanted "Death to Khamenei" from rooftops after nightfall. Videos on social media showed demonstrations in the cities of Isfahan and Qom with protesters cursing and throwing stones at security forces. The authorities' crackdown on protesters has prompted some Western states to draw up more sanctions on Iran, stoking diplomatic tensions at a time when talks to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers are at a standstill. France's foreign minister said on Tuesday five of its nationals were being held in Iran and the European Union had agreed the technical aspects to impose sanctions on Tehran, which would come into force next week. France lashed out at Iran on Oct. 6, accusing it of "dictatorial practices" and taking its citizens hostage after a video was aired in which a French couple appeared to confess to spying. (Reporting by John Irish in Paris and Dubai newsroom: Writing by Michael Georgy/Tom Perry/Dominic Evans; Editing by Gareth Jones, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis) Jyske Realkredit A/S To Nasdaq Copenhagen A/S 11 October 2022 Corporate Announcement No. 115/2022 Correction: English version is now available Jyske Realkredit to acquire Danish mortgage and property loans from Svenska Handelsbanken after green light from the regulators Further to the Corporate Announcement of 20 June 2022 (Announcement No. 72), the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority has approved Jyske Bank A/S acquisition of Svenska Handelsbanken ABs and Stadshypotek ABs business activities in Denmark. In connection with the closing of the transaction Jyske Realkredit is expected as previously announced to acquire the mortgage and property loans of Handelsbanken and Stadshypotek AB, that fulfil the Danish rules applicable to mortgage financing. Yours sincerely, Jyske Realkredit Contact person: Carsten Tirsbk Madsen, Chief Executive Officer, tel. +45 40 25 88 74 11 October 2022 Moloco Retail Media Platform enables e-commerce marketplaces to host their own native performance ad business SINGAPORE, October 11, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Moloco, a leader in machine learning and growth solutions for performance marketers, has today announced the launch of Moloco Retail Media Platform (RMP) for Singapore and Southeast Asia. Molocos RMP is a turnkey ad serving platform that enables e-commerce marketplaces to set up their own in-house advertising business. Powered by machine learning, RMP is able to drive higher return on ad spend (ROAS) for merchants with relevant and personalized sponsored product recommendations based on real-time shopper behavior. With a self-serve advertiser UI, both marketplace and merchant are able to generate immediate value without the need to build additional infrastructure. Singapore has been selected as RMPs next market for expansion as a strategic hub for the e-commerce industry in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia Pacific region. Retail media has been touted as digital advertisings new third pillar, following search and social, with the market valued at USD$100 billion over the next 5 years. "Molocos ultimate vision is of a digital economy, powered by machine learning, that is both equitable and profitable for companies of all sizes, not just the elite few. With Moloco Retail Media Platform, we enable ecommerce platforms of all sizes to level the playing field against larger competitors and build new revenue streams, all while improving experiences for all. Were excited to launch this solution in Southeast Asia, and take another step closer to making our vision a reality," said Junho Lee, Head of the RMP Business Unit, South East Asia at Moloco. Molocos tried and tested RMP solution has previously supported the likes of Korean lifestyle technology platform Bucketplace to drive the evolution of its e-commerce marketplace oHouse, and better enable its merchants to make their products more discoverable. Leveraging Molocos years of machine learning expertise, Bucketplace was able to launch its own native performance ad business within three months, and onboard 15% of oHouses total merchants within the first quarter of deployment. Merchants were able to set up their campaigns within the space of 5 minutes - and subsequent A/B test results showed 2.2% increase in purchases among shoppers exposed to product ads on oHouse compared to those who werent. Story continues "E-commerce companies in Singapore and Southeast Asia have scaled rapidly in recent years, and are now looking for solutions to propel their next stage of growth. With RMP, Moloco is able to equip these marketplaces and their merchants with better performance and control over their advertising campaigns, by enabling them to unlock the power of their own first-party data, quickly optimize their strategies and offer highly personalized buyer journeys," Junho added. RMP is one of two flagship offerings in Southeast Asia. The second - Moloco Cloud DSP - is targeted at app marketers to enable app businesses to scale performance quickly and efficiently by leveraging Molocos battle-tested prediction models. Moloco Cloud DSP is able to reach 190+ countries, 2.6 million apps, 10 billion devices and 35 billion impressions per month. The solution is also able to process 5.5 million bid requests and make 4 million deep learning predictions per second. For further information, please visit: www.moloco.com About Moloco Molocos goal is to make the digital economy more equitable and profitable by delivering advanced machine learning to companies of all sizes. With Molocos machine learning platform for growth and performance, every app publisher and online retailer can now unlock the value of their unique, first-party data. Moloco Cloud DSP enables performance marketers to scale user acquisition quickly and achieve greater lifetime value through battle-tested prediction models. Moloco Retail Media Platform enables online retailers and marketplaces to establish their own performance ad business. Moloco was founded in 2013 by a team of former Google machine learning engineers. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., Moloco has nine offices across the US, UK, Korea, China, Japan, and Singapore. For more information, visit www.moloco.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221010005426/en/ Contacts The Hoffman Agency MolocoHUB@hoffman.com As if fighting in what for now, at least appears to be a losing battle in Ukraine werent enough, the Wagner Group, a private army of Russian mercenaries commanded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Vladimir Putin, is heavily committed in a range of conflicts and security crises in west Africa. Already involved in Libya, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Mali, Sudan and Madagascar, the Wagner Group is engaged in training, fighting anti-government forces and brutally quashing protests, all supporting Russias fight to supplant the influence of French and the UKs former colonial powers in Africa. Mali, a country at the core of violent extremism spreading throughout west African Sahel, has pledged allegiance to Russia at the expense of France, which wound up its operations there in August, despite nine years and a total cost of billions of euros for supporting its military. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore took power in a coup d'etat on September 30, citing the deteriorating security situation in Burkina Faso as his reason for seizing power. His coup came just nine months after Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba toppled the previous regime in a similar fashion. September 30 was the tenth coup since the west African country gained its independence in 1960. The Burkina Faso government reportedly only controls 60% of the country. Terrorist attacks, mainly from armed Islamist groups, have been responsible for an almost complete breakdown in security in many regions. During Damibas first 100 days as president, there were 610 terrorist attacks resulting in 567 fatalities. Prigozhin congratulated Traore afteeer the coup as a truly worthy and courageous son of his motherland. The people of Burkina Faso were under the yoke of the colonialists, who robbed the people as well as played their vile games, trained, supported gangs of bandits and caused much grief to the local population, he said. Story continues Prigozhins statement reflects both anti-French and pro-Russian sentiment in Burkina Faso and across West Africa, which has played into the hands of the Wagner Group, despite its links to massive civilian casualties and allegations of grift surrounding the groups acquisition of major long-term mining concessions. Fake news The Russian aggression on Ukraine is barely making the news in West Africa so Moscow can still shine as the contemporary defender of the USSRs self-awarded identity as a champion against imperialism. There is little critical analysis of the situation in mainstream media. Instead, information is taken from Russian social media sites, filling the void with misinformation and fake news, aggravating the already tense situation. Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform in Burkina Faso, used by an estimated 94% of the 2.2 million social media users in the country. They are exposed to comments accusing France, among other things, of arming terrorists. Facebook , Author provided This mistrust is expressed on Facebook and WhatsApp. Meanwhile, in the mainstream media, including TV and radio, critical analysis is largely absent, since experts, analysts and academics are taking a step back, according to Mahamadou Savadogo, an academic and security analyst in Burkina Faso, who spoke with us for this article. This is partly out of a lack of credible information but also because of the risk of speaking out in a particularly volatile situation. These fake messages have real effects. According to Savadogo, the media have been instrumental in swaying public opinion and are being manipulated by those in power, or trying to gain power. On October 1, Traore declared on state television that the French had provided refuge to Damiba, saying Damiba was believed to have taken refuge in the French base at Kamboinsin in order to plan a counter-offensive to stir up trouble in our defence and security forces. The French government issued a categorical denial, but Traores allegation went viral and led to increased social unrest culminating in the French embassy being set alight the same day. There were also anti-French demonstrations in Bobo-Dioulasso, the countrys second city, where the gate of the French Institute was also reportedly set ablaze by protesters. Questions abound both about who is behind much of the misinformation on social media and who is funding the demonstrations and this coup. Savadogo commented on the large numbers of Russian flags that appeared on the streets of the capital. He asked about where they could have come from so quickly. But such images, combined with anti-France posts on social media, are indicative of a turn away from France in favour of Russia. While there is no direct evidence connecting the Wagner Group to this latest coup, the mercenary group appears poised to take advantage of the turmoil to establish another power base in Africa, and arguably a beachhead for Russia itself. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The Conversation Emmanuel Klimis received funding from the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affaires and Development cooperation, allowing several missions on the field in Burkina Faso. He is affiliated as a member of the board with Association pour les Nations Unies (APNU), a not-for-profit organisation based in Belgium. Emma Heywood, Lassane Yameogo, and Marie Fierens do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Hong Kong leader says "no legal basis" to act on Russian superyacht The 465-foot superyacht "Nord", owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov is seen docked, in Hong Kong By James Pomfret and Clare Jim HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong leader John Lee said on Tuesday there was "no legal basis" for the city to act on Western sanctions, when asked about a Russian yacht berthed in the financial centre that belongs to a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Hong Kong authorities were criticised by the U.S. State Department for allowing a luxury yacht belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov to dock in Hong Kong waters last week. The U.S. State Department said the use of Hong Kong by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions could carry reputational risks and call into question the "transparency" of the financial hub's business environment. Hong Kong's leader John Lee, however, who himself has been sanctioned by the United States for his role in clamping down on local freedoms, said Hong Kong wouldn't act on unilateral sanctions imposed on Mordashov by individual jurisdictions. "We cannot do anything that has no legal basis," Lee told reporters. Instead, Lee said Hong Kong would only abide by United Nations sanctions. "We will comply with United Nations sanctions, that is our system, that is our rule of law. Mordashov, a billionaire close to President Vladimir Putin, was among a number of Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the European Union and the United States - but not the United Nations - after Russia's invasion of Ukraine for their links to Putin. While a number of Russian superyachts have been seized or denied entry in Europe and other jurisdictions, the 465 foot (141-meter) Nord could be seen docked prominently in waters west of Hong Kong's iconic Victoria Harbour. It is valued at over $500 million. Lee, who is due to host an international investment summit in November with top global business leaders, also criticised sanctions imposed by the United States on Hong Kong officials for their role in curbing Hong Kong's freedoms under a China-imposed security law. Story continues "It is a very barbaric act and I'm not going to comment. Officials in Hong Kong do what is right to protect the interests of the country and the interests of Hong Kong. "We'll just laugh off the so-called sanctions." (Reporting By James Pomfret and Clare Jim; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Kim Coghill and Raju Gopalakrishnan) Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., drew comparisons between women risking their lives to protest Islamic law in Iran to women fighting for abortion rights in the United States. During a campaign rally to re-elect Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Friday, Omar said pro-life Republicans are challenging womens bodily autonomy, much like Irans oppressive clerical regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Dozens of people throughout Iran have been killed by police and thousands arrested in protests ignited by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. "As we watch the brave, incredible young girls in schools in Iran who are standing up to teachers, young women in buses and in public streets who are saying no to the morality police because there is no morality in trying to oppress women," Omar said. "There is no morality in forcing people to participate in a religion they dont want to. And there is no morality in believing governments our God. "So we know the women in Iran are bravely chanting, Women, Life, Freedom for their rights, for their right to bodily autonomy," she continued. "So, here in the United States, when the right extremists are challenging our bodily autonomy, we have to stand up and say, Women, Life, Freedom." Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. 29, 2022. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for We, The 45 Million IRANS SUPREME LEADERBREAKS SILENCE ON AMINI PROTESTS, BLAMES US FOLLOWING SUNDAY CRASH Omar made the comments in front of a raucous crowd of students at the University of Minnesota, where Ellison, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., were also in attendance. "We are here to do one single thing, and that is to protect and preserve our democracy," Ellison said, Minnesota Public Radio reported. "What is on the line is whether or not the United States, starting in Minnesota, will remain a democratic, multiracial society that respects everyone's rights." Omar made headlines in July after she was one of more than a dozen members of Congress arrested by Capitol Police during a abortion rights protest outside the Supreme Court after it overturned Roe v. Wade. Story continues Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. Olivier Douliery/Abacapress.com "Today I was arrested while participating in a civil disobedience action with my fellow Members of Congress outside the Supreme Court. I will continue to do everything in my power to raise the alarm about the assault on our reproductive rights!" Omar tweeted on July 19. Omars office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digitals request for comment Monday. If Kid Cudi is indeed retiring his rapper persona, as strongly indicated in recent interviews, Monday night might have served as an early farewell party of sorts. At a special screening at the Netflix Tudum Theater in Hollywood, the star was all smiles as he answered questions and celebrated the release of Entergalactic, the new animated Netflix special that serves as a kind of filmic companion piece to Cudis new album of the same name. More from Variety Im just overwhelmed, you know? Cudi, who created, starred in, and executive-produced the project, said immediately after the screening, sitting next to the films director, Fletcher Moules. The past week has been really exciting to see the reviews, see the response. Weve been working on this thing for three years, man. The film, which boasts an all-star cast including Jessica Williams, Timothee Chalamet, Laura Harrier, Ty Dolla $ign, Vanessa Hudgens, Jaden Smith and Macauley Caulkin, was released on Netflix on September 30 and met with a widely positive critical reception. We were texting this week, and I was like, I never knew that Twitter could be a platform of love, Moules joked. Undergirded by a number of tracks of Cudis trademark spacy melodic rap from the accompanying album, Netflixs Entergalactic follows a character voiced by Cudi, Jabari, an artist struggling to navigate the chaos of his love life in New York City. The film, Cudi explained, sprouted out of what was initially an anthology series that would, in its debut season, center around the theme of love and include a standalone animated episode. Cudi began developing the idea with Kenya Barris, who encouraged him instead to change course, eventually leading to Entergalactic, which Netflix has billed as a television special. Story continues Barris told me this would be ill if we ran it all-animated, because thats something that Netflix was looking for, Cudi said. So I decided to take the one animated episode that I was gonna have in my anthology and kinda just extend the story. Entergalactic began first with the music (Angel, Do What I Want and Willing to Trust were the first three tracks that inspired early ideas of the project), but as the project took shape, the writing of both the film and the record informed one another. The album itself came together rather quickly, Cudi said, just because in my mind I already knew the beats of what I wanted to cover, just kind of piecing the story in my mind early on. Scott Kid Cudi Mescudi attends the Los Angeles screening & reception for Netflixs Entergalactic at Netflix Tudum Theater on October 10, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix) The unique album and film concept, masterminded and headlined by Cudi, was also what helped lure its star-studded cast, from friends like Chalamet and Ty Dolla $ign to fans from afar like Williams and Harrier. I felt like Tony Stark, kinda like assembling the Avengers, Cudi said, laughing. The project might signal a bookend of sorts to the career of Kid Cudi as weve known it. While promoting the film and album, Cudi indicated both in a recent interview with Zane Lowe and on his appearance on Hot Ones that he was leaning towards retiring the persona and less interested in making music. The Kid Cudi stuff, I think I want to put it on the back burner and chill out with that, Cudi told Lowe. I think I want to be done with it. I think (Im) closing the chapter on Kid Cudi. The goal for Entergalactic I was bored of making albums I went into this wanting to do something epic and different. While Cudi established his stardom on his influential output as a musician, most notably with his multi-platinum 2009 debut record, Man on the Moon: The End of the Day, the 38-year old has worked as a relatively prolific actor for years. He has appeared in blockbusters (Need for Speed) and indies (James White, X) and served a stint as bandleader on the alt-comedy show Comedy Bang Bang. Entergalactic is one of several projects coming out of Mad Solar, the production company that Cudi founded in 2020, pointing perhaps toward a more concerted focus on film and television, both behind and in front of the camera. Not everyone in Cudis camp is expecting a wholesale turnabout in his career. Nothing to me has changed in Scott, said Karina Manashil his former agent and a close confidant who is now the president of Mad Solar backstage when asked about Cudis recent comments. Now everything that were seeing, its not so much a shift. Its more he now has everything around him that allows him to do all of the things he was always capable of, and hes in the headspace to experience all of those things. On Monday, Cudi himself refrained from providing any more details on his potential retirement from music or a change in direction. He instead offered a signature moment of personal vulnerability in relating what he hoped fans would take away from the film. I want people to feel hopeful that their person is out there in the world, Cudi said. I havent been lucky enough to find that person, but I made this to remind myself that Scott, your person could be out there. You could have a magical moment like this with someone. So I know theres a lot of people out there that feel like maybe their person isnt out there or its hard to find a person, but this is supposed to be a reminder that true love does happen. 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. Soldiers of a Russian military convoy and their US counterparts exchange greetings as their patrol routes intersect in an oil field near Syria's al-Qahtaniyah town in the northeastern Hasakah province, close to the border with Turkey, on October 8, 2022. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images Photos show US and Russian troops shaking hands and taking pictures together in Syria. The photos, published by AFP, were taken as both forces patrolled territory near the Turkish border. In 2020, a similar run-in saw Russian soldiers forcing their US counterparts off the road. Two years ago, when US and Russian patrols came across each other in northeastern Syria, the encounter resulted in an armored vehicle crash that left four American service members injured and led the Trump administration to denounce the Russians as "unprofessional." Last week, the two militaries met again about an hour's drive from the 2020 episode. But instead of a hostile interaction between two nuclear powers, the result this time was smiles, handshakes, and group photos. Some of the photos, taken by a correspondent for the AFP news service, captured Russian vehicles with the same "Z" marking seen on the ones that invaded Ukraine. The US and Russia have backed different sides in Syria, with the Kremlin supporting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad while Washington has provided support to a Kurdish-led militia that has fought fiercely against the Islamic State and carved out a de facto autonomous region near the border with Turkey. The US and Russia have previously relied on deconfliction lines to prevent tensions from escalating. Soldiers of a Russian military convoy and their US counterparts pose for pictures as their patrol routes intersect in an oil field near Syria's al-Qahtaniyah town in the northeastern Hasakah province, close to the border with Turkey, on October 8, 2022. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images Russian soldiers, who have supported Assad's aims since 2015, deployed to northeastern Syria in 2019 at the request of both the Syrian government and America's Kurdish allies after former President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw some US troops from an area they had been operating in since 2014 led to an invasion by Ankara. Turkey regards Syria's Kurdish forces as a security threat, citing their links to separatists. Today, several hundred US troops remain in northeastern Syria, with both Washington and Moscow conducting patrols to discourage any further encroachment by Turkey, a member of NATO as well as a Russian partner. Story continues That unique arrangement appears friendly, despite the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, rising tensions between Washington and Moscow, and increasingly threatening talk of nuclear warfare. Soldiers of a Russian military convoy and their US counterparts pose for pictures as their patrol routes intersect in an oil field near Syria's al-Qahtaniyah town in the northeastern Hasakah province, close to the border with Turkey, on October 8, 2022. DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images According to AFP, the most recent encounter took place on October 8 near the town of al-Qahtaniyah. In addition to taking photos together, the news service reported that some soldiers "even exchanged small patches worn on their uniforms as mementos of the interaction." In a statement, US Central Command told Insider that the episode reflects a desire to avoid conflict. "As you know, Syria is a complex environment for us, for the Syrian Democratic Forces, and for Russian forces," a spokesperson said. "Our sole focus in that environment is the enduring defeat of ISIS. Toward that end, we often share the battlespace with Russian forces and deconfliction and professional courtesy is necessary to drive down the risk of miscalculation." Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com Read the original article on Business Insider Mikel Arteta, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Arsenal Credit: Alamy Chelsea striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has aimed to smooth his relationship with his former Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta following a leaked video on social media. Aubameyang and Arteta had a major falling out at The Emirates when the Gabon international returned to the club late after a mid-season trip to France to see his family. That led to Arteta banishing Aubameyang from the first team. Indeed, he even made the forward train alone, before he left to join Barcelona at the end of January. Aubameyang has since moved on again to join London rivals Chelsea. However, a video of him criticising Arteta recently emerged on social media. In the video, Aubameyang is heard discussing his old boss and saying: Big characters and big playershe cant deal with it. He needs some young players who dont say anything. However, with Arsenal now sat firmly at the top of the table after another impressive victory over Liverpool on Sunday, Aubameyang has made an attempt to try and play down what was said after addressing the content in the video. Aware there is a video out that was recorded just after I arrived at Barca, Aubameyang wrote on Twitter. At the time I still had a lot of bad feelings in me. Arsenal are doing great things this season and I wish all my old guys well, just not on November 6 [when they play Chelsea]. After his short spell in Catalonia, Aubameyang is now back in England with London rivals Chelsea. The 33-year-old has scored twice in four appearances for the Blues so far. He is set to face his old club in early November, when the Gunners visit Stamford Bridge. Aubameyang talks up incredible Milan attacker Aubameyang, meanwhile, has seemingly given Chelsea the nod to try and make a move for an AC Milan star. The Blues striker heaped praise on AC Milan forward Rafael Leao after Graham Potters men cruised to a 3-0 win over the Serie A side in the Champions League last week. Aubameyang was on target in the victory but one Milan star seemingly left an impression on the striker. Story continues Leao has enjoyed a string of impressive outings for Milan this season and certainly gave Chelsea problems in London. That led to Aubameyang telling TuttoMercatoWeb (as quoted by Milan News): He is an incredible player, truly impressive. He is very fast, powerful, he can make the difference at any time. Nothing else to say except that he is unbelievable. Chelsea will get another first-hand look at Leao when the Blues head to Milan on Tuesday night for the reverse fixture. READ MORE: Senior Chelsea stars agent is spotted in Barcelona, setting up new transfer raid on Blues The article Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang looks to smooth over Arteta relationship after scathing video chat emerges appeared first on Teamtalk.com. British intelligence believed the Soviet Union tried to use a London osteopath embroiled in a Cold War sex and spy scandal as an intermediary during the Cuban missile crisis, previously secret papers revealed on Tuesday. The newly released MI5 files include a 1965 report on whether Soviet spies "had a hand" in the controversy known as the Profumo affair. The scandal rocked the British government when war minister John Profumo quit in disgrace after lying to parliament over an affair with society girl Christine Keeler. She had also had sex with Eugene Ivanov, a Soviet intelligence officer and assistant naval attache in London. Both men were introduced to her by Stephen Ward, a high-society osteopath with Conservative MPs among his patients whom MI5 concluded was a Soviet "collaborator". In its 15-page interim report filed two years after the scandal first erupted, MI5 found there was "no direct or circumstantial evidence" that it was "a Soviet-inspired disruption game". But it and other files reveal a raft of details about the Profumo affair and its central players, including confirmation that Moscow tried to use Ward as a backchannel during the Cuban missile crisis which brought the US and Soviets to the brink of nuclear war. "During the Cuba crisis in October 1962 the Russians used the Ivanov/Ward channel not only in attempts to obtain unofficial reactions from Her Majesty's Government," the report stated. It added Moscow used the pair -- who first met a lunch hosted by the Daily Telegraph's editor -- to persuade Britain "to bring pressure on the United States government and if possible weaken the resolution of the West". - 'Get information' - Ward died in 1963 aged 50 after overdosing on sleeping tablets as he was being prosecuted for prostitution-related crimes, in what critics claim were trumped-up charges following the Profumo revelations. Historians have reportedly long been aware that he claimed to have acted as a backchannel to Moscow, after Ward made a set of recordings about his activities months before he died. Story continues But they were considered tainted because police had him under constant surveillance and he was desperate to clear his name, The Times said in 2020. Ward's intriguing case got fresh attention at that time following a West End musical flop about him by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The theatre impresario showed the newspaper secret documents he had acquired including a previously unseen 1963 letter that Ward sent to future Labour prime minister Harold Wilson from prison. In it, he claimed his work as an intermediary had the aim of de-escalating the nuclear stand-off. Memories of the 1962 crisis have been revived in recent weeks amid Russia's war in Ukraine and fears it could use a tactical nuclear weapon. Ward's letter and his other correspondence, as well as transcripts of police interviews with the key characters in the Profumo affair, are also in the newly-digitised archives released. In a 1963 statement, Keeler admitted having sex with Ivanov once and Profumo "about twice", while suggesting Ward was doing Moscow's bidding. "Ward has asked me to get information from Jack (Profumo) about the Americans giving the Germans the bomb," she said, referring to plans to station US nuclear weapons in Germany. "I did not get this information because it was ridiculous and could have been made in a joke," she added. - Stalin cable - The files also detail the briefly lavish Moscow lifestyle of John Vassall, one of the KGB's most notorious British double agents, in another sensational cloak-and-dagger spy scandal of the era. MI5's records show Vassall enjoyed a life of cocktails, tennis and skiing while a junior naval attache to the British embassy in Moscow from 1954 to 1956. He began seven years of spying for the Soviet Union when he was blackmailed there after being set up and photographed with a homosexual partner at a time when same-sex relations were banned back home. After Vassall returned from Moscow, he continued spying while working at the Admiralty, the British government department responsible for the Royal Navy until 1964. The archives contain pictures of a cupboard housing a secret compartment in which films containing information copied from Admiralty files were found when police raided his London flat in 1962. Other files show a British diplomat describing former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin after his death as someone who had "the quality of greatness". Alvary Gascoigne, who served in Moscow from October 1951, hailed the notorious ruler as having had "salty realism, shrewdness and common sense" in a note to the Foreign Office in March 1953. jj/phz/cdw Viola Davis stars in The Woman King credit:Bang Showbiz Viola Davis drew on the "fears" she was left with after being sexually assaulted for her performance in 'The Woman King'. The 57-year-old actress has spoken in the past of how she and her four sisters were assaulted by various men growing up in poverty in Rhode Island and she recalled those experiences for a powerful scene in the movie where her character, Nanisca, ambushes General Oba at a slave market in an attempt to provoke war. She said: Every time I approached Oba. I was approaching the man who sexually assaulted me. I was not just approaching the enemy. Listen, the things that have taken the strongest human being down have been a traumatic memory that they could not fight through. Im talking about Nanisca, but I talk about Viola in terms of facing my fears too, every single day Every woman who has been sexually assaulted knows exactly what I mean at that moment. And Viola recognised the female bonds of the warriors in the movie with the one she shares with her sisters, who she refers to as her "platoon". She told the Guardian newspaper: Heres the thing: were sisters, the Agojie are sisters. Thats not the mentality of just hanging out, doing some shopping and having an Aperol spritz. It is a spirit of literally going into battle, and its for the love of each other that youre fighting. I dont see Nanisca as an action hero. She is a woman who is a warrior. The 'How to Get Away with Murder' actress sees her latest movie - which she was also one of the producers of - as the "ultimate gift" because it has finally given her "agency". She explained: I arrived in Hollywood having hopes and dreams for my career, but never quite having ownership or agency. 'The Woman King' has seemed like the ultimate gift and conduit to give me that agency. UKIPT London Part of "Unparalleled" PokerStars Live Experience, says James October 11 2022 Will Shillibier "I'm not really a live player!" admits Georgina James, better known as GJReggie. James says that she mostly plays online but has had the opportunity over the past few months to attend a few live events, including UKIPT Nottingham and the record-breaking European Poker Tour Barcelona festival. "It's been really great to have the opportunity. And it's so much fun. It feels like live poker is absolutely thriving now." And the buzz around live poker continues, with the EPT London festival beginning next week, starting with the UKIPT London Main Event and High Rollers. UKIPT Nottingham Experience The popular Twitch streamer says that her experiences at UKIPT Nottingham and EPT Barcelona were "surreal". "People come up to you all the time and say hello, people from your community who have come along to the event," she told PokerNews. "Even some of the dealers that surprised me! They came up to ask me about the stream. It's really good fun." Playing my first ever EPT Event today!! # and its the 550 HORSE ## GJ (@GJReggie) Live events offer the opportunity for poker fans to meet and rub shoulders with streamers and get to know them before they head back to the online felt. "It's just the best thing about live events. Meeting people and getting the chance to chat with them and see how their experiences are. And hopefully make sure they have a memorable and fun time while they're there!" WOW! PokerStars EPT Barcelona Smashes Record for Biggest Main Event Field What to Expect from UKIPT London EPT London returns to the live poker calendar for the first time in eight years and James says she hopes the inclusion of the UKIPT helps the event become more accessible and affordable. "UKIPTs feel like a much more friendly community-based event, as the buy-ins are a bit smaller. It just makes it more accessible and affordable. I reckon a lot of people there would one day like to build up to come to an EPT or a bigger event. It's more of a relaxed atmosphere. "There were lots of people in Nottingham who were there just to have fun down their local casino, hang out and meet some people. I think it's great the UKIPT is back. Hopefully they'll continue to be as successful as they have been." With off-the-felt activities and exciting player experiences planned for London, James says it's no surprise that players continue to enjoy the PokerStars live offering. Want to get more of GJReggie in action? Check out her Twitch stream by clicking here! "I feel like Stars are just a bit unparalleled when it comes to these events. They have the best dealers, the setup is always immaculate. And they put on events and activities outside of the poker as well which I think is important. "If you don't have a good day at the tables, then it's good to have those extracurriculars on the side. I think the UKIPTs are just a great experience!" A pub owner who suffered five heart attacks on his birthday while holidaying in Greece is lucky to be alive but is now bedridden at a hospital in the country weeks later. He will hopefully be flying home in three days according to his wife. Patrick Patch Kettleborough, 38, from Bolsover near Chesterfield, has not been able to return to the UK since he suffered two major and three small heart attacks less than a day after arriving in Malia, Crete, on Friday, September 23. Patchs wife Lisa Kettleborough, 40, said she feared her husband of 18 years would die after he experienced severe chest pains that Saturday morning when they had breakfast with two friends. The couple, who manage the Blue Bell pub in Bolsover, travelled to Greece as a surprise to celebrate Patchs 38th birthday, but Lisa said the holiday she planned quickly turned into an absolutely heart-breaking situation. Patrick Patch Kettleborough had five heart attacks at just 38 (Collect/PA Real Life) Their children Jamie, 15, and Lily, 16, have since travelled to the country to see their father in hospital but the couple are still stuck in Greece, unable to work, and are calling on the public for financial help. The whole situation is absolutely heart-breaking, Lisa said. When they were rushing around getting him into the ambulance, I was afraid he was going to die. It was very scary, but hes made it. Im just so proud of him. The couples children have since travelled to the country to see their father in hospital (Collect/PA Real Life) Lisa and Patch arrived on the afternoon of Friday, September 23, and went to get some drinks with their friends. The next day, Patchs 38th birthday, Lisa noticed some unusual behaviour in her partner. She said: From the get-go on Saturday morning, Patch hadnt been himself and on a couple of instances, felt quite a severe pain in his chest. At that point, I decided that I was going to put my foot down and take him to the medical centre. When I walked in, I still thought it was an anxiety attack. Patch pictured the day before his heart attacks (Collect/PA Real Life) Lisa added: They took him straight into a room and I was told to fill out the insurance papers. A nurse came out and spoke to me in Greek, but I knew something was wrong by the way she acted. I screamed down the corridor, Its a heart attack. Story continues Her partner was put in the back of an ambulance and taken to a hospital in a nearby city, only to be transferred to another specialist hospital, the University Hospital in Heraklion, where he had a stent fitted into his heart. A stent, which is a short, wire-mesh tube that acts like a scaffold to help keep an artery open, according to NHS Inform, was needed because Patchs arteries were pretty much closed. Patch was monitored in hospital (Collect/PA Real Life) Lisa said: The stent fitting went very well. They told me he had two heart attacks and about three small ones, as one artery was about 90 per cent and the other 60 per cent blocked. The doctors said they didnt really know how he survived and he was very lucky he was alive. After his stent operation, Patch was taken straight to intensive care. Despite not being able to see him for two days, his wife travelled to the hospital every day from her hotel, an hour away. Lisa and Patch pictured here after leaving the hospital (Collect/PA Real Life) She said: I just sat outside intensive care, so he knew I wasnt far and if anything happened Id be right there. I didnt want to be there and I never wanted anything tragic to happen. I made arrangements for my mother-in-law and my children to fly over, because I didnt know what the outcome was going to be. Only on the third day of Patchs hospital admission, on Tuesday, September 27, was Lisa allowed to see him because of his poor health and being at high risk of infection. She said: I was allowed in for five minutes, but I had to wear a mask as well as an apron and I wasnt allowed to touch him. The birthday present turned horror trip prevents the couple from returning home (Collect/PA Real Life) Lisa added: There were leads all over him, but he was talking to me. It was quite distressing, very upsetting to see and he didnt look very well in intensive care as he was hooked up to all the machines. It was really hard to see. Once their children Jamie and Lily arrived on September 27, they were allowed to see their dad for 15 minutes each. Theres no words to describe how it felt when our kids got to see him, said Lisa. Im not a religious person, but I prayed to God a few times to keep him alive. Im just so grateful. I had to be strong for the kids, but after they were gone I just cried and cried. The couple travelled to Greece to celebrate Patchs 38th birthday (Collect/PA Real Life) After his initial hospital admission, Lisa said Patch got a little bit better each day and was allowed to return to their hotel on Friday, September 30 the same day his children returned home to the UK under the condition that he must wear a heart monitor and get his blood pressure checked three times a day. Unfortunately, Patch didnt get to stay in the hotel for long. The couples hopes of flying home to England were crushed when he was taken to hospital again on Thursday, October 6, 13 days after his quintuple heart attack in what Lisa calls a funny turn after Patchs condition worsened. Patch, who also has two older children from a previous relationship, was scared and worried that he wasnt able to go home, according to his wife. Currently, the couple are still stuck in Greece, but are hopeful they will fly out soon. Lisa said: Patch was scared about what the upcoming flight would be like, but we are keen to get home. Weve spoken to the GP at home and once we have landed, we are pencilled in for a GP call to tell us what we need to do once we arrive. Once they are back in the UK, Lisa hopes she and Patch will get some answers about what caused his heart attacks. We think that he has some kind of congenital heart disease, but after the initial problem is fixed, they need to do proper inquiries into what caused it, Lisa said. Lisa was devastated by Patchs five heart attacks (Collect/PA Real Life) There were no indicators of heart problems leading up to Patchs heart attacks, according to his wife. She said: Its just completely random, it feels like. He was absolutely fine before, there were no signs this was going to happen. Were both really concerned it will happen again when were at home, so we are very keen to get it sorted. The surprise birthday present turned horror trip prevents the couple from returning home to their children and also returning to work managing the Blue Bell. Patch suffered two major and three small heart attacks less than a day after arriving in Crete (Collect/PA Real Life) Lisa said: We both do a lot of hours and 100% of our wages are now gone. We hope raising some money for extra expenses here in Greece and covering our wages until we can go back to work will make life easier. In addition to their two children, who are currently staying with Patchs mum, the couple has two dogs, who Lisa said her husband absolutely adores and have to be cared for while they are in Greece. To donate to the couples fundraiser, visit: www.gofundme.com/f/patchs-quick-fix-to-get-him-home/ A former Liberian rebel is on trial accused of committing crimes against humanity, torture and acts of barbarism during the civil war in his country. Kunti Kamara is 47 but he was younger than 20 when he was among the leaders of the Ulimo armed group in Lofa county between 1993 and 1994. Kamara denies "complicity in massive systematic torture and inhumane acts" and says that he does not know any of the witnesses accusing him. He faces life in prison if convicted. According to court documents, his crimes include hitting a man and opening his chest with an axe to pull out his heart and eat it, along with allowing and abetting rape and sexual torture, and compelling people into forced labour. Kamara, who is on trial in Paris, has admitted being a battlefield commander and leading about 80 soldiers during the war, saying he did this to defend himself against a rival faction. He said he left Liberia after the end of the first civil war in 1997, heading to the Netherlands, then to Belgium before arriving in France about two years before his arrest in 2018. He is being tried under a French law recognising universal jurisdiction for torture and crimes against humanity. Previous trials have prosecuted crimes relating to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Elise Keppler, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the trial is especially important due to "the failure of Liberian authorities to hold to account those responsible for serious crimes during the civil wars". Liberia's civil wars resulted in the deaths of an estimated 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003. In 2009, the country's post-war truth and reconciliation commission called for the prosecution of dozens of former warlords and commanders. But that call has been ignored by successive governments The trial in Paris is expected to last four weeks. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky called on Tuesday for wealthy Western nations to help Kyiv create an "air shield" after a rash of deadly Russian aerial attacks. Zelensky, who told the G7 club of rich nations "millions of people would be grateful" for help fending off attacks from the sky, warned Russia "still has room for further escalation" after Monday's bloody missile salvoes across Ukraine. Following the attacks, Washington pledged to up shipments of air defences to Ukraine, while Germany promised delivery "in the coming days" of the first Iris-T missile shield reportedly capable of protecting a city. In a week of marked escalation in the war, G7 leaders said that Belarus's plan to deploy joint forces with Russia constituted a new instance of "complicity" with Moscow, warning Minsk to "stop enabling" Russia's invasion. Following talks with Zelensky, G7 leaders said they would hold Russian President Vladimir Putin to account for the attacks but did not say how. Before the G7 meeting, the Kremlin had already said it expected "confrontation" with the West to continue. Russia followed up the missile launches at the start of the week with further aerial attacks on Tuesday. Officials in Ukraine's western region of Lviv said at least three Russian missiles fired Tuesday targeted energy infrastructure forcing Kyiv to ask people to cut their electricity usage and switch off appliances at night. Russia's defence ministry confirmed Tuesday's renewed attacks, saying it had carried out massive strikes using long-range and high-precision weapons and that "all assigned targets were hit". In Lviv, the largest city in the region of the same name, the mayor said that one-third of homes were without power. Monday's attacks saw Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian capital Kyiv for the first time in months. The Ukrainian defence ministry said Monday that Russia had fired 83 missiles at Ukraine, of which its air defences shot down 52, among which were 43 cruise missiles. Story continues Ukraine said 19 people died and more than 100 people were wounded in Monday's more widespread strikes, while the UN said Russia's bombardment may have violated the laws of war. Residents across Ukraine expressed shock and rage after Monday's onslaught. Ksenia Ryazantseva's suburb of Kyiv, a city of three million people that has largely been spared the violence seen on Ukraine's southern and eastern fronts, was one of those targeted. "We were sleeping and we heard the first explosion" by the crossroads, the language teacher, 39, told AFP. "We woke up and went to check, then the second explosion occurred." Monday's mass barrage came in apparent retaliation for an explosion at the weekend that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Putin blamed Ukraine for the bridge blast and warned of "severe" responses to any further attacks. - 'Just peace' - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes showed Moscow was "desperate" after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks, a sentiment echoed by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg who said they were "a sign of weakness". Turkey on Tuesday called for a viable ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine "as soon as possible", with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expected to meet Putin in Kazakhstan this week. Speaking in a televised interview, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also called for a "just peace" based on Ukraine's territorial integrity. - 'A profound change' - Ukraine's allies have been united in their public pledges of unwavering support for Kyiv. German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters on Monday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him "of the solidarity of Germany and the other G7 states". French President Emmanuel Macron convened his defence and foreign affairs ministers over the strikes, which he said signalled "a profound change in the nature of this war". US President Joe Biden condemned Monday's attacks in stark terms, saying they demonstrated "the utter brutality" of Putin's "illegal war". Putin meanwhile told the head of the UN's nuclear energy watchdog Rafael Grossi that he was "open to dialogue" on the future of the Russian-controlled nuclear plant in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. Fighting around the facility for months has raised fears of a nuclear accident. Ukraine's state nuclear energy agency on Tuesday accused Russian forces of detaining and mistreating another senior official at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. bur/gw/imm Setting aside longstanding strategic rivalry, Greece and Turkey on Monday inaugurated a "friendship line" ferry link between Thessalonika in northern Greece and the western Turkish port of Izmir. Greek-based shipping company Levante Ferries announced the MV "Smyrna di Levante" vessel had started passenger and freight services between the two countries, the first direct maritime link between the regional rivals. The company said the vessel carrying up to 948 passengers and as many as 300 vehicles would both promote the neighbours' commercial interests and deepen ties. The ship began its maiden test voyage from Thessalonika at 5.15 pm (1414 GMT) on Monday with 35 people aboard -- mainly Levante employees -- bound for Izmir some 14 hours away. The ferry firm has over the past three years invested a reported 16 million euros in the three-times weekly route, the first direct major link between continental Greece and Turkey. Some eastern Greek islands off the Turkish coast offer more ad hoc trips to nearby Turkish ports courtesy of small boats. "We want to link Europe and Asia (and) benefit from market demand" to "promote maritime and tourist transport," said Greek operator Yannis Dimitriadis. Greece and Turkey have endured long bouts of sometimes bitter rivalry with a series of maritime border disputes raising tensions amid Turkish accusations its fellow NATO member seeks to militarise more than a dozen of its islands in the Aegean Sea. Athens has pushed back against Ankara's demands that it desist from doing so. Last week saw a further spat at an informal EU gathering in Prague when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis left an official dinner during an address by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. str/hec/cdw/pvh At Least 22 Dead, Dozens Missing in Venezuela Landslides After Unusually Heavy Rains Landslides and heavy rains have killed at least 22 people from a single town in north-central Venezuela, authorities said Sunday. A further 52 are missing. The incident happened in the town of Las Tejerias about 40 miles from the capital Caracas, per The New York Times and multiple outlets. Venezuela Vice President Delcy Rodriguez confirmed the tragic death toll in a news conference Sunday, adding "We have lost children, girls, all very regrettable," per The New York Times. "There was a large landslide in the central area of Las Tejerias" where five streams overflowed, said Rodriguez, according to Associated Press. "We have already found 22 dead people; there are more than 52 missing." RELATED: Hurricane Ian Death Toll Rises Above 100 as Some Floridians Face 'Weeks or Months' Without Power People carry belongings after the losses they suffered in the rains and overflow of the Los Patos ravine (river) in Tejerias, Aragua state, Venezuela, 09 October 2022 Rayner Pena R/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock RELATED: Shocking Aerial Photos Show Before & After Damage Along the Florida Coast Following Hurricane Ian The tragedy occurred after heavy rain started falling on Saturday afternoon and continued throughout the night. According to the Red Cross in Aragua State, around 20,000 homes across the Santos Michelena municipality are affected, with cellphone service and electricity almost completely wiped out. Residents search for their missing relatives in the rubble of a house destroyed by a landslide during heavy rains in Las Tejerias, Aragua state, Venezuela, on October 9, 2022 YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images On Monday, Venezuelan authorities sent drones and canines to the impacted area, according to Major Gen. Carlos Perez Ampueda, the vice minister for risk management and civil protection, per AP. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro tweeted pictures of the damage on Monday, one day after he declared it a disaster zone and announced three days of national mourning. Le estamos dando seguimiento permanente a la situacion en Las Tejerias, estado Aragua, para brindarle la mayor atencion y acompanamiento posible al pueblo. Estamos con ustedes! Vamos a salir adelante! pic.twitter.com/3Mz5Sgw7vp Nicolas Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) October 10, 2022 RELATED: Friends Recall Desperate Effort to Save Fort Myers Beach Man from Hurricane Ian's Floodwaters: 'Scotty's Gone' Rodriguez also pledged that the government would provide shelter for families, and support for businesses and farmers impacted by the landslides. The region is just one of 11 Venezuela states to have suffered an unusually heavy rainy season, reported AP, with 20,000 officials, including rescue workers, being deployed to the affected areas. "The effects of the climate crisis are causing this tragedy," Ms. Rodriguez said, per The New York Times. A rebel commander during the first Liberian Civil War, Kunti Kamara goes on trial in Paris on Monday for crimes against humanity, torture, and acts of barbarity, including the enslavement of an entire community in Lofa County, northwestern Liberia. From 1993 to 1995, United Liberation Movement of Liberia (ULIMO), enslaved the local population, says Alain Werner, director of Civitas Maxima, which provides independent legal representation for victims of crimes against humanity. "They looted their goods, and then put these goods on the heads of the people forcing them to walk to the border with Guinea to sell the goods," he says. Civitas Maxima represents several victims who are plaintiffs in the proceedings against Kunti Kamara. The organisation is itself a civil party in the case which opened in Paris on Monday. Alain Werner says that, while the atrocities carried out in Monrovia, the capital, during the civil wars are well known, no one remembers the crimes committed in Lofa county, far from the capital. Eyewitnesses who spoke to Liberian and French members of the fact-finding mission in Lofa County, northwestern Liberia, in 2019 repeatedly identified Kamara as the perpetrator of various acts, including enslaving the village of Foya. Those still living in the village reportedly named him responsible for a series of six murders carried out under his orders in 1993. Read more on RFI Read also: Survivors sue Liberian government over failure to track down civil war killers Liberia's corruption culture linked to failure to pursue war criminals US court finds former Liberian military commander Thomas liable for war crimes Michaela Coel (Dave Benett) Michaela Coel has revealed plans to build a house in her fathers ancestral village in Ghana. The award-winning writer, who was born in London to Ghanaian parents, first visited the country in 2018 for a television shoot and felt an immediate affinity for the country. Recalling her trip, the 35-year-old told American Vogue: Id been to Africa before - Kenya and Uganda - but when I came here I was really seeing people who looked like me. A friend of mine was with me, and he remembers us getting off the plane and me walking around as if I knew where I was going. I remember looking at all the kids playing and it hit me, like, Wow, this couldve been me and I think I would have really enjoyed that. Yes, there are a lot of sad things; poverty, unemployment, struggle. Theres also a lot of peace, friendliness. Theres a lack of anxiety. Michaela Coel appears on the front cover of American Vogue (Malick Bodian/Vogue) Coel also revealed that she was considering buying an apartment in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, where she lived for six months last year. Aside from her property plans, the British star spoke about her upcoming role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in which she plays Aneka, a combat instructor for the Dora Milaje. Cinema-goers will see her character, who protects the kingdom of Wakanda alongside her all-female warriors, fall for her colleague Ayo, played by Florence Kasumba. When asked about playing a queer character in a movie set in Africa, where there are strict anti-gay policies, Coel said: That sold me on the role, the fact that my characters queer. I thought: I like that, I want to show that to Ghana... People say, Oh, its fine, its just politics. But I dont think it is just politics when it affects how people get to live their daily lives. She plays Aneka, a combat instructor for the Dora Milaje, in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Disney) Thats why it felt important for me to step in and do that role because I know just by my being Ghanaian, Ghanaians will come, the LGBTQ+ advocate added. Coel, who appears alongside her father, Derek Kwesi Coel, and grandmother Jemima Andam for the cover shoot, also spoke of her experience filming the superhero sequel following the death of the films star Chadwick Boseman. Story continues The actor tragically passed away from a secret battle with colon cancer in August 2020. Following his death, it was confirmed that the late actors role would not be recast. She said of her experience on set: It felt like the entire cast was processing grief. There was a sense that we have to bring this baby home in the name of Chadwick. American Vogues November 2022 issue is available nationwide from October 18. People all over the world are stunned by the tragic and horrific explosion at a Co Donegal service station that killed 10 people, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland has said. Archbishop Eamon Martin visited the scene of the blast in the tiny village of Creeslough on Monday. Irelands police force, An Garda Siochana, continues to investigate the cause of the explosion, which is being treated as a tragic accident. The archbishop said: Like many people all over the country and all over the world weve been stunned by the tragic and horrific events here at Creeslough on Friday afternoon. I wanted to come here to express my concern, my love for the people here and also our deep gratitude to so many people who helped particularly on Friday evening and on Saturday to try to do what they could to recover, to rescue and to comfort all of those who are grieving or were injured. Mr Martin said seeing the empty shell of the service station and adjoining buildings conjured the emptiness in the community. Words are really not enough, sometimes you just have to be here and be present, and thats what Ive been trying to do, he said. Just looking up there at that building, which I think many of us would have visited many times when were down in this very beautiful part of the world, just to see the empty shell thats there, for me, it conjures up the emptiness that there must be in so many homes, in schools, in workplaces and in the community that empty space. He said that emptiness has been filled by love, by care, by prayer, by faith and also by some hope in the midst of the awful disaster. Archbishop Martin said there was deep sadness and a deep sense of grief evident in the community, and that he had huge admiration and respect for all those who had helped at the scene. Story continues Mr Martin said during his visit he wanted to spend time in prayer with the 10 candles that have been lit in the local church for each of the 10 people who lost their lives. The archbishop added that the message church ministers, priests and bishops are trying to convey is that the Lord walks with you in your suffering in these horrific moments, offering you the hope of his resurrection. There are so many biblical verses that speak of terrible trauma like this, Mr Martin said. Im sure people all over the country are recalling their own sadnesses and their own losses at a time like this. It is at these times that we do reach out for God and for faith and for prayer and hope, Christian hope in the midst of it all. A BBC journalist had to duck while live on air due to the strikes overhead (Photo: BBC News) A BBC journalist had to duck while live on air due to the strikes overhead (Photo: BBC News) A BBC journalist had to duck while live on air on Monday morning, amid Russias new and aggressive attacks on Kyiv. Journalist Hugo Bachega was speaking to the BBC Newsroom from Ukraines capital when he was interrupted by a missile. Bachega was discussing a particularly important bridge between Crimea and Russia, which was destroyed on Saturday, and explained that it was very strategic militarily, but also full of symbolism for the Kremlin. He explained: So the fear is that this could trigger a very strong Russia response. We saw yesterday in a residential area of the city of Zaporizhzhia, the city in the south of the country, very close to the frontlines, was hit. More than a dozen... At this point, the very strong Russian response seemed to begin. Bachega stopped speaking and turned to look behind him at something off camera, as the loud sound of a plane can be heard overhead. He then jumped, and ducked his head before disappearing off-screen. BBC was live during the strikes in Kyiv pic.twitter.com/TaCFScSnPC Simon Maghakyan (@simonforco) October 10, 2022 Bachega and his crew later headed for shelter in a bunker, before reconnecting with his UK-based colleagues again. He told BBC Breakfast that missile hit a location very close to our hotel here in the city centre, as part of Russias latest wave of aggression. The capital has not been attacked since the early days of the war, when Ukrainian forces managed to repel Russia and stop them from claiming victory in the heart of the country. Since then, Russia has focused its attacks on the east and south of the country up until now. Bachega explained: There was a sense of a weird normal here in Kyiv because it was a city that hadnt been attacked for quite some time, the front lines are quite some distance from the capital. Story continues There was a sense that life, as much as possible, was returning to normal. He said there was no expectation that the city centre was going to be targeted, and so the attack was quite shocking. Asked how he feels about covering such events, Bachega said: Were here to tell the story, obviously we go through extensive training, there is a great support in terms of high risk teams, in terms of our colleagues here looking after each other. Bachega is not the only journalist to have reported dangerously close to Russias attacks. A CNN reporter, Matthew Chance, accidentally stood right next to a grenade live on air back in February, but managed to walk calmly away from it during his report. Sky News journalists have previously shared videos showing how close they were to a violent ambush in Ukraine, as they faced an onslaught of bullets back in March. The same month, BBC presenter Clive Myrie revealed it took him eight hours to leave Kyiv and reach Romania, due to the number of people fleeing the country. This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated. Related... FILE PHOTO: Newspapers with Amini, a victim of country's "morality police", are seen in Tehran LONDON (Reuters) -Britain said on Monday it had sanctioned senior Iranian security officials and the country's "so-called Morality Police", saying the force had used threats of detention and violence to control what Iranian women wear and how they behave in public. The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody has sparked protests across Iran and internationally, with demonstrators calling for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Citing her death and the subsequent protests, Britain said it had sanctioned the morality police in its entirety, as well as both its chief, Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi, and the Head of the Tehran Division, Haj Ahmed Mirzaei. "These sanctions send a clear message to the Iranian authorities we will hold you to account for your repression of women and girls and for the shocking violence you have inflicted on your own people," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. Iranian authorities have described the protests as a plot by Iran's foes, including the United States. The sanctions were made using British laws designed to encourage Iran to comply with international human rights law and respect human rights. They mean that those individuals named cannot travel to Britain and any of their assets held in Britain will be frozen. Last week, the foreign ministry said it had summoned the Iranian charge daffaires, Irans most senior diplomat in Britain, over the crackdown on the protests. (Reporting by Muvija M and William James, editing by Sarah Young, William Maclean) Should we throw out the first past the post voting system in future General Elections? DOUG Maughan (Letters, October 7) favours proportional representation (PR), producing a parliament of more and smaller parties with real debate about policy and compromises made by all involved rather than the current system where the Chancellor can sign the UK up to hundreds of billions of debt, without even running his plan past the Cabinet first. In 1932 Germany had 62 competing parties, splitting the civilised votes and leading to Hitler gaining power some months later. Germanys current PR system led to two months of haggling in 2021 before a new government could be formed; its Finance Minister is now trying to bypass debt rules by keeping its 200 billion energy bailout package outside the regular budget, obscuring truth and clarity according to the Federal Court of Auditors. After the 2011 Fukushima disaster (caused by a tsunami, not a nuclear fault) Angela Merkel unilaterally, overnight and with no debate stopped Germanys nuclear power developments, leading directly to its over-dependence on Putins gas and its financing of his increasingly-totalitarian regime and war machine. Likewise in 2015, she unilaterally and overnight threw open Germanys borders, and therefore the EUs, to a million Middle Eastern migrants. No real debate or compromises in these critical policy changes, even within her own country let alone the EU. The Dutch were faced with 37 parties in their 2021 election; it took 10 months of haggling behind closed doors, by politicians unwilling to compromise, before a new government could be formed. There is a lot to be said for broad church parties comprising a reasonable range of opinions, which generally produce a clear new government with broad support within 48 hours of elections. PR is not necessarily more democratic than first past the post, and can give disproportionate power to politicians, especially from minor parties, rather than to voters. John Birkett, St Andrews We must find migrant answer CATRIONA Stewart ("I have a dream... to be free of the likes of cruel Braverman", The Herald, October 7) is right to condemn Suella Braverman for her unfortunate choice of language and her rabble-rousing presentation in her conference speech on sending migrants to Rwanda, but she is wrong to extend that condemnation to argue against the need for any assessment of the migrants entering the UK illegally such as the thousands being trafficked now across the Channel. Story continues The majority (60 per cent) of those have been found to be young males from Albania, a Nato country. As such they could apply relatively cheaply to come here legally but chose the costly illegal route, which begs the question: why? The answer is that they are not genuine asylum seekers fleeing persecution but are economic migrants. It is our clear right, for security considerations and to avoid our public services being overwhelmed, to assess all those arriving here illegally to determine whether or not they are genuine asylum seekers, and if not to decide whether they can stay or must be repatriated. In any event the Rwanda proposal is an irrelevant distraction if it is correct that it covers only some 200 migrants. A workable solution must involve effective co-operation with the French to stop the boats launching from France, and in that regard there are at last encouraging reports of possible progress following what appears to be a modest rapprochement between the new friends Macron and Truss at their meeting in Prague ("Irish Government suggest there could be some flexibility on Northern Irish Protocol as post-Brexit talks resume", The Herald, October 7). Heres hoping. Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop I WAS much encouraged to read the letters (October 6) from L McGregor and Celia Judge under the heading Why can't the Tories see their cruelty makes no sense?", referring to the new Home Secretarys obsessive longing to witness a plane full of people who had come to the U.K. seeking asylum heading off for Rwanda. Obscene revelling in the suffering of others is surely a cruelty revealed by the rapturous applause which greeted Suella Bravermans speech to a fringe meeting at the recent Birmingham conference. Your report that Scottish Tories are facing a resounding defeat ("Scottish Tories are facing an election wipeout", The Herald, October 6) does the Scottish people great credit. As does Catriona Stewarts article. John Milne, Uddingston Promises, promises... IT is customary when telling a story to young children to begin thus: "The story begins at the beginning...". This story begins more than seven years ago when, on August 30, 2015, George Osborne announced a 500 million investment in Faslane. Immediately Nicola Sturgeon announced a 97 million contract with Ferguson Marine to build two ferries which are still not in service. Ms Sturgeon's immediate response, without due consideration, is an example of a conditioned reflex. Unfortunately this is not a fairy story, and adults may not enjoy it, but further instalments will follow. A happy ending is not promised. William Durward, Bearsden Are we a third world country? IN 1976 we sold our house. We had arranged for an evening viewing, but much to our chagrin the prospective buyers did not appear. Next day we received a most apologetic phone call, there being no such things as mobile phones in those ancient times: "Sorry about last night, we got held up by the flooding at Bingham's Pond, how about tomorrow night"? I agreed, and that couple did indeed buy our house. On Friday I left home in Hardgate at 9:15 heading for Gartnavel Hospital, I got there at 10:35. Reason, flooding at Bingham's Pond; in 46 years the problem has not been solved. What does it take to get things repaired? It doesn't seem to matter who is in power nationally or local, Labour, SNP, or Tory, nothing gets done. An excuse will always be found. If it isn't Brexit it is Putin, global warming, financial crisis, leaves off the trees, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Opec, the other lot before we took power. The list of excuses is endless. I'll skip The Rest and be Thankful, getting that fixed is indeed a pipe dream. Are we indeed slowly going down the pan, and becoming a third world country, or are we already? George Smith, Clydebank Shipbuilding idea is a winner AS one who grew up regulating my primary schooldays to the sound of shipyard hooters, I would ask you to take this as a vote for a shipbuilding museum on Clydeside ("all for museum to celebrate the glory days of Clydes shipyards", The Herald, October 7).- On reading the article, it struck me as surprising that the idea hadn't occurred to all of us before now. The Transport Museum doesn't give the subject enough scale or depth and Irvine, excellent though it is, is too far from where the yards used to be. If anyone wants a graphic illustration of the huge importance of Scottish shipbuilding, they can combine education with a nice wee holiday by visiting the superb Drassanes maritime museum in Barcelona. On the walk down into the museum proper there are many models of merchant ships: the great preponderance of vessels built on the Clyde will bring out its faded importance. Brian Chrystal, Edinburgh Accept status quo in Ukraine RUSSIA currently occupies 18 per cent of Ukraine. At best, the current offensive has allowed Ukraine to retake two per cent of previously-seized territory. Any further advance will be extremely difficult and costly as Russia has extensive defensive positions in place. Hovering above the war is the threat of nuclear weapon usage and escalation to a European war. Rather than prolonging a conflict which began in 2014 by continuing to supply weapons to Ukraine and dangling Nato/EU membership to Ukrainians which Russia sees as a real threat to its survival, a more realistic option is to accept the current status quo and arrange a face-saving UN-agreed settlement. Ukraine could follow the model of Austria after the Second World War and exist as an acceptable buffer state between Western Europe and Russia. Better that than dying in a nuclear holocaust. Chris Greenhalgh, Bearsden Letters should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit submissions. Putin must be held to account over despicable war crimes, says Sturgeon Vladimir Putin must be held to account over despicable war crimes committed in Ukraine, Nicola Sturgeon has said. The First Minister spoke of Scotlands solidarity with the war-torn country as she addressed the SNP conference in Aberdeen on Monday. She said Putin has never looked weaker or more insecure, and said the brutal invasion of a neighbouring country should be unimaginable in 21st-century Europe. Ms Sturgeon said: To men and women risking their lives in opposition to Putin in Russia, or his sidekick in Belarus, we stand with you. And to the people of Ukraine fighting for your very existence we stand with you. Today we live on a continent where a so-called strong man though one who has never looked weaker or more insecure has launched a brutal invasion of his neighbour. That should be unimaginable in 21st-century Europe, but for the people of Ukraine it is all too real. She continued: Despicable war crimes have been committed. And, conference, let us be clear: these are war crimes for which Vladimir Putin must be held to account. Ms Sturgeon pledged that her Government will continue to do everything we can to help the people of Ukraine, calling them an inspiration to the world. Street in the old town of Tavira in the Algarve region of Portugal (Alamy Stock Photo) Prices for holidays in Portugal are set to increase next year, because of a proposed rise in airport fees. The Portugese airport authority, ANA Aeroporotos de Portugal, is hoping to raise the fees for airlines in 2023, reports the Sun. The proposed increase could see airline carriers paying up to 15 per cent more than they currently do for using Portugals airports and, should the proposal go through, passengers would be expected to cover the extra costs. Last week, ANA confirmed theyre hoping to increase the rates, saying they want them in place by February 1, 2023. The money is reportedly needed to pay air-traffic controllers, ground staff, as well as baggage staff, too. This latest increase to fees will kick in from February and will see passengers pay an extra 30 pence in the Azores region, 69p in Madeira, 71p in Faro, and 1.34 in Lisbon, reports the Mirror. An additional charge of 10 per cent will also be levied on every plane, a fee which will also probably be passed on to customers. The increase to fees comes off the back of two increases that have already been introduced this year, with an extra 3, as well as 2.50 charge per passenger, which has been added in September and February respectively. The money will be used to pay for air-traffic controllers, security, and baggage crews. The proposals have already come in for some flack from Portuguese airline TAP, which claims that the extra charges will deter passengers, reports the Mirror. A spokesperson said: The increase in fees will harm the recovery of tourism in Portugal. There is no justification for a 15 per cent increase in ANAs already high airport fees, especially when Portuguese air and tourist traffic is still recovering after the pandemic and should be supported with lower airport fees. Portuguese airline TAP Air Portugal is also unhappy with the proposals, with a spokesperson saying: The increases will contribute to worsening the economic situation of TAP Air Portugal, the main customer of the national airports, and the passengers in general. Story continues Air fares are expected to rise across the board early next year, with Ryanair boss Michael OLeary saying that the extra costs of plane tickets will increase for the next five years. Earlier this year, he said that prices are currently too low, and that they will only go up, reports the Sun. OLeary told the Financial Times: Its too cheap for what it is. I find it absurd every time that I fly to Stansted, the train journey into central London is more expensive than the air fare. It has been my doing [taking prices so low]. I made a lot of money doing it. But, ultimately, I dont believe air travel is sustainable over the medium term at an average fare of 40 (34). Martin McGill. Photo: An Garda Siochana Tributes have been paid to a 'lovely' local man who was killed in a devastating petrol station explosion in Ireland. Martin McGill, 49, was one of ten people killed in the blast in the village of Creeslough in County Donegal on October 7, in what is suspected to be a gas leak. The Garda has now released his picture and confirmed his identity along with the other victims, who were aged from five to 59. Martin grew up in Kirkintilloch and was described as being an 'avid' Celtic fan. He had lived in Creeslough where he was caring for his elderly mother, and it is understood he had gone to the service station to withdraw cash when the blast happened. Now people have offered their condolences to Martin, who has been described as being a "pleasure to know". One person wrote: "Heartbreaking. Rest in paradise Martin. You will never walk alone pal. Hail hail." Another said that he was "such a genuine, nice guy. Always in the shop doing shopping for other people in Creeslough, may he rest in peace." Among the tributes was a comment from Martin's cousin which read: "Rest in eternal peace to our cousin Martin. A lovelier guy you couldn't meet. Reunited with your Dad Joe." His funeral will take place at St Michaels Church in Creeslough at 2pm on Tuesday. Dawn Paul, Chair of Brighton Area NSPCC Volunteers. An NSPCC volunteer from Peacehaven will be spending her 62nd birthday trekking Mount Everest to raise money for the charitys Childline service. Dawn Paul, chairwoman of Brighton NSPCC volunteers, will spend 18 days starting in late October, climbing the Everest Base Camp which is 5,357 metres high. She originally planned the trip while celebrating her 60th birthday but the coronavirus pandemic forced a pause on her plans. Dawn Paul, Chair of Brighton Area NSPCC Volunteers. She has now decided to take on the challenge while being accompanied by her eldest son Andrew. Dawn said: Instead of trekking to Everest Base Camp, I ended up circumnavigating a local park 60 times as Covid was in full swing. Here I am two years later and two years older with a body thats definitely beginning to feel its age, finally heading to Nepal to trek up to Everest Base Camp. I suffer from claustrophobia, so just sleeping in a tent and sleeping bag is a complete nightmare. This trip equally excites and terrifies me. The thought of crossing rope bridge after rope bridge makes me quake in my boots. Dawn Paul, Chair of Brighton Area NSPCC Volunteers. The 14 of the 18 days in Nepal will be spent at altitude trekking for 10 hours at a time. Dawn will have to pitch up a tent and camp in potentially sub-zero temperatures. She was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in her knees as well as catching Covid twice, which has set her back in her training regime. Dawn Paul, Chair of Brighton Area NSPCC Volunteers. Dawn explained: Sadly, I am not as fit as I could be, but I will give this challenge 100%. Having my eldest son with me is what has kept me focussed, although he has had his own health problems in recent years after a meniscus tear in his left knee. All funds raised will go towards supporting Childline, one of the vital services provided by the NSPCC. The service is there to give young people a voice when no one is listening. The service can only continue thanks to the very generous donations from each and every one of you. Story continues She has already raised more than 3,000 on her JustGiving page ahead of the journey. To support Dawn on her fundraising journey, you can donate to her JustGiving page. MTA Hanoi 2022 exhibition will be open to the industry from 12-14 October 2022 at the I.C.E. International Centre for Exhibition, Hoan Kiem, Ha Noi. Both individual visitors and group delegations will have a unique experience with high-quality exhibiting companies and innovative technological products. Over 20 years of identifying ourselves with the engineering and metalworking industry in Vietnam, MTA Vietnam and MTA Hanoi exhibition have been a significant part of the industry's development over the past two decades. The MTA international exhibition has always been met with anticipation from domestic and international suppliers and manufacturers and distributors of machinery and equipment in the field of Automation, Cutting Tools & Tooling Systems, Factory Equipment/Ancillary & Supporting Equipment, Material Handling & Storage, Measurement & Testing Technology, Metal Cutting Machines, Metal Forming / Sheet Metal Cutting Machine, Mold & Die, Software And Prototyping Systems, Surface & Heat Treatment, and Welding Technology. This year's edition, MTA Hanoi 2022, welcomes nearly 100 exhibitors from 13 countries/regions, including Germany, United Kingdom, Austria, Turkey, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand, and international group pavilions from Korea and Taiwan, along with major exhibitors from Viet Nam. With more than 60% of international exhibitors, visitors at MTA Hanoi 2022 will experience new perspectives and have opportunities to encounter more innovative technology applications from industrial powerhouses. MTA Hanoi 2022 is projected to welcome and connect around 5,000 trade visitors working in the engineering and manufacturing industries, including Aviation & Aerospace, Automotive & Auto Parts, Electrical & Electronics, Furniture & Household Goods, Manufacturing, Heat, Ventilation, Airconditioning & Refrigeration (HVACR), Machining Services, Medical Devices Manufacturing, Metal & Fabrication, Oil & Gas / Chemical & Process Engineering, Plastics & Rubber Products, Precision Engineering & Supporting Industries, Pump & Valves, Sheet Metal Working Plants, Tools, Mold & Die, Toys & Leisure Goods Manufacturing, Welding, Wire / Tube / Pipe. MTA Hanoi draws a significant number of visitors, not just from the capital but also from the surrounding industrial provinces, including Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, Hai Phong and Hai Duong, emphasising the MTA Hanoi as the top exhibition for engineering and manufacturing industry in the north. In addition to high-quality products and suppliers, MTA Hanoi is also a platform for visitors to acknowledge advanced technology, in-depth industry knowledge, innovations, and insightful experiences from expert experts with years of experience. In partnership with MESLab, MTA Hanoi 2022 is honoured to present seminar programs about smart manufacturing during the three days of exhibition, including Smart Manufacturing on 12 October 2022 from 14:00-17:00; 3D Metal Printing on 13 October 2022 between 09:00-17:00; and Digital Design on 14 October 2022 from 09:00-12:00. Register to join here [https://bit.ly/3s6qz5o] MTA Hanoi 2022 is looking forward to welcoming the presence of industry visitors from 12-14 October 2022 at the I.C.E - International Centre for Exhibition, Hoan Kiem, Ha Noi. The exhibition will be open from 09:00 to 17:00 for three days - come and join us to experience and connect with the engineering and manufacturing industry! HA NOI The management level of large enterprises in Viet Nam is still very low, compared with countries such as Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, according to experts. Hoang Quang Phong, vice president of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said Viet Nam would build an independent and self-reliant economy in the context of international integration, adding the Party has properly understood and appreciated the role of businesspeople in realising the goal of building an independent and self-reliant economy, especially in the current context of deep integration. Phong said such efforts helped the team of entrepreneurs and businesses to grow. By the end of 2021, Viet Nam had nearly 860,000 enterprises in operation, about 15,300 non-agricultural cooperatives and about 5.1 million business households. Phong announced six local entrepreneurs had entered the top "dollar billionaires" globally in 2021 and 124 businesses with 283 products that are national brands, saying some brands resonate and affirm their brand value in regional and international markets such as Viettel, Vinamilk, VinFast, Thaco, TH True Milk and ST25 rice. From another angle, he said business development still faced many difficulties and has not met expectations as the number of enterprises was unlikely to reach the set target of 1.5 million enterprises by 2025 while the quality of enterprises in value chains and global production networks were still limited, and have not yet taken full advantage of the opportunities brought by FTAs. There are still some businesspeople who violate ethics, traditional culture and even the law, he told a seminar held by VCCI on September 27 aimed to improve competitiveness for the business community to develop and grow the local economy. It is necessary to build a team of Vietnamese entrepreneurs who are not only talented but also have business ethics and culture, thus contributing to making Viet Nam a developing country by 2030, have modern industry, high average income; and become a high-income developed country by 2045 as said in the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress. Deputy Director of the Department of Enterprise Development, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Bui Thu Thuy told the seminar: There are about 878,600 enterprises operating in the whole country; of which 97.2 per cent are small and medium sized. She added despite being ranked as a large enterprise, the average size of large enterprises in the private sector in Viet Nam was also much smaller than the average in other countries in the ASEAN region. At the same time, Viet Nam's stock market is home to the largest concentration of private enterprises with a large number of listed companies compared to other stock exchanges in the region, said Thuy. According to newly updated data, although Viet Nam's stock market has a good growth rate, the average capitalisation of enterprises listed on the two exchanges in Ha Noi and HCM City was still still far behind other countries in the region. Compared with countries such as Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, the governance level of Viet Nam's large enterprises was still very low, only half of that of countries with high corporate governance scores. This may partly explain the ability of large enterprises to grow and reach the regional and world level in these countries, which is still much higher than that of large enterprises in Viet Nam. According to the assessment, Vietnamese enterprises still have many limitations in risk management issues; information disclosure and transparency; activities of the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board. Not to mention, good corporate governance practices in recent times have added to the assessment of environmental protection policies in the practice of production and business activities of enterprises. This is a very new criterion for most Vietnamese businesses. Le Xuan Sang, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, said that in the process of building an independent - self-reliant economy associated with integration, Viet Nam has seen many important achievements with increasingly diversified industries, and enhanced production capacity, strong development of private businesses and large corporations of international and regional stature. Sang said in order to seize opportunities, deal with challenges and be a link, enterprises need to be proactive and active in improving their own capacity and competitiveness. Sang suggested enterprises change management and administration methods, have a brand development strategy, actively register and manage product trademarks for legal protection; improve the ability to participate in the global value chain in the stages of product design, product distribution, supporting research and training development. To overcome the limitations of small scale and limited capital, small and medium enterprises should attract external capital; promote association and cooperation activities with other enterprises. Along with that, experts at the seminar said they should focus on developing human resources, improve professional qualifications and pay attention to deeper understanding of rules of origin; Intellectual Property; and administrative procedures - customs, especially commitments under free trade agreements. VNS LONG AN Long An Province is supporting domestic and foreign enterprises to invest in the province as well as improving its investment climate throughout its new normal period. Long An authorities help businesses expand loan deadlines and borrow capital from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies - Long An Province branch. The provincial Department of Industry and Trade has also worked with companies to connect with domestic and foreign markets, marketed their products on many channels, such as online websites and conferences, and also worked on issuing investment certificates in one day time to businesses that provide valid documents. Thanks to these efforts, Long An Provinces economic growth rate reached 5.1 per cent and ranked sixth among 13 provinces and city in the Mekong Delta in the first half of 2022. Nguyen Van Ut, chairman of Long An People's Committee, said that authorities are helping businesses in the province to solve issues related to government policies. They will also punish those that violate provincial guidelines for businesses. The provincial authorities said they prioritise completing traffic infrastructure, improving its provincial competitiveness index, and ensuring sufficient land for businesses. In the first eight months of 2022, Long An has granted 34 investment certificates for FDI projects worth US$260 million of capital. They also issued 1,170 investment certificates to domestic firms that were worth VN16.8 trillion ($706 million). In 2021, Long An ranked 16th out of 63 in the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and ranked third in the Mekong Delta region. Long An's goal is to be among the top ten provinces in terms of PCIs by the end of the year. VNS HA NOI Religions have never before enjoyed such favourable conditions for their activities in Viet Nam as they do now, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vu Chien Thang stressed in a recent review. Respecting the freedom of belief and religion is a consistent policy of the Vietnamese Party and State and has been institutionalised in the legal system, as it is one of the fundamental rights of the people and enshrined in the Constitution from the 1946 version to the 2013 one. Inheriting late President Ho Chi Minhs viewpoint and thoughts on religion, in each period of the revolution, the Party and State have issued many guidelines, policies, and laws on belief, religion, ensuring the freedom to belief and religion, creating a legal foundation for religions to be practised stably and enhancing the relations between the State and religious organisations. Since the Party Central Committees Resolution No 25-NQ/TW, dated March 12, 2003, on religious affairs in the new context, more than 30 related legal documents have been issued, reflecting the States attention to peoples legitimate belief and religious demand. Thang said thanks to religion-related guidelines, policies, and laws, the numbers of religious dignitaries, followers, and places of worship had been on the rise; and peoples right to the freedom of belief and religion was better ensured. Religions had never had such favourable conditions for their activities like now, he said, adding that international relations had been more and more expanded; religious dignitaries, officers, and followers increasing; places of worship improved; and foreigners practice of religions made public in line with legal regulations. Statistics show that the numbers of religious dignitaries, officers, and places of worship have been increasing. As of 2022, authorities have recognised 43 organisations of 16 religions, with more than 26.7 million followers, over 55,000 dignitaries, 135,000 officers, and 29,000 places of worship, compared to 15 organisations of six religions with 17 million followers, 34,000 dignitaries, 78,000 officers, and about 20,000 places of worship in 2003. Each year, there are more than 8,000 festivals of beliefs and religions with the participation of tens of thousands of followers in Viet Nam. Over the 10 years of implementing the policies and laws, State agencies have granted the use of hundreds of hectares of land for building places of worship. In the first half of 2022 only, authorities at different levels licensed the construction and repair of 152 places of worship, permitted concentrated religious activities at 183 sites, and approved 140 publications with 684,250 copies. The appointment and rotation of religious dignitaries and officers, the establishment of subordinate religious organisations, the amendment of religious organisations charters and statutes, as well as the registration of annual programmes have been conducted in line with regulations, according to the deputy minister. Many large religious activities have taken place in the country such as the UN Day of Vesak hosted by the Viet Nam Buddhist Sangha three times with the participation of more than 1,000 delegates from 120 countries and territories and tens of thousands of people, an assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, and the celebration of the Protestantisms centenary in Viet Nam. The Governments Committee for Religious Affairs coordinated with the EU to organise a workshop on religions while the 6th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Interfaith Dialogue also took place in Viet Nam. The committee also held working sessions with many religious associations and officials, including international human rights organisations such as the US-based Institute for Global Engagement and the WAZ Media Group of Germany, to proactively provide information about the religious situation and the Party and States policies and laws on belief and religion, and thoroughly discuss issues that attract international attention. Thang said that in Viet Nam, religious activities with the participation of a large number of people received assistance from authorities to guarantee safety and security. The abovementioned results in the implementation of policies and laws on belief and religion met the legitimate aspirations of religious dignitaries, officers, and followers, he affirmed. The resolution of the 13th National Party Congress continued to underscore the importance of upholding good cultural and ethical values of religions to serve national development. In recent years, areas with large religious populations had become bright spots in economic, cultural, and social development. In particular, religious organisations had worked with administrations and donated hundreds of billions of ong to the COVID-19 fight. Many places of worships became COVID-19 quarantine or treatment centres. The deputy minister pointed out that hostile forces and some organisations, however, had yet to give up their plot of peaceful evolution but sought all possible ways to undermine the administration and disseminate wrongful allegations that there isnt religious freedom in Viet Nam, flagrantly distorting the religious situation in the country and repeating false information to sow scepticism and drive a wedge into the religious solidarity. From 2017 to 2022, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom released annual reports on international religious freedom, giving itself the right to assess and criticise the human rights and religious freedom situation in Viet Nam and some other countries. It used old information provided by unrecognised religious groups and sects, or extreme dignitaries discontented with the regime, Party, and State, to include in its reports while showing support for illegal religious activities or heresies in remote areas that run counter to good customs, laws, as well as interests of religious organisations and society, thus stirring public concern. It also proposed the US Department of State bring Viet Nam back to the list of the countries of particular concern and put pressure on Viet Nam to allow all religious groups and sects that havent been recognised to operate freely, reduce the administrations involvement in internal affairs of recognised religious groups. Thang stated such wrongful information, arguments, and distortions were extremely irrational, adding that they aimed to affect the thought and sentiment of religious dignitaries and followers to sow scepticisms about the Party and States policies and laws on religion. Yet, however hard hostile forces try to distort or sabotage, they are still unable to keep dignitaries and followers from trusting the Party and States guidelines, policies, and laws on belief and religion, according to the official. Belief and religious activities have still been facilitated by authorities while dignitaries and followers have still practised religions freely at home or places of worship. Particularly, religious dignitaries and followers have still practised religions online as normal amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The reality of the religious situation in Viet Nam testified to the great national solidarity and religious solidarity and also cemented religious dignitaries and followers trust in the national construction and development, the deputy minister affirmed. He added that in the future, hostile forces would continue pushing up their opposition activities under the pretext of the call for freedom to religions and democracy, human rights; distort the Partys advocacy and States policies and laws on religions; and increase trans-border or online missionary activities. When dealt with by authorities, they would make false claims that there is no freedom of religions in Viet Nam, thus hindering the countrys economic integration. To prevent them from distorting the freedom of religions, the official said authorities should build and perfect the legal system on religions, ensure the freedom of every person under the 2013 Constitution, institutionalise the viewpoint of the Resolution of the 13rd National Party Congress on belief and religions. They should also perform well the function of the State managing the society through laws. Authorities at all the levels should be attentive to and satisfy the legitimate religious need, and ensure the peoples right to freedom of religions in line with the international conventions to which Viet Nam is a signatory, while religious dignitaries and followers should heighten their vigilance against evil forces distortions and allegations, Deputy Minister Thang stressed. VNS BAC KAN Hau Thi Hoa, 16, used to think that prenatal check-ups were unimportant and unnecessary. Living in Khuoi ay Village, Binh Trung Commune, Cho on District in Bac Kan Province, the Dao ethnic minority woman is in her ninth month of pregnancy. Previously, her mother and other women in the neighbourhood did not have any prenatal check-ups during their pregnancy. But now, with education and guidance from local medical workers, she appreciates that periodical examinations are critical to reducing the dangers to her and her child. Hoa regularly goes to the Binh Trung Commune Medical Station for check-ups. Ma Thi Hue, a village-based midwife, said that after training on basic midwifery education, 15 midwives are well-prepared to educate mothers on babies health in many villages in the commune. They meet monthly to discuss problems and plan for the next month of pregnancy. Hoa is just one of many pregnant women from 60 remote ethnic communes of the six most disadvantaged provinces of Bac Kan, Lai Chau, Son La, ak Nong, Kon Tum and Gia Lai. They are all now benefiting from innovative interventions to stop preventable maternal deaths. This is the ultimate goal of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) project Leaving no one behind: innovative interventions to reduce maternal mortality in regions home to many ethnic groups in Viet Nam, which started in September this year. The project is an important initiative in reducing maternal mortality among ethnic minorities in the six provinces in Viet Nam, with total fund up to US$2.1 million from UNFPA and its partners. UNFPA will deliver the project in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH), provincial departments of health in the selected provinces, and local civil society organisations until September 30, 2024. Viet Nam has made significant progress in improving sexual and reproductive health in the past 20 years and was one of the only six countries in the world which achieved, in 2015, the Millennium Development Goal - 5 (MDG5) on the reduction of maternal mortality. However, experts believe that disparities and inequalities remain in accessing and utilising sexual and reproductive health services among different ethnicities and regions. Current evidence shows that while the maternal mortality ratio has declined to 46 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births at the national level, it remains as high as 100-150 per 100,000 live births in mountainous and ethnic regions, particularly in northern midlands, mountains, and Central Highlands. Among all maternal death cases, maternal mortality is extremely high in some vulnerable ethnic groups. For instance, Mong 60 per cent and Thai 17 per cent. It is estimated that the risk of Mongs mothers dying from pregnancy or childbirth is four times higher than the Kinh- the majority group. Moreover, more than half of maternal deaths happen at district and provincial hospitals due to the limited capacities of healthcare facilities to manage maternal complications. In addition, remote and hard-to-reach geographical locations, low socio-economic conditions, cultural barriers and a limited understanding of maternal complications are also contributing to high maternal mortality. The project aims to increase access to integrated, quality and voluntary sexual and reproductive health services amongst ethnic groups, improve emergency obstetric care management capacity in mountainous localities and build a village-based birth attendant network in remote localities. COVID-19 prevention and control will also be integrated into the existing sexual and reproductive health programme. In light of digital transformation, innovative interventions include online services such as smartphone apps to improve sexual and reproductive health services delivery among ethnic groups. The project will also deliver innovative health and community education to ethnic communities to promote safe maternal deliveries. Naomi Kitahara, UNFPA Representative in Viet Nam, stressed that it was another landmark step in UNFPAs work to support women and girls, especially those in remote, ethnic communities. It is to ensure the provision of quality sexual and reproductive health services to prevent maternal deaths, thus contributing to Viet Nams efforts to achieve its SDGs by 2030, she said. Nguyen uc Vinh, former director of the Maternal and Child Health Department under the MoH, said at the project launch on September 21, 2021: Improving the health status of people who are left behind, including ethnic minorities, is the centre of the Governments development agenda. Lessons learned and best practices drawn from this initiative will help us effectively implement the national action plan on maternal, neonatal and child health for 2021-25 with a vision towards 2030 to achieve SDG targets on health care. Bjorn Anderssen, UNFPA Asia-Pacific Regional Director, said that over the past 28 years, Viet Nam had made considerable achievements in implementing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)s priority. UNFPA partners with the Vietnamese Government at both national and sub-national levels, UN agencies, social and civil society organisations, private sectors and development partners to contribute to the national efforts towards a more equitable and sustainable society, he said. VNS On October 10, Gojek launched a special collaboration with 21st-century pop icons BTS, in Vietnam. The partnership aims to excite local users with various promotions and special gifts from BTS | Gojek that will be available on the multi-purpose platform. Gojek cooperation with BTS will create new experiences for customers In Vietnam, the collaboration will involve Gojeks food delivery services GoFood and ride-hailing services GoRide and GoCar. The campaign will be carried out in phases until the end of the year and is aimed at showcasing Gojeks reliable services to audiences and creating a positive impact for merchants and driver partners. Vietnam is the third and final stop for the BTS | Gojek collaboration, following successful rollouts in Indonesia and Singapore. A Gojek representative said, BTS has become a global icon, impressing people worldwide with their talent and chart-topping hits. With their global influence, BTS spread messages of positivity and support through their songs. Its this spirit that makes the partnership so special, as Gojek commits to creating a positive impact on the lives of our users, driver partners, and merchants. Moving forward, Gojek also hopes to continue exploring new ways to improve our products and services, making daily life easier for people in Vietnam. With the taglines: Go everywhere, lets book Gojek for transport services (GoRide and GoCar) and Love yourself, treat yourself for food delivery (GoFood), the campaign is expected to create excitement among audiences and encourage them to experience on-demand convenience through the Gojek ecosystem. In the TVC to launch the campaign, BTS members RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook speak fluent Vietnamese to order Gojek's services. Gojek is seeking further development thanks to ties with BTS During the rollout of the BTS | Gojek campaign, users in Vietnam can enjoy various promotions and discounts from Gojek. For example, they can get a discount of up to 50 per cent every day (one per user each day) if placing a GoFood order between Oct 1-31. New GoFood users will be rewarded with a promotion package valued at VND300,000 ($13) when entering the code NUP for the first six food orders with Gojek for the month of October. Users of Gojeks transport services can enter GOJEKDIHOC, GOJEKDICHOI or GOJEKDILAM when commuting between home and school, home and office, and home and shopping malls, respectively, to enjoy 50 per cent off, capped at VND15,000 per trip. Over the next few months, users in Vietnam will also have the opportunity to win exclusive BTS merchandise by completing a secret mission from Gojek. More details will be announced soon. Gojek launches GoCar XL Protect 7-seater ride-hailing service To further honour its commitment to health and safety, Gojek Vietnam announced the launch of GoCar XL Protect, its new 7-seater ride-hailing service, in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi on May 4. Localities are suggested to act as competent agencies to implement airport projects. Photo: Duc Thanh The Ministry of Transport (MoT) recently wrote to Le Van Thanh, Deputy Prime Minister and head of the governments working group which was established at the end of September, about researching the conversion of the Bien Hoa and Thanh Son military airports into civil ones. The MoT has outlined a detailed research plan for four airports, namely Na San in Son La province, Vinh in Nghe An province, Chu Lai in Quang Nam province and Can Tho in Can Tho, which are included in a project of airport investment and exploitation under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. The plan also covers Tho Xuan Airport in Thanh Hoa province and Lien Huong Airport in Lam Dong province, which have been proposed by the local authorities for expansion and upgrades. The research on these airports will be carried out from now until December 15. Accordingly, a cargo terminal area and aviation logistics area will be the key focus of Can Tho Airport. Meanwhile, other airports will concentrate on expanding passenger terminals, extending runways, and adding aprons to increase operating capacity and accommodate larger planes. On September 24, the Government Office detailed DPM Thanhs remarks at the meeting on planning and raising funds for a number of airports and airfields. DPM Thanh tasked the relevant provincial and municipal peoples committees with conducting investment research to evaluate these airports technical and economic efficiency as well as their capacity to mobilise capital. After completing the procedures, the localities work with the MoT to submit proposals to the prime minister for review and approval. Thus, the localities can act as competent agencies to implement the projects, the deputy prime minister added. In August, Nghe An Peoples Committee wrote to the prime minister about the policy of attracting private investment into airport projects and adjust the planning of Vinh International Airport. The local authorities noted that they had received proposals from some investors to develop the T2 passenger terminal project with a capacity of 10 million passengers per year, a second runway, and cargo terminals as well as other ancillary items. If approved, these investors would like to deploy the projects before 2025 to transform this airport into a grade 4E civil airport, which is the second-highest level according to the classification by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Nghe An Peoples Committee has called for the government to address three issues for the project. Firstly, the government should consider greenlighting the policy of attract private investment for Vinh International Airport under the PPP model. Secondly, the government should assign the provincial Peoples Committee as the competent authority to implement the project. Thirdly, the government must approve the capacity adjustment of the airport in the draft master plan for the development of airports in the 2021-2030 period with a vision to 2050. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has proposed for Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) to transfer the essential infrastructure works of some airports in remote and isolated areas to localities. The new airports should be deployed under the PPP model to mobilise social capital. Meanwhile, the Peoples Committees will serve as the competent authority to mobilise and balance the resources needed to deploy the projects. To speed up the process, the CAAV has suggested the MoT report to the prime minister so that relevant ministries and departments can be directed to review and amend legal provisions and documents such as the laws on land, investment, construction, civil aviation, and management of state assets. This will help to create a favourable legal framework for asset transfer, valuation, and bidding to select investors under the PPP model. In addition, the Commission for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises should formulate a plan to handle ACVs existing assets at the airports. These assets are expected to be given to localities that are qualified to carry out PPP investment. Airport plans depend on investment Vietnams ambitions to transform its airport infrastructure will have to deal with various challenges in attempting to attract private investment. Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong speaking at the workshop on Net Zero today A conference looking at government challenges to tackling its Net Zero commitments was held in Hanoi on October 11, attended by a deputy minister and industry leaders. Climate change has become the biggest challenge of the 21st century, seriously affecting the sustainable development of all countries, including Vietnam. At COP26 last year, Vietnam and nearly 150 countries pledged to reach Net Zero by 2050, collaborating with 100 participating countries committed to reducing global methane emissions by 2030 (compared to 2010), joining the global declaration on converting coal power to clean energy. The Vietnamese government has issued policies to reduce emissions, the "National Strategy on Green Growth for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050," which sets out the goal of carbon neutrality and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said that after the conference in Glasgow (COP26), the Vietnamese government issued the National Action Plan on Green Growth; the National Strategy on Climate Change by 2050; and an overall roadmap to realise the committed climate goals. Deputy Minister Phuong said that the implementation of the government's commitment to Net Zero was not only challenging but created opportunities for businesses in research, innovation, and access to green finance to invest in activities reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to climate change, and developing sustainably. The deputy minister affirmed that businesses, especially exporters, must realise customer requirements in selecting and using goods and services. "They are increasingly prioritising green products and services to protect the environment and the general atmosphere of the earth," he said, citing cases in Europe, the United States, and other countries, where tariff barriers are managing carbon emissions for energy-intensive imports and encouraging decarbonisation of domestic production. This forces exporters in particular and Vietnamese enterprises to change to meet carbon tax barriers from major markets and maintain their position in the international market." he said. "The business community plays an important role in realising the goal of Net Zero to respond to climate change and meet the requirements of sustainable development. Enterprises are both subject to the impacts of climate change and also an important object directly involved in, turning challenges into opportunities in climate change impacts and creating resources to respond to climate change, implement plans to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting green growth." He also said that implementing the government's commitment to Net Zero was not only challenging, but also created opportunities for businesses in research, innovation, and access to green finance to invest in activities reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to climate change, and developing sustainably. Vietnam needs extra 368 billion USD to achieve net zero emissions As the energy industry has a crucial role in achieving net zero emissions by 2050, it requires a structural transition toward green growth. Therefore, Vietnam needs assistance from developed countries regarding both financial and technical issues. Two months ago, Thanh Hoa Peoples Committee received a notice from Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) the unit managing the construction of passenger terminal T2 of Tho Xuan Airport in the central province, with a capacity of five million passengers per year and a total investment of about $88 million that the project is not part of the medium-term public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period and will be phased out after 2025. Localities are suggested to act as competent agencies to implement airport projects The announcement from ACV means that Thanh Hoa must attract investment in the construction of terminal T2 itself for the 2022-2025 period. A representative of Thanh Hoa Peoples Committee said that Terminal T1, with a designed capacity of 1.2 million passengers per year, was overloaded as the number of passengers passing through the airport continued to increase at an average of 17 per cent annually in the last few years. Dong Hoi, the first domestic airport in Vietnam in the central province of Quang Tri and built in the 1930s, was rebuilt in 2006. Investment is a major barrier, limiting Vietnams domestic aviation infrastructure system. Data from the Vietnam Logistics Report 2021 from the Ministry of Industry and Trade showed investment in aviation infrastructure has slowed, partly because of the pandemic, but mainly due to a limited investment fund. By 2021, Vietnam had 22 airports and airfields with a total area of about 12,400 hectares. Most of these airports can accommodate A320/A321, and some airports like Dien Bien, Rach Gia, Con Dao, and Ca Mau can only operate ATR72 or equivalents. The fact investors do not want to pour capital into aviation infrastructure projects has become a problem for cities and provinces planning to develop airports, including Quang Tri, where the locality has approved a strategy to build an airport covering 265ha, with the total investment of $243 million. Vo Van Hung, Chairman of Quang Tri Peoples Committee, at a meeting with the Ministry of Transport in mid-September, said, Airport investment requires large capital, but how to mobilise capital in the form of public-private partnerships (PPP) remains unclear. While the development of domestic airports is riddled with internal issues, the development of aviation infrastructure to serve economic growth is urgent. Vietnam needs $15.3 billion to develop 28 airports by 2030. Funds for the implementation of these projects are to be mobilised from sources such as official development assistance, the state budget, commercial loans, and private capital in the form of PPP projects. Thus, there are countless opportunities for localities wishing to expand and build airports, as well as investors in aviation. According to the Vietnam Logistics Report 2021, the current airport network is planned based on a model that utilises the airports of Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City, and cargo traffic to connect with domestic and international routes. However, the current air traffic volume comes mainly through ports in Noi Bai, Danang, Cam Ranh, and Tan Son Nhat all currently exceeding their designed capacity. Many researchers recognise the fact that the state budget is not enough for investment in infrastructure development, especially in building more aviation infrastructure. Vietnam only currently has the Law on Public-Private Partnership Investment, two decrees guiding the implementation of the law, and a number of circulars. This is not enough to adjust arising issues in PPP practice. Experts believe that this law, if not amended and supplemented, will not meet the needs for attracting private capital in aviation. Tran Chung, chairman of the Vietnam Association of Road Traffic Investors, said, The failure to correctly define the rights and obligations of business entities in investment projects in the PPP format leads to many inadequacies. Chung hopes the regulations on the rights and obligations of state and private investors will be supplemented in the law to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of both parties. NA leader requires accelerating ground clearance for Long Thanh airport project National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue has urged the southern province of Dong Nai to continue to cooperate with the management board of Long Thanh International Airport project and the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) to accelerate ground clearance work so that construction of the project can start as scheduled. Linking the skies with upgraded aviation infrastructure Several nations have devoted generations to constructing sophisticated aviation infrastructure as an economic launchpad. In Vietnam, plans are in the making to follow suit and upgrade the nation's airport infrastructure to serve the ever-increasing demand. Lai Chau Airport may be invested in with PPP The Ministry of Transport (MoT) has just sent an official dispatch to the prime minister and Lai Chau People's Committee on the investment in Lai Chau Airport, which is to be constructed under the public-private partnership (PPP) format. More airports in need to aid aviation sector's growth prospects Building more airports proves important to keep abreast with the aviation sectors upbeat growth prospects. Serious lessons to take on board for Vietnams airport development targets Cities and provinces in Vietnam are rushing to develop more airports to support their socioeconomic development. Juergen Weber, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnams Transportation and Logistics Sector Committee, talked to VIRs Bich Thuy about the importance of airport development to a locality. The move is part of the localitys efforts to remove the yellow card warning imposed by the European Commission (EC) over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Illustrative image (Source: VNA) Quang Ngai counts five seaports Sa Huynh and My A in Duc Pho town, Tinh Ky and Tinh Hoa in Quang Ngai city, and Ly Son in Ly Son district - of which Tinh Ky and Sa Huynh have been facing environmental pollution due to untreated wastewater discharged by fishing boats. Tran Le Hong Son, director of the provincial management board of seaports, said the committee has allocated funding to the construction of automatic microbiological wastewater treatment and firefighting systems at the ports. Officials from the EC will visit Vietnam this October to check measures against IUU fishing in coastal areas, according to an official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developments Vietnam Directorate of Fisheries. The trip aims to review the country's efforts in removing the yellow card warning issued in 2017. Quang Ngai, Kien Giang close tourist attractions over COVID-19 fears Authorities in the central province of Quang Ngai and southern province of Kien Giang have closed tourist attractions in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. VSIP Quang Ngai receives coveted award for Green Industrial Park 2020 VSIP Quang Ngai was conferred The Green Industrial Park 2020 award by the Consultant Association of Information Economic-Trade (VCAIET) under the management of the Ministry of Planning and Investment. EVNNPT donates $43,480 to disaster-stricken locals of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai National Power Transmission Corporation (EVNNPT) donated VND1 billion ($43,480) to support people in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai impacted by the recent storms wreaking havoc in Central Vietnam. The roundtable kicks off The Vietnam Investment Review roundtable 'Small airports for local economy take-off' was held this morning with the participation of speakers from a variety of local and international organisations. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Vietnam ranks No.1 on the list of 25 countries with the fastest recovery in the domestic aviation market post-pandemic. Before the COVID outbreak, the country's aviation sector had been growing at a double-digit rate, averaging 15.8 per cent annually. The IATA forecasts that by 2035, Vietnamese airlines will serve up to 136 million passengers and contribute $23 billion to GDP. However, the existing airport system, especially small airports such as Con Dao, Cat Bi, Phu Quoc, Lien Khuong, and Cam Ranh, is overloaded. According to the International Air Transport Association, Vietnam ranks No.1 on the list of 25 countries with the fastest recovery of the domestic aviation market post-pandemic. In Vietnam, airlines and airports contribute significantly to the economic growth of localities and the wider country. In 2019, the aviation industry, including passenger spending, contributed $12.5 billion to the country's GDP. Michel Werson, chief economist at NACO part of Royal HaskoningDHV said, Along with the role of transport linkage, small airports will contribute to creating many other economic values. Notably, they will create benefits for investors and generate jobs for people. The small airport is a factor to attract investment capital inflow to localities and then contribute to the state budget. Small airports will also wake up the tourism potential of various localities. For example, following a major expansion between 2017-2018, Phu Quoc International Airport has been an important international gateway to many iconic destinations and made significant contributions to the socioeconomic development of the 'Pearl Island.' Before the pandemic, Phu Quoc's economy was growing by an average of 27.52 per cent per year, and tourism revenue was rising by up to 43 per cent per year. Cam Ranh International Airport is another outstanding example. In 2004, the airport only served 270,000 passengers. In 2019, the airport saw tourist arrivals grow nearly 40-fold, receiving over 10 million passengers, of which more than 3.5 million were international tourists. The government has approved an upgrade for Cam Ranh International Airport to have an annual capacity of 25 million passengers by 2030 and 36 million by 2050. The ground-breaking ceremony of Sapa Airport in March 2022 has turned the dreams and aspirations of provincial leaders and local ethnic minorities into a reality. Once completed, the airport is expected to boost the economy and tourist development in the northern province of Lao Cai. Confronted by ever-crowding airports, experts at the roundtable agreed that the construction of a major airport was needed to accommodate the soaring growth. Nguyen Van Vinh, deputy director of the Vietnam Institute for Development Strategies said, To invest effectively in the airport, it is necessary to have a combination of the state and the private sector to jointly calculate the timeline and scale of the projects. It is also needed to evaluate every aspect carefully to avoid wasting natural and power resources while simultaneously clarifying the concept of the small airport. In addition, it is important to consider the transportation link plans to synchronise other transport infrastructure systems, including the road, rail, and sea link, to connect with the airport. This work will attract private investors to invest in the airport, he said. 'Small airports for local economy take-off' was live-streamed on the website and fan page platforms of VIR publications vir.com.vn, baodautu.vn, and tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn. Serious lessons to take on board for Vietnams airport development targets Cities and provinces in Vietnam are rushing to develop more airports to support their socioeconomic development. Juergen Weber, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnams Transportation and Logistics Sector Committee, talked to VIRs Bich Thuy about the importance of airport development to a locality. Airport plans depend on investment Vietnams ambitions to transform its airport infrastructure will have to deal with various challenges in attempting to attract private investment. Ministry approves expansion of South Phu Yen EZ Phu Yen People's Committee is completing the general planning for South Phu Yen Economic Zone (EZ) after consulting the Ministry of Construction's Appraisal Council. Funding essential for domestic airport expansions Nakajima Takeo, chief representative of the Hanoi Office of the Japan Trade Promotion Organization and vice president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam talked to VIRs Minh Anh about the essential attraction of multi-investment sources in building advanced airport facilities and operations in Vietnam. TC Motor will distribute and manufacture Czech Skoda cars Under a deal it signed with Skoda Auto - one of the world's oldest car makers - in Hanoi on October 7, TC Motor will start distributing imported Skoda cars next year. Skoda makes 11 models, with the Octavia its bestseller, but the two companies have yet to disclose which model will be sold in Vietnam first. Vietnam is the first Southeast Asian country where Skoda will build a factory. The two parties also have plans to build a car assembly plant in the northern province of Quang Ninh, with the first vehicles expected to roll out of it late next year at the earliest. In February, the leaders of Skoda met deputy minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc and the chairman of Quang Ninh People's Committee to discuss plans to establish modern manufacturing lines within its factory in Quang Ninh. Vietnam is the first Southeast Asian country where Skoda will build a factory. The company plans to put the factory into operation in 2024 and begin exporting cars from Vietnam a few years later. Last year, the Czech group sold nearly 900,000 vehicles in 100 markets around the world, with Germany and Russia the biggest. ASEAN, Czech Republic look to standardise customs procedures The Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) Committee in coordination with the Customs Administration of the Czech Republic has held a webinar to introduce the electronic customs of the European country. Ho Chi Minh City authorities join supermarkets to distribute goods to citizens Supermarkets and authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have come up with a new plan to supply food to citizens as the city is ordering stricter social distancing measures. Vietnam, Czech Republic boost cooperation in auto manufacturing Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Hai hosted a reception in Hanoi on November 16 for Ambassador of the Czech Republic Vitezslav Grepl and a delegation from Skoda Auto, a car maker of the Czech Republic, who came to seek partners to build an automobile factory in the northern province of Quang Ninh. The Amata journey creating smart industrial cities Clients from all over the world, ranging from international giants on the Global Fortune 500 list to mid-sized and smaller companies, have chosen Amata as their preferred partner. Today, Amata is home to over 1,400 leading and aspiring global companies, creating more than 300,000 jobs, and contributing more than $56 billion to countries GDP (estimated 2018 data). Amata prides itself on leveraging technology, providing integrated industrial real estate solutions, and customer service. Since its inception, the company has strived not only to provide a location for businesses but to create integrated cities with dedicated utilities, infrastructure and facilities and a range of services towards the era of Smart cities. With its numerous achievements in Thailand, Amata is expected to replicate and spread similar models to other countries, especially in Vietnam. Amata Vietnam celebrates the 20th anniversary Amata Vietnam held ceremony on December 18 to celebrate two decades of successful operations in Vietnam. Amata seeks incentives for Halong Thailands Amata Group is asking for special incentives from the Vietnamese government for its $1.6 billion industrial park and township complex in the northern province of Quang Ninh province, enabling the complex to be competitive with neighbouring VSIP Haiphong and Dinh Vu industrial parks, both located in an economic zone. Amata IP, complex expected to start before Tet The northeastern province of Quang Ninh has asked Thailand's Amata Group to start constructing the first phase of the high tech industrial park (IP) and township complex before Tet (Lunar New Year) in 2017. Amata won Quang Ninhs support for tax proposal Thai-backed Amata Groups proposal on special incentives for its $1.6 billion high-tech park and township complex in Quang Ninh province has received support from provincial authorities. Le Thi Minh Thoa, Deputy Permanent Representative of Vietnam at the UN, suggested that ahead of the upcoming relevant meetings of the UN, countries should work to ensure pragmatic progress in the implementation of international commitments. Illustrative image (Source: kinhtemoitruong.vn) People should be put at the centre in the response efforts, she said, stressing the need to ensure financial balance for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Thoa proposed countries continue to integrate climate, environment and biodiversity issues into their legal frameworks, policies and action plans; build and promote a green, sustainable economy; and raise public awareness of the matters. She emphasised the significance of science, technology and innovation to national sustainable development strategies, as well as scientific and technical cooperation, and technology transfer in this regard. The representative spoke of Vietnams efforts in implementing comprehensive and specific measures to fulfill its climate and environment commitments, saying the country has amended and adopted relevant legal documents and updated its National Climate Change Strategy to 2050 and the Nationally Determined Contributions under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). National Strategy on Climate Change for 2050 approved Hanoi - Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh has signed a decision approving the National Strategy on Climate Change for 2050. PM hails contributions of COP26 President Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has hailed President of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) Alok Kumar Sharma, who is also British Minister for the Cabinet Office, for his contributions to stepping up the delivery of COP26 commitments. Opening arguments begin Tuesday in the capital murder trial of a Bellmead man accused of killing two relatives at his home in 2020. A jury was selected Monday for the trial of Johnny Alvin Wilson, 39, in the 54th State District Court of Judge Susan Kelly. He is accused of fatally shooting Rachel Dionne Strickland, 40, and Christopher Dewayne Wilson, 42, on May 22, 2020 outside his home in the 4700 block of Florida Street, in Bellmead, south of Texas State Technical College. Strickland and Christopher Wilson and their 16-year-old daughter were at a family gathering at Johnny Wilsons house when the shootings occurred, the Tribune-Herald reported in 2020. The teenage daughter witnessed Johnny Wilson shoot her parents and fled over a fence into a neighbors yard, according to affidavits from the incident. Others at the scene included Johnny Wilsons wife and infant, police reported at the time. At the time, Johnny Wilsons wife told investigators that she saw the shooting, according to a search warrant affidavit. She said he took a pistol from a safe in the home and carried it the whole day, the affidavit says. After 4 p.m., she noticed (he) had an odd look on his face, the affidavit says. She had never seen him with that look on his face before, the affidavit says. A neighbor across the street also told investigators she saw a woman shot and heard several gunshots at Johnny Wilsons home, the affidavit says. The neighbor could only see the arm of the guy that fired the hand gun, however she stated she believes it is the same guy the police put on the ground in front of the house, the affidavit says. Johnny Wilson has been held since then on $2.3 million bail in McLennan County Jail on two counts of capital murder and related charges, including second-degree felony aggravated assault, third-degree felony unlawful possession of a firearm and state jail felony child endangerment. Prosecutors Staci Johnson and Donald McCarthy, from the McLennan County District Attorneys Office, and defense attorneys Jon Evans and John Donahue conducted jury selection on Monday, to thin a jury pool of around 60 potential jurors down to 12 for the trial. A search of McLennan County Courthouse records found no prior charges or convictions at the felony or misdemeanor level for Johnny Wilson. A juror called in sick Tuesday, leading to a two-week delay at the start of a capital murder trial in Wacos 54th State District Court. Judge Susan Kelly postponed the capital murder trial of Johnny Alvin Wilson, 39, of Bellmead, until Oct. 24. Johnny Wilson stands accused of shooting and killing two relatives at a cookout in Bellmead in 2020. Court filings ahead of the anticipated start of opening arguments and testimony Tuesday also reveal Johnny Wilson was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a 2003 murder conviction in Arkansas. Prosecutors allege Johnny Wilson of fatally shot his relatives, Rachel Dionne Strickland, 40, and Christopher Dewayne Wilson, 42, on May 22, 2020, at a family gathering outside his home in the 4700 block of Florida Street in Bellmead. Court documents indicate that at least three people saw the shootings. Defense attorney Jon Evans asked potential jurors questions Monday about self defense and the castle doctrine, referring to Texas legal rule that a person can defend their home with force. As the start of the trial was approaching Tuesday, officials realized one of the jurors selected Monday was out sick. Before Kelly released the remaining jurors until trial resumes, she swore one witness in and admonished him not discuss the case or view media reports about it. A pretrial filing reveals prosecutors intend to inform jurors of Johnny Wilsons Sept. 30, 2003, second-degree murder conviction in Union County Arkansas. The Arkansas court sentenced Johnny Wilson to 15 years in prison, with five years suspended, for the Mar. 5, 2003, murder of which he was convicted. Prosecutors intend to bring up the conviction at trial by means of a video recording of Johnny Wilsons confession to the 2003 murder, as well as through the testimony of eyewitnesses and an investigator, according to the filing. The prosecutor wrote that his purposes for introducing this prior conviction would include absence of mistake or lack of accident as well as all other purposes allowed under the Texas Code of Criminal procedure. The court rescheduled opening statements for Johnny Wilsons trial to Oct. 24, with the trial to run several days that week. Volunteers are making a last push to sign up McLennan County voters as the deadline for voter registration approaches Tuesday for the Nov. 8 midterm elections. As of Monday afternoon, McLennan County had a record 153,795 registered voters, an increase of 4,048 voters, or 2.7% from the 2020 election. Of those on the rolls, 132,045 voters are considered active and 21,750 are under suspense status, meaning they must confirm address or other information before voting, County Elections Administrator Jared Goldsmith.Goldsmith said the growth in voter rolls may be due to the growth of the county population, or increasing political engagement. Whatever the reason, Goldsmith said he hopes everyone comes out to vote. Goldsmith said people can come to the elections office at 214 N. Fourth St. during the day to register. He also said other sites such as post offices and libraries typically have applications, but applicants for those offsite locations should make sure their applications are postmarked for Oct. 11. McLennan County Democratic Party Chair Mark Hays said the excitement surrounding this election is tremendous, maybe even bigger than some presidential years. He said this slate of candidates is of a higher quality than hes seen in years. This midterm ballot features closely watched state-level showdowns for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. McLennan County voters will see a challenge from Democrat Erin Shank against longtime Republican State Rep. Charles Doc Anderson in District 56, while Republican Angelia Orr and Democrat Cedric Davis Sr. are vying for the new District 13 seat. On the ballot at the city level will be the cities of Bruceville-Eddy, Moody and West. Axtell, China Spring, Crawford, Lorena, Oglesby and West Independent School Districts will also appear on this years ballot. McLennan County Republican Party Vice Chair Chris DeCluitt said a race to watch will be justice of the peace Precinct 5, where Republican Jessica Dominguez faces Democrat Lucyann Sanchez-Miramontez. But he said given the voter patterns in the districts at play, he doesnt think there will be much of a challenge for his party. The McLennan County Republican Party will have registration available during office hours Tuesday at its headquarters, 539 N. Valley Mills Drive. Hays, the Democratic chairman, said Project V.I.E.R., or Voter Information Education and Registration, a coalition of various organizations in Waco, has sponsored a large number of registration events, all while maintaining a nonpartisan attitude. Its extremely important that people get registered, Hays said. We want everybody to vote. He said in the last six weeks the organization has registered about 400 voters, and during this round of elections they havent had to work so hard to find people who want to register. Hays said a group will be at Starbucks in Central Texas Marketplace on Tuesday to register voters. Hays said voters, especially younger ones, have been mobilized by current events such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade, mass shootings, economic issues and the pandemic. Hays said the people who have typically been active in politics in previous years were middle aged or older, given they have more time to do so. However, hes seen a shift onto younger voters to take action. Theyre going out and doing things that previously only the party was doing, Hays said. The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization NextGen America was at McLennan Community College on Monday, handing out tacos and urging people to register, and the outreach will continue Tuesday. Field organizer Hope Balfa-Mustakim said she has registered about 470 people to vote since June 1, and shell also be giving out pledge cards to get people out to vote once theyre registered. Balfa-Mustakim, who represents a youth-focused organization, said shes had fun meeting a lot of young people on college and high school campuses and helping them realize their voice matters. She said shes noticed a lot of young women specifically are motivated to vote this round, citing the Supreme Courts decision overturning Roe v. Wade as a defining factor. DeCluitt said he is also excited to see younger people get more involved, and also to see Hispanic conservatives become more active. I think the actions of the Biden administration are making people pay attention and will motivate people to get out and vote, DeCluitt said. Youre going to wake up those voters that are the silent majority. Meanwhile, the deadline to apply for a ballot by mail is Oct. 28 by 5 p.m. The deadline may be weeks away, but Hays said he wouldnt wait until then to send in an application. Goldsmith said to receive a mail-in ballot voters must apply and meet one of these criteria: Voter is 65 years old or older Voter is disabled or has a condition that does not allow them to reasonably appear at the polling stations Voter is pregnant and expecting a due date within three weeks before or after election day Voter will not be in the county during early voting and election day Voter is in jail but eligible to vote Goldsmith early voting will begin starting Oct. 24. I highly encourage our voters to vote early, skip the line, skip the craziness, Goldsmith said. He said the five early voting sites will be the usual polling locations: The McLennan County Elections Office; the Waco Multipurpose Center, 1020 Elm Ave.; Hewitt City Hall, 200 Patriot Court; Robinson Community Center, 106. W. Lyndale Ave.; and First Assembly of God church, 6701 Bosque Blvd. Sites will be open at these times: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 24-28 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Oct. 29 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 30 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Oct. 31-Nov. 4 Goldsmith said a pro tip would be to try to vote on the weekend. Sunday is usually the slowest day. Balfa-Mustakim said once voter registration ends the focus will shift to getting people out to the polls to vote. Itll be more about voter engagement, make sure people have a plan to vote, still doing pledge cards, she said. DeCluitt echoed her sentiment, saying its important for people to use their registration to get out and vote for the party that most closely nears their values. Now were just getting to the final push to the election, DeCluitt said. The Waco Police Department tower at 3115 Pine Ave. is getting new windows to replace the warped, streaky panes that make up most of its 52-year-old facade. The windows of the former Hillcrest Medical Tower were already noticeably warped when Waco Police Department bought it in 2010. But the $13 million set aside from a city bond for the purchase and renovations didnt leave enough to replace them. The Waco City Council last November approved a $3.3 million contract with IWR North America for the windows, but the work didnt start until last month, said Assistant City Manager Ryan Holt. It was a matter of getting all the glass, said Holt, a former Waco police chief. The metal curtain [support structure,] all had to be manufactured during the time where there was supply chain disruption. This is custom stuff, because of the age of the building. The council approved an $88,000 contract for architectural services with CP&Y Inc. during its Feb. 18, 2021 meeting. Last year, city officials said the project was tentatively scheduled to wrap up in mid-2022, but constraints on supply chains and the state of the construction labor market might interfere. Holt said the project is now schedule for completion by Aug. 15, 2023. Holt said the company started building scaffolding along the building in early September and started removing windows and replacing segments of the buildings curtain wall, the framework that will hold the new windows in place, with custom aluminum pieces. Workers will replace 16,450 square feet of windows and 25,125 square feet of metal panels, along with rubber gaskets along each windows edges. The rubber gaskets had deteriorated to a point where we were seeing air infiltration and in some cases moisture penetration, he said. The city estimates the improvements will save about $56,000 in energy costs per year. Holt said future construction projects for the police department could include a new crime lab and a property room for the tower. He said of the buildings 10 usable floors, floor six and seven are unfinished shells that could be renovated. Each floor has about 9,000 square feet of usable space, he said. Well complete the finish out of those areas as the department continues to grow, he said. The large parking lots behind the building are still owned by Hillcrest, and are still marked by old signs labeling them with numbered rows and lettered columns. The site is still bordered by rows of trees. Damien Richards, who lives near McLennan Community College and often visits his brothers who live near the tower, said people try to avoid the parking lots if they can. They can be kind of prickly about you being on the land if you dont have a reason to be over here, he said, standing on the sidewalk between 28th Street and the empty lot. Im sure if we sat here long enough, they would pull up and ask what were doing. The U.S. Department of Defense is set to change the name of Texas Fort Hood, Americas largest active-duty armored military post, to pay homage to a four-star Hispanic general instead of its original namesake, a Confederate general. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin announced the pending change Oct. 6 in a memo to top Pentagon officials and agreed to a recommendation that the base be called Fort Cavazos. That name was previously recommended by the Naming Commission, which Congress created to suggest new names or removal of names and symbols that commemorate Confederate figures. Federal officials have until Jan. 1, 2024, to finalize the transition. The change is part of a broader movement from the naming commission to have the DOD rename 1,111 installations and facilities. Eight other military bases that derive their names from Confederate figures are also slated to have their names changed. The names of these installations and facilities should inspire all those who call them home, fully reflect the history and the values of the United States, and commemorate the best of the republic that we are all sworn to protect, Austin said in the memo. Fort Hood houses around 40,000 soldiers. It was permanently established in 1950 and was named after Gen. John Bell Hood, who spearheaded the Confederate Armys Texas brigade at the time of the Civil War. The fort is in Bell County, where 26.5% of residents are Hispanic. The new name will honor Gen. Richard Cavazos, the first Hispanic four-star general in Texas. Born during the Great Depression, Cavazos grew up on his familys Texas ranch. From an early age, he showed devotion to the Army by enrolling in the ROTC program at what is now Texas Tech University immediately after high school. The first act that got him noticed was during the Korean War, when he returned to a raging battlefield five times to retrieve his fellow wounded soldiers, according to the Naming Commission. For his actions, he earned the Distinguished Service Cross, the nations second-highest military honor for valor. Years later, he returned to his original ROTC program, but as a professor of military science. But that wasnt the end of his time on the battlefield. In the Vietnam War, Cavazos frequently led the front of his infantry battalion. His actions in Vietnam earned him another service cross. LUBBOCK The cotton harvest is about to get underway in the Texas High Plains, the windswept region that grows most of the crop in the nations top cotton-producing state. But Barry Evans, like many others, has already walked away from more than 2,000 acres of his bone-dry fields. It just didnt come up. We hardly had anything. It just wasnt in the cards this year, said Evans, a third-generation cotton grower. Extreme heat and a dearth of rainfall have severely damaged much of this years cotton harvest in the U.S., which produces about 35% of the world's crop. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast that more than 40% of what U.S. farmers planted in the spring would be abandoned because of drought. Nowhere is this more apparent than the flat, dry stretch of Texas extending some 250 miles from Lubbock to the tip of the Texas Panhandle bordering Oklahoma. Where waist-high cotton plants normally grow, the landscape is now defined by barren, brown fields. The USDA says Texas cotton farmers are likely to abandon nearly 70% of their spring planting. That's the worst harvest since 2009, according to the Texas Farm Bureau. The losses in cotton could cost the Texas High Plains $1.2 billion after farmers receive federal crop insurance payments, estimates Darren Hudson, director of the International Center for Agricultural Competitiveness at Texas Tech University. That leaves out others who depend on the crop, such as cotton gins and warehouses. "Any time you have a bad year in cotton, it has a role to play in the overall economy, Hudson said. The region normally receives around 18 to 20 inches (46 to 51 centimeters) of rain per year, but saw less than 3 inches (7 centimeters) of rain from August 2021 through the summer, as nearly all of Texas baked under drought and blistering temperatures sapped the remaining moisture from the ground. Climate change is intensifying these effects. Subsoil moisture and topsoil moisture was already low to start, and it just got worse and worse, said Graham Soley, a USDA agricultural economist. In Texas, bad drought years are recalled with a certain familiarity. Evans and other cotton growers say the soil was so dry in April and May, when cotton's planted, that the harvest fared worse than in 2011, the last time a drought almost as severe enveloped the state. If we dont get any kind of winter moisture, its going to be really difficult next year, he said, adding that theres less groundwater available in the High Plains area than a decade ago. Much of the cotton grown in the region is rainfed, but some cotton farmers also use groundwater. Even those with irrigated fields are expecting low yields this year. Katie Lewis, a professor of soil chemistry and fertility at Texas A&M University in Lubbock, said extreme heat and dry events are growing more intense, but not necessarily more common. The regions arid, sandy soils and high rates of moisture loss from evaporation and plants means rainfall can change soil conditions for farmers fairly quickly, Lewis said. So if this winter provides enough rainfall, next years harvest could look very different. But the patterns of weather events have become so sporadic," she added, that its hard to define normal. Even if crop yields rebound, the region's overall recovery from economic losses could take a few years, particularly small towns that are especially dependent on cotton. Consecutive bad years really damage the economies of the rural areas, said Texas Tech's Hudson. While most farmers facing losses have already received federal crop insurance payments, such backstops dont exist for the cotton gin operators who separate seeds from harvested bolls, warehouses that store cotton bales, mills that make cottonseed oil, or trucking companies that transport the crop. Todd Straley, who manages a cotton gin in Plainview, Texas, said his region has experienced five years of below-average harvests that have accelerated the closure and consolidation of nearby facilities. His gin normally produces around 100,000 bales each harvest; this year, he is expecting to process 12,000. As a result, Straley has no need to run the facility 24-hours-a-day as he normally would for the three months after the harvest. We are looking at such a short crop, Straley said, I contracted my employees to dismantle different gins that went out of business. While U.S. cotton farming is no longer labor intensive, cotton gins, warehouses and oil mills depend heavily on seasonal workers, usually migrant laborers. Straley said hell need around 18 full-time and seasonal workers, compared to 50 in years when farmers havent abandoned crops at such high levels. Farmers choose not to harvest when so little grows that it isnt worth the cost. Larry Black, who manages a ginning co-operative in Roscoe, Texas, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) away, said his facility processes cotton from 100,00 acres (40,469 hectares) of nearby farmland. Last year, the facility processed 86,000 bales. This year, he is expecting around 4,000. Its tough on everybody when we dont make a crop, Black said. He estimates losses this year at the farmer-owned gin will amount to $1 million, but said profits from a strong harvest in 2021 would serve as a buffer. In the 1980s, around 500 cotton gins were operating in the state, according to Hudson. Last year, 185 were in business, the Texas Cotton Ginners Association said. The reduction is due in part to consolidation and changes in technology, Hudson said, but some of that is also weather driven. Especially the smaller ones just cant continue to stay open and operating. Most cotton farmers in this part of Texas use cotton seed varieties modified to withstand drought, said Kody Bessent, chief executive of Plains Cotton Growers, representing growers in 42 Texas High Plains counties. Varieties are continuously developed and will be tweaked to generate high yields if dry conditions persist, he said. Even though its drought resistant," Bessent added, we still have to have a little bit of help from Mother Nature." Naishadham reported from Washington, D.C. The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of APs environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment A man from Eagle was arrested in Kansas early Friday after fleeing from a Cass County sheriff's deputy who had tried to arrest him. Just after 8:15 p.m. Thursday, sheriff's deputies were sent to a house in Eagle to check on a report of a domestic violence assault. The first deputy at the scene found a woman and a girl standing in the street waiting for officers to arrive. The woman told the deputy that Michael Brueckner, 57, had hit her multiple times in the face with a closed fist. Brueckner came out of the house, but when he saw the deputy, he went back inside and slammed the door, the Sheriff's Office said. The deputy called for more deputies and Nebraska State Patrol troopers to come to the house. Before the other officers arrived, Brueckner came out of the house and ran to his 2016 Chevy pickup truck, the Sheriff's Office said. The deputy tried to take the man into custody, chasing him on foot and using a Taser on him, but he got away. Brueckner, who the deputy said appeared to be under the influence of a controlled substance, was able to get his pickup into gear and backed up, striking the deputy with the door and throwing the deputy toward the driveway. The man's pickup then hit a marked sheriff's cruiser before fleeing. Crews from Eagle Fire and Rescue and Cass County emergency management came to the house to treat the deputy and the woman, neither of whom went to the hospital. Nebraska State Patrol troopers who tried to find Brueckner's pickup were unsuccessful. Area law enforcement agencies were contacted and asked to look for the pickup. Deputies in Kansas with the Riley County Sheriff's Office spotted the pickup and began to chase it. They later ended the pursuit because of dangerously high speeds. Shortly thereafter, at about 12:40 a.m. Friday, police officers from Wabaunsee, Kansas, found Brueckner passed out in his pickup at a rest stop and took him into custody after using a Taser on him twice. Brueckner faces several felony charges in Kansas, including driving under the influence and flight to avoid arrest. He also faces charges in Nebraska, including domestic violence assault, child abuse and felony assault of a police officer with a motor vehicle. Cass County officials said a warrant will be issued and the man will be extradited to Nebraska after facing charges in Kansas. Eagle is about 15 miles east of Lincoln. Wabaunsee, Kansas, is about 130 miles south of Eagle. With the mid-term election just a month away, women across the country gathered this weekend with a unified message. "We are not going back into the shadows," Hannah Wroblewski told those gathered outside the state Capitol on Saturday morning for the Lincoln Women's March. "We will not let politicians tell us what we can and can't do with our bodies." More than 100 people turned out on a brisk, sunny morning to support abortion access and women's rights, joining thousands nationwide expected to participate in more than 300 marches scheduled a month ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election. Wroblewski, board member of the Lincoln Women's March and chair of the Lancaster County Democrats, said the end goal isn't just a world where abortion is legal, but one where it's accessible, affordable and destigmatized. Exactly 30 days before the election, the Lincoln Women's March invited women and candidates on the November ballot backing abortion rights, including Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, former Sen. Danielle Conrad and Lincoln City Council members Jane Raybould and James Michael Bowers, to speak in an effort to increase voter engagement. How many of you are angry right now?" Bowers asked those in attendance. "How many of you are angry that we have to stand here and fight for rights that should be guaranteed? How many of you are angry at the politicians that led us to this moment?" According to Bowers, who is pitted against Conrad in a race to represent northeast Lincoln in the state Legislature, the fight is not just on the steps of the Capitol, it is in every ballot booth in every precinct across the country. Raybould, a candidate for the Legislature in central Lincoln, echoed Bowers' encouragement to vote, holding a sign reading 'I can't believe I have to protest this s---.' We have to speak out because we know reproductive rights are womens rights, and womens rights are human rights," Raybould said. She is running for the District 28 seat currently held by Pansing Brooks, while Bowers and Conrad are paired in District 46, which is represented by Sen. Adam Morfeld. With both senators term-limited out of the Legislature, Pansing Brooks is challenging Mike Flood to represent the state's 1st Congressional District in Congress, while Morfeld bids to unseat incumbent Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon. "The constitution guarantees equality and liberty, but its no longer there when one half of the population cannot make their own health care decisions our democracy, our freedoms are at risk," Pansing Brooks said. "So we have to stand up. ... We have to vote as if our lives depend on it. Because they do. Pansing Brooks led the audience in a chant, sporadically interrupting her speech with calls of "My voice, my body, my choice, my vote!" Members of the feminist club at Lincoln East High School, led by junior Cassidy Bell, said they got together Friday night to make signs and prepare for Saturday's march, even though none of their members are old enough to vote. Sitting on the steps of the Capitol, the group held signs that read "Glass Ceilings are Made to be Broken" and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun-Damental Rights." "Our reproductive rights are at stake," Bell said. "As mid-terms approach, we want to make sure candidates know it's important to us as future voters, and that current voters know, too." On the other end of the spectrum, grandmother Rolisha Davis said she wants her children and grandchildren to have the same rights she's had. "If we dont do something now," Davis said, "our rights are going to be gone." August Fritton, a nonbinary freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the issue goes beyond election season. We have a right to be angry and while voting is helpful, we cannot let this energy dissipate after November," Fritton said while addressing the crowd. Abortion is a difficult choice that nobody wants to be in a position to make. This is not something people go into lightly, and its definitely not just about women." Fritton wasn't planning on speaking at the event, but noticed a lot of people talking about women and using non-inclusive language. "I wanted to set the record straight," Fritton said. This is about women, but it is not just about rich, white women. ... This ban affects us, but it is not about just us. It is so much bigger." According to Adelle Burke of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Nebraska, a handful of races in the Legislature this year could be the difference in anti-abortion advocates seeking a complete ban in next year's session. A bill that would have led to an abortion ban fell two votes shy of overcoming a filibuster this year. When the Supreme Court stripped away our constitutional right to abortion in June, they handed decisions about our bodies and our lives over to politicians in every state," Burke said. "On Nov. 8, we will take back control by electing strong advocates for reproductive rights and health care up and down the ballot, including right here in the Legislature." OMAHA The third largest railroad union rejected its deal with freight railroads Monday renewing the possibility of a strike that could cripple the economy but before that could happen both sides will return to the bargaining table. About 56% of the track maintenance workers represented by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division union who voted opposed the five-year contract even though it included 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. Union President Tony Cardwell said the railroads didn't do enough to address worker concerns about the lack of paid time off particularly sick time and demanding working conditions after the major railroads eliminated nearly one-third of their jobs over the past six years. Railroaders are discouraged and upset with working conditions and compensation and hold their employer in low regard. Railroaders do not feel valued, Cardwell said in a statement. They resent the fact that management holds no regard for their quality of life, illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness. The railroads didn't immediately comment on the rejected contract. Four other railroad unions have approved their agreements with the freight railroads that include BNSF, Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern, CSX and Norfolk Southern, but all 12 unions that represent a total of 115,000 workers must ratify their contracts to prevent a strike. One other union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, initially rejected its deal but has since renegotiated a new contract. The voting won't be completed until mid-November. President Joe Biden put pressure on the railroads and unions to reach a deal last month ahead of a mid-September deadline to allow a strike or walkout. Many businesses also urged Congress to be ready to intervene in the dispute and block a strike if an agreement wasn't reached because so many companies rely on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products. In general, the deals the unions agreed to closely follow the recommendations a special panel of arbitrators that Biden appointed made this summer. That Presidential Emergency Board recommended what would be the biggest raises rail workers have seen in more than four decades, but it didn't resolve the unions' concerns about working conditions. Instead it said the unions should pursue additional negotiations or arbitration that can take years with each railroad individually. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way union said it agreed to delay any strike until five days after Congress reconvenes in mid November to allow time for additional negotiations. Quality of life issues took center stage at the end of these negotiations with the unions that represent conductors and engineers holding out until the end to get three unpaid leave days a year to tend to medical appointments and a promise that railroads will negotiate further about giving those employees regularly scheduled days off where they aren't on call. The engineers and conductors have complained that strict railroad attendance policies make it hard to take any time off. The track maintenance workers in the BMWED generally have more regular schedules than engineers and conductors, but all the rail unions have objected to the lack of paid sick time in the industry particularly after working to keep trains moving throughout the pandemic. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy CEDAR FALLS Two youths have been detained following a Monday night chase with Cedar Falls police. Officers attempted to stop a stolen vehicle in the area of Iowa Highway 58 and Ridgeway Avenue around 7:05 p.m. Monday. The vehicle took off, and the chase headed north. The fleeing vehicle sideswiped another vehicle at the Greenhill Road intersection. The chase continued into Waterloo where police deployed stop sticks at University Avenue and Fletcher Avenue, disabling the vehicle. The teens then ran off on foot and were detained a short time later. The youths were referred to juvenile court services on charges of vehicle theft, eluding, reckless driving, credit card fraud, interference and possession of marijuana. The Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office and the Iowa State Patrol also assisted in the pursuit. The driver of the sideswiped vehicle wasnt injured. LaPORTE CITY LaPorte City police arrested an alleged fugitive sex offender after they went to check on a report of a pickup truck in a ditch Tuesday morning. An officer found the GMC Denali partially in a ditch on Bryan Road near Canfield Road around 1:30 a.m. The man inside was slow to the respond but eventually unlocked the door and began walking away to a nearby fence with his hands in his pockets as the officer told him to stop and drew his handgun, according to court records. The man hopped the fence and began running. He pulled out a lighter and attempted to light a cigarette while still retreating from the officer, telling him he didnt know who the officer was. The man also said he didnt know where he was or how he got there, according to court records. The officer holstered his pistol and drew a Taser, and the man eventually stopped and was handcuffed. He was arrested for interference and detained on a Scott County warrant for a sex offender registration violation. Authorities determined the pickup truck had been reported stolen out of Muscatine County, according to the Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office. The man, identified as 43-year-old Johnny Ray Gardner, recently of Davenport, is listed as most wanted on the Iowa Sex Offender Registry, according to the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation website. Gardner is required to register because of a 2009 conviction in Clinton County for indecent contact with a child in a case involving an 8-year-old girl, records state. He also has conviction of other crimes, including failure to register as a sex offender, and was released from prison in May 2022 after serving time for a Scott County charge, according to corrections records. WATERLOO About 50 people heard from Liz Mathis, the Democratic state senator running for Iowas 2nd Congressional District seat in the Nov. 8 election, at the Waterloo Rotary Club meeting Monday afternoon. She shared information about her background and answered questions inside the Waterloo Convention Center at the Sullivan Brothers Plaza. Republican incumbent Ashley Hinson is running for re-election and addressed the Rotarians earlier this year. Mathis spoke of her upbringing on the farm near DeWitt and her former career in broadcast journalism. After being asked for years to run for higher office, the state senator said the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, following then-President Donald Trumps November 2020 election defeat, was one motivator that solidified her decision to throw her hat into the ring. I want this to be a civil, policy-focused and logical discussion of issues and possibilities, she said. I want our campaign and our service after we win to be beneficial to all, but not for those who want to tear down our democracy. Mathis said she meets the criteria of the Rotarians ethical guide, the Four-Way Test of things they think, say or do one being: Will it build goodwill and better friendships? She said shes received campaign contributions from mostly Iowans, members of all political parties and people from all walks of life. Mathis also spoke to her work to address the states privatization of Medicaid, mental health crisis, and teacher shortage, as well as her support for the bipartisan federal infrastructure bill and in creating a path to citizenship for those in the country who abide by the laws, pay taxes and support communities. And she noted that Democrats do vote for tax cuts. Mathis answered Rotarians questions on topics ranging from the next federal farm bill to the southern border, energy independence, infrastructure funding and resources to support new people moving into the country. She said President Joe Bidens administration isnt doing enough to address the border. One of her suggestions was addressing inadequate technology for processing legal immigrants paperwork. Additionally, Mathis called for more support of renewable energies like wind and solar, but also independently drilling for oil. President Biden approved E15 for the rest of the country, and thats good for farmers, and its good for all of us. It reduces carbon emissions. In terms of independent energy, we need to square up with OPEC, and make sure that they are not price gauging all the time, and lower our costs for gasoline, she added. And a final question asked about campaign spending and how come up with a better finance campaign system. I got to tell you its not sustainable, the way that we have campaigns set up now, and I wont even tell you how many calls Ive made in terms of trying to get donations right now, the ads that you see on the air on the Republican side are being paid for by a super PAC the super PACS, something has got to be done about that, Mathis said. It just takes fairness away from elections. CEDAR FALLS One person was seriously injured following a single-vehicle crash at the U.S. Highway 20-Iowa Highway 58 interchange Monday night. The identity and condition of the driver werent immediately available, but Cedar Falls police said the person was taken to a local hospital for treatment. The driver was headed west on Highway 20 around 7:30 p.m. Monday and suffered a medical incident that led to loss of control of the vehicle, police said. The vehicle entered the grassy center median and continued on until going airborne at the interchange. It then entered the Highway 58 median, went airborne again and landed on its side. Rescue crews had to extricate the driver. Cedar Falls Police and Fire Rescue were assisted at the scene by MercyOne Paramedics, Hudson Police and Iowa State Patrol. WATERLOO A business formerly housed in the Crossroads Center opened a new storefront earlier this month. Spark Lot, The Specialty Store, is ready for customers at its new location at 328 E. Fourth St., nestled between Festers Pub and Bank Iowa. Nia Wilder, a Waterloo entrepreneur and city councilor, opened the store in 2021 to give small businesses a physical place to sell their products. The downtown location now has more than 20 brands and is still growing, Wilder said. Everything from skin care products, candles, jewelry and bonnets to custom clothing like sweatshirts, tops, shoes and hats are for sale at the store. Each business is either based in Waterloo or the business owner has ties to the city. Spark Lot will help revitalize downtown Waterloo, Zach Hansen, president of Main Street Waterloo, said at the stores grand opening on Friday. Wilder is excited about the bigger and more welcoming space. She and one of her employees, Charles Wright, said with all the traffic downtown more people hopefully will stop in. The grand opening brought in dozens of customers. One of those customers was Daquan Campbell. This will be great for Waterloo because it brings multiple local brands to one spot, he said. Wilder said the majority of the products are from Black-owned businesses. Everyone has been welcoming; it feels like home, Wilder said. Being in downtown Waterloo, the heart of Waterloo, brings me closer to my community. Spark Lot is open 12 to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 12 to 9 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, and closed Sunday and Monday. Those interested in selling their products can apply online at thesparklot.com. CORRECTION: The article has been updated to reflect the majority of businesses are Black-owned. HONG KONG (AP) Hong Kongs leader John Lee said Tuesday he will only implement United Nations sanctions, after the U.S. warned the territorys status as a financial center could be affected if it acts as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals. Lees statement Tuesday came days after a luxury yacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov docked in the city. Mordashov, who is believed to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the U.S., U.K. and the European Union in February after Russias invasion of Ukraine. Hong Kong authorities have said that they do not implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other governments. We cannot do anything that has no legal basis, Lee told reporters. We will comply with United Nations sanctions, that is our system, that is our rule of law, he said. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement Monday that the possible use of Hong Kong as a safe haven by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions further calls into question the transparency of the business environment. The State Department spokesperson also said the citys reputation as a financial center depends on its adherence to international laws and standards" and that U.S. companies increasingly view Hong Kongs business environment with wariness due to an erosion of Hong Kongs once high degree of autonomy and its freedoms. The $500-million superyacht Nord, allegedly owned by Mordashov, moored in Hong Kongs harbor on Wednesday following a weeklong journey from the Russian city of Vladivostok. Mordashov is one of Russias richest men, with an estimated wealth of about $18 billion. He also is the main shareholder and chairman of Severstal, Russias largest steel and mining company. Mordashov has tried to challenge the sanctions against him in European courts. U.S. and European authorities have seized over a dozen yachts belonging to sanctioned Russian tycoons to prevent them from sailing to other ports that are not affected by the sanctions. So Russian oligarchs have begun docking their yachts at ports in places like Turkey, which has maintained diplomatic ties with Russia since the war began. The Nord measures 141.6 meters (464.6 feet), has two helipads, a swimming pool and 20 cabins. It is operating under a Russian flag. Beijing sets foreign policy for Hong Kong and has demurred from participating in sanctions against Russia for its attack on Ukraine. Britain handed control over its colony Hong Kong to China in 1997, promising to respect its semi-autonomous status as a separate economic and customs territory. The semi-autonomous citys status as an international business hub and financial center has suffered in recent years after Beijing imposed a tough national security law on the city, aimed primarily at stamping out dissent following months of antigovernment protests in 2019. Critics say the security law, which in certain cases allows for suspects to be transferred to mainland China for trial in its opaque legal system, could threaten Hong Kongs rule of law. Following passage of the law in 2020, the United States sanctioned Lee, then Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and other Hong Kong and mainland Chinese government officials, for undermining Hong Kongs autonomy and restricting the freedom of expression or assembly. Lee blasted the ban on personal and official travel to the U.S. and access to the American financial system. He was responding to a question of whether he is paid in cash, as was the case for Lam, who was also placed under U.S. sanctions that limit the ability of those designated for such penalties to transfer funds across national boundaries or convert them into different currencies. The second thing about the so-called sanction imposed on people in Hong Kong without justification, it is a very barbaric act, and Im not going to comment on the effect of such barbaric act, because officials in Hong Kong do what is right to protect the interests of the country, and the interests of Hong Kong, so we will just laugh off the so-called sanctions, Lee said. Also, the state announces two new low-income food assistance programs Col. Mark A. Muckey, a Sioux City native, has been appointed deputy adjutant general for the Iowa Air National Guard by Gov. Kim Reynolds. A military veteran since 1984, Muckey is a command pilot with more than 4,000 flying hours, and has multiple deployments, including for Operation Joint Forge, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Most recently, Muckey was commander of the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City. A news release from the governors office said Reynolds chose Muckey because of his outstanding military achievements and leadership capabilities demonstrated through nearly four decades of military service. Like the Iowa National Guard itself, Col. Muckey has proven always ready to protect and serve, Reynolds said in the news release. For almost 40 years, he has served our nation with distinction all over the world, and his highly decorated military resume speaks to the courage and skill he brings to every deployment. With this appointment Muckey will be promoted to the rank of brigadier general, according to the news release. Muckey replaces Brig. Gen. Shawn Ford, who retired in early August. The Iowa National Guard Adjutant General is Maj. Gen. Benjamin J. Corell. Pandemic food assistance Two additional pandemic food assistance programs were announced by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. The Summer 2022 for Children Under Six program provides $391 per eligible child who received SNAP benefits during June, July and August, according to an Iowa HHS news release. Benefits will be added to the familys SNAP card between Oct. 11 and Oct. 20. And the Summer 2022 for School Aged Children program provides $391 per eligible child for students in grades K-12 during the 2021-22 school year. Details are being finalized, but the state expects benefits to be issued on new cards by the end of November. High food costs have affected every Iowan, and we hear every day how low-income parents continue to struggle to meet their childrens nutritional needs, Iowa HHS Janee Harvey said in the news release. These additional benefits will make it a little bit easier for parents to make ends meet and provide healthy, and nutritious meals for their children. More information on the programs is available at the Iowa HHS website at dhs.iowa.gov. Artisanal Butchery grants State grants up to $100,000 are available for Iowa meat lockers that employ fewer than 50 people, the states economic development department announced. A total of $1 million is available through the states Butchery Innovation and Revitalization program, which was a created in 2021. The programs goal is to strengthen Iowas food supply chain and support rural development, according to a news release from the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Grant applications will be available Nov. 1. More information can be found at IEDAs website, iowaeda.com. Secretary of State Promotes voter registration The states top elections official has mailed a postcard to roughly 47,000 Iowans who are eligible to vote but not registered. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said the postcard includes instructions on how to register and a QR code that sends the user to a website where he or she can register online. The postcards should arrive this week, Pates office said. Around 90 percent of eligible Iowans are registered to vote. I want to hit 100 percent and this mailing will help us get there, Pate said in a news release. Voting is a civic duty and the best way to make your voice heard. Important information for voters ahead of Novembers general election is available from the state at voterreadyiowa.gov. Gazette Des Moines Bureau A Polk County jury has awarded the Republican candidate running to serve as Iowas taxpayer watchdog $1 million in his wrongful termination case against the state's exclusive liquor wholesaler. Todd Halbur filed a whistleblower lawsuit in December 2019 against the state of Iowa, the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division and its administrator, Stephen Larson. On Friday, a jury awarded Halbur $487,500 in back pay and $512,500 for emotional distress following a five-day trial. Iowa is one of 18 states that directly controls the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages, with the division assuming control over the wholesaling of all liquor and wine in the state. The division also regulates and licenses establishments that sell alcoholic beverages in Iowa. Halbur started working for the state agency in 2015 as a controller/accountant responsible for planning, directing and overseeing the Alcoholic Beverages Divisions estimated $300 million operations, including advising the agencys administrator and chief operating officers on cash management, inventory control, audit findings and adjustments. He said he was demoted and then fired in 2018 after raising questions about excessive price markups and payments made under a no-bid contract. Larson, in court filings, denied any actions were unlawful, that pricing changes and other information Halbur disclosed was already widely known throughout ABD prior to the alleged disclosure and that Halbur was fired for ongoing performance issues related to personnel and staffing management. Larson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday by The Gazette. Halbur said he discovered excessive liquor markups by the state agency in August 2017, and alleges Larson knew about the markups beginning in 2014 but did nothing to prevent this continued practice. Halbur said he encouraged Larson to report the excessive markups to various state officials and state agencies. At around the same time, Halbur said Larson entered into a contract with Beverage Merchandising Inc. to develop a promotional discount website and database for the division. Halbur said the division made an initial payment to the firm in November 2017 to cover services performed in July, August and September of that year, but said he refused to sign off when Larson sough an additional payment to the firm for services rendered, citing Iowas requirement for having a competitive bidding process for third-party vendors, court documents states. After refusing to sign off on the payment, Halbur said he was demoted and then fired two weeks later after complaining internally about and refusing to engage in illegal practices occurring within the ABD. A spokesperson for the Iowa Attorney Generals Office, which represented Larson in his official capacity as the divisions administrator, said the office was considering its options after the verdict, and that there were likely be several post-trial matters to resolve before the question of an appeal is relevant. Last year, the Iowa Supreme Court overturned a landmark $1.5 million jury award in a discrimination and retaliation case against the states open gay then-commissioner of workers compensation by former Gov. Terry Branstad. Halbur, a licensed real estate agent and small-business owner from Clive, won a close primary in June against Mary Ann Hanusa, of Council Bluffs. Hanusa, a former state lawmaker who served in the White House for the administrations of President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush, was endorsed by Iowa Republican U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds. Halbur is running to unseat Democratic incumbent State Auditor Rob Sand, who is running for a second term, in the Nov. 8 election. Halbur and his attorney, Stuart Higgins of West Des Moines, praised the jurys decision. Were very pleased the jury recognized what we all knew, which was Todd Halbur was fired based upon doing what was right under the law and for the taxpayers of the state of Iowa, Higgins told The Gazette. Halbur said he stood up for what was right and paid the ultimate price for it. I feel that Ive been vindicated from the jurys decision and I thank them, he said. Higgins has also filed a class-action lawsuit against the state of Iowa and the Alcoholic Beverages Division on behalf of retailers with a Class E liquor license such as grocery stores, convenience stores and liquor stores who were overcharged by the state. The case is scheduled for a jury trial in May 2023. Halbur calculated the division overcharged retailers in excess of $8.2 million from fiscal 2013 to 2017, but we believe the number to be substantially higher than that, Higgins said. The cup of patience overflowed. Kyiv regime became terrorist. Regular shelling of the critical infrastructure of nuclear power plants Zaporozhye and Kursk, the murders of public figures on the territory of Ukraine and Russia, sabotage on the Crimean bridge. Zelenskys actions led to the suffering of the Ukrainian people, who are actually held hostage by his Nazi policies. The President of Ukraine, giving orders for the commission of terrorist attacks, stood on a par with Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists. Western politicians who support the Zelensky regime are sponsoring terrorism. In this regard, I would like to recall a rule known throughout the world: one does not negotiate with terrorists. Vyacheslav Volodin WtR Ireland's biggest Lush branch opens at Dundrum By Nigel TAYLOR Published Oct 11, 2022 Ethical beauty brand Lush is to open its biggest store in Ireland at -operated Dundrum Town Centre. The new 2,311 sq ft store, creating 25 jobs, is due to open in the run up to Christmas, as it strategically expands across Ireland. Lush Ellen Peters, Head of UK&I Property at Lush, said: [The] trading area will be double the size of our current largest store in Ireland and will be home to our full range of Handmade Cosmetics. "Our goal is always to leave the world Lusher than we found it and when fitting out shops, we utilise the same values as when sourcing ingredients for our products, working closely with suppliers to source durable and ethical materials. Also joining the Dundrum new list is , which will open its first ever store in Ireland at Dundrum in February, while Irish clothing brand Gym+Coffee, has increased its footprint with an upsize and relocation adjacent to the North Mall entrance on Level 2. Connor Owens, Managing Director, Asset Management (Ireland & Scotland), Hammerson, said: Across our portfolio, beauty brands continue to perform exceptionally well and Lush will bring a fresh and original approach with its 100% vegetarian, natural and ethical products. Research shows that 87% of young people -- a key demographic for Dundrum -- pay attention to a brands ethics before making a purchase. Indeed, Lushs sustainability credentials very much align with our own. As Irelands largest shopping centre, Dundrum Town Centre is home to over 169 tenants, with almost 140,000 sq m of floor space. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Two anglers whose boat sank over the weekend in the Gulf of Mexico clung to an improvised float and fought off sharks while the third swam to search for help BPH Placement Completed to Fund Hydrogen and Gas Strategy Perth, Oct 11, 2022 AEST (ABN Newswire) - BPH Energy Limited ( ASX:BPH ) is pleased to announce that it has received binding commitments to raise approximately $1.196 million (before costs) ("Placement"). The Placement will comprise the issue of 66,494,825 new fully paid ordinary shares ("Placement Shares") in the Company at an issue price of $0.018 per share, to be issued in two tranches as follows: 1. 52,099,087 Placement Shares will be issued pursuant to the Company's existing placement capacity under ASX Listing Rule 7.1A ("Tranche 1"); and 2. The remaining 14,395,738 Placement Shares will be issued subject to shareholder approval being granted at the next General Meeting of the Company ("Tranche 2"), expected to be held in mid-late November 2022. Placement participants will receive one (1) free attaching option for every one (1) New Share subscribed for under the Placement, exercisable at $0.03 each with an expiry date of 30 September 2024 ("Attaching Options"). The Attaching Options will be subject to Shareholder Approval at the General Meeting and are expected to be granted on or around late November 2022. The Company intends to apply for quotation of the Attaching Options, subject to ASX requirements being met. Everblu Capital Limited ("Everblu") acted as the Lead Manager for the Placement and will be paid a cash fee of 6% on funds raised and 1 Broker Option for every 3 Placement Shares issued, exercisable at $0.03 per share, expiring 30 September 2024. The Broker Options are subject to Shareholder approval. Commenting on the Capital Raising, Executive Director Mr David Breeze said: "We have received strong interest in the placement through Everblu and will see the introduction of several new sophisticated investors, including high net worth, family office and resource funds to our register. Advent has received a copy of the draft Environmental Plan which is currently being reviewed prior to release to enable the Environmental Consultation Process for PEP 11 and we are hopeful of conducting drilling, subject to resolution of the judicial review application in the Federal Court of Australia in relation to the extension of the PEP 11 Permit. The funding also allows BPH to accelerate the exploration programs to unlock the potential on both our hydrogen and gas projects especially following the recent gas crisis and focus on hydrogen. We welcome the new shareholders and look forward to eligible shareholders supporting BPH as we continue our activities." About BPH Energy Limited BPH Energy Limited (ASX:BPH) is an Australian Securities Exchange listed company developing biomedical research and technologies within Australian Universities and Hospital Institutes. The company provides early stage funding, project management and commercialisation strategies for a direct collaboration, a spin out company or to secure a license. BPH provides funding for commercial strategies for proof of concept, research and product development, whilst the institutional partner provides infrastructure and the core scientific expertise. BPH currently partners with several academic institutions including The Harry Perkins Institute for Medical Research and Swinburne University of Technology (SUT). NAME: Barbara Baca POLITICAL PARTY: Democratic OCCUPATION: Retired CITY OF RESIDENCE: Albuquerque RELEVANT EXPERIENCE: I am a lifelong resident of Albuquerques West Side where my husband and I raised our family. I have devoted my professional career to public service and have over 33 years of experience in natural resource conservation, planning, and land management. I have worked at the national level and for local governments. I worked for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., and worked at the City of Albuquerques Department of Senior Affairs, helping seniors stay active, engaged and living in their homes as long as safely possible. I retired as the citys director of Parks and Recreation in 2014 and currently serve on the Board of Directors for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. EDUCATION: B.A. in recreation from UNM; M.S. in recreation administration University of Colorado, Boulder. AGE: 62 CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: BacaForBernCo.com 1. What is the top priority in your District and how would you address it as a county commissioner? My first priority is to improve public safety throughout Bernalillo County. The city and county can work better together to address crime. APD and BCSO can improve communications through the development of a combined dispatch to reduce emergency response time. I will advocate for additional resources for this effort. 2. Under what circumstances, if any, would you support a tax increase? And what types, if any, would you support? We must address public safety and homelessness. If elected, I will evaluate the budgets of the Behavioral Health Initiative, the BCSO and the MDC to determine if efficiencies can be found to improve these programs. We must engage the community in solutions. If additional public funding is warranted, I would support it. 3. What do you think should be the countys top three capital project priorities? We must prioritize roadway improvements that support existing neighborhoods, while participating in long-term regional planning for infrastructure. This approach allows for a cooperative effort to seek funds from local, state and federal governments. My priorities are the Atrisco Vista extension, Paseo del Norte/Unser and a West Side city/county multigenerational center. 4. What, if anything, do you think the county should be doing differently with regard to how it manages and uses the behavioral health tax? There is the need to establish a comprehensive evaluation of these programs and prioritize programs that are effective. The city and county should pool resources and invest in common programs that are accessible and impactful. A structure should be established for the state to become a partner in this effort. 5. What kind of metrics do you think the county should monitor to determine if it is spending the behavioral health tax revenue effectively? Right now, its impossible to understand how BHI revenue is being spent and how effective taxpayer dollars are at reducing homelessness and getting people the drug and mental health treatment they need. Transparency is key. I support regular reporting, performance measures and clear program goals. 6. What role, if any, should the county commission play in advising the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office on matters related to public safety? My hope is that with a new sheriff, relationships will improve. The commission provides funding for BCSO and both answer to the public on issues of public safety. The two must work cooperatively so appropriate resources are made available; neighborhoods are safer; and residents know that they are being heard. 7. What are your ideas for improving conditions for both employees and inmates at the Metropolitan Detention Center? We need to improve conditions at MDC for the employees and inmates. MDC is understaffed and I would support increasing pay to retain employees so we are more competitive with surrounding communities. 8. How would you work to improve the economy in Bernalillo County? As a community, we must create an environment where local business can thrive and create long term, better paying jobs. As a responsible government, the county can encourage new businesses or expand local business through awarding industrial revenue bonds for qualifying, homegrown companies. 9. What specific strategies do you have for reducing homelessness? Bernalillo County must expand mental and behavioral health programs and facilities to reduce addiction and homelessness. The city and county can coordinate better and invest in a common Community Safety Department which includes trained professionals with backgrounds in behavioral and mental health to respond to nonviolent calls. 10. Would you have voted to certify the countys 2020 general election results? Why or why not? Yes, I would have voted to certify the 2020 General Election results. I do not support right wing conspiracy theories of widespread fraud or irregularities in our elections which serve to undermine rule of law, democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. Personal background 1. Have you or your business, if you are a business owner, ever been the subject of any state or federal tax liens? No. 2. Have you ever been involved in a personal or business bankruptcy proceeding? No. 3. Have you ever been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of drunken driving, any misdemeanor or any felony in New Mexico or any other state? If so, explain. No. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Voting is set to begin Tuesday as New Mexico plunges into the final four-week stretch before Election Day with competitive races for governor and Congress at stake. County clerks throughout the state will start mailing absentee ballots Tuesday and each county will open one in-person voting site timed to coincide with the last 28 days before the Nov. 8 general election. Expanded early voting at more locations will begin Oct. 22. The start of absentee and in-person voting comes as candidates intensify their attack ads and campaigns focus on getting their voters to the polls. Brian Sanderoff, a political analyst and president of Research & Polling Inc. in Albuquerque, said he expects turnout to exceed the 40% reached in 2014 the last election with an incumbent governor seeking reelection. There are groups of voters who are really just polarized right now on both sides of the political spectrum, Sanderoff said in an interview. Theyre inspired and enthusiastic to vote for their respective candidates and parties. Turnout, he said, may exceed 50% this year and end up closer to the level seen in 2018, when an open governors race, a competitive campaign in the 2nd Congressional District and Democratic anger at then-President Donald Trump helped boost participation to 56%. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, and her Republican opponent, Mark Ronchetti, are both well funded this year, Sanderoff said, allowing them to get their campaign messages out to voters. The congressional race in the newly redrawn 2nd District stretching from southeastern New Mexico into parts of the West Side of Albuquerque is also a national focus in the battle to control the U.S. House. In New Mexico, the ballot also features statewide races for secretary of state, attorney general and other executive offices; all 70 seats in the state House, including competitive districts where Republicans are trying to reclaim ground in Albuquerque; and county-level races, including a contest to win the Sheriffs Office in Bernalillo County. A coalition of 21 groups including the Albuquerque branch of the NAACP, ProgressNow New Mexico and the New Mexico Asian Family Center has launched a push to register young adults and inspire them to participate in this years election. Harold Bailey, president of the Albuquerque NAACP, said the aim of the campaign is to encourage informed participation in the election, rather than telling new voters specifically whom they should support. A lot of people died, gave up their life and got hurt in the struggle for civil rights and voting rights, Bailey said Monday. We need to respect their efforts. State Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce said Monday the GOP is working in all 33 counties to boost turnout, with volunteers knocking on doors and operating phone banks. He listed the rising price of gasoline and food, New Mexicos high violent-crime rate and poor academic outcomes, and border security as issues motivating conservatives and other voters. New Mexicans are insistent that they see real changes in all these issues, Pearce said in a written statement. Nationally, and in NM, voters are showing a higher trust in Republicans to fix these problems. Daniel Garcia, communications director for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, said the party has a statewide grassroots campaign with volunteers knocking on doors, and holding meet-and-greets with candidates. They often hear at the door from voters who say the GOP has moved too far to the right, he said. Based on the enthusiasm we see from our base, and the understanding that the future of reproductive rights, marriage equality and our democracy depend on the outcome of the election, we expect a strong Democratic turnout for a midterm election, Garcia said. Tuesday marks the last day for online or mail-in voter registration. But voters can still sign up in person using the same-day registration system. Absentee ballots are set to go in the mail to voters who have applied for them. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is Nov. 3. Expanded early voting sites will open Oct. 22 and Election Day polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 8. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE With less than one month to go until Election Day, Republican Mark Ronchetti has launched a new TV ad attacking incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for paying $150,000 out of her reelection account to settle claims levied by her former campaign spokesman. The settlement payments paid out over the course of one year had been previously disclosed by the Lujan Grisham campaign, but had not been used as political ammunition in this years race for governor until now. The 30-second ad features media reports about both the settlement payments and the allegations made by James Hallinan that Lujan Grisham sexually mistreated him during a 2018 meeting. Wouldnt this get you fired? the ads narrator asks. The Democratic governor has strenuously denied Hallinans allegations, but said she agreed to the settlement in order to avoid a drawn-out legal fight and to focus on handling the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also disputed comparisons to sexual harassment allegations levied at former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. I was focused on the pandemic, and Ill stand by that decision every minute of every day, Lujan Grisham said during a June 2021 news conference, describing the decision to settle. University of New Mexico political science professor Gabriel Sanchez said Ronchettis decision to launch the attack ad now could be due to the fact the GOP nominee has been trailing in recent polls. Typically the candidate who strikes first with personal attacks is running behind in the race, so the Hallinan story coming out now suggests that Ronchettis team knows they need to make up some ground, Sanchez told the Journal. He also said the ad is likely targeted specifically at undecided voters, not voters who more closely follow policy issues and may have already decided who they plan to support in the Nov. 8 general election. However, whether the ad ends up being a game-changer by successfully winning over some of those voters remains to be seen, Sanchez said. He also said its possible the attack ad could prompt the Lujan Grisham campaign to hit back at Ronchetti with a critical ad of its own. Lujan Grisham campaign spokeswoman Delaney Corcoran said Monday the accusations included in the Ronchetti ad are completely false. Mark Ronchetti is running this false advertisement as a desperate attempt to salvage his failing campaign as New Mexicans continue to reject his extremist plan to ban abortion in the state, Corcoran said. She also described the claims as an employment dispute and said the settlement between the Lujan Grisham campaign and Hallinan was entered into in order to avoid spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees during the apex of the pandemic. Hallinan accused Lujan Grisham in late 2019 about a year after he left the campaign of pouring a bottle of water on his crotch and then grabbing his crotch through his clothes as she laughed, an incident he said took place in front of other campaign staffers during a meeting in 2018. A former Attorney Generals Office spokesman who now runs his own communications and public relations company, Hallinan told the Journal at the time he was talked out of reporting the incident by Lujan Grisham campaign manager Dominic Gabello, who went on to work in the Governors Office before stepping down to work as a political consultant. Hallinan declined to comment on the Ronchetti ad. Meanwhile, the Ronchetti campaign also accused Lujan Grisham of hypocrisy over her signing a 2020 bill barring employers from requiring employees to sign off on nondisclosure agreements about settlements stemming from workplace sexual harassment, retaliation or discrimination. The new ad, which began airing Saturday on network and cable stations, is the latest twist in an increasingly combative contest between Lujan Grisham and Ronchetti. Outside groups have also spent hefty sums of money on the race, with Democratic-leaning groups blasting Ronchetti on his stances on abortion and climate change and a Republican-leaning group targeting the governor over her spending on alcohol, food and other expenses from a taxpayer-funded account. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal A Valencia County woman alleges in a lawsuit that, as a girl, she was repeatedly sexually abused by the youth minister at a church-run school in Truth or Consequences. The woman, who was born in 1988, said she was abused from sixth through eighth grades while attending a school operated by a church affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the lawsuit alleges. It was filed Sept. 19 in 2nd Judicial District Court. The unidentified woman alleges the abuse began when she took piano lessons from a man identified in the suit as a youth minister and Sunday school teacher. The abuse continued in seventh and eighth grades while she was formally enrolled at Appletree Education Center, a school run by the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Truth or Consequences, it said. Amelia Wilcox, director of Appletree Education Center, said in a phone interview Monday that she was unaware that a suit had been filed and declined comment. Wilcox, who has worked at the school for 18 years, also said she is unfamiliar with the youth minister identified in the suit as the alleged abuser. The lawsuit names as defendants the General Council of the Assemblies of God in Springfield, Missouri, the New Mexico District Council Assemblies of God in Albuquerque, and Appletree Education Center. Michael Dickenson, executive director of the New Mexico District Council Assemblies of God, said Monday he was unfamiliar with the suit and declined comment. Voice and email messages left at the offices of the general council and district council were not immediately returned on Monday. The suit alleges the church and school were negligent in supervising employees and failed to ensure the safety of children. It seeks undisclosed damages. Most incidents of abuse occurred while the girl took piano lessons in an isolated area of the church and school, the suit alleges. The girl was always terrified that she would be ostracized and punished if anyone ever found out about the sexual interactions with the youth minister, it said. The youth minister frequently told the girl that she risked getting them in trouble if she told anyone about the abuse, it said. The girls family was extremely immersed in both the church and the school, the suit said. The abuse continued until the girl was 13, it said. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday used her authority to rescind four proclamations issued by territorial governors in the 1850s and 1860s, citing a history of shameful government cruelty toward Native Americans that continues to reverberate. The proclamations rescinded via executive order on Indigenous Peoples Day, among other things, described certain Native American tribes as outlaws and barred tribal members from being included in official census counts. They were issued by three different former New Mexico territorial governors James Calhoun, Robert Mitchell and William Pile. The 1869 proclamation issued by Mitchell, for instance, authorized citizens of New Mexico Territory to use sufficient force to protect the general population against any members of the Navajo Nation and Gila Apache tribe found outside their reservation boundaries. While the rescinded proclamations no longer carried any practical heft, Lujan Grisham said it was important to officially rescind their messages. We can never rewrite history or undo the injustices of the past, the governor said in a statement. But we can work together to heal old wounds and build stronger bonds between us. The proclamations were brought to the attention of the Governors Office by Santa Fe city historian Valerie Rangel, who said she began researching the existence of any such proclamations in New Mexico after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis last year rescinded proclamations that led to the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. She said Monday that she eventually tracked down the proclamations in a book housed in a California library. I feel as though not enough history is really understood after the Long Walk, said Rangel, referring to the 1864 relocation of Navajo families by the U.S. military from their ancestral land. Just bringing this up will bring to light more discussion and more stories. Rangel, who is part Apache and part Navajo, said some of her own ancestors were killed and others forced into exile by military actions. In 2019, New Mexico officially scrapped Columbus Day from the list of official state holidays in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day after Lujan Grisham signed legislation sponsored by Rep. Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo. Other states have also made the switch, though the federal holiday honoring Italian explorer Christopher Columbus remains in place. Both holidays are celebrated on the second Monday of October. New Mexico has one of the nations highest percentages of Native American residents, making up about 12.4% of the states population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. However, the states complex multicultural history has been the source of tension amid a recent anti-colonialism movement. Two years ago, Native American activists and their supporters used cargo straps and chains to topple a controversial obelisk in the Santa Fe Plaza, known as the Soldiers Monument, that had stood for more than 150 years. And, on Monday, at least 100 protesters marched through downtown Santa Fe, shouted at tourists and called for the removal of a monument to Kit Carson, who led the U.S. Army displacement operation that forced more than 10,000 Navajo to the Bosque Redondo Reservation outside Fort Sumner. The two-hour demonstration ended with some protesters splashing red and yellow paint on a monument to Carson that sits outside a federal courthouse just north of the Plaza. Journal Capitol Bureau reporter Dan McKay contributed to this report. Copyright 2022 Albuquerque Journal Justice came at long last for Rocket. A 4-year-old Doberman pinscher-heeler mix, Rocket was shot with a BB gun in June 2020 and the incident was captured on security camera video. Rockets cries prompted neighbors to take the black, white and brown male dog to a veterinarian, who found pellets lodged under Rockets skin, the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office said in a written statement. After the incident, Rocket was nervous around new people, it said. David Wiegand, 48, of Edgewood pleaded no contest on Tuesday to a charge of extreme cruelty to animals, a fourth-degree felony, according to a plea agreement. Wiegand was charged in February 2021 with shooting his neighbors dog with a Daisy Powerline Model 856 BB gun in Albuquerque. David (Wiegand) is remorseful about the whole incident, his attorney, Phillip Sapien, said Wednesday. This is an unfortunate case that occurred in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. At the time of the incident, Weigand was a board member of the Menaul School. He resigned last year after news of the incident was reported, an official at the school said. Wiegand faces 18 months of supervised probation, according to the plea agreement. He also agreed to pay Rockets medical bills and for counseling for children in Rockets household. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled. We must all work together to stop animal cruelty in our society, as this is part of a broader public safety effort to reduce family violence in New Mexico, Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a written statement. SEOUL, South Korea South Koreas military said Tuesday its capable of detecting and intercepting the variety of missiles North Korea launched in a barrage of recent simulated nuclear attacks on its rivals, though it maintains the Norths advancing nuclear program poses a grave security threat. North Korea said Monday its two weeks of firing drills involved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, warplanes and other assets to practice possible strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets. North Korea said the drills were meant as a warning to Seoul and Washington for staging dangerous joint naval exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. The North Korean launches, part of its record-breaking run of weapons tests this year, were seen as an attempt by leader Kim Jong Un to acquire a more intimidating arsenal to pressure its rivals to accept his country as a legitimate nuclear state and lift economic sanctions on the North. Moon Hong Sik, acting spokesperson at the South Korean Defense Ministry, described North Korean nuclear threats as very grave and serious. But he told reporters that the South Korean missile defense system is capable of detecting and intercepting the weapons systems that North Korea said it mobilized in its drills. Moon said South Korea is still pushing to introduce spy satellites, various surveillance drones and additional sea-based reconnaissance assets to better monitor North Korea. Despite Moons comments, some observers have said a portion of the Norths newly developed weapons such as a highly maneuverable KN-23 missile modeled on Russias Iskander missile and a developmental hypersonic missile may overcome South Korean and U.S. defenses. They also say if North Korea launches multiple missiles from different sites simultaneously, it would be more difficult for the allies to spot liftoffs in advance and shoot them down. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol reiterated his vow to strengthen South Koreas defense in partnership with the United States and Japan. He said the recent weapons demonstrations showed that the Norths nuclear threat is getting serious every day. North Korea has been consistently developing and advancing nuclear weapons capabilities and is now threatening not only (South Korea) but the entire world, but I think there is nothing North Korea could gain through nuclear bombs, Yoon told reporters at his office in Seoul. He tried to reassure the public, calling for South Koreans to not worry too much and do your best with economic activities and livelihoods. Outside concerns about North Koreas nuclear program have grown since the North last month adopted a law authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in certain situations. South Koreas military has since warned North Korea that it would self-destruct if it uses its bombs. In August, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un, ridiculed what she called the U.S. and South Korean militaries misidentification of the exact site for the Norths two previous missile tests. If the data and flight trajectory (of the missiles) are known, (South Korea) will be so bewildered and afraid, she said. North Korea said the weapons used in its drills include a new type of intermediate ballistic missile that traveled about 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles), a distance sufficient to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond. Some experts say the new missile may aim to target a faraway site like Alaska or Hawaii. Another missile that North Korea said was launched from a silo under an inland reservoir was likely a new version of its KN-23, whose highly maneuverable and lower-trajectory flight provides it with greater chances of evading defense systems. North Koreas first missile firing under a reservoir was believed to be aimed at diversifying its launch sites to curtail enemy missile defenses. In recent years, North Korea has also been pushing to build bigger submarines to acquire a nuclear retaliatory attack capability. Before the Norths announcement, South Korean, Japanese and U.S. authorities reported all seven rounds of missile launches. But none of their public reports included a reservoir-launched missile, an apparent failure to detect whether the weapon was launched from underwater. Kim Jun-rak, a spokesperson at South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that a missile launch from a reservoir was seen as a desperate attempt by North Korea to escape South Korean and U.S. surveillance. He said a ballistic missile launched from a submarine is an effective weapons system but didnt say whether the reservoir-fired missile would pose a new security threat to South Korea. In the face of the increasing North Korean nuclear threat, South Korea has been strengthening its missile defenses while also developing preemptive attack plans. The United States, which deploys about 28,500 troops in South Korea, has been operating an advanced anti-missile system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense in southern South Korea since 2017, apparently aimed at protecting nearby regions and additional U.S. forces that may arrive through southern South Korean ports in the event of war. The U.S. and South Korean militaries also operate Patriot batteries to defend key military facilities and the Seoul capital region, and South Korea is also developing indigenous systems designed to intercept various kinds of North Korean missiles. TALLINN, Estonia Moscows barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield. Russian nationalist commentators and state media war correspondents lauded Mondays attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and a weekend attack on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Mondays strikes to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming a hostage of his allies views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold. Putins initiative is weakening, and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the victory (in Ukraine) for him, Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday. The fear of defeat is so strong, especially for those who are now fully immersed in this military venture, that Putins indecisiveness, with his logic of We have not started anything yet and Restrained tactics have paid off has become a problem, the analyst said. For weeks, Putins supporters have called for drastic battlefield steps in Ukraine. The exhortations intensified over the weekend after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia; the bridge, Europes longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might. Putin himself opened the span in 2018. And? Margarita Simonyan, head of Russias state-funded RT television, wondered on social media about Moscows response to the Saturday bridge attack. This is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back, wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the popular pro-Kremlin tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. Senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party, tweeted Saturday that Moscow should disregard Western opinion in formulating its answer to the conspicuous attack. It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West, Mironov tweeted Saturday. There wont be any bigger sanctions. They wont say any worse words. We need to do our thing. We started it we should go till the end. There is no way back. Time to respond! The response came Monday morning, when Russia simultaneously launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraines critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies. For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraines capital, in dangerous proximity to government buildings. Putin said Monday the strikes were in retaliation for what he called Kyivs terrorist actions targeting the Kerch Bridge, and vowed a tough and proportionate response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russias security. No one should have any doubts about it, he said. Here comes the response, RTs Simonyan tweeted on Monday after the attacks. The Crimean bridge was that very red line from the very beginning. Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, a Russian region in the North Caucasus, said he was now 100% happy with the course of the Kremlins special military operation in Ukraine. Kadyrov was among the most ardent proponents of more drastic measures, including the use of low-yield nuclear weapons. The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described Mondays strikes as good news. The cheering by Kremlin supporters came with demands for Putin and the Russian military to keep up the pace and intensity of the attacks and the damage inflicted on Ukraines infrastructure. Aksyonov said that had such actions to destroy the enemys infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated. I hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down, Aksyonov wrote. RTs top host, Anton Krasovsky, posted a video of himself Monday dancing on a balcony in a cap bearing a Z, the symbol that Russian forces painted on military vehicles while invading Ukraine. In another Telegram post, he said the damage to Ukraines power lines was not enough! Not enough! Another state TV journalist, Andrei Medvedev, called Mondays attacks a logical step, which not just the society has long demanded the military situation demanded a different approach to the hostilities. And so it happened. But does it change much? Medvedev, who works for Russias state TV group VGTRK and holds a seat on the Moscow City Council, wrote on Telegram. If the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change (the situation), Medvedev wrote. But for now, according to (official) statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made, Political analyst Stanovaya said in a Telegram post that Putin had faced powerful pressures before Mondays bombardment to move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings, and that prompted the Russian leader to act. As of today, one can say that Putin was persuaded to resort to a more aggressive line. And it corresponds with his understanding on the situation. But it is a slippery slope there is no way back, Stanovaya wrote. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine China's Yunnan province makes progress in protection of Asian elephants 09:35, October 11, 2022 By Yang Wenming, Shen Jingran ( People's Daily Last year, a wandering herd of wild elephants in southwest China's Yunnan province went on an "exodus" and returned to their original habitat 124 days later. Veterinarian Bao Mingwei of the Asian Elephant Breeding and Rescue Center in southwest China's Yunnan province performs a physical examination for elephant Longlong, Aug. 11, 2021. (People's Daily Online/Li Yunsheng) The 1,400 km journey unprecedentedly made Asian elephants a focus of the world. It showcased China's progress in the protection of wildlife, and the country's historic achievements in biodiversity conservation. Currently, the 15 elephants are living healthily in the Mengyang area of the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in Yunnan province. Yunnan province is the sole habitat for wild Asian elephants in China. Despite the drop in the total population of elephants around the world, the number of wild Asian elephants in China has increased from 180 to over 300 in the past 40 years or so. Thanks to the province's efforts to improve monitoring, enhance relevant research and strengthen elephant rescue and breeding, the protection of Asian elephants has been lifted onto a new level. The Asian Elephant Breeding and Rescue Center, established in Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture in 2008, is a scientific research base aiming to better rescue and breed Asian elephants. An elephant cub nicknamed Yangniu was sent to the center seven years ago after being abandoned by its herd. It was in a state of shock when arriving there. The little elephant's abdominal cavity was ulcerated due to umbilical cord infection, and it was suffering a heart failure. The Asian Elephant Breeding and Rescue Center in southwest China's Yunnan province celebrates the first birthday of elephant Xiaojiu, Feb. 22, 2021. Xiaojiu, born on Feb. 22, 2020, is the ninth elephant bred at the center through natural propagation. (People's Daily Online/Li Ming) Yangniu gradually recovered at the center thanks to the care of the center's staff and experts. It was fed with sheep milk every day by three sheep, said Chen Jiming, an employee of the center. Now, Yangniu has become a star elephant that has over one million followers online. Over the past years, the staff of the center have successfully rescued more than 20 wild Asian elephants. They often visit local schools and villages to raise people's awareness of ecological conservation and promote the harmonious coexistence between humans and elephants. As protection efforts continue to enhance, the habitat range of wild elephants has been expanded. Efforts such as habitat restoration and the high-quality creation of the Asian elephant national park have become necessary. The autonomous prefecture has made a new attempt to strengthen Asian elephant protection by building food source bases near the nature reserves. In Guanping village, Jinghong, Yunnan province, there is a food source base for Asian elephants in a rainforest where Napier grass, tiger grass and paper mulberry grow. These plants are all favored by Asian elephants. "We spent more than two weeks building the place after it was designated as a food source base three years ago," said Wang Xiao'an, a local forest ranger. According to him, there is an elephant 2 km away and a 16-elephant herd 8 km away. They often come to the food source base. Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture has so far established about 8,000 mu (533 hectares) of food source bases for Asian elephants. People feed elephants in Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous region, southwest China's Yunnan province, Feb. 22, 2021. (People's Daily Online/Li Ming) Since 2021, Yunnan province has invested nearly 200 million yuan ($28 million) in the protection of Asian elephants and their habitats. In July 2021, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and Yunnan's provincial government jointly proposed to build a national park for Asian elephants. The national park also aims to protect rainforests and alleviate the conflict between humans and elephants, said the provinces forestry and grassland bureau. Recently, Yunnan province issued a guideline on strengthening the protection of biodiversity. The document reaffirmed the determination to build the national park for Asian elephants, and said the province would accelerate the optimization work of nature reserves and timely amend relevant laws and regulations. Besides, Yunnan province also subsidizes farmers living in the regions that overlap elephants' habitats, and growers of collectively-owned commercial forests will get compensation once their trees are trampled by elephants. The win-win move will help increase local residents' income and better protect the Asian elephants, said Dao Jianhong, deputy head of the forestry and grassland bureau of Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous region. (Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming) TOKYO Eager to admire colorful foliage, eat sushi and go shopping, droves of tourists from abroad began arriving in Japan on Tuesday, with the end of pandemic-fighting border restrictions that had been in place for more than two years. We got the news that we can finally come. We are really, really happy, said Nadine Lackmann, a German who was among the crowd of tourists arriving at Tokyos Haneda airport. Travelers like Lackmann are expected to deliver a sorely needed 5 trillion yen ($35 billion) boost to the worlds third-largest economy. And the flood of visitors is expected to keep growing. A daily limit of 50,000 arrivals is gone. Airlines have added flights in response to the full re-opening of borders. Visa-free travel is back for short-term business visits and tourism from more than 60 countries. David Beall, a photographer based in Los Angeles whos been to Japan 12 times, has already booked a flight, planning to go to Fukui, Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo. The last time he was in Japan was in October 2019. But its everyday things the American is looking forward to, like eating Japans popular pork cutlet dish, tonkatsu. As cliched as it sounds, just being back in Japan after all this time is what I am most looking forward to. That of course includes hopefully meeting new people, eating the food that Ive missed like good tonkatsu, being in nature at that time of the year, riding the trains, he said. As a tip for others planning trips, he recommends getting a Japan Rail Pass and a Suica or some other pre-paid card that allows cashless payments for easy travel. About 32 million tourists visited Japan in 2019, before COVID-19. Their return is welcome for good reason. Many will have more spending power because the Japanese yen has declined in recent months in value compared to the U.S. dollar, the euro and other currencies. The only protocols left for entry are that you must be fully vaccinated with one booster or have a negative PCR test within 72 hours of departure. Virtually all visitors from the U.S., the rest of Asia, Europe and South America who fulfill those requirements wont have to quarantine. In August, during the most recent coronavirus surge in Japan, nationwide daily new infections topped 200,000. By now, both case numbers and deaths have dwindled. Last week, daily deaths averaged eight people nationwide. The government has provided free COVID-19 vaccines, especially encouraging the elderly and the medically vulnerable to get inoculated. Visitors may have to adjust to face masks, worn by most Japanese just about everywhere outside their own homes. Many stores and restaurants require customers to wear masks and sanitize their hands. Some establishments still close early, or have shuttered completely. But bookings from abroad with Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways Co., or ANA, have already jumped five-fold compared to last week, while bookings of flights out of Japan have doubled. Air Canada said bookings for Canadian travel to Japan jumped 51% this month compared to September, while the number of travelers from Japan to Canada grew 16% over the same period. The Japanese economy can use the influx of tourist spending. Fitch Ratings forecasts that Japans economy will grow at a 1.7% annual pace this year and by 1.3% in 2023, supported by easy credit, a recovery for service industries and a gradual fix for supply-chain problems, which will boost manufacturing and exports. Japan had basically shut its borders to tourists, but started allowing packaged tours in June. Many people opted to wait for open-ended individual travel before booking their tickets. With declining nervousness about the risks of infections, Japanese also are traveling more encouraged by discounts offered by airlines, bullet trains, onsen hot springs resorts and hotels to jumpstart the ailing travel industry. Although Japan offers various attractions from the ski slopes of northern Hokkaido to the semi-tropical beaches of the Okinawa islands in the south, experts say these months are the best for enjoying what Japan has to offer. The mountains are vibrant with brilliant autumn foliage; the weather is moderate, not freezing, sweltering or humid; seafood, grapes, chestnuts and other culinary delights are fresh and plentiful. Now we are all ready to welcome people from abroad, said Shuso Imada, general manager at the Japan Sake and Shochu Information Center. His job is to promote sake rice wine and shochu liquor made from barley, potatoes or other vegetables, domestically and abroad. Autumn is the best season to enjoy Japanese food with sake and shochu, he said. Thats why Javier Perez Toledo waited more than a year for his honeymoon. We are really passionate about the country, he said, arriving from Spain. We are so happy that we could come. ___ Associated Press video journalist Chisato Tanaka contributed to this report. ___ This story was first published on October 11, 2022. It was updated on October 14, 2022 to correct to show that AP video journalist Chisato Tanaka was the contributor to the story. Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand Hundreds of mourners and victims families gathered Tuesday evening to watch flames burn from rows of makeshift pyres at cremation ceremonies for the young children and others who died in last weeks mass killings at a day care center in Thailands rural northeast. Families bid their final goodbyes at a Buddhist temple a short distance from the Young Childrens Development Center in the town of Uthai Sawan, where a former policeman, who was fired from his job earlier this year for using drugs, barged in last Thursday and shot and stabbed children and their caregivers. The police sergeant, Panya Kamrap, ended up killing 36 people, 24 of them children, in the small farming community before taking his own life. It was the biggest mass killing by an individual in Thailands history. Joint ceremonies for most of the victims were held at three temples to spare families from having to wait long hours for successive cremations to be completed, said Phra Kru Adisal Kijjanuwat, the abbot of the Rat Samakee temple. A ceremony for 19 of the dead, 18 of them children, was held at his temple. With a large crowd watching, monks slowly walked out of the temple hall, followed by grieving relatives. Each family was led by one monk, with police bearing the coffin behind them. After the coffins were placed in each of the small, brick-enclosed funeral pyres, the victims relatives came forward in the darkening skies to put portraits of their loved ones on top. Some family members also placed childrens toys alongside. A large mesh barrier was set up, separating onlookers from the relatives, monks and royal palace officials tasked with lighting the fires, who began putting paper flowers along the sides of the pyres and dousing them with gasoline. The officials then ushered the family members to take the portraits and toys away, and move several meters (yards) from the coffins where they knelt on mats. Buddhist chants played from a speaker system set up behind the relatives, as the officials and monks began lighting the pyres one by one. The coffins were soon engulfed by flames, at times stoked by the officials adding more gasoline. The victims relatives sat silently by, hands clasped in prayer. Each one of them watched the cremation with their minds in a state of conscious awareness, said the abbot. The support they received from people all around has blessed them, lessened the sorrow they have. On Tuesday morning, many of the young victims bodies had been outfitted as doctors, soldiers or astronauts what they wanted to be when they grew up before their evening cremation. The more we talked (to the families), we realized that these children also had dreams of becoming doctors, soldiers, astronauts, or police officers, said volunteer rescue worker Attarith Muangmangkang, whose organization arranged for the costumes. Petchrung Sriphirom, 73, was one of many local residents who traveled to the temple to offer condolences to the families and make a small donation to help with funeral costs, which is a common Thai custom. I just want to help our friends and share our thoughts with them, said Petchrung. We are not talking about money or anything but rather sharing our thoughts and feelings as a fellow human being, The perpetrators body was cremated Saturday in a neighboring province after temples in Uthai Sawan refused to host his funeral, Thai media reported. Mass shootings are rare but not unheard of in Thailand, which has one of the highest civilian gun ownership rates in Asia, with 15.1 weapons per 100 people compared to only 0.3 in Singapore and 0.25 in Japan. Thats still far lower than the U.S. rate of 120.5 per 100 people, according to a 2017 survey by Australias GunPolicy.org nonprofit organization. Thailands previous worst mass killing involved a disgruntled soldier who opened fire in and around a mall in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020, killing 29 people and holding off security forces for some 16 hours before eventually being killed by them. ROME Pope Francis appealed for unity in the Catholic Church on Tuesday as he marked the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, lamenting the divisions that its modernizing reforms spawned as the work of the devil. Francis presided over a special evening Mass to commemorate the opening of Vatican II which brought the 2,000-year-old church into the modern era by allowing for Masses in the vernacular rather than Latin and a greater emphasis on the role of ordinary faithful in the life of the church. Sixty years later, Vatican II still very much divides the faithful, with progressives seeing it as a break from the past and conservatives seeing it as fully in line with church tradition and chafing at the spirit of Vatican II progressive read of it. The latest battleground has been over the pre-Vatican II old Latin Mass, with traditionalists blasting Francis decision to greatly restrict its celebration. In his homily, Francis blamed the temptation to choose sides in the ideological battles on the devil who wants to sow the scandal of division. How many times, in the wake of the Council, did Christians prefer to choose sides in the Church, not realizing that they were breaking their Mothers heart! he asked. To be on the right or left, rather than with Jesus? To present themselves as guardians of the truth or pioneers of innovation rather than seeing themselves as humble and grateful children of Holy Mother Church? He pleaded for the faithful to act as one, as Christs flock. Let us overcome all polarization and preserve our communion, he said. Tuesdays Mass was celebrated in honor of St. John XXIII, who convened the council and presided over its opening session, and his remarkably well-preserved remains inside a glass coffin were on view by the altar of St. Peters Basilica. The ceremony began with a reading of Johns inaugural speech to the council and excerpts from some of Vatican IIs key documents. It ended with the faithful leaving the basilica with candles in hand, recalling the candlelight procession that lit up St. Peters Square on the night of Oct. 11, 1962. On that night, the good pope came to the window of the Apostolic Palace and delivered his famous moonlight speech to the thousands who had gathered below. Whereas pre-Vatican II popes usually spoke in formal terms, John surprised the crowd with an impromptu, pastoral speech urging the faithful to go home to their children and give them a hug and tell them this is the caress of the pope. The council would last for another three years and outlive John, who died in 1963 of stomach cancer. But when it was over, council fathers had agreed to major changes in the life of the church. In addition to allowing for liturgies in the vernacular, the council fathers also encouraged efforts to improve relations among Christians and revolutionized the churchs relations with Jews, including removing the phrase perfidious Jews from the liturgy. Francis, 85, is the first pope to have been ordained after the council, and his priorities are very much inspired by it. Above all peace, above all the poor church, said Vatican II historian Alberto Melloni told The Associated Press about Francis. Melloni also pointed to Francis insistence on a synodal or decentralized church, with an emphasis on lay Catholics rather than clerics. The lay-centric vision of the church is clearly evident in Francis decision to allow laypeople, including women, to head Vatican offices and in the the two-year synod process in which ordinary Catholic faithful have joined a global consultation on the life and mission of the church. Conservatives have bristled at Francis synod process, with German Cardinal Gerhard Meuller recently asserting it amounts to a hostile takeover of the Catholic Church. He told the EWTN broadcaster that Vatican II reaffirmed that divine revelation could not change and that any other interpretation was not only erroneous but dangerous. John XXIII did not convoke Vatican II to reinvent Catholicism, writes church historian George Weigel in his new book To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II. As he put it in his opening address, the councils greatest concern must be the more effective presentation of Catholic truth in full through a new language and vocabulary that could be understood in the modern world, Weigel wrote. JERUSALEM President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the U.S. has brokered a historic breakthrough between Israel and Lebanon that would end a dispute over their shared maritime border, pave the way for natural gas production and reduce the risk of war between the enemy countries. The agreement, coming after months of U.S.-mediated talks, would mark a major breakthrough in relations between Israel and Lebanon, which formally have been at war since Israels establishment in 1948. But the deal still faces some obstacles, including legal and political challenges in Israel. Israel welcomed the deal even ahead of Bidens announcement. Lebanese leaders made no formal announcement, but indicated they would approved the agreement. In Washington, Biden said that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to formally end their maritime dispute. He said he had spoken to the leaders of both countries and been told they were ready to move ahead. The agreement will provide for the development of energy fields for the benefit of both countries, setting the stage for a more stable and prosperous region, Biden said. It is now critical that all parties uphold their commitments and work towards implementation. Lebanon and Israel both claim some 860 square kilometers (330 square miles) of the Mediterranean Sea. At stake are rights over exploiting undersea natural gas reserves. Lebanon hopes gas exploration will help lift its country out of its spiraling economic crisis. Israel also hopes to exploit gas reserves while also easing tensions with its northern neighbor. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid called the deal a historic achievement that will strengthen Israels security, inject billions into Israels economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border. Under the agreement, the disputed waters would be divided along a line straddling the strategic Qana natural gas field. Israeli officials involved in the negotiations said Lebanon would be allowed to produce gas from that field, but pay royalties to Israel for any gas extracted from the Israeli side. Lebanon has been working with the French energy giant Total on preparations for exploring the field, though actual production is likely years away. The agreement would also leave in place an existing buoy line that serves as a de facto border between the two countries, the officials said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind the scenes negotiations, said the deal would include American security guarantees, including assurances that none of the gas revenues reach Hezbollah. Many leading Israeli security figures, both active and retired, have hailed the deal because it could lower tensions with Lebanons Hezbollah militant group, which has repeatedly threatened to strike Israeli natural gas assets elsewhere in the Mediterranean. With Lebanon now having a stake in the regions natural gas industry, experts believe the sides will think twice before opening up another war. It might help create and strengthen the mutual deterrence between Israel and Hezbollah, said Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at Israels Institute for National Security Studies. This is a very positive thing for Israel. Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006, and Israel considers the heavily armed Iranian-backed group to be its most immediate military threat. The agreement will be brought before Israels caretaker government for approval this week ahead of the Nov. 1 election, when the country goes to the polls for the fifth time in under four years. An Israeli official said Lapids Cabinet is expected to approve the agreement in principle on Wednesday, while sending it to parliament for a required two-week review. After the review, the government would give final, official approval, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss government strategy. It remains unclear if parliament needs to approve the agreement, or merely review it. Approval is not guaranteed. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the caretaker government has no authority to sign such an important agreement and has vowed to cancel the deal if re-elected. On Tuesday, he accused Lapid of caving in to Hezbollah threats. This is not a historic agreement. Its a historic surrender, Netanyahu said in a Facebook video. The Kohelet Policy Forum, an influential conservative think tank, already has filed a challenge with the Supreme Court trying to block the deal. But Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at the Israel Democracy Institute, another prominent think tank, said it is customary, but not mandatory, to seek Knesset approval for such agreements. Peace agreements are usually brought to the Knesset, but this is not a peace agreement. Its a border and limitation agreement, he said. Senior U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein, whom Washington appointed a year ago to mediate talks, delivered a modified proposal of the maritime border deal to Lebanon on Monday night, according to local media and officials. There was no formal response from Lebanon. But the office of President Michel Aoun said the latest version of the proposal satisfies Lebanon, meets its demands, and preserves its rights to its natural resources, and will hold consultations with officials before making an announcement. A senior official involved in the talks told The Associated Press that Aoun, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and Speaker Nabih Berri were all satisfied. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Hezbollahs leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was noncommital in a speech late Tuesday. He praised his groups resistance against Israel and insisted that Lebanon is not afraid of another war against Israel. But he said Hezbollah would wait to issue its position on the agreement. Previously he has said the group would endorse the governments position. He said any agreement would require cooperation and unity among Lebanons fractured political leadership. The upcoming hours are decisive, he said. ___ Associated Press correspondent Eleanor Reich contributed reporting from Jerusalem. KYIV, Ukraine Russian forces showered Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in an attack the U.N. human rights office described as particularly shocking and amounting to potential war crimes. Air raid warnings sounded throughout Ukraine for a second straight morning as officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. The strikes have knocked out power across the country and pierced the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the wars front lines. It brings anger, not fear, Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as crews worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from the capitals streets. We already got used to this. And we will keep fighting. The leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers condemned the bombardment and said they would stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Their pledge defied Russian warnings that Western assistance would prolong the war and the pain of Ukraines people. Russia launched the widespread attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast. The Ukrainian government has applauded it but not claimed responsibility. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the G-7 leaders during a virtual meeting that during the past two days Russia fired more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine, and that while Ukraine shot down many of them, it needs more modern and effective air defense systems. The Pentagon earlier announced plans to deliver the first two advanced NASAMs anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, will provide medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks. In a phone call with Zelenskyy on Tuesday, President Joe Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems, the White House said. Zelenskyy thanked the U.S. and also Germany for speeding up the delivery of the first of four promised IRIS-T air defense systems. Ukraines defense minister tweeted that the German system had just arrived, and that a new era of air defense for Ukraine had begun. Zelenskyy also urged the G-7 leaders to respond symmetrically to the attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector by doing more to stop Russia from profiting off its exports of oil and gas. Such steps can bring peace closer, he said. They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war. Ukrainian officials said the diffuse strikes on power plants and civilian areas made no practical military sense. However, Putins supporters had urged the Kremlin for weeks to take tougher action in Ukraine and criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing battlefield setbacks. Pro-Kremlin pundits lauded the attacks as an appropriate response to Kyivs successful counteroffensives. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity to win a war now in its eighth month. The head of Britains cyber-intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, said Tuesday in a rare public speech that Russia is running out of military supplies and struggling to fill its ranks. Russias forces are exhausted, Fleming said. The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation. Like Mondays strikes, the bombardment Tuesday struck both energy infrastructure and civilian areas. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire, the State Emergency Service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities. Energy facilities in the western Lviv and Vinnytsia regions also took hits. Officials said Ukrainian forces shot down an inbound Russian missile before it reached Kyiv, but the capital region experienced rolling power outages as a result of the previous days strikes. The State Emergency Service said 19 people died and 105 people were wounded in Mondays strikes. At least five of the victims were in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 cities and towns lost power. A spokesperson for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that strikes on civilian objects, including infrastructure such as power plants, could qualify as a war crime. Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations, Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva. Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law. War crimes investigations have long been underway in towns where mass graves were found, along with other evidence of atrocities, after they were liberated from Russian occupation. In Lyman, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, forensic workers pulled several bodies from a mass grave Tuesday, part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the bodies of 32 Ukrainian soldiers have been exhumed so far from one mass grave. The tempo of the war in the last month fanned concerns that Moscow might broaden the battlefield and resort to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. As Ukraines counteroffensives in the east and south forced Russias troops to retreat from some areas, a cornered Kremlin ratcheted up Cold War-era rhetoric. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow would only employ nuclear weapons if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state TV, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlins intentions. Russias nuclear doctrine envisions exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state, Lavrov said. In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would hold annual war exercises testing the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities next week as scheduled. Asked whether it was the wrong time for them, Stoltenberg replied: It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, longtime-planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. Stoltenberg called Putins rhetoric irresponsible but said he believes Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. NATO as an organization does not possess nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries the United States, the U.K. and France. The G-7, leaders who held the emergency meeting in response to Mondays attack, said the indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime and reaffirmed their commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The pledge appeared to come in response to Kremlin warnings that Western military assistance, including training Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries and feeding real-time satellite data to target Russian forces, increasingly made Ukraines allies parties to the conflict. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said continued U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the fighting and inflict more damage on the country without changing Russias objectives. As Russian forces pounded three districts around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant overnight, Ukraines state nuclear operator said Russian forces kidnapped the plants deputy human resources director. Russians previously detained the facilitys general director and released him following pressure from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Grossi met with Putin on Tuesday in St. Petersburg and urged him to agree to a safety and security protection zone around the occupied plant to prevent a radiation disaster. ___ Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine India Edtech Consortium (IEC), the self-regulatory body formed under the aegis of IAMAI, revealed the results of a recently conducted Survey on teachers to assess the efficacy and quality of education the Edtech companies are driving within the country. The survey indicates that a whopping 86% Indian teachers believe that the emergence of Edtechs have expanded job opportunities for them; whereas 82% believe that technology has enhanced their teaching capabilities. In self-reported data, IEC member companies have also highlighted that a spend of about INR 3500 crores was made during FY22 to enhance the overall learning ecosystem comprising teachers, content, pedagogy and faculty. The government has increased its education budget in 2022, thereby exceeding INR 1 lakh crore (US$ 13.08 billion) for the first time, according to information presented to the Rajya Sabha. Interestingly, the total investment made by IEC member companies towards the betterment & enhancement of the learning ecosystem which is about 3-4% of the overall government budget, thereby reinforcing their commitment to driving career outcomes for their students. Some of IECs member companies include leading Edtech startups upGrad, BYJU's, Careers360, Classplus, Doubtnut, Great Learning, Harappa, Times Edutech & Events Limited, Scaler, Simplilearn, Toppr, Unacademy, UNext Learning, Vedantu and WhiteHat Jr, among others. The National Teachers Survey was conducted amongst 700+ teachers who work with IEC member companies across metros and non-metros to evaluate the level of job satisfaction they have experienced amid such dynamic times. It revealed: 62% of teachers feel that their work-life balance has improved in the post-pandemic era a trend observed in both metros and non-metros 74% of teachers expressed that Edtech companies are helping them enjoy more flexibility in terms of work hours. However, 10% also cited that their work-life harmony has been disturbed amid times when the industry is evolving at a neck break pace. A teacher working with one of the member-Edtechs, said, The post-pandemic world saw greater adoption of technology and the effects were felt everywhere including the education sector. We immediately had to switch gears to operate online so as to maintain the uninterrupted flow of education, which indeed was a big responsibility. We learned the know-how of Edtech platforms and tools which initially appeared tricky because of the offline set-up we were privy to, but honestly, the online way forward is far more convenient, and offers a lot of room to learn constantly. Commenting on the development, Mayank Kumar, Chair at IEC said, It's strange to see that people want qualified teachers for their children but they themselves do not want to qualify for the role. Teaching as a profession has taken a backseat, which of course is an alarming situation. Therefore, IEC reached out to such practitioners to assess how well-placed are they in their profession. The survey results reflect the operational efficiency of the ecosystem through the efforts taken by Edtech companies which have remained at the forefront to provide teachers with an all-inclusive learning environment through L&D sessions, group discussions, and market-relevant study materials for enhancing their personalised teaching capabilities. These insights from the industry are likely to also accelerate the adoption of Teaching as a sought-after career option. Divya Gokulnath, Co-chair at IEC, sees this survey as yet another validation of the liberating and empowering potential of EdTech for Indias teachers. We are really happy to have this data-driven validation of the positive impact of EdTech on Indias teachers. Not only have tech-enabled teachers been able to teach better and reach more students, they have also benefitted from more job opportunities and higher salaries. The numbers have spoken. The golden age of Indias teachers has returned, she said. Bay Capital Investment Advisors Private Limited is pleased to announce the appointment of Ritwick Ghoshal as Managing Partner & CEO to drive the domestic onshore business for Bay Capital. Ritwick comes to Bay Capital from Barclays Private Bank where he was a Director for Private Clients and was part of the India Private Banking Management Committee for the Bank. Ritwick brings to the firm 27 years of Wealth Management experience in India, Middle East, US & the European markets in Private Banking, Consumer Banking, Capital Markets & Investment Banking. He has held senior management positions with banks like Citibank N.A. in EMEA, ANZ Grindlays, JM Morgan Stanley, ABN AMRO N.V., HSBC Retail Banking & Wealth Management, Edelweiss Private Wealth Management & Barclays Bank Plc in India & Avendus Capital Inc in the US. We are pleased to have Ritwick on board. His deep expertise in developing and managing global investments will help enhance our bouquet of strategies. He will add immense value to our asset management platform as we expand and build diverse solutions given our expertise on India and our core themes of consumption, financialization, digitization and outsourcing, said Mr Siddharth Mehta, Founder and CIO at Bay Capital Partners. I am motivated to be a part of the newly launched domestic business of Bay Capital and look forward to leading the team in creating differentiated strategies and further diversifying the portfolio for Indian investors. Bay Capital are experienced in the institutional space, and with this new initiative we aim to build on the already existing expertise on Indian equity markets with institutional investors. I will be working closely with a highly experienced and engaged research team that has deep domain knowledge of the Indian equity markets, said Mr Ritwick Ghoshal, Managing Partner and CEO- Domestic Business, Bay Capital Investment Advisors. Ritwick also co-founded a job matching platform in India, which helped new graduates from Indias rural and semi urban locations hone their vocational and occupational skills. Ritwick, along with other co-founders, raised USD 3 million as initial seed capital from global UHNIs. Ritwick holds an MBA in International Business from European University, Antwerp, Belgium and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and World Religions from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, USA. Cartoon Network is all set to premiere Digimon Adventure: produced by Toei Animation for the first time in multiple regional languages - Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Adding more sparkle to the festive season and to its cache of popular Japanese anime content, the channel is hosting the adrenaline-pumping, dazzling adventures of Taichi and his friends, starting October 24 and thereafter Monday through Friday at 8 PM. It's 2020, the network is part of everyones daily life, however, a network glitch suspected to be a cyber-attack creates panic in central Tokyo. This time, Digimon Adventure: follows the story of a fifth grader - Taichi Yagami, who on his way to rescue his mother and sister, suddenly finds himself in the Digital World. This unexplored virtual space where things are not what they seem is on the other side of the network and the realm with its creatures unknown to humankind. The adventures begin when Taichi and his six chosen friends, helped by seven Digimons, or digital monsters, navigate the unpredictable and dangerous Digital World, trying to make their escape back home. Digimon Adventure: is action-packed from start to finish, and the audience will trace the journey with their heroes both human and Digimon to a world both real and very imaginary. Voicing the main characters in the show are popular Hindi voiceover artists including Vaibhav Thakkar for the protagonist Taichi, Dev Singha for the fierce digimon Agumon, Sriparna Chaterjee for the young computer whiz Koshiro, Neshma Chamburkar for Taichis mother Yuuko Kamiya and Pooja Punjabi for Taichis best friend Sora. Talking about the launch of the show, Uttam Pal Singh, Head of Kids Cluster, South Asia, Warner Bros. Discovery, said, Cartoon Network led the way by being the first channel to bring Japanese anime content in local dubs to South Asia. After the standout success of Dragon Ball Super, we are pleased to bring fans a new addition to the versatile genre with Digimon Adventure: in three local languages, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. We are sure that this latest addition with its gripping narrative and world class animation will be another instant favourite. Cartoon Network will offer fans several exciting opportunities to join in the adventures of Digital World alongside Digimons. Beginning October 11, Cartoon Networks social media channels will highlight the characters and their powers through a fun series of posts and, engaging content giving fans plenty of social moments to show their fandom. Additionally, as part of the launch campaign, the channel will invite young fans to participate in the #DigiQuest - a watch and win contest with exciting rewards. Stay tuned as Digimon Adventure: continues to invigorate audiences with extraordinary world and adventures of the DigiDestined. ManipalCigna Health Insurance Company Limited , today announced the appointment of Padma Shri awardee and ace actor, Manoj Bajpayee, as its brand ambassador. Through this association with Manoj Bajpayee, ManipalCigna aims to spread the message about the value of health insurance, drive customer conversions and propel distribution growth across India. Prasun Sikdar, MD and CEO, ManipalCigna Health Insurance said, At ManipalCigna, our goal is to provide lifetime access to quality healthcare and ensure financial wellbeing in the lives of the millions of people in India. Manoj Bajpayee is a phenomenal ambassador for this mission and it is a moment of pride for us to be associated with a self-made, passionate, expert, and trustworthy personality like him who has a pan-India appeal. Sikdar further added, As an actor, Manoj strongly resonates with our brand because ManipalCigna possesses all these values, expertise, and more. Over the years, we have built a comprehensive health insurance portfolio with a range of benefits, including inpatient, outpatient, and wellness benefits to take care of healthcare financing needs, and will continue to be there for our customers and their families, especially when they need us most Actor Manoj Bajpayee said, When it comes to my family's health and my own, I always rely on trusted medical experts as I value their expertise above all else. So, its an honour to be part of a brand thats viewed as a Health Insurance Expert for its level of reliability when it comes to supporting peoples healthcare financing needs. ManipalCignas rich expertise lies in offering several innovative and fully loaded products in the market, providing quick and easy claim settlement, and delivering better healthcare experience. I am happy to join in their journey and spread awareness about the importance of health insurance. Sapna Desai, Chief Marketing Officer, ManipalCigna Health Insurance said, We are excited to bring Manoj Bajpayee on board to raise awareness about our health insurance solutions and build a purpose-driven connection with our customers. Manoj inspires trust and has the expertise to be associated with a category like health insurance, thus with ManipalCigna, it is a seamless brand association. Further given his mass fan following across the country, we believe that this association will help us maximize our reach, strengthen our brand awareness and build a deeper connection with the consumers. We look forward to our engagement and an enriching partnership Worlds #1 makeup brand, Maybelline New York today brought to life its Brave Together campaign in partnership with NGO Sangath, to mark the occasion of World Mental Health Day 2022. As an ode to young peoples experiences in dealing with anxiety and depression, the event brought together experts, lived experience advocates, academicians, and organizations who are working towards improving mental health to encourage youth to talk about mental health and seek help. As part of Maybelline New Yorks recently launched Brave Together campaign, the event hosted a panel discussion on Bridging Gaps In Mental Health By Making Support Accessible with International Badminton champion, Olympian, and campaign ambassador PV Sindhu, author and founder of Here comes the sun Shaheen Bhatt, actor & comedian Mallika Dua, and author Arjun Gupta. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Anant Bhan, Mentor, Principal Investigator, and Project Lead at NGO Sangath. In addition to the engaging panel discussion, the event also hosted a few workshops focused on arts, dance, and listening circles, given the important role these play in addressing mental health. Speaking at the event, Zeenia Bastani, Brand General Manager Maybelline New York, LOreal India, said, Through Maybelline New Yorks Brave Together campaign our focus has been to destigmatize mental health conversations and make free support accessible to all. Mental health conversations need to be normalized and must be had at homes, workplaces, and colleges. I am thrilled that we were able to facilitate this engaging platform for youth today. Olympian PV Sindhu, campaign ambassador of the Brave together campaign said, In the pursuit of success, happiness, and fame, we often think talking of mental health will be frowned upon or will slow us down. Therefore, talking about mental health is still taboo and pushes a lot of struggling people behind the curtains. It is very important for every individual to get the help they need without being shamed for it. Im glad to be a part of this change and will continue to advocate for mental well-being and self-love. Shaheen Bhatt, Author, and Founder, Here comes the sun said Even today, young people are scared and not confident enough to open up about their depression and anxiety to their friends and loved ones. Its OK to treat this as any other health condition, its about time we are vocal about our emotional well-being and be mindful about those around us who are going through it and support them. Mallika Dua, Actor, and Comedian said, For a long time now, mental health has been the most neglected part of our overall health. While we have focused on how we eat, how we exercise, how we should sleep on time etc., our mental health was only attended to when there was something severely wrong. And even then, it was kept under wraps. Im so pleased that mental health conversations are starting now. We need to continue empowering people around us and bridge the gaps in mental health by destigmatizing and making support accessible to all. Maybelline New Yorks Brave together campaign in partnership with the NGO Sangath, launched in September 2022 is aimed at making mental health support accessible to all. To destigmatize mental health and make support accessible to all, Maybelline New York has partnered with NGO Sangath to provide one-on-one counseling via their toll-free helpline number 011-41198666 and TheMindClan.com for expert resources. Following the launch of the Brave Together campaign on 30th August, the number of unique calls to Sangaths helpline number increased by 57% in the month of September 2022, and 503 callers availed of free counseling services. Encouraged by the government measures supporting growth in the digital economy along with continued efforts at digitalizing their own business operations, more than a third of enterprises in Singapore have significantly increased their ICT budgets in 2022 compared to 2021, reveals GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. GlobalDatas Singapore enterprise ICT investment trends report, which is based on the companys recent ICT customer insight survey, reveals that about 80% of respondents claimed that their enterprise ICT budgets have increased, with 42.5% claiming a slight increase (1% to 6%) and 37.5% claiming a significant increase (greater than 6%). Saurabh Daga, Technology Analyst at GlobalData, comments: The positive outlook for enterprise ICT spending in Singapore for 2022 can partially be attributed to the governments supportive policy through various initiatives such as the Research, Innovation, and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 plan, as well as the increased emphasis on digital transformation activities like cloud migration, automation, and upgrading of legacy IT infrastructure among enterprises. Additionally, a significant number of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in Singapore are also increasingly turning towards digital technologies to gain a competitive edge, owing again to the government programs such as SMEs Go Digital. The report also analyses the enterprise investment priorities across 30+ IT solution areas and reveals that IT security is one of the top ICT focus areas for 2022. Singapore has witnessed a regular stream of IT security breaches in the past year, which include data breaches at the shipping major Swire Pacific Offshore (SPO) and at the Singapore arm of the global food & beverage company Starbucks. Saurabh adds: These instances of cyberattacks are driving enterprises in the country to prioritize their IT security environment, which is reflected by GlobalDatas survey where more than 70% of the surveyed respondents have claimed that their enterprise software and services investment towards security solutions has increased in 2022 compared to 2021. Furthermore, a provision regarding the protection of consumer data under Singapores Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) is also one of the key factors behind the increased focus towards information and data security among the enterprises in the country. According to PDPA regulations, all businesses operating in Singapore need to publicly announce any incident of data breach regardless of its size. Saurabh concludes: Encouraged by the government initiatives, regulatory frameworks, and the need to create efficient business practices, a significant number of enterprises in Singapore are also increasingly integrating disruptive technologies into their processes and operations, as outlined by GlobalDatas survey, where more than 75% of respondents are claiming their enterprises have increased their disruptive technology spend in 2022, with artificial intelligence (AI) and automation being the prime focus areas. *ICT Customer Insight Survey was undertaken between May 2022 and June 2022 and included 1,705 respondents. The survey respondents included senior executives involved in IT decision making in enterprises cutting across several verticals and geographies. Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest is delighted to return with its 13th edition to its traditional venue at the NCPA, Nariman Point, also with sessions at St Pauls Institute of Communication Education (SPICE) and Title Waves book store in Bandra from 11-13 November 2022. The 2020 and 2021 editions were held virtually because of the pandemic. The highly successful virtual Litfest editions (8.5 million views in 2021) created keen online audiences and expectations. To meet both the virtual and on-ground demand, this years Litfest will see yet another innovation: a hybrid festival, with the online sessions taking place 9 & 10 November. There will, as always, be a star line up of international and national writers, including celebrated names like Geetanjali Shree, Tony Fadell, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Shashi Tharoor, Paul Morland, Jerry Pinto, Naushad Forbes, Rohini Nilekani, Ashwin Sanghi, Sanjaya Baru, Mallika Sarabhai, Ian Cardozo, Mamang Dai, Onir, Rinki Bhattacharya and many others on ground. Online participants will include Damon Galgut, George Monbiot, Pankaj Mishra, Colm Toibin, Susan Liautaud, John Pilger, among others. The highlights of the Festival will all continue: the prestigious Tata Literature Live! Literary Awards, the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award and the appointing of a Poet Laureate, the energetic Great Debate, poetry recitations scintillating performances, the popular workshops and the Book Swap. Mumbai will feature actively as the Litfest returns to its physical home, with various themes regarding the city: a new novel, coastal marine life, history and communities. Two new prizes: The Binod Kanoria Awards for Childrens Literature and The Rotary Writing For Peace Award, will also be presented under the aegis of the Festival. The Sultan Padamsee Playwriting Awards will return. In line with its spirit of literary expansion the Litfest has started sessions on languages other than English. Last years language was Marathi and the sessions were enthusiastically received. This year there will be an introduction to Gujarati prose and poetry. There will also be two international collaborative sessions this year, with France and UK. Noir in Mumbai will be premiered in India as part of the Litfest. Three rising stars of French crime fiction Johana Gustawsson aka the Queen of French Noir, Sophie Henaff and her Awkward Squad and Jerome Loubry will present their work for the first time to an Indian audience. This will culminate in a unique event, the Great Investigation, inspired by its sister activity in France and imagined by Indian author Kalpana Swaminathan, in which participants will have five hours to resolve the mystery of the theft of the Blue Sapphire! The collaboration with the UK will present new work being performed exploring the relationship between language and queerness, as the outcome of a project which will bring together six diverse and multicultural poets from India and the UK through residencies in both countries. The Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest has always been as much a Festival of ideas as literature. This year too will feature books and authors ranging across subjects like innovation, mentorship, philanthropy, media, food, gender issues, art, environment. Looking forward to the 2022 Litfest, Director of the Festival, Amy Fernandes said: We are excited to be launching a re-invention of the Litfest in a hybrid model. This will enable us to include authors who are still unable to travel, as well as our global virtual audiences who so enjoyed the Litfest during the pandemic. At the same time we are also delighted to be able to welcome back in person, the authors and audiences who have missed the distinctive Litfest activities, buzz and vibe at our physical venues. I would like to express our sincere thanks to our venue partner NCPA, and our presenting sponsor Tata, for their unstinting support since inception, and to SPICE and Title Waves book store for our Bandra arm. We greatly appreciate the invaluable support of Godrej Industries Ltd, Kotak, Mariwalla Initiatives and Hafele. This committed backing has enabled us to curate memorable Litfests, no matter what the differing circumstances, bringing us to our 13th edition this year. Speaking about the festival this year, Harish Bhat, Brand Custodian, Tata Sons said We at the Tata Group are proud to be associated with Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest which has become a beautiful melting pot for literary enthusiasts across India. The festival has grown from strength to strength, which is tribute to the pioneering work done by Anil Dharker and Shashi Baliga. As a fitting tribute to these two stalwarts of Tata Literature Live!, the festival returns this year in a wonderful hybrid format bringing back the in-person experience, alongside a digital format that reaches a much larger online community. This is an invaluable opportunity for lovers of literature to meet their favourite authors up close and personal, and also listen to them from the comfort of their own locations. We invite all of you to join us as we celebrate this festival of ideas, art and literature. 25th August 2022, the day marked the 10 year anniversary of Team Pumpkin, one of the countrys top digital marketing & PR agencies. Having started its association with 2 clients, the company has now grown to work with over 500 brands across the globe in its portfolio. Today, Team Pumpkin has a presence across India with offices in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and New Delhi. With over 170+ Pumpkins in the workforce, the agency enables businesses to transform themselves into digital brands, a motto that is at the heart of the company. Reflecting on the past decade, Ranjeet Kumar (CEO) said, Its surreal its already been 10 years what feels like we started yesterday. It has been a decade of learning, unlearning and more importantly feeling gratitude for a great team that we have become today. Amidst the fast-paced nature of work that Team Pumpkin does and the advertising industry as a whole, the company took a breather to acknowledge the people who have been its driving force over the last 10 years. As such, a plan to commemorate the special occasion was underway by some of the Team Pumpkins senior members. To celebrate the anniversary, numerous activities were organised in each of the three branches. Kicking things off was Team Pumpkins trademark Zoom par Jhoom, a live session that features a guest speaker along with fun & games for every participating employee. This time however, the guests were Ranjeet and Swati themselves. In addition to this, Bollywood themed dress up parties, jamming sessions, and delicious confectionery were organized for every employee to indulge in. Pumpkins all over were seen dressed up as their favourite characters from Indian cinema, singing & dancing together as they enjoyed each other's company on the special day. At its core, the celebrations were conducted to express utmost gratitude to every person who is part of the company. When asked about the importance of every Pumpkin in the companys success, Swati Nathani (Chief Business Officer) said, Ours is a business which is run for the people and by the people and therefore, our employees, who we lovingly call Pumpkins, are the most important asset we have and we plan to continue to grow and nurture them as much as possible. More about Team Pumpkin: Run by creativity and fueled by technology, Team Pumpkin creatively transforms businesses through tailor made strategic solutions. As a 360 degree agency, the company offers a spectrum of services ranging from social media marketing, to influencer collaborations, to event management.Team Pumpkins prestigious list of clients include names like Tata Steel, ITC Foods, Unicharm, Stovekraft, Mamaearth and more. Above all, it prides itself on being an environment that nurtures creative minds to deliver work to the best of their abilities - by ensuring that every Pumpkin feels acknowledged and appreciated by one another. The trial is underway in Wisconsin for Darrell E. Brooks, who is charged with "six counts of intentional homicide with the use of a dangerous weapon (his SUV), and more than 60 counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety and six counts of fatal hit and run, according to an amended complaint." The trial format is allowing Brooks to be his own attorney, which means he can question witnesses, offer objections, request grounds for overruling of objections, and interact directly with the judge. The judge, Jennifer Dorow, is beautiful, poised, and patient in her explanations to Brooks and in her overall conduct of the proceedings. In our time, high-profile cases involving black defendants put a special burden on our court system, as there are many who assume that our courts are overwhelmed by bias against black defendants so that a fair trial is almost impossible. The judge's patience and goodwill notwithstanding, it is clear to this writer that for many commentators as well as citizens, Brooks is not only innocent until proven guilty, but innocent whether proven guilty or not. No "proof" will meet the standard of viability for justice in our legal system because many on the left say that our legal principles are inherently biased against people "of color." For the left, we proportionally have so many African-Americans in jail because of this bias, and not because of actual wrongdoing, and not because our law has drafted punishments to fit the crimes. It is against this distorted backdrop that we should observe the progress and conduct of this case. In looking at the conduct of this case, the first matter I would note is that whenever the prosecution refers to the defendant as "Mr. Brooks," the defendant objects. He does not want to be named as the subject of this prosecution. Fortunately, Judge Dorow always overrules this objection. This attempt to deny his identity as the person who is defending himself and, at the same time, is on trial (two simultaneous roles) is part of the nihilism of the present era. Brooks wants to project himself as Brooks's attorney, but not as Brooks the defendant. He purposely tries to project that being his own attorney enables him to deny that he is the defendant. This nihilism, which seeks to deconstruct all identity as arbitrary and in some important sense "undefinable," is part of a rampant subterfuge that is going on every day in all our institutions. Brooks playacting in court. First, boys can think they are girls, and girls can think they are boys. Many powerful voices are arguing and implementing the right of young boys to be identified as girls and chemically castrated while still young children, even without parental notification or consent. The collapse of identity thus becomes a weapon for the destruction of the family. The child not only can deny his sex, but can partially vacate his role as a family member. And even some (many?) parents are in agreement because it relieves them of the guilt of saying "no" to their children, and living with that no on a daily basis until the child is no longer a minor. Even knowing that 85-plus percent of children (not counting the rare cases of hermaphroditism, where both genitals appear in some form) do not go through with their experienced gender dysphoria when they reach their majority, there are parents who are convinced that it is unloving not to give in to their offspring earlier. Laws denying parents a say in that decision relieve them of psychological tensions that they find unbearable. The parents so afflicted have a diminished sense of reality and cannot accept that a male is a male and a female is a female. The recent appointee to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, when asked to define what a woman is (even though she is a woman), answered that she could not because she is "not a biologist." Although she warmly accepted the nomination to deal with some of the most controversial and thereby the most stressful legal cases in our country, she cannot work through the stress of defining her own womanhood. She cleverly avoided possible controversy with her crafty answers to senators' questions. Brooks is also being crafty in his own defense. Crafty is not the same as smart. He wants to reveal what he believes to be witness bias, so he asks police officers who is paying their salaries and tries to imply that the very people paying them are the same as those who are prosecuting him. The officers' testimonies are biased or even corrupted by that vocational connection. This is not unlike the serpent, who, when Eve told him that God had forbidden her and Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that if they did eat from it, they would surely die, replied, "Did he really say that?" That was not a sophisticated argument against God's commands, but it was a crafty means to induce doubt. Fortunately, the prosecution has objected to Brooks's devilish crafty questions of some of the witnesses, and the judge has upheld the objections. Typically, an objection is made to Brooks's question of a witness, and Brooks objects to that objection by saying "grounds?" (meaning "what are the grounds for the objection?"), and the judge replies "argumentative...sustained" when siding with the prosecution. The serpent in Eden was "crafty," and the judge refers to Brooks as "argumentative," which amounts to the same thing. So Brooks is not Brooks, males are not males, females are not females, and the list goes on...looting and burning buildings is not violence, but peaceful protest; oil and gas shortages are based not on premeditated policy, but on policies supposedly intended to keep us alive by protecting the environment; and parents are sexists or domestic terrorists because they do not want re-labeled boys in girls' bathrooms exposing themselves, or raping their daughters. With this reversal of definitions and identities, countries like Hungary that resist migration by Africans and Middle Easterners, particularly those who are Muslim, are often labeled as fascists and horrible bigots even though in fact the Islamic world already attacked them multiple times in history and had to be defeated. Hungary successfully repelled the Muslim invaders in 1687 after having lost the city of Buda to them in 1541 and suffered 146 years of stagnation and oppression. The Hungarians are not going to ignore their own history because the E.U. tells them they are bigoted. In parallel fashion, we should not fail to convict perpetrators of crimes because some angry persons say it is racist to do so even when the accused are patently guilty. Everywhere we look, people are trying to flee from their identity and their history. A mass murderer on trial in Wisconsin is doing everything he can to evade his own identity. In doing so, he is joining gangs of liars all over the world who, in their own spheres of activity, are doing the same thing. The ruling class has failed immensely. The last two years are proof, but with each passing day, one wonders: Are Americas elites plunging into madness? Thats a dead serious question. With their madness may go our lives. Thats dead serious, too. Joe Biden spoke the other day about the possibility of nuclear Armageddon. With cataclysm in mind, Bidens Department of Health and Human Services spent $290 million on anti-radiation drugs. Uncle Sam makes plenty of wasteful expenditures, but is this one? Said our doddering president, AP, October 7: Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, Biden said Thursday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a guy I know fairly well and the Russian leader is not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons. Is Biden sounding the alarm to try to rally Americans and stave off midterm election losses for congressional Democrats? Crass politics from Biden wouldnt surprise, yet Jordan Schachtel, writing at The Dossier on Substack, says that Volodymyr Zelenskys call to bomb Russia (now being walked back by the Ukrainian government) has no support from NATO. But what if a direct attack on Russia isnt what ignites major conflict with the Russians? Retired General Jack Keane, a regular on Fox News programs, appeared on Fox & Friends last Friday. Keane is a war hawk. Hes pushed for a more aggressive U.S. military posture in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. Keane said that if Putin uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the U.S. would have to respond. No other choice. Not in kind, mind you, but conventionally with a comprehensive air and military attack inside Ukraine. The aim would be to destroy the Russian army there. Putin loses, says Keane. But what he omits matters greatly. If the U.S. strikes at the Russians in Ukraine, what assurance does Keane have that the war stays there, particularly if the U.S. is trying to annihilate the Russian army? Theres no risk of Putin expanding the war throughout Europe and to the U.S.? Russian missiles cant reach America? Russian saboteurs cant, for example, enter the U.S. -- if they arent here already -- and wreak havoc? Maybe take out power grids? If Putin loses his army in Ukraine, his regime likely collapses. Thats what the ruling class wants. What that destabilization does to Russia and how that may adversely impact the rest of the world isnt discussed. Hillary Clinton and NATO grandees had no problem engineering Moammar Qaddafis killing. Libya has been torn by strife ever since. Acknowledging the possible consequences of destabilizing Putins regime may only make Americans more wary of being dragged into conflict. If Putin is a goner, what does he have to lose by broadening the war? Why would the Biden administration gamble by attacking the Russian army in Ukraine? Keane was never asked those questions by Fox News Brian Kilmeade. Regardless, theres an underlying conceit about wanting to topple Putin. The conceit: war will be contained to Ukraine. A desperate Vladimir Putin would never escalate the conflict. Why worry? Yet two nations armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons have never warred. American military engagement in Ukraine is fraught with many perils. Disaster spreading well beyond Ukraines borders is realistic. If not, why buy hundreds of millions of dollars in anti-radiation meds? Some say Putins back is to the wall, or near enough. The war hasnt resolved as he hoped. Yet, one must account for the fog of war and propaganda, which makes war foggier. Putin has announced the annexation of Ukrainian territory: Luhansk and Donetsk (republics) and two areas in southern Ukraine, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. All are under Russian control. The spin that Putin is losing may just be spin. Col. Douglas Macgregor, a dissenting voice and a regular guest on Tucker Carlsons show, thinks so. Who trusts U.S. intelligence sources (Deep State) and corporate media anymore? We hear that American intelligence is backdooring Russian generals. Putin is hamstrung, unable to unilaterally use nuclear weapons. Were to believe this based on unidentified sources? Having been misled by U.S. intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and given virtually no heads up about the looming defeat in Afghanistan last year, we shouldnt be skeptical? Biden speaks casually of Armageddon. Armageddon because of a localized conflict. Let that sink in. A war where no vital American interest is at risk. A war thats limited to Ukraine and poses no threat to the homeland. A war, though, that the ruling class and military-industrial complex conflates with U.S. security. Why? Because of mindsets that are trapped in the Cold War. Why? Because Democrats have made Russia a whipping boy. Democrats, who pawn off lies about Trumps collusion with Russia to fix U.S. elections (Democrats dont need Russians for that). Why? Because conflict is how the war industry ups profits. A war that apologists for increased American and NATO military engagement have claimed is required to protect democracy. Thats a dubious claim, given that democracy and our rights are under assault here. Dubious because of Ukraines extensive corruption and checkered history with democracy. Are we ready to sacrifice our sons and daughters for an abstraction? Do we dare court bringing destruction to our shores? Innocent American blood must be spilled to make the world safe for democracy? Is Ukraine really the hill that Lord knows how many Americans must die on? When will we as a nation jettison Wilsonian sanctimony for a return to Washingtonian sensibility? Our military is for defense; its not a galivanting righter of wrongs. We havent enough challenges at home? Our cities are increasingly lawless. Big, Democrat-run cities might as well be called war zones. We dont have a border thats been blown wide open by Biden administration policy? If our military is to engage, deploy it along the U.S.-Mexican border -- or whats rumored to be a border. Thats where the real threat to Americas welfare and security lies. 4.5 million illegals have entered our country, bringing crime, fentanyl, illness, and poverty. Cartels menace. More migrants come daily. And who knows how many enemy agents are among the diaspora? Edging toward war with Russia is eerily reminiscent of World War Is beginning, though this time substitute Ukraine for Serbia. History may not repeat itself, but it can approximate. Anyone with a basic understanding of WWI knows that it was pure folly. It squandered tens of millions of lives and devastated Western and Central Europe -- without nuclear weapons. It gave rise to communist Russia, opened the way for fascism, spawned WWII, and finished with the Cold War. Austria neednt have attacked Serbia because of the assassinations of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. Redress there had to be, but Austrias aggression set off a chain reaction. The Germans, Russians, French, and English could have pushed for restraint could have sought to mediate, insisting that Gavrilo Princip and his fellow conspirators be dealt swift justice while keeping Serbia free from Austrian reprisals. Yet, the great powers followed their respective allies into war, automatically. WWI set in motion the decline of Europe, a decline that continues. Do we hear calls among the ruling class for American diplomacy to end hostilities in Ukraine? Where are the peacemakers? Ending hostilities would entail recognizing Russias legitimate security concerns (NATO advancing again to Russias border) and acceptance that Ukraine be nonaligned, though free from Russian domination. There are certainly no calls for diplomacy and peaceful resolutions in Washington, D.C. Not from the Biden administration, not from Congress, not from mainline defense and foreign policy thinktanks. Not in corporate media. Instead, relentless belligerence. A march toward war is their way. Madness? You bet. If the madness isnt checked, its we the American people wholl pay a most horrific price. J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith. He also blogs at Flyover . Image: Charlotte Amelie, Library of Congress "Continuing current Gulf Coast exports is essential to efficiently rebalance markets particularly with diverted Russian supplies. Reducing global supply by limiting U.S. exports to build region-specific inventory will only aggravate the global supply shortfall." Exxon CEO Darren Woods, in a letter to Biden's Department of Energy Biden Grapples for Votes The Wall Street Journal weighed in recently on Biden's threatened ban of U.S. refinery exports. This is just another self-defeating energy policy, as Biden grapples for midterm votes by trying to ease gasoline prices. As American Thinker readers have been learning, U.S. gasoline demands can no longer be met during peak periods due to the shortage of refining capacity. Biden's war on U.S. fossil fuels has resulted in the permanent shutdown of refining capacity of about "1.4 million barrels a day ... according to the International Energy Agency." The Jones Act Exacerbates the Problem The pipeline capacity to the Northeast is full, and the Jones Act requires that, to move the excess capacity in the Gulf Coast to the Northeast, it must be transported by American ships manned by American sailors, of which we have too few. Therefore, the Gulf refineries export fuel products to other countries, and gasoline is imported to the Northeast region. If the Gulf Coast refineries are not allowed to export, the refineries will have to cut back on the amount being refined, and some U.S. crude production will be shut in, reducing the world crude oil supply. This sounds counterproductive. More pipelines, some modifications of the Jones Act, or more shipping of oil would fix this problem for the long term. But such a plan would run counter to Biden's war on fossil fuels and could not be executed before the all-important midterm elections. Will Biden Make Matters Worse? California (and the West Coast in general) presents a special problem, since the unique blends of gasoline mandated by California can be produced by only a few refineries in the Western United States. The outage of any of these refineries, as is the case for two of them that are currently out of commission for a turnaround, could result in gasoline shortages. I suggested in my last column, here in the pages of American Thinker, that we may encounter shortages in the fall, when most refineries shut down for turnarounds. The recent fires and the shutdown of the British Petroleum refinery units only exacerbate this problem. If Biden bans refinery exports, he will just make matters worse. So what else is new? Dennis Dowling, a former chemical engineer and plant manager, worked on the redesign and implementation of Exxon Chemical's key business processes around the globe. Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License. There are still 4 weeks left, but a newly released poll in Rhode Islands Second Congressional District shows what a red wave could look like. The last time voters went to polls to pick their Congressman in RI 2, they chose incumbent Democrat Jim Langevin by an almost 17 percent margin. But he is retiring, and the seat is open. The only Republican who ran for the nomination for the seat was Allan Fung, who served as the Mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, the second largest city in the state with a population just over 82,000 from 2008 to 2021. As mayor of Cranston, Fung was popular with voters, easily winning re-election until he was term limited out of office, receiving a landslide 2-to-1 margin in his final contest. Allan Fung (photo credit: Kenneth C. Zirkel CC BY-SA 4.0 license On the Democrat side, with such a heavily Democrat district, 5 candidates ran in the primary, and Seth Magaziner won with 54% of the vote, a strong showing with such a large field. Magaziner currently is the General Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island, a position he has held since 2015. If his last name rings a bell, thats probably because his father, Ira Magaziner, was the architect of HillaryCare that went down to defeat in Congress in Bill Clintons first term in office. Cook Political Report rates the seat a tossup, but a poll released today from Suffolk University shows a strong lead for Fung, with 45.26% supporting him, 36.73% supporting Magaziner, 5.21% supporting Independent Moderate candidate William Gilbert, and 12.8% undecided. With Fung still below 50%, and with relatively few total responses to the poll (422), it is too soon to be confident of victory. But in a deep blue district in a deep blue state, a lead of this size for a Republican is something to celebrate. Since at least the days of the Obama presidency and perhaps sooner, the Democrats have displayed a proclivity for antisemitism. Remember the reports about Hillary Clinton's screamings about "Jews" from behind closed doors? Now we have the post-Obama-era Squad Democrats. They championed the Palestinian cause, abandoning the U.S.'s only true ally and pluralistic democracy in the Middle East, Israel. President Barack Obama refused to meet with thenIsraeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu during his March 2015 stay in Washington. A snub of such magnitude was a clear indication that Obama and his administration had little regard or respect for Israel, its history, and the plight of the Jewish people. This has been the case with most Democrats. But in their minds, they cannot be antisemitic. Hence, they often resort to dog whistles, at times claiming they are anti-Zionist or against Israeli policies, but not antisemitic. The Democrats are usually silent after terror attacks on Israel. They may issue official statements, but that's all. The left frequently compared the Republicans to Nazis, which is a shameful trivialization of the darkest chapters in human history. It is also the equivalent of Holocaust denial and euphemizes the Nazis. Socialist Bernie Sanders was raised Jewish and was once sympathetic toward Israel. However, in recent times, he has been pro-Palestinian, perhaps to appease the antisemitic base. He has frequently brushed aside the antisemitism of his lawmaker colleagues. It's not only the left in the U.S. The left in the U.K. has also been rabidly antisemitic. Now for the "Squad." Just yesterday, the leader of the "Squad," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), posted a tweet where she decried antisemitism. This surprised many. "The Squad," which includes Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib and Somalian-American Ilhan Omar, is blatantly antisemitic. Omar and Tlaib, both pro-Palestine Democratic lawmakers, have come under fire several times for sharing antisemitic tropes. In 2012, Omar tweeted: "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel." During an interview on CNN in 2019, Omar defended her 2012 tweet, claiming that it was against not the Jewish people, but the "military action by a government that has exercised really oppressive policies." Tlaib accused Israel of being an "Apartheid state." This racist violence and impunity is only possible because of the apartheid government of Israel, supported by the US, continues to systematically dehumanize Palestinians. Dont take my word for it read the new @amnesty report here: https://t.co/XVO4N4NpaN Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) February 2, 2022 The Squad, particularly Omar and Talib, have supported the notorious Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel. AOC signed on as a co-sponsor of Ilhan Omar's resolution defending BDS. The Squad opposed funding of Israel's Iron Dome, and AOC famously "wept" to apologize for her "present" vote. The Iron Dome is a mobile all-weather air defense system designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) to 70 kilometers (43 mi) away and whose trajectories would take them to Israeli-populated areas. The Squad's opposition showed how little regard they have for the the people of Israel, who are surrounded by hostile countries and terror groups that frequently fire rockets and missiles into Israel. Ilhan Omar compared Israel and the U.S. to Hamas and the Taliban. We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice. pic.twitter.com/tUtxW5cIow Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 7, 2021 Tlaib was so overcome by her antisemitism that she attacked her Democrat colleagues for supporting Israel, claiming: "You cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel's apartheid government." Back in May, Tlaib and a handful of progressive Democrats introduced a resolution referring to Palestinian Arabs as the "indigenous inhabitants" of Israel and endorsing the Palestinian right of return, one of the most sensitive issues in Israeli-Palestinian relations. The resolution was co-sponsored by AOC, Omar, Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Marie Newman (D-Ill.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). Back in August, Tlaib urged the Biden administration to "hold Israel accountable." Omar condemned the Biden administration's plan for arms sales to the Israeli government, claiming that "the United States should not stand idly by while crimes against humanity are being committed with our backing." Back to AOC's tweet. In addition to pointing out how it's "harmful + dangerous" to Jews, AOC also mentioned it's harmful and dangerous "to our collective society at large." AOC concluded her tweet with a call to reject antisemitism, whenever we see it. She even included a dustbin emoji to make it obvious that she was absolutely serious about her claims. There is absolutely no room in this country or world for antisemitism. It is important to see how harmful + dangerous Kanyes words are - not only to our Jewish brothers, sisters, & siblings, but also to our collective society at large. We must reject this wherever we see it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 10, 2022 Many on social media were quick to point out AOC's dual standards. It began with Senator Ted Cruz: So youll be voting to censure the Squad? https://t.co/g5enfESP9z Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 10, 2022 Others jumped in as well Your best friends in the squad are some of THE fiercest anti-Semites. You yourself sobbed like a baby when you had to vote present for the iron dome. Rebecca Downs (@RebeccaRoseGold) October 10, 2022 Are you trying to say all lives matter? pic.twitter.com/ywOlW7a7x7 Five Times August (@FiveTimesAugust) October 10, 2022 AOC's condemnation emanated not from what was said, but rather on the basis of who said it. Her target was Kanye West. Rapper Kanye West came under fire for a vile antisemitic tweet where he essentially declared war on Jewish people. 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.' AOC's condemnation was merely scoring political points because Kanye West has expressed support for President Trump. By condemning and highlighting Kanye's antisemitism, AOC is attempting to push the old Democrat narrative that Donald Trump and Republicans are Nazis, or perhaps Nazi sympathizers. It is such a shame that the likes of AOC, who claim to be brimming with empathy for persecuted individuals and minorities, need a partisan crutch to condemn attacks on one of the world's most persecuted minorities the Jewish people. AOC's tweet is simply agenda-driven, in addition to being blatantly hypocritical. Image: nrkbeta via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Comedy or tragedy? What would The Bard think? The Globe Theatre in London, a purportedly faithful reconstruction of the Elizabethan Era playhouse where William Shakespeare's plays were first presented, recently tweeted a video clip from its current production of the trans-positive play I, Joan. The play is essentially a counterfactual, propagandistic transgender version of Joan of Arc. The Globe quickly deleted the tweet after it was rightfully subjected to much ridicule but did not at first take down a YouTube clip of the prologue from I, Joan. But it is now unavailable. The Globe Theatre (photo credit: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 license). If you had watched the YouTube clip when it was available, you would have seen that the play opens with actress Isabel Thom (who specifies her pronouns as "they/them" on her Twitter page) stating: "Trans people are sacred. We are the divine. We are practicing our divinity by expressing authenticity. By enjoying our multiplicity. Elevating our humanity, finding the unity hidden inside community, remembering our collective connectivity fuels courageous creativity, unlocking the blessed spirituality that we all seek. Yeah, this s---'s about to get spiritual." "Finding the unity hidden inside community, remembering our collective connectivity?" Did Thom (they/them) attend the Kamala Harris School of Public Speaking? The narcissism of the more militant members of the LGBTQIIA+ community is breathtaking. And off-putting, to say the very least. Rejecting and defacing God's design is anything but divine. Engaging in chemical castration, the lopping off of body parts, and causing or celebrating the permanent sterilization of young people is neither "spiritual" nor "divine." Holding oneself/theyselves up to be special, somehow above the rest of us boringly heterosexual mere mortals, is disingenuous, depraved, and despicable. As happens so often with the tragically woke, Thom's alleged attempt to get serious or "spiritual" is completely derailed by use of inappropriate, derogatory, or profane language. "This s---'s about to get spiritual"? Really? (Methinks "they" doth profess too much.) If I were to take a page from the Playbook of the Perpetually Oppressed, I would say, as a non-trans person, Thom comes off as The Merchant of Menace. I don't feel safe when I hear the words she/they spoke. In my opinion, she/they is one/or more shrew/or shrews that should be tamed. If I, Joan, the play, never saw a "Twelfth Night," I would say: "All's Well That Ends Well." I recently read a Fox News article that presented the views of a number of anonymous military members regarding the woke military. The service members almost universally agreed that senior members who openly disagree with the direction the military is heading risk their careers or retirement pensions. Merely questioning the goals or methods used to promote Equity & Diversity is punished and that punishment is swift, harsh, and public.... [snip] Most of us who serve did so because we came from military families. Patriotism and American values are no longer appreciated or expected.... I am a 4th generation veteran in my family. My wife, who immigrated to the US, is the first generation on her side. We served in the 1980-1990s and saw the very beginning of wokeness and its consequences. Even before that, in the early 1980s, as a Military Policeman, I was falsely accused a few times of either racism or sexism for pulling over a speeder or making a uniform correction. At the time, I figured all cops get that occasionally... maybe the person even believed it to be true. It certainly wasnt. I 100% believe the military is woke. I see daily minorities, overweight people and women not adhering to military standards, another said. Nobody corrects them due to the fear of being fired and labeled a racist or a sexist. After some time in college, I returned to active duty and, while processing into my Special Forces unit, I made a correction on a young Specialist. She accused me of racism and of calling her a racist name. She screamed profanities and threw her rank across a room full of people when I spoke to her supervisor about her behavior. Fortunately, there were dozens of witnesses. Her supervisor later told me that he moved her to another section where she didnt have to deal with customers. When I asked about her punishment, he added that she was a single mother and that he didnt want to do anything more. Image: Soldiers in a race. Public domain (Defense Department). The same article discusses politics in the general officer ranks. Nothing new there except, in my experience, politics were for getting that next star, so the officers still had to be professional. From what Ive seen since then, it seems that politics in the general officer ranks are all about that next job as a consultant or something after the military. It seems like in the 90s, DOD was apolitical, but that doesnt seem to be the case now. It seems like more and more leaders are more overtly supporting a political side, rather than their oath.... I suspect it was always that way to some degree, but it is so obvious now as to be an expected part of the progression plan where, in the past, it would have been considered unprofessional. Just like the politicians who daily lie to our faces, these generals no longer feel they must hide intentions that would have been unseemly just a decade or so ago. Lastly, I feel terribly sad that our family traditions are coming to an end. None of my three very physically fit sons want to serve. They even considered applying to West Point (my wifes alma mater), but the wokeness there and the mandatory COVID vaccines have put all that to rest. I suggested joining the Army National Guard, so they would at least be more likely to serve with people from the local region, which I believe is generally more conservative. Still, the mandatory vaccine is a huge issue for all of us. I feel for the active-duty conscientious objectors to the vaccine. Losing the retirementbecause they didnt want to take an experimental vaccine for an illness that was mild for fit and healthy people. As a father, I always had mixed emotions about my sons following in our footsteps. I worried they would go to West Point, then to Ranger and Special Forces, and end up dead (or worse) at a young age. At the same time, I used to believe this country was worth that riskeven for them. Im not so sure anymore. "How can we ask young men and women who have decided to risk their lives for America, even die for America, to affirm that our country is inherently racist?" former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote for Fox News last month. The answer is that defending the country is not the current governments priority. Rather, the current administration seeks total compliance with progressive ideals. I am quite confident that, in the 1990s, if the government had ordered the military to come after dissidents or to confiscate weapons, the military would have resisted. With our new woke military, taught to hate the country it serves and believe that the rest of us are Nationalist MAGA Fascists and Militarized Violent Extremists, I dont expect much resistance to any unconstitutional actions going forward. I believe were entering a stage of government oppression from which it will be very difficult to escape. With every day that draws closer to the midterm elections, the big question was whether there would be an October surprise and, if so, what that surprise would be. We assumed it would come from the Democrats and either be a sleazy attack on candidates or an announced Armageddon (nuclear war, a new virus, a Jan. 6 revolution) that would justify shutting down the election. Instead, the October surprise was that Tulsi Gabbard not only quit the Democrat party, but explicitly stated that she did so because the party has become so awful and anti-American that she can no longer remain. Tulsi was one of the more interesting presidential candidates in the 2020 Democrat primary race. An Army reserve officer and congresswoman from Hawaii, despite having standard leftist views about such things as climate change and socialized medicine, she refused to march in lockstep with the other Democrats. Since then, she frequently appeared on Tucker Carlson's show with conservative views about national security, race, the border, and LGBTQ+++ issues. That's why it was no surprise when, this morning, Tulsi officially left the Democrat party. She's not a conservative, but she's had it with the Democrats' madness. Tulsi made her announcement via Twitter and YouTube. On Twitter, she posted an abbreviated version (one minute and nineteen seconds) of the longer video that appears on YouTube (28 minutes and 33 seconds). What's clear watching these videos is that Tulsi didn't go out with a whimper. She went out with an explosive bang. In the shorter Twitter video, Tulsi lambastes the Democrat party for its use of race to divide America, anti-White stances, anti-freedom agenda, hostility to faith, anti-police and pro-criminal policies, open borders, weaponized federal agencies to target political opponents, and bizarre push to nuclear war. Along the way, she notes that the Democrats no longer stand for the ordinary American but are, instead, a cabal of elites that governs for its own benefit. She urges other Democrats who are disaffected from the party to leave it now. hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022 in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me. Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022 The YouTube version of her farewell speech also marks Tulsi's first installment in a new video podcast called, simply, The Tulsi Gabbard Show. In it, she introduces the facts that support the conclusions in the shorter Twitter video. It's powerful: I wish Tulsi tremendous success as she embarks on this new phase in her career as an articulate spokesman for the values in which she believes. I hope, too, that as she moves ever farther from the Democrats, she also rethinks her stance on socialized medicine and comes to recognize that climate change is not about saving the Earth from human depredations but is, simply, about reallocating wealth and power to a small cabal of individuals in the world's Western countries (something that cabal freely admits via its World Economic Forum plans). She's a formidable, articulate woman, and it would be nice to have her entirely on the side of conservatism rather than halfway there. Image: Tulsi Gabbard. YouTube screen grab. I admit to a heaping helping of schadenfreude over a report in the New York Times titled "Skepticism, Confusion, Frustration: Inside Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse Struggles." When Facebook joined the censorship regime, playing a critical role in fixing the 2020 presidential election, it became my enemy. A year ago, Zuckerberg, who controls his publicly held company through ownership of a special class of stock, announced that it was changing its name to Meta and would seek its future in the virtual world. The context for this is Facebook's declining share of the social media market, as TikTok is siphoning younger users away from Facebook and Instagram, Meta's two big moneymakers, and Apple made privacy changes to its mobile operating system that have cost Meta billions of dollars in advertising revenue. The company's stock price has tumbled nearly 60 percent in the past year a reflection not just of broader market turbulence, but of some investors' skepticism that the metaverse will be highly lucrative anytime soon. In late September, the company announced that it would freeze most hiring, and Mr. Zuckerberg has warned employees that layoffs may be coming. So the news from the pinnacle of the media establishment that the company's transition into a virtual reality provider is not going well pleased me. I've also scoffed at the dopey commercials they've been running on Fox News and elsewhere touring fantasies of how virtual reality will change the way the world works...supposedly for the better. (How's that working with Facebook?) What, exactly, is the symbolism here, and why is it supposed to be attractive to us, as a megalomaniacal oligarch promises to transform our world? YouTube screen grab. According to the Times, which spoke to more than a dozen current and former employees and obtained internal documents form the company: Mr. Zuckerberg's zeal for the metaverse has been met with skepticism by some Meta employees. This year, he urged teams to hold meetings inside Meta's Horizon Workrooms app, which allows users to gather in virtual conference rooms. But many employees didn't own V.R. headsets or hadn't set them up yet, and had to scramble to buy and register devices before managers caught on, according to one person with knowledge of the events. In a May poll of 1,000 Meta employees conducted by Blind, an anonymous professional social network, only 58 percent said they understood the company's metaverse strategy. Employees have also grumbled about the high turnover and frequent shuffling of employees as Mr. Zuckerberg's priorities change. Inside Meta, two employees said, some workers now jokingly refer to key metaverse projects as M.M.H., an acronym for "make Mark happy." In September, Vishal Shah, the vice president in charge of Meta's metaverse division, wrote on an internal message board that he was disappointed in how few Meta employees were using Horizon Worlds, according to a post obtained by The Times. In his post, which was first reported by The Verge, Mr. Shah said that managers would begin tracking workers' use of Horizon Worlds, and said that testing their own technology was essential. That sounds like a dystopian place to work, with management intent on enforcing conformity with its planned version of reality, no matter how much its current state fails to attract their allegiance. According to Forbes, as of two weeks ago, Zuckerberg had lost $76.8 billion in net worth, a figure that is higher today with further declines in Meta's stock price. He and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan (a real M.D., not a doctor of education like "Dr. Jill"), are not going to have to switch to generic food brands, as they are still worth scores of billions of dollars, but they are no longer in the top ten wealthiest Americans. Having lost more than half his wealth, Zuckerberg has to have at least a little voice in the back of his mind wondering how long he should stick with this plan. My suggestion: If he wants to save his wealth, he should scale back Meta and declare Facebook a free speech platform, as Elon Musk seemingly plans to do with Twitter, assuming his purchase takes place. That would make it more exciting and might even win back market share. But what do I know? I am no billionaire. The six Apollo missions that landed on the moon from 1969 to 1972 brought back several hundred kilograms of rocks from the lunar surface. Scientists have been studying these moon rocks for decades to learn more about the geology, minerology, impact history, and magnetic environment of the moon. Some of these studies have produced interesting results, such as the one involving a big rock sample known as Big Bertha. Big Bertha was the largest sample collected by the Apollo 14 astronauts that landed on the moon in 1971. It was recovered from the edge of a small impact crater called Cone, and weighed 9 kilograms. It was nicknamed Big Bertha after the famous large World War I German howitzer, because at that time it was the largest lunar rock ever recovered. A scientist analyzing the rock sample Big Bertha. Photo: NASA When Big Bertha was cut open, scientists found a clast of granite containing two zircon grains in a complex breccia. Zircon is one of the key minerals used by geologists for radiometric dating. Because zircons can survive geologic processes like erosion, transport, and even high-grade metamorphism, they contain a rich and varied record of geological processes such as the time, temperature, pressure, and geochemistry when they formed. The zircons from Jack Hills in Western Australia, have been dated to 4.4 billion years old, making them the oldest minerals so far dated on Earth. Past studies have shown that these two lunar zircons are also ancientabout 4.1 billion years oldand formed during a tumultuous time in the solar systems history called the Late Heavy Bombardment. During this early period of formation of the solar system, approximately 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago, a disproportionately large number of asteroids collided with the early terrestrial planets in the inner Solar System, including Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Scientists originally thought that Big Bertha, along with the other samples collected during Apollo 14, is lunar debris from an impact that formed Mare Imbrium. But a 2019 study seems to suggest that the two zircons were born even farther away, on Earth. Dr. Bellucci, a geochemist and professor at the Department of Geosciences of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, found that the minerology of the rock sample is similar to that of granite, which is extremely rare on the Moon but common on Earth. It also contains quartz, which is an even more unusual find on the Moon. Big Bertha on the lunar surface prior to collection. It is the rock exactly at the center of the photograph. Photo: NASA David Kring, a lunar geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, who also studied the samples brought by Apollo 14, says that the results indicate that the rock formed in a water-rich environment at temperatures and pressures corresponding to either 19 kilometers beneath the surface of Earth, or about 170 kilometers deep in the moon. The researchers prefer to believe that the samples came from Earth, rather than from a tremendous depth that is way below the moons crust. The team believes that the rock formed on Earths surface about 4 to 4.1 billion years ago, and then excavated by a large meteorite impact that sent it hurtling into space towards the moon, which was three times closer to Earth than it is today. Once the sample reached the lunar surface, it was affected by several other impact events, one of which partially melted it 3.9 billion years ago, and which probably buried it beneath the surface. Finally, about 26 million years ago, another meteorite impact excavated the sample back onto the lunar surface, where astronauts collected it almost fifty years ago. If the rock is indeed terrestrial, Kring said that it can provide valuable information about the early stage of formation of the Earth, known as the Hadean eon. Big Bertha shows that Earth was impacted by asteroids massive enough to produce new meteors, and granitic rocks that make up Earth's continents were already forming. Elizabeth Bell, a geochemist at the University of California, noted that the Moon might be a better place to look for ancient Earth rocks than Earth itself, as material erodes much slower on the Moon's surface than it does on Earth. Big Bertha's identification as an Earth-originated meteorite, according to Kring, may drive other scientists to examine Apollo lunar samples. Only a small fraction of the 382 kilograms of rocks brought back by the astronauts have been studied so far, but analytical techniques are constantly improving so there is still more to learn. References: # Terrestrial Meteorite Found on the Moon, Sci News # Ancient Earth rock found on the moon, Science # Apollo May Have Found an Earth Meteorite on the Moon, EOS The tallest natural arch in the world is located in Chinas western Xinjiang region, and is called Shiptons Arch, after the name of the English mountaineer Eric Shipton who discovered it. Though long familiar to locals, the arch was introduced to the West only in 1947 through the book Mountains of Tartary by Eric Shipton, after he discovered the arch while serving as the British consul in Kashgar. Shipton made many unsuccessful attempts to reach the arch from the south but was defeated each time by a maze of steep canyons and cliffs. Photo: LoudNotes/Wikimedia For years after Eric Shiptons discovery, the arch was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest natural arch but when the editors of the book went to verify its height, they were shocked to discover that the arch didnt exist. So the listing was dropped. Nearly fifty years later, in 2000, the National Geographic sponsored an expedition to rediscover the arch. Equipped with better maps and electronic navigation system, this group not only managed to located the arch that the editors of the Guinness Book of Records failed to, but even managed to climb to the top. Once they found a suitable route and reached the top, the climbers took measurements to verify that this was, in fact, the tallest natural arch in the world 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) high, with a 1,200-foot (366 meters) opening. The arch is situated about a one- to two-hour drive from Kashgar, after which an additional one- to two-hour hike is needed to reach the arch. The area is much developed now with a visitor's center, staircases and a viewing deck. Related: 10 Largest Natural Arches in the World Photo: Philipp Reichmuth/Wikimedia Photo: The Outbound (ANSA) - ROME, OCT 11 - Two young Belgian women tourists were run over and killed while offering aid at the scene of an accident just outside Rome Saturday night. The women, aged 24 and 25, were on a motorway link road for the A24 at Tor Cervara when a car driven by a 40-year-old Italian man smashed into them, killing them instantly, police said. The man fled across fields but was caught by police. He has been placed under investigation on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter. The victims, Jessy Dewildeman and Wibe Bijls, had arrived in Italy a week previously and had rented a Fiat panda which they were due to hand back on Sunday before their flight back to Belgium. They stopped on the link road late on Saturday evening to assist the three Italian victims of a car crash, two men and a woman, police said. They were hit by the man in his speeding Smart, police said. Autopsy results will be available in the coming days, police said. Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said "Rome is one with the grief of the families for this awful tragedy". (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, OCT 11 - Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani said Tuesday that Italy should have enough gas to get through the winter despite uncertainty about supplies from Russia amid the war in Ukraine. "We have made the country secure. We should have a tranquil winter," Cingolani told an RCS Academy webinar on the Repower EU Plan. "Our stocks are full. We'll have problems with the prices, but, if the G20 summit concludes with something positive on the price cap (for gas), we will have resolved the situation. "Unfortunately, we won't remove the hardship families and businesses are facing. "We proposed a price cap months ago. The European Commission was slow, then it sped up. "Let's also hope that the war ends". (ANSA). (ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, OCT 11 - A spokesman for the European Commission said Tuesday during a daily briefing that it was aware of the challenges faced by Austria at the moment, with a higher number of asylum requests than the previous year. The spokesman noted that an increase in requests was seen from those from Tunisia and India and that there was additional movement in the Western Balkans, stressing that the Commission was monitoring the situation and that it was in contact with both Balkan nationals and Austria as well as all EU nations in the area, for a shared and effective approach in the region. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, OCT 11 - Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani said Tuesday that Italy should have enough gas to get through the winter despite uncertainty about supplies from Russia amid the war in Ukraine. "We have made the country secure. We should have a tranquil winter," Cingolani told an RCS Academy webinar on the Repower EU Plan. "Our stocks are full. We'll have problems with the prices, but, if the G20 summit concludes with something positive on the price cap (for gas), we will have resolved the situation. "Unfortunately, we won't remove the hardship families and businesses are facing. "We proposed a price cap months ago. The European Commission was slow, then it sped up. "Let's also hope that the war ends". Outgoing Premier Mario Draghi's government has moved on many fronts to try to reduce Italy's reliance on Russian gas since the invasion of Ukraine. The administration has signed agreements with several countries to boost alternative sources of energy and Algeria has replaced Russia as Italy's biggest supplier of gas. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, OCT 11 - Finance Police in the northern city of Pavia on Tuesday arrested the managers of three footwear firms for allegedly exploiting workers, making them do shifts of up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. The Chinese migrant workers were allegedly made to live in the shoe factories they were employed at in the area of the town of Vigevano, in poor conditions of hygiene and without proper beds, by gang masters, who were also of Chinese origin. The exploited workers were allegedly paid a pittance. Likely incoming premier Giorgia Meloni tweeted: "Zero tolerance towards those who think that human beings can be treated as slaves in Italy, zero tolerance for those who don't respect the rules and who do unfair competition." (ANSA). Slovenia: migrants interception up 115% year-on-year Mostly from Afghanistan, India, Burundi and Bangladesh (ANSA) - BELGRADE, OCT 11 - Slovenian police apprehended 15,590 illegal migrants between January and September, a 115% increase over the same nine-month period last year, according to the Slovenian news agency STA. According to police statistics, Afghan citizens made up the largest single group of illegal migrants, accounting for 2,691 of the total, followed by citizens of India, Burundi, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Almost half of all illegal migrants were apprehended in the Koper Police Department area, making the south-west the busiest in terms of illegal migrations. (ANSA). Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved Israel and Lebanon reach 'historic' accord on borders, gas To strengthen security and ensure stability, says Lapid (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, OCT 11 - Israel and Lebanon have reached a "historic" agreement, mediated by the US, on maritime borders between the two countries and gas field use, the Israeli foreign ministry announced in a statement issued on Tuesday. "This is a historic success," said Prime Minister Yair Lapid, "which will strengthen Israeli security, bring in billions to the Israeli economy, and ensure stability on the northern border of the country." Lapid has called a special government session for Wednesday to discuss the agreement. Israel and Lebanon do not have diplomatic relations and are still officially at war with each other. International media have reported that the agreement may be signed between the two parties on Oct. 20. Lebanese president Michel Aoun on Monday confirmed that an impasse had been overcome that had slowed progress in the talks. In relation to demands made by Lebanon, Israel had stiffened its position and rejected any change to the text drawn up by US mediator Amos Hochstein. The agreement had been criticised also by former Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu, which had accused PM Lapid and his government of giving in to "blackmail" of Hezbollah. (ANSAmed). French govt orders those on strike to halt petrol blockade Veran threatens action to free up fuel depots (ANSAmed) - PARIS, OCT 11 - The French government has ordered workers on strike in the oil sector to immediately remove blockades on the country's fuel depots, threatening that otherwise the state will take action on its own to restore normal functioning. "We are doing everything we can to end this situation," government spokesman Olivier Veran said in an interview with the RTL radio on Tuesday, in the wake of an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. Veran hinted at the possibility of security forces seizing the plants blocked in order to reopen access to the depots. In recent days, Paris had said that state may make recourse to strategic stocks to stop the crisis. Government sources say that 15% of the country's service stations have a partial or complete lack of fuel. The situation is mainly linked to a strike for higher wages called in TotalEnergies refineries but also due to a 20-cent discount on fuel from the oil group since Sept. 1. However, the unions of TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil have announced that they will extend the strike further and 15 more service stations along French highways have started taking part in the strike. The protest, trade unions say, is currently blocking a refinery in Normandy near Le Havre, a fuel depot in Flanders near Dunkerque and a 'bio-refinery' in La Mede (Bouches-du-Rhone), AFP was told by Thierry Defresne, CGT secretary of TotalEnergies' Europe committee. Meanwhile, opposition criticism of the government continues, starting from Rassemblement National under Marine Le Pen. (ANSAmed). EU cities to protest Italy-Libya migrant MoU on Saturday In streets and before embassies against accord signed in 2017 (ANSAmed) - ROME, OCT 11 - A day of protest will be held on Saturday against a Memorandum of Understanding between Italy and Libya. The protest was called by the NGOs Abolish Frontex, Diritto di Migrare - Diritto di Restare, and Solidarity with Refugees in Libya. There will be demonstrations in Barcelona, Berlin, Bern, Brussels, London, Madrid, Milan, Naples, Rome, Zurich, and many other cities, the associations have announced, "to demand that the Italian government put an end to the shameful and illegitimate Memorandum of Understanding. Abroad the protests will be held in front of Italian embassies and consulates." The NGOs say that the MoU "violates international laws and human rights". In 2012, Italy was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for having pushed back people coming from Libya. To get around this sentence, in 2017 the MoU was signed. Since then, it has been frequently criticised by Amnesty International, other human rights organisations, the UN, and the EU. The document, the NGOs said, "establishes a radical outsourcing of the borders, installing a system of death on the borders and in Libyan concentration camps. Numerous reports highlighting atrocities committed in Libya, financed by this agreement, are well known. Since 2017, 50,000 people in movement have been pushed back and taken back to these camps after being intercepted and captured by the Libyan Coast Guard." (ANSAmed). Israeli injured in attack near Nablus in West Bank Reportedly a soldier, Lion's Den group claims responsibility (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, OCT 11 - An attack using a firearm, reportedly shot from a car in motion, injured an Israeli on Tuesday near the Jewish settlement Shavei Shomron near the West Bank town of Nablus. Some media have reported that the Israeli was a soldier and that he is in serious condition. The attack was claimed by the Nablus-based new Palestinian armed group Lion's Den. This group had in recent weeks claimed other attacks and was founded by Ibrahim al-Nablusi, an 18-year-old fighter who was killed in September by the army. Media report that the group has called on Palestinians to hold a Day of Rage and have urged that they attack Israeli objectives.(ANSAmed). ROME - The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) has issued a statement criticising the laxity of the Tunisian state's management of a humanitarian crisis in Zarzis in the Medenine governorate, following the latest shipwreck over 20 days before of a group of migrants that had weighed anchor from Zarzis, from which only a few corpses of the 18 people that had been onboard have been found. FTDES, known for its stance against the migration policies of the Tunisian government, decried the fact that "state means are used more to protect European borders than to search for the bodies of those missing". FTDES noted on this issue that, since the date of the reported shipwreck on Sept. 21, the state had thwarted over 129 incidents of clandestine emigration. "Thus, it is clear that the state puts forth more effort to impede attempts to cross borders to reassure its European neighbour than in a spirit of solidarity with inhabitants [of Tunisia] anxious to know what has happened to their children," a statement by the NGO said. FTDES has called on the Tunisian authorities to work in an efficacious manner to rescue migrants through the starting of a mechanism for preventative help and to halt push-backs, which constitute a danger to migrants' lives. It is of exceptional importance that the question of whether the Scottish Parliament can legislate for a second referendum on independence is resolved, the Supreme Court has been told. On Tuesday morning, justices at the UKs highest court began hearing evidence in the case concerning the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill, a proposed law in the Scottish Parliament. The Lord Advocate, the Scottish Governments most senior law officer, began making her arguments after a short introductory statement from Lord Reed, who is presiding in the panel of five judges. Supreme Court president Lord Reed set out the function of the court and said it would likely be some months before a decision was reached. Two days have been set aside for the hearing at the Supreme Court in London, with the UK Government expected to respond on Wednesday. Lord Reed said it would be some months before there was a decision (Kevin Leighton/UK Supreme Court) Judges have been asked to decide whether the Bill relates to reserved matters meaning it is outwith Holyroods competence. Dorothy Bain KC, the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Governments top law officer, began her argument by outlining why she had referred the issue to the court in London. She told a panel of five justices that it was necessary and in the public interest that the question of legislative competence was answered by the court. Ms Bain told the court that a majority of Scottish MPs were elected in 2019, and MSPs in 2021, on manifesto commitments to hold a further referendum. The issue of Scottish independence is a live and significant one in Scottish electoral politics and the Scottish Government wish to introduce a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to provide for the holding of a referendum, she said. Ms Bain later discussed arguments around the legality of an independence referendum. The case is being heard in London (John Stillwell/PA) She referred to comments made in Parliament regarding the Scotland Act of 1998, as well as the views of legal academics. The referendum proposed by the Scottish Government is non self-executing, she said. She told the court: That was the case in the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013, which provided for a referendum on independence. It was a position adopted by the Westminster Parliament in the European Union Referendum Act 2015. And it is the position in respect of the draft Bill. A non self-executing referendum invariably has political consequences, but in law, it has no effect. They are entirely advisory. The Lord Advocate later said that without a ruling from the Supreme Court to resolve the issue of whether Holyrood has the legal power to bring forward a referendum Bill, she would not be able to clear the introduction of such a Bill herself. She said there is a genuine issue that is unresolved, adding: The issue is one of exceptional importance to the people of Scotland and the UK. (PA Graphics) The Lord Advocate also said there is a risk that a referendum bill could be introduced by an individual member of the Scottish Parliament, and said this underlined the need for a ruling from the court on the legal issues. She also said the circumstances which have led to the reference being made to the court are highly exceptional. Ms Bain rejected arguments by the Advocate General for Scotland, who represents the UK Government, that the Supreme Court should refuse to determine the referendum case because it was advisory, abstract, hypothetical and premature. Its simply not the correct characterisation of the reference, she told justices. She argued that the role of Lord Advocate should not be one of ultimate arbiter on the issue. The Lord Advocate went on to argue that the Scottish Governments draft Bill for an independence referendum is within Holyroods legislative competence. She said: Holding a referendum is not a reserved matter. Dorothy Bain is Scotlands top law officer (Jane Barlow/PA) Nobody disputed that the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020, which set out provisions for the conduct and regulation of referendums, was within Holyroods legislative competence, she said. Earlier, Lord Reed told those following the hearing that it was likely to be some months before justices gave their ruling. He said that despite the political context of the case, the issues the court had to consider were limited to technical questions of law. The first is whether the court should have jurisdiction over the case and, if it does, how it should answer the question over whether or not the proposed referendum Bill relates to reserved matters and is outside the Scottish Parliaments legislative competence. The court will decide them by applying legal principle, Lord Reed said. He said justices had more than 8,000 pages of written material to consider. Lord Reed added: It is likely to be some months before we give our judgment. Vladimir Putin and his forces have been accused of war crimes by the UK and allies after a wave of missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities. Prime Minister Liz Truss and allies from the G7 democracies condemned the strikes in the strongest possible terms, adding that indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime. Russia launched a further wave of missile and drone strikes on Tuesday, hitting power plants and civilian areas across Ukraine. The site of an attack in Dnipro (Leo Correa/AP) The blasts followed a barrage which killed 19 and injured scores more in cities including Ukraines capital Kyiv on Monday. After crisis talks the G7 leaders issued a statement vowing to hold President Putin and those responsible to account. The group rejected the illegal attempted annexation of four areas of Ukraine and vowed to step up sanctions against Moscow. The overwhelming international support for Ukraines struggle stands in stark opposition to the isolation of Russia on the world stage. Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. The @G7 will not waver in our resolve to help them win it. Full statement: https://t.co/DQnJVtyODb pic.twitter.com/qgXkbG3opK Liz Truss (@trussliz) October 11, 2022 We have imposed and will continue to impose further economic costs on Russia, including on individuals and entities inside and outside of Russia providing political or economic support for Russias illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory, the G7 statement said. The leaders also warned Moscow that any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would have severe consequences. Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed leaders from the G7 the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union at the virtual meeting on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP) They assured him they remain undeterred and steadfast in their support for his nation. We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support and will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes, they said. The G7 also said any just peace should include respect for Ukraines territorial integrity and sovereignty and could also include reparation funding from Russia. The shift in the Kremlins strategy to attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure followed Ukraines strike against the strategically and symbolically important Kerch Bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula. Downing Street said on Tuesday that Ms Truss still hoped to visit Ukraine as soon as possible. The Kerch Bridge was attacked on Saturday (AP) The head of the GCHQ intelligence agency said Mr Putins regime was becoming increasingly desperate as it ran short of weapons, allies and troops. Sir Jeremy Fleming said Moscow still had a very capable military machine despite the shortcomings, although it was being stretched by the conflict. Mr Putin has warned about the potential use of nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory a definition which he could extend to the occupied regions of Ukraine. Sir Jeremy said he hoped the UK would see indicators from Russia before any deployment of nuclear weapons, which would be a catastrophe. He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: We believe that Russia is running short of munitions, its certainly running short of friends and we have seen, because of the declaration for mobilisation, that it is running short of troops. Sir Jeremy Fleming (Yui Mok/PA) Sir Jeremy said Moscows commanders were worried about the state of their military machine, adding: The word I have used is desperate and we can see that desperation at many levels inside Russian society and inside the Russian military machine. Pressed on whether GCHQ would know if Mr Putin was considering using nuclear weapons, Sir Jeremy said: I think any talk of nuclear weapons is very dangerous and we need to be very careful about how we are talking about that. Its clear to me that whilst we might not like and in many, many ways abhor the way in which the Russian military machine and President Putin are conducting this war, they are staying within the doctrine that we understand for their use, including for nuclear weapons. I would hope that we would see indicators if they started to go down that path, but lets be really clear about that: if they are considering that, that would be a catastrophe in the way that many people have talked about. Russian forces have attacked Ukrainian parks, pedestrian crossings and museums. This is a demonstration of weakness by Putin, not strength. It is time for him to accept this is a war he cannot win and withdraw his troops from Ukraine.#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/CFaZGiJlQf Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) October 10, 2022 In the Commons, defence minister Alec Shelbrooke was pressed to say what the UK response would be to use of nuclear weapons. President Putin should be clear that for the UK and our allies, any use at all of nuclear weapons would break a taboo on nuclear use that has held since 1945 and would lead to severe consequences for Russia, Mr Shelbrooke said. Secretary of State for Justice Brandon Lewis and International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Brandon Lewis had his first meeting in the role with International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan KC. Mr Lewis said the pair discussed the atrocities in Ukraine, including this weeks bombing of civilian targets and ongoing co-operation between the UK and the ICC. The chairman of the inquiry into the Post Office IT scandal has warned he will not hesitate to attribute blame to any party which fails to disclose important and necessary documents. Sir Wyn Williams insisted he will use all the extensive powers at my disposal to ensure documents are obtained, in the face of either accidental or deliberate failure to disclose them. He spoke as the second phase of the inquiry into the scandal which saw workers wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to flaws within the Horizon computer system got under way in London. Sir Wyn, after careful consideration, decided not to adjourn the #PostOfficeInquiry hearings this morning. After listening to submissions made by legal representatives of core participants, he said: pic.twitter.com/j3mr2gWaqQ Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry (@PostOffInquiry) October 11, 2022 Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses (SPMs) were prosecuted based on information from the accounting system. However, in December 2019, a High Court judge ruled that the system contained a number of bugs, errors and defects and there was a material risk that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were in fact caused by it. Since then, many SPMs have had criminal convictions overturned. Phase Two of the inquiry, which was established in September 2020, is examining the procurement, design, pilot, roll-out and modifications of Horizon. At the beginning of Tuesdays proceedings, Sir Wyn heard submissions to adjourn the probe after it was stated that there had been a major lack of disclosure of documents on the part of the Post Office. The inquiry was told the Post Office had notified the inquiry that it was undertaking a significant organisation and review of a large number of boxes of hardcopy documents and files held at various Post Office locations throughout the United Kingdom. Sir Wyn also explained the length of the adjournment and the effect it will have on subpostmasters: pic.twitter.com/zNAPB8ef1V Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry (@PostOffInquiry) October 11, 2022 Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC, said some of the recent document disclosures related to requests made as far back as a year ago, and that the limited information on when the Post Office might have fully completed its disclosure puts the inquiry in a very difficult position. But he argued that, while it presents a challenge, there was not sufficient reason to interrupt good progress that this inquiry is making, as he said witnesses can be recalled at later stages if needed as a result of the disclosure of further relevant documents. He said that an adjournment was likely to delay and frustrate the progress that has been made by the inquiry towards fair compensation for all victims of the scandal. After hearing submissions in favour of an adjournment from lawyers for victims of the scandal, Sir Wyn said he had decided the inquiry should proceed as planned, as he was satisfied that I can manage disclosure and having considered the significant impact any further delay would have on the inquirys timetable. But he warned that disclosure of required documents will be an issue that is taken seriously. He said: I wish to make it clear that if I reach a conclusion at any time that there is either accidental or, even worse, deliberate non-disclosure of relevant documents, I will use all the extensive powers at my disposal to obtain the documents which have not been disclosed. He added that, if necessary, he would attribute blame to any party where that is justified in relation to non-disclosure I will not deflect from being critical. Mr Beer noted that having to begin the second phase of the inquiry with a discussion on problems around disclosure was something of a paradox, if not a matter which is dripping in irony, when one of the central issues in the probe is the Post Offices past non-disclosure to the criminal and civil courts. Kate Gallafent KC, for the Post Office, said the company emphatically denies any allegation that it has deliberately sought to make late or partial disclosure of relevant documents to the inquiry. She said around 95,000 documents have been produced to the inquiry by the Post Office. Taking the inquiry chair through what is expected in this second phase of the inquiry, Mr Beer referred to a briefing from the Treasury to the Prime Ministers office dated April 1999. He said it appeared from the contents of the document that it was clear that some senior officials within the government were aware of technical issues with Horizon which called into question the integrity and robustness of Horizon. Addressing Sir Wyn, he said: You, sir, will wish to explore how widespread this knowledge was within government and then what was done with that knowledge. Evidence in Phase Two will begin being heard on October 18 after all the opening statements have been completed this week. The image of a buzzing ball of cactus bees spinning over the hot sand on a Texas ranch has helped its creator to win the coveted Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. The bee-level close-up was captured by US photographer Karine Aigner and makes her the fifth woman in the competitions 58-year history to claim the grand title award. The other main title of Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022 was won by 16-year-old Katanyou Wuttichaitanakorn, of Thailand, for his image about the beauty of a whale. Ms Aigners image was praised for its sense of movement and intensity by the judges at Londons Natural History Museum, who develop and produce the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. The beauty of baleen by Katanyou Wuttichaitanakorn (Katanyou Wuttichaitanakorn/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/PA) All except one of the bees in the close-up are males, who are intent on mating with the single female at the centre. Like most bees, they are threatened by habitat loss, pesticides and climate change, as well as farming practices that disrupt their nesting grounds. Chairwoman of the judging panel, Roz Kidman Cox said: Wings whirring, incoming males home in on the ball of buzzing bees that is rolling straight into the picture. The sense of movement and intensity is shown at bee-level magnification and transforms what are little cactus bees into big competitors for a single female. The success of Thai teenager Katanyou Wuttichaitanakorn in winning the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title was due to his fascination with the colours of a baleen whale. He was intrigued when a Brydes whale surfaced close to his boat, by the contrasting colours and textures of its dark skin, pink gum and the brush-like feeding mass that hung from its top jaw. Spectacled bears slim outlook by Daniel Mideros (Daniel Mideros/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/PA) The youngster, who has been a keen naturalist and a photographer since he was 12, managed to capture detail, including some tiny anchovies, in what the judges felt was a dynamic composition. Like other baleen whales, Brydes use a technique known as lunge-feeding to catch large numbers of small schooling fish and then filter the small prey from the ocean. Ms Cox said: Out of the jaws of a Brydes whale comes this dazzling creation. The pin-sharp detail of the tiny anchovies is set against an abstraction of colour with the weave of brown baleen hair rimmed by a cascade of water drops. The two grand title awards were picked from the winners of 19 categories which highlighted the natural world in all its wonder and diversity. They were among 38,575 entries from 93 countries which were judged on their originality, narrative, technical excellence and ethical practice. Out of the fog by Ismael Dominguez Gutierrez (Ismael Dominguez Gutierrez/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/PA) Among the other images are a portrait of a bear in a disappearing habitat, a dying lake, the courtship display of a Canary Islands houbara bird and the electrifying reproductive dance of a giant sea star. The bears, which are found from western Venezuela to Bolivia, were captured by Daniel Mideros, of Ecuador, who set up camera traps along a wildlife corridor used to reach high-altitude plateaus. The bears have suffered massive declines as the result of habitat fragmentation. The image of an osprey sitting on a dead tree as it waits for the fog to lift was caught by Ismael Dominguez Gutierrez, of Spain. The courtship display of a Canary Islands houbara bird was caught in the light of the moon by Jose Juan Hernandez Martinez, of Spain. He dug himself a low hide and caught the birds puffed-out profile as it took a brief rest. Daniel Nunez, of Guatemala, used a drone to capture the contrast between a forest and the algal growth on Lake Amatitlan. Shooting star by Tony Wu (Tony Wu/Wildlife Photographer of the Year/PA) He hopes the photograph will raise awareness of the impact of contamination on the lake which takes in about 75,000 tonnes of waste from Guatemala City every year. An image of the reproductive dance of a giant spawning sea star was taken by American/Japanese photographer Tony Wu and shows water filled with sperm and eggs. The dancing shape of the spawning sea star as it rises and sways may help release eggs and sperm, or help sweep the eggs and sperm into the currents where they fertilise together in the water. An exhibition of the top images submitted to the competition opens at the Natural History Museum in London on October 14, before going on a UK and international tour. Dr Doug Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum said: Wildlife photographers offer us unforgettable glimpses into the lives of wild species, sharing unseen details, fascinating behaviours and frontline reporting on the climate and biodiversity crises. These images demonstrate their awe of and appreciation for the natural world and the urgent need to take action to protect it. The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been charged with separate offences of rape and child sex abuse. Investigators believe 45-year-old convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner killed Madeleine after abducting her from a holiday apartment where she had been staying with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and younger siblings, Amelie and Sean. Here the PA news agency provides a breakdown of the main events after the three-year-old vanished. 2007 May 3: Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, leave their children asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal while they dine with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant. Nothing is amiss when Mr McCann checks on the youngsters just after 9pm, but when his wife goes back at about 10pm she finds Madeleine missing. A pink balloon outside apartment 5A on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva in Praia Da Luz, Portugal, where Madeline McCann went missing in 2007 (Steve Parsons/PA) Jane Tanner, one of the friends dining with the McCanns, reports having seen a man carrying a child earlier that night. May 14: Detectives take Anglo-Portuguese property developer Robert Murat in for questioning and make him an arguido, or formal suspect, but this is later withdrawn. August 11: Exactly 100 days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly acknowledge for the first time that she could be dead. September 7: During questioning of Mr and Mrs McCann, detectives make them both arguidos in their daughters disappearance. September 9: The McCanns fly back to England with their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie. 2008 July 21: The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the arguido status of the McCanns and Robert Murat. Madeleines parents Kate and Gerry McCann (Joe Giddens/PA) 2011 May 12: Mrs McCann publishes a book about her daughters disappearance, on Madeleines eighth birthday. Scotland Yard launches a review of the case after a request from Home Secretary Theresa May, supported by then prime minister David Cameron. 2012 April 25: Scotland Yard detectives say they believe Madeleine could still be alive, release an age-progression picture of how she might look as a nine-year-old, and call on the Portuguese authorities to reopen the case, but Portuguese police say they have found no new material. 2013 July 4: Scotland Yard confirms it has launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleines disappearance two years into a review of the case. It has genuinely new lines of inquiry and has identified 38 people of interest, including 12 Britons. October 24: Portuguese police confirm that a review of their original investigation has uncovered new lines of inquiry, and they reopen the case. Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007 (PA) 2014 January 29: British detectives fly to Portugal amid claims they are planning to make arrests. June 3: Sniffer dogs and specialist teams are used to search an area of scrubland close to where Madeleine went missing. December 12: Detectives begin questioning 11 people who it is thought may have information on the case. 2015 September 16: The Government discloses that the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine has cost more than 10 million. October 28: Scotland Yard cuts the number of officers working on the inquiry from 29 to four. 2017 April 30: The McCanns prepare to mark 10 years since their daughters disappearance with a BBC interview in which they vow to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to find her. Kate and Gerry McCann in 2012 holding an image of what Madeline might look like as an older girl (John Stillwell/PA) 2019 May 3: Local media reports say Portuguese detectives are investigating a foreign paedophile as a suspect in the abduction of Madeleine. 2020 June 3: Police reveal that a 43-year-old German prisoner, later named as Christian Brueckner, has been identified as a suspect in Madeleines disappearance. June 4: Scotland Yards Operation Grange, which had received 12.3 million in funding up to April 2020, is still a missing person inquiry as detectives have no definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead. 2021 May 4: Kate and Gerry McCann post a statement on the official Find Madeleine campaign website saying they still cling to the hope of seeing their daughter again as they prepare to mark her 18th birthday on May 12. 2022 April 21: Christian Brueckner is made an arguido, a formal suspect, by Portuguese authorities. May 3: The McCann family say it is essential they learn the truth of what happened to their daughter on the 15th anniversary of her disappearance. October 11: Brueckner, now 45, is charged with three counts of rape and two charges of child sex abuse, unrelated to Madeleines disappearance. Joe Biden and top U.S. officials on Monday denounced Russia's latest aerial assault across Ukraine, with the president saying in a statement that the attacks "only further reinforce our commitment" to supplying billions in aid and weapons to Ukrainian forces. Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and leading military officials all spoke out in the wake of the strikes that Russian President Vladimir Putin called retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged a key bridge linking Russia and Crimea, the disputed peninsula Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014. On Sunday night, 12 Russian missile strikes hit residential Zaporizhzhia neighborhoods in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said, and on Monday morning another series of Russian missiles struck civilian targets in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and other cities. MORE: Russia-Ukraine live updates: Putin orders attacks across Ukraine At least 11 people died and 64 were wounded across eight oblasts and the capital of Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, while power and other critical infrastructure services like energy were interrupted in several cities. "A massive strike of high-precision, long-range weapons has been delivered from air, land and sea on Ukraine's energy facilities, military command and communication," Putin said in a speech Monday. "In the case of continuing terrorist attack on our territory, the answers from Russia will be severe and by their scale correspond to the level of threat created for the Russian Federation. No one should have any doubts about that." Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly shared his outrage on social media, lamenting the civilian casualties of Russia's military, as he has done repeatedly in the eight-month-old war. (Russia insists it seeks to avoid targeting civilians, despite the record of aerial strikes like those this week.) PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30, 2022. (The Washington Post via Getty Images, FILE) "The world once again saw the true face of a terrorist state that is killing our people. On the battlefield & in peaceful cities. A country that covers its true bloody essence & goal with talks about peace. It proves that the liberation of is the only basis of peace & security," Zelenskyy wrote in a tweet. In a statement issued as he was returning to the White House from Delaware, Biden said the missile attacks demonstrate Putin's "utter brutality" in the "illegal war on the Ukrainian people." Biden spoke Monday with Zelenskyy, the White House said later that day; and Biden is expected to attend a virtual meeting on Tuesday of the Group of Seven countries to discuss the situation. The White House said that in his call with Zelenskyy, Biden "conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks" and "pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems." MORE: Inside Ukraine's critical drone warfare campaign against Russia In a tweet, however, Zelenskyy said air defenses were critical. He and others in Ukraine have urged the U.S. to institute a so-called no-fly zone to deter Russian air strikes. But the U.S. believes such a direct step could risk escalating the conflict beyond Ukraine and into a continental if not global war. The president last week warned of possible nuclear "Armageddon," given Putin's repeated invocations of his country's arsenal amid Russia's recent string of defeats in Ukraine. A White House spokesman said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that Biden was not referring to any imminent threat but was trying to reflect that "the stakes are very high." PHOTO: A residential building was destroyed as a result of shelling by the Russian troops, in Zaporizhzhia, south-eastern Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Albert Koshelev via AP) In his own statement on Monday, Blinken said that Russia's attacks on Ukraine present a "profound moral issue" and the "international community has a responsibility to make clear that President Putin's actions are completely unacceptable." Blinken stressed that the U.S. views Putin as responsible for the bloodshed. "There is one person who can stop this war now and withdraw Russia's forces: Vladimir Putin," Blinken said. He also spoke by phone on Monday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, his counterpart, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price. MORE: Ukraine vows to continue counteroffensive despite Russia's mobilization, annexation of territory On the call, Blinken "commended Ukraine for not allowing President Putin to break Ukraine's spirit while noting that the United States will continue to provide vital economic, humanitarian, and security assistance so Ukraine can defend itself and take care of its people," according to Price. The U.S. Army's top leaders were likewise critical of the latest Russian attack in Ukraine. Speaking Monday at a press conference at the Army's annual conference hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington, the officials said that the strikes were reminiscent of earlier days in the conflict, which began when Russia invaded in February, arguing that it was carrying out a necessary security operation. PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a high level meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the situation amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at U.N. Headquarters in New York, Sept. 22, 2022. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) "It is horrific that Russia is directly targeting civilians and critical infrastructure for civilians," Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said when asked by a reporter about the attack. "This is what unfortunately, though, President Putin and the Russian military have been doing." "It's very, very concerning," Wormuth said. "But I think it's an extension of the kind of tactics that we've seen from the beginning of the invasion." ABC News' Shannon K. Crawford, Luis Martinez, Allison Pecorin, Joseph Simonetti, Tanya Stukalova and Cecilia Vega contributed to this report. 'Horrific': Biden, more officials condemn Russia's sweeping strikes on Ukraine and reconfirm US aid originally appeared on abcnews.go.com WASHINGTON At different points during Monday nights debate, the two candidates to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate favorably referenced Rob Portman, whose imminent retirement leaves open the seat now furiously contested by Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, and his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance. At a time of intense polarization, Sen. Portman harks back to a somewhat more moderate mood in Washington. Never much of a Trump administration critic, Portman was instrumental in brokering a deal on President Bidens $1 trillion infrastructure bill. He was also one of only two Republicans in the Senate to vote in favor of confirming Bidens nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Though an unabashed conservative, Portman does not engage in conspiracy theories or Twitter feuds. Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance debate on Monday night in their race for Ohio's Senate seat. (NewsNation) Ryan and Vance each tried to cast themselves as similarly moderate, focused on restoring Ohios standing as a manufacturing epicenter while curbing crime and the fentanyl epidemic. With only one debate scheduled between them, and polls showing the two in a virtual tie, Monday was an opportunity for the kind of moment that can boost a candidate across the finish line. Ultimately, neither Ryan nor Vance achieved the goal. Each threw hard but predictable jabs at the others professional record, with Ryan depicting Vance as a Silicon Valley elitist and Vance criticizing Ryan for the two decades he has spent in the House of Representatives. I wish that you were the reasonable moderate you said you were, Vance said of Ryan, whom he lashed tightly to Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, exaggerating the congressmans positions on abortion, immigration, racial justice and transgender rights. The extremist here, Tim, is you, Vance said during one heated exchange. Ryan with Somali American community members at a local marketplace in Columbus, Ohio. (Andrew Spear/Getty Images) Ryan seemed faltering at times. On the whole, Vance showed somewhat more vehemence, but it is not clear that his performance will be enough to convince undecided voters, some of whom may not be sure whether he is the maverick populist who authored Hillbilly Elegy and criticized then-President Donald Trump or once his political ambitions came into focus the ardent Trump supporter who echoed the defeated presidents conspiracies about the 2020 election. Youre from Silicon Valley, Ryan said at one point, referencing Vances work for venture capital firms in the San Francisco Bay Area. You dont understand whats going on here in Ohio. During a recent rally for Vance, even Trump joked about Vances about-face, mocking the Yale Law School graduate for kissing my ass. Ryan eagerly reprised the line on Monday, telling Vance that Ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kisser, in what appeared to be the debates most popular line on social media. With the midterm elections now less than a month away, Ohio has emerged along with neighboring Pennsylvania and nearby Wisconsin as a key battleground that will help determine control of the Senate. Ryan distanced himself from Democratic leadership in Washington, agreeing that Biden should not seek reelection in 2024. Id like to see a generational change, Ryan said, though he did not clearly answer a question later in the debate about whether Schumer should remain the Democratic leader in the Senate. He also said Vice President Kamala Harris was absolutely wrong when she declared last month that the border with Mexico was secure. Throughout the summer, Democrats have relied on anger over the Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which overturned the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion, to help blunt Republicans momentum heading into the midterms. But there are signs that abortion is fading as an electoral issue at precisely the wrong moment for Democrats. Vance at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in September. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images) Reproductive choice came up, as expected, during Mondays debate, and both candidates seemed prepared with familiar arguments unlikely to convince the unconvinced. About Sen. Lindsey Grahams controversial national abortion ban proposal, Vance said that some minimal national standard is totally fine with me. During a discussion about the case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been raped and was forced to travel to Indiana to legally obtain an abortion, Vance turned the discussion into one of illegal immigration, since the alleged rapist was an undocumented immigrant. Do your job on border security, Vance flatly told Ryan. Vance also had his opponent on the defensive about crime, an issue on which Republicans believe they have the more compelling message. Using racially charged rhetoric popular with other conservatives, he cast Ryan as an ally of the BLM riots, a reference to the Black Lives Matter racial justice protests that shook the nation in the summer of 2020. Ive tried to be a part of the solution here, Ryan answered somewhat defensively about the issue of public safety. Like many other Democrats, he has had to rebut false charges that he is in favor of defunding the police. The charge appears to have been especially potent in Wisconsin, where the perennially unpopular incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson is using attacks on crime and policing to open a narrow but consistent lead against Democratic candidate Mandela Barnes. Ultimately, it was difficult to see how either candidate would benefit from the debate, given that each gave his opponent plenty of fodder for the kinds of partisan attacks that will dominate Ohio airwaves in the weeks to come. Perhaps a series of debates would have let the candidates more clearly articulate their positions, but Vance would agree to only a single debate, in keeping with an emerging trend among Republicans. WASHINGTON (AP) Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez called Monday for freezing all U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia, delivering one of the strongest expressions yet of U.S. anger over Saudi oil-production cuts that serve to boost Russia in its war in Ukraine. In a statement, Menendez specifically called for cutting off all arms sales and security cooperation one of the underpinnings of the more than 70-year U.S. strategic partnership with the oil kingdom beyond the minimum necessary to defend Americans and American interests. As committee chairman, Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, vowed he "will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough. His statement comes four days after Saudi Arabia and Russia led OPEC nations in announcing a 2 million barrel a day cut in oil production. The Saudi- and Russian-led cuts help prop up high oil prices that are allowing President Vladimir Putin to keep paying for his eight-month invasion of Ukraine. The production cut also hurts U.S.-led efforts to make the war financially unsustainable for Russia, threatens a global economy already destabilized by the Ukraine conflict, and risks saddling President Joe Biden and Democrats with rising gasoline prices just ahead of U.S. midterms. Menendez's announcement Monday places him among a growing number of Democrats who, since the announcement by OPEC nations and Russia, have called for stopping what are billions of dollars in annual U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Democrats accuse Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, of effectively flouting the Saudi side of a decades-long bargain that has consisted of the U.S. military and defense industry providing security for Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia in turn providing world markets with a reliable flow of oil. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last week was among the Democrats blasting Prince Mohammed for seeming to act in support of Putin's invasion. Schumer declared then that lawmakers were looking at legislative options to deal with what he called Saudi Arabia's appalling and deeply cynical action. Democratic lawmakers within a day of the OPEC move were introducing new legislation to stop U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. Menendez's action Monday, given his key role shepherding foreign policy legislation, raises the prospect that Congress could act to punish the Saudis during the lame-duck period after the November elections. It's not clear how far Menendez and other Democrats would go in practical terms in cutting off weapons deals and most other cooperation with the Saudis, or whether the Biden administration would go along. Biden said last week he was disappointed with Saudi Arabia's role in the latest oil production cut and said the administration was looking at options. There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Monday to Menendez's move. Last week's oil production cuts delivered one of the sharpest yet in a series of blows in the U.S. and Saudi relationship. They include the 2018 Saudi killing of a U.S.-based journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in which the U.S. intelligence community concluded the crown prince played a key role. Americans also fault the crown prince for refusing to join in U.S.-led efforts to isolate and punish Putin for his February invasion of Ukraine, and for maintaining seemingly friendly relations with Putin. There simply is no room to play both sides of this conflict either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping off an entire country off of the map, or you support him, Menendez said in his statement. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia chose the latter in a terrible decision driven by economic self-interest. Biden had sought to patch relations with Prince Mohammed, traveling to Saudi Arabia in July to deliver an awkward fist bump in a conciliatory gesture. - Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington. TALLINN, Estonia (AP) Moscow's barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield. Russian nationalist commentators and state media war correspondents lauded Monday's attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and a weekend attack on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday's strikes to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming a hostage of his allies' views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold. Putins initiative is weakening, and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the victory (in Ukraine) for him, Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday. The fear of defeat is so strong, especially for those who are now fully immersed in this military venture, that Putins indecisiveness, with his logic of We have not started anything yet and Restrained tactics have paid off has become a problem, the analyst said. For weeks, Putin's supporters have called for drastic battlefield steps in Ukraine. The exhortations intensified over the weekend after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia; the bridge, Europe's longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might. Putin himself opened the span in 2018. And? Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia's state-funded RT television, wondered on social media about Moscow's response to the Saturday bridge attack. This is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back, wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for the popular pro-Kremlin tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. Senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party, tweeted Saturday that Moscow should disregard Western opinion in formulating its answer to the conspicuous attack. It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West, Mironov tweeted Saturday. There won't be any bigger sanctions. They won't say any worse words. We need to do our thing. We started it we should go till the end. There is no way back. Time to respond! The response came Monday morning, when Russia simultaneously launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraine's critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies. It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West.Senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in dangerous proximity to government buildings. Putin said Monday the strikes were in retaliation for what he called Kyivs terrorist actions targeting the Kerch Bridge, and vowed a tough and proportionate response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russia No one should have any doubts about it, he said. Here comes the response, RT's Simonyan tweeted on Monday after the attacks. The Crimean bridge was that very red line from the very beginning. Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, a Russian region in the North Caucasus, said he was now 100% happy" with the course of the Kremlin's special military operation in Ukraine. Kadyrov was among the most ardent proponents of more drastic measures, including the use of low-yield nuclear weapons. The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described Monday's strikes as good news. The cheering by Kremlin supporters came with demands for Putin and the Russian military to keep up the pace and intensity of the attacks and the damage inflicted on Ukraine's infrastructure. Had such actions to destroy the enemy's infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.Moscow-installed Crimea governor Sergei Aksyonov Aksyonov said that had such actions to destroy the enemy's infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated. I hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down, Aksyonov wrote. RT's top host, Anton Krasovsky, posted a video of himself Monday dancing on a balcony in a cap bearing a Z, the symbol that Russian forces painted on military vehicles while invading Ukraine. In another Telegram post, he said the damage to Ukraine's power lines was not enough! Not enough! Another state TV journalist, Andrei Medvedev, called Monday's attacks a logical step, which not just the society has long demanded the military situation demanded a different approach to the hostilities. And so it happened. But does it change much? Medvedev, who works for Russia's state TV group VGTRK and holds a seat on the Moscow City Council, wrote on Telegram. If the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change (the situation)," Medvedev wrote. "But for now, according to (official) statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made, Political analyst Stanovaya said in a Telegram post that Putin had faced powerful pressures before Monday's bombardment to move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings, and that prompted the Russian leader to act. As of today, one can say that Putin was persuaded to resort to a more aggressive line. And it corresponds with his understanding on the situation. But it is a slippery slope there is no way back, Stanovaya wrote. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Archives, the federal agency responsible for preserving U.S. government records, on Tuesday rejected former President Donald Trump's claim that his predecessors had retained "millions" of White House documents. Trump faces a criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into whether he illegally retained documents from the White House when he left office in January 2021 and whether he tried to obstruct the probe. The FBI seized roughly 11,000 documents during a court-approved search at his Florida home on Aug. 8, including 100 marked as classified. At a rally in Arizona on Sunday, Trump accused three former presidents - Republicans George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton - of taking millions of documents and storing them in unsecure locations including a Chinese restaurant, a bowling alley and a car dealership. Video: Trump trying to play 'art of the deal' with classified documents The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), without naming Trump, said it took possession of all records from those three former presidents. The agency previously rejected a similar claim that Trump had made about his immediate predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, which he repeated on Sunday. The National Archives said it moved the records of those former presidents to temporary facilities located near future presidential libraries. "All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees," the agency said in a statement. "Reports that indicate or imply that those presidential records were in the possession of the former presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading," it added. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Will Dunham) Work stoppages hit the Islamic Republic of Irans critical energy sector on Monday in the oil-rich province of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. Dramatic video footage circulating on social media showed contract workers in the city of Asalouyeh chanting, "Down with the dictator," in a reference to Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei, who has not hesitated to order his security forces to mow down peaceful protestors with live ammunition. "Labor strikes have the potential to cripple the Islamic Republic, particularly in the energy sector. After three weeks of revolution, mass walkouts in the oil, gas and the petrochemical sector pose a serious existential threat to the regime," Iran expert Alireza Nader told Fox News Digital. Nader, who has written extensively on the labor unions and worker unrest as a vehicle for ousting the clerical regime, added that the U.S. and other Western nations should "Set up a strike fund to help workers and their families." STATE DEPARTMENT MADE CALCULATION TO PRIORITIZE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL OVER HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES The London-based news organization Iran International provided links to the Twitter accounts disclosing video footage of workers declaring, "This year is the year of blood, Seyed Ali Khamenei is done!" READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The labor unrest in Irans energy industry was triggered by the Islamic Republic of Irans morality police who allegedly beat and murdered the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for violating the nations strict law requiring women to cover the hair. Aminis death last month has plunged Iran into revolts across the vast Middle East nation. Workers also protested in Abadan in the Khuzestan Province, which is one of Irans most expansive oil and petrochemical hubs. According to the U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, the Contractual Oil Workers Protest Organizing Council wrote on its Telegram channel: "To [all] our colleagues in oil, gas and petrochemical projects, in all refineries and petrochemicals; in the oil platforms as well as the drilling sites, we declare that now is the time for widespread protests and to prepare ourselves for nationwide and back-breaking strikes." FEMALE STUDENTS SHOUT AT IRANIAN PRESIDENT TO 'GET LOST' AS HE CONDEMNS PROTESTS The workers added, "This is the beginning of the road, and we will continue our protests together with the entire nation day after day." The Iranian regime-controlled Tasnim News Agency claimed that labor actions were related to a wage dispute covering 700 workers. The Islamic Republic did not explicitly acknowledge strike activity. The disruptions of Irans energy sector is the first instance of labor disruptions in the energy field due to the death of Amini. According to human rights groups, the clerical regime has killed 185 people, including 19 minors, since the outbreak of demonstrations more than three weeks ago. Iranian authorities say "rioters" killed at least 20 security force agents. Labor and social unrest has been largely limited to universities, where at least 10 universities conducted strikes since the death of Amini. In late September, the Coordinating Council of Cultural Associations urged teachers and students to strike. Iran International on Saturday reported that the traditional Grand Bazaar in Tehran closed and small businesses and retail workers joined the demonstrations against Khameneis regime. The newly erupted industrial and labor disruptions in Irans energy comes at a time when the Biden administration energetically seeks to conclude a nuclear deal with Tehrans rulers. The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name for the Iran atomic accord, would pump $275 billion into Irans coffers during the first year of the agreement, according to a study conducted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. AS IRAN PROTESTS CONTINUE, EXPERTS DISCUSS THE LIKELIHOOD OF REGIME CHANGE In exchange for the suspension of economic sanctions on Irans regime, the deal would merely require that Khamenei temporarily stop his reported program to build a nuclear weapons device. Lisa Daftari, an expert on Iran and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, told Fox News Digital, "The timing of all of this couldnt be more worrisome for both Irans regime and the United States as OPEC has announced production cuts, putting more weight on Irans global oil output. Now, the petrochemical strikers in Iran have a major opportunity to stand up to the world and demand attention on human rights and calls to freedom by Irans protesters." The administration's Iran special envoy, Robert Malley, recently said the Biden administration is not interested in a change of Irans government. Malley told NPR that the U.S. wants "a government in Iran that is respectful of the fundamental rights of its people" but not regime change. People in Northern Ireland should not be made to go to the polls again before Christmas, Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle ONeill has said. Ms ONeill repeated her call for the powersharing institutions to be restored immediately as she prepared to meet a senior US official. Derek Chollet, counsellor with the US Department of State, is meeting political leaders at Stormont on Monday. But DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has reiterated his warning that his party will not return to the assembly or executive until his demands are met on the Northern Ireland Protocol. The DUP is blocking the functioning of the powersharing institutions in Belfast as part of its protest against the post-Brexit arrangements that have created barriers on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK Government has vowed to secure changes to the protocol, either by way of a negotiated compromise with the EU or through proposed domestic legislation that would empower ministers to scrap the arrangements without the approval of Brussels. Relations between the UK and EU appear to have improved since Liz Truss became Prime Minister and London and Brussels have been talking up the potential for a deal through fresh negotiations. Current legislation says that unless Stormont is restored by October 28, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has to call fresh assembly elections, something he has said he is prepared to do. Speaking at Stormont on Monday, Ms ONeill said: Im going to be meeting with Derek Chollet from the US State Department. Hes coming at a time where were obviously hurtling towards the October 28 deadline and we have to have an executive formed by that time. I very much welcome the part the United States has always played and being a big supporter and aid to our peace process. We need to get around the executive table today, no more delays. Particularly whenever you see the scale of challenges that we have to tackle as an executive, not least fixing our health service. Asked about the potential for an election before Christmas, Ms ONeill said: We shouldnt have to have an election. We had an election back in May. The people spoke, and the people asked for a functioning executive, they asked for us to make politics work. And they asked for us to work together to deliver for them. Thats where I remain committed. Thats where I want to be. Ms ONeill encouraged the UK Government and the EU to come to an agreement within the framework of the protocol. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson (PA) Sir Jeffrey told the BBC there is now a sharper focus within the UK Government on what needed to be done over the protocol. He said: I think the UK Government and our Prime Minister must hold firm in terms of seeking to achieve the objectives they have outlined in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. We believe that represents an outcome which respects the integrity of the UK internal market and Northern Irelands place within it, but also protects the integrity of the EU single market. No-one could be in any doubt what is required. It isnt just about dealing with the symptoms of the problem created by the protocol in other words, the checks it is also about regulatory divergence, it is about the fact that Northern Ireland is subject to laws introduced by an outside foreign entity, the EU. What we need to have agreed must be in line with the provisions of the protocol Bill, otherwise it will not work. If the Government wants to see the political institutions restored, and I want to see them restored, then we need an agreement which meets the objectives of the protocol Bill. The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been charged with rape and child sexual abuse. Convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner is accused of five offences between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal, the public prosecutors office in Braunschweig said, with the charges unrelated to the McCann case. Investigators believe the 45-year-old killed Madeleine, then three, after abducting her from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3 2007. Apartment 5A in Praia Da Luz in Portugal, where Madeline McCann went missing (PA) Brueckner, who has reportedly denied any involvement in her disappearance, was identified as a murder suspect in the McCann case by Portuguese officials in June 2020. On Tuesday, prosecutors said they have charged him with three counts of rape and two counts of child sexual abuse. He is accused of filming himself raping a woman in her 70s in a holiday apartment in Portugal on an unknown date between 2000 and 2006. Prosecutors also say Brueckner raped a 20-year-old Irish woman twice in Praia da Rocha in 2004. He is accused of waking her at knife-point before tying her to a table. Brueckner is alleged to have filmed much of the incident on a camera he had brought with him, before escaping via a balcony. Prosecutors said the alleged victim managed to free herself and call for help. One of the alleged attacks is said to have taken place in Praia Da Luz, Portugal (Steve Parsons/PA) He is also accused of orally raping a teenage girl in her home in Praia da Luz after tying her to a wooden pole and whipping her on an unknown date between 2000 and 2006. Brueckner is again claimed to have filmed the incident. The suspect also allegedly exposed himself and grabbed the wrist of a 10-year-old German girl on Salema beach in Faro in 2007. The charges allege Bruckener also exposed himself to an 11-year old Portuguese girl during the so-called Snail Festival in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines in 2017 while she was sitting on a swing in a playground. Prosecutors say the girl ran to her father for help and the suspect was arrested by Portuguese police at the scene. Brueckner is serving a seven-year sentence for rape in Portugal in 2005. The investigation into Madeleines disappearance is continuing irrespective of the charges brought, prosecutors said. The McCann family previously said it is essential to learn the truth of what happened to their daughter (PA) Earlier this year, on the 15th anniversary of Madeleines disappearance, her parents said it is essential to learn the truth of what happened to their daughter. On the same day, the Metropolitan Police, which continues to treat the case as a missing persons inquiry, said it is committed to finding the truth. In July 2013, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleines disappearance. WASHINGTON (AP) A small-business advocacy group has filed a new lawsuit seeking to block the Biden administration's efforts to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans the latest legal challenge to the program. The suit, filed Monday by the Job Creators Network Foundation, argues the Biden administration violated federal procedures by failing to seek public input on the program. It's one of a handful of lawsuits that have been filed by conservative business groups, attorneys and Republican lawmakers in recent weeks as the Biden administration tries to push forward with its plan to cancel billions in debt before November's midterm elections. Elaine Parker, president of Job Creators Network Foundation, slammed the program as executive overreach and complained that it does nothing to address the root cause of rising debt: the "outrageous increase in college tuition that outpaces inflation every single year. This bailout is going to affect everyone in this country because of the mass size of the program," she said. And everyone should have the opportunity to provide their views to the government." She added: These universities need to be held accountable for this student debt crisis. The Job Creators Network Foundation has previously turned to the courts to try to to block the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate on businesses. It also sued Major League Baseball in 2021 for moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta over objections to changes to Georgias voting laws. That lawsuit, which cited losses to local businesses, was later dropped. The new lawsuit is one of a growing number of legal challenges trying to halt the proposal laid out by President Joe Biden in late August to cancel up to $20,000 in debt for certain borrowers. Six Republican-led states filed suit late last month, accusing the Biden administration of overstepping its executive powers, as did the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento, California, legal advocacy group. Their lawsuit, filed in federal court in Indiana, calls the plan an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Wisconsin last week dismissed a lawsuit from a local taxpayers group, the Brown County Taxpayers Association, that sought to block the program, ruling that the group didn't have standing to bring the lawsuit. The group had argued that Bidens order unlawfully circumvented Congress power over spending and said the plan was discriminatory because it sought to give particular help to borrowers of color. The latest lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against the U.S. Education Department and its secretary, Miguel Cardona, takes issue with how the plan was developed. It alleges the Biden administration violated the Administrative Procedure Acts notice-and-comment procedures. It also challenges the administrations legal justification for the program. The suit includes two plaintiffs: one who does not qualify for debt forgiveness because the plan excludes commercially held loans that are not in default, and one who did not receive a Pell grant and is therefore entitled to less debt forgiveness under the plan. Behind closed doors, the Department promulgated a new Debt Forgiveness Program that will affect tens of millions of Americans and cost hundreds of billions of dollars," the lawsuit reads. Instead of providing notice and seeking comment from the public, the Department hammered out the critical details of the Program in secret and with an eye toward securing debt forgiveness in time for the November election. It also alleges the department "made numerous arbitrary decisions about the Program, including which individuals will receive debt forgiveness, how much of their debt will be forgiven, and which types of debt will qualify for the Program. The result of this arbitrariness is predictable: some will benefit handsomely, some will be shortchanged, and others will be left out entirely," it reads. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor, who most notably ruled in 2018 that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court reversed that decision last year. OConnor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, also has ruled against other policies pursued by Democratic administrations. Last month, he ruled that an ACA provision that required coverage of an HIV prevention drug violates a Texas employers religious beliefs. Civil lawsuits filed in the federal court in Fort Worth have a 90% chance of going either to OConnor or Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, according to a 2020 order of the court. White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan responded with a statement defending the loan forgiveness program. While opponents of our plan are siding with special interests and trying every which way to keep millions of middle-class Americans in debt, the President and his Administration are fighting to lawfully give middle-class families some breathing room as they recover from the pandemic and prepare to resume loan payments in January," he said in a statement. The Biden debt forgiveness program will cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for individuals making less than $125,000 a year or households making less than $250,000. Pell grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will be eligible for an additional $10,000. The Biden administration used an act passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as legal justification for the program. The law gives the administration sweeping authority to reduce or eliminate student debt during times of national emergency, the Justice Department said in an August legal opinion. The administration cited the COVID-19 pandemic as its emergency. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the program will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next three decades. ___ Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Mark Sherman contributed to this report. Holidays abroad nearly doubled after coronavirus restrictions were lifted, according to new research. Travel trade organisation Abta said a survey indicates that 38% of UK people travelled overseas for leisure between March and August, compared with 21% during the previous six months. The UK scrapped its remaining pandemic travel restrictions in March, including the requirement for all arrivals to complete passenger locator forms, and those who were not fully vaccinated to take a coronavirus test. Abta said the poll of 2,000 consumers suggests overseas travel for the 12 months to the end of August was at 70% of pre-pandemic levels. It described this as a significant proportion given the timing of coronavirus travel restrictions being lifted in the UK and at destinations. They survey, conducted in late August, also suggested that only 4% of people who took a holiday in the previous 12 months were not planning to take another during the following year, despite the cost-of-living crisis. Of those who intend to cut back their holiday spending, 36% said they would take fewer trips. Some 61% of people questioned planned to head abroad in the following 12 months. The survey indicated that people are more likely to cut back on nonessential spending elsewhere, such as eating out (55%), leisure activities (48%) and clothes, shoes and accessories (40%), rather than holidays (35%). Asked how serious an issue the cost-of-living crisis is for the industry, Abta director of communications Graeme Buck replied: Obviously its going to dampen demand. Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer, speaking at the organisations annual convention in Marrakesh, Morocco, said: The lifting of the UKs travel rules this year unleashed a surge in overseas holidays. Given how much these restrictions had dampened demand, its quite remarkable to see foreign holiday taking already reaching 70% of 2019 levels, which was in itself a bumper year for travel, in such a short space of time. We now face an uncertain year ahead given the cost-of-living challenges, but Abtas research suggests that we should continue to see an increase in foreign holidays next year and, encouragingly, many of our members have also been reporting a high level of demand for bookings. 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. Express your opinion! Fill out this form to submit a Letter to the Editor. Submit Demand for new administrative units will be a continuous one, one that seeks to bring distant provincial govts in remote capitals The creation of Telangana, almost 60 years after the people of the region voiced their misgivings about being co-opted into Andhra Pradesh, was yet another step to rationalise and restructure the Union of States that India is meant to be. India was never meant to be a union of linguistic states, but a union of well governed and managed states. The experience of small states has been uniformly good. Thus, the demand for new administrative units will be a continuous one, one that seeks to bring distant provincial governments in remote capitals closer to people. Before it first formed the government in Maharashtra, the BJP was in favour of a Vidarbha state. Mayawati has many times said that Uttar Pradesh needs to be broken up into three or four states. Even in Tamil Nadu, Dr S. Ramadoss of Pattal Makkali Katchi (PMK), a very regional political party, has mooted the bifurcation of Tamil Nadu, with the northern districts being carved out to form a separate state. The biggest states of India Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are also its worst-off states, so the acronym Bimaru for them is most appropriate. They are also predominantly Hindi- speaking states and hence quite clearly there is no linguistic or historical basis for their creation and existence as they are. Yet within their blanket linguistic conformity, these states cover a vast diversity of distinct regions, with characteristic commonly spoken languages, culture and historical traditions. Each of these states, either in terms of land mass or population, will still be larger than most countries in the world. Even without Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh is larger in terms of population than Brazil, Japan or Bangladesh. It was not surprising that despite the supposed linguistic affinity, there were and still are demands for smaller states from within them. All the major political parties supported such aspirations and four new states are the result. At a time when caste has so fragmented the polity, the demand for small states with a long and traditional affinity, often cemented by a common agro-climatic reality, becomes a strong motivating force to rally the disenchanted and dispossessed to a common cause. But this must not be allowed to discredit the case for smaller and more manageable states. The late Dr Rasheeduddin Khan most eloquently made out this case in Seminar in 1973. He had India divided according to its 56 socio-cultural sub-regions and a map showing these was the centre-piece of the article. The Seminar map is a veritable blueprint for the administrative restructuring of India. Out of UP and Bihar, eight distinct sub-regions are identified. These are Uttaranchal, Rohilkhand, Braj, Oudh, Bhojpur, Mithila, Magadh and Jharkhand. The first and last of these have now become constitutional and administrative realities. But each one of the other unhappily wedded regions is very clearly a distinct region with its own predominant dialect and history. For instance, Maithili, that is spoken in the area around Darbhanga in northern Bihar, is very different from Bhojpuri spoken in the adjacent Bhojpur area. Similarly, in western UP, Brajbhasha is quite different from Avadhi, that is spoken in central UP. Indias largest state in terms of area, Madhya Pradesh, is broken into five distinct regions; Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra into four each, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka into three each, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Odisha into two each, and so on. Since 1971, Indias population has doubled, to cross 1.3 billion. Even at constant prices (1980-81), the GNP has grown by 10 times. In 1971, the total money supply (M3) was Rs 11,019 crores, whereas it has now grown to over Rs 16 lakh crores. In PPP terms, it would be closer to Rs 70 lakh crores. Naturally the size and scope of government has also changed. The 1980-81 Budget of the Government of India was a mere Rs 19,579 crores. It is now over Rs 10 lakh crores. The annual budgets of the state governments too have grown likewise. States like UP, Maharashtra and even Telangana now have annual budgets of over Rs 1 lakh crores each. All the states together have a total annual expenditure in excess of about Rs 9 lakh crores. Last year the total gross fiscal deficit of the states alone was about the same as that of the Government of India. The total population of India in 1947 was about 320 million. Today, we have about that number of people who are below the poverty line. In the meantime, India has become a very youthful country, with 70 per cent of its people below the age of 30, of whom about 350 million are below 14. Clearly, the task of government isnt only much more enormous, but also much more complex when the rising expectations, the impact of new technologies and demographic changes are factored in. Our record so far is a cause for great concern and is a severe indictment of the failure of the system of governance in India. That the nature of the regime determines the nature of the outcome is a well-known adage in public administration and public policy studies. The nature of a regime is not only influenced by its Constitution, guiding philosophy, and the consequent system of government, but also by the structure of the system. We know from experience, both in the corporate world and in public administration, that monolithic and centralised structures fail when the size and scope of the organization grows. Thus, to compete with Honda and Toyota, General Motors and Ford have had to restructure into smaller and independent operating units. In public administration, this is called decentralisation. Decentralisation not only implies the downward flow of decision-making but also greater closeness of the reviewing authority to the decision-making level. Thus, if more decision-making flows to the districts and sub-districts, the state government, which is the reviewing authority, must also have fewer units to supervise. I have always held that the real concentration of power is not with the Central government but with state governments. Thus, when a CM clamours for greater functional autonomy, he or she is actually calling for greater concentration of power in oneself. From the perspective of good governance, this is clearly unacceptable. Good government also means lesser government, responsive government, closer government and quicker government. Large centralised governments are inimical to good government. The state governments are the worst kind of centralised governments, masking their regional jingoism as a demand for autonomy. Both nations, according to these reports, now have between 50,000 to 60,000 troops deployed along the LAC in Ladakh The last couple of years, in particular, has seen the world torn apart by both the Covid-19 catastrophe and the emergence of a new Cold War. Nations have been pursuing their own selfish agendas on the global stage unmindful of the uncalled-for destruction of weaker societies with misery and turmoil being inflicted on the hapless. After Russias invasion of Ukraine eight months ago, a conflict which threatens to escalate into a nuclear dimension, the world is yet to see any signs of a resolution. India, which is located in easily one of the worlds most geopolitically stressed regions, has its own share of diverse challenges, threatening its security and well-being, largely attributable to the hegemonistic and an overly assertive China. India had seen, once again, Chinese perfidy in its eastern Ladakh region in April 2020 onwards where serious Chinese transgressions had been engineered across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Depsang Plains, Hot Springs, Gogra, Pangong Tso and Demchok areas. In the Arunachal Pradesh region too, China has been busy establishing border villages and fortifications, provoking India, and also making some fresh deployments opposite Indias central sector. Sixteen rounds of talks between senior military commanders of both nations in Ladakh have resulted in some disengagement of troops in Galwan, Gogra, Hot Springs and Pangong Tso areas but theres no progress in the Depsang Plains and Demchok friction points yet. However, the last round of talks held on September 8, 2022 did ensure both sides agreeing to disengage from Patrolling Point 15 in the Gogra-Hot Springs area which may result in creating a buffer zone and a no-patrolling area. This was perceived as low-hanging fruit by some strategic analysts, and it was speculated by many in the media that it would lead to a direct interaction between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi summit on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Samarkand in mid-September, but that did not happen. Numerous reports in both the Indian and Western media indicate that the Chinese have largely been successful in their salami-slicing tactics by altering the decades-old buffer zones and patrolling points along the LAC. Both nations, according to these reports, now have between 50,000 to 60,000 troops deployed along the LAC in Ladakh. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar recently acknowledged that India-China relations are going through an extremely difficult phase due to Beijings actions at the LAC. Despite the assertion by the Chinese ambassador to New Delhi that the situation at the border is overall stable, the external affairs ministrys spokesperson has unequivocally stated that much more needs to be done to restore normalcy at the frontier. Overall, Chinas precipitating the Doklam crisis in 2017, its aggressive gaze towards our strategically sensitive Siliguri Corridor and persistent encroachments and nibbling of Bhutanese territory only show its ever-growing and insatiable appetite for expansionism. Chinas refusal to follow a rules-based international order and allow freedom of sea lanes is part of the overall Chinese DNA, which has culminated recently in its threats to gobble up Taiwan. India therefore has to be wary of China both independently and also, if the need arises, in concert with other nations. The much-heralded Quad group needs to be strengthened with some military muscle by the United States, Australia, Japan and India and its membership expanded to include other Asian and European nations who resent Chinas domination of their economies and navigation in the high seas of the Indo-Pacific region. Given Chinas consistent aggressive stance towards India, many analysts were flabbergasted at Indias abstention at last weeks vote on a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning Beijing for colossal human rights violations in Xinjiang province. The draft resolution on holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China was rejected in the 47-member council after 17 members voted in favour, 19 voted against and 11 nations (including India, Brazil, Mexico and Ukraine) abstained. The draft was introduced, among others, by the US, Britain, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Turkey, and sought a discussion on Chinese atrocities in Xinjiang where, reportedly, it has committed genocide on its minorities. China, amazingly, remained silent on the surprise Indian abstention at the UNHRC and contended that its crackdown in Xinjiang was aimed at countering terrorism and separatism. To clarify Indias position, the MEA had explained that the vote is in line with our long-held position that country-specific resolutions are never helpful India favours a dialogue to deal with such issues. MEA spokesperson Arindam Baghchi also said that India had taken note of the human rights situation in Xinjiang and hoped China would address the situation objectively and properly. However, some sources felt that as China was a UNHRC member, India had abstained to avoid retaliation by China against India on a variety of issues. On the whole, keeping Chinas unfriendly attitude in mind, India needs to be more strident in its criticism of China on its human rights record against Uyghurs and even Tibetans. The world community and the otherwise indifferent Islamic Ummah should step up their activities to censure China on its human rights violations. And while India should retain its strategic autonomy in foreign policy, it must also display far more resolve in admonishing those nations who are repeated offenders in fostering terrorism, indulging in human rights violations and aggressive activities against their neighbours. by Shafique Khokhar Food, tents, and mosquito nets arrived in Allah Bachao Shoro, a village of 150 families who lost everything. So far, no one has helped us, but the Almighty God sent you here to support us, said catechist Abdul Majeed. Now, we want to rebuild our homes. Even though flood waters have receded, some 5.2 million people are still completely destitute. For its part, AsiaNews continues its fundraising campaign. Sindh (AsiaNews) Following Pakistans devastating floods in late August, caused by a combination of violent monsoon rains and melting glaciers from this years record heat, AsiaNews organised a campaign to help the people of Allah Bachao Shoro (May God save us), a village in Sindh province who, like millions of others were affected by the disaster. "I have no words to express my feelings. Weeks have passed since the flood, but no one has helped us, but the Almighty God sent you here to support us, said Abdul Majeed, a local catechist, expressing his gratitude to AsiaNews readers for their financial support. A third of Pakistan was submerged with serious damage to homes, crops, livestock, and infrastructure. Some 5.2 million people are still completely destitute, especially women and girls, some of whom are still without shelter or spare clothes. According to reliable statistics, at least 650.000 pregnant women are affected by the consequences of the flood, with 73,000 expected to give birth this month. Amid this immense catastrophe, AsiaNews launched a campaign through the Fondazione Pime Onlus, heeding the appeal of one village, Allah Bachao Shoro, home to some 150 families who lost everything. Despite difficult communications, the AsiaNews correspondent managed to reach the village in the Hyderabad area to deliver aid, the first to arrive. By combining our contribution with that of some Pakistani Christian benefactors, it was possible to hand out relief items to some 90 Christian, Muslim, and Hindu families in Allah Bachao Shoro and meet the most urgent needs. Each family received a large package of dry food, a tent, and two mosquito nets. The food included flour, spices, legumes, milk, oil, sugar, tea, rice, and soap enough for a small family for a month. Women also received small cash grants to buy other items locally. The distribution took place at a church two kilometres from the village - locals warned AsiaNews of the risk of looting in an area of extreme poverty. In Allah Bachao Shoro, poor families lost everything; the enormity of the damage is beyond imagination: crops, livestock, and homes are all gone. Even though the waters are receding, the situation is one of desperation and widespread chaos. "Many people visited our ghot (village) and took pictures, but they did not help us. We still live on the canal bank without tents. Different diseases like malaria, diarrhoea, and skin rashes are spreading; some people were bitten by snakes and insects, explained catechist Abdul Majeed. I am very grateful to AsiaNews and all the people of God who have supported us. It is very important for us, he added. We have no job, our fields were devastated, and we want to rebuild our homes. Winter is coming, and we need warm clothes, quilts, and blankets. Please continue to help us. Geeta Devi, a 48-year-old Hindu woman, is also grateful. You are the first to help us with these items; we are very grateful. This food is enough for us for a month. Our government is not taking concrete steps to improve the situation; for this reason, I humbly ask the people of God to please help us at this crucial moment. In view of the situation, the fundraising campaign promoted by AsiaNews continues. Donations can be made via credit card or PayPal by clicking here and select PAKISTAN EMERGENCY Aid for flood victims. Donations can also be made to the Fondazione Pime Onlus, indicating PAKISTAN EMERGENCY as the reason, by the following payment methods: Bank transfers payable to Fondazione Pime Onlus, Credit Agricole IBAN IT89M0623001633000015111283 Please always send an email to uam@pimemilano.com to confirm the transfer, with your name, address, fiscal code if you are a resident of Italy (or social security/national insurance number in other countries), place and date of birth. This information is needed to obtain a tax credit receipt. Postal account No. 39208202 made out to Fondazione Pime Onlus. Cheque or bank draft made out to Fondazione Pime Onlus, mailed to Fondazione Pime Onlus, via Monte Rosa, 81 20149 Milan, Italy A 61-page report released by Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy found that defendants were denied access to evidence, legal counsel, and the possibility of cross-examining secret" sources. In a decade, the use of capital punishment has increased by 600 per cent. Manama (AsiaNews) Bahraini courts have conducted "sham trials" in recent years, with convictions achieved through coercion, torture, and the violation of human rights. In a recent case, eight men were sentenced to death, this according to a joint report released yesterday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. Early next month, the Gulf country will host a conference on interfaith dialogue, which Pope Francis will attend. But according to the 61-page report, titled The Court is satisfied with the Confession': Bahrain death sentences follow torture, Sham Trials, eight men were convicted on the basis of confessions obtained through physical and psychological violence. The many human rights violations that underlie these death sentences reflect not a justice system but a pattern of injustice, said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW, in a statement. In some cases the defendants were denied access to the evidence used during the trial, and, in one case, a defendant was not allowed to cross-examine secret sources used against him. What is more, none of them had the benefit of counsel during their interrogations. It is particularly appalling to sentence people to death amid torture allegations and after manifestly unfair trials, lamented Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, an HRW consultant and primary author of the report. For this reason, he urges Bahrani authorities to commute all death sentences immediately and reinstate the de facto moratorium on executions. The past year saw death sentences dramatically rise in Bahrain, with 51 people ordered executed compared to seven in the previous decade, i.e. since anti-government protests broke out in 2011, during the Arab Spring. That is 600 per cent increase. The report found that 88 per cent of men executed in Bahrain since 2011 were convicted on terror charges, and 100 per cent of them alleged torture. Bahraini officials routinely proclaim that the government respects fundamental human rights, but in case after case, courts relied on coerced confessions, Page said. The Kingdom of Bahrain is ruled by the Al-Khalifa, a Sunni dynasty, but Shias represent 60 to 70 per cent of the population and have called for constitutional changes, as well as social and economic rights. In 2011 during the Arab Spring, riots broke out in the country, a US and Saudi ally. The unrest was eventually quelled with Saudi military support. by Sumon Corraya Subroto Sangma, of the Awami League, died in hospital from his injuries. His sister filed a complaint against the local Bangladesh National Party leader. Condolences from Bangladeshi Christians and politicians. Netrakona (AsiaNews) - After being attacked last month by a group of opponents, Catholic politician Subroto Sangma died a few days ago in hospital from injuries sustained. Sangma was first attacked by a group of people in Rashimoni Bazar, near Durgapur, while a second assault took place on the bank of the Someshwari river in Shibgonj when about 20 men with armed with an iron bar attacked him on his way to hospital. Sangma, 47, was a Garo tribesman from Ranikhong parish, Mymensingh diocese. He was president of the Kullagora Union Parishad and vice president of the Kullagora Union Awami League in Durgapur. His paternal uncle, lawyer Promode Mankin, was an Awami League Bangladesh member and Minister of Social Affairs. He was treated at Mymensingh Medical College and Hospital and died on 8 October. "Subroto Sangma has long been in conflict with the general secretary of the Bangladesh National Party in Durgapur, Abdul Awal," explained local Awami League general secretary Sajjadur Rahman. "Awal has established a reign of terror by forming terrorist forces in this area. Subroto Sangma opposed this, but in the end he was killed. We condemn this murder and will organise a protest". Sangma had lost to Awal in the local elections but had won the previous ones. Keya Tju, sister of the Catholic politician, filed a complaint with the police against Awal, his brothers and other personalities linked to their clan. Obaidul Quader, general secretary of the Bangaldesh Awami League and Minister of Road Transport, condemned the murder and expressed his condolences in a press release. Nirmol Rozario, president of the Bangladesh Christian Association, said: 'We demand the arrest of those involved in this murder and we want justice. We express our condolences to the family and relatives of Sangma. May the Almighty grant him eternal peace'. South Africa: Nzimande disputes report on hiding forensic investigation on NSF Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has disputed a Sunday newspaper report claiming he requested Parliament keep a Forensic Investigation Report on the National Skills Fund's (NSF) under wraps. I never wanted to keep this report under wraps, but all that I requested was for the Standing Committee on Public Account (SCOPA) to treat this report in terms of rule 189 of the National Assembly, especially sub-rule (1) (c) read with sub rule (4) (a) until all processes before the law enforcement agencies and internal departmental disciplinary processes are concluded, Nzimande said. He had appointed a forensic investigation company to conduct a full-scale forensic investigation into the financial affairs of the NSF after amounts of just under R5 billion could not be properly accounted for over two financial years. The Minister also appointed a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to conduct a strategic review of the NSF, its general operations and its efficiency and relevance with regards to the national skills priorities of the country. Nzimande said both these appointments were meant to ensure the NSF accounts for the resources allocated to it and deal with instances of maladministration and corruption at the NSF. Both the reports were submitted to me, and we have begun in earnest the process of implementing the recommendations of both these reports, the Minister said. The Department of Higher Education and Training also opened a case at the Pretoria Central Police Station on 3 October 2022. Now that a police case has been opened and legal processes are underway, all the implicated individuals inside and outside the department, including companies who might have benefited irregularly on the resources of the National Skills Funding, will face the full might of the law, Nzimande said. He added that the department has already commenced engaging the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies, including initiating internal departmental disciplinary processes to ensure that this process in concluded speedily. This is the reason we requested SCOPA to treat this report as confidential until these processes are finalised and the relevant people informed, in terms of due process. I however must indicate that as a department we respect the SCOPA decision not to accede to our request. I have nothing to hide, but I have a duty, on my part, to follow due process in implementing the recommendations of the forensic investigation. We will implement these recommendations to the letter, Nzimande said. - SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-10-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Malaysian PM dissolves parliament, calls for early national election Xinhua) 09:45, October 11, 2022 A man watches a televised speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 10, 2022. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of the country's parliament on Monday, paving the way for national elections which must be held in the next 60 days. In a televised speech, Ismail Sabri said he had received the consent of the country's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in accordance with the country's constitution. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) KUALA LUMPUR, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of the country's parliament on Monday, paving the way for national elections which must be held in the next 60 days. In a televised speech, Ismail Sabri said he had received the consent of the country's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in accordance with the country's constitution. Ismail Sabri said the past years have seen several unprecedented developments after the national elections in 2018, including political uncertainties with the changes of several prime ministers and the COVID-19 pandemic, which together have harmed the country's socio-economic and political situation. "With this announcement, the mandate will be returned to the people. The people's mandate is a powerful antidote for the country to restore political stability and create a government which is firm, stable and respected after the elections," he said. The date of polling day is yet to be announced by the Election Commission of Malaysia. Normally, a general election should be held no later than two months after the dissolution of the parliament. Voters will elect the 222-member Dewan Rakyat, or the House of Representatives. The possibility of national elections have been hotly discussed over recent months with United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the biggest party in the ruling coalition, calling for elections to end the political uncertainty which has seen two prime ministers appointed since 2020 following the resignation of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad in February of that year. Muhyiddin Yassin was sworn in as the prime minister on March 1, 2020 but later resigned following the withdrawal of support by members of parliament from his own coalition. Ismail Sabri was then appointed as the prime minister on Aug. 21, 2021. TV screens displayed at a local home appliance store show a televised speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 10, 2022. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of the country's parliament on Monday, paving the way for national elections which must be held in the next 60 days. In a televised speech, Ismail Sabri said he had received the consent of the country's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in accordance with the country's constitution. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) TV screens displayed at a local home appliance store show a televised speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 10, 2022. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of the country's parliament on Monday, paving the way for national elections which must be held in the next 60 days. In a televised speech, Ismail Sabri said he had received the consent of the country's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in accordance with the country's constitution. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) A man watches on his mobile phone a televised speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 10, 2022. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of the country's parliament on Monday, paving the way for national elections which must be held in the next 60 days. In a televised speech, Ismail Sabri said he had received the consent of the country's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in accordance with the country's constitution. (Photo by Chong Voon Chung/Xinhua) TV screens displayed at a local home appliance store show a televised speech by Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 10, 2022. Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of the country's parliament on Monday, paving the way for national elections which must be held in the next 60 days. In a televised speech, Ismail Sabri said he had received the consent of the country's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah in accordance with the country's constitution. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Hongyu) Parliament is working on a bill against disinformation presented by the governing party. Critics see it as a threat to freedom. The final draft should be approved by the end of the week. Civil liberties advocates and government critics see planned punishments as disproportionate to the laws aims, i.e., cracking down on false news. Under the bill, offenders could get one to three years in prison. Istanbul (AsiaNews) Less than a year from next years elections (June 2023), Turkeys AKP[*]-led government wants to approve a new law that threatens civil liberties, this according to civil rights activists and opposition parties. The bone of contention, a proposed disinformation bill, has about 40 articles, almost half already approved by Parliament. The remaining articles are expected to be approved by the end of the week. The way it stands, the proposed legislation has been heavily criticised as another example of the way the press and dissenting groups have been severely attacked in the country. For the European Commission for Democracy through Law[] (also known as the Venice Commission), the bill includes prison sentences and other measures that are disproportionate to its aims. As it stands, freedom of expression will suffer. For the government, the law addresses the issue of disinformation in the press and social media and must be approved quickly to be in place for next years parliamentary and presidential elections. Following constitutional changes, President Recep Erdogan is now seeking a third mandate after he won in 2014 and 2018. One paragraph in the bill is of particular concern to opposition parties and independent media groups under it anyone who spreads false information about the country's security to create fear or disturb public order will be punished with prison sentences of one to three years. The Venice Commission is particularly concerned with the potential consequences of such provision, namely, the chilling effect and increased self-censorship, not least in view of the upcoming elections in June 2023. What is more, the Commission notes that the bill constitutes an interference with the freedom of expression protected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). For this reason, it urges Turkish lawmakers to clarify terms in the bill and reject the draft amendment. Alternative non-criminal ways exist to counter misinformation and disinformation in a democratic society, the Commissions 23-page assessment affirms. The bill also provides that news websites employees will be regarded as journalists with the right to press credentials issued by the Department of Communication. Civil servants working for government information services, radio and television will also be accredited as journalists. In addition, news websites will be listed as periodical publications. For press freedom advocates and government critics, the bill is part of a long decade of repression against free speech under Erdogan. A recent Reuters investigation shows how mainstream media has become a tight chain of command of government-approved headlines. Turkeys parliament will resume vetting the legislation tomorrow after it passed the first 15 articles last week. [*] Justice and Development Party. [] An advisory body of the Council of Europe. Today's headlines: Indonesian officials warn Jemaah Islamiyah has evolved in aftermath of Bali bombings; two Australians arrested in Sri Lanka accused of paying bribes; hike in child labour in Afghanistan, China is unwilling to abandon its zero covid policy, Ukrainians denounce Russian looting of their museums. PHILIPPINES The Philippine Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal of journalist Maria Ressa and researcher Reynaldo Santos on an online defamation charge that will now go to the Supreme Court. Ressa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, said that 'the ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against Rappler and me continues and the Philippine legal system is not doing enough to stop it'. INDONESIA Twenty years after the Bali bombings, members of the Jemaah Islamiyah - the terrorist organisation that carried out the massacre - "have quietly infiltrated public institutions, recruiting members, raising funds and spreading their ideology in secret", said the director of the National Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT), Ahmad Nurwakhid, emphasising that the group has not disappeared but has adapted to new times. AUSTRALIA - SRI LANKA Two Australian men were arrested for paying bribes to Sri Lankan officials between 2009 and 2016. The two had secured million worth of infrastructure construction contracts for the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation. The World Bank had already discovered 'inappropriate payments' by the company in 2017. AFGHANISTAN A Taliban official confirmed the hike in child labour in Kunduz and Takhar provinces as well as the increase in street children over the past year, although there are no precise statistics on their numbers. The minors interviewed stated that they are responsible for the economic support of their families. CHINA Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, recorded 28 new cases of covid-19 yesterday. Chinese authorities stepped up testing and extended quarantine days in several locations. Nationwide, there were more than 2,000 new infections, the highest figure since 20 August. RUSSIA - HONG KONG US officials fear Hong Kong could become a haven for Russian companies under sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine. State-owned companies have also made contact with some law firms in the city in search of a "friendlier jurisdiction" than New York or London UKRAINE The Minister of Culture of Ukraine, Oleksandr Tkachenko, denounced the looting by the Russians of more than 40 Ukrainian museums, causing hundreds of millions of Euros in damage, calling it a 'war crime'. A 5th century diadem of Attila the Hun in the museum of Melitopol was also stolen, along with 200 Scythian gold objects from over 2400 years ago. TAJIKISTAN The OSCE Representative for Media Affairs Teresa Ribeiro expressed concern at the end of her visit to Tajikistan about restrictions on freedom of expression, calling on the authorities in Dushanbe to release arrested and detained journalists, during her meeting with Deputy Minister of Culture Davlat Safarzoda. by Dario Salvi The UN mission has launched an appeal for 'dialogue without preconditions' to break the political and institutional deadlock. Since the elections of 10 October 2021, no agreement has yet been reached on the appointment of a premier and a new government. The current executive only has the current affairs at its disposal. Economic problems and wasted wealth. The unresolved knot of (Christian) refugees. Milan (AsiaNews) - A "dialogue without preconditions" to unblock a political and institutional stalemate that has dragged on for a year, since the October 2021 parliamentary elections that did not guarantee a definite majority, resulting in a logic of traded vetoes. The latest in a series of appeals was launched by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), which is appealing to all the parties involved, from the Sadrists to the pro-Iranians, from the Sunnis to the Kurds, to work for the birth of a new executive. The UN note explains, 'through compromise, [all parties] must collectively agree on key outcomes that reaffirm their publicly stated objective, which is to service the needs of Iraqi people and establish a fully empowered and effective government. However, there are no elements on the horizon that portend positive breakthroughs, while the power vacuum risks favouring, today as in the past, a new spiral of violence by jihadist movements or interest groups supported by regional or international actors. It is an institutional impasse, more so than a political one, an abyss as the Chaldean bishops define it, which many believe should be tackled not with an early vote, but by the apparatus of the State and rewriting the rules of competition. Here too, interest in the country is relegated to second place and overwhelmed by party selfishness and personal objectives of political leaders and their guardians abroad. Institutional paralysis A year ago, parliamentary elections were held in Iraq as a result of an early vote called in response to nationwide street protests against corruption and malfeasance. To date, the country does not have a new government, nor has it been able to vote - and approve - the state budget, as well as the appointment of a new president of the Republic and prime minister, extending the offices ad interim. The only election completed is that of the president of the Chamber, entrusted to the Sunni Mohammed al Habousi, who has also resigned. For the head of state, a Kurd, several nominations have been burnt and there is no unanimous consensus on extending Bahram Salih's mandate. This paralysis has prompted Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi himself to publish a communique in which, addressing all forces, he calls for renewed collaboration and an end to the crisis through dialogue. These words seem destined to fall on deaf ears, prolonging the stalemate of an interim executive with much reduced powers and margins of manoeuvre, especially in the economic field and with a view to alliances on a regional and global level. The crux of the matter revolves around the winner of the elections, the radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who does not want to submit to a broad-brush executive, but at the same time does not have the numbers to form a majority government; on the other hand, the pro-Iranian Shiite faction of the Coordination Framework is pressing for a broad-brush formation. Added to this are tensions fuelled by external interference and foreign powers with opposing interests. The paralysis in the institutions has been counterbalanced by tension in the streets, which reached a peak at the end of August following al-Sadr's announcement that he wanted to retire from political life, words that prompted his sympathisers and supporters to take to the streets to demonstrate, with the risk of a drift towards civil war. The appeal by the Shiite leader himself and a laborious mediation effort have restored calm and averted further bloodshed, while leaving the country's many problems unchanged. "The situation remains extremely fragile," Special Envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert stressed to the UN Security Council. 'Too many Iraqis,' she added, 'have lost confidence in the ability of the political class to act in the country's interests'. Growth and poverty Rich in hydrocarbons, but devastated by decades of conflict, Iraq has collected substantial revenues from oil exports in the current year. This wealth, however, ends up locked - and unused - in the coffers of the Central Bank, where foreign exchange reserves have reached almost 90 billion. Investing this wealth requires a government in full power and capable of presenting a budget to parliament, a prerogative that is not up to the interim executive who can only manage current affairs. 'Every infrastructure project,' economist Yesar Al-Maleki tells L'Orient-Le Jour, 'requires years of planning. The political situation has caused massive disruption, which has aggravated the bad reputation'. On the other hand, the World Bank shows projections of an average annual economic growth of 5.4% between 2022 and 2024. In June, parliament passed an emergency funding law worth almost 18 billion euro, which includes the purchase of gas and electricity, as well as grain to ensure 'food security'. This situation of chaos 'does not allow opportunities for economic and private growth' despite first-class potential. Looking ahead to 2023, the authorities may be tempted to pass another emergency finance law. Indeed, several projects launched by the Ministry of Oil and foreign companies are progressing far too slowly, and it is the population that is paying the price: in a nation of 42 million inhabitants, almost four out of ten young people are unemployed and one third of the total live in poverty (UN sources). Displaced persons, an ever present emergency It is the weakest and most marginalised sections of the population who suffer. Among these are the Christian refugees who, in the summer of 2014 following the rise of the Islamic State (IS, formerly Isis), abandoned their homes and lands in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain. While some have been able to return, many more remain abandoned to their fate, and a weak government, combined with virtually absent institutions and aid realities, have contributed to exacerbating the emergency. Among the few realities that are trying to help, albeit with limited resources, is the Chaldean Church with its primate Card. Louis Raphael Sako, who in recent days visited the reception centre in Zayouna, on the outskirts of the capital, sharing the suffering and needs of the guests. Accompanied by auxiliary Bishop Basil Yaldo, on the evening of 5 October, the cardinal went to the Virgin Mary complex, which the Baghdad Department for Investment and Development intends to evacuate. In the facility, which stands on state land, there are up to 120 families relocated to the area in the past by the central government. Among the problems these families are facing is the start of the school year, with the need to guarantee attendance for their children, and the arrival of the winter season. Card. Sako himself is negotiating with the officials of the Capitoline administration to postpone the evacuation for at least a year, in order to be able to find a suitable alternative with a view to welcoming them, while working on long-term solutions in Iraq. The fear, which the Church would like to avert first, is that of a new exodus abroad to Europe, North America or Australia, thus adding to the already large number of Chaldeans in the diaspora. GATEWAY TO THE EAST IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO THE MIDDLE EAST. TO RECEIVE A WEEKLY UPDATE EVERY TUESDAY, CLICK HERE. Francis led the Mass in St Peter's Basilica marking the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. How many times did they prefer to cheer on their own party rather than being servants of all? To be progressive or conservative rather than being brothers and sisters? he asked. The answer is that his is not how the Lord wants us to be, for we are his flock, and we can only be so together and as one. Vatican City (AsiaNews) In his homily during the Mass marking the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (11 October 1962), which brought together bishops from around the world, summoned by Saint John XXIII, Pope Francis said that we should look at the Church with Gods eyes, eyes full of love in order to overcome polarisations, rather than put our own agendas before the Gospel. The pontiff took his inspiration from the question Jesus asked Peter after his Resurrection: Do you love me? (Jn 21:15). For Francis, The Second Vatican Council was one great response to this question. To rekindle her love for the Lord, the Church, for the first time in her history, devoted a Council to examining herself and reflecting on her nature and mission. She saw herself once more as a mystery of grace generated by love; she saw herself anew as the People of God, the Body of Christ, the living temple of the Holy Spirit! "Yet let us be careful: both the progressivism that lines up behind the world and the traditionalism or looking backwards that longs for a bygone world are not evidence of love, but of infidelity. They are forms of a Pelagian selfishness that puts our own tastes and plans above the love that pleases God, the simple, humble and faithful love that Jesus asked of Peter. For this reason, Pope Francis wants to return to the Councils pure sources of love. Let us rediscover the Councils passion and renew our own passion for the Council! [. . .] A Church in love with Jesus has no time for quarrels, gossip and disputes. May God free us from being critical and intolerant, harsh and angry! As Jesus spoke to Peter, Feed my sheep, he assigned him a new role, that of a shepherd, something entirely new to him. This was in fact a turning point in Peters life, for while fishermen are concerned with hauling a catch to themselves, shepherds are concerned with others, with feeding others. Shepherds live with their flocks; they feed the sheep and come to love them. A shepherd is not above the nets like a fisherman but in the midst of his sheep. This is precisely the second valuable teaching that the Council helped rediscover: being in the world with others without ever feeling superior to others, being servants of that higher realm which is the Kingdom of God; bringing the good news of the Gospel into peoples lives and languages, sharing their joys and hopes . How timely the Council remains! It helps us reject the temptation to enclose ourselves within the confines of our own comforts and convictions. The Council helps us imitate Gods approach for the Church did not hold the Council in order to admire herself, but to give herself to others. Returning to the Council means rediscovering the living river of Tradition without remaining mired in traditions. The Council rediscovered the source of love, not to remain on mountain heights, but to cascade downwards as a channel of mercy for all. Let us return to the Council and move beyond ourselves, resisting the temptation to self-absorption. Once more, the Lord tells his Church: feed! And as she feeds, she leaves behind nostalgia for the past, regret at the passing of former influence, and attachment to power. For you, the holy People of God, are a pastoral people. You are not here to shepherd yourselves, or to be on the climb, but to shepherd others all others with love. And if it is fitting to show a particular concern, it should be for those whom God loves most: the poor and the outcast. Finally, the last emphasis on this heritage means that when Jesus asks Peter, he does not mean just some of the sheep, but all of them since the Church cannot yield "to the temptation of polarization." How many times did they prefer to cheer on their own party rather than being servants of all? To be progressive or conservative rather than being brothers and sisters? To be on the right or left, rather than with Jesus? To present themselves as guardians of the truth or pioneers of innovation rather than seeing themselves as humble and grateful children of Holy Mother Church. All of us are children of God, all brothers and sisters in the Church, all of us making up the Church, all of us. That is how the Lord wants us to be. We are his sheep, his flock, and we can only be so together and as one. Email Newsletters Get the best of The Aspen Daily News in your inbox. Our newsletters are free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Wintersville, OH, officials welcomed Randy and Sherri Eddy and their staff at their second Roadside Hobby location with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The Eddys recruited Jessica Sipes, the businesss office manager, to make the cut, while its mechanics, C.J. Ralston and Jonathan Blackburn, and many supporters looked on. Share This: The owners of a Richmond, OH, auto repair shop found they lacked space to serve their many customers, so Roadside Hobby expanded to include a location at 519 Canton Road in Wintersville, OH. Wintersville Mayor Mike Petrella and other village officials welcomed Randy and Sherri Eddy and their new location with a recent-ribbon cutting ceremony. Randy said they opened the Richmond location, also on state Route 43, five years ago, but he has been repairing vehicles for at least 30 years. A 1983 graduate of Brooke High School, he was a student in Russ Palmers auto repair class. Sherri, a 1988 graduate of Wintersville High School, said the two met when a family member suggested she take her own car to him for repairs. A Wintersville native, she had worked for many years at the local Smith Oil station and he had been a maintenance supervisor for various companies when he decided to open the garage in Richmond. Sherri admitted she was a reluctant supporter of the idea and saw the endeavor as an expensive sideline for Randy. She explained the business name was born from the idea it was merely a hobby for Randy, as well as the "Roadside Sam" CB handle used by her late father, Sam Williams. Five years later, we have two locations and Im much more appreciative, said Sherri. Randy said the Richmond location will focus on... Share This: Honda on Oct. 11 announced two major investments in Ohio, including $700 million to re-tool several of its existing auto and powertrain plants for production of electric vehicles and $3.5 billion with LG Energy Solution (LGES) to establish a previously announced joint venture facility to produce the battery modules to power them, pending final government approvals. The JV battery plant will be located in Ohio's Fayette County, about 40 miles southwest of Columbus. The announcement, held 45 years to the day after Honda announced its first production facility in Ohio---Oct. 11, 1977---will transform Honda's Marysville Auto Plant (MAP), East Liberty Auto Plant (ELP) and Anna Engine Plant (AEP) for the electrified future, including the creation of more than 300 new jobs. Honda plans to begin production and sales of Honda EVs in North America in 2026, based on its new Honda e:Architecture. The $700 million re-tooling will enable AEP associates to produce the battery case, to be combined with the battery modules from the JV plant on a sub-assembly line at MAP, with the complete battery unit then installed in EVs built by associates at both MAP and ELP. These Honda facilities, along with the new EV battery plant, will serve as a new EV hub in Ohio, and play a key role in developing the company's knowledge and expertise in EV production that will be shared across Honda's North American auto production network in the coming years. Honda's EV hub will leverage the company's longstanding production, product development, and purchasing operations located in Central Ohio. As part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities by 2050, Honda announced a vision to make battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles represent 100% of its vehicle sales by 2040 in North America. "This is a very challenging time for our entire industry, but also a very exciting time as Honda invests in full electric vehicle production in the Buckeye State," said Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "Honda has built hybrid-electric vehicles in Ohio for a number of years, and the experience and expertise of our associates in manufacturing, product development and purchasing will serve as an important foundation as we transition to the electrified future." Honda produced and sold a record of... We've seen four different winners of the Hot Wheels Legends Tour so far. And all of them have made their way into Mattel's lineup of 1/64 vehicles. In 2018, it was the 2 Jet Z. For 2019, The Nash was awarded the victory.The 1970 Pontiac Firebird we also saw on Hoonigan's show was up next. And the 2021 trophy went to the United Kingdom, where Lee Johnstone had shown up with his 1969 Volvo P1800 Gasser "Ain't No Saint." You'll be able to find the scaled-down replica of this car in Case B for 2023 , so a few months from now.The UK car scene is an exciting one, to say the least, with a good variety of cars. About 100 people registered for this year's edition of the Legends Tour , but only 11 made it to the grand final.As previously mentioned, three judges would preside over the whole thing: Helen Stanley of Goblin Works Garage, Jonny Smith of The Late Brake Show , and automotive designer Ian Callum. They have analyzed each car based on Authenticity, Creativity, and Garage Spirit to determine the next potential Hot Wheels Legend.And by the looks of it, their task was not easy at all. The first car to make it to the final round was a tricked-out Honda e. This might be the first one to receive the widebody kit treatment thus far, and you can almost see it encapsulated in a blister card.It's worth noting that Matchbox has a Honda E casting on the market already, but that doesn't apply to Hot Wheels just yet. The next car on the list is the "Vorsche" 911, a rat rod approach to the classic design that has been fitted with a Beetle engine.A pair of old-school Minis also showed up for the event. These vehicles are original survivors of a bygone era and would probably go nicely in a twin-pack if they ever get to that point.The black and pink Nissan Micra was perhaps the most underwhelming vehicle onsite, and it was completely overshadowed by the colorful BMW E21 that looked like a DTM racer. This would be fantastic as part of the Car Culture series, but at least we have the IMSA GTO Audi coming up next to take our minds off of it.Looking past the Citroen Saxo that reminded us of the French tuning scene at the start of the 21st century, the orange "Mexorcist" Ford has to be one of the cleanest yet meanest Escorts ever built.But its 600-hp Cosworth engine pales in comparison to the two drag cars that also made it to the final: a 3,000-hp Ford that rolled off the factory floor in 1937 and a 1934 Ford with just 2,500-hp on tap. But both the judges and the spectators attending the show agreed on the fact that the most fascinating car of the show was something else.Michael Charalambous started "The Misfit" project by using a rotten Ford Anglia body shell. Hundreds of hours later, his vision was complete, and it's safe to say that he had reached his goal: "My vision was for a car that if you pulled up at the traffic lights, you would never pull alongside something similar.Power comes from a BMW E30 four-cylinder engine that has been supercharged in the process, and this car gets driven regularly. Even though The Misfit won the UK leg, it still has to go through the Global Semi-Finals on the 10th of November. This year, Mattel will be honoring two participants instead of just one, but we'll know who the winners are on the 12th of November. At first glance, it looks like a simple shed. And it is, in a way, but with some special features that are quite unexpected. A project developed by Visit Victoria together with Ample, a design and manufacturing company, this tiny house takes glamping to another level.First of all, its sustainable. As the manufacturer explains, Stella the Stargazer was put together from the bones of a large farming shed located in western Victoria, which translates to repurposed timber and steel. It was also designed to fit in with the local aesthetic and pay tribute to traditional sheds in the area.As its name suggests, the most important feature is a special roll-out sleeping platform meant for stargazing. This means a queen-sized bed for two, which easily stays inside or slides outside, on rollers, protected by a pop-up glass and steel roof. The result is a one-of-a-kind indoor/outdoor bedroom, one of the best ways to enjoy glamping.To make this even better, Stella the Stargazer is also a traveling tiny home. It was uniquely set up to spend eight weeks at a time in three Victorian regions. Starting this Friday, it will be moving to Gippsland.No matter where it goes, its as luxurious as off-grid shacks can get. Theres a kitchenette equipped with a wood-fire stove, a fridge, a cooktop, and all the cooking basics. Fresh water and wastewater systems are also in place. Theres a shower included, as well as a large, modular deck with handcrafted chairs. Stella is 100% solar-powered and only 10-meter (32.8 feet) long.More details about booking and the other perks of Stella the Stargazer are available at Victoria Restaurant. We talked about this rocket before, the last time back in March , when the U.S. Army fired it from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), and the thing flew for 50 miles (80 km), seven miles (11.2 km) more than the GMLRS with an alternative warhead.This time, also fired from a HIMARS, the weapon traveled just 36 miles (59 km), but the goals of the test were different: its maker wanted to see if all systems work.According to Lockheed , before being fired at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the ER GMLRS underwent Stockpile to Target Sequence (STS) testing. Once deployed, tests were conducted on flight trajectory, range, accuracy from launch to impact, and warhead lethality.The passing of the test means the rocket can now move into the final phase of the development program, just about ready for production.Our next-generation GMLRS provides versatility for commanders, offering a choice of munitions at longer distances with the same reliability and precision the system is known for, said in a statement Jay Price, vice president of Precision Fires at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.This success advances the ER GMLRS closer to production as we complete the final phase of the development program.Part of a family of weapons that can guide themselves to a designated target using GPS, the ER GMLRS is described as being nearly unstoppable. Said family of Lockheed Martin weapons currently includes the Unitary 200-pound warhead, the Alternative 200-pound fragmenting warhead, and the above Extended Range.According to the company, to date it has made over 60,000 GMLRS, which is 10,000 more than the volume it disclosed back in March. This type of rocket is currently used by Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. The most recent addition is a straight-piped McLaren 765LT Spider dressed up in a stunning Red Alcantara and white color combination that is now waiting for a host of new modifications. The latter will be provided courtesy of his friends, the good folks over at Hollywood, California-based RDB LA, who are used to dabbling with ultra-luxury or exotic monsters.Alas, the latest YouTube vlog episode centered on two items. One would be a cool Jeep Wrangler that is getting a Rhino liner-style gray wrap to make it rugged yet cool at the same time. Alas, that one is not finished, so they moved quickly from the 5:05 mark to something that is not classic yet but has the makings of a vintage legend. It is a 2000 BMW 740 dressed in Imola Red that has reached Moes collection with a little help from RDBs Vik.The entire story, along with lots of behind-the-scenes details about this being one of Moes all-time bucket list cars, plus one of the greatest sedans ever made! (according to RDB LA ) is embedded below, of course. But before watching it, let us recap a little about what made this 7 Series great aside from Transporter and James Bond apparitions.Born in 1994, the third-generation BMW 7 Series (code name E38) had gasoline and turbo diesel straight-six, V8, and a flagship V12 engine option. It was the final 7 Series available with a manual transmission, the first car with curtain airbags, as well as the first European model with satellite navigation. The 740i and iL models used a 4.4-liter V8 engine good for 282 hp, but this particular Imola Red example is now a little cooler thanks to RDBs fitment of new wheels and tires you can even see the sticker on a rear tire! In 1964, Ford dramatically altered the future of the American automotive industry when it introduced the Mustang and gave birth to the widely-popular pony car segment. With European styling and a wide range of options that made it appealing to literally everyone, it quickly became a best-seller.While Chrysler, one of the Blue Ovals main rivals was quick to act and managed to announce its contender (the Plymouth Barracuda) a few weeks before the Mustang made its public debut, General Motors took its time and unleashed its duo of pony cars in 1966. Built around the brand-new rear-wheel drive F-body platform, the new Mustang challengers were dubbed Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro. Although neither managed to outsell the Mustang for the next decade, the Camaro became its greatest rival on the street, race track, and drag strip.In doing so, the first-generation Camaro also became one of the icons of the muscle car era and one of the most beloved American vehicles of all time, surpassing even the Corvette in the hearts of many Chevy enthusiasts.Manufactured only until 1969, close to 700,000 original Camaros took to the streets and because of its iconic status, most of them have survived to this day. Some have been obsessively looked after and their owners chose to retain their original state, spending tens of thousands on period-correct restorations while others preferred to modernize them.Throughout the years weve seen countless restomodded Camaros but very few are truly impressive. One such example is this 69 which has been drastically yet elegantly redesigned by the experts at Jeff Lilly Restorations.Based in San Antonio, Texas, the shop which traces its roots all the way to the original custom car scene of the 1950s is a place where enthusiasts most priceless possessions are transformed into true works of automotive art.In the case of this Camaro fittingly nicknamed Dead On, the owner wanted a unique restomod that would not only subtly blend modern tech with the gorgeous classic lines of the original model but somehow enhance the Camaro-ness of it all. Thats easier said than done, but as you can see, the finished product manages to do exactly that.To the untrained eye, it looks much like the original six-cylinder 69 that it once was. Yes, it has a modern powertrain, new wheels, a fresh coat of paint, and a restyled hood, but everything that made the Camaro one of the most beautiful members of the muscle car dynasty has been left untouched, right? Well, not quite.If youre a true enthusiast thats familiar with every line and curve of this legendary rides beautiful body , youll notice a bunch of discrete modifications, like the integrated bumpers or the daring absence of a trunk lid, but youll have a hard time pinpointing many other redesigned features and this car is chocked full of them.When viewed from the front, the exquisite one-off boasts a completely new grille that resembles the original one but was mounted further inside the nose, accentuating the aggressiveness of the original front end. Furthermore, the headlights that Chevy designers were forced to push out of the grille for roadworthiness reasons were replaced with completely bespoke variants and integrated into the receding lines of the new grille.The front also lacks the protruding line that ran from the top of the grille and across the hood on the original Camaro . Surprisingly easy to miss, this daring delete of a classic feature makes the area above the grille smoother and more free-flowing, preparing the eye for the fork-like, low-profile cowl on top of the hood. This is one of the most obvious and daring additions to the original design, but then again it somehow manages to fit in flawlessly.Moving on to the side, the absence of door handles or rearview mirrors is hard to miss, yet the enhancement of the Camaros distinctive lines such as those at the quarter-panels which have been slightly enlarged can go unnoticed even by seasoned experts. In addition, the vents that once stood in front of the rear wheels were taken down but instead of leaving the area clean, three ample grooves on each side have taken their place.A hallmark of the shops expertise, all the masterfully rebuilt body panels are gapped at a0.218 inches (5.55 mm), while the bumpers, grille, and all other trims feature mind-blowing, 0.0625-inch (1.58 mm) gaps.This brings us to the rear, arguably the most boldly modified section of the body. The trunk lid has no gaps because, underneath it, the cars gas tank, battery, engine management system, and fuse box are hidden. Without much room for luggage, the team decided to make a design statement and smooth out the rear end by deleting the lid and placing the gas cap in the center. Still, the aforementioned components are relatively easy to reach via a sliding rail system found behind one of the rear seats.Apart from this feature, the height of the rear window was reduced by four inches (101.6 mm), a modification that helped harmonize the look of the original rear deck.With all its sheet metal magic, the exterior manages to retain and enhance everything that made the original Camaro great. Things are much different inside the cabin, where we find a complete departure from the 1969 model. Completely and audaciously redesigned, the interior oozes first-gen Corvette vibes reinterpreted with a modern touch . The smooth dashboard and center console were adorned with retro-inspired gauge custom-built by Classic Instruments, while the driver and passengers were treated to comfortable bucket seats upholstered in fine gray leather.In terms of modern hardware, the Dead On Camaro sits on an extensively modified frame that received suspension components from Detroit Speed and huge slotted and drilled brakes from Baer.At the heart of it, all sits a custom LS-based V8 that can spit out around 720 horses. It sends all that raw power to the rear wheels through a Tremec five-speed manual, and its looks have been improved by one of the most gorgeous engine covers that you will ever see.Painted in an elegant dark shade of red, with brushed metal trims and sitting on wide spoked wheels, Jeff Lilly Restorations Camaro is in every way, shape, and form dead on, managing to redefine the notion of a restomodded classic . More of a concept car than a custom, it looks like the natural progression of Chevys initial design, and Im sure that even the most demanding Camaro purists can agree that calling it a work of art is by no means an exaggeration. As a result of this move, Nissans local branch will transfer its entire operations under its new legal entity, and this will include future passenger vehicle projects, as well as the Sales and Marketing Center in Moscow, and the Research and Development facilities in St. Petersburg, all of which will operate under a new name.Its not irreversible, because if the automaker feels like theres a good reason to return to the Russian market, then they will do so, as the terms of sale would allow them the option to buy back everything, and resume its operations, over the next six years. When it comes to the employees, Nissan claims to have found the best possible solution, as they will receive 12-month protection.On behalf of Nissan, I thank our Russian colleagues for their contribution to the business over many years, said the company's President and CEO Makoto Uchida. While we cannot continue operating in the market, we have found the best possible solution to support our people.Their Ambition 2030 plan shouldnt be affected by this move, even if they assumed zero activity in the Russian market this fiscal year, and they promise to stay focused on their original goals. Leaving the market comes as little surprise, as they extended the suspension of its local factory for three months in September. As for the financial hit as a result of this exit, Nissan estimates it at approximately 100 billion yen, equaling to nearly 690 million U.S. dollars, said to be a one-off impact. The man, whose name hasnt been revealed by the local media , ended up having his car stolen after having dinner at a restaurant in East Memphis.The thieves broke a window and drove away in his car, though what they didnt know was the vehicle was carrying a GPS tracker built by Apple.Because it uses the iPhone network, Apples AirTag is able to send its location to the owner pretty much wherever it goes. In other words, the car owner is able to keep track of the car and see precisely where it is.And as it turns out, the thieves are using the vehicle to drive around the city, in some cases even going to restaurants and shopping centers without worrying about being caught.Obviously, the owner has already reported the theft to the local police and provided the investigators with real-time information on the location of the car. But to everyones surprise, the police claim they cant find the car for a reason that nobody can figure out.In theory, an AirTag is able to precisely pinpoint its location on the map, so the officers should be able to go exactly where the car is located. As a result, the answer offered by the police is as vague as it is uncanny, especially given the car owner has provided the officers with all the information they need on the location of the vehicle.In one case, the owner says he followed the coordinates provided by the AirTag and went to the provided location. He managed to see the thieves and even his car but didnt want to confront them because of obvious reasons The police told the cited source that they are now working with the car owner for more location information, so hopefully, it wouldnt take long before the vehicle is recovered. SUV Back in the day, a Porsche Cayenne was the absolute level ofoutrageousness one could get from the automotive industry. And that was merely two decades ago! Meanwhile, times have changed quickly and now there are Bentley Bentayga, Rolls-Royce Cullinan, and Aston Martin DBX ultra-luxury SUVs, plus an exotic roster of super-SUVs like the Lambo Urus and Ferrari Purosangue , among others.Of course, premium automakers are dying to eat a piece of the stratospheric cake, hence the pricey Range Rover SVs, or the quirky BMW XM. But, for now, the Porsche Cayenne which has magically turned from an SUV outsider into the epitome of tradition still reigns supreme across certain aspects of the automotive industry.For example, it holds the record for its category when it comes to Nurburgring Nordschleifes fastest lap, thanks to a time of 7:38:925. Naturally, that makes it the flagship of the third-generation series, even though another member of the pack (the Turbo S E-Hybrid) is actually more powerful. Alas, a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with 631 hp should be more than enough to drive the point home . But how about standing in the right crowd?Well, that is easy to achieve, as well. Cue to Miami, Florida-based ANRKY Wheels, an aftermarket company with a simple motto: disrupting the established order. They went classy and perhaps a bit vintage, helped by their neighbors at Wheels Boutique , who prepared this Cayenne Turbo GT for assuming the mantle of the Ring king.Naturally, it also needed a little bit of gold to properly hold the title, right? That was taken care of with help from the Porsche decals, as well as a stunning set of ANRKYs RETROseries RS6.2 wheels finished in Satin Mirror Polished Gold, all dropped on 22-inch attire! Stylish, right? SUV But as the United States consumers are seeing these pocket-sized trucks as a matter of reacquired taste, down below in South America they never left the public roads and continued to thrive, even in the most awkward forms. Here, let us give you a conclusive example.French automaker Renault saw the opportunity to enter the market where Chevys Montana or the Fiat Strada ruled undefeated back in 2015 and used its subsidiary Dacia Dusters assets to cook up a four-door pickup truck of the compact unibody variety. Initially labeled as the Renault Duster Oroch, it quickly became incredibly popular.Naturally, Renault kept it fresh, and it recently went through the usual mid-life-cycle update where it dropped the Duster nameplate from its moniker and gained a new 1.3-liter turbo engine good for a feisty 170 hp. But, as always, some people are more impatient than the norm and they are already looking forward to the arrival of the second generation that will properly battle the all-new 2024 Chevy Montana.So, a good case in point albeit a digital one is made here courtesy of Kleber Silva, the Brazil-based virtual artist known as KDesign AG on social media, who has decided to have a CGI go at the biggest competitor. Well, there is a pun in there, as the pixel master switched his digital focus from the original Duster platform to Dacias brand-new Bigster SUV concept Thus, an all-new Renault Oroch compact unibody pickup truck in his view would not only have Dacias new styling philosophy but would also borrow the elongated Renault CMF-B modular platform to better serve its practical and adventure duties. Cool, or not? Over the next few years, GE will have to make eight such prototype engines for trials, and itll have to subject them to 1,500 hours of full-scale ground testing and 5,000 hours of testing for full engine qualification. To date, the single prototype in existence was barely used for 100 hours, but that's reason for celebration.Testing of the first T901 engine was very successful with the engine accumulating more than 100 hours of run time, said in a statement Tom Champion, GEs T901 Program Director.We were impressed with the performance and condition of the engines compressor, combustor, and turbine sections as well as the 3D-printed (additive) manufactured parts and ceramic matrix composite (CMC) components.The second engine of eight was just announced this week. The powerplant will enter trials next year at the companys Lynn, Massachusetts facility, and will later move to Evendale, Ohio, for altitude testing.When finally ready, production version of the unit will be used in the UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache, but also the winner of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program, which sees the Bell 360 Invictus fighting for the win against the Sikorsky Raider X For the existing helicopters, the conversion to the new powerplant should be simple, given how the T901 has the same aircraft mounting and installation envelope as the T700 currently in use.Unlike the existing one, though, it should provide 3,000 shaft horsepower, which is 50 percent more than the existing one. It should also provide 25 percent more fuel efficiency and by extension, fewer emissions. kWh The Hybrid 140 will be showcased next week at the Mondial de lAuto 2022, a.k.a. Paris Motor Show if you like to kick it old school. An expanding range of ECO-SMART solutions now includes, for the first time, a 140-ps hybrid engine, reads the attached press release. The technology, already mastered within the Renault Group, is yet another opportunity for Dacia to leverage tried and tested components, and proven technology.140 metric ponies convert to 138 mechanical horsepower, which isnt bad for the curb weight of the Jogger. The Clio hybrid, on the other hand, develops 145 metric ponies or 143 mechanical horsepower on full song.The 1.6-liter engine, which is a free-breathing inline design with four cylinders on deck, is complemented by a pair of electric motors, a 1.2-battery pack, and a multi-mode gearbox. Whats a multi-mode gearbox?Think of it as a clutchless dog-type setup rather than synchrod transmission. The smaller of the two electric motors controls the flywheel speed and smooths out engagement. It also starts the internal combustion engine. Speaking of which, the 1.6-liter mill does not feature variable timing. Thats not the only vital thing missing from this picture, thoughTo the point, theres no accessory drive belt because the water pump, air conditioning compressor, and brake servo vacuum pump are electric. Its pretty clever, theres no mistaking that, and chances are that it will also be reliable in the long run given the lower complexity of the powerplant.Together with the Jogger Hybrid 140, the Romanian automaker will further present its new brand identity , the Manifesto concept, the Mat Edition Duster, and eco-conscious merchandise at the Paris Motor Show 2022. Its been sitting in a 40-foot (12 meters) container in Weymouth for ten years now. But the famous watercraft that has set the world sailing speed record and has been unsurpassed to this day, the aptly-named Sailrocket 2, will luckily make it out of its hiding place. The one who sailed it to victory back then, Paul Larssen, is getting it re-rigged and ready to hit the waves.The reason for this exciting comeback is the 50th anniversary of the Weymouth Speed Week. This spectacular event was the one that started officially timing the speed of the fastest sailing boats back in the 70s. This year, it will take place between October 15 and 21 at Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Centre. And Sailrocket 2, literally a piece of sailing history, is most likely the greatest attraction this year.A decade ago, on November 24, 2012, Larsen blew everyone away sailing at an average speed of 65.45 knots (75 mph/121 kph) over the 500-meter (1,640 feet) course in Walvis Bay, Namibia. This became the new world speed record that has not been challenged ever since. An asymmetric wing-sailed speed vessel, Sailrocket 2 was built in East Cowes, UK, but launched in Namibia because it required particular conditions.This is obviously no ordinary watercraft, which is why its not expected to be able to show all that it can do at Weymouth. It wont have the right conditions for that. However, even if it wont be able to reach the same greatness, its a rare opportunity to watch this beast in action. More specifically, the Japanese carmaker says the data leak was related to the T-Connect service, with a contractor that worked on the development of the platform accidentally uploading customers email addresses online.The data was exposed between December 2017 and September this year, and Toyota says it discovered that 296,019 email addresses were included in the upload.As a result, the company says, customers might be targeted with spam and phishing scams, so make sure you double-check each message that lands in your inbox to be sure its legit.Worth knowing, however, is that no sensitive information has been exposed. In other words, names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit card details are all safe and havent been included in the accidental upload. The email addresses are the only ones that ended up going online, so the security risks arent as high as initially believed.Furthermore, the company says it has thoroughly checked the logs of its servers to see if any third-party access took place while the data was publicly available. It found no evidence of any unauthorized access, but even so, Toyota says customers should keep their eyes on the inbox to block any potential unsolicited email they receive.The data leak isnt necessarily alarming, especially because only the email addresses have been exposed. But on the other hand, having your customers being targeted with phishing scams could eventually be a problem, as cybercriminals are turning to more advanced approaches to make sure they trick victims into believing theyre reading legit emails.If you do receive such an email and cant tell for sure if its a scam or not, the best way to double-check is to search online for more information and to avoid sharing more of your sensitive details on shady links included in the messages. FlyWithLucy, or simply Lucy, is the cute name of an ambitious project, claiming to become the first all-electric airline operator in the world once it will be officially launched. Developed by a startup in the Netherlands, this young project has already gained support from an important player in the industry. 7 photos Several alternatives to conventional propulsion systems are being explored in the shipping industry, one of the sectors that are infamously difficult to clean up. Most of them are hybrid solutions based on alternative fuels and electric propulsion. But one that claims to become the cleanest of them all just hit an important milestone. 7 photos The Armenian government declined to say whether Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian or other members of his administrations will meet with the visiting delegation led by Arayik Harutiunian, the Karabakh president. The governments press office said only that it will issue an official statement in case of such a meeting. Harutiunians press secretary did not return phone calls for the second consecutive day. Members of his delegation, including Karabakh parliament speaker Artur Tovmasian, also could not be reached for comment. The visit was announced amid demonstrations staged in Stepanakert by several hundred local residents. Their organizers demanded that Harutiunian shed light on Karabakhs uncertain future. One of those activists, Tigran Petrosian, said Tovmasian told him by phone that the Karabakh delegation is now waiting for Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonian to wrap up an official visit to Russia and meet with it in Yerevan. They were supposed to meet with Pashinian, Petrosian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service from Stepanakert. I think this must be the case because Alen Simonian is not in a position to talk or answer questions about the negotiating process. Pashinian has repeatedly said that he regularly briefs the authorities in Stepanakert on Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations. Hayk Konjorian, another senior lawmaker from Pashinians Civil Contract party, insisted on Monday that the Karabakh president is fully informed about details of those talks. During a fresh meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev mediated by the European Union last week, Pashinian reaffirmed his readiness to sign a peace treaty that would commit Armenia to recognizing Azerbaijans territorial integrity. A joint statement released after the summit in Prague said nothing about Karabakh. Pashinian said ahead of the summit that it will be up to Baku and the Karabakh Armenians to negotiate on the territorys status. Karabakhs leadership expressed serious concern over his stance. The Armenian opposition criticized Pashinian in even stronger terms, saying that he is planning to help Baku restore full control over Karabakh. Davit Galstian, a Karabakh opposition figure, described the Karabakh delegations trip to Yerevan as meaningless. The current Armenian authorities have washed their hands [of Karabakh] and are leaving the Armenians of Artsakh (Karabakh) on their own against the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance, Galstian said grimly. The authorities are so naive that they think they will save Armenia by surrendering Artsakh. The president of the Los Angeles City Council has resigned from the post after she was heard making racist comments and other coarse remarks in a leaked recording of a conversation with other Latino leaders FILE - Travelers walk through Terminal 1 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, on Dec. 30, 2021. The websites for some major U.S. airports went down early Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, in an apparent coordinated denial of service incident, although officials said flights were not affected. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. You can reach Ishani Desai at 661-395-7417. You can also follow her at @_ishanidesai on Twitter. Members of Bangladeshs Armed Police Battalion patrol at the entrance of Panbazar Rohingya Camp in Ukhia, Coxs Bazar, Oct. 10, 2022. Two Rohingya have been detained and Bangladesh authorities are searching for others after pictures and videos circulated on social media of an event apparently marking the sixth anniversary of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in several refugee camps. A Rohingya leader said the Oct. 9 event, called Happy Day was the first time the armed organization openly declared its presence in the Coxs Bazar-area camps, which are home to about 1 million refugees. Two Rohingya refugees have been detained and Bangladesh authorities are searching for others, Faruk Ahmed, assistant superintendent of the Armed Police Battalion, told BenarNews. The two, identified as Mohammad Joynal, 32, and Bakkar Uddin, 19, were detained in the Ukhia Balukhali camp-10 in Coxs Bazar on Sunday and Monday, according to Faruk. Joynal was directly involved in hanging posters and spreading propaganda in favor of miscreants at the refugee camps, Faruk said. We already got some names from Joynal and we hope more names of those involved in this conspiracy will be revealed during interrogations. Police said necessary legal action has been taken against the two, who were handed over to officers at the Ukhia police station. They declined to say if charges had been filed against them of if they had appeared in court. The insurgent group, which is active in Myanmars Rakhine state, was established in 2013 under the name Harakah al-Yaqin but was renamed ARSA on Oct. 9, 2016. ARSA circulated videos and photographs of the sixth anniversary events on Facebook, Twitter and messaging apps including Whatsapp. A video from Sunday showed dozens of people celebrating Happy Day while wearing t-shirts, carrying signs and hanging banners at camps in Coxs Bazar. Participants yelled out, Oct. 9 is what day? Happy Day, Happy Day. In another, men clad in matching T-shirts stand at a table with a cake on it while an unseen person proclaims that Oct. 9 is the day ARSA attacked Burma's authoritarian rulers and freed the Rohingya people from oppression. International Crisis Group, an NGO headquartered in Belgium, identified ARSAs leader as Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi, who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in Saudi Arabia. His current location is unknown. In a video posted to Facebook, Ataullah is seen saying: Oct. 9 is a day of help for the Rohingya community. It is a very important day. A camp leader in Ukhia who asked not to be identified over safety concerns said this was a first for ARSA members in Coxs Bazar. Earlier they held meetings secretly, but this time they held meetings publicly and made it public on their social media sites, the Rohingya leader told BenarNews on Monday. Faruk said police have increased surveillance since the incident. Repatriation Within the camps, Rohingya leaders who want members of the community to be repatriated to Myanmar complained that the celebration could delay such efforts. Bangladesh and Myanmar officials agreed to a repatriation plan in November 2017, but none of the refugees have been returned to their home country in nearly five years. Myanmars February 2021 coup and intense fighting since then between the Burmese military and anti-junta forces have made repatriation an even more distant possibility. Myanmar authorities conducted a bloody crackdown on the Rohingya minority beginning on Aug. 25, 2017, after ARSA insurgents attacked a handful of Burmese police posts. The crackdown, since labeled a genocide, caused about 740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Now, in Bangladesh, ARSA is terrorizing the Rohingya population it purports to protect, some say. ARSA forces common Rohingya refugees to join their programs. They are issuing threats to kill ordinary refugees if they refuse to join the program, the Ukhia camp leader said. He told BenarNews that ARSA frequently threatened him and other pro-repatriation Rohingya leaders, including in a video message issued on Aug. 29. Security analyst Abdur Rashid, executive director of the Institute of Conflict, Law and Development Studies in Dhaka, said ARSA staged the celebration to demonstrate its presence. To keep visible its presence, ARSA is now holding programs inside the refugee camps, he told BenarNews. Asif Munir, an immigration and refugee affairs analyst, called on the government to take action against Happy Day participants. Though Bangladesh has long denied the presence of ARSA in Rohingya camps, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have information that some of the people in the refugee camps have connections with ARSA, he told BenarNews. Nobel laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and a former staff member said Tuesday they would appeal their cyber libel conviction to the Philippine Supreme Court after an appellate court rejected their second appeal and upheld a previous ruling which extended their prison sentences. In July, the appellate court had rejected the first appeals of Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. and added eight months to the maximum six-year sentence imposed against them. In the ruling dated Oct. 10 and released Tuesday, the three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals said the motion for reconsideration filed by Ressa and Santos was unmeritorious and a mere reiterations of previously addressed points. A careful and meticulous review of the motion for reconsideration reveals that the matters raised by the accused-appellants had already been exhaustively resolved and discussed in the assailed decision, said the 16-page ruling drafted by Associate Justice Roberto Quiroz. But defense lawyer Theodore Te said the decision ignored basic principles of constitutional and criminal law as well as the evidence presented. Maria and Rey will elevate these issues to the SC and we will ask the SC to review the decision and to reverse the decision, Te said in a statement, referring to the Supreme Court. On June 15, 2020, a Manila lower court sentenced Ressa, a critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte, and Santos after finding them guilty of maligning the reputation of Filipino-Chinese businessman Wilfredo Keng. The case stemmed from a May 2012 report published before the cybercrime law was enacted that exposed a former chief justices alleged links to businessmen, including Keng. Under Philippine law, cyber libel is a bailable criminal offense, allowing Ressa and Santos to remain free pending the Supreme Court ruling. Press freedom in peril In its latest ruling, the appeals court said the convictions of Ressa and Santos are not a press freedom issue. Citing an earlier Supreme Court decision, they said the law is meant to safeguard free speech. In conclusion, it [is] worthy and relevant to point out that the conviction of the accused-appellants for the crime of cyber libel punishable under the Cybercrime Law is not geared toward the curtailment of the freedom of speech, or to produce an unseemingly chilling effect on the users of cyberspace that would possibly hinder free speech, the ruling said. We echo the wisdom of the Supreme Court in the Disini case that the purpose of the law is to safeguard the right of free speech, and to curb, if not totally prevent, the reckless and unlawful use of the computer systems as a means of committing the traditional criminal offenses. it said. The 2014 Disini case is considered a landmark in the Philippines as the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Law passed two years earlier. The defendants said they expected the decision. The ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and Rappler continues and the Philippines legal system is not doing enough to stop it. I am disappointed by todays ruling but sadly not surprised, Ressa said in a statement Tuesday. This is a reminder of the importance of independent journalism holding power to account. Despite these sustained attacks from all sides, we continue to focus on what we do best journalism. Santos, in a separate statement Tuesday, expressed hope that the rule of law will triumph in the end. The decision to deny our motion is not surprising, but its disheartening nevertheless, Santos said. As we elevate our case to the SC, our fight against intimidation and suppression of freedom continues. We still believe that the rule of law will prevail. On Tuesday, Philippine human rights group Karapatan said the decision is another stark proof that press freedom is in peril in the Philippines, citing the use of libel and cyber libel laws to intimidate journalists along with rampant red-tagging labeling as communists of perceived government critics. It is imperative that freedom of expression advocates push back against these successive attacks killings of journalists, the blocking of websites and non-distribution of scholarly work by those who invoke the terror law, and use of libel/cyber libel laws against journalists, Karapatan said. Street dwellers watch at masked members of the communist New People's Army march during a protest in Manila, Nov. 14, 2015. A high-profile leader of the communist New Peoples Army (NPA) was killed in a clash with army troops in the central Philippine island of Negros earlier this week, the military announced Tuesday. The dead insurgent, Romeo Nanta, served as commanding officer of the Regional Operational Command of the Komiteng Rehiyon-Negros and as spokesman of the Apolinario Gatmaitan Command of the NPA, according to military officials. The armys 94th Infantry Battalion said in a report that Nanta, more popularly known as Juanito Magbanua, was killed Monday when troops clashed with 10 rebels he led in Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental province. The encounter was the fifth between soldiers and Nantas group since Oct. 6. His death will surely bring a domino effect on the leadership, terroristic operations and plans of the communist terrorists in Negros, said Maj. Gen. Benedict Arevalo, the local infantry division commander, in a statement. Demoralization within the ranks of the NPA under Nantas command is also expected. They are now on the brink of downfall following the surrender and death of their members and leaders in Negros. Arevalo called on other NPA guerrillas to abandon their posts and surrender or continue to engage against troops and die. The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which has been waging one of Asias longest-running insurgencies that began in 1969. Brig. Gen. Inocencio Pasaporte, commander of the 303rd Brigade, said Nanta was responsible for many atrocities on the island, including the killings of soldiers, police and civilians. Pasaporte said Nanta was arrested in 2011 on murder, robbery and damage to property charges, but was released on bail and returned to the NPA where he committed more crimes. Pasaporte said the death of Nanta, the most wanted NPA terrorist on Negros Island, was a big blow to the NPA. His death would clearly serve as a reminder that no one can escape the long arm of the law, said Pasaporte. The Philippines has failed to crush the communist insurgency for a half century and peace talks have faltered time and again. The government of President Rodrigo Duterte ended peace talks in 2017 after accusing CPP rebels of carrying out deadly attacks despite the negotiations. In February, Manila officially designated 16 left-leaning groups as underground organizations of CPP and accused them of funneling money to insurgents." 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. Gordon Dossett is a former college professor who now lives in Northshire with his daughter and son. Contact him at gordondossett@gmail.com with comments on this column or ideas for a future profile on people, places or events that represent our region. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Community News Editor / Librarian Jeannie Maschino is community news editor and librarian for The Berkshire Eagle. She has worked for the newspaper in various capacities since 1982 and joined the newsroom in 1989. ADAMS The Prudential Committee that governs the Adams Fire District has signed off on a settlement to a lawsuit challenging the organizations billing practices. A judge still has to approve the settlement. If a judge approves the settlement plan, each property owner in the Adams Fire District, which covers all but 100 or so properties in town, will receive a share of a $600,000 settlement, minus attorney and court fees. The mediated settlement agreement, which was the result of a lawsuit filed by Adams property owner Catherine Foster, is now in the hands of Berkshire Superior Court Judge Michael K. Callan. Foster challenged the Fire District, claiming the fees it billed Adams property owners for fire protection and street lighting exceeded its authority. In September 2021, Judge Callan agreed. Fosters argument hinged on a law from 1873 that gives the Fire District the right to bill customers for water, but not for other services. Fosters lawsuit sought refunds for several years of fire protection and street lighting fees. Since the lawsuit was elevated to class action status, all customers in the Adams Fire District can anticipate receiving refunds. In Fosters case, the Fire District billed her $131.80 a quarter for a four-unit residential building. Of that amount, fire protection was $80, street lighting was $31.80, and the administrative fee was $20. Instead, fees for fire protection and street lighting should be collected by the Town of Adams, not the Fire District, the judge determined. The Fire District is still authorized to send out water bills. The Town of Adams will collect the fees for fire protection and street lighting and convey those revenues to the Adams Fire District. The town will charge the Fire District for the costs associated with accounting, billing and fee collections. Until the lawsuit verdict, the Adams Fire District charged $21 per residential unit quarterly for fire protection, and an additional quarterly fee of $7.95 per unit within the fire district for street lighting and a quarterly customer charge of $20 per property, not per unit, for administrative costs. WILLIAMSTOWN Someone defaced a memorial to Union soldiers who served in the Civil War by painting on a Confederate flag and the word rebel, sparking a strong reaction from the Williams College president. The Confederate flag and the word Rebel are commonly used as symbols by white supremacists and other extremist factions, Maud Mandel wrote in a letter to the college community. The appearance of those marks is more evidence that we live in a world where people hold racist and otherwise hateful ideas. When someone defaces our campus our own home with symbols of those ideologies, it becomes especially personal. Mandel said a Williamstown resident called campus security Sunday morning to report the vandalism of the Soldiers Monument, outside of Griffin Hall. During the past few years, statues and memorials dedicated to the Confederate army and its soldiers have been the subject of protest, vandalism and removal because many felt they memorialized a racist movement to defend slavery. College staff had removed the markings by Monday morning, Mandel wrote. I will join you all in defending the right of every member of this community to live and work here free of bias or intimidation, Mandel said. She advised students interested in helping the anti-racism effort to visit the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusions (OIDEI) Racial Justice web page, which includes information about anti-racist and related efforts by the college community, locally and nationally. Anyone wishing to participate should contact the OIDEI staff at diversity@williams.edu. Our colleagues in OIDEI, the Deans Office, Integrative Wellbeing Services, the Chaplains Office and other areas will help anyone who wants personal or group support, Mandel said. Campus Safety Services is conducting an investigation into the vandalism with the support of the Williamstown Police Department, according to college spokesman Jim Reische. The Campus Safety Services team will try to identify the person or people responsible for the graffiti, Mandel wrote in her letter. Mandel asked the college community to aid the investigation. If you have any information that might be relevant, please contact CSS at 413-597-4444. If you noticed the graffiti at any time over the weekend before CSS officers came onto the scene please share that information with them, too, since it might help us pinpoint the time of the offense. Reische said the monuments pedestal was scrubbed mostly clean Sunday. The cost of the cleanup was not significant. As members of the Williams community, we have to make this a place where everyone is equally able to pursue their education, do their work and live their lives with an equal sense of belonging, Mandel wrote. MERIDIAN, ID - Meridian Police are currently attempting to locate 77-year-old Robert Trotter, who has been reported as missing. According to police, Robert was last seen leaving Central Valley Baptist Church around 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 9, 2022. Robert is described to be around 58 with grey hair and a beard. He was last seen driving a silver 2018 Jeep Renegade (similar to photo) with Idaho License Plate 001K1G. According to police, cell phone information has shown that he was in the area of Horseshoe Bend/ Banks around 4:00 p.m. on October 9. Anyone with information is asked to call Ada County Dispatch at 208-377-6790 or 911. BOISE Idaho Attorney General candidate Tom Arkoosh, who is running as a Democrat, on Tuesday announced a list of more than 50 prominent, longtime Idaho Republicans who are supporting his campaign, including such notable names as former GOP Gov. Phil Batt, current GOP Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, and former longtime GOP state Sen. Laird Noh. Arkoosh faces former four-term GOP Congressman Raul Labrador in the race to be Idahos next attorney general; Labrador defeated longtime GOP Attorney General Lawrence Wasden in the May primary. Tom Arkoosh is the first candidate on the Democratic ticket I have supported in my 66 years of work with the Republican Party, Lodge said. I have always looked at the qualifications of the candidate. In this instance, I found Tom, an independent who has been recruited by a large group of Idaho voters, as the person who has the legal expertise, experience and administrative skills to operate the largest law firm in the state. His work with legislators and agencies on a variety of issues in a non-partisan manner and his ability to bring groups together in mediation will prove to benefit the state of Idaho and all her citizens. Here is the full list of Republicans for Tom Arkoosh released by the campaign: Senator Patti Anne Lodge, Huston Former Senator Denton Darrington, Declo Alice Hennessey, prominent Ada County Republican, Boise Shawn and Jennifer Ellis, ranchers, Blackfoot D. Marc Haws, retired county, state and federal prosecutor, New Plymouth William Boyd, mining lawyer, Coeur dAlene Former Senator Chuck Coiner, Twin Falls Jerry Evans, former state superintendent of public instruction, Boise Former Representative Rich Wills, Glenns Ferry Randy Budge, Pocatello water lawyer Former Representative Max Black, Boise Eric Peterson, former chairman, Nez Perce County Republicans, Lewiston Representative Fred Wood and Amy Wood, Burley Tom Basabe, long-time Grand View Republican Lydia Justice Edwards, former Idaho State Treasurer Former Senator Bill Ringert, Boise Jerry Rigby, Rexburg water lawyer Former Representative Beverly Montgomery, Meridian Gary Raney, former Ada County sheriff Former Representative Dean Haagenson and Cindy Haagenson, Coeur dAlene Former Representative Pam Ahrens, Boise Steve Ahrens, former president, Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry, Boise Dale Storer, Idaho Falls municipal law exert Jim and Camille Cox, long-time Twin Falls Republicans Former Representative Jerry Deckard, Boise Mike Otter, retired Meridian Republican Former Senator Joe Stegner, Lewiston Former Representative Bob Fry of Horseshoe Bend Billie Siddoway, former Teton County prosecuting attorney Former Senator Laird Noh and Kathleen Noh, Twin Falls Robert Farnam, Idaho Falls attorney Former Representative George Eskridge, Dover Geoff Thomas, long-time superintendent, Madison School District, Rexburg Bud Yost, long-time Nampa attorney, Nampa Former Representative Leon Smith and Jan Mittleider, Twin Falls Representative Scott Syme, Caldwell Ben Ysursa, former Idaho Secretary of State, Boise Former Representative John A. Bert Stevenson, Rupert Chuck Kroll, former Washington County prosecuting attorney David High, former division chief, Idaho Attorney General Office, Boise Robert E. Williams III, Jerome attorney Jay Heward, former sheriff of Cassia County Jim Hawkins, former Idaho director of commerce, Boise Senator Fred Martin, Boise Former Governor Phil Batt, former Idaho Republican Party chairman, Wilder Lori Otter, Realtor and former first lady of Idaho Labrador issued this statement in response: More than 140,500 Republicans endorsed me earlier this year with their vote for attorney general. Since that time, thousands of other Republicans, independents, and disaffected Democrats have expressed their support on social media, with digital contact, or in person as I campaign across Idaho. My opponent became a candidate through a backroom deal, and he is continuing to campaign only for the insiders. My campaign is not about backroom insiders, I am running to represent the people of Idaho by protecting their freedom, our states sovereignty, and our shared Idaho values. Arkoosh just entered the race for attorney general in July, when placeholder Democratic nominee Steve Scanlin withdrew. A former longtime independent who had briefly been a registered Republican, he registered as a Democrat shortly before entering the race. Labrador campaign adviser Brent Littlefield, who had previously dismissed Arkooshs prominent endorsements as a pile of old politicians, said Tuesday, It seems that pile has increased. Arkoosh held a press conference in the Capitol rotunda on Tuesday afternoon to announce the endorsements, at which speaker after speaker praised Arkooshs legal experience and qualifications for the job, and decried Labradors stated intention to take a more aggressive, political approach to the office. This is important, Lodge said. Look at the qualifications. Dont look at the R or the D. She said Idaho needs an attorney general who can work with all legislators, from all the different factions, and work with state agencies, local governments and more; she praised Arkooshs ability to bring people together in mediation. David High, a former longtime deputy Idaho attorney general, called Arkoosh an extraordinarily fine lawyer. He called the list of Republicans backing the Democratic nominee a veritable whos who of Republican leaders in Idaho. The list includes former statewide elected officials; prominent attorneys; and business and law enforcement leaders, from former longtime Senate Judiciary Chairman Denton Darrington, R-Declo; to former GOP Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney. Ben Ysursa, the former longtime GOP Idaho Secretary of State who is among Arkooshs campaign co-chairs, said, What were looking for in that office is a good lawyer, not a good politician. Former Idaho First Lady Lori Otter said, I would urge any Republican who has any question about this race to do your homework, and to look up Tom Arkoosh, and to give him your support and your vote in November. Arkoosh said, Im humbled that these longtime loyal Republicans would support a person running on the other partys ticket. Ive been an independent voter my entire life. ... I admired and voted for Lawrence Wasden because he placed the law over politics. Ill be an attorney general for Idahoans of every stripe, Democrats, Republicans, independents, nonaffiliated. The law requires no less, he said. Pointing to the list of names on a sign next to the podium at the press conference, Arkoosh said, This is the makings of a conversation, bringing us all together. ... When that conversation happens, we will move away from extremism, we will become Idahoans all together again. First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain. Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that. And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details. If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The world is grappling with single-use plastics and their potentially damaging effects, so it is imperative to address the risks that microplastics pose to our environment, and human health. The Indian government recently imposed a ban on single-use plastic products including plastic straws, which augurs well for the environment, the health of its citizens, and the future of Indias natural resources. This is a bold step in the continuation of the nations fight against single-use plastics, first announced in 2019. Since then, industries have had sufficient time to prepare and switch to sustainable packaging practices. However, much more remains to be done in this regard, as many businesses have not yet completely adapted to this proposed shift towards eco-friendly alternatives. Although talk of eliminating plastics are a step in the right direction, the scourge of microplastics is well upon us. Microplastics can be found almost everywhere around us; they are tiny plastic particles sized under five millimetres in diameter. Microplastics are perceived as environmental contaminants affecting our natural surroundings, marine ecology, global food chain, and quite possibly human health although more research is required to understand exactly what impact microplastics have on our bodies. Microplastics are believed to be more contaminating than regular plastics and a majority of these come from the breaking down of daily use plastic items. We are looking at a plastics-based pollution crisis that is likely to worsen, with plastics pollution expected to grow by 60% by 2030, and triple by 2050, according to a recent report by UN. Far reaching effects Our dependence on plastic is an inescapable reality of modern living. Recently, research revealed that the sources of microplastics found in the worlds oceans include synthetic textiles (35%), car tires (28%), city dust (24%), road markings (7%), marine coatings (3.7%), personal care products (2%), and plastic pellets (0.3%). Another concern is that microplastics have been identified in the lungs and blood of living humans, suggesting that our bodies are already being contaminated by these particles. However, much more research is needed to fully understand what impacts microplastics have on our health. Making their way into rivers and oceans, where they are ingested by fish and corals, microplastics have not even spared marine life. According to a report by Nature Portfolio, microplastics have been recorded in more than 100 aquatic species, including 12 of the 25 most highly valued species for global marine fisheries. According to a report, commissioned by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, titled: Impacts of plastic pollution in the ocean on marine species, biodiversity and ecosystems, the amount of microplastic particles in our oceans and seas could witness a 50-fold increase by the end of this century. The report suggests that microplastic concentrations above ecologically dangerous threshold levels have now been estimated in several global aquatic regions. This means that the possibilities of serious ecological risks are more likely due to their presence, something that has already been observed in key marine hotspots such as the Mediterranean region, the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, and even the Arctic Sea ice. Finding solutions Given their ubiquity, the problem of microplastics is not confined to a singular country this is a global issue that requires immediate attention and action from governments and scientific researchers through to local communities and individual households. The reality is that demand for plastics is only growing, even though the ban on single-use plastics is a step in the right direction. Communities need to actively address the bigger challenge by holding industries accountable for their operational practices and urging them to contribute towards building a zero-waste circular economy. Despite recent efforts in parts of Europe and the United States on standardising testing methods for microplastic detection and analysis in the environment, the lack of collective global policies to address this problem has been delaying the kind of action that is needed. While the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for, further assessment of microplastics in the environment and their potential impacts on human health, we need more decisive measures urgently. Another concurrent approach is to step up the ongoing research and testing in the area. To date, molecular spectroscopy solutions such as laser direct infrared chemical imaging (LDIR) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy technology are favourable amongst research scientists for the initial analysis of microplastics due to the resulting high-quality imaging and spectral data. Good governance and policy shifts are the starting point the environmental impact of microplastics must percolate down to businesses and more importantly, to individual consumers if we are to make any useful progress. Responsibly disposing of plastic waste and tackling microplastic pollution is everybodys duty to protect our planet from this emerging environmental contaminant. Kannan Balakrishnan, Technical & Solutions Business Manager, Agilent Technologies, India Ogilvy South Africa finished in a winning position at this year's Loerie Awards, with 25 awards, given for work across multiple brands including Volkswagen, AB InBev, Coronation, KFC, Mondelez and Spotify. Ogilvys work was also recognised across multiple disciplines: digital crafts, use of technology, media innovation, social media, graphic design, mixed media campaigns, radio crafts, film crafts, and integrated campaigns. The agency scooped a total of 7 golds, 4 silvers, 10 bronze and 4 craft certificates. This was the 44th Loerie Awards and is the largest and most prestigious Advertising Festival in the region. Ogilvys biggest winner was Volkswagen with its integrated Game On campaign, winning 4 of the 7 golds won. A metaverse inspired campaign, combining Volkswagens first ever non-fungible token (NFT) collection, with a gamified fan experience. An integrated campaign using multiple media in parallel to entice a hard-to-reach audience, to engage for record levels of time with the brand, alongside record levels of vehicle sales. I am so proud of our teams and the level of work we were able to produce this year, says Pete Case, CEO and creative chairman of Ogilvy South Africa. Especially when we see the spread of work across so many of our great clients. We strive to create work that engages with people in unusual, relevant, surprising, and impactful ways. This Loeries, our work underlined that ambition. Thank you to the judges and a huge thank you to our clients for their partnership on all the work weve made with them this year. Bridget Harpur, head of Marketing at Volkswagen Group SA comments: We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the recognition from the Loeries committee and judges. It is always our ambition to create work that is impactful and resonates with South Africans and this is testament to the long-standing relationship we have with Ogilvy, who continually push us to be brave. Case concludes: Its wonderful to see the industry reconnected again physically in one place this year, after so many Covid restrictions, and being able to celebrate the power of creativity together. Extra congratulations also to our partners at Ogilvy Africa, who brought home the Grand Prix and 3 golds for their outstanding work Lesso Lessons. This achievement underlines the strength of our pan-African network and our combined ability to produce powerful work that resonates with consumers across the continent. Following an armed robbery that took place at Willowton Group's off-site warehouses in Kempton Park, Johannesburg last Wednesday, 5 October, the company has announced that further stolen goods have been recovered and another arrest made. Last week, robbers held up the staff at the facility and proceeded to load three trucks, which are understood to be stolen trucks, with substantial quantities of 2L Sunfoil Sunflower Cooking Oil. After opening a case with the South African Police Service, a notice was shared by Willowton Group on social media platforms offering a reward of R100,000 for any information that would lead to the successful apprehension of the perpetrators and/or recovery of the stolen goods. Three truckloads of cooking oil were recovered in Vanderbijlpark last week, and a number of suspects were arrested. Yesterday, 10 October, Willowton Group confirmed that another pallet of Sunfoil Sunflower Cooking Oil was recovered in a foreign-owned superette located in the Vaal Triangle region, which was identified by the stolen good batch codes. One additional arrest has been made. However, the perpetrators involved in the robbery have not been apprehended and so the reward of R100,000 remains to be claimed by anyone with information that leads to the successful apprehension of the perpetrators as well as the recovery of the remaining stolen stock. Public urged to avoid purchasing stolen goods Members of the public and traders are requested not to purchase any of the stolen stock which is identified by batch codes, known to the police and security partners who are currently trying to locate all the missing stock. Anyone with information about the stolen goods is urged to report this to 082 888 7813. All information will be treated with the strictest confidence, Willowton Group said. Retail Reit Vukile Property Fund has launched the Vukile Retail Academy to unearth and develop the next generation of talented retail entrepreneurs. The one-year programme developed by the academy will incubate emerging retail SMMEs, giving them on-the-ground experience in a formal shopping centre environment rent-free. From left: Charmaine Monama from Mbewu, Amy Ntsane and Tsholofelo Mabonela from Lielo Beauty, Itumeleng Mothibeli from Vukile Property Fund, Thandelka Dlathu from The Scrummy Ice-Cream, Mpho Masia from Ikhaya Homeware and Given Koka from Malea Garments. Source: Supplied The Vukile Retail Academy aims to develop the next generation of retail tenants, mentoring and guiding selected small businesses to set them up for success in SA's competitive retail environment. The initiative also expands the tenant base for Vukile shopping centres with new retail experiences, and looks to benefit the broader retail and retail property industries by fostering new talent. This year, the academy has selected nine small retail businesses from more than 100 applicants for an opportunity to open their own retail stores in Vukile shopping malls. The first five candidates opened at Randburg Square in Johannesburg this month. Candidates receive rent-free store space in a Vukile mall, assistance with store fit-out, financial support, interactive learning through a holistic mentorship programme from pre-eminent retail experts and access to the Vukile team to ensure their success. During the year they commit to the programme, the small retailers will provide Vukile with quarterly updates on their business progress. As these up-and-coming businesses go through the Vukile Retail Academy programme, the property company will be looking for exceptional candidates to partner with to ensure their future growth. De-risking entry into formal retail According to Vukile, the initiatives positive social and economic impacts extend beyond enabling new retail businesses and empowering entrepreneurs shoppers will have more choice, malls will have more variety, and more jobs will be added to the retail value chain from design and construction to sales and distribution. The nine retailers selected for the programmes 2022 launch are in different early business stages some started selling online, others from markets and pop-ups. Together with Vukile, they will take a giant leap forward into the formal retail space a highly competitive arena that has previously been inaccessible to most people starting on their entrepreneurial journey. Laurence Rapp, CEO of Vukile Property Fund, says, We are excited to further the economic development of South Africa and empower the next generation of retailers through innovative partnerships and a shared passion for retail. We are thrilled to welcome the Vukile Retail Academys first candidates. By de-risking their entry into formal retail spaces, Vukile offers a unique marketplace concept that enables small businesses to formalise, diversify and thrive within a shopping centre ecosystem and compete in the greater economy. From fashion to beauty, homeware and food The first nine Vukile Retail Academy candidates include Fakizinto Concepts and Malea Garments in the fashion, clothing and shoes category. Food retailers include Delisabhem Restaurant, The Scrummy Ice-Cream, Tsos Cafe and the confectionery of Zanwabo Cakes. Lielo Beauty, Ikhaya Homeware & Decor and Mbewu Fruit and Veg complete the lineup. The entrepreneurs will be accommodated in modern retail spaces in either Daveyton Mall in Ekurhuleni, Dobsonville Mall in Soweto, Hillfox Value Centre and Randburg Square in Johannesburg. All the Vukile Retail Academys store spaces will span 1,035sqm and feature identifiable similarities, but they will also be tailored to the products sold, the mall they are in and the shoppers they serve. The first five Vukile Retail Academy retailers opened at Randburg Square in October 2022. They are: Mbewu Fruit and Veg - Charmaine Monama Kearabilwe Charmaine Monama started her fruit and vegetable business in 2018. Her business was born out of necessity. As her family was growing, she realised she was running out of affordable tricks to keep healthy meals on the table, and she knew she was not alone in this struggle. She is passionate about showcasing South Africas indigenous foods and works with small-scale farmers and agri-businesses who, like her, believe in producing food sustainably. The Scrummy Ice-Cream - Thandeka Dlathu Thandeka Dlathus love for all things delicious led her to finding her passion in ice cream. She started her business so that she can make people happy while doing what she loves. In opening her store, The Scrummy Ice Cream, her hopes are that her unique creations will keep ice cream lovers returning again and again for a scoop of her finest flavours. Lielo Beauty - Tsholofelo Mabonela and Amy Ntsane Amy Ntsane and Tsholofelo Mabonela are friends and business partners. They started their business in 2021 after finding a gap in the market to cater to women who are looking for beauty and make-up products that work with their African skin tones. Apart from creating a brand that can compete on a global scale, the entrepreneurs are motivated by their desire to serve women with their skill, by making each consumer who uses their products look and feel beautiful. Ikhaya Homeware - Mpho Maisa Mpho Maisa started her business in January 2021, driven by her love for home decor and designer furniture. Maisas motivation comes from seeing the joy on her clients faces once she has delivered a finished piece of furniture to her clients specifications. She one day hopes to furnish some of the most lavish homes in South Africa with her brand of products. Malea Garments - Given Koka Given Koka discovered his passion for fashion design while he was in high school. He was motivated to follow his dream of creating designs and making people look good and from there, decided to start his brand, Malea Garments, in 2018. Kokas design style is streetwear meets youth culture. He wants to share his passion with young people by making his designs trendy and accessible. Itumeleng Mothibeli, MD SA at Vukile, says, This is a real opportunity that is breaking down barriers and disrupting the retail landscape by bringing emerging retailers serving niche market segments into the mainstream. Our selection process was rigorous and we believe the nine successful candidates have a very bright future indeed. Mothibeli adds, Wed love to launch South Africas next big retailer on its path to success, and judging by the excellent calibre of our first intake of retail candidates, I dont doubt that this is a real possibility. We are thrilled to be part of these brilliant young South Africans journeys as they write their own stories of retail success. Today saw the launch of Dettol's Mzansi Protect - an immediately actionable initiative by Dettol that aims to reduce the burden of diarrhoea in South Africa by 50% by 2027. While we may have internalised the message to wash hands during Covid-19, there is a compelling case for continued education on good hand hygiene as a simple and effective action to prevent illness and diseases. With the Stats SA General Household Survey 2020 showing that 42% of South Africans don't wash their hands with soap and water, the need to drive handwashing education becomes even more imperative. To realise this vision to reduce the burden of diarrhoea, Dettol also announced today two incredible partnerships one with The Nelson Mandela Foundation and the other with The Springboks (SA Rugby) who are the current world champions. The relationship with the Nelson Mandela Foundation will help drive hygiene and hand-washing education, as well as provide needed hygiene infrastructure to early childhood development centres across the country ensuring no child is left behind. According to Jurie Roux, chief executive officer of SA Rugby: "It's more important than ever to ensure fundamental hygiene measures are in place, and this partnership with Dettol will give us added reassurance that we remain vigilant in this area." In carrying the message forward, there is perhaps no one more important than mothers. Since 2017 Dettol's new mums programme has reached 2.5 million mums, each benefitting four people within their home, imparting the importance of hand hygiene - a solid reinforcement for the Dettol Mzansi protect initiative. "The Gauteng Health Department has a history of promoting handwashing and hygiene education, including through the creation of Early Childhood Development Centres. This partnership with private stakeholders is an important step in continuing this work." - Mr Sikhonjiwe Masilela pic.twitter.com/uc4KNtmJSi Dettol SA (@DettolSA) October 11, 2022 In addition to the new mums programme, Dettol Mzansi Protect aims to educate one million learners in school and early childhood development centres across the country with the launch of the new Dettol hygiene quest school programme - with the educational message of #eachoneteachone, ensuring that the hygiene habit is instilled at a young age. Taking great pride in such campaigns, Reckitt marketing director, Umar Khan says: "We touch the head and the heart with our education and awareness campaigns, which for me is vital." The campaign media partner the SABC - has also put its weight behind the fight by communicating critical messages across its channels. Gugu Ntuli, the SABC's group executive for corporate affairs, says: "As an institution that cares about the community it serves, the SABC is pleased to partner with a reputable brand like Dettol SA on such an important campaign - an initiative that addresses the challenges of our most vulnerable communities in our country." As Dettol South Africa marketing manager, Bayode Akanbi explains: "Dettol Mzansi Protect programme is a bold initiative aimed at making a difference among the people and communities we serve; especially in vulnerable communities, where the much-needed support through education and assistance will make a big difference in people's health." 336,000 South African fund managers, analysts, investors, and financial professionals visited Daily Investor during the month. This is complemented by 15,500 of these readers having created a personal account on the site, and 18,800 professionals signing up for the Daily Investor newsletter. Launched on 1 August by Broad Media, Daily Investor has quickly cemented its position as South Africas premier investment news and analysis platform. It provides the countrys investment community with the latest news, investing insights, and financial data. Insightful perspectives on JSE-listed companies, coverage of international stocks, insights into macroeconomic events, and regular stock pick features augment Daily Investors stellar offering. Powerful audience Daily Investor reaches the high-end of the South African investment and finance community. Looking deeper into its audience, this includes: Financial and investment professionals 20,000 Analysts 20,000 Fund managers 10,000 This is also reflected by the high annual household income levels of Daily Investors readers: Over R2 million 57,000 R1 million to R2 million 64,000 It is also interesting to note that the large majority of readers are active online traders. 238,000 Daily Investor readers trade shares using an online platform. To find out more about Daily Investor, contact Broad Media CCO Kevin Lancaster. The key to accelerating digital transformation in Africa is subsea cable connectivity. Google recently launched its $1bn Equiano cable, a connection between Western Europe and South Africa. This announcement also coincides with Meta-backed 2Africa, the world's longest subsea cable which is expected to come online in 2024. The Equiano 144Tbps, 12 fibre pair cable will ensure faster internet speeds and reduced internet prices when it is switched on before the end of the year. It will be Africa's highest capacity cable and stretches more than 15,000kms from Portugal to South Africa. Subsea cable connectivity will help governments throughout Africa achieve their digital transformation goals and objectives. In South Africa, it will contribute considerably to government's NDP2030 and SA Connect strategies. Infrastructure development and digital and socio-economic transformation were the key topics at the 2022 GovTech conference, the annual meeting platform for representatives from government and industry to connect in serving citizens to better use information and communications technologies. Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, the minister of communications and digital technologies, promised that government was committed to delivering on broadband objectives as key enablers for the delivery of an economic step change for South Africa. The government is implementing broadband connectivity drive through SA Connect and its goal is to ensure that all South Africans have access to the internet. According to Google, the Equiano subsea cable will lead to the creation of 1.6 million jobs and it expects data prices to drop by at least 20%. Through SA Connect, the government plans to connect over 400 sites in the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape and then provide internet access for everyone across the country in phase two. This programme aims to connect over 33,000 community Wi-Fi hotspots over three years. Ntshavheni recently said a revised model for SA Connect would include a partnership with ISPs, access network service providers, and mobile virtual network operators in the SME space. She referred to this collaboration as part of the government's commitment to the transformation of the telecoms industry. Digital transformation involves the ongoing application of the latest technology to improve a governments performance and help meet the expectations of its citizens. There is no doubt it is important, digital transformation offers many solutions to e-government services as it addresses most of the challenges in e-government. It is clear that the government has put policies in place to support digital transformation and with advances in infrastructure and digital technologies, it might successfully address its challenges to realise its global digital strategy successfully. The South African government is certainly lagging behind with digital transformation in realising its goal for e-fovernment. It needs to work in close cooperation with stakeholders to achieve e-government through digital transformation. Citizens will be seeing more and more of this digital transformation over the next few years. South Africa's leap into digital education, which gained impetus during the national lockdown, is facing headwinds, with institutions often not having the necessary hybrid learning methodology, infrastructure or educator professional development in place. This has led to several colleges reverting to full-time in-person classes, which represents a setback - but the situation can and must be reversed. Image source: Kampus Production from Pexels While it is no surprise that the highly social nature of South Africans means that they prefer face-to-face interactions, advances in technology means that education is now more widely accessible, and can help in more effective time management, as well as more efficient use of skilled teaching resources. The ideal solution to balancing our culture with the need to educate our youth is hybrid learning, in which some learners attend the classroom in person, while other learners will interact with the lesson virtually. Unlike online learning, which is fully remote and where all responsibility lies with the student - requiring high levels of discipline - hybrid learning provides more guidance for students as well as the opportunity for in-classroom learning. While online learning models are helping improve access to education for a wider range of learners, South Africas socio-economic environment means that not everyone has access to devices and connectivity - or space conducive to learning at their home - and they need to be provided with an alternative. Setting the blueprint How do we enable institutions to provide hybrid learning? Simply throwing more technology at the challenge without the right approach will only result in white elephants; it is easy to pick and choose individual products and solutions that seem appealing, but how do they fit into achieving their broader objectives? Rather, institutions need to first identify the best methodology to suit the unique environment that they operate in. Creating this blueprint requires taking a closer look at how teaching is delivered, how students learn and engage, how they are measured in order to secure a qualification and much more. Here, working with private sector partners that are not only technology specialists, but also education specialists becomes crucial. Having a strong education industry track record and application of global best practices - adapted to suit local needs - helps uncover potential pitfalls, understand what the digital journey forward looks like, and how all the components will work together. Having this blueprint in place makes it possible for institutions to use any product or solution, as long as it supports their methodology. Managing change Making wholesale changes successfully is unrealistic, and it is best to implement changes in a phased approach, providing the time needed for user training and adoption. Professional development and a change in mindset plays a significant role in the shift to hybrid learning; where traditionally educators are the experts and students are the learners, this is not necessarily the case when it comes to technology, where the students are digital natives. This can lead to hesitance in the adoption of technology, but training programmes can help educators become more familiar with the technology, enabling them to make optimal use of the tools and solutions at their disposal. As with the overall solutions themselves, the training cannot be generic but has to be tailored to equip them with the skills required for their individual circumstances. Beyond just upskilling existing employees, introducing a hybrid learning model might also require the introduction of new roles in order to facilitate seamless learning across both physical and virtual mediums. An example would be the introduction of a facilitator who handles questions and answers from online participants while the educator continues uninterrupted with knowledge sharing to the combined class. These challenges - and their solutions - can only be identified when the right methodology has been adopted. This requires working with a partner who not only understands the technology, but can consult on the methodology, and look beyond just implementation and toward professional development, managed services and comprehensive support. Ultimately, digital transformation in an educational institution is not as much project management as it is programme management, with the focus being on a long-term outcome - that of making learning more enjoyable, engaging and exciting for students while making teaching more rewarding, empowering and easier for educators. Despite South Africa's infrastructure challenges - including access to devices, cost of connectivity and reliable power supply - hybrid learning is moving beyond its stages of infancy in the country. And, this goes a long way toward striking a balance between traditional learning methods and preparing students for a future of work that is more digitalised, with increased focus on virtual communication and collaboration. When asked what we do as The Media Krate it's easy to say we're wall mural specialists, but what we really do is help brands tell a story. This unique wall, a one-of-a-kind, is a collaboration between Unilever's Sunlight Soap Bar, Slaying Goliath, and The Media Krate. The golden thread that runs through all three parties is their stories of success that are inspired by the township. The Sunlight Soap Bar is iconic to townships nationally, the magical green bar is used by everyone, for everything. South Africans have had the soap bar in their homes for 131 years making it one of the most popular and preferred hygiene products on the market. It's an iconic product that deserves an iconic artist to bring its message to life. Introducing, Slaying Goliath, the Illustrator that's put South Africa on the global design scale. He uses pop culture inspired artwork to depict local and global topics, and has worked on some of Africa's biggest brands, including the artwork for the Sunlight Soap Bar advert. Slaying Goliath understands the township culture and was the perfect fit to design this feature wall's innovative 3DVRA wall mural. The last piece of the puzzle was The Media Krate's 3DVRA engineering and airbrushing skills to bring the illustration to life. Using a 3D structure to lift the design off the wall gives the soap bar depth and space that could never be achieved on a flat surface. The airbrushing technique used on the 3D structure makes the artwork realistic, giving the viewer something different and unique to look at, talk about, and share on social media. All of this, including the site selection to host such an incredible artwork, the extremely popular Vilakazi Street in Soweto, is a collaboration that is more than just an artwork but a story that celebrates the success of our townships. Agri SA is gearing up to host its annual congress in Pretoria on 13 and 14 October 2022. Centred on the theme Growing Local, discussions will focus on the growing challenges facing the sector and chart a course to ensure a sustainable future for farming in South Africa, and that South Africa continues to enjoy security of food supply through growing local. Source: weerapat kiatdumrong via 123RF President Cyril Ramaphosa will deliver the keynote address on the first day of the congress, setting the stage for the engagements between industry leaders, government representatives and critical stakeholders that will follow over the two days of the congress. Over the past three years, the agricultural sector has shown enormous resilience and continues to be a vital contributor to both economic growth and employment. During this period the sector added 250 000 more jobs, contributed more than 2,4% to GDP and brought in R43bn in export revenue. These remarkable achievements have made the sector indispensable in the countrys effort to combat poverty and unemployment, especially in rural parts of the country. But despite these successes, the gathering takes place amid a difficult period for the industry. South Africas farmers have endured extreme volatility over the past three years beginning with the supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic, followed by Russias invasion of Ukraine. Local factors including unrest in July 2021, torrential floods in April 2022 and deteriorating critical infrastructure have only added to the troubles facing the embattled sector. This confluence of factors has led to a steep increase in input costs for farmers with serious implications for consumers who already face a difficult economic climate. In recent months the sector has faced additional challenges including threats to market access, critical failures in pestilence and disease management, rising water tariffs, inaction on the Rural Safety Strategy even as violent crime in rural communities persists, escalating loadshedding, and the advancement of legislative proposals that undermine investor confidence, most notably the Expropriation Bill. Solutions to pressing problems Over two days, the industry will address the role of the Agriculture and Agro-Processing Masterplan as a policy vehicle for growing local, the failure of critical infrastructure, the need to strengthen the value chain, the centrality of employment creation and skills transfers, and the need to build strong farming communities. Speakers will include Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Thoko Didiza, Transnet CEO Portia Derby, Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer, Gift of the Givers Founder Imtiaz Sooliman as well as the leaders of Agri SA provincial affiliates and leaders of the commodity and business chambers. The leading professional beauty brand, Sorbet Salon, recently celebrated a new era by announcing their new Hairbar name for the Drybar stores. The announcement took place in the heart of Sandton at a trendy Italian style restaurant Saint, at the Marc. Biosense hair colour expert, Natasha Newman and Sorbet marketing executive, Candice Thurston The event was hosted by the marketing executive for Sorbet Group, Candice Thurston who took to the stand to welcome the guests which included a host of influencers and media. Biosense Hair colour expert Natasha Newman took to the floor to discuss their partnership with Hairbar and all the exciting new services on offer. Biosenses use of natural ingredients to ensure efficacy and shiny, healthy hair and the fact that its range has been specifically developed for South African weather and hair types is what sets it apart, says Newman about the professional haircare company, which has established itself as a household name in the professional haircare industry for over 20 years. The Sorbet Drybar started with washing, blowouts, styling and nails. Now with the new name change, Hairbar is a one way-stop for everything, hair and nails! "Ten years ago, the brand saw a need for the busy woman to pop in for a wash and blow or style which was a huge success, it made life so much easier for our clients. You could pop in to one of the salons and in no time, you were out and ready for your presentation, interview, or event. We gained clients trust and confidence with their hair, and soon clients asked us for more services, so we did. We added treatments, and that was not enough, so we added colour, cuts, and services for all hair types. Then we even added brow and lash services. says Thurston. About Sorbet Hairbar In our world we do colour. Loads of colour. And we do it with professional hair products and hair stylists. Sorbet Hairbar has been developed for you and your lifestyle. We offer affordable blowouts, hair treatments, Olaplex, KSTs, and cuts in a relaxed, funky environment, complete with an in-salon nail menu to give you that feeling. Were in-and-out. Its speed and convenience, where you can step in and strut out looking fabulous and get back to your busy life. Get That Feeling with Sorbet Hairbar. Dont forget to follow us on @sorbethairbar for the latest Sorbet Hairbar trends and updated spoils. About Biosense Biosense is a professional South African haircare brand that has been around for more than 20 years and has established itself as a household name in professional haircare. Professional. Affordable. Homegrown. Biosense endeavours to give the professional hairstylist the tools to help create and perfect the perfect hairstyle every time, using natural ingredients to ensure efficacy and shiny, healthy hair. Biosense Professional is a full range of retail and back bar, as well as technical colour for the professional haircare Industry. Biosense Professional uses natural ingredients to ensure efficacy and shiny, healthy hair. A range of styling aids can also be found under the Biosense brand, as well as their very own Super Powerful Spoil and Biotin Hair Supplement. Brayfoil Technologies, a South African clean-energy startup, has won the Energy Investment Village pitch competition held during the Green Energy Africa (GEA) Summit. Left: Shailin Moodley, co-founder | Right: Mathew Bray, co-founder | image supplied Brayfoil is a company designing turbine blades that change shape to reduce loads, enabling larger devices. The companys technology has applications in the wind energy, aerospace, sailing and automotive sectors. Following the win, the Brayfoil team hosted several meetings with potential investors on the sidelines of the GEA Summit. The Energy Investment Village event saw 10 clean-energy startups pitch their business ideas to an audience of potential investors, delegates and judges from supporting partners at the summit. The Energy Investment Village is a joint venture between Saldanha Bay Innovation Campus, the Research Institution for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS), and the GEA Summit. The initiative aims to directly support South African business in accessing international finance for project development. International investors holding collective assets of $100bn were invited to attend the pitch session. Several conversations between startups and investors were initiated and will continue after the event. Brayfoil Technologies won a R20,000 cash prize from FNB, a years business membership with the Africa Scotland Business Network (ASBN) and a half-day ASBN branding and marketing workshop. A further two awards will be awarded by Sasol and the JSE after both companies have reviewed the finalists. The prizes are a placement into the 2024 JSE Enterprise Accelerator Programme and enrolment in the Sasol Enterprise Supplier Development Programme worth R100,000. A panel of eight judges adjudicated the startup pitches looking at aspects such as innovativeness and business merit, among other criteria. The panel of judges included Wesgro senior portfolio manager, technology Eimear Costigan; Sasol senior vice president, business services Grace Nndwammbi; Sasol senior vice president, commercial energy solutions Phinda Vilakazi; IDC business development executive David Sekgororwana; JSE head of CX and strategic initiative incubation Cleola Kunene; JSE head of origination and deals Samuel Mokorosi; TIA head of innovation skills development and enterprise Senisha Moonsamy; and Club of Engineers president Gijsbert Bakker. The other investment village finalists were: Keren Energy, the first green-hydrogen producer in South Africa Atlanthia, producers of green hydrogen and green ammonia Hydrofuels, producers of a plasma waste gasification solution Oceanergy, developers of a Kite Fuel Ship technology SeaH4, producers of carbon-neutral biofuels from algae SlideLuvre, developers of a smart, two-in-one, sun-tracking solution for solar energy efficiency Impact-Free Water, developers of a pump that uses wave energy to pressurise and pump seawater for desalination and electrical power Zimi Charge,developers of electric fleet charging via a single app Meta Technologies, producers of an air-quality monitor The Energy Investment Village is a first for the Green Energy Africa Summit, said Paul Sinclair, VP for Energy, Africa Oil Week and GEA Summit. This exciting live-pitching addition to the programme exceeded our expectations in giving innovative, clean-energy startups exposure to potential investors and facilitating conversations that will continue well beyond the Summit. We fully anticipate hosting the event again next year." The Energy Investment Village is a partnership with the Saldanha Bay Innovation Campus (SBIC), an initiative of the Freeport Saldanha development zone, and advisory firm the Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS). The Energy Investment Village showcases real projects and new-energy tech in SA, said Belinda Williams, head of Southern Africa at Hyve Group. The interest and attendance at the event highlighted the enthusiasm for much-needed business and social development on the African continent. We look forward to enhancing this initiative next year. Subscribe to daily business and company news across 19 industries SUBSCRIBE Feature: China Now Music Festival kicks off new season in New York City with "Tales from Beijing" 10:05, October 11, 2022 By Yang Shilong ( Xinhua Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." The annual event, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and China's Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. "We seek to reveal the differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from West -- only to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both the East and West," said the festival's artistic director Jindong Cai, who is also the USCMI director. Music exchanges play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and China at the current time when bilateral relations are difficult, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard College, told Xinhua at a reception after the concert on Sunday. In the fall of 2018, the Bard College started to offer an undergraduate performance degree program in selected Chinese instruments including erhu, guzheng and pipa. Studio instruction in these traditional Chinese instruments is provided by world-renowned CCOM master musicians, with the use of state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person lessons both on the Bard campus and in Beijing. "It's important to keep it going and music exchanges can bring us closer," said Botstein, an established conductor and music historian, adding that he looks forward to a performance tour in China in June next year. Sunday's concert, "Tales from Beijing," at the Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918 and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing's ancient alleyways -- morning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums -- before finally transporting the audience back to the tranquility of the ancient city. Following were four selections from the opera Rickshaw Boy, specifically chosen and adapted by Chinese composer Guo Wenjing for the concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu. The concert's second half was devoted to Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's Symphony No. 2, The Great Wall. This large-scale work featuring piano, voice, Chinese instruments and symphony orchestra is inspired by the Great Wall, a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China. The second concert program, "Painted Skin," will take place on Oct. 13 at the Hudson Hall, the historical opera house in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center. It features the U.S. premiere of "Painted Skin," a chamber opera based on a ghost story by the early 18th century author Pu Songling, which was originally published in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The last concert program, "Journey to the East," will take place on Oct. 22 in the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Jindong Cai (C), director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, conducts at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Hongyu) There would be hell to pay. Congress would demand the bombing of Moscow begin posthaste. The corporate propaganda media would have a field day. Brainless Russophobia would spread faster than covid. Russians would be gunned down on the streets of America. And yet here is a former USG official, a man undoubtedly guilty of numerous war crimes, calling for the president of Russia to be assassinated. He threatened the people of Russia with retaliation for the supposed nuclear threats of their leadership. Putin said nukes may be used if Russia faces an existential threat. The media lies and says he will use tactical nukes in Ukraine if Russia begins to lose. There is no way Russia can lose in Ukraine, no matter what the turncoat Matt Drudges website says. BOLTON CALLS FOR PUTIN ASSASSINATION pic.twitter.com/hSuzX6sMGD The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) October 8, 2022 Not a ripple. Hardly anyone (in the corporate propaganda media that is) complained about how outrageous John Boltons remarks were. In the video, Bolton has all the composure of Jeffrey Dahmer during his trial for murder. Its rare these warmongers are called out. First and foremost, John Boltonduring the Bush administration, when he pretended to be ambassador to the United Nations (because few in Congress saw him as ambassadorial material, thus did not vote to confirm)was a primary driving force behind the illegal and war crime-ridden invasion of Iraq (1.5 million people killed). People like Bolton, who dont want any constraints on his power from the international rule of law, are just trying out for the role of people like Nazi generals Gunther von Kluge and Gerd von Rundstedt, who led the assault on Poland, writes Juan Cole. "J'espere qu'il prendra au moins 176 ans de prison pour ce qu'il a fait" Voila comment John #Bolton (qui, pas + tard que cet ete, se vantait d'avoir aide a planifier des coups d'Etat) s'adresse aujourd'hui a la femme de Julian #Assange, en amont de son extradition vers les USA. pic.twitter.com/Rmeb8zO5tk Fabien Rives (@Fabien_Rives) October 5, 2022 Bolton is a staunch defender of racist Likudnik ethnic cleansers in Israel, thus a supporter of apartheid and the assassination of journalists, both serious crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The 1973 United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid has not been applied to Israel, clearly an apartheid state. Article 4 A (4) of the Third Geneva Convention and Article 79 of Additional Protocol I mention the protection of journalists. International law [the Fourth Geneva Convention] prohibits without exception, the extra-judicial killing and considers it as a grave violated of international humanitarian law, and human rights protocols, writes Wasem Mawlana (Assassination & International Human Law). Neocons like Bolton dont believe in laws preventing them from attacking foreign countries and calling for the assassination of elected foreign leaders. Boltons casual reference to murdering Vladimir Putin and warning the Russian people of the fate that awaits them (likely along the lines of what Bush did in Iraq and Obama and Trump did in Syria and Libya) is not featured in the headlines of the corporate war propaganda media. Instead, the reports focus on Bidens idiotic reference to Armageddon, thus widening the political divide between Democrats and Republicans (while the state continues to push for WWIII). It is truly disgusting the corporate media turns to experts and former officials of Boltons reprehensible caliber for discussion on what is evolving into WWII and nuclear annihilation. Meanwhile, those exposing war crimes of the state are locked away and slowly tortured to death, as seems to be the case with Julian Assange. From what I have read, a truck filled with explosives blew up, killing three people in a car nearby, and then the flames took over a train also crossing the bridge. That train was full of fuel. It is only thanks to the amazing speed at which the bridge crews reacted that the damage was limited to only 9 wagons and, therefore, to a much shorter segment of the rail tracks. Looking at the video, one would imagine that the bridge is in ruins. In fact, traffic was reestablished on both rail tracks and the road in less than 24 hours (with the exception of heavy trucks). In other words, this is yet another case of it is humiliating, but not dangerous ( ). But that is an increasingly mistaken notion: this time is also VERY dangerous. It is self-evident that the Kiev regime would never have had the means, technical and political, to execute such an attack without being told to do so by its masters in the West. Such an attack, right on the heels of the attacks on of NS1/NS2 shows beyond any doubt that West has now set a course on total terrorist warfare . . This makes sense, since for all the so-called victories of the NATO forces in the Ukraine, the reality is that they reconquered a few villages and towns while Russia liberated and then incorporated entire regions. And Russia did that while always being at a numerical disadvantage And while inflicting 10:1 KIA ratios. In other words the Wests redirection towards terrorism is an admission of military, economic and political defeat. While this is hardly a surprise, the West *always* uses terrorism against sovereign governments, this is still a very negative development for Russia. Simply put, there are always more targets than cops/guards. Furthermore, terrorists can always chose the time and location of their attacks. So far, the Ukronazi efforts in Russia yielded very little tangible benefits: the murder of Dugina made her into a martyr, the attack on NS1/NS2 really only hurt Germany and the EU, while the explosion on Crimean Bridge has proven that this is a very hard target which will be extremely hard to destroy short of using a tactical nuke. Here we all need to remember terrorist attacks on the school in Beslan, the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow, the Budennovsk hospital, the Domodedovo International Airport or the Saint Petersburg subway. All of them were the result of actions by so-called terrorist groups all of which were (and still are) run by western special services. There are basically only two ways to defeat such state-sponsored terrorist attacks: Infiltrate the so-called terrorist groups and infiltrate the western parent agencies which run them. Convince the general public to go into a high vigilance mode. Basically, the entire Russian society needs to go on a mental war footing and remain calm and very vigilant at the same time: not only is Russia under attack by Banderite Nazis, but also by the folks who did 9/11, MH17 (and many other!) and these are the folks who unleashed an entire terrorist campaign against Iran which included bombing, assassinations, sabotage, etc. Then there is the problem of escalation. The attack on the Crimean Bridge was a clear act of war. Of course, since no US passports were found conveniently floating in the water, Russias response should not be an overt military retaliatory attack. However, I do expect that something will happen soon, most likely in the Ukraine, but probably involving western personnel/assets/facilities. In conclusion, I expect things to get even worse right up and until the elections in the USA. Not that I have much of a hope that sanity would prevail should the GOP win, but a tiny little is better than none at all. In the meantime, it is simply shocking for me to observe the collective orgasm felt by the leaders of the West each time some horror befalls Russia. Truth be told, the fact that they hate us does not surprise me. What surprises me much more is how unapologetically hate-filled and in your face these cries of joy are. And I wonder Do they see that hateful glee in their own eyes when they look in the mirror? When they see a photo of Daria Dugina, do they feel like the yeah! scored one against Putin!? When the kangaroo court in the Netherlands declares that it was Russia (or the LDNR) blew up MH17, will they feel that justice has been served and the guilty punished? I am afraid that asking what they see or do not see is the wrong question which, by the way, Putin answered in his recent speech when he said these European elites understand everything they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. Its not that they dont see, instead they dont care. At all. They never have. I will end with a question: is the above only true of the European ruling classes or is that true for most people who live in the EU? What will the well-intentioned and noble Europeans do when the next bloodbath happens in Russia (because sooner or later it will, such is the nature of the terrorist threat)? Will they rejoice and wave their Ukie flags a little stronger or will they just not give a damn? The answer is obvious, especially to Russians. Andrei Gambling entrepreneur Matthew Tripps new wagering group Betr is on the verge of securing its first key wagering licence as three private equity groups fight to finance the News Corp-backed bookmaker. Wagering sources close to the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Betr was the preferred bidder on the coveted West Australian gaming licence and the government had granted the new bookmaker two weeks to demonstrate it has the financing required to hold the $1 billion WA TAB. Betr founder and wagering entrepreneur Matthew Tripp. Credit:Jesse Marlow Three major private equity firms - Apollo Global Management, Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Blackstone - have offered to finance Betrs play for the licence, according to the sources. Apollo and Soul Pattinson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Blackstone declined to comment on the matter. Betrs expected victory over Irish wagering giant and Ladbrokes owner Entain and incumbent holder Tabcorp was first reported by The Australian on Monday, and two days before Betrs formal launch this week. Tabcorp and Entain were notified by the WA government they were not preferred bidders and told the successful candidate would be announced on October 24. Pierre Castel, the French billionaire behind the Nicolas chain of wine shops, was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in Swiss back taxes in a court ruling that found he deliberately hid his identity for decades as head of a global drinks empire. A Geneva appeals court found that Castel, 95, had filed tax returns under one first name between 1982 and 1994 rather than another, by which he is well known as the founder of worlds third-largest wine trader. It put taxes and fines owed at around 415 million Swiss francs ($663 million). Pierre Castel has been described as Frances wealthiest tax exile after he moved to Switzerland in 1981 following the election of Socialist President Francois Mitterrand. While the names of Castel, other family members as well as the companies involved were redacted from the ruling, a detailed description of the company and its founder point to his identity. The ruling includes Castels year of birth, nationality, family origins and career path provided by his defence that corresponds to those described by the company and by Castel whose name is Pierre Jesus Sebastian Castel in interviews. The ruling specified Castel had 30 days to appeal this decision at a Swiss federal court but its not clear if he did so. A representative for a holding company referred enquiries to Gregory Clerc, his lawyer. Clerc did not respond to repeated calls and emails to his office in Geneva. A spokeswoman for the Swiss federal tax administration, a plaintiff in the case, declined to comment. Europe is facing an energy crisis that might lead to power cuts over the course of a cold winter. Inflation is rampant, with central banks raising rates rapidly to bring prices back under control. And governments are already close to bankrupting themselves to try to pay for dwindling supplies. To the small collection of autocrats who run the oil cartel OPEC, it must have seemed like the perfect moment to strike. Over the past week, the group has decided to throw its weight behind Russian President Vladimir Putin, with production cuts designed to make the energy crisis even worse. OPEC was always going to have to pick a side in the battle between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the West. Credit:AP The cartel may think it can now flex its muscles and restore some of the global power it once enjoyed. But in reality it has made a fatal mistake. OPEC is now directly taking on the US - the worlds largest oil producer. It will accelerate the switch to alternative fuels in Europe. And in siding with a brutal Russian regime it is backing the losing side. It hasnt even managed to move the oil price very significantly. OPEC has been declining for years, but siding with Putin risks bringing about its final demise - in terms of influence at least. Originally budgeted at about $55 million, its a fair bet it came in somewhere north of that, what with the intervention of COVID and monsoons. It also blew out from a planned 10 episodes to 12. More than all of that, though, the first two episodes from writer Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle) and director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram) were deemed too dark, so a new team went back and started again. Charlie Hunnam plays Lin, a man on the run who finds the chance for redemption in the slums of Mumbai. Credit:Apple TV+ Adapted from Gregory David Roberts 936-page 2003 novel which was drawn from his life experiences and first appeared in the world badged as something more like autobiography this tale of sin and redemption is the first Australian commission from Apple TV+ and arrives with high expectations. After 12 hour-long episodes, Shantaram ends with a title card: to be continued Sprawling though this tale may be, it has only just begun. How much of this troubled history (and theres far more where that came from) influences what we see on screen is hard to say. The story of Lin (Charlie Hunnam), a man on the run who hides out in the slums of Mumbai (called by its old colonial name, Bombay, throughout) and mixes with lowlife expats and local criminals, is inherently messy. The pace at which it unfolds is perhaps unnecessarily lugubrious, but its in keeping with the vague stoner vibe. The production design is impressive: the slum (built as a set in Thailand when Delta made filming in India impossible) feels lived in, the Melbourne locations double convincingly for Mumbai, and the streets teem with crowded, messy life. Hunnams Lin finds the prospect of love in his relationship with the mysterious Karla (Antonia Desplat), left. Credit:Apple TV+ I suspect whether you embrace Shantaram or not will come down to how you feel about its rogues gallery of characters. Lin whose real name, we eventually learn, is Dale Conti was a philosophy student and part-time paramedic in Melbourne, who became a junkie, who became a bank robber, who became a prison escapee. At every step along this tawdry journey theres an explanation, oftentimes bordering on an excuse. Its in keeping with the overarching theme of fate, but advocates of the idea of personal responsibility may struggle. In Mumbai, Lin at least gets the chance to redeem himself, just as long as his past doesnt catch up with him. In his friendship with Prabhu (Shubham Saraf), a good-natured but far-from-naive tour guide, he finds moral and practical purpose in the slum, where he becomes a doctor of sorts. A garlanded portrait of child actor Rahul Koli, starring in 'Chhello Show', India's official entry to Oscars 2023. (Photo: PTI) AHMEDABAD: Rahul Koli was very much excited to see "Chhello Show", India's official entry to Oscars 2023, on screen, but days before its release the teenage actor who played the character of the friend of the protagonist in the Gujarati film died of leukemia. He was 17. "Chhello Show" (Last Film Show), directed by Pan Nalin, is slated for October 14 release. Rahul, who hails from Hapa town in Gujarat's Jamnagar district, died of leukemia on October 2, nearly four months after he was hospitalised at the cancer hospital in Ahmedabad, his father Ramu Koli said on Tuesday. Rahul has played the role of the friend of the nine-year-old protagonist Samay (Bhavin Rabari) in the Gujarati coming-of-age drama "Chhello Show". The film was nominated as India's official entry for the 95th Academy Awards. "Rahul was looking forward to watching the movie on the big screen. He used to say that the release of the movie would launch his future, little knowing that he would die before October 14," Koli, an autorickshaw driver, told PTI over the phone. Rahul was diagnosed with leukaemia- the cancer of the body's blood-forming tissues- this year. He was initially treated at a Jamnagar hospital. After remaining in the hospital for two weeks, he was admitted to the Ahmedabad cancer hospital four months ago. "He was undergoing treatment and breathed his last on October 2," Koli said. Rahul had only seen the trailer of the movie. He was very keen to watch it in the theatre, the grieving father recalled. Koli said the makers of the movie helped them a lot with Rahul's treatment. "When he (director Nalin) came to know about it, he extended all possible help to us. He was even planning to shift Rahul to Mumbai," said Koli. Rahul was selected for the role through an audition conducted in Jamnagar. "He was picked for an audition from a government school at Hapa where he lived with his family," said Lalit Joshi, a Jamnagar-based theatre artist. The movie is inspired by Nalin's own memories of falling in love with movies as a child in rural Gujarat and is set in a remote rural village of Saurashtra. The film portrays the story of a nine-year-old boy and his lifelong love affair with cinema when he bribes his way into a rundown movie palace and spends a summer watching movies from the projection booth. "Chhello Show", which features Bhavin Rabari, Bhavesh Shrimali, Richa Meena, Dipen Raval and Paresh Mehta, had its world premiere as the opening film at the Tribeca Film Festival in June last year. It won multiple awards during its festival run, including the Golden Spike at the 66th Valladolid Film Festival in Spain where it also enjoyed commercial success during its theatrical run. Through the companys 10-year journey, management has built up a sizeable corps of development staff and a rich-game portfolio, as well as taking the business into new arenas, such as game publishing and Web3/metaverse. Loading Stock 2: Cobram Estate Olives Limited (ASX: CBO) Cobram has had a wretched start to listed life, battling to trade above its initial trading day levels seen in August 2021. Investors are overlooking the intrinsic value of the business, including its olive groves, its brands and its US opportunity. Cobram accounts for over 70 per cent of Australias olive oil harvest and 50 per cent of supermarket sales in the category. Expanded mill capacity combined with increasing orchard maturity, higher net prices/litre and tight cost control will conspire to see a continuing solid performance from the business. Plans are well advanced on replicating the model in the US with an enormous market opportunity before them. Firetrail Investments Kyle Macintyre Stock 1: Resmed (ASX: RMD) ResMed is a market leader in treating breathing-related conditions such as sleep apnoea. We estimate that sleep apnoea affects more than 80 million people in the US and the number is growing due to lifestyle factors. Sleep apnoea is a key focus for health professionals given it can lead to other health-related problems if left untreated. However today, 80 per cent of people with sleep apnoea are left undiagnosed and untreated. We believe ResMed is set to benefit from increased awareness and diagnosis of sleep apnoea leading to increased sales of ResMed devices. In addition, ResMeds largest competitor is currently dealing with a product recall of its devices, providing a near-term opportunity for ResMed to grow its revenue and earnings by increasing its market share. Stock 2: QBE Insurance Group (ASX: QBE) QBE Insurance Group is a top 20 general insurance and reinsurance company globally. QBEs revenue is set to benefit from improving pricing (higher insurance premiums) across the insurance industry, following a few years of larger-than-expected claims. In addition, QBE earns revenue by investing its float (the money it holds to pay out future claims) in assets such as fixed-interest securities. In a rising rate environment, the assets QBE invests return a higher yield which provides an additional tailwind to QBE revenues and earnings. We believe the company is attractively valued with potential upside in earnings from better pricing and better returns on its investment portfolio. Qantas has faced significant criticism from customers in recent months. Credit:Bloomberg Paradice Investment Management Tom Richardson Stock 1: Qantas Airways (ASX: QAN) Travel spending is rebounding after a two-year hiatus and Qantas is ideally placed to benefit. Recent operational challenges will likely prove transitory, paving the way for increased returns from the domestic duopoly and its enhanced international network. The Loyalty business continues to spread its wings and is an increasingly large component of group earnings. Stock 2: Challenger Limited (ASX: CGF) Challenger has a 90 per cent market share of annuities in Australia. Annuities provide a regular income to investors not dissimilar to a term deposit, and while rates were near zero, it was an easy sell, but their product has recently become far more competitive with rates vastly superior to current term deposit offerings. We see an upside to returns as retail demand comes back to annuities. QVG Capital Tony Waters Stock pick 1: HUB24 (ASX: HUB) The financial services sector has been a growth sector in the Australian economy for decades now, underpinned by compulsory superannuation. This structural growth remains in place providing the potential for significant value creation for service providers in the industry. HUB24 is at the heart of this trend and will continue to be a major beneficiary. The business provides a software platform for financial planners and advisors to have an all-encompassing, real-time picture of their clients wealth. While the product itself sounds simple enough, over $500 million spent on acquisitions and development gives the platform award-winning features in both custody and non-custody services, self-managed super capability with client tax outcomes along with numerous API data feeds for a timely up-to-date picture. This makes the HUB platform a best-in-class product where market share gains are likely to continue. At QVG we pay careful attention to common characteristics in stocks that have delivered hall of fame type performance over many years. HUB has these features in spades. Strong organic growth with structural tailwinds, high and increasing returns on funds employed, a strong balance sheet and a competitively advantaged market position vs competitors. The stock is not cheap in a conventional sense, trading on 35x price-to-earnings and 18.5x EBITDA. But neither was CSL, REA or ALU among others at the early stages of their ASX-listed journey. HUB can compound free cashflows at 20 per cent plus for years to come and its extremely rare to find companies that can match this. HUB is very reasonably priced compared to the ones that can. Stock pick 2: Ridley Corporation (ASX: RIC) Ridley operates two business segments. It provides bulk stock feed to the rural sector in the key categories of dairy, chicken and pork and its other business segment recycles abattoir offtake for ingredients in pet foods and biofuel as well as producing ingredients for aquaculture. In a recent Ridley investor presentation slide, there was a capital allocation slide that stated a commitment to reinvest cashflows prioritising high return on funds employed whilst maintaining a strong balance sheet and distributing 50 per cent of profits back to shareholders. This would be done to maximise shareholder value with a target of delivering 15per cent returns per annum back to shareholders. Of course saying it is one thing, delivering it is another. In the financial year 2022 just gone RIC smashed these targets by delivering 70 per cent earnings per share growth, improved a post-tax return on funds employed from 6.8 per cent to 10.9 per cent, paid out 56 per cent of profits in dividends and the balance sheet debt is now almost fully paid off giving the board the confidence to announce a share buyback. Far more importantly, the outlook suggests continued growth both organically and with the identification of significant capital reinvestment opportunities that will deliver returns well exceeding what RIC has achieved to date. So RIC represents a proposition where they are exceeding shareholder value goals, have a 3-5 year outlook where this is likely to continue and a valuation where even though the market is starting to recognise the progress made, trades on 16x PE and 8.4x EBITDA. With ASX inclusion likely in the next 12 months there is a catalyst for a further positive re-rating in the stock. Tribeca Investment Partners Jun Bei Liu Stock pick 1: Treasury Wine Estates (ASX: TWE) We love Treasury Wine for its impressive growth profile, strong balance sheet and management that focuses on execution. It has a suite of premium label products that is beloved by its consumer and with geographical diversification, the brand has never been stronger. We project Treasury to grow over 20 per cent in the next 12 months and 15 per cent in the following year. Despite superior earnings growth when compared to other defensive businesses such as Woolworths, at the current price Treasury represents fantastic value at 20 times earnings, a large discount to peers domestically and globally. Treasury Wine Estates chief executive Tim Ford is hopeful of a restoration of the Australia-China relationship over time. Credit:Wayne Taylor Stock 2: Ramsay Health Care (ASX: RHC) This is probably the last COVID-impacted business that has yet to return to pre-COVID share price levels. We are attracted to Ramsay for its premium chain of well-run private hospitals, its structural defensive earnings growth and near-term sharp earnings recovery from pandemic impacted levels. Recent private equity bid for the business have distorted the share price and now with price back to closer to $62 represent significant value. Ramsay should be considered an infrastructure-like asset with a current valuation well below fair value. Our view is that the company will be taken private if the price remains at its current depressed levels. Wilson Asset Management Oscar Oberg Stock 1: AMP (ASX: AMP) The new management team has successfully divested its funds management business (AMP Capital) over the past 12 months and restructured the group. Conservatively has $1.1 billion of excess capital that will be returned to shareholders over the next 18 months through a combination of capital returns and a share buyback which compares to AMPs current market capitalisation of A$3.8 billion. A share price of $1.18 a share is at a 10 to 15 per cent discount to AMPs estimated net tangible asset backing of between $1.3 to $1.4 a share post receipt of asset sales. Execution of managements strategy can drive a re-rating of AMPs divisions closer to peers beyond net tangible assets and achieve a target share price closer to $2 a share Bali Bombing survivors travel to Indonesia for the 20th anniversary Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss In a typically bloated column published on Sunday, former Australian editor Chris Mitchell warned journalists about the dangers of uncritical reporting on a companys environmental, social and governance commitments. Rupert Murdochs News Corp is spruiking its green credentials. Credit:John Shakespeare We thought wed take Mitchells advice and apply that eye to News Corps ESG report, a document dripping with self-serving nonsense and a masterclass in corporate doublespeak that was distributed among staff on Tuesday. It begins with a message from Rupert Murdoch spruiking the companys achievements in working toward a cleaner and healthier world and advancing the cause of equal opportunity. Those achievements include Foxtels six-star green offices, the fact 400 employees have taken Carbonauts workshops where they learn how to be greener, and the Mission Zero campaign undertaken by News Corps Australian mastheads to make the tentative case for emissions reduction. Mission Zero was immediately rubbished by Andrew Bolt as global warming propaganda and, of course, the report makes no mention of the relentless attacks on climate science from the media empires many television and print polemicists. A man who was allegedly wielding two knives has been shot by police as they attempted to arrest him outside a hospital west of Sydney. Just before 11am on Tuesday, officers from Chifley police district attended Lithgow Hospital to arrest a 34-year-old man, NSW Police said in a statement. Police and forensic services at the Lithgow Hospital grounds after a man was shot. Credit:Sam Mooy Assistant Commissioner Brett Greentree, Western Region Commander, told reporters that, as officers tried to arrest the man as part of an ongoing investigation, he produced two knives and confronted police. As a result of that, one of those police officers has removed a firearm and discharged one round into the abdomen of that 34-year-old male. Drivers on Sydneys Anzac Bridge will soon be confronted with five giant gantries and speed signs spanning all eight lanes under Transport for NSW plans that have been savaged by architects as a blight on the iconic harbour crossing. The governments own documents concede the gantries will have a moderate adverse impact on the amenity and heritage value of the landmark, and detract from the original design qualities and aesthetic integrity of the structure. In total, the government is planning up to 15 gantries along the Western Distributor between the Anzac Bridge and the Harbour Bridge, saddled with speed and lane signs, automatic incident and vehicle detection and CCTV cameras. One of the proposed gantries pictured above is located just metres from the Australian Digger sculpture on the bridges western approach, which has disturbed the NSW RSL. The teenagers who killed 15-year-old Angus Beaumont had extensive criminal histories before the murder but were repeatedly released on bail. In two months, Beaumonts family will mark what would have been his 18th birthday had he not been stabbed in the heart about 8pm on March 13, 2020. Angus Beaumont, 15, was murdered in Redcliffe. Credit:Change.org Earlier that night, a friend of Beaumonts had sold cannabis to the two offenders in an Anzac Avenue park in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane. The offenders believed they had been given less cannabis than they paid for, so they followed Beaumont and his friend. An armed and aggressive man has been shot dead by two police officers outside the Greek Club in South Brisbane after they tried to subdue him with a taser. The man died at the scene in Edmondstone Street, near Brisbane State High School, and police shut off the street and declared a crime scene. Detective Superintendent Andrew Massingham said police had been called earlier to Fish Lane, where a man had been in a roof cavity, believed to be within a public bathroom. The man left Fish Lane as police arrived, but not before falling through the roof and allegedly trying to assault people in nearby businesses. Victorians are on alert for widespread flooding later this week and some residents have been urged to prepare for the possibility of being isolated for up to 72 hours as authorities brace for heavy rain in coming days. The deluge is expected to start on Wednesday but peak on Thursday and Friday. Premier Daniel Andrews at the State Control Centre in Melbourne on Tuesday. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui We know that our catchments are full. We know that weve had record rainfall to this point and the ground is absolutely sodden. So even a minor amount of rain would be a real risk in terms of flooding, Premier Daniel Andrews said. But its not a minor rain event that we are forecasting. There will be significant rainfall in certain parts of the state, and thatll pose a flooding risk to communities in lots of different places. When Jim Chalmers delivers his first budget in a couple of weeks, hell have news thats remarkably good, and news thats challengingly bad. The good news? Debts and deficits look set to be a fraction of what Treasury forecast just six months ago. Thats not because of tough decisions taken by any politician. Its because three things surged: inflation, jobs and prices for exports such as gas, coal and iron ore. Treasurer Jim Chalmers can do the right thing, or he can keep Labors election promises. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen That trio is a mixed bag for the economy. In particular, a jump in prices has stripped purchasing power from families so fast that their inflation-adjusted wages are dropping to lows last seen a decade ago. Yet although the economic news is mixed, the budgetary impact is beautiful. Inflation may strip purchasing power from the punters, but it hands it straight to the taxman. And good news on commodity prices and on jobs does the same. One Nation MP Mark Latham is planning to quit the upper house to run again at the top of the ticket in the March election, in a bid to boost the number of MPs the party has in the Legislative Council. Latham, who is half-way through his eight-year term, wants to recontest a new position in the upper house in order to renew his mandate. One Nation leader Mark Latham is considering quitting parliament to contest his seat again. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer A replacement One Nation candidate would be found to fill his casual vacancy. One Nation secured two upper house spots at the last election Latham and retired detective Rod Roberts. However, Latham is eager to increase the partys representation to at least four MPs. NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit on Tuesday recommended the name of Justice Dhananjaya Yashwant Chandrachud, the second most senior judge of the Supreme Court, to succeed him as the 50th CJI on November 9. The CJI recommended the name of Justice Chandrachud as his successor in a letter to Union law minister Kiran Rijiju. The law minister, in an October 7 communication to Justice Lalit, had asked him to name his successor. Justice Lalit, after a short tenure of 74 days, will demit office on November 8. November 7 will be his last working day as November 8 is a holiday on account of Guru Nanaks birthday. History will be created when Justice Chandrachud is sworn in as the 50th CJI by President Droupadi Murmu on November 9. It will be the first father-son CJI duo in the history of the Supreme Court; his father Justice Y.V. Chandrachud was the longest-serving CJI. Justice Chandrachud has authored a number of judgments, including the one holding privacy a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution. In the Aadhaar judgment, he differed with the majority view and had said, "Creating strong privacy protection laws and instilling safeguards may address or at the very least assuage some of the concerns associated with the Aadhaar scheme, which severely impairs informational self-determination, individual privacy, dignity and autonomy." Though the Ayodhya title suit judgment did not indicate its authors name as is the practice, going by the style of the judgment its authorship was attributed to him. Justice Chandrachud also authored the judgment that rejected the plea for a SIT probe into the death of Judge B.H. Loya, who was earlier holding trial in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh "staged" shootout case. The judgment held that Judge Loya died of natural causes. Justice Chandrachud, born on November 11, 1959, Justice Chandrachud was the judge of the Bombay High Court from March 29, 2000, until his appointment as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court on October 31, 2013. He was elevated to the Supreme Court on May 13, 2016. He had served as additional solicitor general of India from 1998 until his appointment as a judge in the Bombay High Court. He was designated as a senior advocate by the Bombay High Court in June 1998. An alumnus of Harvard Law School, Justice Chandrachud obtained an LLM degree and a Doctorate in Juridical Sciences (SJD) from Harvard Law School, USA. Russias Defence Ministry has appointed a general with a reputation for ruthlessness and long experience fighting in complex wars to command its forces in Ukraine, where repeated setbacks have provoked highly unusual public criticism of the military as incompetent. General Sergei Surovikin, 55, who was already the commanding officer of Southern Military District and whose troops have been facing a fierce Ukrainian counteroffensive, has been named to lead what Russia still calls its special military operation, the ministry said. General Sergei Surovikin. Credit:AP Although the general has specialised in infantry for much of his career, he also has commanded the Russian air force. He led the Russian forces that intervened in Syria starting in 2015, and American commanders sometimes consulted directly with him there to avoid clashes. In Ukraine, Russian forces have been especially plagued by an inability to coordinate the infantry, artillery and air force as Ukraine has gone on the offensive in recent weeks. Kyiv: US-led NATO said on Tuesday its member states were boosting security around key installations after Russia escalated its attacks on Ukraine and stepped up threats against the West. Russian missiles hit Ukraine for a second day, although with less intensity than on Monday, when dozens of air raids killed 19 people, wounded more than 100 and knocked out power supplies across the country. A Russian soldier carries an artillery shell from a 152-mm gun 2A36 Giatsint-B howitzer at a position after firing at Ukrainian troops at an undisclosed location in Donetsk Peoples Republic, eastern Ukraine. Credit:AP Belarus, Moscows closest ally, said it had begun an exercise to assess its combat readiness after ordering troops on Monday to deploy with Russian forces near its border with Ukraine. Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory to invade Ukraine but has not yet sent its own troops across the border. Moscow has annexed new tracts of Ukraine, mobilised hundreds of thousands of Russians to fight and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear arms in recent weeks, spreading alarm in the West. A European diplomat said NATO was considering convening a virtual summit of the Western defence alliance to consider its response. New York: Elon Musk denied a report that said he spoke directly with Vladimir Putin about Ukraine. Ian Bremmer, head of political-risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote in a note to clients on Monday that Musk told him about recently speaking with the Russian president. Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk. Credit:The Age Bremmer said that conversation came before a series of Musk tweets urging Ukraine to seek a negotiated solution to the invasion by Russia and to cede Crimea for good. Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday that he didnt speak with Putin about the war, adding that a call would be pointless, as there is currently no overlap between Russian and Ukrainian demands its not even close. Aviation regulator is probing an incident where a fairing panel was found missing on the wing of an AirAsia plane that landed at the airport here on Monday, according to a senior official. The aircraft, carrying 143 passengers, had landed from Bengaluru. In aviation parlance, an aircraft fairing is a structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline and reduce drag. "AirAsia India flight i5-612 from Bengaluru to Mumbai reported a section of a fairing panel missing during post-flight inspection," the airline said in a statement on Tuesday. The panel was not a load-bearing member of the aircraft structure, it added. A senior official said the matter is being investigated by the regulator. The airline also said necessary inspections were carried out. The panel has been replaced and the aircraft has been released for operations, it added. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Network solution provider on Tuesday announced a dedicated India Webex to accelerate the adoption of its unified communications platform Webex, as the company expected a permanent shift towards a hybrid work model across sectors in the country. The multinational IT and networking company said it has invested in India Webex infrastructure, which includes a dedicated backed by Secure products and solutions. The new data centre, mainly operated from Mumbai, will enable to offer India-specific pricing for its customers, taking down the costs by over 50 per cent. However, the company did not disclose the amount of investment it made in setting up the new . Webex offers cloud-based collaboration solutions including video meetings, calling, messaging, events, polling, asynchronous video, and customer experience solutions like contact centre s and collaboration devices. Cisco has seen a subsequent rise in preference for hybrid work in India. The country serves as the second largest user base for Webex after the US, since the start of the pandemic. According to the Cisco Hybrid Work Study 2022, almost three out of four favour a hybrid working environment in the future. Cisco said there was a massive and permanent shift towards hybrid work models. The company said that it has received the necessary regulatory licenses for the new . It added that this was the first-of-its-kind investment dedicated to collaboration solutions in the country. This is a significant milestone in our endeavour to power hybrid work at scale and speed. As more go hybrid, the demand for secure and adaptable hybrid work solutions will increase. With this investment we are looking to capture the growing market that is expected to reach over USD 250 million in India by 2025, said Daisy Chittilapilly, President of Cisco India & SAARC. The new will help Cisco to sustain continued growth, facilitate a rich user experience, and deliver security and management across the Webex suite. It will also lower operating costs, increase technical efficiency, and enable lower cheaper pricing options. Dave West, President of Cisco for the APJC region, said: Our goal is to create more inclusive work experience for the threefold growth expected in the number of digital workers in India by 2030. With hundreds of millions of monthly participants, Webex is one of the few platforms with the global scale to drive this transformation and the new is the latest in the series of investments Cisco has made to support an accelerating shift to hybrid work in India. Cement is planning to invest over Rs 3,200 crore to establish an integrated greenfield cement manufacturing facility in and a split grinding unit in . The combined cement capacity of these units will be 5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). The announcement comes a day after the company picked up India Cements unit for Rs 477 crore. With this, Cement will have access to limestone reserves of about 106 million tonnes, including a mining lease valid until 2065. The limestone mine is spread over about 500 hectares in Panna District of Madhya Pradesh, it said. The company has also secured most of the regulatory approvals for mining operations and is pursuing requisite approvals for setting up the integrated cement manufacturing facilities. Cements integrated manufacturing facility will be located adjacent to this mining reserve. Parth Jindal, managing director, said the strategic investment marks the company's entry into central Indian market and is one of the biggest investments in India made through the Group's cement business. "I look forward to working with the and governments to create substantial opportunities in both these States," he said. The acquisition of the Madhya Pradesh unit puts on its path to achieve 50 mtpa with a pan-India footprint in the next few years. By 2024-2025, the company is looking to touch 25 mtpa from 17 mtpa now. The proposed investment includes an integrated cement plant with 2.5 mtpa clinker capacity, 2.5 mtpa grinding capacity, 15 MW Waste Heat Recovery System, a modern residential colony in Madhya Pradesh and a 2.5 mtpa grinding unit in . The government has made the online booking of autorickshaws on the ride-hailing apps of Ola, and Rapido illegal from Wednesday. The decision was taken following a meeting between the Transport and Road Safety Department and the representatives of the mobility players on Tuesday. Transport Commissioner T H M Kumar held a meeting with the three and they have agreed to stop aggregating autorickshaws starting from Wednesday, according to the sources. In a briefing with reporters, Kumar said the ride-hailing platforms such as and cannot provide autorickshaw services till the government takes a decision. The government warned app cab aggregators that it would be imposing a fine of Rs 5,000 on vehicles found operating illegally.No action will be taken against the autorickshaws and only the firms found to be aggregating them will have to pay penalties. This development comes after the Karnataka government declared the auto-rickshaw services of players such as Ola, and Rapido illegal, following multiple complaints of overcharging. Mobility players such as Ola, Uber, and Rapido had been asked to discontinue their auto-rickshaw services in Bengaluru in three days. The state transport department issued notices to these on Thursday. Uber and had told the government that they have complied with the rules and reduced their minimum auto fare for the first two km back to Rs 30. The transport commissioner pointed out that there is no scope for the mobility players to offer autorickshaw services on their platform under the Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rule (KOTTAR), 2016. They have to give a fresh application to resume autorickshaw services. All aggregators have been asked to shut auto operations immediately or face criminal action, said an industry source. They will now need to apply for auto license. Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai told the media persons on Tuesday that he has asked the transport department to take stern action against app-based if they were found to be offering auto-rickshaw rides in Bengaluru without a valid licence. He made the comments after reports surfaced that Ola, Uber, and Rapido were overcharging customers on auto-rickshaw rides booked on their platform. The move by the government also comes after 13 autorickshaw drivers unions reportedly set a seven-day deadline for the state government to ban the three aggregators. There are about 200,000 autorickshaws in Bengaluru of which around 100,000 offer services through ride-hailing platforms. Customers also have complained that they keep facing challenges to commute as many auto drivers dont go by meters on offline trips. Uber and officials had told the government that it is much more difficult for customers to get auto drivers to go by meters on offline trips, according to sources. They have told them that no haggling, fixed price, and door-step pick-ups are the benefits of app-based rides. Indian startups raised $3 billion in Q3 2022 (July-Sept), which was 57 per cent lower as compared to the previous quarter, according to a new report by Tracxn, the technology-led market intelligence platform. Q3 2022 witnessed $3 billion in funding, which is 57 per cent lower from Q2 2022 and 80 per cent lower than the peak funding of $14.9 billion received in the same quarter last year," according to the Geo Quarterly Report: India Tech Q3 2022. The report said the average ticket size also witnessed a drop across all funding stages, with the late stage seeing the biggest fall of over 70 per cent, from $142 million in Q3 of 2021 to $42 million in Q3 of 2022. This is indicating that investors are not willing to make large investments until economic conditions stabilise. Our quarterly startup report confirms that India is currently experiencing a funding slowdown which is expected to continue for the next 12-18 months and the effects of the funding slowdown are expected to intensify going forward, said Neha Singh, Co-Founder, . Executives across the world anticipate a recession in the near future and are making preparations to cut costs. To add to their woes, the recent energy crisis in the UK and and also the sliding GBP and EUR have increased the likelihood of a global recession. The top three sectors that received the maximum funding in this quarter were Alternative Lending, Genomics and Payments. Genomics is an upcoming sector with great potential but remained untapped by investors till now. It saw maximum investor interest in Q3 2022, receiving over $231 million in funding, which is higher than the total funding received in the year 2021. The five that raised funding rounds of over $100 million in this quarter were EarlySalary, 5ire, InsuranceDekho, OneCard, and with the most active investors being Better Capital, and Surge. Of the 334 funding rounds closed in Q3, the top-3 funding rounds were completed by ($110 million, Series D), CleverTap ($105 million, Series D), and OneCard ($102 million, Series D). Some of the other key highlights of the report include these facts: 109 startups closed their first funding round, 3 startups turned unicorns, 39 startups got acquired, and 2 filed for their IPOs. Molbio Diagnostics, 5ire and OneCard turned unicorns and Zopper, LifeCell, Jar, DotPe, Vegrow Bigspoon, InsuranceDekho, CUSMAT, Airtribe and Serentica Global joined the Soonicorn club. India received $752 million in funding in the month of September down by 15 per cent as compared to August 2022 and down by 83 per cent as compared to the same period last year. Bengaluru-based shared micro-mobility operator Yulu Bikes raised a large round of $83 million as a part of their Series B fundraise. Molbio Diagnostics, a PCR testing company raised $85 million in their Series C round and became a Unicorn. The Indian startup ecosystem is still experiencing the ongoing funding slowdown and the severe macroeconomic conditions gripping the West, said Abhishek Goyal, Co-Founder, . We are seeing large PE and VC funds treading cautiously led by significant changes in the investment environment in recent quarters. We expect this to continue until we see signs of stabilisation globally. Tata acquired 1Mg, an online pharmacy that also entered the Unicorn club in September. There were 17 acquisitions that took place in September 2022 with Razorpay continuing its acquisition spree by acquiring PoshVine (a loyalty management platform), its 4th acquisition in 2022 and 7th till date. Another notable acquisition was Insight Cosmetics (Internet first cosmetic company) by Reliance Retail. Two companies, Kore Mobile and DreamFolks were the only 2 startups in the quarter that went public in September bringing the total to 10 tech IPOs this year, as opposed to 7 in the same period last year. Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR were the top cities attracting maximum investments, as per the report. Blume Ventures topped the investment charts in seed-stage startups, Sequoia Capital ranked highest in the early-stage and GIC leading the late-stage funding. Atchannaidu said the YSRC MLAs are trying to deceive the people with fake resignations in the name of 3-Capitals. DC Image Visakhapatnam: Telugu Desam state president Kinjarapu Atchannaidu has challenged Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to quit and seek fresh mandate from the people on the 3-Capitals plan. Meet the governor, submit your resignation and recommend dissolution of the assembly for re-election with the 3-Capitals as your main agenda in the election manifesto. If the YSRC wins, we will accept the peoples verdict and lock down the TD offices in the state, he said. Addressing the media at the TD central office in Mangalagiri on Monday, Atchannaidu said that in three-and-a-half years, the Jagan-government received no good marks from the people. This was a season of scandals, heavy taxes and Babai's murder. In 2019, TD went to polls with the promise of building Amaravati as the capital. Jagan was also taking such a stand, but he changed course later. In future, TD will not change its stand on capital issue. Jagan has brought the 3-Capital formula to the fore for the 2024 polls, Atchannaidu said. He said the YSRC MLAs are trying to deceive the people with fake resignations in the name of 3-Capitals. He asked why the same MLAs did not resign in a protest over the privatisation of the Vizag steel plant. "Botsa, Dharmana and Tammineni Sitaram were asked to do justice to this area. Projects like Uttarandhra, Srujala, Sravanti should be completed, five-lane roads should be laid and industries should be brought in. Instead, the YSRC is wasting its valuable time, creating discord among the people. He said that as part of a new political drama, the YSRC has formed a non-political JAC without including the common people in it. Suzlon Energy Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Himanshu Mody said on Tuesday that the would be able to pare its by Rs 583.5 crore, if its rights issue worth Rs 1,200 crore, gets fully subscribed. Suzlons rights issue opened on Tuesday. Mody also said that the was looking to repay its remaining in eight years. The total of the was Rs 3,200 crore as of June 30, 2022. The proceeds of the rights issue in the first phase would be Rs 583.5 crore assuming full subscription. This will be repaid to lenders. The company will be able to pay the remaining debt in the next eight years," Mody said in a virtual briefing on Tuesday. The company will issue up to 2,400 million partly paid-up equity shares at an issue price of Rs 5 per share aggregating to Rs 1,200 crore. promoters and promoter group have confirmed their participation and they will be fully subscribing to the extent of their rights entitlement, Mody said. Last week, Dilip Shanghvi, the founder of Sun Pharmaceuticals, had conveyed to the promoters of the company his intentions to fully participate in the firm's rights issue. Shanghvi had bought a 23 per cent stake in for Rs 1,800 crore in 2015, helping the company to return to profitability after it became Indias largest convertible-bond defaulter in 2012. The Tanti-led promoter group, which includes members of his family and siblings, collectively hold 14.5 per cent in the company after lenders converted some into an equity holding in the company as a part of a debt restructuring plan. Inga Ventures is the lead manager to the issue. Mody said that the company would have a much leaner balance sheet after the issue and there would be no decline in the promoters' holding after the rights issue. The Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has dismissed the I-T departments appeal seeking disallowance from Singapores advertising system, AdWords, for not charging an equalisation levy, commonly known as tax, citing jurisdictional grounds. What is The Diverted Profits Tax, commonly known as Google tax, refers to provisions designed to counter the practice of profits or royalties being diverted to other jurisdictions that have lower or zero tax rates. While Google is one of the most frequent practitioners of such diversions and hence the taxs informal nickname the practice is quite prevalent across industry sectors. Profits are considered diverted when an entity pays only a negligible tax amount in, say, the United Kingdom by completing its transactions in the low-tax capital city of Dublin, Ireland, even though the revenue it generated in the UK is well within tax brackets. Tech giants such as Meta, Apple and Amazon, as well as other MNCs like Starbucks etc, have allegedly been using such practices to lower their tax bills. Such entities derive large profits from their local user bases through online ads and in-app purchases even in countries where the firms might not have an employee base. Earlier, could account for such revenues and earnings at a destination of their choice, and they often diverted it to low-cost jurisdictions. The UK and Australia The UK in its Finance Act 2015 imposes a levy on company profits excluding those of small and medium-sized enterprises that are routed via "contrived arrangements" to tax havens. The legislation also directs that determine that they are subject to the tax to notify Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) within three months after the end of the accounting period in question. Australia also applied a similar tax provision in its 2015 Tax Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Act. The Google Singapore Case Indias ITAT, however, ruled against the I-T departments appeal to disallow Googles tax deduction, stating the transaction under scrutiny did not attract the levy since the advertisers and target audience were located abroad, and the revenue was paid to Google Singapore, which does not have a permanent establishment in India. Even before the matter was addressed by ITAT, the commissioner of I-T (Appeals) had also ruled that the tax levy did not apply to the assessee, since they were neither an Indian resident with business or profession in India nor a non-resident with a permanent establishment in India. The moonlighting incident in September involving workers of IT company created a flutter over unethical behaviour in the workplace. It caused a stir among employees and employers across sectors in the country. When discovered that 300 of its employees were concurrently employed by other IT firms, it took a tough stand by firing them and labelling them as "cheaters". While a debate is going on about whether the practice is unethical or not, the chief has been receiving hate mail over firing "moonlighters". On Monday, a stock market investor took to to explain how the company caught the "moonlighters" off-guard, ultimately causing the termination of their services. What is moonlighting? Moonlighting refers to working additional shifts or jobs outside one's regular job, usually without the primary employer's knowledge. Companies have opposed the practice claiming that having staff perform multiple jobs impacts their productivity. Working from home became the norm during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing employees to take up additional work assignments. How the moonlighters were caught user Rajiv Mehta, a stock market investor, in his viral thread, said IT professionals who were working from home (WFH) joined other companies that were also in WFH mode. "Same competency, double delivery. Two different laptops, same WiFi, catering to two different clients all from the comfort of own home, in own hometown," he tweeted. 300 #Wipro employees sacked as they took advantage of work from home and worked parallely with another company. How #Digital #India has precisely found the culprits is amazing. Kindly read the below article. Fantastic system in place in India. Rajiv Mehta (@rajivmehta19) October 10, 2022 He then said, "The most innocent looking, unassuming, always in the background provident fund contribution" was apparently why these moonlighters were identified. The government's PF retirement corpus scheme requires employers to deduct a specific amount from employees' salaries and put it as a contribution. According to the Twitter thread, PF contribution has to be deposited regularly (by the employer), and its violation is a serious offence. This is the link where the documents of the employees are attached digitally. He added, "As all Aadhaar, PAN numbers are taken by banks to open salary account and the same are used to deposit PF Systems are so beautifully integrated at the backend that it was next to impossible for these moonlighters to create two identities both financially and demographically." According to him, the PF authorities use a "daily de-duplication algorithm to check if someone has paid double mistakenly," which is how the dual employment was discovered. "They discovered that there exist accounts of persons with many donors," he wrote. Although he has not explained how he arrived at this notion or whether he has evidence, his Twitter thread has become viral, with numerous netizens sharing their views on the matter. As many as 2,600 persons were so far booked for operating business in under the state government's 'Nashamukti' operation that was launched on Friday. Over 2,500 persons involved in the illegal business of drugs and liquor were detained, while over 200 people were booked under Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act. Similarly, around 200 people were booked under Tobacco Prohibition Act. As per the official information, around 2,500 locations were raided since Saturday. Superintendents of Police (SPs) of all districts in the state, besides submitting the details of actions to the Police Headquarters in Bhopal, also uploaded it on social media accounts, mentioning that the action was carried on the direction of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Charing a meeting with senior police and administrative officials to take stock of the operation, Chouhan praised the police for strict action in all districts. "We have decided to take action against the nexus operating illegal business of liquor and other narcotics. Operation Nashamukthi has been started in many districts and it will be followed in other remaining districts in the coming days. I would thank to Police for their efforts," Chouhan said on Monday. Interestingly, while the ruling BJP has been busy thumping its back claiming that the government has taken action against the nexus operating business and narcotics, the opposition Congress has raised questions on the timing of the action. Congress leaders said the operation came when the elections are not very far and the BJP government wants to make its good image while the fact is that the law and order situation in the state has been very poor. The Congress also raised questions on whether the state police was waiting for a signal from Chief Minister to kick start an operation. "Action against illegal sale of liquor and drugs are daily activities of the police. Why the police should wait for Chief Minister's order to take action against illegal activities? All places where raids were conducted have not been established all of sudden. They were operational for several years. It's good that action was carried out, but the BJP government should also tell names of people who are operating these illegal businesses," said Sangeeta Sharma, vice-president of the state Congress media cell. Reacting over the operation, former Chief Minister and Congress chief Kamal Nath on Monday said, "The entire BJP is under the intoxication of power. They did nothing for 17 years and when the elections are nearing, the Chief Minister doing all these things to turn the attention of people from real issues." Incidentally, the action came within a week after senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti announced to kickstart a two-month-long yatra as a symbolic protest against illegal activities, including the sale of liquor and drugs. Bharti would start her march against the state government's liquor policy on November 7, which would conclude by January next year. In an attempt to make her presence felt in state politics, Bharti has been cornering Chouhan and state BJP president V. D. Sharma through the liquor policy issue, however, before she could start her movement for the same, Chouhan kicked start the mega operation. --IANS pd/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.) Prime Minister addressed a public meeting at Jamkandorna in Rajkot district of today. "Being in Jamkandorana is always special," tweeted PM Modi. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel along with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders of were present at the public rally. Prime Minister who is on a visit on Monday laid the foundation stone and dedicated to the nation multiple projects worth over Rs 8,000 crore at Amod, Bharuch. He laid the foundation stone of Bulk Drug Park at Jambusar, Deep Sea Pipeline Project at Dahej, Phase 1 of Ankleshwar Airport and the development of Multilevel Industrial Sheds at Ankleshwar and Panoli. The Prime Minister also dedicated several projects which will give a boost to the chemicals sector in Gujarat including GACL Plant, Bharuch Underground Drainage and IOCL Dahej Koyali Pipeline. He said the foundation stone of Bharuch Airport in Ankleshwar has also been laid so that the people here do not have to depend on Baroda or Surat. Noting that Bharuch district has more industry than some other small states of the country, he said that with the new airport project, the region is bound to take the high road in terms of development. "This is the new face of Gujarat. Gujarat, in the last two decades, has transformed from a state lagging in every field to a thriving industrial and agricultural state. With busy ports and a developing coastline, the lives of the tribal and fisherman community got transformed," he said. PM Modi said that due to the hard work of the people of Gujarat, a golden age has started for the youth of the state. "We should not lose this opportunity by creating an enabling environment free of obstacles, he said. Both policy and intention (Niti and Niyat) are needed for realizing these dreams, 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.) Prime Minister on Tuesday said that was afflicted by many diseases two decades ago and his government carried out a "surgery" to change the old system. There was a lack of clean intentions and sensitivity for the public 20-25 years ago which weakened the state's healthcare system, he said. The prime minister was speaking after launching Rs 1,275 crore-worth healthcare facilities at the Civil Hospital (Asarwa) in Ahmedabad. "Many diseases afflicted . One disease was backwardness in healthcare... Similar to curing someone of a disease, we are carrying out this 'Mukti Yagna' to cure the state of many diseases. And we keep trying our best to cure the state," he said. A doctor prescribes medicine, surgery and proper care to cure a patient, the prime minister said. "If I am to put the same thing differently, then to improve the healthcare system of Gujarat, my government adopted all these three processes," said Modi, who was chief minister of four times. "Surgery means changing the old system. My way of surgery is to use the scissors on inaction, sloppiness and corruption. Then comes medicine, which means making new efforts every day to develop new systems, human resources, infrastructure, innovation, building new hospitals. And the third is care, which is the most important part of improving Gujarat's health sector," he said. Among other "diseases" that afflicted Gujarat were misgovernance in education, lack of electricity and water, maladministration and poor law and order situation, said Modi. "At the root of all these diseases was the biggest disease -- the politics of vote bank," Modi said. If governments are not healthy and their intentions not clean, they cannot approach the public with sensitivity. This causes the health infrastructure to weaken, he said, adding that his government worked with care and sensitivity. "We went among the public, shared their problems....I can say with humility that Gujarat was the first state (to do so) when we set up health camps for not just humans but also for animals," he said. Talking about his call of 'One Earth, One Health' at a G20 summit during the pandemic, Modi said in some countries people received four-five doses of anti-coronavirus vaccines, and then there were countries where the poor did not receive even a single dose. "I was pained, and then India undertook the mission of supplying vaccines to the world," the prime minister said. The things he learnt in Gujarat helped him when he became prime minister, Modi said. "In eight years, we have set up 22 new AIIMS (All India Institutes of Medical Sciences) in different parts of India. Gujarat has also benefited from it. Rajkot has got a new AIIMS," he said. He expressed confidence that Gujarat will make its name in medical, pharma and biotech research, adding that the "double engine government" (the BJP governments in the state and the Centre) was making special efforts in this direction. "When sympathy and resources come together, resources become the best medium of service. But where there is no sympathy, resources succumb to selfishness and corruption," he said. Maternal and child mortality rates were high in Gujarat at one time and the earlier governments took no corrective action, Modi said. With the right kind of policies, child and maternal mortality have declined in Gujarat in the last 20 years, he claimed. The prime minister inaugurated new as well as upgraded facilities for cardiac care and a new hostel building at the UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre, new hospital building of the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre and new building of the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute. He also laid the foundation stone of a shelter home for the families of poor patients. (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 Centre on Tuesday told the "it is keen" to pursue its 12-year-old curative petition seeking more than Rs 7,500 crore more from Dow Chemicals, Union Carbide and others for deaths and injuries caused by the 1984 gas leak. Union Carbide, which is now a subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, has paid more than Rs 3,900 crore as compensation for the leak from its plant. A curative petition is the last resort available to a person after a review petition is dismissed. R Venkataramani told a five-judge bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that it is a tragedy unfolding every day and victims can't be abandoned. Advocates Sanjay Parikh and Karuna Nundy said victims of the gas leak need to be heard before a judgment is delivered. Venkataramani said the government wants to pursue the matter and after compiling information about the incident it will submit a note before the court. Nundy said not just civil compensation for the victims, but the criminal role of the company must be investigated. A lawyer for Union Carbide Corporation questioned the locus standi of non-governmental organisations in the matter. The bench, which also comprised Justices Sanjiv Khanna, A S Oka, Vikram Nath, and J K Maheshwari said a curative petition was filed after a gap of 19 years. The bench told Venkataramani and Union Carbide to compile their submissions. The next hearing will be on January 10. After the case was heard, leaders of five organisations representing survivors of the gas leak expressed satisfaction at the governments commitment to pursue the curative petition for additional compensation. On September 20, the had asked the government if it wants to pursue its curative petition. As many 5,295 people died and 568,292 were injured when a highly toxic gas called Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leaked from the Union Carbide Indias plan in in the early hours of December 3, 1984. Miffed with the working style of doctors, an angry Chief Minister on Monday scolded the Chief Secretary and directed him to rectify things immediately. This came after a man from Madhepura district appeared in the Janata Darbar, saying that doctors do not treat patients in the Sadar hospital there. "Patients like me wait in the queues for long hours and doctors do not treat us saying the time of OPD is over. This is the regular practice of doctors in the hospital," the complainant alleged. After hearing the complaint, called the Chief Secretary to personally look into the matter. He also asked the Additional Chief Secretary, Health to take the matter seriously and address the issue. "How it could happen in the hospitals. If doctors and medical staff have to do service, they should also maintain discipline in the hospital. They cannot leave the patients only on the basis of OPD time getting over," he said. The government hospitals in are in a pathetic state especially in rural areas and if anyone goes into the private hospital, they have to pay huge charges in the name of tests. Many patients claimed that due to the government not fixing the rate of tests like dengue and Chikungunya, they are charging to the tune of Rs 3,000 and more. --IANS ajk/vd (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government's new excise policy (2022-23) is likely to be delayed as a high-level committee formed to frame its broad outlines has sought more time to submit its report, officials have said. The committee constituted in August includes principal secretary finance, principal secretary revenue, excise commissioner and an expert member. The Excise Policy 2021-22 was withdrawn in July by the government after a CBI probe was recommended by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena into alleged irregularities in its implementation. Announcing the withdrawal of the Excise Policy 2021-22, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said a new policy will be framed within six months. The committee formed to give recommendations for the excise policy 2022-23 was stipulated to submit its report within one month. However, it could not do so due to various reasons including the ongoing CBI probe into the excise policy 2021-22, the officials said. "The committee has asked the government for more time so that it could present its report based on objective and on-field studies of other policies being implemented by other states," said a senior officer. Officials said one-month time was inadequate to come up with a "flawless" policy considering the existing situation and controversies related to previous policy of 2021-22. "It will take more than two months to come up with a comprehensive report as it was felt that visiting other states to learn about their excise policy will help come out with a new, robust excise policy for Delhi," said another senior officer of the government. After revoking the excise policy 2021-22, the government had allowed its operation for one month transition period. However, from September 1, old excise regime that was operational before November 17, 2021, came into being under which four government undertakings have been running liquor vends in the city. (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 Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit has recommended DY Chandrachud as his successor. Chandrachud will be the 50th CJI and hold the top judicial post for two years till November 10, 2024. According to rules, the retiring CJI names the senior-most judge as successor after recommending their name to the Union Law and Justice Ministry. Lalit will retire on November 8. The ministry asks the CJI to name their successor nearly 30 days before their retirement. The outgoing CJI chooses the next CJI based on seniority. Now that Chandrachud's name has been designated, the Collegium headed by Lalit will freeze and Chandrachud will appoint a new one after his swearing-in. Chandrachud was the additional solicitor general of India in 1998 and was sworn-in as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court in 2013. He has also been a judge at the . He was elevated to the in 2016. Currently serving as the executive chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NLSA), Chandrachud comes from a family associated with the law. His father YV Chandrachud was the longest-serving CJI between February 22, 1978, to July 11, 1985. Chandrachud will take the oath on November 9. JAMKANDORNA (GUJARAT): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday lashed out at the Congress for trying to block his fight against corruption. Addressing a rally in Jamkandorna of Rajkot district in Gujarat ahead of the state polls due this year-end, Modi said, when the Centre makes a move against corruption an entire group shouts against us, and begins to defame government institutions. Why dont you give a straight reply to the allegations levelled against you? You will have to pay back whatever you have looted from the public. Shouldn't I continue to work despite criticism? I have your full blessings, he said. He said the Congress had outsourced the contract of abusing him and was working silently to capture rural votes. Modi cautioned BJP workers and supporters to be aware of the Congress. Ahead of the state assembly polls, set to be held by the year-end, Modi warned BJP workers and supporters to be aware of the Congress, which, he said, has stopped abusing him and is working silently to capture rural votes. In the past 20 years, those who were against Gujarat left no stone unturned to defame the state. They hurled choicest abuses against me, including calling me maut ka saudagar', Modi told the gathering. They have suddenly gone silent. They have outsourced the contract of creating ruckus, making noise and abusing me, to others. They are silently going to villages and asking people for votes, Modi said, in a reference to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the new entrant to the poll fray in Gujarat, without naming it. I should warn you against this silent strategy of the opposition party. I know this, as this is being controlled by those who are known to conspire against Gujarat from Delhi, Modi said. He told the people to ask Congress leaders if they visited the Statue of Unity, built in Gujarat in honour of India's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Those who don't respect son of soil Sardar Patel should not have any place in Gujarat, Modi said. If the government acts against the corrupt, a group shouts against us; should I not act against those involved in looting people? he said. PTI Union Finance Minister will arrive here on Tuesday to attend an important meeting of the and the . The finance minister during her visit will also hold a bilateral meeting with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Sitharaman upon her arrival will participate in a fireside chat on "India's Economic Prospects and Role in the World Economy" at the prestigious Brookings Institute think-tank and soon after hold a bilateral meeting with Yellen at the Department of Treasury. At an official dinner hosted by India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu, nearly 30 senior representatives of the US Administration, World Bank, IMF, and CEOs of the private sector are expected to participate. In addition to her one-on-one meeting with the IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and President David Malpass, the finance minister is scheduled to have bilateral meetings with countries like Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Australia, Bhutan, Egypt, New Zealand, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Given that India will take over the G-20 presidency this December, Sitharaman's participation in the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) meetings gain significance. She is also scheduled to hold meetings with leaders and heads of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The finance minister will on October 13 also address faculty and students of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies on Technology, Finance and Governance: Multiplier Effect. She is also scheduled to visit the Science Foundation and interact with its Director S Panchanathan and his colleagues to understand their focus areas and possible partnerships to strengthen the US-India collaboration to stimulate private investment. Sitharaman will also attend two separate round tables with the US-India Business Council - Confederation of Indian Industries (USIBC-CII), as well as, the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum - Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (USISPF-FICCI) on Saturday to interact with industry leaders for strengthening investment and innovation in India-US corridor and also explain investment opportunities in India's digital revolution. (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 and his counterpart will meet to discuss the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue on October 14. The discussion between the two chief ministers has been scheduled after the Supreme Court had recently nudged them to meet and try to find an amicable solution. We will definitely try to find a way to resolve the issue, Khattar told reporters here on Tuesday. Last month, he had said water from the SYL was crucial for . "On one hand, we are not getting this water, while on the other, Delhi is demanding more water from us. Fixing a deadline to resolve this issue at the earliest has become very essential," he had said. In Punjab, opposition parties had recently asked Mann to stand up for the state's cause over the issue. Water sharing from the has been a bone of contention between the two states for several decades. has been demanding a reassessment of the Ravi-Beas river waters' volume while has been seeking completion of the to get its share of 3.5 million acre-feet of the river waters. The Centre had on September 6 informed the Supreme Court that the government was "not cooperating" in resolving the dispute. Then Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, had told the bench that the apex court had in 2017 called for an amicable settlement and that it was trying to bring the two states on the same page through its Water Resources Ministry. "Unfortunately, Punjab has not been cooperating," the top law officer had said. However, the counsel for Punjab had last month told a bench headed by Justice S K Kaul that the state government was very keen to resolve the issue amicably. Though official-level talks between the two states are on, the Centre has been insisting on meetings between the two chief ministers. Venugopal had said the bench may direct the Punjab counsel to ensure that the chief minister participates in the discussions with his Haryana counterpart. "Attorney General rightly points out that chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana were and are required to meet and it is agreed before us by the counsel present that such a meeting will be held within this month itself," the bench had 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.) Even as the Meteorological Department has predicted the arrival of the northeast monsoon in by the last week of October, cyclonic depressions have led to heavy rains in many parts of the state. In the districts of Erode, Namakkal, Thanjavur, Salem and Tiruvannamalai where Kuruvai cultivation is done, incessant rains have taken a toll on the harvesting of and storing of the harvested . With the incessant and continuous rains, many fields are inundated leading to the harvesting machines not being operated due to the water stagnation in the fields. Another issue that is creating heartburn for the farmers is the Direct Procurement Centres not buying the paddy citing the increase in moisture content. The DPCs have told farmers that the moisture content has overshot the stipulated 17 per cent and that the paddy has to be dried and then sold. With incessant rains, this will not happen and paddy in large volumes is bound to be lost. R. Sukumaran, a Kuruvai paddy farmer in Thanjavur, told IANS that already the farmers in many parts of the taluk were not able to sell the paddy as DPCs were not taking the citing that the moisture content is above the stipulated percentage. "With the heavy rains since Saturday till now, the possibility of these harvested crops being bought by the DPCs is becoming a mirage." A group of farmers has also sought support from the Central government to relax the moisture content to 20 per cent so that the DPCs could buy the . However, a group of farmers who have just sowed the Samba cultivation welcomed the rains as the fields were non-irrigated and the heavy rains have given them hope that the cultivation would take off. Erode, Namakkal, and Salem districts witnessed heavy rains since Saturday. However, no untoward incidents have been reported from these districts. The average in Namakkal district was 63.16 mm while that of Erode district was 54.60 mm and that of Salem 29.51 mm. The copious rains have led to almost all the reservoirs in the state getting ample water before the northeast monsoon. --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.) India on Tuesday delivered another batch of aid comprising essential and medical items to as part of its humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged country. India has supplied 45 tonnes of medical assistance in 13 batches to in the last few months, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). It said the aid was in continuation of India's "special relationship" with the people of and in view of the urgent appeals made by the United Nations to assist them. "..India has supplied the 13th batch of medical assistance consisting of essential and medical/surgical items like Pediatric Stethoscope, Sphygmomanometer mobile type with pediatric BP cuff, infusion pump, drip chamber set, electro cautery, nylon sutures etc," the MEA said. The consignments were handed over to authorities of the Indira Gandhi Children Hospital in Kabul. "Till date, India has supplied almost 45 tons of medical assistance, which included essential life saving medicines, anti-TB medicines, 500,000 doses of COVID vaccine, medical/surgical items etc," the MEA said. In addition, India has also supplied 40,000 metric tons of wheat for the Afghan people. India has been pitching for providing unimpeded humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the country following the capture of power by the Taliban. India has not recognised the new regime in Afghanistan and has been pitching for the formation of a truly inclusive government in Kabul besides insisting that Afghan soil must not be used for any terrorist activities against any country. In June, India re-established its diplomatic presence in Kabul by deploying a technical team in its embassy in the Afghan capital. India withdrew its officials from the embassy after the Taliban seized power last August. (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 voted to reject Russia's demand for a secret ballot in the UN General Assembly on a draft resolution to condemn Moscow's illegal annexation of four regions of Ukraine, with New Delhi favouring a public vote on the text along with over 100 other nations. The 193-member UN General Assembly on Monday voted on a motion by Albania that action on the draft resolution that would condemn Russia's illegal so-called referendums and attempted illegal annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions of be taken by a recorded vote. had demanded that the resolution be voted upon by secret ballot. Moscow's demand for a secret ballot was rejected after 107 UN member states, including India, voted in favour of a recorded vote. Only 13 nations voted in favour of Russia's call for a secret ballot while 39 abstained. and China were among the countries that did not vote. After the motion to hold a recorded vote was adopted, appealed against the ruling of the president of the general assembly. A recorded vote on Russia's appeal was held and India was among the 100 nations who voted against the challenge made by Moscow. Russia then sought reconsideration of the decision to adopt the motion submitted by Albania for a recorded vote. The General Assembly decided not to reconsider the motion after 104 nations, including India, voted against such a reconsideration, while 16 voted in favour and 34 abstained. Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia said the UN membership had become witnesses to an outrageous fraud in which the president of the general assembly, unfortunately, played a key role". "We were not given the floor to make a point of order (the indicator light at our seat is still on), our statement was distorted, and now UN member states are being robbed of their right to express their opinion freely. This is an unprecedented manipulation undermining the authority of the general assembly and the United Nations as a whole. Of course, in such circumstances we opted to not take part in the vote, he said. India last month had abstained while Russia vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution tabled by the US and Albania to condemn Moscow's illegal referenda and declared the annexation of four Ukrainian territories as invalid. The 15-nation UN Security Council had voted on the draft resolution on Illegal So-Called Referenda in Ukraine, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin in a ceremony in the Kremlin had signed treaties to annex the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. The resolution failed to get adopted as permanent UNSC member Russia vetoed it. Of the 15-nation council, 10 nations voted for the resolution and China, Gabon, India, as well as Brazil abstained. Following Russia's veto, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield vowed to continue to pursue accountability at the United Nations in the General Assembly, where every country has a vote. UN General Assembly President Csaba Korosi reconvened the emergency special session on where a senior US administration official had said that the European Union, on behalf of a cross-regional drafting group of several dozen UN member states, was working on a resolution to be introduced in the assembly and considered at the emergency special session to condemn Russia's actions as a clear violation of the UN Charter and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. The draft resolution would repeat the demand that Russia withdraws its forces from and from the war-torn country's internationally recognised borders and cease its unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine. The resolution would also call upon all states, international organisations, and United Nations specialised agencies not to recognise any alteration by Russia of the status of any or all of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk or Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, and to refrain from any action or dealing that might be interpreted as recognising any such altered status. The action in the came hours after Russia carried out strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv where at least 10 people were killed and around 60 others wounded across Ukraine. In New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the escalation of hostilities was in no one's interest and noted that India stood ready to support all such efforts aimed at de-escalation of the situation. "India is deeply concerned at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including the targeting of infrastructure and deaths of civilians," he said, urging the immediate cessation of hostilities. India has not yet condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and maintained that the crisis must be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue. India has abstained on votes on the Ukraine conflict in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. (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 maintains a "healthy dialogue" with and will look at what is offered following an announced ownership revamp to the Sakhalin-1 project, Petroleum Minister told Reuters. last week issued a decree allowing it to seize Exxon Mobil's 30% stake and gave a Russian state-run company the authority to decide whether foreign shareholders including India's ONGC Videsh can retain their participation in the project. "We'll look at what is the state of play and what's on offer," Petroleum Minister told Reuters in an interview on Monday following meetings with U.S. oil executives in Houston. India is "actively monitoring" Saudi Arabia's Asia premium over oil prices after OPEC+ last week agreed to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day beginning next month, Puri said. "At the end of the day, consumers start playing a role when situations like this evolve," he said referring to global balance and the "unintended consequences" of the OPEC+ decision. Too high oil prices could exacerbate inflation and tip the global economy in recession, reducing oil demand, he added. On the proposed European Union price cap on Russian oil purchases, he suggested it is not yet firm. "If the Europeans come with a plan, let's see how it evolves," he said. Puri this week met U.S. Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Security adviser Amos Hochstein in Washington, where they discussed collaborations on biofuels and clean energy in addition to energy security. "At no stage have we ever been told not to buy Russian oil," he said, referring to talks with officials on global energy supplies. In Houston, he met executives from Exxon Mobil, oilfield service provider Baker Hughes, and with liquefied natural producers after launching a bidding round for offshore exploration areas. India is interested in the U.S companies' technical expertise in offshore production, ethanol and sulfur recovery in oil refineries, Puri added. "For getting to green energy, you have to survive the present," he said. There are also discussions underway with Guyana, Brazil and Colombia for joint investment and extra supplies of crude for Indian refiners, he said. (Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Gary McWilliams; Editing by Lincoln Feast) (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.) When shoppers in the US carry a woven reusable bag to the store, they arent just saving the planet. They are also reviving an industry thousands of miles away in India. Jute, a coarse fibre used to make fabrics like burlap, has been cultivated for centuries in Ganges Delta. Indias factories have been in operation for more than a century, and today the country is the worlds largest producer. But in recent decades, the industry has struggled as less expensive synthetic substitutes have flooded the market. Farmers turned to other crops, cheap labour moved elsewhere and mills deteriorated from lack of investment. Now, the jutes weakness is its potential strength. As much of the world seeks biodegradable alternatives to synthetic materials like plastics, Indian is making its way around the planet, from supermarkets in the US to fashion houses in France to wine producers in Italy. Natural is fashionable now, said Raghavendra Gupta, a top official at the Indian Mills Association, a trade body in Kolkata, which is home to 70 of the countrys 93 jute mills. There is nothing more eco-friendly than jute. Much of the hope for a revival of Indias rests on bans on single-use plastics that dozens of countries, including India, have enacted in recent years. For years, the industry mostly produced burlap sacks to hold rice and other grains, supported by government mandates. Now it is pushing to branch out into decorative fabrics, floor coverings, curtains and most significantly reusable shopping bags. The global jute bag market is likely to grow from $2.3 billion in 2021 to $3.38 billion in 2026, Gupta said. Shopping bags accounted for a quarter of the roughly $400 million in jute products that India exported in 2021, and over the past five years, the countrys jute bag exports had more than tripled, he said. The US is by far the largest export market for all Indian jute products, growing by 25.5 per cent last year to almost $100 million. The bags are pulling this industry out of sleep, said Varun Agarwala, the executive director of Ballyfabs International, a manufacturer in Kolkata. They are called a bag for life: affordable, robust, and environment friendly. On a recent morning, hundreds of workers, heads down, stitched bags made of jute and cotton inside the Ballyfabs factory in Howrah , West Bengal. The company exports jute bags to over 50 countries on five continents. Its customers include Trader Joes and E.Leclerc, a French supermarket chain. Agarwala said after his company had invested in updated machinery and robotic printing, a worker who once made 100 bags a day could now make 500 to meet demand. After an expansion in May, the company now has the capacity to produce 75 million bags per year. Ballyfabss efforts are part of a modernisation push by the industry and the Indian government. In recent years, the government has created several programs to help farmers improve production and companies purchase more modern machinery. Diversifying the industrys products will help it open export markets and slowly decrease its dependence on the government as a major customer, experts said. Starting from seed technology, skill upgrading, mill machinery up to fibre production, we are improving everything, said Gouranga Kar, the head of the government-run Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibers, and that has led to our exports doubling in the last two years. Over the decades, raw jute cultivation started picking up in West Bengal and a few other states in India. The industry flourished along the Hooghly river, where the first jute factory had been established by a British businessman in 1855. By the 1980s, though, many factories had shut their gates as the jute market was eroded by plastics. To sustain the livelihood of more than four million farmers and tens of thousands of mill workers, the Indian government ordered that all grains and 20 per cent of sugar be packed in coarse sacks. Now, as the industry seeks a wider consumer base, companies are experimenting with the design, style and shape of jute bags, producing smaller souvenir bags for stores and hotels and larger bags for fashion houses and supermarkets. They are also making new textiles by mixing cotton with jute. Jute is more durable than cotton, needs fewer resources for its cultivation and has a shorter growing time. Jute provides a longer stream of income to farmers because they can first sell its leaves as a vegetable. Later, its inner stem is used to manufacture paper, while the outer layer produces fibre. The leftover sticks are used to make charcoal and gunpowder. The plant absorbs carbon dioxide at a high rate. The Indian has faced a worker shortage as educational levels rise in Bihar, UP, and Odisha, poor states where jute factories have drawn most of their labour. The factories, with noisy machines, have had a hard time luring younger workers. On a recent afternoon, workers lined up outside one of the biggest jute factories in Asia, the Hukumchand Jute Mill in southern West Bengal. The mill operates 24 hours a day, and the machines stop only during 10 holidays each year. Inside, migrant workers offloaded jute bundles from trucks. Within seconds, they started cutting off the sticks hard roots to feed the raw material into a line of machines. Soon after, another group of workers fed the fibre into spreader machines, where an emulsion was applied. A few yards ahead, machines threw out big rolls of jute. A drawing machine later fed the jute into spinning frames, where it was spun into yarn. After a winding and beaming process, the yarn was transformed into fabric in the loom. It was then cut to the required size, and the resulting bags were later printed, bundled and prepared for dispatch. To reduce the worker shortage, the industry will have to draw more women, said Samir Kumar Chandra, a top official at Hukumchand Mills. An Indian-origin banker has been issued a 10-year prohibition order and a 24-month conditional warning for his failure to report a suspicious transaction involving the jailed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's infamous company 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Raj Sriram, the former deputy CEO and head of private banking of BSI Bank Limited's Singapore branch (BSIS), was issued the prohibition and warned on Monday to report the suspicious transaction, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said in a statement. The prohibition order, which took effect on Monday, was issued by MAS, while the conditional warning was given by the SPF's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), reported Channel News Asia. The prohibition order bans Sriram from "providing any financial advisory service or taking part in the management of, acting as a director of, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory firm under the Financial Advisers Act", said the joint statement. CAD investigated Sriram in relation to his role in BSIS' business dealings and relationships with the subsidiaries of 1MDB and Aabar Investments PJS Limited, the purported subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments PJS said. SPF and MAS said the department found that there were "reasonable grounds for BSIS to file suspicious transaction reports in respect of 1MDB-related transactions" as required under a MAS notice for merchant banks on the prevention of money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. Due to Sriram's neglect, BSIS did not file the reports, the statement said. SPF and MAS said that in consultation with the Attorney-General's Chambers, the CAD issued a conditional warning in lieu of prosecution to Sriram for two offences under the MAS Act. Under the warning, Sriram paid a sum of SGD 150,000 to the Singapore Government's Consolidated Fund and committed to refrain from criminal conduct for a period of 24 months. He will also continue to cooperate with CAD in its 1MDB-related investigations and will not accept any directorship positions or positions of similar substance or form for a period of four years from September 6 last year. The statement also said that Sriram's conduct warranted a 10-year prohibition order as he held a senior position at BSIS and his neglect had contributed to BSIS' failure to file the suspicious transaction reports. Ho Hern Shin, deputy managing director of financial supervision at MAS, said: "BSIS, of which Mr Sriram was deputy CEO and head of private banking, was a key conduit for tainted funds in the 1MDB debacle." She noted that MAS withdrew BSIS' licence in May 2016 due to "serious and repeated breaches" of laws to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The ultimate responsibility for ensuring a financial institution's compliance with such laws and regulations rests with its board of directors and senior management, the Channel cited Ho as saying. SPF and MAS said that they took a serious view of compliance with these laws and the filing of suspicious transaction reports. CAD director David Chew said: "The suspicious transaction reporting regime is a key pillar of Singapore's approach to anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. "The Singapore authorities will not hesitate to take firm action against reporting entities, or their officers, who intentionally or negligently fail to file suspicious transaction reports when legally obliged to do so." 1MDB was a sovereign fund set up in 2009 with the help of Malaysian financier Jho Low to promote economic development. Najib Razak, who was Malaysia's prime minister from 2009 to 2018, co-founded 1MDB and chaired its advisory board until 2016. 1MDB raised billions of dollars in bonds for use in investment projects and joint ventures between 2009 and 2013. Conducting its largest-ever kleptocracy investigation, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) said USD 4.5 billion was diverted to offshore bank accounts and shell companies, many linked to Low. According to media reports, Malaysian authorities claim that billions more remain unaccounted for. Najib, 69, is serving a 12-year jail sentence in from August 2022 for 1MBD related offences. (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.) Indian users are among the most likely in the world to switch their cell phone as well as carriers. Behind only Indonesia, 28 per cent of Indians want to change their cell phone brand, according to a new report. On the other hand, one in every three Indians plans to upgrade their cell phone with the same brand. While 30 per cent of Indonesians and 28 per cent of Indians said they want to switch their brand, only 10 per cent of Americans and 8 per cent of Britishers said so. The data was released in YouGov's "Loyalty in Telco Report 2022". It is based on a survey of 18 international markets conducted to understand the purchase intentions and motivations of cell phone and carrier consumers. As with the brands, Indian users were also among the most likely in the world to switch their current mobile network carriers. One in every four Indian mobile users wants to find a new carrier. This ratio is much lower in the US, China and Great Britain. However, one in every two Indian respondents said that they would stick with their current phones if the companies improved the available features. Forty-six per cent and forty-three per cent said that better customer service and easy access to 5G, respectively, would encourage them not to switch their phones. "Indonesia and India registered the highest proportion of potential cell phone switchers that could be encouraged to stick around if there were more/improved features available from their current brand," the report said. Apart from this, discounted or free video streaming bundles with platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus also encouraged Indians to stick with their current phone . Better exchange rates for the current devices, and higher financial packages were other factors that may encourage Indians to continue with their current phone . On the whole, Asia users were found to be "less sticky" regarding phone brands compared to their European and American counterparts. Almost two and a half years after three persons including two Sadhus were lynched by a mob in district near Mumbai, the Home Department has handed over the probe of the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The case was being investigated by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) earlier. Home minister Devendra Fadnavis confirmed the development to the PTI. The incident had taken place at Gadchinchle village during night on April 16, 2020 in the midst of coronavirus pandemic when two Sadhus (monks) were heading towards Surat from Mumbai in a car with a driver to attend a funeral. A mob of villagers stopped them and beat them to death on suspicion that they were child-lifters, even as a few police personnel had reached the spot. The BJP, then in opposition, had accused that there was a conspiracy behind the attack on the religious leaders, and demanded probe. Then home minister Anil Deshmukh had opposed the demand, saying the killing took place as some villagers mistook them to be child traffickers. (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.) Chennai: Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi's assertion that the concept of Dravidian covers the people of southern states but it has now become a Tamil identity due to politics of division, was dismissed by the ruling DMK as a statement coming from a "RSS man" and not from one holding a gubernatorial position. The opposition AIADMK, however, endorsed the Governor's view saying the Dravidian origin encompasses the geographical territory of the five states in the south of the country, and that the DMK was indulging in political rhetoric to serve its purpose. Speaking at the inaugural of a two-day programme on 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat - Connecting India' series held at the Raj Bhavan here on Monday, the Governor said India was a name given to the country. "In order to understand this nation, one has to understand Bharat, whose several thousands of years of civilisation gives us pride," he said. "Unfortunately, during British rule, we got divided. Later, we started getting fragmented on political lines. Politics is predominantly about power. For instance, till 1956 there was one Madras State and later states were created on linguistic basis," the Governor pointed out. He found that people who came from Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to Tamil Nadu and living in this state for several hundreds of years are called "migrants from neighbouring states". "What is this 'us and they'? This politics has divided us. Even at the national-level when we say Dravidian, it covers all these four States. But, today, it became a Tamil identity," Ravi claimed. Further divisions by political parties have only created a distance between one another, he said. "Parties will continue to play politics for power and we can't deny that. They will continue to mobilise on caste, linguistic and communal lines but our core strength is our culture," the Governor said. Dismissing the Governor's remark, DMK senior leader and party organising secretary R S Bharathi said, "He is not behaving like a Governor. He is behaving and talking like a RSS man." The Governor's remark does not merit attention, Bharathi told PTI. However, endorsing Ravi's view, AIADMK legal wing state joint secretary R M Babu Murugavel said people migrated and settled in Tamil Nadu for various reasons. "I am Tamil, someone is Telugu or Kannada or hails from Kerala. But our origin is Dravidian," he said. The DMK always took up emotive issues like language, caste or religion to play politics, he claimed. "As a Tamil, I am proud of my culture and tradition and I carry it wherever I go. There's no need for a party to remind me of my origin," Murugavel told PTI. BJP state chief K Annamalai sarcastically asked the DMK to leave the language and Tamil pride to the people and concentrate on governance and deliver its poll promises. "The DMK raises the language issue glorifying itself as custodian of Tamil and opposes Hindi whenever it faces anti-incumbency wave. This is the DMK's Dravidian model of governance," Annamalai claimed. At the event on Monday, the Governor had highlighted the socio-cultural and civilisational identity of Bharat and illustrated how Bharat was governed by Dharma that even the kings and rulers had to abide by, unlike the West where the king was sovereign. "People of this enlightened land were moving and settling in different parts of Bharat, in pursuit of wisdom, irrespective of kings and kingdom," he had pointed out. The Pallava King whose name was later rechristened to Bodhi Dharmar went to Nalanda University to study and later to China where he spread Buddhism and established Shaolin monastery, he said. Shrimanta Sankar Dev, a saint-scholar and versatile social-religious reformer of Assam, went to Rameswaram inspired by the Bhakti Movement and spread it in the North, Ravi said. A ministry has proposed decriminalising offences under the Collection of Act 2008 as part of the governments efforts to rationalise legislations to promote the . The Ministry of and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has invited public comments on its draft proposal by October 30. The proposal to amend sections of the act will decriminalise offences like obstructing or deceiving officers by doing away with the provision of simple imprisonment up to six months. However, the MoSPI proposed to increase the fines for the offences to Rs 2000-Rs 20,000 for individuals and Rs 10,000-Rs 100,000 for companies. The fines now are Rs 2,000 for individuals and Rs 10,000 for companies. A higher monetary would be a more effective deterrent than imprisonment as it is more easily enforceable, the proposal said. For general, minor offences which are not mentioned in the act, MoSPI has also proposed to do away with imprisonment up to six months while increasing the amount. As a residuary provision dealing with minor contraventions, the overreach of this provision may not be too severe. Therefore, imprisonment is not recommended. A higher may be a sufficient deterrent against the offence(s) contemplated under this Section, the proposal said. The proposal was made after recent comments by commerce minister that the may bring a decriminalisation law in the upcoming of to reduce the compliance burden of businesses. For offences like making false statements, impersonation of an employee, mutilation or defacement of information schedule and penalty for failure to carry out duties and functions by employees, MoSPI proposes to retain imprisonment up to six months along with a higher monetary penalty. Imprisonment has been retained, observing the fact that willful attempt for a wrongdoing could lead to major offences. Imprisonment has been retained only for willful destruction of instruments of public good, the proposal said. For neglect or refusal to supply particulars, the penalty has been increased to Rs 2,000 for individuals and Rs 10,000 for companies. It is Rs 1,000 for individuals and Rs 5,000 for companies now. The penalty should be large enough that it has a deterrent effect on the person/company to effect compliance with the directions to furnish necessary information under the COS Act, the proposal said. Union Home Minister will visit the birthplace of Jayaprakash Narayanan, popularly known as JP, in Bihar's Saran district on Tuesday to attend the 120th birth anniversary celebrations of the socialist icon. Accompanied by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Shah will reach Sitab Diara via Varanasi. He will unveil a life-size statue of JP in Sitab Diara and address a public gathering. Elaborate security arrangements have been made for the home minister's visit, officials said. This will be Shah's second visit to after the was ousted from power in the state. Earlier, he visited Purnea and Kishanganj in the Seemanchal region on September 23. (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.) Sergei Surovikin, the new unified Russian battlefield commander in Ukraine, has been described as "absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life" and has also brought his violent Syria playbook closer to home, a media report said. On Monday morning, just two days after being appointed as the first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, Surovikin ordered the launch of flurry of missiles against civilian targets across Ukraine, which included a major road junction next to a university and a children's playground, said The Guardian report. Surovikin's "defending" of Moscow's interests in Syria involved dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure, according to a 2020 Human Rights Watch report, which said Russian forces under his command struck Syrian "homes, schools, healthcare facilities, and markets -- the places where people live, work, and study". "I am not surprised to see what happened this morning in Kiev. Surovikin is absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life," a former defence ministry official, who has worked with Surovikin, told The Guardian. "I am afraid his hands will be completely covered in Ukrainian blood." Surovikin first gained notoriety during the 1991 coup d'etat launched by Soviet hardliners, when he led a rifle division that drove through barricades erected by pro-democracy protesters. Three men were killed in the clash, including one who was crushed, The Guardian reported. His ruthless reputation grew in 2004 when Russian media reported that a colonel serving under him had killed himself after he received a heated reprimand from Surovikin. His colleagues have since given him the grim nickname "General Armageddon" for his hardline and unorthodox approach to waging war. Surovikin's main challenge in Ukraine, experts say, will be to solve the structural problems plaguing the Russian military as it faces a fierce Ukrainian counter-offensive, The Guardian reported. Gleb Irisov, a former air force lieutenant who worked with Surovikin up to 2020, said the new general was one of the few people in the army who "knew how to oversee and streamline different army branches". Surovikin's appointment has, however, softened some of the public anger among Russian hardliners, who were growing increasingly impatient with the country's military failures. From his time in Syria, he had developed a good working relationship with the Wagner private military company, said Irisov, and his appointment was welcomed by top critics of the war effort, including Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen republic, and the Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin. "Now, I am 100 per cent satisfied with the operation," Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel on Monday morning, referring to the shelling of Kiev, where at least six civilians were killed. --IANS san/ksk/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) During the festival on October 25, there will be a partial which will be visible from the city as well as from most parts of the country, astrophysicist Debi Prasad Duari said. The eastern metropolis, however, will be able to witness the partial solar eclipse, the second in 2022, for a very small duration, the celestial phenomenon will be better observed in the northern and western regions of the country, he said. The eclipse will not be observed from north eastern India as the celestial phenomenon will be occurring after the sunset in those regions, Duari said. Apart from India, the October 25-partial cosmic affair will be visible from most parts of Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, Duari elaborated. "The partial will begin in Iceland at around 14:29 hours IST and will be seen at its maximum from Russia at 16:30 hours (IST). It will end at around 18:32 hours (IST) over the Arabian Sea," he told PTI while sharing information on the celestial event. "The eastern part of the country will see the partial eclipse only marginally, that also during the sunset. The northern and western part of the country is a better location to observe the partial eclipse with a better view and for a longer period of time. "During the new moon (Amavasya) the Sun, Moon and Earth almost come in a linear configuration, whereby from earth we can see the moon without any sunlight falling on it. But at times, as on October 25, the Sun, Moon and Earth will almost be on the same plane resulting in the moon appearing to cover the Sun partially for a period of time causing a partial Solar Eclipse," he explained. In and around the metropolis, the partial eclipse will begin at around 16:52 hours, the maximum occurring at 17:01 hours, and will cease to be seen at 17:03 hours at the sunset, Duari said. "Even at the maximum eclipse, only 4 per cent of the lighted disc of the setting Sun will be covered by the Moon," he said. In the north Bengal town of Siliguri, the celestial phenomenon will be occurring between 16:41 and 16:59 hours and during the maximum eclipse (at around 16:56 hours) about 8.91 per cent of the Sun will be covered by the Moon's disc, Duari stated. "In New Delhi, it will commence at around 16:29 hours and end with the sunset at 18:09 hours with the maximum eclipse to occur at 17:42 hours when the Sun will be obscured by the Moon by an amount of only 24.5 per cent," Duari said. Jaisalmer in Rajasthan will experience the eclipse from 16:26 hours to 18:09 hours with the maximum at around 17:30 hours. when the disc of the Sun will be obscured by 42.5 per cent. "In Mumbai, the eclipse will begin at 16:49 hours with the maximum occuring at around 17:42 hours. It will end at 18:09 hours, when the Sun appears to go down the Arabian Sea at sunset. Here, the Sun's disc will be covered by about 24.5 per cent," he added. In southern and central India, the eclipse will be again observed just before the sunset with Nagpur experiencing the eclipse during 16:49 to 17:42 hours. In Bengaluru, the eclipse will begin at 17:12 hours, reaching its maximum at 17:49 hours and ending at 17:55 hours during the sunset. Chennai will have the eclipse during 17:14 to 17:44 hours, the astrophysicist said. The next major to be visible from India will be an annular eclipse on May 21, 2031 when the annularity can be observed from a narrow patch of land in south India, he said. Three years later, on March 20, 2034, the next total solar eclipse will be visible from India and the totality will be observed from the northernmost part of Kashmir. On both occasions, the whole country will observe a partial eclipse of varying magnitude depending upon its geographical location, Duari said. Another partial eclipse can be seen from the northern part of India on June, 1, 2030. Referring to the harm caused to eyes by Sun's rays during an eclipse, Duari cautioned the sky enthusiasts to take "extreme precaution" while observing it. "Even if the degree of the partial eclipse is not appreciable in most of the country, extreme precaution has to be taken by everybody who wants to observe this cosmic event. The Sun's rays can be very harmful for the eye and can become critical," 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.) Prime Minister on Tuesday paid tributes to Jayaprakash Narayan, the hero of the anti-Emergency movement, on his birth anniversary, saying he inspired people to devote themselves to nation building. Modi also paid his respects to Nanaji Deshmukh, a Jana Sangh leader who quit active politics for social work and rural empowerment in his 60s, on his birth anniversary. Modi tweeted, "Tributes to Loknayak JP on his birth anniversary. His contribution to India is unparalleled. He inspired lakhs of people to devote themselves to nation building. He will always be remembered as a torchbearer of democratic ideals." In tributes to Deshmukh, he said, "Remembering Bharat Ratna Nanaji Deshmukh on his birth anniversary. His rich understanding of rural India and agriculture is reflected in his works. He was also an outstanding thinker." Born in 1902, JP, as Narayan was fondly referred, was a leading freedom fighter and a radical socialist. After Independence, he mostly kept away from party politics while being involved in social work. However, he returned on the scene after those protesting, including student bodies, against the policies of the Congress led by then prime minister Indira Gandhi persuaded him to lead their movement. He is credited for galvanising popular opinion against her government, leading to the formation of the first non-Congress government in the country. He was given Bharat Ratna posthumously as was Deshmukh. (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.) Prayers will be held at temples in all villages and cities of coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's programme to inaugurate the first phase of the 'Shri Mahakal Lok' corridor in Ujjain on Tuesday evening. A state government release said locals will gather in one of each village and offer prayers. Similar programmes will also be organised at big temples in every ward of the urban areas along with the grand event in Ujjain. The programme will be telecast live on LED screens at these places, it said. Also, devotees from each village panchayat of Ujjain and Indore divisions will reach the venue of the programme where PM Modi will dedicate to the nation the first phase of the Mahakal Lok corridor, the release said. More than 60,000 people are expected to attend the programme at the Kartik Mela Ground in Ujjain, while about one lakh devotees will watch it on LED screens put up at all ghats of the Shipra river in Ujjain, it said. All the state government-managed religious places will be illuminated by lighting diyas, the release said. Cultural and devotional programmes will also be organised in all big temples of the state dedicated to Lord Shiva, including the Bandakpur in Damoh district and the Jatashankar in Chhatarpur. There will also be arrangements for 'bhajan' (devotional songs) recitation along with 'bhandara' (mass feast) at these places, the release said. The more than 900-metre-long 'Mahakal Lok' corridor, built as one of the largest such corridors in the country, spreads around the old Rudrasagar Lake which has also been revived as part of the redevelopment project around the famous Mahakaleshwar Temple, one of the 12 'jyotirlingas' in the country which attracts a large number of devotees, an official said. Two majestic gateways -- Nandi Dwar and Pinaki Dwar -- separated by a short distance, have been erected near the starting point of the corridor, which winds its way to the temple's entrance and offers an aesthetic view along the way, he said. A colonnade of 108 ornate pillars made of intricately carved sandstones, gushing fountains and a running panel of more than 50 murals depicting stories from the 'Shiv Puran' are among the major highlights of the Mahakal Lok, the official said. The grand event is part of the Rs 856 crore Mahakaleshwar Temple corridor development project. The first phase of 'Mahakal Lok' has been developed at Rs 316 crore. (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 collegium led by the Chief Justice of India, UU Lalit, has been in the news of late due to its failure to appoint four . What is the collegium? How does it work? The collegium is a group of and the four seniormost of the that decides on appointments of to the apex court. These appointments could be in the form of elevation when judges are appointed to the or direct appointments when experienced lawyers may be directly appointed as Supreme Court judges. The retiring UU Lalit was a direct appointee. Like the Supreme Court, High Courts also have a collegium. The chief justice of the court heads them. Two other seniormost judges are part of the HC collegium. The collegium, however, only sends the recommendation to the Supreme Court collegium on . The final decisions are taken by a collegium of the and two seniormost judges of the SC. This collegium of the three senior-most also decides transfers of in the country. According to Article 124 of the Constitution of India, the appointment of Supreme Court judges should be made by the President after consultation with such judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Court as the President may deem necessary. The CJI is to be consulted in all appointments except their own. Where did the collegium system come from? The system finds its origins in the three cases called the "Judges cases" in India. In the 1981 SP Gupta case, also called the "first judges case", the judges suggested that the executive must have the biggest say in . 12 years later, in 1993, a nine-judge bench in the "second judges case" said that the CJI must be given priority in such appointments. This was reiterated in the "third judges case" in 1998. Since then, the judges have been appointed by the collegium system. The Centre, however, has not supported the collegium system. According to the government, the current system is not transparent and is to blame for the high number of vacancies in the higher judiciary. In 2014, the National Commission (NJAC) Act was brought in by the NDA government, which would have accorded a major role to the executive in appointing judges to the higher judiciary. But it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015, continuing the current Collegium system of judicial appointments. A five-judge bench ruled against NJAC with a four-to-one split. It said the NJAC was against the basic structure of the Constitution. How do other countries appoint In the USA, judges of the Federal Court are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. There is no set retirement age for judges in the US. They continue to hold the office during "good behaviour". In the UK, an independent commission called the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) looks after the process of judicial appointments. It has 15 members. Three of these are judges, while 12 are selected through open competition. South Africa has a similar 23-member Judicial Services Commission that advises the President to nominate the judges. In almost all Latin American countries like Argentina and Brazil, the President nominates the judges subject to the approval of the respective Senates. The on Tuesday sought response from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on a plea filed by Delhi minister Satyendar Jain challenging the Delhi High Court verdict dismissing his petition against a lower court order to transfer the to another court. A bench of Justices M R Shah and Krishna Murari issued notice to the ED and posted the case for hearing on October 31. On October 1, the high court had dismissed Jain's plea, saying all facts were duly considered by the Principal District and Sessions Judge while transferring the case, which is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), and it cannot be held that the decision suffered from any illegality or needed interference. Jain, who is under arrest in the case, had moved the high court challenging the September 23 order of Principal District and Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Gupta transferring the to another judge over alleged bias. The district judge's order was passed on an application for transfer moved by the anti-money laundering agency. The agency, in its transfer application before the district judge, had argued that while there was no complaint against the judge hearing the matter, it was "a case of probable bias" in favour of the Delhi minister and there was an apprehension that it might not get an independent and impartial hearing. The AAP leader had argued before the high court that the ED cannot be allowed to "brow beat" a judge and seek transfer of the citing "bias" without any basis. The ED had arrested Jain and two others in the money laundering case based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR lodged against the AAP leader in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Jain is accused of having laundered money through four companies linked to him. He has denied the allegations. (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 situation in Ekbalpore area of southwest was peaceful on Tuesday morning with police keeping a close watch on the neighbourhood that witnessed communal clashes, officials said. Forty-one people were arrested in connection with the clashes, they said. "No untoward incident was reported from the Ekbalpore-Mominpore area since Monday evening. The situation is peaceful. Heavy police deployment has been made," a senior Police official told PTI. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed in the area, which will continue till Wednesday. "Senior police officers are in the area and prepared to deal with any untoward incident," the official said. Seven police personnel, including deputy commissioner (southwest) Saumya Roy, were injured in the clashes. (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 Security Council is like a "hard nut", but hard nuts can be cracked, External Affairs Minister said here on Tuesday as he cautioned that the world body will become "irrelevant" without much-delayed . Jaishankar made the remarks while responding to questions after his address at the Lowy Institute on the growing importance of India's relationship with Australia and the interests that both countries share as members of the security-focused Quad. "Well, it's a hard nut but hard nuts can be cracked," Jaishankar said while responding to a question on UN Security Council . Jaishankar said that there are continents which actually feel that the Security Council process does not take into account that into their problems. "I think that's hugely damaging to the UN. So one of the developments this time, in fact, has been a very explicit recognition by President Joe Biden of the need to actually reform the UN which is not a small development, but we need to get it because we all know why reform has been blocked for so many years," he said. "We completely understand that this is not something which is going to be done easily...but it's something which has to be done. Otherwise, we will end up frankly, with an increasingly irrelevant United Nations," he cautioned. India has been at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member. At present, the UNSC comprises five permanent members and 10 non-permanent member countries which are elected for a two-year term by the General Assembly of the . The five permanent members are Russia, the UK, China, France and the United States and these countries can veto any substantive resolution. There has been growing demand to increase the number of permanent members to reflect the contemporary global reality. On India-US relationship, Jaishankar said the bilateral ties started changing during President Bill Clinton's second term and added that the last five US presidents were consistent in the manner in which they sought to engage India and to enhance bilateral relationship. He said President Biden, who has been around for a long time, has "seen the evolution of the relationship" and actually he has been involved in growing the relationship with India. He said the Quad comprising India, US, Japan and Australia is working well because the US is showing flexibility and understanding. On India-Australia ties, Jaishankar said that he was the sixth Indian minister to visit Canberra after the Labour government came to power and that in itself should tell something about the seriousness with which New Delhi approaches this relationship. "We passed a milestone with the conclusion earlier this year of a Free Trade Agreement which is currently under the process of ratification," he said. "I have confidence that this relationship will be strengthened even further," Jaishankar said, a day after he held wide-ranging bilateral talks with his counterpart Penny Wong. Jaishankar also met Australian Deputy Prime Minister Defence Minister Richard Marles and exchanged views on regional and global security. (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.) ADILABAD: The rebranding of TRS into BRS (Bharata Rashtra Samiti) as a new national party has come in handy for the TRS leadership to reduce the pressure from large numbers of ticket aspirants in each assembly constituency. The party's high command would promise them to alternatively utilize their services elsewhere. This could check the entry of rebel TRS candidates in the upcoming contest. The party high command may also ask some of the ticket aspirants to contest the LS polls from constituencies in neighbouring states, mainly in constituencies adjacent to their assembly constituencies. TRS high command is now sending feelers to some ticket aspirants, suggesting that some of them now start focusing on BRS and national politics, develop rapport with the leaders and communities of neighbouring states by promising them good posts and positions in BRS. Mainly, this attempt is on with the TRS leaders of districts that share their boundary with Maharashtra. Those holding Zilla Parishad chairman post are also among the MLA-ticket-seekers from Asifabad ST and Khanapur ST constituencies in Komaram Bheem Asifabad and Adilabad districts respectively. TRS ZTPC, Anil Jadhav, former Adilabad MP Godam Nagesh and sitting MLA Rathod Bapurao are aspiring for MLA tickets from Boath assembly constituency in Adilabad district. Atram Sakku who was elected on a Congress party ticket has joined the TRS. TRS nominee Kova Laxmi was defeated with a below-200 vote margin at the hands of Atram Sakku. Both the leaders are now aspiring for the Asifabad MLA ticket from the TRS. The same is the case with Zilla Parishad chairman Rathod Janardhan of Adilabad and Khanapur MLA Rekha Naik. A senior TRS leader from Asifabad said TRS party president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had told the 280 party leaders/ peoples representatives/ ministers at a meeting that their services will be utilized for the new party. They would be deputed to other states for the partys campaign for the next parliament polls, he said. He said KCR may ask senior TRS leaders or sitting MLAs or others to fight the LS poll from Chandrapur and Nanded in Maharashtra. He may later field TRS senior leaders as MLA candidates for the Maharashtra assembly from Kinwat, Dharmabad, Khelapur, Bhokar, Rajura and Aheri. Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested eight suspected terrorists having links with Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent and its affiliate Jamaat-Ul-Mujahideen from different places, officials said on Monday. Eight suspects have been arrested from different places in and Uttarakhand, UP Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said in a statement. The arrested suspects have been identified as Lukman, Mohammad Alim of Gagalhedi, Kari Mukhtar of Manoharpur, Kamil of Deoband, all hailing from Saharanpur district, Shahzad of Jhinjhana in Shamli district, and Mudassir of Haridwar (Uttarakhand), the statement said, adding that Ali Noor, a Bangladeshi national, and Nawazish Ansari of Jharkhand have also been arrested. According to the statement, electronic evidence of terror funding and jihadi literature have been recovered from the suspects which confirm their affiliation with the terrorist organizations. Their contacts have been found with people active in strengthening terrorist organizations and networks and connecting more and more people with radical ideologues on religious grounds in India, the officials said. The police have recovered several devices, including mobile phones, pen drives, and memory cards, which were used in suspicious activities, the statement added. A team of UP came to Haridwar last week and arrested the suspects after a daylong recce from Dadupur Govindpur village near Salempur in Haridwar district, an Uttarakhand STF official said requesting anonymity. The UP had sought the coordination of Uttarakhand STF in making the arrests, he said, adding that the terror module is accused of spreading Jihadi ideology in western and Uttarakhand, especially through religious organisations based in Haridwar. There is also information that Rs 2.5 lakh was recovered from Kamil, which is said to have been sent by Bangladeshi terrorist Abdullah Talha for terror funding, the official 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.) At its 200-plus meetings for the upcoming G20 presidency, India will emphasise the "Soul of India" as the main theme, reported The Economic Times. The aim is to fully implement the "India experience" and make sure that each foreign delegate leaves as a "India tourism ambassador." According to ET, and Mather and McCann Erickson (India) have been shortlisted for branding the country's first G20 presidency and curate each event planned by the G20 secretariat. A leading destination management company and an event management firm will work with & Mather and McCann Erickson (India) to achieve the nation's branding goals for G20. Apart from this, all the government departments are also working on prepping a workforce to host the G20 and represent Indias policies and viewpoints on important topics at the meetings that schedules to begin from December 1, 2022. To assist officials in developing concept notes, themes, and key priorities in various areas of discussion, proposals for recruiting consultants and policy associates as well as young professionals have been requested from the ministries of external affairs, finance, environment, and tourism as well as the Reserve Bank of India. To increase the number of employees in the G20 Secretariat, the Department of Personnel & Training has requested the deputation of Directors, Deputy Secretaries, and Under Secretaries/Deputy Directors. Retired employees are being recruited by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to work as advisors at the G20. For a 912 month consulting project, the majority of ministries are looking at pay packages of Rs 1.2 lakh. A policy expert from the UN Development Programme will also join the G20 Secretariat, working closely to support efforts to better connect the G20 agenda with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The government has put up as many as 42 blocks for exploration and development through international competitive bidding. According to announcements made by upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), this includes 26 blocks offered under the Open Acre Licensing Policy (OALP), along with 16 blocks for prospecting for coal-bed methane. The government has not given a timeline for the bidding for the 26 blocks. These cover an area of approximately 223,000 square kilometers (sq. km), constituting one of the largest such offerings in recent times. Of the 26 blocks, 18 were carved out by the government and eight have been notified as a result of expressions of interest (EoIs) received from potential investors. Meanwhile, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday launched the offshore bid round offering and assured transparency, efficiency, and ease of doing business to investors. In a keynote address to industry leaders in Houston, the minister described the initiatives taken by his ministry in accelerating the exploration and production activities in India. Of the 26 blocks, 15 are in ultra-deepwater, eight are in shallow water, and three are on land. Consequently, the ultra-deepwater blocks cover an area of 159,000 sq. km, while the on land blocks cover an area of 3,666 sq. km. The government launched the OALP mechanism to allow investors the chance to carve out blocks of their choice by assessing the exploration and production data available in the national data repository and by submitting an expression of interest. The EoIs can be submitted throughout the year without waiting for a formal bid round to start. The previous round of bids for oil and gas blocks (OALP bid round-VIII) was launched in July for 10 blocks. In September, the government had signed 34 oil exploration contracts with 14 companies. This included 30 contracts for discovered oil fields (DSF) blocks. Officials said the latest announcement reiterated the governments aim to expedite the process of exploration for hydrocarbons. India aims to have 1 million sq. km of area under crude and natural gas exploration by 2030. The move has come at a time when the Ukraine crisis has again laid bare the fragile state of energy supply chains globally. The current area under exploration has doubled during the past five years to 207,692 (0.2 million) sq. km as of earlier this year. India currently relies on imports to meet 85 per cent of its oil needs and 50 per cent of the natural gas requirement, as domestic production is inadequate. The bidders for the latest round are also expected to encounter easier norms, which are being prioritised to quickly harness domestic production capabilities as demand outstrips supply by a wide margin. BP Energy outlook has projected that by 2050, India's share in the global energy demand will rise to 12 per cent from six per cent currently. As of 2021, the country accounted for just 0.7 per cent of global oil and gas production. Coal-bed methane The 16 blocks offered for prospecting coal-bed methane come with a key advantage for smaller and new players. Prior experience in the oil and gas sector is not mandatory for submitting bids for these, the DGH said. All the blocks also come with an assurance from the government that no revenue needs be shared until there is a windfall gain, it added. For administrative ease, each block has been carved out in a way that they fall within one state only. They will be run through a single licence for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, will have full marketing and pricing freedom for the gas produced, and will allow exploration during the entire contract period. The blocks do not overlap coal-bed methane blocks with existing, proposed coal blocks mines and have existing gas pipeline infrastructure around the area. The government has also announced full participation from foreign companies and joint ventures. Food regulator has made it mandatory for foreign food manufacturing facilities to register with it for exporting products such as meat, milk and infant foods to India. This will be effective from February 1, 2023. In an order issued on Monday, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said that it has been decided that registrations of foreign food manufacturing facilities, falling under five food categories, who are intended to export these products shall be mandatory. These categories are milk and milk products; meat and meat products, including poultry, fish and their products; egg powder; infant food; and nutraceuticals. The has requested all competent authorities of exporting countries to provide the list of existing manufacturers and those who are intended to export these food products to India. Based on information provided by them, the will register these facilities on its portal. (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.) While External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar kept the world in suspense on how India would vote on the upcoming resolution in the UN General Assembly condemning Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine, New Delhi has voted with the West on three procedural matters. When the Assembly met on Monday morning to discuss the resolution it became embroiled in a controversy over whether the voting should be by secret ballot necessitating the procedural votes. Russia which had launched a missile barrage on a few hours earlier lost all the three votes on the procedural matters. The Assembly resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions is expected to come up for a vote in the Assembly on Wednesday or Thursday. It is nearly identical to the resolution that was vetoed by Russia last week in the Security Council. India had abstained in the Council vote. To preempt Moscow's anticipated move to have the resolution decided by secret ballot in the Assembly, Albania proposed a motion to have an open vote. Despite Russia's objections, it was put to vote and it was carried by 107 votes to 13, with 39 abstentions. Russia then asked for another vote on the matter, which Assembly President Csaba Korosi ruled would be a vote to reconsider the motion for open voting that was approved. But before it could be voted Russia's Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia objected to Korosi's ruling and his challenge was put to vote. Showing Moscow's isolation on Ukraine, it was defeated, getting only 14 votes, with 104 against it and 38 abstentions. When the motion to reconsider open voting was put to vote, it got 16 votes to 104 against with 34 abstentions, marking Moscow's third defeat of the day. When asked by reporters earlier in Canberra how India would vote on the resolution on Russia's annexation of territories, Jaishakar said: "As a matter of prudence and policy, we don't predict our votes in advance." India joining the West against Russia on procedural matters is not necessarily a precursor to a change in New Delhi's neutrality in voting on substantive matters involving Russia's invasion of . As a diplomat pointed out, procedural votes are not on substantive matters and India had already voted with the West, once in the Council and another time in the Assembly, on the procedural issue of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing meetings remotely but abstained on resolutions condemning Moscow. Unlike the Council, the Assembly does not have enforcement powers, but its votes carry moral authority. In reaction to Moscow's veto in the Council in February soon after the invasion began, the Assembly took up a similar resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine and demanding it withdraw its troops. It was passed with 141 votes, with India among the 35 abstaining. The West is no9w on a mission to improve that tally in the vote this week. Asking for a secret ballot, Nebezia said that countries were being unduly pressured to vote with the West and a secret vote would shield those who were against the resolution but could not publicly vote their intent. During the debate on the resolution, Russia and Ukraine called each other terrorist nations, with Nebenzia citing the explosion on its vital bridge connecting it to Crimea, which it had annexed in 2014. "Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state," through the latest missile attacks which had endangered even his own relatives, Ukraine's Permanent Representative Sergey Kyslytsya said. In a personal attack on the Russian diplomats, he said that the chamber is filled with "the smell of smouldering human flesh" when they enter it with a "trail of blood". The countries, from Fiji to Mexico, that spoke on Monday condemned Russia. (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis) --IANS al/ksk/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Corporation (NSDC) and (IIT) Mandi have announced a strategic partnership to initiate two certification programmes--a six-month certification and nine-month long advance certification programme--in modern emerging technologies such as and machine learning in order to make Indias youth future ready. Interested candidates will be selected after appearing for an eligibility test. An online screening test will be conducted on October 15 and 16. Students can register at https://bit.ly/CCEIITM The programmes will begin on November 1. Through these courses, learners will be enabled to pursue several careers in data analytics, data management, data science, business analytics and business intelligence. The courses will be delivered through a live broadcast by the Mandi faculty. The programmes will allow learners to build a strong foundation in and help them specialise in machine learning with Python certification for data-driven decision-making. The certification will be jointly provided by and Mandi. Students pursuing BE/B Tech Graduates and Final Semester BE/B Tech Under Graduates are eligible for these courses. Appreciating the initiative, Ved Mani Tiwari, COO, and Officiating CEO, said, "At NSDC, we are taking a digital-first approach to ensure that our potential workforce is skilled to quickly get adapted to emerging technologies and to achieve this vision, Mandi is the most suitable partner." I am certain that this collaboration will empower a large number of youth to become employable as they will receive an in-depth understanding of digital technologies through and machine learning courses. The need for constant upgrading of skills has never been more critical than now, Tiwari added. Our approach through these courses is to build a rich culture of learning that is flexible, affordable, and customizable in todays digital era. Our partnership with is an integral step in creating the next generation of engineers, scientists, and researchers, added Prof Tushar Jain, Head of Centre for Continuing at IIT. The industrial projects will enable course participants to work on topics aligned with industry requirements in the field of data science and machine learning. Data science and machine learning are rapidly being adopted in almost all the fields. The global machine learning market is poised to grow to $90.1 billion by 2026 from $17.1 billion in 2021 at a CAGR of 39.4 per cent, according to BCC research. Additionally, the data analytics market is expected to reach $132.9 billion by 2026, from $23 billion in 2019, as reported by Market Research Future. Chief Minister on Monday said is the topmost priority of his government, as he asserted that if children will get quality education, they will reach great heights in their career. He said this while taking part in the Maharishi Valmiki Prakatotsav programme organised in Aliganj and Palika Kunj of his constituency, according to an official statement. "Maharishi Valmiki and Babasaheb Ambedkar gave utmost importance to quality of children. is our topmost priority in Delhi; if children will get quality education, they will reach great heights in their career, their families will prosper and the country will progress. If children remain uneducated, their family lags behind and remains poor," Kejriwal said. He urged people to pay utmost attention to the education of children. "If they become well-educated, they will support their parents and take care of them in old age. In Delhi, education and healthcare is our top priority. This is my assembly constituency. If you are facing any issue in providing quality education to your children, you can let me know. No other wealth will be of any use, only children and their education will help you," the chief minister said. Kejriwal also said, "I offer my heartfelt greetings to the entire community on the occasion of Maharishi Valmiki's Prakatotsav". "May he shower his blessings on you and your families be happy and healthy. I would also like to extend my greetings to everyone during this festive season. "We just saw Dussehra and Navratri pass by and now Diwali and Chhath Puja are around the corner. Please celebrate all these festivals with full pomp and joy," he added. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Loans for and green hydrogen may soon be categorised under (PSL) by . Several have suggested the move to the (RBI), a report in Economic Times (ET) said. reportedly told the RBI that categorising such loans as a priority will help fill the "financing gaps" in these sectors, the report added. Also, it will help banks to meet their PSL targets. Currently, banks are required to make 40 per cent of their total lending towards priority sectors. "Expanding the PSL category will also help lenders meet their requirements, which they are unable to do presently and are required to buy certificates," an official aware of the matter told ET. Currently, 8 sectors are eligible for lending under the PSL mechanism. These include agriculture, MSMEs, export credit, housing, education, renewables, and social infrastructure sectors. The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) in September, set up a committee to look into "sustainable financing" with Environmental, Societal and Governance (ESG) issues in focus. "There are various suggestions on green financing and ESG-related issues. A committee comprising of both Indian and foreign lenders has been set up to evaluate all the issues and best practices," IBA Chief Eexecutive Sunil Mehta told ET. However, experts have cautioned that "greenwashing" the loans must be done correctly, and with inspections. An expert quoted by ET said that investing in a business that claims to use recycled materials when it actually does not could result in funds under sustainable getting channelised incorrectly. The UN General Assembly started debating on Monday whether to demand that reverse course on annexing four regions of a discussion that came as Moscow's most extensive missile strikes in months alarmed much of the community anew. The assembly's special session was planned before Monday's barrage, but countries spoke out on the widespread, Monday morning rush-hour attacks that killed at least 14 people and wounded scores. Ukrainian Ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya said some of his own close relatives were imperiled in a residential building, unable to take cover in a bomb shelter. By launching missile attacks on civilians sleeping in their homes or rushing toward children going to schools, has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways, he said. said it targeted military and energy facilities. But some of the missiles smashed into civilian areas: a park, a commuter minibus, and more. Russia has said it was retaliating for what it called a Ukrainian terrorist attack on Saturday on an important bridge, and Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the assembly that Moscow had warned that there wouldn't be impunity for such an act. The bridge was civilian infrastructure, critical infrastructure, he told reporters outside the chamber. Ukrainian officials haven't confirmed that Kyiv was behind the bridge attack or other incidents of apparent sabotage but have said they welcome setbacks for Russia in all territory that it has claimed to annex. UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres was deeply shocked by the Russian attacks and spoke Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. Various nations also deplored the bombardment. Turkish UN Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu, whose country helped the UN broker a July deal to get Ukrainian and Russian grain exports flowing, called Monday's attacks deeply worrying and unacceptable. Costa Rican Ambassador Maritza Chan Valverde said the strikes showed continued and complete disdain for human rights, humanitarian law and norms. Hours after the missiles flew, the UN assembly gathered to consider responding to Russia's purported absorption last month of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The move followed Kremlin-orchestrated referendums that the Ukrainian government and the West have dismissed as sham votes conducted on occupied land amid warfare and displacement. A proposed assembly resolution would demand that Moscow immediately and unconditionally" scrap its supposed annexations and call on all countries not to recognise them. The measure, spearheaded by the European Union, also would insist upon the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine's internationally recognised territory. Russia's ambassador decried the debate as a one-sided exercise in pushing an anti-Russian narrative. Such cynicism, confrontation and dangerous polarization as today we have never seen in the history of the UN, Nebenzia said. He reiterated his country's claim that the referendums were valid and that Moscow is endeavouring to protect people in the regions against what the Kremlin views as a hostile Ukrainian government. Dozens of nations from Latvia to Fiji argued for the resolution on Monday, some speaking via regional organisations. The debate is set to continue Wednesday, and such Russian friends as Syria and North Korea are among countries signed up to speak. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, fielding questions on Monday in Australia, declined to say what his country thought of the measure. The full 193-member assembly is expected to vote Wednesday or later. Russia wanted secret balloting, an unusual move that the assembly rejected, 107-13, with 39 abstentions. Russian bids to reconsider the secret-ballot idea were voted down. Russia recently vetoed a similar UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned the supposed annexations. Under a decision made earlier this year, Security Council vetoes must now be explained in the General Assembly. The assembly doesn't allow vetoes, but its resolutions aren't legally binding, as Security Council ones are. During the war, the assembly has voted to demand that Russia halt its attacks, to blame Moscow for the humanitarian crisis in and to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. Meanwhile, there has been a stalemate in the Security Council, where Russia is among five countries with veto power. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) U.S. President pledged to Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskiy on Monday that the will provide Ukraine with advanced air systems after a devastating missile barrage from Russia. Biden spoke by phone with Zelenskiy to give assurances about continued U.S. support and to condemn the "senseless attacks" from Russia that hit civilian targets. "President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems," a White House statement on the phone call said. Biden also told Zelenskiy the and its allies and partners would continue imposing costs on Russia, "holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance," the White House said. The has provided more than $16.8 billion worth of U.S. security assistance since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and imposed a wide-ranging array of economic sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Steve Holland; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A campaign poster of Congress being used for the Munugode Assembly elections (Image: DC) HYDERABAD: Taking a leaf from the TRS playbook in Munugode, the Congress on Tuesday released a spoof video alleging that BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy had received Rs 22,000 crore to jump from the Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party. This comes amid the BJP battling hard to lead the narrative that Rajgopal Reddy resigned as Congress MLA to force the TRS governments hand into kickstarting development in Munugode constituency. The Congress, apparently believing that the best form of flattery of its avowed opponent, the TRS, is to imitate it, saw the partys in-charge for Telangana, Manickam Tagore, releasing a made-up video calling it an interesting fact. The video features a mock claim by RG Paul with a display picture of Rajgopal Reddy, saying Munugode is for sale. Then a purported online transaction through a mobile phone payment app is made which sees RG Paul receiving a money transfer of Rs 22,000 crore from Amithshahji to a Swiss Bank Corruption Account. The video ends with a message Thank you ji, payment received with a picture of Rajgopal Reddy in a namaste pose. The TRS has been hammering home the claim that Rajgopal Reddy received a coal mining contract from the Centre and in return resigned from the Congress and the Assembly to join the BJP. On Tuesday, in what is believed to be a TRS campaign, posters of a phone payment app Contract pe appeared in Munugode constituency declaring that the BJP candidate received a Rs 18,000 crore contract. Rajgopal Reddy did not take kindly to this latest broadside and said that the TRS has to wait for November 3 polling and the result which will see the BJP register a thumping win. There will be posters too, he said, about the TRS, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and minister K.T. Rama Raos alleged corruption. It is just a matter of time before this happens. Preet Kaur Gill, an Indian-origin British Sikh MP, in a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, has sought protection and urgent action against rising crimes against the community in the UK. Quoting hate crime statistics 2021-22, Gill, an MP from Birmingham, said against Sikhs rose by 169 per cent in comparison to a 38 per cent increase in reported religious overall. "I am deeply concerned by these new statistics. 301 against Sikhs were reported in 2021-22, up from 112 in 2020-21. The 169 per cent increase is compared to a 38 per cent increase in reported religious hate crimes overall", Gill said in the letter, which she released on Twitter on Monday. The 2001 census recorded 336,000 Sikhs living in . Gill said 301 hate crimes against Sikhs were reported in 2021-22, up from 112 in 2020-2021. The letter, which was also addressed to Simon Clarke, secretary of the department for levelling up, housing and communities (DLUHC), comes as 28 year-old Claudio Capos from Manchester was awarded a three year jail term recently for attacking 62-year-old Avtar Singh in broad daylight this June. Singh had suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, a stroke caused by bleeding on the brain and multiple fractures to his cheek, jaw and eye socket as a result of the attack, the BBC reported. Gill, in her letter, urged Braverman to implement the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) report on British Sikhs, which was published in 2020. The report found that the lack of an official term was a contributing factor as to why crimes against Sikhs go largely "unnoticed, unreported and unrecorded". This report, Gill said, was shared with both the home secretary and communities secretary at the time and was an attempt to consult the government on the definition of Anti-Sikh hate. "However, despite multiple promises of substantive response and offers of a meeting, the home office and DLUHC, between them, have failed to respond," she added. --IANS mi/ksk/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Justice Department is investigating whether Group AG continued to help US clients hide assets from authorities, eight years after the bank paid a $2.6 billion tax-evasion settlement and pledged to tackle the issue. Investigators are examining whether the bank aided US account holders, particularly with South American passports, who may not have told the Internal Revenue Service about assets totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. Former bankers blew the whistle on the bank, court records show. Credit Suisses main banking unit pleaded guilty in 2014, admitting it helped thousands of Americans evade taxes. It paid $2.6 billion under that deal, which required it to close any and all US accounts not declared to the IRS. The Zurich-based bank denies improper conduct, and says its cooperating with US authorities. does not tolerate tax evasion, the bank said in a statement. We have implemented extensive enhancements since 2014, to root out individuals who seek to conceal assets from tax authorities. Our clear policy is to close undeclared accounts when identified, and to discipline any employee who fails to comply with bank policy or falls short of Credit Suisses high standards of conduct. The investigations add pressure on a bank seeking to deliver a strategy that will revamp its risk culture, downsize its unprofitable investment bank and return it to profitability. may sell parts of its Latin American wealth management business and severely decrease or further exit businesses in its investment bank. The stock has declined by about two-thirds since scandals surrounding Greensill Capital and Archegos Capital Management early last year. Repeat Offenders Deputy US Attorney General Lisa Monaco has vowed to crack down on repeat corporate offenders, but its unclear whether the Justice Department will take action against the bank, such as new charges or a financial penalty. The banks outside attorneys have made their case to prosecutors in Washington, DC, arguing it broke no laws and deserves no further punishment, according to the people, who werent authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Theyve also met with investigators from the Senate Committee, which will issue a report in the coming weeks. The Justice Department declined to comment. In a court filing last year, its prosecutors cited ongoing law enforcement activities related to the banks plea deal, and discussions with Credit Suisse regarding the identification and remediation of remaining Swiss accounts held by US citizens. US taxpayers are supposed to pay taxes on income anywhere in the world, and foreign banks must notify the IRS about American accounts. The Senate Committee, led by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, is also preparing a report that will discuss how the bank vetted dual citizens. Complex IRS rules can cause confusion at banks trying to determine if accounts are controlled by US residents, the people said. The committee has been investigating information suggesting that Credit Suisse continued to serve US citizens hiding undeclared accounts offshore, Wyden said in a statement. Any systemic failures to crack down on undeclared US accounts by the bank would be a clear violation of its plea deal with the Justice Department. Full Investigation In light of the Justice Department pledge to crack down on repeat corporate offenders, this case demands full investigation and accountability, Wyden said. Last year, Wydens committee began investigating Credit Suisses failure to disclose the existence in 2014 of more than $200 million in accounts held by a US citizen, Dan Horsky, who later pleaded guilty and served seven months in prison. The probe expanded to related practices involving dual citizens. The Justice Department has examined allegations raised by whistleblowers who said Credit Suisse bankers continued to assist additional Americans with concealing assets from the after 2014, according to a court filing last November. Despite recent tough talk from DOJ about holding repeat corporate offenders accountable, nothing has happened to Credit Suisse, said Jeffrey Neiman, an attorney for the whistleblowers. They have gotten away with lying to the at the expense of the American taxpayer. The bank has turned to the law firm Kirkland & Ellis to make its case to prosecutors and Wydens committee. One of those presenting arguments to the Justice Department is Mark Filip, a former federal judge and deputy attorney general who has represented such companies as BP Plc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Boeing Co. and General Motors Co. in high-stakes investigations. External Affairs Minister on Tuesday said that India and Australia's defence, security collaboration has contributed significantly to a free and open . Jaishankar, who is on a two-day visit to Australia, on Tuesday had an instructive morning with the Australian Armed Forces. The US, India and several other world powers have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving in the backdrop of China's rising military manoeuvring in the region. "Spent an instructive morning with the Australian Armed Forces. Our defence and security collaboration contributes significantly to a free and open Indo-Pacific," he tweeted along with a picture. Addressing a joint press conference here with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong, Jaishankar on Monday said he had a "very useful, very productive and very comfortable discussion" on a range of bilateral and global issues. Wong said that Australia and India have recognised that the region is being "reshaped" both economically and strategically and underlined that the partnership with India is a "critical part" of shaping the region. "We can only build and sustain the region we want by working with others, including by working in partnership with India and for Australia, this partnership is a critical part of shaping the region we want," Wong said on Monday. China claims nearly all of the disputed South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam all claim parts of it. Beijing has built artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. Jaishankar received a warm 'Tiranga welcome' on his visit to Australia on Sunday as India's tricolour lit the country's old Parliament House in Canberra. This is his second visit to Australia this year. The first visit was in February 2022 when he attended Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Melbourne. (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.) said it reached an historical agreement with after both sides approved the latest draft of a US-brokered deal that settles a maritime border dispute in a gas-rich part of the Mediterranean Sea. The accord could pave the way for both countries to ramp up offshore gas production, including Israeli exports to Europe, which is desperate for more supplies after Russia cut flows after invading Ukraine. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement that the agreement will inject billions into Israels economy, while a tweet from the Lebanese presidents office said that it preserves its rights to its natural wealth. Under the deal, should be able to begin extracting natural gas from the offshore Karish field, without threats of attacks by Hezbollah, the Iranian-sponsored Lebanese militant group. It would also ensure that Lebanon, through a TotalEnergies SE-led consortium, can start exploring the Kana field, and pay royalties to drill in the sections in Israels territory. Lebanons energy minister said he would meet representatives of TotalEnergies on Tuesday. The Israeli security cabinet of select ministers will convene to discuss the agreement on Wednesday, followed by a special meeting of the government, the Israeli prime ministers office said. has said gas production from Karish in the eastern Mediterranean will enable it to increase exports, including to Europe. Prices of the fuel have soared this year since Russias invasion of Ukraine. London-listed Energean Plc, set to operate Karish, plans to begin production within the next few weeks, a company spokesperson said. The man involved in the kidnapping and killing of an Indian-origin Sikh family, including an eight-month-old baby, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, one for each life lost, authorities in said. The Sikh family of four, 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her 27-year-old mother Jasleen Kaur, her 36-year-old father Jasdeep Singh, and her 39-year-old uncle Amandeep Singh were kidnapped and killed by a former disgruntled employee of their trucking company last week. Jesus Salgado, the man involved in the kidnapping and killing was arrested on October 6. He was charged on Monday with four counts of first-degree murder, one for each life lost, prosecutors were quoted as saying by the Los AngelesTimes. The Merced County district attorney's office said in a news release that it would not make a determination this year on whether to pursue the death penalty in the case of Salgado, 48. District Attorney Kimberly Lewis declined to comment on the case beyond the charges. Salgado is set to be arraigned later on Monday. Salgado was charged in the deaths of Jasdeep, his wife, Jasleen; their daughter, and Singh's brother Amandeep, the report said. The investigation into the disappearance of the family began on October 3 after police found Amandeep's truck on fire in the town of Winton. When the family members could not locate Amandeep or his brother and sister-in-law, or the couple's baby, they reported the family as missing. The search led investigators with the Merced County Sheriff's Office to the family business, Unison Trucking, where video surveillance showed a suspect abducting the family at gunpoint and leading them away in the truck. Meanwhile, the grieving relatives of the four Indian-origin Sikhs killed in the US have raised more than USD 300,000 to support their families in but also their elderly parents back in India. A GoFundMe fundraiser is collecting funds for the Singhs' extended family and has raised more than USD 300,000, according to abc7news.com. Jaspreet Kaur, Amandeep's widow, said in the fundraiser that her husband and his brother had been in the United States for 18 years and supported not only their families in but also their elderly parents back in India. Salgado attempted suicide last Tuesday as investigators zeroed in on him as a suspect in the case, the Sheriff's Office said in a statement. He was held in the hospital for two days and was then booked into jail. Salgado also faces charges of illegal possession of a firearm and arson for allegedly setting fire to the truck. His brother, Alberto Salgado, was also arrested in the case on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, accessory and destroying evidence. Salgado spent nearly a decade in prison for holding another family at gunpoint and robbing it in its garage in 2005. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the night of September 26, near the end of the calm season on the Baltic, a broiling kilometre-wide circle disturbed the face of the sea and a huge mass of methane erupted into the air. The gas formed a cloud that crossed Europe, in whats considered the greatest single release of this potent greenhouse gas ever recorded. It was caused by four breaches of Russias Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, located in or near the territorial seas of Denmark and . Seismologists detected explosions at a depth of 70-90 metres on the seabed. These were not earthquakes. Danish, Swedish and German authorities have reported that the explosions were a deliberate act, equivalent to the use of 500 kilograms of TNT. The bubbling surface of the Baltic is a stark visual image of fossil fuel consumption changing the worlds climate. Methane has over 25 times the global warming effect of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, and is a crucial target for combating climate change. It also highlights the vulnerability of undersea pipelines and undersea infrastructure in general, of which has a significant network. Wasted emissions The explosions have had no direct economic or consequences. Nord Stream 1 stopped operating at the beginning of September following gradual supply reductions during the summer. Nord Stream 2 was never launched as Germany refused to certify it following Russias invasion of Ukraine. Europe was not counting on the resumption of supplies from either pipeline. While the pipelines were not transmitting gas, they contained methane gas to maintain pressure. The amount of gas released is hard to quantify. Estimates suggest that roughly 300,000 tonnes of methane (or the equivalent of 7.5 million tonnes of carbon) has probably been released into the atmosphere, making it the largest release of methane in a single event (and over twice as large as the 2015 Aliso Canyon leak in California). That tonnage represents around 10% of Germanys annual methane output, or one third of Denmarks total annual gas emissions, or the equivalent of the annual carbon emissions of one million cars. Nord Stream, however, is a wasted emission without either social benefit or productivity gains. The leak is a reminder of the problem of fugitive methane, which comprises the leak, loss, escape and emission of gas from active or abandoned industrial sites. While emissions from beef and rice production are the main culprits of fugitive emissions, oil and gas facilities also leak a significant amount of methane, as do activities such as fracking, coal mining and oil extraction. CSIRO estimates global oil and gas industries emit between 69 and 88 million tonnes of methane each year. Australias undersea infrastructure network Critical undersea infrastructure plays a vital role in the global economy. For example, the fibre-optic cable network is the unseen lifeblood of globalisation, consisting of around 1.1 million kilometres of cables carrying 99% of global data. When we talk about data flows and digital commodities we are, in fact, referring to the transmission of communications through these undersea cables. The stability of the global economy and the wealth of multi-national corporations depend on the integrity of these cables and on the uninterrupted connectivity they provide. Undersea pipelines delivering oil and gas from one country or state to another form the material basis of energy markets. Australias offshore energy pipelines include the 740km-long Tasmanian Gas Pipeline, 300km of which is sub-sea, as well as the Gorgon (140km), Scarborough (280km), Pluto (180km), Browse (400km), and numerous . Undersea power cables are a rapidly developing infrastructure. The proposed undersea and underground Marinus power cable link will connect Tasmania and Victoria. Harnessing the potential of offshore wind (now one of the largest energy investments globally) is being realised in Australian projects such as Star of the South. Meanwhile, Sun Cable aims to supply renewable produced in to Singapore via 4,200km subacqueous cable. While speculative, such projects represent aspects of the green power revolution which will drive emissions reductions, and which are likely to become more common. Ensuring the resilience of these systems against malicious digital and physical threats is a priority. System failures and hostile agents The dependence of society and the economy on the reliability of this infrastructure is underappreciated. The integration between cables and pipelines and the national and markets they service is so tight, even the slightest disruption could inflict disproportionate economic damage. These systems are so complex and closely integrated that their failures have consequences that traverse physical and national borders. This represents a significant challenge to ocean infrastructure governance. System failure may occur because cables and pipelines are prone to accidental damage by ships anchors, trawl net fishing, and other undersea activities such as dredging. As the Nord Stream pipeline incident shows, they are also vulnerable to intentional hostile attack both physical and cyber. Hostile agents may exploit the fact that the sea is an opaque realm, one thats difficult to operate in and defend. It, therefore, provides an effective shield against detection and subsequent prosecution. Nord Stream was attacked in one of the busiest and the most surveilled seas in the world the Baltic, in close proximity to the Danish military base of Bornholm Island. This clearly exposes the vulnerabilities of undersea infrastructure: it enables attackers to get close to targets undetected. Cables and pipelines are governed by both national and law. However, there are security gaps in waters, where responsibility is ambiguously shared between corporations and government. The lack of clarity gives companies little incentive to invest in security, or cooperate with government, increasing their vulnerability to attack. The privatisation of cables and pipelines has resulted in cost-effective practices being adopted to reduce operating costs. But this has been achieved by reducing maintenance and surveillance. Undersea infrastructure will continue to be vital to world trade and social cohesion. The growing demand for bandwidth and the need for security makes cables and pipelines both more crucial and vulnerable. Nord Stream highlights the need for resilient systems to limit the risk of accidents, and has given greater impetus to transition from fossil to renewable energy. Claudio Bozzi, Lecturer in Law, Deakin University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The United Nations' Development Programme (UNDP) joined on Tuesday the chorus of institutions and charities warning that a serious is now taking hold in the poorest parts of the world. In a new report, the UNDP estimated that 54 countries, accounting for more than half of the world's poorest people, now needed immediate debt relief to avoid even more extreme poverty and give them a chance of dealing with climate change. "A serious is unfolding across developing economies, and the likelihood of a worsening outlook is high," the report published on Tuesday said. The warning comes as the Monetary Fund and World Bank hold meetings in Washington this week amid rising global recession worries and a crop of debt crises from Sri Lanka and Pakistan to Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia. Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, urged a string of measures, including writing off debt, offering wider relief to greater numbers of countries and even adding special clauses to bond contracts to provide breathing space during crises. "It is urgent for us to step up and find ways in which we can deal with these issues before they become at least less manageable and perhaps unmanageable," he told reporters. Without effective debt restructuring, poverty will rise and desperately needed investments in climate adaptation and mitigation will not happen. The UNDP's report also called for a recalibration of the G20-led Common Framework - the plan designed to help countries pushed into financial trouble by COVID-19 pandemic restructure debt. Only Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia have used it so far. Its proposal was to expand the Common Framework's eligibility so that all heavily indebted countries could utilise it rather just the 70 or so poorest countries, and for any debt payments to be automatically suspended during the process. "Both will act as an incentive for creditors to participate and to maintain a reasonable timeline, and it could also remove some of the hesitancy caused by rating fears for debtor countries," the report said. It also recommended creditors should have a legal duty to cooperate "in good faith" in a Common Framework restructurings and that countries could offer to take eco-friendly measures to encourage creditors to write their down debt. "It makes a lot of sense," the report said. "Not only have these countries contributed the least to, but bear the highest cost of, climate change". (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.) Just before revived his proposal to buy Inc. last week, the billionaire accused the company of ordering a whistle-blower to destroy evidence of its missteps as part of a $7.8 million severance package. Peiter Zatko, Twitters ex-head of security, said he burned 10 handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 computer files at the behest of company managers as part of his separation agreement, according to Oct. 3 court filings that were unsealed Monday. The books contained notes of the whistle-blowers meetings with company counterparts during his year-long tenure as security chief, the filings show. Zatko has been at the center of Musks arguments that misled him about a raft of operational problems at the social-media platform -- which justified walking away from the $44 billion buyout. The billionaire then reversed course last week and agreed to buy the company for the original $54.20-per-share price. Twitters attempt to buy Mr. Zatkos silence failed, but achieved its secondary aim of ensuring Mr. Zatkos corroborating evidence would never come to light, Musks lawyers said in the unsealed filing. Twitter didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing, which is part of the Twitter lawsuit to force Musk to consummate the buyout that has since been paused. Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. J. put the case on hold and set an Oct. 28 deadline for Musk and Twitter to complete the deal. Musks lawyers are asking to sanction Twitters attorneys for ordering the destruction of potential evidence in the case. Zatko created a stir in Washington when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that Twitters lax approach to computer security threatened US national security. Twitter has said it fired Zatko in January for poor performance and said he gave a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context. Zatko contends he warned Twitter CEO about serious computer security issues and privacy concerns tied to the social-media platforms operations that amounted to violations of settlements the company reached with government regulators. He also said his Twitter colleagues showed little interest in doing a deep dive into the issue of how many spam and robot accounts were included among the companys more than 230 million users. Musks lawyers accused Twitters top two lawyers, Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett, and Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, along with Agrawal, of seeking to cover up the violations of the legal settlements by ordering Zatko to destroy his documents. The document-destruction order deprived Musks legal team of critical corroborating evidence of Mr. Zatkos allegations, which would support his account of key meetings and conversations relevant to this case, according to the unsealed filing. Meanwhile, Twitter complained in its own unsealed filing that Jared Birchall -- Musks top aide -- showed up to his Sept. 21 pre-trial deposition in the case unprepared to answer questions about a host of issues related to the transaction. Throughout the deposition, Birchall unequivocally conceded both his lack of knowledge and his lack of preparation -- on topic after topic, Twitters legal team said in the filing. Birchall runs Musks family office and was deeply involved in the negotiations over the buyout of the social-media platform. Twitters lawyers said Birchall had little or no information about his communications with government regulators about the deal, the hiring of data scientists to review the number of spam or robot accounts embedded in Twitters customer base or the Musk sides efforts to retrieve relevant messages about the transaction. A spokesman for Musks lawyers didnt immediately respond Monday to a request for comment about Twitters complaints about Birchalls deposition performance. The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). UN Secretary-General has called for making a global priority and urged actions to promote universal quality care. Nearly 1 billion people live with a condition. But mental health remains one of the most neglected aspects of health care, Guterres said on Monday in a message marking the World Mental Health Day, which falls on October 10, Xinhua news agency reported. "Some countries have only two mental health workers for every 100,000 people. The social and economic repercussions are profound," he said, noting that anxiety and depression alone cost the global economy an estimated $1 trillion dollars per year. The UN chief stressed the need to strengthen the capacity of health services to offer quality care to those in need, in particular young people. Stigma and discrimination must be addressed along with breaking down the barriers that stop people from seeking care and support, he said. Guterres also underscored the importance of preventing the root causes of mental health conditions, including violence and abuse, adding that the UN is committed to working with partners to promote mental wellbeing. "As we mark World Mental Health Day, let us make it a global priority and act urgently so that everyone, everywhere has access to quality mental health care," he said. --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.) Asias top chip stocks tumbled Tuesday, ensnared in an escalating US-China tech race that has erased more than $240 billion from the sectors global market value. Taiwan Manufacturing , the worlds largest contract chipmaker, plunged a record 8.3 per cent while Samsung Electronics and Tokyo Electron also declined. The selloff spread to the foreign-exchange market as investors tally up the damage from the sweeping curbs the US is imposing on companies that conduct technology business with China. Samsung lost as much as 3.9 per cent, the most in a year. South Koreas SK Hynix, one of the worlds largest makers of memory chips that has facilities in China is part of a supply network that sends components around the world. Its shares slid 3.5 per cent before paring losses. The Biden administration measures erect barriers of entry to Chinas market by limiting the ability of US firms to sell equipment and tech to their Chinese counterparts. There are concerns that the restrictions could spread if Washington widens the initiative to include other countries, while questions also remain over the scope and final impact of the moves. It is difficult to call a bottom on the performance of the chip sector, said Gary Dugan, chief executive officer of the Global CIO Office. The big story is that the West is becoming profoundly more concerned about security around any form of technology. We see no reason to re-enter the sector for the moment despite the profound poor performance. US chip stocks were on track to decline for a third day, with Nvidia Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. all down more than 1 per cent before the bell. ICU nurse devoted to saving lives 10:19, October 11, 2022 By Zou Shuo, Zhu Youfang ( China Daily Xu Furong, a head ICU nurse, helps a COVID-19 patient undergo rehabilitation in Huanggang, Hubei province, in February 2020. CHINA DAILY For Xu Furong, time runs in mere seconds in the Intensive Care Unit, as decisions made in just one or two seconds can mean life or death for a patient. Xu, who is a delegate to the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which is expected to convene in Beijing on Sunday, has been an ICU nurse at People's Hospital of Hunan Province for 13 years. She compares ICU nurses to scouts, always keeping an eye on the situation and even predicting patients' conditions. "ICU nurses are always on high alert. When a patient's condition changes, we cannot wait for doctors but need to start working right away," she said. "Most patients in the ICU are unconscious, and only the number readings on medical equipment reflect the patients' conditions," Xu said. "However, we also need to think for ourselves and make decisions based on experience to become professional ICU nurses." When the COVID-19 epidemic hit Wuhan, Hubei province, in early 2020, Xu volunteered to travel to Huanggang, Hubei, to assist the local fight against the epidemic. She and her colleagues set up a makeshift ICU ward in three days, and Xu was the head ICU nurse there, as she had the most seniority. The more than 20 nurses were from different hospitals in Hunan, and many were not ICU nurses, so she was under great pressure to make sure that the team functioned smoothly, she said. She spent over 10 hours each day in the ward, and the anxiety and pressure meant she had to rely on sleeping pills to fall asleep, she recalled. However, as soon as she entered the ICU, she felt "pumped up" and did not feel tired at all, she said. "We were treating the most critical patients in Huanggang, and as long as we won the fight, the city would win the fight against the epidemic," she said. She was always the first one to take on the most difficult tasks and never complained about anything. Underneath the protective clothing and goggles, her own clothes were frequently soaked with sweat. She stayed in Huanggang for 42 days, and her team treated 49 patients who were in critical condition. None of the medical workers became infected. Shortly after she returned home, she and other medical experts in Hunan traveled to Africa to help medical workers there fight COVID-19 in May 2020. In less than a month, they visited 72 medical institutions and hospitals, giving advice and experience to local medical workers and Chinese people working on the continent. When asked why Chinese medical workers would volunteer to help other countries fight the pandemic, Xu said it is their duty and mission. "Moreover, I am a member of the Communist Party of China. In China, whenever there are difficult situations, Party members are always on the front line, without considering rewards or even their own lives." Her dedication to her work led to Xu being declared a national role model in the fight against COVID-19 and an honored Party member. She was also a torchbearer for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Xu still remembers vividly that on March 8, 2020, while she was in Hubei, her daughter sang her a song when they had a video chat. "I immediately started to cry, as I knew she understood why I went there and was expressing her love for me in this way." (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Hongyu) HYDERABAD: Fire in a storeroom that stocked publicity material of the Congress in Chandur town of the bypoll-bopund Munugode constituency set off a storm of protests from party leaders who alleged that the incident was a case of arson by BJP and TRS workers. The fire gutted campaign material of the party for the November 3 bypoll. The fire damage was discovered on Tuesday morning by local Congress workers who went to the to prepare for Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president A. Revanth Reddys campaign in the constituency on Tuesday. Soon after, Revanth Reddy accused the BJP and TRS of being the culprits and declared that these two parties were scared of the increasing support to Congress candidate Palvai Sravanthi. This was a bid to sabotage her chances in the byelection, Revanth Reddy alleged. He was joined in his demand for an immediate police investigation and catching of the culprits, by other Congress leaders who too accused the TRS and BJP of being responsible for the incident. Meanwhile, the Chandur police of Nalgonda district registered a case against unidentified miscreants. The Chandur police said a case has been registered and special teams have been deputed to identify and trace the miscreants involved in the offence. Further investigation is under progress, they said. Among those joining Revanth Reddy in condemning the vandalisation of party office in Chandur, K.C. Venugopal, AICC general secretary, condemned the incident saying it was the handiwork of the BJP and the TRS. We strongly condemn this act of cowardly desperation. Both BJP & TRS are unnerved by the response Congress is receiving here, he tweeted. Congress Telangana incharge Manickam Tagore urged the Election Commission to intervene as BJP governments Rs 18000 crores and TRS governments crores are used and violence unleashed on us. Ever since the news broke in the morning hours that Chandurs party office was vandalised, the Congress leadership pointed fingers at the rivals, citing PCC chief A. Revanth Reddys scheduled visit in the evening for the campaign. Congress candidate Palvai Sravanthi who spoke to local police officials also blamed the incident on her rivals. She felt that after these parties which had failed in their attempts to trigger dissent with the help of money were now resorting to violence. They are threatened by the overwhelming support the Congress was receiving. Campaign material was completely damaged. Undeterred by this, we are going ahead with four road shows in the Mandal. Our party lodged a complaint with the police and I spoke to SP on this, she told Deccan Chronicle. US President on Monday slammed Russia for missile strikes across Ukraine that killed at least 11 civilians. Russia on Monday unleashed a series of missile strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities in what Russian President Vladimir Putin said was in retaliation for Kyiv's terrorist actions -- a reference to Ukraine's attempts to repel Moscow's invasion forces, including an attack last weekend on a key bridge, prized by the Kremlin, between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula. These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose. They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Putin's illegal war on the Ukrainian people, Biden said. Strongly condemning Russia's missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, Biden offered condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were "senselessly killed", as well as his best wishes for the recovery of those who were wounded. These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes. Alongside our allies and partners, we will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom, he said. We again call on Russia to end this unprovoked aggression immediately and remove its troops from Ukraine, Biden said. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will travel to Brussels to participate in the NATO Defence Ministerial on October 12 and 13 at the NATO headquarters. This will be the first Defence ministerial since the NATO Madrid Summit in June 2022 and the first ministerial that Finland and Sweden will join as Invitees. Ministers will discuss implementation of decisions endorsed at Madrid and provide guidance for future planning efforts, it said. Coming out in support of Ukraine after the Russian missile strike, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken said Russian bombs hit children's playgrounds and public parks in Kyiv; wave after wave of missiles struck Kyiv's city streets and damaged heating and targets without military purpose throughout Ukraine. I extend my deepest sympathies to the people of Ukraine who have lost loved ones today. The United States stands with you, Blinken said. Russia's attacks are yet another reminder that its war against Ukraine presents a profound moral issue. No person of conscience and no country of principle could be unmoved by the devastation of these horrors. Ukraine, like every other country around the world, has the right to choose its own future and live peacefully inside its own internationally recognised borders, he asserted. These strikes can break neither Ukraine's spirit nor America's resolve to support Ukraine, he said. The United States will continue to provide vital economic, humanitarian, and security assistance so Ukraine can defend itself and take care of its people, Blinken added. There is one aggressor in this war: Russia. There is only one country escalating this war through its attempted annexations of Ukraine's land and its repeated assaults on civilians: Russia. There is one person who can stop this war now and withdraw Russia's forces: Vladimir Putin, 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.) The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released a global tax reporting framework for cryptocurrencies. The framework will help keep track of cross-border transactions of crypto assets. The exchange of information between countries is proposed to be automatic under the new framework. Also, for due diligence, the exchanges will be asked to identify the customers. "The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) responds to a request that the develop a framework for the automatic exchange of information between countries on crypto-assets," OECD's statement read. The statement further added that crypto assets can be used for tax evasion because of a lack of any regulations. "The crypto market has also given rise to new intermediaries and service providers, such as crypto-asset exchanges and wallet providers, many of which currently remain unregulated," it said. "These developments mean that crypto-assets and related transactions are not comprehensively covered by the OECD/ Common Reporting Standard (CRS), increasing the likelihood of their use for tax evasion while undermining the progress made in tax transparency through the adoption of the CRS," added. The information, according to CARF, will be shared on an annual basis and accounting will be done on the lines of CRS. The framework will be presented at the finance ministers' meet in Washington DC this week. "The CARF will be presented to Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors for discussion at their next meeting on 12-13 October in Washington DC," it said. India has repeatedly backed a global framework for regulating cryptocurrencies. Shares of Kernex Microsystems (India) were locked at the 5 per cent upper circuit, at Rs 344, on the BSE on Tuesday. With this, they hit a 15-year high in an otherwise weak market. In the past five months, the stock price of the company has more-than-doubled, zooming 107 per cent on strong business outlook. Kernex Microsystems is engaged in the manufacture, and sale of safety systems, and software services for railways. The stock was trading at its highest level since October 2007. Moreover, it inched towards its all-time high level of Rs 363, which it had hit on December 20, 2005. In the past one month, the market price of Kernex Microsystems has appreciated by 28 per cent, as compared to 3.5 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. Currently, Kernex Microsystems is trading under the T group on the BSE. In the T2T segment, each trade has to result in delivery, and no intra-day netting of positions is allowed. On September 30, Kernex Microsystems informed that the North Central Railway has issued a letter of Acceptance (LOA) to Kernex-KEC consortium for the project viz, 'Provision of KAVACH (Train Collision Avoidance System). The accepted bid project cost is Rs 254.86 crore, the company said. Kernex has come close to completing the execution of the TCAS contract issued by South Central Railway in 2019. Indian Railways has been working actively to roll out TCAS (now renamed Kavach) across its network, starting with the Golden Quadrilateral routes. "The Railway Board has advised and facilitated various Zonal Railways to issue tenders for Kavach. As many as ten tenders spanning 3000 Km, at a total project cost of Rs 1,500 crore were released by different Zonal Railways. These tenders are expected to be finalized soon and more tenders are expected to roll out in the months to come," Kernex said in its FY22 annual report. The company, with its expertise in designing, development and deployment of Train Collision Avoidance Systems in Indian Railways, and successfully completing the installation of automatic and semi-automatic Railway Gates in Egypt and Rail Safety project in South Africa, is better poised to grab new opportunities both domestically and internationally. Apart from these, the Company is pursuing the opportunities in the Yard Management where our TCAS systems are using. There is a possibility of diversifying into Defense related work and manufacture of Electronic components and can undertake outsourced assembly work, Kernex Microsystems said. However, the company is presently limited to operations in the strategic sector which has limited to Railway Sector. Though sustenance of the current levels of Business operations is not an issue, for posting a healthy growth year on year, there is a requirement to look for newer opportunities. The company has initiated various proactive steps i.e. planning newer offerings in the existing portfolio and diversification of its product offerings. The rapid technological changes, competition from multi-national Companies and unfair domestic competition, change in Government policies are the threats, Kernex Microsystems said in annual report. Mr Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Minister for Civil Aviation and Steel, Govt of India announced 3 new projects for enhancing the helicopter sector in the country which includes Project Akash, HEMS and fractional ownership. The Minister launched a new Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) under project 'Sanjeevani' and the service will start at AIIMS, Rishikesh. "Through the learnings from project 'Sanjeevani', we will put in place a National Helicopter Medical Emergency plan in the days to come," he added. Mr Scindia also announced project - 'Akash' to enhance the safety in helicopter operations and provide all-weather day and night access. The government has started to develop helicopter specific low level IFR route using GAGAN under the project Akash. "This will greatly benefit the helicopters and small aircraft operations to non-IFR airfields and helipads," he added. Speaking on the airspace corridor, Mr Scindia said that the government has already set-up 3 dedicated helicopter corridor in the country. "We will create additional helicopter corridors where there is greater congestion to provide new areas for these sectors to grow," he added. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) JSW Steel announced today that it has joined as the newest participant of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) initiative - the world's largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative. JSW Steel has joined this global network of thousands of companies committed to taking responsible business action to pave the way for a sustainable world; and is the 5th Indian company in the 'Industrial Mining and Manufacturing' category to join the UN Global Compact Initiative. The UN Global Compact encourage companies to conduct business responsibly by aligning their operations and strategies with the UN's Ten Principles. It also commits companies to take actions to advance broader social benefits, in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Seamless said that it has made a voluntary prepayment of long term loan outstanding of approximately Rs 315 crore to HDFC Bank on 10 October 2022 from internal accruals of the company. The company further informed that this long-term loan was availed from HDFC Bank in 2019 for part fund the acquisition of United Seamless Tubulaar. The aforesaid loan was repayable over a period of 10 years. Maharashtra Seamless (MSL) manufactures seamless pipes & tubes with the finest quality and wide product range using the world renowned CPE technology. MSL made a foray in the ERW pipe category and also started coated facility. The company has also diversified into renewable power generation and rig operations. The company's consolidated net profit jumped 59.91% to Rs 153.23 crore on a 93.25% increase in sales to Rs 1,334.37 crore in Q1 FY23 over Q1 FY22. The scrip rose 0.06% to currently trade at Rs 814.65 on the BSE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): TCS reported 10.1% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 10,431 crore on 4.8% increase in revenue to Rs 55,309 crore in Q2 FY23 over Q1 FY23. The board recommended an interim dividend of Rs 8 per share. The record date for the same is 18 October 2022 and the payment date is 07 November 2022. Infosys: The board of the company will meet on 13 October 2022 to consider proposal for buyback of shares. Bajaj Auto: The two-wheeler maker announced that its board approved the completion and closure of the share buyback on Monday, 10 October 2022. Bajaj Auto commenced the share buyback on 4 July 2022. The two-wheeler maker said it bought back 64,09,662 equity shares, utilizing an aggregate amount of Rs 2499.96 crore, representing 99.99% of the maximum buyback size. Power Finance Corporation (PFC): Khandukhal Rampura Transmission, a wholly owned subsidiary of PFC Consulting, established for the development of 400 KV Khandukhal (Srinagar) - Rampura (Kashipur) D/C Line has been transferred to Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Limited, the successful bidder on 7 October 2022. India Cements: The company has entered into a Share Purchase Agreement with JSW Cement (Buyer) and divested the entire shareholdings held by it in Springway Mining Private Limited (SMPL), for a total consideration of Rs.476.87 crore and consequently, SMPL ceased to be the wholly owned subsidiary. Panacea Biotec: The company has received long-term supply awards worth US$ 127.30 million (around Rs 1040 crore) from UNICEF and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for supply of its WHO pre-qualified fully liquid Pentavalent vaccine, Easyfive-TT. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The has filed a charge sheet against DMK leader for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 5.53 crore during his tenure as Union minister, officials said. In its charge sheet filed before a Special court in Chennai, the agency has alleged that a close associate of Raja, C Krishnamurthy, had set up a company Kovai Shelters Promoters in January, 2007 in which a payment of Rs 4.56 crore was received in February that year from a Gurugram-based real estate company as commission for purchase of land in Kanchipuram, they said. It is alleged that the payment was not for the land deal but a quid pro quo for giving the real estate firm the status of an infrastructure company by Raja during his tenure as Union minister, they said. In the charge sheet filed in August this year, the has alleged that the company had not "undertaken any other real estate activity" other than the purported land deal for the real estate firm. The company had later bought agricultural land in Coimbatore. The agency has alleged that that as minister Raja had garnered assets worth Rs 5.53 crore, including the payment of Rs 4.56 crore to the company in which Raja's close relatives were directors, which he could not satisfactorily account for, they said. The CBI has alleged assets in question were disproportionate to the tune of 579 per cent from his known sources of income, they said. The agency had registered the case in 2015 against Raja and 16 others, including his nephew Parmesh, wife Parameswari, his associate Krishnamurthy who is also director of Kovai Shelters Pvt Limited, wife of Sadiq Basha, an alleged associate of Raja who had committed suicide, and Reha Banu, a director in Greenhouse Promoters which was earlier owned by Basha among others. The CBI had booked Raja, former Telecom Minister, in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation case as well but he was acquitted by a special court as the agency failed to prove any charges of corruption against him. (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.) Unidentified persons set afire party's office in Telangana's Munugode Assembly constituency where by-election is scheduled on November 3. The party office at Chandur in the constituency in Nalgonda district was set ablaze by some unidentified persons early Tuesday. Party's campaign material was gutted in the incident. Party flags, posters and scarves stored for Pradesh Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy's road show were gutted. The Congress leaders blamed the rival parties for the incident. They said they were present in the party office till 11 in the night but when they came to office in the morning, they noticed smoke and damaged material. They alerted the police. The Congress leaders demanded an impartial probe into the incident. They said fascist BJP and its friendly party TRS were scared of the Congress. Terming it as an act of cowardice, they said it reflects the fear of defeat by BJP and TRS. Last night, some unidentified persons pasted wall posters against BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, alleging that he received Rs 18,000 crore contract to join the BJP. The Congress leaders suspect that their office was set afire in a revenge action. Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy condemned the Chandur incident. He expressed his anguish over the Congress office being set ablaze. Revanth alleged that the Congress party's rivals in Munugode were resorting to criminal acts as they were unable to digest the public support Congress was receiving in the constituency. Revanth Reddy said such actions cannot stop the Congress party from winning the by-election. The by-election is scheduled to be held on November 3. The vacancy arose after sitting MLA Rajagopal Reddy resigned from the Assembly and also Congress party to join the BJP. The constituency is set to see a three-cornered contest among the ruling TRS and opposition BJP and Congress. The TRS has named Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy as its candidate while the Congress has fielded Palvai Sravanti. --IANS ms/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.) Former Minister has said that the name given to their group by the Election Commission for next month's bypoll in the state has Balasaheb Thackeray in it and they will take the 'Mashaal' symbol given by the poll panel to every home. Talking to the media, lauded the work done by his father as Chief Minister before he stepped down following a split in Shiv Sena. "The new symbol, new name 'ShivSena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)' -we're extremely proud of Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray. He has worked as a Chief Minister, saving thousands of lives in . We have been a truthful honest govt, working for the people," said. "Everyone knows how he has worked. It also has the name of Hinduhridaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray in it. Most importantly, the 'Mashaal' (flaming torch) is something we will take with pride to every home," he added. faction of Shiv Sena also released a poster with the new symbol and the new party's name. on Monday allotted 'ShivSena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)' as the party name to the Udhhav faction and the flaming torch as its election symbol ahead of Nov 3 bypoll in Andheri East. The poll panel declined to allot 'Trishul', 'Rising Sun' and 'Gada' as symbols as they are "not in the list of free symbols". It asked the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena to furnish a list of three fresh symbols by October 11 and declared the 'flaming torch' as the symbol of candidates of the Thackeray faction in the current by-election and till the final order is passed in the current dispute. The poll panel had earlier barred the group led by former Maharastra Chief Minister and State Chief Minster Eknath Shinde from using the symbol "Bow and Arrow, reserved for "Shiv Sena, in the upcoming Andheri East bye-election on November 3. (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 launch various healthcare projects in Ahmedabad and address a rally in Rajkot on Tuesday, the third day of his visit to poll-bound . The Assembly elections in the BJP-ruled state are due this year-end. PM Modi will inaugurate healthcare facilities worth Rs 1,275 crore at the Civil Hospital (Asarwa) in Ahmedabad. The projects include launch of new and improved facilities for cardiac care and a new hostel building in the UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre, new hospital building of the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Centre, and the new building of the Cancer and Research Institute. Modi will also lay the foundation stone of a shelter home to accommodate families of poor patients. He will also address a gathering at Jamkandorna in Rajkot district. After these programmes, the PM will leave for Ujjain in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh where he will dedicate to the nation the first phase of the 'Shri Mahakal Lok' corridor, aimed at providing an enriching experience to pilgrims visiting the famous Mahakeleshwar Temple with world class modern amenities. (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.) Governor R N Ravi's assertion that the concept of Dravidian covers the people of southern states but it has now become a Tamil identity due to of division, was dismissed by the ruling as a statement coming from a " man" and not from one holding a gubernatorial position. The opposition AIADMK, however, endorsed the Governor's view saying the Dravidian origin encompasses the geographical territory of the five states in the of the country, and that the was indulging in political rhetoric to serve its purpose. Speaking at the inaugural of a two-day programme on 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat - Connecting India' series held at the Raj Bhavan here on Monday, the Governor said India was a name given to the country. "In order to understand this nation, one has to understand Bharat, whose several thousands of years of civilisation gives us pride," he said. "Unfortunately, during British rule, we got divided. Later, we started getting fragmented on political lines. is predominantly about power. For instance, till 1956 there was one Madras State and later states were created on linguistic basis," the Governor pointed out. He found that people who came from Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to and living in this state for several hundreds of years are called "migrants from neighbouring states". "What is this 'us and they'? This has divided us. Even at the national-level when we say Dravidian, it covers all these four States. But, today, it became a Tamil identity," Ravi claimed. Further divisions by political parties have only created a distance between one another, he said. "Parties will continue to play politics for power and we can't deny that. They will continue to mobilise on caste, linguistic and communal lines but our core strength is our culture," the Governor said. Dismissing the Governor's remark, senior leader and party organising secretary R S Bharathi said, "He is not behaving like a Governor. He is behaving and talking like a man." The Governor's remark does not merit attention, Bharathi told PTI. However, endorsing Ravi's view, AIADMK legal wing state joint secretary R M Babu Murugavel said people migrated and settled in for various reasons. "I am Tamil, someone is Telugu or Kannada or hails from Kerala. But our origin is Dravidian," he said. The DMK always took up emotive issues like language, caste or religion to play politics, he claimed. "As a Tamil, I am proud of my culture and tradition and I carry it wherever I go. There's no need for a party to remind me of my origin," Murugavel told PTI. BJP state chief K Annamalai sarcastically asked the DMK to leave the language and Tamil pride to the people and concentrate on governance and deliver its poll promises. "The DMK raises the language issue glorifying itself as custodian of Tamil and opposes Hindi whenever it faces anti-incumbency wave. This is the DMK's Dravidian model of governance," Annamalai claimed. At the event on Monday, the Governor had highlighted the socio-cultural and civilisational identity of Bharat and illustrated how Bharat was governed by Dharma that even the kings and rulers had to abide by, unlike the West where the king was sovereign. "People of this enlightened land were moving and settling in different parts of Bharat, in pursuit of wisdom, irrespective of kings and kingdom," he had pointed out. The Pallava King whose name was later rechristened to Bodhi Dharmar went to Nalanda University to study and later to China where he spread Buddhism and established Shaolin monastery, he said. Shrimanta Sankar Dev, a saint-scholar and versatile social-religious reformer of Assam, went to Rameswaram inspired by the Bhakti Movement and spread it in the North, Ravi 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.) With the aim to introduce a new way to enable people to enjoy digital experiences, Play on Tuesday announced that it is bringing its global rewards programme -- Play Points -- to . Play Points helps users earn points and rewards for the many ways they use the platform. It will be rolled out to users in in the coming week. "Users will be able to earn points when they make purchases with Google Play, including in-app items, apps, games and subscriptions," the company said in a statement. The rewards programme has four levels -- Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum -- that give members different perks and prizes depending on the tier they are in, based on the number of points they have collected. Users can redeem their points for Google Play Credit to use how they would like to on the app store. Google Play has also partnered with developers of popular apps and games worldwide to help users redeem their points for special in-app items. In India, they are partnering with more than 30 participating titles that include games from global studios such as Miniclip (8 Ball Pool), TG INC (Evony: The King's return), games from local studios such as Gametion (Ludo King), Playsimple Games (Word Trip), Gameberry Labs (Ludo Star), and popular apps such as Truecaller and Wysa. Google Play will look at expanding the programme to more global and local developers in the future. Google Play Points will also provide local developers a new avenue to build a local and global user base; helping them engage their users, drive discovery, and acquire users across markets with Google Play Points. --IANS vc/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.) The Railways facelift is up for a major facelift. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has said this week that peoplel will be able to enjoy the bullet train rides from 2026. He also said that the government will turn 199 railway stations into world-class stations, with all the modern facilities. So, as part of this broader plan, the Railways is also rolling out semi high-speed trains. These indigenously manufactured trains are also called Train 18. The first batch of Vande Bharat trains were rolled out in 2019. And now, their upgraded version, Vande Bharat 2.0 has hit the rails. It can attain a maximum speed of 160 kmph due to faster acceleration and deceleration. The new Vande Bharat trains are also equipped with advanced state-of-the-art safety features, including an indigenously developed train collision avoidance system called KAVACH. But, barely a week after the Vandhe Bharat Express between Gandhinagar and Mumbai was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the train required a facelift twice in two days due to cattle hits. It also faced a technical glitch on Delhi-Varanasi route on Saturday. It was a snag in a traction motor that jammed its wheels, causing a flat tyre which refers to the damage to the roundness of the wheel. All the passengers had to be de-boarded and shifted to a Shatabdi Express mid-way. The Railways, in response to cattle hit incidents, said the replaceable nose cover is designed to absorb the impact without transmitting it to the functional parts of the train, adding the part was sacrificial by design. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw provided a reality check. Interacting with students at an engineering college in Gujarat, he said collisions with cattle were inevitable until elevated rail tracks are in place. More than 32,000 animals, including cattle, lions and leopards, have been killed on railway tracks between 2016 and 2018. Given that cattle run over incidents by trains are a regular feature, the is planning to keep spares of Vande Bharats nose cones. The latest Vande Bharat trains are 38 tonnes lighter than its predecessor and hence faster. The nose of the train is made of fibre-reinforced plastic. The Railways is also reportedly planning to install fences along the tracks on Vande Bharat routes to prevent accidents. Experts say fencing is necessary to avoid such accidents once train speeds cross 120-130 kmph, more so for semi high-speed rail as elevating tracks is a costly affair. Most of the 508-km corridor of Indias first bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will be elevated. With railway tracks passing through grazing lands, farms, and unplanned or illegal residential establishments, there are concerns over the practicality of fencing the entire network of tracks. A former Railways official told Business Standard said that fencing would only work if alternatives were given to people for safer cross-track mobility, such as rail over/under bridges (ROBs/RUBs). In FY23 so far, the Railways has eliminated 213 manned level crossings and built 250 rail over/under-bridges. It has said that there are no more unmanned crossings on its broad-gauge network. Vinay Kumar Dutt, former additional member, Railway Board says infrastructure has kept pace with aspirations of Vande Bharat trains. Train speeds are dynamic and can be altered depending on the line stations. No new lines are required for Vande Bharat trains. Experts say the infrastructure is already in place to keep up with aspirations of Vande Bharat. However, fencing upgradations are required for semi-high speed trains to avoid safety lapses. TikTok / Cover Story: ByteDance faces tough sell abroad in bid to commercialize TikTok Having captured the gaze of hundreds of millions of people with its short-video platform TikTok, parent company ByteDance Ltd. is now the focus of attention as it struggles to commercialize the app and finally turn a profit amid tightened regulations and rising U.S.-China tensions. The companys growth, bolstered by advertising revenue in China that last year surpassed 200 billion yuan ($28 billion) - more than double that of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and second only to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.s 316.4 billion yuan -- is now facing headwinds both at home and abroad. Party Congress / Xi briefs Central Committee on Party Congress work report President Xi Jinping briefed a Sunday plenary session of the Communist Partys Central Committee on a draft work report to be presented to the 20th National Congress, the Xinhua News Agency reported, paving the way for the highly anticipated conclave that kicks off in less than a week. During the meeting of the Central Committee, of which Xi is general secretary, Politburo member Wang Huning explained draft amendments to the partys constitution, Xinhua reported without elaboration. Vaccines / Analysis: How a Chinese mRNA Covid vaccine was approved in Indonesia Indonesia will use Chinese technology to locally produce Chinese-developed mRNA Covid-19 vaccine AWcorna in a quest to become more self-sufficient in dealing with the virus. The Southeast Asian countrys daily case tally had dropped to about 1,000 Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The countrys President Joko Widodo said the rollout will allow Indonesia to respond more calmly to Covid outbreaks in the future. FINANCE & ECONOMY A pedestrian walks past Alipays Shanghai office in 2020. Photo: VCG Alipay / Ant Group subsidiary drops off Shanghais high-tech list Alipay.com Co. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of fintech giant Ant Group Co. Ltd., has been disqualified from the Shanghai governments list of high-tech firms, a label that comes with tax breaks or fiscal subsidies. Alipay.com failed to meet the spending requirement for research and development (R&D), according to a government notice dated Sept. 8. To qualify for high-tech status in the city, companies need to have spent 3% to 5% of revenue on R&D in the most recent fiscal year, with at least 60% of the expenditure occurring on the Chinese mainland, according to local regulations. Corruption / Ex-chief of China Merchants Bank expelled from Communist Party for corruption Tian Huiyu, a former president of China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd. (CMB), was expelled from the Communist Party and removed from public office for severe violations of law and party discipline a euphemism for corruption the countrys top anti-graft watchdog said Saturday. Shanghai- and Hong Kong-traded CMB is Chinas seventh-largest commercial lender by total assets, trailing the nations Big Six state-owned banks. PMI / Chinas services activity shrinks amid renewed Covid woes, Caixin PMI shows Chinas services activity slipped into contraction in September after three consecutive months of expansion as a fresh round of Covid-19 outbreaks and tightened containment measures disrupted operations and restricted mobility, a Caixin-sponsored survey showed Saturday. The Caixin China General Services Business Activity Index, which gives an independent snapshot of operating conditions in services industries such as retailing and travel, fell to 49.3 in September from 55 the previous month. Readings of less than 50 signal contraction. The Caixin China General Composite PMI, which covers both the manufacturing and services sectors, also slipped to 48.5 from 53 in August. Quick hit / Editorial: Making pandemic controls more targeted can help tackle mental health problems BUSINESS & TECH Yaomeng Power Generation Co. Ltd. coal power plant in Pingdingshan, Henan province, on Aug. 30, 2022. Power / In Depth: Does China really need that much more coal-fired electricity? Southern Chinas Guangdong province approved construction of six coal-fired power plants in less than a month with generating capacity of 9.7 million kilowatts, more than the total of capacity installed from 2016 to 2020. The projects were previously considered impossible under the 14th Five-Year Plan through 2025 as China aims to reduce carbon emissions by increasing the use of nonfossil fuels, a person familiar with Guangdongs coal-fired power projects told Caixin. As part of the fight against climate change, the central government charted a course to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by substituting renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydropower for coal. The policy is sharply reversing now, the person said. Property / Chinas new home sales subdued over weeklong National Day holiday Chinese real estate developers sales of new homes slumped during the weeklong National Day holiday, though a bump in purchases of preowned properties showed there is still some life in the market, data from market intelligence providers showed. The lackluster figures for whats normally a busy time for the real estate business show that theres been little letup in the debt and confidence crisis that began last year, but inelastic demand is preventing the market from falling into deeper trouble. Huawei / Top executive at two of Huaweis business groups dies suddenly The president of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.s carrier and enterprise business groups died, temporarily leaving the two major revenue sources of the Chinese telecom giant rudderless amid U.S. sanctions. Ding Yun died Friday morning at the age of 53 after a sudden illness, the Shenzhen-based company said in a brief statement the same day. He was also a deputy chairman of its supervisory board. Quick hits / Tesla smashes its monthly China sales record White House imposes new restrictions on chip exports to China U.S. removes Chinese biotech subsidiary from Unverified List Long Read / Does studying Nobel laureates really help China win? GALLERY Ping Pong perfect for China Recommended newsletter for you / Caixin Must-Read Newsletter brings you the best of our coverage and stories you cant miss. You can opt-in now and get hand-picked news coverage delivered to your inbox each week for free. Thanks for reading. If you havent already, click here to subscribe. G7 Nations flags AA Images G7 leaders condemn Russias latest military strikes on Ukraine and pledge continued military support to Ukraine during virtual emergency meeting with President Zelenskyy ISTANBUL (AA) - The leaders of G7 countries on Tuesday condemned Russias latest military strikes on Ukraine in the strongest possible terms, saying these indiscriminate attacks constitute a war crime. We will hold President (Vladimir) Putin and those responsible to account, they said in a written statement following their urgent meeting after Russian strikes. The G7 firmly condemn and unequivocally reject the illegal attempted annexation by Russia of Ukraines Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in addition to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, the statement said. We solemnly reiterate that we will never recognise this illegal annexation or the sham referenda that Russia uses to justify it, it added. G7 nations underlined that Russia blatantly violated the UN Charter, and called on all countries to unequivocally reject these violations of international law and demand that Russia cease all hostilities and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its troops and military equipment from Ukraine. Adding that they will continue to impose further economic costs on Russia, the leaders said in the statement that they deplore deliberate Russian escalatory steps, including the partial mobilisation of reservists and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric. We reaffirm that any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences, the statement said. The leaders pledged continued military support to Ukraine during their virtual emergency meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the statement further said, adding that they will "stand firmly" with Ukraine for "as long as it takes." AA/Istanbul NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance would step up its support for Ukraine following days of deadly Russian attacks REUTERS NATO defense ministers to gather on Wednesday for 2-day meeting to discuss support for Ukraine, strengthening defense amid Russias nuclear threat BRUSSELS (AA) - Russia is losing on the battlefield and its attacks on Ukrainian civilians and cities are signs of weakness, the NATO secretary-general said on Tuesday. Jens Stoltenberg spoke at a news conference before a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers that starts on Wednesday. Stoltenberg called Russias indiscriminate attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians a sign of weakness because in reality Russia is losing on the battlefield. He explained that the ministers will review the progress on strengthening NATO's deterrence and defense posture ahead of the difficult winter that the military alliance and Ukraine will face. According to Stoltenberg, NATO has not detected any changes in Russias posture but he reassured that the military alliance remains vigilant. Accompanied by their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov for a part of the reunion, the defense ministers will discuss ways to step up support for Ukraine so they can continue to defend themselves and liberate territory from Russian occupation, he added. NATO ministers will also address how to further increase the protection of critical infrastructure in light of the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Over the past two weeks, NATO doubled its presence in the Baltic and North Seas to over 30 ships supported by maritime patrol aircraft and undersea capabilities, and increased the security around key installations, Stoltenberg asserted. Any deliberate attack against allies critical infrastructure would be met with a united and determined response, he underlined. The ministers will also discuss Russias nuclear threats during their meeting. Russia knows that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, Stoltenberg asserted. At the same time, he reassured that NATO stays nevertheless prepared against any attack, against any ally. Agnes Szucs/AA This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices. MOSCOW (AA) - Russia's armed forces continued hitting objects of Ukraine's military and energy infrastructure, the Defense Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. "Today, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike with high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons at the facilities of the military administration and the energy system of Ukraine. "The target of the strike has been achieved. All assigned objects are hit," Igor Konashenkov said at a press briefing in Moscow. Konashenkov added that a counteroffensive attempt by the Ukrainian army near the city of Kupiansk, the Zherebets river, and in the Zaporizhzhia region was thwarted. Putin said Monday that targets in Ukraine were hit in response to Saturday's explosion on the Kerch Bridge and other "terrorist attacks" carried out by Ukraine's intelligence. While Kyiv has not explicitly claimed responsibility, multiple statements by top Ukrainian officials pointed to the possibility, including one from presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak, who said the blast was just the beginning. AA/Moscow UN General Assembly on Ukraine annexation Screen Capture 193-member world body rejects Russia's request for secret vote on resolution condemning Moscows illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory UNITED NATIONS (AA) - The UN General Assembly convened an emergency session Monday to discuss Moscow-backed "illegal" referendums to annex parts of eastern Ukraine, with Kyiv's envoy accusing Russia of being a ''terrorist state'' hours after it conducted deadly strikes across his country that killed at least 14 civilians. ''The entire world has once again seen the true face of the terrorist state that kills our people,'' Ukraine's UN ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the UN General Assembly. ''Deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. By launching missile attacks on civilians sleeping in their homes or rushing to work, children going to schools, Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways,'' said Kyslytsya. He said Russia's illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory pose an ''existential threat'' to the UN, and the international community needs to defend the principles of the UN Charter. ''We are now at a tipping point where the UN will either restore its credibility or it will ultimately fall in failure. And if the latter happens, we should blame nobody but ourselves,'' he said. ''A trail of blood is left behind the Russian delegation when it enters the General Assembly, and the hall is filled up with the smell of smoldering human flesh.'' Russia's UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia called the meeting ''highly politicized,'' adding it was specifically launched to promote an anti-Russian narrative. Nebenzia accused NATO of escalating the conflict and said it is NATO that Russia is really confronted with in Ukraine. He said Ukraine is being used as a testing site for NATO weapons and proxy fights with Russia. The General Assembly is expected to vote on a draft resolution this week condemning Moscow-backed "illegal" referendums to annex parts of eastern Ukraine -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson -- in violation of international law. A resolution drafted by the European Union and co-sponsored by Turkiye for the UN body to consider would isolate Russia from the international community if adopted. Russia asked for a secret ballot for the vote, but the UN General Assembly rejected its request with 107 votes in favor. Thirteen countries voted against holding a public vote on the draft resolution while 39 countries abstained. Russia and China did not vote, along with some other countries. ''This was yet another step towards further division and escalation, which we are sure is not what the overwhelming majority of states whose representatives are gathered in this hall would want,'' Nebenzia said. The draft UN General Assembly resolution calls on all states and international organizations not to recognize any alteration of Russia of the four regions in eastern Ukraine and demands that Russia immediately and unconditionally reverse its decisions. Betul Yuruk/AA It looks like there is no letting up to the MG-Geely rivalry here in the Philippines. Its shaping up to be a true battle royale as MG Phili... According to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the threat of military action by China against Taiwan is not an option and will only push the two sides further apart. President Tsai encouraged China not to attempt to fracture Taiwanese society by misunderstanding Taiwan's multiparty democratic political system for weakness during her speech on Taiwan's National Day. Taiwan: War With China 'Absolutely' Not an Option Fighter aircraft and a Chinook helicopter flew Taiwan's flag overhead while the band from Taipei's First Girls' High School performed hits by musicians including the Beatles and Lady Gaga. President Surangel Whipps Jr. of Palau, whose country's blue and yellow flag was flown alongside Taiwan's red flag with its blue square and white star, was among the foreign guests for National Day ceremonies in Taiwan. The event honors Taiwan's perseverance as a self-governing nation with a thriving democracy and free press. It honors a 1911 rebellion by troops in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which ultimately contributed to the fall of the Qing Dynasty. In Taiwan, it is more commonly referred to as Double Ten. In 1949, during a civil war, the Communist Party of China overthrew the Nationalist government on the mainland and has since claimed the island, as per Washington Post. As Taipei seeks to strengthen its defenses in response to Beijing's military pressure, the island nation's defense minister issued a warning last week that any Chinese fighter jets or drones that violate Taiwan's territorial airspace, which is defined as being 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) from the island's shores, will be considered a first strike. In her speech on Monday, Tsai stated that Taiwan's people are adamant about defending the island because it is an essential symbol of democracy around the globe. She reaffirmed that Taiwan has been enhancing national defense awareness and boosting the manufacturing of precision weapons to increase asymmetric warfare capabilities, which are defined as military tactics used to confront forces with greater strength. Read Also: New $1,400 Stimulus Check: Who's Eligible for Fresh Rounds of Payments from Biden Administration? Tsai Ing-wen Strengthens Taiwan's Defenses The Republic of China was founded and its 2,200-year-old imperial system collapsed as a result of the revolution that began 111 years ago in mainland China, which was commemorated on Monday in the capital of Taiwan, Taipei. The Republic of China dominated the mainland until 1949 when it withdrew to Taiwan after losing the civil war to the Communists. International guests, including the president of Palau, one of the 14 nations with full diplomatic ties to Taiwan, joined the festivities on Monday. Democrat from Texas and US lawmaker Eddie Bernice Johnson also attended, according to CNN. For Taiwan to be able to pose a more credible deterrence against China, which is stepping up an ambitious military modernization program, Tsai has made bolstering Taiwan's defenses a cornerstone of her administration. Taiwan will demonstrate to the rest of the world that it is taking charge of its defense, Tsai said. Taiwan is aiming to acquire compact, highly mobile weaponry to ensure that Taiwan is fully equipped to respond to foreign military threats, she added. Taiwan is also pursuing mass manufacturing of precision missiles and high-performance navy boats. Concerns over Taiwan's dominance in the chip manufacturing industry have been raised as a result of the military tensions, particularly in the US, Fox News reported. Related Article: Ukrainian Cities Blasted With Russian Missile Attacks; Putin Says Strikes A Response To Explosion at Crimean Bridge @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Giant Cement plans Savannah Terminal with Georgia Kaolin Terminals, Inc ICR Newsroom By 11 October 2022 Giant Cement Company has signed an agreement with Georgia Kaolin Terminals, Inc, in Savannah, GA, USA, to build a 60,000t cement import terminal on the Savannah River for the growing southeastern US market. Cement demand in the southeast continues to show strong growth in all sectors, says Tim Kuebler, president & CEO of Giants Elementia USA. Population growth has spurred new infrastructure projects, expanding need for housing and commercial projects. The investment provides expanded capacity of imported cement with ample truck and rail loadout. This aligns with growing demand from Giants current customer base while providing redundancy for Giant's Harleysville, SC cement plant. Additionally, this new capacity can serve existing terminals of Spartanburg, SC, Charlotte, NC, and Durham, NC. The Savannah import terminal will also aid geographic expansion into other markets allowing Giant to improve its product offerings and customer service, says the company. The new terminal is expected to be operational by January 2024. Published under Indian cement sector profitability to reach new highs in FY25 ICR Newsroom By 11 October 2022 India's cement sector profitability (EBITDA/t) may bottom out by the 2QFY23 before reaching new highs by FY25, according to Antique Research (AR). The Indian stockbroking company cites in its latest report that companies in its coverage will see EBITDA/t rise from INR970/t (US$11.77/t) in FY23e to INR1320/t in the FY25e. Declining fuel costs by around 30 per cent from the peak, improved demand led by urban housing, and higher government infrastructure spending (up by eight per cent CAGR from FY22-25e) are the main causes of the EBITDA/t rise estimates. Savings initiatives and the consolidation of Adani Group will also lead to EBITDA/t improvements, claims AR. AR states that more than 100Mta of capacity is expected to be added in India over the next 3-4 years, although this could be offset with similar demand over the same period. In addition, around 65 per cent capacity additions by the top four cement groups may lead to further consolidation in the market, according to AR. The North and West regions of India are predicted to see minimal capacity additions over the FY23-25e and are lower risk regions, adds AR. Meanwhile, AR expects cement volumes to grow by mid-single digits MoM and in mid-teens YoY on a low base in September 2022 as construction activities gain momentum as the monsoon recedes. In September 2022, average pan-Indian cement prices rose by 2-3 per cent MoM led by the East and Western regions. Dealer checks suggest cement producers may raise prices across all regions with effect from October 2022. In the South producers are reportedly contemplating price rises of INR30-40/bag (US$36-49), claims AR. Published under Morning Pointe Senior Living will break ground at its newest senior living campus and second property in Georgia Morning Pointe at Happy Valley - on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 10:30 a.m. The event will take place at the property at 2989 Happy Valley Road in Walker County, next to Ridgeland High School, and the school will be highly involved in the ceremonies. The Ridgeland High School Choir will provide the opening and closing songs, the JROTC will lead out in a flag ceremony and pledge of allegiance and Karen Hughes, principal, will be one of the speakers. Morning Pointe Senior Living co-founders Greg A. Vital (president of the company) and Franklin Farrow (CEO), will share their vision for the new assisted living and memory care campus. Several community partners will speak as well, including Shannon Whitfield, Walker County Commission chair; Rossville Mayor Teddy Harris; Jennifer Martin, president of the Walker County Chamber of Commerce; and Dan Phillips, development director for the North Georgia area for the Alzheimers Association. The groundbreaking will also include special music by 2004 thumb style guitar champion Wesley Crider and breakfast hors doeuvres catered by Farm to Fork. The new senior campus is part of an overall redevelopment of the historic 300-acre Happy Valley Farms between Ridgeland High School and Rossville Middle School. The farm and estate were established in 1935 by John L. Hutcheson, Jr., and were the site of an award winning Jersey cattle and dairy farm before Hutcheson transitioned the property into a world-class American Saddlebred horse-breeding facility. Upon the death of Marion Bit Hutcheson, Greg A. Vital, co-founder and president of Morning Pointe Senior Living, took an interest in the propertys unique legacy and acquired it from the heirs. The Morning Pointe campus is planned in the southeast portion of the property across from the Happy Valley Legacy Barn. The single-story Happy Valley assisted living campus will be 67,000 square feet and will feature 82 spacious apartments of country farm architecture. These encompass 58 assisted living apartments and 24 memory care apartments specially designed for residents with Alzheimers disease and other forms of memory loss. Decorations in the building will celebrate the history of Walker County, as well as the Happy Valley Farm and its legacy. Construction costs are estimated at $14,000,000. Programming will adhere to Morning Pointes strong focus on clinical care with physical and occupational therapies, life enrichment and wellness offerings and intergenerational activities. The Lantern memory care wing will provide an array of Alzheimers and dementia care services, including innovative therapies such as Teepa Snows Positive Approach to Care, Best Friends Approach and Morning Pointes own Meaningful Day a purposeful memory care program providing structure to help residents feel safe and secure, said officials. The campus will also feature Morning Pointes Farm to Table program with local, farm-fresh and seasonal ingredients. As part of our Chattanooga-area presence, we are excited about serving so many in North Georgia who have connections to the Hutcheson family and Happy Valley Farms, said Mr. Vital. Happy Valley is one of the most beautiful locations with a rich history and legacy, and we will soon become a thriving community of residents, associates and families who will call Morning Pointe home. We are so pleased to add Happy Valley to our Morning Pointe family. In the greater Chattanooga area, Morning Pointe operates assisted living and memory care communities in Chattanooga, Collegedale, Ooltewah, Hixson and Athens. Walker County Government, in partnership with Kinetic by Windstream, will address the deployment of a Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) solution to 3,339 homes and businesses in rural Walker County, officials said Monday. The project involves extending 323 miles of fiber throughout the Armuchee Valley, Center Post and Kensington communities, among other locations. This project will serve many of the unserved and underserved in our community, said Chairman Shannon Whitfield, Walker County Board of Commissioners. Its difficult to accept there are still places in the county where the Internet can only be accessed for school or work by using a dial-up modem, if there is any Internet connection at all. Rep. Mike Cameron said the funding is through $6.1 million in federal American Rescue Program funds. He said Dade County got a similar amount and the work is being carried out by Trenton Telephone. Officials of Windstream said the work of replacing copper lines with fiberoptic has already begun in Walker County and will be completed by 2024. He said the firm will also be reaching out to continually extend the system. The new system is capable of handling up to 10 gig. Chairman Whitfield said much of the county closer to Tennessee has several Internet options, but much of the rural southern part of the county has poor service. Residents at a town hall meeting told of difficulties they have streaming and getting good Internet service. Households and businesses may visit GoKinetic.com to find out if they are eligible for a speed upgrade and learn how Kinetic can meet their home or business needs. They can also visit or call the Kinetic Connection Center retail store at 615 S. Thornton Ave. in Dalton. Its phone number is 706-279-7000. Kinetics Walker County fiber project is part of a $2 billion multiyear capital investment strategy to dramatically expand gigabit fiber service across Kinetics 18-state footprint. Officials said, "Kinetics superfast, reliable fiber connections in Walker County empower residential customers to gig speeds to navigate the Internet safely from home with no lag times while they work, participate in virtual classrooms or stream entertainment services." A woman on Arbor Place Lane told police she wanted her son and his girlfriend to leave her residence. She said she has allowed her son to live with her off and on while she has been helping her parents. She said she returned home and discovered he and his girlfriend were inside her residence and she asked them to leave. The son felt he shouldn't have to leave as he has been living there for six months. Police asked the girlfriend to leave, as she has not established residency at the above address. The son and girlfriend both decided to leave together. * * * While working a job at the Walmart, 2020 Gunbarrel Road, an officer observed two females skip several items while scanning at self checkout. They were intercepted outside of the exit doors to the property after all points of sale were passed, and identified. The total amount that was not scanned was $22.23. Walmart did not prosecute due to the amount not meeting the threshold. Neither woman was trespassed, but both were warned if this should occur again, charges would be filed. * * * A man told police he was traveling west on Westside Drive when a dog ran out into the roadway. The man said he ran over the dog, killing it. No damage was done to the man's vehicle. The dog was not on a leash. * * * A disorder was reported at Alan Gold's Discotheque, 1100 McCallie Ave. Police were informed by security that there was an individual they had a disorder with that was in need of trespassing. Police checked the area, but were unable to locate the person. * * * A vehicle was found to have been abandoned and blocking a lane of travel at S Germantown Road/S. Terrace. American Recovery was called by Dispatch for a district police pick up due to not being able to make contact with the owner and being a traffic hazard. The wrecker driver was forced to use a lock out kit to enter into the locked vehicle from the driver's side door in order to safely secure the vehicle to the wrecker. The wrecker driver assumed responsibility for the vehicle. * * * While checking windows and doors around the Community Center at 3202 Kellys Ferry Road, Police came across a door that was unlocked and able to be pulled open. Police searched and cleared the building, with nothing located. Police proceeded to secure the unlocked door properly. * * * A woman on Delashmitt Road told police a white BMW struck her mailbox, knocked it down and grazed a utility pole. She said the vehicle then continued to drive away. Police checked the pole, which had no significant damage. * * * While looking for a backpack during a suspicious call, police found a pink wallet on the ground in the alley behind the building at 2000 Broad St. The wallet had two miscellaneous cards and it was collected and submitted to Chattanooga Property Division. * * * An employee at the Circle K, 4900 Brainerd Road, told police that two women came into the Circle K around 2 p.m. and each stole an electronic item off the electronics rack. The women then passed all points of store sales without paying for the merchandise. The employee is working on getting quality footage for identification purposes. * * * A woman on Arlington Avenue told police that sometime overnight someone entered her unlocked vehicle and stole her HP Chromebook laptop. * * * A man on Nurick Drive told police that sometime overnight someone entered his unlocked truck and stole a Simms Backpack that contained a Dell Inspirion 500 laptop. There is no suspect information. * * * A woman on Ochs Highway told police that sometime overnight someone entered her unlocked vehicle and stole multiple credit/debit cards. The person then went to Walmart and spent $1,700 and to Best Buy, where they spent $5,000. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee launched the $100 million Violent Crime Intervention Fund and invited local law enforcement agencies to apply for grants that will be used to strengthen public safety in communities across Tennessee. As Americans face rising crime nationwide, Tennessee is equipping law enforcement with the tools needed to keep every community safe, said Governor Lee. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented support. I invite all police departments and sheriffs offices to engage this opportunity so the state can thoughtfully invest these dollars in proven methods that will curb violent crime and strengthen public safety. Every Tennessean deserves to feel safe in their community, and our local law enforcement agencies deserve access to the resources needed to deliver that quality of life. As a cornerstone of Governor Lees Proven Crime Prevention agenda, the Violent Crime Intervention Fund was included in the states Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget to support local law enforcements work to reduce violent crime and strengthen public safety. Eligible uses of funding include evidence-based crime intervention models, hiring and training of specialized violent crime units, purchase and application of technology and equipment and law enforcement-led partnerships with community organizations to disrupt and prevent violent crime. Local law enforcement agencies can apply for grant funding through January 2023. Grants will be awarded in a hybrid model, with every local law enforcement agency guaranteed a minimum grant via a formula, with additional access to a pool of supplemental funds available to agencies that enter into collaborations or regional partnerships. Agencies are invited to learn more and apply for grants here. In addition to the Violent Crime Intervention Fund, Lee has made the following Proven Crime Prevention investments to strengthen public safety and directly support law enforcement across Tennessee: - 100 additional Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers funded by the state - $30 million to support recruitmentand retention bonuses for newly hired police officers - $24 million in state funding to support local law enforcement access to basic training and onboarding costs - Increased the frequency of training for new recruits and transfers from out-of-state to get law enforcement officers on the job faster - Creation of a statewide network of Correctional Officer training programs in partnership with TCATs and Community Colleges - Over $4 million in professional development programs for local correctional officers - Over $25 million in Evidence Based Programming grants for local jails to start and operate proven crime and recidivism reduction programs for inmates James W. Haynes, MD, MBA, FAAFP, has been named dean of the UTHSC College of Medicine, Chattanooga. Dr. Haynes has served as the interim dean in Chattanooga since December 2021.I am grateful for the opportunity and I believe we have a bright future here, Dr. Haynes said. The College of Medicine, Chattanooga includes 400 faculty members, approximately 190 residents and fellows and approximately 250 students, who rotate for training annually, he said.Building upon 50 years and the good relations we've had with Erlanger (Health System), we can build a strong health care system that provides care to all the citizens of our community, North Georgia, Western North Carolina and northeast Alabama, he said.A family medicine physician and a more-than-20-year veteran of the United States Air Force, Dr.Haynes listed several priorities for his new role including, To use our academic infrastructure and resources to help our affiliated hospitals improve quality, depth and breadth of services and grow residency positions where it is makes the most sense. I'd also like to establish rural health care initiatives around the region, in order to improve the health care to folks who live in rural areas, and grow our research.Dr. Haynes said he also aims to improve faculty development, providing junior faculty a clear path for academic growth and promotion, as well as to partner with the community to improve the health of the citizens in the Chattanooga area.A native of Fayetteville, NC, Dr. Haynes received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He completed his residency in family medicine at Eglin Regional Hospital at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.His extensive military service encompasses two tours of duty in the Middle East, including a tour of duty in Iraq as part of a critical care evacuation team. Dr. Haynes was named the Uniformed Services Academy of Family Physicians' Family Physician of the Year in 2003 and served as the family medicine consultant to the surgeon general of the U. S. Air Force from 2005 to 2007.Dr. Haynes has taught in graduate medical education for more than 20 years and has served as the chair of the Department of Family Medicine in Chattanooga since 2019. He holds a master of business administration from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and is a past president of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Medical Society.I am delighted that we were able to successfully recruit Dr. Haynes to serve as the dean of our Chattanooga campus, said Scott Strome, executive dean of the UTHSC College of Medicine. He is a fantastic leader, who seeks to grow the UTHSC College of Medicine by building bridges with all of our relevant stakeholders. Our future is incredibly bright with Dr. Haynes at the helm in Chattanooga.R. Phillip Burns, MD, FACS, who served 46 years as the chair of the Department of Surgery in the College of Medicine, Chattanooga, said, I cant think of a better choice than that of Dr. James Haynes as the dean of the College of Medicine in Chattanooga. He is not only a great teacher and administrator, but I have been particularly impressed with his contributions to leadership in organized medicine, both in our local community and the state. United States President Joe Biden slams Russian President Vladimir Putin and his "illegal war" on Ukraine while also condemning Moscow's brutal missile strikes that killed dozens of civilians. The situation follows Putin announcing the annexation of four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions. On the other hand, Ukrainian forces have mounted a strong counteroffensive against Moscow's military troops, reclaiming various territories that were lost to Russian aggression. Biden Slams Russia Ukraine has managed to defend itself from Russia's onslaught with the assistance of Western military aid. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly called on international leaders to do more to support his country against its attacker. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was also "deeply shocked" by Moscow's widespread airstrikes since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement that the recent attack constitutes another unacceptable escalation of the war. On Tuesday, the Group of Seven (G&) countries will hold discussions after the Russian missile strikes on several Ukrainian cities. Zelensky is expected to address leaders at the start of the virtual talks, as per Nikkei Asia. Following the devastation of Russia's most recent airstrikes, Biden pledged on Monday that the U.S. will provide Ukraine with advanced air systems. The Democratic leader spoke with Zelensky to give assurances about continued US military support. Furthermore, the US president also told his Ukrainian counterpart that his country and its allies and partners will continue imposing sanctions on Russia over its war. They seek to hold Moscow accountable for its war crimes and atrocities while providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance. According to Reuters, the Democratic president's remarks come as the United States has already provided more than $16.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Biden also imposed a wide-ranging array of economic sanctions on Moscow over its attack on its European neighbor. Read Also: North Korea Missile Tests Are Simulations of Nuclear Attacks to South Korea: Report Support For Ukraine A senior Biden administration official was questioned whether the attacks over the past 24 hours would change the calculus on what the US government would consider offering Ukraine. He answered that they had no announcement to make on that front but noted that the government will continue to provide assistance to the besieged nation with short- and long-range air defense systems. A second senior administration official added that the US government will transfer more than 1,400 Stinger anti-air systems as well as air surveillance and multi-mission radars. The US has enabled its allies to transfer air defense systems of their own to Ukraine, including Slovakia's S-300 system. President Biden announced in August a new assistance package for Ukraine that included orders for eight new National Advanced Surface to Air Missiles Systems (NASAMS). The official said that they will continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself against Russia. The situation comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday. The American official reiterated US support following the deadly airstrikes. A total of 84 cruise missiles were launched by Russia against targets across Ukraine on Monday, CNN reported. Related Article: Ukrainian Cities Blasted With Russian Missile Attacks; Putin Says Strikes A Response To Explosion at Crimean Bridge @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The City of Chattanoogas Department of Parks and Outdoors announced the arrival of Gail Loveland Barille as director of the citys Outdoor Chattanooga division, under the Department of Parks and Outdoors. Established in 2004, Outdoor Chattanoogas mission is to make outdoor recreation an attractive, healthy, and distinguishing lifestyle for all of Chattanoogas residents and visitors. Outdoor Chattanooga maintains and helps enhance the value of the regions resources, while leading efforts to help grow the regions economy. "Elevation of Chattanooga's outdoor recreational amenities through the creation of Outdoor Chattanooga under the leadership of the late Philip Grymes has been a game changer for our region for the last two decades. said Scott Martin, Department of Parks and Outdoors administrator. Finding the right professional to build on Phil's legacy was no small task. Gail's record in scaling up outdoor recreation programming through creative public/private partnerships across the nation will usher in a new era of dynamic growth for the outdoor community across our region, and we are thrilled to welcome her to the team" Ms. Loveland Barille brings over 25 years of experience working within nonprofits specifically focused on outdoor recreation, inclusion, and youth development. Her career and community engagement extend to staff and volunteer leadership roles within a variety of international, national, and local nonprofits, including the National Ability Center, Boys and Girls Club, American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, the International Paralympic Committee, Outdoors for All, and, most recently, Southeast Conservation Corps (SECC) serving TN, GA, KY, AL, FL, and SC. Over her career, she has led the fundraising and development of innovative recreation program models, events, and facilities through public and private partnerships. As an initial member of the Utah Office of Outdoor Recreation advisory committee, she advocated for the accessibility needs of the state's local and visitor populations. As CEO of the National Ability Center, she worked with a talented team of staff, volunteers, and outdoor industry partners to create internationally recognized adaptive recreation programs, events, and facilities for individuals with disabilities and their families. "Gail is fearless in seeking out expected and unexpected partnerships to build inclusive and conservation themed recreational communities. said Martha Ham, founder of the first outdoor all inclusive recreation program in Utah. Over the past decade, I watched her skillfully blend tradition with innovation in building an exciting network of recreational opportunities. She understands and values the role that access to nature plays in establishing and protecting the livability of a community. Gail is uncommonly committed to these principles!" Since moving to Chattanooga in 2019, Ms. Loveland Barille has spent the majority of her time exploring the expansive natural environment in the surrounding areas of Tennessee and Georgia. Her countless hours working alongside dedicated members and staff, building and maintaining trails, learning from local land management partners, and supporting innovative program models like SECC's Veteran and Womens+ Fire Crews, will prove to be a valuable asset to the City of Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors Department. Over the past three years, I have been impressed with the care and resources Outdoor Chattanooga directs towards removing barriers so that our entire community can access the benefits of the outdoors and recreation, said Ms. Loveland Barille. This landscape, with local access to the variety of different lands and waterways, bugs and wildlife, and trails and scenery is a unique asset for our urban community. I look forward to adding my expertise to the work of the City of Chattanooga's Parks and Outdoor Department and its Outdoor Chattanooga Division while continuing to build outdoor recreation as a critical resource for Chattanooga's residents and visitors. The town of Signal Mountain is using American Rescue Plan funds to buy equipment and implement some projects that have been discussed for several years. The Public Works Department will be getting a street sweeper that originally was going to be bought with stormwater fees paid by the residents. Public Works Director Loretta Hopper at the council meeting Monday night said that the equipment it is a qualified purchase from ARP funds and requested to pay for it with money received from the government to help municipalities recover from the effects of COVID. This will free up the tax money for other uses. The council approved spending $277,325 for the street sweeper. Ms. Hopper said new stormwater requirements can be addressed more easily now because the sweeper will be used to clean debris from the streets and curbs to prevent it from washing into the stormwater culverts and drains. It can also be used to reach into and clean out catch basins when debris does wash in and collect. Water Utility Director Matt Justice said that a long-planned water interconnect agreement with Walden is official. A resolution passed and officials in Signal Mountain and Walden have now signed the agreement that will ensure a water source for both towns in case of an emergency. This project also qualifies for ARP money that will be used to pay 70 percent of the total cost of $250,000. The council approved applying for a grant from the Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO). If received, Police Chief Mike Williams was authorized to accept the $25,000 that would pay for equipment used in traffic enforcement to promote safety. A new position in the police department will be for a temporary full-time officer. This person will help fill the vacancies left by several employees who have retired or left. The 2022 budget was created for a fully staffed department and the money is still available, so it is there for this new position. The job will only be good until the end of this budget year. Signal Mountain will also participate in a consultative service agreement with Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration. TOSHA provides free assistance to municipalities for identifying dangers that cannot be seen such as mold and air quality in town owned facilities. This service will help Town Manager Elaine Brunelle to plan for the interior and exterior maintenance of the towns properties. No gross violation is expected to be found, but if it is, there will be an opportunity to have it fixed before being penalized. The public works department has inspected the town and identified trees that are dead or need to be removed. On Monday, the council approved a bid from Big Woodys Tree Service to cut down the dangerous trees. The contract price is not to exceed $15,000. Fire Chief Eric Mitchell told the commissioners that the department is proactive about preventing problems by conducting various training classes each month for town employees and for the public. There was an open house at the fire station on Saturday to provide education about fire safety. And there are CPR classes and instructions for fire extinguisher use. The department also conducts life safety inspections for town residents. The police department is also training to be prepared in the event of emergencies. Crisis training is held at each of the schools in Signal Mountain every quarter, said Police Chief Mike Williams. And at this time the department is in the process of transferring all data which may contain confidential information to a secure site that will be accessible only to the police department. The council wants to make all meetings available to the residents by video. The system that is chosen will be used for all town and board meetings as well as the council. Presentations have been made from three companies that specialize in this service. A consensus of the council on Monday, was to use Champ Video to provide the video and streaming service. More information about which options are needed and the exact costs of each will be identified before a final decision can be made. Dick Graham, Signal Mountain Elementary Preservation Fund board member, told the council that the MACC art gallery has been dedicated to Karen Shropshire who was the first director of the MACC. He said that she had a vision and made it happen, and now the board is building on what she did. City officials said a new online detection system has turned up over 400 illegally operating short term vacation rentals in Chattanooga. Caleb Fisher, of the Land Development Office, said the city has been sending out 40-50 letters a week giving the rental owners the bad news. He said the letters are planned to go out over a nine-week period. About four weeks worth have been sent out. Those operating without a certificate will need to come in and register and pay the $165 annual application fee. Mr. Fisher said many have told him they "didn't know" about the required sign up, while some complain that the requirement is "not fair." He said those not complying were about evenly split between the live-in owners and the absentee owners. He said the absentees are not yet able to sign up because there currently is a moratorium in place on new non-owner occupied units. Chris Anderson of the mayor's office said the city gained $940,391 in income from the STVR business last year - up from the previous $594,055. It is set to go up significantly with all the new finds. A City Council committee is aiming to have a re-worked STVR draft resolution ready by Nov. 1. The City Council is due to discuss it next Tuesday. Dan Reuter, Regional Planning Agency director, and Mr. Anderson advised against the current setup of having an overlay district where the rentals are allowed. Mr. Reuter proposed using zoning classifications, but committee chairman Chip Henderson said he was strongly opposed to that, saying it led to a number of zoning issues. Councilman Henderson also said that the council in the past had been split on allowing the rentals. He said three of the council members "said heck no to having them in their districts." There are plans to set up a seven-member STVR Appeals Board that would hear appeals of staff denials of applications and revocations of permits. Four members would be named by the mayor and three by the City Council. Councilwoman Jenny Hill proposed much higher fees for rental owners, saying the overage could be used to boost affordable housing. She said there could be a charge of $1,000, plus $1,000 per bed. She projected that larger operators were making some $200,000 per year and could afford the charge. Councilman Henderson was opposed, saying, "Fees ought to be basic to cover operational costs. At some time it starts to look like a grab." Owners at the meeting said rentals have a 60 percent occupancy rate and some owners shut down for part or most of the year. Winter House is back for season 2, and the promo push from Bravo has fans talking about Paige DeSorbo. Her relationship with Craig Conover cant be denied, as this season was filmed after the couple went Instagram official. But could a behind-the-scenes photo indicate that Craig and Paige have another big announcement to make? Craig Conover and Paige DeSorbo | Jude Domski/Bravo Bravo teases a Paige DeSorbo baby bump in photos from Winter House Season 2 Just a few days ahead of the Winter House Season 2 premiere, Bravo released an exclusive first look that featured numerous photos from behind the scenes. They featured stars Amanda Batula, Jason Cameron, Craig Conover, Kyle Cooke, Paige DeSorbo, Luke Gulbranson, Austen Kroll, and Ciara Miller, who are back for another drama-filled trip to Stowe, Vermont. Joining the cast will be new friends Rachel Clark, Kory Keefer, and Jessica Stocker. And, the new season will feature visits from Summer Houses Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke. As well as Vanderpump Rules stars Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz. But amid all of those fun photos, there was one context-free image that caught the eye of many fans Paige with her hand on a baby bump. Is it possible that she and Craig are expecting? The Southern Charm and Summer House stars are still together, but there is no baby on the way A longer look at the image from Bravo makes it clear that the Winter House cast was dressed up in costumes for a wild party. So, the baby bump was fake. But that doesnt mean that there isnt plenty of relationship drama. Paige and Craigs relationship turned romantic not long after they filmed Winter House Season 1. They had both just split from their respective exes, and they connected when she visited Charleston, South Carolina, over the summer. They continued to see other people while they explored their relationship, which was well-documented in season 6 of Summer House. Photo via Bravo By the fall of 2021, they realized they wanted to be together, and they made things official last October. And by December, they were getting questions about a possible engagement. I mean, we have only been dating for a couple of months. But if I can trick him into a diamond ring, Im going to do it! DeSorbo joked, per People Magazine. Paige DeSorbo says she is f***ing terrified to live with Craig Conover in the Winter House Season 2 trailer Paige and Craig have come a long way in their relationship since fans watched Summer House Season 6. They have admitted they are planning a future together, and they have talked about marriage, kids, and family. Thats why Paige moved to Charleston this past summer to be with Craig instead of doing long distance from New York City. But in the Winter House trailer, she reveals that she is scared about taking such a huge step. He tells the cameras, This will be the longest Paige and I have ever spent together. While she admits, Im not used to living with a boyfriend. Im f***ing terrified. Winter House Season 2 premieres October 13 on Bravo. RELATED: Winter House Stars Craig Conover and Paige DeSorbo Are Instagram OfficialKind Of You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close The race for an open seat in the redrawn 83rd House District covering parts of Meriden, Berlin and Cheshire features a Republican former challenger from Meriden and a Berlin town councilor making his first bid for state office. Democrat Jack Fazzino and Republican Lou Arata have been going door to door and attending events in hopes of earning enough votes to replace retiring state Rep. Cathy Abercrombie in the recently redistricted 83rd. It is Aratas third try at the seat after narrowly losing to Abercrombie by roughly 300 votes in 2018 and 2020. According to state election filings, Fazzino had raised $9,135 through August, to Aratas $6,455 as of July 18. The newly redrawn district has shaved off some parts of Meriden and expanded in Berlin and Cheshire. It remains to be seen if more suburban voters help Arata, who has endorsements from the Connecticut State Fraternal Order of Police and the Berlin police union. He was also endorsed by the Independent Party and will appear on that ballot line in November. Arata, 65, is vice chairman of Meridens Public Utilities Commission and got his start in politics as a student. I love my home state and would like to retire here, Arata stated on his campaign website. But like so many, I might not be able to afford to do that. Arata graduated from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and started his professional career with Westin Hotels. He recently retired after a lengthy career in business and sales. He currently manages an equestrian facility in Meriden, in addition to his role on the PUC. Arata criticized Abercrombie and other Democratic lawmakers for voting to increase state spending, putting pressure on residents and businesses. He strongly believes in checks and balances in government, he said, while operating with a high degree of transparency and efficiency. If elected, Arata would start cleaning house by eliminating complacency, mismanagement, corruption and overspending, he said. I would start by conducting forensic audits of each individual department. We cant expect to fix things when we dont know how or if they are broken. Use of enhanced technologies and best practices employed in the private sector, regardless of how government has always done things, needs to be prioritized, according to his campaign website. Fazzino, 27, studied political science at the University of Notre Dame, then earned his masters degree at Georgetown University and his law degree from Boston College Law School. While at Georgetown, Fazzino interned with U.S. Sen. Chris Murphys office and was a clerk for a federal judge. He is currently employed as a lawyer at Cohen and Wolf P.C. in Bridgeport He won a seat on the Berlin Town Council last November. Since announcing his candidacy for state office, Fazzino has secured endorsements from the Democratic town committees in Meriden, Berlin and Cheshire. He is also endorsed by the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers, AFSCME Council 4, and Planned Parenthood. He is endorsed by the Connecticut Working Families Party and his name will appear on that ballot line. Its never too early to pay it forward, Fazzino said. Right now, we are slowly emerging from a two-year period that has placed an enormous toll on our people, our businesses, and our institutions. High taxes and infrastructure improvements are key issues for Fazzino, as is education. He supported an education initiative introduced by Gov. Ned Lamont that teaches middle school students financial literacy skills. Ive seen the roads and sidewalks, Fazzino said. We need to continue to invest in infrastructure. We need walkable streets, thats important. People want to be able to get around in their community. After spending time in Meriden schools, he recognized the progress the district has made to increase the numbers of college-bound students. But he also supports skill-based training, and positive programs, such as the financial literacy curriculum coming from the state. Fazzino said discussions over Critical Race Theory and transsexual athletes are not topics that come up when he talks to voters. But access to safe abortions has come up, especially following talk of a national ban. Fazzino supports safe access to abortion. He said he has taken active steps to support transit-oriented housing in Berlin. The train station is one of our towns greatest assets, his campaign website reads. It unlocks access to major hubs like New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Transit-oriented development encourages more sustainable and affordable public transportation practices. It also reduces carbon emissions, builds accessibility and contributes to more vibrant communities. He also advocated for Berlins 2022 Affordable Housing Plan. Ive been fortunate to grow up in 83rd district, he said. I understand the responsibility of building a community that supports the people that live there. Part of that involves supporting police officers by ensuring they have adequate funding. He added that the police accountability bill passed by the legislature needs to be revisited annually. We have to meet the balance to ensure it doesnt hamstring police officers, he said. Fazzino said one of his strengths is building bipartisan consensus. Bipartisanship is important to me, he said. This is the benefit of bringing the local government experience to an office by building a consensus. That is the type of leader I am and aspire to be at the local and state level. Arata supports personal freedoms, including parental rights, and common-sense fiscal policies aimed at helping all state residents, according to his website. He said that although Meriden, Cheshire and Berlin face different challenges, there are many similarities in running a municipality. My core values of smaller, more efficient government, lower taxes, support and funding police, and supporting communities in the 83rd district to maintain local control of their zoning and BOE, resound overwhelmingly well with my district, he said. Aratas priorities include opening the lines of communication to constituents and more citizen participation and transparency in government. He also aims to bring back our pre-1992 competitive advantage by reforming the state income tax and corporate income tax, eliminating the gift and estate taxes, eliminating redundancy in government programs. He also hopes to reduce regulatory interference for companies and embrace legislation for zero-based budgeting. Arata also supports studying a flat tax system for residents and businesses. A smaller government will take less of your money, leaving it in your wallet to spend for what you decide, not the government, on the things you and your family need, Arata wrote on his campaign website. Its about personal choice and individual freedom, to live how you want to live and make the best decisions affecting you and your family not how someone else decides for you. A pro-Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for several cyber attacks that target various United States airport websites on Monday. A senior Biden administration official who was briefed on the situation said that the attacker was believed to have been located within the Russian Federation. The cybercriminals targeted systems that do not handle air traffic control, internal airline communications and coordination, or transportation security. Cyberattacks on Airport Websites The official said that the attack caused an inconvenience and noted that they resulted in targeted "denial of public access" to public-facing web domains that report airport wait times and congestion. The attack, which was a "denial of service" strike, impacted more than a dozen airport websites, said the head of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, John Hultquist. This type of cyber attack essentially overloads websites by flooding them with artificial users. Hultquist said that they believe a pro-Russian hacker group, "Killnet," is behind the recent cyber attack. While similar other groups have been found to be fronts for state-backed actors, there was no evidence that the recent strike had any involvement from the Russian government, as per ABC News. The hacking attacks were first reported at around 3:00 a.m. ET when the Port Authority notified the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that the LaGuardia Airport system was struck. While LaGuardia was quickly restored, other airport websites were also subsequently attacked. Both the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, said that they were aware of the cyber attacks. On Monday morning, other known victims included websites for Des Moines International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), and Chicago O'Hare International Airport. According to the Washington Post, Hultquist noted that while the attacks were highly visible, they were more of a "public nuisance" than serious security threats. However, he argued that when they do take place, they are effective in drawing public attention. Read Also: US Ban on Chip Export Against China Risks Stagnation of Crucial Semi-Conductor Development to Global Growth Pro-Russian Hacker Group Officials at Denver International Airport reported that the attack on their website began at around 11:00 a.m. On the other hand, LAX managers said that the airport's website was partially disrupted and was limited to portions of the public-facing website. Killnet is believed to be stepping up hacking efforts against countries that continue to oppose Russia's war on Ukraine. The group also previously claimed responsibility for attacks that targeted government websites in Colorado, Kentucky, and Mississippi last week and Congress' website in July. A former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, Rebekah Koffler, said that Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to force the United States to stop providing military assistance to Ukraine by attempting to place pressure on American citizens. She said that inflicting gradual pain by disrupting the normal functioning of the society and its people is part of Russia's plan. Koffler noted that the goal is to reach the point where people get tired of inconveniences and demand that the US government abandon Ukraine so that they could lead their lives normally without hassle, Fox Business reported. Related Article: New York Subway Attack: Suspects in Neon Green Leotards Identified After Assaulting Women @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The wealthiest Russian in Silicon Valley, Yuri Milner, announced on Monday that he had relinquished his Russian citizenship. According to a blog post on the website of Milner's venture capital business DST Global, the procedure was finished in August. Yuri Milner Renounces Citizenship The post discusses the company's history in relation to Russia, a subject that has drawn controversy in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as per Bloomberg. In 2014, following Russia's invasion of Crimea, Yuri Milner, who established technology investment company DST Global in 2009, tweeted, "My family and I left Russia for good." According to Mr. Milner's website, he has lived in California with his family since 2014 and became an Israeli citizen in 1999. He didn't specify a rationale for making the announcement Monday. Milner's spokesperson declined to go further than his tweet. According to Milner's website, 97% of his wealth was generated outside of Russia, and he hasn't been there since 2014. Milner has acquired a fortune estimated to be worth roughly $7.3 billion over the last ten years, making him the most well-known Russian-born investor in the American tech sector. Twitter and Facebook both had 5% shares in Milner's venture capital company, DST Global, at separate stages in the 2010s. However, Yuri Milner had received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian state-controlled banks early in his Silicon Valley venture capital career, based on the 2017 Paradise Papers leak of millions of secret financial data, many of which came from a Bermuda-based private bank. Despite the fact that Milner has consistently refuted allegations that he has ties to the Kremlin, this still stands, as per CNBC reported. Read Also: North Korea Missile Tests Are Simulations of Nuclear Attacks to South Korea: Report Russia-Ukraine War Meanwhile, on Monday, Russia showered missiles down on Ukraine, giving the occupied country a bloody case of deja vu, sapping power in several areas and heralding the expansion of a seven-month conflict that had, up until recently, been largely contained to the country's south and east. The morning rush hour in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, was disrupted by the airstrikes, which arrived as the Russian Army was struggling on the battlefield. Residents hurried to bomb shelters or the subway system for safety. Infrastructure strikes in Kharkiv, the second-largest city, left areas in the dark as night fell. In response to a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022, a medical professional sprints past a flaming car. The attacks resulted in at least 14 fatalities and 97 injuries, according to the Ukrainian government, which also noted damage to several structures. The attacks reportedly affected a dozen locations and caused more than 30 fires in Kyiv, according to the country's state emergency agency. After Moscow accused Ukraine of being responsible for a weekend explosion on the bridge connecting Russia and the seized Crimean peninsula, the onslaught spread from the east to the west of Ukraine. Russia detailed the explosion on Saturday. Following a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022, a rescue worker passes three dead that are wrapped in blankets. On Monday, explosions shook several Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, which experienced missile attacks for the first time in months. President Vladimir Putin may have appreciated having a good excuse to escalate when the bridge was damaged. The Russian president has stepped up his rhetoric recently and is under pressure from several quarters within his own country due to the expensive war he has been waging against Ukraine since February 24. The strikes on Monday shocked Kyiv, where life had essentially returned to normal after the Ukrainian military rejected Russia's late-winter campaign to seize the capital. On Monday, people in the capital remained calm while chanting national anthems and finding safety in the metro. However, many were shaken and many roads and buildings were destroyed. In response to the strike on Monday morning, President Joe Biden, who slammed Russia with sanctions on Sept. 30 over the Kremlin's alleged takeover of four provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine, released a terse four-paragraph statement. Tuesday's meeting between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the G7 leaders, a group of some of the world's most economically powerful nations, may have helped pave the way for more sanctions against Moscow. According to both of their offices, President Zelenskyy and President Joe Biden spoke on the phone on Monday and discussed Ukraine's air defense capabilities. Accusing Russia of launching brutal missile attacks, Joe Biden pledges to defend Ukraine. The assaults appeared to be meant to cause blackouts as weather cold in Ukraine's north, and they may have been much more destructive if not for defensive measures that intercepted scores of missiles. The majority of the western city of Lviv, where the temperature was 45 degrees on Monday night, was reported without power. Prime Minister of Britain Liz Truss spoke with Zelenskyy over the phone and stated that Putin's desperation was evident in the appalling attacks on civilian areas in Kyiv and elsewhere. In Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, October 10, 2022, people who have been injured by Russian shelling received medical attention. After several months of comparatively peace in the Ukrainian capital, two explosions shook Kyiv on Monday morning. By Efrem Lukatsky In the greatest military confrontation in Europe since World War II, the Ukrainian Army has been advancing in the northeast, taking back land that had been taken by Russia previously. The combat losses have put pressure on President Vladimir Putin, who is now dealing with discontent among his staunchly nationalist supporters, widespread opposition to a military draft he has authorized, and waning Chinese support. President Vladimir Putin has issued nuclear threats that have alarmed the West after being forced into a corner. Last week, at a fundraiser in New York, President Joe Biden warned of a danger not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis and said that Putin is "not joking" about unleashing nuclear weapons. President Joe Biden stated, "I don't think there's any way to deploy a tactical nuclear bomb easily without causing Armageddon." However, on Monday, Putin chose one of his more well-known strategies, even if it put the lives of defenseless civilians far from the front lines of Russia's brutal conflict in danger. In one tall building in Kyiv, the windows were blown out. Mayor Vitali Klitschko of the city reported damage to six school structures. Some missiles flew over the heart of the city. A bomb appeared to have shaken a well-known pedestrian bridge, but the glass crossing was unharmed. Olivia Milton, an IT professional who resides in a high-rise apartment complex in Kyiv's Dniprovsky neighborhood and who left the city following the invasion with her son but has since returned, claimed to have witnessed two rockets pass over the city and explode close to a significant energy station. The facility kept operating, according to Milton. She added that she was unsure if her family would spend the night in a shelter, but Kyiv was on edge and many citizens brought air mattresses down to bomb shelters, according to AOL. Related Article: Ron DeSantis' Approval Ratings Ramp Up Following Response to Hurricane Ian Despite Facing Questions About Migrant Flights @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. American society has a knowledge crisis, Bonnie Kristian tells us in the first sentence of her timely new book, Untrustworthy, and the American church is no exception. Our chaotic information environment is systematically eroding Americans trust in public institutions and in each other. It makes us simultaneously more cynical and more gullibleno simple featand so isolated that we begin to lose touch with reality. If the implications for American democracy are grim, Kristian argues, the consequences for American Christianity are darker still. The crisis that plagues us risks grave damage to our church communities, our public witness, and our individual faith, she writes. Oh, that we might have ears to hear. Kristians book, subtitled The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community, begins with a laymans introduction to epistemology: the philosophical study of the nature of knowledge that asks if we can know things and how we can know them. Few of us waste much time on such questions because they seem so esoteric and impractical. Whatever academic philosophers might theorize, the rest of us intuitively recognize that we cant function in our daily lives without making two assumptions: first, that its possible to gain knowledge about reality that is objectively true for all; and second, that its possible to communicate that truth intelligibly to others. But this is precisely Kristians point. When it comes to the public square, these assumptions are under attack, and our public life reels from the assault. A half century ago, most Americans acquired ... 1 You have reached the end of this Article Preview You have reached the end of this Article Preview To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access. Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here. On Jamie Winships first day as a police officer in Washington, DC, his mentor told him, Keep your mouth shut for one year, and to listen closely. He applied this important lesson to his professional and spiritual life and found listening and abiding was the way to hear Gods voice and bring peace to the conflicted spaces he was working in. His methods were successful, and he was asked to do his reconciliation work across the globe to the worlds highest conflict areas. Guest Bio: Jamie Winship has decades of experience bringing peaceful solutions to some of the worlds highest conflict areas. After a distinguished career in law enforcement in the metro Washington, DC area, Jamie earned an MA in English and developed a unique process called the Identity Method. This process of identity transformation is the key to resolving inner conflict and acquiring new levels of learning and creativity in any field. His unconventional efforts to bring about societal and racial reconciliation led him to Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel and back to the US. Jamie has worked with leaders in professional sports, business, education, law enforcement, government, non-profit, and other sectors. He is the author of Living Fearless: Exchanging the Lies of the World for the Liberating Truth of God. Jamie and his wife, Donna, are co-founders of Identity Exchange and its corporate arm, Identity Method, providing training and consulting in the transformative power of living fearlessly in your true identity. Notes & Quotes: Abide is just a decision to stand next to and listen. Abiding just means the commitment to stay with. And, in the staying with, is where you learn everything. I started asking God, Can you show me another way to think about policing that I don't know? I kept watching Jesus, reading through the gospels in Acts, and Jesus didnt come to tell people what to do. He came to teach people how to know what to do. Do you know why God tells us to love our enemy? Because theyre not really your enemy, thats why. You only have one enemy and thats Satan . . . . Links Mentioned: Check out Jamie Winships new book Living Fearless. Explore Winships website about identity. Visit our website to sign up for emails. Get new episodes sent straight to your email. Tell us how much you love Where Ya From? by rating us five stars and leaving us a review. Check out our VOICES Collection from Our Daily Bread Ministries Follow Where Ya From?on Instagram. Follow VOICES on Instagram. Verses Mentioned: Pro-life activists reach settlement with NC city over arrest for praying outside abortion clinic Pro-life activists have reached a settlement with a North Carolina city in which officials agreed to allow them to demonstrate peacefully on public sidewalks, including during public health emergencies. Love Life, also known as Global Impact Ministries, and other pro-life activists sued the city of Greensboro and Guilford County, North Carolina, after they were arrested in March 2020 while praying outside A Womans Choice, an abortion clinic in Greensboro. Their arrest occurred at a time when state and local governments had implemented lockdown orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The two parties agreed to a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice on Friday, which was brought before the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The dismissal agreement included the city resolving all the claims advanced by the plaintiffs and both sides covering their own attorneys fees and costs. Apart from Love Life, other plaintiffs named in the complaint included Love Life founder and President Justin Reeder, Carl Ubinas of Mooresville, Jason Oesterreich of Locust, Isaiah Burner of Statesville, Andre Gonzalez of Mooresville, Pastor Leroy Stokes Jr. of Greensboro, and Pastors Richard Whittier and Jon McAtee of Mint Hill. Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm representing the pro-life activists, filed a lawsuit against Greensboro and Guilford County in April 2020 in response to the arrests, arguing that the punishment of the pro-life activists was unconstitutional. The legal organization celebrated the resolution of the case as a victory for First Amendment rights. ADF Senior Counsel Denise Harle, director of the ADF Center for Life, said in a statement released Monday that she believed this case was never about public health and safety. She concluded that instead, it was about the government silencing people because it didnt like what they had to say. That said, we commend the city for finally agreeing to respect the free speech rights of Love Life members and acknowledge their freedom to pray and speak in the public square, she added. ADF said in its statement Monday that city officials agreed to uphold citizens First Amendment rights in any future proclamation order related to a public-health emergency like COVID-19. Although the plaintiffs argued that they had taken certain public health precautions to comply with public health orders issued by the city and county, such as limiting their gathering to 10 people and standing 6 feet apart, the activists were nevertheless arrested and threatened with fines of up to $1,000 for their actions outside the clinic. In February, county officials reached a settlement with the pro-life activists, paying $15,000 in attorneys fees and agreeing to respect the First Amendment rights of the activists in the future. Like the settlement with the city of Greensboro, plaintiffs and defendant Guilford County agreed to a joint stipulation of dismissal. 3 Christians killed, dozens wounded by Islamic extremists in attack on Chibok village ABUJA, Nigeria Islamic extremist militants killed three Christians in an attack on a village of Chibok County, northeast Nigeria, that wounded dozens of others and burned homes, sources said. The terrorists attacked Njilang village, Borno state, on Oct. 4 in the latest of many acts of terrorism over several years targeting the Chibok area. An area resident identified the assailants as members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), though local news reports attributed the assault to Boko Haram. A faction of Boko Haram in 2016 aligned with the Islamic State and changed its name to ISWAP, but many Nigerians still refer to the group as Boko Haram. Area resident Daniel Musa said ISWAP militants attacked after 2:30 a.m. armed with high-powered weapons, surrounding the village about four kilometers from Chibok town and shooting at Christian villagers who tried to flee after waking to the sound of gunshots. The ISWAP terrorists also set fire to six houses and looted five shops belonging to Christians in the village, and afterward burned down the shops, Musa told Morning Star News in a text message. Musa said ISWAP has attacked three other predominantly Christian communities in the area in the past two weeks. Umar Ibrahim, chairman of the Chibok Local Government Council, confirmed the attack on Njilang community. This is not the first time our communities are being attacked, because ever since Boko Haram insurgents began their destructions in Borno state, Chibok communities have been under constant attacks, Ibrahim said in a text message. Preliminary reports I have received indicate that so far three persons have been confirmed killed, while many houses were destroyed and shops looted by the terrorists. Military authorities said earlier this month that 98 of the 276 high school girls kidnapped from Chibok town by Boko Harm in 2014 remain missing. Col. Obinna Ezuipke, head of intelligence in the military high command in the northeast, said that 57 of the girls escaped in 2014, and 107 were released in 2018. Three of the girls were recovered in 2019, two in 2021, and nine have been rescued this year, leaving 98 who remain in captivity, he said. Maj. Gen. Chris Musa on Oct. 1 told a Nigerian TV station that the military is still searching for Leah Sharibu, kidnapped on Feb. 19, 2018, alongside more than 100 other students of the Government Girls Science and Technical Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe state. While the other girls were released in March 21, 2018, after the kidnappers negotiations with the government, the terrorists retained the then-16-year-old Leah because she refused to renounce Christ. We will not rest until Leah Sharibu and other Chibok girls are returned and united with their families, Musa said. We wont rest until all of them are safely returned. Nigeria led the world in Christians killed for their faith last year (Oct. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021,) at 4,650, up from 3,530 the previous year, according to Open Doors 2022 World Watch List report. The number of kidnapped Christians was also highest in Nigeria, at more than 2,500, up from 990 the previous year, according to the WWL report. Nigeria trailed only China in the number of churches attacked, with 470 cases, according to the report. In the 2022 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, Nigeria jumped to seventh place, its highest ranking ever, from No. 9 the previous year. Tulsi Gabbard says shes leaving Democratic Party, citing cowardly wokeness, hostility to people of faith Former Democratic presidential candidate and congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard, called on independent-minded Democrats to join her Tuesday morning as she announced her exit from the Democratic Party, citing a raft of concerns including the partys cowardly wokeness, their stoking of anti-white racism, hostility to people of faith and elitism. I can no longer remain in todays Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, Gabbard began in a statement shared on Twitter Tuesday with her 1.6 million followers. The Democratic Party, she alleges, Actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. Under President Joe Biden the Justice Department has indicted 11 pro-life activists for "organizing an event blockading an abortion clinic," she added. "They didn't use physical force. They weren't dangerous. But seven of them are facing 11 years in prison and fines of $250,000. The Biden DOJ and Department of Homeland Security has focused their newly formed Domestic Terror Unit to target parents who are vocally standing in opposition to radical curriculums and explicit sexual content being taught to young children in our public schools labeling parents as 'terrorists' for showing up at school board meetings and demanding change." Gabbard, who delivered her statement in writing and a video clip lasting just over one minute, further discussed her reasons for leaving the Democratic Party in the first episode of The Tulsi Gabbard Show which was also launched on Tuesday. I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, todays Democratic Party does not. Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite, she continued before calling on independent-minded Democrats to join her. Im calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me, she urged. Gabbard, 41, is a veteran who served in Iraq with the Hawaii Army National Guard. She was also the youngest person to win a seat in the Hawaii Legislature and the first Hindu woman in Congress. When she decided not to run for re-election in 2019, she cited her presidential aspirations. While Gabbard embraced left-leaning domestic policy, according to The Washington Post, her allegiance to the Democratic Party has long been under question. As she sought the nomination of the Democratic Party during her presidential bid in 2019, Hillary Clinton, who was the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, accused her of being a Russian asset. Im not making any predictions, but I think theyve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate, Clinton said on a podcast with David Plouffe, an adviser to former President Barack Obama. "She's the favorite of the Russians, they have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she is also a Russian asset yeah, she's a Russian asset! I mean totally!" Responding to Clintons comments that year, Gabbard said she was attacked by Clinton because Clinton "knows she can't control me." This is a message to every veteran in this country who has put their life on the line to serve our country, to every single American who believes strongly that we must end this long-standing foreign policy of being the worlds police, Gabbard told CBS News. And ending these regime-change wars, which is really the legacy of Hillary Clinton. South Carolina church investigating student pastor who gave teens i heart hot youth pastors sticker A South Carolina church has launched an investigation and placed its student pastor on administrative leave after outrage erupted online over stickers he gave to minors in his care that say, i hot youth pastors. Fairview Baptist Church said in a statement from deacons and their personnel team on Facebook Sunday that Cory Wall, their suspended student pastor, has acknowledged he made a poor decision and they are treating that decision very seriously. Our student pastor, Cory Wall, acknowledges that he made a poor decision and a mistake by making a sticker available that was offensive to some, the statement said. Cory has been placed on administrative leave and will not be involved in student leadership responsibilities while this situation is being investigated. There will be a thorough and comprehensive investigation, the church leaders added. We take this matter very seriously and want to be proactive as we move forward. Our main goal is to always make our campus a safe place for anyone who attends. Emily Petrini, who describes herself as a doubt-filled believer, first made the sticker public in a post on Twitter last Thursday. She said the sticker was sent to her by a friend in South Carolina who got it from a local mom group. In the post, the mom who shared the sticker said: The youth pastor gave my younger sister (14 years old) and other students, this sticker during Midweek last night. He is 35 years old... This made her very uncomfortable. Church officials did not immediately respond to questions from The Christian Post on Monday about the specific age range of minors who were under Walls care, but the sticker itself drew swift condemnation. Amy Smith, a sexual abuse survivor advocate, called the sticker disgusting in a statement on Twitter. In an email to Lead Pastor Eddie Leopard that Smith posted on Twitter, she further alleged that Wall discussed his porn addiction with the students and called for his immediate dismissal because he is displaying grooming behaviors. Im very disturbed about the inappropriate behavior of your youth pastor Cory Wall. Your email to church members excusing his behavior is also very disturbing. His discussion of his porn addiction with kids is very concerning, in addition to his decision to pass out those offensive stickers. Hes displaying grooming behaviors. I think kids very likely are at risk of sexual abuse in your church. Please do the right thing and remove him from his position immediately. A Facebook post from the church shows that Wall, who studied psychology at North Greenville University before getting a graduate degree from Southeastern Theological Seminary, started his position at the church in January. In a copy of an email Wall sent to the woman who raised the alarm about the stickers in the mom group, Wall said he was just poking fun at the I Love Hot Mom culture. Let me assure you that my intentions were pure, I the last thing I wanted to do was to make you, your sister, or anyone else in attendance feel uncomfortable, Wall allegedly wrote. The sticker was meant to poke fun of the I Love Hot Mom culture. In hindsight, the joke was of very poor taste and a mistake on my part. I do apologize for their distribution. Challenges are mounting for our woke military The United States armed forces is facing its biggest recruiting challenge since the military draft ended in July of 1973. For the next 20 years, the all-volunteer military was easily able to manage the countrys conflicts, such as the Persian Gulf war of 1991. However, in the post-9/11 War on Terror, the all-volunteer force was inadequate. It was heavily supplemented by reservists and members of the National Guard. In fact, part-time military forces comprised approximately 45% of the total forces who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as 18% of the casualties. Today, recruitment throughout all branches of the military, and especially among the National Guard, is not meeting quotas. With new recruits dropping and retirements increasing, the National Guard lost an overall total of 7,500 service members this past year. This will impact the various missions of the National Guard including military deployment overseas as well as emergency response to natural disasters domestically. According to Major General Rich Baldwin, the Army National Guards Chief of Staff, the recruiting woes are the worst he has experienced in the last two decades. He said that if we dont solve the recruiting and retention challenges were currently facing, we will see readiness issues related to strength begin to emerge within our units within the next year or two. Along with the recruiting issues, the Army National Guard faced a 10% decline in reenlistment for veteran service members. There are numerous reasons why recruiting and reenlistments are declining. Since the 9/11 attacks were 21 years ago, there is no longer an urgent call to service. In addition, the war in Afghanistan, the nations longest armed conflict, finally ended in 2021. With no ongoing war, some Americans are not compelled to serve in the military. Another major factor is the needless requirement that all service members become vaccinated against COVID-19. Instead of following the advice of President Joe Biden who declared that the pandemic is over, our armed forces are maintaining the COVID-19 vaccine requirement. Studies show that millions of Americans do not believe the vaccine is effective or beneficial, as approximately 32% of the country is not fully vaccinated. In this environment, a vaccine mandate is a powerful disincentive for many potential new recruits. It could also serve as a major reason current service members are not re-enlisting. There are 14,000 current National Guard members who are either refusing to take the vaccine or are seeking some type of exemption. Their final status is uncertain, as it has not been decided by U.S. Army leadership. If no exemptions are granted, the loss to the National Guard would be significant. Some analysts believe that improving health and educational benefits would spur more enlistment. Others point to the need to enhance salaries and predict that recruitment will increase as the overall economy continues to decline. The best way to improve the situation is to eliminate the vaccine mandate and to stop pursuing woke military objectives. Our military should not be promoting Critical Race Theory (CRT) and teaching about the dangers of white racism. In addition, the emphasis on the use of proper pronouns and hosting shows with drag queens is completely inappropriate. The situation is so problematic that U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) has introduced a bill in Congress to prevent the Defense Department from organizing, promoting, or hosting drag shows as a means of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. According to the Defense Department, the mission of our military forces is to deter war and ensure our nations security. These goals are not accomplished by teaching controversial racial theories or promoting the correct type of pronoun usage or by featuring drag queens on military bases. Grothman believes that there is an overall effort being made to make the military more woke and I think a woke military is probably a less productive military. The Congressman is correct, except it is not probably detrimental, it is unquestionably harming our military. Certainly, our foremost adversary, the communist Chinese, is not allowing their military officials to waste time training their soldiers on correct pronoun usage, CRT, or exposing them to drag queen shows. It has become so ridiculous that in June, a drag queen event was planned at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany to promote Gay Pride Month. The drag queens were scheduled to read stories to the children of military service members in the library of the base. After much criticism, the ill-advised event was canceled. In July, at the Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Summer Festival was held. Initially, a performance by drag queen Harpy Daniels was scheduled, although it was eventually canceled. All these activities upset Grothman, who said he will keep on the military to make sure they dont degenerate into some politically correct, woke institution. If we had $100 million left over with nothing to do, we still shouldnt spend it on this garbage because it weakens the military. Similar complaints were issued by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) who sent a letter to the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall expressing his strenuous objections to the event scheduled at Ramstein Air Base. He noted, As I hope you can agree, decisions over children and their bodies should be left to moms and dads serving our nation, not mediated through publicly funded propaganda on U.S. Air Force bases. Instead of focusing on important military goals, the current Defense Department leadership seems more intent on satisfying progressive activists. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that nine U.S. Army bases will be renamed because of ties to the confederacy. Other assets will be removed, such as a portrait of General Robert E. Lee that is hanging at West Point Academy. These moves will cost $62.5 million and will not make our country any safer or solve the pressing recruitment crisis facing our military. It will only please the progressives who are steering our country in an extremely dangerous direction. Living as earthly and heavenly citizens Though Italian politics does not typically dominate English-speaking Twitter, a speech by Giorgia Meloni, expected to soon become Italys first female prime minister, recently caught the attention of a great many around the world. The speech was from 2019. In it, Meloni decried the practice of commercial surrogacy, rebuked the heedless rush to chemically castrate teens with gender dysphoria, praised the natural family as the basis of society, called out the evils of euthanasia and abortion, and defended her identity as not just a citizen of the world but as someone both Italian and Christian. She closed with a quote from G.K. Chesterton, one of many predictions he made that has come true: Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in the summer. It was refreshing to hear classical truths of Western civilization defended with such passion. Many political and cultural conservatives, both in America and around the world, praised her, holding up her words as a model of what it means to resist progressivisms continued march across institutions. Many media outlets, on the other hand, quickly labeled her far right, nationalist, and even fascist. Most of these critiques can be dismissed with ease. After all, its not uncommon for journalists to describe anything or anyone not fully on board with progressive ideologies as far right, the mildest expressions of patriotism as nationalist, and any conservative ideal as fascist. Multiple news agencies have noted that Melonis political party has roots in the remnants of Italys Mussolini era, a level of scrutiny most political parties would not survive. Other critiques, however, were more substantial. Italian politics is notoriously unpredictable, averaging a new administration every 13 months since 1945. So, it is not unheard of for radical parties, both left and right, to hold seats in the Italian parliament. Nor is it hard to find examples of Christian jargon and imagery employed to support policies and actions that are unhealthy, unchristian, and immoral. Melonis example is even more interesting in light of Queen Elizabeth IIs openly Christian and openly national faith. How can these dual loyalties, to Christ and to nation, blend? How does our earthly citizenship interact with our heavenly citizenship? Wrestling with these questions, the late writer Richard John Neuhaus once said, When I meet God, I expect to meet him as an American. You can imagine the response his remark elicited, but Neuhaus was not claiming that being an American was the only or most important thing about his identity. Only that it mattered, because it does. As he put it, Among all the things I am or have been or hope to be, I am undeniably an American. It is not the most important thing, but it is an inescapable thing. God did not create generic people with shapeless identities. Just as our personalities, hair color, families, and other characteristics make up who we are, so does our time and place. While there is no biblical warrant to call any nation Christian since the days of ancient Israel, theres plenty for living fully as Christians as citizens of our nations. Our cultural and national identities are part of that great train of treasures that the kings of the Earth will bring into the heavenly New Jerusalem. Until that time, just as we strive, in Gods power, to rid ourselves of sin, leaving only the best of us for Gods service, so too we should work to strip from our nations all corruption and evil, through love of neighbor and repentance, until only the best of being American (or Egyptian, or Japanese, or whatever nation to which God has called us) is left to present to the King of all the nations. Originally published at BreakPoint. How churches and Christians can combat the rising tide of anti-Semitism To be anti-Semitic would be rejecting Jesus Christians in the United States are being urged to use their influence to combat anti-Semitism amid a staggering rise in hate crimes and other incidents targeting Jewish Americans in recent years. As a leading Jewish civil rights organization reports that 2021 saw violence against Jews reach record levels, followers of Christ have a role to play in fostering acceptance for their Jewish neighbors and pushing back against anti-Semitic conspiracy theories within their spheres of influence, Christian scholars say. "I think through genuine conversation, we begin to reflect on how our own churches or communities expressed anti-Semitism, either consciously or unconsciously, wittingly or unwittingly," Christian theologian Rev. Lee B. Spitzer, an affiliate professor of church history at Northern Seminary in Illinois, told The Christian Post. Spitzer, who retired in 2019 as the general secretary of the American Baptist Churches USA, says that many Christians incorrectly conclude that anti-Semitism is a byproduct of Bible-based Christianity or that it's not something that is the Church's responsibility to combat. But he encourages Christians to check their own actions and words they may not know are harmful to the Jewish community. "Many Christians do and say things that are anti-Semitic not because they intentionally wish to, but because of ignorance," Spitzer explained. "And so, we are to be dislightened about how some of the things we say and do are harmful and hurtful to the Jewish community." Spitzer, who wrote an article titled "5 Ways Your Church Can Address Anti-Semitism," suggests that the fight against anti-Semitism can be tackled head-on by pastors and Christians with one key thing: friendship. "Relationships are everything. It's very hard to be prejudiced about a community or a group when you have friends within that group. And I would suggest that people in the Church community need to reach out to their neighbors, their friends, and learn from them, appreciate them," said Spitzer. "The Church can reach out and stand in solidarity with the Jewish community. For example, there may be a local synagogue or shul, or community center where Churches can create relationships. Churches can invite people from synagogues to their churches for a meal or conversation, for a lecture, or for a way of getting to know one another and for better standing in public. ... It's important for friendship to learn about our commonalities. ... And I think sometimes, we have to hit the streets and march in solidarity to spread awareness." A rising tide An audit of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States compiled by the Anti-Defamation League recorded over 2,717 acts of assault, vandalism and harassment nationwide in 2021, the most since ADL began tracking the statistic in 1979. With an average of more than seven anti-Semitic incidents per day, the figure marks a 34% year-over-year increase. "Attacks against Jewish institutions, including Jewish community centers (JCCs) and synagogues, were up by 61 percent, incidents at K-12 schools increased 106 percent, and incidents on college campuses rose 21 percent," the report states. "Assaults considered the most serious incident type because it involves person-on-person physical violence triggered by antisemitic animus increased 167 percent, jumping to a total of 88 reports in 2021 from 33 in 2020. Incidents of harassment were up 43 percent, and acts of antisemitic vandalism rose 14 percent." According to a study by California State University in San Bernardino, "Hate crimes [nationwide] surged 46% in 2021, as hotspots like New York City reported a 96% increase, with Jewish Americans remaining the most targeted group." The data, which was not formally published, was compiled from the university's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, 40% of the hate crimes in New York City targeted Jews, as New York state saw a 24% increase in anti-Semitic incidents. The Empire State continues to lead the nation in anti-Semitic incidents. On Tuesday, as Jews celebrated their High Holidays, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security held a congressional field hearing on countering violent extremism, terrorism and anti-Semitic threats in New Jersey, where anti-Semitic incidents rose 25% in 2021, the most recorded in New Jersey by the ADL. In 2019, New Jersey saw a tragic act of anti-Semitism take the lives of four civilians and injure three others at a kosher deli in Jersey City. Authorities labeled the shooting a hate crime fueled by anti-Semitism. The Jersey City attack came just months after a shooting killed one and injured three at a synagogue in Poway, California. Months before the Poway shooting in November 2018, 11 were killed in a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During Tuesday's hearing, New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., declared, "So far, we are losing" the effort to thwart hatred and anti-Semitism. In a research report released in late May, ADL states that the spike in anti-Semitic incidents has been driven by different factors, including extreme anti-Israel sentiments during the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict and "various conspiracy theories that have animated extremists across the state." The report cites the presence of white supremacists, anti-government extremists, militias, Islamist extremists, violent anti-Zionists and others "who are either based in New York or have targeted the state for an attack." ADL contends that incidents motivated by anti-Zionist sentiments include assault, arson threats and harassment. Most recently, the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi at Rutgers University in New Jersey was vandalized during the High Holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the second time in one calendar year the fraternity was targeted. Both political extremes are complicit Serene Hudson, the director of education at Passages Israel an organization that spearheads trips to Israel for Christians told CP that people must be aware that the rise in anti-Semitism can be seen in both political extremes in America. It's not just a Democrat or Republican problem. This includes but is not limited to "dangerous rhetoric from the right, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists" and "anti-Israel rhetoric" from the left. "On the extreme right, it has to do with anti-Semitic conspiracies, where Jews are blamed for aspiring for world domination," she said. "And then on the extreme left, there is plenty of anti-Israel rhetoric that denies the basic right for the Jewish people to have a homeland." As a Moody Graduate School alumnus who spent over a decade traveling to Israel annually, Hudson finds that some of the work needed to combat anti-Semitism in various communities should start inside and outside the Church. "I think that we all need to educate ourselves about the common anti-Semitic conspiracies and understand where they come from. And when we see accusations or even perceptions directed at Jewish people, we should dig a little bit deeper," Hudson stated. "We should educate ourselves in understanding that there are many falsehoods that are repeated about Jewish people and talk to our Jewish friends. Ask them: 'Have you experienced anti-Semitism? Do you feel that anti-Semitism has risen in our country?'" Christians and churches looking to combat anti-Semitic rhetoric in their communities should look to the Bible, she asserted. "When we look to Scripture, we consider, for example, Mordecai, the uncle of Esther, was a voice of moral clarity for her and for the Persian culture," Hudson said. "And he helped her to stand up against anti-Semitism and the threats against the Jewish people." Scripture provides Christians with an anchor to better understand what's happening in the world, she added. This can help them with the process of beginning to pray for peace and the protection of the Jewish communities. "It says in Romans that the Jewish people who were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are loved by the God of the forefathers," Hudson said. "And so really going back and looking at our source of truth, which is Scripture, which is the Bible, and comparing what it is that God says about His love for His people, against what is being said about the Jewish people can provide better understanding." Holocaust education in schools and churches is essential to understanding the history of anti-Semitism in the Church dating back to the Church fathers, Hudson said. "We definitely need more awareness out there. I think if more people knew that there was this uptick in hate crimes against Jewish people, and if we were aware of what's going on in the media on social media, there would be more of a response. But I believe that the news is not getting out there enough," she concluded. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the Kyiv regime would have more retaliatory strikes aside from this first incident. He added that the Ukrainian government would be subject to dismantling as one of Moscow's goals. Russia Strikes Back After Crimea Bridge Attack Medvedev, the current deputy chairman of the country's Security Council, said it was just the start of the first episode, reported Anadolu. On his Telegram account, the former president said it is only the first, more to come, and called dismantling the Ukrainian state necessary. He stressed that as his personal opinion that the current Ukrainian leadership, with its Nazi sympathizing leaning, is and always be a constant existential threat to Russia, noted Yenisafak. The Former Russian president has a reputation for loud and bellicose statements publicly, even on the deployment of nuclear weapons. On Monday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said the attack on the Kerch Bridge was the reason for retaliation against the Zelensky regime and accused Ukrainian intelligence services as the alleged author of the assault on the Crimean Bridge. Even if Ukrainians had not admitted to the regretful incident, the way senior Ukrainian officials worded their statements after Saturday was suspect.A remark by Ukrainian Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak stated the blast is just the start. Russian Ministry of Defense Reacts A missile attack aimed at Ukrainian military objects and facilities has achieved its goal, the Russian Defense Ministry stated on Monday. The attack occurred after Moscow suspected Kyiv of organizing a dangerous blast on the strategically important Crimean Bridge, citing RT. Read Also: Russia Nuclear Weapons: Volodymyr Zelensky Warns Danger of Vladimir Putin Nuclear Threats to Ukraine Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov mentioned at a regular briefing that Moscow was using high-precision and long-range weapons to target objects on Ukrainian territories, such as key military facilities, communication systems, and power sources. He added the intended targets of the missile assault were struck, and none was missed. These comments came several hours after Moscow ordered targets struck by multiple missile strikes. The mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, claimed that "critical infrastructure" had been harmed. The main office of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) did appear to have also been struck by the attack, according to Anton Gerashchenko, a consultant to the interior minister. Together with Kyiv, many Ukrainian cities, like Dnepr in the east and Lviv in the west, were punished. As a result of the strikes, the power supply had been partly interrupted in those other regions of the country, as said by Ukrainian authorities, who also reported power outages in the regions of Lviv, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkov, and Ternopol. Last Monday, Vladimir Putin reiterated, as a stern warning, that if Ukraine does not stop its terrorist attack against Russia, which will meet a worse response than the prior missile attacks. The Saturday blast on the Kerch Bridge was rocked by an intense explosion that ended the lives of three civilians and partly collapsed part of the road section. A blaze on the rail tracks was registered on the parallel span of the bridge. This incident drew suspicions from Moscow who did the attack on the civilian infrastructure threatened an escalation in the Ukraine conflict. Former Russian President Medvedev did not mince his words to the Kyiv regime that retaliatory strikes would be forthcoming. Related Article: Russia's Crimea Bridge Explosion: Unknown Forces Attacked, Damaged Part of the Critical Infrastructure @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Vanderbilt temporarily halts performing body mutilating sex-change surgeries on kids Vanderbilt University Medical Center has agreed to temporarily stop performing body mutilating sex-change surgeries on minors suffering from gender dysphoria following backlash from the public and elected officials. Jason Zachary, a Republican state representative from Tennessee, shared a letter on Twitter that he received from the Nashville-based medical center on Friday. VUMC Deputy CEO and Chief Health Systems Officer Dr. C. Wright Pinson wrote in the letter that we are pausing gender affirmation surgeries on patients under 18 while the hospital works to conduct a clinical review to ensure that its practices comply with recently issued guidelines from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health. Pinson added that VUMCs policies and practices allow employees to request an accommodation to be excused from participating in surgeries or procedures they believe are morally objectionable. The response follows a Sept. 28 letter written by Zachary and other members of the Tennessee House Republicans asking the Vanderbilt Board of Directors to take immediate action by halting all permanent gender transition surgeries being performed on minor children and honor all conscientious objectors whose religious beliefs prohibit their engagement in certain medical procedures. Please see Vanderbilt Medicals response to the @tnhousegop. VUMC has agreed to pause gender transition surgeries on minors as well as honor religious objectors. https://t.co/xXlbSaAOMSpic.twitter.com/4G8laJfQfY Rep. Jason Zachary (@JasonZacharyTN) October 7, 2022 This is a time in which elected leaders must boldly lead and speak on behalf of the people. Ive been joined by my esteemed @tnhousegop colleagues in formally requesting that Vanderbilt Medical halt all gender transition surgeries on minors. 1/ pic.twitter.com/FgiRdLHEM4 Rep. Jason Zachary (@JasonZacharyTN) September 28, 2022 Zacharys letter to Vanderbilt came after The Daily Wires Matt Walsh unveiled the findings of an investigation revealing that Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors. Walsh shared the contents of an archived webpage illustrating how the hospital provides gender-affirming hormone therapy and pubertal blocking to trans-identified youth. Walsh also expressed concern about a video showing a Vanderbilt health law expert deriding requests for conscientious objections to participating in disfiguring surgeries as problematic and suggesting that if you dont want to do this kind of work, dont work at Vanderbilt. Pinson claimed in the reply letter that "comments from videos posted on social media that are obtained at these kinds of events should not be construed as statements of VUMC policy. We do not condone discrimination against employees who choose to request accommodations. Pinson said that as many as five minors younger than 18 had body mutilating surgeries performed on them. He added that all were at least 16 years of age, none have received genital procedures and parental consent to these surgeries was obtained in all cases. He further insisted that VUMC remained in compliance with Tennessee law that prohibits providing "hormone treatment for gender dysphoric or gender incongruent prepubertal minors." The controversy surrounding Vanderbilt comes as childrens hospitals across the U.S. are receiving increased scrutiny over their reported embrace of such practices that disfigure children and teenagers' bodies for life. Recently, Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., was also accused of performing body mutilating surgeries on teenagers, which it has denied. The allegations came from Chaya Raichik, who operates the Twitter account LibsofTikTok, who released an audio recording of an exchange between her and staff at the D.C.-based hospital in which the employee said the hospital offers such procedures. While proponents of body mutilating surgeries for minors characterize such procedures as necessary to improve mental health outcomes for children with gender dysphoria, critics warn of their adverse longterm effects. Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas have implemented legislation prohibiting such surgeries on minors, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has classified gender surgeries for minors as a form of child abuse. China Aid's Bob Fu granted restraining order against protestors, billionaire Chinese media executive Bank of America closes Fu's accounts without explanation in act of political persecution Chinese-American pastor and China Aid founder Bob Fu has been granted a restraining order from protestors who gathered outside his home last year, forcing the family to remain in protective custody for several months. In an email sent to The Christian Post, Fu, whose human rights organization is dedicated to exposing religious persecution by the Communist Party in China and to promoting religious freedom for all in that country, revealed that after weeks of harassment, protestors finally left his family home in Midland, Texas. Fu said that a federal judge had issued a restraining order in February barring them from approaching Fu, his family, or the staff of China Aid. A copy of the restraining order given to CP names Chinese billionaire Miles Kwok, also known as Guo Wengui who Fu said paid protestors to stand outside his home from early October through January Wenguis media company, GTV Media Group; and Saraca Media Group, Inc. Set to expire on June 1, 2021, unless extended by the court, the restraining order bans Wengui or anyone acting in concert with him, from picketing Fus home, approaching within 100 feet of the activist, his family, or his employees, and picketing within 50 feet of China Aids business location. Fu and his family were placed in protective custody in October after protestors lined up outside his home, accusing the China Aid founder of acting as a fake pastor, a communist spy, and an operative of the CCP. Fus 15-year-old daughter had to be taken out of school by armed police as a result of the protests. The family returned home in December but remained under police custody. In November, Fu filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Wengui, the owner of Beijing Zenith Holdings, unlawfully targeted him through online death threats and protests. The lawsuit alleged that Wengui was orchestrating a multi-faceted campaign of character assassination to silence Fu and discourage his work promoting religious freedom and human rights within China. Although claiming to support the Chinese pro-democracy movement, [Wengui] employs his vast legal, financial, and corporate resources, together with his robust social media presence, to systematically target pro-democracy and pro-religious freedom activists in the Chinese American community, the lawsuit said. Since 2018, [Wengui] has attacked Chinese human rights activists and bona fide CCP (Chinese Communist Party) dissidents in the United States. This year, Plaintiff Bob Fu became [Wengui's] latest target. In an email to CP, Fu said that he continues to face harassment as a result of his activism. Last week, he revealed on Twitter that Bank of America a company that handed over customer data to the government following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 had shut down the accounts of his entire family with no explanation. "Today it was discovered that 'Bank of America' had begun political persecution. The bank forcibly closed the accounts of everyone in my family, young and old, without any prior notice. Called over for questioning and even claimed that they have the right to close at any time without explanation, he tweeted. Fu suggested the shuttering of his familys accounts had something to do with an address he delivered in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 15 on persecution in China. He told CP that the sudden unreasonable shut down of all of the accounts for him and his family came as a total shock. BofA refused to give a simple explanation, he said. Based on the news reports about BofAs hostility toward President Trumps supporters and our impeccable record as customers with BofA for the past nearly 20 years, we concluded it must be politically motivated as BofAs malicious attempt against conservatives like us. Still, Fu said he doesnt have exhaustive evidence of this because BofA repeatedly refuses to give us an answer arrogantly. BofA did not answer CPs request for comment. Brownback shares ambitions of $25 million campaign to protect holy sites at USCIRF hearing WASHINGTON Sam Brownback, the U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, detailed Thursday the ambitions of a new $25 million campaign to protect and restore holy sites and places of worship across the world. Brownback, head of the State Departments International Religious Freedom Office, testified before the congressionally mandated U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom where he shared the vision for the new campaign announced by President Donald Trump last month at the United Nations. Trump made the announcement during an event he hosted at the U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 23, becoming the first president ever to convene a meeting at the U.N. solely on the topic of religious freedom. During the USCIRF hearing held in the Dirksen Building, Brownback, a former Kansas governor and U.S. senator, said the allocation of $25 million to help protect vulnerable places of worship and holy sites worldwide is the first time that this has been tried in this way. It comes at a time in which attacks on places of worship seem to be occurring with greater frequency as evidenced by attacks in Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Germany, California and Pennsylvania within the last 12 months, in addition to constant attacks on churches and mosques in the Middle East and Asia. These new funds will be used to prevent the intentional destruction of religious sites and relics, Brownback said. And we're hopeful we can contribute to the meaningful restoration of key cultural heritage sites and places of worship around the world. Brownback said the new campaign has been piloted in a way by a number of U.S. ambassadors through The U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. The fund was launched in 2001 to help preserve cultural heritage sites. I have been to a number of embassies around the world where they have taken me to a place where the ambassadors fund is being used. Many of them are religious heritage sites, Brownback explained. And its a matter of great pride for that country where the sites been renovated and protected. Since 2001, the fund has been used for over 1,000 cultural heritage projects worldwide. I look at this [new campaign] as a chance to build on that, Brownback said in response to a question from USCIRF Vice Chair Nadine Maenza. But again, I honestly hope that this is the small end of the funding but the bigger end of it is us being able to figure out how to source private funding. How do you crowdsource on something like this? How can we identify key sites that ought to be rebuilt and [give to] a legitimate fund that's not going to go into somebody's pocket somewhere? We need to see if we can attract a great deal of capital doing that, the ambassador continued. That is my hope. I think we can access far more funds. During his testimony, Brownback considered the possibilities of what the new initiative could accomplish. Imagine what we could do if we restore the Tomb of Jonah, for instance, the 63-year-old said, mentioning a Christian holy site that was destroyed in 2014 by the Islamic State in northern Iraq. When they destroyed it, they filmed it and they put it on the internet to show it to the whole world that we destroyed this site and was something they were very proud that they've done. Well, imagine if we say to the world's terrorist community: You are bent on destruction, but we are going to rebuild. We will rebuild this site and will make it more protected so that this will not happen again. At the State Departments second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in July, the U.S. and over 40 countries signed onto a formal statement calling for the protection of places of worship and holy sites worldwide. We commit ourselves to working to prevent violence against places of worship by countering intolerance and discrimination, continuing to support religious groups and other communities that have been subject to terrorist and extremist violence, and moving swiftly to hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes, the statement reads. China's use of technology for religious oppression a 'threat to all of us,' warns Brownback Chinas use of high-tech surveillance to oppress and monitor Uighur Muslims is the future of religious oppression that could spread across the world if not stopped by the U.S. and other international players, Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom, has warned. During a webinar on Chinas Rising Threat to Human Rights hosted by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission on Aug. 21, panelists discussed the religious persecution of Uighur Muslims, a community that resides mostly in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China, and its implications for the wider religious community. Brownback said that the tactics used against Uighur Muslims represent the cutting edge of religious persecution." Estimates suggest that as many as 1 million Uighur Muslims have been subject to internment camps in Xinjiang, where they are taught to be secular citizens who will never come against the ruling Communist Party. Though they live in a remote region, China is employing its most aggressive technology to oppress Uighurs, including sophisticated cameras, facial-recognition technology, and collecting DNA samples, Brownback said. They've got technology deployed now where they've got surveillance cameras virtually everywhere in the public, he noted. They've collected genetic data on most of the people in the region to where you can be tracked on the internet, they have facial recognition systems. They could now theoretically close all the concentration camps and you would still live in a virtual police state if you were a Uighur in Xinjiang. China has also given Chen Quanguo, party chairman of the Communist Party in Xinjiang, a vast amount of resources to persecute Uighurs, allowing him to implement a comprehensive surveillance, detention, and indoctrination program in the region, Brownback said. My great concern is what it does to the Uighur people, but also that these systems will be replicated in other authoritarian regimes around the world, he stressed. And we've got this huge global battle going on between democracy and dictatorships, and dictatorships have been doing pretty well lately, unfortunately. China deploys its money resources very effectively and shrewdly and craftily to get a number of countries, particularly Muslim countries, not to speak up under threat. They will threaten aggressively. Brownback predicted that China's methods represent the future of religious oppression, adding that eventually, religious minorities are going to be oppressed by a system where they can't live and work in the society if they choose to practice their faith. They get a low social credit score and then they can't get a ticket to get on the bus or the train, or they can't take their kids to school, or they can't get an apartment because they are identified on the internet, in these technology systems as a religious adherent, he said. And that's what's happening today in Xinjiang to the Uighur Muslims. And that is a threat to all of us. We really need to aggressively push back." Its the future of the world if we dont stop this. You can look at this [and] say, That's a long way away, it's not my religion, and it's going to be fine. But this stuff is coming if we don't get on and stop it early. Panelists also touched on the issue of forced labor among the Uighur community, as new research and reports indicate that the party is forcing Uighurs to work in textile factories and other manufacturing roles, tainting supply chains in the U.S. Nury Turkel, a Uighur American attorney born in Xinjiang and member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, revealed that forced labor has been part of Uighur life for as long as he can remember. Its one of the methods, one of the vehicles the Chinese used to repress the Uighur religion and Uighur culture, he said. "When you buy anything made in China, if it's a textile cotton product, I think it should be something that gives you pause. As a consumer, please do your due diligence. Please stop at least buying any cotton or textile products coming from China ... this should be something easy to tackle. He urged the U.S. government to pass the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was recently supported by the ERLC. The legislation would prohibit goods made with forced labor in Xinjiang or by entities using Uighur labor forcibly transferred from Xinjiang from entering the U.S. market. It also instructs the U.S. government to impose sanctions on foreign individuals who knowingly employ or utilize forced labor of Uighurs or other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. Turkel said the conduct by the Chinese government may rise to the level of crimes against humanity. He identified key elements that define such crimes, according to international law: the act must be part of a widespread systematic attack; the attack must be against a civilian population; and the attack must be launched on discriminatory grounds, including religion and ethnicity. Brownback said the U.S. should urge its allies to join them in placing sanctions on China, restricting Chinese companies' access to U.S. technology. These things matter more in concert, he said. I think we need to continue to call it out for what it is taking place ... I hope we continue to sanction more of those companies. Over 100 Churches to Join Benham Bros. in Prayer Walk Outside Charlotte's Busiest Abortion Clinic A 40-week pro-life initiative that has carried on outside of one of the nation's busiest abortion clinics will culminate this Saturday in what organizers are hoping will be the largest gathering of its kind in over two decades. Organizers for Love Life Charlotte are anticipating that as many as 7,000 people will participate in a 1.3-mile prayer walk that will circle around A Preferred Women's Health Center of Charlotte, which pro-lifers say is the busiest abortion clinic in the Southeast region. The prayer walk comes as over 100 Charlotte-area churches have participated in a 40-week "Journey of Hope" campaign that has seen an average of three churches and 200 protesters march in prayer walks around that particular clinic on Latrobe Drive each of the last 39 Saturdays. With this upcoming Saturday marking week 40 of the 40-week initiative, members from all of the churches that have participated in the 39 prayer walks will descend to the business park where the clinic is located at 9 a.m. to march in prayer as a united body of Christ. "The great thing about this is it is not a single event. It is week after week of churches coming together in the public square," Love Life Charlotte founder and Charlotte-based businessman Justin Reeder told The Christian Post on Wednesday. "That is not happening for the most part anywhere across denominational lines. They are not coming to see a headline speaker or a band, they are going to a dark place in our city that for the most part, nobody was going to for years. It's John 17 being played out in our city week after week." Reeder told CP that in the two years since he began the Love Life Charlotte campaign and demonstrations, as many as 800 families have been talked into carrying their children to term. "Our frontlines ministry teams were there to counsel them and get them on the mobile unit and show them a free ultrasound and connect them with mentors and getting them connected to our partner churches," Reeder explained. The churches that have participated in the Love Life Charlotte initiative have done more than just show up on Saturday mornings for prayer walks, he noted. On weeks in which churches have "adopted" the abortion clinic, pastors would preach pro-life sermons on that Sunday. On Wednesday, the churches would fast in prayer. While many abortion advocates claim that pro-lifers only care about the fetus and don't do anything to help once babies are born, Love Life Charlotte has partnered with the pro-life organization Cities4Life to ensure that families that do chose birth have the resources needed to thrive. The grassroots initiative, which is led by local business leaders and pastors, also strives to get people who show up to Love Life Charlotte prayer walks to go a step further and get fully involved in the pro-life movement whether that means becoming adoptive parents or signing up to join a support network that helps families who adopt and carry babies to term. "It's overwhelming what is happening here. If we begin to replicate this in other cities, it's just a matter of time. It's not that we are trying to end abortion, although we want to. We are trying to make abortion unthinkable because of the amount of help and resources that the church is providing," David Benham, a North Carolina-based real estate entrepreneur who founded Cities4Life with his twin brother, Jason, told CP. "In addition to this prayer walk, we have partnered with the [Department of Social Services] in Charlotte to adopt the kids. There are 40 kids in a waiting list to be adopted just in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area," Benham added. "We brought in 20 families that have already gone through training to adopt and another 19 [families] on the waiting list. We are basically going to take all the orphans that are available with DSS." Benham explained that Cities4Life has a way to orchestrate a community to support adoptive families. "We have this thing called The Village, it's a community around the adoptive families," he stated. "We put 10 families around the adopted family to help with meals and date-nights and things like that throughout the years." The Benham brothers, who are the well-known and outspoken sons of Pastor Flip Benham, will speak at Saturday's prayer walk, along with Reeder and a handful of local pastors and business leaders, including Pastor Gabriel Rogers of Kingdom Christian Church, located in Charlotte. "We got Episcopalians standing arm-in-arm with Baptists, who are next to charismatics, who are next to Presbyterians," Benham said. "Just hearing these pastors talk about the incredible unity that we have had is very humbling." According to Reeder and Benham, as many as 4,000 people came out to the Love Life Charlotte week 40 prayer walk last year. Considering that the number of churches participating in the initiative has greatly increased in 2017, at least 7,000 people are expected to show up. "We anticipate 7,000 to 10,000 people there on Saturday," Benham said. "It will be the single largest pro-life gathering at an abortion clinic since Witchita in 1991." Parents demand Church of England schools immediately stop trans policies affecting kids as young as 5 Christian parents have urged the Church of England to change the guidance for its 4,700 primary schools that allows students as young as 5 to self-identify as the opposite sex. In an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, last Friday, Nigel Rowe and his wife, Sally, raised concerns regarding the implementation of Church guidance that allows school children to identify as their preferred gender identity. Basic Christian teaching is that we are all created male or female and that the differences between the sexes are beautiful, designed and complementary, and should be respected in society, the Christian parents wrote. We were also concerned for the harmful effects on the children who were allowed to socially transition, as well as the effects on all the other children in the school." At issue was a guidance titled "Valuing All Gods Children" originally issued in May 2014, but later updated by the CofE in the summer of 2019, which states: "Trans young people may require specific support in order to feel comfortable at school, for example, schools may need to make changes to toilet facilities or a trans young person might require support to change their name or the pronoun by which they are referred to by staff and classmates." The Rowes said in the letter that the CofE's approach and the guidance are not supported by the law. We, therefore, ask you to withdraw the Valuing All Gods Children guidance as a matter of urgency for the sake of protecting the children, they wrote. Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which represented the Rowes in past litigation, echoed the parents' concerns in a statement released last week, by saying that the guidance "must now be scrapped." Years ago, the Rowes raised concerns about indoctrination after two 6-year-old boys in their sons' classes at the Isle of Wight school were allowed to identify as girls. In 2017, CofE officials told the Rowes that the school did not require any evaluation when a student requests to be affirmed as a member of the opposite sex. The family was then given an ultimatum to accept the policy or take their sons out of the school. When the Rowes' complaint to the Department of Education was rejected, they took legal action in 2021 against the department. Last month, the Rowes were awarded over $23,900 in legal costs and a commitment from the British government to reform trans-affirming policies in schools. This notorious guidance actually says that children as young as 5 years old should be affirmed by Church of England schools if they wish to identify as the opposite sex, the couple wrote in the open letter. In their letter, the couple cited a speech made by the then Attorney General Suella Braverman in August, addressing the guidance. The problem is that many schools and teachers believe incorrectly that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to their preference, in all ways and all respects, from preferred pronouns to use of facilities and competing in sports, said Braverman, as quoted by the Rowes. All this is sometimes taking place without informing their parents or taking into account the impact on other children. Anyone who questions such an approach is accused of transphobia. In my view, this approach is not supported by the law." Braverman went on to say in that speech that she believed no student "should be made to fear punishment or disadvantage for questioning what they are being taught, or refusing to adopt a preferred pronoun for a gender questioning child, or complaining about a gender questioning child using their toilets or changing rooms, or refusing to take part in activities promoted by Stonewall or other such organizations." "The right to freedom of belief, thought, conscience and speech must be protected, she said. David Benham, pro-life activists move ahead in legal battle over unlawful arrests David Benham and other pro-life activists have filed an amended complaint against North Carolina officials in response to their arrests last year while outside an abortion clinic. Amid a statewide lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Benham and a small number of sidewalk counselors went to an abortion clinic in Charlotte last year to try and persuade mothers seeking an abortion to change their minds. While there, they were cited by police and subsequently arrested. On Monday, as part of the ongoing litigation over the incident, Benham and the other plaintiffs filed an amended complaint against the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division. The pro-life activists are being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that has successfully argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Denise Harle, senior counsel with ADF, told The Christian Post on Tuesday that their decision to file the amended complaint was strengthened by the fact that the charges against Benham and the others were later dropped. The dropping of the charges actually underscores why this amended complaint should prevail, said Harle. What weve added in this amended complaint is Fourth Amendment claims, based on the unlawful stop, unlawful detention, and unlawful arrests, the fact that the city and the county dropped the charges against David Benham shows that those arrests were improper. She continued, The fact that theyre not even pursuing the charges is a pretty clear admission that theres no there, there. And thats exactly what were bringing to the federal court in this amended complaint is that those arrests themselves were a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Harle also told CP that she believed the arrests of Benham and the sidewalk counselors were a violation of the First Amendment and motivated by a targeting of free speech and animosity toward certain religious views. The government certainly is welcomed to protect public health, but if it is going to do that, it needs to do so in an evenhanded way that has a rational basis, she continued. What it cant do is enact a law and then apply it unfairly only to select groups of people whose viewpoint the government disagrees with. The city of Charlotte declined to comment about the litigation when contacted by The Christian Post. According to authorities, the April 2020 arrests were made because Benham and the others were allegedly violating state lockdown orders. Benham, Cities4Life and Global Impact Ministries, also called Love Life, denied any wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit against Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The suit claimed the police selectively enforced the orders, noting that the abortion clinic began filling up with clients and numerous people roamed the parks and sidewalks for recreation and exercise. [We] were praying on the sidewalk, maintaining a safe distance from one another and others, and helping women interested in the important charitable services they offered, stated the complaint. Despite the health and safety motivations underlying the COVID-19 restrictions, government officials cannot and should not selectively enforce those regulations. Nor should they prohibit constitutionally protected activities that do not endanger public health or safety. Teens wounded in shooting outside New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin's home identified Two teenagers injured in a shooting outside of the home of New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin have been identified as concerns about crime continue to figure prominently in the upcoming election. Zeldin, who serves in the U.S. House of Representatives, is seeking to unseat New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Nov. 6 election. My 16-year-old daughters, Mikayla and Arianna, were at our house doing homework, while my wife, Diana, and I were in the car, having just departed the Bronx Columbus Day Parade in Morris Park, Zeldin said in a statement about the shooting outside his home in the Long Island community of Shirley at 2:18 p.m. on Sunday. After my daughters heard the gunshots and the screaming, they ran upstairs, locked themselves in the bathroom and immediately called 911. They acted very swiftly and smartly every step of the way and Diana and I are extremely proud of them. Zeldin said the two people who were shot were laying down under my front porch and the bushes in front of our porch. My understanding is that they have been transported to area hospitals. On Monday, the New York Post identified the shooting victims as teenagers Joel Murphy and Elijah Robinson, both from the Long Island community of Mastic. The victims suffered gunshot wounds to the chest, with Murphy suffering a lacerated liver and Robinson sustaining an arm wound. The shooter remains at large. While a motive remains unclear, The NY Post reported that investigators were working to determine if the shooting might be related to a Saturday night feud at a Suffolk County recording studio. Zeldin concluded his statement by stressing that his daughters were shaken but OK, adding that as with so many New Yorkers, crime has literally made its way to our front door. He elaborated on the shooting in an appearance on Fox & Friends Monday morning. One of the bullets landed about 30 feet from where the girls were doing homework, he said. When we were getting back to the house, we had to go through crime scene tape, we were getting advised where to walk so that we werent stepping on blood. Zeldin's home security cameras recorded the three people who were on his property, two being the victims and a third person who was not shot moving all around the property up and down the porch a couple times and through the front yard. The shooting outside Zeldins home comes less than three months after a man attempted to stab Zeldin as he held a rally in upstate New York. The male had a weapon in his hand, swung it toward Zeldins neck, and told him, Youre done, stated the Monroe County Sheriffs Office in July regarding the attack. Members of the audience and Rep. Zeldins campaign restrained the male until deputies arrived and took him into custody. There were no injuries. While Zeldin and Republicans have made crime a significant focus of their campaigns in New York and across the U.S., concerns about public safety extend to Democrats as well. In a recent appearance on WABC Radio, former New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, declared For the first time in my life, even in the late '80s and '90s when the crime rate was killing 2,000 people a year, I never felt as unsafe as I do now just walking around. Polling indicates that Zeldin faces an uphill battle to become New Yorks first Republican governor since George Pataki left office in 2007. The RealClearPolitics average of polls taken since the beginning of September shows Hochul with an 11.4-point lead over Zeldin. Court continues block of Ohios 6-week abortion ban Siding with Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in Ohio, a judge has expanded an earlier order blocking enforcement of a law that would ban most abortions after about six weeks into a pregnancy, or around the time a baby's heartbeat can be detected. The Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas announced Friday that it would grant a preliminary injunction on behalf of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in the state. As a result, the six-week abortion ban will be blocked during the course of the litigation; a state law banning most abortions after around 20 weeks into a pregnancy will remain in effect. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which is helping to represent the abortion providers, released a statement Friday celebrating the preliminary injunction. We are thrilled with this second major victory and relieved that patients in Ohio can continue to access abortion as we work to fight this unjust and dangerous ban in court, said the ACLU and the plaintiffs in a joint statement. The preliminary injunction will be in place for the duration of our case, which means abortions will be legal in Ohio for a period much, much longer than the temporary restraining order granted. This court ruling will provide significant relief to Ohio patients and clinics. In 2019, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 23, also known as the Ohio Human Rights and Heartbeat Protection Act, into law. The law bans most abortions after a baby's heartbeat can be detected. "The essential function of government is to protect the most vulnerable among us those who do not have a voice," DeWine said in a statement at the time. "Government's role should be to protect life from the beginning to the end, to protect those who cannot protect themselves, such as the elderly, the unborn, those who are sick, those who have a disability, those who have a mental illness or an addiction." The law went into effect over the summer, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had previously claimed that abortion was a constitutional right. Less than a week after Roe was overturned, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and the law firm WilmerHale filed a lawsuit seeking emergency relief from the six-week abortion ban. On Sept. 2, the ACLU decided to withdraw its lawsuit before the state Supreme Court and file a new complaint before the lower court requesting immediate relief from the abortion ban. Last month, Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking the six-week abortion ban. Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer released a statement last month in response to the temporary block, calling it a disgrace that reads more like a Huffington Post blog than a judicial decision. This nonsensical and irresponsible order must be overturned so that Ohio can go back to protecting unborn children, and to restore trust in a functioning government where legislators make law, and judges don't, Baer added. The stakes are very high: John Kirby doubles down on Bidens Armageddon comments White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Bidens recent remark regarding the prospect of Armageddon over Russian President Vladimir Putins nuclear threats reflects the very high stakes that are in play right now. ABC This Week host Martha Raddatz asked Kirby about Bidens comment last week that theres a potential nuclear Armageddon. Kirby responded, The president was reflecting the very high stakes that are in play right now. He continued: When you have modern nuclear power and the leader of that modern nuclear power willing to use irresponsible rhetoric the way that Mr. Putin has several times in just the last week or two, as well as the high tension in Ukraine over just the course of the last few days so the president, I think, was accurately reflecting the fact that the stakes are very high right now. Kirby then clarified that Bidens comments were not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons and, quite frankly, we don't have any indication that he has made that kind of decision. But he added, Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture in our efforts to defend our own national security interests and those of our allies and partners. Kirby said the president has also said, neither we nor our allies are going to be intimidated by this. At a Democratic fundraiser in New York City last Thursday, Biden said Putin was not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons. We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, he added, according to The Associated Press, which noted that the presidents remarks were the starkest warnings yet by the U.S. government about the nuclear stakes. Biden also suggested the threat from Putin is real because his military is you might say significantly underperforming. Last month, Putin said, I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction ... and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal. Its not a bluff, as quoted by the AP. As the Russian invasion entered its seventh month in October, Ukraine sought an accelerated membership in NATO after Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces: the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Putin claimed that residents in the annexed Ukrainian regions voted in a referendum to join his nation. Ukrainian officials called the voting coerced by Russian soldiers. The Kremlins sham referenda are a futile effort to mask what amounts to a further attempt at a land grab in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement at the time. To be clear: the results were orchestrated in Moscow and do not reflect the will of the people of Ukraine. The U.S. has sent more than $9.8 billion in civilian and military assistance to Ukraine since Russias invasion began in February. Late last month, Biden signed a bill that includes an additional $12.3 billion for Ukraines war effort against Russia. Apart from Ukraine aid and funding for government agencies, the bill authorizes Biden to direct the drawdown of up to $3.7 billion for the transfer of excess weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stocks. According to the United Nations Office for High Commissioner for Human Rights, as of Oct. 2, at least 6,114 civilians have been killed and 9,132 injured since the invasion started on Feb. 24. China celebrating national food security efforts Chinadaily.com.cn) 13:44, October 11, 2022 A villager harvests rice in Chenji township of Yizheng, East China's Jiangsu province, on Oct 9, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua] National Grain Security Publicity Week in China kicked off online on Monday and will run through World Food Day, which falls on Sunday, according to the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. Events publicizing China's achievements in safeguarding national food security and the country's active participation in international cooperation will be held during the week. Effective methods used to reduce food loss during grain production will also be promoted, according to the administration, which is one of the major hosts. Local authorities are urged to launch a series of educational activities such as knowledge contests and online seminars related to grain security to increase public awareness. Referential cases related to ensuring grain security nationwide will be summarized and promoted. Given the ongoing pandemic, military conflicts, climate change and rising prices that affect global food security, the theme of this year's World Food Day is "Leave no one behind for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life." Carlos Watson, representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in China, commended China's remarkable achievement in safeguarding national food security. "We have every reason to believe that China has the full capacity to ensure national food supply and to make sure that the rice bowl be held firmly in the hands of the Chinese people," Watson said. He said he expects the nation to continue playing a bigger role in contributing to world food security. Qu Sixi, representative of the World Food Program China Office, also called for international cooperation to tackle multiple challenges and ensure global security. "Through South-South cooperation, we would like to share the experiences and successful practices of China, providing examples for agricultural and rural development in developing countries," Qu said. (Web editor: Wu Chaolan, Hongyu) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko issued a warning on Monday against Ukraine and announced a joint military task force with Russia to deploy troops to the western border of the latter near Ukraine. The official had agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin to the deployment of the troops, which includes forces from the two leaders' nations. Lukashenko also said that the task force would include more than 1,000 troops and has already begun forming. Belarus Deploys Troops The Belarusian president added that thousands more Russian military troops could soon be deployed within Belarus. Lukashenko noted that the task force would not only be a thousand troops. Previously, Russia deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to Belarus as a staging ground for its initial invasion of Ukraine in February, leaving hundreds in the area who launched missiles and air raids. The recent announcement comes after Russia launched a massive strike against Ukrainian cities in retaliation for an explosion on a key bridge connecting the Russian mainland to the Crimean Peninsula. Putin called the latter an act of terrorism and blamed Ukraine for the devastation, as per The Hill. The Russian airstrikes killed at least five Ukrainian civilians in the capital of Kyiv and more than a dozen in the southeastern city of Zaporizhia. The attacks drew international criticism and condemnation across the Western world and renewed accusations of war crimes. Lukashenko, during a recent security council meeting, added that he was "warned through unofficial channels about strikes on Belarus" from Ukraine. However, the official did not provide evidence to support his claims. According to Yahoo Finance, the Belarusian president's remarks indicate a potential further escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war. It could include a potentially combined Russia-Belarus coalition in the north of Ukraine. Read Also: Pro-Russian Hacking Group Claims Responsibility for Cyber Attacks on US Airport Websites Supporting Russia, Warning Ukraine During a meeting on security, Lukashenko said that strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine but were already being planned. He noted that their owners are pushing them to start a war against Belarus to drag them into the conflict. Lukashenko noted that Belarus has been preparing for this moment for decades, saying that if needed, the country would respond. He added that he has already talked to Putin about the situation while in a meeting in St. Petersburg. The Belarusian president warned that if Ukraine or the countries that support it touch one meter of his territory, the attack on the Kerch Bridge will seem like a "walk in the park." The warning comes as the Belarusian army employs roughly 60,000 troops with six battalion-tactical groups being deployed earlier this year. The head of Belarus' border guards also accused Ukraine on Sunday of provocations at the border. Lukashenko said that Belarus must have plans in place well in advance so that it could counter all kinds of scoundrels who are trying to drag the country into a fight. The official's support of Putin comes as the country relies financially and politically on Russia, which is considered its key ally compared to other countries, Aljazeera reported. Related Article: Joe Biden Slams Vladimir Putin, Russia's 'Illegal War' in Ukraine, Condemns 'Utter Brutality' of Missile Strikes @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Man arrested after stabbing Catholic school employee, throwing Molotov cocktail at church An Oklahoma man has been arrested after stabbing a Catholic school employee and throwing a Molotov cocktail at a church that burst into flames and shattered windows, making it the latest incident of violence directed at churches in recent months. On Thursday, the Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Department announced in a Facebook post that Daniel Edwards had been arrested after stabbing a school employee with a sword and making threats at a grocery store. The stabbing took place Wednesday at approximately 4 p.m. local time in front of Holy Family Cathedral Church in downtown Tulsa. As witnesses were taking photos of children who attend school there in front of the church at the Holy Family Classical School, the man, later identified as Edwards, approached them and began speaking erratically and making threats about the children. After Edwards told one of the women that she needed to run away as fast as she could, she notified a school employee, who went after him. Edwards pulled out a sword and slashed the employee in one of his hands. The employee managed [to] get away from Edwards, and school administrators locked the school down and got the children to safety, the Police Department said. A statement from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa identified the employee as the churchs front desk assistant, Rod Notzon. The diocese said Notzon suffered lacerations on his hands and has been treated at Saint Francis Health System, where he is recovering in stable condition. Witnesses recalled seeing Edwards open a red cooler and pull out a jar appearing to be a Molotov cocktail. According to the police department, Edwards threw it against the side of the church and the jar burst into flames. The Diocese noted that the Molotov cocktail attack resulted in damage to some south-facing windows. I am extremely grateful to our faculty, staff, parish and school administrators for their fast and prudent action to keep everyone safe, the Rev. Gary Kastl, rector of Holy Family Cathedral and Classical School, said in a statement. I also want to extend my gratitude to the quick response and leadership of our local law enforcement. A Mass for Rods healing was held Friday, followed by a Eucharistic Procession around the propertys parameter, added Kastl, who invited the Tulsa community to come, pray and heal with us. Edwards never approached nor made his way into the school and fled the scene after throwing a second Molotov cocktail at the cathedral. Although law enforcement arrived after Edwards ran away, they began a citywide search to apprehend him. About an hour after the events that unfolded at Holy Family Cathedral and Classical School, police responded to a bomb threat at a grocery store in a different part of the city. Daniel Edwards made a threat at the store saying he had something worse than a bomb, and he was also carrying a Bible, the police department added. Edwards reportedly refused to follow the commands of officers who confronted him at the scene, leading one law enforcement officer to deploy his taser so he could be taken into custody. They confirmed that Edwards was the same man from the downtown church incident and recovered a sword in the backseat of his car after finding it in a parking lot. The image captured in security camera footage taken outside the church shows a man with dark gray hair and a beard and mustache wearing a yellow and black shirt with blue jeans. An image of Edwards as he was being taken into custody shows a man fitting that description. The Tulsa Police Department said Edwards will likely face charges for Assault with a Deadly weapon with Intent to do Bodily Harm, Possession of an Unregistered Destructive Device, and potentially other charges as well. The attack on Holy Family Cathedral is one of several attacks on churches that have taken place following Politicos publication of a draft opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which showed that a majority of justices were poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The attacks continued after the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision on June 24, declaring that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. While attacks on Catholic churches have received renewed attention as the Dobbs decision has dominated national headlines, the advocacy group CatholicVote traces attacks on Catholic churches back to the days and months following the May 2020 death of George Floyd in police custody. The group has launched a $1 million ad campaign lamenting what they have characterized as the Biden administrations inadequate response to the violence against Catholic churches. Planned Parenthood pushes puberty blockers for kids in cartoon advertisement Planned Parenthood is facing backlash for promoting a cartoon ad encouraging children to get on puberty blockers if they think theyre trans-identifying or nonbinary. The Twitter handle Eye Inside the Classroom (EITC), which says that it provides receipts that refute [claims] its not happening, shared the Planned Parenthood video in a tweet. Puberty blocker ad put out by Planned Parenthood, which tells children that they can get puberty blockers to put their puberty on hold,' EITC tweeted. Puberty blocker ad put out by Planned Parenthood, which tells children that they can get puberty blockers to put their puberty on hold pic.twitter.com/yjHXpevEMk ???? Inside The Classroom (@EITC_Official) October 3, 2022 The Planned Parenthood ad was originally posted to YouTube in January and tells children that puberty looks different for everyone, particularly for those who believe they are "trans, intersex or nonbinary." The cartoon first claims that puberty might not begin for intersex people until they turn 14, and they could undergo certain changes but not others. Planned Parenthood adds that some intersex people take cross-sex hormones or undergo a series of sex-change surgeries. For those who believe they are trans-identifying or nonbinary, Planned Parenthood claims that puberty can be uncomfortable and stressful if their experiences do not align with their preferred gender identity. The ad then misleads children into believing that they can take puberty blockers to temporarily delay puberty, claiming that the drugs work like a stop sign. Puberty blockers are safe and can give you more time to figure out what feels right for you, your body, and your gender identity, Planned Parenthood claims. You dont have to have all of the answers right now. Planned Parenthood tells people who identify as trans or nonbinary that finding what feels right for them might take time, but encourages them to talk with a trusted adult, a nurse or a doctor. Recently, Planned Parenthood has faced allegations that it willingly prescribes puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to individuals identifying as the opposite sex without a proper medical examination. One mother interviewed by The Christian Post went undercover after her daughter was prescribed testosterone without parental consent or reviewing her medical history. She herself was given a six-month testosterone prescription after a 30-minute consultation. Helena Kerschner, a former trans-identifying woman, said in a podcast interview with Tim Pool in May that when she visited Planned Parenthood at age 18, a nurse provided her with a high dose of testosterone after an hourlong appointment. She said that the business did not request bloodwork or medical records from her before they prescribed the testosterone; they simply needed her to pay $200. Kerschner said on the May podcast that as a result of taking the testosterone, she started experiencing a wide spectrum of emotions. The testosterone and the rage attacks were so intense that I ended up actually hurting myself. So I had to be hospitalized twice for these reasons, she said. A former Planned Parenthood employee spoke out last year about the corporation dispensing cross-sex hormones in an interview with journalist Abigail Shrier. The employee said she never saw the organization deny a patient cross-sex hormones. According to consent documents obtained in 2020 by the California Family Council from Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles, giving experimental puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to youth can cause infertility. The hospital warned patients and parental guardians that infertility is a side effect for children taking such drugs. Is Armageddon near? Here are some of the latest headlines: As a young boy in school during The Cuban missile crisis, I remember climbing under my desk for another bomb drill in preparation for a potential atomic bomb threat. I seriously doubt our desks would have done us any good. Now, 60 years later, AP News reported that President Biden said: The risk of nuclear Armageddon is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as Russian officials speak of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in the eight-month invasion of Ukraine. Anytime a world leader, much less a U.S. President, uses the word Armageddon, we notice. President Biden continued, We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He suggested the threat from Putin is real because his military is you might say significantly underperforming. Add to this, the U.S. has just spent $290 million on anti-radiation drugs. The threat is not being dismissed. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, who has single-handedly set this nightmare scenario into motion, is reportedly isolated in a bunker, becoming increasingly paranoid and nervous as his army has suffered defeat after defeat in his war against Ukraine. World leaders are taking this seriously. So should we. But is this potentially Armageddon? The short answer: no. To most Christians, Armageddon is often used to describe the final apocalyptic battle that mankind will someday face. The word ultimately comes from the Hebrew word Har-Magedone, which means Mount Megiddo, the predicted battle location. Christians should understand that this cannot be biblical Armageddon no matter what happens with Putins threats. That is a specific series of battles fought at the end of what the Bible calls the great tribulation period that will last for seven years. It is inaugurated by the emergence of the antichrist and ends with the return of Jesus Christ. But what if Russia and the United States enter this conflict of the highest stakes? Let us all pray together that such a thing never happens. But what if you knew that a nuclear missile was coming and you only had moments more to live? As a matter of fact, this did happen at 8:07 a.m. on Saturday, January 13, 2018, to the people of Oahu. Their phones buzzed with this ominous warning: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. People in Hawaii waited breathlessly for 37 very long minutes before being told it was a false alarm. The official explanation is the wrong button was pushed during a shift change. Shelly, a friend of ours, who was on Oahu at the time of this emergency alert, reacted calmly because of her deep faith in Jesus Christ. She texted us after the all-clear was given. After the emergency alert, her neighbors came running over to her house on the North Shore of Oahu and asked her what to do. Shelly writes, I prayed with them and said the first thing we need to do is make sure we know where we are going when we leave this earth! One day an actual threat will come your way a nuclear threat or a personal one. It could be a heart attack or a car accident. One thing is sure: no one gets out of here alive. Like Shelly, we should all know where we are going. Only those who are prepared to die are ready to live. About 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, came to our planet and died on the cross for all of our sins. There, hanging on that cross, He carried all the sins of the world, including yours, and died in your place. Then, three days later, Jesus rose again. Death died when Christ rose. If we will turn from our sins and believe in Him, we can know we will spend the afterlife in Heaven. With that knowledge, we are prepared to give that same answer of hope to someone else. There is no escaping the realities of life and death, even in a place as beautiful as Hawaii. One day, it will not be a false alarm. Nothing is more important than readying yourself for whatever emergency comes your way. I pray that our leaders, from the White House down, are doing everything they can to de-escalate this conflict immediately. But for the rest of us, it is vital that we know where we will spend eternity. 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. A recently-filed lawsuit on Monday by a Florida open-government group claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis allegedly withheld records related to migrant flights that traveled to Martha's Vineyard. The lawsuit, the third brought against the Republican lawmaker's office, compels the official's administration to release records regarding the flights that originated from Texas. There are two flights in question that carried roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants to the Massachusetts island last month. Migrant Flights The lawsuit alleges that the governor's office failed to comply with requests to release details including flight records and that DeSantis' administration was withholding information on the matter. Last Friday, the Republican's office released some details on the flights but the group said that it was not responsive to some requests. The Florida Center for Government Accountability (FLCGA), which filed the lawsuit, is seeking communication records involving DeSantis' Chief of Staff James Ithmeier, details about the flights, waivers signed by the undocumented migrants carried by the flights, and any information on exchanges with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office about the relocation of the individuals, as per Axios. The lawsuit said that the defendant's refusal to provide the requested records is unreasonable, and unjustified, and amounts to an unlawful delay and refusal to grant the requests. In an email, DeSantis' office said that the information released on Friday is the "first production" of records. The email noted that the governor's office was working to retrieve, review, and produce documents responsive to the many public records requests that they have received regarding the flights to Martha's Vineyard. According to Politico, the lawsuit comes as Florida has a well-regarded open records law that is enshrined in the state constitution that mandates local and government agencies to turn over government records. However, there are no concrete requirements for when the records must be turned over. Read Also: New York Subway Attack: Suspects in Neon Green Leotards Identified After Assaulting Women Unreleased Records The lawsuit, which was filed in circuit court in Tallahassee, states that no public records law exemption applies that would prevent the inspection or copying of the records sought by the plaintiff. It adds that the defendant has not asserted any such exemption regarding the matter. The documents that DeSantis' office did release showed that the Department of Transportation guidelines for the relocation program said that vendors hired by the state would help relocate the "unauthorized aliens who are found in Florida and have agreed to be relocated to another state in the United States or the District of Columbia." However, the migrants were flown from San Antonio, which has sparked an investigation by a sheriff in Texas. Furthermore, last month, a Democratic state senator filed a lawsuit that urged a judge to block the Florida governor from spending any more money on the relocation program, which was given a budget of $12 million. Vertol Systems Company was paid $615,000 for the September flights, but the governor's office previously declined to confirm that the payment was linked to the flights that landed in Martha's Vineyard. At the time of Florida's request for contractors, DeSantis was publicly claiming that President Joe Biden is capable of sending buses of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to Florida. However, last month, the Republican acknowledged that those buses never arrived and his focus began to shift to other priorities, CNN reported. Related Article: Ron DeSantis' Approval Ratings Ramp Up Following Response to Hurricane Ian Despite Facing Questions About Migrant Flights @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The United Nations rejected Russia's calls for a secret vote on Ukraine amid rising tensions after Kyiv's leaders condemns Moscow as a "terrorist state" over its ongoing invasion. The remarks from Ukrainian authorities came during a United Nations General Assembly meeting that was initially called to discuss Russia's annexation of four partly-occupied regions in Ukraine. The country's ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said that Moscow has once again proven that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways. UN Rejects Russia's Request Kyslytsya added that his own immediate family has come under attack by Russian forces, arguing that with Moscow's determination, there was no opportunity to call for a stable and sane peace. The Ukrainian official told member states at the assembly that at least 14 civilians lost their lives and 97 others were wounded in the attacks, which began on Monday morning. Russia's Vassily Nebenzia responded but did not directly address the recent missile strikes and defended his country's annexation of the four regions, as per Aljazeera. Nebenzia said that other world leaders accused Russia of being a terrorist state while it was only trying to protect its people in eastern Ukraine. Later in the week, the assembly is set to vote on a draft resolution condemning Russia's "attempted illegal annexations" of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson. The annexation followed so-called referendums, which many countries and leaders have called a sham, stressing that they have no validity under international law. The resolution calls on all states, international organizations, and agencies not to recognize the annexations and demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. According to the Voice of America News, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sept. 29 that the UN charter is clear, which notes that any annexation of a state's territory by another state resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the principles of the UN Charter and international law. Read Also: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko Issues Warning Against Ukraine, Deploys Troops To Support Russia Moscow as a Terrorist State The UN chief added that any attempt to annex the four Ukrainian regions would have no legal value and would result in a dangerous escalation of tensions. The day after Guterres' remarks, Russia exercised its veto in the UN Security Council to block a resolution condemning its actions. The situation has prompted a move to the General Assembly, where no state has any right to a veto. Nebenzia circulated a letter to member states on Oct. 4, where he called the move to the assembly "clearly politicized and provocative." On top of the discussions, countries will be asked to state their stance on the issue by voting on a resolution that condemns Russia's move to annex Ukrainian territory. European Union Ambassador Olof Skoog said that it was clinically focused on the legality or illegality of Russia's actions and decisions. Russia's call for the 193-member body to hold a secret ballot later this week on whether or not to condemn Moscow's move was rejected with 107 votes in favor of the decision. On Monday, only 13 countries opposed holding a public vote on the draft resolution while another 39 nations abstained, and the remaining countries, which include China and Russia, did not vote on the matter, Reuters reported. Related Article: Russia-Ukraine War: Silicon Valley's Richest Russian Completes Process of Renouncing Citizenship @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. As one of the worlds largest biopharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca pushes the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines that create enduring value for patients and society. To accelerate growth through innovation, the company is expanding its use of data science and artificial intelligence (AI) across the business to improve patient outcomes. AstraZeneca has been on a multiyear journey to transform its scientific capabilities to enhance its understanding of disease, design next-generation therapeutics, pioneer new clinical approaches, and better predict clinical success. For example, as part of its efforts to unlock different human genomes, AstraZeneca is working toward the analysis of up to 2 million individual genomes by 2026. This initiative alone has generated an explosion in the quantity and complexity of data the company collects, stores, and analyzes for insights. We needed a new approach to manage and analyze that data to accelerate the delivery of life-changing medicines for patients, said Gurinder Kaur, Vice President of Operations IT at AstraZeneca. Gurinder Kaur, Vice President of Operations IT, AstraZeneca AstraZeneca The new approach involved federating its vast and globally dispersed data repositories in the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Unifying its data within a centralized architecture allows AstraZenecas researchers to easily tag, search, share, transform, analyze, and govern petabytes of information at a scale unthinkable a decade ago. What began as an initiative focused on R&D now has extended to the companys three other major business units: Commercial, Operations, and Clinical, according to Kaur. The goal, she explained, is to knock down data silos between those groups, using multiple data lakes supported by strong security and governance, to drive positive impact across the supply chain, manufacturing, and the clinical trials of new drugs. Our ambition is finding a way to take these amazing capabilities weve built in different areas and connect them, using AI and machine learning, to drive huge scale across the ecosystem, Kaur said. Beyond R&D, we see value in extracting insights from data sources to improve patient outcomes and deliver personalized medicines. The cloud-based platform allows AstraZeneca scientists to move from ideas to insights faster, accelerating both drug discovery and clinical trials, to improve patient outcomes. Moving from ideas to insights faster AWSs expertise with scaling cloud services was invaluable in helping AstraZeneca build an end-to-end machine learning platform, called AI Bench, to make it easier to apply machine learning across the enterprise. AI Bench is a set of automated tools and guardrails that help us spin up the right environments in an automated fashion, so our data scientists can quickly begin working in a safe, secure, environment while ensuring regulatory compliance, said Brian Dummann, AstraZenecas Vice President of Insights & Technology Excellence. Before AI Bench, every data science project was like a separate IT project. We would spend weeks getting the right environment in place. Brian Dummann, Vice President of Insights & Technology Excellence, AstraZeneca AstraZeneca Built on Amazon SageMaker, a service to build, train, and deploy ML models, AI Bench has accelerated the pace of innovation and reduced the barrier of entry for machine learning across AstraZeneca. We have reduced the lead time to start a machine learning project from months to hours, Kaur said. This allows for engineers and data scientists to go from idea to insight quickly, delivering meaningful impact. Modern technology solutions provide our data science teams with fingertip access to synchronized information and data sets, allowing rapid re-use of models to ultimately accelerate outcomes and delivery for our patients. Accelerating drug discovery and clinical trials More quickly moving from ideas to insights has aided new drug development and the clinical trials used for testing new products. AstraZenecas ability to quickly spin up new analytics capabilities using AI Bench was put to the ultimate test in early 2020 as the global pandemic took hold. When Covid first appeared, we knew we had to step up quickly with our pandemic response, Dummann said. We were able to establish validated environments within 24 hours to begin working on evaluating Covid. This would have taken weeks or even months without the work we had already done to build out AI Bench. AstraZenecas increased investment in the cloud and AI capabilities offers the potential for a similar impact on clinical trials. Clinical trials currently account for 60% of the cost and 70% of the time it takes to bring a potential new drug to market[1], said Kaur. AI and machine learning are helping us optimize that process and reduce the time it takes. The quicker we can complete clinical trials, the quicker we can get new medicines to patients. Four ways to improve data-driven business transformation Kaur and Dummann offered four pieces of advice to other IT leaders looking to get more value from their data transformation activities: Start small, think big, and scale fast. You always need to have the big picture and vision in mind, but you dont have to develop that picture right out of the gate, Kaur said. Instead, focus on getting solutions out quickly, testing and improving them, and then scale them out across the company. The ability to scale also means promoting the re-use of data products where possible. We want to maximize our investment in AI, said Kaur. We dont want to keep reinventing the wheel, and we want our data scientists to be able to re-use AI assets across the enterprise. AstraZenecas data scientists have launched more than 100 AI projects, and the number continues to grow. Build internal expertise and understanding. Data-driven transformation is as much about people and process as it is about data and technology. To succeed, you need to get people to believe in the value of the transformation and show them a clear path to get there. Attracting and retaining some of the best data scientists in the world has been critical to unlocking the value of data, said Dummann. So a big part for us is focusing on improving the experience of the data scientists. Were keen to democratize data projects so that data scientists can get on with their daily tasks without reliance on IT. We dont want to make them wait for weeks or days to get their work done. Modernize your approach to data and technology. Data is an asset, and it needs to be treated as such, said Dummann. Its critical to ensure the integrity of the data for AI and machine learning models to work effectively. For the broader technology architecture, Dummann suggests moving away from best-of-breed point solutions. Instead, invest in a few big, critical capabilities to really get the scale and speed you need. Dont be afraid to fail. There are multiple ways to solve a problem, said Kaur. Adjust as you go. Through its commitment to the cloud, data, AI, and machine learning, AstraZeneca is seeing its pace of innovation increase and is eager to see where the journey leads. Our data science community is moving faster than ever before, harnessing the power of data and AI to help discover new drugs, accelerate clinical studies and regulatory approvals, and maximize impact on patient lives, says Dummann. Its an exciting time to be at AstraZeneca! Learn more about ways to put your data to work on the most scalable, trusted, and secure cloud. [1] Clinical Development Success Rates, 2006-2015. BIO, BioMed tracker, Amplion, 2016 Huawei kicked off its Huawei Connect 2022 tour in Bangkok as it embarks on a world tour. The massive exhibition brings together ICT leaders, experts, and partners to unleash digital productivity, build stronger digital ecosystems, and promote the digital economy. CIO Editor Andrea Benito visited the exhibition and sat down with Derek Hao, President of Global Marketing, Huawei Enterprise Business Group, on why the key to accelerating digital transformation is matching the right technologies to the right scenarios. Asia Pacific is leading the shift toward digital-first business process and will generate more than 30% of revenue from digital products and services by 2023, IDC predicts. Its not hard to see why; the degree of uncertainty created by the pandemic around workforce availability, and customer preference shifting towards online has created a set of powerful catalysts for change. Connecting technology with transformation Huawei Connect 2022, themed Unleash Digital, kicked off in Bangkok in September. The key message from Huawei was that to ensure successful digital transformation, the right technology must be selected for each scenario. During the second day keynote on Innovative Digital Infrastructure Accelerates Digital Transformation, Bob Chen, Vice President of Huawei Enterprise Business Group, emphasised the importance of finding the right technology for the right scenario, further citing how data is at the core of digital transformation and Huawei provides full-stack products and product portfolios to support end-to-end data processing. Data the key to deeper digital transformation During our conversation, Derek Hao, President of Global Marketing, Huawei Enterprise Business Group shared that while many businesses have implemented basic workflow in a digital equivalent, fewer have taken full advantage of the data available to them to inform their processes. According to Hao, data is key to deeper transformation and a cornerstone of Huaweis strategy to help customers more comprehensively transform their business processes. Huawei believes that the way to deepen digital transformation and drive continuous innovation of industries is to find technologies for scenarios, which requires combining technologies. Data is, after all, the core of digital transformation. Thats why intelligent industry upgrades must be based on data, Hao observes. To meet the requirements of different industries and specific scenarios, Huawei provides customers with a wide range of full-stack products and portfolios, covering full-stack data ingestion, transmission, storage, computing, analysis, and more, which effectively support E2E data processing, he says. Sector-specific solutions on display Huawei has developed initiatives to help specific industries digitise and will be in showcasing them at Huawei Connect 2022. In the Bangkok edition, the exhibition demonstrated digital transformation cases across different industry sectors, divided into three key zones: Industrial Digital Transformation showcased innovative applications and industry solutions in different scenarios including Education, Ports, Roads, and Electricity. Innovative Digital Infrastructure showcased Huaweis latest innovations across data centres, campuses, digital sites, and WANs, four types of product portfolio solutions provided by Huawei. HUAWEI CLOUD and Eco-partners showcased HUAWEI CLOUDs successful practices in technological innovation and ecosystem development. Understanding customers challenges According to Huawei, one of its key focuses is to work closely with customers to first understand their unique challenges, which will allow its technology subject matter experts to match the right technology solutions for different scenarios. Huawei recently worked closely with a municipal government in an Asia Pacific country to understand its problem space and identify a series of issues in its environment, including isolated IT systems, lack of virtualised management rules, inefficient O&M, and slow response. This enabled Huawei to build a centralised cloud platform for the customer, leveraging the HUAWEI CLOUD stack, which migrates multiple services to one cloud and ensures resources can be requested by multiple departments at the same time, improving office efficiency. Huawei was also able to deploy a multi-data centre disaster recovery and backup system to ensure service continuity. The result has been much-improved efficiency and stability for the systems, allowing the government workforce to improve its productivity. Go digital in the changing environment To assist partners with solution design, Huawei has developed more than 100 scenario-based solutions with partners covering over 10 industries. While the pandemic is slowly resolving, the world remains a very different place from what it was before COVID-19. A set of fundamental assumptions that underpinned global trade and economies have shifted. As the world charts the uncertain path ahead, one thing is certain: businesses will have to comprehensively transform their processes toward digital to survive and thrive. We look forward to working with more customers and partners to dive deep into scenarios and jointly innovate to upgrade infrastructure, unleash digital, and build a fully connected, intelligent world. In the future, we are still confident in the digital development of the Asia Pacific, says Hao. Register today to visit Huawei Connect 2022 Dubai Google on Tuesday said it would be adding new cloud regions across five countries to meet growing computing demand from customers across the globe. The new regions, announced at Googles Cloud Next conference, will be made available across Austria, Greece, Norway, South Africa and Sweden, and will supplement new regions announced in August for New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand and Mexico. However, Google did not confirm when each of these regions would be operational. The company has already added five new regions this year in Milan, Paris, Madrid, Columbus (Ohio, US) and Dallas, Gupta said. The addition of the new regions will take Googles total cloud region tally to 35 regions and 106 zones compared with 34 regions and 103 zones in August this year. Zones offer high-bandwidth, low-latency network connections to other zones in the same region, and regions are collections of zones. As of December last year, that number stood at 29 cloud regions and 88 cloud zones globally. Google and other major cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft and Oracle have been investing heavily into expanding their cloud regions. In July, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company will launch 10 new cloud regions this fiscal year. Similarly, in June, Oracle CEO Safra Catz said the company expects to add another six regions in fiscal 2023. By July, the company had already launched two of these new sovereign regions for the European Union. Data sovereignty adds fuel to cloud region construction Data sovereignty regulationsrules about data that companies must keep in-country for security and privacy reasonshas given impetus to construction of cloud regions around the world. The EU has taken the lead in advancing data privacy rules with GDPR regulations, and during the Cloud Next conference, Google also announced that it was expanding its portfolio of Sovereign Solutions that can support European customers current and emerging sovereignty needs. Google Cloud Sovereign Solutions comprise Sovereign Controls, designed to help organizations manage data sovereignty requirements, as well as Supervised Cloud and Hosted Cloud options to help address operational and software sovereignty concerns. To make these controls available, Google has teamed up with a nunber of telecom companies in the EU, including T-Systems in Germany, S3NS in France, Minsait in Spain, and Telecom Italia in Italy. Economic impact of cloud regions Google claims that opening up new cloud regions contribute to local economic and job growth. These cloud regions help bring innovations from across Google closer to our customers around the globe and provide a platform that enables organizations to transform the way they do business, Sachin Gupta, vice president of infrastructure at Google Cloud, wrote in a blog post. The nine new cloud regions that were announced this year are expected to collectively contribute $40 billion to global GDP by 2030 and create 314,400 jobs, a Google commissioned study by consulting firm AlphaBeta showed. At the regional level, the three cloud regionsNew Zealand, Malaysia and Thailandannounced in APAC are projected to contribute $10 billion to the regions GDP by 2030 and create 86,500 jobs, the study showed. Similarly, the five regions announced this year across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, are projected to contribute a cumulative $18.9 billion to EMEAs GDP by 2030, and support creation of more than 110,500 jobs, AlphaBeta said in its report. After the world's oil-producing nations indicated this week that they were reducing output, gas prices are once again slowly rising throughout the United States. Prices had been declining across the nation for almost 100 days after they peaked as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and ongoing supply-chain disruptions. However, following last week's announcement by OPEC+ to reduce its output by 2 million barrels, gas prices in the US rose once more on Monday, reaching an average of $3.92. Gas Prices Likely to Continue to Increase Prices are up considerably more in California, where a gallon cost an average of $6.33 on Monday due to Gov. Gavin Newsom's allegations of price gouging. Prices are averaging $4.35 in Michigan, where a fire destroyed a significant petroleum factory. However, Valero has retaliated by claiming that California's laws and taxes are to blame for the state's high pricing. According to Patrick De Haan, the chief petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, the current rise in crude oil prices is likely to result in a further increase in gas prices. According to De Haan, prices might increase by as much as $0.30 from their September lows, which would bring the price of a gallon back up to $4. As per NBC News, Andy Lipow, owner of the consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates LLC, has stated that he anticipates US drivers would soon have to pay $4 per gallon. He stated that the lower prices have increased demand, which has resulted in a sharp decline in gasoline supplies across much of the United States in a message to investors on Monday. The Biden administration is now considering a ban on the export of refined products due to the low supply, but analysts argue that this would harm European partners who are already suffering from increasing prices brought on by the conflict in Ukraine. Read Also: Ron DeSantis' Approval Ratings Ramp Up Following Response to Hurricane Ian Despite Facing Questions About Migrant Flights OPEC+ Oil Cut Effect in US Additionally, President Joe Biden is thinking about increasing production in communist Venezuela and other countries with which the United States has worsening relations. Even while prices around the country were falling, California prices had already risen to absurd levels last month, and now state officials want to know why. David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, demanded to know why gas prices have increased despite a sharp downturn in global crude prices, no significant unplanned refinery outages in the state, and no increases in state taxes or fees in a letter to oil executives on September 30. In response, Scott N. Folwarkow, vice president of state government affairs for Valero, claimed that the businesses had engaged in price conspiracies, noting that a federal judge had found no support for such claims. He acknowledged that Valero had scheduled maintenance work, but said that the business had done it in accordance with its contractual obligation. He then attributed the low inventory levels to post-COVID demand and a lack of supply, according to FOX Business. Folwarkow further attributed California's higher prices to the fact that it has the most expensive operating environment in the nation and a very unfriendly regulatory environment for refining. He claimed that state measures that make it challenging to expand refining capacity and have halted supply programs to reduce refineries' operational costs have made the situation worse. Following the letter's release on Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he would convene a special session of the state legislature in December to enact a new tax on oil industry profits as retaliation for what he called their rank price gouging. Since Newsom stated that he is still working out the specifics with legislative leaders, it is still unclear how the tax would operate. However, he made it clear on Friday that he wants the money returned to taxpayers, maybe by using the proceeds from the new tax to provide rebates. Prices in Michigan increased by 19 cents from a week earlier as a result of a refinery fire in Toledo, Ohio that claimed two lives. The BP-Husky Toledo plant refines about 160,000 barrels per day, but given that the fire is still under investigation, it might not reopen until December. This might result in a months-long shortage of goods in the Midwest. Costco customers, for example, might have better pricing constancy. The company's fuel purchasing approach enables it to maintain constant prices, according to CFO Richard Galanti, who spoke on the company's earnings call for the second quarter last month, Daily Mail reported. Related Article: New $1,400 Stimulus Check: Who's Eligible for Fresh Rounds of Payments from Biden Administration? @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Primeste notificari pe email Nota bene: Adresele email cu extensia .ru nu sunt acceptate. Contractare si Achizitie Bunuri Anunturi de Angajare Granturi - Finantari Burse de studiu Stagii Profesionale Oportunitati de voluntariat Toate Articolele Workers at the at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) have applied for statutory union recognition at the charity after it rejected voluntary applications. Members of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) employed by the RSA had applied for voluntary union recognition at the charity, which it rejected. The IWGB has now applied to the Central Arbitration Committee to impose statutory union representation on the RSA. This comes despite the RSA previously calling for the repeal of laws restricting trade union activity through its future of work project , leading some to argue this rejection is at odds with its previous public stance on unions. Previous applications denied A group of IWGB members called the RSAUnion, posted on social media : In March 2022 the RSA Union first requested recognition, representing a majority of staff. We sought voluntary recognition to work collaboratively with our new leadership to reach the best working arrangement for our colleagues. This has been denied on three occasions. It added: The RSA leadership have stated that the organisation does not think unionisation is in the best interests of our staff, fellows or the charity sector in general. We were pretty surprised as this isnt something the leadership have always said in public in the past. A fairer working environment Alex Marshall, president at IWGB, said: Everybody deserves a voice at work. Thats why staff at the RSA have come together and democratically chosen the IWGB as their union to represent them. The RSA has rightly championed this kind of workplace democracy and it is surprising to see senior management so far attempting to avoid a recognition deal. We are confident that through this deal, we can create a fairer, more democratic working environment at this historic institution. An RSA spokesperson told the Guardian: The RSA is committed to using whatever time and resources are necessary to secure the strongest and most representative democratically elected staff voice on a broad range of issues, and until the Central Arbitration Committee process is complete it would not be appropriate for us to comment. sign up to receive the Civil Society News daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, The European Unions Digital Services Act (DSA), seen as a regulatory game changer, is coming into force this year. A suite of regulatory requirements intended to curb online mis- and disinformation, the DSA will require online platforms such as Google, Meta, TikTok, and YouTube to annually assess the risks posed by content they host and circulate; track and provide data concerning their algorithms; improve transparency regarding their advertising recommendations; give users more options concerning the parameters of ad targeting; and provide avenues for redress on content-moderation decisions. Penalties for violations under the DSA include fines totaling as much as 6 percent of annual revenueroughly $11 billion for Google, for instance, or $7 billion for Meta, both of which lobbied hard against aspects of the act. Ever since the nineties, weve had the outlook of not regulating the tech platforms, Christel Schaldemose, a Danish member of the European Parliament who was instrumental in getting the bill through, said during a recent discussion hosted by Columbia University and the German Marshall Fund. With the DSA, we are taking back control and making rules for the tech industry. Dominique Cardon, a sociology professor at Sciences Po, praised the DSAs design because it emphasizes process over outcomes. The act is also cheered by researchers, who are particularly enthusiastic about gaining automated access to nonpersonal and anonymized data. (Algorithm Watch has a helpful guide to the DSAs components here.) Implementation and enforcement of the act have not been finalized. During the year ahead, layers of EU officials and national agencies will focus on working out several areas, including deciding what data the platforms need to provide to regulators and researchers; how the platforms will carry out risk assessments; who will audit the platforms; and how to make sure the auditors are not captured by the platforms that pay them. Regulators will need to figure out evidentiary requirements and thresholds for launching investigations. A new generation of auditors and researchers will need to be trained, and some analysts have voiced the concern that, since the platforms will be paying the auditors, there is a potential for conflict of interest. A much-discussed media exemption, which would have safeguarded content from news outlets against moderation by the platforms, was not included in the DSA. Some media organizations had argued that, since journalism is already covered by libel and other laws, there was no reason for them to be covered by the DSA. Others worried that a media exemption would open the door for more disinformation emanating from outlets like RT and Sputnik. Differences between EU member states represent another significant challenge to finalizing an enforcement approach, noted Mathias Vermeulen, director of policy for AWO, a consultancy firm that researches technology policy. European countries had decades of data protection experience, but still found it difficult to enforce the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Vermeulen said, adding that it will be challenging to develop a common language for different enforcement authorities with different backgrounds. For now, regulators around Europe are staffing up. The EU is hiring seventy staff members to implement and enforce the DSA. Each member country will decide how many staffers to hire; arcom, Frances audiovisual regulator, is expected to hire between twenty and thirty staff members and is looking for data skills and the ability to work across boundaries. DSA creates a network of regulators, Benoit Loutrel said during the recent Columbia panel. We need a mix with the commission at the center and regulators in member states as well. Julia Trehu from the German Marshall Fund contributed to this article. Isaiah Glick assisted with research. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Dr. Anya Schiffrin is the director of the Technology Media and Communications specialization at Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs. Across two nights last week, the artist formerly known as Kanye West and now formally known as Ye went on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show and shared some rambling thoughts, many of which were about the media, in the caricatured sense of that term. Among our collective crimes: pushing the demonic idea that being overweight is the new goal; unfairly accusing Ye of stalking his ex-wife Kim Kardashian; being suspiciously in sync in covering the details of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas (Have I reached Alex Jones territory yet? Ye asked); and promoting a godless agenda. If you asked Tonya Harding how she did the triple flip or the triple spin, she was in so much practice that when it was time for her to skate in a competitive format, it just happened, Ye said, explaining his decision to wear a shirt with the slogan white lives matter at a recent Paris Fashion Week event. Thats whats happening. God is preparing us for the real battles. And we are in a battle with the media. The interviewseemingly Carlsons first with Ye, though he has praised Ye beforepredictably attracted a mini-slew of takes assessing what it meant for the media, in both the mass and news senses of that term; Slates Justin Peters, for instance, called it the ultimate example of what Ive come to call the Tucker Carlson Grievance Interview: a recurring feature of Carlsons show in which the host lends a prim, sympathetic ear and a hugely influential platform to various trollish dipshits, generally of the liberal or recovering liberal variety, who have faced criticism and occasional consequences for saying, doing, and/or wearing ugly, antagonistic things. (Carlson said of the interview, Weve rarely heard a man speak so honestly and so movingly about what he believes.) The attendant hubbub might normally have died down after a couple of days. The interview was, as Peters noted, only the ultimate example of a tedious and repetitive Carlsonian genre that increasingly defies original analysis. ICYMI: Nonprofit news employees may be eligible for loan forgiveness But Ye wasnt done inserting himself into the mainstream news cycle, and he didnt need Carlsons help to stay there. On Friday, he suggested on Instagram that the rapper Sean Combs, a/k/a Diddy, who had criticized the white lives matter shirt, is controlled by Jewish people, leading Instagram to temporarily lock down Yes account. On Saturday, Ye switched over to start posting on Twitter for the first time in a while, earning a sunny Welcome back! from Twitters would-be new overlord, Elon Musk. On Sunday, Ye tweeted that he was about to go death con 3 [sic] On JEWISH PEOPLE, leading Twitter to temporarily lock down Yes account. The posts sparked widespread media condemnation, though not from everyone, of course. Some commentators quickly drafted Ye into their tedious and repetitive talking points about supposed social media censorship. The further right you went, the more overt the defenses became. An InfoWars talking head said that the backlash to Yes posts only proves what hes talking about is real; a Daily Wire talking head said, Its like you cannot even say the word Jewish without people getting upset. After Ye tweeted, a commentator named Todd Rokita accused the liberal media of hypocrisy for going after Yes independent thinking and opposing thoughts. Todd Rokita subsequently said that he hadnt seen Yes posts about Jewish people. Todd Rokita is the attorney general of the state of Indiana. This was far from the first time that Ye had sparked a media firestorm; since at least 2016, when he planted himself firmly in the orbit of Donald Trump, he has made more waves with his efforts to trigger the libs than he has with his music, as the New Republics Alex Shephard put it yesterday. When coverage of Ye has swelled, so, often, has criticism of that coverage, both in terms of tone and quantity. In 2018, after a previous occasion on which Ye returned to Twitter, my thenCJR colleague Alexandria Neason spoke on our podcast about the media death spiral of hot takes that ensued; a few months later, after Ye met with Trump in the White House, Neason criticized the nausea-inducing round of rubbernecking coverage that the visit generated, noting that the press had gleefully relayed Yes bunk before condemning it without acknowledging its own role as co-producer of his controversialism. In 2020, as Ye announced he was running for president, various observers criticized coverage for variously ignoring and stigmatizing his mental health; he had by then revealed his bipolar-disorder diagnosis. We dont have a shared language for when a celebrity is not doing well in public, BuzzFeeds Elamin Abdelmahmoud wrote in an essay. It sure as hell doesnt look like a smirking headline inviting you to enjoy the Kanye circus. It looks like weaving compassion and accountability together, and naming what hes going through alongside what he does. The latest round of Ye coverage has attracted similar criticism. After the white lives matter T-shirt incident, Versha Sharma, the editor in chief of Teen Vogue, called on fashion media, in particular, to stop covering Ye uncritically and suggested that he gets too much coverage, period. I started my career in political journalism, and I believe there are lessons fashion and culture writers can take from the ongoing media debate over how to cover a conspiracy-theory-touting narcissist like former President Trump, Sharma wrote. Any uncritical airtime or website/social media space you offer only adds fuel to the fire of attention-seeking. On the subject of Yes mental health, Sharma quoted Ruth Etiesit Samuel, a culture journalist at HuffPost, who noted on Instagram that Anti-Blackness is *not* a comorbidity associated with bipolar disorders and/or neurodivergence! They are wholly unrelated. Sign up for CJR 's daily email As is often the case with Ye, his prominence in the current news cycle reflects a dizzying conflation of claims and issues, some of which really matter, some of which really dont. The American cult of celebrity is often trivial, and the media should be less complicit in sustaining it; equally, when that cult escapes and influences political discourse, shouldnt we take it seriously? Mental health is an important story, and Ye is a highly visible news peg for it; equally, its dangerous to make offhand assumptions about his condition, especially when those bleed into apologism. The actual things that Ye says are often impenetrably nonsensical or petty and interpersonal (just see the Carlson interview) and dont merit breathless aggregation and dissection by news sites with more pressing demands on their attention; equally, outright bigotry from famous people can have sickening real-world consequences, especially when it flows throughand is held up as a useful token bya far-right political and media ecosystem that is mainstreaming that bigotry. Last night, MSNBCs Alicia Menendez discussed Yes posts alongside other recent stories about bigotry, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greenes invocation of the great replacement conspiracy theory. Another key vector of that idea? Carlson. Writing in 2018, Neason clarified that she was not arguing that the things Ye says are of no consequence, but rather requesting that the press decline to be complicit in exacerbating those consequences; writing last week, Sharma argued that if journalists must cover Ye, they should do so with context, an eye toward accuracy, reality, history, and motivation. This is all sound advice. At minimum, coverage should isolate whats important in the Ye story and describe it clearly for what it is, rather than mining him for controversy then performing ignorance or agnosticism about the substance. Sadly, too much topline coverage of Yes recent outbursts did the latter. Several mainstream outlets referred in tweets and headlines to Yes alleged anti-Semitic posts, or wrote that the posts had been widely deemed to be anti-Semiticlanguage that arguably revealed more about its authors than its subject. Peters noted in Slate that the premise of Carlsons interview with Ye last week was to ask him what message he meant to send by wearing the white lives matter shirt while other journalists jumped to conclusions. This was silly, because the T-shirt was the message, Peters wrote. And everyoneTucker Carlson includedknows what it means. Below, more on Ye: The future? Instagrams and Twitters decisions to clamp down on Yes accounts after his recent posts were relatively straightforward given their blatant offensiveness, but a conservative-led movement to rein in what some see as censorship by Silicon Valley giants is poised to alter how they approach such decisions, Will Oremus and Cristiano Lima write for the Washington Post. Between a growing field of state laws that seek to restrict content moderation and Elon Musks determination to loosen Twitters policies, posts such as Yes could soon become more prevalent online. (ICYMI, my colleague Mathew Ingram has written about both the state laws and Musk recently.) Instagrams and Twitters decisions to clamp down on Yes accounts after his recent posts were relatively straightforward given their blatant offensiveness, but a conservative-led movement to rein in what some see as censorship by Silicon Valley giants is poised to alter how they approach such decisions, Will Oremus and Cristiano Lima write for the Washington Post. Between a growing field of state laws that seek to restrict content moderation and Elon Musks determination to loosen Twitters policies, posts such as Yes could soon become more prevalent online. (ICYMI, my colleague Mathew Ingram has written about both the state laws and Musk recently.) Bullying: After Ye unveiled his white lives matter shirt at Paris Fashion Week, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, a contributing editor at Vogue, described it, in an Instagram post, as a failed attempt at a Duchampian provocation that was, in practice, deeply offensive, violent and dangerous. Ye responded by lashing out at Karefa-Johnson via his own Instagram account, leading other famous users to come to Karefa-Johnsons defense. Amid the dramatics, Vanity Fairs Delia Cai wrote that she found herself thinking about the singularly critical role that Instagram plays in facilitating and documenting both the connections and clashes between celebrities and the public. Were not here for mediocre 30-second Reels, Cai added, of the platform. Were here for the (in this case, truly alarming) way one app can so flatly democratize public and personal relations into shareable, screenshot-able content pile-on. After Ye unveiled his shirt at Paris Fashion Week, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, a contributing editor at Vogue, described it, in an Instagram post, as a failed attempt at a Duchampian provocation that was, in practice, deeply offensive, violent and dangerous. Ye responded by lashing out at Karefa-Johnson via his own Instagram account, leading other famous users to come to Karefa-Johnsons defense. Amid the dramatics, Vanity Fairs Delia Cai wrote that she found herself thinking about the singularly critical role that Instagram plays in facilitating and documenting both the connections and clashes between celebrities and the public. Were not here for mediocre 30-second Reels, Cai added, of the platform. Were here for the (in this case, truly alarming) way one app can so flatly democratize public and personal relations into shareable, screenshot-able content pile-on. Being careful: Earlier this year, following a previous slew of Ye posts, Jenna Ryu, a wellness reporter at USA Today, urged media outlets to be cautious in their coverage. It may be tempting to keep up with Yes frequent Instagram posts. But experts say we need to remember that the star has been open about his mental health issues, speaking in detail in the past about his bipolar disorder. And the public knows nothingand should not make assumptionsabout his current mental state, Ryu wrote. Not only can constant coverage worsen a celebritys own mental health, but it also perpetuates the stigma for others: that those with mental health issues are dangerous, weak-minded, lazy or attention-seekingand as a result, deserve to be laughed at. Other notable stories: ICYMI: The endorsement debate swings around again Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among other outlets. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop. Heavy rains eased across Australias east on Monday, a slight relief for flood-weary residents but authorities warned another intense weather system could hit several inland regions bringing more downpours and triggering flash flooding. Northern Victoria state, southern New South Wales (NSW) and northern Tasmania should brace for widespread rains of up to 100 mm (4 inches), about a quarter of Australias annual average, over two days from late Wednesday, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said. It is another big event so were likely to see lots of moderate and possibly major flooding, BoM forecaster Dean Narramore told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Monday. Even as blue skies returned to many places, more than 100 flood warnings remained across NSW, the worst-hit state from the latest rain event that began last week forcing many to flee homes, and inundating roads and farms. Just because the rain has stopped doesnt mean the threat has eased as water is heading to our rivers and streams, Narramore said. Evacuation warnings were issued over the weekend for several residents in the states rural inland regions and also in Sydneys northwestern suburbs of Windsor and North Richmond. In remote NSW, they will be on edge for the next few days while we await another big system to arrive on Wednesday through to Friday, NSW Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said. Australias east coast weather has been dominated by La Nina, which brings more rain, resulting in frequent floods since early 2021 and the weather bureau predicts the phenomenon is likely to occur for a rare third straight year. Many dams and rivers are already full in NSW and Victoria states, home to more than half of Australias near 26 million population, and further falls across saturated grounds raise the risk of rapid flash floods. A lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Tuesday accuses online gaming firm Roblox Corp RBLX.N of enabling a California girls sexual and financial exploitation by adult men. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, also targets online chat company Discord Inc., Snapchat parent Snap Inc. and Instagram parent Meta Platforms Inc., Snap and Meta are already facing dozens of similar lawsuits. Meta declined to comment. Roblox and Snap could not immediately be reached. A Discord spokesperson said the company has a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who endangers or sexualizes children but declined to comment directly on the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, which was seen by Reuters, the girl, S.U., was born in 2009 and began using Roblox when she was nine or ten years old. Roblox is popular with children under 13 but also has adult users. Starting in early 2020, S.U. came into contact with adult men through Roblox, who encouraged her to sign up for Discord, Snapchat and Instagram to communicate with them, according to the lawsuit. None of the companies required parental consent, and Discord did not verify S.U.s age even though it said it did not allow users under 13 years old, the lawsuit said. The men exploited her by encouraging her to drink and abuse prescription drugs and send sexually explicit photos of herself, according to the lawsuit. One man allegedly persuaded her to send him money. S.U. suffered severe mental health problems leading to suicide attempts and hospitalization as a result of her experience, the lawsuit said. S.U. and her mother, C.U., claim the companies failed to take steps to keep minors using their platforms safe, and that Snap and Instagram encouraged addiction in children. They are seeking unspecified damages. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to review a Washington state case that will determine whether a business can pursue a lawsuit against a labor union that the company says intentionally damaged its property. The high court on Oct. 3 granted a petition filed by a concrete company, Glacier Northwest, asking it to review a Washington Supreme Court decision that dismissed its lawsuit against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 174. The state court determined that the National Labor Relations Act preempts the lawsuit because the unions actions that caused the damage are arguably protected by the law. If the court finds that such conduct is not preempted and may be litigated in state court, such a ruling could go far in protecting employers interests in contentious labor disputes and potentially shift the balance of power towards employers during these disputes, the Proskauer Rose law firm said in an article published by the National Law Review. Glacier contends that while it was negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters in August 2017, the union deliberately timed a work stoppage to sabotage company property. On a morning when concrete was scheduled to be delivered to job sites in mixing trucks, a union agent made a throat-slashing gesture to signal an immediate stop, the company says. Glacier said 16 drivers parked their trucks in the companys yard and left them idling with concrete inside the mixing drums. The company said it scrambled to prevent the concrete from congealing. It hastily constructed temporary bunkers and dumped the concrete. It broke up the concrete after it hardened and hired trucks to haul it away at considerable additional expense. Glacier sued the union. The state Superior Court in King County dismissed the lawsuit, but the Court of Appeals reversed. The union appealed to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in November 2021 that the lawsuit was impliedly preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. The Washington high court said that while striking employees may not intentionally damage their employers property, economic harm may be inflicted through a strike as a legitimate bargaining tactic. The National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, gives labor unions the right to strike. A coalition of business groups and contractors filed an amicus brief arguing that the state Supreme Courts decision left employers without any remedy should their workers vandalize their property. Because state tort actions are often the exclusive means by which businesses recover for such unlawful acts, businesses in Washington will be left holding the bag whenever unions unlawfully swap negotiations for vandalism, the brief says. The union argues in a brief that its members actually protected Glaciers property by leaving the mixing trucks running when the work stoppage commenced. Glacier had to dispose of the concrete only because it failed to arrange for replacement workers. It is difficult to imagine what further steps the union could have taken to protect Glacier without seriously undermining the effectiveness of the strike, the brief says. More than 60 people who have accused Hertz Corp. of having them wrongly arrested won the right to join a lawsuit against the company, dealing another blow to efforts by the rental car giant to keep the allegations bottled up in bankruptcy. Under a legal standard set by US Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath, the customers can sue for false arrest instead of battling the company in bankruptcy court. With the latest court maneuvers, more than 120 people are actively suing Hertz outside of bankruptcy court, according to an emailed statement by victim advocates. About 320 people have come forward to accuse the company of having them falsely arrested, according to lawyers leading the lawsuits. Those renters claim Hertz routinely called the police on customers, sometimes over a payment dispute and in a few cases after the company lost track of a rental car. The company lost a key court battle in June when Walrath allowed more than 70 customers to sue for false arrests. Until June, Hertz had successfully kept nearly all the false arrest claims locked inside its Chapter 11 case, where juries are not allowed and where its difficult to win punitive damages against a corporation. As more claims move from bankruptcy jurisdiction to state courts, Hertz faces higher litigation costs and the prospect of big jury verdicts. The false arrest claims could cost Hertz hundreds of millions of dollars, according to advocates for those suing the company. Legal Standard Hertz has appealed the June ruling to allow certain claims to be resolved outside of bankruptcy. Company officials have offered to settle dozens of the claims while it continues to fight others in bankruptcy court. We disagree with the bankruptcy courts ruling and the legal standard that the judge used, the company said in an emailed statement. Since June, Hertz has offered to settle with about 60 alleged victims, the company said. We remain steadfast in our commitment to defend the companys interest against those that intend harm, while also doing right by our customers. At a court hearing last month, Hertz lawyer Samuel Hershey said the company agreed that under the rules Walrath laid out for deciding which cases must stay in bankruptcy court, about 60 people qualify to have their claims decided elsewhere. Should the company succeed in overturning Walraths rules on appeal, those cases could be returned to the Chapter 11 case. The company filed bankruptcy in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the economy and brought car rentals to a halt. Hertz exited bankruptcy oversight last year, but left a shell company behind to pay off its older, disputed debts, including the false arrest claims. Bankruptcy courts dont have juries and all disputes are settled by a judge who is typically focused on rehabilitating the financially distressed company. In state courts, juries can be unpredictable, sometimes imposing steep penalties on corporations found to have harmed the public. Criminal Cases Hundreds of customers say in court papers that Hertz filed police reports against them and had them falsely arrested, often at gunpoint. A small number of those cases allege errors by Hertz employees caused police to pull over innocent customers on suspicion of driving stolen cars. Hertz is the unit of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. that operates the Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty rental brands in regions that include Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. Hertz files thousands of criminal cases against customers annually, according to court documents. The company says the majority involve disputes about vehicles that werent returned on time and likely have been stolen, and it tries to contact customers via phone calls, text messages, emails and certified letters about overdue cars and get them back through private means, working for about 63 days beyond the return date before involving police. The case is Rental Car Intermediate Holdings, LLC 20-11247, US Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington). Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. The next pandemic in India could be caused by antibiotic resistance, a condition in which bacteria evolve over time and finally acquire the capacity to withstand the treatments intended to kill them. Nearly 60,000 newborns lose their lives to neonatal illnesses that are resistant to antibiotics every year. In just 2019, antibiotic-resistant newborn illnesses resulted in 1.27 million fatalities globally. Superbug 'Pandemic' Stalks India These are the infections where the bacteria evolve until they can resist the medications intended to treat them. India is one of the nations that have been most negatively impacted by antimicrobial resistance, according to a report. A government report that illustrates how things are becoming worse every day is also mentioned in the report. According to the article, tests were conducted at Kasturba Hospital to determine which antibiotic would be most effective against the five major bacterial infections, including Klebsiella pneumonia and E. coli. The study discovered that a variety of medications were just 15% efficient at treating the illnesses brought on by those bacterial pathogens. They also discovered an increase in infections known as Acinetobacter baumannii that are multidrug resistant. A patient's lungs are attacked by Acinetobacter baumannii, as per Live Mint. According to a recent study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), resistance to the potent antibiotic class known as carbapenems, which kills a variety of bacteria, has increased by up to 10% in just one year. Every year, information on antibiotic resistance is gathered by report from up to 30 public and commercial hospitals. According to the ICMR analysis, the situation is so dire that only 43% of the pneumonia infections brought on by one pathogen in India might be treated with first-line antibiotics in 2021, down from 65% in 2016. Saswati Sinha, a critical care specialist at AMRI Hospital in Kolkata, India, claims that the situation is so bad that six out of 10 patients in her intensive care unit have infections that are resistant to treatment. Doctors at Kasturba Hospital claim that antibiotic resistance is common, even among outpatients from villages and small towns suffering from illnesses including pneumonia and urinary tract infections. It has reached a point where there aren't many options available to treat some of these patients. Doctors find it challenging to obtain details of their prior exposure to antibiotics because the majority don't carry prescriptions and can't remember the medications they were administered. Such patients are difficult to manage. Dr. Kalantri asserts that ordering increasingly more antibiotics is a desperate approach that is likely to cause more harm than good. Public health professionals think many doctors in India give out antibiotics carelessly, BBC reported. Read Also: Thailand Nursery Massacre: 3-Year-Old Survives Horrifying Tragedy After Sleeping Under a Blanket Risks of Being Infected by Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria The Milken Institute School of Public Health, bacteria can occasionally develop a natural resistance to antibiotics, possibly as a result of an abnormally thick cell wall or the capacity to manufacture neutralizing enzymes. But typically, a lot of bacteria become immune to antibiotics in one of the following ways: During DNA replication, the bacteria's DNA may change (when the bacteria multiply). They become more able to survive and more resistant to antibiotics as a result. There may be horizontal gene transfer. To make other bacteria resistant to antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread their genetic material to other bacteria. Even if the resistant bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, they can continue to grow. The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that overuse and abuse of antibiotics over time are what brought about this situation. The largest threat posed by antibiotic resistance is that we won't be able to successfully treat infections that were previously curable with antibiotics. There will be fewer available treatments for many infections. The remaining choices could be pricey, which might make them unaffordable for certain people. Additionally, the availability of antibiotics is essential for many medical developments and therapies. This covers joint replacement operations, organ transplants, chemotherapy, and the management of several chronic illnesses, according to Health Line. Related Article: New Study Finds That Colonoscopies Fail To Reduce Death Rate of Colon Cancers @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. King Charles III and the British Royal Family are the subjects of some very bleak predictions from a psychic in the UK. The future King will only reign for seven years before handing the throne to Prince William, according to a psychic in Birmingham. Psychic: King Charles III is "Struggling" According to psychic John Hughes of the business We Are Namaste, the new King is sinking beneath the weight of the throne, Birmingham Live said. Hughes stated, "I think he's struggling". King Charles is anxious about the future, and he's thinking a million times if he can do the job. Hughes, who believes he acquired the ability to see from his clairvoyant grandmother, also believes Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will face difficulties on their marriage journey. Hughes is not the only medium who predicts a bleak future for King Charles III as monarch. A self-styled Asparamancer, who earlier this year foretold the Queen's demise, now claims to have seen visions of the next King. Within the following 12 months, Prince William will serve as Prince Regent, the prince who takes the position of the titular monarch and take over many tasks of the King. Packington claimed to have seen that Boris Johnson will take over as Prime Minister after Liz Truss leaves No. 10 and that she not only anticipates William to succeed her, as per Lad Bible. Hughes claimed that the next king is already struggling and questioning his suitability for the position. Hughes emphasized that King Charles III won't have the same difficulties as the Queen did because of the trauma regarding Prince Andrew and Lady Diana. The Queen was unable to step down, Hughes said. The psychic, who has worked in sales and marketing for the previous 45 years, started his own psychic business We Are Namaste. He asserts that he doesn't do it for financial gain and donates all profits to charity while enabling individuals to interact with their deceased loved ones. Hughes normally aims to raise $22,106 from his sessions each year to give to various charities. The discussions center on preserving relationships, making plans for the future, and enabling people to contact loved ones who have passed away. In his Sutton Coldfield residence, he offers tarot card readings, Meaww reported. Read Also: WATCH: Lakers' LeBron James Celebrates Like Crazy with Travis Scott During Bronny's 18th Birthday King Charles III Coronation While keeping some of the grandeur and pomp of his mother's lying in state and death, King Charles III is said to desire his coronation to set the tone for a streamlined and contemporary monarchy. The number of attendees for the Operation Golden Orb event will probably be reduced from 8,000 to 2,000. A more permissive dress code has also been discussed, with peers possibly allowed to don lounge suits rather than ceremonial robes. To save time, time-consuming rituals like giving the monarch gold ingots would be abolished. Another person with knowledge of the planning for the Coronation said that King Charles III had always been mindful of only including what was required while keeping an eye on tradition and history. The source also said that providing the new Prince of Wales a prominent role had been the subject of considerable discussion on a behind-the-scenes basis. This will have occurred for the first time in three generations. When his mother was crowned, King Charles III, then only four years old, watched from a distance. When her father was crowned, the late Queen was 11 years old. Neither had a designated job. Prince William, though, who is 40 years old, is expected to have a much bigger role, according to Daily Mail. Related Article: Kate Middleton's Brave Reaction During Confrontation to Protester in Northern Ireland @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Before next month's midterm elections, Democrats will face difficulties as a result of Hunter Biden's legal troubles since they provide Republicans additional material to attack his father, President Joe Biden. However, if Republicans take control of Congress or even just the House next year, it is more probable that the president and Democrats will stumble over the Justice Department's criminal tax probe into Hunter Biden, among other ethical problems. Joe Biden Knew Hunter's Scandals Republicans, including Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, are slamming the Justice Department for dragging out the investigation into Hunter Biden, which was two years old when it was made public weeks after the 2020 presidential election. Fitton and others are being closely watched in response to claims in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that federal officials are certain they have enough proof to accuse Hunter Biden of tax violations and making a false statement about buying a pistol. The Delaware US attorney, who was chosen by Donald Trump, will make the decision, but there are worries that the younger Biden's addictions could hurt their case. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee gave a sneak peek at the next Congress' agenda last month if the GOP takes control of one or both chambers. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the ranking member, for instance, demanded a vote on a resolution that would have required the administration to reveal information on the larger Biden family's international business dealings. According to former Arkansas US Attorney Bud Cummins, the Justice Department is unlikely to indict Hunter Biden before the elections in November, if at all. Based on the political factors of the investigation, Cummins believes that was the best course of action, but he expressed astonishment at how limited the evidence was, as per Washington Examiner. A message from the president to his son discloses that President Joe Biden lied about using drugs on the sworn purchase form despite being aware of Hunter's drug-induced breakdown at the time his son purchased a pistol. In a voicemail left on Hunter's abandoned laptop on October 15 - three days after Hunter purchased the pistol and falsely claimed to be a drug addict - Hunter Biden begs him to get help, he sounds almost in tears. Hunter Biden purchased a 38-caliber pistol from a Delaware gun shop on October 12, 2018. It was unlocked in his pickup when Hallie Biden, his lover, and his brother's widow, discovered it about two weeks later. She put it in a grocery store trash receptacle. Police started looking into it when it was found. According to a report published in the Washington Post on Thursday, the incident is one of the possible offenses for which federal law enforcement has enough proof to bring charges against the First Son. Hunter acknowledged in his memoir that he was a crack addict at the time even though he claimed on the Firearm Transaction Record that he did not use illegal narcotics. It is illegal to lie on the federal form. If prosecutors choose to charge Hunter with the alleged felony, the distressing voicemail and the hurried texts between Hunter and Hallie on the laptop might be used as evidence in the prosecution's case. If Hunter Biden is charged with tax offenses and lying on gun purchase forms, the prosecution may utilize emails, texts, and pictures that were previously revealed by DailyMail.com during the trial. The FBI thinks there is sufficient evidence to bring charges against Hunter Biden for failing to disclose the proceeds of his international business dealings and for failing to disclose his drug use on a firearms application, according to Daily Mail. Read Also: North Korea Missile Tests Are Simulations of Nuclear Attacks to South Korea: Report Medias Downplay Hunter Biden Issues Fox News Digital was informed by media analysts that the tendency of left-leaning media networks to downplay potential Hunter Biden issues undermines their credibility and demonstrates that they are still following the 2020 playbook that resulted in the suppression of the infamous laptop story. Federal investigators claim they now have enough evidence to accuse the president's son of tax and firearms violations, according to a recent Washington Post report. The most recent development in Hunter Biden's turbulent public record comes in the wake of several reports about questionable business dealings and worries about how the FBI, Big Tech, and the liberal media handled Hunter's laptop, which was initially dubbed "Russian disinformation" by numerous reporters and intelligence officials. The laptop has since been confirmed in several widely circulated sources. Fondacaro said that strong pushback to reports about Hunter Biden and efforts to clean it from social media played a role in manipulating the 2020 presidential election, citing an MRC post-election poll carried out by McLaughlin & Associated in November 2020. The survey discovered that 36% of Biden supporters were unaware of the news that the FBI was looking into a possible connection between President Joe Biden and his son's business operations in China. About 13.5% of these voters, or 4.6% of the total votes cast for President JoeBiden, claimed that they would not have supported the former vice president if they had been aware of this information, Fox News reported. Related Article: [Report] Biden Administration Hires Staff To Deflect Hunter Biden Scandals, Pays $265,000 Per Year @YouTube @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. United States President Joe Biden pledged to his Ukrainian equivalent, Volodymyr Zelensky, advanced air defense systems in the wake of Russia's deadly missile attacks on Kyiv and several Ukrainian cities. In a phone chat with Zelenskyy, Biden made the promise before a meeting of the Group of Seven to explore aid to Ukraine and how to hold Moscow "accountable" for the missile attacks that left at least 14 people dead. According to a White House readout, President Biden "pledged to continue" delivering Ukraine the resources it needs to protect itself, including sophisticated systems for air defense against Russian attack. The US chief executive also "expressed his condemnation of Russia's missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks," the White House statement reads. Joe Biden assured Zelenskyy that the US and its allies would keep imposing penalties on Russia and hold it accountable for its "war crimes and atrocities," according to the White House. While Russia's defense ministry claimed that Monday's assaults were directed at "army headquarters and communication facilities and power grid," Kyiv blamed Moscow for deliberately bombing residential areas. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia launched 84 missiles at 10 cities, with 56 being intercepted by air defenses. The US Continues To Deliver Military Aid To Ukraine As per an Al Jazeera report, the US will provide Ukraine with air defense systems that can take down drones, missiles, and helicopters. The United States reportedly delivered over 1,400 Stinger anti-air systems, air surveillance, and multi-mission radars to Ukraine. According to a CNN report, one source in the Joe Biden administration claimed that Washington assisted its allies in providing air defense systems to Ukraine, like the vital S-300 system, which was sent from Slovakia in April. In addition, eight additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) were ordered and announced in August as part of President Biden's new support package for Ukraine. Read Also: Taiwan President Gets Honest on China Conflict: 'Resorting to War Must Not Be the Option' At the time of the briefing by the Department of Defense in late September, the United States still had not sent NASAMS to Ukraine. Brigadier General Patrick Ryder previously stated that two of the eight systems would be delivered within the next two months, with the remaining six arriving at a later date, which is still unknown. Following the devastating attacks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday to reaffirm US support. On Tuesday, G7 leaders will assemble via video conference, and Biden is anticipated to participate. Zelensky is scheduled to give a speech. Putin Accuses Ukraine of Terrorism Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the attacks as necessary in light of what he called "terrorism" on the part of the Ukrainian government. He cited Saturday's explosion on the Kerch Bridge between Russia and Crimea, which he blamed on Ukraine's "special services." Putin also warned that Russia will surely conduct "harsh" responses that will "correspond to the level of threats created for the Russian Federation" if there are continued "terrorist acts" against its territory, per Axios. European Union officials and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denounced the assaults. China and India both have called for the Russia-Ukraine war to stop getting worse. Related Article: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko Issues Warning Against Ukraine, Deploys Troops To Support Russia @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In this May 8, 2019, photo, a Douglas County Sheriff's deputy walks past the doors of the STEM Highlands Ranch school in Highlands Ranch. A teen accused of killing a fellow student at his suburban Denver school in 2019 allegedly agreed to participate in the attack as long as it looked like he was pressured into participating. During the opening of Devon Erickson's trial on May 27, 2021, a prosecutor also told jurors that the strategy unraveled after student Kendrick Castillo rushed him when he pulled out a gun and others tackled him. Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Member subscribers also receive the weekly print edition of our award-winning newspaper, containing outstanding features and news stories, in their mailboxes every Saturday. 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. Children's respiratory illnesses are significantly increasing in the United States, filling many emergency departments and pediatric hospitals nationwide. This increase in the number of sick children is due to COVID-19 and other viruses like RSV, enteroviruses, and rhinoviruses. Experts believe that while respiratory illnesses tend to rise over the winter months, this year's season has started earlier and that numbers are immensely greater, according to a report from NPR. According to pediatric infectious diseases specialist Dr. Ibukun Kalu of Duke Children's Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, they have recorded RSV positivity rates "as high as 25 percent" for October, which is unusual. "We typically start to see higher rates in November, December, and January," said Dr. Kalu. The expert stated that while respiratory viruses like RSV may have devastating effects on newborns, the virus is now showing signs of causing similar effects in older children, necessitating hospitalization for the provision of artificial ventilation. The COVID-19 epidemic is already putting a burden on hospital systems, and now some children who have preexisting conditions that necessitate the use of oxygen at home due to viral infection are adding to that pressure. Dr. Kalu also noted that medical facilities are almost at capacity as more and more patients require assistance while there is a shortage of beds and employees. "This combination is going to create more and more problems." COVID-19 Cases To Increase This Winter COVID-19 cases have decreased since early August. The daily average of new cases has dropped to 44,743 as of October 6 (using a moving seven-day average), the lowest it has been since April. The number of people admitted to hospitals because of COVID-19 is also decreasing. On October 5th, 27,161 fewer hospital beds were being used daily by patients covered by COVID-19 than there had been since June. As winter approaches and more people stay indoors, COVID-19 cases are predicted to climb, as per medical experts. Read Also: New Study Finds That Colonoscopies Fail To Reduce Death Rate of Colon Cancers NBC News reported a recent study conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota that indicates that the daily national average of COVID-19 cases is expected to shoot up by more than 10 percent over the next several weeks. According to Mayo Clinic's director of clinical virology, Matthew Binnicker, the rise in COVID-19 cases this year probably will not have the same magnitude as in the winter of 2020 and 2021. He predicts that most of these illnesses will only be "mild to moderate." Flu 'Roaring Back' This Year, So Better Get Vaccinated The US is experiencing its first tough flu season in many years. Despite low overall numbers, the CDC recorded increased positive flu testing last week. According to Dr. Dan Uslan, co-chief infection prevention officer at UCLA Health in Los Angeles, it's quite possible "to see influenza roaring back with a vengeance this winter." Australian incidents may serve as a preview: According to the Department of Health and Aged Care, this has been the worst flu season the country has seen in at least five years. Dr. Binnicker of the Mayo Clinic noted that Southern Hemisphere advises the public to "double down" on preventative measures like wearing masks and observing physical distancing. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has advocated that all Americans 6 months and older get vaccinated against the flu by the end of October. At a news conference, she expressed concern over a decline in flu vaccination rates over the previous two years, particularly among those most at risk for severe flu complications. The CDC reported a decline in flu vaccinations this year. Some factors include the misconception that COVID-19 shots also prevent the flu, fewer visits to vaccine providers during the pandemic, and fewer flu immunization centers operating than in previous years, as per an ABC News report. Related Article: Anti-Biotic Resistant Superbugs Pose Threat of New Pandemic in India @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form SCF Editorial October 11, 2022: Information Clearing House -- The United States and its allies are guilty of perpetrating a deliberate war of aggression against Russia that has long been in the planning works. A study by the Rand Corporation published more than three years ago demonstrates incontestably that the war in Ukraine is in fact the manifestation of a bigger willful confrontation against Russia whereby the United States is attempting to weaken and subjugate Moscow. What is happening is without doubt the culmination of U.S. long-held planning. That puts a wholly different meaning on the current conflict in the Ukraine now in its eighth month. This is not, as the Western governments and media would make out, an unprovoked assault on Ukraine and Western democratic values by Russian aggression. The conflict has been deliberately fomented, stoked and now exacerbated by policy choices made by Washington and its NATO partners. The Rand Corporation is one of the oldest think tanks in the U.S., established in 1948. One of its cofounders was air force commander General Curtis LeMay, the architect of the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic holocaust at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. LeMay was an arch-Cold War hawk who advocated preemptive nuclear strikes on the Soviet Union to President John F Kennedy in the early 1960s. The corporation he set up, Rand, is funded by the U.S. government and in some ways can be seen as the public brains and mouth of the Pentagon and CIA. The study cited above, entitled Overextending and Unbalancing Russia and published in April 2019, has caught the attention recently of many independent observers (see, for example, a recent episode of the Jimmy Dore show in the U.S.). What makes it topical is how real, current events are unfolding in a way that the American planners envisaged. Among a list of cost-imposing options (see our SCF graphic) urged by the Rand authors to be meted out against Russia were: Providing lethal military aid to Ukraine Mobilizing European NATO members Imposing deeper trade and economic sanctions Increasing U.S. energy production for export to Europe Expanding Europes import infrastructure to receive U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies The U.S.-backed coup detat in Kiev back in February 2014 was the key event to make all this subsequent planning possible. The regime that came to power was rabidly anti-Russian and infested with Neo-Nazi ideology. It was a zealous tool for American and NATO policy to antagonize and threaten Russia. For eight years, the Kiev regime repudiated peace treaties and waged a genocidal war with full U.S. and NATO backing against Russian-speaking people in the self-declared Donbass republics. Those republics have now joined the Russian Federation, along with two other former Ukrainian regions. Russias military invasion of the Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was precipitated by relentless NATO-backed aggression not just against ethnic Russians in Ukraine but against Russia itself. Arguably, it became a war of necessity for Russia to defend its national interests, prompted by a proxy war of choice engendered by the United States and its NATO allies. The Rand Corp study makes it abundantly clear that the incipient dangerous conflict between nuclear powers has been orchestrated from the outset by the U.S. The world is witnessing an abysmal situation that amounts to a quasi-World War Three, as our columnist Declan Hayes wrote this week. Atrociously, the U.S. and its NATO partners keep piling ever-more lethal weapons into Ukraine that are making possible direct attacks on Russian territory. Under the nefarious tutelage of Washington and London, the Kiev regime spurns any diplomatic effort to find a political solution for peace. Well-meant proposals for peace put forward by international figures like entrepreneur Elon Musk or music artist and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters are met with derision and death threats. There seems to be a spiral of insanity that the U.S., European elites and the Kiev regime are beholden to. The Kremlin has warned that it will use all means necessary to defend itself if Russias existential security is threatened even by conventional weapons. The dynamic here is perilous for catastrophic nuclear all-out war in a way that makes the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 pale by comparison. It needs to be emphasized that the present dangerous dilemma has been consciously driven by U.S. policy choices. Recall that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former U.S. presidential strategist to Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), hailed Ukraine as the pivot for hegemonic control over Eurasia and a bridgehead to destabilize Russia in his 1997 book entitled The Grand Chessboard. Brzezinski was also the architect of the Afghan Quagmire which the U.S. covertly instigated to draw in Soviet troops into a ten-year war (1979-1989). That war was deliberately engineered by massive American weaponization of Afghan proxies (who later evolved into Al Qaeda and other Islamist terror networks) to give the Soviet Union their Vietnam. The debilitating drain on Moscow from the Afghan Trap was arguably a causal factor in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. What is happening currently in Ukraine has unerring parallels. As the Rand Corp eagerly anticipated, the conflict is aimed at overextending and unbalancing Russia. It is no doubt heavily invested that the military, economic and political pressures being generated and imposed on Moscow will lead to the weakening of the Russian state, the collapse of governing structures, regime change and the splintering of the national territory into disparate mini-states over which the U.S. can exert hegemonic dominance for exploitation of Russias vast natural wealth. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently pointed out that this geopolitical objective of defeating Russia is the touchstone of our time. Other sources corroborate the conclusion that this conflict is a war of choice. NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg disclosed probably unintentionally in an opinion article for the Financial Times last month that the U.S.-led military bloc has been weaponizing the Ukraine since 2014 for the purpose of agitating tensions with Russia. Thus, NATO weapons being pumped into the Ukraine are not a response to defend against Russia. The offensive military aid is merely being accelerated after years of provocative arming of the former Soviet republic and Russias immediate western and historically close neighbor. Last month, another senior NATO commander, Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the blocs military committee, made the brazen admission that: The planning for that [the current war] began years ago but were now implementing it. It is therefore indisputable that a legal case can and should be made. The United States and its allies are guilty of perpetrating a deliberate war of aggression against Russia that has long been in the planning works. Thats not only a supreme war crime, according to Nuremberg principles. It is also placing the very existence of the entire planet at grave risk. Can anything be more God-damn evil? About 80 percent of cotton expected to be harvested by machinery in Xinjiang this year People's Daily Online) 16:10, October 11, 2022 Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has recently ushered in its cotton harvest season, with more than 7,000 cotton pickers hired to reap cotton in fields across the autonomous region. This year, an estimated 80 percent of the cotton grown in Xinjiang is expected to be harvested by machines. Cotton planted on 7.4 million mu (493,333 hectares) of land in Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, is currently being harvested. Xinjiang's unique geographical location and the rich sunlight, heat, water and soil conditions it is blessed with allow the region to produce cotton with long staple, good color and high quality. (Photo/Wang Zhipeng) "This year, I planted 800 mu of cotton and the yield stands at between 450 kilograms and 500 kilograms per mu. All of my cotton will be harvested by machinery," said a local farmer in Aksu city, Aksu Prefecture. Cotton planted in Yuli county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, is known for its long staple, good color and high quality. In recent days, over 760 cotton pickers have been busy working in the cotton fields to pick, compact and pack the cotton. Cotton pickers work in a field in Aksu city, Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo/Liu Bingbing) "This year, we are using machines to pick and bundle up the cotton. It takes 5 to 6 minutes for a cotton picker to make a bale of cotton weighing about 850 kilograms, which is the total weight of cotton picked by 10 workers in a whole day," said Guo Shixue, head of the technology department of a local cotton planting cooperative in Yuli county. A cotton picker works in a field in Yuli county, Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo/Wang Zhipeng) (Web editor: Chang Sha, Du Mingming) October 11, 2022: Information Clearing House -- To be clear, I respect Putin as a person. He is humane. He cares about life and civilization. He is a good person. In fact, he is proving to be too good of a person to be dealing with the venal and corrupt West, and he has no idea how to conduct a war. Putin thinks, or thought, that Russia and the West shared common values. This shows how little Putin understands the West. The West is Washington, and the rest of the West are not independent countries but Washingtons puppets. None of Washingtons puppets represent their own citizens and neither does Washington. Washingtons values are measured only in dominance and money. Washington is concerned only with its political, military, and financial hegemony over everyone else, including its own people who are waking up in each successive day in an ever tightening police state where the US Constitution is erased bit by bit, day by day. The FBI has become a Gestapo for the Democrat Party. The Western media is a propaganda ministry for Washington. Truth that is inconsistent with the ruling official narratives is suppressed. The government and its presstitutes feed the people lies and tell them it is truth. Putin gives speeches in which he shows that he understands this, but his actions do not reflect his understanding in his speeches. The distance between Putins words and his action is almost infinite. The Kremlin had to be totally out of touch with reality when the Kremlin thought that its limited military operation in Donbass would be allowed by Washington to be limited. How anyone in the Kremlin could possibly have been this naive, this gullible, this uninformed is beyond my imagination. How is it possible that the Kremlin could possibly have thought that after Washington went to the trouble to force Russian military intervention in Donbass, Washington didnt intend to use it to greatly widen the war. Here we witness the total failure of Russian intelligence and the total failure of Russian understanding of the enemy with which Russia is at war. Indeed, it is not even clear that Russia understands that she is at war with the West. Here and there a Russian says so, but Russias actions belie any such understanding. The Kremlin is still trying to bail out Europe by supplying energy so Europe can continue its war against Russia. How does one understand this? It has to be a first in History when a country at war supplies its enemies with the fuel with which to conduct war against itself. The Kremlin is begging Europe to please let us sell you energy so your war industries dont have to close down. Could the Kremlin do anything else to make the Russian government look like the most confused government on earth? https://www.rt.com/business/564148-novak-nord-stream-supplies-europe/ Lets put the origin of the ongoing and widening war in Ukraine in its factual context. In 2014 the American neoconservatives who dominate the American government overthrew the government in Ukraine while the Russian government, totally ignoring happenings in its backyard, was focused on trying to win Western acceptance as an Olympics host in Sochi. In other words, the Kremlin thought the Olympics was more important than Ukraine. The Kremlins insouciance made Washingtons takeover of Ukraine a cake walk. Suddenly, the Kremlin was faced with Ukrainian neo-Nazis prohibiting the use of the Russian language and terrorizing and killing ethnic Russians who comprise the population of Donbass and Crimea, historical parts of Russia that Soviet authorities moved from the Russian province of the Soviet Union to the Soviet Ukraine province. These Russian areas of Ukraine all voted by massive majorities to be reunited with their home country, but the Kremlin only accepted the application from Crimea, a part of Russia since the 1700s. The Kremlin accepted Crimea, because that is where the Russian Black Sea Naval Base is located, leased since the Soviet collapse, from Ukraine which was separated from Russia by the Soviet collapse. By leaving the Donbass Russians hanging at the mercy of the US neoconservative coup, the Kremlin guaranteed a military conflict. The punishment the Ukrainian neo-Nazis inflicted on the Donbass Russians resulted in the creation of two independent republics: Donetsk and Luhansk. To defend themselves from being occupied by neo-Nazis, the two republics organized governments and militias. After loosing some of their territory to Ukrainian neo-Nazi militias, the Donetsk and Luhansk republics stopped the advance, but were subjected to artillery attacks for eight years on civilian housing that continue today. Putin and Lavrov tried to pass the buck to the West and stupidly, although with the best intentions, tried to deal with the problem diplomatically, showing how little they understood the West. Putin came up with the impractical Minsk Agreement signed by Ukraine and the two Donbass republics and guaranteed by France and Germany. Under the Minsk Agreement Donbass was to remain within Ukraine, but would have sufficient autonomy to have their own police force so they they could not be persecuted by neo-Nazi Ukrainian police. It became clear almost instantly that Ukraine would not comply with the agreement it signed and that France and Germany would not enforce the agreement. Why the Kremlin thought two Washington puppet states would enforce an agreement that permitted Russia to escape a military conflict is beyond my imagination. That Putin spent eight years trying to save an agreement that never had any prospect shows how out of touch with reality the Kremlin is. With this factual background, lets come to the present conflict today. When it comes to International Law, Putin is the only person in the world who abides by it. Certainly Washington doesnt. By abiding by international law, Putin gives Washington every advantage in the conflict. Under international law a Russian invasion of Ukraine is an act of aggression. So Putin was careful not to invade Ukraine, despite what you hear from the presstitutes. The two Donbass republics, belatedly recognized by Russia eight years afterwards, requested assistance from Russia to prevent their conquest by a large Ukrainian army trained and armed by the West that was poised to invade. Perhaps at this point the Kremlin realized its mistake of failing to accept, as the republics begged, reincorporation into Russia in 2014. In February 2022, if the Kremlin allowed neo-Nazis to exterminate Donbass Russians, the Kremlin would loss all legitimacy with the Russian people. In other words, Washington successfully maneuvered the Russian government into war that served Washingtons interest. As the West presented it, here was Russia the aggressor confirming Western propaganda. Here was Russia subverting Europe with energy dependence. Here was Russia rebuilding the Soviet Empire. Next Russia would be recreating the Warsaw Pac and extending it into Western Europe with Europes energy dependency on Russia. No one in the West listened to the Kremlins explanation. With the official narrative set, Washington began supplying Ukraine with modern weapons, intelligence, and targeting information. When the Russian offensive paused, because Putin or the Russian military lacked the foresight to realize that an offensive required reserves, and as a result of this oversight, had no reserves, the US/UK trained Ukrainians began their own offensive, which has partially succeeded against the thinly protected Russian lines. The Russian retreats, while awaiting reinforcements, have been presented in Western media such as the New York Times and the UK Telegraph as Russian forces fleeing the battlefield in terror, leaving behind their equipment. This is not what is happening, but it is not the fact of the situation that matters but how the media explains the situation. The narratives created by Washington and its presstitutes create their own facts. Putin and the Russian military unbelievably went to war with minimal commitment of forces and no reserves. The Russian forces simply lacked the manpower, given Putins limited commitment, to defend thin lines once Putin stopped the offensive and handed the initiative to Washington. This is one of the most stupid mistakes that a wartime commander can make. What is actually happening is that the Kremlin in its totally incorrect reading of Washington had no idea that Ukraine would be supplied with endless modern weapons, intelligence, and targeting information. Not expecting this response, the Kremlin was not prepared for real war. Even if the Kremlin had better understanding of the situation, the Kremlin has shown no comprehension of how to fight a war. We are now into eight months of a conflict that Russia could have settled in one week. And mighty Russia has been forced on the defensive with its lines retreating both in Kharkiv in the North and Kherson in the South. Wars that are perceived as being lost can lose their glory and support of the population. To be clear, when the mobilized Russian reinforcements, which an intelligent military would have had on hand from the first of the conflict, are finally prepared for war, apparently sometime in December, the Russians will regain the lost territories, although the Ukrainians might have killed the inhabitants. But there is still no guarantee that Putin understands that Russia is at war with the US and Europe or what do do about it if he does understand it. The Kremlins spokesman says that the limited operation in Donbass will continue. If so and nothing else, the only possible conclusion is that Russia will be long suffering. A military that is prevented from attacking the communication and military infrastructure and most of the territory of the country with which it is at war cannot prevail. The Kremlin has been at war for eight months and has done nothing to prevent Kievs ability to fight a war. The Kremlins view that it is not at war with Ukraine and is only conducting a police action to remove Ukrainian forces from the Donbass is a self-deceiving idea that prevents the Kremlin from conducting a war. To speak the truth, the Kremlins conduct of war is juvenile. A 10-year old kid could do a better job. Was the Kremlin even thinking when it thought it could conduct a war while leaving the opposing government perfectly secure in its conduct of the war? Russia has refused, to shut down the government in Kiev, thus allowing its enemy to conduct, unopposed, war against Russia. This has to be the first time in human history that a government at war has been permitted to operate as if it were not at war. There is no Russian attempt to destroy Zelensky, to shut down Kiev, to disrupt the communication and infrastructure of Ukraine. Any country that conducts war in such a self-defeating way convinces its opponents that it has no intention of winning the war. This perceived lack of Russian resolution enbolders the West to push Russia harder and to violate more Russian red lines. Violating Russian red lines means nothing to the West as Russia never does anything about violations of its red lines. Russian protests are nothing but meaningless Russian bluster, says the West. Unless the Kremlin intends to lay down its arms and surrender to Ukraine and the West, the extraordinary weakness and irresolution that the Kremlin has shown in its limited military operation will encourage more aggression from the West and lead directly to the 3rd World War. Zelensky is already calling for preventative nuclear strikes against Russia. https://sputniknews.com/20221006/peskov-urges-entire-world-to-take-note-of-zelenskys-call-for-preventive-nuclear-strike-on-russia-1101582414.html Apparently, never in Putins entire life did he ever learn to put his foot down. Putin seems to think it can be done with mere words, but it cannot. Putins hesitancy and toleration of provocations has undermined his credibility. As the West has no fear of its opponent, Putins Goody Two Shoes behavior is bringing us Armageddon. The longer the war goes on, the more involved the West becomes, the greater the stake powerful interest groups, such as the US military/security complex, have in the war, and the less prospect for de-escalation. By constantly showing irresolution, acceptance of extreme provocations, and shamelessly begging for negotiations, the Kremlin has convinced Washington that Russia is incapable of fighting. From Washingtons viewpoint, Russia is nothing to be feared, only something to be moved out of way. It is extraordinary that the government of what is probably the most powerful military force in the world has convinced Washington that Russia is military impotent. This is Putins achievement from trying to save the Donbass Russians without having to fight a real war. Andrei Martyanov, the Saker, and Dmitry Orlov have seriously misled their pro-Russian audience. Martyanov and Saker stressed the superiority of Russian firepower and tactical operations, which was correct, but they ignored the built-in strategic failure of the Russian limited operation. Moreover, the Russian tactical advantage was reduced when the limited forces Putin had been willing to commit became too thin to protect the boundaries of the conquest, and modern weapons from the West and targeting information substantially reduced Russian firepower advantage. Putin, having foolishly let the war go on month after month, a war that he should have competed in one week, gave the US and UK time to train a larger Ukrainian army and equip it with modern weapons. It should have been obvious to the Kremlin from day one that this was in the cards. Any time a war is drawn out the advantage passes to the side that is not constrained by self-imposted constraints. It is impossible to imagine Napoleon or the Wehrmacht fighting in such a constrained way as Russia is required to fight in Ukraine. If Stalin had fought in the way Putin is today, there would be no Russia. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . Click Here To Support Dr. Roberts work By Harsh Thakor* On October 6 the memories of the police firing on students at Moga on October 5-7, 1972 were resurrected by the Punjab Students Union (Shaheed Randhawa). Even if not so large in numbers, it gave a qualitative effect in resonating the message of the martyred students. I was privileged to be part of the gathering and the march. The firing at the Regal Cinema turned a spark into a prairie fire, being the cradle of the student and youth rebellion or precursor to the Moga Sangram rally of April 1974. It symbolized the wrath of the students community against the injustice of an autocratic society and garnered forces from all walks of life to confront the oppressive social order. It coincided with the student movement in Paris, the anti-Vietnam war protests, the Naxalite upheaval and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Youths, seeking to liberate themselves from the oppressive shackles, valiantly waged the battle against corruption, unemployment, fee hikes, and lack of proper educational facilities. Today the cinema hall is in tatters manifesting the dark days. But the event still flashes like an inextinguishable light. The Moga agitation arose from a clash between college students and the management of the Regal Cinema in Moga.They boldly raised their powerful voices against the black marketing of cinema tickets in the magistrates office. The management paid them deaf ear, as it was a threat to the vested interests of the private owners. A protest match was organised on October 5. After the management displayed complete apathy, the students were infuriated, picked up sticks and lathis from shops, and attempted to set the hall on fire. The police burst tear gas shells, but were unable to quell the students, and resorted to firing. Four persons, including a college student, were killed. Prohibitory orders were enforced with imposition of Section 144. On October 6 the spark turned into a prairie fire with the flame of struggle spreading to colleges of Jagraon, Ludhiana, Jalandhar etc. Residents of Moga formed a students' council. On October 7 members of the council set the cinema hall on fire. The police again counter retaliated by firing, resulting in killing of two more persons. This crystallized an uprising all over Punjab. The Punjab government ordered the closure of all colleges. In almost every city of Punjab, the student community burnt roadway buses and cinema houses defying the prohibitory orders. Photos of martyrs Kewal, Harjit, Gurdev and Swarn were garlanded at the inauguration of the conference on October 6, 2022. The Punjab Students Union (Shaheed Randhawa) spokesman Amitoz Mann spoke of the history behind the Moga Cinema firing and its repercussions. In vivid detail he traced its historical genesis in soaring unemployment, corruption illiteracy, male chauvinism, casteism, religious communalism etc. In spite of the Green Revolution, feudal practices were still rampant in agriculture with absentee landlordism the order of the day. Amitoz delved into the background of the movement of the stage managed encounters in the Naxalite movement, the Jayprakash Narayan movement and the imposition of the Emergency. Illustratively he summarised how the Moga firing crystallised a powerful revolutionary democratic system, hitting the ruling classes at their hardest point. In Amitozs view, a genuine mass based movement was shaped in a most cohesive manner, which made inroads amongst the peasantry and landless labourers. He projected how the movement demarcated from the revisionist path of the All-India Students Federation, who backed out of the movement, when it was soaring at a height. In Moga, the AISF cadres had to flee to rescue themselves from the rage of the cadres of the Punjab Students Union. On October 6, 1972 the spark turned into a prairie fire with the flame of struggle spreading to colleges of Jagraon, Ludhiana, Jalandhar Amitoz highlighted how a revolutionary alternative was projected by the Punjab Students Union and the Naujwan Bharat Sabha recounting the Moga Sangram rally of 1974, the 1977 march for democratic rights of around 2,000 persons, the methods of struggles adopted to confront days of the Emergency, the murder of Prithipal Singh Randhawa, and subsequent protests, the protest against the bus fare hike in 1980, the revival of Sikh communal politics from 1982-85 etc. He narrated how it was the weakness of the Left and democratic movement that paved the way for the ascendancy of the Sikh communalism and the Khalistani movement. Punjab Students Union (Shaheed Randhawa) secretary Hoshiyar Salemgarh spoke about how globalisation and privatisation had penetrated the education system, and given a crippling blow to any welfare of the student community .He reflected how today privatization had aggravated the economic crisis in education worse than the turmoil of the 1970s, making education almost unaffordable, selling it on the platter of the corporates. Terror on Crimea Bridge forces Russia to unleash Shockn Awe The western narrative of a 'losing Russia' has just been decimated by Moscow's blitzkrieg against Ukraine and its foreign-backed terror operations By Pepe Escobar October 11, 2022: Information Clearing House -- The terror attack on Krymskiy Most the Crimea Bridge was the proverbial straw that broke the Eurasian camels back. Russian President Vladimir Putin neatly summarized it: This is a terrorist attack aimed at destroying the critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation. The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, confirmed face-to-face with Putin that Terror on the Bridge was carried out by the SBU Ukrainian special services. Bastrykin told Putin, we have already established the route of the truck, where the explosion took place. Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar The carriers have been identified. With the help of operatives of the FSB, we managed to identify suspects. Russian intel leaked crucial info to military correspondent Alexander Kots. The cargo was ordered by a Ukrainian citizen: explosives packed in 22 pallets, in rolls of film under plastic wrap, were shipped from Bulgaria to the Georgian port of Poti. Afterwards, the cargo was loaded onto a truck with foreign license plates and proceeded overland to Armenia. Clearance at the Armenia-Russia border was smooth according to the rules of the Eurasian Customs Union (both Russia and Armenia are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, or EAEU). The cargo evidently avoided detection through X-rays. This route is standard for truckers traveling to Russia. The truck then re-entered Georgia and crossed the border into Russia again, but this time through the Upper Lars checkpoint. Thats the same one used by thousands of Russians fleeing partial mobilization. The truck ended up in Armavir, where the cargo was transferred to another truck, under the responsibility of Mahir Yusubov: the one that entered the Crimean bridge coming from the Russian mainland. Very important: the transport from Armavir to a delivery address in Simferopol should have happened on October 6-7: that is, timed to the birthday of President Putin on Friday the 7th. For some unexplained reason, that was postponed for a day. The driver of the first truck is already testifying. Yusubov, the driver of the second truck which exploded on the bridge was blind: he had no idea what he was carrying, and is dead. At this stage, two conclusions are paramount. First: This was not a standard ISIS-style truck suicide bombing the preferred interpretation in the aftermath of the terror attack. Second: The packaging most certainly took place in Bulgaria. That, as Russian intel has cryptically implied, indicates the involvement of foreign special services. A mirage of cause and effect What has been revealed in public by Russian intelligence tells only part of the story. An incandescent assessment received by The Cradle from another Russian intel source is way more intriguing. At least 450 kg of explosives were employed in the blast. Not on the truck, but mounted inside the Crimea Bridge span itself. The white truck was just a decoy by the terrorists to create a mirage of cause and effect. When the truck reached the point on the bridge where the explosives were mounted, the explosion took place. According to the source, railroad employees told investigators that there was a form of electronic hijacking; the terror operators took control of the railway so the train carrying fuel received a command to stop because of a false signal that the road ahead was busy. Bombs mounted on the bridge spans were a working hypothesis largely debated in Russian military channels over the weekend, as well as the use of underwater drones. In the end, the quite sophisticated plan could not follow the necessarily rigid timing. There was no alignment by the millimeter between the mounted explosive charges, the passing truck and the fuel train stopped in its tracks. Damage was limited, and easily contained. The charges/truck combo exploded on the outer right lane of the road. Damage was only on two sections of the outer lane, and not much on the railway bridge. In the end, Terror on the Bridge yielded a short, Pyrrhic PR victory duly celebrated across the collective West with negligible practical success: transfer of Russian military cargo by railway resumed in roughly 14 hours. And that brings us to the key information in the Russian intel source assessment: the whodunnit. It was a plan by the British MI6, says this source, without offering further details. Which, he elaborates, Russian intel, for a number of reasons, is shadow-playing as foreign special services. Its quite telling that the Americans rushed to establish plausible deniability. The proverbial Ukrainian government official told CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post that the SBU did it. That was a straight confirmation of an Ukrainska Pravda report based on an unidentified law enforcement official. The perfect red line trifecta Already, over the weekend, it was clear the ultimate red line had been crossed. Russian public opinion and media were furious. For all its status as an engineering marvel, Krymsky Most represents not only critical infrastructure; it is the visual symbol of the return of Crimea to Russia. Moreover, this was a personal terror attack on Putin and the whole Russian security apparatus. So we had, in sequence, Ukrainian terrorists blowing up Darya Duginas car in a Moscow suburb (they admitted it); US/UK special forces (partially) blowing Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 (they admitted and then retracted); and the terror attack on Krymsky Most (once again: admitted then retracted). Not to mention the shelling of Russian villages in Belgorod, NATO supplying long-range weapons to Kiev, and the routine execution of Russian soldiers. Darya Dugina, Nord Streams and Crimea Bridge make it an Act of War trifecta. So this time the response was inevitable not even waiting for the first meeting since February of the Russian Security Council scheduled for the afternoon of 10 October. Moscow launched the first wave of a Russian Shockn Awe without even changing the status of the Special Military Operation (SMO) to Counter-Terrorist Operation (CTO), with all its serious military/legal implications. After all, even before the UN Security Council meeting, Russian public opinion was massively behind taking the gloves off. Putin had not even scheduled bilateral meetings with any of the members. Diplomatic sources hint that the decision to let the hammer come down had already been taken over the weekend. Shockn Awe did not wait for the announcement of an ultimatum to Ukraine (that may come in a few days); an official declaration of war (not necessary); or even announcing which decision-making centers in Ukraine would be hit. The lightning strike de facto metastasizing of SMO into CTO means that the regime in Kiev and those supporting it are now considered as legitimate targets, just like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra during the Anti-Terror Operation (ATO) in Syria. And the change of status now this is a real war on terror means that terminating all strands of terrorism, physical, cultural, ideological, are the absolute priority, and not the safety of Ukrainian civilians. During the SMO, safety of civilians was paramount. Even the UN has been forced to admit that in over seven months of SMO the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine has been relatively low. Enter Commander Armageddon The face of Russian Shockn Awe is Russian Commander of the Aerospace Forces, Army General Sergey Surovikin: the new commander-in-chief of the now totally centralized SMO/CTO. Questions were being asked non-stop: why didnt Moscow take this decision way back in February? Well, better late than never. Kiev is now learning they messed with the wrong guy. Surovikin is widely respected and feared: his nickname is General Armageddon. Others call him Cannibal. Legendary Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov also a colonel general in the Russian military lavishly praises Surovikin as a real general and warrior, an experienced, strong-willed and far-sighted commander. Surovikin has been commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2017; was awarded the title of Hero of Russia for his no-nonsense leadership of the military operation in Syria; and had on the ground experience in Chechnya in the 1990s. Surovikin is Dr. Shockn Awe with full carte blanche. That even rendered idle speculations that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov were removed or forced to resign, as speculated by the Wagner group Telegram channel Grey Zone. It is still possible that Shoigu widely criticized for recent Russian military setbacks could be eventually replaced by Tula Governor Alexei Dyumin, and Gerasimov by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Lieutenant General Alexander Matovnikov. Thats almost irrevelant: all eyes are on Surovikin. MI6 does have some well-placed moles in Moscow, relatively speaking. The Brits had warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the General Staff that the Russians would be launching a warning strike this Monday. What happened was no warning strike, but a massive offensive of over 100 cruise missiles launched from the air, sea and land, as Putin noted, against Ukrainian energy, military command and communications facilities. MI6 also noted the next step will be the complete destruction of Ukraines energy infrastructure. Thats not a next step: its already happening. Power supply is completely gone in five regions, including Lviv and Kharkov, and there are serious interruptions in other five, including Kiev. Over 60 percent of Ukrainian power grids are already knocked out. Over 75 percent of internet traffic is gone. Elon Musks Starlink netcentric warfare has been disconnected by the Ministry of Defense. Shockn Awe will likely progress in three stages. First: Overload of the Ukrainian air defense system (already on). Second: Plunging Ukraine into the Dark Ages (already in progress). Third: Destruction of all major military installations (the next wave). Ukraine is about to embrace nearly total darkness in the next few days. Politically, that opens a completely new ball game. Considering Moscows trademark strategic ambiguity, this could be a sort of Desert Storm remixed (massive air strikes preparing a ground offensive); or, more likely, an incentive to force NATO to negotiate; or just a relentless, systematic missile offensive mixed with Electronic Warfare (EW) to shatter for good Kievs capacity to wage war. Or it could be all of the above. How a humiliated western Empire can possibly raise the stakes now, short of going nuclear, remains a key question. Moscow has shown admirable restraint for too long. No one should ever forget that in the real Great Game how to coordinate the emergence of the multipolar world Ukraine is just a mere sideshow. But now the sideshow runners better run for cover, because General Armageddon is on the loose. By Jennifer K. Morita Whitney Yamamuras mentor at American River College threw him into the deep end right away. While the other teaching interns only had to prepare one days lesson, Yamamura found himself teaching an entire community college course with the professor watching from the back of the classroom. It turned out to be the best thing for me. I got a lot of enjoyment from explaining concepts that are difficult and seeing light bulbs turning on in students heads, said Yamamura, who previously worked as a financial planner selling investment portfolios. I was like, Wow. I was the facilitator for that lightbulb. This is great. Yamamura, recently named chancellor of Coast Community College District in Costa Mesa, is a 2022 recipient of a Distinguished Service Award from the Sacramento State Alumni Association. He and other Distinguished Alumni Award honorees will be recognized at an awards dinner on Oct. 13. I often hear how many residents of Sacramento are Sac State alumni, and so to be singled out for this award is a great privilege and a humbling one, Yamamura said. Im really appreciative of it. Yamamura began working in higher education at American River College in 1989. He says he owes his career to Sac State, where he earned his bachelors degree in Business Administration in 1984 and his masters in Economics in 1991. It was while a graduate student that the community college district reached out to masters candidates for the teaching internship program. I often hear how many residents of Sacramento are Sac State alumni, and so to be singled out for this award is a great privilege and a humbling one. -- Whitney Yamamura, Distinguished Service Award recipient Yamamura advanced, serving at all four campuses in the Los Rios Community College District before being named president of Folsom Lake College in 2017. In June, he was selected as chancellor of the Coast Community College District. Yamamura may have traded the American River for the Pacific Ocean, but he has deep roots in Sacramento. He grew up near Sac State in the College Greens neighborhood. His father taught in Elk Grove for over 30 years, and a school named its library for him. Yamamuras great-grandparents were Sacramento County grape farmers until 1942, when they were forced into a concentration camp in Arkansas as part of the 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast imprisoned after Japans bombing of Pearl Harbor. My grandfathers family originally had 120 acres off Jackson Highway and Hedge Avenue, but they werent contiguous. They had a 100-acre parcel and a 20-acre parcel, Yamamura said. When they were in Arkansas, they couldnt come up with the money to pay the property taxes, so they lost 100 acres. The family returned to Sacramento to try and farm the remaining 20-acre parcel. They tried to make a go of it, but it didnt work, Yamamura said. Yamamura is the second Asian American to serve as a college president in the history of the Los Rios Community College District dating back to 1916, and the first Japanese American chancellor of the Coast Community College District. Yamamura provided the connections to create a Hmong language class while he was vice president of Instruction at Cosumnes River College. He helped establish Folsom Lake Colleges Equity Center for students of color, the LGBTQ community, first-generation, low-income, and undocumented students, as well as other vulnerable populations. I wanted to create a welcoming space for anybody who has felt unwelcome, Yamamura said. You dont have to label it. If youre unsure about your place in the community college system, we have the Equity Center to make sure you have the services you need to support you. Yamamura also worked with Intel to create an Artificial Intelligence program, and pushed to expand the incarcerated students program at Folsom and Mule Creek prisons. Share This Story email copy url url copied! Related Topics: Distinguished Alumni Awards By Mike Whitney We are not threatening anyone. We have made it clear that any further NATO movement to the east is unacceptable. Theres nothing unclear about this. We arent deploying our missiles to the border of the United States, but the United States IS deploying their missiles to the porch of our house. Are we asking too much? Were just asking that they not deploy their attack-systems to our home. What is so hard to understand about that? Russian President Vladimir Putin, YouTube, Start at :48 seconds Imagine if the Mexican army started bombarding American ex-pats living in Mexico with heavy artillery-rounds killing thousands and leaving thousands more wounded. What do you think Joe Biden would do? Would he brush it off like a big nothingburger and move on or would he threaten the Mexican government with a military invasion that would obliterate the Mexican Army, level their biggest cities, and send the government running for cover? Which of these two options do you think Biden would choose? Theres no doubt what Biden would do nor is there any question what the 45 presidents who preceded him would do. No US leader would ever stand by and do nothing while thousands of Americans were savagely slaughtered by a foreign government. That just wouldnt happen. Theyd all respond quickly and forcefully. But if thats true, then why isnt the same standard applied to Russia? Isnt the situation in Ukraine nearly identical? It is nearly identical, only the situation in Ukraine is worse, much worse. And if we stretch our analogy a bit, youll see why: Lets say, the US Intelligence agencies discovered that the Mexican government was not acting alone, but was being directed to kill and maim American ex-pats on orders from the Chinese Communist government in Beijing. Can you imagine that? And the reason the Chinese government wants to kill Americans in Mexico is because they want to lure the US into a long and costly war that will weaken the US and pave way for its ultimate splintering into many pieces that China can control and exploit. Does any of this sound familiar? (Check out the Rand Strategy for weakening Russia here) So, lets say, the Chinese are actually the driving force behind the war in Mexico. Lets say, they toppled the Mexican government years earlier and installed their own puppet regime to do their bidding. Then they armed and trained vast numbers of troops to fight the Americans. They supplied these warriors with cutting-edge weapons and technology, logistical support, satellite and communications assistance, tanks, armored vehicles, anti-ship missiles, and state-of-the-art artillery units all of which were provided with one goal in mind; to crush America in a proxy war that was concocted, controlled and micro-managed from the Chinese Capital of Beijing Is such a scenario possible? It is possible, in fact, this very same scenario is playing out right now in the Ukraine, only the perpetrator of the hostilities is the United States not China, and the target of this malign strategy is Russia not the US. Surprisingly, the Biden administration isnt even trying to hide what theyre up-to anymore. Theyre openly arming, training, funding, and directing Ukrainian troops to prosecute a war aimed at killing Russian soldiers and removing Putin from power. Thats the objective and everyone knows it. And the whole campaign is based on the sketchy claim that Russia is guilty of unprovoked aggression. Thats the whole deal in a nutshell. The moral justification for the war rests on the unverified assumption that Russia committed a criminal offense and broke international law by invading Ukraine. But, did they? Lets see if that assumption is correct or if its just another fake claim by a dissembling media that never stops tweaking the narrative to build the case for war. First of all, answer this one question related to the analogy above: If the US deployed troops to Mexico to protect American expats from being bombarded by the Mexican army, would you regard that deployment as an unprovoked aggression or a rescue mission? Rescue mission, right? Because the primary intention was to save lives not seize the territory of another sovereign country. Well, thats what Putin was doing when he sent his tanks into Ukraine. He was trying stop the killing of civilians living in the Donbas whose only fault was that they were ethnic Russians committed to their own culture and traditions. Is that a crime? Take a look at this map. This map is the key to understanding how the war in Ukraine started. It tells us who did the provoking and who was being provoked. It tells us who was dropping the bombs and who was getting bombed. It tells us who was causing the trouble and who was being blamed for the trouble-making. The map tells us everything we need to know. Can you see the yellow dots? Those dots represent the artillery strikes that were documented in daily summaries by observers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE), positioned at the frontlines. The vast majority of the strikes were in the area inhabited by Russian-speaking people who have been under military siege for the last 8 years. (14,000 ethnic Russians have been killed in the fighting since 2014.) The Minsk Agreements were drawn up to resolve the issues between the warring parties and end the hostilities, but the government in Kiev refused to implement the agreement. In fact, the former President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, even admitted that the treaty was just a vehicle for buying time until another full-scale offensive on the Donbas could be launched. In short, the Ukrainian government never had any intention of reaching a peaceful settlement with leaders of the Donbas. Their goal was to intensify the conflict in order to provoke Russia and draw them into a protracted war that would exhaust their resources and collapse their economy. The long-range objective was to remove Putin from office and replace him with a Washington-backed stooge that would do as he was told. US officials including Joe Biden- have even admitted that their plan involved regime change in Moscow. We should take them at their word. The map provides a visual account of the events leading up the Russian invasion. It cuts through the lies and identifies the true origins of the war which can be traced back to the heavy artillery strikes launched by the Ukrainian Army more than a week before the Russian invasion. (February 24) The massive shelling was aimed at the Russian-speaking people living in an area in east Ukraine. These are the people who were being bombarded by their fellow Ukrainians. What Really Happened? On February 16a full 8 days before the Russian invasionthe shelling of the Donbas increased dramatically and steadily intensified for the next week to over 2,000 per day on February 22. As we said, these blasts were logged in daily summaries by observers of the OSCE who were on the frontlines. Think about that for a minute. In other words, these are eyewitness accounts by trained professionals who collected documented evidence of the Ukrainian Armys massive bombardment of areas inhabited by their own people. Would this evidence hold up in a court of law if a case against the Ukrainian government was ever presented before an international tribunal trying to assign accountability for the hostilities? We think it would. We think the evidence is rock-solid. In fact, we have not read or heard of even one analyst who has challenged this vast catalogue of documented evidence. Instead, the media simply pretends the proof doesnt exist. They have simply swept the evidence under the rug or vanished it from their coverage altogether in order to shape a Washington-centric version of events that completely ignores the historical record. But facts are facts. And the facts dont change because the media fails to report them. And what the facts suggest is that the war in Ukraine is a Washington-concocted war no different than Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria. Once again, Uncle Sams bloody fingerprints are all over this sorry affair. Check out this summary of ceasefire violations posted on podcast host Martyr Mades twitter account: Martyr Made @martyrmade On Feb 15, the OSCE recorded 41 ceasefire violations as Kievs forces began shelling Donbas. Feb 16: 76 violations Feb 17: 316 Feb 18: 654 Feb 19: 1,413 Feb 20-21: 2,026 Feb 22: 1,484 virtually all by the Kiev side. Feb 24: Russian forces intervene Notice how the shelling of the Donbas increased every day before the invasion? Id call that a thoroughly-calculated provocation, wouldnt you? Why does this matter? It matters because the vast majority of people have been hoodwinked into supporting a war for which there is no moral justification. This is not a case of unprovoked aggression. Not even close. And Putin is not an out-of-control tyrant bent on reconstituting the Soviet Empire by terrorizing his neighbors and seizing their territory. That is a complete fabrication based on nothing but speculation. In Putins own words, he invaded Ukraine because he had no choice. His own people were being ruthlessly exterminated by an army that acts on Washingtons orders alone. He had to invade, there was no other option. Putin felt a moral obligation to defend the ethnic Russians in Ukraine who could not defend themselves. Is that aggression? Heres a bit more background from an article at The Intercept by James Risen: Despite staging a massive military buildup on his countrys border with Ukraine for nearly a year, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not make a final decision to invade until just before he launched the attack in February, according to senior current and former U.S. intelligence officials. In December, the CIA issued classified reports concluding that Putin hadnt yet committed to an invasion, according to the current and former officials. In January, even as the Russian military was starting to take the logistical steps necessary to move its troops into Ukraine, U.S. intelligence again issued classified reporting maintaining that Putin had still not resolved to actually launch an attack, the officials said. It wasnt until February that the agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community became convinced that Putin would invade, the senior official added. With few other options available at the last minute to try to stop Putin, President Joe Biden took the unusual step of making the intelligence public, in what amounted to a form of information warfare against the Russian leader. He also warned that Putin was planning to try to fabricate a pretext for invasion, including by making false claims that Ukrainian forces had attacked civilians in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. The preemptive use of intelligence by Biden revealed a new understanding that the information space may be among the most consequential terrain Putin is contesting, observed Jessica Brandt of the Brookings Institution. Bidens warning on February 18 that the invasion would happen within the week turned out to be accurate. In the early hours of February 24, Russian troops moved south into Ukraine from Belarus and across Russias borders into Kharkiv, the Donbas region, and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. (U.S. Intelligence Says Putin Made a Last-Minute Decision to Invade Ukraine, James Risen, The Intercept) Theres so much baloney in this excerpt, its hard to know where to begin. But just review the timeline we provided earlier; a timeline that has been verified by officials from the OSCE. Can you see the discrepancy? Biden issued his warning on February 18; thats two days after monitors from the OSCE reported an intensification of the bombing in the Donbas. In other words, Biden already knew that his buddies in the Ukrainian army were bombing the shit out of east Ukraine when he tried to make it look like he was privy to some sensitive, insider information about the upcoming invasion. Of course, he knew Putin was going to invade! They created the provocation that forced him to invade! They were bombing the hell out of the people Putin is obliged to protect. What else could he do? Any leader worth his salt would have done same thing. What bothers me is that people continue support the war in Ukraine because they have no idea of what actually happened in the lead-up to the invasion. They know nothing about the relentless bombing of civilians, or the defiant rejection of Minsk or the repeated military attacks on the Donbas, or the or the plan to retake Crimea through force of arms. or the laws directed against ethnic Russians, or the rise of Nazi fascism in Kiev. They know nothing about any of these things. Their views on Ukraine are entirely shaped by the rubbish they read in the western media or hear on the cable news channels where the deluge of propaganda issues like a mighty river pulling the population inexorably towards another vicious neocon bloodbath. People must know the truth or this war will escalate into something far worse. Mike lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com. " Hackers had forced 14 public websites of 14 airports in the United States at around 3 a.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 10. Authorities were quick to allay fears saying the hacking incident did not disrupt the operations of the impacted airports. Cybersecurity officials have tracked the attack, Kiersten Todt, Chief of Staff of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told a press conference in Sea Island, Georgia, on Monday, Oct. 10. US Airports Operations Not Disrupted "There's no concern about operations being disrupted," the official said. Russian-speaking hackers named "Killnet" launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) and succeeded in shutting down the public-facing websites of the airports for 15 minutes. Some of these websites, such as LaGuardia, LAX, and O'Hare, went offline, affecting travelers who were waiting for security checks and other information. The attack, however, failed to disrupt the airport's internal communications, traffic control, and other critical operations, an airport official said. ABC News reported that a LaGuardia spokesperson said the DDoS attack lasted for 15 minutes resulting in "intermittent delays accessing the LaGuardia airport website." Cybersecurity Defense Did Its Job The cybersecurity defense system, according to the official, did its job of addressing the problem immediately. After the attack was detected, federal and airport officials were alerted. Read Also: Understanding Cybersecurity Attacks and Regulations The CISA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, said they were fully aware of the malicious attack. The attack has not impacted the critical operations of the airports, the Port official said. At around 10:30 a.m. ET, the Atlanta International Airport announced that its public website was back and running. Atlanta airport officials said the airport operations went on as usual, even at the height of the attack. Pro-Russia Hacker Group Authorities identified Killnet as a pro-Russia hacker group, but there is no evidence that the Russian government is behind the group. In the past, groups similar to Killnet have been identified with government actors. No evidence has been found to link the recent attack to the Russian government. The Russian-speaking hackers may have acted on their own, officials said. CISA and Transportation officials are closely monitoring the situation. What Is a DDoS Attack? A DDoS attack, acccording to Cloud Fare, disrupts the normal volume of traffic of the targeted server or network. In this case, the US airport servers were the target. A bird's eye view of the attack looks like a sudden traffic jam and disrupts the normal flow of traffic, delaying the arrival of travelers to their destinations. The attack works by flooding the target server or network with internet traffic using a network of machines connected to the internet. These machines are either computers or IoT devices, often referred to as bots or virtual zombies. A group of bots is called a botnet. The hackers would maliciously infect these machines with malware allowing them to control these tools remotely. Once established, the attackers could direct the attack against a server or network by giving instructions to the individual bot. Each bot will send the request to the targeted IP address overwhelming it in the process. Related Article: Why Everyone Must Learn the Basics of Cybersecurity Advertisement Australian Dollar Outlook: AUD/JPY rates have fallen back into a former bull flag, which suggests a deeper setback towards the ascending trendline from the March 2020 and December 2021 lows is possible. AUD/USD rates set fresh yearly lows today, suggesting that the bottom has not yet been reached. According to the IG Client Sentiment Index , AUD/JPY rates have a mixed bias while AUD/USD rates have a bullish bias. Recommended by Christopher Vecchio, CFA Get Your Free AUD Forecast Get My Guide Commodities Weigh on Aussie A bout of weakness in base metals, energy, and precious metals is hurting the commodity-linked Australian Dollar. Alongside a backdrop of generally deteriorated risk appetite over the past few weeks and a Reserve Bank of Australia that has disappointed rate hike expectations, the Australian Dollar remains mired in a downtrend. Technical weakness in the two major AUD-crosses, AUD/JPY and AUD/USD rates, hints that bears remain firmly in control. AUD/USD RATE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (October 2021 to October 2022) (CHART 1) AUD/USD rates established a fresh yearly low during todays session, hinting that the sharp downtrend in place since mid-September remains the primary driver of price action. Momentum remains overtly bearish with the pair below its daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope, which is in bearish sequential order. Daily MACD continues to trend lower below its signal line, while daily Slow Stochastics are holding in oversold territory. AUD/USD rates may be aiming for a cluster of Fibonacci retracements just above 0.6100 in the near-term. Recommended by Christopher Vecchio, CFA The Fundamentals of Range Trading Get My Guide IG Client Sentiment Index: AUD/USD RATE Forecast (October 11, 2022) (Chart 2) AUD/USD: Retail trader data shows 75.72% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 3.12 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 3.03% lower than yesterday and 4.55% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 1.36% higher than yesterday and 10.34% higher from last week. We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests AUD/USD prices may continue to fall. Yet traders are less net-long than yesterday and compared with last week. Recent changes in sentiment warn that the current AUD/USD price trend may soon reverse higher despite the fact traders remain net-long. AUD/JPY RATE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (October 2021 to October 2022) (CHART 3) AUD/JPY rates have made an important development in recent days, falling back into the bull flag that was carved out between June and August while also dropping below the 61.8% Fibonacci extension of the March 2020 low/May 2021 high/August 2021 range at 92.92 and the 76.4% Fibonacci retracement of the 2013 high/2020 low range at 94.68. With momentum indicators firmly bullish the pair is below its daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope, which is in bullish sequential order, daily MACD is trending lower below its signal line, and daily Slow Stochastics have in oversold territory further losses towards the ascending trendline from the March 2020 and December 2021 lows above 88.00 cant be ruled out over the coming weeks. Recommended by Christopher Vecchio, CFA The Fundamentals of Breakout Trading Get My Guide IG Client Sentiment Index: AUD/JPY Rate Forecast (October 11, 2022) (Chart 4) AUD/JPY: Retail trader data shows 40.38% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.48 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 2.65% lower than yesterday and 6.96% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 5.65% lower than yesterday and unchanged from last week. We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests AUD/JPY prices may continue to rise. Positioning is less net-short than yesterday but more net-short from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed AUD/JPY trading bias. Trade Smarter - Sign up for the DailyFX Newsletter Receive timely and compelling market commentary from the DailyFX team Subscribe to Newsletter --- Written by Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Strategist Advertisement New Zealand Dollar Outlook: The New Zealand Dollar is approaching critical support, which if broken, points to more losses in the near-term. NZD/JPY rates are testing the uptrend from the March 2020 and January 2022 lows, while NZD/USD rates just set fresh monthly and yearly lows. Nevertheless, according to the IG Client Sentiment Index , the New Zealand Dollar has a bullish bias in the near-term. Recommended by Christopher Vecchio, CFA Get Your Free Top Trading Opportunities Forecast Get My Guide Fundamentals Deteriorate Sagging global growth conditions and a weakening domestic economy are weighing on the New Zealand Dollar, which no longer enjoys a relative yield advantage now that several other major central banks have caught up to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. The New Zealand Citi Economic Surprise Index, a gauge of economic data momentum, has been slowly eroding in recent weeks, from -2.2 on September 15 to -5.9 today. Amid a deterioration in risk appetite, the two major NZD-crosses have exhibited fresh signs of meaningful technical weakness. NZD/JPY rates are testing the uptrend from the March 2020 and January 2022 lows, while NZD/USD rates just set fresh monthly and yearly lows. In both cases, losing support suggests that more weakness lies ahead. NZD/JPY RATE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (March 2020 to October 2022) (CHART 1) NZD/JPY rates are still falling after breaching bearish rising wedge support at the end of September. The pair is approaching an area of significant technical support: the September low at 80.56; the rising trendline from the March 2020 and January 2020 lows; the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement of the 2020 low/2020 high range at 81.17; and the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the 2014 high/2020 low range at 80.75. Momentum is bearish at present time. NZD/JPY rates are below their daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope, which is in bearish sequential order. Daily MACD is declining while below its signal line, and daily Slow Stochastics are falling towards oversold territory. A drop through the support area around 80.56/81.17 would suggest a more significant sell off is yet to come. NZD/USD RATE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: DAILY CHART (March 2020 to October 2022) (CHART 2) NZD/USD rates hit a fresh monthly and yearly low during todays session by breaching the September low at 0.5565. Momentum remains bearish. The pair is below its daily 5-, 8-, 13-, and 21-EMA envelope, which is in bearish sequential order. Daily MACD is declining while below its signal line, and daily Slow Stochastics are back in oversold territory. A deeper setback to the March 2020 low at 0.5469 cant be ruled out in the near-term. IG Client Sentiment Index: NZD/USD RATE Forecast (October 10, 2022) (Chart 3) NZD/USD: Retail trader data shows 71.11% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 2.46 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 9.09% higher than yesterday and 10.98% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 26.83% higher than yesterday and 39.29% higher from last week. We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests NZD/USD prices may continue to fall. Yet traders are less net-long than yesterday and compared with last week. Recent changes in sentiment warn that the current NZD/USD price trend may soon reverse higher despite the fact traders remain net-long. Trade Smarter - Sign up for the DailyFX Newsletter Receive timely and compelling market commentary from the DailyFX team Subscribe to Newsletter --- Written by Christopher Vecchio, CFA, Senior Strategist WTI Finally Back Above the Psychological $90.00/bbl Level. Morningstar Candlestick Pattern on the Weekly Hints at Further Upside. OPEC+ Will Not Hesitate to Keep Prices Supported, $100/bbl Remains in Play. Recommended by Zain Vawda Get Your Free Oil Forecast Get My Guide WTI Fundamental Outlook WTI Oil rallied 17% last week on the back of OPEC+ announcing production cuts to begin in November. Saudi Arabias energy minister stated last week that hes never known uncertainty like this while reiterating the need for market stability. OPEC+ have made their position clear with the recent cuts in production that they are willing to do what is necessary to keep prices stable and closer to the $100 a barrel mark. Given the announcement by OPEC+, the US are weighing the potential of dipping into their strategic petroleum reserves once more. Should the US follow through and demand concerns linger we could be in for a pullback in price before a potential rally higher toward the $100 a barrel mark. This would tie in perfectly with the technical narrative developing at the moment. WTI Oil Weekly Chart October 11, 2022 Source: TradingView From a technical perspective, WTI on the weekly chart has printed a Morningstar candlestick pattern while closing above the key $90.00 psychological level. The weekly candle closed with barely any upside wick, a further indication of the upside momentum in play. The weekly candle has tapped into 50-SMA providing resistance which has capped gains to start the week. Given the size as well as the speed of the move there is every chance of a pullback at this stage. The better question being how deep a pullback should we expect? WTI Oil Daily Chart October 11, 2022 Source: TradingView On a daily chart, WTI has broken and closed above the 20 and 50-SMA as we now trade between the $90.00 and $95.00 psychological levels. The RSI on the daily meanwhile remains in overbought territory which adds further credence to the possibility of a pullback in price. We have a host of support areas which may come into play should price continue pushing down. The closest being the key psychological $90.00 level where price previously double-topped before declining sharply. A deeper pullback in price could lead to a retest of the 20 and 50-SMA which lines up with the 2013 and August 2022 lows around $85.00-$87.00 area. The host of confluences at play in this area only adds to the probability for bulls to step in once more with new highs around the$95.00-$100.00 area a possibility. Trade Smarter - Sign up for the DailyFX Newsletter Receive timely and compelling market commentary from the DailyFX team Subscribe to Newsletter Resources for Traders Whether you are a new or experienced trader, we have several resources available to help you; indicators for tracking trader sentiment, quarterly trading forecasts, analytical and educational webinars held daily, trading guides to help you improve trading performance, and one specifically for those who are new to forex. Written by: Zain Vawda, Market Writer for DailyFX.com Contact and follow Zain on Twitter: @zvawda A space romance quickly turns into a nightmare as a Japanese woman gets conned for $30,000 for a make-believe Russian astronaut's return ticket to Earth. The 65-year-old woman was wooed by the imposter into paying $30,000 after claiming that he wanted to start a new life in Japan after being stationed at the ISS, Gizmodo reports. Online Scammers Are Taking Steps Out Of This World Online fraud has escalated to the next level as a modern-day scam involved a woman from Japan and a man pretending to be stationed at the International Space Station (ISS). The man who claimed to be a Russian cosmonaut started an Instagram correspondence with the elderly woman in June, which quickly turned into a romantic relationship. Yomiuri, a local media outlet, reported that the man professed his love to the woman, promising marriage once he returned to Earth to start a new life in Japan, but would need a ticket back. According to Gizmodo, the carefully curated social media account of the fraudster was enough for the woman to believe, along with his extensive knowledge of space agencies. With this, the woman ended up sending the con artist 4.4 million yen ($30,000) between August 19 and September 5 to cover the cost of a rocket and his landing fee in five installments. However, soon enough, she got suspicious of his increasing monetary demands and eventually reported it to the police, according to Daily Mail UK. The police suspect that the woman had been a victim of a romance scam that weaponizes the manipulation of emotions to get money out of someone. Read More: Here are Signs That You May Be Falling Victim to an Online Romance Scam Romance Scams Are Growing In Popularity According to The Irish Sun, romance scams have introduced a new way of committing fraud and have been at the forefront after the release of Netflix's Tinder Swindler. Tinder Swindler was a documentary about the scam artist named Simon Leviev, who had been accused of swindling 7.4 million from women on Tinder worldwide. Unlike the Russian cosmonaut, this international con man targets women with lavish and glamorous lifestyles of private jets and luxury hotels before luring them to handing him money. In Japan alone, romance scams have risen in number as they amounted to 14,498 cases last year, almost 67% more than the 8,693 cases recorded in the last ten years. However, IFL Science writes that romance scams involving fake astronauts were already happening even before the 2020s. Back in 2016, an email scam made its rounds online containing a message from someone claiming to be the cousin of Nigeria's first astronaut. The hoaxer said that the astronaut left for the space station but would now want to return despite getting paid some amount of $15 million for his solitary service. The scammer then went on to say that the astronaut would require a larger sum of money to return to Earth, promising victims 20% of the astronaut's money if they gave him $3 million. At the time being, the case involving the Japanese woman and her fake astronaut lover is being investigated by the authorities, according to The Sacramento Bee. Connectedly, the director of the Japanese Association for Consumer Policy, Tsuguo Sakai, urged people to report any suspicion of falling victim to a scam immediately to the police. Related Article: How to Spot and Avoid Instagram Scams Russias invasion of Ukraine has failed. As Kyiv steadily takes back swathes of land in strategic southern Kherson and in the north east, Putin is resorting to desperate measures to save himself. Following the destruction of the Kerch bridge to the Crimean peninsula which Russia claims was Ukrainian terrorism yesterday saw Moscow launch brutal missile attacks against civilian targets, most fatally in the centre of Kyiv. Meanwhile, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev gloated that this was just the first episode, signalling that the intensification of attacks could be the start of a further escalation in the war by the Kremlin. Yet Putin will need a lot more manpower if he is to take on Ukraines military counteroffensive and it may not be as simple as he would like the West to believe. Following the destruction of the Kerch bridge to the Crimean peninsula which Russia claims was Ukrainian terrorism yesterday saw Moscow launch brutal missile attacks against civilian targets, most fatally in the centre of Kyiv As Kyiv steadily takes back swathes of land in strategic southern Kherson and in the north east, Putin is resorting to desperate measures to save himself Bombardments like the ones seen this week will not bring Ukraine to its knees. They are simply not enough to change the battlefield dynamic and ensure that Russia is in the ascendant. Nor does Putin have the artillery war chest to escalate the war with strikes alone. Rather, his aim is to destroy civilian morale. But as this week has shown, the opposite is the case: even as Ukraines cities suffer, the peoples morale is stronger than ever. Ramping up the war will require mobilisation on an even larger scale and, even if Putin is able to force hordes of untrained men into a makeshift army, they will have scarcely any kit or weapons. In a speech on September 21, Putin announced the mobilisation of 300,000 troops Russias first since the Second World War. The Kremlin would draft into uniform just those who served in the armed forces and have certain military specialties, he declared. Ramping up the war will require mobilisation on an even larger scale and, even if Putin is able to force hordes of untrained men into a makeshift army, they will have scarcely any kit or weapons Even then, intelligence by Britains Ministry of Defence found that those soldiers would be provided with only low-level initial training, since the majority of military commanders had already been deployed to Ukraine. So conscription on an even larger scale would be chaos. Already we are seeing waves of recruits sent to the front line in trainers, because boots (like everything else in the Russian military) are in short supply. As the Ukrainian winter sets in, many of these unlucky conscripts might freeze to death before they see battle, contributing to a collapse in morale. The toll of casualties will be immense and though we know Russians are prepared to endure pain, they are also not afraid of revolution. Following the first mobilisation, Moscows local media has said as many as 700,000 civilians have fled. This exodus would get worse should Putin escalate the war. He is setting the conditions to make an enemy of his entire people. Now more than ever, the West has to ensure Ukraine has all the support it needs to fight. We must double down. Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelensky and his citizens will not blink in the face of this onslaught, and neither should we. We have to be prepared to ramp up our support to ensure that Moscows brutal assault is seen to fail spectacularly. Putin and his media cronies are attempting to intimidate us by threatening to use nuclear weapons. The toll of casualties will be immense and though we know Russians are prepared to endure pain, they are also not afraid of revolution He has to understand that, if he ever resorted to this genocidal tactic, the response of the West would be unprecedented. Even Russia could not withstand such pain. Nato leaders, and in particular US President Joe Biden, have to use every available channel to make the Kremlin grasp this. In public, Mr Biden does not need to spell out his intentions. But the message has to be sent, and it has to be unmistakable. Even then, I fear Putin is deranged enough to carry out his nuclear threats. I have been warning for years that we must prepare for the prospect of war with Russia. So far, instead of investing in our armed forces, successive UK defence reviews have drained our strength and strength is the only standpoint that Putin understands. Britains leaders will need great courage and the support of our whole population. Although Ukraine is fighting back, a war between Nato countries and Russia remains a very real possibility. General Sir Richard Shirreff is the former deputy supreme allied commander Europe A new breed of cultural Taliban has taken over higher education in the UK. Under the banner of decolonisation, they seek to turn our universities into indoctrination factories churning out woke students. Their determination to decolonise has little to do with Empire or the colonies any more. Rather, it is a warped ideology and so widespread that it is in danger of undermining every university degree course on the grounds that they are all imbued with racist and Western values. Even the most unlikely technical and scientific subjects have become targets of the crusade. Who would have imagined that lecturers in the department of dentistry at Newcastle University would attempt to decolonise their degree course? How does the department of mechanical engineering at Sheffield University go about decolonising our understanding of thermodynamics? As the Daily Mail revealed yesterday, Edinburgh University recently hosted a lecture titled Decolonising the physics curriculum. Not wishing to be left out, the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Louise Richardson, announced plans to decolonise science and maths degrees in June 2021. The description of a module at Exeter University on decolonising medicine tells undergraduates they will investigate the extent to which science and medicine...have been largely founded on colonialism, oppression, slavery, discrimination and injustice. Who would have imagined that lecturers in the department of dentistry at Newcastle University would attempt to decolonise their degree course? (File image: Portsmouth University graduation photo) This could all be dismissed as absurd if it were not so insidious. Institutions across this country are now succumbing to puerile and knee-jerk self-flagellation for the supposed sins of the past even though it is academically ludicrous to draw any equivalence between modern-day morals and those of earlier centuries. The truth is that this project of decolonisation aims to render toxic every dimension of Western art and culture. It wishes to devalue the legacy of our history and present it through a negative light. All its great, inspiring figures, from Chaucer to Shakespeare through to Jane Austen face the charge of being too Western, too white or too racist. And what is so terrifying is that these cultural vandals are actually succeeding in imposing their anti-British curriculum on our seats of learning. Not least because the managers who run the universities have been enthusiastic collaborators. These days you would struggle to get an academic post if you failed to show enthusiasm for the decolonisation project. Just recently one of my academic colleagues arrived for a job interview at a Scottish university. The first questions she was asked referred to her views about diversity and decolonisation. After she hesitated to demonstrate full support for the party line her interview was cut short. When an interview for an academic job turns into a political interview you know that higher education is in big trouble. It leads to a situation like the one revealed in the Mail today where a lecturer at Edge Hill University in Lancashire claims in a new study that efforts to improve vocabulary and promote standard English in schools are racist, classist and ableist. The truth is that this project of decolonisation aims to render toxic every dimension of Western art and culture. (Pictured: file image of University of Manchester) So, even though the bulk of teachers say at least 40 per cent of their pupils lack the vocabulary to do well in lessons, any attempt to address this deficiency is seen as racist. The decolonisation movement exhibits many of the features of the Chinese Communist Partys Cultural Revolution. One of the aims of the Great Cultural Revolution was to mobilise young people to loathe their ancestors and to purge the past from their influence. In the case of the Chinese Cultural Revolution the purging of the past was promoted on the grounds that it was essential for the realisation of Communism. British university bureaucrats justify the war against the nations historical figures in the name of their sacred principle of diversity. In diversitys name even someone as central to the development of modern science as Isaac Newton who discovered the laws of gravity and motion and invented calculus is retrospectively humiliated. A leaked copy of the draft inclusive curriculum development to decolonise the engineering curriculum at Sheffield University last year warned that Newton may have benefited from colonial era activity. To put matters right, the engineering faculty undertook to tackle long-standing conscious and unconscious biases among students and challenge Euro-centric and white saviour approaches to science and maths, and promote inclusive design. Thats another way of saying that British students and researchers must feel guilt and show their loathing for many of the founders of the science they are studying. The lecturers at Sheffield who were happy to trash the reputation of perhaps our greatest scientist in Newton must know full well that doing so has nothing to do with academic education. British university bureaucrats justify the war against the nations historical figures in the name of their sacred principle of diversity. (Pictured: file image of University Church of St Mary the Virgin) Its sole aim is to distance students from their nations past and to make them feel that there is something morally corrupt about their discipline. It is only a matter of time before individuals like Louis Pasteur, Michael Faraday or Albert Einstein become the target of this philistine revolution. In recent years, historically illiterate diversity entrepreneurs have come for virtually every leading figure of the Western Enlightenment the movement through which the Age Of Reason developed in the 17th and 18th centuries and which led to so much greater an understanding of the universe. Hypocrisy is commonplace among these campaigners. Indeed, virtually every great philosopher who contributed to the development of the ideals of freedom and liberty has become a target of their crusade. The complexities and nuances of society and history are ignored, academic brilliance discarded. And dont imagine for one moment that the movement is done with its work. It has powerful friends in officialdom and sections of the political class. If we are to save our universities, it is vital that we resist the baleful march of the new cultural Taliban. Frank Furedi is emeritus professor of sociology at Kent University and author of The Road To Ukraine The catalogue of cruelty towards children in modern Britain is a long one. Even so, the case of Lee Carnell and his ex-girlfriend Sarah Lamb still stands out for its depravity. In July this year, a court in Hull heard how the pair created a home of such squalor for their five young children that human excrement was smeared on the walls, broken glass lay on the uncarpeted floor and swarms of flies flew around piles of dirty nappies. It strikes me that a key reason for the gross unfitness of Carnell and Lamb was obvious. They were both heavy cannabis users, spending at least 40 a week on their habit and openly smoking weed in front of their children. Sending them to jail, the judge said the pair were guilty of 'assault by neglect'. DAVID SIDWICK: Indeed, I shudder at demands for a more liberal approach to cannabis, and believe we should move in the opposite direction by reclassifying cannabis as a Class A substance the category reserved for the most harmful drugs Harmful Sadly, this saga was just another example of the pernicious influence of cannabis on our society. There is nothing soft about this drug. Its impact can be brutal damaging lives and promoting crime. And public policy should be based on that hard reality. Indeed, I shudder at demands for a more liberal approach to cannabis, and believe we should move in the opposite direction by reclassifying cannabis as a Class A substance the category reserved for the most harmful drugs. Following reports that Home Secretary Suella Braverman was said to be considering such a move, it is disappointing to hear that the Prime Minister has 'no plans' for reclassification. For, make no mistake, this stuff does the same harm as crack and heroin. Cannabis advocates love to insist on the harmlessness of 'just a bit of weed', conveniently forgetting it has been identified as a factor in numerous random acts of violence, such as the incident on the London Underground in 2021 when Ricky Morgan lashed out at a commuter with a machete. It emerged at his trial that he told his psychiatrist he'd first started using cannabis at the age of 12. In 2019, Raphael Chevelleau, described in court as 'a heavy cannabis user', attacked five people with a knife in a Manchester shopping centre. That is why the growing pressure to decriminalise, even legalise, the use of cannabis is so dangerous. Yet it is a campaign that is spreading rapidly across the Western world, especially in Europe and North America. In the U.S., no fewer than 18 states, including California, have gone down the road of legalisation, as has the Netherlands on this side of the Atlantic, while Portugal and Spain have opted for decriminalisation. Following reports that Home Secretary Suella Braverman was said to be considering such a move, it is disappointing to hear that the Prime Minister has 'no plans' for reclassification (PM Liz Truss is pictured on October 6) In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has set up a commission to examine the case for allowing the open sale of cannabis in the capital, a step many liberals support, partly in the misguided belief this drug is essentially harmless. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I know from my work as Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset where I've made drugs reduction a top priority but also from past experience as a marketing director in the pharmaceutical industry, where I learned cannabis can be a serious threat to a person's mental and physical health. Supporters of decriminalisation prefer to ignore such hard scientific facts, and argue that softening the law will usher in a host of benefits. These supposedly include an end to the stranglehold criminal gangs have on the drugs trade, and the diversion of police resources into the fight against 'real' offenders rather than the 'harassment' of recreational users. In fact, decriminalisation experiments have invariably proved to be disastrous. In California, for instance, an illicit trade in cannabis is now flourishing as never before and accounts for between 80 and 90 per cent of all sales, thanks to the expansion of the market and the ability of illegal dealers to undercut tax-paying (and therefore more expensive) 'legal' traders. Similarly in Holland, the Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema is pushing for a ban on tourists from coffee shops that serve cannabis in order to tackle problem behaviour and hard-drug criminality. In Portugal, Porto mayor Rui Moreira believes in reintroducing bans to get lawlessness related to cannabis availability under control. He told me as much earlier this year. We should hardly be surprised at these U-turns. On so many fronts, cannabis is a menace to health, especially because it tends to be more powerful than in the past. As Sir Robin Murray, of King's College, puts it: 'The increased potency of cannabis means it is no longer a relatively safe drug.' Trigger One indicator of that greater risk is the rise in the incidence of the previously rare phenomenon of Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, a form of uncontrollable vomiting that is estimated to afflict 12.5 per cent of regular users. A host of studies particularly from the University of Western Australia have also shown that cannabis can be linked to premature ageing, cancer and birth defects. We also know that cannabis inhibits brain development in youngsters and can trigger serious mental disorders, including schizophrenia, paranoia and psychosis. Since the decriminalisation of the use and possession of all illicit drugs in Portugal in 2001, rates of drug-related death have fallen. However, more tellingly, there was a 30-fold increase in psychosis cases between 2000 and 2015. In my county of Dorset, the painful effects of cannabis have been highlighted by campaigner Janie Hamilton, whose son, James, suffered from mental illness induced by his weed habit, which started at age 14. He dropped out of university after just one term and spent the next 16 years in and out of mental hospitals, before dying at 36 of testicular cancer for which, in his psychotic state, he'd refused treatment. When asked about those pushing for decriminalisation, Janie put it simply: 'I wish these politicians could visit the mental health wards I have, where children are staggering around like zombies because they smoked weed.' Destroy Cannabis acts as a gateway to other dangerous substances, too. This fact is often disputed, but the evidence is incontrovertible. Prolonged indulgence in cannabis means users develop a tolerance, and so turn to higher concentrations, or other drugs, to achieve the same effect. Decriminalisation will only accelerate the descent into harder drugs. That was proven in 2014, where results from a decriminalisation trial period in Lambeth revealed that hospital admissions related to Class A usage for men rose by between 40 and 100 per cent. So let's be clear: the liberal approach is not a mark of progress; it is a call for surrender to the dark forces that hope to destroy our society. It doesn't have to be this way. Tough enforcement, effective treatment and impactful prevention do work. In Dorset we call it Operation Viper. Using our share of the 20,000 new police officers hired under this government, a neighbourhood team is taking drugs off the streets and protecting more vulnerable children every week. From March to May this year, our officers made 91 arrests, confiscated 250,000 drugs and disrupted 30 county-line routes. That is the approach all of Britain needs; not a feebleness dressed up as compassion. As Nicola Sturgeon herself once said: Hate is not a good emotion in politics or anywhere else. The Scottish First Minister was right: hatred is a deeply corrosive force in political discourse. At best, it sows division at worst, it risks putting public figures in harms way. How telling, then, that just a couple of years on, Ms Sturgeon has revealed her true colours with her remark: I detest the Tories. The comment, made in a BBC interview on Sunday, may have been designed to attract attention to the Scottish National Party conference this week. But the fact that she doubled down ahead of her keynote speech yesterday insisting that she didnt regret her choice of words shows that she really does feel that way towards political opponents who do not agree with her. For all her EU-adoring, soft-on-immigration politicking, Ms Sturgeons mask slipped, revealing something she and her party have been trying to hide for many years: the true nature of the SNP. Ms Sturgeon might have us believe that Scottish nationalism is tolerant, progressive and inclusive as she insisted in her speech yesterday, Scotland belongs to all of us. Yet how inclusive can a movement really be when its leader expresses unashamed hatred for a quarter of the population of its own country just for voting a particular way? The answer is not at all. Just like the rabid hard-Left, the movement for Scottish independence thrives off stoking conflict and resentment. How telling, then, that just a couple of years on, Ms Sturgeon has revealed her true colours with her remark: I detest the Tories. (Pictured: Ms Sturgeon) It is more than a little ironic that when Emily Thornberry (pictured) used a Labour leadership hustings event in 2020 to declare, I hate the SNP, she was roundly condemned When Labours Rupa Huq said last month that Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was only superficially black, the message was clear: a difference of political opinion renders you unwelcome. The SNP is the same. In Ms Sturgeons vision of an independent Scotland, there is no room for anyone who doesnt agree with her. It is more than a little ironic that when Emily Thornberry used a Labour leadership hustings event in 2020 to declare, I hate the SNP, she was roundly condemned including by Ms Sturgeon, who came out with that quote about hate having no place in political debate. But this was never a line she could stick to. After all, as we have seen frequently, Ms Sturgeon is most comfortable when dealing in base political attacks. Indeed, readers may recall that when the SNP leader was asked about Liz Truss in August, rather than focusing on topics such as the economy or foreign policy, she chose to demean the then Tory leadership candidate by claiming Miss Truss had asked her how to get into Vogue. We live in an age when social media, particularly Twitter, has become a toxic wasteland populated by bitter individuals happy to fire hate-bombs at anyone who holds a different opinion. It is an age in which, more than ever, our politicians must rise above this and set an example by showing that healthy disagreement is an essential part of any democracy. The brutal murders of Sir David Amess and Jo Cox stand testament to what happens when we let hatred win. The SNPs leader at Westminster, Ian Blackford, has desperately tried to row back on his bosss comments, saying that he sees the Conservatives as his opponents, not his enemy. But the damage is already done. And Mr Blackford knows as well as the rest of us that a party that can hate so easily should never be entrusted with the leadership of a nation. Tom Harris was Labour MP for Glasgow South from 2001 to 2015 Marilyn Monroe once said: Give a girl the right pair of shoes and she will conquer the world. She might have added: Provided conquering the world doesnt involve anything more strenuous than tottering from cocktail bar to boudoir. Monroe became a star in the 1950s, the age of the stiletto, invented by Roger Vivier for Christian Dior to complement its extravagant New Look the ultimate antidote to the sensible fashions of the war years. Ever since, and despite wave after wave of feminism, womens shoes havent really changed. Monroe became a star in the 1950s, the age of the stiletto, invented by Roger Vivier for Christian Dior to complement its extravagant New Look the ultimate antidote to the sensible fashions of the war years The stiletto, as sexy as it is impractical, has reigned supreme as the ultimate icon of desirable footwear. Designers, from Manolo Blahnik to Christian Louboutin, have all made the vertiginous, spiky heel their trademark and weve worshipped accordingly. But now, it seems, the era of the stiletto is finally drawing to a close. Its less about the f*** me shoe and more about the f*** me, thats comfortable shoe. And not everyone gets it. Witness the way staff at a members club in the City of London treated a high-flying businesswoman who wore a 195 pair of Russell & Bromley flatform trainers. She was furious when they moved her to a table in the corner by the kitchen because her footwear was deemed unsuitable. And just look at the reaction to Prime Minister Liz Trusss decision to conduct a round of interviews in a pair of 138 white Reiss trainers during the Conservative Party conference. If you believe some commentators, she might as well have turned up in her pyjamas. Shock, horror, woman wears comfy shoes! Whatever next? Full disclosure: Ive never been a fan of heels. My reasons are not so much political as practical. When I was young (and stupid), I desperately wanted to wear sexy, strappy numbers like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex And The City. And just look at the reaction to Prime Minister Liz Trusss decision to conduct a round of interviews in a pair of 138 white Reiss trainers during the Conservative Party conference. If you believe some commentators, she might as well have turned up in her pyjamas But owing to my gigantic Hobbit-shaped size 8 feet, it was not to be. Even if I had wanted to blow a weeks wages on a pair of Manolos, I couldnt because they simply werent available in my size. Nor were ballet flats always the favoured choice for the off-duty fashionista much better. My feet would just ooze over the sides like ripe brie. Thats why I started wearing Superga trainers. Growing up as a teenager in Turin, we all wore them: after all, that was where the brand started, in 1911. They were comfortable, they came in my size and they looked good, or at least I thought so. Since then, they have become hugely popular and spawned a million imitations. Even our Queen Consort, Camilla, favours a trainer brand best known for its fashionable laces (I own several pairs). From the Prime Minister to Prue Leith, trainers are fast replacing heels as the mark of a woman who means business. And anyone who cant see why is missing an important point. Because this is not just a practical shift; its a cultural one, too. Its not just about freedom from footwear that makes walking difficult or gets you stuck in a drain. Its about a fundamental shift in womens attitudes away from a slavish desire to please the opposite sex and towards a far more radical, and rebellious, notion: pleasing ourselves. Dont get me wrong: there is still plenty of room for a heel in a womans life. But there is a time and a place. Not everyone leads a car-to-kerb existence like the Duchess of Sussex or Victoria Beckham. Most of us have far too much on our plates without also having to do it all standing on our tippy-toes. So if the trainer fits, wear it. Lifes too short for sore feet. Time for Heidi to go under cover Driving my daughter back to university at the weekend, we were discussing who would be more embarrassing to have as a mother: Madonna (currently throwing her knickers around on TikTok) or Britney Spears (not even wearing hers most of the time). We agreed that it was probably Madonna, on the basis that you should never snog anyone younger than your oldest child (in her case daughter Lourdes, 26 this week). But now we have a new contender for title of Most Embarrassing Mum: Heidi Klum, 49, who has posed for a series of lingerie ads alongside her 18-year-old daughter, Leni But now we have a new contender for title of Most Embarrassing Mum: Heidi Klum, 49, who has posed for a series of lingerie ads alongside her 18-year-old daughter, Leni. Heidi looks great, of course, thanks no doubt to all that gym work and, erm, other work. But really? Surely there comes a time when you just must let the next generation take its rightful turn . . . I couldnt care less if Nicola Sturgeon says she despises all Tories. In fact, Im delighted. The more she exposes herself for the divisive politician she is, the more chance the people of Scotland have of seeing through her. Extinguish crime! A group calling itself Tyre Extinguishers is slashing the tyres of 4x4s up and down the country in a bid to make it impossible to own an SUV in urban areas. When are we going to stop calling these sorts of groups climate-change activists and give them the name they deserve: criminals. Another podcast, another poor-little-Me-ghan. The Duchess of Sussex says she has been branded crazy and hysterical, warning that such labels are used against women to minimise what theyre feeling. My dear, I dont think theres any danger of your feelings ever being minimised. Another podcast, another poor-little-Me-ghan. The Duchess of Sussex says she has been branded crazy and hysterical Isnt it ironic Tom Felton, who played baddie Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is the only actor honourable enough to acknowledge J.K. Rowlings contribution? He told Radio 4 she should be celebrated for bringing generations together, and was branded a little snake by trans bullies. No, the real snakes are cast members Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe among them too scared to stand up for the woman who made them who they are today. Charless cut-price crowning glory I have no problem with King Charles having a slimmed-down Coronation. To my mind, its similar to a wedding: the extravagance of the occasion has no bearing on the success of the venture. I couldnt care less how many bowing and scraping dignitaries turn up; its the kind of king Charles turns out to be that matters. (By the way, my son informs me the Coronation is on the day Chelsea play at Bournemouth. I tell him this is not likely to constitute a diary clash.) How to help charmless Coffey... Im afraid Therese Coffey was abysmal on her media round yesterday morning. Its not just that she didnt seem to know the answer to most of the questions being asked of her; she also came across as charmless and arrogant. Perhaps the problem is that she is trying to manage two separate briefs: Deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary. Maybe if she were to relinquish one, the Prime Minister could appoint a troublesome Tory rebel to another thus killing two birds with one stone. Its all very well for Suella Braverman to say she wants to tighten the laws around cannabis possession; but how, pray, will she enforce this crackdown? We have a police force that cant even cope with existing levels of crime; our courts are backed up for months; and even if they did succeed in convicting more drug dealers, our prisons are full. Michael J. Fox touched the heart of thousands of Back to the Future fans when he made an appearance at New York City's Comic Con this weekend, reuniting on stage with co-star Christopher 'Doc Brown' Lloyd. Fox shot to global fame at 24 after playing time-travelling teen Marty McFly in the 1985 sci-fi film - but since his diagnosis with Parkinson's disease, he's spent much of his career campaigning for better research and raising awareness on the progressive degenerative illness. The Canadian-born actor, 61, revealed earlier this year that the condition has impacted his acting career and the roles he has taken on; he's now in retirement, with book writing his main source of income. The Teen Wolf star, now a father-of-four, was diagnosed in 1991 aged just 29, and made the diagnosis public seven years later in 1998. He has spent half of his life funding research and spreading awareness about the condition, which affects the brain and motor functions, damaging them over time. Michael J. Fox touched the heart of thousands of fans when he made an appearance at New York City's Comic Con at the weekend, where he was reunited with his Back to the Future co-star Christopher Lloyd The star has been sharing a glimpse of his life with Parkinson's on social media, counting on the support of his wife of 34 years Tracey Pollan and their four children In 2000, Fox set up the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which has been dubbed by the New York Times: 'the most credible voice on Parkinson's research in the world.' The star has also become a figure of support within the acting community, with Cruel Intentions actress Selma Blair revealing in 2019 that she reached out to him for support in 2018 when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The actor turned writer shares glimpses of his life with Parkinson's on social media, counting on the support of his wife of 34 years Tracey Pollan and their four children, Sam, Aquinnah, Schuyler and Esme. Fox was born in Alberta; his dad William was a war veteran and worked in the Canadian police forces, and his mother Phyllis was payroll clerk and actress. The Teen Wolf star was diagnosed in 1991 at just 29, and made the diagnosis public in 1998. He has spent half his life funding research and spreading awareness about the condition, which affects the brain and motor functions, damaging them over time Pals: Selma Blair, 46, posed with actor Michael J. Fox, 57, in an Instagram shot on Wednesday, as the actor has come to her aid amid her battle with MS He began his acting career in the late 1970s but shot to fame playing Marty McFly in Steven Spielberg's Back To The Future in 1985, at the age of 24. The role had been due to go to Eric Stoltz but the film was re-shot with Fox after producers didn't think the first version worked. After becoming a mainstream Hollywood star thanks to Back to the Future and high school comedy Teen Wolf in 1985, Michael J. Fox turned to TV work, and played Mike Flaherty in the political sitcom Spin City. He was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's in 1991, three years into his marriage with his wife Tracy, who he had met on the set of his successfully 1980s sitcom Family Ties. The actor didn't make his diagnosis public until seven years later in 1998, when he announced he would be leaving Spin City after the completion of the show's fourth season. After beginning his acting career in the late 1970s, Fox rose to fame in 1985 when he starred as Marty McFly in Back to the Future That same year, Fox also starred in Teen Wolf, securing his status as one of Hollywood's leading men - before Parkinson's saw him forced to give up acting for good His acting career continued but Fox later admitted the roles he could play were deeply impacted by his diagnosis. The actor, now retired, told Mike Birbiglias Working It Out podcast in June: 'When I did the spinoff from The Good Wife, which is The Good Fight, I couldnt remember the lines. I just had this blank, I couldnt remember the lines,' he said. 'I cant remember five pages of dialogue. I cant do it,' he added. In 2020, he told People: 'My guitar playing is no good. My sketching is no good anymore, my dancing never was good and acting is getting tougher to do. So its down to writing. Luckily, I really enjoy it.' The star can count on the support of his four grown-up children and his wife Tracy, whom he met in the 1980s and married in 1988 The actor delighted fans when he appeared on a panel about Back to the Future at New York's comic con over the weekend Fox has penned four books since his diagnosis, with the last one, No Time Like The Future being published in 2020. Two years after making his diagnosis public, Fox set up the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in 2000, which has since then raised $1 billion in hopes of finding a cure for the disease. Through his fundraising work, he has become a leading voice in raising Parkinson's awareness. However, Fox revealed to CBS he had questioned whether he had a right to tell people to have a 'positive attitude' and to 'cheer up.' The activist, who said in 2002 that Parkinson's was a 'gift that keeps on taking,' admitted to the Guardian in 2020 that he didn't believe a cure for his disease will be found during his lifetime. The actor told BCS in 2021 that he and Tracy didn't know what Parkinson's was when he was diagnosed in 1991 He also added that every step felt like 'a math problem,' to him and that it forced him to take things slow. 'Its like my walking. I used to walk fast, but every step is now like a frigging math problem, so I take it slow. 'And with acting, I used to race to the punchline. But I started to really pay attention because I couldnt just skate over any moment,' he added. The actor, writer and activist has raised $1billiont through his Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (pictured at a gala for the foundation in 2021) In 2018, the star was operated on for a benign tumour on his spine, which demanded a long, painful recovery. That same year, he suffered a bad fall and shattered his arm, which further worsened his general health. In his 2020 memoirs, the star said: 'Have I oversold optimism as a panacea, commodified hope? In telling other patients, "Chin up! It will be OK", did I look to them to validate my optimism? 'Is it because I needed to validate it myself? Things dont always turn out. Sometimes things turn s*****. My optimism is suddenly finite,' he added. ' Thankfully, Fox can count on the support of his wife, Tracey, whom he started dating in the 1980s and married in 1988. Speaking to CBS in 2021, 30 years after his diagnosis, Fox recalled: 'So very early in the marriage she got this dumped on her. And the moment that I told her I was realizing was the last time we cried about it together. We haven't cried about Parkinson's since. 'We've just dealt with it and lived our lives. But we cried about it that first time," he said. Sting performed at the 2021 gala for Michael's Foundation. In 2020, Fox said he didn't believe a cure for Parkinson's will be found in his lifetime In the same interview, Fox said him and his wife did not know what Parkinson's meant when he was diagnosed, and that the disease was 'unchartered territory.' 'We didn't know what would happen. We didn't know. You know, no one could say when it would have more effects. More symptoms than what I had, which was a twitch, twitching pinkie,' Fox said. 'But they [doctors] just said it was coming,' he added. The couple had four children together: Sam, Schuyler, Aquinnah and Esme Fox, who often appear on Michael's Instagram account and have been a constant support through his fight with the disease. The whole family came out in force at a gala Fox's foundation, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cure Parkinson's, in 2021 in New York, where proud dad Michael stood front and centre. WHAT IS PARKINSON'S? Parkinsons disease affects one in 500 people, including about one million Americans. It causes muscle stiffness, slowness of movement, tremors, sleep disturbance, chronic fatigue, an impaired quality of life and can lead to severe disability. It is a progressive neurological condition that destroys cells in the part of the brain that controls movement. Sufferers are known to have diminished supplies of dopamine because nerve cells that make it have died. There is currently no cure and no way of stopping the progression of the disease, but hundreds of scientific trials are underway to try and change that. The disease claimed the life of boxing legend Muhammad Ali in 2016. Advertisement Sting, a personal friend of Fox, performed at the gala, which was attended by a plethora of A-listers and celebs, including Julianne Moore, Katie Couric, Spike Lee and Joan Jett. Through his fundraising and his activism, Fox has become a voice that other stars turn to for support in their own health battles. Cruel Intensions' Selma Blair revealed in 2019 that she reached out to the Back to the Future actor in 2018 after she was diagnosed with MS, thinking it was Parkinson's. 'I said, "I don't know who to tell, but I am dropping things. I'm doing strange things",' she said. 'He got in touch with me and we began a conversation - so he really helped me,' the told Good Morning America. 'Plus I was like, "I have Michael J. Fox's email now," like that's pretty cool, I'm cooler than I thought.' The pair are now friends, with Blair revealing Fox 'gives her hope.' It was evident that the degenerative disease was taking its physical toll on Michael's body as he was seen staggering as he walked on stage at Comic Con on Saturday. Taking to the stage to thousands of Back To The Future fans in New York, Canadian-American actor Michael, 61, recounted how he and Emmy-award-winning Christopher, 83, met for the first time. But despite the rigidity and slowness in movement as he continues to experience the advances stages of the illness, he seemed in good spirits as he gave a cheery wave to the thousands of fans who gave him and Christopher Lloyd a standing ovation. The pair also shared a heartfelt embrace - and Lloyd held his friend and former co-star as he hunched into his arms. Fans who couldn't make it to New York themselves shared their emotion when watching footage of the pair reuniting at Comic Con on Twitter. Lots of people acknowledged Michael's bravery at continuing to make public appearances despite the decline in his health. 'The best part of this movie was working with Chris,' he said, also adding that he found it 'fun' working with Chris 'because he's just genius'. He also said that the pair had an 'immediate chemistry' - while Lloyd called Fox the 'King of Exposition'. British actress Natascha McElhone's latest role seed her playing close companion of Prince Philip, Penny Knatchbull, in series five of The Crown. The London-based star has been cast as Countess Mountbatten of Burma in the new series of the Netflix hit and her latest role looks set to catapult her to household name status. In a career spanning four decades, McElhone has seen her Hollywood career flourish in recent years, despite the 52-year-old British actress having to juggle auditions with raising three sons alone - after suffering the tragic loss of her husband when pregnant with their third child in 2008. Plastic surgeon Martin Kelly died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 43 on the steps of their London home while McElhone was pregnant with their third child. Scroll down for video The London-based actress stars as Penny Knatchbull, close companion of Prince Philip, in the new series of The Crown (pictured: Prince Philip and Penny at the Royal Windsor Horse Show) In her personal life, Natascha has dealt with tragedy after her husband Martin Kelly, a celebrtiy plastic surgeon, died suddenly after collapsing in his Fulham townhouse in 2008 (pictured with Martin before his death). She was pregnant with their third child, Rex, at the time After her husband Martin's sudden death, Natascha was left to raise their three boys Theo (left) Otis (right) and Rex (carried by his mother) (Pictured at the premiere of The Secret of Moonacre in 2009) Kelly, a cosmetic surgeon to the stars, was found collapsed in the hall of their 2.5million Fulham townhouse, just after performing a late-night operation. At the time, McElhone was filming on the set of TV series Californication in Los Angeles, and learnt her husband had died through his friend, Neil Randhawa. Speaking to The Sunday Times after his death, she said: 'I walked across the road towards my trailer and it must have suddenly hit me on some level. I did that thing I thought people only did in movies - I dropped the phone and my knees sort of buckled under me.' Kelly's cause of death was given as 'dilated cardiomyopathy', where the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently. In the same interview, Natascha revealed the last message she had received from her husband, which she described as 'lovely'. One of Natascha's earliest Hollywood roles was as Lauren/Sylvia in The Truman Show, who tries to free Truman (played by Jim Carrey) from his oppressive life (pictured in the film) She said: 'He left me this message, full of the joys... he couldnt wait to come out the next week, he was so excited about the scan, so excited about the baby.' The year after Kelly's sudden death, Natascha revealed how she was managing her grief while raising the couple's sons, Theo, then eight, Otis, then five, and baby Rex. She told The Daily Mail at the time: 'I didn't have a choice. I now have twice the responsibility I had before, and I have to work for financial reasons. 'But it's good having responsibilities, whether it is paying the bills or feeding a baby at five in the morning. The mundanity of life becomes very important. Not coping just isn't an option.' The Surrey-born actress, whose real name is Natascha Taylor, is the daughter of two Irish journalists, Noreen McElhone and Michael Taylor. After being raised alongside her brother Damon in Brighton, Natascha moved to London to study theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and graduated in 1993. Following her graduation, the actress began her career onstage in Shakespearian plays including Richard III and A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was on the BBC that she made her TV debut, starring in an episode of crime drama Bergerac in 1991, when she was still a student, and also making an appearance in Jennifer Saunders comedy Absolutely Fabulous the following year. Natascha McElhone, 52, starred as First Lady and close confidante of her husband Tom Kirkman (played by Kiefer Sutherland) in Designated Survivor (pictured with Sutherland in the pilot episode) Her career continued to flourish throughout the 1990s and she began to star alongside huge Hollywood actors. In 1996, Natascha played wife of Pablo Picasso and and mother of his children, Franoise Gilot in Surviving Picasso, alongside acting great Anthony Hopkins as the late Spanish abstract artist. That same year, Natascha began dating her future husband Martin, who was a medical student at the time. The pair had first met several years earlier when Natascha was 16. At the time of Kelly's death, Natascha was filming scenes alongside David Duchovny in Californication in Los Angeles (pictured: Natascha and Duchovny in promotional photo) Although her first film received mixed reviews, it helped Natascha into several more Hollywood roles - with perhaps her most memorable appearance as Lauren/Sylvia alongside Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. The role helped to secure Natascha as a Hollywood name, and she went on to star in films alongside heartthrobs including Brad Pitt and George Clooney. After Kelly's tragic death, Natascha continued to work and had several acting credits to her name while juggling raising the three boys on her own. She appeared in several films while continuing in her recurring role as Karen, David Duchovny's on-and-off lover in Californication. After the series ended in 2014, it wasn't long before the mother-of-three landed herself another regular role as the wife of Kiefer Sutherland's Tom Kirkman in Designated Survivor. The pilot episode of the show sees senator Kirkman thrust into the most powerful office in the Western world as US president after Congress is blown up in a terrorist attack. After being whisked away to safety while the house sat, he was the 'designated survivor' asked to form a government after his colleagues had perished in the attack. Starring alongside Sutherland, Natascha played Alex Kirkman, the loyal First Lady and confidante of an unsure new president who was under-prepared for the role. The counselling role will no doubt have prepared her well to play Penny Knatchbull, who was a close companion of the Duke of Edinburgh during their 50 years of friendship. Melody Hernandez, 20, from Texas, was in pain every day as a result of her disproportionately large chest and struggled to find clothes that fit A woman has opened up about having her painfully large 32G breasts reduced to a 32DD after years of feeling uncomfortable in her clothes and around her guy friends but men online insist she made a 'tragic' mistake. Melody Hernandez, 20, from Texas, was in pain every day as a result of her disproportionately large chest and struggled to find suitable clothes when she decided to undergo breast reduction surgery in March of this year. 'I always felt insecure because I never liked how my clothes would appear on me,' she told Need To Know, saying people's eyes would often drift down to her chest. Melody Hernandez, 20, from Texas, went from a 32G (left) to a 32DD (right) after having breast reduction surgery earlier this year The weight of her 32G breasts (pictured before surgery) caused her to slouch constantly, and she developed burn marks from the straps of her bra digging into her shoulders 'It just made me uncomfortable most of the time. They definitely affected my self-esteem as well,' she continued. 'With nothing ever fitting me right, I never had motivation to dress the way I wanted to because of that.' The full-time student said she had to size up when buying clothes and her breasts stretched out her tops to the point that she couldn't see the outline of her body. Melody added that her heavy breasts caused constant back pain and left her with marks on her shoulder from where her bra straps would dig into her skin. 'It was so painful whenever it was the end of the way and I was done wearing my bra,' she said. 'It felt like someone had punched my chest, I also would catch myself slouching all of the time, which would hurt my upper back. 'The straps to hold them up would also leave burn marks on my shoulders because of how tight it had to be.' Melody (pictured before and after surgery) was in pain every day as a result of her disproportionately large chest and struggled to find clothes that fit The full-time student (pictured before surgery) had to size up when buying clothes and her breasts stretched out her tops to the point that she couldn't see the outline of her body Melody (pictured before surgery) said people's eyes would often drift down to her chest, and guys she thought were friends would hug her tightly just to feel her breasts Melody also had to examine her relationship with some of her male friends who made her feel uncomfortable about the size of her chest. 'I have been told by friends that my supposed guy friends had told them things about my breast size,' she said. 'I would even catch some of my guy "friends" hugging me tight when I'd say bye to them. I felt it was very off-putting and made me not want to be in contact with them.' Melody was put on a waiting list for breast reduction in June 2021, and she went under the knife nine months later. The surgery originally cost around $8,500, but her health insurance covered most of it because of the size of her 32G breasts in comparison to the rest of her body. Melody (pictured in the hospital) was put on a waiting list for surgery in June 2021, and she went under the knife nine months later The surgery originally cost around $8,500, but her health insurance covered most of it because of the size of her 32G breasts in comparison to the rest of her body Melody (pictured after the surgery) proudly shared her transformation on TikTok, but to her surprise, she was subjected to baffling comments from men One online troll said her breasts were 'so perfect before,' while another called her breast reduction surgery 'sad and tragic' She only had to pay $1,000 out of pocket for the life-changing procedure. 'Now, because I had the surgery, I feel so much more confident with how my clothes fit me, and I feel like they aren't something that instantly catches someone's attention,' she said. Melody proudly shared her transformation on TikTok, but to her surprise, she was subjected to baffling comments from men who slammed her for reducing the size of her natural breasts. 'Noooo they were so perfect before,' one person wrote. Melody (pictured after the surgery) couldn't be happier with her new chest, despite the comments she has received Melody (pictured before and after the surgery) said she no longer has back pain, and she is able to buy clothes that fit her frame 'Now, because I had the surgery, I feel so much more confident with how my clothes fit me, and I feel like they aren't something that instantly catches someone's attention,' she said 'It's just so sad and tragic,' another added. Melody claimed that she has also had men message her directly about the surgery to ask why she had her breasts reduced, telling her they 'looked just fine.' However, it's been six months since she had the surgery, and she couldn't be happier with the results, despite the comments she has received from online trolls. 'I am now able to properly fit in clothes I want to wear without having to upsize them,' she said. 'I am also able to wear clothing styles I wasn't able to wear before such as sportswear and cropped clothes. 'I also do not slouch as much or feel pain because of how heavy they were before,' she added. 'Despite it being quite painful, it was so worth it in the end.' Critics say he spoke in 'cliches' but others are looking forward to the book Bear Grylls divided opinion when he spoke about mental health on GMB, with some viewers claiming he was speaking in 'cliches'. The adventurer is known for being on the wild side of life and has been filmed climbing Everest after breaking his back in three places and eating scorpions. As host Susanna Reid pointed out, he's not the first person people think of when discussing mental health as he is viewed as 'rock solid'. Bear revealed that his new book Mind Fuel, that will come out on Thursday, will focus on his own mental health battles. Bear Grylls, pictured in a publicity shot, spoke about the stigmas surrounding male mental health on breakfast TV this morning but was met with criticism from viewers who claimed he was speaking in 'cliches' Susanna said Bear appeared 'rock solid' but Bear says everyone has to 'deal with the storms coming their way' The TV personality, who is currently filming a third series of his hit show Running Wild, sat down with Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley in the wake of World Mental Health Day which was yesterday. He then went on to talk about male mental health, citing 75 per cent of suicide attempts currently are 'male'. GMB host Susanna speculated: 'We can imagine that people view you as rock solid, nothing bothers you - that sort of thing. What is this fragile bear?' He said: 'All of us are a work in progress. The suicide rates are crazy at the moment. When men face the storms of life a lot of them don't have the framework or tools to deal with that. Critics weren't keen on Bear's 'cliches' about mental health and accused the star of 'profiteering' from illness 'My book is to strengthen the mind and build up resilience. Simple stuff like go for a walk, go for a cold shower, get fit. 'This is for everyone - people who haven't suffered mental health issues as well because storms come for everyone.' Susanna said: 'How do people who they think they should be strong cope? If people have a stereotype of how they think that strength should be. 'So, they see someone like you who's meant to be strong and think 'we all have bad times and you can get through'- how do you claw your way out?' Bear continued: 'My mum always used to say a problem shared is a problem halved. Men find it hard to be vulnerable and talk about their problems . We share the good stuff.' Susanna said a reason for this could be 'they are probably scared of being told to man up. You've got to be strong all of the time.' GMB host Richard Madeley chimed in with his own coping mechanism, he said: 'I give myself a good talking to. talking out loud to myself - do you do that?' Bear said: 'I do, totally, whatever it takes - men are not used to finding these tools - we are used to being told that we need to go to the gym if we want to get physically fit and this [his book] has tons of little practical pieces of advice you can incorporate into your daily life.' Despite talking openly about coping with mental health on live television, Bear was met with criticism for being cliched. One Twitter user said: 'Chucking out every cliche about mental illness and showing with comments like be a bit tougher shows he has no idea what he is talking about.' Another accused him of having 'no idea' about mental health, saying: 'Has no idea of debilitating MH condition if he thinks sufferers are capable of doing "simple things" like taking a walk, speaking to a friend. May as well tell a person with severe spinal cord injury to leap over a gate.' However, some people are excited to read the new book saying: 'Thank you for todays interview ahead of the publication of his new book #MindFuel this Thursday ,which offers daily tips, simple wisdom and real life stories to help build mental fitness and resilience.' A palliative care doctor from the UK is on her way home back to Britain, just a few days after her arrival in Kyiv following Russia's latest air strikes on the city. Dr Rachel Clarke spoke to ITV's Lorraine on Tuesday, after getting caught up in crossfire while trying to help train medics in the Ukraine capital. The UK doctor had travelled to the war-torn country hopeful that Kyiv was safe following a lull in attacks on the city. However, Clarke told Lorraine the situation has now become too dangerous as civilian deaths mount up following the barrage of Russian air strikes - and recounted how a young doctor, mother to a five-year-old, died on her way home from a large hospital in Kyiv. Scroll down for video UK doctor, Dr Rachel Clarke, who travelled to Kyiv to help train medics in the country's capital appeared on daytime show Lorraine on Tuesday recounting her experiences of the recent bombings in the city A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, yesterday - air strikes have come thick and fast from the Russians The group of UK medics, who had travelled to help their Ukrainian colleagues learn more about palliative care and teach them how to use particular equipment, have now fled the country after deadly bombing over the weekend. After a few days in the nation's capital, Dr Clarke and her team are now making their way home. The doctor said: 'We arrived in Kyiv by train yesterday and we were ushered straight into an underground bomb shelter upon arrival. 'We never imagined we would get caught up in one of Putin's bombing raids - but such is life for everyone there.' Lorraine commented on the new 'intensity of bombing' after a break in fighting in the city. Clarke explained: 'We thought we would be safe, Kyiv hadn't had air strikes for some months now. Normal life has almost started here again. 'After the recent bombings people have been traumatized. The students were really shaken that yet again Putin was targeting the city, and civilian areas. 'A children's playground was hit - it's now just got a crater in it. Dr Clarke thought she and her team, who came to Ukraine to teach palliative care to medics, would be safe in Kyiv as there had been less attacks in recent months She told the harrowing story of a medic lost to the bombardment, saying: 'One of our doctor friends told us a young female doctor had died after being hit on her way home from work last night - she was a mother to a five-year-old son. 'She was treating children with cancer. Putin's just killed her.' Despite her experiences, she says the people of Ukraine still have 'spirit' She said: 'I was cowering in a corner when the bombs hit but they were standing, stoically, gritting their teeth as if to say "we've been here before, we can get through it again". 'The spirit here is unshakeable - teens were still chanting in the street 'Putin Dickh***'.' Ukranian president Zelensky hit headlines this morning calling the recent bombings 'terrorist attacks'. As Russian missiles hit the city of Kyiv, causing 64 injuries and at least 11 deaths, this onslaught on the capital is the first in months. Iranian protesters are taking their grievances to the digital world and TV waves. A hacking group of unknown origin has reportedly hacked into one of Iran's state-run TV channels, which showed the country's Supreme Leader burning and in the crosshairs. The hacking comes as protests against the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the hands of Iran's so-called morality police for not covering her hair properly. Iran State TV Channel Hack Details The hack happened during a news bulletin of the state-run TV channel on Oct. 8. While presenting the news of the day, the broadcast was suddenly cut to show a black-bearded mask with streaks of green and red paint on both its cheeks, which seemed to form the Iranian flag. Although not exactly a Guy Fawkes mask usually utilized by hacking groups like Anonymous, some similarities can be drawn between the two, per Gizmodo. It then cut to a graphic of Iran's Supreme Leader engulfed in flames and targetted by a crosshair, with a message written in Arabic. The message reads, "The blood of our youths is on your hands," per the English translation of Al Alarabiya, a Dubai-based international Arabic television news channel. Another message the graphic displayed invited people to join the hacking group's cause and to "rise up," per BBC. The graphic also displayed pictures of the four women killed during the protests against the actions of Iran's so-called morality police against women who don't wear their hijab properly. Read More: Dutch Employee Gets Awarded $73,000 After Being Fired for Refusing To Turn On Webcam For those unaware, a hijab is a garment worn by some Muslim women to cover their hair to appear modest and conservative. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the hijab is normally worn because of tradition, but in some countries, like Iran, women are required by law to wear a hijab following the Islamic Revolution. Of the four pictures displayed in the graphic, Amini's was placed second from the right. Meanwhile, the pictures furthest from the left and right belong to Sarina Esmailzadeh, a woman who died in the hands of Iran's security forces on Sept. 23 for participating in the protests, per The Guardian. Lastly, the second picture from the left belongs to Hadis Najafi, a 23-year-old woman whom Iran's security forces allegedly shot to death during a protest. It is unknown if the hacking group responsible for the hack, which called itself "Adalat Ali," or Ali's Justice, originated from Iran itself or an external group trying to facilitate a regime change in Iran. The Reason Behind The Protest The protests were caused by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was killed by Iran's morality police for not covering her hair properly with her hijab - an act required by Iranian law. Amini was detained in Tehran by the morality police, where she died three days after her arrest. Official reports say that Amini died of an unrelated heart attack caused by a pre-existing condition before her time in custody. However, the lawyer for her family said that "respectable doctors" believe she was hit while in the morality police's care, per Al Jazeera. Amini's father also added that she suffered bruises to her legs and held the country's morality police responsible for her death. Related Article: US Imposes New Sanctions on Iran's Intelligence Ministry Over Albania Cyberattack Jean Paul Gaultier may be facing a legal battle after an Italian gallery accused it of using Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli's works in its new designs without asking for permission. Uffizi Galleries, based in Florence, has alleged the French fashion house printed works from Botticelli's The Birth of Venus collection on a new clothing line, which first appeared in Spring this year. The prestigious art museum has said the print, from The Birth of Venus painted in 1485, was used 'illicitly' by the designer on T shirts, trousers and sarongs. The Birth of Venus currently hangs in the Uffizi Gallery. The Jean Paul Gaultier collection has been slammed by the Uffixi museum in Florence, Italy, for its collection using prints from Botticelli's The Birth of Venus The artwork depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth. She is fully grown and floats on the water on a shell, while her long hair is wrapped around her body. The God Zephyr, accompanied by another female, hovers with wings above Venus and blows towards her. The Jean Paul Gaultier collection, which debuted in Spring of this year, also features prints from Paul Rubens' The Three Graces, painted in 1635 - wich hangs in the Prado Museum, Madrid. The Italian gallery first raised objections against Jean Paul Gaultier's clothing line when it first appeared in the Spring, The Telegraph reports. Uffizi wrote to the French fashion house demanding it either stop selling the line or communicate with them to reach an arrangement in which it would pay the gallery to use the images. Several months on, the gallery alleges the French fashion house ignored its letter, adding it now intends to take legal action. The Birth of Venus, thought to have been painted in 1485, depicts the goddess shortly after 'birth', but fully grown, arriving at sea on a giant scallop shell In a statement, the gallery said: 'The famous fashion house has used images from the immortal masterpiece kept by the Uffizi in order to produce a line of clothing, advertising the products on its website and social media channels. 'But it has done so without requesting permission, agreeing on how the images would be used or paying a fee, as is set down under Italian law. 'Faced with such illicit behaviour, the museum has now embarked on legal action against what it calls the illegitimate clothing collection, and is demanding financial compensation.' The complaint comes a year after the Italian gallery sent a warning to pornographic website, PornHub, which posted videos of stars playing characters from famous art works 'coming to life'. At the time, the gallery, alongside the Lourvre in Paris, launched legal action against the adult site for rights infringements. FEMAIL has contacted Jean Paul Gaultier for comment. The royals attended a reception at the Victoria and Albert Hall in Ballater King Charles III paid special thanks to the team who organised and supported his mother's final journey from her beloved Balmoral estate in Aberdeenshire after her death. The new monarch, 73, and his wife Camilla, 75, attended a reception at Station Square, the Victoria and Albert Halls, in the village of Ballater, which was beloved by the Queen, and where tractors formed a guard of honour during her funeral procession from Balmoral to Edinburgh on September 11. The pair were pictured reminiscing on headlines documenting the Queen's passing and her final send off as they mingled with attendees. Photos from the heartwarming event also showed crowds lining up in front of Ballater station, in anticipation for the King and Queen Consort's visit. King Charles III and the Queen Consort received a warm welcome during their visit of Ballater in Aberdeenshire this afternoon The new monarch, 73, and his wife Camilla, 75, attended a reception at Station Square, the Victoria and Albert Halls, in the village of Ballater The pair, adorned in tartan were welcomed to the Victoria and Albert Halls as pipes played on arrival The Queen Consort opted for a tartan-printed ensemble as she attended the engagement in Aberdeenshire Charles sported a traditional kilt, teamed with an elegant grey blazer and Camilla followed suit with a similarly tartan ensemble. Her skirt was teamed with a chic black jacket, featuring a matching patterned collar. The pair were welcomed to the Victoria and Albert Halls by the Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, Alexander Philip Manson, his wife, Barbara Manson - alongside the Vice Lord Lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, Joanna, Marchioness of Aberdeen - and arrived to the sounds of pipe major James Cooper and the cheers of the crowd who had gathered to catch a glimpse of the pair. They were greeted by the fire and ambulance services, officers from Police Scotland as well as local pupils from Ballater's Crathie School. The King fed carrots to the horses who participated in the procession which saw his mother leaving Balmoral for Edinburgh The Monarch gently rubbed the nose of a friendly brown-haired steed during this visit to Ballater today The Queen Consort, who was wearing navy blue gloves, was seen feedign the horse some cuts of carrots They also got the chance to greet the horses and riders who lined the route of the cortege as it travelled from Balmoral The Queen Consort gently petted on the horses who escorted the Queen's hearse during her journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh in September Camilla gave the animal a warm smile as she petted his nose during her and the King's visit to Aberdeenshire Upon his arrival, the King shook hands with and thanked the royal fans who had come to greet him and the Queen consort. In an emotional moment, he also gently petted the horse who escorted his mother's hearse from Balmoral after her death was announced. The Queen Consort followed suit was smiled as she petted the beautiful groomed animals. Todays engagement aims to share the detailed planning taken by North East of Scotland, which was the backbone of the mammoth effort following the Queen's death, with the King and Queen Consort. The royals got to see the vehicles which formed the tractor tribute at Banchory, and met the drivers involved. They also got the chance to greet the horses and riders who lined the route of the cortege as it travelled from Balmoral. Charles and Camilla mingled with council workers, agencies and volunteers behind the incredible send-off, and were treated to a digitised media display of the events. Camilla dressed for the chilly day in a tartan ensemble, throwing on a pair of gloves and some tights to keep warm Charles sported a traditional kilt, teamed with an elegant grey blazer and Camilla followed suit with a similarly tartan ensemble The Reverend Addie, a Ballater resident, attended the reception and proudly showed the King the baton he was presented with for being an usher at Queen Elizabeth II's wedding in 1947 Civic leaders, strategic and tactical leads, managers and supervisors, community liaison representatives and Crathie School pupils attended the reception. Also present were attendees from Police Scotland, the Fire and Ambulance Services, transporting dignitaries, and the stewarding company who helped keep the public safe. As many as 550 people were involved in the delivery of the Council plans, all of which were delivered against the spectacular backdrop of Balmoral and Deeside. It is estimated that 25,000 people attended along the cortege route in Aberdeenshire on September 11. Meanwhile one of the late Queen's ushers said the new King is carrying on with her 'great tradition' as Charles thanked the people of Aberdeenshire for helping to honour his late mother. Michael Adie, who was an usher at the Queen's wedding when he was just 17, was one of those in attendance and said of Charles: 'He's carrying on a great tradition of his mother. She was wonderful.' Charles and Camilla mingled with council workers, agencies and volunteers behind the incredible send-off, and were treated to a digitised media display of the events The former Bishop of Guildford added: 'She put everybody at their ease and treated them as a normal human being. He is doing the same thing.' The 92-year-old, who lives in Ballater, had brought the baton he was given and a book featuring the order of service and pictures from the day to show the Royal couple. Kate Allum, his daughter, said: 'Unbelievably, it has a copy of the marriage certificate, and the funniest part is there is also a copy of the notes of what went well and what didn't go well. 'There are some very funny quotes in here but the best one is, "the inevitably irresistible tendency to gossip".' They included horses and the riders and the farmers who lined up their tractors in tribute to the late monarch at Banchory. Roddy Blackhill, 54, said: 'They were really easy to talk to and down to earth and were interested in what was happening on the farm and how harvest went.' Photos from the heartwarming event also showed crowds lining up in front of Ballater station, in anticipation for the King and Queen Consort's visit The farmer, who was there with Keith Mitchell, 46, added the idea to form the tribute as the Queen made her way to Edinburgh was made quickly and, after a few phone calls, everything fell into place. Charles and Camilla made an impromptu walkabout, meeting locals from the village, much to the delight of well wishers. Kate Fraser, 31, and her eight-month-old son, Liam, were among those who met the royals before they went into the hall. 'We are from Ballater so we see him quite a lot,' said the mother-of-three. 'My husband does his fencing work, so it's quite nice to say I have met him too now.' Inside the hall, the King and Queen Consort spent about an hour speaking to guests and were presented with a stained glass from Aberdeenshire lieutenancy commissioned to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Local schoolchildren also had the chance to meet the new King and his wife, with Brodie Wynne, six, and Annie Hutchon, seven, representing Crathie School. People pictured gathering in tribute last month, as the cortege carrying the coffin of the late Queen Elizabeth II passed by in Ballater Brodie said he spoke to Camilla about his dogs and ferrets, and said she told him her dog liked to chase deer. As the royal couple left, to the sound of cheers and a pipe band, the pair handed Camilla a bouquet of flowers, and the seven-year-old said she was 'really happy'. Tearful well-wishers had paid a fond farewell to the Queen last month, after her coffin left Balmoral accompanied by a sombre Princess Anne for a six-hour journey to Edinburgh. A hearse carrying the late monarch passed through the gates of her beloved Highland home, and minutes later travelled 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. A hearse carrying the late monarch passed through the gates of her beloved Highland home, and minutes later travelled through Ballater where villagers - many of whom knew the monarch personally - threw flowers onto the road With a single motorbike outrider leading the way and six vehicles following, the hearse travelled at a stately pace through the Aberdeenshire countryside to Aberdeen, with Princess Anne and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence following directly behind in a state Bentley. 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. 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. In Peterculter people lined up on horseback to pay their respects, an appropriate gesture for Queen Elizabeth who was an avid rider Tractors lined both sides of the road as the Queen's cortege passed through the Aberdeenshire countryside on its way to Edinburgh 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. Scottish farmers paid their respects to the Queen by lining her procession route with dozens of tractors. The late Queen, pictured beaming in a hot pink coat during a visit to her beloved Ballater in 2021 The Monarch sourced her food in Ballater, and entertained a friendly relationship with the local businesses (pictured at the butcher in 2012) In 1946, the late Monarch, then Princess Elizabeth, was pictured waiting for the train with Princess Margaret at Ballater train station The guard of honour lined both sides of the road as the cortege passed through the Aberdeenshire countryside on its way to Edinburgh. 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. 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'. Further along in Peterculter people lined up on horseback to pay their respects, an appropriate gesture for Queen Elizabeth who was an avid rider. 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.' 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. Last month, the 82-year-old monarch her announced decision to strip Joachim's children of their royal titles Advertisement Prince Joachim looked relaxed as he enjoyed time with his wife Princess Marie and daughter Princess Athena in Paris on Friday. The Danish prince, 53, took his little dog for a walk and ran errands with his second wife, 46, to pick up items such as a baguette in the French capital. It is the first time Queen Margrethe's youngest son has been seen since the Royal Danish Household confirmed the mother and son had sat down for peace talks following her decision to strip his children of their princely titles. The royal couple seemed unaffected by recent reports that Prince Joachim had once been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law Princess Mary as royal fans speculated over how deep the conflict within the Danish royal family runs. Last month, Queen Margrethe, 82, ruffled feathers when announcing Nikolai, 23, Felix, 20, Henrik, 13, and Athena, 10, would no longer be known as princes or princess from 1 January 2023, and would also no longer be referred to as His/Her Royal Highness. Instead, they will be Counts and Countesses and will be known as Their Excellencies. Following her announcement, Prince Joachim spoke to Danish publication Ekstra Bladet outside the Danish Embassy in Paris, where he lives with his French-born wife Princess Marie and his two youngest children, and said his four children had been 'hurt' by their grandmother's decision. Prince Joachim looked relaxed as he enjoyed time with his wife Princess Marie (pictured together) and daughter Princess Athena in Paris on Friday The Danish prince, 53, took his little dog for a walk and ran errands with his second wife (pictured), 46, to pick up a French baguette Queen Margrethe (pictured in blue) made the decision to strip princely titles from Prince Nikolai (left), Prince Felix (second from left), Prince Henrik (right) and Princess Athena (second from right). Also pictured: Prince Joachim and Princess Marie The Danish Royal Family tree. Prince Joachim's children Nikolai, 23, Felix, 20, Henrik, 13, and Athena, 10, will all be losing their titles on January 1 2023 He said that, despite the Danish Royal Household claiming he had had several months' notice, he was actually only given five days to break the news to them. Queen Margrethe's rationale behind her decision was that she wanted the children to lead more normal lives. The decision does not affect heir to the throne, Crown Prince Frederick's children with his wife Princess Mary; Prince Christian, 16, Princess Isabella, 15, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, 11. As tensions brewed within the Danish royal family, Queen Margrethe released an unprecedented statement in which she apologised for her announcement - however she insisted her decision was the right one. The monarch admitted she had 'underestimated' the impact of her actions but said was 'a long time coming' and it had been made as 'a Queen, mother and grandmother.' The statement read: 'In recent days, there have been strong reactions to my decision on the future use of titles for Prince Joachim's four children. It obviously affects me. It is the first time Queen Margrethe's youngest son has been seen since the Royal Danish Household confirmed the mother and son had sat down for peace talks following her decision to strip his children of their princely titles Prince Joachim (pictured) previously spoke to Danish publication Ekstra Bladet outside the Danish Embassy in Paris, where he lives with his French-born wife Princess Marie and his two youngest children, and said his four children had been 'hurt' by their grandmother's decision The royal couple (pictured) seemed unaffected by recent reports that Prince Joachim had once been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law Princess Mary as royal fans speculated over how deep the conflict within the Danish royal family runs Joachim (pictured right) said that, despite the Danish Royal Household claiming he had had several months' notice, he was actually only given five days to break the news to them During Friday's outing, Princess Marie looked typically stylish in a cream autumn coat, grey trousers and casual trainers Queen Margrethe's rationale behind her decision was that she wanted the children to lead more normal lives. Pictured, Joachim and Marie on Friday 'My decision has been a long time coming. With my 50 years on the throne, it is natural both to look back and to look forward.' It added: 'Carrying a royal title entails a number of obligations and duties, which will in future be the responsibility of fewer members of the royal family. 'This adaptation, which I see as a necessary safeguard for the future of the monarchy, I want to make in my time.' Rumours of a rift were further exacerbated by reports from Spanish publication Vanitatis Elconfidencial that Prince Joachim had once been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law Princess Mary. The reports came days after Prince Joachim admitted his relationship with older brother Crown Prince Frederik was 'complicated'. The decision does not affect heir to the throne, Crown Prince Frederick's children with his wife Princess Mary; Prince Christian, 16, Princess Isabella, 15, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, 11. Pictured, Joachim and Marie in Paris Rumours of a rift were further exacerbated by reports from Spanish publication Vanitatis Elconfidencial that Prince Joachim (pictured right) had once been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law Princess Mary Sharing a smile! Princess Marie could be seen wearing a grin when walking alongside her husband Joachim and their pet dog The reports came days after Prince Joachim (pictured on Friday) admitted his relationship with older brother Crown Prince Frederik was 'complicated' Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark 'was not part of the meeting' between his mother Queen Margrethe II and his younger brother over royal titles, the Royal Household confirmed - after Prince Joachim admitted the siblings' relationship is 'complicated'. Margrethe, 82, and her youngest son Joachim engaged in peace talks last week to try and smooth tensions that have arisen after the monarch announced last week she would be stripping his four children of their royal titles, which he claimed had 'hurt' them. Out of a title: The four grandchildren who will no longer be TRHs Nikolai of Denmark, 23: The Copenhagen Business School student and model regularly tops lists of the world's most eligible bachelors. He lives in Denmark but has jetted around the world to walk for designers in Paris and London. Nikolai has also appeared on the cover of Vogue Scandinavia. Felix of Denmark, 20: Following in his brother's footsteps, Prince Felix has also had success as a model and has starred in an advertising campaign for Georg Jensen. He had a short stint at the Royal Danish Military Academy but quit after two months because it 'wasn't for him'. Henrik, 13, and Athena, 10, of Denmark: The youngest of Prince Joachim's four children, Henrik and Athena are the product of his second marriage to Princess Marie. They live with their parents in Paris. Advertisement Following the meeting, the palace confirmed that the monarch and Joachim want to 'look forward' and are trying to 'find their way through' their differences - however, Frederik did not attend the meeting at Fredensborg. Danish publication B.T. reported: According to the Royal House, the Crown Prince was not part of the meeting, with a statement from the palace reading: 'The Queen and Prince Joachim have spoken together at Fredensborg. Everyone agrees to look forward, and as the Queen herself has expressed, she and Prince Joachim want calm to find their way through this situation.' B.T.'s royal correspondent Jacob Heinel Jensen said of the significant and positive development between the monarch and her youngest son, that it was not surprising that Frederik wasnt included. The expert said: Prince Joachim himself has acknowledged that the relationship with the Crown Prince couple was complicated, so it is not surprising that he was not there. It is the Queen's decision, and she is the one who must bear the brunt of it. He added of the meeting: This is crucial for their relationship. There will be an event in the future where it is important that we as a population believe that they have become friends again, now the first stones have been laid. Amid the tensions, Spanish magazine Vaniatis Elconfidencial since sparked more speculation around the rift, after reporting that Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law Mary'. A photograph was even published by Swedish womans weekly magazine 'Svensk Damtidning', allegedly showing Joachim trying to kiss Mary at a gala party of the Royal Guard Regiment. The Spanish magazine recalled: 'With obvious signs of drunkenness, it seems that the youngest son of Queen Margarethe tried to stamp his lips on his sister-in-law's mouth, that she got out of the way as she could and with an unperturbed smile, while Marie witnessed the embarrassing moment.' It also suggested that shortly after Frederik and Mary's wedding in 2004, Danish media began to speculate that Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law'. Prince Frederik of Denmark 'was not part of the meeting' between his mother Queen Margrethe II and his younger brother over royal titles, the Royal Household confirmed - after Prince Joachim admitted the siblings' relationship is 'complicated'. Pictured, Frederik and Joachim in August 2022 Queen Margrethe (centre, in 2015) had a meeting with Prince Joachim (right) following animosity after he said his children were 'hurt' by her decision to remove their princely titles (Left: Crown Prince Frederik) The news comes as a Spanish magazine reported the Prince had been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law and Crown Prince Frederik's wife, Princess Mary. Pictured in 2014 'In fact, it didn't help that in 2007 he announced his engagement to a French girl (Princess Marie) with the same name and a striking physical resemblance,' wrote the magazine. But with such strong rumours about the prince's crush on Mary, the magazine claims Margarethe called 'them to order' and 'started a campaign to show that there were no problems between the two women,' including 'unscheduled outings' together. MailOnline contacted the Danish Royal Household for comment. Meanwhile, following the royal drama, Queen Margrethe issued a public apology for her decision to strip four of her grandchildren - the sons and daughter of her youngest son, Prince Joachim - of their royal titles. She said she was sorry for hurting her family with the 'difficult decision' but insisted it was the right choice. And according to Danish royal commentators, the public statement is 'completely unusual' and shows how serious the conflict within the family has become. It's been a dramatic time for the Danish Royal Family - after Queen Margarethe revealed that she would be removing princely titles from four of her grandchildren. Pictured, Princess Marie, Prince Joachim, Princess Mary and Prince Frederik in 2019 Prince Joachim (pictured) hit out at his mother Queen Margrethe II's decision to strip his four children of their royal titles They added the Queen likely fears coming across as an 'ice queen', following several emotive public statements from Joachim in which he spoke of how his children had been 'harmed' by their grandmother's decision. Speaking to Danish publication Ekstra Bladet, royal house expert Lars Hovbakke Srensen said: 'It is a completely unusual situation, it is historic, and it shows something about the seriousness that the Queen feels called to make such a personal announcement in a press release. Revealed: The Danish Royal Family's VERY glamorous palaces It's perhaps no surprise that a European Royal Family enjoys several castles and palaces - however for the Danish household, many of the properties are owned by the state, and run by the Agency for Palaces and Cultural Properties. This includes the main residence of Amalienborg, the family's spring home of Fredensborg Palace, their summer house of Grasten Palace and the hunting lodge Eremitageslottet . The Danish Queen's personal properties include Marselisborg Castle, Chateau de Caix in France, and the royal hunting lodge in Jutland at Trend. Prince Joachim lives with his second wife in Paris - but when he returns home to Denmark it is sometimes to the Schackenborg Castle in southern Jutland. The estate was the prince's private residence from 1993 to 2014, before he sold the property. But since Prince Joachim and Princess Marie are on the board of the Schackenborg Castle Foundation, they occasionally return to live there for short periods of time. Amalienborg, the Danish household's main residence, pictured The family's spring home of Fredensborg Palace, pictured The Danish Queen's personal properties include Marselisborg Castle, pictured The Royal Danish family's summer residence of Grasten Slot, pictured Advertisement 'It is quite unusual and she has never done this before. It shows that there is a huge conflict.' Mr Srensen added the Queen's statement was a way of 'trying to close this conflict' and draw a line under it, following several days of turbulence between the monarch and her youngest son. Prince Joachim told Ekstra Bladet his children had been 'hurt' by their grandmother's decision to remove their princely titles and make them counts and countesses, adding he had only had a few days to break the news to them before it was announced publicly. However, according to Mr Srensen: 'You cannot have members or former members of the royal house constantly speaking in the press about the Queen's decision and discussing back and forth with each other in full public view.' He added Queen Margrethe 'had to say something' following Prince Joachim's public comments. In a statement, the monarch admitted she had 'underestimated' the impact of her actions but said it was 'a long time coming' and it had been made as 'a Queen, mother and grandmother.' Another royal expert, Jacob Heinel Jensen, agreed the Queen felt 'compelled' to issue a public statement about the reported animosity and told B.T. the Queen's statement reflected the 'crazy situation' the Danish Royal Household finds itself in. He added it is likely she did not want to make a public apology about her decision, but that Prince Joachim's public comments left her with no choice but to address the accusations. Mr Heinel Jensen said: 'Queen Margrethe has felt compelled to [issue a statement], and it is because the Royal House is of course afraid that she will appear like an ice queen, which she has become in the past week. This is of course an attempt to say that she is not, she also feels it and is upset about the situation.' He added he thought the Queen's decision was the right one - although he was unsure if it would calm Prince Joachim's strong feelings about his mother's decision. The Queen's statement read: 'In recent days, there have been strong reactions to my decision on the future use of titles for Prince Joachim's four children. It obviously affects me. My decision has been a long time coming. With my 50 years on the throne, it is natural both to look back and to look forward. 'It is my duty and my wish as Queen to ensure that the monarchy continues to shape itself in keeping with the times. It sometimes requires difficult decisions to be made, and it will always be difficult to find the right moment. 'Carrying a royal title entails a number of obligations and duties, which will in future be the responsibility of fewer members of the royal family. This adaptation, which I see as a necessary safeguard for the future of the monarchy, I want to make in my time.' She continued: 'I have made my decision as Queen, mother and grandmother, but as a mother and grandmother I have underestimated how much my youngest son and his family feel affected. It makes a big impression, and I'm sorry for that. No one should be in doubt that my children, children-in-law and grandchildren are my great joy and pride. 'I now hope that we as a family can find the peace to find our way through this situation ourselves.' She signed off the note; 'MARGRETHE R.' According to Mr Srensen, the incredibly personal statement, which includes the Queen's admission she had 'underestimated' how seriously her grandchildren would be affected by the change, shows how serious the conflict within the family is. Commenting on his children's reaction to the move to B.T., Joachim said his children 'don't know which leg to stand on as their identity is removed' - and questioned 'why must they be punished in that way?'. The prince said: 'I can say that my children are sad. My kids don't know which leg to stand on. What they should believe. Why should their identity be removed? Why must they be punished in that way?' 'I don't want to engage in speculation and mudslinging,' said Joachim. 'I am telling the truth... I was given five days notice... I was given five days' notice of this. To tell my children that on New Year's their identity will be taken from them.' He added that in May, he was presented with a plan that his 'children's identity should be taken from them when each of them turned 25', to which he asked 'to be allowed to come back with my proposal'. But he said he was given just five days notice that the decision was to be accelerated, adding: 'I am so sorry for my children. I just demand the truth.' A mother-of-four who was unable to close her mouth properly for decades has finally found confidence in her smile after undergoing a 6,000 dental treatment in Turkey. Leona Clarke, 41, from London, was 'petrified' of going to the dentist for 20 years and says she was targeted by cruel bullies in school who made fun of her 'horse teeth'. Having suffered with gingivitis as a child, which is an early stage of gum disease caused by the build-up of plaque, the stay-at-home mother claims the condition caused her front teeth to protrude from where her gums had receded. Witnessing the impact it was having on Leona's everyday life, the mother's step-sister suggested that she look into having her teeth fixed in early 2020. However when she approached various UK dentists, Leona was told that she needed to have 'all fours' - otherwise known as implants and crowns - fitted which would cost 22,000. At this point, Leona started looking into cheaper procedures in Turkey and found a 6,000 package which included implants, bone graft, sinus lift and crowns. Leona Clarke, 41, was bullied for her 'horse teeth' in school. The mother pictured before having her teeth fixed The mother-of-four travelled to Turkey for two surgeries in 2020 to fix her smile. Pictured in August 2020 after the second procedure Opening up about the effect her teeth before her transformation had on her self-esteem, Leona said: 'My teeth were horrific, they were big, bulky and embarrassing.' 'I had zero confidence, I would not smile in photos and people thought I was quiet because my mouth was always closed. 'I was referred to as having horse teeth which stuck like glue in my head and even started seeing this myself when I looked in the mirror.' Over the years, Leona says she could only pluck up the courage to go to the dentist if she had sunglasses and headphones to block out the drilling. Discussing a 'traumatising' childhood visit to the dentist, she continued: 'I have been terrified of drills and dentists for decades. I remember hearing the drill as it went through my body like someone scratching on a board, I was petrified and in a lot of pain.' Doctors removed all but four of Leona's teeth during the first surgery. Leona pictured after her first procedure in March 2020 Leona found a 6,000 package which included implants, bone graft, sinus lift and crowns in Turkey. Pictured left: an X-ray of Leona's teeth when she first arrived. The mother-of-four was sent back to the UK with temporary teeth in March 2020. Pictured right: Leona showing off her false teeth after her first surgery What's more, Leona's front-teeth protruded so dramatically that the mother was unable to close her mouth for years. Recalling her decision to fix her teeth, she said: 'The Turkey clinic said I would need quite a lot of work, as I had bone loss and that I'd need two visits, with a 10-day stay for each. 'I made a mistake of Googling the procedure beforehand and this frightened me but knowing I would be able to have the perfect smile in as little as six months made it all worth it.' In March 2020, Leona underwent her first eight-hour procedure - which involved dentists removing all but four of her teeth. She said: 'Sitting in the chair was actually OK, and not understanding what the surgeon and nurse were speaking about kind of helped. 'I was excited and anxious at the same time, excited for the outcome but anxious about feeling or hearing anything. The mother-of-four could only eat soft foods in the immediate aftermath of the surgery. Pictured recovering from the procedure 'They removed all my teeth, apart from four which they left in for a frame and they ground my own teeth into a paste. They used this to rebuild my bone for the graft and I also had 12 implants, as well as a sinus lift in the first surgery. 'I was very confused as I woke up and the next few days were tough, as I was quite swollen and I couldn't eat anything.' During the procedure, doctors found that Leona also had four root canals so she was sent home with temporary teeth. Five months later, she flew out to Turkey again for her second round of treatment. Before and after! Leona spent 6,000 on her new smile and says she no longer feels the need to cover her teeth in pictures During the lengthy surgery, Leona's temporary teeth were removed and her new set were implanted with their caps. What is gingivitis? Gingivitis is an early stage of gum disease caused by the buildup of plaque, a naturally occurring biofilm containing bacteria, on the tissues that surround the teeth. This swelling is often caused by the buildup of plaque. If left untreated, gingivitis can develop into a more severe form of gum disease, known as periodontitis, which is a major cause of tooth loss in adults. Gingivitis is often painless, so if you exhibit any signs or symptoms be sure to visit your dental professional for a proper assessment and to determine a course of treatment. Source: Oral B Advertisement She said: 'The healing process took three months, so eating was quite hard I had to puree my food for the first six weeks. 'I couldn't chew properly so I could only eat soft food that was easy to swallow. I was so hungry I lived on rice and mashed potatoes. 'I remember taking my children to McDonald's, and all I wanted was a French fry, so I sucked the potato out and discarded the crunchy outside!' 'Since my surgery, everything has been great and I can eat what I like, as well as never having toothache again.' Since recovering from her second surgery, Leona says her new smile has worked wonders for her confidence. She added: 'I have personally sent others to my surgeon for the same treatment, one being my cousin who has finished and another two of my friends. It's like a domino effect. 'I would say to anyone thinking of having it done, to really research the clinic and ask to speak with patients who have had the procedure. 'I'm so happy and my smile shows this.' Needless to say, Leona's four children are also thrilled to see their mother finally confident with her smile and accompanied her to Turkey in August 2020. While her eldest two commented on how Leona's face has 'changed shape', her younger children couldn't help but gush over her 'clean and shiny' new teeth. Earlier this year, Leona shared a video documenting her experience on TikTok which went on to amass over 73,100 views and thousands of likes. TikTok stars rubbed shoulders with designers at a glitzy event celebrating the new names to watch on the British fashion scene. Creators Abby Roberts, Francis Bourgeois and Viktor Kunda joined Henry Holland at an event to celebrate the 2022/23 NEWGEN designers at an event at the NoMad Hotel in London last night. The rising stars being celebrated included NEWGEN designers Helen Kirkum, Alim Roker and Yuhan Wang. TikTok superstar: Abby Roberts, left, was joined by her sister Charlotte at the event hosted by TikTok to celebrate NEWGEN 2022/23 Famous faces: Designer Henry Holland, pictured, turned out to celebrate rising stars in British fashion The evening included a live acoustic performance from Izzi De Rosa and Jodie Harsh kept the beats coming with a DJ set. As community partner of BFC NEWGEN, TikTok is helping this next generation of British design talent reach an even bigger audience globally. This September for the first time ever, all NEWGEN catwalks were livestreamed from the show space, reaching a combined audience of over 167,000. Abby Roberts, from Coventry, was just 11 when she started posting make-up tutorials on YouTube. Vibes: The evening included a live acoustic performance from Izzi De Rosa and Jodie Harsh, pictured, kept the beats coming with a DJ set In 2019, she began posting videos in TikTok on from her bedroom showing her make-up skills. She is now one of TikTok's biggest stars and looked typically fashionable as she attended last night's soiree with her sister, Charlotte. Abby looked trendy in black jeans and a long-sleeved black t-shirt, which she layered under a tartan corset. She wore her blonde locks swept up into a low-key ponytail. Meanwhile Charlotte opted for a moody ensemble of a black tank top and grey asymmetric skirt. Princess Eugenie opted for a low-key look when taking part in a digital event heralding Anti-Slavery Day - and said she hopes people will be 'inspired' by campaigners working to end modern slavery. The mother-of-one, 32, who returned to work from maternity leave two days ago, revealed in a video clip that her charitable organisation, the Anti-Slavery Collective, would be ramping up their social media presence in the lead up to October 18 - the date marking the day. In a video shared to Instagram, the royal revealed the collective, which she founded with Julia de Boinville in 2017, would be introducing their followers to key figures in the field of modern slavery on their Instagram account to raise awareness on human trafficking. Princess Eugenie has returned to her charitable duties this week, as she revealed in a video clip that her charitable organisation, the Anti-Slavery Collective, would be ramping up their social media presence in the lead up to October 18 - the date marking the International Day Eugenie founded the Anti-Slavery Collective with Julia de Boinville in 2017, right, who appeared alongside her in the video announcement Dressed in a casual red hoodie reading 'Anti-Slavery Collective,' the mother of August Brooksbank looked relaxed as she and Julia addressed their followers. 'Hi everyone, today we are very excited to be kicking off the countdown to Anti-Slavery Day,' she started. 'Anti-Slavery Day provides everyone with an opportunity to raise awareness of human trafficking and modern slavery; And to shine a light on the incredible people in this movement who are fighting towards ending modern slavery in all its forms,' Julia explained. 'Today and up until the 18th of October, we are going to be introducing you to a group of individuals whose voices, work and advocacy we admire,' Eugenie said. In a video shared to Instagram, the royal revealed the collective, which she founded with Julia de Boinville (pictured) in 2017, would be introducing their followers to key figures in the field of modern slavery on their Instagram account to raise awareness on human trafficking Dressed in a casual red hoodie reading 'Anti-Slavery Collective,' the mother of August Brooksbank looked relaxed as she and Julia addressed their followers 'We've asked them to share with you who they are, why fighting modern slavery is important to them, and how you can get involved in the movement,' Julia added. 'Keep an eye out for each one of these people on our Instagram. We hope you feel as inspired by them as we do,' the mother-of-one concluded. Earlier this year, Princess Eugenie launched the first episode of her weekly podcast for the Anti-Slavery Collective, Floodlight The podcast was designed to promote her charity and featured the pair's interviews with figures involved in the fight against modern slavery, including Dame Emma Thompson. The first guest was Caroline Haughey QC, who prosecuted the largest modern slavery trial case in the UK's history. Eugenie, 33, launched her own podcast with her best-friend and co-founder of the Anti-Slavery Collective, Julia de Boinville, right The royal invited fans to listen to the podcast on all available platforms, revealing a new episode each Wednesday Writing on Instagram at the time, Eugenie proudly announced the Anti-Slavery Collective's new venture. 'My charity, the Anti-Slavery Collective, is delighted to announce its new podcast, Floodlight,' she wrote on the platform. 'Join me, and my co-founder, Julia de Boinville each week as we sit down with guests from all walks of life who are helping to combat modern slavery in a variety of ways. 'From lawmakers and company leaders to famous activists, survivors and journalists, Floodlight shows you just how prominent modern slavery is and that we can all do something about it.' Dame Emma Thompson appeared on the show to talk about her experience working with victims of sex trafficking. Caroline Haughey QC, who took part in Operation Fort and prosecuted the biggest modern-day slavery network ever exposed in UK, was also among the select guest list. The charity partnered with award-winning independent podcast network Stakpod to produce the episodes. Eugenie has been a fervent supporter of the charity's mission to raise awareness about modern slavery in order to eradicate it and offer help to the 40 million people it affects around the world. Speaking on the podcast, Eugenie recalled first learning about the extent of modern slavery during a trip to Kolkata with Julia in 2012. During the visit the pair were introduced to 'incredible young women' who had been rescued from being trafficked and had been taught to print on fabrics, which they sold to gain their independence. 'They gave themselves independence and freedom and right to sort of live again and it meant suddenly, this is what the could do to be free', she said. Julia, who admitted she had no idea modern slavery existed when they embarked o the trip aged 21, said the pair could 'not unsee' what they had seen in Kolkata, and began doing research into the subject. As they embarked on research in the UK, the pair were shown around a safehouse for women who had escaped modern slavery, something Eugenie called 'so eye-opening'. 'It was our first experience of trafficking in England and we learned the fact there is someone being trafficked within a mile of where you live', said Eugenie. A woman has claimed that she caught Ned Fulmer from The Try Guys cheating back in May - and said she even tried to warn his wife about it without avail. Last month, many people were left stunned when news hit the web that Fulmer, 35, was having an affair with his producer, Alexandria Herring - after a clubgoer caught them making out - which resulted in him being fired from the popular YouTube show. At the time, Fulmer confirmed that he had cheated on his wife-of-10-years, Ariel Fulmer, whom he shares two children with, in a statement posted to Twitter, explaining that he had a 'consensual workplace relationship' and that he was 'sorry for any pain' he had caused. Now, a TikToker named Brie has claimed that she witnessed the social media star being unfaithful months earlier, and that she attempted to tell his wife about it but wasn't able to reach her. She shared a video to the streaming site, which seemingly showed Fulmer out to lunch with an unnamed gal pal in May; and while it is unclear if the woman in the video is Herring since her face cannot be seen - his unidentified companion has long, brunette hair similar to Herring's. A woman has claimed that she caught Ned Fulmer from The Try Guys cheating back in May, while sharing a video that seemingly showed him out to lunch with an unnamed woman She shared the clip to TikTok, which showed Fulmer and his unnamed gal pal laughing and chatting during an outing at the popular restaurant Castaway in Burbank, California Last month, news hit the web that Fulmer, 35, was having an affair with his producer Alexandria Herring (pictured) - after a clubgoer caught them making out At the time, Fulmer confirmed that he had cheated on his wife-of-10-years, Ariel Fulmer (pictured), whom he shares two children with, in a statement posted to Twitter The two could be seen laughing and chatting during an outing at the popular restaurant Castaway in Burbank, California. Brie also claimed in the comment section of the video that she witnessed them 'making out,' but that she did not get it on tape. 'When you knew Ned was cheating in May...' she wrote alongside the clip. The video then cut to a screengrab of a message Brie had sent to Fulmer's wife, Ariel, in which she told the mother-of-two what she had seen, accompanied by the video. 'Hi, I'm not sure [of] the ins and outs of your marriage and I am not trying to start anything,' she wrote in the message. 'However, I would want to know if this was my husband. Either your husband has a doppelganger in LA [who] was at Castaway restaurant in Burbank on Friday at 5pm or it was your husband. 'I saw him there with a younger girl with dark, long hair. They were kissing and I have some videos and photos of them. Again, I'm not trying to cause anything I just wanted to bring clarity to you.' Now, a TikToker named Brie has claimed that she witnessed the star being unfaithful months earlier, and that she attempted to tell his wife about it but wasn't able to reach her Brie also claimed in the comment section of the TikTok that she witnessed them 'making out,' but that she did not get it on tape. It is unclear if the woman in the video is Herring The video featured a screengrab of a message Brie had sent to Fulmer's wife, Ariel, in which she told the mother-of-two what she had seen, accompanied by the video Shocking: In a follow-up video, Brie explained that she originally assumed that the dinner was innocent - until they started kissing. She added: 'I was so shook' @brieeezybaby Replying to @neuch12 here is the story time yall been wanting original sound - Briebrie In a follow-up video, Brie explained that she originally assumed that the dinner was innocent - until they started kissing. 'I thought, maybe they're just getting dinner as friends - but then they start macking in front of the seafood tower,' she said. 'I was so shook. It felt weird to record him making out, so the only photos and recording I have is what you've seen.' While she admitted that she was tempted to approach him and ask him about the situation right there and then, Brie said she 'didn't want to make a mess.' She added: 'I still wasn't even sure it was him, so I took the videos just in case. 'I contemplated sending it to [Ariel] because I wasn't sure if it was my place. But I came to the conclusion that if I was a wife, I'd want to know.' According to Brie, Ariel never responded to the message, and she's unsure if she ever even saw it. As for why she decided to share it online now, she said she hoped it would get Ariel's attention - especially now that the truth has come to light. 'If he's telling her a different timeline and she doesn't know the truth, I'm hoping she sees this,' she explained. 'Also, I feel justified. I wasn't crazy, that was Ned and he was doing some shenanigans.' DailyMail.com has reached out to Ned Fulmer and The Try Guys for comment. While she admitted that she was tempted to approach him and ask him about the situation right there and then, Brie said she 'didn't want to make a mess' According to Brie, Ariel never responded to the message, and she's unsure if she ever even saw it. Ariel is pictured with Fulmer Fulmer's affair was brought to light after someone recorded him smooching his producer, Herring, in a New York City club (seen) in September and sent the footage to Herring's fiance Fulmer's affair was publicized after someone recorded him smooching his producer, Herring, in a New York City club in September and sent the footage to Herring's fiance, Will Thayer.Thayer then shared some grabs from the videos in a shocking Reddit post. After that, The Try Guys made the heartbreaking announcement that Ned was no longer part of the group. 'Ned Fulmer is no longer working with The Try Guys. As a result of a thorough internal review, we do not see a path forward together,' a statement read. 'We thank you for your support as we navigate this change.' Fulmer then admitted to the affair and apologized for his actions. He said, 'Family should have always been my priority, but I lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship. 'I'm sorry for any pain that my actions may have caused to the guys and the fans but most of all to Ariel 'The only thing that matters right now is my marriage and my children, and that's where I am going to focus my attention.' Just after that, Ariel released a statement on her Instagram that read: 'Thanks to everyone who has reached out to me - it means a lot. 'Nothing is more important to me and Ned than our family, and all we request right now is that you respect our privacy for the sake of our kids.' Fulmer and his wife share two sons: Wesley, who was born in April 2018, and Finley, born in November 2020. Aside from often appearing in videos together on YouTube, they also co-hosted a podcast and had written a cookbook together. The Try Guys started at Buzzfeed in 2014, when Fulmer, Keith Habersberger, 35, Zach Kornfeld, 32, and Eugene Lee Yang, 36, were employees at the publication and started creating videos trying new things. Herring's fiance, Will Thayer (pictured with Herring), then shared some grabs from the videos in a shocking Reddit post Parting ways: After that, The Try Guys made the heartbreaking announcement that Ned was no longer part of the group. The three remaining members are seen The group has since gained more than 15 million followers across their platforms and has racked up billions of views on their videos, which see them trying out popular trends together. While their exact earnings are not known, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the group makes an estimated $6 million per year from their online content alone. 'In terms of revenue, they have 4,000 patrons on Patreon, so if the average patron gives $25 a month they generate around $100,000 monthly,' Eyal Baumel, president of Yoola, a company that has overseen many other popular YouTube creators, told the outlet. Speaking out: Fulmer then admitted to the affair and apologized for his actions. He said, 'Family should have always been my priority, but I lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship' 'On YouTube, they average 30 million monthly views. With an average RPM [revenue per mille, a metric representing money earned per 1000 views] of $5, they should generate $150,000 monthly on YouTube. 'If you add merch, Facebook, Snap, and sponsored content they can generate around $500,000 a month or even more.' In a YouTube video shared on October 3, the three remaining members said that they were alerted about Fulmer's infidelities on Labor day, and that they made the decision to fire him on September 16. 'Ned confirmed the reports and since confirmed that this had been going on for some time, which was obviously very shocking to us,' said Habersberger. 'And we just want you to know that we had no idea this was going on. All of that information was just as shocking to us as all of this has been for you this week.' 'From the jump, we were acutely aware of just how contrary this was to the values of the company we've built and those of everyone who works here,' added a noticeably angry Yang. Ariel also released a statement on her Instagram that read: 'Nothing is more important to me and Ned than our family, and all we request right now is that you respect our privacy' The Try Guys started in 2014, when Fulmer, Keith Habersberger, 35, Zach Kornfeld, 32, and Eugene Lee Yang, 36, were employees at Buzzfeed and started creating videos together The group has since gained more than 15 million followers across their platforms and has racked up billions of views on their videos, reportedly earning $6 million a year 'This is something we took very seriously. We refused to sweep things under the rug. That is not who we are and is not what we stand for.' Kornfeld struggled to contain his emotion when he spoke of the hurt and sadness they felt at Fulmer's actions. 'I don't know that we'll ever be able to fully articulate the pain we feel at this moment,' he told viewers. 'It's hard to re-watch old videos that we love and are proud of. 'We're losing a friend, we're losing someone we built a company with, we have countless memories with.' Habersberger explained that they had commissioned an independent review into Fulmer's actions, and concluded that they could no longer work with him. 'Now, we can't talk about the details of the review, but suffice to say we found that Ned had engaged in contact, well, conduct unbecoming of our team and we knew that we could not move forward with him,' he stated. Kornfeld then explained that they had already filmed tons of content with Fulmer, and that while they were attempting to edit him out of it, some of the footage was 'fully un-releasable.' 'There are several videos that we've deemed as fully un-releasable. You will never see them and that is due to his involvement,' the group announced. 'And that's a decision that has cost us lots of money.' Kornfeld said the three of them had decided it was worth the cost, but added that they were all 'working with editors in finding creative solutions to the footage.' The three also stressed that there were families involved, and urged fans of the channel not to vilify the women involved. 'We also wanna remind you that the internet has a tendency to be a lot harsher towards women than men,' said Yang. 'So please, we ask that you exercise kindness.' Kornfeld concluded: 'We were obviously incredibly shocked and deeply hurt by all of this. This is someone who we'd built a brand and a company with for eight years. 'We feel saddened, not just personally, but on behalf of our staff and our fans who believed in us.' King Charles is to guest star in a special episode of The Repair Shop as part of the BBC's centenary celebrations. In the programme, Charles, 73, will meet with the show's host Jay Blades and his expert team of craftspeople to explore their shared passion for preserving heritage craft skills. The team will also mend two precious items chosen by the monarch - a piece of pottery made for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and a 18th century clock. The special was announced during The One Show on Tuesday, with the episode airing on October 26 at 8pm on BBC One. In August 2021, Blades' team, ceramics expert Kirsten Ramsay, horologist Steve Fletcher and furniture restorer Will Kirk were invited to Dumfries House in Scotland to meet the King, then the Prince of Wales, and learn about The Prince's Foundation's work in training the next generation of craftspeople. This comes as it has been revealed today that the King's coronation will take place on May 6 next year. Earlier today, Charles and Queen Consort Camilla received a warm welcome as they visited Ballater in Aberdeenshire. Scroll down for video The King, standing with presenter Jay Blades, is to guest star in a special episode of The Repair Shop as part of the BBC's centenary celebrations In the programme, Charles, pictured with Blades, Steve Fletcher, Kirsten Ramsay and Will Kirk, will meet with the show's host Jay Blades and his expert team of craftspeople to explore their shared passion for preserving heritage craft skills The team will also mend two precious items chosen by the monarch - a piece of pottery made for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and a 18th century clock. Charles met with Jay and his team in 2021 Presenter Blades announced that Charles would appear on the episode on the One Show tonight and in a teaser clip from the programme, Blades and his team were seen chatting with the King. 'We're going to take these items to take a better look at them, and maybe you might join us at the barn,' Jay told the sovereign. 'I've got a barn, you've got a barn,' the monarch joked. 'We can have a barn dance.' Blades cheekily said: 'I'll put the kettle on,' to which the King replied: 'oh, will you?' Speaking of the sovereign, Jay told the One Show: 'I think it's fair to say that he is a fan of the show, and he does come down to the barn. 'When you see King Charles in this show, you're never going to see him like this, he was so relaxed, unbelievable, filming with him was such a joy, he was absolutely normal,' he added. The episode will see Charles give Blades a tour of the estate as well as meeting some of the students on the Building Craft Programme set up by The Prince's Foundation which teaches traditional skills such as blacksmithing, stonemasonry and wood carving. Blades, who grew up in Hackney, London, said: 'You've got someone from a council estate and someone from a royal estate that have the same interests about apprenticeships and heritage crafts and it is unbelievable to see that two people from so far apart, from different ends of the spectrum, actually have the same interests.' Meanwhile, the collections manager of Dumfries House, Satinder Kaur, gives Kirk, Ramsay and Fletcher a tour of its collection of 18th century furniture and decorative arts. Presenter Blades announced that Charles would appear on the episode on the One Show. In a teaser clip from the programme, Blades is seen walking up to the workshop with The King It has been announced that King Charles will feature in an upcoming episode of The Repair Shop. Pictured sharing a laugh with host Jay Blades The Repair Shop team will mend two precious items chosen by the monarch - a piece of pottery made for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and a 18th century clock. Pictured meeting the team of experts at the start of the video In spring 2022, Blades and the team welcomed the King to The Repair Shop barn to be reunited with the items. Charles (pictured earlier this year) was still the Prince of Wales at the time of filming The special was announced during The One Show on Tuesday, with the episode airing on October 26 at 8pm on BBC One Within the episode, the Repair Shop team also pledge to restore two historic pieces that the King has selected of an 18th century bracket clock from the collection at Dumfries House and a piece of pottery made for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee by Wemyss Ware, a renowned British ceramics company founded in 1882. A skills swap also ensues as the Building Craft Programme lends its graduate Jeremy Cash to the Repair Shop to work alongside metalwork expert Dom Chinea on a special third item - a fire set in the shape of a soldier which has a poignant story behind its existence. In spring 2022, Blades and the team welcomed the King to The Repair Shop barn to be reunited with the items. BBC commissioning editor Julie Shaw said: 'This is an incredibly special programme which has the magic that Repair Shop viewers have come to know and love. 'People will see the former Prince of Wales as you rarely see him - and he is as captivated by the skills of the team who work on his items as any of our Repair Shop visitors. 'The episode is a real treat and we hope that people enjoy it as much as we do.' Joanna Ball, executive producer of The Repair Shop and managing director of Ricochet, added: 'We're so happy that The Repair Shop can play a part highlighting how important passing on craft skills to the next generation is. King Charles III and the Queen Consort received a warm welcome during their visit of Ballater in Aberdeenshire this afternoon The pair, adorned in tartan were welcomed to the Victoria and Albert Halls as pipes played on arrival 'Hosting His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales at the barn was a real privilege for the whole team.' Kaur, collections manager for Dumfries House, said: 'At The Prince's Foundation, we are very proud to have partnered with The Repair Shop for this very special episode. 'It was a joy to welcome Jay Blades and the talented restorers to our Dumfries House headquarters to explore our collection of 18th century furniture and decorative arts, including many examples of Thomas Chippendale's work, which were a huge hit with the team. 'They also met with students benefiting from our Building Craft Programme, which helps preserve heritage building craft skills that are at risk of being lost through education and training. 'Over the past five years, The Repair Shop has done of a wonderful job of showcasing the skill involved in craftsmanship, and of highlighting the importance of repairing items, rather than replacing them, so it was a very natural collaboration.' The programme was filmed between autumn 2021 and March 2022, before Charles became King following the death of his mother the Queen. The special episode of The Repair Shop will air on October 26 at 8pm on BBC One. Mike Tindall has reportedly signed up to join this year's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!. The 43-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II's granddaughter Zara will join next month's cast in the Australian jungle, according to The Sun. The former England Rugby player will reportedly be the first royal on prime time reality TV, and is said to be joining the likes of Boy George, comic Seann Walsh and DJ Chris Moyles to compete for the Jungle crown. The details around the father of three's deal 'remain a closely guarded secret', however, a source told the publication: 'It's a massive coup. Mike has had a box seat for some of the most important moments in royal history for generations. 'He is sure to be discreet, but his sheer presence means this series will be an absolute must-watch.' Mike Tindall has reportedly signed up to join this year's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Pictured: The late Queen, Zara and Mike in 2006 The 43-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II 's granddaughter Zara (pictured on their wedding day in 2011) will join next month's cast in the Australian jungle, according to The Sun The former England Rugby player (pictured) will reportedly be the first royal on prime time reality TV , and is said to be joining the likes of Boy George, comic Seann Walsh and DJ Chris Moyles to compete for the Jungle crown Mike, who lifted the 2003 World Cup with England, married Zara in 2011 and the couple have three children together: Mia, eight, Lena, four, and Lucas, one. However, his reported appearance on I'm A Celeb won't be his first feature on a reality TV programme in 2015, the former rugby player appeared on Channel 4 winter sports show The Jump. An I'm A Celeb spokesman told MailOnline: 'Any names suggested for Im A CelebrityGet Me Out Of Here! are just speculation. We'll officially announce our line up for the new series nearer its transmission.' Actress Sue Cleaver, actor Owen Warner and reality TV star Olivia Attwood have also all recently been tipped to star on the ITV show. Miss Attwood, 31 who finished third on Love Island alongside ex-boyfriend Chris Hughes in 2017 is expected to become the first-ever star of the dating show to take part in the competition. ITV bosses are said to hope she'll be a hit with viewers as they are keen to secure her for more projects in the future. Mike, who lifted the 2003 World Cup with England, married Zara (pictured at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral last month) in 2011 and the couple have three children together: Mia, eight, Lena, four, and Lucas, one An insider recently said: 'This is a sign that the dating favourite is now so big and produces figures with such high profiles that they can no longer be dismissed. 'Olivia is already viewed as a rising star on ITV and this is likely to serve as a launchpad for potentially fronting more mainstream shows with the broadcaster.' Last month, Mike candidly revealed how the Royal Family 'came together overnight' following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The ex-England rugby ace also admitted he is 'full of regret' for not asking the Queen more questions during his time with her. Mike reflected on his relationship with the late monarch in a special episode of his podcast The Good, The Bad and The Rugby. Mike reflects on his relationship with the Queen in a special episode of his podcast The Good, The Bad and The Rugby He said: 'It's been sad, emotional but happy. In some ways amazing. To see the family come so close together overnight. You never predict it. A 96-year-old lady, you know it's going to happen but you're never ready for when it does. 'Watching what Zara had to go through, obviously she loved the Queen beyond everything else. Their connection with horses, they had a real bond around that. It's like the world has lost its grandmother in some way.' He continued: 'I also have loads of regrets about not asking her so many more things Having nervousness when you sit there get that lucky seat of being sat next to her. 'Going back through history and everything shes possibly seen; 15 prime ministers, I dont know how many presidents. To go through everything when shes meeting dictators she has to stay neutral she has to perform her duty.' Zara and her husband Mike attend a thanksgiving service as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations at St Paul's Cathedral in June Later in the podcast, he said the Royal Family had been 'blown away' by tributes from members of the public. 'You expect an outpouring of love but I think how it was, the world leaders that came in accepted their invitation without question. Immediately came back and said "yeah we're coming",' he said, adding there was 'no jostling for positions' between the hugely important guests. Talking about the Queen's funeral arrangements, which she was consulted on before her death, Mike revealed he had been told a story (although he could not verify it) about the plane that was due to fly Her late Majesty's coffin from Scotland back to London. He said the plane that was originally intended to carry her was too small, and instead officials had suggested a larger aircraft that had been used to carry the bodies of servicemen back from Afghanistan. Mike sits behind four-year-old Prince Louis in the Royal Box and entertains the boy with funny faces to keep him amused during the Platinum Jubilee Pageant in June Upon hearing this, the Queen reportedly wrote a note that said: 'If it's good enough for my boys, it's good enough for me.' Mike added: 'It sort of sums her up that it was "her boys".' Speaking about the Queen's state funeral which was attended by some 2,000 world leaders, foreign royals and civilians, Mike admitted the family didn't necessarily realise how big the televised event watched by an estimated four billion people worldwide was until he switched on the highlights later on. He added it was 'positive' to be a part of the funeral because so many people showed unity in lining up to pay their respects to Her late Majesty. Mike also praised the Queen's strength in keeping some parts of herself private from the rest of the world using the example of how she sat alone at the funeral of her beloved Prince Philip last year. Although Mike officially joined the Royal Family in 2011 when he married Zara, he revealed he had actually met the late monarch 19 years earlier in 1992, when she came to visit his school, Queen Elizabeth Grammar, on its 400th anniversary. 'I think I was in a science class and she came in... got the Bunsen burner on,' he said. 'I got to say hello to her then.' Journalist Elle Halliwell wasn't expecting a visit to her family GP to be anything but ordinary when she went in to retrieve a medical certificate in April 2016. The 37-year-old, who lives in Sydney's Bondi Beach with her husband Nick Biasotto, was only stopping by for a back-to-work notation because she'd been off with a stomach bug for a few days. As she had been doing for a number of years before, Elle also picked up a script to organise her yearly blood test. She had been discussing the idea of starting a family with Nick and wanted to check her levels were within a normal range to start trying. 'I mainly wanted to check my folate levels. The results came back and said I had high platelets, which isn't uncommon if you've had gastro,' she told FEMAIL. 'My doctor wasn't worried but we ordered another test anyway. The second test revealed the platelets were even higher, so he asked for a specialist to take a look. 'Aside from feeling a little bit tired, which I had put down to work, nothing but that blood test would have prepared me for what happened next.' Elle Halliwell (pictured) wasn't expecting a visit to her family GP to be anything but ordinary when she went in to retrieve a medical certificate in April 2016 but it changed her life forever The 37-year-old, who lives in Sydney's Bondi Beach with her husband Nick Biasotto (pictured), was only stopping by for a back-to-work notation at the GP because she'd been off with a stomach bug for a few days - but she ordered a blood test to kill two birds with one stone Elle had to wait five weeks for an appointment with the specialist and regrettably another three weeks for the results from further testing. But her results for this third round of tests came earlier than expected. 'The receptionist who called me [on a Thursday] said I needed to come in on Monday. She said I needed to bring a loved one to discuss the results,' Elle explained. She added for clarity: 'They don't ask you to bring in a loved one unless you're dying'. Her stomach bug long forgotten, Elle got in contact with her GP again to try and get some more information. Four days was a long time to wait for the worst news of your life. That's when she heard the acronym CML for the first time. 'I have chronic myeloid leukaemia. It affects your blood and bone marrow. It's most commonly diagnosed in men over the age of 60. Not women my age,' she said. Elle described the 'horror' phone call she received from the specialist's office: 'They don't ask you to bring in a loved one unless you're dying' What is chronic myeloid leukaemia? Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. In CML the bone marrow produces too many white cells, called granulocytes. These cells (sometimes called blasts or leukaemic blasts) gradually crowd the bone marrow, interfering with normal blood cell production. They also spill out of the bone marrow and circulate around the body in the bloodstream. Because they are not fully mature, they are unable to work properly to fight infections. Over time, a shortage of red cells and platelets can cause anaemia, bleeding and bruising. Source: Leukaemia.org.au Advertisement Two days later and a spare pregnancy test in her hand, Elle discovered she was pregnant. 'In 48 hours I had found out the best and worst news you can hear in a lifetime,' she said. It's common for CML patients not to have any symptoms at all in the early stages - which is when Elle was diagnosed - but she does think some of the 'tiredness' she put down to being career-driven might have been the cancer. When her Monday specialist appointment rolled around, Elle was somewhat prepared for the news. But not for the fact her new doctor urged her to terminate the pregnancy. Her best course of action was to start an oral chemotherapy drug called a TKI straightaway but it's not known what the effects on an unborn child would be. So Elle, faced with an impossible choice, decided to wait. She waited nine months for her son Tor Felix to be born. 'I had fortnightly check ups and tests to see how I was progressing,' she said of her chemo-free pregnancy. Two days later and a spare pregnancy test in her hand, Elle discovered she was pregnant (pictured). Doctors called on her to terminate the baby but she decided against it What are the symptoms? Elle believes come of the tiredness and 'feeling rundown' she was experiencing prior to her diagnosis may have been due to the cancer and not her work. Because CML develops slowly many people don't have any symptoms (particularly in the early stages) and the disease is picked up on a routine blood test. As the disease progresses, symptoms arise from the increasing number of abnormal blood cells in the bone marrow and blood, and the decreasing number of normal blood cells. Possible symptoms may include: * anaemia, due to a lack of red cells and causing persistent tiredness, dizziness, paleness, or shortness of breath when physically active * increased or unexplained bleeding or bruising, due to a very low platelet count * frequent or repeated infections and slow healing, due to a lack of normal white blood cells * pain or discomfort under the ribs on the left side, due to an enlarged spleen * excessive sweating or unintentional weight loss. Advertisement 'It's a disease that doesn't normally affect women at conceiving age. There weren't many other cases like mine. We didn't know how it had progressed or how long I'd had it. 'There was a treatment that had been used up until these TKIs. It wasn't perfect but it didn't cross the placenta. It involved getting an injection once a week in the third trimester. So that's what I did.' Elle was induced a month before she reached full-term because her leukaemia marker levels - the amount of cancer in her blood - had increased. After Tor was born in December Elle decided to push back her TKIs by another five weeks so she could breastfeed her newborn son. Then the real fight began. Elle decided on a different treatment plan while she was pregnant to avoid hurting her baby After Tor was born in December Elle decided to push back her TKIs by another five weeks so she could breastfeed her newborn son 'Those five weeks gave me time to settle into motherhood. It gave me peace of mind, and thankfully, my levels had dropped again so the doctors agreed,' she said 'Those five weeks gave me time to settle into motherhood. It gave me peace of mind, and thankfully, my levels had dropped again so the doctors agreed,' she said. Tor will be in Year One at school next year. These past six years have seen Elle get into remission and fall out of it again. She has tried to get off her daily medication when her blood has shown no signs of cancer only for it to return and the treatment to resume. 'I thought I'd be one of the 50 per cent of people who could eventually stop treatment and remain in remission, but unfortunately it's not looking promising for me. I'm seeing a return of the cancer cells, and am now getting blood tests every two weeks to monitor the progression,' she wrote on Instagram in 2020. Tor Felix (left) will be in Year One at school next year (pictured with Elle) Elle shares what helped during her initial diagnosis: 1. Make sure you schedule in a once-yearly blood test to check your levels and ensure they're 'normal' for you. 2. If you're going to receive bad news from a doctor, ensure you record them on your smartphone. You won't remember half the things they'll say so it's better to listen to it later when the shock has worn off. 3. Use the Cancer Council's 13 11 20 Information and Support line for extra knowledge rather than random websites you can find yourself on Google. Advertisement 'I'm surprised to feel a profound sense of shame about this. Shame because I feel like I must be doing something to let my body down, despite trying to live as healthy a life as I can.' While her CML diagnosis has had its 'ups and downs', prior to the creation of the oral chemotherapy drug she relies on, the average life expectancy for Aussies with this bone cancer was three to five years. Elle is already at six. 'I feel so lucky there was a treatment developed in the late 1990s. Unfortunately I do have to be on it for the foreseeable future,' she said. 'I'm grateful that in Australia this medication is subsidised. I take two pills twice a day and have to fast before and after it. While her CML diagnosis has had its 'ups and downs' prior to the creation of the oral chemotherapy drug she relies on, the average life expectancy for Aussies with this bone cancer was three to five years 'It does affect my quality of life to an extent but it's certainly better than the alternative.' At the time of publication in 2022 Elle has no detectable blood cancer cells in her body. From October 13 there will be a bright yellow phone box positioned in Sydney's QVB Forecourt to raise awareness of Cancer Council NSW's Here For Life campaign, a campaign highlighting their vital 13 11 20 Information and Support Service. The number is operated by healthcare professionals who can answer questions, offer support, or signpost to other vital cancer services. Paypal has been getting a lot of heat for their now retracted company policy. After PayPal's recent update, their user agreement now states that a user will be fined $2500 if they use the app to spread misinformation, according to CNET. The company has already apologized for the policy change and claimed it was unintended. They took back the supposed mistake just as users were urged to delete the payment service app for the heavy fine they planned to impose on its 429 million users this coming November 3rd. The Outrage From Critics A great number of people have taken shots at PayPal for the absurd amount of $2500 as a fine. One of these people is the app's former president, David Marcus. He claimed that the new Acceptable Use Policy or AUP was insanity. Marcus worked for the company for three years since 2011. He even went as far as saying that the private company can now take their user's money if the user said something they disagreed with. He added this statement before saying that PayPal's new policy goes against everything he believed in. Even Elon Musk, famous for having strong opinions on Twitter, showed his agreement by replying "Agreed" to the former PayPal president's tweet, as shown by Fortune. PayPal spokesperson told media outlets that PayPal is in fact, not fining people for misinformation and that it was never intended to be a part of their policy. It's hard for critics to buy their story since it was far-fetched to make a mistake that was precise and detailed. Kevin Sorbo, a known actor, said in a tweet that Paypal was only sorry because they got caught. Dan Held, a former head of growth marketing for crypto exchange Kraken also chimed in by saying that freezing funds for thought crimes are despicable. Another tweet from @blockchainchick also brought up the issue that many virtual asset holders feel, which points to the idea of the government using central bank digital currencies against its citizens. PayPal was just a test to see how people will react when governments use CBDCs against their citizens. Heidi (@blockchainchick) October 9, 2022 Read Also: PayPal's Solution in Reducing Cost: Reduce the Workforce Why Should It Concern its Users? Not many people could say that they have read the fine print before they agree to the terms and conditions. This could pave a way for apps to slip in terms like what PayPal had just pulled. Users may be agreeing to policies unknowingly, which they will only realize once the damage has already been inflicted. It could be dangerous especially if the app has complete control of what can be deemed "wrong" in a situation. Users fear that PayPal may be targeting them because of their political views as mentioned in Fortune. Considering that $2500 was already a hefty fine for users, the fact that they will be charged for each offense adds to the absurdity. Since PayPal has sole discretion for what can be tagged as a policy violation, the fine can easily pile up and cost the user much more than just $2500. Related Article: PayPal Users Need To Be Cautious With This New Phishing Scam Emma said she's been called 'disgusting' and that she should be 'locked up' But the video went viral and received an influx of abusive comments Emma shared a TikTok explaining she is 'weaning' her son, two, off breastmilk A mum has copped backlash online after revealing she breastfeeds her toddler A mum-of-three has been called 'disgusting' and 'wrong' by strangers on the internet after sharing videos about breastfeeding her toddler son. Emma shared a TikTok video explaining she is 'weaning' her two-year-old son off breastmilk, but the clip receive an influx of unexpected abusive comments. In the video titled 'First rule of wean club: never sit down', the toddler can be seen tugging at Emma's top wanting to be breastfed. Scroll down for video Scottish mum Emma (pictured) shared a TikTok video explaining she is 'weaning' her two-year-old off breastmilk. Unexpectedly, Emma received an influx of abusive comments describing her as 'disgusting' and 'wrong' In response to the backlash, Emma shared another video and said: 'When I tell you I was shocked, my jaw was literally on the flaw, I can't believe the hate I've woken up to this morning. 'Can we start with the fact he's two? Two is the minimum age the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends breastfeeding until. In fact, in some cultures they'll feed until they're seven, that's what milk teeth are for. 'I've been called disgusting, I've been told I'm wrong and I have serious issues. I actually had somebody message me and tell me I should be locked up!' One person said the original video is 'not even funny' while another person said 'he's got teeth', suggesting Emma no longer needs to breastfeed Emma shared a response video and said: 'Can we start with the fact he's two? Two is the minimum age the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends breastfeeding until. In fact, in some cultures they'll feed until they're seven, that's what milk teeth are for' Emma added: 'If you have issues with (my video) and you are sexualising the relationship between a mother and a two-year-old child I'm not the one with the issues.' One person said the original video is 'not even funny' while another person said 'he's got teeth', suggesting Emma no longer needs to breastfeed. Another added: 'You waited too long, you missed the pacifier escape'. Emma stopped breastfeeding her other two children when she fell pregnant again but with her two-year-old she knew it would be a struggle as it's her last. A diner has slammed a Sydney restaurant after noticing an unexpected additional fee on their final bill. Sharing an image of the receipt to Reddit, the customer was shocked to find their group of five was charged an additional $48 service fee. On the restaurant's website it states a 10 per cent surcharge will be applied for groups of seven or more - but the diner claims only five people attended their reservation. While it's not uncommon for restaurants to charge an average of 10 per cent for larger groups, most diners agree that any surcharge - justified or not - should be flagged at the beginning of the night. 'Shameless services charge and no notification on the menu in font half the size,' the customer wrote, sparking an influx of comments from angry Redditors. The fee saw the bill increase from $480 to $528, which included GST of $43.64. A Sydney restaurant has been slammed after a customer noticed a 'cheeky' service fee of $48 was added on top of the total bill (pictured: the receipt) The comments were flooded with responses from others who were outraged by the 'forced tipping' fee. 'Came here to say this. Ridiculous,' one person wrote, another added: 'Cheeky as. And setting a dangerous trend.' A third also commented on the 'growing trend', claiming diners 'need to ask before they order' about the fee. 'I got slugged with an unknown service charge at a restaurant in Sydney this week. Waiter couldn't explain what it was for but obviously it's a forced tip,' the person wrote. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the restaurant for a comment. Despite the backlash, some hospitality workers defended the purpose of the service fee, claiming large groups require more work compared to smaller groups. 'Larger groups tend to stay for longer, while ordering about the same amount per person, meaning the space that could be given to another party is held up,' one person wrote. Another added: 'We'd have two to four bartenders doing all the drinks for the 20-30 tables while the waitstaff only have a couple tables each, everything just went on to the table charge and this could be a lot of drinks as there was a beverage package per head. 'Tips were pooled and split between all the staff, although sometimes waiters were tipped cash separately.' Queen Margarethe rid four grandchildren of their royal titles - but not Mary's She took the first shovel marking the beginning of the school's expansion project Not many people can make digging in the dirt look glamourous but Crown Princess Mary of Demark has pulled it off at an appearance at Aarhus International School on Monday. Princess Mary, 50, visited the Danish school for the 'Ground Breaking' ceremony where she took the first shovel for its expansion with four students all while wearing high heels. She looked chic in a long navy coat, wide leg trousers and a blush pink Hugo Boss blouse as she wielded a shiny shovel and literally broke the ground signifying the start of the construction of the project. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark was all smiles as she attended a 'ground breaking' ceremony at Aarhus International School on Monday Mary, 50, was there to literally break the ground signifying the start of construction of the school's expansion project She looked ever-so-chic wearing a long navy coat, wide leg trousers and a blush-pink Hugo Boss blouse as she wielded a shiny shovel Aarhus International School is set for a 6000sqm extension due to be finished by 2024 that will house 600 students aged between 3-15 years old. The Australian-born royal was welcomed to the ceremony by two pupils who handed her a bunch of purple flowers then greeted and chatted with students waving handmade flags. It was a busy day for Mary as she also attended the inauguration of The Danish Heart Foundation's new department for patient support. Aarhus International School is set for a 6000sqm extension due to be finished by 2024 that will house 600 students aged between 3-15 years old She and four students from the international school took part in the ceremony The Australian-born royal was welcomed to the ceremony by two pupils who handed her a bunch of purple flowers then greeted and chatted with students waving handmade flags There, she was given a tour of the heart ward and spoke with a patient and patient support workers from the Heart Association. On Friday, the Danish princess arrived at the 60th anniversary of the UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen on Friday wearing a maroon Alexander McQueen ensemble. Initially built to pack health kits for maternity clinics and child health services, the warehouse has since evolved into a logistics hub - and become the largest humanitarian warehouse in the world. Despite having a smile on her face as she was offered a tour of the property, the mother-of-four's visit was overshadowed by 'peace talks' happening between her mother-in-law Queen Margrethe and the Queen's youngest son Joachim. On Friday, Mary donned her favourite designer blazer to attend a special UNICEF event as the rest of the Danish royal family meet for 'peace talks' She arrived to the 60th anniversary of the UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen wearing a maroon Alexander McQueen ensemble Despite having a smile on her face as she was offered a tour of the property, the mother-of-four had her visit overshadowed by the current 'peace talks' between her mother-in-law Queen Margrethe and the Queen's youngest son Joachim Margrethe, 82, and Joachim engaged in conversation this week to try and smooth tensions that have arisen after the monarch announced she would be stripping his four children, Prince Nikolai, 23, Prince Felix, 20, Prince Henrik, 13, and Princess Athena, 10, of their royal titles, which he claimed had 'hurt' them. Heir to the throne Frederick and his wife Princess Mary's four children - Prince Christian, 16, Princess Isabella, 15, and twins Princess Josephine and Prince Vincent, 11 - remain unaffected by Margrethe's decision as they are direct descendants of the future King. Following the meeting, the palace confirmed that the monarch and Joachim want to 'look forward' and are trying to 'find their way through' their differences - however, Frederik did not attend the meeting at Fredensborg. She gave a short speech inside of the Copenhagen warehouse to the team at UNICEF Danish publication B.T. reported: 'According to the Royal House, the Crown Prince was not part of the meeting', with a statement from the palace reading: 'The Queen and Prince Joachim have spoken together at Fredensborg. Everyone agrees to look forward, and as the Queen herself has expressed, she and Prince Joachim want calm to find their way through this situation.' It comes after Joachim, 53, and his second wife Princess Marie, 46, who is mother to his youngest two children, said their relationship with Frederik and his wife Princess Mary, 50, is 'complicated'. But as the conflict brewed between the Danish royals, Spanish magazine Vaniatis Elconfidencial claimed the real reason for the rift was because Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law Mary'. Queen Margrethe (centre, in 2015) had a meeting with Prince Joachim (right) following animosity after he said his children were 'hurt' by her decision to remove their princely titles (Left: Crown Prince Frederik) The news comes as a Spanish magazine reported the Prince had been 'deeply in love' with his sister-in-law and Crown Prince Frederik's wife, Princess Mary. Pictured in 2014 Danish publication B.T. reported: 'According to the Royal House, the Crown Prince was not part of the meeting', with a statement from the palace reading: 'The Queen and Prince Joachim have spoken together at Fredensborg. Everyone agrees to look forward, and as the Queen herself has expressed, she and Prince Joachim want calm to find their way through this situation.' It comes after Joachim, 53, and his second wife Princess Marie, 46, who is mother to his youngest two children, said their relationship with Frederik and his wife Princess Mary, 50, is 'complicated'. But as the conflict brewed between the Danish royals, Spanish magazine Vaniatis Elconfidencial claimed the real reason for the rift was because Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law Mary'. Tensions began to grow last week in the Danish Royal Family after Queen Margrethe, declared Prince Joachim's children, Prince Nikolai, 23, Prince Felix, 20, Prince Henrik, 13, and Princess Athena, 10, were to be counts and countesses as of 1 January 2020 and known as Their Excellencies, rather than their Royal Highnesses (pictured with their parents on the Queen's golden Jubilee in September) The Danish Royal Family tree. Prince Joachim's children Nikolai, 23, Felix, 20, Henrik, 13, and Athena, 10, will all be losing their titles on January 1 2023 B.T.'s royal correspondent Jacob Heinel Jensen said of the 'significant and positive development' between the monarch and her youngest son, that it was 'not surprising' that Frederik wasn't included. The expert said: 'Prince Joachim himself has acknowledged that the relationship with the Crown Prince couple was complicated, so it is not surprising that he was not there. It is the Queen's decision, and she is the one who must bear the brunt of it.' He added of the meeting: 'This is crucial for their relationship. There will be an event in the future where it is important that we as a population believe that they have become friends again, now the first stones have been laid.' Tensions began to grow last week in the Danish Royal Family after Margrethe declared Joachim's children, Prince Nikolai, 23, Prince Felix, 20, Prince Henrik, 13, and Princess Athena, 10, were to be counts and countesses as of 1 January 2020 and known as Their Excellencies, rather than their Royal Highnesses. It's been a dramatic week for the Danish Royal Family - after Queen Margarethe II of Denmark announced last week that she would be removing princely titles from four of her grandchildren. Pictured, Princess Marie, Prince Joachim, Princess Mary and Prince Frederik in 2019 Queen Margrethe of Denmark and her eldest son refused to answer questions regarding the fallout of last week's bombshell royal titles as they arrived at the state opening of parliament on Tuesday Following the announcement, Joachim, speaking outside the Danish Embassy in Paris, told Ekstra Bladet his children had been 'hurt' by the decision and that he had only been given five days to break the news to them before it was publicly announced. Amid the scandal, Joachim and his second wife Marie admitted their relationship with his older brother Crown Prince Frederik and his sister-in-law Crown Princess Mary is 'complicated'. And the Spanish magazine Vaniatis Elconfidencial has since sparked more speculation around the rift, after reporting that Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law Mary'. A photograph was even published by Swedish woman's weekly magazine 'Svensk Damtidning', allegedly showing Joachim trying to kiss Mary at a gala party of the Royal Guard Regiment. The Spanish magazine recalled: 'With obvious signs of drunkenness, it seems that the youngest son of Queen Margarethe tried to stamp his lips on his sister-in-law's mouth, that she got out of the way as she could and with an unperturbed smile, while Marie witnessed the embarrassing moment.' Queen Margrethe (pictured in blue) made the decision to strip princely titles from Prince Nikolai (left), Prince Felix (second from left), Prince Henrik (right) and Princess Athena (second from right). Also pictured: Prince Joachim and Princess Marie It also suggested that shortly after Frederik and Mary's wedding in 2004, Danish media began to speculate that Joachim 'was deeply in love with his sister-in-law'. 'In fact, it didn't help that in 2007 he announced his engagement to a French girl (Princess Marie) with the same name and a striking physical resemblance,' wrote the magazine. But with such strong rumours about the prince's crush on Mary, the magazine claims Margarethe called 'them to order' and 'started a campaign to show that there were no problems between the two women,' including 'unscheduled outings' together. MailOnline has contacted the Danish Royal Household for comment. On Tuesday, Queen Margrethe and her eldest son refused to answer questions regarding the fallout of last week's bombshell royal titles as they arrived at the state opening of parliament. Margrethe, 82, was joined by Crown Prince Frederick and his wife Princess Mary at the opening of the Folketing, in Copenhagen. The assembled press asked a flurry of questions to all three royals on their arrival but the trio 'chose with big smiles to turn their backs to the press and talk among themselves before they entered Christiansborg', the seat of the Danish parliament, according to local news outlet BT. The royals put on an upbeat display and smiled to each other as they took their seats ahead of the opening. Margrethe opted for a vibrant mint dress and matching hat, while Australian-born Mary looked more sombre in grey. Now based in LA, the Australian-born entrepreneur has the world at her feet An Australian businesswoman who created a $63million empire out of a blog about her favourite bikinis has reflected on how her body has changed over the past decade. When Natasha Oakley started an online blog called 'A Bikini A Day' with her best friend Devin Brugman in 2012 she could never have known her endeavour would see her debut on the Young Rich List two decades later. The 32-year-old blonde bombshell who grew up in Sydney, Australia - but who now calls sunny Los Angeles home - was merely looking for an outlet to share her favourite swimwear when A Bikini A Day took off. Since then Natasha has started her own swimwear company and invested in other burgeoning brands like The Pilates Class and Emma Pills, giving her an estimated empire worth $63million. On Tuesday she took to Instagram to share a collection of photos of her body taken over a 10-year period, showcasing how much she has changed. An Australian businesswoman who created a $63million empire out of a blog about her favourite bikinis has reflected on how her body has changed over the past decade Natasha showed off her new-found curves in a series of Instagram photos on Tuesday 'In the words of Kourtney Kardashian "If I'm super skinny you know I'm not happy". This rings true for me. All of the times I have been my thinnest I have been stressed, over worked, in a toxic relationship or going through a hard time,' Natasha captioned the images. 'Nothing feels better than embracing my natural curves and knowing that "perfect" doesn't exist. There's so much to be admired about social media but it can also be so deceiving, remember not to be hard on yourself and to love your body and your life, after all you only have one of them, what's the point in doing anything but?' The quote from 43-year-old Kourtney aired on the third episode of The Kardashians, where the tiny starlet said she is embracing her new curves at 115 pounds (52 kilos), adding how miserable she was when she weighed just 95 pounds (43 kilos) while dating Scott Disick. Previously, Natasha spoke to FEMAIL about starting her blog and social media accounts She was preparing for a photoshoot while telling her team how supportive her new beau Travis Barker really is, and how he got her to embrace her curves. Previously, Natasha spoke to FEMAIL about starting her blog and social media accounts. 'Growing up in a beach town was a dream and definitely translated into my love and passion for the ocean, and later swimwear,' she said. When Natasha Oakley started an online blog called 'A Bikini A Day' with her best friend Devin Brugman in 2012 she could never have known her endeavour would see her debut on the Young Rich List two decades later 'We were one of the first Instagram pioneers. At the time we had no idea how big Instagram would be or what our future would look like but we were enjoying the photography, travel, and getting the opportunity to share it with a community,' she said 'I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit being the daughter of two entrepreneurs. Since I was young I knew I wanted to get into business and I feel so fortunate to have found my footing.' Looking back Natasha believes their Instagram followers on A Bikini A Day enjoyed the light-hearted nature of the content and the 'fun spirit' she and Devin possess. They were also directly women with larger busts to try different styles and brands they may never have heard of before. 'We were one of the first Instagram pioneers. At the time we had no idea how big Instagram would be or what our future would look like but we were enjoying the photography, travel, and getting the opportunity to share it with a community,' she said. 'After wearing thousands of bikinis through our trials for A Bikini A Day I became ever more interested in the design and production of swimwear. In 2014 Monday Swimwear was born, with a huge emphasis on fit and texture 'Devin and I knew exactly what worked and what didn't and were passionate to design a swim line with every female body in mind. 'Something we often ran into, as two larger-cup sized women, during our work at Bikini A Day was finding swim that fit comfortably but was also fashionable.' In 2014 Monday Swimwear was born, with a huge emphasis on fit and texture. The ladies have a detailed design process where each style is fit on multiple body types and not just scaled from one size. 'In our process we like to include the customer as much as possible. We are really vocal with our community and encourage them to be vocal with us,' Natasha said. 'We like to survey our customers often and consider all fit comments when designing.' The ladies have a detailed design process where each style is fit on multiple body types and not just scaled from one size The brand caters from A to G cup sizes and can be shipped worldwide, making it accessible to all. Outside of Monday Swimwear Natasha also splits her time between The Pilates Class, an online Pilates fitness training program, and Emma Pills, a jewellery company. 'TPC was born during the pandemic. The beginning of the pandemic was a time of uncertainty for a lot of people around the world,' she said. 'Jacqui [Kingswell, the co-founder] and I wanted to start a community to bring people together to share their love for Pilates. Doing Pilates was my saving grace during that time and we received such positive feedback from our community.' Meanwhile Natasha had been a family friend of the Pillemers before a 21-year-old Emma approached her with the product. 'When I first met them I was so inspired by their contagious and supportive energy and loved the way they ran their brand,' she said. 'I knew there was synergy. I approached them about coming on to the brand and helping them go global and we've now expanded into the US market, are featured on a major fashion retailer, Revolve, and are loved by many A-Listers in the US.' Meanwhile Natasha had been a family friend of the Pillemers before a 21-year-old Emma approached her with the product Natasha, who is quite often still seen in a bikini as she splits her time between Sydney and Los Angeles, usually keeps fit by following Jacqui's Pilates classes. 'There are so many different classes from HIIT to strength that I adjust the time and the intensity level depending on what my body needs that day,' she said. 'Week to week my schedule is changing depending on whether I'm on location shooting a campaign, on a brand trip, or at my home in LA. 'On a regular day, I typically like to wake up and connect with my team. After a quick touch base, I like to work out and have a light bite or smoothie. 'I typically like to do a bit of admin work before lunch and save any longer calls for the afternoon. Around 6pm I'm usually winding down and like to take a break from my phone and cook dinner with my partner.' She makes time to read a book and relax when she's not jetting abroad, like she was recently in the Bahamas celebrating Monday Swimwear's eighth anniversary. ' It was one of the most amazing trips and being able to celebrate my brand in this way felt like a dream. Also, being on location for any campaign shoot feels like a pinch me moment,' she said. 'I work so hard with our team to design the collection that seeing it come to life feels surreal.' Lying on the floor for hours in agony, constantly exhausted and often trapped at home because she needed to rush to the loo at least 20 times a day This was Caroline Etheridges life in her teens and early 20s. I was off work all the time and barely left the house, recalls Caroline, now 29. My health was so bad, I had to move back in with my mum so that she could look after me. And the pain was exhausting, so I would sleep for hours. I couldnt date anyone, and at one point I lost a stone and a half in a month, going from a size 12 to a size 6-8. I couldnt keep food down and bled from my rectum. Caroline, who works in customer services and lives near Penzance, Cornwall, was seven when she started suffering stomach cramps and diarrhoea. Her parents took her back and forth to her GP in search of a diagnosis. First, it was thought to be a wheat allergy, then irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but none of the treatments for these worked. Lying on the floor for hours in agony, constantly exhausted and often trapped at home because she needed to rush to the loo at least 20 times a day This was Caroline Etheridges life in her teens and early 20s [File photo] It took almost two decades for her to be diagnosed with microscopic colitis, a form of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), where the immune system reacts abnormally to an external trigger, leading to inflammation in the lining of the large intestine (colon), causing stomach cramps and watery diarrhoea. Worryingly, it now seems likely that the severe exacerbation in symptoms which left Caroline crippled and housebound for much of her late teens and early 20s could have been triggered by pills, called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), prescribed by her GP to combat heartburn. An estimated 67,200 UK adults have been diagnosed with microscopic colitis. And women are seven times more likely than men to be affected, according to a Swedish study published in April. (The number living with the condition may be in the hundreds of thousands, as at least one in 100 is thought to have the condition, according to charity Crohns & Colitis.) One in three microscopic colitis patients may have been initially misdiagnosed with IBS, with a 2019 Liverpool University study suggesting 25 per cent of them wait at least a year for diagnosis. Its an autoimmune disease, where the immune system attacks healthy cells. Triggers for this can include a family history of the disorder, smoking or even a run-of-the-mill bacterial or viral infection which the immune system overreacts to, and targets healthy cells in the colon. There is growing evidence that widely used medications may also trigger it. These include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, anti-depressants known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), aspirin, statins and PPIs. These are available both on prescription (such as omeprazole or lansoprazole) and over-the-counter (including Zanprol and Pantoloc Control) as treatments for acid reflux and heartburn but their long-term use could lead to microscopic colitis, or worsen it. About five million prescriptions a year in England are written for PPIs, which work by reducing the amount of digestive acid produced by your stomach. The drugs are meant to be taken for a few weeks at a time but many people end up on them for months or years through repeat prescriptions, or by buying them in pharmacies. Previous studies have linked the long-term use of PPIs with premature death from heart disease, kidney disease and cancers of the upper gastrointestinal tract. Caroline, who works in customer services and lives near Penzance, Cornwall, was seven when she started suffering stomach cramps and diarrhoea. Her parents took her back and forth to her GP in search of a diagnosis. First, it was thought to be a wheat allergy, then irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but none of the treatments for these worked [File photo] And at least one study suggests PPI use increases the risk of microscopic colitis. Patients on lansoprazole, for example, were seven times more likely to develop microscopic colitis than the general population, according to scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark, who tracked more than 10,000 people diagnosed with the condition. The results, published in 2018 in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, found that other PPIs increased the risk but to a lesser extent. It is not clear from the study whether the drugs cause the development of the illness, or as seems likely in Carolines case made the symptoms much worse. A 2017 study by a team at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the U.S. came up with similar findings of increased risk from heartburn pills and called on GPs to investigate if they had patients on the drugs unnecessarily and, if so, to stop them taking them at once. Its not known exactly why there is this link between PPIs and a patient developing microscopic colitis, says Professor Shaji Sebastian, inflammatory bowel disease lead at Hull University Teaching Hospitals. But it could be that the acid-lowering agent has an effect on the balance of the microbiome, the bacteria in our guts, or changes the chemical composition within the gut, which may trigger an immune response resulting in inflammation. Clothes call How what you wear can affect your health. This week: Tight briefs and male fertility Tight briefs are linked to lower sperm concentration. A 2018 study involving 656 men, the largest on this to date, showed that those who wore tight pants most of the time had a 25 per cent lower concentration of sperm and 33 per cent fewer swimming sperm (motility is a sign of healthy sperm), reported the journal Human Reproduction. One theory is that tight underwear sends a signal to the brain to increase secretion of gonadotropin, a hormone that acts on the testes. This, in turn, raises levels of follicle-stimulating hormone, which affects sperm production. Advertisement He says PPIs are important treatments for some patients like those with Barretts oesophagus, where the lining of the gullet is damaged by acid reflux; by reducing the amount of stomach acid produced, PPIs can help reduce the risk of Barretts becoming oesophageal cancer. Its a balancing act and you should always consult your GP or specialist about whether taking long-term PPIs is suitable for you, he says. The key is to avoid over-use or mis-use by reviewing prescriptions of PPIs and ensuring that the indication for use still exists. One problem is that microscopic colitis is often misdiagnosed. It isnt as well recognised as other inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohns or ulcerative colitis, says Julie Harrington, chief executive officer of the charity Guts UK. A key issue is that it is only diagnosed by colonoscopy (where a camera probe is inserted into the colon) and a biopsy, says Dr Matthew Kurien, a senior lecturer and consultant gastroenterologist at Sheffield University. But because symptoms are similar to those for IBS, many GPs will just assume it is IBS and wont consider referring patients for hospital tests. And the current focus is on the backlog of cancer diagnoses from the pandemic, pushing microscopic colitis down the list of priorities. Caroline had stomach cramps and diarrhoea throughout her childhood, worsening in her teens. Wheat allergy tests were negative so her GP settled on a diagnosis of IBS, which causes symptoms such as stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea and constipation. My GP suggested a range of different treatments, including peppermint to soothe my digestive system, she says. One of the drugs she was prescribed, age 19, was lansoprazole, which she took for six months for severe heartburn. Within weeks it made things worse. I was constantly on the toilet and suffering the most agonising stomach cramps. I stopped taking it because it hadnt helped at all. It was only in her early 20s, after Caroline discovered there was a history of inflammatory bowel disease in her fathers family, that she began her own research and realised IBS was not the culprit. She insisted on being referred for hospital tests but a colonoscopy, a gastroscopy (where a camera is passed down the throat) and an MRI scan were normal. She pressed for a second opinion and was referred to specialists at University College Hospital, London, where a biopsy revealed she had microscopic colitis. By now, aged 26, shed struggled with her symptoms for nearly 20 years. When the consultant rang with the result, I was so relieved to finally have a diagnosis that I burst into tears. She was prescribed a steroid (prednisolone) to calm her immune system and a diarrhoea drug (loperamide), to slow gut movement. Within two weeks my stomach cramps had disappeared, I was only going to the loo five times a day, was able to eat more or less normally and was putting on healthy amounts of weight again. After a few months, she was only using the loo once a day. Now she takes just two daily tablets of an immunosuppressant drug, azathioprine. Shes a size 10-12, at work and socialising. The tragedy says Julie Harrington, is that once someone has been diagnosed, treatment usually steroids can be prescribed that will transform their lives very quickly. But all too often this chance is missed. gutscharity.org.uk crohnsandcolitis.org.uk Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured) is warning that it is too early for Americans to let their guard down to Covid and the flu this fall and winter Dr Anthony Fauci has warned of a 'twindemic' this winter as cases of the flu surge in the US - quadrupling over the past two months. Latest official data shows there were more than 1,000 patients with flu in the week ending October 1 up 303 per cent compared to the first week of August. This is a vast underestimate because the US does not routinely test for influenza in the same way as Covid. Test positivity the share of swabs for the virus that are coming back positive has risen from 0.49 per cent to 2.5 per cent in the same time. Dr Fauci said Monday that the nation should keep its guard up in the coming months as cases of both the flu and Covid are expected to rise. Cases and hospitalization for the flu and related illnesses often surge in cold weather months were people spend more time indoors - which makes it easier for viruses to spread. But Covid cases are currently plummeting in the US. The nation is averaging 42,000 daily cases, dropping more than 60 per cent from the 100,000 per day average in early August. The flu largely vanished in recent years as viral interference from Covid and pandemic-related restrictions and mask orders stopped its spread. Cases of the flu have surged since August, quadrupling from the week that ended on August 6 to the week that ended on October 1. Experts are warning that this year's flu season will be more devastating than usual Daily Covid cases have tumbled in recent months, dropping from over 100,000 per day to 42,000 per day from August to October 9 'We have a ways to go, particularly as we enter the winter, which will be complicated by the influenza season,' Dr Fauci told CNN Newsroom. 'So there's no time, ma'am, to let down our guard right now, for certain. 'As we get into the colder months, where any respiratory disease, COVID or anything else, always has the risk of an uptick as you enter into the late fall/winter months. Influenza is a problem.' Where did the flu go the past two years... and when is it coming back The flu's spread was massively curbed over the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic Viral interference from Covid combined with mitigation measures like masking and restrictions on indoor events led to little spread of the virus As a result, many did not build up natural immunity to the virus in the past two years and have neglected getting their yearly jab Experts fear that this year's flu season will be the worst in years after both New Zealand and Australia were slammed by the annual nuisance in the southern hemisphere Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, issued a warning about the rampant spread of the flu in the Southern Hemisphere last month Some southern states like Texas, Georgia and New Mexico are already experiencing surges of the virus in September - before flu season even officially starts in October Advertisement Experts are on high alert about the virus after it made a resurgence in the southern hemisphere - which typically has a flu season that runs from April to October. Australia suffered its worse flu season in a half-decade this year, with peak case rates reaching heights three times higher than usual. It also struck unusually early. In New Zealand, flu cases this year returned to pre-pandemic normal after two years of stark decreases. This is not the first warning of a twindemic that US officials have issued. Many feared the flu would make an imperious return in 2021 after being near-non-existent in 2020 - which never transpired. An uptick of the common flu is already starting to be felt in late September, though. The CDC reported 969 cases during the week ending on October 1, and 757 the week before. Only 223 cases were recorded during the last full week of August, ending on August 20 - marking a massive shift in prevalence of the flu. Hospitalizations caused by the flu, while rare, are largely among the elderly and children under-four - the groups that usually face the highest risk from the virus. Dr Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann, told DailyMail.com in September that peak figures often reached in late-January were instead being detected in early fall. 'Were in for a rough flu season this year,' Dr Ostrosky told DailyMail.com We havent peaked yet. We are starting to see the numbers rise up very early.' While the flu returns this fall, Covid seems to be receding. The virus has had devastating surges during the fall in winter months of recent years, but has so far failed to show any growth in September and October. Daily infections have tumbled from over 100,000 per day in August to 42,000 a day in October. An expected summer surge, fueled by the BA.5 variant that now makes up nearly every case in the nation, failed to materialize as well. This led to the CDC dropping daily Covid data reporting last week. Stretching your muscles is often a key part of exercise routines and rehabilitation programmes set by physiotherapists. It can help by lengthening muscles and increasing their range of movement but it can prevent injuries from happening in the first place, too, by boosting flexibility. Stretching can also relieve pain from injuries to our tendons, such as in the lower leg, which can easily be injured during everyday activities. There is a range of new gadgets all claiming to stretch our soft tissue to ease everything from a sore neck to bunions but are they worth buying? We asked experts to assess some of them, which we then rated. Stretching your muscles is often a key part of exercise routines and rehabilitation programmes set by physiotherapists Neck Medi Grade Neck Traction Device (pictured below), 15.99, medigrade.store Claim: This inflatable collar for around the neck can lift and support your head, stretching out your vertebrae and relieving pressure, says the maker. Use to relieve migraines, neck pain, pinched nerves, disc bulges, muscle tension and to support good posture. Expert verdict: Ive been getting neck ache from increased hours sitting at my computer, so I bought this, says Tim Allardyce, a physiotherapist at Surrey Physio. I didnt find the collar particularly comfortable to wear as it puts pressure on your chin, jaw and the back of your head. It gave me a mild throbbing in my face and felt quite claustrophobic. However, it might benefit a small number of people with neck-related issues, such as degenerative disc disease, a major cause of chronic back pain. Even if they were to wear it for five minutes or so every day, it might relieve pressure on the vertebrae. I dont believe it could do any harm. 4/10 Medi Grade Neck Traction Device Feet Original Prostretch Foot Rocker, 31.19, harris-active.co.uk Claim: You put your foot on this device and rock it back and forth on the curved base. This, says the maker, provides proper stretching, especially for the muscles in the lower leg. The maker says this helps treat tight hamstrings as well as conditions such as plantar fasciitis (pain in the band of tissue that runs under the foot), shin splints (pain in the shin), and Achilles tendinitis (pain in the tendon near the heel). Expert verdict: Stretching using this device can help provide relief from all these conditions, says Tim Allardyce. It may be that the rocker is lengthening the muscle tissue, or it may be because of a neurological link, with stretching feeling therapeutic. Using this device could also help if you have shortened hamstrings, which can be a sign of too much sitting. I own a pair of these myself. You need to use them for one or two minutes a day to be properly effective. 8/10 Original Prostretch Foot Rocker Toes Naboso Splay Toe Separators, 21.50, uk.naboso.com Claim: These flexible, gel toe separators are designed to stretch the small muscles of the toes and, says the maker, will help to improve balance, stability, gait and posture. It is also claimed they will straighten and correct bunions and hammer toes to restore natural foot shape. The maker recommends wearing them for 30 minutes daily. Expert verdict: Kumar Kunasingam, a foot and ankle surgeon at Croydon University Hospital and the Schoen Clinic, London, says: This device is trying to correct bone, ligament and muscle balance issues in the foot, but they cannot be fixed by simply stretching the toes. This may offer some temporary respite for bunions and hammer toes, as it stops the toes rubbing together, but it wont work long-term because as soon as its removed, the foot will return to how it was before. You would be better off rolling up balls of cotton wool and putting those between the toes for a short time to see if that offers a temporary fix. 1/10 Hamstrings Idealstretch Original Hamstring Stretcher Device, 88, desertcart.co.uk Claim: This is an L-shaped steel frame with a fabric foot pad and a handle which you use to pull your foot backwards while lying on the floor with your leg raised. The maker says this will stretch the hamstrings (in the back of the leg) and muscles in the calves, groin, hips, back and buttocks. Expert verdict: Tim Allardyce says: About 8 per cent of the population have naturally short, tight hamstrings, while others might acquire them by not stretching them enough for instance, by sitting down for long periods, or wearing high heels all the time. Some experts believe this can contribute to back pain, so, in theory, lengthening our hamstrings should help reduce this pain. This could be very beneficial for people who are rather inactive, especially those with desk jobs. I would probably recommend it, but it is expensive. Putting your foot on a chair or ledge to create a hamstring stretch would have a similar benefit. 6/10 Lower back Orthoflexics Back Stretcher, 30.56, orthoflexics.com Claim: This device, says the maker, is a passive way to gently stretch your entire back and can relieve back pain in just ten minutes a day. You lie on an adjustable plastic arch with pointed nodules on its surface. The arch should be close to the base of your spine. Expert verdict: Lucy Macdonald, a physiotherapist and director of Octopus Clinic, London, says: There is no evidence that lying down on devices like this provides any benefit at all to back muscles, ligaments or tendons. Putting the back in this arched position may actually make some conditions, such as facet joint irritation [inflammation in the tiny joints], worse. The only uncontentious treatment for back pain is movement and exercise. I recommend gentle exercise, such as a pelvic tilt while lying on the floor. Or use a chair to stand up and sit down ten times in succession a few times a day. 1/10 Hand SaeboStretch, 136, uk.saebo.com Claim: This is for those who have experienced a neurological injury, such as stroke, head injury or spinal cord injury, says its maker. The device is a padded splint with adjustable straps to hold the hand in a comfortable position. It is supposed to help with contractures, which is when the muscles in the hand become tight and shorten. The maker says the splint allows individuals suffering from spasticity to stretch comfortably and safely. Expert verdict: Jakko Brouwers, clinical director of Morrello Clinic in Newport, South Wales, which provides neurological injury rehabilitation, says: Following a stroke, nerves in the spinal cord may send faulty messages to some arm and hand muscles, which can cause them to spasm and the hand to form into a tight fist. Although this splint will not stop these contractures happening, it is designed to move with the hand during an involuntary spasm, so stops it becoming deformed by not allowing the fingers to bend inwards towards the palm. Before buying, it is important to work with a neuro physiotherapist to see if this is a suitable fit. 8/10 Spine Klarfit Relax Zone Pro Inversion Table, 129.99, hifi-tower.co.uk Claim: This prevents back pain and muscle tension, says its seller. You lie on the table and secure your ankles under the footrest, then raise your hands to tilt the table slowly backwards so your head is below your feet. Use it for around ten minutes daily, increasing the angle of tilt each time. Expert verdict: The theory behind inversion tables is that tilting helps to stretch your spine, says Tim Allardyce. It should reverse the compressive forces we put through our backs by sitting for hours. These tables can help those with prolapsed or herniated discs, but not all back conditions will be suited to using them, so check with a physiotherapist. It possibly wont suit older users, and it may make some feel slightly dizzy. 6/10 AstraZeneca's leading Covid nasal spray vaccine does not protect well against the virus, a study has shown dashing hopes it could replace traditional jabs. The University of Oxford which is developing and running trials of the vaccine said only a minority of patients mounted an immune response. Even those who did react to the jab had lower antibody levels than someone given a shot-in-the-arm vaccination. It is another blow for AstraZeneca which has so far failed to break the US vaccine market after concerns about its original jab's link to blood clots. Researchers across the world have placed high hopes on nasal spray vaccines because they may have the potential to stop Covid infections entirely. It was thought that prompting an immune response directly in the airways would be able to shut the virus down before it spreads to the rest of the body. But Dr Sandy Douglas, who ran the UK-based AstraZeneca trial, said the spray did not perform 'as well as we had hoped'. China and India have already approved nasal spray Covid jabs, although there is no public data on how well they work. AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine is not effective as a nasal spray, a study suggests. It triggered an immune response in only a minority of participants but this was much weaker than that from standard jabs (stock image) The US has spent billions purchasing more than 800million doses of Covid vaccines, but a third of Americans are still yet to get their first shots. It was hoped that nasal vaccines could offer an alternative inoculation because they are easy to administer and don't cause pain. Scientists also believed they might 'enhance' protection because they target the lining of the nose, where the virus infects first. But today's results thought to be the first on a nasal spray for Covid suggest more research is needed. America does not use the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine which is based on an adenovirus rather than mRNA although it is approved in many European countries. What is the advantage of nasal sprays for Covid vaccines? Scientists have been chasing a nasal spray Covid vaccine as an alternative to the needle-based method. They hope that it could 'enhance' immune responses because it is administered to the lining of the nose, the first place the virus infects. Experts also say it can help people with a fear of jabs get the vaccine. The fear known as trypanophobia affects about 10 per cent of adults. There is still little evidence that they are as good as standard jabs, however. Oxford University found they only sparked immunity in a minority of participants. The sprays have been approved for use in China and India. But studies on this are yet to be released. Advertisement In the Phase I clinical trial scientists recruited 30 healthy volunteers who had not previously been vaccinated. The purpose of the study was to perfect the dosage size and timing. All received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine as a nasal spray, and half also got a second dose. These were given as low, medium or high doses. Blood tests and swabs showed 'little evidence' all those who got one dose had an immune response. After the second spray just four participants or 30 per cent of the total had evidence of an immune response. But this was much weaker than that triggered by standard vaccines. In a second arm of the trial, 15 double-vaccinated people were given the nasal spray as a booster dose. But again this did not appear to trigger an immune response with antibody levels remaining 'indistinguishable' from the unvaccinated individuals. No adverse safety effects were spotted during the trial. The results were published today in the journal eBioMedicine. Dr Douglas, from Oxford University's Jenner Institute, said: 'The nasal spray did not perform as well in this study as we had hoped. 'One possibility is simply that the majority of the nasal spray vaccine ends up being swallowed and destroyed in the stomach delivery to the lungs could avoid that. 'A further challenge is that researchers dont fully understand the relationships between the strength and types of immune responses within the airways and protection against infection.' She called for more research into these vaccines, to determine whether another method could help develop a nasal version. '[Our results] were quite different from recent data from China, which has suggested good results can be achieved by delivery of a similar vaccine,' she said. 'A nasal spray vaccine has recently been approved for intranasal use in India and we are looking forward to the peer-reviewed publication of the clinical trial data used to support that.' China gave emergency approval for a nasal spray Covid vaccine from CanSino Biologics Inc last month. CanSino said studies indicated that its vaccine induced a strong immune response, although trial data is yet to be released. Unlike AstraZeneca's it is given via a nebuliser device, a machine that turns a liquid into a fine mist that is then breathed in. India's health ministry also approved a nasal spray Covid vaccine last month by Bharat Biotech. US doctors are warning a hoarse throat could be the sign of a deadly heart condition. They made the plea after treating a 68-year-old American man whose voice box was distorted by a damaged artery pressing against it. The unidentified patient went to hospital complaining of a raspy voice and sore throat which had lasted three months. But scans revealed a tear in his main artery, close to his heart, which can be life-threatening. He was diagnosed with chronic aortic dissection condition a rip in the inner layer of the aorta which is discovered more than two weeks after it occurred. Blood rushes through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to split or dissect. If they hadn't spotted it, he could have died. Doctors from the MetroHealth Center in Cleveland and others in the US detailed the tale in the SAGE Open Medical Case Reports. Writing in the report, they said: 'The presented case illustrates the importance of including aortic dissection in the differential for a patient presenting with hoarseness.' An enhanced scan of between the 68-year-old man's neck and abdomen revealed the tear in the artery wall, shown by the arrow This vertical scan of between the man's neck and abdomen showed the swelling of the aorta to 2 inches (5.2 cm). This was squashing the man's voice box, causing his throat to go hoarse What is aortic dissection? Aortic dissection is a life-threatening emergency. It occurs due to a tear in the inner layer of the aorta. Blood rushes through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to split or dissect. It can happen spontaneously or as a result of damage caused by necessary medical or surgical treatment. Aortic dissection can occur in the first part of the blood vessel, the ascending aorta (known as Stanford type A), the longest part of the vessel, the descending aorta, and abdominal aorta (Stanford type B), which runs through the abdomen. Stanford type A makes up 65 per cent of cases and is treated surgically whereas Stanford type B is treated medically. Roughly 10 per cent of aortic dissections are painless and have signs and symptoms that are indirectly caused by the dissection. Around 20-30 per cent of these patients have neurological complications, with stroke being the most common. Because some cases are pain-free, they can take weeks or even years to diagnose. Cocaine use, hypertension and previous heart or aortic surgery can all contribute to aortic dissection. Advertisement The man had a long history of illnesses, including end-stage renal disease, heart failure and irregular heartbeat. He also had peripheral arterial disease, bladder cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hepatitis C, hypertension, hyperparathyroidism and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. An ear, nose and throat specialist examined his voice box using a small, flexible telescope passed through the nose, which revealed that his left vocal cord was paralyzed. A scan of his neck showed his aorta had swollen to an abnormal size. The expansion of the aorta had squashed the mans recurrent laryngeal nerve, which controls the vocal cord muscles, leading to hoarseness. The very rare loss of voice as part of aortic dissection is known as Ortners syndrome, or cardiovocal syndrome. He was rushed into surgery to have the artery repaired, but his hospital stay was complicated by a bleed in the small intestine due to an ulcer, which needed a transfusion. After 20 days in hospital, he was discharged and given physical therapy, which gradually reduced the hoarseness of his voice. Over 13,000 people die from an aortic dissection annually in the US. In the UK, it affects three or four people per 100,000 every year. Gareth Owens, chair of the national patient association aortic dissection awareness UK and Ireland said aortic Dissection kills more people in the UK each year than road traffic accidents. If the symptoms of aortic occur within the past two weeks, the dissection is called acute aortic dissection. If they began more than 14 days ago, as in the case of the American man, it is called chronic aortic dissection. In England, there are about 2,500 cases per year of acute aortic dissection, with around half of patients dying before they reach a specialist care center and 20-30 per cent of patients dying before they reach a hospital. Advertisement The Coronavirus pandemic has prompted a global surge in laboratories that handle dangerous viruses despite concerns Covid may have been the result of the risky experiments. More than 40 facilities certified as biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) or BSL-4 have either been built or have gone into construction since 2020, predominantly across Asia. Many countries believe they were caught flat-footed by Covid and want to get ahead of the next devastating outbreak by studying pathogens that pose a threat to humans. Experiments at these labs often involve tinkering with animal viruses to advance treatments and vaccines that could be used in a future outbreak. But there are widespread concerns that these experiments might actually raise the risk of pandemics something some experts believe was the case with Covid. The virus first began spreading from a wet market in Wuhan, about eight miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a high security biolab that worked with dangerous bat coronaviruses. Scientists there worked on some of Covid's closest relatives. They were also found to have wiped crucial databases and stifled independent investigations into the laboratory's links to the pandemic. Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in infection diseases at the University of East Anglia in England, told DailyMail.com he was concerned about what all the new labs would be used for. 'The issue is what youre going to be using [the labs] for,' he told this website. 'If theyre for diagnostic purposes, then you need them. But I dont think every country needs a BSL-4. He added: If they start having a dual purpose for research that has offensive military implications, that is the concern. Russia has set out its proposals for 15 of the maximum security labs and India is aiming for 18 BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs in total. The US is also adding a further highest level biosecurity lab to its existing 12. There are currently 63 BSL-4 labs, the highest level of security, across the globe. This is up from the 59 which were in operation or planned last year. Three-quarters are in urban areas. South America and Africa are some of the places lacking access to the labs The question of whether the global outbreak began with a spillover from wildlife sold at the market or leaked out of the Wuhan lab just eight miles across the Yangtze River has given rise to fierce debate about how to prevent the next pandemic. New studies point to a natural spillover at the Huanan wildlife market. Positive swab samples of floors, cages and counters also track the virus back to stalls in the southwestern corner of the market (bottom left), where animals with the potential to harbor Covid were sold for meat or fur at the time (bottom right) Pictured: The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where crucial data was wiped by Chinese scientists Virologist Shi Zheng-li works with her colleague in the P4 lab of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Hubei province - which is at the heart of the lab-leak theory. Nicknamed the 'Bat Lady', Zheng-li hunted down dozens of deadly Covid-like viruses in bat caves and studied them at the WIV Work on the live virus that causes Covid must be carried out at a BSL-3 or BSL-4 lab. In BSL-3 labs, researchers do all experiments in a biosafety cabinet an enclosed, ventilated workspace for handling materials contaminated with pathogens. The labs also have self-closing doors, sealed windows, floors and walls, and filtered ventilation systems. In a BSL-4 lab, full-body, air-supplied pressure suits are worn and workers must change their clothing before entering and shower before leaving. The lab is situated in a separate section of the building and has its own dedicated air supply. Chinese laboratory at center of Covid cover-up claims detects brand NEW virus in mice that needs to be 'further assessed' A new virus was detected at the Chinese laboratory at the center of Covid's origin. Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology discovered the pathogen code-named LsPyV KY187 in a mouse. It belongs to a family of polyomaviruses which infect millions of children every year but are extremely mild. Scientists at the controversial lab made the find after testing hundreds of rodents in Kenya in 2016 and 2019. Samples were then sent for analysis at the biochemical research facility in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the Covid pandemic. The new polyomavirus was detected in a striped grass mouse, sometimes known as a zebra mouse. It was revealed in a study published in the Chinese journal Virologica Sinica this month. Because the virus is not closely related to any known pathogen, its effect on people is 'unclear and needs to be further assessed', the researchers said. Advertisement India is currently constructing five BSL-3 facilities and proposes at least nine more. Four institutions are planning to build BSL-4 labs with the highest level of security. At the moment, India has three BSL-4 labs but only one is operational. Plus Indias Government has agreed to set up four new national institutes of virology, two of which will handle BSL-4 pathogens in future. Also in Asia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines and Singapore intend to build their first BSL-4 facilities. The US is due to add another BSL-4 lab to its existing group of 12 maximum-biosafety level facilities. Russia also announced last year that it will build 15 BSL-4 labs, but gave little to no details. More top level security biochemical labs means that more high-risk research can be carried out, including gain-of-function studies, where pathogens are altered, potentially making them more deadly. At the moment, there are 63 BSL-4 labs in the world. Professor Paul Hunter, an expert in infection diseases at the University of East Anglia in England, told DailyMail.com the worry is not that the higher level security labs are popping up across the world, but what they will be used for. He said that compared to BSL-3 labs, BSL-4s are a whole level up, adding theyre very rare. In terms of human pathogens, really nasty things like Ebola and Lassa fever would be handled in the BSL-4 labs. This is because many of the pathogens that you would handle in category four labs are known bioterrorism and biowarfare agents in the wrong hands, he said. The theory that Covid escaped from the Wuhan BSL-4 lab has been largely dispelled, but it is possible for viruses to leak from research settings. Professor Hunter said: The whole thing about a BSL-4 lab is that it substantially reduces the risk of viral escape, although it doesnt always guarantee it. He added: There are quite a few laboratory acquired infections by lab workers picking things up. Most of them are relatively minor, but it is always a concern. We have had and we still do have lab escape problems around the world, he added. But he said that in theory, the category 4 labs are the safest places to deal with the risky pathogens. And to some extent, the high level biosecurity labs are needed. Professor Hunter said: Youve got to do some work on them, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to deal with an outbreak of Ebola. Youve got to have these and theyve got to be reasonably readily available. He said that there are some things people do that could cause substantial harm if they get released, adding, the nervousness is that if youve got such facilities, whether then you start doing inappropriate research or development that ultimately will have more sinister outcomes. Professor Hunter said ultimately he wasnt concerned about the new labs springing up, as there are perfectly good, perfectly necessary reasons why you might want them. He said: If I was responsible for stuff in India and I knew wed had problems managing the early stages of the Covid outbreak because we didn't have access to appropriate category 4 level labs, I would be damn well sure I wanted to build category level 4 labs to make sure that if we had that problem again, Id be able to better serve the population. But would I be concerned if people started using these labs for research that could ultimately be harmful? Then yes. Members of BTS hold plaques presented by the Busan Metropolitan City on July 19, 2022 to appoint them as official honorary ambassadors to promote the southern port city's bid to host World Expo 2030. Joint Press Corps By Ko Dong-hwan International K-pop sensation BTS is scheduled to hold a concert in Busan Saturday and the city government hopes the event will offer a strong boost to its bid to host World Expo 2030. Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon held a meeting with city government officials, Tuesday, for a final inspection of preparations for the event. Held at Busan Asiad Main Stadium and streamed live to audiences gathered at separate spots in Busan Port and Haeundae Beach, the concert, titled "Yet to Come in Busan," is being held for free. "Some 100,000 people are expected to flock to Busan around the day of the concert," said Park during the meeting at Busan city hall. "After pulling off this large-scale event through water-tight preparation, I want the whole world to know that Busan can successfully pull off Expo 2030 as well." Joining the meeting were the deputy mayor and senior officials from the city government bureaus involved in organizing the concert, as well as representatives of Busan's police force, tourism organization and BTS' management company HYBE. The concert's main control center will be set up inside Asiad Main Stadium on Friday. In addition to overseeing the show, the control center will be responsible for dealing with any emergencies during the concert. Busan City Hall, left, and Busan Tower on Tuesday are lit in purple, a color representing BTS' fans who are better known as ARMY. Courtesy of Busan Metropolitan City New recommendations also call to screen children 12 and older for depression A leading panel of doctors has recommended all American children over the age of eight to be screened for anxiety - even if they do not have symptoms. The US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), one of the most influential bodies in American health care, issued the new guidelines on Tuesday. It also is pushing for doctors to screen all children over the age of 12 for depression no matter their reported symptoms. The group believes cases are going undiagnosed because of a shortage in physicians and a spike in mental health problems following the pandemic. Just last month the same panel recommended that all adults aged 18 to 65 receive a screening for both conditions. If doctors were to follow the recommendations of the task force it would involve checking at least 200million Americans. Experts have expressed concerns over these recommendations, fearing it could lead to an over-medicated population and another opioid-like crisis. The most common anxiety medications fall into the class of benzodiazepines, with highly addictive drugs like Xanax, Klomopin, and Valium. A leading panel of US doctors now recommends all children over the age of eight to be screened for anxiety and all over 12 to be screened for depression. Some experts fear these screenings could spur addiction to anti-anxiety medication (file photo) Dr Matha Kubik, a member of the USPSTF and nursing professor at George Mason University, said: 'The Task Force reviewed the evidence on screening for anxiety, depression, and suicide risk to provide primary care professionals with guidance on how they can help support the mental health of children and adolescents. 'Fortunately, screening older children for anxiety and depression can identify these conditions so children and teens can receive the care that they need.' WHAT IS ANXIETY? Anxiety is a normal part of life that affects different people in different ways at different times. Whereas stress can come and go, anxiety often persists and does not always have an obvious cause. Along with depression, anxiety is among the most common mental-health condition in the UK, affecting 8.2million people in 2013 alone. Around 40million adults suffer from the condition in the US every year. Anxiety can make a person imagine things in their life are worse than they are or that they are going mad. Although it evolved as part of the 'fight or flight' mechanism in our caveman days to avoid danger, anxiety can be inappropriately activated in everyday life when stress builds up. It can have a clear cause, such as moving house or having surgery. However, sometimes little life events build up until a person is unable to cope, with anxiety then taking them by surprise. Physical symptoms can include: Increased heart rate and muscle tension Hyperventilation and dizziness Nausea A tight band across the chest Tension headaches Hot flushes Sweating 'Jelly legs' Shaking Feeling like you are choking Tingling in the hands and feet Some psychological symptoms are: Thinking you are going mad or losing control Thinking you may die or get ill Feeling people are staring at you Feeling detached from others or on edge Treatment often involves counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy. Activates like yoga, exercise, reading and socialising can help to manage anxiety. Advertisement The independent panel, while highly respected, holds no enforcement power and physicians are under no requirement to follow their guidance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that eight per cent of children aged three to 17 years old suffers from an anxiety disorder. And a report from Yale University indicates around 3 per cent of under-18s has depression. Rates are believed to have surged during the pandemic, where disruptions to everyday life and limited social interactions harmed many younger people. 'The Task Force cares deeply about the mental health of all children and adolescents,' said Dr Lori Pbert, a psychologist from the University of Massachusetts. 'Unfortunately, there are key evidence gaps related to screening for anxiety and depression in younger children and screening for suicide risk in all youth. 'We are calling for more research in these critical areas so we can provide healthcare professionals with evidence-based ways to keep their young patients healthy.' Experts told DailyMail.com the new recommendations could spur a surge in prescriptions for anti-anxiety medication. Some fear these highly addictive drugs are already at the center of a budding addiction crisis in the US. Dr Anna Lembke, chief of the Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University, told DailyMail.com: 'In the United States when the Joint Commission mandated that all doctors screen all patients for pain, even when patients did not come in for pain complaints or demonstrate physical stigmata of being in pain, the result was increased opioid prescribing, contributing to our current opioid epidemic. 'I could see something similar happening with mandated screening of anxiety.' Dr Lembke said she has the same concerns for screening children that she had for screening adults. Others have warned that making primary care physicians screen patients for mental health disorders instead of psychologists was improper. Dr Jonathan Shedler, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told Fox News last month that these doctors do not have the proper training. These types of screenings could also put a person who reports no symptoms on a path towards dependency on highly addictive drugs. 'This kind of screening is going to diagnose huge numbers of people with a disorder and a good number of them are going to end up on a lifelong path of one medication and one treatment after another,' Dr Shedler explained. 'When, in fact, they're responding to realistic circumstances in the world.' Dr Anna Lembke (left), chief of the Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University, compared the guidance to prescription pain pill recommendations blamed for sparking the opioid crisis in the US. Dr Jonathan Shedler (right), a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said that primary care physicians are not equipped to screen for anxiety Drugs like Valium, Klonopin, and Xanax - which all fall under the umbrella of benzodiazepines, or 'benzos' - as specifically dangerous. The drugs are highly addictive and their intense side-effects have made them popular party drugs. A person who uses the drugs each day to manage severe cases of anxiety could become dependent on them in a matter of weeks, studies suggest. The body builds tolerance to the drugs as well, meaning a frequent use will need more-and-more over time to control their addiction. Like opioids, eventually prescriptions run out or become unobtainable. In most extreme cases, users turn to the street where versions of the drug that could have dangerous contaminants like fentanyl circulate. Fentanyl is the main driver of America's drug overdose crisis, responsible for 70 per cent of the 107,000 overdose deaths recorded in the US in 2021. Walmart is entering the drug research industry, it announced today. The supermarket chain vowed to make medicine 'safer, higher quality and more equitable'. It will work with pharmaceutical companies, medical centers and research labs on trials of new treatments. It's chief medical officer Dr John Widneswaran said they aimed to get more ethnic minorities into clinical trials, which are historically under-represented. The chain said it planned to set up an institute that will initially focus on studies for treatments for heart disease, diabetes, Covid asthma. It will also consider research on conditions like HIV and dementia. Dr Widneswaran said the institute will have an independent review board to ensure the most beneficial trials are chosen and patients are given appropriate messaging. Walmart said today it was starting to give customers the options of joining clinical trials for chronic diseases. Pictured above is its head office in Arkansas Walmart already provides primary and urgent care through diagnostic tests, X-rays and check-ups at its 25 health centers. The chain also has nearly 5,000 pharmacies, making it the third largest in the country behind Walgreens and CVS. To take part in the trial run by the new Walmart Healthcare Research Institute (WHRI), patients will need to be signed up to its patient portal called 'MyHealthJourney'. It is not clear how many patients are currently signed up to the patient portal. How do I join a drug trial through Walmart? Walmart said today it would start giving its customers the option of joining drug trials. This could give them early access to cutting edge experimental treatment free of charge. Walmart said it is currently recruiting for chronic diseases including heart problems and diabetes. This is being done via the 'MyHealthJourney' patient portal, where patients are contacted if a study turns up that they may be able to take part in. It is following in the footsteps of rivals Walgreens and CVS which both already offer their customers the option Advertisement A spokeswoman told DailyMail.com that since June they had already signed up thousands of patients to clinical trials. She said they were working with a 'wide range' of research organizations, big pharma companies and leading academic medical journals. Patient recruitment is often challenging in clinical trials, with many studies needing to be delayed or terminated as too few people offer to participate. But Walmart hopes that by offering the opportunity to its patients much more clinical research can be carried out. It says it particularly aims to get women, old people, and ethnic minorities signed up to the trials who are historically under-represented in studies. Data from the Food and Drug Administration shows only about 11 per cent of trial participants in the US are hispanic, despite the group making up 18 per cent of the population. Despite 12 per cent of the population being black, the group makes up just nine per cent of participants in clinical trials. Announcing Walmart's launch into the research field, Dr Wigneswaran said: 'At Walmart we want to help ensure all customers have access to high quality, affordable and convenient healthcare resources including innovative research. 'We know our customers are interested in participating in healthcare research, but many have not had access until now.' Duke Univeristy's Health chairman Bill Hawkins praised the move today saying: 'The efforts by Walmart in research are innovative and impactful it is clear that hte intention behind their foray into this space is to genuinely make a difference for patients of all ages, race and gender in their ability to access research. 'This initiative will support individual patient health as well as the health of numerous comminutuies home to Walmart stores.' Walmart launched the service in June this year, but has only just announced the set-up of the WHRI center. Rival Walgreens launched its clinical trial service in June and says it is already in talks with 'many leading pharmaceutical companies'. It has already worked with the University of North Texas for a study on African American HIV patients. CVS started offering the recruitment to patients last year. It has since worked with the US Department of Health and Human Services to track Covid variants, and worked on a study with Pfizer to track the long-term effects of a Covid infection. GlaxoSmithKline chief executive Emma Walmsley has received a boost after US regulators approved a whooping cough vaccine for unborn babies. Boostrix, administered in the third trimester, helps mothers develop antibodies to the disease, which are then transferred to their unborn infants. The drug was already approved in the US for use by adults, including pregnant mothers. Boss: The decision by US regulators to approve the Boostrix vaccine will come as a relief for under-pressure Glaxo chief exec Dame Emma Walmsley (pictured) But the latest decision makes Boostrix the first vaccine approved in the States specifically for use during pregnancy to protect babies in their first months of life. It has been approved for maternal immunisation in the UK since April 2021. GSK investors focused recently on the possibility of financial liabilities relating to lawsuits over heartburn drug Zantac. Its consumer healthcare spin-off Haleon has also had a tough time, slumping in value after making its market debut this year. Haleon is worth just over 25billion months after Unilevers 50billion takeover approach for the business was spurned. It has been synonymous with shipbuilding for more than 150 years. On the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow, the yard at Govan rings with the bashing of metal and the sparks of welders. Today it has 3,500 workers busy turning out three Type 26 warships, but over the last couple of decades the site's future has been uncertain. Future: A blueprint of the new Type 26 frigate. Three of the warships are currently being built at the Govan shipyard in Glasgow Now, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister pledging an increase in defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP has changed the outlook for defence contractors. BAE Systems, Govan's owner, is recruiting nearly 1,200 more workers across its UK shipbuilding division, 400 of them at Govan. The yard stands on the cusp of more than a decade's worth of orders as ministers prepare to sign off on a deal for five more Type 26 class vessels. At the same time, ways of working dating back to the 1950s are being dragged into the 2050s with an investment of more than 100million in a vast ship-building hall that will, for the first time, allow two enormous vessels to be built alongside each other. On a sunny day when the Mail visited Govan recently, a towering mass of scaffolding and sheets loomed over the yard's hard-standing, while in the background the Clyde shimmered. Behind the facade was HMS Glasgow, the ship that will be the first in a line of eight submarine-hunting Type 26 frigates to be built for the Royal Navy. Two more HMS Cardiff and HMS Belfast are being assembled in the giant warehouses that face out onto the yard. BAE, Britain's biggest defence contractor, began work on the ships in 2017. Overall, 4,000 workers are involved in the Type 26 programme across the UK. HMS Cardiff is still in two parts and under cover, its steel structure being readied for the next stage when it is taken outside and welded together. HMS Glasgow sits by the water where it is in the last few months of preparation before it is ready to float. Above it rises a Dalek-like mast structure a piece of fibreglass made in Norway. Part of the work left to do is in the wiring 470 miles of it, enough to stretch between Glasgow and Portsmouth. A vast space in the middle of the ship, the mission bay, is one of the Type 26's key innovations. It can be used to turn the submarine-hunting ship to various uses, with enough space to hold dozens of special forces soldiers, amphibious landing craft or even a Merlin helicopter. In humanitarian crises, it could house facilities to produce clean water for a population of 40,000. History: The WWII Aircraft Carrier HMS Indefatigable is launched from Govan in December 1942 Key to the ship's core task of submarine-hunting is its quietness. Sir Simon Lister, BAE's managing director of naval ships, says: 'The trick is to make both the equipment you have in the ship quieter in the first place and then to prevent what noise remains reaching the water.' Helping designers to guide the work is a state-of-the-art computer system using millions of data points, updated daily. That allows them to roam around a virtual model of the ship at each stage of its creation on a screen illustrated in garish colours in a room adjacent to the yard. In contrast to the increasingly hi-tech process is the scene on the hard-standing in front of the ship, where construction equipment and pallets lie spread out like a monumental Ikea set in the open air. That way of working will come to an end when Govan's new shipbuilding hall is ready. 'Frankly, we need to stop building outside and using construction techniques that may well have served past decades,' says Nadia Savage, the Type 26 programme director. 'Investing in that, we will improve safety, improve health, and be able to deliver that much more attractive workplace.' If all goes to plan, HMS Cardiff will be the last ship to be completed outside at Govan. HMS Glasgow is expected to enter service in the mid-2020s. Things were very different when BAE rescued Govan in 1999 after Anglo-Norwegian group Kvaerner pulled out. Modern skills: A worker cuts metal sheeting for the Type 26 warship HMS Glasgow which is currently under construction at Govan At the time of the sale, however, the site employed a core staff of just 800. 'In the past, it's no secret that shipbuilding, like many other industries, has gone through quite cyclical boom and quite a long period of lull I won't say bust because we're all still here building ships in the UK,' said Savage. 'But certainly it's not been an easy journey through the last couple of decades. 'That has had an impact on skills not just in shipbuilding but across manufacturing generally.' A big boost came in 2013 when a review by the company and the Ministry of Defence concluded that Glasgow would be the best location to build Type 26 ships. That was at the expense of Portsmouth where shipbuilding came to an end but allowed the tradition on the Clyde to continue. The region has produced thousands of naval, merchant and passenger ships since the 18th century and the yard in Govan, then known as Fairfields, was founded in 1864. BAE's investment at the site could mean more ships are built not just for the Royal Navy, but for customers abroad too. Savage said it could mean 'export programmes potentially delivered from the Clyde not just exporting design expertise but exporting vessels again'. YouGov has posted a 31 per cent jump in revenue for the full year to 221.1 million, thanks to a 'strong demand' for its products and services. The British market research and data analytics firm, which was founded in 2000, saw adjusted operating profit rocket 42 per cent to 36.3million, due to 'business efficiencies and operational leverage benefits' starting to come through. Data products saw the biggest boost, with a 23 per cent rise in revenue to 74.1 million, while custom research revenue increased by 21 per cent to 95.6 million, and data services crept up 11 per cent to 50.7 million. YouGov has revealed a 31 per cent jump in revenue for the full year to 221.1 million, thanks to a 'strong demand' for its products and services Despite the strong results, YouGov's shares were down more than 4 per cent and trading at 783.00p around midday on Tuesday. The company, which operates in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, told investors the US remains 'the key driver' of performance, in line with a 'strategic focus to expand market penetration in the region'. On the dividend front, YouGov has recommend an increase of 17 per cent to 7p a share payable on 12 December 2022 to shareholders on the register as at 2 December 2022. In a bid to drive further growth, the firm has invested 8million in technology, expanded its product offerings and developed a new base in Mexico City to increase research operations for its 'rapidly growing' US business. Addressing changes to the board, the company revealed its CEO and co-founder Stephan Shakespeare will take the role of chair when Roger Parry departs on 1 August 2023. Meanwhile, Nick Prettejohn, who joined the board in June 2022 as a non-executive director, will, at the same time, take on the role of senior independent director. Rosemary Leith, the current SID, will stay on the board following this transition. Commenting on the full year results, CEO Shakespeare said: 'Building on the momentum we saw towards the end of FY21, YouGov has delivered another year of strong performance in FY22 against an uncertain macro-economic backdrop. 'Our growth in the reported year has continued to accelerate, and we achieved further margin improvement and robust cash generation during the period. 'Demand for YouGov's products and services remains strong and we continue to win new clients while expanding our relationships with existing clients. As a result, we remain cautiously optimistic on our prospects for this year as we aim for further growth. 'We continue to invest in our market-leading technology and platform and remain laser-focused in delivering on our long-term strategy to realise the full potential of our business and drive shareholder value. With regards to the Board succession, I am deeply committed to the business I co-founded over two decades ago and look forward to the next phase of our growth.' YouGov was co-founded by Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim Zahawi, who first met while working in British politics. By 2009 it was highlighted as the most quoted market research source in UK media and today it has more than 20 million registered members, 1,600 employees and 39 offices worldwide. The UK arm of Estonias largest financial group has agreed to buy the small business loan book of start-up challenger Bank North for around 20million. The deal with LHV comes a week after Bank North was forced into a solvent wind-down after failing to raise enough cash to secure a full banking licence, which would have allowed it to take deposits from retail savers. The demise of Manchester-based Bank North revealed in the Daily Mail last week was a blow to the Governments levelling up agenda and to plans to boost competition in the lending market to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Collapse: The demise of Manchester-based Bank North was a blow to the Government's 'levelling up' agenda and to plans to boost competition in the lending market It also raised concerns about the financial strength of other challenger banks as they battle the cost-of-living crisis and a near-meltdown in financial markets. But now LHV is rescuing Bank North, safeguarding around 20 jobs a third of the total. For a bank the size of LHV, the question in the UK is not about demand for loans, but about having enough capital to meet the demand, said LHV chief executive Madis Toomsalu. Bank Norths activities have proven that the demand for SME loans in the UK remains strong and that an efficient and fast decision-making process makes it possible for a new entrant to the market to grow a lending business. Founded in 2018, Bank North specialised in making loans of between 500,000 and 5million. It began lending to a year ago after acquiring a restricted banking licence. Bank North chairman Ron Emerson, who used to lead the state-backed British Business Bank, blamed a gathering storm of economic uncertainty over the past six months for its failure. Latest accounts show it lost 1.9million in the nine months to March 2021. LHV, which will write off the value of its existing 9 per cent stake in Bank North, is applying for its own UK banking licence. Its UK business offers payment services to 200 international financial services companies. Since 2013, the Bank of England has approved 54 new licences for banks, including Monzo, Starling and Atom. Just under half have been granted to the UK subsidiaries of foreign banks. A recent EY report found revenue and profitability for challenger and specialist banks rose last year while provisions for bad debts fell. It said banks were well capitalised, meaning they had enough reserves to deal with a downturn and to keep growing. But EYs report added: The geopolitical and economic picture may create significant challenges ahead. Award-winning journalist, author, and commentator Maureen Callahan is joining DailyMail.com as a columnist. For over a decade, Callahan served as a popular columnist for the New York Post, where she covered everything from pop culture to politics. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, New York magazine, and SPIN magazine. 'I am thrilled and excited to join DailyMail.com,' Callahan said. 'I am officially going from avid reader to columnist for one of the world's most-read online publications. 'I hope to offer fun, unexpected and thought-provoking takes on the news and the people who for better or worse make it. Award-winning journalist, author, and commentator Maureen Callahan is joining DailyMail.com as a columnist. Callahan has authored several books including the New York Times bestseller, 'American Predator' (left), 'Champagne Supernovas' (middle) and 'Poker Face' (right) 'There's no place like DailyMail.com for fearless, fast, sharp, colorful, can't-stop-reading-and-scrolling journalism, and I can't wait to contribute.' Callahan has authored several books including her latest, the New York Times bestseller, 'American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century,' chronicling the hunt for Israel Keyes. She also wrote 'Champagne Supernovas: Kate Moss, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and the '90s Renegades Who Remade Fashion' and 'Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga.' While at SPIN magazine, Callahan received an ASCAP-Deems Taylor award as co-author of 'Don't Drink the Brown Water', an expose of what led to the Woodstock riots of 1999. She also contributed to the HBO documentary 'Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage.' Gerard Greaves, Editor-in-Chief of DailyMail.com said on Tuesday: 'We are delighted to have Maureen as the newest member of the DailyMail.com team.' For over a decade, Callahan served as a popular columnist for the New York Post, where she covered everything from pop culture to politics. (Above) NY Post cover featuring Callahan's column, 'Toddler and tiara' on Meghan Markle Gerard Greaves, Editor-in-Chief of DailyMail.com said on Tuesday: 'We are delighted to have Maureen as the newest member of the DailyMail.com team. 'Throughout her career, Maureen has had her finger on America's pulse. DailyMail.com readers can anticipate her no-holds-barred take on the latest news whether it be out of Washington, DC or Hollywood. 'Her writing is engaging, informative and entertaining, and I look forward to what she will bring to our website.' Maureen will be joining DailyMail.com columnist Meghan McCain in the United States and Dan Wootton, who writes for both DailyMail.com in the United States and MailOnline in the United Kingdom. Maureen currently resides in New York. Her first DailyMail.com column will be published later today. Three floundering fishermen were seen fighting off sharks with their bare hands after their boat submerged off of the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard launched a search off the Louisiana coastline after a relative reported how the three people had failed to return from a fishing trip on Saturday evening. The 24-foot, center-console fishing boat sank about 10am on Saturday and stranded the three people without communication devices, the Coast Guard said. Their dramatic rescue by sea and by air didn't come for another 24 hours. Three men were all plucked alive from the water and rushed to a hospital after being in the waters off Louisiana for 24 hours Two boaters were pulled from the water by a coastguard boat crew An aircrew also hoisted the third boater from the water A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-60 Jayhawk aircrew treats three rescued boaters for injuries Sunday, approximately 25 miles offshore from Empire, Louisiana A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans aircrew member holds up a torn life jacket from the rescue Dramatic footage from the rescue showed the men in lifejackets in the sea with one showing signs of hypothermia when they were rescued on Sunday about 25 miles offshore from Empire, Louisiana, a small community southeast of New Orleans. They had been in the water for more than a day. Coast Guard crews in two boats, two planes and a helicopter searched about 1,250 square miles of water, slightly larger than the size of the state of Rhode Island before they finally came across the trio. The Coast Guard boat crew saw two of the people fending off sharks, and both of them had injured hands. Two of the three suffered shark bites to their hands, with one showing signs of hypothermia The Coast Guard reported the boaters 24-foot boat sank at approximately 10am The three people who were rescued were wearing lifejackets and one was showing signs of hypothermia The Coast Guard can be seen airlifting one of the boaters to safety A Coast Guard Air Station rescue swimmer escorts a rescued boater into University Medical Center New Orleans on Sunday. The man could be seen with bandaged hands A Coast Guard Station Venice boatcrew treats two boaters for shark bites and hypothermia The crew pulled them from the water, and the two were lifted onto a helicopter. The helicopter crew lifted the third boater from the water. The two injured people were taken to University Medical Center New Orleans, where they were listed as stable. The Coast Guard did not release their names nor specify whether the injuries were from bites, from being scraped against sharks' sandpaper-like skin or from another cause. 'If the family member had not notified the Coast Guard, and if these three boaters were not wearing life jackets, this could've been a completely different outcome,' said Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Keefe, a Coast Guard search and rescue mission coordinator in New Orleans. Investigators have not revealed what caused the fishing boat to sink 'If the family member had not notified the Coast Guard, and if these three boaters were not wearing life jackets, this could've been a completely different outcome,' the Coast Guard said America's s third largest railroad union has rejected a deal with employers, renewing the possibility of the first major strike since 1992. If the union does not accept a deal with the Biden administration by November 19, a costly strike could start Thanksgiving week. The chokehold on America's railways would cost billions in damage to the economy and make supply chain issues even worse. Last month, when a strike appeared inevitable, it was revealed it could cost the nation $2 billion a day and spark chaos for hundreds of thousands of travelers as regional agencies planned for stoppages while Amtrak cancelled all long-distance trains. Over half of track maintenance workers represented by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division who voted opposed the five-year contract on Monday. Union president Tony Cardwell called it 'record' participation, with about 12,000 of the union's 23,000 members voting. BMWED has now set a deadline of November 19 to get a deal done before a strike would take place - just days before an increase in holiday travel, according to the union's Facebook page. The two larger unions for about 55,000 conductors and engineers have said they will strike even if they approve the deal - which sources called a 'toss up' - in solidarity with BMWED, according to CNN. Both sides have said they will return to the bargaining table before the possibility of a strike, but it is unclear when. America's s third largest railroad union rejected a deal with employers Monday, renewing the possibility of the first major strike since 1992, one that cause billions in damage to the economy and make supply chain issues even worse In September, Joe Biden announced that the rail companies and unions have reached a tentative agreement to avoid a rail strike Many businesses have urged Congress to be ready to intervene in the dispute and block a strike if an agreement wasn't reached, as so many companies rely on railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products. The agreement, announced on September 15 as a national rail strike loomed at midnight the following day, would have raised rail employees' salaries 24 percent from the period of 2020 to 2024. Workers would have gotten an average lump sum payment of $11,000 for the backdated portion of the raise, according to a group representing rail companies. Railroads in Chicago, Southern California, and Virginia were preparing for service stoppages ahead of the threatened September shutdown, while Amtrak, the nation's cross-country railway system, canceled all planned trips, including those from Washington DC to Sanford, Florida, and the Silver Star from New York City to Miami. DailyMail.com has reached out to Amtrak for comment. Additionally, according to the National Retail Federation, any rail strike could have long-lasting negative effects on the import of goods for the holiday season, causing shortages and higher prices. Union President Tony Cardwell (pictured left) said the railroads didn't do enough to address the lack of paid time off - particularly sick time - and working conditions after the major railroads eliminated nearly one-third of their jobs over the past six years A July rally where railroad workers protested in favor of what they feel is a fair contract A potential rail strike would also choke supplies of already scarce computer chips and other car parts, cutting off the delivery to auto assembly plants, which could force temporary shutdowns at some of America's auto plants. It would also disrupt the flow of completed new cars and trucks to dealers throughout the country, 75 percent of which move by rail. According to an American Association of Railroads study published in September, everything from delivery delays (a single car on the average freight train carries 2,500 UPS packages), to plant shutdowns, to food (the average rail car carries enough wheat for 260,000 loaves of bread) and climate with more people forced to take the highways could be affected. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh sounded the alarm about how bad it could get if there were a strike when they announced the now-rejected settlement in September, telling Politico, 'It's like, Holy Christ: The magnitude of what would have happened. We'll never fully understand, thank God.' A spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Secretary Walsh has yet to respond to a DailyMail.com request for comment on the rejection of the settlement. 'The cost will grow geometrically the longer the strike lasts,' said Patrick Anderson, of Anderson Economic Group. 'After a week, you'd see real damage in the US economy.' 'If we reach a week-long strike, we're in uncharted territory,' he added. Without them, supply chain issues may get even worse and food distribution could be affected ahead of the holiday season. Union President Tony Cardwell said the railroads didn't do enough to address the lack of paid time off - particularly sick time - and working conditions after the major railroads eliminated nearly one-third of their jobs over the past six years. 'Railroaders are discouraged and upset with working conditions and compensation and hold their employer in low regard. Railroaders do not feel valued,' Cardwell said in a statement. 'They resent the fact that management holds no regard for their quality of life, illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness.' The group that represents the railroads in negotiations said they were disappointed the union rejected the agreement but emphasized that no immediate threat of a strike exists because the union agreed to keep working for now. Four other railroad unions have approved their agreements with freight railroads including BNSF, Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern, CSX and Norfolk Southern, but all 12 unions representing 115,000 workers must ratify their contracts to prevent a strike. Another union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, initially rejected its deal but has since renegotiated a new contract. Voting will be completed in mid-November. President Joe Biden pressured the railroads and unions to reach a deal last month ahead of a mid-September deadline to allow a strike or walkout. US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh (pictured) initially worked to broker the deal that the workers have rejected A CSX freight train travels through Alexandria, Virginia in mid-September In general, the deals the unions agreed to closely follow the recommendations a special panel of arbitrators that Biden appointed made this summer. That Presidential Emergency Board recommended what would be the biggest raises rail workers have seen in more than four decades, but it didn't resolve the unions' concerns about working conditions. Instead, it said the unions should pursue negotiations or arbitration with each railroad individually, which could take years. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way union said it agreed to delay any strike until five days after Congress reconvenes in mid-November to allow time for additional negotiations. Quality of life issues took center stage at the end of these negotiations, with unions representing conductors and engineers holding out until the end for three unpaid leave days a year for medical appointments and a promise that railroads will negotiate further on giving those employees regularly scheduled days off when they aren't on call. In general, the deals the unions agreed to closely follow the recommendations a special panel of arbitrators that Biden appointed made this summer Amtrak trains travel through Washington, DC, on September 15, 2022 A rally on behalf of the railway workers was held in Gallesburg, Illinois on July 30, 2002 Elected officials of BMWED after the delegates of the BMWED-IBT Fifth Regular Convention elected Cardwell as their president Engineers and conductors have complained that strict attendance policies make it hard to take any time off. Track maintenance workers in the BMWED generally have more regular schedules than engineers and conductors, but all the rail unions have objected to the lack of paid sick time in the industry - particularly after working to keep trains moving throughout the pandemic. Rutgers University professor Todd Vachon, who teaches labor relations classes, said he's not entirely surprised the contract was rejected given how emboldened union members feel to fight for better working conditions amidst the current worker shortage. 'The biggest sticking issue is quality of life - especially access to paid time off and paid sick time. If the railroads can make some movement in that area, it will likely go a long way with rail workers who currently feel they are not being respected by their employers,' Vachon said. 'Wages and resource allocation are one important part of contract negotiations but feeling respected by ones employer remains one of the top reasons that workers form and join unions.' Although a strike is now possible, Vachon said hes not too worried yet because both sides have more than a month to reach a new agreement. Sevilla denies entering the bathroom and groping the flight attendant but acknowledges that '90 percent' was true After being encouraged by a flight attendant to get up from the floor the affidavit claims he grabbed a flight attendant by the right breast According to the affidavit Cherruy Garcia Sevilla, 23, snapped a piece of plastic from the bathroom door and used it to enter the locked stall A Miami man who took magic mushrooms and then allegedly groped an air stewardess and broke into an occupied toilet on the flight has blamed his crazed attack on the altitude. Cherruy Garcia Sevilla, 23, was arrested after travelling from Miami to Washington on October 4 when a dose of psilocybin he had taken kicked in, sending him into a frenzy. Around one hour into the two hour flight Sevilla started running down the plane's aisle, clapping loudly near the cockpit and swearing loudly, claimed the affidavit. Sevilla told DailyMail.com: '90 percent of what was said was true' as he said that the altitude may have played a part in his behavior. 'I remember pulling the piece of plastic off the door, but don't remember using any degree of force,' he added. According to the affidavit at one point he grabbed an attendant by the right breast. He disputes touching the attendant's breast saying: 'They claim I grabbed the flight attendant's breast but that's not me at all.' PICTURED: Cherruy Garcia Sevilla, 23, exclusively spoke to DailyMail.com and disputed that he touched the flight attendant's breast during the crazed flight United Airlines flight 2116 was flying from Miami International Airport to Washington Dulles United Airlines flight 2116 was flying from Miami International Airport to Washington Dulles. When the flight took off he was sitting in the same row as a father and daughter, who said something 'wasn't right' with Sevilla. During the flight the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit alleges that he started acting inappropriately and grabbed the daughter's arm. The pilot then declared a 'level 2 disturbance' due to Sevilla's inappropriate behavior on the flight, said the FBI agent in the affidavit. The Federal Aviation Authority classification specifies that a level 2 threat level should be declared in the case of physically abusive behavior during a flight. According to the affidavit the father and daughter were moved away from Sevilla but he became increasingly loud and started walking up and down the plane shouting swear words and smiling in people's faces. The affidavit also alleges that he used the a broken piece of the bathroom door to enter while another passenger was inside. He told DailyMail.com he doesn't recall that happening. He does remember putting a piece of the door in his pocket says he surrendered it to a flight attendant when they asked for it back. Sevilla said he'd taken larger doses before, but on the plane the drugs were starting to take effect soon and he 'really felt it creep up' His behavior became increasingly out of control until he lay down on the floor. When the flight attendant tried to get him back to hit seat he 'suddenly jumped up', 'grabbing and twisting' the attendant's breast, the affidavit said. He denied that claim: 'That's not like me at all.' Passengers joined in with flight attendants and on-board law enforcement to retrain Sevilla so he could be handcuffed, claimed the affidavit. When the aircraft landed FBI agents and airport police met the plane at the gate. FBI agent Daniel Markley says in an affidavit submitted to the court that he witnessed Sevilla yelling, swearing and producing unintelligible sounds. He remembers the officers treating him well. 'They were speaking to me like a human being, and with respect,' he said. Sevilla told DailyMail.com that he consumed psilocybin mushrooms quite regularly, mainly for 'meditative' and not 'recreational' purposes. He said: 'I definitely felt it creep up, usually it takes longer to take effect.' He speculated that 'maybe the altitude played a role'. Sevilla appeared at Albert Bryan Court Building in Alexandria on Wednesday and is due to return to court on October 13 In a statement to DailyMail.com United Airlines said: 'We also followed up with our crew members to make sure they were ok. We'd like to thank our crew for handling this difficult situation with professionalism.' Sevilla is now due to appear before Judge Fitzpatrick in the Eastern District of Virginia court. His hearing is scheduled for 2pm. Korea's exports slipped 20.2 percent on-year in the first 10 days of October due mainly to sluggish overseas sales of chips, data showed Tuesday. The country's outbound shipments stood at $11.8 billion in the Oct. 1-10 period, compared with $14.8 billion a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Imports also went down 11.3 percent on-year to $15.6 billion during the cited period, resulting in a trade deficit of $3.8 billion. The decline also came as the number of working days during the period came to five days, with the comparable figure for last year coming to 5.5 days. By sector, outbound shipments of chips, the mainstay export product for Asia's No. 4 economy, fell 20.6 percent on-year in the first 10 days of the month to reach $2.2 billion. Exports of petroleum products also lost 21.3 percent to $1 billion. In contrast, Korea's exports of automobiles and ships gained 5.4 percent and 76.4 percent over the cited period to reach $945 million and $508 million, respectively. By nation, exports to China, the largest trading partner, came to $2.9 billion, down 23.4 percent from a year earlier. Shipments to the United States decreased 21.4 percent to $1.6 billion, though those to the European Union gained 11.1 percent to $1.42 billion. Exports to Vietnam and Japan slipped 11.9 percent and 35.5 percent, respectively. Korea's combined exports this year through Monday came to $536.7 billion, up 11.2 percent from a year earlier. The trade deficit so far, meanwhile, reached $32.7 billion. (Yonhap) Speed camera warning signs will return to roads in NSW following a shock government backflip. Warning signs will be reinstated before and after mobile speed cameras on the state's roads from January 1, 2023. It will take months for the change to kick in so the community can have 'time to adjust'. It comes two years after the state government sparked massive public backlash with their controversial decision to remove the signs. In the first year after scrapping the warning signs, revenue from mobile speed camera fines increased ten-fold to more than $40million. That led the government to mount warning signs on top of the speed camera vehicles themselves. Revenue from mobile speed camera fines increased ten-fold in NSW after warning signs were axed in 2020 (pictured a mobile speed camera in Sydney) From next year, motorists will also receive advance warning that they are approaching a mobile speed camera. Roof-mounted warning signs are also here to stay, giving drivers additional warning so they can ensure they're sticking to the speed limit. 'We've listened and cabinet has today decided from 1 January, you will see all mobile speed camera vehicles having those signs before and after the cars on every road,' roads minister Natalie Ward said. 'These additional warning signs will help educate drivers in real time, giving them advanced warning to slow down at these high-risk points of our road network.' NSW opposition leader Chris Minns welcomed the move but branded the government backflip a pre-election stunt to appease voters ahead of the March 2023 election. NSW roads minister Natalie Ward (pictured) announced the government backflip on Monday 'They've gone from collecting about $4 million a year in low-range [speeding] fines, to [more than] $45 million in just one financial year, straight out of the pockets of the families of NSW,' Mr Minns said. 'We believe the signs should be out so that motorists change their behaviour in real time and not commit the offences in the first place.' Teenage road crusader Beau Jackson has made a name for himself in recent months parking near mobile cameras on the NSW Central Coast with a makeshift sign warning unsuspecting motorists about potential speed traps. The teen spends most days before and after work parked in locations where he feels cameras are 'unfairly' trying to catch people to raise revenue - such as at the bottom of hills, or in places where the speed limit suddenly drops. He has vowed to continue his vigilante efforts until the warning signs return. 'There still will be millions fined until 1st January! I wont be stopping until then!' Beau posted on Monday night.' Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty in ACT's Supreme Court She alleged her former colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, raped her after a night out The rape trial continued in her absence with a range of other witnesses Brittany Higgins trial to continue for its sixth day, after complainant was absent Brittany Higgins has not appeared at court to give evidence at the trial of her accused rapist for a second consecutive day, after the court heard she was 'unavailable'. Ms Higgins alleges her former Liberal colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, sexually assaulted her while she slept in the defence minister's office in Parliament House, Canberra in March 2019. Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent in ACT's Supreme Court. Ms Higgins was in the witness box last week, and was expected to face further questions this week before her absence was revealed on Monday. The trial resumed in Ms Higgins' absence on Monday with a range of other witnesses, which continued on Tuesday. Former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins and partner David Sharaz arrive at the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra last week Earlier in the trial, the court heard Ms Higgins allege she and Lehrmann had been out drinking with colleagues before they got in a cab together. They stopped off at parliament Lehrmann said he needed to get something on the way home. After falling asleep on a couch in former defence minister Linda Reynolds' office, Ms Higgins alleges she woke up to Lehrmann having sex with her and says she told him to stop. The pair had been working as ministerial staffers for Senator Reynolds. Mr Whybrow put several inconsistencies in Ms Higgins' story during his cross-examination, including that she created a timeline of events and distributed it to the media. Ms Higgins said the dossier was for the police when she reopened her complaint, but admitted it had also been distributed to journalists. Former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann arrives on Monday to the ACT Supreme Court in Canberra, where he is on trial Mr Whybrow also pressed Ms Higgins on why she had deleted some text messages and photos from her phone before handing it to police. She told the court she had cleared her phone of photographs showing her holding alcohol or with politicians. But she denied she had done so to mislead officers investigating her allegations, but rather to purge her phone of 'horrible parts' of her life. The trial is expected to last for at least another five weeks. A young schoolboy who lost his battle with a rare melanoma not caused by exposure to the sun has been described as a 'true warrior'. Hayden Price, 10, from Queensland's Sunshine Coast was diagnosed with advanced melanoma in 2020. In a Facebook post on Thursday, his mother Liza broke the devastating news: 'Our brave little warrior left us Tuesday night (October 4). He will be sorely missed beyond words. How lucky we all were to have him.' Hayden Price (pictured), 10, lost his battle with a rare melanoma that was not caused by exposure to the sun. He passed away on October 4 after first being diagnosed in 2020 Ms Price and husband Nathan had always ensured their son wore sun protection outside - and said he had never been sunburnt. They initially discovered a seemingly innocuous skin tag on the back of his head and took him to the doctors thinking it was just a surface blemish that could easily be removed. 'It was being irritated every time he put on his hat or his helmet or his goggles so we went to the doctor and had it removed and we thought that was the end of it,' Ms Price told 9News. 'We were very shocked when the doctor called up and said, 'We're sorry, we've found cancer'.' It was revealed that Hayden had a rare sub-type of melanoma, which had already spread into his lymph nodes. He was rushed into surgery in Singapore, where the family were based, before he was then placed on an immunotherapy treatment to help his immune system fight cancer. Hayden (pictured with dad Nathan) was rushed into surgery in Singapore, where the family were based, before being placed on an immunotherapy treatment Last year, Hayden underwent scans which indicated he was cancer-free, with the boy to be regularly monitored for the next five years. After sharing the devastating news on Facebook about Hayden's passing, Ms Price received hundreds of tributes from friends, family and members of the public. 'Dear Liza and family, I am so so sad and heartbroken to read about your beautiful, gorgeous Hayden. Thinking of you all,' one user wrote. Another said: 'Im truly devastated to read this news. What a darling boy! My prayers and thoughts are with you all at this incomprehensible loss, you gave him a wonderful life filled with love and adventure... Those memories will be with you all forever.' 'Our thoughts are with you all. A beautiful soul who will always be watching over his family,' a third commented. A fourth said: 'This is the most heartbreaking news, Liza. Im so very sorry for your loss. Hayden was a true warrior! Youre all in our thoughts and prayers. Sending you all our love.' There will be a special service 'to celebrate the life of beautiful Hayden' for friends and family of the Price family on Tuesday at 4.30pm at Sunshine Coast Grammar School. Tributes have flown for Hayden (pictured front with his family) as people online paid tribute to a 'true warrior' Australia and New Zealand have the highest rates of melanoma in the world, with one in 13 men and one in 22 women diagnosed before the age of 85, according to figures from the Australian Cancer Council. While it is typically associated with sun exposure, Professor Richard Scolyer from the Melanoma Institute of Australia said that is not always the case. 'There is a dangerous misconception that melanoma is only found in old people after years of sun worshipping - it's not true,' he said. Around 15,000 Australians will be diagnosed with melanoma this year, or one every 30 minutes, according to the Melanoma Institute Australia. Anyone can develop melanoma, but the risk is heightened in those who have unprotected exposure to the sun, a history of childhood tanning and sunburn, more than 10 moles above the elbow and more than 100 on the body, pale, fair or freckled skin, and a strong family history of melanoma. The appearance of melanoma varies dramatically from person to person, but the first sign is often a new spot or a change in the shape or texture of an existing mole. Moles may become increasingly blotchy with different shades of colour brown, black, red, white, pink and even blue - as well as increasing in height, developing a scaly surface, becoming itchy and bleeding. Yale Law School is facing more boycotts after a federal judge in Atlanta joined a Trump-appointed colleague in New Orleans who is refusing to hire students as clerks as the school was plagued by 'cancel culture.' U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has now confirmed her participation in the boycott that was proposed last week by U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho in a statement to National Review, a conservative publication. Ho, a judge on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a speech delivered at a Federalist Society conference in Kentucky on September 29 said he would cease hiring clerks from Yale and urged other judges to do the same. He cited incidents in which students had disrupted conservative speakers at New Haven, Connecticut-based Yale, where 'cancellations and disruptions seem to occur with special frequency.' Yale Law School is one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, having produced some of the nation's most prominent leaders, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford, at least five current US senators and four current Supreme Court Justices. Judge Elizabeth Branch has said she will also join the boycott that was launched in September by fellow Donald Trump-appointed Judge James Ho Yale Law School is one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, having produced some of the nation's most prominent leaders, including Presidents Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford, at least five current US senators and four current Supreme Court Justices Branch told the National Review that Ho raised 'legitimate concerns about the lack of free speech on law school campuses, Yale in particular,' and that she would not consider students from Yale for clerkships in the future. 'Like Judge Ho, I am gravely concerned that the stifling of debate not only is antithetical to this country's founding principles, but also stunts intellectual growth,' she told the conservative outlet. 'Accordingly, I accept Judge Ho's invitation to join him in declining to consider students from Yale Law School for clerkships with me, with an exception for past and current students.' Branch is the first judge to publicly join Ho's call to boycott Yale. The school has also not responded to a request for comment. 'I don't want to cancel Yale,' Ho, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said. 'I want Yale to stop canceling people like me.' 'Yale presents itself as the best, most elite institution of legal education,' Ho said in remarks given to the Federalist Society earlier this month. 'Yet it's the worst when it comes to legal cancellation.' Ho said Yale 'sets the tone for other law schools, and for the legal profession at large,' but it has set a poor example in recent years due to its 'closed and intolerant environment.' The judge then added, Yale: 'not only tolerates the cancellation of views - it actively practices it.' 'I want nothing to do with it,' Ho concluded. Judge James Ho was appointed by former President Donald Trump, pictured on Sunday Judge Ho has previously railed against the woke culture at Yale, having defended Ilya Shapiro (pictured), former director of the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center, after students at Georgetown University's law school urged that he be ousted from a new faculty position Among the events he cited was one in March in which Kristen Waggoner, now the president of the conservative religious rights group Alliance Defending Freedom, was disrupted by students supporting the LGBTQ community during a talk, which police attended Among the incidents Judge Ho cited was a free speech talk in March by Kristen Waggoner - who defended a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding in a case before the Supreme Court - that was disrupted by nearly 120 students supporting the LGBTQ community. Waggoner, who is now the president of the conservative religious rights group Alliance Defending Freedom, has supported Ho's remarks. 'Yale still hasn't condemned the behavior of its law students last semester, so no one should be surprised when a federal judge notices,' she said in a statement after the judge's comments. The havoc caused by the student demonstrators appeared to violate the university's free speech policy and when they were reminded by moderator Kate Stith, she was met with chants and raised middle fingers, to which she replied: 'Grow up.' The students hit back, arguing that their disturbance was execution of 'free speech' and continued to scream at the panelists. Police were forced to escort the guest speakers from Yale Law School's free speech debate after the students intimidated the conservative panelist by yelling obscenities, including one person who shouted 'I will literally fight you, b***h.' Heather Gerken, Dean Yale Law School, insisted that the students hadn't violated the college's rules. Ho has urged his fellow judges to likewise boycott the Ivy League institution, which produced several Supreme Court Justices Judge Ho has previously railed against the woke culture at Yale, having defended Ilya Shapiro - former director of the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center - after students at Georgetown University's law school urged that he be ousted from a new faculty position. Shapiro caused outrage when he wrote tweets questioning President Joe Biden's pledge to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. A prominent conservative legal scholar, Shapiro was suspended but later cleared to become the executive director of Georgetown Law's Center for the Constitution. He eventually quit, however, saying the school's handling of the matter made working there 'untenable.' Ho said, 'At Yale, 'cancellations and disruptions seem to occur with special frequency.' Senior US Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman had in March called on judges to think twice about bringing on Yale students who disrupted Waggoner's event Senior US Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, an appointee of former Republican President Ronald Reagan, had in March called on judges to think twice about bringing on Yale students who disrupted Waggoner's event. He wrote in an email, 'All federal judges and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech should carefully consider whether any such student so identified should be disqualified for potential clerkships.' Silberman said students at the event had 'attempted to shout down speakers participating in a panel discussion on free speech.' The incident 'prompts me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted,' he wrote. Ho said that event was just one example. U.S. Circuit Judge William Pryor of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was also 'disrupted by loud angry law students in the classroom' at Yale a few years ago. That incident, Ho said, was because as Alabama's Republican attorney general, Pryor backed Texas' defense of the anti-sodomy law struck down in 2003 in the landmark Supreme Court gay rights case Lawrence v. Texas. Ho, according to NPR, is an outspoken opponent of abortion rights and a staunch advocate for gun rights, causing the public broadcaster to refer to him as potentially 'President Trump's most enduring legacy.' One of Ho's 5th Circuit colleagues, U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, has called the Yale boycott 'regrettable' and said he hoped to receive more applications from graduates of the prestigious university. Smith, a Yale graduate, was appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan. Amazon has been sued the families of two teenagers who say the retail giant assisted and enabled their suicides by selling them the sodium nitrate that they used to take their own lives. Kristine Jonsson, 16, of Hilliard, Ohio, took her own life on September 30, 2020, while Ethan McCarthy, 17, of Milton, West Virginia, died by suicide on January 7, 2021. Both teenagers killed themselves using sodium nitrite sold by the brand Loudwolf. The chemical is used to preserve foods but it can be lethal if taken in high enough quantities. There are hundreds of types of sodium nitrate available on Amazon for as little as 24 cents per ounce but Loudwolf's is particularly strong, with a purity concentration of 99 percent. Ethan McCarthy, 17, of Milton, West Virginia, died by suicide on January 7, 2021 after buying a chemical online via Amazon. His family are now suing Amazon, as are the family of another teenager from Ohio who died in the same manner. Kristine Jonsson, 16, of Hilliard, Ohio, took her own life on September 30, 2020 Both teenagers bought Loudwolf's food preserving agent sodium nitrite online for $19.99. It has now been removed from Amazon, but the parents say it's too late It is often discussed in online suicide chat forums and websites where youngsters share suicide tips. Loudwolf's sodium nitrate has now been removed from Amazon after intervention from the FDA. The two kids' families say the retail company knew how dangerous it was long before then, but continued to sell it for a profit. They also accuse Amazon of selling 'suicide kits' through its algorithm which targets customers with other, related products. People who viewed sodium nitrate on the site were also served ads for an acid relieving tablet which can provide 'life saving vomiting' after the chemical is ingested, and a suicide book. The two families' attorneys say Amazon ought to have been aware of the trend and that by continuing to sell the product, they assisted in the deaths of two youngsters. 'Amazon is selling a product that is as deadly as cyanide,' they said. They note that Amazon's online recommendations suggest that customers who purchased the chemical also buy a scale to measure the correct dose, an anti-vomiting drug and Amazon's edition of a handbook on assisted suicide. 'This is different from them selling rope, knives, or other implements that can be used for death because there is no household use for [sodium nitrite] at the level of purity (98-99%) it sells it.' An Amazon spokesman told DailyMail.com: 'Sodium nitrite is not intended for consumption, and unfortunately, like many products, it can be misused.' The Jonsson family said Kristine was a happy, healthy high school student and talented artist, who was 'extremely intelligent and focused'. She lived with her parents and two younger siblings, Daniel and Katherine, and loved playing board games with the family. When the pandemic hit, she became withdrawn and depressed. 'The pandemic was extremely difficult for Kristine. It began at a time in her life when she was just beginning to come into her own. 'By September 2020, she felt the quarantine restrictions would never lift. In her diary, she expressed feeling listless and meaningless. 'She expressed feeling no joy; even the things that had once given her pleasure like group-chatting with her friends no longer were enough.' Her family had no idea that she was visiting suicide websites, weighing up different methods, and writing lists of pros and cons. The 16-year-old opened an Amazon account and ordered the chemical for $28.67. Kristine then snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and drove her mother's car to a pharmacy, where she killed herself. Her parents found her suicide note in the morning, and her body was discovered inside the car. The McCarthy family said that Ethan, 17, lived with his mother Nikki Maynard, a nurse specializing in children with special needs, and his siblings Caleb and Emily. 'Life had been hectic because of Covid, but the family had a good Christmas and enjoyed the holidays together as a family with the kids' father, Nick McCarthy,' the law suit states. The family described Ethan as outdoorsy and 'very sociable', who got good grades at school without seeming to try. They said he was 'the problem solver in the family, mediating arguments between his siblings,' and passionate about rock climbing, weightlifting, his dog Jasper, and his four-year-old cousin. Ethan's mother noticed on January 2, 2021, that she received an email receipt from Amazon for $28.54 for an unfamiliar product she had not purchased. Known problem: The lawsuit contains screengrabs from suicide websites where youngsters discuss using sodium nitrate to kill themselves According to the suit: 'She asked her kids if they had ordered the product, Sodium Nitrite, from her account. They said they had no idea what it was and that no, they had not ordered it. Caleb joked that maybe it was for a bomb.' She contacted Amazon, who said it must have been an error, and the product would not be delivered. Yet the product did arrive, along with other items she had ordered, and on January 7, 2021 she found her son dead in his bed. On Ethan's computer was a deleted folder named 'my hopes and dreams.' The family was too traumatized to remain in the house, and lived with Maynard's mother until the house was sold and they moved out of state. Both the McCarthy and Jonsson family suffered intense distress, which led to members of the families being prescribed drugs to cope and requiring months off work. Their lawsuit notes that in the United Kingdom, the drug is deemed 'reportable', meaning that its purchase sets off alarms. 'Had Amazon applied the standard of care it must use for its sales of Sodium Nitrite in the UK, it would have determined that Kristine and Ethan, neither of which had user histories of purchasing meat preservatives, made suspicious, reportable purchases of Sodium Nitrite,' they state. Furthermore, the year before Kristine's death, eBay banned the sale of sodium nitrite after learning it could be used for suicide. 'In contrast, upon receiving notice that the Sodium Nitrite it was selling and delivering was killing kids, Amazon made the informed decision, on the counsel and advice of their lawyers, to continue to sell a substance they know is sold over and over again for suicide,' the law suit states. In January this year, Congress wrote to Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy, expressing its deep concern that Amazon was providing 'minors and adults with easy access to sodium nitrite, a deadly chemical.' The lawmakers said that they felt Amazon's easy sale of sodium nitrite, combined with its speedy delivery of the product, caused deaths. Amazon has not responded to their letter, the suit says. Amazon has also been sued in Washington state by the same firm, on behalf of the families of two others - 27-year-old Mikael Scott and 17-year-old Tyler Muhleman - who also used it to kill themselves. The families are seeking unspecified damages from Amazon and the company that made the drug, Loudwolf. Loudwolf is yet to respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment, but Amazon said they took the wellbeing of their customers seriously. They insisted, however, they could not be held responsible for misuse of their products. 'We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones personally affected by suicide,' an Amazon spokesperson told DailyMail.com. 'Customer safety is a top priority at Amazon. We are committed to a safe shopping experience and require our selling partners to follow all applicable laws and regulations when listing items in our store. 'Sodium nitrite is a legal and widely-available product offered by retailers to preserve foods, such as meats and fish, and for use in laboratories as a reagent. 'Sodium nitrite is not intended for consumption, and unfortunately, like many products, it can be misused.' For confidential support, visit the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline website (here) or call 988. It follows University of Sydney's drafting a new Indigenous policy for students Aboriginal leaders believe it will help stop 'frauds' manipulating the system Students will be required to take a three-part identity test to prove aboriginality TAFE NSW to develop new Aboriginality policy as part of its 'reconciliation plan' A major education institution is joining a crackdown on Indigenous 'frauds' after discovering students have been falsely claiming they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. The move by TAFE New South Wales follows the University of Sydney's new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Status Policy which means undergraduates can no longer simply sign a statutory declaration to prove they have a First Nations background. TAFE NSW told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday that the institute would develop a 'confirmation of Aboriginality' policy as part of its 'reconciliation plan'. TAFE NSW (pictured) has confirmed it will develop a new 'confirmation of Aboriginality' policy to ensure students are correctly identifying as Indigenous 'The policy will cover procedures for confirming Aboriginality for the purposes of Enrolment, Procurement, and Recruitment,' a TAFE NSW spokeswoman said. 'Students who identify as Aboriginal for the purposes of receiving AbStudy [payments for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students or apprentices] must supply evidence of Aboriginality to Services Australia. 'Upon enrolment, a student who identifies as Aboriginal is required to make a declaration that they identify as Aboriginal.' TAFE NSW also confirmed anyone who successfully secures employment in Aboriginal Identified roles must provide evidence of Aboriginality including confirmation through a local Aboriginal organisation or land council. The changes come after lobbying from Aboriginal land councils alleging there has been a significant increase in people applying for the benefits. The latest Census results released in June 2021 found a 25 per cent increase in Australians identifying as Indigenous. Metro Local Aboriginal Land Council CEO Nathan Moran told 2GB host Ben Fordham on Tuesday it was a 'rampant systematic wide issue' that enables 'frauds'. 'More people are ticking the box and identifying as Aboriginal than what have been born as Aboriginal,' Mr Moran said. 'They're frauds. We have people who openly have no Aboriginal descent who, for whatever reason, have chosen to identify as Aboriginal. 'The system that allows them to simply fill in a statutory declaration just has to be addressed. It's not accurate, it's not effective and it's certainly not the best use of public money.' Metro Local Aboriginal Land Council CEO Nathan Moran (pictured) said students falsely identifying as Aboriginal are exploiting benefits for disadvantaged communities Mr Moran said the local council was 'aghast' when they found out students were exploiting benefits targeted at helping Indigenous people overcome disadvantage. 'There were certainly attempts to overcome disparity, inequity, a lack of fairness and justice for Aboriginal people in access and services, Mr Moran said. 'So we commenced what was known as identified jobs, identified programs and benefits aimed to overcome that disparity. 'Weve now got a large proportion, if not a quarter of our population, (who) have chosen to self-identify rather than being born as Aboriginal to take up benefits of housing, scholarships, universities, employment opportunities and programs that are targeted for us to overcome our disadvantage.' Mr Moran told 2GB host Ben Fordham (pictured) self-identifying was a 'rampant systematic wide issue' that enabled 'frauds' Mr Moran urged institutes to 'apply the law' and use the Commonwealth three-part identity test rather than relying on statutory declarations to prove aboriginality. 'The NSW Land Rights Act and the Native Title Act both stipulate a three-point test for one to be Aboriginal and to be verified and proven as aboriginal,' Mr Moran said. 'All we ask is that people apply the law. They basically have the right to ask individuals who identify as Aboriginal 'do you have a confirmation of that claim?' and 'who have you received that confirmation from?'.' Under the three-part system, individuals seeking to identify as Indigenous must be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, identify as such and be accepted by a community they do or used to live in. It follows The University of Sydney's (pictured) review into Aboriginal identification, which will no longer allow undergraduates to simply sign a statutory declaration to prove they have a First Nations background The University of Sydney said its review into Aboriginal identification was not motivated by fraudulently claimed scholarships, but the institution wanted to ensure its program was 'in line with current community expectations'. '[The review] was initiated in response to multiple expressions of community concern, particularly in relation to the use of statutory declarations, rather than any specific concerns about fraud,' a spokesperson for the University of Sydney said. 'We are seeking feedback and further input from members of our own and the broader community, representative organisations and other universities on this culturally significant matter.' The university has an enrolment of 0.9 per cent Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander students, which is below the national sector average of 1.72 per cent. Australians' electricity bills could soar by another 35 per cent next year Blaming Russia's invasion of Ukraine for Australia's soaring electricity prices is a 'cop out', according to journalist and radio host Ben Fordham. The 2GB broadcaster said on Tuesday the conflict was causing fuel shortages across Europe but Australia didn't need to be affected because 'we have the coal and gas the world desperately needs'. Fordham instead suggested it was Australia shifting towards green energy too quickly and a phasing out of traditional power generation before alternative supplies had been secured that could be the real reason why our electricity bills were going up. Europe has been heavily affected by international sanctions on the supply of Russian fuel, but for Australia, which has some of the world's biggest deposits of high quality coal, the dependence is negligible. According to the US Energy Information Administration, Europe in 2021 bought 32 per cent of Russian coal exports, China bought 24 per cent, Japan and South Korea bought 18 per cent, and 11 per cent went to south east Asia and Oceania. Broadcaster Ben Fordham (pictured) said Australia has 'jumped off the boat before we reached the dock' in the transition to renewable energy But despite Australia's abundance of coal and contributing just one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the CSIRO, coal-fired power plants are being decommissioned to help the nation move towards 'net-zero' emissions. 'Blaming the war in Ukraine is a giant cop out,' Fordham said. 'Our energy ministers have demonised traditional fossil fuels. They've trashed coal. They've trashed gas. And now we're all getting ready for another power shock.' 'Businesses will go broke. Pensioners will freeze. And anyone asking questions will be painted as a cave man.' At the Australian Financial Review's Energy Climate Summit this week it was revealed household electricity bills could rise by 'a minimum' of 35 per cent in 2023 - adding $700 to a $2,000 annual bill. Alinta Energy CEO Jeff Dimery said the accelerated transition away from coal was putting pressure on wholesale prices as power companies need to replace their generation assets. 'What cost $1billion to acquire is going to cost me $8billion to replace. So let's talk about that and still explain to me how energy prices come down, I don't get it,' he said. Coal exports to countries that produce far more emissions than Australia remain a driving force of the nation's economy. In 2020, Australia was the world's second biggest coal exporter, sending $9billion worth to Japan and South Korea, $2.5billion to China, $2billion to Taiwan and $2.7billion worth to the rest of the world. But at home, five of the nation's largest coal plants are going offline by 2030. These account for about 45 gigawatts of electricity generation while total new renewable projects currently being planned will generate just half of this at about 22 gigawatts, Australian Energy Market Operator boss Daniel Westerman said. New renewable energy projects in the pipeline will account for about half the electricity shortfall from coal plants set to close Brett Redman, chief executive of NSW grid owner Transgrid, said the scale of new projects needed to support a transition to renewables was 'unprecedented'. 'The government's ambition is to reach our national emissions reduction target within eight years, we have far less time to deliver the critical transmission infrastructure that will connect renewables to the grid,' he said. CEO of Worley Energy Chris Ashton said the scale of investment needed to reach 'net-zero' by 2050 could 'look anywhere from $100 to $120 trillion'. 'That is orders of magnitude more than the supply chain is capable of doing today,' he said. The Labor government's election promise to drive down electricity bills by $275 is looking increasingly difficult. 'Our leaders have moved too fast. They have attempted to jump off the boat before we reached the dock,' Fordham said. A man known for sporting a tattoo of his ex-lover's name on his face has fronted court after four guns, including a pirate-themed firearm, were found in his vehicle. Dylan Cain Aspinall, 34, was arrested in May last year while he was cruising the backstreets of North Adelaide in a black Holden Commodore bearing stolen number plates. Aspinall drew social media attention in 2017 after South Australian police sent out an image of him with a tattoo of the name of his girlfriend at the time. Aspinall has pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing a firearm and one count of possessing ammunition. One of the firearms had a pirate-themed appearance (pictured) Dylan Cain Aspinall (pictured) was arrested in May last year while he was cruising the backstreets of North Adelaide in a black Holden Commodore, that had stolen number plates The name 'Tamika' was tattooed above his left eyebrow but it's understood he has a new partner now, the Advertiser reported. In his latest run in with the law, South Australian police were following Aspinall on May 28, 2021. He abandoned the car and fled on foot before he was quickly arrested. Police searched the car and found a loaded .22 Ruger pistol in the driver's door, a sawn-off over/under shotgun, a sawn-off .22 bolt action rifle and a 410 Boito shotgun. One of the guns resembles a pirate's firearm with a skull-and-crossbones image and an inscription. 'It's a pirate's life for me,' is handwritten on the weapon. Aspinall has pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing a firearm and one count of possessing ammunition. He was supposed to face sentencing submissions in the District Court on Monday but a psychological report was not ready, the court heard. Police found a sawn-off over/under shotgun, a sawn-off .22 bolt action rifle and a 410 Boito shotgun (pictured, one of the guns found) Police also found a loaded .22 Ruger pistol (pictured) in the driver's door South Australian police were following Aspinall in a car in May 2021 before he abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot. He was quickly arrested by officers (pictured, one of the firearms discovered) Judge Paul Muscat adjourned proceedings until next month. Aspinall had been previously locked up for aggravated serious criminal trespassing, aggravated assault and drug trafficking. In 2017 South Australian police issued his tattooed mugshot after he was wanted for a parole board warrant. He was described as 175cm tall, 80kg, with blue eyes and a bald head. Police also noted his distinctive tattoo above his left eyebrow and another one on his neck, and issued warnings to the public not to approach him. The post attracted the attention of social media users who said Aspinall would not be too hard to find due to his distinguishing tattoos. 'Keep running circles around them brother aha hbd for 2morro bro,' one commenter said at the time. He was arrested by police about a month later. Jones was allegedly pressured to dig the grave and did not partake in the attack A woman accused of digging a grave in a quiet dog park so the body of her allegedly murdered housemate could be hidden claims she was unaware of the plot to kill the mum-of-six. Jesse Desmond Jones appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday to apply for bail with her lawyer telling the court she should not be sent to prison ahead of her trial because she allegedly only played a small role in the death of Perth sex worker Nardia Louise Spice. Police allege Ms Spice was lured to the Byford dog park under the pretense of sex work by her three housemates - couple Eve Marsh and Zachariah Dean Brough and a 24-year-old male - before she was brutally killed on September 23. Jones, 26, is accused of helping her housemates bury the 40-year-old mother in the bush along Ronan Road in Jarrahdale, southwest Perth. Mother-of-six Nardia Louise Spice (above) was allegedly murdered by her housemates on September 23 Couple Eve Marsh and Zachariah Dean Brough (above) and a 24-year-old male are accused of murdering Ms Spice before burying her with the alleged assistance of Jesse Desmond Jones The court heard during Ms Jones's bail hearing that Ms Spice was discovered two weeks after she was allegedly murdered with severe head injuries. Police believe Ms Spice's alleged killers struck her on the back of the head, tied her hands with cable ties, wrapped her in plastic and dumped her in the boot of a car to drive 25km to her bush grave. It is alleged the plan was premediated. Jones's lawyer, Hamish Glenister, said she was unaware her housemate was being killed and played no part planning the alleged attack. 'As far as the accused knew (Ms Spice) was going to the dog park to provide sexual services. She was intending to give her a lift home,' Mr Glenister told the court. Ms Spice was buried in the bush some 25km from where she was allegedly murdered (pictured, showing where Ms Spice's bodied was found) The court heard Ms Jones was asleep in her car outside the dog park waiting to pick up Ms Spice when she was allegedly told to drive to a second location. Ms Jones claims when she arrived she saw Marsh, Brough and the other accused male drag Ms Spice's body from the boot of a car and into the bush. She was then allegedly told to dig Ms Spice's grave or she'd 'get the same' with Mr Glenister arguing she was 'scared' into playing a part in the alleged murder. Ms Jones, who was born a male but identifies as female, is at risk at being held in custody in Hakea Prison, an all-male jail. Mr Glenister said she would be at significant risk as a transgender woman in the jail and argued she should be released on bail as she has no prior criminal history. Ms Jones claims she was threatened and pressured into digging the grave for Ms Spice by her housemates Eve Marsh and Zachariah Dean Brough (above) and a 24-year-old male The court also heard Ms Jones was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an immunity condition that attacks the protective covering of nerves, and is still waiting to see a neurologist. Mr Glenister added that Ms Jones accepted responsibility for allegedly digging the grave, provided a statement to police and was willing to be a witness for the prosecution. However, police prosecutors opposed Ms Jones's release on bail because she was charged with a serious crime. There is no accusation Ms Jones touched or handled the body but police allege she 'knowingly tried to cover up evidence' and assisted the co-accused. Magistrate Kelly Thompson postponed another bail hearing for two weeks time and ordered a home detention report be prepared. She said she did not accept Ms Jones only played a minor role in the alleged murder but needs to consider whether she was forced to participate under duress. Nearly 2,000 asylum seekers from Latin America arrived in New York City over the weekend, Mayor Eric Adams said Monday during a Columbus Day parade in the city. The mammoth figure comes after Adams declared a state of emergency and said the Big Apple needed $1 billion in federal funding to deal with the influx of people. Speaking about the new set of migrants arriving in the city this weekend, Adams said: 'Those numbers are unbelievable 1,800. We need every level of government to participate in dealing with this crisis that we are facing. 'You know, over just the last few days to receive those large numbers, it's a strain on our system and we have to make sure we get the support that we need.' Mayor Eric Adams appeared at a Columbus Day parade Monday in New York City. During the parade, reporters asked him about new migrant arrivals, to which he stated that nearly 2,000 new asylum seekers had arrived this week Adams on Monday said that he is considering renting out hotel rooms across the city to house some of the migrants arriving in New York from border regions Construction takes place of a new facility to house migrants on Randalls Island, New York. Migrants have been arriving in NYC for weeks after being bussed from Texas and other states Pictured: A bus carrying migrants arrived in New York City on Sunday, Sep, 4 Migrants arriving in New York City earlier this month. Republican Mayors are warning Democratic counterparts they'll keep sending bus loads of people until they denounce Biden's border policy The new arrivals come just days after the NYC mayor declared an emergency over the situation. As of Monday, nearly 20,000 migrants have now made their way to the Big Apple from border states, according to NY Daily News. The recorded number stands at 19,200, according to Adams' officials, however it is likely even more than that as this is just the number of migrants who have come through the shelter system in the five boroughs. The recent uptick is on account of Republican governors in states like Texas and Arizona busing in the groups. The move is meant to criticize democratic mayors and governors over their immigration policies. This comes just days after Mayor Adams declared a city-wide emergency over the population of unhoused individuals. Adams' emergency order is expected to open up some housing for those in need in the short-term. The mayor has been criticized in the past by members of his own party and others over his unconventional ideas when it comes to housing the migrants. In the past, Adams has suggested renting out cruise ships to provide a temporary place for the migrants to reside until their situations are sorted. Construction takes place of a new facility to house migrants on Randalls Island Construction continued on Randalls Island, New York, on Monday morning Workmen were seen setting up the new facility on Monday morning Asylum seekers gather outside of a local hotel in Staten Island after arriving in New York over the weekend A group of migrants wait outside a Staten Island hotel with supplies in tow for their temporary stay while in New York This is the site where the new 'tent city' for migrants proposed by Mayor Eric Adams will be set up on Randalls Island NYC Mayor Eric Adams recently announced the planned tent accommodations, which are expected to take two weeks to complete, as a way for the city manage needing to provide some sort of shelter to the large number of migrants being bused north by Republicans The city is currently in the process of building a 'tent city' on Randalls Island, which is expected. But even that, however, is shrouded in controversy. Less than one week ago, Adams announced that it would move from its originally- planned site near Orchard Beach in the Bronx to Randalls Island. The move came after pictures showed flooding at the open lot where hundreds of asylum seekers were expected to reside temporarily. Even before the structure was built, however, some politicians had reservations. Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson had previously said of tent site that it was 'not the ideal location' and was prone to flooding. An aerial photo taken with a drone shows workers assemble emergency tents to house some of the many migrants arriving to the city in the parking lot of Orchard Beach, with the skyline of Manhattan in the background Set up just days ago, crews were seen taking down the large tents in a parking lot near Orchard Beach Adams also said last week that the new location would provide better access to public transportation, another concern brought up by Gibson in September. 'This new location is less prone to flooding, is closer to public transportation, and will provide temporary respite to 500 asylum seekers,' Adams said in a statement. 'Moving to Randalls Island will be more cost efficient than staying at Orchard Beach and installing the needed flood-mitigation measures to make the site fully viable,' said mayoral representative Fabien Levy. That location was slated to accommodate as many as 1,000 migrants at a time. The new location on Randalls Island will be a scaled down version of the original plan for Orchard Beach, according to officials familiar with the site. 'This has the ability to scale if needed, but we're going to start out with 500,' Levy told the Daily News. Previous estimates placed the bigger Orchard Beach site's cost at around $150 million, but no word has been provided on how that total will change due to the move. Outside of the 'tent city' idea, some local Council members have suggested that a better plan for housing migrants temporarily would be to put them in hotels. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams recently released a list of 10 local hotels she said could work if the plan were to be considered, stating that the locations have thousands of rooms available. Mayor Adams said during Monday's parade that he is considering her idea. He called on the Biden administration to crackdown on the border crisis as he declares a state of emergency in the Big Apple. Adams condemned the busing programs spearheaded by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, which has brought about 17,000 migrants to the Big Apple. The mayor said about five to six busses are arriving every day since September, with nine buses arriving yesterday and eight on Friday. Since April, New York has set up 42 emergency shelters, enrolled 5,500 children in public school and tried to help the asylum seekers connect with family and resources. But Adams warned that the city could ultimately see 100,000 new migrants arrive by the end of the year, which will take its toll on New York's budget. 'We expect to spend at least $1billion by the end of the fiscal year on this crisis, all because we have a functional, a compassionate system,' Adams said. Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, was criticized by members of both his own party and those on the other side of the aisle for his migrant tent proposal NYC Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency as he expects the city to spend $1billion on migrants being bused from the US-Mexico border It comes as the mayor scrapped plans to house migrants inside a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship in State Island because it was too expensive and the city is seeking a 'cheaper option.' The mayor called on the federal government to tighten border control, provide funds to cities overburdened by the influx of migrants, and to get other cities to accept the immigrants. 'We need a realistic decompression strategy at the border that will slow the outflow of asylum seekers. Adams said. 'We need a coordinated effort to move asylum seekers to other cities in this country to ensure everyone is doing their part.' The mayor noted that the city's shelters were already near 100 percent capacity, with about 61,000 people in the system, 20,000 of which are children. 'Although our compassion is limitless, our resources are not,' Adams said. 'This is unsustainable.' Adams appealed to hotels and nonprofits for temporary housing of the new migrants, and urged the private sector for donations to help the strained city. 'Unless we take immediate action that [Randalls Island] center will be full in days,' the Adams warned. 'And we will have to open another, and another, and another, even as winter arrives.' Previously, Adams and his team were close to closing a deal with Norwegian Cruise Lines to dock one of their ships off Staten Island, but it fell through because NCL was charging too much, The New York Post reported. Migrants await their free bus rides north at El Paso's 'welcome center'. Many of the new arrivals have fled flawed leftist regimes in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua The city moved its migrant problem to a processing facility on the edge of town. DailyMail.com witnesses lines of immigrants mostly young men, but also many families waiting to board buses for the next stage of their journey Downtown El Paso has in recent weeks witnessed chaotic scenes of migrants sleeping on the streets, after the surge of new arrivals overwhelmed the area's federal-run processing facilities 'They're probably least likely because we got better deals,' City Hall chief of staff Frank Carone told the Post. Carone noted that deals were still being discussed with Carnival Cruise Line and the Estonian company Tallink & Silja, which has ships in the Ukraine housing refugees. Adams also claimed that if officials in Texas and Arizona, where the majority of migrants are being bussed from, had first reached out to New York to coordinate a plan, then the city would've been able to allocate a budget to help the migrants. 'But we didn't get the support and information we asked for, and now, New York City is being forced to bare far more than its share of this national crisis.' 'Our right to shelter laws, our social services, and our values are being exploited by others for political gain,' the mayor added, criticizing the current busing program. Adam's speech served as a condemnation of the border crisis across-party lines, as it was revealed that Democrat-led El Paso was sending more than twice as many migrants as Abbott. El Paso, which sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico, has bused roughly 7,000 migrants to New York City since late August and sent more than 1,800 to Chicago, a city-run effort that far exceeds the more ad-hoc transportation of the past. Abbott has bused more than 3,000 migrants to New York City and more than 900 to Chicago as part of a high-profile campaign to put a spotlight on the record crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas and Arizona combined have also bused over 10,000 migrants to Washington, D.C. However, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, said the city's program is 'completely different' than the other busing efforts and that they seek to 'treat people with respect.' The city's busing effort has received less attention than Abbott's program, who is seeking a third term in Nov. 8 midterm elections. Migrants wait outside a New York City church on Sunday, October 9. The church held a welcoming even which included food giveaways and other services But unlike previous speeches where Adams went directly after Abbott, the Democrat mayor did not mention political parties on Friday, instead referring to the border states as a whole. New York City mayoral spokesperson Kate Smart previously said that while El Paso does coordinate with the city to some degree, New York is not told how many migrants are on board. El Paso's busing policy is not wholly popular among its own officials. Victor Manjarrez, a former CBP chief for the region who now heads a department at The University of Texas at El Paso, says Democrats and Republicans were playing a game of 'political theater'. By busing migrants north, El Paso officials were 'doing the same thing' as governors Abbott and Ducey, only 'it's just not getting the same type of attention,' Manjarrez told DailyMail.com. Others say the migrant surge has overstretched a city of nearly 700,000 and that while FEMA has reimbursed some of the costs, there is no guarantee the agency will continue to pay. City officials warn that services could be cut. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus also condemned the busing policies by Democrats and Republicans alike. The border chief told the Los Angeles Times that the widely publicized busing programs have now become a beacon for more migrants to flood the border seeking to be bused to other parts of the country. 'It's safe to say what's going on is a pull factor, which is somewhat ironic given the criticism from some of these same governors involved in this about various pull factors that they claim already exist,' Magnus said about Abbott, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. By Yi Whan-woo A total of 11 international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), will participate in a career fair in Korea next month. Hosted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the program will take place at ChungAng University in Dongjak District, Seoul, from Nov. 17 to 18. The ministry has hosted the program 13 times so far. The recruiters from each of the 11 entities will come to Korea for the first time in three years and explain their hiring processes. The two-day fair will also include Q&A sessions for Korean employees at 11 institutions. Applicants are required to register online by Nov. 11. There will be on-site interviews for those who are considered suitable for the jobs offered. "We expect the program will offer a chance for the participating entities to hire talented jobseekers for various positions," the ministry said in a press release, Wednesday. "We accordingly will offer full-fledged support for talented workers to land jobs at global financial institutions." In the case of the World Bank, a top-ranking official from human resource management will visit Seoul to find qualified candidates for internships and full-time positions at the U.S.-headquartered institution. For more information, visit http://ificf.kr. This is the moment Larry the Cat came to blows in a fierce scrap with a fox on Downing Street before intimidating it into vanishing into the distance. The tense encounter between the Downing Street Chief Mouser and the urban fox saw the two hostile animals clash as they fought for territory outside the Prime Minister's house. Despite being around half the size of the fox, the 15-year-old tabby was able to force his counterpart into retreating into nearby bushes. But things didn't stop there. The famous cat makes it clear that the fox is not welcome on Downing Street as it darts towards its rival who does well to dodge out the way. The persistent cat once again has another bite of the cherry, spinning around and this time chasing the fox back out the bushes along the iconic London road. A tense encounter between the Downing Street Chief Mouser and an urban fox saw the two hostile animals clash Larry the Cat intimidated the scared fox into retreating from the Downing Street road into the bushes Larry attempted to grab the fox before it chased its enemy down Downing Street into the distance The fox, with its glowing eyes, suddenly re-emerged but only briefly before Larry came out on top Larry can then be seen seen attempting to grab the fox as his enemy runs off into the distance. But the fox is equally as persistent and re-emerges, this time hiding behind a lamppost as Larry stares it down. Responding to the video, Larry the Cat, who has a parody Twitter account, made a slight dig at the current Tory Government for their rocky start The fox's glowing eyes can be seen staring back at Larry as he wanders over nonchalantly with his tail high in the air. The video ends with the defeated fox trotting away as Larry sits down casually and enjoys a well-earned victory in a display of domination. The cat, who has its own parody Twitter account which has amassed more than 690,000 followers, took a swipe at the controversial start to the new Prime Minister's reign. Larry the Cat had a front-row seat when former US president Donald Trump visited in 2019 Fun and games with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson who taught Larry how to flip-flop and soft pedal The cat en route from Battersea Cats' Home to his new home in Downing Street in 2011 It said: 'Someone at this address is up to the job'. It also shared the video of its victory, simply saying 'Fox off'. Larry the Cat joined his new Downing Street home in 2011 after being rescued from Battersea Cats' Home. He has been the companion to many Prime Minister's over the years including David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and now Liz Truss. The cat has been known to have tussles with other animals including his archenemy Palmerston, the mouser from the Foreign Office as well as in 2012 with Freya the cat who belonged to former Chancellor George Osborne. A Chelsea Tractor-hating mother-of-three has revealed that she secretly lets air out of SUV tyres as payback for them polluting her neighbourhood. The 62-year-old, who asked not to be named, has claimed to have released air out of 80 different cars across west London - and doesn't mind if she gets caught. The writer, volunteer and film worker is fed up of the cars 'imposing' on her and has resorted to 'destructive' action. Her hatred for large cars began when she 'couldn't believe' just how many 4x4 cars she was seeing on London's roads. The woman from near Battersea, south London, revealed that she has been caught in the act before by the car owners but has so far avoided getting in trouble, MyLondon reports. 'I would say that so far I have deflated 80 different cars. I don't want to be doing it and I don't enjoy it but it's an extreme reaction that comes from desperation,' she said. 'If the Government won't do anything then what else can we do?' The 62-year-old mother-of-three is part of the Tyre Extinguishers group (pictured) who go round deflating tyres of large vehicles The woman recalled how she started deflating tyres around ten years ago after she realised that small Smart Cars were not going to be the future of travel. Instead she became angered at the 'unnecessary size' of cars which were getting 'bigger and bigger'. 'The cars are releasing carbon emissions and polluting the area around me and I can't do anything about it,' she said. She has claimed to have released air out of 80 different cars across west London. Pictured: A car that Tyre Extinguishers has deflated previously 'They're being imposed on me and I thought for a long time about what I could do about it. Then I found out about the Tyre Extinguisher movement.' The Tyre Extinguisher group are notorious for simply deflating the tyres of large vehicles in a stance against climate change. The mother, who does not fear being jailed, has branded SUV drivers 'aggressive' and 'selfish', comparing them to smokers. She has even called for SUVs to be banned like smoking indoors was. Despite deflating tyres technically being criminal damage, she wants to continue doing it until 'the Government notices'. She has considered the risk of a driver getting injured but believes that SUVs are more dangerous. The woman, who did not want to be named, said she secretly lets air out of SUV tyres as payback for polluting her neighbourhood. Pictured: Tyre Extinguisher member deflating a tyre After attempting to make a difference through putting leaflets on the windscreens of cars, she soon decided that it was going to have to take more. The 62-year-old now uses her commute to unscrew the tyre caps as she looks to make a point. The woman believes that SUVs are climate change inducing and despite being caught a few times, it has not deterred her from carrying on. She described being confronted by a man after she was caught with her hand on the tyre cap of his car. She claims that he told her he 'understands where I'm coming from' after she explained her reasoning. Tyre Extinguishers are trying to attract more followers each day. On their website it explains: 'Deflating tyres repeatedly and encouraging others to do the same will turn the minor inconvenience of a flat tyre into a giant obstacle for driving massive killer vehicles around our streets.' Ohio Republican Senate hopeful J.D. Vance blasted his Democratic rival, Rep. Tim Ryan Monday, suggesting the raped 10-year-old Ohio girl forced to get an abortion in another state wouldn't have been put in that position had Democrats secured the border. 'Why was a 10 year old girl raped in our community, raped in our state in the first place? The thing they never mention is that poor girl was raped by an illegal alien,' Vance said during Monday night's Ohio Senate debate. 'If you had done your job she would have never been raped in the first place.' 'Do your job on border security, don't lecture me on opinions I don't actually have,' Vance added. The debate featured an hour of Vance and Ryan slinging insults at each other, with Ryan - who's represented the Youngstown area for more than 20 years - characterizing Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, as a political extremist and a Silicon Valley swindler. 'Ohio needs an a** kicker, not an a** kisser,' Ryan said, pointing to Vance's steadfast support of former President Donald Trump, after criticizing him during his 2016 presidential run. At an Ohio rally last month, Trump said Vance was 'kissing my a**' for support. 'We need leaders who have courage to take on their own party - and I've proven that - and he was called an a**-kisser by the former president,' Ryan said. The Democrat also smacked Vance for repeating Trump's election denial lies, helping fund the insurrectionists' defense and for campaigning with and supporting certain members of the Republican Party. Ohio Republican Senate hopeful J.D. Vance (left) blasted his Democratic rival, Rep. Tim Ryan (right) Monday, suggesting the raped 10-year-old Ohio girl forced to get an abortion in another state wouldn't have been put in that position had Democrats secured the border Rep. Tim Ryan (left) and author J.D. Vance (right) spent an hour slinging insults at each other Monday night, with Ryan characterizing Vance as a political extremist and a Silicon Valley swindler, and Vance suggesting Ryan hadn't gotten anything done in his 20 years in Congress 'Who runs around with Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who wants to ban books? Who's running around with Lindsey Graham, who wants a national abortion ban? You're running around with Marjorie Taylor Greene who's the absolute looniest politician in America,' Ryan told Vance. 'That's why I'm running to represent the exhausted majority - Democrats, Republicans and independents, against the extremists,' Ryan added. In turn, Vance suggested Ryan did nothing to help his Rust Belt district, pushing that the longtime lawmaker had never helped create any jobs, while Vance ran a business. 'So your consultants gave you this line and you don't actually know it,' Vance said at one point, when Ryan bungled an attack line about how Vance had invested money in China. At another point, Vance compared career politicians to 'toddlers,' saying they 'accuse you of doing the very thing that they do themselves all the time.' 'I'm not going to apologize for spending 20 years of my adult life slogging away to try and help one of the hardest economically hit regions of Ohio. And dedicated my life to help that region come back,' Ryan hit back. 'JD you went off to California, you were drinking wine and eating cheese.' Vance responded: 'I admire the spirit of service. What I don't admire is the failure of accomplishment. Look at how Youngstown has done during your leadership. That's what I don't admire.' Much of the first half of the debate was dedicated to abortion, with Vance saying he remained pro-life and Ryan saying he wanted to return the country to Roe v. Wade. 'He supports a national abortion ban, in which he wants women to have to get a passport and go to Canada,' Ryan claimed. 'We've got to have some moderation on this issue. He's got a very extreme position.' 'J.D. you called rape inconvenient, right?' Ryan asked, referring to headlines that said as much, despite Vance's campaign saying the Ohio Republican's words were taken out of context. 'Rape is not inconvenient, it's a significant tragedy.' 'This is the largest governmental overreach in the history of our lifetime,' Ryan said more broadly about the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. That's how the two men got onto the topic of the 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion. An undocumented immigrant, Gerson Fuentes, has been charged with two counts of rape. Ryan also had to answer to why he was previously pro-life, but today supports abortion rights. 'I had some very personal conversations with women in Ohio, who had gone through tragedies who needed to have abortions for a variety of different reasons,' Ryan said. 'And I just came to realize through the course of these conversations, that the government has no place in this matter, that this needs to be left to the woman.' On other social issues, Vance expressed he would vote against a piece of legislation codifying gay marriage because it would open religious institutions to lawsuits. Both candidates supported a loosening of restrictions around pot, though Vance warned the country shouldn't be 'soft on crime.' 'A lot of times you'll hear somebody thrown in prison for smoking a joint ... but that's just true on paper,' Vance warned. 'And if you look at the underlying charge you'll see it wasn't just that they smoked a joint, it's that they smoked a joint and then beat an elderly woman over the head with a pistol.' 'Those people should go to prison,' Vance said. Vance remained supportive of Trump through his many legal troubles. 'I've seen nothing that suggests the president of the United States be thrown in prison,' Vance said. He was less gung-ho about the GOP's Senate Leader Mitch McConnell staying at the top of his party. 'Whoever runs,' he answered when asked who should be Senate Republican leader. 'Presumably Mitch McConnell will run, if somebody else runs we can have that conversation.' Ryan wasn't enthusiastic about top Democrats either. He didn't specifically say he'd back Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as leader. 'Kamala Harris is absolutely wrong on that,' he said at one point refuting how the vice president had said the southern border is secure. The congressman also repeated something he'd hinted before: that he didn't want President Joe Biden to run for re-election. 'No, I've been very clear I'd like to see a generational change. Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, the president, everybody. We need a new generation of leadership,' Ryan said. New Zealand's government has proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products. But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry's main lobby group, said the plan would 'rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand' and see farms replaced with trees. Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn't decrease food production. 'Our plan was to keep farmers farming,' Hoggard said. Instead, he said farmers would be selling their farms 'so fast you wont even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off.' Opposition lawmakers from the conservative ACT Party said the plan would actually increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food. FILE - Dairy cows graze on a farm near Oxford, in the South Island of New Zealand on Oct. 8, 2018. New Zealand's government on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022 proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File) New Zealands farming industry is vital to its economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nations largest export earner. There are just 5 million people in New Zealand but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep. The outsized industry has made New Zealand unusual in that about half of its greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Farm animals produce gasses that warm the planet, particularly methane from cattle burps and nitrous oxide from their urine. The debate in New Zealand is part of a broader global reckoning about farming's impact on the environment and the steps some say are needed for mitigation. In the Netherlands, farmers have dumped hay bales on roads and driven tractors along busy highways to protest government proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants. In New Zealand, the government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes a pledge that it will reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050. Under the government's proposed plan, farmers would start to pay for emissions in 2025, with the pricing yet to be finalized. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said all the money collected from the proposed farm levy would be put back into the industry to fund new technology, research and incentive payments for farmers. 'New Zealand's farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food,' Ardern said. Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor said it was an exciting opportunity for New Zealand and its farmers. 'Farmers are already experiencing the impact of climate change with more regular drought and flooding,' O'Connor said. 'Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is both good for the environment and our economy.' The liberal Labour government's proposal harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labour government in 2003 to tax farm animals for their methane emissions. Farmers back then also vehemently opposed the idea, and political opponents ridiculed it as a 'fart tax' - although a 'burp tax' would have been more technically accurate as most of the methane emissions come from belching. The government eventually abandoned the plan. According to opinion polls, Arderns Labour Party has slipped in popularity and fallen behind the main opposition National Party since Ardern won a second term in 2020 in a landslide victory of historic proportions. If Ardern's government can't find agreement on the proposal with farmers, who have considerable political sway in New Zealand, it's likely to make it more difficult for Ardern to win reelection next year when the nation goes back to the polls. New Zealand to introduce a new emissions tax on its agricultural farmers who are responsible for more than half its carbon footprint It said seasonal work ended but she had worked with them for almost two years Her employer, Tony's Flowers, fired her over email along with two other workers Fair Work heard Ms Clift missed shifts because she was sick and had a break in Casual employee Kate Clift was awarded nearly $3,000 for being unfairly fired A casual flower supply worker has been awarded nearly $3,000 for unfair dismissal after missing three shifts after her home was broken into. Kate Clift took a case against her former employer, Adelaide-based florist supplier Tony's Flowers, to Fair Work for unfair dismissal after they sent an email firing her and two other employees. Ms Clift began working for Tony's Flowers on August 26, 2020, and was fired from the company on May 4, 2022. They said she was dismissed because 'seasonal' work for Mother's Day had ended. Fair Work found Kate Clift was unfairly dismissed from florist supplier Tony's Flowers after she received an email firing 'seasonal' workers after being employed at the company for more than two years (pictured, a Tony's Flowers warehouse) A clause in Ms Clift's employment contract said the company wasn't required to give Ms Clift any notice prior to her dismissal. Ms Clift said during her time with the florist supplier she was a good employee and the commission heard she picked up extra work during Covid labour shortages. 'I was a dedicated employee and performed well in my role and there were ongoing systematic shifts due to be given to me on an ongoing basis,' she wrote in a statement. 'I do not believe that my employer terminated me for lack of work but rather because of taking this unplanned leave and (them) not being happy about it.' She said she was fired after missing three shifts over two weeks, two because she was sick and another because her home was broken into. Text exchanges between Ms Clift and her boss, Tristan, from April 27 to May 3 show she followed procedure and let her boss know she wouldn't be able to make her shifts. Messages between Kate and her boss Tristan (above) show she missed three shifts over two weeks because she was sick However, she did not tell her employer she was the victim of a home invasion because she was still 'distressed' and didn't want to talk about it. After pulling out of the third shift, but offering to make up the time by working an additional one, Ms Clift received a message from her boss that said: 'Hi Kate, I have taken you off the roster for the rest of the week so you can focus on your recovery.' The following day, May 4, she received an email addressed to her and two other employees saying their employment was terminated. 'Good morning. As the event season is now coming to an end, please be advised your position with Tonys Flowers has now ended,' the email said. 'We would like to thank you for all of your hard work during this period. Fair Work found Ms Clift was unfairly dismissed because she was not a seasonal worker and slammed the company's decision to loop two other employees in on the email (pictured, a Tony's Flowers warehouse) 'Your details will be kept on file for future events. Thanks, Tristan.' The Fair Work Commission found Ms Clift's termination was unfair because the email said she was dismissed because seasonal work was ending even though she was not a seasonal worker. The commission added Ms Clift did no wrong by missing her three shifts and was not given the opportunity to discuss her termination with her employers. It also found it was 'unreasonable' for two other employees to be looped into each other's termination messages. 'Dismissal by a common email without any prior discussion was not appropriate and also involved the Applicants, and the other 2 employees, dismissal improperly being disclosed to others,' it said. For her unfair dismissal, Ms Clift was awarded $2,890 plus superannuation contributions last Friday. Chaos has erupted at Adelaide Airport with all passengers who had passed through security ordered out of the terminal - just hours after the same thing happened in Melbourne. Qantas passengers at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport were ordered off flights and evacuated from the terminal earlier on Tuesday morning. Sources said a passenger is believed to have entered the airport from the baggage area by accident - and then security were unable to find him, prompting authorities to evacuate the terminal. Just three hours later, thousands of travellers at Adelaide Airport were forced to evacuate and line up for security again. A critical piece of security equipment had broken down. 'An orderly evacuation of the terminal has been undertaken and re-screening of passengers has commenced,' a statement said. Security screening resumed shortly after 10am with passengers warned to expect flight delays and to check with their airlines. Scenes from the airport show hundreds of travellers standing in long queues in what they described as 'organised chaos.' Travellers at Adelaide Airport were ordered to evacuate the terminal to be rescreened after a security breach. Pictured is the long queue waiting to be screened Adelaide Airport (pictured) was plunged into chaos on Tuesday morning just hours after the same thing happened in Melbourne 'Chaos at Adelaide airport this morning with security shut down and the terminal being emptied, going to be a lot of delayed flights out of Adelaide today,' one man tweeted. Another added: 'Security just reopened and everyone cheered. Hope the security staff dont have too hard a day with frustrated folk! Be nice travellers.' One woman told ABC Radio Adelaide passengers were forced to wait outside for 30 minutes before being allowed to re-enter the terminal. Other travellers commended airport staff on how the incident was handled. 'Just back in after evacuation and have to say your whole airport team were great, super helpful and pleasant, 10/10 evacuation experience, nice work Adelaide,' one man tweeted. The delays at Adelaide Airport are believed to involve a faulty piece of security equipment Passengers at Adelaide Airport (pictured) have been warned to expect flight delays Earlier photos and footage from Melbourne showed thousands waiting to be rescreened with queues at the security gates snaking outside the terminal. 'A passenger appears to have inadvertently passed from an unscreened area to a screened area of the airport in Melbourne,' a statement from the airline read. 'As a precaution all Qantas operations have been put on hold and passengers in the terminal are being re-screened which is causing delays to some services this morning. 'Safety is our number one priority, but we know this disruption is causing some inconvenience for our passengers and we apologise for that. We are investigating how this incident occurred.' Thousand of travellers at Melbourne Airport have been delayed by a major security breach. Pictured are the chaotic scenes in Melbourne 6am Tuesday morning Tim Joyce had just boarded his Brisbane flight when the pilot ordered everyone off the plane 'a minute' from taking off. 'The pilot pretty much told us straight away that there was somebody who slipped through the terminal,' he said. 'They have evacuated every single person that has been through screening so that everybody can get rescreened,' he told the Today show. 'It seems quite serious, there are thousands of people waiting at 6am.' He stressed communication from the airline had been great, despite the chaos. 'Essentially they've communicated that people will be screened on a boarding basis from now on, so the next flight out will be screened first,' Mr Joyce said. 'I am glad they have evacuated the terminal to make sure everyone is safe, because it is definitely worth a few hours of waiting.' Tim Joyce (pictured) is among thousands of Qantas passengers caught up in the delays Sue Duke had just boarded a her flight to Brisbane when the pilot ordered everyone off the plane to be rescreened in the terminal (pictured, the long queue at the security gates) The lengthy delays tested the patience of Qantas travellers (pictured) at Melbourne on Tuesday morning. It was the airline's second security breach within a month Sue Duke was also flying to Brisbane to catch a connecting flight to Norfolk Island. 'We're just hoping Qantas will hold that flight because there's a big tour group travelling' she told Sunrise. Her 6am flight was delayed by an hour-and-a-half while at least seven other flights have also delayed. Rowing Australia boss Ian Robson was also caught up in the airport mayhem while trying to fly to Canberra. A couple of announcements made clear in the last five minutes or so there was this inadvertent security breach, apparently by a small number of passengers ,which has then meant they had to evacuate everyone who had already been security cleared, including those on planes, he told 3AW. 'It's going to be a long late morning I suggest.' The security screening queue extended back to the international terminal (pictured, the long queue of Melbourne passengers waiting to be screened by security) Some travellers were already on planes ready for take-off when they were ordered off to return to the terminal to be screened a second time (pictured, the lengthy queue for security screening) Melbourne Airport says the screening of passengers in T1 had resumed by 7.30am. 'Delays are expected this morning. Qantas staff are working hard to get everyone to their destinations,' the airport said in a statement. The Australian Federal Police is now investigating how the security breach occurred. The incident comes just a month after passengers on an evening Qantas flight from Sydney to Melbourne were escorted off the plane by police after one passenger managed to bypass the security screening. The error was not discovered until the flight was in the air. A Qantas spokesman said at the time that a passenger boarded the flight after inadvertently passing from an unscreened to a screened part of the airport in Sydney. The security breach in Melbourne (pictured on morning) is expected to spark widespread travel chaos and delays across Australia The King and Liz Truss might want to discuss the need for sharper elbows when they begin their weekly audiences this week. At the Prague summit the Prime Minister ended up almost invisible in the top left of the back row. His Majesty might sympathise. At COP 21 in Paris Charles, used to taking centre stage, was shoved into the back row for the group photo. He was appalled, struggling to make his 5ft 10in frame visible alongside the taller David Cameron and standing directly behind President Xi Jinping of China. As if this lese-majeste wasnt bad enough, it turned out there was a bigger attraction in town who had world leaders queuing up for a private audience: Sir David Attenborough. The King and Liz Truss might want to discuss the need for sharper elbows when they begin their weekly audiences this week Reflecting on the Russians announcing the reopening of the Kerch Bridge after a large explosion, fruity broadcaster Kirstie Allsopp cheekily inquires: If the Russians really have managed to fix the Kerch Bridge, maybe the Mayor of London should get them to have a go at Hammersmith Bridge. David Dimbleby, interviewing Henry, sixth Marquess of Bath with his sons Alexander and Valentine, recalls the aristocrat, who died in 1992, saying he was leaving Longleat to his eldest, who said: I dont want it. And the young son, from behind, chipped in, Ill have it if you dont. Alexander, who died in 2020, did inherit while Valentine committed suicide in 1979. TV stuntman Jonathan Cohen volunteered to be assaulted by Sandra Oh when she was reluctant to slap co-star Jodie Comer TV stuntman Jonathan Cohen volunteered to be assaulted by Sandra Oh when she was reluctant to slap co-star Jodie Comer, pictured, in a scene in Killing Eve. I would like Sandra to slap me, he tells Radio Times. Sandra and I went off into a corner and she practised slapping me. At least he suffered less bruising than when, standing in for Gary Lineker, he had to fall into a crisp machine and have half a ton of potatoes land on him. I hurt my ankle quite seriously on that one, he wails. Promoting new film The Lost King a drama about the 2012 discovery of Richard IIIs remains in a Leicester car park just a month after Her Majestys death, Steve Coogan awkwardly remarks: I dont want to say its a happy coincidence because Ill be hung, drawn and quartered, adding: But certainly I think its helped us. Lefty luvvie Coogan has previously said: Id abolish the Royal Family tomorrow if I had any power. Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh didnt see the face of his third wife Emma Currie until after he fell in love with her Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh didnt see the face of his third wife Emma Currie until after he fell in love with her, reveals Loose Ends presenter Clive Anderson. He met Emma during the Covid lockdown out walking and they both had masks on, says Clive. So they didnt see each others faces for several months. I think hes an old softie when it comes to falling in love. After the sudden death of his mother Iris in 1974, U2 warbler Bono, then aged 14, survived for six months on Aer Lingus meals procured from Dublin Airport by his brother Norman. Airplane food for lunch and tea was more than any budding rock star could handle, he says. I had never been on an aeroplane but already my romance with flying was over. Australians are being warned to be vigilant about scammers after the consumer watchdog confirmed it is being flooded with hundreds of Optus-related complaints per day in the wake of the biggest data breach in the country's history. The head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said the regulator's scam team had received about 600 complaints a day related to the breach. ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said many scammers were taking advantage of the large-scale data breach and posing as the telecommunications giant or Equifax Protect, the credit reporting agency tasked with supporting victims of the breach, to swindle consumers. Parliament's economics committee will quiz Australia's key financial regulators on data security. ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said many scammers were taking advantage of the large-scale data breach and posing as the telecommunications giant or Equifax Protect, the credit reporting agency tasked with supporting victims of the breach, to swindle consumers. She told a parliamentary committee people were confused about the legitimacy of the communications. So far, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said there had only been a few instances of fraudsters successfully scamming victims out of money by pretending to be from Optus. 'What we can see is it's only a small number of people who have become a victim to a scam, but many are alert to it and are most of all confused and anxious,' she said. She said it was positive to see more people alert to scam risks. The head of the regulator also told the economics committee she was yet to spot any evidence of abnormally high petrol prices in the wake of the reinstated fuel excise tax. The ACCC was tasked with watching retailers carefully for signs of unnecessarily large price hikes when the halved tax was returned to its full 44.2 cents-a-litre level last month. ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said many scammers were taking advantage of the large-scale data breach How to avoid a scam Don't answer unknown numbers Don't confirm personal information before verifying source Don't open suspicious links Ensure two-factor authentication is enabled Choose passwords carefully Hang up if concerned Advertisement The heads of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission will also front the economics committee on Tuesday. The financial regulators will be grilled about anti-competitive behaviour, corporate greenwashing and the rise of social media 'finfluencers'. The economics committee hearing follows a probe of the Reserve Bank of Australia three weeks ago. In the lead-up to the hearings, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts questioned ASIC's ability to investigate and prosecute white-collar crime. He pointed to the collapse of the property investment scheme Sterling First, which cost many Australians their life savings. 'The effectiveness of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has already been questioned following the failure to prevent the Sterling First managed investment fund scandal in Western Australia,' Senator Roberts said. 'ASIC provided incorrect guidance on the security of Sterling First to potential investors.' Several investigations have been launched into the massive Optus data breach, which compromised the personal details of millions of Australians. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner commenced an inquiry on Tuesday. The federal agency will examine the personal information handling practices of Optus and its parent company. Several investigations have been launched into the massive Optus data breach, which compromised the personal details of millions of Australians Its investigation will focus on whether Optus took reasonable steps to protect the personal information of customers, and whether the information collected and retained was necessary to their business. The inquiry will be coordinated with one conducted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which will investigate Optus' obligations regarding customer information as a telecommunications provider. If the investigation reveals serious or repeated privacy breaches, the commissioner has the power to seek civil penalties through the Federal Court of up to $2.2 million for each contravention. Information and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk urged all organisations to review their handling of personal information and data breach response plans. 'Collecting and storing personal information that is not reasonably necessary to your business breaches privacy and creates risk. Only collect what is reasonably necessary,' she said. The consumer watchdog has been being flooded with Optus-related scam complaints following the data breach. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb said scammers were taking advantage of the large-scale data breach and posing as the telecommunications giant or Equifax Protect, the credit reporting agency tasked with supporting victims of the breach. She told a parliamentary committee people were confused about the legitimacy of the communications. So far, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said there had only been a few instances of fraudsters successfully scamming victims out of money by pretending to be from Optus. The Fat Bear Week competition in Alaska was hit with storm of cheating claims after organizers found thousands of fake votes were made for Sunday's winner. The Katmai National Park, which hosts a bracket-style contest for bears pictured at the Alaskan park, overturned the election results between Bear 747 and his opponent, Holly. After removing more than 7,000 fraudulent votes, Bear 747 won with 37,940 votes against Holly's 30,430. The competition is set to crown its chunkiest animal ahead of hibernation season. After noticing the fake votes, the National Park tweeted: 'Stopped by TSA for smuggling salmon, [Holly] missed her connection while jumbo jet 747 cleared the runway. 'This capacious cargo carrier cruised to the finals with a triumphant tailwind.' Bear 747 was dubbed the real winner in the semi-final bracket of the 2022 Fat Bear Week contest after organizers found more than 7,000 fake votes for his opponent Holly (above), the winner of the 2019 Fat Bear Week contest, earned only 30,430 real votes, while 747 got 37,940 votes Many on Twitter were heartbroken by Holly's loss, who was the 2019 Fat Bear Week champion, but couldn't help themselves to compare the election with that of the 2020 presidential election. Referencing the January 6 riots fueled by unfounded claims that the presidential race was stolen, Twitter user Liz St Clair wrote: 'NOOOOoooooo I was so happy when I saw Holly was leading. I feel like storming the national parks on Jan 6th.' Another Twitter user with the handle HottenAnnie joined in on the joke, tweeting: 'Careful. We dont want people violently storming the park. Others tweeted, 'STOP THE STEAL,' and 'STOP THE COUNT,' the mantra former President Donald Trump touted in his loss against Joe Biden. Bear 747 moves onto the semi-final round of the annual competition hosted by the Katmai National Park. His opponent will be decided after Monday night's votes are tallied up Many took to Twitter to poke fun at the cheating scandal, comparing it to the contentious 2020 presidential election With his newfound victory, Bear 747 will be in the finals and face off against the winner of Monday's election. The bear, estimated to weigh around 1,400 pounds, was found fishing everyday at Brooks Falls between late June and mid-September as he prepared for hibernation. Rangers of the national park noted that 747 was one of the dominant bears in the forest, and while bears tend to fight to assert their place, they said the 747 keeps his rank 'by sheer size alone.' The bear was previously the winner of the 2020 Fat Bear Week competition. Locals have lined the street of an Irish village to honour an Australian man who was one of 10 people killed in a petrol station explosion last Friday. James O'Flaherty, 48, had stopped to fill his car at the Applegreen service station in Creeslough, County Donegal when the blast happened. The cause of the explosion is still unknown. Mourners paid their respects to his wife Tracey and son Hamish at the Eternal Light Chapel of Rest in Letterkenny, as it emerged one of the first doctors to arrive at the devastating blast scene also has Australian heritage. Mr O'Flaherty's wife's colleagues from Letterkenny University Hospital, where she is a nurse, formed a guard of honour as his coffin was carried out to a hearse. James O'Flaherty's coffin is pictured being carried to a hearse in County Donegal, Ireland Originally from Sydney, Mr O'Flaherty had worked as an engineer in many countries before moving to the seaside town with his Irish wife. Dr Dan Gill, who is based in the nearby village of Falcarragh, rushed to the scene of the explosion and was shocked to find his neighbour Mr O'Flaherty was one of the dead. 'We both built houses together quite near the village centre, he was a lovely man, quiet, humorous, he was from Australia and I'm also half-Australian, so we had lots to talk about,' Dr Gill told RTE's Morning Ireland radio program. 'He was very, very attached to his son Hamish, they were always around together. It's just terrible. 'He married a lovely Donegal woman, Tracey, I think they were living in Scotland before here and then they moved home.' Dr Gill said Mr O'Flaherty worked from home, 'so every time I drove in by the house I could see him standing at a big bank of computers doing his job. 'I found out he had died when I got to the scene, it was shocking.' Mr O'Flaherty's wife and son travelled in the same car as the coffin to a funeral home in Derrybeg. Australian man James O'Flaherty (pictured) was among 10 people killed in an explosion in Ireland Pictured is an aerial view of the devastation caused by an explosion in the north-west of Ireland in which 10 people, including an Australian man, died His remains will be removed to the family home on Tuesday before a funeral mass followed by burial on Wednesday. Mr O'Flaherty was a business graduate from the University of Tasmania and also studied software engineering at the University of New South Wales. He was an engineering director and had previously worked in Australia, France, Britain and the US. The other victims of the explosion were designer Jessica Gallagher, 24; Martin McGill, 49; Catherine O'Donnell, 39, and her 13-year-old son James; farmer Hugh Kelly, 59; shop worker Martina Martin, 49; Robert Garwe and five-year-old daughter Shauna; and talented rugby player Leona Harper, 14. Robert Garwe (right), 50, and his five-year-old daughter Shauna (left) were inside the shop at the time to buy a birthday cake for her mother The Irish police. known as Garda Siochana, said a man in his 20s remains in a critical condition at St James Hospital in Dublin, while a further seven casualties are receiving treatment at Letterkenny University Hospital and remain in stable condition. Mr Garwe, who was originally from Zimbabwe, and his daughter Shauna had been inside the petrol station's shop to buy a birthday cake when the blast happened. They had been given a lift to the petrol station by Mr Kelly, who was waiting outside but also died. Shauna, the youngest victim, was buying the cake for her mother's birthday. Teenager Leona Harper, a talented rugby player, died while choosing an ice cream from the fridge at the petrol station when the blast took place on Friday Pope Francis offered his condolences to the people of Creeslough following the tragedy. 'His Holiness Pope Francis was saddened to learn of the loss of life and destruction caused by the explosion in Creeslough and he expresses his spiritual closeness to all those suffering in the aftermath of this tragedy,' a statement said. 'While entrusting the deceased to the merciful love of almighty god, His Holiness implores the divine blessings of consolation and healing upon the injured, the displaced and the families coping with pain of loss. 'As a pledge of strength and peace in the lord, the Holy Father sends his blessing to all the people of Ireland.' Investigators suspect an accidental gas leak had caused the explosion. Dancers perform Jiuhe Zhuo Dance, a national intangible cultural heritage, in Jiuhe Village of Qonggyai County in Shannan, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, July 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Purbu Zhaxi) LHASA, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The total output of the culture industry in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region grew more than fourfold to 6.9 billion yuan (about 971.9 million U.S. dollars) over the past decade, local authorities said. The output registered an annual growth rate of over 15 percent on average, Gan Liquan, deputy director of the regional department of culture, told a press conference on Sunday. Over the past decade, more than 400 million yuan, earmarked by both the central and regional governments, was spent on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, Gan added. Tibet now has three items (Gesar, Tibetan opera, and Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa) included on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. There are 106 items on the national intangible cultural heritage list with 96 state-level representative bearers and 460 items on the regional list with 522 regional-level representative bearers. The region has named eight counties, townships, and villages with intangible cultural heritage characteristics, and 19 intangible cultural heritage tourist attractions. A total of 121 intangible cultural heritage workshops have been established in the region, creating jobs for 3,053 people from 2,271 households and increasing monthly incomes by more than 3,200 yuan on average, Gan said. The United States' defensive actions such as joint military drills and naval exercises with South Korea do not justify North Korea's missile provocations, a state department spokesperson said Monday. The remark comes after North Korea argued its missile tests are "self-defense" actions against U.S. threats. "We reject the notion that our defensive actions to respond to the DPRK threats justifies their escalatory and unlawful behavior," the department spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We also condemn the DPRK's continued testing of ballistic missiles, which is unlawful and destabilizing to the region and to the international community," the official added, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. On Saturday, the North's National Aviation Administration said the country's missile tests are a "regular and planned self-defensive step" against what it called "U.S. direct military threats." Pyongyang staged seven rounds of missile tests in just two weeks as South Korea and the U.S. held their annual joint military drills that began late last month. Seoul has similarly rejected the North's claim that its missile tests are self-defense actions, calling them "unlawful provocations." The state department spokesperson also urged the North to return to dialogue. "We remain committed to a diplomatic approach to the DPRK and call on the DPRK to engage in dialogue. Our commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad," the spokesperson said. North Korea has avoided denuclearization talks since late 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was earlier quoted as saying last week that his country has "no content for dialogue with the enemies." (Yonhap) Residents in Victoria are being urged to prepare for wild weather as a 'significant rain event' batters the state. In a press conference on Tuesday, Premier Daniel Andrews warned Victorians of heavy rainfall, thunderstorms and high winds causing flooding in parts of the state. The wet weather is forecast to start on Wednesday and 'intensify in force' on Thursday with up to 100mm of rain expected to fall. Premier Daniel Andrews during a press conference warned residents of a 'significant rain event' bringing heavy rainfall, strong winds and flooding (pictured) 'Our catchments are full, we have had record rainfall up until this point and that the ground is absolutely sodden so even a minor amount of rain would be a risk in terms of flooding - but it's not a minor rain event that we are forecasting,' Mr Andrews said. 'It will be significant rainfall in certain parts of the state and that will pose a flooding risk to lots of communities in different places.' Senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology Kevin Parkin said his concern was a 'short-term flash flood' risk caused by intense rainfall on Thursday followed by a 'longer-term' riverine flooding risk as waters filter down the state's river systems. Mr Parkin explained the rain event was caused by tropical moisture building up over the top-end of Australia coupled with a third consecutive year of La Nina. 'I can't stress the importance that Thursday is very much a flash flood, heavy rain day, so be prepared,' Mr Parkin said. 'We will be dealing with a riverine flooding as the next several days unfold. 'it's not just about rain though, often with these weather systems they get accompanied by strong winds and damaging wind gusts affecting elevated locations.' At least 20mm of rain is expected in Melbourne and Geelong, with some areas in the north-east of the state expecting up to 100mm. Mr Parkin said between 60mm to 100mm of rainfall is expected around the Great Dividing Range while wind speeds are predicted to reach speeds of 90km/h to 100km/h. The wet weather is forecasted to start on Wednesday and 'intensify in force' on Thursday with up to 100mm of rain expected to fall (pictured, Bureau of Meteorology rainfall forecast) Nine flood warnings have been issued across the state including for the Goulburn, Avoca and Loddon rivers (pictured) There are nine flood warnings across the state including for the Goulburn, Avoca and Loddon rivers. The community is urged to remain vigilant and prepare themselves for isolation, with residents in flood-prone areas warned of potential isolation lasting up to 72 hours. Victoria State Emergency Service Tim Wiebusch advised residents to be on notice and keep watch for weather warnings. Mr Wiebusch said drivers should not try to enter any level of floodwaters and advised residents to prepare their home for heavy rain and strong winds. 'Now is the time to be cleaning out your storm pits and gutters around your house and make sure you don't have any debris lying around your house that may become a missile during strong winds,' Mr Wiebusch said. Flood-prone communities are being urged to prepare for potential isolation of up to 72 hours (pictured, people observing flood water in Traralgon, Victoria) Residents have been asked not to drive into floodwater under any circumstances (pictured, abandoned car in flood waters in Traralgon, Victoria) Mr Andrews also said the government has prepared 'community containers' for areas isolated by floodwaters, which has enough food, water and supplies for 50 people for five days. A fleet of emergency vehicles - including six new helicopters - is on standby to assist with airlifting supplies, equipment and emergency personnel and more than 200 generators are available to help with power outages. In just one hour, a downpour on Friday caused flash flooding and delivered more than half of Melbourne's October average rainfall. 'Malevolent' nurse is accused of poisoning with insulin, injecting air into their blood or over-feeding with milk Advertisement Children's nurse Lucy Letby (pictured), 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital A children's nurse murdered seven premature babies and attacked ten others at the hospital where she worked, a jury heard yesterday. 'Malevolent' Lucy Letby, 32, is accused of poisoning the children with insulin, injecting air into their bloodstreams or over-feeding them with milk. The court was told there was a 'poisoner at work' for a year at the neo-natal unit and 'catastrophic' attacks often took place when Letby was on a nightshift while the babies' parents were not present and fewer staff were on duty. During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths'. Letby is accused of murdering a twin boy, who was just a day old, less than 90 minutes after coming on duty at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire. It is alleged she targeted his twin sister 28 hours later, but she survived. Manchester Crown Court heard that Letby later took an 'unusual interest' in the children's families and 'tracked' them on Facebook. It is alleged that medical documents relating to the babies' care were found when police raided her home years later. At the start of Letby's trial, the jury was told that she tried to kill some of the children multiple times. It is alleged several sets of twins were targeted and three babies were murdered in a fortnight alone. None of the babies nor their parents can be named for legal reasons. Letby, of Hereford, denies seven charges of murder and 15 of attempted murder involving 17 babies between June 2015 and June 2016. Yesterday morning she was brought into the dock at Manchester Crown Court, wearing a dark blue suit with a black blouse. Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said the nurse, who had undertaken special training to care for premature infants, was 'the one common denominator' when ten boys and seven girls either died or collapsed. He said the hospital in Chester was unlike others because there was a 'poisoner at work'. Before January 2015, mortality rates at the neo-natal unit were 'comparable' to similar units. But over the following 18 months there was a 'significant rise' in the number of baby deaths and infants suffering 'serious catastrophic collapses'. The court heard that doctors at the hospital were baffled by the increased mortality rate and could not find a medical cause. Lucy Letby sketched in the dock at Manchester Crown Court with security where she is charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of another ten, between June 2015 and June 2016 while working on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths' Mr Johnson said: 'Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly severely deteriorated. Sometimes babies who had been sick but had then been on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason. 'Having searched for a cause which they were unable to find the consultants noticed that the unexpected collapses and deaths did have one common denominator the presence of one of the neo-natal nurses, and that nurse was Lucy Letby.' The court heard that police were called in and discovered that at least two boys, from separate sets of twins, had been 'deliberately' poisoned with insulin eight months apart. The boys, referred to as Baby F and Baby L, were two days old when they were allegedly attacked but survived. Mr Johnson said the fact that Baby F and Baby L were deliberately injected with insulin would help the jury interpret what happened to the other victims and decide whether somebody was 'sabotaging them or whether they were just tragic coincidences'. He added: 'We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 children were not naturally occurring tragedies. They were all the work of the woman in the dock who, we say, was the constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for those 17 children.' The jury was told that Baby F was poisoned in August 2015, while Baby L was poisoned eight months later in April 2016. Mr Johnson said: 'Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned and we allege she was the poisoner.' He told the court that Baby F's brother, Baby E, was murdered by Letby when she injected air into his bloodstream a day before she attacked his brother. The injected air caused what doctors call an air embolus, which leads to strokes or heart attacks. Letby is also accused of pumping dangerous levels of milk into the premature children via feeding tubes or veins. Mr Johnson said Baby L's twin brother, Baby M, was also attacked on the same day with air injected into his circulatory system but he survived. The court heard that, although doctors realised Baby F's and Baby L's blood sugar was dangerously low, they initially assumed it was a 'naturally occurring phenomenon'. Mr Johnson said: 'It simply did not occur to the medical staff that someone in the neo-natal unit would have injected them with insulin nobody thought that there was someone trying to kill babies.' Jurors were shown a chart of around 30 members of staff who worked in the unit, with an 'X' marking those who were present when each child was harmed. The graph showed a long column of 'Xs' below Letby's name, meaning she was present when all the babies collapsed or died. No other member of staff was present more than seven times. Mr Johnson said: 'If you look at the table overall the picture is, we say, self-evidently obvious. It's a process of elimination.' Mr Johnson went on: 'It is a complicated case by any measures. It concerns seven allegations of murder and allegations of attempted murder of 10 other children. 'We allege that sometimes Lucy Letby tried to kill the same baby more than once. 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing she did not manage to kill the first time she tried, or even the second time, and in one case even the third time.' Mr Johnson said Baby A was born almost nine weeks early but in a good condition in June 2015. His notes recorded he was stable in the neo-natal unit but at 8.26pm the following day, soon after Letby began her night shift, he suffered a fatal collapse. Doctors noticed an unusual 'flitting pink rash over blue skin' which they had never seen before, which Mr Johnson said was a 'hallmark' of the case and common in several victims. A post-mortem failed to find a cause of death but expert Dr Dewi Evans later concluded that Baby A died because air had been injected into his bloodstream. The jury heard that Letby was the only nurse to witness Baby A's collapse, which occurred around the time she set up a glucose infusion. It is claimed the infusion would have given her access to a tube used to administer fluids into his bloodstream. When interviewed by police more than three years later, Letby said she had wondered whether the bag of fluid given to Baby A 'was not what we thought it was'. Mr Johnson said that was an 'interesting turn of phrase' as experts have since concluded that the poisoner allegedly put insulin in the fluid bags of Baby F and Baby L when they were attacked. Letby also claimed that it was another nurse who had administered the glucose and that she had asked for the fluid to be examined after Baby A's death. Mr Johnson said there was no record of this request. He added that the following day, around midnight, Baby A's twin sister, Baby B, also collapsed when Letby was on duty, soon after she had helped set up a bag of intravenous feed with another nurse. Experts again concluded Baby B's care had been 'sabotaged' by air being injected into her bloodstream, the jury heard. Mr Johnson said Letby told officers Baby B had similar 'mottling' on her skin as seen in her brother the previous day. She admitted her signature was the only one on Baby B's notes NHS rules state two nurses must sign when drugs are administered to a baby. She also told police that earlier she had tested Baby B's blood, even though she had not been assigned to look after her. Mr Johnson said documents relating to Baby B's care were also found alongside those of other children at Letby's home. The barrister added the similarities between the death and collapse of the siblings and the conclusions of the experts revealed there had been foul play. He told the jury: 'We say that there is no plausible alternative to air being injected into the bloodstream. The fact that it happened in two cases so close together just over 24 hours shows that these were no accidents.' Prosecutors claim that Letby showed an 'unusual interest' in the families of her alleged victims, with evidence from her computer said to show how she would 'on occasion' search for them online 'in quick succession'. Letby was questioned by police during interviews over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook, with prosecutors saying today that this was an 'unusual interest'. Opening the prosecution, Nick Johnson KC, said: 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing was not killed the first or even second time she tried'. He added: 'Sometimes they were injected with air both intravenously [into the blood] and via the nasogastric tube [into the stomach]. Sometimes they were injected with milk or some other fluid. Sometimes it was insulin. But the constant presence was Lucy Letby'. Letby poisoned babies while on the night shift because parents would not be around, court told Lucy Letby appearing in the dock at Manchester Crown Court Lucy Letby was today accused of poisoning babies on the night shift. There tended to be fewer staff on the unit at night, and parents as well tended to visit mostly in the days. Mr Johnson continued: 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts. 'When upon Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts, the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts.' Mr Johnson said as medics could not account for the collapses and deaths, police were called in and conducted a 'pain-staking review'. He said: 'That review suggests that in the period between mid-2015 and the middle of 2016 somebody in the neo-natal unit poisoned two children with insulin. 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence you will hear is that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident.' Advertisement Mr Johnson said Letby was a 'constant malevolent presence' at the 'closely restricted' neonatal unit. He added: 'It is a hospital like so many others in the UK but unlike many other hospitals in the UK, and unlike many other neo-natal units in the UK, within the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work.' Letby allegedly tried to kill one baby girl three times and a baby boy three times - including two attempts in one day. Mr Johnson said: 'Prior to January 2015, the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units. 'However over the next 18 months or so there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses. 'These rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause.' They were concerned that babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly, despite appropriate medical interventions that would normally have saved them. He said the collapses 'defied the normal experience of the treating doctors'. Mr Johnson said that normally babies might suffer from heart problems, infection or dehydration. 'Usually when an intervention was undertaken a positive reaction can be expected. But many of the cases you are going to hear about defied those expectations and norms', he said. Babies who were stable suddenly deteriorated, and sometimes babies who had been sick but were on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, the consultants noticed that a single common factor was the presence of a single neonatal nurse. 'That nurse' said the barrister, 'was Lucy Letby'. 'Because of the inability of doctors to find genuine medical reasons for the deaths and collapses the police were called in'. Officers from Cheshire Constabulary commissioned a detailed review by experienced doctors with no connection to the Countess of Chester Hospital. Mr Johnson continued: 'That (review) suggests that from the middle of 2015 to the middle of 2016 somebody in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin. 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence will have been that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident. The specially trained ICU nurse was described as a 'constant malevolent presence' on the Cheshire children's unit where she allegedly killed and injured many vulnerable children - including twins. She is accused of using night shifts to launch many attacks because she knew parents were unlikely to visit the neonatal ward 'We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 babies were not naturally occurring tragedies. 'They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things turned to the worst for these 17 children'. Mr Johnson added: 'As we go through my introduction of the case, we will see that similar events repeated themselves. The means by which the children in this case were harmed and killed varied.' The deaths and injuries of 17 babies were not 'naturally-occurring tragedies' - and Lucy Letby was 'the constant presence', trial hears The collapses and deaths of all the 17 children concerned were not 'naturally-occurring tragedies,' Mr Johnson said. 'They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these 17 children.' Mr Johnson said the two children poisoned with insulin, who cannot be identified, were two baby boys, both born twins; the first born in summer 2015 and the other born in spring 2016. Both were poisoned a couple of days after they were born. 'Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned and we allege she was the poisoner,' Mr Johnson said. 'There's a very restricted number of people who could have been the poisoner, because entry to a neo-natal unit is closely restricted.' Advertisement He said the defendant was born on January 4 1990 and was originally from Hereford. Letby studied for her nursing degree at the University of Chester, he said, and at the time of the alleged events was a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital and had been since she had qualified a few years earlier. She worked throughout the period in consideration at the neo-natal unit and prior to her arrest was living at an address in Chester, the court heard. Mr Johnson told the jury: 'As you know we have 22 charges, 17 children. In all the cases Lucy Letby was either responsible for them as their designated nurse or she got involved with them despite not being their designated nurse.' Mr Johnson then turned to the individual cases of each child, starting with Child A, which the court heard was the first to be attacked and murdered at just a day old, on June 8, 2015. Child A, a baby boy, was born just a minute behind his twin sister at 8.31pm the previous day. The court was told he was born early, by C-section, at 31 weeks, and admitted to the intensive care room at the neo-natal unit of the hospital. He was in good condition and did well and by the following morning was breathing 'in air', that is, without extra oxygen and was given expressed breast milk, Mr Johnson said. Letby came on to work on the night shift at 7.30pm for the handover from another nurse looking after Child A during the day shift, it was heard. At 8pm Letby became the designated nurse for Child A but at 8.26pm she called a doctor to the baby's incubator and the on-call consultant was also alerted, the court was told. Both doctor and consultant noted an 'odd discolouration' on the child's skin, patches of pink over blue skin that appeared and disappeared, which became a 'hallmark' of the some of the cases in which Letby had allegedly injected air into the bloodstream of a victim, the court was told. Despite resuscitation attempts, Child A was said to have been pronounced dead at 8.58pm, within 90 minutes of Letby coming on duty. The infant's death was referred to a coroner who recorded the cause of death as 'unascertained'. The court heard that four medical experts reviewed the case. The first said Child A was a 'well infant' before their death. He said the fatal event was consistent with a deliberate injection of air or something else into the boy's circulation a minute or two before his collapse. Letby is accused of attacking two sets of twins - with insulin and with air - one child, Baby E, would die but his sibling survived Letby's parents, John, 76, and Susan, 62, (pictured) watched as proceedings were relayed to annexe courtrooms attended by families of the children involved and members of the press and broadcast media A second expert said Child A's collapse was not a natural event and added the 'most likely reason' was air administered deliberately, 'by someone who knew it would cause significant harm'. A pathologist concluded it would be reasonable to conclude that air in Child A's circulation was most likely caused by air administration through one of two tubes already attached to the baby's body. In her November 2020 interview it was put to Letby that she had tracked the family of Child A on Facebook. She said she had no memory of doing so but accepted it if there was evidence from her computer. Judge warns jury to be 'dispassionate' in 'case bound to provoke an instinctive reaction of horror' The trial judge, Mr Justice Goss, told the empanelled jurors that all the charges relate to babies. 'Any anxiety or apprehension you may have about your role as jurors in this case. You will have apprehensions about what is to follow, but in relation to the nature of the case and your role'. Other juries up and down the country were trying very serious cases, so they should not to be anxious. They would soon become familiar with the details of the case. The judge added: 'The case is bound to provoke an instinctive reaction of horror. It is part of our characteristics as a human being. 'Whilst retaining your knowledge and understanding of human behaviour, you must put your emotions to one side and consider the evidence calmly, rationally, fairly and dispassionately'. Advertisement Mr Johnson told the jury: 'Her interest in the families of the children who we say she attacked is another feature of this case which we will see more of as the evidence emerges in more detail. 'We suggest it is an unusual interest and we will see in due course that on occasion she searched in quick succession for several of the families of babies whose names appear on the indictment. Child A's twin sister, Child B, needed some resuscitation at birth but recovered quickly and stabilised. By June 9, the day after her brother's death, she was managing periods of independent breathing. All observations were normal and she remained stable, the court heard. According to prosecutors, around 28 hours after Child A had died, Child B was found 'blue' and 'limp' on the ward. 'She was blue, she wasn't breathing and she was limp,' said Mr Johnson. Child B 'recovered quickly' once resuscitated and survived the incident - without suffering any further consequences. A doctor concluded she was 'subjected to some form of sabotage before or after midnight on the night of June 9/10 2015'. Mr Johnson told jurors: 'Here you can see we have a pair of twins who were born preaturely but in pretty good condition. No-one expected them to face grave problems, yet both suffered unusual symptoms within a short time of each other.' A second doctor observed the sudden discolouration, profound collapse and 'relatively quick recovery is rare and only explained by a dose of air administered into the bloodstream'. Family members of some of her alleged child victims sat in the public gallery listening as the names of the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were read out. Earlier, three members of security staff surrounded her as she stood up to enter her pleas as her parents John and Susan watched on. Letby quietly repeated the words 'not guilty' as each of the charges was read out to her by a clerk at Manchester Crown Court. She was standing stock still in the glass-panelled dock of Court 7, her once blonde hair, now darkened, let down over her shoulders. Fourteen jurors were sworn in to hear the trial. However, two of them will act as substitutes while the prosecution opening is being heard. Once that point has been reached the trial will continue with 12 jurors. Letby's parents, John, 76, and Susan, 62, watched as proceedings were relayed to annexe courtrooms attended by families of the children involved and members of the press and broadcast media. A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of surviving and deceased children allegedly attacked by Letby, and prohibits identifying the parents or witnesses connected with the children. The children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be referred to as Child A to Q. The trial, which is expected to last six months, continues. A man who found an unexploded WWII artillery round in the bush has been used as a cautionary tale after he decided to take it home before calling police. Northern Territory Police were called to a property in Berry Springs, about 60km south of Darwin, on Monday after the man reported he had the dangerous explosive in his home. The man said he found the 11kg high-explosive WWII artillery round some 30km away in the Manton Dam area. A Northern Territory man found an unexploded WWII artillery round (above) near an old military site Manton Dam was built in WWII to supply water to military based in Darwin. Three wartime accommodation huts still remain at the site, which is now listed as a tourist attraction representing Darwin's military history. Police immediately identified the bomb as dangerous and unsafe for transport. A nearby block of land was sectioned off and the explosive was safely detonated. Superintendent Shaun Gill urged members of the public who find suspicious military gear to leave it alone and immediately report to police. The man took the artillery round to his home before calling police who then safely detonated it nearby (above) 'Instead of moving the device, mark the exact location and contact authorities who will attend and safely remove the item,' he said. It comes just weeks after two young boys discovered an unexploded WWII hand grenade at a creek near Noonkanbah Station, some 1,500km from Monday's bomb discovery. Noonkanbah Station acted as a base for the Royal Australian Air Force and Dutch army during WWII. Pint-sized social media star Hasbulla Magomedov will be in the corner of Islam Makhachev for his world title fight with Charles Oliveira at UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi later this month. The 99cm tall 19-year-old Russian has been a prominent ringside figure at the octagon and has established close ties with UFC president Dana White, Islam Makhachev and former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. Viral sensation Hasbulla Magomedov will be in the corner of Islam Makhachev for his world title fight with Charles Oliveira at UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi later this month Hasbulla was pictured supporting Islam Makhachev (pictured) during his October victory against Dan Hooker, but will now be officially part of the Russian's corner when he fights for the vacant lightweight belt later this month He was pictured supporting Islam Makhachev during his October victory against Dan Hooker, but will now be officially part of the Russian's corner when he fights for the vacant lightweight belt. The news was confirmed by Makhachev's manager Ali Abdelaziz on Sunday, and has fans of the tiny prankster buzzing. One person who isn't a fan however is Conor McGregor, who has been carrying on a long-term feud over social media with the 19-year-old Russian. Just over a month ago, the Irishman called Hasbulla a 'gimp', 'a smelly little inbred' and said he'd like to boot him over a goal post. Hasbulla, who is good friends with McGregor's longtime heated rival Khabib Nurmagomedov, has taunted the Irishman in the past and wasted no time replying. MMA superstar Conor McGregor (pictured) is not a fan of the 19-year-old Russian and has been engaged in a long-term social media battle with social media star 'I don't follow bums didn't know someone was running their mouth,' Hasbulla tweeted. He followed up with: 'At least one of us kept an undefeated record. Hasbulla 1. McGregor 0.' In early September, Dana White signed Hasbulla to a sensational five-year contract in a promotional role - which may put the back-and-forth confrontations with McGregor on hold. Makhachev will go into the bout against Oliveira as a slight favourite, riding a 10-fight win streak that includes notable victories over Bobby Green, Dan Hooker, Drew Dober, and Arman Tsarukyan. Hasbulla shot to global fame in late 2020 when he began posting videos on Instagram and TikTok of himself performing daring stunts and pranks. In early September, Dana White signed Hasbulla to a sensational five-year contract with the UFC in a promotional role Oliveira is far and away the toughest opponent Makhachev will have faced in his 23-fight career, defeating Gaethje, Poirier and Michael Chandler in his most recent world title outings. Hasbulla shot to global fame in late 2020 when he began posting videos on Instagram and TikTok of himself performing daring stunts and pranks. With his beguiling childlike appearance and confident attitude, Hasbulla soon amassed a huge online following including 2.1 million followers on Instagram and over 4.7 billion views on TikTok. A rollercoaster worker who desperately tried to stop a woman from walking onto the tracks to retrieve her phone is likely to be suffering from the same trauma as the victim, a psychologist has revealed. Shylah Rodden, 26, remains critical but stable in a medically induced coma after being struck by the ride at the Royal Melbourne Show on September 25. The accident, which has left Ms Rodden with serious brain damage, has sparked fears for the mental well-being of the rollercoaster patrons, bystanders, and first responders who rushed to her aid. Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology David Berle, of the University of Technology Sydney, said witnesses of traumatic events can also experience upsetting memories, high levels of distress and disturbed sleep. Witness Jordan, who inadvertently captured the moment Ms Rodden was struck while filming his family on the ride, revealed he had been struggling to sleep ever since. Shylah Rodden (pictured) is in a medically induced coma after being hit by a rollercoaster on September 25 While waiting to record his sister Chloe and partner Alex, who were in the front carriage of the Rebel Coaster, he saw a worker speaking to a woman who was in an unauthorised access area of the ride. The worker told the woman to get away, and she began to walk off, but a few moments later, when he looked back to the ride, he saw Ms Rodden at the front of the ride, bending down into the tracks to collect something. Despite the passengers' screams and the rollercoaster charging towards her, Jordan's footage shows Ms Rodden looking down, fixated on picking up the object, unaware she was in danger. He said onlookers could not prevent Ms Rodden from walking on the tracks, and the situation unfolded so rapidly. 'I didn't hear her scream,' he told 7News. 'The screams that I heard came from onlookers, I think. It happened so fast.' Jordan said those on the ride were then stuck in the air for about 45minutes while the scene was cordoned off, and police spoke to Show staff and witnesses. There are fears for the mental wellbeing for witnesses of the tragedy. Pictured is a grab from footage, which Daily Mail Australia has chosen not to publish, of Ms Rodden approaching the ride Associate Professor Berle said it was normal for witnesses in the week or two after the event to experience reminders or intrusive memories. 'They might have difficulties relaxing or find it is hard to come down, which might affect their sleep. They might also be uncomfortable speaking about what they experienced.' Associate Professor David Berle (pictured) said witnesses may experience the same trauma responses as victims. While the vast majority's symptoms subside within a few weeks, some may go on to develop PTSD However, for some, it can develop into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is characterised by trauma symptoms persisting for several months. 'We know that people who directly experience a traumatic event can develop PTSD, but we know witnesses can too,' he said. Associate Professor Berle said there are several factors which can increase the risk of PTSD, including feeling involved in what happened, proximity to the incident, witnessing graphic scenes, or being exposed to multiple traumatic events. 'A really interesting aspect is that people who may believe that they should have done something or could have prevented something, may feel much more distressed afterwards and struggle more adjusting to the upsetting event,' he said. 'In almost all instances, people have acted completely appropriate in their response, but even the most diligent person can find themselves questioning and doubting themselves. It is easy for people to think over how things could be different. 'That can especially be the case if you were a person in responsibility like if you were the operator, or a first responder, then you can feel an extra sense of responsibility over why it wasnt prevented and what more could have done.' Associate Professor Berle said how close witnesses were to the scene matters as well as their level of exposure to graphic details, such goriness or the victim's injuries. For both witnesses and victims, the perception - whether right or wrong - that the incident was sparked by negligence can take longer to adjust. Prior life experiences also play a major role in how individuals process trauma. In the case of first responders, the higher the number - or greater 'lifetime dose' - of traumatic experiences they have witnessed, the greater the risk of later developing PTSD. 'So for first responders, even the most resilient people are more likely to go on to develop PTSD,' he said. Shylah Rodden's (pictured) condition is now listed as serious rather than critical as her family stay by her bedside Associate Professor Berle said there are four clusters of symptoms PTSD sufferers may experience, namely re-experiencing symptoms, avoidance symptoms, changes to cognition and emotions, and hyperarousal symptoms. Re-experiencing symptoms include intrusive and upsetting memories or nightmares, while avoidance may involve steering clear of where the trauma occurred or reminders, like talking about what happened. Individuals with PTSD may also experience profound emotional and thought changes, like chronic anger, guilt, or fear, or altered beliefs about the world, such as losing trust in the safety of activities. The Royal Melbourne Show has set up a support service for anyone suffering from trauma as a result of the incident, which can be arranged via their website. While most people have a resilient response to traumatic events, Associate Professor Berle said it is important witnesses keep an eye out for symptoms and seek help if they persist. 'One of the key features of PTSD is that symptoms need to be persisting for a number of months,' he said. 'There are effective treatments and people with PTSD are encouraged to seek treatment. Treatment is useful for 60 per cent for people if they receive an evidence-based treatment approach.' WHAT IS POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a particular set of reactions that can develop in people who have been through a traumatic event which threatened their life or safety, or that of others around them. This could be a car or other serious accident, physical or sexual assault, war or torture, or disasters such as bushfires or floods. As a result, the person experiences feelings of intense fear, helplessness or horror. People with PTSD often experience feelings of panic or extreme fear, similar to the fear they felt during the traumatic event. A person with PTSD experiences four main types of difficulties. Re-living the traumatic event (unwanted and recurring memories, nightmares), being overly alert or wound up (sleeping difficulties, irritability and lack of concentration), avoiding reminders of the event, or feeling emotionally numb Anyone can develop PTSD following a traumatic event, but people are at greater risk if the event involved deliberate harm such as physical or sexual assault or they have had repeated traumatic experiences such as childhood sexual abuse or living in a war zone. Apart from the event itself, risk factors for developing PTSD include a past history of trauma or previous mental health problems, as well as ongoing stressful life events after the trauma and an absence of social supports. Around 12 per cent of Australians will experience PTSD in their lifetime. Serious accidents are one of the leading causes of PTSD in Australia. If you feel very distressed at any time after a traumatic event, talking to your doctor or other health professional is a good first step. If you experience symptoms of PTSD that persist beyond two weeks, a doctor or a mental health professional may recommend starting treatment for PTSD. Source: Beyond Blue Advertisement A Royal Melbourne Show spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia 'the health and wellbeing of our Show community is our number one priority'. 'Melbourne Royal engaged Life Supports to provide counselling services and support to anyone impacted by the incident,' they said. 'Life Supports are in touch with a network of therapists across Australia, all of whom specialise in different areas of counselling.' 'They have many counsellors who are trauma-informed, and very experienced working with children, young people and adults. The insight comes amid fears for those who witnessed the tragedy, including rollercoaster patrons, emergency personnel, and bystanders. Over the past two weeks, members of the public have flocked online to share their concern about the potential long term impacts for those who watched the tragedy unfold. 'I have sympathy for the people that witnessed it,' one person said. 'Literally, they are going to be traumatised for life,' someone else wrote. '[The] poor ambos that [sic] had to deal with that,' a third commented. On the day she was struck, Ms Rodden had been working at a friend's stall at the show when the pair decided to go on a few rides during their break. She is believed to have dropped her phone while on the rollercoaster. Ms Rodden (pictured) has been involved in three separate traffic accidents, in 2018, 2019 and 202 Police believe she then walked onto the tracks to retrieve her device despite ride operators telling her they would get it in 20minutes once the ride stopped. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman from the Royal Melbourne Hospital confirmed Shylah's condition was now listed as serious rather than critical. The extent of her injuries still remain unclear, with her family - who were grappling with the death of her old brother just two months before the incident - bracing for the possibility she may not ever speak again. The GoFundMe launched by a friend to go towards medical care, therapy and rehabilitation for Ms Rodden has so far raised $12,550 of its $20,000 goal - after jumping by more than $10,000 over the weekend after Daily Mail Australia revealed it had only raised a paltry $500. The show accident was not the first time Ms Rodden has been seriously injured, having been involved in a horror car crash just 18 months before the rollercoaster incident. In January 2021, she flipped a car on the Western Ring Road in Melbourne after ploughing into a truck and a car and was flung onto the road because she was not wearing a seatbelt. A Melbourne Royal Show spokeswoman claimed 'the safety and well-being of our visitors to the show continues to be our number one priority' (pictured, the Royal Melbourne Show) Ms Rodden required significant rehabilitation and had to relearn how to walk. Her gruelling path to recovery came after yet another serious car crash in 2019. Police revealed last week the rollercoaster was travelling at 70km/h when she was hit. A Melbourne Royal Show spokeswoman claimed 'the safety and well-being of our visitors to the show continues to be our number one priority'. The safety watchdog WorkSafe is in the process of determining if that statement is true. The rollercoaster that struck her reopened just days after the incident. Show management declined to comment on whether new safety procedures had been adopted in the wake of it. For confidential 24-hour support in Australia call Lifeline: 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue: 1300 224 63 Ohio Democratic Senate hopeful Tim Ryan said Monday night that he's been 'very clear' that he doesn't want President Joe Biden to run for a second term. 'No, I've been very clear I'd like to see a generational change. Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, the president, everybody. We need a new generation of leadership,' Ryan said during the Senate debate against Republican rival J.D. Vance. In September, Ryan had floated that he wasn't a fan of Biden 2.0. 'My hunch is that we need new leadership across the board Democrats, Republicans, I think its time for a generational move,' he said. But at an event in Ohio with the president he seemed to hedge a little. '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,' Ryan told the White House pool, clarifying his earlier comments. Ohio Democratic Senate hopeful Tim Ryan said Monday night that he's been 'very clear' that he doesn't want President Joe Biden to run for a second term President Joe Biden, 79, was photographed Monday returning to the White House after a weekend in Wilmington, Delaware The debate featured an hour of Vance and Ryan slinging insults at each other, with Ryan - who's represented the Youngstown area for more than 20 years - characterizing Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, as a political extremist and a Silicon Valley swindler. 'Ohio needs an a** kicker, not an a** kisser,' Ryan said, pointing to Vance's steadfast support of former President Donald Trump, after criticizing him during his 2016 prseidential run. At an Ohio rally last month, Trump said Vance was 'kissing my a**' for support. 'We need leaders who have courage to take on their own party - and I've proven that - and he was called an a**-kisser by the former president,' Ryan said. Vance remained supportive of Trump through his many legal troubles. 'I've seen nothing that suggests the president of the United States be thrown in prison,' Vance said. He was less gung-ho about the GOP's Senate Leader Mitch McConnell staying at the top of his party. 'Whoever runs,' he answered when asked who should be Senate Republican leader. 'Presumably Mitch McConnell will run, if somebody else runs we can have that conversation.' Beyond Biden, Ryan wasn't enthusiastic about top Democrats either. 'Kamala Harris is absolutely wrong on that,' he said at one point refuting how the vice president had said the southern border is secure. He also didn't specifically say he'd back Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as leader. The Democrat smacked Vance for repeating Trump's election denial lies, helping fund the insurrectionists' defense and for campaigning with and supporting certain members of the Republican Party. Rep. Tim Ryan (left) and author J.D. Vance (right) spent an hour slinging insults at each other Monday night, with Ryan characterizing Vance as a political extremist and a Silicon Valley swindler, and Vance suggesting Ryan hadn't gotten anything done in his 20 years in Congress 'Who runs around with Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who wants to ban books? Who's running around with Lindsey Graham, who wants a national abortion ban? You're running around with Marjorie Taylor Greene who's the absolute looniest politician in America,' Ryan told Vance. 'That's why I'm running to represent the exhausted majority - Democrats, Republicans and independents, against the extremists,' Ryan added. In turn, Vance suggested Ryan did nothing to help his Rust Belt district, pushing that the longtime lawmaker had never helped create any jobs, while Vance ran a business. 'So your consultants gave you this line and you don't actually know it,' Vance said at one point, when Ryan bungled an attack line about how Vance had invested money in China. At another point, Vance compared career politicians to 'toddlers,' saying they 'accuse you of doing the very thing that they do themselves all the time.' 'I'm not going to apologize for spending 20 years of my adult life slogging away to try and help one of the hardest economically hit regions of Ohio. And dedicated my life to help that region come back,' Ryan hit back. 'JD you went off to California, you were drinking wine and eating cheese.' Vance responded: 'I admire the spirit of service. What I don't admire is the failure of accomplishment. Look at how Youngstown has done during your leadership. That's what I don't admire.' Much of the first half of the debate was dedicated to abortion, with Vance saying he remained pro-life and Ryan saying he wanted to return the country to Roe v. Wade. Vance suggesting the raped 10-year-old Ohio girl forced to get an abortion in another state wouldn't have been put in that position had Democrats secured the border. Ohio Republican Senate hopeful J.D. Vance (left) blasted his Democratic rival, Rep. Tim Ryan (right) Monday, suggesting the raped 10-year-old Ohio girl forced to get an abortion in another state wouldn't have been put in that position had Democrats secured the border 'Why was a 10 year old girl raped in our community, raped in our state in the first place? The thing they never mention is that poor girl was raped by an illegal alien,' Vance said during Monday night's Ohio Senate debate. 'If you had done your job she would have never been raped in the first place.' 'Do your job on border security, don't lecture me on opinions I don't actually have,' Vance added. Ryan had called Vance's position 'very extreme.' 'He supports a national abortion ban, in which he wants women to have to get a passport and go to Canada,' Ryan claimed. 'We've got to have some moderation on this issue.' 'J.D. you called rape inconvenient, right?' Ryan asked, referring to headlines that said as much, despite Vance's campaign saying the Ohio Republican's words were taken out of context. 'Rape is not inconvenient, it's a significant tragedy.' 'This is the largest governmental overreach in the history of our lifetime,' Ryan said more broadly about the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. That's how the two men got onto the topic of the 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana to obtain an abortion. An undocumented immigrant, Gerson Fuentes, has been charged with two counts of rape. Ryan also had to answer to why he was previously pro-life, but today supports abortion rights. 'I had some very personal conversations with women in Ohio, who had gone through tragedies who needed to have abortions for a variety of different reasons,' Ryan said. 'And I just came to realize through the course of these conversations, that the government has no place in this matter, that this needs to be left to the woman.' On other social issues, Vance expressed he would vote against a piece of legislation codifying gay marriage because it would open religious institutions to lawsuits. Both candidates supported a loosening of restrictions around pot, though Vance warned the country shouldn't be 'soft on crime.' 'A lot of times you'll hear somebody thrown in prison for smoking a joint ... but that's just true on paper,' Vance warned. 'And if you look at the underlying charge you'll see it wasn't just that they smoked a joint, it's that they smoked a joint and then beat an elderly woman over the head with a pistol.' 'Those people should go to prison,' Vance said. The owner of the club where a heckler hurrled a beer can at a comedian who was poking fun at his pro-Trump wife said he is filing charges against the man. Ariel Elias was on stage at the Uncle Vinnie's Comedy Club in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, when a pro-Trump woman began heckling the comedian. When Elias fired back at the woman, the heckler's husband flung a beer can at her, prompting club owner Dino Ibelli to seek charges against the man. Ibelli told Insider the man ran off out the club when he tossed the can at Elias, who went on to drink it on stage as the crowd cheered her on. 'She was a pro about it to pick up the can and start drinking from it,' said Ibelli, noting that he's turned over surveillance footage of the incident to the Pleasant Beach Police. 'Her doing that, oh my God, amazing, a pro.' The heckler and her husband are still unidentified. Dino Ibelli (above) the owner of Uncle Vinnie's Comedy Club said he's filing charges against a heckler who threw a beer can at comedian Ariel Elias The can narrowly missed Elias (above) as it smashed against the exposed brick wall Elias reacted to avoiding injury by chugging the beer, much to the delight of the audience Ibelli said right after the incident, the man and his wife ran out of the comedy club The Pleasant Beach Police Department did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment. Elias quipped that when the beer can was chucked at her, she 'never needed a drink more' in her life. Feeling worried about the mood the crowd was in and the fact that she still had five minutes left of her set, the comedian improvised and reached for the beer. 'When I bent down to pick up the can, I realized there was still some left in there, I think my only move here is to down it,' she told Insider. The fiasco began when a woman in the audience demanded to know if Elias had voted for Donald Trump. Elias said: 'Did I vote for Donald Trump? What do you think?' The woman said: 'No.' The comedian responded: 'OK. Here's a question for you: why would you ask me that in here, knowing I'm the only Jew in this room? Are you trying to get me killed?' She went on: 'I vote in New York, my vote doesn't matter there.' Elias pictured during the initial exchange with the heckler in which the comedian was asked who she voted for in the 2020 presidential election Shortly after Elias attempted to move on with her show, the heckler's husband flung his beer can at the age Uncle Vinnie's Comedy Club (pictured) is located in Point Pleasant, New Jersey A man's voice can then be heard shouting: 'It doesn't matter here either. ' Elias went on: 'It doesn't matter guys, everybody vote for whoever you want to vote, I don't care who you voted for, I'm just happy we're all here together.' The woman rejected Elias' olive branch saying: 'So you voted for Biden.' An exasperated Elias replied: 'I dunno, why does it matter?' When the heckler persisted, Elias finally gave in and said: 'I dunno, why does it matter?' The heckler said: 'I could just tell by your jokes, you voted for Biden.' The fiasco began when a woman in the audience demanded to know if Ariel Elias, pictured here, had voted for Donald Trump The Kentucky-born comedian brought the house down when she zinged the heckler with: 'Alright. I can tell by the fact that you're still talking when nobody wants you to that you voted for Trump.' The heckler reacted badly to Elias attempting to continue with her show by saying: 'So rude! Telling me to stop talking! No one was telling me to stop.' Elias decided to prove her point saying: 'Alright, make some noise if you want her to shut up.' That comment was met with cheers. The comedian accepted that she had asked the audience to come at with questions during the show. As Elias attempted to get the show back on the rails, beginning her next segment saying: 'Here, I'll tell you the rest of that bit, and then we'll move on. I'm so insecure, I went and got an IUD.' Then, the heckler's husband hurled a beer can at the stage, narrowly missing her and slamming against the exposed brick wall. A man's voice can be heard saying: 'Come on, buddy, you can't do that here.' Some kind of activity then occurs off screen. Elias retrieved what was left of the beer can and drank it to the delight of the rest of the audience. The official Uncle Vinnie's Twitter account later identified by the account as the heckler's 'white trash husband.' Elias said in an interview that she was nervous during the exchange when Trump was brought up saying: 'I know where I am. The club's logo uses an image of a gun instead of the letter 'L.'' Elias told Rolling Stone in an interview that her set was not going very well before the incident with the heckler. She said that there was a rowdy group of around 20 people having a 'Mexican-themed birthday' who were 'wearing fake mustaches.' Elias said that they had been told to keep it down before her set began. Speaking about her feelings when the heckling began, Elias said: 'I know where I am. The club's logo uses an image of a gun instead of the letter 'L.' She's clearly trying to bait me into something, [so I thought] let me see where she tries to take it on her own, and maybe I can use it to get out of this.' Of the beer chug, Elias said: 'I knew I had to chug it. I was so relieved that there was still some left in there after it exploded against the wall. Also my adrenaline was going crazy, so even though normally I don't drink before or during sets, I felt like this was a valid exception.' According to her official website, Elias is a native of Kentucky and lives in New York City. The New York Times once referred to her as a 'sly young comic.' In an interview with Buzzfeed on Sunday, Elias said that the Point Pleasant Police Department had gone to the club to collect evidence. She told the website that fellow comedian Gianmarco Soresi hugged her after she left the stage. Elias said that she called her husband almost immediately to tell him what happened. One of the birthday group apologized to her for their behavior and another member of the audience gave her $20, Elias told Buzzfeed. According to her official website, Elias is a native of Kentucky and lives in New York City. The New York Times once referred to her as a 'sly young comic' Elias' actions got some positive reactions from comedy A-listers such as Jimmy Kimmel who tweeted at her: 'Five stars for this flawless performance.' While Patton Oswalt tweeted: 'Ariel wasn't even doing political material. The drunk heckler was craving what every MAGAt craves grievance and revenge. And they'll alter the reality before their eyes to get it. 'You SOUND like you voted for Biden.' Responding to a tweet in which Elias said that she had been booked to return to Uncle Vinnie's in April, Whitney Cummings tweeted: 'Excellent, can I open for you?' Cummings tweeted the can throwing video and tweeted: 'For all y'all who want to make fun of comics for saying we didn't sign up to be physically attacked and put on a pedestal, take a peekie poo. @Ariel_Comedy you're a class act.' Star Trek star George Takei called Elias a 'hero among us' in a tweet. Elias tweeted about the experience saying: 'I'd really appreciate it if anyone could please just let my teachers know that chugging a beer has in fact been great for my career.' While she told Rolling Stone: 'I don't hide who I am or change how I present myself. I also don't really talk about politics on stage, it's just not what I want my stand up to be.' She added: 'But my perspective is that of a southern Jew, and I talk a lot about being a woman and body image. I really think I'm good enough at this to make people who disagree with me laugh and enjoy. So yes, I've gotten iced out by crowds, a couple of people have walked out, every now and then someone yells something. But I've never gotten half a free beer for it.' Horse racing presenter Bella Anderson has exposed a cowardly Twitter user who used an anonymous account to hurl 'sickening' insults at her over several weeks. The Melbourne-based mounting yard analyst for Racing.com took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to call out the parody account called 'BigBellasBest' after realising it had been using her picture to aggressively harass Ms Anderson over her racing tips and physical appearance. 'I can't quite describe how I felt when I found this account and even more so that industry participants are following it,' Ms Anderson said. 'This is disgusting, sickening and extremely upsetting. It is bullying and harassment. Please report this account, no-one deserves to be treated like this,' she said of the tweets. Horse racing analyst Bella Anderson (pictured) said she was deeply upset by a parody account filled with persona insults directed at her The account was suspended when multiple people complained after Ms Anderson's post Ms Anderson received a wave of support from those both in and out of the horse racing community. 'Bella, you are amazing with your presenting and pick of the yard. It's awful how these trolls behave,' one racing fan wrote. 'That is disgraceful. I'm so sorry that you have had to deal with all of that. Good on you for calling them out... Unbelievable,' horseracing journalist Andrew Hawkins wrote. 'Keep doing what you do Bella, always enjoy listening to your insights and appreciate you always waving or stopping for a chat at the races. Online bullying and trolling is horrific, no one should be subjected to it at all,' horse racing podcaster Ben Carbonaro added. Multiple users reported the account following Ms Anderson's tweet and Twitter banned it within three hours. But Ms Anderson later posted a follow-up saying there were more accounts that were posting just as offensive messages. Many of those in the racing industry rushed to support Ms Anderson and told her to 'keep up the good work' Some aspects of social media were labelled a 'coward's palace' by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison last year. He said there were places on the internet where trolls could act with impunity, threatening to forcibly regulate the sites if they didn't do it themselves. The country's e-Safety Commissioner was granted additional powers earlier this year to require platforms to disclose the personal information of accounts the commissioner alleges are bullying other users. The Sydneysider said it was her 'dream' to work as a commentator in the horse racing field According to Twitter's user policy, the platform 'will review and take action against reports of accounts targeting an individual or group of people with abusive or threatening behaviour'. Such actions can include blocking select tweets or 'suspending accounts whose primary use we've determined is to engage in abusive behavior as defined in this policy, or who have shared violent threats'. Twitter's director of public policy for Asia Pacific, Kara Hinesley, argued free speech was essential for the platform and blanket banning anonymous accounts would not reduce the amount of harassment. Speaking at a Twitter organised event in 2021, she pointed to a South Korean law from 2004 which required large websites to verify users. 'What did in fact happen was there was a breach of 35 million South Koreans' national identification numbers that were stolen. So this law was actually repealed in 2012,' she said. Twitter's own research from the UK found 99 per cent of suspended accounts weren't anonymous. Elon Musk, who is currently battling to acquire Twitter for $44billion, said in April he would 'authenticate all real humans' on he platform but is yet to elaborate on specifics. Tech mogul Elon Musk (pictured) is trying to buy Twitter but there likely wouldn't be a crack down on trolling under him Latest talks between Musk and Twitter seem to have broken down partly because the tech mogul seemed intent on exposing and shutting down inauthentic or 'bot' accounts. He has, however, called himself a 'free speech absolutist' so as long as users are verified humans there would likely be no crackdown on trolling under him. A US Court has given Twitter and Musk until October 28 to finalise the buyout negotiations. Farquhar explained that this is based on the cost of living situation in those areas Australians who work for tech giant Atlassian are being paid different wages based on where they live. Co-CEO Scott Farquhar, who is currently driving around Australia in a bid to hire more than 1000 new employees, revealed that there was a different pay system in place for those who reside in NSW and Victoria compared to staff in other states. For example, an employee based in a NSW town such as Byron Bay, Gosford, Newcastle, Nowra or Wagga Wagga would receive a higher wage than someone living in a capital city in another state or territory such as Brisbane or Canberra. Australians working for tech giant Atlassian will be paid a higher wage if they're based in NSW or Victoria compared to other states and territories The software company's co-founder Scott Farquhar (pictured) hit the road for a recruitment campaign this month The company describes it as a two-tier system where NSW and Victoria are Zone A and the rest of the country is Zone B. Farquhar claimed that the system was not discriminatory and was actually based on an employee's cost of living situation. 'We have high-paying jobs in all locations, and we pay slightly differently in some of the major metro regions to recognise the cost of living there,' he told the Australian Financial Review. 'But these jobs have significantly increased (pay rates) on what local salaries are in local regions.' Atlassian did not reveal the average pay difference between an employee in NSW or Victoria compared to someone in a different part of the country. The legality around paying employees different rates based on their geographic location has been questioned. Employment lawyer Mia Pantechis told Daily Mail Australia that while the system is not unlawful under discrimination laws, it could still create issues for Atlassian. 'The risk with the model is that it can lead to pay inequity between employees performing the same work and impact workplace culture.' She added: 'This model can be difficult to justify in circumstances where hybrid working modes and remote work have become the new norm since the pandemic.' Farquhar hit the road for a recruitment campaign last week, driving an Atlassian-branded campervan to underline his point. He is on the lookout for 1,032 new Aussie staff for research and development roles and claimed that hired employees would be able to work from 'anywhere'. The software company is travelling across the country with the aim to hire 1032 new Aussie staff for research and development roles Farquhar explained that the two-tier pay system employed by Atlassian is based on the cost of living situation in different parts of the country Atlassian was founded by Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes (pictured) and has become Australia's biggest tech company 'Atlassians work from anywhere policy (Team Anywhere) means many Aussies can realise a dream in tech without having to move,' a statement from the company said. The company's recruitment drive began at Sydney's Martin Place and turned into a road trip afterwards. The so-called 'AtlassiVan' has visited Canberra and Wollongong and will make its way to Melbourne, Adelaide, Newcastle, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Most salary packages for Atlassian jobs are between $100,000 and $150,000, depending on previous roles and experience. Atlassian was founded in 2002 by Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes when they studied at the University of NSW and has grown to be Australias biggest tech business. Bill Murray paid a female staffer a $100,000 after he kissed and straddled her on set, leading to the movie being canned, it has been claimed. The 72-year-old comedian was working on Being Mortal earlier this year when he is said to have interacted with the unidentified woman. She claims she was unable to move because of his weight, it is alleged, with Murray later paying the woman $100,000, it was reported. The April incident on the set of the $20 million movie - controversial comedian Aziz Ansari's directorial debut - caused Disney to shut down production, and there's no indication as to whether the movie will ever be completed. Murray had been overly friendly and allegedly 'sexual' with one female production staffer - whose name has been kept anonymous, according to Puck. The actor claims that he believed the woman had been flirting with him and at one stage, he and the woman were close to a bed. It was then that he allegedly began kissing her body and straddling her, leaving her unable to move because of his weight on top of her. Murray alluded to the incident on the set of Being Mortal during a CNBC interview in April, but did not go into detail at the time. Puck magazine has since reported that he kissed and straddled a female production worker, which the woman allegedly likened to a sexual assault The 72-year-old actor had the complaint filed against him in the spring before new film Being Mortal (pictured, the book its based on) was temporarily shelved, it was claimed Murray then moved in to kiss the woman on the mouth, although the pair were both wearing face masks, it is claimed. The alleged action took place in front of witnesses. Murray immediately said his antics were meant to be playful but the woman saw it as sexual and was said to be horrified by what had occurred, according to Puck. The woman immediately complained, with her allegations backed up by a second staffer who saw what happened, it is claimed. Searchlight suspended the production of the film, although the exact reasons were not detailed in an any company memo distributed to the crew. It would be Aziz Ansari's directorial debut. A source told Puck how Murray felt terrible over what had happened, particularly that fellow crew members lost their jobs as a result of the production halting. Murray and the woman eventually reached a settlement with the actor paying her just over $100,000 in exchange for complete confidentiality as part of a non-disclosure agreement, Puck reported. The woman is also said to have waived any rights to legal claims she might have been able to make against the producers, including Searchlight and Disney. Speaking on CNBC in April, Murray was coy with the details when he was asked what happened. 'I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn't taken that way. As of now we are talking and we are trying to make peace with each other,' Murray said. 'Being Mortal,' based on Atul Gawande's nonfiction book 'Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End,' was to star Murray, as well as Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogan 'We are both professionals, we like each others' work, we like each other I think and if we can't really get along and trust each other there's no point in going further working together or making the movie as well. It's been quite an education for me. 'The world's different than it was when I was a little kid,' he added. 'Things change, times change.' Murray had believed that the resolution might see production on the movie restart, but in the MeToo era, that simply hasn't happened and it now appears that the film which been half shot, and also starred Seth Rogan, will ultimately be cancelled. Last week, Geena Davis detailed her own unpleasant experiences working with Bill Murray on their 1990 crime comedy Quick Change in her new memoir Dying Of Politeness. The 66-year-old acting icon revealed on Friday to The Times how Murray allegedly created an uncomfortable atmosphere during her audition for the film, which he starred in and also co-directed with Howard Franklin. According to her, Murray screamed at her in front of 'hundreds' of people on set because she was allegedly late, though she says she was merely delayed by the wardrobe department. Geena Davids, 66, wrote in her memoir Dying Of Politeness about her terrible experiences working with Bill Murray on their 1990 crime comedy Quick Change; seen in 2019 in LA Lucy Liu (left) said Murray bullied her on the set of Charlie's Angels - while Murray also got into a war of words with Chevy Chase, right, which saw him insult the comic's wife. Chase hit back by likening Murray's pock-marked skin to the surface of the moon, it's claimed Richard Dreyfus, left, said Murray hurled a glass ashtray at him. Harold Ramis, right, who starred with Murray in Ghostbusters, claimed the star shoved him against a wall while filming Groundhog Day, which Ramis directed Murray is pictured with his second wife Jennifer Butler Murray, who says he assaulted her and threatened to kill her shortly before they split in 2008 According to a Times summary, '[Davis is] introduced to [Murray], she writes, in a hotel suite, where Murray greets her with something called The Thumper, a massage device he insists on using on her, despite her emphatically refusing.' The concerning encounter was followed up by a more humiliating incident when the Royal Tenenbaums actor allegedly lost his temper while filming Quick Change. 'Later, while theyre filming on location, Murray tracks Davis down in her trailer and begins screaming at her for being late (shes waiting for her wardrobe), continues to scream at her as she hurries onto the set and even as she gets there, in front of hundreds of cast, crew, curious passers-by,' the publication added. 'That was bad,' Davis said of her audition with Murray as she mused about how she might have handled the incident differently. Hard time: She wrote that Murray who also co-directed the film used a massage device on her against her will during her audition, and he later screamed at her in front of 'hundreds' of people on set for allegedly being late; still from Quick Change 'The way he behaved at the first meeting I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldnt have got the part. I could have avoided that treatment if Id known how to react or what to do during the audition. But, you know, I was so non-confrontational that I just didnt...' she said. However, she conceded that her words could be construed as victim blaming when it was pointed out to her. 'Ha. Point taken. Theres no point in regretting things, and yet, here I was regretting. And yes, exactly, it wasnt my fault,' she said. So far, Murray has not responded publicly to Davis' remarks, either in the interview or in her book. Last year, the actress Lucy Liu also described the verbal abuse Murray allegedly threw at her while they worked together on the action comedy Charlie's Angels; seen in July 2021 in Cannes, France Last year, the actress Lucy Liu also described the verbal abuse Murray allegedly threw at her while they worked together on the action comedy Charlie's Angels. 'As were doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I wont get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on,' she described on the Asian Enough podcast. The film and television star, who called the former Saturday Night Live star's insult 'unacceptable' and 'inexcusable,' added that she 'was not going to just sit there and take it.' 'So, yes, I stood up for myself and I dont regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, theres no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have,' she added defiantly. On the 2000 action-comedy 'Charlie's Angels,' actress Lucy Liu (right) reportedly confronted Murray for 'hurling insults' at her following a rewrite of a scene without his knowledge The star also reportedly headbutted Charlie's Angel's director Joseph McGinty Nichol - known professionally as McG, 'square on the head.' 'An inch later and my nose would have been obliterated,' he told the Guardian in 2009. Murray denied the claim, telling the Times: 'Thats bulls**t! Thats complete crap! I dont know why he made that story up. He has a very active imagination.' The Ghostbusters star also famously got into an altercation on the SNL set in 1978 with Chevy Chase. The fight reportedly broke out have the pair started to throw insults at each other. Murray importantly told Chase to go have sex with his then-wife Jacqueline Carlin. Chase retorted Murray's face look 'like something Neil Armstrong landed on,' according to the book Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Murray (left) also allegedly got into a physical altercation with SNL costar Chevy Chase (right) after they started insulting each other and Chase told him his face looked 'like something Neil Armstrong landed on' Murray also once threw an ashtray at Richard Dreyfuss' head after a 'meltdown' on set of What About Bob. Dreyfuss' son Ben, 35, revealed on Twitter earlier this year how Murray allegedly threw an ashtray at his father's head and threatened to 'throw' a female producer across a parking lot and 'ripped off her glasses' during the meltdown after being denied an extra day off on the What About Bob set in 1991. Ben also revealed bodyguards had to be on set once filming resumed to separate the Murray and Dreyfuss, 74. 'Everyone walked off the production and flew back to LA and it only resumed after Disney hired some bodyguards to physically separate my dad and Bill Murray in between takes,' he said in a tweet. Ben also revealed that he was 'like five' when the altercation happened, but still said his time on the set included some of his 'fondest and earliest memories' and praised the movie as being 'good.' The rumor of the ashtray incident, among others, have apparently been circling Hollywood for decades and Dreyfuss even addressed it in 2009. 'He put his face next to me, nose-to-nose, and he screamed at the top of his lungs, Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!' the actor said at the time. 'There was no time to react because he leaned back and he took a modern glass-blown ashtray. He threw it at my face from [only a couple feet away]. And it weighed about three-quarters of a pound. And he missed me. He tried to hit me. I got up and left.' Dreyfuss had complained about Murray's behavior toward 'petite' producer Laura Ziskin, who denied Murray the day off. In 2013, she revealed to the Los Angeles Times: 'Bill threatened to throw me across the parking lot and then broke my sunglasses and threw them across the parking lot.' Ziskin has since died from breast cancer and the pair never worked together again. Bill Murray allegedly threw an ashtray at What About Bob costar Richard Dreyfuss, 74, (left) after he complained about the former's behavior, his son Ben, 35, revealed earlier this year. He allegedly complained about Murray threatened to throw producer Laura Ziskin across the parking lot and broke her glasses His son also revealed that everyone 'walked off set' and Disney had to hire 'bodyguards to physically separate my dad and Bill Murray in-between takes' It eventually turned physical in front of several costars, including Laraine Newman, who described it as a 'very sad and painful and awful' on What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2021. Murray reportedly got physical with director Harold Ramis on Groundhog Day. The director allegedly threw the actor against the wall during the dispute. Ramis' daughter claimed Murray didn't talk to the director for 20 years after the fight and that Ramis' was 'heartbroken.' Murray was also accused of attacking and threatening to kill his ex wife Jennifer Butler Murray. The pair wed in 1997 after Murray had an affair with Butler while still married to his first wife Kelly. But their marriage imploded in 2008, with Butler Murray accusing the star of assaulting her, and even threatening to kill her. She also claimed he was unfaithful. Murray also reportedly hurt The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou costar Anjelica Huston's feelings after he didn't invite her out to a dinner party during filming. 'The first week I was there [filming in Italy], we were all in this little hotel, and he invited the entire cast to go and have dinner, except me,' she said in 2019. Aziz Ansari also faced sexual misconduct allegations in 2019 over an incident in 2018 Meanwhile Ansari also faced sexual misconduct allegations in 2019 over an incident in 2018. A woman had claimed he ignored verbal and non-verbal cues she did not want to be physical with him at the end of a date they went on. He said: 'I'm sure some of you are curious how I feel about that whole situation. And it's a tricky thing for me to answer 'cause I felt so many things in the last year or so. 'There's times I felt scared. There's times I felt humiliated. There's times I felt embarrassed. 'And ultimately, I just felt terrible that this person felt this way. And after a year or so, I just hope it was a step forward.' He continued: It moved things forward for me and made me think about a lot. I hope I've become a better person. 'And I always think about a conversation I had with one of my friends where he was like, ''You know what, man? That whole thing made me think about every date I've ever been on''. 'And I thought, ''Wow. Well, that's pretty incredible. It's made not just me, but other people be more thoughtful, and that's a good thing''.' He added: 'And that's how I feel about itand I know this isn't the most hilarious way to begin a comedy show. 'But it's important to me that you know how I feel about that whole thing before we share this night together.' President Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday that North Korea has nothing to gain from nuclear weapons. Yoon's comment comes as the North has ratcheted up tensions with a series of provocative missile launches, including what it says were exercises on loading them with tactical nuclear weapons. "North Korea is advancing its nuclear development and threatening not only the Republic of Korea but the world," Yoon told reporters as he arrived for work. "I believe it has nothing to gain from nuclear weapons." (Yonhap) An opposition MP slammed climate activists on Tuesday as 'reckless idiots' after they stopped traffic for hours to protest for a better rail network. Police had to close the southbound lane of State Highway 1 in New Zealand's capital Wellington after protesters climbed a gantry, leading to a fierce morning TV clash. National MP Simeon Brown said the activists disrupted 'thousands of commuters trying to get to work, trying to go about their daily lives, trying to make a living and pay the bills and they're getting stuck in traffic'. 'The reality is emissions would have gone up in Wellington ... because all those cars would have been stuck in traffic emitting more and more gas so this is just absolutely reckless idiots and it puts their cause back a long way,' he told channel 3. But climate activist John Minto traded blows with Mr Brown, saying 'the reckless idiots are the people who are ignoring what's happening with the climate'. Climate action protesters (pictured) caused hours of traffic chaos in New Zealand's capital Wellington The protesters hung a large banner reading Restore Passenger Rail. The climate action group of the same name is demanding the New Zealand government restores passenger rail to its year 2000 level by reopening lines now devoted only to freight and opening new lines. Mr Minto told AM show host Ryan Bridge that the protesters were raising awareness about a serious issue. 'When you look at the scale of the problem that we face with climate change. I take my hat off to these young people,' he said. 'What they're doing is drawing attention to a huge problem, and in reality New Zealand, and the world as a whole, is not taking this seriously enough and we need these wake-up calls every now and again and good on them for doing it.' Mr Minto also had a crack at Mr Brown, suggesting he was playing politics rather than caring for those stuck in traffic. 'Simeon Brown is thinking about the election next year, but (the protesters) and I and many other New Zealanders are thinking about what the world is going to be like in 30, 50, 100 years' time. 'We are facing an existential crisis, it's either capitalism or the planet. We can't have both,' he said. But the MP hit straight back as the debate got heated, accusing Mr Minto of being an expert in 'disrupting and protesting'. 'I've lost count of how many times he has been arrested but he specialises in this type of behaviour. But the reality is most New Zealanders are law-abiding,' he said. 'We care about the climate and we care about solving these issues, but actually you can do it in a proper way and it doesn't mean you have to illegally stop a motorway.' Politician Simeon Brown (left) got into a heated debate with climate activist John Minto (right) on the show hosted by Ryan Bridge (centre) Mr Minto kept the focus firmly on what he sees as the failure of politicians. 'We cannot leave this issue to politicians who think in three-year cycles. We have to start thinking in 30, 50, 100-year cycles,' he said. Mr Brown brought the debate back to the activists. though, saying someone could have died if the protest has stopped an ambulance getting through. Mr Minto said that was not the case, but neither the National MP nor the AM host looked convinced. 'The disruption could have caused someone to potentially lose their lives and this is the reality,' said Mr Brown. Three people were arrested after the protest but won't face any charges, Wellington police said. Instead, they have been referred to 'an alternative resolution process'. An ex-cop suing the police force claims things 'quickly soured' after he disclosed to his workplace he was in a polyamorous relationship with two women. David Kowal, 38, is taking legal action against NSW Police, alleging discrimination, bullying and emotional distress over his relationship with his wife and their pole-dancing girlfriend. He married chiropractor Loren Kowal in February 2017 before the pair became a 'throuple' with the romantic addition of pole-dancing boxer Alana Dean in 2019. Mr Kowal, who worked in sex-related crimes on public transport, claims that after revealing he had two lovers, he was taken off cases without any reason. He also alleged he was subjected to 'a fair amount of harassment' in the NSW police force, and admitted to then having 'a meltdown' at work and wasn't able to go back. He was eventually medically discharged. David Kowal, 38, is taking legal action against NSW Police, alleging discrimination, bullying and emotional distress over his relationship with his wife (far right) and their pole-dancing girlfriend (centre) Evan Griffith, partner at Firth's the Compensation Lawyers, said his client's alleged harassment was the 'last straw' for the esteemed police officer. 'It has been alleged that David had an exemplary record with NSW Police prior to disclosing his polyamorous relationship to them, however things quickly soured thereafter,' Mr Griffith told Daily Mail Australia. 'Upon the background of being exposed to significantly traumatic events during and in the course of his employment, this was essentially ''the last straw'' for David, and has led to him suffering an entrenched psychological injury.' Ms Loren Kowal (left) is pictured with her pole-dancing girlfriend Alana Dean, whom Ms Kowal says is the third part to their 'throuple' Ms Kowal claimed her husband was so traumatised by the issues with his employer he is unable to have sex and is currently not able to have children. She said the 'harassment' he faced at work reduced his ability to 'do regular everyday' activities, including being intimate. 'The terrible timing of all David's mental health stuff put a massive strain on this sexual part of our relationship,' she told The Oz. Mr Kowal claimed he 'wouldn't be here today' if its wasn't for the two women in his life. 'It's been quite a struggle to get about and be normal,' he said. Ms Kowal said unfortunately her husband is unable to have sex after the harassment he's faced. 'I wouldn't be here today' without Loren and Alana, he said (Pictured, Loren and David Kowal) Mr Kowal alleges he was immediately treated differently at work after disclosing his relationship status. 'During the time of our relationship, I was pulled into a meeting with some senior officers where I was asked to disclose my relationship status,' he said. 'I never saw any issues with it, I thought, it doesn't affect you. I feel like what I do speaks for itself. However, once I had disclosed my relationship, the way I was treated at work overnight changed.' Mr Kowal said he still doesn't know why he was taken off sex-related cases. 'I was pretty much taken off (those cases) straightaway after senior officials found out about my relationship,' he said. 'There was no word of why. A lot of the team were being given a lot more pressure from higher up to solve a lot of the sexual crimes on the network, but I was the one who was doing the most of (the work), and I was being taken away.' Mr Kowal's case will be heard in the District Court from February 4. NSW Police declined to comment. A body discovered in a burnt-out car in rural Tasmania after a police pursuit likely belongs to a man wanted over an incident in which two cop cars were fired upon. Tasmania Police on Tuesday said a professional standards investigation had been launched into the circumstances surrounding the man's death. The body was found by officers inside a Holden Colorado in bushland in the state's south-east in the Nugent-Buckland area on Monday afternoon. Police believe a body found in a burnt-out car is Robert George Greig (pictured), 33. He allegedly evaded police for a week before the discovery of the burnt-out vehicle in Tasmania's south-east on Monday Police had earlier received reports from the public about a vehicle of interest in relation to the search for Robert George Greig, 33, following a shooting incident on September 26. A police car with two officers inside was hit with multiple bullets as it travelled to an alleged domestic violence incident before gunshots were fired at a second police car. No one was injured. 'Looking at the vehicle and the circumstances, we strongly believe it is (the body of) Mr Greig and his vehicle,' acting deputy commissioner Adrian Bodnar told reporters. 'We've taken the step of notifying senior next of kin. We don't have 100 per cent certainty at this stage but that will come out as part of the investigation.' Mr Bodnar said it could take several days to formally identify the body. He said the vehicle drove around road spikes after a police unit was set up at the intersection of Nugent and Kellevie roads on Monday. A helicopter followed the car as it drove further north before it went off road into bushland. It went some distance before coming to a halt and was seen catching alight by the crew of a helicopter. The Holden Colorado went some distance before coming to a halt and was seen catching alight by the crew of a helicopter (pictured, the car police were allegedly searching for) Due to the rough terrain, officers reached the vehicle about 15 minutes later. Mr Bodnar said several police units, the helicopter and a special operations team had been deployed following the report of a vehicle of interest. Tasmania Police's Professional Standards Command and the coroner attended the scene on Monday night and will investigate the matter, he said. Mr Bodnar said the search for Mr Greig had been stopped. Police had earlier asked the public to report any sightings of a blue/grey Holden Colorado, believed to belong to Mr Greig. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 Hundreds of SMS messages have emerged of their alleged sordid trysts A disgraced prison psychologist looked downcast as she was seen for the first time since explicit text messages emerged during her fight to save her career. Mother-of-four Sarah-Jane Lodington is accused of exchanging steamy texts, many too explicit to print, with inmate David Gardiner after allegedly having sex with him and one other prisoner in the period of a year at Queensland's Palen Creek Correctional Centre. But Lodington looked a world away from the glamorous woman who took selfies and allegedly sent them to lusty inmates when she was spotted outside her Gold Coast home this week. After pleading guilty to several charges surrounding the relationships, the 41-year-old Mudgeeraba woman is now facing a case in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal to remain registered as a psychologist after being suspended in 2019. The tribunal has been shown a litany of explicit messages officials claim were exchanged between Lodington and the men. Chats with Gardiner began with flirty messages, but soon developed into shirtless pictures, brooding selfies and sex-fuelled chat - before taking on a more romantic nature. The 41-year-old Mudgeeraba woman is facing a case in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal to remain registered as a psychologist after being suspended in 2019 (Pictured, Lodington outside her Gold Coast home on Monday) Sarah-Jane Lodington, also known as Sarah-Jane Florentin, is fighting to keep her psychologist registration. She is pictured in a selfie allegedly sent to inmate David Gardiner in 2019 Just a few of the explicit text messages the pair exchanged - with imagery so graphic it cannot be published Sarah-Jane Lodington seen for the first time since the X-rated texts with prisoners came to light Only months after her alleged relationship with convicted drug trafficker Allen Marcel Milos ended in 2018, Lodington is accused of becoming embroiled in another passionate affair in 2019, this time with Gardiner. Both relationships happened at the low-security jail about 100km south of Brisbane, it is alleged. Using a phone that Lodington allegedly gave him, Gardiner sent her semi-naked photos of himself during their steamy 18-day fling. On February 3, he sent her a photo of his own bare torso, stomach and underwear waistband, messages procured by the Health Ombudsman show. At a 2020 hearing, a court heard she bought a mobile phone at Kmart and set it up using a prisoner's identification without his knowledge. By February 9, 2019 Lodington had saved Gardiner's number under the nickname 'My love' when he texted her 'I'll wait for U'. In the early days of their alleged affair Gardiner sent a series of shirtless selfies to Lodington Lodington (pictured) previously pleaded guilty to two counts of abuse of office, confidential information and take or attempt to take a prohibited thing into a corrective services facility Two days later Gardiner's brooding shirtless selfie arrived in her phone. On Valentine's Day, he texted her a late night message that read: 'I love U'. Another intense shirtless selfie followed three days later. By February 19 she was openly reciprocating, tribunal documents allege. 'Did you get my message baby?' she wrote to him. 'Msg me when you can talk love u.' The next morning at 6.02am she texted him, saying: 'I am floating through life right now and am forgetful which is because I'm totally obsessing over you!' That day the pair exchanged messages continuously and before 9am she was discussing the desire to get pregnant to him. Florentin allegedly sent Gardiner a text message saying she could not 'stop thinking about him' Gardiner sent Lodington several brooding shirtless photos of himself on the phone she allegedly gave him to use while in prison 'I'm so excited for our future and making a precious bubba with you,' she said. By 5pm the same day, she allegedly texted him: 'F*** the world and everyone in it. We have each other that's all that matters'. He responded by offering to cook her dinner when he got 'full access' to her. At 1am on February 21, she allegedly sent him a selfie in work clothes, then two days later she sent him specially posed photos, smiling, with her hair down. At 7.24am the same day, she said to have written back: 'I'm still in bed was up til 3am talking and modelling for you!' On February 24, Lodington was helping Gardiner, who was in prison over a 'violent offence', with his parole application. 'I will change the wording on the RPP (relapse plan) to highlight it's a one off but still needs to be nullified by showing you're taking responsibility, understand the seriousness of it and have insight into how it happened and impact on "victims",' she allegedly wrote. From there, the affair only escalated further, it is alleged. Allen Milos (left) with brothers Peter and Daniel (right) meets celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay The next day, she allegedly wrote to Gardiner: 'You are the epitome of what I think it means to be a man and you make me feel safe and protected, loved and I'm so blessed to be your girl.' Two days later she appeared to be reflecting on a sex with him when she apparently wrote: 'I so loved last night... I think you're an amazing lover and I absolutely loved [too explicit]. 'I've never had more pleasure in my life and when I think about the fact that we were [too explicit] it just blows my mind.' Lodington, now 41, is trying to avoid being struck off as a psychologist in a case before the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. In 2020, Southport Magistrates Court heard Lodington was under considerable stress from a previous violent estranged husband and personal debts. She pleaded guilty to two counts of abuse of office, confidential information and take or attempt to take a prohibited thing into a corrective services facility. She was sentenced to two years probation with no conviction recorded. A West Australian woman who murdered her 71-year-old mother in Tasmania by smothering her with a cushion has argued her 23-year jail sentence is too excessive partly because of an 'oppressive' police interview. Natalie Maher, 49, was last year found guilty of the October, 2019 murder of Veronica Corstorphine, whose decomposed body was found in her bed at home almost a month after she died. Maher transferred about $12,000 from Ms Corstorphine's bank account to her own after the killing, and fled Tasmania to WA with other items belonging to her mother including jewellery. Maher had started living with her mother in the northern city of Launceston about two months earlier, before 'long-standing tensions' came to a head in the days before the murder. Veronica Corstorphine (pictured), 71, was smothered in her Tasmanian residence with a jury finding her own daughter was responsible Maher's appeal against the severity of the sentence, which includes a non-parole period of 13 years, was heard in Tasmania's Court of Criminal Appeal on Tuesday. Her lawyer, Kim Baumeler, argued a recorded police interview with Maher in WA following her arrest should not have been included in evidence at the trial. Ms Baumeler described the interviewing technique of the officer as oppressive and said he continually undermined Maher's right to silence. 'The other factor that can be seen as oppressive is the threats of showing (pictures of) the deceased mother in decomposition,' Ms Baumeler said. Natalie Maher, 48, was sentenced to 23 years in Tasmania's Supreme Court (pictured) The lengthy interview, which was played to the court, showed Maher regularly answering 'no comment' to questions relating to the investigation. Her daughter also cleaned out Ms Corstorphine's (pictured) finances At one point when the officer said she was in a 'world of hurt', Maher replied: 'I don't know what to tell you apart from what I've told you.' Lawyer for the state, John Ransom, agreed part of the interview was 'over the top' but said Maher remained relatively composed given the subject matter. 'She was able to maintain denials of highly probative matter. She didn't appear to misunderstand,' he said. 'The general manner and behaviour of the police officer ... was well within the providence of being reasonable. '(Maher) knew of her ability to say 'no comment' to any question.' Maher also argues there was an error of law in allowing opinion evidence by state forensic pathologist Dr Donald Ritchie to be heard at the trial. The three-judge criminal appeal panel will deliver their ruling at a later date. In sentencing last November, Justice Robert Pearce said Maher committed the crime 'through loss of self-control or passion, perhaps inflamed by consumption of alcohol'. The reputation of Australian tourists on the party of island of Bali has taken yet another dive with a video of a tourist doing a burnout on a scooter sparking fury. The Australian man, who is wearing a Burberry t-shirt and Nike TN sneakers, is heard yelling 'What happens in Bali, stays in Bali' as he swings around in circles on the rental bike. The person filming the stunt is heard laughing as unimpressed locals on the street watch the man burning rubber while blocking the flow of traffic. Drivers are forced to wait for at least a minute on the busy road as the grinning tourist continues his stunt without a care in the world. The clip, posted by user The Canggu Pole, prompted a massive backlash on Instagram. Drivers are forced to wait for at least a minute on the busy road as the grinning tourist continues his stunt without a care in the world (pictured) 'Kook,' one user commented, as another slammed the tourist as a 'd***'. 'The no helmet and shit tattoo combo,' a third wrote. 'S*** tats, no helmet and TNs. It was bound to happen really' a fourth agreed. 'He should really rent a brain instead of bike,' another user said, while another suggested Bali introduce a 'mandatory Tourist Visa IQ Test Requirement'. 'Not even Australians want this guy back,' another wrote. 'This kind of people should be deported and banned for at least two years,' another user recommended. Bali has been one of Australia's most popular holiday destinations for decades with holidaymakers scrambling to book flights in 2022 after two years of border closures. The man, who is wearing a Burberry t-shirt and Nike TN sneakers, is heard yelling 'What happens in Bali, stays in Bali' as he swings around in circles on the rental bike (pictured) The island is one of the most popular destinations for Australian tourists thanks to its friendly locals, low cost of living and stunning beaches. Between 1.2 and 1.4million Australians visited Bali in 2019, and Balinese authorities are optimistic that number can be matched in 2022 as the island reopens. Thousands still flocked to Bali during the pandemic, with the work from home phenomenon allowing them to work and attend meetings by the beach. Aussies will soon be able to live and work in Bali completely tax free for six months after the Indonesian government announced a new 'digital nomad' visa for foreigners - known officially as the B211A visa. A similar visa for five years is also under discussion. Indonesia hopes to lure both remote workers and the companies that employ them with the tax-free sweetener. Bali has been one of Australia's most popular holiday destinations for decades with holidaymakers scrambling to book flights this year after two years of border closures The 'digital nomad visa' proposed by Indonesia's tourism minister, Sandiaga Uno in June was passed this week. Mr Uno hopes the scheme will help bring more than three million overseas travellers to the archipelago in the next year, combined with an increased focus on spiritual retreats and eco-tourism. The decision is also predicted to create up to create 4.4million jobs without taking away any from local residents. Aussie soldiers could soon be on the ground to train Ukrainian personnel fighting Russia, the defence minister has revealed. Richard Marles said the federal government is actively considering sending Australian Defence Force members with combat experience to the war-torn country to help whip Ukraine forces into shape as Vladimir Putin's bloody invasion continues. The additional helps comes after Australia already sent $388 million to Ukraine's war effort - with plans also in the works to provide additional military equipment. 'We need to be making sure we are supporting Ukraine over the long term so that we're putting them in a position where they can actually resolve this conflict and end it on their own terms,' defence minister Marles said. 'Training is one of the measures that is being looked at. We will be working up further support for Ukraine and that's a conversation that we're having.' Ukraine's ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko says Ukraine would welcome any training assistance from Australia. Last week, Ukraine's president praised Australia for sending him 'heavy weapons' to combat Russian forces in his country Richard Marles said the federal government was considering sending Australian personnel to train Ukraine forces on the ground in Europe The UK has already given basic training to thousands of Ukrainian civilians through combat courses in England. Myroshnychenko said the British training program had provided a 'massive' support to Ukraine - with New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands also sending military instructors. During a visit to the UK last month, defence minister Marles revealed he was looking at the training issue in 'a very active way'. Ambassador Myroshnychenko said the training would help create a personal bond between the Australian and Ukrainian defence forces. Marles and Myroshnychenko were meeting in Canberra on Monday when Russia launched its missile offensive on Kyiv and other cities. At least 11 people have been killed by the assault, which came days after an explosion on a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. Soldiers from Ukraine's 80th air assault brigade were seen in a video released on Monday driving an Australian Bushmaster vehicle through a rural locality that had just been liberated Russia's deputy chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said the attack was merely the 'first episode' of Russia's revenge for a blast which crippled the Crimea Bridge. Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton provided in-principle support for the idea of Australian military travelling to Europe to provide training. He said it could help ensure Ukraine is getting maximum value from the military equipment Australia is providing - including the Bushmaster. Nicknamed 'The Bushy' - the 11-tonne armoured military vehicle is built in the Victorian city of Bendigo and is designed to deploy up to 10 soldiers to the battlefield. Australia has sent over 40 Bushmaster vehicles since the war broke out in February - garnering praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his soldiers. The additional helps comes after Australia already sent $388 million to Ukraine's war effort The UK training includes weapons handling, battlefield first aid and patrol tactics. The British government recently announced it was adding an extra two weeks to the course to include training in trench and urban warfare and vehicle-mounted operations. Mr Zelensky last week said the Albanese government was preparing a 'significant package' of assistance in co-ordination with other nations, which will be announced soon. 'This process is ongoing as we speak and I'm very grateful [for] that,' he said. 'It's not only small arms but heavy weapons as well.' Last week, Ukraine's president praised Australia for sending him 'heavy weapons' to combat Russian forces in his country. Speaking to the Lowy Institute, Volodymyr Zelensky praised Australia's aid in combatting Putin's 'nuclear blackmail'. 'The more weapons and ammunition we receive artillery, drones, anti-aircraft defence, anti-tank, anti-ship weapons the more Russia feels the responsibility for violating international law and last, the aggressor will feel that he has little room for any escalation element,' Zelensky said, via videolink. Advertisement Air raid alerts have been issued across the whole of Ukraine in anticipation of more Russian missiles strikes just a day after Putin unleashed the biggest barrage since the start of the war - killing 19 civilians and wounding 105. Every Ukrainian region bar occupied Crimea was told to be on alert for more strikes early Tuesday as officials said rockets had been shot down near the capital Kyiv and that suicide drones were prowling the skies near the southern port city of Odesa. Explosions were also reported in western Lviv, with power knocked out in the city. Ukraine's air force said Russian strategic bombers - Tu-95s and Tu-160s which were originally designed to carry nukes - had fired non-nuclear missiles at the country from over the Caspian Sea around 7am local time, and that four of the weapons had been shot out of the sky. The city of Zaporizhzhia, located close to the Russian frontlines in the south, continued to be bombed overnight with officials saying 15 missiles hit schools, hospitals and homes, killing at least one person. Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine, was also targeted this morning amid reports that drones struck a power plant. It came mere hours after Putin's bloodthirsty war hawks appeared on state TV to praise his new no-holds-barred approach to the war while urging him to go further and bomb Ukraine 'into a 19th century country'. A car dealership in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia in flames in the early hours of Tuesday after it was hit in a Russian missile attack, as Putin's bombardment of Ukraine continues Firefighters cover the body of a man killed by Russian shelling on the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight with a sheet as Putin's bombardment of Ukraine continues Firefighters inspect the ruins of a car dealership in Zaporizhzhia that was hit by a Russian missile, after 15 rockets slammed into the city overnight Monday A truck is seen peppered with shrapnel and buried under rubble after Russian missiles hit the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight An elderly man walks past a car shop that was destroyed after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine A man carries a bucket of water to extinguish the remains of a fire in the remains of a car shop that was destroyed after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine An employee cleans the debris at the remains of a car shop that was destroyed after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine The office building of a car retailer destroyed during a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, overnight Russia unleashed one of the largest bombardments of Ukraine since the opening day of the war on Monday, as virtually every major city was hit in strikes that killed 19 people and wounded 105 Putin is running out of missiles and troops, GCHQ head says Russia is running short of weapons, allies and troops with Vladimir Putin's regime becoming increasingly desperate, the head of the UK's GCHQ intelligence agency said. Sir Jeremy Fleming said Moscow still had a 'very capable military machine' despite those shortcomings, although it was being stretched by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Russian president Mr Putin launched a missile and drone barrage against Ukrainian cities including Kyiv on Monday and air raid sirens again sounded in the capital on Tuesday. Mr Putin has warned about the potential use of nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory - a definition which he could extend to the occupied regions of Ukraine. GCHQ chief Sir Jeremy said he hoped the UK would see 'indicators' from Russia before any deployment of nuclear weapons, something which would be a 'catastrophe'. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We believe that Russia is running short of munitions, it's certainly running short of friends and we have seen, because of the declaration for mobilisation, that it is running short of troops.' Sir Jeremy said Moscow's top brass were 'worried about the state of their military machine', adding 'the word I have used is desperate and we can see that desperation at many levels inside Russian society and inside the Russian military machine'. Despite the problems facing Moscow, Mr Putin still had 'deep stocks and expertise' in his military, as shown by Monday's co-ordinated strikes against Ukraine's cities. Pressed on whether GCHQ would know if Mr Putin was considering using nuclear weapons, Sir Jeremy said: 'I would hope that we would see indicators if they started to go down that path, but let's be really clear about that: if they are considering that, that would be a catastrophe.' Advertisement Yuri Podolyak, a military analyst speaking on Channel 1, said Russia is 'easily' capable of sustaining the intensity of Monday's attacks throughout the winter - predicting that the consequences for Ukraine would be 'catastrophic'. 'A red line has been crossed, and I think this is now obvious to everyone,' he said. 'All European governments have promptly requested that their embassies be evacuated from Kyiv. 'They realise this is not just a one day event, that this will continue and that winter in Ukraine will be catastrophic.' Meanwhile Konstantin Dolgov, former Russian commissioner for human rights, also urged Putin to keep up the bombardment, asking TV viewers: 'Are they whining yet? Are they howling yet?' Defence analyst, Alexander Artamonov, said Western hopes that Russia would run out of missiles would never come true. They will never end.' The pro-war fanatic insisted: 'It is of course necessary that strikes continue in a systematic way, given that Ukrainian society is at present, in my view, psychiatrically ill. In psychiatry, people are not given weapons. 'Naturally, they are treated, and naturally they should have essential benefits, but anything that can be turned into a weapon, be it a car, a knife, a gun, or some other thing must be seized. 'So if bridges are cut and railways too are destroyed there will not be capacity to deliver troops to the frontline.' Moscow's barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine elicited celebration from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield. Commentators and war correspondents lauded Monday's attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to Ukraine's successful counteroffensive in the northeast and the south and a weekend attack on a key bridge between Russia and Crimea. Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday's missile strikes in order to win the war now. 'Putin's initiative is weakening and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the `victory' (in Ukraine) for him,' Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think-tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday. Putin's supporters have been calling for drastic steps on the Ukraine battlefield for weeks. These calls intensified over the weekend, shortly after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia sent shock waves around the globe. 84 Russian missiles were launched at cities across Ukraine on Monday (pictured) with the bombardment continuing today Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze at a car workshop in the city of Zaporizhzhia, in southern Ukraine, after it was hit by Russian missiles overnight Emergency services said Russian rockets hit schools, medical centres and homes in Zaporizhzhia (pictured) overnight, killing at least one person Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze caused by a Russian missile strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing at least one person Firefighters work at the site of a car retailer office building, destroyed during a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine Firefighters work at the site of a car retailer office building, destroyed during a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine Russia warns West of 'wider war' if it keeps up support for Ukraine Russia will respond to the West's growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict although direct conflict with NATO is not in Moscow's interests, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday after Washington pledged more military aid for Kyiv. Ukraine on Monday said it needed to strengthen its air defence following Russia's biggest aerial assaults on cities since the beginning of the war, retaliation for what Moscow called a Ukrainian attack on a strategic bridge in Crimea. U.S. President Joe Biden promised to provide advanced air defence systems, and the Pentagon said on Sept. 27 it would start delivering the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System over the next two months or so. Biden and Group of Seven leaders will hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday to discuss their commitment to support Ukraine, the White House said. 'We warn and hope that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals,' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by RIA news agency on Tuesday. Russia's ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said more Western help to Ukraine raised the risk of a wider war. 'Such assistance, as well as providing Kiev with intelligence, instructors and combat guidelines, leads to further escalation and increased the risks of a clash between Russia and NATO,' Antonov told media. Advertisement The bridge, Europe's longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might and was opened by Putin himself in 2018. 'And?' Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-funded RT television, wondered on social media about Moscow's response to the attack on the bridge. 'This is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back,' wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for Russia's popular pro-Kremlin tabloid, Komsomolskaya Pravda. 'It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West,' Sergei Mironov, a senior Russian lawmaker who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party tweeted Saturday. 'There won't be any bigger sanctions. They won't say any worse words. We need to do our thing. We started it - we should go till the end. There is no way back. Time to respond!' The response came on Monday morning, with Moscow launching dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities simultaneously, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraine's critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies. For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the very heart of Kyiv, in dangerous proximity to government buildings. Putin said Monday the strikes were in retaliation for what he called Kyiv's 'terrorist' actions targeting the Kerch Bridge, and vowed a 'tough' and 'proportionate' response should Ukraine carry out further attacks that threaten Russia's security. 'No one should have any doubts about it,' he said. 'Here comes the response,' RT's Simonyan tweeted on Monday after the attacks. 'The Crimean bridge was that very red line from the very beginning.' The strongman leader of Chechnya, a Russian region in the North Caucasus, Ramzan Kadyrov said he is now '100% happy' with how the Kremlin's 'special military operation' is going. He was among the most ardent proponents of 'more drastic measures' in Ukraine, even calling for using low-yield nuclear weapons. Emergency crews search the ruins of a house in Zaporizhzhia, a city in southern Ukraine, which continued to be bombed overnight A massive salvo of Russian missiles hit virtually every Ukrainian city Monday, killing at least 19 and wounding more than 100 (pictured, the city of Zaporizhzhia) A sniffer dog searches the ruins of a destroyed apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia for survivors after a Russian missile struck People embrace in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after at least four missiles struck the city on Monday, killing multiple people during the morning rush hour A young girl looks at suspected debris from a missile at the site of a blast by a pedestrian bridge over looking the Dnipro River in Kyiv Ukrainian emergency workers rest after searching the rubble of a destroyed building in the city of Zaporizhzhia for victims following a Russian missile attack The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, described the strikes as 'good news.' The cheering by Kremlin supporters, however, came with demands for Putin and the Russian military to keep up the pace and intensity of the attacks and damage inflicted on Ukraine's infrastructure. Aksyonov, in his statement, stressed that 'had such actions to destroy the enemy's infrastructure been taken every day, then we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.' 'I hope that now the pace of the operation will not slow down,' Aksyonov wrote. RT's top host Anton Krasovsky, after posting a video of himself dancing on a balcony in a cap with a Z on it, said in another Telegram post that the damage to Ukraine's power lines was 'not enough! Not enough!' Another state TV journalist, Andrei Medvedev, called Monday's attacks 'a logical step, which not just the society has long demanded - the military situation demanded a different approach to the hostilities.' 'And so it happened. But does it change much?' Medvedev, who works for Russia's state TV group VGTRK and holds a seat in the Moscow City Council, wrote on Telegram. 'If the strikes on the critical infrastructure become regular, if the strikes on railways, bridges and power plants become part of our tactics, then yes, it does change (the situation). But for now, according to (official) statements, a decision to plunge Ukraine into medieval times has not been made,' Medvedev wrote. Political analyst Stanovaya noted in a Telegram post Monday that 'powerful pressures' have been on Putin 'to move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings' and that prompted him to act. 'As of today, one can say that Putin was persuaded to resort to a more aggressive line. And it corresponds with his understanding on the situation. But it is a slippery slope - there is no way back,' Stanovaya wrote. Vladimir Putin yesterday unleashed a barrage of missiles on Ukraine in retaliation for the attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea. It has led analysts to fear that Russia's campaign is entering a new phase of escalation as his forces in the east lose vast swathes of territory - even as he annexes captured regions. And Kremlin military doctrine in some cases calls for so-called limited nuclear war using tactical nuclear weapons in an attempt to 'escalate to de-escalate' a war in Europe. That means that if an increasingly cornered Putin feels like he is out of options to secure victory, nuclear weapons could be his next step on the ladder of escalation. This video explains how that could play out. Advertisement Belarus has ordered its troops to be tested for 'combat readiness' amid reports of Russian soldiers flooding into the country 'by the trainload', after dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced he will deploy a 'joint military task force' with Moscow - a move Minsk claims is 'purely defensive'. The combat readiness test, ordered by Lukashenko, was announced as the head of his secret service said he expected to see a 'turning point' in Vladimir Putin's invasion in the coming months. Belarusian news agency BelTA reported Tuesday that the Security Council of the Republic of Belarus had 'begun a test of the Armed Forces of Belarus in accordance with instructions of the head of state' - echoing Russian rhetoric leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, in which Russia claimed it was carrying out military drills on the border. 'The test is comprehensive and covers the most important matters concerning the readiness of army units for carrying out their missions,' the agency reported, noting that units will practice 'switching to combat-ready state' while undertaking marching drills, deployment drills and combat training missions. The deployment has raised fears that Belarusian troops could join Russian forces in their struggling mission to capture and hold territory in east Ukraine. Adding to those concerns, Ukrainian intelligence said today that Russia was continuing to mass 'kamikaze drones' in Belarus, with Minsk also planning to send '13 trains carrying ammo from the arsenals and storage bases of its armed forces,' according to the Kyiv Independent. 'As of Oct. 10, Russia has brought 31 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones to Belarus and plans to transfer eight more until Oct. 14, Ukraine's Defense Ministry reports,' the report added. The drones have been used in the wide-spread airstrikes across Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday. Belarus has ordered its troops to be tested for 'combat readiness' amid reports of Russian soldiers flooding into the country 'by the trainload', after dictator Alexander Lukashenko (pictured chairing a meeting on security in Minsk, Belarus, October 10) announced he will deploy a 'joint military task force' with Moscow on his country's western border Minsk said Tuesday that the contingent of Belarusian troops deploying alongside Russian forces was a 'purely defensive' grouping whose aim was to defend the borders of the ex-Soviet republic closely aligned with Russia. However, the language used to play down Belarus' military activity echoed Moscow's insistence in the weeks and months leading up to Putin's February 24 invasion that it would not send its forces into Ukraine. In May 2021, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered a snap inspection of the 'combat readiness' of Russia's military districts. Putin consistently denied plans to invade, while Kremlin officials said the huge build-up of tens-of-thousands of soldiers and hardware was for combat training purposes. Lukashenko allowed Russian troops into the country under the pretext of military exercises in the months before Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine. Last night, Kyiv Post reporter Jason Jay Smart quoted a Belarusian source as saying: 'Russian soldiers are entering Belarus by the trainload. They're travelling in cattle cars - just a huge quantity. Just waves of trains arriving.' Lukashenko said the task force with Russia was in response to a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers in the West, baselessly claiming Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine were training Belarusian 'radicals' for terror attacks. The two countries began combining some of their military forces shortly after the explosion on the Kerch Bridge joining Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland, according to Lukashenko. This has sparked fury in Europe, with the European Commission urging Belarus to refrain from any involvement in Russia's 'brutal illegitimate undertaking' that violated the United Nations Charter and international law. G7 leaders said today that Lukashenko's plan to deploy joint forces with Russia is a new instance of complicity with Moscow, and warned Minsk to 'stop enabling' Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. 'The announcement of a joint military group with Russia constitutes the most recent example of the Belarusian regime's complicity with Russia,' they said in a statement, urging the 'Lukashenko regime to fully abide by its obligations under international law'. Minsk said the move was 'purely defensive'. 'We emphasise once again that the tasks of the Regional Grouping of Forces are purely defensive. And all activities carried out at the moment are aimed at providing a sufficient response to actions near our borders,' Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin was cited as saying. Speaking on Tuesday, Ivan Tertel, Chairman of the State Security Committee of Belarus (KGB), said Putin's would see a 'turning point' in Russia's favour from November to February. 'If the Russian Federation conducts a quality mobilisation campaign, provides its group with technical means and advanced weapons, then the military operation will enter a key phase,' Tertel said. 'According to our estimates, a turning point will come in the period from November of this year to February of next year.' Meanwhile, air raid alerts have been issued across the whole of Ukraine on Tuesday in anticipation of more Russian missiles strikes just a day after Putin unleashed the biggest barrage since the start of the war - killing 19 civilians and wounding 105. Every Ukrainian region bar occupied Crimea was told to be on alert for more strikes. Officials said rockets had been shot down near the capital Kyiv and that suicide drones were prowling the skies near the southern port city of Odesa. Explosions were also reported in western Lviv, with power cut in the city. Ukraine said drones used in the strikes on Monday had been launched from Belarus. Russian soldiers are flooding into Belarus 'by the trainload', according to reports, after dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced he will deploy a 'joint military task force' with Moscow on his country's western border. Meanwhile, Ukraine has said that it is strengthening its northern border with Belarus. Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers in training Lukashenko (pictured with Putin on September 26) said the task force with Russia was in response to a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers, claiming Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine were training Belarusian 'radicals' for terror attacks In response to the growing threat, Ukraine said it was strengthening its border with Belarus, fearing another Russian advance into the north of the country. 'Active actions are being taken to strengthen the units of the MIA [Ministry of Internal Affairs] system on the border with the Republic of Belarus,' Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Bondarenko said on Monday. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs also said in its statement '[...] Bondarenko inspected the section of the state border with the Republic of Belarus. During the visit, the readiness of the units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to repel potential aggression from the territory of the Republic of Belarus was verified.' The ministry added that it was 'actively involved in the construction of fortifications, structural units are strengthened with a fire component, which significantly strengthens our defence lines.' Alexander Alesin, an independent Belarusian military analyst, says Belarus could host some 10,000-15,000 Russian troops, which together with its own military could form a joint force of up to 60,000. But, he argued, Minsk is not willing to deploy troops to Ukraine. The Kremlin, according to some reports, wants its neighbour to host Russian nuclear weapons. Alesin said: 'Iskander-M (missiles) have already been deployed to Belarus. They could be equipped with nuclear warheads with a capacity of 50 kilotons and a range of 500 kilometres.' The analyst said some Belarusian Su-24M bombers had been modified at Russian factories to carry nuclear bombs. But he added: 'Minsk specifically stipulates that deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus would only be possible if (U.S.) nuclear weapons are deployed to neighbouring Poland.' In response to the growing threat to the north, Ukraine said it was strengthening its border with Belarus, fearing another Russian advance into the north of the country. Pictured: A Ukrainian soldier points a weapon over a barricade Alexander Alesin, an independent Belarusian military analyst, says Belarus could host some 10,000-15,000 Russian troops, which together with its own military could form a joint force of up to 60,000. Pictured: A Ukrainian military vehicle in Ukraine Putin is running out of missiles and troops, GCHQ head says Russia is running short of weapons, allies and troops with Vladimir Putin's regime becoming increasingly desperate, the head of the UK's GCHQ intelligence agency said. Sir Jeremy Fleming said Moscow still had a 'very capable military machine' despite those shortcomings, although it was being stretched by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Russian president Mr Putin launched a missile and drone barrage against Ukrainian cities including Kyiv on Monday and air raid sirens again sounded in the capital on Tuesday. Mr Putin has warned about the potential use of nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory - a definition which he could extend to the occupied regions of Ukraine. GCHQ chief Sir Jeremy said he hoped the UK would see 'indicators' from Russia before any deployment of nuclear weapons, something which would be a 'catastrophe'. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We believe that Russia is running short of munitions, it's certainly running short of friends and we have seen, because of the declaration for mobilisation, that it is running short of troops.' Sir Jeremy said Moscow's top brass were 'worried about the state of their military machine', adding 'the word I have used is desperate and we can see that desperation at many levels inside Russian society and inside the Russian military machine'. Despite the problems facing Moscow, Mr Putin still had 'deep stocks and expertise' in his military, as shown by Monday's co-ordinated strikes against Ukraine's cities. Pressed on whether GCHQ would know if Mr Putin was considering using nuclear weapons, Sir Jeremy said: 'I would hope that we would see indicators if they started to go down that path, but let's be really clear about that: if they are considering that, that would be a catastrophe.' Advertisement Speaking on Monday, Lukashenko said Kyiv presents a clear threat to his country. The remarks from Lukashenko, who has held power in Belarus since 1994, indicate a potential further escalation of the war in Ukraine, possibly with a combined Russian-Belarus joint force in the north of Ukraine. 'Strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine today, but are also being planned,' Lukashenko said at a meeting on security, without providing evidence for the assertion. 'Their owners are pushing them to start a war against Belarus to drag us there.' 'We have been preparing for this for decades. If necessary, we will respond,' Lukashenko said, adding that he had spoken to Putin about the situation while at a meeting in St Petersburg. Lukashenko said he had agreed with Putin to deploy a regional military group, and had started pulling forces together two days ago, apparently after an attack on Russia's road and rail bridge to Crimea early on Saturday. He said that a warning was delivered to Belarus through unofficial channels that Ukraine planned 'Crimean Bridge 2', though he did not give details. 'My answer was simple: 'Tell the president of Ukraine and the other lunatics: if they touch one metre of our territory then the Crimean Bridge will seem to them like a walk in the park'.' He also claimed - without evidence - Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine were training Belarusian 'radicals' to carry out terror attacks in his country. This could be seen as an attempt to justify further escalation. 'The training in Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine of Belarusian radical militants for them to carry out sabotage, terrorist attacks and to organise a military mutiny in the country is becoming a direct threat,' Lukashenko said. However, Belarus' Defense Minister Victor Khrenin ruled out active participation in the war in Ukraine. 'We don't want to fight Lithuanians, or Poles, or Ukrainians,' Khrenin said in a video statement Monday. France on Tuesday warned Minsk it could face more sanctions if it gets more involved in the war in Ukraine. Belarus has already been accused of allowing itself to be used as a Russian launchpad for Putin's invasion. Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces used both missiles and Iranian-built drones - believed to have been sent from Belarus - to strike his country in a series of deadly attacks across the country. Pictured: Russian and Belarus tanks during joint exercises of the armed forces on February 24, days before Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine on February 24 Russian (right) and Belarus soldiers during joint exercises of the armed forces, February 19 In a statement on Facebook, Ukraine's military specified that 'the enemy used Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs in strikes launched from the territory of Belarus' and the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia, adding that nine drones were 'destroyed'. In signs that fears are growing about Belarus' involvement in the war in Ukraine, Warsaw on Monday said Polish citizens still in Belarus should leave the country. 'We recommend that Polish citizens staying on the territory of the Republic of Belarus leave its territory with available commercial and private means,' the government said in guidance for travellers published on its website. Relations between Warsaw and Minsk deteriorated in 2021 when Poland accused its neighbour of orchestrating a migrant crisis on its border and have become even more strained since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Warsaw says that the Polish minority in Belarus faces repression from the state, with some community leaders having been imprisoned. Belarus and Russia reportedly began combining some of their military forces shortly after the explosion on the Kerch Bridge (pictured, October 8) joining Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland, according to Lukashenko A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, October 10, 2022 Russia unleashed one of the largest bombardments of Ukraine since the opening day of the war on Monday, as virtually every major city was hit in strikes that killed 19 people and wounded 105 Today, Ukraine's air force said Russian strategic bombers - Tu-95s and Tu-160s which were originally designed to carry nukes - had fired non-nuclear missiles at the country from over the Caspian Sea around 7am local time, and that four of the weapons had been shot out of the sky. The city of Zaporizhzhia, located close to the Russian frontlines in the south, continued to be bombed overnight with officials saying 15 missiles hit schools, hospitals and homes, killing at least one person. Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine, was also targeted this morning amid reports that drones struck a power plant. It came mere hours after Putin's bloodthirsty war hawks appeared on state TV to praise his new no-holds-barred approach to the war while urging him to go further and bomb Ukraine 'into a 19th century country'. Yuri Podolyak, a military analyst speaking on Channel 1, said Russia is 'easily' capable of sustaining the intensity of Monday's attacks throughout the winter - predicting that the consequences for Ukraine would be 'catastrophic'. 'A red line has been crossed, and I think this is now obvious to everyone,' he said. 'All European governments have promptly requested that their embassies be evacuated from Kyiv. 'They realise this is not just a one day event, that this will continue and that winter in Ukraine will be catastrophic.' Meanwhile Konstantin Dolgov, former Russian commissioner for human rights, also urged Putin to keep up the bombardment, asking TV viewers: 'Are they whining yet? Are they howling yet?' A car dealership in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia in flames in the early hours of Tuesday after it was hit in a Russian missile attack, as Putin's bombardment of Ukraine continues Firefighters cover the body of a man killed by Russian shelling on the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight with a sheet as Putin's bombardment of Ukraine continues Firefighters inspect the ruins of a car dealership in Zaporizhzhia that was hit by a Russian missile, after 15 rockets slammed into the city overnight Monday A truck is seen peppered with shrapnel and buried under rubble after Russian missiles hit the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight Defence analyst, Alexander Artamonov, said Western hopes that Russia would run out of missiles would never come true. They will never end.' The pro-war fanatic insisted: 'It is of course necessary that strikes continue in a systematic way, given that Ukrainian society is at present, in my view, psychiatrically ill. In psychiatry, people are not given weapons. 'Naturally, they are treated, and naturally they should have essential benefits, but anything that can be turned into a weapon, be it a car, a knife, a gun, or some other thing must be seized. 'So if bridges are cut and railways too are destroyed there will not be capacity to deliver troops to the frontline.' Moscow's barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine elicited celebration from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield. Commentators and war correspondents lauded Monday's attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to Ukraine's successful counteroffensive in the northeast and the south and a weekend attack on a key bridge between Russia and Crimea. Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday's missile strikes in order to win the war now. 'Putin's initiative is weakening and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the `victory' (in Ukraine) for him,' Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think-tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday. Putin's supporters have been calling for drastic steps on the Ukraine battlefield for weeks. These calls intensified over the weekend, shortly after an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia sent shock waves around the globe. The bridge, Europe's longest, is a prominent symbol of Russian military might and was opened by Putin himself in 2018. It was seen as a declaration after it was annexed by Moscow in 2014: That Crimea is Russia. Ukraine has said it intends to retake the peninsular, which is still internationally recognised as Ukrainian. This photo, released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, shows the regime staging major live-fire drills, Oct. 10. Yonhap The South Korean government on Tuesday called for North Korea to immediately cease tension-escalating activities, a day after Pyongyang said it conducted "tactical nuclear" drills and vowed to strengthen its nuclear force. On Monday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said its leader Kim Jong-un inspected an exercise of tactical nuclear operation units to assess the "war deterrent and nuclear counterattack capability" in response to recent joint military trainings by South Korea and the United States. "The government urges North Korea once again to immediately cease any additional provocations and to respond to our 'audacious initiative' offer," a unification ministry official told reporters, referring to President Yoon Suk-yeol's proposal to help rebuild the North's economy in return for denuclearization steps. An Oregon serial rapist is set to be released from prison as a 'low-level' sex offender in mid-December after serving nearly 36 years behind bars, prompting a wave of anger from his victims. Richard Gillmore, arrested in 1986 and called the 'jogger rapist' because he staked out victims as he ran by their homes, admitted to raping nine girls in the Portland area in the 1970s and 80s but was only convicted in one case because of the statute of limitations. In 1987, a jury found him guilty of raping 13-year-old Tiffany Edens, his last known victim, in December 1986. Edens has spoken out about the assault and recently wrote on social media that she received a voicemail in August from the state's Victim Information and Notification Service telling her of his impending release. 'I have been slowly processing the reality of it all,' she wrote. Danielle Tudor, who said she was a teenager when Gillmore raped her in 1979, hit out against the decision to downgrade Gillmore's threat level prior to his release. 'So many things not right about his release. But surely the Parole Board has the authority to designate him as a level 3 sex offender instead of a level 1,' she wrote on social media. 'He has consistently had psych evaluations that have classified him as a high risk to re-offend! And yes, he still jogs!' She went on to tell KOIN 6 News: 'If he had been able to have been charged for all the rapes he committed, he'd never be getting out.' Richard Gillmore (pictured 2008), arrested in 1986 and called the 'jogger rapist' because he staked out victims as he ran by their homes, admitted to raping nine girls in the Portland area in the 1970s and 80s but was only convicted in one case because of the statute of limitations Richard Gillmore speaks by video feed during a parole hearing on June 13, 2012, before the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision The Oregonian, citing prison officials, reported that Gillmore was transferred in August from Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla to the minimum-security Columbia River Correctional Institution in Portland to help him prepare for his re-entry into the community. He will be 63 at the time of his release on December 16, at which point he will move into transitional housing in Multnomah County. KOIN, which first reported his upcoming release, said Gillmore will remain under supervision until 2034 and could be sent back to prison if he violates his parole. But his classification as a level 1 offender means the state and county aren't required to notify surrounding residents that he's living near them. A judge in the Edens case sentenced Gillmore to at least 30 years in prison with a 60-year maximum. But a parole board cut his sentence in half in 1988, the year after he was convicted. Gillmore has been classified as a sex offender at the lowest risk of reoffending, despite admitting to having committed multiple rapes over the course of several years. The rapist last underwent a psychological review in 2016, and the parole board deemed him dangerous to others, stemming from a mental or emotional disorder or disturbance 'predisposing' him to crime. Richard Gillmore is pictured in 2008 during his parole hearing in Salem, Ore. Gillmore is set to be released from prison in mid-December 2022 after serving nearly 36 years behind bars He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life due to his rape conviction, but those living near him when he re-enters the community may have no idea of his sordid past. 'It's something the community really needs to know,' an incensed Tudor insisted to Oregon Live. 'I highly doubt that he's given up jogging.' Multnomah County spokesperson Jessica Morkert-Shibley told Oregon Live that the county hasn't solidified plans for his post-prison supervision, nor have they confirmed where he will live. Gillmore will be on active supervision for a minimum of three years, requiring him to report regularly to a parole officer or be subject to home visits, said Dylan Arthur, executive director of the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision. Once paroled, he could be required to have no contact with his victims, be under GPS monitoring or get treatment - but these conditions have not yet been set. Colleen Kelly, who like Edens was aged just 13 when she was raped by Gillmore, said the prospect of him being released had increased her anxiety and made her thankful to be living out of state. Advertisement Therese Coffey today slapped back at Jamie Oliver after he called for free school meals to be extended to all households that receive Universal Credit. The celebrity chef and campaigner declared in an interview that he wanted around 800,000 more children to get the subsidies, on top of the 1.9million currently eligible. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it would be an 'injection of kindness' that could save the Tories, as well as driving up nutrition. But the deputy PM gave the idea short shrift this morning, pointing out that people earning 40,000 can receive UC and taxpayers would be 'surprised' if their children were entitled to free school meals. Currently, the children of parents who are on UC and have an annual income of no more than 7,400, or are on another benefit such as jobseeker's allowance, are eligible for free school meals. Oliver told BBC Radio 4's Today: 'If you earn over 7,400, you won't get that free school lunch. But I think we'd all agree that there's a massive gap between the means test for free school lunches as it stands and Universal Credit. 'I think what the Government are saying is Universal Credit tethers off and can go up to sort of 30,000 to 40,000, but really we're talking about the bulk of them being around 14,000 per household.' Asked if he wanted the threshold to be met, he replied: 'Well, now more than ever... if they were to open the threshold of who would be allowed to have a free school lunch, that would also inject funds into the system that would also really help to guarantee a much better service across 26,000 schools in the country.' However, Miss Coffey said: 'I know this has been suggested in the past I am aware that people could be earning over 40,000 and still be on universal credit. 'I think it is important support is targeted. I am not aware of any further changes that are being proposed to what happens today. Asked if that means she is against the extension, she said: 'It is a matter for the Secretary of State for Education, who has responsibility for this policy area. 'I am just flagging that people in UC given it is a dynamic in-work and out-of-work benefit can actually be earning a considerable amount of money, which I think other taxpayers may be surprised to learn that someone on 35,000 to 40,000 would all of a sudden become eligible for free school meals.' Jamie Oliver calls for free school meals to be extended to all households that receive Universal Credit on BBC Radio 4's Today Deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey arrives at Downing Street this morning after appearing on the BBC The chef said Liz Truss, seen at No10, will soon be shown the door. He said: 'She will be a ship that passes in the night' Cigar-loving Therese Coffey admits she didn't think it was right to BAN parents from smoking in cars with kids Health Secretary Therese Coffey speaks to LBC this morning Health Secretary Therese Coffey today claimed the rule change to outlaw smoking in cars with children was probably not 'the right thing to be doing'. Miss Coffey made the controversial statement as it was revealed she plans to U-turn on the Government's pledge to unveil an action plan to tackle tobacco use. The cigar-puffing Liz Truss ally said she voted against the law change in 2015 because she didn't believe in telling parents what to do. She admitted that she did not know whether the law change actually was implemented at the time. Asked by LBC's Nick Ferrari why she voted against the rule change, she said: 'Oh probably because I didn't think it was the right thing to be doing, to be telling parents how to handle the situation.' Pressed on whether she thinks it is right to smoke with children in the back, Miss Coffey said she couldn't recall whether the law changed but thinks it 'probably did'. She added: 'I'm not getting into necessarily prescriptive... we want a positive prevention programme in the future.' Advertisement Oliver said he has 'no faith' in the Prime Minister and predicted that she will soon lose her job in yet another intervention in politics by the outspoken TV chef, who denied being part of the 'anti-growth coalition'. He said: 'I have no faith [in Liz Truss] we've been tracking her in her views for six, seven years, she's not going to change. She will be a ship that passes in the night. I'm actually quite calm about the whole thing'. Hinting that he believes the Tories will be voted out at the next election, in part for not 'putting children first', the millionaire chef suggested the Conservatives were turning nasty. He said: 'I think kindness has to be injected into this party if they have any chance and I don't know if they have got it in them.' The chef added: 'I've been through six prime ministers and 13 education secretaries. None of them have taken seriously the issue of child health.' He also claimed that former prime minister Boris Johnson had to 'nearly die and have a child' before he saw the chef's point of view over school lunches and 'do the right thing'. But he denied to presenter Nick Robinson that he is part of the 'anti-growth coalition', a term coined by Miss Truss for her critics. He replied: 'Completely not. I've spent a lifetime not only employing over 20,000 people but travelling around the world saying how brilliant Britain is. 'That's what we need to do as a country. We have an incredible country but just doing quick trade deals to the lowest common denominator and threatening British farming and British producers is completely bonkers.' He added: 'The reality is, if you speak to the best minds in economics, in the country, in the world, they will tell you that if you output healthier kids, you're going to have a more productive, more profitable country, better GDP. To do that, you have to think in ten to 20 years, not three-year cycles.' During her Tory conference speech in Birmingham last week, Liz Truss railed against those she accused of trying to hold back her pro-growth agenda, stating that she was 'not interested in how many two-for-one offers you buy at the supermarket'. Critics pointed out they are still waiting for Oliver to leave Britain, after he said in 2016 that he would quit the UK if Boris Johnson became PM after winning the Brexit vote. One said: 'Jamie Oliver... the man that ruined school dinners forever... He should stay out of it.' In response to the chef's comments about kindness, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'This is a Government that takes action to protect people.' He said that included the energy price guarantee to protect people, businesses and the public sector from 'unmanageable, unsustainable high costs' and 'welcoming people in need' through the Ukrainian refugee scheme. On Oliver's call for wider access to free school meals, the spokesman said: 'We do provide a significant number of families with free school meals. Obviously we need to make sure we're setting the right balance.' In May Oliver was outside Downing Street demanding then-PM Mr Johnson scrapped BOGOF deals in supermarkets, waving an Eton mess pudding to make his point. The chef invited all 15million of his Twitter and Instagram followers to descend on Westminster and demand a U-turn on the policy but fewer than 200 people turned up as poverty campaigners branded him tone deaf. And Mr Johnson responded by saying the Government would not change its mind on delaying the introduction of a ban on buy-one-get-one-free promotions even if some of the foods are high in fat, sugar or salt. He said: 'If people can save on their food bills with some offers then I think we've just got to be flexible while continuing to tackle obesity.' Oliver raises his Eton mess to the sky outside Downing Street in May where he demanded then-PM Boris Johnson reconsider his U-turn on the Government's anti-obesity strategy. He also wants BOGOF deals banned Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival yesterday, the celebrity chef said a 'kitchen full of just men' was 'bad' and 'not a good place to work', as they 'struggle with ego more than women'. The 47-year-old, who was promoting his latest cookbook One: Simple one-pan wonders, suggested women have a more intuitive approach to cookery as they react to what is in front of them which he said he seeks to emulate to be at his best in the kitchen. Timeline: A look at Jamie Oliver's business empire from the first restaurant open in 2008 to closure and redundancies in 2019 2008: Jamie's Italian opened its first restaurant in 2008. 2015: Jamie At Home, which contracted agents to sell his cookware range at parties, ceased trading after racking up losses. The company began in 2009, as part of the Jamie Oliver organisation, before being licensed to another firm in 2013, but shut up shop in 2015. 2017: Jamie's businesses lost 20m, forcing him to shut 18 of his Italian restaurants - leading to the loss of 600 jobs. Chain was struggling with debts of 71.5m and teetered on the edge of bankruptcy before the chef injected his savings into the business. The firm also took out 37m in loans from HSBC and other companies. In 2017 he closed the last of his four his Union Jack Piazzas, in London's Covent Garden. 2018: Jamie's Italian shuttered 12 of its 37 sites, with the latter tranche executed through a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA). He also came under fire for failing to pay suppliers after his upmarket steak restaurant Barbecoa crashed into administration, leading to the closure of its Piccadilly branch. The restaurant in St Paul's continued to trade and was bought out by a new company set up by Oliver, who was no longer legally liable for the debts. 2019: All but three of Jamie Oliver's restaurants close after the business called in administrators, with 1,000 staff facing redundancy. Advertisement 'As a young boy getting a craft and this energy about Michelin stars and measurement and how you control nature as opposed to how you react to nature which I think are more feminine traits like nourishment and more maternal feelings so if I'm ever good, I have to try and think like a woman', he added. Oliver has previously taken aim at big-name chefs for focusing more on their own egos than creating recipe books that everyone can follow, insisting that his celebrity colleagues should be like a 'sat-nav' for the home-cook. 'As a man and a chef you have got to have a massive scrap with your ego and look at how many chefs' books are rubbish. It is because they cannot get out of the restaurant, out of control and ego,' he told the Sun last year. 'For me, you have to beat that person up and throw them to the side. 'My audience is very mainstream. My job is to be clear. You do your job and break it down into chapters that are logical and useful.' Back at Cheltenham, Oliver contrasted the 'regimental' Anglo-French cooking craft he learnt at his parents' gastropub growing up, with the Italian cookery that would later have a big influence on his early career as a chef, describing Italian cooking as 'slightly more feminine'. The father of five also attributed the success of his initial years as the Naked Chef in the 1990s to women, saying his 'fame' was 'driven by female journalists'. 'I think you have to remember what it was like then, men and women going off to work together, but men around the country going, "What's for dinner love?"' While the Naked Chef was 'about getting boys back in the kitchen' Oliver said it didn't go down too well with members of his own sex. He recounted having a 'tough' relationship with men within the first two years, with 'quite a lot of scaffolding abuse'. 'I got properly chased and roughed up a few times. They had it easy and then all of a sudden their girlfriend or wife is like 'Look, there's a foetus on the TV here, if he can do it, surely you can, you're a 45-year-old man, I'll have it once a week you lazy b******!' 'You think you girls have it bad when you go past scaffolding, being the Naked Chef in the 1990s was not good.' Advertisement He was the Soviet spy whose dalliances with a young woman helped to end the career of a top British politician. Russian naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov had an affair with Christine Keeler at the same time that she was sleeping with the then war minister John Profumo, prompting a scandal that rocked British politics in the early 1960s. But newly-released MI5 files show how Britain's domestic intelligence service tried to recruit Ivanov before the Profumo affair after hearing how he got drunk at parties and enjoyed 'propositioning, pinching and dancing with women'. Convinced that the official could defect to the West at a time when Britain was embroiled in the Cold War, MI5 sent an agent codenamed Cat Burglar to try to get Ivanov on side. The agent tried to manipulate Ivanov by claiming that the Kremlin was going to recall him to Russia over his debauchery. The files describe Ivanov as having been 'aggressively hearty and argumentative' at a Christmas cocktail party given by a US naval attache in 1960. Noting how he asked for 'treble whiskies', it went on to describe his 'attempted pinching of sensitive portions of the anatomy, at the ladies'. The file concluded: 'If his addiction to alcohol is real and not assumed, then this lack of discipline might make him a possible subject for our own exploitation'. After approaching Ivanov at the Columbia Club in Bayswater, Cat Burglar did strike up a relationship with Ivanov that lasted for at least a year, although it is not clear if the spy passed information to Britain before he was recalled to Moscow in January 1963 - as the Profumo affair was about to break. Both Ivanov and Keeler knew society osteopath Stephen Ward, who introduced the young woman to Profumo at a pool party. Profumo resigned from the government in June 1963 after it emerged he had lied to Parliament by saying rumours of his affair were untrue. He was married to actress Valerie Hobson. Ward took his own life after being convicted of living off the immoral earnings from prostitutes. He was the Soviet spy whose dalliances with a young woman helped to end the career of a top British politician. Russian naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov (left with his wife Mayja) had an affair with Christine Keeler (right) at the same time that she was sleeping with the then war minister John Profumo, prompting a scandal that rocked British politics in the early 1960s Keeler was famously sleeping with both John Profumo and Russian spy Yevgeny Ivanov at the same time. Above: The model in 1964 Russian spy visited Harrods in the hope of buying an ALLIGATOR By David Wilkes for the Daily Mail Yevgeny Ivanov wanted an alligator as a pet, MI5's surveillance of the Russian spy discovered. He even visited the pet department at Harrods in an apparent quest to find one after having lunch at Simpson's in The Strand one day in August 1962. 'Ivanov had said he was interested in alligators as pets,' a report on him in files released today (tues) says. He was interested in getting a dog too, but said: 'Alas for our Russian quarantine regulations'. He left without a new four-legged friend, reptilian or canine. During the Swinging Sixties it was said you could buy anything at Harrods and its then famous pet emporium sold all sorts of wild and exotic animals, including lion cubs. Noel Coward once had an alligator bought for him there as a Christmas present. The 1976 Endangered Species Act put a stop to such animals being sold in Knightsbridge and elsewhere. During the same visit to Harrods, Ivanov was also said to have been looking for a particular type of French electric mincer. A hand-written message by an official at the bottom of the file entry on his visit notes that 'he will have been out of luck at Harrods - they don't stock them!' Advertisement The documents concerning Ivanov reveal how he came to Britain in 1960, with an official role as naval attache. At the same time, he was spying for the Soviet Union's GRU military intelligence service. He was joined by his wife Mayja and another Russian officer as he gathered information on defence sites around the UK. At one point, all three Russians were injured and hospitalised when their car overturned. One file details his 'outrageous' behaviour when he gatecrashed a Christmas party. It said: 'He made himself conspicuous by his heartiness, they were practically the last guests to leave and this required some persuasion. Ivanov was asking for treble whiskies.' Another, concerning the party held by the US naval attache, told how 'Russians were late arriving, having gotten lost on the way, but determined to get there. 'Two hours later Ivanov was drunk. Propositioning, pinching and dancing with women in his stockinged feet and deliberately treading on their toes.' Ivanov also made attempts to seduce the American attache's wife while driving and also 'came very near caressing' the French attache's wife. Ivanov first met Ward at a lunch at the Garrick Club in January 1961. The pair were both at the infamous pool party at Lord William Astor's estate in Cliveden, Buckinghamshire. There, Ward introduced Keeler to Profumo. Ward told the security services how Ivanov had a 'weakness for pretty women' and had once drank two bottles of whisky with Keeler. The osteopath had been warned that Ivanov was an intelligence officer. The new files also show how a source told MI5 that both Profumo and Ivanov 'arrived on her [Keeler's] doorstep together'. This led to a 'heated argument' between the two men, which Ivanov won. Ivanov's close friendship with Ward led to the osteopath being used by the Foreign Office to pass information to the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. This was despite the fact that MI5 had warned the Foreign Office against the move. Ward always denied having been a 'Soviet intermediary' in his dealings with Ivanov. After being convicted of living off the immoral earnings of prostitutes, Ward wrote to then-Opposition leader Harold Wilson from prison to plead innocence two months before killing himself, other documents show. Writing on Brixton Prison notepaper in a letter dated June 1963, Ward complained of untrue claims against him that 'gravely affect my present position'. Newly-released MI5 files show how Britain's domestic intelligence service tried to recruit Ivanov before the Profumo affair after hearing how he got drunk at parties and enjoyed 'propositioning, pinching and dancing with women'. Convinced that the official could defect to the West at a time when Britain was embroiled in the Cold War, MI5 sent an agent codenamed Cat Burglar (mentioned above) to try to get Ivanov on side Profumo resigned from the government in June 1963 after it emerged he had lied to Parliament about his affair with Keeler The society osteopath and artist involved in the Profumo affair told how he felt he was 'being assassinated' in the midst of the sex and spies scandal which engrossed 1960s Britain, newly-released MI5 files show. Stephen Ward (left leaving court in July 1963) was convicted of living off the immoral earnings of prostitutes, but died before he could be sentenced, having taken a drug overdose during his trial Ward also rejected the suggestion he had asked for a police inquiry into the Profumo affair to be called off. He said comments about him in Parliament had been 'most unfair and prejudicial to my legal position'. Ward wrote: 'May I appeal to you earnestly to look into these matters which gravely affect my present position.' He added: 'There can be no hope of the truth ever coming out if these and comparable errors are allowed to stand uncorrected.' An MI5 report dated May 1963, noted that a source who visited Ward thought him to be 'ill-at-ease' and possibly 'not far from a nervous collapse'. In a conversation with the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's Principal Private Secretary, the documents show, Ward told him 'if you were in my position you would feel as if you were being assassinated at this moment', adding that the situation was 'bad' and that the stories in the newspapers were 'not quite the truth'. In 2017, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said it had found no evidence the prosecution was politically motivated, but that had Ward lived, he could have sought to challenge his conviction at the Court of Appeal on other grounds. The documents concerning Ivanov reveal how he came to Britain in 1960, with an official role as naval attache. At the same time, he was spying for the Soviet Union's GRU military intelligence service. Above: Photos of Ivanov from one of the MI5 files Ivanov was joined by his wife Mayja and another Russian officer as he gathered information on defence sites around the UK It said there was 'considerable force' in the argument that prosecution witness Keeler's subsequent conviction for perjury and possibly prejudicial media coverage at the time of Ward's trial could have affected the safety of the conviction. Ward died in August 1963 from a drug overdose before he could be sentenced. The files also show how, after the Profumo scandal broke, MI5 investigated the possibility that 'the Russian Intelligence Service had a hand in staging the Profumo affair in order to discredit Her Majesty's government.' But MI5 concluded that Ivanov's involvement with Keeler at the same time as Profumo was an accident. MI5 also found that Ward was a 'willing dupe' of Ivanov, rather than a traitor. Another MI5 file concerning the Profumo affair noted that a 'dangerous drug' which could be 'very useful' for intelligence services to exploit was being used in the social circles of Keeler. The substance, named Methadrine, may have been known to Russian intelligence officer Eugene Ivanov and osteopath Ward. The document, dated July 1963, read: 'Its effects could be very useful to any intelligence services exploiting it.' It was described as normally being used by doctors to tackle heroin addiction, but if misused could become 'quickly and dangerously addictive'. The note added: 'It is also much used by psychoanalysts because it breaks down inhibitions rapidly and completely.' The tasteless and soluble drug had 'remarkable' side effects, the document said, listing them as including rendering a person 'incapable of resisting orders to do anything while under the influence'. Keeler's friend Mandy Rice-Davies (right with Keeler as they left the Old Bailey during Ward's trial) also became one of the well-known names in connection with the Profumo scandal The note said that Mandy Rice-Davies, a friend of Keeler's who became one of the well-known names in connection with the Profumo scandal, had been seen by the source of the MI5 information to be under the influence of the drug after an American 'con man' crushed as many as six tablets into a glass and gave it to her. The source described how Rice-Davies experienced all the expected symptoms of the drug, with the note adding that by the time 'acute schizophrenia' set in, 'the subject will do or say anything he or she is ordered to do or say'. 'Original strength of mind can offer no resistance,' the note added. Rice-Davies was famously cross-examined at Ward's trial, where she made a riposte that became famous. John Profumo was married to actress Valerie Hobson. She stood by her husband after his affair and resignation. Above: The couple are seen in 1959 The Daily Mail's front page reporting on John Profumo's resignation tells how he told the then PM how he had lied to Parliament After being told that Lord Astor had denied having an affair with her, or even having met the young woman, she replied: 'Well he would, wouldn't he?' The retort has since been misquoted as 'Well he would say that, wouldn't he', and has entered popular culture. Keeler was jailed for perjury in December 1963, several months after Profumo had resigned. Keeler gave evidence during the trial of her former partner Lucky Gordon who she claimed had attacked her. He was convicted and jailed for three years. However, it later turned out she had lied to the court and was sentenced to nine months in prison. She served half of her sentence. The former model died in 2017 aged 75. She had two brief marriages and had two children. After resigning from government, Profumo worked as a volunteer at East End poverty charity Toynbee Hall, but refused to ever speak about his affair with Keeler. He continued to be involved with the charity for the rest of his life and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1975. His final appearance was at the memorial service for former Prime Minister Edward Heath in November 2005. He died in March the following year. A student at one of the UK's most prestigious art schools has been banned from bringing her newborn baby on campus or breastfeeding her in lectures. Jasmijn Toffano, 29, has accused Central Saint Martins of discrimination after staff informed her that daughter Chloe, who is less than two months old, cannot accompany her on site. The art school, which counts Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney among its alumni, forms part of the University of Arts London - currently ranked second in the world for art and design. Mrs Toffano, a second year student studying graphic communication design, has written a formal complaint over how her case has been dealt with and has now started a campaign calling for Central Saint Martins to amend its policies, The Times reports. She left her job in retail to study at the art school and informed staff in January that she had become pregnant with husband Riccardo Mangiapelo. The mother was initially of the understanding that there would be no issues with her bringing her baby onto the campus. But the art college reversed its decision just days before she was due to return to studying. Jasmijn Toffano, 29, has accused the prestigious art school Central Saint Martins of discrimination The London art school counts the likes of Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney among its alumni She was told last week that Chloe 'will not be permitted' on campus after it was 'deemed to be in direct contravention of the universitys "children on site" policy' - despite the document having been published more than 13 years ago. Instead, Ms Toffano's husband had to travel from their St Albans home to London, where he would spend the day in a cafe with their child while she studied - with the mother joining them between lectures to breastfeed. After her husband's paternity leave finishes, though, the couple will be left needing a nanny to care for Chloe until she is old enough to attend nursery. That would also mean Mrs Toffano having to abandon her plans to breastfeed her baby. She has started a petition calling for change, with campaigners warning Central Saint Martins to review its policies to ensure they are not discriminatory or unlawful. Mrs Toffano said: 'I breastfeed, and it would be easy to bring my baby daughter with me to college and to lectures to breastfeed her. 'However, the University is delaying the approval to allow me to get my daughter into University. I first requested this in January 2022, and they always told me there weren't any problems. 'However, two days before the start of the term, they denied me access to University with the baby. 'This means that I'm now struggling to balance between the current ongoing lectures and my baby's needs. Mfs Toffano, a second year student studying graphic communication design, has written a formal complaint I need to breastfeed only for a few months until my daughter can join the nursery full-time. So it would be pointless to take a whole year off just for a few months.' She has called for the university to 'stop the ongoing unfairness' and 'not have to force mothers to choose between career and family'. A spokesperson for the art college said: 'Our campuses are filled with specialist equipment and machinery which create a potentially dangerous environment for children and babies. 'Currently, our health and safety policy and insurances do not allow infants or children on campus except for short exceptional visits. This means that the university isnt able to facilitate access for children and babies on a regular basis as we cannot guarantee their safety. 'We have apologised to Ms Toffano for the conflicting information she received in the first instance and the time it took for her to gain clarity on the matter. This shouldnt have happened and we are sorry for the distress this has caused. 'We recognise there is more that we can do to provide better facilities for caregivers and this is something that we are actively engaged in improving. UAL will be reviewing its current policies in light of this case. 'We have offered Ms Toffano access to a private room and fridge to allow her to express milk and we will work with her to ensure it is suitable for her needs. 'Our priority is to ensure Ms Toffano can complete her course and we are in touch with her to discuss what adjustments can be made to support her.' Pictured: Australian Information Security Association Chair Damien Manuel The Australian government must step in to regulate cyber security qualifications over fears junk degrees are leaving businesses vulnerable to attacks, a leading industry think tank says. Some universities have created specialised cyber security degrees from scratch. Others have simply added a cyber security unit to an existing course and labelled it as a separate degree. Australian Information Security Association Chair Damien Manuel said businesses were struggling to fill vacant cyber security positions because many graduates lacked knowledge or experience. 'To some degree, students could be wasting their time doing a tertiary course that doesn't lead into a job role,' Mr Manuel told AAP. 'There really needs to be some standardisation or transparency to help improve the quality of those courses and the education outcomes.' Mr Manuel said Australia is now at risk of Optus-style data breaches every few months (pictured, an Optus store in Sydney) Mr Manuel made the comments as more than 4,000 industry leaders gathered for the 2022 Australian Cyber Conference in Melbourne. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and 2022 Australian of the year Dylan Alcott addressed the crowd on Tuesday, where the recent Optus hack was frequently referenced. Mr Manuel said workforce shortages were pushing up the wages of good cyber security workers. He said they were more likely to be hired by bigger institutions like banks rather than small and medium sized businesses, which may be in their supply chains. 'You have thousands of all these suppliers, who could then potentially not have perfect security in place because they can't afford to get somebody. The Albanese government is currently rethinking the 2020 cyber security strategy and seeking feedback from the industry about its direction (stock image) 'That creates a weakness that then the larger banks may become vulnerable or a larger supplier, like an Optus or a Telstra,' he said. Mr Manuel said Australia is now at risk of Optus-style data breaches every few months. 'While last month it was Optus, Telstra, you know, next month, it could be a retailer of some sort,' he said. 'I would say you're more likely to see it happen every couple of months as opposed to longer term.' The Albanese government is currently rethinking the 2020 cyber security strategy and seeking feedback from the industry about its direction. It is unclear what exact rule West broke, but he has been using Instagram lately to bash many people, including his ex-wife Kim Kardashian Meta spokesperson said: 'We may place restrictions on accounts that repeatedly break our rules' Elon Musk has revealed that he has spoken to Kanye West and expressed his concerns about the rapper's recent anti-Semitic tweet. The Gold Digger penman made headlines for an incendiary tweet attacking 'Jewish people' over the weekend after he was banned from Instagram for posting a private chat he had with Sean 'Diddy' Combs. But Musk, who is in the midst of his own takeover bid for the social media platform, revealed on Twitter that he has intervened and that the rapper took the words 'to heart.' 'Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart,' Musk wrote on Twitter. West was locked out of his Twitter account on Saturday after he tweeted: 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.' The now-deleted tweet prompted both outrage and concern for West's mental health. West's tweets marked the first time in nearly two years since he has posted to Twitter. Musk welcomed his return to the platform, tweeting 'Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!' The Tesla CEO and Twitter's executives are negotiating the terms of his $44 billion takeover. After engaging in a weeks-long court battle trying to get out of it, Musk abruptly decided he would close on his deal on the original terms. Musk, however, conditioned his proposal on his ability to secure debt financing and now has until October 28 to close on the transaction. Elon Musk revealed on Twitter that he had spoken to Kanye West about the rapper's recent anti-Semitic outbursts on social media and that the musician had taken it 'to heart' Kanye West caused outrage when he tweeted that he was going to go to 'death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE' Tesla CEO revealed that he had taken steps to speak to West and share his concerns with the rapper West also posted a picture on Saturday of himself and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg singing karaoke as he lamented how the Facebook billionaire had kicked him off of Instagram. West had gone after Zuckerberg for restricting his Instagram after he posted a now-deleted private conversation with Sean 'Diddy' Combs. In the text exchange, Combs tries to get West to stop sporting shirts emblazoned with 'White Lives Matter.' 'I'm trying to talk to you as a black man. And I'm talking to you because this is hurting our people. Stop.' West replies: 'Anything you text I will post.' The rapper and fashion mogul kept his word, posting the entire exchange to his 18million followers. The series of texts ends with West accusing Combs of being controlled by Jewish people - an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. 'This ain't a game. Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me,' West wrote his friend. He reportedly captioned the post of the text exchange 'Jesus is Jew.' The American Jewish Committee has since condemned West, saying his post was 'dangerous.' West reported told Combs that 'Jewish people told you to call me' and that they were not going to 'threaten or influence me.' West also said the rapper was 'breaking my heart' and that 'no one gets in between me and my money' After the posts were removed by Meta, which owns Instagram, West called out Zuckerberg's company on Twitter for restricting his account. 'Look at this, Mark. How you gone kick me off Instagram. You use to be my n***a.' He posted the tweet alongside a photo of the pair performing karaoke at an unknown time. A Meta spokesperson said: 'We may place restrictions on accounts that repeatedly break our rules.' It is unclear what exact rule West broke, but he has been using the platform with growing frequency to bash numerous people, including his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. Kanye West has been restricted from Instagram for supposedly anti-Semitism claims, saying Sean 'Diddy' Combs was being controlled by Jewish people He posted a photo of him and Zuckerberg singing karaoke at an unknown time West took time out from setting social media alight to romance Brazilian model Juliana Nalu on Sunday in Los Angeles. The controversial rapper was spotted heading to a clothing warehouse with Nalu, 24, who wore a gray figure-hugging dress following a string of dates with her in recent days. West, who legally changed his name to simply Ye last year, dressed his new muse in a 2024 baseball cap to match his own, suggesting that she's all in on his potential 2024 presidential candidacy. Nalu's gray dress, which had a suede texture, featured revealing cutouts over her hips that left little to the imagination. New romance? Kanye West was spotted out for what looked like a romantic event with the Brazilian model Juliana Nalu on Sunday night around Los Angeles. The controversial rapper, 45, was spotted heading to a clothing warehouse in Los Angeles with Nalu, 24, who wore a gray figure-hugging dress Showing off: Nalu's gray dress, which had a suede texture, featured revealing cutouts over her hips that left little to the imagination West also recently sat down for the interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson after he returned from Paris Fashion Week where he sparked controversy with his 'White Lives Matter' fashion show concept. The interview came just days after the 45-year-old rapper created widespread controversy when he sported a 'White Lives Matter' T-shirt at his YZY fashion show in Paris, which was widely condemned by fans and fashion industry luminaries and led Adidas to put its relationship with him 'under review.' He told Carlson the shirt came from his 'energy' and his 'connection with God.' 'I do certain things from a feeling, I just channel the energy. It feels right, hits using a gut instinct, connection with God and just brilliance.' He also said he thought the idea of him 'wearing the shirt was funny' and his father - who he claimed is a former Black Panther - thought so too. 'I said: 'Dad, why do you think it's funny?' and he said: 'It's just a black man stating the obvious,' he told Carlson. 'That was my favorite response, because I kept thinking: People are looking for an explanation. And people say as an artist you have don't have to an explanation, but as a leader you do. West has been in the hot seat recently for his 'White Lives Matter' shirt, which he was seen recently wearing to his daughter's game (pictured) West debuted the shirt at Paris Fashion Week, alongside conservative commentator Candance Owens (pictured together) He also spoke with Fox News' Tucker Carlson recently about the shirts and said he does 'certain things from a feeling, I just channel the energy. It feels right, hits using a gut instinct, connection with God and just brilliance' He also said the controversy is that white people 'have stripped us of our identity and labeled us as a color have told us what it means to be black.' 'The answer to why I wrote "White Lives Matter" on a shirt is because they do. It's the obvious thing.' Many have called the fashion designer out for the slogan, including model Gigi Hadid, who branded him a 'bully.' The supermodel, 27, recently commented that Ye was 'a bully' after he lashed out at Stylist and Contributing Vogue Fashion Editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson when she called his White Lives Matter merchandise presented during Paris Fashion Week 'violent' and 'dangerous.' He later lashed out at her, calling her a 'Karen.' He wrote: 'YOU WERE BORN WITH A SILVER SPOON IN YOUR MOUTH YOURE A ZOMBIE.' He later walk back on his criticism of Karefa-Johnson, insisting he had no issue with Vogue's contributing fashion editor. His spokesman Jason Lee quit in protest at the provocative show, writing on Instagram that West was 'gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy.' Since West has been airing his dirty laundry on Twitter and riling up a storm at Paris Fashion Week, Adidas has announced it would review its business relationship with the rapper after he spoke out against the brand. Khloe Kardashian - sister to his ex-wife - has pleaded with West in a now-deleted post to stop airing the family business online. Totton has now been sentenced to jail after appearing at the High Court The siblings sued their wedding planner uncle for failing to hand over their cash But Hollie Totton, 25, and Daniel Washer, 19, have not received their inheritance Mrs Totton died in 2019 and wanted half of her estate to go to her grandchildren A brother and sister have had their wedding planner uncle sentenced to jail in a 475,000 family fight over their grandmothers will. Mark Totton was left in charge of his mother, Hazel Tottons estate when she died in 2019, leaving half of her worldly goods to her granddaughter, businesswoman Hollie Totton, 25, and grandson Daniel Washer, 19. But three years later, the wedding and events planner has failed to give his young niece and nephew their 118,750 share of the inheritance and still refuses to say what he did with the money. The siblings, from Essex, sued their uncle at the High Court - and have now had him jailed for breaching a court order aimed at getting him to hand over their grandmothers cash to them. Mr Justice Leech said Mr Totton had 'deliberately failed to comply with his duties as executor', and 'flouted orders of the court' with the result that his niece and nephew have been kept out of their money for three years already. On Friday, the High Court in London heard that the brother and sister were each left a quarter of their grandmothers 475,000 fortune when she died in 2019, with their uncle getting the other half. Miss Totton is a business project manager while her brother is a university student. Their uncle, 51, is an events organiser at a wedding and conference venue and father-of-one. Mark Totton had been placed in charge of dishing out his mother's 475,000 fortune but the wedding planner refused to hand out any of the inheritance left to his niece and nephew. Totton is pictured arriving at the High Court in London on Friday Brother and sister Daniel Washer and Hollie Totton have not seen a single penny of their inheritance since their grandmother died in 2019 But neither of the siblings has seen a single penny since, after their uncle, as executor of the will, was left in charge of dividing up the money. The siblings barrister Victoria Adams told the judge that three years after their grandmother's death they are still waiting. Earlier this year, they sued their uncle in a bid to force him to comply with his obligations as administrator of his mothers estate and hand over their inheritance. But he did not do so and went on to breach a court order which the judge said had been designed to help find out what is in the estate and ensure they get their share. He had been ordered to set out the assets of the estate within a certain time and to give a full account of his dealings with it but failed to do so and was ordered back to court. Despite not turning up to face justice, he was found in contempt of court in August and, after being tracked down by police last month, was finally jailed for six weeks on Friday. But the judge said Mr Totton still refused to say more about where the money has gone, choosing instead to exercise his right not to 'incriminate' himself. He said Mr Totton had failed for months to engage with the court process and was only brought to court for the hearing in August after police were sent to his home. He had then finally 'taken steps' to comply with the court orders by listing what was in the estate - 425,000 from the proceeds of sale of his mums house and 48,000 in savings and investments. But he only did that in a statement signed last week, said the judge, and had gone on to say that he had been advised to say nothing more in order to avoid 'self-incrimination'. Through his lawyers, Mr Totton told the judge that he had never been in trouble with the police before and was a family man who stood to lose his job if imprisoned. He had always been supportive to his mother and family, including his niece and nephew in the past, and had suffered depression amidst the family row over his mums will. Jailing him, the judge rejected the argument that he had never been in contempt of court on the basis he could have relied on his right to say nothing and not to 'self-incriminate' from the start. He said his failure to provide information about the estate and what happened to it when he was told to amounted to 'serious, contumacious flouting of orders of the court'. Hollie Totton and her brother took their uncle to court in bid to force him to comply with his obligations as administrator of his mothers estate. Ms Totton pictured arriving at the High Court in London on Friday Mr Totton needed to be tracked down by police so he could be hauled in front of a judge. Explaining his actions, the wedding and events planner said he had put his 'head in the sand' 'Both applicants are young people and have been kept out of their share of the estate for almost three years and over two years since the principal asset was sold,' he said. 'With some hesitation, I reject the submission that he has never been in contempt of the order. 'I find therefore that he remained in contempt of the order until October 6, 2022.' He added: 'Although he has complied with the order to the extent he has not incriminated himself, he remains in breach of his obligations to distribute their share to the claimants. 'The purpose of the original order was ultimately to ensure compliance with that obligation.' The judge said he may have considered suspending Mr Tottons sentence if he thought it might encourage him to give his niece and nephew their inheritance. But he said Mr Tottons lawyers had not suggested a suspended sentence on the basis he 'intended to comply with his obligations' was appropriate. He ordered that Mr Totton surrender to begin his sentence on Monday morning and to pay his niece and nephews 18,000 legal bills. Speaking at a hearing last month, when he was brought to court after being arrested, Mr Totton said: 'I put my head in the sand. 'I was relieved when the police turned up to get the matter resolved. 'I apologise to the court, there are no excuses.' The siblings barrister, Ms Adams, said they would have to consider what steps next to take in their attempt to get their inheritance. University and college staff have been told to stop calling older people 'OAPs' and 'pensioners' for fear of being 'ageist'. Officials at institutions including the University of Manchester have ordered staff to call over-60s 'mature individuals', 'older people' or simply 'learners.' The demand comes as part of the latest raft of 'inclusive language' rolled out to education establishments that also warns people not to use terms like 'diabetic' or 'blind.' Instead, they should use 'person with diabetes' or 'people with visual impairments.' Dozens of universities and schools have adopted inclusive language guidelines for students and staff to follow. At the University of Manchester, age is part of its inclusive language guide. It says: 'Only include age if it is relevant, for example, with initiatives that are only available for a particular age group. The University of Manchester (pictured) was one of a number of institutions to publish new inclusive language guidelines Students and staff at the University of Manchester were warned not to use terms like 'pensioner' or 'OAP' 'Don't use age as a means to describe an individual or group where it is not relevant, such as 'mature workforce' or 'young and vibrant team'. 'We actively avoid ageist terms such as 'elderly', 'OAPs', 'pensioners' or 'youngsters', instead using terms that are objective.' It says students should use child, teenager, young people, adults, older people and terms like over 65s. At Milton Keynes College, such terms are also discouraged. Its Inclusive Language Guide says: 'Language is a powerful tool for creating a welcoming and inclusive environment, however we all know how it feels when words make us feel left out or devalued. 'As part of MK College Group's diversity and inclusion journey, we have produced this guide to avoid inadvertently making people feel excluded or offended. 'Discrimination through language, whether intended or not, causes offence, patronises and may also be unlawful.' Speaking about age, it went on: 'Only refer to someone's age if it is relevant, for example where courses or funding are only available for a particular age group. Milton Keynes College (pictued) also published guidelines which said age-related phrases like 'young and vibrant team' should not be used as they could 'cause offence' (Stock Photo) The Free Speech Union said it was 'patronising' to assume the elderly would be offended by being called pensioners 'We do not use age as a means to describe an individual or group where it is not relevant, such as "mature workforce" or "young and vibrant team". 'In these cases, it is appropriate to say "experienced workforce" or "effective and vibrant team". 'We actively avoid ageist terms such as "elderly", "OAPs", "pensioners" or "youngsters". 'Use terms that are objective, such as "child" when referring to ages 4-12 years or "young people" or "young adults" for those aged from 13-18 years old.' The college said forbidden words included 'kids', 'youngsters' and 'guys' and asked people to use the term 'older people' instead of the elderly, OAPs or pensioners. The same guide also told students to be careful how they spoke to those with a disability. It said 'diabetic' or 'suffers with diabetes' should be avoided in favour of 'person with diabetes' while disabled car park should be changed to accessible car park and those with seizures should never be described as having 'fits', 'spells' or 'attacks.' Meanwhile a person with dyslexia should never be referred to as dyslexic. And the University of Greenwich has also issued advice on speaking to older people. It said 'inclusive language should be reflective and welcoming to our multigenerational colleagues,' and asked people not to use 'elderly' or 'old' and instead replace the phrases with 'mature individual.' The guides were slammed by free speech campaigners. A spokesman for the Free Speech Union said: 'It's one thing for universities to protect snowflakes from hearing certain words - they might be "triggered" and feel 'unsafe'. 'But it's deeply patronising to offer the same protections to old people. In my experience, most OAPs are tough as nails and the last thing they're worried about is hurt feelings.' A spokesman for the University of Manchester said: 'Our guidance document encourages the use of more inclusive language to avoid bias or assumptions and not to talk to people in ways they might perceive as disrespectful. 'This is in line with our values and commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. 'We believe it is entirely right for us to communicate with people in the most appropriate and respectful way we can. 'Our approach is in line with most other organisations, who would not use 'OAP' in an official communication.' The University of Greenwich added: 'The Inclusive Language Guidance is not designed to tell people what to do, rather it is to be of assistance when writing. 'Language is always evolving and the University of Greenwich welcomes any move towards being more inclusive.' MK College was contacted for comment. The Duchess of Sussex said she was grateful for the work as she tried to break through as an actress and 'pay the bills' - but disliked 'how it made me feel, which was not smart' because 'I didn't like feeling forced to be all looks'. Speaking on her new Archetypes podcast with Paris Hilton, called 'Breaking Down the Bimbo', Meghan said that she wants her own daughter Lilibet to be valued first for her brain - rather than her beauty. The Duchess, who appeared in 34 episodes of Deal or No Deal (main picture and left) between 2006 and 2007, said: 'I want our daughter to aspire to be slightly higher. Yeah, I want my Lili to want to be educated and want to be smart and to pride herself on those things'. Meghan appeared on season two of NBC's Deal or No Deal 16 years ago. She first stood beside briefcase number 11 for two episodes, then moved to number 24. She left the show midway through the season. She said: 'I ended up quitting the show. I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage. I didn't like feeling forced to be all looks. And little substance. And that's how it felt for me at the time being reduced to this specific archetype the word bimbo'. The California-based royal revealed that she and the other women on the show were forced to 'line up' for various beauty treatments including 'padding in your bra', to attach fake eyelashes and 'put in' hair extensions. She said: 'We were even given spray-tan vouchers each week because there was a very cookie cutter idea, of precisely what we should look like. It was solely about our beauty'. She said that a woman 'in charge' of the show would tell Meghan to 'suck it in' before filming began, presumably an order to suck in her stomach on camera. A schoolboy is lucky to be alive after being almost mauled to death in a terrifying cougar attack - that left him needing 200 staples to stitch his scalp and neck back together. Cason Feuser was playing by the Bishop River near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada, when the giant cat attacked him from behind - with surgeons saying the animal's bite missed his major artery by millimeters. The eight-year-old was one of six children under the supervision of a close family friend who had taken him, his two sisters, her own son and two nieces camping for the long weekend. The vicious animal was so large compared to the boy that when it bit down on his skull, his whole head was almost in the beast's mouth - who then shook him in an attempt to break his neck. It is believed Cason had only survived because the family's quick-thinking friend Alishea Morrison, 40, grabbed a large rock and dropped it on the cougar's head - scaring it enough to let go of the boy and flee. Cason's parents were an eight-hour drive away in Dawson Creek where his father was working when they got the heart-stopping call that he had been attacked by the big cat on July 31. Parents Chay and Corey Feuser, both 37, jumped on a plane to get to their son who was airlifted to hospital for emergency life-saving surgery. Cason Feuser, eight, was mauled by a cougar in Canadian wilderness and was only saved by the courageous quick-thinking of a family friend Cason was playing by the Bishop River near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada, when the giant cat attacked him from behind on July 31 He suffered a broken jaw and severe puncture wounds on his head, face and neck, but miraculously Cason made a full recovery Mother Chay Feuser (pictured with Cason) and husband Corey, both 37, jumped on a plane to get to their son who was airlifted to hospital for emergency life-saving surgery A cougar came out of the wilderness to attack Cason from behind and clamp its jaws around his head and neck (stock photo) Despite suffering a broken jaw and severe puncture wounds on his head, face and neck, Chay says Cason made a 'miraculous' full recovery. The mum of three has now shared horrifying photos of her son's injuries to warn other campers to be wary and alert of large wildlife. Alishea, who is a nurse, said: 'I was sitting around in the morning watching the kids playing at the river trying to collect frogs when my son Morgan - a friend of Cason - turned around to ask Cason how he was doing and started to scream. 'Then Cason's sister Addisyn looked back and screamed 'cougar' and that's when I jumped up and came around behind Cason and the cougar and I saw Cason within the cougar's jaws. 'The cougar tried to pull him up towards the camp site as all the kids were running towards the trailer. 'I looked at the cougar and reacted how any mum would and I grabbed a rock and hit the cougar in the head - it took off towards the camper and then my dog Jersey chased it away from the kids. 'I picked Cason up and ran with him into the trailer, wrapped his head and neck with a towel and had to have my niece help hold pressure for a couple of seconds while I was trying to get my cell phone out where I could get service. 'The ambulance came 26 minutes after I called 911 and the whole time I was very fearful that Cason was going to die from his injuries as they were quite significant.' Alishea had taken a photo of her coffee and the idyllic riverside scene where the children were playing just minutes before the cougar attacked Cason and she jumped into action to save him. Chay, from Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada, said: 'I think in that moment if she didn't have the dogs with her, the cougar would've attacked her. 'But the dogs realized what was going on and they shot out after it and chased it off into the woods. Cason was airlifted to Stollery Children's Hospital, in Edmonton, Alberta, where he underwent a three-hour operation to close the wounds on his head and neck Doctors said that it was a 'miracle' Cason survived the attack as the cougar's bite missed his airway and the major artery in his neck by millimeters Alishea had taken a photo of her coffee and the idyllic riverside scene where the children were playing just minutes before the cougar attacked Cason and she jumped into action to save him 'She saw the cougar jolt Cason to try and break his neck so she was sure if she had been a second longer the cougar would've been on its way into the woods with him. 'Then she scooped Cason up and started running back to the trailer. She went into survival mode to stop the bleeding and call 911. 'She said there was a moment where she thought he was going to die in her arms because there was so much blood loss.' The schoolboy was then airlifted to Stollery Children's Hospital, in Edmonton, Alberta, where he would undergo a three-hour operation to close the wounds on his head and neck. Meanwhile his parents took an emergency one-hour flight and made it to the hospital just in time to see him before surgery. Doctors informed the parents that it was a 'miracle' Cason survived the attack as the cougar's bite missed his airway and the major artery in his neck by millimetres. He then spent just two nights in hospital before being sent home to continue his recovery away from the increased risk of infection. Chay said: 'I was up in Dawson and my friend was calling me so I answered and she just said 'Cason got attacked by a cougar and you need to get here now'. 'She's the one who I call when things aren't okay because she's a nurse and just knows what to do in those situations and to hear her not okay just instantly sent me into a panic. 'We literally left everything and went to Dawson airport where the plane met us and flew us to Edmonton. 'I was lucky I had phone service and a doctor keeping in contact with me and giving me a play by play of the testing they were doing. 'He just kept saying it was a miracle - his airway was missed by one millimetre, his jugular [vein] got missed and his skull wasn't cracked. 'That kept me from absolutely losing my mind knowing that they were doing all these tests and they were coming back good. 'They had him all prepped for surgery and I was just praying I could get there in time to say goodbye before he went into surgery. Cason spent just two nights in hospital before being sent home to continue his recovery away from the increased risk of infection Cason only survived because the family's quick-thinking friend Alishea Morrison, 40, (left) grabbed a large rock and dropped it on the cougar's head - scaring it enough to let go of the boy and flee 'Finally we got there and we did make it to see him before he got whisked off into surgery for three and a half hours. 'When I saw him he wasn't in great shape but he was alert and he was all wrapped and bandaged up with a gauze from his head to his chin. 'He said 'can you show me a picture of what got me?' and I looked at the nurse and she said 'I have my phone on me, we can show him'. 'She googled a picture of a cougar and showed him and he was like 'I thought it was the dog' because he just remembered a big white paw and my friend has a big white dog.' Cason is continuing to heal well from the attack with the help of massage and silicone wrap treatments on his scars, the worst of which goes from ear to ear under his chin. Chay now hopes to warn other campers to be extra aware of their surroundings and have a plan of action ready in case they encounter a cougar. Chay said: 'Cason is wonderful, he's healing fine and he's mentally fine, everything is such a miracle with him. 'Everyone's aware of cougars but in busy areas like that where there's not a lot of big trees Alishea thought she was safe. 'If she would've been any further away it would've been a different story. She had a gun in the trailer but there was no time. 'Anyone camping in the wild needs to be ultra aware and stay close to those kiddos.' It is believed that the cougar was subsequently tracked down and euthanized the cougar not far from where the attack took place. Alberta Fish and Wildlife were contacted for comment. An undated photo released on Oct. 10 by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows a military drill involving long-range artillery units of the North's Korean People's Army. EPA-Yonhap Conservatives call for abolishing 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military pact By Nam Hyun-woo North Korea's recent missile launches are widely viewed as a prelude to a seventh nuclear test and South Korea is exploring various response measures to deal with additional provocations. One of the measures being mentioned is scrapping the 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military agreement which calls on the two Koreas to cease "hostile activities" against each other, including military exercises near the inter-Korean border. Conservatives are urging Seoul to consider pulling out of the agreement, which they claim restrains South Korea's defense capabilities by limiting military exercises and reconnaissance activities. "We should declare the scrapping of the military agreement if North Korea carries out a seventh nuclear weapon test," Ruling People Power Party (PPP) interim leader Rep. Chung Jin-suk wrote on Facebook on Friday, a day after the North deployed 12 military aircraft for an air strike drill. "If we destroy the pact, our military's flight boundaries and firing exercise zones in the East and West seas will expand, bolstering our capabilities in surveilling North Korea and deterrence firepower," Chung added. The South Korean government has been maintaining a prudent stance so far towards the pact, but did not rule out the possibility of abolishing it. President Yoon Suk-yeol told reporters on Friday that "it is difficult to comment (anything about whether the military agreement will be discarded) preemptively," and added that "the three countries (referring to South Korea, the U.S. and Japan) are preparing responses through various channels." Unification Minister Kwon Young-se also said during a National Assembly audit on Friday, "There is a need to review various options" in the worst-case scenario. However, he added that it is a blanket statement, and the government is not preparing to abolish the agreement now. Kwon also said that Yoon has mentioned the need to "review it (scrapping the agreement) if the North stages a tremendous provocation or if we cannot maintain the agreement." Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup was even more hawkish about the agreement. During a National Assembly audit on the ministry, Tuesday, Lee said, "If the North does not comply with the agreement, it is inappropriate for us to keep it." He added, "The ministry will review the effectiveness of the agreement reflecting the level of North Korea's provocations." South Korean Minister of National Defense, Song Young-moo, front row left, and his North Korean counterpart, No Kwang-chol, front row right, show the comprehensive inter-Korean military agreement signed in Pyongyang on Sept. 19, 2018. Behind them are then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Joint Press Corps The agreement, signed during the previous liberal Moon Jae-in administration, is aimed at setting aerial and naval buffer zones in addition to the existing Demilitarized Zone in the inter-Korean border area. In the zones, the two Koreas agreed not to conduct large-scale field exercises or artillery firing drills. Although the conservative Yoon administration is taking a hawkish stance on North Korea, it has not disavowed the effectiveness of the agreement in preventing accidental skirmishes involving conventional weapons. So far, the South Korean military views that North Korea violated the agreement in 2019 and 2020, despite the fact that some conservatives claim that several other inter-Korean incidents could be seen as violations. However, the North's recent missile launches have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the agreement. Since Sept. 25, the North has fired 12 missiles in seven separate rounds. The North Korean regime claimed the launches were "tactical nuclear drills." Last month, Pyongyang legalized its use of nuclear weapons and authorized preemptive strikes if an imminent attack by weapons of mass destruction or against its "strategic targets," including its leadership, is detected. Amid these escalating threats, experts said that the destruction of the agreement could add pressure to Pyongyang, which is lagging in terms of conventional forces. However, such pressure will ultimately do no good for Seoul, as it does not seek any sort of military confrontation. "With North Korea proclaiming its nuclear armament and missile launches, the very foundation of the military agreement has been impaired," said PPP Rep. Tae Yong-ho, who is a former North Korean diplomat. "The North is not abiding by the agreement, but it is not admitting this. If the Yoon government preemptively announces the destruction of the pact, North Korea will use it as a propaganda tool," he said, adding that "Seoul should also consider a similar tactic, such as announcing that we may resume loudspeaker broadcasts in the border area, which North Korea detests." In this undated photo released on Oct. 10 by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a missile is fired from a transporter erector launcher. Yonhap Nukes on South Korean soil? Some politicians and scholars are saying that South Korea should consider deploying nuclear weapons to counter North Korea's growing threats. "As long as South Korea gives up its nuclear options, the North will have confidence over the South and keep increasing the level of threats," said Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute. "The South Korean government should explain the inevitable necessity of deploying nuclear weapons on its soil to the U.S. through summits or high-level talks, and persuade the U.S. that Seoul's nuclear armament also serves Washington's interests." Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo of the PPP wrote on Facebook on Oct. 5 that "it is time for the government to thoroughly review the nuclear strategy toward the North" and that national security should be achieved through a "military balance." Former Rep. Yoo Seong-min, also of the PPP, said that South Korea should begin negotiations on sharing nuclear weapons or deploying tactical nuclear weapons with the Joe Biden administration. However, chances are slim that these calls will gain momentum. Reportedly, the presidential office sees a high possibility of the current tensions surrounding the Northeast Asian region spilling over into an actual crisis, and has taken the stance that South Korea is unable to give up its endorsement of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for the sake of permanent peace and the impact such a decision would have on Seoul's economy and diplomacy. When questioned about deploying nuclear weapons here, Yoon told reporters Tuesday, "As the president, it is not a matter that I can speak publicly about," adding that he is listening to various opinions in South Korea and in the U.S. Regarding the opposition bloc's criticism of Yoon's policy of strengthening security cooperation with Japan being likely to contribute to the revival of the Cold War on the peninsula, he said, "No concerns can be justified before nuclear threats." It comes after Mew shared explicit picture in a short skirt on Instagram last year But parents of children who have used the charity complained to the watchdog Parents of children who used transgender charity Mermaids have complained to the watchdog after an employee reportedly posted explicit pictures and sexualised images 'as a schoolgirl' online. Darren Mew, until recently a digital engagement officer at the charity and who identifies as 'they/them', shared a picture of themself on Instagram showing an upward view through a short skirt they were wearing. The image, with a hashtag of 'nonbinaryfinery', was captioned: 'Sorry I cant hear you. Im just out here living my fantasy.' The picture of the short skirt was shared on Instagram when their account was public in February last year. It has since been turned private. Mew also featured in a collection of pictures for LGBT outlet Haus Magazine in which they are naked, holding their erect penis, with pairs of breasts that have further penises protruding from them. Haus Magazine tweeted the picture in June 2020, saying: 'Darren Mew by Giulio Di Ghonno for Haus Issue 3: Sex Issue. Full XXX Collage Series available in the issue online.' It comes as the charity says it will close its helpline tomorrow amid 'unacceptable abuse' aimed at its staff. A parent whose daughter once used Mermaids has complained to the Charity Commission citing serious concerns over Mew after she became aware of the explicit pictures, The Times reports. Calling for an investigation, she told the watchdog that Mew is 'seemingly hairless like a young boy the graphic clearly presents the imagery of amputated breasts. Darren Mew became digital engagement officer at the charity in September last year. He posted explicit pictures and sexualised images 'as a schoolgirl' online The complaint added: 'In another Darren wears a Hentai style schoolgirl skirt and adopts a provocative pose and appears to be broadcasting sexualised little girl vibes.' Mew, meanwhile, is self-described as an 'experienced digital media specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the creative industry' on his LinkedIn page. It says Mew worked as a digital engagement officer at Mermaids and a social media officer at the London Queer Fashion Show. Until recently, a staff profile on the Mermaids website also read: 'Darren joined Mermaids in 2021. 'They have many years of experience working in the LGBT+ and charity sectors, and believe in the power of community and bringing people together. 'When they arent working, youll often find them reading magazines, watching videos or at a drag show.' Mew was nominated for a positive role model award at the National Diversity Awards in 2020. The complaint to the charity watchdog comes after a string of recent controversies involving Mermaids. The charity is being investigated following revelations that one of its staff had agreed to send a breast binder to an undercover journalist posing as a teenage girl. It has also attracted additional scrutiny following its legal attempt to remove the charity status of the LGB Alliance - a charity set up to uphold gay, lesbian and bisexual rights. Scores of gender critical activists have criticised its practices, while author JK Rowling openly challenged Mermaids on Twitter. Last week it was also revealed that one of Mermaids trustees, Jacob Breslow, had spoken at a conference for B4U-ACT, a group assisting 'self-identified individuals... who are are sexually attracted to children'. Mew describes themself as an 'experienced digital media specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the creative industry' In a subsequent statement, Dr Breslow said : 'I unequivocally condemn child sexual abuse. My work is about protecting marginalised children and young people, not exposing them to harm. 'I believed at the time that the purpose of the conference was to enable better treatments and interventions that prevent harm to children. I have not been affiliated with B4U-ACT since. 'I decided to resign as a Trustee of Mermaids as I did not want to distract from the good work the charity is doing to help transgender and gender diverse children.' Mermaids has insisted it is the victim of a 'smear campaign', adding that it has been forced to close its contact centre after being bombarded with abuse. A spokesperson for the charity said: 'Mermaids would like to update our service users and allies in light of recent events. Firstly, we have regrettably continued to receive a high volume of distressing, and in some cases threatening, calls, emails and web chat contacts as a result of some of the recent coverage. 'We must protect our staff from this unacceptable abuse, and therefore we will be closing the helpline service tomorrow (Wednesday) in order to give them respite. 'We will be resuming a normal service as soon as we can, but we are operating in a particularly challenging environment at present and there may be further interruptions to our usual service. 'We are taking all possible steps in response, including referring all contacts of a criminal nature to the police. 'Secondly, The Times newspaper published an article today about a former member of staff. While we can confirm that the person referred to no longer works for the charity, we are unable to comment further due to the need to maintain confidentiality. 'We note claims in the paper that an anonymous person has made a complaint to the Charity Commission but have not been informed about it directly and so are not aware of its precise nature. Should the Charity Commission have any questions for us then we will of course answer them. 'We must apologise for the need to write again with news of this nature but remain enormously grateful for your support as we navigate this challenging period.' In the aftermath of attack, Surovikin's name was at the top of the list of suspects likely to have ordered the brutal strikes which bore all his hallmarks His appointment came hours after the blast on the Crimea bridge to Russia Russia's devastating airstrikes across Ukraine on Monday had all the hallmarks of General Sergei Surovikin, the notoriously brutal commander who has now taken charge of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Known as General Armageddon, Surovikin oversaw the destruction of Aleppo, having previously fought in the 1990s conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya. Surovikin, 55, was appointed on Saturday, after Moscow's forces were pushed back by Kyiv in recent weeks in a series of embarrassing setbacks, and hours after the blast on the Kerch Bridge joining Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland. The Russian defence ministry said General Surovikin had been appointed 'commander of the Joint Grouping of Forces in the areas of the special military operation', using the Kremlin's term for Putin's on-going invasion. As revenge for the bridge explosion, Russia on Monday unleashed 83 missiles at what it claimed were military, energy and communications networks in Ukraine. Kyiv said the missiles actually hit power plants and busy civilian areas in major cities, killing at least 11 and wounding scores more. It was Russia's largest single barrage since the opening day of the war. In the aftermath of attack, Surovikin's name was at the top of the list of suspects likely to have ordered the brutal strikes which bore all his hallmarks. General Sergei Surovikin (pictured) was on Saturday appointed as Russia's new general to lead the Ukraine offensive after Moscow suffered a series of military setbacks that triggered criticism of the army's leadership His appointment came days before Russia unleashed 83 missiles at what it claimed were military, energy and communications networks in Ukraine. Kyiv said the missiles actually hit power plants and busy civilian areas in major cities, killing at least 11 and wounding more. Pictured: A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Monday The general was born in 1966 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. In the 1980s, he served in the Soviet Union's doomed war in Afghanistan. He has twice been in jail after soldiers under his command killed demonstrators in Moscow during the August 1991 coup that preceded the end of the Soviet Union and its repression. A tank division under his command broke through a line of protesters in central Moscow, crushing three people to death. He spent several months in prison, and was later released without trial when officials ruled he was following orders. In 1995, he received a sentence later overturned for illegal arms trade. Commanding troops in Chechnya he was remembered for stating his intent to kill three insurgents for each of his soldiers who they killed. He also commanded Putin's troops in Syria culminating in his award of the Kremlin's highest medal - Hero of Russia. Most notably, he oversaw the 2016 destruction of Aleppo, when Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime retook the city with the support of Russian airstrikes. Human rights groups have accused him of being complicit in the indiscriminate bombing, using barrel bombs, and of overseeing chemical weapon attacks. More than 600 civilians were killed in what is considered one of the most brutal events of the Syrian civil war, including dozens of children. Surovikin's command of Vladimir Putin's troops in Syria culminating in his award of the Kremlin's highest medal - Hero of Russia. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, applauds Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin during an awards ceremony for troops who fought in Syria. Picture taken in in Moscow, December 2017 Known as General Armageddon, Surovikin oversaw the destruction of Aleppo (pictured in 2016), having previously fought in the 1990s conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya Until being appointed on Saturday, Surovikin led the 'South' forces in Ukraine, according to a defence ministry report in July. Experts have suggested he was appointed by Putin to take total command in Ukraine because of his ruthlessness. Practically, however, some analysts have said he has been in command for some time, and question what difference his appointment will have on the war itself. While he has typically commanded infantry, he has also commanded Russian air force. This could be another reason behind Putin's appointment, as Russia's army, air force and navy have been disjointed so far in the war in Ukraine. 'Surovikin knows how to fight with bombers and missiles - that's what he does,' General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, said in June. Speaking to Sky News, Military analyst Forbes McKenzie, head of McKenzie Intelligence, said Surovikin's reputation the reason for his appointment. 'He's seen as a hero of the former Soviet Republic,' he said. 'He has shown his ability to wage a war that involves nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the last of which he used in Syria.' In recent weeks, the Kremlin has been sabre rattling over the use of nuclear weapons. McKenzie said now, Putin needs commanders who would be able to carry out such attacks. 'This is a man who has used chemical weapons in recent history, so that demonstrates capability,' he said. On Saturday, Britain's MoD released its assessment of Surovikin's appointment. 'For much of its operation, Russia has likely lacked a single empowered field commander. General Alexandr Dvornikov likely held the role for a period between April and August 2022, but it is unclear whether he was able to effectively exercise control over the often disparate and competing groupings of forces,' the MoD said. 'Surovikin's appointment likely reflects an effort by the Russian national security community to improve the delivery of the operation. However, he will likely have to contest with an increasingly factional Russian MOD which is poorly resourced to achieve the political objectives it has been set in Ukraine.' Human rights groups have accused Surovikin of being complicit in the indiscriminate bombing, using barrel bombs , and of overseeing chemical weapon attacks. More than 600 civilians were killed in what is considered one of the most brutal events of the Syrian civil war, including dozens of children. Pictured: Citizens evacuate Aleppo, December 2016 Surovikin was appointed to the new position just hours after the blast on the Kerch Bridge joining Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland. The attack (pictured) was a major embarrassment for Putin, who retaliated with missile strokes across Ukraine on Monday On Saturday, Britain's MoD released its assessment of Surovikin's appointment (pictured) Meanwhile, Surovikin's appointment has pleased Russian hardliners who were growing increasingly frustrated with Putin and the progress of the war in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group mercenary group, said 'Surovikin is the most competent commander in the Russian army', according to The Times. 'He is the same officer who without hesitation, having received an order, got into a tank and rushed to save his country,' Prigozhin said, in relation to his crackdown on demonstrators in Moscow that landed him in jail. Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin leader of Chechnya, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine was now in 'reliable hands' thanks to Putin's appointment of Surovikin. The name of his predecessor has never been officially revealed, but some Russian media said it was General Alexander Dvornikov - also a general of the Second Chechen War and Russian commander in Syria. The decision - unusually made public by Moscow - comes after a series of crushing defeats suffered by the Russian army in Ukraine. Russian forces were driven out of much of the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September by a Ukrainian counter-offensive that allowed Kyiv to retake thousands of square kilometres of territory. Russian troops also lost territory in the southern Kherson region as well as the Lyman transport hub in eastern Ukraine. The setbacks led to growing criticism of the military leadership, including from the elite. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called for the firing of a top general last week, while a senior lawmaker - Andrei Kartapolov - urged military officials to stop 'lying' about the situation on the battlefield. A corporate head-hunter has been banned from driving and hit with a 2,000 legal bill after she failed a breath test while on a boozy 2am drive to buy an 89p McDonald's hamburger. Claire Lyon, 51, was detained by police during a routine traffic stop after she forgot to switch on the headlights of her loan car. The business executive who earns 61,000 a year as a senior talent acquisition partner at a data analytics company, gave a positive breath sample at the roadside but declined to take a further test at the police station declaring: 'No, I would like to go to court.' Last month's incident occurred after Lyon had guzzled two glasses of wine during a night in with friends. She was about to return home to her country cottage from Pickmere, near Knutsford, Cheshire, when she was asked by a friend to take her to an all-night burger bar. At Chester Magistrates' Court Lyon admitted failing to provide a specimen of breath and was disqualified from driving for 20 months. She was also fined 1,383 with 673 in costs and a victim surcharge. Lyon, who earns 61,000 a year as a senior talent acquisition partner, refused to give a sample of breath at a police station after getting a positive result at the roadside. She is pictured arriving at Chester Magistrates' Court today Claire Lyon was detained by police during a routine traffic stop after she forgot to switch on the headlights of her car during a 2am trip to McDonald's. She is pictured during a night out Alan Currums, prosecuting, said she had been stopped by police in Middlewich at 1.45am on September 18. 'The police officer was on mobile patrol when he became aware of a Ford vehicle which had no headlights illuminated. For that reason, he required it to stop. When speaking to the driver, the defendant, he said she appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. 'She accepted that she had had two glasses of wine. A sample of breath at the roadside proved positive and she was arrested and taken to the custody suite where the drink-drive procedure was commenced.' Mr Currums said that when at the station, Lyon refused to give a sample of breath despite being warned it would lead to a court appearance and a charge of failing to provide a specimen for analysis. 'She was asked again if she would give a sample, and she said, "No, I would like to go to court",' the prosecutor said. 'She was asked, "What about the consequences?" again she said "no". She was asked if there was a medical reason to not give a sample, and she said "no comment".' In mitigation defence lawyer Michael McEwan said his client was the main carer for her two elderly parents who had moved back to the UK from Ireland during the pandemic. One of her parents is blind and the other has Alzheimer's, Mr McEwan said, and they lived with her for eight months until she found them their own accommodation close to a residential home where she visits them every day to look after them. 'This matter is going to make that virtually impossible for her to do now,' he said, 'She has a sister in Lanzarote and a brother in Birmingham and she is the only carer. 'On the day in question she was at work all day and then had gone to look after her parents. Her friend then turned up and then another friend called and invited her to a gathering around their fire pit. She had two glasses of wine and was making her way home when her friend asked her to go to McDonald's. The 51-year-old was offered a chance to reduce her ban by completing a drink-drive awareness course 'It was not her normal car. She had sold her own vehicle and in the car she was using, the lights did not come on automatically. By the time she realised the lights were not on, it was too late and the police officer pulled up alongside her. 'She was in sheer panic at the police station over what was going to happen to her parents. She phoned her sister and everything was getting on top of her with her job and caring for her parents. It was getting too much and she was getting limited assistance. 'It was 2am, she did not know what she was doing. The officer was trying to get a sample and she just basically shut down. 'She is still working full-time and caring for two people on her own, full-time. She is in a position where to consider putting a further burden on her would be too much. A financial penalty is something that you can fall back on.' Telling the court that she takes home 830 per week from her job, the solicitor added: 'You are dealing with a woman with no previous convictions and is caring for two elderly parents.' Lyon, of previous good character, was offered a chance to reduce her ban by completing a drink-drive awareness course. Migrants from Nigeria may face a clampdown under Home Secretary Suella Braverman's plans to cut net migration as it emerged that citizens from the west African country are bringing the highest number of relatives to the UK. Nigerians accounted for 40% of all dependants who accompanied foreign students in the 12 months to June - despite Nigerian students making up just 7% of all foreign students in that period, according to Home Office figures. Some 34,000 Nigerians were given study visas in the UK, bringing with them a total of 31,898 dependants. A similar ratio was recorded for work visas, with 8,972 Nigerians issued with one in the 12 months to June bringing with them 8,576 dependants. By comparison, 114,837 Chinese students who came to the UK last year brought with them a total of 401 dependants - while 93,049 Indian students came to Britain with 24,916 dependants, the figures show. Some 34,000 Nigerians were given study visas in the UK, bringing with them a total of 31,898 dependants. By comparison, 114,837 Chinese students who came to the UK last year brought with them 401 dependants - while 93,049 Indian students came with 24,916 dependants Home Secretary Suella Braverman arriving to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting MailOnline has contacted the Home Office for further information about the numbers. Miss Braverman and Cabinet Office minister Nadhim Zahawi are considering imposing a cap on the number of children that foreign students can bring in a bid to cut unskilled migration. However, the Home Secretary's moves appear to have split the Cabinet and seem to be at odds with public opinion - with a survey carried out by Ipsos Mori finding that only 29% of Conservative voters support a reduction in student immigration. The polling also found that the public remains divided over the Government's controversial policy to send migrants to Rwanda, with 21% strongly opposed and 21% strongly supportive. Dependants can work without the same level of criteria that other migrants must meet. In August it emerged that Nigerian students have become the third largest foreign student group in the UK, following in the footsteps of India and China - after a seismic 686% increase since before the pandemic. Home Office figures reveal 65,929 Nigerian nationals were granted a sponsored study visa in the year ending June 2022 - a rise of 57,545 (686% ) compared to 2019, when 8,384 were given. Home Office figures reveal 65,929 Nigerian nationals were granted a sponsored study visa in the year ending to June 2022. This is a rise of 57,545 (686%) compared to 2019 Overall, international student numbers have risen by 71% over that period, with 486,868 student visas granted to main applicants and their dependents in the year up to June - 202,147 more than 2019. A Home Office spokesman said: '[This] is the highest on record in our time series, with the substantial increase representing both a recovery from lower numbers during the Covid-19 pandemic but also an increase on the pre-pandemic period.' There were 117,965 grants to Indian nationals this year, an increase of 215% compared to 2019. Chinese nationals were the second most common nationality with 115,056 visas granted, albeit 4% lower than 2019. Non-Russell group universities now make up 56% of all CAS used in study visa applications. This is the highest proportion of Non-Russell group CAS seen since the Sponsorship time series began in 2010. The head of student processing group Ucas has said more students from Nigeria, Ghana and Vietnam should be recruited, amid a row about international admissions - with accusations that some universities are seeking to benefit from the higher fees overseas students pay. Advertisement A nurse charged with murdering seven babies was found with a premature child moments after administering a fatal injection of air in the same room where she had poisoned and killed another newborn just six days earlier, a court heard today. Lucy Letby was stood next to the cot of Baby C, who was just five days old and weighed 2lbs, when his monitor alarm went off and she told the colleague who rushed in: 'He's going, he's going'. Baby C died because the air injected into his stomach made him unable to breath and he suffered a cardiac arrest, Nick Johnson KC, told the jury on the second day of her trial at Manchester Crown Court. Letby allegedly killed him just six days after murdering for the first time, when she killed another boy, Baby A, and days later attacked his twin sister, Baby B, while working at the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. A third child, Baby D was murdered eight days after Baby C, making it three fatal poisonings in around 13 days, the jury was told. Experts believe all three died after air was injected into their bloodstream and the ICU nurse was later questioned by police over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook - often hours after their children had died. Lucy Letby texted nurse to say she wanted to be in the room with a baby she later killed - 'for her own wellbeing', court hears Lucy Letby texted a colleague saying she wanted to be in the room with Baby C - for her own wellbeing - before she murdered the newborn, the court heard today. She was the only person in the room when Child C suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed, but was meant to be caring for a different child elsewhere. An alarm went off an she was found next to the premature child's cot. Letby told the nurse who ran in: 'He's going', the court heard. Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier. 'But the shift leader had put her in room three. So she didn't like it.' Senior medics failed to resuscitate Baby C and he was pronounced dead at 5.58am on June 14. Advertisement Letby denies murdering seven premature babies - and trying to kill ten more - by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies. Baby C, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been born prematurely at 30 weeks on June 10, 2015, but despite going into intensive care he was in a good condition. On the night of June 14 Baby C's assigned nurse briefly left the room to go to the nursing station, she heard his alarm go off, so rushed back. Mr Johnson said: 'When she went back into room one, there was Lucy Letby, standing next to Child C's cot', adding that Letby had 'no business' to be there and had been told repeatedly she was caring for another, more poorly baby, in another room on that shift. He told the jury: 'Again, taking a step back, you can now see there was a pattern emerging. 'Lucy Letby was the only person working on the night shift when Baby C died who had also been working on either of the shifts when Baby A died and his twin sister Baby B collapsed. 'What we are going to see, as we progress, is that Lucy Letby's method of attacking the babies in the neo-natal unit was beginning to develop. 'She had injected air into the bloodstream of the first twins, Baby A and B, and varied this approach by injecting air into Baby C's stomach via the nasogastric tube.' Mr Johnson said an independent pathologist - when reviewing the case - concluded Child C died because his breathing became compromised and he suffered a cardiac arrest. The prosecutor told jurors: 'If you are trying to murder a child in a neo-natal unit, it is a fairly effective way of doing it. It doesn't really leave much trace'. He said on the afternoon of June 14, 2015 - hours after Child C died - the defendant searched on Facebook for the youngster's parents. Mr Johnson suggested from the timings that this was 'one of the first things she did when waking up' after she had earlier finished her shift at about 8am. Letby is alleged to have murdered Baby D on June 22, eight days after Baby C, the court heard. Mr Johnson said: 'The prosecution say that this was another case of injecting a child with air into the bloodstream. Three children had died and one had had a life-threatening episode in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in a two-week period. Lucy Letby was the only constant presence'. Children's nurse Lucy Letby (pictured left and right), 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital Letby's parents Susan and John Letby arrive at Manchester Crown Court this morning Full indictment against Lucy Letby Lucy Letby is charged as follows: Count 1 Charged with murder of Baby A on June 8, 2015 Count 2 Charged with attempted murder of Baby B between the June 8, 2015 and June 11, 2015 Count 3 Charged with murder of Baby C on June 14, 2015 Count 4 Charged with murder of Baby D on June 22, 2015 Count 5 Charged with murder of Baby E on August 4, 2015 Count 6 Charged with attempted murder of Baby F on August 5, 2015 Count 7 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 7, 2015 Count 8 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015 Count 9 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015 Count 10 Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 26, 2015 Count 11 Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 27, 2015 Count 12 Charged with murder of Baby I on October 23, 2015 Count 13 Charged with attempted murder of Baby J on November 27, 2015 Count 14 Charged with attempted murder of Baby K on February 17, 2015 Count 15 Charged with attempted murder of Baby L on April 9, 2016 Count 16 Charged with attempted murder of Baby M on April 9, 2016 Count 17 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 3, 2016 Count 18 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 15, 2016 Count 19 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 15, 2016 Count 20 Charged with murder of Baby O on June 23, 2016 Count 21 Charged with murder of Baby P on June 24, 2016 Count 22 Charged with attempted murder of Baby Q on June 25, 2016 Advertisement Children's nurse Lucy Letby murdered Baby C four days after his birth on June 10, 2015, a jury at Manchester Crown Court head today. The infant weighed 2lbs (800 grams) at birth and was in a good condition. However, two days later he was given a longline to help him over a period of low blood sugar and on June 13 the least intrusive breathing support known as Optiflow. Later that day nurses found traces of bile in his stomach, potentially an early sign of a gastrointestinal disorder called nectrotising entrocolitis. He was given treatment for that and his milk feeds were discontinued. By the evening he was recovering. Letby was on a night shift that day. She was meant to be the designated nurse for another baby, but despite being instructed by her shift leader to stay with him she made her way to the cot of Baby C in Nursery 1. Sophie Ellis, the nurse caring for Baby C, went briefly to the nurses' station. Whilst there she heard Baby C's monitor sound an alarm. When she e-entered Nursery 1 Letby was already standing next to the cot. Letby told her: 'He's just dropped his heart rate and saturations' or something similar. Mr Johnson told the jury 'Baby C was the third baby who had suffered a serious deterioration in a matter of a few daysand there again was Lucy Letby.' Baby C quickly recovered, but then collapsed again a short time later. As he did so, Letby said to Nurse Ellis: 'He's going'. 'She was right,' said Mr Johnson. It later emerged that Letby had texted an off-duty to say she had wanted to be in Room 1 because it would be cathartic for her would help her wellbeing, to see a living in the space previously occupied by a dead baby, Baby A'. Senior medics failed to resuscitate Baby C but he was pronounced dead at 5.58am on June 14. Dr Dewi Evans, the expert who reviewed the case, expressed concern about the cause of Baby C's sudden deterioration. In the light of the orther cases he reviewed he thought it suspicious. He als believed that the damage to his heart was the result of rather than the cause of his collapse. Dr Sandie Bohin thought the only feasible mechanism for the excessive air in the baby's gut at the time of his collapse was the deliberate injection of air into his bloodstream. Mr Johnson said: 'So it was a variation or a refinement of a theme Lucy had started with the twins Baby A and Baby B'. Letby, 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital - including one child who died less than 90 minutes after being handed into her care. The specially trained ICU nurse was described as a 'constant malevolent presence' on the Cheshire children's unit where she allegedly killed and injured many vulnerable children - including twins. She is accused of using night shifts to launch many attacks because she knew parents were unlikely to visit the neonatal ward. Several babies were allegedly poisoned with insulin and one child - known as Baby E - was murdered when Letby allegedly injected him with air, Manchester Crown Court has heard. It caused what doctors call an air embolus, which leads to strokes or heart attacks. Letby is also accused of pumping dangerous levels of milk into the premature children via feeding tubes or veins. She allegedly targeted twins on more than one occasion - and in some cases one was murdered and their sibling survived. Letby was questioned by police during interviews over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook, with prosecutors saying that this was an 'unusual interest'. Opening the prosecution, Nick Johnson KC, said: 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing was not killed the first or even second time she tried'. He added: 'Sometimes they were injected with air both intravenously [into the blood] and via the nasogastric tube [into the stomach]. Sometimes they were injected with milk or some other fluid. Sometimes it was insulin. But the constant presence was Lucy Letby'. Police discovered 'a poisoner was at work' on the NHS neonatal unit after a 'significant rise' in the number of healthy babies dying or falling ill while a nurse accused of murdering seven children and trying to kill ten more was working on the ward between June 2015 and June 2016, the jury were told on the first day of her trial. She is facing 22 charges concerning 17 babies, some of whom she allegedly attempted to murder multiple times. Letby pleaded not guilty to each charge yesterday morning. Letby (pictured) is accused of murdering seven premature babies - and trying to kill ten more - took up to three attempts to poison infants by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies, a court heard today Lucy Letby sketched in the dock at Manchester Crown Court with security where she is charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of another ten, between June 2015 and June 2016 while working on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital Letby, 32, (pictured) is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital - including one child who died less than 90 minutes after being handed into her care. The prosecution claims that a single common factor in the death and collapses was the presence of a single neonatal nurse, Lucy Letby Mr Johnson said Letby was a 'constant malevolent presence' at the 'closely restricted' neonatal unit. He added: 'It is a hospital like so many others in the UK but unlike many other hospitals in the UK, and unlike many other neo-natal units in the UK, within the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work.' The prosecutor said two babies - referred to as Baby F and Baby L for legal reasons - were 'poisoned' by Letby 'deliberately with insulin'. They were attacked allegedly eight months apart with each of them from separate sets of twins. Both boys' blood sugar 'inexplicably dropped to dangerous levels' - but both survived 'because of the skill of the staff in the neonatal unit', the court heard. He said both of the twins injected with insulin each had a baby brother, Baby E and Baby M, who were both also allegedly attacked by Letby. The court heard one of the means by which the Baby E was killed and Baby M was harmed, by having air injected into the bloodstream. Baby M had 'mercifully' survived. He said: 'Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly severely deteriorated. Sometimes babies who had been sick and then on the mend deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants found the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator. The presence of one of the neonatal nurses. That nurse was Lucy Letby.' During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths'. As the trial of Lucy Letby got underway yesterday, the court heard on day one: Letby, 32, denied murdering seven premature babies and attempting to murder 10 more Letby is alleged to have injected babies with insulin, air or pumped with milk to kill them The nurse is alleged to have killed babies during night shifts when parents were less likely to visit She is said to have searched for the families of her alleged victims families on Facebook Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC described Letby as a 'constant malevolent presence' at the neonatal unit Deaths occurred at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016 where it has been alleged that a 'poisoner was at work' Letby was arrested three years after the death of her first alleged victim on June 8, 2015 She allegedly targeted twins on more than one occasion - and in some cases one was murdered and their sibling survived In some cases, Letby is alleged to have tried to kill the same baby on more than one occasion Baby A, who was allegedly murdered, died less than 90 minutes after Letby came on night shift Mr Johnson said that 'in all cases Lucy Letby was either responsible for them as their designated nurse or she got involved with them despite not being their designated nurse'; Letby, 32, allegedly tried to kill one baby girl three times and a baby boy three times - including two attempts in one day. 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts,' said Mr Johnson. 'Although when Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts towards the end of this period the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts'. Letby poisoned babies while on the night shift because parents would not be around, court told Lucy Letby appearing in the dock at Manchester Crown Court Lucy Letby was accused of poisoning babies on the night shift. There tended to be fewer staff on the unit at night, and parents as well tended to visit mostly in the days. Mr Johnson continued: 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts. 'When upon Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts, the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts.' Mr Johnson said as medics could not account for the collapses and deaths, police were called in and conducted a 'pain-staking review'. He said: 'That review suggests that in the period between mid-2015 and the middle of 2016 somebody in the neo-natal unit poisoned two children with insulin. 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence you will hear is that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident.' Advertisement Referring to the alleged poisoning of both Baby F and Baby L, he added: 'Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned. We allege that she was the poisoner'. Mr Johnson said: 'Prior to January 2015, the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units. 'However over the next 18 months or so there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses. 'These rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause.' They were concerned that babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly, despite appropriate medical interventions that would normally have saved them. He said the collapses 'defied the normal experience of the treating doctors'. Mr Johnson said that normally babies might suffer from heart problems, infection or dehydration. 'Usually when an intervention was undertaken a positive reaction can be expected. But many of the cases you are going to hear about defied those expectations and norms', he said. Babies who were stable suddenly deteriorated, and sometimes babies who had been sick but were on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, the consultants noticed that a single common factor was the presence of a single neonatal nurse. 'That nurse' said the barrister, 'was Lucy Letby'. 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts,' said Mr Johnson. 'Although when Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts towards the end of this period the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts. 'Because of the inability of doctors to find genuine medical reasons for the deaths and collapses the police were called in'. Officers from Cheshire Constabulary commissioned a detailed review by experienced doctors with no connection to the Countess of Chester Hospital. 'That (review) suggests that from the middle of 2015 to the middle of 2016 somebody in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin. Letby is accused of attacking two sets of twins - with insulin and with air - one child, Baby E, would die but his sibling survived During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths' 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence will have been that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident'. If the prosecution was right about that, the fact that there were two deliberate poisonings would help the jury decide whether other crimes had been committed or whether they were 'just tragic coincidences'. Mr Johnson went on: 'We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 babies were not naturally occurring tragedies. 'They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things turned to the worst for these 17 children'. Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said in the case of the two babies injected with insulin, identified only as Baby F and Baby L, their blood sugar levels dropped to dangerous levels. But both survived due to the skill of medical staff who appreciated low blood sugar can have natural causes. Mr Johnson added: 'What the medical staff did not realise was that in both cases, was the result of someone poisoning them with insulin.' The prosecutor said nobody would think somebody would be trying to kill babies in a neo-natal unit. He said both of the twins injected with insulin each had a baby brother, Baby E and Baby M, who were both also allegedly attacked by Letby - one of which did not survive. The court heard one of the means by which the Baby E was killed and Baby M was harmed, was by having air injected into the bloodstream - what the doctors call an air embolus. Mr Johnson added: 'As we go through my introduction of the case, we will see that similar events repeated themselves. The means by which the children in this case were harmed and killed varied.' Prosecutor Mr Johnson said sometimes babies were injected with air and on other occasions they were fed with insulin or too much milk. He told the court: 'So varying means by which these babies were attacked but the constant presence when they were fatally attacked or collapsed catastrophically was Lucy Letby.' Jurors were shown a chart showing nurses who were present on duty when the alleged criminal incidents were said to have taken place. Pointing out, as examples, the first three alleged offences in time he said the chart showed the only person that was present on all three occasions was the defendant. Mr Johnson said: 'If you look at the table overall the picture is, we say, self-evidently obvious. It's a process of elimination.' Mr Johnson went on: 'It is a complicated case by any measures. It concerns seven allegations of murder and allegations of attempted murder of 10 other children. 'We allege that sometimes Lucy Letby tried to kill the same baby more than once. 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing she did not manage to kill the first time she tried, or even the second time, and in one case even the third time.' The children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be referred to as Baby A to Q. The trial, which is expected to last six months, continues. A Smart car driver plunged 35ft down a lift shaft after she apparently mistook an elevator for a parking spot in an underground car park. The 38-year-old driver from the German city of Stuttgart had been looking for a space when she rammed the closed door of the elevator. Then as they burst open, she fell down the shaft with her car landing upside down at around 10.30am on October 8. A car is stuck in an elevator shaft after its driver mistook it for a parking space on October 8 Firefighters work to rescue the driver of the tiny Smart car, a 38-year-old woman After she managed to free herself, the woman immediately called local firefighters for help. A Stuttgart Fire Department spokesperson said: 'The woman was able to climb out of her Smart and make an emergency call with her cell phone.' Two firefighters abseiled down and strapped the driver to a stretcher. After she received first aid, other firefighters then pulled her up to safety. The woman was rescued successfully after calling emergency services on her mobile Press and Public Relations Officer Daniel Anand said in a statement: 'After being rescued from the elevator shaft, the person was handed over to the rescue service and taken to a hospital for further treatment.' The driver later told Germany's Bild newspaper: 'I have no idea how that could have happened. Physically, I'm fine again.' Firefighters later blocked up the demolished elevator door with wood and the elevator was taken out of service. Specialists were called to bring the crashed Smart car to the surface. A swimwear model who shot dead her British millionaire ex-boyfriend in Spain has been pampering herself with beauty treatments since being released from prison - while failing to pay compensation to her victims family. Mayka Kukucova, 32, has also been keeping herself in shape with trips to a gym while enjoying glitzy nights out in fashionable nightclubs and day passes to fashionable beach clubs. MailOnline exclusively revealed last week how Kukucova had been freed from jail just eight years after she gunned down wealthy jeweller Andy Bush, 48, in a jealous rage after lying in wait for him at his luxury home on the Costa Del Sol. She left her former lovers family in a state of shock after brazenly posting social media pictures of herself, posing in bikinis and topping up her tan in selfie pictures on Spanish holiday beaches Kukucova was originally jailed for 15 and a half years for the cold-blooded murder and ordered to pay compensation of 122,000 to her former lovers daughter Ellie and 30,500 to his sister Rachel. But a prosecution lawyer confirmed today that the Slovakian killer had still not paid a penny of the compensation, despite promising in 2017 to pay 17.55 a month from her salary working in prison. Mayka Kukucova, a former swimwear model who shot dead her British millionaire ex-boyfriend in Spain, has been pampering herself with beauty treatments since being released from prison - while failing to pay compensation to her victims family. Pictured: Kukucova, 32, lapping up sunshine in luxury in Spain after being freed from jail eight years in her murder sentence Her victim millionaire businessman Andrew Bush, 48, pictured with girlfriend student Maria Korotaeva. Kukucova gunned down wealthy jeweller Bush in a jealous rage after lying in wait for him at his luxury home on the Costa Del Sol It is believed she set up home in the city of Dos Hermanas near Seville after serving the last part of her sentence in an open prison which is known for its relaxed atmosphere and where inmates have access to a fitness centre and swimming pool. Kukucova is thought to have forged a number of close friendships behind bars with other women inmates who nicknamed her Kuku, and she is said to have remained in touch with many of them since being freed. Her Instagram account which has now been taken down revealed that she has visited the exclusive H20 Spa in Sevilles up-market Melia Hotel where a 150 minute pass which includes facial cleansing, body peeling, a body wrap and a relaxing massage costs 90 euros. Kukucova has also enjoyed peaceful walks among the shady paths and fountains in Sevilles picturesque Jardines del Prado de San Sebastian, and has posed for selfies beside local landmarks such as the Puenta de la Barqueta bridge. Her Facebook page also suggests she has fitted in visits to the citys Occo Sevilla pool club and disco, as well as the Wakanda nightclub. Closer to home in Dos Hermanas, she enjoys socialising in the Mare bar and restaurant which has its own pool and is acclaimed for its fine Asian dining, and has attended fitness classes at the towns Crossfit gym on a business park. Her Instagram account also revealed that she had been on a day trip to the Tirolina de Islantilla zip wire park, west of Seville. Kukucova, 32, has posed up for a number of glamorous shots posted to social media celebrating her freedom early from jail One of her pictures shows her posing provocatively in a tight white dress while leaning against a palm tree in Spain It is believed that her licence conditions prevent her from leaving Spain, but that has not stopped her going on road trips around the Spanish mainland, visiting Barcelona and her old haunts on the Costa del Sol. Some of her social media pictures, show her brazenly posing in a black and gold bikini at the Opium beach club in Marbella where cocktails cost 20 euros. MailOnline exclusively revealed last week how she had also jetted out to join her Slovakian parents Danka and Lubomir on a sunshine break on the Spanish holiday island of Majorca. Kukucova was aged 24 when she lay in wait for Mr Bush in his villa and shot him twice in the head and once in the shoulder with a .38 revolver as he turned up with his glamorous new Russian lover in April 2014. She fled to her family home in Slovakia, but was extradited back to Spain where she was convicted of his murder after a four day trial. Kukucova had her sentence reduced a year later to 13 years and nine months but was released early from jail after persuading Spanish authorities that she did not pose a danger to anyone else. Mayka Kukucova in court in Malaga, Spain, where she was accused of killing her former love British millionaire Andrew Bush It is believed that she served the last part of her sentence at the Seville Social Insertion Centre open prison, named Luis Jimenez de Asua after the Spanish politician who exiled himself in Argentina during the Franco dictatorship. The jail where inmates are allowed out for short periods, and where some are permitted to do jobs outside before returning at night, was the largest prison of its kind in Spain when it opened in 2008 at a cost of nearly 11 million. Slovakian media described it as being more like a resort than a jail. A relative in Slovakia said she had originally planned to finish her sentence in her home country when she was allowed to, but changed her mind because she preferred the prison regime in Spain. The relative said in 2020 that she was keeping busy attending education classes and learning new languages. They added: She has excellent conditions there, a large swimming pool, a fitness centre, she wouldn't be so comfortable here. That's why she decided that to stay there. Kukucova is initially thought to have been given an electronic tag to monitor her while she started her new life in Dos Hermanas. It is not known how she is now supporting herself and what she is doing for a living. Eduardo Martinez Martin of Law Firm Estepona, who prosecuted Kukucova at her trial in Malaga said: I was as shocked as Mr Bushs loved ones to see those photos of her sunning herself on the beach. It shows a distant lack of tact and discretion. And its pretty disgraceful that she can find the money to go on holiday when her priority if she feels any remorse should be on fulfilling her legal obligations by paying her victims daughter and sister the money she was ordered to hand over to compensate them for their loss. She indicated at the end of 2017 she was willing to pay 20 euros (17.55) a month from the salary she received for working in prison. The court accepted that but I havent been notified any payments were ever made. Around that time she had another ten years left to run on her sentence which was due to expire on December 30 2027. If she had made the promised 120 payments of 20 euros (17.55) a month, it would have meant her paying just 2,400 euros (2,105). The holidays she seems to have enjoyed in places like Majorca will have easily cost her that. Kukucova had joined her Slovakian parents Danka and Lubomir on the Spanish holiday island of Majorca for a sunny break Prison seems a world away for Kukucova as she looks glamorous in a bikini on the Spanish sands after being freed from jail. Pictures on her Instagram account which has since been deleted featured her in a car with a friend and posing next to an airport departures information board Kukucova started dating former body builder Mr Bush known to his customers as the King of Bling - after he gave her a job at one of his chain of Gold Trader shops in Bristol. The couple enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle splitting their time between Mr Bushs five bedroom home surrounded by seven foot high walls near Chepstow racecourse in rural Monmouthshire, and his Spanish villa in Cancelada outside Estepona. But their relationship became turbulent as Kukocova flew into frequent tantrums, and jealous rages, and constantly checked his computer and mobile phone. Mr Bush who had a fleet of luxury cars including a red Ferrari convertible, a grey Lamborghini and a top of the range Hummer 4 x 4 which he kept in Spain, finally dumped her in November 2013 after a two and a half year relationship. He then started a relationship with Russian student Maria Korotaeva, 23, after meeting her at a Costa Coffee in Bristol. Kukucova is said to have hidden for two days in Mr Bushs villa without his consent before he and his new lover flew out for a romantic break and arrived there on April 5, 2014. Gold dealer Mr Bush who is said to have proposed to Miss Korotaeva just hours earlier over dinner found his former girlfriend in his bed, but she refused to leave. He told Miss Korotaeva to wait in his car while he talked to his ex-lover, but she then shot him three times inside the villa. She fled after placing the gun in Mr Bushs hand to make out that he had shot himself. Kukucova ordered terrified Miss Korotaeva out of her ex-lovers 60,000 gold-plated Hummer, saying that he had given her permission to drive it to the airport. She abandoned the car nearby, and called a former boyfriend in Slovakia for help. He flew over to Madrid to meet her and they drove back across Europe to her home town of Nova Bosaca where she gave herself up to police. Kukucova refused to comment about her new found freedom when contacted by Slovakian magazine Plus Seven DNI. She reportedly said: Thank you for the offer, but it is not current at the moment, and I need to consider offers from other media as well. Kukucova claimed during her trial in Malaga that she acted out of self-defence and insurmountable fear after Mr Bush attacked her, but the jury dismissed her story and convicted her of murder. Mr Bushs ex-wife Sam Mason, the mother of his daughter Ellie, now 27, blasted her after the verdict, by tweeting: Hope she rots. At no stage has she apologised to my girl. Blaming Andy, low life scum.' Judge Ernesto Carlos Manzano could have jailed Kukucova for up to 22 years, but ruled it was essentially a crime of passion, and that she had acted in a passionate state of mind. The villa in Spain where Andy Bush was shot by Mayka Kukucova after she lay in wait to confront him over his new girlfriend Mr Bush's grieving sister Rachel Bush, 49, told MailOnline exclusively on Saturday how she was more certain than ever that Kukucova had no remorse. Ms Bush said: She's carrying on as she's always carried on with no remorse. I understand she's on parole and her sentence hasn't yet expired but it's absolutely ludicrous to think someone can do what she did and be out on the streets so quickly. I was shocked to see the pictures and discover she was out of jail. I had no idea and found out from the papers. It's total madness. She's always tried to make out she was innocent and didn't do what she was convicted of and claim Andy shot himself during a fight which is just bulls**t as we all know. She believes her own lies, she always has. What she committed was cold-blooded murder. She shot Andy when he was falling or he was on the floor. She didn't accidentally kill him, she purposely killed him and she's allowed to be out there free. It's unacceptable.' Ms Bush added: I am under the understanding that she has been released on parole but has to stay on Spanish soil. It's all a massive shock to me. I wasn't aware this could possibly happen. I thought maybe her release date would be at least another five years off and that's something you try to prepare for. To be suddenly told she's out and has been for a while and see all the pictures and photos she's posted has left me sickened. She's no different to the way she was before. The compensation hasn't even come into my mind. It's not about the money. But I don't want her life to be easy and it seems to me she's had it easy. I heard she was in a prison with a swimming pool and now she's out there living the life. She can't live on fresh air and I wonder where her money's coming from. I know for a fact her family doesn't have any money. Miss Korotaeva told in a book last year that she believed Kukucova was actually instructed to carry out the killing over her his plans to establish a jewellery business in London. She claims he received death threats in the weeks before his murder, but that they did not report them as they did not take them seriously. Speaking of Kukucova, she said: 'Im now worried she may come find me when she gets out. God knows what she is thinking. What is in her head? He had a lengthy criminal history with 22 convictions by the time of the killing A judge has ruled the identity of a 15-year-old troublemaker who stabbed a stonemason to death should be protected by the courts. Judge John Hillen ruled on Tuesday the identity of teen who killed James Markham, 45, should be kept secret because his brother had been threatened. The judge said there was 'some evidence' the killer's brother had been attacked because of publicity surrounding the case and that unmasking the teen's identity was 'not in public interest.' The judge added there had been extensive and accurate reporting of the case and protecting the boy's identity was not 'unreasonable or over restrictive.' The teen, then 14, was 'out of control' when he murdered Mr Markham in Chingford on August 9 last year. He had attacked Mr Markham after spending days shouting and swearing outside the victim's home. The youth claimed to have acted in self defence but was found guilty of murder and having an offensive weapon following a trial at the Old Bailey in July. He was ordered last week to be detained for life with a minimum term of 15 years. The boy has a lengthy criminal history. He was caught in school with a knife when he was 12 and had been convicted of 22 offences by the time of the killing. He was also subject to an antisocial behaviour order (Asbo) at the time of the murder. Mr Markham died in August last year after being stabbed in the back, armpit and chest for confronting the boy, who had already been banned from the area by a criminal behaviour order which he had flouted before 'Unusually in this case I am not going to lift the order,' Judge Hillen told the court on Tuesday. 'It is not in public interest for me to do that because there is a danger to a young vulnerable person of a crime of violence upon him if the name of his brother was to be revealed.' The judge added that there was 'some evidence' the convicted murderer's brother had been threatened and attacked because of the case. The teen and four friends went into an area behind shops near where Mr Markham lived with his family on August 9, 2021. The youths were setting off fireworks outside Mr Markham's home, even though he had been banned from the area by the courts. Prosecutor Crispin Aylett KC had told jurors the victim and his family had become 'increasingly exasperated' by groups of youths making a nuisance of themselves there. A row broke out and two youths were said to have goaded Mr Markham before the defendant told a witness: 'He's going to get it. Running his mouth, he's a c***.' The stonemason, armed with a drill bit from his shed, snapped and ran at the boy, swinging the tool to scare him off, jurors were told. Mr Markham, who was just 5ft 5' tall and weighed only eight stone, was seen waving it above his head at the 5ft 11' tall teenager, who then pulled out an 18' knife. He stabbed Mr Markham three times as they fought 'like gladiators.' Mr Markham was helped back to his flat by a neighbour but he collapsed and died. 'Provoked beyond endurance, there must have come a point when Jamie Markham wanted to chase this obnoxious youth away from the area where he and his family lived and, no doubt, make sure that he did not come back,' Mr Aylett argued. 'He provoked trouble, and he provoked it knowing he had the bigger and better weapon. 'Mr Markham armed himself with something in an attempt to meet fire with fire.' Previously, Mr Aylett had told jurors that the defendant should never have been in the area of Chingford Mount at all on the day of the stabbing. He said: 'It is only too obvious that he cannot have thought that the criminal behaviour order was worth the paper it was written on. 'Just as he was not willing to abide by the terms of the order, so the evidence in this case suggests he was not someone who was prepared to let anyone tell him what to do.' Jamie Markham (centre), 45, was fatally stabbed in Chingford, east London. He is pictured with his wife Candice (right) and his 17-year-old daughter Chloe (left) Police pictured at the scene in Chingford following the incident last August The boy was previously described in court as an 'obnoxious teenage trouble maker' who had already breached his Asbo six times before fatally stabbing Mr Markham with an 18in knife. The teen had a 'miserable' criminal record, having been in court 12 times and convicted of 22 different offences, the prosecution revealed. His record of convictions include battery, criminal damage, using threatening, abusive words and behaviour, sending threatening messages and theft. The first was in June 2020 when, aged 13, he pleaded guilty to battery and convicted of possessing cannabis and was handed a rehabilitation order. In January 2021, he was convicted of theft, criminal damage and using threatening words and behaviour and subjected to a rehabilitation order and criminal behaviour order banning him from the Chingford Mount area. He breached that order six times with the day of the murder the seventh breach. The court heard how the boy had wrecked the local branch of Morrisons by hurling red wine and eggs down the aisles. Jurors were also shown a video of the boy spitting at his adoptive mother which Mr Aylett said demonstrated the boy had a history of a 'lack of respect for either authority or his elders.' In mitigation, Laurie-Anne Power KC said the boy had been affected by a lack of family presence or support as well as 'neglect, abuse and feelings of trauma and loss'. She said her client offered 'sincere regret for his actions'. A police tent at the scene after Mr Markham was fatally stabbed in Chingford, East London Mr Markham's mother, Anita Markham (left), and niece Amber Markham (right) are pictured arriving at the Old Bailey in central London on October 7 for the teen's sentencing Judge Hillen said during sentencing that the defendant's behaviour leading up to the murder was increasingly worrying. The judge told the boy during sentencing last week: 'You had not responded to attempts to divert you away from crime and antisocial behaviour. 'You regularly went missing. 'You have a low attendance record at school. 'Your foster parents could not prevent your behaviour. 'You were out of control.' He went on: 'Your unhealthy interest in knives, antisocial behaviour and violence against those who challenged you all came together on Chingford Mount on August 9 last year.' Judge Hillen sentenced him to detention at His Majesty's Pleasure for life with a minimum term of 15 years. Wearing a grey utility jacket, the teenager showed no emotion as he was sentenced while members of Mr Markham's family wept silently in the well of the court. An 'independent-minded' Russia judge who oversaw high-profile cases was killed in the blast which crippled the Kerch Bridge, it has been claimed. Sergey Maslov, 42, is thought to have been driving his black Cadillac Escalade alongside a truck when a huge explosion ripped apart the bridge in the early hours of Saturday - prompting a furious response from Vladimir Putin. Maslov was riding alongside history-guide husband and wife Eduard Chuchakin, 53, and Zoya Sofronova, 33 - who he was friends with - and fitness instructor Gleb Orgetkin, 26, when the blast struck. All four were killed. The judge had previously overseen court cases involving the daughter of Putin crony Ramzan Kadyrov, and state energy giant Gazprom. Sergey Maslov, 42, an 'incorruptible' Russian judge who oversaw cases involving the country's elite, was reportedly killed in the Crimea Bridge blast Maslov's Cadillac (circled) was filmed trying to overtake a truck believed to have been carrying explosives which partially destroyed the bridge, Russian media claims Local newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets was first to report Maslov's death, claiming he was driving the car seen on CCTV footage overtaking a truck which Russian investigators said had caused the explosion. The car fell into the ocean after the blast caused part of the bridge to collapse, with bodies of the victims pulled from the water. Russian investigators initially said three people had died: Chuchakin, wife Sofronova, and the driver of the truck, 52-year-old Makhir Yusubov. But it now appears the actual death toll was five, including Maslov and instructor Orgetkin. It is not clear why their deaths was not reported until now. The dead couple 'had long been acquainted with the judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court, 42-year-old Sergey Maslov,' reported MK. Husband and wife history guides Eduard Chuchakin, 53, and Zoya Sofronova, 33, were also riding in the car and were killed 'It was in his Cadillac that the group [including Orgetkin] went to the Crimea.' Maslov had owned the car since 2017 and had told colleagues he was taking a vacation in annexed Crimea, where he owned land. A legal source said he was 'unusually independent-minded and incorruptible' who ruled on 'sensitive cases' involving business disputes. Cheka-OGPU Telegram channel said Maslov 'was driving a huge and heavy Cadillac, which was at the epicentre of the explosion'. The media outlet speculated that explosives may have been in the vehicle, rather than the truck. The judge had 'considered high-profile cases [involving] gigantic sums', it said. 'The last case that fell into the judge's proceedings was where Ramzan Kadyrov's daughter acted as the defendant'. Aishat Kadyrova, 23, is a fashion designer and one of his 14 children. The case before Maslov and seemingly halted after publishing group Conde Nast 'unexpectedly withdrew'. One case before him was won by Gazprom in October 2020. 'The Cadillac Escalade is a huge and heavy car that could hold a lot of explosives, for example, amongst luggage,' stated the report without citing any evidence for its claim. Gleb Orgetkin, 26 and a fitness instructor, was also reported to have been in the car at the time of the blast and to be among the dead Images of Maslov's car were published online, amid wild claims that explosives may actually have been stored in this vehicle A picture of his vehicle has since emerged. 'To this we can add that the judge was an inviolable person and no-one would inspect his car. 'So the version that the target of the explosion, from which [nearby train tankers full of fuel] also exploded, could well have been Maslov, has the right to be considered. 'There is something to work with.' Meanwhile Cheka-OGPU claimed that the Russian version - involving explosives crossing a number of international borders - 'seems rather strange'. Already there had been suggestions that the explosion may have been a Russian operation to justify a huge missile attack on Ukraine, which has now taken place to please Putin's hardliner backers. Chuchakin and Sofronova were well known tour guides and documentary-makers in St Petersburg. Their names emerged long before those of the judge and the other passenger. The pair were history graduates of Putin's alma mater St Petersburg State University. He was a specialist in the tsarist architecture of St Petersburg and she had been a journalist. They led tourist expeditions in the city on notorious holy monk Grigory Rasputin. The driver of the truck Makhir Yusubov, 52, was also believed to have been killed in the blast. Maslov oversaw a case involving the daughter of Putin crony Ramzan Kadyrov and another case involving state energy giant Gazprom Close Putin ally Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Investigative Committee, said the red-coloured truck had been to NATO country Bulgaria as well as Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, the Russian region of Krasnodar ahead of the explosion. Russia has seen a spate of mysterious deaths linked to energy companies including Gazprom since the war started. On 1 September, oil tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67,fell to his death from the sixth floor window of a Moscow hospital. One report says the chairman of Lukoil - Russia's second largest oil company - was 'beaten' before he was 'thrown out of a window', however this was not confirmed officially. His company had voiced opposition to the war in Ukraine. Strangely, Putin arrived at the elite Central Clinical Hospital very soon after Maganov's body was found to pay his last respects to final Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had died at the hospital. In July, Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool, with a leading friend who is a top criminologist warning of foul play. Two more deaths of Gazprom-linked executives were reported in elite homes near St Petersburg amid suspicions that apparent suicides may have been murders. Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was discovered by his lover the day after war started in Ukraine in February. His neck was in a noose in his 500,000 home . Yet reports say he had been badly beaten shortly before he 'took his own life', leading to speculation he was under intense pressure. Putin responded to the bridge attack by unleashing a volley of missiles that struck virtually every city in Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv (pictured) A dead body lies in the street in Kyiv after Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months, setting cars on fire and blowing up a park in a residential area Vladimir Putin, speaking at a meeting of his security council today, vowed a 'severe' response to any future attacks on Russia as he confirmed firing a massive salvo of missiles at Ukraine In the same elite Leninsky gated housing development in Leningrad region three weeks earlier, Leonid Shulman,, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor. Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to Kremlin-friendly energy giant Lukoil where he was a top manager, was found dead in May after 'taking advice from shamans'. One theory is that Subbotin - who also owned a shipping company - was poisoned by toad venom triggering a heart attack. In April, wealthy Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, 13. He had high level links to leading Russian financial institution Gazprombank. Friends have disputed reports that he was jealous after his wife admitted she was pregnant by their driver. There are claims he had access to the financial secrets of the Kremlin elite. Several days later multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, was found hanged in Spain, after evidently killing with an axe his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria. He was a former deputy chairman of Novatek, a company also closely linked to the Kremlin. There have also been questions over the death of Putin's point man for developing Russia's vast Arctic resources who 'fell overboard' to his death from a boat sailing off the country's Pacific coast. Ivan Pechorin, 39, had recently attended a major conference hosted by the Kremlin warmonger in Vladivostok. The high-flyer was managing director of Putin's Far East and Arctic Development Corporation. And in another case a mobile phone multi-millionaire and his wife were found stabbed to death in another case that has raised questions. Naked Yevgeny Palant, 47, and his wife Olga, 50, both Ukrainian-born, were found with multiple knife wounds by their daughter Polina, 20. Immediate briefing to the media claimed the woman took her own life in a jealous rage after Palant said he was leaving her. Yet this was strongly disputed by the couple's best friend. Incredible footage has captured a pod of angry dolphins chasing a Great White Shark away from a bay where one of the man-eaters recently tore a swimmer apart. The drone footage, uploaded to YouTube on October 2, shows the 10ft hunting shark moving stealthily into the same waters popular with swimmers and surfers where tragic Kimon Bisogno was viciously attacked. Uncomfortable with the shark's presence, the pod of 15 dolphins swim out to intercept and surround the predator, and make it very clear that it is unwelcome. A lone Great White appears in the shallow waters of Plettenberg Bay in South Africa A pod of dolphins appear and are seen to 'chase' the shark out of the bay One plucky dolphin even swims directly over the Great White's back as a warning, and the shark realises that its cover is blown and swims off. Marine mammal scientist Gwen Penry, 40, of the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth said: 'Dolphins can be very aggressive when they need to be. 'They are not always the happy and smiling animals that people believe but are also top predators and can be very aggressive around big sharks. 'The Great White knows it is no match for the far more manoeuvrable and faster dolphins in shallow water and will not waste its energy on them. 'The dolphins are letting the shark know it has been seen and that they are there and just making it clear that it would be wiser to move off elsewhere' she said. The video comes as the distraught partner of tragic mother Kimon Bisogno, 38, spoke for the first time of his devastation at the loss of the love of his life. Restaurant owner Kimon was attacked and killed by a Great White as she swam just off the beach of her holiday hotel in shallow waters just a fortnight ago. Mother Kimon Bisogno (centre) is pictured with her daughter and partner, Diego Milesi Kimon Bisogno was attacked and killed by a Great White shark in Plettenberg Bay in South Africa last month Plettenberg Bay has been hit by two Great White killings in three months on their normally safe shores with the latest being Kimon known to all as Kiki. She and her Italian born partner of 14 years Diego Milesi had driven 300 miles from Cape Town to the Beacon Island Hotel for a long Bank Holiday weekend. She had gone for a dip at 7.30am as Diego got their daughter Luna ready for the beach when a relative called him to say that a big shark had attacked her. The estimated 13-foot-long Great White had bitten her just once but it was enough to kill petite Kimon, whose body was later recovered by a lifeboat crew. This week, Diego spoke to YOU magazine in South Africa and told how he bravely ignored the pleas of rescuers not to go and look at Kimon's body. The chef also revealed his last haunting moments with the mother of his child. He recounted: 'I gave her this beautiful kiss. And that was the last time I saw her. She was so beautiful. She was wearing her red swimming costume. 'She couldn't wait and I told her that I would be down soon' he said. Diego got a call to his room, explaining: 'It was just a bit of a blur. I rushed down and was told a shark had attacked Kiki. And that was the way she went'. When the lifeboat crew recovered Kimon they warned him not to go to her. He told the magazine: 'I didn't care. I wanted to be there. And when she came out she was so beautiful despite her injuries. She died a quick death. 'She looked so lovely when they pulled her out and the images of her weren't horrifying' and he said before he left the resort he 'made peace with the sea'. The Great White shark is surrounded by dolpins as it swims in the shallow water More dolphins emerge to escort the shark away, as it makes its escape from the bay Diego said: 'We put flowers on the beach to commemorate the place where she died. Life is unfair. Lots of things happen which we can't change so we have to accept it. 'She always had a smile on her face. She would not have wanted us to grieve but to celebrate her' he said after returning to their Cape Town pizzeria. Former lifeboatman Bruce Noble of the Plett Shark Action Committee said that judging by the bite wound on Kimon, the Great White was 13 feet long. He said that more lifeguards had been moved into the area along with shark spotters at high vantage points and a number of drones are now in use. Mr Noble said: 'Shark's come with the territory but very rarely attack and we have been very unfortunate to have two fatal attacks in a short space of time. 'Measures have been taken to keep our tourists and locals safe from sharks and we constantly monitor their activity and presence on our beaches'. Great Whites grow up to 20 feet long and can weigh over 2 tonnes and have up to 300 razor sharp serrated teeth arranged in rows which give their prey little escape. In the last 25 years, 37 swimmers and surfers have been killed in shark attacks off South Africa, with 10 victims in the last decade. The Rodong Sinmun newspaper, showing an image of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, casting his ballot in the 14th Supreme People's Assembly elections, is displayed at a subway station in Pyongyang, in this March 11, 2019 file photo. South Korea plans to lift its ban on public access to North Korean media content as part of its efforts to promote freedom of expression and mutual understanding. AFP-Yonhap Fears of regime's propaganda influence overblown: expert By Jung Min-ho South Korea plans to lift its ban on public access to North Korean media content to promote freedom of expression and mutual understanding despite the North's intensifying nuclear threats. An official told The Korea Times Tuesday that the Ministry of Unification has been stepping up its efforts over the past three months to give the public access to North Korean television and, in the long run, other media outlets such as Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's Central Committee of the Workers' Party. "We have been discussing the issue with related government agencies, including which laws should be revised to make it possible," the official said. "Given the many legal issues it entails, it will take some time (in the National Assembly)." Change, however, might come faster than expected. The liberal main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, which holds the majority in the Assembly, has long said that the National Security Act the law that de facto prohibits individuals from getting direct access to such content is excessive and needs to be revised or abolished entirely. Last year, 21 lawmakers from the left, mostly from the party, collectively proposed a bill to repeal the law. The history of efforts of repeal the act means that with strong determination and careful coordination this policy of the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration could soon be codified into law with bipartisan support. Unification Minister Kwon Young-se speaks during a parliamentary audit session at the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap Mariam Issouf, 26, of Queens, surrendered herself to police on Monday after being identified in the video A suspected member of the 'Green Goblin' gang of female thieves that robbed and terrorized two teens on the New York subway was released without bail on Tuesday. Mariam Issouf, 26, of Queens was released after being brought to court on a second-degree robbery charge following an incident on October 2 in which two 19-year-old girls were filmed being brutally beaten and robbed on the subway. Her release came just days after one of the victim's mothers complained that New York's relaxed bail laws put ordinary people at risk. Issouf left Manhattan Criminal Court with a black leather jacket covering her face and her lawyer John Russo's arm around her shoulders. 'She did nothing wrong,' he said as he left court with his client, the New York Post reported. 'She assaulted not one of the victims and is seen on videotape saying, 'I want no part of this, Let's go.'' Issouf left Manhattan Criminal Court with a black leather jacket covering her face and her lawyer John Russo by her side After being released without bail Issouf was escorted from court by her lawyer John Russo, who claimed she wanted no part in the attack on the subway Mariam Issouf, 26, appeared in court on Tuesday to face a second-degree robbery charge for her involvement in the robbery and beating of two 19-year-old girls on the N train On Friday police identified Issouf in the video showing the attack on the subway. She turned herself in three days later Russo suggested that Issouf actually 'tried to assist the victim' and said that she had no criminal record. Issouf gave herself up to police on Monday afternoon, three days after they had identified her on Friday as one of the suspects in the horrifying attack. Emily Soto, 34, Ciante Alston and Dariana Peguero, both 26, were also been named as alleged members of the gang. The four have 15 arrests between them, authorities said. All four suspects are residents of the New York City Housing Authority's Queensboro Houses, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig. Peguero has the most extensive criminal record with nine arrests, while Alston has three and Soto two. All three are still at large, while the other suspects in the gang have not yet been identified. Issouf had only been arrested once previously. The horrifying attack comes as robberies in New York City are up a shocking 36 per cent on last year. Four suspects from the gang have been identified by police, with a rap sheet of 15 prior arrests between them Two teenage girls were swung around, stomped and punched by the green-clad group on a New York City N train on Sunday around 2am Onlookers did not attempt to intervene as the innocent girls were beaten and robbed - instead they recorded the incident They are wanted over the brutal assault and robbery of two 19-year-old girls on October 2, at the end of a Saturday night out. The pair were waiting for the N train in Times Square at around 2am when a group of at least six women in bright green costumes charged down the station stairs. The teens backed away and chose to enter a separate train car than the group that was 'loud and obnoxious,' according to one of the girls' mothers. But the green-clad group poured into the train from every entrance and ultimately 'jumped' the two young women. A mother of one of the victims told the New York Daily News that there had been no prior negative interaction between the girls and the group. 'They just jumped.' 'My daughter's words were, they bum rushed them. I asked, 'Why? Did you say something?' She said, 'I wish I did, because then there would be a reason for what happened to me,' she told the outlet. The violent and unprovoked altercation, which was posted to Reddit, shows the two teenagers getting kicked repeatedly, punched, and thrown around the train car as onlookers film the incident but do not intervene or attempt to help. 'They video instead of calling 911. It's so disturbing for me as my mother that this is the world we live in.' 'My daughter is literally getting beat while all these bystanders just stood there. Maybe police would've gotten there faster if someone called 911,' said the mother. The crew took credit cards, a phone, and a wallet from the girls before exiting the scene. 'Thankfully my daughter is here. It could have been so much worse. These people belong in cages,' she said. 'Animals belong behind bars. Make an example of them.' Both young women were treated at a hospital for their injuries, which included a concussion, bite marks, bruises across one of the girl's stomach and legs, and facial bruising. One of the victims was home for the weekend from Florida, where she attends college, to celebrate her birthday. The group members got away Sunday morning, but police say they have identified the social media pages of some of the perpetrators 'Because of the head trauma, I couldn't put her on a flight until I knew there weren't bleeds on the brain or concussion,' said the mother. 'This is how she spent her 19th birthday. I hope they get what they deserve and then some because it's disgusting,' she told the New York Post. According to the mothers of the two teenagers, the incident was entirely unprovoked. The two victims were returning home from celebrating one of their 19th birthdays in the city The girls reportedly moved away from the goblin green gang when they saw them on the subway platform, but the group streamed into several entrances on the subway Police continue to search for the attackers, most of whom wore full green masks over their faces. Detectives informed the mothers that they have seen the social media pages of the ruthless attackers. The mother added that New York state's relaxed bail laws are putting everyday citizens in danger. She said she had a message for Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and city and state lawmakers who are 'making these ridiculous laws and letting savages walk the streets with nothing but a slap on the wrist.' 'Watch the videos of these two girls getting beaten by a gang of grown women, and imagine it was your daughter, granddaughter, sister, mother or friend. Put yourself in that situation. 'What happened to the New York City we all loved? Start fixing it now!' she said. Hochul is up for her first election to keep her seat at the head of the New York political system this November. She replaced disgraced Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) after he resigned following an investigation into multiple claims of sexual harassment in his office. One major tenet of the November election in New York is crime. Democratic Mayor Eric Adams has not acted to end New York's reformed bail laws that many argue create a rotating door for metropolitan criminals Crime in New York City has been running rampant, up overall by 31.8 per cent on last year, with robbery up a shocking 35.5 per cent Transit related crimes in NYC have increased 43% in the last year under the watchful eyes of Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul Crime in the five boroughs has soared 33% since last year This latest subway incident occurs as crime in the city is up over 31 per cent from last year. Driving the increase is a more than 35 per cent increase in the number of robberies, and a 32.4 percent increase in burglaries. Felony assaults are also up 15 per cent over last year, while grand larcenies are up a whopping 43 per cent. But Mayor Eric Adams (D) fled the crumbling city at the end of September to visit hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, which he refers to as New York's 'sixth borough.' Transit-related crimes have increased 43 per cent in the last 12 months in addition to a 16 per cent growth in felony assault charges, according to police records. There were 1,165 crimes reported in the city transit system for the period last year compared to 1,670 this year. Two Met Police officers have been charged with driving offences after a 25-year-old pedestrian was killed when she was hit by a patrol car. Shante Daniel-Folkes, of London, was struck by the vehicle in Stockwell Road, Brixton as it was answering an emergency call in June last year. PC Nadeem Patel, 27, who was driving the car, was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said Tuesday. PC Gary Thomson, 30, who was driving a separate car, was charged with dangerous driving. The officers, who are attached to Central South Command Unit, are both currently on restricted duties. They will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday. Shante Daniel-Folkes, of London, was struck by a patrol vehicle answering a call at Stockwell Road, Brixton (pictured) in June last year. PC Nadeem Patel, 27, and 30-year-old PC Gary Thomson, both of the Metropolitan Police, were charged following an IOPC investigation The fatal collision occurred on June 9, 2021 around 11.20pm as two separate police cars responded to an emergency call. Ms Daniel-Folkes, 25, was struck by PC Patel's vehicle. Despite all efforts from officers and paramedics, she died at the scene. The IOPC undertook an independent investigation, which the Metropolitan Police Service fully supported, in order to establish the cause of the collision. The investigation concluded in May 2022 and officials referred the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service which authorised the charges. PC Patel was charged with causing death by dangerous driving while Thomson faces a dangerous driving charge. An IOPC spokesman said: 'The charges relate to an incident on June 9 last year in which Shante Daniel-Folkes, 25, was hit by a police vehicle driven by PC Patel on Stockwell Road in Brixton. 'PC Thomson was in a separate police vehicle. Both officers were responding to an emergency incident at the time. 'Ms Daniel-Folkes sadly died at the scene of the collision and our sympathies remain with her family and loved ones.' Both officers were charged by postal requisition to appear in court next week. Advertisement A flat so small you can reach the kitchen from the single bed has sparked fury after it was marketed for nearly 11,000 a year. The single-room apartment has a 'separate bathroom'. And there is such limited space the microwave is resting on two brackets coming out of the wall. The bedsit comes with a small hob, fridge and sink, with storage hidden behind a curtain at the end of the room under a sloped ceiling. A bedsit in central London caused outrage on the internet after the landlord thought it was worth 900 per week The new tenant will be able to reach the sink from the single bed. The property comes with a small hop and microwave The agent's listing said the bedsit had a separate toilet, pictured, not inside the cramped living space The property is only a short distance from High Street Kensington station and ten minutes walk from trendy Notting Hill Social media users mocked the photographs of the tiny flat, complaining about the lack of space and the high cost There is also a single bed and single desk, with extra storage fixed into the cornicing. Tempocasa, who are advertising the property, called it a: 'Bedsit with separate bathroom situated moments from High Street Kensington Station.' The property is just off exclusive High Street Kensington and minutes from celebs' houses including David Beckham, Elton John and Lewis Hamilton. One viewer, Bethany Dawson, said: 'If you're still not convinced that the London rental situation is f****d, this room is 900 a month.' Another, Daniel Reast, said: 'I love to search for anything in my budget and find nothing but garages - that's super reassuring.' But a third, Emma Bentley, 23, said: 'You can do your washing up whilst in bed - what's not to love?' An antique chair has sold for a world record 14.4m - but experts have said it should considered more a work of art than as something to sit on. The folding wooden horseshoe-back chair, one of just six dating from the same period, was used by a travelling dignitary in the late Ming Dynasty in 17th century China. The piece of furniture sparked a bidding war when it went under the hammer in Hong Kong. The price paid for it by an Asian private collector was driven by a surge in demand among wealthy Chinese buying back historic items from their country's past. The exquisite chair belonged to the late Hong Kong businessman Sir Joseph Hotung. Sir Joseph was a renowned collector of art and acquired the item over 20 years ago to keep at his London residence. An antique chair has sold for a world record 14.4m - but experts have advised the new owner not to sit on it. The folding wooden horseshoe-back chair was used by a travelling dignitary in the Ming Dynasty in 17th century China The horseshoe-back armchair is made from rosewood and is an example of huanghuali furniture, which means 'yellow flowering pear' wood. The brutality of the Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty lasted from 1368 until 1644, with the final Ming ruler being the Chongzhen Emperor. During the Ming period, China became a global superpower, with sea expeditions to unknown parts of the world taking place years ahead of Christopher Columbus and books being produced before Britain even had a printing press. But the era was also characterised by its profound bloodshed. The Ming dynasty's first emperor, Hongwu, made it a capital offence for anyone to criticise him. When his chief minister was accused of plotting against him, he ordered the extermination of all his relatives, friends and associates. Around 40,000 people are said to have been killed in the purge that followed. However, the era was also a golden age for Chinese art, with thousands of objects and paintings surviving from the era. Advertisement When it was made more than 300 years ago it was designed to be folded to make it easy to transport around imperial China. As a result, most of these chairs were damaged and very few survive today. Only five others are known to exist, making them incredibly sought-after. Sir Joseph died last December aged 91 and his family has sold off part of his art collection. The auction was held by Sotheby's in Hong Kong. Henry Howard-Sneyd, specialist in Asian art at Sotheby's, said: 'The outstanding result of the auction is a true testament and tribute to the exceptional taste and eye of Sir Joseph Hotung, who only ever acquired the very best in the field - creating in his London home an extraordinary world of treasures. 'The furniture in particular is the greatest collection I have had the privilege of working with, bringing together a powerful aesthetic with a highly intellectual scholarly approach. 'Watching the bids fly in for, and bringing down the gavel on, the exceptionally rare huanghuali folding horseshoe-back armchair, was a career highlight - an astonishing, but well-deserved result. 'If I wasn't on the rostrum, I may well have had to take a seat as the final price came in.' Melica Khansari, of Sotheby's, added: 'Folding horseshoe-back armchairs are perhaps the most highly sought-after of all items of Ming furniture, and are thought to be the most striking and most highly celebrated designs created by Chinese carpenters. 'Conceived to be folded for easy transport, these portable chairs were naturally more prone to damage than other pieces of furniture. 'Few, therefore, could withstand the test of time, making extant examples extremely precious. They would have been used by the highest-ranking officials on their travels - a true seat of honour. The chair was produced in the late Ming dynasty, which came to an end with the rule of the Chongzhen Emperor. He reigned from 1627 to 1644 The exquisite chair belonged to the late Hong Kong businessman Sir Joseph Hotung (pictured above with the Queen in 2017) A 1757 painting shows China's Qianlong Emperor, who was the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty, sitting on a similar chair 'Today they should be considered more of a work of art than a chair in terms of usage.' Sir Joseph Hotung was a philanthropist and he bequeathed cherished works of art to museums and cultural institutions. He donated his important collection of early Chinese blue-and-white porcelain and jade to the British Museum. The price for the piece of furniture is the third highest amount ever paid for a chair. A buyer parted with 22million in 2009 to buy a chair made by Irish designer Eileen Gray, and in 2011 more than $33 million changed hands for a jade dressing table and stool that was said to date from the 2,000-year-old Han dynasty. The horseshoe-back armchair is made from rosewood and is an example of huanghuali furniture, which means 'yellow flowering pear' wood After experts cast doubt on the latter's authenticity, it emerged the chair and stool were made in 2010. The Ming dynasty lasted from 1368 until 1644, with the final Ming ruler being the Chongzhen Emperor. During the Ming period, China became a global superpower, with sea expeditions to unknown parts of the world taking place years ahead of Christopher Columbus and books being produced before Britain even had a printing press. But the era was also characterised by its profound bloodshed. The Ming dynasty's first emperor, Hongwu, made it a capital offence for anyone to criticise him. When his chief minister was accused of plotting against him, he ordered the extermination of all his relatives, friends and associates. Around 40,000 people are said to have been killed in the purge that followed. However, the era was also a golden age for Chinese art, with thousands of objects and paintings surviving from the era. National Grid were branded hypocrites today after pictures revealed every window in their near-empty HQ brightly lit up hours after workers had left. Just days after the energy giant warned of blackouts to save power this winter, their multi-million pound office in Warwick was snapped 'lit up like Blackpool illuminations'. Photographs taken after 7.30pm on Monday show the lights left on in every office of the sprawling headquarters after dark. The Grid has now been accused of 'rank hypocrisy' after revealing last week it was preparing for possible three-hour blackouts in parts of the UK. The first planned blackouts in the UK for decades could be needed if power plants do not have enough gas to keep running, National Grid said. National Grid's HQ in Warwick could be seen lit up late into the night after workers had left The 238,988 sq ft building houses 3,600 public servants from several government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) The company was accused of 'hypocrisy' in its use of power just days after it warned there could be blackouts this winter to save energy They warned of a 'challenging' winter ahead due to Russian's invasion of Ukraine which has severely impacted energy supplies - threatening a return to the 1970s. The impact will be even more significant following the suspected sabotage of the NordSteam pipeline, which brought gas from Russia to Europe. National Grid has encouraged households to help avoid blackouts, 'save money and back Britain' by using more energy during off-peak times. However, there was an angry backlash to the firm's own energy use at its HQ in Warwick. Local office worker Peter Kearns, 49, who works nearby, said: 'It boiled my blood when I noticed it - it's rank hypocrisy at its best. 'The place is lit up like Blackpool illuminations and National Grid of all people should be setting an example to the rest of the country - now more than ever. 'Other offices make sure their lights are off when they leave for the day, so they should do the same, especially when they are talking about winter blackouts. 'They are telling us all how to prevent the National Grid from collapsing - while seemingly doing nothing at all to stop that happening themselves. 'I just think its outrageous that they are failing to heed their own advice and it just feels like a slap in the face for the rest of us when our bills remain obscenely high.' In comparison, photos taken at 6am this morning show the lights off at the HMRC offices in neighbouring Birmingham with a sign reading: 'Take a moment to switch off'. The 238,988 sq ft building houses 3,600 public servants from several government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The National Grid's Electricity System Operator (ESO's) had begun planning for what could happen if Britain ends up with insufficient gas supplies. They said UK households and businesses might have to face interruptions to their electricity supplies, in the form of planned three-hour outages. National Grid warned consumers they may have to reduce energy usage if the UK is hit with gas shortages People could also be offered money back on bills if they agree to only use home appliances, such as washing machines and tumble driers, outside of peak times. Jake Rigg, the ESO's director of corporate affairs, said last week: 'The demand flexibility service is a first of its kind and a smart way for signed up consumers in homes and businesses to save money and back Britain. 'If you put your washing machine or other electrical appliances on at night instead of the peak in the early evening, you can get some money back when we all need it. 'The service is due to launch in November, so watch out for further details soon. 'This really is a window into the future where a flexible energy system will be cleaner and lower cost to alternatives.' A Government spokesperson responded: 'The UK has a secure and diverse energy system. 'To strengthen this position further, we have put plans in place to secure supply and National Grid, working alongside energy suppliers and Ofgem, will launch a voluntary service to reward users who reduce demand at peak times.' A spokesperson for National Grid said: 'Our Warwick office houses operational control rooms for gas and electricity where engineers work in shift patterns 24/7 to keep the lights on and gas flowing across the United Kingdom. 'The building has many energy conserving measures including sensor controlled lighting which turns itself off automatically if a room is empty.' A woman told an investment banker 'I dont have sex with people on a first date' before he allegedly raped her at his luxury 1m apartment, a court heard today. Varun Venaik, 31, kissed and touched the woman intimately with her consent before forcing himself on her, it was said. Australian Venaik is accused of raping the woman at his basement flat in Upper Montagu Street, Marylebone, on July 31 last year after they met on the Bumble dating website. She told jurors at Southwark Crown Court they went for drinks in a bar before heading back to Venaiks flat nearby. He said Do you want to come back to mine. I said sure. Varun Venaik, 31, is accused of raping the woman at his basement flat in Upper Montagu Street, Marylebone, on July 31 last year His flat was just around the corner. We went to his, chatted a bit at his. We started kissing. That was consensual. Then he got on top of me. We were sat on a beanbag chair. We kissed for a bit. I said "Lets keep this PG". What I meant by that was "Lets slow down a bit. I went to my underwear. I pulled his hand away. I said I dont have sex with people on a first date. He said "fine, we dont have to.' She told jurors at Southwark Crown Court (pictured) they went for drinks in a bar before heading back to Venaiks flat nearby Later Venaik said he had to go out and meet a friend and she headed to Baker Street station on her own. But the banker caught up with her saying he had cancelled his friend and they went back to his flat for food and drinks. The woman said He started kissing my neck. I said lets talk rather than kiss. He pulled his shorts down, put my underwear to one side.' She said it was then that he raped her. The woman added she kissed him before she left the flat. We kissed as we said goodbye, she said. I didnt know whether I could leave. I was very close to not leaving. I didnt know what would happen...tried to keep things light and friendly. She said she messaged him after the incident. I sent him a message, the woman said. I said you did something I wasnt comfortable with. I dont want this to happen to anyone else.' Arizuna Asante, prosecuting, said that after meeting on Bumble the pair met up at a bar in Marylebone during the afternoon of July 31 last year. (Stock image) Wearing a dark grey suit, light blue and white checked shirt and a dark blue tie, the Australian banker told jurors how they met for drinks at the Kitchen at Holmes bar before returning to his flat Wearing a dark grey suit, light blue and white checked shirt and a dark blue tie, the Australian banker told jurors how they met for drinks at the Kitchen at Holmes bar before returning to his flat. Asked by Orla Daly, defending, what he thought of the woman, Venaik replied: 'I actually thought she was lovely. Self-assured, optimistic, confident. There was really good chemistry.' Ms Daly: 'What sort of things were you talking about?' Venaik: 'Family, education. It was a light-hearted conversation.' He suggested that they go back to his flat which was a few minutes walk away. 'I mentioned that we could go to my bedroom.' They went to his room and sat on a beanbag couch in his room and chatted, he said. Ms Daly: 'Did you think she liked you?' Venaik: 'I got a vibe that she did. We had mutual chemistry.' Vaneik, of Upper Montagu Street, denies rape. The trial continues. Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday morning she is leaving the Democratic Party in a series of tweets criticizing their 'cowardly wokeness' and accusing them of 'stoking anti-white racism'. The ex-representative for Hawaii's 2nd district and United States Army Reserve officer accused the party of 'demonizing the police', 'protecting criminals', 'believing in open borders' and 'dragging us even closer to nuclear war'. She also urged those who agreed with her to leave with just a month until the crucial midterm elections in a video attacking the institution whose members she clams 'actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms'. Gabbard announced she is leaving in the first episode of her new podcast - The Tulsi Gabbard Show - and just two years after she ran for president as a Democrat and a year after she left Congress. It's not clear what party she will join or whether she will remain independent. Gabbard has turned to political commentary since running for president in 2020 and leaving office in 2021 and has frequently attacked the Biden administration and the Democrats. 'I can no longer remain in todays Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war, ' she wrote in a lengthy tweet posted with a video. 'I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people. Unfortunately, todays Democratic Party does not. Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday morning she is leaving the Democratic Party in a series of tweets criticizing their 'cowardly wokeness' and accusing them of 'stoking anti-white racism' The ex-representative for Hawaii 's 2nd district and United States Army Reserve officer accused the party of 'demonizing the police', 'protecting criminals', 'believing in open borders' and 'dragging us even closer to nuclear war ' 'I believe in a government that is of, by, and for the people,' she added. 'Unfortunately, todays Democratic Party does not. 'Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite' 'Instead, it stands for a government of, by, and for the powerful elite. 'Im calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.' DailyMail.com columnist Meghan McCain congratulated Gabbard in a tweet saying 'there are so few free thinkers and independents left in this world and you are one of them. We are in your corner. Onward and upward!' Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 after serving she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at age 21 and serving in the field medical unit of the Hawaii National Guard. She deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and served in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader. Gabbard, who used to be aligned with Bernie Sanders, has spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference and appeared in Fox News. In February, she received a standing ovation for her speech attacking the 'power elite' and 'their co-conspirators in the mainstream media and the security state.' She pleased crowd by saying that in an ideal world 'our leaders would haul (former Director of National Intelligence) James Clapper before a judge to answer for his lies to Congress about how the government is collecting information.' 'And they would support the Durham investigation and Clinton corruption in 2016... ,' she said, not even finishing her sentence before there was raucous applause. She went after both Democrats and Republicans in Congress 'who talk a good game about civil liberties, but when it comes time to cast that vote on things like getting rid of secret FISA courts and protecting our fourth amendment rights to privacy, they vote on the side of the power elite and against liberty.' In 2019, Hillary Clinton famously suggested the Russians were 'grooming' Gabbard, though didn't use the congresswoman's name. She also urged those who agreed with her to leave with just a month until the crucial midterm elections in a video attacking the institution whose members she clams 'actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms' Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 after serving she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at age 21 and serving in the field medical unit of the Hawaii National Guard. Gabbard had quit her post at the Democratic National Committee three years before to publicly support Sanders, who was running against Clinton, and told then DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in an email - exposed in the Wikileaks hack - that she felt the DNC was rigging the primary in favor of the more mainstream ex-secretary of state, senator and first lady. In April 2022, she got into a spat with Republican Senator Mitt Romney after her accused her of 'treasonous lies' for her claims that the U.S. was funding biolabs in Ukraine. She sent Romney a cease and desist letter accusing him of 'false and defamatory statements'. Gabbard claimed in a tweet that there are '25 to 30 U.S. funded bio labs in Ukraine.' 'According to the U.S government, these bio labs are conducting research on dangerous pathogens,' she said in the video. 'These pathogens know no borders, if they are inadvertently or purposely breached or compromised, they will quickly spread all throughout Europe, the United States and the rest of the world causing untold suffering and death.' Gabbard said 'these labs need to be shut down immediately and the pathogens that they hold need to be destroyed.' More than 35,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel by small boat so far this year - almost 7,000 more than in the whole of 2021. According to stats from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), 35,233 people have made the perilous journey across the 21-mile Dover Straits in 873 boats - an average of 40 people per vessel - so far in 2022. Last year saw 28,526 asylum seekers reach British soil in inflatable dinghies and other small craft, while in 2020 just 8,410 made the crossing. Meanwhile, analysis of the number of people illegally arriving to the UK this month shows there have been 2,232 crossings recorded - with 539 migrants being escorted into Dover, Kent, by Border Force officials on Monday, and a further 1,065 arriving the day before. Natalie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover, was worried about the number of people making the dangerous journey across the Channel. She said: 'With these shocking record numbers of illegal crossings, getting the small boats crisis under control should be a key priority. Figures show that 35,233 people have made the perilous journey across the 21-mile Dover Straits in 873 boats - an average of 40 people per vessel - so far in 2022 539 migrants being escorted into Dover, Kent, by Border Force officials on Monday, and a further 1,065 arriving the day before. Pictured are migrants arriving in Dover on Sunday Conservative MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke said: 'With these shocking record numbers of illegal crossings, getting the small boats crisis under control should be a key priority' 'With the approach of winter, the seas will get rougher and the weather colder- inevitably the risk of further loss of life will increase. Thats why urgent action is needed to stop these dangerous crossings.' The latest milestone comes as the Government faces another legal challenge to its plan to send migrants to Rwanda. Charity Asylum Aids case is due to be heard by High Court judges later this week after similar challenges were made last month. Deportation flights are on hold while the legal disputes continue. The court is expected to give its ruling on all of the cases at the same time, at a later date. Since former Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the deal with the east African nation in April, 29,965 people have arrived in the UK after making the journey from France. Despite this, the number of people arriving here in small boats is still a fraction of those going to mainland Europe. Data from the UNs refugee agency shows at least 120,441 people arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean by land and sea last year. Last week, Home Secretary Suella Braverman revealed it was her 'dream' to have the first batch of failed migrants on a plane to Rwanda by Christmas. The senior Cabinet minister announced plans for a new blanket ban on Channel migrants and anyone else entering the UK illegally from claiming asylum. During the Conservative Party Conference earlier this month, she also told an audience in Birmingham that her ultimate goal was to reduce net migration to 'tens of thousands'. Speaking at the Conservative Party conference last Tuesday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman vowed to stop migrants crossing the Channel illegally The number of migrants crossing the Channel has ballooned 8,410 in 2020 to 35,233 so far in 2022. Pictured are the latest arrivals at Dover on Sunday The latest milestone comes as the Government faces another legal challenge to its plan to send migrants to Rwanda. Images show asylum seekers docking at Dover on Sunday This was a goal of the David Cameron government, but one it completely failed to score. However she said that both measures would take time to implement due to the legal hurdles they face. Speaking to the Choppers Politics podcast the Home Secretary said: 'In the 90s it was in the tens of thousands under Mrs Thatcher, net migration, and David Cameron famously said tens of thousands, no ifs no buts. 'So that would be my ultimate aspiration but we've got to take it slowly and we've got to go incrementally. 'I'm not going to commit to a number. I think we have got to definitely substantially reduce the number of students, the number of work visas and in particular the number of dependents on those sorts of visas.' In the latest migrant arrival to Britain, some 50 people were brought into Dover's harbour on an RNLI lifeboat at 6.30am on Monday. Just two hours later Border Force vessel Hurricane brought dozens more migrants into the port amid choppy weather at sea. They could be seen being led along the gangway to be taken for processing. Many of them sported blankets around their shoulders after battling wet and windy conditions in the Channel. Analysis of the number of people illegally arriving to the UK this month shows there have been 2,232 crossings recorded so far. Pictured: migrants being processed in Dover on Sunday The French coastguard rescued a further 160 people from the Channel the same day. The French Navy patrol vessel, Flamant, was tasked with attending to 89 stranded migrants off the coast of Dunkirk and in the Oye-Plage sector. They were recovered from the water and taken back to the port of Calais. While the national sea rescue boat, Jean Bart II, was also tasked with rescuing migrants whose boat had got into difficulty off the coast of Zuydcoote.. A total of 23 people were recovered on board and deposited at the port of Dunkirk. The French Navy support and assistance vessel, Argonaute, also intercepted 48 people in one boat near Petit-Fort-Philippe and dropped them at the port of Boulogne. Once docked, the stranded migrants were taken care of by the departmental fire and rescue service and the border police. The MoD said its data was taken from 'live operational systems' and was subject to change, 'including reduction'. Advertisement The first funeral for the victims of the Applegreen service station explosion in Ireland was today held in Co Donegal village where the blast happened, with the priest offering solemn words to her family. Mass for 24-year-old fashion designer Jessica Gallagher was held at St Michael's Church, where Father John Joe Duffy consoled her bereaved relatives, saying: 'We cannot feel your pain, but we will walk with you in that pain.' Ms Gallagher, who had been due to start a new job on Monday, was one of ten people, aged from five to 59, killed in the tragedy in the village of Creeslough on Friday. The first funeral for the victims of the service station explosion in Ireland is under way in the Co Donegal village where the blast happened. Pictured: Mourners gather to attend the funeral of Jessica Gallagher, aged 24 at St. Michael's Church Cresslough, on October 11 Pictured: Mass for 24-year-old fashion designer Jessica Gallagher is taking place at St Michael's Church on Tuesday The family of Jessica Gallagher, 24, watch as her coffin leaves St Michael's Church, Creeslough, after her funeral mass The hearse carrying Jessica Gallagher, 24, arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass. Jessica died following an explosion at Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday. Picture date: Tuesday October 11, 2022 Jessica Gallagher had recently returned to her home town of Creeslough from Paris. It is understood the 24-year-old was studying design in the French capital, but had recently moved home The funeral of Martin McGill, 49, who was originally from Scotland, will also be held at St Michael's Church later on Tuesday. Ireland's police force, An Garda Siochana, continues to investigate the cause of the blast in a building complex that included the service station and convenience store and residential apartments. It is being treated as a 'tragic accident'. A gas leak is one theory, it is believed. Father John Joe Duffy, who will preside at many of the Creeslough funerals, said he was struggling to find words to encapsulate the enormity of the tragedy. Ahead of the first mass on Tuesday, for Ms Gallagher, Fr Duffy told reporters: 'It's nothing we could ever have imagined, nor could any community have imagined. 'There are no words. I'm trying to find words this morning. I'm one of the locals here, I am one of the people, I am ordinary, I may wear this collar but I'm ordinary, I'm struggling to find words. Maybe words will find me this morning. 'I went there to reflect at the scene, I saw a little photograph that somebody had placed among the flowers of a dog who was sitting on stones looking out from a doorway on to a brighter sky. 'So, all that we can pray for is that, through the help of everyone, that the families will manage to get through this and I am worried for people.' Priest Fr John Joe Duffy sprinkles holy water on the coffin of Jessica Gallagher as it is carried into St Michael's Church The coffin of Jessica Gallaghe is carried into St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass The hearse carrying Jessica Gallagher arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass. Floral arrangements are seen through the window, including one spelling her name The other eight victims were 50-year-old Robert Garwe and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe, who were buying a birthday cake; 48-year-old James O'Flaherty; 14-year-old Leona Harper; 39-year-old Catherine O'Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan; 59-year-old Hugh Kelly; and 49-year-old Martina Martin. Mr O'Flaherty's funeral will be in St Mary's Church in Derrybeg on Wednesday morning. A joint service will be held for Ms O'Donnell and her son James at St Michael's in Creeslough on Wednesday afternoon. A funeral for Ms Harper is to take place at St Mary's Church, Ramelton on Thursday. Mrs Martin, a mother of four, will also be laid to rest on Thursday with a service at St Michael's Church, Creeslough. At the outset of the funeral, Fr John Joe Duffy expressed 'sincere and heartfelt sympathies' to Jessica Gallagher's family. 'We would love to be able to put in our hands to your hearts and take away that grief and that pain that you are suffering this morning,' he said. 'But to even think of that would not be a sensible thing to do. Because in that void, in that grief, there you hold in your hearts Jessica.' Fr Duffy described Jessica as a 'jewel' of her family. Mourners leave St. Michael's Church after attending the funeral of Jessica Gallagher, aged 24, in Creeslough, on October 11 The hearse carrying Jessica Gallagher, 24, arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass Priest Fr John Joe Duffy speaks to the media before the funeral mass for Jessica Gallagher. At the outset of the funeral, Fr John Joe Duffy expressed 'sincere and heartfelt sympathies' to Jessica Gallagher's family. 'We would love to be able to put in our hands to your hearts and take away that grief and that pain that you are suffering this morning,' he said Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O'Neill arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for the funeral mass of Jessica Gallagher 'While we cannot take that pain away for you, we want to walk with you,' he said. 'We cannot feel your pain but we will walk with you in that pain because to even say that we feel that pain would not be right or not be fair to you, but we walk in that pain. 'The greater someone is loved, the greater that pain and that pain is so immense, and Jessica will forever remain in your heart, but she will also be with you, she will remain with you.' In his homily, Father John Joe Duffy said Jessica Gallagher 'radiated a warm and positive feeling' to all who knew her well. The priest said she left ripples of 'love, affection, kindness and warmth' wherever she went. 'We are experiencing, you the family, are experiencing that most difficult challenge of all - the pain and hardship of having to say goodbye to Jessica today,' he said. 'That pain and hardship that other families are experiencing and I know that other families have been with you that have lost a loved one and those who have a loved one in hospital at this time. 'That pain has been felt in our parish and in our neighbouring parishes when the pathway in which Jessica and others were travelling through life was so abruptly ended by this tragic accident. 'I wish I as a priest could explain that more fully in a way that words could explain it, but we do not have words to explain it, for words would make no sense or couldn't give it sense. 'I am part of you, part of this community, and it is together that we will make the journey and travel that journey going forward, supporting each other as so many people have been doing. Our entire community is hurting. Our hearts are heavy, but our spirits are strong.' Pictured: The scene of devastation at the petrol station in Creeslough is shown in this aerial photograph Emergency services attend the scene of the Applegreen service station explosion on October 8, 2022 in Creeslough Emergency services attend the scene of a explosion, resulting in multiple deaths, at a service station in the village of Creeslough, in County Donegal, Ireland, October 8, 2022 Father John Joe Duffy told mourners that Jessica Gallagher's grieving father Anthony had told him of his pride in how the community in Creeslough had responded to the tragedy. 'That sums up the type of community that we are and it is that community and our faith that will help us in the pathway of life ahead,' he said. The cleric added: 'We are heartened this morning in our sadness of that support, that rallying of support from the very first moment of this terrible accident, that help that came to us from right across this island of Ireland, that help that joined in so greatly between the services from Northern Ireland and our own services and our locals all working together hand in hand.' He denies the previous claims, and has hit out at the book which claims he also disparaged Emerson to other members of staff after she left Emerson left the company after the assault and was awarded a settlement by the broadcasting giant The ex-HBO chairman allegedly choked Sasha Emerson in her office in 1991, shortly after the broke off their consensual affair His suspension comes a month before a new book will hit the shelves with new details about his 'vile' behavior towards a former HBO staffer Chris Albrecht, 70, has been placed on administrative leave from Legendary Television Chris Albrecht has been suspended from Legendary Television ahead of a bombshell book claiming he choked and disparaged a staffer after breaking off their affair. The ex-HBO chairman is accused of being vile towards staffer Sasha Emerson, a former executive VP at HBO, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Emerson left the company over an allegation that he attacked her in her office in 1991, after they ended their consensual affair months before. Albrecht, 70, allegedly left the broadcasting giant after a settlement was brokered by HBO for Emerson, but a representative has denied the allegations. His attempt to choke Emerson has been previously reported, but the bombshell book will reveal new details about his behavior after the incident. A spokesman for Legendary Television confirmed that Albrecht, president of the company, has been placed on a leave of absence ahead of the book being published. Albrecht, 70, allegedly left the broadcasting giant after a settlement was brokered by HBO for Emerson, but a representative has denied the allegations His attempt to choke Emerson has been previously reported, but the bombshell book - It's Not TV - will reveal new details about his behavior after the incident Its Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO by Felix Gillette and John Koblin, is set to go on sale on November 1. The authors of the book are understood to expand on a previously reported claim that Albrecht choked Emerson. Emerson, a rising star within the network, spoke to a friend about the alleged attack, as well as HBOs Michael Fuchs. She never filed a police report, but took a settlement and left the network according to the new book. Previously the settlement was not revealed to the HBO board and her departure was not explained internally. Albrecht at the time was in charge of originals and was working with Emerson on HBO Independent Productions. The new bombshell book revealed that he would disparage her in meetings with TV writers and producers following her exit, with fellow staff dubbing it as vile. One writer told the authors that HBO rewrote the narrative over Emersons departure, claiming there was a campaign to blacken her out. Emerson, a rising star within the network, spoke to a friend about the alleged attack, as well as HBOs Michael Fuchs The added that there was an attempt to paint her as a chaotic, problematic person as she took a very unfair settlement. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2007 that she received at least $400,000. Speaking to the authors of the book, Emerson said that she still cant bear to feel anything constricting her throaty, including the strap of a bike helmet. Albrechts representative denied the allegations, and rejects and disagrees with the characterization of what office in Emerson office. They added: After more than 30 years an old, flawed story is now being refurbished and recycled for the sake of sales. I have sincerely apologized to those whom I offended with disrespect and utterly unacceptable behavior. But that doesnt sell books or generate media attention. Some things do indeed age well; but bad reporting does not. Its Not TV also covers Albrechts public arrest after police saw him choking his then-girlfriend Karla Jensen in Las Vegas, which prompted him to resign from HBO. The Korean government voiced strong regret Tuesday over a barrage of Russian missile attacks on Kyiv that killed several civilians earlier this week. On Monday, Russia shelled multiple cities in Ukraine, including the capital city, leaving at least 11 dead and dozens injured, according to news reports. "We strongly condemn Russia's armed invasion against Ukraine as a violation of the principles of the UN Charter and reaffirm our stance that the use of force that causes innocent casualties cannot be justified under any circumstances," foreign ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk told a press briefing. No casualties of Korean nationals have been reported from Monday's missile attack as of now, he added. The ministry said it is working around the clock in close coordination with the Korean embassy in Kyiv to monitor the situation and to protect Korean citizens living in Ukraine. Around 40 Korean nationals are known to be currently in the eastern European country. (Yonhap) Sheikh Saeed and Ms Javadli have been in custody battle since their split with his lawyers arguing she is an unfit mother - a claim she denies The ex-wife of a Dubai sheikh has made a video plea for help, claiming she is being harassed by authorities over a custody battle with her former husband. Mother-of-three Zeynab Javadli, 31, was married to Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum between 2015 and 2019. In a video shared with BBC News. Ms Javadli pleaded: 'Please help me,' continuing, 'My children and I are terrified and frightened for our lives and safety.' She has also made a request to the UN Human Rights Council claiming she has been subjected to 'abuse, harassment and intimidation,' the BBC said. Ms Javadli (pictured with her daughters) says she fears for the safety of her children The clip comes after a series of videos were shared by Ms Javadli in 2020 on Instagram, in which she also pleaded for help after it appeared her home was being raided by Dubai authorities. In one of the 2020 videos, the mother-of-three says: 'I can't give my children up to strangers. This is how they are dealing with me. There's no law,' while one of her young daughters is heard saying in the background 'You can't take us anywhere.' The incident is referred to in her case to the UN, with lawyers for Ms Javadli saying her children and parents were assaulted when Dubai police officers entered her home without permission. Ms Javadli's UK-based lawyers say that her freedom of movement has been restricted, and that the past three years have seen unannounced police raids carried out on her Dubai home. Sheikh Saeed and Ms Javadli have been engaged in a custody battle since the pair split in 2019, with the sheikh's lawyers arguing Ms Javadli is an unfit mother - a claim she denies. Zeynab Javadli has remained in Dubai since her divorce, fearing that she may never see her children again if she leaves the country The former champion gymnast has chosen to remain in Dubai since divorcing the sheikh in 2019 instead of returning to her native Azerbaijan, in fear of being blocked from reentering the country and not being able to see her daughters again. Her worry of losing her children is so strong that she is even choosing not to send them to school, instead keeping them indoors in case they are taken from her by authorities. Ms Javadli's case is one of a few in Dubai's ruling family. In 2019, Princess Haya, another former wife of a sheikh who ended up embroiled in a custody battle, fled Dubai with the pair's two children to start a new life in the UK. And in 2018, Princess Latifa, another ex-wife of a Dubai sheikh, says the yacht she was using to flee the country was intercepted by speedboats containing armed Special Forces guards. She claims the guards then used smoke grenades to decapitate the yacht's crew before tranquillising her and returning her to Dubai, where she said she was 'held captive' in undercover videos. The princess has since reappeared in public, saying she is 'living as she wishes'. Medics were called on Tuesday morning after a child fell unconscious, with firefighters being alerted to the deadly gas by their equipment This is the horrific moment 28 kids were raced into the back of ambulances after a carbon monoxide leak at a daycare center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Dramatic footage show the kids wrapped up in blankets outside Happy Smiles Learning Center before they were bundled into the back of ambulances. Four members of staff along with the children were taken to four medical centers across Allentown after the leak - which was sparked by a faulty heating unit and blocked venting system. Allentown Fire Department Captain John Christopher confirmed they are in a stable condition but were being looked over by medics. Officials also established that Happy Smiles did not have a carbon monoxide detector installed. The alarm over the poisonous gas was only raised when firefighters responded to a 911 call at 6:51am for a child who fell unconscious. Legislation passed last month requires all childcare centers in Pennsylvania to have the detectors, but the companies had 30 days to make the changes. The director of Happy Smiles said there were already plans to install a detector before the incident. Parents were seen accompanying their small children as they were stretchered out of the daycare center in Allentown, Pennsylvania Of the 32 people taken to hospital, 28 of those who were treated for the poisonous gas were children at the daycare Dramatic footage show the kids wrapped up in blankets outside Happy Smiles Learning Center before they were bundled into the back of ambulances The alarm over the poisonous gas was only raised when firefighters responded to a 911 call at 6:51am for a child who was unconscious. Emergency services air quality equipment alerted the firefighters to the killer gas Parents were informed of the incident, with some coming to collect their children and take them to get checked over Officials also established that Happy Smiles did not have a carbon monoxide detector installed, but the director insists that plans were being made to do so Emergency services raced to the scene after one of the children passed out due to the toxic gas at around 7am on Tuesday morning. They scrambled the city's entire fleet of ambulances amid fears they would be overwhelmed by mass casualties. UGI confirmed to DailyMail.com they had multiple officers on scene and the cause of the leak was a 'malfunctioning heating unit as well as a blocked venting system'. The incident has been reported as a level 1 mass casualty, meaning that medics and emergency responders could be overwhelmed by the number of patients. The incident has been reported as a level 1 mass casualty, meaning that medics and emergency responders could be overwhelmed by the number of patients The center was evacuated as multiple people were showing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning Every ambulance in the area was called to the scene, which has been designated as a level on mass casualty event Firefighters were then alerted to the carbon monoxide leak by their air quality detectors when they arrived on the scene A few of the parents took their own children to the hospital, while others were being triaged outside of the building. Capt. Christopher confirmed that a 911 call at 6:51am was initially a medical call for a child who was unconscious. Firefighters were then alerted to the carbon monoxide leak by their air quality detectors when they arrived on the scene. He added that 'every Allentown ambulance in use' for the ongoing incident, with all of the children eventually being taken to hospital to be monitored. The center was then evacuated as multiple people were showing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Several children have been taken to hospital after a carbon monoxide leak at a daycare in Allentown, Pennsylvania Thirty-two people, including children and staff, have been rushed to four hospitals across the county and are in a stable condition A number of children have fallen ill after the leak on Tuesday morning at Happy Smiles Learning Center on Wabash Street Children were removed from the property on stretchers, and are being taken to various hospitals across the Lehigh Valley. Multiple emergency services, including ambulances and firetrucks, were on the scene. A number of children were still waiting to be transported at around 8am according to 69 News. Officials confirmed that parents have been notified of the incident, and authorities are working with daycare center employees to keep everyone informed. Another daycare around the corner has opened up its facility to keep children safe and warm. Advertisement The mother of a newborn twin interrupted Lucy Letby attacking him in a hospital's neonatal unit - but the alleged baby killer 'got rid' of the panicked parent by telling her: 'Trust me I'm a nurse', a court heard today. The child, who can only be named as Baby E for legal reasons, was 'acutely distressed' and found bleeding from the mouth in his cot at Countess of Chester Hospital on August 3, 2015. After he died the following morning, Letby went on to show a 'very unusual interest' in the baby's family, the court heard, with social media searches on them two days after the baby's death and again on seven occasions, including on Christmas Day. Letby, 32, denies murdering seven babies - five boys and two girls - and attempting to murder 10 more infants by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies. Her parents Susan and John are supporting her at her six-month trial at Manchester Crown Court. Baby E, her fourth alleged murder victim, was born on July 29, 2015 and by August 3 was feeding well. At about 9pm that evening, his mother decided to make her way from the postnatal ward to visit him in the neonatal unit, where he was in the care of Letby with his brother Baby F. Nick Johnson, KC, prosecuting, told the jury that the boys' mother 'interrupted Lucy Letby who was in the process of attacking Baby E' but 'she did not realise it at the time'. He added: 'When she arrived Baby E was acutely distressed and bleeding from his mouth'. The little boy's mother said that Letby 'tried to reassure her' that the blood was due to a feeding tube 'irritating his throat'. Mr Johnson claimed that whilst telling the mother to return to the postnatal ward she had implored her: 'Trust me, I'm a nurse'.' Mr Johnson told Letby's trial: 'We suggest she was fobbed off by Lucy Letby. However, she [the mother] was so concerned by what she had seen that she telephoned her husband when she got back to the labour ward'. Following Child E's death in the early hours of August 4, the Crown said Letby made 'fraudulent' nursing notes which were 'false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks'. The little boy also had 'striking' white and purple rash on his abdomen seen on several other of Letby's alleged victims, which doctors claimed was consistent with an injection of air. As the second day of Letby's trial continues, Manchester Crown Court has heard: Letby, 32, denies murdering seven premature babies and attempting to murder 10 more over 12 months. The deaths occurred at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby was arrested three years after the death of her first alleged victim, Baby A; ICU nurse is alleged to have injected babies with insulin, air or pumped with milk to kill them - often during night shifts when parents were less likely to be there; Babies A, C and D were all murdered in the space of around 13 days, it is alleged. The jury was told that Letby was stood next to the cot of Baby C when his monitor alarm went off and she told the colleague who rushed in: 'He's going, he's going'. Baby A was murdered in the same room six earlier, prosecution claims; The day after allegedly murdering Baby E, Lucy Letby allegedly used insulin for the first time to poison a baby, the court heard, by trying to murder Baby E's twin brother, Baby F; Letby allegedly targeted twins on more than one occasion - and in some cases one was murdered and their sibling survived; She is said to have searched for the families of her alleged victims families on Facebook and social media, including on Christmas Day; In some cases, Letby is alleged to have tried to kill the same baby on up to three occasions; Lucy Letby was caught attacking a baby she would later murder by the child's mother, a court heard today Letby's parents Susan and John Letby arrive at Manchester Crown Court this morning Full indictment against Lucy Letby Lucy Letby is charged as follows: Count 1 Charged with murder of Baby A on June 8, 2015 Count 2 Charged with attempted murder of Baby B between the June 8, 2015 and June 11, 2015 Count 3 Charged with murder of Baby C on June 14, 2015 Count 4 Charged with murder of Baby D on June 22, 2015 Count 5 Charged with murder of Baby E on August 4, 2015 Count 6 Charged with attempted murder of Baby F on August 5, 2015 Count 7 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 7, 2015 Count 8 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015 Count 9 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015 Count 10 Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 26, 2015 Count 11 Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 27, 2015 Count 12 Charged with murder of Baby I on October 23, 2015 Count 13 Charged with attempted murder of Baby J on November 27, 2015 Count 14 Charged with attempted murder of Baby K on February 17, 2015 Count 15 Charged with attempted murder of Baby L on April 9, 2016 Count 16 Charged with attempted murder of Baby M on April 9, 2016 Count 17 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 3, 2016 Count 18 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 15, 2016 Count 19 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 15, 2016 Count 20 Charged with murder of Baby O on June 23, 2016 Count 21 Charged with murder of Baby P on June 24, 2016 Count 22 Charged with attempted murder of Baby Q on June 25, 2016 Advertisement Letby's notes failed to mention that Baby E was bleeding at 9pm, and yet she claimed there had been a meeting between the registrar and the mother. Neither recalled such a meeting, said prosecutor Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson said that Letby had made a note in Baby F's records which she timed at 9.13pm 'after she had got rid of (the mother)', he added. Child E went on to suffer significant blood loss, say the Crown, later in the evening, with a treating registrar saying he had never encountered such a large bleed in a small baby. Following Child E's death in the early hours of August 4, the Crown said Letby made 'fraudulent' nursing notes which were 'false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks'. At 11.40pm Baby E's blood oxygen levels and heart rate dropped and his abdomen developed a striking discolouration with flitting white and purple patches that reminded a registrar who saw them of the distinctive skin discolouration on the body of Letby's first alleged victim, Baby A, who medics believe suffered a fatal injection of oxygen in the June. Full CPR began on Baby E at just after midnight on August 4 and he died at around 1.27am. The court also heard today that Baby E's brother, Baby F, is alleged to have been the victim of one of two insulin poisonings carried out by Letby on August 5. The court heard that Letby wrote a note in the nursing records at 4.51am, in the aftermath of E's death. Written in capital letters, it read: 'Mummy was present at the start of the shift attending to cares. Visited again approx. 10pm. Aware that we had obtained blood from his NG tube and were starting some different medications to treat this. 'She was updated by (a registrar) and contained E. Informed her that we would contact her if any changes'. The court heard earlier today that Letby was found with a premature child moments after administering a fatal injection of air in the same room where she had poisoned and killed another newborn just six days earlier. The jury was told that she was stood next to the cot of Baby C, who was just five days old and weighed 2lbs, when his monitor alarm went off and she told the colleague who rushed in: 'He's going, he's going'. Baby C died because the air injected into his stomach made him unable to breath and he suffered a cardiac arrest, Nick Johnson KC, told the jury on the second day of her trial at Manchester Crown Court. Letby allegedly killed him just six days after murdering for the first time, when she killed another boy, Baby A, and days later attacked his twin sister, Baby B, while working at the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. A third child, Baby D was murdered eight days after Baby C, making it three fatal poisonings in around 13 days, the jury was told. Experts believe all three died after air was injected into their bloodstream and the ICU nurse was later questioned by police over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook - often hours after their children had died. Letby denies murdering seven premature babies - and trying to kill ten more - by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies. Baby C, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been born prematurely at 30 weeks on June 10, 2015, but despite going into intensive care he was in a good condition. On the night of June 14 Baby C's assigned nurse briefly left the room to go to the nursing station, she heard his alarm go off, so rushed back. Mr Johnson said: 'When she went back into room one, there was Lucy Letby, standing next to Child C's cot', adding that Letby had 'no business' to be there and had been told repeatedly she was caring for another, more poorly baby, in another room on that shift. He told the jury: 'Again, taking a step back, you can now see there was a pattern emerging. 'Lucy Letby was the only person working on the night shift when Baby C died who had also been working on either of the shifts when Baby A died and his twin sister Baby B collapsed. 'What we are going to see, as we progress, is that Lucy Letby's method of attacking the babies in the neo-natal unit was beginning to develop. 'She had injected air into the bloodstream of the first twins, Baby A and B, and varied this approach by injecting air into Baby C's stomach via the nasogastric tube.' Mr Johnson said an independent pathologist - when reviewing the case - concluded Child C died because his breathing became compromised and he suffered a cardiac arrest. Lucy Letby texted nurse to say she wanted to be in the room with a baby she later killed - 'for her own wellbeing', court hears Lucy Letby texted a colleague saying she wanted to be in the room with Baby C - for her own wellbeing - before she murdered the newborn, the court heard today. She was the only person in the room when Child C suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed, but was meant to be caring for a different child elsewhere. An alarm went off and she was found next to the premature child's cot. Letby told the nurse who ran in: 'He's going', the court heard. Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier. 'But the shift leader had put her in room three. So she didn't like it.' Senior medics failed to resuscitate Baby C and he was pronounced dead at 5.58am on June 14. Advertisement The prosecutor told jurors: 'If you are trying to murder a child in a neo-natal unit, it is a fairly effective way of doing it. It doesn't really leave much trace'. He said on the afternoon of June 14, 2015 - hours after Child C died - the defendant searched on Facebook for the youngster's parents. Mr Johnson suggested from the timings that this was 'one of the first things she did when waking up' after she had earlier finished her shift at about 8am. Letby is alleged to have murdered Baby D on June 22, eight days after Baby C, the court heard. Mr Johnson said: 'The prosecution say that this was another case of injecting a child with air into the bloodstream. Three children had died and one had had a life-threatening episode in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in a two-week period. Lucy Letby was the only constant presence'. Children's nurse Lucy Letby murdered Baby C four days after his birth on June 10, 2015, a jury at Manchester Crown Court head today. The infant weighed 2lbs (800 grams) at birth and was in a good condition. However, two days later he was given a longline to help him over a period of low blood sugar and on June 13 the least intrusive breathing support known as Optiflow. Later that day nurses found traces of bile in his stomach, potentially an early sign of a gastrointestinal disorder called nectrotising entrocolitis. He was given treatment for that and his milk feeds were discontinued. By the evening he was recovering. Letby was on a night shift that day. She was meant to be the designated nurse for another baby, but despite being instructed by her shift leader to stay with him she made her way to the cot of Baby C in Nursery 1. Sophie Ellis, the nurse caring for Baby C, went briefly to the nurses' station. Whilst there she heard Baby C's monitor sound an alarm. When she e-entered Nursery 1 Letby was already standing next to the cot. Letby told her: 'He's just dropped his heart rate and saturations' or something similar. Mr Johnson told the jury 'Baby C was the third baby who had suffered a serious deterioration in a matter of a few daysand there again was Lucy Letby.' Baby C quickly recovered, but then collapsed again a short time later. As he did so, Letby said to Nurse Ellis: 'He's going'. 'She was right,' said Mr Johnson. It later emerged that Letby had texted an off-duty colleague to say she had wanted to be in Room 1 because it would be cathartic for her would help her wellbeing, to see a living in the space previously occupied by a dead baby, Baby A'. Senior medics failed to resuscitate Baby C but he was pronounced dead at 5.58am on June 14. Dr Dewi Evans, the expert who reviewed the case, expressed concern about the cause of Baby C's sudden deterioration. In the light of the orther cases he reviewed he thought it suspicious. He also believed that the damage to his heart was the result of rather than the cause of his collapse. Dr Sandie Bohin thought the only feasible mechanism for the excessive air in the baby's gut at the time of his collapse was the deliberate injection of air into his bloodstream. Children's nurse Lucy Letby (pictured left and right), 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital Baby F was the first to be poisoned with insulin by Letby, court hears The day after allegedly murdering Baby E, Lucy Letby allegedly used insulin for the first time to poison a baby, the court heard, by trying to murder Baby E's twin brother, Baby F. Baby F was prescribed a TPN (total parenteral nutrition) bag of fluids and later suffered an unexpected drop in his blood sugar levels and surge in heart rate. Checks on his insulin levels were carried out which showed, 'conclusive evidence' someone had given child F insulin to poison him. Mr Johnson said no other baby on the neo-natal unit was prescribed insulin so child F could not have received the drug intended for some other child by negligence. Mr Johnson said the prosecution allege Letby had injected insulin into the TPN bag before it was hung up to give to the child. He added: 'You know who was in the room and you know from the records, who hung the bag. 'It can't have been an accident.' He told the jury there was only one, 'credible candidate' for the poisoner. 'The same person,' he said, 'Who was present at all the unexplained collapses and deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital on the neo-natal unit.' Advertisement Letby, 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital - including one child who died less than 90 minutes after being handed into her care. The specially trained ICU nurse was described as a 'constant malevolent presence' on the Cheshire children's unit where she allegedly killed and injured many vulnerable children - including twins. She is accused of using night shifts to launch many attacks because she knew parents were unlikely to visit the neonatal ward. Several babies were allegedly poisoned with insulin and one child - known as Baby E - was murdered when Letby allegedly injected him with air, Manchester Crown Court has heard. It caused what doctors call an air embolus, which leads to strokes or heart attacks. Letby is also accused of pumping dangerous levels of milk into the premature children via feeding tubes or veins. She allegedly targeted twins on more than one occasion - and in some cases one was murdered and their sibling survived. Letby was questioned by police during interviews over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook, with prosecutors saying that this was an 'unusual interest'. Opening the prosecution, Nick Johnson KC, said: 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing was not killed the first or even second time she tried'. He added: 'Sometimes they were injected with air both intravenously [into the blood] and via the nasogastric tube [into the stomach]. Sometimes they were injected with milk or some other fluid. Sometimes it was insulin. But the constant presence was Lucy Letby'. Police discovered 'a poisoner was at work' on the NHS neonatal unit after a 'significant rise' in the number of healthy babies dying or falling ill while a nurse accused of murdering seven children and trying to kill ten more was working on the ward between June 2015 and June 2016, the jury were told on the first day of her trial. She is facing 22 charges concerning 17 babies, some of whom she allegedly attempted to murder multiple times. Letby pleaded not guilty to each charge yesterday morning. Letby (pictured) is accused of murdering seven premature babies - and trying to kill ten more - took up to three attempts to poison infants by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies, a court heard today Lucy Letby sketched in the dock at Manchester Crown Court with security where she is charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of another ten, between June 2015 and June 2016 while working on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital Letby, 32, (pictured) is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital - including one child who died less than 90 minutes after being handed into her care. The prosecution claims that a single common factor in the death and collapses was the presence of a single neonatal nurse, Lucy Letby Mr Johnson said Letby was a 'constant malevolent presence' at the 'closely restricted' neonatal unit. He added: 'It is a hospital like so many others in the UK but unlike many other hospitals in the UK, and unlike many other neo-natal units in the UK, within the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work.' The prosecutor said two babies - referred to as Baby F and Baby L for legal reasons - were 'poisoned' by Letby 'deliberately with insulin'. They were attacked allegedly eight months apart with each of them from separate sets of twins. Both boys' blood sugar 'inexplicably dropped to dangerous levels' - but both survived 'because of the skill of the staff in the neonatal unit', the court heard. He said both of the twins injected with insulin each had a baby brother, Baby E and Baby M, who were both also allegedly attacked by Letby. The court heard one of the means by which the Baby E was killed and Baby M was harmed, by having air injected into the bloodstream. Baby M had 'mercifully' survived. He said: 'Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly severely deteriorated. Sometimes babies who had been sick and then on the mend deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants found the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator. The presence of one of the neonatal nurses. That nurse was Lucy Letby.' During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths'. Letby, 32, allegedly tried to kill one baby girl three times and a baby boy three times - including two attempts in one day. 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts,' said Mr Johnson. 'Although when Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts towards the end of this period the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts'. Letby poisoned babies while on the night shift because parents would not be around, court told Lucy Letby appearing in the dock at Manchester Crown Court Lucy Letby was accused of poisoning babies on the night shift. There tended to be fewer staff on the unit at night, and parents as well tended to visit mostly in the days. Mr Johnson continued: 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts. 'When upon Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts, the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts.' Mr Johnson said as medics could not account for the collapses and deaths, police were called in and conducted a 'pain-staking review'. He said: 'That review suggests that in the period between mid-2015 and the middle of 2016 somebody in the neo-natal unit poisoned two children with insulin. 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence you will hear is that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident.' Advertisement Referring to the alleged poisoning of both Baby F and Baby L, he added: 'Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned. We allege that she was the poisoner'. Mr Johnson said: 'Prior to January 2015, the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units. 'However over the next 18 months or so there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses. 'These rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause.' They were concerned that babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly, despite appropriate medical interventions that would normally have saved them. He said the collapses 'defied the normal experience of the treating doctors'. Mr Johnson said that normally babies might suffer from heart problems, infection or dehydration. 'Usually when an intervention was undertaken a positive reaction can be expected. But many of the cases you are going to hear about defied those expectations and norms', he said. Babies who were stable suddenly deteriorated, and sometimes babies who had been sick but were on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, the consultants noticed that a single common factor was the presence of a single neonatal nurse. 'That nurse' said the barrister, 'was Lucy Letby'. 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts,' said Mr Johnson. 'Although when Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts towards the end of this period the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts. 'Because of the inability of doctors to find genuine medical reasons for the deaths and collapses the police were called in'. Officers from Cheshire Constabulary commissioned a detailed review by experienced doctors with no connection to the Countess of Chester Hospital. 'That (review) suggests that from the middle of 2015 to the middle of 2016 somebody in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin. Letby is accused of attacking two sets of twins - with insulin and with air - one child, Baby E, would die but his sibling survived During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths' 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence will have been that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident'. If the prosecution was right about that, the fact that there were two deliberate poisonings would help the jury decide whether other crimes had been committed or whether they were 'just tragic coincidences'. Mr Johnson went on: 'We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 babies were not naturally occurring tragedies. 'They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things turned to the worst for these 17 children'. Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said in the case of the two babies injected with insulin, identified only as Baby F and Baby L, their blood sugar levels dropped to dangerous levels. But both survived due to the skill of medical staff who appreciated low blood sugar can have natural causes. Mr Johnson added: 'What the medical staff did not realise was that in both cases, was the result of someone poisoning them with insulin.' The prosecutor said nobody would think somebody would be trying to kill babies in a neo-natal unit. He said both of the twins injected with insulin each had a baby brother, Baby E and Baby M, who were both also allegedly attacked by Letby - one of which did not survive. The court heard one of the means by which the Baby E was killed and Baby M was harmed, was by having air injected into the bloodstream - what the doctors call an air embolus. Mr Johnson added: 'As we go through my introduction of the case, we will see that similar events repeated themselves. The means by which the children in this case were harmed and killed varied.' Prosecutor Mr Johnson said sometimes babies were injected with air and on other occasions they were fed with insulin or too much milk. He told the court: 'So varying means by which these babies were attacked but the constant presence when they were fatally attacked or collapsed catastrophically was Lucy Letby.' Jurors were shown a chart showing nurses who were present on duty when the alleged criminal incidents were said to have taken place. Pointing out, as examples, the first three alleged offences in time he said the chart showed the only person that was present on all three occasions was the defendant. Mr Johnson said: 'If you look at the table overall the picture is, we say, self-evidently obvious. It's a process of elimination.' Mr Johnson went on: 'It is a complicated case by any measures. It concerns seven allegations of murder and allegations of attempted murder of 10 other children. 'We allege that sometimes Lucy Letby tried to kill the same baby more than once. 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing she did not manage to kill the first time she tried, or even the second time, and in one case even the third time.' The children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be referred to as Baby A to Q. The trial, which is expected to last six months, continues. Advertisement Therese Coffey today slapped back at Jamie Oliver after he called for free school meals to be extended to all households that receive Universal Credit. The celebrity chef and campaigner declared in an interview that he wanted around 800,000 more children to get the subsidies, on top of the 1.9million currently eligible. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it would be an 'injection of kindness' that could save the Tories, as well as driving up nutrition. But the deputy PM gave the idea short shrift this morning, pointing out that people earning 40,000 can receive UC and taxpayers would be 'surprised' if their children were entitled to free school meals. Currently, the children of parents who are on UC and have an annual income of no more than 7,400, or are on another benefit such as jobseeker's allowance, are eligible for free school meals. Oliver told BBC Radio 4's Today: 'If you earn over 7,400, you won't get that free school lunch. But I think we'd all agree that there's a massive gap between the means test for free school lunches as it stands and Universal Credit. 'I think what the Government are saying is Universal Credit tethers off and can go up to sort of 30,000 to 40,000, but really we're talking about the bulk of them being around 14,000 per household.' Asked if he wanted the threshold to be met, he replied: 'Well, now more than ever... if they were to open the threshold of who would be allowed to have a free school lunch, that would also inject funds into the system that would also really help to guarantee a much better service across 26,000 schools in the country.' However, Miss Coffey said: 'I know this has been suggested in the past I am aware that people could be earning over 40,000 and still be on Universal Credit. 'I think it is important support is targeted. I am not aware of any further changes that are being proposed to what happens today. Asked if that means she is against the extension, she said: 'It is a matter for the Secretary of State for Education, who has responsibility for this policy area. 'I am just flagging that people in UC given it is a dynamic in-work and out-of-work benefit can actually be earning a considerable amount of money, which I think other taxpayers may be surprised to learn that someone on 35,000 to 40,000 would all of a sudden become eligible for free school meals.' Jamie Oliver calls for free school meals to be extended to all households that receive Universal Credit on BBC Radio 4 today Deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey arrives at Downing Street this morning after appearing on the BBC The chef said Liz Truss, seen at No10, will soon be shown the door. He said: 'She will be a ship that passes in the night' Cigar-loving Therese Coffey admits she didn't think it was right to BAN parents from smoking in cars with kids Health Secretary Therese Coffey speaks to LBC this morning Health Secretary Therese Coffey today claimed the rule change to outlaw smoking in cars with children was probably not 'the right thing to be doing'. Miss Coffey made the controversial statement as it was revealed she plans to U-turn on the Government's pledge to unveil an action plan to tackle tobacco use. The cigar-puffing Liz Truss ally said she voted against the law change in 2015 because she didn't believe in telling parents what to do. She admitted that she did not know whether the law change actually was implemented at the time. Asked by LBC's Nick Ferrari why she voted against the rule change, she said: 'Oh probably because I didn't think it was the right thing to be doing, to be telling parents how to handle the situation.' Pressed on whether she thinks it is right to smoke with children in the back, Miss Coffey said she couldn't recall whether the law changed but thinks it 'probably did'. She added: 'I'm not getting into necessarily prescriptive... we want a positive prevention programme in the future.' Advertisement Oliver said he has 'no faith' in the Prime Minister and predicted that she will soon lose her job in yet another intervention in politics by the outspoken TV chef, who denied being part of the 'anti-growth coalition'. He said: 'I have no faith [in Liz Truss] we've been tracking her in her views for six, seven years, she's not going to change. She will be a ship that passes in the night. I'm actually quite calm about the whole thing'. Hinting that he believes the Tories will be voted out at the next election, in part for not 'putting children first', the millionaire chef suggested the Conservatives were turning nasty. He said: 'I think kindness has to be injected into this party if they have any chance - and I don't know if they have got it in them.' He added: 'I've been through six prime ministers and 13 education secretaries. None of them have taken seriously the issue of child health.' He also claimed that former prime minister Boris Johnson had to 'nearly die and have a child' before he saw the chef's point of view over school lunches and chose to 'do the right thing'. But he denied to presenter Nick Robinson that he is part of the 'anti-growth coalition', a term coined by Miss Truss for her critics. He replied: 'Completely not. I've spent a lifetime not only employing over 20,000 people but travelling around the world saying how brilliant Britain is. 'That's what we need to do as a country. We have an incredible country but just doing quick trade deals to the lowest common denominator and threatening British farming and British producers is completely bonkers.' He added: 'The reality is, if you speak to the best minds in economics, in the country, in the world, they will tell you that if you output healthier kids, you're going to have a more productive, more profitable country, better GDP. To do that, you have to think in ten to 20 years, not three-year cycles.' During her Tory conference speech in Birmingham last week, the Prime Minister railed against those she accused of trying to hold back her pro-growth agenda, stating that she was 'not interested in how many two-for-one offers you buy at the supermarket'. Critics pointed out they are still waiting for Oliver to leave Britain, after he said in 2016 that he would quit the UK if Mr Johnson became PM after winning the Brexit vote. One said: 'Jamie Oliver... the man that ruined school dinners for ever... He should stay out of it.' In response to the chef's comments about kindness, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'This is a Government that takes action to protect people.' He added that included the energy price guarantee to protect people, businesses and the public sector from 'unmanageable, unsustainable high costs' and 'welcoming people in need' through the Ukrainian refugee scheme. On Oliver's call for wider access to free school meals, the spokesman said: 'We do provide a significant number of families with free school meals. Obviously we need to make sure we're setting the right balance.' In May, Oliver was outside Downing Street demanding Mr Johnson scrapped BOGOF deals in supermarkets, waving an Eton mess pudding to make his point. The chef invited all 15million of his Twitter and Instagram followers to descend on Westminster and demand a U-turn on the policy but fewer than 200 people turned up as poverty campaigners branded him tone deaf. And Mr Johnson responded by saying the Government would not change its mind on delaying the introduction of a ban on buy-one-get-one-free promotions even if some of the foods are high in fat, sugar or salt. He said: 'If people can save on their food bills with some offers then I think we've just got to be flexible while continuing to tackle obesity.' Oliver raises his Eton mess to the sky outside Downing Street in May where he demanded then-PM Boris Johnson reconsider his U-turn on the Government's anti-obesity strategy. He also wants BOGOF deals banned Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival yesterday, the celebrity chef said a 'kitchen full of just men' was 'bad' and 'not a good place to work', as they 'struggle with ego more than women'. The 47-year-old, who was promoting his latest cookbook One: Simple one-pan wonders, suggested women have a more intuitive approach to cookery as they react to what is in front of them which he said he seeks to emulate to be at his best in the kitchen. 'As a young boy getting a craft and this energy about Michelin stars and measurement and how you control nature as opposed to how you react to nature which I think are more feminine traits like nourishment and more maternal feelings so if I'm ever good, I have to try and think like a woman', he added. Oliver has previously taken aim at big-name chefs for focusing more on their own egos than creating recipe books that everyone can follow, insisting that his celebrity colleagues should be similar to a 'sat-nav' for the home-cook. 'As a man and a chef you have got to have a massive scrap with your ego and look at how many chefs' books are rubbish. It is because they cannot get out of the restaurant, out of control and ego,' he told The Sun last year. 'For me, you have to beat that person up and throw them to the side. 'My audience is very mainstream. My job is to be clear. You do your job and break it down into chapters that are logical and useful.' Back at Cheltenham, Oliver contrasted the 'regimental' Anglo-French cooking craft he learnt at his parents' gastropub growing up, with the Italian cookery that would later have a big influence on his early career as a chef, describing Italian cooking as 'slightly more feminine'. The father of five also attributed the success of his initial years as the Naked Chef in the 1990s to women, saying his 'fame' was 'driven by female journalists'. 'I think you have to remember what it was like then, men and women going off to work together, but men around the country going, "What's for dinner love?" While the Naked Chef was 'about getting boys back in the kitchen' Oliver said it didn't go down too well with members of his own sex. He recounted having a 'tough' relationship with men within the first two years, with 'quite a lot of scaffolding abuse'. 'I got properly chased and roughed up a few times. They had it easy and then all of a sudden their girlfriend or wife is like, "Look, there's a foetus on the TV here, if he can do it, surely you can, you're a 45-year-old man, I'll have it once a week you lazy b******!" 'You think you girls have it bad when you go past scaffolding, being the Naked Chef in the 1990s was not good.' A rep for the famously progressive school said it will take no action against Flanagan for the 2012 Facebook post Those claims, did not sit right the Berkeley's famously woke student body - 218 of whom rose up to sign a petition started by a grad St. John, however, a famous violinist, last month posted on Facebook a screenshot of the offending post, calling Flanagan a liar for denying the post The University of California Berkeley will take no action against a music instructor for a 2012 Facebook post that seemingly insulted a fellow, female musician - despite a petition by students to have him ousted. Published more than ten years ago, the long-deleted post by decorated violinist Dan Flanagan, a veteran instructor at the school, was made in regard to Canadian musician Lara St. John, after the two shared the stage for a concert in the Bay Area. In the post, Flanagan, a concertmaster of the Sacramento Philharmonic and a violinist at the San Francisco Opera, labeled St. John 'a beast' whom 'ought to be euthanized' - deleting it shortly thereafter. St. John, however, a famous violinist, last month posted on Facebook a screenshot of the offending post, claiming that, at the time, she had contacted Flanagan's then-employer, UC Davis, shortly after he posted the comment, but 'no action was taken.' The declaration from St. John was followed by another post that saw her assert that Flanagan had been falsely telling colleagues and other composers that the words he wrote were written on a private satirical review page and were deleted immediately. In the scathing statement, the musician labeled Flanagan 'a liar,' sharing a grab of the post that she claimed was 'public on his page for at least 8 hours in May of 2012.' Those claims did not sit right with Berkeley's famously woke student body - many of whom promptly rose up to sign a petition started by a graduate to remove Flanagan from campus. The University of California Berkeley will take no action against its longtime music instructor Dan Flanagan (pictured) for a 2012 Facebook post that seemingly insulted a fellow, female musician - despite a petition by students to have him ousted Published more than ten years ago, the long-deleted post by the instructor was made in regard to famed violinist Lara St. John (pictured), after the two shared the stage for a concert in the Bay Area in May 2012 In the post, Flanagan, a concertmaster of the Sacramento Philharmonic and a violinist at the San Francisco Opera, labeled St. John 'a beast' whom 'ought to be euthanized. ' He reportedly deleted it shortly thereafter, and claims it was posted to a satirical fan group The petition asked he be removed from his position 'as soon as possible,' citing how the violinist's comments could 'affect the young people he teaches especially female students.' It further asked that 'an internal review' be conducted on Berkeley brass in the case that they knew about Flanagan's behavior before they hired him later that year. Responding to the September petition for the first time Tuesday, staff at the famously progressive school asserted that no action would be taken in response to the claims leveled at their longtime instructor by St. John, 51. 'The campus administration has no comment and is taking no action,' a spokesperson told The College Fix in response to the petition, which has garnered 218 signatures as of Tuesday morning. The school - which last month banned an off-campus co-op for students that banned white guests from entering its common areas - pointed to the instructor's First Amendment rights and said that his statement did not speak to the University's own opinions about St. John. St. John, however, a famous violinist, last month posted on Facebook a screenshot of the offending post, calling Flanagan a liar for reportedly denying the credibility of the post to colleagues and fellow artists St. John, a famous musician tabbed as a 'high-powered soloist' by The New York Times with her own music label, has yet to comment on the university's decision to keep Flanagan on staff 'When acting in their private capacities, University employees in the United States have the same rights and responsibilities as any other member of the public, including freedom of speech, as guaranteed by our Constitution,' the rep stated. 'At the same time, individual employees, including faculty, do not speak for or represent the values, perspectives or positions of the University.' It is not immediately clear what prompted St. John to level her claims last month, more than a decade after the incident. The post from Flanagan, reshared by St. John, read: 'I performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Lara St John 3 times over the weekend. 'I haven't been this disgusted with art since I watched Mel Gibson's The Passion,' he added. 'She's a beast and she ought to be euthanized.' Flanagan then lobbed what appeared to be a jab at a then 41-year-old St. John's weight. 'Contrary to popular assumption, she's not pregnant,' the long-deleted post stated. Flangan has been employed at the famously progressive university for more than ten years, and was hired shortly after he shared the offending post St. John accompanied her post, published on September 9, with a lengthy caption where she accused Flanagan of lying to the rest of the music community about his intent behind the post, after it was shared the day prior. 'It has come to my attention that the violinist Dan Flanagan has been telling colleagues and composers that the words he wrote (which I posted yesterday) suggesting I should be killed and speculating on my reproductive system, were written on some sort of private satirical review page and he took it down immediately,' she wrote. 'Among many choice words I may have for this man, I will now add liar.' She pointed out a timestamp visible on the shared screenshot, adding: 'I think we can all see for ourselves that this was public on his page for at least 8 hours in May of 2012.' St. John, tabbed as a 'high-powered soloist' by The New York Times with her own music label, has yet to comment on the university's decision to keep Flanagan on staff. The decision came despite a petition started by Berkeley alumnus Pranav Sivakumar, a former music student at the university. Sivakumars petition made two demands. First, it asked that Flanagan 'be removed' from the university, and that 'if this behavior was already known when Flanagan was hired, an internal review must be conducted to determine why that decision was made.' The petition further claimed that Flanagan continued to play with the California Symphony Orchestra for several years following the post, 'despite the orchestras conductors claiming that he would no longer be hired.' 'The Berkeley music department will not be a safe place for anyone as long as he remains there,' Sivakuma wrote, posting a link to the petition on St. John's profile. He added that he was 'appalled that [Flanagan] was hired to teach at such a respected university. A September petition by a Berkeley grad was published the day after St. John leveled the claims, and has since garnered more than 200 signatures The petition was started by Berkeley alumnus Pranav Sivakumar, who wrote that 'the Berkeley music department will not be a safe place for anyone as long as he remains there' 'There should be zero tolerance toward such misogynistic and dehumanizing language at any institution, but especially one like Berkeley that claims to be focused on gender equality,' the petition reads. Flanagan as of Tuesday remains with the university. The controversy serves as the latest incident revolving around the university's woke student population. Last month, an off-campus co-op for students at the University of California, Berkeley named the 'Person of Color Theme House' banned white guests from entering common areas of the house. Occupants were told 'many POC moved here to be able to avoid white violence and presence, so respect their decision of avoidance if you bring white guests.' School staffers promptly shut down the residence after asserting it violated its policies regarding discrimination. The two boys were found guilty of murder and will be sentenced at a later date Angus Beaumont was fatally stabbed by a 14cm knife north of Brisbane in 2020 Michelle Liddle called the two boys who hunted and killed her son 'gutless' Mother of son who was stabbed holds back tears giving victim impact statement Fighting back tears, Michelle Liddle has accused two 'gutless' boys of hunting and killing her 15-year-old son before taking aim at their 'menacing' families. In a heartbreaking victim impact statement, Ms Liddle told the boys she hoped they were locked away for a long time after her son Angus Beaumont was fatally stabbed in a fight north of Brisbane in March 2020. However, she claimed her family had been serving a life sentence since Angus died after a knife was thrust 14cm into the year 10 student's chest at Redcliffe. 'My beautiful boy, rest in peace because there is none for us,' Ms Liddle told the Brisbane Supreme Court. The two boys - who can't be named - congratulated each other after Angus was stabbed. They were both 14 at the time. One is now 16 and the other is 17. Michelle Liddle (left) has accused two 'gutless' boys of hunting and killing her 15-year-old son before taking aim at their 'menacing' and 'remorseless' families The boys were found guilty of murder by a jury in June. 'Your actions on that night were deliberate, callous and determined. You had every intention to hunt and kill,' Ms Liddle said. 'Your family and supporters have been remorseless and consistently menacing towards our family. 'It is clear by these acts of violence ... the remorselessness you have shown ... your gutless, selfish actions ... that you have no intention of changing your behaviour.' Ms Liddle broke down as she described the night her family raced to the hospital after learning that her 'beautiful, intelligent, healthy kid' had been stabbed. 'I didn't even get to say goodbye or tell my son how much he was loved,' she said. 'Hearing my youngest cry 'that's not my brother'... after seeing Angus ... as a consequence of your vicious attack, you even robbed our family of the right to farewell our boy with any dignity. 'You destroyed our family. Our life as we knew it ended that day.' Ms Liddle said since Angus' funeral, daily life had been a struggle. His younger brother even told them he didn't want to go on a family holiday again because 'it is too hard without Angus', she said. CCTV footage captured the incident after the two boys pursued a group of youths that included Angus. Wearing knuckle dusters and handed a knife by another member of his group, Angus confronted the duo and he was stabbed in the chest after being set upon in a two-on-one fight. Angus Beaumont was fatally stabbed with a 14cm knife in a fight north of Brisbane in March 2020 The two boys are seen congratulating each other by slapping hands before running away as Angus lay dying nearby. 'It shows their mindset at the time that they were happy that this boy was stabbed,' crown prosecutor Chris Cook said. Both boys had long criminal histories with one offending from the age of 11. One boy was on parole and the other was on bail at the time of the murder. One of the boys on Tuesday also pleaded guilty to three more offences including dangerous operation of a vehicle after stealing a car in May 2022 while on bail for murder. Ms Liddle said their Justice for Angus Beaumont foundation would continue to fight for Queensland juvenile justice law changes and curbing youth violence. 'This has affected our whole community who no longer feel safe knowing people like you are walking amongst us,' she told the two boys. They will be sentenced at a later date by Justice David Jackson. Advertisement As Russian troops pour into Belarus by the train-load and dictator Alexander Lukashenko announces they will mix with his army's own units and deploy on the Ukraine border, fears are growing that he may soon join the war. Belarus was the staging-ground for Putin's ill-fated advance on Kyiv in the early weeks of the invasion, but until now has resisted getting involved. Closer analysis of Lukashenko's armed forces suggests why. From its shoe-string budget, to ageing Soviet equipment and tanks with 'practically no combat value', Belarus's armed forces were never meant for an invasion - they are designed, trained and equipped to defend the country against attacks, and even their ability to do that is questionable. While Minsk claims to have 45,000 active troops, a Russian think-tank in 2020 estimated it may have as few as 15,000 in service day-to-day - and of those, only around 6,000 have up-to-date training and equipment. Its air force is similarly decrepit and propped up by 12 Russian Su-30 jets, which Ukraine has already proved adept at shooting down. Belarus does have large quantities of Soviet artillery which has caused widespread destruction in Ukraine - including home-made precision rocket artillery - but these are untested in combat. Coupled with which, Belarusians are deeply opposed to the war. Lukashenko was rumoured to have tried joining the battle before now, prompting some of his most-senior commanders to resign. Protests of the kind that almost toppled him in 2020 would almost certainly follow. It is unclear whether he could survive again. Here, MailOnline lifts the lid on the reality of Belarus's armed forces... Belarus boasts 45,000 active troops on paper, 600 tanks and 105 jets - but in reality, just 6,000 of those soldiers are thought to have up-to-date equipment, the air force is propped up by just a dozen Russian Su-30 aircraft, and its tanks are so old they have 'practically no combat value' Russian and Belarusian tanks take part in joint training exercises in February, just days before Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. A report by a Russian think-tank in 2020 concluded Minsk's tank fleet has 'practically no combat value' Formed as Belarus broke away from the Soviet Union in 1990 - shortly before it collapsed - the Belarusian armed forces are what remains of reserves designed to bolster Moscow's main armies in Poland and East Germany if war broke out with the West. Since independence, the army has largely fallen into disrepair. Wielding only a fraction of the economic might of the Union, Minsk has been forced to scrap large parts of its military including most of the air force. Belarus funds its army on a shoe-string budget - around 1.2 per cent of GDP, compared to 4 per cent in Russia - meaning that even the parts it has kept hold of have barely been updated since. Belarus claims an active army of around 45,000 soldiers, backed by 290,000 reservists - but a 2020 report by Russian think-tank Center of Analysis of Strategy and Technology found that only around 15,000 of those troops are deployed day-to-day. And, of those 15,000, only around 6,000 who fall under the umbrella of 'special forces' have been given up-to-date weapons - such as BTR armoured vehicles and Chinese equivalents of Humvee transports - and proper training. While most of the Belarusian army is equipped and trained only for defensive missions, its special forces have participated in active 'peacekeeping' missions in Lebanon, have deployed to Donbas as part of observer groups, and were flown to Kazakhstan at the start of the year to help put down protests. The same think tank reported that the vast majority of Belarus's tank fleet are Soviet-era T-72s and - unlike the tanks Russia has used in Ukraine - most of them have not been updated since they were built. Those tanks, the think-tank concluded, have 'practically no combat value'. Belarus's air force is in a similarly dire state. Large parts of it were scrapped in the 1990s including all of its Su-27 fighters and Su-24 bombers, with only MiG-29 and Su-25 jets kept on. Just a few dozen of those aircraft remain operable, the Kyiv Independent concluded in a recent report. Minsk has tried to update its air forces by buying 12 Russian attack helicopters in 2016, and in 2017 purchased 12 Su-30 fighters. But only four of the fighters are known to have been delivered so far, and they are vulnerable to Ukrainian anti-air. Belarus claims an army of 45,000, but it is thought only around 15,000 are deployed day-to-day. And, of those, only around 6,00 have up-to-date equipment, training and some level of combat experience (file image) Belarusian artillery is slightly more impressive and, according to the Kyiv Independent, they field around 600 Msta-B howitzers along with Gvozdika and Akatsiya artillery pieces that have caused widespread destruction across the battlefields of Ukraine. The country has also developed its own precision rocket artillery called Polonez, but fields just six of them and they have no experience in combat. They would also be vulnerable to counter-fire from Ukrainian HIMARS because Belarus's air defence is made up of Russian S-300 systems, which have struggled to stop the rockets. Command problems and logistics which have proved the Achille's heel of Russia's invasion are also likely to affect Lukashenko's army. Historically, Belarus has only had two military commands: West and North West, to deal with threats from Poland and the Baltics. Southern command, which would be responsible for carrying out any attack into Ukraine, was only created back in May and - like the rest of Minsk's forces - was only designed to repel attacks on its own soil, rather than conduct offensives on enemy soil. Attacking is much harder than defending, at least in military terms, because it requires more manpower, better logistics, and a higher degree of coordination between units - all of which has to be carried out on unfamiliar turf and to a tight time-frame. Failure can mean annihilation. Russian units discovered this themselves when they attacked from Belarus towards Kyiv as the opening gambit of Putin's war. They ran into tougher-than-expected defence, got bogged down, and then retreated after taking heavy casualties. Russia's military has never really recovered from the loss. Trying to do so again, this time mixing Belarusian and Russian units together under an uncertain command structure, seems unlikely to produce radically different results. And, though he may like to pretend otherwise, Lukashenko is not Putin. He enjoys nowhere near the same level of control over his country, his military, or his people. In 2020, after the most-recent and highly-rigged presidential election in Belarus, Lukashenko was almost toppled by a huge protest movement that was suppressed only thanks to the support of the armed forces which led a bloody crackdown on his opponents. What little polling exists suggests ordinary Belarusians are deeply opposed to the war, and that same opposition may be reflected in the ranks of the military. Polling group Chatham House found back in June that just 5 per cent of Belarusians wanted their army to fight in Ukraine, down even on a measly 6 per cent it detected in April. Alexander Lukashenko has allowed his country to be used as a staging-post for Putin's invasion of Ukraine but has so-far resisted getting involved in the fighting, perhaps fearing a rebellion that might topple him And, in March, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych suggested that Viktor Gulevich - head of the Belarusian armed forces - had resigned his post in protest at the war. While it has never been confirmed, his sudden move to quit - coupled with the fact that Lukashenko has still not deployed his army in Ukraine - suggests opposition within the ranks. Anti-government activists would almost certainly try to restart protests against Lukashenko by capitalising on the unpopularity of the war. In a nightmare scenario for the dictator, they could be joined by military defectors while the rest of his armed forces were away fighting. His survival would be far from guaranteed. Russia is now into its eighth month of fighting what was supposed to be a days-long war in Ukraine, and Putin is casting around for way to shore up his failing invasion after his own army was mauled. In recent weeks he has annexed occupied Ukrainian territories, called up 300,000 reservists and doubled down with nuclear threats. On Monday, he unleashed a huge barrage of missiles aimed at virtually every Ukrainian city that destroyed water and power supplies - killing 19 civilians and wounding scores more. The move may have pleased his hardliners, but it has done little to reverse his fortunes on the battlefield. Russia has gained no significant territory since the capture of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in mid-summer, and in recent weeks has lost swathes back to Kyiv. Ukraine's armies remain on the march in both north and south, amid growing fears of a third assault towards the city of Mariupol that would split Russia's army in two. Against that backdrop, Lukashenko's announcement that Russian forces are deploying to his border has been read as a way to threaten Ukraine from the north - in the apparent hope of forcing commanders to pull units away from other battles to defend the region, which includes capital Kyiv. A teen who offered sexual services for money was excited about being pregnant when she left a motel where she was staying with her 40-year-old unemployed boyfriend, a jury has heard. Tiffany Taylor who was aged 16 on that day in 2015 has never been seen since. Rodney Wayne Williams pleaded not guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday to murdering Tiffany after she left the Waterford West motel room, south of Brisbane, on July 12. Tiffany Taylor has been missing since June 2015 when the 16-year-old arranged to meet a man for paid sex The Crown alleges he and Tiffany arranged to meet that day for her to provide sexual services for money after they hooked up through a dating website, where she claimed to be 21 years old. Tiffany took responsibility for earning money she and her boyfriend needed to live by pursuing a dangerous line of work, prosecutor Caroline Marco said at the start of the murder trial on Tuesday. 'Ms Taylor was a vulnerable child living a perilous life beyond the capabilities of her years when she met Mr Williams,' Ms Marco added. Jurors were told they would hear during the trial that Tiffany communicated with Williams - using the profile 'muddles54' - and other men via the website Oasis. In a profile description shown in court, 'muddles54' states he is a 'Master looking for submissive females', that he would love to teach the right girl the good life' and has been told he has a 'magic tongue'. Ms Marco also showed the court Oasis messages during which Tiffany asks if Williams is 'keen on sex for cash'. Rodney Williams has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Taylor, who he had arranged to meet in an industrial estate, court hears The conversation shows the 'terms of agreement' for their meeting which included Williams agreeing to pay Tiffany $400 for 30 minutes of sex in his car, Ms Marco said. The court heard Tiffany took only her mobile when she left the motel on July 12, and despite her usual 'prolific use' of the phone, the last communication on it was a call to Williams' phone that went unanswered at 11.48am on that day. Ms Marco told the jury the Crown's case is that Williams drove the teen to an industrial estate at Larapinta where he stopped for about 20 minutes before driving west beyond the Ipswich area. The prosecutor will allege that Taylor was filmed in Mr Williams' car, which also had traces of her DNA and blood It was there, the prosecution argues, Williams disposed of the teenager's body. The Crown alleges evidence shows Tiffany's increasing desperation in trying to provide sexual services in exchange for money so she could pay bills. It also showed her reticence to meet anyone unless they agreed to pay and her intention to limit the time of her interaction with them, Ms Marco said. Ms Marco said Tiffany did not disappear without a trace, leaving her image on motorway cameras, details of her location on cell phone towers, and her blood and DNA in Williams' car. The Crown would show footage it argues shows Williams and Tiffany together in his gold or champagne-coloured Hyundai with a 'Hustler' sticker on the back bumper. Prosecutors also allege Williams tried to leave Brisbane with a bag of clothes and sentimental items on August 13, the day before he was due at a police interview. The teenager has not been seen since she left the motel where she lived with boyfriend in 2015 Searches, after the teen was reported missing by her sister on July 15, failed to uncover her body. Williams' barrister Kim Bryson told the jurors her client had lied to police but did not kill the teen. 'After you've heard all of the evidence in the trial I will be in a position to present you with the reasons why you will find Rodney Williams not guilty,' she told jurors. Ms Bryson asked them to pay particular attention to evidence about Tiffany's violent and controlling boyfriend, saying evidence would give insight into their 'abusive and dysfunctional relationship' that started when the girl was 12. The trial set down for about four weeks before Justice Peter Applegarth is expected to hear from more than 60 witnesses. Three fishermen pulled from the Gulf of Mexico more than a day after their boat sank described shark attacks and punishing ocean elements in their first interview since the harrowing ordeal. One of the fishermen, Phong Le, described how the boat foundered moments after it began taking on water and he sent out a distress call over their VHF radio. Another, Luan Nguyen, told how they were able to lash together a pair of ice chests to serve as a makeshift raft, and how in a stroke of luck one was filled with food and bottles of water. Speaking on Good Morning America, Le also told how they were rescued after he miraculously kept his phone intact after swimming five miles to find cell service and send his location to a friend moments before the phone's battery died. The three men were rescued on Sunday about 25 miles off the coast of Louisiana, after their 24-foot center console sank for unknown reasons at about 10am the previous day. Shipwrecked boaters detail their rescue from shark-infested waters after being stranded at sea for 28 hours. @victoroquendo has their story. https://t.co/UAwYB7phDJ pic.twitter.com/JdapKP0l03 Good Morning America (@GMA) October 11, 2022 Phong Le (left) and Luan Nguyen (right) described battling sharks to stay alive after their boat sank in an interview with Good Morning America The US Coast Guard pulls one of the fisherman from the Gulf of Mexico in the harrowing rescue on Sunday They were finally pulled from the water by a Coast Guard boat and Helicopter, which was able to find them thanks to Le's text to his friend. All three of the men were suffering from hypothermia by the time they were rescued, and two had been bitten by sharks. 'You always believe that this couldn't happen to you. You hear it happen, but I guessed it would never happen to me, but it did,' Le said on Good Morning America today, telling how the boat had foundered moments after they realized it was taking on water. 'We made a distress call on the VHF radio and let them know that we'd taken on water, that the vessel was sinking, and not even seconds after that the boat was nearly halfway under water,' he said. Nguyen told how the pair of ice chests left floating after the boat foundered were vital to their survival. 'That was critical in us surviving, tying the ice chests together,' he said. 'It happened to be that one of the ice chests actually had waters and food in there, so that hydrated us.' But while they had sustenance to keep them going, it wasn't long before sharks arrived hoping to make sustenance out of them. Nguyen described how he was left with cuts on his hands after beating off the teeth of one charging shark. 'The shark bit the life vest in front of me. It bit the life vest, and it didn't touch me, it bit the vest, and boom it hit it. I pushed him in the face, and I think that's where I caught these injuries on my hand,' he said, holding his bandaged hands up. 'I don't really remember, but I pushed him in the face and he wouldn't leave, so I took my two thumbs and jabbed him in the eyes, and he took off,' Nguyen said. A lifejacket that was recovered in the rescue, which had been shredded by one of the sharks which attacked the fishermen The US Coast Guard sent a helicopter and a boat to rescue the men from the Gulf waters One of the fishermen is hauled up into the rescue helicopter in a basket, more than 24 hours after their boat sank Le told how he swam over five miles trying to find help while somehow managing to keep his phone from being ruined by the water. Seeing he had reception, he sent a message telling of the wreck with a screenshot of his location to a friend. 'I sent my location to my friend, and it was only two percent left. And the minute I sent it I see him trying to reply to me, and the phone cut off, I ran out of battery.' he said. Le's friend then sent the information to the Coast Guard, who were able to determine an approximation of where the men were. Two hours after Le sent the message, they were saved. The US Coast Guard hauls one of the fishermen out of the water during the tense rescue on Sunday To the right of the Coast Guard boat, the two ice boxes the fishermen clung to as rafts can be seen One of the rescued fishermen can be seen on the right moments after being safely lifted into the helicopter The rescued fishermen rest in the helicopter after their intense rescue from the Gulf of Mexico The men were all in stable condition upon rescue, but the Coast Guard confirmed two had shark bite wounds on their hands. 'They had multiple lacerations on their hand, almost down to the bone, indicative of a shark bite and serrated edges indicative of a shark's tooth puncturing their hands,' said Coast Guard Lt. Katy Caraway, told TODAY. One of the life jackets recovered with the fishermen was even seen to have been shredded to pieces by a shark. Le told Today that the experience left him with plans to return to the waves any time soon. 'I'm gonna be well more prepared, at least, if I were to go offshore anytime soon or in the near future,' he said. 'Right now, it's not in the cards and I'm not thinking about that, I'm just thinking about recovery.' But Deliveroo says that it is giving customers 'more choice and more flexibility' Critics branded the offers 'a terrible idea' with fears shoppers will fall into debt Elsewhere, pay-later scheme Clearpay is selling JustEat vouchers on its website Britons struggling to pay their way through the cost-of-living crisis are now being offered schemes to order takeaways on finance. Buy-now-pay-later tool Klarna is now available on food delivery app Deliveroo. Meanwhile, customers can purchase a gift card for JustEat - another takeaway delivery app - using another shop-now-pay-later service Clearpay. The Clearpay website gives buyers the option to spread the cost of purchasing between 10 and 50 to use on the app and spread the cost across four equal payments. But critics have branded the ventures 'a terrible idea' and warned that vulnerable customers could fall further into debt. Dominic Arnall, chief executive of charity Just Like Us, said: 'Even as a plot for a dystopian novel, food on hire purchase would be laughably ghoulish.' Buy-now-pay-later tool Klarna is now available on food delivery app Deliveroo. (Pictured - Melora wrote on Twitter: 'They have added Klarna to Deliveroo - that is a terrible idea.') Carlo Mocci, chief business officer at Deliveroo, said: 'Millions of people are already choosing Klarna and were giving customers more choice and more flexibility with a safe, secure way to pay online.' Damian Okeyo Omondi wrote: 'What stage of normalising food poverty are we at now?' Another user added: 'Imagine you can't get a mortgage coz of bad credit from having McDonalds and Pound Bakery on finance' Javk Donovan wrote: 'Just seen Klarna is on Deliveroo. I dont know who needs to hear this but if you havent got the money for a takeaway, you really shouldnt be making your struggles worse with Klarna' Melora said: 'They have added Klarna to Deliveroo - that is a terrible idea.' Salman Abid added: 'Paying for takeaway with Klarna is crazy.' When completing an order on the Deliveroo app, which boasts millions of users, Klarna pops up as a delivery option alongside credit, debit card and PayPal. It's not clear if the option is available for all of Deliveroo's 160,000 restaurants. MP BLASTS BUY-NOW-PAY-LATER SCHEMES Labour's Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, said the 'myth' of buy-now-pay-later firms is that they make it seem like consumers are spreading the cost - but end up in more debt. She is calling for regulation in the industry. Ms Creasy said: 'The myth of buy-now-pay-later is that you are spreading costs - companies offer this form of credit because it means consumers spend more, and thus increase the cost to them and the risk of debt. 'Without any regulation of these practices there's no one who can help you if you are mis-sold credit. 'We urgently need the Government to make good on the promise to regulate and bring the ombudsman in to stop these companies pushing more debt on cash strapped consumers in the cost of living crisis.' Advertisement As well as takeaway food, alcohol, cigarettes, toiletries and other groceries can be purchased through some stores on the app. And while Klarna doesn't affect a customer's credit score, according to its website: 'Information such as payment holidays and existing, late and unpaid balances is visible on your credit file to other lenders.' According to Deliveroo, customers who choose to order using Klarna will have three options; pay the full amount immediately, pay the full amount within 30 days; and pay in three equal instalments spread over 60 days for orders over 30. David Sykes, chief commercial officer at Klarna, said: 'Deliveroo provides a great service to households, and that's why we're excited to offer our alternative payment options to Deliveroo customers. 'We believe you should only pay for what you buy with no interest or fees, and it's never been more important for consumers to have access to payment options which help them stay in control of their finances.' Carlo Mocci, chief business officer at Deliveroo, said: 'Deliveroo offers choice to our customers, from neighbourhood eateries and your weekday lunch to a Saturday night celebration. 'Millions of people are already choosing Klarna and were giving customers more choice and more flexibility with a safe, secure way to pay online.' Just Eat does not have any buy now, pay later options on its platform and does not have a direct partnership with Clearpay. Just Eat says its gift cards are bought and stocked by hundreds of retailers. gettyimagesbank By Lee Hyo-jin A set of laws exempting individuals from being held criminally responsible for property crimes such as theft, fraud and embezzlement committed against their family members is facing calls for revision, in accordance with changes in family structures in modern society. Under Article 328 of the Criminal Act, property crimes are not punishable if committed against close family members spouses, those in lineal family relationships (parents, grandparents and children), cohabiting siblings and their spouses. Others such as more distant relatives or siblings living separately are only be subject to prosecution upon the victim's consent. In other words, when financial disputes arise among family members, they can sue each other under civil law, but punishment under criminal law is highly limited in the current legal system. But the effectiveness of such laws has been brought to light after a celebrity was caught in a legal dispute with his brother over embezzlement allegations. Comedian Park Soo-hong / Korea Times file A celebration is in order: the Statue of Liberty's crown reopened to visitors on Tuesday for the first time since 2020 when it was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Visitors once again are able to walk up an interior staircase and experience Lady Liberty in all her glory. The reopening was announced on the NYCgo tourism groups Instagram page that features photos of Lady Liberty. Jerry Willis, a spokesperson with the National Park Service, Statute of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island told DailyMail.com that 'today was a soft opening with limited ticket availability through the end of October. 'We will be doing an official crown reopening on October 28, the 136th anniversary of the statue's dedication in 1886,' Willis said. From the top of the pedestal, it is 162 narrow steps to an observation area to reach the statue's crown, the highest point in the monument. And, from the bottom of the pedestal, it is 377 steps. There are no elevators so visitors need to be patient and proceed with caution during the climb. The majestic figure that was gifted by France in 1886 and dedicated to freedom and liberty for the United States stands just over 305 feet from the ground to the tip of the flame - and is the equivalent height of a 22-story building. Visitors once again will now be able to walk up an interior staircase - 162 narrow steps - to an observation area to reach the statue's crown, the highest point in the monument, and experience Lady Liberty in all her glory The crown's reopening is exciting news for tourists and New Yorkers. Before the pandemic, approximately, 4 and a half million people visited the Statue of Liberty annually, the spokesperson said A breathtaking photo of Lady Liberty behind the lush purple and pink skies Before the pandemic, approximately, four and a half million people visited the Statue of Liberty annually, the spokesperson said. The crown's reopening is exciting news for tourists and New Yorkers - who up until now - had limited access due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Liberty Island and Ellis Island - which the latter served as the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station for 62 years - were closed in March 2020. They were partially reopened in July 2020, followed by the museums on both islands in August 2020. The statue's pedestal and observation deck reopened on July 1, 2021, the spokesperson said. Ticket prices run from $24.30 for a single adult ticket (adults 13+); $12.30 children (4-12), and $18.30 for seniors (62+). Ticketholders get a round-trip ferry service to Liberty Island and Ellis Island, access to the crown and to the Fort Wood section of the pedestal. In addition, admission into the 26,000-square-foot Statue of Liberty Museum that takes visitors through the national monument's history and displays the statue's original torch. Before visitors board the ferry, they undergo an airport-style security screening process. There is also a secondary screening required for visitors entering the monument. And, the waters around Liberty and Ellis Island are a restricted water zone, CNN reported. Ferry service to the Statue of Liberty leaves from New York and New Jersey. Statue City Cruises, is the 'only' authorized ticket seller and ferry transportation provider for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the spokesperson said. Those visitors are warned against using other ferry services that claim to go there. Guests from New York can catch the ferry from Castle Clinton National Monument located at Battery Park City. And those departing from New Jersey can take the ferry from Liberty Park at 1 Audrey Drive in Jersey City. Those looking to visit the statue are encourage to book ticket reservations in advance, as spots are filling up fast. The spokesperson told DailyMail.com that typically tickets are limited to 50 visitors per hour and visiting hours change seasonally - so this time of year it's approximately 250 tickets per day. To book your visit to the Statue of Liberty visit the City Experiences website or phone 877-523-9849. US Sailors and Marines stand on the flight deck of the USS Bataan as the ship passes the Statue of Liberty during Fleet Week in New York Harbor on May 25, 2022 A biotech CEO who was brought in at the height of the BLM movement to move away from the company's Republican reputation has now quit after clashing with woke board members over its focus on social justice. Michelle McMurry-Heath was hired by BIO in 2020 to enact 'bold change' within the company. She was heralded as a social justice crusader and was lauded for being the first black person to graduate from Duke University with an M.D.-Ph.d. Now, after less than two years in the role, she has stepped down after clashing with board members over the focus of the company. Michelle McMurry-Heath (left) was hired by BIO in 2020 to enact 'bold change' within the company. She has now been replaced by interim CEO Rachel King (right) after a clash with board members over their apparent focus on social justice issues instead of healthcare While neither she nor they have spoken publicly about the dispute, The Wall Street Journal cites industry sources who say McMurry-Heath wanted to focus on the company's pharmaceutical genesis, while others wanted to focus more on social justice initiatives. It remains unconfirmed exactly what those initiatives are. She has now been replaced by interim CEO Rachel King. In an interview at the time of her hiring, McMurry-Heath told health news website Stat News: 'I was brought in to make bold change. Change is messy.' BIO already has a BIOEquality arm which is dedicated to making healthcare more equally accessible BIO already has a BIOEquality arm which is dedicated to making healthcare more equally accessible. The company also invests in 'the next generation of scientists', and holds specific opportunities for women and underserved minorities. A spokesman for the company would not confirm whether any other types of social justice initiatives are being planned. In a recent announcement, the new CEO said she was looking forward to tackling 'important policy issues related to health, agriculture, and the environment.' 'Our work advances science and technology and touches people of all backgrounds to improve human health and well-being. 'The strategy of BIO remains on track,' she said. Anne Heche's ex-partner James Tupper has been denied his bid to be appointed legal guardian of their 13-year-old son and is now also likely to lose the battle over the late actress's estate. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lee Bogdanoff rejected Tupper's petition to be made 'guardian ad litem' of Heche's younger son Atlas, who was in court with his dad for Tuesday's hearing. In another blow for the Canadian actor, the judge also said he would 'probably' grant Heche's older son Homer's motion to be permanent administrator of his mother's estate. The decision comes days after the Big Little Lies star filed for legal guardianship which would have made him responsible for protecting Atlas's interests in court and challenged the decision to appoint Heche's son as estate administrator. Upon hearing the ruling, Tupper, 57, shook his head as he stood in court with his hands stuffed into his blue jeans. An LA judge on Tuesday denied James Tupper's petition to be appointed legal guardian of 13-year-old Atlas Heche Tupper(pictured) his only son with late actress Anne Heche The Canadian actor, 57, last week filed to be made 'guardian ad litem' of Atlas The first court hearing for Anne Heche's estate was held Tuesday October 11 at Los Angeles Superior Court. Her eldest son Homer Heche Laffoon (far right) was appointed temporary administrator over her estate last month But the gesture of frustration angered Judge Bogdanoff, who snapped at him: 'Don't you shake your head at me and take your hands out of your pockets!' Tupper sheepishly complied, telling the judge: 'I don't think his (Atlas) older brother (Homer) is going to look after his interests. 'He is treating him like an enemy. Their relationship is going to be destroyed forever.' When Tupper's attorney, Christopher Johnson complained that Homer was blocking Atlas's access to the apartment he and his mother shared to pick up his belongings, Judge Bogdanoff ordered that the young boy to be able to 'get into the apartment and get his stuff as quickly as possible.' Addressing her decision the judge said: 'The brothers have an equal interest in the estateI'm not seeing a reason to grant a GAL (guardian ad litem) because he (Atlas) and his brother have the same interest in the estate.' Judge Bogdanoff also questioned why Tupper is claiming that Homer is 'not qualified' to be named permanent administrator to Heche's estate. 'What is the basis to object?' asked the judge. 'We are not here to pick the best person. In California you can be an illiterate and be an administrator.' He also warned Tupper that making a formal objection to the impending decision to make Homer permanent administrator would likely be a 'waste of time.' Yet, Bogdanoff still gave Tupper's attorney, Johnson, until October 20 to file an objection and scheduled another hearing on November 30. Homer, 20, has been locked in a legal battle with his mother's ex James Tupper (right) who has claimed she appointed him executor in a will she emailed him in 2011 Tupper, 57, last week filed to be appointed 'guardian ad litem' over his 13-year-old son. That would make him responsible for protecting Atlas's interests in court hearings The hearing comes after new documents filed in court earlier revealed that the late actress's wealth amounted to a fraction of the millions she was believed to be worth. Homer Heche Laffoon, 20 Heche's son with ex-husband Coleman Laffoon said he estimated the value of his all his mother's personal property to be approximately $400,000 total, according to filings obtained by DailyMail.com. He said he expects another $400,000 annually from royalties and residuals. Homer also revealed Heche lived in an apartment and did not own a house. Meanwhile, Tupper maintains that she appointed him executor of her estate in a 'will' she emailed to him in 2011. But Homer insists that the email is not valid because it's not signed and that his mother had no will when she died two months ago at age 53. He also blasted a petition last week to be named legal guardian of Atlas as a 'conflict of interest' and an attempt to manipulate him and his half brother to seize control of their mother's belongings. The fight for control of Heche's estate is scheduled for its first hearing today at Los Angeles Superior Court. In the new legal documents filed by Homer, whom the court appointed last month as temporary administrator of the estate, he provides a fairly vague list of what his mother owned at the time of her death: A few modest banks accounts; Royalty payments and other income; A corporation in which (Heche) was the sole shareholder (used for projects in development and business functions related to her career in film, including a modest bank account and royalty payments); An LLC membership interest related to her podcast; Tangible personal property of unknown value; Heche's interest in the future profits from her forthcoming book (Call Me Anne, due to be published early next year); Heche's claims for damages against Mr. Tupper stemming from Mr. Tupper's breach of contractual obligations related to their co-owned real properties that have since been sold.' Homer said his 'best estimate on the value of all (his mother's) personal property is $400,000. The probable value of the annual income from all the estate's property is approximately $400,000.' He added that Heche 'did not have any interest in real property at the time of her death.' The movie star, best known for roles in Donnie Brasco, Volcano, and Wag the Dog and her three-year-relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, died days after slamming her Mini Cooper into a house in Los Angeles, causing an explosion, on August 5. Blood tests showed that she had cocaine and fentanyl in her system when the high-speed crash occurred, but officials confirmed that she had not been drinking alcohol despite being pictured earlier with a vodka bottle in her cupholder. Tupper, who was in a relationship with Heche from 2007 to 2018, is the father of her younger son Atlas, 13 (pictured in 2012) while Homer is the son of Heche's ex Coleman Laffoon Homer (pictured in 2012) has previously claimed Tupper has 'potential and actual conflicts of interest' with the younger boy his own son he shares with Heche, Atlas Heche Tupper, 13 Tupper claims the 2011 email proves that he should be in charge of the estate. 'FYI in case I die tomorrow and anyone asks,' Heche's email begins. 'My wishes are that all of my assets go to the control of Mr. James Tupper to be used to raise my children and then given to the children' She was left badly burned and in a coma. Heche's life support machine was turned off on August 14, and she was cremated on August 18. A coroner ruled on August 17 that she died from inhalation injury and burns, and the death was ruled an accident. The mother-of-two also had a fractured sternum caused by 'blunt trauma,' according to information on the website of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner. Homer, the product of Heche's eight-year marriage to cameraman Coleman Laffoon, is suspicious of Tupper's motives for applying to be appointed 'guardian ad litem' over his 13-year-old son as it would make him responsible for protecting Atlas's interests in court. And he slammed Tupper for claiming he wanted to 'preserve family harmony and a healthy, brotherly relationship' between Heche's two sons. 'Mr. Tupper gives no support or context for these claims,' Homer's lawyers wrote. 'Mr. Laffoon can confirm for the court that there is no disharmony' between them. Tupper is objecting to Homer petition to continue as administrator of Heche's estate, and instead wants an independent administrator. He claims that Homer 'is not suitable' to run the estate because he is too young, unemployed, and was estranged from his mother at the time of her death. Tupper said that the two half-brothers have not had any contact since the day Heche died. And he also accused Homer of changing the locks on the apartment Heche shared with Atlas, allegedly preventing the younger brother from retrieving his belongings. But Homer hit back in his new filing saying that he had arranged for Atlas's laptop and clothes to be retrieved from the apartment but Tupper hadn't picked them up. Home called Tupper's claims 'unfounded personal attacks' and 'frivolous legal claims.' In new court documents obtained by DailyMail.com, Homer said his 'best estimate on the value of all of [Heche's] personal property is $400,000 plus an annual income from that property at another $400,000 Tupper is objecting to Homer petition to continue as administrator of Heche's estate, and instead wants an independent administrator He went on to say Tupper is manipulating him and his half brother to grab control of their mother's estate. Homer also claimed Tupper is keeping him away from Atlas by controlling the teenager's phone. Last month, DailyMail.com revealed a 2011 email Heche sent to Tupper in whic she named him executor of her estate. The email was included in Tupper's legal filing as he battles Homer for control. But Homer fought back in a filing last week, claiming that the email is not a legally recognized will because Heche did not sign the document. 'Mr. Tupper repeatedly refers to the email as a ''will'' however as a matter of law the email does not qualify as either a holographic will or formal witnessed will,' Laffoon's filing states. 'The email was not signed by [Heche] and does not have two witnesses who signed the document during [her] lifetime.' Homer says his mother failed to leave behind a will when she tragically died. 'Without a will, there can be no nomination of an executor,' Laffoon stated, adding that he is 'legally entitled to appointment as administrator.' However, Tupper claims that Heche's email from January 25, 2011 makes it clear that she wanted all assets to be controlled by him. The email from Heche has the subject line 'WILL' and is addressed to Tupper and copied to attorneys Kevin Yorn and Melodie Moore. 'My wishes are that all of my assets go to the control of Mr. James Tupper to be used to raise my children and then given to the children,' the email reads. It says that her assets will be divided equally among her two sons and that their portions should be given to them when they turn 25 years old. Heche died days after slamming her Mini Cooper into a house in Los Angeles, causing an explosion, on August 5 The actress was left badly burned and in a coma. Heche's life support machine was turned off on August 14, and she was cremated on August 18 In the event that her two sons and Tupper all pass, Heche turned her assets over to her nephew Eliot Bergman, to be divided equally among her nieces and nephews. 'May this go into my records as my word until further papers are drawn up,' Heche ends the email. It appears no further paperwork was ever filed. Published accounts have estimated Heche's wealth at around $4million. In 2021, it was reported that she was selling her cottage in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles for around $2million with co-star and ex-partner Thomas Jane. It was also previously reported that she owned another home in the Hancock Park-Wilshire area of Los Angeles a mansion priced at around $4million. A student pastor in a South Carolina Baptist church has been placed on leave after handing out 'i [heart] hot youth pastors' stickers to students - allegedly including a 14-year-old girl. Cory Wall, 35, acknowledged via a statement put out by Fairview Baptist Church in Greer he 'made a poor decision and a mistake' by distributing the stickers to students. Parents of children who attend the South Carolina church have taken to social media in outrage that the sticker was insensitive and inappropriate. Youth pastors across America have attracted controversy in recent years for cases involving sexual misconduct with children. Fairview Baptist Church is also a member of the Southern Baptist Convention - along with around 50,000 other churches throughout the US - which this year has been accused of covering up sexual abuse in its churches. Cory Wall, 23, joined Fairview Baptist Church as a student pastor in January. According to the church he has been serving churches between South and North Carolina for 14 years An image of the sticker shared by the sister of a 14-year-old girl who was allegedly given it by Wall The controversy ignited when the sister of a 14-year-old girl shared an image of the sticker online claiming it had been given to girl by Wall during a midweek service. She says in the social media post that the sticker made the girl feel 'uncomfortable'. The image caused a stir online late last week and on Sunday the church announced in a brief statement that its 'deacon officers and personnel team' had chosen to put Wall on leave pending an investigation. Wall was swiftly removed from the church website. Fairview Baptist Church in Greer, South Carolina, is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been embroiled in controversy surrounding sexual misconduct coverups this year Emails allegedly sent by Wall and church officials after the controversy have also circulated online. Fairview, nor its lead pastor, Eddie Leopard, have responded to a request for comment regarding the validity of those emails. The first, which allegedly came from Wall, says: 'We're updating our church-wide database, and I encouraged kids to come see me to get a sticker and update their information.' 'The sticker was meant to poke fun of the 'I Love Hot Mom' culture. In hindsight, the joke was of very poor taste and a mistake on my part.' Wall joined Fairview as a student pastor in January. He's a graduate from Chapman High School and has a degree in Psychology from North Greenville University as well as a master's from Southeastern Theological Seminary, the church said. He had 'spent the last 14 years serving local churches in North and South Carolina in the areas of students and college', said the church in a statement at the time. A recording also leaked of the church's lead pastor Leopard addressing the stickers during a service. Again, the church have not responded to queries regarding the veracity of the recording. 'I wanted you to be first to hear, that's only right,' said Leopard in the alleged recording. 'Any decision made by the leadership of the church should be shared by the church, not with the media and certainly not on social media.' In the recording a man, alleged to be the pastor, also says that the stickers may have offended 'some people'. Basyle Tchividjian, an attorney for the law firm Bozlaw which represents survivors of sexual abuse in the US, told Christian media outlet The Roy Reports that he found the recording concerning. He also asks about the possibility that Wall had the stickers made himself: 'Not that I've been looking, but I've never seen these stickers for sale anywhere,' said Tchividjian. A San Diego State University professor sparked fury with an assignment that asked students to create a fictional slave persona - then dress up as them and act it out. La Shae Collins, Professor of Africana Studies at the University, infuriated students with the assignment ordering them to develop an escape plan, then act out their slave persona before an audience while using 'broken language.' Among those angered by the task was student Amari Jackson. 'Should never have to act and "create a slave persona" for one of my African Studies classes,' Jackson wrote on Instagram. 'But hey, at least my professor cancelled the in-class presentations where she wanted us to act and dress up in our personas. 'She canceled them because we had too many students and not enough time,' the student concluded. Student newspaper The Daily Aztec said the roleplay part of the assignment had only been canceled because of space and time constraints, and not because of the controversial nature of the request. The assignment was due to be handed in by 4pm October 10, and was worth up to 25 points. It's unclear if it has been canceled in its entirety. DailyMail.com has contacted both Professor Collins and Jackson for comment. African Studies professor LaShae Collins, 42, is being slammed by her students after requiring them to complete a 'slave narrative' project worth 25 points The assignment was brought to light by a fellow student who posted about the controversial project on Instagram, details of which he included in a screenshot Amari Jackson, a student at San Diego State University, blasted his African Studies professor for requiring the project that initially required to students to act out and dress like their slave character for an in-person presentation Jackson said students should never be subjected to performing and dressing like a slave for a class project Robbie Jackson, another student enrolled in Collin's course, said he refused to turn in the 'insensitive project.' 'Being a person who is black, (and) knowing that my family actually had to go through that was a really uncomfortable ask,' Jackson told SDSU's newspaper The Daily Aztec. 'It's like familial trauma and it's this deeply rooted issue.' Other students emailed Collins and asked for an alternative assignment but were allegedly denied. Despite Collins removing the in-person presentation, the list of criteria for full points remained extensive for the three-page single spaced assignment. Students were still required to create a slave narrative for a fictional character that resided in the either Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, or North Carolina, according to the assignment. The Africana Studies students were ordered to put themselves into the shoes of slaves and mention any thoughts, goals or dreams while making up their own household situation and details of the family that 'owns' them. Students were also tasked with detailing their fictional slave's everyday life, including whether they lived with relatives, and task performed. They were also asked to create an escape plan to break free of their masters, and detail how they'd go about it. San Diego State University has been asked to take action against the process Jackson received support from his followers and more after he posted the project online. It is unclear whether or not the three-page project still remains Jackson was inundated from followers that condemned Collin's questionable assignment. 'This is so ridiculous,' one person wrote. 'Why are we still dealing with having to tell staff how inappropriate and tone deaf this is.' 'Can someone explain this is embarrassing?? Our history is not some comical play that we should pretend to be.... these were years of people's lives. Years of misery and miss treatment. Years of getting degraded and disrespected that some still go through to this day being that modern slavery still exists,' another person added. 'Describe your escape??? This is sick,' another responded. One person demanded San Diego State University take action against the professor while some were disgusted at what tuition funds and supports. 'We need accountability. We need repercussions,' another said while tagging the university. Others were quick to speak out about the project and demanded accountability while some said the project was embarrassing San Diego has been hit with other recent controversies involving controversial staff members and outspoken students. Dr. Monica Casper, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, was hit by conservative students at the school in December after she described the 'Right's agenda' on Twitter as a 'stench' saying it consists of racism, unintelligence, and inequity.' Dr. Monica Casper, a dean at San Diego State University was under fire by Republican students in December for her liberal agenda 'Just so we're clear on the Right's agenda: racism good, abortion bad, money good, women bad, capitalism good, sustainability bad, stupidity good, science bad, power good, equality bad, white people good, nonwhite people bad. Stench, indeed,' Dr. Monica Casper, SDSU's dean of the College of Arts and Letters, tweeted. Dr. Casper was also vocal on the acquittal of Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse and dubbed it a victory for 'white supremacy.' 'No mercy, no justice white supremacy wins again,' she tweeted. The outspoken comments have Republicans attending San Diego State College up in arms describing her comments as 'hateful.' 'The tweets reflect the cancerous leftist ideology that has infected not just the average professor, but the upper leadership of our public universities,' Dylan Martin, a spokesperson for the California College Republicans, told CollegeFix. Sir Keir Starmer urged Labour to turn Tory disarray into an election win today as he unveiled a major party revamp designed to capitalise on the collapse in trust in the Government. The Opposition Leader said Labour has a 'huge chance' to take power as he unveiled a reorganisation that merges his top team with party HQ. The party itself is to move from its current Southside headquarters in Westminster for a new home, reported to be on the other side of the Thames in Blackfriars. But the change comes at the expense of a top aide: Sir Keir's chief of staff, Sam White, is leaving his post, after reports of tensions within the operation. Sir Keir told staff today the restructuring had been planned 'for a while' but the plans had been accelerated as support for the Conservatives crashed in the polls. A new survey for Redfield and Wilton Strategies last night gave Labour a 29-point lead. 'The Government's collapse has given us a huge chance. The instability means they could fall at any time,' Sir Keir said. 'Because of that we need to get on an election footing straight away.' The Opposition Leader said Labour has a 'huge change' to take power. The party itself is to move from its current Southside headquarters (pictured) in Westminster for a new home A new survey for Redfield and Wilton Strategies last night gave Labour a 29-point lead. The changes will see policy and communications roles move into party HQ, reporting to general secretary David Evans. In a joint all-staff call with Mr Evans, Sir Keir said: 'These changes to the structures of the party will move us on to that election footing. 'We've been planning this for a while but the scale of the Tory collapse has brought it forward.' Beyond the departure of Mr White, who was appointed chief of staff last summer, no other jobs are at risk. Sir Keir said Mr White's exit was due to the changes to the scale of the Loto operation. 'Sam has played an incredible role taking our operation to the next level. Under his leadership the team has become better and stronger,' he said. But 'with the merger, running the leader's office becomes a smaller role than Sam signed up for and we both agree, as we're making this change, now is the right time to go'. Mr White said: 'The next phase of the campaign needs a different structure, but we part very much as friends with the intent to work together again in the future. 'You'll find no greater champion for a Starmer government than me.' Labour's factional civil war reignited last night as a leftwing ally of former leader Jeremy Corbyn suggested foul play as he was deselected in his safe London seat Sam Tarry, the boyfriend Sir Keir Starmer's deputy Angela Rayner, hit out after being blocked from contesting his Ilford South constituency for the party at the next election. Labour members in the east London seat, where Mr Tarry has a 24,000 majority, voted last night to replace him with the leader of Redbridge council, Jas Athwal. Mr Athwal, a well-known figure locally, ran to stand against Mr Tarry in 2019. But amid accusations of foul play he was suspended by the party over a serious allegation shortly before the vote. Sam Tarry was sacked from Labour's front bench after giving broadcast interviews from an RMT picket line earlier this year Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner and Sam Tarry who are in a relationship with each other He was later fully cleared after Mr Tarry, who helped run Corbyn's 2015 leadership campaign, was selected in his absence from the ballot. But this morning the MP demanded further details about the vote which led to his deselection, calling it a 'manufactured political circus'. 'I am extremely concerned about the result, which does not reflect the feeling my campaigners met on the ground talking day in day out to members, or the extensive meticulous data we gathered on the campaign,' he said. 'I am taking some time to consider what's next, but in order to be assured of the integrity of the result I am asking the party to share with me the full information of who cast electronic votes, by what method, and when they were cast.' While candidate selection can be a fraught issue internally within Labour, it is relatively rare for a sitting MP to be de-selected by their local party. Mr Tarry is the first for a decade. It comes after he was fired from his role as a shadow transport minister in the summer after backing striking rail workers who brought the UK to a halt and visiting them on a picket line. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary and MP for neighbouring Ilford North, was among the first to offer congratulations to Mr Athwal. The Labour moderate, a critic of Corbybnistas, praised his 'resounding victory'. Advertisement Hundreds of roses have been scattered at the wreck site of Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose to mark the 40th anniversary of it being raised from the seabed. The Tudor warship had lain for 437 years on the bed of the Solent outside Portsmouth Harbour after it sank in 1545 while the king watched from Southsea Castle. It was raised from the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight, on October 11, 1982 after an 11-year salvage operation. More than 500 divers, including King Charles III as the Prince of Wales, were involved in the world's largest underwater archaeological excavation in that time, racking up more than 28,000 dives totalling 11.5 man-years on the seabed. Recovered from the wreck site were more than 19,000 items, and the hull was raised live on television watched by an audience of 60 million worldwide. To mark the anniversary of the raising on Tuesday, Dominic Jones, chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust, was joined on a small boat by guests and local schoolchildren to scatter 500 roses - representing the number of divers - at the spot where the hull was raised. Hundreds of roses have been scattered at the wreck site of Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose to mark the 40th anniversary of it being raised from the seabed. Above: Nigel Purse, Chairman of the Mary Rose Trust, joins others to cast 500 roses into the sea The Tudor warship had lain for 437 years on the bed of the Solent outside Portsmouth Harbour after it sank in 1545 while the king watched from Southsea Castle. More than 500 divers, including King Charles III as the Prince of Wales, were involved in the world's largest underwater archaeological excavation. Above: The Mary Rose being lifted from the Solent Mr Jones said: 'We are beyond proud to be celebrating 40 years since the raising of the Mary Rose. 'The dedication and effort involved in this world-leading project is truly staggering, and we relish the opportunity to share our story and that of the hundreds of individuals involved with the internationally significant ship. 'Our work has opened a portal into Tudor life in a way that has never been seen before, and we are honoured to be able to tell the story of the 500 crew, some 465 who tragically lost their lives when the Mary Rose sank.' The Mary Rose was Henry VIII's favourite warship and sailed for 34 years before it sank on July 19, 1545 during the Battle of the Solent against the French. The reason behind the sinking is disputed amongst experts. One theory states that she may have tipped over after being overburdened with men and equipment. Around 500 men lost their lives. To raise the ship, a purpose-built frame was built and attached to steel bolts that were passed through the hull. The frame was supported above the ship on four legs and hydraulic jacks then lifted it just a few inches out of the suction effect of the silt in the Solent. A view of 500 flowers which were cast into the sea near to the site where the Mary Rose was found to mark the 40th anniversary of the raising of the ship in Portsmouth People throw 500 roses into the sea at the site of where the wreck of the Mary Rose was found, to mark the 40th anniversary of the raising of the ship A Henry VIII impersonator wears a virtual reality headset to view a first person, underwater experience of the wreck of the Mary Rose Nigel Purse, Chairman of the Mary Rose Trust, joins others to cast 500 roses into the sea at the spot where the Mary Rose was raised Once hanging from the frame, the hull was transferred to a steel cradle that was in place on the seabed west of the wreck. MARY ROSE: STATS Sailed under: Tudor Navy Home port: Portsmouth, England Weight: 500, refit to 700 tons Length: Estimated at 148 feet (45 metres) Ordnance: 7891 guns Crew compliment: 400450 Built: 15101512 Years of service: 33 Sank: 1545, mid-battle, in the Solent Wreck discovered: 1971 Wreck raised: 1982 Advertisement When the weather and tide was favourable, on the morning of October 11, the cradle containing the Mary Rose was raised out of the water by a crane. The then Prince Charles, who was president of the Mary Rose Trust, was there when the ship was raised. He had dived several times to see the wreck. The hull remains the only 16th-century warship on display anywhere in the world in its own dedicated museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. A 39million 34-year restoration was recently completed. During its restoration, the ship was coated with millions of litres of finely-sprayed, fresh water at a temperature of less than 5C (41F). The water, along with a series of wax chemicals, were used to stop the wood drying out and to inhibit bacterial activity. Then, in 1985, the ship was turned upright and titanium props were installed to support the internal structure and work was undertaken to remove as much sediment as possible. From 1994, active conservation commenced with the spraying of Polyethylene Glycol (Peg), a water-soluble polymer which can penetrate deep into the wood and support the cell walls. In April 2013, the Peg sprays were turned off and the hull was kept in a state of controlled air-drying. Once drying was complete, the internal walls surrounding the hull were removed so visitors would be able to see a completely unobstructed view of the hull The wreck was found in 1971 thanks to the work of historian Alexander McKee. He led a team that used sonar to first find what they believed to be the Mary Rose, before the discovery of three port frames confirmed it was the right vessel. A TV documentary released to mark the anniversary of the ship's raising revealed how King Charles narrowly avoided being injured on live TV when the corner of the frame carrying the ship slipped more than three feet and almost smashed the hull. More than 60million people watched the raising operation on television. Above: The ship is seen inside the special frame that was used to lift it from the seabed The Tudor warship 'Mary Rose' in her salvage cage at Portsmouth, UK, having been raised from the Solent After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and being substantially rebuilt in 1536, the Mary Rose saw her last action on 19 July 1545. Above: The ship being raised The Mary Rose emerges from the Solent in its purpose-built frame during the intricate operation to salvage the ancient vessel HRH King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) is seen watching as the Mary Rose is raised from the Solent on October 11, 1982 More than 500 divers, including King Charles III as the Prince of Wales, were involved in the world's largest underwater archaeological excavation before the ship was raised The King was on his way to look at the wreck at close quarters when the vessel crashed. Former Royal Engineer Jack Frost, who was involved in the salvage operation, recalled on Raising The Mary Rose: The Lost Tapes: 'You know, the future king of England could have died live on TV, which I think would have changed the whole aspect of the recovery, to be honest. 'Everything went silent. There wasn't a whisper. No one spoke for what felt like minutes, was probably ten seconds, but just no one moved. 'And that put paid to Prince Charles getting on her, because it wasn't going to happen from then.' Speaking afterwards, Charles said: 'I will never forget the almighty crash as the chains came down and I thought it was all my fault. 'The important thing is to be British and not panic. So, we didn't and all was well. Marvellous.' Charles dived a total of nine times on the wreck between 1974 and 1982. The programme also discovered that without the King's involvement, the 4 million operation would not have gone ahead. Charles, as patron of the Mary Rose Trust, personally persuaded the multi-millionaire chairman of Howard Doris Engineering and his wife Jocelyn to loan them his floating crane, which cost 25,000 a day at that time to hire. Ian Dahl, then development director of fundraising at the Mary Rose Trust recalled: 'We had an event and we very carefully selected who were the core people to be invited that evening. 'And one of those people just happened to be responsible for the company that owned the ideal crane to raise Mary Rose. 'The Prince of Wales walked straight over (to him), put his hand out in his wonderful way of relaxing people and said: "Oh, how wonderful. I believe you've got the crane for us to raise the Mary Rose." 'And the chairman's wife looked at her husband and said: "Oh, darling, that's absolutely marvellous." 'So basically, he was on the spot and said: "Yes, sir, you know, we would very much like to help."' Dr Ann Coats, British maritime historian at the University of Portsmouth, said: 'The Mary Rose excavations launched a new era of maritime archaeology: the sheer scale of the diving required hundreds of divers to be trained. Henry VIII was watching when the Mary Rose (depicted above in a 16th century illustration) sank. It is believed she may have been overburdened with men and equipment The hull remains the only 16th-century warship on display anywhere in the world in its own dedicated museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard The Daily Mail's coverage of the raising of the Mary Rose gave intricate detail of the 4million operation that was spurred on by King Charles, who was then the Prince of Wales 'Computer programmes were adapted to record the 19,000 objects recovered. 'Today, DNA, 3D printing and other scientific methods are unlocking even more information about the crew and artefacts. 'Forty years on, many more stories remain to be discovered. 'Mary Rose's artefacts themselves gave fresh and amazing insight into Tudor life because organic materials - clothes, musical instruments, foodstuffs, cooking implements, rope, longbows and arrows - which do not normally survive in land sites had survived in abundance and could tell us so much about the lifestyle of ordinary people: seamen. 'Normally higher status objects have been preserved from wealthy people because of their intrinsic value, but not the everyday items of working life. 'This fantastic collaborative engineering event in 1982 allowed millions of people to experience the wonder of Mary Rose itself. 'Divers secured cables under the whole remaining hull so it could be pulled up from the silt and raised. 'People could now see the scale of the timbers, rope cables, cooking oven, guns, could smell the tarred rope. 'Individual crew members could be assembled, and their jobs identified, such as the archer.' Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner has been charged with a series of sex crimes - but none of them relates to the disappearance of the British toddler. Convicted rapist Brueckner, 45, was named as the man responsible for Madeleine's May 2007 abduction two years ago by German police in a fanfare which sparked worldwide media attention. But since then no charges have been brought and the investigation has failed to positively link him, despite prosecutors giving the heart-breaking news they had 'concrete evidence' the little girl was dead and that Brueckner was the culprit. Instead, German investigators today charged him with five offences between 2000 and 2017, when Brueckner was travelling between his native Germany and Portugal. These include the rapes of two unknown women in Portugal, the rape of a 20-year-old Irish woman in 2004, the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old German girl in April 2007 on a Portuguese beach - close to where Madeleine vanished just a month later - and a further sexual abuse case in 2017, again in Portugal. Brueckner's lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said the new charges had come as a 'complete surprise' to him and his client, and said they were based on 'dubious witnesses and on video evidence that no one has been able to find'. German prosecutors have named Christian Brueckner (left), who is currently in jail for rape, as the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann's (right) disappearance. Convicted rapist Brueckner, 45, was named as the man responsible for the May 2007 abduction two years ago by German police, but has not been charged. Today, he was charged with a series of other sex crimes The fact that Brueckner has not been charged over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the holiday apartment of parents Kate and Gerry (pictured) in Praia da Luz will bring fresh heartache as they had hoped this would mark the end of the 15-year-mystery The charges in relation to the rapes of the two unknown women come after police were told about a video recording of Brueckner allegedly attacking them. Helge Busching and Manfred Seyferth - two key witnesses and former friends of Brueckner's - are said to have stolen the camera with the recording on it from the German's house near Praia da Luz on Portugal's Algarve coast. In the footage which has since disappeared they describe how an elderly woman and a young girl are raped by a man who they identify as Brueckner,. The charges brought against Brueckner include a rape said to have taken place sometime between December 28, 2000 and April 8, 2006 on an unknown woman aged between 70-80 years old. He is said to have tied the woman up and raped her in the bedroom of her holiday apartment and hit her with a whip while filming her ordeal. On another day between the same dates he is accused of raping an unknown 14-year-old German-speaking girl at his home in Praia da Luz in a similar way, allegedly tying her up and videotaping the act. In June 2004, the defendant allegedly gained access at night to the apartment of a then-20-year-old woman from Ireland via the balcony in Praia da Rocha. The sleeping woman was then awakened by the masked suspect at knifepoint and raped. The accused is also alleged to have filmed large parts of the attack with a video camera he had brought. In April 2007, the defendant allegedly ambushed a 10-year-old German girl playing on the beach at Salema in the district of Faro in Portugal, wearing only shoes and otherwise naked. He allegedly forced her to watch him perform a sex act. Ten years later, he is said to have carried out a similar crime against a girl at a playground at Bartolomeu de Messines in Portugal. Prosecutors say the girl ran to her father for help and the suspect was arrested by Portuguese police at the scene. Under German law, German nationals accused of crimes in other countries can be tried in their home country. Investigators believe the 45-year-old also killed Madeleine, then three, after abducting her from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3 2007. However, he has not been charged with her disappearance. Brueckner, who has reportedly denied any involvement in the case, was identified as a suspect in the McCann case by Portuguese officials in June 2020. But the fact that Brueckner has not been charged for Madeleine's disappearance from the holiday apartment of parents Kate and Gerry in Praia da Luz will bring fresh heartache as they had hoped this would mark the end of the 15-year-mystery. The Braunschweig prosecutor's office said in a statement that the accused was the same person under investigation in connection with Madeleine's disappearance. 'Specifically, the accused is charged with three offences of aggravated rape and two offences of sexual abuse of children,' the prosecutor's office added. 'The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann continues,' it noted. Madeleine went missing from this apartment in the resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal, while on holiday there with her family in 2007 When asked about the McCann case prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told MailOnline: 'We hope that we can put all our energy into the McCann case once the other investigations have ended. 'But we don't know how it will end, for the time being it is still open, maybe we can bring a charge, maybe we can't, but we are still hopeful.' Reacting to the string of new charges, Brueckner's lawyer Fulscher told MailOnline: 'This has come as a complete surprise to me and my client. 'The charges appear to be based on statements from two dubious witnesses and on video evidence that no one has been able to find. 'These same two people have also given evidence in the McCann case and I have not even been shown their testimony. 'Part of the evidence in the case of the rape [of the 20-year-old woman] is that the attacker had a large tattoo or birthmark on his leg and the prosecution knows full well my client has neither. 'To bring charges the prosecutor has to be convinced the information in the case is reliable and relevant and we believe it is not. This is not a fair investigation.' The case against Brueckner is expected to start next Spring. Brueckner is currently in Oldenburg jail serving seven years for the rape of an elderly American woman in her home in Praia da Luz in 2005. He was convicted after DNA from a hair in her bed was matched to him. Brueckner and his lawyer Fulscher have denied his involvement and insisted he was convicted after a bungled investigation. Hans Christian Wolters, the German prosecutor investigating Madeleine's disappearance, recently warned there's no end in sight for the three-year-old's probe In a letter to a friend, seen by MailOnline, Brueckner said: 'In the 2005 rape of the old lady, the offender was described as having dark eyes and incredibly strong. I got convicted but I never had dark eyes or looked like Dwayne Johnson.' He added:' There is absolutely no evidence that I committed this cruel crime. No DNA just nothing. Things just appeared when there wasn't anything before. 'My hair from the 2005 case 13 years it just happens to appear in the BKA (German police) laboratory. It was one of 15 hairs that were found but mysteriously no DNA was found on 13 but on two there was mine and the old lady. 'No more words are needed,' he added. Brueckner's lawyer has now filed an appeal request in the German courts asking that the 2019 rape conviction be re-examined because the evidence used to convict him is weak. He claims evidence in the new cases being investigated prove Brueckner could not have raped the pensioner as German authorities say that attack and the one on Behan were carried out by the same tattooed man. But Mr Fulscher has pointed out his client has no tattoos and so therefore could not have carried out the rapes although he told MailOnline he was not hopefully of his appeal being granted. He said: 'Only a vanishingly small proportion of applications are successful.' Earlier this year, on the 15th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, her parents said it is 'essential' to learn the truth of what happened to their daughter. On the same day, the Metropolitan Police, which continues to treat the case as a missing persons inquiry, said it is 'committed' to finding the truth. In July 2013, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleine's disappearance. Vice President Kamala Harris used the national TV platform of 'Late Night' to tear into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's moves to bus migrants from the border and drop them outside her official residence in Washington. 'We're talking about people who have fled great harm,' Harris said when host Seth Meyers teed up a question on the topic. 'And they are coming here seeking refuge and talk about political theater!' she said. 'I mean, playing games with people's lives, with their lives. You know, there were mothers with sleeping babies getting off those buses. And I just think it's an absolute dereliction of duty if you see a problem,' she said. 'Talk about political theater!' said Vice President Kamala Harris, who slammed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's move to send immigrants from Texas and drop them outside her D.C. residence She was responding to a question from the host, a 'Saturday Night Live' alum, who compared the move to 'playing games' with people's lives but also called illegal immigration 'a problem.' 'I don't think that, you know, playing games with people's lives is the solution to this problem. But based on the record amount of arrests at the border, it is a problem,' Meyers said. 'I think we look to our leaders at times like these. What is the path forward?' Abbott launched a plan to ship migrants to Chicago, New York, and Democratic enclaves. 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers called the move 'playing games with people's lives,' but also called illegal immigration 'a problem' Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made a tough border posture central to his political identity Texas sent more than 100 migrants from Eagle Pass to the street in front of the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Harris took heat last month when she said 'we have a secure border' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shipped migrants via plane to Martha's Vineyard Harris' appearance on 'Late Night' was her first broadcast network late night appearance as VP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got on the bandwagon and shipped a plane full of migrants who were seeking asylum from Texas to liberal Martha's Vineyard. It was Harris' second late-night interview as vice president and her first on a broadcast network as VP. In December she appeared on Charlamagne Tha God's Comedy Central show, 'Tha God's Honest Truth.' Harris, who President Biden tasked with focusing on 'root causes' of immigration in particular from Northern Triangle nations, called for addressing broader immigration issues. NBC reported last week that the Administration is considering a major immigration push after the mid-term elections, hoping to act on issues that have been stalled for years. 'If we agree that we need to address it, then if you're a leader, participate in a solution,' Harris said, dismissing Abbott's move. 'When we first came into office, the first bill that we proposed was for a pathway for citizenship, which was to fix a broken immigration system, which was broken under the previous administration,' she said. Abbott, in a debate last week with Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke, touted his own Operation Lone Star, which relies on the Texas Military Department and public safety officers to provide border security. 'We shouldn't have to allocate any money for it because this is all because of Joe Biden's failure to do the president's job to secure the border,' he said in the debate. O'Rourke countered that the 'buck stops on your desk.' Harris also spoke on other topics, including Biden's decision to pardon people serving time in federal prison for nonviolent marijuana offenses. 'Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed, right?' said the former California prosecutor. Abbott trashed New York Mayor Eric Adams when shipping migrants to New York this summer. 'Adams talked the talk about being a sanctuary city welcoming illegal immigrants into the Big Apple with warm hospitality,' he wrote. 'Talk is cheap. When pressed into fulfilling such ill-considered policies, he wants to condemn anyone who is pressing him to walk the walk.' Leaders of the world's most industrialized nations promised Tuesday 'severe consequences' if Russia uses nuclear, chemical or biological weapons on Ukraine after an emergency virtual meeting. President Joe Biden and his allies from G7 democracies promised to hold Vladimir Putin accountable for war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky joined Biden and other world leaders on the call to demand more air defense systems for his embattled country. A day earlier, Russia bombarded his country with dozens of missiles, hitting energy facilities and residential neighborhoods in a major escalation of Vladimir Putin's air war. 'We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms and recall that indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime,' the leaders said after their meeting. More strikes were reported just before Zelensky joined the one-and-a-half-hour call, killing at least one person in the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia and leaving part of the western city of Lviv without power. Zelensky says more air defenses are his 'number one priority.' Following the crisis talks, G7 leaders rejected the 'illegal attempted annexation' of four areas of Ukraine and promised more sanctions sanctions against Moscow. The White House released an image of President Joe Biden on the emergency call with other G7 leaders, as they met for crisis talks following Monday's Russian missile barrage G7 leaders including President Joe Biden held an emergency virtual meeting on Tuesday morning, a day after Russia launched dozens of missiles at Ukraine. President Volodomyr Zelensky (right) joined at the start of the call to ask for air defense systems Ukraine on Tuesday began the process of repairing damage from Russian missile strikes a day earlier. The attacks attracted global condemnation. Men can be seen fixing a pipe in a crater near Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, Ukraine A forensic science team carries a body of an army officer exhumed from what Ukrainian officials say is a mass grave in the newly recaptured town of Lyman, Donetsk region 'We have imposed and will continue to impose further economic costs on Russia, including on individuals and entities - inside and outside of Russia - providing political or economic support for Russia's illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory,' the G7 statement said. Western leaders fear that Putin is intent on doing anything he can to reverse Ukrainian gains and could even resort to deploying tactical nuclear weapons. A day earlier Biden joined a chorus of international condemnation after Russia struck civilian targets in Ukraine, saying the missile attacks showed the 'utter brutality' of Vladmir Putin's illegal war. At least 11 people died as missiles rained down on 10 cities, including the capital Kyiv. 'These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose,' said Biden. 'They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin's illegal war on the Ukrainian people. 'We offer our condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were senselessly killed today, as well as our best wishes for the recovery of those who were wounded.' Ukrainian officials said the assault included some 83 missiles, making it the most widespread assault since the war began. They hit busy intersections, parks and tourist attractions right in the centre of Kyiv. The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said at least 11 people were killed and 64 were wounded. Putin said they were launched in response to an attack that damaged a key Russian bridge and warned that more could follow. The missiles slammed into civilian neighborhoods, or appeared to target energy infrastructure at a time when the region is preparing for the bitter cold of winter. They come as Russian forces have been pushed back by Ukrainian resistance, triggering fears that Putin could even use nuclear weapons in an effort to shore up his troops as well as his own hold on power in Moscow. President Joe Biden on Monday condemned the Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities. He is pictured here leaving Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday Sites across Ukraine were hit by a wave of missiles, Ukraine said it counted 83 missiles. Here a rescue worker responds to a strike in Zaporizhzhia 83 Russian missiles were launched at Ukraine in combination with Iranian drones, striking power stations, water supplies and civilians across the country - killing eight and wounding 24 in Kyiv alone Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia KYIV: Cars burn after Russian military strikes on cities across Ukraine as Putin takes revenge for the Crimea bridge blast Biden demanded that he end the war and promised more support for Ukraine. 'These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,' he said, as he prepared to leave his Delaware home and return to the White House. 'Alongside our allies and partners, we will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom.' Later, President Volodomyr Zelensky of Ukraine revealed that he had spoken with his American counterpart. 'Air defense is currently the number one priority in our defense cooperation,' he tweeted. The U.S. has provided more than $16.8 billion of security assistance since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Biden's words echoed a wave of international criticism. United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: 'This constitutes another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price.' 'Russia once again has shown to the world what it stands for. It is terror and brutality,' said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 'I know Ukrainians will not be intimidated. And Ukrainians know that we will stand by your side, their side as long as it takes.' KYIV: A woman injured in a missile strike this morning receives treatment in the front seat of an ambulance KYIV: Cars burn on the streets of the Ukrainian capital this morning after multiple missiles struck the city - the first time in months that it has been hit as Putin exacts revenge for strikes on the Kerch Bridge KYIV: A dead body lies in the streets after Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months, setting cars on fire and blowing up a park in a residential area British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly condemned 'unacceptable' Russian strikes, calling it 'a demonstration of weakness by Putin, not strength.' For his part, Putin said the strikes were retaliation for what he described as a 'terrorist attack' on a bridge linking Russia with Crimea. He said Russia could continue to launch strikes against key energy and military command facilities that would be 'tough and proportionate to the level of threats,' if Ukraine kept up such attacks. Attacks were reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in the center of the country, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was intent on destroying his country. 'The 229th day of full-scale war. On the 229th day, they are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth. Completely,' he wrote on his Telegram channel. 'Destroy our people who are sleeping at home in Zaporizhzhia. Kill people on their way to work in Dnipro and Kyiv.' KYIV: President Zelensky speaks on the streets of the capital during a missile attack by Russia to accuse the Kremlin of deliberately targeting civilians in order to sow terror Oleksii Reznikov, the defence minister, said Ukraine's courage would never be broken and 'that the only thing they demolish is the future of [Russia] - a future of a globally despised rogue terrorist state.' Videos and pictures from the Ukrainian capital showed burning cars and bodies in the streets as officials said rockets hit close to a well-known memorial to a famous statesman, near a children's play area in a park, and a pedestrian bridge. More footage showed an apartment block in Dnipro in flames. Putin spoke at a meeting with his security cabinet today to plot further revenge. As the talks got underway, Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced that a 'joint military task force' with Russian troops would be deployed on his western border. Lukashenko has so far not committed any forces to the war. Meanwhile hardliners within Russia demanded a declaration of full war and the use of nuclear weapons. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had ruled out the atomic option on Sunday, but that will do little to dampen fears as Putin runs out of options having already annexed occupied territory and conscripted hundreds of thousands of troops. Ukrainian social media networks were flooded with videos of defiance in the wake of the attacks, as people in bomb shelters and in the Kyiv subway network sung the national anthem and other patriotic songs even as bombs fell. Korea will double the number of flights on the Gimpo-Haneda route late this month as Japan resumed visa-free travel for visitors, the transport ministry said Tuesday. The government will have carriers provide 56 flights per week on the Haneda route from the existing 28 starting Oct. 30, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement. On Tuesday, Japan lifted the ban on the number of inbound passengers and resumed visa-free travel for visitors from specific countries, including Korea. Previously, Japan only allowed package tours and required visas for all visitors in a move to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airline, Korea's two biggest carriers, resumed the Haneda route after a two-year suspension due to the pandemic on June 29 after the two countries agreed to reopen the route a week earlier. A total of 2.05 million people used the Gimpo-Haneda route in 2019, with an average of 21 flights per week. (Yonhap) The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction for the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. Roof, 28, previously had an appeal rejected in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, after arguing he had been wrongly allowed to represent himself during the sentencing phase of his trial. During his trial Roof fired his first legal team because he did not want them to portray him as mentally ill. His new team of attorneys argued that decision - made by somebody who was mentally ill - prevented jurors from hearing evidence that may have spared him from the death penalty. Earlier this year, Roof's attorneys asked the US supreme court for a review on the same grounds. The Supreme Court dismissed the review request in August, according to the LA Times. The justices did not comment on today's decision to reject an appeal. Roof was 21 years old when he opened fire during the closing prayer of a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, firing dozens of bullets at the congregation. After his death sentence in 2017, Roof was placed death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. He can still pursue other appeals. The Supreme Court rejected Dylann Roof's appeal of his death sentence for his 2015 killing of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation Roof, 28, is on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. He can still pursue other appeals In 2021, Roof and his legal team began making his appellate argument that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned. In a lengthy brief, Roof's attorneys argue that an appellate court should vacate Roof's convictions and death sentence, or remand his case to court for a 'proper competency evaluation.' 'The federal trial that resulted in his death sentence departed so far from the standard required when the government seeks the ultimate price that it cannot be affirmed,' they wrote, arguing that their client's mental illness should have prevented him from serving as his own attorney during a portion of the trial, and also being sent to federal death row. Roof successfully prevented jurors from hearing evidence about his mental health, 'under the delusion,' his attorneys argued, that 'he would be rescued from prison by white nationalists - but only, bizarrely, if he kept his mental impairments out of the public record.' In 2021, Roof and his legal team began making his appellate argument that his conviction and death sentence should be overturned Roof's lawyers said his convictions and death sentence should be vacated or his case should be sent back to court for a 'proper competency evaluation.' U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel held two competency hearings for Roof: one before the start of his trial, and one before its sentencing phase, to determine if Roof could act as his own attorney for that portion of the trial. In that part of the trial, the self-avowed white supremacist neither fought for his life nor explained his actions, saying only that 'anyone who hates anything in their mind has a good reason for it.' The nine victims of Roof's massacre were DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Myrah Thompson, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Daniel Simmons, Clementa Pinckney and Cynthia Hurd were all killed by Roof on June 17, 2015. Polly Sheppard, 73, said Roof, who is now spared her so she could 'tell the story'. She and Felicia Sanders, another survivor, testified against him during the trial. In 2017, Roof became the first person in the U.S. sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Myrah Thompson, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Daniel Simmons, Clementa Pinckney and Cynthia Hurd were all killed by Roof on June 17, 2015 Precisely who is behind the new shadowy group, which claims to be leaderless, remains unclear Activist group has also slashed tyres in cities such as Sheffield, Manchester and remote Dundee They have targeted SUVs in affluent parts of cities including London, Edinburgh, Brighton and Bristol Advertisement The scale of the 'tyre deflation' craze sweeping Britain is laid bare today as MailOnline shows how thousands of people have been targeted by eco-zealots slashing the tyres of their SUVs in multiple cities - from London, Birmingham and Edinburgh to Sheffield and even Dundee. Activists from Tyre Extinguishers, a vigilante group of climate change protesters with an unknown number of subscribers, sneak out into the dead of night in affluent areas of the country and deflate the tyres of 'gas-guzzling' 4x4s including Range Rovers, Mazdas and Volkswagens. In pursuit of their wild goal of 'making it impossible to own an SUV in the world's urban areas', the activist cell has slashed the wheels of thousands of vehicles. By their own estimate, Tyre Extinguishers had wrecked around 2,000 SUVs - and their actions do not appear to have abated since. On September 7 this year, for instance, the eco-activists claimed they had targeted around 250 SUVs - around 50 in Edinburgh, 90 in Bristol and 100 in other UK locations including London - in one night, which appears to have been a bumper day. This year so far, the group have targeted cars in Islington, Wimbledon, Chelsea, Harley Street, Hampstead Heath, Notting Hill, Belgravia, Muswell Hill and Wood Green in London; Merchiston, Marchmont, Brunstfield and Portobello in Edinburgh; Clifton, Westbury Park and Henleaze in Bristol; and Hove, Woodlindgean, Preston Park, Seven Dials, Withdean and East Brighton in Brighton and Hove. They have also picked on 4x4 owners in Greystones in Sheffield; West Didsbury in Manchester; Bacup in Lancashire; Birmingham; and Craigiebarns and Broughty Ferry in remote Dundee. This year so far, Tyre Extinguishers have targeted cars in Islington, Wimbledon, Chelsea, Harley Street, Hampstead Heath, Notting Hill, Belgravia, Muswell Hill and Wood Green in London; Merchiston, Marchmont, Brunstfield and Portobello in Edinburgh; Clifton, Westbury Park and Henleaze in Bristol; and Hove, Woodlindgean, Preston Park, Seven Dials, Withdean and East Brighton in Brighton and Hove. They have also picked on 4x4 owners in Greystones in Sheffield; West Didsbury in Manchester; Bacup in Lancashire; Birmingham; and Craigiebarns and Broughty Ferry in remote Dundee This photo shows an activist working under the cover of darkness and with their face obscured Eco-activists The Tyre Extinguishers claim SUVs are being 'disarmed' because they are 'death machines' The Tyre Extinguishers have deflated more than 2,000 SUVs The 'group's' ttacks have been caught on CCTV Tales of woe: The hard-hit SUV owners whose 4x4s have been targeted by tyre-slashing zealots Among the hardest hit were those in Brighton. Boasting not just the country's only Green MP but a Green council to boot, the city was last year voted the UK's most eco-friendly. So imagine the shock of residents living in one of its most middle-class suburbs when they awoke on Tuesday morning to discover that they, of all people, had been branded enemies of the environment. Katie Wood, who found that three tyres on her Kia Sportage had been let down, was one of them. An educational psychologist, she was two hours late for work as she tracked down a portable pump and then headed to a garage to top up her tyres. 'I'd use public transport if I could but, because I work in a variety of different locations, I need a car to travel,' said the 41-year-old. 'My car can in no way be described as a 'Chelsea Tractor'. It has a relatively small engine and its emissions are low.' She added: 'The tactics used on this occasion are wrong. Everyone wants to help reduce climate change and are doing what they can but in order to effect real change they should be winning hearts and minds.' Nearby, Rob Derkin was equally outraged at being singled out. When he left to take his daughter to college he spotted that three tyres on his Volkswagen T-Roc were flat. Unscrewing the valve caps, he discovered telltale dried legumes within. 'It's ridiculous that they targeted this car because it has a 1-litre engine and low emissions,' the 58-year-old music composer said. 'I specifically chose it because of its low emissions. 'All this campaign serves to do is make people angry and reinforces the image of activists. It reeks of student idealism - it's so Brighton that a lentil was involved.' He added: 'If they're going to continue with this campaign then they need to brush up on what cars have high emissions and which ones to avoid because at the moment they are targeting the wrong people.' It was a point echoed by Neil Longuet-Higgins, 61, who was moving house on Tuesday morning and spotted one of the tyres on his Porsche Cayenne was flat as he went to meet the removals van. The car is a hybrid, meaning it can travel around 20 miles on battery power alone. 'The car I had before was a diesel but I changed it and because I live and work around Brighton I only really use the electric element of the car,' he said. The disruption caused by the flat tyre ended up costing him more than 500. Driving to two garages in vain to find an air pump caused damage to the tyre, forcing him to pay 250 for a replacement. Because of the delay, he also had to pay the removal firm for an extra two hours of their time. Advertisement Precisely who is behind the new shadowy group, which claims to be leaderless, remains unclear. But their decision to take direct action that affects the lives of ordinary members of the public mimics the tactics of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Insulate Britain, whose protests have gridlocked cities and roads in recent years. While the Tyre Extinguishers deny they are affiliated to any other organisation, when it set up a Twitter account last summer, the very first group it followed was XR. Some of the SUVs that have had their tyres let down also included electric and hybrids. Iren Brown from Brighton, had to cancel a hospital appointment after her and her husband Nick woke up to find all four tyres on the family's part-electric Toyota Rav 4 had been deflated by activists. Mrs Brown, 43, said: 'The Toyota is a hybrid electric car which we bought because we were being mindful of the environmental impact our previous diesel car was having. But these activists have not taken that into consideration. I'm so angry because everyone is behind their cause but their tactics are indiscriminate and scattershot.' The mother-of-two, a kitchen designer, added: 'Nick is quite a serious diabetic and we may have need to access a vehicle in an emergency. Their actions could have been dangerous.' Globally, the number of SUVs has increased from less than 50 million in 2010 to around 320 million last year - equivalent to the total car fleet of Europe. Because of their size, on average, SUVs consume around a quarter more energy than medium-sized cars. A 2019 study by the International Energy Agency found that they rank among the top contributors to energy-related carbon dioxide emissions growth over the past decade - cancelling out the reductions from people switching to electric cars. Because of their size, they are also said to be more dangerous when involved in an accident. According to the climate vigilante group, action was taken 'all over the world' but the locations targeted for the vandalism were largely within the UK, with most SUV tyres deflated in Bristol. Outrageously, The Tyre Extinguishers have said that even electric and hybrid SUVs are 'fair game'. The group considers electric and hybrid SUVs unsafe in urban areas, dramatically stating that 'a child killed by a massive SUV doesn't care if it's electric or not.' The vigilantes also claim that there are 'not enough rare earth metals' to build electric and hybird cars to replace conventional cars with them, and that 'the danger to other road users still stands'. According to the protest group, they have been operating for six months. Marion Walker, a Tyre Extinguishers spokesperson, said: 'Six months in and 9,000 SUVs later, our movement is just beginning.' 'Our strength is that anyone, anywhere can take part using our website,' said the activist group. The date for the night of coordinated vandalism was chosen scrupulously to mark two months before the opening of the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt. 'Politely asking for climate action, clean air and safer streets has failed,' according to the protest group. 'If enough people join us, it will be impossible to own an SUV in the world's urban areas, and we'll see these death machines piling up on the scrapheap.' The Tyre Extinguishers demand to see bans on SUVs in urban areas, pollution levies to tax SUVs out of existence, and massive investment in free, comprehensive public transport. SUVs feature elements of standard cars but are larger and have off-road capabilities such as high ground clearance. Petrol and diesel-powered models are generally less fuel efficient than cars. The group have demanded that the government introduce 'bans on SUVs in urban areas, pollution levies to tax SUVs out of existence, and massive investment in free, comprehensive public transport. As a multiple sclerosis sufferer, Kate Basker never quite knows when or how the condition will affect her. 'Most of the time I'm really high-functioning and I walk as much as I can,' the 33-year-old from Bristol says Rob Derkin was equally outraged at being singled out. When he left to take his daughter to college he spotted that three tyres on his Volkswagen T-Roc were flat. Unscrewing the valve caps, he discovered telltale dried legumes within. 'It's ridiculous that they targeted this car because it has a 1-litre engine and low emissions,' the 58-year-old music composer said The protest group claim to have targeted SUVs across the country, including London and Edinburgh However, they say: 'Until politicians make this a reality, Tyre Extinguishers action will continue.' Legal experts say that although prosecution is unlikely, the activists could actually be committing a criminal offence. Laura Baumanis, a criminal defence solicitor at legal defence firm Olliers, told MailOnline: 'Whilst it is extremely rare for someone to be prosecuted for letting the air out of a tyre, technically, it could be classed as criminal damage. 'For this offence to be satisfied, any damage caused does not have to be permanent, but is made out by virtue of the fact that steps need to be taken, ordinarily at expense to the owner, for the item to be in a working condition again.' Matthew Nash, tutor at The University of Law, said if the driver failed to notice the flat tyre and drove away, more serious charges could be brought it they crashed. He said: 'Letting out air from someone's tyres is clear criminal damage. Although technically the tyre is not 'damaged', if you do something to someone else's property and they need to do something to restore it, that is Criminal Damage within the meaning of the Criminal Damage Act. 'It is possible that if they let the air out of someone's types so as to cause an accident, there could be more serious charges depending on the resulting damage or injury. 'It is also possible that there could be other offences if this were done to many cars at the same time.' Three police forces have confirmed they are investigating multiple reports of criminal damage in Brighton, Liverpool and Cambridge. A British champion racing driver who salvaged 32m worth of silver from a Second World War wreck off the Maldives has won a court fight waged by the South African government. Motorsports champ and financier Ross Hyett, 67, successfully spearheaded a complex and risky treasure hunting mission to recover 2,364 bars of silver from the wreck of the SS Tilawa. The 10,000-ton steamer, built in Tyneside, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the coast of the Maldives in November 1942. Mr Hyett, from Derby, a former executive director of the British Racing Drivers Club, having spent over two years planning and carrying out the salvage operation, successfully got his treasure hoard back to Southampton in 2017 and declared it to the Receiver of Wreck, which oversees salvage law. The SS Tilawa, a merchant steamer sunk in 1942 by Japanese torpedoes while carrying a 32m cargo of silver bars Ross Hyett, 67, successfully led a treasure hunting mission to recover 2,364 bars of silver from the wreck of the SS Tilawa The sinking of the SS Tilawa by Japanese torpedoes during the Second World War The SS Tilawa was a merchant ship owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company, having been built on the Tyne in 1924. It was 125m in length and at the time she was sunk carried a crew of 222, as well as 732 passengers and 6,472 tons of cargo. The ship was transporting mostly Indian nationals to Mombasa, Maputo and Durban. But en route from Bombay to Durban, the ship was sunk by two Japanese torpedoes on November 27, 1942. The ship was attacked 930 miles northeast of the Seychelles. Reports say that the first torpedo created panic among the 732 passengers, with many of the deaths coming in the rush to lifeboats. The ship remained afloat despite the attack but, as the survivors attempted to reboard, the second torpedo struck. Nearby British ship HMS Birmingham swiftly mounted a rescue operation and a total of 673 of the 954 people on board were brought back to Bombay. Another 281 lost their lives in the attack. Advertisement But the South African government, the owner of the long-lost silver bars, sued Mr Hyetts company Argentum Exploration Ltd over the hoard, claiming it was state property and must be handed over. Lawyers for the Republic of South Africa (RSA) claimed that state immunity meant they were under no obligation to pay Argentum Exploration a massive salvage reward under the 1995 Merchant Shipping Act to get them to release the silver. In December 2020, Judge Sir Nigel Teare in the Admiralty Court in London found that RSA was obliged to pay up, after comparing the dispute to the board game Buccaneer, in which rivals race to claim pirate treasure. Then last year RSA won permission to take their fight to the Court of Appeal. Today the Appeal Court dismissed the RSAs appeal, handing victory to Mr Hyett and meaning the RSA has to pay to get the silver back. The case had turned on delicate legal arguments over whether the silver was in commercial or sovereign use as it lay at the bottom of the sea 75 years after the ship carrying it was sunk. If it was deemed to be in use for a sovereign purpose it would grant the RSA state immunity from paying a reward to the treasure hunters. Appeal judge Lord Justice Popplewell ruled that whilst the silver on board had been largely destined for the sovereign purpose of being turned into coins in the South African national mint, it was legally in commercial use as it had been bought and sold and was being carried on a merchant ship when it was lost. That purpose had not changed during the decades it had lain at the bottom of the sea the judge found. The SS Tilawa was a merchant ship owned by the British India Steam Navigation Company, having been built on the Tyne in 1924. She was 125m in length and at the time she was sunk carried a crew of 222, as well as 732 passengers and 6,472 tons of cargo. That cargo included 2,391 bars of silver, purchased by the South African government and destined to be turned into But en route from Bombay to Durban, the ship was sunk by two Japanese torpedoes. Nearby British ship HMS Birmingham swiftly mounted a rescue operation and a total of 673 of the 954 people on board were brought back to Bombay on 27 November 1942, with 281 losing their lives. HMS Birmingham the warship that came to the rescue of the SS Tilawa after it was hit by torpedoes Passengers and crew attempting to flee the SS Tilawa, a merchant steamer sunk in 1942 by Japanese torpedoes Salvage laws in the UK If you recover wreck material within UK territorial waters, or bring wreck material into UK territorial waters, you must report it to the Receiver of Wreck, under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. The Receiver of Wreck is responsible for processing incoming reports of wreck and ensures that the interests of both salvor and owner are taken into consideration. This is done by researching and establishing who owns the wreck and liaising with the finder and owner, and other interested parties such as archaeologists and museums. The Receiver aims to give owners the opportunity of having their property returned and to make sure a fair salvage award payment is made where necessary. If you recover wreck material, you must declare it to the Receiver within 28 days. You should give a full description of the wreck and will usually be asked to hold recovered material. If you own a wreck, you must prove ownership to the satisfaction of the Receiver. You must provide proof of ownership within one year of the material being reported. You will be entitled to have your property back as soon as you have paid any due expenses and an appropriate salvage award. A salvor, acting properly under the law, is likely to be entitled to a salvage award. This salvage award cannot exceed the salved value of the recovered material. The Receiver can arrange for independent valuations to help owners and finders agree on a fair salvage award. Source: gov.uk Advertisement Of the 2,391 silver bars on board, 2,364 were salvaged and brought back to Southampton over 70 years later by Mr Hyetts treasure hunting company, Argentum Exploration Ltd. The secret operation took six months and the bars shipped to Southampton. It has since been held under lock and key in a secure warehouse whilst Mr Hyetts company and the South African government fought in court over the rights to the treasure. The South African government (RSA) is the legal owner of the hoard, but Argentum Exploration is not obliged to release the silver until South Africa has agreed to pay him a massive salvage reward under the 1995 Merchant Shipping Act. The South African government had insisted that it could legally avoid paying the reward for the silver under the State Immunity Act 1978. The Act frees other sovereign states from being subject to UK laws, except in certain very limited circumstances. Sir Nigel ruled in December that the bars were being used for commercial purposes when the ship was sunk in 1942, and handed victory to Mr Hyetts company. Agreeing with that ruling, Lord Justice Popplewell said today that the commercial purpose and use of the ship and the treasure could not be said to have changed during the 70-plus years it had lain on the sea bed. What exposes a state cargo owner to salvage in such cases...is the commercial use of a vessel to carry the cargo, which exposes it to the risk of having to pay salvage if it is saved from danger to the cargo owners advantage, he said. The silver had in all probability been forgotten about by RSA, which did not actively consider what to do with it until after 13 October 2017. That activity is non-sovereign and does not attract immunity under customary international law. The maritime circumstances which comprise that ingredient were no different when the salvage commenced in 2017 from those which existed at the moment in 1942 when the vessel and silver went to the seabed. No distinction is to be made between the moment when the vessel suffered the casualty and the moment when the silver became derelict by abandonment of hope of recovery by RSA, which it is to be inferred took place shortly after the sinking in 1942. Wreck as a recognised subject matter of a claim for salvage depends upon the maritime circumstances which preceded it becoming derelict. Moreover, the mere passage of time between cargo becoming derelict and the commencement of salvage services does not affect whether it is a recognised subject of salvage. It makes no difference whether it was salved within hours of becoming wreck or after 75 years. Accordingly, the use and intended use of the vessel and silver which it is necessary to examine are those at the time the vessel sank in 1942, when the silver was a cargo. The silver was a cargo in maritime circumstances then because it was being carried on the vessel. That is what makes the silver a recognised subject of salvage for the purposes of the maritime law claim. I agree with the judge that the silver was in use by RSA for commercial purposes when it was on board the vessel. Both aspects were non-sovereign activity under customary international law, and both were activity for commercial purposes. For these reasons I would dismiss the appeal, he concluded. Lady Justice Andrews agreed with Lord Justice Popplewells conclusion. However, Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing disagreed and delivered a dissenting judgement, leaving the door open for a potential challenge being taken to the Supreme Court. One of Ukraine's top children's cancer surgeons was killed in Russia's brutal missile barrage yesterday just after she had dropped her five-year-old son off at nursery school. Dr Oksana Leontyeva was killed in her car as she 'hurried to see her patients' while driving down one of Kyiv's busy boulevards in the city centre, her hospital said. The indiscriminate attack was part of Russia's biggest missile bombardment on Ukraine since its illegal invasion in February, killing 19 people and injuring scores more in strikes in cities. Dr Leontyeva was a renowned oncologist who had saved countless children's lives performing bone-marrow transplants for the last 11 years at Okhmatdyt, Kyiv's top children's hospital. Her death has left her son, Gregory, an orphan after his father was killed over a year ago, according to the hospital. He will now be raised by his grandfather. The hospital eulogised Dr Leontyeva as 'a true professional and a source of support for her patients and colleagues', describing her death as a 'big loss for Okhmatdyt and the whole of Ukraine'. 'With pain in our hearts, we inform you that as a result of rocket shelling in Kyiv killed doctor Ohmatditu Oksana Leontyeva. Renowned oncologist and children's cancer surgeon Dr Oksana Leontyeva was announced as one of the casualties killed in Russia's indiscriminate missile bombardment of Ukraine yesterday Dr Oksana Leontyeva was killed in her car as she 'hurried to see her patients' while driving down one of Kyiv's busy boulevards in the city centre, her hospital said today A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Oct 10 Dr Leontyeva's death has left her son, Gregory, an orphan after his father was killed over a year ago - he will now be raised by his grandfather 'She worked in a bone marrow transplant unit for 11 years. Oksana saved children with blood cancer. 'Oksana's life was taken by a Russian rocket, her car burned to the ground in the middle of Kiev. 'Many innocent people including children were killed and injured because of this horrible terrorist attack.' The surgeon was described by colleague Anna Brudna as someone who 'always had a story up her sleeve', enjoyed mushroom-picking and 'always looked for good things in people,' according to The Telegraph. She added that the doctor 'had experience in unique clinical cases' and was 'a reliable colleague who would never let you down'. Another colleague, Kateryna Zahorna, praised Dr Leontyeva for 'saving children with cancer, giving happiness to parents and a new lease of life for the children'. A defiant Volodymyr Zelenksy branded Russia a 'terrorist state' after the attack and said it showed the Kremlin is desperate as it is 'not capable of opposing us on the battlefield'. Zelensky said that despite the strikes Ukraine had managed to shoot down half of the missiles and drones aimed at his country, adding his people 'cannot be intimidated'. Vladimir Putin claimed yesterday that the missiles were aimed at military, energy and communications networks, but Ukraine says they actually hit power plants and busy civilian areas. The attacks are thought to be retaliation for an attack on the Kerch Bridge on Saturday which linked the annexed region of Crimea to the Russian mainland. The attacks have killed at least 19 people and left scores more injured. Pictured: Burnt-out cars a result of the strikes in Kyiv yesterday President Zelensky said the strikes show that Russia cannot match Ukraine on the battlefield. Pictured: A man watches smoke rise after a missile attack in Lviv yesterday KYIV: Cars burn on the streets of the Ukrainian capital yesterday morning after multiple missiles struck the city - the first time in months that it has been hit as Putin exacts revenge for strikes on the Kerch Bridge KYIV: An ambulance worker treats a civilian who was cut by flying shrapnel during a missile strike on the Ukrainian capital Some 84 Russian missiles were launched at Ukraine yesterday morning in combination with Iranian drones, striking power stations, water supplies and civilians across the country - killing at least 14 and wounding scores more The 12-mile-long bridge was a key part of the Kremlin's supply chain, and its destruction was a slap in the face for Russian president Putin who saw it as a pet project and a symbol of his supremacy in the region. At least 19 people were killed and 97 wounded, with six of those deaths and 51 injuries in Kyiv alone. Rockets also hit the German consulate, but the building was empty. A mixture of missiles and Iranian-made suicide drones were used to strike the cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, northern Kharkiv and Sumy, central Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia, and even far-western Ternopil and Lviv, President Zelensky said. Some of these cities have not been hit in months. Dramatic dash-cam footage taken in Dnipro shows two of the huge missile strikes hitting a civilian area, causing fiery explosions that sent debris crashing down on cars and pedestrians nearby. Putin said he ordered strikes on 'military, communications, and energy infrastructure' after what he called 'terrorist' attacks by Ukraine pointing to the Kerch Bridge attack but also accusing Kyiv of bombing one of its own nuclear plants, attacking gas pipes and assassinating officials and journalists. In Russia allies of Putin have warned that this is merely the 'first episode' of the country's revenge for the blast which crippled the Crimean bridge and 'there will be others'. North Korean construction workers deployed in Russia are going on the run after hearing they have been assigned to work in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine. High demand for construction in the heavily war damaged Donbas region of Ukraine has led to an increased need for workers, with North Korean immigrants making up a large chunk of the workforce. Likely fearing for their lives amid the Ukraine-Russia conflict, droves of North Korean workers are instead choosing to flee their jobs and go into hiding, Radio Free Asia reported. 'After getting the news that the workers would soon be moved to a new construction site in Ukraine, and needed to settle everything by the end of September, many have escaped. It's not only the construction workers, but also management officials escaping,' an unnamed source told the publication. North Korean workers are running away to avoid being posted to the war-torn region of Donbas, Ukraine (pictured on Sept. 28) It was also reported that workers were 'shaken' by the prospect of being sent to Donbas, instead choosing to live a life in hiding. North Korea has sent manual labourers overseas for years now, usually keeping the majority of workers' salaries for itself, providing the reclusive nation with a supply of foreign currency. Despite having most of what they earn taken away, workers still get more money doing this than they would working back home in North Korea, though it seems it is only enough to scrape by on. 'North Korean workers live a tired life of despair. They cannot save any money even though they work all day from 8 am to 8 pm and then do additional overtime work at night,' the source said. As well as construction, workers wind up in other tough industries such as manufacturing, textiles, and mining. Though UN Security Council sanctions issued on North Korea in 2020 banned countries from allowing such a practice, Russia is still believed to be one of the biggest hosts of North Korean manual workers. The Russian port city of Vladivostok is a popular location for North Korean workers According to a UN report published in 2019, around 30,000 North Korean workers were living in Russia in 2017, with the majority working in the port city of Vladivostok, close to the North Korea-Russia border. China was also home to as many as 50,000 North Korea construction workers in the last 10 years, though this number is believed to be much lower today. Meanwhile, North Koreans aren't the only ones trying to distance themselves from the war, with Russians themselves attempting to flee their own country to avoid being drafted. Advertisement An expert in body dissection murdered a woman and cut her head off after they argued about money, The Old Bailey heard today. Property developer Jemma Mitchell, 38, is accused of killing 67-year-old Mee Kuen Chong and drove more than 250 miles to Devon to dump her body. She denies murder. The Malaysian national, who lived in Wembley for more than 30 years, was reported missing on 11 June last year, and her headless body was discovered in a woodland near Salcombe by a holidaying family 16 days later. The court heard Ms Chong had promised to invest 200,000 in Mitchell's home, before changing her mind - leading to a disagreement between the women. Mitchell studied Human Sciences at Kings College London from where she graduated with a first-class degree in 2004. 'During her degree course, she completed a module called the Structural Basis of Human Function in which she was taught how to dissect the entire human body, with the exception of the head and neck,' said prosecutor Deanna Heer. 'She also completed an additional special study course in Experimental Anatomy. Jemma Mitchell, 38, (left) studied Human Sciences at Kings College London where 'she was taught how to dissect the entire human body', the prosecution said. The body of Mee Keun Chong (right) was found in June last year Ms Chong's body was found in woodlands near the chic seaside town of Salcombe in South Devon 'Such was her aptitude for anatomy, she was awarded the Hamilton Prize for anatomical excellence.' On Sunday 27 June 2021 Charlotte Rollings was out for a walk with her family in Salcombe on the south Devon coast. 'As they walked back to their holiday cottage from the beach, they made a gruesome discovery; the headless body of a woman,' the prosecutor said. The body had been lying at the bottom of some steps on a public footpath. Mrs Rollings called the police and officers attended and cordoned off the area. Days later, on 1 July, the head was discovered ten or so metres from the body beneath some undergrowth, the court heard. A post-mortem examination found that the woman had been dead for some days by the time her body was found. It is said the head had been detached from the body between vertebrae in the neck. 'The skin...had a very clean appearance as if it had been cut,' Ms Heer said. There were also signs of assault in a fractured skull, the jury heard. Jurors heard that Mitchell was in Salcombe on 26 June last year, having travelled there in a rented grey Volvo with a large blue suitcase Ms Chong went missing on June 11 2021 and her body was found hundreds of miles away 16 days later 'The body was that of Mee Kuen Chong, a 67-year-old woman who lived over 200 miles away from Salcombe in Wembley, here in London, and who had been reported missing on the evening of 11 June 2021. 'The defendant, Jemma Mitchell, who lived in Willesden, knew Mee Kuen Chong and had visited her address on that very day. 'Although they had been friendly, the evidence suggests that they had recently fallen out over money. 'Shortly after 1pm on 11 June the defendant was captured on CCTV footage walking away from the deceased's house in possession of two suitcases, a large blue suitcase and a smaller red and blue suitcase. 'The larger of the two was obviously very heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. 'It is the prosecution case that it contained the body of Mee Kuen Chong.' Jurors heard that Mitchell was in Salcombe on 26 June last year, having travelled there in a rented grey Volvo with a large blue suitcase. CCTV captured her car driving towards the woodland area where Ms Kuen Chong's body was to be found, the court was told. The Old Bailey heard the two women were both devoutly Christian and met at church in 2020 Mee Kuen Chong was said to be a vulnerable person and prone to erratic behaviour. She is said to have been discussing financial dealings with Mitchell before she died 'It is the prosecution case that she assaulted and killed the deceased and then transported her body to Salcombe in that large blue suitcase where she attempted to dispose of it in the woods next to Bennett Road,' Ms Heer said. The prosecutor continued: 'Jemma Mitchell was born on the 22nd July 1984. Her mother worked for the Foreign Office and she was born in Australia where her parents were living at the time. 'When their marriage broke down, she moved back to the UK with her mother and her sister. 'In 2004 she began studying Human Sciences at Kings College London from where she graduated with a first-class honours degree. 'During her degree course, she completed a module called the Structural Basis of Human Function in which she was taught how to dissect the entire human body, with the exception of the head and neck. She also completed an additional special study course in Experimental Anatomy. 'Such was her aptitude for anatomy, she was awarded the Hamilton Prize for anatomical excellence. 'In 2009 she completed a degree course in osteopathy at the British School of Osteopathy which included modules on the anatomy, biomechanics and pathophysiology of the human body.' The prosecutor saud she returned to Australia where she practised as an osteopath. 'Her website stated that as result of her training, she was 'attuned to subjects in neuroanatomy, genetics, [and] dissection of human cadavers'. Having practised as an osteopath for about seven years she returned to the UK in 2015, since when she has not worked, jurors heard. The court heard Mitchell killed Ms Chong when she refused to give her the money to pay for a property development scheme on her own home which had become a financial disaster. Mitchell had lived on the first floor of her family home in Brondesbury Park with her mother on the ground floor. The house had been in her family for generations. 'The house was in a state of disrepair. In about 2016 the defendant's mother decided to have an additional floor, a third floor added to the top of the house,' Mr Heer said. 'The defendant managed the project on her behalf but although work started on the property the work was never completed.' She paid 130,000 to one builder - but they went bankrupt. A second firm quoted 500,000 to finish the job. Mitchell gave them 100,000 but the remainder was never paid and in 2019, the builders stopped work. 'Hillary Collard [Mitchell's mother] describes her daughter working morning, noon and night to try to sort the situation out but, despite her efforts, the house remained without a roof and covered in scaffolding until the events that we are concerned with in 2021,' the prosecutor said. Ms Chong, known to her friends as Deborah, lived in Wembley with her lodger, crane operator David Klein. 'The deceased was somewhat vulnerable,' said the prosecutor. 'She suffered with mental health difficulties and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. 'Her behaviour could be erratic and sometimes verbally aggressive. She appears to have been very open about her financial affairs. She had a habit of offering to leave her home to others after her death and offering people money. 'Many refused, some did not. 'In 2021 her mental state appears to have been deteriorating. In March 2021 she was referred the local Community Mental Health Team because she kept sending letters to Prince Charles and Boris Johnson. They contained nothing alarming but were sufficiently bizarre to suggest that she might be suffering a relapse. 'As a result, in May 2021 she was treated with an injection of anti-psychotic medication 'Both the defendant and the deceased were devout Christians who met through the Church. They had known each other since about August 2020. 'Within a short period of time, the deceased was speaking to the defendant about her financial affairs. 'Messages exchanged between the two women in September 2020 were subsequently recovered from the defendant's computer and from their mobile telephones in which they discussed the deceased's will and who would inherit her home. 'In one email, the deceased told the defendant, "I am honoured to have you as my sister, accept me as your friend and advise me..." 'The advice she was seeking was about leaving her home to charity in order to avoid inheritance tax. 'She suggests that she might form a charity with David to do so. It seems, however, that David had refused to get involved. 'On 19 September 2020 the defendant responded saying, "I would like to join the charity with you if David is reluctant to change his ways. I like accounting. Or you could transfer the house to me and pay into the charity each month..." 'Messages exchanged between the deceased and the defendant show that they had been discussing the work to the defendant's house since about November 2020, with the deceased suggesting different builders and offering to pay for repairs to be carried out.' A message found on the victim's telephone on December 2020 confirms she wanted to meet Ms Collard because she was investing a lot of money in the house for her. 'About six months prior to her death the deceased met Hillary Collard and agreed to give them 200,000 as a gift upon condition that the house was used for Christian worship,' said the prosecutor. 'This is reflected in messages sent by the deceased in May 2021 suggesting that the house could be used for Christian ministry.' 'Subsequently, however, she was to change her mind.' Ms Heer said the victim was captured on CCTV footage 'out and about, alive and well' in her local area on 8 and 9 June and she spoke to her neighbour. Telephone messages were exchanged between Mitchell and Ms Chong during this time showing the victim 'had a change of heart'. Ms Heer said the victim sent a message to Mitchell at 1am on 8 June 2021 which said: 'Until you sold house, I won't want you to come to me or my house I am stress to the core'. Mitchell responded, 'Peace to you' then, 'God has a plan and purpose for this dwelling... Apologies if answering your question about the quotes caused you any uncertainty about your decision.' 'Further messages exchanged suggested Ms Chong was urging Mitchell to 'Let go of the house and the past...' and sell the house to which the defendant responded that she was unable to do so, 'We have prayed on that option extensively and even brought estate agents in but it is not in God's plan...' Ms Heer said: 'On 10 June 2021 a social worker telephoned and spoke to her and to her lodger, David Klein. That was the last day that the deceased is known to have been alive.' The next morning Mr Klein went to work returning to Ms Chong's house that evening. 'At 22.48 he contacted the police and reported her missing, telling them that he had not seen the deceased since the evening of the 10th June 2021 and that the deceased had left her mobile telephone and her glasses behind. 'At 06.23 the defendant left her home address at 9 Brondesbury Park, Willesden. CCTV footage filmed by a camera situated opposite the house shows that she had with her a large blue wheeled suitcase. Although it is large, it does not appear to be particularly heavy. 'She is able to lift it off the ground with one hand and walks away from the house with it without difficulty and at a relatively quick pace in the general direction of Brondesbury Park station. 'It appears that she had travelled to Stonebridge Park station using her mother's Freedom Pass. 'By 07.58 she had reached Chaplin Road where she was filmed walking in the direction of the deceased's house along the pavement opposite. 'At 08.01 she was captured by a camera situated a little further along Chaplin Road at number 184. She had crossed over the road and was walking in the direction of the deceased's house.' Ms Chong was described as vulnerable and prone to erratic behaviour. Last year, her mental state deteriorated and she was referred to the local community mental health team because she kept sending letters to the then-Prince Charles and Boris Johnson, jurors heard. Devout Christian Mitchell had allegedly discussed with the victim her will and who would inherit her house. It is claimed the victim agreed to hand over 200,000 to help with Mitchell's house repairs but later had a change of heart. Mitchell, of Brondesbury Park, northwest London, denies murder. The trial continues. An oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco has demanded the American Academy of Pediatrics be dissolved after its leaders were pictured unmasked at the org's first conference since 2019 - after having pushed face-coverings on kids as young as two during the pandemic. Dr. Vinayak K. Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and health researcher at the college, pointed out the hypocrisy of the agency tasked with the health, safety and well-being of US infants, children, and adolescents, in a tweet published Monday. It came on the third day of the agency's usually annual four-day conference in Anaheim, amid an air of excitement as participants attended in person for the first time in three years. Hundreds of health officials descended on the Anaheim Convention Center over the weekend and on Monday to discuss matters involving the best interests of America's youth - with photos showing the vast majority of attendees elected to go maskless. That fact was not lost on UC San Francisco's 40-year-old associate professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, who cited how the agency had pushed face-covering guidelines on almost all US youngsters this time last year. The agency has since engaged in an abrupt about-face to those policies, photos and video from the event show, as an increasing amount of districts scrap mask mandates. The agency, meanwhile, asserts that indoor masking, while no longer required, 'is still beneficial.' An oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco demanded the American Academy of Pediatrics be dissolved after its leaders were pictured unmasked at the org's first conference since 2019 - after having pushed face-coverings on kids as young as two Dr. Vinayak K. Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and health researcher at the college, pointed out the hypocrisy of the agency tasked with the health, safety and well-being of US infants, children, and adolescents, in the tweet published Monday The medical advice from the agency, which persisted until just last month, came in defiance of other agencies such as UNICEF and WHO, who earlier this year conceded that young children are not at serious risk from Covid-19. Data collected by AAP, meanwhile, supported these assertions, with the agency finding in June that while children at the time accounted for 19 percent of all COVID cases, less than 0.26 percent of those infections resulted in death. Prasad was quick to point this fact out in his post, in which he called for the country's premier pediatric agency to be dissolved permanently. 'Great to see so many unmasked faces at @AmerAcadPeds indoor gathering,' the doctor wrote, sharing images of maskless attendees at the event to his more than 213,000 followers while pointing out it was being held inside. 'Good to document their hypocrisy,' the cancer doctor sniped. It came on the third day of the agency's usually annual four-day conference in Anaheim, amid an air of excitement as participants attended in person for the first time in three years He added: 'This organization pushed masks on 2 year olds with no data, in defiance of UNICEF & WHO, while they were aware that masks impede interactions. Org should be dissolved.' The accusations from Dr. Prasad come as the Bay Area-based medical practitioner for months has used his platform to accuse the AAP and other governing bodies on the federal and state levels of 'legitimizing' irrational concern over the virus. He argues that medical practitioners should treat COVID like the flu - and in a recent paid Substack, accused physicians and scientists of manufacturing widespread anxiety through medical advice that 'interfere[s] with peoples lives.' The latest barb by the oncologist at the AAP - whose guidelines are taken into account by millions of pediatricians across the country when dishing out medical advice - coincided with those claims. Images from the event shared by the doctor showed attendees and performers seemingly ignoring mask restrictions That was not lost on the 40-year-old associate professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, who cited how the agency had pushed face-covering guidelines on almost all US youngsters this time last year It also echoed the findings of several studies, some conducted by the org themselves, that showed young children are not at serious risk from Covid-19 and that masks impede kids' development. Medical practitioners like Prasad have complained of a wave of infants and toddlers born during the pandemic left 'unable to communicate' - just one of several now-surfacing consequences of mask mandates and school closures over the past few years. The phenomenon, speech pathologist Nancy Polow says, is part of a concerning trend in kids born during or shortly before the pandemic, who are 'falling behind' on key milestones due to a lack of social interaction during that time span. Compounding the crisis, doctors have said, were mandates that required these children to don masks while in the classroom, with several studies now showing that masks hinder growing children's development. Other photos seem to support the doctor's claims, with dozens of attendees pictured ignoring their own advice regarding face coverings When parents sought help, they were often met with lockdown-related roadblocks, such as masking restrictions, the challenge of tele-health appointments for toddlers, and fear of in-person therapy - all issues pointed out by Prasad in his arguments on social media. Now that restrictions have lessened, some parents have scrambled to address these shortcomings, signing up for pricey speech therapy sessions to repair the damage done to their kids - shelling out as much as $1,000 a month in the process. A growing body of academic research also supports claims of children born over the past three or so years possessing weaker verbal skills, with many staying silent well past their first birthdays and in some cases, even their second - the age where the AAP advises that kids should start wearing masks indoors. A recent Brown University study, meanwhile, found that social distancing measures including face masks are suspected of causing young children's development to have dropped by up to 23 percent during the pandemic. Scientists Sean CL Deoni, Jennifer Beauchemin, Alexandra Volpe, and Viren DSa, penned the review, collecting data from 1,600 children - and their caregivers - who were enrolled in the study between the ages of 0 and 5 on a rolling basis. The probe analyzed the cognitive development of the youngsters through infancy, childhood and adolescence, and looked at how average development scores in three key areas had been affected during the COVID era. Results showed the kids' early learning composite - derived from their fine motor, visual reception, receptive, and expressive language scales, and viewed as the early years equivalent to an IQ score - dropped by a whopping 23 percent, from a high of just under 100 in 2019, to around 80 in 2020, and finally 77 in 2021. That trend is likely to persist for this year as well, with most districts nixing mask guidances last month, after finishing the 2021-2022 school years still with mandates. A growing body of academic research supports these claims, as scientists suggest that wearing face masks could be to blame for the slowdown in the development of their children, both in a social and intellectual sense. Children born during the Covid pandemic are behind on key developmental steps compared to their peers, it has been revealed (stock image) A paper published in the prestigious research journal JAMA in January this year that looked at 225 children born in 2020 revealed babies were less likely to be crawling and smiling at themselves in a mirror within six months. It also showed they had reduced social and problem-solving skills. AUK-based survey of teachers released last month found those teaching children in the early grades were now seeing more biting and hitting in the classroom than previously. After reviewing more than 280 educational settings, British-based charity Ofsted has also suggested in a report that children are struggling with basic skills such as writing and speaking in the wake of the pandemic. They said some teachers even said they had seen youngsters lack confidence in group activities, and struggle to share and take turns. More than a million neural connections are formed every day up to the age five, she claimed, when the brain completes at least 85 percent of its development. A growing body of academic research also supports claims of children born over the past three or so years possessing weaker verbal skills, with many staying silent well past their first birthdays and in some cases, even their second - the age where the AAP advises that kids should start wearing masks indoors To conserve energy the brain will then also begin to shave off brain cells that are rarely used which could include some linked to socializing. Schools across America closed in-person learning when Covid arrived, as officials scrambled to respond to the outbreak. Many classrooms remained shuttered into 2021, despite warnings from both the WHO and Unicef that it could harm the youngest in society. Dr Ashley Ruba, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Child Emotion Lab, previously told CNN: 'There are sensitive periods in early childhood development in which language development and emotional development are really rapidly developing for the first few years of life.' She added that developing children need to see others' subtle verbal or facial cues to accurately discern how someone is feeling. Also affected during this time was children's mental health, studies show, with an international report by the UN agency this summer finding that two years of restrictions have led to 'significant mental health consequences' for young people - another tenet of Prasad's anti-mask arguments. The study, conducted in June, estimated that more than a billion people around the world are living with a mental health disorder as a result - a quarter more than pre-Covid. Data from from the AAP, meanwhile, showed children, especially those in the two tow six age range, almost never died from the virus. A CDC study further found that around half of pediatric Covid cases are asymptomatic, and that was before the more mild Omicron variant became dominant in the U.S. Hospitalizations of pediatric COVID patients are also increasingly rare. One pediatrician that attended the event, Dr. Deborah Greenhouse, accused Prasad of fabricating the claims about people attending not wearing required coverings, writing that 'everyone [was] masked indoors unless eating or drinking' A photo of the Dr. Greenhouse, however, pictured at the far left, shows her posing for photos with colleagues at the event while unmasked With that said, as restrictions at the state-level requiring masks in America's schools continue to lessen, the AAP has continued to stand by guidelines set by the federal government that children older than two be required to wear a mask in all indoor settings. That policy was in place for the meeting, the agency's website shows despite photos showing attendees and performers at the event maskless. Attendees were also reportedly required to show proof of vaccination in order to gain access to the conference. One pediatrician that attended the event accused Prasad of fabricating the claims about people attending not wearing required coverings, writing that 'everyone [was] masked indoors unless eating or drinking.' South Carolina-based doctor Deborah Greenhouse wrote: 'Local, state and/or CDC guidelines will be followed during the meeting, including meals and other functions. 'Adults and children older than 2 years of age are required to wear a mask in all indoor meeting settings,' she went on to add. A photo of the doctor, however, who operates her practice out of Palmetto, shows her posing for photos with colleagues at the event, all unmasked. DailyMail.com reached out to the AAP about attendees supposedly forgoing mask guidances at the event, but did not immediately hear back. The conference is set to conclude on Tuesday. A terrified woman with a dog collar soldered to her neck fled a dilapidated home where she'd been held captive for around a month and told shaken neighbors she'd been kept as a sex slave. The woman fled the home of 39-year-old Tim Haslett in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, on and approached two neighbors for help, claiming she'd been raped and beaten. Haslett, a father-of-one, is believed to have held the unidentified woman bound and captured for up to a month before she fled his alleged clutches. Weak and frail, with a metal collar around her neck, the woman ran to the doors of multiple neighbors begging for help as her voice was nothing more than a slight whisper. Lisa Johnson, who lives in the neighborhood, spotted the about 100-pound woman covered with bruises as she struggled to crawl up her porch steps on Friday. 'She didn't have much of a voice,' Johnson told KSHB News. 'It was more of a light "help me" than anything.' Johnson rushed to call the police as the captive woman insisted 'he'd kill [them] both' before she fled to a different neighbor's home and got help. She guessed the victim had been held captive since at least September. Excelsior Springs Police Department told DailyMail.com that the initial search of Haslett's home is complete, but they are preserving the scene in the event they uncover new evidence that will make them go back to the home. 'As we look for evidence of kidnap and rape, we are also looking for signs of any other kidnapping that occurred along the way,' a police spokesperson said. The victim also told police that there were potentially two other victims, according to The Kansas City Star. Tim Haslett, a father of one, was arrested and charged on Friday with first-degree rape and kidnapping of a woman he allegedly turned into his sex slave The unidentified woman was allegedly held captive in the basement of his home located at the 300 block of Old Orchard Avenue for about a month before she was able to flee on Friday morning Police investigated the scene after getting a call about the woman on Friday. The woman had run to the homes of different neighbors to ask for help Lisa Johnson (left) was the first to offer help the victim. The victim then got scared and ran to the house of an elderly woman whose granddaughter Ciara Tharp (right) said got to her right in time An elderly woman answered immediately answered the door for the victim after hearing her screams outside. 'She heard a woman screaming and came knocking on the door, so she opened the door and the lady said, "You have to help me, I've been raped, I've been held captive,"' the elderly woman's relative Ciara Tharp told KSHB News. 'My grandma could tell she was weak,' Tharp explained. 'She didn't have a whole lot of clothes on. She said she had a metal dog collar around her neck and could see the ligature marks around her wrists.' Along with the collar, the victim appeared to have duct tape around her neck that may have previously been around her mouth. The elderly woman rushed to offer the victim a blanket and gave her food. 'There's a possibility that my grandma got her in the house just in time,' Tharp said. The woman was held captive at neighborhood 300 block of Old Orchard Avenue Police are continuing to preserve the scene as they seek the possibility of more victims Others later said they never saw their kidnapping neighbor out often or even stopped to chat with him. 'I seen him walk his child up and down the street once in a while,' neighbor Tim Grover told KSHB News. It's unclear how long the investigation will continue as the police seek additional victims. Local resident Susan White noted the scene on Saturday as police gathered evidence. 'It's a small town,' White told The Kansas City Star. 'We've been here forever, and the past month and a half for this town has been absolutely nuts.' White said the discover of the rape victim was 'shocking' after living obliviously to her neighbor's actions. 'It's just so crazy,' White said. 'That could've been me. That could've been my daughter.' She said that she was unable to get rest as the police lighted illuminated her room. Police will determine whether they need to return to the scene if more leads are discovered. The Post Office has been accused of failing to disclose thousands of important documents from an inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal that led to more than 700 wrongful convictions. Lawyers for the subpostmasters accused the Post Office of failing to disclose more than 30,000 documents as the second phase of the inquiry got underway in London today. They also accused the Post Office of 'malevolent' tactics to frustrate justice, before calling for the inquiry to be adjourned until all relevant paperwork has been made available. Edward Henry KC, representing the subpostmasters, compared the Post Office's legal team to puppies as he explained they needed to be trained to follow disclosure orders. He said: 'Im afraid I cant use the analogy of a puppy because of course the Post Office are far more sinister and I regret to submit malevolent animal, but you have to train an unruly participant.' Mr Henry also accused the Post Office of showing 'contempt for the process', adding: 'It has demonstrated time and time again that it cannot be relied upon or trusted to comply with court orders.' He also said the Post Office was 'an institution which seems incapable of acting fairly towards those it has maimed and marred' as he pushed for an adjournment. Former post office workers celebrating outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, after their convictions were overturned by the Court of Appeal in April last year The Post Office has been accused of failing to disclose thousands of important documents from the inquiry Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC also said some of the recent document disclosures related to requests had been made as far back as a year ago, and that the 'limited information' on when the Post Office might have fully completed its disclosure 'puts the inquiry in a very difficult position'. But he argued that, while it presents a challenge, there was 'not sufficient reason to interrupt good progress that this inquiry is making'. He added that an adjournment was likely to 'delay and frustrate' the progress that has been made by the inquiry towards fair compensation for all victims of the scandal. Ruling that the hearing should go ahead as planned, the chairman of the inquiry said he will not hesitate to attribute blame to any party which is found to have either accidentally or purposefully refused to disclose documents. Sir Wyn Williams insists he will 'use all the extensive powers at my disposal' to ensure all vital paperwork is obtained in the face of either accidental or deliberate failure to disclose them. He said: 'I wish to make it clear that if I reach a conclusion at any time that there is either accidental or, even worse, deliberate non-disclosure of relevant documents, I will use all the extensive powers at my disposal to obtain the documents which have not been disclosed.' He added that, if necessary, he would attribute blame to any party where that is justified in relation to non-disclosure - I will not deflect from being critical. However, Kate Gallafent KC, for the Post Office, said the company 'emphatically' denies any allegation that it has deliberately sought to make late or partial disclosure of relevant documents. Postmaster Tom Hedges (holding Champagne) celebrates outside the High Court In London after 39 former subpostmasters had their convictions overturned The inquiry was told the Post Office had notified the inquiry that it was 'undertaking a significant organisation and review of a large number of boxes of hardcopy documents and files held at various Post Office locations throughout the United Kingdom'. Ms Gallafent said around 95,000 documents have been produced to the inquiry by the Post Office. Starting in 1999, the Post Office began installing Horizon accounting systems - but faults in the software led to thousands of users suffering unexplained losses in their branches' accounts. The Post Office subsequently demanded that the subpostmasters and subpostmistresses cover the shortfalls, with more than 700 wrongfully prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015. But in December 2019, a High Court judge ruled that the system contained a number of 'bugs, errors and defects' and there was a 'material risk' that shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts were in fact caused by it. Many have had their convictions overturned since the Hugh Court ruling. Evidence in Phase Two will begin being heard on October 18, after all the opening statements have been completed this week. It will examining the procurement, design, pilot, roll-out and modifications of Horizon. She was seen Sunday hanging on the roof of her apartment building with agent Chris Martine, as well as spending time with PR guru Juda Engelmayer Sorokin was released from ICE custody on October 7 on a $10,000 bond and forced to wear an electronic ankle monitoring bracelet Fraudster Anna Sorokin, 31, was seen leaving her East Village apartment sporting an ankle bracelet en route to her first parole hearing Fake heiress Anna Sorokin was spotted sporting an electronic ankle monitoring bracelet on the way to her first parole hearing on Tuesday, as she continues to face deportation proceedings. Sorokin, 31, left her East Village apartment in Manhattan donning a full-black garb, her signature glasses and the ankle monitor. She was granted a $10,000 bail by a federal immigration court after spending 18 months in prison on Friday. After completing her criminal sentence in February 2021 - for convictions of grand larceny and thefts totaling $275,000, including stealing at least one flight on a private jet - Sorokin was detained for 18 months by ICE. She was released from ICE custody on October 7. Judge Charles R. Conroy ruled that Sorokin, who was known for several years as Anna Delvey, was not a danger to the public and would move to house arrest while she fights deportation to Germany. Per this ruling, Sorokin is required to wear an ankle monitor as she has not officially been released by ICE custody. In an interview with the New York Times following her release, Sorokin spoke about her bracelet, remarking: 'Apparently if I have any issues with it, then somebody will come fix it. Its a 24/7 service. Im thinking what I can do with it.' Anna Sorokin, 31, was spotted leaving her East Village apartment sporting an ankle monitoring bracelet Sorokin was released on house arrest from ICE detention on Friday Facing deportation proceedings and a parole hearing. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village these days is around $3,800 She was granted a $10,000 bail by a federal immigration court after spending 18 months in prison Judge Charles R. Conroy ruled that Sorokin, who was known for several years as Anna Delvey, was not a danger to the public Sorokin says she wants to stay in the US despite not having a visa On Sunday, Sorokin was pictured alongside PR guru Juda Engelmayer, smiling and waving to photographers on a sunny fall afternoon. The Russian native was dressed in black and wore her famous glasses as she leaned out of the window of her apartment. Sorokin also hung out with her agent, Chris Martine, on the roof of the building. While on the roof, Sorokin wore a t-shirt that read 'Staff.' It was Martine who posted her $10,000 bond. In her interview with the Times, the convicted fraudster said she 'learned so much being in jail.' 'Its just impossible to have been through what Ive been through without changing.' Sorokin elaborated on how she got her apartment saying that her lawyer, John Sandweg, sorted out the details. She said: 'I have a great team around me, so it was all thanks to them.' When asked about how the rent was being paid, Sorokin said: 'I guess you'll have to ask the government.' Although she later stated in the piece that the money used for her bail and the apartment was hers. The fraudster remained coy about her future plans saying: 'I have so many projects that Im working on. Art is definitely one of them.' She added: 'I have a lot going on. Im working on my own podcast with different guests for each episode. But its not shaped up yet. It was pretty hard to record anything high quality from jail. And then theres my book. Id love to do something with criminal-justice reform to kind of highlight the struggles of other girls.' Sorokin returns to her apartment after attending her parole hearing She still faces deportation despite being placed on house arrest While on the roof basking in the sunshine in Manhattan on Sunday, Sorokin wore a t-shirt that read 'Staff' Sorokin also hung out with her agent, Chris Martine, on the roof of the building It was Martine who posted her $10,000 bond to release her from prison this week Sandweg said in a statement following her release: 'Immigration detention must be reserved for those who pose a danger to society or an unmanageable flight risk. 'We are gratified that, after 17 months of immigration detention, and years after she finished her prison sentence, the court recognized that such detention was no longer appropriate for Ana. 'Make no mistake, she does not get a free pass,' added Sandweg. 'She will continue to face deportation proceedings and her release will be closely monitored by the government. 'Nevertheless, as the court found, continued detention was unnecessary.' Sorokin wants to stay in the US, despite not having a visa. She is originally from Russia but also has ties to Germany. She sprang to notoriety in 2018 after being arrested for fleecing luxury hotels and restaurants in Manhattan out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her crimes later became the subject of the popular Netflix series 'Inventing Anna.' Sorokin has been keeping busy behind bars with multiple media and podcast interviews. She has been auctioning off her prison sketches and has also written poetry. She wrote an exclusive piece for DailyMail.com last month in which she complained that the US immigration system is broken, saying she has spent 18 months foundering in the sinkhole of Americas immigration system. Once you're in ICE custody, what happens next is left entirely to ICE. Disturbingly arbitrary nature of the civil immigration detention system allows for immigrants to be held indefinitely without ever having a judge review whether bond or electronic monitoring was an appropriate alternative to detention, she added. The jail I'm housed at is famous for its understaffing issue. To help alleviate that issue, in the last few weeks alone, 61 immigrants were removed from this facility without notice and transferred to a facility in Mississippi, where ICE can detain them at a lesser cost. Now those detainees are far from their local support systems of friends or loved ones, and those who were lucky enough to have lawyers have been stripped of the ability to communicate with them readily and in person. Hearings held remotely are not opportune for defendants to consult with their attorneys during the proceeding. Sorokin writes that immigrant mothers frantic to contact their families are locked up with convicted murderers Seen is a scanned page from a textbook used at an international school in Korea, which shows the French name of the Sea of Japan Mer du Japon circled in red. Courtesy of Rep. Ahn Min-suk By Lee Hae-rin Twelve international schools in Korea have been found to be using textbooks that refer to the body of water that lies to the east of the Korean Peninsula only as the Sea of Japan, without mentioning East Sea, which is the name used by Korea. According to Rep. Ahn Min-suk of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), 12 out of 38 international schools in the country use 24 textbooks that use only the names Sea of Japan or Takeshima, islets better known as Dokdo in Korea. The number of Korean nationals who attend these schools stands at 1,173. The study was conducted in 2020 by local offices of education across the country upon the request of the Ministry of Education on 38 foreign and international schools and educational institutions using 216 textbooks. Two Japanese schools were not included in the survey. Also, 17 other schools were found to use 27 additional textbooks that include East Sea, which is the South Korea-approved English translation, side by side with the Sea of Japan. One school used a textbook that identifies the Dokdo Islets (Korean name) as Takeshima (Japanese name), while two others used two textbooks that put both names side by side. Korea considers the islets as its easternmost territory. Japan has also repeatedly laid claim to the islets. Foreign and international schools, established to educate foreign and Korean students, are subject to the domestic laws of the territory they operate within. As a result, Korean nationals graduating from foreign and international schools here must receive 102 hours of Korean history education a year to have their academic level certified at an equivalent level to that of regular Korean school graduates. Korean schools use government-certified textbooks or receive government supervision on the use of non-certified textbooks. These textbooks name those disputed regions the East Sea and the Dokdo Islets, in adherence with the local historical narrative. Foreign and international schools tend to use textbooks that follow long-held international standards and perspectives on geographical names. In 2016, a similar question was raised at the Korean education committee's annual parliamentary audit with the education ministry which has been conducting regular content examinations and campaigns on naming conventions. Yet, such objections are rarely raised to these schools due to concerns diplomatic conflicts. Rep. Ahn said that the government should continue to work with the public, private sector and academic circles to "correctly" convey Korea's history and culture. In response, the education ministry said in a statement released Monday that it is difficult to immediately rectify textbooks used at international schools because they often use textbooks that are produced and used in their home countries. The ministry will send official letters of request for cooperation on the matter and work on spreading the Korean historical perspective. At least ten Florida schools have been plunged into lockdown after swatters told cops active shooters in body armor were on campuses. The institutions, spread mainly across the south of the Sunshine State, were quickly shut as police swooped on the scene. Armed officers patrolled the corridors at each location before declaring them safe and revealed they suspected swatters made the calls. Meanwhile terrified parents were seen descending on school gates desperate to get to their children. Police departments said they were now investigating to find the hoax caller who is suspected to have been in a foreign country. Parents gathered outside of south Florida schools that were targeted by swatters At around 9am at least ten schools mainly across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach were put in lockdown causing parents to rush to school gates. By 10am police had cleared most of the schools and confirmed that the calls were fake. 'Swatting' involves making false calls to 911 reporting incidents like school shootings to provoke large law enforcement responses. Ronald W. Reagan/Doral Senior High School, Miami Central Senior High School, Dillard High School, Pompano Beach High School, West Broward High School, Northwestern High School, Hialeah Senior High School, Charles W. Flanagan High and Boca Raton High School are nine schools reported to have been targeted. Slightly later in the day at around noon a false incident was reportedly made further north in Orlando at Dr. Phillips high school. Luis Sierra, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade police department, said the calls came from a foreign country, the Sun Sentinel reported. Ronald W. Reagan/Doral Senior High School (left) and Miami Central Senior High School (right) Just after 9am on Tuesday authorities received a call about an adult male shooter in body armor on the second floor of Miami Central High School. Dillard High School (left) and West Broward High School (right) Police and fire fighters were sent to schools in Miami-Dade and Broward to investigate similar false reports of disturbances. 'It appears to be a hoax. We're getting the same threat at different schools,' said Miami-Dade schools police Chief Edwin Lopez. At Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, armed police searched the entire school as relatives waited for information about their children inside. 'Multiple officers are on scene at West Broward High School investigating a possible swatting call. 'There is no evidence of any safety concerns at the school at this time. The school is going into lockdown as a precautionary measure,' said Pembroke Pines Police Department in a statement on Twitter. Boca Raton High School (left) and Pompano Beach High School (right) Miami Fire Rescue attended Miami Central Senior High School after a call reported a possible incident causing the school to be placed on lockdown. 'We are aware of additional swatting calls which have affected other schools throughout the area, and may be connected to the incident at West Broward High. As previously stated, the West Broward campus is secure. 'We are conducting an investigation into the source of the call,' they added in a second Tweet. Around 10am, lockdowns affecting the schools were lifted. The hoax phone calls roughly coincided with the closing arguments in the trial of Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, which began at 9am in the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. Poland has seen a surge in demand for nuclear bunkers with private firms saying they have been flooded with enquires. As tensions with Moscow reach a new high and Putin threatens a nuclear strike on Ukraine, one company said they were receiving up to 20 calls per day, more than the firm would normally receive in an entire month. Another said: 'After sharing a Facebook post about the current state of civil defence systems in Poland, I received 200 messages in three days.' Meanwhile, Warsaw-based Foxden said enquiries had jumped 'several hundred percent'. With some of the bunkers looking more luxurious than 5-star hotels, Foxden, which is known for its luxury home designs, camouflage their bunker entrances and external elements and include access control systems such as encryptors, fingerprint readers and face scanners. Others include gyms and private cinemas. The spectre of nuclear war has sent demand for bunkers in Poland soaring - and some of them look more luxurious than 5-star hotels (pictured: a Foxden bunker) Foxden, which is known for its luxury home designs, camouflage their bunker entrances and external elements and include access control systems such as encryptors, fingerprint readers and face scanners Warsaw-based Foxden said enquiries for their bunkers, some of which include gyms and private cinemas, had jumped 'several hundred percent' (pictured: the bathroom in a Schron bunker) Higher-end bunkers start at around 350,000 for between 50-100 sq/m (Pictured: the toilet of a Bunkier bunker) Nuclear bunkers are 45 times safer than standard shelters at withstanding bombardment. Bunkier designs autonomous, mobile bunkers transported in a container This luxury bunker features a dining room and high quality living room, bathroom, kitchen and even technical and warehouse space. The bunkers are modular and can be connected together With higher-end bunkers start at around 350,000 for between 50-100 sq/m, lower-end bunkers are being snapped up for as much as 30,000 for a 20 sq/m four-person shelter. Designed to protect from nuclear strikes, rockets, missiles and epidemics, the bunkers which are fitted with power generators, air filters and water tanks mean people can stay underground for up to 45-days. They are also 45 times safer than standard shelters. Poland currently has around 62,000 public shelters which can accommodate around 1.3 million people three percent of the population. With many of these being little more than outdated relics of the past, it is thought that only a small number would actually provide protection from radiation. Earlier this year, former parliamentary deputy marshal Wanda Nowicka said: 'In Silesia the outlook is dramatic. Lower-end bunkers are being snapped up for as much as 30,000 for a 20 sq/m four-person shelter (Pictured: A bunker from Atlas) Bunkers from bunker firm Schron are quite luxurious and do not reflect the typical kitsch aesthetic of their Cold War counterparts Designed to protect from nuclear strikes, rockets, missiles and epidemics, the bunkers which are fitted with power generators, air filters and water tanks mean people can stay underground for up to 45-days (Pictured Atlas Survival Protection bunker layout) 'The shelters are in an unusable condition. Investment is needed but there is no legal regulation.' Yesterday, Poland's Deputy Interior minister has said the country was preparing for the 'darkest scenario' as officials begin to check how many bomb shelters 'are fit for use'. Meanwhile, local authorities across Poland's 16 provinces have been working to set up supplies of potassium iodide tablets and distribution points in case of 'a nuclear emergency' resulting from Russia's war in Ukraine. The fears are exacerbated by reports that Belarus has ordered its troops to be tested for 'combat readiness' amid reports of Russian soldiers flooding into the country 'by the trainload'. Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced he will deploy a 'joint military task force' with Moscow - a move Minsk claims is 'purely defensive'. The combat readiness test, ordered by Lukashenko, was announced as the head of his secret service said he expected to see a 'turning point' in Vladimir Putin's invasion in the coming months. Belarus has ordered its troops to be tested for 'combat readiness' amid reports of Russian soldiers flooding into the country 'by the trainload', after dictator Alexander Lukashenko (pictured chairing a meeting on security in Minsk, Belarus, October 10) announced he will deploy a 'joint military task force' with Moscow on his country's western border Russian soldiers are flooding into Belarus 'by the trainload', according to reports, after dictator Alexander Lukashenko announced he will deploy a 'joint military task force' with Moscow on his country's western border. Meanwhile, Ukraine has said that it is strengthening its northern border with Belarus. Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers in training Lukashenko (pictured with Putin on September 26) said the task force with Russia was in response to a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers, claiming Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine were training Belarusian 'radicals' for terror attacks Belarusian news agency BelTA reported Tuesday that the Security Council of the Republic of Belarus had 'begun a test of the Armed Forces of Belarus in accordance with instructions of the head of state' - echoing Russian rhetoric leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, in which Russia claimed it was carrying out military drills on the border. 'The test is comprehensive and covers the most important matters concerning the readiness of army units for carrying out their missions,' the agency reported, noting that units will practice 'switching to combat-ready state' while undertaking marching drills, deployment drills and combat training missions. The deployment has raised fears that Belarusian troops could join Russian forces in their struggling mission to capture and hold territory in east Ukraine. Adding to those concerns, Ukrainian intelligence said today that Russia was continuing to mass 'kamikaze drones' in Belarus, with Minsk also planning to send '13 trains carrying ammo from the arsenals and storage bases of its armed forces,' according to the Kyiv Independent. 'As of Oct. 10, Russia has brought 31 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones to Belarus and plans to transfer eight more until Oct. 14, Ukraine's Defense Ministry reports,' the report added. The drones have been used in the wide-spread airstrikes across Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday. Breonna Taylor's boyfriend has shared the moment he learned his girlfriend had been killed by cops while he was being held in jail on an attempted murder charge. Kenny Walker said 'nobody was answering my questions' as he was processed into jail following the no-knock warrant executed on Taylor's home in Louisville, Kentucky in March 2020. On Red Table Talk - hosted by actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, her daughter Willow Smith, and her mother Adrienne Banfield Norris - Walker exclusively talked about the emotional moment he learned the EMT worker had died. 'I had to find out what happened on the news, sitting in jail. They didn't say her name, but they said a woman was killed. That's how I found out,' he told the women of Red Table Talk, while wearing a locket with his girlfriend's picture in it. He said he kept asking officers if 'Breonna [was] okay' and 'alive' while he was being questioned, but no one would give him a definitely answer. 'Now I'm knowing what they're probably accusing me of at this point, so I'm scared,' he said. How Kenny Walker Found Out Breonna Taylor Had Died In a Red Table Talk exclusive, Breonna Taylor's boyfriend, Kenny Walker reveals the moment he found out Breonna had been killed by police. Tune in Wednesday for the full story. Posted by Red Table Talk on Monday, October 10, 2022 Kenny Walker found out that his girlfriend Breonna Taylor had died after he watched the news in jail. Walker was arrested and charged with attempted murder of an officer after in March 2020 he fired at police who were breaking down Taylor's door without warning Taylor was fatally shot six times. Police issued a no-knock warrant as part of a drug search, which was targeting her ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover, who had admitted that Taylor had nothing to do with the drug trade Taylor, 26, had been fatally shot after officers attempted to perform a no-knock warrant for a drug search. It was targeting her ex-boyfriend Jamarcus Glover, who later said Taylor had nothing to do with the drug trade. Walker had shot at the door with a legal gun, believing it was an intruder entering their home in the early morning hours. He was subsequently taken into custody for the incident. Police fired 32 shots inside their home, striking the EMT six times. Police had charged Walker with attempted murder of an officer and assault, but that charge was later dropped in May 2020. After the case gained national attention, four former Louisville officers were federally charged with civil rights violations. A discarded battering ram is seen outside of Taylor's apartment following the March 13 raid Gouge marks from bullets are seen in Taylor's home after cops fired 32 rounds Photos also show a shattered sliding door, displaying the evidence of the alleged wild shots fired through that door by Detective Brett Hankinson Kelly Goodlett, a former detective, and Kyle Meany were charged with falsifying an affidavit. Brett Hankison, who was at the raid, was charged with excessive force while executing a search warrant. Joshua Jaynes, who obtained the warrant, was accused of misleading investigators. Jaynes and Goodlett reportedly met in a garage, where they 'agreed to tell investigators a false story,' according to NPR. Hanikson, Jaynes and Meany all face life in prison for the civil rights violations. They have pleaded not guilty. Goodlett, who resigned from the force, did plead guilty to federal conspiracy charges for helping to falsify a warrant. She faces up to five years in prison and will be sentenced on November 22. 'We allege that the defendants knew their actions in falsifying the affidavit could create a dangerous situation, and we allege these unlawful acts resulted in Ms. Taylor's death,' US Attorney General Merrick Garland said. Walker's episode of Red Table Talk airs on October 12. Taylor's mother and sister also join him. The pair were sleeping when the cops arrived at their home A man who stabbed himself in front of horrified passengers on a train at Londons Euston station has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery of a 36-year-old mother's body 70 miles away. Officers were called to reports a 32-year-old man had been found with serious injuries at the north London railway station just before midday on Friday. Paramedics rushed him to hospital for emergency treatment where he remains under police guard and medical supervision. Just after midday the same day, officers discovered the body of 36-year-old mother, Diana Dafter at an address in Lower Mounts, Northampton, 70 miles away. Northamptonshire Police said a Home Office pathologist has since confirmed she died as a result of multiple stab wounds. Diana Dafter was found with fatal stab wound at an address in Lower Mounts, Northampton, on Friday. Now police have arrested a man who stabbed himself on a train in London in connection with her alleged murder Police sealed off parts of Euston station in north London after a man stabbed himself on a train in front of horrified passengers on Friday (Picture is a file image of officers at the station) Shortly after the incident at Euston railway station, detectives investigating the murder Ms Dafter 70 miles away arrested the man who stabbed himself on a train at the travel hub The force said specialist search teams and forensic officers have spent more than 72 hours inside the property at Lawrence Court gathering evidence. The arrested man, from Northampton, will be quizzed on suspicion of murder and police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the case. Detective Chief Inspector Adam Pendlebury, from the East Midlands Specialist Operations Units Major Crime Team, said: 'This has been an intensive few days of police activity during which a large number of officers and staff have been deployed to gather evidence from scenes in Northampton and at London Euston. 'The suspect is now under police guard at a hospital facility in London and we will be making arrangements in due course for him to be transferred to police custody.' The discovery of Ms Dafter's body left her neighbours horrified. Brian Woolard, who has lived in the area for nearly 15 years, told ITV News Anglia: 'It was a bit of a shock for everybody. Its not a rough estate, its quiet. Its lovely, the kids play out in the corner there.' Northamptonshire Police confirmed they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the alleged killing. Officers were called to Euston station just before 12pm today to reports of a man with serious injuries on board a train (file photo of an Avanti West Coast train at Euston station) As previously reported, parts of Euston railway station were sealed off by British Transport Police (BTP) after a man knifed himself in front of horrified passengers. Speaking at the time, a BTP spokesman said: 'Officers were called to Euston station at 11.48am this morning (October 7) following reports of a man seriously injured onboard a train. 'Paramedics also attended and he has been taken to hospital for treatment. 'At this stage, it is believed he has sustained self-inflicted injuries.' Detectives investigating the death of Ms Dafter are now urging those with any information to call Northamptonshire Police on 101, quoting incident 211 of Friday, October 7, 2022. Two successful black comedians have sued Atlanta's airport over what they claim are illegal searches disproportionately affecting black people who've already passed through security. Eric Andre and Clayton English say they were both targeted in separate searches on jet bridges, just before boarding their flights. Neither was found to be carrying drugs at the time, but the men say their civil rights were violated, and announced their lawsuit on Tuesday. Their federal suit alleges that they were racially profiled and illegally stopped by Clayton County police at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The two men, well known comedians and actors, say officers singled them out during separate stops roughly six months apart because they are black and grilled them about drugs as other passengers watched. 'I already presented a gate agent with my ticket I was almost on the plane when on the jet bridge two officers popped out showed their badges and started asking questions, whether I had illegal drugs like cocaine and meth. 'I felt cornered,' English said at the press conference. 'I felt the need to comply because they made me move to the side of the tunnel where they took my ticket and ID.' English was stopped while flying from Atlanta, where he lives, to Los Angeles for work on October 30, 2020, the lawsuit says. He said the entire time he was on the flight, he worried he would 'be arrested' and waiting for the 'other shoe to drop.' Comedians Eric Andre and Clayton English sued the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for 'racially profiling' them on the jet bridge and asking them 'what type of drugs' do they have on them in two separate incidents that happened six months apart 'I was able to get on the plane but for the next three and a half hours, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was thinking: "Okay maybe I'm gonna get arrested when I land, what did I do wrong because it's something that normally happens to people? 'I felt completely powerless. I felt violated. I felt cornered,' English said at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta. 'I felt like I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly.' Andre had finished a shoot for HBO's 'The Righteous Gemstones' and was traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to his home in Los Angeles on April 21, 2020, when he was stopped after a layover in Atlanta. He too was asked for his bag and identification. 'People were gawking at me and I looked suspicious when I had done nothing wrong,' Andre said in an interview, calling the experience 'dehumanizing and demoralizing.' Andre complained about his stop right after it happened, saying them came at him in an 'ambush style.' 'They singled me out. I was the only person of color on the jet bridge at the time,' he said at the press conference. 'They single me out they asked me if I was selling drugs, transporting drugs, what kind of drugs I have on me and it was clearly racial profiling.' Clayton County police said at the time that it was 'consensual.' Andre (pictured with his lawyers) was traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to his home in Los Angeles on April 21, 2020, when he was stopped after a layover in Atlanta. He claimed people 'gawked' at him as the police came at him 'ambush style' and that he was the only ' person of color' on the jet bridge at the time English said he 'felt cornered and that he needed to 'comply because they made me move to the side of the tunnel where they took my ticket and ID.' He also said he worried the entire 3.5 hours of his flight that he was going to be arrested for doing nothing on wrong once he landed in LA 'Mr. Andre chose to speak with investigators during the initial encounter,' the department said in a statement posted on Facebook. 'During the encounter, Mr. Andre voluntarily provided the investigators information as to his travel plans. Mr. Andre also voluntarily consented to a search of his luggage but the investigators chose not to do so.' Andre didn't agree with that narrative, saying: 'It definitely did not feel like a consensual encounter whatsoever.' Andre also said he felt a 'moral calling' to bring the lawsuit 'so these practices can stop and these cops can be held accountable for this because it's unethical.' 'I have the resources to bring national attention and international attention to this incident. Its not an isolated incident,' he said. 'If black people don't speak up for each other, who will?' One of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit, NYU School of Law Policing Project co-founder Barry Friedman, encouraged anyone else who has had similar experiences to get in touch. The lawsuit names Clayton County and the police chief, as well as four police officers and a district attorney's office investigator. It alleges violations of the constitutional rights that protect against unreasonable searches and seizures and against racial discrimination. The comedians seek a jury trial and ask that the Clayton County police jet bridge interdiction program be declared unconstitutional. They also seek compensatory and punitive damages, as well as legal costs. The purpose of the program, according to police, is to fight drug trafficking, the lawsuit says, drugs are rarely found, criminal charges seldom result, and seized cash provides a financial windfall for the police department. Clayton County police officers and investigators from the county district attorney's office selectively stop passengers in the narrow jet bridges used to access planes, the lawsuit says. The officers take the passengers' boarding passes and identification and interrogate them, sometimes searching their bags, before they board their flights, the lawyers say in the lawsuit. The police department called the stops 'consensual encounters' and says they are 'random,' but in reality the stops 'rely on coercion, and targets are selected disproportionately based on their race,' the lawyers argue. Clayton County police spokesperson Julia Isaac said the department doesn't comment on pending litigation. Police records show that from August 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, there were 402 jet bridge stops, and the passenger's race was listed for 378 of those stops. Of those 378 passengers, 211, or 56 percent, were black, and people of color accounted for 258 total stops, or 68 percent, the lawsuit says. They are suing Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport over the Clayton County Police 'randomly' stopped them Those 402 stops resulted in three reported drug seizures: About 10 grams of drugs from one passenger, 26 grams of 'suspected THC gummies' from another, and six prescription pills without a prescription from a third, the lawsuit says. Only the first and third person were charged. Those 402 stops also yielded more than $1million in cash and money orders from a total of 25 passengers. All but one were allowed to continue their travels, and only two - the ones who also had drugs - were charged, the lawsuit says. Eight of the 25 challenged the seizures, and Clayton County police settled each case, returning much of the seized money, the lawsuit says. Carrying large quantities of cash doesn't mean someone is involved in illegal drug activity, the lawyers argue in the lawsuit, noting that people of color are less likely to have bank accounts and are more likely to carry large sums when they travel. Rapp is seeking $40million for mental and emotional suffering and loss of work Spacey, 63, is being sued by Rapp over accusations that he sexually assaulted Rapp in 1986 when he was 14 When Spacey came on screen in another film, Rapp said, 'It seemed like I'd been poked with a cattle prod. I felt like I jumped out of my seat' The actor said it was 'unpleasantly familiar' Anthony Rapp testified that he struggled to watch films starring Kevin Spacey after the actor allegedly sexually abused him when he was 14 years old. Taking the stand on Tuesday, Rapp, 51, said Spacey's 1999 movie American Beauty was the last of the actor's films he could stomach. Spacey won an Oscar for his performance as a suburban dad who becomes infatuated by his teenage daughter's friend. 'In that film in particular he was playing a character who was sexually involved with a teenage girl and that was especially difficult to be in the presence of,' Rapp said. 'It was unpleasantly familiar.' Spacey, 63, is being sued by Rapp over accusations that he sexually assaulted Rapp in 1986 when he was 14. Rapp is seeking $40million for mental and emotional suffering and loss of work. Anthony Rapp, 51, said on the stand Tuesday that he struggled to watch Spacey's film American Beauty, for which he won an Oscar In American Beauty, Spacey plays a father and husband who becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend. Rapp said watching Spacey in the film was 'unpleasantly familiar' Spacey is seen arriving to court on Tuesday, the third day of his trial Rapp said two years after the alleged assault, he watched Spacey in the 1988 film Working Girl while in the movie theater alone. When Spacey came on screen Rapp said, 'It seemed like I'd been poked with a cattle prod. I felt like I jumped out of my seat. I was flooded with adrenaline, sweaty palms.' Spacey won the Oscar for Best Actor at the 2000 Academy Awards for his performance in American Beauty Rapp claimed that he nevertheless watched other Spacey movies including LA Confidential and Glengarry Glen Ross. Rapp said: 'I'm an actor and I love films and these films were acclaimed and award winning so I felt it was part of my job to see them. 'I knew he was in them so I could prepare myself. I was able to push it aside and take in the film. I felt it was my duty....to get over it and push [the incident] aside.' Under cross examination, Rapp said that when he was 14 and appearing in the Broadway play Precious Sons, Ed Harris, who played his father, would lie on top of him and say he wanted sex. Rapp conceded that 'to some degree' he was used to the physical act because it happened to him every night at the theater. But he denied being jealous of Spacey's career and said that he was not driven by anger towards the man he claims sexually assaulted him. The jury heard that in the play Precious Sons there is a scene where Harris' character comes in drunk and gets on top of Rapp on the couch, mistakenly thinking he is his wife. Harris announces that he wants his wife to 'love me for an hour and a half'. Jennifer Keller, Spacey's lawyer, said that this meant he 'wants to have sex' which Rapp agreed with. Keller said: 'You felt that Ed Harris' character climbed on top of you so many times that you became accustomed to the act of having a man crawl on top of you?' Rapp replied: 'To some degree, yes.' Rapp denied that he was jealous of Spacey's career and that he became 'enraged' every time he read about him winning another award. Keller contrasted Spacey winning his second Oscar for American Beauty in 1999 with Rapp's failed music career where he sold just 26 CDs after one gig. She said that if Spacey was 'Kevin nobody' then Rapp would not have continued to tell people about his 'Kevin Spacey story'. After Rapp asked her to repeat the question she said: 'I don't need to'. Keller said to Rapp: 'Do you really expect us to believe that you were not envious of someone who won multiple Oscars, Tonys, was nominated for multiple Emmys and Golden Globes? 'You wanted to be that person, didn't you?' Rapp replied: 'I did not want to be this person'. Challenged that he wanted Spacey's career, Rapp said: 'No ma'am. I wanted to work as an actor. If awards were part of it that's great, that was not why I was an actor'. Under cross examination, Rapp said that when he was 14 and appearing in the Broadway play Precious Sons, Ed Harris, who played his father, would lie on top of him and say he wanted sex On Friday, Spacey stared down Rapp as he sat in the witness box and testified that he felt 'frozen' when Spacey laid on top of him The court heard that in the 2017 Buzzfeed article where Rapp first made his allegations he said he was inspired to go public by actress Lupita Nyong'o's article in the New York Times about Harvey Weinstein harassing her. He repeated the claim in 2018 when he was given the Champion of the Year award at the black tie gala for Out & Equal, a nonprofit dedicated to LGBTQ workplace equality. But Spacey's lawyer Jennifer Keller told Rapp that it wasn't actually true. She said that eight days before the article came out, he texted Vary to talk about doing a story about 'someone else very powerful in our industry', meaning Hollywood. Six days before Nyong'o's article came out, Vary texted Rapp that he had talked to his editors about the story and that they wanted it to have 'as strong an impact as possible'. Asked about this by Keller, Rapp said that he was 'learning it was not true' that the article was the inspiration for him going public. Keller told Rapp that he got the dates 'completely wrong' and he responded that he 'conflated' the article coming out with being the inspiration for him to speak out. Keller said that it would have been more 'poignant' if that was true. Rapp said: 'I didn't think it was more poignant, I thought it was what happened'. As Keller put it, that order would have been 'useful to get more sympathy'. Rapp said he was 'sharing my memory of how it happened'. Sarcastically, Keller said it was a 'very dramatic memory' to which Rapp replied: 'A very personal memory'. Judge Lewis Kaplan interrupted to tell Rapp that it would 'go a lot better if you just answer the question. Keller asked: 'It's not true that you came forward because of the Lupita Nyong'o article? That's not true, is it? Rapp said: 'That's not true.' In the public gallery of the court sat Rapp's husband Ken, who was seen arriving with him to court on Friday On Friday, Rapp told the court how he was raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse in the suburbs of Chicago where he performed in musicals in high school. Rapp called himself a 'weirdo nerd' as a child and said that his father divorced his mother when was young. He said he met Spacey backstage at the Broadway show 'Long Day's Journey Into Night', where Spacey was performing. The two, along with actor John Barrowman - who was staying with Rapp in New York - went to dinner and to popular Manhattan club Limelight. Rapp, an actor who appears in the TV series Star Trek: Discovery and was in the original cast of hit Broadway musical Rent, is seeking $40million from Spacey in damages in the civil case Spacey invited Rapp to a party at his apartment a few days later and he told the jury he felt 'honored' to go. But Rapp said that when he arrived he noticed the lights were 'dim' and he didn't know anyone apart from Spacey. Feeling 'awkward and shy' he went into a bedroom to watch TV and a while later Spacey came to the door after all the other guests seemed to have gone. Rapp told the jury: 'I noticed that he was unsteady on his feet. He seemed to be glassy eyedI took it to mean he was intoxicated.' Asked by his lawyer Peter Saghir if Spacey said anything, Rapp said: 'Nothing.' Rapp told the court: 'As I was looking at him he approached me. He reached down and picked me up,' reaching his hands up in the air to show the jury. Rapp said that Spacey picked him up 'like a groom takes a bride over the threshold.' He said: 'I was confused. I was thinking I didn't know what was happening. 'It was very sudden. He never asked to pick me up. He turned back to the bed and laid me on the bed with my head facing the wall and my feet facing the foot of the bed. He climbed on top of me and he put his full weight onto my chest. He had his arms underneath my back and was holding one of my shoulders and pressing into my chest. 'He wasn't parallel, he was pressing his groin into the side of my hip.' Motioning with his hands to the jury, Rapp said that Spacey's hands were 'up my back, coming over the top of my shoulders.' Spacey's chest was 'pressed firmly into my chest,' Rapp said, leaving him feeling 'pinned' to the bed. Rapp said at that moment: 'I knew something was really wrongI had to get out of there. I was feeling very frozen. I felt like a deer in headlights. I didn't know what to do. 'I managed to wriggle out from underneath him,' moving his body to show the jury the motion. Rapp said that he went to the bathroom for a minute because he thought it was a 'safe space' and composed himself. He noticed there was a photo of Spacey with another man and Rapp concluded that Spacey was gay and so 'that explains why he was climbing on top of me.' Rapp left the bathroom and went to the front door but Spacey followed him and was 'leaning in the doorway.' According to Rapp, Spacey said: 'Are you sure you want to leave?' Rapp said he responded: 'No thank you, goodnight.' Asked how he felt at that time, Rapp closed his eyes and said: 'I felt I did not want to stay. I was thinking very much I wanted to leave.' The court was shown a photo of Rapp aged 14 with the cast of Precious Sons, the Broadway play which he starred in and had just finished its run. Saghir asked Rapp: 'A lot of people may say: 'That's all that happened?' What's the big deal?' 'How do you respond to that?' Rapp said: 'I was a 14-year-old child and I never agreed to have any kind of experience like that. It was incredibly frightening and very alarming and totally antithetical to anything I had ever experienced around the (Broadway) community and people that I loved being a part of. 'I do feel fortunate that a 14-year-old boy had the wherewithal to get away; he never should have got there in the first place.' Spacey is pictured in a court sketch on Friday as Andy Holtzman, who has accused actor Spacey of a sexual assault, is questioned by Rapp's attorney Peter Saghir, while Rapp looks on Rapp, an actor who appears in the TV series Star Trek: Discovery and was in the original cast of hit Broadway musical Rent, is seeking $40million from Spacey in damages in the civil case. The trial is the first time a jury will decide on allegations against Spacey which were first made in the media by Rapp in 2017. As a result Spacey was fired from the Netflix series House of Cards and his legacy as the Oscar-winning star of films like American Beauty and The Usual Suspects has been stained. Spacey was fired from the Netflix series House of Cards as a result of the allegations Rapp originally sued Spacey in September 2020 for battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and sexual assault. The sexual assault claim was dismissed in June because it was beyond the statute of limitations. In a statement on Twitter after Rapp first made his claims, he said that if the incident did happen then 'I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.' The case was brought through the law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on sex crimes that allowed Virginia Roberts to bring a now-settled case against Britain's Prince Andrew earlier this year. Another individual, identified only as CD, had also sued Spacey and also claimed he was sexually assaulted by the actor in the early in 1980s when he was 14. CD claimed he first met Spacey when he was 12 when he was teaching a course in Westchester County outside of New York and CD was his student. Spacey invited CD to his apartment where he 'engaged in sexual acts including performing anal intercourse on (Spacey) and oral sex,' a complaint stated. CD's case was thrown out in June last year after he refused to use his real name during court proceedings. Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that 'the threat of significant media attention however exacerbated by the modern era alone does not entitle a plaintiff to the exceptional remedy of anonymity' The case is far from the only claims against Spacey. He due to face a criminal trial next year in London on five charges of sexual assault against three men, dating back 17 years, while he was artistic director of the Old Vic theatre. Once that is concluded he faces a separate UK trial at the High Court in a lawsuit brought by one accuser seeking hundreds of thousands of pounds for 'psychiatric damage'. Born in New Jersey in 1959, Spacey studied at New York's prestigious Juilliard School and made his professional stage debut in 1981. Spacey won an Oscar for his role as Roger 'Verbal' Kint in 1995's The Usual Suspects but now his legacy has been stained He won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in 1995's The Usual Suspects and best actor for American beauty in 2000. In 2015 he received an honorary knighthood and a special Olivier award for his contributions to British theatre. He was accused of groping an 18-year-old at a bar in Massachusetts in 2016 but the case was dropped when the accuser refused to testify about a missing phone. In August a judge in the US ruled he must pay $31million to MRC, the producers of House of Cards, for his firing in 2017. Among the roles taken away from Spacey was oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World which was reshot using Christopher Plummer. A Netflix biopic of Gore Vidal starring Spacey has been permanently shelved. Among those who are expected to be called as a witness in the New York case is John Barrowman, who went to a nightclub with Rapp and Spacey a few days before the alleged incident took place. The trial comes on the fifth anniversary of the MeToo movement at a time when its momentum appears to be stalling after Johnny Depp's defeat of Amber Heard in their defamation case earlier this year. Harvey Weinstein is due to go on trial in Los Angeles later this month for rape and sexual assault allegations. He was jailed for 23 years in 2020 for similar crimes Twitch streamer and porn star Adriana Chechik said she's 'terrified' as she tweeted that she's going in for surgery to have a metal rod inserted into her back after breaking it in two places at TwitchCon this weekend. Chechik, who has 803,000 followers on the streaming platform, was celebrating a win in a foam pugil stick duel when she jumped into the pit at a Lenovo Legion booth at the TwitchCon event at the San Diego Convention Center over the weekend. The OnlyFans star tweeted out this morning, 'Terrified about to get surgery right now. Wish me luck!' Footage showed Chechik, 30, battling it out with her opponent on a three-foot high platform above the foam cubes, each trying to knock the other off-balance in a 'gladiator game.' Within seconds, the AVN Award Winning performer claimed victory and celebrated with a toe touch before landing in the pit and being unable to get up as panicked onlookers are heard shouting that she landed on her tailbone. Chechik, who has over 3.8 million Instagram followers and 801,000 followers on Twitch, later posted a photo of herself in a hospital gown late Sunday night with the caption, 'I live here now.' She had previously updated her fans on Monday that she was able to get her hair washed despite the injuries, writing, 'So I got my hair washed today and holy cow! That was a blessing, the ladies who washed me are seriously my heroes.' Twitch streamer and porn star Adriana Chechik said she's 'terrified' as she tweeted that she's going in for surgery to have a metal rod inserted into her back after breaking it in two places at TwitchCon this weekend Chechik, who has 803,000 followers on the streaming platform, was celebrating a win in a foam pugil stick duel when she jumped into the pit at a Lenovo Legion booth at the TwitchCon event at the San Diego Convention Center over the weekend. Another streamer, LochVaness, was also injured at Lenovo's booth on Saturday. She thanked people for their support in a Monday morning tweet Both Chechik and streamer Loch Vaness were critical of the lack of safety measures taken when both were injured in the foam pit. Vaness tweeted earlier Tuesday morning, 'Thank you everyone who is being so kind about everything that happened. Your kind words have been helping through all this craziness.' A representative for Lenovo told Kotaku Monday, 'We are aware of the incidents of TwitchCon visitors who sustained injuries in the gladiator game soft foam pit at the Lenovo booth. The area has since been closed for any further use while we work with event organizers to look into the incidents.' A spokesperson for the company has yet to respond to a DailyMail.com request for comment. Lenovo hasn't tweeted about the incident publicly either - their last tweet being sent out Sunday to promote the foam pit. The replies are now entirely composed of people mocking the tech company. One tweeter joked about the 'backbreaking work' it took in banning anyone who criticized them after the injuries. Another wrote that they're 'never buying Lenovo products again.' A third asked if they'd bothered to let anyone know there was 'no padding' underneath the foam bricks. In a series of tweets, Chechik attacked Lenovo Legion for keeping the booth open after another participant said they were injured the previous day. Video captured the moment Chechik landed and struggled to move. 'You good?' a man can be heard asking. 'I can't get up,' Chechik responded as the crowd stared at her. Multiple people then rushed to her care as she struggled to move. 'No, no she's fine,' a female announcer was heard joking in the background unaware of the severity of Chechik's injuries. 'She landed on her tailbone,' another man can be heard telling the medic. In a string of Tweets, the influencer called out the booth's operator Lenovo Legion for their 'carelessness' in allowing for the foam pit to remain open after one person previously claimed to be injured. 'Why did @LenovoLegion say here, you can dive in?' she wrote while attaching a video from the company with the two booth announcers describing the fight between two men. Porn star Adriana Chechik has to get a rod inserted into her back after she broke it while jumping onto concrete covered by foam cubes Chechik (right) is seen with her competitor minutes before she broke her back after slamming into the foam pit. The influencer was participating in the risky activity hosted by Lenovo Legion Footage showed Chechik and her opponent battling it out with foam pugil sticks on a three-foot platform Chechik cheered toward the crowd in front of her while her opponent laid defeated. The adult star cheered and prepared to perform a toe touch Within seconds, Chechik can be seen landing the fall on her tailbone Chechik struggled to get up while others rushed to call the medic. She was seen crunched over in pain Chechik later posted a photo of herself glammed up in a hospital gown on late Sunday night 'They put the pit up a second day after the 1st person injured their foot and ankle bad enough to leave #twitchcon in a brace. Multiple ppl were injured and they kept the pit open, said jump in the booty first.' Participants were required to sign a waiver before participating in the activity. Chechik recalled the moments she remained still as the medics rushed to get her out of the foam pit. 'Special shout out to the random off-work EMT who got the workers at the booth to realize how bad I was injured and to make them keep me still and calm me down until others got there. U rly kept me from crying badly.' She later added, 'Last night was horrible, the pain I had felt like I'd rather die. This is gonna suck.' 'I broke my back in two places and am getting surgery to put a meter rod in for support today. Send your support. When it rains it pours and I am definitely feeling the rain right now.' Chechik has been very outspoken about her injuries on Twitter and slammed Lenovo Legion for continuing the risky actively despite another person being previously injured the day before LochVaness posted a video of herself in the same foam booth battling her opponent before she jumped the pit after winning. Rather than slamming Lenovo, she took a hit at Twitch. 'I will never be able to trust @Twitch at another convention in my entire life,' she later wrote on Twitter while sharing a video of how she got her injuries. 'Here's how I dislocated my knee and sprained my ankle at their Lenovo Legion booth.' LochVaness can be seen jumping into the pit and quickly dropping her jaw before the video is cut out. She was briefly hospitalized before doctors said she didn't break any major bones. The streamer later posted a picture of her ankle being iced and elevated on Sunday with the caption, 'This is NOT how I wanted to spend Twitchcon Day 3.' The streamer shared a video of the horrific incident on Twitter. Rather than slamming Lenovo, she took a hit at Twitch The streamer can be seen leaping into the foam and the moment her jaw dropped from her injury LochVaness spent day three of the convention laying down with her sprained foot iced Be careful on this thing guys. Im currently at the hospital seeing if I broke anything. https://t.co/SNHHl5XZEE LochVaness | TWITCHCON (@loch_vaness) October 9, 2022 I will never be able to trust @Twitch at another convention in my entire life. Heres how I dislocated my knee and sprained my ankle at their Lenovo Legion booth: pic.twitter.com/uZjfkgRyWr LochVaness | TWITCHCON (@loch_vaness) October 10, 2022 Many were outraged after the two incidents occurred at the weekend convention, especially after Twitch failed to shut down Lenovo's booth after LochVaness's injury. 'Holy sh** waiver or not, that's irresponsible as shit to not have proper protection on the floor,' one person wrote on Twitter. 'Terribly upsetting,' another wrote. 'I hope they all make a healthy recovery.' 'The pit is an act of negligence, full stop. Foam blocks on concrete? They're lucky someone didn't fall head first,' another said. One person said they suffered minor injuries from the pit. 'Can confirm the pit was a bit shallow - I hit my knee pretty hard but not seriously the first time that I got knocked off of a podium,' one person wrote. 'Saw a lot of people purposely dive into the foam pit which was particularly concerning.' Twitch didn't immediately respond to DailyMail.com for a comment. At Tuesday's meeting, Bonin said he did not want to be there Martinez, who resigned as council president on Monday, was heard on a leaked audio clip calling colleague Mike Bonin's son 'a little monkey' A Los Angeles City Council meeting erupted in chaos as residents called for the resignation of council member Nury Martinez, who was heard calling a colleague's black son a 'little monkey'. Martinez resigned as City Council President on Monday but retains her seat. She did not attend the meeting. Residents demanded a full resignation. In the profanity-laced clip recorded in October 2021, Martinez can be heard calling colleague Mike Bonin's son 'a little monkey', and accuses him of raising him 'like a little white kid,' who needs a 'beatdown'. 'Let me take him around the corner and then I'll bring him back,' the former city council president added. 'I take a lot of hits, but my son? But let me be clear, people should not ask me for forgiveness. 'I can't forgive them because it's not my prerogative. It's the prerogative of a boy who's too young to really understand what's going on.' A Los Angeles City Council meeting has erupted in chaos as residents call for the resignation of council member Nury Martinez after audio leaked of her calling a colleague's son a 'little monkey' Mike Bonin (left) and his partner Sean Arian (far right) with their adoptive son (center) The start of the meeting was delayed as protesters shouted for Councilmen Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo to leave the room, while police offices scurried at the edge of the crowd, waving futilely for protesters to sit down. One woman raised a sign saying, 'Nury ur time is up Resign.' Another protester waved a sign saying 'Take out the Trash.' 'Resign now,' the protesters shouted, sometimes embellishing the chants with profanity. 'This meeting cannot start. This house is out of order.' 'Get out!' De Leon sat impassively at his seat, his eyes cast downward, as protesters called on him by name to exit the chamber. Other Council members urged the crowd to be quiet and allow the meeting to begin, and if necessary threatened to empty the chamber. 'We don't want to put you out,' Councilmember Mitch OFarrell said, shortly before the crowd quieted and the meeting began. Ron Herrera, former President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, can be heard in the audio recordings joking about the Black son of Mike Bonin, an LA City Council member Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has claimed that the recordings are 'illegal'. The group said that they plan to prosecute any and all individuals involved in the leak, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the recording, taped during an October 2021 redistricting meeting, former Council president Nury Martinez is heard referring to the black son of a colleague with racist language, including calling the young boy a 'changuito,' a Spanish word for 'little monkey.' On Tuesday, Martinez announced she is taking a leave of absence. 'This has been one of the most difficult times of my life,' she wrote in a statement. 'I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders.' Officials with the organization slammed the recordings of 'many private and confidential conversations in private offices and conference rooms,' the federation said in a memo obtained by the LA Times. The memo circulating among labor leaders in the area is calling for information on the leak, promising to take legal action against the person or persons responsible. DailyMail.com reached out to a spokesperson for the LA County Federation of Labor, Justin Wesson, who did not immediately respond to inquiries. The organization is asking that anyone with information on the recording reach out to Wesson. The spokesperson for the labor group has a multitude of reasons to press onward in the investigation as he is the son of former Councilmember Herb Wesson, and married to Nury Martinez's chief of staff, Alexis Wesson. The memo being sent around comes during a moment of chaos among some of the key players in Los Angeles' labor scene. On Monday evening, Ron Herrera, head of the LA Federation of Labor, resigned from his position over the leaked audio clip which has sparked major backlash. Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, leader of the California Labor Federation, confirmed that the LA County official had handed in his resignation during an executive meeting. 'Last night, Ron Herrera resigned from his position as President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor,' the statement read in part. 'The Executive Board of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor also calls on those elected officials who were present to follow President Herrera's example by immediately resigning as well.' 'Racism in any form has no place in the House of Labor,' the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor statement reads. LA City Council member Mike Bonin (pictured) and his adoptive son (left) were unknowingly subjected to derogatory remarks from Martinez and two other city council members in an October 2021 conversation 'It is unconscionable that those elected to fight for our communities of color would engage in repulsive and vile anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Asian and anti-Oaxacan remarks that pit our working communities against each other. These sentiments will not be tolerated by our organization or those who we represent.' In an initial apology, the labor leader said that he felt remorse for his 'failure to stand up to racist and anti-black remarks.' 'There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room. Period. And I didn't step up to stop them and I will have to bear the burden of that cross moving forward,' the statement released by Herrera said. Herrera's resignation came just hours after one of his counterparts from the leaked audio recording resigned from her own position as the Los Angeles City Council president. Also in the audio clip shared are LA City Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. A message sent on behalf of Herrera by the LA Federation of Labor told affiliates that the group has been successful removing audio clips from social media and further action. The group, in the memo, allegedly took the credit for getting the Reddit user who initially posted the audio to the app suspended, as well. Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez is resigning effective immediately after being recorded making racist remarks toward a fellow council member and his black child, causing widespread outrage and demands for her firing The organization also said that they are planning to investigate the situation, how this audio was recorded and how it got leaked, and to 'make sure these crimes are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' One of the original posts sharing the audio clip to Reddit also included pointed commentary on how the Los Angeles City Council was 'in bed' with the labor movement. Martinez was also caught on tape using profanity when talking about LA District Attorney George Gascon. 'F*** that guy, he's with the Blacks,' said the former member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Some believe that the remarks, recorded over a year ago, were released just now in an attempt to sway voters during the upcoming elections. Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo were also part of the leaked conversation, in which Leon agreed that Bonin carried his son 'like an accessory', comparing it to Martinez wandering around with her Louis Vuitton bag The comments made by the group were aimed at colleague Mike Bonin, a white city council member, as well as Bonin's son, who is black. De Leon accuses Bonin of treating his son like an accessory, comparing him to a designer purse and referred to Bonin as the 'fourth Black member' of the Los Angeles City Council. Martinez also went off on indigenous people living in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood, referring to them 'short little dark people,' and at one point referred to Bonin as a 'little b**ch.' The woman also said Bonin had been raising his son 'like a little white kid,' who needs a 'beatdown'. 'Let me take him around the corner and then I'll bring him back,' the city council president added. The announcement, made in an email from the liberal councilwoman's office Monday afternoon, comes after the release of a recorded October 2021 conversation between Martinez and other city officials After the clips were leaked, the former Council president released an apology for her words and actions that leaked to the public. 'I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments,' the former Council president said. 'I'm so sorry. I sincerely apologize to the people I hurt with my words: to my colleagues, their families, especially to Mike (Bonin), (Bonin's husband) Sean (Arian), and your son. As a mother, I know better and I am sorry. I am truly ashamed. I know this is the result of my own actions. I'm sorry to your entire family for putting you through this. 'As someone who believes deeply in the empowerment of communities of color, I recognize my comments undercut that goal. Going forward, reconciliation will be my priority. I have already reached out to many of my Black colleagues and other Black leaders to express my regret in order for us to heal.' The woman announced that she would formally resign from her position as Council president, but would remain with the organization in a general role. Early Tuesday morning, however, the woman shared that she would be taking a 'leave of absence,' although she did not specify for how long. The was statement sent out minutes after her primary opponent in the race for city mayor, billionaire real estate mogul Rick Caruso, took to Twitter to ask the official to leave her post 'This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognize this is entirely of my own making,' Martinez said in a statement shared by KTLA. 'At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders,' the statement reads. It is still not a full resignation, however, which many have called for. Bonin and other major political figures in California have called on Martinez and the group to resign immediately after their comments. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, and California Governor Gavin Newsom have all weighed in as well, echoing Bonin's request and anger over the racist recordings. California Governor Gavin Newsom was one of the public figures who spoke out on the controversy out of LA, saying that 'words matter' 'At a time when our nation is grappling with a rise in hate speech and hate crimes, these racist comments have deepened the pain that our communities have endured. Los Angeles deserves better,' Sen. Padilla said in a statement. 'At this critical time for the city and the nation, we must continue to build unity and solidarity within all our communities and we must recommit to the struggle for equity and justice for all.' 'Words matter, and racist language can do real harm. These comments have no place in our state, or in our politics, and we must all model better behavior to live the values that so many of us fight every day to protect,' said Gov. Newsom on Monday. After the audio leaked, protestors quickly gathered outside of Martinez's home, calling her out for her words made about the young child of her colleague. The clip originally leaked on Reddit earlier in October but was picked more widely when it was reported by the Times on Sunday By nightfall, protesters laid siege to Martinez's home in Sun Valley chanting: 'Hey hey, ho ho, Nury Martinez has got to go.' By nightfall, protesters laid siege to Martinez's home in Sun Valley chanting: 'Hey hey, ho ho, Nury Martinez has got to go.' The protesters were there flouting a law that Martinez herself championed in 2021 that effectively banned protests in residential areas. One protester told CBS Los Angeles: 'We can't keep allowing these people to do whatever they want. It's just blatantly disrespectful, it's honestly just evil.' 'That's why we're out here. We want to let her know that she will not be sitting there for much longer and we will get her out of office,' the protester said. Protesters also blasted audio of the recordings through a loudspeaker. The group's message went on: 'This is bulls**t! We will leave when Nury Martinez resigns!' It remains unclear who recorded the audio and who leaked it. Lord Frost fired a warning shot at Liz Truss over Northern Ireland today, warning the Prime Minister not to cave in to EU demands to solve the ongoing post-Brexit trade row. Frost, who led UK negotiations with Brussels ahead of quitting the bloc, hit out as he faced peers this afternoon. He admitted that relations with the EU, including Ireland, remained fragile amid the ongoing impasse over the Northern Ireland Protocol. But he warned against agreeing to demands that the bloc's Court of Justice (ECJ) remain an arbiter in any future trade rows. Reports today suggest that Ms Truss may be willing to allow the ECJ to retain a role, as demanded by Brussels. The issue was previously seen as crossing a red line by Boris Johnson's administration. Appearing alongside Labour peer and former EU Commissioner Lord Mandelson today, Lord Frost said the ECJ 'cannot have a jurisdictional or arbitration role in the future arrangements'. 'I can't see how they would be stable while that remained the case. It would be better if that was acknowledged sooner rather than later,' he said. Frost, who led UK negotiations with Brussels ahead of quitting the bloc, hit out as he faced peers this afternoon. Appearing alongside Labour peer and former EU Commissioner Lord Mandelson today, Lord Frost said the ECJ 'cannot have a jurisdictional or arbitration role in the future arrangements'. It came amid attempts by the Government to repair fraying relations with Ireland and other EU bodies involved in Brexit after six tumultuous years. Britain and Ireland held cordial talks last week on a range of issues, including the Northern Ireland Protocol, raising fresh hopes that an agreement can be reached with Brussels. In a boost for Liz Truss after a challenging week, UK ministers said the energy crisis had pushed the two sides closer together, while Dublin welcomed the new positive approach. It could mean that the Government drops its threat to rip up the protocol which imposes strict checks on goods shipped across the Irish Sea through a new law currently before Parliament. Speaking after a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference in London, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said: 'I want to be very positive about the chances of getting a negotiated solution. During the Tory Party Conference last week, a senior minister revealed he used the Queen's state funeral to apologise to Irish politicians about the way the UK handled negotiations. Steve Baker told delegates he said sorry to Dublin politicians for a lack of 'respect' during the years of talks, when they were in London last month. Mr Baker, a Northern Ireland minister, is a hardline Leave supporter who resigned as Brexit minister in 2018 in protest at Theresa May's Brexit deal. He spent the rest of the protracted period before the UK quit the EU as a senior critic on the backbenches. But speaking to the Birmingham conference he said 'relations with Ireland are not where they should be'. 'It's with humility that I want to accept and acknowledge that I and others did not always behave in a way that encouraged Ireland and the European Union to trust us to accept they have legitimate interests - legitimate interests that we are willing to accept, because they do and we are willing to accept them,' he said. Here's a marriage proposal that bear-ly ended with a yes. The couple's engagement was interrupted in stunning fashion when a wild black bear waltzed across a terrace at the Chipinque Ecological Park in the northeastern Mexico state of Nuevo Leon last Wednesday. Ricardo Morales told DailyMail.com that he was about to place the ring on the finger of his girlfriend, Cecilia Canabal, when the large animal suddenly and slowly walked past the rose-covered floor and 'marry me' block letters. 'Before the bear passes, we listened to the gardeners and the people from the hotel, from the restaurant, they told us not to be afraid,' Morales recalled. 'We looked over there and saw a black shadow, obviously. And this shadow was getting closer to us.' A black bear interrupted Ricardo Morales' marriage proposal to his now-fiancee Cecilia Canabal at Chipinque Ecological Park in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, last Wednesday Ricardo Morales with his now-fiancee Cecilia Canabal, who got engaged last week at Chipinque Ecological Park in Mexico. Morales told DailyMail.com that he and Canabal have been dating for 14 months and will be getting married in the spring of 2023 The stunned couple, who have been dating for 14 months and will get married in the spring of 2023, looked towards their photographer friend who was recording the proposal and stood their ground as the bear strolled right by them. The bear, Morales remembers, did not make noises or threatened any of the others restaurant customers. 'There was no sense of nervousness, of fear towards the bear because it was not aggressive,' he said. The bear eventually climbed over over a wall and headed down into a garden before disappearing. Ricardo told DailyMail.com that he about to place the engagement ring on Cecilia's finger when they noticed the bear's shadow and were told by the hotel restaurant staff to keep calm The couple kept cool and did not look nervous as the black bear roamed in front of them before it scaled over a wall and went into a garden The viral video, which was uploaded on Morales' Facebook account, drew plenty of congratulatory messages from the couple's friends. Morales' friends jokingly applauded him for coming up with the idea of using the bear as a prop to pop the question to his girlfriend. Gerardo Rodriguez asked, 'how much did it cost to rent out the bear?' According to Morales, 'it was part of the romantic dinner at Chipinque.' Danyela Diaz saw the bear's appearance of a healthy marriage. 'May it be a sign of much prosperity, love and happiness,' she wrote. 'What a unique moment.' The animal's sighting comes a week after another black bear was recorded walking into a restaurant at Chipinque Ecological Park. The video shows the bear standing over a row of covered food trays as diners kept their distance before it eventually left the restaurant without incident. Ruling People Power Party (PPP) leader Chung Jin-suk lashed out at opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday for claiming that Korea could end up seeing Japanese troops stationed in the country. Lee made the remark on Monday while denouncing trilateral missile-defense exercises, which Korea held with the United States and Japan in the East Sea last week, as a move legitimizing Japan's Self-Defense Forces as a regular military. His point was that such exercises would help advance Japan's ambitions to become a normal country capable of waging war and Korea could fall victim to Japan's renewed militarism and face a fate similar to the 1910-45 colonial rule. "We cannot imagine the day when the Japanese military invades the Korean Peninsula and the Rising Sun Flag again hangs over the peninsula but it could come true," Lee said, claiming that a military alliance between Korea, the U.S. and Japan could make the Korean Peninsula a flashpoint. On Tuesday, Chung said no one would buy Lee's claim at a time when exchanges between South Korea and Japan are set to increase further. Chung also said Lee's claim is one of two most absurd remarks, along with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's promise to give up his nuclear programs. "I hope he won't blind the people with a frivolous take on history," he said. "I promise to the people. Unless the Republic of the Korea is in a situation where it has renounced its sovereign power, the Japanese military will not be allowed to station in Korea." (Yonhap) Advertisement Lucy Letby returned to kill a baby whose twin brother she had murdered just 24 hours earlier and attempted to murder a baby girl who was born weighing just over 1lb three times in the space of a month, a court has heard. The nurse, who is accused of murdering five boys and two girls, left the girl 'severely disabled' after overfeeding her with milk and injecting her with air, prosecutors said today. A jury at Manchester Crown Court was told that the 32-year-old tried to kill the girl, known as Baby G, on September 7, 2015, the day after she passed a 'significant date' which saw nurses put out cakes and put up banners to celebrate. The court heard that staff had put up a banner and cake to mark the occasion, but in the early hours of the next morning the girl collapsed and projectile vomited so forcefully it went onto the carpet and a chair next to the cot. While the child was moved to a different hospital a day later, she was returned to Countess of Chester Hospital a week later, at which point Letby allegedly tried to kill her two more times in one shift on September 21. It is claimed that the nurse also undertook Facebook searches of the child's parents, including one on that day, something Letby told police she had no recollection of. Prosecutors also told the jury that Letby had tried to kill a child known as Baby F, less than 24 hours after murdering his twin, Baby E, who was found 'acutely distressed' and found bleeding from the mouth in his cot on August 3, 2015. Earlier the court was told how the mother of the twins interrupted her attacking Baby E in the hospital's neonatal unit, but the alleged baby killer 'got rid' of the panicked parent by telling her: 'Trust me I'm a nurse'. The trial heard that after Baby E's death the following morning on August 4, 2015, the nurse would attempt to kill his brother by injecting insulin into nutrition bag just a day later. The nurse went on to show a 'very unusual interest' in the family of the twins, the court heard, with social media searches on them two days after the baby's death and again on seven occasions, including on Christmas Day. Letby denies murdering seven babies - five boys and two girls - and attempting to murder 10 more infants by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies. Her parents Susan and John are supporting her at her six-month trial at Manchester Crown Court. As the second day of Letby's trial continues, Manchester Crown Court has heard: Letby, 32, denies murdering seven premature babies and attempting to murder 10 more over 12 months. The deaths occurred at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby was arrested three years after the death of her first alleged victim, Baby A; ICU nurse is alleged to have injected babies with insulin, air or pumped with milk to kill them - often during night shifts when parents were less likely to be there; Babies A, C and D were all murdered in the space of around 13 days, it is alleged; The jury was told that Letby was stood next to the cot of Baby C when his monitor alarm went off and she told the colleague who rushed in: 'He's going, he's going'. Baby A was murdered in the same room six earlier, prosecution claims; The day after allegedly murdering Baby E, Lucy Letby allegedly used insulin for the first time to poison a baby, the court heard, by trying to murder Baby E's twin brother, Baby F; Letby allegedly targeted twins on more than one occasion - and in some cases one was murdered and their sibling survived; She is said to have searched for the families of her alleged victims families on Facebook and social media, including on Christmas Day; In some cases, Letby is alleged to have tried to kill Baby G on up to three occasions, including two times in one shift; Letby denies seven charges of murder and ten charges of attempted murder between 2015 and 2016 at Countess of Chester Hospital The nurse (pictured) also allegedly tried to kill one baby by injecting insulin into his nutrition bag less than 24 hours after murdering his twin brother A court was told today that Lucy Letby (pictured) attempted to kill one baby at Countess of Chester Hospital three times in the space of a month Letby's parents Susan and John Letby arrive at Manchester Crown Court this morning Lucy Letby was caught attacking a baby she would later murder by the child's mother, a court heard today This afternoon prosecutors told a jury at Manchester Crown Court that Letby left Baby G 'severely disabled' after making multiple attempts to kill her in September 2015. It is claimed she targeted the baby after she was moved to Countess of Chester from Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside, where she had been born extremely prematurely at the age of 23 weeks and six days, and a weight of just 535 grams. After spending weeks in Arrowe Park, she was well enough to be transferred to the Countess of Chester on August 13. Full indictment against Lucy Letby Lucy Letby is charged as follows: Count 1 Charged with murder of Baby A on June 8, 2015 Count 2 Charged with attempted murder of Baby B between the June 8, 2015 and June 11, 2015 Count 3 Charged with murder of Baby C on June 14, 2015 Count 4 Charged with murder of Baby D on June 22, 2015 Count 5 Charged with murder of Baby E on August 4, 2015 Count 6 Charged with attempted murder of Baby F on August 5, 2015 Count 7 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 7, 2015 Count 8 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015 Count 9 Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015 Count 10 Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 26, 2015 Count 11 Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 27, 2015 Count 12 Charged with murder of Baby I on October 23, 2015 Count 13 Charged with attempted murder of Baby J on November 27, 2015 Count 14 Charged with attempted murder of Baby K on February 17, 2015 Count 15 Charged with attempted murder of Baby L on April 9, 2016 Count 16 Charged with attempted murder of Baby M on April 9, 2016 Count 17 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 3, 2016 Count 18 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 15, 2016 Count 19 Charged with attempted murder of Baby N on June 15, 2016 Count 20 Charged with murder of Baby O on June 23, 2016 Count 21 Charged with murder of Baby P on June 24, 2016 Count 22 Charged with attempted murder of Baby Q on June 25, 2016 Advertisement Prosecutor Nick Johnson, KC, said at 2.15am on September 7 Letby was sitting with the shift leader at the nursing station when both women heard Baby G vomiting. She had suffered a collapse and was not breathing. The infant's projectile vomiting was so forceful that it went onto the carpet and an adjacent chair (to the cot). A registrar noted that the baby appeared uncomfortable and her abdomen was 'purple and extended'. Her blood/oxygen levels had fallen to 80 per cent. He later noticed bloodstained fluid from her trachea a phenomenon that had also been evident in the case of Baby E. Baby G was returned to Arrowe Park in the early hours of September 8. By September 16 she had recovered so well that she was transferred back to the Countess of Chester. On the day Letby allegedly attacked her twice she was said to be well and due her immunisations. At 9.15am Letby, the infant's designated nurse, fed her 40ml of milk via an NG tube. Just over an hour later, at 10.20am, Baby G had two projectile vomits and went apnoeic 'for 6-10 secs'. She suffered brief colour loss and her blood saturations fell to 30 per cent. 'So she suffered the same problem that she had had on September 7,' said Mr Johnson. This time it had followed a documented feed by Letby. That afternoon a consultant was called to cannulate the infant. Baby G's mother left the nursery, privacy screens were erected and the infant was placed on a trolley still attached to her Masimo monitor. Letby remained with the baby after the doctors had gone. A short time later the nurse overseeing Baby G's care heard Letby shout for help. 'When she attended she noticed that G's monitor had been switched off,' said Mr Johnson. 'She was dusky and struggling to breath, and Letby was giving her ventilation breaths. She responded to the treatment'.. That evening Letby sent another nurse on the unit a text saying that G 'looked rubbish when I took over this morning, then she vomited at 9 and I got her screenedmum said she hasn't been herself for a couple of days'. Mr Johnson reminded the jury that the infant had been due her immunisations that day 'something that would not have been contemplated if she had not been in good condition. 'There had been no significant issues with G at all. She had vomited because she had been given excessive milk and air'. Mr Johnson told the court that an MRI scan taken in August 2016 confirmed that Baby G had sustained irreversible brain damage. He said there was only one conclusion to draw in this case: that somebody had put extra milk and air into her system. 'That does not happen by accident. There are parallels here with the previous case of Baby C and the subsequent cases of Baby I, Baby P and Baby Q. The prosecution alleges the attacks came just over a month after Letby killed one baby and attempted to murder his twin brother the very next day. It is claimed that Letby murdered Baby E with an injection of air into the bloodstream on August 4 and tried to kill Baby F using insulin on August 5, 2015. Baby F was prescribed a tiny dose of the substance to help combat his high blood sugar. That was between 3.40am and 6.20am. He was moved out of Room 1, where his brother had previously died, and from there went to Room 2 where Letby was looking after a single baby. Letby and another nurse signed the prescription chart to record that a fresh bag of TPN (total parenteral nutrition), known as Babiven, had been started and administered via a long-line at 12.25am on August 5. The prosecution alleges that Letby added insulin to this bag with the intention of killing Baby F. It was also possible, said Mr Johnson, that she put insulin into a second bag that had been put in the fridge. At 3am the baby suffered an unexpected drop in his blood sugar, along with a surge in heart rate. Although she was not his designated nurse, Letby signed the observation charts at 5am. Three hours later she went off shift. At 5.56pm a blood sample returned a blood glucose level so low that if had remained untreated it could have caused Baby F to suffer convulsions, coma, apnoea, irreversible brain damage or even death. The medical team was sufficiently concerned by the infant's hypoglycaemic episode that a check was ordered on his plasma insulin level and the level of another hormone called C-peptide. This revealed an extremely high insulin level and very low C-peptide levels 'conclusive evidence of Baby F having received exogenous insulin. Someone gave him insulin. Someone poisoned him'. At the time no other baby in the neonatal unit had been prescribed insulin, so he could not have received a supply intended for another baby through negligence. 'He was given it intentionally though it may be relevant that his dead brother had been prescribed insulin for a short period and Lucy Letby had co-signed for administering it'. Mr Johnson added: 'To give insulin to F, the perpetrator would have had to access the locked fridge, use a needle and syringe to remove some insulin from the ampoule in the fridge, and either inject it into a TPN bag kept in the same locked fridge or return to the cot-side and inject the insulin into the infant's intravenous system'. Alternatively, it could have been given by intramuscular injection or by mixing the insulin with the other content of the TPN. He told the jury: 'F could not have received the insulin as a result of some oversight or accident. You know that it was Lucy Letby who hung the bag'. When police interviewed the nurse in July 2018 she confirmed giving the infant glucose, but 'had no independent recollection of having had any involvement with administering the contents of the TPN. Baby E, her fourth alleged murder victim, had been feeding well on August 3. At about 9pm that evening, his mother decided to make her way from the postnatal ward to visit him in the neonatal unit, where he was in the care of Letby with his brother Baby F. Mr Johnson told the jury that the boys' mother 'interrupted Lucy Letby who was in the process of attacking Baby E' but 'she did not realise it at the time'. He added: 'When she arrived Baby E was acutely distressed and bleeding from his mouth'. The little boy's mother said that Letby 'tried to reassure her' that the blood was due to a feeding tube 'irritating his throat'. Mr Johnson claimed that whilst telling the mother to return to the postnatal ward she had implored her: 'Trust me, I'm a nurse'.' Mr Johnson told Letby's trial: 'We suggest she was fobbed off by Lucy Letby. However, she [the mother] was so concerned by what she had seen that she telephoned her husband when she got back to the labour ward'. Following Baby E's death in the early hours of August 4, the Crown said Letby made 'fraudulent' nursing notes which were 'false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks'. The little boy also had 'striking' white and purple rash on his abdomen seen on several other of Letby's alleged victims, which doctors claimed was consistent with an injection of air. Letby's notes failed to mention that Baby E was bleeding at 9pm, and yet she claimed there had been a meeting between the registrar and the mother. Neither recalled such a meeting, said prosecutor Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson said that Letby had made a note in Baby F's records which she timed at 9.13pm 'after she had got rid of (the mother)', he added. Child E went on to suffer significant blood loss, say the Crown, later in the evening, with a treating registrar saying he had never encountered such a large bleed in a small baby. Following Child E's death in the early hours of August 4, the Crown said Letby made 'fraudulent' nursing notes which were 'false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks'. Lucy Letby texted nurse to say she wanted to be in the room with a baby she later killed - 'for her own wellbeing', court hears Lucy Letby texted a colleague saying she wanted to be in the room with Baby C - for her own wellbeing - before she murdered the newborn, the court heard today. She was the only person in the room when Child C suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed, but was meant to be caring for a different child elsewhere. An alarm went off and she was found next to the premature child's cot. Letby told the nurse who ran in: 'He's going', the court heard. Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier. 'But the shift leader had put her in room three. So she didn't like it.' Senior medics failed to resuscitate Baby C and he was pronounced dead at 5.58am on June 14. Advertisement At 11.40pm Baby E's blood oxygen levels and heart rate dropped and his abdomen developed a striking discolouration with flitting white and purple patches that reminded a registrar who saw them of the distinctive skin discolouration on the body of Letby's first alleged victim, Baby A, who medics believe suffered a fatal injection of oxygen in the June. Full CPR began on Baby E at just after midnight on August 4 and he died at around 1.27am. The court also heard today that Baby E's brother, Baby F, is alleged to have been the victim of one of two insulin poisonings carried out by Letby on August 5. The court heard that Letby wrote a note in the nursing records at 4.51am, in the aftermath of E's death. Written in capital letters, it read: 'Mummy was present at the start of the shift attending to cares. Visited again approx. 10pm. Aware that we had obtained blood from his NG tube and were starting some different medications to treat this. 'She was updated by (a registrar) and contained E. Informed her that we would contact her if any changes'. The court heard earlier today that Letby was found with a premature child moments after administering a fatal injection of air in the same room where she had poisoned and killed another newborn just six days earlier. The jury was told that she was stood next to the cot of Baby C, who was just five days old and weighed 2lbs, when his monitor alarm went off and she told the colleague who rushed in: 'He's going, he's going'. Baby C died because the air injected into his stomach made him unable to breath and he suffered a cardiac arrest, Nick Johnson KC, told the jury on the second day of her trial at Manchester Crown Court. Letby allegedly killed him just six days after murdering for the first time, when she killed another boy, Baby A, and days later attacked his twin sister, Baby B, while working at the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. A third child, Baby D was murdered eight days after Baby C, making it three fatal poisonings in around 13 days, the jury was told. Experts believe all three died after air was injected into their bloodstream and the ICU nurse was later questioned by police over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook - often hours after their children had died. Letby denies murdering seven premature babies - and trying to kill ten more - by injecting insulin, milk or even air into their tiny bodies. Baby C, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been born prematurely at 30 weeks, but despite going into intensive care he was in a good condition. On the night of June 14 Baby C's assigned nurse briefly left the room to go to the nursing station, she heard his alarm go off, so rushed back. Mr Johnson said: 'When she went back into room one, there was Lucy Letby, standing next to Child C's cot', adding that Letby had 'no business' to be there and had been told repeatedly she was caring for another, more poorly baby, in another room on that shift. He told the jury: 'Again, taking a step back, you can now see there was a pattern emerging. 'Lucy Letby was the only person working on the night shift when Baby C died who had also been working on either of the shifts when Baby A died and his twin sister Baby B collapsed. 'What we are going to see, as we progress, is that Lucy Letby's method of attacking the babies in the neo-natal unit was beginning to develop. 'She had injected air into the bloodstream of the first twins, Baby A and B, and varied this approach by injecting air into Baby C's stomach via the nasogastric tube.' Mr Johnson said an independent pathologist - when reviewing the case - concluded Child C died because his breathing became compromised and he suffered a cardiac arrest. The prosecutor told jurors: 'If you are trying to murder a child in a neo-natal unit, it is a fairly effective way of doing it. It doesn't really leave much trace'. He said on the afternoon of June 14, 2015 - hours after Child C died - the defendant searched on Facebook for the youngster's parents. Children's nurse Lucy Letby (pictured left and right), 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital The nurse is being supported during her trial at Manchester Crown Court by her parents, John and Susan Letby, who are pictured here arriving at court last week Mr Johnson suggested from the timings that this was 'one of the first things she did when waking up' after she had earlier finished her shift at about 8am. Letby is alleged to have murdered Baby D on June 22, eight days after Baby C, the court heard. Mr Johnson said: 'The prosecution say that this was another case of injecting a child with air into the bloodstream. Three children had died and one had had a life-threatening episode in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in a two-week period. Lucy Letby was the only constant presence'. Children's nurse Lucy Letby murdered Baby C days after his birth on June 10, 2015, a jury at Manchester Crown Court head today. The infant weighed 2lbs (800 grams) at birth and was in a good condition. However, two days later he was given a longline to help him over a period of low blood sugar and on June 13 the least intrusive breathing support known as Optiflow. Later that day nurses found traces of bile in his stomach, potentially an early sign of a gastrointestinal disorder called nectrotising entrocolitis. He was given treatment for that and his milk feeds were discontinued. By the evening he was recovering. Letby was on a night shift that day. She was meant to be the designated nurse for another baby, but despite being instructed by her shift leader to stay with him she made her way to the cot of Baby C in Nursery 1. Sophie Ellis, the nurse caring for Baby C, went briefly to the nurses' station. Whilst there she heard Baby C's monitor sound an alarm. When she e-entered Nursery 1 Letby was already standing next to the cot. Baby F was the first to be poisoned with insulin by Letby, court hears The day after allegedly murdering Baby E, Lucy Letby allegedly used insulin for the first time to poison a baby, the court heard, by trying to murder Baby E's twin brother, Baby F. Baby F was prescribed a TPN (total parenteral nutrition) bag of fluids and later suffered an unexpected drop in his blood sugar levels and surge in heart rate. Checks on his insulin levels were carried out which showed, 'conclusive evidence' someone had given child F insulin to poison him. Mr Johnson said no other baby on the neo-natal unit was prescribed insulin so child F could not have received the drug intended for some other child by negligence. Mr Johnson said the prosecution allege Letby had injected insulin into the TPN bag before it was hung up to give to the child. He added: 'You know who was in the room and you know from the records, who hung the bag. 'It can't have been an accident.' He told the jury there was only one, 'credible candidate' for the poisoner. 'The same person,' he said, 'Who was present at all the unexplained collapses and deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital on the neo-natal unit.' Advertisement Letby told her: 'He's just dropped his heart rate and saturations' or something similar. Mr Johnson told the jury 'Baby C was the third baby who had suffered a serious deterioration in a matter of a few daysand there again was Lucy Letby.' Baby C quickly recovered, but then collapsed again a short time later. As he did so, Letby said to Nurse Ellis: 'He's going'. 'She was right,' said Mr Johnson. It later emerged that Letby had texted an off-duty colleague to say she had wanted to be in Room 1 because it would be cathartic for her would help her wellbeing, to see a living in the space previously occupied by a dead baby, Baby A'. Senior medics failed to resuscitate Baby C but he was pronounced dead at 5.58am on June 14. Dr Dewi Evans, the expert who reviewed the case, expressed concern about the cause of Baby C's sudden deterioration. In the light of the orther cases he reviewed he thought it suspicious. He also believed that the damage to his heart was the result of rather than the cause of his collapse. Dr Sandie Bohin thought the only feasible mechanism for the excessive air in the baby's gut at the time of his collapse was the deliberate injection of air into his bloodstream. Letby, 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital - including one child who died less than 90 minutes after being handed into her care. The specially trained ICU nurse was described as a 'constant malevolent presence' on the Cheshire children's unit where she allegedly killed and injured many vulnerable children - including twins. She is accused of using night shifts to launch many attacks because she knew parents were unlikely to visit the neonatal ward. Several babies were allegedly poisoned with insulin and one child - known as Baby E - was murdered when Letby allegedly injected him with air, Manchester Crown Court has heard. It caused what doctors call an air embolus, which leads to strokes or heart attacks. Letby is also accused of pumping dangerous levels of milk into the premature children via feeding tubes or veins. She allegedly targeted twins on more than one occasion - and in some cases one was murdered and their sibling survived. Letby was questioned by police during interviews over why she had tracked the families of her alleged victims on Facebook, with prosecutors saying that this was an 'unusual interest'. Opening the prosecution, Nick Johnson KC, said: 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing was not killed the first or even second time she tried'. He added: 'Sometimes they were injected with air both intravenously [into the blood] and via the nasogastric tube [into the stomach]. Sometimes they were injected with milk or some other fluid. Sometimes it was insulin. But the constant presence was Lucy Letby'. Police discovered 'a poisoner was at work' on the NHS neonatal unit after a 'significant rise' in the number of healthy babies dying or falling ill while a nurse accused of murdering seven children and trying to kill ten more was working on the ward between June 2015 and June 2016, the jury were told on the first day of her trial. She is facing 22 charges concerning 17 babies, some of whom she allegedly attempted to murder multiple times. Letby pleaded not guilty to each charge yesterday morning. Lucy Letby sketched in the dock at Manchester Crown Court with security where she is charged with the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of another ten, between June 2015 and June 2016 while working on the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital Letby, 32, (pictured) is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital - including one child who died less than 90 minutes after being handed into her care. The prosecution claims that a single common factor in the death and collapses was the presence of a single neonatal nurse, Lucy Letby Mr Johnson said Letby was a 'constant malevolent presence' at the 'closely restricted' neonatal unit. He added: 'It is a hospital like so many others in the UK but unlike many other hospitals in the UK, and unlike many other neo-natal units in the UK, within the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work.' The prosecutor said two babies - referred to as Baby F and Baby L for legal reasons - were 'poisoned' by Letby 'deliberately with insulin'. They were attacked allegedly eight months apart with each of them from separate sets of twins. Both boys' blood sugar 'inexplicably dropped to dangerous levels' - but both survived 'because of the skill of the staff in the neonatal unit', the court heard. He said both of the twins injected with insulin each had a baby brother, Baby E and Baby M, who were both also allegedly attacked by Letby. The court heard one of the means by which the Baby E was killed and Baby M was harmed, by having air injected into the bloodstream. Baby M had 'mercifully' survived. He said: 'Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly severely deteriorated. Sometimes babies who had been sick and then on the mend deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants found the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator. The presence of one of the neonatal nurses. That nurse was Lucy Letby.' During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths'. Letby, 32, allegedly tried to kill one baby girl three times and a baby boy three times - including two attempts in one day. 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts,' said Mr Johnson. 'Although when Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts towards the end of this period the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts'. Letby poisoned babies while on the night shift because parents would not be around, court told Lucy Letby appearing in the dock at Manchester Crown Court Lucy Letby was accused of poisoning babies on the night shift. There tended to be fewer staff on the unit at night, and parents as well tended to visit mostly in the days. Mr Johnson continued: 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts. 'When upon Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts, the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts.' Mr Johnson said as medics could not account for the collapses and deaths, police were called in and conducted a 'pain-staking review'. He said: 'That review suggests that in the period between mid-2015 and the middle of 2016 somebody in the neo-natal unit poisoned two children with insulin. 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence you will hear is that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident.' Advertisement Referring to the alleged poisoning of both Baby F and Baby L, he added: 'Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned. We allege that she was the poisoner'. Mr Johnson said: 'Prior to January 2015, the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units. 'However over the next 18 months or so there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses. 'These rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause.' They were concerned that babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly, despite appropriate medical interventions that would normally have saved them. He said the collapses 'defied the normal experience of the treating doctors'. Mr Johnson said that normally babies might suffer from heart problems, infection or dehydration. 'Usually when an intervention was undertaken a positive reaction can be expected. But many of the cases you are going to hear about defied those expectations and norms', he said. Babies who were stable suddenly deteriorated, and sometimes babies who had been sick but were on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, the consultants noticed that a single common factor was the presence of a single neonatal nurse. 'That nurse' said the barrister, 'was Lucy Letby'. 'Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts,' said Mr Johnson. 'Although when Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts towards the end of this period the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts. 'Because of the inability of doctors to find genuine medical reasons for the deaths and collapses the police were called in'. Officers from Cheshire Constabulary commissioned a detailed review by experienced doctors with no connection to the Countess of Chester Hospital. 'That (review) suggests that from the middle of 2015 to the middle of 2016 somebody in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin. Letby is accused of attacking two sets of twins - with insulin and with air - one child, Baby E, would die but his sibling survived During the time Letby worked on the night shift, there was a rise in babies dying or falling seriously ill, Manchester Crown Court was told, and then when she moved to the day shift there were more 'inexplicable collapses and deaths' 'The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence will have been that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident'. If the prosecution was right about that, the fact that there were two deliberate poisonings would help the jury decide whether other crimes had been committed or whether they were 'just tragic coincidences'. Mr Johnson went on: 'We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 babies were not naturally occurring tragedies. 'They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things turned to the worst for these 17 children'. Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, said in the case of the two babies injected with insulin, identified only as Baby F and Baby L, their blood sugar levels dropped to dangerous levels. But both survived due to the skill of medical staff who appreciated low blood sugar can have natural causes. Mr Johnson added: 'What the medical staff did not realise was that in both cases, was the result of someone poisoning them with insulin.' The prosecutor said nobody would think somebody would be trying to kill babies in a neo-natal unit. He said both of the twins injected with insulin each had a baby brother, Baby E and Baby M, who were both also allegedly attacked by Letby - one of which did not survive. The court heard one of the means by which the Baby E was killed and Baby M was harmed, was by having air injected into the bloodstream - what the doctors call an air embolus. Mr Johnson added: 'As we go through my introduction of the case, we will see that similar events repeated themselves. The means by which the children in this case were harmed and killed varied.' Prosecutor Mr Johnson said sometimes babies were injected with air and on other occasions they were fed with insulin or too much milk. He told the court: 'So varying means by which these babies were attacked but the constant presence when they were fatally attacked or collapsed catastrophically was Lucy Letby.' Jurors were shown a chart showing nurses who were present on duty when the alleged criminal incidents were said to have taken place. Pointing out, as examples, the first three alleged offences in time he said the chart showed the only person that was present on all three occasions was the defendant. Mr Johnson said: 'If you look at the table overall the picture is, we say, self-evidently obvious. It's a process of elimination.' Mr Johnson went on: 'It is a complicated case by any measures. It concerns seven allegations of murder and allegations of attempted murder of 10 other children. 'We allege that sometimes Lucy Letby tried to kill the same baby more than once. 'Sometimes a baby that she succeeded in killing she did not manage to kill the first time she tried, or even the second time, and in one case even the third time.' The children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be referred to as Baby A to Q. The trial, which is expected to last six months, continues. The White House wants to downplay President Joe Biden's 80th birthday next month - which will mark the first time an American president becomes an octogenarian while in office. Politico reported Tuesday that there are no plans for a blowout bash to mark the occasion on November 20, and instead Biden will 'simply focus on the work.' That's because the president's age has become a convenient attack line for Republicans, which Biden hasn't helped by recently looking around a room for a dead congresswoman, and falling off his bike over the summer. Late last month, the White House briefing room erupted with questions after Biden, at a hunger summit off-campus, was seemingly searching around the room for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski, who died in a car accident in August. 'Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? She must not be here,' Biden mused. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to brush off the incident multiple times by saying Walorski was 'top of mind.' This month the percentage of voters who said they were 'very concerned' about Biden's mental health grew by five points - from 36 percent in August to 41 percent in October - according to surveys conducted by the I&I/TIPP Poll. President Joe Biden (left), walking the South Lawn with First Lady Jill Biden (right), isn't expected to have a big birthday bash for his 80th, which will mark the first time a president becomes an octogenarian while in office Overall, 64 percent of voters showed some concern for Biden's mental health in the October survey. The White House has consistently blown off questions about Biden's fitness for office. 'Like President Biden has said, anyone with questions about his age should just watch him: he has delivered record job creation, made NATO the strongest it has ever been, and amassed the most significant legislative record since LBJ in less than half of one term,' White House spokesman Andrew Bates told Politico. 'I don't have a comment about whether Politico is invited to his birthday,' Bates added. But Politico cited sources who admitted the president tired more easily - making him more susceptible to gaffes and his stutter coming out. Biden might be able to downplay his 80th, simply because of his packed schedule in the lead-up to the big day. The midterm elections take place on November 8 and then the president is expected to do a two-to-three country tour, including to Bali, Indonesia for the G20, in the days following. He'll return to Washington before Saturday, November 19, as his grand-daughter Naomi will hold her wedding on the White House South Lawn. His birthday comes the next day, a Sunday, when there's less press gathered in the briefing room and the North Lawn. The Bidens are more low-key about birthdays than the Obamas. Last October, the president celebrated Vice President Kamala Harris' birthday by bringing in flowers and a gift Vice President Kamala Harris (left) was presented with flowers and a photograph by President Joe Biden (right) when she turned 57 last Octobe First Lady Jill Biden (right) marked her 70th birthday last June with a bike ride alongside President Joe Biden (left), who had whisked her away to their Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home The Bidens generally hold more low-key birthday celebrations than their Democratic predecessors, the Obamas. Last year for Jill Biden's 70th birthday, the president whisked her away mid-week to their Rehoboth Beach, Delaware vacation home, where they were spotted taking a bike ride and onlookers sang 'happy birthday' to the first lady. When Vice President Kamala Harris turned 57 last October 20, the president brought flowers and a gift to her in her office. Former President Barack Obama made headlines when he hosted a star-studded bash in Martha's Vineyard last August to mark his 60th birthday, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And during their White House tenure, First Lady Michelle Obama had a huge party marking her 50th birthday on January 17. Beyonce and John Legend performed, while Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Samuel L. Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Magic Johnson, Gladys Knight, Gayle King and Rachael Ray were among the guests. Buckingham Palace is seeking a new helicopter pilot for an elite unite on a 'competitive salary' and with experience of working with 'VVIPs'. The successful pilot or co-pilot will join the elite members of The King's Helicopter Flight (TKHF). They will be based at RAF Odiham and be given benefits including a 15% employer contribution pension scheme and five weeks' annual leave. The helicopter is available for all senior royal and use of the Sikorsky S76 C chopper for 179 Royal flights cost 906,000 in the last financial year. The successful pilot or co-pilot will join the elite members of The King's Helicopter Flight (TKHF). (Pictured: King Charles leaving a helicopter) 'As a natural collaborator, you have excellent communication skills and are confident liaising with a wide range of people.' Royal sources said the King is 'pretty allergic' to travelling by helicopter and will always 'raise an eyebrow' and objects when it is suggested. King Charles took a charter plane and a helicopter for his trip to Belfast and around Northern Ireland in May 2021, at a cost of more than 29,600. The new monarch and Queen Consort also flew by helicopter in July that year on their annual visit to Wales, with the bill coming to 15,920. Royal sources said the King is 'pretty allergic' to travelling by helicopter and will always 'raise an eyebrow' and objects when it is suggested. (Pictured: King Charles III and Camilla, the Queen Consort) The King also took a helicopter trip for the 70-mile journey from London to RAF Brize Norton in November ahead of his official visit to Jordan and Egypt. The advert said: 'The King's Helicopter Flight (TKHF) consists of a small team of pilots and ground support, providing the highest standard of helicopter service to Members of the Royal Family on official engagements. 'Joining the team, you will take on the role of either Co-Pilot or Pilot in Command, operating a Sikorsky S76 C++ helicopter.' The Sakharov Prize was awarded for the first time in 1988 to Nelson Mandela Award recognises person who dedicated their lives to defence of human rights Up against Ukrainian President Zelensky and Brazilian activist Sonia Guajajara WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are among seven nominees for a prestigious EU human rights award. The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought is an honorary prize awarded to an individual or group who has dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights. Fellow nominees for the 2022 prize are the people of Ukraine, the Truth Commission in Colombia, Brazilian activist Sonia Guajajara and the late Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot and killed on the job in May 2022. In 2021, the prize was awarded to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for his efforts against corruption and the Kremlin's human rights abuses. Mr Assange's wife Stella, speaking from Brussels where the nominees were announced, said: 'Julian's nomination is testament to the support he has from human rights groups around the world as well as the respect he has for his work.' WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (pictured) has been nominated for The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought The WikiLeaks founder is being detained in London's Belmarsh prison fighting a lengthy legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States - where he faces up to 175 years on espionage charges. In April 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing documents supplied by a U.S. Army intelligence analyst which included Afghanistan war logs and Guantanamo Bay files. He has won support from human rights organisations, activists and media outlets around the world for his investigations. Mrs Assange revealed on Monday her husband has tested positive for Covid and faces days being isolated in his prison cell. Sabrina Pignedoli and 40 other EU lawmakers came together to nominate Mr Assange for his work. He stands to win 50,000 in prize money if chosen. But Mr Assange faces stiff competition for the prize. One nomination is for President Zelensky personally for 'his bravery, endurance and devotion to his people and to European values' The people of Ukraine have received three separate nominations for their courage in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression. One nomination is for President Zelensky personally for 'his bravery, endurance and devotion to his people and to European values'. A separate nomination is dedicated to State Emergency Services of Ukraine; Yulia Pajevska, founder of the evacuation medical unit Angels of Taira; human rights activist Oleksandra Matviychuk; the Yellow Ribbon Civil Resistance Movement; and Ivan Fedorov, the former mayor of the Ukrainian city of Melitopol. Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera who was shot dead while covering a raid by the Israel Defence Forces on the Jenin refugee camp, has also received a posthumous nomination. Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera who was shot dead while covering a raid by the Israel Defence Forces on the Jenin refugee camp, has also received a posthumous nomination She was one of the most prominent reporters in the Arab-speaking world and worked for the organisation for 25 years, primarily covering the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ms Abu Akleh was shot dead on the job while wearing a press vest in a tragedy which sparked widespread condemnation. Brazilian environmental and Indigenous activist Sonia Guajajara has also received a nod for her work. Ms Guajajara is calling for the protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples to control their land. The Sakharov Prize was awarded for the first time in 1988 to Nelson Mandela and Anatoli Marchenko. It is named in honour of Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov. The top three finalists will be announced on October 13 followed by an award ceremony in Strasbourg on December 14, where the winner will be announced. A Long Island boutique owner ran a $40 million counterfeiting scam which saw her iron Gucci, Chanel and Prada and other designer labels onto cheaper items of clothing - then pass them off as the real deal, prosecutors say. Lindsay Castelli Bullock, who owns Linny's Boutique in Plainview, was arrested Tuesday, with the 31 year-old now facing second-degree counterfeiting charges. The mom-of-four's store was raided October 4. There, Nassau County detectives are said to have found 22 printing press machines used to create the fake labels, which were heat-sealed on garments with an iron. Nearby were knockoff items of clothing and jewels Bullock is said to have falsely passed-off as being genuine Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Dior, Ugg, and Louis Vuitton. 'They would take a hat, a $3 hat or a 50 cent item on the side here, and they would seal it onto the hat, and sell it for $300,' Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder told Newsbreak. Cops said the combined value of the counterfeit clothing would have been $40 million, had Bullock managed to convince her customers that it genuine, and sell it. In addition to her sparse gray retail store, Bullock also allegedly ran the scheme through a private Facebook group called Shop Linnys, which had 5,000 members. Once approved to join, prospective shoppers were bombarded with statuses showing Bullock herself modeling what she claimed to be designer gear, while encouraging them to snap it up. But s antics also caught the attention of cops, who began probing her business in April 2021. They called in United States Postal Inspectors to help with the probe, which likely involved packages being seized so their contents then evaluated to see if they were genuine. Having decided Bullock was a scammer, detectives mounted the raid. Lindsay Bullock was arrested on Friday in a $40M counterfeit operation in Long Island scheme where she 'sold fake Gucci, Chanel, Prada and other high-end labels through her boutique' On December 16, 2020 Bullock posts information about her grand opening that garnered 150 comments The mother of four from Smithtown, New York, now faces a charge of trademark counterfeiting in the second degree. Bullock was released on a desk appearance ticket and due back in court on November 2 at First District Court in Hempstead Bullock is pictured sitting in what appears to be her store room, with cops saying the clothing she sold was all counterfeit On September 22 Bullock posted a photo of herself in ripped denim light blue-washed jeans and a grey-blue button oversized blouse sharing her latest update: 'Sit back, relax and shop with me while sippin' a glass of wine,' she wrote. 'The new LIVE schedule is set to start and starts 9/25!' Here's the perks,' she continued. On September 8, she issued a post telling her inner circle to download her app and sign up to register 'by midnight; and when they do, they will receive a $25 shop credit! The posting had a picture that said: 'Follow the steps! Everyone is a winner.' On December 16, 2020, Castille went to Facebook to share her boutique's grand opening and also share a personal message to her audience. 'Sometimes you just have to say eff it all and start over. Not worry about what everyone will say or think. Block out the negativity and those that don't believe.' Here's to new beginnings and new ventures. Her post garnered 414 views and 150 comments. During the search, detectives removed 22 printing press machines and various counterfeit items labeled from Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Dior, Ugg, and Louis Vuitton A photo of the boutique interior, located at 1032 Old Country Road in Plainview. During the raid, detectives discovered thousands of synthetic heat-sealed counterfeit labels along with assorted clothing and jewelry, it is alleged Catelli often showed the latest merchandise that arrived at her Plainview boutique on her website and through her private group, Shop Linny's, that had 5K members Before she was caught in her scheme, Castelli had a private group called, Shop Linny's that garnered up to 5.0K members. The only way to be part of this exclusive members-only group is to be granted access by an administrator A post from September 22 (pictured) of Bullock in ripped denim light blue-washed jeans and a gray-blue button oversized blouse sharing her latest update. It was to be her final update before being arrested October 4 On August 9, Bullock posted some of her new arrivals that included high-fashion boots, shoes, sneakers. Cops say they were all counterfeit fakes On her Facebook pages Bullock writes 'A Girl Should Be Two Things: Classy and Fabulous,' while wearing different outfits as she showcases her Fall arrivals Last year, when Bullock needed some extra help she went to her social media looking for new hires: 'Who loves clothes, is outgoing, wants extra cash, fun to be around and knows how to have a good time?! she wrote. 'I am hiring 5 of you to work part time! FLEXIBLE schedule, hourly plus commission, must be able to report to Plainview for your desired hours, work as much or as little as you would like but while youre working youve gotta kill it!,' he said. 'Interested?! Drop a comment below and Ill send you the details.' No-one else has been arrested as part of the probe into Bullock's alleged counterfeiting. The news of Castelli's counterfeit bust sent shockwaves through Plainview, Merrick, Dix Hills, Bethpage area - and other neighboring towns in Nassau County. 'I was surprised,' said one woman who heard the news and told DailyMail.com that she had been to the store about a month ago. Some told DailyMail.com that they remember when the store was under a different name. They also said that they thought it was odd that all the items on the floor were on sale. One woman said that when she stopped at the Plainview boutique a few a few weeks ago, 'everything was on clearance.' She said when she returned to the boutique with her daughter, the store was closed. Castelli has been released on a desk appearance ticket and due back in court on November 2 at First District Court in Hempstead. A Guatemalan man, suspected of being in the country illegally, was formally charged Tuesday in last week's fatal stabbing spree on the Las Vegas Strip. Yoni Barrios, 32, was charged Tuesday with two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder for his deadly rampage on the Las Vegas Strip last Thursday. Prosecutors say he stabbed five women posing as showgirls along with a group of tourists with a 12-inch knife outside the Wynn Las Vegas. He claimed he wanted to 'let the anger out' after he thought people were laughing at him for wanting to take a picture with the showgirls, according to a police report. Las Vegas showgirl Maris DiGiovanni, 30, and Brent Hallett, 47, died in the rampage, and four other Las Vegas showgirls and two tourists were injured. Barrios is now being held without bail, as the Public Defender's Office evaluates whether he is competent enough to stand trial. 'To be honest, the question about competency, I'm not sure he could answer those questions,' Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee said at the arraignment, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. He said Barrios will now be interviewed by psychologists, and Coffee hopes to have a determination about Barrios' ability to stand trial before a preliminary hearing on January 12. In the meantime, though, prosecutors have 30 to 60 days to determine whether to seek the death penalty, according to KNTV. Yoni Barrios, 32, was charged Tuesday with two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder for his deadly rampage on the Las Vegas Strip last Thursday He is now being held without bail as lawyers work to determine whether he is competent to serve trial Prosecutors say he stabbed four women posing as showgirls along with a group of tourists with a 12-inch knife outside the Wynn Las Vegas He is being represented by the Public Defenders Office, led by Scott Coffee, left, and Jeff Maningo, right Maris Mareen Digiovanni, 30, (pictured) was stabbed to death in the broad daylight attack, which also claimed the life of Brent Allan Hallett, 47 Mass stabbing suspect in court The suspect accused of killing two people and wounding six others in a mass stabbing is appearing in court for arraignment. READ MORE: https://www.ktnv.com/news/crime/suspect-in-mass-stabbing-set-to-be-arraigned-in-court Posted by KTNV Channel 13 Action News on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 Authorities say Barrios' rampage began at around 11.40am local time when the showgirls were said to have been greeting tourists outside the Wynn. The suspect had reportedly told the girls he was a chef, wearing a chef's long-sleeved white jacket and carrying the knife. He allegedly told the showgirls he wanted to take a picture with them, and when they refused he started stabbing. Several of the victims then started running away from the scene, KNTV reports, when he knifed them before leaving A total of eight people were stabbed in the rampage, according to Captain Dori Koren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, before Barrios fled down Las Vegas Boulevard, headed towards Sands Boulevard. He was held by Sands security guard until the police arrived, and was arrested 'very quickly,' Koren said. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents later told FOX News Barrios is in the United States illegally. Court documents exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com also revealed that he was charged in 2019 with criminal domestic violence by Los Angeles district attorney Jackie Lacey, who has since left office. A criminal docket for Barrios obtained by DailyMail.com shows he was charged in July 2019 with criminally injuring a spouse, cohabitant or fellow parent in an act of domestic violence. If charged as a felony, perpetrators can be sentenced to up to four years in prison. Barrios docket says the alleged incident occurred on August 18, 2018. Lacey filed the case a year later, but the first pre-trial hearing was left until more than two years later on April 8 2021. Barrios is suspected of being in the United States illegally, and has a prior criminal record in California. He is pictured here in his mugshot The court documents say Barrios pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial, but was dismissed the same day by the judge because it had languished in the court system for too long. The docket at LA Superior Court cites California Penal Codes 1381, 1381.5 and 1382 for the cases dismissal. According to these codes California Penal Code, prosecutors must bring a case to trial within 60 days of filing an indictment for a felony. The court, unless good cause to the contrary is shown, shall order the action to be dismissed in the following cases In a felony case, when a defendant is not brought to trial within 60 days of the defendants arraignment, PC 1382 says. If Barrios had been put on trial promptly after the case was filed in July 2019 and convicted, he could have faced up to four years in prison, and would not have been free to commit the alleged two murders and six attempted murders with which he was charged this week. Despite the docket information, a Los Angeles DA union executive denied Lacey's office fail[ed] to bring him to trial. Eric Siddall, Vice President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys, told DailyMail.com: If the case was thrown out by the judge, it was probably because of witness issues. Horrific photos and video from the scene of the October 6 stabbing show a showgirl being led into an ambulance Authorities say the attack occurred in broad daylight at 11.40am local time when the showgirls were said to have been greeting tourists outside the Wynn Casino Following the stabbing, he fled south towards Sands Boulevard And just two days before the tragic incident, Barrios was apparently caught on camera by a television news station in Los Angeles, asking for the cameraman's help. 'He kept telling me: "I just want a chance, I just want to start from scratch,'" Telemundo 52 cameraman Jorge Lopez told his station following the fatal stabbing. Lopez was on assignment in downtown Los Angeles outside city hall last Tuesday, when he was approached by a man who identified himself as Yoni Barrios. Speaking Spanish, Barrios asked Lopez for help, claiming he just lost his home and all of his belongings. Barrios later told Las Vegas Metropolitan Police he went to the city to move in with a friend, who ultimately refused to let him stay at the house. He then packed his bag, and took a bus to the strip where the rampage occurred. The suspect also told detectives he was from Guatemala and wanted ICE to take him home, according to a report released by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD). Just two days before the fatal stabbing, he was caught on camera by a television news station in Los Angeles, asking for the cameraman's help Horrific videos and photos from the scene showed what appeared to be one of the showgirls in a pool of blood outside the resort. Medics were seen desperately working on her in front of horrified onlookers while other images showed a woman being whisked away on a stretcher. At least one of the victims was transported to University Medical Center, where loved ones were seen going in in tears. Speaking to the media in the immediate aftermath, Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief James LaRochelle said: 'As you can imagine we have scores of witnesses to continue to get statements from and we have a number of video surveillance we have to get through in the immediate future.' He described a short video showing the suspect stabbing the showgirls before heading south and stabbing an additional victim. He was pursued by witnesses prior to his arrest. Cops then swooped on the Venetian resort, and arrested Barrios with blood coated all over his sleeves. Medics were seen desperately working on her in front of horrified onlookers while other images showed a woman being whisked away on a stretcher. At least one of the victims was transported to University Medical Center, where loved ones were seen going in in tears. LaRochelle said in the press conference: 'We wanted to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the victims themselves.' He added: 'This is clearly a very tragic and hard to understand, hard to comprehend murder investigation that deeply impacts our community.' Cole Jordan, 29, the husband of Maris DiGiovanni gathered for a vigil following her death He held back tears near a photo montage and burning candles of his late wife The two had traveled the world together, before moving to Las Vegas two years ago For Carmelita Hallett, Brent's wife, the tragedy had come after 28 years together as they were starting to enjoy their retirement together. The couple from Alberta, Canada, had decided to take their retirement early at the height of the COVID pandemic 18 months ago, Global News reports, with a trip around the world. Their last stop would be in Vegas where they were married in 1999, and where they wanted the most time. They were set to return to Alberta in just 15 days when Brent was stabbed on October 6 as he walked down the Vegas Strip. 'He just turned to me and said, "I don't think I'm going to make it," Carmelita recounted of the moments after the fatal stabbing. Brent was described as a funny man by Carmelita's aunt, Andrea Benoit. 'He'd make you laugh over the silliest thing,' she said. 'Brent was a great soul and a great spirit. 'He brought laughter and fun times to a lot of people.' Brent had worked as a businessman who spent most of his time in Edmonton and the central Alberta regions. Above all else, loved ones say, he loved his wife, his family and animals. 'He loved all animals and love donkeys and rabbits, and just different kinds of animals.' His fqamily is now starting an animal rescue charity in his name. Until then, Hallett's family said, anyone who wants to honor his memory could donate to the House Rabbit Society in his name. DiGiovanni was one of the showgirls attacked outside the Wynn Casino last week She is remembered as the 'life of any gathering' who 'brightened every space she touched' DiGiovanni, meanwhile, had grown up in Spokane, Washington, where she loved to sled and build snowmen in the winters and watch sunsets in the summer. After graduating from Washington State University, the Reno Gazette Journal reports, she began traveling the world, making lifelong friendships throughout Europe and Asia. She and her husband, Cole Jordan, 29, eventually settled in Hong Kong for a while before moving to Las Vegas two years ago. It was an 'obvious next home base' for Maris, her brother, Gage DiGiovanni told the Journal, because of her 'passion for concerts and festivals. 'Maris was always the life of any gathering,' he said, adding: 'She was a beautiful spirit and soul, and we will miss her for the rest of our lives.' Maris is survived by Gage, her husband Cole, as well as a younger brother, her parents and a sister-in-law. Cheryl Lowthorp, 52, who owns Best Showgirls in Vegas, also paid tribute to her murdered employee and described her as courageous and kind. She also urged acceptance of outsiders such as Barrios, telling the crowd: When people dont feel accepted for who and what they are, this is what happens. Lowthorp has also set up a GoFundMe to cover Maris funeral costs and pay for the other girls medical care. At the time of writing, the page has raised more than $36,000. She wrote on the fundraiser page: Our showgirl family has been wounded beyond reason, the beautiful soul of Maris Digiovanni has been stolen. 'Three other of our girls wounded and hospitalized, but thankfully their lives [are] spared.' A second GoFundMe has been set up by close friend Ariel Bongard who was sharing her Las Vegas home with Maris and Cole at the time of her death. It described her as a 'light in the world, brightening every space she touched. 'Her light will live on and we will always remember her, always.' Local police have increased area patrols as they investigate the incident This is the moment a butterfingers gunman fails to keep a grasp of his weapon after firing two shots into a home. CCTV footage has emerged of the man fumbling the gun out the front of a house in West Yorkshire, early on Tuesday morning. Local police confirmed they are investigating the shooting. They were called to the scene on Clarkson Street, Ravensthorpe, about 1.18am after a resident reported hearing two loud bangs and damage to a window. Firearms officers confirmed the damage was consistent with a shotgun discharge. The suspect was heavily disguised in what looks like a hooded disposable suit similar to that used by police Crime Scene Investigators. Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Inspector Kevin Daly of Firearms Prevent Investigations Team said: 'Thankfully no-one was injured but clearly the criminal use of any firearm in a public place is a very serious matter and something we will not tolerate. 'We are carrying out extensive enquiries to identify those responsible and bring them to justice.' Mr Daly said he understands why the incident could cause concern within the community, but assured residents local police have increased their patrols of the area. The footage has been widely shared on social media and the gunman has been mocked for his handling of the weapon. CCTV footage has emerged of the man fumbling the gun out the front of a house in West Yorkshire, early on Tuesday morning One critic wrote: 'He's lucky he didn't shoot himself with those skills.' Another said: 'So he's an amateur... Clearly no long time use of fire arms... Lucky he didn't shoot himself never mind anyone else's property. 'I'd say it's the first time he's fired a gun from his reaction dropping it... Must be keen to sample some prison food. All caught on CCTV... Don't look that old either.' One person said it likely was the force of the shotgun that forced him to drop it after firing, indicating he was not gripping the gun properly and 'has no knowledge of how to use it'. The footage was reminiscent of a scene in Harry Brown when Michael Caine gains the upper hand over the plastic gangster because the thug cannot work his gun properly. In the scene, Caine delivers the famous line: 'You have failed to maintain your weapon.' 'Days of Our Lives' actor James Lastovic, 27, has been found after he was reported missing by his mother after the actor and his roommate, Nevin Dizdari, disappeared in Hawaii. According to an Instagram story posted by Nevin's sister, Emma Dizdari, the two were found Tuesday morning. 'My sister and James are okay, they got lost on their hike but made it back to their car and are on their way back to the resort now. Thank you everyone for reposting and helping us reach Nevin.' Daily Mail Online reached out to Emma for further information on James and Nevins' conditions but did not hear back. Lucienne Lastovic's, James' mom, was the first to share on social media that the two had gone missing in in Kauai, Hawaii, on Sunday, October 9 after a stay at the Hanalei Bay Resort. James Lastovic and Nevin Dizdari were last seen on October 9 at the Hanalei Bay Resort in Hawaii The pair were set to fly back to California on Monday but never made their flight or returned their rental car. 'This is NOT LIKE THEM! They are both conscientious kids,' the actor's mom, Lucienne Lastovic, said in a Facebook post. Lastovic is most well known for shows like 'Days of Our Lives' and Netflix's 'Insatiable' The actor has played Joey Johnson on the NBC soap opera, starting his role in 2015 Lastovic's role on 'Days of Our Lives' lasted for more than five years, mostly as a recurring character All of their belongings were left at the resort and were last seen by their hostess, Carrie Flanders, on Sunday around 8am. Flanders did hear from them around 1.30pm but that was the last time they have been heard from since. The pair apparently asked for directions and information about the Shipwrecks Beach, specifically asking about the cliff diving area at the beach. They also asked staff at the resort about Koke'e State Park, allegedly hoping to take a 'long trail hike.' Police were immediately called in and took possession of the pair's belongings which were left behind. Daily Mail Online reached out to officials within the Kauai Police Department for comment or updates on the case but did not receive a response by the time of publication. The actor is most well known for his roles on NBC's soap opera 'Days of Our Lives,' but also has had a role in Netflix's 'Insatiable.' The actor's mother said that Lastovic and Dizdari were hoping to check out the cliff diving scene at a Kauai beach, as well as take a 'long trail hike' at Koke'e State Park On 'Days of Our Lives,' Lastovic played Joey Johnson in a recurring role dating back to 2015. His character made appearances over the course of five years. Lastovic also stars alongside Laura Marano and Ron Pearlman in the 2021 thriller, 'This Game's Called Murder.' Dizdari and Lastovic live together in Los Angeles, according to his family, and were set to fly back into LA Monday. Although not confirmed by Emma as the park in which the pair got lost in, Koke'e State Park does cover a massive plot of land that could lend itself to visitors getting lost. Lastovic and his roommate reportedly got lost while on a long hike through a state park According to GoHawaii.com, the park covers 4,345 square miles and is located anywhere from 3,200 to 4,200 feet above sea level. Koke'e also offers some of the 'state's finest hiking trails,' with more than 45 miles worth of trails to explore. 'Along the way, hikers can expect to see lush, native vegetation, views of the ocean, and native birds. Kalalau Valley can also be seen from the park this was the backdrop for Jack Londons short story Koolau the Leper,' one description of the state park reads. Shadowy eco-warriors have set up a bizarre European cup competition sabotaging SUV vehicles. Climate zealots Tyre Extinguishers have stepped up their war on 4x4s after launching a massive recruitment drive. It has led to protesters setting up a leader board of attacks with activists in Paris claiming they are challenging Bristol and Brighton for the title of most extinguished city. After boasting of disarming more than 120 vehicles in just one night this week activists in France issued a rallying cry. Shadowy eco-warriors have set up a bizarre European cup competition sabotaging SUV vehicles Climate zealots Tyre Extinguishers have stepped up their war on 4x4s after launching a massive recruitment drive They wrote on Twitter: Forget the Champions League, take part in the Extinguishers Cup. Finally a Parisian club that is successful in a European competition! The group has also boasted of hitting a series of celebrity targets in their actions including EastEnders star Jessie Wallace and TV presenter Mariella Frostrup. Last week Mariella, 59, hit out at the group on social media saying: So my tyres were deflated by a bunch of idiotic eco warriors hellbent on alienating the people who support them! And its taken Royal Automobile seven hours so far to come to my emergency! Not really what you call an emergency service! World gone mad. The group responded saying they had happened upon the vanity vehicle of Guardian agony aunt Mariella Frostrup. They said it seemed increasingly hard to do any deflating in London without hitting a massive vehicle belonging to a celebrity. It added: Mariella, why are you driving a tank in a city like London? Take the bus like the rest of us! It has led to protesters setting up a leader board of attacks with activists in Paris claiming they are challenging Bristol and Brighton for the title of most extinguished city The group has also boasted of hitting a series of celebrity targets in their actions including EastEnders star Jessie Wallace and TV presenter Mariella Frostrup MailOnline can reveal that while the group have hidden details of who their website is operated by they are represented by American attorney Alan Korn The climate activists began actions in March and boast that they have disarmed SUV vehicles in more than 10 countries across the world. They claim they have no leader and insist anyone can take part, wherever they are, by following simple instructions on their website. MailOnline can reveal that while the group have hidden details of who their website is operated by they are represented by American attorney Alan Korn. He is based in Berkeley California and is a specialist in intellectual property issues. Mr Korn has been approached by MailOnline for comment. The groups website sets out a saboteurs Manuel for carrying out nighttime raids to target SUVs by covertly deflating their tyres. Victims claim their tyres have been slashed by attackers who have left leaflets claiming to be from the group. Others claim the group has also targeted mobility vehicles. In a call to arms, organisers say they need people everywhere deflating 4x4 tyres week in, week out. Potential recruits are urged to target posh/middle class areas. Rookie activists are encouraged to work under cover of darkness and take along friends who should act in pairs to avoid conspicuously large groups. The climate activists began actions in March and boast that they have disarmed SUV vehicles in more than 10 countries across the world Attackers are encouraged to print out the leaflet from the website to place under the victims windscreen wipers. They are then encouraged to anonymously contact news outlets using a free secure email service to boast about their actions. A video demonstration has also been prepared and recruits are told they can practise their sabotage on bicycles first. It goes on to give helpful advice to potential recruits on how to spot an SUV saying they are easy to recognise as they are much larger than ordinary cars. Common, but not universal, characteristics include that they are taller than most cars and have higher ground clearance. It also lists common brands including Land Rover Discovery, Volvo, Jeep, Nissan and Toyota. Rookie activists are encouraged to work under cover of darkness and take along friends who should act in pairs to avoid conspicuously large groups Activists are told that hybrid and electric cars are also fair game as there are not enough rare earth metals to replace everyones car and the mining of these metals causes suffering. The group says its tactics: We are people from all walks of life with one aim: To make it impossible to own a huge polluting 4x4 in the worlds urban areas. We are defending ourselves against climate change, air pollution and unsafe drivers. We do this with a simple tactic: Deflating the tyres of these massive, unnecessary vehicles, causing inconvenience for their owners. The group says it is taking action as governments and politicians have failed to protect us from these huge vehicles. The 'Tyre Extinguisher' mob working its way down the UK: Latest eco-warrior branch slashing wheels on thousands of 4x4s from Scotland to Bristol and London in bid to 'make it impossible to own an SUV in urban areas' By Jack Wright The scale of the 'tyre deflation' craze sweeping Britain is laid bare today as MailOnline shows how thousands of people have been targeted by eco-zealots slashing the tyres of their SUVs in multiple cities - from London, Birmingham and Edinburgh to Sheffield and even Dundee. Activists from Tyre Extinguishers, a vigilante group of climate change protesters with an unknown number of subscribers, sneak out into the dead of night in affluent areas of the country and deflate the tyres of 'gas-guzzling' 4x4s including Range Rovers, Mazdas and Volkswagens. In pursuit of their wild goal of 'making it impossible to own an SUV in the world's urban areas', the activist cell has slashed the wheels of thousands of vehicles. By their own estimate, Tyre Extinguishers had wrecked around 2,000 SUVs - and their actions do not appear to have abated since. On September 7 this year, for instance, the eco-activists claimed they had targeted around 250 SUVs - around 50 in Edinburgh, 90 in Bristol and 100 in other UK locations including London - in one night, which appears to have been a bumper day. This year so far, the group have targeted cars in Islington, Wimbledon, Chelsea, Harley Street, Hampstead Heath, Notting Hill, Belgravia, Muswell Hill and Wood Green in London; Merchiston, Marchmont, Brunstfield and Portobello in Edinburgh; Clifton, Westbury Park and Henleaze in Bristol; and Hove, Woodlindgean, Preston Park, Seven Dials, Withdean and East Brighton in Brighton and Hove. They have also picked on 4x4 owners in Greystones in Sheffield; West Didsbury in Manchester; Bacup in Lancashire; Birmingham; and Craigiebarns and Broughty Ferry in remote Dundee. This year so far, Tyre Extinguishers have targeted cars in Islington, Wimbledon, Chelsea, Harley Street, Hampstead Heath, Notting Hill, Belgravia, Muswell Hill and Wood Green in London; Merchiston, Marchmont, Brunstfield and Portobello in Edinburgh; Clifton, Westbury Park and Henleaze in Bristol; and Hove, Woodlindgean, Preston Park, Seven Dials, Withdean and East Brighton in Brighton and Hove. They have also picked on 4x4 owners in Greystones in Sheffield; West Didsbury in Manchester; Bacup in Lancashire; Birmingham; and Craigiebarns and Broughty Ferry in remote Dundee The Tyre Extinguishers have deflated more than 2,000 SUVs Tales of woe: The hard-hit SUV owners whose 4x4s have been targeted by tyre-slashing zealots Among the hardest hit were those in Brighton. Boasting not just the country's only Green MP but a Green council to boot, the city was last year voted the UK's most eco-friendly. So imagine the shock of residents living in one of its most middle-class suburbs when they awoke on Tuesday morning to discover that they, of all people, had been branded enemies of the environment. Katie Wood, who found that three tyres on her Kia Sportage had been let down, was one of them. An educational psychologist, she was two hours late for work as she tracked down a portable pump and then headed to a garage to top up her tyres. 'I'd use public transport if I could but, because I work in a variety of different locations, I need a car to travel,' said the 41-year-old. 'My car can in no way be described as a 'Chelsea Tractor'. It has a relatively small engine and its emissions are low.' She added: 'The tactics used on this occasion are wrong. Everyone wants to help reduce climate change and are doing what they can but in order to effect real change they should be winning hearts and minds.' Nearby, Rob Derkin was equally outraged at being singled out. When he left to take his daughter to college he spotted that three tyres on his Volkswagen T-Roc were flat. Unscrewing the valve caps, he discovered telltale dried legumes within. 'It's ridiculous that they targeted this car because it has a 1-litre engine and low emissions,' the 58-year-old music composer said. 'I specifically chose it because of its low emissions. 'All this campaign serves to do is make people angry and reinforces the image of activists. It reeks of student idealism - it's so Brighton that a lentil was involved.' He added: 'If they're going to continue with this campaign then they need to brush up on what cars have high emissions and which ones to avoid because at the moment they are targeting the wrong people.' It was a point echoed by Neil Longuet-Higgins, 61, who was moving house on Tuesday morning and spotted one of the tyres on his Porsche Cayenne was flat as he went to meet the removals van. The car is a hybrid, meaning it can travel around 20 miles on battery power alone. 'The car I had before was a diesel but I changed it and because I live and work around Brighton I only really use the electric element of the car,' he said. The disruption caused by the flat tyre ended up costing him more than 500. Driving to two garages in vain to find an air pump caused damage to the tyre, forcing him to pay 250 for a replacement. Because of the delay, he also had to pay the removal firm for an extra two hours of their time. Advertisement Precisely who is behind the new shadowy group, which claims to be leaderless, remains unclear. But their decision to take direct action that affects the lives of ordinary members of the public mimics the tactics of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Insulate Britain, whose protests have gridlocked cities and roads in recent years. While the Tyre Extinguishers deny they are affiliated to any other organisation, when it set up a Twitter account last summer, the very first group it followed was XR. Some of the SUVs that have had their tyres let down also included electric and hybrids. Iren Brown from Brighton, had to cancel a hospital appointment after her and her husband Nick woke up to find all four tyres on the family's part-electric Toyota Rav 4 had been deflated by activists. Mrs Brown, 43, said: 'The Toyota is a hybrid electric car which we bought because we were being mindful of the environmental impact our previous diesel car was having. But these activists have not taken that into consideration. I'm so angry because everyone is behind their cause but their tactics are indiscriminate and scattershot.' The mother-of-two, a kitchen designer, added: 'Nick is quite a serious diabetic and we may have need to access a vehicle in an emergency. Their actions could have been dangerous.' Globally, the number of SUVs has increased from less than 50 million in 2010 to around 320 million last year - equivalent to the total car fleet of Europe. Because of their size, on average, SUVs consume around a quarter more energy than medium-sized cars. A 2019 study by the International Energy Agency found that they rank among the top contributors to energy-related carbon dioxide emissions growth over the past decade - cancelling out the reductions from people switching to electric cars. Because of their size, they are also said to be more dangerous when involved in an accident. According to the climate vigilante group, action was taken 'all over the world' but the locations targeted for the vandalism were largely within the UK, with most SUV tyres deflated in Bristol. Outrageously, The Tyre Extinguishers have said that even electric and hybrid SUVs are 'fair game'. The group considers electric and hybrid SUVs unsafe in urban areas, dramatically stating that 'a child killed by a massive SUV doesn't care if it's electric or not.' The vigilantes also claim that there are 'not enough rare earth metals' to build electric and hybird cars to replace conventional cars with them, and that 'the danger to other road users still stands'. According to the protest group, they have been operating for six months. Marion Walker, a Tyre Extinguishers spokesperson, said: 'Six months in and 9,000 SUVs later, our movement is just beginning.' 'Our strength is that anyone, anywhere can take part using our website,' said the activist group. The date for the night of coordinated vandalism was chosen scrupulously to mark two months before the opening of the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt. 'Politely asking for climate action, clean air and safer streets has failed,' according to the protest group. 'If enough people join us, it will be impossible to own an SUV in the world's urban areas, and we'll see these death machines piling up on the scrapheap.' The Tyre Extinguishers demand to see bans on SUVs in urban areas, pollution levies to tax SUVs out of existence, and massive investment in free, comprehensive public transport. SUVs feature elements of standard cars but are larger and have off-road capabilities such as high ground clearance. Petrol and diesel-powered models are generally less fuel efficient than cars. The group have demanded that the government introduce 'bans on SUVs in urban areas, pollution levies to tax SUVs out of existence, and massive investment in free, comprehensive public transport. As a multiple sclerosis sufferer, Kate Basker never quite knows when or how the condition will affect her. 'Most of the time I'm really high-functioning and I walk as much as I can,' the 33-year-old from Bristol says Rob Derkin was equally outraged at being singled out. When he left to take his daughter to college he spotted that three tyres on his Volkswagen T-Roc were flat. Unscrewing the valve caps, he discovered telltale dried legumes within. 'It's ridiculous that they targeted this car because it has a 1-litre engine and low emissions,' the 58-year-old music composer said However, they say: 'Until politicians make this a reality, Tyre Extinguishers action will continue.' Legal experts say that although prosecution is unlikely, the activists could actually be committing a criminal offence. Laura Baumanis, a criminal defence solicitor at legal defence firm Olliers, told MailOnline: 'Whilst it is extremely rare for someone to be prosecuted for letting the air out of a tyre, technically, it could be classed as criminal damage. 'For this offence to be satisfied, any damage caused does not have to be permanent, but is made out by virtue of the fact that steps need to be taken, ordinarily at expense to the owner, for the item to be in a working condition again.' Matthew Nash, tutor at The University of Law, said if the driver failed to notice the flat tyre and drove away, more serious charges could be brought it they crashed. He said: 'Letting out air from someone's tyres is clear criminal damage. Although technically the tyre is not 'damaged', if you do something to someone else's property and they need to do something to restore it, that is Criminal Damage within the meaning of the Criminal Damage Act. 'It is possible that if they let the air out of someone's types so as to cause an accident, there could be more serious charges depending on the resulting damage or injury. 'It is also possible that there could be other offences if this were done to many cars at the same time.' Three police forces have confirmed they are investigating multiple reports of criminal damage in Brighton, Liverpool and Cambridge. Tesla CEO Elon Musk apparently took questions from convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell at a 2014 Vanity Fair party where a now-infamous photo of the two together emerged. Musk, 51, has denied knowing Maxwell several times and has argued on Twitter in the past that she 'photo-bombed' the billionaire and would-be Twitter CEO. A new story sourced to a Vanity Fair staffer, however, said that the two had a conversation at the magazine's Oscar party where the picture was snapped. The staffer claims Maxwell, currently serving her sentence at Florida's FCI Tallahassee prison, asked Musk if there 'were a way to remove oneself from the internet,' according to the New York Times. She then, supposedly, encouraged Musk to 'destroy the internet.' Musk allegedly demurred. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June for assisting Jeffrey Epstein in his elaborate sex trafficking scheme. She is currently serving her time at Florida's low-security FCI Tallahassee prison. Tesla CEO Elon Musk apparently took questions from convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell at a Vanity Fair party where a now-infamous photo of the two together emerged Musk, 51, has denied knowing Maxwell several times and has argued on Twitter in the past that she 'photo-bombed' the billionaire and would-be Twitter CEO To wrap up their chat nearly 10 years ago, Maxwell allegedly asked Musk why aliens had yet to make contact with humans. The tech mogul's response, the staffer said, was that 'all civilizations eventually end' - including potential alien ones - and even suggested humans live in a simulation. Musk has addressed the photo a few times after being accused of befriending Maxwell, known as billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's right-hand woman, with the photo as evidence. He added context and an alibi in a second tweet, saying 'She photobombed me at a Vanity Fair Oscar party. Was there with Tallulah Riley. Dont know Ghislaine at all. Why do you think it should be a bigger story?' Riley, Musk's second wife and an actress who starred on HBO's Westwood, also denied knowing Maxwell in a statement on Twitter. In July 2020, Musk tweeted in response to someone asking about the photo, 'Dont know Ghislaine at all. She photobombed me once at a Vanity Fair party several years ago. Real question is why VF invited her in the first place.' Tallulah Riley, Musk's second wife and an actress who starred on HBO's Westwood, also denied knowing Maxwell in a statement on Twitter Musk has addressed the photo a few times after being accused of befriending Maxwell, known as billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's right-hand woman, with the photo as evidence The Vanity Fair party was thrown by then-editor-in-chief, Graydon Carter who was also in charge of the magazine in 2002 when a profile of Epstein that included sexual assault allegations were suddenly cut. The article by journalist Vicky Ward included allegations against Maxwell and Epstein by two sisters, Annie and Marie Farmer. 'Separately, each told me that Epstein had sexually abused both of them, Annie when she was just 15. I believed them and I wanted to publish their story, but to my dismay, the sisters' allegations did not make into my Vanity Fair article,' Ward wrote for The Daily Mail in 2021. According to Ward, Carter told her that the publication's lawyers didn't believe her reporting was 'sufficient,' even though she maintains she had 'three sources supporting their allegations.' Epstein had appeared in the magazine's offices himself prior to the edit. 'It is, to say the least, highly unusual for the subject of an investigative magazine article to appear in the offices of the outlet profiling them and perhaps especially in the editor's office,' Ward wrote. 'Did the impeccably well-connected Epstein put pressure on the magazine to drop any hint of the sexual abuse I had uncovered about him? I don't know.' In the autumn of 2002, I was assigned to write an article for Vanity Fair magazine about an intriguing and very rich man called Jeffrey Epstein. I soon discovered that Ghislaine had had a complicated relationship with Epstein for over a decade Maxwell, 60, was convicted after the FBI brought charges against her of enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls, related to her association with the late pedophile Epstein. She was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. To add to her woes, lawyers the small Colorado-based firm HMF - who say they represented Maxwell in lawsuits brought by victims of her former boyfriend Epstein dating back to 2017 - are now suing her family for $850,000. Four women gave evidence against Maxwell during her weeks-long trial: a victim known as 'Jane', Annie Farmer, Kate and another woman called Carolyn. Over three weeks, the jury heard how Maxwell 'served up' underage girls for Epstein and relished her role as the 'Lady of the House' at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Between 1994 and 2004, lawyers argued Maxwell was Epstein's 'right hand' and paid $200 for sexualized massages or even took part in the abuse. The victims, some as young as 14, were given a similar amount of money if they brought friends to Epstein, the jury was told. During the trial, prosecutors called 24 witnesses to give jurors a picture of life inside Epstein's homes - a subject of public fascination and speculation ever since his 2006 arrest in Florida in a child sex case. Ghislaine Maxwell's trial lawyers are suing her family for $850,000 in unpaid legal fees, and accuse them of hiding her multi-million dollar fortune. Pictured: Maxwell is seen with convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein, who died in in 2019 Maxwell said in court prior to her sentencing that Epstein 'fooled all of those in his orbit' Maxwell was accused of trafficking and recruiting young girls for Epstein to sexually exploit Maxwell had grown up a British socialite, the daughter of publishing baron Robert Maxwell. Her lawyers have claimed that his sudden death in 1991 made her susceptible to becoming exploited by Epstein A housekeeper testified he was expected to be 'blind, deaf and dumb' about the private lives of Epstein, a financier who cultivated friendships with influential politicians and business tycoons. Pilots took the witness stand and dropped the names of luminaries - Britain's Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump - who flew on Epstein's private jets. Jurors also saw physical evidence like a folding massage table once used by Epstein and a 'black book' that listed contact information for some of the victims under the heading 'massages'. There were bank records showing he had transferred $30.7 million to Maxwell. Additionally, prosecutors produced a 58-page household manual covering every single aspect of running the house in Palm Beach that they indicated Maxwell had written. There were dozens of checklists for each area of the house, instructions on when to replace the toothpaste and what brands of creams to buy. Recently, at the Party and Mass Service Center Square of Zhongcun Village, Qingshan Township, Dongzhi County, Anhui Province, the "One Village a Week" free clinic campaign carried out by the TCM Hospital of Dongzhi County General Hospital attracted more than 200 villagers to come to consult and seek medical treatment. "The campaign mainly includes free consultation by medical experts, publicity of health knowledge, special training, etc., vigorously promote the application of appropriate techniques of TCM, consolidate and improve the comprehensive service capacity of TCM, so that patients can receive effective treatment at the grassroots level." Dongzhi County General Hospital Party Committee Secretary Jiang Lufeng told reporters. Some time ago, Zhao Shiying, a resident of Yanghu Town, Dongzhi County, had a sudden cerebral infarction that caused the corners of his mouth to be crooked. During the "One Village a Week" activity, experts suggested that he go to the Chinese Medicine Hall of the Town Health Center for rehabilitation. After more than two courses of treatment, his condition has been alleviated. "The 'One Village a Week' campaign not only allows the masses to enjoy the diagnosis and treatment of TCM experts at their doorstep but also creates a good atmosphere for the grassroots masses to believe in TCM and seek TCM treatment." Hao Yingui, president of the Yanghu Town Health Center, told reporters. Reported by Ruan Mengyue Edited and translated by Zheng Chen Students head to an elementary school in Seoul, May 2. Korea Times file President Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday he will allow all schools to participate in a national scholastic performance test amid a sharp increase in underperforming teenagers. Yoon made the remark at a Cabinet meeting, citing an increase of over 40 percent in the number of high school students who failed to meet standards in math and English last year compared with 2017. The national scholastic performance test was abolished under the previous government of President Moon Jae-in amid criticism it caused stratification among schools. In its place, the Moon administration introduced a sampling method that tested only 3 percent of students in the third year of middle school and the second year of high school. "A basic level of education is essential for our children to live as free citizens," Yoon told his Cabinet at the presidential office. "If we hide behind the criticism of stratification and neglect our children's education, the future of the Republic of Korea will be dark." Proponents of the national performance evaluation have pointed to its benefits in accurately assessing each student's performance level. "We will allow all schools that wish to do so to take part in the full-scale scholastic performance test that was abolished under the previous government," Yoon said. "The state will bear responsibility and create a safety net for basic education by providing education tailored to each student." Yoon recalled it was his campaign pledge to build a nation where young people can dream and fully demonstrate their capabilities. "We must not forget for a moment that the responsibility of ensuring our young people's dreams are not dashed lies with me, our Cabinet members and our government," he said after mentioning his meetings with young farmers in the central city of Sangju last week. "We must place a ladder of hope so that young people can design their future from a fair starting line," he added. "Instead of short-term jobs, we must create good quality jobs that are led by the private sector, and instead of implementing policies that simply hand them rental housing and cash, we must help them acquire their own homes and accumulate assets." (Yonhap) Four former employees of a Mississippi day care are now under investigation by the state and the county sheriff's office. Videos posted to Facebook show one worker at Lil' Blessings Child Care & Learning Center in Hamilton wearing a Halloween mask and yelling inches away from the children in their care. In one of the horrific videos that surfaced on social media earlier last week, the employee, who identified herself as 'CeeCee' in a recent apology video, is seen grabbing children who were running away in terror. Liz Sharlot, director of communications at the Mississippi Department of Health, confirmed to the Monroe Journal that the incident is under investigation. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office previously stated they were initially investigating the incident to see if any criminal charges could be filed against the employees. The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment by DailyMail.com. The horrific video released last week shows CeeCee in a Halloween mask terrorizing children other teachers said were 'bad' Multiple students were seen covering their faces while another was hysterical as CeeCee got close to her face A little girl who was attempting to eat her lunch got a fright when a daycare worker in a creepy Halloween mask approached her and yelled in her face Sheila Sanders, who has worked at the day care since 1987 and has owned it for the last 20 years, said she was not aware of the videos until they were circulated online on October 5. 'I contacted my licensure, and she has gotten involved,' Sanders said. 'The people that did those acts are no longer with us. They were fired. I wasn't here at the time and wasn't aware they were doing that. I don't condone that and never have. I just want to say it's been taken care of.' One video was reportedly filmed in September while another was recorded on October 4, the day before both were posted to Facebook. 'No one came forth to tell me it happened in September,' she said. Local parents immediately expressed disgust toward the videos while still supporting the day care. Kimberly Smith, whose child is seen in one video, said she knows '100 percent' that Sanders was unaware of the situation. 'The witch hunt that has been going on for her and the other ones still here, it really needs to stop,' Smith said. 'Was the situation that did happen horrible? Absolutely. But should this day care be shut down and others be villainized that are still here, absolutely not. 'Am I OK with what happened to the extent of what happened? Absolutely not, but I know she took care of it, and my babies are safe here.' The Lil' Blessing Childcare worker in Hamilton, who referred to herself as CeeCee, spoke out in an emotional 19-minute Facebook video to apologize for her actions CeeCee didn't hold back her tears as she explained the toddlers reacted the way they did because they are children. She later said the children were 'her life' Another teacher stood by and pointed to the 'misbehaving toddlers' for CeeCee to handle CeeCee can be seen pointing to the children while asking a fellow teacher if the student by her was misbehaving The malicious stunt began after CeeCee purchased the mask from Dollar General in attempt to scare her coworker. 'Long story short, I bought the masks to scare her eventually and they were used inappropriately,' CeeCee said in a 19-minute apology video. 'But what you all didn't see was after I had left the room, I took it off and I went back into the classroom and I said 'CeeCee got the monster. It's not coming back.' And they would hug me. I known those kids their whole life.' She worked at the facility for four years after first starting when she was 16. Throughout CeeCee's video, she explained the toddlers reacted emotionally because 'they are children.' 'I do want to say an example, I know it seem the way that it does, but it doesn't have to be that way,' CeeCee explained. 'So like, I remember last Christmas there were these kids taking Christmas pictures and they would have the Grinch hiding in the bush over there and it would come out, scare the kids, and they would run - and people thought that was funny essentially it's the same thing. It is the same thing.' She later added: 'They knew it was me, and they had the reaction they did cause they're children and that's it.' CeeCee didn't post the video on her personal social media account but through a third-party user named Richard McCandless. The video was reposted by Ashley Wood of Hamilton whose son attended the day care. Wood stood up for CeeCee and asked the public to halt their slander and death threats toward the former childcare worker Terrified children were seen attempting to run away from the child care teacher as she avoided their sobs The video was reposted by Ashley Wood, whose son attended the day care. Wood stood up for CeeCee and asked the public to stop with the slandering and death threats. 'There will be consequences but it's not our place to judge anyone or even make someone feel so alone and down,' Wood wrote on Facebook. '[It] isn't right. I don't wish cece [sic] no bad on her. Was it wrong YES. I'm not saying it's not and she knows that's - and is what she is trying to get thru to everyone she is truly sorry.' Another woman who has a child in a Mississippi day care reposted the horrific footage of CeeCee scaring toddlers on Facebook after it was taken down. Kelsey Tackett shared the video online while calling for the daycare to be shutdown. 'Now Lil' Blessings - IF THIS HAD OF BEEN. MY CHILD; MIGHT AS WELL LOCK ME UP!!! THIS IS UNCALLED FOR!!!! I feel so bad for those babies & those mamas who will have to comfort their children while they try to sleep tonight & the nights to come,' Tackett wrote. 'Not mention having to find somewhere new for their child to go- excuse my language but I BE DANG*****!! This has made me S I C K !!!' A statement, posted to mixed reactions, from employee Jennifer Kayla Newman Monroe County officials say they are investigating the videos from inside the day care Jennifer Kayla Newman, a daycare worker who claims to have filmed the videos, shared a long response on Facebook Thursday, saying she recorded the incidents not because she thought it was funny, but because she was trying to show parents her coworkers' actions. 'A couple of weeks ago some girls at the daycare bought Halloween masks to scare the kids, they did it and I never got it on video,' she said. The daycare worker went on to claim that her idea to record came from previous 'slaps on the wrist' that were given to her coworkers over issues she brought up to the owners without proof. 'When I heard she was going to do it again, I recorded to get the proof and then the video was sent to parents to show them how their child was being treated,' the woman wrote. 'I did not video this for sh**s and giggles. It was not funny to me. I did not get amusement out of this. The one screaming in the kids faces is NOT me. The one standing next to the girl screaming is NOT me. That laughing in the video is NOT me,' Newman said on Facebook. The Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri are accusing the Biden administration of having 'worked hand-in-hand' with social media giants to 'censor' news stories that reflect negatively on the White House. 'Throughout this case, we have uncovered a disturbing amount of collusion between Big Tech and Big Government,' Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement on Monday. 'This egregious attack on our First Amendment will be met with an equally full-hearted defense of the rights of the American people.' The 164-page lawsuit was filed late last week, but an updated Monday filing indicates that the Republican officials are widening their legal efforts to target 47 more government departments, agencies and officials in addition to the 20 defendants originally listed. President Joe Biden, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Nina Jankowicz, who was meant to head Biden's now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board, are among the dozens of defendants listed in the suit. President Joe Biden and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre are two of the 67 government officials and entities named in Louisiana and Missouri's lawsuit They said the head of Biden's now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board 'has called for more aggressive censorship of election-related speech by social-media platforms, and has implied that social-media censorship of election-related speech should never relent or be reduced' The board's critics had decried it as 'Orwellian' and mocked Jankowicz as the White House's 'Mary Poppins of disinformation' after a social media surfaced of her singing about the dangers of misinformation to the tune of 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.' It's also a central focus of the Republican-led lawsuit, which accuses Jankowicz of arranging a 'cozy' meeting between Twitter executives and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, as well as other top officials, to discuss 'public-private partnerships' and election security. 'Jankowicz has called for more aggressive censorship of election-related speech by social-media platforms, and has implied that social-media censorship of election-related speech should never relent or be reduced,' the lawsuit states. Other topics the Biden administration is accused of working to censor are stories on COVID-19 and more recently, White House officials' insistence that the US economy is not careening toward a downturn. '[S]ocial-media platforms are beginning to censor criticisms of the Biden Administrations attempt to redefine the word recession in light of recent news that the U.S. economy has suffered two consecutive quarters of reduction in GDP,' the suit claims. It points to a Fox News article about Facebook fact-checking an economist who claimed the US was in a recession. 'Thus, Defendants conduct alleged herein has created, with extraordinary efficacy, a situation where Americans seeking to exercise their core free-speech right to criticize the President of the United States are subject to aggressive prior restraint by private companies acting at the bidding of government officials.' The attorneys general argue that such coverage 'is intolerable' by First Amendment standards. Examples of social media 'censorship' in Louisiana and Missouri's lawsuit 'On April 8, 2021, YouTube "deleted a video in which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a handful of medical experts," including Plaintiffs Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, "questioned the effectiveness of having children wear masks to stop the spread of COVID-19."' 'On August 10, 2021, YouTube barred Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) from uploading new videos to the site for seven days, after the ophthalmologist posted a video last week arguing that most masks dont work against the coronavirus.' 'Twitter permanently suspended the account of prominent lockdown critic Alex Berenson, despite repeated reassurances from high-level Twitter executives that his account was safe, just days after Dr. Fauci singled him out as a danger for suggesting young people might reasonably decline the vaccine.' 'Perhaps most notoriously, social-media platforms aggressively censored an October 14, 2020 New York Post expose about the contents of the laptop of (then-Candidate Bidens son) Hunter Biden, which had been abandoned in a Delaware repair shop and contained compromising photos and email communications about corrupt foreign business deals. 'As the New York Post reported at the time, [b]oth Twitter and Facebook took extraordinary censorship measures against The Post on Wednesday over its exposes about Hunter Bidens emails.' Advertisement They also accuse the White House and related entities of running 'open and explicit censorship programs. 'Having threatened and cajoled social-media platforms for years to censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left, senior government officials in the Executive Branch have moved into a phase of open collusion with social-media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social-media platforms under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation,"' the court filing states. Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt are also planning on asking the court Friday to compel several 'key defendants' to be deposed under oath. They accused the 67 defendants of exercising a power imbalance against social media companies by lavishing them with certain benefits and then threatening to take them away if the tech executives did not comply. The lawsuit is being led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (left) and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (right). Both are Republicans The lawsuit argues that social media censorship of stories is harmful to the American public's access to information given how many people rely on such platforms to get their everyday news. It also suggests notes of hypocrisy in what topics are viewed as problematic. For instance, Schmitt and Landry argue that YouTube's misinformation policy is 'openly content and viewpoint-biased' because it censored topics related to 2020 election fraud claims but not videos purporting since-debunked links between the Donald Trump and Russia that circulated during the 2016 election. 'Defendants herein, colluding and coordinating with each other, have also directly coordinated and colluded with social-media platforms to identify disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content and thus have procured the actual censorship and suppression of the freedom of speech,' Landry and Schmitt claim. DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment. At that point, Werksman argued that the toilet in his cell does not work, which Lench denied An attorney representing disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein complained on Tuesday that he is being kept in an 'unsanitary, fetid' cell before being brought back to the jail. Speaking before Judge Lisa B. Lench, attorney Mark Werksman said Weinstein is being held in the 'unsanitary' holding cell for three to four hours, alone in his wheelchair. 'Its almost medieval, the conditions,' Werksman said. 'Im concerned about his health and his ability to survive this ordeal. Hes 70 years old.' 'Im worried about him surviving this ordeal without a heart attack or stroke,' he added, before asking for 'special treatment' for Weinstein, whom he described as a '70-year-old man with health issues.' Lench replied that she will 'talk to the deputies about it.' 'Im not minimizing it, Im just not sure theres a lot to be done.' She later told Werksman's co-counsel, Alan Jackson: 'They dont have an excess of wheelchair vans to come pick him up when hes ready.' But Werksman wouldn't give up, submitting four doctors' letters to the court and suggesting that Weinstein doesn't even have access to a toilet where he's being held. Lench, though, immediately dismissed the claim, saying: 'He's not deprived of a toilet, there's a toilet in the cell. 'I'm not going to let the record reflect that hes deprived of a toilet. Im not going to let the record look like he didnt have access to a toilet.' At that point, Werksman seemed to go back on his original claim, saying he didn't mean to suggest there was no toilet. Instead, he says the one that is provided is 'unhygienic, it is virtually unusable, it is medieval.' The exchange came as the jury selection process continued for Weinstein's Los Angeles sexual assault trial. Twenty-six prospective jurors have already been dismissed from sitting for the trial, scheduled to begin on October 24, after Lench asked the jurors whether they could be impartial leaving 56 potential jurors to return on Monday. Weinstein is seen in a court sketch as his attorney claimed the disgraced film mogul is being held in 'unsanitary, fetid' conditions Weinstein's attorney also said he is 'concerned about his health and his ability to survive this ordeal' as jury selections continued Weinstein waved from his wheelchair in the courtroom yesterday but did not speak throughout the first day of jury selection Of the 67 jurors brought in, 56 were allowed to proceed and 11 were dismissed by the judge Speaking to the prospective jurors on Tuesday, Lench noted that the case 'has garnered some media attention, and I understand you may have received information about this case, and about Mr. Weinstein generally before you came into this courtroom. ' 'You may not, you must not, expose yourself from this point forward to information about this case,' she said. 'The information that is put out there, Im sure everyone makes an effort to be as accurate as possible, but it doesnt always happen that way. Its important that you not be guided by what goes on out there in the world. 'If something comes before you, dont read it, dont listen to it, dont look for it. 'That lasts until such time as you are excused. Once you are excused as a juror you may expose yourself to any information that you choose.' The group had been pre-screened for their ability to serve on the trial, which is set to last for months. But they were required in court on Tuesday to fill out a questionnaire about Weinstein's reputation. After doing so, Lench excused the 15 jurors, and sent a handful of prospective jurors who were still working on the surveys out of the courtroom while Weinstein was dismissed for a bathroom break. Weinstein never returned on Wednesday, and Lench then cleared the courtroom. She had previously dismissed 11 prospective jurors from the trial on Monday. The jury will not be finalized for another two weeks. Opening statements are scheduled for October 24 and the trial is due to last at least a few months. Weinstein faces 11 crimes at this trial and a maximum of 140 years. He is accused of various sexual assaults against five women between 2003 and 2014 in Los Angeles. The case comes at the same time as he is appealing his New York conviction and 23-year sentence. He insists he has never received a fair trial given the unparalleled attention the allegations against him received. Among the women expected to take the stand at the L.A. trial is Gavin Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. She says she was raped by Weinstein in 2005, three years before she married her politician husband. It will be the first time she describes their alleged encounter in detail. She previously told of having 'similar' experiences with Weinstein as his other accusers, but has never given more information about the 2005 incident. Newsom and his wife, left. She has never spoken at length about her experience with Weinstein but is expected to take the stand. Right, Siebel Newsom in the 2008 movie April Fools Day THE LOS ANGELES CHARGES AGAINST WEINSTEIN JANE DOE #1 - Unidentified Italian actress Forced oral copulation - February 18, 2013 Sexual penetration by foreign object - February 18, 2013 Forcible rape against the same woman on the same day - February 18, 2013 JANE DOE #2 Sexual battery - February 19, 2013 JANE DOE #3 Sexual battery by restraint - May 11, 2010. 'Weinstein unlawfully touched an intimate part of Jane Doe #3 while she was unlawfully restrained'. JANE DOE #4 - Jennifer Siebel Newsom Forcible oral copulation - September 2005 Forcible rape - September 2005 JANE DOE #5 Forcible oral copulation November - 2009 Forcible rape - November 2009 Forcible oral copulation - November 2010 Forcible rape - November 2010 Advertisement The Los Angeles Times on Monday reported for the first time that Siebel-Newsom is Jane Doe #4. Weinstein is accused raping and forcing oral sex on her. Elizabeth Fegan, her attorney, said: 'Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap. 'She intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors, and as part of her lifes work to improve the lives of women.' Another of the accusers is Lauren Young, an actress and model who testified at his New York trial. Her attorney, Gloria Allred, confirmed to DailyMal.com that she would be testifying. Siebel Newsom first accused Weinstein of attacking her in a 2017 article for The Huffington Post. 'I was naive, new to the industry, and didnt know how to deal with his aggressive advances,' she wrote at the time. Weinstein, 70 - whos being held at LAs notorious Twin Towers jail - pleaded not guilty to all 11 charges when he first appeared in court in July last year after being extradited from New York where hes serving a 23-year sentence for the rape and sexual assault of two women. The LA charges against him include rape, sexual battery, forced oral copulation and forced sexual penetration involving five un-named women between 2004 and 2013. And with more than 260 people on the prosecutions witness list, the West Coast trial is expected to last up to two months. At a pre-trial court hearing last August, the ex-movie moguls attorney, Mark Werksman, tried to persuade Judge Lisa Lench to delay the trial, contending that a firestorm of publicity about the upcoming Brad Pitt-produced film She Said could prejudice the jury against Weinstein. She Said, opening in theaters November 18, stars Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor who wrote an expose on Weinstein in 2017. And Werksman claimed that billboards, other advertising and social media about the flick will highlight the lurid and negative aspects of this case and could influence a jury against his client. But Judge Lench denied Werksmans motion to postpone the trial till at least January to allow publicity about the movie to die down. I dont think there is gong to be a time when there is not media coverage of this case, the judge told the court. Russian sabotage on western targets could trigger retaliation from Nato, Moscow have been warned. Amid suspicions that Putin's army planted explosives on underwater gas pipelines, the alliance's secretary general warned that Article 5 could be triggered - meaning that all members of the NATO alliance could take action in response. 'Any deliberate attack against Allies' critical infrastructure would be met with a united and determined response,' NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said before Wednesday's meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels. Separately, the UK and its G7 allies accused Putin of war crimes and vowed to hold him accountable on Tuesday, after Russia launched a second day of missile strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine. At a virtual meeting on Tuesday, the G7 said it was 'deeply troubled' by the underwater explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines, which link Russia and Germany and lie on the bed of the Baltic Sea. NATO have been preparing for nuclear drills and has doubled the number of warships in the Baltic Sea to 30 in a show of strength after the 'horrific' Russian bombing raids in Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Moscow on Tuesday they were monitoring Russia's nuclear forces closely as the country was 'losing on the battlefield' in Ukraine. Ahead of a two-day meeting of the Western alliance's defence ministers in Brussels, he added that it had not seen any changes in Russia's nuclear posture, but was 'vigilant'. Stoltenberg described Russia's missile strikes on civilians in Ukraine on Monday as a sign of weakness. 'Russia is actually losing on the battlefield,' he told a news conference, saying it was responding with 'indiscriminate attacks' to Ukrainian advances. NATO had already doubled its presence in the Baltic and the North Seas to over 30 ships supported by aircraft and undersea activities NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Moscow on Tuesday it would meet attacks on allies' critical infrastructure with a 'united and determined response' That view was echoed by US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith. 'President Putin is failing to meet his strategic objectives on the ground and this has been a reoccurring theme for him personally since this war started,' she told an online briefing. The alliance will proceed with its annual nuclear preparedness exercise Steadfast Noon next week, in which NATO air forces practise the use of US nuclear bombs based in Europe with training flights, without live weapons. Cancelling the drills because of the war in Ukraine would send a 'very wrong signal', Stoltenberg said. Russia has made veiled threats of using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, which it invaded on February 24 in what it calls a 'special military operation' to demilitarise its neighbour. 'It's an exercise to ensure that our nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective,' he said. Stoltenberg also pledged to boost the protection of critical infrastructure in response to the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines Stoltenberg described Russia's missile strikes on civilians in Ukraine on Monday as a sign of weakness NATO's military strength, he said, was the best way to prevent any escalation of tensions. Stoltenberg also pledged to boost the protection of critical infrastructure in response to the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, saying NATO had already doubled its presence in the Baltic and the North Seas to over 30 ships supported by aircraft and undersea activities. 'A deliberate attack against allies' critical infrastructure will be met with a united and determined response,' Stoltenberg said. It remains unclear who was behind the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Stoltenberg also urged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to stop his country's 'complicity' in an illegal conflict. Lukashenko said on Monday he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers in the West. Military experts see this as a potential attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces. A 'serial liar' who claimed she was being trafficked for sexual exploitation fabricated messages and caused injuries to herself with a hammer, a court heard. Eleanor Williams, 21, alleged she was the victim of sexual offences and violence and had been trafficked for sexual exploitation across the UK and abroad, a trial at Preston Crown Court heard on Tuesday. The jury was told her allegations were false and injuries she sustained were self-inflicted, in one case with a hammer which police later recovered. Williams, of Barrow-in Furness, Cumbria, denies seven counts of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice. Eleanor Williams, 21, alleged she was the victim of sexual offences and violence and had been trafficked for sexual exploitation across the UK and abroad, a court heard. (Pictured: Preston Crown Court) According to the charges, she made false allegations including that she travelled to Ibiza for the purposes of being sexually exploited, was made to work at a brothel in Amsterdam and was sold at an auction. Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, said Williams was a 'serial liar' who made allegations on a number of occasions between October 2017 and May 2020. He said she fabricated messages in which her alleged abusers, assailants and traffickers appeared to admit offences and in which she appeared to communicate with other trafficking victims. He said she also manipulated phone and social media contacts to make it appear that she was being constantly contacted by males with Asian names about sexual matters. The court heard her allegations of rape against one man, Jordan Trengove, led to him being arrested, charged and kept in custody for three months before proceedings were discontinued. In 2019, Williams was arrested for perverting the course of justice and released pending further investigation, the jury was told. Mr Sandiford said: 'Unfortunately, the fact that her lies and false allegations had been exposed by the police in July 2019 did not cause her to stop. 'Instead, she continued to fabricate evidence to try and make it appear that her false claims of being the victim of trafficking and sexual exploitation were true.' He said she presented herself at railway stations, hospitals and to police in vulnerable and injured states and alleged she had been sexually assaulted or subjected to violence by her traffickers. The court heard that on May 19 2020 Williams was reported missing and was found by police with significant injuries to her face, body and limbs and a badly cut finger. Mr Sandiford said she claimed, to police and on a public Facebook post, that she had been taken to a house in Barrow, gang raped, beaten and attacked with a knife. He said: 'The police made inquiries, as they were bound to do, into what Miss Williams had alleged and they established none of it was true. 'The police established that her injuries had been self-inflicted with a hammer police recovered in fields near to where they had found Ms Williams on the night she had failed to return home.' The trial was adjourned to Wednesday, when the prosecution opening will continue. Georgia Republican Herschel Walker told a strange story about a bull abandoning three pregnant cows at a rally with GOP heavyweight senators, as polls show he is neck-and-neck with incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock. A new Emerson College/The Hill poll found 48 percent of respondents planned to vote for Warnock, 46 for Walker, showing public perception was relatively unfazed by allegations the ex-NFL star convinced one ex-girlfriend to get an abortion and attempted to convince her again. The race is closer than that between Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is trailing 51 to 46 percent. Walker held an event with National Republican Senatorial Campaign (NRSC) chair Rick Scott, Fla., and Sen. Tom Cotton, Ark., in Carrollton, Georgia on Tuesday. In his closing remarks Walker delved into a parable on patriotism about a bull who had impregnated three cows but thought he needed more: Georgia Republican Herschel Walker told a strange story about a bull abandoning three pregnant cows at a rally with GOP heavyweight senators, as polls show he is neck-and-neck with incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock A new Emerson College/The Hill poll found 48 percent of respondents planned to vote for Sen. Raphael Warnock, 46 for Walker 'This bull in the field with six cows. Three of them are pregnant, so you know he got something goin' on. But all he cared about, he kept his nose against the fence, looking at three other cows that didn't belong to him. Now all he had to do was eat grass. But no, no, no. He thought something was better somewhere else. So he decided, I want to get over there. So one day he measured that fence up and he said I think I can jump this. So that day where he got back, and as he got back he dove over that fence and his belly got cut up on the bottom. But as he made it to the other side, he shook it off and got so excited about it. And he ran to the top of that hill, but when he got there he realized they were bulls too. So what I'm telling you, don't think something is better somewhere else- this is the greatest country in the world today.' Last week the Walker campaign was rocked by allegations that he pressured his ex in 2009 to have an abortion, even sending her money for the procedure and a 'get well' card. Walker has flatly denied the allegations and even denied knowing the woman. Walker has publicly supported bans on abortion after 15 weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest and has railed against 'absentee fathers,' particularly in the black community. Republicans in the Senate have stood by Walker, knowing his election could hand them a delicate majority in Congress' upper chamber. 'People get tired of ads and the lies they tell about Herschel Walker,' Cotton told the crowd. Last week the Walker campaign was rocked by allegations that he pressured his ex in 2009 to have an abortion 'People get tired of ads and the lies they tell about Herschel Walker,' Cotton told the crowd 'If you like abortion all the way up to birthyou should vote for Warnock,' Scott said, ignoring the abortion allegations. On Friday the ex-girlfriend, who declined to be identified, said that again two years later Walker tried to convince her to have an abortion and she refused. The pair then split and she said Walker is hardly involved in the child's life beyond paying court-ordered child support and occasional gifts. 'They'll do whatever it takes, say whatever they have to say, because they want this seat right here,' Walker said. 'I dont think they know they woke up a bear. Im not just a dog now, Im a bear.' The Daily Beast reported Monday evening that in 2009 Walker provided the woman he was dating at the time $700 to pay for an abortion procedure and a get well card. The woman, who did not want to be identified, reportedly provided the Daily Beast with a bank deposit receipt for the payment from Walker and a receipt from the $575 procedure. The Daily Beast provided an image of the card, which in handwriting said 'Pray you are feeling better -H.' The handwriting appeared similar to other autographs Walker had given. The ex-girlfriend said Walker hardly knew his now-10-year-old son, and had 'maybe only seen him three times' in the boy's life. The woman said she communicates only with Walker's now-wife Julie Blanchard, who calls to ask the boy's size before sending gifts for Christmas and birthdays. Meanwhile, Walker's only named child eviscerated his father on Tuesday morning for telling 'lie after lie after lie' after the abortion card report. Christian Walker, 22, also lashed out at Republicans and Democrats alike for making judgements about his relationship with his dad, telling them defiantly: 'You know nothing about my life.' He called out the right-wing support for his father despite multiple reports of behavior antithetical to Republican values, telling Walker first, 'Don't lie on the lives you've destroyed and act like you're some moral family man,' before adding: 'Y'all should care about that, conservatives.' In two videos posted to Twitter on the morning after the report on Walker's abortion payment surfaced, Christian claimed he had 'stayed silent' while 'atrocities' against his mother - Walker's ex-wife - 'were downplayed' by the candidate and his allies. NARA used a former bowling alley/Chinese restaurant to store Bush 41's files, but under strict security protocols - and the president did not keep them 'The records of George H.W. Bush administration were moved to a bowling alley that was combined with a Chinese restaurant,' Trump said Trump had suggested former presidents made off with their documents to a number of locations Additionally, the Archives said the records were not kept in 'substandard conditions' The Archives statement made clear that these documents were not left in the 'possession of the former Presidents or their representatives' The National Archives slapped former President Donald Trump Tuesday for making 'false and misleading' claims about ex-presidents mishandling documents - including that the late President George H.W. Bush was personally storing files at a combined bowling alley and Chinese restaurant. 'The National Archives and Records Administration, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act, assumed physical and legal custody of the Presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, when those presidents left office,' said a statement from the Archives. Those documents were securely moved to temporary facilies that NARA rented out at locations near where the presidents would build their libraries, the statement explained. 'All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees,' it continued. 'Reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.' The statement neglects to mention Trump's name. But during a speech in Miami Wednesday, and again at rallies in Nevada and Arizona over the weekend, Trump has suggested the former presidents were as careless with White House documents as him - but only he's gotten in trouble. During a speech in Miami last week, and again at rallies in Nevada and Arizona over the weekend, former President Donald Trump suggested former presidents hauled off their White House documents to a number of shabby locations The National Archives put out a statement Tuesday saying that it's 'false and misleading' to imply 'Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives' and kept in 'substandard conditions' Trump claimed that President George H.W. Bush hauled away his documents and stored them at a Chinese restaurant/bowling alley. A former bowling alley and Chinese restaurant was used by the National Archives to hold Bush 41's files before moving them to his presidential library 'No other president has been harassed and persecuted like we have,' Trump said, adding that the National Archives was a 'seriously radical left' entity that is 'woke and broken.' Workers at the National Archives consist of archivists, librarians, curators and other record-keepers. Trump is in legal trouble for refusing to give back to the Archives documents from his administration, which is part of the Presidential Records Act. 'Barack Hussein Obama moved more than 20 truckloads, over 33 million pages of papers, classified and unclassified, to a poorly built and totally unsafe former furniture store with no security whatsoever,' Trump alleged Wednesday from a Latino conference in Miami. 'Bill Clinton took millions and millions of documents from the White House to his home in Arkansas,' the ex-president continued. 'George W. Bush transported millions of documents from the White House to an unguarded warehouse in Texas,' Trump said. 'The records of George H.W. Bush administration were moved to a bowling alley that was combined with a Chinese restaurant.' Trump claimed that none of these facilities were as secure as Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and private club that was raided by the FBI in August to retrieve documents he didn't give back to the Archives after the government made multiple attempts. Former President Donald Trump is in legal hot water over his refusal to give back documents from his White House tenure. This photograph shows some of the documents, including classified ones, the FBI found in its August raid of Mar-a-Lago 'And remember Mar-a-Lago is not only walled off, very secure and totally safe, but it's also guarded by dozens of very strong and powerful U.S. Secret Service agents,' Trump told the Miami crowd. CNN's fact-checker pointed out that where Trump missed the mark is that none of these documents were still in the possession of the former presidents - unlike the more than 300 classified documents found during the Mar-a-Lago search. Bush 41's documents were briefly stored in a former bowling alley-Chinese restaurant combo in College Station, Texas, while Obama's documents headed to a converted furniture warehouse and showroom in Hoffman Estates, according to an Archives document from winter 2016. President Ronald Reagan's documents were stored in a converted pasta factory before his library was built in Simi Valley, California. But in all these cases, the documents were in the hands of the Archives and under strict security. An Associated Press story from 1994 detailed the security protocols surrounding the storage facility for Bush 41's collection. 'Uniformed guards patrol the premises. There are closed-circuit television monitors and sophisticated electronic detectors along walls and doors. Some printed material is classified and will remain so for years; it is open only to those with top-secret clearances,' the story said. Self-proclaimed Russian hackers have targeted US banking giant JPMorgan Chase in an attempt to knock its websites offline, but the bank said that it shrugged off the assault with no 'operational impact'. The Killnet gang threated on Tuesday to hit JPMorgan with a denial-of-service attack - in which hackers flood targets with junk data - following its strikes against several US airport websites this week. However, a spokesperson for JPMorgan told DailyMail.com that the bank is 'aware of claims made by a threat actor group' but that it has 'not experienced operational impact from this situation.' 'We continue to closely monitor activity,' the spokesperson said. As of Tuesday afternoon, JPMorgan's main client login portals appeared to be functioning normally. A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase told DailyMail.com that the bank has 'not experienced operational impact' after the hacker gang Killnet threatened a DDoS attack Killnet on Tuesday posted grandiose threats (left) against JPMorgan, and later declared 'victory' (right) against the bank, which said it experienced no noticeable impacts While highly visible and aimed at maximum psychological impact, DDoS attacks are mostly a noisy nuisance, and far less serious than hacking that involves breaking into networks and stealing private data. Little is known about the shadowy Killnet group or its leader KillMilk, who regularly posts on Telegram in support of Russia and slamming NATO, the US and especially Ukraine, where Russia is engaged in a protracted military conflict. Early on Tuesday, the group posted grandiose claims that its attacks were 'blocking the entire network infrastructure of the largest bank of America JP Morgan.' The hackers later posted a screenshot of a Chase website warning of technical difficulties, and declared 'this is victory', but there was no way to verify when the screenshot was taken. Experts say that Killnet's attacks so far are relatively amateurish, and appear primarily designed to sow fear. 'The DDoS attacks Killnet is carrying out are nuisance-level annoyances,' Brett Callow, a threat analyst with cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, told DailyMail.com. The Chase banking website is seen on Tuesday afternoon, when it appeared fully functional despite the threats from Killnet 'That said, the group's aim may not be to cause disruption, but to create FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] and shake peoples ability in the US governments ability to protect critical infrastructure in an attempt to undermine public support for US involvement in Ukraine,' he added. On Monday, Killnet's attacks rendered the websites of some major U.S. airports unreachable, though flights were not affected. The websites of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport were among those temporarily knocked offline in the attacks, officials said. In September, Killnet claimed responsibility for disruptions to several government websites in Japan. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a 'shields up' alert to all American businesses and organizations in February Earlier this year, the group had also claimed responsibility for cyber attacks on Lithuania and on websites of several Italian institutions. In February, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a 'shields up' alert to all American businesses and organizations, urging them to take measures to protect themselves from potential Russian cyberattack. Russia maintains a sophisticated cyber offensive capability, both through state-controlled cyberwarfare teams and criminal gangs that seem to operate with state approval, as long as they only target Western victims. 'Russias unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which has been accompanied by cyber-attacks on Ukrainian government and critical infrastructure organizations, may have consequences for our own nations critical infrastructure, a potential weve been warning about for months,' CISA said in its 'shields up' alert. Biden sat down with CNN hours after an emergency G7 meeting with Ukraine It comes as the world nervously questions Putin's sanity amid his increasingly hostile threats to unleash a nuclear attack on Ukraine He called the latter and Russia's justifications for it 'irrational' When asked about Vladimir Putin's rationality the president was careful to draw a distinction between the Russian autocrat's brain and his invasion of Ukraine President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a 'rational actor' who embarked on an 'irrational' invasion of Ukraine in a new TV interview on Tuesday. 'I think he is a rational actor who's miscalculated significantly,' Biden told CNN's Jake Tapper in a preview clip of his primetime interview. The president referenced the lead-up to Putin's invasion earlier this year when 'no one believed that he was going to invade Ukraine' despite increasingly hostile rhetoric and a buildup of troops at the neighboring nation's border. 'You listen to what he says, if you listen to the speech he made after when that decision was being made, he talked about the whole idea of - he was, needed to be the leader of Russia that united all the Russian speakers - I mean, it's just, I just think it's irrational,' Biden said. The Russian autocrat's mental stability had been the subject of speculation when he first launched the unprovoked attack in late February, when rumors swirled that his thinking was altered by cancer therapies or steroids. None of those were ever confirmed. Putin's sanity is back under the world's microscope now as he and his henchmen continue to ratchet up threats of unleashing nuclear hell on Ukraine. But during his Tuesday interview, Biden was careful to make a distinction between his Kremlin counterpart's mind and his plans for Kyiv. He cut off Tapper when the journalist began, 'So if he's not rational-' 'No, I didn't say he's not rational, I think - I think the speech, his objectives are not rational,' Biden clarified. He added that Putin likely believed his attempt to annex all of Ukraine as part of Russia would be 'welcomed with open arms.' President Joe Biden has a new sit-down interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday 'I think he thought, Jake, I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed,' the president explained. 'And I think he just totally miscalculated.' Ukraine's troops have staged an unprecedented and successful counteroffensive in recent weeks to take back Russian-held territory. Putin also took a blow when the Kerch Strait Bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to Russian-occupied Kherson was partially demolished in an explosion. The setbacks have prompted Russia to retaliate with indiscriminate rocket fire on Ukrainian cities including Kyiv. Biden warned last weekend that the world faces the prospect of a nuclear 'armageddon' should Putin's war escalate. Multiple administration officials have since affirmed that the US sees no change in Russia's nuclear posture while Biden's critics accused him of needless verbal escalation. He specified that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is a 'rational' man who is undertaking an 'irrational' invasion of Ukraine Hours before Biden sat down with CNN on Tuesday, he participated in an emergency G7 leaders meeting along with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They condemned Russia's attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as well as Putin's annexation of parts of the country's east. The G7 also called for continuing investigations into the mysterious explosions that led to a leak in the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany, which have been inactive due to the war. 'We reassured President Zelenskyy that we are undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity,' a statement from the White House read. 'We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support and will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. We are committed to supporting Ukraine in meeting its winter preparedness needs.' They also promised 'severe consequences' if Putin followed through with using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Zelensky asked the world leaders for more air defense systems as Russia's invasion nears its eight month at the end of October. Leaked, unaired footage of Kanye West's sit down with Fox News' Tucker Carlson show the rapper and fashion designer making further anti-Semitic comments, and spouting conspiracy theories. Among the theories, West claimed 'fake' children were 'planted' in his home to influence his own four children. He also said that the late fashion designer Virgil Abhdol, who he called his 'best friend,' was killed by the Louis Vuitton company. West, 45, recently sat down for the interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson after he returned from Paris Fashion Week where he sparked controversy with his 'White Lives Matter' fashion show concept. The leaked footage, published by Vice Tuesday, shows West going into tangents expounding on some of his more controversial thoughts that aired on television. He also admitted to getting the COVID vaccine and being discouraged from publicly supporting Donald Trump during the last presidential election. West has made headlines recently for anti-Semitic comments and his leaked answers to Carlson's questions only expand on those beliefs. The rapper was shown to dislike Planned Parenthood in the cut that aired. In a leaked clip, however, West adds that the organization was created by Margaret Sanger, a known 'eugenics,' to 'control the Jew populations.' West claims he means, 'When I say Jew, I mean the 12 lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people known as the race black really are. This is who our people are. The blood of Christ. This, as a Christian, is my belief.' Sanger was a known racist and Planned Parenthood has disavowed her. His claim about black people being the 'real' Jews is based in a belief associated with the Black Hebrew Israelites, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Leaked, unaired footage of Kanye West's sit down with Fox News' Tucker Carlson show the rapper and fashion designer making further anti-Semitic comments, admitted to getting the COVID vaccine and spouting conspiracy theories West, 45, recently sat down for the interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson after he returned from Paris Fashion Week where he sparked controversy with his 'White Lives Matter' fashion show concept The leaked footage, published by Vice Tuesday, show West going into tangents expanding on some of his more controversial thoughts that aired on television West caused outrage worldwide when he and Candace Owens wore the incendiary shirt at a fashion show At another point in the interview, West deals in the anti-Semitic trope about Jewish people being good with money, saying 'I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering,' before chuckling. West also made a bizarre claim that 'professional actors' including the 'so-called son' of an associate of his had been placed in his house to 'sexualize my kids,' appearing to suggest that they were fake. He also continued to insist that his child was kidnapped from him on her birthday by the Kardashians, saying 'I did not know the location of the birthday party and Travis Scott had to give me the address. 'When I showed up, they were so frazzled. If that's not the most Karen-level thing, to feel like you can take a black child and not give the father the address. This is the way people are treated when they get out of prison, when they go to prison. And 100 percent, I am in a glass prison or else I'd be the one with the say so over where my children go to school.' Khloe Kardashian, in a now deleted post, called West a liar, saying 'please STOP tearing Kimberly down and using our family when you want to deflect.' She added that she had 'seen the texts' and knew the truth of the matter, OK Magazine reported. West also made a bizarre claim that 'professional actors' including the 'so-called son' of an associate of his had been placed in his house to 'sexualize my kids,' appearing to suggest that they were fake Perhaps most far out among West's claims was that his friend and fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who died of cancer at the age of 41 in November, had been 'killed' by the Louis Vuitton company At one point, Carlson appears to push West to discuss the COVID vaccine and lockdowns. The clip posted online shows West saying, 'I was vaccinated, it was interesting... ' before the clip cuts out. Perhaps most far out among West's claims was that his friend and fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who died of cancer at the age of 41 in November, had been 'killed' by the Louis Vuitton company. After noting that Abloh was 'beefing' with the company, West said, 'Virgil was actually the third person to die of cancer in that organization. So not just black men have passed in that organization, but the third person to die of cancer that was in a higher up position in that organization.' 'And with Paris is a different level of elitism and racism. And Virgil was the kind of guy that he didn't hold it in. And I believe it ate him up from inside.' He also stated his desire to build 'fully kinetic energy communities where we put the least impression on the earth.' The interview came just days after the 45-year-old rapper created widespread controversy when he sported a 'White Lives Matter' T-shirt at his YZY fashion show in Paris, which was widely condemned by fans and fashion industry luminaries and led Adidas to put its relationship with him 'under review.' He told Carlson the shirt came from his 'energy' and his 'connection with God.' 'I do certain things from a feeling; I just channel the energy. It feels right, hits using a gut instinct, connection with God and just brilliance.' He also said he thought the idea of him 'wearing the shirt was funny' and his father - who he claimed is a former Black Panther - thought so too. 'I said: 'Dad, why do you think it's funny?' and he said: 'It's just a black man stating the obvious,' he told Carlson. 'That was my favorite response, because I kept thinking: People are looking for an explanation. And people say as an artist you have don't have to an explanation, but as a leader you do.' West has been in the hot seat recently for his 'White Lives Matter' shirt, which he was seen recently wearing to his daughter's game (pictured) He also spoke with Fox News' Tucker Carlson recently about the shirts and said he does 'certain things from a feeling, I just channel the energy. It feels right, hits using a gut instinct, connection with God and just brilliance' He also said the controversy is that white people 'have stripped us of our identity and labeled us as a color have told us what it means to be black.' 'The answer to why I wrote 'White Lives Matter' on a shirt is because they do. It's the obvious thing.' Many have called the fashion designer out for the slogan, including model Gigi Hadid, who branded him a 'bully.' The supermodel, 27, recently commented that Ye was 'a bully' after he lashed out at Stylist and Contributing Vogue Fashion Editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson when she called his White Lives Matter merchandise presented during Paris Fashion Week 'violent' and 'dangerous.' He later lashed out at her, calling her a 'Karen.' He wrote: 'YOU WERE BORN WITH A SILVER SPOON IN YOUR MOUTH YOURE A ZOMBIE.' He later walked back on his criticism of Karefa-Johnson, insisting he had no issue with Vogue's contributing fashion editor. His spokesman Jason Lee quit in protest after the provocative show, writing on Instagram that West was 'gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy.' Since West has been airing his dirty laundry on Twitter and riling up a storm at Paris Fashion Week, Adidas has announced it would review its business relationship with the rapper after he spoke out against the brand. Khloe Kardashian - sister to his ex-wife - has pleaded with West in a now-deleted post to stop airing the family business online. West was locked out of his Twitter account on Saturday after he tweeted: 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.' The now-deleted tweet prompted both outrage and concern for West's mental health. West's tweets marked the first time in nearly two years since he has posted to Twitter. Choe Jae-hae, chair of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), takes a vow before answering questions from lawmakers at an audit session held at the National Assembly, Tuesday. Joint Press Corps By Lee Hyo-jin The National Assembly's audit of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) continued on Tuesday with rival parties clashing over issues surrounding the state agency's probe into the previous government's handling of the killing of a South Korean fisheries official by the North Korean military. The session came to a halt less than 10 minutes after it kicked off as lawmakers of the rival parties the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DPK) disagreed on who should give their statements first. It resumed after a 20-minute break, but did not proceed as opposition lawmakers called senior presidential secretary Lee Gwan-sub as a witness. The DPK's request came after a text message between Lee and BAI Secretary General Ryou Byeong-ho was captured on camera, Oct.5, in which Ryou shared how the audit agency plans to refute a media report that it did not follow protocol in investigating the death of the fisheries official in 2020. During the audit, Ryou offered an apology for causing controversy with his text message, but explained that it was "normal communication." In September 2020, a 47-year-old fisheries official surnamed Lee was shot dead by the North Korean military near the western maritime border. At the time, the Moon Jae-in administration concluded that he was killed while attempting to defect to the North. But in June this year, the Yoon Suk-yeol government overturned the decision, saying there was no evidence to prove such a motive. In July, the BAI launched a full-scale inspection of related institutions, including the Coast Guard, the National Intelligence Service and the National Security Office. Opposition lawmakers have described the investigation as "political retaliation" targeting the previous administration. The Assembly's audit came amid escalating tensions between the DPK and the state audit agency, which attempted to question Moon. In late September, the BAI contacted the former president, asking him to answer written questions concerning his administration's alleged mishandling of the fisheries official's death. The DPK said it seeks to file a complaint into possible violations of the BAI's autonomy and political neutrality, accusing it of working with the presidential office on "politically motivated" inspections. DeKalb County Police Department have since confirmed that a person was shot in their neighborhood at around 12.45am on October 5 Her husband Mac Ellison was a Pastor of the nearby Temple of Faith Ministries Lashunda Heath-Ellison, 50, was struck in the head by a stray bullet while asleep The wife of a Georgia pastor has died a week after being struck in the head by a stray bullet as she lay asleep in bed. Lashunda Heath-Ellison was found unresponsive by her husband, Pastor Mac Ellison, after he woke up to the sound of what he thought was her snoring. In fact, a stray bullet from a nearby shooting in their Decatur neighborhood entered the house and passed through the headboard of their bed and into her head. DeKalb County Police Department have since confirmed that a person was shot nearby on October 5 at 12.43am. Ellison was the pastor of the Temple of Faith Ministries. Heath-Ellison was a mother to two daughters, Jatisha and Taylor, and a son, Dejuan. She had just celebrated her 50th birthday. Lashunda Heath-Ellison with her husband Pastor Mac Ellison Heath-Ellison was a mother to two daughters, Jatisha and Taylor, and a son, Dejuan. She had just celebrated her 50th birthday A photo posted online by Ellison who wears his wife's ring next to his. 'My wife Lashunda Heath-Ellison gained her wings,' wrote Ellison in a tribute online In the early hours of October 5 Ellison woke up to the sound of his wife breathing heavily. Despite shaking her the pastor found that she remained unresponsive. Initially Ellison thought his wife was snoring, but after turning on the lights he saw something was wrong. That's when he started calling for his children. Two of the couple's children arrived and helped their father call 911 and roll their mom over, Ellison said. Upon turning her over they discovered 'blood everywhere'. 'I just woke up to very heavy breathing. And we saw blood everywhere,' the pastor said, according to WSB-TV. The children helped their father rush Heath-Ellison to Grady Memorial Hospital. At the hospital, an X-ray revealed that Heath-Ellison had bullet shrapnel near her brain, Ellison said. Once he and the children returned home from hospital they then found a bullet hole on the outside of their house. Later the family also found a hole in the wall created by the stray bullet. 'It went through the headboard and right into the top of my wife's head and stopped here in her sinus,' said the pastor. In a video posted to Ellison's Facebook page after the death of his wife he placed her wedding ring back on her finger after it was taken off for a scan in the hospital In the days following the shooting Ellison organized for people to convene outside the hospital and pray for the recovery of his wife. Then on October 10 he took to Facebook to announce that his wife had passed away. 'My wife Lashunda Heath-Ellison gained her wings,' wrote Ellison in a tribute online. 'Please give us a moment to process this. My Perfect Angel is gone but forever in our hearts.' In the days following the shooting Ellison organized for people to convene outside the hospital and pray for his wife's recovery Since the incident, DeKalb County police have said that they were notified of a shooting at 12.43am on October 5 near to the family's home on the 2300 block of Wilkins Court. No arrests have been made in connection to the shooting. A 62-year-old Florida grandpa was charged and arrested with child neglect after he forgot his toddler granddaughter in an unshaded and hot rental car he returned to the airport. David Towner was on babysitting duty on Monday when he headed to Daytona Beach International Airport at 5pm to return his Hertz rental car. Footage obtained by DailyMail.com showed the moment Volusia Sheriff deputies arrived at the airport after Steven Stivers, a Hertz employee, discovered the toddler about 45 minutes later with dried tears on her face. '[The toddler] appeared to have dried tears on her face and her skin was noticeably red,' according to an arrest affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com. 'Deputy Durney placed his hands on [her] forehead and observed her skin was hot to the touch, similar to a fever. [She] appeared to be breathing normally and no obvious signs of trauma were observed.' Officers were able to contact the toddler's mom after she frantically called police after she went to her dad's home noticed her daughter was missing. The toddler was later reunited with her mother and Towner was arrested for leaving his granddaughter in the unshaded car in 80-degree weather. David Towner, 62, was arrested on Monday after leaving his toddler granddaughter in a hot Florida rental car after returning it to the airport Footage obtained by DailyMail.com showed the moment Volusia Sheriff deputies arrived at the airport to find a Hertz rental car employee holding the toddler Employee Steven Stivers found the girl in the backseat of a 2019 Chevrolet Equinox while moving returned vehicles, according to the arrest affidavit Dahronda Patterson, another Hertz employee, was seen in a police bodycam footage holding the toddler as police arrived at the airport around 6pm. The inaudible video with the toddler's face blurred showed police approach Patterson as emergency services rushed to check the about two-year-old's vitals. Patterson informed police that Stivers found the toddler in the back of a 2019 Chevrolet Equinox while transporting returned vehicles. 'He immediately notified Patterson who removed her from the vehicle and brought her into the main terminal,' the arrest affidavit read. Police were told the car was originally rented out by a William Ford in Pennsylvania but were told by airport officials that Ford didn't have a flight reservation. It is unclear who Ford is. 'Then a call came in from the child's mother, who had just learned her father had left her daughter in the rental car - not at his home, as he'd told her,' The Volusia Sheriff Department wrote on Facebook. The mother later told police that she had arrived at the airport at about 5:30pm to pick up Towner after he dropped off his rental. Towner told his daughter that the toddler was back at his home with his roommate. She then headed to Towner's home. 'When [the mother] arrived at the residence she immediately noticed [her daughter] wasn't there,' the arrest affidavit read. Towner and his daughter immediately searched the home for the toddler but were told by the roommate that the 62-year-old placed his granddaughter in the backseat of the vehicle before going to the airport. '[She] stated that she called 911 and was notified that [her daughter] was possibly at the airport.' Police said Towner was 'remorseful and 'cooperative upon the investigation and his arrest. Volusia Sheriff deputies arrived shortly after to find Dahronda Patterson holding the toddler (above) that had dried tears stained on her red face The toddler was left in an unshaded car in 80-degree weather at the Florida airport Investigators were told by the toddler's mother that her dad has a drinking problem. While Towner didn't appear drunk, police noted that he smelled like alcohol. Despite the accusations, Towner insisted he was sober that day and didn't have a history of mental health issues. Additional footage from the Hertz car drop-off lane at the airport also showed Towner leaving his vehicle and not turning back. While Towner was fortunate his granddaughter was safe there have been 30 hot car deaths to date in 2022, according to Kids and Car Safety. The last hot series of hot car deaths were on September 20 in Texas, Florida and Alabama. The ages of the children left unknowingly in the backseat of vehicles were between 8 months and two-years-old. A Chicago-area man has filed a lawsuit against a prominent indoor skydiving company after he was left quadriplegic during an accident. According to a lawsuit filed by David Schilling, 63, and his lawyers, the incident happened in January 2021 and ha The man, who was an avid skydiver and frequenter of indoor skydiving facilities, was permanently disabled by the incident. Schilling had been flying inside the wind tunnel at the iFly facility when he crashed headfirst into a wall. After crashing, the man went through the glass surrounding the tunnel, which ultimately severed his spinal cord. Video posted from after the accident showed Schilling in a neck brace after being paralyzed from the neck down during his indoor skydiving experience Schilling had posted video from previous indoor skydiving experiences to his Facebook account Before his 'tragic accident,' Schilling had been an avid skydiver, sharing photos and videos from several jumps on social media The lawsuit, filed this week in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, alleges that the company and its workers did not properly protect him from the outcome. Lawyers say that Schilling now 'requires constant, round-the-clock care' and will never be able to walk again. In a statement to The State, Schilling's representation said that the man went to the Rosemont iFly location thinking that it would be a 'fun, safe experience.' Things went wrong during the January 21, 2021 flight, however, and employees failed to step in, according to the man and his lawyers. 'Had I known that an instructor would not have assisted me, I of course would have never participated, and my life clearly would be different today,' Schilling said. Schilling's indoor skydiving injury precludes him from ever jumping out of a plane again The man is now quadriplegic and can't feel anything from the neck down according to his lawyers It was a tragic mishap that left the experienced skydiver without the ability to walk ever again The man was paralyzed from the neck down during the accident. Daily Mail Online reached out to Clifford Law Offices, the group representing the man, but did not receive any additional statements by time of publication. In a statement, Clifford Law Offices told The State that there was no spotter present and nearby Schilling during the 'tragic incident.' They allege that the iFly location should have been able to see that the man was 'out of control' while inside the wind tunnel and should have stepped in previous to the crash. The lawsuit also claims that Schilling did not have an 'impact rated' helmet and that the employees on site were not trained properly for an incident like this. 'As a direct and proximate result of one or more of the acts and/or omissions, (Schilling) sustained permanent and forever injuries of a personal and pecuniary nature,' the lawsuit states. The man and his attorneys are requesting at least $50,000 in damages from the company. They have to request at least $50,000 because that's the minimum requirement to be included in the law division rather than the municipal division. A spokesperson from Clifford Law Offices told DailyMail.com that $50,000 is 'not even close' to covering the bills or what they are hoping to get but they can only start with 50K. As of now, the video of the incident is under a confidentiality order from the judge. Aside from the financial compensation, aid that he is after far more than that, though. Had a blast flying the tunnel and meeting up with Stephanie and Daniel from SDC. Working on fall rate and I think I've actually increased the fall rate of a brick by a factor of two.....now if I could just get the floating stuff. :-) Posted by David Schilling on Friday, November 22, 2019 'iFLY facilities should close until the company makes it apparent to people, people such as parents that plan on hosting a children's birthday party, that iFLY in fact does not consider this a safe activity but instead one that is inherently dangerous,' he said. The indoor skydiving company claims that their experience is 'very safe' and a fun activity for anyone aged three to 103. 'iFLY should not market this activity on its own website as very safe and for children as young as three years old, but then knowingly maintain legal documents that call iFLY indoor skydiving an inherently dangerous activity,' attorney Jack Casciato said in a statement. Participants are required to sign an 'iFly Release of Liability and Indemnity Agreement' which refers to the activity as 'dangerous' and says that serious injury and death could occur. According to the Ochsner Journal, injuries from indoor skydiving can be common. More frequent injuries include dislocations, sprains, and pulled muscles. Tunnel wind speeds can reach up to 100 miles during the indoor skydiving experience, SkyDiving Planet states. Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman has given a sit-down interview from his home where he predicted he is going to be 'much better' after suffering a stroke, and described how he sometimes relies on transcription to better process language. 'I don't think it's going to have an impact,' said Fetterman, who is engaged in a brutal race against Trump-backed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. 'I feel like I'm going to get better and better every day. And by January, I'm going [to] be, you know, much better. And Dr. Oz is still going to be a fraud,' he said, blasting the opponent his media team has been ridiculing as a carpetbagger with ads and billboards. Fetterman spoke from behind a desk at his home, glancing occasionally at a large Mac computer monitor. A camera showed how it was posting near simultaneous captioning of what was being said during the interview. Fetterman 'occasionally stuttered and had trouble finding words,' according to NBC, whose reporters sat down with the lieutenant governor during a key part of his race, with Oz pulling closer to Fetterman in pre-election polls. 'By January, I'm going [to] be, you know, much better,' said Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is recovering from the impacts of a stroke Fetterman said the captions help him better respond to questions in real time. 'I sometimes will hear things in a way that's not perfectly clear. So I use captioning so I'm able to see what you're saying on the captioning,' Fetterman said. Asked how the recovery process changed his day to day life, he responded: 'It changes everything. Everything about it is changed. Basically having a conversation with your wife, to having a conversation with your children. Especially early after the stroke, the ability to really understand exactly what I'm being heard. But it gets much, much better where I take in a lot.' Fetterman jumped off the campaign trail after suffering a stroke before his primary, then held his first campaign rally in August. During the interview, Fetterman struggled with the word 'empathetic,' sometimes saying it as 'emphetic,' and calling the error an example of the lingering impact of the stroke. Fetterman occasionally looked at a screen showing closed captioning during the NBC interview He admitted challenges, adding: 'But it gets much, much better where I take in a lot. But to be precise, I use captioning, so that's really the maijing that's the major challenge. And every now and then I'll miss a word. Every now and then. Or sometimes I'll maybe mush two words together. But as long as I have captioning, I'm able to understand exactly what's being asked.' A transcript of his NBC interview, where he was asked if searching for language was difficult, reveals some of his challenges. The video airs on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. 'No, I don't think it was hard. It was just about having to be thinking more, uh, sl, uh slower to just understand and that sometimes that's kind of the processing that happens,' he said. President Joe Biden is set to hold a closed fundraising event with Fetterman later this month Former President Donald Trump threw his support behind Dr. Oz Fetterman continues to find it difficult to 'process what he hears,' according to a New York Magazine cover story about the 'highest-stakes' Senate race in the Keystone State. Writer Rebecca Traister reported that she used Google Meet software to interview Fetterman, so that he could use the close captioning function to read and respond to her questions in real-time, as the Democratic lieutenant governor recovers from his May stroke. While the profile focuses on Fetterman, Traister had some interactions with Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz's campaign too, including when she asked about the explosive Jezebel report released last week that alleged more than 300 dogs, including puppies, were killed as a result of medical experiments at Columbia under Oz's watch. 'Suppose you were the dumbest person in the world. Now suppose you were a reporter for New York Magazine. But I repeat myself,' an Oz spokesman told Traister. Oz's spokesperson did not deny the allegations about the dead puppies. A new New York Magazine profile of Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, vying for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat, chronicles his stroke recovery, with the writer interviewing the Democrat using Google Meet because he still has trouble processing what he hears Writer Rebecca Traister also reveals that a spokesperson for Republican Senate hopeful Dr. Mehmet Oz equated her to the 'dumbest person in the world' when she asked about a blockbuster Jezebel report that said Oz's medical experiments killed hundreds of dogs Fetterman told Traister that while he's 'profoundly grateful' to be recovering from the stroke he suffered just days before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, 'running for the Senate, in the biggest race in the country, and having to recover at the same time is unprecedented.' Doctors have said that Fetterman's cognitive abilities were not damaged by the stroke, but his ability to understand what people are saying has been impaired. Traister described her conversation with Fetterman as 'lucid and animated, eloquent about the stakes of the race and incensed about the nasty tenor of Oz's campaign.' She also noted that there were 'moments in which his syntax got snarled or he had trouble getting a word out.' 'I really can't hide it even if I wanted to,' Fetterman said. In another instance, Fetterman struggled to say the word 'documented,' instead saying things like 'domicated' and 'domentated.' 'This is the stroke right here,' he told Traister, before taking a breath and getting 'documented' out. Traister wrote that it's 'no open question' that Fetterman can't quickly process what he hears. 'He cannot do that well yet, which is why he requires closed-captioning for interviews and the upcoming debate,' she said. Oz's campaign has directly - and through surrogates and media allies - floated that Fetterman's health is worse than he says - and he may not be up to the task to be a United States senator. Tucker Carlson, for instance, called the Democrat 'brain damaged' and said he 'can barely speak.' Carlson also mocked Fetterman's distinct look, saying he had 'stupid little fake tattos' and suggested it was inauthentic like a 'barista in Brooklyn dressing like a lumberjack.' Incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Toomey held a press conference alongside Oz last month saying Fetterman 'would not be able to do the job' if he's not able to 'communicate effectively.' 'Standing up in front of 3,000 people and having to talk without a teleprompter or anything? That is the most pure example of transparency there is,' Fetterman told Traister, pushing back on the attacks. Like the memes and stunts - like flying a banner over Jersey Shore vacationers, many of whom are from Pennsylvania, welcoming Oz home - Fetterman has used humor to make Pennsylvanians more comfortable with his stroke recovery. At a rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in September Fetterman mocked Oz for blaming President Joe Biden for closing Bethlehem Steel - something that happened 27 years ago. 'And I'm the one who had the stroke!' Fetterman said. He also told the crowd: 'I guarantee you, there's at least one person in this audience that's gonna be filming me, hoping that I miss words, that I mush two words together.' He paused. 'Such an inspiring campaign he's running, isn't it?' Fetterman said of Oz. Republicans excoriated Kamala Harris for her failures in addressing the southern border crisis yet criticizing Texas Governor Greg Abbott on late night television for sending migrants to sanctuary cities in order to ease the stress on border communities. Many of the lawmakers who weighed in on the vice president's remarks represent districts in border states, who are facing the brunt of the migration crisis. Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden appointed Harris as the person in his administration to tackle issues at the southern border and she was quickly branded the 'border czar' but those outside the White House. But in nearly two years, Harris has only gone to the border once and has consistently said her role is looking into addressing root causes in South and Central American countries that lead people to leave their homes. 'Kamala has offered zero solutions as our nation's border czar,' Arizona Representative Andy Biggs wrote. New Mexico Representative Vicky Hartzle tweeted: 'Kamala Harris has been Border Czar for 629 days and has yet to visit the border.' 'She doesn't 'participate in solutions.' She's just upset that the crisis was brought to her doorstep,' she added in response to the vice president's comments about Governor Abbott. Georgia Representative Jody Hice questioned: 'When is the last time Kamala addressed the border national security crisis? Wasn't this her job?' Harris used the national TV platform of 'Late Night' to tear into Abbott's 'political theater' relocating migrants from the border and dropping them off by the busload outside her official residence in Washington D.C. 'Talk about political theater!' said Vice President Kamala Harris, who slammed Texas Governor Greg Abbott's move to send immigrants from Texas and drop them outside her D.C. residence during her 'Late Night' interview with host Seth Meyers, which aired on Monday, October 10 Republicans tore into Harris for her comments, claiming she has offered no solutions for the crisis despite being named Biden's 'border czar' New Mexico Representative Vicky Hartzler noted that Harris has been in her unofficial role for 629 days but won't 'participate in solutions' 'We're talking about people who have fled great harm,' Harris said when host Seth Meyers brought up the topic. 'And they are coming here seeking refuge and talk about political theater!' she said. 'I mean, playing games with people's lives, with their lives. You know, there were mothers with sleeping babies getting off those buses. And I just think it's an absolute dereliction of duty if you see a problem,' she said. She was responding to a question from the host, a 'Saturday Night Live' alum, who compared the move to 'playing games' but also called illegal immigration 'a problem.' 'I don't think that, you know, playing games with people's lives is the solution to this problem. But based on the record amount of arrests at the border, it is a problem,' Meyers said. 'I think we look to our leaders at times like these. What is the path forward?' Arizona Representative Debbie Lesko tweeted in response to a clip of the comments: 'Vice President Kamala Harris is the border czar, yet she and the rest of the Biden Administration have come up with ZERO solutions and have only made the border crisis WORSE.' Virginia Representative Ben Cline called the comments 'ironic', saying that Harris 'helped create' the southern border crisis that she is now denouncing Abbott for 'handling.' Rep. Cline said that the 'irony' is Abbott is busing migrants as a way of 'handling a problem' that the Vice President 'helped create' Texas sent more than 100 migrants from Eagle Pass to the street in front the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., which is the grounds where the vice president's official residence sits 'The 'Border Czar's' so-called 'solution'? Mass amnesty and open borders,' Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde tweeted. 'Kamala Harris isn't interested in solutions to secure the bordershe's only determined to make matters worse.' Abbott launched a plan in April where he started busing migrants to D.C., New York City, and other Democratic enclaves. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got on the bandwagon and sent a plane full of 50 migrants to the wealthy liberal island of Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts. 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers called Abbott's busing migrants to Democratic enclaves 'playing games with people's lives,' but also called illegal immigration 'a problem' Harris took heat last month when she said 'we have a secure border' Harris' interview with Meyers was her second late-night appearance as vice president and her first on a broadcast network as VP. In December she appeared on Charlamagne Tha God's Comedy Central show, 'Tha God's Honest Truth.' Harris, who President Biden tasked with focusing on 'root causes' of immigration in particular from Northern Triangle nations, called for addressing broader immigration issues. NBC reported last week that the Administration is considering a major immigration push after the midterm elections, hoping to act on issues that have been stalled for years. Harris' appearance on 'Late Night' was her first broadcast network late night appearance as VP 'If we agree that we need to address it, then if you're a leader, participate in a solution,' Harris said, dismissing Abbott's move. 'When we first came into office, the first bill that we proposed was for a pathway for citizenship, which was to fix a broken immigration system, which was broken under the previous administration,' she said. Abbott, in a debate last week with Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke, touted his own Operation Lone Star, which relies on the Texas Military Department and public safety officers to provide border security. 'We shouldn't have to allocate any money for it because this is all because of Joe Biden's failure to do the president's job to secure the border,' he said in the debate. O'Rourke countered that the 'buck stops on your desk.' Harris also spoke on other topics, including Biden's decision to pardon people serving time in federal prison for nonviolent marijuana offenses. 'Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed, right?' said the former California prosecutor. Abbott trashed New York Mayor Eric Adams when shipping migrants to New York this summer. 'Adams talked the talk about being a sanctuary city welcoming illegal immigrants into the Big Apple with warm hospitality,' he wrote. 'Talk is cheap. When pressed into fulfilling such ill-considered policies, he wants to condemn anyone who is pressing him to walk the walk.' Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set up a company to channel millions in earnings that he is expected to generate on the lucrative speaking circuit. He has just registered the company The Office of Boris Johnson Limited with Companies House. The ex Premier, who stood down last month, is predicted to earn around 5million a year after quitting Downing Street. Johnson, 58, is not a director of the company but listed under his full name, Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson, as a person of significant control owning 75 per cent or more of the company shares. He is said to be keen to earn serious money after months of complaining that his Westminster salary of 161,401 was not enough. Johnson, 58, is not a director of the company but listed under his full name, Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson, as a person of significant control owning 75 per cent or more of the company shares He is said to have regularly complained to friends that he is hard up, citing his second divorce, several children and his reduced income since entering No 10. The company is registered to the offices of Begbies Accountants in the City of London and will not file accounts detailing earnings for another two years. The only company director is Michelle Williams-Walker, 40, who is believed to be Johnsons long-term head of operations, better known as Shelley Williams-Walker. She earned the nickname DJ SWW for her music playlist at the notorious Downing Street Party on the eve of Prince Phillips funeral in 2021. Johnson is following in a line of recently departed PMs who have also set up companies, including Theresa May, who revealed in the summer that her company made 1.16million in its first year of trading. But Johnson is believed to have much greater earning potential and is also said to be keen to improve his finances. The first indications of how lucrative are likely to appear in the coming weeks as all MPs have to declare income outside of their Parliamentary salary in the Members Register of Financial Interests. After quitting as Foreign Secretary in Theresa Mays Government in 2018 and before becoming PM the following July Johnson registered more than 450,000 in earnings from speeches. He is said to be keen to earn serious money after months of complaining that his Westminster salary of 161,401 was not enough Johnson is following in a line of recently departed PMs who have also set up companies, including Theresa May, who revealed in the summer that her company made 1.16million in its first year of trading His value on the after-dinner circuit around the world will have soared following his period of Prime Minister in which he completed Britains exit from the EU, battled the Covid 19 pandemic and positioned himself as a lead on the worlds response to the Ukraine crisis. Ex chancellor George Osborne racked up earnings of almost 1 million in less than a year after he was replaced as chancellor when Theresa May replaced David Cameron as PM. But after standing down as an MP in June 2017 at the general election when he became editor of the Evening Standard, he no longer had to register his income. Johnson has so far only registered 10,000 for the use of accommodation he has accepted from Lady Carole Bamford since he stood down as PM. A spokesman for Johnson said: 'The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd will support Boris Johnson's private office in line with similar structures established by former prime ministers.' The rockets began raining down at 8.20am, just as thousands of people were hurrying to work and dropping their children at kindergartens and schools. Commuters were burned to death in their cars, pedestrians were peppered with shrapnel and one explosion left a huge crater in the middle of a childrens playground. In all, seven innocent people were slaughtered by the Russian barbarians in Kyiv on Monday morning. Another 51 people are being treated for serious injuries. Nobody in Ukraines capital city was spared the horror. A pedestrian bridge beloved of residents for its sweeping views of the capital was also deliberately bombed, along with some 45 residential buildings housing hundreds of families, three schools and a nursery. By targeting non-combatants for butchery and destroying civilian infrastructure, Russia has again proved itself to be a terrorist state. This act of premeditated murder and mayhem is only the latest example of Vladimir Putins determination to annihilate Ukrainians as a people. But our spirit remains unbroken. Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko says his people have not 'given the enemy the satisfaction of seeing us bow our heads in sorrow' Though our blood was spilled on Monday, we did not give our enemy the satisfaction of seeing us bow our heads in sorrow. We continued to stand tall, our hearts heavy with grief but our dignity and resolve intact. There is no panic or demoralisation. Ukrainians have shown at every stage of this harrowing war the extent of their inner resources. Russia has spent the better part of the year trying to bring us to our knees. It hasnt worked. They attempt to intimidate us with terror, but that only makes us more passionate about preserving our nation and identity as we draw on our limitless reserves of courage to defeat Russian savagery. What is unfolding in Kyiv is a totemic battle in the struggle for civilisation, one that is inextricably linked to the preservation of democracy and freedom. For Ukraine is not just fighting Russia, but the darkness of totalitarianism and tyranny. Mr Klitschko said: 'Putin will not stop his nuclear blackmail of the civilised world if he succeeds in his mission to suppress Ukraine' My people have shown that they have the strength of purpose to fight for their freedom, whatever the cost. They have shown great unity of purpose in the cause of protecting their families, their cities and their state. We only become stronger and more unbreakable with each blow we endure. In the moments after the first explosion, the first responders were ordinary residents of Kyiv, who rushed to the streets to aid the wounded. Those who were evacuated to safety in the subway spent the next five and half hours comforting each other and singing the national anthem. Can such a nation be defeated? No! Can such a nation be crushed? Never! And yet, after everything we have seen, there are still those in the West who find fault with Ukraine. If only Kyiv would kneel before its invaders, these Westerners say, there will be peace. If Ukraine continues in its efforts to protect its sovereignty, they warn darkly in language borrowed from Putin there could be nuclear war. Pictured: Explosions at an undisclosed location in Donetsk People's Republic on Tuesday In response I ask: Would Britain, for instance, cede some of its territories to strike a peace deal with an invading army that wants to wipe it out? Would you give up the independence of your country, the freedom of your children? I dont think so. The same is true for Ukraine. Have you seen what Russia did in the territory it did occupy? In towns and villages from Bucha and Irpin to Izyum and Lyman, we have unearthed dozens of mass graves containing the bodies of civilians men, women and children executed for the sin of being Ukrainian. Let me tell you this: Putin will not stop his nuclear blackmail of the civilised world if he succeeds in his mission to suppress Ukraine. This basic fact must be understood by everyone. And this is why the imperialist ambitions of the Putin regime must not be satisfied. They must be stopped. If it is not defeated, Putins imperial bloodlust will not end here. He will target other countries and there will be many more victims. It is no exaggeration to say that Ukraine is on the front line in the war for civilisation. Our blood is being spilled to protect something greater than all of us. The explosions in Kyiv werent an attack on Ukraine alone they contain a message to the rest of the world: Youre next. Forensic investigators stand next to a body that was exhumed from what is believed to be a mass grave on Tuesday. Mr Klitschko said Ukraine needs 'more weapons, greater economic support and even tighter sanctions on Russia' Ukraine needs more weapons, greater economic support and even tighter sanctions on Russia to stop the crazed dictator before he broadens his attacks. As Kyivs mayor, I am with my people, the citizens of my home town. Against us is a state that wants to devour foreign territory and erase a sovereign nation. Its soldiers are fighting for money, cars, the opportunity to loot Ukrainian houses or simply out of a terror of being punished for desertion. We, who did not start this conflict, fight for something you can relate to: Our families, our freedom, the future of our children. This is our home: We dont have the option of retreating. We must cope with and overcome every challenge. We must win. I would even say that, given the cause for which we are fighting, we Ukrainians do not have the right to capitulate or accept defeat. Eight months ago, nobody could have imagined Kyiv would be under attack, because everyone outside this country expected us to collapse within days of Putins tanks rolling across the border. We surprised the world with our fortitude and tenacity. This is our land, and the truth is on our side. We are never going back to the Soviet past. Kyiv is the proud and ancient capital of a state marching towards its European future. And Moscows bombs will not stop us. As told to Kapil Komireddi, the author of Malevolent Republic: A Short History Of The New India President Joe Biden on Tuesday joined growing calls demanding that Democratic Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez resign after she was caught calling a colleague's black son a 'little monkey' in a leaked audio recording. Hours earlier Martinez announced she was taking a leave of absence after leaked audio revealed that he had described a colleague's black son as a 'little monkey' during a meeting last year. She stepped down as city council president on Monday and is facing calls to resign from the council altogether. The leak has already led to one resignation. Ron Herrera, who was present at the meeting, quit as head of one of Los Angeles Countys most powerful labor organizations White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said more should follow during her regular news briefing. 'The president is glad to see that one of the participants in that conversation has resigned. But they all should,' she said. 'He believes that they all should resign. The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable, and it was appalling.' She added that the scandal showed the difference between Democrats and MAGA Republicans: While one side holds their representatives to account the other side celebrates racist and anti-Semitic politicians. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Los Angeles Council racism row showed the difference between Democrats, who were being held to account, and MAGA Republicans, who are embraced for their racist or anti-Semitic views Biden 'believes that they all should resign,' Jean-Pierre said, adding, 'the language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable, and it was appalling' Police officers had to stand guard at a bad-tempered Los Angeles Council meeting Tuesday after details of racist language used by its leader were leaked Nury Martinez, a Democrat, stepped down as council president on Monday after leaked audio revealed that she last year described a colleague's black son as a 'little monkey' Martinez, who is Latina, compared the black child of a white council member to a 'changuito,' Spanish for little monkey. She also referred to Oaxacan immigrants as 'short little dark people.' Jean-Pierre said the fallout highlighted what separates Democrats from the far right. 'And here's the difference between Democrats and MAGA Republicans: When a Democrat says something racist or anti-Semitic, we hold Democrats accountable. 'When a MAGA Republican says something racist and or anti-Semitic they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated and sought after endorsements.' She cited the example of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, 'saying black people commit crimes. The Alabama senator has faced a wave of criticism for remarks he made at a Donald Trump rally in Arizona on Saturday. 'They want crime, because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have,' he told the crowd. 'They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls---. They are not owed that.' Karine Jean-Pierre also pointed out the Republican candidate in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race, Doug Mastriano, had been accused of dog whistle anti-Semitism for criticising his opponent for sending his children to a Jewish day school. And she quoted the president, saying: 'Hate never goes away. It only hides. U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, is introduced at a rally for former President Donald Trump at the Minden Tahoe Airport in Minden, Nevada, Saturday, October 8, 2022. Tuberville says that Democrats support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people because 'they think the people that do the crime are owed that' 'But lately, it's just out in the open at these extreme mega rallies.' She was asked about the issue after a Los Angeles Council meeting on Monday erupted in chaos as residents demanded the resignation of members who had been present at the recorded meeting. In the profanity-laced clip, Martinez can be heard calling colleague Mike Bonin's son 'a little monkey', and accuses him of raising him 'like a little white kid,' who needs a 'beatdown'. 'Let me take him around the corner and then I'll bring him back,' the former city council president added. At Tuesday's meeting, Bonin told the meeting that he did not want to be there. 'I take a lot of hits, but my son?' He then added that he was not willing to forgive Martinez. 'But let me be clear, people should not ask me for forgiveness. I can't forgive them because it's not my prerogative. It's the prerogative of a boy who's too young to really understand what's going on.' A Los Angeles City Council meeting erupted in chaos as residents call for the resignation of council member Nury Martinez after audio leaked of her calling a colleague's son a 'little monkey' Mike Bonin (left) and his partner Sean Arian (far right) with their adoptive son (center) The start of the meeting was delayed as protesters shouted for Councilmen Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo - who were also present at the meeting in question - to leave the room, while police offices scurried at the edge of the crowd, waving futilely for protesters to sit down. One woman raised a sign saying, 'Nury ur time is up Resign.' Another protester waved a sign saying 'Take out the Trash.' 'Resign now,' the protesters shouted, sometimes embellishing the chants with profanity. 'This meeting cannot start. This house is out of order.' 'Get out!' De Leon sat impassively at his seat, his eyes cast downward, as protesters called on him by name to exit the chamber. Other Council members urged the crowd to be quiet and allow the meeting to begin, and if necessary threatened to empty the chamber. 'We don't want to put you out,' Councilmember Mitch OFarrell said, shortly before the crowd quieted and the meeting began. Ron Herrera, former President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, can be heard in the audio recordings joking about the Black son of Mike Bonin, an LA City Council member Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has claimed that the recordings are 'illegal'. The group said that they plan to prosecute any and all individuals involved in the leak, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the recording, taped during an October 2021 redistricting meeting, former Council president Nury Martinez is heard referring to the black son of a colleague with racist language, including calling the young boy a 'changuito,' a Spanish word for 'little monkey.' On Tuesday, Martinez announced she is taking a leave of absence. 'This has been one of the most difficult times of my life,' she wrote in a statement. 'I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders.' Officials with the organization slammed the recordings of 'many private and confidential conversations in private offices and conference rooms,' the federation said in a memo obtained by the LA Times. The memo circulating among labor leaders in the area is calling for information on the leak, promising to take legal action against the person or persons responsible. DailyMail.com reached out to a spokesperson for the LA County Federation of Labor, Justin Wesson, who did not immediately respond to inquiries. The organization is asking that anyone with information on the recording reach out to Wesson. The spokesperson for the labor group has a multitude of reasons to press onward in the investigation as he is the son of former Councilmember Herb Wesson, and married to Nury Martinez's chief of staff, Alexis Wesson. The memo being sent around comes during a moment of chaos among some of the key players in Los Angeles' labor scene. On Monday evening, Ron Herrera, head of the LA Federation of Labor, resigned from his position over the leaked audio clip which has sparked major backlash. Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, leader of the California Labor Federation, confirmed that the LA County official had handed in his resignation during an executive meeting. 'Last night, Ron Herrera resigned from his position as President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor,' the statement read in part. 'The Executive Board of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor also calls on those elected officials who were present to follow President Herrera's example by immediately resigning as well.' 'Racism in any form has no place in the House of Labor,' the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor statement reads. 'It is unconscionable that those elected to fight for our communities of color would engage in repulsive and vile anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Asian and anti-Oaxacan remarks that pit our working communities against each other. These sentiments will not be tolerated by our organization or those who we represent.' In an initial apology, the labor leader said that he felt remorse for his 'failure to stand up to racist and anti-black remarks.' 'There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room. Period. And I didn't step up to stop them and I will have to bear the burden of that cross moving forward,' the statement released by Herrera said. Herrera's resignation came just hours after one of his counterparts from the leaked audio recording resigned from her own position as the Los Angeles City Council president. LA City Council member Mike Bonin (pictured) and his adoptive son (left) were unknowingly subjected to derogatory remarks from Martinez and two other city council members in an October 2021 conversation Also in the audio clip shared are LA City Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. A message sent on behalf of Herrera by the LA Federation of Labor told affiliates that the group has been successful removing audio clips from social media and further action. The group, in the memo, allegedly took the credit for getting the Reddit user who initially posted the audio to the app suspended, as well. Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez is resigning effective immediately after being recorded making racist remarks toward a fellow council member and his black child, causing widespread outrage and demands for her firing The organization also said that they are planning to investigate the situation, how this audio was recorded and how it got leaked, and to 'make sure these crimes are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' One of the original posts sharing the audio clip to Reddit also included pointed commentary on how the Los Angeles City Council was 'in bed' with the labor movement. Martinez was also caught on tape using profanity when talking about LA District Attorney George Gascon. 'F*** that guy, he's with the Blacks,' said the former member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. Some believe that the remarks, recorded over a year ago, were released just now in an attempt to sway voters during the upcoming elections. Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo were also part of the leaked conversation, in which Leon agreed that Bonin carried his son 'like an accessory', comparing it to Martinez wandering around with her Louis Vuitton bag The comments made by the group were aimed at colleague Mike Bonin, a white city council member, as well as Bonin's son, who is black. De Leon accuses Bonin of treating his son like an accessory, comparing him to a designer purse and referred to Bonin as the 'fourth Black member' of the Los Angeles City Council. Martinez also went off on indigenous people living in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood, referring to them 'short little dark people,' and at one point referred to Bonin as a 'little b**ch.' The woman also said Bonin had been raising his son 'like a little white kid,' who needs a 'beatdown'. 'Let me take him around the corner and then I'll bring him back,' the city council president added. The announcement, made in an email from the liberal councilwoman's office Monday afternoon, comes after the release of a recorded October 2021 conversation between Martinez and other city officials After the clips were leaked, the former Council president released an apology for her words and actions that leaked to the public. 'I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments,' the former Council president said. 'I'm so sorry. I sincerely apologize to the people I hurt with my words: to my colleagues, their families, especially to Mike (Bonin), (Bonin's husband) Sean (Arian), and your son. As a mother, I know better and I am sorry. I am truly ashamed. I know this is the result of my own actions. I'm sorry to your entire family for putting you through this. 'As someone who believes deeply in the empowerment of communities of color, I recognize my comments undercut that goal. Going forward, reconciliation will be my priority. I have already reached out to many of my Black colleagues and other Black leaders to express my regret in order for us to heal.' The woman announced that she would formally resign from her position as Council president, but would remain with the organization in a general role. Early Tuesday morning, however, the woman shared that she would be taking a 'leave of absence,' although she did not specify for how long. The was statement sent out minutes after her primary opponent in the race for city mayor, billionaire real estate mogul Rick Caruso, took to Twitter to ask the official to leave her post 'This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognize this is entirely of my own making,' Martinez said in a statement shared by KTLA. 'At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders,' the statement reads. It is still not a full resignation, however, which many have called for. Bonin and other major political figures in California have called on Martinez and the group to resign immediately after their comments. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, and California Governor Gavin Newsom have all weighed in as well, echoing Bonin's request and anger over the racist recordings. California Governor Gavin Newsom was one of the public figures who spoke out on the controversy out of LA, saying that 'words matter' 'At a time when our nation is grappling with a rise in hate speech and hate crimes, these racist comments have deepened the pain that our communities have endured. Los Angeles deserves better,' Sen. Padilla said in a statement. 'At this critical time for the city and the nation, we must continue to build unity and solidarity within all our communities and we must recommit to the struggle for equity and justice for all.' 'Words matter, and racist language can do real harm. These comments have no place in our state, or in our politics, and we must all model better behavior to live the values that so many of us fight every day to protect,' said Gov. Newsom on Monday. After the audio leaked, protestors quickly gathered outside of Martinez's home, calling her out for her words made about the young child of her colleague. The clip originally leaked on Reddit earlier in October but was picked more widely when it was reported by the Times on Sunday By nightfall, protesters laid siege to Martinez's home in Sun Valley chanting: 'Hey hey, ho ho, Nury Martinez has got to go.' By nightfall, protesters laid siege to Martinez's home in Sun Valley chanting: 'Hey hey, ho ho, Nury Martinez has got to go.' The protesters were there flouting a law that Martinez herself championed in 2021 that effectively banned protests in residential areas. One protester told CBS Los Angeles: 'We can't keep allowing these people to do whatever they want. It's just blatantly disrespectful, it's honestly just evil.' 'That's why we're out here. We want to let her know that she will not be sitting there for much longer and we will get her out of office,' the protester said. Protesters also blasted audio of the recordings through a loudspeaker. The group's message went on: 'This is bulls**t! We will leave when Nury Martinez resigns!' It remains unclear who recorded the audio and who leaked it. Almost 200,000 Australians who spent years fighting to clear welfare debts they didn't owe will have active Centrelink investigations wiped. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government will scrap the cases of robodebt victims still under review, with any potential debt no longer being pursued. The unlawful debt recovery scheme started in 2015 and falsely accused welfare recipients of owing money to the government. More than $750million was wrongfully recovered from 381,000 Australians. More than 2,000 victims took their own lives after receiving debt notices, including Melbourne florist Rhys Cauzzo, 28, after Centrelink wrongly told him he owed $28,000 in 2017. Robodebt victims wrongly accused of owing Centrelink who are still fighting to clear their name will have their debts wiped (pictured, Australians outside a Melbourne Centrelink) Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said clearing the outstanding cases would offer certainty to any Australians with reviews hanging over their heads. Ms Rishworth said pursuing the cases would be expensive and time-consuming, and would undermine public confidence in the welfare system. 'The robodebt fiasco is something that should be of deep concern to all Australians. We know it had a significant human cost,' she said. Government Services Minister Bill Shorten described the robodebt scheme as 'shameful and illegal'. Rhys Cauzzo (left) took his own life after he was accused of owing Centrelink money. He's pictured with his mother Jennifer Miller before his death on Australia Day 2017 'We are removing any doubt that has been hanging over the heads of Robodebt victims for almost a decade,' Mr Shorten said. 'These dodgy debts were raised by the former government in an illegal shakedown against some of the most vulnerable to underpin their discredited surplus forecasts.' Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. The Albanese government described the Centrelink robodebt scheme as 'shameful and illegal' Do you know more? tips@mailonline.com Both men are being treated at Liverpool Hospital while investigations continue Another man, in his 20s, was shot in the leg in Liverpool at 6.20am Wednesday Two Sydney men have been gunned down just hours apart in separate shootings in the city's south-western suburbs. About 11.15pm on Tuesday night, a 40-year-old man was shot in the chest outside his Cabramatta unit. At 6.20am on Wednesday a man in his 20s was shot in the leg - with photos showing the scene swarming with police. Both men are being treated at Liverpool Hospital and remain in a stable condition. Two men have been shot in Sydney's southwest, one outside his unit in Cabramatta and another in Liverpool (pictured, police the scene in Liverpool) It is not known if the shootings are related. Officers from the Liverpool City Police Area Command established a crime scene on Charles St related to the Liverpool shooting. Meanwhile, detectives from the Fairfield City Police Area Command are investigating the scene on Park Rd in Cabramatta. Anyone with information related to the shootings is urged to contact police. More to follow. Both men, one aged 40 and another in his 20s, were taken to Liverpool Hospital (pictured, an officer at the Liverpool crime scene) Former first lady Kim Jung-sook, left, is greeted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the prime minister's residence in New Delhi in this Nov. 5, 2018 file photo. Yonhap The head of a state auditor said Tuesday that he will consider launching an inspection into a controversy surrounding a solo visit by former first lady Kim Jung-sook, wife of former president Moon Jae-in, to India in 2018. Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) Chair Choe Jae-hae made the remarks during a parliamentary audit, as lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) raised allegations that Kim took a tour of the iconic Taj Mahal during her visit to India with a hastily arranged budget. Board of Audit and Inspection Chair Choe Jae-hae takes an oath during a parliamentary inspection of his agency at the National Assembly in Seoul, Oct. 11. Yonhap A Queensland man has been charged over a crash that killed a six-year-old boy in the state's Southern Highlands nearly 18 years ago. Police attached to the crash investigation unit applied for the extradition of a 59-year-old man after he was arrested by officers on Sunday. The man arrived at Sydney Airport late on Tuesday after an extradition application was granted in Ipswich Magistrates Court on Monday. Rian Strathdee (pictured) was a back-seat passenger in a station wagon hit by a heavy vehicle while being driven south along the Hume Highway near Sutton Forest on the evening of November 26, 2004 The car rolled 40 metres down an embankment in southern NSW, killing the boy (pictured) The man (pictured) arrived at Sydney Airport late on Tuesday after an extradition application was granted in Ipswich Magistrates Court on Monday Police will allege the man - then aged 42 - was working as a truck driver at the time (pictured, the scene of the accident) He was taken to Mascot Police Station and charged with five offences including dangerous driving occasioning death. The charges relate to a 2004 crash which killed six-year-old Rian Strathdee. The boy was a back-seat passenger in a station wagon hit by a heavy vehicle while being driven south along the Hume Highway near Sutton Forest on the evening of November 26, 2004. The car rolled 40 metres down an embankment, killing the boy. The truck involved did not stop. Police will allege the man - then aged 42 - was working as a truck driver at the time. He was refused bail and will appear at Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday. Police are reiterating pleas for drivers to avoid flooded NSW roads after the body of a man was found in his submerged car in the state's central west. The death of the 46-year-old comes as much of NSW braces for further inundation, with more than 100 flood warnings in place. The man was last seen at Essington, south of Bathurst, around 11am on Sunday, with a search launched when he failed to return home on Monday. About 10.30am on Tuesday a police helicopter crew found his car fully submerged in Campbells River at Charlton and State Emergency Service crews recovered the vehicle with his body inside. The Lachlan River in Forbes, NSW's central-west, threatens to break its banks this week, above 'Motorists are reminded not to drive into any roadways covered by water due to the dangers of becoming trapped - if it's flooded, forget it,' police said in a statement on Tuesday. Parts of already sodden NSW are predicted to cop as much as another 65mm of rain by week's end. The Bureau of Meteorology says a trough approaching from the west is expected to bring thunderstorms to the central and southern inland on Thursday and Friday as it crosses the state. Senior forecaster Jonathan How said from late Thursday into Friday, heavy rain would push into Victoria's northeast and across the western slopes of NSW. This may cause renewed flooding along rivers in parts of the central west and southwest from Friday, many of which are already full due to heavy rain in recent months. 'But thankfully for those flood-affected communities including Bathurst, Gundagai and Forbes ... the heaviest rain will be further south,' Mr How told ABC TV on Wednesday. 'But of course, we are expecting to see some local creek and river rises.' SES volunteers have responded to more than 1000 calls for help since Friday evening. Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said concern for remote communities was high as the 'widespread' weather system hit the state. 'The SES is concerned about many of our rural, regional and remote communities ... in Nyngan, Warren, Wee Waa, Gunnedah, Moree, Bathurst and Forbes,' Ms Cooke said Floodwaters swamp the town of Cowra in the state's central west on Tuesday But she said emergency personnel were now better prepared than before the previous floods, in March. She noted 1300 extra volunteers had been added to the emergency service and call-taking capacity had been beefed up. A three-tier simple warning system for residents has also been put in place and up to 14 night-time helicopters for the state are on stand-by. Numerous rivers are at major flood levels, particularly in the north and west of the state. Last month was the fifth highest rainfall on record for Australia as a whole and above average for most of the country, according to the BoM. Eight Ohio police officers involved in the June shooting of a 25-year-old black man are returning to work, Akron police chief announced on Tuesday, to help the city cope with a staffing shortage. Steve Mylett, chief of Akron police, told a press conference he knew bringing the officers back would be controversial, but insisted that it was better than letting the city go without essential services. 'I recognize that this decision will have an impact. And there may be some community concern, but I didn't take this decision lightly,' Mylett said. 'And I think this decision is in the best interests of the citizens and businesses of Akron.' He said the eight would be on desk duties, and not in uniform. The unnamed officers shot and killed Jayland Walker following a traffic stop for a minor violation. Steve Mylett, chief of Akron police, said on Monday that he was bringing the eight officers back to alleviate a staffing shortage Jayland Walker, 25, was shot dead by police in Ohio, with a medical examiner finding that he was shot or grazed 46 times when police fired a hail of bullets at him on June 27 Police had been in pursuit of Walker (right) for equipment violations and said the 25-year-old black man shot at them 40 seconds into the chase. Walker, however, was unarmed and running away when police opened fire on him Walker sped off, and authorities say Walker fired a gunshot from his car 40 seconds into the chase, causing police to fire back. When the car slowed down, Walker jumped out of the passenger side door wearing a ski mask and fled from police, who then unleashed a barrage of gunshots. Walker died with 46 gunshot wounds to his body, a coroner concluded - five of them to the back, as Walker was running away. An unloaded handgun, an ammunition clip and what appeared to be a wedding band were found on the driver's seat of Walker's car, authorities said. The officers involved were on paid leave while the state investigates the shooting. Seven of those officers are white, and one is black. None of them has a record of discipline, substantiated complaints or fatal shootings, according to the police department. Immediately after the shooting, Mylett asked the attorney general of Ohio, David Yost, for an external review by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The results of the state probe, which is ongoing, will be turned over to local prosecutors or a grand jury to decide whether charges are warranted against the officers involved. Mourners at Walker's funeral on July 13 wore 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Zero Threat, Zero Violence, Justice for Jayland' T-shirts as the protested his death at the hands of police A member of the Fred Hampton Gun Club stands guard outside of the Akron Civic Theatre where around 1,000 mourners gathered for Jayland Walker's funeral on July 13 Academy award winning movie director Spike Lee was in attendance at Jayland Walker's funeral Mylett said he was aware that the decision to bring the eight back to work was controversial, but said he consulted widely and it was agreed that it was the best course of action. 'I need as many people as I can muster so I don't have to cut services to the community,' Mylett said, adding that the staffing levels were dangerously low. 'So much so that I consider it a crisis - staffing levels in our police department - to the point where I'm being put in a position where I may end up having to decide to cut some services that we provide to the community because we just don't have enough people. 'And that's certainly something I do not want to do,' Mylett said. The chief said he met with advisory councils on how to proceed, taking into consideration the needs of the department and the community at large. 'I believe it will make a significant difference because every call that an officer is able to handle over the telephone is one less response by a field officer, and that keeps officers in the neighborhood and free to answer other 911 calls, higher priority calls. 'I have looked to my deputy chiefs to assign the officers appropriately. And they're doing that,' he said. 'I assure you that this has not been a vacation for these officers. This shooting has impacted everybody in the city of Akron and beyond. 'And this shooting has certainly impacted the officers as well. 'Bringing [them] back and reassigning them provides a service to the community that these officers are able to provide. 'And that is the decision that decision was based on that.' Vladimir Putin attacked energy supplies in Ukraine yesterday in a bid to leave the country in the cold this winter. As Volodymyr Zelensky begged G7 leaders to protect his skies, air raid sirens blared across the country for a second day after a barrage of deadly strikes on Monday, forcing Ukrainians to take cover once again. Despite Russias claims it has attacked strategic military targets, blasts around four key cities left large swathes of Ukraine facing blackouts and water shortages. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said: These are war crimes planned well in advance and aimed at creating unbearable conditions for civilians. He said it was part of a deliberate strategy by Moscow as winter approaches. Vladimir Putin attacked energy supplies in Ukraine yesterday in a bid to leave the country in the cold this winter Despite Russias claims it has attacked strategic military targets, blasts around four key cities left large swathes of Ukraine facing blackouts and water shortages As Volodymyr Zelensky begged G7 leaders to protect his skies, air raid sirens blared across the country for a second day after a barrage of deadly strikes on Monday The attacks formed part of apparent revenge strikes by Putin, who warned of a severe response after he declared the humiliating weekend bombing of a bridge to occupied Crimea, a military supply route, a terrorist attack. The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said 19 people had died and 105 people were wounded in Mondays strikes. At least seven of the victims were in the capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 cities and towns lost power. Western leaders meeting at the G7, a club for the worlds richest democracies, last night condemned the escalation in violence and vowed to stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Prime Minister Liz Truss and allies said indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime and vowed to hold President Putin and those responsible to account. Employees of a cafe serve visiters in a cafe without electricity in western Ukrainian city of Lviv, after three Russian missiles fired targeted energy infrastructure President Zelensky called on the bloc to help him defend his people against Moscows attacks. When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defence systems, the key element of Russias terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work, he told a virtual meeting. A body lies underneath a blanket in Zaporizhzhia, a city in southern Ukraine, after a Russian airstrike hit a humanitarian convoy that was headed towards Russian-occupied territory An aerial view shows how a single missile exploded close to the convoy, shredding the vehicles with shrapnel as people prepared to head into nearby Russian-occupied territory to visit relatives and distribute aid Medics provide support to the survivors of a missile strike which hit a humanitarian convoy heading out of the Ukrainian-occupied city of Zaporizhzhia into nearby Russian territory this morning I am asking you to strengthen the overall effort to help financially with the creation of an air shield for Ukraine, he added. He is thought to be looking at a system like Israels Iron Dome, which intercepts enemy rockets, sometimes totalling thousands a week. Around half of the 84 missiles fired by Russia from land, air and sea on Monday were able to evade Kyivs defences. Yesterday 20 cruise missiles and 13 Iranian-made kamikaze drones were shot down by Ukraines Air Force Command, but 33 strikes hit. Ukrainian servicemen stand next to the body of a civilian killed by a missile strike near Zaporizhzhia The US and Germany have vowed to speed up air defence deliveries in the wake of the fresh bombings, the worst since the beginning of the invasion in February. Undeterred, the Russian military struck again yesterday in a bid to terrorise the population and wipe out key infrastructure. Deep inside Kyivs fortified metro stations, built to withstand a nuclear blast, hundreds of people hid in the labyrinth of tunnels as Ukraines air defence took out an incoming missile. A body lies underneath a sheet next to a humanitarian convoy of cars that was headed out of the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia towards Russian-occupied territory nearby to distribute aid We are afraid. But we are more irritated, said Helena Kucher, 44, who hunkered down on a platform with her ten-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. They waited patiently, as her daughter Daria drew flowers in her notepad, for the all-clear alert to arrive on their mobile phones just after 1pm. Fearing future attacks, people deserted the streets but for workers and residents clearing away debris. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into public facilities in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire, Ukrainian emergency officials said. Lviv in western Ukraine came under fire for a second consecutive day with three explosions ringing out just after midday, taking out two energy facilities and injuring a 53-year-old man. As a result of the missile strike, 30 per cent of Lviv is temporarily without electricity, mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote on the Telegram messaging app, adding that water supplies had been cut off in two districts of the city. In nearby Vinnytsia, drones crashed into a thermal power plant as the attacks on energy sites continued. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office, warned the recent strikes amount to a war crime. Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations, she told journalists. At an official ceremony in St George's Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace today, where marble plaques engraved in gold commemorate Russian military heroes, Putin will preside over a treaty-signing proclaiming the annexation of four regions of Ukraine - the breakaway People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry confirmed on Tuesday that it had launched a series of long-range air strikes on a smaller scale than the previous day. The purpose of the strikes has been achieved. All designated facilities have been hit, officials in Moscow said. It came as Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov refused to rule out talks between Moscow and the West. It would leave the door open to a meeting between US president Joe Biden and Putin at the G20 summit in Indonesia next month, should the Kremlin despot confirm his attendance. Meanwhile, a catering oligarch, dubbed Putins chef, who bankrolls the feared Wagner Group of mercenaries, suggested Russian MPs should join in the fighting themselves. Yevgeny Prigozhin accused members of the Duma, Russias lower house of parliament, of not being supportive enough of the war. Im calling on the talking heads to get together and lead units like Wagner, while those who lack managerial skills can pick up automatic rifles or at least sappers shovels, he said. Joe Biden claimed Tuesday that firefighters came close to death while responding to a 20-minute fire at his Delaware home in 2004 and also said the world is calling on these individuals more and more to fight the effects of climate change. The president drew on personal experience during remarks at the Summit On Fire Prevention And Control when describing instances in his own life when he found himself relying on first responders. Biden has mentioned the time his kitchen caught on fire several times over the last two decades, even as recently as last week. 'I was doing Meet the Press', and lightning struck a little pond behind my house, came up through the ground, into the air conditioning system,' Biden detailed in his Tuesday remarks. 'Ended up generating this thick, black smoke And from the basement to the third floor, the attic, everything was ruined.' 'We almost lost a couple firefighters, they tell me, because the kitchen floor was the burning between beams in the house, in addition to almost collapsed into the basement,' the president said in his virtual remarks on Tuesday. Biden also brought up the incident during his speech in Fort Myer, Florida last week after surveying the devastation from Hurricane Ian. President Joe Biden claimed that firefighters almost died during a fire at his Delaware home in 2004 that lasted 20 minutes and was contained to the kitchen He made parallels to the category 4 storm completely obliterating communities and the lightning strike that he claims caused him to 'lose an awful lot'. 'I know from experience how much anxiety and fear and concern there are in the people,' Biden said with Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis standing over his shoulder. 'We didn't lose our whole home, but lightning struck and we lost an awful lot of it,' he said. When Biden was still a U.S. senator for Delaware, his home in Wilmington was struck by lightning, causing a small fire to spark that did not spread outside the kitchen. No one was injured by the fire in New Castle Country. Firefighters arrived to heavy smoke but were able to keep the flames contained to the kitchen. 'Luckily, we got it pretty early,'' Cranston Heights Fire Company Chief George Lamborn said at the time. 'The fire was under control in 20 minutes.' Biden also thanked the first responders who got him to the hospital for surgery in the middle of a snow storm. The president brought up the incident in his remarks for the Summit on Fire Prevention and Control on Tuesday. He has made reference to the kitchen fire several times in the last two decades including during remarks in Florida last week 'I got rushed to the hospital for a it turned out to be almost a nine-hour operation with a cranial aneurism in the middle of a snowstorm by my fire company,' Biden said Tuesday. 'They got me down. They saved my life. And so, I owe you. And so many other Americans owe you as well, so many families.' Biden said that firefighters are crucial in fighting the impacts of climate change and praised them for helping combat massive forest fires that have sparked in recent years. 'When the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly evident, we're calling on you more and more and more,' Biden said. 'Extreme heat and prolonged drought have turned wildfire season into wildfire years,' he added. 'And local firefighters are being called in more to respond to the fires in the wildland urban interface where we're moving out into the forest areas to develop and it becomes local and federal.' Advertisement The image everyone will retain of Angela Lansbury is of a sweet and stylish little biddy, kindly and highly intelligent, with clear, beady-blue eyes and a voice burbling away like a stream of sparkling water. I know I will cherish her performance as the singing teapot in Beauty And The Beast because the Disney animators did such a brilliant job of capturing all of these qualities. It was a wholesome image that was encouraged by Angela herself, saying: 'I try to be organized. I make lists. I hate things to be out of order.' As in life, so in death. The actress who was at one point the richest woman in television history thanks to her role as amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote died peacefully in her sleep yesterday at her Los Angeles home at the grand old age of 96. Jessica Fletcher was essentially America's Miss Marple, a twinkly-eyed lady of a certain age living alone in Cabot Cove, which is a version of St Mary Mead. As with Agatha Christie, whose world embodies a timeless lost Englishness, Murder, She Wrote, conveyed, as Angela said, 'heartland American values', and the public adored it, with 28 million tuning in each week from 1984 until 1996. It's always being repeated, everywhere in the world. It was a hard slog, with 14-hour days for 12 full years. Angela's remuneration went up from $40,000 an episode to $200,000, by which time she'd become the executive producer and negotiated all manner of lucrative concessions from Universal and CBS. The actress who was at one point the richest woman in television history thanks to her role as amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher (pictured) in 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote died peacefully in her sleep yesterday at her Los Angeles home at the grand old age of 96 ROGER LEWIS: I remember her in Bedknobs And Broomsticks (pictured) and as the comically drunk Salome Otterbourne in Death On The Nile, where her brother-in-law Ustinov is Poirot Actress Angela Lansbury is made a Dame Commander by Queen Elizabeth II during an Investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle in 2014 Jessica Fletcher was the first role Angela had played which made her a public figure, recognized in the street and asked for autographs. British born, she was made a CBE in 1994 and upgraded to Dame Angela in 2014 Murder, She Wrote was popular with advertisers which made it popular with the TV networks, if not with whoever decides on the winners of the Emmys. Angela was nominated 18 times and didn't win once. She was once asked why she kept working long after other actors might have settled for retirement. 'I've never been particularly aware of my age,' she said. 'It's like being on a bicycle I just put my foot down and keep going.' Jessica Fletcher was the first role Angela had played which made her a public figure, recognized in the street, and asked for autographs. British-born, she was made a CBE in 1994 and upgraded to Dame Angela in 2014. She was not always seen as a little old lady, however. Angela was the actress the director Milos Forman really wanted for the role of the hatchet-faced Nurse Ratched in his 1975 production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and her husband, Peter Shaw, was strongly in favor. But after studying the script, Angela reverted to type: 'This is a wonderful role, but I simply cannot play it. She is so awful, so evil.' She didn't want to dent her cozy appeal she only wanted audiences to love her. Hence, Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit in the West End with Rupert Everett, in 2014, or Driving Miss Daisy in an Australian tour with James Earl Jones. Angela was Mrs Santa Claus, Aunt March in Little Women, and Aunt Adelaide in Nanny McPhee. Yet Milos Forman, and her husband for that matter, could see there was something about Angela, her drive, her perfectionism, which had the potential to be sinister and bristling a coldness lurking on the other side of her pervasive niceness. In other words, the side of her George Cukor appreciated, and brought out memorably in Gaslight, all those years ago, and which, The Manchurian Candidate apart, she was never to go near ever again. Although she never won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, despite being nominated three times, she was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2013 (seen) in recognition of her incredible career During her 80-year career, Lansbury also bewitched Broadway audiences, winning five Tony Awards, including Best Actress nods for her roles in productions like Sweeney Todd in 1979 (left) and Blithe Spirit in 2009 (right) Angela Lansbury's career began at MGM in 1943, in the era of Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford and Judy Garland. She went on to become a star in Broadway musicals Sondheim was to write Sweeney Todd for her. It helped that she came from a well-connected family. Angela's grandfather was George Lansbury, who represented Poplar in the House of Commons and was the leader of the Labour Party in the 1930s. He toured America with Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, giving speeches on world disarmament. His pacifist beliefs were not even dented by the rise of Hitler. Angela's father ran a business providing wood veneers for ocean liners. Her mother, Moyna, was an actress, who'd played Desdemona opposite Basil Rathbone in Othello. Angela was born in 1925, and they all lived in Hamilton Terrace, off London's Regent's Park, with two scullery maids, a parlor maid and a cook. The wood veneer trade must have been precarious, however, as when Angela's father died, when she was nine, she recalls that 'we really had no income to speak of.' Moyna became the mistress of a mad Scotsman called Leckie Forbes, who wore a World War I tin hat and kept a loaded revolver under the pillow. Nevertheless, Leckie paid for Angela's education, at the South Hampstead School for Girls and the Webber-Douglas drama college. Here Angela played Rosalind to Avengers star Patrick Macnee's Orlando. Meanwhile, her sister, Isolde, got married to Peter Ustinov and at the reception Moyna met somebody who persuaded her to escape the mad Scotsman, and the impending war, by going to America. Shaw and Lansbury had two children together - son Anthony (right), born in 1952, daughter Deirdre (left), born in 1953 - and the actress also became stepmother to David, Shaw's son from a previous relationship Lansbury was married twice during her life, first to actor Richard Cromwell (seen together), who was 16 years her senior, in 1945, however the union lasted less than one year - although the pair are said to have remained friends until his death in 1960 Over the years, Lansbury won a slew of major awards, including multiple Golden Globes (seen left in 1990 after winning the gong for Best Actress in a Television Series Drama) and she also received several lifetime achievement awards, including a Screen Actors Guild award in 1997 (right) In 1949, Lansbury wed for a second time, tying the knot with actor and producer Peter Shaw in a ceremony at St. Columba's Church, London (left). The couple (seen together right) were together for more than 50 years until Shaw's death in 2003 Even Lansbury's voice earned her recognition the world over, after she lent it to Beauty and the Beast character Mrs. Potts in Disney's 1991 animated movie Beauty and the Beast Moyna and Angela were evacuated on the last civilian vessel to cross the Atlantic and once on the other side of the pond, they were looked after by more of Moyna's friends, who gave them a place to live in New York and helped Angela enroll at a place offering dance classes and singing lessons. But even at the age of 15, Angela reckoned: 'You don't learn how to act. You either got it or you ain't.' When her mother was offered small acting jobs in touring shows, Angela followed her out West. She earned $28 a week as a gift wrapper in Los Angeles department stores, which just about kept the wolf from the door. She auditioned for various directors at the studios and George Cukor was looking for a saucy and precocious maid for Gaslight, the psychological thriller which was to star Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. Angela was good at accents the film required a Cockney and won the role. MGM paid her $500 a week, with annual options for six years. She was brilliant as the insinuating skivvy, perhaps never better. 'You know, don't you, that gentlemen friends are inclined to take liberties,' says Boyer. 'Oh no sir,' replies Angela, 'not with me. I can take care of myself when I want to.' It is an extraordinarily sly and slightly dangerous performance, for which Angela was nominated for the 1944 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She next played Dorian Gray's music-hall girlfriend, and victim, Sybil Vane, in the film version of Oscar Wilde's masterpiece The Picture Of Dorian Gray, and was nominated for the Academy Award again. Her salary increased to $1,500 a week. But though Angela was in National Velvet with Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood never quite knew what to do with her. She made no progress towards bigger parts a villainous queen in Gene Kelly's Three Musketeers, a silly princess in Danny Kaye's The Court Jester and before long was typecast as 'baggy-faced frumps,' such as Orson Welles's girlfriend in The Long Hot Summer, even though Angela was half his age. And this seemed to be the pattern Angela was cast as characters much older than she really was. In Blue Hawaii, she's Elvis' mother, and Elvis was 29 and she was 36. In The Manchurian Candidate which earned her another Oscar nod Laurence Harvey, playing Angela's brainwashed son, was in actuality only three years her junior. Matters came to a head when, in 1962, she was cast as Warren Beatty's mother in All Fall Down and she decided she'd had enough of being patronized. Describing Beatty as 'egotistical, self-centered and looking out for himself,' she told him to his face: 'You conceited a*****e! You are a horrible brat!' As Angela said, she'd been getting 'good small parts, but always small', and because of this, 'I didn't get a lot of offers.' At one point she even had to queue up for unemployment benefits. She drifted back to New York, got second billing to a neurotic Lee Remick in a play, and was in musicals that quickly closed in one cursed production, an actor had a heart attack and died on stage and a dancer fell into the orchestra pit on top of the saxophonist, who also had a heart attack. Angela was rescued by being cast in the hit musical Mame, which opened in 1966 when she was 41. A big campy exercise, with Angela having 28 costume changes, it ran for 1,508 performances and Angela was devastated when Lucille Ball was chosen to star in the film version. Angela went back to California, only to witness her house burning down in a bush fire. She had what can only be described as a nervous breakdown, and disappeared to Ireland. 'I wanted to start life over again in an uncluttered way and live a simple life,' she said. Angela found a Georgian property on 20 acres in County Cork, and it's here she raised her children wanting to isolate them from the American drug culture. Angela had married Peter Shaw, an agent with William Morris, in 1949. They were together until his death in 2003. There'd been an earlier marriage to one Richard Cromwell in 1945, which ended after a year. One night he 'simply disappeared', and Angela found out he was gay. They were swiftly divorced on grounds of 'incompatibility'. From Ireland, Angela came to Britain occasionally she was Gertrude to Albert Finney's Hamlet when the National Theatre opened. She was the seemingly dotty Miss Froy (who is actually a secret agent) in a remake of The Lady Vanishes. I remember her in Bedknobs And Broomsticks and as the comically drunk Salome Otterbourne in Death On The Nile, where her brother-in-law Ustinov is Poirot. And she even played Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd, with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. Jessica Fletcher would have been delighted. How Angela Lansbury saved her teen daughter from the clutches of Charles Manson by uprooting her family from the US and moving to Ireland By Brian Marks For Dailymail.com The late Angela Lansbury who died in the early hours of Tuesday at her Los Angeles home just days shy of her 97th birthday once had to pry her daughter from the clutches of convicted murderer Charles Manson. In a 2014 interview with DailyMail.com, Lansbury revealed that Diedre, now 69, had begun running with a crowd led by the cult leader during the 1960s, and with her brother Anthony had become involved with drugs. In order to keep her daughter and the rest of her family safe, the 'Murder, She Wrote' actress moved her whole family from their home in Los Angeles to Ireland, where her mother's family hailed from. Angela Lansbury revealed to DailyMail.com in 2014 that her daughter Diedre (pictured; now 69) was briefly swept up in Charles Manson's circle in the 1960s; Lansbury and Diedre seen in 2000 in Beverly Hills Getting out of town: In order to keep her family safe from Manson and drugs, the Murder, She Wrote actress moved her whole family from their home in Los Angeles to Ireland; Manson pictured in 1969 as he is escorted to his arraignment Lansbury said the troubles with Diedre and her older son Anthony, now 70, began in the 1960s when they fell under the sway of drugs. 'It started with cannabis but moved on to heroin,' the Sweeney Todd star explained. Their drug use brought her children, who were just teens at the time, into unsavory circles. 'There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits,' she continued. 'It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson.' Like some of Manson's followers, who would later commit the horrendous TateLaBianca murders, Diedre was allegedly drawn to the cult leaders charms. 'She was one of many youngsters who knew him and they were fascinated,' Lansbury continued. 'He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.' Bad influence: Lansbury said Diedre (pictured) and her son Anthony began using heavy drugs in the '60s, and Diedre became 'fascinated' with Manson; Angela and Diedre seen in 1989 in LA 'He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it'; Manson is pictured left in his 1969 mugshot. Manson was convicted in 1971 of leading his followers to kill seven people in 1969, including the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. He died in prison in 2017; seen in 1970 Fearing the kind of trouble her daughter might get into if she stayed in Manson's circle, Lansbury proposed a major move overseas. ''I said to [husband] Peter [Shaw], "We have to leave." So we upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork,' she said, explaining that it was a sort of homecoming, even though she had been born in London. 'I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences,' Lansbury continued. 'I still have a house there which I try and visit at least once a year. 'So I refused all work for a year and simply kept house. I bought Elizabeth David's books and learnt how to cook properly,' she added, referencing the popular British cooking writer. 'It was a wonderful time in my life.' A change of scenery proved to be just the prescription for her children, who thrived in Ireland. 'Anthony pulled right out of his bad habits quite quickly,' Lansbury shared. 'It took Deidre a little longer, but she finally got married and she and her husband now live in Los Angeles, where they run their own Italian restaurant.' Time for a change: 'I said to [husband] Peter [Shaw], "We have to leave." So we upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork,' she said; Lansbury seen with husband Peter Shaw and son Anthony in 1979 in NYC Anthony would later follow his mother's footsteps in the entertainment industry, and the two even collaborated when he directed 68 episodes of her series Murder, She Wrote. Even though everything worked out with her family, the thought of what could have happened to her children still frightened Lansbury decades later. 'It fills me with dread. Peter and I had no idea what had been going on,' she admitted. 'But then we had no experience of drugs. We didn't know the significance of finding a pipe in a drawer. Why would we? And when we did, we didn't know how to help them. Nor were there any experts back then who could offer advice to the parents of kids from good families who were using, and sometimes overdosing on, drugs. It was like an epidemic.' 'Certainly, I have no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two if they hadn't been removed to a completely different milieu, the simplicity of life in Ireland,' she added. 'In the end we found a doctor who prescribed methadone, a heroin substitute, which helped with the withdrawal symptoms as Anthony and Deidre were weaned off hard drugs. We were so very, very lucky we spotted what was happening just in time.' Safe haven: 'Certainly, I have no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two if they hadn't been removed to a completely different milieu, the simplicity of life in Ireland,' she added; Lansbury seen with Diedre and Anthony in 1957 Manson was eventually convicted 1971 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for seven murders committed by his followers in 1969. Although he is not believed to have explicitly ordered the killings, his behavior and teachings convinced a jury that he was responsible for the murders. The prosecution said that Manson's ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy. On the night of August 89, Manson's followers murdered the pregnant actress Sharon Tate (who was the wife of director Roman Polanski), along with her friend Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger of the Folger family, the Polish writer and director Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Parent. On August 10, Manson's followers broke into the home of Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary and brutally murdered the two. On that fateful summer night, Polanski was in London scouting locations for the Day of the Dolphin when he got the call that his wife was stabbed to death 16 times in one of the most vicious and brutal murders in the history of Los Angeles. Media frenzy directly followed the murders, with speculation that perhaps it had been part of a satanic ritual. Polanski posed for photographs in the home, next to where the word 'PIG' was written in blood, saying he hoped the graphic images would help shock people into coming forward with information. About a month later members of the Manson 'Family' were arrested on suspicion of involvement in an unrelated murder, which lead investigators to a breakthrough on the Tate case as well. The suspects told police they had killed Tate and her friends not because of who they were, but because of the home they were in, which had belonged to a previous acquaintance of Manson. Manson died of natural causes on November 19, 2017 at Corcoran State Prison, CA where he spent 47 years on death row. He was 83. Diedre's connection to Manson doesn't appear to have been close enough for him to involve her in the cult's 1969 murders, as Lansbury told RadioTimes in 2017 that the family moved after their house burned down in 1970. She said both Anthony and Diedre had to learn to cook and garden to stay self-sufficient in their new Irish home. In Jeff Guinn's 2014 book Manson: The Life And Times Of Charles Manson, he noted that Diedre never moved in full-time with Manson's cult, but she was still useful to him, as he and other Manson family members would 'go stock up on clothes or car parts without a concern for cost, because Didi paid for everything with her mother's credit cards.' However, they were eventually canceled, and she reportedly withdrew from Manson's circle. Kristin Chenoweth, Kathy Griffin and Josh Gad join chorus of stars paying tribute to actress Angela Lansbury... hours after her passing at age 96 By Deirdre Simonds and Eve Buckland For Dailymail.Com Kristin Chenoweth, Kathy Griffin and Josh Gad have joined the chorus of celebrities paying tribute to the late actress Angela Lansbury, who passed away on Tuesday. While mourning the loss of one of the entertainment industry's most prolific stars, Chenoweth, 54, penned a heartfelt tweet thanking Lansbury for her 'art & wisdom.' 'Nobody did Mame quite like her. Rest in peace, Angela Lansbury,' the Broadway star, who is best known as the originator of Glinda in the hit musical Wicked. Sad day: Kristin Chenoweth, Kathy Griffin and Josh Gad have joined the chorus of celebrities paying tribute to the late actress Angela Lansbury, who passed away on Tuesday Meanwhile, Griffin, tweeted: 'I cannot tell you how many ladies and gays are crushed, moved and feeling nostalgic about something in the past with the news of the passing of the fabulous Dame Angela Lansbury.' The tributes come just hours after Lansbury passed away at the age of 96, just five days before her 97th birthday. Gad marveled at Lansbury's impact on the world and how 'rare' it is that 'one person can touch multiple generations' with a 'breadth of work that defines decade after decade.' Gad marveled at Lansbury's impact on the world and how 'rare' it is that 'one person can touch multiple generations' with a 'breadth of work that defines decade after decade' Grieving: Meanwhile, Kathy Griffin, tweeted: 'I cannot tell you how many ladies and gays are crushed, moved and feeling nostalgic about something in the past with the news of the passing of the fabulous Dame Angela Lansbury' 'Angela Lansbury, who graced the stage for decades winning five Tony awards and brought the sleuthing Jessica Fletcher into our living rooms for a dozen years, has passed. A tale old as time, our beloved Mrs. Potts will sing lullabies to us now from the stars. Rest, great soul,' George Takei tweeted 'The great Angela Lansbury - one of the most versatile, talented, graceful, kind, witty, wise, classy ladies Ive ever met has left us. Her huge contribution to the arts and the world remains always. #ripAngelaLansbury,' Jason Alexander wrote on Twitter '#AngelaLansbury was that artist. From Mame to Bedknobs to Murder She Wrote to B&TB to Mary Poppins Returns she touched 4 generations. RIP Legend,' he tweeted. Sean Hayes shared a photo of the performer smiling as he reacted to losing 'another amazing woman and talent.' 'Your talent and career were an inspiration to the world. Rest in peace, dearest Angela. Big fan: Uzo Aduba tweeted a photo with the actress back in 2012 and gushed about being a 'VERY excited #theaterkid' upon their meeting after one of her Godspell performances 'Even though I had to pee I refused to leave my seat during intermission. I spent the 15 minutes chatting with her instead. She was incredibly lovely and I'm so glad I had that brief time with her. RIP Angela,' he tweeted 'I will NEVER forget the magical night I got to perform in front of and get to MEET the legend, Angela Lansbury. She was a true giant and a kind, humble and charming person. Im blessed to have met her. Rest In Peace,' Kevin McKidd tweeted 'We lost another amazing woman and talent - Dame Angela Lansbury. Your talent and career were an inspiration to the world. Rest in peace, dearest Angela. ,' Sean Hayes tweeted 'One of the brightest stars in the last decaderest in peace Angela Lansbury. The world is a better place because of you,' Marie Osmond wrote in her tribute 'Angela Lansbury, for all of us who had the extreme joy of working with her, loved actors. She cared deeply that we were taken care of, and made us feel like we were a part of her family. She was absolutely authentic, always kind, and something about her always touched my heart,' Raphael Sbarge tweeted Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson recalled 'sitting next to Angela Lansbury at an opening night.' 'Even though I had to pee I refused to leave my seat during intermission. I spent the 15 minutes chatting with her instead. She was incredibly lovely and I'm so glad I had that brief time with her. RIP Angela,' he tweeted. Uzo Aduba tweeted a photo with the actress back in 2012 and gushed about being a 'VERY excited #theaterkid' upon their meeting after one of her Godspell performances. 'She poured so much love into each of us. An icon of the stage, and legend across so many mediums but, we all knewshe was always one of us :). Thank you, Angela Lansbury. Thank you,' the Orange Is the New Black star recalled. Mia Farrow tweeted: 'Gratitude for the magnificent Angela Lansbury who gave us so many great performances. It was an honor to have worked with her and to know her as a friend. Thank you dearest Angie. Love forever.' So loved: Harvey Fierstein described the late legend as 'EVERYTHING' in a tweet The Irish-British and American actress, famed for her roles in Murder, She Wrote and Beauty and the Beast died peacefully at her home in Los Angeles, her three children revealed. A statement from her family read: 'The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday.' Lansbury became a legend in Hollywood and on Broadway during a career that spanned an impressive eight decades and saw her taking on roles alongside some of the industry's best-known stars when she was just a teen - with the actress landing her first major movie job just four years after she fled wartime London at the age of 14. Sad: News broke about on Tuesday morning that Lansbury passed away at the age of 96, just five days before her 97th birthday; seen in 2018 The Irish-British and American actress, famed for her roles in Murder, She Wrote and Beauty and the Beast died peacefully at her home in Los Angeles, her three children revealed (pictured in the 1971 film Bedknobs and Broomsticks) Having moved to New York with her actress mother after leaving their home in the UK, Lansbury dedicated herself to her love of drama, and she burst onto the film scene in spectacular fashion at the age of 18, when she landed her first role in the 1944 thriller Gaslight, which saw her holding her own on the big screen alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The job would ultimately earn her the first of three Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress - the second of which came one year later for her role in The Portrait of Dorian Gray - and marked the beginning of an illustrious career on the stage and screen, during which she would star alongside a number of industry icons, including Gene Kelly and Katharine Hepburn. However, to many TV lovers, Lansbury, who is survived by her three children and three grandchildren, was best known for her portrayal of mystery writer and amateur detective, Jessica Fletcher in the hit American crime drama series, Murder She Wrote, which ran for 12 seasons from 1984 until 1996. A major loss: A statement from her family read: 'The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday' For her role on the program, Lansbury was nominated for ten Golden Globes, winning four, earning her the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for Best Actress in a television drama series. She was also recognized for her work on the hit show with 12 Emmy Award nominations - once again making history for achieving the most Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, despite never winning the award. The series itself received three Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, as well as six Golden Globe nominations in the same category, with two major wins. In addition to her work on the hit CBS series, Lansbury also earned global fame through a wide variety of other roles on the stage and the screen. An icon: Lansbury (seen in 1989) became a legend in Hollywood and on Broadway during a career that spanned an impressive eight decades and saw her taking on roles alongside some of the industry's best-known stars when she was just a teen - with the actress landing her first major movie job just four years after she fled wartime London at the age of 14 Even her voice earned her recognition the world over, after she lent it to the iconic Beauty and the Beast character Mrs. Potts in Disney's 1991 animated movie Beauty and the Beast. In 2013, she received an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her 80 year acting career, having been nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress on three separate occasions for her roles in Gaslight (1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), and The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Beyond the big and small screens, Lansbury became a legend on the stage, having trod the boards of Broadway in a number of different productions, with her work on the Great White Way earning her five Tony Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award. Having earned Oscar nods for two of her first three roles on the big screen, it seemed to many that Lansbury was destined to become one of Hollywood's greatest leading ladies - however she later revealed that her mature demeanor prompted producers to pigeonhole her as older characters. In 1948, when she was just 23, her hair was streaked with gray so she could play a fortyish newspaper publisher with a yen for Spencer Tracy in State of the Union. Speaking to the New York Times in 2009, Lansbury noted that she 'wasn't very good at being a starlet' and 'wasn't cut out' for the bright glare of the spotlight that came with life as one of Hollywood's glamorous leading ladies. 'I wasnt very good at being a starlet,' she confessed. 'I didnt want to pose for cheesecake photos and that kind of thing. It was very difficult. I tried to fit in, but I really wasnt cut out for it.' The actress also noted that she wasn't skilled at playing the industry game, joking at the time that she 'maybe' should have 'slept with' more people or even 'played' MGM producer and co-founder Louis B. Mayer in order to get ahead. 'I dont know what I did wrong,' she continued. 'Maybe I didnt sleep with enough people. I think that had something to do with it. I really do. Maybe I didnt play Louis B. Mayer the way I might have.' Impressive career: Beyond the big and small screens, Lansbury became a legend on the stage, having trod the boards of Broadway in a number of different productions, with her work on the Great White Way earning her five Tony Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award; seen in 1996 Her stardom came in middle age when she became the hit of the New York theater, winning Tony Awards for Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1975) and Sweeney Todd (1979). She was back on Broadway and got another Tony nomination in 2007 in Terrence McNally's Deuce, playing a scrappy, brash former tennis star, reflecting with another ex-star as she watches a modern-day match from the stands. In 2009 she collected her fifth Tony, for best featured actress in a revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit and in 2015 won an Olivier Award in the role. But Lansbury's widest fame began in 1984 when she launched Murder, She Wrote on CBS. Based loosely on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories, the series centered on Jessica Fletcher, a middle-aged widow and former substitute school teacher living in the seaside village of Cabot Cove, Maine. She had achieved notice as a mystery novelist and amateur sleuth. The actress found the first series season exhausting. 'I was shocked when I learned that had to work 12-15 hours a day, relentlessly, day in, day out,' she recalled. 'I had to lay down the law at one point and say 'Look, I can't do these shows in seven days; it will have to be eight days.'" Fun roles: Lansbury pictured in the 2005 comedy-drama fantasy film, Nanny McPhee, in character as Great Aunt Adelaide Stitch Fun roles: Lansbury pictured in the 2005 comedy-drama fantasy film, Nanny McPhee, in character as Great Aunt Adelaide Stitch Lansbury seen in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) CBS and the production company, Universal Studio, agreed, especially since Murder, She Wrote had become a Sunday night hit. Despite the long days - she left her home at Brentwood in West Los Angeles at 6 a.m. and returned after dark - and reams of dialogue to memorize, Lansbury maintained a steady pace. She was pleased that Jessica Fletcher served as an inspiration for older women. 'Women in motion pictures have always had a difficult time being role models for other women,' she observed. 'Theyve always been considered glamorous in their jobs.' In the series' first season, Jessica wore clothes that were almost frumpy. Then she acquired smartness, Lansbury reasoning that, as a successful woman, Jessica should dress the part. Murder, She Wrote stayed high in the ratings through its 11th year. Then CBS, seeking a younger audience for Sunday night, shifted the series to a less favorable midweek slot. Lansbury protested vigorously to no avail. Prolific: Her stardom came in middle age when she became the hit of the New York theater, winning Tony Awards for Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1975) and Sweeney Todd (1979) As expected, the ratings plummeted and the show was canceled. For consolation, CBS contracted for two-hour movies of Murder, She Wrote and other specials starring Lansbury. Murder, She Wrote and other television work brought her 18 Emmy nominations but she never won one. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for best actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for lead actress in a drama series. In a 2008 Associated Press interview, Lansbury said she still welcomed the right script but did not want to play 'old, decrepit women'. 'I want women my age to be represented the way they are, which is vital, productive members of society.' 'I'm astonished at the amount of stuff I managed to pack into the years that I have been in the business. And Im still here!' Danish heir to the throne Prince Christian 'has one more year of freedom' before he turns 18 when he will be given 'more responsibility' Bulgarian worker made the mistake, which was found by an audit months later Singh had been a regular Crypto trader at the time of the bungled refund A couple who pocketed $10.4 million that was mistakenly transferred to an account in a Crypto.com bungle allegedly went on a multi-million dollar spending spree. Jatinder Singh waved and mouthed the words 'I love you' to his partner Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, whom police allege along with him stole the millions mistakenly transferred into her account in a Crypto.com error. Both appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday via videolink from separate prison cells. The pair face up to 20 years behind bars each if found guilty of stealing the money from the Commonwealth Bank, where Crypto.com transferred the cash by mistake. The court heard $2million in cash remains missing plus a further $1million in assets. Jatinder Singh had been trading in cryprocurrency when a mistake saw $10.4million transferred into his partner's account Thevamanogari Manivel in Melbourne Magistrates Court on September 27, 2022 Crypto.com mistakenly transferred almost $10.4million to Thevamanogari Manivel Detective Senior Constable Conor Healy said Manivel - a Malaysian national in Australia on a student visa and working in disability support- had been picked up at Melbourne Airport loaded with luggage, wads of cash and a one way ticket to Malaysia. She had earlier transferred $4million to a HSBC bank account in Malaysia, $2million of which was later returned, but the other $2million was quickly transferred to unknown accounts, the detective said. The court heard four houses had been purchased with the ill-gotten cash - all of which had been frozen by the Supreme Court as part of ongoing civil action launched there by Crypto.com. Senior Constable Healy alleged $8million had been transferred from Manivel's account between December 24 last year and February. Of that, $1.2million was used to buy a luxury home in Craigieburn and a $56,000 deposit went on a home in Mickleham. Police allege Manivel lavished gifts on her daughters, giving $500,000 to one, $430,000 to another and $200,000 to a third daughter. Another $70,000 was used to buy her daughter in Melbourne a car and $1.2million gifted to one of Singh's mates to pay off his mortgage on a Mickleham property. The rest was allegedly blown on furniture, art and other luxury items. The dream home was surrounded by weeds and appeared abandoned earlier this month HOW CRYPTO COUPLE ALLEGEDLY SPENT 'REFUND CASH' Police allege $8million was transferred from Manivel's account between December 24 last year and February. Of that, $1.2million was used to buy a luxury home in Craigieburn and a $56,000 deposit went on a home in Mickleham. Police allege Manivel lavished gifts on her daughters, giving $500,000 to one, $430,000 to another and $200,000 to a third daughter. Another $70,000 was used to buy her daughter in Melbourne a car and $1.2million gifted to one of Singh's mates to pay off his mortgage on a Mickleham property. A further $150,000 vanished in another unknown transfer. The rest was allegedly blown on furniture, art and other luxury items. Advertisement The court heard Singh had been a regular trader of cryptocurrency, using his debit card to amass $49,000 in his Crypto.com wallet. The $10,474,143 mistake was only discovered by Crypto.com in a company audit just before last Christmas. The court heard the company had attempted to issue a $100 refund into Manivel's account after Singh had used it to conduct more trades. A Crypto.com manager told the court it was unusual for a trader not to use his own account, which prompted the refund when Singh failed to confirm he intended to use his partner's account. A Melbourne company contracted to Crypto.com made the mistake when an employee working out of Bulgaria accidentally copied and pasted the account number of her previous job into the refund amount headed back to Manivel's account. Police allege the money was moved out of Manivel's account into a joint account with Singh within hours of it being discovered by the couple. When the mistake was picked-up near on a year later, Singh claimed to police he believed he had 'won' the money in a 'Crypto.com contest'. The court heard Manivel claimed she was duped by Singh into believing the money was her's to deal with as she pleased. While Singh made no application for bail on Tuesday, Manivel was allowed to move back in with her daughter despite police fears she might disappear. Her brother - a mechanic - handed over a $10,000 surety to secure her freedom. Thilagavathy Gangadory - the sister of Thevamanogari Manivel - allegedly received this home off the back of a massive Crypto.com mistake Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges and will front the County Court of Victoria next month. At an earlier hearing, Manivel's barrister, Jessica Willard, told the court her client did not know the money might have been stolen. 'The whole issue in relation to Ms Manivel is the dishonesty element - whether she knew that the money was stolen or not,' Ms Willard said. The court heard Manivel had insisted upon her version of events upon her arrest in March, telling police her co-accused had 'won the money'. Singh had claimed similar when detectives eventually knocked on his door. 'That's also what he says in his record of interview,' Ms Willard said. Representatives from the Commonwealth Bank allege the couple had been well informed that the money had been transferred by mistake. The view earlier last month outside the million-dollar property Crypto bought What is known about the case stems largely from civil action launched by Crypto.com, which has used mega stars such as Matt Damon to advertise, and reportedly splashed $25m on AFL and AFLW sponsorship deals. Barristers acting for the company have served paperwork with the Supreme Court of Victoria in an effort to get its money back from Manivel. In a further twist, Manivel's sister Thilagavathy Gangadory is included in the Supreme Court civil suite. Documents state when Crypto.com tried to get its money back from Manivel, $1.35million had already been spent on a luxury house and the rest had been moved to other accounts. The house registration had been transferred to the Malaysia-based Ms Gangadory before Crypto.com was able to take out freezing orders against her in March. Despite Ms Gangadory's inclusion in the civil suit, it is understood police have not laid any criminal charges against her. Weeds take root in the home bought by proceeds from a crypto bungle A child's ride-on toy lays abandoned among the weeds of the home Crypto bought Littered with long, ugly weeds, the 'Crypto house' showed the telltale signs of neglect earlier this month when visited by Daily Mail Australia. Crypto currency had been enduring a rapid decline during the month of May last year when the error happened. The Craigieburn home, which has four bathrooms, a home gym and cinema, was bought on February 3, the Herald Sun reported at the time. Four days later, Crypto.com made freezing orders against Manivel's bank account, but court documents show $10.1m had already been moved to a different joint account and $430,000 had been transferred to her daughter. The company subsequently took legal action in the Supreme Court seeking to get back the cost of the house plus 10 per cent interest. The action was successful by default as neither Ms Gangadory nor her legal representatives attended the court or lodged a defence. Justice James Dudley Elliott ordered Ms Gangadory pay Crypto.com $1.35million, interest of $27,369 and costs, and that the Craigieburn house be sold. 'It is established that the Craigieburn property was acquired with funds traceable to the wrongful payment and would never have been in Gangadorys hands if the wrongful payment had not been made, Mr Elliott said as he handed down his judgment. Thevamanogari Manivel reportedly bought a luxury house (pictured) in the Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn after mistakenly receiving a bank transfer of $10,474,143 'Thus, Gangadory was unjustly enriched by receiving the purchase price of the Craigieburn property out of the wrongful payment. 'Accordingly, I was satisfied that the orders relating to the sale of the Craigieburn property were appropriate.' The Victorian Supreme Court's commercial division heard the case in May, but Justice Elliott's judgment was only made available last month. Because Ms Gangadory was not represented in court, Justice Elliott wrote that 'references to the facts of this case based on such uncontested evidence are necessarily open to challenge if Gangadory ever seeks to set aside the default judgment'. The judge added that she 'has not responded to any of the correspondence from (Crypto.com's) solicitors' and that 'the effect of not filing an appearance is that the allegations in the statement of claim are taken to be admitted'. Separate orders have reportedly been made regarding the rest of the money transferred to Manivel. Crypto.com's lawyers, Cornwalls Law, told Daily Mail Australia that as the matter is before the courts, it was unable to comment. Advertisement At first glance at these images, you'd be forgiven for mistaking them as stills from the latest science fiction blockbuster. But the flying saucer-like object depicted in the images is very much real - and is set to be launched into space by NASA next month. The Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) is scheduled for November 1 and will see a huge heat shield launched into low Earth orbit. Once there, it will inflate, before descending back to Earth. NASA hopes the test will demonstrate how the inflatable heat shield can slow down a spacecraft enough to survive atmospheric entry. If it proves successful, the technology could one day allow humans to land safely on Mars. At first glance at these images, you'd be forgiven for mistaking them as stills from the latest science fiction blockbuster. But the flying saucer-like object depicted in the images is very much real - and is set to be launched into space by NASA next month But the flying saucer-like object depicted in the images is very much real - and is set to be launched into space by NASA next month What is LOFTID? On November 1, NASA will demonstrate the technology for the first time from low-Earth orbit in its Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID). The heat shield will launch into space on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, alongside a JPSS-2 polar-orbiting weather satellite. Once JPSS-2 reaches orbit, the heat shield will inflate and be put on a re-entry trajectory from low-Earth orbit to test its ability to slow down and survive re-entry. Advertisement When it comes to destinations with atmospheres including Mars, Venus, Titan, and Earth one of the key challenges NASA faces is how to deliver heavy payloads. As it stands, current rigid aeroshells are constrained by the size of a rocket's shroud its streamlined protective covering. For example, you may remember the 'seven minutes of terror' as NASA's Perseverance rover used a parachute to descend to the Martian surface last year. Radio signals sent from NASA and vice versa take 10 minutes for either party to make contact, so after the ground team told Perseverance to descend, the rover took over and made the epic journey completely alone. The spacecraft shot through Mars atmosphere moving at 12,000 miles per hour, but then had to slow down to zero miles per hour seven minutes later in order to land safely on the surface. While Perseverance survived the descent unscathed using a basic parachute, the landing process is trickier for larger payloads, such as rockets with humans on board. 'One answer is an inflatable aeroshell that can be deployed to a scale much larger than the shroud,' NASA explained. When it comes to destinations with atmospheres including Mars, Venus, Titan, and Earth one of the key challenges NASA faces is how to deliver heavy payloads Once JPSS-2 reaches orbit, the heat shield will inflate and be put on a reentry trajectory from low-Earth orbit to test its ability to slow down and survive re-entry 'This technology enables a variety of proposed NASA missions to destinations such as Mars, Venus, Titan as well as return to Earth.' As a spacecraft enters an atmosphere, aerodynamic drag helps to slow it down. However, Mars' atmosphere is much less dense than that of Earth, which provides an extreme challenge for aerodynamic deceleration. 'The atmosphere is thick enough to provide some drag, but too thin to decelerate the spacecraft as quickly as it would in Earth's atmosphere,' NASA explained. Their solution to this problem is a large inflatable heat shield, which acts as a giant brake. The 20ft-wide heat shield would be deployed in the upper reaches of atmosphere, allowing a spacecraft to decelerate early, while experiencing less intense heating. The heat shield will launch into space on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, alongside a JPSS-2 polar-orbiting weather satellite If the test is a success, it could prove crucial in helping NASA reach its ambitious goal of launching humans to the Red Planet in the next decade On November 1, NASA will demonstrate the technology for the first time from low-Earth orbit. The heat shield will launch into space on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, alongside a JPSS-2 polar-orbiting weather satellite. Once JPSS-2 reaches orbit, the heat shield will inflate and be put on a reentry trajectory from low-Earth orbit to test its ability to slow down and survive re-entry. If the test is a success, it could prove crucial in helping NASA reach its ambitious goal of launching humans to the Red Planet in the next decade. 'This technology could support landing crew and large robotic missions on Mars, as well as returning heavier payloads to Earth,' NASA added. The robotic 'artist' is known for creating a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II A British humanoid named Ai-Da has made history by becoming the first robot to speak at the House of Lords - but suffered a slight hiccup after 'falling asleep'. There was an awkward moment early in the session when the bot had to be rebooted by her creator Aidan Meller, after a technical issue rendered her cross-eyed and zombie-like. He then put sunglasses on the robot - much to the bemusement of members of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee. When asked why, Mr Meller explained that when Ai-Da is reset 'she sometimes can pull quite interesting faces.' Prior to the brief setback, the robot had been speaking to the committee about whether creativity is under attack from AI and technology. Asked by crossbench peer Baroness Bull how she produces art, Ai-Da replied: 'I produce my paintings by cameras in my eyes, my AI algorithms and my robotic arm to paint on canvas, which result in visually appealing images. 'For my poetry using neutral networks, this involves analysing a large corpus of text to identify common content and poetic structures, and then using these structures/content to generate new poems. 'How this differs to humans is consciousness. I do not have subjective experiences, despite being able to talk about them. 'I am, and depend on, computer programs and algorithms. Although not alive, I can still create art.' She added: 'The role of technology in creating art will continue to grow. 'Technology has already had a huge impact on the way we create art.' A British humanoid named Ai-Da has made history by becoming the first robot to speak at the House of Lords - but suffered a slight hiccup after 'falling asleep' (pictured) There was an awkward moment early in the session when the bot had to be rebooted by her creator Aidan Meller, after a technical issue rendered her cross-eyed and zombie-like He then put sunglasses on the robot - much to the bemusement of members of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee AI-DA THE ROBOT ARTIST Ai-Da is an artificial intelligence robot built in 2019 that creates drawings, paintings and sculptures. She was devised in Oxford by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art, before being built in Cornwall by Engineered Arts and programmed internationally She's named after the 19th-century mathematician Ada Lovelace. Advertisement Wearing dungarees and an orange blouse, Ai-Da attended the session with her creator, Mr Meller. Those in attendance included Baroness Gail Rebuck, Chair of Penguin Random House, and Lord Hall, former Director General of the BBC. Ai-Da was devised in Oxford by Mr Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art, before being built in Cornwall by Engineered Arts and programmed internationally. The robot's capabilities were developed by PhD students and professors at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham. During the session, Ai-Da answered questions directly from peers although Mr Meller confirmed the questions had been pre-submitted to ensure better quality answers from the AI language model used to power the responses. Ai-Da, who was named after the 19th-century mathematician Ada Lovelace, touched on what constitutes art, and whether the definition of art changes if it is made by a human or AI. 'Art can be many things, from a painting to drawing or a poem,' she said. 'My art practice includes all of the above. 'Because art is often open to interpretation, the role of the audience is key.' Meller said the bot had been created to 'explore the whole world of AI and robotics' and was a 'contemporary art project' to examine the future of creativity amid concerns that artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technological advances could replace human creativity in the future. He said the greatest artists had 'engaged and questioned the societal shifts that took place within their times', and that Ai-Da had been built to spark a 'much-needed' debate about the 'nature of technology'. Addressing members of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee on Tuesday afternoon, the bot spoke about whether creativity is under attack from AI and technology When asked: 'How do you produce art and how is this different to what human artists produce?', Ai-Da replied: 'I could use my paintings by cameras in my eyes, my AI algorithms and my robotic arm to paint on canvas, which result in visually appealing images' Ai-Da closed the session on Tuesday by thanking those in attendance, calling it 'an encouraging discussion'. The female bot already received media attention this year for painting a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II to mark the monarch's Platinum Jubilee earlier this year. Ai-Da uses cameras in her eyes and computer algorithms to process human features, and transform what she 'sees' into coordinates. She then uses these coordinates to calculate a virtual path for her robotic arm, as it draws and paints onto canvas to create pieces of art. A British humanoid called Ai-Da has made history by becoming the first robot to speak at the House of Lords Ai-Da, named after the 19th-century mathematician Ada Lovelace, was devised in Oxford by Aidan Meller, a specialist in modern and contemporary art Ai-Da uses cameras in her eyes and computer algorithms to process human features, and transform what she 'sees' into coordinates. She then uses these coordinates to calculate a virtual path for her robotic arm, as it draws and paints onto canvas to create pieces of a Her piece, 'Algorithm Queen', was layered and scaled to produce the final multi-dimensional portrait of the monarch. Last year, she exhibited a series of 'self portraits' at The Design Museum London, which she created by 'looking' into a mirror with her camera eyes. She has also had a solo show at 59th International Art Exhibition, entitled 'Leaping into the Metaverse', and participated in Forever is Now 2021, the first major contemporary art exhibition at the great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Before reaching the exhibition, she was detained and had her eyes sealed shut by Egyptian authorities who thought she was a spy. The experience allegedly inspired her to create a poem, entitled 'Eyes Wide Shut', which she recited as Oxford's Ashmolean Museum last November. Lawmakers of the rival parties clashed Tuesday over allegations that the real purpose of Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon's visit to the United States in July was to dig into irregularities allegedly involving opposition leader Lee Jae-myung. On Monday, Rep. Kim Eui-kyeom of the main opposition Democratic Party raised the allegations that Han made the visit to investigate the alleged involvement of DP leader Lee and other opposition politicians in the case of former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith. Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in prison by a U.S. court on charges of conspiring to provide blockchain technology and other technical advice on using cryptocurrency to North Korea in 2019 as a means to evade economic sanctions, according to a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice. Kim said the justice minister is not allowed to lead an investigation into individual cases. In a parliamentary audit session on Tuesday, lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party called for an investigation into allegations that cryptocurrency can be used to skirt sanctions and send money to North Korea. But DP lawmakers said the issue should not be politicized, as no facts have been confirmed. (Yonhap) The first ever orbital launch on British soil is another step closer with Virgin Orbit's space plane set to arrive in Cornwall later this week. As early as next month, Sir Richard Branson's Cosmic Girl will take off from Newquay with a 70-foot-long rocket packed full of satellites, which will then be flown to high altitude, dropped, and ignited before flying into space. Today, the UK Space Agency announced that Virgin's carrier aircraft, ground support equipment, and rocket are all due to reach the new Spaceport Cornwall within days, ahead of what will be the first satellite launch from Britain. It will also be the first commercial launch from Europe and the first international launch by Virgin Orbit. The mission, which is on track for a November lift-off, has been named Start Me Up in tribute to the iconic British band, the Rolling Stones. It will be a momentous occasion, with the UK finally joining the space race some 70 years after the British Space Programme was established in 1952. Virgin Orbit launches involve the firm's carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl (pictured), and a two-stage orbital launch vehicle called LauncherOne, tucked into Cosmic Girl's belly Lift-off: The first ever orbital launch on British soil is another step closer with Virgin Orbit's space plane (pictured) set to arrive in Cornwall later this week TIMELINE OF FIRST ORBITAL LAUNCHES ON A COUNTRY'S OWN SOIL 1. Soviet Union - 4 October 1957 2. United States - 1 February 1958 3. Japan - 11 February 1970 4. France* - 10 March 1970 (From the French territory, French Guiana) 5. China - 24 April 1970 6. India - 18 July 1980 7. Israel - 19 September 1988 8. Iran - 2 February 2009 9. North Korea - 12 December 2012 10 South Korea - 21 June 2022 11. United Kingdom - ? Advertisement Not only that, but it will come 50 years after a British-made rocket, Black Arrow, last reached space following its lift-off from Australia. The Soviet Union was the first nation to carry out a successful space launch, with Sputnik 1 in October 1957, before the United States, Japan, France, China, India, Israel and Iran all followed. North Korea achieved the feat in 2012, along with South Korea earlier this year, so Britain would be the 11th nation to carry out a space launch on its own soil. Spaceport Cornwall will be the first such hub in the UK to enter service when the repurposed Newquay Airport hosts the space plane lift-off at night, after all the commercial flights have ended. It is sure to draw flocks of crowds as Branson's company launches two shoebox-sized satellites on behalf of the UK government on a rocket called LauncherOne. Once deployed, they will deliver high-tech imaging sensors, allowing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to monitor Earth and its oceans. Science Minister Nusrat Ghani said: 'As we move ever closer to the first satellite launch from UK soil, it's excellent to see the progress being made by Virgin Orbit, Spaceport Cornwall and those across government in delivering this historic mission, the first of its kind in Europe. 'With 47,000 jobs across the UK, our growing space industry is a vital part of the economy and has an important role to play in catalysing investment, generating growth and prosperity. 'I'm looking forward to working with this innovative sector and delivering on our National Space Strategy.' The Cornwall horizontal launch site is one of three spaceports in the UK that aim to start satellite launches in 2022, but is expected to beat its two Scottish rivals to seal the title as the host location of the first satellite launch from British soil. Today, the UK Space Agency announced that Virgin's carrier aircraft, ground support equipment, and rocket are all due to reach the new Spaceport Cornwall (pictured in an artist's impression) within days, ahead of what will be the first satellite launch from Britain MILESTONES IN BRITISH SPACE 1952: British space programme adopted 1962: First British-built satellite is launched (by NASA from Cape Canaveral, Florida) 1971: British rocket Black Arrow puts a single British satellite, Prospero, into orbit from a launch site in Australia 1975: 10 nations including the UK founds the European Space Agency 1985: British National Space Centre in Leicester is founded 1991: Sheffield-born chemist Helen Sharman becomes the first British person in space 2003: Beagle 2 British Mars lander launched 2004: Sir Richard Branson forms private company Virgin Galactic 2016: Tim Peake becomes the first British person to walk in space 2018: Space Industry Act paves the way for construction of UK spaceports 2022: Three UK spaceports - one in Cornwall and two in Scotland - are expected to become operational Advertisement Getting the infrastructure and regulations in place to allow for liftoff from Newquay has taken considerable time, but while the airport and its 1.6 mile-long (2.7km) runway look the same, a new building will allow Virgin Orbit to load satellites into its rocket and then attach it to the wing of its plane. An on-site mission control will also be used to carry out the launch. Although October 29 is when the window for lift-off opens, the mission has still not received the green light from the Civil Aviation Authority which regulates Britain's rocket launches so November, or possibly December, seems more likely for the first flight. The plane and its rocket will be transported from Virgin Orbit's factory in Long Beach, California, to the UK this week. Virgin Orbit will then send the UK government's two cubesats measuring about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide and 4 inches deep into space along with eight other payloads as part of a mission named Prometheus-2. Built by In-Space Missions Ltd, based in Hampshire, and designed with Airbus Defence and Space, Prometheus-2 is a collaboration between MoD and international partners, including the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Ian Annett, deputy CEO at the UK Space Agency, said: 'Seeing Virgin Orbit's aircraft take off is an exciting reminder that we are close to the first launch from UK soil and first launch of a satellite from Europe. 'This will be an iconic moment in the history of UK space endeavours, so it is fitting that the mission has been named after a song from the Rolling Stones, one of the UK's most iconic bands.' He added: 'Developing new launch capabilities will build on the strengths of our space sector and attract companies from around the world to benefit from these commercial opportunities. 'This will catalyse investment, bring new jobs to communities and organisations right across the UK, as well as inspiring the next generation of space scientists and engineers.' 'Cubesat 1' and 'Cubesat 2' will provide a test platform for monitoring radio signals including GPS and sophisticated imaging. Cubesat 1 includes a laser detector, a GPS receiver and a hyperspectral imager which can capture multiple slivers of pictures over different wavelengths of light. Cubesat 2, meanwhile, includes two optical imaging cameras, a laser range finder, and a GPS receiver. The cubesats will allow MOD to better understand how the UK and its international partners can work together to create a 'more capable and flexible system' at a lower cost. The Virgin Orbit Launcher One rocket, pictured in its hanger at Newquay Airport in August last year, will be equipped with Ministry of Defence observation kit among other payloads There are three UK spaceports aiming to start operations this year. The one in Cornwall is a horizontal launch site, meaning it uses a carrier aircraft, such as a Boeing 747, for launches before deploying rockets when the aircraft is airborne. Meanwhile, Space Hub Sutherland and SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands are vertical spaceports, meaning they perform more conventional ground launches with a rocket Technology on board the cubesats will enable MOD to identify new techniques and algorithms for operating satellites and data processing, it said. The upcoming Cornwall launch will involve Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl, and LauncherOne, a two-stage orbital launch vehicle tucked into Cosmic Girl's belly. Once Cosmic Girl is at a high enough altitude around 35,000 feet LauncherOne is unleashed. When at an orbital altitude, LauncherOne deploys the satellites, which will be catapulted into orbit at 8,000 miles per hour. Virgin Orbit has already conducted three successful consecutive orbital missions with LauncherOne in 2021 and 2022, the last one in January. Dan Hart, CEO of Virgin Orbit, said: 'What an incredible honour it is for us to be part of something as monumental as bringing Britain into the business of launch. 'Working with our partners across the UK government, we're starting up a new capability that will serve the people, the economy, and the security of the UK.' Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, added: 'It's time to Start Us Up! 'This is a huge moment for us all in Cornwall as the journey to UK space launch has officially begun. 'The mission name and patch reflect and embrace the incredible partnerships between our two countries and teams.' The first launch from Spaceport Cornwall is just the beginning, with vertical launch spaceports in Scotland expected to come online in 2023. In June last year, Mr Hart told MailOnline that Spaceport Cornwall could be used to send probes to Mars, Venus and the moon within the next three or four years . 'Lunar missions and smaller craft bound for Venus and Mars could be launched [from Spaceport Cornwall] within the next three or four years,' he said. 'We're not going to launch a Perseverance rover (currently being used by NASA to search for signs of ancient life on Mars ), for example, but smaller interplanetary probes that explore or carry out landing missions are a possibility.' However, despite there being talk the Cornish site could one day launch fee-paying space tourists on suborbital pleasure flights, the Virgin Orbit chief said human spaceflight was 'not currently part of the company's plans' for the facility. On land, heatwaves can be deadly for humans and wildlife and can devastate crops and forests. Unusually warm periods can also occur in the ocean. These can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries. Yet until recently, the formation, distribution and frequency of marine heatwaves had received little research attention. Long-term change Climate change is warming ocean waters and causing shifts in the distribution and abundance of seaweeds, corals, fish and other marine species. For example, tropical fish species are now commonly found in Sydney Harbour. But these changes in ocean temperatures are not steady or even, and scientists have lacked the tools to define, synthesize and understand the global patterns of marine heatwaves and their biological impacts. At a meeting in early 2015, we convened a group of scientists with expertise in atmospheric climatology, oceanography and ecology to form a marine heatwaves working group to develop a definition for the phenomenon: A prolonged period of unusually warm water at a particular location for that time of the year. Importantly, marine heatwaves can occur at any time of the year, summer or winter. Unusually warm periods can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries worldwide (pictured) With the definition in hand, we were finally able to analyse historical data to determine patterns in their occurrence. Analysis of marine heatwave trends Over the past century, marine heatwaves have become longer and more frequent around the world. The number of marine heatwave days increased by 54 per cent from 1925 to 2016, with an accelerating trend since 1982. We collated more than 100 years of sea surface temperature data around the world from ship-based measurements, shore station records and satellite observations, and looked for changes in how often marine heatwaves occurred and how long they lasted. This graph shows a yearly count of marine heatwave days from 1900 to 2016, as a global average. We found that from 1925 to 1954 and 1987 to 2016, the frequency of heatwaves increased 34 per cent and their duration grew by 17 per cent. These long-term trends can be explained by ongoing increases in ocean temperatures. Given the likelihood of continued ocean surface warming throughout the 21st century, we can expect to see more marine heatwaves globally in the future, with implications for marine biodiversity. 'The Blob' effect Numbers and statistics are informative, but here's what that means underwater. A marine ecosystem that had 30 days of extreme heat in the early 20th century might now experience 45 days of extreme heat. That extra exposure can have detrimental effects on the health of the ecosystem and the economic benefits, such as fisheries and aquaculture, derived from it. A number of recent marine heatwaves have done just that. In 2011, a marine heatwave off western Australia killed off a kelp forest and replaced it with turf seaweed. The ecosystem shift remained even after water temperatures returned to normal, signalling a long-lasting or maybe even permanent change. That same event led to widespread loss of seagrass meadows from the iconic Shark Bay area, with consequences for biodiversity including increased bacterial blooms, declines in blue crabs, scallops and the health of green turtles, and reductions in the long-term carbon storage of these important habitats. Examples of marine heatwave impacts on ecosystems and species. Coral bleaching and seagrass die-back (top left and right). Mass mortality and changes in patterns of commercially important species s (bottom left and right) Similarly, a marine heatwave in the Gulf of Maine disrupted the lucrative lobster fishery in 2012. The warm water in late spring allowed lobsters to move inshore earlier in the year than usual, which led to early landings, and an unexpected and significant price drop. More recently, a persistent area of warm water in the North Pacific, nicknamed 'The Blob', stayed put for years (2014-2016), and caused fishery closures, mass strandings of marine mammals and harmful algal bloom outbreaks along the coast. It even changed large-scale weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest. As global ocean temperatures continue to rise and marine heatwaves become more widespread, the marine ecosystems many rely upon for food, livelihoods and recreation will become increasingly less stable and predictable. The climate change link Anthropogenic, that is human-caused, climate change is linked to some of these recent marine heatwaves. For example, human emissions of greenhouse gases made the 2016 marine heatwave in tropical Australia, which led to massive bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, 53 times more likely to occur. Even more dramatically, the 2015-16 marine heatwave in the Tasman Sea that persisted for more than eight months and disrupted Tasmanian fisheries and aquaculture industries was over 300 times more likely, thanks to anthropogenic climate change. For scientists, the next step is to quantify future changes under different warming scenarios. How much more often will they occur? How much warmer will they be? And how much longer will they last? Ultimately, scientists should develop forecasts for policy makers, managers and industry that could predict the future impacts of marine heatwaves for weeks or months ahead. Having that information would help fishery managers know when to open or close a fishery, aquaculture businesses to plan harvest dates and conservation managers to implement additional monitoring efforts. Forecasts can help manage the risks, but in the end, we still need urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming. If not, marine ecosystems are set for an ever-increasing hammering from extreme ocean heat. Source: Eric Oliver, Assistant Professor, Dalhousie University; Alistair Hobday, Senior Principal Research Scientist - Oceans and Atmosphere, CSIRO; Dan Smale, Research Fellow in Marine Ecology, Marine Biological Association; Neil Holbrook, Professor, University of Tasmania; Thomas Wernberg, ARC Future Fellow in Marine Ecology, University of Western Australia in a piece for The Conversation. The aim of the exercise was to see if NASA could nudge an asteroid heading to Earth off its orbit, in order to save our planet from a catastrophic impact NASA announced Tuesday that its DART mission, which plowed a spacecraft into a small asteroid 6.8 million miles from Earth, was a 'smashing success' after data shows the space rock's orbit was shifted by the impact. The planetary defense test, conducted on September 26, aimed to see if we could nudge the path of a massive asteroid heading straight for our planet. This successful mission marks 'humanity's first time purposely changing the motion of a celestial object and the first full-scale demonstration of asteroid deflection technology,' NASA shared in the Tuesday announcement. Before the impact, Dimorphos took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its parent asteroid, Didymos, and now its orbit is shortened by 32 minutes - the initial goal was to shave off at least 10 minutes. NASA announced its DART mission in September was a success. The craft was able to shift the asteroid off of its orbit when it collided with the space rock. Pictured is an imagine from an nearby satellite that shows plumes of debris streaming from the asteroid upon impact DART launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last November, which was called NASA's 'Armageddon moment,' and when it reached thousands of miles away, NASA turned on the livestream and shared the event with the world. As the craft propelled itself autonomously for the mission's final four hours like a self-guided missile, its imager started to beam down the very first pictures of Dimorphos, before slamming into its surface. The space probe used what is called kinetic impact, which involves sending one or more large, high-speed spacecraft into the path of an approaching near-earth object. NASA said it would take weeks for the world to collect data on Dimorphos and its twin that were the targeted asteroid orbits - and the time has finally come. Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a statement: 'This result is one important step toward understanding the full effect of DART's impact with its target asteroid. Before the impact, Dimorphos took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its parent asteroid, Didymos, and now its orbit is shortened by 32 minutes. Pictured is an image from LICIACube satellite. It took this image just before its closest approach to the Dimorphos asteroid 'As new data comes in each day, astronomers will be able to better assess whether, and how, a mission like DART could be used in the future to help protect Earth from a collision with an asteroid if we ever discover one headed our way.' Neither of the asteroids poised any threat to Earth, which is why they were chosen for this epic mission. The investigation team is still collecting data on the twin space rocks through ground-based observatories around the world, along with radar facilities at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Goldstone planetary radar in California and the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. And because they are receiving constant updates, the world could hear more news in the near future. The team is also analyzing the tons of asteroidal rock that broke off the asteroid and launched into space. Dr Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said: 'NASA's confirmation of an amazing 32 minute slow-down in the orbital period of this mini-moon is on the upper end of what they expected to be able to achieve. 'This is a huge feat, not only in achieving the first step in possibly being able to protect ourselves from future asteroid impacts, but also regarding the amount of images and data captured internationally, both on the ground as well as upfront in space at a distance of only 59km [36 miles]. Scientists had believed that the impact carved out a crater and hurled streams of rocks and dirt into space, which has been captured in several images by the orbiting satellite called LICIACube. The toaster-sized craft separated from DART a few weeks prior to impact and made a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejecta - the pulverized rock thrown off by impact. Nancy Chabot, the DART coordination lead from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, said in a statement: 'DART has given us some fascinating data about both asteroid properties and the effectiveness of a kinetic impactor as a planetary defense technology. The last image the craft took of the asteroid was the moment it made impact (left) The aftermath was captured by NASA's James Webb (top) and Hubble (bottom) telescopes - the first snapped the impact in infrared and the latter in visible light This imagery from NASAs Hubble Space Telescope from Oct. 8, 2022, shows the debris blasted from the surface of Dimorphos 285 hours after the asteroid was intentionally impacted by NASAs DART spacecraft Asteroid Dimorphos did not pose a threat to Earth, which is why they were chosen for this epic mission. 'The DART team is continuing to work on this rich dataset to fully understand this first planetary defense test of asteroid deflection.' The aftermath was captured by NASA's James Webb and Hubble telescopes - the first snapped the impact in infrared and the latter in visible light. Observing the impact across a wide array of wavelengths will reveal the distribution of particle sizes in the expanding dust cloud, helping to determine whether it threw off lots of big chunks or mostly fine dust. Webb took one observation of the impact location before the collision took place, then several observations over the next few hours. Images from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) show a tight, compact core, with plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the center of where the impact took place. In the Hubble images, astronomers estimate that the brightness of the system increased by three times after impact, and saw that brightness hold steady, even eight hours after impact. An Earth-based telescope also captured the historic moment the craft smashed into Dimophors. The ATLAS telescope, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, shows the asteroid as a ball of light in motion and a plume of ejecta that's emitted as the spacecraft hits. Similarly, a sped up animation was captured by one of Las Cumbres Observatory's telescopes in South Africa. NASA engineers said DART was completely destroyed, but there might be pieces of it in the crater it left during impact - and some of the team said they shed a tear knowing the craft is now gone. The DART technique could prove useful for altering the course of an asteroid years or decades before it bears down on Earth with the potential for catastrophe. NASA considers any near-Earth object 'potentially hazardous' if it comes within 0.05 astronomical units (4.6 million miles) and measures more than 460ft in diameter. More than 27,000 near-Earth asteroids have been cataloged but none currently pose a danger to our planet. A highlight is spying a 10ft-long adult crocodile 'basking in the sunshine' on the banks of the Daintree River Claudia Joseph stays in a boutique treehouse at Daintree Ecolodge in the heart of the Queensland rainforest Advertisement You may be surprised to learn that the worlds oldest tropical lowland rainforest which dates back about 180 million years to the Jurassic era is in Australia. Queenslands Daintree Rainforest, described by Sir David Attenborough as the most extraordinary place on Earth, measures just 463 square miles yet it packs in more tree species in one hectare than in the entire 210,000 square miles of the UK. An astonishing 430 bird species, including the giant cassowary, call it home, 13 of which are found nowhere else on the planet. Its biggest tree is as tall as the Statue of Liberty, and there are 12,000 insect species as well as crocodiles and the reclusive Boyds forest dragon, a species of lizard. Nature's oasis: Claudia Joseph explores the sights of Queenslands Daintree Rainforest, described by Sir David Attenborough as the most extraordinary place on Earth. Above is one of the spots she visits - Cape Tribulation, which is the only place in the world where two Unesco World Heritage sites meet: Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef As Sir David enthused: It has, for the naturalist, everything. It is quite unlike any other rainforest in the world. Although not as famous as the Amazon, and tiny by comparison, visiting this unique region is an incredible experience. My base is the Daintree Ecolodge, near Daintree Village in the heart of the rainforest, where you can drift into another realm thanks to its glorious landscape, enriching natural spa treatments and vibrant cuisine. It is the only boutique accommodation in the rainforest, and its awe-inspiring setting will revitalise all your senses. With just 15 eco-friendly bayans or treehouses it would appeal to anyone who simply wants time to stand still. Claudia checks into a bayan at the Daintree Ecolodge near Daintree Village in the heart of the rainforest. Pictured is the lodge's Waterfall Deck Inside one of the 15 eco-friendly bayans or treehouses at Daintree Ecolodge. The properties 'appeal to anyone who simply wants time to stand still' After a drive 90 miles north from Cairns Airport on Captain Cook Highway one of Australias most spectacular coastal roads I find the lodge on the bank of the Daintree River. Set in the middle of the rainforest, it feels totally remote and is the perfect retreat from the stresses of life. My bayan, nestled among the foliage in the breathtaking rainforest canopy, has floor-to-ceiling windows and a screened balcony to ensure you feel as close to nature as possible. 'Set in the middle of the rainforest, it feels totally remote and is the perfect retreat from the stresses of life,' Claudia says of the lodge In fitting with its environment, the Daintree Ecolodge aims to reduce its carbon footprint with solar panels, a biocycle waste-water plant which recycles all its water, a herb and vegetable patch to provide a constant supply of fresh produce, and toxic-free cleaning products. After dinner on the balcony of Julaymba Restaurant overlooking the lagoon a melt-in-the-mouth spanner crab risotto with corn, chive and crustacean oil followed by a tender beef rump cap with celeriac, mushroom, onion, kale and black garlic I stroll back to my bayan and drift off to sleep to the gentle sounds of the nearby waterfall. The following morning I wake at the crack of dawn to the sound of curlews, and sit on the balcony watching this unique world go by, before making my way to breakfast at Julaymba. I plump for a spinach, chorizo, pepper, onion and parmesan omelette. The Daintree Ecolodge, which aims to reduce its carbon footprint, has a herb and vegetable patch to provide a constant supply of fresh produce Above is the lodge's Julaymba restaurant, where Claudia tucks into a melt-in-the-mouth spanner crab risotto with corn, chive and crustacean oil for dinner During her stay at the lodge, Claudia wakes 'at the crack of dawn to the sound of curlews' Guests can then enjoy a leisurely stroll to the waterfall, take a dip in the pool or visit the health spa. There is a wealth of places to visit in the rainforest, including Mossman Gorge, the Daintree River and Cape Tribulation. The one-day Daintree Discovery Tour showcases the highlights, beginning with a visit to the Mossman Gorge Visitors Centre. As I walk in, I spot a number of golden orb spiders spinning their webs. She has a lovely role in life, says tour guide Mel Micallef. She mates and then she eats her mate. Shes really cool. It becomes something of a theme: the female cassowary mates and lays her eggs before abandoning them for another partner, leaving her original partner to look after the offspring. Its something of a matriarchal society, Mel jokes. To reach the rainforest, Claudia drives north from Cairns Airport on Captain Cook Highway one of Australias most spectacular coastal roads. Above is the view from the Rex Lookout along the highway The tour begins with a traditional smoking ceremony by a guide from the Kuku Yalanji tribe to ward off bad spirits. He demonstrates how he paints his body with a Totem, or personal guardian angel, which signals his tribe to other indigenous Australians. The different paints, he says, have alternative benefits the clay contains calcium for bone density; the black charcoal is an alternative to toothpaste; and the zinc doubles as suntan lotion and is good for treating mosquito bites. We then head into Mossman Gorge along a wooden boardwalk, among birds nests and basket ferns. You feel like George of the Jungle up here, laughs Mel. The ferns are like the apartment blocks of the rainforest. Theyre fighting to take over they climb their way to the top to get light. On a one-day Daintree Discovery Tour, Claudia embarks on a 'mesmerising' boat trip up the mighty Daintree River We also spot balanophora fungosa, the worlds only flowering mushrooms, and cassowary plums, which look like blue avocados and, unless you are one of the giant birds, are toxic. If you get the juice in your eye, it will blind you, adds Mel. After tea and dampers (giant scones dotted with wattleseed), we wind our way along Captain Cook Highway, past fields of sugar cane and banana plantations, up to the mighty Daintree River. The landscape is mesmerising and seems to go on for ever, with giant mountains and lush green valleys in the distance. We pass through the township of Mossman, which has the most northern mill in Australia, built in 1904 to convert sugar cane to raw sugar, and spot trains trundling along the tracks from field to mill, laden with canes. We then pass a saltwater barramundi farm the fish, which can reach 6ft and weigh 130 lb, is a delicacy in these parts before crossing the Daintree River aboard its traditional wooden ferry, with white herons swarming over us. The tour takes Claudia into the Mossman Gorge (pictured) along a wooden boardwalk, among birds nests and basket ferns Claudia enjoys lunch at On The Turps, an open-air restaurant where they serve barramundi or steak and chips, Thai curry and fettucini The second walk of the day took us along the Jindalba Boardwalk, where we find sheoak trees, which are used by indigenous Australians who carve boomerangs out of the overground roots. After lunch at On The Turps, an open-air restaurant in the Heritage Lodge where they serve barramundi or steak and chips, Thai curry and fettucini, there is time for a refreshing swim in Cooper Creek. The next highlight is the drive from Cooper Creek to Cape Tribulation, where we kept our eyes peeled for cassowary, the third-tallest and second-heaviest bird in the world, as well as the most lethal: it has often been labelled the worlds most dangerous bird as its giant claws do a lot of damage to humans if you upset them. If you come across a cassowary in the wild, put your backpack in front of you and back away slowly, warns Mel. Lush: You can spy sheoak trees, which are used by indigenous Australians who carve boomerangs out of the overground roots, on the Jindalba Boardwalk (pictured) Claudia goes for a refreshing swim in Cooper Creek, pictured, before her tour takes her to Cape Tribulation An astonishing 430 bird species, including the giant cassowary (left) - which has 'often been labelled the worlds most dangerous bird' - call the rainforest home. Claudia's guide tells her: If you come across a cassowary in the wild, put your backpack in front of you and back away slowly.' The reclusive Boyds forest dragon, a species of lizard (right), can also be spotted in the rainforest TRAVEL FACTS Claudia Joseph was a guest of Northern Escape Collection. A lagoon bayan at Daintree Ecolodge costs from A$475 a night for two, including breakfast. The full-day Daintree Discovery Tour costs A$224 per adult and A$204 per child aged ten to 14 (daintreediscoverytours.com.au). Advertisement Luckily, we are in a sturdy four-wheel-drive vehicle when we spot a trio of birds a male and two babies on our way to Cape Tribulation. But it is on our way back that we encounter a rarity: a pair of cassowaries with their offspring. Even a group of motorcyclists, held up by them crossing the road, stop to take photographs. You dont often see a couple together, as the female is usually long gone, according to Mel. Cape Tribulation itself is an extraordinary botanical treasure the only place in the world where two Unesco World Heritage sites meet: Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. I make my way on to the horseshoe-shaped coastline, which is lined with mangrove trees, and it is incredible to experience the juxtaposition of tropical rainforest and coral reef. Finally we take a cruise in a flat-bottomed boat along Daintree River, searching for saltwater crocodiles known as salties the largest of all reptiles. Claudia spots a 10ft-long adult female crocodile basking in the sunshine on the banks of the Daintree River (pictured) Claudia watches as Thornton Peak, Queenslands third-highest mountain, disappears into the clouds. Above is the view from the top of the peak, image courtesy of Creative Commons And within minutes we spot a young crocodile spreadeagled on a beach at the side of the river. But then, as we watch Thornton Peak, Queenslands third-highest mountain, disappear into the clouds, we spy the piece de resistance: a 10ft-long adult female basking in the sunshine on the riverbank. Im sure that even Sir David Attenborough would have been impressed. Advertisement Colonia Americana in Guadalajara, Mexico, has been named the Coolest Neighbourhood in the World to visit right now by Time Out. It's 'an edgy blend of Art Deco and neoclassical mansions... contains some of the city's best music venues' and tops a 51-strong ranking designed to 'help travellers and residents get under the skin of the worlds most distinctive city neighbourhoods'. Dave Calhoun, Chief Content Officer North America & UK at Time Out, adds: 'Each year we ask our international Time Out audience and our global team of local Time Out experts to nominate the areas of cities right now which have the best mix of cutting-edge culture, affordable food and drink, street life, nightlife and community. They are not homogenised, corporate destinations but areas that have an independent and welcoming vibe.' The runner-up spot goes to Cais do Sodre in Lisbon, the top-ranked spot in America is Ridgewood in New York, which comes fourth overall, and the UK's Cliftonville in Margate storms into the top ten. Scroll down for the full list... 1. Colonia Americana, Guadalajara - Mexico Coolest-neighbourhood-in-the-world Colonia Americana in Guadalajara (above), is 'an edgy blend of Art Deco and neoclassical mansions with artists' squats and warehouses containing some of the city's best music venues' Bar Americas (pictured) in Colonia Americana is Latin America's answer to [Berlin club] Berghain, says Time Out According to Time Out, Colonia Americana is the 'epicentre' of the underground scene in Guadalajara, 'known by many Mexicans as the country's cultural capital, but little explored by foreigners'. The guide continues: '[Colonia Americana] is an edgy blend of Art Deco and neoclassical mansions with artists' squats and warehouses containing some of the city's best music venues shout out to Segundo Piso Music and Bar Americas (pictured): Latin America's answer to [Berlin club] Berghain.' It adds: 'Creative locals sit with their laptops in any number of sleek cafes (try Cafe Correcto or Lluvia) and sip local tequila in dive bars on Chapultepec Avenue long into the night.' The perfect day, according to the guide, would include browsing contemporary art in gallery Tiro Al Blanco before tucking into chilaquiles and coffee in its courtyard cafe, Modo. 2. Cais do Sodre, Lisbon Portugal Cais do Sodre, the runner-up in Time Out's neighbourhood ranking, is anchored by 'Pink Street' (above) 'Cais do Sodre has been the heart of Lisbon's nightlife for a good few years now,' says Time Out, 'but in 2022 it's more popping than ever.' It continues: 'Anchored by "Pink Street" (the dazzlingly painted Rua Nova do Carvalho) and its colourful umbrellas, this is the neighbourhood where Lisbon's most promising young chefs are opening new restaurants, where small businesses are springing to life, where much-loved bars and nightclubs are finally rising from the ashes of the past few years.' The perfect day? That would include a visit to 'Dear Breakfast', 'an all-day-brekkie spot on the Santos fringes', says Time Out, plus further pitstops in Market Lisbon ('there's always something new being served up here') and 'Quiosque de Sao Paulo', which is 'a cool spot for a beer and some typical Portuguese snacks'. 3. Wat Bo Village, Siem Reap - Cambodia Wat Bo Village, which finishes third in the ranking, is now 'an incredibly chic quarter' in Siem Reap (above) Wat Bo Village's elegant Viroth's hotel Siem Reap's Wat Bo Village or 'Temple Town' - was first developed as tourism descended in the 1990s, reveals Time Out, but a 2021 city-wide makeover 'kickstarted a serious glow-up'. The guide continues: 'Helped out by its idyllic riverside location, it's now an incredibly chic quarter. The vicinity of Street 26 and Wat Bo Road has become a favoured haunt for expats frequenting its numerous bars, experimental Khmer restaurants in scenic settings (Banlle) and elegant design hotels (Viroth's, Treeline Urban Resort).' Top experiences for a perfect day, says Time Out, should include breakfast at boulangerie-patisserie Paris Bakery, coffee at Snack & Relax (here koi-carp ponds enhance the experience), lunch at River Cafe and cocktails and dinner at boutique retreat Maison 557's Pou Restaurant & Bar. 4. Ridgewood - New York City Ridgewood, which ranks fourth, is 'old-school-meets-trendy', says Time Out. Above is the neighbourhood's Nowadays bar Ridgewood is 'constantly evolving', says Time Out 'Ridgewood, Queens,' says Time Out, 'sits close by the Brooklyn border, pulling in the best of each borough - the diversity and local vibes of Queens and the hip offerings of Brooklyn, specifically neighbouring Bushwick. 'Ridgewood's identity, though, is old-school-meets-trendy with a mix of landmark staples, like Rudy's Bakery and Gottscheer Hall, and buzzy new bars and restaurants such as The Acre, Evil Twin and Cafe Plein Air. 'While (like all NYC neighbourhoods) it's constantly evolving, it keeps its past intact with an impressive ten historic districts, including the rows of two-storey brick houses that define the neighbourhood. In fact, Ridgewood harbours the oldest surviving stone-built Dutch colonial house in NYC: the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, originally built in 1709.' The 'perfect day' itinerary should include a stroll along the Central Ridgewood Historic District (Madison Street down to 71st Ave and from Fresh Pond Road over to Onderdonk Avenue) and dinner at Porcelain and drinks at Julia's, says Time Out. The guide is also a huge fan of the neighbourhood's Nowadays bar (above) - 'a 16,000-square-foot space that acts as both a charming backyard with hammocks and picnic tables and a nightlife hotspot with dancing and a solid selection of beer'. 5. Mile End, Montreal - Canada Time Out describes Mile End in Montreal (above), which ranks fifth, as 'one heck of a neighbourhood' 'Mile End is an enclave for some of Montreal's best restaurants, independent bookstores, flower shops, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers,' says Time Out, adding that it's 'a walkable nook that's home to rival bagel shops, a tea room that transforms into a Champagne salon after dark, a skate park that transforms for "digital block parties" (complete with dazzling projection art) and a watering hole that's transitioned to crudo [raw fish or beef], croques monsieurs and caviar service.' It continues: 'Add a couple of the best brunches in town and a heavy pour of expertly crafted cocktails, and you've got one heck of a neighbourhood.' Cocktails at Le Sparrow and a casual bite at Lucki Delite are vital inclusions for a 'perfect day' there, says Time Out. 6. Barrio Logan - San Diego 'Vibrant' Barrio Logan (above) ranks sixth and is 'home to the largest concentration of Chicano [Mexican-American] murals in the world' 'Located just 16 miles north of the border, the tight-knit San Diego community of Barrio Logan is a vibrant and historic hub of Mexican-American culture,' says Time Out. 'Along the main thoroughfare, Logan Avenue, lowriders in Chevys, Cadillacs and Buicks (with flamboyant paint jobs and gravity-defying hydraulics) line up to blast Earth, Wind & Fire from souped-up stereo systems. 'Sustenance comes by way of small family-owned businesses who have been serving the community plates of taquitos for decades gracias, Las Cuatro Milpas.' The guide adds that the neighbourhood is 'home to the largest concentration of Chicano [Mexican-American] murals in the world, with more than 80 world-class paintings depicting scenes from the Mexican Revolution, ferocious Aztec warriors, and larger-than-life portraits of heroes like Frida, Diego and Cesar'. 7. Shimokitazawa, Tokyo Japan Shimokitazawa, in at No.7, 'has evolved into a hotspot for indie film enthusiasts, cafe-goers and serious foodies', says Time Out 'Just one stop from Shibuya on the express train, Shimokitazawa or Shimokita, as the locals call it has reclaimed its title as Tokyo's coolest neighbourhood,' says Time Out. 'Having gone through a massive revamp since 2019 (when it last featured on this ranking), Shimokita will be almost unrecognisable to those who haven't visited in a few years. 'Previously known for its vintage stores, Shimokita has evolved into a hotspot for indie film enthusiasts, cafe-goers and serious foodies. This hip hub has also seen countless new shopping and dining facilities pop up.' 8. Cliftonville, Margate UK The coolest neighbourhood in Britain is Cliftonville in Margate (above), according to Time Out. This 'thriving' area comes eighth in the global ranking Visit Margate's Old Town for a 'good old-fashioned British seaside day out', says Time Out, but go to Cliftonville for 'a different kind of energy'. The guide continues: 'It's home to one of the UK's most thriving artistic communities, largely due to an influx of creative ex-Londoners who've flocked to the area's affordable housing and studio spaces, plus a massive tidal ocean pool at Walpole Bay. 'The neighbourhood's spine is Northdown Road, which is a block back from the coast and stretches from the Old Town to Palm Bay. 'Until recently a parade of charity shops and bookies, Northdown is now home to record shops, cafes and conscious groceries, as well as game-changing community-funded venues such as queer bar Camp and gallery Quench.' 9. Barrio Yungay, Santiago Chile Above is the ninth-coolest neighbourhood - Barrio Yungay in Santiago. Here 'working-class locals stroll alongside bohemian creative types on attractive boulevards' 'The colourful Barrio Yungay, located a short walk from heaving Avenida Alameda and Barrio Brasil, is on the up,' declares Time Out. 'Boasting national heritage status as the Chilean capital's first planned barrio [a Spanish-speaking quarter], it's had an edgy reputation in recent years. But Yungay has now become a magnet for the young and cool: even Chile's millennial president, Gabriel Boric, chose to move here in March 2022. 'Illustrious new residents aside, working-class locals stroll alongside bohemian creative types on attractive boulevards such as Lavaud, lined with a diverse array of baroque, Bauhaus and Art Deco facades.' 10. Cours Julien, Marseille France Marseille's Cours Julien, the 10th-coolest neighbourhood, is 'a creative hotbed littered with street markets, live music venues, vintage clothing stores, secondhand book shops and old warehouses repurposed as hip art galleries' Cours Julien is a 'gritty, buzzing quarter' that lies east of Marseille's swanky marina and is known to locals as 'Cours Ju' (a play on the word 'court-jus', meaning 'short-circuit'), Time Out explains. The guide continues: 'It's a creative hotbed littered with street markets, live music venues, vintage clothing stores, secondhand book shops and old warehouses repurposed as hip art galleries. 'And that's not the only place you'll find paintings: seek out the best of the graffiti-tattooed district's street art on a guided tour of its cobbled alleys.' For more on the coolest neighbourhood ranking visit www.timeout.com/travel/coolest-neighbourhoods-in-the-world. The Block star Suzi Taylor has fronted court after being busted with stolen bank and identification cards. Police caught Taylor, 51, on May 30 with a debit card, Medicare card and Western Australian heavy vehicle licence that didn't belong to her. The licence's original photo had been changed to depict Taylor's face, reports the Gold Coast Bulletin. The Block star Suzi Taylor (pictured) pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of possessing items suspected of being stolen after she was caught with fake ID and bank cards Fronting Southport Magistrates Court on Monday, Taylor pleaded guilty to one count of possessing items suspected of being stolen or unlawfully obtained. Taylor, whose full name is Suellen Jan Taylor, was convicted of the offence but managed to avoid punishment. Police had found the items in Taylor's wallet while raiding the former model's home in Southport, Queensland, as part of a separate investigation. Police caught Taylor, 51, on May 30 with a debit card, Medicare card and heavy vehicle licence that didn't belong to her. (Pictured at Brisbane Magistrates Court for a separate matter in 2021) Taylor rose to fame as a contestant on The Block in 2015 with then-friend Yvonne Cosier (right) Taylor, whose full name is Suellen Jan Taylor, was convicted of the offence but managed to avoid punishment The Penthouse cover girl was arrested and remanded in custody for 24 hours before being let out on bail. At the time, Taylor's lawyer Michael Gatenby called the decision to imprison her over a minor charge 'disgusting'. The cards were believed to have been stolen from a car in Miami in 2020, but it was unclear how Taylor came to have them. It's the latest in a series of brushes with the law for Taylor, who shot to fame on the 2015 season of The Block. (She is pictured on a boat at Melbourne's Docklands in November 2015) Following her arrest, Taylor told police she'd been set up by a man who regularly visited her home. It's the latest in a series of brushes with the law for Taylor, who shot to fame on the 2015 season of Channel Nine renovation show The Block. In May 2019, she pleaded guilty to fraud and theft charges, after she was caught using a stolen credit card to buy alcohol. In May 2019, Taylor pleaded guilty to fraud and theft charges, after she was caught using a stolen credit card to buy alcohol The mother of three was filmed buying booze at a bottle shop on May 2 using a credit card she'd stolen from a patient recovering at Mater Hospital. She spent more than $500 on seven separate transactions, including $400 on alcohol. A week later, Taylor was also identified on CCTV by staff at Brisbane's Westin Hotel taking a mobile phone and laptop from a guest at their bar. The mother of three was filmed buying booze at a bottle shop on May 2 using a credit card she'd stolen from a patient recovering at Mater Hospital Police located the stolen items at her home on May 10, and she was given a notice to appear in court where she was issued a $2,500 fine. Taylor found herself back in court in October 2019 after she was accused of 'honey trapping' a Tinder date, who she allegedly held against his will before he was assaulted and forced to transfer money. During her committal hearing, Taylor's own lawyer Michael Gatenby referred to her as a prostitute. Taylor found herself back in court in October 2019 after she was accused of 'honey trapping' a Tinder date, whom she allegedly held against his will before he was assaulted and forced to transfer money She spent 202 days behind bars on remand, including a month in solitary confinement, prior to the trial. Queensland Police had filed over 100 charges against her - including 94 counts of breaching bail conditions as well as drug and driving crimes. However, more than 70 of the charges were dropped at Brisbane Magistrates Court in May 2021, with the prosecutor offering no evidence on dozens of counts. She spent 202 days behind bars on remand, including a month in solitary confinement, prior to the trial. (Pictured leaving Brisbane Magistrates Court on May 6, 2021) Taylor pleaded guilty to almost 30 remaining charges, including possessing small amounts of cocaine and marijuana and trespassing. Her lawyer Mr Gatenby described the remaining charges as 'low level'. Taylor was convicted but not further punished on all charges as Magistrate Stephen Courtney ordered her immediate release. Queensland Police had filed over 100 charges against her - including 94 counts of breaching bail conditions as well as drug and driving crimes. However, more than 70 of the charges were dropped at Brisbane Magistrates Court in May 2021, with the prosecutor offering no evidence on dozens of counts. (Pictured outside Brisbane Magistrates Court on May 6, 2021) 'Not meaning this in an insulting way, but your story is a sad one. There has been a real deterioration of your position and mental health,' Magistrate Courtney said. 'When one really drills down to it, while there are a lot of charges the charges each and of themselves do not reach a high level of seriousness.' Outside court, Mr Gatenby said it was a horrendous experience for a woman who did nothing wrong and called for an inquiry. 'I think there should be an inquiry into the way the state treats people with mental illness. I don't know how you would cope, sitting in a jail cell knowing you had done nothing wrong,' he said. 'A lot of people have a lot to answer for - I don't know how her mental health has withstood this behaviour.' Olivia Molly Rogers has had a rough go of it after splitting from her husband of just eight months Justin McKeone, but she's doing her best to keep her chin up. The former Miss Universe, 30, spoke to The Advertiser about her post-breakup blues after strutting her stuff on day one of Melbourne Fashion Week on Monday. Wearing a bright orange Helen O'Connor maxi dress with statement cut-outs and a peekaboo midriff, she said things hadn't been easy for her in recent weeks. Olivia Molly Rogers (left) has had a rough go of it after splitting from her husband of just eight months Justin McKeone (right), but she's doing her best to keep her chin up 'I'm focusing on having a good time and living my best life,' she said at the Urban Runway launch at Wesley Place. 'Wearing a good outfit definitely helps your confidence. It has been a hard time, but I am getting there. 'With fashion week, the races, it's a good time to break up. It's break-up season, as they say.' The former Miss Universe, 30, spoke to The Advertiser about her post-breakup blues after strutting her stuff on day one of Melbourne Fashion Week on Monday It comes after her ex Justin was seen partying up a storm with two stunning models on Saturday night looking anything but heartbroken. An Instagram photo showed the accountant drinking with nightclub owner Nick Russian and models Brooke Bailey and Siobhan Steindl at Melbourne's Bar Bambi. Just hours after the photo surfaced, Olivia shared a gut-wrenching post revealing she'd lost custody of her dog Ziggy during her separation from Justin. Wearing a bright orange Helen O'Connor maxi dress with statement cut-outs and a peekaboo midriff, she said things hadn't been easy for her in recent weeks 'As I know you all adore Ziggy and I keep on getting asked about him. He does not live with me anymore,' she wrote on Instagram Stories on Sunday morning. 'Justin has taken him. I am devastated and don't want to talk about it further,' she added. She concluded by asking her followers to not ask any more question about her private life as she wants to 'move forward'. It comes after her ex Justin was seen partying up a storm with models Brooke Bailey (centre left) and Siobhan Steind (centre right) and nightclub king Nick Russian (left) on Saturday night '[I will] continue to share things with you but some aspects are private and will remain private,' she added. The model announced her split last Tuesday, just days after rumours surfaced about the troubled state of their marriage. The former couple, who first met in 2018, were last pictured together in August in a series of loved-up holiday snaps from their trip to New York City. Kanye West was spotted hanging out with model Juliana Nalu again as the duo enjoyed a date night in Los Angeles on Monday. The rapper, 45, and Juliana, a 24-year-old stunner who hails from Rio de Janeiro, were seen catching the film Triangle Of Sadness in Hollywood on Saturday night. Juliana clasped Kanye's arm as they made their way inside and even wore the same black '2024' hat Kanye showed off on his Twitter account a few days ago, hinting at possible presidential run. Movie night: Kanye West was spotted hanging out with model Juliana Nalu again as the duo enjoyed a date night in Los Angeles on Monday The beauty tucked her hand into his elbow as she followed him into the building. She looked stunning in a black and white top, fitted trousers, and sexy heeled boots. She accessorized the look with a slouchy black bag. Like he typically does, Kanye was decked out in all black, from his jacket to his knee-high boots. Arm in arm: Juliana held onto Kanye's arm as she followed him into the building Presidential ambitions? The model wore the same 2024 hat Kanye was recently seen showing off which hinted at a possible presidential run He guided Juliana through the crowd, cell phone in hand. Kanye has been seen with Juliana on several occasions these last few days. The rapper and the model were seen checking into a hotel together in Beverly Hills on Thursday, and grabbing dinner on Saturday night at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica. The sightings came several days before Kanye sparked outrage for posting an anti-Semitic tweet against the Jewish community. Getting to know you! Kanye has been seen with Juliana on several occasions these last few days The blowback from A-listers came as both Twitter and Instagram face huge criticism at their apparent reluctance to delete anti-Semitic comments from the site. West was barred from posting on his Twitter account after the shocking threats - just hours after being restricted on Instagram. In a post, that has since been removed by Twitter, Kanye wrote: 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.' He added: 'The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also. Controversy: The sightings came several days before Kanye sparked outrage for posting an anti-Semitic tweet against the Jewish community 'You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.' Jamie Lee Curtis spoke about the timing of West's words, coming a week after Yom Kippur, adding: 'Words matter. A threat to Jewish people ended once in a genocide.' Comedian Sarah Silverman and Frozen star Josh Gad have come forward to denounce Kanye's anti-Semitic Twitter outburst. Silverman, 51, tweeted: 'Kanye threatened the Jews yesterday on twitter and its not even trending. Why do mostly only Jews speak up against Jewish hate? The silence is so loud.' Hours after posting, West was locked out of his Twitter account - as Jewish celebrities and politicians condemned him for the vile online abuse. A Twitter spokesman said of West's remarks: 'The account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter's policies.' This means that the rapper will be unable to post. An Australian TikTok star has dumped her comedian boyfriend after allegedly catching him sending 'inappropriate' messages to another woman. Alex Paige Moore, a 24-year-old OnlyFans model from Adelaide, confirmed her break-up with funnyman Alex 'Shooter' Williamson, 32, in a TikTok video last month. The glamorous blonde told her followers they were trying to remain civil as they navigate a future together as friends and content collaborators. TikTok star Alex Paige Moore (left) has dumped her comedian boyfriend Alex 'Shooter' Williamson (right) after allegedly catching him sending 'inappropriate' texts to another woman 'A couple of days ago I got a message from a girl who Shooter was messaging. She screenshotted it and sent it to me and, yeah, it was just inappropriate messages,' Moore explained. 'Shooter and I were exclusive. So yeah, it hurt my feelings a lot,' she added. Moore said she and Williamson will continue living and working together, despite no longer being in a relationship. 'We've broken up, but the fact that we're still living together, we still work together... obviously I don't hate him. We're just working through things civilly, and I don't even know what the next stages are,' she said. The glamorous blonde told her TikTok followers they were trying to remain civil as they navigate a future together as friends and content collaborators 'A couple of days ago I got a message from a girl who Shooter was messaging. She... sent [them] to me and, yeah, it was just inappropriate messages,' Moore explained, adding that the former couple are still living and working together despite no longer being in a relationship 'So we're still doing videos together... we're only human and we're working things out as we go. We are broken up, but we're just going to see what happens in the future, I guess,' Moore concluded. Williamson told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday he did betray his girlfriend's trust by texting another woman, but insisted it wasn't as bad as she was making it out to be. He denied there was any affair, explaining he'd sent the texts while up late working on his new album as Moore was sleeping upstairs with her son. Williamson didn't want to bother her so downloaded Snapchat for some anonymous sex talk with a stranger to 'get off so I could get back to working on my album'. He compared this to people 'calling naughty talk lines' in the 1990s. 'So we're still doing videos together... we're only human and we're working things out as we go. We are broken up, but we're just going to see what happens in the future, I guess,' Moore said Unfortunately, the woman he connected with ended up taking screenshots of their messages and sending them to Moore. A remorseful Williamson said he'd tried to explain his 'weird male tendencies' to Moore and was working to win back her trust. Since confirming their split, the former couple has appeared in several videos together, including one in which Moore refers to Williamson as her 'ex'. The clip titled 'Asking my ex, "Are you wearing that?"' saw Moore jokingly criticise Williamson's outfit as he was leaving their home for a night of partying without her. Since confirming their split, the former couple has appeared in several videos together, including one in which Moore refers to Williamson as her 'ex' The clip titled 'Asking my ex, "Are you wearing that?"' saw Moore jokingly criticise Williamson's outfit as he was leaving their home for a night of partying without her 'Are you wearing that?' she asked while secretly filming her ex. 'I don't know!' Williamson said with a smile, to which Moore replied: 'I don't know if you're going to pull tonight if you wear that.' Moore took a thinly veiled swipe at her ex on Monday in another TikTok video, in which she took part in the viral 'Speak Up' challenge. Moore took a thinly veiled swipe at her ex on Monday in another TikTok video, in which she took part in the viral 'Speak Up' challenge In the clip, she pretended to respond to an imaginary person telling her: 'I don't remember liking her pic. I like everyone's posts I see. It doesn't mean anything' In the clip, she pretended to respond to an imaginary person telling her: 'I don't remember liking her pic. I like everyone's posts I see. It doesn't mean anything. I wanted her to see I liked what I saw.' The exes are known for their provocative videos, most of which include footage of Moore wearing skin-baring outfits. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Williamson for comment. Natalie Roser turns up the heat on the September cover of Maxim Australia. The model, 32, flaunts her ample cleavage and sensational figure as she strips down to a racy lace lingerie set for the stunning photo. The blonde bombshell shoots a sultry gaze as she poses on a bedroom floor. Natalie Roser turns up the heat on the September cover of Maxim Australia. The model, 32, flaunts her ample cleavage and sensational figure as she strips down to a racy lace lingerie set for the stunning photo Natalie shows off her natural beauty in minimal makeup and her blonde tresses tumble around her shoulders in natural waves. It comes after Natalie revealed details of her unconventional marriage to Harley Bonner, who currently lives in Thailand. Natalie is a successful Sydney-based swimsuit and lingerie model She told The Daily Telegraph in September that Harley, 31, had moved shortly after their wedding to study energy healing and meditation. 'He is so happy. It is definitely an unconventional first year of marriage,' she said. 'He is fulfilling his dreams and who would I be to stand in his way of doing something that he has wanted to do for so long?' Natalie recently spoke of her 'unconventional first year of marriage' to former Home and Away actor Harley Bonner (right) last month to The Daily Telegraph Natalie said letting Harley travel solo in their first year of marriage was preferable to him doing it later down the track when they have children. She also isn't planning to visit him because she doesn't want to be a 'distraction'. 'We are living our own lives and it works,' she added. The couple tied the knot at Krinklewood Estate in the Hunter Valley on February 18 after dating for five years. Harley, 31, moved to Thailand shortly after their wedding to study energy healing While Harley, who quit Home and Away in January over the show's Covid-19 vaccine policy, follows his spiritual path, Natalie is back home on the tools. She is busy renovating the couple's new house in Newcastle: a four-bedroom 1980s fixer-upper she bought at auction on May 20. Natalie and Harley, who used to live in Sydney's eastern suburbs, tied the knot at Krinklewood Estate in the Hunter Valley on February 18 after dating for five years. Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor No.1 in Gyeongju / Yonhap By Ko Dong-hwan Most kindergartens and schools close to nuclear power plants in Korea are either not equipped with a sufficient number of protective suits or lack such gear altogether, a lawmaker said. Rep. Kim Young-ho of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said Monday that over 388,000 students in 1,112 kindergartens and elementary, middle and high schools in the country are located inside Urgent Protective Action Planning Zones (UPZ) within 20 to 30 kilometers of a nuclear power plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Busan has 692 such educational facilities, while Ulsan has 239, Gangwon Province 10, North Jeolla Province 54, South Jeolla Province 45, North Gyeongsang Province 47 and South Gyeongsang Province 25, according to the lawmaker. He said that out of these schools, only 36 with 6,744 students were equipped with protective suits, which is just 1.7 percent of the total number of students within UPZs. The situation was worse in schools located in the immediate vicinity of nuclear plants. The IAEA designated areas within three to five kilometers of a power plant as Precautionary Action Zones (PAZes), from which residents should evacuate immediately in cases of radioactive leakage from the plant. Rep. Kim said that there are 8,576 students in 51 schools or kindergartens within PAZes in the country. Busan has 11 such facilities, while Daejeon has 16, Ulsan 4, North Jeolla 2, South Jeolla 6 and North Gyeongsang 12. But among those schools, only 12 of the schools were equipped with a total of 2,461 protective suits. Only 23 schools in Yeonggwang County in South Jeolla Province and 10 schools in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province were fully equipped with the gear, which was financed by the local governments and Hanul Nuclear Power Plants in Uljin. Three schools in Ulsan, though in an insufficient number, prepared the gear using their own budgets. The state-run Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) responded to Rep. Kim's findings that in a nuclear emergency, people are first advised to evacuate or take thyroid blocking agents rather than put on protective suits. The state authority added that there are no regulations in the country that require protective suits to be available in kindergartens or schools near a nuclear power plant. "Natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons have increased in number due to the climate crisis," Rep. Kim said. "Especially for students near nuclear power plants that are concentrated in coastal regions, it is urgent to come up with measures to provide them with safety." He urged the country's education ministry and local metropolitan offices of education to cooperate with the NSSC to check how well schools near nuclear power plants nationwide are equipped with protective gear and provide the schools with new guidelines as to which equipment is in accordance with the IAEA. News reports on Sept. 20 that seven tons of potential radioactive waters were leaking each day from cracks at a spent nuclear fuel storage tank at Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant Reactor No. 1 in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province rocked the country. The plant, after starting operations in 1982, had been permanently shut down in 2018 after its 30-year life expectancy expired but received technical upgrades to continue operating for a few years longer. Brad Pitt has teamed up with producer Damien Quintard to reopen Miraval Studios on the grounds of the French villa, he once shared with ex Angelina Jolie. While speaking about rebuilding the historic recording studio after nearly 20 years, the Bullet Train actor, 58, spoke about wanting the space to have 'kind of open and revolving door policy,' according to Billboard. Since the reopening, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea used the space to relax ahead of his bands worldwide tour and director David Fincher edited a film there. Latest endeavor: Brad Pitt has teamed up with producer Damien Quintard to reopen Miraval Studios on the grounds of the French villa, he once shared with ex Angelina Jolie; seen in 2022 'As a French engineer, it was kind of a holy grail,' Quintard, 31, who won an Emmy in 2015 for sound mixing, said of the studio. In 2021, Pitt announced his intentions to reopen the studio on his 1,200-acre estate, at Chateau de Miraval, which he still owns 50% of after Jolie sold her stake to Tenute del Mondo this summer. Last week, TMZ reported that Jolie had been embarking on a smear campaign against Pitt, which has taken an extreme toll on the children and has poisoned them against their father. A dream: While speaking about rebuilding the historic recording studio after nearly 20 years, the Bullet Train actor, 58, spoke about wanting the space to have 'kind of open and revolving door policy,' according to Billboard (Chateau Miraval pictured) Their six children, according to sources close to Brad, are now all but estranged from Pitt. The actor has a 'limited and strained relationship, because of her campaign of alienation,' a source told the site. Insiders pointed out that Angelina has been alleging for six years that her ex got physical with at least one of their children during a 2016 altercation on board a private jet. She also claimed Pitt poured beer on her during this altercation. Pitt denied the accusations yet Jolie has continued to pursue the issue with authorities, urging them to prosecute him, according to TMZ. An FBI investigation was conducted but did not move forward after they deemed the accusations insufficient. TMZ sources also claim an investigation was conducted by the Department Of Children & Family Services, but that too was closed due to a lack of evidence. In addition, Angelina attempted to persuade a judge that Pitt was an unfit parent who should not be granted any custody of their children. Ultimately, after hearing evidence, the judge essentially shot down Jolie's abuse claims by granting the exes 50/50 custody. She then attempted to make her private jet allegations public by filing what she believed was an anonymous freedom of information lawsuit against the FBI. Pitt and Jolie with their children at Los Angeles airport in February 2014 Jolie and Pitt are pictured with their son Maddox in November 2013 On Tuesday, Angelina went into great detail about the private jet incident when she filed legal documents over the winery she and Pitt own, Chateau Miraval. According to insiders, Angelina's behavior indicates that all she wants is revenge against her ex. Insiders claim Angelina has 'won' as she has allegedly poisoned their children against Pitt with the actor having zero, if any, relationship with the kids. According to sources, the entire family is the victim. Sources also noted that Pitt has never said anything bad publicly about his ex out of respect for their children, however he is incredibly hurt by what he perceives to be a horrible attack on him. Devastating: Their six children, according to sources close to Brad, are now all but estranged from Pitt; seen in 2012 On Tuesday, Jolie filed explosive court documents as part of her long-running separation battle with Pitt, accusing her ex-husband of having 'choked' one of their six children during a violent dispute on a private jet, hitting another in the face, and slamming the actress against a wall while grabbing her hair. Jolie said Pitt's behavior on the September 2016 flight from France to California left the children crying and traumatized, and left her with injuries to her back and elbow. Five days after the flight she filed for divorce, and in September 2021 she sold her stake in the French winery she co-owned with Pitt. He sued her over the sale, and on Tuesday she counter-sued, blaming him for sparking the highly-public mud slinging. 'She has gone to great lengths to try to shield their children from reliving the pain Pitt inflicted on the family that day,' Jolie's lawyers write. 'But when Pitt filed this lawsuit seeking to reassert control over Jolie's financial life and compel her to rejoin her ex-husband as a frozen-out business partner, Pitt forced Jolie to publicly defend herself on these issues for the first time.' The actor has a 'limited and strained relationship, because of her campaign of alienation,' a source told the site (pictured in 2015) Jolie spelled out in detail the violent altercation in September 2016, which she said led to their divorce and the current dispute over the winery. The couple, first linked up in 2005, bought the winery, Chateau Miraval, in 2008. Jolie said that, when they bought the property, their respective representatives discussed signing an agreement, setting out the terms of how the property would be split if the couple separated. But she said Pitt did not want any such agreement. Jolie's lawyers say that Pitt's financial manager wrote in an email: 'Early in the process I raised the issue of a buy / sell agreement between A & B but was told by Brad it wasn't necessary for two reasonable people to have such an agreement.' The idea was dropped, and the pair were married at the chateau in August 2014. In the court documents, she said she considered it an investment for their family, plus a home. Jolie accused Pitt of failing to consult her on the development of the estate and installing a fifth swimming pool at a cost of one million euros. But she said she did not object at the time. 'Jolie had always taken an active role in design for any home she had lived in (and those she has since lived in), and when she and Pitt purchased the chateau, initially expected to do the same for their new home,' her lawyers write. 'But Pitt pushed for creative control consistent with his own taste and vision. 'While Jolie would have preferred a more collaborative approach, she acquiesced to Pitt's desire to take control over the project, although she sometimes questioned why, for example, the chateau needed a fifth pool at the cost of one million euros, or why the same staircase needed to be rebuilt four times. 'If Jolie ever questioned such expenditures, Pitt defended them as critical to his vision for the chateau.' Disturbing allegations: Insiders pointed out that Angelina has been alleging for six years that her ex got physical with at least one of their children during a 2016 altercation on board a private jet. She also claimed Pitt poured beer on her during this altercation; seen in 2014 Jolie said that the marriage 'came to an end' on the September 14, 2016, flight. 'Throughout the long, overnight flight, Pitt was physically and emotionally abusive to Jolie and their children, who were then between the ages of 8 and 15,' the court documents claim. 'After that flight, for her family's well-being, Jolie decided to file for divorce.' She said that Pitt 'had a confrontation' with one of the children before arriving at the airport, and when Jolie asked him on the plane what was wrong, he 'accused her of being too deferential to the children and verbally attacked her.' Jolie alleges that Pitt, 90 minutes later, sought Jolie out and reprimanded her for her actions. 'He pulled her into the bathroom and began yelling at her,' the court documents state. 'Pitt grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall. 'Pitt then punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom. 'As she exited, one of their children asked, 'Are you ok, mommy?' 'Pitt yelled back, "No, mommy's not ok" and started deriding Jolie with insults.' Jolie claims that when one of the children spoke up in her defense, Pitt 'lunged' at the child, and Jolie grabbed him to stop him. 'To get Jolie off his back, Pitt threw himself backwards into the airplane's seats injuring Jolie's back and elbow. 'The children rushed in and all bravely tried to protect each other. 'Before it was over, Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face. 'Some of the children pleaded with Pitt to stop. They were all frightened. Many were crying.' Pitt denied the accusations yet Jolie has continued to pursue the issue with authorities, urging them to prosecute him, according to TMZ For the rest of the flight, 'to avoid Pitt's wrath', Jolie and the children 'sat still and silent under blankets.' The lawyers write: 'Nobody dared to go to the bathroom. Pitt periodically emerged from the back of the plane to yell and swear at them. 'At one point, he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children. 'After many tense hours, Pitt finally fell asleep.' On landing, Jolie woke him up and told him she and the children were going to a hotel instead of to their home. 'He shouted that nobody was getting off the plane and prevented the family from deplaning for about 20 minutes,' the court documents state. 'After a child intervened and demanded to leave, Pitt finally relented. 'But once outside the plane door, Pitt again physically abused one of their children. 'He also grabbed and shook Jolie by the head and shoulders, causing one of the children to beg, 'Don't hurt her.' 'He let Jolie go, but then called her a 'b****,' before adding, 'F*** you, f*** you all.'' An investigation was launched, but no charges were ever filed. Seven months later, in April 2022, Jolie under the alias 'Jane Doe' sued the FBI, seeking to know why the inquiry was dropped. Her actions were only revealed in August this year when Rolling Stone magazine obtained a copy of the FBI report. Jolie's anonymous suit alleged that she'd filed countless requests for a copy of the department's investigative file to gain a 'better understanding the FBI's investigation and obtaining information necessary for her children to receive medical care and trauma counseling.' Jolie, in her court documents, states that their joint ownership of the winery became increasingly contentious. An FBI investigation was conducted but did not move forward after they deemed the accusations insufficient. TMZ sources also claim an investigation was conducted by the Department Of Children & Family Services, but that too was closed due to a lack of evidence 'With Chateau Miraval now her most important asset, Jolie began to seek a more active role both in understanding the chateau and winery's various projects and in understanding and overseeing its finances,' the court documents state. 'As disputes and complications arose in the related divorce and custody proceedings, Pitt's conduct hardened as he attempted to cement his control over the winery.' She accuses Pitt of attempting to freeze her out of the business and using the revenue from the business to fund his own projects. 'Pitt's refusal to distribute profits alone gave him substantial leverage and control over Jolie in their ongoing disputes,' she said. 'By 2019, Jolie was growing increasingly uncomfortable with continuing to participate in an alcohol-related business, given the impact of Pitt's acknowledged problem of alcohol abuse on their family. 'Resigned that Pitt would not share control of the winery or distribute any profits, concerned about participating in a business that was associated with such painful and traumatic memories for her and their children, and seeking financial independence, Jolie concluded that she needed to sell her interest in Chateau Miraval.' Pitt has argued that Jolie unilaterally sold her stake to multinational drinks giant Stoli, but Jolie on Tuesday argued she offered Pitt the chance to buy her out. She said a $54.5 million deal was reached to sell her share to Pitt, but he backed out when she filed allegations of violence. 'In the couple's child custody case, Jolie submitted under seal (meaning no member of the public could see any portion of it except the document title) an 'Offer of Proof and Authority re Testimony Regarding Domestic Violence.' 'This filing apparently enraged Pitt, and in response to that submission, on March 26, 2021, Pitt's team notified Jolie's team that Pitt was 'stepping back' from the Miraval deal.' Legal battle: In addition, Angelina attempted to persuade a judge that Pitt was an unfit parent who should not be granted any custody of their children. Ultimately, after hearing evidence, the judge essentially shot down Jolie's abuse claims by granting the exes 50/50 custody She sold her stake to Stoli in September 2021 and is now seeking a judge's final approval for the sale. 'After failing to bully Jolie into agreeing to a non-disparagement clause in exchange for her economic freedom and security, Pitt now claims that Jolie was not authorized to sell her interest in Chateau Miraval and is asking the Court to unwind the sale,' Jolie's lawyers write. 'Again, Pitt's entire case against Jolie is premised largely on his supposed unwritten, unspoken agreement to always give the other a consent or veto right over any sale of the other's interest in the chateau and winery no matter the circumstances and no matter whether they even remained a couple. 'But the first time Jolie ever heard of this supposed consent right was when she was alerted to press reports that Pitt had sued her and later read Pitt's complaint.' The court documents conclude: 'Jolie requests that the Court declare that no such agreement exists and that Jolie's sale of Nouvel to Stoli's subsidiary is final. 'With these declarations, Jolie can finally have what she thought she had when she sold Nouvel to Stoli in 2021: To move on from the winery and chateau, to have financial independence from her ex-husband, and to finally have some form of peace and closure to this deeply painful and traumatic chapter of her and their children's lives.' A source close to Pitt told DailyMail.com: 'She continues to rehash, revise and reimagine her description of an event that happened six years ago by adding completely untrue information each time she fails to get what she wants. Her story is constantly evolving.' The source added: 'She had the chance to share this during the lengthy custody trial, which resulted in the judge granting 50-50 custody to Pitt following in-depth observations and analysis by doctors, therapists, and other experts. 'Her and her team go back to the same thing month after month with new and false information.' Colin Fassnidge has never been afraid to voice his opinion in the kitchen. But on Tuesday, the celebrity chef, 48, unleashed on the KIIS FM studios after visiting the radio station. During his interview on The Kyle and Jackie O show, host Jackie O Henderson asked: 'You've had an observation of our working area and it's time for a bit of truth.' Celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge unleashed on KIIS FM studios in fiery rant after visiting The Kyle and Jackie O show for an interview 'Well on [Kyle's] desk there is hand lotion and nail clippings on the floor. What's that about?' Colin questioned. 'That's Mitch [Churi], he is disgusting,' Kyle Sandilands responded. Colin continued: 'Well Pete's [Deppeler] desk smells, he has old cups, old plates and three boxes of tissues.' 'Well on [Kyle's] desk there is hand lotion, and nail clippings on the floor. What's that about?' Colin questioned during his visit. Pictured host Kyle Sandilands '[Producer] Mayo's desk has empty sangria bottles and adult diapers. Jackie has breakfast on her desk and there are moths under the table.' He added: 'There is a lot of Vaseline on the desks.' 'We all love Vaseline, it's for our lips,' Jackie O explained. Colin's interview comes ahead of the premiere of his new show Kitchen Nightmares Australia on Wednesday night. He is the new host of the show and uses the -f-word 53 times in the first episode of the series. '[Producer] Mayo's desk has empty sangria bottles and adult diapers. Jackie has breakfast on her desk, there are moths under the table,' Colin added According to the Herald Sun, the straight-talking Irish chef's foul mouth has out done the notoriously colourful language of Ant Middleton. The former British marine only managed 43 f-words while he was hosting the first episode of SAS: Australia. My Kitchen Nightmares follows Colin as he attempts to save failing restaurants and steer them to success. Kitchen Nightmares Australia will premiere on Wednesday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven. Elsa Pataky must save a fortune on shoes as the Hollywood star was seen going barefoot once again during an outing in Byron Bay on Tuesday. The 46-year-old Spanish model, who is married to Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, showed off her dainty foot tattoo as she ran errands with her beloved pet pooch Sonny in the beachside town. Her bare feet displayed Latin scripture on the outside of her foot which reads 'quod quid sumus id esse voluimus' and translates to 'that what we are is what we wanted to be'. Elsa Pataky must save a fortune on shoes as the Hollywood star was seen going barefoot once again during an outing in Byron Bay on Tuesday Elsa went for her typical boho look during the outing, wearing a pair of pale blue ripped jeans and a white T-shirt layer with a floral kimono over the top. The star kept her blonde locks out and around her shoulders, styled in a natural beach wave. She was later seen climbing into the boot of her vehicle while wearing a large backpack as her beloved pooch sat in a passenger seat. The 46-year-old Spanish model, who is married to Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, showed off her dainty foot tattoo as she ran errands with her beloved pet pooch in the beachside town Elsa went for her typical boho look during the outing, wearing a pair of pale blue ripped jeans and a white T-shirt layer with a floral kimono over the top Elsa flexed her muscles as she reached into the boot of her car Elsa's skin was glowing, perhaps from the use of her new skincare range Purely Byron, that launched in June. The brand came under fire for its package appearing strikingly similiar to clean and sustainable skincare business Habitual Beauty, which launched in July 2021. Fellow mums and bloggers Jessi and Millie shared a reel to their Instagram page on June 7 comparing Purely Byron's six-product collection to Habitual Beauty's lineup of five skin-targeting, science-backed products. The star kept her blonde locks out and around her shoulders, styled in a natural beach wave She was later seen climbing into the boot of her vehicle while wearing a large backpack 'I was just scrolling through the news when I noticed Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa has launched a new skincare brand inspired by Australia. And I thought hang on that looks kinds of familiar,' the women said. 'Where have I seen this before? For legal reasons I'm not insinuating they've copied this brand but this is a wild coincidence. Even the websites look similar.' On Purely Byron's website, which features a peachy pink and light brown colour palette, there is a Divine Ritual Balm - an overnight moisturiser - for $80, Divine Ritual Boost of Radiance brightening serum ($40), Divine Ritual Boost of Hydration ($40), Divine Ritual Boost of Rejuvenation ($40), Divine Ritual Boost of Balance ($40) and Clay Mask ($80). The Hemsworth's beloved pooch Sonny sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle All of the products are currently available for pre-order alongside a cotton muslin cloth ($20) and a 'face sculptor' ($80). 'Moving to Byron Bay in 2014 I felt an immediate connection to its natural beauty, community and spirit,' Elsa has written on the website. 'And it's here I discovered the incredible range of natural botanicals grown in the Byron Shire. I thought it would be great to use these clinically-effective botanicals in a range of skincare (I am a huge fan of beautiful skincare!) made right here. 'I also wanted to give back to the community that gave me inspiration, so it was essential that it was made locally, with sustainable practices, and a clear plan for supporting the Byron community. 'I'm so excited to launch Purely Byron, a natural skincare range that captures the essence of Byron, celebrating its powerful native botanicals and serene calming spirit.' Actress Tilda Swinton spoke about her iconic career during an Evening With Tilda Swinton panel at the New York Film Festival. The 61-year-old actress took to the stage at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City on Monday evening. She also posed on the red carpet with Lincoln Center's President of Film Lesli Klainberg and Lincoln Center's Film Society Director Kris Heinzelman at the event. Tilda speaks: Actress Tilda Swinton spoke about her iconic career during an Evening With Tilda Swinton panel at the New York Film Festival Red carpet ready: She also posed on the red carpet with Lincoln Center's President of Film Lesli Klainberg and Lincoln Center's Film Society Director Kris Heinzelman at the event Swinton stepped out with a simple white dress shirt tucked into black wide-legged pants for the event. Her short blonde hair was swept to the right side as she accessorized with a few rings. The actress completed her look with shiny black dress shoes. Tilda's look: Swinton stepped out with a simple white dress shirt tucked into black wide-legged pants for the event The discussion lead into the NYFF screening of her new film The Eternal Daughter, which reunited her with The Souvenir writer-director Joanna Hogg. The film had its world premiere at the prestigious Venice Film Festival in September, before screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, Zurich Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival over the past few weeks. The Eternal Daughter will next be screened at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles, though no theatrical release date has been set at this time. New film: The discussion lead into the NYFF screening of her new film The Eternal Daughter, which reunited her with The Souvenir writer-director Joanna Hogg The Eternal Daughter follows a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother, who 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. The film also features Joseph Mydell, Carly-Sophia Davies, and Alfie Sankey-Green in supporting roles. A24 acquired the film for distribution back in January 2021, shortly after the secretive production wrapped in Wales. New film: The Eternal Daughter follows a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother, who 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 The actress also recently starred in George Miller's new film Three Thousand Years of Longing and she lends her voice to the Wood Sprite in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. She also has Asteroid City in post-production, the latest from writer-director Wes Anderson, also starring Margot Robbie, Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell and Scarlett Johansson. Swinton is currently filming director David Fincher's new film The Killer, alongside Michael Fassbender as the title character. Recent roles: The actress also recently starred in George Miller's new film Three Thousand Years of Longing and she lends her voice to the Wood Sprite in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio The Bachelorette's Scot Fuller announced his engagement to his fiancee Jill on Tuesday. The 30-year-old shared a gallery of heartwarming snaps to Instagram capturing the lovebirds after she said yes to his proposal. The real estate agent, who appeared on Angie Kent's season of the Channel 10 dating show, looked absolutely smitten as he embraced Jill at a coastal setting in Byron Bay. The Bachelorette's Scot Fuller announced his engagement to his fiancee Jill on Tuesday. The 30-year-old shared a gallery of heartwarming snaps to Instagram capturing the lovebirds after she said yes to his proposal One sweet picture showed Scot hugging his lover while she flashed her $11,400 18-carat gold and diamond ring at the camera. The Byron Bay-based former reality star dressed for their romantic excursion in a loose-fitting white t-shirt and black shorts. The pair were accompanied by their large pooch, who Jill lovingly petted while also embracing her beau. The real estate agent, who appeared on Angie Kent's season of the Channel 10 dating show, looked absolutely smitten as he embraced Jill at a coastal setting in Byron Bay Many of Scot's followers were quick to jump in with their well wishes. One enthusiastic fan said 'this is the best news to wake up to'. Another added the engagement ring was absolutely 'stunning'. One sweet picture showed Scot hugging his lover while she flashed her $11,400 18-carat gold and diamond ring at the camera Scot rose to fame on Angie Kent's season of The Bachelorette in 2019 but failed to love during his stint on the program. He has kept a relatively low-profile since exiting the show and returned to his career in real estate. When he isn't selling houses he maintains his buff body by hitting the beach to swim and surf. Many of Scot's fans were quick to praise his new fiancees stunning engagement ring Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke say they have no recollection of the nights out they enjoyed together in the early years of their friendship. Actor Ewan, 51, who plays the half-brother of Ethan's character in their new film Raymond and Ray, first met when Ethan was working with fellow actor Jude Law on 1997 movie Gattaca. And, while Ethan, 51, insists the pair had a 'good time' on their evenings together, the time failed to make a lasting impression. Blank memory: Ewan McGregor (left) and Ethan Hawke (right), both 51, say they have no recollection of the nights out they enjoyed together in the early years of their friendship Ewan told the Radio Times: 'Ive always felt a sort of kindred spirit with Ethan, although we didnt know each other well. 'A long, long time ago, we met when Ethan was working with Jude Law on Gattaca. We met and we must have hung out a few times. Were pretty sure we did!' Ethan added: 'I dont remember much else about the evenings except that we had a good time!' Forgotten: While Ethan insists the pair had a 'good time' on their evenings together, the time failed to make a lasting impression In their latest project, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is set for release later this month, Ewan and Ethan play half-brothers Raymond and Ray, who are reunited at the funeral of their father, with whom both had a less-than-ideal relationship. The full interview with Ethan and Ewan is available in Radio Times, out now The film's logline reads: 'Somehow, they still each have a sense of humour, and his funeral is a chance for them to reinvent themselves. 'There's anger, there's pain, there's folly, there might be love, and there's definitely grave-digging.' Raymond and Ray reunites Ewan with Oscar nominee Sophie Okonedo - whom he previously co-starred with in Christopher Robin (2018), Stormbreaker (2006), and Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006). The 54-year-old beauty is cast as McGregor and Hawke's father's no-nonsense hospice nurse Kiera, who 'shakes world-weary Ray out of his torpor.' The film, written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (Last Days in the Desert), debuted in cinemas October 14 before arriving on Apple TV Plus October 21. The full interview with Ethan and Ewan is available in Radio Times, out now. Colin Farrell talked about how he tried leave his 15-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Monday night's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS. The 46-year-old actor, who stars in Martin McDonagh's new movie The Banshees of Inisherin with actor Brendan Gleeson, was asked by Stephen, 58, what it was like being on the receiving end of a long standing ovation. 'Tiring,' Colin responded. Long ovation: Colin Farrell talked about how he tried leave his 15-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Monday night's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS He added: 'I tried to leave about the seventh minute, when my ego felt good enough that I'd had enough,' Colin said. 'I tried to leave and they said you can't leave until everyone stops clapping.' When the ovation continued, Colin said he considered signing autographs. 'That's when you start going down and signing autographs and I was then told that was breaking the f***ing rules as well,' Colin said. Stephen asked Colin if he was friends in real life with his co-star Brendan, 67. New film: The 46-year-old actor, who stars in Martin McDonagh's new movie The Banshees of Inisherin with actor Brendan Gleeson, was asked by Stephen, 58, what it was like being on the receiving end of a long standing ovation Simple answer: 'Tiring,' Colin responded when asked what the long ovation was like 'Oh yeah, I love him to bits,' Colin said. 'He's my friend.' Colin said he was concerned coming into the film if Brendan would want them to maintain his distance from him on set because their characters were at odds. Colin said he was happy to learn that was not the case. 'He was all over me from the first day,' Colin said. 'Give us a hug.' Close bond: Colin said he was concerned coming into the film if Brendan would want them to maintain his distance from him on set because their characters were at odds Colin then compared filming the critically acclaimed 2008 film In Bruges with Brendan to their new movie. 'Bruges felt like a two-hander, even though there were of course other actors. So it wasn't just about us. But it was about two lads falling in love in Bruges and this was about the dissolution of love,' Colin said. 'It's about the fracture of us and the death of us. It's kind of crushing for my character.' Colin also described how beautiful the scenery was for them filming in the Ayran islands in Ireland. Together again: Brendan and Colin also starred together in the critically acclaimed 2008 film In Bruges 'So beautiful,' Colin said. 'The balls of Martin and the production designer to build this pub, that is no longer there, on this bluff. Twenty feet away from the front door with the Atlantic, and drop off and cliffs and waves that were coming in constantly just outside the pub door. It was like the waves of the ocean were representative of the people of the community. A lot of this film is like suppression.' Colin said not only did they have unprecedented great weather there when they were filming, but also that the people were so welcoming. 'The first island we were there for six or seven weeks, the people of Inisherin, 750 population year round, they just welcomed us into their lives daily,' Colin said. Warm welcome: Colin said not only did they have unprecedented great weather there when they were filming, but also that the people were so welcoming Colin also spoke about his co-star Jenny the Donkey in the film and how they were close up until a point. 'It kind of fell apart two thirds through the film,' Colin said. 'My left knee can attest. She kicked me. His dog bit me. There's a horse in the film that tried to reverse me on the cart into the f***ing Atlantic Ocean.' The Banshees of Inisherin is scheduled to be release in theaters on October 21. Scarlett Johansson described feeling 'hypersexualized' and 'pigeonholed' in the early stages of her acting career in Hollywood. The Black Widow star, 37, appeared on Dax Shepard's podcast, Armchair Expert, on Monday, and shared how people in the industry saw her as older than what she was, leading to her not getting the roles she wanted. 'I kind of became objectified and pigeonholed in this way where I felt like I wasnt getting offers for work for things that I wanted to do. I remember thinking to myself, "I think people think I'm 40 years old,"' she revealed. Reflecting on her career: Scarlett Johansson described feeling 'hypersexualized' and 'pigeonholed' in the early stages of her acting career in Hollywood; Pictured 2020 'Because I think everybody thought I was older and that I'd been [acting] for a long time, I got kind of pigeonholed into this weird hypersexualized thing,' the beauty remarked. 'The runway is not long on that. So it was scary at that time. In a weird way, I was like, "Is this it?"' she added. However, the New York native noted that things in the industry appear to be changing for the better. Objectified: 'I kind of became objectified and pigeonholed in this way where I felt like I wasnt getting offers for work for things that I wanted to do,' the actress, 37, shared; Pictured 2006 'Now, I see younger actors that are in their 20s. It feels like theyre allowed to be all these different things,' she expressed. 'It's another time, too. We're not even allowed to really pigeonhole other actors anymore, thankfully, right? People are much more dynamic,' Johansson added. The blonde bombshell started out her career as a child actor, but came to prominence when she was 17-years-old, while playing Charlotte in the 2003 Sofia Coppola film, Lost in Translation, alongside Bill Murray (then 52, now 72) for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Hypersexualized: 'Because I think everybody thought I was older and that I'd been [acting] for a long time, I got kind of pigeonholed into this weird hypersexualized thing,' the beauty remarked; Pictured 2004 Johansson was five years younger than her character - a young wife who's left alone at the Tokyo Park Hyatt by her photographer husband, played by Giovanni Ribisi. In the romantic comedy she goes on to befriend a middle-aged movie star (Murray) who's there shooting a Whiskey commercial, as they consolidate in their loneliness together and even share a kiss at one point. The young beauty then went on to play a seductress in the 2005 psychological thriller Match Point, when she was just 19-years-old, starring alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who was 27 at the time. Young star: Johansson came to prominence when she was 17, starring alongside Bill Murray (then 52, now 72) in a romantic drama titled Lost in Translation. She was five years younger than her character's age; Pictured with Murray in a still The film's controversial director, Woody Allen, 86, later caught flack after he referred to her as 'sexually radioactive' in his memoir Apropos of Nothing. She has since starred in a number of other notable films, and will next be seen in a new drama movie called, My Mother's Wedding, which will be the directorial debut of the Oscar-nominated actress Kristin Scott Thomas. Thomas is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as The English Patient, starring alongside Ralph Fiennes and Four Weddings And A Funeral with Hugh Grant. Very young: The beauty then went on to play a seductress in the 2005 thriller Match Point, when she was just 19, starring alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who was 27 at the time; Pictured in a still from Match Point Yikes! The film's controversial director, Woody Allen, 86, later caught flack after he referred to her as 'sexually radioactive' in his memoir Apropos of Nothing; Pictured in 2005 The film is based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Elizabeth Jane Howard centres on the famous London playwright Emmanuel and his sickly wife Lillian who has never truly buried the memory of the couple's late daughter Sarah. The pair's rocky marriage then takes a surprise turn when they travel to a remote Greek island. It is assumed that Scarlett will be playing Lillian but details for her role are yet to be confirmed. Viewers slammed Channel 5's drama Maxine on Monday as they angrily claimed the show was trying to make a victim of Maxine Carr. The miniseries tells the story of the woman engaged to Ian Huntley, who was responsible for the Soham murders in 2002. Taking to Twitter one viewer declared: 'Maxine was never a victim' while another said the broadcaster should 'pull the plug' on the controversial show. Slamming: Viewers slammed Channel 5's drama Maxine on Monday as they angrily claimed the show was trying to make a victim of Maxine Carr (Jemma Carlton pictured in character) The plot looks at Maxine's tumultuous relationship with Huntley; why she lied for him and how she became 'public enemy number one'. And the release date comes 20 years after the murders of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both aged 10 at the time, took place. Episode one saw Maxine move to Soham for a fresh start with her boyfriend Ian but following a jealous argument with Ian, Maxine visits her mother for the weekend and enjoys a night out in her hometown of Grimsby. Horrifying: The series tells the story of the woman engaged to Ian Huntley, who was responsible for the Soham murders in 2002 (pictured with co-star Scott Reid) Role: The plot looks at Maxine's tumultuous relationship with Huntley; why she lied for him and how she became 'public enemy number one' (Maxine Carr pictured right in 2002) She awakens to the news of the girls disappearance, and returns to Soham to provide Ian with an alibi. One viewer wrote: 'Maxine was never a victim. The true victims were Holly and Jessica. Can Channel 5stop portraying her as a victim'. Another agreed writing: 'Are Channel 5 trying to make us feel sorry for Maxine Carr? A woman who lied & covered for her evil boyfriend A man who killed two beautiful children. It's 20years since this horrendous & awful event & I don't think anyone needs to watch'. Unhappy: One viewer wrote: ' Maxine was never a victim. The true victims were Holly and Jessica. Can Channel 5stop portraying her as a victim' And a third said: 'If Channel 5 had any decency they would pull the plug on this really not fair on Holly and Jessica's family'. Racing to agree a fourth viewer commented: 'Is this Maxine Carr thing trying to paint her as a victim? F*** you Channel 5'. While another said: 'I turned off Channel 5, one it's bad acting but two it's shocking they're making Maxine Carr look like a victim. These are the victims'. Going on to post a picture of Holly and Jessica. MailOnline have contacted Channel 5 for comment. The disappearance of the schoolgirls, which happened after a family barbecue in August 2002, sparked Britain's biggest-ever missing persons' enquiry - but came to a tragic end when their bodies were found dumped in a remote ditch. School caretaker Huntley - then 28 - had lured the girls to his house and murdered them before dumping their bodies and burning their clothes. His then-fiancee Carr who provided him with a false alibi - but was in Grimsby visiting her mother at the time of the murders - was jailed for perverting the course of justice but released in 2004 with a new identity. She was dubbed 'The Most Hated Woman In Britain' following the trial, which saw Huntley admit to killing the children, but claiming their deaths were accidental. Final photo: Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered by Ian Huntley on August 4 2002 (pictured two hours before their disappearance) CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: Why has television got so much sympathy for Ian Huntley's hated helper Maxine Carr? Rating: How soon is too soon? Ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered more than 20 years ago, in August 2002. To many, including me, who remember the desperate search for the missing girls and the national sense of disbelief, their deaths still seem raw, almost recent. Perhaps it is because when a child is killed, their parents are condemned to spend the rest of their lives mourning the loss. Those girls would barely be 30 now. Their contemporaries might be getting married or starting families: in that sense, the two decades since their murder is no time at all. On-screen: The three-part series examines the police investigation into school assistant Maxine and her caretaker fiance Ian from Carrs perspective The three-part serial Maxine (C5) tries to avoid any suggestion of exploiting the crime, by focusing solely on the killer Ian Huntley and his girlfriend Maxine Carr, who lied to give him an alibi. Nothing of the murders is shown only a glimpse of the aftermath that night, when Huntley has driven into the countryside and is sitting at the wheel of his car, suppressing his panic. Later, distant voices of a search party are heard, shouting. The girls parents are seen only for an instant, out of focus, at a press conference. Holly and Jessica themselves are never seen, unless they are the two little girls at a school desk, one brunette and one blonde, chatting in one brief scene to classroom assistant Carr (Jemma Carlton). Clearly, this is done out of respect to their families. Nothing of the murders is shown only a glimpse of the aftermath that night, when Huntley has driven into the countryside and is sitting at the wheel of his car, suppressing his panic. (Pictured: police officer from the new series) But the effect is to erase them from their own story and place Carr herself at the sympathetic heart of the script. Who is Maxine star Jemma Carlton? Born in the West Midlands, Jemma is a newcomer to the screen with Maxine marking her TV acting debut. She graduated from Rose Bruford drama school in London in 2019. The actress performed in and wrote numerous stage productions while at college as well as short films. She is recognisable from a string of high profile adverts for the likes of McDonalds. Advertisement Carlton plays her as an immature, needy and insecure young woman, so selfishly desperate to maintain the fiction of a happy relationship with Huntley that she deceives herself about his guilt. Scott Reids powerful performance as Huntley shows him as thoroughly unpleasant, a controlling bully with a jealous temper. But he, too, is granted a small measure of sympathy, made to seem more weak than evil. Its a naive interpretation. No doubt Maxine Carr really did want to keep her house and her boyfriend, and her dreams of getting married and having children. Lots of 25-year-olds do. But only a heartless psychotic could suspect the truth and make a deliberate decision to bury it. If this drama depicted Carr as a woman afraid for her own life, terrified Huntley would kill her, too, if she failed to back him up, she might deserve at least the partial benefit of our doubts. Instead, shes lying because she cares about no one but herself. There were hints, as Carr embellished her story for the benefit of reporter Brian Farmer (Steve Edge), that she was starting to enjoy the attention. Carr did not commit the murders. Its a grim mistake to assume she must therefore be, to some extent, a victim of Huntley herself. The broadcasting world is in mourning on Monday, with the news that legendary DJ Art Laboe has passed away. The radio pioneer - who is credited with coining the oft-used term 'oldies but goodies' - passed after a battle with pneumonia at his Palm Springs home. The DJ was 97 years old at the time of his passing, with TMZ reporting that he had come down with pneumonia two weeks prior. Mourning: The broadcasting world is in mourning on Monday, with the news that legendary DJ Art Laboe has passed away Laboe reportedly had a number of close friends by his side when he passed on Friday evening. The DJ was born August 7, 1925 in Salt Lake City, Utah, though he moved to Los Angeles during his high school years. He graduated high school at just 16 years of age and served in the United States Navy in San Francisco. He also attended Los Angeles City College, San Mateo Junior College and Stanford University, where he studied radio engineering. Close friends: Laboe reportedly had a number of close friends by his side when he passed on Friday evening Laboe started his radio career during World War II at KSAN, while stationed at Treasure Island outside San Francisco. It was at KSAN where he pioneered the concept of taking requests and dedications from viewers. While the technology wasn't in place at the time to air the phone conversations live on the air, he would repeat what the callers would say live on the air. He would later be used in World War II to transmit Morse code messages, but after the War, he continued his broadcasting career at KCMJ in Palm Springs, California. Laboe returned to Los Angeles to work for KPOP, where he would broadcast live from the Scrivener's Drive-In in Hollywood, where teenagers would go to give live dedications to songs. Career: Laboe started his radio career during World War II at KSAN, while stationed at Treasure Island outside San Francisco The live shows in L.A. were so popular that he moved them to the El Monte ballroom, which was outside the city limits and allowed him to get around a local ordinance that required city approval for any type of teenage dance hall. The live shows were so popular among all ethnicities some have credited him with ending segregation in Southern California, and he was one of the first DJ's to allow people of all races to make requests on his show. He would ultimately trademark the term 'oldies but goodies' and formed a record label dubbed Original Sounds Records in 1959. He broadcast from KXLA for many years and debuted a syndicated request show dubbed The Art Laboe Connection in 2006 and Art Laboe Sunday Special in 2018. An undated photo released on 10 October 2022 by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows a military striking drill of long-range artillery sub-units on the front and flying corps of the Korean People's Army (KPA), carried out to check and assess the war deterrent and nuclear counterattack capability of the country, amid ongoing joint military exersizes involving US and South Korean forces in the waters near the Korean Penninsula. North Korea conducted the drills from 25 September to 09 October, and launched several ballistic missiles in order to test the efficacy of the nation's tactical nuclear warefare capabilities. EPA She's known for her incredible physique. And Carol Voderman, 61, looked nothing short of sensational as she shared a stunning throwback snap to her Instagram on Monday. The broadcaster flashed a glimpse of underboob while donning a skimpy bralette and shorts to declare the end of summer. 'Shorts weather is over': Carol Vorderman, 61, flashed a glimpse of underboob in a skimpy bralette as she shared a stunning throwback snap to declare the end of summer on Monday She wrote: 'SHORTS WEATHER Officially over in this house....washed and put away today, missing warmth already' The top showcased her rock hard abs and featured a key hole detail which offered a cheeky glimpse of her ample assets. Completing the look with cut-off denim shorts, the stunner went make-up free and let her blonde tresses cascade to her shoulders in a gentle curl. She stood on a wooden deck as she made the most of the fantastic weather, while she didn't elaborate on where the snap was taken it's believed she was in South Africa filming I'm A Celeb All Stars. Enviable: It comes after Carol proudly flaunted her enviable curves in a sexy pinafore dress and knee-high heeled boots for a series of sexy Instagram snaps on Saturday She wrote: 'SHORTS WEATHER Officially over in this house....washed and put away today, missing warmth already'. It comes after Carol proudly flaunted her enviable curves in a sexy pinafore dress and knee-high heeled boots for a series of sexy Instagram snaps on Saturday. She looked incredible as she showed off her enviable curves taken inside her walk-in wardrobe before heading to work to record her radio show. Glamorous: The broadcaster looked incredible as she showed off her enviable curves taken inside her walk-in wardrobe before heading to work to record her radio show Wearing a white chequered round-neck fluffy t-shirt underneath her dress, the straps of the pinafore draped over her frame and synched in on her svelte waist. On Friday, Carol candidly discussed her 'many special friends' as she dished out dating advice and the reasons why she dates multiple men on Friday. The presenter revealed that one of her close male friends is an astronaut who 'calls her from the space station,' and she has been dating two of the men for several years - adding that she 'feels free' since choosing not to remarry. Strike a pose: Wearing a white chequered round-neck fluffy t-shirt underneath her dress, the straps of the pinafore draped over her frame and synched in on her svelte waist Carol has never revealed the identities of the men. Showing off her hourglass curves in a figure-hugging chequered dress, Carol joined Dermot O'Leary and Alison Hammond on This Morning to answer a callers burning question during the advice segment. Phoning into the show, the 52-year-old viewer asked both Carol and Gyles Brandreth what age group he should 'pitch himself to' when looking for ladies to date. The Countdown star explained: 'I live my life in chapters, and you said and this chapter since I was about 50. So for the last decade or so, I've lived a life which is much freer. 'I've never felt freer. So I have ignored the looking for one person and I have a number of what I've called "special friends". She continued: 'I don't really want to marry again. I don't really want to live with a man again. Have to look after him all the time. But this is a time to break this nonsense taboo, which is a person should only be looking for one other person that satisfies everything in their life. That's hell.' Adding of her 'special friends' Carol explained: 'They don't know each other, but they know about it. It's a very honest relationship. 'One of them has gone on for many more years than my marriage. Yeah, it's over 10 years. Another is seven. He's an astronaut. He rang me from the space station.' Advertisement Emily Ratajkowski has seemingly come out as bisexual over TikTok while responding to a video that asked those who 'identify as bisexual' if they 'own a green velvet couch' on Monday. Less than a month after filing for divorce from her estranged husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, the 31-year-old supermodel dropped a not-so-subtle hint about her sexuality as she showed off her own green velvet couch. In the footage, the mom-of-one appeared to open up about being attracted to both men and women as she gave the camera a mischievous look while lounging on her sofa in a baggy white and red sweatshirt. Proud: Emily Ratajkowski has seemingly come out as bisexual over TikTok while responding to a video that asked those who 'identify as bisexual' if they 'own a green velvet couch' on Monday Her comment section was flooded with congratulatory messages, with many writing: 'Yet another win for the ladies.' 'Lets just say this is probably one of the many things I never expected,' another wrote as other fans raved about the slew of celebrities that recently alluded to being in the LGBTQIA community this week, including Madonna and Shay Mitchell, ahead of national Coming Out Day on October 11th. Ratajkowski's latest social media post comes after actress Shay Mitchell participated in the same trend. Coming out: Less than a month after filing for divorce from her estranged husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, the 31-year-old supermodel dropped a not-so-subtle hint about her sexuality as she showed off her own green velvet couch Mitchell, who played the LGBTQ character of Emily Fields for seven seasons on Pretty Little Liars, previously discussed the similarities between Emilys sexuality and her own. People always ask me, You play a gay character? Are you gay? Are you straight? Are you this? Are you that? the actress told Maxim in 2017. Look, Emily doesnt label herself, and I dont label myself either. I fall in love with the spirit of somebody. Love is love, and thats something that Ill keep saying. Since 2017, the Canadian star has been in a relationship with boyfriend Matte Babel. The couple are parents to two daughters: Atlas, 2, and Rome, 4 months. Dropping hints: Ratajkowski's latest social media post comes after actress Shay Mitchell (seen left) participated in the same trend Mitchell, who played the LGBTQ character of Emily Fields for seven seasons on Pretty Little Liars, previously discussed the similarities between Emilys sexuality and her own (pictured in September 2022) In late August, news broke that the Ratajkowski was 'spending a lot of time' with Brad Pitt, according to People. 'Friends aren't sure if it's serious,' it was shared and it was added: 'They don't appear to be "dating" formally.' The age difference is notable. At 31, the My Body author is only 10 years older than his eldest child, Maddox Jolie-Pitt, whom he shares with ex-wife Angelina Jolie. Moving on: In late August, news broke that the My Body author was 'spending a lot of time' with Brad Pitt, according to People; seen in 2018 In September, Ratajkowski filed for divorce from her husband of four years, two months after they split over allegations that he had cheated on her. The model reportedly made the decision to leave her film producer husband following the claims of his infidelity, but is said to be coping well. A source close to the star first confirmed the shocking split to People in July, explaining that Emily is focused on parenting the couple's son Sylvester, one. 'They split recently. It was Em's decision. She is doing OK,' the insider revealed. 'She is strong and focused on her son. She loves being a mom.' Geena Davis has detailed her unpleasant experiences working with Bill Murray on their 1990 crime comedy Quick Change in her new memoir Dying Of Politeness. The 66-year-old acting icon revealed on Friday to The Times of London how Murray allegedly created an uncomfortable atmosphere during her audition for the film, which he starred in and also co-directed with Howard Franklin. According to her, Murray, 72, also screamed at her in front of 'hundreds' of people on set because she was allegedly late, though she says she was merely delayed by the wardrobe department. Bad time: Geena Davids, 66, wrote in her memoir Dying Of Politeness about her terrible experiences working with Bill Murray on their 1990 crime comedy Quick Change; seen in 2019 in LA According to a Times summary, '[Davis is] introduced to [Murray], she writes, in a hotel suite, where Murray greets her with something called The Thumper, a massage device he insists on using on her, despite her emphatically refusing.' The concerning encounter was followed up by a more humiliating incident when the Royal Tenenbaums actor allegedly lost his temper while filming Quick Change. 'Later, while theyre filming on location, Murray tracks Davis down in her trailer and begins screaming at her for being late (shes waiting for her wardrobe), continues to scream at her as she hurries onto the set and even as she gets there, in front of hundreds of cast, crew, curious passers-by,' the publication added. 'That was bad,' Davis said of her audition with Murray as she mused about how she might have handled the incident differently. Hard time: She wrote that Murray who also co-directed the film used a massage device on her against her will during her audition, and he later screamed at her in front of 'hundreds' of people on set for allegedly being late; still from Quick Change Unacceptable: 'The way he behaved at the first meeting I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself,' she told The Times of London, before admitting that she was victim blaming; seen September 12 in LA 'The way he behaved at the first meeting I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldnt have got the part. I could have avoided that treatment if Id known how to react or what to do during the audition. But, you know, I was so non-confrontational that I just didnt...' she said. However, she conceded that her words could be construed as victim blaming when it was pointed out to her. 'Ha. Point taken. Theres no point in regretting things, and yet, here I was regretting. And yes, exactly, it wasnt my fault,' she said. So far, Murray has not responded publicly to Davis' remarks, either in the interview or in her book. A pattern: Last year, the actress Lucy Liu also described the verbal abuse Murray allegedly threw at her while they worked together on the action comedy Charlie's Angels; seen in July 2021 in Cannes, France Last year, the actress Lucy Liu also described the verbal abuse Murray allegedly threw at her while they worked together on the action comedy Charlie's Angels. 'As were doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I wont get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on,' she described on the Asian Enough podcast. The film and television star, who called the former Saturday Night Live star's insult 'unacceptable' and 'inexcusable,' added that she 'was not going to just sit there and take it.' 'So, yes, I stood up for myself and I dont regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, theres no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have,' she added defiantly. Murray's alleged behavior on set appears to have put the fate of his upcoming film Being Mortal in jeopardy. On hold: In April 2021, his film Being Mortal was suspended due to a complaint about his allegedly inappropriate behavior. He stars with director Aziz Ansar, Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer; Murray, Randy Quaid and Davis seen in Quick Change In April 2021, Searchlight Pictures suspended production on the film, which was being directed by Aziz Ansari, due to complaints about Murray's inappropriate behavior on set, though no details were offered up about what he had allegedly done or who was affected. The film is reportedly still on pause, and it's unclear if it will ever be finished at this point. The film, which also starred Ansari, Keke Palmer and Seth Rogen, was shopped around for a potential new buyer earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, but it doesn't appear to have found a new studio, according to Rolling Stone. 'I did something I thought was funny, and it wasnt taken that way,' Murray said while speaking to CNBC later in April. Changes: He added that the experience has been 'quite an education for me,' before noting that, 'world is different than it was when I was a little kid'; seen in February in Pebble Beach 'The company, the movie studio, wanted to do the right thing, so they wanted to check it all out, investigate it. and so they stopped the production,' he explained. ' But as of now, were talking and were trying to make peace with each other. I think thats where the real issue is, between our peace. Were both professionals. We like each others work. We like each other, I think, and if you cant really get along and trust each other, theres no point in going further working together or making a movie as well.' He added that the experience has been 'quite an education for me,' before noting that, 'world is different than it was when I was a little kid.' 50 Cent's oldest son Marquise Jackson has offered the rapper $6,700 for a day of his time. Marquise, 25, has been active on social media after saying that the $6,700 the rapper paid his mother in monthly child support was not adequate. 'Since yall think $6,700 is sooo much money someone tell my pops I will pay him $6,700 for just 24hr of his time so we can do everything I ever wanted to do with him as a kid,' he said. 'Red Yellow Green whatever color he like.' The latest: 50 Cent's oldest son Marquise Jackson, 25, has offered the rapper $6,700 for a day of his time, as he says that the $6,700 the rapper paid his mother in monthly child support was not adequate He accompanied the request with a shot in which he spelled out the phrase 'Entitled' in paper currency, a spoof of a photo 50 Cent previously posted spelling out the phrase 'Broke' in hundred dollar bills. 50 Cent, seemingly in response to Marquise's post, posted a clip from his series Power in which his character Kanan killed his son. Marquise previously said in an Instagram Live chat with Choke No Joke earlier this month that the $6700 monthly total was not sufficient considering cost-of-living expenses in New York City, as well as in correlation to the earnings of the rapper/mogul. He said: $6700 a month in ... New York City, you do the math. Youre talking about a Forbes lister - youre talking about someone that has problems with everybody - you cant just live in any neighborhood, $81K is not a substantial amount of money. You cant just live anywhere.' The rapper's son spoofed an image he posted to social media years back The rapper, pictured last year, and his son have seen details of their acrimonious relationship spill onto social media 50 Cent, seemingly in response in Marquise's post, posted a clip from his series Power in which his character Kanan killed his son 'You talking about you got beef with everybody in the industry, you cant just live anywhere. In the chat, Marquise asked Choke, 'If I told you right now you gotta start your life over right now with $6700 a month and rebuild your life can you do it,' to which Choke said he could. Marquise continued: 'Choke you gotta stop comparing it, you comparing it to yourself, bro, youre comparing it to your standard of lifestyle. You cant do that. I know what it feels like to have nothing, alright. I had to rebuild my life over with $6700 a month. $81,000 a year.' Speaking about his relationship with Marquise in 2020 in an Instagram Live interview with Van Lathan, 50 Cent detailed their estrangement. 'I didnt think that success would cost me my first-born, but its the situation it is,' he said. 'My grandfather used to say, "If it rattles like a snake and slithers like a snake, is it a snake or do you need to be bit?" What he keeps saying is, every time you see the boy he show up with somebody you got a problem with. What does that tell you?' Rob Mills has revealed why he doesn't want to talk about his fling with Paris Hilton anymore. The pair infamously enjoyed a fling in 2003, shortly after Rob rose to fame on the first series of Australian Idol. The 40-year-old singer and actor said on the Life Uncut podcast that discussing his relationship with the American socialite is 'disrespectful to her, me and my fiancee (Georgie Tunny)'. Rob Mills (pictured) has revealed the real reason why he refuses to discuss his infamous fling with Paris Hilton 'For some people they are just remembered for one thing but I have a lot more to offer,' Rob said. He continued: 'It's always brought up and it's disrespectful for her, disrespectful for me and it's disrespectful for my fiancee.' He went on to say being asked questions about his relationship is 'intrusive'. 'It's so intrusive. I was always a little bit over it. It's two weeks in my 40 year life why is it a thing,' he added. The 40-year-old actor (left) said on the Life Uncut podcast, discussing his relationship with Paris (right) is 'disrespectful to her, me and my fiancee' Paris previously blanked a question about Rob, responding 'who?' when asked about the fling on The Project in 2016. A month later Rob hit back at Paris. Questioned about Paris's short term memory on the red carpet at the AACTA Awards not long after, Rob responded in the same vein, asking 'who?' During her interview with The Project, Paris looked awkward when guest host Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald brought up her brief romance with the former reality star. 'It's so intrusive. I was always a little bit over it. It's two weeks in my 40 year life why is it a thing,' he added He went on to say being asked questions about his relationship with Paris was 'intrusive'. Both pictured Near the end of the interview, Fitzy asked if she was in a relationship, and Paris replied: 'I'm very single.' But when he brought up her fling with 'Millsy', things took a rather unfortunate turn. 'This is an old flame, but do you still keep in contact with Millsy? Robert Mills? Remember Millsy?' he asked. 'Who?' said Paris, shaking her head, 'No'. Meanwhile, host Carrie Bickmore desperately tried to wrap up the segment, saying: 'We're running out of time, Fitz.' Paris previously blanked a question about Rob, responding 'who?' when asked about the fling on The Project in 2016 Earlier that year, Rob had claimed he kept in touch with Paris for a year after their brief romance during an appearance on 2Day FM's Rove And Sam. 'For about a year we did and then that was it. We caught up the next time she was (in Australia),' he said. They first met at an event at Sydney Opera House before heading to an after-party hosted by Osher Gunsberg. Afterwards, they spent the night at Paris's hotel before meeting up again shortly after the Melbourne Cup. 'We did pretty much everything but (sex) and then we caught up at the races a week after,' he told The Sydney Morning Herald John Travolta took to Instagram on Monday encouraging his 4.5 million followers to help with relief efforts in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian. 'Hi, I just got to Ft. Myers with some food and supplies for those who were affected by the hurricane,' the Oscar-nominated star, 68, 'and if you do want to help, you just contact volunteerflorida.org.' The New Jersey-born actor sported a clean-shaven head with a goatee as he wore a black jacket over a black polo shirt. The latest: John Travolta, 68, took to Instagram on Monday encouraging his 4.5 million followers to help with relief efforts in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian He was standing in front of a plane with volunteers loading goods into a truck marked Scientology Volunteer Minister. The Grease star received words of support to his post from show business colleagues including Mario Lopez, Donnie Wahlberg and Ruddy Rodriguez. Wahlberg wrote, 'So kind,' while Lopez posted emojis of hearts. Rodriguez said, 'Thank you so much for your care and Kindness.' The Hollywood stalwart was among those taking part in rebuilding efforts as electricity to more than 2.5 million businesses and homes was restored Monday, according to the AP. The New Jersey-born actor sported a clean-shaven head with a goatee as he wore a black jacket over a black polo shirt He was standing in front of a plane with volunteers loading goods into a truck marked Scientology Volunteer Minister Travolta encouraged those who want to help to go to volunteerflorida.org The death toll in Florida in the aftermath of the hurricane was raised to 102 Monday, state officials said. Overall, 111 people died in the natural disaster, including five people in North Carolina, one in Virginia and three in Cuba. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said over the weekend that leaders in Panama City - where Category 5 Hurricane Michael did substantial damage in 2018 - will be involved in the restoration efforts in places hit hardest by Hurricane Ian. 'Theyre going to come down on the ground, theyre going to inspect, and then theyve going to offer some advice to the local officials here in Lee County, Fort Myers Beach and other places,' DeSantis said. 'You can do what you want. You dont have to accept their advice. But I tell you that was a major, major effort.' An image snapped with a drone September 30 showed the aftermath of the hurricane Bella Hadid looked thrilled to receive a painting by artist Said Elatab of her father Mohamed while on a romantic dinner date with boyfriend Marc Kalman in New York. Ahead of her 26th birthday on Sunday, the model was seen smiling as she accepted a portrait of her dad from the Middle Eastern artist, who is based in Paterson, New Jersey. As she carried the piece of art, which featured her real estate developer rocking a suit and his signature black glasses, the Vogue cover girl looked effortlessly chic in a denim jacket, a blue hoodie, a grey t-shirt and jeans. Piece of art: Bella Hadid looked thrilled to receive a painting by artist Said Elatab of her father Mohamed while on a romantic dinner date with boyfriend Marc Kalman in New York Fresh off the runways of New York and Paris, the five-foot-nine catwalk star was still sporting bleached eyebrows that deeply contrasted her nearly jet black hair. In addition to receiving an unexpected early birthday gift, Bella was able to squeeze in some quality time with her beau, who she began dating back in July 2020. Following their meal, Kalman was seen carrying takeout as he held hands with the younger sister of Gigi Hadid. Date night: Ahead of her 26th birthday on Sunday, the model was seen smiling as she accepted a portrait of her dad from the Middle Eastern artist, who is based in Paterson, New Jersey Holding hands: As she carried the piece of art, which featured her real estate developer rocking a suit and his signature black glasses, the Vogue cover girl looked effortlessly chic in a denim jacket and jeans On Bella's actual birthday, Kalman was spotted spoiling his love with three bundles of lavender, pink and yellow flowers at lunch. Later, the lovebirds headed to a fun-filled dinner at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, that Kalman arranged with the help of some of her friends who were waiting patiently at the establishment. For the bash, the birthday girl wore a black-patterned sheer dress that left little to the imagination with it's see-through design. Iconic: Bella's mother, Yolanda Hadid celebrated her daughter by posting a loving tribute with many photos of Bella as a young girl to her Instagram stories. One image was of Bella's beautiful horse wishing her owner a happy birthday with the caption, 'Happy birthday to my mom @bellahadid thank you for giving me the bestest life' Similarly, Gigi shared a sweet slideshow with a caption that read: 'I love every moment [ & feel so lucky for the in-betweens ] with u! HAPPIEST DAY, MONTH, YEAR to my sweetie pie supernova sister @bellahadid I love you so much and I am so proud of you!!' One this celebratory night, her raven tresses were styled long and flowing down past her shoulders with a left side part, as she carried a tiny black purse. Bella's mother, Yolanda Hadid celebrated her daughter by posting a loving tribute with many photos of Bella as a young girl to her Instagram stories. One image was of Bella's beautiful horse wishing her owner a happy birthday with the caption, 'Happy birthday to my mom @bellahadid thank you for giving me the bestest life.' Similarly, Gigi shared a sweet slideshow with a caption that read: 'I love every moment [ & feel so lucky for the in-betweens ] with u! HAPPIEST DAY, MONTH, YEAR to my sweetie pie supernova sister @bellahadid I love you so much and I am so proud of you!!' Sam Neill has officially accepted redesignation as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. The Jurassic Park star, 75, was honoured with the title of 'Sir' on Tuesday as Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro tapped his shoulders with the sword. He posed for a picture with Dame Cindy, proudly wearing his medal about his neck, and posted it to Instagram. Sam Neill, 75, (pictured) has officially accepted redesignation as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit 'Greatly honoured today by the Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro at Govt House Auckland,' he captioned the image. 'Redesignated K.N.Z.M. ( Knight ), Dame Cindy kind enough to tap me with The Sword. Big day, and Im very grateful.' Sir Sam was originally appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) during the 2007 New Year Honours. The Jurassic Park star was 'honoured' with the title of Sir on Tuesday as Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro (right) tapped his shoulders with the sword. He posed for a picture with Dame Cindy, proudly wearing his medal about his neck, and posted it to Instagram When knighthoods returned to the country's royal honours system in 2009, those who held the DCNZM were offered to convert to knighthood but the actor declined, saying the title of 'Sir' was 'just far too grand'. According to the New Zealand government, the title is 'for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have rendered meritorious service to the Crown and nation or who have become distinguished by their eminence, talents, contributions or other merits'. It is unclear why Sir Sam changed his mind and chose to be redesignated as a knight. Sir Sam was originally appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) during the 2007 New Year Honours However, this is not the only time he has been honoured with a prestigious title for his talent in the arts. The Northern Ireland-born actor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) during the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours, Both titles were awarded based on his distinguished acting career, which stretches back to 1975, and his contribution to the mentorship of budding actors. Rumours are swirling that Foxtel is secretly working on a new season of The Real Housewives of Sydney. A source told Daily Mail Australia last week that producers are keen to find a 'more likeable cast' than the polarising personalities from the first season. 'Theyre really looking for housewives who have genuine connections or pre-existing beef with one another,' the source added. Producers are trying to snag Roxy Jacenko for a reboot of The Real Housewives of Sydney One name they're after is PR queen Roxy Jacenko, who producers have had their eye on for years. Daily Mail Australia also understands that Sydney socialite Christa Billich is keen on making the cut - and has no qualms about going head-to-head with Roxy. The 77-year-old swinger, who is an open marriage to artist Charles Billich, has previously made guest appearances on both the Real Housewives of Sydney and Melbourne. However, producers previously passed on casting her as a full time Housewife. Daily Mail Australia also understands that Sydney socialite Christa Billich (pictured) is keen on making the cut - and has no qualms about going head-to-head with Roxy Roxy confirmed in 2017 that she had turned down the Sydney instalment, and later commented that the cast were too 'mean' to each other. When contacted by Daily Mail Australia for comment, Roxy laughed off the rumours but admitted that it would be 'good TV'. Last month, the Daily Telegraph reported that casting was underway for a RHOS reboot. While the original cast won't be back, producers are keen on bringing back Krissy Marsh (left) and Nicole Gazal ONeil (right) In addition to Roxy, the publication claimed that producers were also interested in former banker Vanessa Fennell, stylist Eleni Taylor, and Linda Rogan who runs Laser Clinics Australia in Double Bay. They're also interested in bringing back season one stars Krissy Marsh and Nicole Gazal ONeil, but some of the more controversial cast members won't return. The Real Housewives of Sydney first aired on Foxtel in 2017, but it never made it to air in the U.S. after network executives at Bravo deemed it too extreme. 'A lot of the women in this show were nasty for nastys sake and have no redeeming features,' Foxtel's head of television Brian Walsh admitted at the time. Russell Crowe has saved a struggling UK bookstore from closing down. Leanne and Dan Fridd, the owners of Bookbugs and Dragon Tales, revealed how the actor donated $7500 to keep the store open, as well as widespread free publicity. 'It's incredible what he's done because he's not just given the money, but he's given his name and the ensuing media attention that we've managed to get because of it,' Dan said on Channel Nine's Today Show. Russell Crowe has saved a struggling UK bookstore from closing down 'The shop has been packed ever since and it's been amazing .' Leanne explained how the couple posted a link on Twitter asking for donations and the post was noticed by Russell. 'We posted a link on Twitter and we believe Russell Crowe someone got to see it and did an incredible thing,' she explained. Leanne and Dan Fridd, the owners of Bookbugs and Dragon Tales, revealed how the actor donated $7500 to keep the store open, as well as widespread free publicity Dan added: 'We know this isn't the first time he's done something like this to change people's lives. He's not just changed our lives, he's changed the children of Norwich's lives and the people we can reach. ' The academy award winning actor has a history of generosity, once donating $200,000 to a struggling primary school near his home in rural Australia. The money went towards an $800,000 project to construct a swimming pool at the school. 'It's incredible what he's done because he's not just given the money, but he's given his name and the ensuing media attention that we've managed to get because of it,' Dan said on Channel Nine's Today Show. Pictured Bookbugs and Dragon Tales bookstore Russell's donation came not long after a pupil had drowned at the nearby Coffs Harbour beach in 2001. It was reported that he felt the pool would help students become better swimmers and improve their water safety. On another occasion, during location filming of Cinderella Man, he made a donation to a Jewish primary school after their library was damaged by anti-Semitic targeters. His the amount of his donation was not disclosed. By Charles Tannock LONDON Vladimir Putin's ongoing failure in Ukraine has put his strategic alliance with Chinese President Xi Jinping to the test. With Putin growing ever more desperate, Xi must finally realize the scale of the threat that his "friendship without limits" with the Russian president poses to China's economic health, to global stability, and to his own geopolitical ambitions. While Putin may or may not have been bluffing when he threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine last month, Xi must assume the worst if he wants to be viewed as a responsible leader. After all, Russia's military doctrine allows for a nuclear strike to defend Russian territory against an existential threat. Russia's illegal annexation of the occupied Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia provides the pretext for such an attack. Xi, who is expected to secure an unprecedented third consecutive term as China's leader at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China later this month, must now turn his attention to preventing World War III. A Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine the first use of such weapons since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 would ignite a catastrophic global crisis, spoiling Xi's coronation. When Xi and Putin met at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February to sign the Sino-Russian cooperation agreement, the plan to invade Ukraine must have seemed like a safe bet: the Russians would quickly topple Ukraine's leadership, which would make the U.S. and NATO appear weak. A proxy war would also divert U.S. attention from its rivalry with China or so Xi thought. Then Ukraine fought back, exposing Russia's myriad military weaknesses. Russian forces have now retreated from the Kharkiv region in the northeast, following Ukraine's impressive counteroffensive, and are suffering heavy losses near Kherson in the south. Xi almost certainly conveyed his displeasure with Russia's failures when he met with Putin at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Putin publicly acknowledged China's "questions and concerns" about the war a rare admission of tensions between the two countries while Xi himself did not publicly mention Ukraine at all. Xi's silence stood in stark contrast to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in a remarkable volte-face openly rebuked Putin. Still, it is hard to believe that Xi is not wondering whether he made the right decision when he tied his political fate to so reckless an ally. Putin's "partial mobilization" of 300,000 Russian men to join the fight in Ukraine has triggered protests across Russia and caused more than 200,000 young men to flee the country. The quality of Putin's new recruits who include convicts is unlikely to help the war effort or assuage Xi's concerns. With morale among Russian troops already at rock bottom, an infusion of dispirited and ill-trained draftees may hasten the dissolution of Putin's military and the fall of his regime, akin to how Czar Nicholas II's poor leadership during World War I fueled the collapse of the Czar's armies and the Russian Revolution of 1917. With his direct appeals to Russian soldiers to surrender or die, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to understand the perilous state of the Russian military better than Putin does. The point of a proxy war is to weaken one's adversary, but Putin's incompetence has achieved the exact opposite for Xi. NATO is now stronger than it has been at any point since the Cold War's end, with previously neutral countries like Sweden and Finland applying to join and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, and increasingly India voicing support for America's Ukraine policy. Instead of helping China to establish itself as a counterweight to U.S. global hegemony, Russia has been exposed as too weak and corrupt to defeat even a middling country. With Putin now issuing direct orders to Russian field commanders, China's military alliance with Russia must seem almost worthless to Xi. While the chances of Putin using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine appear slim, they cannot be fully discounted. So, Chinese officials must be trying to assess how the U.S. and NATO would respond if Putin followed through on his threat. Given U.S. President Joe Biden's tough-minded if still ambiguous statements, it is safe to assume that the international economic and military response would be far more severe than the sanctions already imposed on Russia. But if Putin does decide to use a tactical nuclear device to "defend" the Ukrainian territory that he has illegally annexed, he may well open a Pandora's Box of horrors. For example, his war has brought considerable chaos to Ukraine's nuclear power stations, and, in addition to other concerns about their operation, it can no longer be assumed that their spent nuclear fuel rods have always been safely secured during the battles for control of the sites. This opens the terrifying prospect of some mad partisan creating a "dirty" bomb to use in retaliation. Putin's annexations may also undermine the "One China" policy regarding Taiwan, which most of the world accepts. Some Eastern European countries are already voicing doubts about the wisdom of that policy. If Xi, who has steadfastly defended the principle of territorial integrity, silently accepts Putin's annexations, some countries may decide that Xi's hypocrisy has nullified the "One China" policy. Ever since he became president ten years ago, Xi has signaled his fear that China could suffer the type of political and economic disintegration that led to the implosion of the Soviet Union. Putin's current predicament should serve as another cautionary tale. The prospect of a regime so rotten that it collapses from within must haunt China's president almost as much as the threat of nuclear war. Charles Tannock, a former member of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, is a fellow at GLOBSEC, a think tank based in Bratislava committed to enhancing security, prosperity, and sustainability. This article was distributed by Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org). Kourtney Kardashian and her daughter Penelope appeared to be getting a head start to celebrating Halloween with some 'spooky' treats and movies on Monday evening. While rocking a devil horn headband and Minnie Mouse t-shirt, the 42-year-old reality star snapped a sweet selfie with her little girl, 10, who had one arm wrapped around her mom's shoulder. 'Hashtag just chilling,' the wife of drummer Travis Barker captioned the shot on her Instagram Story, which showed them enjoying some quality time together. Adorable: Kourtney Kardashian and her daughter Penelope appeared to be getting a head start to celebrating Halloween with some 'spooky' treats and movies on Monday evening Kardashian also shared images of festive black presents tied with orange ribbons, a small skeleton and decorative bats. While one teased something perfect 'for spooky breakfast treats,' the other was for 'matcha movie days indoors.' Her posts come just days after Kardashian revealed she and her husband still don't live in the same house and that Penelope has slept in her bed since the day she was born. Spooky season: Kardashian also shared images of festive black presents tied with orange ribbons, a small skeleton and decorative bats Almost Halloween: While one teased something perfect 'for spooky breakfast treats,' the other was for 'matcha movie days indoors' The Poosh founder opened up about her blended family's unique living situation on Tuesday's episode of Dear Media's Not Skinny, Not Fat podcast. She and the Blink-182 rocker, 46, wed in May of this year, however, the reality star revealed that they are still living in separate homes, which neighbor one another. Both Kourtney and Travis have children from previous relationships - the model shares Penelope and sons Mason, 12, and Reign, seven, with her former partner Scott Disick, while Travis welcomed a son named Landon, 18, and a daughter named Alabama, 16, with ex-wife Shanna Moakler - so they have opted not to move in together just yet, as Kourtney explained they want their kids to be 'comfortable.' 'Hashtag just chilling,' the wife of drummer Travis Barker captioned the shot on her Instagram Story, which showed them enjoying some quality time together She added that she and her husband are planning to move into a main, joint house soon, but that right now, they're in no rush since they each have their 'routines' within their respective houses. She and the former Blink-182 drummer, 46, wed in May of this year, however, the reality star revealed that they are still living in separate homes, which neighbor one another. Kourtney's home is pictured She explained to host Amanda Hirsch: 'We want our kids to also feel really comfortable and they have both lived in their homes their whole lives for the most part, and they each have their rooms and we are a block away.' Kourtney also admitted that she still shares a bed with her daughter Penelope; the youngster, along with her brothers, split their time between Kourtney's home and their dad, Scott's home. 'She's slept with me every day since she was born,' the Poosh founder revealed. The news may come as a surprise to some, given how inertly romantic she and Travis are in public - they often pack on the PDA in front of cameras and shared loved-up pictures to social media - but the mom-of-three added that when her kids are over at their father's place, she is able to enjoy some personal time with the rockstar. And even while the couple is focused on parenting their kids, she said they always find a way to make their relationship a priority. 'When the kids are at their dad's house, I stay at his house and there's still nights when we'll stay at each other's houses in between,' she dished. Both Kourtney and Travis have children from previous relationships - so they have opted not to move in together just yet, as Kourtney explained they want their kids to be 'comfortable' She added that she and her husband are planning to move into a main, joint house soon, but that right now, they're in no rush since they each have their 'routines' within their houses Kourtney also admitted that she still shares a bed with her daughter Penelope; the youngster, along with her brothers, split their time between Kourtney's home and their dad, Scott's home 'I get up at six in the morning and I carpool every morning, and then I go straight to his house and have matcha. He has it ready for me. 'We have, like, a thing and he comes over every night no matter what. He comes over here and kisses me whether it's midnight and he is getting back from the studio or whatever.' As the power couple are known for being hands-on, Kourtney admitted that their children have all seen it. But she insisted that they try to be as 'respectful' as possible to the kids, and that while they sometimes tell her that their affection is 'gross,' they 'love that they love each other' in the end. She explained: 'We try to be respectful, too, of the kids and want everyone to feel comfortable. 'But, yeah, sometimes we'll be hugging or just like staring into each other's eyes and the kids will be like, "Ew, gross!" Even the older kids. But I think also they love that we love each other.' Kourtney gushed about her connection with her 'mini-me' daughter during the interview, while revealing that they still sleep in the same bed. 'Unless she has a friend sleep over or unless she leaves me to go sleep at Travis or Auntie Cocos [Khloe] or Auntie Kikis [Kim],' she said. 'We are so close. She is such... I cant even explain it. She is my girl that I do not worry about.' As the power couple are known for being hands-on, Kourtney admitted that their children have all seen it, but she insisted that they try to be as 'respectful' as possible to the kids As Kourtney was very open about her relationship throughout the podcast, there was one subject that she played coy about - whether or not her husband has a foot fetish Til death do us part: The couple officially married at a courthouse in Santa Barbara, California on May 15 As Kourtney was very open about her relationship throughout the podcast, there was one subject that she played coy about. Travis has been vocal about liking his wife's feet in the past, and has often posted photos of them on social media - so host Amanda inquired if the musician has a foot fetish. Kourtney did not answer the question directly but didn't deny it, as she said: 'I mean, if somebody wants to pay extra attention to my feet, Im not mad at that. Well, my husband, not just anybody.' The mother-of-three also said that Travis 'embraces her tiny, size five feet' but would not share any further details on the matter. Kourtney and Travis were confirmed to be dating in January 2021 after they spent years as friends. In October 2021, the pair became engaged when the Blink-182 drummer proposed beachside at a hotel in Montecito, California. They had an unofficial wedding in April of this year in Las Vegas after he performed at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. Then, the couple officially married at a courthouse in Santa Barbara, California, a month later on May 15. After that, they had a religious wedding ceremony in front of their friends and family in Portofino, Italy, a week later on May 22. TikTok star Charli D'Amelio looked every bit the supportive girlfriend at her boyfriend Landon Barker's 19th birthday. The 18-year-old social media sensation looked stunning in a backless sheer black catsuit as she attended the event held at celeb-favorite Craig's in West Hollywood on Monday night. Charli's racy look featured a featured design by the wrists as she teamed it with a pair of matching heels. Sweet: TikTok star Charli D'Amelio looked every bit the supportive girlfriend at her boyfriend Landon Barker's 19th birthday at celeb-favorite Craig's in West Hollywood on Monday night Her brunette tresses were worn down in a middle-part as her make-up featured plenty of blush and a swipe of bright red lipstick. Landon was certainly on the prowl as he sported a silk leopard patterned suit along with black leather boots. The son of Travis Barker wore his short black locks down and disheveled for the occasion. Loved up: The 18-year-old social media sensation's racy look featured a featured design by the wrists as she teamed it with a pair of matching heels Earlier in the night she kept a low profile in a grey hoodie as she arrived to her boyfriend's event with her mother Heidi. While pulling her hood down low over her face and walking with her head down, the social media sensation who is currently competing on Dancing with the Stars, cut a casual figure in a pair of bleached black jeans and white sneakers. Her glossy brown hair was styled in loose waves and she appeared in good spirits as she sported a sweet smile as she prepared to celebrate her beau of nearly four months turning another year older. Nearly incognito: Earlier in the night TikTok star Charli kept a low profile in a grey hoodie as she arrived to her boyfriend Landon Barker's 19th birthday with her mother Heidi The birthday boy, who is the son of Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler, wore a black satin button-down, which displayed his tattooed arms, matching pants and combat boots. D'Amelio's mom, 50, looked incredible for the bash in a black crop top and light-wash ripped jeans with a hole in the right knee. Across social media, Landon was flooded with love from his loved ones, including stepmom Kourtney, 43, sisters Alabama Barker, 16, and Atiana De La Hoya, 23, and mom Shanna, 47. Lookalike: Landon looked confident as he prepared to ring in his birthday with his girlfriend and loved ones Hot mama! D'Amelio's mom, 50, looked incredible for the bash in a black crop top and light-wash ripped jeans with a hole in the right knee Along with a video clip of Landon being sung Happy Birthday in front of two cakes, the Blink-182 drummer wrote a special message. 'Happy Birthday @landonasherbarker,' he began. 'I love you!!! You're the most amazing son. Here's to 19.' The teenager was dressed in all black, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants with a white drawstring. Flirty: Heidi wore her dark locks in a cute updo and flaunted her lean midriff on her night out He smiled as his family and friends gathered to celebrate him late on Saturday night, as his birthday struck at 12am. Kourtney, who officially became Landon's stepmom upon tying the knot with Travis in May, also posted about him. Taking to Instagram Stories she shared an image of his birthday cake, which was lit with pink and white candles. At the front of the baked dish were two large glittering pink number candles, a one and nine, marking Landon's age. Loved: Across social media, Landon was flooded with love from his loved ones, including stepmom Kourtney, 43, sisters Alabama Barker, 16, and Atiana De La Hoya, 23, and mom Shanna, 47 Proud dad: The rockstar, 46, wished his only son a happy birthday with a gushing tribute on social media The Poosh founder wrote over the image, 'Nothing like Ralph's cake at midnight in honor of @landonasherbarker!' and she added a time stamp that said 12:00 am. Landon also appeared on Instagram to acknowledge turning a year older, as he shared a selfie. Posted to his Stories he shared a close-up image with his 1.9 million followers as he wrote, 'Woah it's my bday!' Celebratory: Taking to Instagram Stories Kourtney shared an image of Landon's birthday cake, which was lit with pink and white candles Cheery: Stepmom Kourtney shared a photo of huge metallic silver balloons that read 'Landon 19' Shoutout: Alabama penned a sweet birthday note to her big brother calling him 'the best brother I could ever ask for' Landon's sisters were nearby as they sang Happy Birthday with his friends, with the group simultaneously recording the moment on their phones. Alabama was dressed in an oversized black graphic t-shirt as she whipped out her iPhone. She later posted the footage to her Instagram, where she added the caption, 'Happy birthday kid. I love you more [than] anything, the best brother I could ever ask for.' And Atiana also uploaded a clip from the joyous occasion and simply wrote '19' with two emojis. Tara Reid and Taryn Manning were just among the celebrities who stopped by Vegan Fashion Week in Los Angeles on Monday evening. The American Pie alum, 46, showcased her midriff in low-waisted pants as she posed for photos before the event commenced. The Orange Is The New Black actress, 43, opted for a green, chic ensemble while 80s star, Corey Feldman, shared a romantic kiss with wife, Courtney Anne Mitchell, on the red carpet. Stylish evening: Tara Reid, 46, and Taryn Manning, 43, donned fashionable ensembles as they attended Vegan Fashion Week in Los Angeles earlier Monday evening Tara opted for an edgy look as she arrived at the star-studded event in the City of Angels. She donned a long-sleeved, black and light blue cropped sweater, flaunting her midriff. The Big Lebowski star added a pair of low-waisted, shiny black pants, while adding stylish, bulky sneakers to complete her overall ensemble. Her blonde hair was parted in the middle, and fell down straight past her shoulders. Tara added a layer of dark eyeshadow around her blue eyes, along with a glossy, pink lipstick. Big smiles: The two actresses were pictured sharing a hug as they posed for photos together on the red carpet Having fun: Tara and Taryn appeared to be in high spirits as they attended Vegan Fashion Week, which officially began on Monday Taryn went for an all green, chic outfit as she attended the event. She donned a long-sleeved, faux leather shirt and matching pants of the same color and material. The Hustle & Flow actress accessorized her look with a large, flashy gold bracelet on her left wrist. While Tara opted for comfort, Taryn slipped into a pair of tan-colored high heels. A pair of small, round sunglasses rested on top of her brunette looks which flowed past her shoulders in elegant waves. Vegan Fashion Week was established in 2018, and collaborated with Ukrainian Fashion Week for this year's event, which started on Monday and comes to an end on October 12. According to an official press release, the 'collaboration offers a unique opportunity to share an inspiring message in connection with the state of our planet to a global audience.' Scenic: After time on the red carpet, stars were able to move to an outdoor space with the city of Los Angeles sprawled in the background Special evening: The two stars were later pictured outside and were all smiles before watching a runway show as part of Vegan Fashion Week Talented: Tara is known for starring in films such as The Big Lebowski and the comedy, American Pie Corey Feldman, who is known for a number of roles since his career start in the 80s, also was in attendance. He dressed to impress by wearing a biker's jacket with hues of both gold and black. To keep up with the color scheme, he added a pair of black pants that comprise of a gold stripe on each side. The Goonies actor wore a white T-shirt underneath and slipped into a pair of black and gold platform shoes. He pulled back his long, black hair and threw on a pair of black sunglasses. The star's wife and fashion model, Courtney Anne Mitchell, also turned heads as she arrived hand-in-hand with Corey. She wore a sleeveless gown with a blue skirt and an added layer of brown-colored, glittering tulle fabric. The top portion of the dress contained a stunning pattern made of the same colors. The model's platinum blonde hair was parted in the middle, and flowed past her shoulders in stylish curls. Happy couple: Corey Feldman, 51, and his wife, Courtney Anne Mitchell, 33, arrived in style to Vegan Fashion Week Cute: The two lovebirds stepped onto the red carpet holding hands as they prepared to take a few photos Eye-catching outfit: The Goonies alum turned heads in a gold and black ensemble while attending the fashion event As the couple stopped for a brief photo session, they shared a quick, affectionate kiss. The two were later pictured sitting front row inside the large venue shortly before a runway show. As stars slowly made their grand arrival at the fashion event, actress Wendie Mitchell, known for her role in Hot In Cleveland, also made an appearance. She wore a black, turtleneck sweater which she tucked into the waist of her black pants. To stay warm in the cooler, California weather, she threw on a tweed jacket. The star carried a unique handbag that had a picture of a what appeared to be a sheep on the front. Affectionate: Corey and his wife, Courtney, shared a quick kiss for the cameras during their photo session Ready for the show: The two stars were pictured sitting front row as they patiently waited for the runway show to begin Fashion statement: Hot In Cleveland star, Wendie Mitchell, also was a guest at Vegan Fashion Week on Monday Australian actress, Danielle Macdonald, who starred in the 2018 Netflix film, Dumplin', was spotted during the evening. She donned a dark green, velvet dress with a belt of the same material tied at the waist. Emmanuelle Rienda, the founder of Vegan Fashion Week, explained in a press release that, 'we are incredibly humbled and proud to welcome Ukrainian Fashion Week as this year's guest and take the opportunity to introduce their exceptional vision to our international audience.' The event was kicked off with a stunning runway show earlier on Monday evening that was aimed to help benefit Ukrainian fashion designers. Celebrity guests: Australian actress, Danielle Macdonald, donned an elegant green dress during the evening Shahs of Sunset star Mike Shouhed will avoid jail time for his domestic violence arrest by cutting a deal with prosecutor. The 43-year-old Shouhed was arrested in March after getting into a physical confrontation with a woman, later identified as his fiancee Paulina Ben-Cohen. Recent court documents obtained by TMZ revealed that Shouhed's deal with prosecutors will dismiss several charges if he completes a number of different courses over a two-year 'diversion program.' Deal: Shahs of Sunset star Mike Shouhed will avoid jail time for his domestic violence arrest by cutting a deal with prosecutor Documents: Recent court documents obtained by TMZ revealed that Shouhed's deal with prosecutors will dismiss several charges if he completes a number of different courses over a two-year 'diversion program' Shouhed would not have to plead guilty to any charges, given he completes the program in full. The program includes anger management and parenting classes, a gun safety course and performing community service. If he does complete the program, his charges for domestic violence, battery and unlawfully attempting to dissuade a witness will be fully dropped. Plead: Shouhed would not have to plead guilty to any charges, given he completes the program in full Dropped: If he does complete the program, his charges for domestic violence, battery and unlawfully attempting to dissuade a witness will be fully dropped Shouhed is also facing a variety of weapons charges, so another provision of the program is that he is forbidden from owning or possessing any firearm throughout the two-year duration of the program. Shouhed's attorney George Mgdesyan told TMZ that prosecutors chose not to bring the case forward for lack of evidence. 'In this case, the DA didnt bring this case because they saw the facts like I did. If this case was brought to trial, the prosecution would not be able to prove it,' Mgdesyan said. Weapons: Shouhed is also facing a variety of weapons charges, so another provision of the program is that he is forbidden from owning or possessing any firearm throughout the two-year duration of the program 'All my clients guns were legal, in his bedroom that was locked with a keypad. No one was allowed in the master bedroom,' the attorney added. The lawyer admitted, 'It was unfortunate that there was one weapon registered to my client before laws changed, and it was a technical violation.' 'However, the City Attorneys Office charged him with gun charges. In light of the offer, he was not convicted and will earn a dismissal thats in his best interest because the domestic violence charges were dismissed,' Mgdesyan added. Guns: 'All my clients guns were legal, in his bedroom that was locked with a keypad. No one was allowed in the master bedroom,' the attorney added 'If the domestic violence charges were not dismissed, we would proceed to trial. It was a no brainer,' he concluded. Shouhed and Ben-Cohen had been engaged since 2021, and were seen heading off to Cabo San Lucas in April 2021, just weeks after Shouhed's arrest. Shouhed is due back in court in January 2023 to offer a report on his progress to the judge. Olivia Molly Rogers has revealed her life is 'falling apart' following her split from husband Justin McKeone. The former Miss Universe, 30, took to her Instagram story on Tuesday to pose with her hair in a towel revealing: 'My life is falling apart a little recently, but at least my skin hasn't', before sharing her skin care tips. The Adelaide-born influencer has had a rough go of it after splitting from her husband of just eight months Justin McKeone. Olivia Molly Rogers has revealed her life is 'falling apart' following her split from husband Justin McKeone She recently spoke to The Advertiser about her post-breakup blues after strutting her stuff on day one of Melbourne Fashion Week on Monday. Wearing a bright orange Helen O'Connor maxi dress with statement cut-outs and a peekaboo midriff, she said things hadn't been easy for her in recent weeks. 'I'm focusing on having a good time and living my best life,' she said at the Urban Runway launch at Wesley Place. 'Wearing a good outfit definitely helps your confidence. It has been a hard time, but I am getting there. The former Miss Universe, 30, spoke to The Advertiser about her post-breakup blues after strutting her stuff on day one of Melbourne Fashion Week on Monday 'With fashion week, the races, it's a good time to break up. It's break-up season, as they say.' It comes after her ex Justin was seen partying up a storm with two stunning models on Saturday night looking anything but heartbroken. An Instagram photo showed the accountant drinking with nightclub owner Nick Russian and models Brooke Bailey and Siobhan Steindl at Melbourne's Bar Bambi. The Adelaide-born influencer has had a rough go of it after splitting from her husband of just eight months Justin McKeone Just hours after the photo surfaced, Olivia shared a gut-wrenching post revealing she'd lost custody of her dog Ziggy during her separation from Justin. 'As I know you all adore Ziggy and I keep on getting asked about him. He does not live with me anymore,' she wrote on Instagram Stories on Sunday morning. 'Justin has taken him. I am devastated and don't want to talk about it further,' she added. She concluded by asking her followers to not ask any more question about her private life as she wants to 'move forward'. It comes after her ex Justin was seen partying up a storm with models Brooke Bailey (centre left) and Siobhan Steind (centre right) and nightclub king Nick Russian (left) on Saturday night '[I will] continue to share things with you but some aspects are private and will remain private,' she added. The model announced her split last Tuesday, just days after rumours surfaced about the troubled state of their marriage. The former couple, who first met in 2018, were last pictured together in August in a series of loved-up holiday snaps from their trip to New York City. Victoria and David Beckham looked in good spirits as they departed the Langham Hotel in New York City on Monday. The couple were seen chatting with a group of friends on a late night outing just days after David spent time in Miami. Victoria, 48, looked incredible for the evening as she donned a semi-sheer midi dress with a green print. Outing: Victoria and David Beckham looked in good spirits as they departed the Langham Hotel in New York City on Monday The former Spice Girl added height to her frame with a pair of burgundy heels while she styled her brunette locks into loose curls. Wearing a light palette of makeup, she completed her look for the evening with a bright green handbag. David, 47, cut a dapper figure in a black blazer and atching trousers which he paired with a light blue shirt. The outing comes after Victoria reached out to son Brooklyn and daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz with a heartfelt message after they squashed feud rumours earlier this month with a reunion with a reunion at her PFW show. Style: Victoria, 48, looked incredible for the evening as she donned a semi-sheer midi dress with a green print Trendy: The former Spice Girl added height to her frame with a pair of burgundy heels while she styled her brunette locks into loose curls The fashion designer took to Instagram to share a picture of the couple alongside the message: 'I love you all so much', which Nicola went on to re-share. Victoria also uploaded an image of her parents Jackie and Anthony Adams with the couple, with the star seemingly delighted to have things back on track with her loved ones. It came just days after Brooklyn and Nicola attended Victoria's debut Paris Fashion Week show on Friday where they finally put to bed speculation that they had fallen out with the Spice Girl. Putting on a further united front, Victoria's gushing post featured Nicola and Brooklyn - as well as other family members - in the audience at her fashion show. Victoria was seen chatting to her son Brooklyn outside her Paris Fashion Week show while Nicola socialised with Cruz's girlfriend Tana Holding as the family reunited following feud rumours. Smart: David, 47, cut a dapper figure in a black blazer and atching trousers which he paired with a light blue shirt The couple attended and arrived half an hour early to show their support, with 'lots of hugs' going on when they were all reunited for the first time since this summer, said a source in the room. And video footage taken outside the event shows Victoria laughing with her son Brooklyn, while Nicola socialised with Cruz's girlfriend Tana Holding and Harper Seven. In the 30-second clip, Victoria looks glamorous in a figure-hugging black dress as she chats with Brooklyn, who is seen flashing a huge smile as he enjoys a drink. During their avid chat, a woman approaches Victoria but she points at her son and instead continues their conversation, with the woman then walking away. The mother and son then edge towards Nicola, who is facing the other way as she chats to Brooklyn's sister Harper, 11, and Cruz's model girlfriend Tana. Harmonious: Victoria reached out to son Brooklyn Beckham and daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz with a heartfelt message after they squashed feud rumours earlier this month Brooklyn is seen placing his hand on his wife's back and holding the waistband of her jeans as he continues speaking to his mother, while Nicola carries on her chat with Tana. The footage ends with Victoria standing next to Nicola as Brooklyn stands behind his wife with his arm around her waist. Brooklyn and Nicola - who arrived separate to the Beckhams - walked hand-in-hand as they stepped out at the event, with the heiress gazing lovingly into her husband's eyes. After entering Victoria's much-anticipated fashion show, the couple sat on the front row with Brooklyn's father David, 47, and his siblings - Harper, Romeo, 20, and Cruz, 17. Together: Victoria also uploaded an image of her parents Jackie and Anthony Adams with the couple, with the star seemingly delighted to have things back on track with her loved ones Victoria couldn't hold back her tears on Friday as she broke down while taking to the runway of her Paris Fashion Week debut show - reaching out to hug her husband David during the appearance. Afterwards, the family got together to celebrate with cocktails, as a source said: 'There were a lot of smiles and a lot of love in the room, it was a lovely family atmosphere.' Posing for a snap, Brooklyn and Nicola appeared in high spirits as they beamed while sitting alongside siblings Romeo and Harper, dad David and Vogue's Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful. Family: The couple beamed in matching black and denim outfits as they joined the rest of the Beckham clan, including David Beckham, at the event in the French capital Victoria posted the snap to her Instagram as she gushed over the support, penning: 'It's Paris baby!! I'm so grateful for my family, @BritishVogue and @VogueMagazine for always supporting me on this journey xx VB'. Reposting the picture, Nicola penned: 'Congratulations @victoriabeckham on a beautiful show'. Appearing delighted to be reunited with his family, Brooklyn embraced them on the catwalk as he reached down to cuddle youngest sibling Harper - before bringing it in with David too. Standing beside her husband, Nicola also gave her father-in-law David a hug as they appeared united at the show. Proud: David shared a gushing tribute to his wife after her Paris Fashion Week debut on Friday 'My little fashion muse!': Victoria took to Instagram after the event to share a snap of her daughter Harper Seven, 11, at the show Adorable: She also shared a selfie of David and Harper as she commemorated the day 'There was a lot of love in the room': But Victoria was reunited with Brooklyn and his wife Nicola at her show and the couple attended and even came EARLY to wish her luck The family appeared overjoyed to welcome Brooklyn and Nicola to the show, despite a media storm surrounding the feud between Nicola and her mother-in-law Victoria. Reports of a feud between Victoria and Nicola have been rife for weeks, with Brooklyn's wife adding fuel to the fire in a Grazia interview. Claiming that she was 'blanked for days' by her mother-in-law during the design process of her wedding dress in the interview, the actress has reportedly enraged her in-laws by 'washing the family dirty linen in public'. Emotional: Fashion designer Victoria was overcome with emotion as she took to the catwalk, holding her head in her hands Initially, rumours of a rift began as Nicola did not wear a Victoria Beckham wedding dress - which she claimed during the interview was her original plan, before being told the designer's atelier could not make her a dress. In the bombshell Grazia interview, she revealed: 'We connected to start designing the dress, and then a few days went by and I didn't hear anything. Victoria called my mom and said her atelier couldn't make it.' Doting husband Brooklyn made his position clear amid the family feud, telling the publication that Nicola is his 'number one priority' and that they 'have each other's back 100 per cent'. But insiders have said Nicola is pushing a 'false narrative', leaving Victoria 'bemused' as to why she keeps 'stoking the rumours of a feud' rather than shutting them down. Too much: Victoria took to the runway at the end of the show, and appeared overcome with emotion during the appearance as she stopped at the front row to embrace family and friends Support system: Reaching into the audience as she stopped halfway down the catwalk, a teary Victoria clung on to David - as best pal Eva Longoria also reached out for a supportive cuddle And Nicola telling her side of the story has led to even more family drama, with David defending his wife Victoria as he had a rare confrontation with son Brooklyn. According to MailPlus writer Alison Boshoff, David told Brooklyn 'we don't do this in our family' as he 'lost his temper' with the budding chef. A source said: 'I don't think David has ever lost his temper with Brooklyn or had cause to talk to him harshly, but that has now finally happened. 'He had it out with him and told him: 'We don't do this in our family and you know that we don't do this in our family.' Together again: And appearing delighted to be reunited with his family, Brooklyn embraced them on the catwalk as he reached down to cuddle youngest sibling Harper - before bringing it in with David too At the show, Victoria's parents, Jackie and Tony, also took to the show to support their daughter and be reunited with their eldest grandson and his wife. Victoria was also delighted to have Gigi and Bella Hadid walking the catwalk regarding it as a 'real coup' - despite a potential awkwardness for Nicola, who used to date their brother Anwar Hadid. The model sisters looked flawless as they took to the runway of the show in VB designs, taking the catwalk by storm in the French capital. Family time: Appearing in high spirits, David, Brooklyn and Romeo laughed and joked amongst one another Long time coming: Brooklyn's wife Nicola joined in on the action as she and David shared a hug too Beaming: Nicola also smiled for some snaps inside the event as the family chatted on behind And Victoria herself took to the runway at the end of the show, appearing overcome with emotion during the appearance as she stopped at the front row to embrace family and friends. The designer held both hands to cover her face, bowing her head down as she struggled to hold it together. Reaching into the audience as she stopped halfway down the catwalk, a teary Victoria clung on to David - as best pal Eva Longoria also reached out for a supportive cuddle. She's known for her incredible model figure. And Alessandra Ambrosio put on a leggy display as she stepped out to run errands in Beverly Hills on Monday. The Victoria's Secret star, 41, looked incredible in a pair of tiny denim hot pants for her sun-filled day riding around in her luxurious convertible. Sun-soaked: Alessandra Ambrosio, 41, put on a leggy display as she stepped out to run errands in Beverly Hills on Monday Alessandra slipped into a black vest top from Donna Karan New York and wore a pair of leather sandals to complete her outfit. She wore her brunette locks with a hint of a wave and shielded her eyes with a pair of Donna Karan New York aviator sunglasses. The Brazilian beauty has recently returned to Los Angeles following a busy month attending Fashion Week shows in Milan. Out and about: The Victoria's Secret star looked incredible in a pair of tiny denim hot pants for her sun-filled day riding around in her luxurious convertible Alessandra commanded attention as she revealed her underwear in a daring ensemble at the Dolce & Gabbana show in the Italian city. The model showed off her sizzling figure in a sheer mesh black jumpsuit that gave a glimpse of her lace lingerie beneath as she posed up a storm. She completed her out-there look with an oversized black studded leather jacket that she slung over her shoulders. Summery: Alessandra slipped into a black Donna Karan New York vest top and wore a pair of leather sandals to complete her outfit The beauty boosted her height with matching long suede boots and wore a pair of dark shades and a choker necklace as well as dangly silver earrings. Alessandra wore her brunette tresses in a ponytail and opted for glamorous makeup complete with dramatic cat eye eyeliner. Twice a year during February and September, Milan Fashion Week puts fashion in the spotlight and celebrates in the heart of Italy with fashion lovers, buyers, and the media in attendance. Milan Fashion Week was first established in 1958, is part of the global Big Four, the others being Paris Fashion Week, London Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week. Jedward were reunited with their fellow Celebrity Big Brother housemate, Tara Reid at Vegan Fashion Week opening night at California Market Center in LA on Monday. The X Factor duo, 30, comprised of John and Edward Grimes, wore edgy ensembles as they posed alongside the midriff-flashing actress, 46, at the bash. It comes after they sparked a wave of backlash last month with controversial tweets on the monarchy and Queen Elizabeth II, as the UK mourned her September 8 death. Pals: Jedward posed with Tara Reid at the Vegan Fashion Week opening night in LA on Monday... after their controversial comments following Queen Elizabeth II's death The Irish twins commanded attention in a feathered burgundy coat and black denim jacket featuring dazzling silver chains, as well as black trousers with blue star prints. Tara, who looked incredible in a black-and-blue two-tone crop top and glossy black joggers, stood in the centre of the brothers while beaming from ear-to-ear. The American Pie star competed with John and Edward on the hit Channel 5 show back in 2011, and they've stayed in touch ever since. The US outing comes after Jedward came under fire for their controversial comments following the Queen's death, calling for the monarchy to be abolished. Gang: The X Factor duo, 30, comprised of John and Edward Grimes, wore edgy ensembles as they joined the actress, 46, on the red carpet Sizzling: Tara (centre) flashed her midriff in a black-and-blue two-tone crop top and glossy black joggers (guest is pictured, right) Buddies: The American Pie star competed with John and Edward on the hit Channel 5 show back in 2011, and they've stayed in touch ever since Hours before Her Majesty's death, the pair took to Twitter to speculate about her condition in a set of tweets deemed 'not appropriate' by enraged followers. 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. And following the news, they set out to create more outrage as they penned: 'Abolish the monarchy and give the people real democracy!' Referencing the new monarch, King Charles, they added 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,' 'Not appropriate': The US outing comes after Jedward came under fire for their controversial comments following the Queen's death, calling for the monarchy to be abolished '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 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?' And they even ruffled some celebrity feathers too, with Coronation Street's Charlie Lawson telling them to 'Shut up, y'pair of t**ts!' Tilda Swinton looked incredibly stylish as she attended a screening for her new film The Eternal Daughter at the New York Film Festival on Monday. The actress, 61, looked chic in a plunging black velvet dress, which featured a small thigh split. That same day, Tilda spoke about her incredible career while at the festival during an Evening With Tilda Swinton panel. Stylish: Tilda Swinton cut a stylish figure in a plunging velvet dress at a screening of The Eternal Daughter at New York Film Festival on Monday Tilda's frock featured a plunging neckline, long sleeves and a gold embellishment at the waist. She teamed the look with a plain pair of black high heels and wore her blonde locks coiffed to one side. Tilda finished her look with a classic red lip, looking every inch the Hollywood star. Flattering: Tilda's frock featured a plunging neckline, long sleeves and a gold embellishment at the waist Showing some skin: The actress, 61, looked chic in a plunging black velvet dress, which featured a small thigh split Close: She appeared in high spirits as she stepped out to promote her film and at one point, held hands with The Eternal Daughter director Joanna Hogg on the red carpet She appeared in high spirits as she stepped out to promote her film and at one point, held hands with The Eternal Daughter director Joanna Hogg on the red carpet. The film had its world premiere at the prestigious Venice Film Festival in September, before screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival, Zurich Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival over the past few weeks. The Eternal Daughter will next be screened at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles, though no theatrical release date has been set at this time. Latest work: The Eternal Daughter had its world premiere at the prestigious Venice Film Festival in September Plot: The film follows a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother, who must confront long-buried secrets when they return to their former family home, a once-grand manor The film follows a middle-aged daughter and her elderly mother, who 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. It also features Joseph Mydell, Carly-Sophia Davies, and Alfie Sankey-Green in supporting roles. The actress also recently starred in George Miller's new film Three Thousand Years of Longing and she lends her voice to the Wood Sprite in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Busy: The actress also recently starred in George Miller's new film Three Thousand Years of Longing and she lends her voice to the Wood Sprite in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio She also has Asteroid City in post-production, the latest from writer-director Wes Anderson, also starring Margot Robbie, Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell and Scarlett Johansson. Tilda is currently filming director David Fincher's new film The Killer, alongside Michael Fassbender as the title character. She is known for films including The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Doctor Strange. She previously told Vanity Fair that she doesn't think about what roles would be good or bad for her career, but she simply responds to the opportunities that come to her. 'My life is a weird combination of my friends throwing me opportunities, and me dreaming opportunities up,' she explained. 'Then when something dovetails like [The Grand Budapest Hotel], when I was already thinking about mortality, a particular predilection of mine, it was very intimately sewn up with my own life. So the short answer is I don't have a career, I have a life. I follow my life and the way I'm living it so no, I don't have an exterior judgment on what would be good or bad for me.' Kate Lawler has backed her former co-star Alison Hammond for the highly-coveted presenting gig in the upcoming ITV revival of Big Brother. The TV personality, 42, who competed on the 2002 series alongside the This Morning host, 47, before taking the winning place, claimed they could even host the show together. Speaking to MailOnline at the JustGiving Awards, she gushed about being 'really excited' to see the reality show's return after a five year hiatus. 'It would be hilarious!' Kate Lawler has backed her former co-star Alison Hammond for the highly-coveted presenting gig in the upcoming ITV revival of Big Brother... and said they could do it together! Kate said: 'I've lived and breathed it, haven't I? But we also need to make sure that we get it back to its heyday, because the early series of Big Brother were the best. 'They were the most entertaining. They had the greatest housemates... I'm only joking. I think now ITV have it, it's going to be a hit because look at Love Island. 'I was on one of the first Love Islands. They did two series of celebrity Love Islands about 20 years ago. And then they just then they stopped and then they basically recreated it with civilians. And look how big it is! Pals: The TV personality, 42, (right) competed on the 2002 series alongside the This Morning host, 47, (left) before going on to take the winning place (pictured in 2015) 'I just think it's the right time for it to come back. 20 years have gone, its nostalgic enough. There is still a huge appetite for the show and people watching. 'We're all still obsessed with, you know, ordinary people, and we're obsessed with it. So I'm really excited.' When asked who she would like to see host the hit programme, she said: 'I mean Rylan [Clark] is great and he is just Big Brother through and through. Throwback: Kate said: 'I've lived and breathed it, haven't I? But we also need to make sure that we get it back to its heyday, because the early series were the best' (pictured in 2002) 'So I'd love Ryan to host it, but also maybe Alison Hammond would be a good shout. Alison would be hilarious. Maybe even me and Alison co-hosting... that would be really great. Or Alison hosts, I'll do Bit On The Side.' Kate continued: 'But I don't wanna put Rylan out of a job. He's great and he did Bit On The Side so well. So that was sometimes the bigger show, wasn't it? 'Because everybody... you really delve into what was really happening and, yeah, he's great but it's gonna be amazing. I just think enough time has passed.' Exciting: Big Brother's return has allegedly been set for March 2023, following an announcement that the show would make a comeback (Davina McCall pictured in 2002 - she won't be returning as host) It follows reports that Big Brother has been set for March 2023, following an announcement that the reality show would make a comeback. It was confirmed during the Love Island final in August that the TV favourite would have a new home on ITV2 and streaming service ITVX. Broadcast recently claimed a date has been 'confirmed' for the civilian edition of the programme, which last aired on Channel 5 in 2018. An ITV representative told MailOnline: 'It's too early to confirm scheduling at this point.' It's BACK! It was confirmed during the Love Island final in August that the TV favourite would have a new home on ITV2 and streaming service ITVX Although it is unclear who could front the show, Maura Higgins has been tipped as the frontrunner to present it. The former Love Islander, 31, is reportedly the producers' top choice due to her resume of TV gigs on Glow Up Ireland and Dancing On Ice. A source told The Sun: 'Producers are determined to distance themselves from former Big Brother names but the former favourite, Mo Gilligan, is now busy in the States. 'Now bosses are looking at female stars who have the strength to hold the show together, while also the warmth to gently quiz contestants in the way that Davina McCall and Emma Willis did so well. Wow! Maura Higgins is the 'frontrunner to present ITV's Big Brother reboot - with producers determined to distance the show from its former cast' 'Maura is a homegrown ITV talent who has all that - plus of course looks great on screen.' MailOnline contacted Maura's representatives and ITV for comment at the time. It was announced during August's Love Island final that Big Brother would be revived by ITV after a five year hiatus. But according to The Mirror TV bosses promise that the reboot will feature everything viewers loved about the original series and 'won't be like Love Island'. 'They won't be social media influencers': ITV bosses promise Big Brother will be 'nothing like Love Island' and will stay true to its roots (Jade Goody pictured on the show in 2002) A source told the publication: 'There will be a diverse casting across a range of ages, which is what made so special. It won't be like Love Island, where the contestants are all young social media influencer types they want 'all walks of life They went on to say: 'There will absolutely be no outside influence just like in the original series so they won't get a day off every week like they do in the villa'. 'It will have everything viewers came to love about the retro series, with nominations, a public vote and live evictions, but they want it to appeal to a new generation'. All stars: The show started as a social experiment in 2000 and went on to become a firm fixture of popular culture (series one winner Craig Phillips seen with Davina McCall in 2000) MailOnline has contacted ITV for comment. The show started as a social experiment in 2000 - going on to become a firm fixture of popular culture. Ordinary members of the public entered the iconic house, skyrocketing to fame as they were watched 24/7 by the British public. while a celebrity version of the show with famous housemates also ran from 2000. The experiment captured the hearts of millions, who could even tune in to the 24h live feed during the night. It first aired on Channel 4 from 2000 to 2010 and was hosted by Davina McCall, 54, before it moved to Channel 5 until 2018 where it was presented by series two winner Brian Dowling, 43, and later Emma Willis, 46. The show featured some iconic moments air over the years, with a staggering 3.5million people voting for Liverpudlian builder Craig Phillips from Seaforth, Merseyside to win the 70,000 prize in 2000 at the end of the first series. It averaged at 5.8million viewers an episode by its third season - but figures dropped to just 2.9million an episode in 2009 thanks to competitions inspired by the very shows it spawned, such as The Only Way Is Essex. By Lee Jong-eun Last week, North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan in what it claims to be part of "tactical nuclear drills." The missile was reportedly a version of the Hwasong-12, similar to the North's missile fired in 2017. The missile flew 4,600 kilometers, flying briefly over the northern prefectures of Japan before falling eventually into the Pacific Ocean to the east of Japan. The United States, Japan, and South Korea responded with more robust military measures than they did toward other North Korean missile tests conducted this year. On the day of the missile launch, the U.S. and South Korean air forces conducted a joint exercise in the West Sea. The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which participated in the trilateral naval exercise in September, returned to the Korean Peninsula to conduct another naval drill with allied navies. The U.S. has long warned North Korea not to cross the "red line" by testing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Despite predictions that the North will soon conduct an ICBM or a nuclear test, the regime has refrained from testing the U.S. warning for the past five years. The Biden administration, despite rhetorical condemnations of the North's other missile tests, has also not taken significant retaliatory actions against the regime. A tacit stalemate has strategic benefits for the U.S. in containing the security threats in East Asia. With the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine War this year, and U.S.-China tensions over issues of Taiwan and supply chains, U.S. policymakers face multiple constraints in confronting North Korea. Rather than risking escalation, the Biden administration's North Korea policy for the past two years has been characterized largely as low-key responses toward the regime's relatively low-key threats, combined with warnings if the latter conducts an ICBM or a nuclear test. While a form of threat, the drawing of a "red line" has a paradoxical counter-message: it implicitly tolerates behaviors that do not explicitly violate the line. The two challenges to red-line warnings are credibility and inflexibility. First, how credible is the warning that there will be severe retaliation if the line is crossed? The target of the warning might engage in provocations to probe the credibility. Observing no significant retaliation, the target might assume that the consequence for violation would not be as severe as warned. Second, even if the target does not explicitly cross the red line, the target's provocations could cause significant problems and costs. The risk of tying the retaliation only to the explicit violation is that it could constrain the enforcer's behavior more than the violator's. The North's latest missile test highlights these challenges for the U.S. alliance in East Asia. Advancing from previous short-range missile tests, North Korea launched a ballistic missile with a range covering Japan and Guam. Even if the U.S. is inclined to maintain restraint as no ICBM has yet been tested, South Korea and Japan perceive significant threats from North Korea's missile provocations and demand a robust counter-response from their superpower ally. Despite the U.S. strategic interest in mitigating conflict with the North unless directly threatened, the security vulnerability of its allies places the U.S. in a strategic dilemma. Furthermore, how the U.S. responds to North Korea's provocations influences the red line's credibility. In 2017, when President Trump threatened to counter North Korea's provocations with "fire and fury," his threats were taken seriously due to widespread perceptions of Trump's unpredictability. Today, the Biden administration faces skepticism on whether the U.S. would impose retaliatory measures even if North Korea resumes ICBM and nuclear tests. The U.S. responded to the North's recent IRBM test with a series of military exercises together with allies to dispel such doubts. However, doubts remain on whether such responses are permanent commitments: would the U.S. deploy its carrier group to respond to the North's future IRBM tests? The limitation of relying on the "red line" as deterrence is that it leaves unclear what responses will be taken toward provocations that may not cross the line but still poses significant strategic threats. In response to multiple levels of North Korea's provocations, establishing multiple levels of countermeasures would be a more effective deterrence strategy. For example, depending on the range of the individual missile tests, the specific scale of counter-response measures could be operationalized and communicated to the North. A distinct category of "orange-line provocations" could be established to distinguish levels of provocations, such as the IRBMs, that causes significant risks to the U.S. regional alliance and require more robust responses than lower levels of provocations. Ultimately, the U.S.' resolve to implement operational protocols according to the defined levels of provocations would enhance the credibility of the measures reserved for the red-line violations. Critics might worry that establishing specific levels of countermeasures could impose constraints on U.S. foreign policy and risk escalating conflict with North Korea. Though valid concerns, critics should consider the strategic benefit of reassuring U.S. allies of the predictable scope of U.S. security commitment; if the U.S. government commits to graduated levels of countermeasures toward the North's provocation. The risk from signaling operational clarity toward North Korea should be weighed together with the risk from signaling operational ambiguity, which could cause the North to underestimate or overestimate U.S. intention. A clearer distinction between the countermeasures toward orange- and red-level provocations could better signal the risk of escalation to North Korea and help achieve restraints in the latter's provocations. The geopolitical reality of the Korean Peninsula is that coexisting with a nuclear North Korea is unavoidable, as achieving denuclearization would be a long-term process. However, in engaging with the nuclear North, the U.S. alliance should ensure that North Korea also recognizes the risk of nuclear and missile provocations so that diplomacy can be conducted with mutual restraint and risk management. Lee Jong-eun ( ), a Ph.D. candidate, is an adjunct faculty at the American University School of International Service. Prior to this, he has served as a South Korean Air Force intelligence officer. His research specialty includes U.S. foreign policy, South Korean politics and foreign policy, alliance management and East Asian regional security. Sophie Habboo and Jamie Laing dressed to impress as they attended the JustGiving Awards at The Roundhouse in London's Camden on Monday. The former Made In Chelsea co-stars put on a loved-up display as they walked hand-in-hand into the ceremony. Sophie, 28, showcased her incredible figure in a stylish backless black halterneck gown which cascaded to the floor. Loved-up: Sophie Habboo and Jamie Laing dressed to impress as they attended the JustGiving Awards at The Roundhouse in London's Camden on Monday The reality TV personality accessorised with a chic coordinated clutch and elevated her frame in a towering pair of pointed toe heels. Sophie opted for a glamorous palette of makeup and styled her long blonde tresses in luxurious waves. Jamie, 33, look dapper in a maroon suit, a crisp white T-shirt and black shiny boots. The couple were all smiles as they arrived to present the Fundraising Team of the Year prize. All smiles: The former Made In Chelsea co-stars put on a loved-up display as they walked hand-in-hand into the ceremony Stylish: Sophie, 28, showcased her incredible figure in a stylish backless black halterneck gown which cascaded to the floor Jamie and Sophie were previously best friends, before their friendship turned to romance on Made In Chelsea and they started dating three years ago. Candy Kittens founder Jamie popped the question during a romantic proposal at London's Rosewood Hotel in December 2021. The couple's appearance comes after the couple shared details of their forthcoming wedding and said planning it is proving to be an 'utter nightmare'. Sophie branded her husband-to-be a 'groomzilla' and said he is insisting he will also walk up the aisle on their big day, which is taking place in Spain in May 2023. Amazing: Jamie, 33, look dapper in a maroon suit, a crisp white T-shirt and black shiny boots as the couple prepared to present the Fundraising Team of the Year gong Appearing on This Morning, Jamie said: 'Wedding planning is the worst thing ever. When you get engaged people say its so exciting but we're filled with anxiety. 'We're doing wedding scents, where you create a scent so you can give it to guests when they leave and they can smell your wedding for the rest of their lives.' Detailing her fiance's wedding demands, Sophie said: 'Jamie wants me to wait for him [at the end of the aisle] to he can walk down with everyone watching. She added: 'He's a groomzilla. The guest list keeps me up at night, we haven't sent our save the dates yet and its in seven months.' Jamie said: 'The whole thing is a complete and utter nightmare.' Guests at the JustGiving Awards enjoyed a three-course meal, live music, and dancing as they attended the awards to hear who had been awarded prizes. Pascale Harvie, President & General Manager, JustGiving said: 'The JustGiving Awards puts a well-deserved spotlight on those doing good and spreading kindness. 'After three years, were delighted to be able to come together at this inspirational event and celebrate the incredible fundraisers and charities working hard to leave the world a little better than when they found it. Since the last JustGiving Awards in 2019, one and a half million people have helped raise over 2 billion for good causes through JustGiving. Kim Kardashian has reportedly paid for increased security at her children's private school after her ex-husband Kanye West named the school on social media. According to TMZ, the school has recently hired extra security as a precaution - with Kim footing the bill. A source said that officials at the school do not believe Kanye is a threat but are concerned that someone could see his messages and show up on campus. Protection: Kim Kardashian has reportedly paid for increased security at her children's private school after her ex-husband Kanye West named the school on social media Kim and Kanye, who split up in 2021 after almost seven years of marriage, are parents to North, nine, Saint, six, Chicago, four, and Psalm, three. Kanye has been eager for Kim to enroll the kids at Donda Academy, which is not an accredited school. According to Rolling Stone, it has 'parkour classes, a cone of silence, and a principal with no apparent formal teaching experience.' MailOnline has contacted representatives of Kim Kardashian for comment. Family: Kim and Kanye, who split up in 2021 after almost seven years of marriage, are parents to North, nine, Saint, six, Chicago, four, and Psalm, three Kanye has recently been seen on multiple occasions with model Juliana Nalu. The rapper and the model were seen checking into a hotel together in Beverly Hills on Thursday, and grabbing dinner on Saturday night at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica. Juliana is a 24-year-old model who was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They were seen checking in to a hotel on Thursday night, and grabbing dinner together on Saturday night at celeb hot spot Giorgio Baldi. The duo were seen heading inside a clothing warehouse together as well. Revealed: Kanye was spotted stepping out with model Juliana Nalu on three different occasions (pictured in October 2022) It comes after Kanye faced new accusations of antisemitism after declaring war on Jewish people. In a now-deleted Tweet, he wrote, 'I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.' He added: 'The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also. You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.' His renewed attack on Jewish people comes just a day after sharing screenshots on Instagram revealing messages sent to Diddy in which Kanye accused the rapper of being controlled by Jewish people trying to silence his 'White Lives Matter' message. Controversy: It comes after Kanye faced new accusations of antisemitism after declaring war on Jewish people (pictured in 2020) The post resulted in his Instagram account being suspended. Just hours after the Meta restriction, Kanye took to Twitter to continue the attacks. Kanye's tweets marked the first time in nearly two years since he has posted to Twitter. Elon Musk welcomed his return to the platform, tweeting 'Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!' After his initial posts were removed by Meta, which owns Instagram, Ye called out Zuckerberg's company on Twitter for restricting his account. Shocking: Kanye Continued his return to Twitter with a disturbing tweet where he suggested he would be 'going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE' while bringing back his 'White Lives Matter' T-shirt 'Look at this, Mark. How you gone kick me off Instagram. You use to be my n***a.' He posted the tweet alongside a photo of the pair performing karaoke at an unknown time. A Meta spokesperson said: 'We may place restrictions on accounts that repeatedly break our rules.' It is unclear what rule West broke in that instance, but he has been using the platform with growing frequency to bash numerous people, including his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. Messages: Kanye reportedly told Combs that 'Jewish people told you to call me' and that they were not going to 'threaten or influence me' It's been an active weekend for the mogul on social media, as he went after Mark Zuckerberg for restricting his Instagram after he posted a now-deleted private conversation with Sean 'Diddy' Combs. In the text exchange, Combs tries to get West to stop sporting shirts emblazoned with White Lives Matter. 'I'm trying to talk to you as a black man. And I'm talking to you because this is hurting our people. Stop.' West replied: 'Anything you text I will post.' The rapper and fashion mogul kept his word, posting the entire exchange to his 18 million followers. The series of texts ended with West accusing Combs of being controlled by Jewish people - an antisemitic conspiracy theory. 'This ain't a game. Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me,' West wrote his friend. He reportedly captioned the post of the text exchange 'Jesus is Jew.' The American Jewish Committee has since condemned West, saying his post was 'dangerous.' Restriction: Kanye has been restricted from Instagram for supposedly antisemitism claims, saying Sean 'Diddy' Combs was being controlled by Jewish people West also recently sat down for the interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson after he returned from Paris Fashion Week where he sparked controversy with his White Lives Matter shirt. He told Carlson the shirt came from his 'energy' and his 'connection with God.' 'I do certain things from a feeling, I just channel the energy. It feels right, hits using a gut instinct, connection with God and just brilliance,' he said, adding that the idea of him 'wearing the shirt was funny' and his father - who he claimed is a former Black Panther - thought so too. 'I said: 'Dad, why do you think it's funny?' and he said: 'It's just a black man stating the obvious,' ' he told Carlson. 'That was my favorite response, because I kept thinking: People are looking for an explanation. And people say as an artist you have don't have to an explanation, but as a leader you do. He also said the controversy is that white people 'have stripped us of our identity and labeled us as a color have told us what it means to be black.' 'The answer to why I wrote 'White Lives Matter' on a shirt is because they do. It's the obvious thing.' Many have called the fashion designer out for the slogan, including model Gigi Hadid, who branded him a 'bully' after he lashed out at Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson when she called his the move 'violent' and 'dangerous.' He later walk back on his criticism, insisting he had no issue with Vogue's contributing fashion editor. His spokesman Jason Lee quit in protest at the provocative show, writing on Instagram that West was 'gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy.' Olivia Colman covered her traditional dress with a padded coat as she filmed scenes for her new film Wicked Little Letters in Sussex on Tuesday - which is based on a true story. The actress, 48, beamed and wrapped up warm in the number as she chatted to her co-stars including Timothy Spall and Jessie Buckley in between scenes. Under her coat Olivia's traditional beige pinafore and white collar was visible while her hair was styled into a wavy style reminiscent of the times. Star: Olivia Colman covered her traditional dress with a padded coat as she filmed scenes for her new film Wicked Little Letters in Sussex on Tuesday- which is based on a true story Beside Olivia on set was Harry Potter actor Timothy, 65, who looked smart in a white shirt, waist coat, tie and tweed trousers. Meanwhile actress Jessie, 32, got into character in her simple beige dress that was cinched in at the waist and was teamed with yellow socks and brown heels. The group were seen filming on a quiet cobbled street with chickens kept in a cage outside the house they were stood in. On set: The actress, 48, beamed and wrapped up warm in the number as she chatted to her co-stars including Timothy Spall (left) and Jessie Buckley (right) in between scenes Outfit: Under her coat Olivia's traditional beige pinafore and white collar was visible while her hair was styled into a wavy style reminiscent of the times Olivia takes a starring role as Edith Swan in director Thea Sharrock's latest project, based on the real-life story of neighbours who come together after receiving a series of hateful poison pen letters from an unknown source. Olivia will star alongside Jessie in the forthcoming film, with the Irish actress expected to play Rose Gooding - the fiery younger woman wrongly accused of drafting a spate of hateful letters to various members of the community. Those familiar with the notorious case will know that Edith (Olivia), a respected member of the community, was eventually exposed as the poison pen author, charged with criminal libel and ultimately tried at Lewes magistrates court in 2021. Interesting: Olivia takes a starring role as Edith Swan in director Thea Sharrock's latest project, based on the real-life story of neighbours who come together after receiving a series of hateful poison pen letters from an unknown source The new film is understood to be a lighthearted take on the case, with neighbours joining forces to solve the mystery after the finger of blame is incorrectly pointed at the Gooding. On two occasions she would be sent to prison for crimes of which she was totally innocent, and the case would involve four trials in all. The case was high profile, with each trial reported unsparingly by the national press and enthralling the nation. Traditional: Meanwhile actress Jessie, 32, got into character in her simple beige dress that was cinched in at the waist and was teamed with yellow socks and brown heels Shooting scenes: The group were seen filming on a quiet cobbled street with chickens kept in a cage outside the house they were stood in In character: Beside Olivia on set was Harry Potter actor Timothy, 65, who looked smart in a white shirt, waist coat, tie and tweed trousers Timothy, Hugh Skinner and Joanna Scanlan have also been case in unconfirmed roles. Wicked Little Letters is expected to go on general release in 2023. Olivia rose to fame on comedy show Peep Show, before portraying the late Queen Elizabeth II on Netflix's royal drama The Crown - a role in which she received her first Emmy Award. Well-known: The new film is understood to be a lighthearted take on the case, with neighbours joining forces to solve the mystery after the finger of blame is incorrectly pointed at the Gooding Ray Meagher was moved to tears while being honoured during Tuesday's episode of This Is Your Life. The 78-year-old couldn't hold back his emotions while receiving tributes from his former Home and Away co-stars. First up was Chris Hemsworth, 39, who has gone on to become a superstar after his time on the soap. Ray Meagher (pictured) was moved to tears while being honoured during Tuesday's episode of This Is Your Life Via video link, Chris shared a sweet and comical tribute to Ray, who he says has always been a good friend and mentor to him. 'Ray Meagher, godfather of Australian television, a flaming legend, my hero,' Chris said. 'Mate, what can I say? The first time I met you, there you were bathed in glorious light. White doves flapping around your head. They could have been eagles. The 78-year-old couldn't hold back his emotions while receiving tributes from his former Home and Away co-stars. First up was Chris Hemsworth (pictured), who has gone on to become a superstar after his time on the soap 'Ray Meagher, godfather of Australian television, a flaming legend, my hero,' Chris said 'We locked eyes, we got closer. I took a big deep breath, [thinking] he's probably not a hugger. I lifted my hand... and dived off into the costume department,' Chris said. 'Because I had lost my nerve, mate. But sure enough, you came up to me, and you said, "You're gonna do great here." You've been supportive through my entire career. Thank you so much, buddy. I love you. You're a dear friend.' Ray swatted away tears during and after the tribute, but when Kate Ritchie, 43, who rose to fame playing Sally Fletcher on Home and Away, shared her own memories, he was left sniffing and visibly emotional. Ray swatted away tears during and after the tribute, but when Kate Ritchie (pictured), who rose to fame playing Sally Fletcher on Home and Away, shared her own memories, he was left sniffing and visibly emotional 'Ray is really so much of what I learned as a person, but also a performer,' Kate said, clinging onto Ray's hand Ray was immensely touched by the dedication 'Ray is really so much of what I learned as a person, but also a performer,' Kate said, clinging onto Ray's hand. 'And for both of us, we've played those characters so long that there is so much of us within them. 'So when I watched that footage... I actually see two friends. He's watched me grow from a girl into a woman, and he's really proud of me. So I'm glad I've made you proud. Thank you,' she went on. Kate starred as Sally Fletcher on Home and Away alongside the late Heath Ledger (right). She was on the show between 1988 and 2013 Hemsworth also starred on Home and Away from 2004-2007, where he worked alongside Ray before heading off to Hollywood The pair held hands once more, with Ray immensely touched by the dedication. Rising to fame playing the beloved Alf Stewart on the long-running soap, Ray has been on the series since its debut in 1988. Hemsworth also starred on Home and Away from 2004-2007, where he worked alongside Ray before heading off to Hollywood. Kate meanwhile was best known as Sally Fletcher on the show between 1988 and 2013 before establishing a radio career. Former Coronation Street star Chris Fountain opened up about shock after suffering from a mini-stroke two months ago, in Tuesday's episode of This Morning. The actor, 35, was admitted to Hackney's Homerton University Hospital following the incident on August 11, after which he was left speaking 'like a toddler.' He said he realised something was seriously wrong after waking to discover he could no longer articulate his speech, prompting the terrified star to dial 111 from his London home and request an ambulance. Scary: Former Coronation Street star Chris Fountain opened up about shock after suffering from a mini-stroke two months ago, in Tuesday's episode of This Morning Speaking to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, he explained: 'I woke up in the morning to a call from my mum. While I was on the phone, I was trying to say something but I couldn't remember what I was saying and it wasn't coming through. I said I would call her back and couldn't put my finger on it. 'I was trying to identify things in my house, like a towel but couldn't say what I was thinking, my brain and mouth weren't on the same page. 'The thing that made it more obvious to me, I picked up a book and tried to read it, it was working in my head but not aloud.' Traumatic: The actor, 35, was admitted to Hackney's Homerton University Hospital following the incident on August 11, after which he was left speaking 'like a toddler' He then went on: 'Physically I felt fine but when I sat with the nurse it became very difficult to speak, I was embarrassed and panicked and scared. 'They kept me in hospital for a CT scan which was clear and then they kept me in overnight and tested me for an MRI scan. Opening up about his shock, Chris said: 'The doctor said the word stroke and although it was a mini stroke, as soon as he said it I was looking at him and going why has this happened, will it happen again? Staying positive: Despite the awful experience, Chris explained that he felt lucky, saying: 'As traumatising as it has been, it could have been so much worse for me. I could have lost my arm and my face could have dropped' 'It was like someone had pulled a rug from underneath me. I keep myself fit and last year did a mad health kick. 'I found out that I have a hole in my heart, apparently this is quite common and many people will not realise, but the clot went through the heart to the brain.' Despite the awful experience, Chris explained that he felt lucky, saying: 'As traumatising as it has been, it could have been so much worse for me. I could have lost my arm and my face could have dropped. 'For the first few days after coming out of hospital, I was stumbling over my words a bit and I became irritable.' Terrifying: Former Coronation Street star Chris Fountain says he lost the ability to speak and 'feared for his life' after suffering a mini-stroke two months ago The actor - best known for his former role as Tommy Duckworth in Corrie - later discovered he'd suffered a Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA), commonly referred to as a mini-stroke, as a consequence of blood clotting in his brain. He told The Mirror: 'When the doctors confirmed Id had a TIA and said the word stroke, I just couldnt believe it, there was a moment of sheer panic just fearing what it meant for the rest of my life. 'Would I have another one? Would the next one be even worse and Id lose the use of my arms or legs? I was really scared and just broke down in tears.' WHAT ARE WARNING SIGNS OF A MINI STROKE? A transient ischemic attack (or, TIA) involves a temporary lack of blood flow to the brain, which causes momentary dizziness, confusion, tingling, and numbness in the arms. You should call 999 if you suspect you are suffering a TIA. Symptoms include: vision changes dysphasia (trouble speaking) confusion balance issues tingling an altered level of consciousness dizziness passing out an abnormal sense of taste an abnormal sense of smell weakness or numbness on just one side of the body or face, determined by the location of the blood clot in the brain Advertisement Chris was eventually transferred to the The Royal London Hospital, where he underwent further tests over a five day period before being released into the care of his worried family. He added: 'The doctors said they saw some damage to the left hand side of my brain which is where your cognitive abilities are controlled from. 'Whats scary is if I hadnt have called 111 when I did and got to hospital so quickly I dont know if that clot could have travelled to the wrong place in my brain, I could have died. That clot was like a ticking bomb in my head.' Old times: The actor played Tommy Duckworth in Coronation Street, but was sacked by the soap in 2013 after videos of him rapping about rape emerged online Doctors have since discovered the clot was triggered by a small, previously undetected hole in his heart allowing blood to flow into his brain - meaning he will need an operation to close it. The actor is now working with a speech therapist and says his ability to speak has almost completely returned, but still struggles when required to read aloud. But he insists he will use the experience positively and is now intent on 'living life to the max'. He said: 'Going through something like this makes you realise just how fragile life is, it can really be snatched away from you at any moment.' Interview: In May, Fountain spoke about the depression he suffered after being axed from Coronation Street while appearing on the Mancs On The Mic podcast with Ryan Thomas In May, Chris spoke about the depression he suffered after being axed from Coronation Street when a video of him using misogynistic slurs while rapping about women was posted online. The actor was filmed rapping about rape in the clip, which he said left him with 'bleak' career prospects to this day. Chris discussed his difficulties with fellow Coronation Street actor Ryan Thomas and his brothers Adam and Scott on their Mancs On The Mic podcast. He said: 'I've been in some very dark, horrible places, to the point where I realised I needed to start changing the way that I was thinking otherwise I might not have been here. 'My life, my job, my image, my reputation everything was just ripped away. Within 24 hours. I didn't leave my house for four days.' Difficulties: After leaving Coronation Street, Chris appeared on the show Girlfriends and has also acted in regional plays, but says his work prospects are still impacted by the video He added: 'I'd never been this discombobulated before. I was meant to go on This Morning and then that got cancelled because they didn't want me on there. After a while, I was like, "I think I'm going through depression here."' After leaving Coronation Street, Chris appeared on the show Girlfriends in 2018 and has also acted in regional plays, but says his work prospects are still impacted by the video. He said: 'As much as I like to say everything's alright and everything's cool, work-wise at the moment, it's bleak. 'Am I not getting jobs because of that [the scandal], or am I not getting jobs because I'm not as good an actor as I once thought I was? I don't know if I'll ever find that answer.' If you have questions about TIA or want to speak to someone, call the TIA Helpline on 0303 3033 100. If you have been affected by this story, call Samaritans at any time for free on 116 123. Carrie Bickmore shocked viewers on Tuesday night when she revealed she is leaving The Project after 13 years at the desk. The television host announced she was exiting the show so she can spend more time with her family. But those watching closely may have seen the tell-tale signs that the 41-year-old was nearing her exit for some time. Carrie Bickmore (pictured) shocked viewers on Tuesday night when she revealed she is leaving The Project after 13 years at the desk. But those watching closely may have seen the tell-tale signs that the 41-year-old was nearing her exit for some time Rumours of a 'feud' with co-star Lisa Wilkinson, although repeatedly denied, raised concerns that not all was well in The Project family, as did Carrie's exit to London with her family for three months in April. The TV presenter fought back tears as she told viewers it was the hardest decision she has had to make in her professional life. However, it may have been a decision she'd been making for some time. Rumours of a 'feud' with co-star Lisa Wilkinson Rumours of a 'feud' with co-star Lisa Wilkinson (left), although repeatedly denied, raised concerns that not all was well in The Project family In 2018, a report published by The Daily Telegraph claimed that Carrie was 'less than impressed' with Ten's decision to recruit Lisa on The Project. '[She is] p**sed off at Wilkinson being shipped in to sit alongside her,' insiders allegedly told the publication. Carrie was quick to make a denial, telling Who magazine that her 62-year-old counterpart was 'the shot in the arm that [The Project] needed'. 'I couldn't be more excited to be working with her. We text, we call and we're going to make a great team,' she declared. In 2018, a report published by The Daily Telegraph claimed that Carrie was 'less than impressed' with Ten's decision to recruit Lisa on The Project 'It's good when someone big joins the show. It revives it and changes it. You need that on a show that is on every night,' Carrie added. Like Carrie, Lisa also denied the reports, telling news.com.au: 'I couldn't believe [there were rumours] because this is complete fiction. Carrie can't believe it, I can't believe it,' she said. 'For us it's really disappointing that for some reason there's a belief... that two strong women can't work together and support each other and enjoy working together.' Lisa said that she and Carrie are refusing to engage in the rumours, 'because it would only give it credibility and there is no truth to it.' Rumours of a 'huge pay difference' The Daily Telegraph claimed Wilkinson was pocketing an enormous $1.7million per year while Bickmore was believed to be on $1.5million Lisa sensationally quit the Today show back in October 2018, and secured a reported million-dollar salary to front The Sunday Project and helm Ten Daily for Channel 10. The Daily Telegraph claimed Wilkinson is pocketing an enormous $1.7million per year while Bickmore was believed to be on $1.5million. The disparity between the two pay packets has been rumoured to have caused some friction, especially as Wilkinson has far less screen time than Bickmore. The Daily Telegraph noted that the centre of Carrie's frustration is likely to surround her earning less than Lisa in her role on The Project. Both women have extensively denied any feud, and their pay packets have not been confirmed by Channel Ten. The Daily Telegraph noted that the centre of Carrie's frustration is likely to surround her earning less than Lisa in her role on The Project despite having far more screen time There is talk that The Project has recently given co-host Waleed Aly, 44, a pay rise, perhaps in anticipation of Carrie's exit. Aly has reportedly inked a 'seven-figure' deal with Channel 10 that will see him continue to host the current affairs show four nights a week 'until the mid-2020s'. It was previously reported he had been earning an estimated $900,000 a year. Three-month absence from the desk In April, Carrie temporarily relocated to the UK with her family for a 'sabbatical' which she also called 'long service leave'. Pictured with her partner Chris Walker and their children In April, Carrie temporarily relocated to the UK with her family for a 'sabbatical' which she also called 'long service leave'. Carrie shares two children, daughters Evie, six, and Adelaide, three, with her partner Chris Walker, a television producer for the ABC and Channel 10. She welcomed son Oliver, 15, during her marriage to the late Greg Lange, who died of brain cancer in 2010. The mother of three explained her decision in more detail in an Instagram post, admitting her family had been 'dreaming' of the move for 'a while now'. 'In April I'm going to be taking a few months off The Project desk. Chris and I and the kids are heading off on a family adventure together,' she said, becoming emotional She said the 'extended family time' during lockdown made her realise she only has a few years left before her eldest son Oliver finishes school and moves out. 'One of the unexpected silver linings to come out of living through Melbourne's lockdowns was the extended family time,' she wrote. 'We feel like this is our last chance to do something like this together before Ollie hits the pointy end of his schooling and no longer wants to hang out with us so we are heading to the UK for a school term.' Carrie had earlier become emotional as she revealed on The Project she and her partner Chris would be moving to Britain with their children. Carrie also said she had been inspired by The Project panellist Kate Langbroek (right) who spent two years living in Bologna, Italy, with her family 'In April I'm going to be taking a few months off The Project desk. Chris and I and the kids are heading off on a family adventure together,' she said. 'We've been wanting to do it for a while but for lots of reasons the timing hasn't been right, but we figure it's never going to be the perfect time to go. 'It's something we really want to do before my son starts his final years at school so we're doing term two in the UK. So I will be off for a couple of months.' Carrie also said she had been inspired by The Project panellist Kate Langbroek, 57, who spent two years living in Bologna, Italy, with her family. Viewers were stunned when Carrie returned to The Project desk just three months later - many suspected she may never return 'You are a big inspiration for heading overseas with a family and we had some big conversations after living through the world's longest lockdown,' Carrie said. 'One of the things that my son Ollie said was how much he was going to miss the family time when we were coming out of lockdown, which kind of surprised us because we had a lot of family time!' she added. 'But we thought, "Gosh, he still wants to spend time with us." And while he does, he only has a few years left and then he will fly away, so we thought we would seize the moment and do it.'. Viewers were stunned when Carrie mysteriously returned to The Project desk just three months later - many suspected she may never return. Rumours of television work offers in the UK Bickmore sold her five-bedroom family home in Melbourne just days before announcing her extended leave in London earlier this year. Some fans speculated this was because she and her family were planning to buy a place to live in England Bickmore sold her five-bedroom family home in Melbourne just days before announcing her extended leave in London earlier this year. Some fans speculated this was because she and her family were planning to buy a place to live in England. There were also rumours Bickmore was hoping to secure a TV hosting gig in the UK. 'Carrie could easily do breakfast TV, or stick to her guns and pick up an evening current affairs-style gig,' an industry source told New Idea in late March. 'Her management will surely be working hard to use Carrie's travels in the UK to her advantage.' There were also rumours Bickmore was hoping to secure a TV hosting gig in the UK. 'Carrie could easily do breakfast TV, or stick to her guns and pick up an evening current affairs-style gig,' an industry source told New Idea in late March Carrie returned to The Project in July with very little fanfare and largely kept mum about her trip. She joked she had come home with an English accent after living there for a few months, and said she'd had a 'great time' - but little else. However rumours of Carrie landing work overseas have been disputed. Weighing in on Carrie's return, a TV insider wrote on the Media Spy forum: 'It was always long-service leave and to spend time on an extended holiday with her family. She wasn't moving there forever or to pursue and career.' Losing the big time interviews? Since joining The Project, Lisa Wilkinson has interviewed a parade of Hollywood stars and A-listers. Pictured with Paris Hilton Since joining The Project, Lisa Wilkinson has interviewed a parade of Hollywood stars and A-listers. In July, Wilkinson secretly flew out of Australia to Los Angeles where she recorded a number of high profile interviews. She spent time in 'Hollywood and New York' where she interviewed 'musicians and A-list film stars' for upcoming packages for The Project. Carrie is rarely granted high-profile interviews, most recently sitting down with Spice Girls star Mel B - and this could have led to some professional frustrations. Lisa is pictured interviewing Barbra Streisand In recent years, she has sat down with the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Paris Hilton, Kristen Wiig, Richard Dreyfus, Keith Urban and Barbra Streisand. Wilkinson's role as the show's resident roving Hollywood reporter could have left Bickmore muscled out of similar assignments. Carrie is rarely granted high-profile interviews, most recently sitting down with Spice Girls star Mel B - and this could have led to some professional frustrations. Jumping a sinking ship amid dismal ratings Carrie's exit comes as ratings for The Project continue a downward trend. Channel 10's flagship current affairs show has lost almost a third of its audience. Pictured with Peter Helliar (left), Waleed Aly (centre left) and Steve Price (right) Carrie's exit comes as ratings for The Project continue a downward trend. Channel 10's flagship current affairs show has lost almost a third of its audience since 2011, OzTAM ratings revealed in November. The program saw its metro ratings plummet to an all-time low of just 367,000 in 2021. That's a 30 per cent decline from its five-city audience of 538,000 a decade ago. The national audience, which includes regional viewers, has also seen a similar percentage drop from 725,000 in 2011 to 490,000 in 2021. The program saw its metro ratings plummet to an all-time low of just 367,000 in 2021 These figures have made The Project commercial TV's worst-performing nightly premium program. Despite disappointing ratings, a Channel 10 spokesperson denied rumours late last year that The Project would soon be facing the axe. 'The Project has just celebrated its 12th birthday and is here to stay,' they said. 'At a time when information, context and understanding is more important than ever, The Project will continue to provide Australians with their dose of news delivered differently.' Despite disappointing ratings, a Channel 10 spokesperson denied rumours late last year that The Project would soon be facing the axe. Pictured with Carrie are Tommy little, Peter Helliar, Hamish Macdonald, Waleed Aly, Lisa Wilkinson and Gorgi Coghlan A leading TV commentator claimed Channel 10 was losing viewers because of The Project's left-wing agenda. Rob McKnight, a former 10 executive who now runs industry website TV Blackbox, said the views expressed on The Project don't resonate with everyday Aussies. He told Daily Mail Australia that despite its slick production and top-tier talent, The Project is 'very woke and that doesn't connect with mainstream Australia'. Constance Wu has spoken about how social media backlash led to her suicide attempt in 2019. Appearing on Meghan Markle's Spotify podcast Archetypes, Constance speaks about the sexual harassment she experienced at the hands of a producer while working on the TV series Fresh Off The Boat. Constance explained that her anguish over what was happening led her her to tweet about her disappointment that the show had been renewed for a sixth season in 2019 - leading to a huge social media backlash and a particularly hurtful message from a fellow Asian actor. Emotional conversation: Constance Wu has spoken about how social media backlash and sexual assault led to her suicide attempt in 2019 Constance explained to Meghan that it was one particular DM that led her to 'feel like I didn't deserve to be alive anymore.' She said the Asian actress 'basically said that I had become a disgrace to my race and that I was basically better off dead.' 'It made me feel like I didn't deserve to be alive anymore,' Constance tearfully told Meghan, 'and so I tried to end my own life.' 'Luckily I had a friend who was able to get me to the ER and so I'm okay but it really made me realise... I know it seems like I'm not okay because I'm crying now but I think I'm always going to cry about this because it was really scary you know.' 'Three years ago that prompted me to get off social media to put my career aside and to focus on my mental health because you don't want to think of what would have happened if I didn't have that type of help back then, you know. I wouldn't have had my daughter.' Podcast: The actress is a guest star on the latest episode of Meghan Markle's podcast Archetypes podcast, in which the Duchess of Sussex criticises Hollywood for its depiction of 'crazy, hot females' She went on to say that 'I think about the actress who shamed me so horribly over DM. A big part of it is that she thought I deserved to suffer and she thought I wasn't suffering enough.' 'I think that if she had been not behind a computer screen and in the room and seeing what I was going through and looking into my eyes... I don't think she's a horrible person. I think the internet does that to you because you can't see the person going through something.' Asked whether she had reconnected with the unnamed actor in question, Constance said she has not. 'You know, I do forgive her for it. I do,' she said. 'Because I know that anybody who is trying so hard to be a certain way is going through their own battle. I'd probably get emotional if I saw her, but I think I would be able to really stand well on my own two feet'. TV star: The fifth episode of the Spotify series sees Constance speak in depth about the sexual harassment she had experienced from a producer while working on the series Fresh Off The Boat (pictured in the show) Constance explained on the podcast how it was during the first year of filming for Fresh Off The Boat that she experienced 'sexual harassment and intimidation by one of the producers.' 'My outburst on Twitter over the show's renewal three years ago was so seemingly out of character, it was the build up of several years of repressing the abuse that I had suffered at the hands of the producer in my first year.' She explained that as it was her first screen role she had no experience of working in TV and 'I was scared that any wrong move I would get fired.' 'And this producer was like I'm protecting you, you have to do everything through me. Don't talk to your agents, don't talk to your lawyers. I didn't know what else to think.' 'The show was such a beacon for Asian-American representation that I didn't want to tarnish the one beacon that was available to us in mainstream media.' She added: 'I took care of it, I figured out how to work around it really well and keep my job. And so when I tweeted this without context, it made me seem really ungrateful and petty and bratty I guess is the word.' Meghan was keen to ask Constance how she will talk to her daughter, two, about her suicide attempt when she is older and may have questions. Speaking out: Constance put a statement on social media in July in which she discussed her suicide attempt for the first time 'My parent didn't even know until a few weeks before I put out the statement,' Constance explained. 'I didn't even want to tell them, but my shrink was like you should tell them before you go on social media and tell the whole world. In Asian American families it's really hard to talk about those kind of things.' 'My mom called me and she was like 'well think about your daughter. Now that you've put a statement out is this something that you want her knowing that you did, you're a public figure''. 'I could see her point but I said 'you know what mom I do want her to know that everybody including her mom goes through a hard time and when you go through those hard times people will help you and you can find help and you can get better''. Constance first made the revelation about the sexual harassment she experienced in her upcoming new memoir, Making A Scene, and again when she talked with the New York Times ahead of the release of the book. While the actress discloses details about how the man exhibited controlling behaviors during the show's first two seasons, she would only refer to the man by using an initial. Loosely inspired by the life of chef and food personality Eddie Huang and his 2013 autobiography, Fresh Off The Boat was the first network TV sitcom in the U.S. to feature a family of Asian Americans as main characters in over 20 years. The show, which depicted a Taiwanese-American family living in Florida in the 1990s, went into production in 2014, and eventually premiered on ABC the following February to positive critical reception. Constance maintains that producer started showing those controlling behaviors in the first season, which included 'demanding that she run all her business matters past him and telling her what to wear.' Fresh Off The Boat would go on to air for six seasons, ending in February 2020 after earning the distinction of being the first series featuring an all Asian American main cast to broadcast over 100 episodes. So far representatives for Fresh Off the Boat and 20th Television have not publicly responded to any of the accusations. Billie Shepherd showcased her blossoming baby bump as she attended her sister Sam Faiers' Knightley's Adventures launch at The Ivy on Tuesday. The reality star, 32, looked incredible in a figure hugging brown maxi dress as she supproted her sibling at the unveiling of her new children's nightwear and baby collection. Billie, who is expecting her third child with husband Greg Shepherd, elevated her frame in the sleeveless number in a pair of leather beige boots. Looking good: Billie Shepherd showcased her blossoming baby bump as she attended her sister Sam Faiers' Knightley's Adventures launch at The Ivy on Tuesday She opted for a radiant bronze palette of makeup showcasing her beauty and styled her shoulder length blonde tresses framing her face. Billie posed alongside her sister Sam, 31, for the launch of her latest children's clothing collecton for Autumn/Winter 2022. The Mummy Diaries star beamed as she cut a casual figure in a crisp white blazer over a round neck T-shirt which he teamed with blue jeans. Bumping along nicely: The reality star, 32, looked incredible in a figure hugging brown maxi dress as she cradled her growing tummy at The Ivy Soho Brasserie Stunning: The blonde beauty, who is expecting her third child with husband Greg Shepherd, elevated her frame in the sleeveless number in a pair of leather beige boots Amazing: She opted for a radiant bronze palette of makeup showcasing her beauty and styled her shoulder length blonde tresses framing her face Sisters: Billie posed alongside her sister Sam, 31, for the launch of her latest children's clothing collecton for Autumn/Winter 2022 Elevating her frame in a pair of eye-catching fur heels, Sam placed a caring hand on Billie's baby bump as they beamed alongside each other. The sisters were joined by their stylish mum Suzie Wells who looked chic in a white jumper and midi skirt. The proud mum boasted her height in nude heels and styled her brunette tresses in loose waves while posing up a storm with her daughters. Chic: The Mummy Diaries star beamed donning a crisp white blazer over a round neck T-shirt which he teamed with blue jeans Incredible: Elevating her frame in an eye catching pair of brown fur heels as she held her youngest child Edward Sensational: Sam placed a caring hand on Billie's bump as they beamed alongside each other Family snap: The sisters were joined by their stylish mum Suzie Wells who looked chic in a white jumper and midi skirt Sam and Billie were joined at the event by their former TOWIE co-star Jessica Wright who carried her baby son Presley. The reality star, 36, stunned in a nude blazer and trouser co-ord which she wore over a beige bodysuit. Jessica coordinated with her son, who she gave birth to in May, and kept her look casual in a pair of white chunky trainers. All smiles: The proud mum boasted her height in nude heels and styled her brunette tresses in loose waves while posing up a storm with her daughters The TV personality was joined by her mother Carol Wright who looked incredible in a green plunging maxi dress with a glittering gold blazer. Billie greeted old pal Jessica as she gushed over her son in a sweet snap at the event. Billie and Greg shared the happy news they are expecting a third child in June while enjoying a family holiday in Abu Dhabi. Gang: Blogger Claudia Allen, Billie, Sam and Jessica Wright (L-R) posed for photographers Former co-stars: The reality star, 36, stunned in a nude blazer and trouser co-ord which she wore over a beige bodysuit as she posed with Sam New mum: Jessica coordinated with her son, who she gave birth to in May, and kept her look casual in a pair of white chunky trainers Glam: The TV personality carried Presley and was joined by her mother Carol Wright who looked incredible in a green plunging maxi dress with a glittering gold blazer Exciting: Billie greeted old pal Jessica as she gushed over her son in a sweet snap at the event The couple have been together since September 2011 and got engaged while on holiday in the Maldives in 2014. Billie and Greg returned to the Indian Ocean island paradise for their wedding, tying the knot in March 2019. Meanwhile Sam was joined at her launch by her youngest child Edward, who she welcomed in May. Sam and her partner Paul Knightley, 33, have been together since 2014 and share children, Paul, six, and Rosie, four. Coordinated: Jessica couldn't contain her smile as she posed alongside pregnant Billie and Presley Adorable: Sam was joined at her launch by her youngest child Edward PDA: Sam, who also shares Paul, six, and Rosie, four, with her partner Paul Knightly, placed a loving kiss on Edward's cheek Lara Stone looked effortlessly chic as she attended the Alexander McQueen SS23 show at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on Tuesday. The model, 38, showed off her sense of style in a pretty lilac dress as she was joined by her handsome husband David Grievson for the fashion event. The number had stylish double strap detailing and was cinched in at the waist to show off her figure before puffing out into the skirt. Fashion: Lara Stone looked effortlessly chic as she attended the Alexander McQueen SS23 show at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich on Tuesday with her handsome husband David Grievson She boosted her height with strappy buckled heels and toted a matching leather bag while donning trendy shades for the sunny day. Lara, who wed the property developer in 2020, wore her long blonde tresses in a poker-straight style and opted for a glowing makeup look to show off her naturally pretty features. Meanwhile David, 40, cut a dapper figure in a navy suit, white shirt and spotted tie as he put his arm around his stunning wife. Stepping out: The model, 38, showed off her sense of style in a pretty lilac dress as she was joined by her dapper partner It comes after Lara's ex-husband David Walliams has revealed why he wants to keep his son Alfred, nine, out of the spotlight. Although David and Lara both have high-profile careers, they came to the decision they want their son to be able to grow up just like other kids. Speaking to HELLO! Magazine, David said: 'I knew what I was getting into, this is what I signed up to. Making a television programme, being in the spotlight is unavoidable and if you're a kid, it must be quite hard.' He was married to supermodel Lara from 2010-2015 and the pair, who now co-parent Alfred, have always been extremely private when it comes to Alfred and only post pictures with his face covered on social media. Love life: Lara confirmed her engagement to David in February 2020, after two years of dating (pictured in June 2022) David explained the reason behind it: 'You don't know what they going to want to do with their lives. They might choose to do something completely private, in which case, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to being in the spotlight.' David admitted he is trying to take tips from his Britain's Got Talent co-star Alesha Dixon and praised her for being a good mother. He said: 'She's very engaged with the kids. When you see her around her children you understand why they adore her so much. 'We were recently in Australia doing 'Australia's Got Talent' and her whole family were there' her sister, her partner's brother and everything. She's a very family-oriented person and she obviously adores her kids.' Matthew McConaughey spoke about his experience of working through the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The movie star sat down with Esquire, which was published on Tuesday, for a wide-ranging interview. The 52-year-old performer discussed his return to his hometown in Texas to help locals process the effects of the tragic incident and his subsequent trip to Washington, D.C. to take part in gun control advocacy. The Academy Award-winning performer also revealed his views about the issue, and expressed that, although he supported the Second Amendment, 'gun violence cannot be America's status quo.' Tough issues: Matthew McConaughey spoke about his experience of working through the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, during an interview with Esquire that was published on Tuesday McConaughey began by sharing that he and his wife Camila, 40, instantly felt as if they needed to spend time in Uvalde immediately following the school shooting. 'We had no sense of how long we'd go for, nor a plan beyond showing up. But we knew that if we did, purpose would intercept us,' he said. The Dallas Buyers Club actor went on to remark that, although he was already upset at the state of gun violence in the country, the shooting in his hometown left a lasting impression on him. 'I'm sickened by the spate of mass shootings in America...but this time felt different, more personal,' the A Time To Kill actor said. Making a difference: McConaughey began by expressing that he and his wife Camila, 40, instantly felt as if they needed to spend time in Uvalde immediately following the school shooting McConaughey recalled that, after he and his wife traveled to the town and met with the residents whose children were killed in the shooting, they asked the individuals to share their favorite anecdotes about their loved ones. 'That's when smiles began to appear alongside their tears. Fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters reveled in sharing the passions, dreams, and affections of their loved ones who were alive just days earlier,' he said. The Magic Mike actor added: 'In these moments, the families were not mourning the death of their child so much as they were honoring the love of their child's life.' McConaughey went on to speak about his support for the Second Amendment, although he remarked that he was particularly concerned for the implications that it had for the rest of the country. Mixed feelings: McConaughey went on to speak about his support for the Second Amendment, although he remarked that he was particularly concerned for the implications that it had for the rest of the country 'It seems we have forgotten that our rights come with obligationswhat's more, that our rights depend on our fulfillment of those obligations,' he said. The actor then recalled that he and his wife decided to travel to Washington, D.C. with 'no concrete plan other than to knock on Senator Mitch McConnell's door and hopefully land a meeting.' McConaughey then described a dinner he hosted for members of both the House and the Senate, and recalled that having them discuss things they were grateful for endeared them to one another. 'This group of lawmakers got to know one another in ways they never had before. Their apertures of understanding opened just a bit wider,' he said. Crossing the lines: McConaughey then described a dinner he hosted for members of both the House and the Senate, and recalled that having them discuss things they were grateful for endeared them to one another The performer went on to describe a meeting he had with President Joe Biden prior to appearing at a press conference and illustrated the politician's concern about gun violence. 'I remember the clench in his molars as he said, "We cannot allow these mass shootings to become status quo in America." Amen, Mr. President,' he said. McConaughey stated that, in the subsequent meetings he had with various lawmakers, the effects of the incident in Uvalde were apparent. 'It was clear there was a bipartisan consensus around what the president had expressed...The inaction of the past could not continue. Even the hardcore [Second Amendment] defenders agreed something had to be done,' he stated. Lasting impression: McConaughey stated that, in the subsequent meetings he had with various lawmakers, the effects of the incident in Uvalde were apparent; he is seen during a White House press conference in June The performer wrote that 'people kept telling me that whether or not I realized it, I was serving as a broker. In many of our meetings, I seemed to be getting traction.' McConaughey then celebrated the passing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and stated: 'For the first time in 28 years, our leaders acted to improve our gun laws, thereby making our country safer.' The performer went on to express his opinion about the modern state of politics and the issues of a two-party system. 'It seems that each party is so harmfully consumed by despising the opposition that they've become little more than counterpunchersso focused on the parry and the party defense that they've become reactive by default,' he said. Ecstatic: McConaughey then celebrated the passing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and stated that 'for the first time in twenty-eight years, our leaders acted to improve our gun laws, thereby making our country safer' He then remarked that 'most Americans, myself included, don't stand on the political fringes. We are reasonable and responsible, and we share more values than we're being told we do.' McConaughey added: 'To heal our democracyto save itour elected officials must apply a similarly bipartisan approach to countless other issues. An approach that recognizes that no one party owns the particular values it poses to possess.' The performer concluded by commenting that his trips to Uvalde and Washington, D.C. had greatly changed him as an individual. 'I've said before that sometimes you have to go back to actually move forward...or, more simply, just come back home,' he said. New York State Assembly member Ron Kim, fifth from left, Korea's Consul General of the Republic of Korea in New York Chung Byung-hwa, second from right, and Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) CEO Kim Choon-jin, seventh from left, and other dignitaries celebrate the passage of Kimchi Day Resolution at the New York State Assembly at the New York State Capitol in Albany, New York, May 24. Courtesy of Ron Kim 5-term NY Korean-American assemblyman stresses sense of identity, culture By Lee Kyung-min Ron Kim, or Ronald Tae-sok Kim, a five-term member of the New York State Assembly from the 40th district, said embracing kimchi, a fermented Korean dish, is about developing an elevated sense of identity and culture, a point of pride increasingly appreciated and celebrated not only by Koreans but also people of Korean heritage. Kim was instrumental in designating Nov. 22 as Kimchi Day in the U.S., currently recognized in four states: New York, Virginia, California and Washington D.C. The fermented side dish with a strong smell has long been a source of ridicule and therefore shame for Korean Americans. However, the more people become open to recognizing it as a part of who they are and where they came from, the deeper and faster the shame turns into gratitude, a completely different way of perceiving self and by extension how others view and treat them. The new approach gradually but surely, in his view, will change people's microaggressions, a deeply scarring experience with lasting traumatic implications. Passive aggression, microaggressions "The act of microaggression is more detrimental to young people," Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times, Sept. 23. "It's deeply psychological. It's not a direct threat but a subtle one." Kim put forward, as an example, people making fun of stereotypes based on the ubiquity of Asian proprietors, including Koreans, as dry cleaning business owners in America. However, he believes that such attitudes will increasingly have no place, as evidenced by immense changes in the way people have begun to perceive him, and other Asians, over the past decade. "When I got first elected in 2012, someone asked me if I could dance like Psy, a Korean entertainer, just to make fun of me, on purpose. But never again can they do that anymore. There has been a huge change in the last ten years. If these changes can be achieved this fast, coupled with the Korean brand, it will be a whole different world of things." Ron Kim speaks during an interview with The Korea Times, Sept. 23. Courtesy of Ron Kim Jordana Brewster shared a very rare photo taken in her large walk-in closet in her Los Angeles home. The 42-year-old brunette beauty shared looked incredibly toned in a black bikini that made the most of her midsection. Her hair was wet and she appeared to be makeup free for the selfie. The looker, who is best known for her work in the Fast And Furious franchise, just returned from a vacation in Santa Barbara, California following her wedding to Mason Morfit. Always in top shape: Jordana Brewster shared a very rare photo taken in her large walk-in closet in her Los Angeles home. The brunette beauty shared looked incredibly toned in a black bikini that made the most of her midsection Jordana was a vision of beach style as she had on the little suit that flashed her very toned tummy. The top had one shoulder strap and the briefs were scalloped and rode very low on her hips. She upped the glam factor with a rose gold necklace. Her walk-in closet was huge and it included a vanity area that had her pens, collectables, and her Louis Vuitton purse. The glam life: Her walk-in closet was huge and it included a vanity area that had her pens, collectables, and her Louis Vuitton purse Behind her were cabinets and several shelves for her shoes. Jordana tied the knot with Mason, her second husband, at the start of this month at a Santa Monica ceremony strewn with cars used in the Fast And Furious films. Meadow Walker, the daughter of Jordana's late Fast And Furious co-star Paul Walker, was one of the guests at the glamorous occasion. Beach gal: The 42-year-old looker, who is best known for her work in the Fast And Furious franchise, just returned from a vacation in Santa Barbara, California following her wedding to Mason Morfit Mommy: Jordana is a proud mother of two sons - Julian, nine, and Rowan, six - whom she shares with her ex-husband Andrew Form. Form has gone on to marry actress Alexandra Daddario in June of this year Jordana is a proud mother of two sons - Julian, nine, and Rowan, six - whom she shares with her ex-husband Andrew Form. Form has gone on to marry actress Alexandra Daddario in June of this year. Jordana's romance with Mason went public in mid-July 2020 just weeks after she filed for divorce from Andrew after 13 years of marriage. Andrew and Jordana initially became an item through her 2006 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, on which Andrew was a producer. Jamie Lee Curtis cried after watching her Halloween Ends co-star Kyle Richards become a 'wreck' in the emotional trailer for The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills 12th season reunion last Friday. 'I'm really not okay right now,' the 53-year-old reality star cried to executive producer Andy Cohen in the preview. 'I don't want to sit here for the toast. Can I leave?' During the 12-hour shoot for the three-part reunion - airing this Wednesday on Bravo - Kyle shared bristly exchanges with her half-sister Kathy Hilton and castmates Erika 'Jayne' Girardi and Crystal Kung Minkoff. Supportive: Jamie Lee Curtis (R) cried after watching her Halloween Ends co-star Kyle Richards (L) become a 'wreck' in the emotional trailer for The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills 12th season reunion last Friday '[Jamie] actually called me this morning. We both get up really early, like ridiculously early, like 4:30 in the morning,' Richards told TooFab on Monday. 'And she was like, "I saw the trailer for the reunion, and I cried. It really hurt me to see you like that. You are a good person." She starts giving me this pep talk, and she's very important to me. She's very special.' The 63-year-old Emmy nominee is familiar with the storylines having appeared on the July 20th episode to promote her My Hand In Yours company to raise funds for Children's Hospital LA. 'She was like, "This is crazy. Now, I get why the fans love your show so much, this is unbelievable,"' the Hollywood-born socialite recalled. The 53-year-old reality star cried to executive producer Andy Cohen in the preview: 'I'm really not okay right now. I don't want to sit here for the toast. Can I leave?' Airing this Wednesday on Bravo! During the 12-hour shoot for the three-part reunion, Kyle shared bristly exchanges with her half-sister Kathy Hilton and castmates Erika 'Jayne' Girardi and Crystal Kung Minkoff Richards told TooFab on Monday: '[Jamie] actually called me this morning...and she was like, "I saw the trailer for the reunion, and I cried. It really hurt me to see you like that. You are a good person." She starts giving me this pep talk, and she's very important to me. She's very special' 'She got a little insight to that when she came onto the Housewives too. She was like, "Now I get why people are so intrigued. I can't believe this is all real. Like, you all are nuts."' Kyle was famously only nine years old when she originated the role of Lindsey Wallace opposite Jamie in John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic Halloween. Richards and Curtis will conclude their respective roles in David Gordon Green's final slasher Halloween Ends, which hits US/UK theaters this Friday. 'Jamie always says we're survivors of Michael Myers, and we're survivors of Hollywood. And you know, all these years we've become closer and closer,' the former child star gushed. 'She was like, "This is crazy. Now, I get why the fans love your show so much"': The 63-year-old Emmy nominee is familiar with the storylines having appeared on the July 20th episode to promote her My Hand In Yours company to raise funds for Children's Hospital LA 'Jamie always says we're survivors of Michael Myers, and we're survivors of Hollywood': The LA-born socialite (R) was famously only nine years old when she originated the role of Lindsey Wallace opposite Jamie (M) in John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic Halloween Hitting US/UK theaters this Friday! Richards and Curtis will conclude their respective roles in David Gordon Green's final slasher Halloween Ends Kyle gushed: 'Working with her as an adult actor, across from her, it just felt so great, and it felt so natural and so easy. We just loved it, and it was such a fun time that we were making these movies together' 'And you know, working with her as an adult actor, across from her, it just felt so great, and it felt so natural and so easy. We just loved it, and it was such a fun time that we were making these movies together.' Kyle is looking forward to celebrating Halloween at her $8.25M Encino estate with second husband Mauricio Umansky and her four daughters - Farrah Aldjufrie, 33; Alexia Umansky, 26; Sophia Umansky, 22; and Portia Umansky, 14. 'My eldest daughter was born on Halloween, Farrah,' Richards noted. 'So between being a mom of four kids and my daughter's birthday and Halloween, we always do a big thing on Halloween. While I'm here in New York, my daughters are home decorating the house for Halloween. I just saw, like, purple and orange lights all over the inside of my living room everywhere. I was like, "Oh, okay, I guess I'm coming home to a haunted house!"' July 11 family portrait: The former child star is looking forward to celebrating Halloween at her $8.25M Encino estate with second husband Mauricio Umansky and her four daughters - Farrah Aldjufrie, 33; Alexia Umansky, 26; Sophia Umansky, 22; and Portia Umansky, 14 Brendan Fraser was proudly supported by his glamorous partner Jeanne Moore as he graced the red carpet for the UK premiere of The Whale on the seventh day of the BFI London Film Festival on Tuesday. The actor, 53, who has earned critical acclaim for his performance in the psychological drama, cut a dapper figure as he posed alongside director Darren Aronofsky and screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter. Meanwhile Jeanne, who made her first public appearance with Brendan at the Venice Film Festival last month, opted for a glamorous electric blue gown. Picture perfect: Brendan Fraser was proudly supported by his glamorous partner Jeanne Moore at the UK premiere of The Whale at the BFI London Film Festival on Tuesday Brendan opted for a suave display in a black suit as he walked the red carpet at London's Royal Festival Hall. Meanwhile Jeanne opted for a plunging blue gown with a dramatic skirt and beaded detailing, accessorising with a navy blue clutch bag. Since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month, The Whale has earned rave reviews from critics, and has kickstarted Brendan's comeback after he stepped out of the spotlight following struggles with depression. Looking smart: The actor cut a dapper figure in a smart black suit, while Jeanne opted for a plunging electric blue gown Well-received: The Whale is a psychological drama which saw Brendan undergo a physical transformation, as well as wear prosthetics to play a man 'living with obesity' In footage shared on social media following the film's screening, Brendan fought back tears as he received a lengthy standing ovation. The movie marks the legendary star's comeback after grappling with depression following a claim of sexual assault and being in and out of hospital for health issues. The Whale is a psychological drama which saw Brendan undergo a physical transformation, as he plays a 600-pound gay man confined to a wheelchair, a role for which he also had to wear prosthetics. Its official synopsis reads: 'A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.' Here they are! Joining Brendan (centre) for the premiere was The Whale's director Darren Aronofsky (left) and screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter (right) Grand return: Since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month, The Whale has earned rave reviews from critics, and has kickstarted Brendan's comeback He's back! The film is set to hit theaters on December 9, and marks Brendan's first lead role in a movie since straight-to-DVD thriller Breakout in 2013 The film is set to hit theaters on December 9, and marks Brendan's first lead role in a movie since straight-to-DVD thriller Breakout in 2013, leading many fans to believe this is his comeback. Fraser shot to stardom when he was cast in children's favourite film franchises George of the Jungle and The Mummy. His unbelievably chiselled physique earnt him a position as a Hollywood heartthrob as he thrashed around the sets performing stunts in high-action roles. But Fraser revealed in a later interview the toll the stunts had taken on his body. Family trip: Actor Robert Lindsay was joined by his son Sam at the gala premiere, which took place on the seventh day of the London Film Festival He told GQ in 2018 that when he filmed the third installment in The Mummy franchise, he was being taped up and was icing injuries in between takes. Speaking from his home in Bedford, New York, he said the physical toll of his roles made him feel like a workhorse from the Orwell novel Animal Farm. After rising to fame through the action-packed films, Fraser described his buff physique as resembling 'a walking steak'. However, in the same interview the actor revealed he believed he had been blacklisted from Hollywood after he claimed he had been sexually assaulted by the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Philip Berk, in 2003. Fraser claimed he was leaving a luncheon hosted by the HFPA at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Hollywood when Berk shook his hand. Fraser said: 'His left hand reaches around, grabs my a** cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around.' Emotional: In footage shared on social media following the film's screening in Venice, Brenda fought back tears as he received a lengthy standing ovation Happy: Brendan was in good spirits as he posed with the film's creative team at the premiere Shocking; Brendan had previously revealed he believed he had been blacklisted from Hollywood after he claimed he had been sexually assaulted He added: 'I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry.' Fraser claimed he was able to remove Berk's hand before running out of the hotel and going straight home. He told his then wife, Afton Smith, about the incident but never made it public. Instead, his reps asked Berk for a written apology, which he provided, but did not admit any wrongdoing. Speaking to GQ about the claims, Berk acknowledged he had written a letter of apology to Fraser but insisted he had not done anything wrong and dismissed Fraser's account as 'a total fabrication'. After Fraser reported the claim to the HFPA he said he believed he may have been 'blacklisted' and was rarely invited back to the Golden Globe awards. Fraser said the incident had caused him to 'retreat' as he spiraled into depression. He described feeling 'not worthy' as the decade wore on, leading him to take roles he was less proud of. Chris Pine is embracing his gray hair. The 42-year-old Wonder Woman actor showed off his silver locks with a new short haircut and groomed beard when out on Saturday. The star was attending the 2022 Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Gala. He was co-hosting the event alongside his father. In the past, he has had long blond hair that has gone to his shoulders. New man: Chris Pine is embracing his gray hair. The Wonder Woman actor showed off his silver locks with a new short haircut and groomed beard when out on Saturday New Chris vs old Chris: In the past he has had longer hair that fell to his shoulders In the past he has had longer hair that fell to his shoulders. In September he was seen clean shaven with his hair worn down and straight., After attributing his bearded look to 'laziness' during an interview with ET in March, the 42-year-old Star Trek actor cut a handsome figure in a white dress shirt, red trousers and a brown leather belt at the Venice Film Festival. Following a gondola ride through the calm water in Venice, Italy with his Don't Worry Darling costar Gemma Chan, the Wonder Woman star looked hunkier than ever after cutting his long hair. New event with pops: The star was attending the 2022 Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Gala. He was co-hosting the event alongside his father Sitting pretty: Here they are seated at the Los Angeles Gala at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California His handsome Southern California look contrasted to his role as Darren Barrenman in Poolman, which he directed, produced and co-wrote. When spotted on the set of the mystery comedy film in Los Angeles' Chinatown neighborhood in June, Pine shocked fans while sporting a bushy gray beard and long blonde hair. For the scene of the day, the costume department dressed him up in a striped shirt that was tucked into gray pleated pants, both of which were contrasted with a set of white shoes. He's back! Pine has sheared off his scruffy beard and reverted back to his clean-shaven look, three months after stepping out rocking a noticeably different facial hair style while filming his directorial debut, Poolman Looking good! Pine appeared tan and handsome on his latest outing at the photo call for Don't Worry Darling during the 79th Venice International Film Festival The performer accessorized with $213 Ray-Ban 'RB2140 Original Wayfarer Classic' sunglasses, a beige hat and a red bandana that was worn around his neck for the duration of his time on set shooting alongside co-star Danny DeVito. The movie, which Pine co-wrote with Ian Gotler, also stars Annette Bening, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ariana DeBose and DeWanda Wise. The story follows 'a man tending to a swimming pool who uncovers a sizeable water heist,' one in the same vein as Roman Polanski's neo-noir mystery drama film Chinatown (1974), that starred Jack Nicolson and Faye Dunaway. Now we're talking! Pine looked his most dashing at the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium in 2019 'Because I'd been thinking about it for so f***ing long, it just seemed like a thing that I would be directing,' Pine told Deadline of his decision to direct Poolman, which came about while out to dinner with director Patty Jenkins and her husband. Pine's other films set to premiere by 2023 include the comedy Doula, the psychological-thriller Don't Worry Darling and the actionadventure comedy Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Earlier this year, he joked about his salt-and-pepper beard and longer locks being 'equal parts laziness and equal parts something I may do in the future here.' In the UK contact, Rape Crisis on 0808 802 9999 on contact the service using their online chat function If you have been affected by this story, in the US contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800-656-4673 or visit Paris Hilton has claimed she was sexually abused after being forced to undergo cervical exams performed by staff members in the early hours of the morning while attending a Utah boarding school for troubled teens in the 1990s. The reality star, 41, said her childhood was 'stolen' by the alleged abuse at Provo Canyon School where she spent 11 months when she was 17 years old. Speaking to the New York Times, Paris, who has campaigned to regulate 'troubled teen centers' since initially going public in 2020 with alleged physical and mental abuse incidents at the school in 2020, said she had tried to 'black out' the reported incidents. She said: 'Very late at night this would be around three or four in the morning they would take myself and other girls into this room, and they would perform medical exams. 'This wasn't even with a doctor. It was with a couple different staff members, where they would have us lay on the table and put their fingers inside of us. And I don't know what they were doing, but it was definitely not a doctor and it was really scary 'It was really scary, and its something that I really had blocked out for many years. But its coming back all the time now, and I think about it. And now, looking back as an adult, that was definitely sexual abuse.' Devastating: Paris Hilton has detailed alleged sexual abuse she endured while attending a Utah boarding school for troubled teens in the 1990s Tragic: The reality star, 41, said her childhood was 'stolen' by the alleged abuse at Provo Canyon School where she spent 11 months aged 17 (pictured aged 18l) Its known as the troubled teen industry. Spread across the U.S., these facilities and programs are supposed to help children with mental health and behavioral issues. In reality, it is harming many of them. https://t.co/bCBYEdpVYm pic.twitter.com/qvm3LZ8oth New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) October 11, 2022 Paris further detailed the alleged incidents on Twitter, writing: 'Sleep-deprived & heavily medicated, I didn't understand what was happening. 'I was forced to lie on a padded table, spread my legs & submit to cervical exams. I cried while they held me down & said,"No!" They just said, "Shut up. Be quiet. Stop struggling or you'll go to Obs."' 'It's important to open up about these painful moments so I can heal & help put an end to this abuse. Campaign: Paris has campaigned for the school's closure since 2020 'This was a recurring experience not only for me but for other #survivors. I was violated & I am crying as I type this because no one, especially a child, should be sexually abused. My childhood was stolen from me & it kills me this is still happening to other innocent children.' She tweeted Universal Health Services, who purchased Provo Canyon School in 2000, the year after her alleged abuse, urging them to shut down the center. She wrote: 'Stop prioritizing profit over people @UHS_Inc. I demand you take immediate action starting by shutting down Provo Canyon School by April 1st, 2023. 'END CHILD ABUSE AT UHS or retweet if you agree. #ShutDownPCS #UHSTakeAction #EndChildAbuse Paris appeared alongside other young people who had been sent to similar centers as teenagers, in a series titled: 'Can You Punish A Child's Mental Health Problems Away? DailyMail.com has contacted representatives for the school for comment. The teen treatment center, where a 12-month stay costs up to $300,000, has faced previous accusations of beating, drugging and sexually abusing its clients. The socialite first slammed the institution in her 2020 documentary This Is Paris and succeeded in pushing for new, tighter regulation on schools for troubled teens. Testifying to Utah lawmakers in February 2021, the hotel heiress said she was 'verbally, mentally and physically abused on a daily basis' at Provo Canyon. Twitter: The star gave further details of the alleged abuse in a Twitter thread 'I was cut off from the outside world and stripped of all of my human rights. I was not allowed to be myself, hold my own opinions or even speak. Without a diagnosis I was forced to consume medication that made me feel numb and exhausted. I didn't breathe fresh air or see the sunlight for 11 months,' she said. 'Children were restrained, hit, thrown into walls, strangled and sexually abused regularly at Provo I could not report this because all communication with my family was monitored and censored. 'That was the worst of the worst There's no getting out of there. You're sitting on a chair and staring at a wall all day long, getting yelled at or getting hit.' The socialite slammed the institution in her 2020 documentary This Is Paris and succeeded in pushing for new, tighter regulation on schools for troubled teens. The Times claims Universal Health Services still faces numerous lawsuits, with one suit - in which 49 plaintiffs are named - more than two dozen people have claimed to have been sexually abused by a former medical director. The teen treatment center, where a 12-month stay costs up to $300,000, has faced previous accusations of beating, drugging and sexually abusing its clients Paris has campaigned for the school's closure since going public with her allegations. In August 2021, Universal Health Services was sued over the alleged 'torture' and 'sexual abuse' of another student. Aaron Ross was 13 when he was sent to Provo Canyon School in Utah in 2001, where he claims a staff member forced him to perform oral sex on them a dozen times under threat of starvation, locked him in solitary confinement for weeks, and made him sit for weeks at a desk facing the wall. The lawsuit accused the school of practicing 'a myriad of maltreatment including physical, verbal and sexual abuse, chemical sedation and isolation, vigorous labor, the use of physical restraints, food and sleep deprivation and humiliation, amongst others, some of which the Geneva Convention banned as being too extreme for prisoners of war.' It said Provo Canyon is among the 'worst of the worst' of allegedly abusive schools, highlighting Hilton's campaign to tighten laws monitoring institutions for troubled teens, her alleged abuse at Provo Canyon, and hundreds of police and regulator investigations there over assaults, sex offences and child abuse since 2012. In March 2021, the Utah Legislature approved the SB127 bill backed by Paris to enact more regulations on the state's 'troubled teen' centers. A spokesman for Provo Canyon School told Dailymail.com: ' Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. 'We therefore cannot comment on the operations or student experience prior to that time. What we can say is that the school provides a structured environment teaching life-skills, providing behavioral health therapy, and continuing education for youth who come to us with pre-existing and complex emotional, behavioral and psychiatric needs. 'These youths have not been successful in typical home and school environments, and in many cases have a history of engaging in dangerous behaviors such as self-harming and/or attempting suicide, physical violence and/or aggression toward others, and use of illicit substances. 'While we acknowledge there are individuals over the many years who believe they were not helped by the program, we are heartened by the many stories former residents share about how their stay was a pivot point in improving and in many cases, saving their lives. 'Provo Canyon School today is an intensive, psychiatric residential treatment center for youth between the ages of 8 and 18. We offer innovative, evidence-based therapeutic interventions, academic instruction and life-skills training tailored to the needs of each of our students. 'Our treatment is holistic in natureand supports wellness strategies including education, physical activity, nutritious foods and appropriate structured outdoor time. Over the last two decades, mental health treatment has evolved from a behaviors-based foundation to a personalized, trauma-informed approach. 'We work with extremely complex individuals who often present a danger to themselves and others. 'Provo Canyon School is committed to the safety of our students and staff. Provo Canyon School DOES NOT use solitary confinement as a form of intervention. Licensed physicians prescribe medication as necessary to assist residents in addressing their mental health related diagnoses. 'The students and their families are informed of changes to prescription medications and participate in decision-making about medications. Provo Canyon School physicians DO NOT prescribe or use any medication as a means of discipline. The infrequent use of medications to assist a student in gaining control is within the standard of care and the requirements in Utah code. 'We do not use medication to sedate, render a student immobile or restrict them in their ability to continue to engage actively in their care. Provo Canyon School provides every student with a survey upon discharge that rates their overall experience and provides the facility with feedback. 'Out of 1,651 discharged students from Provo Canyon School between January 2018 - June 2022, 88% responded to the survey, providing a score of 4.88 out of 5 overall on the student satisfaction rating scale. 'In 2018, Student Satisfaction Survey Results reported: 99.7% of students report that they feel better at discharge than when admitted 99.1% of students report that overall they were very satisfied with their treatment 97.8% of students report that they would recommend the facility to someone needing treatment 99.4% of students report that they felt safe while they were there 99.4% of students report that they were treated with dignity and respect. In 2019, Student Satisfaction Survey Results reported: 99.2% of students report that they feel better at discharge than when admitted 98.9% of students report that overall they were very satisfied with their treatment 98.2% of students report that they would recommend the facility to someone needing treatment 99.2% of student report that they felt safe while they were there 99.2% of students report that they were treated with dignity and respect. In 2020, Student Satisfaction Survey Results reported: 99.7% of students report that they feel better at discharge than when admitted 100% of students report that overall they were very satisfied with their treatment 100% of students report that they felt safe while they were there 98.4% of student report that they were treated with dignity and respect In 2021, Student Satisfaction Survey Results reported: 100% of students report that they feel better at discharge than when admitted 100% of students report that overall they were very satisfied with my treatment 99.7% of students report that they felt safe while they were here. 100% of students report that they were treated with dignity and respect According to YTD June 2022 Student Satisfaction Survey Results: 100% of students report that they feel better at discharge than when admitted 100% of students report that overall they were very satisfied with my treatment 99.5% of students report that they felt safe while they were here. 98.9% of students report that they were treated with dignity and respect. 'Provo Canyon School is highly regulated by multiple agencies and organizations. Provo Canyon School is licensed by the State of Utah, Department of Human Services; it is accredited by The Joint Commission (national accreditation of health care organizations including psychiatric residential treatment centers) and Cognia/AdvancED for academic services. Emotional: Hilton opened up about the alleged abuse she experienced at Provo Canyon School in her documentary released in 2020 'On average, our facility receives 20-30 independent onsite audits annually by highly qualified, professional auditors. We are required by law and contract to report any significant, negative finding to all our regulatory agencies to which we are responsible, as well as required by contract to report to all funding agencies. We do not condone or promote any form of abuse. 'Any and all alleged/suspected abuse is reported immediately to our state regulatory authorities, law enforcement and Child Protective Services, as required. We are committed to providing high-quality care to youth with special, and often complex, emotional, behavioral and psychiatric needs. We are concerned that the current media coverage may increase the stigma around seeking help for behavioral health concerns. 'This would be a disservice if it leads people away from seeking necessary care and increases the stigma around mental health that providers, organizations, advocates and members of the public have worked so hard and made much progress over the years to break. 'Thousands of youth with behavioral health issues have been helped over the years at Provo Canyon School. Although the vast majority of students report benefiting from the care they received at Provo Canyon School, occasionally some students do not believe their treatment was successful. 'We cannot comment on individuals treatment, care or allegations due to privacy laws but will reiterate that we are committed to providing high-quality care in a compassionate, safe environment. Ultimately, the value our clinicians and staff provide is evidenced by their ability to improve and save lives. 'As related to recent legislation, Provo Canyon School is in support of Utah Senate Bill 127. We are supportive of the additional transparency the legislation requires. As always, our singular goal is student safety. 'As a matter of policy and procedure, we have always operated within the requirements of our reporting obligations. Leadership and staff of Provo Canyon School are highly committed to providing effective treatment, compassionate care and a nurturing environment for the students and families we serve. 'We welcome collaborative discussion, change and opportunity to enhance the care and services provided in our level of residential care. We seek to be transparent in our operations and practices as far as it also ensures the rights, respect and dignity of the students we treat. If you have been affected by this story, in the US contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800-656-4673 or visit www.rainn.org In the UK contact, Rape Crisis on 0808 802 9999 on contact the service using their online chat function. Nicole Ari Parker was seen wearing an elaborate headpiece and flowing red gown on the set of And Just Like That... The 52-year-old star was photographed in the showstopping look while filming the second season of the hit series in Manhattan on Tuesday. Nicole documented the major fashion moment on her Instagram, posting a reel of her getting ready behind the scenes. Showstopper: Nicole Ari Parker, 52, was seen wearing an elaborate headpiece and flowing red gown on the set of And Just Like That... in Manhattan on Tuesday Red goddess: Nicole's celestial beauty was hard to ignore as she filmed an emotional scene for the second season of the hit HBO Max show 'Tuesday at work,' she captioned the reel, going on to describe the glamorous process as simply 'Unreal....' The Chicago P.D. star also gave shout-outs to the Sex and the City revival and its costume department. She reserved a special thank you for the couture look's Italian fashion designer. 'Grazie Signore Piccioli,' wrote Nicole, thanking the creative director of Valentino with a heart emoji. The incredible Valentino dress featured a flowing train and low neckline while the extravagant headpiece came from the legendary hat designer Philip Treacy. The haute couture creations immediately earned praise in Nicole's comments section. Her And Just Like That... costar Sarita Choudhury who plays the vivacious real estate broker Seema Patel in the series commented, 'What the.....?!!!! Amaaaazing.' Trailing glamor: The star's incredible Valentino dress featured a flowing train and low neckline while the extravagant headpiece came from the legendary hat designer Philip Treacy The statuesque and striking Ari Parker plays Lisa Todd Wexley in the hit HBO Max show. Her character is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and mother of three young children who befriends Charlotte York after their children take piano lessons together. Nicole's glamorous character of Lisa is one of the many examples of the revival series moving away from its all-white past with Sex and the City and embracing diversity. The Empire stunner has shared her views on the hot-button topic after many fans criticized the show's first season for being 'too woke' and clumsy when it came to representing people of color. 'They did it right,' she told People in January. 'It wasn't just, they got a Black friend and we're watching them deal. They created characters who had full lives.' The transformation: The And Just Like That... star documented the major fashion moment on her Instagram, posting a reel of her getting ready behind the scenes. 'Tuesday at work,' she captioned the reel, going on to describe the glamorous process as simply 'Unreal....' Major fashion moment: The haute couture creations immediately earned praise in Nicole's comments section. Her And Just Like That... costar Sarita Choudhury who plays the vivacious real estate broker Seema Patel in the series commented, 'What the.....?!!!! Amaaaazing' Nicole went on to applaud the show's creative team for giving 'the people of color the same kind of awkwardness' as the show's three white leads. 'And that is a slight detail that I really appreciate,' she added, 'that it goes both ways.' Beyond her thriving career, the model and actress has been married to her Soul Food costar Boris Kodjoe, 49, since 2005. The couple share a daughter named Sophie, 17, and a son named Nicolas, 16. In an interview with Parle in 2017, Nicole shared that her secrets to maintaining a healthy relationship are the 'old-fashioned stuff' like 'food and you know what!' No premiere date has been released for the highly anticipated second season of the polarizing show, but fans of And Just Like That... will certainly be enticed by this latest look from Nicole as filming gets underway. She's gearing up for the biggest role of her life - motherhood. But Hilary Swank isn't letting that slow her down. The actress, 48, was spotted shooting the ABC series Alaska Daily in Vancouver, Canada on Monday, a week after announcing she and her husband Philip Schneider are expecting twins. Oh baby! Hilary Swank was spotted on the set of her new series Alaska Daily in Vancouver, Canada on Monday, a week after announcing her pregnancy She was spotted amongst film crew standing on a staircase with her midsection concealed beneath a brown sweater. Hilary also wore a jacket, tan slacks, and leather shoes. The Million Dollar Baby star rocked a head full of bouncy waves and a turquoise hued pendant necklace. Hilary, who plays a journalist working at a daily newspaper in Alaska, appeared to be shooting a scene in which she conducted an interview. Throwing herself into character: She was spotted amongst film crew standing on a staircase with her blossoming bump concealed beneath a brown sweater She had a notepad and pen in hand as she chatted with a woman wearing a black jacket. Hilary revealed her baby news last week on Good Morning America, announcing she was pregnant with twins. 'I'm gonna be a mom! And not just of one, but of two,' Hilary said on the morning program. 'It's so nice to be able to talk about it and share it,' the Boys Don't Cry actress added. Happy camper! The actress beamed with joy as she strolled down the staircase Who, what, where: Hilary, who plays a journalist working at a daily newspaper in Alaska, appeared to be shooting a scene in which she conducted an interview Soon after she clarified on Live With Kelly And Ryan that she is pregnant with the twins, though no baby bump could be seen. She is in her second trimester and remarked it all felt like a 'miracle.' On Instagram she pointed to her baby bump as she wrote, 'Coming soonDOUBLE feature!' Hilary is set to give birth on the same day as her late father Stephen Michael Swank's birthday. 'Theyre due on his birthday,' she said on The Drew Barrymore Show. Her eyes welled up with tears. 'Yeah, I know. Its like, [wow].' Stephen was born on April 16 and died in October 2021. Eddie Murphy was seen filming Beverly Hills Cop 4 in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The actor was reprising his role as Detective Axel Foley for the final installment of the franchise. Murphy was dressed in his characters favorite Detroit Lions NFL varsity jacket on the Los Angeles set Tuesday. The Coming to America actor wore a bright yellow T-shirt, jeans, and white shoes on the bustling set. Round four: Eddie Murphy is back on the set of Beverly Hills Cop 4, reprising his role as Detective Axel Foley in the action-comedy series Murphy has been joined on-set recently by two more power players who have been added to the cast, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Taylour Paige. Last week Murphy worked alongside Paige as they filmed a scene in a red BMW convertible. The talented beauty is known for her roles in Zola, Sharp Stick, and the late Chadwick Boseman's final movie, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Gordon-Levitt recently gained acclaim for his roles in Super Pumped and The Trial of the Chicago 7 making the 41-year-old actor one of the most in-demand actors. Same style: He wore the iconic NFL Detroit Lions jacket, T-shirt, and jeans as he raced around the bustling set alongside other stars such as actress Chloe Grace Moretz (not pictured) Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley continues the story of a Detroit cop who finds himself investigating major cases in Los Angeles Paul Riser who played Detective Jeffrey Friedman in the second installment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise was also spotted on the set last month. The 66-year-old Mad About You star has participated in a few reboots in his latter years and is expected to make a strong comeback in this film. Elsewhere Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are expected to reprise their respective roles as Detective William 'Billy' Rosewood and Sergeant John Taggart. Dream team: Murphy with former co-star Judge Reinhold in 1994 film Beverly Hills Cop III The original Beverly Hills Cop was released in 1984 and helped launched Murphy's career and introduced the story of a Detroit cop who finds himself investigating major cases in Los Angeles. In 1987, Beverly Hills Cop II hit the screen and followed the comedic Detective back to California to help his old colleagues Rosewood and Taggart investigate the shooting of Captain Bogomi. In the 1994 Beverly Hills Cop III plot, while investigating a car theft ring, Detective Foley came across the same men who killed his boss ran a counterfeit money ring out of a theme park in Los Angeles. Multiple films: Murphy first played Axel Foley in 1984 box-office smash Beverly Hills Cop (pictured) Tough road to filming: Fans are excited about seeing Murphy back in the role of Detective Foley after two decades of false starts and Netflix taking over the production rights In the new sequel, Axel Foley continues the story of a Detroit cop who finds himself in Beverly Hills navigating his investigation through dramatic cases. The project is being helmed by Mark Molloy and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Chad Oman. Earlier this week, Murphy reportedly agreed to pay his former partner, Spice Girl Melanie Brown US$35,000 each month for child support for their 15-year-old daughter, Angel Iris. The comedian and Mel shared a romance in November 2007. Murphy originally claimed he did not know who the father was, but Browns representatives later said that paternity tests confirmed he was the father. Carrie Bickmore refused to deny rumours she's set to replace Tracy Grimshaw as host of Nine's A Current Affair after announcing her departure from The Project. The Gold Logie winner, 41, tearfully confirmed her exit on Tuesday night, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family after 13 years at the helm of the Channel 10 program. After admitting it was the 'hardest decision of my professional life', Bickmore's co-host Kate Langbroek lightened the mood by asking her directly if she was jumping ship to host ACA. Carrie Bickmore (pictured) refused to deny rumours she's set to replace Tracy Grimshaw as host of Nine's A Current Affair after announcing her departure from The Project While said in jest, the question was no doubt at the front of many viewers' minds, as Bickmore's exit from The Project comes as Grimshaw prepares to sign off from ACA following a historic 17-year run. Despite being given the opportunity to clear up the rumours, Bickmore tellingly chose not to deny them, and instead just laughed off Langbroek's question. The fact Langbroek was the one to raise the subject is interesting, too, because she recently signed with Nine to host the dating show My Mum, Your Dad. After admitting it was the 'hardest decision of my professional life', Bickmore's co-host Kate Langbroek (right) lightened the mood by asking her directly if she was jumping ship to host ACA. Despite being given the opportunity to clear up the rumours, Bickmore tellingly chose not to deny them, and instead just laughed off Langbroek's question 'You always make these unusual, bold choices,' Langbroek said, to which Bickmore replied: 'I know. I'll be completely honest. I'm not 100 per sure of my decision...' Langbroek then interrupted: 'Hang on? Are you hosting A Current Affair?' Bickmore rolled her head back with laughter, but didn't deny she was jumping ship to Nine and swiftly changed the subject. This moment didn't go unnoticed on Twitter, with viewers remarking that her non-denial could be a sign she'll soon show up on a rival network. While said in jest, the question was no doubt at the front of many viewers' minds, as Bickmore's exit from The Project comes as Grimshaw (pictured) prepares to sign off from ACA following a historic 17-year run 'Anyone notice Carrie didn't deny the A Current Affair rumour?' one tweeted. 'Carrie Bickmore. ACA 2023? Who's with me?' another wrote, while a third added: 'Has Nine poached Carrie Bickmore to replace Tracy Grimshaw on ACA next year?' One fan tweeted: 'Could Carrie Bickmore be leaving The Project to replace Tracy Grimshaw on ACA in 2023? Timing is everything.' A Nine spokesperson declined to comment. This moment didn't go unnoticed on Twitter, with viewers remarking that her non-denial could be a sign she'll soon show up on a rival network Bickmore announced on Tuesday she was leaving The Project to spend more time with her family. The TV presenter fought back tears as she told viewers it was the hardest decision she had made in her professional life. The mother of three has been on The Project desk since the show launched in 2009 and has since become a familiar face on Australian screens. 'I have some news that I wanted to share... s**t I'm already crying,' she began. 'I have made the tough decision to finish up hosting the show at the end of the year. 'It's been the hardest decision of my professional life, to make this call, but it's time for a new challenge and for my next chapter.' Bickmore announced she was leaving The Project to spend more time with her family Bickmore said she was going to miss her 'mates on the desk' and the 'wonderful viewers' who have supported the show for over a decade. 'It's no secret that this show has become a second home to me, and I couldn't be more thankful to everyone that has been involved on and off screen,' she said. 'It has been a long journey. I started the show when Ollie, my son, was one, and he's now 15, which is crazy. And I want to spend more time at home. Bickmore has been on The Project desk since the program was first launched back in 2009 Bickmore (pictured at the Logies in 2019) said leaving The Project had been the hardest decision she had had to make in her professional career 'I want to have more family dinners. I'll watch the show at home with a glass of wine in hand. I just wanted to say an enormous thank you. 'It has been an incredible privilege.' Bickmore said that while she loved her 'fulfilling' job, she wanted to find out who she was without The Project. 'This show is so much in my DNA, and I don't know who I am without it,' she said. Bickmore's co-host Lisa Wilkinson posted a tribute to Instagram in which she thanked her long-time friend for her friendship and generosity on the panel. Bickmore's co-host Lisa Wilkinson posted a tribute to Instagram in which she thanked her long-time friend for her friendship and generosity on the panel 'We mere mortals will never know how you did it all with so much grace, good humour and all that glamour,' she wrote. 'I know what a huge decision this has been for you, and we are all going to miss you terribly come year's end. Can't wait to see what comes next in your extraordinary life, or to share that next glass of wine - or five - with you!' The mother-of-three shares two children, Evie and Adelaide, with her partner Chris Walker, a former producer of The Project. Her eldest son Ollie is from her marriage to her late husband Greg Lange, who sadly died of brain cancer in 2010, three years after their son was born. The 41-year-old presenter has three children; Oliver, Evie and Adelaide Bickmore told viewers hat while she loved her 'fulfilling' job, she wanted to find out who she was without The Project Bickmore's decision to pursue a journalism was inspired by her father, who worked in radio for 24 years, but she had previously dreamed of being a ballerina. Brian Bickmore is one of the founders of the Austereo Network and worked in radio in Adelaide and Melbourne for 24 years before retiring in 2004. Bickmore won the Gold Logie for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television in 2015 and used her acceptance speech to honour her late husband. She donned a bright blue beanie as she spoke about her desire to raise awareness about the disease, which she said killed eight out of ten people who are diagnosed. Bickmore won the Gold Logie for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television in 2015 and used her acceptance speech to honour her late husband Greg who died of brain cancer In March, Bickmore announced she would be taking a few months off to travel through Europe (pictured with her partner Chris Walker) 'In 2010 my husband Greg was one of the unlucky ones. And after a long, long, long battle he died from brain cancer,' she told the audience. 'Over ten years I watched him suffer multiple seizures a day, lose feeling down one side of his body. He was an incredibly brave man, he was a great dad. 'He was a great husband and a great brother. And he was a great friend. But he shouldn't have had to go through that. No one should have to go through that. 'Throughout his cancer journey he used to wear a lot of hats he used to wear a lot of beanies. And that was because he felt embarrassed about his scars and his head. 'And I used to say to him: 'Don't be embarrassed, scars are really, really cool'. And beanies are also really cool.' When Carrie was starting out in the media industry, Greg was by her side, supporting her every step of the way while coming to terms with his brain cancer diagnosis. Bickmore was supported by her co-hosts after she announced she would be stepping down from her role at The Project at the end of 2022 Bickmore's ambition and drive quickly set her apart from other students when she gained a 5am work experience job at Perth radio station 92.9FM a year before graduating After attending Anglican girls school Perth College, where she 'felt very shy' and under pressure 'to be a certain way', Bickmore enrolled in a journalism degree at Curtin University of Technology. Her ambition and drive quickly set her apart from other students when she gained a 5am work experience job at Perth radio station 92.9FM a year before graduating. It was when she filled in as an emergency newsreader for a sick colleague that her voice was first broadcast. 'I did it. It was so nerve-wracking and my throat was dry, it was horrible but I survived,' she said, while recalling the moment in her university's alumni magazine. A year later she was on her way to Melbourne to take up the afternoon newsreader role for radio station Nova 100. Before taking up her high-profile role on The Project, alongside Waleed Aly and Peter Helliar, Bickmore gained the title of 'the laughing person's newsreader' while working on comedy talk show Rove Live. Bickmore has been with former producer of The Project Chris Walker for almost 10 years The TV personality (pictured) gave birth to baby Evie with her partner of almost three years, former The Project producer Chris Walker, and son Ollie by her side The TV personality gave birth to baby Evie with her partner of almost three years, former The Project producer Chris Walker, and son Ollie by her side. Before Evie's arrival she gave strength to other expectant mums by speaking candidly about her severe morning sickness and her nervousness after suffering complications during her son Ollie's birth. The presenter had a severe haemorrhage 10 days after welcoming her son Oliver and would have died without life-saving surgery and blood transfusions. Bickmore suffered a miscarriage not long after Ollie's birth and it was with huge bravery that she announced she was pregnant with Evie live on The Project in 2014. She later welcomed her second daughter Adelaide, in 2018. The Great British Bake Off saw Carol eliminated from the competition on Tuesday while Sandro was named star baker. Judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood decided to send Carol home during dessert week after branding her chocolate mousse 'too stiff again' and declaring her showstopper not up to par. Despite getting the boot, Carol spoke of her delight at being accepted for the competition: 'I'm very proud of myself because I came here to achieve something as I get older. End of the road: The Great British Bake Off saw Carol eliminated from the competition on Tuesday while Sandro was named star baker 'Even to get through and walk through that tent, that is an achievement in itself, and those bakers, what a great bunch of people.' Meanwhile, Sandro said was going to step things up after getting a taste for success. He said after being named star baker: 'I'm going to definitely push myself every week because now I've got star baker I've got a taste of it and I love it.' Champ: Meanwhile, Sandro said was going to step things up after getting a taste for success after he was named star baker Happy: Despite getting the boot, Carol said: 'I'm very proud of myself because I came here to achieve something as I get older' Carol created a chocolate covered cake for her showstopper during dessert week, which she named Strawberry Fields. Sandro put himself under pressure to create the perfect globe as he recreated planet earth in cake form, which he called It's a Mousse World. Prior to her showstopper, Carol along with the rest of the bakers was tasked with whipping up some steam puddings for the judges. Work of art: Sandro put himself under pressure to create the perfect globe as he recreated planet earth in cake form, which he called It's a Mousse World Delighted: Sandro could be seen smiling as he was named star baker while his fellow bakers gave him a round of applause However, things didn't go to plan when her treats collapsed just as she was ready to serve them. Earlier in the episode the bakers were tasked with making lemon meringue pies - but they were left to find their own way as they were handed ingredients with a instructions which had only two steps on how to create the dessert. The judges branded Carol's pie as 'soggy', nothing that the crust was cracked all the way around. Showstopper: Carol created a chocolate covered cake for her showstopper during dessert week, which she named Strawberry Fields It comes after Rebs and James were sent home in a rare double elimination as Maxy was crowned star baker for the second time in last week's episode. Judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith decided to send home two bakers on Mexican Week after there were no eliminations the week before. But Rebs became emotional and broke down in floods of tears after it was revealed she was leaving the tent, with her fellow bakers flocking around to comfort her. Sweet treats: Prior to her showstopper, Carol along with the rest of the bakers was tasked with whipping up some steam puddings for the judges Unimpressed: However, things didn't go to plan when her treats collapsed just as she was ready to serve them Delicious: Earlier in the episode the bakers were tasked with making lemon meringue pies but the judges branded Carol's 'soggy' 'I'm honestly devastated,' she said. 'This means the world to me. Bake Off has been a fabulous experience, it's just I didn't want it to be cut this short.' James was also sent home in the rare double elimination, after he struggled with the challenges of Mexican week. 'I'm always sad to see any bakers go but particularly James,' Prue admitted. 'James had a rotten week, and his showstopper was a real disappointment.' Speaking about leaving the tent, James said: 'If I was to use a fun metaphor, I think I was a plant that roots were outgrowing its pot.' Elsewhere during this week's dessert episode, the bakers were tasked with making a lemon meringue. Farewell: It comes after The Great British Bake Off saw a devastated Rebs and James sent home in a rare double elimination last week Going home: James was also sent home in the rare double elimination, after he struggled with the challenges of Mexican week A photo of KTX, a high-speed train, manufactured by Hyundai Rotem. Korea Times file Reported Missing Rating: **** Trump: The Comeback Rating: ** All children should be microchipped at birth. A satellite tracker, under the skin, could send signals to a phone app, letting parents know where their offspring are. No more surges of panic when you think you've lost your toddler in a supermarket or playground. No more worries when teens say they're going for sleepovers. An end to anxiety when gap-year students set off to Thailand. Don't bleat to me about 'invasion of privacy'. Every youngster with a mobile phone is constantly sending personal data to Silicon Valley megacorps via social media. Why shouldn't parents know, too? In nearby Stocksbridge, 18-year-old Matthew walked out of college after an altercation and disappeared. It was almost 24 hours before he turned up, after roaming over half the North of England. His mother is pictured above You might suppose I'm joking, but there's a serious side to the flippancy. Electronic tags might have saved two Yorkshire families an infinity of heartache, when their autistic sons went walkabout. The cases, recounted on Reported Missing (BBC1), can be seen as a powerful argument for the technology. Luke, 29, who lived in a care home outside Sheffield, sent his mum Jo into fits of despair when he gave his carers the slip. He thought nothing of a nine-mile walk to his parents' house but because of his learning difficulties, he wasn't able to take basic precautions, like remembering to eat and drink. He also couldn't imagine that Mum and Dad might not be at home. The cameras followed police on a frantic search for Luke after an impromptu home visit went wrong. Luke didn't realise his parents were on holiday in Skegness. When they didn't answer the door, he set a new course . . . but no one could guess where he was heading. In nearby Stocksbridge, 18-year-old Matthew walked out of college after an altercation and disappeared. It was almost 24 hours before he turned up, after roaming over half the North of England. Fans of the C4 surveillance show Hunted might suppose police have only to check the CCTV coverage or send up a helicopter with heat imaging cameras, and any fugitive will be found. The truth is very different. There was no footage of Matthew leaving his college, because the cameras were out of action. The local bus company admitted they had no way of tracing anyone, because passengers just flashed their passes at drivers as they boarded. As an extreme measure, police did check Matthew's phone data but they could do this only because they feared for his survival. In any case, his phone was switched off and untraceable. Thankfully, both stories ended happily. Matthew came home on his own, and by an extraordinary coincidence Luke was spotted in a supermarket car park by an off-duty policewoman who had been involved in the search for him that afternoon. 'We are forever thinking of ways that we can keep Luke safe,' said Jo. If you think phone app trackers for children and vulnerable adults are a bad idea, you'd better be prepared to explain your reasons to Luke's mum. Many people would welcome a microchip tracker on Donald Trump, if only to make sure he never went near the White House again. His hints that he might run for the U.S. presidency again in 2024 were enough to give TV journalist Katty Kay an excuse to mislabel her report on America's mid-term elections as Trump: The Comeback (BBC2). 'If you thought Trump's first term was wild, you ain't seen nothing yet,' she promised. But what unfolded was a dull briefing on Republican rifts and the resigned frustration of voters who dislike Democrat President Joe Biden. Even Katty got bored with the programme, and joined a cattle round-up on horseback instead. One thing's clear: America's liberal media really miss their bogeyman. Word game of the night: 'Desserts backwards is 'stressed',' joked Matt Lucas on The Great British Bake Off (C4). Linguists have lots of terms for words that change their meaning when reversed, including 'anadromes', 'levidromes' and 'semordnilaps'. I'll just say 'pudding', thanks. Advertisement Emily Ratajkowski has released a new collection for her lingerie and swimwear line Inamorata just in time for autumn. The 31-year-old brunette pinup was seen in several new images shares to Instagram on Tuesday as she hawked the new leopard print underthings that included a bra, panties and dress. The single star - who is rumoured to be dating Brad Pitt as she divorces husband Sebastian Bear-McClard - wore her dark hair down over her bare shoulders as she oozed sensuality. All good: Emily Ratajkowski has released a new collection for her lingerie and swimwear line Inamorata just in time for autumn She has a bustling career: The 31-year-old brunette pinup was seen in several new images shares to Instagram on Tuesday as she hawked the new leopard print underthings that included a bra, panties and dress In some of the new images she had on a push-up bra with small, low on the hips briefs. And in another shot, the New York City resident had on a very sheer dress that hugged her very tiny waistline and hips. Underneath was a matching bra. Last week Emily wore a bra and panties with the same leopard print design while in her new apartment which she secured after leaving Sebastian amid claims he had cheated. Her new bachelorette pad was also revealed on Tuesday the 31-year-old Versace model and My Body author shared several images from her new rental in New York City. The catwalk princess, who calls Kendall Jenner and Irina Shayk good friends, shared many photos of her home, including that green sofa that has been heavily commented on after she appeared to come out as bisexual. Also seen were her library and bedroom. Sheer brilliance: In this image Emily is showing off the sheer dress over her leopard print bra New from Em Rat: The single star - who is rumoured to be dating Brad Pitt as she divorces husband Sebastian Bear-McClard - wore her dark hair down over her bare shoulders as she oozed sensuality Posed: Inamorata is a brand designed by Ratajkowski that launched as a swimwear line. In 2017, Harper's Bazaar UK published a story about Ratajkowski's impending release of her own swimwear brand after Emrata Holdings LLC acquired the trademark to Inamorata in August 2017 The living room with its white walls, recessed lighting and hardwood floors was delightful. It was anchored by a curved soft mossy green velvet sofa that looked like it could seat at least six people. On Monday she came out as perhaps bisexual and showed off her sofa. Fans thought that maybe having a green sofa was a clue a woman may be bisexual as days earlier Shay Michelle showed off the same color of sofa when she told fans she is bisexual. She will never go out of style: Emily has a timeless beauty in line with Audrey Hepburn and Ali MacGraw Another look: Last week Emily wore a bra and panties with the same leopard print design while in her new apartment which she secured after leaving Sebastian amid claims he had cheated Also in the living room was a green marble coffee table and a wood chair with round holes in it. Next to an oil painting were two potted plants. And on the far wall was a picture that said a body can bring 'joy.' There was also a photo of her library. There were hundreds of books in her bookshelf that she had put together herself. Included in the collection was a large coffee table art book about Helmut Newton as well as her own book, My Body. The star added some collectibles on the shelves as well like a vase, frame photographs and a plant. New digs for the single lady: Emily Ratajkowski has a bachelorette pad to call her own after splitting from husband Sebastian Bear-McClard and moving out of the apartment they used to share. On Tuesday the Versace model and My Body author shared several images from her new rental in New York City She said over the photo that the bookshelf brought her 'joy.' And in her bedroom she debuted a new oil painting that seemed to be of a woman looking in a mirror. The photo was taken from her bed as she looked at the painting, a six drawer white chest or drawers and a standing full-length silver framed mirror. The windows had their shades pulled up to see the outdoors with a view of mature trees. Ratajkowski appears to have come out as bisexual on TikTok. The model, 31, responded to a video on Monday that asked those who 'identify as bisexual' if they 'own a green velvet couch'. This sofa has a story: On Monday she came out as perhaps bisexual and showed off her sofa. Fans thought that maybe having a green sofa was a clue a woman may be bisexual as days earlier Shay Michelle showed off the same color of sofa when she told fans she is bisexual Emily, who has filed for divorce from her estranged husband Bear-McClard, then showed off her green velvet couch. It prompted fans to fill the comments section of her post with congratulations for 'coming out' as being attracted to men and women, with many declaring: 'Yet another win for the ladies.' Emily's apparent admission to being bisexual comes as celebrities including Madonna and Shay Mitchell appeared to admit they were part of the LGBT+ community ahead of 'National Coming Out Day' on October 11th. It comes amid rumours she is dating Brad Pitt, 58, after the pair were reported to be 'spending a lot of time' in each other's company. A source told People: 'Friends aren't sure if it's serious. They don't appear to be 'dating' formally.' It emerged in September Emily had officially filed for divorce from her ex-husband Sebastian amid allegations he cheated on her. She lodged a filing to end their four-year marriage at Manhattan's Supreme Court, after the couple first split in July amidst reports film producer Sebastian, with whom Emily shares 19-month-old son Sylvester Apollo Bear, was a 'serial' cheat. A source close to the model confirmed the split to People in July and said Emily was focused on parenting. The insider was quoted saying: 'They split recently. It was Em's decision. She is doing OK. 'She is strong and focused on her son. She loves being a mum.' Neither Emily nor Sebastian have not yet commented publicly on the state of their relationship. They married at a New York court on February 23, 2018, with Emily confirming the news with the Instagram post: 'Sooo, I have a surprise, I got married today.' Her bedroom: And in her bedroom she debuted a new oil painting that seemed to be of a woman looking in a mirror. The photo was taken from her bed as she looked at the painting, a six drawer white chest or drawers and a standing full-length silver framed mirror Modeling in her bedroom: She had on only briefs when she took this selfie. Her unmade bed was seen behind her as brick could be seen on the walls She later said she only took '30 seconds' to decide she wanted to marry the Uncut Gems producer. In October 2020, the pair announced they were expecting their first child together, but Emily declared it was 'something a woman does by herself, inside her body, no matter what her circumstances may be'. She added: 'Despite having a loving partner and many female friends ready to share the gritty details of their pregnancies, I am ultimately alone with my body in this experience. 'There is no one to feel it with me the sharp muscular aches in my lower abdomen that come out of nowhere while I'm watching a movie or the painful heaviness of my breasts that now greets me first thing every morning. 'My husband has no physical symptoms in 'our' pregnancy another reminder of how different a woman and man's experience of life can be.' Former Bachelor stars Laura Byrne and Brittany Hockley have revealed why Channel 10's decision to postpone the launch of the new season has killed the franchise. The network bumped The Bachelors to early 2023 to make room in this year's schedule for The Real Love Boat, which ended up flopping in the ratings. Laura told Yahoo Lifestyle the decision was odd given that Channel 10 had started to roll out publicity for the show months ago. Why The Bachelors is doomed to fail: Laura Byrne and Brittany Hockley (pictured) have claimed Channel 10's decision to postpone the airdate has killed the franchise 'If they weren't going to show it until next year, then I don't think they should have done all the pre-promotion, which obviously wasn't a well-thought out thing,' she said. 'It just really, really makes any successful relationships that have come off the back of that show so challenging for them to actually work out.' Brittany agreed, saying it would be 'almost impossible' for any relationships to develop with such a long delay between filming and the show airing. 'They've to keep it a secret and long distance is hard, but doing long distance, which is completely a secret as a Bachelor couple, is incredibly hard because you cannot see each other and you can't just sneak over to each other's houses,' she said. The network bumped The Bachelors to early 2023 to make room in this year's schedule for The Real Love Boat, which ended up flopping in the ratings. (Pictured from left: new Bachelors Felix Von Hofe, Jed McIntosh and Thomas Malucelli) Last month, Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed Channel 10's decision to delay The Bachelors until next year to focus on The Real Love Boat. Contestants will be now able to access their social media accounts after they were taken off them by the network ahead of the show going to air. New Bachelors Felix Von Hofe, Jed McIntosh and Thomas Malucelli have also been given permission to return to social media posting with new guidelines. Laura (pictured) told Yahoo Lifestyle the decision was odd given that Channel 10 had started to roll out publicity for the show months ago Daily Mail Australia understands several of the contestants vying for Felix, Thomas and Jed's hearts aren't happy with the show being held over until the New Year. 'The show was filmed four months ago and the cast weren't able to return to social media until three months after the final air date,' they said. 'Some of them were hoping to be bona fide influencers by now.' Kaley Cuoco is pregnant with her first child. The Big Bang Theory actress, 36, shared the news on social media on Tuesday as she held up a pregnancy test. The star is expecting the child with her boyfriend, 40-year-old Tom Pelphrey. 'Baby girl Pelphrey coming 2023 beyond blessed and over the moon I [heart] you @tommypelphrey !!!' she wrote on Instagram. In the new images both Kaley and Tom had wedding bands on their ring fingers suggesting they may have already wed. Sweet: Kaley Cuoco is pregnant with her first child. The Big Bang Theory actress, 36, shared the news on social media on Tuesday as she held up a pregnancy test DailyMail.com has reached out to her rep for comment. In one image she held up a pregnancy test as she smiled at her beau. In another, they were showing off the cake that was a reveal that they were expecting a girl. And in another image, Kaley showed off her bare baby bump as she wore a bra. Kaley was previously married to Karl Cook from 2018 to 2022, and before that she was married to Ryan Sweeting from 2013 to 2016. After her second divorce, the star claimed that she never planned to get married again. But describing her first meet with Tom as 'love at first sight', Kaley recently told USA today: 'We have the same manager [Andrea Pett-Joseph], and we were set up by [her], which is so Hollywood. She's like, "Oh my God, I think you guys are perfect for each other."' Her man: The star is expecting the child with her boyfriend, 40-year-old Tom Pelphrey Gender reveal: 'Baby girl Pelphrey coming 2023 beyond blessed and over the moon I [heart] you @tommypelphrey !!!' she wrote on Instagram The cake said it all: The center of the cake had pink frosting which meant she is having a girl Kaley and Tom were last seen together in mid September at HBO Max's post-Emmy bash at San Vicente Bungalows. The star put on a loved up display with her boyfriend. They made their relationship red-carpet official during the earlier Emmy Awards. There is the bump! She also showed off her belly as she wore a bra; his hand was on her side Cuddling up to her 40-year-old beau, the star was pretty in pink in a Dolce & Gabbana tulle dress, while her boyfriend opted for a classy black tuxedo. The pair appeared in high spirits as they enjoyed the event, which was exclusive for Emmy nominees. Wrapping an arm around one another, the smitten couple beamed for the camera as they enjoyed some drinks - with Ozark star Tom keeping his eyes locked on Kaley. She is already preparing: She held up a onesie that said, 'This baby needs a pony' So cute: He flashed a wedding band as he held a onesie that said, 'Love my daddy' The cuteness is real: He held up a mug that said Papa Bear whereas hers said Mama Bear She is already in maternity overalls: Cuoco beamed with pride in this selfie; she too had on a wedding band The lovebirds went public with their relationship in March. But finally crossing the A-list rite of passage, they took the relationship red-carpet official during the 74th annual Emmy awards show. Kaley was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the second year in a row for her acclaimed HBO Max dark comedy thriller The Flight Attendant. Jean Smart won the award for another HBO Max series, Hacks. Close: The couple was last seen at an Emmy party in mid September Going public: Kaley and Tom made their red-carpet debut earlier on at the 2022 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles She stars in The Flight Attendant as the leading character, who is addicted to alcohol and has risky trysts with her passengers. When she wakes up in Bangkok next to a passenger she hooked up with on a flight, only to discover that he has been murdered, she is thrust into a dangerous world of international intrigue. While Tom was also a nominee as well for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for Ozark. Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed he and Dame Angela Lansbury were cousins. The 67-year-old politician paid tribute to the late entertainer, who died five days before her 97th birthday on Tuesday, in a tweet on Wednesday. He posted a photo of when he last met 'Aunty Angela' in 2013 while she was starring in Driving Miss Daisy at the Theatre Royal Sydney. Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) has revealed he and Dame Angela Lansbury (right) were cousins. The 67-year-old politician paid tribute to the late entertainer, who died five days before her 97th birthday on Tuesday, in a tweet on Wednesday 'Thank you Angela for the joy and love you have shared with all the world all your life,' he wrote on Twitter. 'You first dazzled me when I was four and you were Aunty Angela making a movie in Australia. 'In later years we always had politics and showbiz to talk and laugh about. Rest in peace, dear Angie.' He posted a photo of when he last met 'Aunty Angela' in 2013 while she was starring in Driving Miss Daisy at the Theatre Royal Sydney Dame Angela passed on Tuesday just five days before her 97th birthday. The Irish-British and American actress, famed for her roles in Murder, She Wrote and Beauty and the Beast passed away peacefully at her home in Los Angeles early on Tuesday morning, her three children revealed. A statement from her family read: 'The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday.' Dame Angela passed on Tuesday just five days before her 97th birthday Lansbury became a legend in Hollywood and on Broadway during a career which spanned an impressive eight decades and saw her taking on roles alongside some of the industry's best-known stars when she was just a teen - with the actress landing her first major movie job just four years after she fled wartime London at the age of 14. Having moved to New York with her actress mother after leaving their home in the UK, Lansbury dedicated herself to her love of drama, and she burst onto the film scene in spectacular fashion at the age of 18, when she landed her first role in the 1944 thriller Gaslight, which saw her holding her own on the big screen alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The job would ultimately earn her the first of three Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress - the second of which came one year later for her role in The Portrait of Dorian Gray - and marked the beginning of an illustrious career on the stage and screen, during which she would star alongside a number of industry icons, including Gene Kelly and Katharine Hepburn. The Irish-British and American actress, famed for her roles in Murder, She Wrote and Beauty and the Beast passed away peacefully at her home in Los Angeles early on Tuesday morning, her three children revealed However, to many TV lovers, Lansbury, who is survived by her three children and three grandchildren, was best known for her portrayal of mystery writer and amateur detective, Jessica Fletcher in the hit American crime drama series, Murder She Wrote, which ran for 12 seasons from 1984 until 1996. For her role on the program, Lansbury was nominated for ten Golden Globes, winning four, earning her the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for Best Actress in a television drama series. She was also recognized for her work on the hit show with 12 Emmy Award nominations - once again making history for achieving the most Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, despite never winning the award. Emily Blunt looked in great spirits while working on the Atlanta set of the upcoming movie Pain Hustlers on Tuesday. The 39-year-old performer appeared to be enjoying her time at the film's production area, as she shared a laugh with a crew member while taking a short stroll. The forthcoming movie, which is based on the New York Times Magazine article of the same name, is currently in the production stage. Hard at work: A laughing Emily Blunt was spotted while working on the Atlanta set of the upcoming movie Pain Hustlers Blunt was costumed in a plaid double-breasted jacket while working on the upcoming feature. The A Quiet Place star also wore a slim-fitting white skirt and a similarly colored pair of sneakers as she joined co-star Chloe Coleman, 13, on set. The Golden Globe-winning performer accessorized with several articles of jewelry during her time on set. Her lovely blonde hair cascaded onto her back and paired well with the tones of her outfit. Stylish: Blunt was costumed in a plaid double-breasted jacket while working on the upcoming feature as she joined co-star Chloe Coleman, 13 on set Standing out: The A Quiet Place star also wore a slim-fitting white skirt and a similarly colored pair of sneakers Development on Pain Hustlers was initially revealed to the public last December. The movie is based on Evan Hughes' article of the same name, which was originally published in 2018. The movie is centered on a high school dropout who lands a job at a pharmaceutical company in central Florida. However, she soon becomes the center of a criminal conspiracy that quickly threatens to become deadly. Blunt will star as Liza Drake, and she joined the cast of the project this past May. In addition to the actress other cast members include Chris Pine, Andy Garcia and Catherine O'Hara, among others. Physical production on the project initially began this past August. Pain Hustlers will be made available on the Netflix streaming service at an unspecified date in the future. Sydney Sweeney bared her legs in a schoolgirl skirt and thigh-high socks while filming her new film with Dakota Johnson. The Euphoria star, 25, was joined by the 13 Shades of Grey actress, 33, as they worked on set of Madame Web. For her lead role in the forthcoming feature, Johnson wore a fall-ready red leather jacket. Leggy: Sydney Sweeney bared her legs in a schoolgirl skirt and thigh-high socks while filming her new film with Dakota Johnson The dynamic pair performed action scenes as they emerged from running up a subway staircase. Sweeney complemented her pleated grey mini skirt with a modest pair of black leather lace-up shoes. As she slipped into character she donned a beige-colored shirt with black trim along the collar and buttons. She topped it with a matching hoodie and she also wore a red-orange wig and red-rimmed eyeglasses. Costars: The Euphoria star, 25, was joined by the 13 Shades of Grey actress, 33, as they worked on set of Madam Web The star: For her lead role in the forthcoming feature, Johnson wore a fall-ready red leather jacket Dakota, whose long-term boyfriend is Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, sported light blue jeans with frayed hems. Underneath her leather outer layer she wore a black Henley shirt tucked into the denim trousers. They were secured with a black leather belt, which matched her Doc Marten-style combat boots. The movie star wore her long, brunette hair in its signature style - straight with face-framing bangs. Sweeney's role in the film has been kept under wraps, but the actress will be joined by Girls actress Zosia Mamet and Celeste O'Connor of Selah and the Spades. Full look: Sweeney complemented her pleated grey mini skirt with a modest pair of black leather lace-up shoes Recognizable: The movie star wore her long, brunette hair in its signature style - straight with face-framing bangs Single file: The entertainers walked down a subway staircase one-by-one Madame Web is coming from Sony's Spider-Man Universe, not to be confused with Marvel's Spider-Man Universe franchise. Despite their distinction, over recent years Sony's Spider-Man and Marvel's have collaborated to integrate their characters. Madame Web is derived from a supporting character in the legendary comic strop who first appeared in print in the 1980s. Getup: Dakota, whose long-term boyfriend is Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, sported light blue jeans with frayed hems High-energy: The group of actors performed action scenes as they emerged from running up a subway staircase Tense moment?: While in character, Dakota could be seen stretching a protective hand in front of Sydney as they headed across a subway platform Looking fab: Underneath her leather outer layer she wore a black Henley shirt tucked into the denim trousers Having a laugh: Despite what appeared to be a somewhat fraught scene, Dakota and Sweeney looked relaxed and in bright spirits between takes The film is slated to premiere in February 2024, after multiple delays from its July 2023 release date. While the announced cast includes Parks And Recreation star Adam Scott and Franco-Algerian heartthrob Tahar Rahim, their roles have not been made public. In fact, other than Dakota as Madame Web herself, the identities of all of the other characters have been guarded. Incoming: The film is slated to premiere in February 2024, after multiple delays from its July 2023 release date Backdrop: While the announced cast includes Parks And Recreation star Adam Scott and Franco-Algerian heartthrob Tahar Rahim, their roles have not been made public One of the hotter projects being shopped around Hollywood - Skydance's The Gorge - has found a home at Apple. Apple has signed on to distribute The Gorge - starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy - according to a report from Deadline. Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone) will direct the film from a screenplay by Zach Dean (The Tomorrow War), with Teller also serving as an executive producer. Home: One of the hotter projects being shopped around Hollywood - Skydance's The Gorge - has found a home at Apple Project: Apple has signed on to distribute The Gorge - starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy - according to a report from Deadline Star-producer: Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone) will direct the film from a screenplay by Zach Dean (The Tomorrow War), with Teller also serving as an executive producer Dean sold his screenplay on spec last year to Skydance, though the project really started gaining serious traction this summer when Teller was eyeing the project as a follow-up to Top Gun: Maverick. Director Derrickson had been attached but was reportedly eyeing other projects, though when Teller came aboard, Derrickson committed to direct and Skydance put it on the fast track. Taylor-Joy signed on recently, with Apple locking in distribution shortly thereafter, which wasn't too surprising given Apple has a first-look deal with Skydance. Miles eyes: Dean sold his screenplay on spec last year to Skydance, though the project really started gaining serious traction this summer when Teller was eyeing the project as a follow-up to Top Gun: Maverick Anya signs on: Taylor-Joy signed on recently, with Apple locking in distribution shortly thereafter, which wasn't too surprising given Apple has a first-look deal with Skydance No plot details were given for The Gorge, though it has been described as, 'a high-action, genre-bending love story.' Skydances David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger are producing alongside Crooked Highways Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill and Sherryl Clark. Screenwriter Zach Dean will also produce with Adam Kolbrenner and Greg Goodman on the project. No plot: No plot details were given for The Gorge, though it has been described as, 'a high-action, genre-bending love story' Taylor-Joy has already had a busy year, with the release of her films The Northman and last weekend's Amsterdam, with The Menu debuting on November 18. She also lends her voice to Princess Peach in next year's The Super Mario Bros. Movie with Chris Pratt voicing Mario. The actress is currently filming Furiosa, playing the title character in a prequel/origin story to 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road. Busy: Taylor-Joy has already had a busy year, with the release of her films The Northman and last weekend's Amsterdam, with The Menu debuting on November 18 Voice role: She also lends her voice to Princess Peach in next year's The Super Mario Bros. Movie with Chris Pratt voicing Mario Teller is coming off the blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick, currently the top-grossing movie with $714.8 million domestic and $1.479 billion worldwide. He also starred in Netflix's Spiderhead and the Paramount Plus mini-series The Offer earlier this year. The actor will Gilbert in The Ark and the Aardvark and he also has The Fence and Not Without Hope in pre-production. Blockbuster: Teller is coming off the blockbuster sequel Top Gun: Maverick, currently the top-grossing movie with $714.8 million domestic and $1.479 billion worldwide A former Bachelor star has called out a troll who accused her of 'favouring' her older son over her newborn daughter. Tara Pavlovic, who appeared on Matty Johnson's season in 2017, posted a video on Instagram on Tuesday of herself teaching her one-year-old son Paddy how to talk. The innocent clip angered one of her followers, who said it was 'obvious' to them that Pavlovic preferred Paddy to her baby girl Edi-Rae. Former Bachelor star Tara Pavlovic (pictured) has called out a troll who accused her of 'favouring' her older son over her newborn daughter 'Sad how you seem to favour just Paddy and not your newborn. Very obvious,' the cruel message read. Pavlovic responded by saying the message was 'stupid', then said she was feeling 'guilty' about giving her newborn so much of her attention. 'Honestly I have felt so guilty about not giving Paddy enough time because Edi-Rae has been on me 24/7 so at least this stupid message makes me feel a little bit better,' she said. Pavlovic posted a video on Instagram on Tuesday of herself teaching her one-year-old son Paddy how to talk. The innocent clip angered one of her followers, who said it was 'obvious' to them that Pavlovic preferred Paddy to her baby girl Edi-Rae 'Better get Edi-Rae outside painting tomorrow so she doesn't feel left out'. Tara announced last month she'd welcomed her second child with husband Nick Shepherdson. She posted a photo of her new arrival to Instagram, revealing she had a little girl. The innocent clip angered one of her followers, who said it was 'obvious' Pavlovic preferred Paddy to her baby girl Edi-Rae. Pavlovic responded by saying the message was 'stupid', then said she was feeling 'guilty' about giving her newborn so much of her attention 'Welcome to the world our beautiful little girl Edi-Rae Shepherdson,' she wrote. She continued: '1/9/2022. She is absolute perfection in every single way. Such a calm little temperament from the moment she was born. Feeling beyond blessed. 'Mumma, dadda and your big brother Paddy love you so much. Thank you for completing our little family'. Tara announced she'd welcomed her second child with husband Nick Shepherdson last month Tara and Nick tied the knot in September 2020, after being forced to postpone their wedding in April due to the Covid pandemic. The couple went public with their romance in August 2018, just two months after Tara broke up with her ex-fiance Sam Cochrane. The pair had known each other for 10 years before getting together in 2018. Linda Evangelista paid tribute to her son Augustin James as he celebrated his 16th birthday on Tuesday. The catwalk queen, 57, posted a slew of shots of her 'light', which included adorable shots of the teen throughout his childhood. 'My heart. My light. 16,' she captioned the post. 'My heart. My light': Linda Evangelista paid tribute to her son Augustin James as he celebrated his 16th birthday on Tuesday The carousel of images kicked off with a shot taken from this most recent New York Fashion Week, as Linda wore a glossy blue outfit alongside her son at the Fendi show. She rested her hand upon his cheek as he crouched down to her level. Linda, who shares Augustin with Salma Hayek's now-husband Francois-Henri Pinault, also included a precious shot of her son as a baby with jam adorably smeared onto his face. Next followed a photo of a young Augustin enjoying a day in the park. He wore a stylish grey hat and had a pacifier in his mouth. Aww! One of the photos included a shot of Linda wearing a towel as she posed with her son in the bathroom City life! The youngster hung out in a park and wore a stylish grey cap with a pacifier in his mouth Too cute! Baby Augustin had jam smeared on his face in this precious shot The slideshow concluded with a photo of Linda wearing a white towel as she took a shot in the mirror with her son. The beauty beamed with delight as her son grinned with glee and clutched a bottle of soap. The post comes nearly a month after Linda made her return to modelling during New York Fashion Week following a six-year absence due to an adverse reaction to a fat freezing procedure that she claims disfigured her face. Linda posted snaps from the Fendi show to her account last month, which included shots of her posing up a storm with Kate Moss and Kim Kardashian. The show also marked the first time she had appeared on the runway in 15 years. Stunners: Linda took to Instagram last month to share snaps from the Fendi show at Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom as part of New York Fashion Week Linda cut a glamorous figure in a billowing Tiffany blue taffeta gown, which featured a dramatic collar and a sweeping train. She styled her brunette tresses swept back into a slick up-do and accentuated her features with a smokey-eye make-up palette. Adding a touch of high-class style, she had a silver-patterned Baguette bag under one arm and matching metallic silver gloves that went up to her elbows. Linda was seen posing backstage with supermodel Kate Moss, who looked equally stylish in a strapped white gown. Stars: The Canadian model posed up a storm with the likes of Kate Moss and Kim Kardashian (pictured) as she made her first runway appearance in 15 year Kate, 48, wore her golden locks loosely in a straight fashion and bolstered her natural good looks with a touch of mascara. Linda was also seen socialising with Kim Kardashian and fashion designer Kim Jones ahead of the show. Reality TV star Kim, 41, flaunted her incredible figure in a sparkling gold gown featuring built-in gloves, while she clutched a matching handbag. She wore her platinum tresses slicked back into a tight ponytail and accentuated her features with lashings of mascara and a slick of eyeliner. Modelling credentials: Linda cut a glamorous figure in a billowing Tiffany blue taffeta gown, which featured a dramatic collar and a sweeping train Behind the scenes: Linda also shared pictures of herself having the finishing touches put on her look and posing for photographs backstage Linda also shared pictures of herself having the finishing touches put on her runway look and posing for photographs backstage. Alongside the gallery of snaps, she wrote: 'Fendi BTS.' Linda made her triumphant return to the catwalk near the end of the Fendi show in her attention-grabbing ensemble. And from the reaction from those in attendance and her colleagues on stage, her epic return to the runway was a smashing success. Runway ready: Linda shared snaps of her glamorous outfit on a sign at the fashion show during New York Fashion Week Triumphant: Linda Evangelista made her triumphant return to modelling after a six-year absence due to a reaction to a fat freezing procedure that she claims disfigured her face Linda returned to modelling with a Fendi fashion shoot in July after she stopped working in 2016 after claiming a rare reaction to a fat-reduction procedure six years ago left her 'deformed'. The surgery was designed to decrease her fat cells, but instead, it made them become enlarged - resulting in her developing 'bulges' all over her body, due to a condition called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia. PAH is a rare adverse effect of cryolipolysis, which has been reported in of 0.0051 per cent of the 1.5 million CoolSculpting procedures performed worldwide. Linda has since undergone two liposuction surgeries in an attempt to fix the problem, and announced back in February that she was done living in 'shame'. Procedure: Linda (pictured in 2005) has undergone two liposuction surgeries in an attempt to fix the problem, and announced back in February that she was done living in 'shame' She recently said she is still 'trying to love herself' after becoming 'so depressed' following the faulty procedure, and that using the tape 'took care of' her 'insecurities' so that she could feel confident while 'doing what she loves to do' again. She explained: 'That's not my jaw and neck in real life - and I can't walk around with tape and elastics everywhere. I'm trying to love myself as I am. 'But for the photos... Look, for photos I always think we're here to create fantasies. We're creating dreams. I think it's allowed. All my insecurities are taken care of in these pictures, so I got to do what I love to do.' Throughout the '90s, Linda was one of the biggest models in the industry, posing for numerous well-known magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Elle, and Marie Claire, and strutting her stuff in runway shows for big brands including Chanel, Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, and Giorgio Armani, to name a few. The Communist Party of China will convene its 20th National Congress in Beijing on October 16. What is the CPC National Congress? How often is it held? And why it is important to the Party and the country? Watch the video to find out more. KEPCO CEO Cheong Seung-il speaks during a meeting of the National Assembly's Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs, and Startups Committee held at the firm's headquarters in Naju, South Jeolla Province, Tuesday. 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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 Renault Group will make a massive investment in South Korea, which it sees as a key export hub for the French carmaker, in the next six years, the company's chief executive officer said Tuesday. Renault is planning to invest hundreds of millions of euros in its South Korean operations for six years to come in the research and development fields, Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo said in a press conference held in Seoul. The planned investment will be estimated over 1 trillion won (US$700 million), a Renault Korea Motors official said. Renault Korea has a sole plant with an annual capacity of 300,000 units in Busan, 453 kilometers south of Seoul, and has said it has no plan to expand the facility. The Renault CEO said the Busan plant will serve as the export hub of mid- and large-sized vehicles for the French company. From January to September, Renault Korea sold a total of 123,373 vehicles, up 36 percent from 90,552 units during the same period of last year. The company expects to sell about 160,000 autos in Asia's fourth-biggest economy for the whole of 2022, sharply up from 116,166 units sold a year earlier. To help boost sales, Renault Korea recently added the XM3 gasoline hybrid model to its lineup, which includes the QM6 SUV, SM6 sedan and the Twizy electric car. Renault Korea will collaborate with Geely Automobile Holdings, China's largest privately-owned automotive group, to launch a mid-sized hybrid model in the market in 2024, the CEO said. In May, Renault owned an 80.04 percent stake in Renault Korea, and Geely said it will acquire a 34.02 percent stake in Renault's Korean unit. In January, Geely Holding Group and Renault Group announced they will develop an all-new vehicle lineup of fuel-efficient hybrid electric vehicles and internal combustion engine models for the Korean market and abroad. Geely owns Volvo Cars and a 9.7 percent stake in Daimler AG. (Yonhap) HYDERABAD: City police commissioner C.V. Anand dismissed former Marredpally station house officer K. Nageswara Rao who was charged with rape, sexual assaulting and kidnap of a woman. Nageswara Rao was dismissed for criminal breach of trust, abuse of power, and failing to uphold the law. The inspector was accused of raping the woman and attempting to kill her with his service weapon after entering into her house in Sri Venkateswara Colony in Hastinapuram. After her husband returned home, the inspector allegedly threatened to kill the couple. The victim lodged a complaint with the Vanasthalipuram police. Subsequently, Anand suspended Nageshwar Rao and the accused police officer was sent to judicial custody. In a statement, Anand said, He (Nageswara Rao) has a criminal bent of mind which is amply proved and he would go to any extent to intimidate, threaten, and influence the victims and witnesses. The police commissioner said there would not be a conducive environment to conduct a free and fair investigation because the standard department inquiry could take a long time and there was likely to be interaction between Nageswara Rao and the victims and witnesses that could be intimidating to them. It is reasonable to dismiss Nageswara Rao from service, said Anand. Anand said the Hyderabad police took severe action against 55 delinquent police officers and personnel between December 25, 2021, and October 7, 2022, punishing them with dismissal from duty, removal from service, compulsory retirement and termination of probation. Anand further stated that misuse of authority or position will be handled seriously and will not be tolerated, and that all police personnel should maintain discipline and operate in accordance with the law, rules, and regulations. Asked about the dismissal, A.L. Narayana, legal consultant and criminal law advocate, said that the Supreme Court had made a distinction between a criminal trial and disciplinary action initiated as per the report of the inquiry officer appointed by the department. He said the apex court had said that that the punishment awarded to the accused must be commensurate with the misconduct alleged, and hence continuing of service indicated the incorrigibility and complete unfitness for holding office. Flags and other materials were burnt by the miscreants.(Photo by arrangement) Hyderabad: The Congress party's office in Munugode Assembly constituency was vandalised. Flags and other materials were burnt by the miscreants. On Tuesday morning, the party workers found that the office was partially damaged when they reached the spot located at Chandur Mandal. PCC chief, A Revanth Reddy condemned the act strongly and alleged that the vandalisation is to deter the party workers and foil the Congress' victory in the upcoming bypolls. He demanded strern action against the miscreants. Local Congress leaders have lodged a complaint with the police. The state-owned oil marketing company, Indian Oil Corporation, is allegedly forcing petroleum dealers to purchase branded fuels and feed them to vehicles users. (Representational image: PTI) Vijayawada: The state-owned oil marketing company, Indian Oil Corporation, is allegedly forcing petroleum dealers to purchase branded fuels and feed them to vehicles users. This, dealers in Andhra Pradesh allege, is causing an additional financial burden to them. The rate of fuel -- both petrol and diesel -- is high in AP compared to states like Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha. At present, a litre of diesel costs Rs 99.12 and petrol Rs 111.33 here. The IOC intends to promote branded fuels like petrol XP 95 and green diesel as they cost Rs 5-6 more than the rate for normal fuels. The oil company is asking dealers, or pumps, to reduce the quantum of purchase of normal fuels and increase the purchase of branded fuels. It also asked them to set up a separate underground fuel tank to store and sell the branded fuels. A petroleum dealer said, We are being forced to purchase branded fuels by cutting down on the quantum of regular fuels. Even a written statement is being taken from us, stating that we shall purchase branded fuels, so as to avoid stoppage of supply of regular fuels. IOC says that the use of branded fuels will help reduce emission, facilitate smooth drive/ride and give vehicles extra mileage. Only a few vehicle owners are convinced about these while most are concerned about the cost factor, he added. The dealers say that since last Diwali, excise duty on fuels was cut twice, resulting in a financial loss of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 40 lakh for a fuel station. While they are trying to overcome such a loss, the sale of branded fuels would add to their financial strain, they say. Petroleum dealers are planning to take up the issue with the top brass of the IOC, seeking their intervention to resolve the issue and ensure there is no short-supply of fuels in the state. Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday stressed the need for speedy clearance to entrepreneurs setting up industrial units. A special wing would be set up involving the chief secretary and officials of the CMs office to speed up matters once nod came from the state investment promotion board for starting such units. The CM was chairing a high-level review meeting on industries that discussed the provision of basic amenities for new industrial units. Industry minister Gudivada Amarnath and top officials were present. Jagan said the government should encourage the setting up of more industrial units by extending all requisite support, including grant of clearances in an expeditious manner. He directed the officials to give priority to industrial units that would provide more jobs. As for ports and fishing harbours, the officials informed the CM that works were going on at a brisk pace to ensure the start of the Ramayapatnam Port by March, 2024. Work at Machilipatnam Port would begin next month. Officials said they were also making arrangements to start activities at Bhavanapadu Port by December. Reviewing the progress of construction of fishing harbours in phase-1 at Juvvaladinne, Nizampatnam, Machilipatnam and Uppada, the CM said these works should be completed by June, 2023. Pay attention to construction of fishing harbours and fish-landing centres in phase-2, Jagan told the officials. As AP got sanction for setting up a drugs park, the officials briefed the CM that several pharma majors were coming up with proposals to set up their units there. The CM asked the officials to ensure setting up of industrial units without hassles and called for according top priority to micro, small and medium units as they have huge job potential. Officials must activate the MSME Corporation and to take up a study on the functioning of the MSME sector in foreign countries. We want AP to be developed as a major hub for the MSME sector, he said. The chief minister also underlined the importance for tie-up with the reputed MSMEs in foreign countries. Let us study which are the sectors they are faring well abroad and how to bring them to AP to generate employment and other sources of income to the people, he said. He asked the officials to set up a small team of IAS officers to study the good practices being adopted in the MSME sector in foreign countries so that these could be adopted here. Let there be a close examination of the best practices in the management of MSME parks, prevention of pollution, adoption of state-of-the-art technology in manufacturing products, employment generation, provision of basic amenities in MSME parks. Let us come up with plans to develop products that are in demand in the market and encourage manufacture of these in the MSME parks, he said. The CM called for priority to port-based industrial development in AP and said Bhavanapadu and Ramayapatnam have good potential. Officials informed him about the development of the Visakhapatnam-Chennai industrial corridor. The CM advised the officials to provide internet facility to all village/ward secretariats, RBKs and schools. The AP State Fibre Net Ltd must play a key role in facilitating internet access with 5G services in the villages, he said. Jagan laid stress on promoting digital libraries in villages and hoped that they would revolutionize even the working mode especially in rural areas. He cited the example of Velpula village in Kadapa district, where nearly 30 persons are engaged in IT jobs by availing the digital library services there. He said digital libraries would help promote the work from home concept in a big way. Hence, officials must pay more attention to setting up of digital libraries. Jagan should have gone to elections in 2019 by announcing his plan for the three capitals, in his manifesto, Somu said. PTI Visakhapatnam: The state president of BJP, Somu Veerraju, responding to the reports about YSRC leader V Vijaysai Reddy involving himself in land deals in Visakhapatnam, said on Monday that Reddy was doing open trading of lands and not insider trading that he had alleged against TD leaders. Addressing a press conference in Visakhapatnam on Monday, Veerraju said the YSRC made it a one-point agenda to grab prime lands in Visakhapatnam in the name of decentralization and making Vizag the executive capital. They are trading in lands, not ruling the state, he said. The BJP leader said he had written a letter to chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, urging him to appoint an independent committee of senior officials to probe the ongoing land controversy and file a fresh SLP in the Supreme Court with regard to the Dasapalla lands. A similar process was adopted by the TTD, by which it got back its lands, he said. The BJP leader asked TD president Chandrababu Naidu and chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy to release a white paper on what they did during their respective terms. Promising to develop Amaravati, Chandrababu Naidu spent all his time in Hyderabad while Jagan said he would live in Amaravathi but create three capitals. Jagan should have gone to elections in 2019 by announcing his plan for the three capitals, in his manifesto, the BJP leader said. Instead of playing a fresh drama in the name of resignations for decentralization, let Botsa Satyanarayana and Dharmana Prasada Rao get funds for completion of irrigation projects in Srikakulam and Vizianagaram, which are pending for decades, before talking about having the executive capital in Vizag, Veerraju said. Senior leader and Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao said the BJP is now the main opposition in AP, pulling up the government on all the major issues. It was the central government that took up development of the state since 2014, he claimed. He said the central government sanctioned the Vizag-Chennai industrial corridor but both Chandrababu Naidu and Jagan Mohan Reddy could not complete the land acquisition process. The CM was expected to return to Hyderabad from Uttar Pradesh after attending the funeral of former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday, but flew directly to Delhi. (Photo: Twitter) HYDERABAD: TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao visited Delhi for the first time on Tuesday after announcing the launch of his national party, the Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) on October 5. The CM was expected to return to Hyderabad from Uttar Pradesh after attending the funeral of former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday, but flew directly to Delhi. His unexpected trip to Delhi raised the political heat in the state. Rao's visit to Delhi came at a time when the CBI has intensified its investigation into the Delhi liquor scam, particularly a day after it arrested Boinpally Abhishek, who allegedly has close ties with TRS leaders. According to party sources, the CM is likely to camp in Delhi for three or four days, meeting leaders of various political parties to discuss national politics, farmers associations and Dalit associations to discuss expanding BRS to other states. Rao went to Sardar Patel Road shortly after arriving in Delhi, where a temporary office for the BRS will be opened soon. He reportedly checked the 'Vastu' aspect as well as other office facility options. Party leaders have identified the bungalow that is thought to be owned by the Marwar rulers of Jodhpur as a temporary location for the BRS office until work on its permanent building at Vasant Vihar, which is under construction, is completed. Rao had laid foundation for a permanent office building on September 2, last year coming up on 1,200-square-yard plot allotted by the Centre and the construction works are expected to be completed by Ugadi in March 2023. Building bridges Lee Jae-yong, center, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and leader of Samsung Group, and Samsung Biologics CEO John Rim, third from left, pose with other officials for a photo during a ceremony marking the completion of construction on Samsung Biologics' fourth drug manufacturing plant in Songdo, Incheon, Tuesday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics Samsung Biologics completes construction of 4th plant in Songdo By Baek Byung-yeul Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong has vowed to invest 7.5 trillion won ($5.2 billion) in the company's biotechnology firm by 2032 to achieve a huge lead with its competitors, Samsung Group said Tuesday. The Samsung chief attended the ceremony for the completion of Samsung Biologics' fourth drug manufacturing plant in Songdo, Incheon. The plant, which went into operation this month, is the world's largest biopharmaceutical production plant, with an annual production capacity of 240,000 liters. Samsung invested about 2 trillion won in its construction. The visit was Lee's first in seven years to Samsung Biologics' Songdo Bio Campus since he attended the groundbreaking ceremony for its third plant in 2015. During his latest visit, Lee met with the management of Samsung Biologics and Samsung Bioepis, a biosimilar maker, and discussed their medium- and long-term business strategies. With the start of operations at the fourth plant, Samsung Biologics now has a total production capacity of 424,000 liters, becoming the world's leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business, developing and manufacturing drugs for client firms. Samsung Biologics has achieved that milestone in only 10 years since its establishment in 2011 and currently produces the drugs of 12 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. "In 2023, when the fourth plant, which has started partial operations, will be operating normally, Samsung Biologics' production capacity will be expanded to 604,000 liters and the company is expected to solidify its super gap advantage in the global bio CDMO market," Samsung Group said. Lee Jae-yong, second from left, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and de facto leader of Samsung Group, inspects Samsung Biologics' fourth plant in Songdo, Incheon, Tuesday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics Student protest at the Jnanabharathi campus intensified as Bangalore University (BU) teachers and non-teaching staff joined the demonstration. Students began protesting on Monday calling for a ban on public transport inside the campus after a BMTC bus ran over an MSc student. The demonstration continued on Tuesday as varsity teachers and non-teaching staff joined the students until the authorities concerned would accept the demand and stop public entry into the campus. No other public university in the state allows public movement inside the campus, said a senior faculty. Banning public entry into the campus has been one of our long-pending demands. This time we will not compromise, added another faculty member. Housing Minister V Somanna visited the campus and urged the students and staff to withdraw the strike. I was the first to make a request to ban public vehicle movement inside the campus. Even the Chief Minister is aware of the incident that occurred on Monday. The Chief Minister is touring, and we will discuss the issue with him once he is back, said Somanna. But students and staff decided to carry on with the protest. BMTC bus accident: Student critical Shilpashree, 22, who was ran over by the BMTC bus on Monday, is battling for life at the hospital. Hospital authorities said she underwent an eight-hour surgery on Monday and has severe blood loss. BU students have donated 35 units of blood. Another accident on campus A motorist fell while negotiating a speed-breaker inside the Jnanabharathi campus at 8.30 pm on Tuesday, just 36 hours after MSc student Shilpashree was ran over by a BMTC bus. Jnanabharathi police shifted the motorist with severe head injuries to a nearby hospital. Police are yet to obtain more details about the motorist. A day after the transport department began cracking down on auto rickshaws running through Ola, Uber and Rapido, a joint committee of Auto Rickshaw drivers' unions set a 7-day deadline for the government to ban all taxi aggregator apps. In a press conference where emotions ran high, leaders of 13 auto rickshaw unions and associations said they have been demanding action against the aggregators for the last seven years but "politicians and officials have been hand in glove" with the cab aggregators to "loot" both the drivers and commuters. Many cited the Kerala government-backed 'Yatri' app that offers taxi services as per fares fixed by the government and demanded that the Karnataka government should develop a similar one for the benefit of drivers and passengers. If the government really wanted to help, drivers said, it could have done it long ago considering Bengalurus position as the IT capital. Read | Ola, Uber licence trouble: What we know so far "The government should ban all taxi aggregators apps, including the bike-taxi aggregators, within the next seven days. If no action is taken, we will gherao the transport ministers house. We are not calling for a strike keeping in mind the needs of commuters and drivers. But we will resort to it if there is no action," said M Manjunath, president of Adarsh Auto and Taxi Drivers Union. C N Srinivas of the Auto Rickshaw Drivers' Union slammed the Transport Department for penalising drivers and seizing auto rickshaws for operating through aggregators. "Then they claim that the action was taken as part of a regular check of violations. Ola and Uber companies have taken away our rightful earnings to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees. We have been demanding action for years," he said. G S Kumar from the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike's taxi drivers' association said the government has no concern for either the commuters or drivers. "If they can ban silly apps like TikTok, why can't they ban the aggregator apps which are openly robbing the people and the drivers," he asked. Bike taxi A joint statement by the associations noted that bike taxis have been allowed to run without any licence for two years. The motor vehicle act doesnt allow private vehicles to be run as commercial vehicles. But the department has allowed it for the past few years. No effort has been made to stop the illegal operations, it said. The statement also demanded the government to issue a public statement calling upon people not to use the aggregator apps. Russian missiles on Monday targeted electrical power plants, transmission lines and waterworks across Ukraine in a strategy now being openly discussed in Russia retaliating for battlefield losses by attempting to cripple Ukraines critical infrastructure. Plunging cities into darkness and complicating peoples lives with water outages are intended to sow panic behind the Ukrainian lines as winter looms, even though it may have little immediate effect on the fighting, Ukrainian officials and military analysts say. Lights flickered off in multiple cities on Monday, as local authorities resorted to rolling blackouts to avoid overloading backup electrical lines. The idea of freezing Ukrainians into submission is not new. The Kremlin has for years studied Ukraines energy networks and sought to manipulate prices or cut natural gas deliveries to influence politics in the country, an approach it is now pursuing with military force. Twice in past years, Russia cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine in midwinter. Also read | Ukraine vows to strengthen its armed forces after major Russian air strikes By Monday afternoon, bombardments had hit 11 infrastructure sites throughout the country, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said in a post on Facebook. Ukraine should brace for blackouts and disruptions in water supplies, he said. Regional officials have been bracing for extensive repair jobs at power plants, hiring extra linemen and setting up communal spaces heated by wood or coal stoves as a fallback option if Russia succeeds in knocking out heat and power in the cold winter months. As Russians lose, they fire rockets at civilian infrastructure to create panic in the rear and damage our army, said Olexander Vilkul, military governor of Kryvyi Rih, a central Ukrainian city that was among the first targets of the Russian strategy of targeting infrastructure last month. In that flurry of strikes, missiles hit the citys waterworks, water pipes and a slues on a dam, flooding low-lying neighborhoods. The strikes Monday expanded the strategy. By Monday afternoon, four regions Lviv, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkiv were without electricity, officials said. In Kharkiv, electrically powered trolley buses and trams glided to a stop. Electric trains from Kyiv headed to the countrys west didnt leave the station. Experts on Ukraines electrical grid and municipal heating have said it is a hard target to fully disable, making it unlikely a demoralizing nationwide freeze awaits Ukraine over the winter. In the Soviet era, the country was a center of hydroelectric and nuclear power generation and today has about twice as much generating capacity as domestic demand. Ukraine exports electricity to the European Union but suspended exports Monday after the strikes, according to the countrys energy ministry. Missile strikes can cause temporary or regional blackouts but are unlikely to plunge the entire country into darkness, Ivan Plachkov, a former energy minister, said in an interview. He added that the centralized heating systems that circulate hot water to neighborhoods often have built-in backup systems. City authorities throughout Ukraine have also been preparing warm spaces heated by wood or coal stoves, where residents can move if their apartments lose heat. Ukraine is prepared as much as possible for this scenario, Plachkov said. People are preparing for winter. After these strikes, the fight will go on. On Tuesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, targeting Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, said those who call themselves the disciples of socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) have betrayed his socialist ideals by sitting in the lap of the Congress. Opposition leaders and experts on socialist politics pointed to Shahs poor grasp of history. Nitish Kumar asked where Shah was during the anti-Emergency struggle. The occasion was JPs 120th birth anniversary. Shah unveiled a 15-feet statue of the freedom fighter at his birthplace in Sitab Diara, a village in Bihars Saran district. Shah recalled JPs slogan of total revolution. Without mentioning Nitish Kumars name, Shah said he has changed sides five times for power and sitting in the lap of the same Congress against which JP fought all his life. Nitish Kumar paid his respects to JP in Patna and Nagaland. JP had spent three years in the northeast from 1964, and people still remember him there, Kumar said, dismissing questions that BJP was trying to appropriate JPs legacy. Where was Amit Shah during the anti-Emergency struggle, the Bihar CM asked. In a tweet, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh pointed out that JP was a key founder of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) in 1934. Once attracted to Marxism and critical of Gandhi, he became a stalwart Gandhian. He shared a very warm relationship with Nehru, whom he addressed as Bhai, Ramesh said. Alluding to when Nehru had requested JP to return to the Congress, Ramesh said, Nehru saw him as his successor in the 1950s, but that was not to be. All this is important to recall since it is only JPs confrontation with Indira Gandhi (Indu to him) that gets highlighted by the PM, Ramesh said. Former JNU professor Anand Kumar said the socialist leader would have launched his total revolution to fight to protect individual freedom and freedom to dissent, just as he did in 1974. Anand Kumar said JP was beyond party politics, believed in nation-building, and mentored people from all ideological hues, including EMS Namboodiripad, Chandra Shekhar and those from the Sangh Parivar. A JDU leader said 2015 was the last time BJP top leadership marked JPs birth anniversary with fanfare at Delhis Vigyan Bhavan as it was nervous about the Bihar Assembly polls against the united might of JDU, RJD and Congress. It is again nervous with these forces coming together, which is why Shah went to JPs village to unveil the statue, he said. National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday carried out raids at multiple locations in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and arrested one person in a case related to suspect funding activities of Al Huda Educational Trust (AHET), Rajouri. A spokesperson of the premier probe agency said the NIA sleuths conducted searches at 18 locations in Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu region and Srinagar, Bandipora, Shopian, Pulwama and Budgam districts of Kashmir. Mohammad Ameer Shamshi r/o Rajouri was arrested in the case related to criminal activities of AHET, Rajouri, he said. The spokesperson said the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) J&K, after being declared as an unlawful association under UA (P) Act, has been continuing its activities through its frontal organisations. Also Read | Two terrorists killed in encounter in Jammu & Kashmir's Anantnag One such organisation is AHET which has been found raising funds through various means, including donations, hawala etc purportedly for charitable purposes, but are instead using these funds to radicalise and incite the youth of J&K for unlawful activities and disrupt the territorial integrity and sovereignty of India. NIA had suo-moto registered the case on 03.09.2022, he said. The NIA investigations have revealed that the arrested accused Shamshi is the chairperson (Nizam-e-Alaa) of AHET and acts on the directions of the chief patron of the Trust. Investigations have also revealed that the ex-officio chief patron of AHET is the Ameer-e-Jamaat, JeI (J&K). The Trust has continued to raise funds even after the declaration of JeI as an unlawful association. Suspect links with other NGOs and trusts operating in Kashmir have also emerged during investigations, the NIA statement said. During the searches, several mobile devices and documents related to funding and properties have been seized. Since early 2017, the NIA has been continuously carrying out raids in Kashmir in connection with alleged terror funding, fidayeen (suicide) attack cases and the agency has arrested and questioned dozens of people in the last more than four years. The state transport authority has said that app-based aggregators Ola, Uber and Rapido will not be allowed to provide autorickshaw hailing services from Wednesday, days after the companies came into the spotlight over exorbitant fares. Transport Commissioner T H M Kumar said he held a meeting with the three companies on Tuesday who have agreed to stop aggregating autorickshaws starting from Wednesday. Failing to keep the word will attract a penalty of Rs 5,000 per vehicle. No action will be taken against the autorickshaws. Only the companies found to be aggregating them will have to pay penalties, he said. The move comes hours after 13 autorickshaw drivers unions set a seven-day deadline for the state government to ban the three aggregators. Bengaluru is estimated to have about 2 lakh autorickshaws of which nearly 1 lakh offered services through the aggregators. Lakhs of people have become dependent on the apps. Both commuters and drivers were upset with the aggregators in recent days due to the exorbitant fares and falling earnings, respectively. Earlier in the day, autorickshaw drivers threatened to gherao Transport Minister B Sriramulu's residence if the government doesn't intervene to solve the problem. The officials, however, clarified that no order has been issued against the taxi (four-wheeler) services offered by the companies. 'New rules will come' The commissioner reiterated that the aggregation of three-wheelers was not covered by the licence given to the companies under the Karnataka On-demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016. "Ola, Uber and Rapido said that they will soon submit fresh applications seeking permission to aggregate the autorickshaws. Their request will be forwarded to the state government. However, till the government takes a decision on the matter, the companies will not be allowed to provide autorickshaw-hailing services. This matter has been made clear to the representatives," he said. On the autorickshaw drivers' demand to ban all the aggregator companies, an official in the Regional Transport Office said the court's stay orders do not permit such coercive action against the companies. "We can only take corrective actions," he added. Legal action To a question on cab aggregators operating with a licence that expired a year ago, an official acknowledged that the companies do not have the licence to aggregate even the four-wheelers. Early disposal of the case (against the Aggregator Rules 2016) will help bring clarity in the transport sector. The department will soon bring the issue to the notice of the High Court of Karnataka. We hope to get this issue sorted out at the earliest, he added. Three individuals whose phones were seized last month as part of a police investigation have links to organisations receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds in international funding. Last month, the PSNI took possession of mobile phones believed to belong to Causeway Coast and Glens Borough councillor George Duddy, former DUP election agent Leanne Abernethy, and one other individual. All have links to organisations who have received significant funding from the International Fund for Ireland (IFI). The IFI is backed by the UK government through the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), the Irish government and the US government. Founded in 1986, the fund's board is appointed jointly by the British and Irish governments, with one of its aims to encourage contact, dialogue and reconciliation between unionists and nationalists'. Its most recent accounts show 1.5m was provided by the US government in 2021, with 1m handed over by the UK government and 4.2m from the Irish government. Also listed in the 2021 report are the organisations who benefited from the funding, with Ulidia Training, Ballymoney, County Antrim receiving 246,877. Companies House records show Alderman Duddy has been a named director of Ulidia Community Empowerment CIC whose address is shared with that of Ulidia Training since February 2021. The records also show the name of the company changing from 'Ulidian Group CIC' to 'Ulidia Community Empowerment CIC' on March 24 2021. The Coleraine councillor's register of interests also declares he is an 'un-remunerated' director of Ulidia Community Empowerment CIC, and lists Dalriada Training Services in the same section. Alderman Duddy's register states he is a 'non-employee' of the company. A third entry lists a further non-remunerated role as 'Project Manager' of the AIMS Project, whose most recent accounts also show a payment from Ulidia Taining. Leanne Abernethy pictured with IFI board member Allen McAdam on completion of a previous project. Leanne Abernethy holds a role as 'Restorative Practitioner' with the AIMS Project and is listed as a director of Dalriada Training Services on Companies House. Their registered accounts between 2018 and 2021 show payments totalling 32,050 from Ulidia Training. Further documents on Companies House show Dalriada Training Service's registered address was changed from the Ulidia Training address of Main Street, Ballymoney on December 31 2019. Both Leanne Abernethy and Alderman Duddy are also members of the Causeway Coast and Glens Police Community Safety Partnership (PCSP). A third mobile phone seized in September is understood to belong to a Derry-based community worker who has held a position with another IFI-funded organisation that received around 150,000 in 2021. A spokesperson for the International Fund for Ireland said they had become aware that the mobile phones had been seized only through media reports. The IFI is not aware of any funding issues or investigations affecting the Causeway Coast and Glens area, they said. All claims are subject to a detailed vouching and verification check by our Managing Agent to ensure compliance with the letter of offer. The IFI confirmed both of the organisations would continue to be funded 'into the 2022 reporting year'. Independent councillor Padraig McShane. Independent Causeway Coast and Glens councillor Padraig McShane has said the seizure of the mobile phones last week was linked to Council funding issues. Cllr McShane has requested access to a report carried out by an external body in relation to funding within the Council, saying it should be made 'available to view immediately'. Police however have released little information on the nature of the mobile phone seizures. As part of an ongoing investigation, detectives seized mobile phones from three individuals in the Ballymoney, Coleraine and Derry/Londonderry areas on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th September. There are no further details available at present, said a spokesperson. Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council did not respond to a request for comment regarding elected member Alderman George Duddy. Alderman Duddy told the Coleraine Chronicle this week that he was confident the matter would be 'resolved satisfactorily'. King Charles has conveyed condolences following an explosion in Creeslough on Friday that claimed ten lives. The tragedy sent shockwaves around the world. King Charles has sent a letter to the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, in the wake of the atrocity. "My wife and I were filled with immense sadness when we heard of that appallingly tragic explosion at Creeslough, County Donegal," the British Monarch said. "However inadequate this may be under such shattering circumstances, we wanted you to know that our most heartfelt sympathy and deepest condolences are with those families and friends who have lost their loved ones in this devastating tragedy." Over the weekend, Pope Francis expressed spiritual closeness to those who are suffering in the aftermath. In a letter sent to the Bishop of Raphoe, Alan McGuckian SJ, from the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis prayed for consolation and healing on all those affected. His Holiness Pope Francis was saddened to learn of the loss of life and destruction caused by the explosion in Creeslough and he expressed his spiritual closeness to all those suffering in the aftermath of this tragedy, he said. While entrusting the deceased to the merciful love of Almighty God, his Holiness implores the Devine blessings of consolation and healing upon the injured, the displaced and the families coping with pain of loss. As a pledge of strength and peace in the Lord, the Holy Father sends his blessing to all the people in Ireland. A mother and her son who tragically died in Fridays explosion in Creeslough will be buried together on Wednesday. Catherine ODonnell (39) and her son James Monaghan (13) were among those killed in the blast. They will be laid to rest on Wednesday afternoon in Doe Cemetery following Funeral Mass at 2pm in St Michaels Church, Creeslough. Catherine had just met James, a student at Mulroy College in Milford after he got off the school bus close to the Applegreen complex. They were in the post office queue when the explosion occurred. Catherine will be sadly missed by her beloved daughter Sinead, mother Margaret, partner Charlie Flood, brothers, sisters, extended family and friends. She was predeceased by her baby daughter Paige, and her father Edward (Ned). James will be sorely missed by his beloved father Chris Monaghan, grandparents, Charlie, aunts, uncles, extended family and friends. He was predeceased by his sister Paige The first funerals of the ten people killed in a horrific explosion in Creeslough on Friday will take place on Tuesday. Jessica Gallagher, a 24-year-old fashion designer, will be the first of the victims to be laid to rest. At St Michaels Church in grief-stricken Creeslough, her funeral mass will be celebrated at 11am, after which she will be buried in Doe cemetery. On Tuesday afternoon, a congregation of many of the same mourners will gather in the same church for the funeral of 49-year-old Martin McGill, who will also be buried in Doe Cemetery. On Wednesday morning, the funeral of James OFlaherty will be held in Derrybeg. Five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe and her father, Robert Garwe (50) as well as Hugh Kelly (59), Martina Martin (49) and 14-year-old Leona Harper were also killed in the explosion. A local Council has tonight confirmed it will provide additional assistance to one of Northern Ireland's largest annual tourism events. Coleraine and District Motor Club the organisation responsible for the North West 200 had brought a partnership proposal to Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council last month. The proposal sought assistance from Council for the building of the race course, event management support and the provision of dedicated office space for the 2023 event. At last month's Leisure and Development Committee, it was agreed to meet a delegation from the motor club, with the final proposal to be voted on at Tuesday's meeting. Cllr John McAuley's proposed that the Council provide support for the running of the North West 200, but only for the course build and the office space. In addition, the support was offered with the proviso that the Coleraine and District Motor Club produce a detailed business plan for how they will become self-funding within five years, as well as a succession plan for the management of the event. The reality is that this event is the biggest income; it has already been publicly acknowledged that it is worth 16 million to the economy, he said. For us as a Council, it would be wrong not to try and help them some way, even though it needs to be put on record that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. To leave the full responsibility of whether the event goes ahead at the Council's doorstep is wrong, but we are where we are. We can't continue just to bail out events that aren't council-owned. DUP Council lead Cllr John McAuley Cllr McAuley's proposal was seconded by Cllr Edgar Scott, but independent councillor Padraig McShane said organisation was running 'on the good grace of its creditors'. It is 170,000 in debt; how it got there nobody knows, but it was handed over in good condition to the present leadership with 150,000 in the bank and TV rights for the BBC, he said. There is something gone badly wrong with the management. Everybody is getting the feedback of motorcycle fans and those who delivered on the ground over the years. We are opening a can of worms with this, and we must figure out where the finance went to, how it was spent, because it is not clear from their books; they are the most appalling books I've ever seen. We are not in a position to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds because someone came in here with a big sad face on and told us we'd be losing money for the Borough. Sinn Fein's Leanne Peacock said it was wrong that the responsibility for financial issues 'to be laid at the door of the Council and our rate payers'. We're already massive contributors to this event, she said. After all these years of success, we have concerns that the North West 200 is not already sustainable and profitable. To my knowledge they have not come to Council with any plans or steps they've already taken to address these issues. The North West 200 is also a limited company a business and I would be concerned about the legality of entering into a partnership; this proposal could set a dangerous precedent. Cllr Edgar Scott said he feared that once the event was lost, it would never return. Given what it brings into the economy here, we need to be very careful what we do. All other councils are running events for the very same reasons we are looking to support this one, he said. It helps out businesses, and if it goes this year especially after being missing two years because of Covid I don't think we'll ever see it back again. Cllr Stephanie Quigley asked the Council to detail their contribution to the event in 2022 and what it would cost in 2023 under the new proposal. A Council officer shared figures showing the Council committed 179,000 to the event last year, with that amount rising by an estimated 96,000 even without the event management aspect. Cllr William McCandless said though there was a current need for austerity and caution, there was a major concern that the North West 200 was in danger of not returning. People will not thank us for that, he said. It's a major revenue-generator; we've known that for years on the north coast. To cancel such a significant event seven months prior would be foolhardy. Let's put the checks and balances on this, so we know exactly, rather than speculating here tonight. The meeting then went into private 'in committee' discussion to allow legal advice to be taken and after a brief recess, councillors voted in favour of the proposal. 21 members voted in favour, eleven against and there were three abstentions. Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia, right, attends a United Nations (UN) general assembly meeting following the Russian security council veto at UN headquarters in New York City Oct. 10. AFP-Yonhap The U.N. General Assembly started debating Monday whether to demand that Russia reverse course on annexing four regions of Ukraine a discussion that came as Moscow's most extensive missile strikes in months alarmed much of the international community anew. The assembly's special session was planned before Monday's barrage, but countries spoke out on the widespread, Monday morning rush-hour attacks that killed at least 14 people and wounded scores. Ukrainian Ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya said some of his own close relatives were imperiled in a residential building, unable to take cover in a bomb shelter. Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya speaks during a United Nations General Assembly special session at the United Nations headquarters on Oct. 10, in New York City. AFP-Yonhap ''By launching missile attacks on civilians sleeping in their homes or rushing toward children going to schools, Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways,'' he said. Russia said it targeted military and energy facilities. But some of the missiles smashed into civilian areas: a park, a commuter minibus, and more. Russia has said it was retaliating for what it called a Ukrainian ''terrorist'' attack Saturday on an important bridge, and Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the assembly that Moscow had warned that there wouldn't be impunity for such an act. The bridge was ''civilian infrastructure, critical infrastructure,'' he told reporters outside the chamber. Ukrainian officials haven't confirmed that Kyiv was behind the bridge attack or other incidents of apparent sabotage but have said they welcome setbacks for Russia in all territory that it has claimed to annex. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was ''deeply shocked'' by the Russian attacks and spoke Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. "Martin McGill was a gentle, caring, kind soul who will now be reunited with his late father, Joseph," Fr John Joe Duffy told those who gathered at the Celtic fans Funeral Mass this afternoon. The 49-year-old was among those who tragically lost their lives in Fridays explosion in Creeslough. At his Funeral Mass, Martin was recalled as a beautiful soul who cared deeply for his mother Mary. Rain fell heavily onto cars and onto members of the congregation from 2 oclock onwards, echoing the heartfelt sadness and loss experienced by this close-knit community. As the Funeral Mass began, Fr John Joe Duffy asked that symbols representing Martins life be brought to the altar among which was a Celtic jersey. Fr Duffy said: This symbolises the great love Martin had for his beloved Celtic. A bottle of Lucozade was also brought to the altar. Fr Duffy said that Martin always had a bottle of Lucozade in his hand. He was always someone looking after the local community, doing little errands and he often went to the shop to get that little loaf of bread from Danny Martin and brought it to those he cared for, Fr Duffy said. Fr Duffy offered his heartfelt sympathies on behalf of all the clergy gathered to those affected by Martins sudden death. The curate said that people had joined together from north and south. He said the community was heartened by the support of others from across the world following the tragedy. Fr Duffy said that the awful tragedy that struck on Friday had broken hearts. He said Martin, who moved to Ireland in 2001, had lost his father in recent times: Our hope today is that he is now united with his dad who is just gone a short time ahead of him whom he missed very much and whose death was overwhelming for Martin but that he had to care for you his mother - that was the strength that got him through. His strength was in the fact that he was a caring person - a person of kindness and compassion." Fr Duffy said that people had been uplifted by the kindness since tragedy struck and that Martin had epitomised kindness during his lifetime. I have said and I always thought it and I am not just saying it today but Martin had a most beautiful soul - a gentle soul - the kind person that he was - a person where you could see the goodness flowing out from him, he said. Martin was recalled as a person who exuded kindness and compassion. The President Michael D Higgins was represented at the funeral by his Aide de Camp, Colonel Stephen Howard. Taoiseach Micheal Martin was represented by his Aide de Camp Commandant Claire Mortimer. Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle ONeill, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, Joe McHugh TD and the Mayor of Donegal, Councillor Liam Blaney were among the wide range of political representatives in attendance. Members of Donegal County Council, An Garda Siochana, emergency services personnel, doctors and staff of the medical centre, the Northern Ireland rescue and fire services were present. 'Fields of Athenry' rang through St Michaels Church and members of the congregation sang the words in memory of one of the beautiful souls their community has lost. Denis O'Donnell from the Association of Donegal Celtic Supporters' Club, Mick McGrath the Donegal GAA county chairman, former Donegal manager Jim McGuinness and many Celtic supporters were in attendance at the Funeral Mass. Fr Duffy said that it would mean a lot to Martin to know that the Celtic FC foundation donated 10,000 to the Creeslough Community Support Fund. The Bishop of Raphoe Alan McGuckian SJ was among the clergy that led the final prayers at the funeral. The words of 'Youll never walk alone' rang through St Michaels Chapel in Creeslough as Martin McGill made his final journey through the wind and the rain. Oscar-nominated actor Ciaran Hinds has urged Prime Minister Liz Truss to scrap a controversial Bill aimed at resolving Northern Irelands troubled past. The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, which proposes an effective amnesty for Troubles crimes for people who co-operate with an information body, has sparked widespread opposition. It is set to go to the House of Lords for a second reading in the coming weeks as Parliament returns. Hinds wrote an open letter to Ms Truss warning that the Bill would permanently cut off any prospect of justice for bereaved families. The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy star has urged a rethink on the Bill which he says victims of the Troubles are unanimously opposed to. He recently starred in Kenneth Branagh hit Belfast, for which he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar, and said it showed how frightening and violent the Troubles were. For the many families who lost loved ones that chapter is not closed, and cannot be, without the healing that only real justice can bring, the Belfast-born actor wrote. The rule of law must apply to everyone, without favour. No-one, whether a state or non-state actor, should be above the law. I stand with the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, partners and grandparents of the victims, and all those who are united in strong opposition to your proposals set out in the legacy Bill to permanently deny Troubles victims paths to justice. Victims deserve the same access to justice whether in Belfast or Bristol, Derry or Durham. Hinds raised the killing of 12-year-old Majella OHare, who was shot in the back by a soldier, noting that her brother Michael has been fighting for 44 years for the independent investigation to which they are entitled. He concluded the letter writing: Everyone is entitled to justice. Grainne Teggart, Northern Ireland deputy programme director for Amnesty International UK, welcomed the letter. Liz Truss has an opportunity to swiftly abandon this deeply unjust and cruel Bill and send a message that she stands with victims, for justice and the rule of law. Victims rightly expect and demand accountability, she said. No one should be allowed to get away with murder, torture and other serious violations. Its never too late to do the right thing. All eyes are on the Prime Ministers next move. Will her tenure be a departure from this appalling attack on rights or will she shield perpetrators of horrific crimes, at the expense of victims. There is almost universal opposition to the proposed legislation which would see an effective amnesty offered for people accused of Troubles offences as long as they co-operate with a new truth recovery body. It is also set to halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict. The Bill has been through the House of Commons and is set for consideration by the House of Lords. WhatsApp could increase the maximum number of users that can be a part of a group. As per a report published by WABetaInfo on October 9, 2022, WhatsApp is working on larger groups that can accommodate as many as 1024 participants. Although the feature is not available for all users, it is currently in the beta testing phase. The development comes months after WhatsApp increased the original limit to 512 users, allowing large companies or groups to stay connected. WhatsApp is testing the feature in Argentina As per WABetaInfo, a WhatsApp update rolled out for beta users on Android and iOS contains the ability to add up to 1024 people to a WhatsApp group. Adding 1024 members in a group could be very important for users as sub-groups of communities support the same new limit, and WhatsApp is also developing new tools to give admins more control, states the report. The publication also informs that the test was conducted in Argentina, where the instant messaging platform is also experimenting with a feature that lets users share files up to 2GB in size. From what it looks like, WhatsApp may release the feature shortly. WhatsApp recently increased the group capacity from 256 members to 512 members Initially, WhatsApp users could only add up to 256 members to a group, but that changed with a recent update. Other platforms that provide the online messaging facility, such as Telegram and Signal, allow up to 200,000 and 1,000 members in a group, respectively. Can you imagine a scenario where WhatsApp users might need to add more than a thousand people to a group? It could be the case for businesses or enterprises or some media outlets that broadcast news and other updates. Still, regular WhatsApp users might not use the feature to its fullest potential. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in. MS Dhoni is the brand ambassador for one of the companies in India, Garuda Aerospace. He is not only the face of the company but also an investor in the company. The COVID-19 lockdown made him discover the utility of drones in agriculture and how they could benefit farmers, and he shared this discovery with the company. The camera drone will be battery-powered. Its primary application involves surveillance, inspections, surveys, growing crops, and cleaning solar panels. Although Garuda Aerospace hasn't disclosed any more drone specifications, the company may unveil the feature before the product arrives in the market later this year. Customers can expect the drone to be available for purchase before the end of this year. A camera drone made in India: Droni Droni was shown-off at a global drone expo in Chennai along with Garuda Aerospace's brand-new Kisan Drone, designed to spray pesticide over three acres in a single day. Agnishwar Jayaprakash, the President and CEO of Garuda Aerospace, said, "Our Drone is an indigenous drone that is flexible in the surveillance applications it can do. In addition to being incredibly efficient, it has cutting-edge construction techniques and was built to an exceptionally high quality." President of the Indian Drone Association, Anand Kumar Das, said, "I am extremely delighted to serve on a platform where industry stakeholders connect to gain insights about the drone industry. I am also happy to organize the Global Drone Expo together with Garuda Aerospace." A report by Business Insider India mentioned that the company is involved in contracts and agreements worth close to $1.2 billion. In addition, the Telangana government will use the company's surveillance drones. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in. On October 11, 2022, the Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek announced the Dimensity 1080, a new addition to the Dimensity line of smartphone processors. It comes as the successor to the Dimensity 920 released last year and offers better performance and camera features. The chipset should be seen in mid-tier smartphones by the end of this year. Here is everything that you need to know about the MediaTek Dimensity 1080. The Dimensity 1080 comes with an upgraded CPU Compared to its predecessor, the Dimensity 1080 chip has a faster processing and graphics unit. At its core, the chipset has two ARM Cortex-A78 cores that can go up to 2.6GHz. Further, there is a power-optimized ARM Mali-G68 GPU. The chipset also supports LPDDR5 memory and USF 3.1 storage. To top that, the chip is designed on a 6nm architecture, making it more power-efficient than the Dimensity 920. We might see the chipset in mid-tier smartphones soon The image signal processor on the Dimensity 920 supports up to 200 MP primary camera and features a hardware-accelerated 4K HDR recording engine. A multi-core AI processing unit also allows the chipset to perform certain tricks, such as applying a soft background blur and selective focus from a single camera. In terms of display, the processor can handle an FHD+ display with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Last but not least, Dimensity 1080 supports sub-6GHz 5G connectivity and Wi-Fi 6. All these upgrades make the Dimensity 920 a decent option for smartphones priced between Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 30,000. Upon the launch of the Dimensity 1080, Ch Chen, Deputy General Manager of the Wireless Communications Business Unit at MediaTek, says, Continuing MediaTeks legacy of optimizing power and performance, the Dimensity 1080 offers a full suite of advanced features that challenge expectations about what a 5G smartphone can do. This new chipset is designed to enhance many functions that made its predecessor great, including processing power, camera, and video quality, and time to market for manufacturers. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in. New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) ViewSonic, a leading global provider of visual solutions, on Monday launched their latest gaming monitor, VX2405-P-MHD, in India. With a refresh rate of 144Hz, 1ms response time, and AMD FreeSync Premium Technology, the IPS monitor offers an incredible and seamless gaming experience. It will be available on Amazon and retail outlets for Rs 24,930. "The new gaming monitor, VX2405-P-MHD offers a range of features with brilliant display quality and is perfectly designed for an effortless and life-like gaming experience," Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Director Sales and Marketing, IT Business, ViewSonic India, said in a statement. "The new monitor will also help us expand our reach and tap the market share of customers that looks for a combination of the best features and an affordable price point. Elated about the launch, we hope that customers will enjoy the new monitor," Bhattacharya added. The new monitor comes with a full HD display and SuperClear IPS technology that enhances the sharpness and picture quality. Additionally, the mega dynamic contrast ratio of 80M:1 creates depth in pictures by adding more definition to the screen's darkest and brightest colours. The gaming monitor is equipped with ViewSonic's exclusive ViewMode presets, that offer optimized screen performance for a variety of scenarios such as gaming, editing, or watching movies. Furthermore, DisplayPort and HDMI inputs allow flexible connectivity to other devices, making it an ideal gaming monitor. (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. Subscriber content preview NEW YORK (AP) Amazon said Monday it will invest 1 billion euros ($972.1 million) to add thousands of more eclectic vans, long-haul trucks and cargo bikes to its delivery network in Europe. The company says the investment would grow the number of electric delivery vans it has in Europe from roughly 3,000 to 10,000 by 2025. . . . Subscriber content preview SEATTLE An apartment building at 215 Boylston Ave. E. sold last week for $4.8 million, according to King County records. The seller was The Blake Apartments LLC, associated local investor/developer Jim Snelling, which acquired the land in 2003 for $450,000 then several years later developed it. (The project replaced an old rental house.) . . . President Joe Biden walks to the Oval Office after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, Oct. 10, in Washington. AP-Yonhap U.S. President Joe Biden condemned Monday's widespread Russian missile attacks in Ukraine, saying they targeted civilians and served no military purpose, and vowed that the United States and its allies will continue to impose costs on Moscow. "The United States strongly condemns Russia's missile strikes today across Ukraine, including in Kyiv. These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose," Biden said in a statement. "They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin's illegal war on the Ukrainian people," Biden said in a statement." The United States has provided more than $16.8 billion worth of U.S. security assistance since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and imposed a wide-ranging array of economic sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine. Air India to add 20 weekly flights to Birmingham, London and San Francisco Air India will introduce 20 additional weekly flights to Birmingham, London and San Francisco in the next three months as the Tata-owned airline seeks to strengthen its international presence. With five additional flights a week to Birmingham, nine additional flights to London and six additional flights a week to San Francisco, Air India will be offering more than 5,000 additional seats every week to customers, the carrier said in a release on Friday. The airline's current schedule of 34 flights every week to the UK will now go up to 48 flights. Birmingham will receive extra five flights per week, three from Delhi and two additional from Amritsar while London will receive nine additional weekly flights, which include five from Mumbai, three from Delhi and one from Ahmedabad. Together, seven Indian cities will now have non-stop Air India flights to the UK capital, the release said. Air India's weekly flights to the US will increase from 34 to 40. It will connect Mumbai with San Francisco thrice a week, and reinstate a triweekly Bengaluru operation. With the additions, Air India will have 16 weekly flights against the current 10, with non-stop service from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The additional flights, which will be introduced in a phased manner from October to December this year, is part of the airline's ongoing endeavour to reclaim its position as a leader on the international aviation map, the release stated. Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson said as the airline reinvents itself under the Vihaan.AI transformation programme, adding frequency and improving connectivity from major Indian cities to more international destinations is a significant focus. "This sizeable frequency increase to the US and the UK, as well as the addition of new city pairs and improved aircraft cabin interiors, comes just 10 months after Air India's acquisition by the Tata Group. It is a clear signal of our intent, and an early step towards a much bigger aspiration," he said. RBI to soon launch digital rupee; issues concept note The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday released a concept note on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for India. RBI defines CBDC as legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. It is akin to sovereign paper currency but takes a different form, exchangeable at par with the existing currency and shall be accepted as a medium of payment, legal tender and a safe store of value. CBDCs would appear as liability on a central banks balance sheet. Bank for International Settlement has laid down foundational principles and core features of a CBDC, to guide exploration and support public policy objectives, as per the need of existing mandate of central banks. The CBDC is an extension of present state-of-the-art payment systems that are affordable, accessible, convenient, efficient, safe, secure and available 24x7x365 days a year. This has been backed by the creation of robust round-the-clock electronic payment systems such as Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) that has facilitated seamless real time or near real time fund transfers. In addition, the launch of Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for instant payment settlement, the introduction of mobile based payment systems such as Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), and National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) to facilitate electronic toll payments have been the defining moments that has transformed the payments ecosystem of the country and attracted international recognition says the concept note. The convenience of these payment systems ensured rapid acceptance as they provided consumers an alternative to the use of cash and paper for making payments. The facilitation of non-bank FinTech firms in the payment ecosystem as PPI issuers, Bharat Bill Payment Operating Units (BBPOUs) and third-party application providers in the UPI platform have furthered the adoption of digital payments in the country. The Reserve Bank has all along played the role of a catalyst towards achieving its public policy objective of developing and promoting a safe, secure, sound, efficient and interoperable payment system. Further, with the advent of cutting-edge technologies, digitalisation of money is the next milestone in the monetary history. RBI has been exploring the pros and cons of introduction of CBDCs for some time and is currently engaged in working towards a phased implementation strategy, going step by step through various stages of pilots followed by the final launch, and simultaneously examining use cases for the issuance of its own CBDC (Digital Rupee (eRupee)), with minimal or no disruption to the financial system. Key Advantages: CBDC, being a sovereign currency, holds unique advantages of central bank money viz. trust, safety, liquidity, settlement finality and integrity; It would help reduce operational costs involved in physical cash management, foster financial inclusion, bring resilience, efficiency, and innovation in payments system, add efficiency to the settlement system, and boost innovation in cross-border payments space; CBDC would facilitate public uses that any private virtual currencies can provide, without the associated risks; The use of offline feature in CBDC would also be beneficial in remote locations and offer availability and resilience benefits when electrical power or mobile network is not available. Private virtual currencies sit at substantial odds to the historical concept of money. They are not commodities or claims on commodities as they have no intrinsic value. The rapid mushrooming of private cryptocurrencies in the last few years has attempted to challenge the fundamental notion of money as we know it. Claiming the benefits of de-centralisation, cryptocurrencies are being hailed as innovation that would usher in de-centralised finance and disrupt the traditional financial system. However, the inherent design of cryptocurrencies is more geared to bypass the established and regulated intermediation and control arrangements that play a crucial role of ensuring integrity and stability of monetary and financial eco-system. Further, a wider proliferation of cryptocurrencies has the potential to diminish monetary authorities potential to determine and regulate monetary policy and the monetary system of the country which could pose serious challenge to the stability of the financial system of the country. In this context, it is the responsibility of central bank to provide its citizens with a risk free central bank digital money which will provide the users the same experience of dealing in currency in digital form, without any risks associated with private cryptocurrencies. CBDCs will provide the public with benefits of virtual currencies while ensuring consumer protection by avoiding the damaging social and economic consequences of private virtual currencies. The purpose behind the issue of this concept note is to create awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the Digital Rupee (eRupee), in particular, the release adds. The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been charged with rape and child sexual abuse. Convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner is accused of five offences between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal, the public prosecutors office in Braunschweig said, with the charges unrelated to the McCann case. Investigators believe the 45-year-old killed Madeleine, then three, after abducting her from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3 2007. Brueckner, who has reportedly denied any involvement in her disappearance, was identified as a murder suspect in the McCann case by Portuguese officials in June 2020. On Tuesday, prosecutors said they have charged him with three counts of rape and two counts of child sexual abuse. He is accused of filming himself raping a woman in her 70s in a holiday apartment in Portugal on an unknown date between 2000 and 2006. Prosecutors also say Brueckner raped a 20-year-old Irish woman twice in Praia da Rocha in 2004. He is accused of waking her at knife-point before tying her to a table. Brueckner is alleged to have filmed much of the incident on a camera he had brought with him, before escaping via a balcony. Prosecutors said the alleged victim managed to free herself and call for help. He is also accused of orally raping a teenage girl in her home in Praia da Luz after tying her to a wooden pole and whipping her on an unknown date between 2000 and 2006. Brueckner is again claimed to have filmed the incident. The suspect also allegedly exposed himself and grabbed the wrist of a 10-year-old German girl on Salema beach in Faro in 2007. The charges allege Bruckener also exposed himself to an 11-year old Portuguese girl during the so-called Snail Festival in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines in 2017 while she was sitting on a swing in a playground. Prosecutors say the girl ran to her father for help and the suspect was arrested by Portuguese police at the scene. Brueckner is serving a seven-year sentence for rape in Portugal in 2005. The investigation into Madeleines disappearance is continuing irrespective of the charges brought, prosecutors said. Earlier this year, on the 15th anniversary of Madeleines disappearance, her parents said it is essential to learn the truth of what happened to their daughter. On the same day, the Metropolitan Police, which continues to treat the case as a missing persons inquiry, said it is committed to finding the truth. In July 2013, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleines disappearance. Nursing home staff across Ireland are calling on the government to expedite a special pandemic recognition payment promised to frontline healthcare workers. Over 2,000 letters from private and voluntary nursing home staff around the country have been delivered to the Department of Health today (October 11) nine months after the payment was announced. According to Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI), 40,000 staff from nursing homes who worked on the Covid-19 frontline have yet to receive the payment (worth 1000). CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, Tadhg Daly, said, "We received a phenomenal response when we asked staff to articulate their frustration having waited over half a year for a payment promised in recognition of their heroic efforts during the panemic. We asked for 1,000 letters from staff to coincide with the payment being 1,000 but over 2,000 put pen to paper. "Staff spoke of the extreme pressures they and colleagues were placed under, the traumatic loss of residents, the very serious emotional toll they experienced, exhaustion as they worked around-the-clock to protect residents, and the impact of Covid19 continuing to live with them day-to-day. "The sacrifices undertaken by staff in nursing homes were phenomenal and immense. Yet the promised recognition has been considerably soured when we are nine months down the road and it is still to be paid to staff from private and voluntary nursing homes. Staff working in State healthcare settings have received it yet it is shocking and damning that after nine months, it has not found a means to roll it out to private and voluntary nursing home staff and others." The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, has been quizzed in the Dail several times regarding the delay, most recently in the past week. In a Dail session on October 4, he said , "Firstly, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all healthcare workers for their efforts during this most challenging period. "The HSE and the Department are currently examining progressing the rollout to the list of 6 non-HSE/non-Section 38 organisation types covered by the Government Decision. This measure will be ring fenced to staff working ordinarily onsite in Covid-19 exposed healthcare environments. "It is hoped that information will be published shortly for those certain non-HSE/Section 38 healthcare employees that are covered by the Government Decision and the process available to their employers to implement this measure for their eligible staff." On October 6, Minister Donnelly said, "Rolling out the payment to eligible employees of those specific non-HSE/Section 38 organisations covered by the government decision is a complex task, particularly as these employees are not normally paid by the public health service, duplicate payments need to be avoided, and there are many organisations to be covered, but this work is being given priority attention, and it is expected that timeframes will become clearer in due course." Mr Daly continued: "The letters articulate immense frustration, anger and upset being experienced by staff in private and voluntary nursing homes because of the extreme delay in rolling this payment out. A general feeling coming from the letters is staff feel disrespected by the State. "It is appalling that the Department of Health dwelled on this matter for over half a year before deciding a tender process would be required. We hope the feelings articulated by staff will provide impetus for the payment process to be expedited and they will receive due recognition. The entire nation of Ireland stands with the community of Creeslough who are struggling to make sense of enormous and heartbreaking loss, Irelands premier has said. Taoiseach Micheal Martin said words cannot convey the fathomless grief of the tragedy in the small Co Donegal village. Irelands premier made the remarks as he led expressions of sympathy in the Irish parliament for the 10 people who died following an explosion at a petrol station in the village on Friday. Mr Martin said the men, women and children represented everything good and kind and beautiful about Creeslough, Donegal and our country. Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, each one an enormous, incalculable loss in the lives of those around them, he told the Dail. This is a community bereft, a close-knit people in deep sadness and mourning, devastated by what has happened. But its also a community of great strength and resilience, pulling together to support each other through this terrible time. The Fianna Fail leader said he met many people over the weekend who shared stories of the most extraordinary courage, commitment, heroism and love in the aftermath of the incident. Mr Martin and other political leaders visited the scene of the blast on Saturday. The expressions of sympathy were made in parliament as the first funerals were held on Tuesday for victims of the blast. As the people of Creeslough begin the rituals of funerals and burials, we gather as an Oireachtas this afternoon to offer our sincere sympathy, express our shared respect for the bereaved and the injured and to remember and honour those who have died, Mr Martin said. It is important that those struggling to make sense of the enormous and heartbreaking loss now confronting them, know that the entire nation is with them in spirit. Words on their own cannot comfort the fathomless grief that so many will feel in the weeks and months ahead but what we can do and what I know we will do is to be there for them. Individually across this house and collectively as an Oireachtas in the service of all the people of Ireland, we stand with the community of Creeslough and the people of Donegal at home and abroad. Mr Martin paid tribute to the true courage and dedication of emergency services and healthcare staff who cared for people in the aftermath of the explosion. We are reminded of the critical role they play in our national life and we thank them for being there in our darkest moments of need. Mr Martin added: We put our arms around the bereaved and the injured. We pledge to support this community now and in the time ahead as it comes to terms with this trauma and we remember those who have died: Hugh, Robert, Martina, Martin, James, Catherine, Jessica, Leona, James and Shauna. The Tanaiste told parliament the nation is in tears following the tragedy. Leo Varadkar said the world stopped as people learned of the terrible tragedy, a tragedy which makes no sense and whose only lesson is pain and loss. Since then, weve seen the best of each other, a small country becoming one big community to search together, to grieve together and to heal together, he said. This week the world is watching us and its seeing a nation in tears. As a people from this place, we send our condolences to all those whose grief is still raw and painful and all too terrible to comprehend. A nation stands with you. A nation mourns with you. Irelands deputy premier said the Government will help the people of Creeslough in the coming months and years. Today, were a country torn apart by grief but were also a community joining together to help those worst affected and to do what we can to support each other, he told the Dail. As a government, well put the full resources of the state behind the efforts to rebuild a broken community to heal the many emotional and physical wounds. That requires our help in a medium and long-term as well because the deepest wounds are invisible, and they can last for a lifetime. Tourism Minister Catherine Martin commended the incredible community spirit and support on show in the most awful of circumstances in Creeslough. She said people were going about their daily lives when their lives ended in the blink of an eye on Friday. Everyday scenes in Creesloughs small rural community on that Friday autumnal afternoon changed in a second, tragically and cruelly for so many, Ms Martin said. It was an unmerciful sight locals and response services said. She added: The incredible community spirit and support on show in the most awful of circumstances must be commended. Yet, it is difficult to imagine how the scale of these sudden, devastating losses and trauma can possibly be absorbed or comprehended by the community in Creeslough. Sinn Fein TD Matt Carthy said there were no words that properly express the heartbreak, pain and sorrow felt by so many. Ten precious lives gone, a small community devastated, he said. The shock from this small village was felt across Ireland and beyond. Irish people everywhere are stunned, many naturally feeling that Creeslough could be our community, our place, our loved ones. Mr Carthy described the community response in the immediate aftermath of the explosion as immense and he paid tribute to the emergency services both north and south who came to assist the rescue efforts. What they did in Creeslough will never be forgotten, not in that small community or anywhere else in our land, he added. Demonstrators take part in a solidarity protest organised by the "Kurdish National Council" Syrian-Kurdish political bloc, against the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini (banner) an Iranian woman who died while in the custody of Iranian authorities outside the United Nations' offices in the city of Qamishli in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province Oct. 10. AFP-Yonhap Iran intensified its crackdown Tuesday on Kurdish areas in the country's west amid protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police, activists said. Riot police fired into at least one neighborhood in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran's Kurdistan province, as Amnesty International and the White House's national security adviser criticized the violence targeting demonstrators angered by the death of Mahsa Amini. Meanwhile, some oil workers Monday joined the protests at two key refinery complexes, for the first time linking an industry key to Iran's theocracy to the unrest. Workers claimed another protest Tuesday in the crucial oil city of Abadan, with others calling for protests on Wednesday as well. Iran's government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their mandatory headscarf, or hijab. From the capital, Tehran, and elsewhere, videos have emerged online despite authorities disrupting the internet. Videos on Monday showed university and high school students demonstrating and chanting, with some women and girls marching through the streets without headscarves as the protests continue into a fourth week. The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 2009 Green Movement protests. One video posted online by a Kurdish group called the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights showed darkened streets with apparent gunfire going off and a bonfire burning in Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tehran. Another showed riot police carrying shotguns moving in formation with a vehicle, apparently firing at homes. A video posted later Tuesday purportedly showed a massive bullet hole inside the home of one Sanandaj resident, a hole that Hengaw alleged came from a heavy .50-caliber machine gun _ the type often mounted to armored vehicles. Another video purportedly showed security forces randomly firing in the air while arresting someone there on Monday. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran posted another video showing what it described as a phalanx of motorcycle-riding security forces moving through Sanandaj. ''They reportedly broke the windows of hundreds of cars in the Baharan neighborhood,'' the center said. Amini was Kurdish and her death has been felt particularly in Iran's Kurdish region, where demonstrations began Sept. 17 at her funeral there after her death the day before. Amnesty International criticized Iranian security forces for ''using firearms and firing tear gas indiscriminately, including into people's homes.'' It urged the world to pressure Iran to end the crackdown as Tehran continues to disrupt internet and mobile phone networks ''to hide their crimes.'' Iran did not immediately acknowledge the renewed crackdown in Sanandaj. However, Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador over the United Kingdom sanctioning members of the country's morality police and security officials due to the crackdown. Iran's Foreign Ministry called the sanctions ''arbitrary and baseless,'' even while threatening to potentially take countermeasures against London. Jake Sullivan, U.S. President Joe Biden's national security adviser, similarly noted that ''the world is watching what is happening in Iran.'' ''These protestors are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights,'' Sullivan wrote on Twitter. ''We stand with them, and we will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.'' On Monday, workers held demonstrations in Abadan and Asaluyeh, a key point for Iran's massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf it shares with Qatar. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency on Tuesday claimed the Asaluyeh demonstration was a strike over wages. Videos of the protests included workers chanting: ''This is the bloody year Seyyed Ali will be overthrown,'' referring to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei without his Shiite religious title of ayatollah. Workers also said several of their colleagues had been detained by authorities after their protests Tuesday. On Tuesday, the Contractual Oil Workers Protest Organizing Council claimed another strike at Abadan, posting videos outside of the massive refinery complex in the city near the Iraqi border. The details in the videos correspond with each and to known features of the facility compared against satellite photos taken in recent months. It remains unclear how many people have been killed or arrested so far. An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimates at least 185 people have been killed. This includes an estimated 90 people killed by security forces in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan amid demonstrations against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case. Iranian authorities have described the Zahedan violence as involving unnamed separatists, without providing details or evidence. Iran's judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi reportedly said Tuesday that Iran so far has released some 1,700 people arrested in the recent demonstrations, without offering a total figure for those detained so far. (AP) Maths Week 2022 is almost here, and Louth schools are ready to go for whats sure to be a great week of events and activities. Now in its 17th year, the all-island festival of maths and numeracy kicks off on Saturday 15th October and runs until Sunday 23rd October. As many as 26 schools and over 9,559 pupils from all over Louth have signed up adding to the nearly 330,000 registered participants nationwide with more registering each day. Maths Week is designed to promote a positive attitude towards maths and its applications. Last year over 400,000 people, including 386,000 students, participated in Maths Week and this year promises to be as popular as ever with already over 142,000 pupils signed up to take part, along with more than 60 organisations including the universities, institutes of technology, libraries, schools, training colleges and employers. After two years online, Maths Week will be returning to classrooms, museums, universities, theatres, libraries, and auditoriums all over the country. Such was the success of the online events, Maths Week Covid Editions, a number of online events are also programmed, to make the event as accessible as possible. MathsWeekTV is scheduled to broadcast daily shows online for primary and secondary schools across the island. It will feature well known presenters such as UK TV presenter and maths teacher Bobby Seagull and childrens author and maths teacher Sally Lunt. Presenters from north and south will be joined by presenters from Britain, France, Spain, USA, Catalonia, and South Africa. Cross-border participation is a very important element of the festival with schools from both sides of the border connecting with fun maths activities. Activities will not only be based in the classroom; the popular Puzzles in the Park will return to parks around the island. A Maths at Work campaign will present role models from diverse backgrounds in a wide variety of careers, showing how they use maths in their jobs. A new initiative Im a mathematician get me out of here will connect professionals with classrooms across the Island. Maths Week is co-ordinated by Calmast, South East Technological Universitys STEM Engagement centre and supported by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Discover Programme, the Department of Education, and Business in the Community Northern Ireland. The full programme and details of how to get involved are available on the Maths Week website www.mathsweek.ie. For event and programme updates follow @MathsWeek on Facebook, @mathsireland on Instagram, @mathsweek on TikTok and @mathsweek and #mathsweek2022 on Twitter. Louth Fianna Fail Senator Erin McGreehan has welcomed changes to planning rules to allow unlimited solar panels on homes and other buildings. The new regulations will remove the requirement for planning permission to install rooftop solar PV (Photo Voltaic) on most buildings in the country. This will be a significant driver of the rollout of micro- and small-scale solar PV generation, increasing Irelands generation of solar energy and strengthening our energy security. The local Senator said: This is a significant step forward as we continue to progress in the Climate Action Plan. There were barriers in place for those who wanted to install solar panels on homes and buildings and these changes will now allow that to happen. This plays two roles as it allows households, schools, communities, farmers and businesses to produce their own electricity but also to feed into the grid which supports our transition to renewables. This is important as the Micro-generation Support Scheme is now in place and individuals or organisations can receive capital grants of up to 2,400 for micro-generation installations up to 6kW. The Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council, Cllr Conor Keelan, in the presence of Mr Joe McGuinness, Deputy Chief Executive, has today opened an online book of condolences to allow the people of Louth the opportunity to extend their sympathies to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the explosion in Creeslough on Friday the 7th of October. Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council, Cllr Conor Keelan, said: This devastating news has had an impact on everyone throughout Ireland and we are all shocked and saddened by this most dreadful tragedy. "The thoughts and prayers of the entire Louth community are with the people of Creeslough at this terrible time. Joe McGuinness, Deputy Chief Executive, said: On behalf of Louth County Council, I wish to express my deepest sympathies and solidarity with the family and friends of those who lost their lives in this tragic incident. "We also would like to pay tribute to the all emergency services who attended the scene of the explosion. All messages of sympathy will be printed and forwarded to Donegal County Council. The link to the book of condolences can be found here The planned Louth GAA stadium at the Inner Relief Road in Dundalk looks set to become a reality, following the revelation last night that Louth GAA has raised 14.8 million in funding, through the Department of Justice's Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP). According to The Argus and Drogheda Independent newspapers, who reported the news last night, 37 foreign investors have pledged 400,000 each towards the stadium through the IIP, to help gain Irish residency. The Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP) is a pathway for non-EEA nationals to secure immigration permission to Ireland on the basis of long-term investment of a sum of money in a project that has been approved for that purpose by the Department of Justice and other Government stakeholders. In a statement issued today by Louth GAA through its social media channels, the organisation said that it is "delighted to announce that they have been granted approval to seek IIP funding through the Department of Justice. This will see the Louth GAA Stadium Project on the Inner Relief Road in Dundalk, eligible to receive 14.8 million in endowment funding towards the development costs of the stadium." The statement continued, "Following a management meeting last night in the Protection and Prosperity Louth GAA Training Centre in Darver, Louth GAA Chairperson Peter Fitzpatrick said: "Our dream has come true. We have been waiting for the last 60 years since we lost our stadium and now the GAA people of Co Louth will have a stadium to be proud of. Over the last 2-3 years our management team have put in trojan work to see this dream become a reality." A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 10, 2022. AP-Yonhap Russia launched fresh rockets and combat drones over several regions of Ukraine on Tuesday, following heavy bombardment a day before that left at least 19 people dead, struck vital infrastructure, and prompted furious international condemnation. The authorities in the hotly contested southern region of Zaporizhzhya reported rocket attacks, while explosions took place in the vicinities of Kiev and the western city of Khmelnytskyi. An air raid alert sounded in Kiev on Tuesday morning, prompting people to seek safety in emergency shelters. An alert on Monday had people taking cover in emergency shelters for nearly six hours. Areas of Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv and Rivne were also under fire. In the Vinnytsia region south-west of Kiev, a thermal power station was attacked with combat drones. There were no casualties, the power plant's press office said. Ukrainian media reported that 20 rockets had landed on Tuesday morning. In the afternoon, the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed attacks against military sites and the power network. "The goal of the strike has been achieved," said ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. On Monday, Ukrainian authorities counted more than 80 Russian attacks by land, sea and air. Many were averted by the air defences. According to initial information, 19 people died and more than 100 were injured across the country although Kiev said the number was subject to change. The escalation of Russian attacks on Ukraine could be classed as war crimes, the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva warned. "Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law," spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said. "The location and timing of the strikes - when people were commuting to work and taking children to school - is particularly shocking," she added. In addition to putting civilians in harm's way with strikes on city centres, 12 energy companies and other important infrastructure were hit on Monday, the UN office said on Tuesday. Attacking power plants just before winter hits particularly vulnerable people who are unable to flee because of their age or illness, Shamdasani said. US President Joe Biden and the other leaders of the G7 group will hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday to discuss their "unwavering commitment to support Ukraine," the White House said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will join at the start of the closed meeting, scheduled to begin at 1200 GMT. In a statement, the White House said the leaders would discuss holding Russian President Vladimir Putin "accountable in the face of Russia's aggression and atrocities." Hundreds of localities were still without electricity as a result of Monday's bombardments, Ukrainian authorities said. At one point, more than 3,500 communities were in the dark. Hundreds of emergency workers have fanned out across the country to clean up from the aftermath of the Russian attacks. Poland said it was preparing for the possibility of a new wave of war refugees from Ukraine following the intensification of Russian attacks. "We are ready at any time, our borders are open, and we are also logistically prepared to receive refugees," Marlena Malag, the family and social policy minister, told told public broadcaster TVP. Ukrainians would find support and protection in Poland, as was the case when the war broke out in late February and the months that followed, she said. Poland and Ukraine share a border more than 500 kilometres long. According to the Polish government in September, about 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees live in the country. (DPA) Three men appeared before Midleton District Court on Monday morning in relation to an assault that saw a Garda sergeant receive serious facial injuries. Gardai were called to the scene of a disturbance outside a licenced premises in Cloyne, Co. Cork at approximately 10:20pm on Saturday, October 8. During the course of an arrest, a Garda Sergeant was assaulted and received serious facial injuries, for which he is currently undergoing medical treatment. A private security officer was also allegedly assaulted in the incident. Three males, all in their 20s, were arrested at the scene and taken to Midleton Garda District Headquarters. They have since been charged and appeared before Midleton District Court on Monday October 10 at 10:30am. An investigation into the matter is ongoing and investigating Gardai are appealing for witnesses. They are also appealing to those with camera footage to come forward. Anyone with information is asked to contact Midleton Garda Station on 021 462 1550 Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance postdoctoral associate Timothy Eppley, Ph.D., was observing southern bamboo lemurs in Madagascar when he noticed something odd. Usually, these lemurs spend their entire lives in the trees. But in places where their forest habitat had been thinned by human activity, the primates would risk descending to the ground to search for food or even sleep, Eppley told The Washington Post. Was he witnessing evolution in action? Eppley conferred with his colleagues and eventually assembled a team of 118 scientists from 124 institutions who had spent time observing primates in Madagascar and the Americas. Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday, reveal that normally tree-dwelling primates impacted by the twin pressures of climate change and deforestation are starting to spend more time on the ground. This study began with a discussion among colleagues about how wed noticed certain populations of arboreal primates spending more time on the ground, Eppley said in a San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance press release. Yet at sites with relatively less disturbance, members of the same species may never descend to the ground. The research was based on more than 150,000 hours of observation of 15 lemur species and 32 monkey species at 68 sites in the Americas and Madagascar. The reason it focused on these two areas is because many primates in Asia and Africa had already evolved to be more terrestrial than arboreal millions of years ago, The Washington Post pointed out. However, what the researchers are observing today is unique in its speed and its cause. What were seeing now is largely anthropogenically induced, Eppley told The Washington Post. This is happening so fast. Study co-author Giuseppe Donati of Oxford Brookes University in the UK explained how deforestation and rising temperatures could interact to force these changes. In most tropical countries where these species live, humans log the forest, he told New Scientist. This creates gaps and it opens the canopy of the forest. That causes an increase in temperature. The deforestation is working together with climate change [to force primates to the ground]. For example, the bamboo lemurs that started Eppleys questioning now spend around half of their time awake on the ground grazing the grass like cows, Donati said. There were other factors that predicted whether a primate might move towards the ground. These included eating less fruit and spending time in larger groups. The research offers some hope that at least some primates may be able to adapt to human activity in the short term, but its complicated. Primates in Madagascar are already the most threatened in the world, but studies like this show us that they may be able to find refuge from the worst climate changes by flexibly adapting to spending more time in areas with lower temperatures, Bournemouth University in the UK behavioral ecology professor Amanda Korstjens, who was not a study co-author, told The Washington Post in an email. But the study also highlights the importance of preserving healthy forest habitats to allow primates to use the limited options they have to manage global warming. Indeed, the study also found that the primates were less likely to descend from the trees when human infrastructure like roads were close by. This finding may suggest that human presence, which is often a threat to primates, may interfere with the natural adaptability of the species to global change, study senior author Luca Santini, Ph.D., from Sapienza University of Rome, said in the press release. Ultimately, Eppley did not think evolution could move fast enough to protect the studied species from human interference. None of the species we studied are likely to fully transition to a terrestrial lifestyle. Its simply not a viable long-term outcome to happen in such a short period of time, he told New Scientist. We need to actively protect the forest habitat that we currently have. Hog futures in China up following rising demand amid tight supply Hog futures in China increased 6% on October 10, following rising demand amid tight supply of swine during the week-long National Day holiday, Reuters reported. The most active contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, live hogs for January, increased by 5.8% to CNY 23,735 (~US$3,336.71; CNY 1 = US$0.14) per tonne. It was the largest daily gain since hog futures were introduced last year. Wu Li, an analyst at Tianfeng Agriculture, said cooler weather and an increase in holiday consumption boosted demand for fresh meat supplies, driving up daily slaughtering volume. On Sunday, spot prices for hogs reached CNY 26.2 (~US$3.64) per kg, an increase of 8% since September 25. Since March 2021, prices have reached a record high. As Dalian reopened for trading on Monday, futures rallied in response to the sharp increase in spot prices. China's swine production has decreased in recent months as a result of farmers cutting back on breeding due to months of significant losses since last year. As prices rose this year, producers started upping their output once more, but the process takes time, and many are wary due to China's uncertain meat demand as the country's economy slows down. In an effort to lower prices, China's state planner announced that it would release a fresh batch of pork from state reserves. The state planner has attempted to reassure the market that there is an adequate supply and has attributed the shortage to farmers. Additionally, it has laid the blame for stoking market angst on unauthorised media reports. Yuan Song, chief analyst at trading firm Juxing Agriculture Group, predicted additional actions, including possibly increasing sales of pork reserves and asking major producers to make commitments to steady production. Shares of swine producers rose on Monday as well, with top producers Wens Foodstuff Group Co. and Muyuan Foods Co. both rising by 7%. Poultry businesses, which had struggled with losses in the first half of this year, were also helped by the higher hog prices. The daily limit of 10% was reached by shares of the chicken breeders Shandong Yisheng Livestock & Poultry Breeding, Shandong Xiantan Co Ltd, and Shandong Minhe Animal Husbandry. - Reuters Vietnam aims to accelerate shift from catch-based fisheries to aquaculture The Vietnam Directorate of Fisheries (VDF) is aiming to speed up the transition from catch-based to farm-based practises to enhance fishery value chains, and to implement the government's plan to develop marine aquaculture by 2030 with a vision to 2045, Vietnam Plus reported. According to the plan, marine aquaculture would have 300,000ha of land and 12 million square metres of cages by 2030, producing 1.45 million tonnes annually. Nhu Van Can, Director of the VDF's Aquaculture Department, said there is plenty of room for aquaculture to expand because the nation has a sizable area of unused coastal waters, estimated at 500,000ha. The VDF said marine capture fisheries account for over 40% of fish exports and 43% of all fish caught. The fact that Vietnam has over 1 million sq. km of sea area available for aquaculture but that a significant portion of the area is untapped can be attributed to the significant contribution of catch-based fisheries. Notably, offshore farms make up about 20% of the nation's total aquaculture space. Nhu Van Can said that in order to promote aquaculture, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment had issued a decree on land lease and water surface lease. According to the decree, those who are interested in making long-term investments in marine farming may lease land for up to 50 years with an additional 20-year extension. To replace Decree 67, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) urged the government to create a new decree. Fishermen who switch to farm-based methods would be given a farming site within three miles of shore under the new decree. The sites also include some helpful policies to make the transition easier. Do Dinh Minh, head of the Quang Ninh Province's Sub-Department of Fisheries, said aquaculture has experienced an annual growth rate of more than 10% in the province. In 2021, its farm-based output exceeded VND 4 trillion (~US$167 million; VND 1000 = US$0.042) and made up 65% of the province's overall fishery output. The sub-department head emphasised the importance of high-quality seeds for mariculture's success. In order to produce the highest output and the best quality, the province will eventually reorganise farming areas so that breeding sites would be closely connected to rearing sites. Tran Thanh Phong, Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam Pangasius Association, said the pangasius subindustry needs cutting-edge technology to grow sustainably. He called for the replication of several high-tech pangasius-rearing facilities across the nation after mentioning how they had successfully used technology to reduce costs and run more sustainably. One such location is 600ha owned by Nam Viet Corporation, which uses a solar panel system and an automated feeding system to cut labour costs. To produce high value-added products that satisfy global demand, he said they must aim to build concentrated pangasius-rearing sites that incorporate the latest technologies into all their farming stages. According to the 2017 Fisheries Law, the province of Khanh Hoa will grant certain fishermen access to water surface in the near future, according to Le Tan Ban, Director of the department of agriculture and rural development in the province. Locals who work in aquaculture and have switched from coastal capture to farm-based fisheries are considered eligible fishermen. To improve the design and durability of the fishermen's cages against ocean waves, the province will persuade them to switch from using traditional cages to HDPE cages. In order to increase farm-based output, wealthy companies will be urged to make additional investments in mariculture. To maintain the output stability, fishing cooperatives that are closely allied with the businesses will be established. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development estimates that monthly fuel consumption for capture fisheries is 330 million litres. In the first half of 2022, fuel prices increased while fishery prices remained the same, forcing many vessels to temporarily halt operations due to higher costs. In the first half of the year, between 40% and 55% of vessels did not set sail for fishing, according to the ministry. Farm-based fisheries appear to be a better course of action given the uncertainty of catch-based fisheries and the fact that significant importers have started to set higher standards on fishery quality and traceability. - Vietnam Plus Japan Prime Minister promises to boost wagyu exports Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised to add measures to boost wagyu exports in the upcoming planned economic package to be announced later this month, The Japan Times reported. After a meeting with beef cattle producers in the city of Kirishima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Kishida told reporters that the government must increase the ability of wagyu producers to make money. Making use of the weak yen, he said they will work hard to expand exports of agricultural, forestry, and fisheries products. The plan will boost domestic feed production, encourage the use of farmyard waste as fertiliser, and provide increased funding for the construction of facilities to manage beef's hygienic conditions before it is exported. Kishida attended the Wagyu Olympics, a national wagyu competition that featured 440 cattle from 41 prefectures, at the prize-giving ceremony in Kirishima. The competition, held in the prefecture for five days starting on Thursday, was won by Kagoshima this year. Kishida said wagyu is a Japanese treasure. I anticipate that (improved breeds) will be passed down to the following generations and that there will be more advancements made. The competition takes place every five years. In 2027, the next competition will be held in Hokkaido, the country's most northerly prefecture. - The Japan Times US pork sector challenges California animal welfare law at US Supreme Court The US Supreme Court will hear arguments in a US pork sector case that challenges the constitutionality of a California animal welfare law, which could limit the ability of states to regulate a variety of matters within their own borders, Reuters reported. The California ballot initiative that voters approved in 2018 prohibiting the sale of pork, veal, and eggs from animals whose confinement did not meet minimum space requirements is being challenged by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation in an appeal. The swine farming industry has defended the size of the cages used there as both humane and essential for the welfare of the animals. According to animal rights organisations, some pork producers lock mother swine in cages so small that they are unable to turn around for the majority of their lives. The business associations claim that Proposition 12's requirement that out-of-state producers comply or face a California sales ban violates the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, which grants Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce. The "dormant" Commerce Clause, a legal theory, prohibits states from passing legislation that discriminates against commerce with other states. The pork producers claimed in a court document that Proposition 12 goes against this principle because it would raise prices for swine farmers, almost all of whom are located outside of California. Even though it has the largest population in the country and is a significant market, California only produces 0.1% of the country's pork. Michael Formica, chief legal strategist for the pork producers, said this is an example of an unconstitutional law. Contrary to what the law's supporters claim, California has the authority to set standards for goods sold to its citizens, regardless of where they were made. Josh Balk, vice president of farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States, which spearheaded the effort to pass Proposition 12 and is a party to the lawsuit, said there is a long history of state laws that have to do with protecting public health, food safety, and animal welfare, adding that producers have a choice if they want to sell goods that meet that standard within the state's borders. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a district court's decision to dismiss the case for lack of a Commerce Clause violation. In a Supreme Court brief, the administration of US President Joe Biden sided with the pork industry, arguing that states cannot outlaw goods that pose no threat to public health or safety based on philosophical objections. Some legal experts believe that a ruling in favour of the pork industry by the Supreme Court, which currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, would have significant ramifications for how the Commerce Clause is interpreted. Attorney Brian Frazelle of the liberal advocacy group Constitutional Accountability Center, which filed a brief in the case on behalf of law professors, said the industry is asking for a dramatic expansion of the doctrine in a way that would call into question all kinds of state laws. The law had been endorsed by 16 liberal US senators, including both from California. In their opinion, a decision supporting the industry's Commerce Clause argument "could permit large, multi-state corporations to evade many state laws that focus on harms to their constituents, including those addressing wildlife trafficking, climate change, renewable energy, stolen property trafficking, and labour abuses," they wrote. In a brief, a coalition of 20 mostly Republican-run states, led by Indiana, argued that upholding Proposition 12 would compromise state sovereignty. Another group of 14 states, most of which are governed by Democrats, as well as the District of Columbia, led by Illinois, claimed that overturning it would impair state legislative power. Nandan Joshi, an attorney with the consumer protection organisation Public Citizen, which submitted a brief in support of California, said a decision in favour of pork producers could spur additional industry challenges to state regulations. Many food and restaurant businesses have already agreed to phase out the confinement of swine in small cages and to purchase or produce cage-free eggs in response to pressure from consumer and animal welfare organisations. Approximately 63% of California voters supported Proposition 12, which set the minimum space needed for breeding swine, or sows, at 24 square feet (2.2 square meters). The current industry standard, according to a 2021 study by Dutch banking and financial services provider Rabobank, is between 14 and 20 square feet (1.3 to 1.9 square metres). The measure also increased the amount of space needed to house hens that lay eggs and veal calves. Leading American pork producer Smithfield Foods, which is owned by the Chinese firm WH Group Ltd, declared last year that it would abide by the law. The second-largest producer of pork in the United States, Seaboard Foods, based in Kansas state, announced this year that it was converting some of its output to comply. - Reuters Israel looks to aquaculture to solve food security issues Noam Mozes, head of the Marine Aquaculture Division at the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said aquaculture is one of the best answers to solving future food security issues, The Media Line reported. Mozes said they have some research projects with the Jordanians, and are working with Aqaba, the only coastal city in Jordan. He said they are also working in conjunction with researchers from Egypt, Morocco, and other countries in North Africa, and their relations with the Emirates and the Gulf nations have recently been active. He said aquaculture in general, including the farming of algae, does not need fresh water or arable land. Per kg of protein produced, they use much less energy and emit much less CO2 into the atmosphere. The world's population is predicted to increase to 9.8 billion people by 2050, placing a greater strain on food supplies and necessitating the development of much more sustainable farming practises. - The Media Line Legal challenge to be launched against Australian cattle council A Queensland, Australia law firm announced it has been instructed to prepare a legal challenge against the process taken by the Cattle Council of Australia to form Cattle Australia as the new peak industry council for grassfed Australian cattle producers. Creevey Horrell Lawyers said it has been instructed by Cattle Producers Australia representatives to challenge the process, arguing that certain aspects were "flawed" and "undemocratic", and amounted to Cattle Council of Australia "rebranding itself as "Cattle Australia" and purporting to be the new representative body for Australian grass-fed cattle producers". It added that it will be instituting legal action aiming to "halt the incorrect process and to call out the flawed structure" and is seeking a hearing through the Supreme Court of Queensland. Cattle Council of Australia in a written response to Beef Central said the constitution of Cattle Australia was passed by a 75% majority vote of State Farming Organisations, who represent thousands of grassfed cattle producers, along with the Northern Pastoral Group, and producers were consulted very widely to join the voting process. It said it has not yet received any correspondence from Creevey Horrell Lawyers and was disappointed "to have received this legal threat through the press." Cattle Council of Australia has been the peak industry council for the past 43 years, but has been involved in a year-long process with other groups, including Cattle Producers Australia which has initiated the stated legal action, to form a more representative and democratic national body for producers. Cattle Council of Australia's foundation members, the eight State Farm Organisations and individual direct members who registered to vote, voted in favour of supporting the constitution of Cattle Australia. A central plank of the new constitution is the removal of the right of State Farm Organisations to appoint their own representatives to the board of the peak industry council and creating a board that is directly elected by the council's producer members instead. Cattle Council of Australia said the result enabled the process of direct elections for Cattle Australia to get underway, ahead of CCA being formally wound up at its annual general meeting later this year and Cattle Australia to hold its inaugural meeting. However, not all producer groups involved have been accepting of the process Cattle Council of Australia has used. Toowoomba-based law firm Creevey Horrell issued a statement to media, stating it has been instructed by Cattle Producers Australia representatives Paul Wright and Cameron McIntyre to prepare a legal challenge to aspects of the Cattle Council of Australia's process. The Creevey Horrell Lawyers stated that Wright and McIntyre are members of the Australian federal government-funded Grass-fed Cattle Industry Restructure Steering Committee (RSC), which was charged with the reform process to establish a new democratic Peak Industry Council to represent all grass-fed cattle levy payers. The statement alleged that "CCA illegitimately took over the reform process in its own interest and produced a flawed and undemocratic structure with no secure funding plan for Cattle Australia." "Unlike the constitution adopted by CCA, the grass-fed cattle producer Peak Industry Council structure proposed by the RSC would have given fair representation for all levy payers, whether big or small," Wright said. "We will be instituting legal action aiming to halt the incorrect process and to call out the flawed structure that CCA appears to have devised in its own interests rather than in the interests of all Australia's grass-fed cattle producer transaction levy payers." The Creevey Horrell statement added that a proposed constitution for Cattle Australia was passed this month, although NSW Farmers and Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia voted against the resolution. McIntyre said: "At that CCA Special General Meeting held to adopt the new Constitution, there were around 45 CCA members online, 71 proxies and the CCA President a total of 117 people. Can you believe that? A total of 117 CCA members voted in favour of adopting a CCA devised Constitution for all of us, all the 45,000 plus grass-fed cattle producers of Australia. This is not only bad; it is sad." Creevey Horrell principal Dan Creevey said: "Our clients, the CPA, believe the resolution of the CCA to adopt a new constitution and rebrand itself as Cattle Australia was in breach of the RSCs Terms of Reference and the associated funding Auspices Agreement between the RSC and CCA. The new rebadged CCA constitution has not yet been agreed upon by the RSC, which was established to do just that. The draft constitution that has been adopted by CCA fails to encapsulate the requirements of the democratically elected Cattle Australia structure demanded by our clients and other cattle producers. "The expenditure of RSC resources, of government and industry origin, carried out by CCA on behalf of RSC under the Auspice Agreement and the Department of Agriculture's Procurement Agreement, has also not been adequately supervised by RSC and despite requests, documentation supporting its expenditure has not been provided." Creevey said he had instructions to have the matter listed for a hearing in the Supreme Court of Queensland urgently. - Beef Central Google has announced a string of updates for Workspace , including one that may be especially useful for those tasked with recording meeting minutes. Users can already save Google Meet calls as video files and they'll soon get an automatic transcription of their meetings too. You'll be able to receive a transcript in a Google Doc. This feature will be available in English starting this week. Support for French, German, Spanish and Portuguese is coming next year. This follows an expansion of live translated captions for those languages. Later this month, Google will roll out a Meet feature that will automatically center meeting participants in the frame of their video tile before they join a call. You'll be able to reframe yourself manually at any time. Google Looking further ahead, Google revealed two other useful Meet features that will arrive in early 2023. One called "meeting room check-in" will let everyone see a list of all participants, which seems like an overdue update. It will also show the names of multiple people who are joining a call from the same physical conference room. Meanwhile, the second-screen Companion Mode feature is moving beyond the web, Nest Hub Max and Meet-dedicated hardware to mobile. You'll be able to virtually raise your hand, chat and ask questions from your phone while you're on a call on your computer or tablet. Elsewhere, Google will support inline threaded conversations in Google Chat starting later this month. It will try to take on the likes of Slack on another front by offering custom emoji later this year. Meta is making a big push to sell its new Quest Pro to office workers. At Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg showed off upcoming integrations with Zoom and Microsoft teams, along with a slew of other features meant to make the headset more appealing to businesses. The updates are the clearest sign yet that Meta is keen to position the $1500 Quest Pro as a business and productivity tool, and that it sees offices as a key part of its vision for the metaverse. And Horizon Workrooms, the VR meeting software launched in beta last year, is central to that pitch. Among the updates: new integrations with Zoom and Microsoft Teams so people can call into meetings happening in VR. With the change, people will be able to join colleagues meeting in VR Horizon Workrooms from their non-VR devices. In a blog post, Meta said the Zoom integration, expected early in 2023 will give more options on how you choose to show up. Turn on browser notifications to receive breaking news alerts from Engadget You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. Not now Turned on Turn on Likewise, the integration with Microsofts Teams will enable participants to join more immersive meetings in Teams from Horizon Workrooms. The company hasnt said when the tie-in with Teams could be available, but the feature is part of a broader partnership with Microsoft to bring its productivity apps to Quest. Meta Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joined Zuckerberg to announce that the company was also working Windows 365 for the Quest Pro and Quest 2, and that content from Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook would be viewable from the headsets. Metas newly improved avatars will also be available in Teams. Meta also showed off improvements to existing Workrooms features, like the ability to add sticky notes to VR whiteboards, and the ability to collaboratively view 3D models. The company is also riffing on a popular Zoom feature with the ability to form smaller breakout groups within larger meetings. And for solo office tasks, workers will be able to work from up to three virtual screens in Workrooms and add up to four customizable personal environments. Meta Zuckerberg also teased a new feature called magic rooms that will allow teams to work together in mixed reality, rather than solely in VR workspaces. He said the feature will be suited to hybrid teams, where there are people working remotely with groups of people who are in the same physical space. "Everyone is present and has the same tools, whether they're in full VR or in mixed reality," he explained. Ina. blog post, Meta said magic rooms are currently being tested internally, and could launch more widely sometime in 2023. Also coming in 2023 will be a new Quest for Business subscription bundle that comes with device management controls and security features so businesses can manage Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets the way they would with company-issued laptops or mobile phones. The bundle will also include access to premium support features. How do you go about reviewing something like NVIDIA's RTX 4090? Just looking at its specs alone, it's obviously the fastest consumer GPU we've ever seen. So sure, I can tell you that I can play just about anything in 4K with ray tracing and every graphical nicety turned on. Hell, it can even scale up to 8K if you're a masochist. For a $1,599 video card, it damn well better. But the real question is, who is this thing actually for? Gallery: NVIDIA RTX 4090 | 11 Photos /11 Gallery: NVIDIA RTX 4090 | 11 Photos /11 Benching the RTX 4090 against NVIDIA and AMD's older hardware is practically pointless. Of course it's far faster. Of course it'll make you jealous. If you've got the cash and you're itching to upgrade, go with God (or NVIDIA's leather-clad CEO Jensen Huang, as the company's fans see him). But for anyone else who doesn't need bleeding edge hardware, it exists purely as an object of lust. Sure, you could wait for the upcoming RTX 4080 cards, or whatever AMD has in the works, but it's not a 4090. Just like the last generation of GPUs, NVIDIA is throwing down the gauntlet with a power-hungry card for the most hardcore gamers and creators. NVIDIA NVIDIA RTX 4090 SCORE 88 Engadget 88 Critics - Not yet scored N/A Users - Not yet scored N/A Pros Incredible performance Efficient cooling Viable 4K ray tracing Cons Huge power demands Requires 4 cables on older PSUs Expensive If your mind isn't made up, I assume you're here just to see how much of a beast the 4090 is. And let me tell you, it's a stunning thing to behold. Weighing in at 4.8 pounds, and approaching the size of the PlayStation 5, the RTX 4090 is a triple-slot GPU that will dominate whatever case its in. Seriously, if you're thinking of getting it, be sure to measure your PC to ensure you can fit a nearly foot-long card that's close to 5 inches thick. Turn on browser notifications to receive breaking news alerts from Engadget You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. Not now Turned on Turn on Devindra Hardawar/Engadget Be prepared to upgrade your power supply too: The 4090 has a high 450W TDP (the same thermal design profile as the 3090 Ti) and it requires an 850W PSU. (Some third-party companies are pushing that demand to 1200W PSUs!) While it can be powered by a single PCIe 5.0 cable, there still aren't many of those PSUs on the market, so most people will likely end up using four 8-pin adapters. I cursed Jensen's name when I realized I needed to string another PSU line, after tidying up all of my cables. Beyond its obscene power demands, though, NVIDIA hasn't changed much about the 4090 Founder Edition's design from its previous model: It's still a high-end, all-metal card with a massive vapor chamber, heatsink array and two fans on opposite sides. NVIDIA claims they can push 20 percent more air than the 3090 Ti in my testing, that meant the 4090 stayed at a relatively cool 70C under load. What's truly special about the RTX 4090, though, is everything under the hood. It features the company's new "Ada Lovelace" architecture (named after the world's first computer programmer, though I wonder if NVIDIA pays any royalties to turn her name into marketing). It has 16,384 CUDA cores (almost 6,000 more than the 3090 Ti), a base clock speed of 2.23GHz (boost to 2.52GHz), and 24GB of GDDR6X RAM. With figures like these, the upcoming RTX 4080 cards (which start with 7,680 CUDA cores) seem puny in comparison. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing. For our money, Sony's WH-1000XM5 is the best set of wireless headphones on the market right now. They're absolutely worth considering if you're in need of a new set of cans or simply want an upgrade from what you're already rocking. Now might be the right time to take the leap, as the WH-1000XM5 is on sale for Prime Day. The headphones are currently $348, which is $50 off the regular price. The WH-1000XM5 offers almost across-the-board improvements over the WH-1000XM4, our previous favorite headphones. An overdue redesign makes this model more comfortable than its predecessors, thanks to improved weight distribution and synthetic leather ear cups. These headphones have new 30mm carbon fiber drivers, which we felt deliver punchier bass than the M4. In fact, the all-round sound quality is more refined, save for occasional skips while connected to a MacBook Pro which may be a Bluetooth issue. Bolstered by eight active noise cancellation microphones, double the number found in the M4, the M5's ANC is better at minimizing background noise too. Speaking of mics, we found that the M5 offers the best call quality yet from the 1000X series. Sony claims you'll get up to 30 hours of listening time from a single charge, and that's with ANC enabled. Our only major gripe with the M5 headphones is that they're typically $50 more expensive than the M4's regular price of $348. At least during the Prime Day sale, that's no longer an issue. If you prefer wireless earbuds to over-ear cans, a larger Sony sale has discounted a few buds that we like. Both the Sony LinkBuds and LinkBuds S are on sale for $128, while the budget-friendly WF-C500 earbuds have dropped to only $58. Get the latest Amazon Prime Day offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter. When Mark Zuckerberg announced the company he founded would change its name from Facebook to Meta, he added it would be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first. Hes shown off dystopian VR offices, looked at space in VR with Neil deGrasse Tyson and talked up the metaverse on Joe Rogans podcast. (During that appearance, Zuckerberg said hes started MMA, doing some critical damage to the sport on the way.) This years Connect kicks off at 10 AM PT today, with a keynote from Zuckerberg, and Engadgets Karissa Bell has outlined a lot of the questions we still need answering. Will the metaverse ever look cool? How will it handle harassment and misinformation? And can Zuckerberg explain what the metaverse even is, one more time, for those of us at the back of the class? Mat Smith Turn on browser notifications to receive breaking news alerts from Engadget You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. Not now Turned on Turn on The biggest stories you might have missed If you still dont own an Echo speaker or a Kindle yet Amazon Prime Day is, unsurprisingly, the best time to pick up a gadget made by Amazon. We saw record-low prices during Julys Prime Day and a lot of those prices have returned this fall. Discounts cover not only the usual Kindle tablets and Fire TV gadgets but also Eero routers and Blink security cameras. Continue reading. Including the MagSafe accessories worth your money. So youve upgraded to an iPhone 14, now what? Now you need to upgrade your phone charger from that dinky charging brick you got with your iPhone 6. Seriously, it may well change your smartphone life. Weve got several other recommendations for charging cables, cases and more. Continue reading. Updated for 2022. Engadget Gaming laptops have become some of the most intriguing PCs around. Theyve gotten thinner and lighter, naturally but theyve also become vastly more powerful and efficient, making them suitable for both work and play. Theyve adopted some bold innovations, like rotating hinges and near desktop-like customizability. Gaming laptops are where PC makers can get adventurous. If youre a professional in the market for a beefy new computer, and you like to play a few rounds of Apex Legends on occasion, it may make more sense to go for a gaming notebook instead of a MacBook Pro-like workstation. We pick out the best options from the likes of ASUS ROG, Razer, Dell and more. It doesnt have to cost several thousand dollars either. Our budget pick is $800. Continue reading. A US company was fined $50,000. A court in the Netherlands has ruled that a US company violated a Dutch worker's human rights by forcing him to keep his webcam on during work hours. Hired by a telemarketing firm Chetu, the employee was terminated for refusing to be monitored "for nine hours per day" by a program that streamed his webcam and shared his screens. "Tracking via camera for eight hours per day is disproportionate and not permitted in the Netherlands," the court verdict states, adding it also violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court found Chetu dismissed the employee unfairly and must pay a $50,000 fine, along with the worker's back wages, court costs and unused vacation days. Continue reading. Rival LG just announced similar partnerships. Last week, LG announced it would allow third-party TV manufacturers to use its webOS platform, and now its main rival is following suit. Samsung has revealed it will license its Tizen OS TV platform for use in non-Samsung TV models for the first time, partnering with Akai, RCA and a bunch of other brands you probably havent heard of. Those manufacturers will get access to features like Samsung TV Plus (a free streaming platform), personalized recommendations and even Samsung's Bixby. Continue reading. Xi Jinpings all-but-certain installation for a third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party marks an important milestone in the partys progress toward annexing Taiwan. That creates significant risks for U.S. investorsmany of which have been overlooked. Mr. Xi has unambiguously stated that reacquiring Taiwan is a pillar of his national rejuvenation platform and a vital national objective. Its also critical to his personal legacy. Mr. Xis ambitions have been checked by his need to secure a third term, as he likely feared international backlash that could threaten his grip on power. After this month, his calculus may change. Taiwans annexation could allow him to assert dominance and divert attention away from Chinas domestic problems. Mr. Xi may be disinclined to wait, given the risk of a more assertive president in Taipei in May 2024 or Washington in January 2025. Beijings recent rhetoric has been consistent with this hypothesis. Taiwans primary defense is its economic influence, not its military. The countrys dominant position in the semiconductor industrywhat President Tsai Ing -wen calls Taiwans silicon shieldserves as a useful protection against Chinese aggression. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. produces more than half of the worlds advanced semiconductors and 90% of the most advanced chips. TSMC is the exclusive producer of the most advanced semiconductors that power Apples iPhones, AMDs advanced CPUs and Qualcomms snapdragon chip used in many Android phones. If China were to invade Taiwan, TSMCs lights would likely go out. If you take a military force or invasion, you will render the TSMC factory inoperable, TSMC chairman Mark Liu told CNN in July. A material disruption to the industry would send shock waves across global supply chains, rendering manufacturers unable to make everyday products. Though financial analysts and think-tank experts have suggested this could deter China from invading Taiwan, there are other ways for Beijing to achieve its aims without jeopardizing TSMCs capabilities. A naval blockade, for example, could bully Taiwans leadership into surrendering without Chinese troops setting foot on the island. No matter how it is achieved, the annexation of Taiwan would spell disaster for U.S. interests. If TSMC cant produce chips, the global economy will tank. If TSMC is still able to produce chips but China dictates the terms of access, companies that rely on TSMC and other Taiwanese semiconductor companies will be left at the mercy of Beijings demands. The U.S. has already experienced the pain of such scarcity. A chip shortage in 2021 cost the auto industry an estimated $210 billion in revenue. A recent study estimates that a one-year disruption in the production of semiconductors in Taiwan would lead to a $490 billion drop in revenue for electronic-device makers, not counting fallout for sectors that arent directly reliant on semiconductors. U.S. semiconductor stocks may offer a reasonable hedge for investors, but only if the companies are sufficiently prepared. U.S. companies should invest in semiconductor technology now to meet the demand thats expected to grow 80% by 2030. If China annexes Taiwan, U.S. manufacturers could seize on a market dislocation by increasing domestic production while chip prices soar. Though Americas semiconductor industry isnt as advanced as Taiwans, increased investments could change that. And if China bides its time until the U.S. Navy retires more ships as part of its divest to invest strategy in the coming years, that will afford U.S. manufacturers even greater flexibility to prepare. If such investments arent made and China annexes Taiwan, U.S. semiconductor firms will face pain in the market and punishment from plaintiffs lawyers for failing to act on a known material risk factor. The better prepared U.S. semiconductor companies are to fill the supply gap created by Chinese annexation of Taiwan, the more reluctant China may be to follow through on its plans. Mr. Xis motivations arent principally economic, but a rational leader weighs costs and benefits before taking action. Yet amid rising tensions, the worlds largest asset managers, many of which regularly warn U.S. portfolio companies about risks relating to climate change and board diversity, are conspicuously silent about Taiwan-related risks. The most notable example is BlackRock, whose website raves about the importance of Chinese investments with little mention of Taiwan. In July the firm told investors that geopolitical events typically have a modest and short-lived impact on markets and economies and that we do not see a military confrontation [between China and Taiwan] as imminent. This came even as China announced military exercises in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosis trip to Taiwan. BlackRocks behavior is unsurprising and may itself be part of Chinas long-term strategy of influencing U.S. companies to advance its geopolitical goals. BlackRock has been eyeing the lucrative Chinese asset-management market for years. In 2019 CEO Larry Fink described China as one of the largest future growth opportunities for BlackRock and said the firm is focused on building an onshore presence. But access doesnt come cheap. Following Mr. Finks comments, BlackRock lobbied the U.S. government for policies favorable to China, such as lower tariffs. In August 2020, BlackRock became the first foreign company to win preliminary approval to offer mutual funds in China. In summer 2021, at the height of the selloff in Chinese stocks, Chinas securities regulator summoned BlackRock executives to a meeting, after which BlackRock urged investors to triple their assets allocated to Chinese companies. Two weeks later, BlackRock launched its Chinese mutual funds. BlackRock would endanger its business if it alienated the Chinese government by openly warning U.S. investors and companies about Taiwan-related risks. The effect of these admonitions is subtle but real. BlackRock is the second-largest shareholder of Intel, one of Americas largest and most advanced semiconductor companies. BlackRock includes Intel in its Climate Focus Universea selection of companies that BlackRock has targeted to demand climate adaptation strategies and rigorous GHG [greenhouse-gas] emissions reduction targets. This campaign has proved fruitful: Intel regularly touts its sustainability efforts, including committing to net-zero emissions by 2040, but it says little about the company-specific risks and opportunities posed by Taiwans potential annexation. BlackRocks silence demands a market response. While the consequences of Chinas annexation of Taiwan would go far beyond stocks or the economy, market actors can make a difference. U.S. semiconductor companies and their investors can protect against Taiwan-related risks now by investing in a silicon shield of their own. Mr. Ramaswamy is executive chairman of Strive Asset Management, which holds semiconductor companies through its new U.S. Semiconductor ETF, SHOC. Mr. Pompeo served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2017-18) and secretary of state (2018-21). Vivek Ramaswamy & Mike Pompeo : wsj.com Europe has managed to fill its gas storage sites to nearly 90% as winter approaches, but stocking up on gas has come at a price. Gas and energy prices are now so high that energy-intensive industries are shutting down production lines or whole factories, while households are constantly being asked to conserve gas and electricity to avoid rationing and/or blackouts this winter. The EU, most of which is now deprived of any gas supply from Russia, is doing relatively well with stocking up on alternative supply. The prices, however, are high, and so is the price that industries, residential consumers, and governments must pay. As of October 9, gas storage sites in the EU were 88.58% full, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. Storage in Germany, the biggest economy, was 94% full, and the one in Italyat 92.7%. Europe really wanted this time around to have their storage full. They kind of learned a lesson last winter that its not a good thing [to not have enough gas in storage], especially if the supply is not given or is uncertain, Anna Mikulska, Nonresident Fellow at the Center for Energy Studies, Baker Institute, said last week. Currently the storage is at a very high level, sometimes 100 percent, most of the time beyond 80 percent, Mikulska said at the panel Energy Market Update: Winter Is Coming last week. Yet, This did not come at zero cost, the industry expert said. Europe is paying high prices for LNG, and these prices are determined by traders in a tight market, not by the U.S. LNG producers and exporters, Mikulska said during the panel. Its the companies that buy the gas from U.S. producers, and it usually goes where the price is highest, she said. American LNG has been crucial in meeting European demand, which is scrambling for gas supply and willing to pay up for spot deliveries, outbidding most of Asia. High demand in Europe, high natural gas prices, and increased export capacity made the United States the worlds largest LNG exporter in the first half of 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in July. For the first time ever, the European Union imported in June more LNG from the United States than gas via pipeline from Russia, as Moscow slashed its supply to Europe. In September, as much as 70% of all U.S. LNG exports in September were headed to Europe, up from 63% in August, per Refinitiv Eikon data cited by Reuters earlier this month. But this influx of LNG supply to secure Europes winter comes at a cost. It came at a cost of cutting down demand in industry. And thats the big story of this winter and the year coming forward. Its not only about the inability to heat houses, which obviously is something that you are going to prevent, but its about the ability of Europe to recover going forward from the industrial downturn that cutting supply of gas to industry has caused, Mikulska said. Due to sky-high prices and a very tight gas market, natural gas usage in the power-generating sector in Europe is forecast to drop by nearly 3% this year. Industrial gas demand is expected to plunge by as much as 20%, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its quarterly Gas Market Report early this month. Energy-intensive industries in Europe, including aluminum, copper, and zinc smelters and steel makers, have already warned EU officials that they face an existential threat from surging power and gas prices. All the signs point to markets remaining very tight well into 2023, Keisuke Sadamori, the IEAs Director of Energy Markets and Security, said. Despite the high LNG imports and the rush to build LNG import terminals, Europe could still face rationing or power outages this winter, and a longer-term deindustrialization as energy-intensive industries relocate some production out of the continent. The EU has admitted that the increased supply of non-Russian gas needs to be coupled with reductions in demand if the gas market is to balance any time soon. Germanys regulator has been calling for months for significant cuts in gas consumption to avoid a gas emergency and subsequent rationing of gas use. Tsvetana Paraskova : Oilprice.com Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) by Xinhua writer Yang Shilong NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." The annual event, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and China's Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. "We seek to reveal the differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from West -- only to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both the East and West," said the festival's artistic director Jindong Cai, who is also the USCMI director. Music exchanges play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and China at the current time when bilateral relations are difficult, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard College, told Xinhua at a reception after the concert on Sunday. In the fall of 2018, the Bard College started to offer an undergraduate performance degree program in selected Chinese instruments including erhu, guzheng and pipa. Studio instruction in these traditional Chinese instruments is provided by world-renowned CCOM master musicians, with the use of state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person lessons both on the Bard campus and in Beijing. "It's important to keep it going and music exchanges can bring us closer," said Botstein, an established conductor and music historian, adding that he looks forward to a performance tour in China in June next year. Sunday's concert, "Tales from Beijing," at the Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918 and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing's ancient alleyways -- morning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums -- before finally transporting the audience back to the tranquility of the ancient city. Following were four selections from the opera Rickshaw Boy, specifically chosen and adapted by Chinese composer Guo Wenjing for the concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu. The concert's second half was devoted to Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's Symphony No. 2, The Great Wall. This large-scale work featuring piano, voice, Chinese instruments and symphony orchestra is inspired by the Great Wall, a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China. The second concert program, "Painted Skin," will take place on Oct. 13 at the Hudson Hall, the historical opera house in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center. It features the U.S. premiere of "Painted Skin," a chamber opera based on a ghost story by the early 18th century author Pu Songling, which was originally published in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The last concert program, "Journey to the East," will take place on Oct. 22 in the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Jindong Cai (C), director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, conducts at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) An agri-chemicals firm has been ordered to pay out over 60,000 after it released a toxic chlorine gas that spread through the surrounding area resulting in staff needing hospital treatment. The incident, which happened in June 2019, also caused significant damage to the Wiltshire-based factory, Basingstoke Magistrates Court heard on 4 October 2022. GEA Farm Technologies (UK) Ltd mistakenly mixed an Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC) containing 700kg of concentrated sulphuric acid into a mixing vessel which already contained 1,600 litres of sodium hypochlorite solution. The chemicals reacted releasing a large cloud of toxic chlorine gas, which CCTV footage showed as it permeated the factory and surrounding area. There was no clear evacuation plan for workers caught on-site, with several taken to hospital with breathing difficulties fortunately no one suffered long-term effects. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the incident happened because a dedicated mixing plant had not been brought back into service after maintenance work. The safety watchdog found that the company had failed to introduce effective records management for the temporary manual system. GEA Farm Technologies, based in Warminster, Wiltshire pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety legislation and were fined 40,000. The firm was also ordered to pay costs of 22,000 during a hearing at Basingstoke Magistrates Court on 4 October 2022. HSE Inspector, Malcolm Whyatt, said: In this case several workers were put at risk from a cloud of chlorine gas which drifted uncontrolled through their workplace. The company had previously designed their system to eliminate the possibility of human error, by reverting to a manual process they created a situation where mixing incompatible chemicals was possible. "Chlorine can have severe health effects at very low levels, and they were fortunate that no-one was more seriously injured. The UK's Chief Vet has urged farmers and bird keepers to boost their biosecurity as compulsory housing measures for poultry and captive birds will be rolled out in East Anglia tomorrow. Keepers in Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex must keep their birds indoors and follow strict biosecurity measures to help protect their flocks, of whatever type or size. The government said it expects the number of cases to continue to rise over the coming months as migratory birds return to the UK. The UK has faced its largest ever outbreak of bird flu, with over 170 cases confirmed across the country since late October 2021. On Monday (10 October), authorities confirmed three new cases of highly pathogenic bird flu, all located in Norfolk. Dr Christine Middlemiss, the UKs Chief Veterinary Officer, said bird keepers in the affected regions must prepare for the mandatory housing measure, which will be rolled out from 00:01 on Wednesday (12 October). These include taking steps to safeguard animal welfare, consulting vets and expanding housing where necessary, she explained. The new housing measures build on the strengthened biosecurity measures that were brought in as part of the regional Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) last month. In addition to this, a regional AIPZ remains in place across Devon, Cornwall and parts of Somerset, where keepers must follow stricter biosecurity measures. Dr Middlemiss said: "We are seeing a growing number of bird flu cases on commercial farms and in backyard birds across the country driven by high levels of disease within wild birds. "Unfortunately we expect the number of cases to continue to rise over the coming months as migratory birds return to the UK, bringing with them further risk of disease that can spread into our kept flocks." She added: "Were taking action already by implementing regional Avian Influenza Prevention Zones and housing measures in the worst-affected areas. "But it is important that all bird keepers wherever they are in the country ensure that cleanliness and hygiene are at the forefront of their minds to keep their flocks safe and limit the impact of the outbreak." The regional housing measures and AIPZs will remain in place until further notice, the government said, and will be kept under regular review as part of work to monitor and manage the risks of avian influenza. The wild bird risk across Great Britain is maintained at 'medium' and the risk to poultry with stringent biosecurity is maintained at 'low'. However, the risk to poultry with poor biosecurity has been increased to 'medium', in light of the increased number of infected premises observed during September. Plans to boost domestic fruit and vegetable production by driving the growth of high-tech horticulture has been set out by the Defra Secretary. Ranil Jayawardena has pledged 12.5m investment in automation and robotics through the Farming Innovation Programme, on top of more than 70m spent so far. The fund opens in January with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and projects that will drive economic growth, food security and deliver on environmental commitments will be match-funded. Previous funded projects have included fruit scouting robots, automated vegetable harvesters and new types of fertiliser. The government is particularly interested in glasshouse growing, a form of controlled environment horticulture. The sector currently represents only 10% of English horticultural businesses. This means the UK only grows 25% of the cucumbers and 17% of the tomatoes supplied domestically, according to the government. But businesses operating with this model are already seeing benefits, it says, such as extended growing seasons, efficient water usage and higher yields per square metre. Mr Jayawardena said on Tuesday (11 October) that whilst the UK had a high degree of food security, it could be boosted further, and controlled environment horticulture was one way of doing so. "We can increase home-grown fruit and vegetable production, which is why I am bringing in expert advice and match-funding robotics and automation projects," he said. Technology offers huge opportunities to make farming greener and more productive, so we should harness it to help grow the economy, create jobs and improve food security too. Last week, the Defra Secretary visited the Netherlands to learn more about high-tech greenhouse and vertical growing approaches. He toured a robotics institute and a glasshouse business which uses artificial intelligence, robotics, renewable energy and water neutral systems to grow produce. Mr Jayawardena also announced he will appoint an industry expert to help build a clearer picture of the barriers and opportunities in controlled environment horticulture. They will provide a set of recommendations and policy interventions that the government can implement both immediately and longer term. The Defra Secretary has also written to a number of major controlled environment horticulture growers to seek the industrys views on how the government can support its expansion. An industry podcast has helped a Welsh farming family to launch a new pick-your-own pumpkin venture, creating a new income stream for their business. Sheep farmers Tom and Beth Evans welcomed the first customers to their farm over the weekend as Pwmpenni Pendre opened for business. The diversification has been established at Pendre, a 24-hectare holding at Llanfihangel y Creuddyn, Aberystwyth. The Evans run a 480-ewe closed flock of Mule crossbreds, improved Welsh Tregaron-type and Welsh Hill Speckled Face ewes. A Farming Connect Ear to the Ground podcast, an episode which gave key advice on how to establish a PYO pumpkin business, played an integral role in launching the enterprise. We listened to this podcast over and over again," said Beth, When there were times we were unsure or had reservations we would listen again and that gave us the reassurance to continue. For their new venture, Farming Connect, which is funded by the Welsh government, stepped in with a package of support when the couple needed it. They took advantage of a one-to-one surgery and mentoring advice from agricultural diversification mentor Gary Rees. All of these in combination made us go for it, and we are so pleased that we have," Beth said. There was also assistance from horticulture support body TyfuCymru to set up a booking system and website, and advice from Chris Creed of ADAS. The Evans family are now part of a Growers Group. This is great for networking and sharing ideas and problem solving," explained. Beth. A new episode of the Ear To The Ground podcast is released every fortnight and covers a range of topics. Apparel import of European Union (EU) from Vietnam shows upward trend in recent quarters as the bilateral trade boosted after the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). However, an analysis shows that EUs apparel import from Vietnam could not breach the pre-FTA level. European Union and Vietnam signed FTA in mid-2019, and it came into effect from August 2020. According to Fibre2Fashions market insight tool TexPro, EU imported garments worth $1.202 billion from Vietnam in Q2 this year, compared to the import of $1.215 billion in Q1. In Q4 2021 European countries imported garments valued at $0.974 billion, which was lower than import of $1.090 billion in Q3 2021. The trend of import figures suggest that the trade remained quite volatile. Last two quarters noted impressive growth from the preceding quarters. The import breached a mark of $1 billion in Q3 2020, immediately after the first wave of COVID-19. However, the import value dipped to $0.574 billion in Q2 from $0.948 billion in Q1 2020, which increased to $1.128 billion in Q3, only to decline to $1.234 billion Q4 2020. EUs garment import from Vietnam was valued at $1.132 billion in Q2 2021, and $1.170 billion in Q1 2021. Apparel import of European Union (EU) from Vietnam shows upward trend in recent quarters as the bilateral trade boosted after the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). However, an analysis shows that EU's apparel import from Vietnam could not breach the pre-FTA level. European Union and Vietnam signed FTA in mid-2019, and it came into effect from August 2020. Annual figures of EU import from Vietnam gives clearer picture. As per TexPro, imports were valued at $3.836 billion in 2021, $3.650 billion in 2020, $4.190 billion in 2019 and $4.081 billion in 2018. The annual figures suggest the bilateral trade could not breach even pre-FTA level. The FTA was signed on June 30, 2019 and was implemented from August 1, 2020. Therefore, the agreement came into effect immediately after the first global wave of COVID-19. The import had recorded steep fall in Q2, 2020 as economic activities halted due to the devastating pandemic. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) Turkiyes exports reached $188 billion in the January-September period this year and $252 billion in the last 12 months. The chemical substances and products sector topped in September, followed by the automotive sector. The ready-to-wear garment sector ranked third with exports worth $1.9 billion in the month, according to the Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TIM). According to the General Trade System (GTS) records, export in September increased by 9.2 per cent to reach $ 22.6 billion, TIM chairman Mustafa Gultepe recently said in Trabzon. Turkiye's exports reached $188 billion in the January-September period this year and $252 billion in the last 12 months. The chemical substances and products sector topped in September, followed by the automotive sector. The ready-to-wear garment sector ranked third with exports worth $1.9 billion in the month, according to the Turkish Exporters' Assembly. TIM is the umbrella organisation of one lakh exporters with 27 sectors and 61 exporters' associations. Gultepe said that despite the negative climate in the global economy, Turkish exporters demonstrated a successful performance in September. Forty five cities increased their exports in September, the top 5 being Istanbul, Kocaeli, Bursa, Izmir and Ankara. Sakarya, Corum, Konya and Gaziantep too achieved significant export increases, a press release from TIM said. The top three countries to which Turkiye exported the most were Germany, the United States and Iraq. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) Washington, D.C., Oct 11, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - Solve.Care (https://solve.care/), a healthcare platform company that leverages blockchain to deliver better care and ClinicalSquared (www.clinicalsquared.com), a multi-disciplinary technology consulting company specializing in custom software development, today announced that they have joined forces to create Web3 health networks on the Solve.Care Platform. The announcement was made at the Blockchain & Infrastructure Conference held at the National Press Club in Washington DC, and organized by the Government Blockchain Association.The decentralized Care.Platform from Solve.Care allows for the quick creation and deployment of interoperable health networks. Governments, businesses and even individuals can author their own networks using the Care.Labs low-code development portal.Digital health networks on the Care.Platform are known as Care.Networks. Data in Care.Networks are stored on decentralized nodes, where all interactions and transactions are automatically tokenized. They can be authored without the need for any Web3 or blockchain knowledge. Care.Network owners can also opt to outsource the authoring of their Care.Networks to any third party or utilize ClinicalSquared, having been appointed as the official authoring agent of Care.Platform.Pradeep Goel, CEO of Solve.Care said, "Having ClinicalSquared on board, enables for our clients to have their Care.Networks rolled out to the market at an even quicker timeframe. While our clients are in the best position to know when they want from their Care.Networks, they may not always have the capacity to author them. It is about giving our clients options that best serve their interests."Marquis Allen, CEO of ClinicalSquared said, "We are excited to partner with the Solve.Care team, leveraging our skills, technical resources, and formidable experience in the healthcare IT sector to accelerate the development of blockchain-featured healthcare solutions. We welcome the opportunity to serve."Both ClinicalSquared and Solve.Care are members of the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) (https://gbaglobal.org/). The GBA is an association that connects people and organizations with blockchain technology-based solutions to problems typically faced by government entities.Source: Platodata Intelligence https://platodata.ioSource: ClinicalSquaredSolve.CareCopyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. (BIO) is in talks to merge with Qiagen NV (QGEN) in a deal worth more than $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The talks have been going on for a while but any agreement isn't likely for another few weeks or more-and there may not be one, the Journal reported. Bio Rad has a market cap of about $11.77 billion. BIO closed Monday's regular trading at $392.95 down $35.98 or 8.39%. In the after-hours, the stock further dropped $0.46 or 0.12%. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. The Startup Race Hosts Event Series with Vestd, the UK's #1 Equity & CoSec Management Platform for UK Startup Founders EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, Oct. 10, 2022, a growth hacking competition reinventing how investors find great startups to invest in, announced today that it will host three events in October 2022 with Vestd's startup equity management expert Guy Kaufman of Vestd, a UK partner of The Startup Race Ltd. The events will each be held online via Zoom for free, so UK startup founders can avoid making disastrous mistakes. "What we typically find is many entrepreneurs have great ideas, but don't have any background in fundraising for their startup. Yes, they are great Entrepreneurs, they know their own subject matter, but need support when it comes to equity, and as a result they make mistakes," said Guy Kaufman, Team Lead of 'Launch' at Vestd. "My hope is to help entrepreneurs make better decisions, and be prepared for advocating for themselves in equity agreement conversations and better outcomes down the line." The schedule is as follows: Startup Equity: What you need to know in the UK! October 13th, 2022 at 4pm Sign Up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/421372044127 Teaser interview - https://youtu.be/x_fcvu6K1SA How to Get Your Startup Equity Agreements Right First Time! October 20th, 2022 at 4pm Sign Up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/421403799107 Teaser interview - https://youtu.be/QcwY__J8pzE Fundraising and Investment Secrets for UK Entrepreneurs October 27th, 2022 at 4pm Sign Up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/421410519207 Teaser interview - https://youtu.be/8GrvQfeYpU4 Revealing common mistakes that negatively impact many UK Startup Founding Teams, prevent them from hiring talented employees and making raising investment from Angels and VC's impossible, Mr. Kaufman will answer attendee questions and discussions. Both The Startup Race and Mr. Kaufman hope the series empowers Startup Founders to lay the right foundations from day-1 and thus make themselves attractive to Angel and VC Investors across the United Kingdom. "UK Startup Founders can't all afford lawyers to help them get funding and equity decisions perfect early on in their entrepreneurial journey, and as a result, they often make the disastrous mistake of copying American equity arrangements such as allocating equity up front or vesting over 4 years," said James Shoemark, co-founder of The Startup Race. "This program will help inform many entrepreneurs who are both watching their bottomline, and growing in their trajectory as a founder." During the series of virtual events, Mr Kaufman will also reveal a 100% discount code so that UK Startup Founders can use the Vestd platform for free; which has full Companies House integration so they can remove the friction from company admin and get on the fast track to growth. Other topics discussed will include: Incorporate their business on Companies House, Create and manage their Cap table, Use Shareholder dashboards to visualise future value, Issue shares and share certificates, Make Stock transfers, Model share scenarios, Access to equity templates, Adopt Vestd standard articles of association, Appoint and remove directors, Manage PSCs, Submit confirmation statements. The series of entrepreneur-focused events is sponsored by The Startup Race, which is currently running a Growth Hacking Competition which has a 10,000 cash prize. The Startup Race methodology capitalizes on the iconoclastic startup method, first developed by GodFather of the Lean Startup Movement - Steve Blank. In a 2013 blog post called It's Time to Play Moneyball: The Investment Readiness Level, Blank recommended Investors ask teams to "Prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there's a repeatable and scalable business model" instead of relying on the antiquated test as to whether they can produce great looking product demos, compelling PowerPoint slides, as a 'world-class' troupe of actors. The 10,000 Startup Race also gives their 'Racers', access to the world's best Lean Startup resources such as Vestd, in order to validate their thinking, develop their business model and personal profile in order to attract co-founders. Other free resources on Leanstack include the Foundations and Business Model Design Playbooks and Lean Canvas & Traction Roadmap tools. The Startup Race team helps entrepreneurs incorporate their UK company and open a UK business bank account to enable them to start generating sales as soon as the competition starts. Through The Startup Race process, a number of high net-worth individuals observe how the teams perform over the course of The Race and be introduced to companies that they may consider supporting at the end of the program. "We want to help more entrepreneurs prove their success quickly and robustly over a specific period of time in order to prove to investors a need, should they indeed need that funding," said Michael Clouser, co-founder of The Startup Race. "The Startup Race believes that this highly competitive 'pedal-to-the-metal' approach garners great value for both Entrepreneurs and Business Angel Investors, especially at a time when the World is changing economically." The first 10,000 Startup Race will continue to 24th December 2022, where a winner will be announced and awarded the 10,000 Cash Prize in January 2023. After this Startup Race has completed, they will be partnering with Scottish Investors to run a 300,000 Startup Race and then a 1,000,000 International Startup Race. For more information on The Startup Race, please visit: www.TheStartupRace.com. ABOUT THE STARTUP RACE The Startup Race, was established in 2014 after a young entrepreneur asking Mr. James Shoemark, how the startup process could be gamified. He soon teamed up with Michael Clouser, a former Silicon Valley VC and other Edinburgh based Entrepreneurs and Investors to partner with him on this new venture in order to support Fast Growth startups in the UK and around the world. The first 10,000 Startup Race will continue though the fall of 2022, where a winner will be announced and awarded the 10,000 Cash Prize. More information about The Startup Race can be found: www.TheStartupRace.com Attachment OutFlow announces an expanded range of deal sourcing solutions, designed for increasing investment banks' pipeline management efficiency. Boise, Idaho--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - OutFlow introduces a new data-driven approach that combines precise targeting with outbound marketing strategies to ensure a predictable, scalable flow of deal opportunities for M&A professionals. The company offers an end-to-end solution, from database creation to securing meetings, allowing investment bankers to focus on the deal closing stage. More information is available at https://outflow.agency OutFlow Announces Investment Bank Deal Sourcing & Pipeline Management Platform To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/139975_ed91568af4e8a9f1_001full.jpg The financial performance of an investment bank directly depends on the efficiency of its deal sourcing process. The newly announced solution allows dealmakers to fill their sales pipelines with targeted, qualified leads with a high probability of success, creating a stable foundation for future growth. Recognizing that traditional networking-based deal origination is becoming unreliable and inefficient with the digital transformation of capital markets, OutFlow developed a new approach. It utilizes the latest data analysis techniques and efficient outreach to find all opportunities across markets that match the client's target parameters and establish contact with the target companies' representatives. According to OutFlow's CEO Matt Currie, creating a well-defined set of criteria for a new target is a critical step for maximizing the value of a sales pipeline. "Whether it be a specific sector, market, geographic region or size of company, OutFlow can get laser-focused on your ideal prospect," Currie said. OutFlow introduced a simple, transparent process for effective deal origination. Once the target parameters have been identified, the company uses its databases, network of industry contacts, and outbound marketing to generate an up-to-date, verified list of targets. It then makes professional contact with the prospects on behalf of the client to secure a meeting. Following OutFlow's latest announcement, investment bankers, private equity firms, and other M&A professionals can access a wide pool of qualified opportunities without the high costs of extensive research, networking, and outreach. "Stop spending endless hours digging through databases, subscribing to the "latest" tool, and chasing down leads," said a company representative. "Let us do the heavy lifting of finding the right prospect, making contact, and securing meetings and conversations. You need to do what you do best; close deals." Interested parties can find more information by visiting https://outflow.agency Contact Info: Name: Jason Dodd Email: jason@outflow.agency Organization: OutFlow Address: 500 S 8th St, Boise, Idaho 83702, United States Website: https://www.outflow.agency To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/139975 Enhanced API Also Supports Bundled Payments NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America today announced the launch of an expanded CashPro Payment API through which clients can access more than 350 payment types and bundle payments. The development comes as Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) continue to transform business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions given the ability of APIs to provide real-time data, reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies. "A significant feature of APIs is their ability to support 24/7 processing. We're seeing that play out with our Payment API where 20% of the volume is being processed during the weekend. The enhanced API will give clients even more options to process payments in multiple jurisdictions and countries at any time of the day," said Tom Durkin, global product head for CashPro Platform in Global Transaction Services (GTS) at Bank of America. "The development is part of our multi-year digital strategy to make business easier and more secure." The breadth of capabilities of the enhanced CashPro Payment API spans: More than 350 payment types in 38 markets globally 7 real-time payments schemes and services such as Zelle in the U.S. and Pix in Brazil Domestic and cross-border wires Domestic ACH Local payment instruments such as Brazil Boletos Ability to execute payments in bundles, helping clients avoid or reduce backlogs in payment queues "Through our single payment API, clients can disburse payments to hundreds of countries and get real-time data and information, helping to increase their business efficiency and competitive edge," said Stephanie Wolf, head of Global Financial Institutions, Governments, Business Banking Sales, and Risk in GTS at Bank of America. Citing an example of insurance claims, Wolf said, "Our API can be a bridge between an insurer's system and the policyholder, disbursing funds digitally, and instantly provide access to funds following a claim, without the need to use checks." Bank of America's suite of CashPro APIs includes more than a hundred APIs supporting payments and treasury operations. Clients can connect to them through the CashPro API Developer sandbox, which is designed to accelerate onboarding. Clients can also access the APIs through one of the more than 28 Treasury Management System (TMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms that are integrated into Bank of America's platform. Bank of America Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 66 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,300 retail financial centers, approximately 17,000 ATMs, and award-winning digital banking with approximately 41 million active users, including approximately 32 million mobile users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom and register for news email alerts. www.bankofamerica.com Reporters May Contact: Louise Hennessy, Bank of America Phone: 1.646.858.6471 louise.hennessy@bofa.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1612970/Bank_of_America_Corporation_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/bank-of-america-expands-its-cashpro-payment-api-capability-to-over-350-payment-types-301645294.html Kuros Biosciences AG / Key word(s): Miscellaneous Kuros Biosciences to present positive clinical data for MagnetOs at NASS 2022 Annual Meeting 11.10.2022 / 07:00 CET/CEST First clinical data from five planned randomized controlled trials Show favorable fusion rate compared to autograft Launch of MagnetOs Flex Matrix expands perioperative options for surgeons Schlieren (Zurich), Switzerland, 11 October, 2022 - Kuros Biosciences ("Kuros" or the "Company"), a leader in next generation bone graft technologies, announced today that it will present compelling clinical data on MagnetOs bone graft at the 38th Annual Meeting of the North American Spine Society (NASS), being held in Chicago October 12 to 15, 2022, in addition to completing a full commercial launch of MagnetOs Flex Matrix. This first data, from the Company's five planned randomized controlled trials for MagnetOs, compares MagnetOs Granules to the gold standard of autograft bone. The rate of posterolateral lumbar fusion of the first consecutive 50 patients in this preliminary analysis were assessed by CT-scan at Month 12 post-operation. The fusion rate for MagnetOs was 78% in comparison to 42% for autograft, comparing favorably to fusion rates of 55-71% reported for synthetic bone grafts evaluated in similar well-controlled studies.1 The full commercial availability of MagnetOs Flex Matrix opens an opportunity for surgeons who routinely mix their bone graft of choice with bone marrow aspirate, to reap the benefits of MagnetOs' NeedleGrip surface technology while continuing with their routine peri-operative practice. The MagnetOs Flex Matrix product is extremely convenient to use, with excellent granule retention, remaining strong yet flexible even when wet, allowing wide-ranging manipulation to fill bony spaces in whichever way surgeons require. Joost de Bruijn, Chief Executive Officer of Kuros, said: "These exciting data mark a significant milestone in the clinical phase of Project Fusion, which brings together an unprecedented blend of scientific, pre-clinical and clinical studies. The interim data exceed expectations for performance and validate MagnetOs as an augmented bone grafting option. "Furthermore, the launch of MagnetOs Flex Matrix rounds out the family of MagnetOs products, meaning we have solutions that meet user needs in most peri-operative surgical scenarios in posterolateral fusion." Details of the NASS presentations: Dr. Katherine Sage, DO: Ongoing, Prospective, Randomized, Intra-Patient Controlled Trial Shows Favorable Results of MagnetOs Granules Used Standalone As Compared to Autograft in Instrumented Posterolateral Spinal Fusions Session Date: 10/13/2022 Session Room: Red Theater Presentation Time: 1:00 PM - 1:07 PM CDT Nathan Kucko, PhD: Evaluation of a calcium phosphate-collagen matrix bone graft with needle-shaped submicron surface topography in a clinically relevant sheep posterolateral lumbar spine fusion mode Session Date: 10/13/2022 Session Room: Red Theater Presentation Time: 1:08 PM - 1:15 PM CDT For further information, please contact: Kuros Biosciences AG Michael Grau Chief Financial Officer Tel +41 44 733 47 47 michael.grau@kurosbio.com LifeSci Advisors Sandya von der Weid Investors +41 78 680 05 38 svonderweid@lifesciadvisors.com About MagnetOs MagnetOs isn't like other bone grafts. It grows bone even in soft tissue thanks to its unique NeedleGrip surface technology which provides traction for our body's vitally important 'pro-healing' immune cells (M2 macrophages). This in turn, unlocks previously untapped potential to stimulate stem cells - and form new bone throughout the graft. The growing body of science behind NeedleGrip is called osteoimmunology. But for surgeons and their patients it means one thing: a more efficient and predictable fusion. *2-4 Indications statement MagnetOs Flex Matrix is intended to fill bony voids or gaps of the skeletal system, i.e., posterolateral spine. In the posterolateral spine, MagnetOs Flex Matrix must be hydrated with bone marrow aspirate and used as an extender to autograft bone. The osseous defects may be surgically created or the result of traumatic injury to the bone that are not intrinsic to the stability of the bony structure. MagnetOs Flex Matrix resorbs and is replaced with bone during the healing process. About Project Fusion Today, nearly 1 in 5 spinal fusions fail. So, what can we do to change this situation - for the benefit of patients, surgeons and our wider society? This is the question that drives us at Kuros Biosciences. Every day our team works across three continents to unlock the hidden secrets of bone healing through our research, development & technology program: Project Fusion. To deliver the ideal bone graft, we believe you need the highest quality & quantity of scientific evidence behind it. Which is why Project Fusion brings together an unprecedented blend of scientific, preclinical and clinical studies - all aimed at making the unpredictablepredictable. For more information on Project Fusion, visit kurosbio.com/project-fusion. About Kuros Biosciences Kuros Biosciences is a fast-growing leader in the development of spinal fusion biologics that ease the burden of back pain. With locations in the United States, Switzerland and the Netherlands, the company is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The company's first commercial product, MagnetOs, is a unique synthetic bone graft that has already been used successfully across three continents and in over 10,000 spinal fusion surgeries. The next candidate in the Kuros pipeline is Fibrin-PTH - the first drug-biologic combination for interbody spinal fusions, currently undergoing a Phase 2 clinical trial in the U.S. For more information on the company, its products and pipeline, visit kurosbio.com. Forward Looking Statements This media release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. You are urged to consider statements that include the words "will" or "expect" or the negative of those words or other similar words to be uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements include scientific, business, economic and financial factors. Against the background of these uncertainties, readers should not rely on forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no responsibility for updating forward-looking statements or adapting them to future events or developments. 1. Lehr, et al. Spine. 2020; 45(14):944-951; Coughlan, et al. Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2018;1-43(15):E860-E868. 2. Van Dijk, et al. eCM. 2021;41:756-73 3. Duan, et al. eCM. 2019;37:60-73. 4. Van Dijk, et al. Clin Spine Surg. 2020;33(6):E276-E287. *Results from in vivo laboratory testing may not be predictive of clinical experience in humans. For important safety and intended use information please visit kurosbio.com. MagnetOs is not cleared by the FDA or TGA as an osteoinductive bone graft. MagnetOs has been proven to generate more predictable fusions than two commercially available alternatives in an ovine model of posterolateral fusion. End of Media Release In Defence of Marxism is committed to safeguarding your privacy. At all times we aim to respect any personal data you share with us, or that we receive from other organisations, and keep it safe. This Privacy Policy (Policy) sets out our data collection and processing practices and your options regarding the ways in which your personal information is used. This Policy contains important information about your personal rights to privacy. Please read it carefully to understand how we use your personal data. We may update this Policy from time to time without notice to you, so please check it regularly. The provision of your personal data to us is voluntary. 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Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns whatsoever about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing the Data Protection Manager at webmaster@marxist.com Evolva Holding SA / Key word(s): Product Launch Evolva's NootkaSHIELDTM insect repellent approved in Hong Kong 11.10.2022 / 07:00 CET/CEST Reinach, 11 October 2022 - Evolva (SIX: EVE), a pioneer in the field of natural molecules and industrial biotech, has received approval for its NootkaSHIELDTM concept from the Hong Kong regulatory authorities as an active ingredient for use in insecticides and insect repellents. The initial market launch of an application as personal repellent spray is targeted for the first quarter of 2023. The registration in Hong Kong is an important milestone in preparing for further launches in other Asian markets where insect prevalence is high due to tropical climate conditions. The formulations in liquid form, first as a skin-applied repellent followed by other applications, are to be marketed and distributed by a local partner in a multi-channel approach. The approval in Hong Kong follows the approval of NootkaSHIELDTM as active ingredient in the United States, which Evolva received from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in August 2020, as well as initial launch activities during 2022 in Singapore which led to first sales in 3Q 2022. Astrid Schafer, Head of Innovation and R&D of Evolva, comments: "This initial registration in Hong Kong is testimony to the strength of Evolva's data regarding the safety and efficacy of NootkaSHIELDTM and paves the way for further launches in other Asian markets. We are excited about the perspectives with our initial market tests and the potential these initial launches open up for subsequent extensions in South East Asia and the United States." Important dates 09 March 2023 Full-year 2022 results 18 April 2023 Annual General Meeting Contact Doris Rudischhauser Investor Relations and Corporate Communications +41 79 410 81 88 dorisr@evolva.com About Evolva Evolva is a Swiss biotech company focused on the research, development and commercialization of ingredients based on nature. We have leading businesses in Flavors and Fragrances, Health Ingredients and Health Protection. Evolva's employees, half of which are women, are dedicated to make the best products that can contribute to health, wellbeing and sensory enjoyment. Find out more at evolva.com and connect with us on on LinkedIn.. For Evolva multimedia content, please visit: evolva.com/multimedia-library. Disclaimer This announcement is not an offer of securities into the United States. The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and may not be offered, pledged, sold, delivered or otherwise transferred, directly or indirectly, in the United States, except pursuant to an exemption from, or transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. No public offering of securities is being made in the United States. Further, the securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the applicable securities laws of Canada, Australia or Japan or under the applicable securities laws of any other jurisdiction where to do so might constitute a violation of such laws. This press release contains specific forward-looking statements, e.g. statements including terms like believe, assume, expect or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may result in a substantial divergence between the actual results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and those explicitly or implicitly presumed in these statements. Against the background of these uncertainties readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The company assumes no responsibility to update forward-looking statements or to adapt them to future events or developments. End of Media Release NMD Pharma Reports Positive Top-Line Data from a Phase I/IIa Clinical Trial of NMD670in Patients with Myasthenia Gravis Data provides first clinical proof of themechanismof action of NMD Pharma's ClC-1 chloride ion channelinhibitorin patients suffering from myasthenia gravis NMD670 was safe and well tolerated, withclinically significant improvements in the Quantitative Myasthenia Gravis Scorein patients andchanges in electrophysiological endpoints that demonstrated target engagement and restoration of neuromuscular transmission The clinical validation of ClC-1 inhibition to restore neuromuscular function leading to clinical meaningful effects even with a single dose in patients with myasthenia gravis provides a unique translational platform for NMD Pharma and informs new clinical studies in additional indications characterized by neuromuscular dysfunction Aarhus, Denmark, 11October 2022 - NMD Pharma A/S, a clinical stage biotech company developing first-in-class, small molecule ClC-1 inhibitors for neuromuscular disorders, today reported positive top-line results from a Phase I/IIa clinical trial of NMD670, recently granted orphan drug designation by the FDA for treatment of myasthenia gravis (MG). The Phase I part included single ascending dose and multiple ascending dose in 67 healthy volunteers. The Phase IIa part was a single dose, proof of mechanism, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, three-way cross-over study, investigating the safety and pharmacodynamic effects of NMD670 at two dose levels in 12 patients with MG. NMD670 was safe and well tolerated in healthy volunteers and patients. Administration of single doses of NMD670 was associated with clinically significant improvements in the Quantitative Myasthenia Gravis Score with up to 50% of the patients meeting pre-specified responder criterion. Electrophysiological endpoints demonstrated target engagement and restoration of neuromuscular transmission that in patients were associated with increases in muscle strength and function. The trial took place at the Centre for Human Drug Research. Dr. Geert Jan Groeneveld, Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Medical Officer at the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR) and the Principal Investigator of the trial said: "I would like to thank the study participants, their families and caregivers for participating in the NMD670 clinical study. These positive clinical data provide valuable early insights into the potential of ClC-1 inhibition to enhance neuromuscular transmission for myasthenia gravis and other neuromuscular diseases." Thomas Holm Pedersen, Chief Executive Officer of NMD Pharma, said: "These trial results represent an important milestone for NMD Pharma as they provide the first clinical proof of mechanism for our novel ClC-1 inhibitor treatment approach. With these data we complete an important journey from conceptualizing a new treatment concept to obtaining clinical proof of mechanism, and further establish the relevance of pursuing the development of ClC-1 inhibitors across a range of diseases associated with neuromuscular dysfunction. I would like to thank the NMD Pharma team for their many contributions to making this trial a success and, most importantly, the patients who participated in the study." NMD Pharma will publish the full trial data in a peer reviewed journal and present the findings at a leading industry conference over the coming months. -END- Contacts NMD Pharma A/S Thomas Holm Pedersen, CEO E-mail: contact@nmdpharma.com Consilium Strategic Communications Mary-Jane Elliott / Ashley Tapp / Lindsey Neville E-mail: NMDPharma@consilium-comms.com Tel: +44 (0)20 3709 5700 About NMD Pharma NMD Pharma A/S, is a private biotech company leading in the development of novel first-in-class therapies for severe neuromuscular disorders. The Company was incorporated as a spin-off from Aarhus University, Denmark in 2015 and was founded on more than 15 years of muscle physiology research with a focus on regulation of skeletal muscle excitability under physical activity. NMD Pharma has built a world-leading muscle electrophysiology platform leveraging the in-depth know-how of muscle physiology and muscular disorders, small molecule modulators, enabling technologies and tools as well as in vivo pharmacology models for discovering and developing proprietary modulators of neuromuscular function. NMD Pharma received initial seed financing in 2016 and have since raised ~80 million from investors including Novo Holdings, Lundbeckfonden BioCapital, INKEF Capital, Roche Venture Fund, and Jeito Capital. Find out more about us online at http://www.nmdpharma.com/. About NMD670 NMD670 is NMD Pharma's lead development program. It is a first-in-class small molecule inhibitor of the skeletal muscle specific chloride ion channel (ClC-1). NMD Pharma has demonstrated that ClC-1 inhibition enhances neuromuscular transmission and restores skeletal muscle function, and this novel treatment approach has demonstrated compelling preclinical efficacy data in animal models of myasthenia gravis (MG) and a range of other neuromuscular disorders. NMD670 has recently been granted orphan-drug designation (ODD) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of MG. About Myasthenia Gravis (MG) MG is a rare and chronic autoimmune disease where IgG antibodies disrupt communication between nerves and muscles causing debilitating and potentially life-threatening muscle weakness. It commonly affects the muscles that control the eyes and eyelids, facial expressions, chewing, swallowing, and speaking but in most patients it eventually impacts most skeletal muscles. More than 85% of people with MG progress to generalized MG (gMG) within 18 months and it can be life-threatening when affecting the muscles responsible for breathing. There are approximately 100,000 people in the European Union, 65,000 people in the United States and 20,000 people in Japan living with the disease. About the Centre for Human Drug Research The Centre for Human Drug Research. Share Buyback Transaction Details October 3 October 7, 2022 MotorK Plc (AMS: MTRK) ("MotorK" or the "Group") announces today that it has purchased the following number of ordinary shares in the Company. This is part of a repurchase program announced on July 18, 2022. MotorK intends to buy back its own ordinary shares by way of off-market purchases on Euronext Amsterdam and via block trades up to a maximum aggregate value of 3,000,000 (the "Programme"). The authorization will expire following the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting of the Company to be held in 2023. Aggregate Information Date Transactions Number of Ordinary Shares Total Consideration () Average price ( per share) Minimum price ( per share) Maximum price ( per share) 03/10/2022 Purchase 543 1,249 2.30 2.30 2.30 04/10/2022 Purchase 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 05/10/2022 Purchase 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 06/10/2022 Purchase 1,229 3,011 2.45 2.45 2.45 07/10/2022 Purchase 1,668 4,087 2.45 2.45 2.45 Total Weekly 3,440 8,347 2.43 2.30 2.45 Cumulated to date 64,406 182,274 Transactions Details The Programme is implemented within the limitations of the authority granted by the General Meeting on July 18, 2022. Any shares so repurchased shall be treated as cancelled pursuant to section 706(b) of the Companies Act 2006. The Group has entered into non-discretionary instructions with Kepler Cheuvreux SA ("Kepler Cheuvreux") to conduct the Programme on its behalf and to make trading decisions under the Programme independently of MotorK. REGULATED INFORMATION This press release contains information that qualifies or may qualify as inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation (596/2014/EU) ABOUT MOTORK PLC MotorK (AMS: MTRK) is a leading software as a service ("SaaS") provider for the automotive retail industry in the EMEA region, with over 400 employees and eleven offices in eight countries (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, the UK, Belgium and Israel). MotorK empowers car manufacturers and dealers to improve their customer experience through a broad suite of fully integrated digital products and services. MotorK provides its customers with an innovative combination of digital solutions, SaaS cloud products and the largest R&D department in the automotive digital sales and marketing industry in Europe. MotorK is a company registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX Company Registration: 9259000. For more information: www.motork.io or www.investors.motork.io. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221010005447/en/ Contacts: FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MotorK Investor Relations Etienne Jacquet etienne.jacquet@motork.io +33 6 22 18 39 09 MotorK Corporate Communications press@motork.io PRESS RELEASE We are pleased to invite institutional investors, analysts and financial media to attend our Capital Markets Day on 18 January 2023. At the event, our executive management team will introduce FLSmidth's new strategy and long-term outlook. This includes deep dives on our Mining business, the TK Mining integration, our Cement business, our sustainability efforts and much more. At the end of the day, there will be ample opportunity for informal networking with management. A detailed programme will follow at a later stage, but we encourage you to sign up already now. Event details Date: Wednesday, 18 January 2023 Wednesday, 18 January 2023 Time : 10.00-16.30 CET : 10.00-16.30 CET Location: Copenhagen Marriott Hotel, Kalvebod Brygge 5, 1560 Copenhagen, Denmark Come join us To register for in-person attendance in Copenhagen, please sign up here , no later than 6 January 2023. For those unable to join us in person, a live webcast will be available via our website . Virtual participants will also be able to participate in the Q&A sessions. Recordings of the presentations and the corresponding slides will be available on our website after the event. Accommodation A limited number of rooms have been made available at the Copenhagen Marriott Hotel at a discounted rate for Capital Markets Day participants. If you would like to make a reservation, then please let us know when you register for the event. Further details will then be forwarded to you. Please reach out to flsIR@flsmidth.com for any questions. We hope to see you in Copenhagen in January. Kind regards, FLSmidth's Investor Relations team Contacts: Investor Relations Jannick Lindegaard Denholt, +45 21 69 66 57, jli@flsmidth.com Therese Mollevinge, +45 41 37 16 38, tmo@flsmidth.com Mikkel Johansen, +45 23 30 29 50, mjoh@flsmidth.com Media Relations Rasmus Windfeld, +45 40 44 60 60, rwin@flsmidth.com About FLSmidth FLSmidth provides sustainable productivity to the global mining and cement industries. We deliver market-leading technology, products and service solutions that enable our customers to improve performance, drive down costs and reduce environmental impact. MissionZero is our sustainability ambition towards zero emissions in mining and cement by 2030. FLSmidth works within fully validated Science-Based Targets, our commitment to keep global warming below 1.5C and to becoming carbon neutral in our own operations by 2030. www.flsmidth.com Attachment VANCOUVER, BC and UTTENWEILER, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. (CSE:XPHY)(OTCQB:XPHYF)(FSE:4XT) ("XPhyto" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a product development report on its Rotigotine transdermal ("TDS") patch. The Company's Rotigotine patch is based on the TDS platform technology developed by its wholly owned German subsidiary, Vektor Pharma TF GmbH ("Vektor"). Over the past 90 days, the Company has been focused on the optimization of its Rotigotine TDS formulation for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, with multiple novel but related formulas under development. After several rounds of skin permeation studies using mouse and human cadaver skin samples to compare Rotigotine absorption between XPhyto's formulas and the name brand product, XPhyto is pleased to announce that its Rotigotine TDS formula is complete. Upon the recent formula completion, the Company carried out what it anticipates to be the final comparative human skin cadaver study. This study is now complete and analytical results are expected to be finalized and announced within the coming days. Rotigotine is a non-ergoline dopamine agonist approved for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and restless legs syndrome (RLS) in Europe and the United States. The active pharmaceutical ingredient is not well absorbed via oral delivery and is formulated as a once-daily TDS patch to increase bioavailability and provide a slow and steady supply of the drug over the course of 24 hours. The therapeutic market for Parkinson's Disease is over 10 million people with PD worldwide and growing. The top selling name brand product launched by the originator in 2007 independently sold over $375 million of its Rotigotine TDS patches in 2021. According to Wissen Market Research, total global sales for Rotigotine patches were approximately US$518 million in 2021 with the market expected to surpass US$766 million by 2030. XPhyto's Rotigotine transdermal product is a single product based on its 100% owned platform technology which represents a scalable opportunity for additional TDS drug development and manufacturing programs. According to Research and Markets, the global transdermal skin patch market had a value of nearly US$6.5 billion in 2020 while Kuick Research, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare, estimate the market will reach approximately US$20 billion by 2028. Vektor, a wholly owned XPhyto subsidiary, is a German narcotics manufacturer, developer, and researcher located in the district of Biberach, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. For over a decade, the company and its team have been leaders in the design, testing and manufacture of innovative, non-invasive drug delivery systems, particularly transdermal patches and sub-lingual strips for the delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredients for the treatment of pain and neurological conditions. According to Precedence Research, the global drug delivery market was valued at US$1,476 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to US$2,047 billion by 2030. About XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. is a diversified bioscience accelerator focused on next-generation drug formulation, diagnostic, and new active pharmaceutical ingredient investment opportunities, including: precision transdermal and oral dissolvable drug formulations; rapid, low-cost infectious disease and oral health screening tests; and manufacture, standardization, and evaluation of psychedelic compounds for the treatment of neurological conditions. The Company has research and development operations in North America and Europe, with an operational focus in Germany, and is currently focused on regulatory approval and commercialization of medical products for European markets. XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. Hugh Rogers, CEO and Director Investor inquiries: T: 780-818-6422 E: info@xphyto.com Forward looking statements This news release includes statements containing forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law ("forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "develop", "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "potential", "propose" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur, and in this release include the statement regarding the Company's goal of building a successful diagnostic, drug delivery, and medical cannabis company. Forward-looking statements are only predictions based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including: that the Company may not succeed in developing a commercial product; that the sale of products may not be a viable business; that the Company may be unable to scale its business; product liability risks; product regulatory risk; general economic conditions; adverse industry events; future legislative and regulatory developments; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; currency risks; competition; international risks; and other risks beyond the Company's control. The Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law. Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. SOURCE: XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719829/XPhyto-Completes-Rotigotine-Transdermal-Patch-Optimization-and-Comparative-Skin-Absorption-Study A new meeting solution that combines high-quality conference microphones with smart meeting technology to turn every meeting into easily reviewed meeting summaries and notable key items like follow on actions and issues Speech Processing Solutions, the global leader in professional speech-to-text solutions sold under the Philips brand, has teamed up with Sembly AI to provide high-quality microphones and smart meeting technology. Sembly goes beyond simple speech recognition, offering users instantly searchable meeting transcripts, highlighting key discussion moments, and creating summaries post-meeting. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005670/en/ Philips SmartMeeting (Photo: Business Wire) Every Meeting, Perfectly Captured The new Philips SmartMeeting Conferencing devices come with high-quality microphones that offer 360 recording, whilst capturing each speaker in the room with crisp, clear audio. USB and Bluetooth connectivity offers flexibility and allows for a wide-range of use-cases, whether in the office or on the go. Philips SmartMeeting HD Audio and Video Conferencing Solution features an intelligent camera; the voice tracking feature automatically moves and adjusts the lens to follow and frame the current speaker. "We are pleased to say that we have received very positive feedback from key retailers and consumers about this unique and innovative solution for recording meetings," said Dr. Thomas Brauner, CEO of Speech Processing Solutions. "Since we are now expanding distribution within the US market, we are excited to exhibit alongside Sembly AI at Voice22 Conference in Virginia in October." "Sembly AI and SPS collaboration combines two synergistic, best in class, innovative solutions. Both companies are invested in developing long term solutions for the Voice marketplace. With decades of experience, we have carefully reimagined meeting solutions to answer the needs of corporate customers in the United States and around the Globe. Automated notes to support the meeting leader and attendance solutions are at the heart of the offering which uncovers productivity and enhanced collaboration capabilities that are unparalleled," added Gil Makleff, CEO and Co-founder of Sembly AI. A Cross- Platform Breakthrough No matter what platform you use Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams, Sembly AI smart meeting assistant can join your meeting as an attendant and handle the note-taking for you. With Philips SmartMeeting devices, users can easily forward the meeting summaries to colleagues who happened to have missed the meeting, ensuring nothing is missed. The new products are available in the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand. For more information and where to buy, please visit: https://www.dictation.philips.com/us/products/audio-video-recorders/ About Speech Processing Solutions Speech Processing Solutions (SPS) is an international technology company and a global leader in dictation solutions. More than four million users worldwide work with speech-to-text solutions developed by SPS and sold under the Philips brand. These solutions include web-based and desktop workflow software as well as dictation devices. These smart solutions save users' time and allow them to focus on their core tasks, making their business more efficient, customer-centric, and profitable. Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, SPS has regional offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium, and Austria, as well as a network of more than 1000 distribution and implementation partners worldwide. About Sembly AI Sembly AI is a voice and conversation analytics technology company, focused on bringing the power of natural language processing to professional meeting environments. Sembly's products can simplify the work life of distributed teams while providing powerful analytics to help teams attend less while getting more done. Sembly AI was founded by CEO Gil Makleff and CPO Artem Koren in 2019. Gil Makleff was CEO of UMT Consulting Group which was acquired by Ernst Young. Artem Koren was a Senior Manager at Ernst Young and CTO at Visual Trading Systems. About Voice22 Conference Voice22 Conference started in 2018 with the bold idea to bring together the world's leading innovators working on conversational AI. Since then, more than 100,000 people have participated in the conference, in person and virtually from across the globe. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005670/en/ Contacts: For more press information: Speech Processing Solutions Lea Pachta Senior Marketing Manager Email: lea.pachta@speech.com Tel: +43 (1) 60529-1744 Sembly AI Pavlo Bogdanov Marketing Lead Email: pavlo.bogdanov@sembly.ai Tel: +420 778 051 031 First upgraded CV90 with increased combat effectiveness unveiled for Royal Netherlands Army at a ceremony at BAE Systems Hagglunds in Sweden The first newly-upgraded CV90 infantry fighting vehicle (IFVs) for the Royal Netherlands Army's fleet was recently unveiled during a rollout ceremony at the BAE Systems Hagglunds facility in Sweden. Customers, local dignitaries, and BAE Systems employees attended the event, which celebrated the first vehicle completed in the 500 million euro upgrade program. The upgrade enhances the CV90 vehicles' capabilities by providing vehicle crews with improved protection, firepower, and ergonomics, and significantly increased combat effectiveness. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005506/en/ CV90s, old and new. (Credit: Netherlands Ministry of Defence) "This rollout is an important step in the mid-life update of the infantry fighting vehicles for the Royal Netherlands Army," said Vice Admiral Arie Jan de Waard, the National Armaments Director, and director of the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO). "The upgrade of the CV90 results in a state-of-the-art infantry fighting vehicle which provides more protection, a new turret, greater firepower, and a new IT infrastructure. The vehicle enhances crew operational effectiveness when facing new threats and keeping our infantry safe at the same time. It is a powerful combination of man and machine. The 122 upgraded Dutch CV90s will be futureproof," he added. The Dutch CV9035 vehicles have been equipped with several enhanced capabilities such as an Active Protection System (APS), an Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), and a new Electro-Optic Aiming System (EOPS), which provides additional situational awareness. The vehicles also include an upgraded fourth generation digital backbone, with embedded and more robust cybersecurity, to future-proof the electronics. "We are committed to delivering the most modern and adaptable IFVs to meet our customers' requirements, and we are extremely proud of the technological developments underway as part of this significant mid-life upgrade program," said Tommy Gustafsson-Rask, managing director of BAE Systems Hagglunds. "This is the first step in delivering the IFV that meets our Dutch customer's needs, increasing their combat efficiency on the future battlefield." In January 2021, BAE Systems signed an extensive mid-life upgrade contract with the Dutch Defence Materiel Organization (DMO) for the Royal Netherlands Army's fleet of 122 CV90s, to ensure the CV9035NL remains in service through 2039. A key improvement is the newly-designed CV90 turret, a leap forward in capability and functionality, developed by BAE Systems Hagglunds. The main weapon position has been changed, resulting in even better vehicle balance, as well as creating new options for alternative solutions for both weaponry and crew, including significantly improved lethality and ergonomics. More than 20 Dutch companies are involved in the supply chain for the mid-life upgrade program, providing mechanical and electrical components to both BAE Systems Hagglunds and its main subsystem suppliers. These relationships will support the Dutch defense industrial base for many years to come. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005506/en/ Contacts: For more information, please contact: Ola Thoren, BAE Systems Hagglunds, Sweden Mobile: +46 (0) 708 335000 ola.thoren@baesystems.se www.baesystems.com/US @BAESystemsInc LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- For World Sight Day 2022, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation, an NGO founded by Nepalese 'God of Sight' Dr Sanduk Ruit and London philanthropist Tej Kohli, has announced the results of its first projects in Bhutan and Ghana. 1,619 patients have been screened at two surgical outreach camps in Bhutan in August, where 246 people were cured of blindness over a six-day period, with Dr Sanduk Ruit performing 171 surgeries. 444 patients have been cured of blindness in Ghana at an inaugural surgical outreach camp in September, marking the NGOs first move into Africa. Needless blindness remains a public health challenge throughout the developing world that worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic when eye health services faced severe disruption and delay. Tej Kohli has committed to spending a portion of his wealth eradicating this needless blindness from low-income communities. Since launching their NGO in March 2021, Ruit and Kohli have already screened 164,616 people and cured 21,159 of cataract blindness in Nepal, Bhutan and Ghana. In November their NGO will start to cure blindness at scale in Tanzania, followed by Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation aspires to cure as many as 500,000 of cataract blindness in the developing world by 2030. In Bhutan the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is seeking to completely eliminate cataract blindness from the Kingdom in a joint project with the Ministry of Health. Bhutan has already achieved a 33% reduction in blindness since its first Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey in 2009. Now a joint program of outreach and surgical interventions combined with the training of new ophthalmologic surgeons will seek to clear the backlog of 10,460 people who are currently awaiting cataract surgery. In Ghana 54.8% of all blindness is due to cataracts but the average cataract surgical rate of 523 surgeries per million of population falls well below the WHO target of 3,000 per million. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation will cure 1,000 of blindness in the country by the end of 2022 and will ramp up its efforts throughout 2023. In Tanzania the NGO will also provide medical training to improve the rate of success of cataract surgeries in the country, which stands at 58.7% compared to a global average of 85%. Tej Kohli, co-founder of the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation said: "World Sight Day 2022 is an opportunity to take stock of the many NGOs like ours who are contributing toward global efforts to prevent and cure the unnecessary blindness that restrains social and economic progress in the developing world. We know that the socio-economic return of curing someone of blindness in a low-income country is 1,500% of the cost of surgery in just one year. That is very good value in terms of impact. I hope the international community will soon play a bigger role in spreading this impact further." About the Tej Kohli &Ruit Foundation The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is a restricted fund operating under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund, registered UK charity number 1099682. The Foundation targets the #1 United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing poverty by making large-scale surgical interventions to cure blindness at the grassroots in the developing world. All treatments are provided completely free, with 100% of the funding coming from Tej Kohli and the Kohli family. For more information visit: Website: www.tejkohliruit.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tejkohliruit/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tej-kohli-ruit-foundation/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tejkohliruitfoundation Medium: https://tejkohliruitfoundation.medium.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tkrfoundation Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1914078/Tej_Kohli_Ruit_Foundation_Bhutan.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/tej-kohli-and-dr-sanduk-ruit-take-their-fight-against-blindness-to-bhutan-and-ghana-301644839.html StoreDot demonstrates the exceptional performance of silicon-dominant extreme fast charging battery cells capable of charging over 1000 consecutive cycles, in production ready EV form factor Cells are now being shipped to StoreDot's global automotive OEM partners for testing with further improvements expected by the end of the year The 300Wh/kg, 700 Wh/l XFC cells are being shipped in pouch format StoreDot remains on target for mass production of '100in5' cells by 2024 delivering at least 100 miles of range in just five minutes of charging HERZLIYA, Israel, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- StoreDot, the pioneer of extreme fast charging battery technology for electric vehicles, has proven the superior performance of its extreme fast charging battery cell technology by delivering cells that have exceeded 1000 cycles in production ready EV form factor. The 300Wh/kg, 700 Wh/l high energy density cells are being shipped in pouch format to StoreDot's global automotive OEM partners for intense real-world testing. The cells exhibit the promised '100in5' EV performance, allowing drivers to charge consecutively 100 miles of range for each 5 minutes of charging. StoreDot's '100in5' cells repeatedly charged from 10 to 80 percent capacity in just 10 minutes and then discharged for one hour before recharging. The EV cells achieved over 1000 of these extreme charging cycles consecutively before degrading below the 80 percent of the original capacity threshold. No noticeable degradation occurred within the first 600 cycles in which the cells were consecutively fast charged between 10 to 80 percent. This landmark milestone follows StoreDot's announcement in March that it had set a world record of 1200 cycles for its extreme fast charging cells in prototype format. StoreDot continues to develop the XFC technology in both cylindrical and prismatic form factors with updates expected soon on shipping those to OEM partners. Yaron Fein, StoreDot Vice President R&D: "The latest tests represent a landmark not just for StoreDot, but also the global battery industry and the entire sustainable mobility ecosystem. Our product performance goal for 2022 was to reach 1000 cycles of consecutive extreme fast charging of 10 to 80 percent in ten minutes, with an energy density of at least 300Wh/Kg. "I am delighted to announce that not only have we achieved our target but have also exceeded it - and we already have in our labs enhanced formulation that allows us to show further improved performance. This is the first time ever that cell performance of this magnitude has been achieved. The results stand testament to StoreDot's relentless R&D drive, the enthusiasm of everyone in the company and to the Extreme Fast Charging vision we share with our partners. "When a lithium battery is charged and discharged once, it is called a cycle, and typically lithium battery capacity degrades quickly in fast charging cycles. Our silicon-dominant chemistry is different, allowing EV battery cells to charge for more than 1000 cycles before degrading the battery to 80% of its original capacity." StoreDot remains focused on delivering its hype-free technology roadmap to global automotive companies. This relentless development program extends far into the future, where the target is to deliver 100 miles of range after just 2 minutes of charge within a decade. About StoreDot StoreDot is the pioneer and leader of extreme fast charging (XFC) electric vehicle batteries that overcome the critical barriers to mainstream EV adoption - range and charging anxiety. The company has revolutionized the conventional Li-ion battery by designing and synthesizing proprietary organic and inorganic compounds, optimized by Artificial Intelligence algorithms, making it the same experience as refueling a conventional combustion engine car. Through its '100inX' product roadmap, StoreDot's battery technology is delivering 'Range on Demand': 100 miles charged in 5 minutes in 2024, 100 miles charged in 3 minutes by 2028, and extreme energy density solution enabling 100 miles to be charged in 2 minutes by 2032. StoreDot's strategic investors and partners include Daimler, BP, VinFast, Volvo, Polestar, Ola Electric, Samsung, TDK and its manufacturing partner EVE Energy. In 2022, the company achieved a world first by demonstrating a live extreme fast charging of an EV battery cell in 10 minutes. StoreDot is on target for production readiness of its 100in5 technology by 2024. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917490/StoreDot_achieves_1000_cycles.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/storedot-achieves-landmark-milestone-of-1000-cycles-of-extreme-fast-charging-battery-cells-ready-for-ev-integration-301645375.html LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading CBD brand TRIP , has partnered with Calm - the #1 app for meditation and relaxation. This collaboration sees two of the most loved well-being brands come together to support their communities on their mental health journey. Millions of consumers have had their first CBD experience with TRIP, and many of these occasions are the first time a consumer has purchased a product where the primary purpose is stress relief. TRIP's mission is to help people find their calm and encourage positive conversations around mental well-being. The partnership with Calm is part of that journey, helping consumers find calm through physical products like TRIP and now combining a digital experience with Calm's expert meditations. Now more than ever before, the need for stress-relieving experiences is clear - Mental health experts say that 52% of people are losing sleep due to stress caused by money worries in light of the cost of living crisis*. Surveys have also shown that nearly 50% of mental health therapists' clients are already cutting back on activities that benefit their mental health to save money. TRIP and Calm launched the partnership on Mental Health Awareness Day, to raise awareness and encourage positive conversations around this topic, aligning with the Mental Health Foundations 2022 theme to 'Make mental wellbeing for all a global priority'. Together, the brands are encouraging people to take time to check in with themselves and look after their mental well-being by creating a game-changing new ritual, with a free trial of Calm with every purchase from drink-trip.com . Calm is the leading meditation app globally, the platform's effectiveness has been proven through its dedicated customers, with 84% of regular users seeing an improvement in their mental health. TRIP is launching a partnership with Calm in order to share the power of meditation with its community; as stress is caused by the challenges of modern life, TRIP is supporting its community to find calm through the power of both CBD and other lifestyle practices, including meditation. Whether on the go, reaching for a TRIP drink or tapping into Calm's mindful content, spending even just five minutes to check in with how you're feeling, can be hugely impactful for your mindset. Trip Co-Founder Olivia Ferdi says: Our mission has always been to help our community find calm in the chaos and support people every day with stress relief. Calm shares this mission, and partnering with such experts in mindfulness, and giving our community accessible tools to continue their mental health journey is extremely special. This World Mental Health Awareness Day we wanted to continue to empower positive conversations around mental well-being, and we are thrilled to partner with Calm. Since launching in 2019 just months before the pandemic, TRIP has seen enormous success, championing its community of online fans. Crediting its authentically functional ingredients and flavour-led products, in driving impressive returning customer rates. TRIP has established a thriving community who are now incorporating CBD into their daily lifestyle. Today, the brand holds 88% of the UK market share of CBD drinks. TRIP's mission is to bring premium quality CBD mainstream so that plant-powered well-being can be accessible to all, and stocked nationwide in most major retailers. TRIP has been a viral sensation, drawing in millions of fans, and attracting the most organic search traffic of any CBD Drinks brand globally (source: SEMRUSH). Husband and wife team, Daniel Khoury and Olivia Ferdi launched TRIP in 2019, after a transformational personal experience with CBD. The couple discovered CBD when it helped Daniel recover from an accident that required knee surgery, just before their wedding. So amazed by the experience, this drove an incredible passion to bring CBD's benefits to the mainstream - the couple leaving their careers in law and finance to launch TRIP together. CBD is a non-psychoactive compound found in hemp plants, it interacts with our body's Endocannabinoid System (ECS), a network of cells and receptors that helps the body achieve optimal balance. The ECS plays a crucial role in regulating a number of functions including; stress, and anxiety, improving sleep quality, and supporting the immune system. Together we welcome you to join us and be kind to your mind. Try a month of Calm for free with any purchase of TRIP at drink-trip.com only. Offer live from new Calm Premium customers only. Offer available until January 4th 2023. Terms and conditions apply, see website for more details. *Statistics from The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Please contact: Sophie.Nuttall@emergelimited.com | 020 3735 5105 Website: www.drink-trip.com The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Statistics were sourced from - https://www.bacp.co.uk/news/news-from-bacp/2022/8-september-cost-of-living-crisis-survey-shows-impact-on-mental-health/ View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/uks-1-cbd-brand-trip-partners-with-1-meditation-app-calm-creating-the-ultimate-stress-relieving-partnership-to-help-their-communities-prioritise-their-well-being-301645073.html Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - MAX RESOURCE CORP. (TSXV: MAX) (OTC Pink: MXROF) (FSE: M1D2) ("Max" or the "Company") is pleased to report the commencement of the very first drill program at URU-C and URU-CE lying along the 20-km-long URU District, within the Company's wholly-owned 90-km-long CESAR copper-silver project in Northeastern Colombia (refer to Figure 3). The inaugural drill program at URU-C and URU-CE consists of at least 2,000m of drilling on 4 pads with 8 drill holes testing to a maximum depth of 350m. This is the first ever drilling program within the URU 20-km-long copper-silver District (refer to Figures/Videos 1, 4, 5 and 6). A second phase drilling program will immediately follow and continue through to year-end. Highlights Drilling is currently underway at URU-C and URU-CE targeting down dip continuity, while identifying the broader large-scale potential of this copper-silver mineralized system Multiple geophysical targets within the URU-C and URU-CE zones will also be drill tested Max anticipates mineralized intervals will be released prior to assays, as the chalcocite copper mineralization is distinctly visual as veinlets, stockworks and breccias (refer to Figure 2) URU-C and URU-CE Drill Target Delineation Max has extended the Ground Magnetometry (TMI) survey to 20-line-km over the northern extension Representative rock and soil sampling will be carried out along all IP and TMI lines (20-line-km) and along the northern extensions to delineate new drill targets (refer to Figure 6) In addition, a magneto telluric (MT) survey is also planned to complement historic seismic data available for the Cesar basin. "This inaugural drill program at URU will provide the first peek at the geology, the continuity and broad extent of the copper-silver mineralization at depth, for both URU-C and URU-CE discoveries. Follow-up drilling will target mineralization along strike and newly defined geophysical targets," commented Max CEO, Brett Matich. "To gauge the enormity of the URU District, Max's drilling is currently targeting a significant 1-km of strike of the URU 20-km-long surface copper-silver mineralized system," he continued. "In addition, Max's $20 million treasury allows the Company to continue its aggressive exploration and geophysical programs well into 2023 and highlight the immense district scale potential of its CESAR copper-silver project," he concluded. First URU-Central discovery (URU-C) returned chip channel widths of 9.0m @ 8.0% copper + 115 g/t silver (new results) and 16.8m @ 8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver at the lower of the prospect. The upper level of URU-C (+190m vertically above and +290m along strike) returned 4.9% copper + 41 g/t silver along a 52m ridgeline, true width is yet to be determined. The second discovery, URU-CE is located 750m to the east of URU-C and 373m vertically above URU-C chip channels that returned 9.0m @ 7.0% copper + 115 g/t silver and 16.8m @ 8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver. URU-C consists of substantial sized outcrops with visible copper mineralization trending for over 250m of strike and open in all directions. Continuous channel sampling at URU-CE returned 19.4m @ 1.3% copper + 2.5 g/t silver to be drill tested Figure 1. Drilling underway at URU-C (Click play image to view video) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ENkNibnKTAg To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_002full.jpg Figure 2. URU-C, disseminated chalcocite rock To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_003full.jpg Figure 3. CESAR 90-km-long copper-silver belt To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_004full.jpg Figure 4. URU 20-km-long (drilling 1-km portion) To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_005full.jpg Figure 5. The URU-C and URU-CE drone video (Click play image to view video) https://youtu.be/7ErABV-krC0 To view an enhanced version of Figure 5, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_006full.jpg Figure 6. Representative sampling conducted along TMI/IP lines, TMI survey extends north and proposed drill holes To view an enhanced version of Figure 6, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_009full.jpg Quality Assurance & Quality Control Max adheres to a strict QA/QC program for core handling, sampling, sample transportation and analyses. Drill core samples will be securely transported to the Company's core facility in Valledupar, Colombia. Samples will be sawn in half, labelled, placed in sealed, securitized bags and shipped directly to ALS Laboratories for prep in Medellin, Colombia and subsequent assaying in ALS Lima, Peru. QA/QC control procedures include the systematic insertion of duplicate, blank and certified reference materials (CRM), at regular intervals into the sampling stream. Geochemistry analyses will consist of four acid / ICP-MS (ME-MS61) with overlimit values subsequently analyzed using the four acid / ICP-AES (ME-OG62) technique. In addition, all drill holes are surveyed for deviation via north-seeking gyro surveys. The deviation surveys provide accurate data about the true inclination and azimuth of the drill hole. Obtaining an accurate survey of the drill holes will result in a better contextual understanding of the drill samples, and a more robust 3D geological model. Max is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy of the data referred to herein. Cesar Copper Silver Project Summary CESAR lies along the copper-silver rich 200-kilometre-long Cesar Basin in Northeastern Colombia. This region provides access to major infrastructure resulting from oil & gas and mining operations, including Cerrejon, the largest coal mine in South America, held by global miner Glencore (refer to Figure 1). Max's twenty-one mining concessions collectively expanse over 188-km. Max is proactive, with the corporate goal of transitioning the Cesar basin towards the mining of copper, the key metal for the Colombia's transition to clean energy. Max executed a 2-year co-operation agreement with Endeavour Silver Corp., which assists Max to significantly expand its 100% owned landholdings at CESAR, Endeavour will hold underlying 0.5% NSR. Max is focusing on three major copper-silver districts individually located along the CESAR 90-kilometre-long belt, with the objective of defining drill targets. Next step is inaugural drilling program at URU-C and URU-CE: The 32-km long AM district with highlight values of 34.4% copper and 305 g/t silver with highlight values of 34.4% copper and 305 g/t silver The Conejo district , averages 4.9% copper (2% cut-off) over 3.7-km , averages 4.9% copper (2% cut-off) over 3.7-km The 20-km long URU district , includes the URU-C and URU-CE discoveries, highlight channel sampling of: 9.0m @ 7.0% copper + 115 g/t silver 16.8m @8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver 52mn @ 4.9% copper + 41 g/t silver 19.4m @ 1.3% copper + 2.5 g/t silver , includes the URU-C and URU-CE discoveries, highlight channel sampling of: 9.0m @ 7.0% copper + 115 g/t silver 16.8m @8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver 52mn @ 4.9% copper + 41 g/t silver 19.4m @ 1.3% copper + 2.5 g/t silver Regional exploration continues along the CESAR 90-kilometre-long copper-silver belt Geologically, Max interprets the sediment-hosted copper-silver mineralization in the Cesar basin to be analogous to both the Central African Copper Belt (CACB) in the south and the Kupferschiefer deposits in Poland of the CESAR copper-silver belt to the north. Almost 50% of the copper known to exist in sediment-hosted deposits is contained in the CACB, including Ivanhoe Mines Ltd 95-billion-pound Kamoa-Kakula discovery in the Congo. Kupferschiefer, the world's largest silver producer and Europe's largest copper source, is a mining orebody ranging from 0.5 to 5.5m thick at depths of 500m, grading 1.49% copper and 48.6 g/t silver. The silver yield is almost twice the production of the world's second largest silver mine. Source: Central African Belt Descriptive models, grade-tonnage relations, and databases for the assessment of sediment-hosted copper deposits with emphasis on deposits in the Central Africa Copperbelt, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia by USGS 2010. Kamoa-Kakula by OreWin March 2020. World Silver Survey 2020 and Kupferschiefer Deposits & Prospects in SW Poland, September 27, 2019. Max cautions investors that the presence of copper mineralization of the Central African Copper Belt and the Polish Kupferschiefer are not necessarily indicative of similar mineralization at CESAR. Qualified Person The Company's disclosure of a technical or scientific nature in this news release was reviewed and approved by Tim Henneberry, P Geo (British Columbia), a member of the Max Resource Advisory Board, who serves as a qualified person under the definition of National Instrument 43:101. About Max Resource Corp. Max Resource Corp. (TSXV: MAX) is a mineral exploration company advancing the newly discovered district-scale CESAR copper-silver project. The wholly owned CESAR project sits along the Colombian portion of the world's largest producing copper belt (Andean belt), with world class infrastructure and the presence of global majors (Glencore and Chevron). In addition, Max controls the RT Gold project (100% earn-in) in Peru, encompassing a bulk tonnage primary gold porphyry zone, and 3-km to the NW, a gold bearing massive sulphide zone. Historic drilling in 2001, returned values ranging 3.1 to 118.1 g/t gold over core lengths ranging from 2.2 to 36.0-metres. The safety of our people and the communities where we operate is most important. We conduct exploration in a manner which supports protection of ecosystems through responsible environmental stewardship. Source: NI 43:101 Geological Report Rio Tabaconas Gold Project for Golden Alliance Resources Corp. by George Sivertz, Oct.3, 2011 For more information visit: https://www.maxresource.com/ For additional information contact: Tim McNulty E: info@maxresource.com T: (604) 290-8100 Rahim Lakha E. rahim@bluesailcapital.com *The Venture 50 ranking is provided by TSX Venture Exchange Inc. ("TSXV") for information purposes only. Neither TMX Group Limited nor any of its affiliated companies guarantees the completeness of this information and are not responsible for any errors or omissions in or any use of, or reliance on, this information. The Venture 50 program is not an invitation to purchase securities listed on TSX Venture Exchange. TSXV and its affiliates do not endorse or recommend any of the referenced securities or issuers, and this information should not be construed as providing any trading, legal, accounting, tax, investment, business, financial or other advice and should not be relied on for such purposes" Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the TSXV. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the commercialization plans for Max Resources Corp. described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140091 Providing access to cross-border payments and currency risk management solutions Corpay1, a FLEETCOR (NYSE: FLT) brand and global leader in business payments is pleased to announce a new collaboration between Corpay's Cross-Border business and Greenbackers Investment Capital (Greenbackers), a specialist venture firm focused on climate cleantech capital globally. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005014/en/ Through this collaboration, Greenbackers ecosystem network of clean technology providers and investors will be able to gain access to and utilise Corpay's innovative solutions to help mitigate foreign exchange exposure for their day-to-day business needs. Additionally, Corpay Cross-Border's award-winning platform will enable eligible companies to manage their global payments from a single point of access. "Corpay is truly honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with Greenbackers and providing their growing ecosystem of clean technology companies* access to our global payments and foreign exchange services. I am confident that these companies will benefit from access to our comprehensive cross-border payments and currency risk management solutions, allowing them to better streamline their payments processes and effectively manage their FX exposure," says Nathan Cheema, Managing Director EMEA, Corpay Cross-Border. "Our team across the EMEA looks forward to helping these innovative enterprises power their cross-border payments, execute plans to manage their currency risk and support their aspirations to grow their businesses globally." "Greenbackers is pleased to partner with Corpay Cross-Border and welcome them to our growing support network. Corpay's in-depth knowledge and expertise in the global payments and currency management space sets them apart especially with time-sensitive payments and on-demand delivery. They are a natural fit for our growing ecosystem of service Partners and highly relevant to both growing start-ups and funds alike," says Robert Hokin, Managing Partner, Greenbackers Investment Capital. About Corpay Corpay is a global leader in business payments, helping companies of all sizes better track, manage and pay their expenses. Corpay provides customers with a comprehensive suite of online payment solutions including Bill Payment, AP Automation, Cross-Border Payments, Currency Risk Management, and Commercial Card Programs. Corpay is part of the FLEETCOR (NYSE: FLT) portfolio of brands. To learn more visit www.corpay.com About Greenbackers Investment Capital Greenbackers is a specialist venture firm focused on climate cleantech capital globally. Operating from London, Glasgow and Houston, their mission is to accelerate equity capital into investable climate and clean technology businesses. To learn more visit www.greenbackers.com. 1"Corpay" (a Fleetcor (NYSE: FLT) brand) in this document primarily refers to the Cross-Border Division of Corpay https://payments.corpay.com/cross-border; a full listing of the companies that are part of the Corpay brand is available here: https://payments.corpay.com/compliance. Subject to credit and compliance approval from the relevant Corpay company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005014/en/ Contacts: Corpay Contact: Brad Loder VP, Cross-Border Marketing +1 (647) 627-6635 brad.loder@corpay.com Greenbackers Investment Capital Contact: Robert Hokin Managing Partner +44 7957 201203 robert.hokin@greenbackers.com Newly established Focal Biosciences will focus on bringing together leading experts and scientific discoveries to harness cellular reprogramming in the fight against common age-related diseases Apollo Health Ventures and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) launched Focal Biosciences. The newly established biotech company aims to redefine the treatment of age-related diseases by reprogramming deregulated cell states that drive the detrimental processes underlying many serious diseases of aging that represent a significant health burden. Apollo Health Ventures and the Paul Scherrer Institute will join their resources together with scientific founder Prof. G.V. Shivashankar, Head of the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology, Paul Scherrer Institute and Professor of Mechano-Genomics, ETH Zurich, a recognized leader in mechanogenomics with strong expertise in cellular reprogramming. The newly founded entity will initially operate out of the Paul Scherrer Institute, the largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland that serves scientists around the world by accommodating highly complicated experiments in their industry-leading research facilities. Focal Biosciences thereby has access to PSI's key infrastructure and expertise as part of Apollo's venture creation program, "Venture Labs" that sources leading science from scientists and labs in Europe and North America, based on its deep understanding of the biology of aging. "Our investment approach is focused on identifying outstanding science to catalyze and build transformational companies and taking an active role in their corporate evolution. We have watched the formation and maturation of the cellular reprogramming space for some time," said Jan Adams, Venture Partner at Apollo Health Ventures. "We are confident that with the expertise and technologies developed by Prof. Shivashankar at PSI, Focal Biosciences is pursuing a unique and innovative approach leveraging an advanced concept of cellular reprogramming, that will enable the development of a novel class of therapies." "We value Apollo Health Ventures' and PSI's commitment to our scientific vision of how to fundamentally change the treatment landscape for a variety of age-related diseases," said Prof. G.V. Shivashankar, Scientific Founder of Focal Biosciences, Head of the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology, Paul Scherrer Institute and Professor of Mechano-Genomics, ETH Zurich. "I look forward to working with the expert team at Apollo to position Focal Biosciences for success and build a company that trailblazes a new path for patients with severe diseases." Advances in understanding the biology of aging coupled with emerging technologies have significantly increased pre-symptomatic detection of age-related damage and dysfunction and paved the way for novel interventions. Cellular reprogramming in particular provides a novel approach of resetting damaged or dysfunctional cells to a healthy state, reversing disease mechanisms and stopping detrimental processes to transform the treatment landscape of age-related diseases. About Focal Biosciences Focal Biosciences is redefining the treatment of age-related diseases by applying its deep scientific expertise in the mechanisms of cellular reprograming to reverse detrimental disease processes and restore health. About Apollo Health Ventures Apollo Health Ventures is a transatlantic venture capital firm specialized in developing and investing in data-driven biotechnology and health tech ventures. Apollo Health Ventures invests in game-changing companies at the seed or early stage and builds companies within the aging sector. Apollo's team consists of entrepreneurs, seasoned biotech investors and scientists with remarkable track records in life science investments and venture creation. About Paul Scherrer Institute The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) develops, builds and operates large, complex research facilities and makes them available to the national and international research community. The institute's own key research priorities are in the fields of matter and materials, energy and environment and human health. PSI is committed to the training of future generations. Therefore, about one quarter of our staff are post-docs, post-graduates or apprentices. Altogether PSI employs 2200 people, thus being the largest research institute in Switzerland. The annual budget amounts to approximately CHF 400 million. PSI is part of the ETH Domain, with the other members being the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne, as well as Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology), Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) and WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005182/en/ Contacts: Apollo Health Ventures Dr. Jan Adams Venture Partner jan@apollo.vc Trophic Communications Stephanie May Eva Mulder +49 89 238 877 30 apollo@trophic.eu The "Europe Pet Food Market Overview 2022-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Europe Pet Food market was valued at around USD 25 Billion. This increased awareness, combined with a shift in pet owners' preferences toward healthier foods, will allow the market to expand at a CAGR of more than 6% during the forecast period. The European pet food market has been highly driven by increasing awareness of ingredients, customized food products, grain-free, and organic food. The industry continues to see an increase in the pet care and food market with an increase in pet adoption rates. In some countries in Europe, pet food is considered a premium product segment. Food being an essential and basic necessity for pets, owners is willing to pay any price to provide good quality and nutritious food for their pets. The owners are very concerned about the nourishment of their pets, which led them to purchase quality food so their pets get proper nutritional food. Considering the country-wise revenue generation analysis, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy have contributed the most to Europe's pet food market. The popularity of pet food products is increasing in Europe, where manufacturers are coming up with new innovative products. To provide a better lifestyle for the pets, the owners are taking the utmost care of the ingredients. The brands are attempting to offer natural, organic, and non-processed foods with a shift in consumer preference. Historically, the market has observed the highest adaption of animal-based food ingredients, which is now slowly and gradually shifting towards plant-based food ingredients. The United Kingdom is considered the largest pet food market in Europe and the third most prominent country in the overall pet food market. The strong presence of animal and health advocacy groups in the region is impacting the domestic regulations regarding product labeling and ingredients. The pet foods in the United Kingdom have advertised several benefits related to pets' improving heart health, bones, muscles, and joints, which have increased their popularity. Among the categories included in Europe's pet food products, preference towards dry food and snacks and treats was observed to be the highest. These foods are mainly for cats and dogs, which mean they get to eat them at regular intervals. This growing adaption of pet food products has also enhanced their availability through specialized pet shops, supermarkets, and hypermarkets. There is an increase in the humanization of pets across Europe, as pet owners are treating pets like their own family members. According to the European Pet Food Federation (FEDIAF), around 38% of all European Union households possess a pet. Cats continue to dominate the European pet market. According to various studies, the popularity of cats continued to increase during the last century in the region. The number of cat owners increased more than dog owners, due to the relative ease of having a cat as a pet in the modern lifestyle. Dry food, wet food, and semi-moist food are the major types of commercial cat food. Therefore, as consumers are looking to plug the familial gap with a pet companion, it has resulted in a pet marketplace led by small animals, such as cats and dogs, as indulgent pet owners are happy to spend heavily on ensuring the best quality of food for their pets, which has driven the demand for pet food products in Europe. Companies are offering an increasing number of premium products as consumers are prepared to spend more on pet food that is healthy, nutritious, and improves their living conditions. For instance, in 2020, the German pet treat company Gimborn launched a line of functional pet treats. The products include squeezables, oil-based liquid treats, and munchables and crunchy treats for cats. It is planning to launch a milk-alternative product for cats, to be sold in individual and bulk portions for shelters and breeders. Therefore, the consumer trend toward cat adoption has driven cat food premiumization, which is anticipated to create an expansion in the cat food market over the forecast period. In 2020, Mars Inc, Nestle SA, Colgate-Palmolive Co, Agrolimen SA and Vitakraft Pet Care GmbH Co KG were the five largest pet food companies in the EU28, while Pedigree, Whiskas, Felix, Royal Canin and Friskies were the five largest pet food brands that year. In recent years, sales of premium pet food have been increasing, with pets seen as an integral part of households, therefore being treated with quality meals and nutritious food. Akin to humans, pets are also highly susceptible to the ramifications of obesity. Not only in Europe, but all over the world, an enormous number of pets, particularly dogs, suffer from conditions related to overweight and obesity. Subsequently, there is a growing concern that is leading to a dire need to control the weight of the pets, thereby eliminating the possibility of repercussions that can also lead to deaths. The growing awareness is making pet owners more particular about the weight of their pets, and they are now opting for the more expensive therapeutic weight loss foods. The obese pets in the region are creating a special European pet food marketplace for the vendors to explore business opportunities. Company Profiles Nestle SA Mars Incorporated Colgate-Palmolive Blue-Buffalo United Pet Group, a Spectrum Brands Company PLB International Unicharm Corporation Laroy Group Deuerer GmbH Heristo AG Well Pet De Haan Pet Food Considered in this report Geography: Europe Historic year: 2016 Base year: 2021 Estimated year: 2022 Forecast year: 2027 Aspects covered in this report Europe pet food market with its value and forecast along with its segments Country-wise pet care market analysis Various divers and challenges Ongoing trends and developments Five force models Top profiled companies Strategic recommendation Countries covered in the report UK France Italy Germany Segment covered in the report Pet foods Pet healthcare Pet accessories Pet grooming By Pet Type in the report Dog Food Cat Food Fish Food Bird Food Others By Food Type in the report Dry Food Wet or Canned Snacks and treats Others For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/eu9ot1 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005690/en/ Contacts: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./ CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 The mobile management and security platform will accept selected enterprises to try out its fully secured, easily deployed mobile enterprise solution LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Symmetrium, an Israeli mobile management and security platform, announces the launch of a closed beta for a selected group of enterprises who wish to transform their mobile enterprise operations and user experience. Since enterprise mobility is a major challenge for organizations undergoing digital transformation, Symmetrium has chosen DTX Europe 2022 as the formal launch site for its closed beta. As remote work doubled in 2022, alongside Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) which has become mainstream, enterprise organizations face challenges in deploying and securing mobile devices. Symmetrium's solution is designed to turn any device into a virtual extension of the enterprise, inheriting all its IT and security layers, while delivering users a completely native experience and maximum privacy. "We worked hard to optimize streaming for cloud edge locations, and now we're seeing the fruits," said Omer Cohen, founder and CEO of Symmetrium. "Using our solution, security no longer slows down mobile deployment." With no data at rest, and end-to-end encrypted streaming for all channels and devices, Symmetrium also offers a unique value to security leaders, relieving them from dealing with securing a growing number of devices of different brands and operating systems. A graduate of the prestigious iHLS Innofense Innovation Center Program, Symmetrium is funded and backed by industry experts and leaders. Founded in 2021, it is now onboarding design partners and customers. To learn more about Symmetrium, visit us at DTX Europe 2022, stand A56. About Symmetrium: Symmetrium is a mobile management and security platform designed to turn any device into a virtual extension of the enterprise, inheriting all its IT and security layers, while delivering users a completely native experience and maximum privacy. Backed and funded by cybersecurity industry leaders and headquartered in Tel Aviv, Symmetrium transforms MDM and Mobile Security solutions into one remote experience for the mobile enterprise, with zero compromise and no data at rest. For more information, visit symmetrium.io. Media contact: Roni Dagan roni@symmetrium.io View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/symmetrium-launches-closed-beta-at-dtx-europe-2022-301642952.html GTT provides connections to 15 international sites for the renowned manufacturer of school and office products including the Oxford and ELBA brand lines MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 11, 2022, a leading global provider of managed network and security services to multinational organizations, announced today that it is upgrading the international network for Hamelin , a leading European manufacturer of school and office products. The four-year agreement covers 15 of Hamelin's sites in France, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland, UK, Turkey and Tunisia. "As students throughout Europe settle into the new school year, Hamelin Brands is proud to continue to support them, thanks in part to the expanded connectivity gained through this new agreement with GTT," said Eric Joan, CEO of Hamelin. "This network upgrade will help us communicate more efficiently with our manufacturing sites, offices and data centers across Europe, enabling us to reach more people than ever before." Hamelin, headquartered in France, is a European market leader in producing products that support students and school professionals in more than 100 countries around the world. Hamelin is working with GTT to upgrade and expand managed network connectivity for its plants, warehouses, offices and other sites. The manufacturer will benefit from bandwidth increases by deploying higher speed Ethernet and Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) where legacy broadband lines no longer provide the capacity required for its future operational needs. The GTT managed solution includes professional services that provide Hamelin with initial network design support as well as assigned technical resources for ongoing service management. The new agreement represents an extension of the longstanding partner relationship between Hamelin and GTT that leverages GTT's high performance global Tier 1 IP backbone in support of Hamelin's digital transformation initiatives and global market expansion. Under the new agreement, GTT will provide bandwidth upgrades that will increase connection speeds from 10Mbps to 1Gbps in some cases. In addition, GTT will provide connectivity to a new data center location in Turkey. Hamelin is also expanding its SIP trunking network with GTT adding more sites in Europe. "I'm extremely pleased that Hamelin Brands has extended and expanded its longstanding relationship with GTT and has entrusted us to support its digital transformation," said Tom Homer, president of GTT in Europe. "Our work together has spanned more than a decade, and this new agreement is testament to the strength of our relationship and the success of our partnership." About GTT GTT is a managed network and security services provider to global organizations. We design and deliver solutions that leverage advanced cloud, networking and security technologies. We complement our solutions with a suite of professional services and exceptional sales and support teams in local markets around the world. We serve thousands of national and multinational companies with a portfolio that includes SD-WAN, security, Internet, voice and other connectivity options. Our services are uniquely enabled by our top-ranked, global, Tier 1 IP backbone, which spans more than 260 cities on six continents. The company culture is built on a customer-first service experience reinforced by our commitment to operational excellence and continuous improvement in our business, environmental, social and governance practices. For more information, visit www.gtt.net . About Hamelin Hamelin, a family-owned company with headquarters in Normandy, France, has been making high-quality paper products since 1864. Hamelin's expertise in crafting superior quality you can see and feel, has made them a leading supplier in the school and office market. Hamelin has 15 Manufacturing and Distribution sites, more than 2,400 employees worldwide, and is represented in 12 countries. For more information, please visit www.hamelinbrands.com SALEM, NH / ACCESSWIRE / October 10, 2022 / Today, WEI proudly announced that CRN , a brand of The Channel Company , has named the New England-based IT solutions provider as a 2022 Triple Crown Award winner. Across New England, only six companies earned the award as it is reserved for those that earn a spot on all three of CRN's prestigious solution provider award lists in the same calendar year. Overall, this is WEI's third time earning the Triple Crown and is New Hampshire's only provider to qualify in 2022. Now in its ninth year, the CRN Triple Crown Award spotlights top North American solution providers for displaying a tireless commitment to achieving high revenue, company growth, and unparalleled technical expertise within the IT channel. The honor continues a busy award season for WEI. Just last month, WEI achieved Cradlepoint 5G for Enterprise Branch Specialization as it continues as a leading partner in bringing 5G to business landscapes. "This special achievement shows just how dedicated WEI is to our customers and why it is important to hold ourselves to such a high standard," said WEI President and CEO Belisario Rosas. "The IT industry is evolving faster and faster, so it is important that we stay a step ahead of all new trends. Our commitment to growing responsibly as a company and attracting the highest of engineering pedigrees is extremely important as we meet customer objectives." To qualify for the CRN Triple Crown Award, companies must earn a place on CRN's Solution Provider 500 , a ranking of the largest IT solution providers by revenue in North America; the Fast Growth 150 , a ranking of high-growth organizations in the channel; and the Tech Elite 250 , which recognizes solution providers that have attained top-level certifications from leading technology vendors in the industry. To date, WEI's placing on the Solution Provider 500 list was its highest ranking on that specific list. Being chosen for even one of these prestigious lists is an honor worth celebrating but meriting a spot on all three lists in a single year demonstrates a rare combination of technology leadership and commitment to customer needs. "This accomplishment was made possible by our dedicated team members and the ongoing support of our loyal customers," Rosas said. "We take pride in working with each individual customer to create innovative solutions for their technology goals." "The solution providers that have earned this year's Triple Crown Award have demonstrated an unceasing enthusiasm towards technical mastery, innovative thinking, consistent growth, and high-caliber customer service within the North American IT industry," said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. "This award represents a chosen company's ability to go above and beyond, and we're excited to see where their dedication, their expertise, and their passion will take them as we venture forward into the future of the IT channel industry." The Triple Crown Award winners for 2022 will be featured in the October issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/triplecrown . About WEI: WEI is an innovative, full service, customer centric IT solution provider. WEI is an expert in business technology improvement, helping clients optimize their technology environments and work efficiently. WEI works with clients to understand goals, integrate strategy with technology solutions, and leverage their current IT environment into one company-wide model to increase utilization and efficiencies around their unique business processes. WEI's clients benefit from a strong focus on customer satisfaction and attention to detail. They combine cutting-edge technology with architectural design, value-added services, onsite training, integration, testing labs, and a commitment to quality. From solution design through implementation, WEI's sales and technical team remains focused on providing unwavering support throughout a project. For more information, please visit www.WEI.com . WEI Contact: Naomi Schapiro Three Girls Media, Inc 360-223-3513 Naomi@ThreeGirlsMedia.com About The Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com Follow The Channel Company: Twitter , LinkedIn , and Facebook . 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved. The Channel Company Contact: Natalie Lewis The Channel Company nlewis@thechannelcompany.com SOURCE: WEI View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719351/WEI-Earns-Prestigious-CRN-Triple-Crown-Award-in-Recognition-of-Remarkable-IT-Market-Leadership SIBIU, Romania, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Elrond announced that Maiar Launchpad will host the public sale of AshSwap, a decentralized exchange (or DEX) built to create a highly efficient medium of exchange for similar-priced assets. The Stable-Swap DEX is the 4th startup to have its public sale on Elrond's decentralized funding platform and strategic accelerator, after Audi-backed holoride, Itheum, and Cantina Royale. With the advent of blockchain technology, a new financial landscape powered by decentralized applications is growing exponentially, unlocking with it new use cases and models, among which arguably the most important has been the possibility to exchange assets for the first time in a trustless environment. By incorporating concepts of Uniswap and Maiar Exchange, such as liquidity pools and the AMM algorithm, AshSwap is designed to maintain the peg of pooled assets by maximizing capital efficiency and increase their demand by offering the best trading rates. Instead of evenly spreading the assets deposited by users from zero to infinity, which in most cases would result in unused liquidity, it uses a model that concentrates the liquidity around the peg. By doing so, AshSwap optimizes swaps between stablecoins and other stable value assets, making larger-sized trades relative to liquidity possible without leading to drastic price changes. Beyond stablecoins, numerous assets could benefit from such an efficient pricing mechanism for swaps. Different versions of bridged and liquid staking assets also require such an environment to be exchanged optimally. The ability to trade assets at 1:1 rates is essential for deploying valuable DeFi use cases on any blockchain infrastructure, and AshSwap is the first DeFi protocol to implement a stable-swap model on Elrond's state-sharded blockchain architecture, opening up new opportunities across the ecosystem. The project will debut on Maiar Launchpad starting on the 11th of October. About Elrond Elrond is a new blockchain architecture designed from scratch to bring a 1,000-fold cumulative improvement in throughput and execution speed. To achieve this, Elrond introduces two key innovations: a novel Adaptive State Sharding mechanism, and a Secure Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm, enabling linear scalability with a fast, efficient, and secure consensus mechanism. Thus, Elrond can process upwards of 15,000 transactions per second (TPS), with 6-second latency, and negligible cost, attempting to become the backbone of a permissionless, borderless, globally accessible internet economy. About Ashswap AshSwap is a decentralized automated market maker (AMM) built on Elrond for swapping tokens with stable values. Ashswap seeks to make it more efficient for users to swap stable pairs with less slippage. For instance, users can convert USDT to USDC or WBTC to renBTC with minimal loss. AshSwap seeks to take part in the DeFi development on Elrond and bring enhanced yield dynamics to blockchain users in general and Elrond users in specific. Media Contact: Dan Voicu, Head of Communications dan.voicu@elrond.com Distributed by STORM Partners. Contact Adrian Bono for interviews: adrian.bono@storm.partners, +34 (0)608 861 127 or Telegram @STORMPartners Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918164/AshSwap.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/elrond-announces-stable-swap-defi-protocol-ashswap-as-the-next-project-on-maiar-launchpad-301645723.html HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM, Oct 11, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - analytica Vietnam announces its return on 19-21 April 2023 to reunite the diagnostics laboratory industry in Southeast Asia after 4 years. It is part of the world's leading series of analytica exhibitions which is headlined by the world's largest show for this sector in Munich. The upcoming seventh edition of the trade fair for analysis, laboratory technology and biotechnology will be held at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center (SECC) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Since its launch in 2009, analytica Vietnam has become the industry's most vital trade fair in the growing laboratory market in SEA. 2023 will be the first largest face-to-face reunion of the industry to resume its extensive conference program alongside supporting side events to accompany the exhibition. Companies who wish to exhibit can begin registration now for analytica Vietnam and rejoin industry experts - Analytik Jena, Merck, Metrohm, Mettler Toledo, Shimadzu and Water -- at the exhibition next spring.The largely expanding Vietnamese market for analysis, biotechnology and laboratory technology is displayed by the high demand for exhibiting opportunities at analytica Vietnam. In 2019, the trade fair recorded 143 exhibitors spanning 15 countries and more than 4,144 registered trade visitors, marking a rise of 33% in occupied space from its previous edition in 2017. Returning from the pandemic, this event will once again provide its featured exhibitors and trade visitors with a platform to push the exposure of their businesses and networks to new heights.Re-penetrating Southeast Asia's fastest-growing marketVietnam's economy is increasing rapidly; with an expected real GDP growth of 5.5%-6.5% this past year. Vietnam's GDP forecast is positive and better than the other ASEAN countries in 2022 with a projected growth of 6.7% in 2023. With that growth rate, Vietnam stands to be one of the most dynamic counties in Southeast Asia where its main growth driver is the processing industry, which grew by an impressive 11% even during the pandemic. The dynamic strength of the economy is also reflected in the great business potential in analytics, laboratory technology and biotech industries which analytica Vietnam will be bringing together.Face-to-face networking with old and new connectionsAs the leading exhibition in its sector and the largest trade fair in the analysis, laboratory technology and biotechnology markets, attendees will be exposed to new potential customers from untapped markets at a level they have not experienced in years. The exhibition is also supported by leading institutions, and renowned associations and boasts a myriad of international pavilions including China, Germany, Taiwan and Singapore. Reports from previous editions showed that 98% of visitors would recommend the exhibition to their networks, 93% would attend the upcoming edition and 97% are satisfied with the completeness and breadth of the product range showcased at the trade fair. Exhibitors are also invited to join the offsite lab tours for some valuable insights into a local Vietnamese lab."analytica Vietnam's comeback is set to be the most exciting trade fair for this sector Southeast Asia has yet to expect," says Michael Wilton, CEO of the trade-fair organizer, MMI Asia Pte Ltd. "I'm excited to witness the reunion of the industry, showcases of new technology and shared knowledge through new and old connections happening again after the world's recovery from COVID-19," Michael affirms. Therefore, in 2023, analytica Vietnam will once more integrate the valuable experience of new meetings and the passing of new solutions through a holistic platform.Further information on analytica Vietnam and registration documents can be found at www.analyticavietnam.com.analytica VietnamWith its exhibition areas of laboratory technology, analysis, biotechnology and diagnostics, analytica Vietnam with the analytica Vietnam conference targets the growing market of Vietnam. 143 exhibitors and 4,144 visitors participated in analytica Vietnam 2019. The trade fair takes place every two years. The upcoming edition will take place from April 19 to 21, 2023 at the SECC - Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center www.analyticavietnam.com.analytica worldwideMesse Munchen is the world's leading trade fair organizer for laboratory technology, analysis and biotechnology. The international network of exhibitions includes analytica, analytica China, analytica Anacon India & India Lab Expo, analytica Vietnam and analytica Lab Africa. Additional information about these exhibitions and their programs of events is available at www.analytica.de.MMI Asia Pte LtdMMI Asia Pte. Ltd. was set up as the regional headquarter and a wholly owned subsidiary of Messe Munchen in 1992. With subsidiaries in China and India, MMI Asia organizes trade fairs in China, India and ASEAN countries; promotes global trade expansion by facilitating participation of Asian exhibitors in Messe Munchen fairs worldwide; it also provides consultancy in professional trade fair and conference management to government bodies, international trade and promotion organizations, and trade associations.Messe MunchenMesse Munchen is one of the leading exhibition organizers worldwide with more than 50 of its own trade shows for capital goods, consumer goods and new technologies. Every year, a total of over 50,000 exhibitors and around three million visitors take part in more than 200 events at the exhibition centre in Munich, at the ICM - Internationales Congress Center Munchen and the MOC Veranstaltungscenter Munchen as well as abroad. Together with its subsidiary companies, Messe Munchen organizes trade shows in China, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africaand Vietnam. With a network of associated companies in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America as well as around 70 representatives abroad from over 100 countries, Messe Munchen has a global presence.Source: MMI Asia Pte Ltd (MMI)Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices extended losses on Tuesday, after having fallen nearly 2 percent in the previous session. Benchmark Brent crude futures fell 2.1 percent to $94.17 a barrel, while WTI crude futures were down 2.4 percent at $88.98. Investors fretted about a further hit to demand in China, as COVID infections ticked up ahead of 20th Party Congress and authorities vowed to stock to the zero-COVID policy. World Bank President David Malpass and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva both warned of recession risks, raising concerns over global demand. Fears of further monetary policy tightening also weighed after Chicago Fed president Charles Evans said there is a strong consensus at the Federal Reserve to raise the target policy rate to around 4.5 percent by February and hold it there for most of 2023. Separately, Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard laid out a case for exercising caution, saying that previous rate increases were starting to slow the economy and the full brunt of tighter policy would not be felt for months to come. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. COMMERZBANK AG (London Branch) - Pre Stabilisation - AFD EUR Sustainable due 2033 Pre-Stabilisation Notice October 11, 2022 Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful. Agence Francaise de Developpement EUR Fixed Rate Sustainable Notes due 25 February 2033 Launched pursuant to the Issuer's Medium Term Note Programme Commerzbank AG (contact: Ian Turner; telephone: +44-207-7475-1817) hereby announces, as Stabilisation Coordinator, that the Stabilising Managers named below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014). The security to be stabilised: Issuer: Agence Francaise de Developpement Guarantor (if any): None Aggregate nominal amount: EUR Benchmark Description: EUR Benchmark Fixed Rate Sustainable Notes due 25 February 2033 Offer price: tbc Other offer terms: denoms 100k/100k, listing Euronext Paris. Payment date 19 October 2022. Stabilisation: Stabilisation Coordinator: Stabilising Managers: Commerzbank AG Credit Agricole CIB Morgan Stanley NatWest Markets Societe Generale Stabilisation period expected to start on: 12 October, 2022 Stabilisation period expected to end on: no later than 30 days after the proposed issue date of the securities Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility. The Stabilising Managers may over-allot the securities to the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law. Stabilisation trading venue: Euronext Paris In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilising Manager(s) may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities during the stabilisation period at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, stabilisation may not necessarily occur and any stabilisation action, if begun, may cease at any time Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules. This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction. This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful. END Brampton, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Star Navigation Systems Group Ltd. (CSE: SNA) (CSE: SNA.CN) ("Star" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the receipt of a Letter of Intent ("LOI") from the LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority ("LCDA") for the purchase of Star Navigation's tracking and monitoring technology to track Marine, Train and Land assets for the LAPSSET Corridor Program. A MAJOR MILESTONE AND PROGRESSION OF RELATIONSHIP WITH LCDA The LOI represents a significant milestone in the development of the relationship between Star and LCDA. It represents a major step forward from the initial Letter of Expression (LOE) that was sent to Star by LCDA on June 6th 2022. Since then discussions had been ongoing with respect to further modernization and operational improvements to provide seamless connectivity, enhanced trade and logistics to the LAPSSET program. The Director General and CEO of LCDA stated in the LOI, "At your earliest convenience we look forward to furthering our discussion to enter into a purchase agreement with LCDA for the purchase of Star Tracking Systems, which will also lay a foundation for strong and positive relations for future engagements." Amir Bhatti, CEO, Star Navigation Systems stated, "We applaud the country of Kenya and the LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority for this great vision that started in 2013 and is now progressing towards becoming a reality. The LAPSSET Corridor represents world class transformative and game changing infrastructure that will deliver socio-economic development and prosperity to hundreds of millions of people for generations. Star Navigation Systems is honoured to play a vital role in the safety, efficiency and tracking of all the modes of transport that will be moving the people and goods necessary to make LAPSSET a shining success for all the world to see in the coming decades. We look forward to providing our shareholders with even more details as our discussions and relationship progress." WHAT IS THE LAPSSET CORRIDOR PROGRAM? The Lamu Port - South Sudan - Ethiopia - Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor project is Eastern Africa's largest and most ambitious infrastructure project, bringing together the Governments of Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan via development of airports, highways, oil pipelines, railways lines, dams, ports and resort cities. On 1 April 2013, Kenya's government announced the setting up of a government agency, the LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority, to manage the project on behalf of the Kenyan government. This mega project consists of seven key infrastructure projects starting with: A new 32 Berth port at Lamu (Kenya) Interregional Highways from: Lamu to Isiolo Isiolo to Juba (South Sudan) Isiolo to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Lamu to Garsen (Kenya) Crude Oil Pipeline from: Lamu to Isiolo Isiolo to Juba Product Oil Pipeline from: Lamu to Isiolo Isiolo to Addis Ababa Interregional Standard Gauge Railway lines from: Lamu to Isiolo Isiolo to Juba Isiolo to Addis Ababa Nairobi to Isiolo 3 International Airports at: Lamu Isiolo Lake Turkana 3 Resort Cities at: Lamu Isiolo and Lake Turkana And finally the multipurpose High Grand Falls Dam along the Tana River The LAPSSET Corridor Project covers over half of the country with a planned investment resource equivalent to half of Kenya's GDP for the core investment alone. Statistics estimate that contribution of the LAPSSET Corridor Project to the country's economic growth might range between 8% to 10% of Kenya's GDP and the estimated cost of the project was put at KSh 2.5 trillion (US$29.24 billion). The project is leveraging on the private sector to develop the Corridor. This News Release is available on the company's official Verified Discussion Forum On AGORACOM, a moderated social media platform that enables civilized discussion and Q&A between Management and Shareholder. ABOUT LAPSSET https://www.lapsset.go.ke/ In March 2013, the LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority was established through the Presidential Order Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 51, Legal Notice No. 58, The LAPSSET Corridor Development Authority Order 2013 to plan, coordinate and manage the implementation of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor. A full project presentation can be found in the link http://kenyagreece.com/sites/default/files/lapsset-project-presentation.pdf. About Star Navigation Systems www.star-navigation.com Star Navigation Systems Group Ltd. manufactures the In-flight Safety Monitoring System, STAR-ISMS, the heart of the STAR-A.D.S. System. The STAR-A.D.S. System has real-time capability of tracking, performance trends and predicting incident-occurrences which enhances aviation safety and improves fleet management while reducing costs for the operator. Star's MMI Division designs and manufactures high performance, mission critical, flight deck flat panel displays for defence and commercial aviation industries worldwide. Forward Looking Information Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are statements that address or discuss activities, events or developments that Star expects or anticipates may occur in the future. When used in this news release, words such as "estimates", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "projects", "will", "believes", "intends" "should", "could", "may" and other similar terminology are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations and beliefs of Star's management. Because forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, actual results, performance or achievements of Star or the industry may be materially different from those implied by such forward-looking statements. Examples of such forward-looking information that may be contained in this news release include statements regarding; growth and future prospects of our business; our perceptions of the industry and markets in which we operate and anticipated trends in such markets; expectations regarding the operation of our app; and our future revenues. Material factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making an estimate set out in the forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, our ability to execute on our business plan, increase visibility amongst consumers and convert users to revenue producing subscribers and the success of the business of our partners. Forward-looking statements involve significant uncertainties, should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be an accurate indication of whether or not such results will be achieved. Should one or more of these factors or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Accordingly, readers should exercise caution in relying upon forward-looking statements and Star undertakes no obligation to publicly revise them to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law. NEITHER CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Please visit www.star-navigation.com or contact Mr. Amir Bhatti, CEO at 1-416-252-2889 #230 amir.bhatti@star-navigation.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140098 With its innovative and unique technology that combines ERP, and Low Code/No Code BPM, Axelor is aiming to accelerate its development. Thanks to the first round of fundraising, Axelor will be able to expand its operation and become the benchmark in the UK and North America for integrated enterprise management software. After getting on board with its first partners, YLEM in the UK and EFERRO in North America, Axelor is looking for additional consulting partners to meet the demand and support its growth in these regions. Axelor, the French publisher of the eponymous platform, has announced a Series A financing round for a total of 10 million Euros, primarily from the investment fund Inter Invest Capital. This round of financing is part of Axelor's development strategy, a modular and intelligent business process management platform, which is centred on four major areas: strengthening their R&D, optimising sales and brand awareness, developing their partner network, and international expansion. "Axelor operates in a highly competitive dual market ERP and Low-Code but our hybrid approach is unique, and the success of our approach is proven," stated Laith Jubair, CEO and founder of Axelor. "This round of funding will allow us to accelerate our development and gain a comfortable lead over our competitors." 10 Million to ensure a decisively innovative positioning In the fast-growing ERP and low-code software markets, Axelor is at the forefront with an Open-Source design that intrinsically integrates dozens of functional modules covering a large variety of business processes and an unlimited capability for users of Axelor, to develop their own systems in a fully agile and integrated manner. With 90% growth in 2021 and on the strength of this new financing, Axelor aims to establish itself as the benchmark in terms of innovation in this unique model and to double its workforce in just one year. Open-Source, a promising market This increase in capital also enables us to prove that Open Source is a promising domain and explored especially by organisations, both public and private. As a matter of fact, private and public companies are always on the lookout for digital sovereignty in the development of their own information systems, and with Open Source they have found a way to retain a certain independence from their suppliers. 4 areas of development With this round of fund raising, Axelor intends to accelerate its development in these four areas: Strengthen R&D: in order to maintain its technological lead over its competitors, especially in the management of workflows and business applications, and to develop new and innovative features notably in the domain of Artificial Intelligence. Develop sales and increase brand awareness: by strengthening the sales and marketing teams Optimise the partner network: by increasing the number of partners and the implementation of new methods to support existing partners Accelerate its international operations: focusing on an entry into the European and North American markets. About Axelor Axelor is the publisher of the hybrid Open-Source platform dedicated to business applications that combine a Low code/No-code BPM with more than thirty business applications: ERP, CRM, sales management, HR, Inventory, Production, Project management, Accounting and more. The platform has been implemented in several business sectors: Industries, Ministries, Service companies, Consulting firms, Training organisations and more. The integrated BPM and the low-code platform allow the possibility of developing any type of business processes and to generate a functional application that integrates intrinsically with the business application library. For more information: https://axelor.com/ View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220909005177/en/ Contacts: Hortense Fanouillaire Director global business development h.fanouillaire@axelor.com WhatsApp: +33 6 95 66 22 17 Call: +91 82 00 05 36 34 Flagship laboratory will feature one of the largest biorepositories in the world Sampled1 has announced the expansion of its Sampled SMART Labs facility into a state-of-the-art, 140,000 square foot laboratory and biorepository in Piscataway, NJ. The biorepository will be one of the largest of its kind in the world, and construction is expected to be completed by early 2023. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005246/en/ Sampled SMART Labs Headquarters, 30 Knightsbridge Road, Piscataway, NJ (Photo: Business Wire) The multi-million-dollar investment will dramatically increase Sampled's worldwide biorepository capabilities and enable it to Store, Manage, Analyze, Research and Transport up to 20 million bio-samples. The expansion will also expand Sampled's laboratory capabilities, enabling clients to conduct research or launch new health products faster and easier. Clients will have access to the full suite of Sampled SMART Labs services from genomics services to sample collection kitting, including access to industry-leading technologies from collaborators such as PacBio, Illumina, Thermo Fisher Scientific, PerkinElmer and Standard BioTools. The new facility is expected to house over 800 freezers and 230 liquid nitrogen tanks with a secure, access-controlled environment, wireless monitoring and full generator and LN2 backup. Sampled SMART Labs have CAP (College of American Pathologists) and CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) certification and adhere to ISBER (International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories) best practices. "Sampled's vision is to make it faster and easier for health innovators to improve human health, and this laboratory expansion will enable us to provide even more support for our customers, with added flexibility of scale, service and cost," said Robin Grimwood, Chief Executive Officer of Sampled. "We're proud to be headquartered in New Jersey's life science innovation corridor and look forward to continuing to grow in such a supportive and talent-rich environment." "We are thrilled that Sampled SMART Labs is expanding its industry and deepening its investment in Piscataway," said Brian C. Wahler, Mayor of Piscataway. "With our proximity to world-class healthcare facilities and dynamic medical education at Rutgers University, this new growth in local business is a win for everyone, especially with the availability of more good paying jobs for hard-working residents." "Our customers trust us with the storage and management of their biological samples and we have established best-in-class quality processes and standards to ensure their integrity and security," stated Shareef Nahas, Sampled's Chief Scientific Officer. "Sampled is committed to upholding these standards throughout the construction and transition to our new SMART Labs, and we will be in regular communication with our customers throughout this process to ensure that they are fully up-to-date on the progress of the move." About Sampled and Sampled SMART Labs Sampled is a next-generation laboratory that unlocks the valuable data in any biological sample. Through our integrated "Sampled SMART Lab" services, we can Store, Manage, Analyze, Research and Transport biological materials, offering partners a seamless solution for all research samples. Our vision is a world where we make it faster and easier for health innovators to improve human health, with a mission for Sampled SMART Labs to be behind every transformative health innovation. Sampled is headquartered in Piscataway, N.J. with labs across the US and Europe and partner labs in the Netherlands, China and Australia. Infinity BiologiX LLC, Roylance Stability Storage Limited and Roylance Scientific Limited are doing business as Sampled. For more information, please visit www.sampled.com 1Infinity BiologiX LLC, Roylance Stability Storage Limited and Roylance Scientific Limited are doing business as Sampled. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005246/en/ Contacts: Tierney Saccavino-Payne 917-783-0251 tsp@tspcommunications.com Significant move cements Destination Canada's business event sustainability commitments and advances the Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Destination Canada is pleased to announce the next phase of its Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan as domestic partners across the country embark on the Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index) annual benchmarking process. The GDS-Index is the world's leading sustainability performance program for business tourism destinations around the world. Used by over 80 cities globally, the GDS-Index benchmarks and improves the sustainability performance and strategies of the municipality, its tourism supply chain, and the destination management organization. The programme is being managed by ConnectSeven Group based in Vancouver, who lead GDS-Movement initiatives in North America. Launched in the spring of 2022, Destination Canada's Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan is a first-of-its-kind national program aimed at improving the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability practices of business events hosted in Canada. Aligned with the mission and vision of the plan, the GDS-Index cements Destination Canada's position as a global leader in business event sustainability and positions Canadian destinations as changemakers accelerating progress toward the industry's 2050 net zero targets. "Sustainability is more than a competitive advantage, it is a collaborative one, too - a long-term commitment from the entire business event supply chain is a must-have on the path to sustainability," says Virginie De Visscher, Senior Director of Business Development, Economic Sectors, Business Events, Destination Canada. "That is why having Canadian destination partners from coast-to-coast-to-coast join the GDS-Index and reaffirm their commitments to improving the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability of the business events Canada hosts is so important. It also brings us that much closer to our collective responsibility of fostering a regenerative tourism ecosystem that produces positive net benefits for guests and Canadians, alike." New Business Event Sustainability Advancements: Tourisme Montreal The first Canadian city to join the GDS-Index, Tourisme Montreal recently created and launched an industry leading Guide to Best Practices for Sustainable Business Events as part of its new sustainable tourism strategy. Released in July 2022 to clients, the 28-page Guide was designed to drive concrete action across the industry - from new planners to more seasoned experts - by capturing a wealth of detailed information about how to make an event more sustainable. From small steps to more complex initiatives, everything is organized per category, with action items, local resources, and handy checklists to help make implementation easy and simple. The first Canadian city to join the GDS-Index, recently created and launched an industry leading Guide to Best Practices for Sustainable Business Events as part of its new sustainable tourism strategy. Released in to clients, the 28-page Guide was designed to drive concrete action across the industry - from new planners to more seasoned experts - by capturing a wealth of detailed information about how to make an event more sustainable. From small steps to more complex initiatives, everything is organized per category, with action items, local resources, and handy checklists to help make implementation easy and simple. Explore Edmonton The first city in Western Canada to join the GDS-Index, Explore Edmonton launched its Responsible Events Program (REP) in August 2022 . Ranging from social to environmental Giving Projects, the REP provides tangible options for planners to choose from that not only align with their event's objectives but can be rolled out regardless of the event's size, type, or budget. For example, events can donate to Period Promise through the United Way or support reforestation efforts through partners like Wild and Pine. The REP also supports participation in the Carbon Neutral Events program, helping planners reduce event-related emissions. "We are delighted to welcome Destination Canada and an expanding group of Canadian pioneering cities to the GDS-Movement. The commitment to use the GDS-Index at a national level to benchmark, enable knowledge sharing, and drive capability improvement across the events industry is world-class. The GDS-Index provides an operating system to guide and drive transformation across the city, the supply chain, and the destination management organization. This ecosystems approach has been proven to accelerate change and has the potential to improve positive impact more comprehensively than a single, standalone certification might," says Global Destination Sustainability Movement's Chief Changemaker, Guy Bigwood. Once complete, the Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan will provide turnkey economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability programs to global clients to drive action, raise standards, and propel the entire business event industry toward being more sustainable. About Destination Canada At Destination Canada, we believe that tourism enhances the quality of life of Canadians and enriches the lives of visitors. We believe that Canada's diversity, its greatest asset, is also what touches travellers' hearts most deeply. Our mission is to influence supply, and build demand for the benefit of locals, communities and visitors through leading research, alignment with public and private sectors, and marketing Canada nationally and abroad. Our destination development work ensures that we grow a premier four-season tourism economy that is community centric and regenerative in nature - catalysing thriving commerce, culture and reconciliation. Destination Canada's Business Events team is charged with growing Canada's share of international business events by promoting the country's unique meeting, convention, and incentive event possibilities. By driving awareness of Canada's leading economic strengths and how local knowledge capital can elevate business events, Destination Canada's Business Events team helps international organizations meet with purpose in Canada. Destination Canada is a Crown corporation wholly owned by the Government of Canada. For further information, visit http://www.destinationcanada.com . About The Global Destination Sustainability Movement The Global Destination Sustainability Movement (GDS-Movement) is a collaborative platform that acts to catalyze transformation in the tourism and events industry by engaging, inspiring, and enabling destinations to become more regenerative, flourishing, and resilient places to visit, meet, and live in. The GDS-Movement serves to accelerate the transformation from destination marketing at whatever cost towards destination management and stewardship that offers shared value. Our mission is to promote and develop the sustainability and regenerative strategies, skill sets, and mindsets that will enable destinations of the future to thrive. In addition to its flagship offering, the GDS-Index, the GDS-Movement supports destination sustainability through the GDS-Academy, a blended learning institution for destination professionals determined to catalyze positive benefits for people and planet through tourism and events. GDS-Consulting empowers destinations to fine-tune their contributions by facilitating strategy, narratives, and roadmaps to a regenerative visitor economy. www.Gds.Earth About ConnectSeven Group Founded in 2016, ConnectSeven uses events and tourism to drive sustainable and social innovation for communities, destinations and organizations. We work with processes and frameworks to minimize footprints and bring socioeconomic benefits to communities, cultures and associations. ConnectSeven is the North American manager for the Global Destination Sustainability Movement. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1915929/Destination_Canada_Canadian_Cities_Join_the_Global_Destination_S.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/canadian-cities-join-the-global-destination-sustainability-index-through-destination-canada-301644249.html Love Pharma adding to its addiction treatment portfolio with transdermal IP acquisition for opioid antagonist drug Naltrexone Naltrexone primarily used to treat alcohol and or opioid use disorder and is currently delivered orally which exposes patients to GI related side effects such as nausea, which transdermal delivery is poised to solve Naltrexone Therapeutics holds IP for transdermal delivery of Naltrexone, delivering benefits to patients through greater bioavailability, ease of use and reduction and/or elimination of side effects VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / LOVE Pharma Co. ("LOVE" and or "The Company") (CSE:LUV)(FSE:G1Q0), the Company is pleased is announce that it has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) as of October 10th, 2022, to acquire Naltrexone Therapeutics Inc., a pharmaceutical technology company with significant IP related to the transdermal delivery of FDA approved Naltrexone. Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist, primarily used to manage alcohol and or opioid use disorder by reducing cravings and feelings of euphoria associated with substance abuse disorder. Transdermal delivery of Naltrexone is anticipated to regulate dosage, reduce GI related side effects and improve the patient experience overall. Most importantly, transdermal delivery of Naltrexone may eliminate and or reduce current side effects of the drug such as nausea, which may restrict the growth of the existing Naltrexone market.1 "Love Pharma is very excited to add the Naltrexone Therapeutics transdermal patch IP to our addiction treatment portfolio," said Mr. Zach Stadnyk, Love Pharma President and CEO. "Transdermal delivery can provide patients with convenient and safe Naltrexone treatment, providing greater bioavailability, steady absorption and fewer GI related side effects common with oral dosages currently available, the latter of which we believe has the potential to expand the market for Naltrexone." Benefits to Patients Reduce need to take oral tablets, improving compliance Exact dosage delivered easily and safely Patient centered approach, reducing and/or eliminating GI related side effects such as nausea Transdermal Delivery - How it works The transdermal formulation of a drug can be incorporated within a patch which is then applied to the skin surface of the patient A transdermal patch provides a consistent absorption rate over a pre-determined time as prescribed. The delivery method for transdermal delivery of suitable drugs can be highly flexible and can be applied for periods such as 24, 48, 72 , 96, 120, 144 hours - up to 7, 8, 13, 14 or 15 days Transdermal delivery overcomes the challenge of multiple dosage regimens associated with oral applications and accurately reflects the proper dosage entering the patient's system to address the symptoms, while also circumventing the GI tract and related side effects Love Pharma and Naltrexone Therapeutics Inc. have signed a non-binding LOI for Love to acquire 100% of Naltrexone Therapeutics. Naltrexone Therapeutics owns IP related to transdermal delivery of Naltrexone. The drug addiction treatment market is forecast to surpass $31 Billion by 2027 according to research from Reports and Data.2 "Love Pharma is developing a strong thesis around transdermal drug delivery applications in the addiction space due to the multiple patient centred benefits and the Company's top tier relationships with biotech laboratories that specialize in fast tracking the development, approvals and launch of transdermal drug delivery systems, opening up new markets and applications for existing FDA approved drugs," added Mr. Stadnyk. Terms of the Transaction: The acquisition is considered an arms-length transaction 100% of company will be purchased and become a wholly owned subsidiary Total consideration of $2,000,000 CAD payable in common shares of the issuer The company anticipates closing the transaction within 30 days subject to final due diligence, further details will be released upon the signing of a definitive agreement. 1 https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/naltrexone-HCL-market 2 https://www.pharmiweb.com/press-release/2020-07-20/drug-addiction-treatment-market-to-reach-usd-3117-billion-by-2027-cagr-of-70-pfizer-indivior Zachary Stadnyk, CEO and Director About Love Pharma Inc. With a focus on the global sexual Health and Wellness markets, Love Pharma Inc. (CSE: LUV) (FSE: G1Q0) was founded in 2020, with a mission to bring to market innovative products that enhance sexual health and wellness while providing an improved quality of life. Love Pharma holds exclusive licenses to produce market, package, sell, and distribute patent-protected therapeutic and pharmaceutical products throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America. For further information, please contact: Investor Relations Telephone: 1 (604) 343-2977 E-mail: investors@love-pharma.com www.love-pharma.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Certain statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" (collectively "forward-looking information") as those terms are used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated", "anticipates" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the business of the Company, financing, and certain corporate changes. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. SOURCE: Love Pharma Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719820/Love-Pharma-Signs-Letter-of-Intent-To-Acquire-Naltrexone-Therapeutics-Inc Victory has acquired and staked additional claims, adding to its Stingray property array in Quebec on ground adjacent to Patriot Battery Metals, (CSE-PMET) Corvette lithium discoveries Expanding from 44 claims announced in July, Victory has now in total acquired, staked, and filed 49 non-contiguous claims in the highly prospective James Bay Lithium District Victory's exploration team is actively pursuing additional property in the region and other promising Lithium areas in both Canada and the USA VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Victory Resources Corporation (CSE:VR) (FWB:VR61) (OTC PINK:VRCFF) ("Victory" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company's has increased its land claim holdings in the James Bay Lithium District in Quebec, bringing the total claims acquired, staked, and filed to 49. The Company's Stingray Properties are non-contiguous to the south of Patriot Battery Metals (CSE:PMET) Corvette lithium property in Quebec. Victory's exploration team has dealt with technical issues with the Quebec mining registration system (GESTIM) and added to and relocated some if its claims to, expanding from 44 claims announced in July to a total of 49 claims. The array of Stingray Properties as per the map below indicate 4 non-contiguous holdings, south and adjacent to Patriot Battery Metals Corvette Property. The Stingray Claims are underlain by intermediate intrusive rocks, predominately Granodiorites and Tonolites as well as some granitic rocks. Based on regional geology these intrusive rocks abut the volcanic sequence of the James Bay Greenstone belt. As Victory's Exploration team continues to assess additional land claims in the area, it intends to conduct a geologic and surface geochemical survey together with an airborne geophysics survey on the Stingray claims. Stingray Properties Array Map Donald Theberge, P.Eng., M.B.A., an independent qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed, and approved the technical contents of this news release on behalf of the Company. For further information, please contact: Mark Ireton, President Telephone: +1 (236) 317 2822 or TOLL FREE 1 (855) 665-GOLD (4653) E-mail: IR@victoryresourcescorp.com About Victory Resources Corporation VICTORY RESOURCES CORPORATION (CSE:VR) is a publicly traded diversified investment corporation with mineral interests in North America. The Company is also actively seeking other exploration opportunities. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward Looking Statements Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws. SOURCE: Victory Resources Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719553/Victory-Adds-to-Its-Stingray-Property-Claims-South-of-Patriot-Battery-Metals-CSE-PMET-Corvette-Property VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Usha Resources Ltd. Usha Resources Ltd. ("USHA" or the "Company") (TSXV:USHA) (OTCQB:USHAF) (FSE:JO0), a North American mineral acquisition and exploration company focused on the development of drill-ready battery and precious metal projects, is pleased to announce the finalized team for its near-term drill program at its Jackpot Lake lithium brine project (the "Project") in Nevada. Qualified Professional: Michael Rosko Drilling Company: Harris Exploration Drilling and Associates Inc. ("Harris Exploration") Michael Rosko is a professional geologist with over 30 years of experience, spending significant time assessing aquifer conditions in arid environments throughout the southwestern United States and South America. He has extensive experience with world-class lithium brine projects including Tier 1 projects such as Galaxy's Sal de Vida Deposit, Millennial Lithium's Pasto Grandes Deposit, and Lithium America Corp's Cauchari-Olaroz Deposit. Harris Exploration has over 60 years of successful drill exploration experience spanning across the Americas, with particular expertise drilling in Nevada specifically for Clayton Valley-style lithium brines and in lithium brine testing. Deepak Varshney, CEO of Usha Resources stated: "We are thrilled to partner with Michael Rosko and Harrison Exploration and bring a top-notch team together for Jackpot Lake drilling. Mike brings a wealth of experience with majors including resource estimation at top-tier projects for Millennial Lithium and Lithium Americas. We believe having a team member of his caliber will make a positive impact as we work towards our goal of defining a 43-101 maiden resource at Jackpot Lake. We are also very pleased to welcome and announce Harris Exploration as our drilling partners. Pat Harris has been drilling lithium brine and claystone exploration holes in the Clayton Valley for many years. They are a very well-regarded and experienced company. This is a special program and we have hired the very best there is." Drilling at the Project is anticipated to begin in the coming weeks and will commence immediately following completion of Harris' current contract for the scheduled rig. Jackpot Lake Lithium Brine Property The Jackpot Lake Lithium Brine Property is located within Clark County, 35 kilometres northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, and is comprised of 140 mineral claims that total 2,800 acres (approximately 11.3 km2). The project is exploring a "playa" which appears to be within a closed basin that may contain potentially lithium-rich brines. The geologic model is similar to that of Albemarle's Silver Peak Nevada Lithium Mine which has operated continuously since 1966, where sediments from lithium-rich surrounding source rocks accumulate and fill the deposit leading to a potential concentration of lithium brine due to successive evaporation and concentration events. The Company has permitted 2,700 metres over 6 holes and intends on commencing its maiden drill program this fall with the goal of defining a 43-101 resource. USHA's current and ongoing program at Jackpot Lake is operated by Rangefront Mining Service, a local Nevada firm with personnel that specialize in the planning and execution of lithium brine exploration, including resource estimation. The project is considered to be "drill-ready" based on the following work which has successfully delineated a 5 x 2 kilometre anomaly within a closed basin that suggests the presence of a highly concentrated brine: 129 core samples collected by the USGS with an average lithium value of 175 ppm with a high of 550 ppm and spectrographic and atomic-absorption analyses of 135 stream sediment samples confirming the potential for lithium mineral deposits. Gravitational surveying which has identified a closed basin, critical for ensuring brines remain within the basin without dilution from external water sources. Geophysical modelling based upon gravitational and controlled source audio magnetotellurics/magnetotellurics (CSAMT/MT) surveys has provided evidence of highly concentrated brines which are relatively near the surface. The CSAMT survey results of the Jackpot Lake Project demonstrate a large consistent body of very low resistivity - consistent with highly concentrated brine behavior - throughout the property, predominantly above bedrock depths of 625 meters. Figure 1 - Topographic map of the Jackpot Lake Lithium Brine Project with MT survey results overlain. Resistivities of <2.7 ohm-metres are interpreted to be potentially higher concentration brines and between 2.7 and 5.0 ohm-metres to be potentially moderate concentration brines. Qualified Person The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Seth Cude, P.G., RM, M.Sc., CASS, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). About Usha Resources Ltd. Usha Resources Ltd. is a North American mineral acquisition and exploration company focused on the development of quality battery and precious metal properties that are drill-ready with high-upside and expansion potential. Based in Vancouver, BC, Usha's portfolio of strategic properties provides target-rich diversification and consist of Jackpot Lake, a lithium project in Nevada; Nicobat, a nickel-copper-cobalt project in Ontario; and Lost Basin, a gold-copper project in Arizona. Usha trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol USHA, the OTCQB Exchange under the symbol USHAF and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol JO0. USHA RESOURCES LTD. "Deepak Varshney" CEO and Director For more information, please call Tyler Muir, Investor Relations, at 1-888-772-2452, email tmuir@usharesources.com, or visit www.usharesources.com. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements: This news release may include "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and are based on a number of estimates and/or assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking information are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties, uncertain and volatile equity and capital markets, lack of available capital, actual results of exploration activities, environmental risks, future prices of base and other metals, operating risks, accidents, labour issues, delays in obtaining governmental approvals and permits, and other risks in the mining industry. The Company is presently an exploration stage company. Exploration is highly speculative in nature, involves many risks, requires substantial expenditures, and may not result in the discovery of mineral deposits that can be mined profitably. Furthermore, the Company currently has no reserves on any of its properties. As a result, there can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. SOURCE: Usha Resources Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719595/Usha-Resources-Finalizes-Jackpot-Lake-Lithium-Brine-Drill-Program-Team Vassar Township, MI, is cannabis-friendly and centrally located for distribution. DOVER, DE / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Hero Technologies (OTCQB:HENC)(Twitter: @heroicmindtech), a cannabis company focused on a "seed-to-sale" vertical integration strategy, today outlined the advantages of the 10-acre property in Vassar Township, Michigan, that it plans to use as its base of cannabis operations in the state. The company recently entered into a purchase agreement for the property. "We expect Michigan to drive company growth, as we already have state licensing pre-approval in place and sales of legal cannabis are increasing rapidly in the state-to around $2.8 billion this year," said Hero Technologies' CEO Gina Serkasevich. "We were looking for a base of operations in Michigan that was receptive to cannabis companies, supportive of every stage of cannabis cultivation and sales, centrally located for distribution, and cost-effective. Vassar checked every box for us." The company focused on Vassar because the area, in Tuscola County, has a marijuana-friendly reputation and the 10-acre parcel was already zoned as part of a cannabis industrial park. The municipality allows cannabis companies to build as needed for cultivating, processing, testing, provisioning, and transporting legal marijuana. The Vassar property also supports the required infrastructure for growing cannabis, including in greenhouses. Vassar's central Michigan location is ideal for distribution across the state. More than 1.6 million people live within 50 miles of Vassar, and the average annual household income in the area is over $82,000. The township is also only a 1.5-hour drive from both Lansing, the state capital, and the Detroit metropolitan area, with its population of 4.4 million. Hero Technologies' subsidiary, BlackBox Systems and Technologies LLC, has pre-qualification approval in Michigan for Adult (recreational) and Medicinal Use cannabis licenses. The company plans to build greenhouses that use a proprietary aeroponic growing system to produce high-yield, high-quality cannabis. The company expects to use the Vassar property for both outdoor and indoor growing and for end-to-end processing operations. The company expects to sell its cannabis products through wholesale, retail, and dispensary channels. About Hero Technologies Hero Technologies Inc. is a cannabis company working toward a vertically-integrated business model. The company owns a majority stake in BlackBox Systems and Technologies LLC, an aeroponic cannabis cultivation system that provides optimal growing conditions to enhance photosynthesis and cultivation of large flowering plants, creating increased harvest efficiencies. The company's strategic business plan includes cannabis genetic engineering, farmland for both medical and recreational cannabis cultivation, production licenses, distribution licenses, consumer packaging, and retail and dispensary operations that make the company a multi-state operator (MSO). Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements may include: management plans relating to the proposed project; the expected timing of the completion of the proposed project; the ability to complete the proposed project; any statements of the plans and objectives of management for future operations, products or services, including the execution of plans proposed project; any statements of expectation or belief; projections related to certain financial metrics; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "outlook," "plan," "project," "seek," "should," "target," "will," "would" and other similar words and expressions or negatives of these words. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time and are beyond our control. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Neither Hero Technologies Inc. nor its holding company or subsidiaries assumes any duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Because forward-looking statements, by their nature, are uncertain or assumptive to varying degrees, actual results or future events could differ, possibly materially, from those that Hero Technologies Inc., its holding company or subsidiaries anticipated in the forward-looking statements, and future results could differ materially from historical performance. Hero Technologies Contact: Ms. Gina Serkasevich, CEO (302) 538-4165 | gs@herotechnologiesinc.com SOURCE: Hero Technologies Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719802/Hero-Technologies-HENC-Highlights-Advantages-of-Planned-Base-of-Cannabis-Operations-in-Michigan VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Eyam Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics ltd. ("Eyam" or the "Company"), today announced a partnership with Mitacs to fund Post-Doctoral Fellowships at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Mitacs, is a not-for-profit organization that fosters growth and innovation, and will provide equal funding for research efforts at UBC that will directly support Eyam's leading vaccine development programs for SARS CoV-2 and beyond. The research and development will be directed by Professor Wilfred Jefferies at the Michael Smith Laboratories at UBC. The project will support the ongoing work that Eyam believes has the potential to lead to local, micro-manufacturing of vaccines, eventually bringing about the democratization of vaccines. "Mitacs is aiding the creation of a non-viral platform that has a multitude of advantages over other delivery methods currently available for vaccine technologies including conventional mRNA technologies," said Professor Jefferies. "Through this program, Mitacs, will help fund the collaborative work that Eyam and UBC are advancing, supporting significant research efforts that could profoundly impact the future of vaccine development and therapeutics," said Ryan Thomas, CEO of Eyam. About Mitacs: Mitacs is a not-for-profit organization that fosters growth and innovation by solving business challenges with research solutions from the best academic institutions in Canada and around the world. Working with 60 universities, thousands of companies, and governments at both the federal and provincial levels, Mitacs builds partnerships that support industrial and social innovation. Mitacs is funded by the federal and provincial governments, as well as by university and industry partners. About Eyam: Eyam Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics is dedicated to the research and development of disruptive vaccine and therapeutic technologies that are safe, efficacious, and low dose. Eyam, is named in honor of the historic plague village in Derbyshire, England. The residents of Eyam heroically quarantined themselves within the village boundaries to prevent the disease from spreading further, braving near certain death. Today, Eyam honors their heroic sacrifice by advancing next generation technologies to prevent and treat disease on a global scale. Contact: First Name: Ryan Last Name: Thomas Email: rthomas@eyamhealth.com Phone: +17204869359 SOURCE: Eyam Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719036/Eyam-Announces-Partnership-with-Mitacs-to-Fund-Next-Generation-COVID-19-Vaccine-Technologies The Mauritius Investment Corporation Ltd (MIC) recently announced that it has officially become an Associate Member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF). T hrough this membership, the MIC is now part of the sovereign wealth fund community, therefore demonstrating its commitment and willingness to uphold the IMF Santiago Principles based on good governance, accountability and transparency. The IFSWF is an organization of global sovereign wealth funds committed to working together to strengthen the sovereign wealth fund community through defining best practices, dialogue, research and self-assessment. The IFSWF, a prestigious global forum, has over 40 members from various countries worldwide. This Forum comprises large and well-known sovereign funds such as Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, China Investment Corporation, Kuwait Investment Authority, Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, Korea Investment Corporation and Norges Bank Investment Management, amongst others. Jitendra Bissessur, the Chief Executive Officer of the MIC, said: The MIC is privileged to have been admitted as an Associate Member of the IFSWF. This important milestone for Mauritius bears testimony of MICs commitment and determination to adhere to the best international practices and standards in line with the IMF Santiago Principles followed by the IFSWF members. Strong governance, comprehensive oversight and solid leadership are rooted in our mandate and at the base of our organization. Established in 2020, the MIC has played a key role in the economic recovery of Mauritius and has become a full-fledged investor and accelerator of growth and development for the country and its population. The MIC shall strive to secure full membership to the IFSWF. MICs membership application was approved by the IFSWF board on 15th September 2022. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Kraken Energy Corp. (CSE: UUSA) (OTCQB: UUSAF) (the "Company" or "Kraken Energy") is pleased to report that it has received permits to drill the Garfield Hills Uranium Property ("Garfield Hills" or the "Property") in Nevada. A drilling permit has been obtained from the Nevada Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") for an up to 5,000 metre ("m") (16,400 feet), 25-hole diamond drill program to test the extent of uranium mineralization that includes historic drill intercepts from the late-1960s of 14 m (46 feet) at 0.26% U308 and 14 m (46 feet) at 0.18% U3081. Phase I of the program includes up to 2,000 m of drilling and is expected to commence mid-October. The Company also plans to carry out an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) airborne radiometric and magnetic survey during Q4, 2022, concurrent with the upcoming drilling program. Figure 1: Garfield Hills Drill Program Plan Map To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8684/139898_01680b6ef4b759ff_001full.jpg The Company does not treat these historical results as current and has not completed sufficient work to verify such historical results. Mathew Schwab, CEO of Kraken Energy, commented: "With an approved drilling permit now in hand, we are ready to commence the Phase I drilling program at our newly acquired Garfield Hills property. Through multiple reconnaissance field visits this summer, our team has identified several highly compelling exploration targets on which we plan to complete up to 5,000 m of HQ drilling." The Company also announces that it has granted incentive stock options to purchase a total of 2,475,000 common shares at an exercise price of $1.00 per share for a period of five years to certain directors, officers and consultants in accordance with the provisions of its stock option plan. About the Garfield Hills Uranium Property The Garfield Hills Uranium Property totals 1,238 hectares (3,060 acres) and is located 19 kilometers ("km") (12 miles) east of Hawthorne in Mineral County, Nevada. Information regarding the details of the Option Agreement and the Property can be viewed here. References 1 Londry, John E., 1977, Ule Ann - Little Nickie - Black Hill - Popcorn - Gary Uranium Property Report, Mineral County, Nevada, U.S.A. M&M Porcupine Gold Mines Ltd. Technical Information All scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared by or reviewed and approved by Matthew Schwab, P.Geo., President and CEO of the Company, and Garrett Ainsworth, P.Geo., Chairman of the Company. Each of Mr. Schwab and Mr. Ainsworth is a Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. The drill results reported in this news release are historical in nature. Kraken has not undertaken any independent investigation, nor has it independently analyzed the results of the historical exploration work in order to verify the results. The Company believes that the historical drill results at the Garfield Hills Property do not conform to the presently accepted industry standards. Kraken considers these historical drill results relevant as the Company will use this data as a guide to plan future exploration programs. The Company also considers the data to be reliable for these purposes, however, the Company's future exploration work will include verification of the data through drilling. About Kraken Energy Corp. Kraken Energy Corp. is a new energy company advancing its 100%-owned Apex Uranium Property, located 280 km (174 miles) east from Reno, Nevada. The Apex Property is recognized as Nevada's largest past-producing uranium mine. The Company has additionally entered into an option agreement to earn 100% of the Garfield Hills Uranium Property, located 19 km (12 miles) east of Hawthorne in Mineral County, Nevada. Additional staking has been done on the Garfield Hills Uranium Property, bringing the total area of the Property to 1,238 hectares (3,060 acres). For more information about the Company, please visit www.krakenenergycorp.com. On Behalf of the Board of Kraken Energy Corp. Matthew Schwab President & Chief Executive Officer Corporate Office: 400-1681 Chestnut Street Vancouver, BC V6J 4M6 T: (604) 737-2303 For investor relations inquiries, contact: Kristina Pillon, High Tide Consulting Corp. E: info@krakenergycorp.com The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release includes "forward-looking information" that is subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. Such statements are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties normally incident to such events. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future events and that actual events or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements represent management's best judgment based on information currently available. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/139898 Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (RS), a metals service center operator, said on Tuesday that it has appointed Karla Lewis as new Chief Executive Officer, with effect from January 1. Lewis will succeed James Hoffman who has announced his intention to step down as CEO on December 31. However, Hoffman will continue in the company to serve as Senior Advisor to the CEO until his retirement in December 2023. Lewis will retain her current role as President, while serving as Reliance's CEO upon her promotion. Joined in 1992 as Corporate Controller at RS, Lewis has served as CFO from 1999 until January 2021. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX RELIANCE STEEL & ALUMINUM-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de Ahli United Bank will enhance its value propositions for its various corporate client segments in the Middle East and North Africa via Montran's next-generation solutions AMSTERDAM, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ahli United Bank, a leading pan-regional financial services provider, today announced that it has selected Montran Corporation's Virtual Account Management solutions to provide centralized treasury and cash management operations, across its diverse corporate client segments. Both companies commemorated the announcement with a signing ceremony at Sibos 2022 in Amsterdam. Utilizing Montran's multi-currency virtual account management platform will allow Ahli United Bank to help their corporate clients in the region to both simplify their cash and payment transactions and manage them more effectively. "Our large corporate clients typically have a complex account structure that complicates unified, real-time visibility and reconciliation," said Othman Hijazi, Deputy Group CEO, Corporate Banking, Ahli United Bank. "With the help of Montran's Virtual Account Management solutions, we will be better equipped to empower said clients to simplify and streamline their bank account structures, gain a unified view and control of real-time liquidity positions, and drive greater efficiency across global liquidity reporting and management, as well as overall treasury operations." Alexander Esca, Chairman and CEO at Montran Corporation, said, "The versatility of Montran's multi-bank Virtual Account Management solutions mean a fast and streamlined integration into Ahli United Bank's existing infrastructure, with rapid client onboarding across the MENA region. Montran's Virtual Account Management solutions enable a modern platform for Ahli United Bank to offer its various client segments sophisticated liquidity management capabilities. We are thrilled to announce this strategic relationship, and look forward to delivering the future-forward solutions that Ahli United Bank requires." About Ahli United Bank Ahli United Bank B.S.C (AUB) is a leading pan-regional financial services provider, incorporated in Bahrain in May 2000. It offers a full range of retail, commercial, and private banking & wealth management services, both conventional and Sharia-compliant, across the MENA region and the UK. AUB operates through its Bahrain Head Office and its subsidiaries in Kuwait, Egypt, Iraq, and the UK as well as its associates in Oman and Libya; and a branch in the UAE (DIFC). For more information, visit www.ahliunited.com.kw. About Montran Founded in 1979, Montran Corporation provides Payment, Cash and Liquidity Management solutions and services to many of the world's foremost financial and corporate institutions, enabling them to stay ahead in today's increasingly challenging financial industry landscape. Having mission critical installations and operations in over 80 countries, Montran Corporation is a global leader in the financial technology arena. More information about Montran Corporation's Products and Services can be found at www.montran.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917767/Montran_Sibos_Group.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/ahli-united-bank-and-montran-corporation-to-deliver-virtual-accounts-management-to-ahli-united-bank-corporate-clients-301645268.html Increase in prevalence of respiratory disorders, rise in usage of N95 mask industry, and surge in number of product launches and approvals drive the growth of the global respiratory masks market. PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Respiratory Masks Market by Type (Disposable, Reusable), by Age Group (Neonatal and Pediatric, Adult , Geriatric), by End User (Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Clinics, Trauma Centers, Homecare): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031." According to the report, the global respiratory mask industry generated $527.10 million in 2021, and is estimated to reach $2.4 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 16.4% from 2022 to 2031. Download Free Sample Report (299 Pages PDF with Insights, Charts, Tables, Figures): https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/13759 Prime determinants of growth Increase in prevalence of respiratory disorders, rise in usage of N95 mask industry, and surge in number of product launches and approvals drive the growth of the global respiratory masks market. However, fluctuations in prices of protective face masks and the production of non-biodegradable masks restrain the market growth. On the other hand, increase in adoption of major strategies such as collaboration, partnership, acquisition, and business expansion create new opportunities in the coming years. Covid-19 Scenario The Covid-19 pandemic increased the demand for respiratory masks as the Covid-19 infection spreads through air and respiratory masks play a crucial role in prevention of infection. This, in turn, surged the market revenue across the world. Governments of almost every country across the world mandated the usage of respiratory masks for general public to prevent infection and reduce the number of cases. This led to increase in number of product launches by different manufacturers. The usage of disposable or single-use respiratory masks increased tremendously among general populations. This presented numerous opportunities for manufacturers. The number of product approvals surged considerably during the pandemic. In addition, the utilization of N95 masks increased the market revenue across the world. Market players also manufactured biodegradable masks and rise in their awareness among general public led to new opportunities during the pandemic. Overall, the pandemic made a positive impact on the growth of the global respiratory masks market. The disposable segment to maintain its lead position during the forecast period Based on type, the disposable segment accounted for the highest market share in 2021, contributing to more than three-fifths of the global respiratory masks market, and is projected to maintain its lead position during the forecast period. This is due to increase in awareness among people regarding the effectiveness of single-use respiratory masks and increase in number of product launches. However, the reusable segment is projected to manifest the largest CAGR of 16.8% from 2022 to 2031, owing to rise in usage and increase in the awareness among people regarding usage of this type of mask. Purchase Inquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/13759 The geriatric segment to continue its dominant share throughout the forecast period Based on age group, the geriatric segment contributed to the highest market share in 2021, accounting for nearly three-fifths of the global respiratory masks market, and is projected to continue its dominant share throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to surged susceptibility to respiratory diseases. However, the adult segment is estimated to manifest the highest CAGR of 16.8% from 2022 to 2031, owing to rise in the prevalence of respiratory disorders among adult population. The report also analyzes the neonatal and pediatric segment. The hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics segment to continue its highest contribution throughout the forecast period Based on end user, the hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics segment accounted for the largest market share in 2021, holding nearly two-thirds of the global respiratory masks market, and is estimated to continue its highest contribution throughout the forecast period. In addition, this segment is projected to register the fastest CAGR of 16.5% from 2022 to 2031. This is due to rise in the number of hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics globally and rise in expenditure by governments to develop the healthcare infrastructure. The report also analyzes the segments including trauma centers and homecare. North America to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period Based on region, North America held the largest market share in 2021, accounting for more than two-fifths of the global respiratory masks market, and will maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to rise in prevalence of respiratory diseases, surge in number of key players, and developed healthcare infrastructure. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the largest CAGR of 17.6% from 2022 to 2031, owing to rise in expenditure by government organizations to develop the healthcare sector and increase in awareness among people regarding respiratory disorders. The research also analyzes regions including Europe and LAMEA. Leading Market Players 3M Honeywell International, Inc. Medline Industries, Inc. Zelinsky Group Ltd. ANSELL Ltd. Owens and Minor Cardinal Health KOKEN Ltd. Moldex Metric RSG Safety Trending Reports in Healthcare Industry (Book Now with 10% Discount): Electrophysiology Market by Product (EP Ablation Catheters, EP Laboratory Devices, EP Diagnostic Catheters, Access Devices, and Others), Indication (Atrial Fibrillation (AF), Atrial Flutter, Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW), Atrioventricular Nodal Reentry Tachycardia (AVNRT), and Others), and End User (Hospitals & Cardiac Centers, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2030 Breast Biopsy Market by Product (Vacuum Assisted Biopsy, Core Needle Biopsy, Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy), by Image Guided Technology (Mri Guided Breast Biopsy, Ultrasound Guided Breast Biopsy, Mammography Guided Stereotactic Biopsy, Ct Guided Biopsy, Other Image Guided Breast Biopsy), by End User (Hospitals And Clinics, Diagnostic Centers): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2030 Drug Screening Market by Product & Services [Equipment (Immunoassay Analyzers, Chromatography Instruments, and Breath Analyzers {Semiconductor Breath Analyzers and Fuel Cell Analyzers}, Rapid Testing Devices(RTD) {Oral Fluid Testing Devices and Urine Testing Devices}), Consumables {Assay Kits, Calibrators & Controls, and Sample Collection Cups} and Laboratory Services], by Sample Type [Oral Fluid/Saliva, Breath, Hair and Other Samples {Blood & Sweat}], and by End User [Workplace & Schools, Criminal Justice Systems & Law Enforcement Agencies, Drug Testing Laboratories, Drug Treatment Centers, Hospitals, Personal Users, and Pain Management Centers] - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2030 Intraocular Lens Market by Type (Monofocal Intraocular Lens, Premium Intraocular Lens), by Material (Polymethylmethacrylate, Silicone, Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Acrylic Materials), by End User (Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, Ophthalmology Clinics, Eye Research Institutes): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031 Cancer Biomarkers Market by Profiling Technology (Omic Technologies, Imaging Technologies, Immunoassays, and Cytogenetics Based Tests), Biomolecule (Genetic Biomarkers, Protein Biomarkers, and Glyco-biomarkers), Cancer Type (Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Colorectal Cancer, Stomach Cancer, and Others), and Application (Diagnostics, Drug Discovery and Development, Prognostics, Risk Assessment, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2030 About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): 1-800-792-5285, 1-503-894-6022 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Web:https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/reports-store/life-sciences Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/respiratory-masks-market-to-reach-usd-2-4-bn-globally-by-2031-at-16-4-cagr-allied-market-research-301645718.html Award Recognizes Quality in Parts for Heavy-Duty Vehicles, Including Kenworth and Peterbilt Trucks AUBURN HILLS, MI / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Unique Fabricating, Inc. (NYSE American:UFAB), a leader in engineering and manufacturing multi-material foam, rubber, and plastic components utilized in noise, vibration, and harshness management and air/water sealing applications for the transportation, appliance, medical, and consumer markets, today announced that its LaFayette, Georgia facility has received a quality award from Inteva Products, related to unsurpassed quality in programs related to Heavy-Duty vehicles, including Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks. "Inteva maintains a reputation for the highest quality in the industry, and it is an honor and a significant validation for Inteva to recognize our LaFayette facility as contributing to that status," commented Doug Cain, President and Chief Executive Officer of Unique Fabricating. "For years, Unique Fabricating has been committed to the highest customer service and quality levels, ensuring that we are a partner our customers can rely upon. High quality and on-time delivery is especially important in today's economic environment." About Unique Fabricating, Inc. Unique Fabricating, Inc. (NYSE American:UFAB) engineers and manufactures components for customers in the transportation, appliance, medical, and consumer markets. The Company's solutions are comprised of multi-material foam, rubber, and plastic components and utilized in noise, vibration and harshness ("NVH") management, acoustical management, water and air sealing, decorative and other functional applications. Unique leverages proprietary manufacturing processes, including die cutting, thermoforming, compression molding, fusion molding, and reaction injection molding to manufacture a wide range of products including air management products, heating ventilating and air conditioning ("HVAC"), seals, engine covers, fender stuffers, air ducts, acoustical insulation, door water shields, gas tank pads, light gaskets, topper pads, mirror gaskets, glove box liners, personal protection equipment, and packaging. The Company is headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. For more information, visit http://www.uniquefab.com. Safe Harbor Statement Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this news release include forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or to future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the Company's or the Company's industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by this press release. Words such as "may," "will," "could," "would," "should," "anticipate," "predict," "potential," "continue," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates," "outlook," and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are based on management's present expectations and are subject to certain factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, outcome of events, timing and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in particular the Section entitled "Risk Factors", as well as any updates to those risk factors filed from time to time in our periodic and current reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and Unique Fabricating does not intend to update this information, unless required by law. Reference to the Company's website above does not constitute incorporation of any of the information thereon into this press release. Investor Inquiries: Rob Fink, FNK IR (646) 809-0408 rob@fnkir.com SOURCE: Unique Fabricating, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719812/Unique-Fabricatings-LaFayette-Facility-Secures-Prestigious-Quality-Award-From-Inteva-Products Recognized for its expertise and leadership in industrial processing films for 40 years, Chargeurs Protective Films, part of the Chargeurs Group's Technology division, is redefining its brand strategy and reaffirming its ambition. Chargeurs Protective Films is now named Chargeurs Advanced Materials. It develops cutting-edge industrial solutions to preserve and enhance the durability of its customers' materials worldwide. By accompanying surfaces throughout their manufacturing processes like a second skin, Chargeurs Advanced Materials contributes to the value of materials, from their very beginning until the end user. Its customers know the company under four brands: Novacel, Boston Tapes Commercial, Main Tape and Novacel Performance Coatings. It is now gathering them under just one: Novacel. With a presence in 90 countries, with more than 750 employees and 3,000 industrial customers and distributors, Novacel provides complete surface solutions for materials. It offers industrial processing films, technical tapes, lamination machines and specialty papers. Present in five markets, the group co-develops customized solutions and value-added services. Novacel whose signature is 'Beyond the Surface' is deeply committed to sustainability and innovation, for the planet and people. With its rebranding, Novacel reaffirms its ambition as an expert committed to responsible surface solutions that enhance materials. It also wishes to accelerate its development in societal and environmental responsibility. Novacel is proud to announce first achievements. Novacel eco-responsible range, Oxygen, is expanding to new markets, materials and processes. This range enables film' users to reduce their carbon footprint until 30%, reduces the use of fossil materials and is 100% recyclable. Novacel is also investing in its assets to develop new products, while at the same time reducing its impact on the planet: 80% water consumption reduction in the last 5 years, investment in alternative sources of energy, as well as reduction of energy consumption. About Novacel: Novacel is a 40-year-old worldwide leader in surface solutions. Novacel proposes full solutions to its BtoB customers with industrial processing films, technical tapes, paper products, machines and a set of services. Novacel contributes to its customers' industrial efficiency. Present in 90 countries, with more than 750 employees, Novacel whose signature is 'Beyond the Surface' is deeply committed to sustainability and innovation, for the planet and people. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005746/en/ Contacts: Press Contact: Sophie Lussiez sophie@complurielle.fr 033 6 74 04 56 82 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Red Light Holland Corp. (CSE: TRIP) (FSE: 4YX) (OTC Pink: TRUFF) ("Red Light Holland" or the "Company"), an Ontario-based corporation engaged in the production, growth and sale of functional mushrooms, including mushroom home grow kits in North America and Europe, and a premium brand of magic truffles to the legal, recreational market within The Netherlands, is pleased to announce that Red Light Holland Advisory Board member, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah will participate at Bloomberg CityLab 2022, being held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 9-11, 2022. Bloomberg CityLab is the preeminent global cities summit organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Aspen Institute. The summit brings together city leaders, notable innovators, business leaders, and urban planners from around the world to uncover and share some of the boldest thinking and most actionable solutions to problems facing urban centers. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah will join an international panel of experts to discuss promising approaches to drug legalization on October 11, 2022. "Akwasi is recognized as a global thought leader in the area of drug policy, and it is always nice to see him speaking on the international stage, but also in the backyard of our recreational business, in The Netherlands," said Todd Shapiro, CEO and director of Red Light Holland. "We've built an incredibly strong team of business leaders and experts to wisely advise and help grow Red Light Holland, while also aiming to spread the message on affordable and equitable access and the responsible use of naturally-occurring psilocybin. Personally, I'm grateful for Akwasi's support and voice, representing Red Light, on such an important stage," added Shapiro. "It's an honor to be invited by Bloomberg CityLab 2022 to speak about drug policy around the world. I look forward to representing Red Light Holland, proudly, with some of the world's brightest minds, innovators and empathetic leaders," said Akwasi, Owusu-Bempah, Red Light Holland Advisor. For more information: https://citylab.bloomberg.org Akwasi Owusu-Bempah Bio: https://redlight.co/team/advisory-board About Red Light Holland: The Company is an Ontario-based corporation that specializes in the mushroom industry, and specifically home grow kits for functional natural mushrooms, while being engaged in the production, growth and sale (through existing Smart Shops operators and an advanced e-commerce platform) of premium brands of magic truffles to the legal, recreational market within the Netherlands, in accordance with the highest standards, in compliance with all applicable laws. For additional information: Todd Shapiro Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Director Tel: 647-643-TRIP (8747) Email: todd@redlight.co Website: www.RedLight.co Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not clearly historical in nature may constitute forward-looking statements. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "will continue", "will occur" or "will be achieved". The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: the Company's advisor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah speaking on behalf of the Company and the timelines for disclosed herein; the Company's advisor potentially not attending Bloomberg CityLab 2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, the plans and goals of the Company; future product offerings of the Company; the timelines and markets associated with launching products; the future educational, marketing and advertising campaigns of the Company; and future changes in legislation and the regulations surrounding, among other things, the ability to sell the Company's products in new markets. Forward-looking information in this news release are based on certain assumptions and expected future events, namely: the Company completing the acquisitions upon the terms and timelines disclosed herein; the Company gaining and utilizing synergies from the acquisitions; the Company meeting its future business plan targets; continued approval of the Company's activities by the relevant governmental and/or regulatory authorities; the continued growth of the Company; the Company meeting their anticipated timeline and process for growth, sales, production and commercialization; the Company's products being safe and providing their anticipated benefits; the Company's advisor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah speaking on behalf of the Company and the timelines for disclosed herein; the Company's advisor potentially not attending Bloomberg CityLab 2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, the Company fulfilling its future plans and goals; future product offerings of the Company succeeding; the Company, launching future educational, marketing and advertising campaigns; the Company's revenues will continue to grow; additional jurisdictions permitting sales of the brand's products in the future; future changes in legislation and the regulations not impacting the Company's ability to fulfill its plans and growth goals, including the ability to sell the Company's products in new markets; the plans and goals of the Company; future product offerings of the Company; the timelines and markets associated with launching products; the future educational, marketing and advertising campaigns of the Company; and future changes in legislation and the regulations surrounding, among other things, the ability to sell the Company's products in new markets. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, including but not limited to: the Company's advisor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah speaking on behalf of the Company at Bloomberg CityLab 2022 and the timelines for disclosed herein; the Company's advisor potentially not attending Bloomberg CityLab 2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, including changes in the financial and stock markets; risks related to infectious diseases, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; legal and regulatory risks inherent in the industry, including the global regulatory landscape and enforcement related to the brand's products; political risks and risks relating to regulatory change; risks relating to anti-money laundering laws; compliance with extensive government regulation and the interpretation of various laws regulations and policies; public opinion and perception of the industry; risk that the Company's products will be unsafe for personal consumption and/or not provide their anticipated benefits; the Company will be unable to increase revenues; risks surrounding additional jurisdictions not permitting sales of the brand's products in the future; risk of future changes to regulations surrounding the brand's products and/or to the Company's business which may hinder the ability of the Company to attain its goals and/or pursue its plans and/or sell its products in additional markets; and such other risks contained in the public filings of the Company filed with Canadian securities regulators and available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions, or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and reflect the Company's expectations as of the date hereof and are subject to change thereafter. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, estimates or opinions, future events, or results or otherwise or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140099 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Japan Gold Corp. (TSXV: JG) (OTCQB: JGLDF) ("Japan Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from seven additional drill holes at the Ryuo Prospect. Drilling has continued to encounter high-grade veins along the Ryuo alteration corridor, and interpretation of drill core has significantly advanced the understanding of controls on mineralization at the prospect. The Ryuo prospect is located within the Company's 100% owned Ikutahara Project in Hokkaido, (Figure 1). Summary of High-Grade Intercepts, (Figures 2-5 and Table 1): IKDD22-005 has proven continuity of the Shouei vein 100 m to the southwest of the historical workings with the following high-grade zone from within a broader mineralized vein structure: 0.75 m @ 22.5 g/t Au & 41.3 g/t Ag from 276.0 m IKDD22-002: proved continuity of mineralization 50 m below the 2021 drill intercept from IKDD21-010 which intersected 20.0 m @ 6.3 g/t Au & 15.7 g/t Ag, giving the following significant interval: 0.4 m @ 19. 0 g/t Au & 15.7 Ag from 280.95 m (Incl. 0.2 m @ 34.6 g/t Au & 25.0 g/t Ag from 280.95 m) IKDD22-007: targeted mineralization below IKDD21-008 which intersected the ultra-high-grade interval of 0.45 m @ 1,395 g/t Au & 768 g/t Ag. From approximately 200 m down hole IKDD22-007 encountered highly silicified and altered hydrothermally brecciated rhyolite cut by numerous banded quartz veins. The drill hole stopped in mineralization well short of its target depth under difficult drilling conditions and due to a temporary expiry of a local forestry permit, with the following significant intervals: 1.1m @ 2.9 g/t Au & 11.7 g/t Ag from 266.8 m (incl. 0.35 m @ 7.0 g/t Au @ 22.1 g/t Ag from 267.25 m 0.4 m @ 12.8 g/t Au & 35.3 g/t Ag from 288.4 m (incl. 0.2 m @ 23.7 g/t Au & 74.7 g/t Ag from 288.6 m) Andrew Rowe, Vice President Exploration stated, "We are very encouraged by the recent findings at the Ryuo prospect. The combination of multiple high-grade vein structures with high-level vein textures and a well-preserved alteration system supports deeper drilling, particularly along strike to the southwest of the prospect. We look forward to completing another round of drill holes to test these concepts before the end of this year." Summary of Findings at Ryuo and the Implications for Ongoing Exploration: The 2022 drill program has significantly advanced the understanding of geological controls and alteration zonation with respect to high-grade mineralization at Ryuo. Importantly, high-grade gold events have been identified along the length of the prospect in multiple parallel vein zones, and alteration studies prove the system is well preserved. IKDD22-005 has proven an extension of the Shouei vein mineralization 100 m to the southwest. Further step out drilling is required to confirm strike continuity to depth below veining intersected in the top of drill hole IKDD21-005, and towards the open high-grade mineralization intersected 400 m to the southwest in drill holes IKDD21-008 and IKDD22-007, (Figure 2 & 3). IKDD22-007 targeting the depth extension of the ultra high-grade vein in IKDD21-008 (0.45 m @ 1,395 g/t Au & 768 g/t Ag) terminated more than 100 m before target depth under difficult drilling conditions and due to a temporary expiry of a local forestry permit. From 200 m down-hole, intensely altered and hydrothermally brecciated rhyolite was drilled to the bottom of the hole at 289.4 m. Numerous banded quartz veins cut the brecciated rhyolite carrying anomalous gold along its length, with higher grade intervals including the 40 cm vein from the bottom of the hole which gave 12.8 g/t Au & 35.5 g/t Ag with a high-grade included interval of 23.7g/t Au & 64.7 g/t Ag (Figure 4). This breccia zone was unexpected and appears to be part of a significant, partially tested mineralized structure which subsequent drilling will target as a priority. Hydrothermal alteration of the host rocks in low-sulphidation epithermal vein systems create a distinct zonal arrangement of clay minerals. Smectite dominant assemblages form above and peripheral to quartz veining, while a mixed-layer (illite-smectite) assemblage forms in the upper parts of the gold-bearing vein zone, this progresses downward into a chlorite-illite dominant assemblage which coincides with the boiling-zone where high-grade gold deposition occurs. This association of clay zonation and gold mineralization has been well documented in literature, including at the Hishikari mine in Kyushu2. The upper part of this zonal arrangement of clay alteration has been interpreted from spectral analysis of drill core along the length of the Ryuo prospect. A smectite dominant zone is defined above and adjacent to higher grade veins, and a mixed-layer zone is interpreted from an illite+smectite dominant assemblage, associated with most of the high-grade veining seen to date, (Figures 3 & 4). The deeper chlorite-illite assemblage has not yet been recognized at Ryuo indicating the epithermal system is preserved and that the main high-grade boiling zone lies at depth. Additionally, the smectite / mixed-layer interface at Ryuo deepens or plunges to the southwest of the prospect. Similarly, the top of the rhyolite dome complex also lies deeper in the southwest of the alteration corridor, (Figure 4). Ongoing drilling will focus on targeting the deeper portions of the Ryuo hydrothermal system for high-grade mineralization associated with in the chlorite-illite zone. Ryuo Prospect The Ryuo Prospect consists of five areas of workings; Jinja, Shouei, Taisei, Ryuei and Buryu that were developed along a 1.2 km long, open ended trend of alteration and mineralization prior to the government-imposed closure in 1943 (Figure 2). Historical underground sampling in the Jinja vein workings revealed high-grade gold-silver mineralization including 'level 4' of the workings, which was sampled along a 72 m strike length giving an average grade of 40.8 g/t Au and 193 g/t Ag, with an average vein width approximately 0.5 m. Figure 3 illustrates a long-section of the Jinja vein workings with the underground sampling reported by the Metal Mining Agency of Japan (MMAJ)1. New Accepted Prospecting Rights Applications at the Ikutahara Project Eleven new prospecting rights were lodged to cover prospective Miocene volcanics immediately to the north and west of the Ryuo prospect to ensure coverage of potential strike and parallel extension to the Ryuo mineralization. The new applications comprising a total of 2,567 hectares have now been accepted by the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) Hokkaido, (Figure 1). Table 1: Significant Mineralized Intercepts for IKDD22-001 to IKDD22-007 Drill Hole Number From (m) To (m) Length (m) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) IKDD22-001 161.35 161.50 0.15 2.6 22.3 193.70 194.15 0.45 4.0 14.6 incl. 193.70 193.95 0.25 6.6 18.0 360.80 361.15 0.35 1.2 1.3 390.00 390.25 0.25 4.2 10.0 IKDD22-002 164.50 164.60 0.10 4.3 2.4 233.65 233.80 0.15 13.1 8.4 280.95 281.35 0.40 19.0 15.7 incl. 280.95 281.15 0.20 34.6 25.0 IKDD22-003 198.45 199.35 0.90 1.1 1.2 IKDD22-004 No Significant Intersections IKDD22-005 276.00 276.75 0.75 22.50 41.30 IKDD22-006 253.55 253.90 0.35 2.10 6.10 309.20 309.40 0.20 1.50 1.40 IKDD22-007 245.45 245.65 0.20 4.60 7.40 266.80 267.90 1.10 2.90 11.70 incl. 266.95 267.60 0.65 4.50 14.70 incl. 267.25 267.60 0.35 7.00 22.10 285.60 286.40 0.80 2.50 19.40 incl. 286.00 286.25 0.25 4.40 24.10 288.40 288.80 0.40 12.80 35.30 incl. 288.60 288.80 0.20 23.70 64.70 Table 2: Ryuo Prospect Drill Hole Data Drill Hole Number Location Easting Northing RL Azimuth Dip Length IKDD22-001 Buryu 700306.89 4872705.56 214.00 295 -40 683.00 IKDD22-002 Jinja 700367.00 4873243.00 199.00 0 -35 358.50 IKDD22-003 Shouei 700396.00 4873412.00 192.00 143 -50 307.30 IKDD22-004 Jinja 700367.00 4873243.00 199.00 350 -35 336.00 IKDD22-005 Taisei 700396.00 4873412.00 192.00 160 -41 418.80 IKDD22-006 Jinja 700367.00 4873243.00 199.00 13 -40 495.00 IKDD22-007 Ryuei 700307.31 4872792.21 216.00 325 -40 289.40 TOTAL 2,888.00 Reference 1 Metal Mining Agency of Japan, March 1990, Geological Survey Report for Fiscal Year 1989, Northern Hokkaido Area B-Metalliferous Deposits Overview. 2 Eiji Izawa et.al. 1990. The Hishikari Gold Deposit: high-grade epithermal veins in Quaternary volcanics of southern Kyushu Japan. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 36 (1990) pp 1-56 On behalf of the Board of Japan Gold Corp. "John Proust" Chairman & CEO Qualified Person The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Japan Gold Vice President of Exploration and Country Manager, Andrew Rowe, BAppSc, FAusIMM, FSEG, who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Sampling Techniques and Assaying The drilling results discussed in this news release are from drill core samples obtained by PQ, HQ and NQ-size triple-tube diamond core drilling using a PMC700 and PMC-400 man-portable drill rigs owned and operated by the Company. The drilling program was fully supervised by Company senior geologists at the drilling site. Drill core was collected in plastic core-trays at the drill site and transported by road in Company vehicles to its core shed storage facility in the nearby Ikutahara Village, located centrally within the project area. The drill core was carefully logged, photographed and sample intervals marked-up along predicted mineralized and selected unmineralized intervals by Japan Gold KK senior project geologists and VP Exploration. Sample lengths varied from 0.15 to 1.0 m; depending on the positions of geological contacts and variations in vein texture and composition. The core was split by diamond rock saw supervised by project geologists. Half-core sample was collected from the entire length of each designated sample interval and placed into individual-labelled, self-sealing calico bags for secure packaging and transport to the laboratory. The half-core samples weighed between 0.25 to 5 kg depending on the sample length and core size. A Chain-of-Custody was established between the Company and receiving laboratory to ensure the integrity of the samples during transportation from site to the lab. The samples were sent in batches to ALS Laboratories in Vancouver, Canada for sample preparation and assaying. Samples were crushed, pulverised and assayed for gold 50 g charge Fire Assay/ AAS Finish (Au-AA24; 0.005 ppm lower detection limit) and a 48 multi-element by 4-acid digest with ICP-MS determination (ME-MS61L; Ag 0.002 ppm lower detection limit). Over-limit Au and Ag samples were re-assayed by fire-assay and gravimetric finish (GRA-22, LDL of 0.5 and 5 ppm for Au and Ag respectively). Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) were inserted by Japan Gold KK at every 20th sample to assess repeatability and assaying precision of the laboratory. In addition, the laboratory applied its own internal Quality Control procedure that includes sample duplicates, blanks & geochemical standards. They report these results with the certified Assay Report. Laboratory procedures and QAQC protocols adopted are considered appropriate. The CRMs and internal QC-QA results fall within acceptable levels of accuracy & precision and are considered to lack any bias. Note on spectral analysis for identification of clay assemblages from drill core: ALS laboratories provides a spectral analysis of coarse sample material using TerraSpec 4 HR and aiSIRIS expert spectral interpretation. Mineral assemblages are provided related to project geology. Spectral analysis used herein is interpretive for mixed layer species and used as a guide, more definitive XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) analysis are currently being undertaken to accurately identify clay species and subsequent alteration zonation for more accurate interpretations. About Japan Gold Corp. Japan Gold Corp. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused solely on gold exploration across the three largest islands of Japan: Hokkaido, Honshu and Kyushu. The Company has a country-wide alliance with Barrick Gold Corporation to jointly explore, develop and mine certain gold mineral properties and mining projects. The Company holds a portfolio of 31 gold projects which cover areas with known gold occurrences, a history of mining and are prospective for high-grade epithermal gold mineralization. Japan Gold's leadership team represent decades of resource industry and business experience, and the Company has an operational team of geologists, drillers and technical advisors with experience exploring and operating in Japan. More information is available at www.japangold.com or by email at info@japangold.com For further information please contact: John Proust Chairman & CEO Phone: 778-725-1491 Email: jproust@japangold.com Website: www.japangold.com Cautionary Note Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to expected or anticipated future events and anticipated results related to future partnerships and the Company's 2022 gold exploration program. These statements are forward-looking in nature and, as a result, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that include, but are not limited to, general economic, market and business conditions; competition for qualified staff; the regulatory process and actions; technical issues; new legislation; potential delays or changes in plans; working in a new political jurisdiction; results of exploration; the timing and granting of prospecting rights; the Company's ability to execute and implement future plans, arrange or conclude a joint-venture or partnership; and the occurrence of unexpected events. Actual results achieved may differ from the information provided herein and, consequently, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained herein speaks only as of the date of this News Release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise forward-looking information or to explain any material difference between such and subsequent actual events, except as required by applicable laws. Figure 1: Ikutahara Project, new and existing prospecting rights and applications on simplified geology with historical mines and workings. To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5665/140103_57db67fc442739a5_001full.jpg Figure 2: Ryuo prospect, alteration map with historical workings and drill holes completed to date. To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5665/140103_57db67fc442739a5_002full.jpg Figure 3: Ryuo Prospect, Jinja & Shouei veins cross section with geology, interpreted alteration and all significant drill intersections to date. To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5665/140103_57db67fc442739a5_003full.jpg Figure 4: Ryuo prospect, Ryuei vein cross section with geology, interpreted alteration and all significant drill intersections to date. To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5665/140103_57db67fc442739a5_004full.jpg Figure 5: Ryuo prospect long section with geology, interpreted alteration and drill hole pierce points and significant intersections. To view an enhanced version of Figure 5, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5665/140103_57db67fc442739a5_005full.jpg To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140103 NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Data Bridge Market research has newly released expansive study titled "Global Elevator Market" guarantees you will remain better informed than your competition. This study provides the broader perspective of the market place with its comprehensive market insights and analysis which eases surviving and succeeding in the market. Elevator Market market research report can be used to double check the data collected through internal analyses. It guides the changes and aids to look for ways to justify what third parties say so that businesses aren't myopic and caught up in their own data. Elevator Market market report guides to stay up to date on the market as a whole and give a holistic view of the market allowing the benchmarking of all the companies in the industry, not just the ones that are focused. Such third-party report is more unbiased and hence provides a better picture of what's really happening in the market. Global Elevator Market was valued at USD 99.30 million in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 130.76 million by 2029, registering a CAGR of 3.50% during the forecast period of 2022-2029. In addition to the market insights such as market value, growth rate, market segments, geographical coverage, market players, and market scenario, the market report curated by the Data Bridge Market Research team includes in-depth expert analysis, import/export analysis, pricing analysis, production consumption analysis, and consumer behavior. Get Exclusive Sample of Elevator Market Report in PDF Version @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-elevator-market According to the United Nations' 2017 World Population Prospects data, approximately 2.1 billion older people are expected to be alive by 2050. Although ageing is unavoidable, maintaining a comfortable lifestyle as a geriatric is within our control. The elderly population requires elevator products to make their lives more comfortable. The majority of the elderly suffer from unavoidable illnesses such as cardiovascular disease or arthritis. The elevator market will help increase the longevity of the elderly population by allowing them to avoid a painful flight of stairs, resulting in high demand from this segment of society. As a result, the market is projected to have an accelerated pace over the forecast period Elevators or lifts are vertical transport berths housed in a shaft or platform for helping ascend and descend people or materials between floors and levels. They are generally operated by electric motors that power counterweight equipment and traction cables or pump hydraulic fluid to ascend a cylindrical system. Most of the multistoried buildings have lifts to facilitate aid of travel and wheelchair access laws. Elevators are widely used in the construction industries for shipping goods and carrying people from one floor to another. Increased Usage of Energy-efficient and Green-building Materials According to a study conducted by the American Council for an Energy-efficient Economy (ACEEE), elevators and escalators can consume 2 percent -5 percent of the energy used in buildings, with peak operational times reaching 50 percent. This represents an important alternative for reducing global energy consumption and achieving sustainability. Growing environmental concerns have increased the demand for green, environmentally friendly products. Consumer expectations for value-added products for elevators, escalators, and moving walkways are steadily shifting toward premium green building materials. The use of green building materials can significantly reduce emissions. These materials aid in energy conservation, achieve sustainability, lower emissions, and also protect the environment. Therefore, the adoption of green building codes and energy-efficient products will further extend profitable opportunities to the market players in the forecast period of 2022 to 2029. Installation of Advanced IoT Technology-enabled Elevator and Escalator Additionally, the elevators and escalators, which are essential components of residential and commercial buildings, are experiencing a significant increase in demand worldwide. With the increasing incorporation of ultra-modern facilities ranging from elevator safety solutions to elevator air purification equipment, advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) technology are estimated further to expand the future growth of the elevator market. Some of the major players operating in the Elevator market are Schindler ( Switzerland ) ) Otis Elevator Company (I). Ltd. (U.S.) Thyssenkrupp AG ( Germany ) ) KONE Corporation ( Finland ) ) Hitachi Ltd. ( Japan ) ) Schindler ( Switzerland ) ) FUJITEC CO., LTD (Hikone) HYUNDAIELEVATOR CO., LTD., ( South Korea ) ) Electra Elevators ( India ) ) Mitsubishi Electric Corporation ( Japan ) ) thyssenkrupp AG ( Germany ) ) EXPRESS LIFTS LTD ( India ) ) Elevator World, LLC ( Alabama ) ) Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation ( Malaysia ) ) EITA Elevator (M) Sdn. Bhd. ( Malaysia ) ) Orona (U.S.) Access In-depth Research Report @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/checkout/buy/enterprise/global-elevator-market Benefits of Considering This Research Report:- Client satisfaction: The team at Data Bridge Market Research will assist with all research requirements and offer customized or syndicate report Inimitable Expertise: Analysts will offer in-depth insights into this global Market Analysts Support: Get instant query resolved by the expert's pre and post-purchase of this Market report Assured Quality: Market Research Outlet maintains the accuracy and quality of this Market Key Drivers Growth in Construction Sector Urbanization and population growth are predicted to add 2.5 billion people to the world's cities by 2050. This will stimulate the construction industry, resulting in increased demand for elevators. Elevators are widely utilized in the construction sector for moving items and people from one floor to the next. With a regional share of 39 percent -41 percent in 2018, Europe leads the elevator market share geographically. According to the European Builders Confederation, the construction industry provides 9% of European GDP. The increasing inclination towards elevator to escape from everyday stress and boredom will further propel the growth rate of elevator market. Additionally, the growth in female gamblers along with the rapid urbanization will also drive market value growth over forecast period. Furthermore, the availability of low-cost mobile applications, increased digitization, a variety of safe digital payment alternatives, an increase in disposable money and increased use of digital currencies and websites also boosts the overall market's growth. Segmentation Covered: Elevator Market Product Hydraulic and Pneumatic Machine Room [MR] Traction Machine Room-Less [MRL] Traction Deck Type Single Deck Double Deck Application Passengers Freight Destination Control Smart Conventional Technology Traction elevator Machine Room less Traction Elevator Hydraulic Installation New Installation Maintenance Modernization Industry Residential Commercial Institutional Infrastructure Others Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-elevator-market Elevator Market Regional Analysis/Insights: The countries covered in the elevator market report are U.S., Canada and Mexico in North America, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Rest of Europe in Europe, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific (APAC) in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) as a part of Middle East and Africa (MEA), Brazil, Argentina and Rest of South America as part of South America. North America dominates the market in terms of market share and market revenue and will continue to flourish its dominance during the forecast period of 2022-2029. The market growth over this region is attributed to the various government initiatives to propel the construction sector within the region. On the other hand, Asia-Pacific is estimated to show lucrative growth over the forecast period of 2022-2029, due to the rising expenditures and supportive government policies in the region. The Elevator Investment made in the study would provide you access to information such as: Elevator Market [Global - Broken-down into regions] [Global - Broken-down into regions] Regional level split [ North America , Europe , Asia Pacific , South America , Middle East & Africa ] , , , , & ] Country wise Market Size Split [of important countries with major market share] Market Share and Revenue/Sales by leading players Market Trends - Emerging Technologies/products/start-ups, PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Porter's Five Forces, etc. - Emerging Technologies/products/start-ups, PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Porter's Five Forces, etc. Market Size Market Size by application/industry verticals Market Projections/Forecast Table of Contents: Introduction Market Segmentation Executive Summary Premium Insights Global Elevator Market: Regulations Market Overview Global Elevator Market, By Product Global Elevator Market, By Deck Type Global Elevator Market, By Application Global Elevator Market, By Technology Global Elevator Market, By Installation Global Elevator Market, By End User Global Elevator Market, By Industry Global Elevator Market, By Region Global Elevator Market: Company Landscape SWOT Analyses Company Profile Questionnaires Related Reports For More Insights Grab TOC @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-elevator-market Browse Related Reports: Elevator and Escalator Market, By Type (Elevators, Escalator and Moving Walkways), Service (New installation, Maintenance and repair and Modernization), Technology (Elevator Technology), End use Industry (Residential, Commercial, Institutional, Infrastructure and Others), and Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Germany, Italy, U.K., France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa) Industry Trends and Forecast https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-elevator-and-escalator-market Internet of Things (IoT) in Elevators Market, By Component (Services, Software, Hardware), Application (Connectivity Management, Advanced Reporting, Remote Monitoring, Preventive Maintenance, Others), End- Users (Industrial, Commercial, Residential), Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Germany, Italy, U.K., France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-iot-in-elevators-market Smart Elevator Market, By Component (Control Systems, Maintenance Systems, Communication Systems), Installation (Low and Mid-rise, High Rise), Application (Residential, Commercial, Institutional, Automated Vehicle Storage and Retrieval System), Carrier (Passenger, Freight), Service (New Installation Services, Modernization Services, Maintenance Services), Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Germany, France, Italy, U.K., Belgium, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-smart-elevator-market Aircraft Elevator Market, By Product Type (Horizontal Stabilator Aircraft Elevator, Elevons Aircraft Elevator, Levcons Aircraft Elevator), Aircraft Type (Narrow Body Aircraft, Wide Body Aircraft, Regional Jet, and Others), Wing Type (Fixed-Wing Aircraft and Rotary Wing Aircraft), Application (Commercial Air Transport, Business and General Aviation, and Military Aviation), Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Germany, Italy, U.K., France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-aircraft-elevator-market Smart Elevator Automation System Market, By Service (Installation Service, Repair & Maintenance Service, Modernization Service), Component (Card Reader, Biometric, Touch Screen and Keypad, Security and Control System, Sensors, Motors and Automation System, Building Management System), End-User (Residential Sector, Commercial Sector, Hotel, Other), Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Germany, Italy, U.K., France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-smart-elevator-automation-system-market India Elevator Market, By Product (Passenger Elevator, and Freight Elevator), Technology (Machine Room-Less (MRL)Traction, Hydraulic Elevator, Traction Elevator, and Pneumatic Elevator), Deck (Single Deck, and Double Deck), Capacity (450KG-1150 KG, 1150-1500 KG, 1500-2000 KG, 2000-3000 KG, and Above 3000 KG), Destination Control (Smart, Conventional), Application (Commercial, Residential, Industrial, Institutional, and Medical) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/india-elevator-market About Data Bridge Market Research: An absolute way to forecast what future holds is to comprehend the trend today! Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavours to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process. Data Bridge is an aftermath of sheer wisdom and experience which was formulated and framed in the year 2015 in Pune. Data Bridge Market Research has over 500 analysts working in different industries. We have catered more than 40% of the fortune 500 companies globally and have a network of more than 5000+ clientele around the globe. Data Bridge adepts in creating satisfied clients who reckon upon our services and rely on our hard work with certitude. We are content with our glorious 99.9 % client satisfying rate. Contact Us:- Data Bridge Market Research US: +1 888 387 2818 UK: +44 208 089 1725 Hong Kong: +852 8192 7475 Email:- corporatesales@databridgemarketresearch.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1011053/Data_Bridge_Market_Research_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/elevator-market-is-projected-to-grow-usd-130-76-million-by-2029--size-growth-rates-cost-factors-applications-key-players-and-global-industry-outlook-301645806.html Global hospitality group The Lux Collective and P Q Hai Quoc Joint Stock Company have signed a hotel management agreement to build a luxury overwater resort under the LUX* Resorts & Hotels brand on the island of Phu Quoc, Vietnam. Named LUXNAM* Phu Quoc, the resort is set in one of Asias most sought-after destinations and is expected to open in late 2024. We are honoured to partner with the P Q Hai Quoc Joint Stock Company to manage this new built overwater resort located on the remote Northern coast of Phu Quoc, which is adjacent to a UNESCO-listed Biosphere Reserve spanning over 314,000 square metres of unique flora and fauna, evergreen forest and dense mountain range. Inspired by the iconic Maldivian-style overwater resorts, this is a first for Vietnam and the region, said Mr Paul Jones, Chief Executive Officer of The Lux Collective. We are delighted to be the first strategic partner of The Lux Collective in Southeast Asia. Collaborating on the LUX* flagship luxury brand, we envision LUXNAM* Phu Quoc to become one of Southeast Asias top luxury resort destinations with its unique overwater design and extraordinary experiences. The tropical modernist resort, designed around sustainability, will showcase natural beauty from every room to inspire the most discerning traveller looking for a natural escape, exquisite design and conscious travel, said Mr Duy Tran, Chief Executive Officer of P Q Hai Quoc Joint Stock Company. We are proud to work with The Lux Collective on the stunning LUXNAM* Phu Quoc project. We are certain that this long-term strategic alliance will help to promote Phu Quoc as a heaven-on-earth destination mapping it as the Maldives of Vietnam among global travellers, said Mr Bao Vu, Chairman of P Q Hai Quoc Joint Stock Company. One-of-a-kind in Asia, LUXNAM* Phu Quoc is an eye-catching overwater resort on a jungle-draped island off the coast of Vietnam. Tucked away between a pristine beach and tropical jungle, the dragon-shaped resort consists of two areas connected by a sleek 4-kilometre long jetty over the lagoon. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires MOUNTAIN VIEW (dpa-AFX) - Toyota and Google Cloud announced Tuesday an expanded partnership that brings together Toyota and Lexus next-generation audio multimedia systems and Google Cloud's AI-based speech services. Toyota's next-generation system will no longer require an internet connection for natural-speech functions. Customers can now experience the first results of the partnership in the latest generation Toyota Audio Multimedia and Lexus Interface infotainment systems, including in 2023 models like the Toyota Corolla family, Tundra, Sequoia and Lexus NX, RX and all-electric RZ. Vehicles equipped with Toyota's latest-generation Automotive Grade Linux-based Audio Multimedia and Lexus Interface infotainment systems already leverage Google Cloud's Speech-to-Text service to accurately perform automatic speech recognition for in-vehicle queries. Toyota's Voice Assistant, which leverages technology from Google Cloud, was co-developed by Toyota Motor North America Connected Technologies and Toyota Connected organizations since 2018. The partnership highlights the AI and machine learning innovation brought forth in the latest Toyota and Lexus infotainment systems. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Shippeo, a global leader in real-time multimodal transportation visibility, has announced the appointment of Philippe Van Hove as Chief Revenue Officer to scale Shippeo's worldwide operations. As a senior executive and SaaS veteran, Philippe Van Hove will support Shippeo's ongoing period of hyper-growth to reach ambitious goals set by the Board. He will oversee the global expansion of Shippeo in Europe, the US and the APAC region. Philippe brings 25 years of experience in scaling fast-growing, international SaaS organizations, managing multi-country sales operations, marketing, lead generation, human resources, and finance. He started his career at PTC and later held various senior European positions in software companies such as Bladelogic, BMC Software, Workday, Zuora and, more recently, Lacework. Lucien Besse, Shippeo's Chief Operating Officer and co-founder, said: "We are thrilled to welcome Philippe to the Shippeo team. As Chief Revenue Officer, he will have responsibility for Shippeo's global pan-European sales operations, playing a key role in the company's development and continued success. His in-depth knowledge and experience within the SaaS market are invaluable, and he will no doubt be a great asset within our leadership team." With over 150 enterprise-level customers, including global brands like Coca-Cola HBC, Faurecia, Renault, AkzoNobel, and Total, Shippeo offers a best-in-market ETA prediction in terms of accuracy and reliability, as well as a highly granular degree of multimodal tracking, right down to handling unit and goods levels across all transport modes, including ocean, road, rail, and air. Shippeo's ambition is to be the leading supply chain operating system, enabling fully automated and sustainable supply chains across the world. Having launched in the North American market earlier this year, Shippeo's expansion is maintaining momentum through a recently announced partnership with E2open Parent Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ETWO), the connected supply chain SaaS platform with the largest multi-enterprise network. For more information, visit www.shippeo.com Ends About Shippeo (https://www.shippeo.com) Shippeo is a global leader in real-time multimodal transportation visibility, helping major shippers and logistics service providers operate more collaborative, automated, sustainable, profitable, and customer-centric supply chains. This is made possible with highly accurate, real-time operational visibility and perfect workflow orchestration. Their Multimodal Visibility Network integrates with more than 875 TMS, telematics and ELD systems, enabling Shippeo's platform to provide instant access to real-time shipment tracking across all transport modes, in a single portal, through an intuitive user experience. A proprietary and industry-leading machine learning algorithm offers unmatched ETA accuracy, allowing supply chain companies to quickly anticipate problems, proactively alert customers, efficiently manage exceptions with collaborative workflows, and accurately measure CO2 and GHG emissions from supply chain transport. Hundreds of customers, including global brands like Coca-Cola HBC, Carrefour, Renault Group, Schneider Electric, Total, Faurecia, Saint-Gobain and EckesGranini, trust Shippeo to track more than 28 million shipments per year across 75 countries. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221010005487/en/ Contacts: Contacts for media enquiries: Andrea Krug, Krug Communications Ltd, tel. +44 (0)7740 245 867, email: andrea@krugcomms.com Daria Sainani, Head of Growth Marketing, tel. +33 6 7620 3772, email: daria.sainani@shippeo.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - McFarlane Lake Mining Limited (NEO: MLM) (OTCQB: MLMLF) ("McFarlane Lake" or "the Company"), a Canadian gold exploration and development company, today announced that it has acquired 16 new claims for its McMillan/Mongowin property located near Espanola, Ontario approximately 80 kilometres southwest of Sudbury, Ontario. All 16 claims were staked through the Ontario Mining Lands Administration System by McFarlane Lake. These new claims substantially increase the Company's land holdings in the area by 352.5 hectares to 3,247.5 hectares (Figure 1). Figure 1 - McMillan/Mongowin location of new claims To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8133/140114_baa961174405ab4f_002full.jpg. These newly acquired claims extend McFarlane Lake's coverage of the favourable gold mineralizing contact between the Espanola and Gowganda Formations by 1.9 kilometres. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, several historic gold mining operations were located along this structure (Figure 2). Figure 2 - McMillan Mine area additional claims and gold showings To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8133/140114_baa961174405ab4f_003full.jpg. A working gold mine was present on the Company's McMillan property which between 1934 and 1937 reported production of 60,139 tons of ore for a recovered grade of 0.176 ounces per ton (6.03 grams per tonne) (NI 43-101 Report, Butler 2006). In addition, Bob Tough Gold Mines explored an area immediately west of the current claims in 1935 with test pitting and shaft sinking to a depth of 150 feet and crosscutting for 118 feet on the 150-foot level and reported grades of up to 3.61 ounces per ton of gold (123.77 grams per tonne) (Assessment Work Report 41I04NW0045, Filo 1984). The Ontario Geological Survey has identified this specific area of the province as "Recommendations for Exploration," as noted in their report for 2011/12 and 2017/18. "With past gold mining activity in this area, we are excited to add these claims to our portfolio. These claims enhance our already attractive land position on the McMillan Mine trend and significantly increases our exploration opportunities," said Mark Trevisiol, President and CEO of McFarlane Lake. "This is aligned with our strategy of targeting areas with historic mineralization and gold production to develop NI 43-101 compliant resources. A simple strategy of 'go find gold where it's been found and mined before'." McFarlane Lake Mining has successfully implemented this strategy recently. At its past producing West Hawk Lake property, McFarlane Lake conducted exploration earlier this year and extended its Waverly Zone an additional 100 metres along strike and 100 metres deeper than past known mineralization (see the announcement by McFarlane Lake May 25/2022). McFarlane Lake plans to develop an exploration plan for its McMillan property and its newly staked properties near McMillan later this year. Qualified Person The technical contents of this news release have been reviewed and approved by Robert Kusins, Vice President of Geology of McFarlane Lake. Mr. Kusins is a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. However, Mr. Kusins is not independent of the Company by virtue of his position. About McFarlane Lake Mining McFarlane Lake is a Canadian gold exploration and development company with six gold properties with historic mineralization; two straddling the Ontario-Manitoba border, which are geologically similar to a number of significant gold deposits in Ontario and an additional two west of Sudbury in a region consistently on the top gold exploration opportunities as identified by the Ontario Geological Survey (reports of 2011 and 2018). The two remaining properties are located in the historic Timmins area along the prolific Porcupine Destor fault, home to dozens of mines over the last century and several current producing mines. Three of the properties are past producers of gold, and all six properties are near infrastructure (roads, power), significant population bases and in a geopolitically stable environment. To learn more, visit: https://mcfarlanelakemining.com/ Additional information on McFarlane Lake can be found by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of McFarlane Lake to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption "Risks Factors" in the Company's Filing Statement dated as of January 14, 2022 which is available for view on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and McFarlane Lake disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. McFarlane Lake's' operations could be significantly adversely affected by the effects of a widespread global outbreak of a contagious disease, including the recent outbreak of illness caused by COVID-19. It is not possible to accurately predict the impact COVID-19 will have on operations and the ability of others to meet their obligations, including uncertainties relating to the ultimate geographic spread of the virus, the severity of the disease, the duration of the outbreak, and the length of travel and quarantine restrictions imposed by governments of affected countries. In addition, a significant outbreak of contagious diseases in the human population could result in a widespread health crisis that could adversely affect the economies and financial markets of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that could further affect operations and the ability to finance its operations. Further Information For further information regarding McFarlane Lake, please contact: Mark Trevisiol, Chief Executive Officer, President and Director McFarlane Lake Mining Limited mtrevisiol@mcfarlanelakemining.com 1 705-665-5087 Craig MacPhail NATIONAL Capital Markets cmacphail@national.ca 1 416-525-5709 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140114 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Enerev5 Metals Inc. (TSXV: ENEV) (OTCQB: ENEVF) (the "Company") announces that it has appointed Errol Farr to replace resigning CFO, Philip Gibbs, as Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary. The Company would like to thank Mr. Gibbs for his contributions to the Company which are much appreciated, and the Company wishes him well in the future. Mr. Farr, CPA, CMA, is a seasoned financial professional with over 35 years of experience in financial management and reporting, operations, business optimization and strategy development. He currently is CFO, COO and Corporate Secretary of Zonetail Inc., a locally based, marketing and technology company, focused on the high-rise residential and hotel markets, CFO of AurCrest Mining Inc., with gold properties in Red Lake, Ontario, and CFO and Corporate Secretary of AFR NuVenture Resources Inc., a mining exploration company with projects in the United States and Canada. He is former CFO of Anaconda Mining Inc., a gold producer, former President and CEO of Adex Mining Inc., where he led the development plans of the Mount Pleasant mine site in New Brunswick, Canada, and former CFO of MagIndustries Corp. where he participated in the development of its potash project and led the development of its forestry assets including the construction of its $30 million wood chipping mill in the port city of Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo. He is also formerly the Performance Mentor at a private industrial tape converter. In addition to its existing projects, the Company continues to pursue its active search for attractive projects and opportunities. All actions described in this press release are subject to necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals. About Enerev5 Metals Inc. Enerev5 Metals Inc. (TSXV: ENEV) (OTCQB: ENEVF) is a Canadian resource company focusing on exploration and development potential related to energy metals such as cobalt, copper and other strategic battery minerals, as well as other net zero related assets. For more information on the Company, investors should review the Company's filings at www.sedar.com. For additional information, please contact: John F. O'Donnell CEO and Chairman of the Board Enerev5 Metals Inc. Telephone: +1-647-966-3100 Website: www.enerev5.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140116 Rapid Implementation of Innovative Techniques For Product Development, Introduction of Advanced Medical Crutches, Rising Incidences Of Debilitating Neurological Diseases And Injuries, And Increasing Initiatives By Governments To Ensure The Availability of Walking Assistance Devices To A Large Consumer Base Are Factors Contributing To Market Growth NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As per the latest industry analysis by Fact.MR, a market research and competitive intelligence provider, global demand for walking assist devices is forecasted to increase at a CAGR of 2.6% from 2022 to 2027. When used under the guidance of therapists and medical professionals, walking assist devices help injured individuals walk more easily. Basic design features include a light bodyweight and two or four wheels to assist users when they are walking. Rising prevalence of rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, soaring need for rehabilitation equipment, and rapid increase in the elderly population are the major drivers of the walking assist devices market. Sales of walking assist devices are booming thanks to growing activities by key businesses. Demand for assistive walking aids is also being driven by neurological illnesses and traumas. The number of elderly people is increasing, which causes disability and knee weakness. Balance, support, and ultimately the capacity to live independently are provided by walking aids. Get A Sample Copy of this Report! https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=7754 Demand for walking assist devices is increasing as governments have raised healthcare spending and financing for technological integration, such as the usage of robots in walking assist devices to help patients. Older people have a higher probability of becoming impaired. The geriatric population can engage in all parts of life to the same level or the same extent as everyone else thanks to developments in mobility equipment. People can reach their full potential at work with improved mobility and these solutions can also support them in extending their mobility. Key Takeaways from Market Study The global walking assist devices market is predicted to reach US$ 7.4 billion by 2027. by 2027. Market in Canada is projected to evolve at a CAGR of 2% over the forecast period. is projected to evolve at a CAGR of 2% over the forecast period. Market in Germany is forecasted to rise at a CAGR of 1.5% through 2027. is forecasted to rise at a CAGR of 1.5% through 2027. Demand for gait belts & lift vests is predicted to increase at a CAGR of 2.8% from 2022 to 2027. Competitive Landscape Key players in the walking assist devices market are actively involved in the production of innovative mobility devices for walking that will have a significant impact on the quality and longevity of the devices, influencing market expansion. For instance: In 2022, Cionic introduced bionic clothes to assist patients with walking issues caused by neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and cerebral palsy. Walking Assist Devices Market: Major Key Players Levo AG MEYRA GmbH Ossenberg GmbH Permobil Drive Medical Besco Medical Limited Betterlifehealthcare Ltd. Comfort Orthopedic Co., Ltd. Electric Mobility Euro Ltd. GF Health Products, Inc. Invacare Corporation Karma Healthcare Ltd. Otto Bock Australia Pty. Ltd. Pride Mobility Products Corporation Get Customize Report as per Your Requirements! https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=7754 Key Segments in Walking Assist Devices Industry Research By Product Type: Gait Belts & Lift Vests Canes Crutches Walkers Wheelchairs Power Scooters By Distribution Channel: Online Offline By Region: North America Europe Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa Choose Quick and Secure PayPal Payment Mode to Get Full Access of This Report https://www.factmr.com/checkout/7754 Winning Strategy Key companies continuously release updates and new product specifications to maintain a competitive edge in the market. Top market players use a variety of strategies, such as product launches, partnerships, and the introduction of advanced technology to increase their market shares and output. Major market participants are focused on product innovations in assisted walking devices and expanding their supply network and distribution channels. For instance, In 2021, Panasonic Corporation produced a mass-production prototype of their Walk Training Robot, which is designed to teach senior citizens how to walk safely and effectively. To assist those who are unable to walk but desire to lead better lives, Panasonic engaged in creating and showcasing AI-powered robotic walking training systems. More Valuable Insights on Offer Fact.MR, in its new offering, presents an unbiased analysis of the global walking assist devices market, presenting historical demand data (2017-2021) and forecast statistics for the period of 2022-2027. The study divulges essential insights on the market on the basis of product type (gait belts & lift vests, canes, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, power scooters) and distribution channel (online, offline), across five major regions (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and MEA). Browse Latest Healthcare Industry Reports By Fact.MR Canes and Crutches Market: An increase in the number of admissions to rehabilitation centres, on account of rising cases of substance abuse and alcohol addiction, is also likely to catalyse the adoption of canes and crutches, as patients tend to lose their balance during these programs. As per the International Osteoporosis Foundation, each year, rheumatoid arthritis is found to affect 41 individuals in 100,000 people. Given this alarming rise in chronic conditions and aging individuals, players are likely to witness parallel revenue streams driven by multiple demographics in the canes and crutches market. Scoliosis Traction Chairs Market: The primary factor driving the growth of scoliosis traction chair market are the rising incidences of scoliosis throughout the globe. Moreover, increasing adoption chairs and braces for the treatment of scoliosis will propel the growth of scoliosis traction chair market over the forecast period. Shower Chairs Market: Global shower chairs sales are expected to observe significant growth in sales in upcoming years, with prominent regions such as North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific emerging as potential growth hotspots. In addition, increasing age, health problems, and physical inability hampers movement in elderly people. Thus, the use of shower chairs has become extremely essential, boosting sales. Specialty Medical Chairs Market: Fact.MR's specialty medical chairs industry analysis reveals that the global market was valued at US$ 5 Bn in 2020, and is projected to top US$ 7 Bn by 2031, expanding at a CAGR of 6%. Demand for specialty medical chairs for examination purposes is projected to reach a valuation of US$ 2 Bn by 2031, increasing at a CAGR of 5%, with that for treatment chairs surging at 8%. Orthopedic Navigation Systems Market: The global orthopedic navigation systems market has reached a valuation of US$ 197.9 million in 2022 and is expected to balloon at a CAGR of 17% to reach US$ 433.8 million by 2027. About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a market research and consulting agency with deep expertise in emerging market intelligence. Spanning a wide range - from automotive & industry 4.0 to healthcare, technology, chemical and materials, to even the most niche categories. We are committed to deliver insights that help businesses gain deeper understanding of their target markets. We understand that making sense of the vast labyrinth of data can be overwhelming for businesses. That's why focus on offering insights that can actually make a difference to bottom-lines. Specialties: Competition Tracking, Customized Research, Syndicated Research, Investment Research, Social Media Research, Business Intelligence, Industry Analysis, Thought Leadership. Contact: Mahendra Singh US Sales Office 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 United States Tel: +1 (628) 251-1583, +353-1-4434-232 E: sales@factmr.com Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/713666/FactMR_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sales-of-walking-assist-devices-to-reach-us-7-4-billion-by-2027-crutches-is-the-preferred-segment--factmr-study-301645824.html VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / CanXGold Mining Corp., (TSXV:CXG)(FRANKFURT:3G8C)(OTC PINK:GDMRF), ("CanXGold" or the "Company"), announces that the third drill hole is now being started at its Phoenix Property, part of the Greenwood Precious Metals project in southeastern BC. Photo of diamond drill being setup at third site for 2022 program CanXGold's third diamond drill hole is now underway. This hole is targeting a large conductive anomaly detected by the 2022 airborne geophysical survey, located 2 kilometers west of the historic Phoenix open pit mine. Depth to the top of the anomalous conductivity is approximately 150 meters, based on resistivity-depth sections. The bedrock in this area consists of Paleozoic Knob Hill Complex metasedimentary and metavolcanic strata. The hole will be drilled to a minimum depth of 250 meters. Map of VTEM Conductivity (TauSF) showing target areas of high conductivity in purple. Hole 3 is now underway at site C. The anomaly being tested by hole 3 is a northeast-trending ovoid feature measuring 1.4 x 0.9 kilometers. Its western limit coincides with a conductive anomaly identified on the edge of a previous 2008 airborne survey (Aeroquest Snowshoe Project). Although the entire anomaly was not surveyed at that time due to claim ownership, it was classified as a high priority target for follow-up drilling. Readers are cautioned that historical records referred to in this News Release have been examined but not verified by a Qualified Person. Further work is required to verify that historical records referred to in this News Release are accurate. Technical disclosure in this news release has been approved by Dr. Mathew Ball, P.Geo., President of the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 On behalf of the Board of Directors: CANXGOLD MINING CORP. Per: "Christopher R. Anderson" Christopher R. Anderson CEO For further information, please contact: CanXGold Mining Corp. - Corporate Communications: Tel: 604-288-2610 Email: Office@CanXGold.com Forward-Looking Statement Cautions: This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, relating to, among other things, preliminary plans for a consolidation of the Company's Shares. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the possibility that the TSX Venture Exchange will not approve the proposed share consolidation, and that the Company may not be able to raise sufficient additional capital to continue its business. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of securities of the Company in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The Company's securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available. THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL, OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY, NOR SHALL THERE BE ANY SALE OF SECURITIES OF THE COMPANY IN ANY JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH OFFER, SOLICITATION OR SALE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL PRIOR TO REGISTRATION OR QUALIFICATION UNDER THE SECURITIES LAWS OF ANY SUCH JURISDICTION. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE: CanXGold Mining Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719842/CanXGold-Mining-Commences-Drilling-Hole-3-Testing-Conductive-Anomalies WILMINGTON, NC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Apiture , a leading provider of digital banking solutions, has been named Platinum Winner for Banking Innovation of the Year by Juniper Research's Future Digital Awards . The awards recognize organizations that have made outstanding contributions to their industry and are positioned to make a significant impact in the future. This is the second consecutive year that Apiture has been recognized for this award, a testament to the platform's agility in meeting the evolving digital banking needs of U.S. banks and credit unions. "It is an honor to be recognized once again by Juniper Research," said Chris Babcock, CEO of Apiture. "The entire Apiture team is focused on positioning financial institutions for the future by delivering the in-demand features today's consumers and businesses demand. We are committed to ongoing innovation through our in-house development efforts and partnerships with more than 200 best-of-breed fintechs." Apiture has announced several exciting developments this year. In February, Apiture launched the Apiture Digital Banking Platform , a suite of consumer and business banking solutions delivered on a single, cloud-based platform. In July, Apiture announced the closing of a $29 million fundraising round led by Live Oak Bank, with participation from Pinnacle Bank and BHG Financial. Most recently, Apiture was named a finalist for the 2022 NC Tech Awards , North Carolina's annual statewide awards program recognizing innovation, growth, and leadership in the tech sector. Apiture also debuted its own awards program, " Apiture Innovators ," to recognize the banks and credit unions demonstrating the most unique and innovative uses of the Apiture Digital Banking Platform . About Apiture: Apiture delivers award-winning digital banking solutions to banks and credit unions throughout the United States. Our flexible, highly configurable solutions meet a wide range of financial institutions' needs, from leveling the playing field with larger banks to enabling unique, digital-only brands. Through our API-first strategy, our clients can maximize the capabilities of their platform while preserving a seamless user experience. Our exclusive focus on digital banking means we're dedicated to delivering innovative solutions that meet the unique needs of our clients while providing a level of support that's unmatched in the industry. Apiture is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, with offices in Austin, Texas. To learn more, visit www.apiture.com . Media Contact: Derrius Rodgers Caliber Corporate Advisers derrius@calibercorporate.com SOURCE: Apiture View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719817/Apiture-Recognized-as-Platinum-Winner-of-Banking-Innovation-by-Juniper-Researchs-Future-Digital-Awards-for-Second-Consecutive-Year CRANBROOK, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. (TSXV:EPL) ("EPL" or "Eagle Plains") reports that it has successfully completed a three-hole, 1700m drilling program on Eagle Plains' 100% owned, Vulcan Project, located 30km west of Kimberley, BC. The Vulcan Property is accessible by an extensive network of well-maintained forest service roads. All three holes successfully intersected stratigraphy containing the Lower-Middle Aldridge contact ("LMC"), the same time-stratigraphic horizon which hosts the nearby Sullivan deposit. The second hole of the program (VU22004) is particularly significant and suggests close proximity to a lead-zinc mineralized feeder system. Downhole electromagnetic surveying was carried out at the completion of drilling activity (details following). The following summaries and photos are intended as preliminary updates only, with final detailed reporting to follow as laboratory analytical results are received, compiled and interpreted and final geophysical products have been received. Hole 1 (VU22003): Total depth 630.0m (2067'); Az: 100; Inclination: -50 As reported September 12th 2022, drill-hole VU22003 intersected minor disseminated sphalerite (zinc) mineralization near the top of the hole and a narrow (<10cm) band of stratiform sulphide (pyrrhotite) mineralization approximately 20m below the Lower Middle Contact ("LMC") in rocks of the Aldridge Formation. Preliminary results obtained using a portable XRF spectrometer indicate elevated zinc values for the interval. Geologists interpret this mineralization to represent the Sullivan time horizon and are encouraged with the results. A downhole geophysical (BHEM) survey was attempted on this hole, but near-surface caving within the hole prevented insertion of the downhole probe, resulting in abandonment of the survey in this area. Hole 2 (VU22004): Total depth 597.2m (1959'); Az: 106; Inclination: -45 Originally planned for 400m, VU22004 was deepened following observation of banded, cm-scale strata-controlled sphalerite (zinc) and galena (lead) mineralization within a thick (139m) fragmental unit containing abundant clasts of sphalerite, galena and pyrrhotite mineralization persisting well below the interpreted Sullivan time horizon, which was intersected at ~303m. Portable XRF analysis of these cm-scale sphalerite bands indicated point concentrations in excess of 10% zinc in addition to highly anomalous silver, lead and cadmium values. Similar mineralization is reported in historical drill holes in Lower Aldridge footwall rocks east of the North Star deposit approximately 3 km south of Sullivan, suggesting permeable silty sediments were impregnated with mineralization from the nearby active feeder system (P. Ransom, P.Geo., personal communication). A downhole electromagnetic geophysical survey (BHEM) was successfully completed on this hole and suggests discrete off-hole anomalies at depths consistent with mineralization observed in drill-core. Pyrrhotite-sphaleritegalena mineralized fragmental clasts. DDH VU22004 (437.75m) Mineralized fragmental with interbedded wacke. Mineralized fragments (pyrrhotite-sphalerite-galena) and semi-massive stratiform sulphide mineralization (pyrrhotite-sphalerite-galena) are abundant throughout the broad fragmental unit. VU22004 (438.86-447.74m) Stratiform pyrrhotite-sphalerite-galena mineralization hosted within a broad fragmental unit. pXRF analysis reports >10% combined Zn-Pb. VU22004 (441.34m) Stratiform semi-massive pyrrhotite-sphalerite-galena (7-cm and 2-cm true thickness) hosted within a broad fragmental with intercalated wacke. VU22004 (445.79m) Hole 3 (VU22005): Total depth 473.5m (1553'); Az: 095; Inclination: -50 Hole 3 crossed the interpreted LMC at approximately 327m, and intercepted fragmental material and trace bedded sulphide mineralization, though thicknesses and mineralization is less persistent and intense than that seen in Hole 2 (VU22004). Disseminated sphalerite with associated tourmalinite was reported in a 1.2m wide vein intersected at 295.0m. A downhole geophysical survey was attempted on this hole, but as was the case with Hole 1, a blockage near the top of the hole prevented insertion of the downhole probe, resulting in abandonment of the survey in this area. Given the recognition of persistent mineralization at depths well below LMC (interpreted Sullivan Time), management intends to review all available historical drill core relating to the Vulcan property, as most historical holes were stopped stratigraphically above the mineralized intervals intersected in Hole 2 (VU22004). Future exploration at the Vulcan will be guided by this re-interpretation of the geology. Tim Termuende, P.Geo, President and CEO of Eagle Plains commented recently on the Vulcan program: "although mineralization at Vulcan has been recognized for many years, the pieces of the exploration puzzle continue to fall into place, high-lighting the project's significance. Many of the geological hallmarks of the nearby Sullivan deposit are displayed at Vulcan. The recognition of widespread mineralization in Hole VU22004 at depths previously untested in the area strongly suggest that more drilling is warranted. Planning in that regard in currently underway, with future results eagerly anticipated". Vulcan Project Summary Tim Termuende President/CEO Discusses the Vulcan 2022 drill Program here View Vulcan Project Highlight Map and Drill Core Photos here Management of Eagle Plains considers the Vulcan project to hold excellent potential for the presence of sedex mineralization. Rocks underlying the Vulcan are within the same sedimentary sequence and host occurrences with mineralization and alteration styles similar to those observed at and adjacent to the now-depleted Sullivan deposit. The Main (Hilo) mineral occurrence at Vulcan returned up to 1.6 % combined lead-zinc over 1.5 metres from rocks near the Lower-Middle Aldridge contact ("LMC"), the same time-stratigraphic horizon which hosts the Sullivan deposit. The Sullivan mine was discovered in 1892 and is one of the largest sedex deposits in the world. Over its 100+ year lifetime, Sullivan contained a total of 160 million tonnes of ore averaging 6.5% lead, 5.6% zinc and 67 g/t silver, resulting in 298 million ounces of silver, 18.5 billion pounds of lead, 17.5 billion pounds of zinc, and significant quantities of associated metals; collectively worth over $40B at current metal prices. Eagle Plains management cautions that past results or discoveries on proximate land are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be achieved on the Vulcan property. Vulcan Project History Sullivan-style mineralization was first reported in the mid-1950s at Vulcan. During the 1970s and 1980s, Texas Gulf Sulphur and later Cominco completed extensive geophysical work and drilled shallow holes to test for continuous mineralization in areas of the property. The most comprehensive testing occurred in the Hilo area during the early 1990s by Ascot Resources. In 1991 a five-hole, 1003m drill program was completed, with three holes totaling 1535m completed in 1992. Since acquiring the initial claims on the property in 2002, Eagle Plains has completed an extensive compilation of all existing data, followed in 2006 by a 125 line-km helicopter-borne time-domain geophysical survey flown at 200m spacing. Additional claims were added to the property position as they became available through staking. Systematic geochemical, geological and geophysical programs were conducted by Eagle Plains and its partners from 2011-2019. In June 2020, Eagle Plains completed a two-hole, 977m drill program to test the LMC along an existing road cut in an area of elevated soil geochemistry and anomalous geophysical features (magnetometer, induced polarization and magnetotellurics). The LMC contact was successfully intercepted in Hole VU20002 with significant alteration suggesting proximity to a hydrothermal source, though no economic mineralization was encountered. 2022 Vulcan Program Logistical Summary The 2022 Vulcan program was carried out by TerraLogic Exploration Services of Cranbrook, BC under the supervision of Kerry Bates, P.Geo. Drilling services were contracted to Proterra Drilling Solutions of Quesnel. SJ Geophysics of Delta, BC was retained to carry out down-hole electromagnetic surveying. BC. Bighorn Helicopters of Cranbrook, BC provided helicopter support on two of the three holes completed. Qualified Person Charles C. Downie, P.Geo., a "qualified person" for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and a director of Eagle Plains, has prepared, reviewed, and approved the scientific and technical disclosure in the news release. About Eagle Plains Resources Based in Cranbrook, B.C., Eagle Plains is a well-funded, prolific project generator that continues to conduct research, acquire and explore mineral projects throughout western Canada. The Company was formed in 1992 and is the ninth-oldest listed issuer on the TSX-V (and one of only three that has not seen a roll-back or restructuring of its shares). Eagle Plains has continued to deliver shareholder value over the years and through numerous spin-outs has transferred over $100,000,000 in value directly to its shareholders, with Copper Canyon Resources and recently Taiga Gold being notable examples. The Company is committed to steadily enhancing shareholder value by advancing our diverse portfolio of projects toward discovery through collaborative partnerships and development of a highly experienced technical team. Eagle Plains also holds significant royalty interests in western Canadian projects, covering a broad spectrum of commodities on projects controlled by Cameco Corp., Iso Energy Corp., Denison Mines Corp., Skeena Resources Ltd. and Banyan Gold Corp., among many others. Management's focus is to advance its most promising exploration projects. Throughout the exploration process, our mission is to help maintain prosperous communities by exploring for and discovering resource opportunities while building lasting relationships through honest and respectful business practices. Expenditures from 2011-2021 on Eagle Plains-related projects exceed $27M, the majority of which was funded by third-party partners. This exploration work resulted in approximately 42,000m of diamond-drilling and extensive ground-based exploration work facilitating the advancement of numerous projects at various stages of development. On behalf of the Board of Directors "Tim J. Termuende" President and CEO For further information on EPL, please contact Mike Labach at 1 866 HUNT ORE (486 8673) Email: mgl@eagleplains.com or visit our website at https://www.eagleplains.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. SOURCE: Eagle Plains Resources Ltd View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719428/Eagle-Plains-Completes-Vulcan-Drilling-Geophysical-Program OTTAWA, ON / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / GaN Systems, the global leader in GaN (gallium nitride) power semiconductors, today announced that the new Renesas Electronics Corporation's automotive 48V/12V Bidirectional DC/DC Converter is powered by GaN Systems power transistors, resulting in significant power density improvements. The new converter uses GaN Systems' GS61008P, a 100V enhancement mode GaN-on-silicon power transistor, to achieve a 46% reduction in system size. The Renesas solution is aimed at 48V mild hybrid vehicles and electric motorcycles, which require high-efficiency 48V/12V DC/DC converters. GaN allows high switching frequency at high efficiency-meaning smaller magnetics and allows much smaller size. GaN Systems' GaN HEMTs allows a 50% smaller PCB area compared to using Si-MOSFETs. Benefits? of the new converter, see block diagram below, include: A 46% reduction of the PCB area by leveraging the excellent switching capabilities of GaN Systems transistors-enabling a high-efficiency power converter with a high switching frequency of 500kHz. This allows the use of very small 1.3H inductors, which significantly decreases in size and weight. High efficiency over a wide range of loads. A combination of GaN with the automatic phase drop function achieves highly efficient power conversion even at low loads, exceeding 94% power efficiency over a wide load range of 400W to 3kW. The ISL78226 PWM controller eliminates the need for complicated DC/DC converter control software development. The half-bridge driver ISL78420/444 provides an easy and cost-effective method of driving GaN transistors. "Customers in automotive are constantly looking for improvements in power density and cost, and this design is another reflection that GaN delivers significant improvements in power density in a smaller, more efficient, and cost-effective design," said Jim Witham, CEO of GaN Systems. "The fact that the design comes from Renesas is significant, as they are a market leader in semiconductor solutions for automotive, with a reputation for understanding the needs of the industry. This is a major step to bring the benefits of GaN technology to this customer base." While GaN has significant traction in industries like consumer electronics, GaN is becoming the technology of choice for power conversion and battery charging in hybrid and electric vehicles. GaN offers much higher performance than silicon and silicon carbide at a very low cost-making it possible to cost-effectively reduce the weight and increase the efficiency of a wide range of electric vehicles. Renesas delivers embedded design innovation with complete semiconductor solutions that enable billions of connected, intelligent devices to enhance how people work and live. A global leader in microcontrollers, analog, power, and SoC products, Renesas provides comprehensive solutions for a broad range of automotive, industrial, home electronics, office automation, and information communication technology applications. About GaN Systems GaN Systems is the global leader in GaN power semiconductors with the most extensive transistors portfolio that uniquely addresses the needs of today's most demanding industries, including consumer electronics, data center servers, power supplies, renewable energy systems, industrial motors, and automotive electronics. As an industry-leading innovator, GaN Systems makes it possible to design smaller, lower-cost, more efficient power systems. The company's award-winning products provide system design opportunities free from the limitations of yesterday's silicon. By changing the transistor performance rules, GaN Systems enables power conversion companies to revolutionize their industries and transform the world. For more information, please visit: www.gansystems.com or on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and scan this QR code for our WeChat. Media Inquiries: Beth Trier Trier and Company for GaN Systems beth@triercompany.com 415-285-6147 SOURCE: GaN Systems View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719664/Automotive-DCDC-50-Size-Reduction-with-GaN-Systems-and-Renesas Veranex, the only truly comprehensive, global, tech-enabled service provider dedicated to the medical technology industry, announced today that it has acquired an ecosystem of full-service medical device consultancy companies, providing regulatory and clinical affairs, quality assurance, and biocompatibility services for medical devices and in vitro diagnostic (IVD) devices. Based in Sweden, this ecosystem includes Devicia, a full-service partner offering clinical expertise; Clarvin, a provider of strategic guidance in regulatory affairs and quality assurance; and affiliate companies Kickfile, Lea Reg, and Limulus Bio. Together with the recent acquisition of Swiss-based Medidee, these companies further expand Veranex's European reach and build regulatory, clinical, and quality service segments. This specifically strengthens Veranex's medical device regulation (MDR) and in vitro diagnostic regulation (IVDR) strategy, adding expertise in biological evaluations and medical device software and expanding infrastructure and designating local representation in the European Union and United Kingdom. "This group of companies, led by Devicia and Clarvin, shares the same goal as Veranex: working with our clients to achieve and accelerate MedTech innovation," said Veranex CEO David Dockhorn. "Devicia, Clarvin, and their affiliate companies all focus exclusively on medical devices and IVD, providing strategic guidance and informed execution across a number of areas, including clinical trial, medical writing, regulatory strategies, toxicology assessments, designated local representation, and system technologies that bolster Veranex's full-service MedTech capabilities and solutions." The group of companies adds three locations across Europe and the U.S. to Veranex's global footprint. "We are extremely excited about the opportunity to support clients even more comprehensively with our full-service medical device and IVD services, and a significantly stronger global presence. We strongly believe that a global perspective and broad geographic footprint provides strategic value to market access for our clients," said Devicia CEO Elisabeth Liljensten. Clarvin CEO Asa Runnas added, "Since the first interaction with Veranex, we realized we shared the same vision for the best way to help our clients with a combination of top regulatory intelligence, expert knowledge within different areas, and true global reach." Alvarez Marsal (A&M) served as financial advisor and McDermott Will Emery (MWE) served as legal advisor to Veranex on this transaction. Christopher Fagerskiold AB served as financial advisor and Kanter as legal advisor to Devicia and Clarvin group. Financial details are not being disclosed. About Veranex Veranex is the only truly comprehensive, global, tech-enabled service provider dedicated to the medical technology industry. Offering expert guidance from concept to commercialization and across the development continuum, Veranex enables accelerated speed to market, controlled development costs, development risk mitigation, and accelerated market viability assessment. At every stage, Veranex customers realize efficiencies in cost and time, while its comprehensive solutions unify and streamline the entire development process. Veranex is backed by Summit Partners, Accelmed, and Lauxera Capital Partners. For more information, visit VeranexSolutions.com and follow on LinkedIn. About Devicia Devicia is a full-service consulting firm offering clinical expertise for medical devices, supporting clients throughout the life cycle of medical device and IVD. With advice that is always founded on their vast experience and participation on technical committees they provide their clients with an informed perspective. About Clarvin To medical device and IVD manufacturers, Clarvin is the regulatory consultant that guides and supports in every aspect of regulatory affairs and quality assurance processes. The team of experts identifies customized regulatory intelligence solutions within rapidly emerging technologies and the evolving regulatory landscape. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005378/en/ Contacts: Lindsey Langemeier SCORR Marketing +1 402-405-4269 lindsey@scorrmarketing.com VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 11, 2022 / IR Labs Inc. ("irlabs"), a dynamic women-led investor relations agency, held its successful inaugural Capital Markets Comeback Tour across Canada in May and June 2022, connecting over 400 attendees from the capital markets community with innovative investment opportunities. See the highlights here: For more information on irlabs' 2022 Capital Markets Comeback Tour, visit https://www.irlabs.ca/the-comeback-tour. For a copy of the original release please click the following link: https://www.accesswire.com/704370/irlabs-Celebrates-Success-of-Capital-Markets-Comeback-Tour CONTACT: IR Labs Inc. Alyssa Barry Principal and Co-Founder alyssa@irlabs.ca 833-947-LABS (5227) ACCESSWIRE digitalsales@accesswire.com 919-228-6235 SOURCE: ACCESSWIRE View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/719851/irlabs-Celebrates-Success-of-Capital-Markets-Comeback-Tour--Highlights NOIDA, India, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report published by UnivDatos Markets Insights, theE-Commerce Fulfillment Services Market was valued at more than USD 85 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 10% from 2022-2028. The analysis has been segmented into Service Type (Bundling Fulfillment Services, Shipment Fulfillment Services, Warehousing and Storage Fulfillment Services, and Others); Application (Consumer Electronics, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Consumer Goods and Retail, Food and Beverages, and Others); Region/Country. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/e-commerce-fulfillment-services-market/ The E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market report has been aggregated by collecting informative data on various dynamics such as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. This innovative report makes use of several analyses to get a closer outlook on the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market. The E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market report offers a detailed analysis of the latest industry developments and trending factors in the market that are influencing the market growth. Furthermore, this statistical market research repository examines and estimates the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market at the global and regional levels. Request for Sample Pages https://univdatos.com/get-a-free-sample-form-php/?product_id=24943 Market Overview The e-commerce fulfillment services market demand is increasing at a significant rate over the years and is expected to witness influential growth during the forecasted period as well. Factors such as the proliferation of e-commerce, increasing smartphone and internet penetration, developments in the e-commerce and electronics industry, and rising disposable income are positively influencing the e-commerce fulfillment services market. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/e-commerce-fulfillment-services-market/ The global E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market report is studied thoroughly with several aspects that would help stakeholders in making their decisions more curated. Based on service type, the shipment segment captured a significant share of the e-commerce fulfillment services market in 2020 and is expected to witness robust growth during the forecast period. This is mainly due to the trade relaxation policies and cross-border shipment agreements between countries. For instance, India and Australia signed the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (AI-CECA) in April 2022 , the aim of this agreement is to improve the trade between the two countries which stood at USD 24.3 Bn in 2020 . . Based on the application, Consumer electronics accounted for a commendable share of the e-commerce fulfillment services market in 2020 and is anticipated to witness substantial growth during the forecast period owing to the increasing demand for consumer electronics coupled with the need for careful handling of fragile electronics products and gadgets. Have a Look at the Chapters - https://univdatos.com/report/e-commerce-fulfillment-services-market/ E-Commerce Fulfillment Services Market Geographical Segmentation Includes: North America ( United States , Canada , and Rest of North America ) ( , , and Rest of ) Europe ( Germany , United Kingdom , Spain , France , and the Rest of Europe ) ( , , , , and the Rest of ) Asia-Pacific ( China , Japan , India , South Korea , and the Rest of Asia-Pacific ) ( , , , , and the Rest of ) Rest of the World The Asia-Pacific region accounted for a prominent share of the global e-commerce fulfillment services market and is expected to grow at a steady growth rate during the forecast period owing to the rising internet penetration rate and growing demand for consumer electronics in the region. In addition, the rapidly growing e-commerce industry is playing a significant role in the growth of this market in the region. The major players targeting the market include Amazon.com Inc. eFulfillment Service Inc. Ingram Micro Inc. Rakuten Inc. Red Stag Fulfillment LLC ShipBob Inc. Shipfusion Inc. FedEx Corporation United Parcel Service of America Inc. Nolan Transportation Group LLC. Competitive Landscape The degree of competition among prominent global companies has been elaborated by analyzing several leading key players operating worldwide. The specialist team of research analysts sheds light on various traits such as global market competition, market share, most recent industry advancements, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, or acquisitions by leading companies in the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market. The major players have been analyzed by using research methodologies for getting insight views on global competition. Key questions resolved through this analytical market research report include: What are the latest trends, new patterns, and technological advancements in the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market? Which factors are influencing the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market over the forecast period? What are the global challenges, threats, and risks in the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market? Which factors are propelling and restraining the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market? What are the demanding global regions of the E-Commerce Fulfillment Services market? What will be the global market size in the upcoming years? What are the crucial market acquisition strategies and policies applied by global companies? We understand the requirement of different businesses, regions, and countries, we offer customized reports as per your requirements of business nature and geography. Please let us know If you have any custom needs. Browse Other Related Research Reports from UnivDatos Market Insights E-Commerce Logistics Market Q-Commerce Market Retail E-Commerce Packaging Market Subscription E-Commerce Market Interactive E-commerce Kiosks Market E-Commerce Fulfillment Services Market Report Coverage Report Attribute Details Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2027 Growth momentum Accelerate at a CAGR of over 10% Market size 2020 USD 85 billion Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, Rest of World Major contributing region APAC to Dominate the Global E-Commerce Fulfillment Services Market Key countries covered United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, France, China, Japan, India, and South Korea Companies profiled Amazon.com Inc., eFulfillment Service Inc., Ingram Micro Inc., Rakuten Inc., Red Stag Fulfillment LLC, ShipBob Inc., Shipfusion Inc., FedEx Corporation, United Parcel Service of America Inc., and Nolan Transportation Group LLC. Report Scope Market Trends, Drivers, and Restraints; Revenue Estimation and Forecast; Segmentation Analysis; Impact of COVID-19; Demand and Supply Side Analysis; Competitive Landscape; Company Profiling Segments Covered By Service Type; By Application; By Region/Country About UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) is a passionate market research firm and a subsidiary of Universal Data Solutions. We believe in delivering insights through Market Intelligence Reports, Customized Business Research, and Primary Research. Our research studies are spread across topics across the world, we cover markets in over 100 countries using smart research techniques and agile methodologies. We offer in-depth studies, detailed analysis, and customized reports that help shape winning business strategies for our clients. Contact UnivDatos Market Insights Ankita Gupta Director Operations Ph: +91-7838604911 Email: Ankita.gupta@univdatos.com Website: https://univdatos.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1225049/UnivDatos_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/the-proliferation-of-e-commerce-is-expected-to-proliferate-the-e-commerce-fulfillment-services-market--univdatos-market-insights-301645664.html WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) announced Tuesday the acceleration of its plans to acquire full ownership of CareCentrix (CCX Next, LLC), expanding its reach into the growing homecare sector and advancing its healthcare long-term growth strategy. Walgreens has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the remaining 45% stake for approximately $392 million, which is based on the exit multiple agreed to at the time of Walgreens' initial majority investment announcement in CareCentrix. CareCentrix is an industry leader in the $75 billion post-acute and home care industry, providing care coordination and outsourced benefit management services. Walgreens' full acquisition of CareCentrix follows its 55% majority investment in the company, which closed on August 31, 2022. The full acquisition is subject to limited customary closing conditions and is expected to close by March 2023. CareCentrix will continue as a distinct business and brand within Walgreens following the full acquisition. Additionally, CareCentrix CEO John Driscoll will assume a new role as executive vice president and president, U.S. Healthcare at Walgreens, including Walgreens Health, later this month. He will report directly to Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer and serve on Walgreens' executive committee. CareCentrix Chief Financial Officer, Steve Horowitz, will assume the role of CareCentrix CEO. Driscoll is a proven and trusted leader with more than 25 years of deep healthcare expertise. Prior to CareCentrix, he served as president at Castlight Health, a digital healthcare company, and before that, as group president for new markets at Medco. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Tangible ecological, economic, and social engagement in all areas of the company Repeat participation in Baden Wuerttemberg's Sustainability Days Greater inclusion of employees due to involvement in various initiatives Awards pay tribute to a comprehensive sustainability strategy Vetter, a globally leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has in place a comprehensive sustainability strategy that has made it a pioneer in this energy-intensive industry. The family-owned company is undertaking numerous initiatives aimed at making sustainability manifest in all facets for employees and acts as a motivator in encouraging them to participate. For the second time in a row, Vetter participated in a full week of life activities in the recent Sustainability Days of Baden-Wuerttemberg's Sustainability Network. "To just speak about the topic of sustainability does not give it the credit it is due," says Vetter Managing Director Thomas Otto. "That is why we are part of a proactive network of other companies. We need a strong community for sustainable development and we work hard to include all employees in the process." Within this context, the CDMO has launched numerous sustainability activities that include various participatory events and lectures. This includes an information booth that traveled among company sites. Its aim is to sensitize all employees to the issue of sustainability and offer them easy-to-implement, hands-on suggestions that can enable greater sustainability in their professional and private lives. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005918/en/ Ceremonial presentation of the Sustainable Impact Award 2022. (Photo: Business Wire) By joining the Germany-wide initiative KLIMARETTER LEBENSRETTER (Climate Saver Life Saver), Vetter is offering a visible incentive for its staff. The initiative unites companies in the health industry behind climate protection and supports them in helping to make the positive impact of their actions more visible and substantial. For example, an online presence shows participants how much can be saved by eating less meat or using green mobility. The comprehensive commitment to sustainability has been widely acclaimed and has also been awarded prizes. Recently, the company won the TOP-KLIMA-ENGAGEMENT 2023 (Top Climate Engagement 2023) seal from FOR OUR PLANET, the sustainability program of the Burda publishing house, in cooperation with the German news magazine FOCUS. For Vetter, sustainable measures that benefit employees are particularly important. In this context, the CDMO was awarded first place in the Sustainable Impact Awards for the category Social Impact on Employees. This prize is awarded by the German magazine WirtschaftsWoche and Generali Deutschland to the most attractive employers among medium-sized companies and is focused on employee satisfaction. "We take a holistic view of sustainability within our company," says Vetter Managing Director Peter Soelkner, "By doing so, we keep our attention keenly focused on the balance between ecology, economy, and social commitment." This year for the first time, Vetter revealed the measures being taken thus far and its vision for the future in a comprehensive sustainability report. The report showed how strongly the sustainability strategy was anchored within the framework of its EHS (Environment, Health, and Safety) management. Vetter has already successfully implemented approximately 100 efficiency projects over the past ten years. For example, over 31 million kWh of energy was already saved. In addition, all of the company's sites worldwide have been CO2-neutral since 2021. "As a family-owned company, we handle the finite resources and our society carefully with the aim of being a good example for our industry," says Vetter Managing Director Peter Soelkner in summarizing the company-wide approach. Ceremonial presentation of the Sustainable Impact Award 2022 to Vetter with (from left to right): Henryk Badack (Senior Vice President Technical Services/Internal Project Management), Peter Soelkner (Managing Director), Anke Herrig (Director of HR Development), Veronika Winter (Team Leader Occupational Health Management) and Prof. Dr. Anabel Ternes von Hattburg, Managing Director at International Institute for Sustainability Management (IISM). Find the Vetter press kit and more background information here About Vetter Headquartered in Ravensburg, Germany, Vetter is a family-owned, global leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with production facilities in Germany, Austria and the United States. Currently employing more than 5,700 individuals worldwide, the company has long-term experience in supporting biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers both large and small. Vetter services range from early stage development support including clinical manufacturing, to commercial supply and numerous packaging solutions for vials, syringes and cartridges. As a leading solution provider, Vetter appreciates its responsibility to support the needs of its customers by developing devices that contribute to increased patient safety, convenience, and enhanced compliance. Great importance is also given to social responsibility including environmental protection and sustainability. Learn more about Vetter at www.vetter-pharma.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005918/en/ Contacts: Vetter Pharma International GmbH Markus Kirchner Corporate Spokesperson Media Relations Phone: +49 (0)751-3700-3729 E-mail: PRnews@vetter-pharma.com Edmonton, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Grizzly Discoveries Inc. (TSXV: GZD) (FSE: G6H) (OTCQB: GZDIF) ("Grizzly" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, on October 9th, 2022, it signed an option agreement with Mr. Daniel Hurd of Peachland, British Columbia (BC), Canada to purchase the mineral rights to 317 hectares in seven (7) mineral claims in the Greenwood area, BC including the historical Silver(Ag)-Gold(Au)-Lead(Pb)-Zinc(Zn) Midway Mine and the Picturestone Quarry, which are about 4 km northwest of the town of Midway in the Kettle River Valley area of BC. The Midway - Picturestone mineral claims are strategically located within the Company's Greenwood land holdings and in particular the Company's Midway lands. The Midway Mine and the Picturestone (aka Picture Rock) Quarry area have seen intermittent exploration and mining since the late 1800's through to as recent as 2012. In the case of the historical Midway Mine, limited underground and open pit development has occurred. The Midway Mine and the Picturestone Quarry are situated within the "Midway Window", a structural zone within the Toroda Graben exposing Late Paleozoic to Jurassic sediments, volcanics and intrusions, including the Knob Hill and Brooklyn formations, centered on an old thrust fault in a similar setting to the Golden Crown and Lexington Mine area near Greenwood, BC as displayed in Figure 1. The Company's Midway Lands have been a focus of exploration since acquiring lands in the area. The current status of historical and modern exploration by the Company is illustrated in Figure 1, with most of the recent work focused on lands to the west and southwest of the historical Midway Mine. Prior owners and operators describe significant epithermal mineralization in the form vertical polymetallic sulphide veins enriched in pyrite, arsenopyrite, galena, sphalerite and stibnite, quartz veins and significant alteration at the Midway Mine and Picturestone Quarry. The Midway Mine is spatially associated with a northeast trending gold (Au), silver (Ag), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn) and arsenic (As) soil geochemical anomaly that is approximately 300 m in length and 100 m in width in the area of the Midway Mine1. Historical trench sampling yielded 2.8 grams per tonne (g/t) Au and 218 g/t Ag over a 4.5 m interval in chip/channel sampling at the Midway Mine1. Limited drilling with some significant intercepts was carried out in the 1980's at the Midway and Picturestone prospects. The most recent work in 2012 resulted in a recommendation of ground geophysical surveys, additional soil sampling and drilling. The work was never completed. Under the terms of the option agreement, the Company may earn a 100% interest in the mineral rights by paying $15,000 in cash and 150,000 shares by the 3rd Anniversary Date of the agreement. Mr. Hurd retains a 1% Net Smelter Returns Royalty (NSR) and the right to any quarriable industrial rocks. The Company has recently completed Phase 1 drilling on the Dayton and Motherlode North prospects and will provide an update on the drilling in the near future. 1 Assessment Report - Soil and Rock Sampling For the Rainbow Property BC AR32359, Von Einsiedel, 2011. Figure 1: Midway Geology, Rock and Soil Geochemistry. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/4488/140137_72d6fd2614c35a57_002full.jpg Brian Testo, President and CEO of Grizzly Discoveries stated "We are excited at our first deal with prospector Dan Hurd and we look forward to working with him as we continue our exploration efforts at Midway and in particular the underexplored Midway Mine, a prospect with high grade gold and silver potential that we have had our eyes on for a number of years! We view the acquisition of the Midway and Picturestone prospects as a good quality strategic acquisition to our current significant land holdings in the Greenwood District." The technical content of this news release and the Company's technical disclosure has been reviewed and approved by Michael B. Dufresne, M. Sc., P. Geol., P.Geo., who is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. ABOUT GRIZZLY DISCOVERIES INC. Grizzly is a diversified Canadian mineral exploration company with its primary listing on the TSX Venture Exchange focused on developing its approximately 66,000 ha (approximately 165,000 acres) of precious and base metals properties in southeastern British Columbia. Grizzly is run by highly experienced junior resource sector management team, who have a track record of advancing exploration projects from early exploration stage through to feasibility stage. On behalf of the Board, GRIZZLY DISCOVERIES INC. Brian Testo, CEO, President For further information, please visit our website at www.grizzlydiscoveries.com or contact: Nancy Massicote Corporate Development Tel: 604-507-3377 Email: info@grizzlydiscoveries.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. 1 Technical Assessment Report, Soil and Rock Sampling For the Rainbow Property AR32359, Von Einsiedel, 2011. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140137 Tuesday 11 October, 2022 Capita plc ("Capita" or the "Company") Publication of Circular and Notice of General Meeting On 16 September 2022, Capita announced the agreement to dispose of Pay360 Limited to Access PaySuite Ltd, a division of The Access Group (the 'Disposal'). The Disposal constitutes a Class 1 transaction for Capita under the Listing Rules and is therefore conditional upon, amongst other things, the approval of Capita shareholders at a general meeting of the Company. Capita is pleased to announce that a shareholder circular in relation to the Disposal (the "Circular") has been published today, having received approval from the Financial Conduct Authority. The Circular will be sent to Capita shareholders (other than those who have elected or who have been deemed to have elected for notification by electronic communication) shortly. The Circular contains further information on the Disposal and a notice convening a general meeting of Capita to be held at 10:30a.m. on 1 November 2022 at Linklaters LLP, One Silk Street, London EC2Y 8HQ (the "General Meeting"). As set out in the Notice of General Meeting, the General Meeting will be held as a physical meeting. Capita will continue to closely monitor the latest Government guidance in respect of COVID-19 and how this may affect the arrangements for the General Meeting. If the UK Government reintroduces restrictions on public gatherings before the date of the General Meeting, Capita may be required to revise these arrangements, including by limiting physical attendance at the General Meeting. In such circumstances, Capita will make an announcement setting out the revised arrangements. Further information will be made available on our website at http://www.capita.com/investors/shareholder-information/gm-shareholder-questions and/or via a Regulatory Information Service. Capita shareholders should therefore monitor Capita's website and regulatory news announcements for any updates relating to the General Meeting. Whether or not you intend to attend the General Meeting, you are encouraged to appoint a proxy to cast your votes on the resolution as soon as possible in the manner set out in the Circular and Notice of General Meeting. Copies of the following documents have been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism: - Circular - Notice of General Meeting These documents will also be available to view on the Company's website at http://www.capita.com/investors/shareholder-information/gm-shareholder-questions from the date of this announcement up to and including the date of the General Meeting. Barclays Bank PLC, acting through its Investment Bank ("Barclays") is acting as sole financial adviser and sponsor to Capita on the Disposal. For more information please contact: Capita investor enquiries Stuart Morgan Director of Investor Relations Tel: 07989 665484 Email: IRteam@capita.co.uk LEI no. CMIGEWPLHL4M7ZV0IZ88 Capita media enquiries Capita external communications Tel: 0207 654 2399 Email: media@capita.co.uk Barclays (Financial Adviser and Sponsor to Capita) Omar Faruqui Osman Akkaya Tel: 0207 623 2323 About Capita Capita is a consulting, transformation and digital services business. Every day our 52,000 colleagues help millions of people, by delivering innovative solutions to transform and simplify the connections between government and citizens, businesses and customers. We partner with our clients and provide the insight and cutting-edge technologies that give time back, allowing them to focus on what they do best and making people's lives easier and simpler. We operate across three divisions - Capita Public Service, Capita Experience and Capita Portfolio - in the UK, Europe, India and South Africa. Capita is quoted on the London Stock Exchange (CPI.L). Further information can be found at: www.capita.com . Important Notices This announcement is an announcement and not a circular or prospectus or equivalent document and prospective investors should not make any investment decision on the basis of its contents. Nothing in this announcement constitutes an offer of securities for sale in any jurisdiction. Shareholders are advised to carefully read the Circular. Any response to the Disposal should be made only on the basis of the information in the Circular. If you are in any doubt as to what action you should take in relation to this announcement or the Circular, you are recommended to seek your own personal financial advice immediately from your stockbroker, bank manager, solicitor, accountant or other independent financial adviser authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, or from another appropriately authorised independent financial adviser. This announcement is not for release, publication or distribution, in whole or in part, in, into or from any jurisdiction where to do so would constitute a violation of the relevant laws of that jurisdiction. Persons into whose possession this announcement comes should inform themselves about, and observe, such restrictions. Any failure to comply with the restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Barclays, which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority ("PRA") and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA, is acting exclusively for Capita and no one else in connection with the Disposal and will not be responsible to anyone other than Capita for providing the protections afforded to clients of Barclays nor for providing advice in relation to the Disposal or any other matter referred to in this announcement. MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - G7 Leaders have started an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the fresh wave of missile attacks that Russian forces launched across Ukraine on Monday. The White House said President Joe Biden and G7 Leaders are holding a virtual meeting to discuss their 'unwavering commitment to support Ukraine and hold (Russian President) Putin accountable in the face of Russia's aggression and atrocities, including Russia's recent missile strikes across Ukraine.' Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined the leaders at the top of the meeting, which is being held as a video conference. Russia continued to launch missiles on multiple civilian targets for the second consecutive day. Casualties were reported in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday. Russian forces also targeted Kharkiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk. People across Ukraine have been advised to stay in shelters, as air raid sirens were sounded in several regions of the country. U.S. President Joe Biden strongly condemned the missile strikes, and called on Russia to end the unprovoked aggression immediately and remove its troops from Ukraine. 'Alongside our allies and partners, we will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom,' he said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin will meet IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in St. Petersburg Tuesday to discuss the security issues at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under the control of Russia. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. BANGALORE, India, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cold Plasma Market is Segmented By Type (Atmospheric Cold Plasma, Low-Pressure Cold Plasma), By Application (Textile, Polymer & Plastic, Electronics & Semiconductor, Food & Agriculture, Medical): Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2022-2028. It is published in Valuates Reports under the Business & Industrial Category. Cold Plasma Market is estimated to be worth USD 1310.6 million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 2179.4 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 8.8% during the review period. Major Factors Driving the Growth of Cold Plasma Market Due to its expanding applications in a number of industries, including printing, adhesion, coating, and others, the industry is becoming more and more necessary on a global scale. The Cold Plasma market is also growing as a result of some characteristics, such as improved wettability, reduced chemical use, and reduced water use. Get Your Sample Today: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Auto-16I8708/Global_Cold_Plasma_Market Inquire for Chapter Cost: https://reports.valuates.com/request/chaptercost/QYRE-Auto-16I8708/Global_Cold_Plasma_Market TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF THE COLD PLASMA MARKET Fabrics treated with plasma have the potential to replace wet chemical methods. Technical textiles known as protective textiles perform purposes like UV protection, flame retardancy, and antibacterial properties. In this regard, activating them by plasma treatment of the surface can aid in more durable finishing. Several materials can be transformed by plasma treatment without any change in their surface to modify features and make them ideal for protective textiles since it is an environmentally benign, clean process compared to conventional procedures. This in turn is expected to drive the growth of the Cold Plasma market. According to the business, cold plasma technology reduces safety hazards, environmental impact, and material degradation while eliminating the need for heat and chemicals to promote substrate wettability and adherence. The high-density polyethylene (HDPE), PVC, polypropylene, and polyethylene polymers, among many others, are all compatible with the technique. Cold plasma treatment alters the polymer's surface, opening the door to the creation of packaging materials with desired properties. For instance, the coating of nisin was made possible by the application of a cold plasma-activated polylactic acid surface, which led to the creation of antimicrobial packaging materials. This factor is expected to drive the growth of the Cold Plasma market. Increasing application in Electronics & semiconductors is expected to drive the growth of the Cold Plasma market. Adhesion is crucial for process stability and product quality in many areas of the electronics industry, whether it be for bonding or marking plastic components, wire bonding operations on metallic contact pads, or the manufacturing of energy storage devices. In the electronics sector, cold plasma is being utilized more frequently to perfectly prepare the surfaces of a wide range of materials for such adhesion operations. With the use of this technique, a variety of following processes can be improved by selectively treating functional surfaces on polymers, metals, or composites. The potential of simple, manual surface optimization is provided by cold plasma. The growing demand for nutritious, fresh, safe, and minimally-processed foods has sparked ground-breaking research in the burgeoning non-thermal food processing technology. A number of possible uses for cold plasma in the food business make it a really cutting-edge and exciting technology. It uses highly reactive, energetic, and charged gas species and molecules to cleanse food surfaces and packaging while preserving foods without compromising their nutritional value or quality. The inactivation of microorganisms in the food business with cold plasma technology has shown encouraging results without degrading food quality. Although it is quite efficient in cleaning fruits and vegetables' surfaces, more research is needed before it can be used commercially. Browse The Table Of Contents And List Of Figures At: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-16I8708/global-cold-plasma COLD PLASMA SHARE ANALYSIS: The APAC cold plasma market is anticipated to develop at the highest CAGR. The biggest rise was seen in the Asia Pacific region, which is mostly due to the ongoing movement of electronic industry to Asian nations, rising demand for decontaminated frozen food, expanding textile manufacturing facilities, and increasing polymer output. The Atmospheric Pressure category is anticipated to grow at the greatest CAGR. Burn treatment, wound healing, and infection prevention are just a few of the applications for Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP), a ground-breaking medical procedure. It can also be applied in a variety of surgical and non-surgical treatments. This technology is being used by the major market players to develop therapies for malignant cells. All of these elements are anticipated to speed up this market's growth over the course of the forecasted years. Get Regional Data: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/QYRE-Auto-16I8708/Global_Cold_Plasma_Market Key Companies: Nordson Corporation Bovie Medical Corporation Plasmatreat GmbH P2I Limited ADTEC Plasma Technology. Enercon Industries Corporation Neoplas Tools GmbH Tantec A/S Europlasma NV Henniker Plasma Treatment Buy Now for Single User + Covid-19 Impact : https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=QYRE-Auto-16I8708&lic=single-user SIMILAR REPORTS: - Medical Cold Plasma market was valued at USD 59 million in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 188.1 million by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 18.2% during 2021-2027. - Plasma Sterilizers market was valued at USD 287.7 million in 2020 and it is expected to reach USD 334.6 million by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 2.2% during 2021-2027. - Low Temperature Plasma Sterilizer market was valued at USD 220 million in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 336.4 million by the end of 2027, growing at a CAGR of 6.5% during 2021-2027. - Plasma Therapeutics market size is projected to reach USD 526.8 million by 2028, from USD 271.2 million in 2021, at a CAGR of 9.8% during 2022-2028. - Remote Plasma Sources market size is estimated to be worth USD 225.2 million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 326.8 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 6.4% during the review period. - Industrial IoT (IIoT) market size is projected to reach USD 102460 million by 2028, from USD 71160 million in 2021, at a CAGR of 5.3% during 2022-2028. - Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Market size is projected to reach USD 2741.8 million by 2028, from USD 1915.2 million in 2021, at a CAGR of 5.2% during 2022-2028. - Surface Inspection market size is projected to reach USD 3050.3 million by 2028, from USD 2236.8 million in 2021, at a CAGR of 4.5% during 2022-2028. - Heavy construction Equipment market size was valued at USD 176.2 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 273.5 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 4.4% from 2021 to 2030. - The global Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) market size is estimated to be worth USD 553.8 million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 1002.6 million by 2028 with a CAGR of 10.4% during the review period. - Industrial Services market size is projected to reach USD 32300 million by 2027, from USD 28360 million in 2020, at a CAGR of 4.4% during 2021-2027. - Manufacturing Execution System (MES) market size is estimated to be worth USD 12550 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 19270 Million by 2028 with a CAGR of 7.4% during the review period. - Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing market size is projected to reach USD 28030 Million by 2027, from USD 1688.4 Million in 2020, at a CAGR of 49.3% during 2021-2027. - Global High Pressure Cold Spraying Equipment (HPCS) Market Research Report 2022 - Global Cold Plasma Equipment Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 - Global Cold Plasma Implant Treatment Devices Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 \ - Global Plasma Surgery Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 - Global Plasma Fraction Market Insights, Forecast to 2028 - Global Cold Spray Equipment Market Insights and Forecast to 2028 - The global packaged food market size was valued at USD 1,925.7 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 3,407.2 billion by 2030, registering a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.2% from 2021 to 2030. - The global food safety testing market size was valued at USD 13,144 Million in 2017, and is estimated to reach USD 23,204 Million by 2025, registering a CAGR of 7.3% from 2018 to 2025. - The functional food market size was valued at USD 177,770.00 Million in 2019, and is estimated to reach USD 267,924.40 Million by 2027, registering a CAGR of 6.7% from 2021 to 2027. - Global and Japan Smart Food Packaging Market Insights, Forecast to 2027 Click here to see related reports on Cold Plasma Market ABOUT US: Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs. Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs. To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources. CONTACT US: Valuates Reports sales@valuates.com For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225 For IST Call +91-8040957137 WhatsApp: +91-9945648335 Website: https://reports.valuates.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/valuatesreports LinkedIn - https://in.linkedin.com/company/valuatesreports Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1082232/Valuates_Reports_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/cold-plasma-market-to-grow-usd-2179-4-million-by-2028-with-a-cagr-of-8-8-valuates-reports-301645986.html INFICON Holding AG / Key word(s): Conference INFICON to Publish its Third Quarter 2022 Results on Thursday, October 20, 2022 11.10.2022 / 18:00 CET/CEST Corporate Contact Matthias Trondle Chief Financial Officer +423 388 3510 matthias.troendle@inficon.com Announcement of INFICON Holding AG Bad Ragaz/Switzerland, October 11, 2022 We look forward to welcoming you to the Media/Analyst Web Conference on INFICON's third quarter 2022 results. INFICON will host a Web Conference via Microsoft Teams on Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 09.30 a.m. CEST. The presentations and the following question and answer session will be in English. You may join the presentation using the following links: http://bit.ly/IFCN_WebConference https://ir.inficon.com/conference-calls-or-webcasts/ On October 20, 2022, INFICON will issue a press release at 07:00 a.m. CEST on the third quarter 2022 results. At the same time, the accompanying presentation visuals will also be available in the Investor Relations section of the INFICON website at https://ir.inficon.com/financial-results-and-presentations/ . Communication Calendar The communication calendar of INFICON is continuously updated and available on online in the Investor Relations section of the INFICON website at https://ir.inficon.com/financial-calendar/. E-Mail Alerts To automatically receive notification via e-mail of the latest financial information from INFICON, sign-up for e-mail Alerts at https://ir.inficon.com/contact-and-information-request/. 07:00 a.m. CEST: Publication of Media Release and Presentation 09.30 a.m. CEST: Web Conference via Microsoft Teams ABOUT INFICON INFICON is a leading provider of innovative instrumentation, critical sensor technologies, and Smart Manufacturing/Industry 4.0 software solutions that enhance productivity and quality of tools, processes and complete factories. These analysis, measurement and control products are essential for gas leak detection in air conditioning/refrigeration, and automotive manufacturing. They are vital to equipment manufacturers and end-users in the complex fabrication of semiconductors and thin film coatings for optics, flat panel displays, solar cells and industrial vacuum coating applications. Other users of vacuum based processes include the life sciences, research, aerospace, packaging, heat treatment, laser cutting and many other industrial processes. We also leverage our expertise in vacuum technology to provide unique, toxic chemical analysis products for emergency response, security, and environmental monitoring. INFICON is headquartered in Switzerland and has world-class manufacturing facilities in Europe, the United States and China, as well as subsidiaries in China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. INFICON registered shares (IFCN) are listed on SIX Swiss Exchange. For more information about INFICON and its products, please visit www.inficon.com. TThis press release and oral statements or other written statements made, or to be made by us contain forward-looking statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of our management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect our current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. End of Media Release The newly formed group ECA-iXblue, international leader in defense robotics and underwater mine countermeasures, has joined forces with UGL to cement its permanent operations in Australia. UGL is a member of the CIMIC Group and one of Australia's biggest multi-disciplined engineering companies. The partnership will significantly bolster Australia's sovereign defense capability and create an Australian hub for the new group ECA-iXblue's world leading mine countermeasures, military survey, (MCM/MS) and autonomous system technologies. It will be an asset in responding to the Australian Navy's tender to replace its current minehunters and hydrographic ships with robotic systems and deep sea hydrography/oceanography capabilities. UGL is one of Australia's biggest integrated prime contractors with more than 7000 employees and operations around the country. The company is a long-term partner to Australia defense sector and is responsible for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of some of Australia's biggest infrastructure assets in rail, road, telecommunications and Oil & Gas. The partnership with UGL adds immediate size and scale to the innovative team that the group has put together to enhance its operations and drive its plans for long-term growth in Australia. The new ECA-iXblue group has also established partnerships with leading Australian SMEs Acacia Systems, Solutions from Silicon (SfS) and Total Marine Technologies (TMT) to inject local technology into its MCM/MS solution and facilitate the transfer of knowledge into the Australian Defence industry. About Acacia Systems Acacia Systems a leading South Australian-based defence software and systems engineering company specialising in mission systems software, cross platform sensor fusion, automatic target detection, localisation, and data analytics. ECA Group will transfer the required knowhow to enable Acacia to undertake maintenance of its core UMISOFT Mission Management software. About Solutions from Silicon (SfS) NSW-based MCM expert and developers of the MINTACS mine warfare tactical command software which is currently in service with navies around the world including Australia, the UK, Sweden, New Zealand and Thailand. MINTACS has been successfully integrated into ECA Group's recent UMISOFT MCM upgrade for the Latvian Navy. About Total Marine Technology (TMT) Total Marine Technology is a Western Australia-based underwater robotics and ultra-deep water technology specialists with deepwater ROV capability including support and maintenance services. About Groupe Gorge Groupe Gorge is a high-tech industrial group driven by a strong entrepreneurial culture. The Group is present in drones, engineering and protection systems. The Group generated revenue of 202 million in 2021. More information on www.groupe-gorge.com Groupe Gorge is listed on Euronext Paris Compartment B (GOE). Contacts: Investor Relations Hugo Soussan Tel. +33 (0)1 44 77 94 86 h.soussan@groupe-gorge.com Claire Riffaud Tel. +33 (0)1 53 67 36 79 criffaud@actus.fr Media Relations Manon Clairet Tel. +33 (0)1 53 67 36 73 mclairet@actus.fr ------------------------ This publication embed "Actusnews SECURITY MASTER ". - SECURITY MASTER Key: yGhraMVoaGrFmp6fZZiXbZOYnGpnkmCbmGabx2FoasubnXJglW1km5qZZnBnm2xs - Check this key: https://www.security-master-key.com. ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-76676-groupe-gorge_partenariat-australie-ugl_en_11102022.pdf The state-of-the-art campus represents an investment of nearly CHF 200 million and confirms the long-term importance of Geneva in the company's global operations GENEVA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Firmenich, the world's largest privately-owned fragrance and taste company, today officially inaugurated its new campus in Geneva, in the presence of local dignitaries and authorities. This new campus, at the cutting edge of the industry from both a technology and capacity perspective, represents Firmenich's commitment to operational excellence. The total investment for this multi-year project amounts to nearly CHF 200 million and confirms the importance of Geneva for the long term. "Our state-of-the art campus will be a key component in accelerating innovation and driving global expansion with enhanced capabilities," said Gilbert Ghostine, CEO of Firmenich. "Our new campus in Geneva is the most significant site for Firmenich and one of the most technologically-advanced in the industry in terms of digitalization, innovation, science and naturals. Consistent with our pioneering spirit, we developed this site to deliver superior services and experiences to our customers, from the creation of their fragrance or taste ingredients, right through to seamless production, while optimizing our environmental footprint." "This investment of nearly CHF 200 million is the most important one Firmenich has ever made on a single site," revealed Patrick Firmenich, Chairman of the Group. "This site significantly raises the bar of excellence within our industry, and we are proud to be setting a new global benchmark in Geneva, the heart of the global fragrance and taste industry. This site integrates leading-edge technologies, nurtures innovation and seeks to push the boundaries of scientific research. With this unique industrial project, we are strengthening our center of excellence in Geneva for our long-term growth." At the official ceremony, Mauro Poggia, President of the Geneva State Council and State Councilor in charge of the Department of Security, Population and Health (DSPS) said: "Firmenich is an industrial flagship, an excellent symbol of the values that are specific to the canton of Geneva: it brings together diverse cultures and identities; and it also combines a certain sense of attachment to one's roots with an openness to the world." The ceremony was attended by senior members of the State of Geneva, mayors of local governments, academics, civil society representatives and business leaders. The new campus in Geneva, is located across the two communes of Satigny and La Plaine. The combined surface area equals 225,000m, and houses 132,000m of infrastructure in total, including 22,000m of new highly sophisticated facilities. Firmenich Geneva includes: three technologically advanced production plants with adjacent lab capabilities for Perfumery, Taste & Beyond and Ingredients creation; a logistics hub and automated warehouse; an R&D biotech pilot plant; and a pavilion for work and social gatherings where people can also enjoy meals. The campus is built upon the company's vision of a future-proof operation, aimed at optimizing end-to-end workflows, using industry best practices and integration of the latest robotics and artificial intelligence. In addition to its operational excellence, the campus is designed to have a limited environmental impact through innovative construction and intelligent eco-management strategies. The new buildings benefit from minimized energy requirements for heating and cooling. A smart system of thermal envelopes significantly reduces heat loss, while renewable energy sources such as heat pumps and geothermal boreholes are integrated to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Extensive planting in and around the central pavilion, including a green roof, aligns with the design intention of creating a habitat for flora and fauna, improving biodiversity. The green roof also improves thermal insulation as well as rainwater retention. The new campus' award-winning design puts people's well-being at the center by maximizing natural daylight in laboratories and offices. The multipurpose and open workplaces foster collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing. The site promotes low impact mobility and is equipped with charging stations for electric vehicles and a large dedicated space for bikes. The Geneva campus was built in various phases, starting in December 2017 and the final fitting was done in February 2021. The campus is home to 1,450 people, including some of the world's leading scientists, perfumery and taste creators, technicians, and operators. About Firmenich Firmenich, the world's largest privately-owned fragrance and taste company, was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1895, and has been family-owned for 127 years. Firmenich is a leading business-to-business company specialized in the research, creation, manufacture and sale of perfumes, flavors, and ingredients. Renowned for its world-class research and creativity, as well as its leadership in sustainability, Firmenich offers its customers superior innovation in formulation, a broad and high-quality palette of ingredients, and proprietary technologies including biotechnology, encapsulation, olfactory science, and taste modulation. Firmenich had an annual turnover of 4.7 billion Swiss Francs at end June 2022. More information about Firmenich is available at www.firmenich.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918861/Firmenich_1.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918860/Firmenich_2.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918862/Firmenich_3.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/798187/Firmenich_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/firmenich-inaugurates-new-campus-in-geneva-301646611.html AgriWebb, a Denver, CO-based provider of a livestock business management solution, raised $6.7m in Series B funding bringing the round total to $29.3m. The round was led by Germin8 Ventures and iSelect Fund, who join existing share investors including Grosvenor Food & AgTech, Telus, and The Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The company intends to use the funds to roll out new partnerships, features and capabilities, and accelerate its plans to launch and expand a unified agtech ecosystem. Led by CEO Justin Webb, AgriWebb provides the Livestock Business Management solution, which empowers farmers and ranchers to transform everyday on-farm data into business insights. Used by over 16,000 farmers worldwide, the company is adding more than 250 new users each month. FinSMEs 11/10/2022 Xtremity, a Denver, CO-based MedTech startup, raised $8.1M in Series B3 funding. The backers were not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to establish itself as a leading developer and provider of prosthetic technologies, launching its first product. Led by CEO Maynard Carkhuff, Xtremity is a medical device brand that offers prosthetic socket technology. The companys first product, the XtremityTT, is a transtibial socket that can be effectively reshaped with heat, which allows for rapid fabrication and future adjustability by using advanced, proprietary polymer materials that allow for quicker fittings and easy adjustments for both patients and prosthetists. FinSMEs 11/10/2022 At the invitation of the government of Kazakhstan, which holds the presidency of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Vice President Wang Qishan will lead a delegation to Kazakhstan and attend the Sixth CICA Summit in Astana from October 12 to 13. ITV News: According to media reports, the Director of GCHQ in London will today give a speech in which he is likely to specifically claim that the Chinese government uses science and technology as a tool and presents a threat to global security. Can I ask you for a response to this? Mao Ning: The remarks of the British official have no factual basis at all. Chinas technological development is aimed at making lives better for the Chinese people. It does not target anyone, still less pose any threat. Subscribing to the so-called China threat and stoking confrontation benefits no one and will eventually backfire. Reuters: POLITICO reported overnight that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit China in early November. Is this accurate? If so, when precisely will Mr. Scholz come and what does China hope will be achieved through this visit? Mao Ning: I do not have any information to offer at the moment. AFP: The head of British cyber intelligence unit GCHQ is also expected to warn today that China is seeking to force other countries into client states. Do you have any comment? Mao Ning: That is also a baseless allegation. China does not force anyone into anything. China News Service: It is reported that hurricane Julia hit Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and other South American and Central American countries, causing damage and casualties in the relevant region recently. What is your comment? Will China provide assistance to these countries? Mao Ning: Recently, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and other countries have been hit by hurricane Julia. The hurricane triggered natural disasters such as flash floods and mudslides that caused fatalities and property loss. China mourns for the victims and extends condolences to the bereaved families and the injured. We believe that the governments and people of relevant countries will overcome the disasters and rebuild their homeland at an early date. China is ready to provide disaster relief assistance to the best of its capability. Reuters: A follow-up on the question on Ukraine. Its been reported that at least 19 people have died following Russian missiles that caused explosions and at least 105 people have been wounded across Ukraine. Whats Chinas comment on this? Is China concerned about the deaths and these people who are being wounded across Ukraine? Mao Ning: I stated Chinas position on the Ukraine issue yesterday, so I will not go over it again. The ongoing developments are worrisome. We call on relevant parties to find proper ways to address differences through dialogue and consultation. China is ready to work with the international community and continue to play a constructive part in deescalation efforts. Dragon TV: As some Western countries including the US have been calling for decoupling and breaking industrial and supply chains, some in the world are concerned over the potential impact on Chinas technological development. Whats Chinas comment? Mao Ning: Just a few days ago I saw a video clip on the Internet showing Earth seen from Chinas space station, which is liked by many viewers. It epitomizes Chinas sci-tech innovation and how Chinas technological development has contributed to the progress of mankind. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese government attach high importance to sci-tech innovation and see it as the primary driving force for development. We have identified self-reliance and independent development in science and technology as a strategic underpinning of national development. China now stands among the worlds countries of innovators, with cutting-edge technologies such as quantum information constantly breaking new ground, and new industries and business models including AI flourishing. Joint research and sci-tech cooperation between China and other countries has contributed to improving the welfare of humanity and addressing global challenges. I want to stress that innovation is part of human progress. No country may claim it exclusively for themselves, still less should anyone abuse their sci-tech advantages to suppress other countries development. Decoupling and disruption of industrial and supply chains is a double-edged sword that will cut oneself even as it hurts others. China does not see decoupling or disruption of industrial and supply chains as the right choice or something that could stop Chinas development. For China, development is always based on our own strength. No restriction or suppression would hold back Chinas sci-tech advancement. US' chip clamps will hurt innovation, spur Chinese alternatives, experts say China-targeting moves by the United States to intensify export curbs related to advanced semiconductors have sharpened concerns by analysts that the latest measures will further crimp innovation in the US as China is forced to find alternatives. The US government published sweeping export controls on Friday, including a measure to cut China off from certain chips made with US equipment, no matter where they were made. The restrictions will bar US companies from exporting critical chip manufacturing equipment to China and also prohibit US citizens and companies from providing direct or indirect support to Chinese companies involved in advanced chip manufacturing. The Commerce Department has written to US toolmakers KLA, Lam Research and Applied Materials with orders to halt shipments of equipment to wholly Chinese-owned factories producing advanced logic chips. US chip design leaders such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices also received letters on restricting shipments to China of chips used in supercomputing systems. Friday's new rules formalized the restrictions in those letters. The expanded export controls mark the latest attempt by the US government to slow China's technological advance. Last month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to further restrict foreign investment in US technologies. The order directs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to further scrutinize foreign investments and transactions related to national supply chains. With the export controls and investment review, the US is moving into "a new era" in terms of technology restrictions on China, said Paul Triolo, senior vice-president for China and technology policy lead at Albright Stonebridge Group. The US government already controls the export of advanced lithography to China, and the new controls will further restrict equipment for making the most advanced semiconductors and chips used for artificial intelligence and performance computing, Triolo told a webinar focused on the role of semiconductors in US-China relations. He said the US has weaponized the semiconductor industry before in cases like Huawei, referring to the Entity List Foreign Direct Product Rule that was expanded during the presidency of Donald Trump to cut off the Chinese tech giant from chips made overseas with US technologies. The Biden administration has further expanded the powers to control exports to China of chips made with US tools, to make it harder for China to develop and maintain supercomputers and artificial intelligence technology. This far-reaching export control mechanism has caused concerns in the semiconductor industry that US companies will be hurt. Nvidia has said it could take a $400 million hit to revenue due to the restrictions on its ability to sell its latest data center chips in China. "All this cutting off access to the China market is going to ultimately also impact the US ability to do innovation", said Triolo, "because those companies like Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel, they're deriving a huge amount of their revenue from access to the China market". "If they're cut off, that's going to impact their R&D budgets, and impact their ability to continue to innovate," he said. The government needs to measure the cost to the industry and the country's innovation capacity when making national security policies, he said. Consequences examined In an article published by the TechSpot website, Jonathan Goldberg, the founder of consulting firm D2D Advisory, wrote: "This is a short-term move, but it has long-term consequences." He predicts that "further expansion will meet with stiff resistance from the homefront". Goldberg also said that the restrictions are spurring Chinese companies to look for domestic alternatives. "We have written a lot about the growth in the capabilities of Chinese fabless firms, including a host of companies producing GPUs not too dissimilar from what the US government just banned," said Goldberg, referring to graphics processing units. "The US government's actions are directly leading to interest in a sea of aspiring Nvidia competitors. For companies like Biren, the US government's actions are a major boost," he said, referring to a Chinese tech startup. AI-driven thermal attack system reveals passwords in seconds Computer security experts have developed a system capable of guessing computer and smartphone users passwords in seconds by analysing the traces of heat their fingertips leave on keyboards and screens. Researchers from the University of Glasgow developed the system, called ThermoSecure, to demonstrate how falling prices of thermal imaging cameras and rising access to machine learning are creating new risks for thermal attacks. Thermal attacks can occur after users type their passcode on a computer keyboard, smartphone screen or ATM keypad before leaving the device unguarded. A passerby equipped with a thermal camera can take a picture that reveals the heat signature of where their fingers have touched the device. The brighter an area appears in the thermal image, the more recently it was touched. By measuring the relative intensity of the warmer areas, it is possible to determine the specific letters, numbers or symbols that make up the password and estimate the order in which they were used. From there, attackers can try different combinations to crack users passwords. Previous research by Dr Mohamed Khamis, who led the development of ThermoSecure, has already demonstrated that non-experts can successfully guess passwords simply by looking carefully at thermal images taken between 30 and 60 seconds after surfaces were touched. In a paper published in the journal ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security, Dr Khamis and the authoring team, Ms Norah Alotaibi and Dr John Williamson, explain how they set out to harness machine learning to make the attack process more accurate. To do so, they took 1,500 thermal photos of recently-used QWERTY keyboards from different angles. Then, they trained an artificial intelligence model to effectively read the images and make informed guesses about the passwords from the heat signature clues using a probabilistic model. Through two user studies, they found that ThermoSecure was capable of revealing 86% of passwords when thermal images are taken within 20 seconds, and 76% when within 30 seconds, dropping to 62% after 60 seconds of entry. They also found that within 20 seconds, ThermoSecure was capable of successfully attacking even long passwords of 16 characters, with a rate of up to 67% correct attempts. As passwords grew shorter, success rates increased 12-symbol passwords were guessed up to 82% of the time, eight-symbol passwords up to 93% of the time, and six-symbol passwords were successful in up to 100% of attempts. Dr Khamis, of the University of Glasgows School of Computing Science, said: They say you need to think like a thief to catch a thief. We developed ThermoSecure by thinking carefully about how malicious actors might exploit thermal images to break into computers and smartphones. Access to thermal imaging cameras is more affordable than ever they can be found for less than 200 and machine learning is becoming increasingly accessible too. That makes it very likely that people around the world are developing systems along similar lines to ThermoSecure in order to steal passwords. Its important that computer security research keeps pace with these developments to find new ways to mitigate risk, and we will continue to develop our technology to try to stay one step ahead of attackers. Were also keen to highlight to policymakers the risks that these kind of thermal attacks pose for computer security. One potential risk-reduction pathway could be to make it illegal to sell thermal cameras without some kind of enhanced security included in their software. We are currently developing an AI-driven countermeasure system that could help address this issue. The researchers also looked at additional variables which made it easier for ThermoSecure to guess passwords. One was the typing style of the keyboard users. Hunt-and-peck keyboard users who type slowly tend to leave their fingers on the keys for longer, creating heat signatures which last longer than faster touch-typists. Images taken within 30 seconds of the keyboard being touched allowed ThermoSecure to successfully guess hunt-and-peck typists passwords 92% of the time, but only 80% of the time for touch-typists. Secondly, the type of material keyboards are made from can affect their ability to absorb heat, with implications for the effectiveness of thermal attacks. ThermoSecure could successfully guess passwords from the heat retained on keycaps made from ABS plastics around half of the time, but only 14% of the time on keys manufactured from PBT plastics. The ThermoSecure team has a number of suggestions for computer and smartphone users to protect themselves from thermal attacks. Dr Khamis added: Longer passwords are more difficult for ThermoSecure to guess accurately, so we would advise using long passphrases wherever possible. Longer passphrases take longer to type, which also makes it more difficult to get an accurate reading on a thermal camera, particularly if the user is a touch typist. Backlit keyboards also produce more heat, making accurate thermal readings more challenging, so a backlit keyboard with PBT plastics could be inherently more secure. Finally, users can help make their devices and keyboards more secure by adopting alternative authentication methods, like fingerprint or facial recognition, which mitigate many of the risks of thermal attack. In my team we have previously proposed authentication schemes that rely on eye movements for password entry; gaze-based authentication is resistant to thermal attacks by design. The teams paper, titled ThermoSecure: Investigating the effectiveness of AI-driven thermal attacks on commonly used computer keyboards, is published in ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security. The research was supported by funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE Award 65040), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC grant number EP/V008870/1), and the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity (Project PT.HEAT) which is also funded by the EPSRC (EP/S035362/1), as well as by a studentship sponsored by Taif University and the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia Cultural Bureau in London. Fort Collins, Sept. 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innosphere Ventures, a science and technology-focused Incubator out of Fort Collins, is attending Northern Colorados (NoCo) Trade Mission to Salt Lake City Utah. The trade mission is designed to include government, business and non-profit leaders interested in advancing the Northern Colorado economy. During the Salt Lake trip, the group will be studying the startup ecosystem, economic development strategy, venture capital landscape, and overall economic health approaches of the region. In preparation for the event, Innosphere has released a comparative analysis of the Utah and Colorado Venture Capital ecosystems, showing evidence of rapid advancement in the last decade in both states. Over the past decade, Colorado and Utah have consistently been among the fastest-growing VC ecosystems, with both states reaching the top 15 in the national ranking for VC deployment in 2021. Colorado and Utah raised $10 billion in venture capital funding across more than 650 total deals. Emerging VC hubs such as the Denver Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and the Salt Lake City MSA have continually led their respective states in total VC activity and provided an essential jumpstart to the VC ecosystems. Colorado and Utah are states striving to position themselves as technology-based economic development engines. They are pursuing similar strategies: leverage university-created IP & commercialization, pursue targeted industries, and surround home-grown startups with advanced support and programming. Each state/region has an opportunity to begin building up more locally available venture capital. This is particularly important at the angel and seed stage as this is where technology companies benefit much more from local investors, said Mike Freeman, Innosphere CEO. It is also important to continue to advance the capacity of each States research universities and federal labs to accelerate commercial activity. Each state is securing significant federal grant funding in pursuit of new technology development, and accelerating that pathway to market for those opportunities will yield real economic results. Read the full article HERE Attachment Tokyo, Oct. 04, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Precedence Research has recently announced report on Biodiesel Market (By Feedstock: Vegetable Oil, Animal Fats; By Application: Fuel, Power Generation, Others; By Production Process: Alcohol Trans-Esterification, Hydro-Heating) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Regional Outlook, and Forecast 2022-2030. Green diesel, sometimes referred to as biodiesel, is a sustainable alternative fuel produced by transesterifying animal fats and used cooking oils. There are two byproducts of the process: methyl esters (biodiesel) as well as glycerol. Biodiesel has qualities comparable to petroleum diesel, but it is more cost-effective, carbon-neutral, and non-toxic. This also burns faster than fossil fuels and emits no sulphur or other toxic pollutants as a byproduct. These benefits account for its widespread usage in the agriculture, mining, railroad, marine, and automotive industries. Get the Free Sample Copy of Report@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/sample/2230 The main factors propelling market expansion are the rising need for renewable and clean fuel sources as well as the rising demand for energy on a global scale. Another important development driver is a healthy car sector. Biodiesel is now widely used all over the world as a consequence of rising environmental awareness and customer comprehension of its advantages. Additionally, the use of biodiesel has been encouraged by the dearth and growing cost of non-renewable energy sources including diesel, liquefied petroleum gas and gasoline. The third-generation biofuels made from algae, which can produce a diverse and significant amount of ethanol as compared to many other feedstocks, are only one example of the numerous technological advances that are enhancing the market picture. In the next years, it is anticipated that other factors, such as favourable government laws encouraging its usage for environmental protection, sustainable energy, and environmental preservation, would have a positive impact on the market. Key Insights: By feedstock, the vegetable oil category held 96.4% of total revenue share in 2021. By application, the fuel segment has accounted 79% revenue share in 2021. The Europe region has contributed 48% of total revenue share in 2021. Why Asia Pacific region is growing faster in the biodiesel market? Asia Pacific is predicted to grow at the quickest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and is expected to maintain this trend throughout the projection period. This is due to increased demand for environmentally friendly fuels from the region's economies like India and China as a result of lower greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, increased government assistance for biodiesel production is expected to boost regional market growth. For example, the Indonesian government set allocated USD 195 million from of the state budget in 2020 to support palm oil biodiesel producers in order to assist the economy recover from a pandemic-induced drop. Furthermore, rising mix percentages in nations such as Thailand, Indonesia, and India are expected to drive regional market growth. Ask here for more customization study@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/customization/2230 Scope of the Report Report Attributes Details Market Size in 2021 USD 92.3 Billion Revenue Forecast by 2030 USD 189.7 Billion Europe Market Share 48% in 2021 CAGR 8.33% from 2022 to 2030 Base Year 2021 Forecast Year 2022 to 2030 Key Players FutureFuel Corp, Ecodiesel Colombia S.A., Manuelita S.A., Renewable Biofuels, Inc., TerraVia Holdings, Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Ag Processing, Inc., Cargill, Inc., Louis Dreyfus Company; Wilmar International Ltd, Bunge Ltd., Munzer Bioindustrie GmbH, Neste Oyj, Biox Corp, Renewable Energy Group, Inc. Market dynamics Drivers Biodiesel is non-toxic, easy to use, and biodegradable. Additionally, it is free of all sulphur compounds and aromatics. It reduces dangerous carbon-based emissions, creates less greenhouse gases and air pollutants, and works with the majority of diesel engines. The biodiesel industry is expanding as a result of the rising concern over greenhouse gas emissions caused by the use of fossil fuels. In comparison to petroleum diesel, biodiesel contains a lower proportion of toxic and cancer-causing aromatic carbon and can reduce carbon emissions by close to 50%. The United States used roughly 2 billion gallons of biodiesel in 2015, according to new EPA figures, which led to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of at minimum 18.2 million metric tonnes. By manufacturing biodiesel, which is made locally and can be placed in any diesel engine with little to no alterations to the engine or fuel system, some countries have decreased their dependency on imported oil supplies. Due to the fluctuating cost of products made from petroleum, biodiesel is becoming a more affordable option. Restraints For social and ecological reasons, replacing conventional fuels with biodiesel mixes is important; yet, there may be problems if used in automobiles. The improvement in fuel foaming and water separation over pure fossil energy is one such example. Additionally, due to the generation of low-molecular weight acids, mixing with low-stability biodiesel can lead to higher amounts of injector deposits and corrosion. Both fuel injection equipment manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers have reported seeing this kind of damage in the field. Furthermore, using low-quality biodiesel blends has been linked to significant power losses in complex direct injection engines. Such incidents may be avoided with the use of a high-quality diesel fuel additive, also known as a flow improver. Opportunities DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz are emphasising the usage of biodiesel by providing extended warranties on the vehicles that utilise this fuel. DaimlerChrysler, for example, proposes to enhance the warranty coverage of the vehicle's engine provided customers use a 20% biodiesel blend in their cars. This is fueling the expansion of biodiesel automobile applications. Furthermore, the U.S. The Department of Defense, the world's single largest user of oil, has opted to operate the majority of its on-road trucks on biodiesel mixes. Several state governments, notably those in North Dakota and Carolina, have followed suit. In several European nations, such as Germany and France, the government has enacted legislation requiring automobiles to operate on particular biodiesel blends (5% to 10%). These government efforts are also promoting the use of biodiesel in automobile applications. Challenges Animal tallow, palm kernel oil, palm oil, soy oil, and coconut oil are the primary raw materials utilised in the production of biodiesel. The emerging nations in Asia-Pacific have an abundance of these raw materials. Additionally, manufacturers have relocated to the Asia-Pacific since the region's biodiesel market is growing in contrast to the established ones in North America and Europe. Another element boosting the growth of the Asia-Pacific market is the inexpensive availability of raw materials. As a result, major global market players are focusing their efforts on bringing biodiesel manufacturing to these developing areas. The entrance barriers for manufacturing have decreased as a result of the simple accessibility of raw materials in emerging nations. Due to the entry of several small, mid-sized, and big manufacturers, the markets for feedstock and biodiesel are now overstocked. Surplus biodiesel is exported in order to balance the demand-supply gap, which sparks a price war in local markets. The main issue facing the biodiesel industry is this. Related Reports Recent developments In November 2016, Renewable Energy Group Inc. began a USD 24 million expansion of its Ralston, IA bio-refinery. This development will raise yearly manufacturing capacity to 30 million gallons from 12 million gallon, allowing the corporation to meet the growing demand for biodiesel in the United States. Cargill Inc. expanded its canola research institute in Aberdeen in August 2016. (Canada). A pathology lab, a new state-of-the-art Quality Assurance lab, a ventilated seed prep room, and high efficiency LED lighting throughout the building with UV resisting glass were also part of the expansion. This 14,000-square-foot extension will allow the company to perform research and innovation in the speciality canola market. In June 2016, BIOX Corporation bought Methes Energies Canada Inc.'s biodiesel refinery in Sombra, Ontario. The plant is capable of producing 50 million litres of biodiesel. This purchase will enhance the company's manufacturing capacity by 75% and allow it to service North American consumers. Market Segmentation By Feedstock Vegetable Oil Canola Oil Soybean Oil Palm Oil Corn Oil Others Animal Fats Poultry Tallow White Grease Others By Application Fuel Automotive Agriculture Marine Power Generation Others By Production Process Alcohol Trans-Esterification Hydro-Heating By Geography North America Europe Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa (MEA) Immediate Delivery Available | Buy this Premium Research Report@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/checkout/2230 You can place an order or ask any questions, please feel free to contact at sales@precedenceresearch.com | +1 9197 992 333 About Us Precedence Research is a worldwide market research and consulting organization. We give unmatched nature of offering to our customers present all around the globe across industry verticals. Precedence Research has expertise in giving deep-dive market insight along with market intelligence to our customers spread crosswise over various undertakings. We are obliged to serve our different client base present over the enterprises of medicinal services, healthcare, innovation, next-gen technologies, semi-conductors, chemicals, automotive, and aerospace & defense, among different ventures present globally. For Latest Update Follow Us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/precedence-research/ https://www.facebook.com/precedenceresearch/ https://twitter.com/Precedence_R eureKARE to host SynBio Day 2022 entitled Synthetic Biology for the Protection of our Planet To be held 13-14 October in person in Monaco and online; delegates can access the virtual event here More than 25 international experts to speak on harnessing synthetic biology for the benefit of our environment Paris, France 10 October 2022: eureKARE ("the Company"), a pioneering company focused on financing and building next generation biotechnology companies in the disruptive fields of synthetic biology, is hosting its annual SynBio Day on 13-14 October in person in Monaco and virtually. Following the success of the inaugural 2021 event, SynBio Day 2022 will bring together researchers, industry partners, government representatives and investors to discuss the opportunities and challenges of applying synthetic biology solutions to tackle climate change and benefit our environment. Synthetic biology is being explored across the spectrum of environmental challenges including innovation in greener products such as biofuels to reduce global emissions, creating bioplastics to replace plastic in furniture and packaging, and engineering bacteria to degrade synthetic materials, which could help reduce the more than 165 million tons of plastic that has contaminated the oceans. The Scientific Centre of Monaco is a key supporter of this event. Since 1989, the centre has specialised in many areas linked to the environment including: marine biology, polar biology, environmental policy, astrophysics, and sustainable development. Over the two-day event there will be keynote speakers, expert round tables, and a green technology and NGO showcase, covering new research, policy, commercialization, legal aspects, not-for-profit projects, and more. The event will be hosted in Monaco, recognizing the countrys avant-garde ecological example and rich maritime history, and will be available to attend online. To attend SynBio Day 2022 virtually, please join the LinkedIn event group here. Key presenters at SynBio Day 2022 include: Prince Albert II of Monaco; Alexandre Mouradian, Chairman and Co-Founder of eureKARE; Denis Allemand from Centre Scientifique de Monaco; Hinrich Grothe, University Professor at Vienna University of Technology, Austria; Tina Santl-Temkiv, Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark; Rachid Benchaouir, Chief Executive Officer of Coraliotech, Monaco; and Christian Voolstra, Professor at University of Konstanz, Germany. Topics that will covered include key initiatives in ocean and atmospheric sciences such as mitigating the ecological collapse of coral reefs, ice-active proteins at the interface between marine and atmospheric environments; and high-value proteins from corals. Please view the full program here. Alexandre Mouradian, Chairman and Co-Founder of eureKARE, commented: Planet health is human health, and this years SynBio Day will concentrate on synthetic biology for the protection of the planet. With a wide array of potential applications, synthetic biology is an unexploited toolkit which offers new solutions to tackle a variety of ongoing global issues. At eureKARE, we are proud to be facilitating the discussion and development of these synthetic biology applications through our annual SynBio event, and through our ventures and SynBio studios. We are thrilled at the calibre of speakers who will be presenting and who demonstrate Europes strength in fundamental sciences, with a focus on synthetic biology as a potential solution to tackle oceanic and atmospheric challenges. It is set to be an engaging and insightful event. - Ends - About eureKARE eureKARE is an investment company focused on financing and developing synthetic biology across Europe. Driven by the belief that synthetic biology holds the key to many of the worlds most pressing health and environmental challenges, eureKAREs experienced team is focused on harnessing Europes untapped leadership in the field to build the companies of the future. eureKARE is championing a new model of start-up creation and development to create a dynamic ecosystem of early and later stage ventures through its network of synthetic biology studios. Backed by a proprietary AI tool, eureKAREs studios act as a bridge between academia and industry, helping to catalyze researchers innovations into companies with access to all the ingredients they need to grow, prosper, and bring benefits to society. Contacts Consilium Strategic Communications Media Relations Amber Fennell, Sukaina Virji, Genevieve Wilson eurekare@consilium-comms.co.uk ATLANTA, Oct. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE: GTN) today announced that it will release its earnings results for the quarter ended, September 30, 2022 on Friday, November 4, 2022. Earnings Conference Call Information Gray Television, Inc. will host a conference call to discuss its operating results for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, on Friday, November 4, 2022. The call will begin at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The live dial-in number is 1-800-285-6670. The call will be webcast live and available for replay at www.gray.tv . The taped replay of the conference call will be available at 1-888-556-3470 Passcode: 898476# until November 24, 2022. About Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is a multimedia company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Gray is the nations largest owner of top-rated local television stations and digital assets in the United States. Its television stations serve 113 television markets that collectively reach approximately 36 percent of US television households. This portfolio includes 80 markets with the top-rated television station and 100 markets with the first and/or second highest rated television station. It also owns video program companies Raycom Sports, Tupelo Media Group, (formerly Tupelo Honey) and PowerNation Studios, as well as the studio production facilities Assembly Atlanta and Third Rail Studios. For more information, please visit www.gray.tv . Gray Contacts: TORONTO, Oct. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Oct. 7, 2022, the Canadian government revealed that it had spent $54 million on the ArriveCan app, a tool used for travelers to upload their mandatory health information in relation to COVID-19 measures. Many top players in the country's tech industry were taken back by the development costs that the Canadian government was charged. In an effort to showcase the prowess of Canada's tech community, the Toronto-based digital innovation lab TribalScale came together over the weekend and held a voluntary hackathon to rebuild ArriveCan. Sheetal Jaitly, CEO of TribalScale, said, "Our team wanted to use this as an opportunity for change. The goal of this was to show how smart and talented the Canadian tech community is and offer up a new resource to help with the procurement of technology services for the Canadian government." TribalScale wrapped up its hackathon on Oct. 10, 2022. After two days of work, the team was able to recreate the ArriveCan app and it will be releasing the Git and a full demo tomorrow afternoon. Here's a quick video preview of what has been built so far. TribalScale was able to deliver the following features: Sign-up flow Created ability to add travel documents Created ability to add additional traveler profiles to accounts Ability to save travelers' details for future trips Ability to complete declaration forms (approximately a dozen questions) Ability to input trip information; integration with API for list of airport options Created placeholder to scan Passport or PR Card to add traveler details List of linked traveler resources TribalScale is also taking on the initiative of forming The Canadian Technology Consortium. "We are forming this consortium of leaders in digital to be a free advisory resource for the Canadian government at all levels across the country on any digital questions now or in the future. Let's bring capital efficiency and productivity to our digital ecosystem within the government. We are encouraging leaders from the Canadian tech community to apply now," said Jaitly. The first meeting of this consortium will take place this Friday, Oct. 14, at 7:45 a.m. Jaitly explained, "We envision this resource to be a long-term solution to support for all levels of Canadian government. TribalScale's mission statement is Right The Future and this is another way we can help do just that." About TribalScale: TribalScale is a global innovation firm that helps enterprises adapt and thrive in the digital era. Through agile practices, we transform teams, build best-in-class digital products, and create disruptive startups. To learn more, visit tribalscale.com. Contact Information: Matthew Street VP of Sales & Marketing mstreet@tribalscale.com 5714691156 Related Images Image 1: TribalScale Logo TribalScale Logo This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. (Falcon or Company) Binding Letter of Intent Executed with New Joint Venture Partner 11 October 2022 Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. (TSXV: FO, AIM: FOG) is pleased to announce that its c.98% owned subsidiary, Falcon Oil & Gas Australia Limited (Falcon Australia), has entered into a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with Tamboran (B1) Pty Limited (Tamboran), a joint venture between Sheffield Holdings LP and Tamboran Resources Limited, pursuant to which the parties have agreed to amend the terms of the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) and the Farm-In Agreement (FIA), each dated 2 May 2014 (as amended), entered into with Origin Energy B2 Pty Ltd (Origin) in respect of Falcon Australias interest in the Beetaloo Sub-Basin exploration permits. The Board believes that the proposed amendments to the FIA and JOA will significantly improve Falcons future capital preservation and optionality. The key terms of the LOI provide for: Falcon Australia to earn an additional carry on future well costs of up to AU$30m (AU$6.75m net to Falcon Australia); the introduction of limited proration units on sole risk operations to a maximum of 6,400 acres per well, providing Falcon Australia with participation optionality on the drilling of future wells; the sharing of well data on any sole risked wells, providing Falcon Australia with visibility on crucial data and analysis even where it elects not to participate; and pre-emptive rights in relation to Origins divestment of its 77.5% interest in the Beetaloo Sub-basin announced on 19 September 2022 are not to be exercised by Falcon Australia and all pre-emptive and similar rights are to be removed from the JOA, providing Falcon Australia with greater flexibility for realisation of licence interests. The parties will now proceed to negotiate and agree fully termed amendments to the JOA and the FIA reflecting the terms of the LOI. Drilling of the first of the two Stage 3 wells will commence shortly with Falcon Australia still benefiting financially from the remainder of the carry under the existing FIA and JOA with Origin. Philip O'Quigley, Falcons CEO, commented: Falcon Australia welcomes its new JV partners, Sheffield Holdings and Tamboran Resources. While our immediate focus is on the two Stage 3 Amungee wells, we are really excited about the future pace of development of the Beetaloo. The proposed amendments to the FIA and JOA puts Falcon in a very strong position going forward creating optionality for our shareholders in terms of the level of participation in any future appraisal and development drilling. Each future well drilled in the Beetaloo basin play further de-risks the play and, as a result of the proposed changes contemplated by the LOI, Falcon can tailor its participation to best preserve its capital while at the same time maximising its optionality. Investor Meet Q&A Falcon will provide a live Investor Q&A with Philip OQuigley via the Investor Meet Company platform today, 11 October 2022 at 10:00am BST. The presentation is open to all existing and potential shareholders, and questions can be submitted at any time during the live presentation. Investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company for free and add to meet Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. via: https://www.investormeetcompany.com/falcon-oil-gas-ltd/register-investor Investors who already follow Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. on the Investor Meet Company platform will automatically be invited. A recording of the presentation will be made available on the Investor Meet Company platform and the Companys website later today. This contains inside information. Ends. CONTACT DETAILS: Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. +353 1 676 8702 Philip O'Quigley, CEO +353 87 814 7042 Anne Flynn, CFO +353 1 676 9162 Cenkos Securities plc (NOMAD & Broker) Neil McDonald / Derrick Lee +44 131 220 9771 About Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd is an international oil & gas company engaged in the exploration and development of unconventional oil and gas assets, with the current portfolio focused in Australia, South Africa and Hungary. Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd is incorporated in British Columbia, Canada and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with a technical team based in Budapest, Hungary. Falcon Oil & Gas Australia Limited is a c. 98% subsidiary of Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. For further information on Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd. please visit www.falconoilandgas.com About Tamboran (B1) Pty Limited Tamboran (B1) Pty Limited is a 50:50 joint venture between Tamboran Resources Limited and Sheffield Holdings, LP. Tamboran Resources Limited, founded in 2009, is a public natural gas company listed on the ASX (TBN) and OTC markets (TBNNY). It has a vision of supporting the net zero CO 2 energy transition in Australia and Asia-Pacific through developing low CO 2 unconventional gas resources in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is headquartered in Sydney, Australia with a global management team leveraging a significant depth of experience in the successful commercialisation of unconventional gas throughout North America. The team brings a wealth of knowledge, including modern shale reservoir assessment, as well as cutting-edge drilling and completion design technology. Bryan Sheffield of Sheffield Holdings LP is a highly successful investor and has made significant returns in the US unconventional energy sector in the past. He was Founder of Parsley Energy Inc. (PE), an independent unconventional oil and gas producer in the Permian Basin, Texas and previously served as its Chairman and CEO. PE was acquired for over US$7 billion by Pioneer Natural Resources Company (Pioneer), itself a leading independent oil and gas company and with the PE acquisition became a Permian pure play company. Pioneer has a current market capitalisation of c. US$60 billion. Glossary of terms A$ Australian Dollar FIA Farmin agreement dated 2 May 2014 as amended from time to time JOA Joint Operating Agreement dated 2 May 2014 as amended from time to time Proration unit Acreage assigned to the area around a well where sole risk operations take place Sole risk operations An operation carried out by fewer than all parties to the joint venture Advisory regarding forward looking statements Certain information in this press release may constitute forward-looking information. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking information. Forward-looking information typically contains statements with words such as may, will, should, expect, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, projects, dependent, potential, scheduled, forecast, outlook, budget, hope, suggest, support planned, potential or the negative of those terms or similar words suggesting future outcomes. In particular, forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, information relating to the letter of intent executed, proposed amendments to the JOA and FIA, limited proration units on sole risk operations providing future participation optionality and future sole risk operations and information relating to the Companys drilling program. This information is based on current expectations that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. The risks, assumptions and other factors that could influence actual results include risks associated with fluctuations in market prices for shale gas; risks related to the exploration, development and production of shale gas reserves; general economic, market and business conditions; substantial capital requirements; uncertainties inherent in estimating quantities of reserves and resources; extent of, and cost of compliance with, government laws and regulations and the effect of changes in such laws and regulations; the need to obtain regulatory approvals before development commences; environmental risks and hazards and the cost of compliance with environmental regulations; aboriginal claims; inherent risks and hazards with operations such as mechanical or pipe failure, cratering and other dangerous conditions; potential cost overruns, drilling wells is speculative, often involving significant costs that may be more than estimated and may not result in any discoveries; variations in foreign exchange rates; competition for capital, equipment, new leases, pipeline capacity and skilled personnel; the failure of the holder of licenses, leases and permits to meet requirements of such; changes in royalty regimes; failure to accurately estimate abandonment and reclamation costs; inaccurate estimates and assumptions by management and their joint venture partners; effectiveness of internal controls; the potential lack of available drilling equipment; failure to obtain or keep key personnel; title deficiencies; geo-political risks; and risk of litigation. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive and that these factors and risks are difficult to predict. Actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. Falcon assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward looking-statements unless and until required by securities laws applicable to Falcon. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in Falcons filings with the Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com, including under "Risk Factors" in the Annual Information Form. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. VIENNA, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After-hours veterinary urgent care services will soon be available in Vienna, VA. PetMedic Urgent Care Vet Clinic plans to open its doors in the new year. The practice will be conveniently located at 1495 Cornerside Boulevard in Tyson's Corner near B. Good, Dunkin and Walmart. Modeled after human urgent care, PetMedic offers coordinated, convenient, and compassionate veterinary care for non-life-threatening conditions after regular business hours and on weekends. PetMedic complements pet owners' trusted family veterinarians and alleviates the case overload at emergency hospitals. This will be the first PetMedic location in the Mid-Atlantic and fifth overall. The clinic is staffed by an experienced emergency medicine team and is complete with a modern surgical suite, laboratory, digital X-ray, ultrasound, and cutting-edge software that allows for an efficient workflow for team members. Dr. Nir Ben-Ari, founder and chief medical officer of PetMedic, commented, "We are thrilled to be offering veterinary urgent care in Virginia. The need for urgent care in the veterinary space is high to alleviate burnout in our teams and to provide a stronger continuum of care. Pet parents love the after-hours and weekend options, and our healthcare network appreciates the extra hands when they're overloaded. It's a win-win for the community in every respect." PetMedic does not perform routine services provided by family veterinary practices, such as wellness visits, or administer vaccinations. Pet owners can make same-day appointments conveniently online. An outstanding healthcare team and client-centric approach is a top priority for all PetMedic clinics. # Contact Information: Melissa Lucas Senior Communications, PR & Events Marketing Manager mlucas@petmedicurgentcare.com (781) 534-2714 Related Images Image 1: Coming soon Vienna dog coming soon This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment English Swedish French German Italian Dutch Image available: monika@prismapr.com Caption: JLT devices have proved critical to helping A/S Lgstrup-Steel conquer downtime issues in the warehouse. Watch the customer testimonial here. JLT Mobile Computers Selected by Leading European Switchgear Company A/S Lgstrup-Steel Rugged vehicle-mounted terminals from JLT eclipse performance of existing technology thanks to more reliable networking and more efficient operator interactions. Vaxjo, Sweden, 11 October 2022 * * * JLT Mobile Computers, a leading developer of reliable computing solutions for demanding environments, has proved critical to helping A/S Lgstrup-Steel conquer downtime issues in the warehouse, thanks to modern computer hardware and more robust and reliable plant-wide network connectivity. A/S Lgstrup-Steel is a leading Danish manufacturer and supplier of high quality, low-voltage modular switchgear and switchboards. It designs and develops products that can be customized to suit a wide variety of roles in data center, marine & offshore, energy & power transmission, building management and manufacturing & process applications. With such a wide variety of use cases come multiple and extensive bills of materials, all of which must be meticulously managed, re-stocked, tracked and picked correctly for each product variant. To fulfill these criteria, A/S Lgstrup-Steel utilizes a central warehouse management system that interacts with forklift-mounted terminals. However, the terminals in the previous setup introduced some years ago faced difficulties switching between wireless access points as the trucks navigated the warehouse. The resultant crashes caused by the networking issues often entailed long reacquire or re-boot procedures, all of which cut into the warehouses productive hours. The company needed to source a more reliable solution but had to maintain optimum operational throughput during any trial and installation periods, so contacted Danish warehouse IT specialist, Codeex, to help it evaluate several competing systems. Following extensive evaluation, the JLT1214 rugged forklift computer from JLT proved to be an ideal solution, not just for its rugged design and operator interactions, but also due to its far superior networking capabilities. We have a robust scheduling and management system, which can handle several orders at once, explains Henrik Hansen, IT manager, A/S Lgstrup-Steel. But with the terminals crashing, many of the efficiencies we gain through this software were being lost through the hardwares failings. The JLT truck terminals supplied by Codeex worked flawlessly in relation to both our employees and the warehouses network connection. And the addition of a keyboard has sped up the operators interactions, so as well as preventing downtime, we have optimized our uptime too. According to Anette Malmstrom, EMEA Business Unit Director at JLT: Connectivity is the backbone of modern warehouse operations. It enables staff to connect to business-critical systems in real-time and move or pick items based on a prescribed list of actions or processes. Bad connectivity interrupts this seamless flow of goods in and deliverables out, causing frustration, a loss in productivity and ultimately, hitting the bottom line. To deliver complete peace of mind, A/S Lgstrup-Steel was able to test the JLT terminals for a month to ensure that they were not only fit for purpose in their role as rugged vehicle-mounted terminals, but also addressed the communication issues faced by the incumbent hardware. The unit on test was mounted on a shock- and vibration-damping RAM bracket and was equipped with a keyboard. Malmstrom stresses the importance of try before you buy in terms of warehouse automation solutions. We guide our customers through the steps they need to take to ensure the best possible performance and return on investment. Indeed, the testing itself is treated as part of the investment, with the mantra that you should try to identify issues as early as possible, before they become complex and potentially expensive to fix later. The JLT1214 computers WLAN and Bluetooth both take advantage of JLTs built-in highly sensitive Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA) technology, designed for highly reliable wireless connectivity even in difficult environments with weak or uneven coverage. Like all JLT products, the JLT1214 logistics computer is built from the ground up to deliver maximum reliability and functionality in demanding environments. A high integration of features and a compact design provide for fast, reliable, and cost-effective installation, even in small spaces. For more information about JLT Mobile Computers, its products, and solutions, visit www.jltmobile.com. Reader Enquiries JLT Mobile Computers Group JLT Mobile Computers Per Holmberg, CEO Anette Malmstrom, EMEA Business Unit Director Tel.: +46 70 361 3934 Tel: +46 73 350 8346 per.holmberg@jltmobile.com anette.malmstrom@jltmobile.com www.jltmobile.com www.jltmobile.com Press Contact Certified Adviser PRismaPR Eminova Fondkommission AB Monika Cunnington Tel.: +46 08 684 211 10 Tel.: +44 20 8133 6148 adviser@eminova.se monika@prismapr.com www.prismapr.com www.eminova.se About JLT Mobile Computers Reliable performance, less hassle. JLT Mobile Computers is a leading supplier of rugged mobile computing devices and solutions for demanding environments. Over 25 years of development and manufacturing experience have enabled us to set the standard in rugged computing, combining outstanding product quality with expert service, support and solutions to ensure trouble-free business operations for customers in warehousing, transportation, manufacturing, mining, ports and agriculture. JLT operates globally from offices in Sweden and the US, complemented by an extensive network of sales partners in local markets. The company was founded in 1994, and the share has been listed on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market stock exchange since 2002 under the symbol JLT. Eminova Fondkommission AB acts as Certified Adviser. Learn more at jltmobile.com. Attachment Pune, India, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to Fortune Business Insights the global liquid waste management market size is predicted to reach USD 85.02 billion by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.3% during the forecast period. The rising population around the world has led to a necessity for efficient liquid waste management, which, in turn, will bolster healthy growth of the market in the forthcoming years. As per the United Nations study, the world population is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050 and surpasses 11 billion by 2100. Moreover, the ongoing projects for water treatment plants in the developing nations will subsequently accelerate the liquid waste management market revenue in the forthcoming years, mentioned a report, titled Liquid Waste Management Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis and Regional Forecast, 2019-2026 the market size stood at USD 65.93 billion in 2018. The Report Lists the Main Companies in the Liquid Waste Management Market are: Veolia Environmental Services SUEZ Environment SA Xylem Evoqua Water Technologies Corporation Covanta Holding Corporation Clean Harbors, Inc. GFL Environmental Inc. Cleanaway Aqua America Inc. Hulsey Environmental Services Enva Environmental Recovery Corporation AB Environmental Other Key Players Get a Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/liquid-waste-management-market-102643 Report Scope & Segmentation Report Attribute Details Market size value in 2018 USD 65.93 billion Revenue forecast in 2026 USD 85.02 Billion Growth Rate CAGR of almost 3.3% 2019-2026 Base Year 2018 Historic Years 2015 - 2017 Forecast Years 2019- 2026 Segments Covered By End-Use, By Application Forecast Units Value (USD Billion), and Volume (Units) Quantitative Units Revenue in USD million/billion and CAGR from 2021 to 2028 Regions Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and Middle East & Africa, and Rest of World Countries Covered Unites States, Canada, Mexico, Unites Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, GCC Countries, and South Africa, among others Number of Companies Covered Evoqua Water Technologies Corporation, Covanta, Holding Corporation, Clean Harbors, Inc., GFL Environmental Inc., Veolia Environmental, Services, SUEZ Environment SA, Xylem, Cleanaway, Aqua America Inc., Enva, Environmental Recovery Corporation, AB Environmental COVID-19 Impacts: The emergence of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill. We understand that this health crisis has brought an unprecedented impact on businesses across industries. However, this too shall pass. Rising support from governments and several companies can help in the fight against this highly contagious disease. There are some industries that are struggling and some are thriving. Overall, almost every sector is anticipated to be impacted by the pandemic. We are taking continuous efforts to help your business sustain and grow during COVID-19 pandemics. Based on our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact analysis of coronavirus outbreak across industries to help you prepare for the future. Reasons to Purchase this Report: Comprehensive analysis of the market growth drivers, obstacles, opportunities, and other related challenges. Tracks the developments, such as new product launches, agreements, mergers and acquisitions, geographical expansions, and joint ventures. Inquire Before Buying This Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/queries/liquid-waste-management-market-102643 Competitive Landscape : Expansion of Xylems Technological Hub to Boost Business Prospects Xylem Inc., a leading American water technology company for residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial settings announced the launch of its innovative multi-disciplinary center for water, wastewater and energy technologies at the companys regional headquarters in Singapore. The expansion project will help the company to enhance its R&D capabilities alongside helping sustainable investments in water technologies for water distribution and wastewater treatment. The expansion of the Xylems water treatment project will have a positive impact on the liquid waste management market trends owing to its collaboration with Institute of High-Performance Computing (IHPC). Furthermore, President and CEO of Xylem, Mr. Patrick Decker, said in a statement, This new multi-disciplinary center will create ample opportunities to innovate and collaborate with our customers, as we work with them to tackle the regions greatest water challenges, including water scarcity, affordability and infrastructure resilience. He further added, bringing research and development capability into our regional headquarters in Singapore puts all of Xylems market-leading technology capability in one location, focused on the regions water technology and infrastructure solutions. In addition, the growing collaborations and partnerships among major market players will bolster healthy growth of the market in the foreseeable future. Segmentation: By Source Residential Commercial Industrial By Industrial Paper & Pulp Chemical & Petrochemicals Food & Beverages, Textile & Tannery and Others Regional Analysis: Presence of Major Water Treatment Plants to Foster Growth in North America The market in North America stood at USD 19.75 billion in 2018 and is predicted to grow rapidly during the forecast period owing to the presence of various market players. The largest water treatment plants in the USA will influence positively to the growth in the region. For instance, Chicago & Boston has the wastewater treatment plant with capacity of 1.44 billion gallons per day and 1.27 billion gallons per day respectively. Asia Pacific is likely to witness high growth during the forecast period owing to the growing population in the emerging economies such as China, India. The need for liquid waste treatment and recycling to cater to the clean water requirements will enable speedy growth of the market. According to the Central Pollution Control Board estimation, Indias water demand is expected to rise to 1.5 trillion cubic meters by 2030. Europe is predicted to exhibit a high growth rate in the foreseeable future. The rising government initiatives to curb water pollution will contribute positively to the liquid waste management market growth in the Europe. Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report with TOC: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/liquid-waste-management-market-102643 Detailed Table of Content: Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions Executive Summary Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Key Insights Key Emerging Trends in Global Market Latest Technological Advancements Insights on Regulatory Scenario Porters Five Forces Analysis Key developments: Acquisition, Collaboration, Strategic Partnership, and Joint Venture Global Liquid Waste Management Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Source, 2015-2026 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Source Residential Commercial Industrial Global Liquid Waste Management Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Industrial, 2015-2026 Key Findings / Summary Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Industrial Paper & Pulp Chemical & Petrochemicals Food & Beverages Textile & Tannery Others TOC Continued! Speak to Our Expert: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/liquid-waste-management-market-102643 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): 1. Is the Liquid Waste Management Industry growing? 2. Who are the key players in the Liquid Waste Management Market? 3. What are Key Factors Raising the Market? Read Related Insights: Waste Sorting Equipment Market to Reach USD 1,846.0 Million by 2027; Growing Waste Crisis to Augment Growth, states Fortune Business Insights Solid Waste Management Market Expected Worth USD 366.52 Billion by 2027 | Global Solid Waste Management Industry Share, Business Growth and Forecast Report by Fortune Business Insights About Us: Fortune Business Insights delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in. Address: Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd.9th Floor, Icon Tower, Baner Mahalunge Road, Baner, Pune-411045, Maharashtra, India. Phone: US: +1 424 253 0390 UK: +44 2071 939123 APAC: +91 744 740 1245 Email: sales@fortunebusinessinsights.com SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Creatopy has released a new paid social media case study, looking to find the best-performing vertical advertising platform. The company's paid media team tested the same ad creative on four major platforms that allow running vertical video ads: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest Idea Pins. They wanted to know which of these four platforms would help bring more traffic to their website when using a short-form video ad while also paying attention to the traffic quality. For this experiment, Creatopy allocated $3,000. It ran for 15 days, from Aug. 16 to Aug. 30, 2022. The budget was equally split between the four platforms, each receiving a total of $750, which was set at $50/day. The full data set can be found hereShort Form Video Advertising Battle: How YouTube Shorts Defeated the Competition. Key takeaways: The YouTube Shorts ad brought the most traffic to Creatopy's website in terms of quantity (366 users), emerging as the clear winner of the case study. TikTok grabbed second place (165 users), Instagram Reels (44 users) came in third, while the Pinterest Idea ad only brought 5 users to their website. When talking about the quality of the traffic, Instagram Reels came in first with a 41.17% engagement rate, followed by YouTube Shorts (22.39%), the Pinterest Idea ad (20%), and the TikTok ad (15.66%). The Pinterest Idea ad scored the highest video completion rate (20.16%), more than double compared to the YouTube Shorts ad, which came in second place with a 7.42% completion rate. Instagram Reels and TikTok lagged behind with only a 1.97% and 0.82% completion rate, respectively. Bogdan Carlescu, VP of Marketing at Creatopy, said: "2022 is another year that saw a lot of updates in the digital advertising area. We love updates, so when we heard about YouTube and Pinterest launching Shorts, respectively, Idea Pins for ads, we decided to be among the first ones to do some experimentation. We tested these two new additions with two already popular and established platforms for promoting short-form video adsTikTok ads and Instagram Reels ads. We wanted to see which advertising platform is best for short-form vertical video ads. I hope our findings can help you make a valuable decision for your business, leading to more growth." About Creatopy: Creatopy is an ad design platform that helps businesses customize, automate and scale up their ad production and delivery. Contact Information: Ioana Ciobanu PR Coordinator ioana.ciobanu@creatopy.com Related Images Image 1: Creatopy Case Study: YouTube Shorts Takes Over the Advertising Game This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment ST. JOHNS, Newfoundland and Labrador, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atlas Salt Inc. (TSXV: SALT) (OTCQB: REMRF) (the Company or Atlas Salt) is pleased to announce that its common shares are now DTC service eligible for electronic clearing and settlement through the Depository Trust Company (DTC) in the United States. DTC is a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a U.S. company that manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities that are eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through DTC are considered to be DTC eligible. With DTC eligibility, existing investors benefit from potentially greater liquidity and execution speeds. This also opens the door to new investors that may have been previously restricted from the companys common shares and greatly simplifies the process of trading common shares in the United States. Atlas also recently upgraded from the OTC Pink Market to the OTCQB Venture Market (REMRF) to complement its TSX Venture listing under the symbol SALT. Mr. Rowland Howe, Atlas President, commented: As we prepare to bring more American and global awareness to the premier undeveloped salt project in North America, DTC eligibility combined with our recent upgrade to the OTCQB represents Atlas commitment to increasing visibility and accessibility for existing shareholders in the United States and potential new investors there. Mr. Howe added, We look forward to soon providing investors with a significant Great Atlantic Project update. More than ever its apparent that Great Atlantic has the potential to become a crown jewel in the heart of the robust North American road salt sector in the midst of a domestic production shortfall. Rowland Howe Interview Clip Atlas Salt President discusses the Great Atlantic Project from Western Newfoundland - click on the link below to view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5QAuH587P0 Great Atlantic Project About Atlas Salt Atlas Salt is a TSV Venture 50 company and owns 100% of the Great Atlantic salt deposit strategically located in Western Newfoundland in the middle of the robust eastern North America road salt market. The project features a large homogeneous high-grade resource advancing through the Feasibility Stage. Atlas Salt is also the largest shareholder of Triple Point Resources which owns the Fischells Brook Salt Dome and other mineral licenses in Western Newfoundland prospective for salt dome-type deposits. Triple Point has applied to list on the Canadian Stock Exchange (CSE). We seek Safe Harbor. For information, please contact: Patrick J. Laracy, CEO (709) 754-3186 laracy@atlassalt.com MarketSmart Communications Inc. Adrian Sydenham Toll-free: 1-877-261-4466 Email: info@marketsmart.ca Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain certain forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ from the Companys expectations. Certain risk factors beyond the Companys control may affect the actual results achieved. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a5d70846-61de-4b0b-a1aa-ae19fa1d6c29 MARYSVILLE, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pathways Financial Credit Union's Business Development Specialist Max Bennett presented Becky Bolt, Board Chair of the Hope Center in Marysville, with a $2,500 check to help provide meals for residents of Union County. The check will go toward funding the Hope Center's Community Kitchen, which serves free meals to anyone regardless of residency. "Pathways and the Hope Center both feel a deep responsibility to serve our community. We are very fortunate to be able to support the mission of the Hope Center by providing funding whenever possible," said Shannon Dishong, Branch Manager of Pathways in Marysville. The Hope Center provides much-needed assistance to disadvantaged residents of Union County by connecting them to vibrant community relationships and by equipping the next generation to pursue a hopeful future. As a vital part of the community, the Hope Center relies on support from local organizations and businesses to help Union County residents get back on their feet. Bolt stated, "We feed more than 200 people per day at the Hope Center. This donation will provide a hot meal for many people." Pathways Financial Credit Union has a strong commitment to the community. Their symbol, the sprout, depicts a metaphor that life blooms in unexpected directions. With strong community roots, we can weather any storm. For more information, visit pathwayscu.com. Contact Information: Kim Van Ness Communications Director kvanness@pathwayscu.com 614-416-7588 x1727 Related Images Image 1: Pathways donation will help feed hungry families at Hope Center Community Kitchen (L-R): Becky Bolt, Hope Center Board Chair; Gene Miller, Hope Center Board Member; Shannon Dishong, Pathways Branch Manager; Max Bennett, Pathways Business Development Specialist; Tisha Miller, Hope Center; Blythe Carter, Pathways Service Rep This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tranco Global, a leading provider of logistics services, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022, to celebrate the grand opening of its Alexandria, La., branch office. In attendance were members of the Central Louisiana Regional Chamber of Commerce and leadership from Tranco Global's headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn. The ribbon cutting was conducted by the President of Tranco Global, Brad Kemp, along with Co-Owner, Byron Trantham. The Alexandria location will be managed by Jeremy Ransom, a five-year veteran of the Tranco organization. "I am excited for the opportunity to lead Tranco in this geographic expansion," said Ransom, the new Alexandria Branch Manager. "As a full-service logistics brokerage, Tranco will offer a broad menu of both international and domestic transportation solutions. Within North America, we'll provide full truckload, flatbed, over-dimensional, less-than-truckload (LTL), intermodal, and domestic ocean services." "Our Alexandria Branch will also offer international ocean, air and drayage fulfillment," Ransom continued, "Alexandria, La., is an untapped market for logistics professionals. Our new branch is an extraordinary opportunity for people interested in logistics, especially those with some background in international or domestic supply chain. All of our professionals go through our extensive training course that provides the education required to succeed in our industry." In addition to Alexandria, La., Tranco Global recently announced another new branch opening in Chicago, Il. The Alexandria and Chicago branches join Chattanooga, Atlanta and Seattle as the fourth and fifth locations for Tranco. The Chicago branch will be managed by Richard Chang, a twenty-year veteran of the freight forwarding industry. "There's so much to be excited about," said Chang. "I'm excited to be a part of this amazing group of individuals at Tranco, a team focused on providing the best service and technology solutions for their customers." About Tranco Global Tranco Global is one of the country's fastest-growing freight forwarders. Headquartered in Chattanooga, Tenn., Tranco Global provides a full suite of domestic (truckload, less-than-truckload, flatbed, expedited and domestic air) and international (air freight, ocean freight, drayage and customs clearance) forwarding services. Since its opening in 2016, the enterprise now has over 100 employees and five offices spread across the United States. Contact Information: Rebecca Maringer Marketing Specialist rebecca.maringer@trancoglobal.com (423) 803-4700 ext 1286 Related Images Image 1 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Cleveland, OH, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Jason Bogniard, ASA, CVA, EA, MBA, was admitted into the prestigious American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) Foundation Forensic and Business Valuation Division. With fewer than 40 members in the country, Bogniard is the first admitted business valuation professional from the state of Ohio. Bogniard is a principal in the business valuation and litigation support department of Apple Growth Partners (AGP), an award-winning accounting and business advisory firm. Jason is an insightful leader not just within our firms business valuation and litigation support team, but also in the established legal community as an experienced valuator and partner for cases across the country, comments Chuck Mullen, chairman. Jason is well deserving of this honor, including representing the state of Ohio. Per the AAML website, the AAML Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization designed to support the charitable mission of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers of protecting families, specifically children. Since its origination, the Foundation has provided financial assistance through grants to help families and children negatively impacted by the ending of the family unit, including support for physical, mental, or substance abuse, financial destruction, and abandonment. Bogniard has more than 20 years of experience valuating businesses and providing related domestic relations litigation consulting services. His expertise leads the firms services for fair market value opinions. Bogniard is courtroom tested as having served as an expert witness in countless cases, resulting in significant monetary judgements. Having completed more than 750 valuations of closely held businesses, Bogniards clients have successfully sold their businesses or benefited from his expert witness credibility. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration/Finance degree from Ohio University, Master of Business Administration/Finance from Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management, is an Accredited Senior Appraiser, a Certified Valuation Analyst and is an Enrolled Agent. About Apple Growth Partners Apple Growth Partners (AGP) is an award-winning accounting and business advisory firm with more than 77 years of creative solutions that deliver healthy, sustainable growth. AGP offers a full range of services for privately held businesses, including tax planning and compliance, audit and assurance, business valuation, litigation consulting, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), fraud prevention and detection, family office services for High-Net-Worth individuals, and transaction advisory. With more than 100 employees, AGP collaborates with business owners and partners across Ohio and beyond, extending client services through a remote workforce in 2020 while maintaining office locations in Akron, Canton, Charlotte (AGPN, PLLC), Chicago, and Cleveland. AGPs professionals provide expertise in additional industries and services, such as employee benefit plans, bookkeeping, auto dealerships, manufacturing, construction and real estate, and Black-owned businesses. AGPs mission statement is championing the Healthy Growth of our people, our clients, and our communities through authenticity, world-class service, and taking care of each other. To learn more, visit http://www.applegrowth.com. #### Attachment MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Spryker, the leading platform for Enterprise Marketplaces, Thing Commerce, and Unified Commerce, has today launched its Australian Online Grocery Report 2022. The research of 2,500 Australian consumers finds almost half 48% of Australians buy least some of their groceries online, with 10% now ordering most or all of their groceries via the internet. In total, 23% of Australian household food budgets is now spent ordering online. The research, conducted by Spryker in partnership with market research firm Appinio, surveyed consumers from across Australia on their experiences and opinions of grocery shopping. With the Australian grocery market currently valued at $125bn , there is substantial opportunity for retailers offering services in online grocery shopping. In fact, almost one in five respondents (18%) said they see themselves buying most or all of their groceries online within two years. Currently, shoppers in the 25-44 age group are most likely to order online and spend the highest percentage of their grocery budget online compared to other age groups. However, those in older age groups (45-65) match the younger groups in terms of the total amount spent online despite this being a lower overall percentage of their grocery budgets. Respondents in the 55-65 age bracket were most likely to cite the desire to avoid crowded supermarkets and thus minimize the risk of contracting Coronavirus as a motivation for shopping online. A pleasant in-store experience Despite the market expanding, online retailers face one key hurdle 75% of respondents grocery budgets are being spent offline and 88% of shoppers see in-store supermarket shopping as something pleasant. This is significantly more positive than US sentiment. An equivalent Spryker survey on American online groceries from December 2021 found only 55% of US shoppers thought in-store shopping was a pleasant experience. Even in the mature online grocery market of Germany, 73% of shoppers said they found shopping in-store pleasant according to Sprykers German survey from July 2022. Our latest research has shown that Australian shoppers are most focused on lower costs and better product selection when it comes to buying online. Given that the in-store shopping experience is a positive one for the majority of shoppers, tempting them to buy more groceries online will pose a challenge for many retailers. But its also a huge opportunity, commented Boris Lokschin, Co-Founder and CEO at Spryker. Retailers that are working with composable commerce solutions will be best prepared to grab market share in this sophisticated and dynamic grocery market. Their focus must be on delivering a seamless online shopping experience that exceeds consumers expectations, and with a best-of-breed approach, retailers can have the flexibility to adjust to changing customer needs. Whether offering wider product choices, flexible delivery and collection options, or uniting with on-demand delivery partners, the Australian online grocery market has significant growth potential for organizations willing to provide a top digital commerce experience. The online winners and offline losers Looking at who misses out when shoppers made more online purchases, 22% of respondents reported heavy cuts to their spending in health food stores, while a further 15% reduced spending at local farm shops and open-air markets. Surprisingly, only 4% reported spending less at supermarkets. Drilling into this, the duopoly between Coles and Woolworths, both of whom have significantly invested in their unified commerce experiences enabling them to offer flexible in-store, online, curb-side pick-up and home delivery easily accounts for the minimal reduction in spending at supermarkets over any channel. Meanwhile, 10% of shoppers also said they bought markedly less at discount retailers. Therefore, an opportunity exists for these discount retailers, with 87% of respondents saying they would do more food shopping online if prices were lower. Given that only 4.4% of the Australian population lives more than 20 minutes from a supermarket, lower pricing could help to grow online buying for discount retailers and tempt people away from supermarkets within their 20-minute radius. Beyond price, consumers can potentially be lured away from mainstream supermarkets by a wide range of service factors including easier user interfaces (75% likely or very likely), wider product ranges (77%), better availability nearby (78%), and faster delivery (76%). Another category that could benefit from improved digital commerce experiences are local retailers. Many consumers would like to see their local suppliers offering online options: a full 40% want to order from local markets and farmers online. In addition, 25% of respondents think that organic shops should be online. When asked which specific provider they would like to see online, 12% of respondents mentioned Perth-located Farmer Jacks, making this Western-Australia-based provider of regional, local, and organic food the fifth-most frequent answer given a strong showing, particularly given that only 11% of Australians live in the state. Amazon unable to stand out Despite Amazons significant investment in the online grocery market both globally and in Australia, only 42% of Australian consumers cited Amazon when given a list of online food delivery operators and asked which ones they recognized. Meanwhile, 84% of survey respondents recognized Uber Eats, and 77% recognized Menulog; Doordash followed in third place with 75% brand recognition, with Deliveroo fifth at 66%. Looking beyond just recognition, 62% of respondents said they use Uber Eats (24% regularly) and 31% are Deliveroo customers (8% regularly) highlighting how well established those two brands have become in Australia. The full Australian Online Grocery Report 2022 is available https://www.efoodinsights.com/australia-online-grocery-report/ ---- Methodology The Australian Online Grocery Report 2022 is based on a study run by Appinio and digital commerce platform provider Spryker in mid-2022. Appinio asked 2,500 respondents a range of detailed questions about their experiences of online grocery shopping to date and their opinions regarding it. The result is the largest and most detailed set of data currently available about online food shopping habits in Australia. Survey participants were between 16 and 65 years of age (average age: 39.5) and lived in Australia at the time at which they took part; 21.6% lived in towns or areas with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, while 25.7% were in towns with a population of up to 250,000. 13.5% of respondents resided in smaller cities (250,000 to 750,000), with 39.2% in the countrys five largest conurbations Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide. About Appinio Hamburg-based Appinio is the global market research platform which enables companies to source thousands of opinions from specific target audiences worldwide - in just a few minutes. For the first time, everyone can validate decisions and ideas in real-time with representative results from consumers. As the fastest solution for market research, Appinio delivers feedback from 90+ markets. More than 1000 companies from all industries use Appinio's comprehensive platform to become more agile and customer-centric. Customers include VW, Unilever, Netflix, Gorillas, Bertelsmann, Warner Brothers, Samsung, Jagermeister, Red Bull and About You as well as all major agencies and management consultancies. Appinio has received several awards, including the Top European Business Startup at the Pioneers Festival, the Best of Mobile and the Best of Hamburg Award. Jonathan Kurfess, Founder and CEO of Appinio, belongs to Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe 2020. About Spryker Spryker is the leading composable commerce platform for enterprises with sophisticated business models to enable growth, innovation, and differentiation. Designed specifically for sophisticated transactional business, Sprykers easy-to-use, headless, API-first model offers a best-of-breed approach that provides businesses the flexibility to adapt, scale, and quickly go to market while facilitating faster time-to-value throughout their digital transformation journey. As a global platform leader for B2B and B2C Enterprise Marketplaces, Thing Commerce, and Unified Commerce, Spryker has empowered 150+ global enterprise customers worldwide and is trusted by brands such as ALDI, Siemens, Hilti, and Ricoh. Spryker was recognized by Gartner as a Visionary in the 2022 Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce and was also ranked as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave: B2B Commerce Solutions, Q2 2022. Spryker is a privately held technology company headquartered in Berlin and New York. Find out more at https://spryker.com Contact details: press@spryker.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ded391b8-7033-469a-a7be-b6aad81b9c88 CHICAGO, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Beer Institute - one of the nations oldest trade associations representing brewers, beer importers and beer industry suppliers - announced today the appointment of Brian Crawford to president and chief executive officer of the trade association. Brian joins the Beer Institute from the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), where he is executive vice president of government affairs. I am delighted Brian has joined the Beer Institute, which serves as a critical voice for our industry. The beer industry has seen significant category growth and with Brians leadership, we will be able to accelerate that momentum with leaders in Washington and help ensure beer companies are positioned to best serve our customers, consumers and communities, said Brendan Whitworth, CEO of Anheuser-Busch and chairman of the Beer Institute. Brian brings deep experience across government and public affairs, as well as a strong foundation driving policy outcomes, making him uniquely qualified for this important role. The past two years have been pivotal to the future of our industry, and selecting a new chief executive of the Beer Institute has been particularly important as we look to the road ahead, said Gavin Hattersley, CEO of Molson Coors Beverage Company and vice chairman of the Beer Institute. Whether that means challenging aluminum tariffs or advocating fair tax rates for beer, I have no doubt that Brian has the experience, passion and integrity necessary to lead us into an exciting next chapter. The Beer Institute Board of Directors announced Crawfords selection at the start of the Beer Institute Annual Membership Meeting, a members-only meeting currently being held in Chicago, Illinois. His official start date at the Beer Institute will be December 5, 2022. The position of president and chief executive officer has been vacant since May, after the departure of Jim McGreevy. Celebrating its 160th anniversary, Brian will lead and represent the Beer Institute before lawmakers, regulators, news media and in public forums both inside and outside the Beltway. I am incredibly honored to join the Beer Institute team and become part of the vibrant American beer industry. It is clear that the beer industry is strongest when we work together to strengthen and grow the beer category for brewers and suppliers, consumers and communities alike. I look forward to starting and working every day to promote the more than two million hardworking Americans whose jobs rely on beer, said Crawford. Brian Crawford serves as executive vice president of government affairs for the American Hotel and Lodging Association. He joined the association in February of 2014 after serving more than eight years as a senior staffer on Capitol Hill. He was promoted to be department head in late 2017. In this role, Crawford leads the associations advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill and with key administration policymakers and stakeholders on priority issues including short-term rentals, workforce career development and technology and distribution. He also oversees the lodging industrys largest political action committee, HotelPAC, ensuring that the associations political voice is strong and united by investing in federal candidates who support the industry. Crawford came to AHLA following eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives, having served five as chief of staff to U.S. Congressman Tom Rooney (FL-17). He previously served as the deputy chief of staff for Florida Congressman Ric Keller (FL-08) and held senior roles in other national trade associations. To view Brians headshot, click here. ### The Beer Institute is a national trade association for the American brewing industry, representing brewers, beer importers and industry suppliersan industry that supports more than 2 million jobs and provides more than $331 billion to the American economy. First founded in 1862 as the U.S. Brewers Association, the Beer Institute is committed today to developing sound public policy and to the values of civic duty and personal responsibility. For additional updates from the Beer Institute, visit our website, follow @BeerInstitute on Twitter, like the Beer Institute on Facebook, and follow the Beer Institute on Instagram. South Africa: Trade between SA, Korea remains on an upward trajectory Trade between South Africa and the Republic of Korea (ROK) continues to show an upward trajectory despite the challenges presented by COVID-19 and displays a positive trade balance. South Africa is proud to count on the government of the ROK and its private sector as partners in our efforts directed at the post-pandemic economic recovery, International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Dr Naledi Pandor, said on Tuesday. In this regard, our President and his economic team, working closely with our ambassadors and missions abroad, have been working hard at advancing our trade and investment relations for mutual benefit across a broad range of economic activities. Pandor was speaking during her opening remarks on the Inaugural South Africa Korea Joint Cooperation Commission (JCC) in Seoul. The Minister said this year marks the 30th anniversary of South Africa and the ROK diplomatic relations, which were formally established on 1 December 1992. We wish to congratulate our two countries on this milestone and hope for better and stronger relations long after the 30th celebrations. She recalled the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 when the then South African Air Force (SAAA) was part of South Africas contribution to the United Nations Command with 826 locals who fought in Korea, with over 40 casualties. These fallen heroes are honoured at a section of the new Korean Cultural Centre in Brooklyn, Pretoria. Since then, SA has become the ROKs largest trading partner in Africa while the ROK is South Africas fourth largest trading partner in Asia with 17 concluded bilateral agreements between the nations. These range from air transport, protection of investments, avoidance of double taxation, science and technology, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, extradition, information and communications technology, vocational training, and energy. Furthermore, holding this first JCC is indeed another milestone in our relationship, she said. What stands out in particular over the last few years is the timely support of donations made during the height of COVID from the ROK to South Africa, the region and the continent. This material support at a time of need will never be forgotten. Pandor has called on the leadership to use this years 30th commemoration to come together and build new bridges of cooperation for the future. Our prosperity depends on the economic success of each other, while we move forward in solidarity as we forge a better future for our people. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2022-10-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A Chinese researcher installs the lobster-eye telescope, or the Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy (LEIA), on Nov. 22, 2021. (NAOC/Handout via Xinhua) BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Scientists eyeing the distant universe are sometimes inspired by the diverse creatures on Earth. The lobster-eye telescope developed and launched by Chinese scientists is the latest example. The National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) recently revealed the world's first batch of large-field X-ray maps of the sky captured by the lobster-eye telescope, or the Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy (LEIA). The LEIA, launched into space in late July, is a large-field X-ray imaging telescope, the first of its kind in the world, according to the NAOC. It is expected that with the "lobster eye," people will be able to efficiently observe the mysterious transient phenomena in the universe. SPECIAL EYE The most special feature of LEIA is its 36 micro-pore lobster-eye glasses and 4 large-array CMOS sensors, all developed by China. Biologists discovered early on that the lobster's eye is different from other animals. Lobster eyes are made up of numerous tiny square tubes, pointing to the same spherical center. This structure allows light from all directions to reflect in the tubes and converge on the retina, which gives the lobster a large field of view. In 1979, an American scientist proposed that the lobster eye be simulated to create a telescope to detect X-rays in space. But this idea failed to be realized for a long time until micro-processing technology improved sufficiently to make it possible. Scientists then developed lobster-eye glasses, which are covered with tiny square holes as thick as a hair. The X-ray Imaging Laboratory of NAOC began the research and development work on lobster-eye X-ray imaging technology in 2010, and finally made a breakthrough. The newly launched LEIA not only features the much-anticipated lobster-eye glasses, but also pioneers in installing CMOS sensors, which can process with high spectral resolutions. "We realized the application of CMOS sensors to X-ray astronomical observations in space for the first time. It is an important innovation in X-ray astronomy detection technology," said Ling Zhixing, a scientist of the NAOC. WIDE-ANGLE VISION "The biggest advantage of the lobster-eye telescope is its wide-angle vision," said Ling, who is in charge of the LEIA project. According to Ling, the previous X-ray telescopes only had a field of view roughly the size of the Moon as seen from Earth, while this lobster-eye telescope is capable of covering a celestial region about the size of 1,000 Moons. "Twelve such telescopes will be installed on the future Einstein Probe satellite, and their field of view could be as large as about 10,000 Moons," he added. Scientists have found that most cosmic objects show complex variations in brightness in the X-ray band. Some objects that originally have no X-ray radiation can suddenly produce one, such as black holes that are devouring stars. Therefore, the lobster-eye telescope enables more efficient monitoring of X-ray variations in cosmic objects and there is a greater likelihood of detecting randomly occurring cosmic extremes, Ling added. FUTURE PROBE As Ling has mentioned, the newly launched LEIA is an experimental module for the Einstein Probe satellite, which is expected to be launched at the end of 2023. A total of 12 modules will then be mounted on the new satellite. The program has attracted extensive attention worldwide, with the European Space Agency and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany participating in it. "This technology will revolutionize monitoring of the X-ray sky, and the test module shows the strong science potential of the Einstein Probe mission," said Paul O'Brien, head of Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester. "We have finally succeeded in obtaining the observation results of the lobster-eye telescope after more than a decade of arduous efforts, and we are all very proud to be able to contribute such advanced equipment to the world's astronomical research," said Zhang Chen, assistant to the Principal Investigator of the Einstein Probe program. According to Zhang, the Einstein Probe will carry out systematic sky surveys to monitor high-energy transient objects in the universe. The mission is expected to discover cloaked black holes and map the distribution of black holes in the universe, and help us to study their formation and evolution. The Einstein Probe will also be used to search for X-ray signals from gravitational wave events and pinpoint them. Moreover, it will be used in observing neutron stars, white dwarfs, supernovae, early cosmic gamma bursts and other objects and phenomena, he said. Chinese researchers test the lobster-eye telescope, or the Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy (LEIA), on Nov. 27, 2021. (NAOC/Handout via Xinhua) Photo taken in August 2022 shows an image of the central sky zone of the Milky Way obtained by the lobster-eye telescope, or the Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy (LEIA). (NAOC/Handout via Xinhua) Google's Pixel Watch and Samsung's Galaxy Watch5 may be based on the same Wear OS 3.x platform, but they won't get the same level of software support. According to a very revealing Wired interview with Bjorn Kilburn, Google's director of product management for Wear OS, the Pixel Watch is set to receive three years of software updates. On the other hand, Samsung's Galaxy Watch5 will get four years. The explanation for the discrepancy is that, starting with Wear OS 3.x, Google is no longer in charge of updates for the wearables it doesn't make. Previous versions of Wear OS had all their updates coming from Google, and that sounded great in theory, but didn't really do anything for more timely releases in practice. So with Wear OS 3 going forward, each smartwatch maker is responsible for its own updates. Not just that, but connectivity too - past Wear OS versions all used the same Wear OS by Google phone app to connect to the watches, but now every manufacturer has to develop their own app for pairing. That's definitely not an issue for the likes of Samsung, which had smartwatches on other platforms before, but may prove a barrier to entry into the Wear OS ecosystem for smaller companies, or simply those that aren't willing to allocate a ton of resources for something like this. Google's Kilburn says the company's intention is to release a new version of Wear OS every year, with quarterly updates also coming to bring "new experiences" throughout the year in between the bigger increments. He unfortunately couldn't clarify the strange situation where the Pixel Watch comes with the Fitbit Wear OS app but not Google Fit preinstalled, even though the latter is available for all Wear OS devices through the Play Store. Will one of those apps be folded into the other in a few months' time? We'd wager, given Google's history, that's pretty much a given. But at this point there's no official word on any of that. If you have a smartwatch running Wear OS 2 and using the Snapdragon Wear 4100 or 4100+, you're probably wondering what happened to Google's promise of delivering the update to Wear OS 3 in 2022. That's apparently still the plan, so you should get it "later this year". Source These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales. More than a year after runoff from the nearby Mangilao solar farm saw it buried under a layer of sludge, the historic Marbo Cave, a popular spot for locals and visitors, remains closed off to the public. If youve lived on Guam, for how many years, Marbo has always been open, said Mangilao Mayor Allan Ungacta. I myself have been down there numerous times. Blocked Cones blocked the road to the Mangilao property on Monday and signage posted nearby states that the area is closed off for construction. Property owner Eduardo Champ Calvo told the PDN that Samsung E&C America Inc., the contractor for the 60-megawatt solar farm, has spent the last year cleaning up the cave and the freshwater pond inside. He said the work is expected to continue up until the end of 2022. The government requires that all the damage, particularly to the pool, but then also to clean up all the runoff to the adjoining property, which was in part mine, Calvo said. He said he leased the property to Samsung through the end of the year to allow them to finish the cleanup of the cave. Theres a bunch of stuff in there. The company may ask for an extension to finish up the work Calvo said, which he would be willing to grant. They have generally been helpful, he added. Samsung and the solar project owner, KEPCO Mangilao Solar LLC, entered a $950,000 settlement agreement with the Office of the Attorney General in May after Samsung failed to install several ponding basins at the project site. The ponding basins and other uninstalled soil controls were meant to prevent runoff that damaged Marbo Cave and the surrounding Sasayan Valley. Samsung also was required to finish remediation efforts as part of the settlement. Calvo, through World Meridian Sasajyan LLC, also has settled with Samsung after dropping a lawsuit last September. Once cleanup of the cave is finished, the public will be able to access the area again, Calvo said. Samsung also is installing a road over the steep, rocky path to the cave, and replacing the old stairs that lead down to the pond. Calvo said hes long been concerned about safety in the area, which was already being used as public access when he bought it. He said the only thing hes been able to do is post signage cautioning people that they were assuming their own risk. Four people drowned in the cave and nearby waters between 2014 and 2015, PDN files show, and a high school student drowned inside the cave just last year. I think Samsungs actually making it safe. So the publics going to enjoy it much better when its done, Calvo said. A man accused of threatening to blow up military installations on island was charged with terrorizing and assault after a confrontation at the Andersen Air Force Base front gate, according to a magistrates complaint filed in Superior Court. On Friday, police were called to the Guam National Guard Readiness Center in Barrigada, where a worker received a phone call from Paul G. Sanchez, the complaint stated. During the course of the conversation, the defendant spoke of the military stealing his familys property, quoted ... Bible scriptures and demanded that the colonizers return what was stolen before he starts World War III, the complaint stated. As the conversation progressed, the defendant became more irate and began yelling vulgar words over the phone. The defendant threatened to kill everyone. ... The defendant stated that he would visit Naval Station, the Air Force base (Andersen) and the National Guard and blow the place up. Sanchez, 56, was identified as the caller. A be-on-the-lookout advisory was issued, according to the complaint. On Sunday, Sanchez was detained at the front gate of Andersen Air Force Base as he attempted to enter. He provided the airman at the gate with a Veterans Affairs identification card and the airman recognized the name from the advisory. When the airman tried to confirm the information, Sanchez became agitated and asked to leave. Sanchez struck the airman multiple times with the vehicle door, then exited the vehicle, cursing and reciting biblical verses and began to walk away from his vehicle toward inbound traffic, the complaint stated. Punched in face Other Andersen Security Forces personnel were called to the scene. Sanchez grabbed one by the vest and punched him in the face, cutting him, the complaint stated. Guam Police Department officers took custody of Sanchez, who told them, he only responded to the Law of God, that the FBI had already questioned him concerning his phone call to the ... Guam Army National Guard and that the Air Force had stolen his familys land, according to the complaint. He was charged with terrorizing as a third-degree felony and assault as a misdemeanor. More Information Early voting hours The last day to early vote at the Westin is Nov. 3. Doors are open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Satellite voting centers will be open around the island from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at: Okkodo High School on Oct. 15. Guam Community College on Oct. 22. Merizo Martyrs Memorial School on Oct. 29. Registration You can register to vote on the spot at the Westin, or at the satellite voting sites at Okkodo and GCC. District registration is also available at your village mayors office from Oct. 18 to Oct. 24, and you can register online at: http://gec.guam.gov/register. The last day to register to vote in the general election is Oct. 24. Registration requires a valid photo ID. About 15 minutes before the doors of the early voting center at the Westin Resort Guam opened its doors Tuesday, a string of people looking to vote in the 2022 general election were lined up outside. The convenience was a plus for those like 56-year-old Lance Moritz of Piti, who just recently arrived from Hawaii. I just flew in this morning to Guam. Heard about (early voting) on the radio and ran by here. I mean, I was in and out in about 15 minutes, said Moritz, whose ballot was the third cast in this years general election. The process was easier than casting an absentee ballot, he added. Im not going to tell you who I voted for, he said with a smile. Rusty Santos, 34, of Barrigada said he showed up because hes got a family vacation lined up in November. I wont be on island for the actual election, so it was good to get it in, he said. The more politically involved, like brothers Alejandro and Benny Rosalin, voted early so that they could free themselves up as the campaign season goes into full swing. According to Alejandro Rosalin, they are part of a group of veterans supporting the Leon Guerrero-Tenorio team and plan to spend Election Day helping drive others to the polls. Hey, come out and vote, everybody. And if youre not registered, please register so that they can hear your voices and your vote, Alejandro Rosalin said. Youre free to vote for whoever you want. Dont wait The Guam Election Commission is hoping early voting will drive up Guams low voter turnout. The August primary saw just 40% of registered voters cast ballots. Please come out and vote. Were trying to make it so that its very convenient for you, said Election Commission Executive Director Maria Pangelinan. The biggest issue faced during early voting in the primary election was the long wait time for last-minute early voters. Dont wait until the last minute, she said. Voters are advised the entrance and exit for the early voting center has been switched. If youre entering through the lobby, take the elevator, come up to the mezzanine level and take a left, Pangelinan said. Police officers from the Guam Police Departments Special Enforcement Amphibious Section investigate a vessel June 13, 2022, in Tumon. Customs suspect Chinese nationals conditionally paroled in Saipan arrived in the boat. Retired federal attorney and Barrigada resident Charles Stake provides legal insight into Guams illegal immigration issues in his letter to the editor. Haiti - foreign intervention : Demonstrations, looting, violence and vandalism On Monday, several thousand Haitians took to the streets in the country, responding to calls from the opposition to protest against the government and its call for foreign aid to end gangs, the humanitarian crisis and fight against the rapidly spreading epidemic cholera. In Port au Prince barricades of burning tires and tree branches were reported on the Lalue road while many roads were blocked and businesses closed. The demonstration in the capital was peppered with violence, scenes of looting and the police had to use tear gas to disperse the looters. Reported several gunshot wounds and one person killed in unclear circumstances. In Gonaives all institutions have kept their doors closed. Individuals vandalized and looted the premises of the Peace Court of the Southern Section, the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal. Demonstrators attacked and ransacked the office of the Artibonite Health Department and the regional office of the Counter-Tier Vehicle Insurance Office (OAVCT). Documents and materials from these institutions were taken away by the looters. Several businesses were also victims of looting. In Cap Haitien an Unibank branch at rue 3 was attacked. A group of protesters tried in vain to set it on fire while another group attacked the bank before the police intervention which put the thugs to flight. In Jacmel at the regional Caritas distribution center. the crowd looted and set fire to 5 containers, kerosene stoves and bags of rice were carried away. A complaint has been filed. In addition, 3 vehicles were set on fire. The opposition is surfing on the intervention in Haiti of a special force of which one do not know what form it will take, but which should not be led under the aegis of the United Nations (no blue helmets) according to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres who suggests that this force should instead be led by a member State which would execute it alone or with the support of other nations, according to a letter sent to the Security Council. However, if the opposition is unanimous in opposing a possible foreign intervention, and in favor of taking power without going through elections, it seems that the population is rather favorable according to a poll carried out by Radio Tele Scoop on 311 people. 81% say they are in favor and 19% unfavorable. A poll which is not representative of the entire population but which is an indication of the division of opinions. TB/ PI/ HaitiLibre Haiti - USA : Representative Demings presented the law on transparency of criminal collusion in Haiti Florida Democratic Rep. Valdez Venita Demings (Val Demings) introduced the Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act of 2022 to the House of Representatives. This legislation would require a new federal investigation and report into the individuals and political and economic organizations supporting criminal gang activity in Haiti. Rep. Demings said : "[...] Im fighting for a Haiti free from fear and gang violence, where the Haitian people have the safety and freedom to build their own future. This new legislation will help us identify bad actors behind Haitis lawlessness and hold them accountable [...]" The Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act of 2022 would require the U.S. Department of State to investigate the nature of the relationship between criminal gangs and political and economic elites in Haiti, and to submit an annual report to Congress on that topic. This legislation follows successful models used to investigate corruption in Russia and other nations and to lay the groundwork for U.S. sanctions and cooperative international crackdowns. Learn more about Representative Demings : Rep. Demings co-chairs the House Haiti Caucus, which she helped to form in 2021. Over the past year, the Caucus has closely monitored efforts to restore democracy in Haiti, worked to ensure the safety of kidnapped missionaries, and led efforts to send COVID-19 vaccines to Haiti. Rep. Demings helped lead calls for stability, security and democracy following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, including a transparent, independent investigation into that act. Since the assassination, she has pushed the Biden-Harris administration to withdraw support for de facto ruler Ariel Henry. Rep. Demings successfully called for redesignation of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and a renewal of the lapsed Haitian Family Reunification Parole (HFRP) program, and called for an immediate halt to deportations of Haitian asylum seekers which have contributed to a worsening crisis. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Diaspora Covid-19 : Daily Bulletin #934 GLOBAL SITUATION 2019-2022: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 the number of people infected worldwide with the Covid-19 coronavirus and its variants since the start of the pandemic (March 11, 2020) amounts to 627,101,529 cases (+363,858 in 24 hours ), preceding (+260.433 in 24h). Number of infected countries: 228 *Healings: 606,882,398 people have been cured of Covid-19 worldwide (+410,627 in 24 hours), previous (+394,560 in 24 hours) *Deaths: 6,562,295 people have died from Covid-19 worldwide since the start of the pandemic (+1,016 in 24 hours), previous (+592 in 24 hours) *Active cases (less deaths and recoveries) in the world is currently 13,656,836 cases (-47,785 in 24 hours), previous (-134,719 in 24 hours) World healing rate: 96.77% (+) Death rate in the world: 1.04% (=) World: Number of daily confirmed cases: Vaccination: 12.85 billion doses of vaccine injected (+10 million). (Latest data available). HAITI: Warning: The Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) did not make available after September 20, 2022 daily data on the Covid-19 situation in Haiti. Due to the climate of violence and insecurity in Haiti it has become very difficult for the teams of the Ministry of Health to carry out screening and publish situation reports regularly. As a result, the data below on the situation in Haiti is the latest available. According to the Ministry of Public Health, +35 new cases of Covid-19 and its variants have been confirmed in Haiti as of September 20, 2022 (latest partial data available ) for a total of 33,756 confirmed cases throughout the national territory (48.8% women and 51.2% men), since the first case (March 19, 2020 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html ). Previous update (+12 cases as of September 13, 2022). Healings: 31,410 (+103) Cure rate: 93.05% (+) Deaths: 857 deaths (+0) Death rate: 2.53% (=) Screening since the start of the pandemic: 221,678 tests since March 19, 2020 (+280 in 7 days) a number of tests for the entire national territory, statistically insufficient to be representative of the health situation , which results in a number of daily confirmed cases that is largely underestimated in the opinion of health specialists. TOP 5 of the most affected municipalities in the West (2022): Delmas: 1.251 (+4); Petion-ville 1.117 (+4); Port au Prince 645 (+1); Tabarre 515 (+1); Croix-des-Bouquets 435 (+1) Confirmed cases by department (2022 / 2021 / 2020): West: 2022: 4,433 (+) cases; (2021: 9.890); (2020: 6,945 cases) North: 2022: 393 (=) cases; (2021: 664); (2020: 677 cases) Center: 2022: 427 (+) cases; (2021: 1.001); (2020: 508 cases) Artibonite: 2022: 400 (=) cases; (2021: 855); (2020: 593 cases) Northeast: 2022: 280 (=) cases; (2021: 404); (2020: 314 cases) Southeast: 2022: 384 (=) cases; (2021: 768); (2020: 274 cases) South: 2022: 330 (=) cases; (2021: 891); (2020: 262 cases) North West: 2022: 442 (+) cases; (2021: 383); (2020: 229 cases) Grand'Anse: 2022: 307 (=) cases; (2021: 861); (2020: 176 cases) Nippes: 2022: 135 (=) cases; (2021: 249) (2020: 149 cases) Cumulative deaths by department (2022-2021): West: 303 deaths (2020: 104 deaths) North: 54 deaths (2020: 34 deaths) Center: 91 deaths (2020: 13 deaths) Artibonite: 43 deaths (2020: 39 deaths) North East: 7 deaths (2020: 6 deaths) South: 51 deaths (2020: 6 deaths) Southeast: 15 deaths (2020: 9 deaths) North West: 16 deaths (2020: 12 deaths) Grand'Anse: 7 deaths (2020: 13 deaths) Nippes: 27 deaths (2020: 5 deaths) Distribution of deaths by age (since the start of the epidemic): 0-9 years: 16 deaths 10-19 years: 11 deaths 20-29 years: 33 deaths 30-39 years: 58 deaths 40-49 years: 82 deaths 50-59 years: 137 deaths 60-69 years: 191 deaths 70-79 years: 189 deaths 80 years and over: 140 deaths Vaccination: 361,212 Haitians (3.11% of the population) +2,307 in 8 days have received a 1st dose of vaccine since July 16, 2021, date of the first injection through 149 open vaccination centers and 222,303 Haitians are fully vaccinated (2 doses, 1.91% of the population) +658 in 8 days. Update September 20, 2022 latest information available (source MSPP). List of the 149 Vaccination centers open in Haiti (and hours) by department: (updated October 20, 2021, latest information available) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35051-haiti-covid-19-list-of-149-vaccination-centers-open-in-the-country.html DIASPORA: Epidemiological situation: USA: *Cases since the first case (February 29, 2020): 98,572,011 cases (+16,939 in 24 hours), previous (+5,826 in 24 hours) *Healings: 95,773,910 healings (+44,581 in 24h), previous (+83,043 in 24h) National Cure Rate: 97.16% (+) *Deaths: 1,087,976 deaths (+96 in 24h), previous (+7 in 24h) Mortality rate: 1.10% (=) *Active cases (minus deaths and recoveries): 1,710,125 cases (-27,738 in 24 hours), previous (-77,224 in 24 hours) USA: Trend active cases: (minus recoveries and deaths) Vaccination: 626.52 million doses of vaccine injected since December 14, 2020, date of the first injection in the United States (+320,000). Latest data available. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Confirmed cases since March 1, 2020: 646,441 cases (+99 in 24 hours), previous (+133 in 24 hours). First case (March 1, 2020) Healings: 641,571 healings (+50 in 24h), previous (+119 in 24h) National Cure Rate: 99.24% (-) Deaths: 4,384 deaths (+0), previous (+0) Death rate: 0.67% (=) Positive rate over 4 epidemiological weeks:3.08% (-) Active cases: (excluding deaths and recoveries) 487 cases (+49 in 24 hours) previous (+15 in 24 hours) Dominican Republic: Trend of active cases: (minus recoveries and deaths) TOP 5 Provinces with the most new cases: (latest data available) Distrito Nacional: +62 new cases in 24 hours (+) Santiago: +23 new cases in 24 hours (-) Santo Domingo: +12 new cases in 24 hours (-) La Altagracia: +5 new cases in 24 hours (+) La Vega: +4 new cases in 24 hours (+) Vaccination: 16.05 million doses of vaccine injected since February 16, 2021, date of the first injection in the Dominican Republic (+10,000 doses). (Latest data available). QUEBEC: Warning: Due to Thanksgiving, (October 10 public holiday) Quebec health authorities advise that the data has not been updated. The situation will be updated as of tomorrow Wednesday. Confirmed cases since the first case (February 27, 2020): 1,207,016 cases (+1,016 in 48 hours), previous (+1,016 in 24 hours) Deaths: 16,836 deaths (+14 in 48h) previous (+14 in 24h) Death rate: 1.39% (=) Healing: The Center for Expertise and Reference in Public Health no longer makes this information available. Quebec: Number of daily confirmed cases: (7-day trend) Vaccination: 21,391,514 doses of vaccine injected since December 14, 2020, date of the first injection (+20,964 doses in 48 hours, latest available data - MSSS) FRANCE: *Confirmed cases since the first case (January 24, 2020): 35,875,626 cases (+9,373 in 24 hours), previous (+42,626 in 24 hours) *Healings: 34,817,884 healings (+51,703 in 24h), previous (+5,219 in 24h) National Cure Rate: 97.05% (+) Deaths: 155,535 deaths (+113 in 48 hours), previous (not available) Death rate: 0.43% (=) Active cases: 902,207 cases (-42,443 in 24h), previous (+37,407 in 24h) France: Number of daily confirmed cases: Vaccination: 150.18 million doses of vaccine injected since December 27, 2020, date of the first injection in France (+10,000). (Latest data available) Previous bulletin : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-37853-haiti-diaspora-covid-19-daily-bulletin-933.html See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30165-haiti-flash-first-case-of-covid-19-in-the-dominican-republic.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Thomassin : The "Ti Makak" gang attacks the police station The Thomassin Police Station was attacked by the "Ti Makak" gang late yesterday evening. Lots of firefights with police helpless to match the firepower of the gang members. The offices of the DGC of Juvenat transferred to Petion-ville The offices of the Directorate of Large Taxpayers (DGC) located in Juvenat have been transferred to the Tax Center of Petion-Ville, not far from Place Saint-Pierre. The General Tax Department (DGI) announces that it will continue to provide its services to taxpayers in this new building from next Wednesday, October 12, while waiting to be relocated shortly to another space. The offices of the DGC were the object of fire, vandalism and looting on Thursday October 6, 2022. Haitian demonstration in front of the White House On Sunday, October 9, a few hundred Haitians gathered outside the White House to demand that the Biden administration end its support for Prime Minister Ariel Henry and let the Haitians decide their future. Minister Milce's condolences The Ministry of Communication learned with sorrow of the death of Hansy Mars, journalist at the National Television of Haiti, following kidney cancer https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-37834-icihaiti-obituariespassing-away-of-journalist-hansy-mars.html . Coordinator of the Haitian Association of Economic Journalists and Sustainable Development, Hansy Mars, who began his career in Cap-Haitien, has lent his services to several media in the country. The Ministry presents its sincere condolences to the parents, relatives and friends of Hansy Mars, as well as to his collaborators and to members of the Haitian press in general. 40m3 of equipment to fight cholera On Monday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM - Haiti) made available to the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization PAHO/WHO, 40 m3 of materials and items for the prevention of cholera. This material will support the efforts of the Haitian Government in the fight against the cholera epidemic. The mentally ill : fighting stigma and discrimination On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, Monday, October 10, the Ministry of Public Health encouraged all activities that promote mental health in the country and announced the start of the campaign to fight "stigma and discrimination against the mentally ill" in collaboration with PAHO/WHO. HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2022/10/10 | Source Actors Joo Won, Lee Joo-woo, Jo Han-chul, Kim Jae-won-III and Choi Hwa-jung have been cast in tvN's new drama "Stealer: Seven Joseon Coins". Advertisement "Stealer: Seven Joseon Coins" (script by Shin Kyung-il, director Choi Joon-bae, planning studio Dragon, production Curo Holdings, and studio Vplus) is a caper comic action drama that combines a veiled cultural property thief, Skunk and an unofficial cultural asset recovery team called Karma against those who cannot be judged by the law. Actors Joo Won (Hwang Dae-myeong), Lee Joo-woo (Choi Min-woo), Jo Han-chul (Jang Tae-in), Kim Jae-won-III (Sin Chang-hoon), and Choi Hwa-jung (Lee Choon-ja) will join forces to recover the missing cultural assets as members of the unofficial cultural asset recovery team Karma. Joo Won plays Hwang Dae-myeong, a civil servant belonging to the Cultural Heritage Administration. The story begins with Hwang Dae-myeong, who is negligent, being involved with Skunk specializing in cultural assets and put into the team Karma. Lee Joo-woo plays the role of Choi Min-woo, who is assigned to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Cultural Heritage Team, where only problematic police officers are gathered. Jo Han-chul plays Jang Tae-in, the founder of the team Karma who was a competent leader of the homicide drug team in the past. Kim Jae-won-III plays Shin Chang-hoon, a former homicide detective, and Choi Hwa-jung plays Lee Cheon-ja, a character of unmatched hacking skills. On the other hand, Skunk, the target of the team Karma, is an unprecedented cultural asset thief who only picks up cultural assets illegally purchased by high-ranking social figures. Everything is veiled about why it acts like that and what its identity is. Director Choi Joon-bae who directed "Mouse" and "Come and Hug Me", and writer Shin Kyung-il joined forces. Meanwhile, tvN's new drama "Stealer: Seven Joseon Coins" will premiere in the first half of 2023. Measures supporting growth and employment will be key, but adjustments will also be needed. This will entail both reviewing additional revenue [sources] and adjustments when it comes to costs, he was quoted saying by Helsingin Sanomat on Monday. THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC Party believes public spending should be reduced during the next electoral term, says Antti Lindtman , the chairperson of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group. Weve launched preparatory work internally within the party on the economic stance for the next electoral term. Well be able to reveal the results once the work is completed after the turn of the year. Adjusting revenues and expenditures refers typically to a mixture of tax hikes and spending cuts that is concocted to curb public indebtedness. Lindtman on Monday refrained from commenting on the scope of necessary adjustments and the targeting of spending cuts. The announcement nonetheless signals a change of direction for the ruling party, as its stance this electoral term has been that spending cuts are not necessary a stance that survived Sanna Marin (SDP) taking over as prime minister for Antti Rinne (SDP) in December 2019. The government has outlined only minor spending cuts for next year, at the insistence of the Centre Party. The Social Democratic Party has criticised the National Coalition fiercely throughout this term for calling for spending cuts, particularly in the domain of social security. Lindtman insisted that major adjustments would have been ill-advised in the middle of the crises but that balancing the economy will be necessary next electoral term. Although the party expressed its support for eliminating inactivity traps in the latest poll by YLE, it is not advocating for slashing social security, clarified Lindtman. Eliminating inactivity traps can also mean lowering daycare fees or raising the protected part of social security, for example, he stated to Helsingin Sanomat. The National Coalitions proposal for cuts worth billions in social security would in our view be harsh politics particularly in the middle of rapidly rising prices. Aleksi Teivainen HT Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Hilton's (NYSE: HLT) iconic luxury hotel brand, today announced its entry into Vietnam with the signing of Waldorf Astoria Hanoi. The hotel, owned by BRG Group and managed by Hilton, continues the brand's entry into the world's most sought-after destinations such as Sydney, Tokyo, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. Scheduled to open in 2025, Waldorf Astoria Hanoi will join Hilton's pipeline of nine other hotels and resorts that will open in Vietnam in the coming years. Nestled in the city's beautiful and historic city centre, the upcoming Waldorf Astoria Hanoi is a conversion of the current Hilton Hanoi Opera and will feature fully reimagined accommodations across each of its 187 rooms and suites, after extensive renovations are complete. Bringing World-class Luxury to Hanoi Honoring the brand's commitment to culinary excellence and innovation, the luxury hotel will also feature four world-class dining concepts including the brand's world-famous lounge and bar, Peacock Alley, a rooftop lounge and two other distinctive restaurants. Guests can also look forward to beautiful event spaces totaling over 1,000 square meters and lavish, holistic therapies at the award-winning Waldorf Astoria spa. Waldorf Astoria Hanoi is a short walking distance from the city's famous Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake. It is also within close proximity to Hanoi's major commercial buildings, and a convenient 27 kilometers, or 40 minutes by car, from Noi Bai International Airport. Located near major tourist attractions in the bustling capital, including the National Museum of Vietnamese History, Ba Dinh Square and Trang Tien Plaza, the hotel is ideal for travelers looking to immerse themselves in the city's timeless charm and rich history. Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts operates six hotels in China, Thailand and the Maldives, and will more than double its presence in Asia Pacific over the next five years. Hotel website An untouched waterfall, terraces of rice fields and a jungled mountainside setting form the underpinnings of a spectacular new 15-hectare resort in Vietnam's Mai Chai Province, a 3.5-hour drive from Hanoi. Opened quietly during the pandemic, the 36-villa property features spacious, indigenous design, a spa built on a stream and one of the most majestic dining opportunities to be found in Southeast Asia. "It's one thing to build a resort near the wonders of nature but to build in the midst of all this natural splendor, with a footprint as light and retractable as we have, makes for an immersive experience that can be overwhelming," said Mr. Vu Huy, founder of Avana Retreat. With architecture that leverages local Hmong and Thai building techniques and aesthetics, the resort's 36 villas range in size from 98-square-meters (1,054-square-feet) to 229-square-meters (2,465-square-feet). Some of the villas optimize outdoor opportunities with balconies as large as 35-square-meters (377-square-feet). One villa perches on top of a terrace of rice fields. Three of the villas boast private pools, and the most exclusive villa features an 89-square-meter (958-square-feet) private heated pool that climbs in tiers like a visual echo of the rice terraces. The roofs of the bungalow villas are thatched, like the local stilt houses and the walls are made of earth as is common with Hmong homes. The rattan ceilings are made using a Thai weaving technique. The warm wood interiors feature local arts and crafts, including hand-drawn beeswax paintings of intricate ethnic patterns. The lantern-lined pathways and bridges that wind through the jungle of the property highlight the location, without tampering with it. The private waterfall, which inspired the development when discovered by the founders a decade ago, is the backdrop for private dinners and intimate parties with a terraced deck overlooking the cascade. The resort's open-air yoga studio pavilion juts over the stream. The property's eight-treatment-room Orchid Spa is built along the stream, which courses through the site, and immerses guests in nature through both the therapies on offer and the lush landscape that surrounds. Spa treatments look to the landscape with local healing herbs and oils used in therapies that range from facials and body wraps through to comprehensive pampering packages like the Wild Reconnection. This signature 3-3.5 hour transformative experience includes a body exfoliation using local products, a toning and firming wrap, a relaxing facial, and a signature body massage that uses firm pressure and the stimulation of acupressure points, as well as warm Vietnamese herbal packs. The property features four heated infinity pools with views of the sunset or cloud ceiling. The aptly-called Cloud Pool Bar, is named after this phenomenon, where the fluffy cloud cover settles just below the property for an almost other-worldly view. At this dining destination guests can enjoy a tipple, light snacks or lunch with a menu featuring local specialities, like a banana flower salad, and western-style fare like pizza, pasta, and sandwiches. Avana's all-day dining restaurant, Green Chili, offers an impressive selection of dishes from pho and Australian Wagyu Beef to a line-up of vegetarian and vegan options. As much as possible the team uses local herbs, spices and vegetables. They source organic eggs from a chicken farm on property. Leveraging what's local is a priority across the board. More than 90% of the staff are from the surrounding area. "We want as much of the experience of accommodation here to be as singular to this part of Mai Chau as possible, from the sights you see, to the food you eat, to the people you meet," said Huy. To stay in harmony with the area, Avana is also a plastic- free retreat. Trash bags are made from corn starch, organic materials are composted, and they have their own Avana bottle plant to produce purified drinking water. They use an electric buggy service, to take guests around the resort, and continue to add to the diversity of the region through their tree-planting program. Room rates start at USD 432. For more information visit https://avanaretreat.com Hotel website January 2023 will see the launch of Faern; a new collection of striking lifestyle resorts in the Swiss Alps where celebrations big and small make every encounter meaningful. Debuting with two hotels; Faern Arosa Altein and Faern Crans-Montana Valaisia, Faern will approach each alpine destination with a fresh, new take inspired by the scenic sights, bringing people together, and the very best of altitude living. The brand name Faern has evolved from the German Feiern, meaning "to celebrate", and the English fern, an icon of mountain flora. Faern seeks to make every encounter a celebration; a joyful fellowship through the design, service and experiences. The design is to be rooted in traditional 70's alpine charm with urban and modern convenience, the properties are located minutes from their respective ski-lifts, making for a seamless ski experience from arrival. Both destinations are also set to have extensive wellness offerings with indoor and outdoor pools for guests and visitors. At both Arosa and Crans-Montana, they are excited to welcome guests to their destination restaurants and cocktail bars as well as for apres-ski events in winter or pool bar parties during the summer months. Further details of the F+B offering will be available nearer the launch. For more information about Faern, please visit: faernresorts.com Hotel website David Stanton has been appointed as General Manager of The West Hollywood EDITION. Stanton has worked with the EDITION Hotels brand for over five years. He comes to the only West Coast location of the luxury hotel brand from The London EDITION where he most recently served as General Manager at the Fitzrovia-based property. Stanton has worked in the hospitality industry for over 25 years, spending more than half of this period with Four Seasons across its properties in New York, China, Thailand and the UK, following which he held the position of Director of Food & Beverage at Rosewood Hotel Georgia. Stanton brings a wealth of experience from his positions at five-star hotels and luxury hospitality brands across the globe. In keeping with the EDITION philosophy, The West Hollywood EDITION redefines the hotel landscape in Los Angeles, bringing a new lease on outdated luxury by balancing sophisticated design and personalized, attentive service with one-of-a-kind offerings reflecting the best of the cultural and social milieu of its location. The hotel by Ian Schrager, in partnership with Marriott International, punctuates the Southern California landscape with an excitement and energy reminiscent of the cultural revolutions that took place there in the Sixties and Seventies. Mariam Megally is the new Program Director for Glion's Master's in Hospitality, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Based in Switzerland, Mariam brings a breadth of international business experience to the Master's degree focused on entrepreneurship skills. She began her career as a consultant with McKinsey & Co before entering the corporate food and beverage sector at Starbucks and Nestle, a career path which culminated in her taking the role of Starbucks Global Strategic Innovation Director for Nestle. Since 2012, Mariam has served as Strategy Professor for the Executive MBA at Solvay Brussels School in Vietnam. She is also a judge and mentor for the global start-up accelerator Mass Challenge where she provides mentoring for start-ups in food and sustainability. Dr. Eleonora Cattaneo has joined the Glion team as of October 1st as the Director for the Master's in Luxury Management and Guest Experience. She has been previously a professor for the Building Brand Equity class within the Master. Dr. Cattaneo has obtained a PhD in Marketing from the University of Pavia in Italy, an MBA from SDA Bocconi, and BA from the University of Bristol and has extensive industry experience in the field of marketing as a consultant and senior advisor for global brands and leading luxury hospitality groups. Her research focuses on rebranding, heritage branding and sustainable buying behaviour in the field of luxury. Prior to her position at Glion, she was Director of executive education at Swiss Education Group. She was also head of programme for the MA Luxury Brand Management at Regent's University and before that she was a faculty member at SDA Bocconi in Milan where she designed and led executive education and MBA programmes. Remington Hotels, a dynamic hotel management company, has hired Dan Falvey as Senior Vice President of Business Development, who will work closely with Chief Investment Officer Jarrad Evans to continue expanding the company's new business pipeline. Falvey joins Remington Hotels with more than 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry. Most recently, he was Head of Real Estate for The Demex Group. Previously, he was Managing Director with Cushman & Wakefield's Hospitality Group. During his 16 years at Cushman, he worked with multiple teams, including the Equity, Debt, and Structured Finance (EDSF) Group; the Hospitality Tax Group; and the Valuation & Advisory Hospitality and Gaming Group. Earlier in his career, Falvey worked for Prism Hotels, opening its New York office and growing its management and receivership platforms. Falvey also co-founded Black Birch Advisors, a real estate consultancy advising institutional clients on how to drive savings across expense categories. In this role, Falvey will be deeply involved in expanding Remington's business pipeline by sourcing new management opportunities, supporting Remington's partners in acquiring hotels, and developing new hotels and resorts with the company's multiple institutional partners. Getting in an airplane long ago ceased to be anything remotely resembling a luxury experience. But in recent years, it has become something else as well a largely unavoidable form of climate sin. Although aviation is a relatively slim sliver of global carbon emissions around 2.5 percent at the personal level, it carries an enormous footprint practically unmatched by any other individual action. (Avoiding an international flight from New York City to London, for example, could save 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide from spewing into the atmosphere about double the effect of going vegan for a year.) The climate activist Greta Thunberg once opted to take a high-speed racing yacht across the Atlantic rather than get in a plane; in her home country, Swedes have started using the word flygskam, which means flying shame. But despite the efforts of activists and climate scientists, most people are unlikely to give up flying. A new report by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation suggests another way forward: A global tax on those who fly the most the proceeds of which could be used to fund research and development into emissions-free aviation fuels. Were saying If you want to fly more, thats fine, said Sola Zheng, a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation and the lead author of the report. Youve just got to pay a bit more. The report suggests a frequent flier tax that starts on the second flight each individual takes per year, at a rate of $9. It would then steadily ratchet up, reaching $177 for the 20th flight in a single year. (A flight in this case, is a single take off and landing that is, half of a round trip.) For most Americans who take two or fewer flights per year the tax would cost about the same as buying a drink and a bag of chips at the airport. But business travelers and other frequent fliers racking up dozens of flights every 12 months would face steeper costs. Read the full article at washingtonpost.com TRAVEL has become the ultimate luxury in todays world, declared Hermione Joye, Sector Lead, Travel, APAC for Google, as she shared the latest findings from a Google and Kantar study at WiT Singapore 2022 last week. One, revenge travel is here to stay in the APAC traveller mindset, with 75% of respondents keen to travel as much as possible in the near future. Two, 30-60% of people in key APAC markets are currently travelling more and spending more vs pre-Covid times. And lastly, 48% are motivated to travel for relaxation, unwinding and destressing. Travel is seen as a respite from daily life unwinding and de-stressing is the #1 motivator for travel across APAC, she said. The research identified four traveller archetypes. Remote value seekers (32%): Budget-minded domestic travellers Looking to explore outdoors with adult friends and family Relaxation is top of mind Urban Traditionalists (27%): Keen but cautious travellers Looking to travel to international cities for active holidays Luxury Loyalists (25%): The highest-value customers Most loyal segment Can help to amplify your brand through consistent digital engagement, particularly on video platforms Eco-minded Families (17%): Budget-conscious Preference for nature and environmentally conscious providers Read the full article at webintravel.com Pacifica Hotels, the largest owner and operator of boutique hotels along the Pacific Coast, is thrilled to announce the $32.9 million purchase of the Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland. The iconic Portland hotel will join the companys impressive portfolio of 40 plus properties currently located in California and Hawaii. The Portland hospitality market has a long history of success and is a market we have been looking to have a presence in for many years, shared Chris Marquis, Executive Vice President of Pacifica Hotels. We are thrilled to have our first be Hotel Vintage with its heralded history as an iconic hotel in the Portland market. We believe the strong, historical dynamics of the Portland hospitality market pair well with our expertise in design-forward, experiential hotels. We will continue to look to grow our footprint throughout the Pacific Northwest. The hotel was built in the late 1800s and underwent a multimillion makeover in 2015 and 2018 that overhauled the lobby, rooms and amenities. Today, each floor of the hotel is dedicated to a different Willamette Valley American Viticultural Area, and each room is named after a local winery. Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland has 117 hotel rooms, 8,000 sq. ft. of event space, a street-level restaurant and bar called Il Solito and Bacchus Bar, a private wine cellar, and a game lounge. The hotels lobby doubles as a tasting room, and the graffiti art murals have been named among the best in the nation. As the Portland hospitality market continues to regain strength, we are working diligently to reopen Il Solito, which we believe will be a top restaurant destination in downtown Portland upon its reopening. We also have preliminary plans to add additional food and beverage outlets within the hotel, which we are very excited about, shared Matt Marquis, CEO of Pacifica Hotels. Kimpton Hotel Vintage Portland is located at 422 S.W. Broadway, on the corner of S.W. Broadway and S.W. Washington Street. The hotel is within walking distance of many of the citys main attractions and most popular eateries. Fall has returned and so have the delicious seasonal flavors that surge in popularity this time of year. When it comes to autumn cocktails, theres something to suit everyones taste, whether it's pumpkin spice, apple, maple, or cinnamon. Weve harvested a variety of autumn-themed drink recipes from Hilton mixologists, ranging from a Pumpkin Pie Martini to an Autumn Old Fashioned. Read on for where you can find each cocktail and expert tips for how to make them at home. Pumpkin Pie Martini If youre a fan of pumpkin pie, youll love the Pumpkin Pie Martini available in TASTE Restaurant at Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Downtown Convention Center. Available until Nov. 15, the drink combines pumpkin pie syrup with fresh ingredients and locally distilled liquor to create a tasty seasonal cocktail. Pumpkin Pie Martini from Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Downtown Convention Center Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 2 oz Siesta Key Spiced Rum 0.5 oz heavy cream 1 oz pumpkin pie syrup Graham cracker crumbs for garnish Directions Rim coupe glass with graham cracker crumbs. Add all ingredients to a shaker. Shake, strain and pour into glass. Fall of Man Served at Galley Restaurant at Hilton West Palm Beach from September through February, the Fall of Man perfectly blends the sweet and tart contrast of Red Delicious and Granny Smith apples. This is by far one of my all-time favorite cocktail creations. The quality and complexity of the drink come from the house-made apple butter. The caramel and citrus notes work as bridges to break up the dense flavors of the apple butter, said Nathanial Cornell, bartender, Hilton West Palm Beach and creator of the drink. For a sweeter cocktail, use traditional Hennessy. For a more tart cocktail, infuse the Hennessy with Granny Smith apples, Cornell added. Fall of Man from Hilton West Palm Beach Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 1.5 oz Granny Smith-infused Hennessy 0.75 oz apple butter 0.25 oz grapefruit juice 0.25 oz lemon juice 0.25 oz caramel syrup dehydrated cinnamon-dusted apple slice for garnish Directions Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously Strain through a double mesh strainer for a smooth consistency into a coupe glass. Float the dehydrated apple on top of the cocktail. Cooks Note Granny Smith Infused Hennessy Ingredients: 1L Hennessy 4 Granny Smith Apples Instructions: Core and dice apples into small cubes. Soak Hennessy with apples in a sealed container for two days. Keep in a cool dark environment. Strain out apples with a double mesh strainer and tea bag filter for best results. House-made Apple Butter Ingredients: 2 lbs red apples 2 lbs green apples 0.5 cup apple cider vinegar 3 allspice berries (crushed) 2 cinnamon sticks (finely crushed) 1 two-inch piece of ginger (peeled, chopped) 1 star anise pod (leaf) 1.25 cup granulated sugar 1 cup light brown sugar 1 pinch of salt 4 cups of water Instructions: Peel all the apples, save for later. Core and dice the apples into in cubes. Combine diced apples, vinegar, sugar, and water into a pot. Wrap apple peels and spices in cheesecloth and soak in with other ingredients. Cook over medium-high heat until simmering. Reduce to medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples are completely softened and the liquid has reduced by half. Remove the cheesecloth from the pot. Blend the apple mixture until it reaches a smooth consistency. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick, glossy and a deep golden brown (somewhere between honey and molasses). Le Lune de miel | The Honeymoon Le Lune de miel | The Honeymoon will be available on the fall and winter menu at CABU Restaurant at Hilton Quebec. The drink features whiskey, lemon juice, sparkling apple mist, and honey simple syrup made with honey from bees on the roof of the hotel. Dominic Nadeau-Joannette, manager, CABU Restaurant, describes the drink as simple, sweet and cozy, as a honeymoon should be. Le Lune de miel | The Honeymoon from Hilton Quebec Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 1.5 oz Wild North Rye Whiskey 0.5 oz honey simple syrup 0.5 oz lemon juice 4 oz St. Nicholas sparkling apple mist Directions In a shaker, combine whiskey, honey simple syrup and lemon juice and shake. Strain and pour the contents of the shaker into an old-fashioned glass with a scoop of ice. Add the apple mist. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and a dehydrated apple. Spiced Apple Cocktail Guests at Hilton Americas-Houston can find the Spiced Apple Cocktail on the menu at the Lobby Bar all season long. Our spiced apple cocktail is fall in a cocktail with flavors of apple, cinnamon & maple, said Jennifer Scott, food & beverage manager, Hilton Americas-Houston. Spiced Apple Cocktail from Hilton Americas-Houston Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 1.25 oz Fireball 0.75 oz Monin Maple Spice dash of walnut bitters 2.5 oz apple juice raw sugar for garnish whole cinnamon stick for garnish Directions Add all ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Vigorously shake. Pour into a rocks glass and garnish with raw sugar rim and whole cinnamon stick. Apple Citrus Whisky Sour The Apple Citrus Whisky Sour can be found at the lobby bar and restaurants at Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort throughout the fall. This cocktail offers an all-time classic with a special twist for the autumn season, making it still a fresh option for the warm fall that can be enjoyed at Puerto Vallarta, featuring ingredients that can be paired with any occasion, said Ricardo Venancio, bartender, Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort. Apple Citrus Whisky Sour from Hilton Vallarta Riviera All-Inclusive Resort Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 1.5 oz bourbon 1 oz apple cider 0.5 oz orange juice 0.5 oz fresh lemon juice 0.5 oz simple syrup rosemary for garnish dried grapefruit or orange slices for garnish raspberries for garnish ice Directions Add all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with no ice. Shake for about 30 seconds. Pour into an old-fashioned glass with ice. Garnish with a slice of dried grapefruit or orange, a single raspberry and smoked rosemary for extra scent. Autumn Breeze Martini Guests can find the Autumn Breeze Martini in Azulindas Lobby Bar at Hilton Cancun, An All-Inclusive Resort throughout October. We mixed warm autumn flavors with a Mexican Caribbean touch to create our Autumn Breeze Martini, said Doriluz Hernandez, bar manager, Azulindas Lobby Bar. Autumn Breeze Martini from Hilton Cancun, An All-Inclusive Resort Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 1.5 oz cinnamon-infused bourbon 1 oz Carnation milk 0.5 oz toasted marshmallow syrup 1.5 oz apple juice 0.25 oz amaretto 1 dash coffee liqueur 1 dash cinnamon powder 1 cinnamon stick with gold leaf for garnish 2 pansy flowers and 1 viola flower for garnish 1 dehydrated apple for garnish Directions Add the cinnamon-infused bourbon, Carnation milk, toasted marshmallow syrup and apple juice to a mixing glass filled with ice and stir until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add amaretto, coffee liqueur and cinnamon powder. Garnish with pansy & viola flowers, dehydrated apple and one cinnamon stick with gold leaf. Autumn Old Fashioned The classic old fashioned gets a spicy twist with the Autumn Old Fashioned at Hilton Austin. Available this fall, the drink combines bourbon, cinnamon-infused sweet vermouth, cherry & vanilla bitters and more. Autumn Old Fashioned from Hilton Austin Makes 1 Drink Ingredients 2 oz Woodford Bourbon 2 dashes cherry and vanilla bitters 0.25 oz lemon, star anise and clove syrup 0.5 oz cinnamon-infused sweet vermouth large ice cube Luxardo cherry, fresh cut orange, flamed orange zest and rosemary for garnish Directions Pour all items into a mixer with fresh ice. Stir items for 60 seconds. Place a large ice cube in a rocks glass. Pour and strain into the glass. Garnish with a luxardo cherry, and a fresh cut orange, flamed orange zest, with rosemary garnish. Cooks Note Lemon, Star Anise and Clove Syrup Ingredients: 4 cups of water 2 cups of sugar 38 grams of white cloves 25 grams of star anise rind of 1 lemon Instructions: Simmer all ingredients over medium heat for 10 minutes, then strain. More fall adventures from Hilton: About Hilton Hilton (NYSE: HLT) is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 18 world-class brands comprising more than 6,800 properties and more than 1 million rooms, in 122 countries and territories. Dedicated to fulfilling its founding vision to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality, Hilton has welcomed more than 3 billion guests in its more than 100-year history, earned a top spot on the 2021 World's Best Workplaces list and been recognized as a global leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for five consecutive years. In 2021, in addition to opening more than one hotel a day, Hilton introduced several industry-leading technology enhancements to improve the guest experience, including Digital Key Share, automated complimentary room upgrades and the ability to book confirmed connecting rooms. Through the award-winning guest loyalty program Hilton Honors, the nearly 128 million members who book directly with Hilton can earn Points for hotel stays and experiences money can't buy. With the free Hilton Honors app, guests can book their stay, select their room, check in, unlock their door with a Digital Key and check out, all from their smartphone. Visit newsroom.hilton.com for more information, and connect with Hilton on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. The tragic news of the murder of a young employee at a resort in Rishikesh last month tarnished the Indian hotel sector, which is recovering strongly from the pandemic. This prompted a verification drive to inspect all the hotels, resorts, and homestays in the area for violations of rules and regulations, as well as the closure of properties that did. There is no denying that rules and regulations must be strictly followed or there will be serious consequences. The recent fatal fire incident at a hotel in Lucknow, which occurred allegedly due to insufficient fire safety measures, serves as a case in point. While we strongly condemn these incidents and think that those responsible should face the harshest penalties, we feel that the generalized tirade against the hotel sector as a whole is a bit harsh and does not augur well for the sector and the country as a whole given that tourism is a major economic driver. A similar generalization trend was also evident at the beginning of the pandemic when hotels were among the last few establishments to reopen following the lockdown and battled for a while to regain the trust of customers. With the sector finally experiencing renewed demand and growth, such incidents can jeopardize both guest and employee sentiment for the entire sector. In the aftermath of the recent incident that led to the tragic murder of a young employee, the excessive action on hotels, resorts, guest houses, and homestays across the state leading to the abrupt sealing of a large number of such properties has deeply impacted the hospitality sector which felt isolated and singled out. While there is no grievance by any stakeholder from the sector on being duly regulated and for necessary checks by the concerned government bodies, the manner in which many of these have been conducted left the sector admonished as guilty till proven innocent. Sealing establishments without show cause notices or allowing time to provide necessary documents and respond to any queries cannot be an acceptable practice in the worlds largest democracy. The merits of tourism having a multiplier impact on the economy and its significant contribution to the GDP must be recognized and the sector given its due respect and stature. The authorities may find it challenging to audit and inspect all properties in a nation the size of India, even though there are numerous mechanisms in place to check for violations and the sector must come together to support self-regulation and to ensure that independent accountability becomes a widely adopted procedure which can benefit both the sector and the government. In the meanwhile, governments must appreciate the contribution of the sector and not allow stray incidents in hotels or any hospitality establishment to become a trigger to tarnish the sector as a whole and must allow the sector to perform with dignity and without the fear of persecution. Mandeep S Lamba President (South Asia), New Delhi +91 (124) 488 5552 HVS View source 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. Elon Musk [Photo/Agencies] Tesla CEO suggests Taiwan could be made 'special administrative zone' China expects and is glad to see that more and more people understand and support its principle of "peaceful reunification and one country, two systems", a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Sunday after Tesla CEO Elon Musk proposed setting Taiwan up as a special administrative zone. In a recently published interview with the Financial Times, Musk said that his recommendation for solving the Taiwan question "would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable". "I want to stress that 'peaceful reunification and one country, two systems' is our basic principle for resolving the Taiwan question, and the best approach to realizing national reunification," Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, told a news briefing in Beijing. Qin Gang, Chinese ambassador to the United States also responded to Musk's remarks, saying that he would like to thank the CEO for his call for peace across the Taiwan Straits and for his idea of establishing a special administrative zone for the island. "Provided that China's sovereignty, security and development interests are guaranteed, after reunification Taiwan will enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region, and a vast space for development," Qin wrote on the social media platform Twitter on Sunday. Since Hong Kong's return to the motherland in 1997, China has established two special administrative regions, namely Hong Kong and Macao. Under the "one country, two systems", the SARs adopt different social systems and different policies from those on the mainland, as the Chinese government makes efforts to realize the peaceful reunification of China. According to Mao, the social system and the way of life in Taiwan as an SAR will be fully respected, and the lawful rights and interests of Taiwan compatriots will be fully protected. "China's reunification will not undermine any country's legitimate interests. Instead, it will only bring more development opportunities to other countries and inject more positive energy into the Asia-Pacific region, and the world at large," she added. The spokeswoman also dismissed Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party for hitting back at Musk's remarks, saying that whatever DPP authorities say, they cannot change the fact that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory. Mao said the root cause of the current tensions across the Taiwan Straits is due to collusion between DPP authorities and external forces to create provocations to seek the "independence" of the island. "Peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits will only be safeguarded when 'Taiwan independence' separatists are resolutely deterred and external interferences are opposed," she said. Tensions across the Taiwan Straits accelerated in August following visits to the island by US lawmakers, especially that of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, despite Beijing's repeated warnings and strong opposition. Pelosi's provocative move forced China to adopt countermeasures including sanctions against the Speaker and military drills around the island. 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. Columbia-Greene Media has recently teamed up with the US Postal Service to provide same-day delivery of your local newspaper with your mail. Our expanded daily delivery of your local news reaches into the following areas: How to write an award-winning film score Award-winning composer and author, David Andrew Wiebe, gives some exclusive tips for musicians who want to write for film. by David Andrew Wiebe from the Bandzoogle blog This could be the best music Ive ever written but right now Im too close to it to know for sure. As I put the finishing touches on the short film score for The Nobody Prayer, this is the thought that crossed my mind. To be able to see the forest for the trees, I knew I would need to put some time and space between me and the music Id written. In less than a year, the score ended up winning Best Original Score four times and was also nominated once. I then had no choice but to admit it was the best music Id ever written. Here are the steps that led to this success. Build your portfolio Even the people who might end up wanting to hire you wont know if youre any good unless theyre able to hear what youre capable of. When I was first brought in front of an independent filmmaker, I only had demos and home studio sessions to share with him, but he loved the raw energy of my music and could hear a lot of potential in it. You need a portfolio if you want to get work as a composer. And you will need to get work to learn the ropes and get better at your craft. Expand your network Over the years, I built many relationships at the local level. One introduction led to another, eventually to the filmmaking friend I referenced earlier. If that had never happened, I would not have had the opportunity to collaborate on a project that would be nominated for and ended up winning a dozen or more awards. At times, making connections meant sitting in fluorescent lit, dingy looking conference rooms with cheap snack spreads for hours on end, not knowing whether it would lead anywhere. Never despise humble beginnings. Youve got to do whatever it takes. Be patient My filmmaking friend is a Sci-Fi geek, and he was never short on ideas. He even wrote entire storylines and scripts before getting into the industry. This lack of focus, however, ended up being the bane of his career. Even as Hollywood expressed interest in his work, his projects would typically end up blue-penciled or abandoned (note most TV and film projects never get made). At long last, my friend decided to go to film school. Now he would be held accountable for completing and submitting multiple projects in a timely fashion, which ultimately led to me picking up Best Original Score awards. In the meantime, the only thing I could do was nurture the relationship, work on my skills, seek other work, and remain patient. Gain some experience Leading up to my success as an award-winning composer, I earned a few IMDb credits. Nothing crazy I have a few credits as a composer, and one as an actor. Not surprisingly, I endured some rejection on the way to getting those. I can recall sitting down with a couple of creators who wanted me to write some jazz music for their 50s gangster film. I sent them a demo, and never heard back. But this was the foundation I ultimately needed to write an award-winning film score. Without my credentials, experience, and relationship to my filmmaking friend, I would not have been offered the opportunity to compose in the first place. Youll need to gain some experience if you want to be invited onto projects. Earn a few IMDb credits, even if it means working on small-time, unpaid projects. Dont give up Ive taken a long, circuitous road to get to where I am today. Music has been a passion of mine since I was young, but on my journey, I ended up joining three network marketing companies, investing in a music industry tech startup, becoming a freelance writer, and a great deal more. My friends didnt always understand my decisions, my interest in anything other than music, or why I seemed to be getting sidetracked by entrepreneurial pursuits. Despite the criticism I faced, I kept blazing a trail, poised for the opportunities I knew would eventually come my way. Youll never become an award-winning composer if you give up. So, even if you end up on your own long, circuitous road, dont stop believing in yourself. Dare to be different As I watched the rough cut for the award-winning The Nobody Prayer, I understood the subject matter all too well. It was about a man who felt alone, isolated even from those who claimed to have the same religious beliefs. Then and there, I knew what the film needed acoustic guitar. With acoustic guitar as the focal point, I added strings to build out the bottom end, and piano to add texture. How many film scores nowadays feature a real acoustic guitar played by a real person? Not that many. Im not saying there arent any, but they are few and far between. At first, when I shared the music with the director, he was a little concerned that a score featuring acoustic guitar would draw comparisons to Brokeback Mountain. But once he heard the music, he was convinced. Your gut might have more to say about what kind of music to create for a film than you think. Listen to it. Dare to be different. Work within your limitations Its easy to assume that if you dont have all the right tools expensive Neumann mics, UJAM plugins, access to the best orchestral players, etc. that you wont be able to produce amazing music. In your early days, though, you probably wont have access to premium equipment and players. In my view, your skills as a composer / musician and ability to innovate are far more valuable than any gear money can buy. More to the point, youre going to do a better job with the tools you know versus those you dont. Someone could drop you into the middle of a world-renowned orchestra, and if you have no experience working with an orchestra, its not going to enhance your project. These days, there are a lot of great free and low-cost tools, whether its Spitfire Audios LABS series of plugins or the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface. Sure, your music might not come out sounding as dramatic and dynamic as the latest Netflix exclusive, but youll have plenty of time to develop your skills and expand your library of tools if you stay the course. Conclusion There are no shortcuts to writing an award-winning film score. It is the rare combination of a project getting off the ground fused with the right music thats going to get you there. Whats within your control is to build your portfolio and grow your network. Focus on these things and your phone will start ringing. David Andrew Wiebe is the Founder & CEO of The Music Entrepreneur HQ and author of four books, including the much-praised The New Music Industry: Adapting, Growing and Thriving in The Information Age. Wiebe has built an extensive career in songwriting, live performance, recording, session playing, production work and music instruction. Share on: The Clark to Screen Zurbaran and His Twelve Sons WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. On Thursday, Oct. 27, at 6 p.m., the Clark Art Institute screens Zurbaran and His Twelve Sons, the third presentation in its five-part Film and Art series, which runs through November. The free showing is open to the public and takes place in the Clarks auditorium. Screenwriter John Healey introduces the film. The documentary (2020, 72 minutes), directed by Arantxa Aguirre, explores the meaning of Jacob and His Twelve Sons, a series of thirteen canvases painted by Spanish Baroque artist Francisco de Zurbaran (15981664). Traveling from the Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas; to the Frick Collection, New York; and to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the film follows these paintings, probably commissioned for a cathedral in the Americas, that disappeared for a century until they were acquired at an auction by the London merchant James Mendez. A few years later, in 1756, Bishop Richard Trevor of Durham made a significant gesture in support of English Jews when he obtained the paintings and hung them in his dining room at Auckland Castle, where they remain to this day. The next film of the Film and Art series is Mur Murs, screening on Thursday, November 10, at 7:30 pm in the Clarks auditorium. The event is free and no registration is required. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events. Big Y Program Will Raise Money For Breast Cancer Support Groups SPRINGFIELD, Mass. In order to continue to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer, all Big Y Supermarkets will be raising funds for 31 local breast cancer support groups throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. In Berkshire County, Berkshire Medical Center's Women's Imaging Center will receive funds. Since 2007, the chain has raised more than $2.7 million dollars for the program, Partners of Hope. Customers can donate directly to Partners of Hope here , or they can purchase a $1 ribbon at each register. "Thousands of women and many men are impacted each year by breast cancer," said Big Y CEO, Charles D'Amour. "With a renewed focus on health and wellness and the importance of breast cancer awareness and early detection, we hope that this initiative can not only help save lives but someday lead to better treatments and ultimately a cure." Radio broadcaster Flo Hervias was physically assaulted by four assailants on October 7, amid a growing number of violent attacks against journalists in the Philippines. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), in condemning the attack and urging the authorities to immediately investigate the incident and hold those responsible to account. Demonstrators attend a rally against the murder of broadcaster Percy Lapid on October 4, 2022, days before the assault of Flo Hervias. Credit: Jam Sta Rosa / AFP On the evening of October 7, Hervias was assaulted by four masked men as he exited the DYRI radio station in the Lapaz District of Iloilo City after his program Banwa Binag-binaga aired. Hervis was beaten and sustained injuries to his eyes and mouth. According to the NUJP, the assailants pretended to be garbage collectors as they waited outside the station for Hervias to exit the building. On the day of the attack, Hervias reported on a controversial rehabilitation project of the citys public market, which is currently underway. The broadcaster interviewed the contractor in charge of the project to discuss what was being done to help the markets existing vendors transfer to temporary stalls. Hervias has since requested temporary protection from the Philippine National Police. The attack comes days after radio commentator Percival Mabasa, also known as Percy Lapid, was shot dead in his vehicle in Las Pinas City.The veteran broadcaster, host of Lapid Fire on radio station DWBL 1242, was known to criticise the practice of red tagging, or the labelling of activists or organisations as supporters of communism, among other political issues. Lapid is the second journalist to be killed under the administration of President Ferdinand Jr., with his death causing widespread fear within the journalist community in the Philippines. The NUJP said: We call on the Philippine National Police to act on its assurance of protecting journalists and upholding the freedom of the press by swiftly and decisively apprehending the assailants and all others involved and filing the appropriate charges. We call on colleagues to continue to stand together in defending the freedom of the press and standing by our sworn duty to hold power to account. The IFJ said:All journalists must be able to work freely and independently without fearing for their safety or security. The IFJ condemns the assault of Flo Hervias and urges the Philippine policeto conduct an immediate thorough investigation into the incident to bring the perpetrators to justice. The Sudanese Journalists Union (SJU) officially resumed its activity on October 11, three years after the decision of the military authorities to ban it. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) join its affiliate in welcoming the court's decision to reverse the ban and call on the Sudanese government to respect union rights and media freedom in the country. The Sudanese Journalists' Union held a press conference on September 4 in Khartoum to announce its decision to resume the union's activity. Credit: SJU The SJU received an official notification on October 10 from the Ministry of Justice, which cancelled the decision of the Sudanese authorities to disband the union, issued in December 2019. The office of SJU, which was occupied by military forces, will be transferred to the Steering Committee for the Management of the Professional Union of Sudanese Journalists Union, and its activity will be restored as of October 11. A statement issued by the union congratulated "all its members inside and outside the country on restoring its legal right and confirms the resumption of all activity from 11 of October. The SJU will conduct a process to organise the General Assembly and hold elections to choose the new leadership of the union and elect the new executive office, the statement added. Throughout the three years, the SJU submitted numerous requests to the authorities and filed a lawsuit calling on them to revoke the decision, hand over its office in Khartoum, and lift the ban on its activity. In addition, the IFJ and the FAJ, together with other organisations , denounced the decision to dissolve the union and the arrest of its leaders as a gross violation of human rights, and campaigned for its restoration. IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: The restoration of the SJU is a victory. The decision to dismantle the union was an illegal act, as the Sudanese journalists are the ones who must decide their representation, not the authorities. We celebrate the decision, and call on the government to respect union rights and media freedom in the country. Reporters Godwin Mangudya from Voice of America (VOA) and Dunmore Mundai from Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) were assaulted on 8 and 10 October in Harare, Zimbabwes capital. Members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and party militants from the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) attacked them while they were covering the partys Central Committee elections. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns this act of brutality and intimidation against journalists who were simply doing their jobs. It calls on the government to guarantee the safety and security of journalists and to ensure that those who perpetrate crimes against journalists are brought to justice. Mangudya told local media that he was assaulted by members of the ruling ZANU PF militants and members of the CIO despite identifying himself and producing his constitutionally-accredited Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) press card. He was detained for one hour and footage on his phone was deleted. Mundai sustained injuries on his back and arm. These assaults come against a backdrop of increased aggressions by political parties against media workers in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) said Violence and harassment of journalists must stop. IFJ Secretary General, Anthony Bellanger, said: We strongly condemn this act of intimidation against a journalist who was simplydoing his job in the public interest. We call on the government to ensure the safety of all media workers on duty. Freedom of expression and media freedom are fundamental rights guaranteed by the Zimbabwean Constitution and other international instruments such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights which Zimbabwe have also signed and ratified. The operations of gangsters-turned-terrorists Canada-based Lakhbir Singh Landa, Arsh Dalla, and Pakistan-based Harvinder Singh Rinda have been successfully neutralised by the Punjab police in the last 10-days. Five terrorist modules in the state have been busted with the arrest of 17 terrorists in the last 10 days, according to the police officials. These foreign-based desperadoes operate mainly from Canada, the US, the UK, and Germany. The Police have recovered four rifles including AKs/MP-9/MP-5 and 25 revolvers and pistols from their possession. Apart from this, the Police teams have also recovered three hand grenades and one IED, said a police official. Inspector General of Police (IGP) headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill while addressing his weekly press conference on Monday said that the police were making every effort to maintain peace and harmony in the state. In the last 10 days the Police teams have managed to strike a major blow to the terrorist modules being operated by Lakhbir Singh alias Landa, Harvinder Singh alias Rinda and Arsh Dalla from outside India, he said. Gill informed that the police busted a module on October 1 after arresting three operatives of an ISI-backed terror module jointly handled by Canada-based Landa and Pakistan-based Harvinder Rinda after recovering one sophisticated AK-56 assault rifle along with two magazines, 90 live cartridges, and two bullet shells from their possession. Earlier on September 28, an operative of Canada-based terrorist Lakhbir Landa gang was arrested from Bihar for his involvement in several heinous crimes pertaining to murder, attempt to murder, assault, robbery, and snatching, he said. The IGP said that on the next day, an ISI-backed drone-based Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) terror module being operated by Canada-based terrorist/gangster Arshdeep Singh alias Arsh Dala was busted with the arrest of its two operatives from the Chamkaur Sahib area. Two days later, the Police arrested one more operative of the same module after recovering three hand grenades and two pistols from his car. On October 4, Amritsar Rural Police busted an ISI-backed Narco-Terrorism module after arresting its main operative and one RDX loaded Tiffin Box fabricated into an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) or Tiffin Bomb; two sophisticated AK-56 assault rifles along with two magazines and 30 live cartridges; one .30 bore pistol along with 6 live cartridges; and 2 KG Heroin was recovered from his possession, he said. Gill further said that a module linked with Gurdev Singh (lodged in Faridkot jail) being operated by Germany-based Gurmeet Singh alias Bagga was busted with the arrest of its five members for arranging smuggled weapons and providing logistic support. The police also recovered two 9mm foreign-made pistols and one .32 bore pistol, he said. Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami met Labour Party leader Keir Starmer on Monday and held a productive talk on all aspects of the strategic partnership between India and the UK. The discussion focused on the need to sustain people-to-people ties, including through regular dialogue. HC @VDoraiswami met @UKLabour party leader @Keir_Starmer for a productive talk on all aspects of the India-UK strategic partnership, focusing on the need to sustain people-to-people ties, including through regular dialogue, the Indian High Commission in the UK tweeted. Taking to Twitter, High Commissioner Doraiswami appreciated the Labour leaders interest in sustaining the historic friendship between the two countries. An excellent meeting with Sir @Keir_Starmer. Appreciate his interest in sustaining the historic friendship between India and the UK. @MEAIndia, he said. This meeting comes days after the Labour Convention of Indian Organisations (LCIO) was held last month to close the gap between British Indians and the Labour Party. The party has announced its wish to bridge the gap between the Labour Party, British Indians and India by fostering inclusive sustainable growth for both countries. The party plans to deepen cultural and educational ties and engage with India as a partner and critical friend on issues of concern for British Indians. During the India-focussed event, the recently revived LCIO was formally launched, iGlobal news reported. On the sidelines of the party conference, Keir Starmer, said, I welcome the re-establishment of the Labour Convention of Indian Organisations. The timing is poignant as people worldwide celebrate 75 years of Indian independence. He said, Im proud of Labours work with the Indian diaspora in the UK, particularly in strengthening ties between the UK and India. British Indians make an enormous contribution to our economy, culture, and politics. Ill welcome working with the LCIO on our mission to form the next Labour government. This outreach comes after some years of perceived Indian diaspora disconnect under the previous Labour leadership. Deputy High Commissioner @HCI_London attended the relaunch event of Labour Convention of Indian Organisations at the Annual Labour Conference in Liverpool. We welcome the initiative and look forward to working closely with @LabourIndians to further the India-UK ties. @VDoraiswami, the Indian High Commission had said in an earlier tweet. Replying to the High Commission, LCIO thanked the Indian High Commissioner Doraiswami and said, We are looking forward to a fruitful relationship. During this weekend's fan meet-and-greet in New York, Johnny Depp looked less like himself and more like Ozzy Osbourne. The actor's new clean-shaven look made him completely unrecognizable. Before Saturday night's performance by the 78-year-old Jeff Beck at Portchester, New York's Capitol Theater, the 59-year-old Johnny Depp posed for photographs and signed autographs outside. Twitter Following the settlement of the defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, Depp is currently on tour with Beck in England. The legendary actor from "Pirates of the Caribbean" has been relatively quiet away from the public eye, except for his moon-person appearance at the MTV VMAs. Screenshot Along with shaving off his facial hair, which made him unrecognizable, he also made strange statements during the award show. The rock group is currently touring the US. His ex-wife, Amber Heard, is currently staying in a lavish villa in Spain using a false identity. He is dating Joelle Rich, one of Johnny Depp's attorneys who sued the Sun for defamation in 2018. Depp and Rich are reportedly not yet engaged in an exclusive relationship. Rich remained silent while Johnny Depp was testifying in court this spring, despite reports that Depp was seeing Camilla Vasquez, another lawyer. Twitter In June, the court ordered Amber Heard to pay Depp for his defamation in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed essay, with $10 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages. Amber Heard sold her California house to pay off her debts. Before going to Spain, she reportedly spent time with her friends and daughter in Israel and the Hamptons. Later, she requested that the judge toss out the jury's decision. She claims that the judge put forward is unsubstantiated even by evidence. (To get the latest updates from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment) One of the most iconic fashion moments of Paris Fashion Week featured the Coperni label, which concluded its runway presentation with an audience-mesmerizing outfit of a whole new kind that was literally painted live on actor-model Bella Hadid. While the Coperni show scene was sensational, the more important question at the time was what this magical substance was and how it came to be a dress. We delve into the scientific principles underlying Fabrican, a spray-on fabric. What is Fabrican? Fabrican was created by Manel Torres, a fashion designer by profession. Liquid fabric, often known as spray-on fabric, is a combination of additives and polymers. Torres claims that when sprayed, it transforms into a non-woven material by combining liquid polymers with natural and synthetic fibres in an aerosol can. According to the manufacturer, the fabric is created, by cross-linking fibres that stay together and create a "second skin" when sprayed on an individual or an object. Liquid fabric from Fabrican is defined as a homogenous solution of fibres, a binder, and at least one diluent in its patent application. It is necessary for the fibres to be "sufficiently tiny" to pass through the sprayer. A liquid, typically an organic solvent like acetone or water, serves as the diluent. Bella Hadid/Instagram The product, which is constructed of polymers and organic or synthetic fibres, is a spray-on that may be applied instantly. These substances dry out when they come into touch with air, creating a non-woven fabric. Fabrican is a patented immediate, sprayable, non-woven, spray-on material that is headquartered in the UK at the London Bioscience Innovation Centre, according to Fabrican Ltd webpage. After being sprayed on Hadid, as was seen during the fashion show, a woman adjusted the dress, and it seemed to function like any other conventional dress. How can it be used? The device may be used to "Spray fabric directly from a container on a person's body, make a uniform T-shirt sprayed instantaneously from a can, and have the capacity to spray garments effortlessly from a spray," according to the website, which also mentions other applications. When sprayed, it immediately evaporates, resulting in the fabric. The binder, which as its name implies binds the sprayed material together, is solid at ambient temperature but soluble in the diluent prior to spraying. As a result, the diluent and binder need to match. One particularly good binder is polyvinyl acetate. Additionally, according to the website, it "uses no ozone-depleting compounds, compressing the industrial supply chain, improving its efficiency, and decreasing dependence on overseas component suppliers, hence lowering its carbon footprint." How it all began? The Hindu reports that Torres earned his bachelor's fashion design degree in Barcelona before relocating to London to attend the Royal College of Art. He found the procedure of finding patterns, sourcing fabric, and fitting it to make a dress to be excessively time-consuming during his postgraduate studies. He was trying to think of a way to speed up the process of making a dress. His inspiration for the instant fabric he produced originated from spider webs and silly string, an aerosol can that sprays multicoloured plastic strings. He received the scientific backing for the experiment from the Imperial College of London, and two years ago he presented promising results. Today, Fabrican is a patented spray-on fabric technique created by Fabrican Ltd, a research and innovation firm with headquarters in London that was established in 2003. Fashion by Fabrican Bella Hadid/Instagram Fabrican allows designers to produce both custom pieces and impromptu changes because different textures may be obtained by varying the chemical composition. Active ingredients, scents, and "conductive materials to interface with information technology" are all examples of fabrican. Sprayable technology from Fabrican can be used to "produce seamless sportswear clothes, supporting the production of complicated shapes and an array of styles and colours without the need for expensive or sophisticated retooling" when paired with robotic spray technology. For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News. Train hits are one of the biggest causes of unnatural elephant deaths in India, and tragically the number of fatalities only keeps on growing. On Monday, a female elephant was killed after being hit by a speeding Rajdhani Express near Titabar in Assam's Jorhat district. Representational Image What a sad scene. But no point in saying so. Nobody cares. Two mother elephants & a calf killed in a train collision in Mariani, Assam. Train crushed & broke her both hind legs. Suffering from unbearable pain, she has passed away in river, cursing people from bottom of her heart. pic.twitter.com/FjY6ihyGOv Nandan Pratim Sharma Bordoloi (@NANDANPRATIM) October 10, 2022 Her 10-month-old calf which was also hit by the train on Sunday night had died on the spot. Injured elephant continues to be in pain Another elephant injured in the incident is still alive and is under treatment. I wrote yesterday about the tragic death of an elephant in a train collision in Mariani, Assam. Look at the condition of the third elephant, which has been still struggling in the water for more than twenty hours after being hit by the train with severe injuries to all four legs. pic.twitter.com/9hkteAMCGp Nandan Pratim Sharma Bordoloi (@NANDANPRATIM) October 11, 2022 According to the Forest Department, the elephant herd was crossing the railway tracks near Kharikatia railway station on Sunday night when the 22 years old jumbo and her calf were hit. Railways was alerted about elephant movement Forest Department added that an alert was sent to the local railway authorities about the movement of elephants. After that disturbing video of the #rhino being hit on the highway that prompted CM @himantabiswa to issue a statement .. more bad news coming in from #Assam - 3 #elephants hit by a speeding train.. Info and photo shared by @rathinbarman pic.twitter.com/i8TvYxZEwQ Bahar Dutt (@bahardutt) October 10, 2022 Northeast frontier railway officials said that the train was travelling at over 50 kmph and even though the loco pilot had applied emergency brakes the collision could not be avoided. #WATCH | This is how Hindus treat animals Two wild elephants k!lled after being hit by a passenger train in #Assam but the way people performed last rites of the elephants shows the Sanskar of Hinduism.#HimantaBiswaSarma pic.twitter.com/rFp2P6N3WQ Ashutosh Sharma (@AshutosSharma25) October 10, 2022 Elephant deaths on railway tracks In December 2021, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had said that in the ten years between 2010-2020 a total of 1,160 elephants were killed in India due to reasons other than natural causes. Out of this, electrocution accounted for more than half of the unnatural deaths. Facebook While a total of 741 elephants were killed after coming into touch with live wires, 186 jumbos lost their lives on railway tracks. 45 elephants killed by train in 2019-20 In August, Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishaw informed the Lok Sabha that forty-five elephants were killed in train accidents in the period 2019-2021. Ten elephants, including two within the East Coast Railway zone, were killed in 2019. The Northern and Southern railways recorded two deaths each and the Northeast Frontier Railway registered four deaths. In 2020, 16 elephants died in collision with trains. The East Coast Railway and the Northern Railway zones recorded two deaths each. The Northeast Frontier Railway zone recorded six deaths, while the Southern and South Eastern Railway recorded three deaths each. Representational Image In 2021, 19 elephants died. While the Northern Railway and North Eastern Railway zones recorded two deaths each, the East Coast Railway recorded three deaths. The Northeast Frontier Railway recorded five deaths, the Southern Railway (4), the South Eastern Railway (2) and the South Western Railway (2). Environmentalists have long accused the railways of failing to take steps to reduce such incidents. They have also pointed out that Railways have so far not taken any action against loco pilots involved in such accidents. For more on the news, sports, and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. When police catch an accused in any case, the first thing that comes to their mind is to try and escape this custody, run away and try to not get caught. Often times it doesn't lead to any good because the offender is always caught. This time the story has an interesting twist, read on to learn more. Man tried to escape custody on bicycle Pexels In a bizarre police-chase incident from Florida, USA, a man was caught running away from police on a bicycle. The interesting twist is that the police chased after him and caught on, all while running on foot. The man is identified as Tomarius James Wagner. He is just 24 years old. To be honest, I dont know which is worse the fact that Wagner was trying to flee on a bicycle or the fact that Wagner got run down on foot by Tyler [the deputy] while trying to flee on a bicycle, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey was quoted as saying by The Free Press. The man was in possession of drugs and weapons Pexels Wagner, who is 24 years old, was in custody for being accused of drug possession and carrying concealed weapons. He was trying to escape arrest by fleeing away on a bicycle, but as it turns out, he was chased down by an on-foot officer running behind him. The man is awaiting trial for those charges and on-site probation violation, Brevard County authorities informed the press. He was booked into the Brevard County Jail where hes being held on a no-bond status for resisting an officer without violence. They decided to not seize his getaway vehicle, they just arrested him. "Now, thats how we do it here in Brevard," Ivey said. Man swam in Tampa Bay in Florida to escape arrest Tampa Bay Police Department Wagner trying to escape from custody wasn't the silliest case from Florida of late. Earlier this month, another tried to escape arrest, but as expected was caught in the end. Dewayne Dean, who is 32 years old, was accused of snatching a womans wallet. Upon arrest, he tried to escape by swimming into Tampa Bay, Florida. He managed to swim about 200 feet offshore before he surrendered and was captured and taken into custody. The police officers took a picture of the dramatic moment the man appeared to surrender with his hands up as a helicopter hovered right above him. The photo was uploaded on Facebook with the caption, "You cant run from the chopper!" What do you think about this? Tell us in the comments. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. American IT giant Meta Platforms Inc. has been added to Rosfinmonitoring's list of "terrorists and extremists," according to Russian media organizations on Tuesday. After being convicted guilty of "extremist conduct" in Russia in March, Metathe company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApphad its appeal denied by a Moscow court in June. At the time, Meta's attorney testified in court that Meta was not participating in extremist activity and was averse to Russophobia. Rosfinmonitorings list concerns "organizations and individuals about which there is information about their involvement in extremist activities or terrorism". Facebook and Instagram are not accessible in Moscow. Many Russian users still use virtual private networks (VPNs), whose demand soared as several Western internet services were blocked in March. As per the TASS news agency, the government agency that regulates communications, Roskomnadzor, has updated its list of VPNs that are banned. Though many VPNs continue to function, it started trying to block them in 2021. Officials have regularly said Metas "extremist" tag does not extend to its WhatsApp messenger service. "Meta's social network users are not breaking the law," senior lawmaker Andrey Klishas wrote on Telegram on Tuesday. "There are no restrictions concerning WhatsApp Messenger," he added. Reuters Pavel Chikov, a human rights attorney, has warned that the criminal code of Russia may make it unlawful to merely show the Instagram and Facebook logos or run advertisements on those platforms. (With inputs from Reuters) For the latest trending stories, follow us on Telegram. In its continued bid to support all kinds of data and provide a one-stop data platform in the form of BigLake, Google on Tuesday said that it will add support for most commonly used open-source table formats in data lakes. The company, which made the announcement at its annual Cloud Next conference, describes BigLake as a service that allows data analytics and data engineering on both structured and unstructured data. Our storage engine, BigLake, will add support for Apache Iceberg, Databricks' Delta Lake, and Apache Hudi," Gerrit Kazmaier, vice president of data analytics at Google Cloud, wrote in a blog post. "By supporting these widely adopted data formats, we can help eliminate barriers that prevent organizations from getting the full value from their data. It's part of Google's ongoing effort to enhance the overall openness of its cloud data services as a strategy to compete with other cloud-based data warehouse and data lake providers. Support for Apache Iceberg will be available in preview, the company said, adding that support for Hudi and Delta Lake would be coming soon. A specific timeline for the preview and general availability was not announced. Google has decided to support open-source table formats as their addition will allow transaction management capabilities to data lakes, said Matt Aslett, research director at Ventana Research. More than one-half (57%) of data lake adopters are using at least one of these emerging table formats today, which has the potential to increase the use of data lakes as a replacement for data warehousing environments, supporting analytics workloads based on the processing of structured data, Aslett said. However, Ventana Researchs recent Data Lakes Dynamics Insights research indicated that less than one-quarter of organizations have adopted a data lake to replace an existing data warehouse environment, and data lake and data warehouse environments co-exist in almost three-quarters of organizations. This works in favor of Googles BigLake as it has the ability to address both data warehousing and data lake approaches with a single environment, Aslett said. Google adding support to these open-source table formats seems to be a response to Snowflake and Databricks product updates, said Doug Henschen, principal analyst at Constellation Research. Apache Iceberg is the hot new option gaining traction because it promises openness as well as performance gains, but Google is making it clear its not picking sides by promising support for and Delta Lake and Hudi as well, said Henschen. Google rival Oracle may also announce similar features in its upcoming CloudWorld annual conference, said Tony Baer, principal analyst, dbInsight. BigQuery supports unstructured data As part of its Cloud Next announcements, Google has added also new features to its managed enterprise data warehouse, BigQuery, with the inclusion of adding support for unstructured data. Beginning now, data teams can analyze structured and unstructured data in BigQuery, with easy access to Google Clouds capabilities in machine learning (ML), speech recognition, computer vision, translation, and text processing, using BigQuerys familiar SQL interface, Kazmaier wrote. Data teams in most enterprises, according to Google, mostly use structured data, which accounts for just 10% of all data produced. Structured data includes data from operational databases, SaaS applications such as Abode, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday and semistructured data in the form of JSON log files. Unstructured data, on the other hand, includes video from television archives, audio from call centres or radio and documents in varied formats. Google contends that enterprises face increasing demand to work with unstructured data. Googles move to add support for unstructured data is a differentiating capability for the cloud service providers, analysts said. No other rival cloud service provider is presently addressing the need to support unstructured data as aggressively as Google, Henschen said. Addressing all data types on a single platform promises to simplify things for CIOs, data scientists and developers alike, Henschen added. Other BigQuery updates at Cloud Next Google also announced support for open-source unified analytics engine Apache Spark. The move is consistent with the companys strategy to position its cloud service as a modern lakehouse that supports analytics, warehousing, and data science, analysts said. The new integration, which will be in private preview, will allow enterprise data teams to create procedures in BigQuery, using Apache Spark, that integrate with their SQL pipelines, the company said. By embracing Spark, Google is embracing the most popular choice of data scientist, Henschen said. In contrast with Google, Snowflake is still early in its journey to data science using Python and other languages through its Snowpark offering on top of its database, and its relying heavily on partners to for support, Henschen added. Another rival, Databricks, has also enhanced support for data warehouse and business intelligence (BI) workloads on its platform. Meanwhile, Google also has integrated its change stream service, dubbed Datastream, with BigQuery. The new integration will help organizations more effectively replicate data from all kinds of sourcesincluding real-time data in AlloyDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL and third-party databases like Oracledirectly into BigQuery, the company said in a blog post. Further, Google has updated its data unifier service, DataPlex, to automate processes associated with data quality. For instance, users will now be able to more easily understand data lineagewhere data originates and how it has transformed and moved over timereducing the need for manual, time consuming processes, Kazmaier wrote in the blog post. Looker Studio unifies business intelligence products At Cloud Next, the company said that it will be unifying its business intelligence products by merging Looker and Data Studio to form Looker Studio, which in turn will be available in three options. Looker Studio currently supports more than 800 data sources with a catalog surpassing 600 connectors, making it simple to explore data from different sources, Kate Wright, senior director of BI product management at Google Cloud, wrote in a blog post. Looker Studio, which will offer private preview access to data models currently, is also expected to get a new interface, the company said, adding that the base version of Looker Studio will be free. Before the merger of the products, Looker was a paid service and Data Studio was a free service. The free version, according to Aslett, is not expected to come with support. In order to get support and added features, enterprises will have to update to the Looker Studios Pro version. Customers who upgrade to Looker Studio Pro will get new enterprise management features, team collaboration capabilities, and SLAs [service level agreements]. This is only the first release, and weve developed a roadmap of capabilities, starting with Dataplex integration for data lineage and metadata visibility, that our enterprise customers have been asking for, Wright said. Other updates to Looker include support for visualization tools, such as Tableau and Microsoft Power BI, to access data, the company said. Vertex AI Vision released In an effort to help developers and data scientists build and deploy computer vision-based applications, Google has added a new feature called Vertex AI Vision to extend the capabilities of its machine learning platform Vertex AI. The company has been working to ease machine learning (ML) operations with the launch of the Vertex AI platform last year in in May, followed by the introduction of collaborative development environment Vertex AI Workbench in October. The new end-to-end application development environment will help you ingest, analyze, and store visual data, the company said, claiming that the new service can reduce the time to create computer vision applications from weeks to hours and at one-tenth the cost of current offerings. Google claims that it achieves these efficiencies by providing a relatively easier to use interface and a library of pretrained machine learning models for common tasks such as occupancy counting, product recognition, and object detection. It also provides the option to import your existing AutoML or custom ML models, from Vertex AI, into your Vertex AI Vision applications. As always, all of our new AI products also adhere to our AI Principles, the company said. Attracting experienced and market-leading talent such as Jamie underpins our growth objectives and enhances our deep industry insights in the North America region and demonstrates our [commitment to] bringing the best talent to support and grow our natural resources global line of business globally, said Graham Knight, global head of natural resources at WTW. Read next: WTW reports on developments in cyber insurance market In his new role, Lee will be responsible for delivering customized advice and developing solutions to capacity constraints for WTW clients, as well as growing the companys upstream energy portfolio. Jamies extensive upstream energy experience, market relationships, and multidisciplinary skill set will help WTW expand our upstream portfolio, strengthen our industry position, and further develop strategic alliances within upstream energy, said Chris Mulvey, managing director and head of client management, natural resources, North America at WTW. We are excited WTW continues to invest in specialty natural resources talent around the world. A lawsuit against a Virginia town that alleges its police department has operated in a way that led to unlawful racial discrimination and violated individuals constitutional rights can move forward, a judge ruled Thursday. The Office of the Attorney General initially brought the lawsuit against the small southeastern Virginia town of Windsor in December, after an investigation prompted by a 2020 traffic stop involving two Windsor police officers and Caron Nazario, an Army lieutenant. Video of the incident showed the officers drawing their guns, pointing them at Nazario, who is Black and Latino, and using a slang term to suggest he was facing execution before pepper-spraying him and knocking him to the ground. The video led to widespread outrage when it surfaced months later, after Nazario sued the two officers. A judge on Thursday heard arguments in the states lawsuit before denying an attempt from the town to have the case dismissed, TV station WVEC reported. We are pleased with the Courts ruling today and have no further comment, Victoria LaCivita, a spokesperson for Miyares, said in a statement to The Associated Press. While the lawsuit was initially filed in the waning days of Democratic Attorney General Mark Herrings term, Miyares a Republican who took office in January has continued to pursue it. Miyares filed an amended complaint in August that substantially revised the claims made in the case. The lawsuit alleges the towns police department has engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that has deprived individuals of their rights, privileges or immunities under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. It also says the department policed in a way that unlawfully discriminated on the basis of race, color or national origin. In court documents, the town has said the states lawsuit refers only to one incident, Nazarios traffic stop, and doesnt establish that the town engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprived individuals of their rights. Attorneys for the town did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Thursdays ruling. Isle of Wight NAACP members told the TV station they were pleased to see Miyares push forward with the case. It is good to know that it is not about parties, said Valerie Butler, president of the Isle of Wight NAACP. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Virginia The U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia has dismissed a complaint by petcare and food company Mars Inc. seeking insurance coverage for COVID-19-related business interruption claims. Insurer FM Global sought and won the dismissal of the complaint against the $5 billion in insurance coverage it issued to Mars on the grounds that Mars did not suffer the required direct physical loss and damage from the COVID-19 virus as claimed. However, while Justice Patricia Tolliver Giles dismissed the full complaint, she left open the door for Mars to refile to collect $1 million under two coverage extensions that even FM Global recognized as possibly providing some coverage. The FM Global policy contains narrow coverage extensions entitled Communicable Disease Response and Interruption by Communicable Diseaseneither of which requires physical loss or damage. FM Global told the court that Mars has failed to respond to requests for it to show that it meets the prerequisites or has any evidence to trigger the $1million in coverage available under those provisions. The judge dismissed the sections of the case regarding these provisions without prejudice, meaning Mars can come back to try to recover under them. The complaint dismissal came despite a late appeal by Mars for the court to consider the Vermont Supreme Court opinion late last month reviving a case in which shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries claimed that the COVID-19 virus adheres to surfaces, thereby triggering business interruption coverage. The state Supreme Court remanded the case back to the trial court on the finding that Huntington had met the states low hurdle for pleadings and should be heard. Mars has similarly claimed that statistical modeling confirmed to a high degree of certainty that COVID-19 was present in or around its commercial and industrial properties generally and was being continuously introduced, dispersed, and reintroduced into and altering the air and on surfaces of property in or around Mars locations. FM Global argued that the Virginia Supreme Court, the Fourth Circuit Court and the majority of other courts have rejected the theory that the coronavirus causes physical loss or damage. Topics Legislation COVID-19 Lloyds of London said on Monday that its investigation into a possible cyberattack had found no evidence of data compromise. The investigation has concluded that no evidence of any compromise was found and as such Lloyds has been advised that its network services can now be restored, a company spokesperson said in an email. The commercial insurance market detected unusual activity on its network, it said last week, putting companies on high alert for intrusions as a result of a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. (Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru and Carolyn Cohn; editing by Anil DSilva) Related: Topics Cyber Excess Surplus Lloyd's Standard setters must work faster to avoid hardwiring differences between their finalized climate-related company disclosures, which would fragment markets, the G20s Financial Stability Board (FSB) said on Tuesday. To help meet net-zero carbon emission targets, companies face mandatory rules on telling investors how climate change will affect their bottom line. The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is working on a set of global baseline norms it plans to finalize by early 2023 for use in countries like Britain. EU Urged to Simplify Life for Companies by Aligning Climate Reporting With Intl Rules The European Union is aiming finalizing its own, more comprehensive set of disclosures for 50,000 companies by next month. They go further than the ISSB by including detailed coverage of a companys impact on the environment, and also covering social and governance issues with bespoke norms. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has also proposed climate-related disclosures. Klaas Knot, the Dutch central bank president who chairs the FSB, said developing the disclosures provides a unique opportunity to avoid harmful fragmentation in markets so that users can compare companies from across the world. Interoperability between the common global baseline and national and regional jurisdiction-specific requirements will be essential, Knot said in a letter to G20 finance ministers meeting in Washington this week. This needs to be built in early on, and certainly before frameworks are finalized and become hard to adjust. The FSB echoed calls from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The new disclosure rules will replace a patchwork of practices which have made it hard for investors to compare companies, but business groups say terminology needs aligning. The FSB said further work will be needed to achieve interoperability given that differences in approaches and pace of progress across jurisdictions remain, the FSB said. (Reporting by Huw Jones; editing by David Evans) Crews from several fire departments were still battling a fire Monday that broke out late last week at a paper mill in Michigans Upper Peninsula. A spokesman for Resolute Forest Products said the fire, which was producing a dense cloud of smoke in Menominee, Michigan, began about 11 p.m. CDT Thursday, Oct. 6 in a warehouse that contained pulp and waste paper, WBAY-TV reported. No injuries were reported in the fire along Michigans border with Wisconsin. But the blaze was so large crews from five fire departments were called to the scene, the Stephenson Fire Department said in a Facebook post. The fire began a warehouse that Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products rents from KK Integrated Logistics on the site of Resolutes Menominee recycled pulp mill along the Menominee River, said David Marshall, a company spokesman. Local fire departments have been on-site all night, and the fire is under control, although smoke is still billowing due to smoldering in the warehouse, he said. The paper mill makes paper pulp and employs nearly a hundred people, according to the companys website. Resolute Forest Products has 40 facilities across the U.S. and Canada and is a leading producer of lumber, newsprint and other wood products. Menominee is located in the southwest corner of Michigans Upper Peninsula about 55 miles (88 kilometers) northwest of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Michigan Details of an apparent cyberattack on one of the largest health systems in the U.S. were slow to emerge as security experts on Oct. 7 warned that it often takes time to assess the full impact on patients and hospitals. Earlier in the week, CommonSpirit Health confirmed it experienced an IT security issue but it has yet to answer detailed questions about the incident, including how many of its 1,000 care sites that serve 20 million Americans may have been affected. The health system giant, which is the second largest nonprofit health system in America, has 140 hospitals in 21 states. It actually takes a while to fully know the scope because youre in the middle of trying to restore all your systems, said Allan Liska, an analyst with the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Youre trying to get patient care up and running. Youre trying to get your nurses and your doctors back to the systems they need. Healthcare organizations are an appealing target for cyber attackers particularly those who use malware to lock up a victim organizations files and leverage the information for a payment. Ransomware has remained a persistent threat for the industry, which is among the 16 sectors the U.S. government classifies as critical infrastructure. Ransomware actors know thats going to cause a lot of disruption, Liska said. Health care systems in 2021 saw an unusually high amount of attacks, with 285 publicly reported worldwide, Liska added. So far, Liskas firm has tracked 155 this year with an average of 20 attacks happening a month. However, he estimated that only about 10% of ransomware attacks are publicized. Cybersecurity experts said years of work have built health care leaders trust in the FBI and other federal agencies focused on cyber crime. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on whether they were investigating the CommonSpirit Health cyberattack. John Riggi, the American Hospital Associations national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, said he could not discuss CommonSpirit specifically. In general, though, he said it can take days, weeks or more to discover how an attacker gained access, determine what damage has been done and prevent further harm. Riggi, who spent nearly 30 years with the FBI, called any significant cyber attack on a hospital a potential risk to patient safety and said the U.S. government takes that seriously. Their goal, he said, is to identify the attacker and make their identity and methodology public. They dont want to show their hand, what they know about the bad guys, he said. Youre really processing a crime scene in real time. But there are risks to victims of cyber attacks who fail to communicate their response plan and strategies for recovery, said Mike Hamilton, the chief information security officer with Critical Insights Cybersecurity in Washington state. The reaction of patients, staff and affiliated health care operations to the chains handling of the incident all could affect the companys future survival, he said. Heres how close we are to resolution, heres where were diverting, here are the other hospitals were partnering with, Hamilton said. They need to be sure theyre communicating because so many people are being impacted by this. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Cyber As Hurricane Ian bore down on Florida, normally reliable computer forecast models couldnt agree on where the killer storm would land. But government meteorologists are now figuring out what went wrong and right. Much of the forecasting variation seems to be rooted in cool Canadian air that had weakened a batch of sunny weather over the East Coast. That weakening would allow Ian to turn eastward to Southwest Florida instead of north and west to the Panhandle hundreds of miles away. The major American computer forecast model one of several used by forecasters missed that and the error was critical, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration postmortem of computer forecast models determined Thursday. Its pretty clear that error is very consequential, said former NOAA chief scientist Ryan Maue, now a private meteorologist who wasnt part of NOAAs postmortem. Still, meteorologists didnt miss overall with their official Hurricane Ian forecast. Ians eventual southwestern Florida landfall was always within the cone of uncertainty of the National Hurricane Centers forecast track, although at times it was on the farthest edge. But it wasnt that simple. Computer forecast models, which weeks earlier had agreed on where Hurricane Fiona was going, were hundreds of miles apart as Ian chugged through the Caribbean. The normally reliable American computer model, which had performed better than any other model in 2021 and was doing well earlier in the year, kept forecasting a Florida Panhandle landfall while the European model long a favorite of many meteorologists and the British simulation were pointing to Tampa or farther south. Trying to avoid what meteorologists call the dreaded windshield wiper effect of dramatic hurricane path shifts, the official NOAA forecast stayed somewhere in between. Tampa with lots of people and land vulnerable to gigantic storm surges seemed to be the center of possible landfalls, or even worse just south of the eye so it would get the biggest surge. Although peoples fears focused on Tampa, Ian didnt. The storm made landfall 89 miles (143 kilometers) to the south in Cayo Costa. For a large storm, thats not a big difference and is within the 100-mile (161-kilometer) error bar NOAA sets. But because Tampa was north of the nasty right-side of the hurricane eye, it was spared the biggest storm surge and rainfall. People wondered why the worst didnt happen. There are meteorological, computer and communications reasons. Overall, the European computer model performed best, the British one had the closest eventual Florida landfall but was too slow in timing and the American model had the highest errors when it came to track, NOAAs Alicia Bentley said during the agencys postmortem. But the American model was the best at getting Ians strength right, she said. University of Albany meteorology professor Brian Tang said he calculated the American models average track error during Ian at 325 miles (520 kilometers) five-days out, while the European model was closer to 220 miles (350 kilometers). A lot of what we notice in the public is when there are big misses and those big misses affect people in populated areas, Tang said in an interview. Although this is technically not a miss, people who evacuated Tampa may think it is because the Fort Myers area got the brunt of the storm. In some ways people are spoiled because the average track error in hurricane forecasts have gotten so much better. The three-day official forecast error was cut nearly in half over the last 10 years from 172 miles (278 kilometers) to 92 miles (148 kilometers), Tang said. For years meteorologists touted the European model as better, because it uses more observations, is more complex but also takes longer to run and comes out later than the American one, Tang said. The American model has improved after a big boost of NOAA spending, but so has the European one, he added. The models use a similar physics formula to simulate what happens in the atmosphere. They usually rely on the same observations, more or less. But where they differ is how all those observations are put into the computer models, what kind of uncertainties are added and the timing of when the simulation starts, said University of Miamis Brian McNoldy. You are guaranteed to end up differently, McNoldy said. Its not a problem if the models show similar tracks. But if they are widely different, as during Ian, that makes you nervous, he said. People wrongly focus on funnel-like cone for where the hurricane is forecast to go instead of what it will do in specific locations, said MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel. And in the cone people only pay attention to the middle line not the broader picture, so Emanuel and McNoldy want the line dropped. Another problem meteorologists say is that the cone is only where the storm is supposed to be with a 100-mile (161-kilometer) error radius, but when storms are big like Ian, their impacts of rain, surge and high wind will easily hit outside the cone. The cone was never intended to convey the actual impacts. It was only intended to convey the tracks, said Gina Eosco, who heads a NOAA social science program that tries to improve storm communications. So for the first time, NOAA surveyed Florida, Georgia and South Carolina residents before Ian hit and will follow up after to see what risks the public perceived from the media and government information. That will help the agency decide if it has to change its warning messaging, Eosco said. Photo: Cars and debris from washed away homes line a canal in Fort Myers Beach, Florida on Oct. 5. Hurricane Ian confounded one key computer forecast model, creating challenges for forecasters and Florida residents. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File) Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Trends Hurricane Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon approved a significant rate hike for Louisiana Citizens residential property insurance policies, a move the insurance department blamed on rising costs of reinsurance. Donelon approved Citizens request for a 63% rate increase, which will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. The rate increase will not impact current Citizens policyholders until they renew their policy after that date. Theres no sugarcoating it this increase is extremely painful but required by law to make sure Citizens can handle a potential future disaster for its many policyholders, said Commissioner Jim Donelon. My staff and I are working with the legislature to attract more insurers to the state through the use of a program that was highly effective following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which will give Citizens policyholders, and all Louisianans, more and cheaper insurance options in the private market. Citizens, the states insurer of last resort, has come under stress in the aftermath of six insurers declaring insolvency. Citizens has over 116,000 policies as of September. Louisiana law requires Citizens rate for each of its policy types in each parish to be at least 10% over the highest qualifying market rate or 10% over the actuarial rate, whichever is higher. Topics Trends Louisiana Pricing Trends The U.S. Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered ExxonMobil Corp. to immediately reinstate two employees and pay them more than $800,000 in back wages, interest and compensatory damages. A federal whistleblower investigation found the company terminated them illegally after suspecting them of leaking information to the Wall Street Journal. In September 2020, the Wall Street Journal alleged the global oil-and-gas company may have inflated production estimates and the reported value of oil and gas wells in the Texas Permian Basin. The newspaper reported ExxonMobils assumption that drilling speed would increase substantially in the next five years may have been inaccurate. These assumptions were included in company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2019. OSHAs investigation found ExxonMobil fired two computational scientists who raised concerns about the companys use of the assumptions in late 2020. The company claimed it terminated one of the scientists for mishandling proprietary company information and the second for having a negative attitude, looking for other jobs, and losing the confidence of company management. OSHA learned that ExxonMobil knew that one of the scientists was a relative of a source quoted in the Wall Street Journal article and had access to the leaked information. The investigation determined that the communication with the newspaper, related to alleged company violations, is protected activity under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The act also protects the scientists despite ExxonMobils belief that they had access and possibly leaked information to the publication. Neither was revealed as a source for the article. ExxonMobils actions are unacceptable. The integrity of the U.S. financial system relies on companies to report their financial condition and assets accurately, said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker. Whistleblower protection is integral to ensuring that financial disclosure laws work. As was the case in this instance, OSHA will aggressively protect the rights of employees who raise concerns related to financial improprieties or potential fraud against shareholders. Based in Irving, ExxonMobil Corp. is a multinational oil and gas corporation with $23 billion in reported annual earnings in 2021. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. A company cannot be compelled to turn over its risk management work product that may include attorney-client information and claims investigators opinions, the Alabama Supreme Court decided. The case involved the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA), which applies mostly to injured railroad workers. But the Oct. 7 decision in Christopher Ellis vs. CSX Transportation Inc. could have wider implications for self-insurers and for insurers who face requests for proprietary information during the discovery process in lawsuits. This doesnt establish new rules, really, but it is very helpful for companies and insurance companies when they investigate claims, said Wade Richardson, the Birmingham-based attorney for CSX in the case. The court reaffirmed that a risk management departments or legal departments mental impressions are very protected. The case began in 2020 when Christopher Ellis, a foreman for CSX in Alabama, was riding on the ladder of a railcar when he was struck by the broken door handle on another railcar on an adjacent track. He suffered significant injuries and sued the self-insured CSX under the FELA law. FELA was adopted in 1908 and predates most states workers compensation laws. It provides medical benefits and lost wages, but also recognizes that railroad work is more dangerous than many other professions. Unlike in workers comp, injured rail employees may sue their employer for negligence and may seek damages a way to encourage rail companies to maintain safe working conditions, according to the Morrow & Sheppard law firm, which was not associated with the Ellis case. Ellis attorney filed suit just three days after the accident, then made extensive requests in discovery 25 interrogatories and 62 requests for documents from CSX. He asked for previous injury files and claims documents, along with information from CSXs internal risk-management database. The rail company, the third-largest in the U.S., would not provide everything requested, noting that some of the information was proprietary, contained opinions by investigators, including legal theories and defenses, and was protected by attorney-client privilege, as described by the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure. The trial court in Montgomery granted the injured workers motion to compel discovery of the information. It had not ruled on a motion to reconsider when CSX asked the high court to order the circuit judge to vacate his decision. The Supreme Court opinion, written by Justice Michael Bolin, quoted CSX lawyers who argued that Ellis side had inadvertently obtained a treasure trove of privileged documents in a similar case in Georgia, and were hoping for another windfall in their broad discovery request in the Ellis matter. In the end, the justices found that the risk management documents are, in fact, protected, partly because Ellis lawyer had notified the employer so soon after the incident that he planned to filed to suit. We conclude that CSX established that the materials contained in the RMS (risk management system) were prepared in anticipation of litigation, putting them off-limits per the attorney-client privilege rule, the Supreme Court opinion noted. A CSX director had testified that the rail companys risk management department was part of the legal department and answered to the general counsel. CSX has established that the materials contained in the RMS are protected under the work product doctrine because they are privileged materials that were prepared in anticipation of litigation by RMD personnel in consultation with CSXs counsel, the court wrote. The files also contained the risk departments mental impressions, conclusions and opinions, which are almost absolutely immune from discovery, except in very rare circumstances. The burden was on Ellis to show an extraordinary need for the privileged information, which he failed to provide, the justices said. The court granted CSXs request for a writ of mandamus on the privileged information. But on separate issues, on whether the trial court allowed discovery of irrelevant documents and exceeded the scope of the discovery request, the court denied CSXs petition. Some of the documents could show negligence by the company or operational deficiencies that may have contributed to the accident, the court held. We grant the petition for a writ of mandamus in part and direct the trial court to vacate its order to the extent that it requires the production of materials contained in the RMS, in violation of the work-product doctrine, the court wrote. We deny the petition for a writ of mandamus in all other regards. Still, Richardson, the CSX attorney, said it was a good opinion and a win for self-insurers and insurance carriers. For insurance companies that have adjusters investigating claims, this is a big deal. Their work product is still protected, he said Monday. The case will now proceed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, but without some of the privileged information that Ellis had demanded. Ellis attorney in the case, Chip Nix, of Montgomery, could not be reached for comment. Photo: A CSX train in 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Topics Carriers Legislation Claims Alabama Damaged infrastructure created new obstacles for claims adjusters responding to Hurricane Ian, along with widespread flooding, damaged cell phone towers and even an occasional alligator. Sedgwick Executive Vice President Danny Miller said his company is using boats to send claims adjusters to barrier islands off Floridas Gulf coast, where they make inspections with a police escort. He said local officials are also limiting the use of drones for the time being, delaying damage assessments. After the storm cleared, flooding is still limiting some exits off major interstate system so there could be unidentified damages still to come, Miller said. We have seen that the access to potable water, electricity, cellular service, internet are all items effecting customers and business reaching out to file their claims. Alligators presented another problem. Miller said a Sedgwick team inspecting a local government structure encountered two alligators amid the wreckage. Sedgwick spokeswoman Judy Molnar, responding to a follow-up question, said the inspectors were able to navigate and safely complete their work without removing the animals. Miller said Hurricane Ian will be a long-tail claims event because of the widespread destruction across Florida and in the Carolinas. This causes downstream issues with transportation, rental cars, rental homes and hotels, supply chains, and logistics throughout the regions the hurricane hit, he said. Miller said Sedgwick has dispatched engineers, building consultants, forensic accountants and a contents team in addition to claims adjusters to respond to clients. Numerous vehicles and boats were destroyed, in addition to buildings. The marine losses are massive from small personal watercraft to yachts, Miller said. Our yacht/pleasure craft team is surveying damages related to marinas and boat sales operations. In one instance we had an inventory of 27 high-dollar watercraft, we located 12 at the facility and will spend a few days tracking down the 15 missing watercraft over the next few days, he said. Miller said the destruction to personal residences may come as a shock. Miller said Florida home prices almost doubled from 2004 to 2022, which could cause some properties to be underinsured. Mike Beach, senior vice president and national property director for McLarens, said in an email Thursday that helicopters and boats are the only available means of access to some areas along the coast of southwest Florida, such as Sanibel Island near Fort Myers. Other areas including Fort Meyers Beach, Bonita Springs and Sanibel were closed to everyone except residents. This has impeded our ability to conduct timely inspections in some circumstances, he said. Another obstacle: There is a state issued-ID card that adjusters must have in their vehicle to access certain areas and there are curfews in place, Beach said. On the other hand, technological innovations are creating opportunities to resolve claims faster than ever before. State Farm, for instance, reported that its remote claims teams are using virtual inspections with claimants. The use of aerial imagery during the first stage of the response helped us determine the areas of severe impact, said brand promotion specialist Heather Paul. This helped State Farm identify the hardest hit areas and customers, and assess where we needed to initially respond and send our first wave of resources to start handling claims for those hardest hit. Catastrophe modelers have projected that Hurricane Ians path of destruction across the Florida peninsula will create historic losses. CoreLogic updated a wind and flood loss estimate on Thursday, saying insured damages will range from $41 to $70 billion. Uninsured losses will range from $10 billion to $17 billion, CoreLogic said. The most serious access issues were in Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties on Floridas Gulf coast, where Ian came ashore on Sept. 29. The storm washed out a causeway that connects Sanibel Island to the mainland and a bridge that connects Pine Island. Gov. Ron DeSantis said construction on a temporary Pine Island bridge was completed on Thursday and repairs to the Sanibel causeway are expected to be completed by the end of the month. Claims administrators mobilized examiners from across the nation. State Farm said its response began Sept. 26, when it sent a fleet of catastrophe response vehicles from its headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois to Birmingham, Alabama. The company said it set up an orientation center to support incoming personnel, who arrived at a rate of 100 claims handlers per hour. Each received fully-equipped laptops, printers and technical equipment to take to the field, the company said. McLarens Director of Operations Cory Barnett said the company has dispatched about 80 adjusters to damaged areas, with 30 already on the ground as of Thursday. Teams were dispatched to Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. He said McLarens has experienced a 1,110% increase in the number of claims notifications from Florida when compared to the same 10-day period last year. The severity and complexity of losses is wide ranging, from habitational to condo associations, municipalities, builders risk projects, hospitality clients and more, Barnett said. McLarens Beach said his company expects the usual wind v. flood causation disputes that have spurred litigation after past catastrophes in Florida. Catastrophe modeler Karen Clark & Co. warned of similar costs because of excess litigation. This was a large wind and surge event, Beach said. Such disputes can often be an issue in such circumstances, so we would expect to see a similar pattern, though to what extent remains unknown at this time. Like State Farm, McLarens is using policyholders smartphones to jumpstart the claims process. Beach said the McLarens app allows customers to stream real-time, geo-tagged and tamper-resistant image evidence. That ability to assess and manage claims remotely when needed is a significant asset in such circumstances, he said. Quick availability of aerial images of damaged areas also helped insurers respond quickly. EagleView said in a blog post that it staged a fleet of fixed-wing aircraft in counties along the west coast of Florida before Ian made landfall. After the hurricane passed it sent those plans over areas that were within the storms path to capture high-resolution imagery. Images are being made available to customers in local government, insurance and construction as soon as it becomes available. The Geospatial Insurance Consortium also provides aerial images to member insurers via post-storm flyovers in a partnership with Vexcel Data Program. Technology has also created a new peril, one that Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis experienced personally while touring hurricane damage in Collier County on Thursday. While he was there, an electric vehicle combusted on US Highway 41 in North Naples. Patronis tweeted a video of North Collier Fire Rescue firefighters dousing the blaze with fire hoses. There are many EVs in Southwest Florida, and unlike a normal gas engine, saltwater corrodes those lithium batteries causing fires, Patronis said in a press release later. While EVs are nothing new, there hasnt been a lot of experience throughout the nation related to EVs catching fire as a result of salty, storm surge water. This article appeared in Claims Journal Oct. 10, 2022. Photo: A man hauls debris away from a pizza restaurant that was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian at Fort Myers Beach, Fla., on Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves) Topics Florida Claims A Southern California doctor has pleaded guilty to writing prescriptions for more than 120,000 opioid pills over a six-year span, including to an impaired driver who struck and killed a bicyclist, federal prosecutors said. In his plea agreement, Dr. Dzung Ahn Pham of Tustin admitted distributing the pills without a legitimate medical purpose in exchange for cash and insurance payments. He pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, the Orange County Register reported. Pham faces up to 20 years in federal prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 6, 2023, the newspaper said. From Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 17, 2018, Pham wrote prescriptions for around 53,000 Oxycodone pills, 68,000 hydrocodone pills and 29,000 pills of amphetamine salts using 18 different patient names, according to his plea agreement. Phams record of prescribing large amounts of pills led a CVS pharmacy to stop accepting prescriptions from him when he couldnt justify the number of pills patients were picking up, prosecutors said when charges were filed in 2018. Pham conspired with Jennifer Thaoyen Nguyen, 51, a licensed pharmacist who also has agreed to enter a guilty plea for the same felony charge later this month, court records show. Pham directed his patients to Nguyens pharmacy to fill his prescriptions because he knew other pharmacies would not, according to court documents. A man who fatally struck an off-duty firefighter training on his bike for a triathlon told investigators he was on drugs prescribed by Pham, prosecutors said. Several prescription bottles with Phams name were found in the drivers car. Stephen Scarpa was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Costa Mesa fire Capt. Mike Kreza. Pham was not charged in the death. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics California Federal authorities have issued a warning about a part of the tail in the type of seaplane that crashed in Washington states Puget Sound last month, killing 10 people. The Seattle Times reports that the Federal Aviation Administration has issued an emergency airworthiness directive concerning Otter seaplanes. Released Tuesday, the directive warned of potential cracks and corrosion in a part called the elevator, a movable surface of the horizontal tail that controls the planes pitch. The newspaper reported the warning was not the result of the investigation into the Sept. 4 crash off Whidbey Island. According to the directive, federal officials received multiple recent reports of cracks in the elevator. The sudden failure of the elevator can cause a plane to abruptly go nose-down, similar to witness reports of how last months crash in the waters northwest of Seattle looked, said Douglas Wilson, a Seattle-based seaplane pilot and president of aviation consulting firm FBO Partners. The plane in the fatal Washington state crash was a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter turboprop operated by Renton-based Friday Harbor Seaplanes. Todd Banks, president of Kenmore Air, which flies similar Otter seaplanes, said investigators could be looking at many possibilities about what caused the crash. He did say the timing of the FAA directive was notable, and a problem with the control surface on the tail could be a part of the probe. An FAA spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing. No cause has been determined. The FAA directive about Otter seaplanes orders repetitive detailed visual inspections of the entire left-hand elevator auxiliary spar for cracks, corrosion, and previous repairs, and depending on the findings, replacement of the left-hand elevator auxiliary spar. The wording requires urgent action, indicating the danger is considered serious. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Washington Aviation Aerospace Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on the planet, is in a state of heightened unrest, but is not erupting and there are no signs of an imminent eruption, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in an update. Last week, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park closed the Mauna Loa summit backcountry until further notice, calling it a precautionary measure amid elevated seismic activity. The observatory said the heightened unrest began in mid-September, as recorded by an increase in earthquakes below Mauna Loa summit. The volcano, which stands about 13,680 feet above sea level on the island of Hawaii, last erupted in 1984, the observatory said. Since 1843, it has erupted 33 times, with the time between eruptions ranging from months to decades, according to the observatory. The parks online portal says this is the volcanos longest quiet period since written records have been kept. Mauna Loa will erupt again, Ken Hon, scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. As long as there is heightened unrest, it is more likely to erupt. But it could be weeks or months or it could eventually die off. The latter happened the last time there was elevated seismic activity and summit expansion on Mauna Loa, in early 2021. Hon said scientists dont have much information to determine what normal behavior for the volcano is. There have been just two eruptions since 1950. The observatory in recent years has urged residents living on Mauna Loas slopes to have a go bag with essentials and important documents in the event of any potential evacuation order. It is a readiness step local emergency managers also recommend. Last year, state lawmakers directed the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to develop an evacuation plan for Hawaii County in case of an eruption. Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno said his office has been assisting with the plan. A first draft is due in January. If the need were to arise before that, Magno said: Were ready to respond. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Civil Unrest AUSTIN, TX., October 11, 2022 Tiffanie Courtney, CIC, CISR, CRIS Senior Account Manager for M3 Insurance, in De Pere, Wisconsin has been awarded the most prestigious honor available to insurance customer service representatives: National Outstanding CSR of the Year. The Society of Certified Insurance Service Representatives (CISR) and the Society of Certified Insurance Counselors (CIC) selected Ms. Courtney as the national winner from a field of 35 state winners. After five national finalists were chosen, a panel of judges evaluated their individual contributions to the insurance community and essays written on the topic: Transferable Skills are learned from experience which includes prior careers, education, volunteer work, or personal encounters. What are the top three skills you transferred from outside the insurance industry to your current job role? Discuss how you leverage your skills, continue to develop and evolve them, and how you transfer your expertise to others to ensure perpetually exceptional customer service. In her essay, Ms. Courtney mentions the legacy that she would like to leave behind. She states: It isnt the large experiences that make you who you are. Its the small ones. I am my own painting. Every brush stroke is a conversation, a touch, an opportunity to share, learn, guide, and reflect. We change directions and colors. When you look closely you can see each one but take a step back and see the whole picture, its a masterpiece! The masterpiece I want to leave behind in this industry is that I cared enough to take the time to make someone feel heard and important, to share my knowledge in a usable capacity, and to exceed expectations. Paving a path for others to see the potential in the industry and have a passion for service. Ms. Courtney receives a cash award of $2,000, a distinctive gold and diamond lapel pin, and her name on a sculpture at The National Alliance headquarters. A National Alliance scholarship will be awarded to her employer, M3 Insurance. In addition to the national winner, four national finalists were chosen from a competitive field of applicants: Suzanne Sanders Durante, ACSR, CLP with Durante Insurance & Financial Services, in Las Vegas, Nevada Amber Patterson, CISR, with Howard Hanna Insurance Services, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Amy Jo Ratcliff, CIC, CISR with HUB International Mountain States Limited, in Casper, Wyoming Brittany Ratke with Christensen Group Insurance, in Eden Prairie, Minnesota Each finalist receives a gold and garnet lapel pin, $500 cash award, and publicity in a national trade journal. For additional information about this award, contact The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research: PO Box 27027, Austin, Texas 78755-2027; 800-633-2165; Email alliance@scic.com; Website: www.TheNationalAlliance.com. Media Contact: Danielle Janecka Chief Experience Officer The Society of Certified Insurance Service Representatives 512-349-6181 djanecka@scic.com Kerry businessman John McElligott will lead the UK and European expansion of Kara Connect, a Nordic technology company that gives employees access to doctors and other health related supports. The expansion plans will create 100 jobs in Ireland alone. More and more organisations recognise the health and well-being of their workforce as a major priority in employee recruitment, engagement, and retention, said Mr McElligott. Mr McElligott was chosen to be Ireland CEO for Kara Connect after serving time as a board member since 2020. The UCC graduate has a track record of helping the growth of businesses such as eBay, Smartbox, and Interflora. Kara Connect was founded in Iceland by educational psychologist Thorbjorg Helga Vigfusdottir. It now provides a platform for employees to talk with doctors, therapists, and counsellors. Career and life coaches also provide their services on the platform in addition to nutritionists, psychologists, speech therapists, and financial counsellors. The healthcare workers are able to upload notes to the secure platform, allowing practitioners to engage with and support their clients digitally. These trends have accelerated through the pandemic and these services are becoming the recognised standard for corporate well-being throughout Europe and beyond, said Mr McElligott. Kara Connect decided to base its operational base in Dublin to expand into the UK and Europe following its Series A fundraising round. The company secured 6m during the round, led by Kvika Asset Management. Dublin is recognised around the world as a location for top talent and as a global tech hub, making it the ideal location for us to establish our European sales and marketing hub, said Ms Vigfusdottir, CEO of Kara Connect. Steve Garrigan has spent his career hiding in plain sight. As the frontman of Irish rock band Kodaline, hes played arenas, headlined festivals and topped the charts on numerous occasions. But if he comes across confident on stage, once the lights go down he is very different. Face to face, he cuts a shy figure and does not feel comfortable being the centre of attention. A lot of musicians and songwriters and creative people are kind of introverts. I suppose I am like that, says Garrigan, speaking ahead of the release by Kodaline of a new live album, Our Roots Run Deep. In his case, it goes beyond mere introversion. Garrigan (34) has suffered anxiety and panic attacks throughout his life. During lockdown he bravely put down his experiences in the autobiography High Hopes: Making Music, Losing My Way, Learning to Live. The book is a raw and moving exploration of mental health issues and how to live with them and Garrigan was rightly praised for his honesty. I have lived with anxiety and depression pretty much all my life, he wrote in the introduction. And for a long time, I suffered in silence. I just bottled everything up and didnt talk to anyone about it. The one place he never felt nervous was when performing. And yet, following a pandemic-enforced lay-off, going back on stage was a challenge. After Covid, walking out again and seeing a crowd it did make me nervous, he says. But I suppose you would call them good nerves. Kodalines first shows back were in Belfast, as lockdown restrictions eased in the UK. However, it was in Dublin that the Swords group had their grand homecoming when they played a series of acoustic dates at the Olympia Theatre. Those gigs were recorded and will now be released as the 17-track Our Roots Run Deep, which comes out October 14. After Covid, just being in a room with a crowd was emotional in itself. The gigs were more of a celebration, says Garrigan. Getting back in front of the crowd people seemed to enjoy it. The pandemic devastated live music in Ireland. Kodaline took a hit, though, with an international following and a series of chart-topping albums, they were in a position to weather out the worst of the lockdowns. Still, it was tough. Plus, they also saw how Covid impacted other performers and their own road crew. No matter how big you were, few musicians got through the pandemic completely unscathed. Our Roots Run Deep celebrates the return of normality as it pertains to the music business. Its a testimony to Kodalines music and their bond with their audience. But above all, it commemorates finally having the freedom to get out of the house, stand with other people and have a shared experience. The idea of the album was to capture the atmosphere of the night as best we could, says Garrigan. If people listen to the record, and hopefully they enjoy the record, we wanted them to feel like they are there at the gig. Kodaline are one of those bands who wear their hearts on their sleeves. This has made them hugely popular, starting with their 2012 single All I Want, which was play-listed by the BBC and featured on American medical drama Greys Anatomy. However, it has put a target on their backs, too. Sincerity hasnt always been appreciated in music and it is easy to scorn artists who emote from the core of their being. For example, the (now defunct) Q Magazine notoriously gave their 2013 debut, In A Perfect World, a vicious one-star review. A decade on, that traditional cynicism towards musicians who deal in earnestness has melted away. Coldplay are celebrated as pops ultimate purveyors of feel-good vibes. And the old derision directed at Kodaline has largely vanished too. Limp-wristed rock is what we used to say, says Garrigan, audibly rolling his eyes. It depends on the person. We have lots of fans around the world who love our music. Our biggest songs are very emotional, slow songs. We play around the world to big crowds. Ive always loved that type of music. I love Coldplay. I love that style of music. I understand: there are people out there who hate it. There are people who hate all genres. The cover of Our Roots Run Deep, by Kodaline. Live records can be hit and miss. Some are essential entries in an artists catalogue. Others are quick cash-ins. Irish artists have always been drawn to the medium. Thin Lizzys Live and Dangerous, from 1978, is considered their definitive record. And the consensus is that the live recording of U2s Bad, as featured on the 1985 EP Wide Awake In America, is the best rendering of one of their greatest songs. I grew up listening to live albums and some live albums are iconic, says Garrigan. Sometimes they are better than the original. Thin Lizzy Live and Dangerous when I was a teenager I used to listen to that all the time. For me, thats one of the best live albums ever made. The way its mixed, the sound of it, is amazing. And Phil Lynott is amazing. He has a couple of quotes that are incredible. With Our Roots Run Deep, Kodaline were eager to have the sound of the crowd on the recording. They didnt want to make an LP that was antiseptic and clean. At a lot of our shows, the crowds seem to sing along to the songs, which is cool. I rarely heard that on record. Sometimes they turn it down. We wanted to turn it up as much as possible to try and capture that atmosphere. "Its a totally different setup to what we usually do. Its acoustic and stripped down. Its intimate. I hope people enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. Garrigan is still in his thirties. But he feels as if hes been around forever. With the tenth anniversary of Kodalines first album approaching hes been thinking about the band, their legacy, where theyve come from and where theyre going. Next year its coming up to ten years. We [the three founding members] have been playing together for 17 years. Were still very young. Its crazy how time goes by. We have to pinch ourselves sometimes. "Were incredibly lucky. I still have a lot of the same friends I grew up with which keeps me grounded. Were always working on new music. Im always writing songs. I cant stop doing it. Our Roots Run Deep is released October 14. Kodaline play Musgrave Park, Cork in June 2023. Donal Ryan Nenagh native Donal Ryan has been making waves for some time now. A lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick, the Tipperary author has six novels to his name and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature and four Irish Book Awards, and his work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Sarah Harte will moderate this event. Cork Arts Theatre, Wednesday, 7pm Tickets 5, available from corkartstheatre.com Karina Tynan Karina Tynan has updated many episodes from the classic Irish saga Tain Bo Cuailnge in short stories told from the perspective of several leading women characters. She will read from the book and be lead in discussion by poet Adam Wyeth whose own book The Hidden World of Poetry surveys the treatment many contemporary poets have given to revised visions of various classic Irish sagas. Cork Arts Theatre, Wednesday, 9.30pm Tickets 5 available from corkartstheatre.com Janis Jonevs & Daina Tabuna Janis Jonevs and Daina Tabuna are two young Latvian fiction writers whose work examines the ideological challenges of living in a post-Soviet, post-Leninist society. They will read from their work and with the poet Patrick Cotter will discuss their creative process and the wider social issues implied by their work. Cork Arts Theatre, Thursday 7pm Tickets 5 available from corkartstheatre.com Niamh Prior & Stephen Walsh Kinsale author Niamh Prior Lauren O'Donovan, an Irish-Canadian writer from Cork, will moderate this panel event featuring Kinsale native Niamh Prior and Dubliner Stephen Walsh. Cork Arts Theatre, Thursday, 9.30pm Tickets 5 available from corkartstheatre.com Conal Creedon An event to mark the publication of Art Imitating Life Imitating Death (an exploration of Guests Of The Nation by Frank OConnor) by Cork writer and documentarian Conal Creedon. Conal Creedon. Picture: John Minihan In 2003, the former Writer in Residence at University College Cork was commissioned by RTE to adapt Guests of the Nation for radio as part of the Frank OConnor Centenary Celebrations. It was a voyage of discovery that led him on a circuitous route to the Irish War of Independence, and the execution of Major Compton Smith on a hillside bog in Donoughmore County Cork. Crawford Art Gallery, Friday 12.30pm Fringe event Wendy Erskine & Alan McMonagle Belfast writer Wendy Erskine Belfast-based Wendy Erskine and Galway's Alan McMonagle will be led in conversation by Cork writer Danny Denton in one of the must-see events of the festival. Wendy Erskine's debut short story collection, Sweet Home won the 2020 Butler Literary Award and has been optioned for TV. Alan McMonagle has published two collections of short stories, Psychotic Episodes and Liar Liar. Cork Arts Theatre, Friday, 7pm Tickets 5 available from corkartstheatre.com Elizabeth McCracken & Mary Morrissy Mary Morrissy. Picture: Denis Scannell Elizabeth McCracken is the author of seven books, and recently published a collection of short stories, The Souvenir Museum. Her work has been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize and the New York Times Magazine. Mary Morrissy is the author of three novels with a fourth, Penelope Unbound, forthcoming in 2023. Cork's Billy O'Callaghan will moderate. Cork Arts Theatre, Saturday, 7pm Tickets 5 available from corkartstheatre.com Ron Rash American writer Ron Rash Ron Rash is the author of the novel Serena, along with six other novels, five collections of poems and six collections of short stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank OConnor International Short Story Award. The event will be moderated by writer Alannah Hopkin. Cork Arts Theatre, Saturday, 9:30pm Tickets 5 available from corkartstheatre.com Cork's annual Short Story Festival will run from October 12 - 15. For more information see corkshortstory.net The father of 14-year-old Leona Harper, one of the victims of the Creeslough explosion, has described her as a little gem as the aunt of Jessica Gallagher another victim spoke of how she was to start a new job today. Leona and Jessica, 24, were among the 10 people killed in the devastating explosion in Co. Donegal on Friday afternoon. Leona's mother Donna was told her daughter might be on the way to hospital while she lay in the ruins of the Applegreen filling station last Friday. Ms Harper told Highland Radio the 14-year-old, who was found after 24 hours, was the last person to be removed from the scene of the explosion. She also thanked the driver who refused to give up trying to get her out until the very end. I didnt personally know the digger driver a massive thank you to him because he just didnt stop until he got her, she said. Twenty-four hours before we got her and she was the last taken out. The doctors and everything, everybody was amazing the way they treated the whole scene from start to finish with nothing more than respect. Leona's father, Hugh, paid an emotional tribute to his daughter describing her as a "little gem". He said: She was a little gem, very outgoing, a very friendly, lovely person, very quiet, laid back, loved life, loved the outdoors, walking through fields, going fishing, spending time with friends, going to car shows. He said: She was like everybody else's daughter but to us she was very special. She is going to be very sorely missed. Donna said: We wouldn't know where to begin to thank everybody for everything they did before finally finding her. I was told that she was trapped under there. We were also told there was a big possibility she might be on her way to hospital. Everybody was accounted for in the hospital and then...then they had realised...and that's when we realised Leona didn't make it out. She said there was one man who, a stranger, who stuck with his daughter until she was eventually taken out of the ruins around her. The 10 victims (top row, left to right) Leona Harper, 14, Robert Garwe, 50, Shauna Flanagan Garwe, five, Jessica Gallagher, 24, and James O'Flaherty, 48, and (bottom row, left to right) Martina Martin, 49, Hugh Kelly, 59, Catherine O'Donnell, 39, her 13-year-old son James Monaghan, and Martin McGill, 49. Meanwhile, the heartbroken aunt of Jessica Gallagher said the 24-year-old was due to start a new job today. Also speaking to Highland Radio, Dolores Gallagher said Jessica was due to start work in Belfast as a fashion designer. Ms Gallagher also spoke of the family bringing her remains home last night by moonlight. Jessica was, as her photographs show, the most beautiful young woman, she said. She was very artistic. She qualified as a fashion designer. She was to finally start her job as a fashion designer today. Today was the day she was starting her new professional life as a fashion designer in Belfast. And she had just finished her first commission. Jessica Gallagher, who died in the devastating explosion, was due to start a new job today. She also said Jessica, whose funeral will be held in Creeslough on Tuesday at 11am, loved her village and life there. She was so proud of and had loved her locality, she said. She loved Creeslough so much. When she was a student in Paris, one of her assignments was to work on something from home and she produced a beautiful picture of Muckish Mountain in the moonlight. Mrs Gallagher added: We took her remains home yesterday in the moonlight. She also thanked everyone for their support of the Gallagher family. Neighbours have been unbelievably kind and generous with their offers of help, she said. And she praised the tactful way everyone has been so supportive. These, she said, included those other poor people who have been bereaved or have injured family members and loved ones and still managed to find the courage and strength to make contact to offer condolences. She added: So, on behalf of the entire family, I'd like to thank everyone for that. Some 135 Ukrainian women and children who have been staying in a Killarney hotel since March have been given less than 48 hours' notice that they are being moved to Co Mayo to make way for almost 200 male asylum-seekers. The mayor of Killarney told an emergency meeting of community leaders that moving asylum-seekers into a hotel and moving out Ukrainian refugees living there for six months does not make any sense. Some 192 men were bussed to the accommodation - Hotel Killarney - on Saturday from CityWest in Dublin. Some 16 nationalities are among the 192 males including from Libya, Algeria, Iran and Georgia. The Ukrainian residents were informed verbally on Friday night/ Saturday they were being moved and then formally, in writing, on Monday at 3pm. The Ukrainian families in the hotel, including up to 40 school-going children, are to be bussed to Westport on Wednesday. The children attend the nearby St Olivers National School nearby. Colm OSuilleabhain, Principal of the school, in Ballycasheen, said he and other school principals were demoralised after putting so much work and effort into integrating the Ukrainian community at Hotel Killarney. The integration was working, Mr OSuilleabhain said. At this point to move them is wholly unjust, Mr OSuilleabhain said. It was not a question of prioritizing one group over another, and the men arriving at Hotel Killarney which is now Direct Provision Centre had every right to be in Killarney, Mr OSuilleabhain stressed. But the fact was the group of Ukranians in the hotel were in Killarney with over six months and had settled in with their children. Huge supports have been put in place and the supports are working. There is integration, he said. The primary school principal had just taken a call from Sean Coffey, principal of St Brendans Secondary school in Killarney where some of the teenagers attend. He is equally disappointed Mr OSuilleabhain said. There had been a huge co-ordinated response from the Killarney community in March. Parents associations too had worked hard at the integration and there had been coffee mornings and social walks in the national park. Its all a bit demoralising to be honest about it, Mr OSuilleabhain said. The model of moving children willy nilly will not work for schools, he said of moving the children from Killarney to Westport A source said the Ukrainian women at Hotel Killarney were distraught. Several are working in the town, including seven at the hotel itself, while others are working in businesses in the town centre. Call for reversal of decision The mayor of Killarney, Niall Kelleher, has called for a reversal of the decision by Ipas, the international accommodation agency. He has also called for health and other supports for Killarney, which is now hosting large numbers of asylum-seekers and Ukrainian refugees. An emergency meeting took place at the hotel on Monday evening attended by Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin, the Killarney Immigrant Support Centre, and school principals as well as Ukrainian representatives. We want that decision reversed. How does it make sense we would remove people here since March in order to install others? Mr Kelleher said. Ipas is moving people like pawns on a chessboard, he added. Roderic O'Gorman 'can't stop' relocation However Children's Minister Roderic OGorman has rebuffed the calls to stop the relocation refugees saying that pressure on the system means it has to happen. Mr OGorman was responding in the Dail to Kerry TD and deputy Government whip Brendan Griffin, who branded the move as totally outrageous and called on Mr OGorman to intervene and do the right thing. Mr Griffin said these families have settled in Killarney, put down roots, enrolled in schools, and the mothers are working locally. Mr Griffin branded the move as inhumane. Kerry TD and deputy Government whip Brendan Griffin. Picture: Julien Behal/PA Wire Mr OGorman accepted the move to Mayo will have an impact on families and on individuals. He said the reason for the move is the current pressure on the State's measures to meet the accommodation needs of Ukrainian displaced persons and international protection applicants. The number of Ukrainians arriving in the country has doubled in the last month, the minister added. He said international protection applicant numbers remain high and he and his department continue to have a real difficulty in sourcing accommodation for international protection applicants. We've already had a situation where because of that lack of accommodation for international protection applicants, we have to turn international protection applicants away for a number of days, he added. Minister Roderic O'Gorman, has rejected calls to reverse the decision to relocate some 135 Ukrainian refugees from Killarney to Mayo. He said he knows asking people to move will have an impact on them. I absolutely accept that," he said. "But fundamentally, my department has to be in a position to provide accommodation and to provide meals for all applicants Ukrainian and international protection applicants alike and that's what we're seeking to do. Mr Griffin said: This is completely unacceptable. And I am calling, minister, on you to make the proper decision here. This is not humane, and if we are treating this emergency as a humanitarian response, there has to be humanity at the centre of this. I'm asking for you to look at the alternative accommodation, and if these people must be moved, we avoid this appalling, appalling situation, he added. Mr OGorman is to meet with local TDs later this afternoon on the matter. Extra capacity Meanwhile, Killarney's mayor has said that extra tourist properties have come on stream in the town now the high tourist season is past, and the Ukrainians could be accommodated in those premises, if their hotel is now becoming a direct provision centre There are now about 2,000 Ukrainians in the town, along with hundreds more in direct provision centres, Mr Kelleher said. We are struggling with the numbers of people coming to the town. We have beds but in Kerry we have in excess now of 5,000 Ukrainian refugees. "We need the extra provision in health and other services for the increase in population. We need a temporary increase in GMS to work alongside existing doctors in Killarney, Mr Kelleher said. Health and mental health services were already under strain before the arrival of the refugees, Mr Kelleher added. WHEN Sean Mac Reamoinn died in 2007 he had covered the fourth and final session of Vatican II in 1965 for RTE his friend Neil Middleton, the English Catholic writer and publisher, wrote of Seans considerable anger at the subsequent long process of dismantling, or discrediting, by successive popes and their functionaries, so much of what Vatican II had achieved. This betrayal, for it was nothing less, is the real untold story of Vatican II the most momentous religious event of the 20th century which, while it was in session, captured worldwide interest, and caused immense controversy afterwards. Today marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of this momentous event by Pope John XXIII in St Peters Basilica in Rome. In the history of Catholicism in the modern era, the date October 11, 1962, has a special significance. From the moment John XXIII announced the council on January 25, 1959, speculation grew as to what course it might take, what issues it would address, and what changes it might introduce. The popes opening address to an assembly of 2,300 bishops and several hundred observers set the tone and it was captured in one word aggiornamento (Italian for updating or modernising). In the history of the Catholic Church up to this point there had been 20 great councils, beginning with the first, the Council of Nicaea in 325. The last was Vatican 1 (1869-70) which caused great controversy because of its definition of papal primacy and infallibility. What would Vatican II, the 21st council, do? It was to last four years (1962-65), much longer than the pope or the council planners foresaw, and it issued 16 documents. These are its legacy, though today it is a hotly contested legacy. Pope Francis has been struggling to return the Church to the sprit and vision of what Vatican II stood for. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini This has crystallised during the nine-year pontificate of Pope Francis, who has been struggling to reverse the dismantling of much of that legacy and to return the Church to the spirit and the vision of what Vatican II stood for. This dismantling was primarily undertaken during the long pontificate of John Paul II, during which he was aided and abetted by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later as Pope Benedict XVI, would continue the process. Two of the key concepts to emerge from Vatican II were the redefinition of the Church as the people of God (carrying echoes of Martin Luthers notion of the priesthood of all believers) and the doctrine of collegiality highlighting the collective responsibility of all the bishops to share with the pope, as bishop of Rome, in the governance of the universal Church. The autocratic Polish pope had little time for either of these concepts. He viewed collegiality as a dangerous infringement on papal authority, preferring the monarchical model of the papacy which seemed to have become the settled orthodoxy prior to the council. As for the Church as the people of God, John Paul II lost no time in insisting on the old pyramid model, with the pope at the apex, the faithful at the bottom, and bishops and priests in between. Under Karol Wojtyla, authority, power, and control became more and more centralised in the Vatican and the Roman Curia (the Churchs central bureaucracy). Dissent was harshly dealt with, theologians were routinely silenced, and John Paul II was utterly dismissive of the idea of a loyal opposition. Massive obstacles The rejection of collegiality has perhaps been the greatest single loss of Vatican IIs legacy, though in his promotion of a synodal Church Pope Francis is seeking to restore a form of it. He faces formidable obstacles. The most disastrous consequence of the short-circuiting of the collegial process occurred during the pontificate of Paul VI, who had succeeded John XXIII. The latter had kept birth control off the councils agenda, instead setting up a papal commission to examine it. That commissions final report was leaked to The Tablet in England and the National Catholic Reporter in the USA in the spring of 1967. Sensationally, it recommended a change in the Churchs traditional opposition to contraception. But in July 1968, in his ill-fated encyclical Humanae Vitae, Paul VI ignored the recommendation for change, and restated the traditional anti-contraception position. This sparked (as I predicted at the time in The Irish Press) the greatest crisis of authority in the Church since the Reformation in the 16th century. Andrew Greeley, the American priest-sociologist, was not alone in his belief that the institutional erosion of Catholicism was largely due to Humanae Vitae, which caused a serious loss of papal credibility. The 16 documents produced by Vatican II varied in length and significance. The most obvious and visible change they ushered in was in the liturgy, with the abandonment of Latin in the Mass. That apart, Vatican II over the past 60 years has had only marginal impact on the Irish Church. Whether Pope Franciss belief in a synodal Church can make a real difference, here and elsewhere, remains to be seen. Burma Myanmar Junta Jails and Files Cases Against Journalists Journalists U Sithu Aung Myint (left) and U Khaing Myat Kyaw. Myanmar juntas media crackdown has continued with one journalist being sentenced to three years in jail for incitement while two charges were filed against an editor last week. Detained political columnist U Sithu Aung Myint was sentenced to three years in prison with labor by a special court inside Insein Prison in Yangon on October 5 for alleged incitement under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code. He was detained along with freelance BBC producer Ma Htet Htet Khine on August 15 last year in Yangon. U Sithu Aung Myint faces three more charges including two charges under Article 505(a) and a sedition charge under Article 124(a) of the Penal Code. Ma Htet Htet Khine has been given a six-year sentence under Article 505(a) and the Unlawful Association Act. The regime has reportedly opened a case against U Khaing Myat Kyaw, the chief editor of the Narinjara News Agency based in Rakhine States capital, Sittwe, under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law and Article 505(a) of the Penal Code. The charge is related to a report about a fatal mine blast in Mrauk-U, Rakhine State, on September 30 which alleged that the mine was planted by the regime. He said the report was based on research and residents statements and the charges were trumped-up. The regime wants to silence media reports of human rights violations, said U Khaing Myat Kyaw. It is routine to prosecute the media, he said. The regime blamed the Mrauk-U blast on the Arakan Army, which is fighting the regime. Despite the prosecution, we will continue to expose human rights violations and unlawful acts. Journalists are never scared by arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment, he said. Junta troops raided the old office of Narinjara in Sittwe on May 7. The news agency has since been forced to close its office with staff working while in hiding. The regime has opened cases against editors and reporters at two other Rakhine-based media outlets, Development Media Group and Western News. Myanmar has become the worlds second-biggest jailer of journalists since the 2021 coup. More than 140 journalists have been detained since the coup. Over 60 remain behind bars and four journalists have died in custody. Burma Sagaing Resistance Fighters Killed in Myanmar Junta Raids Wetlat People's Defense Force in September. / Supplied Myanmar junta forces have allegedly been attacking villages in the east of Wetlet Township in Sagaing Region since Saturday, killing at least 12 civilians and 20 resistance fighters by Tuesday. Thousands of villagers have fled their homes, according to residents. We are scattered and in chaos because of airstrikes. We are trying to rescue the villagers, said Captain Kyin Ko of Wetlet Peoples Defense Force (PDF) on Tuesday. He said at least 12 civilians were killed by troops in Hpa Yar Kone, Nay Pu Kone, Shi Ma Kar and Ngar Pat Chaung villages within four days with more deaths expected to be reported. On Saturday two junta jet fighters and two Mi-35 helicopters attacked a PDF training camp near Hpa Yar Kone and Nay Pu Kone villages in the east of the township. On Friday the civilian National Unity Government said resistance groups had anti-aircraft weapons which would target junta planes and helicopters. An hourlong airstrike on Saturday left at least 12 PDF members dead and an estimated 100 soldiers were dropped by helicopters. After an hours fighting the resistance groups fell back. Before raiding Nay Pu Kone village, troops occupied the resistance training camp and seized arms and dynamite worth an estimated 35 million kyats, according to resistance groups. The junta attacked Nay Pu Kone with two jet fighters and two Mi-35s and dropped troops from Mi-17 helicopters, according to a resident called Ko Nyo. They torched houses, killed villagers and arrested at least 20 others. They were taken to Du Tin hill between Hpa Yar Kone and Shi Ma Kar villages where numerous junta troops are deployed in a stronghold. This afternoon we found another three bodies near Du Tin. It is a tragedy to see civilians fleeing and we have lost many of our comrades, said Phyoe Zaw Oo of Wetlet PDF on Tuesday. He said junta jets were still flying on Tuesday afternoon but not firing. Heavy fighting is occurring with ground troops. Ko Shwe Bo, a Hpa Yar Kone villager, who is sheltering with a relative, said he and his mother fled their house on Saturday on his motorcycle amid airstrikes. We have lost everything. This is the worst thing ever I have experienced, he said. His aunt and a cousin who was in the PDF were recently killed by junta troops. The worst-hit village is Nay Pu Kone, whose 1,000 residents have fled their homes. Around 23,000 people in the area are estimated to have been displaced in four days. Sagaing Region is an anti-regime stronghold. The United Nations has reported that more than 545,000 people have been displaced in Sagaing Region since the coup last year. Burma Striking Medics Blame Myanmar Junta for Nurse Death Striking nurse Daw Theingi Soe. / CJ The Civil Disobedience Movement Medical Network of the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) has condemned Myanmars junta after a nurse drowned while fleeing the Thai police on October 7. Daw Theingi Soe, 25, a striking nurse from the Hpa-an General Hospital was in Maw Phoe Kay, Hlaingbwe Township, Karen State, hiding from the junta. On October 7, the nurse and her husband faced being arrested by the Thai police after illegally entering Mae Sot in Thailand to work, her friends told the media. The mother of a four-year-old drowned in the Moei River while trying to cross back to Myanmar to avoid the Thai police. The network for striking medical staff said the regime caused the death because it was constantly pursuing striking medics. It expressed concern for all the medical staff in junta custody. The group vowed to support all revolutionary forces until the regime falls. The Federal Nursing and Midwifery Council expressed its condolences for the death of Daw Theingi Soe. Over 400,000 civil servants have joined the civil disobedience movement which was started two days later after the February 2021 coup by medical staff in Yangon and Mandalay who refused to work under military rule. The strike has derailed junta attempts to run government services. Arrests, torturing, sentencing and killing continue of striking civil servants. U Aye Kaung, a striking teacher from Mahlaing High School in Mandalay Region, was arrested at Yangon International Airport at the weekend while trying to leave Myanmar. On September 30, striking teacher Daw Soe Mya Mya of the pro-NUG Kaung For You education network was reportedly sentenced to five years in jail by the junta in Mogaung Township, Kachin State. The teacher was charged under the Anti-Terrorism Law for allegedly supporting the NUG and resistance groups. By Monday an estimated 2,342 people had been killed by the junta while 15,806, including government leaders, have been detained since the coup last year, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners that monitors deaths and arrests. Burma Villager Raped, Killed by Myanmar Junta Troops as She Ran to Rescue Her Children A blood stain and belongings of school kids scatter after the regime troops' attacks on Let Yet Kone on September 16. A woman shot by junta troops during an attack last month on Let Yet Kone village in Sagaing Regions Depyin township was allegedly raped before being killed, according to local sources. Thirteen civilians were brutally killed by regime air strikes followed by a ground assault on Let Yet Kone village on September 16. Two Russian-made Mi-35 military helicopters killed five children after opening fire on the village school, before regime soldiers were dropped by helicopter at the north of the village to launch the raid. Ma Yuu, 37, was fatally shot as she herded cows in the east of the village. She was among eight villagers including two children killed by junta troops in the ground assault. The bodies of five villagers, including Ma Yuu, the only female victim, were dumped in the nearby Mu River. Ma Yuus body was retrieved the next day, September 17. Villagers said her lower body had been stripped of clothing and the buttons of her long-sleeved shirt were undone. She had been shot in the head while her fingers had been broken and her earrings were missing, presumed looted. We believe she was raped by soldiers before being killed. I took the body from the river myself, said one of the villagers. Ma Yuus two daughters, a second-grader and eighth-grader, were at the village school when the attack began. Her husband warned her to seek cover as the regime helicopters hovered overhead, but instead she ran towards the school. The junta soldiers intercepted her before she got there, Ma Khin Aye, a Let Yet Kone villager, told the Irrawaddy. Eight students and five teachers injured in the attack were taken hostage. Two with serious injuries were released while the others were detained by the regime troops. Village residents said Ma Yuu and her husband were from an illiterate family who worked hard to send their daughters to be educated at school. Ma Yuu was always smiling and warm-hearted, said Ma Khin Aye. She and her husband left for the forest every morning and then returned in the afternoon to herd cows until evening. The couple took care of the village herd in return for 3,000 kyats per month, sometimes topped up with a ration of rice. Ma Yuus death has left her family distraught and in need. Ma Yuus husband told us he couldnt herd cows because he misses his wife, Ma Khin Aye said . Its cruel; they [soldiers] do whatever they want. As long as these military dogs exist, no one is safe, she said. The brutal attack on Let Yet Kone came one month after regime soldiers raped at least seven women during raids on two villages in Kani Township, Sagaing Region. Six women aged between 25 and 40 were confirmed to have been raped by soldiers during the raid on a village in the township on August 28, according to Kanis General Strike Committee. Sagaing is an anti-regime stronghold where clashes between junta troops and resistance forces are reported almost daily. Regime troops have responded to the fierce resistance by launching airstrikes before raiding villages to torture and kill civilians and take civilian detainees as human shields. War Against the Junta Myanmar Resistance Forces Unite Under KNU Leadership in Mon State An opening ceremony for a basic military training course by alliance supervisory committee. Separate Peoples Defense Forces (PDFs) have united in a resistance coalition in areas of Mon States Thaton District controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU), KNU spokesman Padoh Saw Taw Nee told The Irrawaddy. Twenty-four PDF groups in the area merged on October 3 under the single command of KNU Brigade 1. The coalition, comprising local defense forces and PDF groups directed by the parallel National Unity Government, is now under the command of KNU Brigade 1s newly formed alliance supervisory committee. The committee was formed in line with KNU policy to cooperate with all those fighting the military regime. Many groups are fighting the regime, though they vary in size. So, it is important to make sure that the broth is not spoiled by too many cooks, said the spokesman, adding that KNU Brigade 1 felt obliged to take a leadership role. Formation of the resistance coalition followed the September 21 seizure of a Denko Co fuel truck by local anti-regime group Kyaikto Revolution Force (KRF), who detained the crew and sold off the 4,000 gallons of gasoline it was carrying. The KNU Brigade 1 called the act a kidnapping and punished KRF officials for breaching its regulations. The KRF accepted the punishment and said it would follow KNU Brigade 1 orders. However, the KNU alliance supervisory committee said the coalitions formation was not triggered by the KRF incident. The idea to merge resistance forces cropped up in November last year, but there had been various delays before all groups were put under a single command, said a committee secretary. The committee also issued 25 rules for the resistance groups, requiring them to respect the culture and customs of local people, and refrain from coercion, kidnapping, demanding ransom, and extortion. Some 30 groups have registered with us. But we only issued certificates of recognition to the 24 groups that promised to abide by our rules. We did not issue certificates to other groups for certain reasons, said the secretary. An ethnic affairs analyst said PDF groups in areas controlled by the KNU have been operating independently, unlike their peers in Kachin State, who are under the command of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The KIA has effective centralization of command. Its headquarters directly control all [KIA] brigades. PDF groups come under those brigades and so are effectively under the command of KIA headquarters. But it is different for the KNU. It has seven brigades and all of them have their own powers, without centralized control, said the analyst. KNU Brigade 1 has been fighting the junta regime since 2021 following the coup. September saw 39 clashes between the two sides, resulting in 48 junta soldiers killed and five KNU-led personnel injured, according to KNU information. Guest Column Time for the Myanmar Junta to Face the Music Myanmar regime leader Min Aung Hlaing (center) shakes hands with Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn (left), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations special envoy to Myanmar, in Naypyitaw on June 30, 2022. / AFP Since its inception in 1967, ASEAN has survived a myriad of challengessome it has passed with flying colors, others less so. However, the biggest existential threat to ASEAN today comes from within its own family. After 21 months of a genteel, wait-and-see approach to Myanmars quagmire, the so-called ASEAN Way has reared its ugly head on the bloc, forcing its members to come to grips with its Achilles heel. To stay relevant and credible, ASEAN must now use sticks to deal with an unruly family member. It is well known that when ASEAN is faced with any issues, whether political, economic or social, it will do whatever it takes to ensure the issue is settled in a peaceful manner without upsetting individual members of the bloc. The approach worked pretty well for over five decades, but the situation in Myanmar is calling for stronger punitive measures, as well as a shake-up in the blocs institutional arrangements. Myanmars consistent refusal to implement the five-point consensus (5PC) in full has dismayed its ASEAN neighbors. Since the document was adopted in April last year following lengthy consultations, the junta has been dragging its feet when it comes to implementing the peace plan, citing the ongoing conflict between its military and various local resistance groups. Over the past 10 months, Cambodias Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn, representing the ASEAN chair, has twice managed to meet with some stakeholders in the conflict, including representatives of political parties, non-governmental organizations, and specialized UN agencies. The ASEAN special envoy has yet to meet with detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or National Unity Government (NUG) representatives. On the ground, the distribution of humanitarian assistance to affected Myanmar citizens in areas stricken by conflict has been slow at best, mostly because of the strict restrictions on movement imposed by the State Administrative Council, as the junta is officially known. To date, only a small amount of basic aid, which includes much-needed medical supplies, has been successfully delivered to the conflict zones along the Thai-Myanmar border. Without the SACs cooperation, ASEANs Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center) wont be able to carry out its mandate in the region. Back in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, urging him to cooperate with ASEAN and its special envoy in order to bring the situation in Myanmar back to normal. But after five weeks of waiting, Phnom Penh received no response. In June, Hun Sen asked Myanmars junta to reconsider the death sentences imposed on activists opposed to them, in a letter addressed to Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing. Ignoring the appeal, the junta went ahead and hanged three activists and a lawmaker in July. Due to the lack of positive engagement from Naypyitaw, Prak Sokhonns third trip has been postponed. The snub also explains why the ASEAN chair decided to bar Myanmars military chief from attending the upcoming ASEAN summits scheduled for next month. Needless to say, Cambodia was forced to make the difficult decision as the military junta failed to accept the goodwill of the ASEAN chair. In the letter to Min Aung Hlaing, Hun Sen was candid, echoing his past appeals which the junta ignored altogetherwhich included pleas to stop the executions of four activists that attracted harsh global condemnation, including from ASEAN. The chair reiterated that the executions gave those who question ASEANs approach towards Myanmar a reason to argue that the world cant positively engage with Naypyitaw. Hun Sen, who called Myanmars senior general a brother, also reiterated to the junta leader that some key ASEAN members have already put forward at least three proposals to punish Myanmar. The first will see Myanmar disinvited from all ASEAN ministerial meetings. For the time being, Myanmar representatives can still attend some ASEAN ministerial meetings. In the future, they will be barred from all ministerial meetings. In addition, Malaysia and Indonesia have urged ASEAN to formally engage with the NUG. The two countries also have plans to allow the NUG to set up a representative office in their capitals. Finally, there are growing calls within ASEAN to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar. For his part, Hun Sen reiterated in the letter that Cambodia is committed to helping Myanmar return to normalcy through engagement in accordance with the 5PC and ASEAN Charter. In return, the ASEAN chair hopes that the junta leader will also offer genuine and effective cooperation, so that ASEAN can become a united family again. In a related development, the ASEAN foreign ministers will hold a special meeting on Oct 27, ahead of the ASEAN summits, to discuss the status of Myanmar in ASEAN and review the progress of the 5PC. The ministers plan to invoke Article 7 of the ASEAN Charter and come up with a list of measures (that their leaders will later decide on) to reprimand Myanmar for its failure to implement the 5PC. ASEAN ministers have never convened to discuss such measures since the bloc was founded. Article 7 of the ASEAN Charter outlines the role and importance of the ASEAN Summit as the supreme policy-making body of the regional group. One of its most important roles is to address emergency situations affecting ASEAN by taking appropriate actions. Exactly 30 days from now, the SAC has the opportunity to rejoin the ASEAN family or cut itself loose. It will be up to the junta to ensure that there is substantial progress regarding the 5PC in the days ahead. Obviously, any decision to further downgrade Myanmars status would further isolate the nation, which would cause concerns among ASEAN members with which Myanmar shares a common border. Thailand has played a key role in communicating with the Tatmadaw (Myanmars military), despite the existing difficulties. Discretely, the Thai government is working hard to convince Myanmar to abide by the 5PC. After he resumed the premiership last week, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha wants to make sure that the rest of his tenure will be remembered for his peace-making efforts and economic sustainability. Myanmar is one of his top priorities. Judging from the chairs appeals over the past 10 months, ASEAN has gone the extra mile to persuade the SAC to stay within the ASEAN course. Hun Sen has repeatedly appealed to the junta leader, saying that as a family, we should openly and candidly exchange views and share ideas with a genuine intention to do what is best for our family. These words, it seems, have fallen on deaf ears. Indonesia, as the incoming ASEAN chair, will be bolder and wont hesitate to take the bull by the horns. Jakarta is also more willing to impose harsher punitive measures against a pariah member to preserve ASEAN relevance and credibility in the eyes of the international community. After all, as the worlds third-largest democracy and a member of the Group of 20, the new ASEAN chairs reputation is at stake. This story first appeared in The Bangkok Post. Kavi Chongkittavorn is a veteran journalist covering regional affairs. The Australian Securities Exchange announced it has migrated its data and analytics footprint to Google Cloud, making it the preferred cloud partner to build its data product innovation strategy. The data difference The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) data science and commercialisation platform is DataSphere, which provides access to data, analytics, and innovation for ASX and its partners. ASX is leveraging Google Cloud to drive actionable insights from the platform with scale and security at the core. ASX's ecosystem of financial data will provide its partners with access to unique datasets, deeper, machine learning-based insights, end-to-end governance, and tools to build, commercialise, and distribute new financial models to their customers. We operate critical infrastructure that underpins both the Australian and New Zealand financial markets, so having access to best-in-class technology is critical. Our collaboration with Google Cloud enables us to make data and insights accessible in a flexible and scalable environment. It will help us bring new products and services to market faster, said ASX group executive technology and data and chief information officer Dan Chesterman. ASX is currently building new products with its debt, equities, and futures market data, and investigating opportunities to collaborate on product development with Google Cloud. ASXs technology transformation Supported by implementation partner Servian, the migration to Google Cloud forms part of ASXs broader business and technology transformation. The exchange is undergoing renewing several core platforms which will see the average age of the core equity market technologies drop from over 20 years to an average of less than five years. This migration has allowed ASX to introduce technology patterns and is digitising more parts of its business to deliver an improved customer experience. By partnering with Google Cloud, ASX is fast-tracking its product innovation, by unifying their vast data estate and accelerating insights for all of their partners and truly unlocking the value of data and analytics, said Google Cloud vice president Australia and New Zealand Alister Dias. Sharpening focus on skills and training Google Cloud and Servian have also delivered customised training and enablement plans for employees to provide them with skills required to run DataSphere with Google Cloud technology. It also extends to a cross-ASX training program that will provide employees with an opportunity to learn and apply the latest technologies to their jobs. The outcome will be a workforce rich in cloud experience and poised to accelerate the exchanges technology ambitions. Microsoft has released patches for 84 vulnerabilities in its products on its monthly Patch Tuesday, but failed to deliver fixes for two zero-day flaws in versions of Exchange Server that were reported publicly on 29 September. The Security Response Team at Tenable said in a blog post that the 84 CVEs which were issued included two critical flaws. Microsoft issued a statement, listing security updates for vulnerabilities in Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2019. As iTWire reported, based on tweets from British security expert Kevin Beaumont, the two zero-days are similar to the ProxyShell vulnerability for which updates were issued by Microsoft in May and July last year. ProxyShell comprises three separate bugs used as an integrated attack chain and allowed attackers to bypass authentication and execute code as a privileged user. Beaumont christened the new vulnerabilities as ProxyNotShell, saying the source of the problem was "Microsoft Exchanges source code replaces .. with @, and Microsoft didnt know". For anybody who doesnt know, August 2022s Windows patches included fixes for NSA and GCHQ reported cryptographic bugs.. but MS didnt tell you and didnt issue a CVE. Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) October 12, 2022 In its 11 October statement, Microsoft noted: "The October 2022 SUs [security updates] do not contain fixes for the zero-day vulnerabilities reported publicly on 29 September 2022 (CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082). Please see this blog post to apply mitigations for those vulnerabilities. We will release updates for CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082 when they are ready. Graph courtesy Tenable. "Also note that we have re-released some CVEs published in August 2022, to highlight the resolution of known issue. More details about specific CVEs can be found in the Security Update Guide (filter on Exchange Server under Product Family)." Contacted for comment, Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable, said: "This months Patch Tuesday release includes fixes for 84 CVEs 13 that are rated critical and 71 rated important. "Microsoft patched CVE-2022-41033, an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows COM+ Event System Service, which enables system event notifications for COM+ components. An authenticated attacker could execute a specially crafted application designed to exploit this vulnerability on a vulnerable system. "Successful exploitation would grant an attacker the ability to execute privileges as SYSTEM. Microsoft reports that this vulnerability has been exploited in the wild, though no specific details have been shared about its exploitation. It was reported to Microsoft by an anonymous individual. "While elevation of privilege vulnerabilities require an attacker to gain access to a system through other means, they are still a valuable tool in an attackers toolbox, and this months Patch Tuesday has no shortage of elevation of privilege flaws, as Microsoft patched 39, accounting for nearly half of the bugs patched (46.4%). "Notably absent from this months Patch Tuesday are patches for the pair of zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server, CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082, also known as ProxyNotShell. We expected Microsoft to issue patches for these flaws soon considering there have been reports of in-the-wild exploitation." Mike Walters, vice-president of Vulnerability and Threat Research at Action1, a remote monitoring and management software vendor, said in comments sent to iTWire that one of the more serious vulnerabilities fixed this month was the Windows COM+ Event System Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (CVE-2022-41033), even though its CVSS rating was just 7.8. "The reason is simple: there has been an exploit for this vulnerability for a long time now, and it can be easily combined with an RCE exploit," he explained. "It is an excellent tool in an attacker's arsenal for elevating privileges on a Windows system because it enables an attacker who has local access to a machine to gain SYSTEM privileges and do anything they like with that target system. "All versions of Windows starting with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 are vulnerable. The Windows COM+ Event System Service is launched by default with the operating system and is responsible for providing notifications about logons and logoffs." Walters said it was mandatory to install the newly released patch is mandatory. "Otherwise, an attacker who is logged on to a guest or ordinary user computer can quickly gain SYSTEM privileges on that system and be able to do almost anything with it. This vulnerability is especially significant for organisations whose infrastructure relies on Windows Server," he added. He said another serious vulnerability for which a patch had been issued on Tuesday was an RCE in SharePoint Server: the Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. "All versions of SharePoint, starting with SharePoint 2013 Service Pack 1 are affected by this vulnerability," Walters noted. "In a network-based attack, an authenticated adversary with Manage List permissions could execute code remotely on the SharePoint Server and escalate to administrative permissions. "Microsoft reports that an exploit has likely already been created and is being used by attacker groups, but there is no proof of this yet. Nevertheless, this vulnerability is worth taking seriously if you have a SharePoint Server open to the internet." Two other vulnerabilities in the October list that Walters highlighted was a Windows Client Server Run-time Subsystem Elevation of Privilege (CVE-2022-37987 and CVE-2022-37989) are both related to the behaviour of the CSRSS process when searching for dependencies. "CVS-2022-37989 is a failed fix for an earlier bug, CVE-2022-22047, which has been seen in the wild; this vulnerability occurs because CSRSS can accept input from untrusted processes," he explained. "The CVE-2022-37987 vulnerability is a new attack that works by tricking CSRSS into downloading dependency information from an unprotected location. Both attacks enable elevation of privileges to SYSTEM. The exploit is mostly likely already in the attackers' arsenal, according to Microsoft. Finally, he cited CVE-2022-37968, Connect Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability, which has a rare CVSS score of 10; it could allow an attacker to gain administrative control over Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters. "It affects the cluster connect feature of these clusters. An adversary who knows the randomly generated external DNS endpoint for an Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster can exploit this vulnerability from the Internet," Walters pointed out. "Successful exploitation... allows an unauthenticated user to elevate their privileges to cluster admin and potentially gain control over the Kubernetes cluster. If you are using these types of containers with a version lower than 1.5.8, 1.6.19, 1.7.18 and 1.8.11 and they are available from the Internet, upgrade immediately." Caitlin Condon, senior manager, Vulnerability Research at sec outfit Rapid7, said as of early September, the company had observed up to 191,000 potentially vulnerable instances of Exchange Server exposed to the Internet via port 443. "When news of two fresh zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082) in Microsoft Exchange Server broke at the end of September, many security teams undoubtedly experienced an unpleasant sense of deja vu," she said. "The new vulns were disclosed publicly by a Vietnamese security firm who had discovered their use in active attacks dating back more than a month. "While Microsoft confirmed the zero-days and issued guidance faster than they have in the past, there are still no patches nearly two weeks out from initial disclosure. Despite high hopes that the Patch Tuesday release would contain fixes for the vulnerabilities, Exchange Server is conspicuously missing from the initial list of October 2022 security updates. Microsofts recommended rule for blocking known attack patterns has been bypassed multiple times, emphasising the necessity of a true fix. "Theres one saving grace in all this: Unlike the ProxyShell and ProxyLogon exploit chains that laid waste to on-prem Exchange servers in 2021, these latest vulnerabilities require an attacker to have authenticated network access for successful exploitation. "Historically, patch uptake for vulnerable Exchange servers is disappointingly slow. We continue to see successful exploitation of 2021s ProxyLogon and ProxyShell vulnerabilities, which also affected on-prem installations of Exchange and have been public (and patched) for well over a year. "Repeated changes in Microsofts mitigation guidance for these latest vulns have frustrated customers and made it less likely that theyll be able to keep up with the latest recommendationsa hazard of regular expression-based block rules. "So far, attacks have remained limited and targeted. Thats unlikely to continue as time goes on and threat actors have more opportunity to gain access and hone exploit chains. Well almost certainly see additional post-authentication vulnerabilities released in the coming months, but the real concern would be an unauthenticated attack vector popping up as IT and security teams implement end-of-year code freezes." Condon's blog on the Patch Tuesday fixes is here. The Tenable post said the October update included patches for the following: Data stolen during an attack on Singapore's multinational telecommunications conglomerate Singtel, which the company says was exfiltrated on 20 January last year, has been lying on the dark Web since February 2021 and was reposted to a clear Web forum on 7 October, a security professional says. Brett Callow, a senior security researcher with the New Zealand-based Emsisoft, told iTWire that the data had been originally posted on the dark web site of the Windows ransomware group, Cl0p. "In February 2021, Cl0p posted data that it claimed was stolen from Singtel, and its that data which Singtel states is now being shared via the forum in question," he said. [A screenshot he took at the time is below.] Callow's statement appears to refute a claim made the Guardian Australia which read: "Singtel informed those affected, but the post on the data leak forum is believed to be the first time the data has purportedly been posted online." Callow said he had grabbed a screenshot of the data from Cl0p's site when he first spotted the Singtel data siphoned off during the Accellion attack. Singtel has been in the news ever since Optus, Australia's second-biggest telecommunications provider that is owned by the Singapore outfit, revealed a massive breach on 22 September. Initially, there were said to be close to 10 million users, past and present, who were affected. Adding to that was the appearance of the data stolen during what a Singtel spokesperson said was an attack through a file-sharing system from Accellion that was close to end-of-life at the time. To top it off, on Monday afternoon, Singtel revealed that its Australian IT services firm Dialog had been hit by a data breach. iTWire's sources say this breach has been effected using the Agenda ransomware that runs only on Windows. Callow said a more interesting question about the Accellion attack data surfacing now was who had posted it to the Web forum and the motivation behind it. A screenshot of the post accompanying old Singtel data put on the Web on 7 October. He did not offer any speculation about this, though the normal motive for anyone to post data that has been stolen is to make a quick buck. COMPANY NEWS: Vladimir Putins military mobilisation order has led to a significant uproar in Russiafrom protests in several regions to an estimated 700,000 Russians leaving the country in a little over two weeks. Many Russian citizens, meanwhile, have been trying to avoid the draft by resorting to time-honoured tricks such as hunkering down at relatives homes or equipping themselves with fake documents. Since 21 September, when Putins partial mobilisation was announced, Flashpoint analysts have observed a growing amount of chatter in Russian illicit communities and social media platforms about these methods. We have also seen an underground market of fake certificates and other services to avoid the draft emerging on various forums, including Telegram. The market seems to have really taken off around 26 September, after rumours circulated that Russian authorities may close borders to prevent military-age men from fleeing the country. Though this did not happen, authorities have tried to make it more difficult for men to leave Russia, even setting up draft offices near the border. These services build on existing phenomena of corruption and nepotism, but industrialise it in a way that simplifies and speeds up the process. Some of them are likely scams that build on the widespread belief that bribes are an easy and reliable way to get out of the draft. The services offered mirror a similar underground market of fake Covid-19 vaccination and test certificates that Flashpoint observed in 2021. Flashpoint has observed this activity across a wide range of platforms that include chat platforms, illicit communities, and social media. Fake employment One kind of service offered is fake employment contracts. A threat actor on two popular Russian-speaking forums explained that they are able to get people employed in oil and gas facilities in Russias two oil-producing regions on sham contracts, which would automatically grant them deferment from mobilisation due to the strategically important nature of these industries. Depending on how quickly the certificate is needed and whether the applicant has professional qualifications, the service could cost up to 150,000 rubles (US$2,460), more than three times the average salary in Russias poorer regions. A similar service on another Russian-speaking forum, costs 200,000-250,000 rubles, including bribes to be paid to officials. Illness Another popular way to avoid the draft is to fake a chronic illness. Russian Telegram-groups where people opposing the draft congregate have shared lists of diseases that would officially make men unfit to serve in the army. Threat actors have mobilised to offer fake certificates of chronic illnesses such as HIV and hepatitis, relying on access to electronic health records, similarly to fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates. Users on some forums even specified the names of clinics and hospitals where they are able to take care of such requests, while another service combined its offer with a falsified letter from an unnamed Israeli clinic, which would allow the buyer to leave the country ostensibly for medical treatment. The price of these services was typically quoted between 10,000 and 40,000 rubles (US$165 and 660). Manual name removal A more straightforward service is the removal of names from databases handled by conscription offices, which often only exist on paper and not digitally. The prices for such services are typically identical to the price of fake health certificates. Here is what were seeing in terms of prices advertised on popular forums: Removal of a name from the database: 25,000 rubles (US$410) Temporary deferment: 20,000 30,000 rubles (US$330-490) Emergency rescue from the drafting office: 45,000 rubles (US$740) Complete removal from any military records: 100,000 rubles (US $1,640) Education One reason for the panic is that mobilisation seems to be not partial, as officially announced, but extensive and, in places, haphazard, where officially announced exceptionsincluding for IT professionalscount little if at all. Analysts have seen fewer instances of offers related to fake higher education certificates, even though, according to a decree issued by Putin on 24 September, certain categories of students are exempt from the draft. This discrepancy may be due to the fact that Russian threat actors have accumulated more experience falsifying health certificates. Nonetheless, Flashpoint analysts did observe some offers. On a highly active forum a user was offering five places at an unnamed university, beginning at 150,000 rubles (US$2,460), while others shared a list of regions where, in their knowledge, the problem can be taken care of. Monitoring this emerging market provides insights not only about the mood among Russian internet users and the cyber underground in the face of increasing domestic pressures, but also about the kinds of corruption that make it harder for the state to enforce its decisions in the country. A recent investigation revealed that residents of poorer regions are significantly more affected than residents of wealthier regions where people typically have fewer means to defend themselves from the agents of the state. Furthermore, the market also allows insight into the vulnerabilities of Russian state information systems that underpin these services. Any organisations security capabilities are only as good as its threat intelligence. Flashpoints suite of tools offer you a comprehensive overview of your threat landscape and the ability to proactively address risks and protect your critical data assets. To unlock the power of great threat intelligence, sign up for a demo or get started with a free trial. GUEST INTERVIEW: Privileged Access Management or PAM concerns who or what can access an organisations information assets and what they can do once logged in to an account, and includes both privileged account management and privileged session management, with Delinea's Extended Privileged Access Management (XPM) taking that even further, with two top Delinea executives joining iTWireTV to explain it all. Delinea. The company is a leading provider of cloud-ready privileged access management (PAM) solutions that empower seamless cybersecurity for the modern, hybrid enterprise. By putting privileged access at the centre of cybersecurity, while removing complexity, Delinea is seamlessly defining the boundaries of access. Created by the merger of Thycotic and Centrify, the company rebranded as Delinea in early 2022, bringing together the best of both companies to create an even stronger security solution portfolio. Whether in the cloud or on-premises, Delineas solutions are readily customisable, scalable for growth, and powerful enough to secure any organisation no matter where it is on its PAM maturity journey. With the recent visit to Australia by Chief Revenue Officer, Damon Tompkins and APAC Vice President, Wahab Yusoff, Delinea is engaging closely with its customers and partners in Australia and New Zealand, and in the Asia-Pacific region, to help them answer major cybersecurity challenges including: Countering ransomware and cyberattacks, which are often using stolen identities and credentials How to transition to modern, identity-based cybersecurity controls to enable digital transformation, hybrid work, cloud migration and Zero Trust strategies How to implement PAM best practices to qualify for cyber insurance, including granular access control, Multi-Factor Authentication and the principle of least privilege How PAM can help comply with increasing legislative and regulatory cybersecurity requirements, including the Essential Eight, APRA CPS-234 and the Critical Infrastructure Act Unsustainable cybersecurity strategies and a cybersecurity skills shortage To this end, Delinea has launched a number of initiatives, including training and enablement of its partners. For example, it recently organised boot camps in Melbourne and Singapore not only to certify partners to deliver services around Delineas PAM solutions but also to help them overcome cyber skills shortages. Named a leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for privileged access management, for the fourth consecutive time, Delinea has recently conducted a global survey, which revealed that security professionals including respondents from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia were Running to Keep Up with 60% of IT security decision makers held back from delivering on IT security strategy, with that research freely available here. The company is also investing heavily in innovation around its Extended PAM (or XPM) vision, in which: Every user is treated as a privileged user to prevent identity/credential theft across all human and non-human identities, not just sysadmins and superusers PAM capabilities are delivered through one unified interface to address traditional and emerging use cases for identity-based cybersecurity Analytics and ease-of-use are implemented from the outset to limit privilege escalation without hampering productivity, adapting access when and where needed with analytics-informed policies So, to learn more, iTWireTV spoke with Damon Tompkins and Wahab Yusoff about the importance of privileged access management, major security challenges, how the merger has been going, the new research and plenty more. That video interview is embedded directly below, after which you'll find a summary of the topics we spoke about, so please watch and read on! I started by welcoming both Damon and Wahab, and asked them to define PAM, its importance, and why it is better than traditional cybersecurity solutions. Next, we looked at the broader aspects of security and discussed the Thycotic and Centrify merger, and how analysts have reacted. We talked about Delinea's recent research and its detailed findings, as well as Delinea's Extended PAM vision. Damon and Wahab then explained what a typical onboarding process for new customers looks like, and illustrated Delinea's expected evolution over the next couple of years. So, to check your company's privileged access management status and learn more about Delinea, please watch the video interview above! Having happy employees is conducive to better products and services for customers, and better customer service. With TOPdesk offering top class service management software to businesses, there's an added synchronicity to TOPdesk Australia giving its employees family-friendly freedoms, so what are the details? TOPdesk. Offering service management software that gets service departments working together, delivering exceeded customer service expectations, TOPdesks mission has been the same since its inception: helping organisations create spectacular customer experiences. The company started over 25 years ago with a simple ticketing tool for IT help desks. Today, TOPdesk still makes great software for managing calls, and this has expanded to everything else its customers need for enterprise service management. Whether its processing incoming tickets or collaborating with multiple service teams in one tool, whether ITSM and CAFM to ESM and more: TOPdesk has the flexibility and features to fit any organization. This means you can streamline your IT support with easy call registration, while enjoying effective resource planning and dynamic reporting options. You can also manage all your facilities services with clear overviews, personal todo lists and cleverly designed planners. As with all great companies, TOPdesks people make the difference, and theyve been helping organisations around the globe improve their service delivery for nearly three decades. Now comes a new initiative, created by TOPdesk Australia, following an idea from its local marketing lead, Laura Domingo, which has evolved into allowing employees the choice to work from anywhere in the world for 60 days a year, which is also an important wellbeing initiative for employees, and absolutely worth celebrating in the midst of mental health awareness month, which happens every year in October. The practice of working from abroad for an extended period was initially proposed and trialled by Domingo, who like many of us, was struggling with protracted COVID-induced separation from family overseas. When new TOPdesk Australia General Manager Robert van der Gulik himself an expat from the Netherlands commenced in his role earlier this month, he immediately saw the benefits of extending this opportunity to others at the company. Our people come from many different countries. We have people with family in Europe, Asia and across Oceania. The past few years of separation have been hard. This policy is exactly what our people need right now the ability to reconnect, in person, with loved ones far away, van der Gulik said. So, lets hear from Robert and Laura in our great video interview below, after which there are more details, and a summary of the topics we spoke about, so please watch and read on! So far, Robert van der Gulik reports two TOPDesk Australia employees have taken up the offer, and adds: We know providing flexible workplaces, which allow people to integrate their work lives with their personal lives, create happier, more fulfilled team members. This can only be a good thing: for our people, our customers and our company. The ways in which many of us think about work have undergone a permanent shift. Companies have a great opportunity to consider how to bring out the best in their people. The flow-on effects of the pandemic include a recognition that continuing flexible work arrangements enable companies to leverage productivity gains achieved through remote working and achieve a competitive advantage in an increasingly tight job market. In the context of Australias large population born overseas (30%) and current labour shortage, policies aimed to facilitate remote work overseas have tremendous potential, allowing people to reconnect with family and broadening the pool of prospective talent. TOPdesk Australias office opened in Melbourne in 2019, with the local office having recently welcomed Robert van der Gulik as General Manager from TOPdesk Canada. Heres a summary of the topics we spoke about in the video interview above: I started by introducing Robert and Laura, welcoming them to the program, and asked Robert to explain what TOPdesk offers to its customers today, and what drew him to move to Australia to become TOPdesks country manager. I then asked Laura to tell us a bit more about her role, and her big idea to allow working from abroad, and why this was important to her. Laura explained she has already had the chance to travel to Spain twice, how remote working affected security and ease of communication with her local and global colleagues, and whether others in the company had followed her lead. Robert explained the reaction of other TOPDesk offices around the world and whether they have similar programs. Next, we learned more about TOPDesk Australia and its local customers, what a typical onboarding process looks like and the timeframe to see positive results, and anything else we needed to know about TOPdesk that we hadnt already discussed. We finished by both Robert and Laura sharing their thoughts on how the company might evolve over the next couple of years, and what things might look like in the 2030s when the metaverse should be everywhere, followed by memories of their first computers, great advice received in life, and their final messages to iTWire viewers and readers, and to their current and future customers and partners. So, to learn more about TOPdesk itself, to hear from Laura on the benefits of being able to work from abroad, to see how happy it has made her and more - please watch the video interview above! Alteryx is a highly mature data analytics company, just clocking up 25 years in the business. Co-founder and chief advocacy officer Libby Duane Adams spoke to iTWireTV about analytics' past, present, and future. Alteryx co-founder and chief advocacy officer Libby Duane Adams has been touring APAC, and spoke to iTWireTV while in Sydney. Duane Adams provided her insights into the past, present, and future of analytics. This includes the skills required to take the field further and the need for greater collaboration between experts, universities, and industry. One point that particularly resounded with me was Duane Adams' observation that people graduating from tertiary analytics courses are often joining companies that have nothing more sophisticated than spreadsheets. It's a big imbalance, and it's an issue Alteryx is putting its muscle into so the vast benefits of analytics can be delivered now, rather than later as the current trajectory suggests. See this, and more, in our talk with Libby Duane Adams here. GUEST OPINION: Asset trades, consolidations, mergers, and acquisitions are common business practices that allow companies to strengthen their position in the market, build competitive advantage, explore new markets, and eliminate or minimize competition. Mergers and acquisitions are of different types, and each type serves a different purpose. Here is a complete guide on M&A events, how they work, and types of mergers and acquisitions. You can also visit website about M&A events and the latest mergers and acquisitions news. What are mergers and acquisitions? Mergers and acquisitions or commonly known as M&A is a broader term used for different types of financial transactions. These transactions result in the consolidation of two business entities or the acquisition of assets, stocks, and shares. Some of the latest and notable M&A events in 2022 include: Adobe acquiring Figma Oracle acquiring Cerner Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard Orange-Grupo MasMovil merger DSM-Firmenich merger So far, the total value of global mergers and acquisitions has risen to $2.6 trillion. M&A structures 1. Vertical Vertical mergers or acquisitions occur when two companies from the same industry (but producing different products or services) combine their operations. That said, if an iron ore producer merges with a steel manufacturer, it will be called a vertical M&A event. Vertical mergers help reduce the costs of production, increase revenue, and boost operational efficiency. Notable examples of verticals include the merger between America Online and Time Warner in 2000. 2. Horizontal A horizontal merger is a highly common form of M&A in which two companies from the same industry producing the same products or services work collectively. Horizontal M&A events are more common in industries with fewer firms as it helps in gaining a competitive advantage and increase market share. A notable example of horizontal M&A events is the Chrysler and Daimler-Benz merger in 1998. 3. Conglomerate It is a type of merger in which two business entities from different industries merge. Conglomerate M&As are further divided into two categories: Pure conglomerate. A merger and acquisition between two businesses that have nothing in common. Mixed conglomerate. A merger and acquisition between two firms involved in unrelated activities but merging to obtain a product or hit a new market. Common examples of the conglomerate merger include American Broadcast Company-The Walt Disney Company merger in 1995. Types of mergers and acquisitions 1. Carve-outs Companies often purchase, carve out, or acquire subsidiaries, small elements, or divisions of other companies to boost their customer base, divest, and increase revenue. 2. Asset purchase Corporations or firms also acquire assets of another company after approval from the shareholders (of the target company). These assets can be real estate, inventory, PPE (property, plant, and equipment), and intangibles. These types of M&A events usually occur in case of bankruptcy. 3. Consolidation Consolidation or amalgamation is a merger in which two companies unite/merge to create a new business entity. Consolidation is only possible after approval from shareholders in the company. 4. Management consolidation Management-led buyout or management consolidation is a process in which an executive from one firm/company acquires a significant or controlling interest in another company. It gives the company an influential right over the acquired company. 5. Tender offer In a tender offer, one company proposes the shareholders of another company to buy the company stocks at a price higher than the market prices. The offer is made directly to the shareholders and has nothing to do with BOD or executives. How do mergers and acquisitions work? M&A events usually begin with the acquiring company (or the firm intends to merge with another firm) sending a letter of intent to the target company. The document is just a proposal that may also include confidential details, but the letter of intent is not a binding agreement. Once the proposal is accepted by the target company, the due diligence process begins. Due diligence and valuation In due diligence, acquiring a company evaluates company documents depending on the nature of the deal. During due diligence, the acquiring company also does the valuation of the target company. It is done by considering different factors such as the target company's current financial position, earnings, cash flows, assets, depreciation, amortization, agreements, liabilities, etc. Negotiation and financing After due diligence and valuation, the dealmakers from the buying company present the proposed deal or agreement to the target company. Usually, the Chief Financial Officer reviews the agreement and assesses all possible threats related to the deal. After that, the CFO sends the documents to the CEO for signatures. The acquiring company can finance the transaction via different ways, such as cash, debt assumption, or stocks. The deal is finally closed after accepting the purchase agreement. Integration Post-merger integration is the last stage in M&A events. Companies usually hire consultancy firms to mediate the transaction and provide advisory services for integration. Final words Mergers and acquisitions or M&A is a term for various financial transactions resulting in new business entities or a change of ownership. M&A events are divided into different phases, including a proposal (letter of intent), due diligence, valuation, negotiation, financing, and integration. The steel sector is one that will find it difficult to cut emissions. Australia's national science CSIRO has kicked off a new initiative named Towards Net Zero Mission to help halve emissions by 2035 in regions and sectors that find it difficult to effect greenhouse gas reductions. In a statement, the organisation said an initial sum of $90 million would be used to bring together research, industry, government, and communities in this endeavour. The sectors being targeted include steel and agriculture. CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall said transitioning these industries would be tackled by turning the problem into new economic growth by building national capability and re-imagining how we live and work. Our hard-to-abate industries like resources and agriculture are critical Australian advantages and are deeply embedded into the fabric of our regions regions that our country is built on, he said. So, our mission must be co-developed, not just with those in the hard-to-abate industries, but also in partnership with their communities to understand the impacts and opportunities arising from new science-enabled technologies and ways of doing business. The transformation... is critical to our nations future prosperity, and Australian science will ensure no one gets left behind in this enormous transition. Every Australian is part of the journey to net zero. The Towards Net Zero Mission will: Support a profitable and sustainable agriculture industry in a low emissions world; Identify what is required to develop new low emissions steel and iron ore processes; Identify what is required to develop sustainable aviation fuel to support our aviation sector; Help regions navigate the transition to net zero through new collaborations, analysis, and support; and Expand Australias carbon offset capacity by using and scaling negative emission technologies such as carbon sequestration. Climate Change Authority chief executive Brad Archer said: "We are excited to be collaborating with the Towards Net Zero Mission on an upcoming report to better understand Australias carbon sequestration potential. This will help inform choices about our pathways to net zero emissions, ensuring those choices are backed by rigorous, science-based evidence. Salvo Vitelli, general manager, Agriculture Policy, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, added: "Agriculture and its supply chains will play a critical role in Queenslands decarbonisation. "CSIRO has provided independent analysis to guide our vision and policy response for the sector, as evidenced in the draft Low Emissions Agriculture Roadmap released for public consultation in June. "The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries looks forward to continuing to work with the Towards Net Zero Mission and other key research programs to ensure the agribusiness sector capitalises on low emissions economic opportunities. The mission will see CSIRO join with government partners and collaborators Climate Change Authority; Department of Climate Change, Energy; Environment and Water; Department of Industry, Science and Resources; Grains Research & Development Corporation; Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries; along with industry partners and collaborators BHP; Boeing; Climate Leaders Coalition; Climate-Kic; ClimateWorks; Incitec Pivot; KPMG Australia; Meat & Livestock Australia; Qantas; and a number of universities and research organisations including Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition Co-operative Research Centre. 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. Editor's Note: The delegates to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are outstanding Party members with remarkable achievements. They are selected from and trusted by more than 96 million members and more than 4.9 million grass-roots organizations of the CPC, embodying the pioneering nature of the CPC and carrying the expectations of the Chinese people. China Military Online is publishing a series of stories to elaborate the outstanding deeds of some delegates. Weng Chunfang is giving a report on his work. (Photo by Yang Hao) Since joining the PLA 16 years ago, Weng Chunfang, a battalion commander in a brigade of the Strategic Support Force, has been staying on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to guard the communication lines for national defense. Weng's battalion is entrusted with the task of maintaining a trunk communication line for national defense which stretches hundreds of kilometers and reaches an altitude of more than 4,000m at most. Rush repairing the communication line on the plateau is not easy due to the extremely harsh natural environment and frequent geological disasters like debris flow and landslide. Weng and his men usually carry out emergency repairing tasks in such a harsh environment. How to boost the soldiers' morale and make them devoted to the mission of maintenance of the national defense communication line on the plateau? "We CPC Party members and officers must take the lead and set a good example. I tell myself that whatever I ask my men, I must do it first be their lead and example," Weng gives his answer to this question. In the summer of 2017, the water level at the Lancang River rose sharply due to days of rainstorm, and the optical cable poles were destroyed by the waves. Weng, a company commander at that time, and his men rushed to repair the poles. It was the flood season, with gales bellowing on the river and torrents roaring under the feet, Weng climbed up the wire pole and inched toward the center of the river. After three days of unremitting efforts, more than ten breakpoints were all recovered and communication signals went back online again. As Weng Chunfang recalled, "it was an urgent situation. The environment was really dangerous. But for us signalmen, the communication lines are like the life lines and keeping them on is the precondition for winning battles. There was no time or room for fear at that moment. All I knew is that as the company commander, I must stand up and took the lead to fulfill the dangerous task and get the line back in operation at any cost." Numerous emergency situations like this have made Weng Chunfang the most trustworthy commander for his comrades-in-arms. He often tells his men that signalmen stationed on the plateau must be as sturdy as the yaks, and that keeping the national defense communication line running smoothly is more of a responsibility, a mission than just a duty. Speaking of his being selected as a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress, Weng said with determination, "As the country comes to the new era and embarks on a new journey, I will fulfill my duties with dedication and continue to work diligently on the plateau to realize my value as a soldier in the ordinary position of communication line patrol." 10/10/2022 A sheriff's car outside a South Carolina courthouse. Image courtesy Getty. by Buffy Lockette Alabama police officers interested in advancing in their careers will soon have access to a program specifically designed to help them become command staff. The new Southeastern Leadership Command College in development at Jacksonville State University will train law enforcement professionals to lead departments and agencies. Housed within the JSU Center for Best Practices in Law Enforcement, Command College will be open to any Alabama police officer who holds the rank of sergeant or above, providing professional development to senior leaders such as police chiefs and sheriffs while grooming those at the sergeant and lieutenant levels for leadership roles. Expanding on our extensive training opportunities, Command College will specifically address the needs of law enforcement personnel currently in leadership positions or who may be moving into leadership positions, said Kaleb Littlejohn, director of the Center for Best Practices in Law Enforcement. While plans to establish Command College have been in development for a few years, Littlejohn said the timeline was accelerated after a delegation from the university visited the Law Enforcement Institute of Texas (LEMIT) at Sam Houston State University last fall. The LEMIT institute is the model program in the country for providing advanced training opportunities to law enforcement leaders, Littlejohn said. Meeting with LEMIT encouraged us to design a program to help officers gain the skills and resources needed to better lead a department or unit within a department. JSUs program curriculum will center on general management and leadership principles, including public policy, laws and regulations, the social environment of police management and law enforcement administration. Course credit may be available in the future for those who plan to pursue advanced degrees, pending approval from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Command College is expected to begin enrolling students in January 2024. The program will be free for sworn law enforcement officers in Alabama, while those located outside the state may apply but will incur a small fee to cover meals and lodging. For more information, contact the Center for Best Practices in Law Enforcement at CBPLE@jsu.edu. US President Joe Biden on Monday condemned Russia's missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, saying they "demonstrate the utter brutality" of Vladimir Putin's "illegal war." "The United States strongly condemns Russia's missile strikes today across Ukraine," Biden said in a statement. "These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose," he said. "They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin's illegal war on the Ukrainian people." The US president said the attacks "only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes. "Alongside our allies and partners, we will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom," Biden said. "We again call on Russia to end this unprovoked aggression immediately and remove its troops from Ukraine." Eleven members of NATO's eastern flank on Tuesday called Russia's recent bombing blitz across Ukraine a "war crime", adding that any nuclear threats were "unacceptable". Russian forces rained more than 80 missiles on cities across Ukraine on Monday, according to Kyiv, in apparent retaliation for an explosion that damaged a key bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to Russia. "We... condemn the mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities recently carried out by Russia, which constitute war crimes under international law," said the joint statement released by the Polish president's office. It was adopted by the presidents of the so-called Bucharest Nine countries, as well as Montenegro and North Macedonia -- all members of the Western defence alliance. The B9 countries include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. "On behalf of our states we demand that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets," the heads of state said, more than seven months since Russia invaded Ukraine. The presidents also referenced the thinly veiled threats of using nuclear weapons made by their Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. "We find any threats by Russian representatives to use nuclear weapons unacceptable," they said. "In this context, we reaffirm our commitment to protect our countries and allies." Russia said on Tuesday it launched mass strikes on Ukraine hours ahead of a meeting of G7 leaders who Kyiv is lobbying to supply enhanced air defences against what it called "desperate" attacks by Moscow. Officials in Ukraine's western region of Lviv said at least three Russian missiles targeted energy infrastructure forcing Kyiv to ask people to cut their electricity usage and switch off appliances at night. Russia's defence ministry confirmed the attacks saying it had carried out massive strikes using long-range and high-precision weapons and that "all assigned targets were hit". In Lviv, the largest city in the region of the same name, the mayor said that one-third of homes were without power. Ukraine has ratcheted up its calls for advanced air defence systems to help stave off future Russian barrages, with Prime Minister Denys Shmygal asking for "more modern weapons to protect the sky and civilians". The G7 meeting comes a day after Russian missiles rocked the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months. President Volodymyr Zelensky was defiant, warning his country "cannot be intimidated". The Ukrainian defence ministry said Monday that Russia had fired 83 missiles at Ukraine, of which its air defences shot down 52, among which were 43 cruise missiles. Ukraine's emergency services said on Tuesday that the overall toll had risen to 19 dead and more than 100 people wounded. The Kremlin said it expected "confrontation" with the West to continue as the G7 leaders prepared to meet. The United Nations said on Tuesday the wave of attacks may have violated the laws of war and would amount to war crimes if civilians were deliberately targeted. Monday's mass barrage came in apparent retaliation for an explosion on Saturday that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the bridge blast and warned of "severe" responses to any further attacks. - 'Just peace' - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes showed Moscow was "desperate" after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks, a sentiment echoed by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg who said they were "a sign of weakness". Turkey on Tuesday called for a viable ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine "as soon as possible", with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expected to meet Putin in Kazakhstan this week. Speaking in a televised interview, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also called for a "just peace" based on Ukraine's territorial integrity. Residents across Ukraine expressed shock and rage after Monday's onslaught. In Dnipro, Ukrainian serviceman Maxim was on leave from the front lines for the first time in six months to celebrate his wife's birthday when Russian missiles slammed into the central Ukrainian city, damaging their home. "We are fighting on the front exactly to protect these places" far from enemy lines, he said. "But they still manage to hit them." Zelensky and G7 leaders were due to convene via video link at 1200 GMT on Tuesday to discuss the latest Russian attacks. - 'A profound change' - The office of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss said she would use the gathering "to urge fellow leaders to stay the course". "Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve to help them win it." German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters on Monday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him "of the solidarity of Germany and the other G7 states". French President Emmanuel Macron convened his defence and foreign affairs ministers over the strikes, which he said signalled "a profound change in the nature of this war". US President Joe Biden condemned Monday's attacks in stark terms, saying they demonstrated "the utter brutality" of Putin's "illegal war". In a statement, the White House said Biden had spoken to Zelensky and had pledged to furnish Ukraine with "advanced air defence systems". Putin meanwhile was due to meet the head of the UN's nuclear energy watchdog, Rafael Grossi, in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday to discuss the Russian-controlled nuclear plant in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. Fighting around the facility for months has raised fears of a nuclear accident. In Ukraine, a large number of civilian casualties resulted from attacks where explosive weapons with wide area effects were used points out a UN report published on September 27 and covering the period from February 1 to July 31 this year. It documents abuses including arbitrary deprivation of life, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment, and conflict-related sexual violence. This report came shortly after an interim one by another UN-appointed body, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, whose chairman Erik Mse of Norway said that war crimes have been committed. These two bodies operate separately and have different mandates, but are cooperating, according to Norwegian judge and former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Mse. The three-person Commission of Inquiry which he heads was set up by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in March 2022 to investigate alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) in Ukraine and preserve evidence for future legal proceedings. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine was established in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea. It monitors, reports and advocates on the human rights situation in Ukraine, with a particular focus on the conflict area of eastern Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation. Guilty verdicts The Missions September report for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR also Geneva-based) points mostly to Russian abuses, but says it has also documented some on the Ukrainian side, particularly against prisoners of war. OHCHR welcomes efforts of the Government of Ukraine to investigate and prosecute serious violations of IHL and gross violations of international human rights law perpetrated in the context of the armed attack by the Russian Federation, and to bring perpetrators to account, says the report. It also notes Government efforts to address violations perpetrated by its own agents and awaits concrete progress in this regard. It notes that since February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, national courts of Ukraine have rendered guilty verdicts against six members of Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups for violations of the rules and customs of war. One Russian serviceman was convicted of killing a civilian, and two servicemen were found guilty of indiscriminate shelling resulting in damage to civilian objects. In addition, three members of Russian-affiliated armed groups were prosecuted and sentenced for pillage of private property. Justice Info has been documenting these trials through its correspondents in Ukraine. The OHCHR report notes that Russia too has an obligation to investigate, prosecute, and punish members of armed forces and affiliated armed groups found to have committed violations of IHL and international human rights law, but that it is not aware of any measures taken at the national level in the Russian Federation to hold its combatants or those in command to account for such violations. Ukraine clearly has the upper hand on justice. OHCHR says that during the reporting period it monitored 14 proceedings and analysed 344 verdicts, of which 190 verdicts for crimes committed after the Russian invasion on February 24 [see chart]. The report points to fair trial rights violations in separatist regions, including Donetsk, where a court handed down death sentences against three non-nationals who were members of the Ukrainian armed forces [subsequently released in a prisoner swap]. But it says OHCHR is also concerned about recurring human rights and IHL violations in trials against members of Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups by Ukrainian national courts. Overview of war-related trials extracted from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine report for the period 1 February to 31 July 2022. Confessions under duress These include violations of the right not to be compelled to testify against oneself or confess ones guilt, and the right to prepare a defence, according to the report, which does not specify the cases concerned. In such cases, it continues, prosecutors and investigators have offered defendants the possibility of release as part of a prisoner swap, in return for a confession. OHCHR says it is concerned that this practice applies undue psychological pressure on defendants to accept an arbitrary offer and confess, regardless of their innocence or guilt. It notes that, prior to July, there was no legal basis for offering defendants to be exchanged, and even after the procedure was formally established, there was no guarantee that a particular defendant would be included in any exchange. It also documented 19 cases in which it says defendants did not have the possibility to consult with their appointed lawyer prior to the trial. We observed that at least 13 trials were conducted in what appeared to be expedited proceedings, the UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine told Justice Info in written answers to our questions. We also noted that national human rights organizations described such trials as conveyor justice. In those cases, defendants participated via videoconference. Preparatory hearings and hearings on the merits were also in some instances held in one day, and verdicts based mostly on admissions of guilt made during trial were rendered on the same or the next day. These proceedings raise concerns about the overall fairness of the trial, particularly in light of the fact that confessions were provided under duress. The Ukrainian parliament adopted a legal procedure on prisoner of war exchanges on July 28 this year, the report explains. Amendments provide that even prisoners of war accused of international crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity can be released from detention and exchanged, while the criminal proceedings against them continue in absentia. But OHCHR expresses concern that this might amount to a de facto amnesty and recalls that States must investigate international crimes alleged to have been committed on their territory, and, if appropriate, prosecute suspects. Release of Shishimarin co-accused While the report is not specific in terms of cases, it does mention concerns about one identifiable case covered by Justice Info: that of captured Russian serviceman Vadim Shishimarin, who was sentenced in May to life in jail after pleading guilty to killing a civilian and eventually had his sentence reduced to 15 years on appeal in July. In that case, the SBU [Ukraine state security services] published a defendants confession online prior to the trial, according to the report. That defendant stood trial for killing a civilian, while his fellow servicemen, who may have given orders to kill the civilian, were released during an exchange of prisoners of war, the report continues. This may breach the obligation of Ukraine to investigate and prosecute war crimes, where appropriate. In addition, the defence lawyer was denied his request to question the released servicemen, which may have jeopardised the equality of arms. Lastly, the release and exchange of the servicemen may also jeopardize the realization of rights of victims to truth and reparations. We have documented cases where the authorities have published confessions of defendants prior to trial, which violates the presumption of innocence, the Mission stressed in its written responses to Justice Info. In addition, defendants have been held in metal and glass boxes during the trial, which international human rights jurisprudence has found may jeopardized the presumption of innocence. Treason trials and trials of civilians OHCHR cautions that prosecuting for state treason individuals serving in Russian-affiliated armed groups and entitled to prisoner of war status is inconsistent with the principle of combatant immunity. The UN human rights body says it also followed criminal proceedings against civilians prosecuted for conflict-related crimes. During the reporting period, Ukrainian courts rendered 260 verdicts in such cases, against 261 persons (194 men and 67 women), according to the report. OHCHR says it documented 27 cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, ill treatment of defendants and suspects in order to compel them to testify, procedural violations for house searches or arrests, and lack of access to legal counsel during the initial period of detention and interrogation. Defendants from Russian-affiliated armed groups captured after February 24 were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 11 to 15 years for trespass against territorial integrity, state treason, membership in a terrorist organization, membership in unlawful armed formations and unlawful possession of firearms. IHL does not explicitly prohibit the prosecution for state treason of combatants who defected. However, sentencing members of Russian-affiliated armed groups in the hostilities under the above-listed crimes for acts that constitute mere participation in the armed conflict violates their combatant privilege, said the Mission. Cooperation with the ICC As well as investigating and prosecuting crimes at national level, the report notes that the Ukrainian government is also cooperating with various international bodies that can contribute to accountability, including the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, OHCHR writes that an explanatory note to the law on cooperation with the ICC, adopted by the Ukrainian parliament on May 3, restricts its scope to the investigation and prosecution of only people fighting for Russian armed forces or affiliated armed groups. Therefore, the cooperation of the International Criminal Court with Ukrainian judicial authorities in cases of alleged crimes committed by individuals fighting on the side of Ukraine remains outside the scope of the law and unregulated, says the report. This may have a serious impact on the right to effective remedy for all victims of international crimes, regardless of the perpetrator. Abbey Carpet & Floor at Patricias in Cape Coral, Florida is celebrating its 23rd year in business. Abbey Carpet & Floor at Patricias offers a range of flooring and wall tiling for residential and commercial spaces including carpet, carpet tile, hardwood, laminate, luxury vinyl planks, epoxy and tile. Abbey Carpet & Floor at Patricias in Cape Coral is celebrating its 23rd year!approx anniversary this year. Jeff Houfek, along with wife Vicki and family, took over the business on August 13thth1999. The company has since served residential and commercial flooring customers in Lee and Collier Counties. Abbey Carpet & Floor at Patricias offers a range of flooring and wall tiling for homes and businesses including carpet, carpet tile, hardwood, laminate, luxurious vinyl floor, epoxy and tiles. Abbeys large showroom offers a selection from Mohawk, Shaw, Stanton, Engineered Floors, US Floors, Tarkett, Tesoro and many more. Abbey Carpet & Floor at Patricias is Cape Corals premier tile shop. In addition to the large showroom, customers can visit the website at: http://www.carpetandflooringcapecoral.com to browse the selection and gain knowledge about products. In addition to browsing products, visitors can use the latest technology and see that product in a photo of their room with the room visualizer. Customers can easily upload photos of the areas they want to change and choose different colors and styles of flooring and see how it will look in the room. Our goal is to give your project a unique and personalized touch that perfectly matches your unique flooring needs. Its a pleasure for us to hear your ideas about your project and to help you bring them to fruition. says Jeff Houfek, owner and operator. Abbey staff are on hand to help customers design their home, from floors to splashbacks and showers. They often work with local businesses to help Have you lost money investing in Abbott Laboratories? If yes, please visit us Class Action by Abbott Laboratories Shareholders or contact Peter Allocco at (212) 951-2030 or [email protected] to discuss your rights. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationally recognized investor rights law firm, is reminding investors of the deadline for filing a motion by lead plaintiff in a securities class action lawsuit filed on behalf of investors who own the common stock of Abbott Laboratories (Abbott or the Company) (NYSE ABT) between bought or acquired February 19, 2021 and June 8, 2022, inclusive (the Class Period). The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleging violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Abbott offers a wide range of healthcare products, including various forms of infant formula such as Similac, Alimentum and EleCare. Prior to February 2022, Abbott had produced 40% of the infant formula in the United States. Of this amount, approximately 40% of the formula was manufactured by Abbott at its Sturgis, Michigan manufacturing facility (Sturgis). The plaintiff alleges that the defendants made false claims about the safety and merchantability of Abbotts infant formula amid multiple violations of federal and state health and safety regulations at the companys Sturgis facility. On February 17, 2022, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it was investigating four consumer complaints of infant diseases related to powdered infant formula manufactured by Abbott in Sturgis. The FDA said it has initiated an on-site inspection at the facility and, to date, has found multiple positive contamination results from environmental samples for a bacterium, Cronobacter sakazakii (Cronobacter), which has been linked to infant disease and death becomes. On the same day, Abbott issued a recall of certain infant formula products, including the popular brands SAN DIEGO, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) The Shareholders Foundation, Inc. announced that an investor who SOLD Twitter stock has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk. Investors who SOLD over $100,000 worth of Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) between May and October 2022 have certain options and short and strict deadlines. Deadline: December 12, 2022. Those who have SOLD Twitter stock should contact the Shareholders Foundation at [email protected] or call +1(858) 779-1554. In late April 2022, Twitter, Inc. (Twitter) announced that it had been acquired by Elon Musk (Musk) for $54.20 per share. Then, on May 13, 2022, Musk tweeted that the merger was on hold, and on May 17, 2022 that the deal could not go ahead. Musk then sent letters to Twitter ending the merger. After receiving the first termination letter, Twitter sued Musk for specific performance in Delaware. Twitter shares fell to $32.52 per share in July. Twitters lawsuit against Musk went to trial on October 17, 2022. However, on October 4, 2022, Musk announced that he intended to do the merger for $54.20. On October 10, 2022, a seller of Twitter stock filed the lawsuit against Musk alleging securities law violations. The plaintiff alleges that Musks statements are false because Musk was not entitled to due diligence and had in fact waived due diligence, Musk was aware of the problems of bots and spam on Twitter, and there were no legally justifiable reasons for Musk to terminate the merger. The plaintiff demands damages. Those who have SOLD NYSE: TWT stock should contact the Shareholders Foundation, Inc. The Shareholders Foundation, Inc. is a professional portfolio legal monitoring and settlement filing service that conducts research on shareholder matters and educates investors about securities class actions, settlements, judgments and other legal updates related to Turkey on Tuesday called for a ceasefire in Ukraine, just days before a likely meeting between Turkey and Russia leaders in the Kazakh capital Astana. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has received praise for finalizing a grain deal as well as prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine, has long tried to bring Kyiv and Moscow together on ceasefire talks that neither side particularly wants. NATO member Turkey, which has remained neutral during the Ukraine conflict, has good relations with its two Black Sea neighbors, Vladimir Putins Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, since talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul in March (both sides) have quickly moved away from diplomacy, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a television interview. Unfortunately, as the Ukrainian-Russian war drags on, the situation is getting worse and more complicated, added the Turkish diplomat, who called for an immediate ceasefire. A ceasefire must be established as soon as possible. The sooner the better, he said. -Viable Truce- Erdogan, who has a good working relationship with Putin despite disagreements on several issues including Syria, is likely to meet with the Russian leader in Astana on Thursday, a Turkish official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Turkey has refrained from joining Western sanctions against Russia. Erdogan, who met with Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan last month, is keen to boost trade with Moscow while trying to stabilize Turkeys struggling economy ahead of next Junes elections. Bowing to pressure from the United States, Ankara has confirmed that Turkeys last three banks still processing Russian bank card payments are pulling the plug. The decision followed weeks of increasingly blunt warnings from Washington to Turkey to either limit economic ties with Russia or face the threat of sanctions itself. Erdogan has yet to comment on Russian mass attacks in Ukraine on Monday, which have killed at least 19 and injured more than 100 by Ukrainian emergency services. Cavusoglu had a phone conversation with Ukraines counterpart Dmytro Kuleba after the attacks, a Turkish diplomatic source said, without elaborating. During Tuesdays interview, Cavusoglu called for a just peace based on Ukraines territorial integrity. There must be a just peace for Ukraine. Where is the war taking place? It takes place on Ukrainian soil, he said. A process that will ensure Ukraines borders and territorial integrity should begin. Without a truce, it is not possible to speak in a healthy way about these issues: a viable truce and a just peace. Nam Ji Hyun talks about the success of "Little Women" and the actresses she wants to work with in the future. The 27-year-old star is gaining the attention she deserves after landing the role of Oh In Kyung in the novel-based K-drama along with Kim Go Eun, and Park Ji Hoo from "All of Us Are Dead." Following the drama's successful finale, Nam Ji Hyun talks about her experience filming the drama and thoughts about her dream project. Nam Ji Hyun on Playing Oh In Kyung In "Little Women," her character Oh In Kyung is a fearless journalist who wants justice to prevail after exposing the illegal activities of Seoul's mayoral candidate Park Jae Sang by digging into his corruption. Nam Ji Hyun described her character as someone who is easily swayed by her emotions and "goes straight ahead without any fear to her goal." Immersed with her character, she revealed that she once asked a reporter what it's like to be in their shoes and do their job. "I found out that there are many reporters who feel great pleasure in digging into one and drawing a bigger picture," she said as obtained by an outlet. In the tvN series, "Little Women" depicts the story of three sisters who lived in poverty and got caught up in a huge incident involving an influential family. It all started when Kim Go Eun's character, Oh In Joo, unexpectedly received 2 billion won from a late friend. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Nam Ji Hyun Celebrates 18th Debut Anniversary With Surprise Announcement For Nam Ji Hyun, "Little Women" is more than just a story but "deals with poverty as a theme" and at the same time, "shows different attitudes towards poverty through various characters." Apart from her successful K-drama comeback, the 27-year-old actress will be celebrating her 18 years in show business. Nam Ji Hyun Names Two Former Child Stars She Wants To Work With Debuting in the 2004 MBC drama "Say You Love Me" and playing the role of young Yoon So Yi, Nam Ji Hyun started her career as a child star playing supporting roles in "My Love," "Lobbyist," "The Great King, Sejong" and more. After 18 years in the industry, she managed to solidify her name as one of the K-drama lead stars, joining series like "100 Days My Prince," "365: Repeat the Year" and "The Witch's Diner." As for her future projects, she mentioned that she wanted to work with fellow child actresses and named two stars she looked forward to acting on the same project. She says that she feels closer to "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" star Park Eun Bin and Lee Se Young of "The Law Cafe" who also started their career as child stars. For Nam Ji Hyun, she feels "proud to see other child actresses continue to be successful" and imagines working with them in the future. "They all went through similar experiences as I did. There's something that you share with them without even having to say out loud," she said. Interestingly, Nam Ji Hyun and Park Hyun Bin entered the same college and both majored in psychology before joining the cast as child actresses in "The Great Queen Seondeok." KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills Namgoong Min's wife, Jin Ah Reum shared photos during their wedding day. On her Instagram, the model actress posted a series of snaps during their special day held on October 7 at Shilla Hotel in Seoul. Jin Ah Reum's Instagram Displays Dazzling Photos During her Wedding With Namgoong Min After seven years of dating, the couple tied the knot in front of their family relatives and close friends. Wearing a stunning off-shoulder gown, Jin Ah Reum and Namgoong Min looked like a perfect couple as they officially became husband and wife. In one photo, the model actress radiates oozing beauty donning a pink sparkly tube dress, showing off her sexy collarbone as she greets the guests during their reception. On her official Instagram, she wrote, "Hello, this is model Jin Ahreum. I sincerely thank everyone who has congratulated, supported, and helped (us). We will be mature and pretty, and live happily." During the wedding, Namgoong Min's close friend and "The Veil" co-star Jung Moon Sung hosted the ceremony while TVXQ serenaded the guests with a congratulatory song. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Namgoong Min Relationship Status 2022: How He Met Longtime Girlfriend Jin Ah Reum On the other hand, the newlywed's honeymoon is set after the actor wraps up filming for his SBS drama "One Thousand Won Lawyer". From Actress-Director Relationship to Husband and Wife The model-actress first met Namgoong Min after she starred in the 2018 movie "Light My Fire" along with Lee Dong Hwi, Oh Jung Se, and more. Interestingly, this is also the renowned actor's directorial debut. In a previous interview, Jin Ah Reum revealed that she was not interested in Namgoong Min at first; however, the actor pursued her and began to see the real Namgoong Min "It was burdensome. He continued to contact me to see me again," she said during her appearance at KBS 2TV's "Happy Together" and added, "But he turned out to be honest, straightforward, and innocent, so I began to open up. From then on, the actor constantly showed his affection toward his girlfriend and this gained the moniker "model boyfriend." It can be recalled that Namgoong Min mentioned Jin Ah Reum's name after winning the Daesang recognition at the 2017 KBS Drama Awards, for his stunning performance in "Good Manager." During his acceptance speech, he thanked his family for loving him "unconditionally" and mentioned his girlfriend's name on stage as he expressed his love and gratitude for the model-actress. The same goes for the 2021 MBC Drama Awards where he received the Daesang trophy for his role as Han Ji Hyuk in MBC's "The Veil." The teary-eyed actor proudly thanked Jin Ah Reum and said "Thank you for always being by my side. I love you." After his current K-drama "One Dollar Lawyer" the award-winning actor is set to headline a historical romance series with "Hospital Playlist" actress Ahn Eun Jin. KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills FILE - Kanye West arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Feb. 9, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Wests Twitter and Instagram accounts have been locked because of posts by the rapper, now known legally as Ye, that were widely deemed antisemitic, according to reports, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) Sean Fraser rises during Question Period, Friday, October 7, 2022 in Ottawa. Last week the immigration minister announced the government would temporarily lift the 20-hour cap on the number of hours international students can work off-campus to address labour shortages.THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle Hands type on a keyboard in Vancouver on Wednesday, December, 19, 2012. Some Ontario workers can now demand to know how their employer is using electronic tools to monitor them at work. CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward Modern Apothecary, an independently owned pharmacy in Downtown Kenosha, announced on social media that owner Erin Merritt had purchased 5700 6th Ave., with plans to move the business into the new location early spring next year. For the time being, Merritt said their current location at 4924 7th Ave. will continue to operate, as extensive renovations are needed on the new building before they can begin moving. Were looking forward to the larger space, we need more room, Merritt said. We have boxes everywhere. Merritt said the move was years in the making, as her business had began to outgrow the old building. The new store will take up about 5,500 square feet on the first floor of the former F.W. Woolworth Co. store, more than double the space in her current building. Merritt said the additional space will allow them to expand their services in ways impossible in their smaller space. Merritt plans to make extensive renovations to the Woolworths building, much like she did with her current location, the 120-year-old former location of the Hermann Drug Store, which had been vacant for years prior to Modern Apothecarys opening in 2014. We want to keep some of the feel we have with the pharmacy right now, Merritt said. Her work was so successful, the building won the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. top revitalization award in the over $7,500 category at the Wisconsin State Main Street awards ceremony in 2015. Kevin Ervin, member of the Downtown Kenosha Business Improvement District, owns Franks Diner, 508 58th St. He said was looking forward to Modern Apothecarys move, especially as it would finally bring a permanent store to a location that has seen a number of businesses over the past decade. He praised Merritts work on the Hermann store and said he looked forward to what she would do with the new location. Theres so much love put into that building, it looks so cool, I hope she does something cool with the building she just got, Ervin said. Im sure her neighbors will be sad to see her go. Although theres plenty of work ahead, Merritt was glad to be taking this first major step. Honestly, it feels really good to know we have a long term location, Merritt said. Were excited, well keep everyone updated. Merritt said theyd been looking for a new location since fall of 2019. However, troubles finding a good location in the area and the pandemic effectively halted their efforts. COVID sort of threw a wrench in our plans, Merritt said. We were so busy it wasnt very high on our priority list at the time. Built in the late 1950s, the former Woolworths building sits just across from S J Crystal Mens Shop. The building was later renovated with additional glass windows for the U.S. Census Bureau. This essay is inspired in part by my recent encounter with a scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For starters, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA for short is an agency of the U.S. government responsible for Americas space program and aeronautics research. JPL, NASAs research and development center located in Pasadena, California, produces spacecraft called rovers used in extra-planetary explorations. It turns out that this man who leads a team of rocket scientists converses in English. He was not born in the U.S., and I couldnt place his accent either. But I suspect that, more than likely, he may have emigrated to the U.S. at some point past his formative years. Yet, despite this shortcoming, he rose to the pinnacle of his career. We will get to that a little later. Artemis is NASAs lunar space exploration program. The program is named after the daughter of the sky god and king of gods Zeus and Leto. The god Apollo, the eponymously titled Apollo 11, the space program that put the first human and an American astronaut, Neil Armstrong, on the moon on July 16, 1969, was named after, is the twin sister in Greek mythology. NASAs Artemis comprises three separate parts joined together. The Space Launch System (SLS) is the rocket system that starts the journey. The Orion crew capsule was designed to separate from the rocket to begin its ascent into lunar orbit. Lastly, a lander will ferry astronauts down to the moons surface from lunar orbit. The programs goal is to pave the way for future space exploration. Using the moon as a base, NASA will build the infrastructures needed to pursue the next frontiers, which would be a trip to Mars. As a physician, I have been curious about medical therapeutic possibilities from space exploration. In the mid-2000s, NASA researchers developed a chemical reagent that can detect the shingle virus in saliva quickly and easily. This helps to detect the virus before its serious. But by far, one of the most revolutionary NASA-inspired inventions is called neuroArm, the worlds first robot capable of performing surgery inside magnetic resonance machines. This robot mimics the robotic arm developed for extravehicular activities in the now-retired U.S. space shuttles. The delicate touch successfully removed an egg-shaped tumor from a patients brain. Fascinating, right? Asked if the total budget of $93B for the Artemis program an amount more than the combined annual budget of many countries put together is a great way to appropriate resources, one top NASA executive had this to say: We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown. My take is that its hard to justify the cost of space exploration versus the benefit in a world where millions are dying of hunger and starvation. But it inspires humans to dream about the impossible and go for it. The importance of that cannot be quantified in dollar terms. I love NASA and am highly fascinated by the American space program. The incredible science behind it and the ingenuity of men pushing the frontiers of science never ceased to amaze me. But the man regarded as the father of American space travel was a German, though he later became a naturalized American. Wernher von Braun was a member of Hitlers Nazi Party and as well as the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany. He helped develop the V-2 rocket used during the world war. After the war, he was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of an operation code-named Paper clip. In 1960, his group was assimilated into NASA, where he later served as director of the Marshall Space Flight Center and was the chief architect of the Saturn V rocket that propelled the Apollo spacecraft. The Apollo 11 expedition was what handed the U.S. victory over the Soviets during the space war. If there is anything America is known for, its a magnet for global talents. To ensure that America is first in innovation, the U.S. Congress created the H-1B Visa program in 1990. Sixty-five thousand new visas are issued every year, with an additional 20,000 available to workers with a U.S. masters degree or higher. The work-focused visa was introduced to allow companies in the U.S. to hire high-skilled workers and has played a crucial role in driving innovation and business growth in the United States for the past three decades. Laurie Leshin, a highly accomplished woman and geochemistry and planetary science professor, has been JPL Director since May 16, 2022. She left her job as the 16th President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute to join NASA. Her former position at Worcester is now occupied by a Nigerian-American, Wole Soboyejo, a material scientist whose professional career took him to the hallowed grounds of MIT and Princeton. So many ills may bedevil America, but she celebrates excellence in every hue and color. Here is one nation that continues to be the melting pot for talents from all over the world. Osmund Agbo is a pulmonary physician. Image credit: Shutterstock.com Gardai have warned that people caught with illegal fireworks will be brought to court, as the force is to step up its searches. It comes as the Department of Justice launched its annual fireworks campaign at the garda headquarters in Dublins Phoenix Park. Anne Marie McMahon, deputy commissioner policing and security, reminded the public that it is illegal to buy and sell fireworks. The deputy commissioner warned that people can get seriously injured from handling fireworks, with incidents of people losing limbs and damaging their eyes. We want everyone to enjoy Halloween and be safe and it you want to see fireworks, go to an organised legal event, she said. The message from An Garda Siochana is that we know that from our experience that people get injured, sometimes losing limbs, damage to their eyes, really serious injuries. We know this happens every year despite all the warnings. Please be safe and do not have fireworks in your possession. It is illegal in this country and you are liable to prosecution if you are found to be in possession of fireworks. We will be proactively searching for fireworks, we have some seized already. That will continue right over the next six weeks. We will gather intelligence in relation to fireworks in addition to seizing them and preparing files for the DPP. She added: As part of Operation Tombola, we will be having searches right around the country, including the border area. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that fireworks can have a negative impact on communities. We want to make people aware that it is a criminal offence to buy or sell fireworks, the Fine Gael minister said. Particularly vulnerable persons, particularly people living on their own, the impact on animals. I am asking people to consider that, particularly young people as we come up to Halloween. Also, to consider the first responders, be it the fire brigade or ambulance service who have to come out and often deal with the very difficult situations with accidents but themselves who often targeted. I would ask people to respect their first responders and think of your community and those who might be vulnerable. Dr Cyril Sullivan, chief executive of ISPCA (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), urged pet owners to keep animals indoors during the Halloween period. Dr Sullivan was joined at the garda headquarters by dogs, Danny and Jess, who are currently in the care of the ISPCA and are looking for a home. Its case that we really want people to enjoy their weekend and enjoy their Halloween. It is the busiest night of the year for emergency services and it is also a very dangerous and fearful night for our animals, he said. The ISCPCA message is simple; if you can, keep your animal in on Halloween night. Its key. If you are going out, keep your animal in with a family member or with a neighbour. If you have to go out and have to bring your animal with you, we recommend that dogs are microchipped, so if anything goes wrong and dogs are lost, they can be tracked down. We want our pets and animals to have a safe and happy Halloween. The Cushen family of Cushendale are the custodians of a unique woollen mill that has stood in the picturesque village of Graignamanagh for over 800 years. The family have been immersed in woollen textile manufacturing since the 18th century and are very aware of the heritage of their enterprise. They appreciate that every day that they walk in the footsteps of their ancestors. Bearing in mind this legacy, it is apt that Philip Cushen of Cushendale last week won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Made Awards organised by Irish Country Magazine. Commenting on his award, Philip Cushen modestly says: It was a surprise, a pleasant surprise. The survival of Cushendale is a testament to their products but Philip also says: A lot of it is luck - sometimes you make the right decision. Six generations of the Cushen family, have crafted textiles in Graignamanagh. spinning yarn and weaving blankets, they have forged an enviable reputation and set the standard for the excellence preserved under the eye of Philip Cushen and now his daughter Miriam and her husband Trevor. As part of the first settlement of Cisterician monks in Graignamanagh, a mill was constructed adjacent to the abbey on higher ground, the site of Cushen mill. Today Cushendale and Graignamanagh are part of the World Crafts Council designated Craft City and Region, one of only four regions in Europe. The preservation of the historic mill race which supplies the water to Cushendale is, Philip says, an important thing. Philip attributes the success of Cushendale to a combination of factors, but says that things changed dramatically when they got involved with what was then Kilkenny Design Workshop back in the 60s and 70s. This government sponsored initiative sought to improve the standard of design in domestic craft and manufacturing via the input of international designers, many of them Scandinavian. Their input helped to modernise and improve the product made by Cushendale, so that they began to reflect the influence of designers like Mary Quant who was popularising vibrant and unusual colour combinations. With this new perspective as Philip observes, the future opened up as the company made themselves open to new ideas or products. Now Cushendale shows at international fairs such as Shoppe Object in New York as well as at Showcase in Dublin. They also export to the USA, Japan and South Korea. Philip simply says: Youre as good as your product. Being small is also an advantage. Philip notes: We were small enough to change. In the past Cushendale had five or six people working with them, today its workforce is nine. Wool is the basis of Cushendales beautifully crafted product. Its a material anchored in history yet very appropriate for a modern world now focused on sustainability. Through Cushendales deep-rooted knowledge and passion they create textiles that last for generations. They are a totally vertical operation which means that they dye, spin, weave and finish all their products onsite. They are known for their vivid and intense colour palette which Philip credits to the water in Graignamanagh which runs off granite and shale stone and is very pure without any lime or tannins. As a result all dyes remain very bright and true to colour in the finished products. Cushendale pieces last a very long time. They themselves have blankets that are more than 70 years old, and theyre not just for display they are all well used and well loved. Their old mill is full of perfectly old machinery: which is pretty uncommon in the textile industry today. These machines are part of the Cushendale heritage for a reason: they may run slower and produce less but thats why they make better textiles. This slower manufacturing ethos is gentler, produces deeper colour and also the perfect degree of softness. The future looks bright for Cushendale - they recently launched a re-designed showroom in Graignamanagh and with the fresh input of his daughter Miriam the brand will continue to thrive. Philip explains they are here for six generations and his people have been buried in Graig' since 1690. The tradition of wool in the town remains in very safe hands and Philips's legacy is secure. People have been urged to talk about the Creeslough tragedy as the horror of the explosion that killed 10 people continues to sink in. Crowds of people turned out in Letterkenny, a short distance away in Co Donegal, for a candlelit vigil on Monday evening. Photographs of the 10 victims were placed in the middle of Market Square along with candles. Photographs of the ten people killed in the Creeslough service station tragedy displayed at Market Square in nearby Letterkenny ahead of a vigil this evening pic.twitter.com/6pWeOQdW8C Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) October 10, 2022 Gerry McMonagle, one of the directors of the Letterkenny Community Development Project (CDP), thanked attendees for turning out, and said it will be a solace to the bereaved families. This is our way of helping and assisting the families here tonight, and we want to thank you on behalf of the CDP for coming out here and remembering those families, and being there for them, he said. Prayers were said by two ministers. Many in attendance held candles during a moments silence, and placed the candles beside the photographs afterwards. In Gweedore, around 100 people attended a similar vigil next to a childrens park, 30 minutes west of Creeslough. A priest led the vigil with prayers and told those who attended there would be difficult days and weeks ahead and urged everyone to pray for the victims and their families. The crowd huddled together in the cold October evening and recited prayers in Gaeilge in the Irish-speaking parish. Many clutched candles with their heads bowed as they listened to a musician play songs in memory of those who died. Pictures of the victims were placed in frames and dotted throughout a makeshift shrine. Ten red candles and 10 red roses were placed in a semi-circle, one for each victim, and a picture of Creeslough was placed in the centre. Dozens of people walked silently around the shrine and placed candles next to a bunch of white lilies. Adults placed comforting arms around young teenagers and children as they struggled with the tragedy. Pensioners sat on a bench with blankets wrapped around their legs as they spoke quietly about how the village would cope. Local Garda members and firefighters also attended the vigil, standing side by side in a sign of the joint rescue effort at Fridays incident. Hundreds of people also turned out for a vigil in Derry led by mayor Sandra Duffy. The Allegri and Rosemount Male Voice Choirs performed at the event, and journalist and presenter Frank Galligan shared a poem reflecting on the tragedy. After the gathering in Letterkenny Mr McMonagle said it is important to talk. I think this is what people need after such a tragedy to try and process it. This was an awful incident, I think the randomness of it, it could have happened to any one of us, and that brought it home to people, he told the PA news agency. So I think its important that we come together and be there in solidarity and sympathies with the families affected, either those who died or those who were injured, so we as a community can show our support and can talk and discuss this. Its very important at times like this to have an outlet, its very important to talk to our friends and family about what happened, such a tragic occurrence that had reverberations right across our local community. Thats very noticeable by the demographics of who was affected we had senior citizens, we had school children, we had teenagers and young mothers and fathers. It affected the whole community and we can all relate to it, so I think thats why its important we talk about that, and that we help and support one another to get through it. Mr McGonagle said the mood in Letterkenny has been very sombre. But there is a resilience there to help and assist those families. I think the whole community has come out, not just in Letterkenny but across Donegal, and I know that that will stand to the families in the weeks and the months ahead, he said. In this crowd tonight, everyone will know someone who was affected by this. It is such a tight-knit community, when one hurts we all hurt. Thats why were all here tonight in solidarity and sympathy with those families. A hospital nurse accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others was a constant malevolent presence in their care, a jury has heard. Lucy Letby, 32, is alleged to have gone on a year-long killing spree while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital in the UK. Letby, of Arran Avenue, Hereford, denies murdering five boys and two girls and attempting to murder another five boys and five girls between June 2015 and June 2016. Opening the prosecution case on Monday at Manchester Crown Court, Nick Johnson KC said the Countess of Chester was a busy general hospital which included a neonatal unit that cared for premature and sick babies. He said: It is a hospital like so many others in the UK, but unlike many other hospitals in the UK and unlike many other neonatal units in the UK, within the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital a poisoner was at work. Prior to January 2015 the statistics for the mortality of babies in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester were comparable to other like units. However over the next 18 months or so there was a significant rise in the number of babies who were dying and in the number of serious catastrophic collapses. And these rises were noticed by the consultants working at the Countess of Chester and they searched for a cause. Mr Johnson went on: Their concern was that babies who were dying had deteriorated unexpectedly. Not only that when babies seriously collapsed they did not respond to appropriate and timely resuscitation. Some of the babies who did not die collapsed dramatically but then equally dramatically recovered. Their collapse and recovery defied the normal experience of treating doctors. He continued: Babies who had not been unstable at all suddenly deteriorated. Sometimes babies who had been sick but then been on the mend suddenly deteriorated for no apparent reason. Having searched for a cause, which they were unable to find, the consultants noticed that the inexplicable collapses and deaths did have one common denominator. The presence of one of the neonatal nurses and that nurse was Lucy Letby. He told jurors at Manchester Crown Court that at the relevant time the number of nursing staff at the Countess of Chesters neonatal unit was between 25 and 30 nurses, along with about 15 nursery nurses. Mr Johnson continued: Many of the events in this case occurred on the night shifts. When upon Lucy Letby was moved on to day shifts, the collapses and deaths moved to the day shifts. Mr Johnson said as medics could not account for the collapses and deaths, police were called in and conducted a painstaking review. He said: That review suggests that in the period between mid-2015 and the middle of 2016, somebody in the neonatal unit poisoned two children with insulin. The prosecution say that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence you will hear is that somebody poisoned these babies deliberately with insulin. This was no accident. If we are right about that, the fact that there were two deliberate poisonings will help you when you are assessing whether the collapses and deaths of other children on the neonatal unit were because someone was sabotaging them or whether these were just a tragic coincidence. The collapses and deaths of all the 17 children concerned were not naturally occurring tragedies, Mr Johnson said. He said: They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock, who we say was the constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these 17 children. Mr Johnson said the two children allegedly poisoned with insulin, who cannot be identified, were two baby boys, both born twins; the first born in summer 2015 and the other born in spring 2016. Both were allegedly poisoned a couple of days after they were born. Lucy Letby was on duty when both were poisoned and we allege she was the poisoner, Mr Johnson said. Theres a very restricted number of people who could have been the poisoner, because entry to a neonatal unit is closely restricted. Letby, wearing a blue jacket over a black shirt, earlier pleaded not guilty to seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder. Family members of some of her alleged child victims sat in the public gallery listening as the names of the children were read out during her not guilty pleas. On the other side of the public gallery sat the defendants parents, John, 76, and Susan, 62. A court order prohibits reporting of the identities of surviving and deceased children allegedly attacked by Letby, and prohibits identifying parents or witnesses connected with the children. Oscar-nominated actor Ciaran Hinds has urged Prime Minister Liz Truss to scrap a controversial Bill aimed at resolving Northern Irelands troubled past. The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, which proposes an effective amnesty for Troubles crimes for people who co-operate with an information body, has sparked widespread opposition. It is set to go to the House of Lords for a second reading in the coming weeks as Parliament returns. Hinds wrote an open letter to Ms Truss warning that the Bill would permanently cut off any prospect of justice for bereaved families. The Irish star has urged a rethink on the Bill which he says victims of the Troubles are unanimously opposed to. He recently starred in Kenneth Branagh hit Belfast, for which he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar, and said it showed how frightening and violent the Troubles were. For the many families who lost loved ones that chapter is not closed, and cannot be, without the healing that only real justice can bring, the Belfast-born actor wrote. The rule of law must apply to everyone, without favour. No-one, whether a state or non-state actor, should be above the law. I stand with the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, partners and grandparents of the victims, and all those who are united in strong opposition to your proposals set out in the legacy Bill to permanently deny Troubles victims paths to justice. Victims deserve the same access to justice whether in Belfast or Bristol, Derry or Durham. Hinds raised the killing of 12-year-old Majella OHare, who was shot in the back by a soldier, noting that her brother Michael has been fighting for 44 years for the independent investigation to which they are entitled. He concluded the letter writing: Everyone is entitled to justice. Grainne Teggart, Northern Ireland deputy programme director for Amnesty International UK, welcomed the letter. Liz Truss has an opportunity to swiftly abandon this deeply unjust and cruel Bill and send a message that she stands with victims, for justice and the rule of law. Victims rightly expect and demand accountability, she said. No one should be allowed to get away with murder, torture and other serious violations. Its never too late to do the right thing. All eyes are on the Prime Ministers next move. Will her tenure be a departure from this appalling attack on rights or will she shield perpetrators of horrific crimes, at the expense of victims. There is almost universal opposition to the proposed legislation which would see an effective amnesty offered for people accused of Troubles offences as long as they co-operate with a new truth recovery body. It is also set to halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict. The Bill has been through the House of Commons and is set for consideration by the House of Lords. Kilkennys Parade Tower recently hosted Public Participation Networks (PPNs) from across the South-east (Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary) for an informative environmental event. Up to 80 members and representatives of the PPNs attended on the day to learn about the Eastern and Midlands Climate Action Regional Office, the challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation through actions identified in the respective Climate Action Plans, biodiversity and natural habitat conservation. It also looked at the challenges meeting flora and fauna around the country, and some local initiatives and projects being undertaken to combat the negative impacts of climate change. Guest speaker on the day was highly respected radio and television presenter Eanna Ni Lamhna, who as a biologist, author and environmental consultant presented on a fraction of the plethora of biodiversity and natural habitats here in Ireland. Ms Ni Lamhna highlighted the important role each citizen must play in conserving and protecting native species as well as changing the approach both individually and collectively in relation to environmental issues. She also referenced her new book Wild and Wonderful, which encourages everyone to find a balance between peoples needs and the needs of the planet. Breda Maher, Regional Coordinator from the Eastern and Midlands Climate Action Regional Office, provided a detailed presentation on the work of this office in driving the climate action agenda with the 17 local authorities in the region. Janette OBrien, Climate Action Officer from Carlow County Council presented on her role within the local authority and the delivery of actions identified within the Climate Action Plan which focuses on reducing the Greenhouse gas emissions and energy demands and promote environmentally friendly policies and objectives. This includes the implementation of Decarbonization Zones and will be supported under the Climate Action Fund. The final speakers were Jen Harris, CEO of the Waterford Sustainable Living Initiative better known as SLi and the Waterford Comhairle na nOg, who spoke about the development of their unique CommuniTree App and the Comhairle Project Environment. This was an exceptional experience and it was great to see such interest and energy in the room, said Mags Whelan, Coordinator of Kilkenny PPN. We were delighted to be able to host the event in a building steeped in heritage such as the Parade Tower showcasing the importance of conserving our built heritage. This event, which will be the first of many collaborative PPN environmental occasions, sought to inform members present but also to motivate and empower them as citizens who can each play a practical role in helping us meet our emission targets and mitigate the very real and present issue which is climate change. What is clear from this event is that the community and voluntary groups as well as individuals alike, are far ahead of the policy makers. It is imperative that real and meaningful engagement and participation in local policy development and legislation such as the Climate Action Plans, is undertaken with people at grassroot level, who are on the ground, day-to-day. How can this be done? Fundamentally, this can be achieved by working with the local PPN. By Qi Zhiping It is learned that Japan plans to create a so-called active cyber defense framework and write this in the National Security Strategy revised this year, thus authorizing relevant government agencies to carry out normalized patrol and other activities in cyberspace, especially network intrusions in a non-combat state. If Japan puts this plan to seek a military breakthrough in cyberspace into practice, it will be the latest proof of its attempt to subvert the post-WWII international order and negate its pacifist constitution. It is also an extremely irresponsible and dangerous move that will cause instability and conflict in cyberspace. Cyberspace should not be the new domain for Japan to repeat military expansion. Upholding the pacifist constitution is Japans special obligation under international law. Creating preemptive military forces in cyberspace and carrying out network intrusions violates the obligation of Japan as a losing party in WWII. On the one hand, Tokyo is ostensibly rooting for the full application of international law in cyberspace; on the other hand, it, with the excuse of cyber defense, tries to use cyberspace to secretly revise the constitution and expand its military forces. In 2014, the country formed a cyber defense unit directly under the defense minister, which was later split and inserted into the cyber combat unit of the Ground, Maritime and Air self-defense forces, poised to expand to more than 1,000 people by 2023. If the so-called active cyber defense framework is written into the security strategy document, which then serves as the basis for network intrusions, Japan may be able to break through the defense only restriction first in cyberspace. Cyberspace should not be a geopolitical arena. For some time, the US, in its narrow perspective of major-country competition, has introduced military alliance and ideological divergences into cyberspace to stir up major-country confrontation and divide the digital domain. As a losing party in WWII, Japan should have cherished the peaceful environment today even more, but it is nevertheless intensifying its coordination with the US in the online military domain. In May this year, then Japanese defense minister Kishi Nobuo visited the US Cyber Command for the first time, and Tokyo was requesting closer military cooperation with NATO in cyberspace. Japan is catering to the US and changing cyberspace into a new battlefield. The cyber issue should not be the new tool for Japan to muddy the waters in the Asia Pacific. Cyberspace is becoming a new position of Japans efforts to counter and curb China and draw conflicts to the East. The Japanese side has been following the US in groundlessly smearing and attacking China on cybersecurity in total disregard of facts. Its new draft cybersecurity strategy issued in 2021 listed China as a cyber threat along with Russia and DPRK in an attempt to fabricate the new "China threat". In the meantime, it is the only East Asian country that has signed the so-called Declaration for the Future of the Internet initiated by the US, sparing no effort to squeeze into the various US-led small circles of cybersecurity while essentially playing to Americas wrong China policy in the cyber domain. Japans passive behaviors will sabotage regional peace and development, a situation that has come along the hard way. Statistics show that the information and communications industry of East Asia and Southeast Asia accounts for nearly 70% of the world, and cyber and digital cooperation is the new highlight in Asian Pacific development. Japans military adventures in cyberspace will aggravate the risk of cyber conflicts and dim the regional prospects of digital development. Such a typical move against the trend of the time will surely repel the public. Japan should think about the counter effects of its network intrusions. The Internet is now enmeshed in every aspect of peoples lives. Any cyber conflict may have effects of such coverage and depth beyond its imagination and control. Network intrusion under Japans so-called active defense framework will not make it feel more secure; rather, it will easily cause misjudgment and escalate the situation to be out of control, even from cyberspace to the physical space, lending a heavy blow to the highly digitally dependent Japanese society. Cyberspace is the common space for all humanity. A secure, stable and prosperous cyberspace is important for all countries and the world in general. We advise the Japanese side to act cautiously, stick to the road of peaceful development, and not make any military adventures in cyberspace, or it will only end up hurting itself. (The author is an observer of international issues) Editor's note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Outbound passengers line up to board a flight to Haneda, Japan at Gimpo International Airport as the neighboring country permitted visa-free entry to citizens of 68 countries and regions again on Tuesday. Yonhap By Lee Hae-rin Citizens of 68 countries and regions including South Korea are now allowed to enter Japan again without a visa starting Tuesday. Visa-free entry for Korean nationals to Japan had been suspended for two years and seven months amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Japanese government had posed strict border restrictions to control the entry of foreign coronavirus patients. On March 9, 2020, Japan halted visa-free entry for Korean nationals and shut down its borders completely to foreign nationals in November of last year. The neighboring country has lifted its travel restrictions starting with overseas travelers entering for business and education in March, then allowing package tour groups to enter with visas in June. Thus, starting on Tuesday, foreign nationals eligible to enter Japan for a short-term stay, the period of which varies by country, will no longer be limited to package tours. However, those traveling to Japan must present a valid certificate of their third coronavirus vaccinations and a negative test result from within 72 hours before departure. Starting on Oct. 30, the number of weekly flights between Gimpo and Haneda will double from 28 to 56 to meet the growing travel demand, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced Tuesday. The flights connecting South Korea and Japan first resumed with eight flights a week on June 29. About a month later on July 25, the number went up to 28 a week under a mutual agreement between the two governments. Starting Oct. 30, Korean and Japanese carriers flying between the two countries, including Korean Air, Asiana, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, will be allowed to make two round trips between Gimpo and Haneda every day. The actual timeline of each airline increasing the number of flights is yet undetermined. The ministry said it plans to continue talks with the Japanese authorities to increase flights to other Japanese destinations to meet travelers' growing demand following the reintroduction of visa-free entry. New York, US (PANA) - In marking the 10th anniversary of the International Dat of the Girl Child on Tuesday, the UN chief has called the commemoration a celebration of the lives and achievements of girls across the world Korea and Japan plan to hold working-level diplomatic consultations Tuesday over their protracted row over wartime forced labor and other bilateral issues, the foreign ministry said. Lee Sang-ryeol, the ministry's director general for Asia and Pacific affairs, is scheduled to meet with his Japanese counterpart, Takehiro Funakoshi, at the Seoul foreign ministry in Seoul. Discussions are expected to focus on the issue of resolving compensation for forced labor of Koreans during World War II. The two previously met in Tokyo on Aug. 26. The meeting follows a summit between Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month. It has raised hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to warm Seoul-Tokyo relations frayed due to disputes over wartime forced labor and other issues related to Japan's 1910-45 brutal colonial rule of Korea. (Yonhap) By Kim Sang-woo The recent successes of the Ukrainian counter-offensive forced Russian troops to retreat from large areas of the northeastern, and southern regions of Ukraine, inflicting humiliating defeats on Russia. The Kremlin hurried its orchestrated "referendum" in occupied areas and annexed them as Russian territories. Moscow says that it will view a Ukrainian attack on them as an act of aggression and will respond accordingly. Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the stakes further by mobilizing reservists up to at least 300,000. But the move is proving widely unpopular, with tens of thousands fleeing the country and fueling massive nationwide protests and violence that threatens to destabilize the country. Quickly running out of options, Putin appears to be increasingly erratic and is tempted to use nuclear weapons to avoid defeat, which could threaten his 22-year rule. He has repeatedly talked about using nuclear weapons with terrifying ease. He has said Moscow's enemies would die before even having time to repent their sins, and acknowledged that nuclear war would be catastrophic, "but why would we need a world without Russia?" What is happening in Ukraine is that a nuclear-armed country is carrying out major conventional military actions and expecting its nuclear capability will prevent outside intervention. This is a serious problem for international security. The world should not allow a nuclear-armed country to conduct conventional wars with impunity, slaughter tens of thousands of people and seize and annex territory, because its nuclear arsenal prevents a strong military response. Many experts asserted that Russia would not invade Ukraine, yet it did, highlighting the very real risk that Putin could also use nuclear weapons, particularly if Moscow continues to lose the war. President Joe Biden recently urged Putin not to use nuclear weapons a move that would end the 77 years-long taboo and alter the course of history, with potentially horrific costs. The idea that nuclear deterrence allows conventional aggression is not how most people think of nuclear deterrence. Most observers see deterrence based on the terrifying threat of nuclear annihilation, the ever-present risk of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Ukraine changed that. It turns out nuclear weapons don't "keep the peace." On the contrary, they enable conventional conflicts where escalation to the "ultimate weapon" seems a real possibility. The Ukraine war shows nuclear deterrence does not work as most often imagine, and the world is now a much more dangerous place. North Korea has strengthened relations with Russia, blaming the U.S. for the crisis and decrying the West's "hegemonic policy" as justifying military action by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself. North Korea also used the war as an opportunity to accelerate its own weapons development, testing dozens of missiles, including its long-range ballistic missiles since 2017, thus exploiting a divide in the United Nations Security Council, where Russia and China have blocked Washington's attempts to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang. North Korea has heightened its testing activity with repeated threats of nuclear conflict with Seoul and Washington. On Sept. 9, North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly passed a law that further enshrined the country's status as a nuclear power and authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios, if its leadership were to be threatened. Sung Kim, the Biden administration's special representative for North Korea, met with his South Korean counterpart Kim Gunn in Seoul on Sept. 22, where they expressed, "serious concern" over the North's escalating nuclear doctrine spelled out in the new law, South Korea's foreign ministry said. The diplomats reaffirmed Washington's commitment to defend South Korea in the event of a nuclear war with the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear. They also reiterated their assessment that North Korea is gearing up to conduct its 7th nuclear test and discussed "stern" countermeasures to such an action, the ministry added. South Korea has its own preemptive option with its "Kill Chain" system, which uses precise conventional weapons such as cruise and ballistic missiles to rapidly target North Korea's leadership before it can give a launch order to nuclear forces. Kill Chain has been in development for years, but the Yoon Suk-yeol administration has been particularly vocal about the system in recent months. Taken together, North Korea's nuclear policy law and South Korea's Kill Chain system paint a worrying picture for nuclear stability on the Korean peninsula. In a crisis or conflict, both sides would be tempted to escalate quickly and decisively to preempt the other's preemption strategy. South Korea has been a willing partner in the U.S.-led coalition to condemn and sanction Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes it has committed since the beginning of the war. Moreover, South Korea is paying close attention to how the United States and others respond to the invasion of a non-nuclear country by a nuclear-armed neighbor as well as how Russia employs nuclear posturing to threaten against intervention by third parties. The Russian submarine carrying the Poseidon nuclear bomb known as the 'apocalypse weapon' is reported to be heading out to the North Sea for testing. The train attached to the Russian Defense Ministry's department responsible for nuclear material was sighted moving to the frontlines in Ukraine. If Putin actually carries out his threat to use nuclear weapons, and successfully achieves his intended goal of turning the course of the war, it will have serious repercussions that will also affect both the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait. I wonder if the politicians in South Korea, bickering about mediocre issues, as if they were matters of life and death, understand the seriousness of the situation we are facing ?? what it means to our national security, and the economy. For all our sake, I sincerely hope so. Kim Sang-woo ( ), former lawmaker, is currently chairman of the East Asia Cultural Project. He is also a member of the board of directors at the Kim Dae-jung Peace Foundation. Garrett, IN (46738) Today Occasional rain. Low around 35F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch.. Tonight Occasional rain. Low around 35F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Rain likely. Low near 35F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch.. Tonight Rain likely. Low near 35F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) Mauritian health authorities said on Tuesday that four positive coronavirus patients have died since the beginning of this month Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Marking the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty, two UN-appointed independent human rights experts on Monday issued a statement recalling that under international law, capital punishment is permitted only in very limited circumstances Sanjay Dutt gifts his exclusive watch to Jay Patel, Producer of non-commercial Hollywood film 'I am Gonna tell God everything' New Delhi [India], October 11 (ANI/PNN): When producer Indian American Jay Patel showed his non-commercial Hollywood film 'I am Gonna tell God everything' to actor Sanjay Dutt and Paresh Ghelani (Kamali) they were thrilled and stunned that he made such a thought provoking short film on his own. In fact, Sanjay Dutt was so touched by the film that he gifted one of his most expensive watches (Patek Philippe) to Jay Patel. Jay Patel is a filmmaker/ entrepreneur who invest in projects that are close to his heart. One of Jay's passion projects, along with his brother Paresh Ghelani, is the XPRIZE foundation, which is a leading platform in the world for solving grand challenges through incentive prizes. Other notable leaders in XPRIZE include Larry Page, Rattan Tata, Peter Diamondis, Robert Weiss, Anoushesh Ansari and Naveen Jain. They have also brought XPRIZE foundation to India to solve India's greatest challenges in areas like health, sanitation, women's safety, access to clean water, waste management, etc. Also Read | SIVA KARTHIKEYAN: PRINCE TRAILER OUT, DIWALI RELEASE #Prince Starring Latest Tweet by Taran Adarsh. Apart from Sanjay Dutt, Actor R Madhavan in an emotional reaction to the film called it an "eye-opener". He wondered when did we turn into such horrendous beasts after seeing the devastating after-effects of war. Further, he called the film a must-watch. While on the other hand, actor Randeep Hooda praised the non-commercial aspect of the film and called it a movie that will awaken your soul and leave you flabbergasted. Moreover, he said that the movie will spread awareness on the unimaginable things that happen to war victims. Also Read | Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-Led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena Party Gets 'Two Swords and Shield' Symbol. 'I am Gonna tell God everything' shows the plight of an innocent child in the war-torn region of Syria and depicts the devastating impacts of war in a rather moving fashion. It sends out a message of peace and harmony which is quite relevant in the present-day context. The film has been written by Hollywood writer Katherine King. It has been co-produced by Abhishek Dudhaiya - who is also the producer and director of the movie 'Bhuj - The Pride of India', with Ajay Devgan in the lead. 'I am Gonna tell God everything' was screened at multiple locations across the country with several high-ranking officials, ambassadors, member of parliament, IAS -IPS officers, actors, etc. in attendance. For the wide-ranging public, Jay Patel announced that the film will be free to watch and would be released on YouTube on October 2, 2022. The film has since garnered millions of views. Movie Cast: Essam Ferris, Roman Mitichyan, Toktam Aboozary, Naya Abou Mousa, Faruk Amireh, Hailey Winslow, Robert Tarpinian, Nour Bitar, Vivaan Bisoi, Massa Daoud, Jay Patel, Katherine King, Zein Khleif, Samer Sakka, Afshin De Jesus Hashemi, Omar Amir, MuditSachdev, and Abe Khalil. Music by Snpyesen, Cinematography & Co Produce by Hari K. Vedantam, Story & Directed by Dav Pin, Cinematography Film Editing by James Brown, Casting by Renee Garcia, Hamzah Saman, Digital partner-Media Fourth. At the time of this release, Jay Patel has requested the United Nations for a screening of his non-commercial film. This story has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content in this article. (ANI/PNN) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Dehradun, Oct 11 (PTI) The Uttarakhand Police has arrested four people for allegedly conspiring to kill state Animal Husbandry Minister Saurabh Bahuguna, and stepped up security at his residence, officials said Tuesday. Those arrested include Hira Singh, the main accused who allegedly hatched the plan while in jail to kill the minister holding him responsible for him being imprisoned, and putting an end to his illegal mining activity, the officials said. Also Read | An Indian-origin Banker Has Been Issued a 10-year Prohibition Order and a 24-month Latest Tweet by IANS India. Saurabh, son of former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, is among the youngest members of the Pushkar Singh Dhami cabinet. Hira Singh is accused of plotting an attack on the minister along with Satnam Singh alias Satta, Harbhajan Singh and Mohammad Aziz alias Guddu, the officials said. Also Read | Twitter Asked Whistleblower To Burn Notebooks & Computer Files, Reveals Elon Musk's Legal Team. Circle Officer Om Prakash Sharma said the four were arrested on Monday from Sitarganj in Udham Singh Nagar district on the basis of a complaint lodged by Bahuguna's representative and BJP leader Umashankar Dubey. They were produced in a local court which sent them to judicial custody. Circle Officer Sharma said Hira Singh paid Rs 5.70 lakh to Satnam Singh alias Satta for hiring a shooter, Mohammad Aziz alias Guddu, through Harbhajan after getting released on bail, he said. As much as Rs 2.70 lakh have been recovered from Guddu and Hira Singh's car which has been impounded. Chief Minister Dhami held a meeting with DGP Ashok Kumar to assess the situation. Security around the minister's residence in Dehradun has been stepped up with a metal detector installed at the entrance and police personnel deployed in plainclothes. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Lucknow, Oct 11 (PTI) Congress presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said he decided to enter the fray for the top post after members of the Gandhi family refused to contest the poll and he wanted to strengthen the party. The electoral contest would take place between Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, and voting will take place on October 17 in every state capital through secret ballot. Also Read | Kerala Shocker: Stray Dog Attacks, Bites 10 People in Kochis Thrikkakara; Dog-Catchers Engaged After Canine Goes Missing. "After the Gandhi family refused to contest the election for the post of Congress president, I decided to contest this election after consulting my well-wishers," said Kharge, who was here to meet members of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC). "I decided to contest the election to strengthen the Congress and to save its ideology," Kharge said, adding he was meeting more than 9,000 members of his party across the country and seeking their support. Also Read | Karnataka: Cancel Reservation for Muslims, Christians and Transfer It to Panchamasali Lingayats, Says BJP MLA Arvind Bellad. He said that he has prepared his manifesto by incorporating the announcements made at the party's Udaipur Chintan Shivir. "Fifty per cent posts in the organisation will be given to people below 50 years of age and whatever other announcements are there, I will implement them. I am sure that I will get the support of all members," Kharge said. The Congress had held a three-day brainstorming session in May in Rajasthan's Udaipur to evolve the party's strategy for its overhaul and revival in the wake of a series of electoral defeats. On Uttar Pradesh, Kharge said that the state is very important for the Congress and after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra became the party's in-charge for the state, people's inclination towards it has increased. Even though the Congress did not get the expected results in the assembly elections, but in the future, people are looking towards it with hope, he said. The 80-year-old Congressman said that he is confident that he will win the election for the post of Congress president and Uttar Pradesh will play an important role. Attacking the BJP and the RSS, the senior Congress leader said that they "believe in the divide and rule of the Britishers". "No BJP or Sangh worker went to jail or hanged for the freedom of the country. Instead their workers were associates of the British and used to get pension from them," Kharge alleged. Both of them do not have faith in democracy and they are raising questions on the Congress organisational election and Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra, he said. Speaking to reporters at the UPCC headquarters, Kharge, when asked how he rates his chances in the Congress presidential poll, said, "Everybody together made me the candidate and now, it is their responsibility to make me win. You know that when everything is appearing in the papers and wherever I go, delegates are coming in favour of me, therefore it is not difficult to get elected." When asked about Tharoor's recent statement that the party needs change, he said, "I don't know what it means. I have been working (for the party) for the past 55 years. People will see me and based on it, they will examine." Tharoor had recently said in Mumbai that "our party needs change and I feel I am the one who will be the catalyst of change". Asked about his rival in a recent TV interview claiming that there are aspects which suggest there is an uneven playing field, Kharge asserted, "The delegates are coming on their own. Should I say no to them. If you are popular, people know you, delegates will come. Our campaigners are very strong, they are doing it." Elaborating on the poll process, he said, "This election is a very simple election. Those who are members, they are already elected delegates in their states. There are 9,300 delegates. Those voters, those delegates, will vote for the candidate. And whosoever gets the majority, he will be elected, and there is no doubt, and that process we are following, and meeting all the delegates." He added that the number of voters (delegates) from Uttar Pradesh is 1,250. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Mumbai, Oct 11 (PTI) Aviation regulator DGCA is probing an incident where a fairing panel was found missing on the wing of an AirAsia plane that landed at the airport here on Monday, according to a senior official. The aircraft, carrying 143 passengers, had landed from Bengaluru. Also Read | AAI Recruitment 2022: Vacancies Notified for 46 Junior Assistant and Other Posts, Apply Online at aai.aero. In aviation parlance, an aircraft fairing is a structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline and reduce drag. "AirAsia India flight i5-612 from Bengaluru to Mumbai reported a section of a fairing panel missing during post-flight inspection," the airline said in a statement on Tuesday. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi Inaugurates Phase I of Rs 856 Crore 'Mahakal Lok' Corridor in Ujjain (Watch Video). The panel was not a load-bearing member of the aircraft structure, it added. A senior DGCA official said the matter is being investigated by the regulator. The airline also said necessary inspections were carried out. The panel has been replaced and the aircraft has been released for operations, it added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) 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 New Delhi [India], October 11 (ANI): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a charge-sheet against former Union Telecom Minister A Raja who is the sitting MP from Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris, in connection with a disproportionate assets case registered in 2015, sources said. The chargesheet was filed before a special CBI court in Chennai in August this year, the central probe agency alleged that during his tenure as Union Minister for Environment and Forest in 2007, Raja had approved infrastructure status to a Delhi-based real estate company and allegedly took favours, which were indirectly routed to him through a company owned by his friends and relatives. Also Read | #INDvsSA 3rd ODI | Toss Delayed Due to Wet Outfield at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, Latest Tweet by ANI. The sources also informed that Raja was in possession of wealth and pecuniary resources that extended to Rs 5.53 crore which is 579 per cent more than his known income sources. The former union minister was first named by CBI in an FIR registered in the 2G spectrum allocation case. He was named as an accused by the CBI of bias in the allotment of airwaves and operating licences to telecom firms causing a huge loss to the state exchequer. Also Read | Assam Police, BSF Seize Heroin Worth Over Rs 47 Crore in Karimganj, One Held. A Delhi court later acquitted him of all charges in 2017. (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], October 11 (ANI): The Delhi Police on Tuesday reached the residence of former minister in the national capital Rajendra Pal Gautam, days after a video went viral where he was allegedly seen converting a large gathering of people to Buddhism. The Aam Aadmi Party leader has been asked to appear before the police at 2 pm today. Also Read | Telangana: Congress Office Set Afire Ahead of Munugode Assembly By-Election 2022. According to the officials, a police team went to Gautam's house on Monday, where he was questioned in the matter. A senior police officer on Monday said that Gautam has been asked to appear so that he can be questioned to ascertain the sequence of incidents and verify facts related to the gathering and their conversion to Buddhism. Also Read | Diwali 2022 Muhurat Trading: Check Date, Time For Auspicious Muhurat at Stock Market And Dos, Donts For Trading. However, on Friday, Gautam termed this as false propaganda. He also told reporters that the vows taken at the event to "not worship Hindu gods and goddesses were originally taken by BR Ambedkar in 1956. The same evening (Friday) Gautam accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of spreading false narratives against him and alleged that only a portion of his speech was being circulated in social media by the BJP. Notably, Gautam resigned as AAP minister on Sunday following a meeting with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other senior party leaders. Taking to Twitter, Gautam announced his resignation, typed on his letterhead, on Sunday and said, "Today I have been freed from many shackles, and been born again. Now I will continue to fight for rights and atrocities on the society more firmly without any restrictions." However, the letter was not addressed to anyone in particular. The AAP leader in his letter wrote that the BJP has been targeting several sections of society for political gains, and he cannot be a mute spectator to that. However, he does not want his actions to cause any inconvenience to the party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. In the purported viral video, Gautam was seen along with hundreds of people taking an oath. Purportedly, the person on the microphone leads the oath with," 'We will not believe in Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Gauri-Ganesh as Gods and will never pray to them. I will not consider Ram and Krishna as Gods and will never... I will not pray to Gauri Ganpati etc or any other Hindu religious Gods and goddesses". This video of organizing 'Ghar Wapsi in Buddhism' program in Delhi on October 5 under the banner of 'Mission Jai Bhim' was shared on Rajendra Pal Gautam's Facebook page. The AAP minister also claimed that the same oath was taken by Babasaheb Ambedkar, when he converted to Buddhism and said, "We have repeated the same pledge. On October 14, 1956, when Baba Saheb adopted Buddhism, he made 22 vows, which we have also taken in the oath. Watch the full video, BJP is running it by truncating it for its own benefit. BJP will do anything but make its vote clear." (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, Oct 11 (PTI) Three persons were arrested and two juveniles apprehended for allegedly killing a 20-year-old man in northeast Delhi's Yamuna Vihar area, police said on Tuesday. The three accused men have been identified as Mohit Sharma (22) Zunaid (21), both residents of North Ghonda, and Sameer Khan (20), a resident of Bhajanpura, they said. Also Read | Jharkhand Shocker: Dalit Youth Dragged Out of Home, Murdered in Hazaribagh; Case Registered. The victim as well as the accused used to commit crimes together but some differences cropped up among them over the share of looted booty, police said, adding it resulted in the murder of the deceased. On Sunday, police found a person lying in a pool of blood in Ekta Park, C-12, Yamuna Vihar with multiple stab injuries on his body. He was shifted to GTB Hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, a senior police officer said. Also Read | Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-Led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena Party Gets 'Two Swords and Shield' Symbol. The man was identified as Amaan, a resident of Kabir Nagar, he said. During investigation, police analysed the CCTV footage and a suspected group of persons was seen entering a park. A raid was conducted and one of them, Sharma, was nabbed from North Ghonda, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northeast) Sanjay Kumar Sain said. Sharma disclosed that the deceased was his friend and they along with four others used to commit crimes. For the past few weeks, they were having some issue with the deceased over the share in the stolen booty, the DCP said. At the time of the incident, they met Amaan to resolve the differences. But Amaan disagreed on some issue and they attacked him with knives and fled the spot, police said. On disclosure of Sharma, Zunaid and Sameer were also arrested while two juveniles were apprehended in the case, they said. Three Knives used to commit the crime were recovered from the park, police said. The deceased was previously involved in criminal activities and had been arrested along with Sameer in a theft case, 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) Sitab Diara (Bihar), Oct 10 (PTI) With Bihar set to celebrate the 120th birth anniversary of revolutionary leader Jayaprakash Narayan, his birthplace Sitab Diara, the otherwise nondescript village in Saran district, is all abuzz with activities as high-profile leaders make a beeline to mark the occasion with programmes and announcements. Preparations are afoot for Union Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to the hamlet, along the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border, on Tuesday, during which he is scheduled to unveil a life-size statue of JP. Also Read | Gaming Platform WinZO Reaches 100 Million Users. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will accompany Shah to Sitab Diara. A handful of elderly people at the village, fondly recalled their association with JP, as Narayan was popularly known, and hoped that the current spotlight on Sitab Diara will also usher in some development initiatives. Also Read | Jammu and Kashmir: NIA Raids at Multiple Places Linked to Jamaat-E-Islami in Terror Funding Case. Sudarshan Ram (84), a retired teacher and resident of Sitab Diara, said he remembers seeing JP and some of his friends playing in the muddy lanes of the village in the early 1900s. Ram, referred to as 'Master Saheb' by locals, also lamented that JP's birth anniversaries come and go, but the village, although visited by politicians on the occasion, "barely finds a place on the government's list of priorities". "We are hopeful that visits of high-profile politicians to this remote village this time will change its face to some extent," said Ram. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had last week visited Sitab Diara, situated at the confluence of Ganga and Ghaghra rivers, and inspected the development work being undertaken at the village, which faces the problem of flood and erosion every year. Shri Bhagwan Mallah (74), another resident of the village, remembered sharing boat rides with JP. "Boys of Lala Tola (as the village is also known) would often spend hours taking boat rides, playing on the boats back then. Not much has changed in this village as boys do the same even now during the rainy season. JP was senior to me, but he was friendly to all," Mallah added. Octogenarian Ram Jatan Rai rued that the village, despite being the Loknayak's birthplace, has "suffered neglect" for long. "We feel privileged to have belonged to the same village as JP, but people here still suffer due to lack of basic facilities like connectivity. Thankfully, work to build an approach road from National Highway-31 to Sitab Diara was taken up a few months ago," Rai added. Meanwhile, a cultural event planned to mark the 120th birth anniversary of JP at the village has been cancelled in the wake of former UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav's demise. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Patna, Oct 11 (PTI) The ruling 'Mahagathbandhan' in Bihar on Tuesday announced that the RJD, its largest constituent, will field candidates for by-elections to both Mokama and Gopalganj assembly seats. The announcement was made by former chief minister Jitan Ram Manhi, whose outfit Hindustani Awam Morcha is a minor constituent of the seven-party ruling coalition, at a press meet held at the state RJD headquarters. Also Read | India Defeat South Africa by 7 Wickets at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi; Clinch the 3 Match Latest Tweet by Prasar Bharati News Services. Leaders of other coalition partners, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), Congress, CPI(ML)-L, CPI(M) and CPI, were also present at the conference. They claimed that the 'Mahagathbandhan' will trounce the BJP in both the seats. Also Read | Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-Led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena Party Gets 'Two Swords and Shield' Symbol. Manjhi also disclosed the names of respective candidates for the seats, where the BJP had announced its nominees a couple of days ago. For the keenly watched Mokama, the RJD candidate will be Neelam Devi, wife of four-term-MLA Anant Kumar Singh whose disqualification upon conviction in cases related to recovery of arms and explosives from his residence have necessitated the by-poll. The party ticket for Neelam Devi, who had made an unsuccessful debut as a Congress candidate from Munger in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, was being seen as a done deal following her recent meeting with Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, the RJD heir apparent. She will seek to retain the seat by surmounting the challenge posed by BJP, which is contesting Mokama after nearly three decades, and has placed its bets on Sonam Devi, whose husband is a local muscleman belonging to the same Bhumihar caste as Anant Singh but a staunch opponent of the latter. In Gopalganj, the RJD has sprung a surprise by fielding Mohan Prakash Gupta, an old party hand who belongs to the Vaishya community, members of which are largely seen as supporters of the BJP. Gopalganj fell vacant following the recent death of four-term BJP MLA Subhash Singh whose wife Kusum Devi has got the party ticket. Gupta's candidature seems to be in line with Tejashwi Yadav's assertion that the RJD was a party that cared for "A to Z" and not just "MY", an abbreviation for the Muslim-Yadav combination. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], October 11 (ANI): The state government of Telangana through its, Mid-day meal program supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government schools across the state. The midday meal scheme is a school meal programme in Telangana designed to better the nutritional standing of school-aged children. The principal from TMRIES Telangana girl Golconda Mehmooda Parvin said that the groceries they get for the kids are provided by the government. Which is of very good quality. It is checked by the district Minority welfare officer. They permit the vendors. Thin rice is provided and which is very good. Apart from that dal, pulses, Boost and egg are provided which are of great quality. Thanks to KCR for providing such quality food. Mid-day meal Program in government school keeps students nutritionally healthy. Also Read | Kerala Shocker: Stray Dog Attacks, Bites 10 People in Kochis Thrikkakara; Dog-Catchers Engaged After Canine Goes Missing. A cook at the school, Mangamma said that there are around 400 kids and fine rice is provided by the government. We also get vegetables and pulses and rawa. We make nice and tasty food. Kids love to eat the food here. Earlier, government boys Towli chowki headmaster Mohammad Siraj said, "Every day we get thin rice by 9 am in the morning and a lot of students eat rice every day here. We also get the boiled egg four times a month. Curries are also very tasty. So we urge the government of Telangana to continue this work. A very good government is helping us. Around 214 children got admission to our school. The government of Telangana has provided all the facilities. I'm very grateful to CM KCR as he runs the schools and governance well". Also Read | Karnataka: Cancel Reservation for Muslims, Christians and Transfer It to Panchamasali Lingayats, Says BJP MLA Arvind Bellad. A Lecturer from GPS in Towlichowki Usha Kumar said, "The State Government of Telangana is running the mid-day meal program and it's a useful program for children who are economically weaker. It's a wonderful boon for them, every day they are provided with Rice, dal, Sambar and eggs. It's a blessing for children. Veg fried rice is served on the weekends. They also get Bananas also. The students feel healthy and can concentrate on the subjects". A Student at GPS towlichowki Zoya Fathima said that they get Dal, Rice and curry also. Every day we get good curries and we thank KCR. Another student Toufique said that we get Rice, Dal, and Eggs and we thank the Telangana government for the Mid-day meals. (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, Oct 11 (PTI) The Congress on Tuesday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his criticism directed at Jawaharlal Nehru on the Kashmir issue, alleging that he has once again "whitewashed real history" and overlooked facts to "castigate" India's first prime minister. Addressing a rally in Gujarat's Anand district on Monday, the prime minister stated that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel deftly resolved issues related to merger of other princely states, but "one person" could not settle the Kashmir issue, in a veiled attack on India's first PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Also Read | PM @narendramodi Addresses Public Gathering in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh Latest Tweet by Prasar Bharati News Services. Slamming Prime Minister Modi, Congress general secretary, communications, Jairam Ramesh said on Twitter, "The PM has once again whitewashed REAL history. He overlooks the following facts only to castigate Nehru on J&K. All this has been documented well in Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of Sardar Patel. These facts are also known to the PM's new man in J&K." "Sheikh Abdullah championed accession to India entirely because of his friendship with and admiration for Nehru, and his respect for Gandhi," Ramesh said. Also Read | Jharkhand Shocker: Dalit Youth Dragged Out of Home, Murdered in Hazaribagh; Case Registered. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was okay with J&K joining Pakistan till September 13, 1947 when the Nawab of Junagadh acceded to Pakistan, Ramesh said. Speaking in Gujarat, PM Modi had said, "Sardar saheb persuaded all the princely states to merge with India. But another person handled this one issue of Kashmir." "As I am following the footsteps of Sardar saheb, I have values of the land of Sardar and that was the reason I resolved the problem of Kashmir and paid true tributes to Sardar Patel," he had 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, Oct 11 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday paid tributes to Jayaprakash Narayan, the hero of the anti-Emergency movement, on his birth anniversary, saying he inspired people to devote themselves to nation building. Modi also paid his respects to Nanaji Deshmukh, a Jana Sangh leader who quit active politics for social work and rural empowerment in his 60s, on his birth anniversary. Also Read | National Investigation Agency Carries out Searches at Multiple Locations in Jammu Latest Tweet by ANI. Modi tweeted, "Tributes to Loknayak JP on his birth anniversary. His contribution to India is unparalleled. He inspired lakhs of people to devote themselves to nation building. He will always be remembered as a torchbearer of democratic ideals." In tributes to Deshmukh, he said, "Remembering Bharat Ratna Nanaji Deshmukh on his birth anniversary. His rich understanding of rural India and agriculture is reflected in his works. He was also an outstanding thinker." Also Read | Mulayam Singh Yadav Last Rites: Sefai Prepares To Bid Adieu to Samajwadi Party Patriarch. Born in 1902, JP, as Narayan was fondly referred, was a leading freedom fighter and a radical socialist. After Independence, he mostly kept away from party politics while being involved in social work. However, he returned on the national scene after those protesting, including student bodies, against the policies of the Congress led by then prime minister Indira Gandhi persuaded him to lead their movement. He is credited for galvanising popular opinion against her government, leading to the formation of the first non-Congress government in the country. He was given Bharat Ratna posthumously as was Deshmukh. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Bhopal, Oct 11 (PTI) Prayers will be held at temples in all villages and cities of Madhya Pradesh coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's programme to inaugurate the first phase of the 'Shri Mahakal Lok' corridor in Ujjain on Tuesday evening. Also Read | YouTube Launches Handles Feature for Easier Mentions. A state government release said locals will gather in one temple of each village and offer prayers. Similar programmes will also be organised at big temples in every ward of the urban areas along with the grand event in Ujjain. Also Read | Gaming Platform WinZO Reaches 100 Million Users. The programme will be telecast live on LED screens at these places, it said. Also, devotees from each village panchayat of Ujjain and Indore divisions will reach the venue of the programme where PM Modi will dedicate to the nation the first phase of the Mahakal Lok corridor, the release said. More than 60,000 people are expected to attend the programme at the Kartik Mela Ground in Ujjain, while about one lakh devotees will watch it on LED screens put up at all ghats of the Shipra river in Ujjain, it said. All the state government-managed religious places will be illuminated by lighting diyas, the release said. Cultural and devotional programmes will also be organised in all big temples of the state dedicated to Lord Shiva, including the Bandakpur temple in Damoh district and the Jatashankar temple in Chhatarpur. There will also be arrangements for 'bhajan' (devotional songs) recitation along with 'bhandara' (mass feast) at these places, the release said. The more than 900-metre-long 'Mahakal Lok' corridor, built as one of the largest such corridors in the country, spreads around the old Rudrasagar Lake which has also been revived as part of the redevelopment project around the famous Mahakaleshwar Temple, one of the 12 'jyotirlingas' in the country which attracts a large number of devotees, an official said. Two majestic gateways -- Nandi Dwar and Pinaki Dwar -- separated by a short distance, have been erected near the starting point of the corridor, which winds its way to the temple's entrance and offers an aesthetic view along the way, he said. A colonnade of 108 ornate pillars made of intricately carved sandstones, gushing fountains and a running panel of more than 50 murals depicting stories from the 'Shiv Puran' are among the major highlights of the Mahakal Lok, the official said. The grand event is part of the Rs 856 crore Mahakaleshwar Temple corridor development project. The first phase of 'Mahakal Lok' has been developed at Rs 316 crore. (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, Oct 11 (PTI) Former AAP minister Rajendra Pal Gautam was questioned for three hours on Tuesday in connection with a complaint received against his presence at a religious conversion event where Hindu deities were allegedly denounced, officials said. Police said Gautam joined the inquiry around 2:30 pm at the Paharganj Police Station, they said. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi Inaugurates Phase I of Rs 856 Crore 'Mahakal Lok' Corridor in Ujjain (Watch Video). Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shweta Chauhan said, "There was a complaint against Rajendra Pal Gautam. So, he was called for questioning as part of the inquiry into the matter. He was asked questions relating to the complaint." After the inquiry was completed, he left the police station around 5:30 pm, she added. Also Read | Tamil Nadu: 15 School Children Injured As Van Overturns in Cuddalore. According to police, Gautam was questioned about the sequence of events that transpired on the day of the event, his intentions behind the alleged speech which led to the controversy and documents related to the event, including the invite, which was sought from him. "We will also question other organisers of the event soon," a senior officer said. No FIR has been registered against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader yet, police said. Talking to reporters at the police station, Gautam said he gave a written statement to the SHO and it will be examined by the concerned DCP. "Right now, I am at Paharganj police station. Today, the birth anniversary of Maharshi Valmiki ji is being celebrated at my residence. As soon as the police gives permission, I will leave for my house," he said. Earlier in the day, Gautam had confirmed that he had received a notice from police and assured that he would cooperate. "I received the notice today (Tuesday) and will cooperate with the police," Gautam told PTI before appearing for questioning. "We are those who follow Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Indian Constitution," he said in a tweet in Hindi. The development comes a day after he was interrogated by police at his residence regarding his presence at the religious conversion event. Later, he was issued a formal notice to appear before officials at the Paharganj Police Station on Tuesday. Besides Gautam, three others -- Mahender Bhaskar, Manoj Kumar, CS Bhandari -- were also questioned in connection with the event on Monday. According to the notice, on October 5, Gautam attended a programme at the Ambedkar Bhawan where "certain words were uttered publicly, which has infuriated public at large". "Written complaints have been received in this regard... During the enquiry, presence of your good self is very much essential to decide the further course of action as per law," the notice read. "Accordingly, you are here by requested/directed to appear in person with all documents at police station Pahar Ganj without fail, otherwise it will be presumed that you have nothing to say or explain anything on your part and matter would be decided as per law," it added. After being questioned by police on Monday, Gautam had told PTI, "They asked me about the nature of the programme and how it was organised... I follow the law and if I have committed any crime, you can register a case and arrest me. If I have not, you can interrogate me." "I will feed sweets to the complainant if I am arrested," he had said. Gautam had resigned from the Delhi Cabinet on Sunday due to the controversy over him attending the event. The BJP has used the issue to attack AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal during the election campaigning in Gujarat and accused him of being "anti-Hindu". In a letter shared on Twitter, Gautam said he attended the event in his personal capacity and it had nothing to do with his party or the ministry. He also lashed out at the BJP for targeting Kejriwal and the AAP, alleging the saffron party was doing "dirty politics" on the issue. Gautam, who was the minister for social welfare, SC and ST, registrar of co-operative societies and gurdwara elections, said he is resigning as minister as he does not want his leader or the AAP to be in trouble because of him. (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, Oct 11 (PTI) Many district authorities in Delhi have completely stopped issuing Rs 500 challan to those not wearing face masks in public places while some others have relaxed enforcement even as an official order abolishing mask mandate is yet to be issued, officials said on Tuesday. This comes after the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), in its meeting held last month, decided to do away with wearing face masks after September 30 amid a decline in Covid cases. Also Read | Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-Led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena Party Gets 'Two Swords and Shield' Symbol. The minutes of the meeting held on September 22 was accessed by PTI. A revenue department official said, "During the meeting, the chief secretary had informed the DDMA that the government had invoked provisions of the Epidemic Act, 1897, and had issued order for imposition of Rs 500 as fine for not wearing mask in public places, which lapsed on September 30. Also Read | US Company Sacks Dutch Employee for Refusing To Keep Webcam On During Work From Home, Gets Fined by Netherlands Court. "This means that the mask mandate is over. Only a clarity (through the order) is awaited whether it will be extended." Another revenue department official said the order on the removal of mask mandate will be issued by the Health department and the file is "in movement". Officials said while in some districts, challans are being issued, others have stopped it and are focusing more on creating awareness. An official from Southwest district said, "Since the cases have declined, the issuing challans for not wearing masks has also reduced. It is being followed in densely populated areas, and that too in low numbers. "In other areas, the challans are not being issued and people are instead being sensitised the importance of wearing them." Some districts have stopped enforcement altogether. "We are not issuing challans as of now. Anyway, the enforcement is tightened when cases increase but since the numbers are quite low and the infection is also not severe, the norms are relaxed," said an official from West district. An official from the Central district echoed similar views and said the number of enforcement teams has been reduced and people in crowded places are told to wear masks and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. The decision to revoke the mask mandate during the September 22 DDMA meeting was anything but unanimous and there were many differences, according to the minutes of the meeting. Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar had in the meeting said the current situation was comfortable but the guard could not be lowered as the variants keep coming up. The Health ministry had earlier advised caution in view of multiple festivals from September 26 to December 31 and likely mass gatherings across the country. Niti Aayog member Dr V K Paul had in the meeting emphasised that surveillance was still needed as the virus is still present and its mutations and variants have emerged from time to time. The chief secretary had suggested that a "self discipline mode" may be tried now as the public is well aware of its responsibilities and what constitutes a Covid-appropriate behaviour. Revenue minister Kailash Gahlot in the same meeting had reiterated that there were "practical difficulties" in the enforcement of mask mandate, and had stressed the need to relax the rule. The meeting chaired by LG V K Saxena and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in attendance, had summarily agreed that though wearing of masks was useful in maintaining a Covid-appropriate behaviour, the order of compulsory wearing of masks under the Epidemic Act may not be extended beyond September 30. The DDMA also agreed that the fine of Rs 500 for not wearing masks in public places will stand withdrawn after September 30, the minutes added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kolkata, Oct 11 (PTI) The situation in Ekbalpore area of southwest Kolkata was peaceful on Tuesday morning with police keeping a close watch on the neighbourhood that witnessed communal clashes, officials said. Forty-one people were arrested in connection with the clashes, they said. Also Read | Twitter Asked Whistleblower To Burn Notebooks & Computer Files, Reveals Elon Musk's Legal Team. "No untoward incident was reported from the Ekbalpore-Mominpore area since Monday evening. The situation is peaceful. Heavy police deployment has been made," a senior Kolkata Police official told PTI. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed in the area, which will continue till Wednesday. Also Read | Chhattisgarh Shocker: Minor Girl Abducted, Gang-Raped by Five in Pathrol, Two Accused Arrested. "Senior police officers are in the area and prepared to deal with any untoward incident," the official said. Seven police personnel, including deputy commissioner (southwest) Saumya Roy, were injured in the clashes. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Chandigarh, October 11: The Haryana government is working on a plan to buy paddy straw at minimum support price in a bid to find a permanent solution to the issue of stubble burning, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Tuesday. He was speaking at a meeting chaired by Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on crop residue management and air pollution control in the Delhi-NCR region. Manohar Lal Govt Actively Working Towards Making Haryana an Industrial Hub. "Working in the direction of finding a permanent solution for stubble management, the state government is also making a plan to buy paddy straw at MSP. This will directly benefit the farmers along with giving them an option of earning additional income," Khattar said, as per an official statement issued here. Punjab, Delhi AAP Govts Join Hands to Combat Stubble Burning, Soon To Launch Pilot Project to Manage Crop Residue. Paddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana is one of the reasons behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in the National Capital Region in October and November every year. Haryana procures 14 crops at MSP, including paddy, wheat, maize, bajra, sunflower and moong. Speaking to reporters earlier in the day after the meeting, Khattar said his government's efforts to stop stubble burning were yielding results and just 81 cases of farm fires had been recorded in the state so far this season. He also said that use and sale of only green crackers would be allowed in the state to curb pollution ahead of the festive season. "As far as the firecracker issue is concerned, in the entire state, only green crackers will be allowed. No other firecracker will be allowed. A circular has been issued," Khattar said. According to the statement, Bhupender Yadav said dedicated efforts of the state government to decrease the stubble burning graph had certainly yielded positive results. The meeting was held through video-conferencing. Besides Khattar and Yadav, ministers and higher officials of various departments of Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan attended it, the statement said. "Haryana has also laid special emphasis on reducing the increasing pollution levels as a result of which there has been a drastic reduction in the use of diesel run-generators in housing societies of Gurugram," Yadav added. During the meeting, Khattar assured Bhupender Yadav that to ensure stubble management in the state, various schemes were being implemented effectively at the ground level. The chief minister further said the deadline given to brick kilns regarding the use of clean fuel in the Haryana NCR region should be extended till March 31, 2023. Khattar urged the Union minister to make a provision for a loan facility from banks at a viable rate of interest to the industrialists for setting up the technologies required for the use of clean fuel. He ensured Yadav that the state government would give more impetus to the efforts already being taken to control air pollution. Khattar also urged Yadav to ensure CNG-PNG supply in the industrial areas of the Haryana NCR region such as Israna, Samalkha, Gohana, and Jhajjar at the earliest. To control stubble burning, the Haryana government has implemented a framework which includes in-situ crop residue management, ex-situ management, effective monitoring, enforcement and wide reach of information, education and communication (IEC) activities, the chief minister said. Under in-situ management, 23 lakh metric tonne crop residue will be utilised through various machines and decomposers, and 13 MT crop residue will be utilised under ex-situ management. This year, 7,146 machines have been made available to farmers for stubble management, he said. Khattar said a total of 72,777 machines have been provided to farmers through custom hiring centres and individually for stubble management in the last four years. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Chennai, Oct 11 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday launched the disbursal of claims to the tune of Rs 481 crore under the crop insurance scheme to 4.43 lakh farmers in the State for 2021-22 fiscal. Also Read | Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-Led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena Party Gets 'Two Swords and Shield' Symbol. About 10 farmers from various districts, who incurred crop loss, received the cheques for the insurance claims from the Chief Minister at a function held at the State Secretariat here. Also Read | US Company Sacks Dutch Employee for Refusing To Keep Webcam On During Work From Home, Gets Fined by Netherlands Court. The State government has sanctioned Rs 2,057 crore as State subsidy for the crop insurance scheme for the current financial year and so far 85,597 farmers have taken insurance for crops raised on a total extent of 63,331 acres, an official release here said. Tamil Nadu had set a record by producing 122 lakh metric tons paddy during 2021-22 financial year. The Prime Minister's crop insurance scheme for 2021-22 has been implemented in 37 districts under 14 packages through the Agricultural Insurance Company and IFFCO-Tokio General Insurance Corporation. In 2021-2022, 26.06 lakh farmers have registered under the scheme to insure the crops cultivated on ?about 40.74 lakh acres. About Rs 18 crore has been provided as compensation for Kuruvai (Kharif) season benefitting 21,125 farmers. During the Sambha period for paddy, cotton, maize and onion, the government had provided an insurance subsidy of Rs 1,338.89 crore to the insurance firms for 2021-2022. As a result, the government has taken special measures to facilitate the quick disbursal of compensation to farmers and a total of Rs 481 crore has been sanctioned for 4,42,734 farmers, the release added. PTI (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, October 11: After the Maharashtra government transferred the probe in the 2020 Palghar mob lynching case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Union Minister Narayan Rane on Tuesday said the matter should be thoroughly investigated and truth should come out. The Eknath-Shinde led Maharashtra Government today in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court agreed to transfer of investigation into the 2020 Palghar lynching case of sadhus to CBI. Karnataka Assembly Election 2023: BJP Will Emerge Victorious in Vidhan Sabha Polls, Says CM Basavaraj Bommai. "The matter should be investigated and the truth should come out," said Union minister Narayan Rane. In an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, Maharashtra Government said that it is ready and willing to hand over the investigation into the 2020 Palghar lynching case of sadhus to the CBI and would have no objection to the same. The affidavit was filed by the Maharastra government on the petitions arising out of the unfortunate attack and lynching of two sadhus, and seeking the investigation in the matter to CBI in order to conduct an independent and impartial investigation. Mulayam Singh Yadav Funeral Video: Last Rites of Samajwadi Party Founder Performed at His Ancestral Village Saifai. The pleas are seeking a CBI or a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe in the incident that took place in the Palghar district. Earlier, the Maharashtra government had told the apex court that an investigation has been completed in the Palgarh lynching case. Maharashtra government had earlier informed Supreme Court that all guilty police officials have been punished or suspended from services. Earlier, the apex court had asked the Maharashtra government to bring on record the chargesheet and details of the inquiry against police officials in connection with the Palghar mob lynching incident. The pleas have also sought a probe by the CBI and the registration of the FIR against police officials for their alleged failure to prevent the mob from gathering in violation of the lockdown norms. On the night of April 16 2020, the two sadhus and their driver were travelling from Kandivali in Mumbai to attend a funeral in Gujarat's Surat amid the nationwide lockdown when their vehicle was stopped and they were attacked and killed by a mob in Gadchinchile village in the presence of police officers. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 11 (PTI) Wales has told a ministerial delegation from Kerala that it will take the initiative to discuss with companies there on investing in the Gift City to be launched in Kochi area of the southern state, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's office said. Also Read | Honor X40 GT Launch Set for October 13, 2022; Expected Features & Specifications. Apart from that, a decision was also taken to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Wales government to send health professionals from Kerala to the European country, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said in a statement issued on Monday. Also Read | UP: Two Minors Among Seven Booked for 'Sar Tan Se Juda' Slogan in Amethi. The first batch of health professionals, under the MoU, are expected to arrive in Wales by this time next year, it said. These discussions were held in an interaction between the Kerala delegation headed by Vijayan and First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford as well as other members of his government including Wales Health Minister Eluned Morgan, the statement said. It also said that the delegation also interacted with students and faculty of Cardiff University's School of Architecture which has conducted a detailed study of the problems related to the urbanisation of Kochi and presented its findings to them. According to the study conducted by the School of Architecture, the important problems being faced by the port city of Kochi were noise pollution, water pollution, traffic woes, general problems faced by pedestrians, the need to maintain biodiversity, etc., the CMO statement said. It was decided to hold further discussions on this issue in January next year in Kerala and the university expressed interest in carrying out such projects jointly with officials of the planning department of the state, according to the statement. (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, Oct 11 (PTI) The West Bengal State Information Commission would take more than 24 years to dispose of a complaint filed by an RTI applicant, according to a report by a citizens' group, which has calculated the disposal rate of the information commissions in 26 states. The report released by Satark Nagrik Sangathan on the eve of the 17th anniversary of the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 used the average monthly disposal rate and the pendency in the commissions to calculate the time they would take to dispose of an appeal or a complaint. Also Read | Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde-Led Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena Party Gets 'Two Swords and Shield' Symbol. "The assessment shows that the West Bengal SIC would take an estimated 24 years and 3 months to dispose a matter. A matter filed on July 1, 2022 would be disposed in the year 2046 at the current monthly rate of disposal," the report said. The estimated time for disposal of appeals by the Odisha and Maharashtra state information commissions is more than five years, while for Bihar, it is more than two years, according to the report. Also Read | US Company Sacks Dutch Employee for Refusing To Keep Webcam On During Work From Home, Gets Fined by Netherlands Court. The assessment shows that 12 commissions would take a year or more to dispose of a matter. The report said more than 3.14 lakh appeals and complaints were pending as on June 30 in the 26 information commissions, from which data was obtained. "The backlog of appeals or complaints has been steadily increasing in the commissions. The 2019 assessment had found that as of March 31, 2019, a total of 2.18 lakh appeals and complaints were pending in the 26 information commissions from which data was obtained, which had climbed to 2.86 lakh as of June 30, 2021," it said. It is mandatory for the information commissions to impose a penalty on the public information officer if there is a delay in providing information or any other violation of the RTI Act, but the analysis showed that they did not impose penalties in 95 per cent of such cases. "Section 25 of the RTI Act obligates each commission to prepare a report on the implementation of the provisions of this Act every year, which is to be laid before Parliament or the state legislature. Twenty out of 29 ICs (69 per cent) have not published their annual report for 2020-21," it said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Beijing [China], October 11 (ANI): As the 20th Party Congress nears, Chinese propaganda activities are becoming rampant across the country which exaggerate Chinese President Xi Jinping's achievements and an image of him being close to people. This massive propaganda campaign was mooted upon in China when the National Propaganda Ministers meeting was held in Beijing on January 6 this year. It is now being executed with full force in China as Xi aspires to remain in power for the third term, reported Tibet Press Also Read | World Teachers' Day 2022: Indian-Origin Computer Science Teacher Greeshma Rajesh Anil Kumar Honored in Abu Dhabi. The 20th Party Congress will be held in the month of October and right ahead of it Politburo member Wang Hunting along with Huang Kunming, head of the Central Propaganda Department, had been directed to employ 'Xi's thought' as the foundation of all the propaganda activities. However, all is not laid out immediately and things will gradually come to the surface with time as massive propaganda activities are being undertaken. Xi's inner circle is hell bent in convincing the domestic population of the 'spirit of the whole party.' Also Read | India-China Flights Unlikely To Be Resumed in Near Future Due to Beijing's Strict COVID-19 Rules. Social media is also being utilized in every fashion one can imagine. Whether it is about clamping down on any attempt which puts China's Xi in a negative light is been shunned and the only things that get a pass are those which portray China as a democracy both within and outside the country. The Chinese social media, Weibo, is trending #Welcome to the 20th Party congress, to demonstrate the support of ordinary citizens. Many publicity-purposed educational and press conferences are being held to highlight China's democratic credentials. The intention is to create momentum before the party congress to extend his term in office. However, there have been protests breaking out in various parts of China against Xi's regime. China's zero-COVID policy is facing a heavy backlash manifested in the form of protests. Economic issues like a high rate of unemployment and the crisis around home mortgage payments are adding fuel to the fire. Chinese establishment is leaving no stone unturned to silence any voice of dissent. The country's Cyberspace Administration has reportedly shut down 1.34 billion social media accounts and deleted 22 million posts. Chinese social media platform, Weibo informed that it had deleted around 20 million posts that 'violated' rules and regulations. Most of these posts were against the ruling government, reported Tibet Press. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Washington, Oct 11 (PTI) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will arrive here on Tuesday to attend an important meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The finance minister during her visit will also hold a bilateral meeting with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Also Read | US President Joe Biden Condoles Loss of Lives in Ukraine After Russia's Missile Attacks; Says Will Continue To Impose Costs on Vladimir Putin for 'Aggression'. Sitharaman upon her arrival will participate in a fireside chat on "India's Economic Prospects and Role in the World Economy" at the prestigious Brookings Institute think-tank and soon after hold a bilateral meeting with Yellen at the Department of Treasury. At an official dinner hosted by India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu, nearly 30 senior representatives of the US Administration, World Bank, IMF, and CEOs of the private sector are expected to participate. Also Read | Pakistan Shocker: Hindu Female Farm Worker Beaten, Gang-Raped in Bahawalpur. In addition to her one-on-one meeting with the IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank President David Malpass, the finance minister is scheduled to have bilateral meetings with countries like Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, Australia, Bhutan, Egypt, New Zealand, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Given that India will take over the G-20 presidency this December, Sitharaman's participation in the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, as well as the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) meetings gain significance. She is also scheduled to hold meetings with leaders and heads of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The finance minister will on October 13 also address faculty and students of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies on Technology, Finance and Governance: Multiplier Effect. She is also scheduled to visit the National Science Foundation and interact with its Director S Panchanathan and his colleagues to understand their focus areas and possible partnerships to strengthen the US-India collaboration to stimulate private investment. Sitharaman will also attend two separate round tables with the US-India Business Council - Confederation of Indian Industries (USIBC-CII), as well as, the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum - Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (USISPF-FICCI) on Saturday to interact with industry leaders for strengthening investment and innovation in India-US corridor and also explain investment opportunities in India's digital revolution. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], October 11 (ANI): Highlighting India's vision of Antyodaya --empowering the last person in a mission mood- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that there is a need for an 'institutional approach' in helping each other during a crisis and that global organizations like the United Nations can lead the way in taking resources to the last mile in every region. Addressing the UN World Geospatial International Congress (UNWGIC) organized in Hyderabad through video conferencing, PM Modi said, "There is a need for an institutional approach by the international community to help each other during a crisis. Global organisations like the UN can lead the way in taking resources to the last mile in every region." Also Read | Whale Stranding Reported Two Consecutive Days on New Zealand Chatham Islands. The theme of the second UNWGIC is "Geo Enabling the Global Village--No one must be left behind." Elaborating on the theme, PM Modi noted that the vision of "Antyodaya" is empowering the last person at the last mile in a mission mood. "It is a vision that has guided us in the last mile empowerment on a mass scale." Also Read | India Votes to Reject Russias Call for Secret Vote on Ukraine At UNGA. The prime minister spoke on India's development journey in connecting rural India with banking insurance and technology in general. "Banking 450 million unbanked people, a population greater than that of the USA, insuring 135 million uninsured people, about twice the population of France, taking sanitation facilities to 110 million families and tap water connection over 60 million families. India is ensuring no one is left behind." PM Modi also highlighted that in India technology is not an agent of exclusion but an agent of inclusion. "PM-SVAMITVA Yojana is an example of how digitisation benefits people. We are using drones to map properties in villages, and using this villagers are getting their property cards," PM Modi said. Prime Minister said that India's development journey has two key pillars -- technology and talent. "Technology brings transformation. India is the world number one in real-time digital payment, If you venture out even the smallest vendors accept and prefer digital payment. It helped the poor during COVID-19." "For the first time in decades, people in rural areas have clear documents of ownership. Most of you know how property rights are the bedrock for prosperity anywhere in the world. This prosperity can be further accelerated when women are the prime beneficiaries of ownership. This is what we are doing in India." The PM pointed out that India is among the top startup hubs in the world. "Since 2021, we've almost doubled the number of unicorn start-ups," he said. The five-day conference is scheduled from October 10 to October 14, is convened by the UN committee of experts on global geospatial information management and hosted by the Department of Science and Technology. The second congress brought together a diverse group of leaders and participants from various stakeholder groups, including: governments; national and international geospatial agencies academia; regional and international professional bodies; the business community; and civil society. The UNWGIC facilitated the exchange of knowledge and ideas, showcase innovations, share successful case studies, identify solutions, discuss future strategies, and provide mutual learning opportunities on a wide variety of topics. The anchoring themes of the UNWGIC will be the nine Strategic Pathways of the United Nations Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF). Other related themes include the use of geospatial information: to collect, manage, report, and act on indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals; to address climate change; to support sustainable development, to promote and ensure professional diversity; and to showcase country-level action plans or alignment of existing national capabilities to the IGIF. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. Melbourne, October 11: An Indian-origin Sikh man and his Malaysian partner who mistakenly received USD 10.4 million from a cryptocurrency company following an administrative bungle in Bulgaria is facing a trial in Australia over allegations that the couple spent the money on items, including a USD 1.2 million house, according to a media report on Tuesday. Jatinder Singh, 37, and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, appeared at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday. The court was told that the company, crypto.com, had intended to refund USD 100 into Manivel's Australian bank account in May 2021 but mistakenly paid USD 10.4 million, news website Brisbane Times reported. Singapore: Indian-Origin Man Faces 21 Cheating Charges Under Timeshare Recovery Scheme. The company became aware of the mistaken payment in December 2021 after a financial audit in Hong Kong uncovered the error. Subsequent investigations found that an employee in Bulgaria had incorrectly entered USD 10.4 million into an Excel spreadsheet. Indian-Origin Man in US Sentenced to Nearly 4 Years in Jail for Running Fraud COVID-19 Scheme. Singh, who held an account with crypto.com, told police he believed he had won the money from the company before Manivel, a Malaysian national, was arrested at Melbourne Airport in March with a one-way ticket to the South-East Asian county and USD 11,000 cash, the report said. Subsequent investigations revealed that the couple transferred USD 4 million of the total money to an offshore bank account with other amounts spent on items including a USD 1.2 million home in Craigieburn and three other properties, a car, art, furniture and gifts to friends in Melbourne of more than USD 1 million each. The Supreme Court has since frozen Manivel's Australian bank accounts and the assets the pair bought, the report said. According to police, Singh used his partner's bank account to buy crypto, but when the names on the bank account and his crypto wallet did not match, the USD 100 transaction was flagged internally and crypto.com intended to return that amount alone to Manivel's bank account. As per court documents, Singh, an Indian national, was unemployed and living in Australia illegally at the time of the alleged offending, the report said. Manivel, who works in aged care and disability services, has lived in Australia for the past six years on a student visa. But based on the amount of luggage she had at the airport, police believe she planned to leave and not return, it said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Washington [US], October 11 (ANI): Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman arrived in Washington DC to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The Finance Minister will be in the western country till October 16 and will participate in bilateral meetings with several countries, including Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Bhutan, New Zealand, Egypt, Germany, Mauritius, UAE, Iran and Netherlands. Also Read | NATO to Hold Nuclear Exercise Despite Russia President Vladimir Putins Warnings. One-on-one meetings with leaders and heads of the OECD, European Commission and UNDP are also scheduled. Besides, interacting with business leaders and investors, she will also attend the meetings of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. Also Read | US Company Sacks Dutch Employee for Refusing To Keep Webcam On During Work From Home, Gets Fined by Netherlands Court. "Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman will be travelling to the USA on an official visit beginning October 11, 2022. During her visit, Sitharaman will be attending the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor (FMCBG) Meetings," read a statement by the Ministry of Finance. During her visit to the US from October 11 to 16, the Finance Minister would meet US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and World Bank President David Malpass separately to discuss issues of mutual interest. Union Minister will also take part in "India's Economic Prospects and Role in the World Economy" at the Brookings Institution, a prominent non-profit public policy organisation based in Washington, DC. She will also talk on India's unique Digital Public Goods (DPG) story and multiplier effects created in India through the interlinkages of 'Technology, Finance and Governance at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), John Hopkins University during the visit. During the latter part of the visit, Sitharaman will attend roundtable meetings with USIBC and USISPF on themes to 'Strengthen Investment and Innovation in India-US Corridor' and "Investing in India's Digital Revolution". "These meetings with leading business leaders and investors are aimed at highlighting India's policy priorities, and deliberate on measures to facilitate foreign investment by showcasing India's attractiveness as an investment destination," the Ministry said. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, October 11: Sudden opening of international borders with various countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan and Vietnam leads to a surge in tourist numbers and long queues at the immigration clearance at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). The tourism sector, especially in the Asia Pacific, remains one of the most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The governments of the respective countries have taken measures to make economic and business easier. Several countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan and the Middle East's United Arab Emirates, have opened their borders to tourists after a gap of almost two years. India Reports 4,369 New COVID-19 Cases, 20 Deaths in Past 24 Hours. "The passengers from Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia, especially tourists, are the most travelling at the moment. Many airline companies have announced their discounted airfares these days," an airport official told ANI. The rush hour for international travellers witnessed huge crowds on Tuesday midnight with arriving passengers waiting in long queues to clear their immigration at the Delhi airport. "There was a huge crowd at the Delhi airport on Monday night where people queued up for more than half an hour for immigration clearance," a UK passenger told ANI. Mumbai Logs 66 New COVID-19 Cases, Zero Fatality; Active Tally at 714. Recently, several airline companies have announced discounted airfares to attract tourists after a long gap of a year. In a recent announcement, Vietnamese-based airline VietJet inaugurated two new routes between Ahmedabad and Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City after easing Covid regulations and opening borders. "VietJet is making it easier and affordable for Indians, and how travellers from Ahmedabad, to visit Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh City, an economic icon. Prices starting from 23000 INR round trip," the airline company said in a statement. A Delhi-based tour and travel companies are also selling their short-haul destinations instead of Europe and other western countries due to visa delays. "For two years, people were not able to go out due to Covid, now the market is open, so visa is not available to go to Europe quickly, so people go to places like short-haul destinations... Vietnam, Malaysia, Bhutan, UAE and alike. At present, we have demand from short-haul countries only," Manoj Matta, head of oriental vacation, told ANI. In March this year, India's the Ministry of Civil Aviation has resumed 100 per cent full service for international passengers flying. India's Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had said, "All regular international flights will operate at 100 per cent capacity as the COVID situation in India has now improved." Besides, this company got fed up with virtual meetings and hence had started venturing out for their off-sites, be it dealer-incentive tours or conferences or launch events, etc. Another factor contributing to this is the students travelling abroad. "Owing to visa issues, currently, we have demand for short-haul countries only," Manoj Matta, head of Oriental Vacations and Journeys, told ANI. Passengers from India as well as foreigners filed complaints about immigration chaos and mismanagement strategies at the Delhi airport through social media. Last year, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has taken cognizance of the mismanagement of the crowd at IGI, resulting in a chaotic situation. Jyotiraditya Scindia convened a high-level meeting with officials from IGI Airport (DIAL), Airports Authority of India, (AAI), Immigration and Covid-19 Testing Lab Company attending the meeting. (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], October 11 (ANI): Highlighting the role of talent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that India is a young nation with a great innovative spirit, adding that the number of unicorn startups has almost doubled since 2021. "India is a young nation with a great innovative spirit," the Prime Minister said while addressing the United Nations World Geospatial International Congress virtually. Also Read | Who Will Be at This Years World Health Summit? Find out in 30 Seconds. Bookmark Your Latest Tweet by World Health Organization. "India is one of the top startup hubs in the world with the number of unicorn startups having almost doubled since 2021- a testimony to India's young talent," he added. The theme of the second UNWGIC is "Geo Enabling the Global Village--No one must be left behind." Also Read | Whale Stranding Reported Two Consecutive Days on New Zealand Chatham Islands. Welcoming International delegates, the Prime Minister said, "the people of India are happy to host you on this historic occasion as we build our future together." Expressing his happiness at the conference happening in Hyderabad, the Prime Minister said that the city is known for its culture and cuisine, its hospitality and hi-tech vision." "We have been working on a vision of Antyodaya which means empowering the last person at the last mile, in a mission mode," he said pointing out that the theme of the conference, 'Geo-enabling the Global Village: No one should be left behind can be seen in the steps India has taken over the last few years. Sanitation facilities were taken to 110 million families and tap water connections to over 60 million families, he added, underlining that "India is ensuring no one is left behind." Technology and talent are the two pillars that are key to India's development journey. Technology brings transformation, the Prime Minister said, citing the example of JAM trinity which delivered welfare benefits to 800 million people seamlessly and of the tech platform that powered the world's largest vaccination drive. "In India, technology is not an agent of exclusion. It is an agent of inclusion," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister highlighted the role of geospatial technology in driving inclusion and progress. The role of technology in schemes like SVAMITVA and housing, and the outcomes in terms of property ownership and women empowerment, have a direct impact on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals on poverty and gender equality, the Prime Minister emphasized. The PM GatiShakti Master Plan is being powered by geospatial technology, as is the Digital Ocean platform, he added. India has already set an example in sharing the benefits of geospatial technology, the Prime Minister stated, citing the example of the South Asia Satellite for facilitating communication in India's neighbourhood. One of the most important freedoms is the freedom to innovate, the Prime Minister said, and this has been ensured for the geospatial sector. Collection, generation and digitization of geospatial data have now been democratized, he added. Such reforms have been accompanied by a boost to the drone sector and the opening up of the space sector for private participation, along with 5G taking off in India. According to Prime Minister Modi, the COVID-19 pandemic should have been a wake-up call for the call in taking everyone along. There is a need for an institutional approach by the international community to help each other during a crisis, he emphasized. "Global organisations like the United Nations can lead the way in taking resources to the last mile in every region," he highlighted. Hand-holding and technology transfer are also crucial in fighting climate change, the Prime Minister added, suggesting that best practices may be shared for saving our planet. The Prime Minister underlined the endless possibilities that geospatial technology offers. These include sustainable urban development, managing and mitigating disasters, tracking the impact of climate change, forest management, water management, stopping desertification and food security. He expressed his wish that this conference becomes a platform to discuss developments in such important areas. PM Modi also expressed his optimism at the occasion and said, "With the stakeholders of the global geo-spatial industry coming together, with the policymakers and academic world interacting with each other, I am confident that this conference will help steer the global village into a new future," he added. (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, October 11: The country's largest IT services exporter TCS on Monday said moonlighting is an "ethical issue" and against its core values but has not taken any action against any staff. The company, which employs over 6.16 lakh people, will take into account all the relevant dimensions while forming its final view on the issue which has been dominating headlines for the last few weeks, its Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad told reporters. What Is Moonlighting? Why Is Everyone Talking About It? Know Everything About the Practice Adopted Widely by Employees During Work From Home Culture. "Moonlighting we believe is an ethical issue and it is against our core values and culture," Lakkad said. The company's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Rajesh Gopinathan said that an employee is barred from working for any other organisation as part of the service contract. Infosys Warns Its Employees Against Moonlighting; Says Dual Employment Can Lead to Termination. Lakkad said that unlike peers like Wipro, which announced a sacking of over 300 employees recently, TCS has not taken any action against any employee. He said that TCS has a long term commitment towards its employees and the employees also have a "reciprocal commitment" towards the company, and also acknowledged that at present its peers in the IT industry may have different views on the subject. Further, he said the company has been communicating its stance on moonlighting lately but did not elaborate. In recent weeks, CXOs in the IT industry have been offering varied takes on the subject of moonlighting. Over the past few months, the IT industry has been faced with a manpower shortage triggered by a high demand for services following the greater adoption of digitalisation following the pandemic. While some like Tech Mahindra have supported the idea of side hustles, others like IBM, Wipro have flagged concerns about it. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 11, 2022 04:11 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Raipur, October 11: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of senior officials, businessmen and politicians of the ruling Congress at different locations in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, sources said. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel termed it as an "act of intimidation". The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not able to fight directly, hence it is trying to fight through the ED, Income Tax (I-T) department and the Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Baghel told reporters here. According to sources, separate teams of the ED conducted raids in state capital Raipur, Raigarh, Mahasamund, Korba and other districts. The raids covered premises of a district collector, some senior officials, businessman and politicians of the ruling party, the sources said without elaborating. Delhi Excise Policy Scam: ED Seizes Rs 1 Crore From Businessmans House. Baghel said, The BJP is not able to fight directly, so is trying to fight through the ED, IT and DRI. I have already said that they will come again and it's not the last time. Their visits will increase as the election approaches. This is just an act of intimidation and nothing else." The state Assembly elections are due in November 2023. Chhattisgarh Congress communication cell chief Sushil Anand Shukla said he had an apprehension that the BJP would misuse central agencies in the state as it was unable to fight a political battle (with the ruling party). CM Baghel had also expressed the apprehension many times, Shukla said. If the action is taken as per law then there is no problem, he said. But, the BJP is misusing the central agencies across the country to create pressure, he claimed, adding that this is condemnable. ED Arrests TMC MLA Manik Bhattacharya in Primary Teachers Recruitment Scam Case. The Congress party will not be scared of such malpractices. We will fight them. We will expose them before the public, Shukla said. Last month, the I-T department had conducted raids at the premises of businessmen associated with steel and coal businesses. Similar raids conducted by the I-T department in June-July this year covered the premises of coal businessman Suryakant Tiwari and a government officer posted in the Chief Minister's Office. Kochi, Oct 11: The recent deaths of two hapless women have turned out to be a shocking incident of alleged human sacrifice for black magic in Kerala as police arrested three persons, including a couple, in this connection here on Tuesday. The deceased women, who had earned their daily bread by selling lottery tickets on streets, were allegedly "sacrificed" by the accused to settle their financial issues and bring prosperity in life, police said. The two women's throats were slit and their body parts cut into pieces before burying it in two different locations in Thiruvalla in the Pathanamthitta district, police said quoting the accused. Bihar Shocker: Man Practicing Witchcraft Sacrifices 7-Year-Old Son in Banka; Arrested. The victims, said to be in their early 50s, were natives of Kadavanthara here and nearby Kalady. They had gone missing in September and June this year, respectively, and the subsequent probe has led to the shocking story of human sacrifice in the state. The arrested persons were identified as one Bhagavanth Singh, a local massage therapist, his wife Laila, both natives of Thiruvalla; and Rasheed alias Muhammand Shafi, a Perumbavoor native who was suspected to have brought the now deceased women to the house of the couple where the sacrifice was said to have been done. "During our investigation regarding the missing woman from Kadavanthara, we came to know that she was killed in that couple's house in Thiruvalla and her body was buried after being cut into pieces there. It was a human sacrifice for the financial benefit of that couple," Kochi City Police Commissioner Nagaraju Chakilam told PTI. UP Shocker: Minor Boy Slits Friends Throat For Ogling At Sister in Bijnor, Arrested. On further interrogation, it was also found that this was not the lone case but another woman was also "sacrificed" similarly in the same house in June. "It was also at the same house...by the same couple...and the woman was brought by the same person. The third person had not only played an agent role (in both these cases) but was also instrumental in getting this done. He convinced the couple that this should be done," he said. The senior officer said the trio are under custody now and a police team would soon reach Thiruvalla to exhume the bodies of the deceased women. "The bodies are not in one shape...they have been made into pieces and buried," he said. Further details can be divulged after the exhumation, inquest and post-mortem procedures, IG (south zone) P Prakash said. "Prima facie, it was a case of murder for financial gains through black magic and human sacrifice. Police will look into all aspects and details," he added. New Delhi, October 11: The Congress on Tuesday countered the claims of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the issue of J&K was not resolved by India's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. Even though PM Modi did not take the name of Nehru, the Congress said he should check the facts first. The party blamed Maharaja Hari Singh, the then ruler of the J&K for not acceding to India soon after Independence, but took the decision only after invaders from Pakistan tried to take over the place. Congress President Elections 2022: Jairam Ramesh Asks Spokespersons To Refrain From Commenting on Candidates. Jairam Ramesh, the Congress General Secretary in-charge of the Communication department cited Rajmohan Gandhi's book and said, "The PM has once again whitewashed REAL history. He overlooks the following facts only to castigate Nehru on J&K. All this has been documented well in Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of Sardar Patel. These facts are also known to the PM's new man in J&K." Jairam was referring to Ghulam Nabi Azad, who resigned from the Congress and formed a new political party. Jairam Further said, "Maharaja Hari Singh dithered on accession. There were dreams of independence. But when Pakistan invaded, Hari Singh acceded to India Sardar Patel was okay with J&K joining Pakistan till Sept 13 1947 when the Nawab of Junagadh acceded to Pakistan." Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023: Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi Says We Will Win Hands Down in the State. But Jairam pointed out that, "Sheikh Abdullah championed accession to India entirely because of his friendship with and admiration for Nehru, and his respect for Gandhi." Jairam quoted from Rajmohan Gandhi's book -- 'Patel: A Life' by Rajmohan Gandhi page 439 and page 591 (1991) "Vallabhbhai's lukewarmness about Kashmir had lasted until September 13 1947. That morning, in a letter to Baldev Singh, he had indicated that "if (Kashmir) decides to join the other Dominion," he would accept the fact. His attitude changed later that day when he heard that Pakistan had accepted Junagadh's accession". In the book Rajmohan writes that,"If Jinnah could take hold of a Hindu majority State with a Muslim ruler, why should the Sardar not be interested in a Muslim majority State with a Hindu ruler. From that day Junagadh and Kashmir, the pawn and the Queen, became his simultaneous concerns. He would wrest the one and defend the other. He would also defend Hyderabad, to him the King on the chessboard. Had Jinnah allowed the King and the pawn to go to India, Patel, as we have seen, might have let the Queen go to Pakistan, but Jinnah rejected the deal." Rajmohan Gandhi quoted this from, "Sardar Patel's Correspondence Volume I page 37 (66) Sardar Patel Correspondence Volume I page 74, and Jinnah remarks to Mountbatten 1.11.47." PM in a veiled attack on Nehru on Monday said Sardar Patel resolved issues of merger of other princely states, but "one person" could not resolve the Kashmir issue. While addressing a rally in Gujarat, Modi targeted the first PM without naming him, and said, "Sardar saheb managed the merger of all the princely states with India but another person handled this one issue of Kashmir," he said, and added that is why it still is unresolved and he is following Patel footsteps. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 11, 2022 03:14 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Hyderabad, Oct 11: Unidentified persons set afire Congress party's office in Telangana's Munugode Assembly constituency where by-election is scheduled on November 3. The Congress party office at Chandur in the constituency in Nalgonda district was set ablaze by some unidentified persons early Tuesday. Party's campaign material was gutted in the incident. Shiv Sena Symbol War: Eknath Shinde Faction Submits 'Shining Sun, Shield and Sword and Peepul Tree As Election Sign. Party flags, posters and scarves stored for Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy's road show were gutted. The Congress leaders blamed the rival parties for the incident. They said they were present in the party office till 11 in the night but when they came to office in the morning, they noticed smoke and damaged material. They alerted the police. BJP Leader-Actor Sunny Deols Missing Posters Pasted on Vehicles, Railway Stations by Locals of Punjab (View Pics). The Congress leaders demanded an impartial probe into the incident. They said fascist BJP and its friendly party TRS were scared of the Congress. Terming it as an act of cowardice, they said it reflects the fear of defeat by BJP and TRS. Last night, some unidentified persons pasted wall posters against BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, alleging that he received Rs 18,000 crore contract to join the BJP. The Congress leaders suspect that their office was set afire in a revenge action. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy condemned the Chandur incident. He expressed his anguish over the Congress office being set ablaze. Revanth alleged that the Congress party's rivals in Munugode were resorting to criminal acts as they were unable to digest the public support Congress was receiving in the constituency. Revanth Reddy said such actions cannot stop the Congress party from winning the by-election. The by-election is scheduled to be held on November 3. The vacancy arose after sitting MLA Rajagopal Reddy resigned from the Assembly and also Congress party to join the BJP. The constituency is set to see a three-cornered contest among the ruling TRS and opposition BJP and Congress. The TRS has named Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy as its candidate while the Congress has fielded Palvai Sravanti. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 11, 2022 01:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Karnataka BJP MLA Arvind Bellad on Tuesday reiterated his demand to the BJP government to cancel the reservation given to Muslims and Christians in the state. He demanded that the reservation quota should be given to the Panchamasali Lingayats. The post-mortem reports of three women who were found dead in the Kurecha Separar dam in Uttar Pradesh's Mauranipur on October 8, has now pointed towards the possibility of murder. Heavy rainfall spell is likely over Tamil Nadu and Rayalaseema during the next 5 days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday. Interior Karnataka is expected to receive heavy rainfall for the next 2 days, the weather office informed. UP Rains: Heavy Rain Lashes Uttar Pradesh, Schools in Several Districts To Remain Closed. Rain Spell Over Tamil Nadu: (ii) Conditions are very likely to become favourable for withdrawal of southwest monsoon from some more parts of northwest & central India during next 4-5 days. pic.twitter.com/FctXsackKb India Meteorological Department (@Indiametdept) October 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.) Cachar, Assam | Acting on a tip-off, Cachar police seized drugs & apprehended a peddler in Assam's Cachar district on Monday. Almost 278 grams of heroin was recovered from the house of accused, Mojibur Rahman Talukdar of Karkat Basti, Dholai concealed in soap cases. pic.twitter.com/subyrdnn0F ANI (@ANI) October 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.) Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit has requested all judges to assemble in the Judges' lounge at 10.15 am today when the outgoing CJI will hand over the letter naming his successor. Justice DY Chandrachud is likely to be named the 50th Chief Justice of India. pic.twitter.com/QXN8sSNXja ANI (@ANI) October 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.) Nepal PM Sher Bahadur Deuba expresses condolences on the demise of former UP CM #MulayamSinghYadav "As an eminent socialist leader, late Yadav touched lives of many in India and beyond," he tweeted pic.twitter.com/E13Mxr2VVD ANI (@ANI) October 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.) #Thiruvananthapuram: In a suspected case of human sacrifice, two women were found murdered and buried by a couple in Thiruvalla in #Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, the police said. They were earlier reported to be missing.@TheKeralaPolice https://t.co/sQuIgIg72s pic.twitter.com/VV81OgGbc6 IANS (@ians_india) October 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.) Leader of the Belarus opposition in exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Ukraine could establish diplomatic and political relations with the United Transitional Cabinet, an executive body that aims to thwart Belarusian dictator Lukashenko. The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) October 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 death toll from devastating floods following heavy rain in Venezuela rose as rescuers searched for the more than 50 missing persons. Meanwhile in Central America, the death toll from Tropical Storm Julia rose to at least 16 https://t.co/OawXX5ZTLR pic.twitter.com/WMQwjzqqd3 Reuters (@Reuters) October 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.) Mumbai, October 11: In what can be seen as a win-win situation, a Netherlands court ruled a verdict in an employee's favour stating that the US software company violated a worker's human right after it allegedly forced the employee to keep his webcam on during working hours. According to reports, a telemarketing company in United States's Florida recently fired at employee after he refused to be monitored "on webcam" during working hours. As per report in Wion news, the employee, a Dutch worker who is working remotely refused to be monitored under the "for nine hours per day" programme. The programme demanded the employee streamed his webcam during the work hours and even share his screens. What Is Moonlighting? Why Is Everyone Talking About It? Know Everything About the Practice Adopted Widely by Employees During Work From Home Culture. In its defence, the software company called Chetu said that they fired the employee due to his "refusal to work" and "insubordination", which the employee refused. The employee told the court that the fact that he was being monitored all day as per the "for nine hours per day" programme made him uncomfortable. He also said that the programme was an invasion of his privacy. "This is an invasion of my privacy and makes me feel really uncomfortable. That is the reason why my camera is not on," the employee deposed before the court. Meanwhile, reports also said that the company did not attend the hearing. While announcing its verdict, the Netherland court said that "tracking via camera for eight hours per day is disproportionate and not permitted in the Netherlands." What Is Quiet Quitting and It's Meaning? Where Did It Originate From? Know Everything About the Practice That Is Making Employers Worried. The court also observed that the programme violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court termed the employees firing as unfair and directed the company to pay $50,000 fine besides paying the employee's back wages, court costs, and unused vacation days among others. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 11, 2022 06:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New York, October 11: India on Monday voted to reject Russia's call to hold a secret ballot at United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on a draft resolution to condemn Moscow's "attempted illegal annexation" of four regions in Ukraine. A public vote will be held now be held later this week in UNGA on Russia after its referendum in Ukrainian territories. The UN General Assembly meeting began with a procedural vote on a measure which Russia had flagged, proposing that the Ukrainian draft resolution being debated, be voted on by secret ballot, not through a public vote. Russia-Ukraine War: India Abstains on UNSC Resolution Condemning Moscows Illegal Referendum To Annex Ukrainian Territories. Albania requested an open vote after Russia proposed a secret ballot on the resolution on Ukraine. India voted in favour of a procedural vote called by Albania. A resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions was up for adoption at the UNGA, where the 193 UN members vote and no one wields a veto. The Albanian proposal received 107 votes in favour, with 13 countries opposed to the vote and 39 abstentions. Twenty-four countries including China, Iran and Russia did not vote. Albanian diplomat while dismissing the proposal said that "conducting secret ballot will undermine the practises of assembly." Ukraine and Russia clashed in the UNGA on Monday ahead of the vote. Speaking first at the emergency meeting, Ukraine's envoy Sergiy Kyslytsya told members states that he had already lost family members to Russian aggression. He said that around 84 missiles and around two dozen drones had deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure during Monday's multiple attacks on Ukrainian cities, including schools and universities. Russia-Ukraine War: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Calls on All Countries to Reject Russias Blatant Attempts at Territorial Conquest (Watch Video). "The entire world has once again, seen the true face of the terrorist State that kills our people. Suffering defeats on the battlefield, Russia takes it out on the peaceful residents of Ukrainian cities," he said. The Ukrainian envoy said that voting for the draft resolution would be "for each country, for each of our citizens, for your families, for our children - a vote for justice". The resolution on the Russian annexation comes days after Moscow vetoed a similar proposal in the UN Security Council. The draft resolution condemns Russia's "attempted illegal annexations" of the four Ukrainian regions following "so-called referendums". Russia's ambassador Vassily Nebenzya said that the Albanian resolution, which confirmed that a recorded vote would take place following the debate, had been a violation of the rules of procedure. He said Russia had been deprived of the ability to present its case and all aspects of the Ukraine crisis that did not suit Western powers, had been conveniently overlooked. "Ukraine was chosen by these countries for that purpose, was brought under their control and today is a platform for the testing of NATO weaponry and for combat against Russia, using other people," he said. He accused Ukraine of an act of terrorism in "sabotaging" Russia's bridge to Crimea, adding that Russia could not stand by and let Ukraine act "with impunity". This vote comes after Russia conducted that large-scale strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other locations on Monday, which drew condemnation from several countries. UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was deeply shocked and represented "another unacceptable escalation" of the war. The strikes which have reportedly caused widespread damage to civilian areas and led to dozens of deaths and injuries showed that "as always", civilians were paying the highest price for Russia's invasion of February 24, the statement released by the UN Spokesperson added. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned of "harsh" reprisals after the Crimea bridge attack on Saturday. In a television appearance, Putin said Russia had struck military and infrastructure targets across Ukraine following the Crimea bridge blast. He threatened further "harsh" responses that correspond "to the level of threat to the Russian Federation, have no doubt about it," while accusing Kyiv of "terrorism." (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Martin Azzopardi, St. Margaret College Secondary School's science teacher who founded the school's China Corner, speaks at the letter delivery ceremony in Cospicua, Malta, on Oct. 6, 2022. (Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua) VALLETTA, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Teachers and students at St. Margaret College Secondary School in Cospicua said they are determined to nurture and carry on the great friendship between Malta and China. They expressed the hope as Chinese Ambassador to Malta Yu Dunhai on Thursday officially delivered a letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping in reply to teachers and students of the school's China Corner. In the letter, Xi encouraged more Maltese youth to actively participate in people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries. Xi wished the China Corner even greater success in the future, and welcomed faculty members and students to China for exchanges and study. The China Corner was founded in 2010 by Martin Azzopardi, a science teacher at the school, with the aim of bringing "China" to his classroom following his first visit to the country. The Maltese government, the Chinese Embassy in Malta and the China Cultural Centre in Malta provided him with a lot of support. "I feel highly grateful. I cannot believe that the Chinese president found the time to read my letter and kindly replied to it personally. This again demonstrates the kindness and humbleness of the Chinese people. I will treasure this letter throughout my life," said Azzopardi. In July, Azzopardi and his students wrote a letter to the Chinese president, expressing their best wishes for the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malta and China. The letter elaborated on the colorful activities carried out by the China Corner, as well as the efforts it made to promote multicultural understanding and enhance the Malta-China friendship. Maltese Education Minister Clifton Grima said at the delivery ceremony that the Chinese president places high value on the work of the China Corner, as education indeed serves as a gateway to knowing other countries' cultures and also a bridge for cultural exchanges between countries. Hailing the achievements of Malta-China collaboration in the past 50 years since the establishment of their diplomatic relations, the minister encouraged the China Corner to work even harder in the future to make more contribution to the bilateral friendship. Aimee Bugeja, a 15-year-old student, was among those writing the letter to Xi. "Having a China Corner in our school is an opportunity for students to open up to another culture and helps us understand the beauty of China," she said, deeming it also an opportunity to learn to "build bridges and not walls" between different countries and cultures. The China Corner, deeply loved by students of St. Margaret College Secondary School, provides them with lectures and various activities on the traditional Chinese culture and technologies such as tea ceremony, calligraphy, traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese ceramics, silk weaving, among others. Joseph Ellul, head of the school, said the China Corner has brought students much closer to the beautiful and rich Chinese culture. The China Corner and the Chinese language program of the school will "continue to promote the Chinese culture among our students and consolidate the friendship and understanding between the people of Malta and China, a relationship that has been steadily strengthened for the past 50 years," he said. Xi's reply letter spoke highly of the active role the China Corner has played in enhancing Maltese young people's understanding about China and boosting the friendship between the two countries, Yu, the Chinese ambassador, said at the ceremony. He voiced hope that the teachers and students will live up to Xi's wish and continue to serve as a bridge of cultural exchanges between the two countries. The embassy stands ready to offer any assistance to the China Corner, especially on Chinese language teaching, he added. Thursday's ceremony was "an encouraging moment for me and my students to keep on going," Azzopardi told Xinhua. "I hope students can inherit the friendship between Malta and China and continue to push it forward. The China Corner is a means to enhance the friendship between the two countries." Ellul said he hoped teachers and students in his school will have the opportunity to go to China for study and visit in the future. "China is a country that we wish to remain friends and build more projects together in the future," he said. Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez was caught saying racist remarks while in a conversation with two other council members. She has since apologized but has now announced her resignation from her position. According to a report from Axios, Martinez asked her colleagues and the residents of Los Angeles for forgiveness. She also said that she hopes that people give her the opportunity to make amends as she resigned from her position as President of the Los Angeles City Council. The Los Angeles City Councilwoman was caught on tape saying those racist remarks with Councilmembers Gil Cedillo, Kevin de Leon, and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. The California and Los Angeles branches of the NAACP demanded their resignations. The discussion between the council members was racist not only in their anti-black remarks but also had anti-Indigenous comments. Nury Martinez Called White Council Member's Black Child "Little Monkey" The leaked audio was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. It showed Martinez referring to white council member Mike Bonin's child, who is black, as "ese changuito," or that little monkey. This happened during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade ironically. She also referred to Bonin as a "little b---h." Council President Nury Martinez makes racist remarks in a leaked audio recording about Councilmember Mike Bonin's young son while Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon and County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera chime in. Read more: https://t.co/Fm6jf9p6g2 pic.twitter.com/09U8Mq8TOM Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 10, 2022 Herrera also partook in the racist remarks and said that Bonin should put his black son out in public like a lawn jockey, which is a reference to the racist statues used to invoke the antebellum South. The other officials who were in on that conversation all apologized, including Herrera and De Leon, who admitted their actions were inexcusable. However, Cedillo told the Los Angeles Times that he did not recall being part of this conversation. READ MORE: Texas Woman Goes Off on Shocking Racist Rant, Now Facing Possible Hate Crime Charges After Arrest Nury Martinez Also Attacked Other Latinos, Made Racist Remarks Against Oaxacans According to NBC News, Martinez also dismissed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who is described as a justice reform advocate reviled by law-and-order politicians. She said "F--- that guy. He's with the Blacks." While Gascon has become reviled by Republicans for his reforms, he also did not get some love from other members of the Democratic Party, as Martinez and the other officials she had that racist conversation with were all Latino Democrats. She also made fun of the indigenous Oaxacan people who have migrated to Los Angeles. She referred to them as "short little dark people," and also called them ugly. The comment did not sit too well with fellow Latinos, especially those of Oaxacan descent. This included Los Angles Oaxacan chef, restaurateur, and Gold Award recipient Bricia Lopez, who joined the calls for her resignation. Bonin, a gay councilman, called on Martinez, De Leon, and Herrera to resign from their positions. He is joined by fellow City Council members Nithya Raman and Paul Koretz. Meanwhile, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti did not state whether any of these elected leaders should step down but did condemn their actions. READ NEXT: Latino and Black Police Officers Accuse Ohio Police Chief Of Racist Abuse This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Los Angeles official Nury Martinez resigns after racist remarks | USA TODAY More American grandparents are becoming victims of elder fraud by using the internet to connect with their families, buy stuff online, and even find a significant other. However, most of them do not understand that connecting to an unsecured Wi-Fi comes with the danger of scams that may cost them their life savings. Fox News noted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has shown that there has been an alarming rise in scams against older people over the past few years. According to a report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2021, more than 92,000 people lost $1.7 billion to scams that targeted older people. Compared to 2020, the losses went up by 74%. FBI Deputy Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigation Division Aaron Tapp said, "elder fraud is simply financial fraud that targets any individual, any citizen in the United States over the age of 60." He added that any fraud scheme targets the elderly, whether romance-based or technology-based. Tapp says that the biggest reason for the rise in elder fraud is that people over 65 are not as tech-savvy as younger people. Scammers take advantage of people who know little about technology to steal thousands of dollars from them. Tapp continued by saying that technology is just a way for these scammers to steal from people, and so, as technology gets better, they will use it in any way they can to take advantage of older people. READ NEXT: Watch Out for Fraud: Here are 4 Digital Marketing Scams You Should Be Wary Of Not All Elder Fraud Scams Gets Reported The fact that the majority of cases of abuse are not reported is one issue that the Justice Department's increased efforts to combat financial exploitation do not address. The National Center on Aging estimates that one in ten Americans 60 and older has been a victim of elder fraud. According to Forbes, some estimates say that 5 million older people are abused yearly. Meanwhile, one study found that only one out of every 24 cases of abuse is reported to the authorities. Law enforcement looks at reports of abuse to decide what action to take. Since most instances are never reported, there are a lot of neglected victims and abusers who get away with their crimes. Moreover, if a family member or other trusted person took advantage of an older person, it may be hard for them to report a crime. Only a Few Victims of Elder Fraud Scam Get Their Money Back The Department of Justice says that since September, 150,000 older Americans who lost $52 million in fraud schemes have gotten their money back. But this number only shows a small part of the people hurt by what some law enforcement officials call "grandparent scams." The DOJ added that since March 2020, more than 148,000 victims had received more than $366 million because of a criminal settlement with Western Union in 2017. The settlement was made "for the company's willful failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and its aiding and abetting of wire fraud," The Crime Report noted. Additionally, the IC3 of the FBI's Recovery Asset Team (RAT) was successfully freezing nearly $21 million in assets delivered to scammers. "Efforts like these display our unwavering dedication to protecting our older citizens and combating fraudsters who look to exploit them," said FBI Director Christopher Wray. READ MORE: Fake Heiress Anna 'Delvey' Sorokin Gets Out of Jail, Barred From Using Social Media Until Case Is Over This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Elder Fraud on the Rise - From WHNT News 19 As torrential rain swept through Venezuela, residents in the agro-industrial town of Las Tejerias in Santos Michelena, Aragua were affected as a massive landslide hit the area. Mud, rocks, trees, and debris swept through Las Terejias, causing the death of at least 35 people, with dozens still missing. The landslide came from a nearby mountainside, as the rain continued to pound central Venezuela. Rescue and Recovery efforts are now underway throughout the state of Aragua. Santos Michelena, where Las Tejerias can be found, is located approximately 54 miles (87 kilometers) southwest of Caracas. It is part of Aragua State. Meanwhile, Aragua Governor Karina Carpio stated that the flood waters "terribly affected" 21 sectors in Las Tejerias. Venezuela Vice President Gives Updates About Aragua State Landslides Vice President Delcy Rodriguez spoke to state-owned Venezolana de Television and revealed that five streams overflowed in Central Venezuela. A large landslide then happened and hurled debris into Las Tejerias. She also confirmed that the search and rescue teams managed to recover 20 bodies on Sunday, before confirming that there are already 22 confirmed deaths at the time of her statement. She also said that more than 52 people are missing, according to Reuters. "There are still people walled in," said Vice President Rodriguez, before stating that they are trying to rescue them, and to rescue them alive, according to the Associated Press. The Venezuelan Ministry of Communications stated that at least 1,300 families have been affected by the landslide. They also revealed that 317 homes have been destroyed and 757 homes were affected. Meanwhile, Vice President Rodriguez also added that approximately 10,000 families across the state are now experiencing water outages. READ NEXT: El Salvador Landslides Kill 7 People, Including 3 Children, After Days of Rain President Nicolas Maduro Orders 'Maximum Deployment' to Aragua CNN reported that on Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the interior ministry and security agencies into what he calls "Maximum Deployment" to deal with the landslide. Over 1,000 officials from the National Risk Management System and police officers have already been deployed to the state for search and rescue operations. He also added that over 20,000 officers are already in the state. In addition, Maduro also declared three days of national mourning. He said that this will be "in solidarity with the families affected." Major Gen. Carlos Perez Ampueda, who is the vice minister for risk management and civil protection, stated that trained dogs and drones have also been deployed. He also stated that work crews and heavy machinery are working to clear roads and remove debris, as well as restore water and electricity services. The most affected by the landslides were those living higher on the mountainside, as their homes were swept away. Homes and businesses were also destroyed as the landslides swept through Aragua. One of those swept away was an entire group of Evangelicals. According to Las Tejerias resident Carmen Teresa Chirinos, the group was praying when the landslides hit. "There are a lot of people missing," Chirinos said. READ MORE: Colombia Mudslides Kill 5, Including 3 Children in Rural Elementary School This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Deadly landslides sweep away homes in Venezuela - BBC News Mexico has recently experienced a cyber hack revealing government documents detailing how the Mexican military sold weapons and information to Mexican drug cartels. The documents detailed that the Secretariat of National Defense or Sedena stated in its confidential report that the supplier of weapons and tactical equipment is another alleged member of the Army. Yahoo News reported that criminals refer to the Army member as "Antiguo" and is based in Campo Military No. 1 of Mexico City based on the analysis of his telephone signal. A security breach at Sedena conducted by a group of hackers calling itself Guacamaya acquired more than four million confidential documents from the government. Included in the documents was an intelligence report from June 2019, stating a military officer had offered tactical equipment, other weapons, and information on armed forces operations to Mexican drug cartels. A cartel leader allegedly asked the military for 2,000 rounds of ammunition for AK-47 rifles, 5,000 for R-15, and 150 magazines for each type of rifle. The Mexican government report also mentioned a colonel known as the "new commander" for whom the cartel acted as an escort for about two weeks. READ NEXT: Mexico: 18 Dead, Including Mayor and His Father, After Los Tequileros Gunmen Sprayed Bullets at Town Hall, House in Guerrero Mexican Military Colluding With Mexican Drug Cartels Aside from the information about the "new commander," the report also mentioned that the military offered to collaborate with the criminals for the location of the regional prosecutor in Amecameca, according to Puerto Vallarta Daily News report. The identity of the soldiers mentioned in the report is still unknown. However, authorities confirmed that the base of operations of the soldier linked to criminals is in the municipality of Villa de Almoloya de Juarez. The military had also reportedly offered criminal groups' operators 70 fragmentation grenades, with the criminal cell confirming the purchase of eight of them. The purchased grenades were delivered to Atlacomulco, State of Mexico. The leaked documents also noted that an active member of the Quick Reaction Team in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara is serving as a connection between the Jalisco Cartel leaders and authorities at the three levels. Mexico's Government Cyber Hack The cyber hack released more than six terabytes of confidential information that revealed criminal organizations, confidential military tasks, and personal information on Mexico's president. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had acknowledged the hack and said that "there is nothing to hide," as reported by The New York Times. The document leaks also detailed widespread sexual assault in the armed forces, with more than 300 military personnel accused of harassment and other rights violations. The email hack had shown the extent of the military's power and connections to protect itself from cases it was involved, such as the Ayotzinapa case. One email detailed an appeal from the current defense minister to Lopez Obrador, wherein the minister was pleading the innocence of a low-ranking captain who is a suspect in the Ayotzinapa students' disappearance. The leaked emails also stated the military's expansion into the economy. READ MORE: El Chapo's Sinaloa Cartel Continues to Thrive Despite the DrugLLord's Absence: Report This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Guacamaya Leaks: Militar vende granadas en 26 mil pesos; Ejercito, tras su pista - from El Universal Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has been hit with a "serious lung infection." Unfortunately, this has affected their upcoming shows in Brazil, forcing the world-famous band to postpone a total of eight shows. These include performances in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. Their concerts in Brazil were supposed to be part of their "Music of the Spheres" world tour, according to the BBC. All eight of these shows were supposed to be held this year, but have been moved to early 2023. No exact dates have been announced on when these concerts will resume. Chris Martin Under 'Strict Orders' by Doctor to Rest According to Billboard, doctors have found that Chris Martin suffered a "serious lung infection." The frontman's doctor has also strictly ordered Martin to rest for the next three weeks. However, a spokesperson for Coldplay did not reveal any further details on the vocalist's "serious lung infection." However, in a new post, the band announced that they are "working as fast as possible to lock in the new dates and will follow up with more information in the next few days." Coldplay also issued an apology to their Brazilian fans. In a statement, they wrote, "To everyone in Brazil who was looking forward to these concerts, we're extremely sorry for any disappointment and inconvenience, and we're so grateful for your understanding at this challenging time where we need to prioritize Chris' health." They also asked their fans to hold on to their tickets, as they will soon release the rescheduled dates. They also announced that ticket refunds will be available at the point of sale. The band also remains optimistic about Chris Martin's health and added that they are all looking forward to resuming their tour. They apologized once again, but also thanked the fans for their continued support. READ NEXT: Coolio, Grammy-Winning 'Gangsta's Paradise' Rapper, Passes Away at 59 While the Brazilian Tour Is Postponed, Coldplay Will Continue With Their Argentina Concerts While Martin was sidelined due to his "serious lung infection." Coldplay will still be pushing through the Argentinian leg of their world tour, as they already have ten concerts in Buenos Aires fully booked. According to The Evening Standard, the Argentinian leg of the tour will include ten sold-out nights. It will kick off on October 25. One of their Buenos Aires shows will also be hitting the big screen with a global broadcast to over 7 countries. It is expected to happen from October 28-29. While the band will be returning to Brazil in early 2023, they also revealed that the two April 2022 shows that were originally scheduled for Los Angeles's Sofi Stadium will resume in 2023. The tour itself will resume with its second leg in 2023, with concerts happening in Manchester, England, as well as Cardiff, Wales. It kicked off in March earlier this year. So far, Coldplay's Spheres tour has already sold more than 5.4 million tickets to date. They have already earned $60 million in concert grosses in July, with the band hitting $1 billion in career touring grosses. Billboard revealed that they are only the "11th act to surpass that figure in reported Boxscore touring revenue." READ NEXT: Shakira Tax Fraud Case Update: Colombian Pop Star to Face Trial in Spain This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Coldplay postpones eight of their Brazil shows after Chris Martin suffers lung infection | WION News Sussex couple Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were reportedly categorized as "D-listers" and "poor" when measured by Hollywood standards, according to royal biographer Tina Brown. Brown has commented about Markle's house-hunting and said that they live in a "humble cottage," and that the Duchess of Sussex is eyeing to procure another home that is "far less opulent," according to MARCA. Brown compared their Montecito home in California, a $14 million mansion, to those owned by other "A-listers" such as Oprah Winfrey or Elon Musk. The royal biographer said that the Sussex couple's estimated net worth is about $22 million, which is "Hollywood poor" compared to Jay-Z and Beyonce, with a net worth above $1.4 billion. Brown also cited Ellen DeGeneres, who has an estimated net worth of $500 million. READ NEXT: Princess Diana Would Not Be a Fan of Meghan Markle Who Turned Prince Harry Into a 'Puppet,' Royal Photographer Says Tina Brown on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Tina Brown also jokingly said that "Elon Musk is still single" if Meghan Markle is eyeing to "trade up." The royal biographer noted that Markle may be looking for more than a new house at some point, The Telegraph reported. Brown, the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker, said at a Henley Literary Festival that it was not very pleasant for Harry and Markle "to be a D-list celebrity who, for them, doesn't have enough money." She added that it was a different game "to be with those super-rich people." Brown spoke to many people closely connected with the royal family for her latest book, The Palace Papers. Brown was one of the last people to see Princess Diana before her death at a lunch in New York In 1997. She noted that if the Princess of Wales was still alive, she would have advised her son to return to the royal family. Brown said the princess was "very pragmatic," and would have told Harry that "this isn't going anywhere." She also talked about how Prince Harry's memoir may never see the light of day, saying there would be no way for Harry to return if the book pushes forward. Prince Harry Memoir The memoir of Prince Harry has been announced to be released in autumn. However, Harry reportedly asked to make some significant edits to his biography. A source noted that Harry "is keen for refinements in the light of the Queen's death," Daily Mail reported. The insider said there may be things in the book which might not look "so good" once they are released so soon after the death of the queen, her funeral, and his father, King Charles III, taking the throne. Jeffrey Archer, a best-selling author, said the prince is currently writing a new chapter that would cover his grandmother's death and the events leading up to her funeral. It was reported that publishing company Penguin Random House had requested a rewrite after it seemed that the first draft was "too touchy-feely" and focused more on mental health issues. READ MORE: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Opt Not to Hold Daughter Lilibet's Christening in the U.K. As It's Likely Be in California: Royal Sources This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle' Hunting for New Estate' in Hope Ranch: Report - From Page Six Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, is set to testify in a Harvey Weinstein trial, according to her attorney. PBS News Hour reported that Jennifer's attorney, Elizabeth Fegan, said in a statement that Weinstein sexually assaulted her client at a "purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap." Fegan added that Jennifer intends to testify at the trial to seek some "measure of justice for survivors." Jennifer shared her experience with Weinstein in a 2017 essay in the Huffington Post after the New York Times, and New Yorker stories made Weinstein the focus of the #MeTo movement. The trial comes five years after women's stories about Weinstein made the #MeToo movement viral. The former film mogul was then charged with four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts. Like Jennifer's, most of the incidents happened under the guise of business meetings at luxury hotels in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Four incidents happened during Oscars week 2013 when Harvey Weinstein released "Silver Linings Playbook" and "Django Unchain." READ NEXT: Harvey Weinstein Secretly Charged In Rape Cases in Los Angeles Jennifer Siebel Newsom as a Harvey Weinstein Accuser Jennifer Siebel Newsom described how she had received an invitation to meet with Harvey Weinstein at a hotel about a role in an upcoming film. In her 2017 essay about her experience, she wrote that she was naive, "new to the industry, and didn't know how to deal with his aggressive advances," the New York Times reported. She added that staff were present at the time and disappeared all of a sudden "like clockwork" and left her alone with Weinstein, who she described as "extremely powerful" and an "intimidating Hollywood legend." Jennifer wrote that her experience with Weinstein became an inspiration for her 2011 documentary "Miss Representation" about how women are being oversexualized in the media. The documentary maker's 2017 essay was published after The New York Times broke the news that Harvey Weinstein had paid off women who had accused him of sexual misconduct. Harvey Weinstein Trial Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault trial started in Los Angeles, where he is facing 11 further charges of abuse, on Monday. According to BBC, the 70-year-old former Hollywood executive is currently serving 23 years in jail in New York after being convicted of rape and criminal sexual assault in 2020. The new charges also include allegations of assault and rape that reportedly happened in Los Angeles hotels between 2004 and 2013. Weinstein continues to deny the charges against him. Jury selection started on Monday and is seen to take about two weeks, with opening statements to begin on October 24. Five alleged victims are expected to take the stand during the course of the trial. Weinstein continues to claim that his sexual encounters were "consensual." Meanwhile, his lawyers told the press that the allegations against their client were from years ago and could not be supported by any forensic evidence or credible witnesses. Weinstein could face another 140 years behind bars if convicted. READ MORE: Harvey Weinstein: A Timeline of One of Hollywood's Biggest Scandals This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Harvey Weinstein's Los Angeles Trial Begins Monday - From KTLA 5 A California man was assaulted and kidnapped in broad daylight by two men in Pasadena on Thursday. According to the New York Post, the unidentified man was rendered unconscious by his two attackers before placing him in the back seat of a silver Honda Infiniti G35 with California license plates reading 6FMY326. The incident happened around Michillinda Avenue near Colorado Boulevard in the Pasadena area. Following the assault, the two suspects then fled the scene. Police said the two suspects may be around their 20s, while the male victim may be around his 30s. The suspects' vehicle was last seen driving south on Michillinda Avenue. #LASD Major Crimes Bureau Investigators are Seeking the Publics Assistance in Identifying Possible Kidnapping Suspects #Pasadena https://t.co/Xm4yFRLoSV LASD MCB: (562) 946-7150 or Anonymously at (800) 222-8477 or online at https://t.co/Tjm8GKhnlL pic.twitter.com/g3UC9MP2mw LA County Sheriffs (@LASDHQ) October 8, 2022 A few days after the kidnapping, the California man is still missing. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office is asking the public to help identify the suspects and the California man they kidnapped. They asked anyone with information to call 562-946-7150. Police said the two abductors and the man who was kidnapped were all Hispanics. READ NEXT: Los Angeles: Nury Martinez Steps Down as City Council President After Leaked Video Exposes Racist Remarks Another California Man Also Missing, Authorities Asking for Help Another California man was reported missing, this time in Inglewood County. Authorities are also asking the public for help in finding him. The missing 22-year-old man was identified as Mickel Newton. The Inglewood Police Department described him as a Black male, approximately 6 foot, 2 inches tall, weighing around 170 pounds, with brown hair and black eyes. Police said Newton was last seen leaving his residence driving a white 2005 PT Cruiser on September 21. He has been missing since then and has not been found yet. According to KTLA, he speaks to his mother on a daily basis, but she reported that he had not contacted her since he was last seen heading out of his home. She believes that her son may have been abducted or be in danger. Those have information about his whereabouts are encouraged to contact Detective Thompson at 310-412-4386 or by emailing him at jthompson@cityofinglewood.org. California Man in Mt. Shasta Also Missing Another missing person case was reported in Northern California. The Mt. Shasta Police Department said officers are asking for information about the whereabouts of Nicholas Alan Cooper. According to NBC News local affiliate KOBI, Cooper was last seen by his two coworkers leaving work in the McCloud area on October 4. He lived in Anderson, California, and he never made it home that day. Police said he was driving a white 1999 Dodge Ram 2500 on the day he disappeared. They noted that the missing California man could be in Siskiyou County or Shasta County. The Mt. Shasta Police Department urged anyone with information about Cooper's whereabouts to call them at 530-926-7540. READ MORE: U.S. Navy Bribery Scandal: Fat Leonard Arrested in Venezuela While Trying to Flee to Russia This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Police Searching for Suspects in Alleged Pasadena Kidnapping - From Fox 11 Los Angeles "Back to the Future" lead stars Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd have had an emotional reunion at this year's New York Comic Con nearly 40 years after the film trilogy was released. Fans were in tears as the two actors reminisced about the good old days during their Saturday panel discussion about the saga at the Javits Center, New York Post reported. Lloyd, 83, who played Dr. Emmett Brown, said that working with Fox was the best part of the movie, recalling the day they met. On the other hand, Fox, who played Marty McFly, called Lloyd a genius and said that he and the "King of Exposition" had an "immediate chemistry." The pair shared a few embraces onstage as Lloyd held up his fellow actor. Such a beautiful moment, Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd renuiniting at Comic Con pic.twitter.com/HcblCb4ecD Giles Paley-Phillips (@eliistender10) October 9, 2022 Some fans said they were "crying" over the embraces shared between the two stars. Michael J Fox reunited with Christopher Lloyd at the #NYCC2022 today. I love reunions. #BackToTheFuture pic.twitter.com/2zwRdIvKam Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) October 9, 2022 READ NEXT: 'Dungeons and Dragons' Trailer Debuts at San Diego Comic-Con 2022 'Back to the Future' Fans Notice Michael J. Fox's Health Decline Due to Parkinson's Disease However, online viewers instantly noticed Michael J. Fox's health decline. The Canadian-American actor was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991 when he was 29. Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder that affects the body's motor function, causing stiffness, shaking, and trouble balancing. But despite difficulty walking and moving slowly, Fox still appeared cheerful onstage. "Back to the Future" fans admired the actor and said he served as an "inspiration" to others. Politician Steve Marchand tweeted that his father-in-law "battled Parkinson's for many years before passing away a few months ago." "It's brutal. The effort, determination & courage on display here by Michael J Fox brought me to tears. Massive respect for him," he added. My father-in-law battled Parkinson's for many years before passing away a few months ago. It is brutal. The effort, determination & courage on display here by Michael J Fox brought me to tears. Massive respect for him. https://t.co/sXHs0Wavh3 Steve Marchand (@marchandsteve) October 10, 2022 Another Twitter user noted that people in the comments keep saying it's "so sad to see him this way." But the user added: "I'm just so glad he's still alive, fighting, humor intact, and able to make it to another Comic Con. I'm not sad as long as he's still here." Despite his long battle with the disease, Fox stays committed to meeting the fans in person, SYFY reported. "You guys have given me my whole life," Fox said. He noted that he was okay with his diagnosis and that helping others gave him a new meaning in his life. He said Parkinson's is a gift and the best thing that happened in his life. "I've said to people it's a gift, and they say, 'You're nuts.' I say, 'Yeah, but it's the gift that keeps on taking.' But it's a gift, and I wouldn't change it for anything... It's not about what I have, it's about what I've been given," Fox added. Michael J. Fox Remembers His Mother Who Passed Away Two Weeks Ago During the "Back to the Future" reunion, Michael J. Fox also paid respect to his mother, Phyllis Fox, who passed away on September 24 at 92. According to People, Fox told a story about how his mother didn't like it when he filmed "Family Ties" during the day and "Back to the Future" at night in the 1980s. The actor said he was 23 when he called her mother, who is in Canada, to tell her that he'll be doing the Steven Spielberg movie at night and "Family Ties" in the daytime. "And she said, 'You'll be too tired'," Fox said. The actor continued to say that until two weeks ago, his mother thought that doing "Back to the Future" was a bad idea. He added that her mother loved the movie, but she was right. "I got tired," he noted. According to an online obituary, Phyllis was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1929 to Henry "Skip" Piper and Jane "Jenny" Piper. Phyllis is survived by sons Michael and Steve and daughters Kelli and Jackie. She has nine grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, and a great-great-granddaughter. READ MORE: Paris Hilton Reacts to a TikTok Influencer Gregory Brown About Robbing Her Christian Dior Sunglasses This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: 'Back To The Future's' Michael J. Fox & Christopher Lloyd Reunite - From Access Kanye West has sparked dating rumors after hanging out again with Brazilian model Juliana Nalu. The two were seen on a date again Sunday night, and this time to watch a movie in a Hollywood theater. According to TMZ, Kanye and Juliana watched Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund's "Triangle of Sadness." The 24-year-old Brazilian model was wearing some of Kanye's merchandise, including the "2024" hat he has worn before and shown off online. Before that date, Kanye West and Juliana Nalu had already checked in at a hotel in Beverly Hills Thursday. They also went to a dinner at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica on Saturday night. READ NEXT: Kanye West's Twitter Headache: Ye Locked Out After Getting Restricted on Instagram Who is Kanye West's New Girl, Brazilian Model Juliana Nalu? Juliana Nalu was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At six, she told her mom she wanted to be an international model, according to Latina. She grew up in the favela Complexo do Chapadao, north of Rio de Janeiro, with her mom and brother, Douglas. Despite her parents' separation, she was still in touch with her father and three other half-siblings. Throughout her childhood, Juliana experienced enjoyment and fun with her cousins and neighbors. But by the time she was 13, the Brazilian model and her mother were traveling to the leading beauty and modeling companies in Brazil. She was chosen to be in the L'Oreal Paris Brazil campaign when she was 18. Shortly after that, she signed up with a modeling agency. "My mom was helping me follow my dreams, traveling to agencies with me, and making brand connections. I lived in the favelas with my family until I was 18," she told Latina. Juliana further noted that it was hard for her to deal with all the violence, and she did not have many privileges in Brazil compared to others. But she said her mom loves her and her siblings so much that she gives them everything they need to be good people. "My family always motivates me. So I am free to be whomever I want or whatever I want," the Brazilian model noted. Aside from modeling, she also became a part of a Brazilian show, showcasing her acting skills. In 2017 or when she was 19, Juliana visited the U.S., and Los Angeles was her first U.S. city. While in the U.S., she signed with ELITE Models. Juliana traveled back and forth between Brazil and the U.S. for jobs over the next few years. In 2020, she found herself stuck in the U.S. because of the pandemic. She was able to only reunite with her family in Brazil early this year after entry restrictions had loosened. Juliana Nalu is the only member of her family living outside of Brazil now, but she hopes her success will also be theirs. Kanye West Finds Time to Date Brazilian Model Juliana Nalu Amid Anti-Semitic Outbursts Kanye West, 45, was recently banned from Instagram and Twitter because of the anti-Semitic posts he made. Daily Mail reported that all these suspensions happened simultaneously with his recent actions with Adidas and outings with Juliana Nalu. In a since-deleted tweet, the 45-year-old rapper said: "I'm a bit sleepy tonight, but when I wake up, I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE." He added: "The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also. You guys have toyed with me and tried to blackball anyone who opposes your agenda." He had been banned from Instagram after posting texts he was said to have sent to Diddy in which he told the rapper-turned-businessman was controlled by Jews trying to silence his "White Lives Matter" message. The rapper posted a personal appeal to Mark Zuckerberg on his Twitter after being banned from Instagram, which is owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Also, despite Twitter's future owner Elon Musk's warm welcome to Kanye West, his Twitter account was still taken down. Juliana Nalu is 21 years younger than Kanye West. Despite the nocturnal outings, her relationship with the rapper is still unclear. READ MORE: Is Elon Musk Overpaying to Buy Twitter? Shark Tank Investor Says Company Is Not Worth $44 Billion This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover Watch: Kanye West Spotted Enjoying A Movie Date With 24 Y.O. Brazilian Model Juliana Nalu - From Have It All Daily file photo Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, also called Mahakal's Nagari after the ancient Mahakaleshwar temple here, will witness the grand inauguration of the newly developed 'Mahakal Lok' on Tuesday, which will be live-streamed across 40 countries. Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, also called Mahakal's Nagari after the ancient Mahakaleshwar temple here, will witness the grand inauguration of the newly developed 'Mahakal Lok' on Tuesday, which will be live-streamed across 40 countries. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the first phase of the mega project at 6.30 p.m. The ceremony of Mahakal Lok will be telecast live in 40 countries to connect the devotees of Lord Shiva. Here in Madhya Pradesh, all prominent temples of Lord Shiva will be decorated with hundreds of earthen lamps. The Madhya Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has prepared an elaborate arrangement to make the occasion extravagant. The project in the holy city of Ujjain, which is expected to significantly boost tourism in the state, is a key part of the party's "cultural resurgence" plank to increase its support base in the state, country and across the globe ahead of the 2023 Assembly and then 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The state BJP president Vishnu Dutt Sharma said the party's NRI cell reached out to NRIs in 40 countries, including the US, the UK, the UAE, New Zealand and Canada. "We reached out to the people from Madhya Pradesh residing in these countries. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and I held a virtual meeting with them and they were excited to join the event. We are planning to extend the list of countries to 50. Apart from virtually attending the event, the NRIs will organise special ceremonies like lighting of lamps to mark the occasion," Sharma said. Sharma further said that over 1,000 giant screens will also be put up across the state to facilitate the public viewing of the event as part of the BJP's efforts to draw more people to the party. The party workers have been exhorted to organise 'Diwali-like events' at the booth level to celebrate the event. According to state Home Minister Narottam Mishra, Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to arrive in Indore from Ahmedabad at 4 p.m. and then will reach Ujjain between 5 to 5.30 p.m. The Prime Minister will offer his prayers at the Mahakaleshwar temple and then will inaugurate the newly constructed part of the temple. file photo Aas Mohammad, a resident of Palla village in the Dadri Kotwali area of Greater Noida, is currently in Ghaziabad police's custody. They are now trying to unearth his entire network. Aas Mohammad, a resident of Palla village in the Dadri Kotwali area of Greater Noida, is currently in Ghaziabad police's custody. They are now trying to unearth his entire network. The police have been questioning the neighbours about Mohammad and his absconding family members. Aas Mohammed is also linked to the Popular Front of India (PFI), and married non-Muslim girls by taking funds from the PFI. The Delhi police also reached his house when one of his relatives was found to have attended the Tablighi Jamaat in the past, said sources. According to the sources, Mohammad has been married thrice and worked as a blacksmith along with his father. Despite being out of work for many years, the duo still had money coming in. The first marriage reportedly took place in Morna village of Noida. Details of his second marriage aren't known yet and he went by the name Sameer Sharma and married a girl from the neighbouring village in his third marriage. On October 3, the Ghaziabad police arrested a man named Sameer Sharma with a pistol and a knife from a temple in Mussoorie, on the allegation that he was there with the intent to kill Mahamandaleshwar Swami Prabodhanand Giri Maharaj, the national president of the Hindu Raksha Sena. It was revealed during interrogation that Sameer Sharma was none other than Mohammad of Greater Noida. The American tourist who died in Laois at the Rock of Dunamase has been named as Laura Jones. From the State of Colorado, Ms Jones was aged 59 when she lost her life after being struck by a car at the historic Laois landmark while on holiday with family in Ireland on Friday, October 7. Gardai have confirmed that a post mortem has been carried out on her remains. Her husband, aged in his 60s, who was injured in the accident, remains in Ireland as do her two adult daughters who were also on vacation Ireland. Gardai are continuing to investigate the incident which occurred at 1.10 pm on Friday last. The working on the basis that the deceased died from injuries sustained after the car impact propelled her into stone wall that surrounds the Rock Church at the foot of the ruins where visitors park. Gardai continue to appealing for any witnesses to this incident to come forward. They are especially interest in the movements of an 06 blue Ford Focus in the roads around the area. Gardai arrested and later released a young Laois man who was aged in his late teens in connection with the collission. Two other occupants of the vehicle involved in the collision were not detained. Any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling on any of the approach roads to the Rock of Dunamase between 1pm and 1:15pm are asked to make this footage available to Gardai. Anyone with information is asked to contact Portlaoise Garda Station on 0578674100, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station. Minister Pippa Hackett urged people to know their energy usage in this time of extreme energy costs for users. She made the comment at a public meeting on energy use in Mountrath on Monday evening. Minister Hackett hosted a panel of speakers focusing on managing energy costs for individuals, businesses and communities. MABS Regional Manager, Michelle OHara, Mark Clancy from Laois Local Enterprise Office (LEO) and SEAI Communities mentor for Laois, Laurence OReilly shared their experience and the supports available. We are in a time of extreme energy costs, and while we covered many aspects at this evenings event, for me the resounding message for individuals and businesses is know your energy usage and act early to access support, Minister Hackett said. For many it may be the first time they have looked at a utility bill in detail. You dont have to do this alone, the message from tonight is that MABS offer a free and impartial service to individuals and LEO have the Green for Micro energy consultancy service for businesses, said Minister Hackett. The event was attended by financial, grant aid services and retrofit contractors including St Canices Credit Union, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and Electric Ireland Superhomes. During the discussion, which was opened to the floor, topics ranged from the viability of small business, on-farm energy options to the reopening of Shannonbridge. One contributor reminded people the savings in changing utility companies, the Minister said. "I clearly heard the need for timely intervention for small businesses and the need to communicate the supports that are available. Thank you to everyone who came this evening this is a very important conversation to have the Minister concluded. The Energy, Costs and You event will be held again in Dooleys Hotel, Birr on Monday, October 17 with Expo from 6pm and panel discussion at 7.15pm. A Laois Offaly TD has called for the reopening of two former peat burning midland power stations. Government, and in particular the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, must immediately commit to developing a pathway toward reopening the West Offaly Power Station in Shannonbridge, as well as the Lough Ree Power Station in Lanesboro, according to Deputy Carol Nolan. She was speaking ahead of a Dail debate on the Governments Electricity Costs (Domestic Electricity Accounts) Emergency Measures and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022. The Bill, if passed will provide for a Benefit Payment in each of the periods November/December 2022, January/February 2023 and March/April 2023: While there is no doubt that we must take immediate action in the short-term with respect to supports for offsetting energy costs; we must also act immediately to address the sheer lunacy of having two major power plants lying idle in the middle of the worst energy crisis in a generation, said Deputy Nolan. There is simply no reason, apart from reckless adherence to a bankrupt ideological position, that Shannonbridge and Lanesboro cannot be reopened using biomass as a fuel source. In recent weeks we had Fine Gael Minister of State, Peter Burke, stated on the record that the renewed use of Lanesboro, should be "firmly on the table" in the case of an emergency. What does he think we are in now-an energy supply surplus? Do we have to wait for the lights to go out and for businesses to shutter before this Government thinks we are at a sufficient state of emergency? The foot-dragging and the reluctance to set out a pathway toward reopening is indefensible. Events are clearly going from bad to worse in terms of energy security. That in itself should be all the justification needed for a full reversal of the Governments position on keeping Shannonbridge and Lanesboro closed, Dep Nolan said. Ireland should not freeze while Ministers fiddle to the tune of a dreary net-zero ambition, she concluded. Planning permission will no longer be required for the installation of rooftop solar panels on the majority of Irish buildings. The revised planning exemptions were signed by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien, last week and welcomed today (October 11) by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan. It's expected the move will increase Ireland's generation of solar energy through micro and small-scale solar PV generation. Buildings such as houses and apartments as well as community, religious and educational buildings will benefit from the revisions by allowing a greater number of people and organisations to generate their own electricity through solar. Speaking about the changes, Minister Ryan said, "The signing of these regulations represents the achievement of one of our major Climate Action Plan ambitions, and is a fine example of interdepartmental and cross-Government cooperation. "The regulations remove a major barrier to those wishing to install solar PV, and will facilitate an even greater number of households, schools, communities, farmers and businesses, among others, to produce their own clean, renewable electricity and play an active role in the energy transition. "The regulations come at a time when we are continuing to roll out supports for domestic and non-domestic solar PV installations through the Micro-generation Support Scheme, as well as progressing the design of a support scheme for small-scale generation. The new exemptions will open up the huge solar scope that these schemes can provide." Page Content Due to the fact that cholera is not endemic to Sint Maarten, CPS would urge travellers that do travel to cholera endemic countries to always take precautionary measures, such as: drink and use safe water, wash hands with soap and safe water, and to cook food thoroughly. It has been three years with no cases of cholera reported in Haiti, however, on October 2, the Haiti national authorities reported two confirmed cases in the greater Port-au-Prince area. In addition, clusters of suspected cases and deaths are under investigation in various communes. PAHO has requested Member States to strengthen their surveillance systems for the timely detection of cholera cases and for outbreaks of acute diarrheal disease. Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal disease that affects both children and adults and can kill within hours if left untreated. The infection is ingested by food or water contaminated. It has a short incubation period of two hours to five days. Up to 80 per cent of cases can be successfully treated with oral rehydration salts. If it is necessary to travel to Haiti, travellers are cautioned to adhere to stringent hygiene measures. Ensure that you take precautions such as hygienic food preparation, boiling or purifying all water, and washing hands often with soap and clean water. Carry with you at all times hand sanitizer. Symptoms can occur within 24 to 48 hours of being infected with the cholera causing bacteria. Cholera symptoms are generally mild; they include diarrhoea, vomiting, and muscle cramps. About one infected person out of 20 has severe signs and symptoms, such as increased heart rate, dehydration, and shock. If you have recently travelled and you experience any of the abovementioned symptoms, please contact your family physician immediately and CPS. Cholera can be predicted, prevented, and treated. Help us keep Sint Maarten Cholera Free! For more information call CPS at 914 or 542-1570 or email surveillance@sintmaartengov.org Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department in the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labor (Ministry VSA), has taken note of a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) epidemiological alert concerning the resurgence of cholera in Haiti. Kildare South TD, Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail is recovering following surgery. A statement issued on behalf of the public representative said the recuperation phase is likely to last a number of weeks. The statement on the TD's Facebook page said: "Sean is recovering and recuperating following surgery last week. "He is likely to be in this mode for a number of weeks." However Mr O Fearghail was communicating to his followers on social media today about arrangements in Leinster House to remember the victims of the Creeslough tragedy. He said: "In my absence the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has arranged for a Book of Condolence to be placed in the Main Hall, Leinster House for those wishing to offer their condolence to The Creeslough Community. "Also, the flag on Leinster House Lawn is at half-mast as a mark of respect to the 10 people whose lives were cut short so tragically. "At the commencement of the Dail sitting today at 2 p.m. the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will invite expressions of condolences from party and group representatives, calling first on the Taoiseach, followed by the Tanaiste, Minister Eamon Ryan and representatives of all other parties and groups." 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. A supercar collector is auctioning off 18 of their cars, including eight Ferraris and three Bugattis, at an auction in London next month. Described as one of the most remarkable single-owner collections of supercars to be offered in Europe, the group of cars stem from a 50-year section of automotive history and is being sold by RM Sothebys. These range from the oldest car in the collection a 1971 Lamborghini Miura SV to the newest, a 2022 Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+. This latter vehicle is one of just 30 cars ever made to celebrate the hypercars incredible top speed of 304mph. With an estimate of 4m-4.5m, its also got the highest estimate of any model in the auction. Two more Bugattis are also being sold a 1993 EB110 GT and a 1996 EB110 Super Sport, with the latter being one of just 30 produced. These two cars helped to kickstart the rebirth of Bugatti in the 1990s, something that was developed in the early 2000s before the infamous Veyron arrived. Also being sold are the Ferrari big 5, which are some of the most elite supercars ever to be made by the Italian firm. These include a 1985 288 GTO, a 1991 F40, 1997 F50, 2003 Enzo and 2014 LaFerrari, with all being painted in Ferraris trademark Rosso Corsa red colour. Legendary Group R rally cars also play a part in the Gran Turismo Collection auction, with some particularly important models being sold off. These include a 1986 Lancia Delta S4 Group B, complete in Martini livery, which won the 1986 Monte Carlo rally, and is accompanied by an estimate of 1.75m-2.25m. RM Sotheby's is thrilled to announce the sale of The Gran Turismo Collection, a single-owner collection featuring some of the greatest cars from Ferrari, Bugatti, Jaguar, Lamborghini, and Lancia. This group will be offered in London on November 5, 2022. https://t.co/s9uDwMyNIk pic.twitter.com/584EJWghFl RM Sotheby's (@rmsothebys) October 7, 2022 Presuming all cars meet their lower estimate, the combined value of these 18 models is an astonishing 29.7m. Michael Squire, a senior car specialist and director of research at RM Sothebys, said: This is certainly one of the most remarkable single-owner collections of supercars to be offered in Europe. It represents a cross section of supercars and GTs which are at the zenith of desirability in todays market. The Group B rally cars are an additional, remarkable highlight, perfectly encapsulating the peak of rallyings most extreme era. All 18 cars are being auctioned by RM Sothebys London sale on November 5. Irish Water crews will be on site in Leitrims most northerly village in the coming days to remove the old pipework along the L6059 and the crossing with the N15. Within weeks works will be complete and locals will have a much more reliable supply with the new pipework putting a stop to sporadic bursts. Replacing more than 700 metres of water main, susceptible to bursts, will be welcome news for the people of Redbrae in Tullaghan. As part of the National Leakage Reduction Programme, Irish Water has reduced leaks nationally from 46% in 2018 to 38% last year and this work in Redbrae will help achieve a national leakage rate of 25% by the end of 2030. The replacement of the old water main in Redbrae will bring a plethora of benefits, according to Irish Waters Networks Regional Lead Declan Cawley. We know the inconvenience bursts and unplanned interruptions have on homes and businesses and by replacing old water mains like these in Redbrae, Tullaghan we are reducing the possibility of disruptions to the supply. These works also reduce the amount of treated water being lost underground and save a valuable resource, " stated Declan Cawley. Temporary traffic lights will be in place in Redbrae, but areas of work will be limited to short sections to minimise impact. Some short-term interruptions to the water supply may be required, but customers can be assured of a minimum of 48 hours notice prior to any planned outages. On behalf of Irish Water, Id like to thank the local community in advance for their patience and cooperation as the project progresses. The long-term benefits will outweigh any short-term inconvenience, said Declan. Customers with questions about the project can call Irish Water on 1800 278 278 or contact us on Twitter @IWCare. For further updates please see the Irish Water website www.water.ie A skin crawling merger of Irish folklore and family secrets combine together in You Are Not My Mother film in The Glens Centre, Manorhamilton on Thursday, October 13 at 8pm. It's the week before Halloween. Char's bedridden mother, Angela, has mysteriously gone missing. All that remains is her abandoned car parked in the middle of a field. When Angela returns home to their North Dublin estate the following evening without explanation, it becomes clear to Char and her grandmother, Rita, that something is amiss. She might look and sound the same, but Angela's behaviour has become increasingly erratic and frightening, as if she has been replaced by a malevolent force. As Halloween approaches, a night steeped in ancient Irish myth and legend, Char must unearth the dark secrets of her family in order to uncover the truth behind her mother's disappearance and save her, even if it means potentially losing her forever. Writer and director Kate Dolans feature debut, assured in its low-key depiction of dysfunctional family life explores mental illness and the myth of the changeling in this genre-bending psychological drama. A powerful cast of women Ingrid Craigie, Carolyn Bracken and Jordanne Jones is led by Hazel Doupe who is remarkable in the central role of stoic teen. Watch this movie on Thursday, 13th at 8pm. Tickets: 15/7/5 at www.theglenscentre.com or (071) 9855833. Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD visited Leitrim Youthreach base in Mohill yesterday, Monday, to announce very significant funding which will see the development of the new MSLETB Further Education and Training (FET) Centre in Mohill. The funding, understood to be 1.5 million, will see the redevelopment of the old vocational school in Mohill as the new FET Campus. Youthreach Leitrim is a centre of education for early school leavers who want to re-enter the education system. The centre caters for 25 learners in the age range 15 20. Minister Harris was welcomed by MSLETB Chief Executive, Tom Grady, Director of Further Education and Training, Peter Egan, Leitrim Youthreach Co-ordinator Cathriona Glancy O'Shea, and Cllr Enda Stenson, Frank Feighan TD and Martin Kenny TD. Pauric McAuliffe, Cllr Seamus Kilgannon, Cllr Paddy ORourke, Donna Sheridan, Minister Simon Harris TD, Minister of State Frank Feighan TD, Pat Forde, Cllr Enda Stenson, Leitrim Youthreach Co-ordinator, Cathriona Glancy O'Shea, MSLETB Chief Executive, Tom Grady, Director of Further Education and Training, Peter Egan Pictures: Brian Duignan He toured the location for the new centre and heard about MSLETBs commitment to advancing the development of the FET college of the future concept. The Minister then visited the current Leitrim Youthreach facility and was given a tour of the facilities where he had the opportunity to meet current and past staff, learners and members of the community. Speaking at the event Minister Harris said, Every time I travel to a Youthreach centre, I am reminded of the incredible, life-changing work the staff do. Yet the facilities for Youthreach are not fit-for-purpose. Today, we are changing that. Today, I am here in Leitrim to confirm a considerable investment to deliver appropriate accommodation. This will develop Youthreach learners but also will be extended to assist those who wish to engage in part-time or evening courses. Mayo Sligo Leitrim Educational Training Board Chief Executive, Tom Grady, stated, It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to welcome the Minister for Further and Higher Education to Leitrim Youthreach. The Department of Further Education has supported our programmes greatly and being able to showcase the plans for future development in this facility is fantastic. The development of this start-of-the-art facility will not only an asset to Leitrim Youthreach but to the community itself. We look forward to welcoming Minister Harris back in the future once the development is completed. These new facilities will form part of the fully integrated Leitrim College FET Campus infrastructure and will assist the growth of education and training in Leitrim. Many future learners from across the county will benefit from these new facilities as will the local and regional economy. Cllr Enda Stenson described the announcement as absolutely fabulous for Mohill and Leitrim. He said Leitrim was the last county in Ireland to get a Youthreach programme up and running. They were originally based in the old Marian College but are now going to be located in a newly developed facility in the old vocational school. He thanked MSLETB for the work they have done to get the project to this stage. Cllr Thomas Mulligan also warmly welcomed the funding announcement by Minister Harris of the major investment in Mohill. This is a huge development for Mohill. As indicated today by the Minister, this is probably the first phase of further development in the future, he said. Cllr Mulligan said he was delighted to see that the old vocational school would be revamped and put into purposeful use. This will be a huge addition to the town, he said. Donegal was in the heart of a young fashion designer who was killed in an explosion at a service station in Creeslough, her funeral service has been told. Everyone who met Jessica Gallagher, 24, knew her radiant smile, Fr John Joe Duffy told the service at St Michaels church in the village. It was the first funeral for one of the 10 victims of last Fridays tragedy. Ms Gallaghers body was carried in a wicker casket to the front of the church, where 10 red candles have been lit to represent the victims. A framed photograph of Jessica and a shirt she had been making, one of her first fashion commissions, were brought forward at the start of the service and placed on the casket. The Irish Government was represented at the funeral by Agriculture Minister Charlie McConologue and Irish President Michael D Higgins was represented by his aide-de-camp. Donegal TD Joe McHugh and Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill were also in the congregation. Members of the emergency services who had taken part in the recovery operation following the explosion in Creeslough also attended. Fr John Joe Duffy expressed sincere and heartfelt sympathies to Jessicas father and mother Anthony and Bernie, her sisters Lisa and Shauna Marie and her boyfriend Conor. He said: We would love to be able to put in our hands to your hearts and take away that grief and that pain that you are suffering this morning. But to even think of that would not be a sensible thing to do. Because in that void, in that grief, there you hold in your hearts Jessica. While we cannot take that pain away for you, we want to walk with you. We cannot feel your pain but we will walk with you in that pain because to even say that we feel that pain would not be right or not be fair to you, but we walk in that pain. The greater someone is loved, the greater that pain and that pain is so immense, and Jessica will forever remain in your heart, but she will also be with you, she will remain with you. Delivering his homily, Fr Duffy said Jessica radiated a warm and positive feeling to all who knew her well. The priest said she left ripples of love, affection, kindness and warmth wherever she went. Fr Duffy said Jessica was bursting with energy and imagination. Everyone who knew Jessica knew that radiant smile. That radiant smile that would light up a room with that infectious warmth that flowed from her, he said She always brought that sun whether things were happy or difficult. He said she was a practical joker in the family and been known to put seaweed in peoples beds. The cleric said her success in life was based on hard work and determination. Jessica was of a slender stature, but very strong, very strong, in every way possible, he said. Strong in her own opinions, strong in her own self belief, in her determination. Her confidence was unstoppable. Honest and direct, she would tell you what she was thinking. But she could also let you tell her of what you thought of an opinion or a situation or a reality. Whether you liked it or not, or whether she liked it or not, she took it as it was. Fr Duffy said Jessica had friends across the world. Isnt it appropriate for a girl that travelled to so many countries, that the hearts of so many people around the world are with you as a family. She took herself off to Paris to study fashion. She came to note in Paris and then she was given a place because of her exceptional talent to go on to study further in Shanghai. It was only the start of greater things to come. No matter how far she travelled or progressed, the place she was proud of was her beautiful family home. She used Donegal tweed in her designs, which helped to get her to Paris, and it always remained a feature of her design. Donegal was in her heart. Ms Gallagher, who was due to have started her new job in Belfast on Monday, was buried at Doe Cemetery after the mass. InterviewIn an interview with 'Le Monde', the actress Golshifteh Farahani, who left Iran in 2008, reflects on her exile and declares her admiration for the younger generation who are rebelling in her country of origin. The Iranian actress left her country in 2008, hounded by the Islamic regime. Now a French national, the uprooted 39-year-old has continued a brilliant international career. Since the death of Mahsa Amini, three days after her arrest by the Iranian morality police, she has been vocal in her support of the uprisings in her home country. I wouldn't have gotten to where I am if... If the Iranian secret services had not forced me into exile by harassing and hounding me. I hadn't planned to leave, I had never imagined building a life outside my country, far away from my family. It was infinitely painful, and I paid a high price. It weighs heavily on my soul, and there is no going back. I have a new identity. But I believe in destiny and in challenges that force me to grow. And maybe this forced exile has finally given me wings... You were born in 1983, four years after the Islamic revolution. How did that affect you? And in the middle of a war with Iraq. In other words, in a period of chaos. Watching today's young demonstrators, most of whom were born in the 1990s and 2000s, makes me realize to what extent my generation was completely scarred. Our early childhood, that crucial moment when our minds, our confidence and our instincts are forged, took place surrounded by bombs and the din of sirens. We knew the fear in the eyes of our parents, we saw houses destroyed in our street in Tehran. We felt death before we understood life. I belong to a terrorized generation. They did not take part in the revolution that was their parents' big thing but they lived through the aftermath of the revolution, the disaster after the earthquake. What were the consequences? We didn't have children. Or very few. This is what drives the government to intensify its propaganda on childbirth. The older and younger generations tend to make fun of us. But it is a fact: Out of 25 girls in my class at the music school, only six have had children. This shows how traumatized we are. We don't believe in the future, we have no confidence in life. The past was shit; the future does not exist. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback Do you notice a big difference with today's generation out on the streets, in the country's high schools and universities? Huge! Generation Z has never experienced revolution or war. They were born into the doldrums, stuck inside a dictatorship country. But they have Instagram and TikTok; they know what's going on in the world. They are irreverent, without any inhibitions or insecurities. It feels like they're not afraid of anything. And they don't talk like us. Their tone, vocabulary and body language are all different from ours. You have 78.45% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for a round table meeting at an EU Summit in Prague (Czech Republic) on Friday, October 7, 2022. PETR DAVID JOSEK / AP Her election sent a chill throughout Europe. After campaigning on the slogan "God, family, fatherland", Giorgia Meloni, a politician favoring immigration control and sovereignism, is poised to become Italy's new prime minister. Her post-fascist Fratelli d'Italia party won a quarter of the vote in the parliamentary elections held on Sunday, September 2, enabling her to form a coalition government with Matteo Salvini's anti-immigration League and Silvio Berlusconi's liberal right party Forza Italia. "We don't want to destroy the European Union and we won't do anything reckless," she unconvincingly insisted throughout the summer. In Brussels, many fear that her victory heralds the arrival of a far-right wave on the old continent. Before Fratelli d'Italia's success, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, came out ahead of the traditional right in their country's September 11 parliamentary elections: their elected MPs will be able to impose their demands on the next government. In Spain, the far-right party Vox dreams of replicating Ms. Meloni's success in a series of elections scheduled for 2023. In France's June legislative elections, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party won 17.3% of the vote, sending 89 MPs to the Assemblee Nationale, up from eight in 2017. In the East, Hungary has been led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban since 2010, while the eurosceptic conservatives of the Law and Justice party (PiS) have been in power in Poland since 2015... Read more Subscribers only The Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party with fascist roots "There is almost no European country that is escaping the push of the radical right," explained Gilles Ivaldi, a CNRS researcher and specialist on the issue. Even long-spared Portugal saw the emergence of the anti-elite right-wing party Chega in 2019. "In the 21st century, there has been a rise in populist support by 10-15 percentage points of the vote, effectively doubling the populists' vote share. This rise mostly took place in advanced economies and mostly stems from the rise of nationalist, right-wing and authoritarian populist parties," noted economists Sergei Guriev and Elias Papaioannou in a study published in October 2020. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback 'They can't all be lumped together' Yet all these movements form a very heterogeneous family. Some political scientists even refute the populist label, considering it too much of a catch-all. "Giorgia Meloni has certainly captured the protest vote of a part of the Italian population, but she is more national-conservative," said Flavio Chiapponi of the University of Pavia's political science department. "The proof that they cannot all be lumped together is that these parties sometimes have opposing views on Russia and do not all belong to the same political group in the European Parliament," added Pascale Joannin, director general of the Robert Schuman Foundation. You have 75.42% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Page Content Several roads in the Philipsburg area will be closed on Monday, October 10, 2022. Frontstreet, the Wilhelminastraat in front of the House of Parliament, Gevangenisstraat and parts of Backstreet will be closed on Monday, from 6.30 AM to 2.00 PM. The closure is in connection with activities surrounding the acceptance of the Office of Governor of Sint Maarten by mr. Ajamu G. Baly which are scheduled to take place at the St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church, at the House of Parliament and in front of the Courthouse. The public is advised not to move or temporarily relocate any barricades placed by the Police Force or the Ministry of VROMI. Five French citizens are currently being held in Iran, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Tuesday, October 11, increasing by one the previous number confirmed by Paris. "I will speak to the Iranian foreign minister this afternoon to again demand the immediate release of all our compatriots who are held in Iran. There are five at the moment," she told France Inter public radio. The French government advised its nationals visiting Iran to "leave the country as soon as possible", citing the risk of arbitrary detention. "All French visitors, including dual nationals, are exposed to a high risk of arrest, arbitrary detention and unfair trial," the foreign ministry said on its website last week, adding "this risk also concerns people making a simple tourist visit". The foreign ministry went on to warn that "in the event of arrest or detention, respect for fundamental rights and the safety of individuals are not guaranteed" in Iran. 20 Westerners prevented from leaving French teachers' union official Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris have been detained in Iran since May 7 and stand accused of seeking to stir labor unrest during teachers' strikes earlier this year. Two other French nationals are currently being held in Iran. One is French-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and later sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, allegations her family has strongly denied. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback Another French citizen, Benjamin Briere, was arrested in May 2020 and later sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison for espionage, charges he rejects. They are among more than 20 Westerners, most of them dual nationals, being held or prevented from leaving Iran. Le Monde with AFP A medical worker walks past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, October 10, 2022. ROMAN HRYTSYNA / AP Ukraine's emergency services said Tuesday, October 11, that at least 19 people were killed and 105 wounded as a result of Russian strikes across the country a day earlier. Mass retaliatory strikes hit Ukraine nationwide on Monday, after Moscow blamed Kyiv for a blast on a bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. "According to preliminary data, 19 people were killed and 105 more were injured," Ukraine's emergency services said on Facebook. Ukraine said Russian forces had fired more than 80 missiles on cities across the country including the capital Kyiv damaging in particular energy facilities. More than 300 localities were without power across the county following the attacks, the emergency services said. Read more Russian strikes hit multiple Ukrainian cities in major escalation Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes showed Moscow was "desperate" after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks, as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of "severe" responses to any further attacks. The emergency services also said Russia on Tuesday morning carried out a strike on Zaporizhzhia, a Ukraine-controlled city in an eponymous region that Moscow claimed to have annexed. They said 12 S-300 missiles were fired at "civilian" infrastructure, killing one person in the latest of a series of attacks on the city over the past week. G7 meeting on Tuesday The United States and other G7 powers will hold crisis talks Tuesday on Russia's recent bombing blitz across Ukraine, with Britain's Liz Truss expected to insist they "must not waver one iota" in their support for Kyiv. The meeting comes a day after Russian missiles rocked the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months, with President Volodymyr Zelensky warning Moscow that his country "cannot be intimidated". At an urgent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday called to debate Moscow's declared annexation of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya branded Russia a "terrorist state", noting his own immediate family had come under attack on Monday. "Unfortunately, you can hardly call for a stable and sane peace as long as an unstable and insane dictatorship exists in your vicinity," he said. Mr. Zelensky and G7 leaders are set to convene Tuesday to discuss the latest Russian attacks. Ms. Truss's office said the British prime minister, who succeeded Boris Johnson just over a month ago, would use the call "to urge fellow leaders to stay the course". German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters Monday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him "of the solidarity of Germany and the other G7 states". Read more Outrage across the West after Russia strikes Ukrainian cities We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback Meanwhile, Russian nationalist commentators and state media's war correspondents lauded Monday's attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to Ukraine's successful counteroffensive in the northeast and the south and a weekend attack on a key bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014. Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday's missile strikes in order to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin is becoming a hostage of his own supporters' views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold. Le Monde with AP and AFP A demonstration denouncing violence against women in Dabou, Ivory Coast, on April 24, 2019. GODONG / BSIP VIA AFP When she walks in the streets of Conakry, Kadiatou Konate mistrusts any unwanted stares. Every so often a finger is pointed at her. "Are you the one who sends our men to prison?" an angry voice sometimes snaps. The feminist activist invariably answers "no," for fear of being assaulted. At 21, Kadiatou Konate is disrupting Guinean society, which is plagued by sexual violence. With her modest battalion of 500 activists united in the Guinean Young Women Leaders Club, Ms. Konate is waging a war against sexual crimes, a widespread phenomenon denounced in a recent Amnesty International report. In a 2009 national survey, 23% of Guinean women said they had been raped. Ninety-seven percent of girls and adolescents have also undergone female genital mutilation, a practice that has been illegal for 20 years. Like other feminists in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, Ms. Konate, who has been involved in women's associations since she was 15, did not wait for the #MeToo movement to speak out. Activists aged 20 to 33 embody the new generation sometimes the third to have engaged in feminist struggles in Ivory Coast, Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon and Benin. For several years, they have been denouncing attacks on women's bodies and rights. Everywhere, they face violent reactions. Their speaking out, especially online, reflects a massive politicization of young African women. Beninese activist Chanceline Mevowanou said, "Of course #MeToo resonated with us. But the fact that girls are becoming aware of the oppression they suffer is the result of access to mass education. It's a victory that we owe to our elders." Nevertheless, African feminists have seized the movement that emerged five years ago to launch online campaigns, with varying degrees of success. Following a series of rapes and femicides in Senegal, Ndeye Fatou Kane, a researcher and feminist, created #balancetonsaisai ("Out your rascal") in 2018. In the country of sutura, (a Wolof word evoking discretion and modesty), support was modest, but the initiative was a milestone. Read more Subscribers only Cameroon's Therese Sita-Bella: The little-known legacy of a trailblazing African journalist A generational split The hashtag #vraiefemmeafricaine ("real African woman"), a scathing parody of the cliches attached to the "authentic" African woman, was launched in 2020 by Ivorian journalist Bintou Mariam Traore. It has since spread widely in the Francophone world. "This campaign was our #MeToo. It allowed us to show African women how feminism is liberating," said Megan Boho, president of the Ivorian League of Women's Rights. Is it possible to speak of a feminist revolution in French-speaking Africa? The road still seems long for many activists. Although it is emancipating on an individual level, speaking out has not fundamentally shaken up the patriarchal structures that generate oppression. The dynamics of domination have been maintained in the spheres of power. In Senegal, for example, masseuse Adji Sarr accused Ousmane Sonko, the main opponent of the Senegalese president, of repeated rapes in March 2020, which Mr. Sonko denies. This case illustrated how impossible it is to debate the issue. The scandal, perceived as a state conspiracy, set the country ablaze, with 14 people killed in demonstrations in support of the incriminated politician. The incident also revealed a generational split. In contrast to young women, the feminist pioneers, who were organized and influential, gave tepid support to the alleged victim, for fear of the climate of violence. They were also more cautious than the younger activists with regard to Ms. Sarr's testimony. The case is still under investigation. Even though some countries have strengthened their legal arsenal in Senegal, rape has been criminalized since 2019, and in Guinea, sentences have been increased impunity persists. "Senegalese law still requires the victim to prove that she did not consent. Nor does she benefit from legal aid, unlike the alleged perpetrator," said Ndeye Khaira Thiam, a clinical psychologist and criminologist. In this context, which is not very favorable to women's rights, attempts to overturn the system come at a high price. Climate of violence "My commitment to feminism has ruined my life. It cost me my job, my peace of mind, my liberty to go where I want, when I want," said Gabrielle Kane. The Senegalese woman in her 30s, known for having publicly supported Adji Sarr, continues to speak her mind without restraint on TV platforms. In return, she experiences floods of insults and rare encouraging words. In June, however, one of her detractors was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison term for death threats. The former model and now head of a public relations agency is a favorite target of anti-feminists. They accuse her of having connections with men in the regime, of being at the service of France where she lived for 10 years and of wanting to destroy the foundations of Senegalese society. These women are regularly accused of being "agents" of the West. "I will not keep quiet even if I feel in danger," said the young woman, placed for the second time in two years under police protection. "Exhausted" and "discouraged," African feminists are often hurt by this climate of violence. The cruel paradox is that they find themselves overwhelmed by requests for help from victims who they encouraged to speak out. "I go to bed and get up with messages from women who tell me about the violence they have suffered. After a while, I break down," said Ms. Konate. Read more Subscribers only 'Senegalese Shonda Rhimes' makes unabashedly feminist TV 'Investing in spaces of care and healing' In fact, burnout and depression are affecting the mental health of activists. They are being asked to make up for the failures of governments in providing care for survivors. To cope, the issue of care is now taken seriously within collectives. The Ivorian Meganne Boho, head of an organization with 85 people, decided to consult a therapist, who was also there for the team. "Receiving five calls for help a day, including at least two for rape, is a heavy burden. All this misery is overpowering, especially since we are volunteers." Her Beninese colleague Carine Danhouan was concerned about the survival of the movement: "Our activists are hurting. It is urgent to invest in spaces of care and healing. Otherwise, they'll fall apart. You can't help if you're suffering yourself." In addition to these critical challenges, there is a major obstacle for the new feminist generation: the resurgence of religious movements, which is causing severe tensions. "In Senegal, our greatest challenge is to attack the false interpretations of the Quran by pseudo-religious figures in order to continue to control women's bodies," said Maimouna Astou Yade. She believes in a "radical" feminism rooted in Islam and does not reject polygamy, a practice castigated by many feminists. "If men respected the conditions required by the Quran, polygamy would not be a source of violence. But they flout them in order to better control women," she said. Read more Subscribers only Cote d'Ivoire bill to legalize polygamy is causing controversy "Most Senegalese feminists live in a fundamental ambivalence. They claim rights but do not wish to deconstruct the patriarchal system that oppresses them," said Ndeye Khaira Thiam, clinical psychologist and criminologist. "Most of them are not ready to live freely because they aspire to marriage, even though it is the door to their prison. According to the family code, the man has marital power over his wife and children." The revision of this text remains one of the struggles of some feminist movements. The clinical practitioner also denounced the "silence" of activists concerning the rights of sex workers and sexual minorities, a real blind spot for feminist struggles in Francophone Africa. "While 40 years ago, feminists were leading the debate on these issues, they have disengaged themselves from it, leaving the field open to Islamists who are calling for the hardening of the law against homosexuality. However, wanting to impose a heterosexual norm also means trying to control women's bodies," said Ms. Thiam. Passing the torch Rejected by society at large for the threat of destabilization that they inspire, feminist organizations must also fight to survive. Donor money favors certain countries Burkina Faso, Senegal and Niger and neglects others, such as the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape is used as a "weapon of war." They are also in competition with NGOs from English-speaking countries, major beneficiaries of international aid. "Calls for tender to obtain funding, documentation, conferences everything is in English! We don't have the same opportunities as they do because we don't always have a good command of the language," said Cameroonian lawyer Caroline Mveng. To face the English-speaking steamroller, French-speaking feminists are gradually trying to form a transnational network. The links with their colleagues remain fragile. "They criticize us for lagging behind because we are still dealing with domestic violence issues when they are fighting for sexual minorities," said Ms. Mveng. Disparities are also reflected in scholarly output. While Kenyan, South African and Ghanaian women have a rich academic body of feminist work based on their socio-cultural context, young Francophone activists are lacking in this respect. "Why not value expertise that's not academic? It is available but undervalued in our countries. Such knowledge is essential to anchor our feminism politically and to break away from a struggle centered on reacting to violence," said Cameroonian Francoise Moudouthe, head of the African Fund for Women's Development. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback Despite these obstacles, Francophone feminists hope to pass the torch to a new generation. They have a crucial mission to ensure the survival of the struggle, said Chanceline Mevowanou: "To overcome the embryonic stage of feminism in French-speaking Africa, we must put our efforts into education from an early age in order to dismantle systemic oppression at its roots. Without that, there will be no real feminist revolution." More on this topic Subscribers only In Dakar, the 'Territoires' exhibition tackles street harassment Coumba Kane Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version. On September 13, Azerbaijan launched a multi-directional offensive against the territory of the Republic of Armenia. This event went almost unnoticed by the general public in France, and this is precisely what the ruling power in Azerbaijan was counting on. However, this is indeed a sign of a new war of conquest at the gates of Europe if the international community does not react immediately with all necessary firmness. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been divided over the status of the High Karabakh region since the end of the Soviet Union a territory whose Armenian majority lives under the permanent threat of ethnic cleansing. But what is happening there today is nothing less than the military aggression of an over-armed despot against a small, fragile democracy, in order to extort total submission to his country's geo-strategic ambitions. Buoyed by his strategic partnership with Russia which is on a closer level than the better-known one linking Armenia to Russia as well as his close alliance with Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey, and galvanized by his desire to enslave Armenia, Ilham Aliyev is trampling on the all-too-fragile prospects of peace and justice in the South Caucasus. In the space of just 48 hours, the Azerbaijan president's recent operation left nearly 300 dead on both sides, with thousands of Armenian civilians displaced. Read more Subscribers only Armenia becomes an uncertain haven for Russians: 'What's the point of fleeing a country at war for another country at war?' War Crimes It is already proudly displaying its first round of war crimes on the Web, thanks to Azerbaijani military personnel who filmed themselves as they went about raping, torturing and dismembering. The ultra-violence encouraged by the regime raises fears for the worst, according to the respected Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide, which is issuing its third alert in less than a year. We are interested in your experience using the site. Send feedback This makes all the more grotesque and odious Mr. Aliyev's pretext of "Armenian provocations" to justify military operations and to mobilize an Azerbaijani society that has been fed with "Armenophobia" for decades and where dissent is brutally repressed. The objectives of the aggression against Armenia fall into two categories. The first is to force an extraterritorial "corridor" linking Azerbaijan to its enclave in Nakhchivan on the other side of the border, bordering Turkey and Iran a "corridor" whose master would be Russia. The point of contention between Armenia and Azerbaijan is not the opening of transport routes, which would in principle benefit the whole region, but the demand that Armenia be excluded from any control over this "corridor" and thus cut off from its vital border with Iran. You have 66.73% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. A LIMERICK GAA club was set alight with Hindu culture as the Indian Cultural Association Limerick (ICAL) celebrated one of their most important cultural festivals of the year. The ICAL brought their Durga Puja celebrations to Ahane GAA club with support from the Indian and Irish communities. The three-day cultural festival celebrates the Hindu goddess Durga who according to Hindu mythology is the mother of the universe. The celebrations consisted of various pujas (worships), cultural programmes including Bollywood music, garba dancing with DJ music, a religious quiz for children and adults, a cultural and religious art competition for children and various cultural performances by children and adults. Durga Puja is considered to be one of the most important festivals of Hindu culture and is celebrated throughout India by diverse communities. This festival is also known as Navratri, which means nine nights, celebrated from the day after the new moon day called Amavasya. Limerick City West and Fianna Fail Cllr Abdul Kalam Azad Talukder attended the event showed his support for the Indian community by wishing them well in their upcoming celebrations. AS THE number of young men seeking counselling has increased by 30% in Limerick, a charity is announcing a new recruitment drive. This year alone, Pieta says the number of men seeking help in the county has increased by 30% compared to 2021 - more than double the average increase nationally. With growing demand for Pietas free therapy services, the suicide prevention charity has announced plans to expand its clinical team in Limerick. Currently running its SIGNS of Suicide campaign, the organisation is urging young men to swap the small talk for the big talk and openly discuss their feelings with a friend, family member or anyone they feel comfortable confiding in. Not only has there been an increase in men reaching out to Pieta for help, but there has also been a significant increase in younger people under 25 contacting the charity for support relating to suicide, self-harm, and suicide bereavement since the beginning of 2022. In a bid to make face-to-face counselling sessions a priority, Pieta is recruiting for four new therapist roles that will offer variety and changeable working hours. Candidates must have experience working with teenagers and children. Pietas Midwest Clinical Manager, Nora Conway, said they are reaching out to the target group of young males, in a bid to raise awareness of the importance of recognising the signs of suicide and knowing what to do if you notice them in a friend or family member. We strongly encourage people to continue to look after their mental health and to reach out to loved ones who may be in distress during these trying times. Here at Pieta, we envision a world where suicide, self-harm and stigma can be replaced by hope, self-care, and acceptance and welcome new colleagues with the same vision, she added. A radiant smile was remembered at the funeral mass of Creeslough explosion victim Jessica Gallagher. The 24-year-old was one of ten people tragically killed in Fridays horrific blast, which has rocked Creeslough to its core. Hundreds straddled the roadside in sombre silence as the funeral cortege, led by a lone Garda motorcyclist, snaked its way through the Main Street. A haunting silence fell over the village as the wicker casket carrying the remains of the talented fashion designer were carried into the church. The congregation overflowed onto the streets where people huddled and hugged. The shape of the iconic St Michaels Church was inspired by Muckish, the table mountain that gives Creeslough its best known backdrop. During her time at the International Fashion Academy in Paris, one of Jessicas assignments was to work on something related to home. That she chose a moonlit Muckish was a demonstration of her pride in her place. Fr Duffy said: That creativity came to her so easily. As a child she painted brilliant amounts of Christmas cards with the original moonlit scenes of Muckish that she could see so clearly from her home. Garda Inspector Seamus McGonagle and Superintendent David Kelly. (North West Newspix) Jessica was due to start a new job as a fashion designer in Belfast on Monday and a shirt, which was working on as one of her first commissions, was among the symbols of her life carried to the altar. She used Donegal Tweed often in her work as another outline of her thoughts of home. Jessica, who was also a talented swimmer, spent time studying in Paris and Shanghai, but was happy to get back to the quite landscape of Creeslough, Fr Duffy said. He said: Jessica radiated a warm and positive feeling on those who knew her best. If you throw a stone into the water you will see mini ripples from where the stone impacts. Jessica left many ripples of love, kindness, affection and warmth for so many. She was at the centre and heart of every celebration. Everyone knew that radiant smile, the infectious warmth flowed from her. She always brought that sun, whether things were happy or difficult. Jessica was of a slender stature, but was very strong. Her confidence was unstoppable and she didnt have a switch-off button. Prayers were said for the other people who lost their lives and for the victims who remain in hospital, including Jessicas boyfriend Conor. Jessica had been visiting Conor, who lives in one of the apartments at the Applegreen complex, at the time of the explosion. The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, who is in Strasbourg and who will attend the remaining funerals from Wednesday, was represented by Aide de Camp, Colonel Stephen Howard. An Taoiseach, Micheal Martin was represented by his Aide de Camp, Commandant Claire Mortimer. Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle ONeill, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, Joe McHugh TD and the Mayor of Donegal, Councillor Liam Blaney were among a wide range of political representatives in attendance. The Bishop of Raphoe Alan McGuckian SJ was among the clergy and led the final prayers at the funeral. Fr Duffy paid tribute to the emergency services and the volunteers who aided at the scene of the explosion, some of whom were included among the attendance. Your help at the beginning was so pivotal, Fr Duffy said, recalling how he had prayed when Jessicas body was removed from the scene to a nearby premises. We would love to be able to put in our hands to your hearts and take away the grief and pain that you are suffering, Fr Duffy said to Jessicas family. While we cannot take the pain away we want to walk with you in that pain. To even say that we feel that pain would not be right. The greater someone is loved the greater the pain and that pain is so immense. Jessica will remain in your hearts. Jessica was such a wonderful gift. It is so difficult to lose one of any age but it is very difficult to lose one so young. Speaking on behalf of Jessicas heartbroken family, Fr Duffy thanked the various people who rallied in support since Fridays tragedy. Members of some of the families of the other victims and casualties were present at Jessicas funeral. Fr Duffy said: The journey was so abruptly ended. I wish I could explain that more fully in a way that words could explain it. Words couldnt give it sense. Russian missile strikes which caused the deaths of dozens of people in Ukraine have been condemned by the Taoiseach. It comes a day after widespread strikes hit Kyiv and other cities in what the UN human rights office describes as "a particularly shocking" attack that could amount to war crimes. The assaults are reportedly retaliation for the bombing of a key bridge connecting Russia to annexed Crimea. I condemn the missile attacks on Kyiv, and other Ukrainian cities, targeting civilians over recent days. These deliberate acts of terror are nothing short of war crimes. We will continue every effort to hold Russia accountable for these blatant breaches of international law. Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) October 10, 2022 Speaking yesterday (Monday October 10) on Twitter, Micheal Martin said, "I condemn the missile attacks on Kyiv, and other Ukrainian cities, targeting civilians over recent days. These deliberate acts of terror are nothing short of war crimes. We will continue every effort to hold Russia accountable for these blatant breaches of international law." Despite international condemnation over yesterday's attack, Russian forces have targeted Ukraine again today (Tuesday October 11) with a fresh barrage of missiles and munition-carrying drones. Today's assault, which sent residents back into bomb shelters, struck power plants and civilian areas, as they did yesterday. Taoiseach Martin recently met the Ukrainian prime minister in Prague, where he reiterated Ireland's "unwavering support" for its people. Good to meet again with PM @Denys_Shmyhal in Prague today. Reiterated Irelands unwavering support for the people of #Ukraine, and discussed ways we can continue to help at home and on the global stage, both now and in the future. pic.twitter.com/BoLrhqniNx Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) October 6, 2022 In a Twitter post on October 6, he stated, "Good to meet again with PM Denys Shmyhal in Prague today. Reiterated Irelands unwavering support for the people of Ukraine, and discussed ways we can continue to help at home and on the global stage, both now and in the future." Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cancelled the licence of Pune-based The Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank Ltd. The central bank said that the licence has been cancelled because of the company's earnings prospects and lack of capital. Today, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), vide order dated October 10, 2022, has cancelled the licence of "The Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank Ltd., Pune, Maharashtra." Consequently, the bank ceases to carry on banking business, with effect from the close of business on October 10, 2022, an official statement said. The Commissioner for Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Maharashtra has also been requested to issue an order for winding up the bank and appoint a liquidator for the bank, the RBI said. The statement said RBI cancelled the licence of the bank as it does not have adequate capital and earning prospects. As such, it does not comply with the provisions of Section 11(1) and Section 22 (3) (d) read with Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. The bank has failed to comply with the requirements of Sections 22(3) (a), 22 (3) (b), 22(3)(c), 22(3) (d) and 22(3)(e) read with Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, the RBI said. "The continuance of the bank is prejudicial to the interests of its depositors; the bank with its present financial position would be unable to pay its present depositors in full; and the public interest would be adversely affected if the bank is allowed to carry on its banking business any further," it added. Consequent to the cancellation of its licence, the Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank Ltd., Pune, Maharashtra has been prohibited from conducting the business of 'banking' which includes, among other things, acceptance of deposits and repayment of deposits as defined in Section 5 (b) read with Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 with immediate effect. On liquidation, every depositor would be entitled to receive deposit insurance claim amount of his/her deposits up to a monetary ceiling of 5,00,000 from Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) subject to the provisions of DICGC Act, 1961. As per the data submitted by the bank, about 99 per cent of the depositors are entitled to receive the full amount of their deposits from DICGC. New Delhi: India on Tuesday delivered a fresh batch of medical supplies to Afghanistan as part of its humanitarian assistance. The consignments were handed over to the Indira Gandhi hospital in Kabul. Today, India supplied the 13th batch of medical assistance as part of Indias ongoing humanitarian assistance," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. In view of the urgent appeals made by the United Nations to assist the Afghan people, India has, so far, supplied 45 tonne of medical assistance in 13 batches. The supplies included essential life-saving medicines, anti-TB medicines, 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines etc. These medical consignments have been handed over to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Indira Gandhi Children Hospital, Kabul," the MEA said. India has been pitching for providing unimpeded aid to Afghanistan to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the country. To ensure food security in Afghanistan, India has also provided food assistance of 40,000 tonne of wheat. The Fortune magazine has reported that a Dutch court ordered a US company to pay a fired employee $72,700 in damages after the employee was fired for turning off the webcam while working from home. The employee was fired by Florida-based telemarketing firm Chetu because he objected to being watched "for nine hours per day" by a programme that demanded screen sharing and webcam streaming. The news report stated that a Dutch court found that "requiring remote staff to keep their webcam on constitutes a human rights violation" in a ruling against a US software corporation. Florida-based Chetu now has to pay $72,700 to the former remote staffer based in the Netherlands. "Video surveillance of an employee in the workplace, be it covert or not, must be considered as a considerable intrusion into the employee's private life," the court added citing the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Dutch employee claimed that he felt uneasy and that the company's use of his webcam to continuously observe him during a virtual training program was an invasion of his privacy. According to The Fortune, the employee's laptop screen had to be shared as part of the monitoring, and the business promptly let him go, blaming him for "insubordination" and "refusal to work." The company said it fired the worker for "refusal to work" and "insubordination," 60% of companies with remote workers use monitoring software to keep an eye on their output and work activity, according to a Digital.com survey. 53% of employees whose behaviour is being tracked do non-work-related activities for three or more hours every day. Reaching 29,032 feet (8,849 meters) above sea level, Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth. Located in the Mahalangur Himal section of the Himalayas, the mountain's summit straddles the border separating Tibet and Nepal. Who were the first explorers to climb Everest? Mount Everest has two main climbing routes: the southeast ridge from Nepal, and the north ridge from Tibet. Though the north ridge route is shorter, today most climbers use the southeast ridge route, which is technically easier. The northern approach was charted in 1921 by George Mallory during the British Reconnaissance Expedition, which was an exploratory expedition that was not intended to attempt the summit, according to UM. Mallory was famously, perhaps apocryphally, quoted as answering the question "Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?" with the reply, "Because it's there," according to The Ohio State University Department of History (opens in new tab). In 1922, Mallory and fellow Brits Geoffrey Bruce and Charles Granville Bruce, along with Austrian chemist George Finch, attempted an ascent for the first time using oxygen, but the expedition was thwarted by an avalanche, according to UM. In June 1924, Mallory and English mountaineer Andrew Irvine attempted to reach the summit, but they did not survive. A 1999 expedition found Mallory's body. As the ice continues to melt due to climate change, more and more bodies have been recovered in recent years, Live Science previously reported. Early expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s attempted to make the ascent from the Tibetan side, but access was closed after Tibet officially came under Chinese control in 1951. This spurred English explorer Bill Tilman and a small party that included Americans Charles Houston, Oscar Houston and Betsy Cowles to approach Everest through Nepal along the route that has developed into the standard approach to Everest from the south, researchers reported in 1992 in The Geographical Journal (opens in new tab). In 1952, members of a Swiss expedition led by Edouard Wyss-Dunant reached a height of about 28,199 feet (8,595 m) on the southeast ridge, setting a new climbing altitude record, according to the Swiss Foundations for Alpine Research (opens in new tab). Tenzing Norgay, a member of this expedition and a Nepalese Sherpa, took part in the British expedition the following year. In 1953, a British expedition led by John Hunt returned to Nepal. Hunt selected two climbing pairs to attempt to reach the summit, Charles Wylie, a British Army lieutenant colonel and the organizing secretary to the expedition, wrote in The Himalayan Journal (opens in new tab). The first pair Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans came within 300 feet (91 m) of the summit but had to turn back due to oxygen problems. Two days later, the second pair New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Norgay reached the summit, took some pictures and left some sweets and a cross, Wylie reported in 1954. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary drink tea in the Western Cwm a glacial valley basin at the foot of Mount Everest's Lhotse Face after their successful ascent on May 30, 1953. (Image credit: Photo by George Band/Royal Geographical Society via Getty Image) (opens in new tab) Today, the mountain is becoming both less difficult and more treacherous to climb. A 2022 study published in the journal NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science (opens in new tab) showed that Everest's glaciers are melting rapidly due to climate change , making avalanches more frequent. The South Col Glacier the world's highest has thinned by more than 180 feet (55 m) over the past 25 years, Live Science reported. However, warmer temperatures and ice loss have made it easier for hikers to summit the mountain. However, technology has made climbing safer, Arnette said. Supplemental oxygen is easier to obtain these days, and if you find yourself stranded, "at a minimum, they'll get a helicopter and fly you off." When was Everest first measured? The height of Mount Everest was first determined in 1856, according to the University of Montana Department of Geography (opens in new tab) (UM). At the time, the Great Trigonometric Survey of British India pegged the height of the mountain, known to them as Peak XV, at 29,002 feet (8,840 m). But those surveyors were at a disadvantage because Nepal would not grant them entry due to concerns that the country would be invaded or annexed, UM says. The current accepted elevation was determined by a joint Chinese-Nepalese survey in November 2021, though technically, Everest's height is in flux; the mountain is simultaneously growing from tectonic-plate activity, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (opens in new tab) and " shrinking " from sea level rise, Live Science previously reported. In 1865, Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India, suggested that the mountain be named in honor of his predecessor in the job, Sir George Everest, according to a study published in 1931 in the journal Nature (opens in new tab). The Tibetans had referred to the mountain as "Chomolungma," or Holy Mother, for centuries, but Waugh did not know this because Nepal and Tibet were closed to outsiders. Mount Everest attracts experienced mountaineers and less-seasoned climbers from around the world, who typically enlist local guides from the Sherpa people, a Tibetan ethnic group renowned for their knowledge of the Himalayan range and skill in climbing, according to the American Himalayan Foundation (opens in new tab). Climbing the more than 11,000 feet (3,350 m) from base camp to the summit in a low-oxygen environment is no easy feat. Altitude sickness, weather, wind and, in rare cases, altitude-induced psychosis are the major roadblocks to summiting the peak. "It's like holding your breath and climbing a set of stairs," veteran climber and record keeper Alan Arnette told Live Science. "But not just any stairs it's more like the Empire State Building." More than 6,000 people have summited Everest, and more than 300 have died trying, according to the Himalayan Database (opens in new tab). Nearly 80% of those ascents have been accomplished since 2000. In 2018, a record 807 successful ascents were recorded, according to Arnette's records (opens in new tab). What lives on Everest? Mount Everest is surrounded by a number of substantial peaks, including Lhotse (27,940 feet, or 8,516 m), Nuptse (25,791 feet, or 7,861 m) and Changtse (24,803 feet, or 7,560 m), according to Britannica (opens in new tab). Those higher altitudes cannot support animal life or vegetation. However, birch, juniper, blue pines, firs, bamboo and rhododendron grow in the lower areas of the mountain, per Britannica. The highest-altitude vascular plant species, a type of herb given the scientific name Saxifraga lychnitis, grows at 21,260 feet (6,480 m) on Everest's slopes and was described in a 2018 paper in the journal Alpine Botany (opens in new tab). No known vascular plants grow above this point. Musk deer, wild yak, red pandas, snow leopards and Himalayan black bears inhabit altitudes below 16,400 feet (5,000 m), according to Britannica. There are also small numbers of Himalayan tahrs, langur monkeys, hares, mountain foxes, martens and Himalayan wolves. The Himalayan Ibex (Capra ibex sibirica) inhabits the arid and rocky mountain ranges of Gilgit-Baltistan, Karakoram and Hindu Kush. (Image credit: Zahoor Salmi/Getty Images) (opens in new tab) Everest milestones Here are some other Mount Everest expedition milestones: 1895: Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India, suggests naming the tallest Himalayan peak after his predecessor, Sir George Everest. 1921: British explorer George Mallory charts the northern approach. May 29, 1953: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary become the first expedition to officially summit Everest. May 20, 1965: Sherpa Nawang Gombu becomes the first person to reach the summit twice, The Guardian reported in a 2011 obituary. May 16, 1975: Junko Tabei of Japan becomes the first woman to summit Everest, The New York Times reported that year. May 3, 1980: Japanese climber Yasuo Kato is the first non-Sherpa to reach the summit a second time, following his original 1973 summit. (Kato died in 1983 during another attempt to reach Everest's summit, according to a report in the American Alpine Journal.) Aug. 20, 1980: Reinhold Messner of Italy is the first person to reach the summit solo, a grueling experience that Messner recounted in a 2003 interview in The Guardian. 1996 climbing season: 16 people die while climbing Mount Everest, the most fatalities in a single year up to that point, according to the Indianapolis Public Library. Eight climbers died on May 10 alone, during a storm. One of the survivors, Jon Krakauer, a journalist on assignment for "Outside" magazine, wrote the bestseller "Into Thin Air (opens in new tab) " (Anchor Books, 1999) about his experience. " (Anchor Books, 1999) about his experience. May 22, 2010: Apa Sherpa, who first summited on May 10, 1990, reaches the summit a 20th time, Everest News reported. May 23, 2013: At age 80, Japanese climber Minura Yuichiro becomes the oldest person to summit, according to CNN. April 25, 2015: The Gorkha earthquake in Nepal triggers an avalanche on Everest, killing 22, the single deadliest day in the mountain's recorded history, Stanford University's Stanford Earth Matters magazine reported. Additional resources Explore Mount Everest from the safety and comfort of your home, using this interactive 3D map (opens in new tab). Read a harrowing account of two climbers Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler who in 1978 attempted to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen, at PBS' NOVA Online (opens in new tab). View highlights from the exhibit "Everest: Ascent to Glory," produced by the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, in a virtual tour (opens in new tab). This article was originally written in 2012 by Live Science contributor Kim Ann Zimmermann, and has since been updated. Stephen Silver, who denies murdering Detective Gda Colm Horkan, had a smirk on his face as he told a garda trying to resuscitate the detective that he was "doing it wrong" and that he was killing him, a witness has told the Central Criminal Court. Gda Aidan Fallon said he was driving a garda patrol car when he saw two men fighting on the side of the street before he heard what he believed to be gunshots. He turned the garda car around and through the passenger side window he saw a man with a gun twice shoot another man who was lying on the ground. When Gda Fallons colleague Gda Helen Gillen put the accused man into handcuffs, Gda Fallon turned the man in the street over and realised it was his colleague, Det Gda Horkan. The witness began to cry and paused to drink water as he told the court: His eyes were open, like he was looking back at me, but I knew then he was gone. I knew straight away. He attempted CPR but, he told prosecution counsel Michael Delaney SC, As I was doing CPR, the other man started telling me, you are doing it wrong, you are doing it wrong, you are killing him. He had a smirk on his face as he was saying it to me. Stephen Silver (46), a motorbike mechanic from Aughavard, Foxford, Co Mayo has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Det Gda Horkan on June 17, 2020 at Castlerea, Co Roscommon. He is charged that he committed the murder knowing or being reckless as to whether Det Gda Horkan was a member of An Garda Siochana acting in accordance with his duty. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Earlier today, Gda Gillen told Mr Delaney that she also saw the two men grappling and heard what she believed to be gunshots. She said she looked back as Gda Fallon turned the car to block the street and she saw a man falling backwards onto the road. She continued: Looking back up and I could see the man on the ground and then another male walked from Gannons shop with pace over to this man on the ground and he had a gun in his hand and he shot the man on the ground. I could see him shooting him on the ground, and then I remember him turning to go away and then I got out of the car. Gda Gillen began crying as she told Mr Delaney that she couldnt remember how many shots were fired, if it was three, or five. She saw the man throw the gun away and recalled that he was wearing a backpack and a black jacket with a luminous stripe. She added: At this stage I got out of the car and started walking back up towards Patrick St and Aidan got out of the drivers side and was coming around, saying a man had been shot, killed. Aidan was shouting at me to pull back but I kept walking because the gun was gone. The shooter, she said, was looking down at us from the door of Gannons travel agents but then moved to the middle of the junction and began not hopping but moving from foot to foot, they were wide steps, he was shouting stuff, I cant remember what he was saying. Looking at the man on the ground, she said she recognised his jacket and the Hyundai car nearby looked familiar but she couldnt see the mans face. She told the other man to get on the ground and he lay face down but then pushed himself up and said that he was going to be attacked, that man was going to attack me, he had a gun, he was going to attack me. Gda Fallon then turned the man on the ground over and thats when we knew it was Detective Garda Colm Horkan, the witness said. When Gda Fallon told Mr Silver that he had shot a guard Gda Gillen recalled that the accused responded, he wasnt a guard. Under cross examination, Gda Gillen agreed with Roisin Lacey SC, for Mr Silver, that the accused repeatedly said that the deceased was not a garda and said that gardai don't carry guns and pointed out that he was not wearing a uniform and was driving an unmarked car. Gda Fallon told Mr Delaney that on the night he recalls driving from the Knockroe estate into Castlerea. It was very quiet due to the covid-19 lockdown and as they arrived at the junction of Patrick St and Main St he saw James Coyne, who was the subject of earlier complaints about a motorcycle being driven dangerously in Knockroe. In the same moment, Gda Fallon said he saw two men with their hands on each other, it was similar to what you might see outside a nightclub with men fighting. As Gda Fallon stopped the car, he said he heard gunshots. I heard numerous shots. Numerous shots. We couldnt believe it at the time. At this stage we did not know who the men were or what the situation was. Gda Fallon drove on to a safe distance, about 30 to 40 metres, and Gda Gillen called command and control to report that shots had been fired in Castlerea. Gda Fallon turned the car to block the road and activated the blue lights. He added: The next thing I remember is hearing more shots. At this stage I looked over my shoulder out the passenger window past Helen. I observed a male lying in the middle of the road and I observed a man standing over him and I observed two shots and watched the man stand over the other man with a gun in his hand. Gda Gillen began walking towards the scene while Gda Fallon called for an armed garda. He added: I didnt know if there was an armed member available to call down to us, I realised we were probably on our own for a little while. He walked with Gda Gillen towards the man, who was now on his knees, and asked, where is the gun? Mr Silver told him he had thrown it away. He remembered the man shouting, I shot him, I shot him, hes dead. Gda Fallon added: I knelt down beside the man on the ground, he was face downwards. I turned him around to start CPR and thats when I seen it was Colm. I couldnt believe it. It didnt even enter my head. Colms eyes were open, like he was looking back at me but I knew then he was gone, I knew straight away. Having handcuffed Mr Silver, Gda Gillen took over CPR and Gda Fallon went to Mr Silver and asked him to sit back down on the pavement or get onto his knees. Gda Fallon said the accused refused and then told him: I know what ye did to the black man in America. Ye killed him. The garda recalled telling Mr Silver that he had shot a detective and Mr Silver replied: Of course I shot him, he had a gun. Doesnt look like a good detective now, does he? What kind of detective wears a Tommy Hilfiger jacket? When Sgt Michael OHara arrived he and Gda Fallon linked their arms under Mr Silvers arms to bring him to the station. Gda Fallon said the accused shouted police abuse a couple of times and repeated what he had said about police killing a black man in America. He also mentioned Black Lives Matter and then said that he had coronavirus and started coughing into my face, maybe five or six times. After they got Mr Silver to Castlerea Station Gda Fallon said he had no further dealings with him. Mr Silvers counsel Gerardine Small SC asked Gda Fallon why he had not mentioned in his statement in 2020 that he saw the man in the street holding a gun and firing two shots. He said he gave the statement 48 hours after the incident and a lot of things became very clear and very raw after that. When asked why an experienced garda would not tell his colleagues that he had remembered something important relating to a capital murder case he said: I dont like talking about anything in relation to this. I keep it to myself. He said that he did speak to his sergeant about seeing the two shots being fired when he returned to his duties some time later. Ms Small will continue the cross examination tomorrow in front of Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of seven men and five women. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: October 11 2022 Jonathan Skolnick was sentenced to 15 years in prison for enticing minor children to send him sexually explicit photographs and videos of themselves over the Internet. Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JONATHAN SKOLNICK was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for enticing minor children to send him nude and sexually explicit photographs and videos of themselves over the Internet. On April 5, 2022, SKOLNICK pled guilty before U.S. Judge Colleen McMahon, who imposed his sentence. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: For approximately seven years, Jonathan Skolnick abused his position of trust as an associate principal and teacher in New York City schools by posing as a teenage girl online and successfully enticing minor victims, including his own students, to send him child pornography. This lengthy prison sentence holds Skolnick accountable for his horrific crimes and the extraordinary harm and trauma he caused to many minor victims and their families. According to the Indictment, court documents, and based on statements made in open court: Between in or around August 2012 and in or around June 2018, JONATHAN SKOLNICK worked as a high school teacher at a school in Brooklyn, New York. In or around July 2018, SKOLNICK became an associate principal at a middle school in the Bronx, New York, where he worked until his arrest in September 2019. While in those roles, SKOLNICK posed as a teenage girl online, contacted minor victims by email, social media message, and text message, engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the minor victims, and enticed the minor victims to send him nude and sexually explicit photographs and videos. Many of the minor victims were students at the schools where SKOLNICK worked. During the time period of his crimes, SKOLNICK used at least 21 different email and social media accounts to contact nearly 100 different individuals and solicit nude and sexually explicit images and videos. When certain minor victims stopped communicating with SKOLNICK, he threatened to release the photographs and images that the minor victims had sent. In addition to his prison term, SKOLNICK, 40, of the Bronx, New York, was sentenced to five years of supervised release. Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department. "Today we honor 11 firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our communities," Governor Hochul said . "We remember these New Yorkers as selfless individuals with unwavering dedication to keeping us safe. We will never forget these heroes, and we stand with their grieving loved ones today and every day. New York is a better place because of their service." Governor Kathy Hochul has honored the memory and heroism of 11 fallen firefighters during the 25th Annual New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial Ceremony at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany. The names of 10 men and one woman have been added to the New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial, which recognizes 2,631 individuals from across the state who died in service to their communities. "We are eternally indebted to the brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day to ensure our safety. There is no greater calling in life than service to your community - service to others," said Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado. "The 11 fallen firefighters we honor today join 2,620 fallen firefighters already inscribed on the Memorial Wall. We grieve their loss, but also find inspiration in the love that drove them to service in the first place." Lieutenant Governor Delgado joined other state officials at the ceremony to recognize the following individuals, whose names have been added to the Memorial at the Empire State Plaza: Joseph M. Boyle, New York City Fire Department John "Jack" A. Bradley, West Islip Fire Department Doris L. Groene, Vigilant Engine & Hook & Ladder Co., Inc. Irving A. Isenberg, Getzville Fire Company, Inc. Joseph W. Maiello, New York City Fire Department Vincent L. Malveaux, New York City Fire Department Thomas G. Manley, New York City Fire Department Stanley J. May, The Roslyn Highlands Hook & Ladder, Engine & Hose Co. Frank Portelle, New York City Fire Department John P. Poulos, New York City Fire Department Guy J. Romano, Westbury Fire Department Dedicated in 1998, the Memorial honors the memory and valor of New York's fallen firefighters and pays tribute to the more than 100,000 New York State active firefighters who risk their lives every day to protect New Yorkers. In 2021, firefighters statewide responded to more than 1.5 million incidents and nationally, fire departments answered 36 million calls for service and responded to more than 1.3 million fires. Governor Hochul also issued two proclamations to honor the state's career and volunteer firefighters, marking today as Firefighter Appreciation Day, and the week of October 9 as Fire Prevention Week. Every day, the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control within the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services works in partnership with local fire departments, fire service organizations, school districts, civic groups and the National Fire Prevention Association to provide information and programs about the importance of fire safety awareness. New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray said, "We join with the families of these 11 fallen heroes today to mourn the loss of their loved ones and revere the service of each. We will never forget these brave men and women who put their own safety on the line every day as a member of the fire service and dedicated their lives to protecting their communities." New York State Fire Administrator James Cable said, "We gather today to honor 11 brave firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice while performing their duties to keep their fellow New Yorkers safe. Please remember these fallen firefighters for their contributions to protecting all of us, and those that continue to serve and risk their lives for the people of New York." About the State Office of Fire Prevention and Control The Office of Fire Prevention and Control delivers a wide breadth of essential services to firefighters, emergency responders, state and local government agencies, public and private colleges and the citizens of New York to help ensure the safety of all stakeholders. The office advances public safety through firefighter training, education, fire prevention, investigative, special operations and technical rescue programs. The family of Briton Tobias White-Sansom, the brother of Maximilian White, the British billionaire who made his fortune from medicinal cannabis who died at Son Llatzer Hospital in Palma after spending several days in an induced coma following an incident in a nightclub have been given the all clear by the Spanish authorities to repatriate the body, but it could take four weeks. Nevertheless, the family announced a huge step forward in helping him lie down in peace. Nottinghamshire entrepreneur Maximillian White, who has made his wealth from medicinal cannabis and owns a property on Mallorca, has told Nottinghamshire Live that his brothers body will return to the UK after months of fighting. It comes as coroners have conducted a second autopsy September 20 - and the case is now in the hands of the judicial authority in Spain. It will now take around four weeks for Tobias body to be repatriated to the UK, the family said. Once arrived in the UK, White said they will have an inquest opened into the circumstances of his brothers death. He vowed that he will bring justice to my brother - and push for his case to be heard in the European Court. The original autopsy concluded that the death of the 35-year-old was caused by an overdose. Maximilian White and his family maintain that he died after suffering two cardiac arrests due to the brutality of doormen at the club and of Guardia Civil officers who arrested him. According to the Guardia Civil, he had tried to enter the club without a shirt and that those responsible for security did not let him in. Maximilian White has said that if his brother had been white and Spanish, he would still be alive. The Guardia Civils union and the SUP police union have denounced him for defamation and hate due to a campaign of insults directed at the Guardia Civil. One thing is for sure, the family is not giving up. Johnny Depp had been missing from the public eye after the defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard and was last seen on Saturday in New York City meeting fans and taking pictures with them while looking more like a clean-shaven rock star than his usual goat-tee and mustache. Sunglasses and baker boy hat Johnny Depp looking totally unrecognizable in New York While wearing reflective blue sunglasses and a baker boy hat, 'Jack Sparrow' was meeting and greeting the fans amicably in Port Chester New York where he and his bandmate/buddy Jeff Beck were to perform. Johnny has been touring around the world and they just came back from the UK where they toured for a while right after the defamation trial against Amber Heard ended. Calamity Jane and Amber Heard Speaking of her, it was reported that she was living it up in Palma de Mallorca, Spain with her daughter Oona Paige and her girlfriend. Meanwhile, she adopted the traveling and reservation name of Calamity Jane, a historical character in US history who was known for killing whole tribes of Native Americans during the old west period. Word around the campfire is that Heard is calling herself that because Depp has Native American ancestry. Prior to this outing, Depp guest appeared in this year's MTV Video Music Awards in a weird astronaut suit that had a screen for a helmet, and he was without his signature mustache then as well. Depp's personal life Meanwhile, in Depp's personal life, it was rumored that he was dating attorney Camille Vasquez because they were seen laughing and having a good time, however, reporters say he is actually dating Joelle Rich non-exclusively who is also an attorney but she helped Depp in the trial against the UK news outlet 'The Sun' Meghan Markle has taken a swipe at Hollywood and sitcoms such as How I Met Your Mother for the stereotypes that are held and perpetuated around women. She also hit out at 'philosopher' Jordan Peterson for his repeated comments about the controlling of women. Meghan explains the terrible treatment she's received, having been called 'crazy' and 'histerical' Markle hits out at Jordan Peterson Markle was talking on her Archetypes podcast on Spotify when she explained how she has been called words such as 'crazy' and 'hysterical' before saying that Prince Harry helped her find a therapist at her worst point. After starting the episode by asking her guests if they have ever been called crazy or words of that nature, the duchess then plays a series of quotes, including one from American sitcom How I Met Your Mother in which the actor Neil Patrick Harris playing the character Barney says: 'If she's this crazy, she has to be this hot.' Harry and Megan spotted sharing a romantic moment at the Santa Barbara Bowl This is followed by the conservative Jordan Peterson, who says: 'I don't think that men can control crazy women'. The third segment comes from another American sitcom, Scrubs, in which the fictional female doctor Elliot (Sarah Chalke) comments: 'I can't take it, Carla! I cannot hide the crazy a minute longer! I'm just this big mountain of coocoo is about to erupt and spew molten crazy, all over him and he's gonna die like this.' Talking about what the harm is of calling people crazy or hysterical, Markle explained: "Calling someone crazy or hysterical completely dismisses their experience and minimises what they're feeling. "It keeps going to the point where anyone who's been labelled it enough times can be gas-lit into thinking that they're actually unwell or sometimes worse, to the point where real issues of all kinds get ignored. Well, that's not happening today." Over the next two months, the active-duty component of the Army will inspect all the buildings in its inventory for mold, including barracks, as the service tries to get its arms around a problem plaguing outdated living quarters across the country. All facilities are set to be inspected by Nov. 18, according to an internal memo reviewed by Military.com. The sudden wide-ranging inspection comes after a Military.com investigation on poor living conditions at Fort Stewart, Georgia, in which service member's barracks are infested with mold, painting the walls and doors black. This publication was also first to detail a similar issue at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, roughly 1,200 had to be relocated to new living quarters after years of moldy conditions grew even worse in the muggy climate. That evacuation shook garrison logistics and is likely to complicate day-to-day operations for the foreseeable future. Twelve barracks at Fort Bragg are set to be demolished next year, five years ahead of schedule. An additional five are set to be remodeled. Read Next: How Trauma Before Service is Shaping a Generation of Troops "Our Soldiers and families must have healthy and safe environments in which to live and work, so reports of mold or mildew need to be addressed immediately," Rachel Jacobson, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said in a statement to Military.com. "Orders for walk-throughs at Army Reserve and National Guard buildings will be issued soon. This comprehensive infrastructure assessment will enable the Army to identify issues that need remediation and make informed decisions about renovation and new construction priorities." A lot of the Army's mold issues are being attributed to outdated infrastructure. Many of the service's barracks were built 50 years ago, all of which have long outdated air conditioning systems that are known to leak and are difficult to repair. Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston has made improving the quality of life for soldiers a key focus during his tenure. The service has secured $10 billion it plans to spend on barracks over the next decade. However, it can take roughly five to six years to build new living quarters, a sluggish timetable Army planners blame on a labyrinth of bureaucracy, slow-rolling construction. With construction taking years after projects are greenlit, the Army is short on solutions in the interim. Simply taking inventory of all the service's mold issues will likely only answer the scope of how bad the mold problem is, but it's unclear if the Army will be able to move soldiers if that inspection reveals more instances of intense mold infestation. "All senior commanders will prioritize and remediate or mitigate the reported deficiencies by immediately submitting work orders resulting from the inspections and supporting any soldier moves as needed," the memo said. Fort Bragg's relocation effort was unprecedented, and most installations do not have excess barracks while moving soldiers en masse to civilian housing could stretch an already bursting real estate market. The Army did a similar servicewide inspection in 2021 of family housing following widespread news coverage of privatized base residences. -- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon. Related: Mold Is Consuming Fort Stewart's Barracks as a Pattern Emerges Across the Army In early 2019, Danielle Falcon sat in her Marine Corps cammies, huddled in her car in an empty lot outside Camp Courtney, in Okinawa, Japan. Tears streamed down her face as she breathed heavily, dreading the drive home. Falcon had what any Marine officer dreams of: She'd recently pinned-on the rank of major and was serving as a company commander, right on track for battalion command one day when she'd be tasked with overseeing hundreds of troops. She was married to a loving husband, a dependable and involved father to their two girls, ages 3 and 6. She loved her job in intelligence, and she was good at it. But in her car, none of that mattered. Read Next: Austin Orders Renaming of Bases that Honor Confederate Rebels "I felt very alone," she said. It wasn't depression or stress from work that kept her from pulling out of that parking lot after another 12-hour day. Falcon had begun having physical effects from her mental health, ending up in the hospital a few times. Any amount of routine stress had become overwhelming. She thought she might be dying, leaving her children without their mom. It was panic built on past trauma. The vast majority of Americans grow up experiencing some level of trauma. But compared to those who've never served, the military has a disproportionate number of adults who experienced higher rates of childhood trauma. That trauma is tied to a range of adult health issues, such as suicide, heart disease and even cancer. For Falcon the long term effects came in the form of terror built on an echo of her past. "My life felt like it was starting to mirror my dad's in a lot of ways." A decade before, when she was just 19 and away at college, Falcon unexpectedly found herself unable to reach her father. She called her grandparents, asking them to swing by and check on him. They found her father, Jeffery, along with two of Falcon's sisters, dead inside his home. He'd died by suicide, and killed her sisters, Haley, 10, and Zoey, 5, at the same time. "I started wondering how you could do that to your own children, the fear of somebody else hurting my kids," she said. She couldn't sleep and was becoming scared of family members. For a while, she was able to conceal her fears at work, confining breakdowns to long drives or when she was alone in the office. But by 2020, Falcon's fear and anxiety couldn't be stashed out of sight anymore. She was sure the escalating panic was surging toward a bad end. She'd spent much of her time setting up mental health appointments for her Marines, battling notoriously long wait times to get them help. She wondered about pursuing an appointment for herself, having spent years repeating the mantra that she'd get over what happened. Danielle Falcon, her husband Chris, and daughters Emma and Graycie in 2019 at her company Change of Command in Okinawa Japan. (Photo courtesy of Danielle Falcon) Adverse Childhood Experiences Talking about the effects of trauma, which experts call "adverse childhood experiences" (ACEs), can help mitigate health issues. But there's no apparent effort within the military to raise awareness, despite some reports pointing to links between veteran suicides and histories of pre-service trauma. There's further cause for the military leadership to care: ACEs may be contributing to another of the military's most enduring and public struggles -- rates of sexual assault. When children experience more instances of trauma, their chances of being sexually victimized as an adult go up. The likelihood of committing crimes increases too, and so do the chances that a person will be a perpetrator of sexual assault. Risk of suicide rises as well, in some cases by fourfold. "We know that childhood adversity has an enormous effect on adult functioning throughout life," said Dr. Ronald Kessler, a Harvard professor and researcher who has studied trauma and military mental health extensively. The idea of ACEs was born from a study in the 1990s, when researchers realized participants who reported different types of childhood trauma were more likely to suffer long-term mental and physical health consequences, because of debilitating stress. "You look at people who are in their 60s and you can see the differences in mental health, relationships, and the ways they connect with people -- that stuff's all related," Kessler said. "When you probe what was going on with them and you do a life review, that's all related to things that happened when they were a little kid." Although Falcon wasn't a child when her father and sisters died, the most devastating effects of their deaths didn't emerge until years later. "When I had my first daughter, the trauma just kind of slapped me in the face," she said. "I think sometimes we think of trauma as being linear, like 'time heals all wounds'. But when I had my daughter, the trauma changed. I think that's when I went from grieving to actually starting to display signs of PTSD because now that trauma meant something else, I had my own child." The birth did trigger Falcon's PTSD, which wouldn't be diagnosed until seven years later, a few years after the birth of her second child. She medically retired from the Marine Corps in 2021 and started seeing a therapist. "When I started talking [to my therapist] about the loss and trauma, though, it was terrible because it brought back so many emotions. But it also lifted a burden I didn't realize could be taken off of me," Falcon said. Experts say more research on the long-term health consequences of ACEs in military populations is sorely needed. The Defense Department doesn't collect ACEs data either, making it hard to determine how significantly ACEs may be contributing to readiness issues such as personnel retention, health issues of non-deployable troops, and rates of misconduct and crime. "Part of the challenge is getting people to realize how much they've oriented their view of the world -- their perceptions of danger and opportunity -- based on their unique experience," Kessler noted. "And getting them to realize that other people may have ways of being in the world that are a lot more fulfilling, productive and happy, and that they could do that too, because they're not in that childhood home anymore." Understanding how old traumas could play out in later years can only benefit those who serve, says Army Lieutenant Colonel Scott Stephens, an armor officer stationed in Europe. A former battalion commander, he's encountered the devastating effects of unrecognized trauma over the years, both personally and professionally. He argues that a lot of what hes seen could be helped if only troops know how to process what theyre grappling with. "Often, the pieces of the puzzle are there, but they're scattered on the table or still in the box," he said. "Usually, you know if someone's been in combat and carries something from that. But I've known people who've died of suicide and only afterward have we found out there was major childhood trauma they were carrying too." Danielle and her sisters, Haley and Zoey Sines, in 2007 in Barboursville, West Virginia, less than one year before Haley and Zoey's deaths. (Photo courtesy of Danielle Falcon) What Pre-Service Trauma May Look Like Part of lifting burdens like Falcon's -- and improving mental health in the military -- is understanding how traumatic events experienced as young people can shape adults. Marine Corps Major Anna Antoine spent almost a decade on active duty before swapping to the reserves to pursue a career in firefighting. It's a job that includes routine exposure to trauma and people affected by it. Shes not a doctor, but after almost 17 years as both a Marine and firefighter leading men and women, she's no stranger to those effects, and how issues that go unresolved can affect a team's cohesiveness in dangerous environments. "It's the whole 'know yourself and seek self-improvement' thing," Antoine said. "Knowing the role that our ACEs play in our current understanding of our environment makes us more resilient and lethal fighters." Survivors cope with old traumas consciously or subconsciously. Anger issues, compulsive sexual behavior, alcoholism and drug use, overworking and overeating are all ways people can deal with toxic stress. "We don't have a solid way to address this anywhere in American society yet," she continued. "We're getting better, but asking the military to address something that our society hasn't fully figured out yet is a big task." One of the most complicated issues may be child sexual abuse. Victims are often abused by adult family members, or even other child family members, leading to harsh stigmas and lifelong secrecy. It's severely underreported, by some estimates affecting 1 in 10 children. Dr. John Blosnich, a research health scientist for the VA, found that military men are twice as likely to have suffered child sexual abuse as children, putting them at increased risk of suicide. "We don't fully understand how people recover from childhood trauma," he said, adding that the military may attract people who are already inclined to resilience, and who seek to overcome traumas by serving. Antoine recounted one experience with unresolved pre-service trauma. She'd once had a young Marine working for her who'd been showing up to work drunk, unbeknownst to the unit. "She was acting kind of weird, but we chalked it up to personality. We couldn't smell any alcohol and didn't know she was drunk at the time," she said. Antoine only learned about the Marine's drinking after she attempted suicide and was subsequently hospitalized. "When I met her afterward, she told me she was raped in high school, and she'd never told anybody. Drinking had been her way of dealing with it." Service members like Antoine are left to try to help those who have experienced trauma, many of whom aren't aware that those past experiences might be driving their current mood and behavior. "I'm not a psychologist and I'm not a therapist," Antoine stressed. "But the people I've met while serving who've shared their stories with me, I can see they've never broken those patterns. It's playing out over and over again and coloring everything they're doing, but they don't see it because they're stuck in an emotional loop." "It doesn't have to be like that," Antoine said. Falcon said that although the DoD provides mental health care, if people aren't taught how to identify issues before they hit a tipping point, many won't use those resources. "I think a lot of people understand military mental health services that are out there," she said. "But they don't understand their own issues, so they don't know how the services can help." Falcon says she still has bad days, sometimes made worse by her acute awareness of how her trauma has shaped her. But one of the biggest positive changes for her now that she's getting help has been being able to feel joy. "I'm able to have stronger connections with family and friends and develop relationships differently. I want to be able to feel joy with my kids. And I get that a lot more now than I was able to prior to starting therapy, even though the burden hasn't completely been lifted." "Joy" as a concept may not register with Congress and DoD budget makers. But money might. The exact national financial cost of dealing with ACEs is uncertain, and there's no data on how ACEs impact military populations economically. But in California, ACEs as a public health crisis is estimated to cost the state more than $113 billion each year. That figure includes health care costs related to long-term toxic stress, and projected years of lost economic production due to early deaths. Preventing more long-term health issues could reduce costs for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has requested a 13% budget increase from last year -- almost $302 billion for fiscal 2023. Falcon, Antoine and Stephens all said that training on how trauma can shape behavior would be an effective tool in helping troops recover and prevent more serious health or misconduct issues. It's already a known concept amongst social workers that seems to overlap with military personnel issues. "So often, I have seen senior leaders tell Marines dealing with trauma say, 'It's all in your head' or 'That's not a big deal' or 'I went through the same thing, and I'm fine,'" Falcon said. "Hopefully trauma training prevents those statements ever being said to a struggling Marine again." Kelsey Baker is a freelance journalist and former active duty Marine Related: How the Army Made Me Choose Between My Mental Health and Our Family's Dream Posting Read the original article on Business Insider. In the days and weeks leading up to Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, the White House repeatedly warned that conflict was imminent. But despite these warnings from the U.S. that war was on the horizon, Europe didn't want to believe that Russia would actually attack its eastern European neighbor, the European Union's top diplomat revealed on Tuesday. "Some things have happened in the past that we knew they could happen, but some of them have been a surprise," said Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign and security policy chief, during a speech at the bloc's ambassadors conference in Brussels. "We did not believe that the war was coming. I have to recognise that here, in Brussels. The Americans were telling us, 'They will attack, they will attack,' and we were quite reluctant to believe it," Borrell said. "I remember very well when [U.S. Secretary of State Antony] Blinken phoned me and told me, 'Well, it is going to happen this weekend.' And certainly, two days later, at 5 o'clock in the morning, [Russia] started bombing Kyiv," he recalled. In January 2021, as Russia gathered tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, U.S. officials including President Joe Biden cautioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to initiate widespread conflict at any moment. By mid-February, the White House said the risk of an immediate invasion was extremely high, and the U.S. even told Ukraine on February 23 that a major assault was likely about to start citing intelligence. The next day, Russian forces invaded, with Russian leadership under the impression that Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops would achieve a quick and decisive victory. Borrell also said on Tuesday that Europe didn't anticipate how well Ukraine would defend itself against the invading Russian forces. "We did not believe that this was going to happen, and we didn't foresee that Ukraine was ready to resist as fiercely and as successfully as they are doing," Borrell said, while also crediting European arms deliveries and military support with aiding Kyiv's fight. Borrell's remarks echo those of Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who said last month that the EU was wrong to ignore countries that warned Putin was a threat. Russia's neighbors have made similar comments about how they were right in their warnings. "One lesson from this war is we should have listened to those who know Putin," von der Leyen said. Now, after more than seven months of conflict, Ukrainian forces have managed to stage counteroffensives along the war's eastern and southern fronts, liberating thousands of square miles of territory from under Russian occupation since early September. Bogged down by these military setbacks, Putin's troops have recently begun used suicide drones, as well as missiles, to strike civilian areas far from the front lines, spreading terror and fear. Three Sikh recruits fought for an emergency appeal in federal court on Tuesday, citing their religious beliefs in hopes of being able to attend Marine Corps Basic Training without having to shave their beards or forgo their traditional turbans during boot camp. Arguments in the case were heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday afternoon. The trio of recruits -- Aekash Singh, Jaskirat Singh and Milaap Singh Chahal -- are fighting for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit against Marine Corps Commandant David H. Berger that would allow them to attend boot camp without sacrificing their religious customs. The men were denied the preliminary injunction by a federal judge in August, which led to their legal team fighting for an emergency appeal to that ruling this month. "The Marine Corps refuses to accommodate Sikhs during basic training because it claims that will disrupt uniformity of appearance among recruits and ultimately undermine national security," a statement from Becket Law, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that focuses on religious liberty cases, read. "The Sikh recruits here are asking the government to provide them with religious accommodations that will allow them to serve, just as it has provided secular accommodations to allow others to serve." Read Next: Ruling Against Military in Church Massacre Shouldn't Be Appealed, Gun Control Groups Say In the Sikh faith, many men do not shave their beards or cut their hair, wearing turbans to neatly organize their follicles. The Marine Corps has fought against the recruits' wishes, adding that it is a crucial part of the boot camp experience for recruits to go through as similar of an experience as possible without accommodating extra grooming and clothing standards so they can all have one identity. "The Plaintiffs are seeking extraordinary relief and the alteration of long-standing Marine Corps training policies," Brian Springer, an attorney for the federal government, told judges during the arguments on Tuesday. "Plaintiffs have not demonstrated any urgency to justify such an immediate and exceptional alteration and intrusion into military affairs." The lawsuit itself takes the Marine Corps, which has a reputation and history for being one of the least accommodating in the Department of Defense when it comes to grooming standards and overall inclusion, to task over what it argues is an inconsistent application of policy. "It is perverse to claim that respecting 'the individual desires of Marines' to have full-body tattoos ... is consistent with the Marine Corps' image, but that respecting [the four Sikhs'] desires to be faithful to God is somehow antithetical to the idea of cohesiveness and uniformity within the service," the original complaint filed in April, which included a fourth recruit who is no longer attached to the case, argues. Two of the recruits were hoping to go through boot camp in September and October. As the legal process drags on, their attorneys hope a preliminary injunction would allow them to go through training shortly after it is approved. Attorneys for the recruits pointed out that the Air Force in 2020 and the Army in 2017 have both made accommodations for Sikh service members. To date, the Sikh Coalition -- a New York-based advocacy group -- and other partnering legal groups have pursued legal cases to gain accommodations and waivers for upward of 50 service members. "The Marine Corps' refusal to align its uniform and grooming policies with those of its sister services is not only discriminatory, but also a disservice to its future ability to recruit the best young Americans," Brian W. Song, partner at BakerHostetler, said in a statement. Representatives from Becket Law and the Sikh Coalition told Military.com that they were unsure when the federal judges could issue their opinion regarding the emergency appeal citing it could be in the coming months, but the legal battle in the case could likely go on for years. -- Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly. Related: Sikhs Sue Marine Corps for Right to Wear Turban, Beards at All Times The U.S. military should be treating more Ukrainian service members suffering major injuries on the battlefield against Russia, a pair of U.S. senators said Tuesday. Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., made the comments after visiting a Ukrainian soldier who received a prosthetic leg from a clinic in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., with the help of charitable foundations. "I suspect that we as a nation will work on more [help for Ukrainian service members] because we have a history of treating amputees from allied nations or friendly nations who can't be treated in their own home country," said Duckworth, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq and recalled that members of Georgia's military were being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at the same time she was. Read Next: Promoting Safe Storage of Firearms Can Sway Service Members, Vets, Study Finds "Sen. Van Hollen and I are going to get together and see about what we can do to make the resources available to the most severe wounds," she added. "Some of these wounds, there's just not capacity at all in Ukraine. And a lot of places, they just don't have the expertise that exists here at Walter Reed." Duckworth and Van Hollen met Tuesday with Oleksandr Chaika, a 33-year-old children's choreographer who joined the Ukrainian military after Russia invaded in February and was deployed to fierce combat in the Luhansk province. In April, a tank shell exploded near Chaika. He survived but developed gangrene in the hospital in Ukraine, so doctors amputated his right leg. The Future for Ukraine Foundation, which was founded to provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians in need because of the war, paid for Chaika and his wife to come to the United States. Medical Center Orthotics and Prosthetics, which has experience treating wounded service members and veterans as a former contractor at Walter Reed, provided Chaika with his prosthetic leg and rehabilitation pro bono. "This has changed my life," Chaika said about the prosthetic leg, speaking through a translator. Chaika also thanked Van Hollen and Duckworth for America's "help in our fight in this war for independence," adding in English, "thank you very much." The partnership that brought Chaika to the United States, which has been dubbed Operation Renew Prosthetics and also includes a nonprofit called Brother's Brother Foundation, has plans to bring another five Ukrainian amputees to Medical Center Orthotics and Prosthetics for treatment. Guidance signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in late June allows the U.S. military to treat wounded Ukrainian service members at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, but U.S. European Command said in July no Ukrainian troops had been treated there. European Command did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Tuesday on whether any Ukrainians have been treated at Landstuhl since July. Duckworth and Van Hollen are not the first to call for more U.S. medical assistance for Ukraine. In April, a bipartisan group of 17 House members wrote a letter to Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, calling on them to "showcase American leadership by providing critical medical support to Ukrainians that will inspire other NATO states to follow suit." Meanwhile, Congress has approved more than $60 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid for Ukraine since Russia invaded. Most recently, lawmakers signed off on about $12 billion last month. Most of the funding has gone to the Pentagon to ship weapons to Ukraine and support U.S. troops deployed elsewhere in Europe to bolster NATO defenses. Speaking to reporters after meeting Chaika, Duckworth said she wasn't sure if Congress, which is currently on recess until after the November elections, needs to do more to ensure the United States treats severely wounded Ukrainians and vowed to press the Pentagon on the issue. "The military may have the ability to do it already, so we're going to go back and take a look and see if we need to do anything," she said. "When we come back after the election, we'll still have time to be able to do that." Van Hollen similarly noted the billions of dollars Congress has allocated to the Pentagon for the war in Ukraine and said senators will "have to look" at whether those funds could be used to treat Ukrainians or if further legislation would be needed. "We are supporting Ukraine in every way we can in terms of military assistance and support, working to impose sanctions on the Russian economy. This is the kind of thing that I think that we can provide support," Van Hollen said. -- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel. Related: Russia Blasts Kyiv, Other Ukrainian Cities in Deadly Strikes How to use the mindat.org media viewer Click/touch this help panel to close it. Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. 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Summary of all keyboard shortcuts The Padres went to Queens and took two out of three to knock off the Mets last week. Theyll now start a five-game set looking to take down the Dodgers, a team that was 22 games clear of them for the lead in the NL West. San Diego makes one change to their roster from the Mets series. Heres how it all breaks down: Right-Handed Pitchers Left-Handed Pitchers Catchers Infielders Outfielders The only adjustment for the Friars is the installation of Mike Clevinger onto the Division Series roster. The right-hander was sidelined by a non-COVID illness late in the regular season. While he reported to the team in Flushing, the Friars didnt carry him on the roster for the series. Clevinger, who had a 4.33 ERA with a career-low 18.8% strikeout rate over 114 1/3 innings this year, may not have gotten a start over Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove during the three-game set regardless. With the potential for a five-game series this time around, San Diego adds an extra arm to the staff. Clevinger will step right into the mix with a Game One start after the Friars deployed their top three arms late last week. As a result, the Padres swap out infielder Brandon Dixon. Carried as a right-handed bench bat during the first set, Dixon didnt make an appearance. He wont be an option for manager Bob Melvin this series unless hes added as an injury replacement. People from all walks of life including Ghanaian musicians and players in the showbiz industry last Saturday, October 8, joined the family of the late Nana Kwame Ampadu at Obo Kwahu in the Eastern Region to bid farewell to the legendary highlife musician. The mortal remains of the late veteran highlife musician, who died on September 28, 2021 after a short illness, were laid to rest at his hometown, Obo Kwahu. The burial ceremony of the veteran highlife musician attracted a large number of stakeholders from the creative industry including journalists, musicians, friends of the late musician and political party representatives. A number of musicians such as Osei Kofi, Teacher Boateng, Baffour Kyei, Rex Omar, Bessa Simons, Agyapaye, Seth Amponsah, Oheneba Kissi, Great Ampong, Diana Hopeson and a host of others were spotted at the funeral. Those who paid tribute to their departed colleague praised Nana Kwame Ampadu for his immense contribution to the growth of Ghanaian highlife music. Before the burial ceremony, a state funeral, attended by the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was held in his honour at the forecourt of the State House in Accra on Friday, October 7, 2022, before his remains were conveyed to his hometown at Obo Kwahu. Nana Kwame Ampadu was born on March 31, 1945. In 1963, he formed the African Brothers Band with Eddie Donkor as a co-founder. During the latter part of his life, he went into full time Gospel Ministry, forming the Living with Christ Church. He left behind a wife, Mama Abigail and eleven children. The National Youth Organizer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), George Opare Addo, has placed an economic redemption call to President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo. In the midst of the economic hardships, Mr. Opare Addo is asking Nana Akufo-Addo to free the people of Ghana by stepping aside as President. Comparing the President to the biblical Pharaoh, precisely to the instance where Pharaoh rejected the call by God to free his people, the NDC Youth Organiser intimated that the youths will rise up to resist the oppressor's rule of the NPP government. Pharoah let my people go!' But the modern-day Pharoah, Akufo-Addo the oppressor, won't budge. Just as in biblical times, the Lord will raise an army of youth to show the oppressor that God is mighty. God will use this army of young people to resist Akufo-Addo the oppressor's rule. His mighty hand is upon us and we will not fail! his tweet reads. A rebel commander during the first Liberian Civil War, Kunti Kamara goes on trial in Paris on Monday for crimes against humanity, torture, and acts of barbarity, including the enslavement of an entire community in Lofa County, northwestern Liberia. From 1993 to 1995, United Liberation Movement of Liberia (ULIMO), enslaved the local population, says Alain Werner, director of Civitas Maxima, which provides independent legal representation for victims of crimes against humanity. "They looted their goods, and then put these goods on the heads of the people forcing them to walk to the border with Guinea to sell the goods," he says. Civitas Maxima represents several victims who are plaintiffs in the proceedings against Kunti Kamara. The organisation is itself a civil party in the case which opened in Paris on Monday. Alain Werner says that, while the atrocities carried out in Monrovia, the capital, during the civil wars are well known, no one remembers the crimes committed in Lofa county, far from the capital. Eyewitnesses who spoke to Liberian and French members of the fact-finding mission in Lofa County, northwestern Liberia, in 2019 repeatedly identified Kamara as the perpetrator of various acts, including enslaving the village of Foya. Those still living in the village reportedly named him responsible for a series of six murders carried out under his orders in 1993. Kamara allegedly committed these acts, including cannibalism, in 1993 and 1994. He has denied all allegations, but does admit he was a commander for ULIMO. His lawyer, Tarek Koraitem, told The Guardian newspaper that this trial isn't justice, it's a theatre show. Former ULIMO friend to testify Although he obtained Dutch nationality, Kamara eventually moved to France in 2016 and trained as an electrician. He was granted French nationality. Although arrested while traveling on an expired passport, he was released on a technicality in 2019 by the Paris Court of Appeals. However, he was still under investigation. He was re-arrested in 2020 after he reportedly tried to leave the country. Kamara's fellow ULIMO comrade Alieu Kosiah was convicted of war crimes in Switzerland last year, but is appealing the conviction. Kamara testified at Kosiah's trial. Kosiah was convicted of 21 out of the 25 charges including use of child soldiers, murder, rape, and looting. Kosiah will be testifying at Kunti Kamara's trial. No war crimes court in Liberia Liberia is still trying to recover from two civil wars the first from 1989 to 1997, and the second from 1999 to 2003 but the spectre of the crimes committed during that time continues to haunt Liberians. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia handed President George Weah a report on how to deal with the crimes committed. While campaigning for president in 2017, Weah told RFI he vowed to make reconciliation a priority. None of the recommendations made in the TRC report have been implemented. Werner believes that this trial could set a precedent after 30 years of inactivity. This is where victims and lawyers can make a difference, even when there is inaction from the government where the crimes occurred, and from the international community, he says. US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack visited Liberia last week to speak to officials regarding this oversight that still hangs over the many survivors in the country. Although no justice has taken place within Liberia, alleged war criminals have gone on trial in Europe and the US. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 50 years in The Hague; Alieu Kosiah was convicted of war crimes in Switzerland in 2021; Sierra Leonean Gibril Massaquoi was put on trial in Finland for war crimes in Liberia but acquitted in April; and Agnes Reeves-Taylor, Charles Taylor's ex-wife, was in a UK court in 2019 until the war crimes charges were dismissed. A US court ruling that found soldiers from the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) under the command of Colonel Moses Thomas shot and hacked to death approximately 600 unarmed civilians in 1990. However Thomas lives freely in Liberia because the government has not brought him to justice. The families of victims are currently suing the Liberian government. A Guinean court trying suspects in a 2009 massacre on Monday threw out a bid by former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara to be detained under house arrest and ordered him to be held in custody. Camara and 10 other former military and government officials are accused over the killing of 156 people and the rape of at least 109 women by pro-junta forces at a political rally in a Conakry stadium in September 2009. They face charges ranging from murder to sexual violence, kidnappings, arson and looting, while Camara himself is charged with "personal criminal responsibility and command responsibility". The 58-year-old former strongman was detained on September 27, a day before the long-awaited trial began in a purpose-built court in the capital Conakry. He had returned to the West African state only a few days before after living in exile in Burkina Faso. Defence attorneys last Tuesday had asked the court for Camara to be released from custody or placed under house arrest during the proceedings, in line with the "respect" due to a former head of state. They also said another leading defendant, Lieutenant Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, who was former head of Camara's bodyguard, was too ill to face trial and needed medical treatment abroad. But Judge Ibrahima Sory Tounkara rejected these petitions and ruled that the proceedings could get fully underway. In Camara's case, house arrest could only be offered to foreign defendants, and in Diakite's case, "he did not submit any medical certificate to support his release on the grounds of ill health", the judge said. Camara, at the time an unknown captain in the army, seized power in December 2008 shortly after the death of Guinea's second post-independence president, General Lansana Conte, who had ruled for 24 years. In December 2009, Camara was wounded in the head in an attempted assassination and headed to Morocco for medical treatment. He fled into exile in Burkina Faso, where he was indicted in July 2015 by Guinean magistrates for his alleged role in the stadium massacre. Mrs Jemima Oware, Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Companies, (ORC), says Ghana's Beneficial Ownership (BO) implementation journey has been marred with challenges despite progress in the setting up of the legal framework for implementation. Funding, verification, software challenges and maintenance of systems are some challenges, but we continue to build an excellent system to support BO disclosure. Mrs Oware was speaking at the opening of a two-day peer exchange on BO transparency between the ORC Ghana and Corporate Affairs Commission, (CAC) Nigeria, in Accra. The Peer Exchange was to share current state of BO in both countries, learn best practices and experiences, discuss challenges and create an avenue for collaboration between the two countries to have an effective BO in the sub region. The Registrar-General's Department (RGD) in March last year introduced the Beneficial Ownership (BO) Transparency Regime as part of the Company Registration processes under the Companies Act 2019 (Act 992) with the aim of ensuring companies knew who they were transacting business with. A Beneficial Owner (or Owners) is the individual or natural person who owns, controls, and has interest in, or exercises influence over the legal person (or arrangement) or receives substantial benefit from its activities. A beneficial owner is an individual and should not be a Company. Mrs Oware said Ghana through its new ORC, which has oversight over the implementation of the BO has made various commitments to, but the highest form of commitment came from government by providing all the leadership and funding. She said before its implementation, it became clear that Ghana required a legal framework to implement the BO disclosure and so there was an amendment of the Company Act of 1973, Act 179 to include the BO provision. She said the company's Amendment Act of 2016, Act 922 was enacted, but the transition from the law to its implementation became a challenge. During the enactment we collaborated with a lot of companies assisted by technical experts, several stakeholder consultations were also held to determine the appropriate threshold levels. BO is a new territory for us, and we continue to discover new learning curves as we go ahead because the BO disclosure regime is still a developing and evolving one, the opportunity to share ideas perspective and challenges and how to surmount this challenge to ultimately lend support to each other Is still ongoing. She noted that they were coming up with an entirely new software to take care of some of the challenges identified and expressed the hope that at the end of the exchange both countries would be sufficiently armed with useful information and best practices that could be used to advance BO disclosure implementation. Alhaji Gariba Abubakar, Registrar, CAC, Nigeria said in Nigeria their journey started in 2020, when their old Company's Law was repealed, and a new one reenacted and implementation started in January last year. He said, at the time the commitment was made there was no legal framework that provided for mandatory disclosure of beneficiary owners of companies. so, we started by changing our laws because BO deals with companies and the first attempt was to amend Companies and Allied Matters Act and this was done in August 2020. He said in Nigeria the new framework provides for mandatory disclosures so information on BO is publicly available, but We verify to ensure those that claims to be the beneficiaries are the right people. We need to create a balance, so we have integrated with the biometric data base of our National Identity Management Authority, so that anybody applying to register a company, their information is validated from that platform before the company is registered. Alhaji Abubakar said, we strive to achieve this standard, we are hoping that there will be a global consensus on the best approach to adopt on this. Some countries are yet to meet the old standards and yet we have changed to a new standard. The conversation around which standard to use, the timeline for compliance has to be addressed otherwise people would get fed-up because a lot has been done already. Mr Keith McMahon, Deputy British High Commissioner to Ghana, noted that issues of finance was transnational and the UK, Ghana and Nigeria were all vulnerable to financial systems they had used, hence they needed to come together to solve it by sharing and learning from each other's experience on how to address financial issues. We can help you to address the issue of threats, but issues of finance are transnational and so we need to work transnationally to be able to solve these threats, he added. GNA 11.10.2022 LISTEN Amnesty International (AI) Ghana has reiterated calls on government and security agencies to stop torturing persons accused of criminal acts describing it as an infringement on their human rights. It also asked the government to abolish the death penalty to protect human life. Mr Francis Nyantakyi, Board Chair, AI Ghana, made the call at the commemoration of the 20th World Day Against Death Penalty in Accra, held on the theme: The use of the death penalty and torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The Death Penalty Day is marked on October 10 annually to unify the global abolitionist movement and mobilises civil society, political leaders, lawyers, public opinion and more to support the call for the universal abolition of capital punishment. The day encourages and consolidates the political and general awareness of the world-world movement against the death penalty. This year's commemoration was dedicated to highlighting and reflecting on the use of the death penalty and torture, inhuman, degrading treatment as deterrents to crimes. Mr Nyantakyi said torture and other forms of ill-treatment were prohibited under international laws and treaties such as the Convention Against Torture and Cruel adding that Amnesty Ghana add their voice on the matter to stop those barbaric acts in Ghana. He said the death penalty in Ghana had frequently been used in the violation of international law and standards, affecting predominantly those from the disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. He said: Since 1985, Amnesty International Ghana has campaigned against the use of the death penalty in Ghana and these rights are protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of who is accused, the nature or circumstances of the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution. GNA MTN Ghana has begun cybersecurity education in various institutions as part of the cybersecurity awareness month celebrations this October, with a focus on Senior High Schools. The journey to strengthen the protection of internet-connected systems such as hardware, software and data from cyber threats, dubbed "Stay safe online," officially began at the Assembly Hall of Labone Senior High School in Labone, Accra on Monday, October 10. Cyberattacks typically aim to gain access to, change, or destroy sensitive information; extort money from users via ransomware; or disrupt normal business processes, with some victims even subjected to physical attacks. Welcoming the MTN delegation to the school, Madam Adelaide Boye, the Assistant Head Teacher of Labone Senior High School, expressed appreciation to MTN for choosing the school among many others for such an important education. "You could have chosen any other school, but instead, you chose to start at Labone Senior High School, something we are very grateful about, and we believe this will go a long way to helping our students and internet users to be able to stay safe on the internet," she applauded. She added, "We should be cautious of wherever we go and whatever we do on the internet, just as we are cautious of our actions and movements in our daily lives. The spaces in which cyber attackers operate have been heightened, which is why this education is a step in the right direction. On her part, Madam Abigail Kakai, the Assistant Manager of Child Online at Cybersecurity Authority (CSA), also admonished the students to be SMART in all their dealings on the internet to avoid cyber threats. She explained the term SMART, which is an acronym for: M: for being cautious about who you socialise with on the internet and then deciding to meet physically without questioning who the person may be, whether a kidnapper, robber, or whatever. Internet users should be very careful and selective when it comes to the point where they have to accept someone as a friend. As the meaning of the A in the word smART suggests, they need to ensure that the information they come across on the internet is R-reliable with reference to its source before they believe it or share it with other friends. The last letter, T, as contained in the word SMART, according to Miss Kakai, is a point where children are encouraged to tell their trusted adults in their neighbourhood about mind-boggling issues they come across in their dealings on the internet. She told students and internet users to report cybersecurity issues to the toll-free number 292 to lodge their complaints. Diving deeper into the issue of cyber threats and how students and other internet users can shield themselves from being exposed, Miss Bernice identified the various threats to internet usage, which are: wrong information sharing; intimidating and trolling others; spreading malicious rumours about people; making other people's private information public; stealing others identities through parody accounts; and several others. The facilitator told the students to desist from clicking unknown links, specifically those alleged to have promotions, and also make sure that links contain HTTPS before they click on them because such links are secured links. To be able to protect yourself and your devices from being attacked by cyber bullies, Miss Bernice advised that users must frequently ensure that their software applications are always up-to-date and their devices are well secured, which contributes to cybersecurity. Speaking on the sidelines, Madam Jacqueline Hanson-Kotei, the Senior Manager for Enterprising Information Security and Government at MTN Ghana, highlighted the importance of such programs, stating that there is a need to keep people safe on the internet as it has not become a larger part of people's daily lives. "This forms part of our social responsibility to ensure that cybersecurity issues are brought to the fore because most of our lives these days are lived online, so this is not only for students but for our staff and customers as well to make sure that our lives on the internet are lived safely without being overexposed to cyberbullying." "Let's learn more cybersecurity information as well to help us stay safer on the internet," she said. MTN provided some items to the students who attended the programme. Following the programme, the school's administration received items to aid in cybersecurity awareness and sensitization. Close to a thousand students, teachers, MTN employees, and journalists attended the event. 11.10.2022 LISTEN A philanthropist and an executive member of Health 4 You, Hon. Alhaji Jalali Yunusah has sympathized with communities affected by the Weija dam spillage. The areas affected by the dam spillage include Tettegu, Oblogo, Weija, White Cross, Ash Bread, SCC among other places in the Weija-Gbawe municipality of the Greater Accra Region. The Germany-based Ghanaian philanthropist who is also a resident of Weija urged the victims to remain calm. He said adequate measures will be put in place by the appropriate institutions to find a lasting solution to the problem to prevent such occurrences in the future. According to him, he will engage some German experts to propose a plan for government to end the perennial flood in the affected communities. He said although the authorities stated that the dam was spilt to avoid a total collapse they should have put in place measures for residents around the dam. He call on government to procure proper rescue equipment to strengthen the rescue management teams in the country to ensure that no life is lost during any disaster. According to him, a viral video on social media has exposed government's poor rescue equipment. According to him, it shows that the country is not ready to save the lives of Ghanaians should a huge flood occur. In the video, he revealed that the rescue team deliberately ignored a dog to die in the flood adding that in Europe the life of every living thing matter. He further called on the rescue team to take note that animals are also important and part of God's creation hence the need to protect and rescue them during disaster times. Hon. Alhaji Jalali Yunusah gave a verse in the Holy Qur'an where a prostitute was said to have given a dying dog water and Allah rewarded her with paradise, indicating that the dog's live could have averted some pending catastrophe in the country. He suggested constant dredging of rivers that are linked to the dam to help solve part of the problem. He urged the government to provide free health screening to the affected victims. He stressed that such a disaster causes shock which could eventually affect the health of many of the victims. 11.10.2022 LISTEN A Communication Team Member of New Patriotic Party (NPP) Samuel Ofosu has advised Ghanaians to desist from attending churches whose morals and beliefs do not come from God. According to him, he doesn't understand why some Ghanaians have decided to attend mushroom churches. "It is time for Ghanaians to stop being "Churchism" and think outside the box to stop following fake pastors," he stated. Speaking with Kwaku Owusu Adjei on Adwenekasa on Accra-based Original FM 91.9, he stated that "We need people who will speak the truth always to govern this country and inspire the youths to achieve their dreams. Today, many pastors are all over preaching in the name of God yet they are fake and Ghanaians must always be careful the church they attend." Samuel Ofosu said that, he knows many fake pastors are always using their intelligence to dupe people. "Every Ghanaian must know that going to church always will never bring food nor money to their table. It's all about hardworking and perseverance that will make you a great person," he stressed. This is in relation to the arrest of Patricia Asiedua alias Nana Agradaa who is accused of duping her church members in money-doubling scam. The suspect also known as Mama Pat is currently assisting the police with investigations. A Senior Lecturer at the Kumasi Technical University (KsTU) Dr Collins Kankam Kwarteng says the embattled founder of Heavenway Champion International Ministry, Evangelist Patricia Asiedu aka Nana Agradaa is no different from politicians in the country. While the lecturer at the Marketing Department KsTU points out some wrongdoings in the act by Nana Agradaa, he believes most politicians have used same clever means to deceive some gullible Ghanaians. Dr Kwarteng was reacting to the arrest of Nana Agradaa by police on the Kumasi-based OTEC 102.9 FM's morning show Nyansapo on Monday October 10,2022. "The politicians have consistently thought us that, your level of survival largely depends on your smartness. Most of these leaders have one way or the other gained wealth from the country by outsmarting the laws governing the country. "Let's not focus only on Nana Agradaa and look at the bigger picture. Almost everyone in the country including pastors, chiefs, public servants politicians among others is trying to be smarter than the very systems that have been put in place to help run the country," he stated. He however called on the government to ensure that whoever is caught going contrary to the laws of the country be dealt with accordingly to sanitize the system. Background Some members of the Heaven Way Church in Weija accused their leader of cleverly deceiving them and running away with their monies. According to the aggrieved congregants, Nana Agradaa promised to double their monies using her 'special powers.' The members claimed Nana Agradaa absconded after taking various sums of monies from them. Police later announced the arrest of Nana Agradaa following the allegations of money-doubling scam reports by the church members in a viral video. Court Remands Her Nana Agradaa, was however remanded into police custody by the Accra Circuit Court on Monday, October 10, 2022 for three days. She is facing seven counts of defrauding by false pretense and charlatanic advertisement on TV and newspaper to lure her victims. Nana Agradaa is expected to reappear in court on Thursday, October 13, 2022. Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen has commended the McDan Group for acquiring cargo planes and sea trade vessels to facilitate trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of McDan Group, Daniel McKoley has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which signifies the beginning of a partnership which will facilitate trade among African countries. Speaking at the launch of the AfCFTA Guided Trade Initiative which was held at the McDan Private Jet Terminal in Accra, Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyeremanten singled out Dr. Daniel McKorley for praise for making the long dream of free movement of goods in Africa a reality. The minister believes this will enhance the contribution of the private sector in building a robust economy among African countries. Let me commend one businessman who has taken a bold step to make the dream of AfCFTA a reality. Dr. Daniel McKorley who tonight signs an agreement with AfCFTA to commence cargo services within Africa. This is exemplary and other businessmen on the continent must take a cue from this. The CEO of the McDan Group says his outfit has acquired two cargo planes and one vessel worth over $100M to facilitate trade among African countries. Secretary-General of AfCFTA, H.E Wamkele Mene encouraged Africans to support small and medium-scale enterprises to alleviate poverty in Africa. He is optimistic that in next 15 years, AfCFTA would succeed in lifting many Africans out of poverty hence the need for Africans to support indigenous businesses. The Algerian and French prime ministers on Monday hailed a "new dynamic" as they launched a joint economic forum during a visit to Algiers by France's Elisabeth Borne. Borne's two-day trip to the former French colony and major gas exporter comes just weeks after President Emmanuel Macron concluded his own three-day visit in August, following months of tensions. In remarks during the forum's inauguration, Algerian Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane called for "a sustainable dynamic" in trade with France based on "reciprocity and mutual interests". Borne called for "a new dynamic of economic cooperation". Before returning to Paris, she also met with President Abdelmajid Tebboune and said bilateral ties will continue with "regular visits and exchanges on the economic, political and technical levels". Borne and her cohort are the latest in a string of top European officials to visit Algeria, Africa's top natural gas exporter, as officials seek alternatives to Russian energy supplies since the start of the war in Ukraine. The European Union's energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, is also expected in Algiers on Monday and Tuesday. But ahead of her trip, Borne's office said deliveries of natural gas to France were "not on the table". Economic diversification Map of Algeria locating the capital Algiers.. By (AFP) Both Borne and Benabderrahmane stressed the need for Algeria to pursue economic diversification. France is "the first investor in Algeria, excluding hydrocarbons", Borne told the forum, adding that French businesses are "ready to support the diversification" of Algeria's economy. Benabderrahmane said Algeria must "end its dependence on natural gas and attract foreign investment" in agriculture, pharmaceutical and vaccine production, and renewable energy, which "offer positive prospects for French businesses". The two-day business forum was organised by the Algerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Business France, a government agency promoting international investment, which brought representatives of some 70 French firms to the event. Ties between the North African country and its former colonial ruler had deteriorated after Macron last year questioned Algeria's existence as a nation before the French occupation, and accused the government of fomenting "hatred towards France". But the contentious subject of the two countries' history, particularly during the war, was not set to feature prominently on Borne's agenda. Algiers and Paris maintain bilateral trade at a large scale, with France being the second largest investor in Algeria, according to the International Monetary Fund. Fabrice Le Sache, the vice president of French business lobby group Medef, on Monday hailed "the dynamic created by the president" during his August visit. Macron produced a good "atmosphere" for the business community, he told AFP at the forum on Monday. Some persons allegedly swindled by self-acclaimed evangelist, Patricia Asiedua, popularly known as Nana Agradaa have hit back at critics who tagged them as greedy people. The victims insist that they were manipulated into giving their monies to Nana Agradaa in exchange for additional funds. Nana Agradaa was arrested on Sunday and was remanded into police custody on Monday, after she reportedly took money from some of her church members under the guise of doubling the cash. She is facing seven counts of defrauding by false pretense and charlatanic advertisement on TV and newspaper to lure her victims. One of the victims of the alleged money doubling scam, Prince Yeboah said, although he takes responsibility for his action, he wants his money refunded to him. I sent the money because it didnt look as though Nana Agradaa was manipulating us based on what she said during the church service. She said things suggesting that she is a woman in Christ. It was so believable. The Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference wants relevant authorities to enforce the laws if Nana Agradaa is found culpable. General Secretary of the Ghana Charismatic Bishops' Conference, Rev. Kwesi Deh said the law enforcement agencies must act to bring such unlawful actions in the name of God to an end. It is possible for people in the name of religion to commit crime and fraud. Thank God Ghana is a very civilized society and there are laws governing all these crimes. Therefore, I think that the laws should deal with this issue. The Ghana Charismatic Bishops Conference further kicked against calls for the regulation of Churches and their activities in the country. Churches in this country are the most orderly set. Yes, there are miscreants. Also, churches are not afraid of regulation, it is the type of regulation that is being talked about that we are against. Many churches are registered. What we are against are laws that will define the practice of things. If someone involves in a money-doubling scam, that should not bring up the issue of regulation of churches. It is not a religious action in the first place. Citi97.3 Eyewitness News: Victim of Nana Agradaa money doubling scam shares ordeal citinewsroom Nationally, 79,733 girls in Ghana aged 12 to 171 have been in union. They are either married or living together with a man according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC). Out of this number, 25,999 are girls of Junior High School going age (12 to 14 years). The regions with the highest percentage of girls ever in union are North East (13.0%), Savannah (10.9%) and Northern (10.6%) all with rates more than twice the national average (4.0%). Despite free and compulsory universal basic education, almost a quarter of a million girls (244,731) aged 6 to 14 years have never attended school at all. Three out of every 10 of these girls are in the Northern Region which has the highest number of girls who have never attended school (73,516) followed by the Savannah (27,930) and North East (22,857) regions. These three regions also have the highest percent of girls currently not attending school (never attended or attended in the past) with Savannah leading all regions with 40.2% followed by the North East Region (29.3%) and the Northern Region (28.5%). The national figure is 7.8% which represents 285,271 girls aged 6 to 14 years that are not attending school. Three out of every four girls (75.8%) aged 6 to 14 years not attending school are living in rural areas. Further, 99,150 girls under 15 years are engaged in economic activity with half of them (49.7%) out of school. Half (49.9%) of girls engaged in economic activity are in the Northern (22,647), Oti (17,694), and North East (9,153) regions which have the highest share of girls in economic activity. The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) released these statistics based on the 2021 Population and Housing Census dataset on the International Day of the Girl Child today, 11 October 2022. The aim is to highlight challenges preventing young girls from reaching their full potential such as early marriage, and lack of access to educational and other opportunities. The 2021 PHC General Reports which present disaggregated data by gender on thematic areas from the census questionnaire such as Background Characteristics; Literacy and Education; Economic Activity; Difficulty in Performing Activities; Information and Communication Technology; and Fertility and Mortality are available to download from www.census2021.statsghana.gov.gh Source: Classfmonline.com 11.10.2022 LISTEN We in Britain are just getting over a lengthy mourning period for Queen Elizabeth II, and saying goodbye to the longest reigning monarch in British history. Perhaps Vladimir Putin waited, as a mark of respect, before he addressed the Russian people to give them the next phase of his plans for his special military operation. It was hard to witness his drive in the streets of London in an open-topped limousine smiling, beside the Queen, some twenty years ago! Relationships with Russia have certainly soured since then. About that time also, 2003, there was a high-level meeting held of those of Putins inner circle in which there was a chance to adopt a more open democratic line, albeit Russian style, the perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev, or alternatively follow the well-trodden path which secured the position of the favoured few within a strict authoritarian government, perhaps better termed a kleptocracy. The latter was opted for, which made the few extremely wealthy, e.g. the oligarchs who had a hold on the key state industries from the 1990s and Putin and members with upper KGB affiliations. Today Putin who is recently 70, is reputed to be worth some $40bn, and has an unreasonable embedded hatred of the west which isnt going to change. It will get worse as his position is increasingly threatened. There was a fairly recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which includes China, Russia, India, Turkey and others. Putin used the occasion to put his case, as he saw it, and subsequently visited Saudi Arabia, and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He was advised to bring the war to an end in each case. Overall, he received a cool reception. Instead, he has dismissed that advice and chosen to illegally grab the eastern and southern flanks of Ukraine Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. This he has done now on paper at least, much as he stole Crimea in 2014 and parts of Georgia before that. He has no compunction about lying; it is his way of life. He now broadcasts worldwide and holds a televised ceremony, that these four parts of Ukraine are now a part of mother Russia, and Ukraine continuing attacks on those 4 provinces would be seen as attacks on Russian soil. But he only has a self-proclaimed mandate for this and most of the world, from the UN down, pronounce the move as illegal. From the annexed territories to the military progress However, Ukraine wont stop its endeavours as it has slowly been taking its land back, gaining territory, particularly in Donetsk and latterly towards Kherson. They rightly believe that the land is Ukrainian and not Russian. In the past few days, the Ukrainians have been making steady progress, which has led to the pronouncement again that Russia will take all the land within the four provincial boundaries, which it has illegally claimed, as the successful outcome of the special military operation. The Russians claim it now belongs to Russia. The Ukrainians will continue, however, and the war looks as if it will intensify, if the Russians are to try to make good on their pronouncement. The Russians have to regroup and significantly increase their numbers in order to not only halt the Ukrainian advance but to reverse the progress of the war. Their attempts to recruit prisoners, some criminal and others political, and the untrained populace to provide new troops is decidedly questionable. The population has been fleeing the country in droves. This is where the future with a long war beckoning becomes worrying, because Putin has more than once stated that he would use tactical nuclear weapons, against all-nation protocols that negate such a move. In trying to decide his actions-- will he or wont he? - one has to study the man. In his boyhood, he was known to watch rats on the stairwell of his apartment and what happened to them if they became cornered. He may feel sometimes that the situation is becoming so serious, that he must lash out and fight, no holds barred. That may happen in the next month or two and he will feel that he must use the nuclear option and proceed accordingly. The rules of engagement will have totally changed and such an escalation will have to bring a response. What will it be? Heaven helps us! There is no sign yet that there is sufficient of an opposition in the Duma to bring in a leadership with some sanity. About the author: Dr J Scott Younger, OBE, is a professional civil engineer; he spent 42 years in the Far East undertaking assignments in 10 countries for WB, ADB, UNDP. He published many papers; he was a columnist for Forbes Indonesia and Globe Asia. He served on British & European Chamber boards and was a Vice Chair of Intl Business Chamber for 17 years. His expertise is infrastructure and sustainable development and he takes an interest in international affairs. He is an International Chancellor of the President University, Indonesia. He is a member of IFIMES Advisory Board. Lived and worked in Thailand from 1978 to 1983 and visited Burma, Bangladesh and Nepal for projects. On the latest slimed path Julian Assange has been made to trod, a few things have presented themselves. The rusty sword of Damocles may be suspended above him (he, we are informed, has contracted COVID-19), but there are those, in the meantime, willing to defend him with decent conviction against his dispatch to the United States, where he is certain to perish. From the side of decent conviction and steadfastness came the October 8 protests across a number of cities, attended by thousands. A human chain numbering some 7,000 persons formed around the Houses of Parliament in London demanding the release of the WikiLeaks publisher from Belmarsh Prison. Then there was the Boadicea-like performance that his wife is becoming famous for. On the ideologically dry-cured medium of Piers Morgans Uncensored Program, a taster of that vengeance US justice is famous for could be gathered from an encounter between Stella, and the trumpeting warmonger and failed Trump advisor, John Bolton. Bolton, it should be remembered, was the only evidence that President George W. Bush, dyslexic and reformed drunk, had a mild sense of humour. Sending that man to the United Nations as US ambassador was the equivalent of appointing a randy, murderous fox to guard unsuspecting chickens. That appointment had it all: resentment, masochism and disgust for that concept known as international law. There is much to say that former President Donald Trump, for all his insufferable foibles, insoluble perversions and naggingly vicious pettiness, never embarked on the eschatological murderous destiny that Bolton believes the US is destined for. The messianic types always find some higher meaning for death and sacrifice, as long they are not the ones doing it. The difference between the suicide bomber and the deskbound scribbler keen on killing is one of practice, not conviction. Both believe that there is a higher meaning written in blood, inscribed in the babble of post-life relevance and invisible virtue. For us humble folk, life is good enough, and should be preserved. According to Bolton, the 175 years Assange might receive for exposing the abundant dirty laundry known as US foreign policy and imperial violence was hardly sufficient. He would, naturally, get a fair trial in the United States (never explain the ideologically self-evident), though absolute fairness was dependent on him receiving 176 years. Well, I think thats a small amount of the sentence he deserves. With such a fabulous nose for justice, Bolton shares common ground with the commissars and gauleiters. Unsurprisingly, Stella Assange had a view markedly at odds with such an assessment. Her husband was being pursued, For receiving information from a source and publishing it, and it was in the public interest. It was US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he revealed tens of thousands of civilian deaths that had not been acknowledged before. Morgan, an incarnation of that guttersnipe, sewerage swilling demon virtually unsurpassed in modern British media, tried to sound cerebral and moral at points. Did WikiLeaks redact the material from Chelsea Manning, one of the key sources for the disclosures? Or had WikiLeaks been drunkenly cavalier in exposing all and sundry to the world? Best ignore reading trial transcripts, Piers. Knowledge drawn upon the cobblestones of truth is bound to be rough. To those familiar with WikiLeaks, its practices and, indeed, the trial at the Old Bailey regarding Assanges extradition, such claims could only be seen as decidedly weak. Stella explained that WikiLeaks did redact all of those documents that Manning gave to WikiLeaks, and in fact it was in cooperation with those newspapers. The trial itself made it clear that the secret spiller, as Assange has often been accused of being, was none other than the Guardian itself, whose journalists had left, with tantalising promise, the decryption key in their book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assanges war on secrecy. Stella, aflame with purpose and aware of her brief, also reminded the audience who she was talking to. Bolton, she shot with acid fury, sought to undermine the international legal system, sought to ensure that the US is not under the International Criminal Courts jurisdiction. Then came the well fashioned grenade, pin removed. And if it was, Mr Bolton might in fact be prosecuted under the ICC [International Criminal Court]. He was one of the chief cheerleaders of the Iraq war, which Julian then exposed through these leaks, so he has a conflict of interest. There have been other befouling episodes that can only be of concern to Assange and his family. It has now come to light that security officials, in Australias Parliament, were under significant pressure to seize books from the Assange delegation during their August visit to Canberra. A letter to Greens Senator David Shoebridge by the Department of Parliamentary Services explained that it was all linked to a protest. The nature of the bureaucrats tone is to mock the valuable and diminish the relevant. In the considered view of the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Rob Stefanic, I appreciate that Assanges family may not have viewed the screening procedure in a positive light, but having reviewed the processes followed by security staff, I am confident they performed their duties with respect and due diligence. Such reasoning would suffice for most police states, where bureaucrats sup at the same table with the security wonks. The Department, it transpired, had tripped up. The claim about the protest was inaccurate, as neither Assanges father, John Shipton, nor his brother, Gabriel, had attended any protests. It is apparent that there are factual inaccuracies in the letter to Senator Shoebridge and the secretary will be writing to correct the record. The world has turned full circle. Those opening the cabinet of secrets are considered the nasty tittle-tattles, who simply revealed the fact that daddy fiddled and mummy drank. In this world, homicidally excited types like Bolton revel in expressing unsavoury views in the open; those who expose the bankruptcy of such views are to be punished. We await the next grotesquery with resigned disgust. Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: [email protected] 11.10.2022 LISTEN Yewura Issa, we set out to create awareness of your plight, by emphasising, in article after article, that Moringa owed you a duty-of-care from the moment you agreed to meet with them, when they first approached you, via an email. Simple. No libilaba. Full stop. Without a shadow of doubt, it was your unique, and very successful, agrisector social-impact business, and its value-chain's thriving smallholder oil palm farmer-stakeholders, which drew sodden Moringa to you, as a potential perfectly-aligned-fit, for their foray into Africa, as stewards of all the AfDB's Agroforestry funds earmarked for Africa. Furthermore, we have outlined, have we not, with clarity, why their subsequent egregious-ruinous-actions, and weaponised-falsehoods, prove beyond any shadow of doubt, that from the word go, they were cynically law-breaking greenwashing-carpetbaggers, sans moral compasses, out to grab opportunities across Africa, using your life's work and passion, B-BOVID (which you established as a common-good vehicle, to enable you, an orphan-made-good, to give back to society, for your good fortune in life), to cloak the evil ends they sought - including possible money-laundering, of mammoth-sized proportions? We shall prevail in the fullness of time. Make no mistake about that, koraaa, ooooo. Surely, we did not deliver all that vital global-awareness-creation, only for turncoat-lawyers to betray you? Let's get the fearless and determined young Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu on board, asap. Rest assured, kindred-spirit, that Sosu will fight a determined fight, to enable you to get your social impact agribusiness company, B-BOVID, back, come hell or high water - and, just like me, will never betray you: because both our consciences are not (and have never, been), for sale. Full stop. On my part, the fact of the matter, is that I decided to support you, mainly because you have done such a yeoman's job, creating, singlehandedly, a stellar climate-resilient smart-organic -farming model, which if implemented nationwide, across our homeland Ghana, by governments-of-the-day, will ensure food security, and, transform rural Ghana, into a prosperous green economic-pillar adding to sustainable growth. So do fight on, Yewura Issa - for in the fullness of time, you, it is, who will emerge victorious in your battle against Moringa. Dear Sir/Madam, In less than a months time, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) will take place at the Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference in Egypt. During the two-week conference, government and non-party stakeholders will deliberate about delivering greenhouse gas emission reductions and helping ensure a transition to a net-zero global economy. This open letter addressed to the COP 27 African delegates offers suggestions on negotiating with your counterparts, especially those from the Global North. As representatives of over a billion Africans, I need not remind you that your people's future depends on what you agree with your colleagues. From history, we learn how western colonial powers used blank treaty forms to strip Africa of its resources - we should not allow history to repeat itself. Irrespective of all the talk you will hear about how this is a global initiative to protect the environment, rest assured that each regional bloc will enter the conference to protect its self-interest. So I urge you to be strategic in your negotiations. Before applying your strategy, it is essential to be aware of the tactics likely to be used by the Global North. Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, said the shift toward net-zero emissions would be the "Greatest commercial opportunity of our time." However, the question that should be at the back of your mind is: What is the regional distribution of these economic gains? Suppose previous summits and discussions on climate change are to serve as a guide. In that case, the conference will once again be dominated by white economists, white NGOs, white politicians, white media, white philanthropists, white billionaires, white investors, white royalty, white think tanks, white academics, white activists and white celebrities making the critical decisions that affect the rest of the world. You will see the likes of Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, Larry Fink and David Attenborough, the patron saint of conservationism, take centre stage while you would be relegated to the supporting cast role. The west's strategy will be to pontificate on the scale of climate change and the need for the world to transition to Net-Zero. They will not take responsibility for their complicity in causing the climate disaster and would suggest that all hands on deck are required to avert a climate catastrophe. Though they will acknowledge the astronomical cost of the transition to Net Zero as a manifestation of the white saviour industrial complex, they will offer to help you by giving you loans or aid, which will not compensate Africa for suspending her current economic and industrial model. Before entering into any commitment, you must be intentional and strategic. I strongly advise that you work towards decolonising the climate change narrative by amplifying your black and brown voices. It would be best if you don't commit to a target without fully costing its impact on present and future generations of Africans. Please do not buy into every suggestion coming from the west, as it has a track record of changing the goalposts when things don't favour them. Africa must present a united front by embracing the spirit of pan-Africanism to negotiate from a position of strength. Individually, we might be small, but when we combine our 54 voices, the world will have no choice but to sit up and listen. We should have African Union representatives from the 54 member states to represent and negotiate on behalf of the continent. Africa's starting point should be from the premise that the Global North started the crisis and should bear the responsibility for resolving the problem with zero cost to Africa and other countries in the Global South. The west has had over a two-hundred-year head start ahead of the rest of the world by reaching an advanced stage of development by exploiting the earth's resources. Between 1750 and 1850, the west contributed 100% of cumulative Co2 emissions. By 1950, it had contributed to 92.71% of cumulative Co2 emissions. Today, the USA has emitted over 400 billion tonnes since 1751, while Africa's cumulative Co2 emissions as of 1750 and 2020 were 0% and 2.88%, respectively. If you bring up the role the west played in the current crisis, they could attempt to shift attention to the scale of the current problem and the need for countries to move to Net -Zero targets. It would help if you asked them who bears the cost of this transition. Rather than taking instructions from the Global North, Africa should let the west know that contrary to popular opinion spewed by the western media, the greatest conservationists are not the white NGOs and white environmentalists but people of the Global South. For centuries, we have protected our lands, so we don't need to hear the Global North pontificate about how we are misusing our land. The current discussion regarding financing climate adaptation and mitigation in the Global South is the form of climate finance and aid from the Global North. The most prominent is the $100bn annual commitment made at COP 16 in Cancun in 2010 and at COP21 in Paris in 2015, where developed countries agreed to provide $100bn yearly up to 2025 to developing countries. As of the time of writing, this commitment is yet to be fulfilled. However, this pledge, of which $20bn has been earmarked for Africa, is grossly inadequate, and Africa and the Global South should reject it. The west often implements policies with little consideration of their impact on low-income countries in the Global South. A typical example is a call by western governments and standard setters to end the financing of fossil fuels. If this policy is implemented, countries like Nigeria, which generates 40% of its GDP, and 95% of its foreign exchange earnings from the oil and gas sector, will be economically castrated. We should also be cautious of increasing our debt load to transition to Net-Zero. According to Oxfam, around $24 billion of the climate finance loans granted to developing countries were offered on strict terms requiring higher repayments from low-income countries. I suggest that climate wealth distribution should be the anchor of your negotiating strategy at COP27. It would be best if you let the west know that Africa does not need their aid and loans but wants environmental and economic justice in the form of compensation for the harm the west has done to the environment for 250 years and for the opportunity cost of abandoning a growth model which the west enjoyed via its use of fossil fuel. Therefore, I propose a climate wealth distribution scheme that accounts for the 250-year head start western countries enjoyed while exploiting the environment. Here is how it will work: If Africa is expected to decarbonise in 30 years by forgoing fossil fuels, in that case, it will be at a competitive disadvantage relative to western countries. Therefore, an option to consider would be implementing a scheme that will compensate the Global South for pursuing a net-zero policy through a climate wealth transfer from the Global North to the Global South. You could calculate the wealth transfer by subtracting the per capita of each developing country from the average GDP per capita for the west (currently $44,107 per capita) and multiplying the differential by the total population. (Avg per capita West - Avg per capita Developing) *Population Developing In this way, Nigeria, a country reliant on fossil fuel with an average per capita of $1,969 relative to the west's average per capita of $44,107, would receive an $8 trillion transfer from the Global North as compensation for decarbonising. Other countries on the continent will receive the following based on the model: Ethiopia $4.6 trillion Egypt $4.02 trillion Kenya $2.1 trillion Ghana $1.2 trillion Zimbabwe $606 billion Sierra Leone $326.6 billion As a collective, Africa would receive a $57.8 trillion wealth transfer from the Global North. In response to this suggestion, they may tell you that the proposal is unreasonable as the total global economic output is around $100 trillion. However, you could say to them the suggestion is not as ludicrous as telling Africa to engage in self-immolation in the quest for a Net Zero transition. It is also not unreasonable considering the gains the west made during the post-industrial revolution at the expense of the environment and the profits it stands to make from the move to a green economy. Moreover, if the Federal Reserve and Bank of England could implement the economic miracle of quantitative easing to increase its balance sheet by trillions of dollars in response to the subprime crisis and Covid, finding $57.8 trillion to compensate Africa should not be a big deal. As explained earlier, the west has an uncanny ability to exploit and destroy the earth's environmental resources and then tell the rest of the world to bear the cost and pain. Africa must use the conference as an opportunity to address the issue of climate geoengineering, which is the deliberate intervention in the earth's natural systems to counteract climate change. Several countries are funding research into sun-dimming technology to reflect the sun's rays away from the planet. Others are investigating the possibility of spraying calcium carbonate into the atmosphere to cool the earth's surface. "Playing God" with the climate could lead to famine and extreme weather patterns, likely impacting countries in the Global South. In addition, Africa should call for an end to solar space mining. Western governments and billionaires are currently engaged in an arms race to exploit the solar system for valuable mineral resources. The USA and Luxembourg have instituted regulations allowing private companies to exploit space and profit from extracted resources. You could inform western governments that the solar system is not the exclusive preserve of wealthy nations and that attempts to colonise the solar system needs to stop. According to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, half of the planet must be kept in a natural state to address the biodiversity and climate crises. To make this a reality, there is a proposal to protect 30% of the planet's land and ocean by 2030 at the forthcoming United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal in December 2022. At face value, the 30x 30 concept seems to be an intergovernmental initiative involving over one hundred countries working towards curbing climate change. However, since most of the biodiversity hotspots are situated in the Global South, the protected land scheme could lead to a large-scale land grab in the Global South. According to Land Matrix, Africa is the most targeted region for large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South. Survival International, the London-based charity that campaigns for indigenous rights, argues that the 30X 30 plan will be the "biggest land grab in history, destroying the lives and livelihoods of those least responsible for environmental destruction." Carbon offset schemes give large western organisations a licence to pollute while offsetting their carbon emissions with reforestation and conservation projects mainly located in the Global South. This could lead to a race to the bottom to use the protected lands of the global South to fortify their green credentials. According to research by ActionAid, Shell's plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050 by offsetting 120 million tonnes of CO2 from its polluting activities would amount to the acquisition of 12 million hectares of land by 2030, leading to aggressive land grabs in the Global South. Eni, the Italian oil major, announced in 2019 that it planned a 20 million-acre forest project spread across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Ghana to offset its emission. African delegates could tell the Global North that rather than using our land for its carbon offsets scheme, it should convert its 4.3 million hectares of western lands to forests and allow the rest of the world to use western land and forests for carbon offsets. Many thanks for taking the time to read my letter. I trust you will take on board the suggestions highlighted above. Hopefully, future generations will remember COP 27 as the climate conference where Africa straightened its back and said, "On Our Terms." Selah. Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA [email protected] @Alatenumo October 2022 A Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, George Mireku Duker has vehemently denied allegations that he is involved in illegal mining popularly called galamsey. This follows accusations by a sub-chief of Dompim-Pepesa in Tarkwa in the Western Region, Nana Nyonwah Panyin IV. The Chief had alleged that Mr. Duker who doubles as MP for Tarkwa- Nsuaem owned a galamsey concession in the area. But speaking to Citi News, Mr. Duker said he has never been involved in galamsey. I will entreat Ghanaians to treat this statement with a pinch of salt. They should also know that, I will not lose focus, I will concentrate on my job as a deputy Minister responsible for mining. I also know that, this is also an effort to derail you from the strategy so that they will have a field day. So we will not relent. We will push for the right thing to be done. The Office of the Special Prosecutor has commenced investigations into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences related to illegal small-scale mining, also known as galamsey, in Ghana. The OSP indicated in a statement that the investigation will target some officials of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Forestry Commission. It also targets the activities and expenditure of the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), especially in respect of the seizure and management of machinery, road excavators, vehicles, and gold nuggets. The investigation will include the active and ongoing inquiry into allegations of use of public office for profit against Charles Bissue, during his work at the IMCIM, to an investigative documentary titled Galamsey Fraud Part I, published by Tiger Eye P.I. The investigation further targets the activities of Akonta Mining Limited and other companies; nationals of foreign countries allegedly involved in illegal mining; and allegations of corruption and corruption-related offences against some Municipal and District Chief Executives and political party officials. By Citi Newsroom The Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry (GhCCI) says government's failure to pay arrears owed its members, is having a heavy toll on their operations. The chamber says the long-lasting delay in payment to local contractors is crippling the industry and leading to job losses. This follows several calls by contractors in the infrastructural industry sector on government to pay what is due them after executing jobs they were contracted for. Speaking to Citi News, Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber, Cherry Emmanuel, appealed to government to pay them. The situation is becoming very bad. Because of governments inability to pay, the debt portfolio of our industry keeps increasing on a daily basis and at the same time, making the contractors, consultants and suppliers poorer. Our contractors are losing their value, pride and integrity. Contractors had in the past complained that their businesses were grinding to a halt due to the government's indebtedness to them As of 2020, the Chamber said government owed contractors about $1.8 billion the amount is a result of delayed payment and accumulation of interest on locked-up certificates. Recently, a group Joint Contractors Association threatened legal action against government should it refuse to pay monies owed its members for works they have executed successfully. It came on the back of a two-week ultimatum the association, made up of building and road contractors, issued to government to pay its members or be on the lookout for a series of actions. Spokesperson for the Joint Contractors Association, Richard Nyarko, said his outfit was ready to negotiate with government on a payment plan. We are willing and ready to negotiate. Even if government cannot pay all the money they owe us, at least, we should sit down and talk. But we have given government two weeks to get back to us for a favourable response. If they don't engage with us, we will explore other options including legal because our money has lost value. The Association of Conscientious Public Sector Contractors has, in the past also, pleaded with the government to pay the long-standing arrears owed its members. They say government owes them several sums of money for projects executed for government including GETFund but are yet to be paid. The contractors stated that the payment of their monies will relieve them from their accrued debt. ---citinewsroom The implementation of the Free Senior High School programme is one of the reasons Sorbonne University conferred the honorary doctorate degree on President Nana Akufo-Addo. Also, the university said, his commitment to entrenching the values of democracy in Ghana, fostering peace within the West African Region and for the leadership shown in the fight against COVID-19 are the other reasons. Mr Akufo-Addo on Monday, 10th October 2022, was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from one of the most prestigious universities in Europe and the world. He was delighted to be in the company of Pablo Picasso, Kofi Annan, Amartya Sen and Nelson Mandela, as persons who have also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Sorbonne University. This is the fourth Honorary Doctorate Degree to be conferred on the President the first being an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree conferred on him in May 2016, from the celebrated Fort Hare University of South Africa; the second, in December 2017, being an honourary doctor of humane letters degree from the University of Liberia; and the third, in May 2021, from the University of Cape Coast. The President told the gathering that African leaders have a duty to build, together with their respective populations, fairer societies, where women and children, but also the most fragile, are treated appropriately. According to him, Societies where everyone, whatever their incomes, beliefs or ethnic origins, can have equitable and guaranteed access to the goods essential to the development of every individual and of society as a whole: access to water, food and quality care, access to energy, access to education, access, in short, to the decent life to which every free being can and must aspire. ---3news.com A security officer has been killed in a robbery attack at Star Oil Filling Station at Tojeh on the Accra-Aflao. The incident happened on Monday, October 10. The gang of robbers shot the security officer who was on guard duties several times. Police have launched a manhunt to arrest the robbers. We will surely get them arrested to face justice, the police said in a statement on Tuesday, October 11. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Jomoro, Dorcas Affo-Toffey, was made to sweat under cross-examination yesterday over her renunciation documents presented to the court. This was when counsel for the petitioner, Bright Agyekum, attempted to expose her. The lawyer pointed out to the court that documents alluded to by the defendant renouncing her Ivorian citizenship were nothing but an afterthought. Seeking to undermine the testimony of Dorcas Affo-Toffey, Mr. Agyekum said those documents did not exist before the commencement of the case in court. He cited a letter dated January 24, 2019 in which the MP had written to inform the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Justice in Ivory Coast that she was renouncing her Ivorian citizenship. The petitioners lawyer also mentioned another letter dated January 29, 2019, from the Ivorian AG acknowledging receipt of the MPs letter dated January 24, 2019. I am putting it to you that both letters were complete afterthought, Mr. Agyekum pinned, arguing that Affo-Toffey did not qualify to run for the Jomoro seat as MP in 2020. He reminded the beleaguered MP of her earlier opposition to a motion to produce documents of her renunciation on the basis that there was no statutory requirement on her part to show documents of her renounced Ivorian nationality. The MP was also questioned on why she had to remind the Ivorian authorities in March and April 2021 about her intention to renounce her citizenship way back in 2019. The MP, in an answer, explained that she did so because of the current court case. Affo-Toffey also answered in affirmation when she was asked, So the Ivorian authorities issued you with an attestation on April 12, 2021. The lawyer suggested to the MP that the stamp appearing on the documents attached to her witness' statement was not original stamps emanating from the Ivorian Justice Ministry, which the MP disagreed with. The NDC MP, however, could not provide an answer on whether Article 48 of the Ivorian nationality code covers her. The MP had earlier indicated that by the imperatives of Article 48 of the Ivorian nationality code, once a person who holds an Ivorian nationality expresses an interest to cease to be an Ivorian citizen, they forfeit their Ivorian nationality. Attempting to undermine that assertion, counsel for the petitioner pointed out to her that the code she had heavily relied on, did not cover her. The Jomoro MP said, I cannot answer. I will leave it with my lawyer to answer that question. The case was adjourned to October 24, 2022. Background In 2021, Joshua Emuah Kofie of Nuba-Mpataba in the Jomoro Constituency filed a suit in court to challenge the Jomoro MP, accusing her of not being a Ghanaian citizen at the time she ran for the parliamentary seat. According to the petitioner, Dorcas Affo-Toffey was not qualified to contest in the 2020 parliamentary election because she held a dual citizenship. NPP, NDC Stalwarts Yesterdays court proceedings attracted some stalwarts of both the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Party (NDC). Among them were Peter Mac Manu and Johnson Asiedu Nketia. ---Daily Guide HUMAN CAPITAL FLIGHT, GHANA'S NEXT HEADACHE Ghanaians are presently facing unprecedented economic hardship.Days ago, our Finance Minister , the authority around which our economy revolves, has suggested that "Ghana needs a miracle". Doesn't that indicate the direness of our economic downturns? Some may have decided to live in denial,but we have surely moved from being on a "treadmill" to getting on a slippery slope and going down hill. Indeed we need a miracle,perhaps the reason our decision makers have remained entrenched in their position about building a " cathedral" for "God" who has uncountable homes here in Ghana,Africa,the world and most importantly has our hearts to live in.Yes,we have been made to believe God desperately needs a home.More urgent that classrooms for schools under trees.God will always bless Ghana. But in fairness,do you agree that God may firstly consider doing a miracle in the well endowed and poverty-stricken Central African Republic a "more Christian" or religious country before Ghana gets her share of economic recovery miracles? Or may be it is true,just like most preachers have suggested,"Ghana is chosen",and as God's favorite,we will receive our miracle regardless of the long queue of more Christian and religious nations because of "grace" and "favor". How much more entitled can we even feel? Expecting God to fix problems created by us? The right thing would have been for our soft spoken minister to have fallen on his own sword for others to inject fresh ideas but.. Some have likened today's hardship to that which was documented in 1983-1984.These economic decline goes with a domino effect.Of the many negative ripple effects, Ghana faces the threat of Human Capital Flight/ Brain Drain. Human Capital Flight is the emigration or immigration of professionals and educated from one country to the other. Imminent is a significant exodus of Ghanaian Youths and younger adults to destinations in America, Europe,Australia,parts of Africa and more.Although the said destinations may have their challenges (sting of COVID-19 and Russia and Ukraine War), they remain preferable as the fate of our country and our economic recovery lies in a balance. There is currently a passport booklet shortage but records indicate close to about 100,000 applications are pending.On a daily basis more people besiege passport offices all over the country.Ghana may soon join Ethiopia,Nigeria,Kenya,China.Mexico,Malaysia,Iran as part of the countries with huge brain drain. Countries that receive these hordes of professional Ghanaians eventually experience "Brain Gain". Ghana loses a lot of its quality human Capital to other nations.Many Ghanaians who have travelled out have naturalized over time and some hold dual citizenship.As nationals of other countries also walk into the country and are able to acquire Ghanaian passports and Ghanacards through inappropriate means, Ghanaians could also afford themselves the experience of migration. In a world where technology and innovation is bolstering economic growth,Ghana may face more stagnation,higher cost of living and a further dip in economic growth through brain drain. Saint Augustine has said before that "the world is a book,and those who do no travel read only one page".However, as Ghana goes through changes should she lose her beautiful children to the world ? Who takes care of poor, ageing unprepared Ghana when her children who are her social security are being chased away from her? Long Live Mother Ghana A Deputy Minister of Information, Fatimatu Abubakar has indicated that kidney and liver diseases are increasing in some parts of the country especially in mining areas due to the impacts of illegal small scale mining (Galamsey). In her view, the country needs a proactive response to the galamsey menace. Speaking on the Sunrise show on 3FM Tuesday October 11, she indicated that the government is determined to nip this in the bud. We cannot move the whole military into the mining areas. We need to solve this problem. There is so much that we need to do and I can say that the president is committed to fighting corruption. We need a proactive response and not a response to response. We need intelligence and intention to fight this galamsey menace. We have a lot of kidney and liver diseases as a result of this illegal mining, she said. Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has told the National House of Chiefs that the task to protect the lands and the environment from the effect of Galamsey is a joint responsibility between the government and the traditional authorities. Mr Akufo-Addo explained during a meeting with the Chiefs in Kumasi on Wednesday October 5 that 80 per cent of the lands in Ghana are in the custody of the chiefs. This means that they have a role to play in protecting the resource, he said. He said 80 per cent of the lands in this country continue to be under your custody, much of it having been acquired through the blood and sacrifices of your ancestors. The remainder of 20 per cent which I hold in trust of the people of Ghana, derived from state acquisition from you. What this means is that ultimately, the welfare of the state of the lands is our joint responsibility, although by statute the minerals in the soil belong to the president in trust for the people. The chiefs on their part assured Mr Akufo-Addo that they are solidly behind his administration to apply appropriate measures against all persons involved in Galamsey in the country. President of the National House of Chiefs, Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyeb indicated that galamsey is having a negative effect on the environment and also threatens revenue mobilisation in the country hence, their resolve to support the President and government in fighting it. He said your relentless war against forest degradation and illegal mining in Ghana is of great importance to Ghanaians especially we the chiefs. The effects of illegal mining on the environment threaten the survival of water bodies, farmlands, cocoa industry and even encourage school dropouts, this undermines the revenue mobilisation drive in the country. In view of this development [the Chiefs] are solidly behind your administration to apply the appropriate sanctions against persons who are engaged in the practice of illegal mining irrespective of their status. ---3news.com The founder of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Mr Akwasi Addai Odike, has disclosed that he has instructed his lawyers to petition the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) to bring pressure on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to show more commitment in the fight against galamsey. According to him, the content of the petition was to seek their support to put pressure on the president to live up to his fight against galamsey. He noted that there is a need for international pressure to be brought to bear on the president to live up to the fight against illegal mining, also known as galamsey. He added that a copy of the petition will be addressed to the United States of Americas embassy in Ghana. "This is my way of bringing some international pressure to bear on the President to show commitment to the fight against galamsey which has destroyed many of the country's water bodies," he noted. He was of the view that as it stands, Nana Akufo-Addo has no antidote to the fight against galamsey hence the need for more international pressure to whip him in line. Mr Odike made this disclosure while speaking in an interview on the Ghana Yensom morning show hosted by Emmanuel Quarshie on Accra 100.5FM on Tuesday, October 11, 2022. "Theres a need for international pressure to be brought to bear on the President in his fight against galamsey because all indications point to the fact that the President has over the years not shown commitment to the fight," he asserted. He minced no words to say the president has been complicit in the fight against illegal mining in the country. He alleged that many of the culprits in the galamsey fight are appointees at the Jubilee House. He noted that had the president been serious with the fight against illegal mining, he would have evoked an Executive Instrument (E.I) that would ban surface mining in the country until a technology is discovered to properly mine without polluting water bodies. He noted the president and his administration have been a waste, six years into their administration, with corruption spiralling under his watchful eyes. "Nana showed some commitment in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic by addressing the nation on progress made in the fight against the pandemic all because money was coming from the development partners," he charged. He queried why he (the president) had not taken the same approach in the fight against galamsey. Source: Classfmonline.com The Third Meeting of the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament of the Fourth Republic is scheduled to commence on Tuesday, October 25, 2022. A statement dated October 7, 2022, issued by the Office of the Speaker of Parliament, Mr Alban Bagbin and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Monday has said. It said: In pursuance of Standing Order 37 of the Parliament of Ghana, I, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, Speaker of Parliament hereby give notice that the Third Meeting of the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament of the Fourth Republic shall commence on Tuesday, the 25th day of October 2022 at ten oclock in the forenoon at Parliament House, Accra. The House adjourned sine-dine on Thursday, July 28, 2022. Mr Speaker, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the House is expected to resume the third week in October, Mr Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, Majority Leader, said. Members of Parliament go into recess thrice in a Session, the first recess is from March to May, and the second comes off from July to October with the last being from December to January. Members of Parliament use the recess for committee meetings, visiting their constituencies and other Parliamentary-related works. GNA Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo, Senior Advisor to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says the free Senior High School (SHS) policy will continue despite the International Monetary Fund programme. He said the Government's investment in the free SHS would deepen access and quality of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and ensure that all children acquired literacy and numeracy skills at grade 4, with opportunity for out-of-school children to access basic education. The policy will also provide Ghanaian youth with 21st-century skills to boost their global competitiveness, increase access to tertiary education in all regions, improve learning outcomes at all levels, and increase access to teacher trainee education. Mr Maafo was speaking at this year's National Education Week celebration on the theme: Re-assessing Educational Policies for Effective Service Delivery and National Transformation. He said the Government since January 2017, had contributed significantly to the growth and development of human capital in the country through huge investments in education. The government has spent on average between 4.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product and between 17.6 per cent to 24 per cent of its national budget on education between 2019-202. The share of government expenditure on education increased marginally from 73.4 per cent in 2019 to 74.0 per cent in 2020, he said. He said free SHS education was one of the key programmes for which advocates have argued for its abolition to save the country billions of Ghana cedis that could be invested in better productive areas. I reject as false the argument that our economy cannot support these programmes. The challenges we are witnessing in our economy are short-term and we cannot afford to sacrifice our common vision due to short-term economic pressures. I must say that the debate should not be whether our public expenditure is too high or too low. The debate should be and must be whether or not these programmes contribute to the welfare of Ghanaians and are essential for our national transformation, he said. He stated that the free SHS had promoted access to secondary education and that enrolment at the SHS had increased from less than 900,000 students in the 2016/17 academic year to more than 1.2 million in 2020/21. The Gross Enrolment Rate at SHS has reached 95 per cent in 2020/21 up from 50 per cent in the pre-free SHS year, 2016/17. The transition rate from Junior High School three to SHS one has improved over the medium term from 78.2 per cent in 2017/18 to more than 85 per cent in 2020/21. Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, the Deputy Minister of Education, said the celebration sought to review the sectors performance over the past medium-term, review the implementation of policies and key programmes in the sector and deliberate on how the sector could use evidence-based policies and programmes to improve learning outcomes and management of education. The Ministry, he said, would showcase some initiatives undertaken through an exhibition and give participants the opportunity to interact with officers of the Ministry and Agencies on the initiatives. Mr Abdourahamane Diallo, UNESCO Country Director to Ghana, commended the Government for putting in place interventions such as the National Standardised Test and the prioritisation of STEM education. He called on the authorities to collectively work to address challenges in the educational sector to ensure holistic learning outcomes. GNA Three Chinese nationals arraigned for illegal mining in connection with the trial involving galamsey queen Aisha Huang, are being represented in court by the immediate past national chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Freddie Blay. A colleague Ekeleba Blay held brief for him in court on Tuesday, 11 October 2022. The three were denied bail. The accused persons have been remanded into the custody of the National Investigation Bureau. The three are facing charges of engaging in illegal mining activities. Attorney General Godfred Yeboah Dame told the court that receipts of the purchase of mining concessions were retrieved from the accused persons. Also, he said WhatsApp correspondence among them indicated that they were involved in illegal mining. All three accused persons have pleaded not guilty. However, the plea of one other accused person, a Vietnamese, was not taken because there was no interpreter. The state is expected to file 8 witness statements and 18 other documents by 24 October 2022, the date of adjournment. Source: Classfmonline.com The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Shani Alhassan Shaibu has charged the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to work hard to deepen the knowledge of Ghanaians in investment and capital market-related issues. The minister, who said this during an investment education programme in Tamale last Saturday, commended the SEC for educating the public on ways of boosting investment in the region. The programme, which was dubbed, Time with the SEC, aimed at ensuring the growth and development of an efficient, fair and transparent security market to protect investors and the integrity of the market. Mr Shaibu underscored the significance of the Time with the SEC programme, stating that the northern part of the country is endowed with several opportunities that can be harnessed and leveraged. He added that the region has experienced unprecedented development under this current government, thereby making it attractive to investors. Infrastructural projects such as roads, hospitals, factories and electricity have been expanded in the region to make the environment conducive for the private sector to thrive, he stated. The Director General of SEC, Rev Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh, said: Time with the SEC is designed to provide investors and other key stakeholders an opportunity to engage directly in the Northern Region and beyond. Multiple award-winning actor, Prince David Osei has charged President Nana Addo Dankwa AKufo-Addo to crack the whip on his appointees in government to turn around the economic hardships in the country. In a post on social media, the popular Ghanaian actor insists that the current hardships being suffered by the citizenry are unacceptable. Mr. President! With all due respect Mr. President, why are you sleeping on Ghanaians.. This is not acceptable Mr. President. We deserve better, we know there are global crisis and hardship. Yes we know! But looks like you and your ministers are determined to inflict untoward hardship to the citizenry. I decided to give you and your government the benefit of the doubt, I reckon I was wrong! The Youth of this nation are not smiling, it pours, but we are still sweating. We want to see improvement in our livelihoods. If you have to sack some people do it without fear or favor because your legacy is on the line Sir, Prince David Osei said in a post on his Instagram page on Monday. According to him, if things do not change by December, he will mobilise Ghanaians to stage a massive demonstration in the country. If things dont change by December, we will mobilize the youth of this country and hit the street irrespective of party affiliations, whether NPP, NDC, CQQ, PNC whatever, doesnt matter now, we are all in this together, the actor further stresses in his post. Ghana is losing seven per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to low productivity caused by psychological distress. According to the Ghana Health and Socioeconomic Panel Survey undertaken by the University of Ghana and Yale University, psychological distress is prevalent among Ghanaians representing 18.7 per cent. The study with a nationwide representation sample of 5,000 households and 9,524 respondents also reported higher prevalence among lower-income and education populations and women, especially disempowered women. Head of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Ghana Medical School, Professor Angela Ofori-Atta, disclosed this at a public lecture to commemorate World Mental Heath Day in Accra. She said individuals with moderate or severe psychological distress have significantly higher unemployment levels. Among those employed significantly higher absenteeism. Excess loss productivity equivalent to 7 per cent GDP foregone, she said. She explained that Mental, Neurological or Substance use (MNS) disorders account for 10-15 per cent of the total disease burden in lower-income countries with fewer than 25 per cent of those in need globally receiving treatment. She also noted that the treatment gap for MNS disorders in the country is approximately 90 per cent. Prof. Ofori-Atta indicated that the cost of mental illness globally is estimated at USD 2.5 trillion in 2010, and is expected to grow to USD 6 trillion by 2030 proving more costly than any other communicable disease. Depression is one of the leading causes of disability. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. People with severe mental health conditions die prematurely as much as two decades earlier due to preventable physical conditions, she added. Prof. Ofori-Atta said 55 per cent of individuals report some psychological distress varying from response to trauma and changes in income. Burnout Burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been managed successfully. Prof. Ofori-Atta said the feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job, or feeling of negativity or cynicism related to one's job, reduced professional efficacy, and completely emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion are symptoms of burnout. She stated that 9.9 per cent of Ghanaian health workers report burnout with as high as 16 21 per cent recorded in other literature. Employees Assistance Programmes She said the Employee Assistance Programme is one of the effective strategies to support employee mental health and well-being as well as improve productivity. She indicated that the EAP provides a confidential and timely intervention that is short-term and solution-focused. It creates an enabling environment for conversations about mental well-being at the workplace. Provides the needed resources for work to reduce the stress that comes with non-availability of resources and supportive leadership for mental well-being, she said. -DGN online MATSAPHA Bondabazabantu (Kings liason officers) have no official capacity to issue legally binding judgments. This is a statement that was made by Judge Mzwandile Fakudze yesterday at Esibayeni Lodge, during the ongoing five-day Eswatini National Courts Employees Workshop. His statement sparked a debate among the attendees who sought clarity on the existence of bondabazabantu and if they could not issue legally binding judgments. Among those who raised concerns and sought clarification on the matter was Bishop Samson Hlatjwako, from the Bhunya National Court. He enquired about the importance of having bondabazabantu in the first place if they could not issue legally binding judgments. Hlatjwayo said: If they (bondabazabantu) cannot issue a legally binding judgment, to me it means they have no use in the judicial system. For us to be told that they do not issue legally binding judgments is shocking news. It should, however, be noted that from the debate submissions, it appeared as if a number of the Eswatini National Courts employees could not clearly understand the difference between bondabazabantu and courts presidents. Concern Director of Eswatini National Court and Culture, Prince Bukhosi, also voiced out his concern on the fact that bondabazabantu had no official capacity to issue legally binding verdicts. I was also disturbed by the news that bondabazabantu have no legal capacity to issue legally binding judgments. What is a verdict, if I may ask? When cases are appealed to Swazi Courts and at Ludzidzini Royal Council, they have to deliberate on a case where there is the judgment of ndabazabantu, said the director. Judge Fakudze explained that he was first confused by the issue and learned of it the hard way. He said while presiding over a case in court, he issued a judgment as per the dictates of ndabazabantu. However, he indicated that the accused, after the advice of his lawyer, appealed the judgment at the Appeals Court. The lawyer submitted that my judgment did not hold legal substance due to the fact that bondabazabantu had no official capacity to issue legally binding judgments. My judgment was overturned by the higher court and the person won the case, he said. Judge Fakudze advised Eswatini National Court employees to approach the attorney general (AG) and seek to amend sections of the legislation, that were either outdated or unfavourable to their working conditions. Fakudze hinted that they stuck to the provisions of the Constitution in relation to the work of the Eswatini courts. To also raise a concern on the same issue was Mbabane National Court President, Two Minutes Shongwe, who said it was a matter that needed to be swiftly addressed. Powers Judge Fakudze responded by stating that the powers of ndabazabantu were centered on conciliation, but not to issue a verdict. Meanwhile, in his brief remarks, the Chief Justice (CJ), Bheki Maphalala, represented by Supreme Court Judge Majahenkhaba Dlamini, said; Bondabazabantu deliberate on issues of culture and traditions, more especially matters that have to do with disputes. They do not preside over criminal cases and do not issue judgments to say someone must be arrested but aim to mediate to reach consensus between involved parties. Meanwhile, a finding of the Supreme Court was that Kings liaison officers or bondabazabantu were not a court, tribunal of adjudicating body and their decisions had no force of law. Mediator It is a mediator, conciliator and its determination is advisory only and has no force of law. This was the finding of the Supreme Court on the matter where the powers or jurisdiction of the Kings liaison officer or bondabazabantu were being challenged. The office of the Kings liaison officer or bondabazabantu is not the same as the Eswatini National Court presidents. Eswatini National courts were established by the Swazi Courts Act of 1951. In its judgment, the court highlighted that the Kings liaison officer or bondabazabantu was a recognised functionary established in terms of Swazi Law and Custom, he is appointed by Ingwenyama and is answerable to the regional administrator. It was also the courts finding that the Kings liaison officer or bondabazabantu did not exercise judicial power and that their function was that of a mediator or peacemaker between rival parties. It was further highlighted in the Supreme Court judgment that his decisions had no force of law and their legitimacy and compliance depended on the willingness of the parties to abide by them. The court said, on deciding a dispute, the Kings laison officer or ndabazantu applied Swazi Law and Custom. The High Court has followed that judgment in the matter between Khayelihle Mbingo nee Mavimbela against Thamsanqa Thikazi, Celani Mbingo, Zinhle Mbingo, Bongani Mbingo and the attorney general. The matter was heard and determined by Judge Mbutfo Mamba, who was sitting with assessors, Nxumalo (President Eswatini National Court of Appeal) and Lozithehlezi Mhlanga (President Eswatini National Court). Family This was essentially a family dispute. The dispute was over family land belonging to the Mbingo family of Logoba just on the outskirts of the city of Manzini. The piece of land in question is on Swazi Nation Land, under the Masundvwini Royal Kraal, under Swazi Law and Custom. The crisp question or issue in this case was whether ndabazabantu had the power or authority to issue orders, decrees or injunctions, which had the status or force of law in the determination of any issue before him qua ndabazabantu. 11.10.2022 LISTEN G2 Foundation, a Sunyani-based non-governmental organization has called on opinion leaders, religious leaders and family heads to lead the awareness creation on the issues of breast and other cancers. Ms Gifty Nyarko, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Foundation told the media in Sunyani that breast cancer is a very dangerous disease which accounts for the death of a lot of women, but most women appear ignorant and careless about its implications on their lives. Ms Nyarko, who is also the Physical Development Planning Director at the Sunyani West Municipal Assembly, therefore pleaded with religious leaders, university lecturers, teachers, family heads and husbands to take up the advocacy, and explain the effects of breast cancer to their wives and all women at every platform at their disposal as a way of deepening awareness on the issue. She was optimistic that this move would help reach out to many women who would be well informed, and then take the necessary precautionary measures against the disease, especially on the need to go for periodic breast screening for early detection and treatment to reduce its spread and effects. "Knowing or hearing that breast cancer exists is not enough; get screened for early treatment if there is the need," Ms Nyarko said. Free breast screening Ms. Nyarko was full of praise for the management of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) for collaborating with Sunyani-based Suncity Radio to undertake breast cancer screening and awareness creation exercise on October 21, 2022. She therefore advised women in and around Sunyani to take full advantage of this exercise to go for the screening and know their status so that should there be any issue, it can be detected early for treatment before it becomes late. For her part, Mrs. Safura Mohammed Suraj Antwi, the Director of Suncity Group of Companies said the exercise is to beef up breast cancer awareness campaign and commemorate International Breast Cancer Month, which is currently being observed this October as part of the company's activities this year. "We have teamed up with full army of health professionals, I mean doctors and nurses from KATH and other hospitals in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions to conduct the free exercise from that Friday, 21st October, 2022," she said. According to her, there are plans also to conduct a 3-day special free medical outreach at the Sunyani Municipal Hospital from Wednesday 26th to Friday 28th October with all active NHIS members. She added that some of the diseases which would receive priority attention during the exercise include cervical and prostate cancer as well as fibroid, hernia, hydrocele, ovarian cyst and others. Mrs. Antwi said the medical team for the outreach would be led by Professor Stephen Tabiri, Consultant Surgeon and Dean, School of Medicine at the University of Development Studies, and Dr. Adu Appiah-Kubi, Consultant Gynaecological Oncologist at the Ho Teaching Hospital. Others include Dr. Frank Gyamfi, Snr. Specialist and General Surgeon at the Berekum Holy Family Hospital; Dr. Emmanuel Owusu, Urologist at St. Mary's Hospital at Drobo; Dr. JB Fordjour of the SDA Hospital in Sunyani; and Dr. Joel Duah of the Kukuom Hospital. The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame has disclosed that his office is ready to proceed with the case of Chinese national, Aisha Huang. The Attorney General was in court on Tuesday, October 11, where he filed four statements from witnesses he will be relying on for the trial of the case against Aisha Huang. The Chinese national is facing court following her arrest in September. The businesswoman is facing four charges relating to her alleged involvement in illegal mining (galamsey) as well as the trading of minerals without a license. After filing the witness statements at the Accra High Court today, Godfred Yeboah Dame said he is hoping to file four more. According to him, all is set for the trial of Aisha Huang to proceed. We have filed most of the documents we want to rely on, we have filed statements from four witnesses, we really want to file four more, for that matter, we have requested for a week but of course, the judge exercised the discretion to adjourn to October 24 for us to come and conduct the case management studies. We are ready to proceed with the trial of the case, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice told journalists on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Aisha Huang has for the third time been denied bail today. Her lawyers will hope for positive news from the court on October 24 when she returns to court. Five French citizens are currently being held in Iran, Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Tuesday, increasing by one the previous number confirmed by Paris. "I will speak to the Iranian foreign minister this afternoon to again demand the immediate release of all our compatriots who are held in Iran. There are five at the moment," she told France Inter radio. Previously, Paris had said that four of its citizens were being detained in the Islamic republic. The five are French-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, traveller Benjamin Briere, teacher-unionists Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris and a fifth person who is said to have been detained during the recent demonstrations. Adelkah, a researcher with Science-Po in Paris, was detained in June 2019, and sentenced in May 2020 to five years in prison for "conspiring against national security." Her partner and collegue Roland Marchal, who was arrested together with her, was released in March 2020. Helicam In May 2020, Frenchman Benjamin Briere was arrested after entering Iran on a tourist visa. He had driven from France in a van and was arrested near the border with Turkmenistan, where, according to his lawyer, he was operating a remote-controlled mini helicopter, or helicam, used to take nature photos. In January this year, he was sentenced to eight years in jail on spying charges. In May this year, Iran's security forces detained Cecile Kohler, who is in charge of international relations for the French teachers union FNEC FP-FO, and her partner Jacques Paris. The pair were accused of "conspiracy against Iran's national security," judiciary spokesman Massoud Setayeshi told the government controlled Mehr News Agency in Tehran at the time. "The prosecution is based on a judicial order and Iran has initiated legal proceedings against them," according to Setayeshi. Last week, Iranian state television broadcast what the authorities in Tehran claim are "confessions" by Kohler and Paris, five months after the pair were arrested in the Islamic republic. France protested, calling the broadcast "unworthy, repugnant, unacceptable and contrary to international law" and demanding the "immedeate release" of the couple. Nuclear talks At the end of September, Iran's authorities announced that they had apprehended "nine foreign nationals" who were described as "agitators" taking part in the demonstrations that were triggered after the death in custody of death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested by the morality police. Iran's authorities said among those detained were German, Polish, Italian, French, Dutch and Swedish citizens. The fact that Iran has foreign citizens in detention under trumped-up charges (apart from the five French citizens there are twenty foreigners or people with dual nationality in Tehran's jails who, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, didn't face a fair trial), as well as the ongoing crackdown has further complicated talks between Iran and the "P5+1," (US, France, the UK, Russia and China plus Germany) over Tehran's nuclear program. Many Western countries have urged Tehran to respect human rights amid the protests following Amini's death. France, for example, called for EU-wide sanctions against those responsible for the repression that has killed more than 100 people according to Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights. (With agencies) The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, John Jinapor, has backed his deputy, George Mireku Duker, amid allegations he is involved in illegal mining and owns a concession. Speaking to journalists in Accra on Tuesday, Mr. Jinapor said, if there is any such substance to such allegations, I think the best way to proceed is with investigations. Mr. Duker has denied the allegations, which came from a sub-chief of Dompim-Pepesa in Tarkwa in the Western Region. The Western Region is noted as one of the illegal mining hotspots in Ghana. The claims notwithstanding, Mr. Jinapor expressed confidence that his deputy was innocent of the allegations. The matters are still at play, and I think that the [deputy] minister has denied it flatly. I have full confidence in the [deputy] minister in my ministry and I don't think he will ever be involved in any such conduct, the Minister said. The Office of the Special Prosecutor has commenced investigations into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences related to illegal small-scale mining, also known as galamsey, in Ghana. The office has noted that the investigation will narrow in on some officials of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. By Citi Newsroom Officers of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) have closed four branches of the China Mall shopping centres in Accra. Similar action was taken against some branches of the Palace Mall in Accra. The shopping centres are said to have failed to comply with the e-invoicing system for Value Added Tax (VAT) introduced by the GRA. The GRA rolled out the e-invoicing system for VAT collectors from October 1, 2022, for 600 large taxpayers that generate more than 90 per cent of VAT revenue. Unlike the manual system, the e-invoicing system allows the GRA to monitor live transactions in companies where it has been deployed, thereby making it impossible for taxpayers to either under invoice or avoid the payment of VAT. When the Officials first visited the Spintex Road Branch of the facility, the Shopping Centre, was not in operation, but GRA said they suspected Management had information about the action. Joseph Annan, Area Enforcement Manager of GRA in charge of Accra Central explained that the Authority had been engaging management of some selected businesses on how to commence the system but most of them had failed to comply. According to him, GRA decided to lock up the facilities with the Commissioner General seals because some of the premises of shops were not in operation. He warned that it is only Seal, any attempt to take it off is an offence against the law and until the right things were done on their part, the place would remain closed. But when the team got to the other shop also along Spintex Road and the facility's warehouse, workers were working but had to be stopped for the enforcement exercise for the shop to be sealed off. He said the Authority had selected some businesses to commence the pilot of the e-invoice system and this time they would enforce the law to the fullest and all the branches of these businesses would be closed until their various management fix the system. We will continue to pursue all who have failed to fix the system until they comply, he added. He said a similar exercise would be held in Kumasi on China Mall Shops and other selected businesses. All the warehouses were closed with the Commissioner-General's Seal. The workers, who did not understand why the places were being locked, expressed displeasure in the exercise, while some spoke angrily to the officers. 11.10.2022 LISTEN The fix the country call is a popular one in the country now. Despite the fact that some questionable characters have hijacked the movement, circumstances surrounding that call must be given political permutation. For this reason, NPP is working through some equally youthful affiliates to counter the "Fix the Country" movement with "Fixing the Country" press conferences and rhetoric. The "fixing the country" press conferences might have contributed to the decision to appoint a "latter day saint", Owusu Bempah as a deputy national communication director of the ruling NPP. Whether the NPP likes it or not, the party or individuals within the party must react to the "fix the country" call or at least, play the opportunist and/or populist card with the call. In politics, the right timing matters a lot. Fixing the country movement is a group of NPP members coming together to respond to the fix the country movement. Hon. Kennedy Agyapong is single-handedly responding to the call by the Ghanaian youth to fix the country. Ken is volunteering to lead the fix the country crusade as a president. Since Ken entered Ghanaian politics, he has consistently exposed the ills of the Ghanaian society, most of which are re-echoed by the fix the country campaigners. He was alone in this fight; he has never been your usual gentle political panelist on radio and TV. Tens of Hundreds hate him for being blunt about the truth, but there are millions who love him for his toughness, boldness and straight talk. If today, many Ghanaians have come out openly to call for Ghana to be fixed, why not grab the opportunity to lead the country through it? This is why Ken want to be the president. In recent times, Obama, Macron, Trump, Boris, Duterte, and even Zelensky of Ukraine took advantage of the timing and responded to the popular demand. Biden unceremoniously announced his retirement and had planned to go out of office with Obama and was never going to stand for election, but Trump had to be defeated by all means. He stood for office and won decisively. Call them opportunists or populists, but when they responded to the popular call, it worked for them. Ken is responding to the popular fix the country call and it will certainly work for him. He shall lead Ghana through a democratic revolution to fix the country. Whilst JB Danquah and the rest calculated their steps cautiously and strived for independence in the shortest possible time, Nkrumah became an opportunist. Populist Nkrumah won the hearts and minds of Ghanaians who were desperately asking for independence now. The political class, since the genesis of the fourth republic, has shown enough political correctness, exhibiting similar political calculations of the big six and ended up fixing less or nothing. Call Hon. Ken, opportunist or populist, but like Nkrumah, he will deliver to the people their heart desires. Since the late Professor Adu-Boahens time, NPP has promised Ghanaians they will change Rawlings 1992 constitution, but the Kuffour-led NPP government failed to do it. Mills-led NDC government spent huge sums of the Ghanaian tax-payers money to work on constitutional amendment, but his untimely death ended the whole process. Mahama-led NDC government suspended the whole process indefinitely and never mentioned it for four-and-half years till he lost 2016 presidential election. Mahama is never the president to be voted back to fix Ghanas constitution. Akufo-Addo-led NPP government has also not shown any indication of constitutional amendment, which features prominently on the fix the country agenda and a very popular request in Ghana today. Like populist Nkrumah, Hon. Ken will grant this request and the journey of fixing the country shall begin with it. Kens candidacy and his vision for Ghana shows clearly he is one politician who has never written the "fix the country" movement off. He will turn those negative currents within the fix the country movement to positivity and to the advantage of the country. His presidency will turn a rather street agitation into governments priority and will work with all powers vested in him to achieve them. Setting goals and achieving them is a project, and through determination and perseverance, Ken will win election 2024 and will work with the Ghanaian youth to fix the country. In Ghana, everyone wants change, but no one wants to change. Ken says in his first 100 days, he will change the mindset of most Ghanaians. This is the change we need. Fixing the country will begin from fixing our mindset and attitude. Fixing individuals, families, communities, institutions and the whole government machinery will certainly result in the change we need. The country will be fixed and that would be the change we all need. Fix the country movement would not have been a waste of time and Kennedy Agyapongs presidency would have been a success story. Eben Johnson Finland (Letters Without Signatures) The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor has stressed that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's government will not spare anyone who engages in illegal mining, otherwise known as galamsey. The Minister was with the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame on Tuesday when he filed statements of four witnesses in the case against Aisha Huang at the Accra High Court. Speaking to journalists, later on, Samuel Abu Jinapor expressed his appreciation to the Attorney General for his efforts in the case. As you can see, the Attorney-General himself was in court and he himself is conducting this trial, prosecuting the cases in a very spirited and enthusiastic manner. I think it helps my work, when you have an Attorney-General who is diligent and serious about prosecution and ensuring that all perpetrators are brought to book, I think it is a big boost and I am very thankful to him for the work he is doing, he said. According to the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, the government will not relent but will ensure Aisha Huang and any other person arrested for engaging in illegal mining is made to face the full force of the law. We will continue with our efforts on all fronts law enforcement, reforms as well as the prosecutorial part, which we are fully committed to. As you can tell, this Aisha Huang lady, the government of President Akufo-Addo is committed to bringing her and other persons who are involved in illegal mining to face the full rigors of the laws, Samuel Abu Jinapor stressed. Meanwhile, the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice has disclosed that more statements from four other witnesses will be filed before the trial of Aisha Huang proceeds on October 24. A former vice president of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), Mr. Kwame Jantuah has called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to come up with stronger action to tackle the issue of illegal mining (galamsey) in the country. In his view, galamsey has gone on for far too long and must be dealt with once and for all. Speaking to Asaase Radio on Tuesday, Mr. Kwame Jantuah opined that the people engaged in the destruction of Ghanas water bodies are waging war and must not be left off the hook. Lets be honest with ourselves, the responsibility is on the president. This is war. Any country that tries to poison our water bodies is at war and I expected if for nothing at all to draw a plan; the president meets with parliament in terms of those parliamentarians who in their constituency where this is happening, meet with the Speaker of the House, meet with the judiciary, the media and the CSOs where they will draw up a plan of action. Once that plan of action is in place, you bring in the chiefs. So that everybody understands what that plan of action isbecause definitely as we all know, there are politicians who are involved and nobody can be sparred irrespective of whether you have given me votes or not, Mr. Jantuah shared. He further emphasised that the President should be the one leading the fight and not the Attorney General or the Office of the Special Prosecutor. This particular issue (galamsey) is destroying our country; its destroying water bodies [and] it is destroying the land. So we shouldnt take it as if it were nothing we shouldnt get an OSP or Attorney General to investigate it. It is more than that; it is at the table of the president to make sure that much stronger action is taken. It has gone on for too long, the former vice president of PIAC added. President Akufo-Addo just last week had a meeting with the National House of Chiefs where he appealed for support to combat galamsey. In a subsequent meeting with MMDCEs, the President warned that anyone caught being complicit in illegal mining will not be spared. President of the National House of Chiefs Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyebi II, has denied publications in a section of the Ghanaian media that he has asked persons claiming that mining firm, Akonta Mines, belonging to the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Bernard Anwti Bosiako (Chairman Wontumi) is engaging in illegal small scale mining (Galamseny), to produce evidence to that effect. He dared persons who say he made that comment to produce his tape if they have it to back their claims. Ogyeahohoo Yaw Gyebi II is reported to have asked persons with evidence to back the claims that Chairman Wontumi is involved in galasmey. I have heard that Wontumi is doing galamsey. Whether it is true or not, I don't know and I don't have any evidence, so how do I tell the president about Wontumi in such a forum or expect me to speak about an issue on national television when I don't have any facts or direct evidence on Wontumi's activities? So, if you have the evidence or anyone has evidence that Wontumi is into galamsey, make it available to the president and he will act on it, he is reported to have toldsaid after a meeting President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had with Chiefs in Kumasi last week Wednesday October 5 on the issue of galamsey. But speaking in an interview with TV3s Ato Kwamena Haizel on Tuesday October 11, he said he never made that comment. He said After my statement, the press went outon His Excellencys statement with [the Chiefs]. The [President[ said Every village has a chief, and then he, as a lawyer will want to have hard facts to add on. I even suggested that your Excellency, sometimes some of these rumours should be investigated, that was indoors. At no point did anybody including me mentioned Antwi Boasiako or Wontums name at the meeting. So, if anybody has any evidence, my voice anywhere that person come out with it. I remember one of the members raised the issue of Akonta Mines in Samroboe Forest and I intervened to say that yes, I was aware the paramount chief in the area had wanted to send a team there but he had a call somewhere and so had to stop them. Even at that point, I didnt know the owners of Akonta Mining but what I said is that, people go under the guise of prospecting license to do mining, and so we were pleading with his excellency just as he is also pleading to [Chiefs], we will also plead with him to also involve his MMDCEs and politicians so that all of us will fight the menace of galamsey. Because we are the custodians of the lands and all these forest reserves were given to Forestry Commission to manage for us. Again, I made the point the regulatory framework of mining, [the Chiefs] are not part of it and so we were demanding that at least the small scale mining licenses regime should be handled at the MDAs offices instead of we getting it from Accra. This is what went on other chiefs also gave their dimensions. ---3news.com FanMilk PLC, a Danone Company, has today inaugurated three (3) green projects at its North Industrial Area Plant in Accra in line with global efforts to accelerate to net zero carbon emissions. Built at a total cost of seven million Euros, the projects, a Wastewater Treatment Plant, Biomass Boiler and Solar Power Installation are a demonstration of Danones One Planet One Health vision and reinforces the companys leadership in sustainability in Ghana and globally. Speaking at the launch of the Green Projects, Christian Stammkoetter, Danones Africa, Asia, and Middle East President said: we are all witnessing the unprecedented effects of climate change all over the globe. It has become critical for us all in the world to join hands and protect planet earth and achieve sustainability through the right policies and technological innovations, both in the private and public sector. At Danone, we believe that we can have a collective impact by working together to ensure that any economic rebound after the pandemic is both planet-friendly and socially inclusive; and by encouraging everyone to contribute to sustainable performance and impact. These green projects we unveil today are our contribution to protecting the environment and the planet. Launching the Green Projects, The Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, Innovation, Dr Kwaku Afriyie said: FanMilk Ghana has lived to its promise of providing improved lives for the people of Ghana by not only producing nutritional products for Ghanaians but also, directly and indirectly, employing thousands of Ghanaians and helping to alleviate unemployment in this country. Government is pleased with your effort in this regard, and we are hopeful that by the establishment of these new sustainable environment projects, you will continue to do even more in the area of environment and technology for the country at large. He ended by commending FanMilk and encouraging other organizations to follow FanMilks good example. The investments are in line with Danones expansion drive and the companys One Planet, One Health vision. The Wastewater treatment plant will ensure that only clean water from the factory is discharged into the environment. The quality of the final discharge will accelerate the regeneration and sustenance of the Odaw River to promote other forms of life for river bodies. Also, the solid waste generated from the plant can be used as manure thereby improving agricultural ecosystem in support of a broader objective of encouraging regenerative agriculture. The discharge effluents will also comply with Danones strict clean water standards. The Solar Power Installation at both the Industrial area factory, offices and the various regional distribution centers, is in pursuance of the companys global strategy of reducing dependency on conventional energy sources and increasing the use of renewable energies. With the new biomass boiler, FanMilk will now switch from using diesel as its fuel source to a multi-fuel system that uses palm kernel shell or wooden chips to cater for the factorys steaming requirement of 1,800kg/h. With this move, the company is making significant steps to saving the environment by turning waste material to an effective fuel for the biomass boiler. The General Manager of FanMilk West Africa, Ziobeieton Yeo, spoke at the event saying, For more than 60 years, our company has been led by our belief in this dual mission that economic progress and social progress go hand in hand. As a purpose-led organization, we champion a more emotionally balanced, healthier, socially progressive society, while protecting the environment. Todays commissioning is a demonstration of our deep level of commitment to the cause of saving the earth while creating jobs through our unique business model. All of these Green Projects will go a long way to help our pursuit. This is not the first time that FanMilk Danone has made investments into the country. In June 2021, the company opened a new multipurpose head office at the Industrial Area in Accra. Earlier this year the company also invested in vehicles and logistics for its trade partners, while launching the 2022 edition of the flagship FanMilk school caravan, the educational programme that trains school children on good sanitation and healthy snacking. MBABANE Instead of legalising abortion, members of the clergy are calling for the arrest of women who commit same. According to Pastor Celani Mhlanga, abortion is illegal in the country and if someone commits the crime, they should be punished and the penalties made stiff as a deterrent. Pastor Mhlanga said it was wrong to advocate for the legalisation of abortion, as it was not a human right but a crime. According to Mhlanga, abortion was not just murder but a sacrifice to the devils and the country needs to take it seriously. Why should we allow sacrifices to be made to the devil, if Eswatini is a Christian nation? Mhlanga questioned. He stated that if allowed, this would kindle the wrath of God against the people and the nation. Sacrificing He noted that God had issued a stern warning on sacrificing sons and daughters to the devils. Furthermore, he said God had warned against the shedding of innocent blood of the sons and daughters by sacrificing them to devils. The pastor said responsibility must be placed on the parent and not for the unborn child to suffer for the mistakes of adults. We are living in the 21st century and getting pregnant cannot be a mistake because all the preventative measures are there, said the man of the cloth. Mhlanga questioned why people could not utilise the preventative measures. The pastor, who presented before the Ministry of Health Portfolio Committee, said he was speaking on behalf of God, concerning the Health Bill of 2022, which aimed at legalising abortion. Mhlanga stated that he was presenting based on the Bible, which was the Constitution of Gods kingdom and the Constitution of the land, which governed the country. Murder The man of God said in the book of Exodus 20 verse 13, it read; Thou shall not kill. He said based on the Bible, abortion was murder before the Almightys eyes. Mhlanga mentioned that Eswatini had a foundation in its existence, of being a Christian nation. Before we do anything as a nation, including the passing of laws, it is important not to disregard what God says. Mhlanga said before a law could be passed, it should be tested on whether it was aligned to the scripture, and the God served by the citizenry. He mentioned that some names were redefined, including murder, which was termed as abortion to ease up guilt upon the conscience of those people who killed innocent children. Mhlanga added that he had noticed that the Health Bill, 2022 was unconstitutional, as it eliminated all rights of pre-born babies. All human beings have a right to life, they are equal with the right to life, deemed a foundation right and freedom within the Constitution. The above, he said, was explained in article 14 of the Constitution, under Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of Individuals. He said the Constitution clearly included pre-born lives in the description, since abortion was confirmed as unlawful in article 15. Furthermore, he noted that the Health Bill was unconstitutional because it supposed an affirmative right to abortion. He said Parliament did not have the authority to issue a sweeping provision, that a user could have access to termination of pregnancy. Such, he said was provided in 44.1 of the Bill. This, he said implied an affirmative right to abortion, whereas the Constitution was clear that abortion was indeed illegal with only limited exceptions, where it was permitted without it being considered a criminal act and the exceptions were explained in article 15.5 of the Constitution. Meanwhile, he stated that the Bill eliminated the right of conscience, which was inalienable, meaning the possessor could not give it away and neither could it be taken away. Mhlanga said any infringement upon the right of conscience could not be justified under any circumstance, which was guaranteed by international human rights laws. Legalising He said by legalising abortion, it would contravene Eswatinis international human rights obligations, if healthcare providers would perform abortions in violation of their conscience. The pastor said they also realised that in the Bill, termination of pregnancy would be permitted on demand, which meant that it effectively allowed same to be on demand for any reason without defining terms for the narrow exception that permitted abortion, without clearly specifying limits, without thresholds or requirements for access to a narrow exception for abortion. He said the Bill was also inconsistent with both the language and the intent for the Constitution of the country. Mhlanga further noted that the Health Bill would permit the late termination of pregnancy, because it specified that no gestational limits effectively permitting abortion on demand up until birth. There is no limit, no time specified that abortion will be allowed under certain terms and would not be allowed after certain terms of pregnancy. Mhlanga stated that the bill would also fail to ensure informed consent because it lacked informed consent requirements for women including information on foetal development and ultra sound image to verify the foetal age. SAFAIDS Country Representative Mandisa Machakata, said they were not encouraging people to abort but wanted the service to shift from the black market and be accessed in health facilities. Machakata advised pastors to continue preaching the word of God and not interfere with health rights. She said she did not know that abortion was a sacrifice to the devil but the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined termination clearly and the standards of how it happened. Preventable Machakata said she could not get into the moral discourse part as she addressed issues of women and girls. She said the campaign of safe abortion was aimed at ending preventable deaths, disabilities which were happening as a result of unsafe abortions. Machakata said women and girls were continuing to commit unsafe abortions. She stated that the restrictions caused those who were allowed by law not to access services, as it was a tedious process, even though it was provided in the Constitution. Eswatini Interdenominational Ministries Fellowship also emphasised on the biblical position regarding abortion. Reverend Luke Mnisi noted that they believed in the sanctity of life and stood opposed to any deliberate and purposeful plan to terminate a life which God had created and pre-ordained. Mnisi said they believed that a child had life and destiny while in his or her mothers womb. Contraception Reverend Mnisi stated that in a country where contraception was permitted, there should be no reason to terminate life once it began. He said all stakeholders should focus on educating young girls about the medical hazards of abortion and the other options available to them, thus preventing abortion from being promoted as an option. He stated that the Constitution also covered issues of rape, which had unfortunately become prevalent in the current moral decay of society. Mnisi urged society to channel resources and energy towards capacity building of young girls to empower them to report and deal with rape cases expeditiously to avoid terminating life once it began. Government is investing an amount of 740 million dollars in the provision of drinking water under a policy dubbed water for all. This was made known by Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Monday at Tuna, in the Savannah Region where he has rounded up an official tour of that region. According to Dr Bawumia, the significant investment of over 740 million dollars in various water projects across the country has resulted in increasing the percentage of Ghanaians who have access to potable drinking water in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal for the provision of clean water and sanitation for all. Dr Bawumia who was speaking at the commissioning of a town water project in Tuna said the successes chalked by government in providing potable drinking water for rural and urban dwellers has resulted in a reduction of sanitation-related diseases such as cholera. "We all know that under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, Goal number 6 is a goal for us to attain clean water sanitation for all. In this regard, the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has had a policy of water for all. This water for all policy has resulted in an investment program of about 740 million dollars in terms of investment in water systems in various towns and communities," he said. The Vice President intimated that Ghana has over the last five years not recorded a single case of cholera due to the huge investments made to provide clean drinking water and increasing the overall access to water to 87%, 96% for urban access while rural access stands at 74%. "If you will all avert your minds, Ghana has not had a single case of cholera in the last five years. Not one single case of cholera," he added. Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, the Director of the Kintampo College of Health and Well-being (CoHK) in the Bono East Region has called on Ghanaians to refrain from unnecessary politicization of education in the country. He said he was unhappy about the admission of students on a protocol basis saying if not stopped such attitude would adversely impact the nation's efforts to churn out quality human resources required for development. Dr Opoku-Adusei made the call when speaking at the 50th-anniversary celebration of the Kintampo Senior High School (KINSS), held at Kintampo in the Kintampo North Municipality of the region. Political actors and traditional authorities must stop pressing on educational institutions to admit students who are sometimes unqualified to gain admission because such an attitude is a setback to the growth and development of education, he said. Dr Opoku-Adusei called on traditional authorities to be ready and release lands for government projects to push the development of the region forward. Mr Kwasi Adu-Gyan, the Bono East Regional Minister, said the government was committed to improving quality education, hence the implementation of the Free Senior High School programme in the country. He said under the programme the government was putting up several educational infrastructures to facilitate and increase student enrolments at the SHS levels and advised the students to learn hard to justify the investment the government had made in SHS education in the country so far. Mr Samuel Kwaku Donyina, the headmaster explained the school was established on Friday, October 15, 1971. He said that since then it had produced distinguished personalities serving the country in various capacities under successive governments. Professor J.Y Sekyi-Baidoo of the University of Education-Winneba, Lawyer Samuel Boakye, the Executive Secretary of the Academy of Arts Sciences and the Reverend Kwaku Frimpong, the Chief Executive Officer of the Frimps Oil-Ghana are all past students, he said. Mr Donyina appealed to GETFUND to facilitate the completion of the 300-bed capacity girls' dormitory and a dining hall project it was putting up for the school and mentioned that inadequate staff accommodation on campus remained a huge challenge. He said the school also needs a standard library and an assembly hall. The headmaster appealed to the general public to come to their aid. Mr Donyina lauded the implementation of the FSHS programme which has increased enrollment and improved the infrastructural development of the school. GNA A young girl believed to be 12-year-old has met her untimely death after she was knocked down by a speeding vehicle at Kotwi in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region. The unfortunate accident occurred on Tuesday October 11, 2022 around 5:00pm. Some eyewitnesses who narrated the story to this reporter said the girl was crossing the road when Nissan Navara Pickup with registration number AC-884-21 knocked her down. "She had just gotten off a commercial vehicle and was crossing the road, but was knocked down by the vehicle. "Some Emergency Medical Attendants and Paramedics who rushed to the scene declared the girl dead and left her at the scene, an eyewitness stated. Meanwhile, police in the area are at the scene to help ease the vehicular traffic caused by the accident. The body has however been conveyed to the mortuary for further investigations. The Ashanti Regional Minister Hon Simon Osei Mensah on Monday October 10, 2022 commissioned three Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) projects in the Region. The WASH projects which were financed by UNICEF with support from the Danish Government provided three ultramodern toilet facilities for three basic schools in the region. The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Kwadaso Municipality and the Asokore Mampong Municipality are the beneficiary assemblies. In attendance at the event were the Danish Ambassador to Ghana, H. E Tom Noring and the Country Rep for UNICEF, Anne-Claire. Commissioning one of the projects at Kwadaso M/A Basic school, Hon Simon Osei Mensah commended the WASH programme and noted that, the projects have come at a time the region was keen on improving the sanitation of people, especially girls and women. "Growing up in a clean and safe environment is every childs right. Access to clean water, basic toilets and good hygiene practices not only keep children thriving but also give them a healthier start in life," he said Hon Simon Osei Mensah assured the Danish Ambassador and UNICEF Country Rep of governments preparedness to support any projects that will improve both economic and social well-being of the people of Ghana. For his part, the Danish Ambassador to Ghana Tom Noring pledged Danish governments commitment to supporting girl child education. He added that the projects were also to help Ghana completely overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. "Despite COVID-19 putting the spotlight on the importance of hand hygiene to prevent the spread of disease, there billion people worldwide, are hundreds of millions of school-going children, who do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap. People living in rural areas, urban slums, disaster-prone areas and low-income countries are the most vulnerable and the most affected," he said. He added, "This is the main reason why we have teamed up with UNICEF to provide WASH facilities to schools in Ghana." Dr. George Agyekum Donkor, the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) is nominated to receive this years Prix de la Foundation's international award at the prestigious Crans Montana Forum (CMF). The award ceremony is scheduled to take place between November 16-19, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. The award, which will be presented by His Royal Highness Prince Guillaume Jean Joseph Marie, Prince of Luxembourg during a special ceremony, recognises individuals, who have contributed to democracy and socio-economic progress through their efforts at building a better world. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation from the Bank. The award is an acknowledgement of Dr Donkors numerous contributions to the socio-economic development of the sub-region by spearheading strategic economic initiatives for creating jobs and providing dynamic leadership to champion wealth creation for vulnerable population groups. A lawyer and development banker by training, his illustrious career, spanning close to three decades, has been a testament of people-centred leadership in a corporate setting. Dr. Donkor focuses on the implementation of change to drive progress not only in the West African sub-region, but also to stimulate a wider international impact through regional integration and engagement. Under his capable leadership, EBID has achieved several remarkable successes including balance sheet growth of 22% and 158% over-subscription of its 2021 UEMOA bond issuance concluded within 24hrs, both an indication of increased investor confidence. Additionally, Dr. Donkor, within two years of assumption of office as President of the Bank, has recorded an impressive operational and financial performance to the admiration of all stakeholders including the Ministers for Finance of the fifteen ECOWAS Member States, who are also the Governors of the Bank. His leadership has seen the mobilisation of about USD 404 million, recovery of over USD 20 million of fully impaired and written-off loans, thereby reducing the Banks Non-Performing Loans (NPL) rate from over 8% to 5.86%. Furthermore, the Bank has recovered over 66.6 million USD in capital arrears. All these efforts have culminated in the upgrade of EBIDs credit rating from B2 (negative outlook) to B2 with a stable outlook by both Moodys and Fitch Ratings in 2021 and 2022, despite the global economic downturn triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian Ukraine war. Other remarkable achievements recorded include improvements in governance, human resource development, the Banks visibility, processes and procedures, and information technology, among others. The Crans Montana Forum is a high-profile event that brings together world leaders from various domains such as international development, diplomacy, economic policy and social welfare in an informal setting to exchange ideas while networking. The forums prominent partners over the years have been high-profile personalities including Mr. Dominique de Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, American Political Activist and Baptist Minister, and Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, former Secretary General of the United Nations, among others. As Guest of Honour for the occasion, Dr Donkor will be sharing his vision for the ECOWAS region and its regional financial institution, EBID. It will be recalled that Dr Donkor was the recipient of Innovation Leadership Award organised by the Ghana Innovation/NIBS Award in 2019. France Volontaires Ghana, in partnership with the French Embassy in Ghana and the Alliance Francaise Accra, marked the 2022 edition of the French Volunteering Day. This years French Volunteering Day was organized under the theme - "Volunteerism Today: A Vehicle for Building the Capacity of Civil Society, Institutions and Communities in Our post-pandemic World." The event was well-attended by Ghanaians, French and EUAID volunteers, Representatives from the EU and partners from the French Community in Ghana. The event is marked annually to highlight and bring together relevant stakeholders to promote the development of French volunteerism. Addressing the gathering, the Director of Alliance Francaise, Emmanuel Labrande affirmed his outfits commitment to supporting French Volontaires Ghana. He pledged the Alliance Francaises continuous commitment to promoting volunteerism in Ghana and fostering a strong network between Ghana and France. National Representative of France Volontaires Ghana, Telngar Rassembeye underscored the crucial role of French Volontaires in strengthening bilateral ties between Ghana and France. He commended Ghanaian volunteers for their significant achievements and stellar work over the years. Greater Accra Regional Director of the National Service Scheme, Madam Anastasia Zanoo described the theme for this years celebration as timely and appropriate in the face of COVID-19 impacts on CSOs, communities and the government. She underscored the crucial role of CSOs in reshaping our society in the post-COVID era. The democratic relevance of Civil Society organizations, fulfilment of the needs of society by institutions in the sense of connecting and belonging in communities cannot be over-emphasized in a post-pandemic era in which we find ourselves, she added. She further opined that "we must leverage volunteerism as a vehicle to build capacity for Civil Society Organizations in Ghana." Madam Anastasia Zanoo also hinted at plans to formalize partnerships between the National Service Scheme and French Volontaires Ghana. The National Service Scheme pledged full support to the French Volontaires Ghana. She commended all French volunteers in Ghana for their significant impact on local communities. "We wish to congratulate all French volunteers in Ghana. It is our hope that by this similarity in our respective missions and operations we can build a stronger relationship of collaboration". Head of Cooperation and Cultural Department at the French Embassy, Julien Lecas, revealed that about 60 Ghanaian students will be deployed to France to serve as Language Assistants in the upcoming academic calendar. Participants, partners and a section of volunteers took turns sharing their experience on volunteerism in both Ghana and France. Background of France Volontaires France Volontaire is the French platform for International Volunteerism of Exchange and Solidarity. Created in 2009 as an association, it is the result of shared construction between public and associative actors involved in international solidarity. Operator of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, it brings together the State, local authorities and associations around the missions interest: the development and promotion of volunteer and solidarity commitments abroad. Four separate surgeries on his left eye have compelled the former CEO of the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), Dr Stephen Opuni, to miss his own trial which resumed recently. Dr Opuni, the first accused person, is being tried with private businessman Seidu Agongo, the second accused person, in connection with the prosecutions assertion that they caused the state to lose some GHS271 million in a fraudulent procurement of Lithovit Liquid Fertiliser from the latters agrochemical company, Agriclut, the third accused person. They have all pleaded not guilty to the offences and are on a GHS300,000 self-recognisance bail in the more-than-four-year-old trial. In court on Tuesday, 11 October 2022, Dr Opunis lawyer, Mr Sam Codjoe, informed the hearing, presided over by Supreme Court judge Clemence Honyenuga that his client had been given a six-week excuse duty by his doctor so he could stay away from all activities that risked straining the surgically operated eye to enable proper healing. My Lord, the first accused [person] is not in court today due to the fact that hes had surgery on his eye and we have given this court a copy of the medical report indicating that he has had four different surgeries on his eye. My Lord, as contained in the medical report, hes been given a six-week excuse duty to enable the left eye heal. My Lord, this is the reason why he is not present in court, Mr Codjoe explained. He added: And my Lord, yesterday [Monday, 10 October 2022], I showed the prosecution a copy of the medical report but because it is a confidential document, which is, it contains details of the exact surgery, so, I informed my learned friend of the exact surgery, so, I did not give them a hard copy of the actual medical report because of the confidential nature. My Lord, this explains the absence of the first accused [person] in court and my Lord, as a result of his absence due to ill health, we pray that this court adjourns this case to the end of the six-week period commencing from the 23rd day of September 2022, he pleaded. He indicated: My Lord, the basis of our seeking this adjournment is because the first accused person, in the exercise of his constitutional rights under Article 19(3) of the 1992 Constitution, wants to be present during the trial. Unfortunately, hes unable to because of ill health. Mr Codjoe, thus, prayed the court to adjourn the matter to a time after the expiration of the six-week excuse duty, in accordance with this constitutional provision, which, he noted was interpreted in the case of George Bonson, alias Benjillo v the Republic. In a rebuttal, chief state attorney Evelyn Keelson argued: My Lord, the first accused person, who is on bail, is required to be present in this court, as undertaken in his bail conditions. My Lord, we have seen a medical report indicating that the first accused [person] has had surgery on his left eye; and in that report, the medical director has indicated that he needs six weeks to rest the eye for proper healing. Respectfully, my Lord, this statement by the medical director is not binding on this honourable court. My Lord, the medical director did not indicate the basis for the six weeks he has indicated in the report. My Lord, under section 169(2) of Act 30, this honourable court cannot adjourn this matter for more than one month; and having already indicated that this court is not bound by the report, I pray that the court invites the medical director, Dr Abalo Kodjo, to give further and better particulars to his request for the first accused [person] to be excused for six weeks, she went on. She also proposed: My Lord, in the alternative, this court can sit virtually to accommodate the first accused [person]. Indeed, my Lord, during the vacation, we were sitting virtually and it worked very well. Mrs Keelson also said: My Lord, I want to state that nobody has taken away or seeks to take away the first accused persons under article 19(3) to be present at his trial. The first accused person is on bail and is at liberty to attend the trial. Citing the same case referred to by Dr Opunis lawyer to counter a point made by the defence team, Mrs Keelson said: My Lord, these matters were clearly explained in the case my learned friend cited; the Benjillo case, so, my Lord, it is, therefore, our submission that this court, in the exercise of its discretion, can proceed with the case without infringing Article 19(3) since, as I have stated, the doctors opinion for the accused person to stay away for six weeks, is not binding on this honourable court. In her view, My Lord, this court can grant the accused person some days but certainly not six weeks as suggested by the medical doctor, especially when he is not admission. However, Mr Codjoe counter-argued that the reasons for the six-week excuse duty were stated in paragraph 2 of the medical report contrary to the assertion by the chief state attorney, who interrupted and insisted the reasons had not been elaborated by the medical director and wondered where Dr Opunis lawyer was reading the alleged reasons from. Mr Codjoe noted that though his team had no objection to the proposed summoning of the medical doctor before the court, it was most unfortunate for the chief state attorney to suggest that the first accused person, who is not supposed to sit and is not supposed to engage in any activity which will put stress on his left eye, sit in a virtual trial and lie down in a virtual trial. My Lord, this is most unacceptable even in military regimes. My Lord, even under section 170(2) of Act 30, once the person is ill and the court is satisfied that the person is ill, which can only be done through a medical report and not by a physical examination by the chief state attorney, the court grants an adjournment, he further argued. Mr Codjoe noted: My Lord, by this section, it does not limit this court to the period of adjournment and my Lord, we submit that insofar as the person is ill and recovering from surgery on his eye, then the court should grant the adjournment for the accused [person] to recuperate. Adjourning the matter, he noted, would not be unusual in the circumstance. My Lord, I would add that this court will not be doing anything unreasonable or illegal, in that the attorney generals department, as recently as August of this year, adjourned the Ato Forson case, for very good reasons, to January. My Lord, the final point is the suggestion by the prosecution that in spite of the fact that the first accused [person] is ill, the court should still put him on trial. This will take us to the Dark Ages of Ghana when we didnt have a Constitution and/or a democracy, he told the court. The lawyer for the second and third accused persons, Mr Emmanuel Kumadi, said: My Lord, respectfully, we associate ourselves with the submission by counsel for the first accused person, especially where some of the offences for which the accused persons are standing trial before this honourable court, are based on conspiracy. My Lord, its our humble submission that the presence of the first accused person will be needed for the continuation of the case, especially when he did not elect not to be present. After hearing both sides, Justice Honyenuga said: Looking at the circumstances of this case, it is my view that in order to clear any controversy or doubts about the medical report before this court, I will order the Dr Abalo Kodjo, the medical director of St. Lucy Eye Clinic, to appear before this court with all the records on the first accused [person]. The Registrar of this court is to ensure that his order is served on the said medical director per his address as stated on the medical report. In the circumstances, I will adjourn this matter to Monday, the 17th of October 2022 at 10 am. Source: ClassFMonline.com 12.10.2022 LISTEN The Ministry of Education has refuted news publications in traditional and social media that some Senior High Schools (SHS) will close down due to food shortages, particularly in the Volta Region. A press release signed by Mr Kwasi Kwarteng, Spokesman for the Ministry, and copied to the Ghana News Agency said per its checks, adequate supplies of food items had been made to the schools in question. The statement assured parents and guardians that all SHSs in the country had received adequate supply of food items, stressing that, the recent disruptions within the food supply chain had been addressed. The Ministry wishes to assure the public of its commitment and willingness in providing quality and timely supply of food to all Senior High Schools, the statement added. News items are making the rounds on alleged food shortages in some Senior High Schools, which purported that those schools were at the verge of closure. The news rolled on the back of some regional chairpersons of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) who alleged that schools would be forced to close down if the government failed to supply food. It said the Association would send students home until enough food and money were made available to the schools. This has raised concerns among the public and stakeholders in the education sector, culminating in various discussions in the media. GNA MANZINI The National Commissioner (NATCOM) of Police William Tsitsibala Dlamini, has summoned police officers to an important meeting today. The meeting was communicated to the police officers a day after lowly ranked law enforcers from the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) resolved to deliver a petition to the Prime Minister (PM), Cleopas Sipho Dlamini, who is also the Minister of Police. The junior officers had also vowed to deliver petitions to the Minister of Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, as they cited him for being responsible for the issuance of circulars dealing with remuneration in the civil service as well as the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Pholile Shakantu who is also responsible for His Majestys Correctional Service (HMCS). Subsequent to this, the NATCOM communicated with all police bases countrywide that today, a special briefing meeting shall be held at the Matsapha Police Academy. Monitoring There are about 23 police stations, 22 police posts, and 12 border posts, as well as one airport security monitoring post. These police posts and police stations are subordinated to the four regional headquarters and there is also a support unit and a police college subordinated to the executive command. Dlamini, in the communication dated October 8, 2022, informed all commanding officers and all ranks about the meeting scheduled for 10:30am. In his correspondence to the police bases, the NATCOM communicated that the meeting would be addressing officers on pertinent operational and administrative issues. In the 204 words letter, Dlamini listed the designations of the police officers he expected to attend the meeting. He said: Attending this important meeting shall be as follows: all regional commissioners, all station commanders, all members of the national executive committee (NEC) of the Police Staff Association, five police officers per regional headquarters drawn from all the ranks categories available, five officers from each police station drawn from all ranks available and five officers from all Operational Support Services Unit (OSSU) bases drawn from all the ranks. Venue Furthermore, the NATCOM requested the acting regional commissioner Police Academy to prepare a suitable venue with a sitting capacity of not less than 170 police officers. He also requested the regional commissioner for OSSU to provide a public address system (or PA system). A PA System is an electronic system comprising microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and related equipment and is used for large gatherings. Lastly, Dlamini said: Regional commissioners are to ensure attendance and provide transport for all with strict regard to economy. Following this communication to all police bases, the Chief Police Information and Communications Officer, Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, was sought for comment to establish if the meeting was called to address the concerns raised by junior personnel in the REPS. Vilakati said: The meeting is to address internal issues. It is worth noting that this publication yesterday reported that junior police officers and lowly ranked warders were planning to deliver petitions to the PM and two other ministers this week. Resolution This was a resolution taken in a meeting by over 50 law enforcement officers, following the protracted salary restructuring exercise, which saw their leaders getting an increment. In the latest twist of events, junior officers from HMCS and those from the REPS summoned the task team assigned with dealing with the impact of the non-implementation of this phase. It was said the junior law enforcers from both entities were reportedly angry, with some shedding tears over the frustrations they had endured regarding their anticipation of Phase II of the restructuring exercise. Impeccable sources said the officers reportedly informed the task team that they had not at any instance stated that they would not engage in an industrial action. The junior officers said there should be a statement which shall explicitly communicate that they had never said they would not protest or engage in a strike. Meeting It was gathered that the officers recited a resolution they expressed in the last meeting, which was to seek legal recourse regarding the salary restructuring exercise, write to the minister of Public Service and lastly, pay a courtesy call on His Majesty King Mswati III. However, during the meeting, the lowly ranked law enforcers said they could not engage their first resolution (seeking legal recourse) because when their task team engaged the minister, he said the document would not be implemented. The officers collectively emphasised that they sought to benefit from the salary restructuring exercise as they engaged in dangerous work and they were currently at the receiving end of violence meted supposedly by a clique against the current system of government. Concerns The concerns of the junior officers are the prolonged implementation of the Phase II of the restructuring exercise of 2014. Another concern was the joint task team report, which recommended that junior officers who occupied lower ranks (sergeants /sergeant instructors, warder instructors and constables/warders) in the police and Correctional services should get three per cent compensation from the Phase II of the restructuring exercise of 2014, while those in the ranks between assistant inspectors/assistant chief officers and superintendents should enjoy a salary upgrade that would range between 8.1 per cent and 22.6 per cent. The matter started in July 7, 2014 when government, through the Ministry of Public Service issued Circular No.2 of 2014 for the implementation of the restructuring programme for the REPS and HMCS. This was structured to be in two phases; Phase I, which covered the strategic levels of the two services and Phase II being the tactical layer. Phase I was implemented Phase II was not. Online luxury retailer Cettire [ASX:CTT] saw Q1 FY23 sales revenue rise 72% on prior corresponding quarter to $66.1 million. Online luxury retailer Cettire [ASX:CTT] saw Q1 FY23 sales revenue rise 72% on prior corresponding quarter to $66.1 million. CTT shares spiked in early Tuesday trade but subsided by the afternoon. Year-to-date, CTT shares are down 75%: www.TradingView.com Cettires financial trading update Here are Cettires key Q1 FY23 highlights: Sales revenue of $66.1 million grew 72% year-on-year, (Q1 2022 $38.6 million). Gross revenue up 62% to $84.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $5.5 million on delivered margin greater than 20%. Active customers up 102% to 287,626. Gross revenue from repeat customers up from 48% to 56%. Sales revenue as a percentage of gross revenue sat at 78.3%. Founder and CEO Dean Mintz commented on the companys results today: Cettire continues to demonstrate strong progress on its strategy to grow penetration of the large global personal luxury goods market. Our marketing initiatives and commercial offering are resonating with customers and we observed an acceleration in revenue and AOV growth into the quarter end, providing confidence in our Q2 outlook. The demand environment remains healthy and our quarterly performance also serves to highlight the attractiveness and resilience (to economic challenges) of the global luxury consumer. Q1 is traditionally a seasonal low point for the business. The strong profit result highlights the advantages of our proprietary software-driven automation and the uniqueness of our business model, benefiting from a highly flexible cost base, low overheads and minimal inventory exposure. Further, our profitability and supportive working capital dynamics translated into positive quarterly cash flow. While not divulging specifics, Cettire said its marketing spend fell to low double-digits per cent of sales revenue. Exciting fintech stocks The fintech sector has long operated under the growth-over-profits model. And it worked well when markets paid most of their attention to top-line growth. These days, however, profitability is back in fashion as businesses batten down the hatches. With the right choices, some fintechs can grow into very sturdy, lucrative businesses. Our market expert Ryan Clarkson-Ledward has done the necessary research required for discerning these. Hes discovered three profitable fintech stocks flying under the radar. One of them, he says, is a start-up wrestling with the big banks and winning. Download Ryans free research report on three exciting fintechs here. Regards, Kiryll Prakapenka For Money Morning October 11, 2022 Ukraine - War Propaganda And News Items Today Russia's missile and drone onslaught on Ukrainian infrastructure continues. I yesterday posted 25 headlines which over the last 7 month predicted that Russia would soon 'run out of missiles'. For laughs: The 'coping' mechanism after yesterday's 200+ missile and drones is the very same I had debunked: Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch - 14:48 UTC Oct 10, 2022 As horrible as today was for Ukraine today, the sliver of good news here is that Russia likely cant sustain this rate of missile launches. Its very telling that they have not had this rate of long range fires since the start of the war. The NY Times is lying: With Civilian Attacks, Putin Gives Hard-Liners What They Wanted 'Civilian attacks' when, as the NYT itself reports, only 14 persons were killed and less than 100 wounded yesterday during 200+ missile and drone strikes: The attacks killed at least 14 and wounded scores of others, while countless more in cities across Ukraine were terrified by dozens of incoming missiles explicitly targeting civilian infrastructure. How many of those were killed by Ukrainian air defense misses is not known. It is sad that people get killed in a war but sometimes unavoidable. The Ukraine military has killed way more civilians by its artillery strikes on Donetsk city. In 2003 U.S. 'shock and awe' in Baghdad killed at least 10,000 people. Israel kills hundreds of civilians during each of its frequent onslaughts on Gaza. Russia is obviously avoiding to kill civilians but still gets accused of doing it. --- Who is really killing Ukrainian civilians? Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal - 6:23 UTC Oct 10, 2022 "We haven't any time to put them in jail. They disappeared... somewhere" A local official jokes of massacring pro-Russian citizens of Ukraine in towns vacated by Russian forces The human rights industry is basically forbidden from acknowledging this Quoted Tweet @anatoliisharii - 18:50 UTC Oct 9, 2022 A district deputy from Ukraine brags to a Zelensky-affiliated channel journalist how they killed many Ukrainians they considered to be enemy agents. "These people gone missing". Its fun for them. Embedded video Ukrainian is false flagging its murdering of civilian 'collaborators': War Crimes - Dreizin Report --- Russia had so far also avoided to hit significant Ukrainian infrastructure. Yesterday its President Vladimir Putin explained why it had to change that. The Dugina murder, sabotage attacks within Russia, NATO destroying Nord Stream 2, and the Kerch bridge attack changed the picture: The President held a briefing session with permanent members of the Security Council, via videoconference. - Kremlin ... Thus, the Kiev regime, by its actions, has actually put itself on the same level as international terrorist groups, and with the most odious of those. It is simply no longer possible to leave crimes of this kind without retaliation. This morning, at the proposal of the Defence Ministry and in accordance with the plan of Russias General Staff, a massive strike was launched with long-range precision air, sea and land-based weapons against Ukrainian energy, military and communications facilities. In the event of more attempts to stage terrorist attacks on our territory, Russia's response will be harsh and commensurate with the threats posed to the Russian Federation. Nobody should have any doubts about that. --- Kit has a nice scoop: Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg - 18:25 UTC 10 Oct 2022 Now, this is pretty big. Advise you read in full. In brief though, "audacious" plans for destroying #KerchBridge drawn up at request of infamous British military spook Chris Donnelly, at precisely the time London was sabotaging peace talks between Russia and Ukraine this April. EXPOSED: Before Ukraine blew up Kerch Bridge, British spies plotted it - Grayzone MoA has previously exposed Donnelly and his Institute for Statecraft: The 'Integrity Initiative' - A Military Intelligence Operation, Disguised As Charity, To Create The "Russian Threat" --- Realism setting in: Don't Buy the Narrative on Ukraine - American Conservative The Western party line about a struggling Russia and a resilient Ukraine overlooks hard realities. --- Whitney is citing the OSCE reports without crediting MoA which covered them before the start of the war: Some of Us Don't Think the Russian Invasion Was "Aggression." Here's Why. - M. Whitney / UNZ Posted by b on October 11, 2022 at 9:41 UTC | Permalink Comments next page Delineate Hires Leader for Latin America UK-based insights and data firm Delineate has brought in Sandra Garbuno Alcantra as Head of LATAM. She worked for more than twenty years at Kantar, latterly as a Senior Client Lead. Delineate promises clients 'live, accurate and actionable' brand and campaign tracking data to keep them in touch with their customers and speed their decision-making. Its Proximity platform accesses consumers in more than 130 countries, delivering real time survey data via dashboards and APIs. Garbuno Alcantra (pictured) joined Kantar Millward Brown in April 2000 as a JRE and rose through the ranks by late 2020 to Senior Client Partner at what was now Kantar. She joins after a brief stint at Mediacom where she was a New Business Lead. In her new role she is responsible for leading and developing Delineate's client relationships in Latin America. The firm says her appointment is part of its ongoing commitment to delivering exceptional service to global clients: she joins eight other recent hires across Delineate's client success and operations teams, in line with strong business growth in 2022. CEO Ben Leet comments, 'We have hired exceptional talent, and I know that Sandra will hit the ground running in helping us to deliver exceptional service to our clients'. Web site: www.delineate.ai . Political Powerhouse Alex Wagner 23 strives to make a difference, at the College, in Pennsylvania and beyond. By: By Kevin Rosa 23 Monday, October 10, 2022 04:03 PM Senior Alex Wagner (third from left) and other students with Josh Shapiro (center) who is running for governor of Pennsylvania. Senior Alex Wagner is no stranger to the tough grind of politics. Throughout his years at Muhlenberg, he has been involved in various political campaigns from working with Andrea Campbell who is running for attorney general in his home state of Massachusetts, to assisting Pennsylvania candidates John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro. After serving as a paid intern last year on Fettermans ongoing campaign for the U.S. Senate spot, Wagner worked on Campbells campaign over the summer. A history and political science double major, he was responsible for managing interns for the entire state of Massachusetts, which involved assigning tasks and making sure the interns' work experience was enjoyable. It entailed, he says, "tons of phone calls, long car rides and a lot of coffee." Campbell won the primary. Wagners experience, along with the midterm elections looming on November 8, spurred him to continue with these efforts back at Muhlenberg for Pennsylvania, an important battleground state. Wagner, who is the political director for the College Democrats, recently founded a Muhlenberg chapter of Students for Shapiro, an organization designed to encourage students to both register to vote and to help elect Josh Shapiro as the new governor of Pennsylvania. Along with co-director Alex Schamberger 26 (pictured with Wagner) and other students in the College Democrats, Wagner has been canvassing, staffing phone banks and weekly text banks, working with state party officials and setting up voter registration. With the important midterm election races heating up, Wagner hopes to make a contribution during his final year at the College and to make many more in his future endeavors. Muhlenberg College offers over 120 student clubs and organizations, including College Democrats, College Republicans and BergVotes. Learn more here. PIGGS PEAK The Monarch is a no-go area for parliamentarians as their powers are limited to government matters. This was said by Prince Mhlabuhlangene, the Chairperson of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC). He was speaking during a meeting with traditional authorities yesterday at the Piggs Peak Hotel and Casino. Prince Mhlabuhlangenes presentation received a thumbs-up from the traditional authorities, who now want this to be taken to the rest of the country. The prince made a presentation on elections, in readiness for the 2023 general elections. He said parliamentarians were elected to represent the people but that their powers were not absolute. He said their authority was limited to the government section of the country and this excluded the Monarch. Separate The prince said it should be noted that government was separate from the Monarch and that the Members of Parliaments (MPs) authority ended at government level, as such, they could not cross over to the side of the Monarch. He said the MPs could say whatever they wanted about government but not the Monarch. Thats a no-go area for them, he said, adding that their immunity was limited. The prince stated that though MPs had parliamentary privilege, this did not mean they could say whatever they wanted to anyone. You cannot get that immunity if you are now canvassing things that are out of your authority, he said, giving examples of statements such as King must fall. Also, he warned that saying the Monarch must fall was treasonable as it meant that the person was fighting with the status quo. He said Eswatini was a Monarchical Sovereignty, meaning that the Monarch was protected by the law. Criticise Prince Mhlabuhlangene said it was wrong for parliamentarians to use their forum to criticise the Monarch. You can say whatever you want about the government, but not about the Monarch, he warned. Prince Kekela, Chief of Mvuma, commended EBC chairman for the presentation. He said it was very informative and hoped that it could be compiled and handed over to the traditional authorities, so that they could be able to deliver the message to the communities. Chief Kekela also wondered why parliamentarians who were supposed to work for the government interfered in matters of royalty. Bangenelwa yini, ngumoya webusathane yini? he asked. He said the section of government and that of the Monarch were different. Prince Kekela expressed hope that they could also be taught about this so that they understood their limitations. He warned that while parliamentarians were elected, kingship was acquired by birth. These are two different things, he stated. Also among the attendees were Prince Mphatfwa, who is the Chief of Ludlawini and Chief Jubiphathi of Nyakatfo. The CHCC mobile clinic outreach team along with the staff and consumers of the Center for Living Independently. Medical and patient navigation services were provided to staff and consumers for CHCCs first outreach in its newest addition to outpatient care services: the CHCC Mobile Clinic. Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and U.S. Charge dAffaires Heather C. Variava with Consul General Mark McGovern and other U.S. Embassy representatives in Manila, the Philippines. The Oceanview Middle School main sign as seen Sunday in Hagat. Following health and safety concerns noted from stakeholders, the campus was inspected by local government officials, and received a "D" rating from the Department of Public Health and Social Services. Hopwood Middle School Principal Victorino N. Borja, M.Ed., center, holds the Patriotic Employer Award as he poses for a photo with Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Guam-CNMI Area Chair Rita A. Sablan, Ed.D., third left, Employer Outreach Coordinator Rose Igitol, second left, Hopwood teacher and U.S, Army Reserve Sgt. Jonathan Sugatan, sixth right, school staff and students in the Hopwood cafeteria on Tuesday. The Bahrain Banking Association (BAB) applauded the eagerness of numerous banks to develop training programs for six months for Bahraini graduates. The program comes in response to the Central Bank of Bahrain's related decision to give national competencies with real-world experience that advances their knowledge and expertise in the financial and banking sectors and contributes to the recruitment of prominent individuals as employees at those banks. Dr Waheed Al-Qassim, CEO of BAB emphasized that while some banks have planned to start this training in the near future, others have already started receiving trainees of students and recent graduates, integrating them into their work environments, and providing them with the necessary follow-up and assistance. The six-month graduate training program in the banking and finance industry focuses on the fields that offer the most career prospects in the banking industry, including FinTech and digital financial services. Additionally, this will facilitate graduates shift to join workforce prepared with the skills and knowledge necessary for future success and advancement by ensuring that students are up-to-date with developments in the banking sector, including its trends toward sustainability, green finance, open banking, treasury, legal affairs, and public relations, among others. Al-Qassim, said: We applaud the financial and banking organizations' efficient response and constructive collaboration with the Association in putting the graduate training program the Society announced in August into action. This initiative falls under the umbrella of the CBB, Skills Bahrain, and Banking Financial Institutions' efforts to implement The Kingdom's Economic Recovery Plan, which called for the rehabilitation of national cadres and their integration into the financial and banking sector. BAB is striving to ensure the success of this initiative by providing all the necessary support, in a manner that guarantees the recruitment of national cadres and their advancement to middle and senior management positions. This is in addition to creating the right conditions for the new generation of bankers to gradually assume their role and provide fresh creative ideas, he added. -TradeArabia News Service President Joe Biden speaks during the first U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit at the State Department in Washington, Sept. 29, 2022. Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens at left. Bahrain's Labor Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) CEO Nouf Abdulrahman Jamsheer met with a number of ambassadors and representatives of diplomatic missions in the kingdom and highlighted the new labour market reform package and legislations. Jamsheer affirmed the kingdoms appreciation of the great role of expatriate communities in the development and growth of Bahrains economy, said a Bahrain News Agency report. The ambassadors and representatives of diplomatic missions were from Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Thailand, and Nepal. The CEO stressed the LMRA's commitment to develop a work environment that contributes to enhancing the investment attractiveness of the kingdom while upholding the rights of both employers and employees. She added that replacing the flexi visa and linking professional work licences with qualifications are within the follow-up on the developments and needs of the labour market, to combat irregular employment and illegal practices. Jamsheer emphasised the importance of partnership and coordination between the authority and the embassies and diplomatic missions, as well as the need to develop relations and strengthen joint action, to educate expatriate workers about their rights and duties and inform them about the latest developments in the labour market. For their part, the ambassadors and consuls hailed the meeting as an opportunity to enhance communication and coordination with the LMRA. They stressed that cooperation in accordance with the concepts of partnership with the LMRA works towards the interests of all parties to achieve common goals, said BNA. LYMAN, Ukraine Covered head-to-toe in protective suits, forensic workers pulled several bodies wrapped in black plastic from a mass grave Tuesday in Ukraines devastated city of Lyman. It was part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Ten body bags lay beside a roughly 100-foot (30-meter) trench from which authorities said 32 bodies have been exhumed so far in the city in Ukraines eastern Donetsk region. The bodies were Ukrainian soldiers who had been buried together in a mass grave, the head of the Donetsk regions military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in Lyman on Tuesday. Another 22 civilians have been exhumed from individual graves at the burial site, located on the edge of a cemetery in a forested area on the outskirts of Lyman. Further exhumations are planned. The burial site was the second found in Lyman so far, Kyrylenko said, adding that initial investigations suggested the bodies had been buried by local residents and not by Russians. We have already found more than 50 bodies of soldiers and civilians, he said. ___ KEY DEVELOPMENTS: More missiles, drones strike Ukraine, alarms keep up fear Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine Analysts: Russian missiles seek to levy pain, could backfire Russian troops carry out industrial-scale looting of Ukrainian historical treasures Weather chief: Ukraine war may be blessing for climate Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine ___ PARIS Ukraines president has urged the U.N. cultural agency to expel Russia because Russian military strikes have damaged hundreds of cultural sites around Ukraine. In a speech Tuesday to UNESCO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine has nominated the embattled Black Sea city of Odesa to be inscribed on the agencys World Heritage list. Zelenskyy said 540 objects of cultural heritage, cultural institutions and religious buildings in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed since Russia invaded Feb. 24. He asked: Why are representatives of Russia still among you? What are they doing at UNESCO? Russia currently holds the rotating presidency of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which Zelenskyy said devalues the institution itself its significance, its reputation. ___ WASHINGTON U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met Tuesday in Washington with Ukraines finance minister, Sergii Marchenko, where she stressed the importance of providing financial assistance to support you as you rebuild the prosperous and free Ukraine that your country has fought so hard to secure. Yellen said the U.S. had provided $13 billion in economic assistance grants to Ukraine. We are calling on our partners and allies to join us by swiftly disbursing their existing commitments to Ukraine and by stepping up in doing more both to help Ukraine continue its essential government services and to help Ukraine begin to build and recover, she said. ___ KYIV The Ukrainian General Staff says in the past day its forces have shot down 21 cruise missiles and 11 drones fired by Russia, including all eight Iranian-made drones targeting critical infrastructure in the Mykolaiv region. ___ MOSCOW International Atomic Energy Association chief Rafael Mariano Grossi met Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking to prevent a nuclear accident during the military conflict in Ukraine. Grossi stressed the urgent need to establish a safety and security protection zone around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Now more than ever, during these extremely difficult times, a protection zone must be established around the ZNPP. We cant afford to lose any more time. The stakes are high. We must do everything in our power to help ensure that a nuclear accident does not happen during this tragic conflict, he said. Putin told Grossi he was glad to see him and was happy to discuss all of the issues that are of mutual interest to us and perhaps even cause concern to some, and to us as well. He said those concerns involve the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the West to impose even tougher sanctions on Russias energy sector to stop the flow of money from its oil and gas exports. Speaking virtually to the leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers on Tuesday, he said this would be a symmetrical response to Russias attacks on the energy sector and energy stability of our countries. Such steps can bring peace closer, Zelenskyy said. They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war. The Ukrainian president repeated his insistence that no peace talks can be held with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ___ BERLIN Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers have pledged after a videoconference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that they will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. The leaders said in a statement after Tuesdays virtual meeting that they had reassured Zelenskyy they are undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They said they will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support to Kyiv, and that they are committed to supporting Ukraine in meeting its winter preparedness needs. The G-7 leaders condemned this weeks barrage of Russian missile strikes against cities across Ukraine and said that indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime. They said: We will hold President (Vladimir) Putin and those responsible to account. The G-7 is made up of the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Germany currently chairs the group. ___ BRUSSELS NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the 30-nation military alliance will hold a long-planned exercise next week to test the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities. Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that this is routine training that happens every year to keep our deterrence safe, secure and effective. The exercise, dubbed Steadfast Noon, is held annually and usually runs for about one week. It involves fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads but doesnt involve any live bombs. Conventional jets, and surveillance and refueling aircraft also routinely take part. NATO as an organization does not possess any nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries - the U.S., U.K. and France. Asked whether it was the wrong time to be holding such an exercise, Stoltenberg said: It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, long-time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. Stoltenberg said that Russian President Vladimir Putins nuclear rhetoric over the war in Ukraine is irresponsible. He added: Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. ___ GENEVA The head of the U.N. weather agency says the war in Ukraine is accelerating the development of and investment in green energies over the longer term even though fossil fuels are being used at a time of high demand now. The comments from Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, came as the world is facing a shortfall in energy needs prompted in part by economic sanctions against key oil and natural gas producer Russia and prices for fossil fuels have risen. That has led some countries to turn quickly to alternatives like coal. But rising prices for carbon-spewing fuels like oil, gas and coal have also made higher-priced renewable energies like solar, wind and hydrothermal more competitive in the energy marketplace. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Ukraines state nuclear operator is accusing Russian forces of abducting another senior official at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Energoatom wrote on its Telegram channel Tuesday that Valeriy Martyniuk, the plants deputy director general for human resources, had been kidnapped. It wrote that they keep holding him at an unknown location and (are) probably using methods of torture and intimidation. The plant has been held by Russian forces for months but operated by its Ukrainian staff. Reports of intimidation of the staff and abductions began trickling out over the summer. Ukrainian authorities have said that the plants director, Ihor Murashov, was seized and blindfolded by Russian forces on his way home from work, then released in early October after being forced to make false statements on camera. ___ MOSCOW The Kremlin is saying that the continuation of U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine will extend the fighting and increase the damage to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that the U.S. de facto has become deeply involved. Asked during a conference call with reporters about U.S. President Joe Biden telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington has agreed to his request to provide advanced air defense systems, Peskov said that it would only exacerbate Ukraines condition. He said: It will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result. ___ CHISINAU, Moldova Moldovas president has demanded that her countrys borders be respected after three Russian missiles bound for Ukraine crossed its airspace. President Maia Sandu said in a video address to the nation on Tuesday, a day after the incident, that we respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries and also demand that our borders be respected. Sandu said she would do everything to maintain peace in Moldova despite what she called growing pressure by pro-Russian political forces in the eastern European nation who she said had promised to Moscow to overthrow our constitutional order and install a government that will allow Russia to use our country in its war against Ukraine. Moldova, a former Soviet republic located between Ukraine and Romania, has been a strong supporter of Kyiv during the war. Russian troops have occupied its breakaway Transnistria region since 1991, when the region fought a brief war for independence from Moldova with Moscows support. ___ GENEVA The U.N. human rights office says Russian missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday were particularly shocking and could amount to war crimes. Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Russia Tuesday to refrain from further escalation and expressed concerns about strikes on civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings and energy facilities. Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations, she told reporters at a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law. Shamdasani added: We have to stress that intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects that is objects which are not military objectives amount to a war crime. ___ KYIV, Ukraine The mayor of Lviv says Russian forces have struck an energy facility in the western city. About a third of the city remains without power and there are issues with water supplies. Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said Tuesday afternoon that numerous explosions are again heard in Lviv. He didnt clarify what facility was attacked. It wasnt immediately clear if there were any casualties. Sadovyi asked city residents to stock up on water due to possible interruptions to water supplies. ___ KYIV, Ukraine The Kyiv regions regional administration says that rolling power shutdowns following Mondays Russian strikes on Ukraine may last for up to four hours each. The capitals mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said Tuesday that the strikes killed at least five people in the city and wounded 51. He vowed that the evil will be avenged. The governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said that Russian forces overnight continued to pound three districts around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is on the front line of the conflict. Those included Nikopol, a Ukranian-held city across the Dnieper River from the plant. Vinnitsya governor Serhiy Borzov said the Ladyzhynska thermal power plant was attacked with two Shahed-136 drones. The plants administration said the strikes injured six people and damaged some equipment. In Kryvyi Rih, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said that hundreds of miners stuck underground because of power blackouts were rescued by Tuesday morning. He said the rescue operation lasted all night and all 854 miners were brought up to the surface. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Officials in different parts of Ukraine have reported explosions, drone strikes and missile strikes by Russian forces. Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyi said three explosions shook two energy facilities in the region on Tuesday. He wrote on Telegram that it wasnt immediately clear if there were any casualties there. There were reports of new power outages in Lviv only hours after it had been restored after Mondays attacks. In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian forces on Tuesday shot down four Russian missiles, according to the regions governor Valentyn Reznichenko. Four more Russian missiles were downed by Ukraines forces in the south, as well as five drones over the Mykolaiv and the Odesa regions, Operational Command South said. The governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, urged local residents on Tuesday not to leave shelters as there are enough missiles still in the air. Another missile was shot down in the Kyiv region, governor Oleksii Kuleba said. ___ MOSCOW Russias foreign minister has rejected speculation about Moscows possible use of nuclear weapons, saying that it could do so only if Russia faces imminent demise. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russias nuclear doctrine envisions exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state. Speaking on Russian state television, Lavrov accused the West of spreading speculation about Russias alleged intentions to use nuclear weapons and urged the U.S. and its allies to show the maximum responsibility in their public statements on the subject. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Ukraines State Emergency Service says that 12 S-300 missiles have slammed into public facilities in Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire in the area. It says that one person was killed in the attack early Tuesday. The S-300 was originally designed as a long-range surface-to-air missile. Russia has increasingly resorted to using repurposed versions of the weapon to strike targets on the ground. ___ PRAGUE The presidents of NATO members in central and eastern Europe are condemning Mondays Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities and saying that they constitute war crimes under international law. The presidents of the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Montenegro said in a statement that war crimes and crimes against humanity arent subject to any statute of limitations and are covered by the jurisdiction of courts all over the world. They demanded that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets and said that We will not cease our efforts to bring to court persons responsible of yesterdays crimes. The presidents said that any threats by Russian representatives to use nuclear weapons are unacceptable. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Air raid warnings throughout Ukraine have sent some residents back into shelters after months of relative calm in the capital and many other cities. That lull had led many Ukrainians to ignore the regular sirens, but Mondays attacks gave them new urgency. Besides the usual sirens, Kyiv residents were jolted early Tuesday by a new type of loud alarm that blared automatically from mobile phones. The caustic-sounding alert was accompanied by a text warning of the possibility of missile strikes. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers operating over the Caspian Sea launched missiles over Ukrainian territory around 7 a.m. Tuesday. It did not provide information about the targets. It said four inbound missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian southern air command around 9 a.m. The governor of the Vinnytsia region, Serhiy Borzov, said there was an air strike there in the morning. There was no word on casualties. ___ LONDON The head of GCHQ, Britains electronic intelligence agency, says Russia is running short of weapons and its troops are exhausted. Jeremy Fleming said Tuesday that we believe Russia is running short of munitions. Fleming is due to give a public speech later, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in judgment throughout the war. According to GCHQ, he will say that we know and Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies and munitions are running out. Russias forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation. GCHQ did not disclose the sources of its intelligence. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Ukraines State Emergencies Service says that 19 people were killed and 105 others were wounded in Mondays Russian missile strikes across Ukraine. It said Tuesday that critical infrastructure facilities were hit in Kyiv and 12 other regions, and 301 cities and towns were without power. Russia on Monday retaliated for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months. They hit at least 14 regions, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the wars front lines. By The Associated Press Weather chief: Ukraine war may be blessing for climate View Photo GENEVA (AP) The head of the U.N. weather agency says the war in Ukraine may be seen as a blessing from a climate perspective because it is accelerating the development of and investment in green energies over the longer term even though fossil fuels are being used at a time of high demand now. The comments from Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, came as the world is facing a shortfall in energy needs prompted in part by economic sanctions against key oil and natural gas producer Russia and prices for fossil fuels have risen. That has led some countries to turn quickly to alternatives like coal. But rising prices for carbon-spewing fuels like oil, gas and coal have also made higher-priced renewable energies like solar, wind and hydrothermal more competitive in the energy marketplace. The energy crunch has also led many big consuming countries in Europe and beyond to initiate conservation measures, and talk of rationing has emerged in some places. Taalas acknowledged that the war in Ukraine has been a shock for the European energy sector, and has prompted an upturn in the use of fossil energies. From the five- to 10-year timescale, its clear that this war in Ukraine will speed up our consumption of fossil energy, and its speeding up this green transition, Taalas said. So we are going to invest much more in renewable energy, energy-saving solutions, and some small-scale nuclear reactors are likely to come online by 2030 as part of the solution, he said. So from climate perspective, the war in Ukraine may be seen as a blessing, Taalas added. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other leaders in the U.N. system have repeatedly made the point that as well as the tragic human impacts, the conflict underscores the rising costs of the worlds fossil fuel addiction, and the urgent need to accelerate the shift to renewables, to protect people and planet, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Taalas was speaking as WMO issued a new report that said the supply of electricity from cleaner sources of energy needs to double within the next eight years to curb an increase in global temperatures. The latest State of Climate Services annual report based on contributions from 26 different organizations focuses this year on energy. Taalas said the energy sector currently is responsible for about three-quarters of emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and he called for a complete transformation of the global energy system. He warned that climate change is affecting electricity generation and it could have an increasing impact in the future. Among the risks, nuclear plants that rely on water for cooling could be affected by water shortages, and some are located in coastal areas that are vulnerable to sea-level rise or flooding. In its report, WMO noted that in 2020, some 87% or global electricity generated from thermal, nuclear and hydroelectric systems which produce less CO2 than plants run by fossil fuels depended on water availability. By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press Thunberg: Coal worse than keeping German nuclear plants on View Photo BERLIN (AP) Climate activist Greta Thunberg says it would be a mistake for Germany to switch off its nuclear power plants if that means the country must burn more planet-heating coal. The German government is still debating the future of its nuclear plants, long set to be shut down this year, given the specter of a looming energy crisis due to the war in Ukraine. Thunberg, who inspired a youth climate movement with her solo protests outside the Swedish parliament in 2018, told German public broadcaster ARD that it was a very bad idea to focus on coal when this (nuclear power) is already in place. But she acknowledged in the interview, which will be aired Wednesday, that there was a strong debate over the issue in Germany. Asked whether it would be better for the planet if Germany keeps its three remaining nuclear plants going, Thunberg responded: If we have them already running, I feel that its a mistake to close them down in order to focus on coal. Pressed by program host Sandra Maischberger on whether she thought the nuclear plants should be closed down as soon as possible after the current energy crunch passes, Thunberg said it depends. We dont know what will happen after this. The 19-year-olds comments come as Germanys three-party governing coalition argues over the possibility of suspending the countrys nuclear phaseout. Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a member of the anti-nuclear Green party, has said keeping the reactors running would do little to tackle a gas shortage. He recently suggested that two of the plants could exceptionally operate until April but opposes running them longer for safety reasons. Habeck has separately approved reactivating several coal and oil-fired power plants to ensure energy supplies following Russias decision to cut natural gas deliveries to Europe. Environmental activists warn that Germany risks defaulting on its climate goals by burning more fossil fuels, while conservative lawmakers say the government should use all available means to generate energy given the tense supply situation and high prices. Thunbergs nuclear comments were welcomed by libertarians and right-wing German politicians who have previously been dismissive or sharply critical of her activism. The teenager, who is currently finishing high school, said Germanys decision to rely on coal plants showed what happens when you are too addicted to these kinds of fossil fuels. She slammed plans to invest in new fossil fuel infrastructure and said the focus should instead be on expanding renewable energy. The German government insists that new gas plants must be capable of using clean hydrogen and that its boosting wind and solar power production. Thunberg noted that politicians in some countries, such as Sweden, are averse to suggesting that people should save energy, even though this could lower prices. I know that in Germany people are talking about saving energy, she said. But in Sweden its completely prohibited to talk about using less energy really, because then people say, Oh no, this is communism and so on. So its completely insane. Thunberg, who was promoting her new book on climate change, said she does not believe there is a single silver bullet to solve the problem, but that as a first step its important for people to recognize the enormity of the crisis that humanity faces from rising temperatures. Im realistic because if we do the things that we need to do, we can avert this catastrophe, she said of the future. But if we dont, then we will have to suffer the consequences. So its up to us. ___ Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press During the Magical Kenya Expo in Nairobi, Netflix premiered a mini documentary highlighting its sustainability efforts through its partnership with the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ project located in Southeastern Kenya, between Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks. The Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project set up and managed by Wildlife Works protects over 200,000 hectares of dryland forest, with over 11,000 wild elephants living in the ecosystem, and is home to 120,000 community members. The video, narrated by actor Patricia Allison, and produced by conservation marketing company Everland, Wildlife Works, Freeborne Media, and Netflix, is part of an effort to underline how REDD+ is an effective and scalable market-based solution integral for companies to implement to meet their net-zero goals. During the premiere, Netflix hosted a panel discussion moderated by actor Sarah Hassan featuring Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project representatives; Jane Okoth, Media and Communications Officer, Joseph Mwakima, Community Relations Officer, and Constance Mwandaa, Ranger and Head of Training, to explore the Projects impact over time. Shola Sanni, Director of Public Policy, SSA at Netflix, said: At Netflix, we strive to contribute positively to local economies, culture, and creative communities, and thereby are dedicated to understanding and minimizing our environmental impact wherever we operate, across the globe, and many of our top creators see sustainability as a source for creative excellence and authentic storytelling that attracts vast audiences - particularly young audiences. Jane Okoth, Media and Communications Officer at Wildlife Works, said: We have to amplify community voices when talking about solutions related to climate change, the communities are the most effective guardians of the forest. Keeping the Forest intact will ensure greater access to health, education and clean water. Josh Tosteson, President of Everland, said: This documentary highlights a universal truth that community-based conservation is the most effective and immediate way to help bring an end to deforestation today. -TradeArabia News Service California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation seal View Photo Soledad, CA The California Department of Corrections is investigating a homicide that occurred behind bars at the Salinas Valley State Prison last week. 42-year-old Lawrence Adams is accused of attacking and killing 64-year-old Robert Tunstall while they were in a recreation yard. Investigators recovered an inmate-made weapon that was allegedly used by Adams. CDCR reports that Adams was admitted to state prison in October of 2007 on a life sentence, with the possibility of parole, out of Tuolumne County. It was in relation to an arson (and it being a third-strike offense). While in prison, Adams was later charged with assault causing great bodily injury in 2009, and then assault with a deadly weapon, and manufacturing a deadly weapon as an inmate, in 2016. Meanwhile, the prisoner killed, Tunstall, had been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. He was incarcerated in 1976 for a homicide that occurred in Solano County. It is unclear what led to the alleged homicide. Ex-Michigan governor asks court to drop Flint water charges View Photo DETROIT (AP) Lawyers for former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder urged a judge Tuesday to dismiss misdemeanor charges related to the Flint water crisis, a week after another judge took that step with seven other former officials. Snyder wasnt covered by Judge Elizabeth Kellys decision because she was overseeing felony charges against the seven. But his legal team said the same law and logic must be applied, especially after the Michigan Supreme Court said the indictments were invalid. This court should reach the same conclusion, attorney Gaetan Gerville-Reache said in a filing. Snyders next hearing with Judge F. Kay Behm is set for Oct. 26. He is charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty. In 2014, Flint managers appointed by Snyder took the city out of a regional water system and began using the Flint River to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was being built. But the river water wasnt treated to reduce its corrosive qualities. Lead broke off from old pipes and contaminated the system for more than a year. Snyder and eight others, including his administrations two senior health officials, were indicted by a one-judge grand jury, an unusual, secretive way to get criminal charges in Michigan. The Supreme Court, however, said in June that a judge doesnt have that authority, throwing the investigation of the water scandal into disarray. Kelly rejected efforts by the attorney generals office to simply send the cases to Flint District Court and turn them into common criminal complaints. Prosecutors are trying to do the same in Snyders case a magical conversion, Gerville-Reache said. Its possible that prosecutors could start from scratch and file charges again, though a six-year statute of limitations could be a hurdle with Snyder and others. Flint in 2015 returned to a water system based in southeastern Michigan. Roughly 10,100 lead or steel water lines had been replaced at homes by December 2021. The city had 100,000 residents in 2010, but the population fell roughly 20% to 81,000 by the 2020 census following the water crisis, according to the government. ___ Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez By ED WHITE Associated Press Deputy Minister Martin Tlapa visited Tanzania and Rwanda on October 3-6, 2022. The negotiations focused on the possibilities of further political and economic cooperation, especially in the field of security and healthcare. He was accompanied by representatives of the Association of Manufacturers and Distributors of Medical Devices. Rwanda will open its embassy in Prague. Political consultations with Tanzania's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Mbarouk N. Mbarouk, focused on both the bilateral and global agenda. Tlapa explained to his partner the attitude of Czech diplomacy towards Russian aggression in Ukraine and asked Tanzania to support the principle of maintaining the immutability of territorial integrity and respect for international law. In the bilateral area, both sides agreed on the need to modernize the contractual base and mutual support of trade and investment activities. M. Tlapa introduced the partner to the proposal of a candidate for the honorary consul of the Czech Republic in Tanzania. Consultations in Rwanda took place with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Nshuti Manasseh. A very friendly atmosphere of mutual relations was mentioned, which has intensified recently. M. Tlapa appreciated the Rwandan decision to open an embassy in Prague and promised all-round assistance in this process. In the matter of Russian aggression and its condemnation, Rwanda is among the African states that supported us in the UN vote. Rwanda strongly perceives the danger that stems from the violation of international law, the sovereignty of states and the inviolability of state borders. The importance of close cooperation in the field of security in the context of current world developments was also noted at the meeting with Deputy Inspector General of Police Felix Namuhorany. Meetings at Ministries of Health of both countries - with the Minister of Health of Tanzania Ummy Mwalimu and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health of Rwanda Zachee Iyakaremy - were very beneficial. The meetings provided the necessary insight into the health care organization system and the specific needs of the departments. Both countries have the provision of quality healthcare as one of their government priorities. Both Rwanda and Tanzania are trying to switch to a compulsory health insurance system, but this also brings with it challenges in the form of the quality of services provided. The partners therefore welcomed the opportunity to help finance purchases of high-quality Czech medical equipment, which was presented by representatives of the Association of Manufacturers and Distributors of Medical Devices and by individual companies. Deputy Minister Tlapa together with the management of the Association presented the concept of Czech Centers of Excellence. This should provide not only top equipment for selected healthcare workplaces, but also training and education of professionals medical staff and technical maintenance. There should be only a few such centres in Africa, and both Tanzania and Rwanda were selected for the pilot phase of the project. The Rwandan and Tanzanian sides have shown great interest in the solution, and negotiations on practical steps to establish these centres will directly follow the visit of Deputy Minister Tlapa's delegation. KateLynn White graduated from Tennessee State University, where she was an editor of the student newspaper. She interned for The Tennessean and The Tennessee Tribune before joining the Nashville Post in 2022. She also contributes to the Nashville Scene. Follow KateLynn White 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 My job with the Post has evolved since October 2000, when I began work with The City Paper. In 2008, both publications became aligned via former owner SouthComm Inc. I have served as Post managing editor since 2011. Follow William Williams 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 (Natural News) The Barbara Bush Childrens Hospital (BBCH) at the Maine Medical Center reportedly offers medical interventions, such as gender-affirming hormone therapy that prevents childrens natural biological development. According to its website, the BBCH named after former First Lady Barbara Bush is dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of transgender, gender diverse and questioning youth across Northern New England. The hospital offers treatment to children and their families from childhood through adolescence and young adulthood, i.e. age 26. Other services offered by the BBCH include menstrual suppression to stop unwanted periods and puberty blockers to stop the development of puberty hormones. Gender-affirming hormone therapy such as estrogen for boys and testosterone for girls are also available. Moreover, the hospital also offers surgical consultation including mental health letters or referrals for gender-confused children. (Related: KIDS and TEENS are texting Miami plastic surgeon by her request on TWITTER to set up sex-organ-mutilation-surgery appointments.) For those who do not want to go under the knife, BBCH also offers guides for children on how to bind their breasts and tuck their genitals. BBCH pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Jerrold Olshan said in a video that transgender children are probably genetically programmed to act in a manner opposite to their biological sex. He remarked: Our big goal is how do we help this population do better in the long run? Another hospital with gender-affirming medical services takes down website The Maine-based BBMC is not the only medical facility offering gender-affirming medical interventions to transgender children. Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in Tennessee also offers the same services, but took down its website about these treatments. Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire outlined his bombshell findings about the medical facility in a lengthy Sept. 20 Twitter thread. My team and I have been investigating the transgender clinic at [VUMC] here in Nashville, he wrote. [VUMC] drugs, chemically castrates and performs double mastectomies on minors. But it gets worse. He cited a 2020 video from VUMCs YouTube channel, wherein the hospital admitted to giving irreversible hormone drugs to children as young as 13. After they have drugged and sterilized the kids, [the hospital] will happily perform double mastectomies on adolescent girls, he wrote. Walsh also zeroed in on the Trans Buddies program, which VUMC offered alongside gender-affirming hormone therapy and pubertal blocking. According to the journalist, the program involves transgender activists from the Nashville community. These activists attend appointments with trans patients, monitoring the doctors to guard against unsafe behaviors such as misgendering. Moreover, the Daily Wire journalist posted videos of the Tennessee hospitals doctors espousing such procedures. He posted footage of VUMCs Dr. Shane Taylor during a 2018 lecture where she bragged about convincing the hospital to offer gender transition procedures. According to Taylor, such procedures were big money makers mainly because the surgeries require a lot of follow-ups. VUMC began offering gender-related procedures when it opened in 2018, the same year as Taylors lecture. A second footage, this time from another VUMC doctor, showed apparent threats against medical professionals who had objections about the procedures religious or otherwise. If you are going to assert conscientious objection, you have to realize that this is problematic. You are doing something to another person, and you are not paying the cost for your belief. I think that is a real issue. I just want you to take home that saying that youre not going to do something because of your religious beliefs [its] not without consequences and should not be without consequences. I just want to put that out there, remarked the hospitals Dr. Ellen Clayton. Visit GenderConfused.com for more information about transgender treatments and their effects on children. Watch the video below to learn more about why hospitals are pushing transgender surgeries. This video is from the FreedomProject Media channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Profits ahead of children? Medical center hides pediatric transgender procedures after exposure. Transgender women using hormone therapy are MORE likely to develop breast cancer. U.K. government bribing doctors with cash to mutilate patients with sex-change therapy. Vanderbilt University Medical Center deletes website for gender treatments following Matt Walshs bombshell revelations. Sources include: Breitbart.com MRCTV.org InfoWars.com Brighteon.com Two Bahraini startups have signed deals at Gitex Global 2022, which is running in Dubai from October 10 to 14. The week kicked off with the signing of an agreement by Bahraini startup VirtuThinko on its first day of participating in Gitex with the Boston-based American company HYCU, which specialises in cloud data protection with the purpose of providing their services in the region. Also the Bahraini digital transformation solutions provider exhibiting in the Bahrain Pavilion, Atyaf eSolutions announced a partnership with Codebase Technologies, a world-leading provider of Open API Banking solutions to create an innovative and first-of-its-kind 3-in-1 marketplace enablement platform, Dinarii. Tamkeen sponsorship The Labour Fund (Tamkeen) sponsored the Bahrain Pavilion and supported the participation of 30 Bahraini SMEs and Startups from the information technology and telecommunications (ICT) sector. The delegation includes a number of partners from Bahrains ecosystem such as the Information and eGovernment Authority, the Economic Development Board, Bahrain Development Bank and Hope Fund. Bahrains participation is being organised in collaboration with Bahrain Technology Companies Society (BTECH). Bahrains Ambassador to the UAE, Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah bin Ali Al Khalifa, visited the Bahrain Pavilion and its exhibitors as part of the Pavilions opening, where he was received by the Acting Chief Executive of the Labour Fund (Tamkeen) Maha Mofeez, members of the delegation, and participating Bahraini SMEs who showcased their innovative products and services. Shaikh Khalid expressed his appreciation for Bahrains unique presence in Gitex and the innovative concepts presented by Bahraini entrepreneurs from the kingdoms ICT sector with technology that matches leading global trends and advancements. He also praised Tamkeens role in providing the support required for Bahrains participation in the exhibition, alongside their quality support programs that are designed to empower the private sector, upskill the national workforce, and enhance the competitiveness of Bahraini talent in the labor market. Strong presence He stated: We are proud of the strong Bahraini presence in Gitex, and we are committed to supporting it year after year. We look forward to Bahraini companies reaping the benefits of their participation in this global tech event through building international partnerships, establishing strong commercial ties with decision makers in leading global companies, gaining access to regional and international opportunities, and developing concepts that can cater to different markets. Mofeez emphasised that Tamkeens ongoing support for Bahrains participation at Gitex is in line with the organisations commitment to supporting private sector enterprises and enabling them to explore opportunities for growth and expansion, and to promoting their products and services to regional and international markets, which contributes to creating more quality job opportunities for Bahrainis, developing the economy, and diversifying revenue streams. She added: Through this participation we aim to provide Bahraini entrepreneurs and enterprises with opportunities to connect with potential clients, forge partnerships, learn the challenges and opportunities available through digital transformation, showcase their latest products and service to exhibition visitors, and make business deals that can enhance the exchange of knowledge of exhibition participants from across the world.-- TradeArabia News Service (Natural News) An FBI document being kept from the public under court seal undermines the governments seditious-conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers, shows that the indicted members of the group are not guilty, and proves that the prosecution is lying to the jury, a former Oath Keepers attorney said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times on Oct. 7. (Article by Joseph M. Hanneman republished from TheEpochTimes.com) Jonathon Moseley, who previously represented Oath Keepers defendant Kelly Meggs before his law license was revoked, said an FBI interview with a U.S. Capitol Police officer shows the Oath Keepers protected the officer from an angry mob near the Capitol Rotunda on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021. This documenttogether with a photograph of the moment inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6proves that the prosecution is lying to the jury, Moseley said in the statement (pdf). No one who engages in seditious conspiracy or insurrection stops to come to the aid of the police against the mob. If the Oath Keepers were involved in any way in any insurrection or conspiracy to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, would they turn and stand between the U.S. Capitol Police against the mob? Moseley asked. This is not merely a good act. This is absolute proof that there never was any insurrection or seditious conspiracy. The prosecutions entire case is a fraud upon the American people. William Miller, public information officer for the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia, declined to comment on Moseleys statements. We typically do not comment on cases beyond our public statements and filings to the court, and have no comment, Miller told The Epoch Times in an email. The FBI document in question, a Form 302 summary of officer Harry Dunns interview with two special agents, came up in open court on Oct. 6 during the seditious-conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III and four co-defendants, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Thomas Caldwell. Judge Issues Public Warning Prosecutor Jeffrey Nestler informed Judge Amit Mehta that Moseley was threatening to release a sealed document. In response, Mehta took the unusual step of suggesting the news media covering the trial post messages to Moseley on social media saying that he would be jailed if he released the document. Judge Mehta says that if Mosely does he will be in contempt of court and he urges us (reporters) to tweet that out so Moseley will know that. Moseley claims the doc lost its protective order status; Mehta: i decide when somethings lost that status. /59 Roger Parloff (@rparloff) October 6, 2022 These public tweets from journalists reporting on Mehtas public warning are visible as an incredible event in the already farcical prosecution, Moseley said. Two FBI agents interviewed Dunn on May 18, 2021, about the incident in the Small House Rotunda. According to video footage from an independent journalist, and portions of the FBI summary of Dunns interview reviewed by The Epoch Times, a group of Oath Keepers came upon a volatile standoff in the Small House Rotunda at 2:48 p.m. on January 6. Dunn and at least two very agitated protesters in the crowd were shouting at each other. Dunn has said he did not have his finger on the trigger of his rifle, according to his FBI interview. A bullet was in the chamber but the firearms safety was on, he said. Rhodes told the FBI in an interview that same month that Dunn shouted at the crowd, Im going to take as many of you [expletives] with me if you come for my rifle, according to an interview summary obtained by The Epoch Times. The Oath Keepers got in between that cop and the Trump supporters and calmed things down and de-escalated the situation, Rhodes said. And protectedand protected him. In a March interview with The Epoch Times, Rhodes said the situation in the Small House Rotunda could have gone critical very quickly. The stakes in the situation were high, which is why the Oath Keepers stepped in to be a buffer, Rhodes said. If youre armed and you got unarmed assailants, multiples coming at you, youre in a lethal-force situation and you cant let them take your gun, he said. So in that kind of situation, law enforcement officers will shoot. Kellye SoRelle, former general counsel for the Oath Keepers, told FBI agents in May 2021 that the people shouting at Dunn were agitators. At the time, Dunn was guarding the stairs leading down to the Lower West Terrace tunnel entrance. Dozens of officers were inside the building in that location, which was used as a decontamination station for police hit with pepper spray, according to bodycam footage reviewed by The Epoch Times. Dunn said when the Oath Keepers approached him, he told them the protesters were fighting police, according to the FBI interview summary. The Oath Keepers told Dunn they would be a barrier between him and the angry crowd, the FBI document said. Dunn said he allowed them to stand in front of him to keep the crowd from getting down the stairs. Dunn told the FBI he was not angry or scared but rather distressed inside. He had his rifle flush with his chest in Condition 1, meaning a round was in the chamber, the FBI summary said. Oath Keepers member Graydon Young said he and other Oath Keepers aided numerous people in need of first aid after they entered the Capitol Rotunda that afternoon, according to a summary he wrote on Jan. 8, 2021. The Oath Keepers had reached the top of the east steps at the Columbus Doors and got caught in [the] crowd and shoved in, Young said. Trying to De-Escalate Once we were in we tried to discourage property destruction, Young wrote. I specifically yelled at people who knocked over a sign in the hallway and broke glass. That made us angry we saw that as our property. Young said he approached a police officer and told her the Oath Keepers conflict was with Antifa, not law enforcement. We had been told that Antifa was in the crowd inciting the riots and they were the ones damaging property, Young wrote. We also knew someone had been shot and were trying to de-escalate. Young was referring to the fatal shooting of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt in the hallway outside the Speakers Lobby at 2:44 p.m., some 5 minutes before. Young wrote that his team leader, OK Gator 1 [Meggs] reported that he and a few other Oath Keepers interposed between a police officer and the angry mob. He appeared distressed and had his finger on the trigger, Young wrote. Our guys de-escalated by firmly telling both sides to calm down. Another police officer was advised to give ground. That officer acknowledged the situation was a broken arrow. In military parlance, broken arrow means a unit has been overrun and needs additional support or backup. Dunn later said he did not know what a broken arrow was and did not hear anyone use the term on January 6. While acknowledging Oath Keepers stood between him and the crowd, Dunn said he did not need to be de-escalated. Dunn disputed the reports that his finger was on the rifle trigger, saying that would have only happened if he was aiming the firearm at an active threat, the FBI summary said. In June 2022, Young agreed to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy in a deal with federal prosecutors. A conviction for those crimes could carry up to 25 years in prison. Young has not been sentenced. The new details about the Dunn incident will likely be used by defense attorneys in the Rhodes trial to counter prosecutors claims the Oath Keepers were attacking the Capitol in order to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Oct. 7 was the prosecutions fourth day presenting evidence against the Oath Keepers in U.S. District Court in Washington. Moseley said he disputes the governments claim that there were no closed-circuit security cameras in the Small House Rotunda that would have captured the Oath Keepers interactions with Officer Dunn. Must Have Been Cameras Each year tourists, school children, lobbyists, and the public mainly visit the Rotunda, Statuary Hall, the so-called crypt museum room, and the hallway in between where the incident on January 6 occurred, Moseley said. The incident was at the top of a major stairway, where a camera would be placed. Yet the government claims that they cannot find security camera recordings of the incident in this very public location. The concealment of the video recordings alone could justify dismissal of the prosecutors case. Moseley disputed that he issued any threat about the FBI document in his correspondence with prosecutors Nestler and Kathryn Rakoczy. He said he reminded prosecutors of their own stated policy and gave them the unwarranted and extra courtesy of notifying them that he would be writing a news analysis article on the topic. Moseley said in previous situations, including FBI interview notes of Michael Greene, the operations leader for the Oath Keepers on January 6, the documents could be released if redactions were made to blot out the names of FBI agents and any unindicted persons. The Dunn document as redacted fails to meet the test of sensitive under the protective order, Moseley said. There is no legitimate interest in the DOJ in covering up its own fabrication of a criminal case against the Oath Keepers. Moseley said he was struck that even after Mehta issued the jail threat in open court that was picked up by myriad news media outlets, none of those journalists are the slightest bit interested in what the document says. Read more at: TheEpochTimes.com (Natural News) An investigation into gold teeth Ukraine claimed to have recovered from a Russian torture chamber has revealed that they were actually from a village dentist. On Tuesday, Oct. 4, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense posted a photograph showing a box filled with gold dental crowns they claimed were extracted from Ukrainian victims in a torture chamber in the town of Pisky-Radkivski in Kharkiv province. A torture chamber in Pisky-Radkivski, wrote the Defense Ministry. A box of gold dental crowns. A mini Auschwitz. How many more will be found in occupied Ukraine? (Related: New report finds Ukrainian troops equally liable for nursing home massacre early in war with Russia.) The so-called torture chamber was found in a cellar of a home, where locals were allegedly kept in inhumane conditions and were intimidated, beaten and abused. Ukrainian officials, including Anton Geraschchenko, an advisor to the minister of internal affairs, further claimed that Russian occupiers tortured Ukrainian residents by other means. This includes burying people alive and putting a burning rag into a gas mask and forcing villagers to wear it. Since the beginning of Ukraines counteroffensive in the Kharkiv, officials have claimed to find torture sites all over the province. The military even claims to have found at least 10 in the city of Izium alone. Local dentist: These teeth look like the ones from my cabinet The story regarding the mini Auschwitz torture chamber in Pisky-Radkivski was shared uncritically by multiple mainstream media outlets, spreading the story to millions of people all over the world. But reporters for German-language media outlet BILD visited Pisky-Radkivski a day after Ukrainian officials and mainstream media spread claims of torture in the village. They found that the teeth did not come from dead or tortured villagers, but from patients of a local dentist. These teeth look like the ones from my cabinet, said Sergey, 60. Im the only dentist here. So if they were found here, they must be mine. He told BILD that the teeth are actually gold-colored stainless steel, adding that the teeth were likely used to intimidate locals. Nearby residents reported to me that the Russians apparently used these to scare people, said Sergey. When asked by BILD if theres a chance the crowns came from dead people villagers or Ukrainian soldiers Sergey said the teeth came from people he has treated over the years. I took those teeth out because they were bad, he said. Over the course of 30 years, I have removed tens of thousands of teeth. This is just a fraction of them. Sometimes I pull out five to eight teeth in one day. I have been doing this for 33 years, said Sergey. Learn the truth about whats happening in Ukraine at UkraineWitness.com. Watch this clip from InfoWars as Alex Jones interviews journalist George Eliason about how political violence is Ukraines biggest export. This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Democratic Ukraine threatens five years in prison for any citizen who votes to join Russia. Its not even close: Study finds far more bots are promoting pro-Ukraine propaganda. Amnesty International incites anger from the globalist West for telling truth about Ukrainian war crimes and HUMAN SHIELDS. Former French marine returns from Ukraine, says war crimes are being committed by Ukrainian troops who would skin Jews or Blacks. CNN celebrates evil Ukrainian doctor whos ordering physicians to carry out WAR CRIMES against wounded Russians by castrating them. Sources include: InformationLiberation.com Newsweek.com BILD.de Brighteon.com (Natural News) New photos show that Arizona Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs participated in and led her high schools yearly Slave Day tradition, which appears to mirror the African slave trade that Democrats fought to preserve in the American Civil War. (Article by Jordan Conradson republished from TheGatewayPundit.com) The Seton Catholic preparatory high schools yearbook photos show students being led on a collar and chain and being auctioned off to other students. Another photo appears to show a student wearing blackface, with a caption saying she just loves slave day. Hobbs was later convicted by two separate juries of racial discrimination against a black woman and former Arizona Senate staffer when she was the Senate Minority Leader. The Gateway Pundit reported that Talonya Adams, the victim, called on Hobbs to resign from office and drop out of the race for governor, saying Hobbs fits the dictionary definition of a racist and She has no place in government. Daily Mail reports, Arizona Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs was a student leader at her Catholic preparatory high school when pupils took part in a yearly tradition known as Slave Day. Copies from past yearbooks of Seton Catholic Preparatory High School were obtained by DailyMail.com and appear to show the practice went on for nearly four decades and was last mentioned in a yearbook from 1997. Hobbs, who played an active student body role as a member of the yearbook staff and student council for part of her tenure, went to school there from 1984 through 1988. The tradition entails freshman students performing tasks for senior class masters that included performing embarrassing acts of servitude. One example from the 1985 yearbook, which would have been the end of Hobbs freshman year, describes slaves in her grade wearing unbecoming hairdoes and unbecoming outfits, sporting embarrassing signs and performing embarrassing acts of servitude for senior masters for a day. Its not clear if Hobbs participated herself in the auctions, but her 1987 Student Council page credits her and the other student leaders for having coordinated the many class events during Spirit Week when Slave Day appears to have been celebrated. She would have likely known the tradition was celebrated and regularly featured in the Seton Catholic Prep yearbook when she joined its staff in 1987. The 1987 yearbook mentions Slave Day four times. An accompanying image shows a student on their knees while wearing a collar and leash led by what appears to be a fellow classmate. Yearbook images show seniors are also auctioned off for a couple of dollars to freshman students. One portion from Hobbs senior class yearbook refers to her grade paying for cruelties rendered during freshman initiation week on a day called Senior Slave Day. Another image shows a white female student with what appears to be black paint streaked across parts of her face. DailyMail.com has reached out to Hobbs campaign for comment via email three times but has not heard back. Seton Catholic Preparatory High School also did not respond to inquiries about Hobbs participation or whether the Slave Day practice is still ongoing. Local media in Arizona continues to run cover for Katie Hobbs, despite her clear history of racism. We recently reported that one Arizona radio station has refused to air a private citizens commercial because they expose Hobbs racist past. Media outlets also refuse to ask Hobbs about her past racism. Hobbs is running against Trump-Endorsed Republican Kari Lake, and she has not agreed to a debate fearing that her record will be exposed. Lake recently called Hobbs out on her refusal to debate at a press conference saying, You guys like to call the Conservatives all of these names, neo-Nazi, whatever you call us. The true racist is Katie Hobbs. Twice-convicted! Katie Hobbs is as racist as they come. Read more at: TheGatewayPundit.com (Natural News) British author J.K. Rowling denounced celebrities who backed a transgender charity linked to an individual supporting pedophilia. She reserved strong words toward British transgender charity Mermaids, which was found to have employed a trustee who attended an event in support of pedophilia back in 2011. The aforementioned trustee, Jacob Breslow, even gave a speech at the event organized by the B4U-ACT organization, which promoted understanding about people in our communities with an attraction to children or adolescents, and to support them living in truth and dignity. According to the Times of London, Breslows presentation during the event zoomed in on how societies view pedophiles. It also opted to use the politically correct term minor-attracted persons instead of the more accurate term. The trustee promptly resigned from his position at Mermaids following the report. Breslow was only appointed as a Mermaids trustee in July. The charity denounced Breslow and B4U-ACT, saying that both are completely at odds with [its] values. Once notified, we took swift and decisive action to investigate, Mermaids said. We will be reviewing our processes and procedures in light of this event to make them even more robust. Safeguarding is of the utmost importance to Mermaids and the safety of the young people we support is our highest priority. When you appoint a trustee to a childrens charity, you do due diligence. A simple Google search would have enabled Mermaids to read Breslows own words. Either [it] did literally no checking, or [it was] fine with his views, Rowling pointed out. The author best known for her Harry Potter books ultimately remarked that Mermaids blunder was a catastrophic safeguarding failure. Despite having leftist political views, Rowling herself fell victim to the leftist woke mob. Her remarks about how transgenders are canceling biological women spurred intense backlash, including various organizations severing ties with the author and transgender activists doxxing and threatening her and her family. (Related: Transgender fury as JK Rowling mocks article for suggesting men can menstruate.) Rowling: Woke celebs panicking after Mermaids fiasco Describing itself as a safe place for transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse young people, Mermaids has drawn the support of various celebrities and public figures. These include Prince Harry, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the eight Harry Potter film adaptations. Mermaids also received funding from the British government and the National Lottery. But following the expose about Breslow, the author took to social media to speak out her thoughts. I dont doubt that there are some panicky phone calls being placed to [public relations] people by certain corporations and celebrities right now, but as they remain completely insulated from the severe harm theyve enabled, my sympathy can be measured in gnats thimbles, wrote Rowling. According to the author, she did not believe that Mermaids would have been able to achieve its level of influence in British society were it not for the money and public support of certain corporations and celebrities, who eagerly boosted them even though the red flags have been there for years. Rowling also mentioned that Mermaids had a large influence over the now-disgraced Tavistock Center in London. The gender reassignment clinic was ordered to close down over safety concerns. Canadian YouTuber Liana Kerzner challenged Rowling over her criticism of Breslow, referencing the authors opposition to cancel culture. She tweeted in reply to Rowling: Would you want to get fired for views you held 10 years ago? The Harry Potter author responded in kind: If Id been arguing for the de-stigmatization of pedophilia 10 years ago, had never recanted those views and then wheedled my way onto the board of a charity for vulnerable kids, then damn right I should be fired. Visit Groomers.news for more stories like this. Watch Paul Joseph Watson of Summit News discuss the cancellation of J.K. Rowling below. This video is from the Mindy channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: JK Rowling SLAMS police for logging male rapists as women. CBC kids show attacks JK Rowling for her refusal to back transgenderism. Transgenderism destroyed my dad who almost destroyed me. JK Rowling is right to sound alarm. JK Rowling is right: Biological sex is REAL, and if you dont think its real how can same-sex marriage even exist? Warner Bros. scolds J.K. Rowling for stating the obvious: That biological sex is real, and transgenderism is delusion. Sources include: Breitbart.com Twitter.com 1 Twitter.com 2 Brighteon.com (Natural News) Democrats for years have claimed to be the party most welcoming to illegal aliens, creating sanctuaries for them in any city they run, shunning cooperation with federal immigration officials. But that was once upon a time: Now, after nearly two years of suffering through a migrant and drug-smuggling crisis, Republican governors in border states are sharing the pain and putting Democratic leaders vows of we welcome immigrants to the test. And the Democrat leaders are failing. Late last month, community leaders of ritzy Marthas Vineyard were outraged when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) flew a group of about 50 migrants to the uber-wealthy, uber-liberal community, and the Democrats who run the community got rid of them in less than 48 hours, bussing them off to a nearby National Guard base. And now, another massive Democrat hypocrite, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, has been exposed. Over the past several months, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) have been bussing migrants to the Big Apple by the thousands, and now, the welcoming sanctuary city has had enough: Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency late last week and began begging for federal assistance. Adams said at least 17,000 asylum seekers have been bused to New York City from other parts of the country since April and claimed that many of the people didnt know where they were going when they boarded the buses, Axios reported ahead of the weekend. (Thats a lie, by the way Abbott, Ducey, and DeSantis have all proven that the migrants are informed of where they are going and volunteer to get aboard the busses.) To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C. We are sending them to the U.S. Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of people they are allowing to come across our border, Abbott said. To board a bus or flight, a migrant must volunteer to be transported and show documentation from DHS. Mayors and county judges can notify TDEM of any DHS-facilitated drop-off of migrants in their communities so that the agency can provide appropriate transportation, a press release added. As for Adams, he not only freaked out but he blamed Abbott and other GOP governors, not Joe Biden, whose open-border policies created the crisis in the first place. This is a humanitarian crisis that started with violence and instability in South America, and it is being accelerated by American political dynamics, Adams whined. The majority are adults, who cannot legally work in this country. Many are families with school-age children. Some are in desperate need of serious medical care. We have not asked for this. There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers. This responsibility was simply handed to us without warning as buses began showing up, he continued. Were going to do what we have to do in New York, but we do need help to deal with this crisis that were facing. Actually, the real crisis is along the U.S.-Mexico border; Texas and Arizona are bearing the brunt of it, with New Mexico and California also seeing an uptick in crossings. For his part, Abbott isnt asking the Biden regime for anything. To achieve what were talking about right now requires no additional funding right now, Abbott said. Securing the border does not come cheap. Securing the border would cost Texas nothing if the federal government was doing its job, but because Joe Biden is not securing the border, the state of Texas has had to step up and spend Texas taxpayer money to do the federal governments job. Meanwhile, Adams continues to be a massive hypocrite. Sources include: Axios.com CBSAustin.com (Natural News) The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies agreed to reduce their oil production by a sizable amount. Under the OPEC+ banner, the 23 petroleum-producing nations will slash their oil output a blatant rejection of U.S. President Joe Bidens plea for more production. The powerful consortium of oil producers, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, will reduce their outputs somewhere between 500,000 and two million barrels per day (bpd) beginning in November 2022. OPEC+ earlier reduced its output by a record 10 million bpd back in early 2020, when demand slumped because of the pandemic. The Oct. 5 decision did not sit well with the White House, which denounced the move in a statement. It expressed Bidens disappointment with the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of [Russian President Vladimir] Putins invasion of Ukraine. (Related: Oil prices set to skyrocket again after Saudis, OPEC, rebuff Biden and announce production cuts.) In light of todays action, the Biden administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPECs control over energy prices, the statement said, adding that the cartels decision to reduce production was a reminder of why it is so critical that the U.S. reduce its reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels. Moreover, the White House press release also mentioned that Biden already directed the Department of Energy to release another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in November. Back in July 2022, Biden visited Saudi Arabia and was even pictured greeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi prime minister. His visit sought to convince Saudi Arabia to pump more oil to help the global economy, in time for the U.S. midterm elections in November. However, Biden failed to convince the Saudi royals to churn out more petroleum to lower prices. Biden allies angered by OPEC+ decision The Oct. 5 decision by OPEC+ to slash production also incensed Bidens Democratic allies, believing that the move was clearly politically motivated. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: It is clear that OPEC+ is aligning with Russia with todays announcement. Speaking to CNBC, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said the oil-producing cartel made a mistake in arriving at such a decision. I think its time for a wholesale re-evaluation of the U.S.s alliance with Saudi Arabia, he remarked. Meanwhile, New Jersey Rep. Tom Malinowski quickly introduced legislation mandating the U.S. military to pull out troops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. If you want to side with Putin, then ask Putin to defend you, the congressman tweeted. Good luck with that. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden reiterated that his trip to Saudi Arabia was not essentially about oil. The trip was about the Middle East, about Israel and rationalization of positions, he said. Were looking at what alternatives we may have. There are a lot of alternatives. We havent made up our minds yet, the president added, dubbing the OPEC+ decision as a disappointment. FuelSupply.news has more stories about the OPEC+ consortiums petroleum production. Watch the below video that talks about Putin and OPEC joining forces to reject Bidens demand of increased oil production. This video is from the Conservative Politics & NWO channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: OPEC+ cuts oil production by 100K barrels per day amid dropping oil prices, stoking fears of global recession. Gas prices to rise after midterms as Biden ends raid on national oil reserve. Russia to halt oil exports to nations that impose price cap on Russian crude. The suicide sanctions against Russia will collapse America and Joe Biden was installed as the useless idiot that will usher in our destruction by design. Sources include: CNBC.com Reuters.com NYTimes.com TheGuardian.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Investigative reporter Aubrey Taylor told Dr. Steven Hotze that a Texas congresswoman paid vote harvesters to vote on behalf of dead people, elderly nursing home residents and persons living outside the state back in 2020. Taylor made this revelation on the Oct. 3 episode of The Dr. Hotze Report on Brighteon.TV. He named Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat, as the mastermind behind the vote fraud during the 2020 primary elections. Taylors team found that absentee voters for dead people, nursing home residents and Americans who have already moved out for more than two decades were still turned in. According to the reporter, absentee ballot harvesting had been going on for decades. They managed to trace it to several Black women known as the dream team. One member of the dream team, Gloria Palmer, was hired by Lee to help out in her campaign in Harris County. Palmer hired individuals to help her do the gathering. After they collected the ballots they worked on for weeks or months, they took those back to a central processing plant, he explained. Once they have the requisite number of ballots they want, they sent all the ballots back in. Palmer, who was a nurse working at a nursing home, was even recorded bragging that she had direct access to elderly individuals. Hotze added that vote harvesters like Palmer have contacts at nursing homes and can get the list of residents names through them. They fill those out for an application for ballot by mail, unbeknownst to the patients. Once ballots are filled out, which may be done on their behalf by nurses [or] vote harvesters, they take them out to a processing house where they process the votes, the host said. Taylor: Harris County conducting an organized election crime Taylor also cited fraudulent ballot requests during his appearance on Hotzes program. One such request came from an elderly lady now based in New Orleans who had not been in Harris County for 26 years. The said request was granted, and a blank ballot sent to an address in the 18th congressional district of Texas under Lees purview. Another request saw a person asking for an absentee ballot, despite being dead for almost 30 years now. Taylor managed to get information through an open-records request, which revealed the dead individuals requesting absentee ballots. Ultimately, both program host and guest agreed that Palmer and her crew may be voting on behalf of these individuals. Both Hotze and Taylor believe that Lees mafia-like organization did not just rig their primary election results, but also committed a crime that should be looked into based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. (Related: Democrat confesses to running voter fraud scheme in 2020 election.) You cant knowingly send a fraudulent document to the postal service. They harvest these ballots and drop them into the mailbox. Thats a federal crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison, he told Hotze when the host brought up U.S. Code 1341, which deals with mail fraud. Hotze agreed, pointing out that it wasnt just a violation of the Texas election code to do vote harvesting, which is a felony offense for which one can get jail time. Somebody needs to get that message to Gloria Palmer now. Theres a civil case going on and we subpoenaed her to give a deposition in my civil lawsuit. But she has run away and currently hiding, Hotze said. According to Taylor, theres a system to this and the problem is that elected officials and candidates running for office are working in concert with one another to do this. Now, if you ask me, that rises to the level of organized crime or criminal enterprise, he said. Youve got over a 10-year period and more than two predicate acts that fall under RICO. Hotze explained that when you steal votes and peoples identities and vote on behalf of dead people, you are committing an organized crime. Visit VoteFraud.news for more about election fraud in different U.S. states. Watch the full Oct. 3 episode of The Dr. Hotze Report with host Dr. Steve Hotze and guest Aubrey R. Taylor below. Catch new episodes of the program every Monday at 5-6 p.m. on Brighteon.TV. More related stories: Vote fraud: Illinois primary votes are being switched between different candidates. Wisconsin disability service coordinator: Vote fraud rampant in assisted living facilities. Mail-in votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania show evidence of coordinated vote fraud for Biden. Sources include: Brighteon.com KatyChristianMagazine.com (Natural News) General Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of Ukraines armed forces, posted a photo to Twitter of himself wearing a swastika bracelet. Although Kiev dismisses accusations of Nazism within its ranks as Russian propaganda, its soldiers are often photographed wearing the symbols of the Third Reich. (Article republished from RT.com) In a post on Thursday, Zaluzhny declared that Ukraines struggle against Russia is on a scale that the world has not seen since the Second World War. It was not immediately clear which side of the struggle he was referring to. Adorning Zaluzhnys wrist in the photo is a bracelet made up of multiple tiles, at least one of which features a swastika. The photo itself has been circulating online since at least March. A handful of pro-Ukrainian commentators claimed that Zaluzhnys bracelet actually depicted a Scandinavian pagan symbol, which looked like a swastika due to digital compression of the image. Zaluzhny himself commented on one Facebook post insisting that this was the case. However, he is not the first Ukrainian service member accused of wearing Nazi insignia. Apart from the notorious Azov regiment of the Ukrainian military (which originated as a neo-Nazi militia), regular Ukrainian service members have been seen wearing the deaths head, or totenkopf, the symbol of the 3rd SS Panzer Division, and have also daubed swastikas on their vehicles. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has posted an image of a Ukrainian soldier wearing the standard of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a photo of an artilleryman wearing the deaths head, and a photo of one of his own bodyguards wearing the same totenkopf patch. Two of these pictures were posted to Zelenskys official Instagram account. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the outsized influence of neo-Nazi groups on Ukraines military and government as one of the factors influencing his decision to send troops into the country in February. In addition to protecting the Donbass region and demilitarizing Ukraine, Putin vowed to denazify the country. Despite the evidence, Ukrainian officials and some Western media outlets have described accusations of neo-Nazism as myths and Russian propaganda. Read more at: RT.com (Natural News) Girlboss militarists have encouraged and coordinated all of the Globalist American Empires disastrous adventures in recent years, from bombing the former Yugoslavia, to the color revolution in Ukraine, and the overthrow of Gadhafi. Now they are tripping over one another to stand tough against Putin, heedless of the skewed risk-reward calculus. (Article republished from Revolver.news) From Chronicles: In a recent episode of Breaking Points, co-host Krystal Ball responded with disgust to UK Prime Minister Liz Truss reckless willingness to use nuclear weapons in an international crisis. You all can call me sexist or whatever, but there is a problem with these neoliberal-type women wanting to prove that they are as tough and hawkish as neocons, Ball said, giving Hillary Clinton as an example. Theres a pattern of this; theyve got to prove they are as warmongering as dudes and so I think thats also a part of what you see there. And she [Truss] has been extremely hawkish in her language when it comes to Ukraine as well. This is a sentiment that most male members of the media might be reluctant to bring up in public due to the predictable accusations of sexism that would fly in their direction, but it is a trend worth noting. And while it clearly is partly the need to show the strength of a man that Ball suggests, there are also additional factors at play, as well. For example, the pretty young Finnish PM who goes clubbing and kisses men who arent her husband may as well be John Bolton. Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin was asked about a potential off-ramp for Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Her reply: pic.twitter.com/VblWxkMuFc Rikhard Husu (@RikhardHusu) October 7, 2022 Pedro Gonzalez nails the dynamic at play here: This is Sam Hydes theory that female cops would be the most likely to needlessly/negligently shoot a suspect because they feel threatened/need to prove theyre badass but on the level of nations armed with nukes instead of Glocks and tasers Pedro L. Gonzalez (@emeriticus) October 9, 2022 Heres Sam Hydes discussion of female cops: His musings soon proved prophetic when a female cop shot and killed someone, thinking her gun was her taser: Pray for peace. The future of Europe pic.twitter.com/YC70RIB09Q Paul Massaro (@apmassaro3) October 8, 2022 Read more at: Revolver.news (Natural News) President Joe Bidens handlers quietly had him sign an executive order late Friday evening when no one was looking that demolishes what is left of Americans constitutional protections against unauthorized government intrusion into their lives. In particular, Bidens order repeals the restrictions placed upon signals intelligence collection that is, electronic spying that were actually put in place by his former running mate, Barack Obama, and as is typical with Democrats, the language of the order is completely contradictory to what the order actually does: The Executive Order of October 7, 2022 (Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities), establishes enhanced safeguards for United States signals intelligence activities that supersede the safeguards for personal information collected through signals intelligence established by Presidential Policy Directive 28 of January 17, 2014 (Signals Intelligence Activities) (PPD-28) There are no enhanced safeguards. Rather, the guardrails have been removed. Here is what Obamas order established: The collection of signals intelligence shall be authorized by statute or Executive Order, proclamation, or other Presidential directive, and undertaken in accordance with the Constitution and applicable statutes, Executive Orders, proclamations, and Presidential directives. (b) Privacy and civil liberties shall be integral considerations in the planning of U.S. signals intelligence activities. The United States shall not collect signals intelligence for the purpose of suppressing or burdening criticism or dissent, or for disadvantaging persons based on their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. Signals intelligence shall be collected exclusively where there is a foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose to support national and departmental missions and not for any other purposes. [Emphasis added] (c) The collection of foreign private commercial information or trade secrets is authorized only to protect the national security of the United States or its partners and allies. It is not an authorized foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose to collect such information to afford a competitive advantage[4] to U.S. companies and U.S. business sectors commercially. (d) Signals intelligence activities shall be as tailored as feasible. In determining whether to collect signals intelligence, the United States shall consider the availability of other information, including from diplomatic and public sources. Such appropriate and feasible alternatives to signals intelligence should be prioritized. That actually seems pretty reasonable following the Constitution even if/when the electronic eavesdropping was authorized via executive order (could it be this was the precursor to spying on Trump?). Meanwhile, Bidens order states: The Executive Order establishes enhanced safeguards in recognition that signals intelligence activities must be conducted in a manner that takes into account that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their nationality or wherever they might reside, and that all persons have legitimate privacy interests in the handling of their personal information. In addition, signals intelligence activities present the potential for national security damage if improperly disclosed. Therefore, it is essential to maintain the policy process refined by section 3 of PPD-28 and supplemented by the classified annex to PPD-28, under which national security policymakers consider carefully the value of signals intelligence activities to our national interests and the risks entailed in conducting those activities, the order adds, before going on to repeal most of PPD-28. Revocation. PPD-28 is hereby revoked except for sections 3 and 6 of that directive and the classified annex to that directive, which remain in effect, Bidens order states. Why repeal this? And why do it now? What is coming down the pipe from the regime? Is Biden planning on ramping up spying on certain figures in support of the war in Ukraine? Or more likely is the regime planning to start spying on political opponents inside the country, otherwise known as Republican voters? If we had to bet, wed say the latter. Otherwise, there is no reason to touch PPD-28. Sources include: Revolver.news ObamaWhiteHouse.Archives.gov UK explorer, best-selling author, photographer and filmmaker Levison Wood will share stories from his adventures in more than 100 countries when he takes to the Future Stage at World Travel Market London on November 7. The British Army Major has been described by The Times as Britains best-loved adventurer, while TV travel legend Michael Palin says: Levison Wood has breathed new life into adventure travel. Highlights of Levisons expeditions, which were all documented in Channel 4 and Discovery series, include walking the 4,250-mile length of the Nile that took nine months; a six-month journey of over 1,700 miles from Afghanistan to Bhutan; walking 1,800 miles along the length of Central America from Mexico to Colombia; hitchhiking the Silk Road and circumnavigating the Arabian Peninsula. Along the way he has learned the importance of conservation, gained deep understanding of different cultures and has trailed migrating elephants - documented in his book The Last Giants and on Channel 4 in the series Walking with Elephants. The Art of Exploration, Levs recent book, brings together his many lessons from the road and will cover how we can all benefit from applying the philosophy of travel and the Art of Exploration to our normal everyday routines. Lev will be embarking on a 12-date theatre tour this month, sharing his knowledge and experiences with UK audiences. Released this summer, Levs latest publication saw him curate an anthology of the best writing about endurance, adventure, survival and exploration. Endurance features 100 extracts of non-fiction and fiction about the most astonishing acts of human endurance. World Travel Market London Exhibition Director, Juliette Losardo, said: Levison sees travel through a truly unique lens, and has untaken journeys many of us could only dream of. Hes circumnavigated the Arabian Peninsula, hitch-hiked the Silk Road and walked the length of the Himalayas! In November, hell be joining us at ExCeL London to inspire our audiences and explain why off the beaten track experiences have a firm place in the future of leisure tourism. He has also demonstrated how a passion for travel can be a force for good - furthering ones understanding of the world and the many different cultures that inhabit it. TradeArabia News Service (Natural News) When it comes to the unsafety and ineffectiveness of Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines, the data pretty much speaks for itself. On the very day the mRNA (messenger RNA) shots became available in Australia, for instance, there was a massive and we mean massive spike in covid and non covid excess fatality per week, a data chart by the same name shows. Prior to that, excess deaths were much lower from week to week. It was not until Operation Warp Speed was launched that the deaths started rolling in big time. Former New York Times science reporter Alex Berenson tweeted about this, stating plainly that covid jabs are killing people, plain and simple. Best guess, they lead to about a 10% rise in non-Covid mortality and no reduction in Omicron deaths, he added. This is Australian data, very clean because AUS had ~no Covid before vaccines; deaths are 17% above normal in 2022. (Related: In 2021, Berenson was banned from Twitter for quoting the results of a Pfizer clinical trial that reflect badly on the injections.) The mRNA Covid vaccines are killing people, plain and simple. Best guess, they lead to about a 10% rise in non-Covid mortality and no reduction in Omicron deaths. This is Australian data, very clean because AUS had ~no Covid before vaccines; deaths are 17% above normal in 2022. pic.twitter.com/Rbc4qk9AV3 Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) October 5, 2022 Excess deaths spiked again after the boosters were introduced Right after the launch of the first round of covid injections, excess deaths appear to have dropped back down for a bit, only to spike once again around the start of 2022. This is the time when the so-called booster shots were introduced, suggesting that these are responsible for another round of excess deaths. Since that time, excess deaths have remained significantly elevated and have not dropped back to baseline. It is unknown precisely why excess deaths dropped back down to almost baseline following the initial round of shots but has not dropped back down following the introduction of the boosters but Berenson has his own theories on that. the rise in deaths is higher and lasts longer after the third shot, he says. The dose makes the poison, and artificially modified mRNA (in an LNP shell) doesnt seem to be a product humans tolerate well with repeated exposure. It makes sense, does it not? The only solution to stopping this mass genocide of the global population is to stop jabbing people with these things but we all know that is unlikely to happen any time soon. According to Berenson, these are not even real vaccines because no true vaccine only lasts for just a couple months. Whatever these things are, they are providing the immunity promised and appear to be triggering many, many deaths. The mRNA Covid vaccines (theyre not vaccines, no vaccine lasts two months) are unsafe, ineffective, and should be withdrawn, Berenson says. Unsafe. Ineffective. Should be withdrawn. Ill just keep saying it. Because its true. And because I can. The mRNA Covid vaccines (theyre not vaccines, no vaccine lasts two months) are unsafe, ineffective, and should be withdrawn. Unsafe. Ineffective. Should be withdrawn. Unsafe. Ineffective. Should be withdrawn Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) October 6, 2022 Datasets out of Israel show similar spikes in death around all the times when covid injections and their boosters were introduced en masse. At every new release interval, the death counts spiked dramatically. The vaccine fanatics have not yet realized the debate around the mRNAs is quickly moving from: What kind of fool would oppose them? to How much harm have they done? No surprise, as they made the same mistake with masks, school closings, and lockdowns, Berenson says. The vaccine fanatics have not yet realized the debate around the mRNAs is quickly moving from: What kind of fool would oppose them? to How much harm have they done? No surprise, as they made the same mistake with masks, school closings, and lockdowns. Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) October 6, 2022 More of the latest news about Fauci Flu shots can be found at ChemicalViolence.com. Sources for this article include: Revolver.news NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Everything the government did to supposedly mitigate the public health fallout from the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) scamdemic ended up making people sicker, new data shows. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a retrospective report showing that in August 2021 at the height of the vaccination campaign for the Fauci Flu, children under the age of 18 saw their highest level ever of common cold hospitalizations. It is believed that having to wear a face mask and avoid normal social interactions caused children to develop a severely weakened immune system. As a result, many of them got severely ill, even during the height of summer, and had to be hospitalized. (Related: Lockdowns and face masks also destroyed childrens mental health.) Children need to be exposed to germs throughout their development in order to build immunity. Not only were they kept away from other peoples germs, but their own festered inside the mask as they breathed, unnaturally exposing them to harmful levels of germs and other toxins. Over time, children are getting sicker and sicker The CDC sampled random pediatric hospitals across the United States to determine how prevalent illnesses were throughout the plandemic. If the governments mitigatory measures were effective, then there should have been a decrease in hospitalizations around that time. Instead, the CDC found that a record number of young children tested positive for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), also known as the common cold. In a normal year, most of these children would have suffered a few sniffles before recovering. In 2021, however, more children than ever had to be admitted to the hospital for extreme cold symptoms. Researchers say this is due to weakened immunity caused by children having to live unnatural lives in isolation from their friends and even family members while masked many hours a day at school. Many of these same children were also injected with gene-editing mRNA (messenger RNA) chemicals that permanently reprogrammed their DNA while giving them vaccine-induced AIDS (VAIDS). The August count obtained by the CDC showed record cold hospitalizations among children for the summer period, followed by another record for the winter period the following December when 60 percent of children on wards with respiratory illnesses were found to be infected with RSV. Since that time, the prevalence of respiratory issues in children has only continued to get worse. In the week ending September 18, 4.7 percent of emergency room visits for toddlers were for breathing difficulties, this being a record high. Dr. Scott Roberts, a medical director at Yale University, told the United Kingdoms DailyMail Online that covid lockdowns greatly damaged childrens ability to develop natural immunity to common bugs like colds. There has also been a sharp uptick in the number of ER visits among children aged five to 14 years due to reactive respiratory diseases and asthma. These figures, along with the others, were reported in the CDCs Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWF). All participants had at least one symptom of a respiratory disease including a cough, earache, runny nose, sore throat and shortness of breath, the DailyMail Online reported. Each was then tested to determine which disease they had been infected with. This does not necessarily mean that they had been hospitalized because of this disease. There was also a dramatic rise in firearm suicides in 2021, reaching a 30-year high, according to the CDC. More than 26,000 Americans killed themselves using a gun in 2021, according to provisional federal data or 55 per cent of all suicides, reports explain. That marks the highest rate since 1990. Covid is long over, but the establishment is still trying to use it as an excuse for tyranny. To keep up with the latest, visit Pandemic.news. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk NaturalNews.com (Natural News) A New Zealand doctor wants answers after losing his medical license for questioning and speaking out against Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines. Dr. Emanuel Garcia believes that not only is his countrys government behind the persecution but also the United States-based Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). (Related: State medical boards all across the country are threatening doctors who question covid injections.) We desperately need a real and deep investigation into this private entity that is pulling strings worldwide, Garcia told The Defender. Garcia is board-certified in both psychiatry and neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He was a public health consultant psychiatrist until the end of October 2021 when he resigned from his position at the Hutt Valley District Health Board after he was told he needed to get vaccinated for the Fauci Flu. At the same time, Garcias medical license came up for renewal with the Medical Council of New Zealand. He reapplied to keep it, but was told that the council had resolved to suspend him from practicing medicine for rejecting the covid jabs. Dr. Garcias conduct raises one or more questions about the appropriateness of his conduct or the safety of his practice, the FSMB said. Doctors are no longer allowed to freely practice honest medicine Garcia believes that the chief psychiatrist at his hospital reported him to the medical council because I made these videos wherein I spoke about natural immunity, the early treatment, (and) how ridiculous it was to try to eliminate a respiratory environment. The council ultimately found fault with Garcia for refusing to adhere to its May 6, 2021, guidance statement, COVID-19 Vaccine and Your Professional Responsibility, which declares Fauci Flu shots to be the cure for Chinese Germs. Dr. Curtis Walker, the council chair, later announced that there is no place within the practice of medicine for anti-vaccine messages. Another violation Garcia committed was sending an open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern entitled, Another Disastrous National Lockdown. He also routinely posted other videos on YouTube and elsewhere about the Chinese Virus. In Garcias view, nothing he did was all that revolutionary. All he did, he says, was point out basic things to the public as he witnessed the unfolding of the scamdemic. Instead of fighting back against his suspension, Garcia decided to just quit because he was sick of their duplicity and wanted out already. My lawyers were advising me to fight and to sign a so-called voluntary undertaking which would have muzzled me, he further told The Defender. Had he signed the voluntary undertaking, Garcia would have essentially muzzled himself, which he is not willing to do. To agree to its terms is to agree to play by their rules, which is a no-go. I refused, he says. I gave a lot of talks at parliament during the protests here in New Zealand, and I spoke freely unfettered. By quitting and maintaining his freedom of speech, Garcia can fully disengage from the council and all its fascism through the use of common law, or equity law. According to the rules and principles of equity, I exercised my equitable right to annul, abrogate and cancel my registration with the Medical Council of New Zealand, Garcia said. Through this, he further learned about the councils connection with the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities (IAMRA), the international arm of the FSMB. The Chair-Elect of the IAMRA, Joan Simeon, just happens to be the CEO of the Medical Council of New Zealand, and the Secretary of the IAMRA, Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, just happens to be the President and CEO of the FSMB. Be sure to read the full Defender report. More related news can be found at BadMedicine.news. Sources for this article include: ChildrensHealthDefense.org NaturalNews.com (Natural News) It has been revealed that the United States government via the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a special contract to a Ukrainian company to conduct COVID-19 Research in the months leading up to the release of the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19). Labyrinth Global Health INC. was told to research the alleged virus beginning on Nov. 12, 2019, about a month before the alleged virus was known about and three months before it was officially announced as Covid-19 on the world stage. How can this be if covid appeared for the first time in China after the DoD asked Ukraines Labyrinth to research it? That is a question that has still not been answered. (Related: Is Ukraine a biological weapons outsourcing nation for NATO?) According to reports, the COVID-19 Research program commissioned by the DoD was part of a much larger project, also in Ukraine, called the Biological threat reduction program in Ukraine. We also know that Peter Daszaks EcoHealth Alliance and Ernest Wolfes Metabiota were both in collaboration with Labyrinth at the time when this was all happening. Is this why Biden keeps sending billions to Zelensky? The website USA Spending, which as its name suggests catalogues American government spending, reported as of April 12, 2021, that the United States government had spent a mind-blowing $3.63 trillion in response to COVID-19. Since that time, the Joe Biden regime has spent billions more, specifically on Ukraine, though now under the guise of the war effort against Russia. What was all this money spent on? We know that much of it was awarded as research contracts to firms in Ukraine and elsewhere and this has been going on for years. Even long before the scamdemic, American taxpayer money was being poured into foreign research firms that handle biological weapons. On Sept. 20, 2021, for instance, a massive contract was given for Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services pertaining to all this. Obviously, this is very vague and most likely of little interest to anyone who happens to stumble across it, reports The Expose. But there is something contained deep within the details that should be of interest to anyone and everyone. On another occasion, money was poured into awards for laboratory equipment in Kyiv and office furniture in Kyiv. Do American taxpayers know that their hard-earned money is being spent on such things? The SME Manuscript Documentation and COVID-19 sub-award that was given to Ukraine on Nov. 12, 2019, deserves special attention because it mentions an alleged virus that supposedly did not even exist at that time. It shows that the government knew about the Fauci Flu before the world knew about it, and was paying a Ukrainian company to research it. Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp. also received a contract award from the DoD. How and why was this allowed? As for Labyrinth Global Health, which was founded in 2017, it is described as a women-owned small business with deep expertise and a proven track record supporting initiatives for scientific and medical advancement, as well as: a multicultural and international organization with offices in four countries and a team of experts with diverse backgrounds and competencies, including microbiology, virology, global health, emerging infectious disease nursing, medical anthropology, field epidemiology, clinical research, and health information systems. With offices in Kyiv, Labyrinth calls this Ukrainian city a gateway to Eastern Europe and that it certainly is, in more ways than one. By all appearances, Ukraine is the gateway to international biological crimes against humanity, if we are truly being honest. The full report on this with many more details is available at The Expose. Want to learn more about the dark underbelly of deep state operations in Ukraine? Visit Treason.news. Sources for this article include: Expose-News.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The always egotistical Elon Musk thinks he has the solution to the China-Taiwan conflict, having suggested to the Financial Times recently that Beijing should simply take control of the island of 23 million people. Musk says Taiwan needs to become a special administrative zone of communist China, similar to how Hong Kong is currently designated. My recommendation would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, Musk said, adding that his recommendation probably wont make everyone happy. Musk had been asked a question about where his Tesla company operates a super factory in Shanghai. (Related: Remember when Elon Musk lied about fully self-driving Teslas?) China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province that it will eventually reclaim, either through diplomacy or by force. The communist giant has offered Taiwan a one country, two systems model of governance similar to Hong Kong, though mainstream Taiwanese political parties have all patently rejected this proposal. And its possible, and I think probable, in fact, that [Taiwan] could have an arrangement thats more lenient than Hong Kong, Musk added during the interview. Taiwanese politicians blast Musk for his arrogance In 2020, China imposed a tough National Security Law on Taiwan that prompted Wang Ting-Tu, a senior lawmaker for Taiwans ruling Democratic Progressive Party, to write on Facebook the following: Individual independent companies cannot take their ownership as a joke. So why should they casually pass off the democratic freedoms, sovereignty and way of life of 23 million Taiwanese? Another senior Taiwanese official responded to Musk directly in a statement to Reuters that the electric vehicle (EV) guru needs to find a clear-headed political adviser before shooting off his mouth, as he clearly loves to do. The world has seen clearly what happened to Hong Kong their economic and social vibrancy abruptly ended under Beijings totalitarian rule, this same official added. Beijing, meanwhile, has not said much about Musks statements thus far, though a Chinese foreign ministry basically told him to mind his own business by declaring that the situation with Taiwan is a domestic affair. Conservatives especially need to come to grips with the fact that despite his past suggestions about possibly expanding free speech on Twitter, Musk is all about himself and his own interests. These latest statements about Taiwan more than likely reflect the fact that Musk operates Tesla factories in China and does not want to offend the nation, from which he massively profits. The guy only seems to care about himself and certainly does not share the same values as the average American, no matter how much he tries to pander to that demographic. Ive been predicting this for two years, one commenter wrote about the matter. The Taiwanese people know what happened in Hong Kong and they know there is no way to negotiate with communist China. It will all take some time as the slow assimilation of Taiwan into the mainland works its way through the hearts and minds of the people and becomes a mainstream mantra. Once the Taiwan politicians begin to embrace the concept, its game over. Another wrote that Chinas presumed conversation with Musk before he made these latest statements probably went something along the lines of: Hey Elon, you can keep selling your cars in China if you publicly suggest thank you for your cooperation. Taiwan needs to tell him to beat it just like Ukraine did, wrote someone else about how the world is growing weary of Musk and his annoying antics. The latest news about Elon Musk can be found at ElonMuskWatch.com. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The state of Florida has issued a new warning about the dangers of Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines. Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo made an announcement that the Florida Department of Health conducted a thorough analysis on mRNA (messenger RNA) injections using a self-controlled case series, a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety. Using this method, it was determined that young men between the ages of 18 and 39 have an 84 percent increased risk of suffering cardiac-related damage within 28 days if they get jabbed with Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) mRNA needles. Covid is already over, of course, but the Biden regime is still pushing Americans to take jab after jab after jab for the latest variants and sub-variants, including deviations of the so-called Omicron (aka Moronic) variant of the Fauci Flu. Ladapo recommends that males aged 18-39, as well as anyone with preexisting cardiac conditions such as myocarditis or pericarditis, avoid getting jabbed with mRNA. (Related: Ladapo helped free Floridas children from Fauci Flu scamdemic tyranny.) Studying the safety and efficacy of any medication, including vaccines, is an important component of public health, Ladapo is quoted as saying. Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians. Ladapo added that because there is already a very high level of global immunity to the Fauci Flu, there is simply no point in getting injected with mystery chemicals from Big Pharma especially if you are a young man. Ladapo censored on Twitter over new guidance Over the weekend following the issuance of Ladapos new guidance, Twitter reportedly censored Ladapo for spreading misinformation about the Chinese Virus and its associated shots. Local news in Florida reported that Ladapo faced both criticism and even brief censorship over the new rules. Even though he is a doctor and the one in charge of coming up with health guidance such as this, Twitter employees feel as though they know better than he does who should get injected. Not long after Ladapos post was removed from the far-left social media platform, Gov. Ron DeSantis press secretary issued a statement that this is an unacceptable and Orwellian move for narrative over fact. Local media seems to support the Ladapo ban, citing other experts like Jason Salemi, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida, who believes that the risk of cardiac death is worth it to avoid potential covid complications. Salemi blasted Ladapo for leaving out certain things that he says point to covid injections being a good bet for young, healthy men. There is always a risk, he said, seemingly discounting the idea that this risk is anything significant. Once Ladapos temporary Twitter ban expired, he got back on the platform and blasted it for arbitrarily silencing his scientific assessment, as well as his critics. Isnt it great when we discuss science transparently instead of trying to cancel one another? he wrote. is it really that hard to imagine that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines that increase myocarditis in young men by 10x, 20x, or 30x (see Karlstad et al, JAMA Cardiology, 2022) also increase the risk of cardiac death in that age group? Of course its not, and we all know that. In the comment section at an independent report on the matter, someone wrote that Ladapo makes Fauci look like a very, very little person. Slowly, cracks in the facade are being widened, added another about the plandemic sham. This will turn out to be a holocaust of expert making. To learn more about the dangers and ineffectiveness of covid injections, visit ChemicalViolence.com. Sources for this article include: CitizenFreePress.com FloridaHealthCovid19.gov NaturalNews.com WEARtv.com (Natural News) Contrary to what some insist, there have never been any safety studies conducted on gender-affirming care for children. The pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries being imposed on American kids to turn them transgender are untested. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never approved any of them, and yet parents are lining up their children for a transition. After their bodies are trans-ified, many of these kids end up developing serious health problems that they carry throughout their lives. Some end up with brain damage while others become suicidal. The drugs destroy not just sexual organs but also vital organs and even bones. Kids who otherwise would have grown up healthy are now suffering from bone loss. Many of them can no longer urinate or defecate without special equipment. One would think that such treatments would be banned, seeing as how they are damaging childrens lives permanently. After all, things like raw milk are banned because they might make people sick, we are told but unapproved transgender mutilation procedures are okay? America has become an evil backwards-land The government is not only turning a blind eye to the off-label use of unapproved drugs for child transitions, it is actively promoting it. How did we get here? (Related: The Big Pharma drugs being dispensed to transgender children are linked to blindness.) Puberty blockers and sex hormones do not have U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for childrens gender care, Reuters reports about the issue. No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear. And in 2016, the FDA ordered makers of puberty blockers to add a warning about psychiatric problems to the drugs label after the agency received several reports of suicidal thoughts in children who were taking them. Further, no large-scale studies have ever tracked the aftermath of people who received so-called gender-affirming care. Are they happy with their decision? Do they regret it? We continue to hear about cases of transgenders who deeply regret the decision to destroy their bodies. It turns out that becoming ones true self is not all it is cracked up to be. While some are lucky enough to de-transition, at least partially, many more are not so lucky. They will have to live the rest of their lives in a damaged and broken state. When asked about all this, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) admitted to Reuters that the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents. In other words, these treatments absolutely destroy childrens health the NIH is just avoiding taking a politically incorrect position by admitting the truth. The NIH is funding what it says is a comprehensive study into trans outcomes. The agency is following about 400 transgender kids who were treated at four different U.S. childrens hospitals. The results are still years away, though, and may not even address concerns such as fertility and cognitive development. This massive experiment in human mutilation is sure to have disastrous results no research necessary. The country really is swirling the toilet with this stuff, and the hell that awaits society has only just begun. Any parent that pushes their child into this, teacher that pushes a child, or doctor that prescribes these dangerous drugs should be immediately charged with child abuse or worse and the child should immediately be taken from the home for their own safety, someone who reads Natural News wrote. More of the latest news about the transgender fad can be found at Transhumanism.news. Sources for this article include: Reuters.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The central banks of Israel, Norway and Sweden have signed up to a Bank of International Settlements-led (BIS) project that will test the feasibility of using central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for cross-border payments. Known as Project Icebreaker, it will enable fast international transactions using CBDCs at a significantly lower cost compared to existing systems for cross-border use of CBDCs. The project will be led by the Innovation Hub Nordic Center of the BIS. The Innovation Hub will spearhead the development of a new hub that will connect the proof-of-concept CBDC systems of Bank of Israel, the Norges Bank of Norway and the Sveriges Riksbank of Sweden. Along with the Innovation Hub and the three participating central banks, the project will also involve participating local digital currency wallet providers, money changers, retailers and consumers. Beju Shah, head of the Innovation Hub, said the project will explore CBDC designs and architecture and concerns relating to financial policy. The goal is to reduce the operating expenses that come with using CBDCs and to increase the speed and transparency of transactions. The BIS hopes to have a final report on the outcomes of the experiment by the first quarter of 2023. (Related: Experts warn: Centralized digital currencies could be used to control how people behave.) These learnings will be invaluable for central banks thinking about implementing CBDCs for cross-border payments, said Shah. Central bank officials from Israel, Norway and Sweden have noted that this project will help them further develop their own CBDCs the digital shekel, the digital krone and the e-krona, respectively. Norges Bank Executive Director for Financial Stability Torbjorn Haegeland said the project will help the bank improve its current tests involving the use of CBDC for retail payments. Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel Andrew Abir noted that digital currencies will help small countries with an open economy like Israel facilitate efficient and accessible cross-border payments. Mithra Sundberg, head of Sveriges Riksbanks e-krona development division, said Project Icebreaker will help the bank gain valuable lessons regarding cross-border payments using a CBDC. Project Icebreaker could usher in one-world currency Similar international initiatives to test the use of CBDCs have been implemented in China, Malaysia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. On the Oct. 6 episode of The JD Rucker Show, host JD Rucker noted that this is one of the first projects testing out CBDCs on a large scale with this many Western nations. Rucker pointed out that CBDCs are commonly tested outside of the Western world, and the success of this project could usher in one-world currency. Rucker also noted in an article how businesses, financial institutions and regular consumers do not benefit from the creation of CBDCs. All of the supposed benefits coming from CBDCs are already present in cryptocurrencies and in digital payments. Banks and other financial institutions are also already able to conduct financial transactions in a quick and secure fashion. The only people in society that will benefit from CBDCs, Rucker said, are government officials and their partners in the finance sector. Governments and their world banking partners will benefit from CBDCs in the form of absolute control over the people, he wrote, warning how the freedom-killing component of CBDCs will rob people of financial freedoms for the sake of whatever cause the Cabal wants us to impose. Rucker added that once most of the world has replaced their currencies with CBDCs, the globalist financial system will then transition to a one-world central bank digital currency. They know what this means, said Rucker about the government officials pushing for CBDCs. They know it means losing privacy, being under surveillance. They know that it means people will lose their freedoms and they know that their nation will lose its economic sovereignty in the long run. They know this, yet theyre pushing forward because its what they want, he added. They want control they want globalist ideas. They want the Great Reset to happen. Watch this episode of The JD Rucker Show as JD Rucker talks about how the CBDC project of Israel, Norway and Sweden is a test-run for the one-world currency. This video is from the JD Rucker channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: New digital currencies being pushed by global elite will destroy privacy, allow total surveillance of purchases. Biden regime pushing digital dollar so government can seize assets at will, control population. Central Bank Digital Currencies are the bullet train to digital concentration camps. US governments new Central Bank Digital Currency is a fast track to digital concentration camps. Global reset fully underway as 90% of central banks push for digital currency that governments can control. Sources include: Brighteon.com ReclaimTheNet.org CoinTelegraph.com BIS.org AmericaFirstReport.com (Natural News) New revelations have surfaced linking Joe Biden and other Democrats to corruption in communist China. Konnech, a Michigan-based election management company, was just exposed for sending all of its political donations to Biden and other Democrats and not a single Republican. The company, which managed software used to organize poll workers in Los Angeles County, is reportedly now part of an investigation into the possible theft of personal identifying information of those workers, local authorities confirmed. The Los Angeles County District Attorneys office says that Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and that only United States citizens and permanent residents have access to it. However, it was determined that the company instead stored that information on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) servers. This prompted the arrest of Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, we are told. (Related: Remember when Biden promised to collaborate with communist China if installed into the White House?) Konnech sued election integrity organization for outing its CCP ties Reports explain that nearly 50 political donations were made to Biden and other Democrats by Konnech staff, including Eugene Yu. Forty-nine of these donations totaling $1,897.69 came from three employees in addition to Yu: Business Development Manager Laura Potter; Product Director Eric Staats; and Chief Operation Officer Aaron Brown. Brown reportedly made a $75 donation to Bidens presidential campaign on Oct. 30, 2020, despite the fact that the firm took in cash grants from federal and state agencies to assist with election infrastructure beginning in 2010. Staats donated twice to the 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who aligns himself with far-left political causes and policies. Konnech workers also sent cash to Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, and two-time failed presidential wannabe Hillary Clintons 2016 running mate Tim Kaine. According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) database, Yu personally sent five political donations totaling $1,550 to two Democratic candidates: congressional hopeful Janice Winfrey and Sen. Debbie Stabenow. The revelations were unearthed following a recent lawsuit filed by Konnech against True the Vote, an election integrity organization that alleged Konnech is owned by the Chinese Communist Party. A judge in the case granted Konnech a temporary restraining order against True the Vote leaders Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips. Biden is a Chinese stooge, wrote a Natural News reader about how China Joe, as many now call him, is clearly under some level of influence and control by the CCP. Control the information, control the world, wrote another. Concerning the arrest of Eugene Yu, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB News) reported that district attorney George Gascon found probable cause to believe that Konnech allegedly violated this contract by storing critical information that the workers provided on servers in China. Yus arrest hinged upon suspicion of theft of personal identifying information about poll workers in Los Angeles. We intend to hold all those responsible for this breach accountable, Gascon added in a statement. NPR was able to obtain court documents filed against Yu indicating that he has been charged in Los Angeles County with the extraditable crime of Embezzlement of Public Funds. Michigan authorities also charged him with being a misdemeanor fugitive from justice, for which he has a court date on October 25. Gascon, by the way, is a Democrat himself. He clarified at a recent news conference his belief that the information allegedly held on servers in communist China is not I repeat, it is not related to election material or voter information. True the Vote also issued a statement indicating that it is honored to have played a small role in what must have been a wide-ranging and complex investigation. The latest news about Biden and the phony 2020 election can be found at Rigged.news. Sources for this article include: TheNationalPulse.com NaturalNews.com GPB.org (Natural News) Despite being hounded by multiple controversies, vaccine maker Pfizer pushed through with clinical trial for its mRNA flu vaccine. The new shot utilizes the mRNA technology that can be found in the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) shot. A press release by the New York-based Big Pharma firm said the clinical trial will evaluate the efficacy, safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the firms quadrivalent modified RNA influenza vaccine candidate in approximately 25,000 healthy U.S. adults. Dr. Annaliesa Anderson, Pfizer senior vice president and head of vaccine research and development, said the company gained an even deeper understanding of the opportunity to potentially provide more efficacious vaccines thanks to its experience with RNA viruses and mRNA technology with the COVID-19 vaccines. We are excited to start the first Phase 3 efficacy study of an mRNA-based influenza vaccine that could potentially deliver an improved flu vaccine to help address the significant burden of this disease, she further stated. The most recent venture of Pfizer raised more eyebrows as the company is still on the hot seat for controversies surrounding its COVID-19 vaccines, which used the same mRNA technology. A lot of healthy people, even prominent ones, died suddenly after taking the mRNA vaccines. There are also publicly reported adverse effects that include altered menstrual cycles in women, lowered sperm count in men and cardiovascular issues in children and young adults. Trace amounts of COVID-19 vaccines have also been detected in breast milk. Myriad of studies have already proven that vaccines harm adults, adolescents and young ones. Also, the true efficacy of the COVID jabs is questioned as several studies have demonstrated that natural immunity is superior to COVID-19 vaccination and that the recommended booster regimen may not protect recipients as strongly as promised. Even Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, has repeatedly criticized Pfizers COVID-19 shots. Pfizer CEO catches COVID-19, backs out of planned testimony Meanwhile, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time in six weeks. While he claimed in 2021 that his companys vaccine was 100 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, it appeared that even four doses of the shot failed to protect him. The Big Pharma executive posted on Twitter that he was feeling well and symptom-free. I was following guidelines to wait three months since my previous COVID-19 case, which was back in August, he tweeted. While weve made great progress, the virus is still with us. Because of this infection, Bourla pulled out of his planned Oct. 10 testimony before the European Parliaments Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Pfizer CEO confirmed his illness 15 days before his appearance. (Related: Pfizer CEO backs out of testifying at EU Parliament after reports of backdoor dealings with European Commission president.) Even though Bourla did not show up, the committee has questioned several pharmaceutical industry bigwigs. These include Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel and senior officials from AstraZeneca and Sanofi. The European Court of Auditors reported that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had been directly involved in preliminary negotiations for the biggest vaccine contract up to 1.8 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine which was concluded in May 2021. In 2021, the New York Times reported on the seemingly cozy relationship between Bourla and von der Leyen, with the two exchanging text messages in the run-up to the deal. Visit BigPharmaNews.com for more news about Pfizer and other vaccine makers. Watch the below video that discusses why Bourla backed out of testifying before the European Parliament regarding the vaccine deals. This video is from the What is happening channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Pfizer CEO, conman Albert Bourla tests positive for covid-19 again, after being sick throughout August. Pfizer DID NOT test its COVID-19 vaccine for possible effects on male fertility. Ben Armstrong: Pfizer knows the COVID vaccine is dangerous for pregnant women. Sources include: TheNationalPulse.com Pfizer.com NewsPunch.com Politico.eu NYTimes.com Brighteon.com Israel reaches historic agreement with Lebanon Tel Aviv, Oct 11 (UNI) Israel has reached a historic agreement on maritime border demarcation with Lebanon, Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Tuesday. "This is a historic achievement that will bolster Israel's security, bring billions into the Israeli economy and bring stability to the northern border," Lapid said in a statement, as quoted by his office, adding that the deal will be submitted to the government for approval soon. The office specified that the draft agreement "meets all the security and economic principles laid out by Israel" and it would be submitted for approval to the Security Cabinet and the government on Wednesday. (Natural News) Guest author Randy Ireland contributed to this post The Biden Regimes latest target, a Christian family of five from Texas, are set to be sentenced this week in the DC Federal Court. Chief Justice Howell will decide the fate of the Munn family, who pled guilty to attending the January 6th Stop the Steal Rally on a family trip. Their sentencing is scheduled for this Wednesday, September 12th and they need help. (Article by Cara Castronuova republished from TheGatewayPundit.com) The family was raided by the FBI last year in a coordinated sting on their homes that left the family in utter shock and terror. This is their taleanother January 6th story of political persecution against our fellow Americans that has become the norm in Bidens dystopic America the story of an average American family being bulldozed and used by the Biden Regime to instill fear into the hearts of every other American family that dares protest or question an election. The Munns Story Within the panhandle of Texas, approximately an hour from Amarillo, lies the oil town of Borger, TX. Borger, established in 1988, has been home to the Munn family for the past 5 years. Just one family from a town of approximately 13,000 people. The Munns are a quiet, private, devout, and close-knit family who has unexpectedly found themselves at the center of the largest federal criminal investigation in US history. January 6th has had a far-reaching and life-changing impact on thousands of lives, but few families have been impacted as the Munns have. Five of the 10 family members were arrested for their participation in events on January 6th. These family members include Tom (father), Dawn (mother), daughters Kristi and teenage Kayli, and young son Joshua. The family made their decision to go to Washington DC to see President Trump speak and tour the nations Capital as they always do together. Similarly, their decision to plead guilty was one they arrived at together earlier this year they pled guilty to one misdemeanor charge of picketing inside the Capitol building on January 6. Through the good times and bad, the Munn family decided to do what all families should do and that is stick together. Now they must travel back to DC for sentencing this week. They need help raising funds to get to DC and other related costs as the political persecution of their family by the Biden Regime has crippled them financially. Since the beginning of their ordeal, this family was relatively unknown to the J6 community of supporters at large. They did not reach out for help and support until mid-June of this summer. For over a year they leaned only on each other, even as their ability to generate an income was significantly hampered. Kristi and her mother work as traveling nurses, helping to support three households. However, as the media swooped in to attack the Munns, several of those very hospitals refused to allow them back in their facilities. This was after the Munns were at the forefront of the battle with COVID-19, working in COVID units from the very first day. It was not uncommon to have 5 of the family members all working in the same unit on a shift. They were called heroes by the media and those pushing the COVID narrative, risking their own health! Yet, as soon as it was revealed they participated in the events of January 6th, their ability to make a sustainable income was reduced by nearly 75%. Further, they have continued to face harassment and threats, living in fear that Child Protection Services will target their family. This family now faces the greatest challenge of their lives, but they do so without complaint. Rather, they face it with a mixture of faith in God and an unshakable family bond steeped in values, morals, and tradition. The family that Kristi jokes are gypsies and nomads has lived and traveled all over the country- settling in Borger in great part because of the education system and the way of life. The Munns homeschooled all their children, although each of them at one time or another attended public school and always had that option. They have all excelled academically. Each family member has a college degree or are in the process of obtaining one. Daughter Kristi has talked about the family decision to move to Borger, TX as being something that has helped them endure this ordeal over the last year and a half. When asked about life in Borger, Kristi replied: Its a slower, quieter pace of life. The people have a love and pride for the land that is almost sacred. They take care of it. You dont see graffiti and litter. Men open doors, give you a cart at the grocery store and speak to you respectfully. You dont get cut off in traffic. When theres a funeral procession, people pull over and stand outside their vehicles to show respect. People are quietly kind. Whether its an envelope with a few dollars or money in the gas cap, the people of Texas dont help in a flashy way. They see a neighbor struggling, and they help out of a sense of morality, duty or perhaps just because thats who they are. Its just different, and its better, or maybe its the way it should bemaybe the way it was. Perhaps Kristi is right. Perhaps quiet giving when you see a family struggling is just the way it was, neighbor helping neighbor. Perhaps small towns like Borger, TX are some of the last holdouts to a time gone by. Or, perhaps there are more than we think. Either way, the Munns are one of those families that seem to be from an era that the Biden Regime is intent on stamping out. They live together, work together, learn together, and pray together. They are devout in their faith. They honor and respect their parents and themselves. They remain true to their faith, and they look to help those in need. Right now, the Munns need help themselves. They are trying to raise last minute funds to travel back to Washington, DC to stand in federal court where Chief Judge Howell will sentence them within the next week, on October 12, 2022. Make no mistake about it these are not the kind of people who ask for help. Kristi is quick to say that she feels blessed and cant complain because others have it far worse. She talks about wanting to help those in the J6 community- many she has come to regard as family. Perhaps that will be the lasting legacy of January 6th the persecuted people that found each other and came together from all corners of the United States, that in many ways have become a large family. Their supporters fight alongside them for their eventual redemption and this nations salvation. We have become stronger through the adversity and through the persecution. In the end we know God will be victorious. There can be no better model within the J6 Community than the Munn family. They will not ask for help, but the J6 family needs to come together now and support this family in every way possible. To Help and Support the Munn Family with words of encouragement, prayers, and support please click HERE! Read more at: TheGatewayPundit.com An elevated risk for field fires will develop Tuesday in northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio, which puts the areas under a Special Weather Statement from NWS. According to the National Weather Service, field fires are easily started in warm, dry conditions. As minimum relative humidity levels fall to between 30% and 40% by Tuesday afternoon, NWS predicted that south winds will reach between 15 and 25 mph, with wind gusts to 30 mph. This will significantly increase the risk of fires spreading. According to the NWS, there will be pronounced drying that will cause many fields to become extremely dry and increase the risk of fire with any ignition. It is not advised to burn outside as the weather service announced, The Journal Gazette noted. Special Weather Statement Due to the increased risk of field fires on Tuesday, the National Weather Service Northern Indiana issued a Special Weather Statement at 4:43 AM on Monday, October 10, to the majority of Ohio and some areas of Indiana. Tuesday will see a rise in the risk of field fires due to the warm and dry conditions that will be present. Tuesday afternoon will bring breezy south winds with gusts up to 30 mph, significantly raising the risk of fires spreading. Between 30 and 40%, relative humidity is reached. Numerous fields will continue to dry out significantly, increasing the risk of a fire starting with any ignition. Unharvested crop fields that already have dried out, as well as patches of dry grass and dead brush, all have the potential to catch fire. Burning outside is not advised. Any fires that can start will probably spread quickly and probably get out of hand. For a complete list of affected areas, visit the NWS website Read also: Meteorologists Say Widespread Cooldown expected to Continue in Midwest Field Fires According to Iowa State University, dry weather and high temperatures can produce tinder-dry crops and residue. Therefore, unintentional field fires are possible. The fact that crops can become so dry during these fires that they can burn standing corn, soybeans, and even soybean stubble makes them noteworthy. These fires raise concerns about possible losses of crop dry matter and nutrients. According to Ohio State University's Agronomic Crops Network data, dry plant matter and grain dust are present throughout the harvest season and are highly combustible. Sparks from an engine or hot machinery make excellent ignition sources. Exhaust pipes and catalytic converters frequently reach temperatures of more than 1,000 F. A field fire would start perfectly if there was some wind. All laborers and transport drivers should be equipped to handle field fires. As the first line of defense, all combines, grain trucks, tractors, and pick-ups ought to be furnished with a reliable fire extinguisher. Combines should have a larger 20-pound extinguisher unit at the ground level and an ABC 10-pound extinguisher in the cab. It is advised that trucks and tractors have an extinguisher on hand that weighs at least five pounds. Every vehicle used in the field needs to have one of these extinguishers. Nothing is worse than trying to grab the fire extinguisher from the grain cart while the combine is on fire at the other end of the field. Each piece of equipment should have an extinguisher so that you are prepared to act when smoke first appears. Related article: Frontal System to End Warm and Dry Conditions in the Pacific Northwest [NWS] Five rivers in central Venezuela flooded as a result of the heavy rains, leaving at least 25 people dead and 52 people missing, Citizen Security Vice President Remigio Ceballos stated in a televised address on Sunday evening. According to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez earlier in the day, the rain on Saturday night swept big tree trunks and debris from nearby mountains into the Tejerias community, causing damage to businesses and farmland. Tejerias is located 67 kilometers southwest of Caracas. A Month's Rain in Eight Hours In just eight hours, according to Rodriguez, a month's worth of rain fell, and the pumps that run the drinking water system for the community were swept away by the floodwaters. In addition to searching the riverbanks for survivors, military and rescue personnel, according to Rodriguez, were given the priority of locating people who were still buried under rocks and mud throughout the town. From a Tejerias street that had been inundated, the vice president declared that they had lost and that what had occurred was a tragedy. In a tweet, President Nicolas Maduro announced that the region had been declared a disaster area and that three days of mourning had been observed. Survivors According to witnesses, the streets of Tejerias, a town of around 73,000 people, were lined with boarded-up homes and covered in mud, large rocks, and tangled tree branches. Taxi driver Armando Escalona, 43, claimed that he and his family were unexpectedly caught off guard by the flood waters while they were attending a church service. He stated that after giving his family a brief hug, he was hit in the head by an unknown object and lost consciousness. When he awoke, his family was nowhere to be found. Escalona claimed he lost his wife and also his 5-year-old son and was incapable of speaking properly. When the flood occurred, they were present at the service. Escalona said that everything happened so quickly. The 58-year-old vendor and volunteer for the civil defense corps, Gustavo Arevalo, reported that the town's telephone antenna was destroyed when the waters rose rapidly on Saturday around 6 PM ET. Arevalo said it seemed like the dam's water had been let loose. Arevalo was in one of the areas of the town that was most severely affected when it occurred. When the flood receded, he attempted to aid others and retrieve what the flood left of their businesses. Read also: Julia Slams Central America, Causing Flooding Rainfall and Strong Winds Flooded Rivers, Downpours, Landslides, Deaths Authorities in charge of search and rescue claim that the El Pato, one of the flooded rivers, washed away several residences, businesses, and a butcher shop. In a tweet dated Sunday, Carlos Perez, the country's deputy minister for civil protection, stated that 1,000 rescuers were searching the area for victims. According to Rodriguez, the rainfall also aggravated landslides in at least three other central states on the morning of Sunday, but no one was hurt. The recent deaths bring the total number of people killed in recent weeks as a result of heavy rains brought on by the weather pattern of La Nina to at least 40. Landslides and flooding have occurred in Venezuela, Reurters reports. Related article: Heavy Rain Eases While Flood Risk Remains in Multiple Areas Across New South Wales [BoM] Gray whale migration along North America's West Coast has continued to drop in recent years, according to a new NOAA Fisheries report. The population is currently down 38% from its high in 2015 and 2016, while experts investigate the causes. Gray whale numbers continue to decline According to an accompanying analysis, the population also produced the fewest calves on record this year since counts began in 1994, as per ScienceDaily. The 38% drop from a peak of over 27,000 whales in 2016 to 16,650 this year is consistent with previous oscillations in the eastern North Pacific population. Southwest Fisheries Science Center researchers believe it is important to keep an eye on it. Population counts for gray whales in the eastern North Pacific are usually done every two years. However, NOAA Fisheries will add a third year to this study, from late December to mid-February 2023, to count gray whales that transit along the Central California Coast. "Given the continued reduction in numbers since 2016, we need to actively monitor the population to better understand what is causing the trend," said Dr. David Weller, Director of the Science Center's Marine Mammal and Turtle Division. In 2019, NOAA Fisheries declared an Unusual Mortality Event for the gray whale population, triggering an inquiry into the possible reasons. Several potential contributors have been discovered as part of the ongoing inquiry. According to recent studies released earlier this year, these include biological changes in the Arctic that impact the seafloor and the amphipods and other invertebrates dwelling in and above the sand and water column that gray whales graze on each summer. According to Dr. Sue Ellen Moore, a University of Washington researcher who leads the UME team studying ecological factors, some gray whales may have struggled to locate food during those transitions. She highlighted that gray whales consume a diverse spectrum of animals, so there might be numerous variables influencing how, when, and where they locate food. While many of the 600 deceased whales identified between 2019 and 2022 seemed emaciated, others did not. Some of the stranded whales had evidently perished from other causes, such as ship strikes or predation by killer whales. The number of strandings increased in 2019 but subsequently decreased in succeeding years. This implied that the majority of the gray whale population loss happened in the years following the declaration of the UME. There is no one factor that may explain all of the strandings, according to Deborah Fauquier, Veterinary Medical Officer in NOAA Fisheries' Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, who is in charge of the UME study, "It looks like there are several aspects that we are currently trying to grasp." Gray whales are well-known for their annual journey along the West Coast. The population has varied significantly in the past, including a comparable decline of nearly 40% from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Later, the population recovered to a new peak. Gray whales in the eastern Pacific Ocean have recovered completely from commercial whaling and were removed from the endangered species list in 1994. A similar increase in strandings resulted in the designation of an earlier Unusual Mortality Event in 1999 and 2000 when the population dropped by around 25%. It later returned to a high in 2015 to 2016. Also Read: Gray Whale and Monarch Butterfly Face Extinction with Dropping Population Calf numbers are also decreasing NOAA Fisheries researchers count southbound whales headed towards Mexico to determine the population size of gray whales, as per News Wise. They track calf production by counting moms and calves as they migrate north each spring from Baja California lagoons where some whales give birth. The most recent census, which ended in May, estimated total calf output this year to be around 217. This was a decrease from 383 calves the previous year and the lowest number since the census began in 1994. The number of calves born each year has varied, as has the gray whale population as a whole. Before recovering, low calf numbers were observed for periods of three to four years. Two of the previous three episodes of low calf production corresponded with Unusual Mortality Events and population decreases. The investigation on calf numbers finds that the same variables that impact gray whale survival likely also affect their reproductive. Aerial images of gray whales in Mexican lagoons revealed reductions in the bodily condition of several adult whales, highlighting that link. "Depending on the age of the whales, this lower body condition may have resulted in delayed reproduction and lower calf numbers, as well as poorer survival in skinny whales," researchers said. Related article: Have You Seen Him? Search Ongoing for Gray Whale Entangled in a Metal Frame Forecasts announced that parts of the Midwest and East Coast would expect severe thunderstorms. According to AccuWeather's recent weather update on October 11, forecasters revealed that rain and thunderstorms could unleash in portions of the north-central United States and the Atlantic coast this week due to the approaching storm system In the Northeast, residents would feel roller-coaster temperatures, from summer-like to winter-like weather. The cold breeze of air and widespread cooldown in the Midwest helped residents to alleviate the warm to nearly-record high temperature. Some parts of the U.S can see snow and snowflakes. In the latest report, AccuWeather noted that severe weather with rains and thunderstorms could unleash on Tuesday in portions of the Midwest, affecting cities in Minneapolis, Nebraska, and Omaha. Reminders The weather agency noted that torrential rainfall is expected on Tuesday evening. Flooding downpours, potential travel delays, and damaging winds up to 55 to 65 mph from Wednesday until Wednesday night. Meanwhile, intense downpours, urban flooding, and damaging wind gusts from 55 to 65 mph are expected from Thursday to Thursday evening. AccuWeather added that strong winds could emerge on Wednesday with elevated fire risks and the following areas: Wisconsin and eastern Iowa could feel damaging winds in the late evening. Tennessee, Nashville, and Cinema could also expect the threat of severe thunderstorms and rains. Areas in the Great Lakes region could suffer from strong wind gusts and showers with a potential power interruption. The brief rainfalls could help to water droughts and ease the warm weather. Furthermore, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that the remnants of tropical storm Julia could still cause flash floods in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico. At the same time, Central America, southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize could expect flooding and heavy rains. Also Read: Forecasts Suggest Tropical Storm Julia Could Impact East Pacific or the Gulf of Mexico Meanwhile, reports said that the National Hurricane Center has been monitoring a low-pressure area, which was moving over the far southwestern Gulf of Mexico. Still, NHC noted that the formation change is low. Thunderstorm and rainfalls As forecasts suggested, the Midwest and East Coast could expect severe thunderstorms and brief rainfall. While no tropical system could threaten the United States, it is essential to be prepared even during severe thunderstorms and rains. Here are some important to remember during the onslaught of thunderstorms. According to the American Red Cross, heavy rain and thunderstorms can damage power lines resulting in power outages, trees, and homes, and might cause flash flooding. It noted that thunderstorm kills more individuals every year than tornadoes. The American Red Cross emphasized the importance of understanding emergency thunderstorm Warnings and Watches. Be updated with the announcements from your local weather stations. Protect your family members and pets during thunderstorms. Avoiding glass doors, windows, or anything that strong winds could break is best. Prepare a ready emergency preparedness kit. Stay away from flooded roadways and damaged power lines. Immediately report it to authorities. American Red Cross explained that anyone sustained from lightning strikes should seek professional medical care. Report to 9-1-1 or call the nearest hospital. After the severe thunderstorm, check your houses for potential damages. Related Article: Julia Unleashes Flooding Rainfall in Central America [Updates] For more similar stories, don't forget to follow Nature World News. Are certain countries doomed to vanish as the oceans rise? As global warming picks up speed and poses an unprecedented challenge to the world community, the possibility of whole populations losing their territories and identities is no longer only a science fiction scenario. "This is the worst tragedy that an individual, one country, or one nation can experience," remarked former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed to AFP via LiveScience. Worst Case Scenario Small island developing states and other global hotspots like Africa and South Asia are particularly vulnerable, with populations that are 15 times more likely to die from extreme weather than in less vulnerable regions of the world, according to a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report published in February. According to research co-author Adelle Thomas of Climate Analytics and the University of the Bahamas, if warming exceeds a few more tenths of a degree, it might make certain places, including some tiny islands, uninhabitable. Sea levels have increased 15 to 25 cm (six to 10 inches) since 1900, and the pace of rising is quickening, particularly in some tropical areas, according to U.N. climatologists. By the end of the century, waters may encircle the Pacific and the Indian Ocean islands by an extra meter (39 inches) if warming trends continue. Also Read: Doomsday Glacier 'Holding By Its Fingernails' Against Climate Change, Scientists Warn Rapid Increase However, increasing ocean levels will be accompanied by higher storm surges and tides, contaminating water and land in many atolls with salt long before the sea submerged them. This is still below the highest point of the tiniest, flattest island republics will render it inhabitable. The Maldives, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Kiribati are five countries that might become uninhabitable by 2100, according to research referenced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, leading to the creation of 600,000 stateless climate refugees. This circumstance is unusual. Naturally, conflicts have eliminated the nations off the map. Sumudu Atapattu of the University of Wisconsin in Madison stated, "We don't have a case where existing states have lost land due to a physical catastrophe, or occurrences like sea level rise, or extreme weather disasters. "Statehood is a fictitious, legal fiction that we have invented for the sake of international law," continued Atapattu. It should be possible to come up with another dream that includes these fractured states. The "Rising Nations" initiative, which several Pacific states announced in September, aims to "persuade the members of the United Nations to acknowledge our nation, even if we're under water because that's what our identity is," as Tuvalu's prime minister, Kausia Natano, told AFP. Rising Nations Initiative The Rising Nations Initiative asks for the creation of a comprehensive program to develop and finance adaptation and resilience projects to help local communities sustain livelihoods, a living repository of each Pacific atoll island country's culture and distinctive heritage, and support to obtain UNESCO World Heritage designation. It also asks for a political declaration by the international community to preserve the sovereignty and rights of Pacific atoll island countries. Countries including the United States, Germany, South Korea, and Canada have previously backed the project and recognized the particular weight that island states like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands must bear. Related Article: Ocean Temperature Reaches "Point of No Return" as Climate Change Creates Irreversible Scenario For Environmental News, don't forget to follow Nature World News! Severe thunderstorms and fire weather are possible in the Central US on Tuesday, October 11, according to US weather authorities. The weather forecast indicated a cold front could trigger strong to severe storms from the Upper Mississippi Valley to the central Plains. Meanwhile, dry and gusty winds will lead to critical fire weather conditions over parts of the central Plains, causing the potential wildlife growth. A series of weather hazards such as heavy rainfall, large hail, and isolated tornadoes are possible due to the severe weather. The inclement weather could also trigger massive flooding in some parts of the region, affecting both residential and business establishments, as well as travel. The region could also experience humid conditions or a hot weather, which are in favor in the eruption and spread of fires. The forecast comes several months after powerful storm systems wreaked havoc across the region in recent months, particularly during the spring and summer seasons. Multiple people were killed in multiple areas, especially caused by twisters. It also transpired more than a week after related forecasts of cold front systems threaten the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast US. NWS Forecast The National Weather Service (NWS), through its Weather Prediction Center (WPC), issued the said weather outlook at 4:12 p.m. EDT (local time) on Monday, October 10. The forecast shows there is a slight risk of excessive rainfall over areas in the Southern High Plains until Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, it also mentioned there were frost advisories and freeze warnings in effect over parts of the interior Northeast, as well as in coastal Maine on Monday evening. Also Read: Severe Storms with Damaging Winds and Tornadoes to Hit the Central United States This Coming Week Heavy Rain and Thunderstorms A weak shortwave energy will support the development of heavy rain and thunderstorms over parts of the Southern Plains, where the risk of showers is possible within potent thunderstorms. The shortwave is then forecasted to spread into the Middle Mississippi Valley and Midwest by Tuesday. The shortwave will integrate with and aggravate a widespread upper-level trough descending over the Plains and Mississippi Valley. In addition, a cold front is expected to sweep across the northern-central Plains on Tuesday and become the focus for torrential rain and storms above the Midwest from Tuesday night to Wednesday, October 12. The thunderstorm activity may eventually spread to into the Ohio Valley and the Southeast US by Wednesday evening, wherein scattered to isolated showers and thunderstorms could form around a stationary or static front across the Florida Panhandle in the coming days. Cold Front The NWS forecast is also in line with the report of Fox Weather, which said that severe storms with damaging winds and hail threatened the Midwest and the East Coast this week due to the advancement of a cold front across the US. The front is expected to bring several inches of rain and cause potential flash flooding in low-lying areas and those that are near inland bodies of water. The FOX Forecast Center states fall is the second severe weather season since cold air from Canada starts to spill into the US, clashing with warmer and more humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. Related Article: Meteorologists Issue Storm Alert for Thunderstorms and Tornadoes to Central US from Midweek The iconic Moai stone statues suffered from wildfire, causing irreparable damage to the popular cultural site. Easter Island is in the territory of Chile. The majestic Moai stone is an image of cultures in the area and respect for key community members of Rapa Nu by building well-built and sophisticated stone statues. According to Reuters, Easter Island Mayor Pedro Edmunds explained that the damage to the iconic statues was unquantifiable and unmeasurable. The wildfires caused the rock to crack. The Mayor added that experts and the park administrator would assess the impact and the immediate action to be taken. Island's Iconic Moai Stones Based on Easter Island Travel's website, the statutes are also called easter island heads, serving as a cultural and famous tourist site. Details said that Rapa Nui worked to build the moais from 1400 to 1650 A.D. What is amazing about the creation of the gigantic statues was that 95% of the iconic moais are said to be carved from the Rano Raraku volcano, showing the community's commitment to making the statues for over four centuries, the website said. Reuters reported that Chile's culture, arts, and heritage ministry state revealed a preliminary report indicating that the wildfire began on Tuesday and burned over 148.26 acres (60 hectares). On the other hand, AccuWeather said that the wildfire emerged three months since the iconic tourist spot opened to visitors, affecting the island's tourism revenue. Also Read: Scientists Reveal Influence of Climate Change on Extreme Weather Events The well-built moais status honored the old community chieftain and people who died, showing the statues are differently built. The easter island travel noted that the stones could weigh up to 86 tons and 80 m in height. The website also pointed out that the community employed an important tool for carving the stones called Toki (handheld chisels). With the effect of wildfires, the booming tourism at easter island is also disrupted. The wildfire damage is irreparable to the statues, slowly damaged by rain. The report also noted that the gigantic statues became fragile. Authorities are now assessing the extent of the damage. To read more about easter island, visit the website of Easter Island Travel. Wildfire Discussing wildfires, the World Health Organization (WHO) explained that wildfires burn the forest, prairie, or grassland, causing damage to communities and livelihood. The World Health Organization highlighted that wildfires could wreak havoc on agriculture, animal kingdom, communities, transportation, and water supply. The report also showed that wildfires could be caused by human-caused activities and natural phenomena like thunderstorms. The risk of wildfires is high in drought areas or with strong winds that can result in unplanned heat. Moreover, climate change and the warming of the environment have increased the possibility of wildfires in drought areas. In the United States, human-caused wildfires have been a pressing concern because of unattended fires in the camps, discarded cigarettes, and burning equipment. Tourists coming to national parks or wildfire-prone areas should be responsible in their visits to avoid deadly wildfires. Related Article: Hurricane Ian Devastates Citrus Grower's Florida, Causing Crop Losses For more similar stories, don't forget to follow Nature World News. In the past 25 years, the Salton Sea, the state of California's most contaminated inland lake, has lost about a third of its water. According to recent studies, the Colorado River's flow is declining, which is the cause of that decrease. Rising of Salinity Although everyone is aware that saltwater is salty, few are aware that even little changes in the ocean's surface salinity or, more specifically, the number of dissolved salts can have a significant impact on the cycle and ocean circulation, as per NASA Science. Specific processes have contributed to the ocean's salinity during Earth's history. Salt and other minerals are released into the water because of rock weathering. The ocean becomes more salinized because of sea ice production and the evaporation of ocean water. These salinity-increasing forces are, however, continuously offset by salinity-decreasing processes including the continuous inflow of fresh water from rivers, precipitation of rain and snow, and melting of ice. The Salton Sea is contaminated with dust The percentage of salt and chemicals there in remaining water has rapidly grown as the lake dries up, which has resulted in a catastrophic extinction of fish and birds, including endangered species, as per Sciencedaily. It is an ecological disaster, according to Juan S. Acero Triana, a UCR hydrologist and the study's primary author, who examined how water moves above and below the surface of the Earth close to the Salton Sea. There are several theories regarding why water levels are gradually dropping. Some attribute the lake's drying up to climate change and heat. Some people think that agriculture might be to blame. Less water enters the Salton Sea as irrigation systems become more effective and crops are designed to require less water. According to the researchers, these aren't the principal factors contributing to the sea's decline. The Salton Sea is an example of an endorheic lake where water enters the lake but does not flow to any tributaries. The researchers considered all significant mechanisms affecting this water balance. However, it's unclear if the drying up of the Colorado River owing to global warming, the drop in California's water allotment levels, or both are to blame, according to Acero Triana. Despite this unresolved uncertainty, the researchers contend that the study should convey to water management organizations and policymakers that the Salton Sea watershed belongs to the Colorado River basin. Also Read: 'Slow and Silent' Part of San Andreas Fault Responsible for Most Devastating Earthquakes in the US Restoration of Salton Water The Salton Sea is now in the danger zone after having already passed seven of these lines. The biome or wetland ecosystem has practically been devastated due to a lack of fresh water, and there has been a significant loss of species, as per Desert Sun. The sands of the exposed lakebed are poisonous due to the excessive use of fertilizers and the contamination of the sea with numerous agricultural and military chemicals. In the upcoming years, this poses a hazard of fatal air pollution to us. Finding extra water is the key to saving the Salton Sea. This will require importing seawater from the Sea of Cortez and desalinating it. Covering the exposed lakebed, a refilled sea will minimize the risk of air pollution. Water that is contaminated and flows into the sea can be cleaned. To establish a habitat that is both human-friendly and wildlife-sustaining, the wetlands can be restored, and thousands of trees can be planted. Importing ocean water to replenish the sea will boost the leisure industry, generate employment, and maintain property values. Related Article: The Great Salt Lake Is Experiencing Hyper Salinity, Posing a Serious Threat to the Ecosystems and Economies [Study] Experts advise giving rivers, plants, and animals legal rights. A framework is necessary for future interactions with the environment and biotechnology, according to a report for the Law Society. According to scientists, countries must grant legal rights and protections to non-human things like animals, plants, and rivers if they want to combat climate collapse and biodiversity loss. Granting Legal Rights According to the research titled Law in the Emerging Bio Age, legal frameworks are crucial for regulating how people interact with the environment and biotechnology. There are currently laws in Bolivia and Ecuador that protect the environment, and there is a movement to have ecocide considered a crime by the international criminal court. The Law Society, the governing organization for solicitors in England and Wales, commissioned a research to examine how people's interactions with the environment may change. Futures expert and research co-author Dr. Wendy Schultz said: "This is a developing trend. There is a growing recognition that something very different has to be done if our descendants will have a world to live in that is in any way pleasant, much less survivable. Is it moving as quickly as any of us would like? Perhaps not, which is why spreading the word is crucial. Also Read: Environmental Activists are Urging Governments to Make Ecocide an International Crime Importance of a Legal Framework Legal frameworks should be "suited for a more than human future," according to her co-author Dr. Trish O'Flynn, an interdisciplinary scholar who formerly served as the Local Government Association's national director for civil contingencies. This covers everything, including rivers, robots, and lab-grown brain tissue. According to O'Flynn, we occasionally believe that we exist outside of nature and have control over it. "But in reality, we are only a different species that live in nature. If you think of evolution as a linear process, humans are at the top of the evolutionary tree in certain respects. Still, the global environment is far more powerful than we are. And I believe it is starting to show how we think about it. Evolutionary growth, in which a species and person are permitted to realize their full cognitive, emotional, and social potential, is one example of a right. O'Flynn added: "I argue that as a dog lover, such a right might apply to sows in intensive pig farming, calves stolen from their moms, and even pets. We do control their actions to suit our needs. Ethics of Conservation Developments in biotechnology also question the ethics of saving species from extinction or destroying existing ones. Scientists are considering returning woolly mammoths, and eliminating mosquitoes, which spread illnesses like malaria, has been discussed. According to Schultz, "We are not clever enough to handle all of these skills and to control the consequences of choices we make regarding our interaction with the living world." Embedding some form of structure for accountability and responsibility for the results of these things is part of the problem, and that's where the law comes in. The authors agree that, in contrast to Ecuador and Bolivia, where rights to the environment were granted under socialist regimes and inspired by Indigenous values, certain western countries may see opposition due to quite different traditions and beliefs (as was the 2019 ban on climbing Uluru in Australia). Schultz said that it leads to a form of value that is a cultural movement away from the Judeo-Christian grand chain of being - sovereignty over nature. "Giving something that is culturally numinous rights simply so you can maintain it," he added. This reconfigures it to put us where we have always been and where we should think of ourselves as belonging, as only a node in this larger web of life on the planet. Related Article: Arguments About Climate Justice Finally Cutting Through, Says Climate Activist For more news update about Environmental Action, don't forget to follow Nature World News! Saifai/ New Delhi, Oct 11 (UNI) The mortal remains of Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav were moved to Mela Pandal from his house in Saifai on Tuesday where party workers, leaders and public will pay tribute to the three-time former chief minister. People are thronging the ground to pay their last respect to the "dharti putra". His last rites will be performed with full state honours. The last rites of former defence minister will be held at 3 pm, with a number of leaders including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to be in attendance. The 82-year-old socialist leader passed away on Monday morning at a hospital in Gurugram hospital after prolonged illness. He had been hospitalised since August. His body was brought to Saifai on Monday evening, where Adityanath paid tribute. The chief minister paid floral tribute on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and the Uttar Pradesh government. Rajnath Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejashhwi Yadav and NCP chief Sharad Pawar are among the prominent politicians who are likely to attend the funeral in Saifai today. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath will represent the Congress party at the funeral. Among other leaders, Chief Ministers of Telangana KC Rao, Rajasthan's Ashok Gehlot and Jharkhand's Hemant Soren were also expected to attend the funeral. Mulayam Singh had been a 10 time MLA and seven times MP. He was thrice the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India which sends maximum number of MPs to the Lok Sabha. He also served as a defence minister. UNI AO ING An orca chases herrings on January 17, 2019, in the Reisafjorden fjord region, near the Norwegian northern city of Tromso in the Arctic Circle. (Photo : Photo credit should read OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images) A horrific widespread battle involving hostile orcas and a duo of defending humpback whales was reportedly found by whale watchers along the US-Canada demarcation line. Battle Between Orcas and Humpback Whales As per Live Science accounts, the heated confrontation lasted a few hours and involved bursting, tail-slapping, attacking flippers, as well as loud speech patterns audible from beyond the exterior. However, it is unknown which subspecies emerged triumphant. The cetacean battle marked occurred on September 29 in the Juan de Fuca Strait in the Salish Ocean, some 25 miles west of Victoria, British Columbia, as well as Port Angeles, Washington, according to the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA). Following PWWA, Bigg's orcas generally graze on relatively small sea creatures including such seals, sea lions, as well as porpoises, although they have occasionally being reported to attack bigger whales like humpbacks, making them the sole native predatory animals of humpbacks in the territory, CBC News reported. PWWA ships have not ever explicitly seen orcas slaughtering a humpback whale in the Salish Strait, although contacts involving the two creatures have increased in the vicinity because humpback whale numbers lately recovered following a dramatic decrease caused by past whaling. Female humpbacks will also embark on the offense, attacking orcas with severe tail smashes to safeguard fairly young whales as well as to safeguard similar creatures like seals or porpoises, according to Hoyt. Transient orcas are significantly highly violent than permanent killer whales, who dwell in big populations attached to a certain location. According to Mark Malleson, a wildlife scientist at the Center for Whale Conservation in Washington in his interview with Yahoo, with the comeback of the humpbacks in the Salish Gulf following getting chased nearly to annihilation, researchers are witnessing a considerably greater engagement amongst humpbacks with killer whales. Moreover, transient orcas, commonly referred as Bigg's killer whales, are a variety of killer whales that are locationally discerned from the majority of the population. A few of the orcas in the cluster were recognized as members of three itinerant killer whale faction, the T109As, T233s, as well as T252s, which are commonly spotted in the vicinity, Flipboard recently updated. Also read: New Study Reveals Algae-Eating Fish 'Not Enough' to Protect World's Coral Reefs Marine Creatures' Fight at US-Canada Border Observers aboard a neighboring BC Whale Tours ship quickly observed what was prompting the orcas to lash out - a couple of female humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). A crew of orcas liberated a tangled-up humpback whale in January 2021, yet experts are not sure if this was pure compassion or a failed hunting operation. Furthermore, according to experts in the field noted by the USA News, orcas often target younger humpback whales and occasionally become fortunate. A juvenile male humpback nearly survived a 4-hour orca assault in Australia in February 2021, though sacrificed its pectoral fins in the effort. Staff workers on an Eagle Wing Tours whale observation vessel initially noticed 15 uncommonly hyperactive orcas (Orcinus orca) at the ocean. A huge gang of roughly 70 orcas took up a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) off the seaboard of Australia in March 2021. While a gang of 13 orcas assaulted a humpback mother as well as newborn in the Salish Gulf in May 2021. Initially, the orcas appeared to be pursuing the humpbacks, however when there appeared to be distance separating them, the humpbacks immediately return to the orcas. Related article: Gray Whale Population Continue to Decline 38% From Its Peak MAGNA, UTAH - AUGUST 02: Park visitors walk by a rock formation on the banks of the Great Salt Lake at the Great Salt Lake State Park on August 02, 2021 near Magna, Utah. As severe drought continues to take hold in the western United States, water levels at the Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, have dropped to the lowest levels ever recorded. The lake fell below 4194.4 feet in the past week after years of decline from its highest level recorded in 1986 with 4211.65 feet. Further decline of the lake's water levels could result in an increase in water salinity and could generate dust from the exposed lakebed that could impact air quality in the area. The lake does not supply water or generate electricity for nearby communities but it does provide a natural habitat for migrating birds and other wildlife. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 99 percent of Utah is experiencing extreme drought conditions. (Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Barring immediate and significant actions, America's Great Salt Lake might face an ecological breakdown in the near future. Possible Collapse of the Great Salt Lake's Ecosystem As per research delivered at the Geological Society of America's 2022 Connects Conference in Colorado this event happened, the world-famous expanse of saline seawater alone has a couple semesters until increasing salt concentrations dramatically hamper ecosystem recovery. For well than decades, water from the tributaries that feed Utah's massive lake has been channeled for human use. According to a 2017 research, 3.3 trillion liters of water are redirected prior hitting the lake annually, primarily for water supplies and agricultural production, Science Alert reported. Lawmakers in Salt Lake County have taken certain efforts to preserve water in the district, but experts are concerned that these efforts are not staying on track with global warming or increased water needs. According to experts if the Great Salt Lake recovers fast as a result of certain mixture of cultural changes in water consumption and heavy weather seasons. While to the previous year's assessments, the Great Salt Lake has decreased by two-thirds ever since 1980s, uncovering a valuable environment on which residents, commerce, as well as wildlife all rely. The contemporary equivalents of these 'breathing treasures' are fast withering out as high tides in the Great Salt Lake persist to fall. When the lake's acidity hit 25%, a major die-off of photosynthetic bacteria ensued, resulting in a pinkish tint visible from orbit. Frantz has been leading a crew of students enrolled to examine the water's microbialites in the outdoors and the laboratory for numerous seasons to observe what occurs when bleaching corals are re-submerged. The region has entered a megadrought, drastically lowering the quantity of fresh water reaching the reservoir as well as creating a new low moisture threshold mark. Also read: Wildfire Causes Damage in Easter Island's Iconic Moai Stones America's Great Salt Lake As shown in a previous New York Times story, the lake's sediment reportedly contains significant quantities of arsenic. Scientists recorded salt concentrations as much as 26% in certain areas in 2022, a significant deviation from the average lake saltwater of roughly 15%. The lake in Utah is among the few sites on the planet where mineralized submerged corals classified as microbialites may still be found. Since the southern side receives the majority of its water from fresh sources, the northern segment grew extremely saline and bereft of oxygen. The tendency is remarkably comparable to what happened in the northern half of the Great Salt Lake when a bridge was built in the 1950s. Researchers witnessed something really unique this season, researchers do not observe the definite spike researchers saw previous year. Merely a few bacteria can live in the Great Salt Lake, which is several times saline than the sea. If the lake threatens to dry out, dust and mercury contamination might become a concern. The difficulty is that as the Great Salt Lake diminishes, it becomes progressively salty. It was extremely inspiring this year because researchers saw that they can return, and they bounce back quickly, the Los Angeles Times noted. Related article: Experts Say Some Countries at Risk of Drowning If the Ocean Continues to Rise A mystery fireball that made impact in Alberta, Canada, in February 2022 was either thought to be a meteoroid, that could be any debris from a comet or asteroid. Currently, scientists have found that the meteor that night was a space rock instead of an icy comet. 2021 Alberta Fireball Just before dawn on the 22nd of February 2022, a bright meteor lighted up the Alberta night sky, wherein the fireball was reportedly seen by multiple people from Edmonton to Red Deer. The witnesses told they hard a loud boom and saw a glow in the sky, according to Canada's Global News. A video report provided by the Canadian news agency indicates the loud fireball shook windows but there were no reported casualties. At that time, the Canadian media, experts, and scientists attribute the meteor to be a comet or a meteoroid. Also Read: VIDEO: Massive Fireball Streaks Past East Coast, Generates Loud 'Sonic Boom' Comet or Meteoroid? Any space rocks that enter the Earth's atmosphere turns into a fireball, also known as a meteor. However, the space object itself could either be a comet, asteroid, or something else. In the case of the 2021 Alberta fireball, scientists have postulated the glowing object that night was likely a meteoroid, which are rocky or metallic space objects smaller than asteroids. Data collected by the scientific team suggest the object was made of rock instead of ice and it behaved more like an asteroid, according to the journal Science. The team calculated that the space rock had been approximately on a 1,000-year orbit around the Sun before it struck Earth, which led to the theory it came from an extremely far region of the Solar System known as the Oort Cloud. Oort Cloud The Oort Cloud was populated by so-called planetesimals, small objects that can accumulate enough to form into planets. They are gravitationally scattered by our solar system's giant planets, particularly Jupiter and Saturn, when the system was still forming, according to Karen Meech, an astronomer from the University of Hawaii - Institute for Astronomy, who told Newsweek. Meech adds it was long thought that the Oort cloud was populated by comets since the colossal planets formed in the solar system's region perceived to be cold and contains a lot of icy material. Now, the discovered existence of rocky meteoroids in the Oort Cloud could reportedly change our view on how it came to be, Newsweek reports. The Oort Cloud is considered to be the most distant section of the solar system. The region is like a large, thick-walled bubble made of icy materials of space debris with a size as large as mountains and sometimes even bigger. It could also contain billions or trillions of space objects, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA adds it is also believed to be a "giant spherical shell" surrounding the rest of the solar system, way beyond the outer reaches of the Kuiper Belt and the orbit of Pluto. Our knowledge of the Oort Cloud is substantial, yet no object, except for approaching long-period comets, has been directly observed within it, leaving the cloudy region a theoretical concept for now, the US space agency explains. Related Article: Bright Meteor Fireball Lit up Carolina Skies During SpaceX Launch Geneva, Oct 11 (UNI) Cascading global crises have left 54 countries home to more than half of the worlds poorest people in dire need of debt relief, the UN said on Tuesday. In a new report, the United Nations Development Programme warned that dozens of developing nations were facing a rapidly deepening debt crisis and that "the risks of inaction are dire". UNDP said without immediate relief, at least 54 countries would see rising poverty levels, and "desperately needed investments in climate adaptation and mitigation will not happen". That was worrisome since the affected countries were "among the most climate-vulnerable in the world". The agencys report, published ahead of meetings of International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and also of G20 finance ministers in Washington, highlighted the need for swift action. But despite repeated warnings, "little has happened so far, and the risks have been growing," UNDP chief Achim Steiner told reporters in Geneva. "That crisis is intensifying and threatening to spill over into an entrenched development crisis across dozens of countries across the world." The poor, indebted countries are facing converging economic pressures and many find it impossible to pay back their debt or access new financing. The UN agency said debt troubles had been brewing in many of the affected countries long before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. According to data, 46 of the 54 countries had amassed public debt totalling $782 billion in 2020, the report said. Argentina, Ukraine and Venezuela alone account for more than a third of that amount. The situation is deteriorating rapidly, with 19 of the developing countries now effectively shut out of the lending market 10 more than at the start of the year. A third of all the developing economies have meanwhile seen their debt labelled as being "substantial risk, extremely speculative or default," UNDPs chief economist George Gray Molina told Geo news. The countries at the most immediate risk are Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Tunisia, Chad and Zambia, he said. Steiner, who has repeatedly raised the alarm about the crisis, voiced hope the international community might finally recognise that action is in everyones shared interest. "Prevention is better than treatment and certainly... much, much cheaper than having to deal with a global recession," he said. UNI GNK SL heading for humanitarian disaster Colombo, Oct 11 (UNI) Since Sri Lanka announced in April that it will default on its foreign debt, its 22 million residents have lost access to most medicine and medical supplies, setting them on course for a humanitarian disaster, a report published on Tuesday said. The report by ReliefWeb, a humanitarian information project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, was quoted as saying by The Island newspaper that unlike Russias invasion of Ukraine, Sri Lankas crisis grew slowly and has garnered few international headlines. But Sri Lankans are suffering amid the harshest economic crisis the country has confronted since gaining independence in 1948, it said. UW, Wyoming SBDC Network to Host Webinar on Networking Networking is an effective way to build meaningful relationships that support businesses in the long term. Bridget Manley and Daniel Patterson will help small businesses learn tips for expanding their professional networks both in person and online during a Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network webinar titled Networking 101 for Small-Business Owners Tuesday, Oct. 18, from 11 a.m.-noon. Small-business owners also will learn strategies for connecting with potential clients, customers, peers and mentors. Participants are asked to come prepared to ask questions and share their own networking tips in this conversational webinar. To register, go here. Registration is free. Manley, vice president and chief learning officer of Ascendant Design and Training in Laramie, is an eLearning specialist with a passion for helping learners become effective agents in their careers and in their communities. She co-founded the company with Patterson, her husband, in July 2020. Before that, she was the curriculum manager for a Denver-based startup company, where she developed compliance and manufacturing training for the state-legal cannabis industry. Manley draws from a range of learning theories and instructional design models to create courses that are precision-built to solve real-world problems. She uses research-based methodologies and a thoughtful application of technology to develop lessons that engage and enlighten learners. Patterson is a software systems developer for Ascendant Design and Training. His role is to create new technical tools, techniques and procedures that can lead to new inroads for the educational technical industry to the benefit of instructional designers, educators and their students. He has more than 30 years of multidisciplinary experience in software, electronic and mechanical design. He has been involved in several different industries, including logistics, gaming, music and heavy equipment. In those industries, Patterson has managed projects large and small; has overseen research, development, engineering and IT departments; and has managed the implementation and upkeep of automated production systems. For more information, call Maureen Johnson, CARES Act recovery program manager for the Wyoming SBDC Network, at (307) 343-0925 or email mjohn125@uwyo.edu. The Wyoming SBDC Network offers business expertise to help Wyoming residents think about, launch, grow, reinvent or exit their business. The Wyoming SBDC Network is hosted by the University of Wyoming with state funds from the Wyoming Business Council and funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Download Now The News-Gazette mobile app brings you the latest local breaking news, updates, and more. Read the News-Gazette on your mobile device just as it appears in print. 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. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Mainly sunny. High 49F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low 29F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Monticello Township Cemetery sexton Chris Cravens stands next to the recently added marker and flag holder at the grave of former Buffalo Soldier Thomas Randolph, who died after being hit by a train in 1913 while working for the Wabash Railroad north of Monticello. One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 On October 10 the world's first randomized study on using colonoscopy-screening to prevent colorectal cancer was presented during the 2022 UEG Week in Vienna. The United European Gastroenterology Week is the leading congress for bowel- and intestinal diseases and gather more than 14.000 participants each year. The full study was published in New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). - Colonoscopy unfortunately is not a miracle cure for colorectal cancer. According to our study, it probably is not better than the fecal samples, Michael Bretthauer, professor at the University of Oslo and senior physician at Oslo University Hospital says. Previously, experts have assumed that the effect of using colonoscopy to detect colorectal cancer is higher than using fecal samples. Fecal samples are used in screening programs all over the world today. Researchers have assumed that up to nine out of ten colorectal cancer cases can be prevented using colonoscopy. With fecal samples the same is assumed to be two-three out of ten cases. In the NordICC-study the researchers wanted to see if colonoscopy-screening actually can help prevent colorectal cancer. In the study 1,2 percent of the people who was not randomized for colonoscopy-screening got colorectal cancer after ten years, compared to 0.98 percent in the group who was offered screening. - This means that new cases of colorectal cancer were reduced by 18 percent among the participants who were offered colonoscopy-screening, Bretthauer says. The study is lead by Bretthauer and colleagues in the research group Clinical Effectiveness Research at the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital. The study is named NordICC, Nordic-European Initiative on Colorectal Cancer. The researchers followed 95.000 participants from four European countries over more than ten years The study includes 95.000 participants from Norway, Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands. It is one of the largest randomized studies ever conducted. Healthy people between the age of 55 and 64 was randomized into two groups: One group was offered one screening with colonoscopy, the other was not offered screening at all. All the participants in the study were followed for over ten years, to see if colonoscopy prevents colorectal cancer. In Norway, screening centers were created at Srlandet Hospital in Kristiansand and Arendal, which carried out thousands of colonoscopies for the study between 2009 and 2014. Authorities should take the results from the study into consideration when forming Norway's new screening program The mortality rate for colorectal cancer is generally low in the NordICC-study. Only three out of thousand died from the disease during the ten years the researchers followed the participants, regardless of if they were offered screening or not. There was no significant decrease in the mortality rate for the screening group, compared to the group who was not offered screening. - We are happy to see that the mortality rate is generally low in the study. The numbers are lower than expected when we started the study, Bretthauer says. The main reason for the low mortality rates is that the treatment options for colorectal cancer have become noticeably better the past ten years. This makes colonoscopy-screening less effective to prevent patients from dying from colorectal cancer. - This can mean that introducing screening with colonoscopy as a part of the colorectal cancer screening program in Norway can be less effective than previously assumed. Researchers and authorities should now discuss how the program should proceed from here, taking the results from the NordICC-study into consideration, Bretthauer says. The researchers will follow the participants in the study the upcoming years, to see if the effect of screening gets better with time. The next report from the study is planned published in two years. Exploring the possibilities of atmospheric-pressure plasmas to develop and consolidate new medical therapies is the main objective of the PlasTHER network, an initiative funded by the European Union under the COST Actions. Led by the UPC, the network brings together research groups, the medical community, industry and patient associations from 24 European countries who will work in the coming years to launch new treatments for cancer, tissue regeneration and repair, emerging infectious diseases and others. Gas plasma medicine is a multidisciplinary field that emerged two decades ago as an innovative area combining physics, chemistry, engineering and life sciences. This emerging area combines gas plasma technology with clinical medicine and bioengineering with the aim of using cold atmospheric-pressure plasma in human and veterinary therapeutics for wound disinfection and healing, cancer treatment, etc. A powerful technology involving a large number of reactive species (molecules, atoms, ions, electrons, photons, UV and visible radiation) that have been shown to affect cells through complex biochemical procedures, which opens the door to new opportunities for gas plasma medicine. However, despite scientific and technological innovation in medicine, currently available treatments based on this technology are still not fully effective in fighting cancer, achieving tissue regeneration and repair and combating drug-resistant pathogens, including new-onset infections. For gas plasma technology to progress effectively in these and other areas, it is necessary not only to identify the mechanisms involved in therapeutic action, but also to improve the cooperation of the scientific community working in this field from different disciplines and the relationship with industry. The Therapeutical applications of Cold Plasma (PlasTHER) COST Action, led by the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), aims to promote the development of a gas plasma medicine research program in Europe and to trailblaze European activity in this area. The project is coordinated by Cristina Canal, a researcher at the Biomaterials, Biomechanics and Tissue Engineering Group (BBT), director of the PlasmaMED lab and a professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, affiliated with the Barcelona East School of Engineering (EEBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Research Centre (CREB). The PlasTHER Action is funded by the European Union under the COST Actions and is composed of a network of more than 100 experts in physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and medicine from 24 countries. Over the coming years this synergistic network of research staff, the medical community and industry and patient associations will be exploring the possibilities of atmospheric-pressure plasmas in medicine to share, develop and consolidate the treatments under research, and to promote Europes leadership in this field. Canal highlights that the PlasTHER COST Action will help us to promote the development of gas plasma medicine in Europe and take the excellent research conducted so far to the test bench for the sake of patients. She remarks that the research areas that attract the greatest interest for their potential are cancer treatmentthe selective action of gas plasma can prevent side effects in healthy tissuesand the antimicrobial action of gas plasma, which can be applied, for instance, in odontology and wound regeneration. The researcher explains that the action of gas plasma is mainly based on its reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, which are intrinsic to cellular functioning. Depending on the type of species and the dose, they can play a double role by exerting beneficial effects on healthy cells and selectively attacking cancer cells. Promoting the biomedical applications of gas plasma One of the priorities of the PlasTHER Action is to promote gas plasma technology as a standardized treatment in several biomedical applications of great importance to society, using its antimicrobial potential for skin treatment and cancer therapy, for example. In the last five years, intensified research in several areas of gas plasma medicinespecifically, sterilization and decontamination, wound healing and cancer treatmenthas called for protocols to be harmonized and knowledge to be oriented along a common direction, for the purpose of having all the efforts and public investment made so far in basic and applied science translated into benefits for society and the health system. PlasTHER COST is thus conceived as an interdisciplinary network that brings together the latest advances in the basic mechanisms of plasma action and the most appropriate operating conditions to achieve efficient therapies. The network will also work to harmonize protocols within the community in the therapeutic areas involved and to create a road map for each area. To meet these challenges, the network is structured into six working groups, focused on several areas of technology development: the biological mechanisms of gas plasma interaction, the antimicrobial effects of gas plasma, tissue regeneration, cancer treatment, combined therapies and technology ethics, transfer and diffusion. At its initial stage, PlasTHER COST has published the network website and held the training school Fundamental Aspects on Plasma Medicine in Caparica (Portugal) from 14 to 16 February 2022. This was the first opportunity for many doctoral students to share experiences with staff working in the same research area and to present their work. The next milestone was an annual meeting on the occasion of the 9th International Conference on Plasma Medicine that took place in Utrecht (the Netherlands) from 27 June to 1 July. The network has some 14 additional scientific missions scheduled in the coming months. Linkam Scientific Instruments has opened the doors at its new UK premises in Redhill, Surrey, UK, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary in temperature-controlled microscopy. The move stems from the companys unprecedented growth in recent years, particularly in custom-designed solutions to support scientific research in precision temperature- and humidity-controlled environments. Now celebrating its 40th year, Linkam has gone from strength to strength, not only with the new site expansion, but also by growing its team with two new hires in its sales and marketing department and human resources. The premises features a state-of-the-art, interactive demonstration suite where customers and prospective customers can get hands on with the product range, to experience the possibilities of the advanced technology in model experiments. The new site consolidates the entire Linkam production function, including raw materials, inventory, machine tooling and manufacturing, facilitating cross-functional team working, improving collaboration across the business and delivering significant productivity gains. As part of the expansion and to meet growing customer demand, Linkam has also ramped up the team across all areas of the business. To boost the business development drive, Clara Ko joins as sales and marketing manager. Clara has a BSc in Biology and an MBA from the University of London, and has worked for a variety of multi-national scientific companies in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America. She has also worked for leading microscopy and spectroscopy companies in bioscience, chemical analysis and material science, especially in X-ray fluorescence, ICP/Optical emission, and thermal analysis. Clara will be heading up the sales and marketing team, and aims to step up the services Linkam provides to customers and distributors worldwide. An applications scientist will soon be joining the team to improve Linkams technical and application capabilities and further improve customer support. A new dedicated human resources function has been created to support talent acquisition and retention in the team. From a background in talent management in manufacturing, construction and finance, Julie Warner will be responsible for the day to day running of the HR activities with a focus on recruitment and development. Julie will also be driving an employee engagement programme to support future business growth in the new headquarters. Ross Browne, Managing Director at Linkam commented: Sustained business growth in recent years has taken our business to the next phase in its development. We have been successfully supporting researchers in the materials science and life science sectors for 40 years and are proud to mark this major milestone with our new state-of-the-art premises, located five miles from Gatwick International Airport. We now have a site that offers an improved customer experience, showcases our innovative scientific instrument range, and brings together our whole UK team in a modern and efficient working environment while offering space to expand in the future as we continue to develop our technology and our team. Linkam was founded in 1982 by Arnold and Louise Kamp and the company designs and manufactures temperature and environmental control stages, electronics, and software that can be used in conjunction with light microscopes and a wide range of analytical techniques, including Raman, FTIR, SAXS-WAXS and other X-ray techniques, to enable scientists to analyse and characterise samples. The companys progression over the last 40 years, from its foundations in Arnolds garage to the new premises represents the Linkam teams dedication and passion for its instruments. With additional R&D operations in the Netherlands, Linkam has built a strong reputation as an innovator and market leader in temperature-controlled microscopy, supplying unique products designed to advance scientific discovery. Researchers from the University of Oxford have today reported new findings from a Phase 1 clinical trial studying the safety and immune response of an intranasally-administered vaccine against COVID-19. The study was performed at the University in collaboration with AstraZeneca and used the same vaccine based on the ChAdOx1 adenovirus vector, as is already licensed for use by injection. In their findings (published in eBioMedicine), the researchers reported mucosal antibody responses were seen in a minority of participants. Systemic immune responses to intranasal vaccination were also weaker compared with intramuscular vaccination. Therefore, the vaccine did not generate a consistent mucosal antibody nor a strong systemic immune response. No serious adverse events or safety concerns were reported during the trial. The new Oxford study is thought to be the first to have published data from administration of an adenovirus-vectored vaccine using a simple nasal spray, which might be a more practical option for large-scale vaccine campaigns than a more complex nebuliser device - such as that used by a COVID-19 vaccine recently licensed in China - say the researchers. Delivering vaccines to the nose and airways is one of the most promising ways to achieve immunity within the airways, which could stop mild COVID infections and transmission of the virus more effectively than injected vaccines. It also has the advantage of avoiding use of a needle. Many parents will know that nasal sprays are already used for the flu vaccine offered to schoolchildren in some countries, including the UK." Dr Adam Ritchie, Senior Vaccine Programme Manager The ChAdOx1 vector used in the vaccine is a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that has been genetically modified so it is impossible for it to replicate in humans. The trial enrolled 30 previously unvaccinated participants to receive a primary dose of the intranasal vaccine. Additionally, the researchers studied the feasibility of the intranasal vaccine as a booster - 12 participants, who had previously received a standard two-dose COVID-19 vaccine schedule by injection, were administered the intranasal vaccine. Associate Professor Sandy Douglas, Chief Investigator of the trial at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, said: 'The nasal spray did not perform as well in this study as we had hoped. This was quite different from recent data from China, which has suggested good results can be achieved by delivery of a similar vaccine deep into the lungs with a more complex nebuliser device. A nasal spray vaccine similar to ours has recently been approved for intranasal use in India and we are looking forward to the peer-reviewed publication of the clinical trial data used to support that. 'We believe that delivery of vaccines to the nose and lungs remains a promising approach, but this study suggests there are likely to be challenges in making nasal sprays a reliable option. 'One possibility is simply that the majority of the nasal spray vaccine ends up being swallowed and destroyed in the stomach - delivery to the lungs could avoid that. A further challenge is that researchers don't fully understand the relationships between the strength and types of immune responses within the airways and protection against infection. 'We urgently need more research to develop vaccines which can block transmission of respiratory pandemic viruses using delivery routes which are safe and practical at large scale.' For this study, researchers wanted to use exactly the same vaccine as the Oxford-AstraZeneca one to facilitate rapid rollout if the results were positive. They say a possibility for the future is to develop formulations tailor-made for nasal spray use, for example using higher concentrations or using substances designed to help the vaccine stick in the nose rather than being swallowed. Encouraging safety data from this study would help such future work. The study was funded by AstraZeneca. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by infection with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), frequently causes severe disease in the elderly and patients with certain comorbidities. In long-term care facilities (LTCFs), the mortality rate of COVID-19 throughout much of the pandemic was often higher than the rest of the population. This led to the prioritization of LTCF residents during vaccine roll-out; however, there is little data on the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of this group. Study: COVID-19 outbreak in an elderly care home: very low vaccine effectiveness and late impact of booster vaccination campaign. Image Credit: Suwin / Shutterstock.com A new Vaccine study examines an outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in a Dutch LTCF that continued to infect individuals and cause severe disease even after containment measures were implemented and a vaccine booster campaign was instituted. The aim of this study was to assess primary VE against infection and mortality due to COVID-19, with a particular focus on booster vaccine effectiveness. Introduction Elderly people residing in LTCFs are at high risk for severe COVID-19 due to shared living spaces that promote the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, low immunologic function, and coexisting illnesses such as dementia, heart disease, and chronic lung disease. LTCF residents are rarely brought to community testing centers for COVID-19 screening and are not frequently hospitalized. While LTCF residents were given priority vaccinations, earlier studies reported that immunity waned quite rapidly from 12 weeks post-immunization. The paucity of data on VE thereafter makes it difficult to devise appropriate booster dose guidelines in this patient population. The current study reports an LTCF outbreak among both staff and residents. The Netherlands facility had two somatic wards and two wards for patients with psychiatric illness and/or extreme old age. These four wards accounted for 63 residents. Additionally, 88 residents lived at three assisted living semi-detached housing facilities. These residents could use the same daycare and restaurant rooms as those in the wards, with most of the 42 residents at one of these facilities participating in these activities. This left residents at the other two housing estates, whereas the staff and individual housing facilities were relatively secluded from common facilities. Taken together, a total of 160 staff were working at the time of the outbreak, with 151 residents in total. The first COVID-19 case occurred in one of the psycho-geriatric wards in a fully vaccinated patient following contact with an infected individual. Thereafter, testing was carried out for all ward patients and staff, as well as close contacts, both immediately and on day five from the last exposure. All infected residents were quarantined until they were asymptomatic for 24 hours or at least seven days from symptom onset, with others using personal protective equipment (PPE). Visitors without COVID-19 symptoms were required to wear face masks. Following initial room-level isolation of cases, the entire ward, including staff and patients, was isolated as the outbreak grew. This was followed by further cases outside the ward, including staff. These workers, as well as the wards they currently worked in, were also quarantined. At this point, visits were prohibited, common areas closed, and other daily activities restricted. Booster vaccine doses were administered on December 6, 2021, to all ward patients and many in the adjacent housing estates who were still negative for COVID-19. New COVID-19 cases appeared in all LTCF wards and housing estate with social interactions with the LTCF. Testing and individual isolation measures were implemented, with all common areas shut down. The outbreak, which began on November 20, 2021, was ultimately contained when the last case was discharged from isolation on December 22, 2021. Study findings The ward and affected housing estate comprised 105 residents, with a median age of 85 years and two-thirds female. While 13 had a history of COVID-19 and eight were unvaccinated, all other residents were fully vaccinated, with the last dose having been taken on or before July 6, 2021. All residents who did not get infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the current outbreak received a booster dose in December. A total of 70 cases were reported among LTCF residents, with an overall attack rate (AR) of 67%. The initially affected ward had a much higher AR of 94%, followed by 80% for one somatic ward. The AR for the affected housing estate was 62%. All COVID-19 cases were caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. The VE of primary vaccination against this strain was 17% and 70% against mortality within 30 days. Interestingly, this was unaffected by a history of prior COVID-19, perhaps due to the small number of only 13 of the 105 patients who were previously infected. Among unvaccinated patients, the case fatality rate was 33% as compared to 12% in fully vaccinated residents. Few cases were reported from six days after booster doses were given. No boosted patients died from COVID-19. Implications The high rate of infection in a fully vaccinated population, despite isolation and containment measures, adds to current knowledge about the limitations of primary vaccination. The second vaccine dose was taken six or more months prior to the outbreak in this study. Complete vaccination provided 17% protection against infection; however, it reduced mortality by 70% as compared to the unvaccinated. Thus, a third of unvaccinated cases ended in death as compared to 12% among the fully vaccinated. The high AR in the vaccinated subgroup could be due to repeated exposures, exposure to a high viral load, or a new SARS-CoV-2 variant that evaded vaccine-induced immunity. Household ARs are consistently higher than community ARs, possibly due to increased exposure. This could explain the current findings within the self-contained environment of an LTCF. In fact, there were only five cases among the 30 residents who remained susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 but received a booster dose. Each of these occurred in the second week following receipt of the booster dose. No cases were reported in the third week. The researchers believe that timely booster doses helped arrest the outbreak. Nevertheless, a third of the boosted patients already had hybrid immunity with a history of prior COVID-19. [These findings] highlight the vulnerability of adults living in LTCF and the need for timely booster vaccinations. Booster vaccine doses appear to take effect only seven or more days from the day of administration in this population group. Once active, the resulting immunity may prevent further transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The small sample size in the current study indicates the need for larger studies in the future to validate these inferences. To ensure that a commercial biomanufacturing process is in a state of control, life science firms must develop and successfully implement projects that meet continued process verification (CPV) and other monitoring guidelines. Managers at biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies routinely receive data monitoring directives. There are many challenges in creating and maintaining an effective global monitoring program. Many companies thus develop non-scalable, non-sustainable data monitoring processes. To achieve predetermined quality monitoring targets, company executives struggle to find the best ways to acquire, deploy, and scale monitoring systems to reach defined quality monitoring goals. This article provides a maturity model to guide companies through the major steps of implementing a global monitoring plan for continued process verification. Image Credit: BIOVIA, Dassault Systemes Life science companies are motivated to successfully adopt a monitoring program for several reasons, including reducing process variability, adhering to regulatory requirements, enhancing process predictability and consistency, deepening process understanding, and increasing efficiency and profits. However, literature concerning specific techniques for an efficient monitoring program in the variable life science manufacturing environment is limited. One notable reference work is Continued Process Verification: An Industry Position Paper With Example Plan by the Biophorum Operations Group.1 Throughout BIOVIAs history of aiding life science industrial organizations in developing and implementing monitoring systems, the team at BIOVIA has assisted companies in all stages of continuing process verification (CPV) implementation. Each phase includes key tasks and factors required for successful implementation and continuous improvement. This white paper outlines the exact steps for deploying continued process verification. This is a collection of best practices based on BIOVIAs experience developing CPV for various companies in the life science industry. The challenges of maintaining a state of control Over the years, the FDA has started a variety of programs. One of the most recent is "Guidance for Industry Process Validation: General Principles and Practices."2 Experts and regulatory organizations have consistently emphasized the need for companies to be aware of, understand, and monitor their manufacturing processes. European authorities and the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) also provide guidelines. These guidelines share the same themes and give the same advice: to understand the process, reduce variability, be proactive, validate the tools, boost predictability, employ statistically suitable tools, and that team collaboration is necessary. The monitoring rules are not prescriptive, a bonus since they enable companies to devise techniques tailored to their specific organization and process. However, this can also lead to misunderstandings about definitions and the precise tools, techniques, and resources required. There are also a number of complications that businesses must face when adopting CPV programs. Being proactive is difficult. In production, investigations are launched retrospectively to determine why batches fail. Businesses must take time to alter their approach from looking at what went wrong to a pre-emptive, proactive environment. However, it is challenging to find the resources to do this. In reality, both must take place. Companies must investigate a failure if a batch fails. In addition to this, they should also identify the root cause and prevent failures in the future. When initiating corrective and preventative actions (CAPA), time must be allocated to the preventive and the corrective. The global monitoring maturity model addresses this issue. Businesses are required to aggregate their data to monitor it and must do so in a scalable and automated manner. After data is gathered, experts analyze it by creating statistically valid outputs and reporting on them. To do this effectively, they should strip the overhead out of the process by automating report and output creation before scaling the process. Professionals in the life sciences industry routinely devote up to 80% of their time to data collection, cleaning, and organization and just 20% to data analysis. The ratio should be reversed so that data analysis takes up 80% of the time. Life science firms may need to analyze tens of thousands of parameters during the manufacturing process of a single biological drug. These parameters must be organized and easily accessible to scale to that level. To add to this challenge, the life science manufacturing environment is increasingly complex as the use of contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) expands. Regulatory agencies have increasingly emphasized the obligations of both sponsor companies and production facilities to follow monitoring requirements.3 The significant risks of a successful deployment mean that management at life science manufacturing companies have a desire to develop cost-effective, global monitoring programs. FDA guidelines3 state clearly that to achieve success, global monitoring necessitates the collaboration of team members with expertise in quality, manufacturing, and statistical analysis. However, in a global environment, resourcing a collaborative team is a difficult task. If team members are sourced from internal resources, they are typically occupied with ongoing responsibilities. If hired out of school, they may not have acquired a full range of technical expertise. The firms' goals may diverge when a cooperative monitoring team includes CMOs in its process. A group of responsible individuals who can spend the necessary time to execute the program must be assembled. They must be able to work together and possess the appropriate technical proficiency and expertise. It is not enough to maintain a state of control. Life science businesses must show regulatory agencies proof of relevant activities. However, several companies lack proof that they are implementing and upholding CPV. They can create good programs, but if appropriate confirmation that they have achieved key milestones is not provided, regulatory authorities may not have the necessary insight into the process. These challenges demonstrate the need for a scalable solution that addresses continued process verification. CPV maturity model: Deploying for success Figure 1 illustrates a maturity model that can help companies tackle the challenges mentioned above. It is designed to help companies understand their major milestones, objectives, and the required tasks to successfully implement CPV and prove that they have done so. The maturity model depicted in Figure 1 contains seven stages. Companies may move up and down the working models phases as they implement and develop their monitoring initiatives. They will work on many phases simultaneously, and they may overlap. Figure 1. Seven phases for CPV maturity. Image Credit: BIOVIA, Dassault Systemes Companies progress through the framework, returning to earlier phases as required to align, scale, and globalize their initiatives. Each phases description will emphasize decisions that may accelerate long-term scalability and management supervision. Phase 1: Develop a CPV initiative Several companies start their CPV journey with isolated and manual monitoring projects. However, most life science companies desire a fully developed global program with standardized deployment and tools that give management visibility. A change in company culture is often necessary to develop and maintain a global CPV program. Companies either develop a new CPV initiative or incorporate CPV monitoring techniques into current initiatives, such as quality by design (QbD), quality monitoring, and product robustness. The initiative's determination is specific to the company and largely dependent on internal dynamics. The CPV initiative should summarize the general rationale, expectations, and procedures. Establishing a company culture that can support the new endeavor is essential. A lack of time for sites to implement CPV, a lack of understanding and acceptance of the need to monitor, and a lack of accountability or clearly defined roles are common difficulties. Most businesses adopt a top-down strategy, with management establishing expectations of accountability for CPV-related operations to avoid these issues. Leaders in IT, quality, manufacturing, and statistics should be identified by management, along with their roles in the initiative. These leaders may aid everyone in comprehending the significance of creating a CPV program and the necessity of ongoing process verification. A substantial organizational adjustment is required for a successful initiative. It is vital to offer evidence of major milestones in every phase of the maturity model. For the initiative and culture phase, key evidence may include developing and amending an initiative document to include CPV monitoring with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, as well as buy-in and support from key stakeholders and executive management. The focus of efforts should be the development of an internal culture that supports change and implementation of a global CPV program. Phase 2: Technology solutions Life science firms must make the critical decision on what technical solutions they require to facilitate CPV adoption. It is critical to employ technology solutions to increase the maintenance and scalability of data collection, computation of data analysis and visualization, as well as reporting and dashboards for the results. GMP requirements must be followed while selecting technology to conduct a CPV program. There are numerous software options available and several homegrown systems. Potential technological solutions should be examined using the following criteria: Usability - How many people will be able to use it? How long does it take to learn something? Is it necessary to have specialized skills? The capacity to automate data aggregation and cleansing to reduce the time spent compiling it The hardware and maintenance related to maintaining the technology solution Automation of analysis and reporting to decrease the need for manual calculations The capacity, if necessary, to convert paper data to electronic data in a compatible manner. Using monitoring by exception to receive automated notifications rather than manually reviewing each chart Appropriate statistical tools for accounting for diverse processes Dashboards (or control panels) and reporting capabilities to improve management understanding and save overhead for CPV-related data Diverse technical preferences and budget allocations mean that many organizations struggle to deploy a single global technology solution. They should implement solutions that are in line with their long-term requirements. To keep expenses low, software tools such as Microsoft Excel are frequently initially used until their feasibility is limited due to a lack of harmonization and scalability. It is crucial to choose the appropriate solution given the size of the business and its long-term CPV objectives. Companies should provide proper training for employees who will use the technology. The implementation, validation, and training related to CPV technology solutions are common sources of evidence used to show the completion of this phase. Phase 3: Guidelines/standard operating procedures Although regulations can be developed before a technology solution is adopted, they are usually changed based on the solution. Life science companies typically vary in the volume of procedural documentation produced and who owns each document. Four general documents are usually used. The most general is a high-level initiative guideline that outlines standards and protocols for the entire organization. A monitoring procedures guideline document will usually explain the expected procedures for each site and product. It is not prescriptive, allowing sites to develop their own techniques. A technical statistical document may be written independently from the monitoring methods to demonstrate statistical techniques and discuss statistical process control ideas. Monitoring plans for specific sites and goods are prepared at the most detailed level to identify the precise procedures, resources, and individuals responsible for each site and product. The site-level and product-level monitoring plans should detail how the sites and products will implement these procedures. The following major areas should be included in monitoring methods and site/product-level monitoring plans: What parameters (critical quality attributes [CQAs], critical process parameters, business parameters, etc.) will be monitored? What risk-adjustment techniques should be followed? 4 Which statistical tools should be employed? How will risk levels be established? When should a control chart, run chart, cumulative sum (CUSUM) chart, etc., be used? How should a unique cause variation be dealt with? How should dirty data be adjusted (non-normal, autocorrelation, outliers, small sample sizes, etc.)? Which run rules should be used? When should alerts be expected to be received? How frequently will new data be added to the system? How often will the user perform analysis and examine data visualizations? Who is in charge of configuring and automating monitoring? What steps should be carried out in response to out-of-trend (OOT) alerts? Distinguishing between out of specification (OOS) and out of time (OOT) experimental techniques Documenting actions. Consider the audience receiving the material. It is crucial to find a balance between giving adequate technical information and not overcomplicating the documents. The strategies listed below can help make documents more useful: Employing flow diagrams Restricting the documents length Placing equations in appendices rather than the body of the text Giving training on statistical process control and monitoring approaches (more than standard statistical training). Key milestones for providing evidence of usable and appropriate company-level guidelines include: Annual reviews and updates to guidelines Ensuring that guidelines/SOPs are detailed and understandable Informing responsible parties on the site/product monitoring methods. Phase 4: Standard monitoring Statistical methods for common monitoring should be developed after the CPV initiative is established, a technology solution is adopted, and guidelines are created. Standard monitoring procedures are typically simple techniques for critical measures like CQAs. These offer quick wins that can help businesses understand their process. Standard monitoring procedures involve setting up trends (run and control charts) and estimates of process capacity or performance for all CQAs. Stakeholder presentations and the setting up of simple small-scale dashboards are frequently included in this phase. The proper control chart application requires various decisions and may require statistical assistance. For instance, users must perform assumption testing (distribution testing, autocorrelation), choose the best control chart based on the intended distribution, and establish baseline control limits using historical data.5 The proper use of monitoring procedures correlates to how prescriptive and usable the guidelines are and the availability of supportive personnel such as subject-matter experts and statistical support personnel. The incorrect setup of standard monitoring tools usually results in an inappropriate alert or signal, which leads to a lack of system utilization. Once the fundamental outputs are configured typically 20 parameters per product/process they are shown on a simple organizational dashboard. At this stage, these dashboards are rarely large-scale and are often made for a targeted audience to deliver crucial insights. However, they offer valuable data and permit site-level staff members to understand the monitoring program's worth, which improves their process knowledge. It is also an excellent point to provide information to management and other stakeholders. To gain buy-in and enable a larger group of people to realize the value of the CPV initiative, it is crucial to define stages for a monitoring setup. When a company uses a manual process (as indicated earlier), the user will arrive at phase 4 of this model and understand that they cannot scale with the guidelines and technology solution they created in the earlier phases. This makes the manual process even more time-consuming and only capable of monitoring a minimal number of parameters. Companies in this situation usually realize that a spreadsheet-style solution cannot be scaled to incorporate all their products and parameters. They usually move to a technological approach that lowers administrative costs while boosting scalability. Figure 2 illustrates an instance of when it is necessary to go back through the model to review earlier phases. Figure 2. It may be necessary to revisit earlier phases in the maturity model. Image Credit: BIOVIA, Dassault Systemes A CQA dashboard, a training roadmap, reports showing the number/percent increase in parameters monitored, the number of OOT/OOS warnings, the decline in OOT/increase in process capabilities, and other statistics are crucial evidence of milestones related to standard monitoring techniques. Phase 5: Advanced monitoring When a business has successfully finished the essential procedures, it can go on to more sophisticated monitoring techniques for more technically focused individuals. More parameters can be monitored, including multivariate monitoring, techniques for time series data, and advanced dashboards and reporting. The objective is to automate this procedure to provide the right information to the right consumer. Different levels of reports should be delivered for different needs. The strategies listed below are made to help technically savvy people improve process comprehension. They are capable of setting up and automating intricate monitoring and inquiry procedures, including: Monitoring of critical process parameters (CPPs) and other business variables Interactions between CPPs and CQAs Effective practices for dealing with assumption testing; many businesses revisit and change their standards to improve signal and process information. Golden batch evaluation Capabilities for continuous monitoring Multivariate analysis software CPV report generation is automated Connect monitoring outputs to standardized OOT investigative analyses Sophisticated dashboards with drill-down functionality Comprehensive trending approaches for niche applications (control charts based on other distributions) The following are the most common indicators of advanced monitoring milestones: An increase in the number of parameters and analyses performed A decrease in the time spent reporting and communicating CPV monitoring information A decrease in the time spent on OOT investigations An increase in analysis complexity An increase in the number of individuals who consume CPV information. As illustrated in Figure 2, the urge to revisit previous phases frequently occurs at this stage. Companies discover they cannot do advanced process monitoring with their current technology and return to phase 2 to look for a better solution. Phase 6: Expanded data access To account for process changes and establish process knowledge, it is vital to decide how data will be introduced to the system after monitoring tools have been installed and automated. A CPV initiative is a dynamic process that will be continuously updated over time. When a company evaluates the data that it has been processing, personnel will learn valuable information about the manufacturing process. As understanding increases, more questions will be asked. Other parameters can and should be monitored to resolve those issues. The CPV maturity model must be advanced to continuously improve and modify monitoring methods. Businesses should prepare for growing data volumes after the first implementation and evaluate their average need for additional data to help with resource and budgetary planning. Multiyear planning and budgets for increasing data demands, reports on changes to data access, and resources committed to sustaining data access and aggregation are typical enhanced data access milestones. Phase 7: Meta-monitoring A conclusive conclusion cannot be made based on monitoring a single parameter. Making informed, data-driven business decisions necessitates the integration of hundreds of thousands of statistical outputs and data visualizations to obtain a complete picture of a product, site, and overall company condition. For example, if a product is manufactured in multiple sites across the world, numerous parameters and tools are monitored at each location that must be combined to determine the products status. Meta-monitoring is the process of combining data to gain a broad understanding of the status of a process or product. Meta-monitoring is the act of monitoring other monitoring processes. For consumers to understand the results, meta-analysis, based on research language, combines different types of analyses. The idea behind meta-monitoring and CPV monitoring is the same. Figure 3 demonstrates how monitoring for each individual metric must be combined to identify the status of a process step, and then combined again to assess the status of a product or site, and finally, combined again to assess the overall status of all company locations and products. Figure 3. Meta-monitoring includes parameter step-level, process step-level, and site-level monitoring. Image Credit: BIOVIA, Dassault Systemes During this step, companies frequently discover a lack of coordination among locations that manufacture the same drug or use similar techniques. Businesses typically use harmonization techniques to better match parameters across sites and products. Often, in the initial meta-monitoring attempt, only 1020% of parameters can be compared across sites, so companies commonly return to the previous step to update or add comparison parameters. Various statistical techniques must be utilized to ensure a true comparison is made while carrying out meta-monitoring processes (such as effect sizes). It is easy to use the simplest comparison methods (e.g., t-tests) and make incorrect conclusions based on false statistical comparisons, such as failing to account for sample size. These pitfalls are standard and can discourage buy-in from stakeholders since the site/CMO shows poor performance resulting from a statistical artifact rather than an actual difference. Meta-monitoring is a tool that may be used by commercial-scale manufacturing companies to determine which of their sites, products, and process steps are satisfactory and where changes should be made. Meta-monitoring evidence commonly includes annual company-level monitoring reports that address site, process, and meta-monitoring assessments and recommend data-driven decisions based on monitoring dashboards and reports. Summary To maintain control, life science companies should implement a CPV initiative. Companies will likely face several challenges in building and sustaining a scalable and sustainable monitoring program. With the help of a maturity model, businesses may overcome these challenges and effectively complete the critical phases required to build a global monitoring plan for continuous process verification. A well-executed monitoring program helps life science organizations meet regulatory requirements, enhance process uniformity and predictability, and increase process understanding and variability. Using this platform, companies can efficiently conduct continuing process verification. References About BIOVIA, Dassault Systemes BIOVIA provides global, collaborative product lifecycle experiences to transform scientific innovation. Our solutions create an unmatched scientific management environment that can help science-based organizations create and connect biological, chemical and material innovations to improve the way we live. The industry-leading BIOVIA portfolio integrates the diversity of science, experimental processes and information requirements, end-to-end, across research, development, QA/QC and manufacturing. Capabilities include Scientific Informatics, Molecular Modeling/Simulation, Data Science, Laboratory Informatics, Formulation Design, BioPharma Quality & Compliance and Manufacturing Analytics. BIOVIA is committed to enhancing and speeding innovation, increasing productivity, improving quality and compliance, reducing costs and accelerating product development for customers in multiple industries. Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today A mix of clouds and sun in the morning followed by cloudy skies during the afternoon. High 38F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy with snow showers developing after midnight. Low 29F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 40%. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Staff Reporter Parents have been asked to pay special attention to the mental health of many children as some of them exhibit a high level of anxiety and despair after the reopening of schools last week following a gap of two long years. It is learnt that many students continue to have trouble adjusting to the new changes. Speaking to The Daily Tribune, Deepthi Prasad, a leading psychology professional in the Kingdom, said: All students are not alike. While 50 per cent of them are excited to return to school, the remaining 50pc arent really happy as they have to leave their comfort zone, sleeping, learning and behavioural patterns. Students were accustomed to a different learning pattern, such as long hours of online class, which has affected their attention span, most often causing difficulties in focusing on studies while harming their social skills. As a result of these difficulties, they will be struggling to cope with the offline demand, which increases stress, anxiety, fear, and anger in them. Highlighting the impact of the pandemic season on the mental health of both students and their parents, she said: Earlier, during the pandemic, most parents were facing difficult times, with some working from home and others losing their jobs, which was one of the major reasons why parents did not pay attention to their childrens mental health. Ms Deepthi advised parents to organise childrens routines such as providing all necessary study materials, following the schedule for sleeping and eating on time. Parents should give short study breaks and they can help their child to develop new hobbies and make them participate in extracurricular activities, all of which will help to motivate children. She also stated that parents should lower their expectations on their children and stop judging them exclusively on the basis of their academic achievements. To address students mental health issues, parents, teachers, and school counsellors must work together. Bahrain resident Zini Ahmed, mother of a school-going child, who is also a psychology graduate, said, As adults, we all have diverse needs and different ways of coping with stressful situations. For children also it is the same, while some can deal well with the difference in learning pattern and related environments, others are bound to have varying levels of stress and anxiety. Kids aged up to four or five, who are attending schools for the first time, will definitely be facing separation anxiety. Parents of these children must exert best efforts to ensure that this transition is made smoothly while sending them to playschools or schools, she added. Anxiety is defined by the American Psychological Association as a feeling of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes such as increased blood pressure. Depression on the other hand, is a common and serious medical illness that has a negative impact on a persons feeling, thought process and actions. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com National Security Advisor and Royal Guard Commander, Major-General His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, has affirmed the depth of the steadily-growing Bahrain-UK partnership. He highlighted the two countries commitment to consolidating peace and security in the region, as well as achieving their common interests. This came as Major-General HH Shaikh Nasser received yesterday a delegation from the International Relations and Defence Committee, at the UK House of Lords, led by Baroness Anelay of St Johns. The National Security Advisor welcomed the House of Lords delegation, and reviewed with them the ongoing cooperation and coordination between the two friendly countries, praising the long-standing Bahraini-British relations. They also discussed the latest regional and global developments of mutual concern. UK Ambassador to Bahrain Roddy Drummond, accompanied the UK House of Lords delegation. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Report by Zahra Ayaz The Election Crime Investigation Committee has begun probing into an alleged electoral campaign at a school after being notified about a viral video, apparently an electoral law violation. The Cybercrime Department of the General Department for Anti-Corruption, Economic Security and Electronics at the Ministry of Interior stated that a video clip on social media platforms showed a parliamentary candidate, along with another person, as he was campaigning amidst a group of people gathering. Both the candidate and the second individual have been summoned and confronted with the content of the video clip as evidence of a violation of election law, prior to referring them to stand an urgent trial, said Advocate General, Head of the Electoral Crimes Investigation Committee. Decree-Law No 15 of 2002 regarding the Shura and Representatives Council prohibits candidates, in the context of electoral propaganda, from organising or holding electoral meetings or giving speeches in places of worship, universities, scientific institutes, government and private schools, or in squares, streets and public roads. Those candidates who are violators of the law may be jailed up to one year or fined up to BD1,000. According to the ministry, all candidates for the House of Representatives and local councils must adhere to civilised principles of conduct during their campaigns to avoid harming the reputation of any other candidates, insulting them, or questioning their ability. As part of the electoral code of conduct, the Ministry of Municipalities Affairs earlier banned erecting election campaign billboards on select 23 streets in the Kingdom. The notified streets are King Hamad Street, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Street, Crown Prince Street, Khalifa Grand Street, Al Fateh Street, Shaikh Isa bin Salman Street, Shaikh Salman Street, King Faisal Street, King Abdullah Street, Airport Street, Istiklal Street, Zallaq Street, Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah Street, Dry Dock Street, Shaikh Khalifa bBin Salman Causeway Street, Shaikh Hamad Bridge Street, Shaikh Isa bin Salman Bridge Street, Arad Street, Hidd Street, Diving Street, Bahrain Bay Street, Prince Saud Al Faisal Street and Camp Street. The ministry also emphasised the rules governing election propaganda tools, including the slogans, posters, images, brochures and writings that are used in electoral campaigns. Those candidates or their supporters who engage in discrimination against the tenets of the Islamic faith and the unity of the people, or anything that leads to sectarianism or division among residents will be penalised. The officials have also banned the use of the Kingdoms flag or official emblem in gatherings, advertisements, electoral statements and loudspeakers outside polling places. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Staff Reporter As the deadline for filing nominations ended yesterday, it has become clear that the House of Representative Speaker along with six other parliamentarians will not be contesting polls this time. Speaker Fawzia Zainal, the leading democratic figure in the Kingdom and the first woman to head the House of Representatives, did not file nominations and so are the other six incumbents. Other incumbents who are not contesting the polls this time are Ghazi Al Rahma (represents the fourth constituency in the Northern Governorate), Muhammad Al Abbasi (represents the third constituency in Muharraq Governorate), Isa Al Kooheji (represents the fourth constituency in Muharraq Governorate), Ammar Qambar (represents the seventh constituency in Muharraq Governorate), Youssef Al Thawadi (represents the eighth constituency in Muharraq) and Abdul Razzaq Hattab (represents the sixth constituency in the Southern Governorate). The incumbents running in polls from the Capital Governorate are Adel Al Asoomi, Sawsan Kamal, Mamdouh Al Saleh, Ammar Al Bannai, Ahmed Al Salloum, Masooma Abdel Rahim, Zainab Abdel Amir, Fadel Al Sawad, Ammar Al Abbas, and Ali Ishaqi. From the Muharraq Governorate, four incumbents are in the electoral battlefield; Hamad Al Kooheji, Ibrahim Al Nafii, Khaled Buanaq, and Hisham Al Ashiri. The Northern Governorate has 11 incumbents who have filed the nominations: Kaltham Al Hayki, Fatima Al Qatari, Abdullah Al Dosari, Sayed Falah Hashem, Abdulnabi Salman, Ahmed Al Demistani, Abdullah Al Thawadi, Basem Al Maliki, Youssef Zainal, Muhammad Buhamoud and Mahmoud Al Bahrani. In the Southern Governorate, all current MPs except one are contesting the polls: Ahmed Al Amer, Ahmed Al Ansari, Ali Zayed, Mohamed Al Sisi, Ali Al Nuaimi, Issa Al Dossary and Badr Al Dosari. Isa Al Qadi has moved from the Southern Governorate to Muharraq Governorate to file his candidacy. Meanwhile, the filing of appeals over the decisions made by the electoral committees can be carried out by the poll hopefuls in the next two days as well. A record number of 560 citizens have filed their candidatures for the upcoming elections. According to electoral records, 420 filed their candidatures in 2018 elections while there were 493 in 2014 poll fray. The first day of filing nominations saw 325 electoral hopefuls submitting their papers, which itself was a record when compared to previous electoral years. The past five days have seen long queues of potential candidates at electoral supervisory centres, carrying documents and required papers marking the beginning of the Kingdoms biggest democratic festival. It is learnt that 20 nominations were rejected till last evening over criminal accusations, address issues, absence of name in the voters list as well as lack of Arabic proficiency. Speaking to members of the media, Issa Sami Al Mannai, the Undersecretary for Justice and Islamic Affairs within the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments, said potential candidates can file appeals through the national portal bahrain.bh. The electronic appeals service that can be found in the electoral website will be available round the clock during this specific period and the ministry has issued a set of guidelines for the process. According to the law, any potential candidate has the right to appeal the decision by the electoral supervisory committee before higher judicial authorities and a decision will be taken by the higher judicial authority within seven days of filing the appeal. The candidate lists will be displayed until October 12, during which time potential candidates can challenge the supervisory committees decisions. The committees must issue their final decisions by October 15, which can be challenged in court no later than October 18, and the court rulings must be issued by October 25. The final list of candidates will be announced on October 26. The Kingdom will head to the polls on November 12 with a run-off fixed on November 19. Agencies | Kuala Lumpur The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Malaysias 97-year-old former leader Mahathir Mohamad announced on Tuesday he will defend his seat in the general elections expected next month, though he wouldnt say whether he would be prime minister a third time if his political alliance wins. We have not decided who will be prime minister because the prime minister candidate is only relevant if we win, Mahathir told a news conference. Though unlikely, he would be the oldest ever candidate for the post, which has a five-year term. Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved Parliament on Monday for snap polls, caving in to pressure from his United Malays National Organisation party, which is hoping for a big win on its own amid feuds with allies in the ruling coalition. The Election Commission is due to fix a date within the week for a vote, which must be held within 60 days of Parliaments dissolution. Despite his nonagenarian status and a health scare this year, Mahathir said he will defend his parliamentary seat in Langkawi island. He also warned that a win by the ruling UMNO party could see imprisoned ex-prime minister Najib Razak pardoned and let off the hook. Mahathir was a UMNO premier for 22 years until his retirement in 2003. Then, in 2016, he was inspired to return to politics by the massive looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund during Najibs term in office and rode a wave of public anger to lead the opposition to a historic victory in 2018 polls that ousted UMNO, which had ruled since the countrys independence from Britain in 1957. Mahathir became the worlds oldest head of government at 93, and oversaw graft charges against Najib and other UMNO leaders. But his reformist alliance collapsed in less than two years due to defections, returning UMNO to power under a new coalition government. After his governments collapse in 2020, Mahathir formed the Pejuang party and a new alliance with several small parties. Mahathir, echoing both the opposition and UMNO allies, slammed UMNO on Tuesday for putting its own interest first in rushing elections during the annual monsoon season in November that brings major floods. He said UMNO aims to win big by offering bribes and money to the people. He said UMNOs main objective is to free Najib, who began his 12-year jail term in August after losing his final appeal in a corruption case linked to the 1MDB scandal. If they win this election, their first move would be to ask (Malaysias king) to pardon Najib. At this moment, they have made a request but has not been pardoned, Mahathir said. Should they be able to win and form the government, that is their first objective, not about the welfare of the people. Mahathir said his political alliance hasnt been approved by the government and that some 120 candidates will run under Pejuangs banner in Malay-dominated parliamentary seats. Analysts said Mahathirs pull may no longer appeal to ethnic Malay voters who supported him in 2018. UMNO, which had only 36 out of 222 lawmakers in the just-dissolved Parliament, believes many Malays have returned to its fold following its landslide victory in recent byelections. The Alliance of Hope, which Mahathir led to victory in 2018 polls, remains the key contender with 90 lawmakers. Its prime minister candidate is Anwar Ibrahim, who was originally due to succeed Mahathir before their government collapsed. While Mahathir competes head-on with UMNO and others for votes of Malays, who account for two-thirds of Malaysias 33 million people, Anwars alliance remains on a multi-racial platform. Ethnic Chinese and Indians form large minorities in the country. Anwar said on Monday that the election will be a time for the people to vote out traitors who led to the collapse of his alliance government in 2020. Agencies |Islamabad The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Tuesday arrived in her native Pakistan to visit flood victims, 10 years after a Taliban assassination attempt against her. Yousafzai was just 15 years old when militants from the Pakistani Taliban -- an independent group that shares a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban -- shot her in the head over her campaign for girls' education. She was flown to Britain for life-saving treatment and went on to become a global education advocate and the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Two days after the 10th anniversary of the attack, she landed in the southern city of Karachi -- only her second visit since the shooting -- from where she will travel to areas devastated by unprecedented monsoon flooding. Her visit aims "to help keep international attention focused on the impact of floods in Pakistan and reinforce the need for critical humanitarian aid", her organisation Malala Fund said in a statement. Catastrophic flooding put a third of Pakistan under water, displaced eight million people -- who are now facing a health crisis -- and caused an estimated $28 billion in damages. Yousafzai's visit comes as students at her former school join a strike over a rise in violence in her hometown of Mingora in the Swat Valley. The Pakistani Taliban waged a years-long insurgency in Swat until a major military crackdown in the northwest of the country in 2014 restored security in the area. But it has seen a resurgence of militancy since the Taliban returned to power across the border in Afghanistan last year. There has been a spike in attacks in recent weeks, targeting mostly security forces. On Monday, a driver was shot dead and a child wounded in an attack on a school bus, prompting up to 2,000 students and teachers to walk out of classes. Locals blamed the Pakistani Taliban, but the group has denied responsibility. Students and teachers again walked out on Tuesday calling for peace in the region. "People are angry," principal Ahmad Shah told AFP on Monday. "Students from all the private schools came out to protest." Brand is also launching the first-ever Boorito sweepstakes on BeReal NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ -- Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) today announced Boorito, the brand's longest-running tradition, will return as an in-person event at Canadian restaurants on October 31. The brand teamed up with artist and creative director Pablo Rochat to create a special trailer that celebrates the 22nd year of Boorito: https://youtu.be/Q41x9SDuSjo. Chipotles longest-running tradition, Boorito, will return as an in-person event at Canadian restaurants on October 31. Fans who sign up for Chipotle Rewards and visit a Chipotle restaurant in Canada on October 31 from 3pm local time to close while dressed up in costume can receive a $7 CAN entree. The brand teamed up with artist and creative director Pablo Rochat to create a special trailer that celebrates the 22nd year of Boorito. Boorito Is Back IRL Fans who sign up for Chipotle Rewards and visit a restaurant in Canada on October 31 from 3pm local time to close while dressed up in costume can receive a $7 CAN entree.1 To get in on Chipotle's spookiest offer of the year, fans can join Chipotle Rewards by visiting: www.chipotle.ca/rewards. On Halloween, Chipotle Rewards members can redeem the offer in restaurant by: Opening the Chipotle app Tapping "SCAN" Scanning their Chipotle Rewards member ID at the register Boorito Is On BeReal To celebrate Boorito's return to Chipotle restaurants, the brand is launching "BooReal" on BeReal, Gen Z's new favorite social media platform that gives users a short 2-minute deadline to post whatever is happening in their day. Participants will have the chance to win one of 10 Free Burritos for a Year prizes2. Fans can enter for a chance to win by: Taking a BeReal photo in costume at a Chipotle restaurant on October 31 and posting it on BeReal with the hashtag #booritosweepstakes Sharing their BeReal to Instagram Stories by tagging @chipotle and adding #booritosweepstakes Fans can also send an email with "BooReal Sweepstakes" in the subject line to [email protected] for a chance to win. "Boorito is all about having fun with your friends and enjoying real food in our restaurants," said Chris Brandt, Chief Marketing Officer at Chipotle. "After two years of celebrating virtually, we're leveling up the in-person experience with fun activations on social that will help bring fans together on Halloween." 1 Chipotle Rewards members in costume who scan their Rewards member ID receive one (1) entree item for US$6/CAN$7 in restaurant at participating U.S./Canada locations. Valid only on 10/31/22 beginning at 3:00 pm local time through restaurant closing; redemption is subject to availability. Not valid on digital, delivery or catering orders. Limit: one (1) per costume. Extra cost for guacamole (except for veggie entrees), queso, extra meat or other modifiers. Taxes, gratuities and any sides are not included and are the responsibility of the customer. Restrictions may apply to use with other coupons, promotions, or special offers. Determination of what qualifies as a costume will be at the sole discretion of restaurant staff. Additional restrictions may apply. 2NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open to legal residents of CAN, 50 U.S. & D.C. who are 13 years of age or older with a BeReal and Instagram account. Promotion Period: 10/31/22 12:01 am PT 11:59 pm PT. See Official Rules at chipotle.com/booreal for free entry method, how to enter, additional eligibility restrictions, prize descriptions/restrictions/ARV's, odds, Chipotle's license rights and complete details. Sponsor: CMG Strategy Co., LLC. Not sponsored, endorsed or affiliated with BeReal or Instagram. About Chipotle Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE: CMG) is cultivating a better world by serving responsibly sourced, classically-cooked, real food with wholesome ingredients without artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. Chipotle had over 3,000 restaurants as of June 30, 2022, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany and is the only restaurant company of its size that owns and operates all its restaurants. Chipotle is ranked on the Fortune 500 and is recognized on the 2022 list for Fortune's Most Admired Companies. With over 100,000 employees passionate about providing a great guest experience, Chipotle is a longtime leader and innovator in the food industry. Chipotle is committed to making its food more accessible to everyone while continuing to be a brand with a demonstrated purpose as it leads the way in digital, technology and sustainable business practices. For more information or to place an order online, visit WWW.CHIPOTLE.CA. SOURCE Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. For further information: Erin Wolford, (949) 524-4035, [email protected] If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit For the 18th Consecutive Year, Credit Unions Are the Sole Winners of the Customer Service Excellence Award TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - Canada's credit unions are once again the top pick for customer service excellence at the 2022 Ipsos Financial Service Excellence Awards. Canada's credit unions have ranked first in this category for 18 years in a row. "Customer service excellence is in the credit union DNA. Our members are our top priority and that is reflected in the personalized service they receive to help them achieve their financial goals," Canadian Credit Union Association (CCUA) President and CEO Jeff Guthrie says. "Canada's Credit Unions are beyond proud to receive the Customer Service Excellence Award for 2022 for the 18th year in a row and to have increased our wins from last year with the addition of the Financial Planning and Advice award. This achievement demonstrates credit unions' commitment to putting people first in all they do." Canada's credit unions won six Ipsos awards this year, an increase from the five awards they were presented last year. Newly among them was the award for best Financial Planning and Advice, a testament to credit unions' relationships with their members and commitment to supporting their financial well-being. The full list of categories in which Canada's Credit Unions were winners includes: Customer Service Excellence (solo win) Values My Business (solo win) Financial Planning and Advice (new win) Branch Service Excellence (solo win) Online Banking Excellence Live Agent Telephone Banking Excellence About the Ipsos Financial Service Excellence Awards Introduced in 1987, the Customer Service Index (CSI) survey generates the winners of the annual Financial Service Excellence Awards (formerly Best Banking Awards). This year's awards were based on the combined results of 47,940 completed surveys for the 2022 CSI program year ending September 2022 and are based on a demographically and regionally representative sample of Canadians. The awards are presented across 11 categories. About the Canadian Credit Union Association Canadian Credit Union Association is the national trade association for Canada's credit unions and caisses populaires outside Quebec. These financial institutions offer a full range of retail banking services to over 5.9 million Canadians. Collectively Canada's 211 credit unions generate over $6.5 billion in economic impact, are leaders in small business lending, and have assets of over $289 billion. To learn more about the credit union difference and find a credit union near you, visit www.ccua.com. SOURCE Canadian Credit Union Association For further information: Dimah Khalili, Vice President of Communications, Marketing, and Member Relations, [email protected], (647) 526-4791 This project will improve the capacity of communities to address challenges related to the pandemic faced by Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers. TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - COVID-19 presented significant challenges to accessing resources for Autistic people and their families. With the abrupt closures of schools, therapy centres, respite services, and recreational programs, many were suddenly without support. In addition, due to the pandemic, many people in Canada, including Autistic people continue to experience increased stress, anxiety, and depression. Disrupted routines and restricted or reduced access to programming, services and activities has had, and continues to have, a negative impact. Today, as we recognize Autism Awareness Month and reflect on how we can better support Autistic Canadians, Adam van Koeverden, Parliamentary Secretary to the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, announced funding for a community-based project aimed at addressing the negative impacts of COVID-19. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) will receive $468,817 to address the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Autistic individuals and their caregivers, including social isolation, confusing or unclear information about COVID-19, and a lack of available mental health resources and supports due to pandemic restrictions. CAMH will provide online forums for Autistic adults and their families to offer and receive peer support through social connection in an effort to improve healthy behaviours and support their mental, physical, and social wellbeing. Projects funded through the Autism Spectrum Disorder Strategic Fund will provide opportunities for Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers to access knowledge, resources and skills that are essential to helping Autistic individuals achieve and maintain optimal health and wellbeing. Quotes "Our government is working to improve the health and well-being of people on the autism spectrum and to supporting their families and caregivers. To do so, we are committed to work with organization like the CAMH to help provide community-based autism resources that support the mental, physical, and social wellbeing of Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers." The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos Minister of Health "The pandemic has been a stressful and life-altering experience for many people. A number of Autistic individuals and their families have struggled with lack of access to critical services and the impact of social isolation. Community resources like the one announced today can go a long way in making a real difference in the lives of those who need them." Adam van Koeverden Parliamentary Secretary "CAMH is very grateful to the Government of Canada for funding the crucial work of supporting Autistic people and their families. Autistic people have always had higher rates of mental health issues than other groups, and this has only been exacerbated during the pandemic. This funding provides a unique opportunity to develop a number of activities co-designed and co-led by Autistic people and their families to support their mental health." Sarah Downey President and CEO, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Quick Facts Autism (also referred to as autism spectrum disorder, or ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by communication difficulties as well as social and behavioural differences. Each person on the autism spectrum is unique, and the term "spectrum" refers to the wide variation in strengths and challenges. According to the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY), 1 in 50 (or 2.0%) Canadian children and youth aged 1 to 17 years were diagnosed with autism. Budget 2018 allocated $20 million over five years to better support the needs of Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers. Of this overall investment, $9.1 million was allocated to establish the Autism Spectrum Disorder Strategic Fund to support community-based projects that pursue innovative program models, help reduce stigma, and integrate health, social and educational components to better serve the complex needs of Autistic Canadians and their families. over five years to better support the needs of Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers. Of this overall investment, was allocated to establish the Autism Spectrum Disorder Strategic Fund to support community-based projects that pursue innovative program models, help reduce stigma, and integrate health, social and educational components to better serve the complex needs of Autistic Canadians and their families. The Government of Canada is working collaboratively with provinces, territories, families, Indigenous organizations and other stakeholders toward the creation of a national autism strategy to better support Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers. is working collaboratively with provinces, territories, families, Indigenous organizations and other stakeholders toward the creation of a national autism strategy to better support Autistic individuals, their families and caregivers. On November 15-16, 2022 , the Public Health Agency of Canada is hosting a virtual national autism conference to bring together the views of Autistic Canadians, their families and caregivers, advocates, provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples towards the development of a national autism strategy. Associated Links Autism: About, causes and co-occurring conditions Autism Spectrum Disorder - Highlights from the 2019 Canadian Survey on Children and Youth (report) National autism strategy SOURCE Public Health Agency of Canada For further information: Marie-France Proulx, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health, 613-957-0200; Media Relations: Public Health Agency of Canada, 613-957-2983, [email protected]; Public Inquiries: 613-957-2991, 1-866-225-0709 Parks Canada launches public engagement for re-development in the 200-block of Banff Avenue to support visitor reception, orientation and education services BANFF, AB, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - The network of protected areas administered by Parks Canada is a gateway to nature, history, and 450 000 km of memories from coast to coast to coast. Investing in these locations helps support the health of our natural heritage, increases climate resiliency and creates jobs in our local communities, while providing visitors with high-quality, safe and meaningful experiences across the country. Caption: Banff Avenue in the town of Banff, with Banff National Parks Cascade Mountain in the backgroundCredit: Parks Canada/B. Wrobleski (CNW Group/Parks Canada) Today, Terry Duguid, Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, on behalf of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, announced $8 million to launch public engagement and planning for the re-development in the 200-block of Banff Avenue, an idea first envisioned almost 25 years ago. Present for the announcement in the town of Banff was Senator Karen Sorensen, a long-time supporter of the project and Special Advisor to the Park Superintendent for the planning and engagement component of this project. The Government is committed to investing in the revitalization of Parks Canada's infrastructure assets for the benefit of all Canadians. With this federal investment, Parks Canada will advance plans to re-develop facilities and open spaces in downtown Banff to welcome national park visitors, encourage them to connect with the park, and foster their understanding of the challenges faced by national parks. Over the past two and a half decades, Parks Canada has been working towards obtaining adjacent lands on the 200-block of Banff Avenue and the Agency is now able to start planning for the redevelopment. Commencing immediately, this will include detailed studies of the site and engagement with Indigenous communities, stakeholders and the public, to arrive at re-development options. This is an important opportunity for Indigenous and local communities, and all Canadians, to provide their advice and feedback on a re-development plan that makes a meaningful contribution to the visitor experience and reflects the values and views they have for the first national park in Canada. Parks Canada encourages Canadians and visitors from around the world to explore these heritage places. By building connections to nature and history, we can help foster the stewards of tomorrow people who know and care about these special places. Quotes "The Government of Canada is committed to investing in new visitor infrastructure and innovative programs and services for Parks Canada administered places. As Canada's most visited national park, it is exciting to see this decades-long idea come to fruition for Banff. Now is the time to get involved and shape the future of the Banff Avenue 200-block redevelopment to create a space and place that is inclusive of all perspectives and that offers a gateway for meaningful connection to the iconic Banff National Park. This project will encourage a path to reconciliation, increased tourism and job opportunities, and inclusivity for this world-class park." Terry Duguid Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change "This federal investment will ensure one of the most treasured places in Canada continues to be a source of enjoyment, learning and national pride. As a community member and leader in the town of Banff, it is my honour to continue advocating positively for this initiative in my role as Special Advisor to the Park Superintendent. I strongly encourage public involvement in this rare opportunity to shape the future of this exciting project. Your input will be integral to re-developing facilities and open spaces that are representative of all voices and will warmly welcome visitors in the heart of downtown Banff and the national park." Karen Sorensen Senator for Alberta (Alberta Rockies) Quick Facts The Government of Canada is investing in infrastructure work for Banff National Park as part of the largest federal infrastructure plan in the history of Parks Canada. Through infrastructure investments, Parks Canada is protecting and conserving national treasures, while supporting local economies and contributing to growth in the tourism sector. is investing in infrastructure work for as part of the largest federal infrastructure plan in the history of Parks Canada. Through infrastructure investments, Parks Canada is protecting and conserving national treasures, while supporting local economies and contributing to growth in the tourism sector. As an internationally recognized symbol of Canada , an integral part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site and a focal point for western Canada's tourism industry, Banff National Park receives over 4 million visitors annually. , an integral part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site and a focal point for western tourism industry, receives over 4 million visitors annually. Parks Canada's public consultation will aim to gather information to develop guiding principles, a decision-making framework, and redevelopment options for the 200-block of Banff Avenue. The planning process is just beginning and no decisions have been made. public consultation will aim to gather information to develop guiding principles, a decision-making framework, and redevelopment options for the 200-block of Banff Avenue. The planning process is just beginning and no decisions have been made. The planning process will include multiple ways for people to share their ideas. These can be found online at: https://www.letstalkmountainparks.ca/200-block-banff-avenue-redevelopment. Related Links SOURCE Parks Canada For further information: Kaitlin Power, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 819-230-1557, [email protected]; Media Relations, Parks Canada Agency, 855-862-1812, [email protected]; Kathleen Trivers, Banff National Park, Parks Canada, 705-225-1461, [email protected] Multi-year strategy involves all parts of the firm and commits to creating positive and sustainable economic and social benefits for Indigenous Peoples TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - KPMG in Canada is answering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action with its Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan, a comprehensive multi-year strategy that seeks to advance reconciliation by fostering strong relationships with Indigenous communities and businesses. The plan dedicates significant resources and investments to create long-term, sustainable economic and social benefits for Indigenous Peoples. The plan is closely aligned to the TRC's call to action #92 ("Business and Reconciliation") and consists of numerous action items, each of which have key performance indicators (KPI) to measure progress. KPMG's Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan is a living, breathing document that will evolve over time. Stakeholders from across the firm will be responsible for implementing action items, as well as tracking and reporting on progress. KPMG will publish annual progress reports beginning one year after the plan's implementation. "This is a wide-ranging strategy that seeks to raise awareness of the truth about the shared history of our country, build allyship and help create a more inclusive culture by breaking down barriers for First Nations, Inuit and Metis Peoples. Everyone at KPMG in Canada will have a stake in the success of the Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan, and it touches all parts of the firm," says Elio Luongo, CEO and senior partner of KPMG in Canada and Co-Chair of the firm's Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (ID&E) Council. "This isn't just about investing dollars, it's about working together to invest time, passion and energy of our people into helping reverse the systemic injustices that still exist today. As one of Canada's largest professional services firm, we are fortunate to be in a position to help advance reconciliation within the business community, and we hope to inspire other organizations to take action as well," he adds. The plan was developed in consultation with various internal and external groups, including KPMG's National Indigenous Peoples Network (NIPN), Indigenous clients and communities and Acosys, an Indigenous-owned, Indigenous-led consulting firm, which worked with KPMG to align the plan to Indigenous frameworks of reconciliation, the TRC and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). "In developing our action plan, we took the time to engage Indigenous stakeholders and include diverse voices and perspectives to help this plan move forward in a genuinely respectful way," says Tammy Brown, deputy chair of the board of directors at KPMG in Canada, partner sponsor of the firm's National Indigenous People's Network and a member of the Shawanaga First Nation. "As a woman of Ojibway, English and Irish heritage, I am extremely proud to see this plan come to fruition, but our work is just beginning." KPMG in Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan has three main pillars, each of which have a subset of defined goals: Advancing an equitable and inclusive culture where bias and barriers are removed and Indigenous Peoples are supported, can thrive, and achieve their professional goals. This includes: Increasing recruitment and hiring of Indigenous Peoples through various mechanisms, including the implementation of a post-secondary recruitment and support strategy for Indigenous post-secondary students. KPMG's current goal is to more than double representation of Indigenous Peoples firm-wide by October 2025 . . Engaging Indigenous groups and human resources leaders to support the recruitment and advancement of Indigenous Peoples. This will build on the work of KPMG's specialized recruitment strategist, who works with First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities. Enhancing support of educational programs that assist Indigenous Peoples. This will complement and expand on KPMG's Indigenous Student Internship Program and KPMG's Indigenous Student Awards, which has provided 114 scholarships to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit students since 2012. Building Allyship with Indigenous Peoples by raising awareness about the truth of our shared history internally, with clients, and in corporate Canada to inspire their actions towards reconciliation. This includes: Establishing a team and governance structure as well as an Indigenous Advisory Council to support KPMG's Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan and ensure implementation and accountability within the first year of publication. This includes tracking internal key performance indicators (KPIs) and publishing an annual report on the plan's progress. Committing to the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business's (CCAB) Progressive Aboriginal Relations (PAR) framework to guide the implementation of the plan and becoming PAR Committed within the first year of implementation. Creating targeted training for teams and senior leadership to advance understanding of Indigenous cultures and reconciliation, and enhancing Indigenous history and awareness education and training opportunities for KPMG in Canada employees. Being a trusted and active contributor to Indigenous development and empowerment by continuously engaging and collaborating with Indigenous communities and organizations to create sustainable economic and social benefits for Indigenous Peoples. This includes: Broadening cooperation, support and sponsorship efforts for national and local Indigenous-led initiatives and activities. Supporting and collaborating with organizations that provide skills-based training, mentorship, capability building and development to Indigenous entrepreneurs and businesses. Committing annual reoccurring funding to support Indigenous organizations and providing Indigenous and Canadian Tax Guides to post-secondary schools and First Nations Finance Offices at no cost. "Every opportunity that helps Indigenous Peoples, communities and businesses thrive economically and socially is a step forward for Canada's reconciliation journey. While we're not the first major Canadian organization to implement a Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan, we certainly hope and in fact we are confident - that we won't be the last either," says Rob Davis, Chair of the Board of directors and chief inclusion, diversity and equity officer at KPMG in Canada. On September 30, KPMG in Canada closed its offices to observe National Day for Truth and Reconciliation for the second year in a row. With the help of educational resources suggested by KPMG, employees were encouraged to learn about the ongoing legacy of residential schools, and the victims, survivors, families and communities impacted by them, and reflect on what they can do to advance reconciliation. "We must all work together to facilitate truth, reconciliation and healing by listening and learning and being the ally others need us to be," says Mr. Luongo. About KPMG in Canada KPMG LLP, a limited liability partnership, is a full-service Audit, Tax and Advisory firm owned and operated by Canadians. For over 150 years, our professionals have provided consulting, accounting, auditing, and tax services to Canadians, inspiring confidence, empowering change, and driving innovation. Guided by our core values of Integrity, Excellence, Courage, Together, For Better, KPMG employs more than 10,000 people in over 40 locations across Canada, serving private- and public-sector clients. KPMG is consistently ranked one of Canada's top employers and one of the best places to work in the country. The firm is established under the laws of Ontario and is a member of KPMG's global organization of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International, a private English company limited by guarantee. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. For more information, see home.kpmg/ca. SOURCE KPMG LLP For further information: For media inquiries: Roula Meditskos, National Communications and Media Relations, KPMG in Canada, (416) 416-549-7982, [email protected] With a corporate history pre-dating Confederation, Labatt has grown from a humble brewery to a total beverage company that's using leading tech to continue its legacy of industry disruption TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - This October, Labatt Breweries of Canada is proud to celebrate its 175th anniversary of brewing excellence as a leader in the Canadian beer and total beverage space. Established in 1847 by John Kinder Labatt in London, Ontario, Labatt has endured two world wars, prohibition, the global pandemic and an ever-evolving consumer landscape. Through it all, Labatt has grown to include six key breweries from coast-to-coast, four craft breweries, 70 brands and more than 3,600 skilled craftspeople and professionals further solidifying its footprint on Canadian history and culture. A Brewing Affair open from October 7-23 at the Toronto Harbourfront Centre showcases Labatt's illustrious history from inception to present day. (CNW Group/Labatt Breweries of Canada) To celebrate this milestone, Labatt is partnering with Toronto Harbourfront Centre to deliver a special art exhibition A Brewing Affair open from October 7-23, showcasing its illustrious history, from inception to present day, including some of the innovative solutions Labatt has created in its lifetime that will continue the company's legacy well into the future. "As we celebrate our 175th anniversary and look to the future, we've set our sights on redefining what it means to be a total beverage company," says Mika Michaelis, President of Labatt Breweries of Canada. "To do this, we're leaning into our global purpose: We Dream Big to Create a Future with More Cheers. It's what inspires us to continue to deliver innovative, NextGen, customer-centric ideas and solutions." Today, Labatt is evolving into a tech-forward, total beverage company by putting digital and customer-centricity at the heart of its growth strategy. This includes the successful pilot of a proprietary B2B e-commerce platform, BEES, as well as establishing the Labatt Impact Lab with the University of Toronto's Engineering department to create a hub for analytics and artificial intelligence. "I just don't think that anybody could survive in the Canadian brewing industry without being innovative," says Matthew Bellamy, professor of history at Carleton University and author of Brewed in the North: A History of Labatt's. "John Kinder Labatt was influenced and motivated by the technological innovations of the industrial revolution, and that impulse to innovate and disrupt is part of Labatt's DNA, now and forever." Labatt has played an integral role in Canada's history, ranging from a timely donation of 1,000 pounds of flour to a local soup kitchen in London, Ontario, during an economic depression in 1859 to an investment of $461.5 million between 2019 and 2022, aiding Canada's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. But Labatt's impact extends beyond its investments. Labatt has supported Canadian communities when they need it most. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Labatt played an active role in relief efforts by activating its Canadian Disaster Relief Program to shift production of beer to make 100,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, donated 225,000 cans of clean drinking water to the City of Toronto's shelter programs, and provided support to Food Banks Canada and bars and restaurants by donating facemasks and reopening kits. The support for communities across Canada continued beyond tangibles when Labatt helped form a national consortium to encourage vaccine confidence across Canada, This is Our Shot. Contributing to emergency responses is a mainstay of Labatt. The Disaster Relief Program has donated nearly one million cans of safe drinking water to Canadian communities in need, most notably during the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, New Brunswick's historic floods in 2018, the wildfires in British Columbia in 2020 and 2021 and most recently in Nova Scotia because of Hurricane Fiona. Labatt's role in shaping the country's culture throughout history is undeniable. As it marks 175 years of brewing in Canada, Labatt is focused on a future in which it continues to create tech-forward solutions, contributes to the communities it serves, and dreams up ways to move the industry forward. A Brewing Affair, celebrating Labatt's 175th anniversary, is an outdoor installation open to the public from October 7th to the 23rd at the Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West. About Labatt Breweries of Canada Labatt Breweries of Canada has been one of Canada's most respected companies for 175 years with roots back to 1847 in London, Ontario, when a farmer named John Kinder Labatt first entered the business of brewing. Since then, the company has grown to include seven key breweries from coast-to-coast, as well as four craft breweries, 70 brands and over 3,600 skilled craftspeople and professionals. We know that we're only as strong as the communities where we live and work, which is why we've been making positive contributions since before Confederation. Today, that dedication to supporting Canadian communities, which includes our many responsible drinking and environmental sustainability programs, is summed up in our purpose: We Dream Big to Create a Future with More Cheers. Our employees are the driving force behind these efforts, rising to the challenge time and time again to lend a hand. And with their dedication to supporting their fellow Canadians matched only by their passion for brewing Canada's best-loved beers, we know that Labatt is here to stay. SOURCE Labatt Breweries of Canada For further information: Tamar Nersesian, Director of Communications, Labatt Breweries of Canada, [email protected] VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - Northcliff Resources Ltd. ("Northcliff" or the "Company") (TSX: NCF) is pleased to report on new and interesting technology advancements using tungsten that could lead to faster charging of batteries, potentially solving a key hindrance in the transition to a greener economy. Nyobolt Limited ("Nyobolt") is commercializing lithium-ion batteries with record power density and ultra-fast charge capabilities. Nyobolt's technology builds on a decade of fast charge lithium-ion battery research led by University of Cambridge battery scientist Professor Dame Clare Grey. Nyobolt's unique niobium and tungsten-based anode systems show superior performance over other Li-ion anode technologies. Advantages include: Charging time: >90% charged in <5 minutes Higher input power density: 10x power addresses range anxiety and allows for smaller and lighter batteries Longer durability: 10x durability resulting in lower total cost of ownership for battery lifetime Improved safety: wider temperature performance and reduced fire risk Such capabilities enable new applications and enhanced customer experience with target end uses being high performance and industrial vehicles, automation (robotics), consumer appliances, cordless tools, stationary storage and mobile rapid charging1. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, discovered a key material needed for fast-charging lithium-ion batteries. The commercially relevant approach opens a potential pathway to improve charging speeds for electric vehicles. Results published in Advanced Energy Materials demonstrate a novel fast-charging battery anode material achieved by using a scalable synthesis method. The team discovered a novel compound of molybdenum-tungsten-niobate, or MWNO, with fast rechargeability and high efficiency that could potentially replace graphite in commercial batteries2. Andrew Ing, Northcliff's CEO, states "We are encouraged by the development of these technologies that may play an important part in the energy transition, further signifying the critical importance of tungsten and molybdenum. Tungsten and molybdenum are listed as critical metal in Canada, tungsten in the United States and numerous other countries, and successful commercialisation of the new technology could positively impact the demand for tungsten and molybdenum." About Northcliff Resources Ltd. Northcliff is a mineral resource company focused on advancing the feasibility-stage Sisson tungsten-molybdenum project located in New Brunswick, Canada, to production. Additional information on Northcliff is available on the website at www.northcliffresources.com . Investor services can be reached at (604) 684-6365 or within North America at 1-800-667-2114. Andrew Ing President & CEO Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of presenting information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. Forward looking information may include, without limitation, the opinions or beliefs of management, prospects, opportunities, priorities, targets, goals, ongoing objectives, milestones, strategies, and outlook of Northcliff, and includes statements about, among other things, future developments, the future operations, strengths and strategy of Northcliff. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. These statements are based upon certain material factors, assumptions and analyses that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection, including Northcliff's experience and perceptions of historical trends, the ability of Northcliff to maximize shareholder value, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that are believed to be reasonable in the circumstances. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions at the date such statements are made, there can be no assurance that it will be completed on the terms described above and that such forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information. Northcliff assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by applicable law. For additional information regarding forward-looking statements and their related risks, please refer to the "Risk Factors" section in the Annual Information Form of the Company for the year ended on October 31, 2021, which is available on the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. SOURCE Northcliff Resources Ltd. For further information: Northcliff Resources Ltd. 15th Floor - 1040 W. Georgia St., Vancouver BC V6E 4H1 Canada, T 604.684.6365; TF 1800.667.2114; F 604.639.9209, northcliffresources.com Both companies work to hit net zero by 2040 using nuclear energy PRAGUE, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Czech Republic-based CEZ will collaborate to advance deployment of nuclear technology, including Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), to safely produce clean, reliable electricity in their jurisdictions, under a Memorandum of Understanding signed today. The two entities Ontario's largest electricity generator and one of Europe's largest energy companies are committed to achieving net zero by 2040. Advanced reactor technology can help reach that goal. Petr Tresnak, Deputy Minister to Minister of Industry and Trade; Tomas Pleskac, CEZ, Member of the Board of Directors, Chief New Energy Office; Ken Hartwick, OPG President and CEO; Todd Smith, Ontario Minister of Energy; and Ayesha Patricia Rekhi, Canadian Ambassador to Czech Republic (CNW Group/Ontario Power Generation Inc.) Under the MOU, OPG and CEZ will share information related to the deployment of new nuclear projects. The aim is to reduce financial, technical and schedule risk to both parties on their respective future projects. New nuclear generation, including SMRs, is an essential part of the electricity mix needed to decarbonize the energy sector and broader economy. Safe, carbon-free, reliable nuclear power is especially necessary as electricity demand increases due to electrification of higher-emitting sectors such as transportation. OPG is deploying an SMR at its Darlington site, the only location in Canada licensed for new nuclear construction with an approved Environmental Assessment. The company recently announced a contract with ES Fox to proceed with early site work, pending permits and regulatory approvals. The Darlington SMR is expected to be operational by the end of this decade. In Europe, CEZ has taken first steps toward expanding its nuclear fleets at Temelin and Dukovany. Quotes "Ontario Power Generation is a world-class nuclear operator, with decades of experience in providing safe, clean, reliable nuclear power," said OPG President and CEO Ken Hartwick. "Working together with entities like CEZ, we can leverage our combined experience to develop and build the new technology needed to power the future and meet decarbonization goals." "As a company, we are focused on developing new energy solutions and technologies," said Tomas Pleskac, Member of the Board of Directors and Chief of the New Energy Division CEZ. "We are preparing for the construction of a new nuclear unit in Dukovany and the upcoming allocation of space at Temelin, where the first SMR could be built in the first half of the next decade. The collaboration with OPG is therefore, for us, a logical step forward." "Ontario is proud to lead the way on clean nuclear technologies," said Ontario's Energy Minister Todd Smith. "With our robust nuclear supply chain and talented workforce, we are ready to support the global deployment of our nuclear expertise that will help reduce emissions while delivering energy security to the world." About OPG As a climate change leader and the largest electricity generator in the province, OPG and its family of companies are helping lead the charge to a post-carbon economy. About CEZ CEZ Group is a leading European energy company operating in the Czech Republic and in Western, Central, and South-Eastern Europe. CEZ' strategy aims to maximize the business opportunities associated with the modernization, digitalization, and decarbonization of the energy sector in the EU. SOURCE Ontario Power Generation Inc. For further information: please contact: Ontario Power Generation: 416-592-4008 or 1-877-592-4008, Follow us @opg; CEZ: +420 211 042 383, [email protected] HALIFAX, NS, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - Canadian ports are an essential link in our supply chains to grow our economy, create good jobs for middle-class Canadians, and deliver affordable goods on time. It is a top priority for the Government of Canada to build the resilience, efficiency, and adaptability of Canada's maritime supply chains to deal with the rising cost of living. Today, the Minister of Transport, the Honorable Omar Alghabra, announced the completion of the Ports Modernization Review, which aims to advance the role of Canada Port Authorities and optimize their current and future roles. In a constantly changing world, ports need modern and flexible tools that will allow them to respond to increasingly complex challenges. These new tools will enable ports to remain competitive, efficient, and sustainable. The Minister also announced that the government intends to introduce legislative amendments in the coming months to update the way Canada's ports are managed and operated based on the results of the Ports Modernization Review. The proposed legislative changes will achieve several key policy objectives, including: Adjustments to port governance and financial management to provide ports with the tools to unlock greater performance, efficiency, and productivity in order to be effective instruments of public policy. Ports ensure their continued competitiveness and are positioned as strategic enablers of trade and traffic given their central role as intermodal hubs that support supply chain performance and economic growth. Strengthen relationships with Indigenous Peoples and local communities through structured engagement to foster alignment of port development and operations, and advance reconciliation Ports assume a leadership role in advancing the greening of the marine sector by promoting environmentally sustainable infrastructure and taking action on climate change. Port safety and security further protects the transportation system from threats while ensuring that goods move efficiently through the supply chain. The proposed amendments will support the development of a new investment policy for Canada's ports and port infrastructure to attract investment capital that is critical to the national transportation supply chain for decades to come. The Government of Canada intends to update its approach to considering infrastructure investments of Canadian and international entities to ensure our ports continue to serve Canadians well into the future by remaining competitive and aligned with our economic prosperity and security. Transport Canada will lead an examination of the complementarity of Canada Port Authorities with a view to supporting greater productivity of these key federal assets. These upcoming changes will contribute to the government's response to the Supply Chain Task Force's recommendations, particularly around easing port congestion. The Government of Canada is committed to respond with both immediate actions and long-term initiatives. Today's announcement is another step towards strengthening our supply chain. Quote "Thanks to the feedback gathered from ports, industry stakeholders, provinces, territories, and municipalities, as well as local and Indigenous communities through the Ports Modernization Review, we can now move forward to strengthen our marine supply chain and help Canadians with the rising cost of living. We plan to advance our current port system to be even more adaptable and agile, helping to build a more resilient, reliable supply chain system for both Canadians and our economy." The Honourable Omar Alghabra Minister of Transport Quick facts Canada's ports play a significant role in the lives of Canadians as they handle more than 88 percent of Canada's international marine traffic. ports play a significant role in the lives of Canadians as they handle more than 88 percent of international marine traffic. More than 343 million tonnes of cargo were shipped through our ports in 2021 alone. Launched in 2018, the Ports Modernization Review examined the port system to ensure it has the governance structure and tools needed to adapt to an increasingly complex operating environment, with a view to supporting trade, Canadians and stakeholders. During the Review, Transport Canada considered how potential policy, legislative, and regulatory changes could assist Canada's Port Authorities to consolidate their position as key players in the Canadian economy. All actions taken as a result of the Ports Modernization Review will support Canada's economic recovery and are essential to continued economic development and growth. Port Authorities to consolidate their position as key players in the Canadian economy. All actions taken as a result of the Ports Modernization Review will support economic recovery and are essential to continued economic development and growth. The Ports Modernization Review gathered input from important stakeholders, including Canada Port Authorities, local and Indigenous communities, industry representatives, labour groups, provincial and municipal governments, and the public. Transport Canada released a What We Heard Report in October 2020 that summarized the feedback collected during the Review's engagement process. released a in that summarized the feedback collected during the Review's engagement process. As set out in the Canada Marine Act, the Canada Port Authorities (CPAs) must be financially self-sufficient. They don't receive federal funding to meet operating costs or deficits. CPAs finance their capital projects using their own revenues. But they can also collaborate with the private sector, borrow from a commercial lender or apply for certain federal contributions related to infrastructure, the environment or security. Associated link Transport Canada is online at www.tc.gc.ca . Subscribe to e-news or stay connected through Twitter , Facebook , YouTube, and Instagram to keep up to date on the latest from Transport Canada. This news release may be made available in alternative formats for persons living with visual disabilities. SOURCE Transport Canada For further information: Nadine Ramadan, Press Secretary and Communication Advisor, Office of the Honourable Omar Alghabra, Minister of Transport, Ottawa, [email protected]; Media Relations, Transport Canada, Ottawa, 613-993-0055, [email protected] "We are extremely honoured to be a part of the World's 50 Best Bars list, alongside many great bars and friends. It's a testament to the team's hard work and commitment to pursuing excellence in providing the best bar experience," said Lorenzo Antinori, beverage manager of Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong. Moving to Hong Kong for almost two years, Antinori believes Hong Kong is a special place. "The mix of East and West and Hong Kong's incredible heritage of flavours and culinary techniques have inspired us with its unique character as a melting pot of cultures and traditions." Making the list for the third year, Coa is dedicated to bringing agave spirits to the forefront of Asia's cocktail scene. Co-founded by award-winning bartender Jay Khan, the Mexican-inspired bar offers people from all walks of life an extensive range of spirits, including mezcal, tequila and raicilla. Revealed on 4 October in Barcelona, The World's 50 Best Bars 2022 introduces outstanding bars in 26 cities around the world. Over 650 renowned international drinks experts, including bartenders and drinks writers, cast their votes based on their best bar experiences. With these brilliant outlets in Hong Kong shining bright in the international awards, the city's bar scene is vibrant. From luxury liquor and wine to creative cocktails and locally crafted beers, there is always an option to amaze. Hong Kong's home-grown talent and world-class mixologists keep breaking the boundaries, providing an exciting array of beverages awaiting your rediscovery. For latest travel requirements for inbound travellers, please visit https://www.discoverhongkong.com/ca/plan/traveller-info/boarding-and-testing-arrangements-upon-arrival.html Images can be accessed via: https://assetlibrary.hktb.com/assetbank-hktb/action/browseItems?categoryId=870&categoryTypeId=2&cachedCriteria=1 SOURCE Hong Kong Tourism Board For further information: For media enquiries, please contact Jorge Lee, Tel: (416) 366-2389 ext 206, [email protected] Rona Ambrose is a member of Plan International Canada's Board of Directors and led a successful campaign to create a dedicated day for girls at the United Nations in 2012. Kenisha Arora is a Plan International Canada youth ambassador and the cofounder of The HopeSisters. TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - At the dawn of the last decade, girls were tired. They were tired of eating last. Of being denied an education. Of experiencing violence. Of being forced into early marriages when they should have been playing in the schoolyard. Ten years after the inaugural International Day of the Girl, the advances girls have made are being eroded in many aspects of their lives. Photo Credit: Plan International (CNW Group/Plan International Canada) Tired of all the daily reminders that they did not matter. Although women's and girls' rights had been legally affirmed since 1979, discrimination continued to undermine their right to thrive. But girls are not easily silenced and, a decade ago, they believed that they needed a day devoted to just them. A day where they would be seen, their voices heard, and their potential recognized. In 2011, a collective of determined girls from around the globe led the charge at the United Nations to create that special day focused on the rights of girls. The support for their vision was massive, rallying Plan International Canada and the Government of Canada, among many other actors of change. On October 11, 2012, the world marked the first ever International Day of the Girl. It was cause for great celebration. Ten years later, we are encouraged by the tangible positive change to girls' lives since the first International Day of the Girl in 2012. In Realising every girls' right to flourish, a review of progress on the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl published by Plan International, data shows that outcomes for girls are improving. For instance, we have nearly achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment and learning outcomes, while secondary school enrolment for girls and young women has increased from 72% in 2012 to 76% in 2020. Meanwhile, the number of girls married as children has decreased by 15%. Change, however, has been slow and unequal, particularly for young women and girls who are Indigenous, racialized, LGBTQ2S+, living with a disability or of low socioeconomic status. Moreover, in a world still reeling from the combined impacts COVID-19, the climate crisis, conflict, and the polarization of politics, the advances girls have made are being eroded in many aspects of their lives. Girls and young women aged 15-24 make up the majority of the 267 million young people worldwide who are not in education, training or employment. There are still 5.5 million more girls of primary school age out of school than boys. And no region of the world is on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target of eliminating child, early and forced marriage by 2030. Progress is an unrelenting pursuit one that continues to be out of reach for far too many girls. Girls and young women need to be seen as equal partners in addressing the greatest challenges of our time. To build a prosperous future we cannot leave half of the world's population behind. Adolescent girl activists have led some of the most important movements of the last decade fighting for their right to safety from violence, for education, for climate justice, and their right to political representation. The world's 600 million adolescent girls, like those who led the charge for the International Day of the Girl, continue to show that they are the activists this world needs now, driving progress in their communities, countries and beyond. But we are still a long way from a world of equal opportunity. And girls are still fighting for their rights let's make sure they are not fighting alone. Note to editors: This editorial by the Honourable Rona Ambrose and Plan International Canada youth ambassador Kenisha Arora, which today marks the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl, is available for posting and publication free of charge. Please contact Isabelle Bourgeault-Tasse at [email protected] for more information. Photo description: Ten years after the inaugural International Day of the Girl, the advances girls have made are being eroded in many aspects of their lives. Photo Credit: Plan International SOURCE Plan International Canada For further information: Isabelle Bourgeault-Tasse, [email protected] President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire over the alleged release of about 100 Boko Haram terrorists. The terrorists, accordin... President Muhammadu Buhari has come under fire over the alleged release of about 100 Boko Haram terrorists. The terrorists, according to a viral report, were released in exchange for the freedom of the kidnapped Abuja-Kaduna train travellers. The Nigerian Correctional Service, NCS, has yet to debunk the report confirmed, especially by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism. To add to this, the President, at the passing out parade and commissioning ceremony of cadets of Course 69 of the Nigerian Defence Academy, confirmed that his government had granted amnesty to terrorists. Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has frowned at the development and slammed Buhari, accusing him of a lack of transparency in dealing with top security matters. Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the national coordinator of HURIWA, in a statement on Monday, said the Presidents action shows the alleged complicity of the current administration. The group called on the Buhari government to, without further delay, explain to Nigerians how the over 100 terrorists were set free from the Kirikiri prison, having been reportedly held since 2009 without trial. HURIWA said, Nigerians are shocked at the latest antics of the regime of President Muhammadu in the reported release of over 100 Boko Haram terrorists from the Kirikiri prison shows the total absence of transparency and accountability in the fight on terror. The secrecy behind the intermittent releases of terrorists under different guises by the current government is abysmal and anti-people and illegal. The recent release of Boko Haram convicted terrorists at Lagos prison validates claims by a former Navy Commodore, Kunle Olawunmi, who said on live television in August 2021 that Boko Haram has moneybags in Aso Rock and the National Assembly. In September 2020, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the late Obadiah Mailafia, also said a serving northern governor was a Boko Haram leader. Nigerian university students on Monday expressed delight over reports that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, would be calling ... Nigerian university students on Monday expressed delight over reports that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, would be calling off their prolonged industrial action soon. The striking university lecturers had yesterday expressed optimism that the intervention by the House of Representatives on its ongoing face-off with the Federal Government would yield desired results. The President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, who spoke when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, briefed the union in Abuja after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari said, For the first time, we have seen light at the end of the tunnel. ASUU shut down public universities in the country on February 14 to demand full implementation of agreements it had entered into with the Federal Government a few years ago. Recall that the FG had agreed to inject a total of N1.3 trillion into public universities, both state and federal, in six tranches, starting in 2013 after the union decried the deplorable state of the institutions. In 2013, the government was, according to the agreement, said to have released N200 billion and promised to release N220 billion each year for another five years. But after releasing the first tranche, the government stopped releasing the funds. In 2017, it, however, released N20 billion. In 2020, it promised to release N25 billion. ASUU rejected the offer, insisting on N110 billion, which is 50 percent of the N220 billion that it demanded, but the government declined, citing a paucity of funds. Recall that the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu Adamu, had on August 22, 2022, claimed that the government had resolved most of the demands of ASUU. Among the demands addressed, according to the Minister, was the release of N50 billion for the payment of earned allowances for universities academic and non-academic and non-academic staff. The strike, however, lingered until the Federal Government dragged the union to the National Industrial Court, asking the court to order the lecturer back to class. The National Industrial Court and the Court of Appeal had recently ruled that the lecturers must return to the classroom as negotiations continue. Gbajabiamila, who waded into the crisis recently due to the plight of Nigerian students, said on Monday during the briefing that the 8-month-old strike would end in matter of days. It was gathered that President Buhari would meet with ASUU stakeholders on Tuesday, after which the strike may be called off. Some students who spoke on Monday expressed joy that the prolonged strike is about to end. Mary Adanu of the University of Abuja said she would have graduated from the University if not for the strike, saying she has spent more than five years for just a four-year course. I am happy that we will finally go back to school, at least after resumption, I will have the hope of graduating soon. Once you are a student in a public university, you automatically become a victim. Four years course is getting to six years, she lamented. Similarly, Victoria James lamented the time wasted at home for the past eight months, stating that the industrial action could jeopardize her destiny. If the strike is called off this week, I will be so happy because I need to go back to school in order to finish on time. I dont have eternity to fulfill destiny, she said. Another student from the Benue State University, BSU, Onyeche Mathew, said, Finally, God defeated the devil that said I should not graduate. I am already preparing for lectures because I know this can not be report as usual. We have heard from different sources, including ASUU, that the strike will end this week. I am so happy right now. My lecturer called me to confirm this. I have seen hell in the last few months. Lots of things went down but thank God for life. We will bounce back. Sam Amadi, a former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has rejected a role as director of research in the ... Sam Amadi, a former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has rejected a role as director of research in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign council. In a letter dated October 10 and addressed to Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto and director-general of the campaign council, Amadi said he belongs to a number of organisations that are non-partisan. While appreciating Tambuwal for the offer, the former NERC chairman said his rejection is not a vote of no confidence on the countrys major opposition party. I humbly want to decline the appointment, and hereby abstain from participating in such a role, he said. The decision to decline the offer has stemmed from the conflicts of interest emanating from various responsibilities in which I act as a leader of different platforms where political neutrality and objectivity are required of me. These platforms are as follows: The Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts (ASSPT). As director of the school, I bear the responsibility to lead a group of intellectuals and scholars of diverse political and ideological stripes with a commitment to rethink the nature of the social, political, and economic crises of statehood in Africa, and to develop new ideas and policies to transform Nigeria and other African societies. For some years I have been an analyst on Arise News, which I consider one of the most strategic institutions for national development and sane deliberative democracy through analytical news reporting. My role in that reputable media platform also requires non-partisanship, even as I am free to express my opinions. The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) has rejected the plan by the Federal Government to increase tariffs on certain produc... The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) has rejected the plan by the Federal Government to increase tariffs on certain products. Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, announced the proposal of higher duty on tobacco, spirits, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. NECA Director-General, Adewale Oyerinde warned that its implementation would adversely affect production and consumption. Oyerinde said it negates the roadmap in the 2022 Fiscal Policy Measures and Tariffs Amendments (FPM 2022). The DG noted that historically, increments in duty often do not translate to increased revenue in the medium to long term. NECA insists the more sustainable an excise regime is, the better the industry can contribute to the government treasury. The body said recent economic growth has been driven largely by the non-oil sector, and subjecting it to hardship will have negative impacts. The current minimal growth of the economy is an indication that a huge tax hike would not achieve the desired results for all stakeholders. If another increase is imposed, the industry will suffer a further setback and more consumers may tilt toward purchases of products that are less expensive. NECA added that such alternatives are typically those sourced from the illicit market, which the government neither gets tax nor excise. Oyerinde said while efforts are being made to get industries to stay afloat and tackle employment, policies that could disrupt gains should be suspended. The Police in Ebonyi are looking for the gunmen who attacked a mining site close to the states border with Benue. The attackers invaded th... The Police in Ebonyi are looking for the gunmen who attacked a mining site close to the states border with Benue. The attackers invaded the location on Saturday and opened fire on workers, killing a Chinese man. The gunmen reportedly disarmed the police officers protecting the foreigner. On Monday, Police Public Relations Officer, SP Chris Anyanwu gave an update on the incident. One of the policemen on duty sustained serious bullet injuries and is still receiving treatment, he said. Anyanwu called for prompt and credible information on the identities and whereabouts of the culprits. Chairman of Izzi Local Government Area, Steve Emenike, described the murder as a national embarrassment. Emenike said the gunmen rode on motorcycles to the mining site located at Otam Nwogba village in the LGA. The body of the deceased has been deposited at a mortuary in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi capital. Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, has criticised the Peoples Democratic Party... Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, has criticised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the absence of some governors at the PDPs campaign flag-off. At the flag-off of the PDP presidential campaign in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom capital, on Monday, five governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, Samuel Ortom of Benue, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu were absent. Wike and his allies have been at the forefront of calls for Iyorchia Ayu to step down as the PDP national chairman. Speaking on the development in a statement on Monday, Keyamo said PDP cannot be trusted to perform well if the party cannot put its house in order. The launch of PDPs presidential campaign today in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, was, as expected, a disaster waiting to happen. Once again, the delinquent PDP continued to treat the now discerning Nigerian public with disdain and disrespect, the statement reads. Aside from the obscenity of a poorly-scripted farce misnamed a flag-off, Nigerians suffered today additional trauma of having to witness a show of shame, listening to a litany of falsehoods spewed out at the gathering by failed, expired and rejected politicians. Speaker after speaker kept echoing a farrago of incomprehensible political jargons that left most Nigerians wondering whether it was a circus. For example, if not the loss of the sense of shame, what else could have goaded PDPs now discredited sit tight National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to be audacious enough to stand on a podium today in Uyo and make any promise to Nigerians? Has he been able to fulfill the promise he made to himself and his party members to step down from office should a Northerner emerge as the presidential candidate at their party primaries? How can a party that cannot unite itself promise to unite Nigeria? How can a party that brazenly violates its own constitution on zoning be trusted to obey the constitution of Nigeria if again trusted with power? When you have a flag-off campaign that is shunned by the National Vice-Chairmen of the South-South, South-West, and five sitting Governors out of thirteen, that is a definitive and resounding red-flag that Nigerians should not vote the Presidential candidate of the PDP in this coming election. Keyamo also cited a reference to the recent allegations of bribery involving PDP officials, and praised the decision by some members of the partys national working committee (NWC) to return funds said to have been paid by the party as housing allowance. Fortunately, to the benefit of Nigerians, there remains a few good men within PDP. These honourable men belonging to the partys NWC, deemed it right to return hundreds of millions of Naira allegedly transferred into their individual bank accounts as hush money to suppress the investigation of the scandal of humongous financial misappropriation levelled against their National Chairman, Keyamo said. It is quite obvious to Nigerians that the PDP is a house that is divided against itself and it sure wont stand. At their presidential campaign flag-off in Uyo today, the absence of many of the PDP State Governors tells a story to Nigerians that no amount of political jamboree can whitewash PDPs cracked walls. It tells a story of a budding autocratic leadership, nourished by impunity, which now fans the flame of divisions and absolute disrespect for laid down rules and regulation. Not much should, therefore, be expected from such a gathering. With the obvious inability of its Presidential Candidate to assuage frayed nerves of disaffected persons within their ranks, how will it be possible for such a person to unite people within such a diverse landscape as Nigeria? You definitely cannot give what you dont have. The University of Ilorin, UniIlorin, has dismissed reports that it released a resumption date for returning students of the institution. A s... The University of Ilorin, UniIlorin, has dismissed reports that it released a resumption date for returning students of the institution. A statement by the institution refuted the report purportedly issued by the management, that October 20th,2022, has been announced as the resumption date for old students. This statement does not originate from the university management, the school authorities said. It described the statement as fake news, saying we are still expecting a categorical statement of strike call-off from ASUU before any decision of official resumption date could be arrived at. The institution also refuted another report on the sale of 2022/2023 Post-UTME Screening Form to applicants. Director of Corporate Affairs of the university, Kunle Akogun, who disowned the speculation in a statement, in Ilorin, explained that Unilorin was yet to take a decision. This is to inform all admission applicants to the University of Ilorin that the institution is yet to take any decision on the 2022/2023 Post-UTME screening. They should, therefore, disregard a message currently flying around online platforms to the effect that the University has started the process for the sale of Post-UTME screening registration forms. This is the handiwork of scammers and admission seekers should disregard it, the statement added. Watertown, NY (13601) Today A few showers early, then clear overnight. Low around 35F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight A few showers early, then clear overnight. Low around 35F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Watertown, NY (13601) Today Partly cloudy early followed by increasing clouds with showers developing later in the day. High 51F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low near 35F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. McKinley Mac Phipps Jr. returned home last June, and within a few months he started to ease back into the public eye. By the beginning of fall, the New Orleans-born rapper had released a new single, 21 Summers, and was taking part in interviews about everything from his time with No Limit Records and new music to his 21 summers in prison, maintained innocence and advocacy for the wrongfully incarcerated. Soon, he was back on stage, playing arenas with his former labelmates on the No Limit Reunion tour in late 2021 and early 2022 a culture shock, he admits, quickly going from a prison dorm to a stage in front of 20,000 people. And in April, he made a surprise hometown return when he joined Mia X during her set at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Phipps son, McKinley Green, who performs as Bandana Kin, also came out on stage to rap alongside his father on the song Youre My Brother. Phipps will cap a busy year on Oct. 31 with the release of Son of the City, his first full-length album in 22 years. Phipps started working on Son of the City soon after he was released he was eager to record verses he had written over the last decade or so and most of the album was completed in 2021. Some work on the album continued throughout this year, and it took some time for Phipps to navigate the new ways music is being made and released, he says. There also was a small part of him, even as he was rocking arenas and talking to press, that caught cold feet at the prospect of releasing a new album. After being silenced for so long, it had an effect on my confidence, Phipps says. Knowing youre about to do something that you havent done in over 20-plus years, and thats release an album, and youre 40-something years old, and youre doing hip-hop. Thats something as an artist I had to deal with with myself, and eventually I put those fears aside. It was like, nah, nah, this is what I was born to do. There wasnt any one silver bullet to help Phipps, whos 45 years old, get over any insecurities all artists have those doubts but being back in front of audiences helped his confidence. And he knew his career hadnt ended when he was 22. The year 2000, when he was arrested and his career abruptly paused, wasnt where I wanted it to stop for me. I still have music that Ive been writing for the last 20-plus years that I want to get out to the public, Phipps says. On the 10-track Son of the City, Phipps demonstrates the hallmark lyrical prowess that earned him praise in the late 90s with the release of his albums Shell Shocked and World War III. But theres a natural maturity that has come with age and his experiences over the last 20 years. Tracks on Son of the City were produced by Phipps along with Rayvon Neal who was formerly incarcerated at Elayn Hunt Correctional Facility alongside Phipps and led the prisons band and New Orleans musician Cognac. Rappers 3D Natee, Curren$y and Fiend feature on the fierce album closer Uncut, Dee-1 appears on No Fear and Caren Green sings on the song If Forever Comes. Phipps sister, Tiffany Phipps-Cave, appears on the opening track Dry Snitchin and later on the album, McKinley Green raps on I Cant Go. Phipps brothers, trombonist Jeremy who plays in the band People Museum and saxophonist Joshua, both contributed to the album. They recorded the album at Skoota Warners home studio in Uptown and at Richmind Studios in New Orleans East. In September, Phipps, Neal, Warner and other guest musicians played the album live for an audience at The Fillmore. I think that everything that I am is a reflection of New Orleans, says Phipps, explaining the albums title. My mothers from uptown, my dads from downtown, so we moved around a lot, and weve basically lived everywhere in New Orleans. So I just consider myself a son of the city. Phipps parents both paint, and his dad listened to Earth Wind & Fire while his mother would put on Elton John and jazz. His uncle introduced him to hip-hop, and Phipps fell in love with the genre at an early age. He started writing his own music and at 13 released his first album in 1990. A few years later, Phipps signed with Master Ps No Limit and in 1998 released Shell Shocked, which just missed cracking the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. His World War III followed the next year. In early 2000, Phipps, who was then 22, was at a concert at a crowded, hazy club in Slidell when a fight broke out. A gun was fired, and 19-year-old Barron Victor Jr. was killed. Police arrested Phipps, and in 2001, he was convicted of manslaughter by a split jury. Phipps always asserted his innocence, and in 2014, an investigation by The Medill Justice Project along with The Lens and Louisiana State University uncovered evidence supporting Phipps. In 2015, five witnesses told The Huffington Post that they were bullied by authorities to place the killing on Phipps. Phipps requested clemency in 2016, but the effort failed. Then in April 2021, Gov. John Bel Edwards granted a new request, and a state parole board voted to release Phipps from prison. During his trial in 2000, prosecutors used Phipps lyrics against him in court, and his case drew national attention, including in the book Rap on Trial and the NPR podcast Louder than a Riot. On Nov. 1, Phipps will take part in a multi-panel symposium at Dillard University with rapper Killer Mike, Rap on Trial author Erik Nielson and others on the issue of law enforcement using music as evidence. For someone to take the very thing we use to express ourselves and use it against us in court, we do a tragedy to folks, Phipps says. Find Son of the City on streaming platforms starting Oct. 31. And find Phipps on Instagram, @macphippsofficial. This work is supported with a grant funded by the Walton Family Foundation and administered by the Society of Environmental Journalists. Faimon Roberts III covers rural communities in Louisiana. His work is supported by a reporting grant from the Microsoft Journalism Initiative and is administered by the Greater New Orleans Foundation. He can be reached at froberts@theadvocate.com. The Mavic 3 Classic has leaked again, a month after the drone last appeared online. Not only has the drone's full design leaked, but so have some of specifications, its price and an alleged release date. DJI has certified the Mavic 3 Classic with the FCC in the US too, signalling its impending release in the US. 4 Reviews It appears that DJI is on the verge of announcing another drone. To recap, the company has introduced half a dozen this year alone, most recently with the Mavic 3E and Mavic 3T for enterprise users. Additionally, there has been the Mini 3 Pro and the Avata for consumers, as well as two other enterprise drones that arrived earlier this year. Now, it seems that DJI has finalised the Mavic 3 Classic, which would be the fifth model in the Mavic 3 series, including the new Mavic 3E and Mavic 3T. Based on earlier information, the Mavic 3 Classic will be cheaper than the Mavic 3 and the Mavic 3 Cine, DJI's other consumer-grade Mavic 3 series drones. Reportedly, DJI has set the drone's price at approximately US$1,400, which would represent a US$500 discount on the Mavic 3. For reference, this price would make the Mavic 3 Classic about twice as expensive as the Mini 3 Pro, too. A winter ransomware attack has caused Franciscan Health to require employees to pay back wage overpayments made when it lost access to the software of its payroll vendor, Kronos. Some hourly workers, such as nurses and housekeepers, are being billed hundreds of dollars and told the money will be withheld from future paychecks if they do not repay it in coming months. The overpayments took place in December and January, with workers already having paid taxes on the income they received in 2021. When faced with the unexpected Kronos vendor outage, which was wholly outside of Franciscans control, Franciscan reacted quickly and worked hard to pay coworkers as accurately as possible, given the circumstances," a Franciscan spokesperson said. "During this period, our best recourse was to pay most types of compensation based on hours worked and to ensure no interruption in coworker paychecks. Franciscans inability to access the Kronos system resulted in some coworkers receiving over- or under-payments." Some hourly workers reported being asked to repay thousands of dollars, but the issue did not affect everyone at the Mishawaka-based health care system, which operates hospitals in Hammond, Munster, Dyer, Crown Point and Michigan City, as well as medical offices throughout the Region. "Franciscan has worked to reconcile any discrepancies with the impacted coworkers and continues to do so," the spokesperson said. "The employees who were underpaid have already been made whole. Overpayments averaged around $350, and those affected are being provided repayment options over the next several months to ease any burden. Ultimate Kronos Group provides payroll software to companies such as Franciscan Health, YMCA, GameStop and Whole Foods, letting employers manage time sheets, payroll, absence requests, scheduling and other workforce management tasks through a cloud platform. Its system was taken hostage in December by a ransomware attack, where hackers hijack a computer system after infecting it with a virus, often downloaded unsuspectingly from a phishing email. The hackers demand a ransom and refuse to release the system unless it is paid. The Democratic and Libertarian candidates vying to become Indiana's chief elections officer each have a long list of voting reforms they hope to implement if elected secretary of state Nov. 8. Destiny Wells, the Democratic nominee, and Jeff Maurer, the Libertarian, agreed that maintaining and improving election security must be a top priority for whoever succeeds Republican Secretary of State Holli Sullivan next year. However, they detailed for Hoosiers on Monday night very different ways of going about it during a televised debate in Indianapolis hosted by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. Wells said she believes that Indiana's elections already are secure and that there are no widespread instances of voter fraud marring the results, just power-hungry politicians lying about election outcomes to try to stay in office after they lose. She believes instead Indiana's top election issues are poor voter turnout, lackluster civic education and the need for campaign finance reform. "Indiana is not a red state. It's a purple state with a voter turnout problem," Wells said. Wells noted even in the hotly contested 2020 elections some 1.6 million registered Hoosier voters did not bother to cast a ballot. She said a key goal if she's elected secretary of state is working with the Republican-controlled General Assembly to extend Indiana's voter registration period that closes 30 days before the election, lengthen Indiana's 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Election Day voting hours, and make mail-in voting more accessible to more Hoosiers. "We can have fair and free elections, and safe and secure," Wells said. Both Wells and Maurer agreed Democratic President Joe Biden was legitimately elected two years ago. But Maurer still has doubts about the security of Indiana's elections. Maurer said Indiana's 92 counties use too many different voting systems, including some lacking paper backups for votes recorded by electronic device, and more oversight is needed to ensure every vote is appropriately cast and counted. "I don't see a turnout problem, I see a trust problem," Maurer said. "At the end of the day, when we count votes the way we count cash, we'll finally get the elections we deserve." To that end, Maurer said he wants continuous electronic tracking of every ballot and a full audit of every election result before the outcome is certified. Currently, 10 counties are selected after each election to conduct an in-depth, risk-limiting audit of their election results. No significant instances of voter fraud have been detected. "Voter fraud happens all the time," Maurer insisted. "This election is an opportunity to restore the confidence of Hoosiers." Wells said Hoosiers should not believe voter fraud happens all the time. In fact, she noted, the most recent notable case of voter fraud in Indiana involved Republican Secretary of State Charlie White registering to vote at an address where he no longer lived. "When people no longer believe the truth, the biggest lie wins," Wells said. Diego Morales, the Republican nominee, declined to participate in the debate. He said there's no reason to have a secretary of state debate when there are no debates scheduled this year for other downballot races. "My sole focus is on traveling to all 92 Indiana counties, visiting with Hoosiers to earn their vote this November. I have participated in radio, print and TV interviews, and will continue to do so," Morales said. Records show Morales, a Guatemalan immigrant, twice lost his job as an employee of the secretary of state's office, in 2009 and 2011, after being chastised for poor performance. He's called the 2020 presidential election result a "scam," and previously proposed cutting the early voting period in half and making it more difficult for Hoosiers to register to vote. Last month, two women alleged Morales sexually assaulted each of them by repeatedly attempting to kiss them without their consent. Morales has denied the allegations. Morales also raised eyebrows when he spent $43,845.57 in campaign donations on June 15 to buy himself a new car. Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Mike Schmuhl said Morales didn't show up for the debate because Morales knows he has no business being Indianas next secretary of state. "He has more baggage than a baggage claim and he is running away from his shady background, his extreme views and any type of accountability to the people," Schmuhl said. "Diego Morales has no morals just a desire for political power. His campaign is dangerous to all Hoosiers Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and independents." The Republican seeking to represent Northwest Indiana in Congress is accusing seemingly without any evidence U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, of leaking her military records to a national news outlet. On Friday, Politico Magazine published a lengthy profile of Jennifer-Ruth Green and her efforts to flip the Region congressional district continuously represented by Democrats for more than nine decades. The article included details from Green's military record, including Green failing to become an Air Force pilot after washing out of flight training; and earning a "does not meet standards" performance review in connection with her leadership skills, professional qualities, and judgment and decisions, after Green mishandled her weapon and wandered away from a forward operating base. According to Politico, the latter incident occurred when Green, an Air Force investigator evaluating the facilities at an Iraqi law enforcement training center in 2009, left a group of officers to climb into a guard tower where Green said an Iraqi service member grabbed her breast and exposed himself to her. The poor-performance review stymied Green's Air Force career and she left active duty in 2012 as part of a general force reduction. Five years later, Green joined the Indiana Air National Guard, where she continues to serve, according to Politico. Politico said it obtained Green's military service record in connection with a standard request for the documents using the federal Freedom of Information Act, not from anyone associated with Mrvan's campaign. Brad Dayspring, Politico's vice president of marketing and communications, told Fox News Digital that Green's campaign team "provided additional documentation of the incidents described in the story, which included new information that helped shape what was published." Nevertheless, Green is explicitly claiming that "Mrvan and his cronies illegally obtained my military records describing my sexual assault" and shopped them around to various news outlets "to portray me as a failed military officer who lacks integrity." "I believe after sharing my assault against the advice of some in my command, my career was intentionally derailed. The paperwork Congressman Mrvan illegally obtained contains information that reflects me in a negative light. I have since appealed the incident with the military, and the entire issue is settled," she said. The Green campaign provided no evidence that her military record was obtained or shared by Mrvan when asked by The Times for additional details of the alleged malfeasance. Any person can request records from the federal government under the Freedom of Information Act. The Mrvan campaign is expected to respond soon to Green's allegations. Mrvan's work in Congress, and previously as trustee of Lake County's North Township, has prioritized programs and resources aimed at preventing sexual assault and supporting survivors. Since the publication of the Politico article, written by Adam Wren, Green and her allies in the right-wing media have sought to portray her as a victim of a dirty political trick, rapacious national media or other forces unknown. "The reality of it is like I said at one point in my life to my assailant, 'No. Please stop. Don't.' and he did what he wanted to do this is the exact same situation all over again, all because there was a man who wanted some sort of gratification," Green told Fox News. "Congressman Frank Mrvan gets his gratification of trying to think he's smearing my name. Adam Wren gets his gratification of thinking he's going to get a good smear story out of it. And all it does is essentially reopen wounds for victims." U.S. Rep. Elise Stefaniak, of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, likewise accepted without question Green's contention that Mrvan leaked Green's military records, describing the incident in a tweet as "a shameful new low for politics and the media" and "a horrific attack on survivors everywhere." She was joined by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a top advocate for Republican former President Donald Trump, who proclaimed despite voting in May against the Mrvan-sponsored Dignity for Military Sexual Trauma Survivors Act "Jennifer-Ruth Green is one strong person and for her opponent to go this low is absolutely disgraceful." The Indiana Republican Party sent out a fundraising solicitation Monday seeking to capitalize on the "hit piece in Politico" by requesting donations of up to $2,900 on behalf of Green's campaign. Meanwhile, Green said she is continuing to "thrive after this great difficulty" thanks to "God, my family, my pastor and his wife, and the mental health providers at the Adam Benjamin VA." An apparent falsehood perpetuated by Republican congressional candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green has incited a mob of her social media supporters to subject U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan, D-Highland, his wife, Jane, and their children to vile insults and implied threats to their safety. Green has yet to retract her unsupported claim that Mrvan "illegally obtained" and subsequently disclosed to Politico Magazine military records showing Green washed out of flight training; failed to meet standards for leadership, professionalism and judgment; and suffered sexual abuse during her tenure in the U.S. Air Force. Politico said it obtained Green's military service record in connection with a standard request for the documents using the federal Freedom of Information Act not from anyone associated with Mrvan's campaign. Additional documentation relating to incidents described in the profile was provided directly by Green's campaign, according to Politico. In an exclusive interview with The Times, Mrvan also said neither he, nor anyone affiliated with his campaign, provided Green's military service record to Politico. Green campaign adviser Tim Edson responded to a request asking for evidence of any kind to sustain Green's allegations of Mrvan's involvement by claiming "the motive is clearly there," and bemoaning "the good ole boy network (expletive) around Lake County" for The Times not simply accepting Green's allegations at face value. In any case, the utter lack of evidence hasn't stopped Green's supporters from condemning Mrvan on Twitter as "deeply evil," a "lowlife," "sick bastard" and a "twisted son of a (expletive)" who probably has "a twisted history with women" based solely on a press release from Green as amplified by several Republican congressmen and political operatives, including U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind. Jane Mrvan, the congressman's wife and a childhood sexual assault survivor, said her social media outlets likewise have been plagued this week by Green allies practically accusing her husband of sexually abusing Green while "not even knowing my story, or the truth." Both she and Frank Mrvan said their hearts go out to Green as a survivor "I just don't understand where all the twisting and spinning is coming from; it just doesn't make sense," she said. "They are saying the most painfully triggering comments about my husband, and asking if I'm OK with it." "As survivors we band together. We do not attack each other. We support each other. Nobody wants to be groped, nobody wants to be accosted, nobody wants to be a victim. I support fellow survivors equally. This is not political for me, this is personal. It's very, very painful," Jane Mrvan said. "All day, as these radical people are making these comments, I felt fearful and like my family was in danger," she added. "It's just been really very disappointing that this is the way that her campaign has decided to respond." Frank Mrvan said the sexual abuse perpetrated against his wife and her late sister when they were children has inspired his entire career in public service advocating and acting on behalf of all sexual assault survivors. As trustee of Lake County's North Township, Mrvan developed the "No More Secrets" campaign to raise awareness of child sexual abuse among some 12,000 students in Northwest Indiana elementary, middle and high schools, and later to students across the state. "We were able to have a message to kids. And the outcome was 73 kids were saved," Mrvan said. "Then we took that data and outcomes and passed a bipartisan state law ... to be able to protect kids and to give a forum so survivors know where to go to find a trusted adult." Earlier this year, Mrvan also won overwhelming bipartisan support in the U.S. House for legislation to require members of the Department of Veterans Affairs Board of Veterans' Appeals to undergo annual military sexual trauma (MST) training to better understand the health care needs and the claims filed by veterans who experienced sexual trauma during their military service. He said, if enacted into law, MST survivors will find "trained professionals and therapists handling and managing those cases so the survivors have the dignity and the expertise to get through that situation." In addition, Mrvan in July successfully earmarked $750,000 in federal funds for the Fair Haven Rape Crisis Center in Highland "so they can continue their mission to take care of survivors and their families after an assault." Green opposes spending earmarks. "That life work cannot be erased, and it's above and beyond politics," Mrvan said. "So the impact this has had on my family, by the social media posts, has been dramatic." Jane Mrvan said she initially attempted to reason with her online tormentors, to no avail. She said they didn't seem interested in actually taking the time to learn about her husband, or her family, only in maintaining the attacks against them. "We have historically, for 19 years, ran and conducted ourselves in a positive manner, whether we are campaigning or doing the every day work, either on a local level or the federal level. We conduct ourselves with integrity and we respect others who are in the race, regardless, and that is always the way we've conducted ourselves. So this is just nothing my husband would ever do," she said. Records show one of the most widely seen attacks on Mrvan was tweeted by Greg Price, senior digital strategist at XStrategies LLC, who described Mrvan as a "Democrat lowlife" to his nearly 171,000 Twitter followers, including U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Fort Wayne. Federal Election Commission records show Green's campaign paid Florida-based XStrategies $4,000 for "campaign consulting" and "social media services" during the April-June campaign finance reporting period. Data on congressional candidate fundraising and spending for the July-September period is due to be released later this month. Attorney General Todd Rokita is denying he is antisemitic after applauding the "independent thinking" of musician Kanye West, now known as Ye, who vowed late Saturday night to go "death con 3 on Jewish people." In a tweet, later deleted for violating Twitter's terms of service, Ye said Jews "have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda." Some 15 hours later, Rokita also took to Twitter to condemn an MSNBC blog post describing Ye as "a racist hatemonger," which Rokita claimed was evidence "hypocrisy from the media is at an all-time high." "They have now gone after Kanye for his new fashion line, his independent thinking, and for having opposing thoughts from the norm of Hollywood," said Rokita, a Republican originally from Munster. Rokita, using his official attorney general Twitter account, subsequently praised Ye on Sunday afternoon for choosing to wear a "White Lives Matter" shirt alongside right-wing provocateur Candace Owens during a fashion show in Paris. "Kanye's message in this instance is fair and accurate, and regardless, he is entitled to his opinion," Rokita said. "The media will steamroll anyone if they do not kowtow to their way of thinking." Rokita currently is engaged in litigation against the Black Lives Matter organization. He claims to be investigating whether donations to the group, which Rokita described as a "house of cards," were misused. The attorney general's office also is due to participate in a court hearing Friday defending the validity of Indiana's near-total abortion ban against a challenge filed by Hoosier Jews for Choice, and other plaintiffs, who claim the statute runs afoul of the state's religious freedom protections. Rokita later insisted in response to numerous replies accusing him of antisemitism in connection with his Ye tweets that he was "specifically and clearly" focused on the "hypocrisy of the media and Hollywood elites" a term some people consider code for Jews. "I have an obvious, clear and substantial congressional and public record of being 100% supportive of the Jewish community and Israel," Rokita said. Ye also proclaimed, prior to his temporary Twitter ban, he "can't be antisemitic because black people are actually Jew also." Meanwhile, the Indiana Democratic Party urged Rokita to focus on the job he was elected to do. "All instances of antisemitism and hate need to be condemned, and Todd Rokita's comments are disgusting and beneath any person holding elected office," said Drew Anderson, Democratic spokesman. "This is just one more example of Rokita running to be the Indiana Republican Party's biggest extremist, and his political stunt is another reminder the GOP puts its out-of-touch agenda first, Indianas future last," Anderson added. Rokita took to Twitter again Monday from his official account to wish his 10,400 followers a "Happy Columbus Day!" He said the federal holiday commemorates "a day 530 years ago that led to the creation of our great republic." "Discovering America was like landing on the moon back then. We should resist the woke left's attempts at canceling this history with a socialist viewpoint," Rokita said. In fact, Columbus landed at what now is the Bahamas, not the United States, on Oct. 12, 1492, not Oct. 10. Also, unlike the vast emptiness of the moon, the Americas were inhabited by indigenous peoples when Columbus arrived on ships fully funded by the government of Spain. GARY After multiple contentious meetings, the Gary Common Council and Indiana State Police have come to "some mutual understandings," Council President William Godwin, D-1st, said. In April, it was announced that ISP would be taking a holistic look at the Gary Police Department: reviewing standard operating procedures, internal organizational structure, investigating procedures, training and fiscal accountability. As part of the partnership, ISP Major Jerry Williams has been working at the Gary Police Department for the past six months. In late August, a stack of 17 ordinances, all related to police department standard operating procedures, were introduced to the Common Council. During a series of Public Safety Committee meetings called to review the ordinances, some council members shared frustrations, saying the council should have been more involved in drafting the legislation. Godwin and Councilman Clorius Lay, D-at large, each questioned numerous aspects of the ordinances during a series of three Public Safety meetings. Namely, they raised concerns about a shift in authority away from the Police Civil Service Commission toward the police chief and the commission's future role in the disciplinary process. During one particularly long committee meeting, ISP Superintendent Douglas Carter told the councilmen "the semantics that you're talking about is not productive." Godwin later said he was offended that Carter termed his questioning semantics, in a statement saying: "I will continue to ask questions and raise concerns as needed. I will never be a rubber stamp." However, during a council meeting Tuesday night, Williams said he and Carter had met with multiple council members, including Godwin, and addressed "most, if not all" of their concerns. Lay thanked ISP leaders for their hard work, saying many of the Gary Police Department's standard operating procedures were in need of revision, although he disagrees with some "minor" elements of the proposed ordinances. Although you may think I object to too much, I think you all did an excellent job," Lay said. "Your presence here was worthwhile." Williams laid out some of the other improvements ISP hopes to make. Changes include finding funding for a new public safety building, creating an online platform where officers can get uniforms, buying more license plate readers, improving infrastructure around the many state roads that cut through the city and training more officers on how to write effective reports. None of the 17 ordinances has been passed. The Public Safety Committee will review the legislation for the fourth time during an Oct. 25 meeting that begins at 6 p.m. MICHIGAN CITY A shooter fired multiple rounds in a Michigan City home, injuring one occupant Sunday evening, according to police. Just before 6:45 p.m., Michigan City police responded to a house on the 1000 block of West 7th Street and learned a man had entered and fired multiple rounds. A man was hit in the leg by gunfire and officers on the scene applied a tourniquet. LaPorte County Emergency Medical Services took the victim to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Michigan City police. Police Sergeant Mike King said authorities believe the incident "was not a random act of violence and that there is no continued threat to public safety." The incident is under investigation. Police are asking anyone with information pertaining to the shooting to contact Lt. Anna Painter at 219-874-3221, ext. 1077, or at apainter@emichigancity.com. Anonymous tips can be left on the crime tip hotline at 219-873-1488. Here are the recent bookings by the Porter County Sheriff's Department. All information is taken directly from the website. VALPARAISO Area youngsters now have a place where, if they choose, they can read a book for their age level, or they can play or just take a nature walk. A partnership of three groups has resulted in a StoryWalk, dedicated Monday at Butterfly Meadow. The walk features a series of enlarged and laminated pages of a childrens book along a pathway that includes play areas and natural prairie grasses. The first book chosen is "My Rainbow Of Emotions" by Kristina Cherep, of Valparaiso. For Cherep, the mother of two, the walk dedication coincided with the release of this, her second book. It doesnt feel real. I feel like Im in a dream, Cherep said of her book being part of the trail walk. This is the first time everyone sees the book. The book deals with emotions and offers tips on coping with them. Cherep commented that her son Charlie, 3, thinks its his book. In a sense, it is, the mother said, since he was the inspiration. The walk is a partnership among Valpo Parks, the Porter County Public Library System and the John W. Anderson Foundation. Park Superintendent John Seibert said partnerships are common to local parks. Butterfly Meadow already features a shelter funded by several groups. In addition, Seibert said, United Way of Northwest Indiana partnered on the Learning Trail; Sunrise Kiwanis assisted with magical music stations; and Tri Kappa partnered on a nearby gazebo. Partnerships are how were able to do all this for the community, Seibert said, calling the walk a wonderful combination outdoor experience, fun and learning. Jesse Butz, director of the Porter County Public Library System, added that the walk combines the library experience with getting kids outside. Butz also said about 20 more of these walks are planned around the area. Library staff, he added, prepared each page image along the walk, with a different book planned for each quarter. Each color represents a different emotion. Its nice to have a local connection, Butz said, citing Chereps work as an example for young budding authors. Katie Ridinger, youth enrichment coordinator for Valpo Parks, said the StoryWalk idea was pitched to her soon after she joined the department in January. The intent, she said, is to use different works by local authors on a quarterly schedule. Cherep walked the trail with guests, reading each page. Among those joining her were Erica Culpepper, of Hebron, and her two children. This is cute, said Culpepper. You can walk through nature and read a book at the same time. Kathleen Kosal, of Valparaiso, brought her young children to the park for the fourth time this week. She said her son Levi, 3, is excited about the walk. Her story breaks down the truth about feelings, the mother added. Levi identifies with emotions. Luke Wilson, of Valparaiso, brought his son Beckett, 2. Its inclusive, the father said, and Beckett seems to be enjoying it. With Valparaiso schools on fall break, Flint Lake Elementary students Hunter Fandrei, 9, and sister Haven, 6, read the books 34 pages along the trail. We get to be in nature, Hunter said, while Haven cited all the emotions. Libby Fandrei, their mother, added, I love how theyre really engaged. Theyre reading in the fresh air, and thats what its all about. KYIV, Ukraine President Vladimir V. Putin unleashed a far-reaching series of missile strikes against cities across Ukraine on Monday, hitting the heart of Kyiv and other areas far from the front line, in the broadest assault against civilians since the early days of Russias invasion. Mr. Putin said the strikes on almost a dozen cities were retaliation for a blast that destroyed sections of a bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula, though they also seemed intended to appease hard-liners in Russia who had been openly critical over the prosecution of the war. Denouncing the bombing of the Kremlin-built bridge, an embarrassing blow, as a terrorist attack, Mr. Putin threatened more strikes if Ukraine hit Russian targets again. No one should have any doubt about it, he said. The attacks changed little or nothing on the battlefield, where Russia has been losing ground for weeks, but they left neighborhoods across Ukraine battered and bloodied. One of the worlds most significant privately assembled collections of Cycladic antiquities will be going on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of a novel arrangement that includes an acknowledgment that it belongs to the Greek state. The collection, which was put together over some 40 years by the businessman and philanthropist Leonard N. Stern, consists of 161 mostly marble figures and vessels created thousands of years ago in the Cyclades, a group of islands off the coast of Greece in the Aegean Sea. As part of the arrangement, 15 of the most esteemed items accumulated by Stern will first be exhibited in early November at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. These works and others from the collection will then occupy a prominent place in the Mets Greek and Roman galleries for at least 10 years, beginning in early 2024. The plan that is bringing Sterns collection to the Met was designed to win Greeces approval at a time when the country is aggressively pursuing antiquities that it believes should be returned to the country. Stern donated his collection to the Hellenic Ancient Culture Institute, a nonprofit organization in Delaware that will safeguard the antiquities and make them available for display. The institute is governed by a board whose chairman and a majority of members are appointed by the Cycladic museum, a private institution founded in 1986 to house the collection of Nikolaos and Aikaterini (Dolly) Goulandris and which is supervised by the Greek culture ministry. I cannot be more dramatic about the venom displayed by Himan Brown with respect to his son, and it extended to his granddaughters, as well, Mr. Kay said. Melina Brown has denied seeking larger fees or that the breach between her grandfather and father ever extended to her. She said in an interview that her grandfather, whom she cared for in his last years, had loved her and wanted her to push forward with his mission to build interest in the spoken word. Before he died, he appointed her as a director of the Radio Drama Network and in his estate left her $3 million and his home in Connecticut. Today, the radio foundation has about $20 million in assets. In the year ending June 2021, it gave $307,500 in grants, including to organizations that support Hispanic theater and storytelling in public schools. Pursuing the lawsuit against the trust has been expensive, with more than $2 million going to legal fees in the past two years, according to tax records. The charitable trust controlled by Mr. Kay holds about $107 million in assets. It distributed nearly $4.5 million in grants in the year ending in March 2021, according to tax filings. Mr. Kay receives yearly compensation as a trustee $300,000 last year which he shares with his law firm, Pryor Cashman, which has drawn fees of as much as $400,000 to represent the trust in recent years. Lawyers for Mr. Kay say Mr. Browns name is fully associated with gifts made by his trust, like a 60+ Program named for him at the 92nd Street Y, New York. They say that when Mr. Brown was alive, his radio foundation financially supported many varied causes, of which only a few were affiliated with the spoken word. They also point out that the trust has supported multiple speaking engagements, such as appearances by Dick Cavett and Bill Clinton. Mr. Brown, they say, viewed Mr. Kay as a friend whose judgment he fully trusted in making grants, and they point to personal messages from Mr. Brown to Mr. Kay to illustrate their close relationship. Watching Kevin Spaceys character show sexual interest in a teenager in the film American Beauty was unpleasantly familiar, the actor Anthony Rapp testified in federal court on Tuesday, describing a repeated reaction he had in the years after Mr. Spacey climbed on top of him and made a sexual advance, which Mr. Rapp said occurred when he was 14. Whenever he would see Mr. Spacey a rising Hollywood star appear in movies or in person, such as the day of the Tony Awards, Mr. Rapp said he would instantly recall the encounter, which Mr. Spacey denies ever happened. Even a brief appearance by Mr. Spacey in the 1980s movie Working Girl, in which his character propositions a secretary in a limousine, startled and upset Mr. Rapp. It was as if someone poked me with a cattle prod, Mr. Rapp testified. Mr. Rapp, a stage and screen actor best known for his role in the musical Rent, has sued Mr. Spacey over the incident, which he said occurred in 1986, when Mr. Spacey was 26. Mr. Rapp has accused Mr. Spacey of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the civil trial, which began in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, has centered not just on whether the encounter happened as Mr. Rapp described, but whether he has psychologically suffered from it over the past three decades. As his name and notoriety increased, it was harder and harder to escape, testified Mr. Rapp, who is seeking damages from Mr. Spacey. Eileen Ryan, a stage, television and film actress who paused her career to raise her sons, the actors Sean and Chris Penn and the musician Michael Penn, then later racked up dozens of acting credits, sometimes working with her sons and her husband, the director Leo Penn, died on Sunday at her home in Malibu, Calif. She was 94. Her family announced her death through a spokeswoman. Ms. Ryan was in her late 20s and appearing in The Iceman Cometh at Circle in the Square in Greenwich Village in 1956 when she met Mr. Penn, who stepped into a role being vacated by Jason Robards. They married soon after. Her career was going well at that point; she had already made her Broadway debut in Sing Till Tomorrow in 1953 and would return to Broadway in 1958 in Comes a Day. But she prided herself on making her own decisions I dont think anybody could have felt stronger than I did about controlling my own destiny, she told The Los Angeles Times in 1986 and soon she made a difficult one, choosing to scale back her acting. The choice, she said, began to be clear when she had a job that took her away from home and had to leave Michael, then a baby, with Leo. Todays proposed rule takes a measured approach, essentially returning us to the Obama era, during which our industry grew exponentially, said CR Wooters, the companys head of federal affairs. In a time of deep economic uncertainty, its crucial that the Biden administration continues to hear from the more than 50 million people who have found an earning opportunity with companies like ours. Lyft likewise noted that the proposal would restore the approach under President Barack Obama, when drivers were generally classified as contractors, and emphasized that it would not force the company to alter its business model. The company said the proposal was merely the beginning of a longer process. Companies, unions, workers and other members of the public will have a month and a half to formally comment on the proposal before the department incorporates feedback into a final rule. After that, the department will have considerable discretion over whether or not to enforce the rule at particular companies. While independent contractors have an important role in our economy, we have seen in many cases that employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors, Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh said in a statement. Misclassification deprives workers of their federal labor protections, including their right to be paid their full, legally earned wages. David Weil, who oversaw the Obama Labor Departments approach to classifying workers, cautioned that just because the department didnt bring an enforcement action against Uber and Lyft didnt mean it couldnt have. He noted that the Obama rule had been adopted late in that administration. I think it is true that there are lots of gray areas in the platform world, but with the caveats that you always have to go deep into the facts, Uber and Lyft do not strike me as that difficult, Mr. Weil said in an interview, adding: There is a lot about the relationship that looks like one of employees. The proposal helps defuse growing pressure from activists supporting gig workers, who complained that the administration had been too slow to intervene to protect ride-hail drivers and other app-based workers. A few weeks from now, if all goes well, the first satellites to be launched into space from Britain will take off from Cornwall, in southwest England. A modified Boeing 747 outfitted to carry satellite-bearing rockets that take off midflight is expected to land in Cornwall on Tuesday evening, in advance of the launch, which is anticipated for early November. The plane is owned by Virgin Orbit, a company that belongs to the universe of the entrepreneur Richard Branson, who competes with the billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in the commercial space race. Virgin Orbit said in a news release that among the satellites would be a device for monitoring ships at sea for the British Ministry of Defense and a communications unit for Oman, a Persian Gulf emirate. Though a modest step, the launch would be a boost for a campaign by the British government to invest in space technology as a potential growth industry after Brexit, the countrys departure from the European Union. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a major provider of satellite launch services and rockets, has probably also added an incentive for countries like Britain to have their own space capabilities. The involvement of Virgin Orbit, which is based in California, demonstrates that the United States is crucial to advancing such ambitions. We often hear about tipping points in the physical climate of planet Earth. There are political tipping points, too. Elections can put a heavy finger on the scales of climate action. Consider the consequences of two recent votes the federal election in Australia and the Conservative Party leadership contest in Britain and the potential consequences of two upcoming ones: a presidential runoff this month in Brazil and U.S. midterms in November. All these countries matter hugely in climate terms. Australia, Britain and the United States are among historys biggest emitters. Brazil contains the largest share of the Amazon rainforest, which stores vast amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide for the rest of the world. Australia In May, voters ousted the conservative coalition that had championed coal and gas and made Australia one of the climate laggards of the world. Within weeks, a new government led by the Labor Party had updated the countrys international climate targets under the Paris accord. When a highly contagious strain of avian influenza began racing across the United States this spring, the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota prepared for an influx of ailing birds. But we never could have anticipated the flood of patients that arrived, said Dr. Victoria Hall, executive director of the center, which provides medical care for birds of prey. From late March to early June of this year, Dr. Hall and her colleagues saw more than 180 flu-afflicted birds, including scores of great horned owls, red-tailed hawks and bald eagles. Many were severely ill, suffering from seizures or unable to see or stand. Caring for these animals just one of which survived was emotional, draining work that required long hours in personal protective equipment, including Tyvek suits and respirators. So it came as an immense relief when cases tailed off this summer, falling to just one in July and zero in August. Mr. Zeldin, a staunch Trump supporter who has represented Suffolk County in Congress since 2015, has said he would make law and order his top priority if elected. He has consistently sought to blame the rise in violence on criminal justice policies enacted by progressive lawmakers as well as on left-leaning prosecutors, such as Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan. He has promised to fire Mr. Bragg on Day 1. At the same time, he has opposed Democratic-led efforts to tighten gun control measures, cheering the Supreme Courts decision to strike down New Yorks concealed carry law as a historic, proper, and necessary victory. Ms. Hochul, who is seeking her first full term, has trumpeted her efforts to tighten the states bail laws and has emphasized initiatives to crack down on illegal gun trafficking, as well as a law she signed raising the age for the purchase of semiautomatic rifles, after a massacre at a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year. Were not running away from those issues, Ms. Hochul said on Monday. Were leaning hard into them because we have a real record of accomplishment. The shooting outside Mr. Zeldins home is the second time his safety has been threatened this election cycle. Three months ago, a man tried to physically attack Mr. Zeldin with a sharp key chain during a campaign event near Rochester. The attacker, a veteran of the Iraq War who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, was quickly subdued and initially released without bail before being arrested on federal assault charges. Congress could circumvent much of this with its revised Electoral Count Act, which appears to have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But if the act passes, the danger does not end there. Even if Congress closes the loopholes in the certification of electoral votes, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court could still give state legislatures free rein to run roughshod over the popular will. This is not theoretical. In Moore v. Harper, which will be heard this term, the court will weigh in on the independent state legislature theory, a once-rejected claim that was reintroduced to conservative legal thinking in a concurring opinion in Bush v. Gore by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. It was embraced by the conservative legal movement in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when lawyers for Donald Trump seized on the theory as a pretext for invalidating ballots in swing states where courts and election officials used their legal authority to expand ballot access without direct legislative approval. Under the independent state legislature theory, the Constitution gives state legislatures exclusive and plenary power to change state election law, unbound by state constitutions and state courts. This, as I discussed in a previous column, is nonsense. It rests on a selective interpretation of a single word in a single clause, divorced from the structure of the Constitution as well as the context of its creation, namely the effort by national elites to strengthen federal authority and limit the influence of the states. Why, in other words, would the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution essentially reinscribe the fundamental assumption of the Articles of Confederation the exclusive sovereignty of the states in a document designed to supersede them? As J. Michael Luttig, a legal scholar and former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (appointed by George H.W. Bush), wrote in a recent essay for The Atlantic, There is literally no support in the Constitution, the preratification debates or the history from the time of our nations founding or the Constitutions framing for a theory of an independent state legislature that would foreclose state judicial review of state legislatures redistricting decisions. But the total lack of support for the independent state legislature theory in American history or constitutional law may not stop the Supreme Court from affirming it in the Constitution, if the conservative majority believes it might give the Republican Party a decisive advantage in future election contests. And it would. Under the strongest forms of the independent state legislature theory, state lawmakers could allocate electoral votes against the will of the voters if they concluded that the election was somehow tainted or illegitimate. Which brings us back to the election deniers running in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Victory for the election deniers in any state would, in combination with any version of the independent state legislature theory, put the United States on the glide path to an acutely felt constitutional crisis. We may face a situation where the voters of Nevada or Wisconsin want Joe Biden (or another Democrat) for president but state officials and lawmakers want Trump and have the power to make it so. One of the more ominous developments of the past few years is the way that conservatives have rejected the language of American democracy, saying instead that the United States is a republic and not a democracy, in a direct lift from Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, who made the phrase a rallying cry against social and political equality. This rests on a distinction between the words democracy and republic that doesnt really exist in practice. During the 18th century, the political scientist Robert Dahl once observed, the terms democracy and republic were used interchangeably in both common and philosophical usage. To the Editor: Re Do Not Bring Your Whole Self to Work, by Pamela Paul (column, Sept. 26): After decades of being badgered by my employers human resources department to think of my employer as family, I was relieved to see this article. As a corporate counsel, now retired, I always felt that my employer misrepresented the nature of its relationship with employees by urging them to share and bare their personal lives. The obvious differences between personal and employment relationships became lost, and personal problems became excuses for missing deadlines. Clear boundaries between ones personal and work lives exist for good reasons and should be honored. Traci Goodwin Bend, Ore. To the Editor: Well, on some level, sure dont bring your whole self to work. But often when you share an office, and work in a collaborative business as I do as an advertising copywriter, you develop a closeness with your immediate colleagues: art directors, producers, editors the people you see often and who are mostly a few feet away. LIMA, Peru On Sept. 22, Carlos Lalangui was digging a trench to make way for a natural gas pipeline on the citys outskirts when he spotted fragments of a human skull a dozen inches down in the loosened soil. It was the first time Id seen something like that, said Mr. Lalangui, a worker with the natural gas company Calidda. But I knew it was a possibility. He stopped digging and notified his supervisor, who called in archaeologists. In a little over a week, they had uncovered the remains of 21 people, eight of them children, who lived 600 to 800 years ago, said Cecilia Camargo, an archaeologist with the company. Most had been buried in a classic pre-Columbian style in Peru: their bodies bound in a sitting fetal position and bundled in layers of textiles, surrounded by ceramic vessels, plates, pots and figurines. One of the adults, thought to be a warrior, was found lain horizontally on reeds with a star-shaped mace of stone; the remains of a 2-year-old were found close by. Birkenstock Boston clogs should cost you about $160. If you can find a pair, that is. Thanks largely to social media, the cork-heeled staple has become a hot-ticket item in recent months. Its so hot that the taupe suede leather model, the favorite among users on TikTok, is sold out in every size on Birkenstocks website. Only a few sizes are available in other suede leather colors. (If you have very tiny feet or very large ones, you may be in luck.) This leaves three options. One: You can wait patiently for a restock. On the Birkenstock subreddit, a community devoted entirely to the German footwear brand, users post updates alerting other community members when certain styles are back in stock online. Blink and they will be gone again. In New York City, the Birkenstock store in SoHo was completely sold out of the taupe suede Bostons on Friday morning and was awaiting a new shipment. The Williamsburg location had only a few pairs in limited sizes and widths. Two: Try your luck at an outside retailer, where supplies have also appeared to dwindle in recent weeks. Update: Lufthansa says Apple AirTags are once again allowed in checked bags. Lufthansa, a German airline, set off confusion recently after telling passengers that they could not use trackers like Apple AirTags in checked baggage because of international guidelines for personal electronic devices. Apple rejected that interpretation on Tuesday, saying its trackers comply with all regulations. It does not appear that any other airlines are requiring passengers to turn off the trackers, which have become popular as a way to find lost baggage. Lufthansa found itself in the middle of the issue when reports surfaced in the German news media that the devices were prohibited. Though Lufthansa said it has no desire to prohibit the devices that it deemed safe, the airline seems to have stepped in a mess based on the reading of obscure international guidelines and regulations, with no clear consensus on what is and is not allowed in Europe. Regulators in the United States have said the trackers, which use Bluetooth technology and do not interfere with the airplanes communications equipment, are permitted in carry-on or checked baggage. A variety of other companies sell similar trackers, including Tile, which is popular with users of Android phones. Mr. Syeds lawyer, Erica J. Suter, said at a news conference on Tuesday that her office would file a motion to certify his innocence as soon as possible. She said the results of the DNA testing confirmed what Adnan and his supporters have always known: Adnan Syed is innocent. She said Mr. Syed had dreams of going to law school and, now that he is free, he planned to focus on getting his bachelors degree, a process he began while he was incarcerated. He is elated, he is joyful, he is still processing this, said Ms. Suter, who is also the director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Last month, prosecutors recommended that Mr. Syeds conviction be vacated because, they said, the state no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction. Mr. Syed was ordered to serve home detention until prosecutors reached their decision. He has maintained his innocence. Mr. Syed and Ms. Lee were in an on-again, off-again relationship when they were both students at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County. In 2000, a jury convicted Mr. Syed, who was 17 at the time of Ms. Lees death, of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment. The podcast Serial chronicled the case in its first season and became a pop culture sensation that attracted renewed interest in the prosecution of Mr. Syed and raised questions about who was responsible for Ms. Lees murder. (In 2020, The New York Times Company bought Serial Productions, the company behind the podcast.) In a motion filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court last month, prosecutors said that a nearly yearlong investigation, conducted with Mr. Syeds lawyer, had found two possible alternative suspects, who have not been named publicly or charged. At least 27 people, most of them children, were taken to hospitals for treatment and were in stable condition after carbon monoxide was detected at a day care center in Allentown, Pa., a fire department official said on Tuesday. Emergency workers went to the center, Happy Smiles Learning Center, at about 7:30 a.m. in response to a 911 call about an unconscious child, said Capt. John Christopher, a spokesman for the Allentown Fire Department. When firefighters arrived, sensors on their gear alerted them to the presence of carbon monoxide, Captain Christopher said. Twenty-five children and eight adult employees were evacuated, but only 27 were taken for medical treatment, he said. That number will probably go up because, during this time, a few parents showed up and took their kids to the doctor on their own, he said. Officials with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are investigating the fatal poisoning of six endangered gray wolves in the northeastern part of the state, the authorities said on Monday. More than $51,000 in rewards are being offered for information about the poisonings. The investigation began in February when officials found four dead wolves from the Wedge pack in Stevens County, about 65 miles northwest of Spokane, according to a news release from the department. Within a month, officials discovered two more dead wolves. All six wolves died from ingesting poison, according to officials. The pack had been known to cause trouble. In July 2020, officials killed an adult female member of the pack, which had repeatedly preyed on cattle on public and private grazing lands. More wolves were lethally removed the next month. Becky Elder, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Police, said on Tuesday that there had been previous cases of wolves being poached in the state, but they had been singular in scope. This incident is quite large in scale compared to prior poaching with six wolves killed in a relatively short time frame, she said, declining to give specifics on the type of poison used or how it was administered. Even in an era in which the boundaries of political speak have seemingly evaporated, a nearly 80-minute recording of Los Angeles leaders mocking people in racist terms is still powerful enough to shock the nations second-largest city. In the profanity-laced recording, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times and which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times on Sunday, the City Council president, Nury Martinez, who is Latina, compared the Black child of a white council member to a changuito, Spanish for little monkey. She also called Oaxacan immigrants living in Koreatown little short dark people. At another point in the private conversation, Ms. Martinez used an expletive in reference to the Los Angeles County district attorney, George Gascon, saying that hes with the Blacks. It was unclear who leaked the recording, which was of an October 2021 meeting between Ms. Martinez; Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, council members representing parts of the citys East Side; and Ron Herrera, who was the head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor before he resigned Monday night. They had gathered to discuss how to create new City Council boundaries under the redistricting process. Many politicians and civic leaders in California have reacted to the news of the crude racist remarks in the audio recording with shock, condemnation and calls for the four people involved to resign their posts. By Tuesday morning, one of the four Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor had stepped down, and another Nury Martinez, the City Council president had given up her leadership role and said she would take a leave of absence from the council. Here are some of the prominent figures who have called for resignations. The two leading candidates in the closely fought race for mayor of Los Angeles: Rick Caruso , a white billionaire developer on the police commission, and Representative Karen Bass , who is Black and has represented the city in the Legislature and Congress for many years. Mayor Eric Garcetti , who is awaiting confirmation as the United States ambassador to India. Eunisses Hernandez , a progressive who defeated one of the three council members, Gil Cedillo, in a June primary and will succeed him when his term ends later this year. Mike Bonin , a white City Council member with a Black son, both of whom were the targets of bigoted remarks in the recorded conversation. His statement was issued jointly with his husband, Sean Arian. Marqueece Harris-Dawson , a Black City Council member, who said he planned to call for an investigation into whether the recorded conversation, which was about redistricting, violated state transparency laws or the federal Voting Rights Act. United States Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California. Top Democratic Party officials in the state also called for the three council members resignations, as did a wide array of advocacy groups. As of Tuesday morning, however, Gov. Gavin Newsom had not. He said in a statement on Monday that words matter, and racist language can do real harm, and added that he was encouraged that those involved in this have apologized and begun to take responsibility for their actions, but did not specifically call for any resignations. SAN RAFAEL About 37 percent of California children ages 5 to 11 have gotten their Covid shots since they first became eligible late last year. At the bottom of the pack are Lassen and Modoc Counties, in the northeast corner of the state, where fewer than 8 percent in that age group have received the vaccine, according to state data. At the very top? Marin County. Here, more than 80 percent of children 5 to 11 have their Covid shots, and the wealthy Bay Area county has become a model for improving immunization efforts nationwide. Just from the beginning of the pandemic, people were like, I cant wait to get vaccinated, said Ryan Paulger, a longtime Marin County resident I recently met at a vaccine clinic in San Rafael. He sat beside his 3-year-old daughter as she colored with crayons minutes after receiving her first Covid vaccine. The defense team, which started presenting its side in August, unexpectedly rested its case last month after calling about 25 of its 80 listed witnesses. The decision angered Judge Elizabeth A. Scherer, who accused Ms. McNeill of unprofessionalism. The defense then tried to disqualify the judge, arguing that she was biased. The judge, who has clashed repeatedly with the defense in the years since Mr. Cruzs legal proceedings began, rejected the motion. The emotional trial involved tearful testimony from teachers and students who lived through the shooting, grisly autopsy photographs, detailed descriptions from medical examiners and a jury tour of the shuttered high school building where the shooting took place. The defense team called Mr. Cruzs half sister, who is herself in jail awaiting trial on unrelated criminal charges, to testify. They also put former teachers, caretakers and friends of his adoptive mother on the witness stand to piece together an account of his troubled childhood. In the end, Mr. Satz told jurors that prosecutors had proved beyond a reasonable doubt seven aggravating factors out of 16 that, according to Florida law, justify the death penalty. These factors outweigh the mitigating circumstances presented by the defense about Mr. Cruzs childhood, mental health and upbringing, he added. Aggravating factors include that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel and that they were committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner; the death penalty is justified under Florida law if at least one of them is met. Mr. Satz recited from memory one of the videos that Mr. Cruz had recorded on his cellphone ahead of the shooting, describing his plans. The prosecutor noted how the defendants backpack had swastikas and a racial slur scrawled on it, as well as how he had tortured animals, posted misogynistic comments online and written that he wanted kill a ton of people and children. It is said that what one writes and says is a window into their soul, Mr. Satz said. He had the jury rewatch surveillance footage of Mr. Cruz shooting each of his victims, reminding them that Mr. Cruz had shot 139 rounds and killed 14 children and three adults. In some cases, the defendant returned to injured victims to kill them. He shot some of them up close, including a 14-year-old girl shot in the chest and abdomen. They all knew what was going on, what was going to happen, Mr. Satz said. WASHINGTON The Biden administration is considering a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelans who have been fleeing political instability and poverty in large numbers, according to two administration officials familiar with the proposed plan, which the administration hopes will discourage Venezuelans from crossing the southwestern border illegally. If implemented, the program for Venezuelans would be similar to a humanitarian program offered to Ukrainians, which allows a family member or sponsor in the United States to apply on behalf of the refugee and commit to providing them with financial assistance while theyre in the country. While the Ukrainian program received bipartisan support, Republicans have been less welcoming to the Venezuelans, more than 150,000 of whom have been apprehended at the U.S. southwestern border from October 2021 through the end of August. The humanitarian parole program would not apply to Venezuelans who are already in the country, but the hope is that it would encourage migrants to seek refuge closer to home and fly to the United States instead of traveling north by foot and crossing the border illegally. Venezuelans in their home country or who crossed into a neighboring country legally would qualify to apply for the program. Official ports of entry have been closed to migrants since the beginning of the pandemic, effectively forcing those intent on reaching the United States to take a more dangerous route to cross illegally. In the fall of 2018, President Donald J. Trump was pushing aides on an idea he wanted to carry out on the border transporting undocumented immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities. The idea had simmered for months, culminating in a call Mr. Trump placed to Kirstjen Nielsen, his homeland security secretary. Mr. Trump, Ms. Nielsens former chief of staff recalled, wanted to round up migrants in Republican-controlled states and bus and dump them in major cities. He wanted to bus migrants who had been deemed to be murderers, rapists and criminals to places, such as California, where officials had declined to help carry out the administrations rigorous deportation policies, according to the former chief of staff, Miles Taylor. The idea never advanced in the Trump administration, in part because of legal concerns. But four years later, three Republican governors have brought it to visceral life, busing and flying thousands of migrants not just criminals from the border and dropping them off in Marthas Vineyard, New York City and other Democratic-leaning areas. ATLANTA Democratic and Republican groups in Georgia are spending millions of dollars on highly personal negative advertising in the final weeks of the race between Senator Raphael Warnock and his challenger, Herschel Walker, disparaging the candidates by drawing more attention to their pasts. Days before the candidates are set to meet on a debate stage, groups aligned with each party are flooding the airwaves with a pair of ads that underline accusations of domestic violence against Mr. Walker, a Republican, and marital disputes involving Mr. Warnock, a Democrat. Their messages are shaping the final few weeks of campaigning in one of the countrys most closely watched races that could determine control of the Senate, and at times one of the most hostile. The advertising back-and-forth follows more than a week of negative headlines focused largely on Mr. Walker. After The Daily Beast first reported that Mr. Walker paid for a womans abortion, The New York Times confirmed the report and learned that the woman had ended their relationship after she refused to have a second abortion despite Mr. Walkers urging. Now, as Democrats spend big to elevate those claims, Republicans are hitting back to paint Mr. Warnock as a candidate also plagued by scandal. They wont fear us, Mr. Rhodes wrote to Ms. SoRelle, till we come with rifles in hand. Prosecutors argued that the incendiary message should not be protected by attorney-client privilege because Ms. SoRelle, despite having described herself as the Oath Keepers general counsel, did not perform any legal work for the group until after the Capitol was attacked. Ms. SoRelle also played an active role in the conspiracy to disrupt the certification of the election, prosecutors wrote, so any communications between her and the Oath Keepers should be exempt from privilege under what is known as the crime-fraud exception. Based in Texas, Ms. SoRelle first emerged into the public eye one day after Election Day when, as a member of a group called Lawyers for Trump, she raised claims in a widely seen video that election workers in Detroit had committed voter fraud. Around the same time, prosecutors say, the Oath Keepers began to work for her as bodyguards. By the following month, she had signed her name to two open letters to Mr. Trump that Mr. Rhodes had posted on the Oath Keepers website. The letters, introduced as evidence at the trial last week, called on Mr. Trump to take a series of aggressive steps to remain in power, including invoking the Insurrection Act, a move that Mr. Rhodes believed would have given Mr. Trump the authority to mobilize militias like his own to suppress the coup that was seeking to unseat him. While Mr. Rhodes has so far been the focus of the trial, testimony turned on Tuesday to one of his co-defendants, Jessica Watkins, an Ohio bar owner who ran her own militia in the state. Prosecutors introduced that evidence that Ms. Watkins had discussed cutting off pool cues to serve as antifa smashers at pro-Trump rallies in Washington and sought to recruit and train people to join the Oath Keepers at the events. One of the recruits sent a message to Ms. Watkins in mid-November of 2020 asking, So should I get comfortable with the idea of death? WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Tuesday considered whether California can address cruelty to animals by requiring that pork sold in the state come from breeding pigs housed in spaces that allow them to move around freely. There was no dispute that the state could regulate the treatment of pigs within its borders. But California produces almost no pork, even as its residents consume 13 percent of the pork produced in other states. The question for the justices was whether the laws impact on business practices in those other states ran afoul of the Constitution. Justice Elena Kagan said she was worried that states might enact all sorts of laws effectively regulating conduct outside their borders. Even if that were in doubt, it added, Mr. Trump certainly cannot establish the clear error required to justify the relief he seeks particularly because he does not acknowledge, much less attempt to rebut, the Court of Appeals conclusion that the district courts order was a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the executive branchs authority to control the use and distribution of extraordinarily sensitive government records. The Supreme Court is likely to rule on the Mr. Trumps application in the case, Trump v. United States, No. 22A283, in the coming days. Whether Mr. Trump wins or loses this round, the Justice Department will be able to continue its review of the sensitive documents and the larger litigation will move forward. Last week, the 11th Circuit called for briefs on a relatively brisk schedule on the Justice Departments broader appeal from a Sept. 5 ruling by Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Southern District of Florida appointing a special master. That briefing will conclude on Nov. 17, and the appeals court will presumably hear arguments in the following weeks. In the meantime, the special master appointed by Judge Cannon on Sept. 15, Judge Raymond J. Dearie of Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York, continues his work in carrying out Judge Cannons instructions to identify documents that may be subject to attorney-client or executive privilege. Should Mr. Trump prevail in the Supreme Court, documents with classified markings would again be made part of his review. The Supreme Court is dominated by six conservative justices, three of them appointed by Mr. Trump. But it has rejected earlier efforts to block the disclosure of information about him. The technical issue for the justices in the new case arises from the interplay of Judge Cannons two rulings in September. Mr. Trumps lawyers said the Justice Department had only filed an appeal from the first one, while the scope of Judge Dearies review was detailed in the second one. That meant, they said, that the appeals court lacked jurisdiction to block the special masters review of the sensitive documents. Across Tibetan villages in southwest China, Communist Party officials have been spreading the top leader Xi Jinpings gospel of national unity: that every ethnic group must fuse into one indivisible China with a shared heritage dating back over 5,000 years. Thousands of officials in Ganzi, a Tibetan region of Sichuan Province, have been paired with families to collect information and give out gifts of rice, cooking oil and beatific portraits of Mr. Xi all to hammer home his message of an encompassing Chinese identity, from Xinjiang in the west to the contested island of Taiwan in the east. In the future Ill be a member of your family, too, Shen Yang, the Communist Party secretary of Ganzi, called Kardze in Tibetan, told one household, according to a local newspaper. The nationalist impulse behind this campaign is increasingly central to Mr. Xis efforts to reshape China, with far-reaching consequences for education, social policy and politics. While appeals to the motherland have long been part of the partys tool kit, Mr. Xi has taken the imperative to new heights, calling for a unified community of Chinese nationhood as a bulwark against threats at home and abroad. President Biden on Tuesday called President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a rational actor but said he had miscalculated badly about the reaction to his invasion of Ukraine, in an interview that was broadcast on CNN Tuesday night. Mr. Putin thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated, Mr. Biden said in the interview with the host Jake Tapper. But Mr. Biden also said that Mr. Putins goals in sending troops into Ukraine were not rational, even if he is a rational person overall. If you listen to the speech he made after when that decision was being made, he talked about the whole idea of he was needed to be the leader of Russia that united all of Russian speakers, Mr. Biden said. I mean, its just, I just think its irrational, Mr. Biden said. A new front has emerged in the conflict between China and the United States: a $500 million superyacht anchored in the waters off Hong Kong. The boat, named Nord, is believed to belong to Alexei Mordashov, a Russian oligarch and ally of President Vladimir V. Putin. As a way to punish Mr. Putin for his war in Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and Britain have imposed sanctions on Russian billionaires and oligarchs, including Mr. Mordashov. The arrival of the 465-foot-long yacht near Hong Kong last week, after a seven-day voyage from Vladivostok, Russia, raised an important question: would local officials seize it and help enforce the curbs the United States and its allies had set forth on the presumed owner of the boat? The answer from Hong Kong was, essentially, no. John Lee, Hong Kongs chief executive, said on Tuesday that it would enforce sanctions ordered by the United Nations Security Council, but it did not have legal basis to carry out sanctions based on a particular countrys own consideration. The Russian strikes that hit civilian targets across Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday including a medical facility, museums, a playground, a German consulate and a high-rise office building have been a regular feature of Moscows war strategy since the invasion began. There is also evidence that Russian forces took a similar approach during past conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria. Here is an overview: In 1994, Russias initial attack on Chechnya failed when its forces were repelled. It responded by dropping bombs, with heavy civilian casualties. In one attack, Russian soldiers doused the houses of a town with gasoline and opened fire on unarmed women, children and older people, killing more than 100. In another, Russian troops killed about 40 refugees in an attack on a convoy of vehicles that were paused at a military checkpoint. In the conflict between Georgia and Russia in 2008, civilians on both sides came under fire. The advocacy group Human Rights Watch later said that Russian weapons had caused most of the civilian casualties, often with cluster munitions. When Russian forces entered the Syrian war in 2015, that countrys Moscow-allied military had already been massacring civilians. Russia then pulverized Syrian cities from above, a strategy that echoed its war strategy in Chechnya. United Nations investigators accused Russia of carrying out a crime of intentionally terrorizing the population, with indiscriminate airstrikes, to force civilians to move. Russia has repeatedly denied accusations over the years that its forces indiscriminately attack civilians. In the current war, Ukraines resistance has prompted Russia to widen its attacks from military targets to cities and residential areas. Military experts say they see echoes of Russias strategy from other recent conflicts, in which it bombed heavily populated areas indiscriminately and used civilian casualties as leverage. The Russian missile and drone attacks that killed at least 19 people across Ukraine on Monday were traumatic and wide-ranging, but they were not as deadly as they could have been, in the context of a war that has included widespread civilian killing. That has renewed questions over the quality of Russias weapons and about the capacity of its forces to carry out President Vladimir V. Putins military designs. Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said it could be a sign that Russias guided missiles are not very effective, or that it is running short of precision munitions. Most of the missiles targeted energy and other civilian services, in what Mr. Putin said was retaliation for a blast on Russias bridge to occupied Crimea. Perhaps it was Putins way of sending a warning shot across Ukraines bow: If you attack our infrastructure, we will ramp up attacks on your cities, Mr. Storey said. But he and other experts acknowledged that much about Russias weapons arsenal remains unclear. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, in ordering missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, follows a long line of wartime leaders who have sought to cow their adversaries by bombing enemy capitals. Ever since Nazi Germanys bombardment of London in World War II, enabled by the first long-range missiles and warplanes, nearly every major war has featured similar attacks. The goal is almost always the same: to coerce the targeted countrys leaders into scaling back their war effort or suing for peace. It typically aims to achieve this by forcing those leaders to ask whether the capitals cultural landmarks and economic functioning are worth putting on the line and also, especially, by terrorizing the countrys population into moderating their support for the war. The Russian strikes that hit civilian targets across Ukraine this week immediately brought new pledges by Kyivs allies to send in more weapons and ammunition. The United States promised more air defense missile systems, and Germany said it would send similar defenses in the next few days. The NATO chief declared that support to Ukraines fight against Russia would continue for as long as it takes. But for all of the assurances, there remains a problem. Kyiv also needs more of the Russian-style weapons that the Ukrainian military is trained to use, and the available global supply of them is running low. To find those weapons, the United States and other allies have been scouring the globe, looking for willing suppliers in a hunt that has revealed both the promise and pitfalls of unlocking stockpiles of Russian-standard and Soviet-style weapons for use by Ukraine. There have been some successes. Finland, which has long balanced the sensitivities of its Russian neighbor, is sending Ukraine some Soviet-style weapons, including ammunition and guns compatible with the AK-47 assault rifle. South Korea is supplying ballistic vests, helmets, medical equipment and other defense assistance. JERUSALEM Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a draft deal to resolve a decades-old dispute over the control of an eastern stretch of the Mediterranean Sea, the two countries announced on Tuesday, in a major diplomatic breakthrough between two neighbors that technically remain at war and have no direct official relations. If ratified by both governments, the deal is expected to avert the immediate threat of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, after fears of escalation if negotiations fell apart, and to make it easier for energy companies to extract gas from the eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea. The deal would allocate drilling rights at one contested gas field to Lebanon and confirm Israeli control of another field to the south, safeguarding new sources of energy and income for both countries. Officials and analysts hope the deal will give Israel more security, allow Lebanon greater leeway in the future to salve its crippling energy and financial crises, and provide Europe with a potential new source of gas amid energy shortages caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Dave Sanders for The New York Times Tent shelters were being erected on Monday on Randalls Island to house waves of migrants, including those sent by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican. The influx led Mayor Eric Adams to declare an emergency and call on other officials, including those in El Paso, to stop sending people. Heres how New York is responding to the migrants Opinion Can you punish a childs mental health problems away? Turn on Sound Click to unmute I went there for treatment. And instead I was punished and treated like a criminal. They degraded you. She told me that I was the scum of the earth. Ive seen people be sedated. It makes you a zombie. Theyll restrain you. Like, in a way, both of your shoulders were touching. Pick you up and put you into solitary confinement. Just me in the cell, by myself. I felt completely violated. I remember him sticking his hands directly in my pants. I think that my son was neglected, abused. And had I not taken him out, he would have died. Story Continues Below Continue Its known as the troubled teen industry. Spread across the country, this array of boot camps, wilderness therapy programs, therapeutic boarding schools and residential treatment centers is supposed to help children with mental health and behavioral issues, through a mix of therapy and tough love. In reality, it is harming many of the children it purports to be treating, because of a reliance on archaic tactics, a lack of oversight and regulation and a focus on maximizing profit. Desperate parents who dont know what to do with their difficult kids turn to this industry for help. Many kids have already been through foster care, therapy, rehab, hospitalization or the criminal justice system. Lumped in with them are children who need long-term professional care for autism or complex problems, including severe depression, eating disorders, addiction and emotional trauma. Our society is failing some of our most vulnerable by warehousing them in an industry that is woefully equipped to deal with their mental health needs. New York Times Opinion interviewed more than 50 former patients, experts, advocates, regulators, legislators and employees about this industry. These voices bear witness to one of the most inadequate dimensions of our mental health system: treatment facilities that dont sufficiently address the core problems but instead attempt to punish them away. According to lawsuits, government reports and the testimonies of former patients and employees, children are often abused, assaulted, sedated and placed in solitary confinement. Sometimes they are treated in ways that are illegal to treat prisoners, let alone kids seeking mental health treatment. Dozens of children have died. This industry, generating at least a billion dollars annually, enjoys little federal oversight or regulation. For decades, kids who have gone through these facilities have been talking to anyone who will listen. But even after years of scrutiny, not enough has changed. Former patients have compared these centers with the insane asylums of centuries past. Future generations will look back on many of the tactics used in the troubled teen industry in the same way we look back on forced lobotomies and ask: How did we allow these practices to pass off as mental health treatment for so long? Now there may finally be an opportunity to reform this industry, thanks to the work of activists and one unlikely figure. Paris Hilton's family visits her at a Utah facility. Paris Hilton heiress to a hotel fortune, famous for being famous is on a crusade to reform the industry. She has brought renewed attention and scrutiny to the issue by going public about the abuse she suffered when her parents sent her to a therapeutic boarding school in the 1990s. Ms. Hilton doesnt call herself a former patient. She calls herself a survivor. Paris Hilton Click to unmute Very late at night. This would be around, like, 3 or 4 in the morning. They would take myself and other girls into this room, and they would perform medical exams. This wasnt even with a doctor. It was with a couple different staff members where they would have us lay on the table and put their fingers inside of us. And I dont know what they were doing, but it was definitely not a doctor. And it was really scary, and its something that I really had blocked out for many years. But its coming back all the time now, and I think about it. And now, looking back as an adult, that was definitely sexual abuse. Punishment as Treatment From the outside, residential treatment centers can look like schools or hospitals. But they are actually often more akin to low-security prisons, where patients might spend months without ever leaving. In the United States, there are almost no rules about the type of mental health care that these facilities are supposed to provide. Some claim that their treatment is innovative and evidence-based and utilizes a personalized trauma-informed approach. They advertise all sorts of special programs equine therapy, recreation therapy and art therapy. But former patients from residential treatment facilities whom Times Opinion interviewed said they received one-on-one therapy only once a week, if that. They said the treatment they received wasnt intensive or specialized. It often felt more like emotional abuse. Jordan Click to unmute They sit me down on this table, and they put an apology letter in front of me. It says, Write an apology to your parents about why you came here. I was really confused. I was like, my parents and I they werent mad at me. We were on good terms. And I was like, Well, what am I supposed to apologize for? Ive never really felt like it was my fault for the mental illnesses that I have. They said that I could not sleep in my own bed or go outside or have any privileges until I wrote an apology letter to my parents. I started crying into my clothes, and one of the staff said that she would get a doctors order to forcibly remove my clothes if I didnt stop crying into them. Im such a nonviolent person. And one day, I just snapped. I started screaming, banging my head against the wall. They started playing Christian music at top volume to drown me out. My entire forehead was bloody, black and blue. They didnt even address any of my actual problems. They just punished me. It probably made me even more suicidal being there. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services investigated many of Jordans claims and concluded, No concerns that reach the preponderance of abuse or neglect were noted at this time. A key problem is that the employees who spend the most time with the children supervising their activities, taking them to school or recess or to see nurses to get medications typically receive only minimal training beyond first aid, several former employees told us. They said these positions are often paid near minimum wage, with high turnover. This leaves them ill equipped to handle, let alone help, patients with such complex issues. Some children inside become physically aggressive toward themselves and others. Instead of de-escalating these situations, staff members sometimes use extreme tactics, according to former patients, employees and disability rights groups. These include use of physical restraints, an intervention in which employees take hold of patients and physically restrict their movement so that they cant injure themselves or others. Additional interventions include chemical restraints (which can involve nurses injecting patients with sedatives to calm them down, commonly known among patients as booty juice) and seclusion (the practice of placing patients in small, often windowless and padded isolation rooms until they cool off). These techniques are often legal, but only under certain circumstances. It is typically permissible to use restraint and seclusion on children who are an immediate threat to themselves or others. But it is not allowed to use restraint and seclusion as punishment for misbehavior. Yet these tactics have been incredibly common. A former chief executive and another high-level employee from one facility said their facility often used 20 or more physical restraints per day. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on another facility where a 14-year-old girl was injected with booty juice 17 times over just a few months in 2019. And former patients we interviewed described spending weeks in isolation in total. Many former patients and employees told us that the rules governing restraint and seclusion are often not followed. Instead, they said these tactics are sometimes used as tools of punishment. Jaxtyn Click to unmute There was a time when I was tackled. You just hear, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun like thunder, like all these racing feet and then it would just be like, blah. Like, da, da, da. And youd hear all these things falling around, and these men with these strong arms are grabbing your arms, people are grabbing your legs, people are grabbing every part of your body, and then the staff put their knee on my temple, and I just remember, like, my vision, like the blackness was, like, closing in, and I kept saying, like, I think Im going to faint. My voice was slurring because I was, like, I feel like Im going to blah. And youre like, Oh, my God, if I die, are they going to, like, call my parents? Like, Sorry. We know you sent your kid here to get help, but we accidentally killed them? Then they threw me into what we call OBS, which is like a cement cell, no windows, and then they usually restrain you even more when youre in there so that they can administer the Haldol, what we call booty juice. Anyone who watches this whos been there is going to be like, I know what that is. And that sucks because they have to pull your pants down, expose your butt, and youre just like, Oh, my God, here we go. Like, Im about to be drugged up. They cut off all my clothes while I was being restrained. I dont remember a single female staff in there. So, first of all, I have Im a trans man, so my body is born female, but its all men that are grabbing onto me with scissors and cutting off every article of clothing I have. I dont want to sit on the floor because theres, like, residue from blood, and weve had people rub feces on the wall before, so I just stood there for hours, cold in the cell, just naked. Universal Health Services, one of the largest health care companies in the country, owns the Utah facility where Jaxtyn was held. The facility told New York Times Opinion that it cannot comment on individuals treatment due to privacy laws, but that it does not use solitary confinement or medication as a form of discipline. Other programs do across the country. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association have demanded the end of punitive solitary confinement for youths. It can harm childrens cognitive development. This security camera footage from 2013, obtained by New York Times Opinion, came from a Utah facility owned by Universal Health Services. A patient, whose identity we are obscuring to protect his privacy, has just thrown a book at the employee in the red shirt. A former employee of this facility who reviewed the footage told us that the employees response was inappropriate. The patient should have been restrained, not assaulted. In a statement, a spokesperson for the program said that the episode was reported to law enforcement officials, who investigated in 2013 and again in 2020, with no charges filed. Taken on its own, the episode would be easy to write off as one rogue employee physically assaulting a kid. But it does not appear to be an isolated incident. Six former UHS employees told us they knew of or had witnessed episodes in which staff members misused force. UHS told Times Opinion in a statement that their staff are trained in effective de-escalation techniques and if a staff member acts inappropriately corrective action is taken, which can include termination. This problem is endemic to the industry. In 2020 the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program sent a letter to state commissioners about the conditions at four facilities run by Sequel Youth and Family Services. The letter, co-signed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Childrens Rights, characterized the facilities as violent and chaotic places where youth are physically and emotionally abused by staff and peers. Footage from 2016 from a UHS facility, published by APM Reports. Child Protective Services called this episode physical abuse because the restraint was unnecessary and excessive. The employee was fired. A BuzzFeed investigation in 2017 uncovered footage from another facility owned by the same company. In 2020 at a facility managed by Sequel, staff members physically restrained Cornelius Frederick for about 10 minutes, according to a lawsuit, continuing even after he became unresponsive. Out of Sight The industry depends on desperate, often compassionate parents, some of whom fall for slick marketing. Brenda Ballard is the grandparent and legal guardian of MiCayla, a teen in North Carolina who has struggled with suicidal thoughts for years. Ms. Ballard told us about frequently having to stay up through the night to keep watch on MiCayla. On her last legs and worried she might lose her granddaughter, Ms. Ballard turned to the industry for help and sent her to a series of residential treatment facilities. But last year, after MiCayla told her about being attacked by another patient, according to Ms. Ballard, the program retaliated and restricted communication between MiCayla and her grandmother even though thats illegal in the state. Ms. Ballard said she felt trapped, unable to find out what was happening to her granddaughter. UHS and others have denied that they illegally restrict communication. But some institutions have said they deploy the practice to keep children focused on the program. That also keeps what happens inside inside. Profit From People This industry has been voracious in finding struggling teens to pull into its web. The foster care system, the criminal justice system, the mental health system and the public school system provide the industry with children and revenue. Many states use taxpayer dollars from some of these systems to send their kids across the country for treatment. States paid one program as much as $800 per day to treat a single child. The industry also cuts corners in the pursuit of profit. According to lawsuits, investigations and the testimony of former employees, some of these facilities are run with only minimal staff levels, keeping returns high but creating a more dangerous environment for kids and workers. Brian Blohm Click to unmute I had a bonus plan on my first year there as C.F.O. to where I had to meet a certain ratio of how many patients to employees, and it wasnt even close to meeting the minimum staffing ratio of the Utah regulation. I was being financially incentivized to staff it that low. The corporate involvement is so strong. Theres constant pressure to cut costs. Almost every single decision is about profit. It doesnt feel to me that theyre managed to provide great patient care. Brian Blohm was an executive at a Universal Health Services facility in Utah from 2015 to 2019. He told us that he eventually persuaded UHS to adjust his bonus plan to allow him to staff appropriately. In a statement, UHS said that it does not provide financial incentives that would minimize the quality of care provided at the facility nor encourage unsafe staffing levels or ratios below legal requirements and that it has complied with all staffing requirements. The company also disputed Mr. Blohms claim that it manages for profit, saying that it "never places financial gain over the quality of care." The company owns dozens of hospitals and hundreds of behavioral health facilities and makes about $11 billion a year. Fortune called it one of the worlds most admired companies. But its practices in this industry have come under fire. A slew of news investigations published in recent years document abuse at UHS facilities. UHS and many of its centers face ongoing lawsuits, including one in which more than half of the 49 plaintiffs allege sexual abuse by a former medical director. An international labor union led an effort to collect stories of patient abuse and corporate negligence. In 2000, UHS purchased the facility where Paris Hilton said she was abused. After she shared her story, that facility released a statement saying it couldnt comment on what happened under previous ownership. She said that other people have had similar experiences even after the takeover. Eventually, UHS caught the attention of federal investigators. In 2020 the Justice Department announced that UHS reached a settlement, agreeing to pay $117 million to resolve allegations which it continued to deny that include holding patients longer than medically necessary and failing to provide adequate services. But this settlement did not bring widespread justice or restitution for the kids who have suffered. UHS and the rest of the industry largely remain free of strict federal oversight and rigorous monitoring and standards. Companies continue to profit while kids continue to suffer. The Toll Few know the toll that these facilities and their business model can take better than Branden Petro, who has severe medical and neurological disorders, including autism and epilepsy. In 2017, when he was 15 years old, his mother, Renee Hanania, sent him to a UHS facility in Virginia. She said it was advertised to her as one of the only places in the country that could care for a child with his intense medical supervision needs. Even though these programs are generally for behavioral and mental health issues, residential treatment centers commonly market themselves to people with developmental disabilities and their guardians as well. But Brandens story illustrates a problem with this approach. Renee Hanania Click to unmute Sometimes, families like ours, we need extra help. Who loves Branden? Aw. Branden could fall at any time. He needs somebody with him every single second of the day. He cant be left alone. They said that this hospital can deal with medically complex children. We have nursing care 24/7. I sat Branden down, and I told him, Ill be right back. He told me, Mom, dont leave me. Within a week, he deteriorated severely. Branden had suffered a fall or a hit. How did it happen? They told me, Oh, were not sure. Nobody was with him. No one knew how Branden sustained this fall. I reached out to the medical director. Were going to take good care of him. Just give me a couple of more days. I entered the hospital. I walk into my sons room. Branden is seizing. Theres no nurse in the room. Theres gnats flying around him. He has a high temperature. He has bruises all over him. He did not recover from it. Branden is not the same person he was. He doesnt talk anymore. I think that my son was neglected. I think my son was abused there. And had I not taken him out, he would have died. They knowingly and willingly took Branden on as a patient, even though they actually couldnt provide the medical care that he needed 24/7. They did that for profit. Branden is suing the facility and UHS for negligence and abuse, as part of a series of consolidated lawsuits by former patients against UHS, the hospital and the facility's former medical director. UHS denies Brandens allegations, saying that the facility at which he was treated is in good standing with licensing and regulatory authorities and that any deficiencies or complaints are thoroughly investigated and addressed. Stories of abuse and neglect surface time and again. Many have even more tragic endings. We dont know exactly how many children have died at the hands of this industry. One estimate counted 86 deaths from 2000 to 2015. More have died in the years since. Austin died at 19. 2016 Austin Skidmore was restrained at a UHS facility in Georgia, according to a lawsuit filed by his family, and choked on his own vomit. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide. Naomi died at 17. 2020 Naomi Wood became ill at a Florida facility. According to an investigation, the staff members refused to let her see a doctor. A state agency determined the cause: inadequate supervision and medical neglect. No charges were filed. Cornelius died at 16. 2020 As seen in a video above, Cornelius Frederick was restrained for more than 10 minutes after throwing a sandwich in the cafeteria at a Sequel facility in Michigan. Several of the employees were charged with involuntary manslaughter. A Path to Reform Not every program in this industry is bad. And not every child gets abused. After Jaxtyns horrific experience in Utah, he was sent to another program in Texas. He described the night-and-day contrast. It wasnt degrading. It wasnt demeaning. Sometimes the staff would get injured, but they would never hold grudges against any of the patients. Theyre there for the patient. Theyre there for the child, he said. He credits this compassionate approach to treatment with helping him finally address his mental health issues. He said: I learned, like, All right, so Im not that horrible scum abomination. I am someone worthwhile. Because there is so little government oversight, its hard to know how many facilities are providing quality treatment. There isnt even a reliable count of how many of these facilities exist. In 2007, Congress decided to investigate the troubled teen industry because of the many reports of abuse and death in its facilities. In the end, Congress concluded it was impossible to determine the true extent of the industrys problems because of inconsistent regulations and reporting. And yet Congress failed to take action to solve the problem. Legislation to reform the industry has repeatedly failed, even though hundreds of millions in public funds have been funneled into it every year. Things might finally be changing. Ms. Hilton and other patients-turned-activists have lobbied Congress to pass tougher regulations and reporting requirements and to increase funding for government watchdogs. These efforts have already had success at the state level. In 2021, Utah passed legislation limiting restraint and seclusion and increasing funding for abuse investigators. Oregon and California pulled the children who were sent from their welfare systems to out-of-state facilities putting financial pressure on the industry to clean up its act. The momentum has put a target on some of the industrys largest players. Two senators recently began an investigation into four companies, including UHS and a new venture by one of the founders of Sequel. This nations residential child care system is broken and without oversight, congregate care often becomes congregate abuse, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon told Times Opinion in a statement. He added that hes working on a bipartisan basis to write legislation that will protect children by reforming our congregate care system with adequate oversight and accountability. The legislation is expected to be introduced this year. Activists and survivors hope that this time will be unlike the others and this sprawling network of facilities may truly be on a path to reform. Its a relief to imagine the most brutal institutions being shut down and stricter regulations being put in place at facilities that previously acted with impunity. Americas patchwork mental health treatment is still insufficient. Parents will remain desperate; teenagers will still struggle. But when they seek help, they should find compassionate, responsible, safe treatment. Until then, how many more young people will find physical restraints, chemical injections and emotional abuse instead of the treatment they need? A Japanese woman was somehow fooled into paying 4.4 million yen ($30,000) to help a Russian astronaut she had met online return to Earth from the International Space Station. Its not often that we feature news stories worthy of an Idiocracy sequel, but this is definitely one such rare occasion. To be honest, had it not been reported by two of Japans largest news outlets Mainichi and Kyodo News we would have dismissed it as a satirical piece by The Onion. But, it turns out that a 65-year-old woman from Japans Shiga Prefecture really did fall in love with a man claiming to be a Russian astronaut and sent him $30,000 to help him hitch a ride back to Earth from the International Space Station. Really makes the Nigerian prince scam sound believable, doesnt it? Photo: The New York Public Library/Unsplash The unnamed woman reportedly became enamored with the astronaut after they met on social media in June of this year. They started texting each other through the Line messaging app, and before long the man declared his love and promised to move to Japan and marry her. There was only one problem: he was aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and he couldnt afford to come back to Earth I know, its hard to even begin to understand how someone could pay tens of thousands of dollars to such an obvious scammer, but you know how love is. In her defense, the woman said that the stranded Russian astronaut told her that he needed money to pay for a rocket and its landing fees. She trusted him at first, especially since he seemed very familiar with space agency acronyms like NASA or JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and had some photos of the ISS on his Instagram account. Photo: NASA The woman sent her online lover a total of 4.4 million yen ($30,000) on five different occasions but ended up alerting the police about him after he kept asking her for more. They were shocked to hear her story, but the woman obviously believed the childish lies she had been fed. He Japanese news outlets have yet to report whether the Russian astronaut has been apprehended, or if authorities are waiting for him to return to Earth Bob Pearson The healthcare industry is a deeply personal place to work. More than 95 percent of the worlds population has health problems. An average of 1,905 people will die of heart disease in the U.S. every day. There are more than 7,000 rare diseases. Its a list that can quickly become overwhelming and hard to comprehend. But whats not difficult to understand is what it means to each individual battling disease. Our team has talked with people dying of disease, who remain optimistic regarding how medicine may impact the next generation. Weve talked with countless family members whose only questions revolve around what can we do? And weve witnessed the frustration of these same people and their care circle who cant gain access in time for a treatment, either due to the pace of the approval process or a lack of reimbursement. Today is what matters to anyone battling a disease or disorder. Tomorrows are what theyand really, what weall desire to have. In healthcare, we serve as their agents of change. And this is why were excited about the future of healthcare. The capabilities of science are unlocking the personalization of medicine at an unprecedented rate, driven by rare diseases, the emergence of gene-based therapies, the continued impact of immunotherapy and our growing ability to edit genes via CRISPR. This is resulting in diagnostic and treatment solutions we couldnt have imagined a decade ago. This article is featured in O'Dwyer's Oct. '22 Healthcare & Medical PR Magazine (view PDF version) Technology is making it possible to manage future drug submissions in the cloud rather than pulling up with tractor trailers of boxes, while at home, we effortlessly get our genes sequenced with information delivered to us in a week or two. The cloud and related technologies are finally giving us opportunities to transform everything from drug development to how we learn about and protect our health. Our ability to collapse time to market is a game-changer. The third driverpayment for treatment and servicesneeds to evolve with the same pace, so that we can benefit from scientific and technological advancement. If incentives are aligned with what we can deliver, well improve health outcomes. The nice thing about technological advances is they normally drive costs down, not up, so were hopeful this can also translate into healthcare as well. Our mission is about making a difference for individuals fighting for their health and their families. Our goal is to improve compliance, expand the office, accelerate drug development and build powerful narratives that make it more obvious as to why government, science and industry can move in lockstep. So, what does that mean? Here are a few examples. Imagine accelerating the development of treatments. New analytic models can analyze all the published literature for a particular therapeutic area for the past ten years in minutes with new insights in hours. Analytics can show us which investigators have been most effective in enrolling in clinical trials for that same time period. This can tell us which investigators are best to enroll a trial and we can determine how to communicate the new characteristics of a treatment, so it aligns with the evolution of the category and reaches providers and payors at the earliest possible stage. Precision in trial design. Precision in who runs trials. Precision in the scientific narrative. We can complete trials faster with better enrollment, leading to a faster time to market. Once on the market, we can accelerate access via improved evidence-based communication. Well focus on both areas. Once a treatment is on the market, we have plenty of issues to deal with. Compliance is one. Its estimated that between 33-69 percent of all medication-related hospital admissions in the U.S. are due to poor medication adherence, costing the U.S. about $100 billion annually. Yet, we have the technology today that can teach patients, in real-time, how to use an asthma inhaler rather than waiting for that same patient to have a failure and end up in the hospital. Imagine your son or daughter trying to use an asthma inhaler at home. Wouldnt they prefer to learn via a video on their phone and talk with someone in real-time? Its how they do everything else, right? Technology makes it easier to teach patients how to improve their health right in their home. Well embrace technologies that align with how we use them every day for new uses to improve our health. Common sense. Well help with paradigm shifts. If we work in a hybrid world where its normal to conduct our work in both an office and home with similar results, why cant healthcare do the same? Many agree. The global telehealth market is estimated at $89 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to $787 billion by 2028. This is a major growth market, but it will find its rightful place only if physicians and nurses are reimbursed properly and payors can see that a virtual visit can be as good or better than an office visit. Whats the real difference if our health can be improved? Its easy to cast blame if new advances in science and technology arent utilized, but thats not our orientation. We believe that building a convincing narrative matters. Understanding how the audience architecture interacts related to a disease matters. Knowing how technology works and being able to explain why its important. Knowing how to build analytics models and use AI is now a mainstream need of agencies like ours today. We see a world where the rapid growth of personalized treatments, as well as those for rare conditions, requires that our media models also become highly personalized and have the ability to adjust to smaller market sizes. We realize disease-based media modeling, which is highly customized to a communitys needs represents the future of PESO media planning. After all, we live in a world thats more of a series of neighborhoods rather than one big place. We see a new style of creative brief that includes AI-driven insights that we didnt have last year or even last quarter. Its our job to innovate in the world of communications to match up with the advances in science and technology. Its also our job to remember the conversations weve had with people battling disease and disorder and their families who are searching for solutions when were working late at night or traveling on the weekend and embrace our unique ability to make a difference in the world via our actions. We end with a simple and powerful story from our past. Many years ago, an accomplished business executive from Maryland called us while we were working in a pharmaceutical company. His wife had ALS and he wanted to learn more. A few weeks later, he drove up, unannounced, to our office in Pennsylvania. We welcomed him and he entered our office to ask a series of questions. We were ready to answer many more when he abruptly stopped. What he said we will never forget: I came up here to judge if you care about developing this drug and making a difference. I now have no question in my mind this is the case. Thank you for everything you are doing for my wife, our family and all the other families who suffer from this disease. Let me now let you get back to work. I wish you the best of luck. He then shook our hands, walked out and returned to his home in Maryland, never to be heard from again. Yet, he will be remembered forever. We did successfully launch this drug, which was the first drug ever approved for ALS. We did it in full partnership with the ALS community and their families and although it was a struggle to gain approval, we never wavered. Its conversations like this and the trust that we know people place in all of us that motivates us even at the most frustrating moments. We have unfinished business in healthcare. Our answer is to form a new healthcare team across The Bliss Group and The Next Practices Group, called NPG Health, which will launch later this year. *** Bob Pearson is CEO of The Bliss Group. The Pollack Group is named agency of record for Jewish Future Pledge, a nonprofit organization that encourages individuals of all backgrounds to designate that half of the charity they leave at their passing is earmarked to support Jewish organizations and/or the State of Israel. TPG is tasked with increasing awareness of the organizations key mission and securing pledge commitments from supporters of Jewish and Israeli philanthropic efforts worldwide. It will act as an extension of the Jewish Future Pledges marketing team, leading the charge in media relations, organic social media, lead generation, paid social, PPC and monthly email marketing responsibilities, as well as managing relationships with partner nonprofit organizations. CIIC PR adds Grand Hotel Cancun to its hospitality portfolio, expanding the agencys presence in Mexico. CIIC PR will spearhead the hotels communications strategy as it transitions into the Kempinski Hotels portfolio. Europes oldest luxury hotel group. The agency will support the property with a brand awareness and positioning campaign targeting the U.S. market. The property has 315 guestrooms and 48 suites, as well as a 400-meter stretch of beach, a beauty salon and a kids club. CIIC is also agency of record for the Quintana Roo (the Mexican state where Cancun is located) Tourism Board. Kite Hill PR is appointed public relations agency of record for atNorth, a data center services company that offers sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable high-performance computing across the Nordics. It was recently acquired by Swiss-based global private equity firm Partners Group. Kite Hill PRs UK team will lead atNorths pan-European PR efforts, working to educate the wider market on the growing importance of practicing sustainable operations across the European data center industry. The partnership kicked off with the launch of atNorths new data center facility in Sweden. In Kite Hill, we have found that seamless partnership that we require, the team has a deep understanding of our space and the right creative, collaborative approach that we desire to help atNorth make the significant strides that we are aiming for in our very competitive space, said atNorth marketing manager Bylgja Palsdottir. Another brilliant week of racing with some top class action across the length and breath of the country, including the first round of the Laurels in Cork, the first round of the Fair Warrior in Mullingar, the second round of the Juvenile Classic in Shelbourne and semifinals of the Kasco unraced in Thurles. Loads of other top class winners including a decent return of Offaly winners. Early Week Racing Enniscorthy, Monday, semi-finals of the Showgrounds September ON2 unraced stake, Hatfield Penny won the first for Cora Doyle in 29.23 (20 slow) by five lengths with Onetwoonetiger the second for Leonard OHanlon in 29.00 (20 slow) by eight lengths. In Shelbourne, Thursday, in the final of an ON2 unraced stake, Romeo Salvo (Romeo Recruit - Fabulous Mila) was first home in 28.83 by two lengths at 2/1 with the 1.75k cheque going to trainer Graham Holland. In the final of the ON1 unraced stake, Droopys Pointer (Malachi - Droopys Ant) showed hes a champion in the making when winning by six lengths at 6/4 for John Linehan in 28.13 with 2k going his way. First Offaly winner of the week was in the final race at that meeting, Outdoor Inferno won an A2 race in 29.09 by one length at 3/1, recording his first win in seven starts for Kinnitty owner Jeannette McKenzie. Friday Racing The quarter-finals of the highly valued Kilkenny Track A3 sweepstake was the highlight of a decent card in the Marble City. Four closely run heats with Mister Kindling going fastest for the Dont - Know-Syndicate in 28.86 (20 slow) by two lengths at 6/4 fav. Another superstar in the making was on view in Newbridge, in the final of an ON2 unraced, Up The Style (Pestana - Unlock Unlock) won the 750 first prize by a whopping nineteen lengths in a super 28.17 for Robert Gleeson at a very short 1/5 fav. Seldom this type of time has been delivered by a pup so young so a bright future ahead of him too. One Offaly winner at the meeting as Killeshill Star won an S7 sprint in 17.93 by two lengths at 5/2 with Croghan trainer Vincent Lynch at the helm. In Headquarters, in the final of an A3 stake, the 1.5k first prize purse went to Kurtis Bain as Abigails Alex (Premier Fantasy - Geelo Lu Lu) won by seven lengths in 28.39 at 7/2. In the semifinals of the Upcoming Events A2 525, the first heat went to Drumdoit Bermuda in 28.79 by a head at 6/1 for Alan Byrne. The second semi went to Kildallon Sydney for Mullingar trainer David Murray in 28.58 by one length also at 6/1. Saturday Racing Action got underway in this year Irish Greyhound Laurels in Curraheen Park in Cork, seventy two of the countrys fastest dogs went to traps for this valuable stake and to take the mantle from last years winner One Time Only trained by Thomas ODonovan. Annually its one of the most sought after trophies, probably second only to the Derby. First run in 1944, and up until 1999 was staged in Corks old track, and since then has been the major event yearly in Curraheen. There were some top class heat winners with Buckos Budsit going fastest in 27.97 by five lengths at 4/6 fav for Graham Holland who provided three of the heat winners. Illnotbeback was next fastest in 28.02 for Paul Hennessy who had a double on the night. Other interesting winners to catch the eye were Good Cody for Pat Guilfoyle in 28.05 and the four year old Skywalker Barry who had his twenty fifth open career success for Michael ODonovan in 28.26 and has brought his earnings to over 73k now. All races in Cork were rated 10 fast. One Offaly dog in this competition as Laughil Roy finished second in heat one to Garryvoe Joe for Kilcormac owners Mary and Paul Jennings with ODonovan training. Long way to go in this stake yet and picking the winner an impossible task at this stage. Limerick, final of the Donal Scanlon Memorial A2 525 was their feature race on Saturday, Ballygur Anne (Droopys Sydney - Newinn Boodles) went home with the 1.6k pot for her owner Michael Donnelly in 28.56 by one length at 4/1. Mullingar staged the first round of one of their top events of the year, The Fair Warrior Open 400 sprint, this year sponsored by Matchbook Betting Exchange. Seven heats, forty two dogs all vying to get their name on the trophy following the success of Ela Supremo for Peter Cronin last year. Antipost favorite Gizmo Cash set the bar highest when winning in 21.11 (20 slow) by three lengths at 1/2 fav for Keeley McGee. Crafty Bonanza was next fastest for Slane trainer Martin Lanney in 21.22 (20 slow) by seven lengths also at 1/2. Second round Saturday. One Offaly winner on the supporting card as Ripley Delight won an A5 525 in 29.78 (50 slow) by five lengths at 1/2 fav for Paddy McCormack and owner Austin Kelly. The feature races in Thurles were the semi-finals of the Kasco Dog Foods ON2 unraced stake, Keeperhill Cash won the first in 28.80 (20 slow) by six lengths at 2/1 for Barbara Rees Jones. The second semi went to Johnny The Greek for Paul Brussels in a slower 29.38 (20 slow) by two lengths at 6/4 fav. Another super card in Shelbourne, with the quarter-finals of the RPGTV Juvenile Derby and first round of the Yvonne Barry Open 600 yard stake. The Juvenile Derby as normal was of the highest quality, two joint fastest winners, Trinity Junior for Peter Cronin and Another Holiday for ODonovan both in 28.23. Droopys Got It won his heat in 28.29 for Ian Reilly with Bogger Hunter the final heat for Liam Peacock in 28.43. The Yvonne Barry Open 600 attracted some top class dogs who were stepping up to this distance probably for the first time since running in the Derby over 550 yards. Fastest of the four heats was Crafty Kokoro who finished a brilliant third in the Derby final and always seemed to be crying out for the extra fifty yards. His winning time of 31.98 is top class and has been seldom bettered winning by one length at 4/6 for Peter Divilly. Next fastest was Bobsleigh Dream for Pat Buckley in 32.12 by two lengths. Sunday Racing. Two Offaly winners at the matinee meeting in Mullingar, in an A4 contest Dark Design did a career best run of 29.55 (70 slow) for Rhode owner Sean Cocoman winning by nine lengths at 9/4. Our final winner of the week was Lingrawn Woody for Moneygall owner Liam Jones in an A3 grade in 29.87 (70 slow) by two lengths at long odds of 9/1. Upcoming Events Friday, semi-finals of the Kilkenny A3 stake and final of the Upcoming Events A2 in Shelbourne. Saturday, second round of the Laurels in Cork, second round of the Fair Warrior Open 400 in Mullingar, semi-finals of the RPGTV Juvenile Derby and semi-finals of the Yvonne Barry Open 600, both in Shelbourne and final of the Kasco Dog Foods unraced in Thurles. Loads of exciting racing to look forward to in the coming week. Tribune Offaly dog of the week Dark Design gets the nod this week when winning in Mullingar on Sunday in 29.55 (70 slow) by nine lengths for Sean Cocoman. Big run. Offaly Winners Five Offaly winners this week. Congratulations to all involved in any way. he annual Team Hope appeal is underway and a team of volunteers in Co Offaly are seeking your help to bring as many gift-filled boxes as possible into the hands of children living in poverty. Last year 178,639 shoebox gifts were donated from Ireland to children in 13 countries across Eastern Europe and Africa and it is hoped the campaign will achieve 200,000 boxes this year. The Team Hope website (www.teamhope.ie) has lots of great information on what to include in your shoebox gifts (something to wash with, to write with, to wear & to WOW) and also information on what not to include such as chocolate (because it may melt) or liquids (which may leak). Alternatively, you may opt to have one made on your behalf by making a donation on-line. Jean Gill, the Co Offaly volunteer co-ordinator hopes that with the support of parents, children, teachers and community groups across Offaly we will have another successful year and be able to offer as many children as possible the joy, happiness and hope that a shoebox gift brings. To ensure that your shoebox arrives in time for Christmas please deliver yours to your school or community group or one of the following locations by Tuesday 8th November, 2022. Participating drop-off points include: Dealz, Cloncollig Tullamore; Kellys Toymaster, Church Road; The Family Resource Centre, Clara; Spar Hill Street Cloghan; First Stop Tyres, Banagher and Noinini Beaga, Syngefield, Birr. If you would like any further information or would like to get involved as a volunteer with this years campaign please contact Jean Gill on (087) 9885915. A WREATH laying ceremony took place at the grave of the late Detective Garda Michael Walsh in Durrow Cemetery recently. The ceremony was organised by the Offaly branch of the GSRMA (Garda Siochana Retired Members Association). Members located Detective Walsh's grave in Durrow and also made contact with a niece and nephew both serving gardai. David Kelly who is stationed in Tubbercurry, Sligo and Garda Marie Hynes, Roads Policing, Event Management Unit DMR. Michael Walsh who was shot by a bank robbery suspect and later died in 1942, was originally from Barnfield, Ballina, County Mayo. He was appointed as one of the first detectives in Tullamore in 1925 in the early years of the force. Michael was married to Tullamore woman Susan Ryan from Henry Street. Born on March 14, 1901, Michael previously worked as a groom. He joined An Garda Siochana on March 20, 1925. He had served in the Volunteers from 1919 to 1922 and the National Army from 1922 to 1924, where he held the rank of Lieutenant. He was appointed to the Detective Branch on July 16, 1925. He also served in Athlone, and Redhills. Detective Garda Walsh and his wife Susan had two children. He had an interest in equestrian sports. On the day he died, Thursday, October 1, 1942, Detective Garda Michael Walsh, was with a party of Gardai who went to arrest a suspect involved in a bank robbery at a house at Lismancanigan, Mountnugent, Kilnaleck, Co. Cavan (Ballyjamesduff Sub District). The suspect opened fire on the Gardai. Detective Garda Walsh was wounded in the stomach and died later that day from his injuries in the Surgical Hospital, Cavan. Two men from Co Donegal have spoken of their frantic efforts to rescue people caught up in the explosion that took the lives of 10 locals. Colin Kilpatrick was just metres from the petrol station in Creeslough when the blast ripped through the building on Friday. The impact of the explosion knocked him over. I was making delivery at the creamery when the explosion happened and I fell over but I presumed the lorry or the trailer had a problem, that there was a blow-out in the tyre, he told the PA news agency. I got out of the lorry and saw the shop and then I knew what happened. We ran to the shop and there was a young girl there and she was squealing that her sisters or friends were still inside. We got her across the road then went back and and there was a man stuck under the door. I shouted for the jack of a car and we got the door off him. We couldnt lift it without the jack; you think you are strong but we couldnt move it. We stayed with him until the ambulance came just to comfort him. Mr Kilpatrick and fellow Donegal man Bernard McGinley, among many others, worked for hours lifting heavy debris to free people trapped underneath. One of the men Mr Kilpatrick helped remove from the scene, James OFlaherty, tragically passed away. We just kept working to get people out between everyone it was a big help, Mr Kilpatrick added. We took lorries up and worked right through until everyone was out. We got the girl out and two men and spent hours moving stuff to clear the exit. Ten precious lives lost. The heartbreak and trauma in #Creeslough is unspeakable. We stand with victims, survivors, families and community. None of this makes sense. Our human vulnerability exposed. In the end all we have is love. pic.twitter.com/NMnHXdwCO3 Mary Lou McDonald (@MaryLouMcDonald) October 9, 2022 He said the scene was difficult to describe. I would say when we got the young girl out first the reality hit and you are thinking, this is a petrol station too so youre waiting for a bang at the same time. So its just unreal, just as they say, like a movie, he added. We are sore and taking pain killers because we worked and pulled at heavy stuff we are not used to. I was lifting heavy blocks and not even thinking about it. Everyone was taking turns to get stuff moved out of the way. Mr Kilpatrick and Mr McGinley met Archbishop Eamon Martin on Monday, who visited the scene in Creeslough. Mr McGinley, who appeared within minutes of the explosion, said he arrived at a scene of total and utter carnage. There were people walking about dazed, people injured, people frantically looking for friends and partners. It was unimaginable. There were cars blown across the forecourt, people trapped, he added. There were fatalities almost instantly. On the forecourt it was straightforward. Most people were trapped and it was a matter of taking debris off them and we put them in cars and helped them up. They had broken limbs. Inside it was a different scenario. Mr McGinleys daughter works in the shop during the summer holidays and at weekends, but was not working at the time of the explosion. It hit me that my daughter could have been there, he added. I knew everyone in the shop. It hits hard. The first man Colin tried to rescue died in his arms. My memory is better because it is rescuing a little girl and she is OK. Thats what I will hang on to. Mr McGinley said he does not know how the small community will recover from the devastation. This little village will need help for a long time and the severity is so far-reaching, he added. We dont have anywhere to get a carton of milk, or a loaf of bread. Its just devastating. People have been ringing me from everywhere asking what can they do. Everyone wants to help so a structure needs to be put in place as to how we help everyone and help this community recover. Seven food businesses received closure orders in September for breaches of food safety legislation. That's according to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), which today (October 10) confirmed the closure orders were served pursuant to the FSAI Act 1998 and the European Union (Official Controls in Relation to Food Legislation) Regulations, 2020. Two orders were served under the former Act to Bow Lane Restaurant and Rustic Stone (Restaurant/Cafe), both in Dublin 2. Five further orders were served under the latter to Lee Kee Chinese Restaurant in Dublin 1, Ocean Palace (Take Away) in Meath, Homesavers (closed activities: The storage, display and sale of all foodstuffs on the entire premises shall be ceased with immediate effect) in Limerick, Swift Fine Foods in Monaghan, and King Pizza (Take Away) in Cork. Reasons for closures include the presence of dead mice, flies and rodent faeces in several locations throughout one premises, including on food products and food contact materials, the presence of large cobwebs and holes on ceilings, food stored at incorrect temperatures, inappropriate preparation areas, dirty and inappropriate protective clothing among staff, and a lack of knowledge regarding safe food preparation, storage and handling practices. Commenting on the closure orders, Chief Executive of the FSAI, Dr Pamela Byrne, said that a lack of pest control procedures is unacceptable. She said, "It is a legal requirement for all food businesses to have a robust food safety management system in place that also ensures a high level of pest control. However, time after time, environmental health officers are finding incidents of rodent infestations and filthy premises highlighting a disregard for basic food safety and hygiene. "All food businesses have a legal obligation to ensure that the food they are processing, serving or selling is safe to eat at all times. Consumers have a right to safe food and we would urge anyone who is concerned or suspect there is unusual activity being demonstrated by a food business, to contact us via our online complaint form and we will investigate." The full report is available here. The Irish Government has given the go-ahead to extending a humanitarian fund to the families affected by the blast in Co Donegal. Ten people died after an explosion at a service station in Creeslough on Friday afternoon. Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys secured approval at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday to extend the Humanitarian Assistance Scheme to households damaged by the explosion. The fund is usually used to help families who have been impacted by flooding due to severe weather events. It aims to provide financial support to people who have suffered damage to their home and property and in doing so, provide hardship alleviation as opposed to full compensation. The Department of Social Protection said Ms Humphreys acknowledged the exceptionally tragic event required compassionate and urgent action by Government. We are all deeply affected by the tragic event in Creeslough, and the unfolding human stories, the minister said. We have been asked at local level to give access to the Humanitarian Assistance Scheme for households on the site of the explosion. Extending the scheme will ensure my department has maximum flexibility so that we can provide support where needed, quickly and effectively, which I know is what we all want to see. The department said community welfare officers are working with other Government agencies on the ground in Creeslough to ensure that the families whose homes have been affected are given access to support. Under the income-tested scheme, households can earn up to 70,000 euro and still avail of the aid. A Government spokesperson said the department expects to receive applications from those impacted by the explosion over the coming weeks. To date, the Department of Social Protection has received a small number of applications for additional needs payments from the households affected. But the full extent of damage will only be apparent as the site is made safe structurally and as affected families return to recover personal belongings. New evidence has come to light in the case of Fr Niall Molloy who died in controversial circumstances in the home of Richard and Theresa Flynn, Kilcoursey, Clara, 37 years ago. 52 year old Fr Molloy, was from Roscommon and was a close personal friend of Theresa Flynn and had his own bedroom at the house. Richard Flynn had admitted punching Fr Molloy and told Gardai he was the culprit. His defence rested on his claim that he had acted in self defence following a row over who should get drinks. Judge Frank Roe dismissed the jury and Richard Flynn was found not guilty of assault and manslaughter on the basis that Fr Molloy could have died of a heart attack and Richare Flynn may have acted in self defence. RTE has received new documents containing a 14 page description by Richard Flynn of his married life and his concern over the close relationship his wife Theresa had with Fr Molloy. On Morning Ireland, this morning Tuesday October 11, 2022, an actor read the following excerpt. ''One night on my return, I could see her leaving Father's bedroom and going into her own. When I got to the bedroom she pretended to be asleep. When I woke her up and confronted her with what I saw she denied it completely. Weeks later I was again returning. I went to the bedroom to find Therese not there. I went to Father's bedroom to find them both fast asleep in bed in their night attire. I walked over to her and tapped her on the shoulder, she woke up and ran to her bedroom. In the morning I asked Theresa to leave and go and live with Fr Molloy and I would take care of the children. This she refused to do. I wrote off my marriage at this stage.'' RTE also received a psychiatric assessment of Richard Flynn. In the opinion of the psychiatrist the attack by Richard Flynn was a sudden release of subconscious anger, resentment and frustration that had been repressed by him for the greater part of his married life. It was the psychiatrist view that this constituted a prolonged, sustained and intense provocation. RTE showed the documents to senior law lecturer Niamh McGuinness and she felt the evidence could have changed the course of the trial, and if it had been available to the jury it would have been enough to convict Richard Flynn. The Prime Time Documentary will be aired tonight on RTE 1. Two decades on from the tragedy that took 202 lives, Australians and Indonesians prepare for a day of mourning. New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands have sent military instructors to the UK to help with the training effort, but so far Australia has not participated. Heathrow has said it regained its status as Europes busiest hub airport over the summer. Some 5.8m passengers travelled through Heathrow in September. A year ago, Heathrow warned it had gone from being Europes busiest airport in 2019 to number 10 on the list, behind rivals in cities such as Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt. It [...] In a near-unprecedented rush by British pension funds to raise their cash holdings, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and a range of other investment giants are planning to snap up UK assets at discounts of up to 30 per cent. Since Kwasi Kwartengs disastrously received mini-budget at the end of September, UK pension funds are rushing to [...] LONDON (AP) The head of Britains cyber-intelligence agency is accusing China of using its economic and technological clout to clamp down at home and exert control abroad, saying Beijings aggressive stance is driven by fear and poses a huge threat to us all. Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, says Beijings Communist authorities are seeking to shape the global tech ecosystem, using technologies such as digital currencies and satellite systems to control Chinas population and increase its influence around the world. In a rare public speech later Tuesday to the Royal United Services Institute think tank, Fleming plans to say that the one-party system in Beijing seeks to control Chinas population and sees other countries as either potential adversaries or potential client states, to be threatened, bribed or coerced. He will say that underlying that belief is a sense of fear. And were seeing that fear play out through the manipulation of the technological ecosystems which underpin our everyday lives from monitoring its own citizens and restricting free speech to influencing financial systems and new domains, Fleming will say, according to extracts of the speech released in advance. Relations between Britain and China have grown increasingly frosty in recent years, with U.K. officials accusing Beijing of economic subterfuge and human rights abuses. British spies have given increasingly negative assessments of Beijings influence and intentions. Last year the head of the MI6 overseas intelligence agency, Richard Moore, called China one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies. Fleming will warn that China is seeking to fragment the infrastructure of the internet to exert greater control. He will also say China is seeking to use digital currencies... US President Joe Biden is set to host a virtual meeting with G7 leaders to discuss support for Ukraine. The White House made the announcement following a wave of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities..DW has the latest. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and actor who is married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is among the accusers of Harvey Weinstein who will testify at his rape and sexual assault trial that began Monday, her attorney said. 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. The Indian embassy has issued an important advisory for citizens who are currently in Kyiv in view of the deadly airstrikes ordered by Russia. Upworthy 11 Oct 2022 The photographer went to the hospital for injuries, according to a police report. The incident happened Monday after Las Vegas lost.. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefed the media following two days of intensified Russian missile strikes on Ukraine. His remarks come ahead of a scheduled meeting with NATO defense ministers. Days before Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine, Washington warned Brussels that the invasion was "going to happen." The EU's foreign policy chief the bloc's officials were "quite reluctant to believe it." India voted to reject Russia's demand for a secret ballot in the UN General Assembly on a draft resolution to condemn Moscow's illegal annexation of four regions of Ukraine, with New Delhi favouring a public vote on the text along with over 100 other nations. Moscow's demand for a secret ballot was rejected after 107 UN member states, including India, voted in favour of a recorded vote. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko issues warning against Ukraine while expressing support for Russia with the deployment of military troops to supplement Moscow's military forces. Daily Record 13 Oct 2022 Lucy Letby also wrote: 'I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them. I am a.. By Dr. J Scott Younger We in Britain are just getting over a lengthy mourning period for Queen Elizabeth II, and saying goodbye to the longest reigning monarch in British history. Perhaps Vladimir Putin waited, as a mark of respect, before he addressed the Russian people to give them the next phase of his plans for his... HNGN 18 Oct 2022 The White House declares that the United States will hold Russia responsible for "war crimes" after Russian troops used drones to.. Volodymyr Zelenskyy was defiant as he vowed to make the battlefield "more painful" for Russian troops after another deadly day of rockets raining down on Ukraine. Ukraine denounced Russia as a "terrorist state" at an urgent United Nations General Assembly meeting on Monday following its neighbor's latest attacks, as Western powers sought to underscore Moscow's isolation. Truss expected to call for full meeting of Nato leaders; death toll in 10 October Russian strikes on Kyiv and other cities rises to 14 #strikes #nato #truss #g7 #zaporizhzhia #ukraine #kyiv #war #crisistalks *Claudio Grass (CG): With everything thats been going on, it could be argued that very few of Liz Trusss predecessors had.. Eurasia Review 14 Oct 2022 Supply Giant Playson Reaches the Netherlands through New Deal with Operator 711 Published October 11, 2022 by Lee R Belgium-based 711 moves into a global fraternity via a new deal with global supplier Playson. Rapidly growing content supplying giant Playson has expanded its already considerable European presence via a new deal with Belgian operator 711. The Deal The content integration deal calls for Playson to deliver a host of popular casino titles to 711s emerging Dutch platform. Incoming Popular Titles Popular titles from Playson which 711 can now offer to players include Ruby Hit: Hold and Win, Luxor Gold: Hold and Win and Book del Sol: Multiplier. The Rise of 711 Belgium-based 711 is a regulated B2C operator offering live casino, slots, and table games. 711 moved into a full-force presence earlier this year when it secured an online license in the emerging Netherlands market and launched its 711.nl website. Playsons Growth Through the expansion deal, Playson furthers its organisational mission of ambitious growth by making its leading titles available in a new and liquid-heavy region that the Netherlands represents. Playson Rep Speaks Playson Sales Director Blanka Homor expressed her organisations delight at expanding into the Dutch market and fulfilling "the needs of more slots-fans across Europe. Shared Vision Homor called Playson an ambitious supplier and expressed confidence that the deal will provide great results in increasing her organisations global mission of finding an operator to supply to that shares her companys vision. Rep from 711 Speaks Representing 711, Gilles De Backer added how pleased his company was to ink a deal with one of the industrys best game suppliers and lauded Playson content for the dual goals of increasing player engagement and retention: By integrating the companys large product offering, we can fulfill the goals we set ourselves when we entered the Netherlands in April this year. Playsons Value Malta-based Playson is certainly a prodigious brand for any operator to have a supply relationship with. Possessing additional offices in the UK, Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Taiwan, and Greece and licences from the UKGC, ONJN, HGC, and recognition notice from MGA, Playson applies unique math and wrap technology to maintain a leading presence in 21 regulated markets serving a clientele of over 140 worldwide. Benefits to 711 Inclusion in this group brings 711 into a select group receiving some of the best and most well-known games in the world. A relationship with the Playson brand can clearly upgrade 711s stature in the industry. Outlook This deal looks like a boon for Playson in gaining a foothold in the prized Netherlands market, and a win for 711 by getting access to one of the most valuable gaming supplies in the industry. Together these partners can raise each other to new heights. CasiWave Casino Review CasiWave Casino is an online casino available across the globe. It is home to over 3,100 casino games produced by world-class software providers. 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Colorado authorities say one person was killed and four people hospitalized for injuries after a man drove his vehicle through a crowd outside a bar Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Mauritian Minister of Health and Wellness, Kailesh Jagutpal, on Monday said that more than 1,700 new cases of mental health were detected out of the 28,000 people who attended to the mental health hospital, from July 2021 to June 2022, the Government Information Services (GIS) reported Photo: (Photo : Berenice Calderon) Chocolates give kid's bodies the recommended amount of nutrients their bodies need to function, such as vitamins A1, B1, B2, C, and E, and minerals like magnesium. It also reduces cravings and high food intake. It also contains unique antioxidant compounds called flavonols that can help protect the heart and brain, per Super Healthy Kids. A study entitled Cacao Seeds is a "Super Fruit: A Comparative Analysis of Various Fruit Powders and Products" determined that cocoa beans tested higher in antioxidants than blueberries and acai berries. Flavonols, on the other hand, diminish cell damage and inflammation. Eating dark chocolate can reduce a person's risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, and cognitive decline. However, the American Association for Pediatrics (AAP) suggests that children should not consume chocolate before the age of two as it is a source of refined sugar, but data suggests that young ones best avoid it due to its caffeine content. Chocolate sizes vary as there are brands that have small and big chocolates. Read Also: Cursing: Teach Children How Language Can Be a Powerful Thing Chocolates can be potentially dangerous While chocolates can appear beneficial to kids, little did most parents know that they pose dangers, specifically the M&M's, despite the children having a complete set of teeth. Candies are not suitable for children, as hard or chewy candies can be a choking hazard. Similar to hard candies, M&M's are colored button-shaped chocolates with the lowercase letter 'm' in every chocolate and many colors. It consists of a candy shell surrounding a filling which varies depending on the preferred flavor of M&M's. The famous chocolate also contains food dye which became the subject of controversy. The European Food Safety Authority has called for further tests to determine whether the aforesaid dyes are safe. Foods with dyes cannot be sold in the European Union without a printed warning that they may cause hyperactivity in children. However, these chocolates, such as M&M's, are still available in almost all stores in the United States. The dye breaks down in the blood, which can give one a quick boost followed by a crash and gradually feeds the bacteria in the mouth and produce an acid that damages teeth. Eating too many M&M's can also harm dental health and increase the chances of developing chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. M&M's is one of the choking hazards for kids According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1 out of every 10 school-aged kids has sustained a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or 41 percent. Kids may get such hyperactivity from food or even chocolates containing food dyes. While it can give kids negative impacts on their health, M&M's can also serve as a choking hazard as it hardens once it hits saliva, which causes it to block the airway and chokes an individual, specifically kids. Usually, they have peanuts, almonds, gumballs, and round hard mints, which are all choking hazards for children, especially the younger ones. They are kinds of chocolates that don't quickly melt in the mouth, which can be dangerous for kids, per Bright Autumn Sun. Related Article: How Can Hotdogs Be Serious Choking Hazards for Children Below Four Photo: (Photo : Ulrike Mai) Cassier Thierauf was charged with felony assault and child endangerment after allegedly using her dog to attack a six-year-old girl, per a local report. Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell told Inside Edition that the woman lives on one side of a duplex while the young girl's family lives on the other. The prosecutor told the news outlet that the incident began when the Ohio woman and another person allegedly took drugs in the home's backyard, which the six-year-old's mother filmed. The argument started when the kid's mom quickly went inside their house to call the police. While the mother was calling the authorities, the kid, her sister, and another girl were playing in the front yard. Thierauf suddenly trespassed their property and allegedly opened the front door, telling her pit bull boxer to "go get them." The outlet reported that in another video provided to officers, Thierauf can be heard yelling at the girl's mother, "your kids shouldn't have f***** with me and my dogs." Authorities reported that the little girl sustained injuries, especially to her mouth, as the dog bit her head and body, which needed multiple emergency surgeries. However, the suspect claimed that the dog just went inside their property as the front door was not closed properly. The court record showed that Thierauf is being held on a $25,000 bond. On the other hand, the dog has since been evicted from the duplex home. Read Also: Colorado Man Attempts to Abduct Girl Outside School, Charged With Second-Degree Kidnapping Allegedly attacked by a stranger while letting the dog outside Another woman from Oklahoma was attacked while letting her dog go outside. MSgt. Gary Knight, Oklahoma Police Department, said the incident occurred around 2 a.m. while the 74-year-old woman got up to let her little chihuahua out. When the old woman let her dog back in, she saw somebody standing at her back door, and the next thing she knew, her son was waking her. The woman's son told the police department that he always comes over to check on his mom as he does every day. That time, he found her with half her face covered in blood, so he immediately called the police. The victim's family is worried for the older woman's safety as she was attacked in her home near N. County Line and Wilshire, KFOR reported. Viciously attacked by a dog while playing outside Another girl from North Philadelphia was attacked by a dog while playing outside. The incident was documented by a video and showed that Nyla Watt was riding a scooter when suddenly, a dog and another individual entered the frame. Alonna Wyatt, Nyla's mom, ran outside and immediately picked up her daughter while screaming to call an ambulance. The mom admitted that she was scared at the time as the 5-year-old kept screaming she didn't want to die. After two days of surgery, the little girl's face became swollen as it was stitched, and the swelling near her right eye was so severe that her eye was swollen shut. One of the neighbors claimed that the dog belonged to his nephew, who was paying a visit when the attack occurred. The Philadelphia Police Department was investigating the attack and did not provide any information on the dog's whereabouts, per FOX29. Related Article: Massachusetts Man in Custody for Killing His Mom, Chokes Himself to Death Photo: (Photo : Pexel/ Ketut Subiyanto) Central Texas mother of three warned parents of the danger the movie "Hocus Pocus 2" could bring to their children, families, and homes. Jamie Gooch of Troy is telling parents not to let their children watch "Hocus Pocus 2," Disney+'s long-awaited sequel to the favorite Halloween movie in 1993. She claimed that it is dangerous exposing children to fictional witches, cults, and the "darkness," New York Post reported. "Do not watch this film," Gooch warned, "A worst case scenario is: you unleash hell on your kids and in your home." She further emphasized that people may think that what the movie implies is "fake and innocent," but families may not know that evil spells may have been cast and things could be coming through in their home's televisions. Spiritual warfare against American families Gooch is a Christian who firmly believes that a spiritual war is being carried out against American families and their homes. She calls on fellow mothers to be "gatekeepers of the home" and monitor what their children consume, reminding them that everything starts at home. Thus, they need to "beware and be aware" of the things being brought into their homes and daily lives. This mom believes that it goes further than the movie or Halloween. Parents should be consistently and firmly cautious of what the children are consuming, what the family is bringing in, and what they send out. Based on her experience, there are things she has watched and heard on television that have manifested in real life. She believes that things are attached to whatever is on the TV screen. Read Also: Parents Influence TV Watching Time of Children Even just one person Gooch created a warning post for parents on social media that went viral and garnered different reactions and comments. The said post had already been made private, and she instead discussed her concerns and opinions about the movie with the local news station KWTX. Some have labeled her crazy, and others worse than that, but she said that she does not regret doing the post, especially since most of the feedback was positive. She does not have plans of "transforming Hollywood" and creating a huge impact; she just wants to make a difference even in one person's life. If her post gets to open one person's mind and heart and save a family, then it was worth putting it out there. Her goal is to get parents to be proactive in reevaluating their family choices rather than reactive. Gooch hopes that people will "walk away with discernment." She respects those who negated her and welcomed their opinions because she wants to hear where they are coming from. However, she insisted that their opinions would not change her convictions and what she chooses to do with her family. KWTX has tried reaching out to Disney's movie publicist but did not receive any statement yet as of writing. Related Article: Cinematic Parents! 5 Parenting Lessons From Movies Photo: (Photo : GETTY IMAGES /Gareth Cattermole) Congratulations are in order as the Academy Award-winning actress recently revealed that she is pregnant with not one but two babies, as she and her husband are expecting twins. Hilary Swank is pregnant at 48 with her husband, Philip Schneider, the actress announced Wednesday on Good Morning America (GMA), People reported. The "Alaska Daily" star said that she has wanted to become a mother for a long time, and to talk about it and share her joy is just so nice. She raved that her pregnancy and the fact they have two angels are total blessings and miracles. For sure, far more than a million-dollar baby's worth. The actress further revealed that twins run in both her and her husband's families, making them "so excited" for the next and new season of their lives as parents. 'Double feature' A few hours after announcing the wonderful news on television, the "Million Dollar Baby" actress took to Instagram and posted a video of her holding her belly and showing off her baby bump. She captioned her post with, "Coming soon... DOUBLE feature," with two baby angel emojis. The post shocked friends and co-actors in the industry, who reacted with joyous "Wait, what" comments and expressed their congratulations. These included Kate Hudson, Tabitha Brown, Sharon Stone, Maria Sharapova, and Katie Couric. The actress did not inform her "Alaska Daily" production team about her pregnancy until after the announcement came on GMA that she is already in her 2nd trimester. She shared that there was an instance when her clothes would not fit anymore, so she needed to cut her jeans open and wear a jacket that was not in continuity. The crew saw it and stated that what she was wearing wasn't in continuity, and she just said that it would work, to which they disagreed until she said that she would make it work. They gave in to her, saying that she could do whatever she wanted as an executive producer but commented, "this is weird." Read Also: Michelle Williams is Going to be a Mom Again: Star Reveals She is Pregnant With Third Child Man of her dreams Swank and her husband, a social venture entrepreneur, married in August 2018. Two years prior, they were first spotted together in November 2016. The wedding proposal happened one evening in Colorado, in a "beautiful sanctuary deep in the mountains," and a stunning waterfall. Schneider dropped to his knee in front of the waterfall and asked her to marry him in front of her dogs as witnesses. Swank described their wedding as "timeless," telling Vogue that there were no other words to best describe it. The actress expressed that it was a dream come true, being able to marry the man of her dreams and being surrounded by all the people they love in "such a profound setting." Related Article: Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds Expecting Fourth Child; Lively Says She "Likes to Create" As She Poses With Baby Bump Photo: (Photo : Michal Fosenbauer) Ernest Richard Bishop Jr. of Morning View, Kentucky, was arrested in Florida by Miami-Dade Police Department and charged with lewd and lascivious conduct, according to Inside Edition. The father's victim claimed that the 51-year-old Bishop kissed his daughter on the mouth onboard a cruise ship over the weekend. The Kentucky man allegedly did it while the ship was at sea on Saturday night. Bishop was immediately taken into custody as soon as the Carnival Sunrise returned to port in Miami. He was brought to the Miami-Dade Police Department's Sexual Crime Investigations Unit for an interview, then to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. He eventually posted a $7,500 bond, and his arraignment will be in November. It is not known if Bishop entered a plea or gained legal representation. Read Also: Colorado Man Attempts to Abduct Girl Outside School, Charged With Second-Degree Kidnapping Man allegedly breaks into a home and starts kissing teen girl In another incident, Parlier Polic responded to an incident involving a sexual assault between a man and a teenage girl in an apartment. According to authorities, Saul Perez sneaked into the unlocked apartment and hid in the teenage girl's room. The man approached the young lady and started kissing her. The adolescent and her younger brother yelled to notify their older brother. Officers said the older brother immediately jumped into action and eventually got his siblings out of the room just before the man jumped out the window. Unfortunately, the three siblings didn't get the suspect as he was quick to escape, but they remembered all the details about him, which the authorities used to match and find him. Perez is now facing several charges, including lewd acts with a child under 14, ABC30 reported. According to Rainn Organization, one in nine girls and one in 53 boys below age 18 had been sexually abused and assaulted at the hands of an adult, and 82 percent of all victims below 18 are female. In the United States, around 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys experience sexual assault or abuse. Authorities seek an older man who assaulted a young girl In another sexual assault case, Essex County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) said a young girl was molested by an older man who approached her in Belle River. Authorities responded to the incident on Broadway Street at approximately 6 p.m. According to the local authorities, the girl was riding her bicycle when she was suddenly approached by an elderly man walking. The man stopped the victim and engaged her in conversation. He then proceeded to kiss the girl several times forcibly. The young girl pushed past the man, quickly left the area, and reported the incident to her parents. The suspect was described as male, white, around 60 years old, and had short dark hair, balding on top. The investigation is still ongoing, and the OPP Essex County Major Crime Unit asks anyone to come out, specifically those who may have witnessed the incident or recognize the suspect's description and immediately contact police at 519-723-2491, per Windsor. Related Article: Florida Man Charged With Stalking 6-Year-old; Threatening He Would Turn the Girl Into a Woman Photo: (Photo : Steve Buissinne) Kaitlin Preble of Tucson, Arizona, had gone to the local pharmacy every month for the past decade to get her daughter's prescription for methotrexate, a drug used to cure rheumatoid arthritis, among other things. Preble's daughter, Emma Thompson, was diagnosed at age three with Juvenile Idiopathic arthritis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is an autoimmune disease that causes joint pain and inflammation in body parts such as hands, knees, and ankles. Thompson, now 14, relies on methotrexate and a combination of medications to perform essential functions such as walking, brushing her hair, and attending school in person. Preble said her daughter has been prescribed the medication for the past ten years and had not encountered any difficulties accessing the drug. Days after the several total bans on abortion went into effect in Arizona; a pharmacist denied the mom the medication at her local Walgreens in late September. The Arizona mom expressed her disbelief as she couldn't access the medication that her daughter needs, adding that she wants to know why they're not giving the medication despite it being essential. Read Also: Virginian Mom Reflects on Life After Her Baby Spent 139 Days in the NICU "I was scared for my daughter. It's the unknown" While methotrexate is prescribed to treat conditions like Crohn's disease, psoriasis, cancer, and arthritis, it can also be used at higher dosages to medically terminate pregnancies. The mom also believes the prescription for the medication was initially denied due to confusion under Arizona's abortion restrictions that were put in place after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade way back in June. The 15-week abortion ban was signed into law in March 2022 by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and went into effect in the state. On September 23, the state judge separately granted Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's request to lift the request for an almost total abortion ban, passed in 1901, that allows exceptions to save the life of the mother. Preble told Good Morning America (GMA) that she had been questioned when purchasing the prescription for methotrexate and was constantly asked how much she took and why she took it. When she learned the medication could not be accessed anymore, she said, "I was scared for my daughter. It's the unknown." Preble stated that she had interacted with a pharmacy tech at Walgreen, who granted with the pharmacist on duty and gave her the medication. "I don't know what the future holds right now" The mom ended up leaving with the medication that day but with the thought that she doesn't know if it will be given to her the next time or if this one's the last time. "I don't know what the future holds right now," not only for Emma's case but also for little girls out there who need the said medication, whether it's for arthritis or Crohn's disease, not only girls but women in general. A Walgreens spokesperson told GMA that the company cannot give any comment on individual patients but added that it's willing to help pharmacists fully understand the latest requirements in different states as the main focus is to provide the needs of the patients and ensure they have access to the certain medications they need. Recently, the Arizona Medical Association and a physician filed a lawsuit requesting the court to provide clarity amid the substantial confusion over the state's abortion laws. The American College of Rheumatology also released a statement in July that calls for policymakers to continue making methotrexate accessible. Related Article: How the US Supreme Courts Reversal of Roe v. Wade Impacts Teenagers Photo: (Photo : ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP via Getty Images) Authorities in Chatham County, Georgia, wrapped up their fourth day of searching for missing 20-month-old Quinton Simon with no positive results to show. They still hope the toddler will be found alive, according to NBC News. The young boy was reported missing from his home in an unincorporated part of the county near Savannah on Wednesday morning. According to county police, no foul play is suspected regarding Simon's disappearance. Chatham County Police Chief Jeff Hadley told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that they will hold out hope that he is still alive and that they can find baby Quinton and bring him home safe to his parents. Quinton Simon case draws widespread attention The case of the missing Georgia kid has drawn widespread attention and extensive response from law enforcement. The police department said in a statement that they appreciate everyone's offers of help, but they do not need volunteers. Cops said that the search for baby Quinton had involved an army of law enforcement and accompanying tools, including helicopters, horses, tracking dogs, and drones. Hadley said that detectives had worked 20-hour days to help find Simon. Detectives so far have searched the toddler's home, drainage pipes, dumpsters, a pond, nearby woods, and other undisclosed locations, according to CNN. Officials have also interviewed family members and anyone close to the child. Hadley said they electronically searched the phones of those close to the baby. He added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had joined the local effort because abduction could not be ruled out in the case of Simon. Hadley said Quinton's mother's boyfriend woke up at 6 a.m. on Wednesday and reported seeing the child. The chief said that the mother woke up at some other time later and reported the child missing at 9:39 a.m. According to Hadley, the boy's biological dad, who was not identified, was not near the baby during the time of his disappearance. Read Also: Wyoming Ranch Accused of Forced Child Labor Suddenly Closes No suspects named yet as detectives continue their investigation Hadley said that the kid's mom and her boyfriend have been working with detectives to help in the investigation. He said that, at this point, they are victims and dealing with the loss of a child. Cops said that no suspects or persons of interest had been named yet, and there is no evidence to suggest Quinton did not walk off. That being said, exhaustive searches of a geographic area within wandering distance have turned up nothing, according to WJCL. According to court documents, Lelani Simon's mom, Billie Jo Howell, and her husband have custody of baby Quinton and his three-year-old brother. Howell also filed to have her daughter Lelani, and her boyfriend evicted from the home in early September. Related Article: Aurora First Responders Get Recognition for Helping Mother Resuscitate Toddler in Colorado Photo: (Photo : Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) A St. Petersburg mom was arrested on Saturday, October 8, after her baby ended up hospitalized from exposure to suspected narcotics, according to cops. The St. Petersburg Police Department stated the 11-month-old was taken to All Children's Hospital on Friday, October 7. The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Tanesha Lanae Newsome, told local police she was on the front porch of her home when the baby began having medical issues. The baby and her two other children were inside the house when that started to happen, per WFLA. Another kid told the suspect something was wrong with the baby. Newsome said that her baby was turning blue, according to arrest documents. The child was given Narcan and was intubated as soon as he got to the hospital. Police said the baby woke up, began crying after administering the Narcan, and was later admitted to the intensive care unit. Cops believe powdery substance found in the home caused the baby's injury Naloxone rapidly reverses an opioid overdose as this medicine is an opioid antagonist. This means that naloxone attaches to opioid receptors and blocks and reverses the effects of other opioids. Naloxone can quickly restore normal breathing to a person whose breathing has stopped or slowed because of an opioid overdose, in this case, Newsome's baby. Doctors made it clear, though, that naloxone is not a treatment for opioid use disorder, and it has no effect on someone who does not have opioids in their system. According to the arrest documents, Newsome's baby had pinpointed eyes, but no other signs of trauma were found in the child. St. Petersburg Police said they found several bags of white powdery substance throughout the home after searching it on Saturday. They were suspected of containing narcotics. The police department believed that the powdery substance led to Newsome's child's hospitalization. She was arrested on Saturday afternoon and was charged with three counts of child neglect. Read Also: San Antonio Police Officer Fired After Shooting at Teen Sitting in Parking Lot of McDonald's Eating a Burger Georgia authorities find fentanyl worth $172,500 in package The drug war shows no signs of stopping in the United States, with authorities in Georgia discovering nearly 600 grams of fentanyl worth $172,500 on Thursday, Fox News reported. According to the Hall County Sheriff's Office, the concealed package was discovered by the K9 unit during a routine check for narcotics at a Gainesville package delivery hub. In a post, the Hall County Sheriff's Office said that the K9 was taking part in an open-air search of packages arriving at the delivery hub when he alerted on a package being shipped to Oakwood from California. Deputies said that 575 grams of fentanyl in tablet form were found inside the package. They added that this is the first time a package containing fentanyl has been found at the delivery hub. Related Article: Florida Man Swims Half a Mile to Save 84-Year-Old Mom During Hurricane Ian This morning Meta put on their annual 'Connect' event and it'll likely be the last time that I waste my time watching this Mickey Mouse event talking about what's coming 3 or 4 years down the road and looking at make believe prototypes that are laughable. Out of all the product events that I follow every year, Zuckerberg's is always the worst production filled with cartoon nonsense about the Metaverse. Above is Zuckerberg's likeness in his metaverse and if you're over 15 years old, this is not a virtual world worth being a part of. That aside, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his companys newest virtual-reality headset today branded the Meta Quest Pro. Meta Platforms Inc. hopes the new device will entice creators and working professionals to adopt its vision for a virtual future. The Meta Quest Pro is the companys most recent headset in a product line previously branded as Oculus and includes a number of technological advancements from the companys Quest 2 headset that was launched in late 2020. Its also much more expensive than its predecessor. The new device will cost $1,500, or three times the price of the Quest 2, in part because the company is targeting more serious working professionals. While Metas Quest 2 headset has sold an estimated 15 million units, many people still associate VR with gaming, a connection Meta seems to be trying to avoid in marketing its newest headset. Its work focused, Zuckerberg told a small group of reporters in Redmond, Washington, in late September. The ideal customers for this [are] gonna be either people who just want the highest end VR device so enthusiasts, prosumer type folks or people who are trying to get work done. You could read more about it here. Below is one of the first reviews of the new headset by CNET. At one to two hours of battery life, it's difficult to see how this will impress anyone. If you're a glutton for punishment, check out the long and boring keynote below. Apple fans are definitely hoping for Apple to deliver Meta a knockout punch when their Mixed Reality Headset debuts in 2023. With the bar set so low for mixed reality by Meta, I don't think it'll take much from Apple to crush Meta's vision. For Amazons October Prime Day (aka Amazon Prime Early Access) weve found not one but two Chromebook deals that fall into the impulse buy category, costing about $100. And yes, theyre something that you or your kids can actually use. Weve been checking major retailers on a near-daily basis for the best Chromebook Prime Day dealsand, quite frankly, some of the best deals have been in the run-up to October Prime Day itself. You can stick with our recommendations here, or consult our aforementioned Chromebook deals roundup for alternate recommendations, especially if you want to pay a little more for a more powerful Chromebook. We are particularly enthused about both the Acer Chromebook 512 for $79.99 (60% off) and the Lenovo 14e Chromebook for $105.00 (65% off), and heres why: The processor, screen, and memory matter in a Chromebook. While both of these devices eschew top-of-the-line components, they meet what we consider the minimum requirements and then some. The Acer Chromebook 512 includes a Celeron N4020not the top of the heap, but as good or better than most. Its a dual-core, 3-year-old processor, but the N4xxx series is a common sight in todays Chromebooks. Likewise, 4GB of LPDDR4 memory is typical for a bargain Chromebook. It wont support a multitude of browser tabs openmaybe six to eight?but it should be enough to play Netflix and Prime Video, as well as work on classwork. The Chromebooks weak point is the displaya 968p resolution (1366912). Thats not bad. Bargain-basement Chromebooks usually ship with 768p screens, and while a 912p isnt quite on par with the 1080p screens commonly found on laptops, it should be more than acceptable. Dont worry about the onboard storage and Wi-Fi; theyre fine too. Battery life is a rated 12 hourswhile youre unlikely to actually get that, it should last most, if not all, of the day. Lenovos 14e Chromebook requires a little more thought, in that AMDs older A-series processors dont have a terrific reputation. You can see comments saying that the processor is a bit slow. Lenovo has a reputation for good keyboards, however, and the other internals4GB of RAM, 32GB of storagearent causes for concern. Neither is battery life, rated at 10 hours. The advantage the Lenovo 14e offers is the screen: at 14 inches, its larger than most, and a full 1080p resolution to boot. Visually, this is akin to a traditional laptop. If this is a priority, we recommend this laptop over the other. Finally, rest easy concerning Googles support lifecycle. The Lenovo 14e is supported through June 2026 with updates and patches, and Acers Chromebook is supported until June 2027. Again, if you want something a little more high-performance, consult out Prime Day Chromebook deals pagewe have a wider range of options. But for a pure Prime Day discount on a decent Chromebook, these are clearly the best. See the Acer Chromebook 512 on Amazon See the Lenovo 14e Chromebook on Amazon Looking to increase those frame rates? Graphics card pricing is finally getting reasonable again, and Amazons Prime Early Access Sale, colloquially known as Prime Day 2 or October Prime Day, starts Oct 11 and through Oct 12hopefully to the benefit of desktop gamers looking to score a deal. For almost two years, the quadruple-action combo of pandemic gaming demand, worldwide chip shortages, cryptocurrency boom, and scalpers trying to get rich on all three at once kept graphics card prices sky high. But now were finally seeing them drop down to more sane levels, with a 50% dive this calendar year alone. And now that new cards from Nvidia and AMD are on the horizon, and with Intel coming in to compete directly on price, its a great time to hunt for deals on cards from the last generation. Amazon is being pretty cheeky trying to squeeze in a second Prime Day sale in the same year, especially just a month before the consumer spending mania that is Black Friday. But since so much has changed in the GPU market since this years first Prime Day in July, were happy to get a second chance at some low prices. Of course youll need to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to take advantage of the dealsheres how you can score a subscription for free. Best Nvidia graphics card deals Best AMD graphics card deals With stocks of graphics cards high and new models ready to hit shelves, Amazons competitors wont be sitting on their hands during the sale. Well be scouring the web for the best deals on GPUs from other major sellers too, like Best Buy, Newegg, Walmart, and eBay. And most of the time, theyll let you score a deal without needing to buy a subscription first. The Special Prosecutors Office has commenced investigations into alleged corruption and corruption-related offences in connection with illegal small-scale mining popularly known as galamsey. According to a statement issued on the website of the Special Prosecutor, the investigation targets some state institutions as well as the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining. The Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has commenced an investigation into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences in respect of illegal small-scale mining. The investigation targets some officials of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Forestry Commission. It also targets the activities and expenditure of the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), especially in respect of the seizure and management of excavators, machinery, road vehicles, and gold nuggets, the statement issued by the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng on Monday, October 10, 2022, said. According to the OSP, the investigation also targets some individuals and private companies including the secretary of the IMCIM, Charles Bissue and Akonta Mining Company Limited belonging to the New Patriotic Partys Regional Chairman for Ashanti Region, Bernard Antwi Boasiako alias Wontumi. The investigation includes the active and ongoing inquiry into allegations of use of public office for profit against Charles Bissue, during his tenure as Secretary to the IMCIM, arising from an investigative documentary titled; 'Galamsey Fraud Part I', published by Tiger Eye P.I. The investigation further targets the activities of Akonta Mining Limited and other companies; nationals of foreign countries allegedly involved in illegal mining; and allegations of corruption and corruption-related offences against some Municipal and District Chief Executives and political party officials, the statement said. The investigation comes on the back of renewed public conversation on illegal mining activities and its impact on Ghanas water and forest bodies. Rampant illegal mining activities have resulted in the degradation of several forest covers and the pollution of various water bodies. The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor in a recent statement accused Akonta Mining Company of illegally entering the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve to mine gold. Source: ghanaweb.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 state of media in Ghana, the Accra International Press Centre, and the Centralization of Information Dissemination were among the issues discussed when Ghana Journalists Association ( GJA ) President Albert Dwumfour met with Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah at his office in Accra. The GJA President was accompanied by Vice President, Linda Asante-Agyei, Organising Secretary, Dominic Hlodzi, General Secretary, Kofi Yeboah and Rebecca Ekpe, Public Affairs Officer. Mr. Oppong Nkrumah was joined by his Deputy, Fatimatu Abubakar and Chief Director at the Ministry, Mrs Mamle Andrews. The meeting with Mr. Oppong Nkrumah is the second formal interaction with the Sector Minister since the new National Executives of the Ghana Journalists Association were sworn into office on June 30th 2022. The first interaction with the Sector Minister was at Aburi in August 2022 during the start of a retreat by the GJA Leadership. Mr. Dwumfour spoke of the complaints received from Journalists across the regions about real-time happenings that were being referred to Accra. To facilitate information dissemination, he proposed that such information be provided on a need-to-know basis. He further suggested that the State of the Region Reports could be held in the Regions to enable the journalists there to ask critical questions. Or the Journalists must be positioned to travel alongside the entourage to Accra for the briefings. On the Ghana International Press Center, Mr. Dwumfour announced that the GJA would study the MOU that was signed and meant to have a new facility put up for shared spaces for a conglomerate of media-related organizations in Ghana. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Oti Regional Minister, Joshua Gmayenaam Makubu, has called on local and foreign investors to invest in the region to help speed up its development. He said the region sat on a golden pot of immense and untapped investment opportunities and potential which could be explored for economic development. Speaking at the Ministry of Informations press briefing on the state of Oti, Mr Makubu said the Oti Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) would provide an enabling environment for investors to maximise their investments in the region. Development He explained that the region, which was one of the six new administrative regions created in 2019 following a referendum conducted in certain parts of the country in December 2018, required massive infrastructural development, especially roads, to help speed up its growth. He said roads opened up more areas and stimulated economic and social development, hence the need to invest in the region's road networks. Road networks are a key element for economic growth and it is essential to project a strategic and sustained expansion and adequate maintenance of these networks to guarantee quality connections among the different parts of the geographic territory, he said. In addition, he said, the provision of employment, social, health and educational services was essential for the region's fight against poverty. Progress On governance and administration, the regional minister said the RCC had started the construction of its own administration block at Dambai, with senior staff bungalows to accommodate key staff. He said there were also a number of infrastructural developments under construction that would help open up the region for investment. Those included regional offices and associated buildings for the Ghana Health Service, the Ghana Education Service, the Ghana Police Service, the Judicial Service, the Department of Feeder Roads, among others, he added. Social development Touching on social development, Mr Makubu said there had been significant improvement in the region's educational sector due to the government's sound educational policies, including the free senior high school initiative, which had contributed to higher enrolment of students in second-cycle institutions in the region. The implementation of educational policies, including the free SHS, has resulted in activities needed to improve on the existing educational system, such as staffing and infrastructure to bridge the deficit, he said. He said the RCC had also embarked on a number of activities aimed at improving education in the region to support the efforts of the government. Enrolment figures have increased drastically from 15,285 in 2016 to 25,483 in 2022, representing a 66.72 per cent change, thereby bridging the accessibility gap at the SHS level, he said. Natural resources Mr Makubu said the Oti Region was endowed with natural resources, including the recently discovered iron ore, which had the potential to open up the region for extensive development. He said the Ghana Geological Survey Authority (GGSA), which led the discovery, had established that the discovered iron ore was 55.22 weight per cent and of higher grade. The government is determined to provide value addition for this raw commodity and ensure that the Ghana Integrated Iron and Steel Development works closely with the GGSA and the communities to ensure that the full value chain is retained in the region and the country, he said. Source: graphiconline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Anti-corruption campaigner, Vitus Azeem, has urged the government to prosecute those responsible for payrolls that have ghost names on them. His comments come following the suspension of the salaries of some public workers. On October 3, 2022, a letter by the Controller and Accountant General indicated that the September salaries of some public sector workers had been suspended. As a result of the quality assurance and other validation processes undertaken by the Controller and Accountant General Department, there has been the need to suspend the payment of September 2022 salaries to some employees whose bank names are mismatched on the GOG payroll system whiles others had invalid bank account numbers on the system, the letter stated. The Controller and Accountant General noted, For employees whose bank names are mismatched, kindly arrange for the employee to report to the payroll coordination unit of the GAGD at block A room 32 with the under-listed documents under a cover letter from the MDA confirming they are at post. Employees with invalid bank account numbers were urged to submit their correct bank account numbers to the PPSs for an update. Speaking on Atinka TVs morning show, Ghana Nie with Ekourba Gyasi Simpremu, Mr. Vitus Azeem questioned what the Controller and Accountant General was doing about the ghost names and those who were in charge of the payrolls. You dont have to come out and say that you have removed 500 ghost names from the payroll, what have you done to the people who have put those names on the payroll, what have you done to the people who are the ghosts that have been claiming those monies? he quizzed. Mr. Vitus Azeem continued, If somebody legally puts a name on the payroll, it must be a Controller and Accountant General staff. There are sanctions, they should be punished, suspended, sacked, or even prosecuted for putting those names that are not supposed to be there. And then those whose names are there, and they are not supposed to be there, maybe for no fault of theirs, at least efforts should be made to recover the monies from them. That is where you say that they are working, but for several years now, anytime you will come out to say that you have identified 500 ghost names on the payroll, what have you done to the people, have you recovered the monies? How about somebody responsible for the payroll? How did the names get onto the payroll? Source: ghanaweb.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 Tamale North MP, Alhassan Suhuyini says it is unthinkable that people will fall prey to the alleged money-doubling scam by Patricia Asiedua popularly knowns as Nana Agradaa This is total rubbish to me. They deserve each other. Both Agradaa and her victims, the Tamale North MP, Alhassan Suhuyini said on GH Today on GHOne TV on Monday, October 10, 2022. Police have arrested Patricia Asiedua alias Nana Agradaa following allegations of a money-doubling scam levelled against her by some members of the public. Shes expected to be arraigned today following her arrest on Sunday. A statement issued by the police said: "Anyone who is a victim of the alleged money doubling scam should report to the Accra Regional Police Command for further action to assist the investigation. This comes on the back of a viral video on social media of victims recounting their losses. Some of the victims say they went to the church of Nana Agradaa after she advertised on her TV program that she will be doubling money during Fridays all-night service. Speaking on GHOne TV, the Tamale North lawmaker brushed aside the conversation and refused to sympathize with any of the victims saying the Agradaa episode is complete rubbish. I cannot say its lack of education because sometimes you find very schooled people, maybe its lack of education but not lack of schooling. You find people with certain levels of certification, and they also fall prey to some of these things. And I think its perhaps a problem with our educational system, we tend to just think that its okay for people to pass through classrooms and sit in front of teachers and that is considered education. Education is much more than reading and writing. But when you train people to just chew, pour, pass and forget it doesnt impact their cognitive abilities to think and decipher and analyse issues. And I think its a very big problem that we have in this country. But the bottom-line line is we need to regulate some these things as a people. Source: starrfm Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Some local farmers numbering about 700 have had their farm crops destroyed by the Bagre dam spillage in the Talensi district of the Upper East Region. Their produce namely millet, cassava and watermelon among others have been washed away. The farmers say they have lost everything to the water spillage. Some of them who spoke with Class 91.3 FMs Upper East regional correspondent Moses Appiah complained about how they have lost everything they invested into the farm as a result of the unannounced spillage. The District Director of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), Alpha Robert, speaking in an interview noted that his outfit has begun doing some assessment-based reports to ascertain the levels of the danger of the spillage on farmland. He added that the assessment is only for record-keeping and not to seek relief items for the affected farmers. Source: class fm 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 President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has disclosed that Ghanas capital town, Accra, has been named the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) world book capital for 2023. In a series of tweets shared on October 10, the president said that this honour is an acknowledgement of the country's progress in its development process. He added that it also means that Accra is now part of prestigious cities in the world which have been UNESCO world book Capital I am happy to inform you that Accra has been named the UNESCO world book capital for 2023, making our vibrant city part of the prestigious world book capital cities network. This is an acknowledgment of the giant strides that Ghana and Africa are making in developing our book and creative art industry and we thank you for your diverse contribution that made this possible, he said. According to UNESCO, the World Book Capital programme is used to acknowledge cities' commitment t promoting books and fostering reading It added that cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital undertake to carry out activities to encourage a culture of reading and diffuse "its values in all ages and population groups in and out of the national borders. Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo, while addressing the 215th Meeting of the Executive Board of UNESCO, on Monday, October 10, 2021, charged member states of UNESCO to ensure that education remains a priority in the common development agenda of countries. At this moment, we cannot pick and choose between funding guns and education. We cannot pick and choose between the interests of the present generation and the future of our girls and boys. "We cannot choose geopolitical concerns over preserving our cherished cultural heritages, lest we perish universally, he said. Read the President's tweets below: I am happy to inform you that Accra has been named the UNESCO world book capital for 2023, making our vibrant city part of the prestigious world book capital cities network. https://t.co/YkPEzmZQF8 Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) October 10, 2022 Source: twitter/ghanaweb 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 Amnesty International (AI) Ghana has reiterated calls on government and security agencies to stop torturing persons accused of criminal acts describing it as an infringement on their human rights. It also asked the government to abolish the death penalty to protect human life. Mr Francis Nyantakyi, Board Chair, AI Ghana, made the call at the commemoration of the 20th World Day Against Death Penalty in Accra, held on the theme: The use of the death penalty and torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The Death Penalty Day is marked on October 10 annually to unify the global abolitionist movement and mobilises civil society, political leaders, lawyers, public opinion and more to support the call for the universal abolition of capital punishment. The day encourages and consolidates the political and general awareness of the world-world movement against the death penalty. This years commemoration was dedicated to highlighting and reflecting on the use of the death penalty and torture, inhuman, degrading treatment as deterrents to crimes. Mr Nyantakyi said torture and other forms of ill-treatment were prohibited under international laws and treaties such as the Convention Against Torture and Cruel adding that Amnesty Ghana add their voice on the matter to stop those barbaric acts in Ghana. He said the death penalty in Ghana had frequently been used in the violation of international law and standards, affecting predominantly those from the disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. He said: Since 1985, Amnesty International Ghana has campaigned against the use of the death penalty in Ghana and these rights are protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of who is accused, the nature or circumstances of the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution. 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 Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, has appealed to the Switzerland Ambassador to Ghana to assist to get Swiss investors into Ghanas tourism and agricultural sectors of the region. He said the Region had great tourism and agricultural potential, which they had been trying to highlight to the rest of the world through trade and investment fairs. Dr Letsa made the appeal when the Ambassador, Ms Simone Giger called on him at his office in Ho, as part of her working visit to the Region. The Minister and the Ambassador used the opportunity to discuss the implementation of decentralization in the Region and its benefits to the people at the local level. Dr Letsa also shared with Ms Giger the role of the Volta Regional Coordinating Council (VRCC) in the decentralization process and how they were able to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the plans and programmes of the 18 municipal and district assemblies. The coordination, monitoring and evaluation, he said, was necessary to ensure that the municipal and district assemblies improve their performances and bring development as well as services to the doorstep of the people. Ms Giger expressed happiness about the serene environment of the Region and the effort by the various stakeholders at promoting the tourism potential to attract the needed investment. She used the opportunity to inspect some ongoing projects in the Ho Municipality, which the Switzer Government has helped to finance. 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 Reverend Tetteh Suomi Akunor, the Dansoman District Minister, Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), has urged churches to venture into building housing units to help reduce the countrys housing deficit. He said though the Church was a voluntary organisation, primarily obligated to win souls for Christ, it had a social responsibility to impact society with developmental projects. Rev Akunor said this when the Clergy from the Dansoman District and the Amasaman Mission of the PCG, in collaboration with OMRI Projekt Ltd, an estate developer, held a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of 31 housing units at Abehenease in the Ga West Municipality. The project, named: 1828 Residents, would be owned partly by the Dansoman District of the Church and OMRI Projekt Ltd. The name is in honour of the inception of the PCG some 194 years ago. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency after the ceremony, Rev Akunor said: As a Church, we have realised there is a housing deficit in Ghana, and we also have a role to play in reducing it by providing the land for the project. We need to think outside the box, the church is not there for business and the church should be sensitive to their neighbourhood or do something to help the community. The five-acre parcel of land for the project would have 15 units of three-bedroom houses and 16 two-bedroom housing units, to be completed within 24 months. There would also be a shopping mart and a recreational centre. Data from the Ghana Statistical Service indicate that the countrys housing deficit stands at 1.8 million per the 2021 Population and Housing Census, a 33 per cent reduction from the previous 2.8 million. Mr Kwame Obeng Adjinah, the Chief Operating Officer, OMRI Projekt Ltd, told the GNA that the collaboration was part of the companys corporate social responsibility, adding that the company would also own part of the housing units. He said stakeholders, including investors, should see housing as a social service rendered to society, especially those in the low-income bracket. Mr Clement Wilkinson, the Ga West Municipal Chief Executive, commended the company for the initiative as it would beautify the area and boost economic activities. He said the Assembly was prepared to give assistance to firms, agencies and individuals ready to invest in diverse projects in the Municipality to enhance development, but cautioned the public against flouting the Assembly-bye laws. 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 Chinese National, Aisha Huang, who is in court for her involvement in illegal mining activities (galamsey) in Ghana, has been remanded to police custody by the Criminal Division of the Accra High Court. Presiding Judge, Lydia Osei Marfo during sitting on Friday, October 11, 2022, refused the plea of her lawyer, Nkrabea Effah Dartey after the latter argued that his client deserved bail. According to the judge, all arguments previously made against his plea for bail, including the flight risk of his client remain and will not be changed. She added that, his constant presence in court with his client will be the only way to ensure the hearing is heard accordingly for the determination of his client's fate. State Prosecutor, Godfred Dame on his part reiterated government's commitment to ensuring the case is duly heard and that the accused are prosecuted if found guilty. Aisha Huang is in court over charges of mining without a license and engaging in the sale and purchase of minerals, four other charges including undertaking a mining operation without a license. She is also facing four other charges including undertaking a mining operation without a license, facilitating the participation of persons engaged in a mining operation, illegal employment of foreign nationals, and entering Ghana while prohibited from re-entry were filed at the Criminal Division of the Accra High Court on Friday, September 16, 2022. Her case has since been adjourned to October 24, 2022 for case management. Four others remanded: Meanwhile, four others, who appeared in court, 3 Chinese nationals and a Vietnam national, have all been remanded to reappear in court on November 1, 2022. The 3 Chinese nationals Shi Yang alias Philip, Li Wei Guo and Shi Mei Zhi are on a provisional charge of engaging in small scale-mining without a licence, contrary to section 99(2)(a) of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) as amended by Act 995 of 2019. Vietnam national; Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen, is however being charged for remaining in Ghana after the expiration of a permit contrary to sections 20(1) and 52(1)(d) of the Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573). Hearing their cases separately, the sitting judge heard the pleas of the 3 Chinese nationals but reserved that of the Vietnamese; Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen who had difficulty understanding the Chinese and English languages through which she was communicated. Court denies accused persons bail: On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, the accused persons were denied bail for the second time. The sitting judge, Samuel Bright Acquah, argued that the case was one of public concern considering the depth of damage being done to the environment through galamsey activities. Citing threats by Ghana Water Company to shut down if nothing is done about galamsey activities, and the impact of same on marine species in affected waterbodies among others, the judge refused the accused persons bail. The accused persons were prior to this, denied bail on September 14, 2022, after lead counsel Nkrabea-Effah Dartey asked the court to grant his client and her three other Chinese counterparts bail. Aisha Huang's request according to GhanaWebs court reporter was objected to by the prosecution. 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 leading member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has described as "hollow" and "unnecessary", a directive by the President that the infractions and malfeasance raised in the 2021 Auditor-Generals report be investigated. Clement Abas Apaak believes the "causes of the infractions are already official and persons responsible identified and recommendations made," he thus wondered the essence of further inquiry. "What then is the purpose of the directive given by the President? Probe infractions and those responsible to what end?" he quizzed. 36% Rise In Financial Irregularities A total of 17.4 billion in financial irregularities were flagged by the Auditor-General in its latest report submitted to Parliament for the 2021 financial year. This represents a 36% rise compared to that of 2020. 4 Weeks Deadline It is as a consequence of this that President Akufo-Addo, last week, directed the Director-General of the State Interests Governance Authority (SIGA) and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, to within four weeks, investigate the causes of the infractions and malfeasance raised in the 2021 Auditor-Generals report. Mr. Edward Boateng is expected to identify persons responsible and also recommend actions to be taken in line with laws governing such misconduct. Poor Management of State Assets At a meeting with Chief Executive Officers of State-Owned Enterprises, the President described the development as unfortunate and demonstrates poor management and supervision of state assets. Further, I expect you to prioritise the payment of dividends something virtually all of you have not been doing." Disallow & Surcharge! But speaking in an interview on Okay Fm's Ade Akye Abia show, Hon Apaak, who is the MP for Builsa South Constituency, pointed out that it would have made more sense if the President had charged the AG to enforce its inherent powers to disallow and surcharge without fear or favour. "If it is about retrieving funds, the President should tell the Auditor General to apply his powers to disallow and surcharge without fear or favour. "The President, like the 32 CSOs and well meaning Ghanaians, should express revulsion at the reluctance of the Auditor General to apply the full powers granted his office to retrieve billions of unaccounted and embezzled public funds. The President should urge the Auditor General to disallow and surcharge!" he fumed Watch Video Below Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah says former President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) capitalized on illegal small-scale mining (Galamsey) issues for votes in the 2020 general elections. According to him, that was not patriotism but partisanship on the part of the former President. In a tweet, Mr Braimah said Ahead of the 2020 election, former President Mahama and his NDC party, exploited the Galamsey issue for votes. That was not patriotism, it was partisanship. The Galamsey fight needs the commitment of all. He, therefore, asked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to hold his appointees responsible for the increasing rate of galamsey. You are the President. All of Ghanas gold is entrusted to you. You appointed all the people in charge of lands, minerals, forests, regions, districts etc. Everything is being destroyed yet all your appointees are intact. You want us to believe youre fighting Galamsey? NO, he said. Prior to the 2020 elections, it will be recalled that Mr Mahama who was the NDCs Presidential Candidate promised to free all illegal miners who were jailed under the Akufo-Addo government, if he was voted. He said this when he addressed the chiefs and people of Odum Banso in the Western Region in the campaign season. Its sad. The government said it was fighting galamsey, and they arrested, prosecuted, and jailed Ghanaians who were engaged in that activity but left the Chinese woman [Aisha Huang], he noted. Today, they are still in prison. That Chinese galamsey queen was arrested but left to go free. She was never prosecuted but our people are in jail suffering. When we come, we shall grant all those arrested and jailed some amnesty. They will come back to their homes and work. I believe that they have suffered enough, shown remorse for whatever wrong they committed. We will institute measures to check the operations of small-scale mining. Recently, President Akufo-Addo narrated how his fight against Galamsey cost him and his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) significant losses in the 2020 general elections especially in the mining areas. This, he said, shows that the commitment he made to put his presidency on the line in the fight against galamsey was not a reckless statement. Speaking during a meeting with the National House of Chiefs and some Municipal Metropolitan and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in Kumasi on Wednesday October 5, he said Since I took office I have made it a central feature of my presidency to lead in the efforts to rid our country of this menace which we all now call galamsey. It has not been popular and we have not got the result that I was looking for. Indeed, in the last elections of 2020 my stance on the issue cost my party and me significant losses in the mining communities, it turned out that my statement that I was putting my presidency on the line in the fight against galamsey was neither bombast or recklessness. It was the simple truth. 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 server at the Barley Mill Brew Pub, which is one of three finalists for Business of the Year in the upcoming 35th annual Business Excellence Awards. Aydin Coban is shown in this handout photo from the time of his arrest by Dutch police, entered into an exhibit at his trial in British Columbia Supreme Court in New Westminster. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-DUTCH POLICE **MANDATORY CREDIT** JW Carter Wins RunGood Tunica Main Event ($58,110) October 10, 2022 Liam Gannon After just over eight hours of play, the field of 72 was whittled down to a winner. It was Mississippi native JW Carter who steamrolled his way through the field to claim the massive first place price of $58,110. I feel great, said the new main event champion with a big smile on his face, Ive only been playing tournaments for four years, but this feels great. Carter was one of the biggest stacks throughout the tournament, but it was the hand prior to the final table that catapulted him to the chip lead. His bottom set held against the bottom two of Phillip Burch that gave him a 3:1 lead over the field. Im retired now, he said when asked about being a professional. I wouldnt call myself a professional, but it is what I do a lot. He now takes home his best live cash, his first RGPS ring, and a seat to the RGPS Pro/Am. 2022 RunGood Tunica Main Event Final Table Results Place Player Prize 1 JW Carter $58,110 2 Wesley Jones $38,867 3 Mike Cordell $28,654 4 BJ McBrayer $21,358 5 Matthew Lawrence $16,112 6 Micheal Senedetka $12,293 7 John Duke $9,468 8 Chris Hight $7,388 9 Adam Cotant $5,836 Day 2 Action People sat down and began playing fast and furiously, with many stacks busting before the first hour was even up. Defending champion Max Le (69th-$962) fell early as did Tiffany Keathley (50th-$1,211), ensuring that a new champion would rise through the field. Others whos runs felt shorter than they would have wished included Kyle Cartwright (57th-$1,087), Preston McEwen (48th-$1,366), Frank Covich (26th-$1,801), Kaleb Dunn (21th-$2,142), and Matt Higgins (16th-$3,073). The final hand prior to the final table, saw, the chip leader for the majority of the tournament, Burch get all of his chips in with bottom two against Carters bottom set. The pot worth 30% of the chips in play, went in the direction of Carter and Burch ended his run in 10th place for $5,836. Final Table Action Adam Cotant saw most of his chips lost in brutal fashion, when his aces were cracked by the ace-king of Michael Senedetka. He got in his last chips with seven-six suited against Matthew Lawrences nines, but finding no help and ending his run in ninth place for $5,836. Following him out the door was Chris Hight who also lost against nines. He moved in his short stack with ace eight only to lose against Carters pocket nines. He earned $7,388 for his eighth place finish. John Duke was the third player to be eliminated losing against nines, and the second to be eliminated by Carter. He moved his stack in the middle with ace-ten off-suit and lost a race against Carters pocket nines. He collected $9,468 for his seventh place run. Some time passed before the next player exited, but it was Michael Senedekta who shoved over Carters open, only for Mike Cordell to move all in for more, folding out Carter. Cordell held ace-king, beating Senedektas king-three suited and Senedekta left the tournament in sixth, earning himself $12,293. Matthew Lawrence (TN) finished in fifth place for $16,112. His chips got into the middle with ace-ten off-suit and lost a race against JW Carters pocket eights. A turned gut shot did not turn into anything by the river and he exited the tournament area. Shortly after it was BJ McBrayer who was all in dominated with king-three off-suit against his JW Carters Ace-three suited. The flop came ace high, meaning only running kings or a wheel to chop would keep him alive. Neither came and McBrayer ended his run, collecting $21,358 for his fourth-place finish. Mike Cordell jockeyed with Carter for the chip lead in a few key pots during the final table WSOP bracelet winner Mike Cordell jockeyed around with Carter for a bit, but ultimately lost a race against Carter at the end when he got his nine-ten suited in against the pocket fives of Carter. He ended his run in third place collecting $28,654 for his impressive run. Just seconds into heads up, Wesley Jones moved in his stack with queen-jack off-suit, only to get called by ace-six off-suit. The board ran out with no help to the queen-jack and the RGPS tunica PLO champion ended his week with a second place finish in the main event for $38,867. That's it for coverage of RGPS Tunica. Be sure to keep it with the PokerNews live reporting team for updates from all of your favorite poker series around the world. RunGood Poker Series Tunica Winners RunGood Poker Series Tunica Events Tournament Winner Prize Event #1 $200 Seniors Peter Kenna $4,260 Event #2 $165 Guest Bounty Anthony Allison $3,165 Event #3 $250 Studio Ring Event Denise Pratt $10,000 Event #4 $200 One Day No-Limit Hold'em Ryan Williams $6,303 Event #5 $300 Pot Limit Omaha Wesley Jones $5,151 Event #6 $200 Two Green Chip Bounty Michael Benbrook $4,565 Event #7 $165 Flip N Go Jon Swift $4,605 Event #8 $600 Main Event JW Carter $58,110 Event #9 $200 Ladies Event Julie Borders $2,504 Event #10 $165 Turbo Robert Randall $3,816 Event #11 $250 Black Chip Bounty Event Gregory Smith $2,913 Sharelines Check out the latest results from the Main Event at RGPS Tunica ZockSteffan Wins First XL Retro Title at 888poker October 11, 2022 Matthew Pitt Editor The XL Retro series has begun over at 888poker and the first five events have crowned their worthy champions. Germany's "ZockSteffan" goes down in the 888poker history books as the first-ever XL Retro champion. ZockSteffan was one of 1,162 players who bought into the XL Retro #01 Mega Deep Opening Event for $109. Those entrants fought it out for a slice of the $120,000 prize pool. $120,000 XL Retro #01 Mega Deep Opening Event Place Player Country Prize 1 ZockSteffen Germany $17,532 2 Diegoavc Peru $12,816 3 manel9595 Brazil $9,420 4 Whosbad Germany $6,924 5 AGGROAREK Germany $5,124 6 Yzw42_ Romania $3,816 7 r4andomr4gs Sweden $2,868 8 SobolAmnesia United Kingdom $2,172 9 GGWP888 Georgia $1,656 Each of the nine 888poker players who managed to navigate their way through the shark-infested waters to take a seat at the final table guaranteed themselves at least $1,656 for their efforts. "GGWP888" fell in ninth and was joined on the rail by "SobolAmnesia" and "r4ndomr4gs," who collected $2,172 and $2,868, respectively. The finalist continued falling, and the prize money increased. Romania's "Yzw42_" banked $3,816 for their sixth-place finish, "AGGROAREK" of Germany scooped $5,124 when they busted in fifth, and then "Whosbad" fell by the wayside in fourth for $6,924. The final four-figure sum went to Brazilian grinder "manel9595." They received $9,420 as the XL Retro series' first event headed into the heads-up stage. Heads-up saw ZockSteffen take on Peruvian "Diegoavc" for the lion's share of the prize pool, in addition to all of the glory. ZockSteffan got his hands on all of the chips in play and, therefore, the $17,532 top prize. Diegoavc walked away with a $12,816 consolation prize. 888poker XL Retro Schedule Features TWO Mystery Bounty Tournaments and $500k GTD Main Event Malta Celebrates a New XL Retro Champion The biggest buy-in event of the 888poker XL Retro series so far, the $525 buy-in Whale Opening Event, drew in 109 entrants who created a $59,500 prize pool. Some $14,660 of that pot is now nestled in the 888poker account of Malta's "PotofGreed." It was a Maltese one-two, with PotofGreed defeating "Le_Piaf" heads-up, and resigning the runner-up to a $10,466 consolation prize, the tournament's only other five-figure score. Only last week, Le_Piaf won the 888poker Big Shot tournament, turning $109 into $15,480. $45,000 XL Retro #02 Whale Opening Event Place Player Country Prize 1 PotofGreed Malta $14,660 2 Le_Piaf Malta $10,466 3 raw_dawg $7,473 4 richrash93 Isle of Man $5,343 5 kellerassel0 Germany $3,813 6 Kabosu69 Malta $2,725 7 limpjam New Zealand $1,945 8 lysy69666 United Kingdom $1,386 9 BetBetFck Ukraine $1,261 You Spoke, They Listened! 888poker Adds $500K to Weekly Guarantees Other XL Retro Results Three other XL Retro events are in the bag, their champions crowned, and their prize money awarded. "kerkerian" triumphed in the $15,000 XL Retro #03 Mini Mega Deep Opening Event for $3,316, with "Storvalle" taking down the $20,000 XL Retro #04 Tornado 8-Max for $5,220. "Luks012" also found themselves in the winner's enclosure after being the last player standing in the $3,000 XL Retro #05 BlowFish 8-Max, a result worth $1,009. kerkerian winner of the $15,000 XL Retro #03 Mini Mega Deep Opening Event for $3,316 StorValle winner of the $20,000 XL Retro #04 Tornado 8-Max for $5,220 Luks012 winner of the $3,000 XL Retro #05 BlowFish 8-Max for $1,009 Upcoming XL Retro Events Do not worry if you missed out on becoming an XL Retro champion in these five events because there are plenty more opportunities around the corner. Check out the table below to discover which events are running over the next few days. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Rep. Tim Ryan was strong in the Ohio Senate debate, as JD Vance showed why he is teetering as he took extreme positions and lied to Ohio voters. The Ohio Senate Debate Highlights Tim Ryan called out JD Vance for telling two lies on two questions about natural gas and fracking. Ryan said that he wants Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden to retire so that there can be a new generation of leaders. Video of Ryan calling out Vance for investing in China: During the first Ohio Senate debate, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) wastes no time calling out Republican opponent J.D. Vance for investing in Chinese companies: "Our supply chains all went to China, and guys like him have made a lot of money off that." pic.twitter.com/uDOgPj5u4A The Recount (@therecount) October 10, 2022 On abortion, Rep. Ryan said that he supports going back to Roe, and he brought up underage girls in Ohio having to go to other states and called out Vance for supporting a national abortion ban. He cited Vances statement that rape is inconvenient and called rape a tragedy. Ryan called for the codification of Roe. Vance denied calling rape inconvenient, which he said, and said he was pro-life. Vance then argued that women should rethink the idea that having a baby will interfere with their lives and careers. Vance said that Grahams national abortion ban is fine with him. Ryan said that the level of extremism Vance is supporting on abortion cant be ignored. Vance then tried to turn the story of the ten-year-old girl being raped into an immigration question by claiming that the ten-year-old girl would not have been raped if Ryan would have been protecting the border. JD Vance said that he is actually in Ohio and claimed that he had created a thousand jobs and claimed that Ryans district had lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Ohio. Ryan shot back that Vance makes money investigating China, and his business hires foreign workers, and he is funded by a Silicon Valley billionaire and accused Vance of parachuting into Ohio to buy a Senate seat. Vance claimed that Ryan and Biden have made the Fentanyl crisis worse. The debate turned to foreign policy. On Russia and Ukraine, Ryan mentioned that Vance said he doesnt care about whats going on in Ukraine and said that the Republican would let Putin roll through Ukraine. Vance said nobody knows what should be done if Russia uses nuclear weapons. Vance went isolationist and said that the interest of American citizens should be put first and said the Russian invasion should be de-escalated. Ryan said if JD had his way Putin would be rolling through Ukraine and at Polands border. Vance came out against the bill to codify and protect same-sex marriage because he said it would make it easier to sue religious organizations for discrimination. Ryan delivered the line of the night when he said, Ohio needs an ass-kicker, not an ass-kisser. Later, Tim Ryan hit JD Vance for claiming to be an immigration hardliner while hiring foreign workers. Ryan also nailed Vance for his fake non-profit to take advantage of people in Ohio and claimed the non-profit was used to launch his political campaign. Vance said, None of this is true, and then hid behind his family having addiction issues. Vance then whined about the commercials that Ryan is running. Later, Vance sucked up to Trump and claimed that the DOJ is corrupt and said that the allegations of Trumps crimes are rumors. Tim Ryan Was Authentic In Ohio Senate Debate The difference between Ryan and Vance in the debate was that Ryan was authentic. Tim Ryan is not a liberal, but he is a blue-collar Democrat who cares about middle-class jobs, restoring manufacturing, and standing up to China. JD Vance was not able to damage Ryans bipartisan image. Ryan highlighted how he has stood up to his own party and referred to Trumps quote that all JD Vance does is kiss his ass to get his support. Ryan said the former president called him an ass-kisser. Republicans Have A Big Problem As JD Vance Flops In Ohio Senate Debate JD Vance lied to Ohio voters numerous times during the debate as he staked out one extreme position after another on issues like abortion and LGBT equality. Vances answers were heavily talking point tested, scripted, and duplicitous, and he demonstrated why Ohio voters should not trust him. Vance was spouting the Fox News talking points as he is banking on the states Republican lean to carry him to victory. JD Vance claimed that Ryan is not a moderate and accused him of losing manufacturing jobs. Vance into the conspiracy theory that Facebook censored information and laughably claimed that Big Tech benefits Democrats. The Republican candidate was not good and shifty in the debate. The GOP has dumped tens of millions of dollars into Ohio to try to save Vance, and the Republican did nothing to make Republicans more confident that they will keep the seat on election day. The average of polls shows the race as a tie, and Democrats have a real chance of flipping a red Senate seat in Ohio. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Rachel Maddow cut through the political noise Monday evening to warn that in order to effectively combat fascism, there is a necessity for a whole society response. And this is something we have done before. Video: Maddow said: Looking at what happened last time that we were up against something like this, is that the criminal law cant do everything. I mean, we cant ever count on it all being against it in the courtroom. When it is extremist ultra-right groups willing to use violence against everyone else to get their way, those are crimes and there is a role for the courts and the prison system, right? But there is also a really important role for everything else. For a whole of society response. I mean, the criminal justice system isnt bulletproof but it also doesnt address the nature of those crimes in their totality. So in order to effectively combat fascism, in order to effectively combat rising authoritarianism particularly when it comes to trying to undo elections and trying to have power be both achieved and maintained in this country by some means other than democracy. When it comes to threatening force as a way of seizing power, there is not only room; there is a necessity for a whole society response. For everybody to do something. For activism. For journalism, for political organizing to keep them away from real power. I see a way in which you learn, like weve been through something like there before and it can be enervating, are we ever going to get away from this. On the other hand, knowing that weve faced it before and effectively faced it before and Americans had great ideas on how to outflank and defeat those forces, that to me is energizing. Maddow isnt pretending that we are not facing rising fascism and authoritarianism. The Queen of Context laid it out for Americans tonight not only are we facing this threat, but we have done so before. She is addressing this very issue in her new podcast Ultra. Ultra sounds familiar, because we have faced threats this big before: Sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the government. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good. Justice Department prosecutors under crushing political pressure. Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to to cover their tracks. We need to fight on every front and leave no battle unaddressed. This is an all hands on deck situation. Its dire, its terrifying, but its also something every single one of us can do something about. Political organizing at the local level, driving people to the polls, knocking on doors these things have power. Community has power. We can learn from those who fought this battle before us. We can use our wit to battle these anti-freedom forces on every front. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said that Donald Trump gave damning evidence against himself over the weekend that makes it easier for DOJ to prosecute him. Video: Weissmann said on MSNBCs Deadline: White House: I look at this with my former prosecutors hat on, and the reporting from Mike and Maggie Haberman and the speech that you talked about that he gave over the weekend are really damning evidence, because the typical defense for somebody like Donald Trump is what a CEO argues which is I didnt know the details, I dont have the knowledge or intent to have violated the law. Meaning I didnt know what was at Mar-a-Lago. I didnt know the content of what was at Mar-a-Lago, and so I didnt have an intent to illegally take or retain these documents. That would be what a CEO would probably argue and is typically what we see in CEO cases. The trick is always how do you show that somebody like Donald Trump knew what was at Mar-a-Lago, and it wasnt just his lawyers or underlings who knew the details? Well, that hes trying to engage in the art of the deal with respect to classified documents, and hes saying these documents were all mine, those are incredibly damning statements that go directly to knowledge and intent, and you can be sure that the DOJ prosecutors are doing what Im doing, which is listening to this going, this is making it that much easier to prove the only element that it could pose any real difficulty for the Department of Justice in bringing a case in bringing the Mar-a-Lago documents. Trump admitted at a rally that he had government documents at Mar-a-Lago, but he claimed that they were his. Donald Trump admitted to the crime, which means that, as Weissmann pointed out, there is no deniability. Trump cant claim that he didnt know that the documents were there because he publicly admitted knowledge of them. Donald Trump went back to the rally stage and kept talking. His statements are making it much easier for the DOJ to prosecute him. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Over the weekend, Nevada candidate for Sec. of State Jim Marchant promised that he and his fellow GOP nominees, if elected next month, would reinstall Donald Trump in the White House in 2024. Were gonna fix the whole country and President Trump is gonna be president again. The word fix becomes operative in that sentence. This type of MAGA always insist theyll provide safe and secure elections but then simply presume that means their guy Trump wins. We all know what is going on here, and that includes Pennsylvanian gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who, in a talk with Dick Morris, said that the key to Trump winning back the White House rides on whether Mastriano picks the secretary of state. From Media Matters: DICK MORRIS (HOST): People are always asking me, can Trump come back in 24, and I wrote this book saying that he can. But he has to win the governorship in Pennsylvania. So I dont care if you live in Pennsylvania or on the moon. This is the guy you need to support because hes the key to unlocking honest elections in the swing state. Thanks for coming on, Doug. DOUG MASTRIANO: I get to appoint the secretary of state, and the road to 2024 goes straight through Pennsylvania, as you wrote in your book. So thank you for having me on as well. Not a lot of nuance there. Mastriano gets to pick the person who counts the ballots and certifies the election, and it goes through Pennsylvania, as he said. One would have to ignore the entire context of 2020-2022 not to understand whats happening here. The MAGAs are more than willing to abandon all pretense of true legitimate elections if necessary as an increasingly minority party. The good news is that in a lot of elections over the past year, from Alaska to Kansas, even in Boise ID (School District), weve seen the public consistently reject the ultra-MAGA agenda at surprisingly high voting levels. Whereas the assumption was that Roevember would energize people to get out to the polls, it might be the threat posed by people like Mastriano that is the bigger motivating factor, and rightly so. We dont want to live in a country where the person someone like Mastriano picks as secretary of state determines the national presidential election. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Billboards are showing up all across Pennsylvania featuring Republican voters that will support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro. Via: The Pittsburgh Post Gazette: The Republican Accountability PAC a group that exists in a network of messengers and activist organizations that sprouted after Donald Trumps victory in 2016 is putting up more than 30 billboards on Tuesday as part of its overall $2 million spend in Pennsylvania hitting Republican Doug Mastriano. The billboards feature the headshots of Republican voters, past and present, who say theyll vote for Mr. Shapiro. There are six in the Pittsburgh area and numerous others in Philadelphia and Harrisburg. The PAC is spending $10 million in total to combat candidates it deems anti-democratic in several crucial swing states. Shapiros Republican opponent Doug Mastriano openly admits that he needs to win the election to rig Pennsylvania for Trump in 2024. Dozens of Republican officials have crossed over and endorsed Shapiro. Josh Shapiro has spent years growing his moderate political base, including Independents, some Republicans, and Democrats. The fact that Trump powered Mastriano to the Republican gubernatorial nomination was a gift for Shapiro that he has not wasted. The Mastriano campaign is virtually invisible. It is broke, not drawing crowds, and heading for a double-digit defeat. Still, with the future of democracy at stake in Pennsylvania, nothing is being taken for granted, which is why the Republican Accountability Project is giving Pennsylvania Republicans a nudge to vote for Josh Shapiro. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print If one wanted to point to a certain instant in time that best encapsulates Trumps personality, values, and darkly psychopathic tendencies, a strong candidate would be that conversation between Kevin McCarthy and then President Trump on January 6th, when McCarthy screamed into the phone to have Trump calm the crowd down and get them out, with Trump dispassionately and inhumanely retorting; Well Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. It is pure Trump. If McCarthy had to die to get Trump what he wanted, then McCarthy had to die. But now, Politicos Playbook has excerpts from a new book written by Robert Draper, Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind which provides us new details about McCarthys immediate retort, and it is just chilling. McCarthy replied to Trump, More upset? McCarthy said, according to that account. THEYRE TRYING TO F*CKING KILL ME! So telling. When an ally was hunkered down in real danger and needed Trumps help, Trump was still measuring who was most loyal to Trump, and at that moment, McCarthy wasnt upset enough about Trump losing the election. Trump comes across as a monster. We knew that. We didnt know that McCarthy was in such deep fear for his life that he believed the crowds were there to kill him. The phone call likely remains the best window into how it felt to be in the Capitol that day. Even after all the testimony, all the video, Josh Hawley literally running for his life from the people he supported with a raised fist earlier in the day, its probably still difficult for those of us who only have video of what happened inside the Capitol to appreciate just how terrifying it must have been. huddled in offices, wondering if you were targeted and wondering how it might end. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced that she was leaving the Democratic Party, and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was not sad to see her go. Gabbard said in a statement: I can no longer remain in todays Democratic Party which is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness. The Democrats of today divide us by racializing every issue, stoking anti-white racism, and are actively working to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. The Democrats of today are hostile to people of faith and spirituality. They demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans. The Democrats of today believe in open borders and weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents. Above all else, the Democrats of today are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded: Talk about a case of addition by subtraction https://t.co/16Cz0pY6Lb Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) October 11, 2022 Gabbard has been Putins person in the Democratic Party for years, and her statement reads like it was written by the Russian dictator himself. Democrats are happy to see Gabbard go, but she probably isnt going to have much value to Fox News anymore, where she has been a regular of Tucker Carlsons to give the Putin position on everything while being touted as a Democrat. The Democratic Party is much better off without Tulsi Gabbard soiling its name. Putins allies are hyping up the threat of nuclear war because Russia is losing the war in Ukraine and trying to scare the US away from supporting the Ukrainians. President Biden was right. The nuclear threat is real, but it isnt the Democratic Party pushing the threat of nuclear war. Its Vladimir Putin. On October 10, Russia launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities in retaliation for the bombing of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula with the Russian mainland. Russia, which has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure since launching its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, claimed the latest wave of attacks was in response to Kyivs terrorism. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed the strikes were solely aimed at legitimate military and infrastructure targets. "This morning, on the initiative of the Ministry of Defense and according to a plan [formulated by] the Russian General Staff, massed strikes were carried out using high-precision, long-range air, sea and land-based weapons against energy, military command and communications facilities of Ukraine," Putin said. But that is false. Russia did target military and energy facilities. But abundant evidence shows strikes at civilian infrastructure and cultural sites. In the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, witness accounts, photos and videos prove that museums, an office building, a pedestrian bridge, a park, a busy intersection and other civilian areas were hammered in the barrage. According to Ukraines air force, the October 10 attack was the largest missile attack since the beginning of the hot phase of the war. Ukraine said more than 80 rockets, including [h]igh-precision land-based, sea-based, and air-based cruise missiles, and a dozen Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones were used in the assault. Though far from the front lines, Kyiv was heavily targeted. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko cited damage to 45 residential buildings, including three schools, one kindergarten and two after-school education buildings, six cultural institutions, five health care facilities, and five objects of critical infrastructure, housing and communal services had been damaged. Ukraine officials said at least 19 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Besides Kyiv, Russian strikes hit the cities of Lviv in western Ukraine, Kharkiv in the north, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia in central Ukraine, and the Black Sea port of Odesa. Shevchenko Park in central Kyiv was among the targets, with the crater of a missile blast seen next to a childrens playground. Also damaged were the nearby Khanenko Museum the key world art museum in Ukraine and the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Near the university campus, park and other cultural sites, a Russian rocket slammed into the busy intersection of Volodymyrska Street and Shevchenko Boulevard at 8 a.m., incinerating cars and causing more than a dozen casualties. Russia hit a pedestrian bridge in Khreshchatyk Park and damaged the National Philharmonic of Ukraine. The 101 Tower, housing an office and research center for the Korean electronics firm Samsung, also was struck. Social media users noted that the visa office of the German consulate was located on the 22nd floor of the 101 Tower, but Taras Mishchenko, editor-in-chief of Ukraines Mezha.Media, said the consulate had not been operating. The Wall Street Journals Matthew Luxmoore reported that Russias attacks on Lviv left half the city without water, electricity or internet. Kyiv has not officially claimed responsibility for the Crimea bridge attack, The Associated Press reported, but Ukraines ambassador to Britain, Vadym Prystaiko, on Monday called the bridge a legitimate military target. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kubelo pushed back at Russian claims that Putin had been provoked to launch the latest barrage of strikes. Russia had been constantly hitting Ukraine with missiles before the bridge, too. Putin is desperate because of battlefield defeats and uses missile terror to try to change the pace of war in his favor, he wrote. In July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described Russias systematic targeting of civilian areas as missile terror. At that time, Zelenskyy said Russia had launched 2,960 missiles at Ukrainian cities, adding the main targets of missiles are civilian objects. Russia has been widely accused of indiscriminate bombing, or deliberately hitting civilian targets. Most infamous was a March 16 Russian airstrike on the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol, where civilians sheltered amid a Russian offensive. Up to 600 people are believed to have died. As previously reported by Polygraph.info, from its wars in Chechnya to the Syrian civil war, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets has arguably been a signature Russian tactic. Amid the latest assault, the United Nations General Assembly met to discuss a potential response to Russias annexation of four Ukrainian regions last month. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply shocked by the large-scale missile strikes on cities and civilian areas across Ukraine. This constitutes another unacceptable escalation of the war, and as always, civilians are paying the highest price, he said. The strikes continued October 11, the AP reported: The bombardment Tuesday struck both energy infrastructure and civilian areas, just as Mondays attacks did. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into public facilities in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire, the State Emergency Service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities. Hope is what people will see as they take a walk down The Alley in downtown Aiken. The Overflow Foundation has placed a new mural in downtown Aiken as a way to raise awareness and prevention on mental health and suicide. The project is part of the organization's effort to decrease the stigma often associated with both. It was where our son kind of got his music career off the ground ... playing Amp the Alley on Thursday evenings," said Terry Lee, Overflow Foundation founder and executive director. So it is very special to us in being able to put a mural down there. The mural is located between Lionel Smith Ltd. clothing store and Aiken Brewing Company. The mural will also have a QR Code with the new 988 hotline number, so people can scan if they are dealing with a mental health issue or seeking help. The 988 number is the new suicide and mental illness number in South Carolina for people to call. The Overflow Foundation was founded by Lee in 2019 while she was grieving the loss of her eldest son, Phillip Lee Jr. After being diagnosed with substance use disorder and bipolar disorder, he died by suicide on Sept. 6, 2018. The mission of the organization is to raise awareness about suicide, mental illness and spreading the message of hope. Lee decided to do a mural after seeing the love mural on Newberry Street. The mural was painted by April Henry King, who had a personal connection to Phillip Lee Jr. The artist remembers how he was friends with her and her husband and would listen to him sing at a coffee shop in Augusta. As way to cope, she painted a picture of him. She said Phillip Lee Jr. would be happy she did the mural because he loved her artwork and mentioned it before he died. She said Terry Lee came up with the message, while she came up with the visual elements to the mural. The message is spiritual and also can speak to those dealing with any issues. It is going to be so helpful to people that are having some of the issues he was having, she said. Lee said the goal of the mural is to point people to hope and that things are going to be OK with hope. It is a mural with a greater purpose, Lee said. One of Boeing Co.'s massive Dreamlifter cargo jets landed safely at Charleston International on Oct. 11 after losing a wheel during takeoff in Italy. The Dreamlifter, a modified 747-400 jumbo jet built to haul large aircraft parts for assembly at Boeing's 787 Dreamliner campus in North Charleston, arrived at about 2:15 p.m. following a roughly 5,100-mile flight from Taranto-Grottaglie Airport. The site of the incident in southeast Italy is near aerospace firm Leonardo's manufacturing site, which builds fuselage sections for the Dreamliner. The company is among dozens of suppliers around the globe that build 787 parts to be flown to the North Charleston campus, where the wide-body jets are assembled. A video posted to a Reddit group devoted to aerospace issues shows one of the wheels on the Dreamlifter's left landing gear falling off just seconds after the plane left the runway, landing within Taranto-Grottaglie's perimeter. The incident was accompanied by a plume of black smoke. The Dreamlifter crew continued the flight and apparently made the trip back to South Carolina without further incident. The plane was being operated by Atlas Air, under a contract with Boeing. A spokesman at Charleston International said the adjacent Joint Base Charleston handles emergency incidents at the airport. A spokesman for Joint Base Charleston referred questions to Boeing. The planemaker confirmed the incident, saying Atlas Air will investigate. "We will support our operators investigation," a spokeswoman said. The four-engine 747 is one of the world's largest planes used for both cargo and passenger transport and one of the few that uses four main landing gears, with four wheels apiece. The extra landing gears most commercial planes have two or three help distribute the weight when the jets touch down, according to SimpleFlying.com. The Dreamlifter has a maximum takeoff weight of more than 400 tons. Boeing has a fleet of four of the cargo jets. They are based at the North Charleston campus, where all 787 assembly work was consolidated in early 2021. Update: The Board of Architectural Review on Oct. 12 tabled a vote on the planned apartment building at 295 Calhoun St. The reworked design of a proposed eight-story apartment building near Charleston's medical district is back up for review a year after its previous architectural features stirred discontent. The city is poised to recommend approval, but preservationists already are targeting the redesign as nothing new. SE Calhoun LLC, an affiliate of Augusta-based developer Southeastern, which paid $12 million for the property two years ago, will ask the Board of Architectural Review Oct. 12 for initial approval of the planned structure at 295 Calhoun St. "The applicant has addressed the comments made by the board and comments the staff has made," said Robert Summerfield, city planning director. "The city is recommending conceptual approval with staff and board comments." The Preservation Society of Charleston takes a different view. "This is the third attempt by this team to build an almost-identical building on this site," said Brian Turner, the group's president and CEO. "Effectively nothing has changed," he added. "This proposed building remains cavernous and out of scale and would result in a massive new structure that doesn't contribute to the pedestrian environment of downtown. Charleston deserves better." The project was first considered by the architectural board 18 months ago. In April 2021, city staffers agreed that an eighth floor made sense for the project but made several recommendations for modifications after the BAR denied the concept the first time that spring. The developer incorporated many of the suggestions, but not all, according to the staffs report in August 2021. That resulted in the BAR's second rejection after city staff members said the building's square footprint with long facades gave it a "blocky perception" that led to much of the public outcry over the planned development. The Preservation Society objected as well at the time, calling the proposal "a parking garage wrapped in apartments." Sign up for our real estate newsletter! Get the best of the Post and Courier's Real Estate news, handpicked and delivered to your inbox each Saturday. Email Sign Up! The board asked Southeastern to reconsider the project's height, scale and mass as well as its general architectural look. The developer appealed the decision in September 2021 and asked for prelitigation mediation with city staff members to resolve differences on the building's exterior features. The developer later withdrew the appeal after working with the city on a new design, Summerfield said. The latest proposal adds two 20-foot recessed areas along Calhoun Street to soften the previous design. It also sets the eighth story back several feet so it's not visible from the ground level. The developer also has pushed the building back from Halsey Boulevard on the eastern side by nearly 23 feet, based on nearby residents' concerns. The building steps down to six stories for the units on the Halsey side and five stories for those overlooking Alberta Long Lake on the back side. Porches have been added on the ground level of the east and west sides. A linear park extends along the building's western side from Calhoun Street to the lake, where the developer will include landscape improvements for a pedestrian trail around the water feature. The park site will eventually be deeded to the city. The developer also proposes a stormwater easement, extending from the medical district to the lake, to help control frequent flooding. A valve also will be installed on the lake to control tidal flow from the Ashley River and help lower the water level before a hurricane and heavy rain event so it can collect stormwater. Those and other proposed building design changes will result in 307 units, 11 fewer than the previously rejected design. The project also includes 15,000 square feet of retail space on the front and back. Southeastern attorney Alice Paylor said the developer "worked tirelessly with the city" and "made 40 changes as requested." She also noted proposed changes that will "bring wonderful amenities to the lake area and some flooding relief as well." Paylor lamented the Preservation Society's stance on the new design. "There are some groups that just wont support the developments allowed by zoning," she said. "Southeastern is a good neighbor and will be a great developer for this project." Hong Kong: Jab certificate invalidation on hold The Government announced today that it will suspend the arrangement for refusing the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination medical exemption certificates suspected of abuse in issuance. Earlier, seven private doctors were suspected of failing to provide a proper medical consultation to patients in accordance with the Department of Healths guidelines and abusing the issuance of jab exemption certificates. The Government then decided that from Wednesday, such exemption documents issued by the seven doctors would not be accepted for Vaccine Pass purposes. However, in view of the High Courts interim injunction, which was handed down today having considered the pending substantive hearing of the relevant judicial review case, the Government will put on hold its plan to refuse the jab exemption certificates until the court has conducted a substantive hearing on the judicial review and given further instruction. The Government reiterated that people may put their own life at risk if they continue to delay vaccination according to the problematic medical recommendations. Such individuals should seek medical consultation again from other doctors to ascertain whether they are suitable for the jab or can continue to be medically exempted, it added. This story has been published on: 2022-10-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. ATLANTIC BEACH A Town Council member was among the three related victims two in Columbia and one near Conway found shot to death Oct. 9. An Horry County man, Matthew Allen Dewitt, 25, is in custody on charges of murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. No bond had been set as of 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 12. James Dewitt II, and Gloria Dewitt, both 52, of Columbia, were found by Richland County Sheriffs Department deputies around 7:05 p.m. in a home in the 400 block of Greensprings Drive outside of Columbia, dead with apparent gunshot wounds. James "Jim" Dewitt was a Town Council member in Atlantic Beach, a position he had held for nearly a year, according to Town Manager Benjamin Quattlebaum. Dewitt also was the owner of Legends Security and Sound Inc., a home security company, in Columbia. "The Town of Atlantic Beach, South Carolina, community is shocked and deeply sadden by the deaths of Councilman Jim DeWitt and his family," Mayor Jake Evans said in an Oct. 11 statement. "The Town is fully cooperating with the investigations into this matter by the Horry and Richland County Sheriff Departments. We offer our condolences and deepest sympathy to the family." Michael David, a neighbor and friend of James Dewitt, posted on Facebook: "Im shocked and speechless. Jim was a good friend. He was my next door neighbor for 7 years and owned Legends Security. When my house was burglarized, Jim came out the same day, rescheduled another client, and installed our entire security system the very next day. He did this so we could feel safe in our home again. He and Gloria were truly good people and our community will feel their loss for years to come." Earlier that same day, Horry County Police Department responded around 4:40 p.m. to a home in the 4000 block of S.C. Highway 319 outside of Conway where they discovered the body of Natasha Stevens, 52, of Conway. According to the Horry County Coroner's Office, Stevens had also died of gunshot wounds. "Natasha moved back to South Carolina to take care of her mother. Sweetest family. Natasha did not deserve this to happen to her. So giving to so many and so much more amazing things were coming to her. Gifted, talented and a beautiful soul," Stevens' friend Beto Lopez posted on Facebook. At around 2:25 p.m. Oct. 10, Matthew Dewitt was arrested in Atlantic Beach by Horry County officers in the town of Atlantic Beach in connection with the shootings. Charges are pending, according to a news release from the Horry County Police Department. Investigators with Richland County Sheriffs Department and Horry County Police Department are working in collaboration. The investigations remain active and ongoing. Further information will be provided when possible. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Last update: 8:30 a.m. Oct. 12 Caitlin Ashworth is a crime reporter for The Post and Courier in Columbia. She spent several years in Thailand before moving to South Carolina. GREENVILLE The evolution from white tablecloth dining to elevated casual continues for the Rick Erwin Dining Group with the addition of another restaurant to its portfolio. Later this month, the The Vista will take over the space that The Burrow vacated this past August. The Vista is an ode to where it is located on Augusta Street at the outer rim of the Alta Vista neighborhood, which has roots deep in Greenville's history. The idea is to create a community restaurant, which means an elevated casual feel for a restaurant group with its own roots dating back decades in the early Greenville upscale dining scene. You will still get the same level of quality and excellence youve come to expect from us, but this is not a fine dining establishment and you wont see any white tablecloths here," Michael Ivey, owner and chief financial officer for Rick Erwin's, said in an Oct. 10 release. This foray into the casual realm follows six months after the group's Saltwater Kitchen restaurant reopened in Haywood Mall with a similar reimagining of the group's typical concept. The Vista will offer dinner service Tuesday through Saturday, with brunch on Sunday. The menu will feature appetizers that start at $8, such as deviled eggs, fried green tomatoes and crispy calamari. Entrees like seared tuna, rotisserie chicken and classic company crab cakes range roughly in price from $15 to $30. "We'll have steak on the menu, but this is not a steakhouse," Ivey said. Opening a restaurant in the Augusta Road neighborhood, as that area near Augusta Street is known, has been a longtime dream of Ivey and founder Rick Erwin. The opportunity came suddenly when The Burrow closed this past August. It cited labor shortages and other challenges. The Burrow ownership said it would focus on its original two downtown restaurants, Barley's and The Trappe Door. The space at 2017 Augusta St., across from the former fire station at East Faris Road, will be slightly altered with some cosmetic changes like a map of the neighborhood on the wall. The Vista isn't to be considered a replacement for Nantucket, one of the group's mainstay restaurants that this past February closed in the Downtown Marriott after a decade in business. Nantucket will remain a downtown brand, Ivey said. "We are actively looking for a place to reopen Nantucket, but we want it to remain a downtown destination, and there are only so many opportunities for what we believe to be the ideal location," he said. "We are going to take our time and be sure we get it right." Earlier this year, the city of Greenville signed a new agreement with the Marriott's owner to transform the courtyard between the hotel and City Hall into an outdoor event space. As part of that, Charleston-based The Indigo Road Hospitality Group has been tapped to bring two new establishments sushi restaurant O-Ku, and wood-fired pizza and Italian restaurant Indaco. The outdoor area will have an open bar with ability to order food, along with lounge seating and a woodburning fireplace. The new addition will still allow the popular Ice On Main seasonal skating rink to operate in the winter. Kingstree, SC (29556) Today A clear sky. Low around 35F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A clear sky. Low around 35F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. HAMPTON A new lawsuit accuses Alex Murdaugh of conspiring with his former law partners and a local bank to steal an untold sum from one of their mutual clients. The Oct. 7 claim, made by Manuel Santis-Cristiani of Chiapas, Mexico, comes with familiar allegations against Murdaugh. Other suits and criminal indictments have accused the disbarred attorney of surreptitiously pilfering nearly $9 million over the past decade from settlements and fees owed to his legal clients, law partners and others who trusted him. But the new lawsuit, filed in Hampton County, alleges a wider conspiracy involving other accomplices at the storied Murdaugh family firm an accusation those targeted in the suit strongly deny. According to the lawsuit, brought by Orangeburg attorneys Glenn Walters and Korey Williams, the alleged conspiracy played out this way: Santis-Cristiani hired the Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth, Detrick firm to represent him after a 2008 car accident in Colleton County. Murdaugh and former PMPED attorneys Ronnie Crosby and William Barnes III filed a lawsuit on Santis-Cristianis behalf against Ford Motor Co. and Michelin North America in August 2011. The lawyers settled the case in September 2013 but never told Santis-Cristiani how much the two companies agreed to cough up as part of the deal. The settlement funds were deposited to Palmetto State Bank, where they were overseen by bank executive Russell Laffitte, an alleged Murdaugh accomplice. Santis-Cristiani never got a dime of the money. The new lawsuit names as defendants Murdaugh, Crosby, Barnes, the PMPED firm, Laffitte and Palmetto State Bank. It asks for an accounting of the settlement money and for the defendants to pay Santis-Cristiani what he was owed, plus interest and punitive damages. Murdaugh defense attorney Dick Harpootlian declined to comment on the new allegations. But other defendants quickly denied any wrongdoing. The PMPED firm rebranded as the Parker Law Group in the wake of Murdaughs very public and spectacular unraveling last year. In an Oct. 11 statement, it wrote: The Parker Law Group and its members believe the lawsuit is without merit, and we expect it to be dismissed. Crosby issued his own statement denying wrongdoing. Any allegation in this lawsuit that I did anything improper is false, and the Plaintiff and his attorneys know any such claim is false, he wrote. I call upon them to immediately dismiss me from this lawsuit. Barnes, who now has his own practice, said he is aware of the lawsuit and disputes the allegations: "Any allegation of wrongdoing on my part is false, and I intend to defend my name against these accusations." Walters, lead attorney for Santis-Cristiani, could not immediately be reached for comment. Palmetto State Bank attorney Trenholm Walker said the bank would not comment on pending litigation. Matt Austin, a defense attorney for Laffitte, also declined to comment. Laffitte was fired as CEO of Palmetto State Bank in January as questions swirled about his dealings with Murdaugh. He is now is preparing for a November trial on federal fraud charges connected to allegations he helped Murdaugh steal from their mutual clients. Federal agents have arrested an Upstate couple on charges of storming the U.S. Capitol together on Jan. 6, 2021, bringing the tally of South Carolinians ensnared in the sprawling criminal probe to 18. William John Wyatt Gallman, 37, and his wife, Joei Josie Leann Gallman, 42, were rounded up Sept. 27 and arraigned at the federal courthouse in Greenville, records show. Surveillance footage shows the Fountain Inn couple walking throughout the Capitol that day after a mob of President Donald Trump supporters overpowered police officers guarding the building and forced their way inside, according to arrest warrants. Decked out in Trump hats and beanies, the Gallmans entered the building around 2:20 p.m., just minutes after then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress had fled to safety, investigators alleged. Charging documents state the Gallmans were accompanied by a third man, 59-year-old Laurens resident Alan Scott Culbertson, who is listed as a co-defendant though there is no record of his arrest. Social media posts indicate Culbertson is a family friend who is involved in stock car racing with the Gallmans. Reached by a reporter on Oct. 11, Culbertson declined to comment on the case: Im not sure Im supposed to talk about that with anybody, he said. The Gallmans were each released from jail on $25,000 bonds and instructed to have no contact with Culbertson. Efforts to reach the Gallmans or their defense attorney, Greenville public defender Lora Blanchard, on Oct. 11 were unsuccessful. Their late September arrests were not announced by the U.S. Department of Justice, as many others have been. Their cases have yet to be transferred to Washington, D.C., where more than 870 defendants from all 50 states are being tried in what has become the largest criminal investigation in American history. The Gallmans arrests is the latest sign that the hunt for South Carolinians who participated in the botched uprising remains ongoing, though new arrests have slowed to a trickle in recent months. Agents have tracked down rioters with the help of anonymous tipsters; social media; GPS data; and footage from surveillance cameras, body-worn cameras and news outlets. Of South Carolinas 18 defendants, nine have pleaded guilty and one more Citadel cadet Elias Irizarry is scheduled to do so later this month. Seven have been sentenced, with four getting prison time ranging from 14 days to 44 months. Six others, aside from the Gallmans, are still weighing the charges against them. Investigators allege the Gallmans spent 35 minutes inside the Capitol, taking pictures as they walked through the Rotunda and Statuary Hall like tourists, before exiting around 2:55 p.m. They arent accused of assaulting police or vandalizing the building. When interviewed by investigators, the couple admitted to traveling to Washington, D.C., attending Trumps Stop the Steal rally, and then marching on and entering the Capitol. The Gallmans even allowed investigators to photograph the clothing they wore inside the Capitol that day, leaving no doubt they were correctly identified in surveillance footage. The Mama's Used Cars sign overlooks Savannah Highway south of the Interstate 526 on ramp in 2018. The longtime spokeswoman, Mary Elizabeth Armstrong, has died at age 101. File/Staff Charleston, SC (29403) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High around 65F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low 43F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Political Editor Schuyler Kropf is The Post and Courier political editor. He has covered every major political race in South Carolina dating to 1988, including for U.S. Senate, governorship, the Statehouse and Republican and Democratic presidential primaries. PACOLET Work continues in Pacolet to hire an interim police chief with assistance from the Appalachian Council of Governments a month after most of the officers resigned. The deadline for applications was 5 p.m. Oct. 7 for interim police chief candidates. Former Police Chief John Alexander and three officers resigned Sept. 14 citing conflicts with the town administrators. A reserve officer also resigned. The town of about 2,500 people on the eastern edge of Spartanburg County was once a prosperous mill town. Many of the mill houses remain not far from the Pacolet River, which runs through the town's center. While the town has attracted some new small businesses, it continues to rebuild itself with attempts to attract new business. Some residents said a strong police department is needed to help rebuild the town's image as a safe place for families. The officers' resignations were unexpected and created uncertainty on how the town would proceed. There's been interest in the interim police chief position and officer positions since the resignations. "I know that we have had several that have inquired and others send in resumes, so we will review those next week," Town Administrator Patrick Kay told The Post and Courier. "Once we hire on the interim, we will begin the process for a permanent police chief and then officers." About 15 residents attended an Oct. 6 Town Council meeting with some seeking answers on what the town's plans are to rebuild the police department. Brian Bozard of Pacolet during the public comment period of the meeting challenged the town to be more transparent and show better leadership through the hiring process of new officers. Mayor Ned Camby and Town Councilman Jason Wright said the interview process for hiring a new interim police chief could begin in late October with the position filled as soon as November. Wright suggested all of the council members be part of the interview process. In the meantime, the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office will continue to provide law enforcement protection by responding to calls within town limits. Councilman Daniel Hood told The Post and Courier he's seen an increased presence from Sheriff's Office deputies since the town's police officers resigned. "I know some of the calls' wait times may be longer but nothing critical has been delayed," Hood said. "We hope next month an interim police chief will be appointed to help establish that command structure. The rebuilding process may be slow once the interim chief gets in place." Hood said it was important for town leadership to focus on the future rather than dwell on the past. Over the next two weeks, the applications will be reviewed and sent to the mayor and town council for consideration. Trey Eubanks, Appalachian Council of Government's government services consultant, will work with the town's leaders to help identify the best candidates. Eubanks said the town contacted him Sept. 19 to help assist with the interim police chief hiring process. Eubanks said he will participate in the interviewing process in Pacolet. "The mayor and council members will determine the dates to interview and select applicants to interview," Eubanks said. "I will help coordinate that process." With the officer resignations, it left the police department with only one full-time officer. That officer Timothy Wayne Williams Jr., 30, of Pacolet was arrested Sept. 21 and booked into the Spartanburg County Detention Center on charges of misconduct in office. According to warrants, between Nov. 17, 2021 and Jan. 26, 2022, Williams in his official capacity as a police officer with the Pacolet department improperly obtained information without a lawful reason from a Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office database and a South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles database. Derek Chauvin could not afford an attorney to appeal his convictions in the case of George Floyd. Chauvins insurance did not extend to appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court denied him a public defender. Although I thought Chauvin could not have received a fair trial in Hennepin County, it looked like he wouldnt be able to raise the issue on appeal either. I put out the call on Power Line for some member of the Minnesota bar to represent Chauvin on appeal. In the best tradition of the American legal profession, my friend Bill Mohrman answered the call. Chauvins legal defense fund is here at GiveSendGo. I spoke to Bill this morning about the appeal. The states brief was written by a team of lawyers led by Neal Katyal, volunteering his and his firms services to the prosecution of Chauvin. Katyal is easily one of the most prominent appellate lawyers in the United States. I asked Bill if he didnt feel like he was up against Goliath. He laughed, which I interpreted in the affirmative. He said he thought that everyone is entitled to an attorney representing him. He added, If were getting away from that in this country, were in big trouble. Briefing of the appeal was completed last week. Bill anticipates that oral argument will be scheduled before a panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals in January. I should note that they are elected judges who must be cognizant of the consequences of decision requiring retrial at a venue outside Hennepin County. It wouldnt be pretty. The Hennepin County District Court page on the Chauvin case is here. It affords access to each of the appellate briefs including Appellants Brief (Chauvin), Respondents Brief (the state or the prosecution), and Appellants Reply Brief. Virtually every time I wrote about the trial on Power Line I noted the riots that preceded it, the riots that occurred during it, and the concrete and barbed-wire construction around the courthouse that gave visible form to the lynch-mob atmosphere of the proceedings. National Guard troops were stationed outside the courthouse along with two armored personnel carriers. Security concerns were such that the jurors assembled at an undisclosed location each morning during the trial and were driven to and from the courthouse by Hennepin County Sheriffs officers in unmarked vans. The Star Tribune reported: The unprecedented effort aimed at protecting jurors from danger and outside influence cost $21,905 in van rentals. One more thing. Governor Walz began deploying National Guard troops around Minneapolis and St. Paul as early as Wednesday, April 14, 2021-before jury sequestration-in the event riots occurred post verdict, as Bill puts it at page 29 of Appellants Brief. Post verdict should be translated as in the unlikely event of a not guilty verdict. Everyone in his right mind understood the secondary effects of a not guilty verdict. Bill does a good job of leading with the pretrial publicity, security issues, and other events that precluded a fair trial. Bill relies on the two-tier analysis set forth in the United States Supreme Courts Skilling case to argue that prejudice should have been presumed under the circumstances of this case. Turning to the states brief, this statement leaps out at me on page 17 (footnote omitted): The United States Supreme Court has likewise cautioned that a presumption of prejudice applies only in the extreme casesuch as those involving kangaroo court proceedings, bedlam, a carnival atmosphere, or a disturbing lack of judicial serenity. Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 379-381 (2010) (cleaned up). Again, that is the state speaking in Respondents Brief on the law applicable to Chauvins Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial under controlling case law. This is me speaking. If this wasnt the extreme case, there never was one and there will never be one. A report in todays Wall Street Journal depicts Joe Bidens Keystone Kops administration in action: Days before a major oil-production cut by OPEC and its Russia-led allies, U.S. officials called their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and other big Gulf producers with an urgent appealdelay the decision for another month, according to people familiar with the talks. The answer: a resounding no. *** Saudi officials dismissed the requests, which they viewed as a political gambit by the Biden administration to avoid bad news ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, on which control of Congress hangs. The Biden administration denies that its urgent request was politically motivated: Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, rejected Saudi contentions that the Biden administration efforts were driven by political calculations. Its categorically false to connect this to U.S. elections, Ms. Watson said. Its about the impact of this shortsighted decision to the global economy. But the political implications of the administrations request are obvious: The one-month delay requested by Washington would have meant a production cut made in the days before the election, too late to have much effect on consumers wallets ahead of the vote. This is beyond lame. It is pathetic: Since the OPEC+ decision, the White House vowed to fight OPECs control of the energy market. The obvious way to fight OPECs control of the energy market is by producing all the oil and gas we can. It was obvious to Donald Trump, anyway. It is hard to believe that Biden and his advisers are actually this dim. Instead of responding rationally by maximizing our own production, the Biden administration wants to punish Saudi Arabia: Lawmakers from across the political spectrum called on the U.S. to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia. And U.S. officials started looking for ways to punish Riyadh. The administration piles stupidity on top of stupidity. I suppose if he really gets desperate, Biden can denounce Saudi Arabia as a pariah state. Oh, wait, he already did that. Weird that the Saudis werent interested in doing Biden any political favors. Tulsi Gabbards announced exit from the Democratic Party via Twitter this morning was only a small slice of the larger video below she has posted on YouTube as episode 1 of The Tulsi Gabbard Show. The whole thing makes for a thoroughgoing denunciation of Democrats and the Democrat Party line. At the same time she sketches out her agreement with key Republican and conservative positions. She is a highly persuasive and winning advocate of the positions she stakes out on the contentious issues she addresses in the video. It is must viewing. I still wonder what her next move is. I hope she lands on our side. That much I can tell you. Im counting on John Hinderaker to figure it all out when he hosts her at the Center of the American Experiments well-timed if sold-out Fall Briefing this weekend. Millions of illegal immigrants have streamed across our Southern border over the last year and a half, coming from places like Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, and various countries in the Middle East. But our northern borderthe longest unguarded border in the world, as I learned in elementary schoolhas never seen many illegal crossings. So this story, which appeared originally on Patch and was picked up by my colleague Bill Glahn, is curious. I will quote Bill: While all of the attention of late has been on apprehensions of migrants at the southern border, the northern border made the news last week. The U.S. Border Patrol issued a press release on Friday, Oct. 7, about an operation conducted last month near the Minnesota/Canadian border. On Sept. 25, an agent from the patrols Warroad office checked out a report of two vehicles illegally crossing the border near Roseau, Minnesota. The agent located one vehicle at a gas station, and found one UK national and three Irish nationals. The other vehicle took off. It was found the next day at a restaurant in Bemidji. Eight more illegal migrants were found, seven from the U.K. and one from Ireland. Since when do we get illegal immigrants from Ireland and the U.K.? They are generally happy where they are, and can easily get here legally. This is a developing story. Maybe these miscreants are incipient terrorists, or maybe it was all a misunderstanding. But our Northern border is porous, and if terrorists or other bad actors want to cross, there is little to stop them. Bill Glahn reminds us that Northern crossings do not always end well: More common, unfortunately, are events like the tragic case from earlier this year when a group of migrants from India froze to death attempting a winter crossing of the northern border. Maybe there is something to this story, and maybe there isnt. We will have a better idea when the illegal aliens have been identified. For now, lets just say that it is curious. Like many other Lagos residents, Sikiru Ibrahim goes out daily to earn a living. However, unlike millions of other residents, he is a beggar. The vocation Mr Ibrahim survives on, in the Lagos Island area, is an irritant to many Lagos residents. One day in 2013, the state governments special task force team swooped on beggars in the area. Recalling the experience, Mr Ibrahim said he was taken as far as Ikorodu where he was detained for hours. When we got there, we were plenty and we were asked to pay N50,000. I was able to pay mine with the help of people I called for assistance. After I paid the money, I was allowed to go, he said. He said others who could not pay the fine were detained. Mr Ibrahims case is not an isolated one, as many like him still face such troubles of imprisonment, exorbitant fines, arrest and detention in different parts of Nigeria. The means of survival and way of life of many poor persons are criminalised or classified as arrestable conduct. Over the years, the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) has raised concerns about the existence of vague, overly broad, colonial-era national laws and petty offences in many African countries. These countries impede the enjoyment of human rights by all persons, ACHPR says. According to the body, people targeted with these laws are deprived of their rights, particularly on the basis of social origin, social status or fortune; the negative socio-economic impact of the enforcement of these offences. The body also notes that many vulnerable people suffer from a lack of access to legal assistance services for persons who are unable to afford a private lawyer. On many occasions, the victims end up in jail. Nafisat Lukman, a 31-year-old nursing mother who trades in stick meats and herbal drinks in Nigerias federal capital city, is an example. In August, she was arrested along with dozens of hawkers, mostly women, by the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB). They allegedly violated section 35(1)(d) of the AEPB Act of 1997, which criminalises hawking at a road junction or any unauthorised area within the FCT, and imposes not less than N5,000 as a fine on anyone found guilty of the offence. Taskforce teams routinely hunt down petty traders and hawkers displaying their wares for sale along the road in different parts of Abuja. Many are detained until they are able to pay the imposed fine. A task force arrested Mrs Lukman and seized her wares at Garki, Area 3. I was arrested last month (August). At least, I was arrested twice in two weeks of the same August and I slept in their custody in Area 3. I was not able to see my three-month-old baby, she said. She said she and others were taken to a mobile court before a magistrate and we were asked to bail ourselves. I paid N3,000 but my goods were never returned to me. It was really painful and it has put me in debt, because what are we selling and gaining? I can say I lost over N60,000 as a result of my arrest and recouping back my items I used in selling my goods, she narrated. Mrs Lukman appealed for the governments pity. At least for me I cannot go into prostitution to feed. Petty offences wear face of poverty In 2017, the ACHPR, the African Unions body coordinating human and peoples rights policies on the continent, adopted a strategy to firm up its campaigns for decriminalisation and declassification of minor offences, such as being a rogue and vagabond, loitering, prostitution, failure to pay debts and disobedience to parents. Nigerias National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has keyed into the ACHPRs agenda of decriminalisation of petty offences. Laws that create petty offences are inconsistent with the principles of equality before the law and non-discrimination on the basis that they either target or have a disproportionate impact on the poor and other vulnerable persons, the declaration by the ACHPR states. Human rights campaigners say petty offences wear the face of poverty. Such offences, according to experts, are mostly non-violent crimes. Speaking at an event for drawing an action plan for the decriminalisation of petty offences in Lagos State in July 2021, a committee chair of the states House of Assembly, Victor Akande, said petty offences do not constitute a threat to the safety of the public, law and order in the state. The ACHPR says such offences are inconsistent with Articles 2, 3 and 18 of the African Charter on the right to equality and non-discrimination. These offences are still in Nigerian laws despite the ACHPRs recommendations and the campaigns by Nigerias NHRC. They fall within the broad category of minor offences, misdemeanours, simple offences and summary or regulatory offences in different national and subnational laws. Oluyemi Orija, the executive director of Headfort Foundation, noted that the enforcement of the laws targets the poor who on many occasions have no resources to hire lawyers or to bribe the police. These are apart from incessant cases of arbitrary arrests and detentions for conduct either not or vaguely codified. Figures speak Data compiled by various non-governmental organisations with a focus on the decriminalisation of petty offences reveal that a sizeable number of citizens targeted by minor offences laws suffer violations through arrests or detention for wandering and loitering. For instance, Lawyer Alert says its data show that between April 2021 and September 2021, 700 wandering and loitering cases representing 16 per cent of petty offences cases tracked nationwide were recorded. The group says young males are more regularly held for the offences and in the process forced to unlock their phones for proof that they are not rogues or vagabonds. Notably, another 10 per cent of the recorded cases involved hawking and seven per cent of the cases involved commercial sex workers, during the period. A similar study by Rehabilitation and Welfare and Action (PRAWA), through its Petty Offence Project, stated that 2,431 people charged with petty offences got pro bono services across five states from February 2020 to April 2021. According to the report, Abuja had the highest of 1,897 persons or 77.13 per cent, while Lagos State followed with 147 persons or 6.05 per cent. Abia State in south-east Nigeria came third with 136 cases, Enugu State also in the South-east had 137 cases and Kano State in the North-west had 114 cases. The deputy director of PRAWA, Ogechi Ogu, told PREMIUM TIMES that some of the offences classified as petty/minor are usually connected to the poor, vulnerable and marginalised persons in society such as women and children. Unfortunately, often these poor offenders are arrested and put in detention because even in cases they are given options of fine, they are not able to pay, Ms Ogu said. Some of the offenders are children who regrettably are taken into custody to be contaminated by adult offenders. A lawyer, Festus Ogun, expressed the same view. Our criminal justice system itself is criminal and punishes the poor. If not, those who instituted the charge should be made to answer serious questions. Enforcement births arbitrary arrests, illegal detention There are documented cases of how enforcement of petty offences laws has resulted in arbitrary arrests, illegal detention, torture and violations of various rights. The ACPHR has linked it to overcrowding at prison facilities. In February 2017, the police raided a suspected sex workers hub in Mabushi in Abuja. Monica Manasseh, a 42-year-old sex worker, was one of those arrested that evening. The task force that led the operation comprised officials of the AEPB, the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Army. Legal experts say there is no Nigerian law that specifically or expressly criminalises prostitution. But like in many petty offences cases, enforcement actions against prostitution come with rights violations. Ms Manasseh recalled that the task force searched her indecently and took away her money. The police came at night and were raiding the whole area. I was assaulted by the officials before they arrested me and some others, the mother of three narrated. She said she was taken to Area 8 police parade ground where she was detained for three days before she was bailed. Getting home, I discovered that my whole properties were either destroyed or carted away during the operation. The N280, 000 I kept at home was nowhere to be found and my plasma television was destroyed among other valuables, she narrated. In May 2019, Lawyers Alert filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja on behalf of Ms Manasseh and 15 other women for redress. On 19 December 2019, the judge, Binta Nyako, gave judgement in their favour confirming that officers of the security taskforce had illegally broken into Ms Manassehs and other womens apartments in Abuja in violation of their rights. The court awarded N100,000 in compensation from the Nigerian government. Like Ms Manasseh, Rasaq Ibrahim, 30, a driver and soap marketer from Warri, Delta State, had travelled to Ekiti State for a family event when he was arrested at a hotel in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. The police raided the hotel where he had gone to see a friend for what they called a disturbance of the peace by some suspects. From the day of his arrest on 25 February, he was detained until March 14 when the police arraigned him and two others Ganiyu Saheed, 25, and Yusuf Oke, 21, before the Magistrate Court of Ado Ekiti. They were charged with one count under section 249 of the Ekiti State Criminal Code for conducting themselves in a manner likely to create a breach of peace by causing disturbance in a public place. His lawyer, Ezealaji Endurance, told PREMIUM TIMES that the case suffered a series of adjournments because the officers who had arrested him failed to appear in court. Mr Ibrahim eventually spent six months in jail, awaiting trial, before he was released on 31 August. The offence itself was only punishable by one month of imprisonment. Arbitrary, unfair trials Some Nigerian Airforce officers arrested Ganiyu Rafiu, 32, for wearing a T-shirt with a camouflage design around Oniwire Junction in Lagos sometime in early October 2020. His explanation that he donned the T-Shirt to appear gallant for his role at a private security firm based in Lagos did not salvage the situation. His case is another example of how vague criminal laws can be exploited by security agents to violate citizens and cloak the violations in legitimacy through the judicial process. Mr Rafiu recalled being beaten mercilessly by the military personnel before he was thrown into their van and driven away. He spent two weeks in detention at the Military Police base where he was accused of impersonation; assault and denied contact with his family. He was transferred to the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) office at Lagos State Police Command where he spent another two weeks before he was charged in court. Mr Rafius appearance in court on that fateful Monday lasted barely 10 minutes when he was arraigned and granted bail. The widower was remanded at the Kirikiri Medium Prison in Apapa Lagos for nearly one year due to his inability to meet his bail conditions. The conditions included the provision of two public servants as sureties and N50,000. It took the intervention of Eniola Omosehin, a lawyer provided through a civil society organisation, Headfort Foundations Lawyers Without Border Project, to secure Mr Rafius release. The lawyer did not achieve this without meeting some of the road bumps of the judicial system. The police had filed the case without pursuing it. So, on 26 August 2021, the defence applied that the case should be struck out since neither the prosecution nor the witness was presented in court. The court rejected the application on the grounds that the case was coming up in court for the first time. The magistrate, however, had no choice other than to strike it out when the prosecution still refused to show up at the second hearing on 30 September 2021. Sections 109 and 110 of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act under which he was charged stipulate a punishment of one year on conviction. But without being convicted, Mr Rafiu spent nearly the same amount of time in jail. No one should, in my opinion, be punished because of the colour or style of clothing they are wearing, says Mr Ogun. He said the legitimate approach to handling such situations is to lodge a formal complaint with the police, and once it is established that the outfit is not used to commit a crime there is no basis for all these. Lawyers also point out the issue of lack of fair trial and needless criminalisation of traffic breaches in the enforcement of Lagos State traffic laws. According to the Lagos State Transport Sector Reform Law 2018, anyone who disregards traffic signals or drives in a way that is against the law would have to pay a fine, forfeit their car, and serve one year of jail time for a first offence and three years for a second. But Inibehe Effiong, a rights activist and lawyer, said any law that gives the government power to seize and/or auction off a citizens car or other property without a fair trial and due process is illegal, null and void. Another human rights lawyer, Monday Ubani, says any law that punishes a traffic offender to a point that he loses his car is a clear violation of citizens rights to own property. The traffic offence law that makes driving one way such that you can lose your car? It is a law that I am not comfortable with. And I am ready to challenge that law. It is a clear violation of the citizens, Mr Ubani said. Calls for a review The ACHPR said the enforcement of petty offences has the effect of punishing, segregating, controlling and undermining the dignity of persons on the basis of their status. So, in the recommendations adopted in 2017, the body calls on African countries to ensure that laws which criminalise the status of a person or their appearance are decriminalised, in particular, laws that criminalise life-sustaining activities in public places. It notes with horror the overcrowding in prison populations across Africa. This speaks to one of the issues with Nigerias criminal justice system. According to the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, about 70 per cent of inmates in Nigerian prisons are awaiting trial, many of them for petty offences. Many of them are abandoned cases, like those of Messrs Rafiu and Ibrahim that were abandoned by the prosecution because of the unavailability of evidence. Mr Aregbesola wants at least 30 per cent of prison inmates freed. The presidential committee on prison reform and decongestion headed by Ishaq Bello, a former chief judge of the Federal Capital Territory, started a campaign in 2016 to free awaiting trial prisoners whose remand period had exceeded the maximum sentence possible for their alleged crimes. The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, says the committee freed 10,000 inmates in four years. For Ms Ogu, Nigeria should leverage the availability of laws such as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, the Administration of Criminal Justice Laws of different states of the federation, and the Nigerian Correctional Service Act 2019 to avail offenders opportunities of non-custodial alternatives pending when these laws are abolished by the different states. People charged with cases with a very little misdemeanour should just be left to commit themselves to penalties that are communal related and not necessarily in incarceration, Lanre Suraju, a social justice activist said. Although Nigeria has abolished some minor offences of wandering, activists and policy experts agree the national and subnational laws have not taken requisite action in terms of amendments to the Criminal and Penal Code Acts and expunging such provisions. As a result, law enforcement officials continue to exploit it to arrest people. The overuse of pretrial detention in situations of petty offenders was noted as a further issue by Ms Ogu of PRAWA. It (pretrial detention) shouldnt be used for low-risk offenders, and Nigeria can benefit from using other approaches to dealing with offenders, such as non-custodial alternatives like probation, community service, restorative justice, and other variations of non-custodial measures, she said. While calling for strategies for preventing sending people to the prison system, the ACPHR advocates the use of alternatives to criminal prosecution and the declassification and decriminalisation of some offences. Tackle root cause poverty Jiti Ogunye, a public interest lawyer, recommended that the government should provide social welfare and programmes to deter individuals who commit petty crimes out of necessity. These processes, he explained, would encourage our people to live with dignity as human beings and prevent individuals who are weak from committing those acts. Mr Ogunyes suggestion tallies with a recommendation by the ACPHR which urged African countries to adopt legislative, administrative, policy and other measures that aim to address the conditions that cause, exacerbate or perpetuate poverty, rather than criminalise poverty. It also called for the provision of services to all persons to regulate and constructively support people to perform life-sustaining activities in public places. In more specific terms, Mohammed Zanna, National Coordinator of Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiatives Nigeria, called on the government to provide massive skills and vocational training programmes and empowerment for the physically challenged to keep them away from street begging. He said most of the members of his group cannot afford the cost of rent in most Nigerian cities, adding that their arrest could only be justified if theyve been helped with skills and empowerment, so they dont beg. Decriminalisation efforts Only a few states of the federation are taking steps to decriminalise petty offences. Lagos is among the few. Mr Akande, chair of the Lagos State House of Assemblys committee on judiciary, human rights and public petition, said, The need for the decriminalisation of petty offences in Lagos State is prerequisite for the further strengthening of the judicial system. The Chief Press Secretary to the Lagos State governor, Gboyega Akoshile, confirmed that some bills aimed at decriminalising petty offences were before the House of Assembly but could not immediately provide a copy of any of them to our reporter. Also, Rommy Mom, Director of Lawyers Alert Nigeria, said his organisation is currently working with Bauchi and Benue states lawmakers on the passage of bills to decriminalise some petty offences. We have introduced bills that prohibit criminalizing petty offences. And we hope the law gives something of dignity to the poor amongst us, he said. Eluma Asogwa, a Lagos-based lawyer, said, You have not provided jobs. These guys take up money to make a living for themselves and you (the government) go ahead to block it. On the call for the making or review of the relevant laws, Mr Ubani, a former vice president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), drew a link between the quality of the laws and the sense of justice of elected legislators making them. He said making laws with human face has to do with the people being elected into the legislative chambers. Yet a lot depends on the lawmakers. The ACHPR urges state parties to develop laws, policies and regulations that provide alternatives to arrest and detention that also recognise the need for reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. This investigation was sponsored by The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in collaboration with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) through its Voice For Change Reporting Project. The terrorists holding two daughters and one domestic staff of the immediate former Accountant General of Zamfara State, Abubakar Bala Furfuri have threatened turn them into criminals, who will be used to attract other targets of their criminal activities if their parent fails to pay the ransom they demanded. The terrorists message was contained in a 2:39 minutes video released Monday morning. The children, Zulaihat and Zainab and an unnamed domestic staff, have spent 128 days in captivity. They were abducted in June. In the video clip, the three ladies were seen clutching anti aircraft guns, AK 47, LMG and other firearms. The video started with one of the terrorists on the background telling the girls because their parents think the issue is a joke or lie. He then said we are not even after the money. Well just use you and increase our number of fighters or use you as new targets. Another one interrupted and said, tell them if they dont cooperate, we will keep disgracing you. READ ALSO: In the video, one of the daughters, Zulaihat, was pleading with her father to use every means to gather the ransom and free them from captivity. My name is Zulaihat from Zamfara, she began in an emotional voice. Please father, if you see this video help and save us from this situation. Were in a critical condition living here. Disregard those advising you against paying the ransom please. Please dont allow us to add another day in this condition. They threatened to give us something that will make us forget you and you may never see us. Please, save us from this condition. They said they would take us away from here. They said we would show them the houses of rich people and well go to schools with them (to abduct pupils). Please help and save us from this situation, she said. At that point, another terrorist said, tell him (the father) that he shouldnt cooperate if he wants you to continue in this situation. Mr Furfuri, the ex accountant general, did not respond to calls and SMS sent to him for comments, but a family source said the family has seen the video. He has given millions of naira to the bandits after which they released some of the captives, including one of his daughters and other relatives that were abducted with Zulaihat and Zainab. He doesnt have the money theyre asking for now, the source, who asked not to be named for safety reasons said. He, however, did not tell PREMIUM TIMES the amount the terrorists are demanding as ransom. Some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors have commended Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti for his contributions toward the development of his state and the country in general. Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State and his Borno counterpart, Babagana Zulum, gave the commendations at a valedictory lecture marking the fourth anniversary of Mr Fayemis administration and inauguration of the incoming administration in the state. The governors expressed optimism that Mr Fayemi still had greater roles to play as an important player to steer the country to the path of true federalism. Mr Bagudu said Mr Fayemis contributions at both the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) as well as the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) could not be over-emphasised. He noted that Mr Fayemi played a leading role in the PGF and the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) which he chaired, to the admiration of his brother-governors. Governor Fayemi is unmistakably committed to the Nigerian dream. He believes that governance should be used to chart a new frontier for the development of our country and the benefit of our people. I dont think President Muhammadu Buhari will allow him (Fayemi) to rest. Just last week, I knew the kind of comments President Buhari made about him. We are lucky that we have scholar-leaders like JKF (Fayemi) who tell the world that Nigeria is an investment destination, he said. Governor Zulum, on his part, described Mr Fayemi as an unconventional leader, team player and an unrepentant believer in a better Nigeria. He praised Mr Fayemi for being a great thinker who chose to organise a forum to reflect on issues affecting the polity, like politics, governance and economy, rather than throwing Owambe party. Mr Zulum also lauded Mr Fayemi for initiating programmes, such as Youth in Commercial Agriculture Development (YCAD) which, he said, had attracted youths to agriculture in Ekiti. Such legacies are better than naming structures after oneself, he said. The governor also used the occasion to advise the governor-elect, Biodun Oyebanji, to emulate the cordial relationship between him (Zulum) and his predecessor, Kashim Shettima, when he (Oyebanji) eventually takes over the mantle of leadership in the state. Mr Zulum noted that his relationship with his predecessor was built on mutual trust, humility and sacrifice. It is not easy to preside over a (Nigeria Governors) Forum that has a Zulum and an El-Rufai. We are proud of the way JKF presided over NGF. He is humble and straightforward. His personality and integrity are not in doubt. Oyebanji, I hope you emulate the cordial relationship between me and my predecessor, which was built on mutual trust and humility and, above all, sacrifice, he said. A former APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, in his remarks, recalled that Mr Fayemi and himself became close while they were in the trenches as members of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). He commended Mr Fayemi for assembling a team of crack technocrats who put together a team that produced policy papers which communicated the partys purpose to Nigerians. Contrubuting, Speaker of Ekiti House of Assembly, Funminiyi Afuye, lauded Mr Fayemi for respecting the legislative institution and granting the assembly its well- deserved autonomy. The Speaker, who was represented by his Deputy, Hakeem Jamiu, attested to Mr Fayemis virtue of diligence in governance and commitment to the development of the state. As a governor, he still writes books, attends to exco files and replies text messages. Indeed, he is an enigma. He is always calm in the face of challenges. This is a kind of leader you must look up to, he said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was attended by Mohammed Ibn Chambas, former Executive Secretary of ECOWAS and United Nations Special Representative in West Africa and the Sahel Region. The National Chairman of Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), Wale Osun, also graced the occasion. (NAN) The Police in Ebonyi State vowed on Monday that they would track down the gunmen who killed a Chinese expatriate in the state on Saturday. The gunmen had attacked a mining site in the state. The Chinese man and a police operative were hit by bullets, as the gunmen fired sporadic shots at workers. The Chinese later died in hospital, according to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). The mining site is at Otam Nwogba village in Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi. The police spokesperson, Chris Anyanwu, stated on Monday at Abakaliki that the gunmen besieged the area and shot at the security men on duty at the company. One of the policemen on duty sustained serious bullet injuries and is still receiving treatment, he stated. Mr Anyanwu, a superintendent of police, urged members of the public to join hands in fishing out the miscreants by giving prompt and reliable information concerning their identities and location to the police. Ebonyi, like other states in the South-east, has been plagued by insecurity for some years now. Arsonists on Monday morning set ablaze a section of Ezza North Local Government Council secretariat in Ebonyi, destroying valuable items and documents. READ ALSO: Gunmen kill Chinese expatriate in Nigeria Three people were shot dead in June by gunmen during an attack on Ngbo community in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of the state. Four people were similarly killed in May in the state when gunmen attacked and set ablaze some buildings in the country-home of a local council chairperson. Those killed in the attack were relatives of the chairperson. The security situation in South-east Nigeria has continued to deteriorate, with armed men carrying out frequent attacks on security officials and security facilities. Most of the attacks in the region have been attributed to a separatist group, IPOB. Two people, including a police officer, were killed in Enugu State on Sunday when gunmen attacked a police facility in the state. (NAN) The Saudi Arabian Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, announced that mahram (blood relative), usually a male guardian, is no longer required to accompany a woman pilgrim to perform Hajj or Umrah (lesser Hajj). Saudi law stipulates that a woman needs a Mahram (guardian) which could be her father, husband, blood brother and her biological son when performing Hajj. The minister stated this on Monday in Egypt during a meeting with his counterpart, the Egyptian Interior Minister, Mahmoud Tawfik, discussing the 2023 Hajj preparations, Hajj Reporters, a Nigerian newspaper that reports Hajj activities, reported. READ ALSO: The announcement brought to an end the controversy caused by a policy introduced by the kingdom in 2019. Since then, the country has only allowed women above 40 years to travel to the country in the last lesser Hajj season without a guardian. With the new announcement on Monday, all eligible women can now travel to the Holy Land with or without male guardians for Hajj and lesser Hajj. Chads Prime Minister Albert Padacke has resigned in order to pave the way for a new government, the presidents office said on Tuesday. This came after the Central African country decided to push back elections by two years. Mr Padacke, a civilian politician, was named prime minister of a transitional military government in 2021 after President Mahamat Deby seized power in the wake of his fathers death. READ ALSO: The military council led by Mr Deby was initially meant to rule for 18 months, but the country announced it would push back democratic elections until around October 2024. Mr Deby was sworn in on Monday as president for the new transition phase and was expected to appoint a new premier. Mr Padacke also served as prime minister from 2016 to 2018 and was seen as an ally of former president Idriss Deby, who ruled Chad for 30 years until his death in April 2021. (Reuters/NAN) Canada on Tuesday said it will send 40 more combat engineers to help support Polish efforts to train Ukrainian forces. Canadas defence minister Anita Anand said this was part of the countrys commitment to increase military aid for Ukraine. Ms Anand, told a news conference in Warsaw today, I am announcing that in the coming weeks, Canada will deploy approximately 40 combat engineers to Poland to help Polish Forces train Ukrainian sappers. The sappers would be trained on engineer reconnaissance, explosives, mining and de-mining. (Reuters/NAN) Russia is bracing itself for a longer war against Ukraine because of planned U.S. arms deliveries to the country, says the Kremlin. The delivery of anti-aircraft systems announced by the U.S. will make the conflict longer and more painful for the Ukrainian side. The confrontation will continue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to a meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialised nations with Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Tuesday. Russia sees the U.S. in particular as a warring party in Ukraine because the country not only provides weapons but also intelligence and satellite data. READ ALSO: In addition, Ukrainian soldiers are being trained in the West on how to use NATO weapons, among other things. The German government and other NATO members emphasise that they are not a party to the war. The aid to Ukraine is seen as support for the right of self-defence of the country, which is striving to join the EU and NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war against Ukraine on 24 February. Initially, the aggressor was considered militarily superior. After the arms deliveries, Ukraine was finally able to push back Russian troops massively and liberate some occupied territories. (dpa/NAN) The PDP Governors Forum has congratulated its members who were conferred with the prestigious national honours of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) by President Muhammadu Buhari. This was contained in a statement by the forums Director-General, Cyril Maduabum, in Abuja on Tuesday. Mr Maduabum named the members to include Governors Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, Darius Ishaku of Taraba State and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State. I thank President Muhammadu Buhari, and the National Honours Awards Committee for my investiture, earlier today, as a Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in recognition of my contributions to the development of the nation. pic.twitter.com/awg3r4wNq0 Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa (@IAOkowa) October 11, 2022 He said Mr Okowa had distinguished himself as a senator and an administrator per excellence, having changed the business, economic, social and political landscape of Delta as a two-term governor. He has raised the bar politically with his excellent performance as the vice presidential candidate of the PDP, in the 2023 general elections. READ ALSO: He added that Mr Ishaku as a serving two-term governor of Taraba State has rendered impeccable services that have touched the lives of the people of the state in a remarkable way. He had also served at the federal level as a Minister, a position he held with distinction. He is currently a senatorial candidate of the PDP. Ugwuanyi is a serving and high-performing governor of Enugu State where he has enthroned peace, stability, and social and economic transformation of the state. He was a long-standing member of the House of Representatives and Chairman of its Marine Transport Committee. He is currently on the ballot for the senate on the platform of the PDP, he said. Mr Maduabum said the forum joined the families and friends of the three governors to celebrate the joyous occasion and wish them well in all their future undertakings. (NAN) An Ikeja Special Offences Court on Tuesday discharged and acquitted a 26-year-old man, Rasheed Olanrewaju, accused of attempting to rob a market woman with a toy gun. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Justice Sherifat Solebo discharged and acquitted Mr Olanrewaju of the attempted robbery charge filed against him by the state government. Ms Solebo held that it was evident that the prosecution witness (PW1), a Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) officer, said he saw the crowd beating the defendant. As a police officer, he collected the toy gun found on him and reported to the police station and it was registered as exhibit. The witness told the court that he could not lay hands on the exhibit due to the disbandment of SARS. ALSO READ: Two men remanded for alleged possession of toy gun The evidence of PW2 was amount to hearsay from the PW1. They were not at the crime scene, (the shop of the complainant). The toy gun was not tendered. Moreover, the evidence of PW1 is partially hearsay. The court is bound to resolve the issue in favour of defence where there is evidence of doubt. In view of the circumstances of doubt, the defendant is hereby discharged and acquitted, Ms Solebo said. NAN reports that Mr Olanrewaju was alleged to have sometime in January 2019 at Ipodo market in Lagos, attempted to rob a businesswoman with two plastic toy guns in her shop. The defendant, a resident of Idimu in Lagos, was charged with alleged unlawful possession of toy guns and attempted robbery. (NAN) The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has commended the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, for his intervention in the protracted crisis between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government. The NLC President, Ayuba Waba, gave the commendation at the inauguration of the Guest House of the National Union of Chemical, Footwear, Rubber, Leather and Non Metallic Products Employers (NUCANMPE), on Tuesday at Ijoko, Sango-Ota in Ogun. The Speaker and the national leadership of ASUU met on Monday in Abuja over the crisis between university lecturers and the federal government. I must commend those that are very proactive in trying to make sure that the true process of social dialogue to resolve the challenges are put in place, Mr Wabba said. At the same time, those who cautioned people who think employment relationship is still old ways of master-servant relationship. Globally, that perspective has changed, the relationship is now symbiosis, that requires mutual respect from both the employers and the employees. I think this is what Gbajabiamila was playing out, I must commend him for his significant contributions and important roles so that at the end it will be a win-win thing. I know when they go back to their classrooms, they will be very happy teaching our kids because these are intellectuals and their state of hearts will also speak volumes about how they impact knowledge. I commend the wisdom of the Speaker, there is no use, using cohesion or force in solving the problem but through provision of dialogue that will comfort everybody, he said. He expressed optimism that ASUU would make a pronouncement soon about its resumption. Mr Waba said he was very delighted with the inauguration of the NUCANMPE Guest House projects. He said that the development was one of the active ways the labour union was working to diversify in this present economic challenges. The labour leader hailed NUCANMPE National President, Babatunde Olatunji, for his efforts in executing the huge project. Earlier, Mr Olatunji in his remarks thanked the NLC national president for gracing the inauguration, saying there was a need to diversify to generate more income for the union. According to him, the beauty of the project is that the whole world will know that union leaders are business oriented. This project will let people know that we know what we are doing, the leadership of this union sees the need to diversify and not rely only on members dues for income. That is why we decided to put up this 15-room guest house, as alternative source of income to the union, he said. Mr Olatunji said that there was also an ongoing multipurpose shopping complex of over 49 stores including office spaces at Ijoko, Sanyo-Ota. (NAN) The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Rivers State on Tuesday paraded 16 suspected oil thieves involved in illegal refining of crude oil to produce diesel. The corps commandant in the state, Michael Ogar, paraded the 16 male suspects before reporters in Port Harcourt. He said they were arrested by operatives of NSCDC and the Nigerian Navy during separate raids at different locations in the state. According to him, the operations led to the seizure of about 200,000 litres of adulterated diesel that was being readied for distribution to unsuspecting motorists in the state. Eight of the suspects were arrested by operatives of NSCDCs anti-vandal unit, while the other eight were handed over to us by Nigerian Navy Ship Pathfinder Port Harcourt. The 16 suspects were arrested for their involvement in oil theft and illegal refining of diesel. Some of the suspects were caught moving about 200,000 litres of diesel with their trucks, Sport Utility Vehicles and other cars to different locations in the state before their arrest, he said. Mr Ogar said the command had made several arrests and confiscated petroleum products following the marching order to the NSCDC by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. ALSO READ: NSCDC arrests over 400 oil thieves He assured the people that the command would not rest until all forms of illegal bunkering of petroleum products and vandalising of oil and gas installations were stopped in the state. We are not going to compromise on our mandate. The many arrests and seizures show that our officers and men have been complying with government directives to stop illegal bunkering. Aside this, we are also going after landlords who connive with criminals by allowing them to use their buildings and facilities to illegally bunker petroleum products. The command is already on the trail of such landlords, and will arrest and charge them to court for allowing their property to be used for illegal activities, he added. The commandant said the suspects would soon be charged to court while the command would seek the forfeiture of the seized vehicles and petroleum products to the federal government. (NAN) The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has not, as of 12:30 p.m., suspended its ongoing industrial action, the union has said. Stories and social media posts Tuesday morning suggested that the union has suspended the strike following a meeting with members of the leadership of the House of Representatives on Monday. For the first time since 14th February when ASUU embarked on strike, it said on Monday that it saw light at the end of the tunnel. However, in a short reply to PREMIUM TIMES enquiry on the strike, the ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, said the union has not suspended the strike. He described stories that his union had suspended the strike as fake. Meanwhile, a source in the union confided in PREMIUM TIMES that there will be briefings at the various zones of the union and a subsequent meeting by the branches between today (Tuesday) and tomorrow (Wednesday). They just left Abuja this morning, and some will be holding their Zonal meetings today and others will do it tomorrow, the source said. READ ALSO: The source added that the National Executive Council of the union will then meet to decide on the suspension of the strike. The Court of Appeal last Friday ordered ASUU to suspend the strike before continuing with its appeal against the judgement of the Industrial Court. While ASUU has not immediately obeyed the court ruling, it has been in talks with the leadership of the House of Representatives, holding multiple meetings. On Monday, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, disclosed that he has presented the agreements with ASUU to President Muhammadu Buhari. He said Mr Buhari will disclose the contents of the new agreement to Nigerians. Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe. Peace was at her roadside shop located at Festac Gate, Lagos where she sells cooked and peppered cow skin. She looked very sad and dejected as I approached her. Just 20, she is raising her four children from a failed marriage alone. Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice my presence until I touched her shoulder. She apologised. Noticing that she was still absent-minded, I asked her what the problem was. Her story centres on her experience as a victim of child marriage. The young woman, according to her recollection, used to be a bubbly child while living with her poor parents in Imo State. Then, one day in 2014 when she was 13, she returned from the market with her mother and older siblings when her father handed her to a man he called her husband who brought her to live with him in Lagos. Peace said she knew he was not the right man for her. But she could not shake him off until she had had four children with him. My village has a high divorce rate because young girls are forcefully married at a very young age and many eventually leave the men to return to their parents in the village, she said. My worry now is how I will take care of my four children. I was thinking of how to make up their school fees just now, she explained. 10 years after It has been 10 years since the world began to mark the International Day of the Girl Child (IDGC), which has drawn attention to issues that concern girls in Nigeria and across the world. State governments, policymakers and the general public have lent their voices to the campaign for a better life for the girl child. Yet, investments in girls rights remain limited and female children continue to face challenges preventing them from fulfiling their potential. Imo State, where Peace is from, passed the Girl Child Act (GCA) 18 years ago on 4 August 2004. But girls who are less than 18 are still married off in the south-east Nigerian state to men whom they have never met in their lives. A recent report by the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) predicted that Nigeria will have 29 million child brides by 2050. The report states that numerous states in Nigeria have failed to domesticate the federal Child Rights Act (CRA), especially in the northern part of the country. It also noted that the federal governments failure to legislate and enforce 18 years as the minimum age for those seeking a constitutionally recognised marriage, is a factor in the increase in child marriage. Domestic Violence On domestic violence, Executive Director, Womens Rights and Health Project (WRAHP), Bose Ironsi, said the girl child is still far away from where she should be. She said the girl child is not safe anywhere because she suffers the most whenever there is terrorism, kidnapping and other forms of insecurity. Mrs Ironsi said women who were teenagers ten years ago and are now married still face all forms of domestic violence. We have cases of couples who have been married for less than five years and are in abusive situations. So the fact that the international day started 10 years ago hasnt helped reduce the cases of domestic violence in many instances, she said. We dont have the political will to fight it. So I will say we are still where we were 10 years ago, even though people are reporting more, voices are being amplified, and the judiciary is becoming more aware. A lot of resources are being put in place, especially in Lagos, but getting justice fast is still a problem. And people still have cultural issues that are inhibiting them from reporting, so we know for a fact that where there are 1000 reports, 3000 are not reported, Mrs Ironsi said. She said due to late justice, many girls have developed mental health issues which have also discouraged other girls from speaking out. Government needs to do a lot to build the courage of young girls so that reporting will be more. Do a lot of sensitising and taking the community people into consideration when putting laws in place, as well as give adequate funding to necessary bodies in charge of dealing with these perpetrators, she said. Mrs Ironsi noted that Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are the ones doing a lot in the area of domestic violence, stressing that the Nigerian government is doing very little in the area. Rape On rape, the Executive Director of Women of Inestimable Values Foundation, Blessing Okojie, said there is hardly a week in Nigeria without a reported case of rape. According to Section 31 (1) and (2) of the CRA, anyone who has sexual activity with a child below 18 years is guilty of rape and faces a life sentence if convicted. The law further states that the punishment for such an act is between 12 years and life imprisonment, depending on the severity of the crime. READ ALSO: Speaking on efforts that the government has made in the fight against rape, Mrs Okojie said although there is a lot of improvement in the fight against rape and also the enactment of different laws against rape, Nigeria is still far from winning the fight. According to Mrs Okojie, Previously, most victims of rape were afraid to speak up; this is because of fear of stigmatisation and fear of not getting justice. They rather remain silent than expose a perpetrator because our culture and traditions support the perpetrator more than the victim. But now things are beginning to change, she said. Mrs Okojie believes that the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, also called the VAPP Law, introduced by the Nigerian government and currently adopted by 26 states is a great achievement in curbing rape. She said many Nigerians now openly condemn rape and demand punishment for the perpetrators. A culture which was like a norm previously is now being condemned by many organisations and stakeholders fighting against this menace, she said. Politics Speaking on how women have fared in politics in the last 10 years, the Executive Director of Gender and Development Action (GADA), Ada Agina-Ude, said Nigerian women have done so much but have recorded limited success. She said in terms of female representation, Nigeria is making progress because, in some areas in Nigeria, people felt that in the next 100 years we will not see women representation because of religion and culture, especially in the North, but we can see them emerging which is quite impressive. She said there are, however, states in the North where women defeat their male opponents in legislative elections. However, the sexagenarian said, with all the progress recorded, women are not making as much headway as expected. It is over 20 years since 1999 and we thought we would have made a quantum leap. We have been talking to different stakeholders to make our voices heard but still no difference, she said. Recounting the efforts women have made in the past, she said a major one was the introduction of funds for women in politics for their campaign but the progress was still very little. She said womens representation has never gone beyond 16 per cent in all parties, including smaller parties. She said even with that figure, women had more representation in the past compared to the recent list of candidates published by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which shows that just nine per cent are women candidates. Everywhere in the world where progress has been made in womens political representation, it has always been with some kind of affirmative action. It may be in terms of giving women constituencies which were tried in our National Assembly but suddenly it was terminated. We are talking about additional constituency which will not affect any other persons constituency, which is the surest way. But they refused. This led to women protesting at the National Assembly. The political parties can also decide that a certain number of seats should be reserved for women because these things have been done in other countries and it is working, she said. The Nigerian Navy has destroyed an illegal oil bunkering vessel arrested with stolen crude oil in the creeks of the Niger Delta. It was gathered that operatives of a newly-contracted private oil pipeline surveillance team, Tantita Security Services, arrested the vessel alongside its seven-member crew on 6 October. They were arrested on the creeks of Escravos, while crude oil was being loaded illegally into a waiting ship, according to a report by Punch newspaper. About 600 to 650 cubic metres of illegally lifted crude oil in five compartments were said to be on board the vessel with registration number L85 B9.50 as of the time of the arrest. The Navy personnel set the bunkering vessel ablaze on Warri River, Delta State, at about 3 p.m. on Monday after the ships captain, Temple Manasseh, confessed that the vessel was laden with crude oil. I was arrested in Escravos by Tompolo boys but the alleged stolen crude oil was not loaded by me. My vessel was hijacked by some boys who forced the loaded crude into my ship, Mr Manasseh said in his confessional statement. READ ALSO: I dont know the hijackers at all. But when Tompolo security operatives stormed the scene, they all ran away and abandoned their loading operation which had lasted about two and a half hours, Mr Manasseh added. The Navy officials who destroyed the oil vessel did not speak to journalists after the incident. But the Marine Intelligence Consultant for Tantita Security Services, Warredi Enisuoh, said the arrest was a result of intelligence gathering, explaining that the operatives monitored the space via satellite. Mr Enisuoh stated that records showed that the Dutch vessel sold to a Nigerian had been variously used for moving crude oil illegally for years, adding that the arrested vessel had scheduled to take the stolen crude to Tema in Ghana. Oil theft, illegal refineries in the region, and their negative impact on the countrys economy have been a source of concern to the Nigerian government over the years. The federal government in August awarded a pipeline surveillance contract reportedly worth N48 billion per year (N4 billion per month) to Government Ekpemupolo, who is popularly known as Tompolo, to check massive oil theft in the region. Mele Kyari, the chief executive officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, would later explain that the government was not dealing directly with Mr Ekpemupolo but Tantita Security Services, a private contractor company in which he has an interest. PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Ekpemupolo discovered at least 58 illegal points in Delta and Bayelsa States where crude oil is being stolen, barely two months after he was awarded the multi-billion naira oil security contract in the region. The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Tuesday donated 86 drones to the Nigerian Navy (NN) toward enhancing its operations. The NCS Comptroller-General retired, Hamid Ali, while presenting the items in Abuja, said that they were intercepted at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, after the importers failed to present End Users Certificate (EUC). Mr Ali said that the customs usually condemn items imported into the country without EUC, after security permission from the high court. Such items or equipment are automatically forfeited to the federal government, which is why we are directed to transfer and hand over the drones to the NN. This is also because of the cooperation and the synergy among the security agencies in the country, he said. Mr Ali was represented by the NCS FCT Comptroller, Suleman Bomoi, at the ceremony. We intercepted these drones, seized them from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, and we went to High Court, Abuja, to get the courts order to condemn. So, Im directed by the C-G to hand the items to the NN because of the cooperation and the synergy among the security agencies, he said. Mr Ali emphasised that such imported items imported must come with EUC. He urged Nigerians who were into importation or thinking of going into the business, to always ensure they have their EUC in place. READ ALSO: Getting EUC is as easy as anything. Go to the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), who is saddled with the responsibility of issuing EUC and apply online and get it. So, failure to have it will lead to interception, seizure and outright condemnation, he said. In his remarks, the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Awwal Gambo, while receiving the items, assured of the appropriate use of the items for the benefit of the service and the country in general. Mr Gambo was represented by the Chief of Training and Operations, Naval Headquarters, Solomon Agada. The CNS extended the appreciation of the Nigerian Navy to the customs chief, adding that it was done as part of a collaboration among the various security agencies in the country. This collaboration, he added, would continue to be in place as the agencies work together to ensure the security of the country. (NAN) The Kogi State Government says the ongoing flooding in parts of the state has caused massive destruction. The Commissioner for Environment in the state, Victor Omofaye, stated this on Tuesday when he appeared as a guest on Channels TVs Sunrise Daily. He said the ongoing flooding was greater than the one that happened in the state in 2012 and that at least 10 local government areas in the state have been submerged at the moment. In 1936, that was when we first experienced this flooding (in the state) and at that time, it was measuring 13.6. We had another one in 2012 and it was measuring 12.8 at that time. But what we have currently is about 13.2. And so, you can see that it is even more than that of 2012. Honestly, the destruction is massive and cuts across 10 local government areas of the state, he said. He insisted that the government has fared well in carrying out sensitization programmes and creating awareness campaigns for people to relocate from flood-prone areas to higher grounds before the flooding began. The environment commissioner said the state government has been moving some victims of the flooding to higher grounds, saying that was the reason for a low casualty figure. READ ALSO: About six people, including a three-year-old baby, have, so far, been killed by flood in the state. Had it been that we have not given out the earlier awareness and campaigns, it (the death toll) would have been more than that, he said. Mr Omofaye appealed to the federal government and international communities to assist the state to relocate more victims and arrest the flooding in the state, pointing out that the state government needs external help. The state government alone cannot do this. And so, thats why we are calling on the federal government and even international donors, well-spirited individuals in the society to come to our aid, the commissioner said. He explained that the appeal for help was due to the level of destruction caused by the flooding. We will continue to make this appeal because the level of destruction is massive. Of course, the budget that we have cannot, obviously, take care of this, he said. No solution in sight Mr Omofaye predicted that the flooding will continue because of climate change. He said the government will ensure that there is proper dredging of Lokoja to reduce its impact on the state. Lokoja, the state capital, sits at the confluence of River Niger and Benue River. The commissioner explained that the flooding was worsened by the fact that water from both River Niger and Benue Rivers converge at the Lokoja River. By the time we have the dredging, it (Lokoja) will accommodate more water. That alone will mitigate this problem we are talking about, he said. The Parents Teachers Association of Nigeria (PTAN) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to secure the release of the remaining female pupils of the Federal Government College Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State. The call was made by the National President of the association, Haruna Danjuma, Tuesday afternoon. Mr Danjuma expressed worry over a trending video depicting the pupils holding arms, saying its dangerous for their (pupils) future. Their lives are in danger and as such, they are exposed to dangerous weapons and notorious people surrounding them. He said: We saw our children carrying dangerous weapons and this is not really good for the parents and the society. We as parents teachers association of Nigeria expressed sadness with the latest trending video on social media showing our kids carrying war weapons carrying for help READ ALSO: He asked the president to use the same tactics used in securing the remaining Abuja Kaduna train victims. While commending the federal government over the release of the Kaduna train victims, Mr Danjuma called on both the federal and Kebbi state governments to use all the available means to save the pupils. In her remarks, the President of the Foundation for Projection of Women and Children in Nigeria, Ramatu Tijjani, expressed the need for the federal government to rescue all abducted secondary school girls and other victims quickly. She called on traditional rulers and religious leaders in the 19 Northern States to help secure the release of all abducted victims. Terrorists had on 17 June 2021 invaded the Federal Government College Birnin Yauri in Kebbi State and abducted over 90 pupils and teachers of the school. Immediately after the attack, the military announced the rescue of five pupils and two teachers. 81 students and teachers were rescued by the Kebbi State government and soldiers while two others escaped from June 2021 to January this year. In September this year, the father to Farida Kaoje, one of the abducted pupils, Sani Kaoje told PREMIUM TIMES in an exclusive chat that, a notorious terrorist Dogo Gide has married off the girls. He is the one (Mr Dogo) who said it(that he has married them off) to me directly through the phone. Dogo Gide knows Yauri very well because he once lived here and he told me that he married Farida himself though he was not very direct about it. But he used some techniques to tell me that he has married off the 10 girls to others but as for Farida, she is being taken care of by him. He didnt say it straight but he said even if I die, they are people that can inherit Farida from my house. He was just telling me that he had married her off, he said. Hamza Al-Mustapha, the presidential candidate of Action Alliance (AA) and former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late military head of state, Sani Abacha, has denied ever stealing from Nigerias coffers while in office. Mr Mustapha, a retired major, said this in an interview with Channels Television on Tuesday. He said his enemies, whom he did not name, were responsible for his 15 years of travails because they were hellbent on looting the countrys resources. The ex-CSO is notorious for his controversial role in the demise of Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election. Before his death, Mr Abiola was kept in an unpleasant prison condition, supervised by Mr Al-mustapha. Apart from the role he played in Mr Abiolas incarceration, he was also alleged to be involved in drug trafficking, and money laundering, among other heinous crimes. His principal, Mr Abacha, who died in office on 8 June 1998, looted the nations treasury and some of the funds are still being repatriated from the countries they were lodged. READ ALSO: BBC, in a recent report based on data gathered from the federal government, World Bank, and Transparency International, put the total amount recovered from Mr Abacha in the past 24 years at $3.65 billion. In August, the federal government entered into a fresh agreement with the government of the United States of America for the repatriation of a total sum of $23, 439,724 trillion allegedly looted by the late former military dictator. Im innocent In his defence on Tuesday, Mr Al-Mustapha said his innocence in the death of Mr Abiola and other allegations has been proven before 14 judges in the last 15 years. Stating that he was a victim of media propaganda, the AA presidential hopeful said he never stole money from the governments coffers. He said he dared both the Abdulsalam Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjos governments to indict him if they found him guilty of any financial crimes in the past. I dont have money, I have never stolen N10. I challenged two governments; I challenged Abdulsalam Abubakars government, and I challenged (Olusegun) Obasanjos government. They searched. I was ransacked by bigger international investigative agencies (and the) police. My eyes and thumbprint were taken all around the whole world and they saw nothing. But rather than tell the whole world my clean record, they kept it aside, he said. Mr Al-Mustapha added: II suffered from propaganda for 15 years with torture trying to just give me a bad name, just for me not to survive. In 2019, that was when we discovered that there were 18 attempts to kill me. As of 2013 when I came out, I was aware of 11 attempts. In 15 years, a serving military officer being treated like an animal every day, in chains, hands, legs and neck. I was in solitary detention for five years, and two months. My parents were only allowed to see me only twice in 15 years. The retired military officer stated that people were sponsoring legal wars against him because of what he knows and his refusal to compromise. In his campaign promises after emerging as the AA candidate, Mr Al-Mustapha said his loyalty to Nigeria was one of the reasons for running for the seat. On his plans to tackle terrorism in Nigeria, he has also promised to relocate to Sambisa forest if elected. About a week after Nigerias water resources minister vowed that the National Water Resources Bill will be passed into law, a Catholic Church organisation has opposed the bill and called for its withdrawal. Caritas Nigeria has, therefore, urged the federal government to withdraw the bill from the parliament. The Catholic Church-owned organisation made the appeal in a statement issued by its Executive Secretary, Uchechukwu Obodoechina, on Tuesday in Abuja. Caritas Nigeria said that the bill should include private ownership and unrestricted use of water, instead of giving the federal government sole control of water resources in the country. It noted that the bill excluded and gave no consideration to states and citizens in matters of water resources. Caritas Nigeria argued that as a God-given resource, access to water should not be restricted by legislation. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive and holistic consultation with citizen groups across the board and states. To ensure that every concerned section of the populace is offered the opportunity to express their concerns about the Bill, it added. The group advised the federal government and National Assembly to concentrate on pressing issues of poverty and hunger, unemployment and insecurity, rather than promoting contentious legislation. It added that the principle of federalism should be respected, as well as the rights of states and local governments on domestic water use and protection. READ ALSO: All senators and House of Representatives members should rise and protect the rights of citizens and amplify their freedom to control ancestral resources, such as land and water. The Church calls on all law-abiding citizens to remain peaceful and seek lawful means to redress the above vexing piece of legislation, it added. Caritas Nigeria said it would continue to partner with interest groups and state actors to ensure that citizens exercise their legitimate rights and continually enjoy the necessities of life. It recalled that the bill, which was first introduced in 2020, sought to grant the federal government direct control over surface and ground waters. It also wants individuals to obtain licences before they can access water. We, therefore, urge the federal government to retract this legislation and prioritize public health by promoting every means possible for achieving quality water and sanitation services, including private ownership and unrestricted use of water, it added. (NAN) A Lagos-based fish farmer, Dike Ogbunugafor, has narrated how naval officers allegedly assaulted him for filming their vehicle which, he claimed, was used to obstruct traffic. Mr Ogbunugafor said the incident happened on the evening of 23rd September in Idale community, near Topo, in Badagry. He said he was on his way to feed his fish when he saw a car blocking the access road to his farm. I had to manoeuvre around it and parked to look for the owner, said Mr Ogbunugafor, 43. I was directed to three guys drinking by a bar whom I approached, greeted, and asked to adjust the position of the car. The owner said that since I was able to get there, then there was no issue. I explained that I had to manoeuvre around the car to do so. He eventually agreed to move it after finishing his drink. The bar owner came to me as I headed to my car, and said since I could pass, there was no issue, but I insisted that I shouldnt have to make this manoeuvre. I got into my car and left. When he finished at his farm, Mr Ogbunugafor said he was driving out in reverse when he saw the car still parked at the same spot. He said he, again, manoeuvred around the car, parked, and took his phone to record this and report to their traditional ruler. The bar owner came out shouting that Oga Dike, e no reach like this na. Abeg, I no want trouble ooo. She called the guys saying Oga, help us shift the car small, abeg, I no want trouble ooo.' By the time they came, I was through and entered my car to leave. Home attack Mr Ogbunugafor said at 8 p.m., there was a knock on his door. On opening the door, he felt a hand grab him. Men pushed him into his house, slapping, punching, and kicking him. He said they began dragging him outside, towards their car. There was a deliberate effort to be quiet while operating, and my phone was promptly taken. I told myself I must draw attention to this covert assault and abduction. I started screaming: thief!, help! while resisting. He said it was when they got outside that he noticed that his attackers were about six in number, in military camouflage and with assault rifles. There were three others in mufti the same three guys that were drinking near his farm. He said the men did not introduce themselves or tell him why they were arresting or taking him away. The assault worsened, objects were weaponised for hitting and flogging me (now in the presence of my 81-year-old mother who had managed to come out using a walker, following a recent N2.5m knee replacement surgery, and was crying hysterically), and I grabbed a column while still screaming to draw a crowd. Having drawn a crowd and with their intervention, I submitted myself, was put in handcuffs, and driven off to their base close by. At the Navys Forward Operating Base after ASCON, in Akarakumo, Badagry, Mr Ogbunugafor said he was interrogated, asked to produce his phone, and threatened that he would be sent to the guard room unless he produced his phone. I was severally warned that by morning, they will make my arrest official, and I will be sent to HQ in Lagos as a terrorist, with terrorism-related charges. ALSO READ: Commercial motorcyclist accused of impersonating naval officer He said members of his community came to the base to try and resolve the matter. Eventually, a high-ranking officer came over, asked me to introduce myself, and explain what happened. When I finished, he asked that I should be released. The car owner, who was called Victor, mildly argued against this, saying that I had said I will put them on social media. However, the ranking officer insisted that I should be released and then told me to go. I did not insult, assault, nor commit any national-security-threatening offence to justify this attack, aside from using my phone to take a video of a car obstructing access to a road. Mr Ogbunugafor said his life is now in danger following threats by the naval officers. Navy responds Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, the naval spokesperson, confirmed the incident and promised that justice will be served on the matter. The Force is aware of the matter and I have contacted them over there and they confirmed to me that they are on the matter. We will only continue to admonish and educate our men not to be violent even when there are misunderstandings. But on this matter, by mid next week, we should have a progress report on the matter if not the outcoming of the investigation. The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) says it will continue to be neutral, independent and impartial in its activities ahead of the 2023 general elections. The organisation stated this in reaction to an opinion article by a former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Chidi Odinkalu, accusing it of unjustly defending the inconsistencies of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In the opinion piece published on Sunday, Mr Odinkalu criticised INEC for being reluctant to fill the vacant legislative seats in the National Assembly. This, he said, is a breach of Section 76(2) of the 1999 Constitution which empowers the electoral body to organise by-elections to fill such vacant seats within 30 and 90 days they become vacant. Mr Odinkalu cited the case of the current Chairman of APC, Abdullahi Adamu, and his deputy, Abubakar Kyari, who resigned as representatives of Nasarawa West and Borno North Senatorial Districts earlier in the year to contest election into the party offices. Letters of their resignation were read on the floor of the Senate in April by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan. Mr Odinkalu, who alleged that the INEC has not provided any explanation for its delay to conduct elections to fill the vacant seats, dedicated a couple of paragraphs in the piece to accuse CDD Director, Idayat Hassan, of excusing the commissions breach of the law. To excuse INECs refusal, Idayat Hassan, executive director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a non-governmental think-tank, argues that no doubt the forthcoming 2023 elections have preoccupied the attention of INEC, Mr Odinkalu said. Ms Hassan, in her reaction sent to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday, described the allegation as unfortunate misrepresentation of the CDD. She said CDD remains neutral in its role and will continue to hold the government and its agencies accountable. This statement has become necessary to ensure that the public is reassured about the independence, neutrality and impartiality of the CDD in the coming elections. Our work remains to serve as the ultimate catalyst in the transformation of the West African sub-continent into an integrated, economically vibrant and democratically governed community that assures holistic security to the population and is capable of permanent peaceful conflict management. To support this, over the years, CDD has strengthened the capacity of different stakeholders, including government agencies and parastatal and has also been very active in activities that will improve democracy and ensure lasting peace, she said. Ms Hassan said the CDD is confident about the impact and effectiveness of its long-standing efforts to promote democratic and accountable governance, adding that its knowledge production on key issues has been leveraged to make vast improvements in Nigerian elections. The Centre has been vocal in offering criticism of electoral processes when merited, as it did in the 2019 general and off-cycle elections, as well as even stressing the need for INEC to remain vigilant after the recent 2022 Ekiti and Osun off-cycle elections. CDD statements on the elections speak to the realities of the process and consistently stress ways that election processes can be improved, she added. Former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi, has declined an appointment to the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Mr Amadi said his decision to decline the appointment and abstain from participating in the campaign stemmed from the conflicts of interest from various responsibilities he holds as a leader. Mr Amadi was one of the 17 members recently appointed as directors to the National Campaign Management Committee (NCMC). The NCMC is the administrative arm of the PCC. The appointments were done by the partys PCC headed by Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal. In a letter dated 10 October and addressed to Mr Tambuwal, the former NERC boss said he belongs to different platforms where political neutrality and objectivity are required of him. One such platform is the Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts (ASSPT) where he said as a Director, he bears the responsibility to lead a group of intellectuals and scholars of diverse political and ideological stripes with a commitment to rethink the nature of the social, political, and economic crises of statehood in Africa, and to develop new ideas and policies to transform Nigeria and other African societies. Another platform is the Political and Strategy Committee of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). As the secretary of the committee, Mr Amadi explained, he bears the responsibility to support other distinguished Christian leaders to guide the leadership of the Christian community to work together with leaders of other faiths to fashion a common agenda for justice, freedom, unity, and prosperity of the Nigerian state. Members of the committee have different political views and interests and my leadership needs to be non-partisan in order to be effective. An acceptance of this appointment will undermine the neutrality expected of my standing and membership of the committee, he said. He also said as an analyst on Arise News, his role requires non-partisanship. Whereas as a policy expert, I am free to offer ideas and insights to a presidential campaign, I believe that the level of objectivity I am identified with in these strategic roles will be compromised if I am to become a director of a political partys presidential campaign, part of the statement read. Mr Amadi regretted that Nigeria is not yet at the stage where non-partisans can be coopted into presidential campaigns to offer professional services without compromising their objectivity and intellectual neutrality. His rejection, he said, is in no way a vote of no confidence in the PDP presidential campaign or rejection of the virtues of the party members. It is not clear if the PDP will make another appointment to replace Mr Amadi in the council tasked with the mandate of running the campaign of its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, for the 25 February poll. The party kicked off its presidential campaign rallies on Monday in Uyo, the Akwa-Ibom State capital, South-south Nigeria. Enugu East senator, Chimaroke Nnamani, has condemned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leadership for ignoring five of its governors as it commenced presidential campaigns for the 2023 elections. He said it is discouraging and sheer arrogance on the part of the party leadership to ignore a critical group of five sitting governors. Mr Nnamani made this known in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday. The governors he referred to are Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Samuel Ortom of Benue State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, Seyi Makinde of Oyo and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State. Although all the governors were appointed into the partys Presidential Campaign Council, they snubbed the councils inauguration in Abuja in September and were not in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital where the party officially kicked off its campaign on Monday. They have been at the forefront of calls for a balance in the lopsidedness in the party and a proper representation of the south in the partys leadership structure. Mr Nnamani noted how the governors and their supporters were absent at the rally in Akwa Ibom State. He said the party leadership should have done more in a give-and-take manner to carry the aggrieved party members along. The Governors are our leaders and their humiliation rubs off on all of us, he said. Politics is local and people from these affected states parading with the PDP leadership will not deliver their polling booths without the governors. They can drag themselves from their home states to Abuja. Some are Abuja permanent residents. They dress the meetings and colour the rallies, but that is what it is, political colour dressing, he said. The lawmaker, a former governor of Enugu State, is one of many aggrieved members of the party who have called on its leadership to carry all members along particularly the aggrieved ones. Mr Nnamani has, however, come under criticism lately for what many have called anti-party activities. This began after he was named a member of the Presidential Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC) even though he is a PDP member. Although he kept mum and did not reject it, the APC said the appointment was intentional and his knowledge will be profitable to the party. His latest comment comes barely 24 hours after he told Nigerians that the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, is hale and hearty and condemned those who speak against the latter. Nigerias central issue is not a problem of the lack of unity in diversity but that of division in oneness. This division in oneness is a function of majoring in the minor differences but minoring in the major similarities of the peoples and cultures of Nigeria. Nigeria, like China, Japan and Norway, is a mono racial entity that hardly qualifies as a diverse country but is more of a plural country; a plurality of the same pre-colonial linguistic and cultural commonwealth. More than a century after it was taken away from the African Kingdom of Benin and kept at Jesus College, Cambridge, Okukor, a bronze stature of a cock, finally made its way back home to the Palace of Ewuare II, Oba of Benin, some time in 2021. A British punitive expedition in 1897 to avenge the killing of Captain Philip of the Royal Niger Company, who was killed by the natives for attempting to violate an important ritual of the Benin Kingdom, destroyed one of Black Africas most advanced civilisations. And the hallmark of the Benin civilisation was its highly sophisticated metal working knowledge, with a specialisation in the stylistic use of bronze said to have been introduced into the kingdom by Oba Oguola, as a means of historical documentation. Characterised by plunder and pillage, while the British expedition resulted in the banishment of the reigning Oba Ovonranwem Nobaisi from Benin to Calabar, the many art works of bronze that abounded in the ancient African Kingdom were looted by the expedition forces, carted faraway and kept in museums in Europe and North America. After many years of concerted clamour by concerned Africans for the return of the looted art works of ancient African civilisations to Africa, Okukor was handed back to the Benin Kingdom, from Jesus College, where it had been on display since 1905. However, what should have been a moment of joy for Nigerians on the safe return of a precious artefact, became a source of acrimony and dispute over the appropriate name of the dear old Okukor. The controversy started when the palace officials of Benin Kingdom insisted that the correct name of the returned artefact was not Okukor but Okhokho because the former is an Igbo word, while the is Bini (the language of the kingdom). And just before the dust could settle over the Igbo Okukor or the Bini Okhokho, Akuko, a Yoruba word for cock, was thrown into the mix as the most probable original name of the artefact. Then came the Ebira ukokoro, Igala aiko, Efik Akikor and many other synonyms of Okukor from other parts of Nigeria. In all of these various nomenclatures for the cock among the countrys many ethnic groups, Nigerians have once again majored in the minor differences, while minoring in the major similarities between the peoples and culture of modern Nigeria. If the contention over the proper name of the returned artefact was intended to highlight the differences between the Nigerian people, it ironically reveals deep similarities and commonalities across the various peoples and cultures of Nigeria. The Okukor, Okhokho or Akuko controversy reveals Nigerians as essentially one people whose over 500 spoken languages are simply variations of a super Nigerian language Sixty two years after independence, Nigeria has remained a deeply divided country along ethnic and religious fault lines; a situation that has slowed, if not reversed, the countrys journey to nationhood. Just as a house is not always a home, a country is not always a nation. A house becomes a home when members of a household are cohesive, united and bound together within a convivial atmosphere of love, care and equal treatment by the head of the house, for the purpose of sustaining their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Similarly, a nation is one that is socially cohesive and united under a prevailing atmosphere of equity, fairness, inclusivity and justice, for the purpose of advancing the course of the collective security and welfare of the constituent peoples. But for a country to achieve nationhood, recognition of the major commonalities and similarities between the constituent peoples must be emphasised, more than the minor variations and differences, in order to forge a sense of oneness, common purpose and national aspiration. If the contention over the proper name of the returned artefact was intended to highlight the differences between the Nigerian people, it ironically reveals deep similarities and commonalities across the various peoples and cultures of Nigeria. The Okukor, Okhokho or Akuko controversy reveals Nigerians as essentially one people whose over 500 spoken languages are simply variations of a super Nigerian language that is largely mutually intelligible to all. Long before the colonial creation of the modern Nigerian state, the constituent peoples of Nigeria interacted through trade, diplomacy, warfare and migration since time immemorial. That the Yoruba, Igbo and Bini have a similar word for cock is a clear illustration of these pre-colonial Nigerian interactions and contacts. According to the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe, in an interview he granted the BBC Igbo service, he posited that several centuries before the British creation of Nigeria, a group of people migrated out of Ile Ife, in the Yoruba speaking western parts, to Benin Kingdom in the south region, from where they moved towards the south-east to establish the Igbo speaking Onitsha Kingdom, alongside a party of Igala speaking people, Idah, in the north-central. The intersection between the Bini, Yoruba, Igbo and Igala (a people having ancestral links with the Kwararafa confederacy of northern part of what is now Nigeria) in Onitsha effectively ties every component part of present Nigeria to a cultural and linguistic commonwealth. And this explains the similarities in language, customs, traditions, norms and the oneness of the Nigerian people from the north to south and east to west. To build a Nigerian nation that will be socially cohesive, united, peaceful and prosperous, a new consciousness of the oneness of the Nigerian people has to be instituted through a comprehensive national re-orientation. The core principle of social justice is for a people to desire for others what they desire for themselves. And when opportune, to do unto others what they want others to them. For example, among the Ebira people of North-Central Nigeria, Oricha is the word for the supreme deity among traditional African worshippers. Among the Yoruba people of South-West Nigeria, it is called Orisha and for the Igbo people South-East Nigeria, it is Olisa. And when Ebira people want to consult Oricha, they do it through a medium known as Eva; this is Ifa for the Yoruba and Afa for the Igbo. The famous oracle of Arochukwu, which was originally known as Ubinu Ukpabi, was a fusion of the Aro and Ibibio cosmologies of ancient times. In essence, what the British colonial authorities did when they created the country Nigeria was to formalise an already existing linguistic and cultural commonwealth into a modern sovereign geographic entity. But sixty years after independence, the different people have not been able to create a Nigerian nation from the entity created by the British as a country. Nigerias central issue is not a problem of the lack of unity in diversity but that of division in oneness. This division in oneness is a function of majoring in the minor differences but minoring in the major similarities of the peoples and cultures of Nigeria. Nigeria, like China, Japan and Norway, is a mono racial entity that hardly qualifies as a diverse country but is more of a plural country; a plurality of the same pre-colonial linguistic and cultural commonwealth. The various ethnic identities in Nigeria are superficial products of pre-colonial migratory patterns, interactions and contacts across contiguous environments that make up modern day Nigeria. Ethnicity is not genetically encoded in any individual just as nobody was born with a pre-recorded language. People adopt the identities and languages of the environment they were born into. Some Nigerians who are Northerners today were Southerners yesterday, just as some Southerners were once Northerners. As presently constituted, the people of Nigeria of various ethno-geographic groupings are like members of the same family who are living in different parts of the family compound. To build a Nigerian nation that will be socially cohesive, united, peaceful and prosperous, a new consciousness of the oneness of the Nigerian people has to be instituted through a comprehensive national re-orientation. The core principle of social justice is for a people to desire for others what they desire for themselves. And when opportune, to do unto others what they want others to them. But for this principle to be sufficiently internalised by a people is to become conscious of the commonalities and similarities that exists between them, hence making it imperative to live and let others live. It was Samora Machel, the first post-independent leader of Mozambique who famously said, for the nation to rise the tribe must die. A new consciousness of the oneness of the Nigerian people, irrespective of ethno-geographic variations, is required to transform Nigeria from a country of tribesmen into a nation of citizens, otherwise Nigeria will remain perpetually trapped at the bottom of the pyramid of human development, where life is nasty, brutish and short. Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through dahirumajeed@gmail.com. A 16-year-old boy, Temedi Yerimene, drowned in the ravaging flood at Igbogene Community in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the flood pushed the body of the teenager into a deep canal in the area and it has yet to be recovered. It was learnt that the deceased, in the company of his playmates, went swimming in the rising water close to the Bayelsa Ecumenical Centre. He was said to have been overwhelmed by the high current of the flood which pushed him into the deep drainage channel. Efforts by the community search party to locate the remains proved futile as half of the community has been submerged. The mother of the deceased known in the area as Mama Caro, in tears, said the tragic incident happened at about 11 a.m. on Monday while she went to the market to get ingredients for preparing lunch. READ ALSO: When I came back from the market, I was told he had gone swimming with friends. I thought he was swimming in the rising water at the compound until one of his friends told me that he had been dragged by the flood into the canal, she said According to the bereaved, the family hails from Amabulu in Ojobo community of Ekeremor Local Government Area of the state. Meanwhile, residents of communities impacted by the floods in Bayelsa have appealed to the government to find a lasting solution to the annual menace. Some of them who lamented the hardship occasioned by the situation, appealed for temporary shelters and relief materials as the flood had already sacked them from their residences. A victim, Perez Ayebanua, said their houses were flooded late last month and the menace was already taking a toll on them with reptiles competing with them for space. Florence Job and Ebi Perekeme explained that while those with resources had left their homes for hotels or elsewhere, the indigent ones got stuck and were left behind. The residents said they were at a loss over the situation, calling on the Bayelsa and Federal Governments to come to their aid and cushion the pains caused by the flood. NAN reports that Biseni, Tombia-Ekpetiama, Tombia-Amassoma Road, Akenfa, Akenpai, Igbogene and Swali, all in Yenagoa LGA, as well as Kaiama, Odi, Otuoke, and Ogbia communities are already flooded. Others include Tungbo, Agbere, Odoni, Bulu-Orua, Agoro and Sagbama. A NAN correspondent monitoring the situation reports that River Nun and its tributaries that receive waters from River Niger and the Epie Creek have all overflown their banks, discharging excess water into nearby settlements. Other communities such as Sampou, Gbaranma Sabagreia, Okoloba in Sagbama, Ekeremor and Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Areas are also battling the flood. Checks along the East-West Road indicated that the flood was already affecting some sections of it. The worst hit is the Patani section in Delta which shares a boundary with the Bayelsa community, Adagbabiri, which is already submerged. Meanwhile, schools in Bayelsa are on six weeks flood break to protect pupils and students from any disaster. Gov Douye Diri of Bayelsa has inaugurated a task force on flood whose major mandate is to bring relief to flood victims. However, one week after its inauguration, the team led by the Commissioner of Environment, Iselema Gbaranbiri, said the committee was visiting the impacted sites and would make recommendations to the government. (NAN) The governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Abia State, Ndukwe Onuoha, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to remain apolitical during the 2023 general elections. Mr Onuoha spoke in Umuahia at a media forum organised by the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Abia State Council. He said; INEC has a significant role to play in the emergence of a new administration by May 29. Therefore, it must remain an objective umpire to ensure that the process will be transparent. Mr Onuoha urged the commission to be wary of politicians who would be bent on manipulating the electoral process. He expressed concern that such politicians would want to frustrate the efforts made so far to improve the countrys electoral process. He alleged that some mischievous persons in a certain local government area of the state were already denying registered voters access to their Permanent Voter Card because they did not belong to certain political parties. INEC must make sure that they outsmart the smart politicians, who never want the process to be transparent or who may never want the will of the people to be. Past elections were all about sharing unused ballot papers among the high and mighty politicians to increase the number of votes they get at the polls. This time, the music has changed because one of the major determinants of the outcome of the process is the PVC, the governorship candidate said He commended the commission for its efforts at the recent governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states. The outcomes of the two elections offered hope for positive outcome in next years general elections, he said. Mr Onuoha said the outcomes were indicators that the investments made by the federal government to transform the commission had paid off. He described the Electoral Act 2020 (as amended) as the divine will of God and hope of the average Nigerian for a better state and federal government. Mr Onuoha, is a cleric and president, Vision Africa International, a media outfit with headquarters in Umuahia. He said he resolved to join partisan politics after the electoral law was amended and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari. Mr Onuoha said with the implementation of the electoral law, he was confident that INEC would live up to the peoples expectation. The provisions of the law ensured that there would be no loopholes for manipulation during the polls, he said. He, therefore, expressed optimism that votes would count in the elections, with the electronic voting and transmission of the voting results for everybody to see. (NAN) The police in Ogun say they have arrested three men for allegedly attempting to kidnap their former employer who sacked them in the Ijebu-Ode area of the state The suspects were identified by the police as Peter Nse, 24, Chukwuma Nwobodo, 48 years, and Michael Umanah, 30 years. The police made this known through a statement on Tuesday. The spokesperson of the command, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the trio were arrested after a complaint was lodged at Igbeba divisional police headquarters by one Ifenuga Olayinka. Mr Olayinka reportedly told the police that he received a text message on his phone from someone who described himself as Killer Vagabond of Africa. In the said message, the suspect (s) directed the complainant to pay N5 million into a bank account sent to him or risk being kidnapped within the shortest possible time. Upon the report, the DPO of Igbeba Division, Musiliu Doga, detailed detectives to unravel those behind the message. READ ALSO: According to Mr Oyeyemi, the detectives had embarked on a technical and intelligence-based investigation which he said led them to Anambra State, where two of the suspects, Messrs Nse and Nwobodo were arrested. Their arrest, he said, also led the detectives to Ago Iwoye, where the third suspect, Mr Umanah, was nabbed. Mr Oyeyemi said, It was when they were brought before the complainant that he identified them as his former employees, whom he laid off not quite long ago for certain misconducts. Mr Oyeyemi noted that the suspects confessed during interrogation that they committed the crime. They claimed to have made the attempt just because they were unhappy as the complainant terminated their appointment. Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police in Ogun, Lanre Bankole, has directed the transfer of the suspects to the anti-kidnapping unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligent Department, CIID, for investigation. LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- For World Sight Day 2022, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation, an NGO founded by Nepalese 'God of Sight' Dr Sanduk Ruit and London philanthropist Tej Kohli, has announced the results of its first projects in Bhutan and Ghana. 1,619 patients have been screened at two surgical outreach camps in Bhutan in August, where 246 people were cured of blindness over a six-day period, with Dr Sanduk Ruit performing 171 surgeries. 444 patients have been cured of blindness in Ghana at an inaugural surgical outreach camp in September, marking the NGOs first move into Africa. Patients line the corridors to await surgery at a Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation microsurgical outreach camp in Bhutan. Photo: Michael Amendolia. Needless blindness remains a public health challenge throughout the developing world that worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic when eye health services faced severe disruption and delay. Tej Kohli has committed to spending a portion of his wealth eradicating this needless blindness from low-income communities. Since launching their NGO in March 2021, Ruit and Kohli have already screened 164,616 people and cured 21,159 of cataract blindness in Nepal, Bhutan and Ghana. In November their NGO will start to cure blindness at scale in Tanzania, followed by Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation aspires to cure as many as 500,000 of cataract blindness in the developing world by 2030. In Bhutan the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is seeking to completely eliminate cataract blindness from the Kingdom in a joint project with the Ministry of Health. Bhutan has already achieved a 33% reduction in blindness since its first Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey in 2009. Now a joint program of outreach and surgical interventions combined with the training of new ophthalmologic surgeons will seek to clear the backlog of 10,460 people who are currently awaiting cataract surgery. In Ghana 54.8% of all blindness is due to cataracts but the average cataract surgical rate of 523 surgeries per million of population falls well below the WHO target of 3,000 per million. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation will cure 1,000 of blindness in the country by the end of 2022 and will ramp up its efforts throughout 2023. In Tanzania the NGO will also provide medical training to improve the rate of success of cataract surgeries in the country, which stands at 58.7% compared to a global average of 85%. Tej Kohli, co-founder of the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation said: "World Sight Day 2022 is an opportunity to take stock of the many NGOs like ours who are contributing toward global efforts to prevent and cure the unnecessary blindness that restrains social and economic progress in the developing world. We know that the socio-economic return of curing someone of blindness in a low-income country is 1,500% of the cost of surgery in just one year. That is very good value in terms of impact. I hope the international community will soon play a bigger role in spreading this impact further." About the Tej Kohli &Ruit Foundation The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is a restricted fund operating under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund, registered UK charity number 1099682. The Foundation targets the #1 United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing poverty by making large-scale surgical interventions to cure blindness at the grassroots in the developing world. All treatments are provided completely free, with 100% of the funding coming from Tej Kohli and the Kohli family. For more information visit: Website: www.tejkohliruit.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tejkohliruit/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tej-kohli-ruit-foundation/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tejkohliruitfoundation Medium: https://tejkohliruitfoundation.medium.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tkrfoundation Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1914078/Tej_Kohli_Ruit_Foundation_Bhutan.jpg SOURCE Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Novo Nordisk Foundation is expanding and extending its Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme, thereby enabling ambitious researchers in the natural and technical sciences and life sciences to boost their careers with a research stay at one of several top international universities. The Novo Nordisk Foundation wants to give researchers in Denmark the opportunity to seek inspiration and acquire new knowledge and skills by supporting their research stays at top international research institutions. To facilitate this, the Foundation has just entered into strategic partnerships with several internationally leading research actors. This especially benefits the Foundation's Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme. A new programme budget of DKK 96 million over a 3-year period will boost the Programme while offering attractive fellowships with improved benefits and research opportunities at one of these top international universities. The Foundation launched the Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme in 2015 through collaboration with Stanford Bio-X (USA). The fruitful experience has led to the expansion of the Programme, and the decision of the Foundation to establishing collaboration agreements with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA), the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), in addition to Stanford Bio-X. The purpose of the Programme is to boost the professional and personal development of talented researchers through 3 years of international experience and networking in a world-leading research community. In addition to the career-promoting aspect for the individual researcher, the Programme has the additional benefit that it facilitates the researcher's reintegration into the Danish research environment by supporting the fourth and final year of the project period at their affiliated university in Denmark and thus brings back innovation, networks and experience. In addition, the Programme promotes building human bridges and valuable relationships between Danish and international universities. The new expansion builds on the success of the Programme so far. Lene Oddershede, Senior Vice President, Natural & Technical Sciences, Novo Nordisk Foundation, says: "At the Novo Nordisk Foundation, we want to promote quality research and innovation at the highest international level and to bring novel research expertise to Denmark. We have had really good experience in sending young researchers to Stanford University, and we therefore want to expand the mobility opportunities with more top international universities. This is an investment in the growth layer of researchers in Denmark who will contribute positively to research and development in the future." "Internationalisation leads to increased creativity and creates innovation and value in research communities in Denmark. However, young researchers can face practical challenges when travelling abroad; finances can especially be a barrier for researchers with families and children. We seek to remedy this by covering health insurance costs, both for the fellows and their family and for example, by subsidising childcare costs in the programme at MIT. Thus, pursuing the dream of obtaining international research experience at a leading university will become more attractive and realistic, also for young researchers with families," adds Lene Oddershede. Innovative research communities "The Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme will promote building bridges between Danish and international universities and thus help to lay the foundations for making it easier for researchers in Denmark to seek experience outside Denmark in the future, but also the other way around. Therefore, another ambition is that the Programme acts as a branding of Danish research," explains Mikkel Skovborg, Senior Vice President, Innovation, Novo Nordisk Foundation. "Denmark has a long and proud tradition of world-class research, and although many research communities recognise this already, we think that a new initiative boosting researchers in Denmark will be of great benefit. We hope to pave the way for a future where even more meaningful exchange programmes can be established across national borders and researchers in Denmark can obtain access to innovative research communities abroad. This has been a key factor in deciding which universities the Foundation should include in the Programme," says Mikkel Skovborg, adding that: "The four universities that are now part of the Programme are all internationally recognised for their high level of interdisciplinarity and for their innovative approach to research and development. This means that the grant recipients will be able to conduct research in an exceptionally educational and fruitful environment and hopefully achieve exciting new breakthroughs in their research." An important aspect of the new version of the Programme is that, after the grant ends, the recipients can apply for a proof-of-concept grant that will enable them to exploit translation of their discovery or invention to eventual commercialisation in Denmark. Selection criteria Before applying for a Fellowship Programme grant, applicants must meet the following criteria: The applicant will have obtained a PhD within 5 years of the fellowship start date. The applicant must have a solid education in the natural sciences, the technical sciences or the life sciences. The applicant must have established contact with a faculty member at one of the four hosting universities, who has committed to being the primary research mentor for the duration of the fellowship. The applicant must have had significant association to Denmark's educational system or a research community in Denmark , such as by having a graduated from a university in Denmark , and a clear intention of returning to Denmark after the stay abroad. educational system or a research community in , such as by having a graduated from a university in , and a clear intention of returning to after the stay abroad. Applicants must confirm that a university in Denmark will host the researcher when they return to Denmark , which also entails employing the fellow during the grant period and administering the grant. Read more about the application process here: Fellowships at MIT, Fellowships at Stanford Bio-X, Fellowships at University of Oxford and Fellowships at Weizmann Institute of Science. About the Novo Nordisk Foundation Established in Denmark in 1924, the Novo Nordisk Foundation is an enterprise foundation with philanthropic objectives. The vision of the Foundation is to improve people's health and the sustainability of society and the planet. The Foundation's mission is to progress research and innovation in the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic and infectious diseases as well as to advance knowledge and solutions to support a green transformation of society. www.novonordiskfonden.dk/en SOURCE Novo Holdings DUBLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AerCap Holdings N.V. ("AerCap") (NYSE: AER) has announced its major business transactions during the third quarter 2022: Signed 184 lease agreements, including 30 widebody aircraft, 104 narrowbody aircraft, 3 regional jets, 23 engines and 24 helicopters. including 30 widebody aircraft, 104 narrowbody aircraft, 3 regional jets, 23 engines and 24 helicopters. Completed 34 purchases for 15 aircraft (including 12 Airbus A320neo Family aircraft and 1 Airbus A220 aircraft for AerCap's owned aircraft portfolio and 2 aircraft for AerCap's managed aircraft portfolio), 16 engines and 3 helicopters. for 15 aircraft (including 12 Airbus A320neo Family aircraft and 1 Airbus A220 aircraft for AerCap's owned aircraft portfolio and 2 aircraft for AerCap's managed aircraft portfolio), 16 engines and 3 helicopters. Executed 37 sale transactions for 21 aircraft (including 4 Airbus A320 Family aircraft, 2 Airbus A320neo Family aircraft, 1 Airbus A330, 2 Boeing 737NGs, 2 Boeing 777-200ERs, 2 Boeing 767-300ERs, 1 Boeing 737-800BCF and 3 Boeing 747-400Fs from AerCap's owned aircraft portfolio and 4 aircraft from AerCap's managed aircraft portfolio), 13 engines and 3 helicopters. for 21 aircraft (including 4 Airbus A320 Family aircraft, 2 Airbus A320neo Family aircraft, 1 Airbus A330, 2 Boeing 737NGs, 2 Boeing 777-200ERs, 2 Boeing 767-300ERs, 1 Boeing 737-800BCF and 3 Boeing 747-400Fs from AerCap's owned aircraft portfolio and 4 aircraft from AerCap's managed aircraft portfolio), 13 engines and 3 helicopters. Signed financing transactions for approximately $1.4 billion . About AerCap AerCap is the global leader in aviation leasing with one of the most attractive order books in the industry. AerCap serves approximately 300 customers around the world with comprehensive fleet solutions. AerCap is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (AER) and is based in Dublin with offices in Shannon, Miami, Singapore, Memphis, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Seattle, Toulouse and other locations around the world. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain statements, estimates and forecasts with respect to future performance and events. These statements, estimates and forecasts are "forward-looking statements". In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "intend," "will," "aim," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "predict," "potential" or "continue" or the negatives thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements and are based on various underlying assumptions and expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and may include projections of our future financial performance based on our growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors, including the impacts of, and associated responses to: the Ukraine conflict; the Covid-19 pandemic; our ability to successfully integrate GECAS' operations and employees and realize anticipated synergies and cost savings; and the potential impact of the consummation of the GECAS transaction on relationships, including with employees, suppliers, customers and competitors, that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate or correct. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future performance or events described in the forward-looking statements in this press release might not occur. Accordingly, you should not rely upon forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results and we do not assume any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. Except as required by applicable law, we do not undertake any obligation to, and will not, update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For more information regarding AerCap and to be added to our email distribution list, please visit www.aercap.com and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/aercapnv . SOURCE AerCap Holdings N.V. Conor Wagner joins company as senior vice president of investor relations and finance IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- American Healthcare REIT, Inc., a self-managed, publicly-registered, real estate investment trust, announced today that Conor Wagner has joined the company as senior vice president of investor relations and finance. He reports directly to chief financial officer Brian Peay and is responsible for leading the company's investor relations department. "Conor is another strong addition to our senior management team and brings with him extensive experience from the REIT sector," said Danny Prosky, chief executive officer and president of American Healthcare REIT. "His valuable perspective on both the public and private markets will be beneficial as we continue to pursue our strategic plan on behalf of investors." Prior to joining American Healthcare REIT, Wagner was vice president of finance for Donahue Schriber Realty Group, a grocery-anchored and shopping center focused REIT, where he oversaw investor reporting and strategic finance activities. Wagner previously served in a similar capacity with publicly traded apartment REITs, AIR Communities, as senior vice president, and Aimco as vice president. Prior to Aimco, Wagner was an analyst on Green Street Advisors' residential research team, where he co-led coverage of the apartment and single-family rental sectors. Wagner earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Master of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. About American Healthcare REIT, Inc. American Healthcare REIT, Inc. is a leading internally managed REIT that acquires, owns and operates a diversified portfolio of clinical healthcare real estate properties, focusing primarily on medical office buildings, senior housing, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals and other healthcare-related facilities. As of June 30, 2022, its total assets of approximately $4.5 billion consisted of 313 buildings and integrated senior health campuses owned and/or operated by the company that are located in 36 states, the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man, representing approximately 19.5 million square feet of gross leasable area. For more information, please visit www.AmericanHealthcareREIT.com. Contact: Conor Wagner SVP, Investor Relations and Finance Finance (949) 270-9258 [email protected] SOURCE American Healthcare REIT, Inc. CENTENNIAL, Colo., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Before adjourning in September, the House of Representatives passed the Global Aircraft Maintenance Safety Improvement Act (H.R. 7321), calling for unannounced FAA inspections of foreign repair stations, minimum qualifications for mechanics and others working on U.S.-registered aircraft at foreign repair stations, data gathering and analysis, as well as additional safety improvements. "Chairman DeFazio has been leading on the issue of aviation maintenance safety," stated AMFA National President Bret Oestreich. "On behalf of the over 4,000 aircraft mechanics at Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines, AMFA applauds House passage of the Global Aircraft Maintenance Safety Improvement Act." "This proposed legislation gives credence to AMFA's motto that safety in the air begins with quality maintenance on the ground," noted Oestreich. "AMFA worked in conjunction with the House Aviation Subcommittee to tailor this legislation and we continue to engage the Senate to further to ensure our air transportation system is the safest possible system in the world." The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association is a craft-oriented, independent aviation union. AMFA represents licensed and unlicensed technicians and related employees actively involved in the aviation industry. These technicians and related employees work directly on aircraft and/or components, support equipment, and facilities. AMFA is committed to elevating the professional standing of technicians and to achieving progressive improvements in wages, benefits, and working conditions of the skilled people it represents. For more information about AMFA, visit www.amfanational.org. SOURCE Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association #OPIXpression LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- OPI, the #1 nail salon brand, introduces NEW artificial nail, OPI xPRESS/ON, offering professional quality shades, artistry, and innovative effects available anytime, anywhere. With OPI xPRESS/ON, iconic color, trendsetting designs, and a flawless gel-like salon manicure are right at consumers' fingertips just xPRESS. Set. Go! New OPI xPRESS/ON available at Ulta Beauty OPI xPRESS/ON launches exclusively at ULTA Beauty and includes 33 press-on gel-like salon manicure looks with 14-days of wear to instantly xPRESS. Fans can get all pressed up with 15 iconic OPI shades such as Alpine Snow, Cajun Shrimp, and Big Apple Red; six innovative salon-inspired effects like holographic shimmers or glazed finish; and eight professional nail art designs including several French manicure styles. It's like having a SALON THE GO! OPI xPRESS/ON is vegan, containing no animal derived ingredients, and the nails and packaging are made with 94% and 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials, respectively. The nails are also reusable. Packaging is responsibly and sustainably sourced. A Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) carton is printed with soy ink and can be recycled. "As the #1 nail salon brand globally, we have the professional quality, color, and innovation that consumers know and trust," shares OPI Co-Founder and Brand Ambassador Suzi Weiss-Fischmann. "With the debut collection of press-on nails, fans can select among 33 looks with a flawless finish, instantly. You can change your look to match the moment, even on the go, whether doing a presentation at work or going out for a night with friends." OPI xPRESS/ON sets will be available in iconic color (*available in classic and long length): Iconic OPI Shades: Alpine Snow * Black Onyx Bubble Bath * Big Apple Red Funny Bunny Malaga Wine Don't Bossa Nova Me Around Lincoln Park After Dark * Cajun Shrimp Throw Me A Kiss * Mod About You Gelato On My Mind Taupe-Less Beach Strawberry Margarita Linger Over Coffee New innovative finishes: Break The Gold Ask For A Raise IYKYK Swipe Night Blue-gie Charging My Crystals Professional nail art & designs: French Press So Into Blue I Want It, I Got It My 9 To Thrive Comin' In Haute Galac-Tips Certified Chic Tastes Like Strawberries Each OPI xPRESS/ON set includes 30 professional quality nails, super hold glue, a cuticle tool, and a file. To apply, use the quick and easy four-step process: fit, shape, prep, and xPress. OPI xPRESS/ON offers 14-days of gel-like manicure wear. Beginning October 2022, OPI xPRESS/ON sets will retail for $12.99 (iconic shades), $13.99 (salon effects & longer lengths), and $15.99 (professional nail art) each exclusively at ULTA, ulta.com , part of the Conscious Beauty at ULTA Beauty collection. OPI is guaranteed only when purchased through authorized professional beauty outlets and prestige stores, not from a drugstore, supermarket, mass outlet, or other unauthorized sources. For more information, please visit OPI.com. Follow along @OPI on Instagram , Facebook , and TikTok , and find the brand on Twitter @OPI_PRODUCTS ! ABOUT OPI As the number one salon brand worldwide, OPI is committed to providing high-quality products and services to both salons and their customers, along with a focus on industry safety and innovation. With exceptional formulas, fashionable colors, and iconic names, OPI's heavily pigmented lacquers are super-rich, long lasting and chip-resistant offering an affordable luxury to consumers. When used in a professional service, color can last up to seven days. OPI nail lacquer is available in more than 200 shades. OPI Infinite Shine is a no-light three-step long wear lacquer system offering long-wear, high-shine and ease of application and removal. There are now more than 150 shades in the Infinite Shine collection. Each lacquer features OPI's exclusive ProWide Brush for the ultimate application. Currently, OPI is available in over 100 countries and retails a full line of professional items including OPI GelColor (available in more than 140 shades that match their iconic OPI lacquer counterparts) with up to three-week wear, nail treatments, finishing products, lotions, manicure/pedicure products, files, tools, gels and acrylics. OPI is guaranteed only when purchased through authorized professional beauty outlets and prestige stores, not from a drugstore, supermarket, mass outlet, or other unauthorized sources. For more information, please visit OPI.com. Follow OPI on Instagram @OPI , on Twitter @OPI_PRODUCTS and go to OPI on Facebook to become a fan. ABOUT WELLA COMPANY Wella Company is one of the world's leading beauty companies, comprised of a family of iconic brands including Wella Professionals, OPI, ghd, Briogeo, Nioxin, Sebastian Professional and Clairol. At Wella Company, we are innovators who seek to inspire consumers and beauty professionals through our brands to look, feel, and be their true selves. We are committed to building the best beauty company in the industry where our 6,000+ employees across more than 100 countries can bring their best selves to work. Guided by our company values and led by purpose to deliver positive impact on people through our products and towards our planet and society, we deliver sustainable growth to all stakeholders. For more information on Wella Company, visit www.wellacompany.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram . SOURCE OPI Products Inc. BERWYN, Pa., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Annovis Bio, Inc. (NYSE: ANVS) ("Annovis" or the "Company"), a late-stage clinical drug platform company addressing neurodegenerative diseases, today announced the publication of Phase 2a clinical study data in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease. The published study, titled 'Buntanetap, a Novel Translational Inhibitor of Multiple Neurotoxic Proteins, Proves to Be Safe and Promising in Both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients', evaluated safety, pharmacokinetics, biomarkers, and efficacy of buntanetap in treating early Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients. The study demonstrated that buntanetap was well tolerated, safe and significantly improved cognition in AD patients and motor function in PD patients. "Given the short duration of our Phase 2a clinical trial, we are delighted to see that patients treated with buntanetap had a statistically significant improvement in cognition and function," said Maria L. Maccecchini, Ph.D., Founder, President, and CEO of Annovis Bio. "We believe that the effects on cognition and motor function after such a short treatment are due to buntanetap's ability to restore neuronal function through the improvement of axonal integrity, synaptic transmission, and reduction of inflammation." Cheng Fang, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Research & Development at Annovis Bio, added: "These fast-acting effects suggest that buntanetap can function as a symptomatic drug to give patients quick relief of their neurological symptoms. Based on animal studies, we also believe that buntanetap can function as a disease-modifying drug in both AD and PD patients as it will continue to reduce the levels of neurotoxic aggregating proteins and preserve neuronal integrity. We are testing this hypothesis further in our late-stage clinical trials with larger patient populations and longer treatment times." Annovis has begun dosing patients in the Company's Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating buntanetap in early PD. The Phase 3 trial is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial investigating the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of buntanetap. The trial will enroll a total of 450 early PD patients to be treated with 10mg buntanetap, 20mg buntanetap or a placebo, on top of their standard of care for six months. In early October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a Phase 2/3 clinical study of buntanetap in moderate AD. The Phase 2/3 study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial investigating the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of buntanetap in moderate AD patients. The trial will enroll a total of 320 AD patients to be treated with 7.5mg buntanetap, 15mg buntanetap, 30mg buntanetap or a placebo, on top of their standard of care for three months. About Buntanetap Buntanetap (previously known as ANVS401 or Posiphen) is an oral translational inhibitor of neurotoxic aggregating proteins (TINAPs), which mode of action leads to a lower level of neurotoxic proteins and consequently less toxicity in the brain. In a Phase 2a clinical trial in AD and PD patients, buntanetap was shown to be well-tolerated and safe, and its pharmacokinetics were found to be in line with levels measured earlier in humans, meeting both the primary and secondary endpoints. Additionally, exploratory endpoints were also met, as treatment with buntanetap resulted in statistically significant improvement in motor function in PD patients and cognition in AD patients. Presently buntanetap is being studied in a phase 3 early PD study and will enter a phase 2/3 study in AD patients later in the year. About Annovis Bio, Inc. Headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Annovis Bio, Inc. is a clinical-stage, drug platform company developing transformative therapies that treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and other chronic and acute neurodegenerative diseases. The Company believes that it is the only company developing a drug that inhibits more than one neurotoxic protein, improves the information highway of the nerve cell, known as axonal transport, reduces inflammation and protects nerve cells from dying in chronic and acute neurodegeneration. Annovis conducted two Phase 2 studies: one in AD patients and one in both AD and PD patients. In the AD/PD study, buntanetap showed improvements in cognition and memory in AD as well as body and brain function in PD patients. For more information on Annovis Bio, please visit the Company's website www.annovisbio.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter . Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release contain "forward-looking statements" that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "expect," "believe," "will," "may," "should," "estimate," "project," "outlook," "forecast" or other similar words, and include, without limitation, statements regarding the timing, effectiveness, and anticipated results of buntanetap clinical trials. Forward-looking statements are based on Annovis Bio, Inc.'s current expectations and are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Further, certain forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. These and other risks and uncertainties are described more fully in the section titled "Risk Factors" in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made as of this date, and Annovis Bio, Inc. undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law. Media and Investor Contact: Nic Johnson Russo Partners, LLC (303) 482-6405 [email protected] SOURCE Annovis Bio DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ANXINSEC is participating in the GITEX Global 2022 from 10-14 October, the Middle East's most influential exhibition. As a leading brand of memory security, Anxinsec presents its competitive product, Memory Detection and Protection System (MDPS), and several scenario-based security solutions at this exhibition. ANXINSEC at GITEX GLOBAL 2022 "GITEX GLOBAL remains the world's largest tech show with the most innovative companies, showing great influence. We are pleased to get involved in the event and ready to demonstrate our multi-dimensional security solutions. I once read a report from the International Cybersecurity Conference that global economic losses of $2.5 trillion in 2019 were caused by cybersecurity issues. And Matt Miller, Microsoft's security expert, said over 70% of issues were related to memory security. As memory protection is critical, we bring our product, Memory Protection and Detection System, which provides runtime protection for memory data, and hope to build the last defensive line of the Defense-in-Depth System for enterprises." Alex Jiang says, CEO, ANXINSEC. "With the increasing cybersecurity threats, ANXINSEC devotes to protecting enterprises from business interruption and data breaches. Based on innovative and other cutting-edge technologies, the MDPS provides multi-dimensional protection at the application level, system level, and hardware level, achieving runtime protection and comprehensive monitoring of memory data against various advanced attacks such as fileless attacks, 0-day vulnerability exploits, memory-targeted attacks which may evade traditional security solutions," according to Roger, CSO, ANXINSEC. In addition to the MDPS, ANXINSEC also provides Mobile Device Management that focuses on managing mobile devices, wireless networks, and other mobile computing services in a business environment and managed security services such as consultation, penetration testing, security maintenance, security operations, incident response services, as well as managed services, incident response services. Committed to the mission of protecting the peace of the digital world, ANXINSEC is eager for more cooperation with existing friends and new connections with future partners. ANXINSEC endeavors to effectively protect our friends from the risk of data breaches and data tampering caused by malicious actors. ANXINSEC shows its MDPS at CC1-1 in Concourse1. Security experts and senior executives are available on site for any consultation and ready to showcase how to build the last defensive line of the Defense-in-Depth System. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918115/ANXINSEC_GITEX_GLOBAL_2022.jpg SOURCE Anxinsec DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ATI (NYSE: ATI) will provide live Internet listening access to its conference call with the financial community scheduled for Wednesday, November 2, 2022, at 10:30 a.m. ET. The conference call will be conducted after the Company's planned release of third quarter results. The conference call will be broadcast, and accompanying presentation slides will be available, at ATImaterials.com. To access the broadcast, visit ATImaterials.com and select "Conference Call." Conference call replay will be available on ATImaterials.com. ATI: Proven to Perform. ATI (NYSE: ATI) is a global producer of high performance materials and solutions for the aerospace and defense markets, and critical applications in electronics, medical and specialty energy. We're solving the world's most difficult challenges through materials science. We partner with our customers to deliver extraordinary materials that enable their greatest achievements: their products fly higher and faster, burn hotter, dive deeper, stand stronger and last longer. Our proprietary process technologies, unique customer partnerships and commitment to innovation deliver materials and solutions for today and the evermore challenging environments of tomorrow. We are proven to perform anywhere. Learn more at ATImaterials.com. SOURCE Allegheny Technologies With top new analyst positioning, Atlas' technology, direct EOR model and geographic reach new heights of visibility and impact in the market. CHICAGO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlas, an industry leader in Employer of Record (EOR) Solutions and Technology, announced today that it was named a Leader in Everest Group's first "Employer of Record (EOR) Solutions PEAK Matrix Assessment 2022," showcasing Atlas' proprietary technology, direct EOR model and growing geographic and market reach. Atlas named a Leader in Everest Groups first ever Employer of Record (EOR) Solutions PEAK Matrix Assessment 2022 Everest Group conducted a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the major players in the employer of record industry. As an independent firm with rigorous standards comparing 15-25 enterprises, Everest Group's PEAK Matrix Assessments provide analysis and insights that enable enterprises to make critical selection decisions about global top services providers, top locations, best-in-class products and best-in-class solutions. The report also measures market impact, vision and capability. "Atlas' investments in enhancing its global delivery, service coverage, and platform solution have strengthened its position within the Employer of Record solutions space," stated Priyanka Mitra, Practice Director, Everest Group. "Its focus on setting up its own entities to streamline the process and making its platform solution more flexible and feature-rich by providing services such as visa and mobility as well as contractor pay has helped it to position as a Leader on Everest Group's PEAK Matrix Assessment." "Everest Group's EOR Report confirms that now more than ever, organizations are looking at flexible solutions when it comes to global expansion and hiring. And being acknowledged as a Leader in this report reflects our commitment to responding to changing market demands," said Rick Hammell, founder and CEO of Atlas. "Our customers want flexibility in how and where solutions are being delivered, and our solutions reflect that. We'll continue to enhance our technology to improve our customers' experience as we offer more localized support across the world." This recognition from Everest Group comes on the heels of another respected designation as a leader in the industry by globally recognized research and analyst firm, NelsonHall. The renowned analyst group identified Atlas as a Leader in its Global Employer of Record Services NelsonHall Vendor Evaluation and Assessment Tool (NEAT) Assessment. This is the first time Atlas is featured in the report, which notes Atlas' technology and direct EOR model among the critical differentiators. In addition to these globally recognized designations, Atlas' recent $200M Series B funding speaks to the company's incredible momentum. Funds raised in the Series B will enable the company to further cement its leadership as a services enabled technology company that simplifies global expansion with unified HXM software and solutions, while increasing its market impact across the world through more localized resources. See the full Everest Group Employer of Record (EOR) Solutions PEAK Matrix Assessment 2022 here. https://www2.everestgrp.com/reportaction/EGR-2022-24-R-5408/Marketing About Atlas Atlas enables innovative companies to compete in a global economy, believing that businesses should employ whomever they want, wherever the talent exists. As the largest direct employer of record (EOR) with entities in over 160 countries, Atlas is a technology platform that is supported by experts and delivers flexibility for companies to expand across borders, onboard talent, manage compliance, and pay their global workforce without the need for a local entity. Atlas was built on years of experience navigating the challenges of quickly deploying and paying international employees while ensuring compliance with local regulations. This experience brings localized experience and expertise into an enterprise-grade technology platform that supports thousands of companies and remote teams. The Atlas platform is uniquely designed to deliver end-to-end EOR solutions and empowered user experiences that provide self-service capabilities and real-time insights that lead to improved business outcomes. Learn more at atlasHXM.com or follow Atlas on LinkedIn and Twitter (@Atlas_HXM). Media Contact: Courtney Merolle [email protected] SOURCE Atlas As a leading proteomics technology company in Asia, Bertis plans to bring its unique proteomic and data science-based diagnostic tests to clients in the U.S. SEOUL, Korea, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bertis Inc. , a South Korean proteomics-based precision medicine technology company, announced today it has established a U.S.-based wholly-owned entity to expand the company's global presence and primarily provide access to the growing U.S. clinical testing market. The company's U.S. subsidiary, called Bertis Bioscience, is incorporated in Delaware and aims to establish a San Diego-based CLIA-certified lab facility in early Q4, 2022 to offer its expanding array of highly differentiated proteomics-based screening and diagnostic tests, as well as an analysis platform to integrate multi-omics data. Proteomics, the study of proteins in the human body, has emerged as a promising field in medicine, particularly for its potential to identify subtypes of cancers and match patients with the most appropriate treatment strategy1. Even though the cancer survival rate in the U.S. has increased over the past 28 years2, some types of cancer are still difficult to detect at early stages, with no standard early diagnosis method. Proteomics has also been in the spotlight as the U.S. Cancer Moonshot initiative promoted a proteome consortium to encourage international collaboration and investment across countries in cancer research and treatment.3 Bertis has established a foundation for precision medicine by developing diagnostic solutions based on technology that combines proteomics and AI, which has enabled the company to emerge as a leader in proteomics and bioinformatics in Asia. The company has successfully commercialized in South Korea MASTOCHECKTM, the world's first proteomics-based breast cancer blood test solution. In Korea, the solution has been used at over 170 health clinics and hospitals nationwide since marketing approval as an in vitro diagnostic medical device from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in January 2019. Bertis has gained a foothold in the Asian market by recently signing a contract with one of Singapore's largest medical groups, Raffles Medical Group, to supply MASTOCHECKTM. Through this contract, MASTOCHECKTM will be introduced to the Raffles Breast Centre, Raffles Health Screeners, and over 30 Raffles medical clinics in Singapore. "We are excited to establish Bertis Bioscience in the U.S. We believe Bertis' unique and powerful approach to proteomics-based precision medicine will positively impact medical professionals and patients in the U.S. as it has in Asia," said Seungman Han, Bertis founder and co-CEO. "With the San Diego site underway, Bertis aims to build on its success in South Korea and Asia and become a trusted partner to medical professionals and patients in the U.S. aiming to rapidly and effectively identify and treat a range of life-threatening diseases." The company is also developing a novel artificial intelligence and machine learning approach to maximize the utilization of protein information by discovering the 'dark matter' of the proteome, which is currently not accessible. Bertis' unique and expanding expertise in analyzing and interpreting the proteome is expected to enable the company to expand into additional applications and diseases where there are high unmet medical needs in detection and treatment, such as ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer. Recently, Bertis' research team presented protein biomarkers for early diagnosis of high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) with 95% accuracy4. The results of this study were published in the September issue of the Journal of Proteome Research by the American Chemical Society. In this study, the research team identified 18 candidate proteins after quantifying 1,847 serum proteins, the highest number ever reported as ovarian cancer biomarker research results, through Bertis' technology platform to discover biomarker candidates. As a result of developing and evaluating a predictive model, the accuracy of the diagnostic value for stages 1 to 3 HGSOC was 95% (sensitivity 100%, specificity 91%) when 18 candidate proteins were combined with multiple biomarkers. For more information on Bertis Bioscience, please email us at [email protected] . About Bertis Bertis is a pioneer of proteomics-based disease detection and therapy companion diagnostics. Bertis' capabilities range from cancer, disorder biomarker discovery, low-cost diagnostics manufacturing and analysis services. Since its inception in 2014, the company has been focused on developing and improving technologies for early diagnosis solutions with the most advanced quantitative proteomics research, precision medicine based on companion diagnostic markers, and target discovery for oncology drug development and personalized treatment. Flagship solutions include MASTOCHECK, the world's first proteomics-based blood test solution for early breast cancer detection, and PASS (Pan-omics Analysis Service & Solution), a platform for integrative analysis of multi-omics data. For more information, please visit our website www.bertis.com or follow us on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/bertis-inc . About MASTOCHECK MASTOCHECK is a proteomics-based breast cancer detection test developed by Bertis Inc. and has been offered to the public in South Korea since 2019. MASTOCHECK uses patented algorithms to analyze plasma protein biomarkers specific to breast cancer. MASTOCHECK can analyze samples as small as 1ml plasma to diagnose early-stage breast cancer with high sensitivity. MASTOCHECK has been patented by the Korean Intellectual Property Office since 2014, and 10 patents are currently registered in four countries - Korea, the United States, China and Japan. MASTOCHECK was approved as an in vitro diagnostic medical device by the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in January 2019 based on the test's efficacy in the detection of early breast cancer and certified as New Excellent Technology (NET) by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) in September 2019. For more information, please visit the MASTOCHECK website: http://www.mastocheck.com/ 1 Li Zhou et al. Clinical proteomics-driven precision medicine for targeted cancer therapy: current overview and future perspectives. PMID: 26923776. Available at 10.1586/14789450.2016.1159959 . 2 Rebecca L. Siegel MPH et al. Cancer Statistics. Available at https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21708 3 National Cancer Institute. Division of Cancer Treatment & Diagnosis. Available at https://icpc.cancer.gov/portal/ 4 Sunghyun Huh et al. Novel Diagnostic Biomarkers for High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer Uncovered by Data-Independent Acquisition Mass Spectrometry. J. Proteome Res. 2022, 21, 9, 21462159. Available at https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jproteome.2c00218 SOURCE Bertis Inc. Official AC509 certification by the International Code Council Evaluation Service (ICC-ES) makes Black Buffalo 3D's NEXCON printer and Planitop 3D ink the first AC509 coded structural 3D construction solution in the world. EAST STROUDSBURG, Penn., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Black Buffalo 3D Corporation, a leading provider of large-scale 3D printers for construction, today announced that its NEXCON printers and proprietary 3D concrete ink mixsold through its partner MAPEI Corporation as PlanitopTM 3D in North Americahave been approved by the ICC Evaluation Service (ICC-ES), meeting AC509 requirements for 3D printed bearing, nonbearing, and shear walls up to 40' height. Evaluation reports from ICC-ES are the most-preferred resource used by officials internationally to verify that new and innovative building products comply with code requirements. The ICC-ES certifies that Black Buffalo 3D construction technology meets the requirements of AC509, "3D Automated Construction Technology for 3D Concrete Walls" and has issued ESR-4623, available upon request at www.bb3d.io/contact. Black Buffalo 3D provides the only complete 3D construction printing solution in the world to meet internationally recognized building code. Freshly 3D printed wall samples being examined at Black Buffalo 3D facility prior to transport to Intertek Lab plc for further testing and analysis. Black Buffalo 3D printed walls being tested as part of the process to confirm strength and durability. These structural walls were printed with a NEXCON printer and Planitop 3D ink. Materials matter and Black Buffalo 3D's proprietaryPlanitopTM 3Dconstruction ink was specially developed through years of research, testing, and evaluation by independent and in-house material scientists at Black Buffalo 3D Corporation, its partner MAPEI Corporationa leading construction materials provider for the building industryand various 3rd party labs including Intertek Group plc, a 130-year-old global assurance, testing, inspection, and certification supplier. "Black Buffalo 3D's goal has always been to make 3D construction printing a coded alternative to traditional construction," said Black Buffalo 3D Founder and Interim CEO, Derek Chung. "Our AC509 certification is the result of years of hard work and dedication, and marks a milestone not just for us, but for the whole 3D construction printing industry recognizing Black Buffalo 3D clients can print structures that are equivalent to CMU block." Fine-tuning the BB3D AC509 Concrete Mixsold as PlanitopTM 3D in North Americaand BB3D's NEXCON printers for the 3D construction industry was no small feat. The AC509 certification represents the final step in the lengthy approval process; milestones already achieved include several 16+ hour print sessions on NEXCON printers by the Black Buffalo 3D team, the need for Intertek to purchase a stronger machine to test the walls, and tons of hard work from all parties involved. The verification process included testing of the material, machine, and printed walls to verify that each component and final product could meet AC509 criteria at every stage of the 3D printing process. "Planitop 3D will unlock the true potential of 3D construction printing by providing contractors and builders with internationally accepted certification that their projects will be strong and durable," added Luigi Di Geso, President and CEO of MAPEI Corporation. "And the resulting structures will be built quickly and at a fraction of the cost of traditional construction, which means that affordable housing can be within reach for more people." 3D construction printers are poised to improve the way the world approaches challenges related to attainable housing, industrial buildings, emergency shelters, and resilient infrastructure. Additive manufacturing offers a faster, more efficient approach to residential, commercial, and custom construction. On-demand and on-site 3D printing is now a legitimate coded technology. Additional details can be found in ESR-4623 available through request at www.bb3d.io and through ICC-ES. PlanitopTM 3D is now available for sale directly through MAPEI for all 3D construction printers. About Black Buffalo 3D Corporation Black Buffalo 3D Corporation (https://www.bb3d.io) is the PA based subsidiary of Big Sun Holdings Group, Inc.with locations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Black Buffalo 3D is poised to revolutionize construction and become the leading global provider of 3D construction printers (3DCP), proprietary construction "ink" (PlanitopTM 3D), and 3D print construction consulting services. NEXCON printers are now available globally. Print smart and sustainable infrastructure on-demand with Black Buffalo 3D NEXCON printers. About MAPEI Corporation With over 84 associated manufacturing plants in 35 countries, serving 66,000+ customers worldwide, MAPEI is the world leader in the manufacturer of adhesives, sealants, concrete additives, including admixtures and repair products, as well as other chemical products for construction. For more information, visit www.mapei.com or call 1-800-42-MAPEI (1-800-426-2734). Media contact: Peter Cooperman, Interim CMO [email protected] (646) 612-7593 SOURCE Black Buffalo 3D Corporation MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bloomreach , the world's #1 Commerce Experience Cloud, today announced it launched more than 15 new product features in the third quarter of 2022, delivering continued innovation for its customers as the company revolutionizes what's possible for e-commerce personalization. With advanced features added across the company's Engagement , Discovery , and Content product pillars, Bloomreach now offers practitioners even more ways to drive impactful business results , fast ROI, and lasting customer loyalty. "Bloomreach has long believed in the power of data-driven personalization, and our products are all built upon that core belief," said Raj De Datta, co-founder and CEO, Bloomreach. "This quarter, the teams focused on ways to grow those personalization capabilities even further across marketing, product discovery, and content all while making our products easier to use and more accessible for businesses and practitioners. We're really proud of all we released for customers these past few months and are already looking with excitement to what's ahead." New features launched across Bloomreach product pillars in Q3 included: Engagement Contextual Personalization in Banners and Popups (also referred to as Weblayers) : ensures marketers can build every web campaign with the customer at the center. It allows users to scale 1-to-1 A/B tests so that each customer is shown personalized offers, product recommendations, or content they are most likely to convert on, adjusting to customer activity in real-time during each site visit. : ensures marketers can build every web campaign with the customer at the center. It allows users to scale 1-to-1 A/B tests so that each customer is shown personalized offers, product recommendations, or content they are most likely to convert on, adjusting to customer activity in real-time during each site visit. Personalized Marketing for Salesforce Comme r ce Cloud (also referred to as Salesforce Commerce Cloud Connector) : allows Salesforce Commerce Cloud users to easily connect their commerce store to Bloomreach Engagement fast. Marketers can unify data in a single view and run powerful, data-driven campaigns in as little as two weeks. r allows Salesforce Commerce Cloud users to easily connect their commerce store to Bloomreach Engagement fast. Marketers can unify data in a single view and run powerful, data-driven campaigns in as little as two weeks. Custom Campaign Dashboards : empowers teams to take control of their analytics directly within the app, without depending on IT or data scientists. It provides marketers with the ability to easily create and customize their own campaign evaluation dashboards, down to individual channels, with their preferred metrics and goals. : empowers teams to take control of their analytics directly within the app, without depending on IT or data scientists. It provides marketers with the ability to easily create and customize their own campaign evaluation dashboards, down to individual channels, with their preferred metrics and goals. Real-Time Page Personalization (also referred to as Managed Endpoints) : makes near real-time changes to a web page, mobile application, or any third-party app at the server, rather than at the time of page load, to deliver fast, flicker-free personalization. In essence, this feature builds a page for every visitor in the segment a marketer is personalizing, so the customer experience always feels fast, seamless, and tailored to their preferences. : makes near real-time changes to a web page, mobile application, or any third-party app at the server, rather than at the time of page load, to deliver fast, flicker-free personalization. In essence, this feature builds a page for every visitor in the segment a marketer is personalizing, so the customer experience always feels fast, seamless, and tailored to their preferences. Plug & Play Library : allows marketers to reduce the time spent completing time consuming tasks such as creating workflows, connecting channels, and automating triggers. With a library of the highest performing campaigns, automations, and templates, marketers can work even more efficiently, putting saved time into building larger, more creative campaigns. : allows marketers to reduce the time spent completing time consuming tasks such as creating workflows, connecting channels, and automating triggers. With a library of the highest performing campaigns, automations, and templates, marketers can work even more efficiently, putting saved time into building larger, more creative campaigns. Centralized Site Access: offers simple, centralized login access for businesses with multiple brands. With SSO capabilities, marketers can now log in once to manage all of their brands' sites from a single place. Additionally, marketers can more easily leverage assets and workflows created in one brand by copying into their other brand instances. Discovery Multi-Language Semantic Search : understands a customer's search intent to ensure the right results are delivered even if search terms are used that do not match a business's product catalogs, search keywords, or metadata. Already offered for the English language, the latest feature release expands this capability to French and German markets. : understands a customer's search intent to ensure the right results are delivered even if search terms are used that do not match a business's product catalogs, search keywords, or metadata. Already offered for the English language, the latest feature release expands this capability to French and German markets. Algorithm Control for Merchandisers : puts greater power into the hands of merchandisers by giving them the ability to balance AI learning with their merchandising expertise. Users can configure search algorithms to meet their unique business needs via front-end API calls. : puts greater power into the hands of merchandisers by giving them the ability to balance AI learning with their merchandising expertise. Users can configure search algorithms to meet their unique business needs via front-end API calls. Product Recommendations for Email : expands real-time, personalized recommendations from the e-commerce site to now integrate with any email provider, meaning personalized product recommendations in emails are rendered in real-time. Recommendations are not predetermined when the email is created, but rather are personalized for the moment when the email is opened and read. : expands real-time, personalized recommendations from the e-commerce site to now integrate with any email provider, meaning personalized product recommendations in emails are rendered in real-time. Recommendations are not predetermined when the email is created, but rather are personalized for the moment when the email is opened and read. Catalog Management : self-service capability that provides merchandisers with greater control over importing and managing their product catalog within Bloomreach Discovery, allowing them to generate faster time to value at implementation and beyond. It empowers technical users to view, manage, diagnose, and explore data across all the catalogs in their account, all with business user-friendly tools. : self-service capability that provides merchandisers with greater control over importing and managing their product catalog within Bloomreach Discovery, allowing them to generate faster time to value at implementation and beyond. It empowers technical users to view, manage, diagnose, and explore data across all the catalogs in their account, all with business user-friendly tools. Add to Recall : drives more precise merchandising by offering flexibility for Global and Multi-Query rules pre-defined by search engines. Merchandisers can determine which products should be included in their recall regardless of the Global or Multi-Query rules (including Boost, Slot, Bury, and Algo defined). : drives more precise merchandising by offering flexibility for Global and Multi-Query rules pre-defined by search engines. Merchandisers can determine which products should be included in their recall regardless of the Global or Multi-Query rules (including Boost, Slot, Bury, and Algo defined). Pixel Monitoring: offers enhanced self-service upgrades to pixel monitoring dashboard that allow users to more closely monitor the health of their pixel integration, particularly important ahead of the busy holiday season. The upgrades include two additional pixel alerts and more granular monitoring for multi-site customers. Content: Segment Personalization for Content (also referred to as Synchronized Segmentations) : allows personalization across site and app content by automatically syncing real-time customer segments from Bloomreach Engagement into Bloomreach Content. It enables users to personalize website content, images, and offers based on up-to-the-millisecond behavioral data on customers. : allows personalization across site and app content by automatically syncing real-time customer segments from Bloomreach Engagement into Bloomreach Content. It enables users to personalize website content, images, and offers based on up-to-the-millisecond behavioral data on customers. External Preview : a new feature that expands on Bloomreach Content's position as the only headless CMS on the market that enables users to both view and edit pages in real-time and also generate external preview URLS. With External Preview, users can now create external preview URLs that offer increased visibility into site changes for those without CMS access and also allow developers to integrate with their favorite debugging tools for faster testing, better optimization, and swifter site launches. : a new feature that expands on Bloomreach Content's position as the only headless CMS on the market that enables users to both view and edit pages in real-time and also generate external preview URLS. With External Preview, users can now create external preview URLs that offer increased visibility into site changes for those without CMS access and also allow developers to integrate with their favorite debugging tools for faster testing, better optimization, and swifter site launches. Enhancing Content Management APIs: new APIs that make it easier than ever for users to manage their entire Content environment at the API level. New APIs include the Folder Management API and Content Batch Import/Export APIs. new APIs that make it easier than ever for users to manage their entire Content environment at the API level. New APIs include the Folder Management API and Content Batch Import/Export APIs. Reference SPA for Next.js : a new dedicated Reference SPA for Next.(js) which includes a complete set of reference commerce components and a working environment, making it easier and faster to get started with Bloomreach Content. : a new dedicated Reference SPA for Next.(js) which includes a complete set of reference commerce components and a working environment, making it easier and faster to get started with Bloomreach Content. GraphQL Services Multi-Tenancy : enhancements to the GraphQL Service API to improve performance, security, and the speed at which updates can be pushed. : enhancements to the GraphQL Service API to improve performance, security, and the speed at which updates can be pushed. Global Site Management (also referred to as Multi-Region Support for Replication Module): a powerful feature for customers with complex international website setups that makes it easier for business users to orchestrate content without needing special infrastructure or IT assistance. Users can manage the replication of content across multiple geographies from a single CMS environment with a dedicated Control Panel. To learn more about any of these features, you can watch Bloomreach's recent Product Week event, where new features were discussed in detail. About Bloomreach Bloomreach is the world's #1 Commerce Experience Cloud, empowering brands to deliver customer journeys so personalized, they feel like magic. It offers a suite of products that drive true personalization and digital commerce growth, including: Discovery, offering AI-driven search and merchandising; Content, offering a headless CMS; and Engagement, offering a leading CDP and marketing automation solutions. Together, these solutions combine the power of unified customer and product data with the speed and scale of AI-optimization, enabling revenue-driving digital commerce experiences that convert on any channel and every journey. Bloomreach serves over 850 global brands including Albertsons, Bosch, Puma, FC Bayern Munchen, and Marks & Spencer. For more information, visit Bloomreach.com. Media Contact: Michelle DeMaio Bloomreach Corporate Communications [email protected] SOURCE Bloomreach Awarded 4.5 out of 5 stars by the National Committee for Quality Assurance BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (Blue Cross) again has been named one of the top health plans in the country, according to the nation's authority on health plan quality. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) awarded Blue Cross' Commercial HMO/POS plan and Commercial PPO plan 4.5 out of 5 stars,(1) putting the not-for-profit health plan in the top 8 percent of commercial health plans in the country for clinical quality and member experience. Only one commercial health plan received a rating of 5 stars. "As we emerge from the pandemic, it's more important than ever that we serve as a trusted ally to our nearly three million members," said Blue Cross president & CEO Andrew Dreyfus. "We are extremely proud to have maintained our exceptionally high rating as one of the top health plans in the country during this difficult time it's a reflection of the hard work of our employees and their extraordinary commitment to our members." Each year NCQA rates approximately 1,048 health plans for their: Effectiveness of wellness and prevention efforts, including immunizations and cancer screenings Successful management of chronic illness Access to high-quality primary and specialty care Excellence in member experience Blue Cross also earned an "Accredited" rating from NCQA. To see the full list of 2022 health plan ratings, visit https://reportcards.ncqa.org/health-plans (1) NCQA's Commercial Health Plan Ratings 2022 About Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts ( bluecrossma.org ) is a community-focused, tax-paying, not-for-profit health plan headquartered in Boston. We are committed to the relentless pursuit of quality, equitable and affordable health care with an unparalleled consumer experience. Consistent with our promise to always put our members first, we are rated among the nation's best health plans for member satisfaction and quality. Connect with us on Facebook , Twitter , YouTube, and LinkedIn . About NCQA NCQA is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA's Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA's website contains information to help consumers, employers and others make more-informed health care choices. NCQA can be found online at ncqa.org , on Twitter , on Facebook and on LinkedIn . SOURCE Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Latest surgical techniques for enhancing eyebrows, beards, chest hair and more featured at ISHRS 30th World Congress in Panama City, Panama, October 27-29, 2022 CHICAGO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite the impression of permanency in procedures coined "permanent makeup" for fuller eyebrows, beards and chest hair, results of these type of procedures typically have a three-to-five-year shelf life. For those looking for a permanent solution to enhance hair on these and other parts of the body, only body hair transplantation performed by a qualified hair restoration surgeon produces permanent results. Eyebrow transplant before and after photos A new member survey conducted by the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) found men and women are turning to body hair transplantation to add fullness to several areas of the body that experience hair loss. Specifically, the survey reported that in 2021, among women, eyebrow transplantation accounted for 11 percent of surgical procedures. Among men, moustaches/beards accounted for 4 percent of surgical procedures. Body hair transplantation procedures are performed using the same type of proven techniques that hair restoration surgeons use to restore scalp hair. In the case of an eyebrow restoration procedure, tiny single or double hair follicular units from a donor area where hair has a similar texture as eyebrow hair such as the back or side of the head are transplanted to the eyebrow area in one outpatient procedure. The transplanted hair then grows slowly over the course of several months, typically reaching full growth within six months. "The excellent results of body hair transplantation are a direct result of the years of research and training that hair restoration surgeons undergo in order to perform this highly specialized procedure," said Sara Wasserbauer, MD, FISHRS, Program Chair. "What's more, when performed by qualified, trained physicians, it is the only procedure that produces permanent results that are both natural looking and undetectable." Dr. Wasserbauer added that while many people opt for body hair transplantation for aesthetic reasons including bolder eyebrows or lusher eyelashes, others undergo procedures such as chest or facial hair transplants due to cultural expectations that equate ample hair in these areas as a sign of masculinity. Another reason people consider body hair transplantation is to repair a scar on an area of the body that has resulted in permanent hair loss. The latest surgical and aesthetic advances in body hair transplantation will be presented at the ISHRS 30th World Congress, October 27-29, 2022, in Panama City, Panama. This annual educational gathering attracts world-renowned leaders in hair transplantation including an impressive lineup of keynote speakers, allowing members from around the world to hone their skills and learn from the best in the field. One of the 12 general sessions available The 3Bs: Brows, Beards and Body will focus on body hair transplantation, while other educational offerings will highlight female hair loss, the importance of hairline design in hair transplantation, regenerative medicine and non-surgical treatments, and clinical pearls, among others. "Hair restoration surgery is a $4.5 billion-dollar (USD) industry, due in large part to patients around the world continuing to seek a permanent solution to hair loss," said Nilofer Farjo, MBChB, FISHRS, president of the ISHRS. "Hair loss of any kind whether it occurs on the scalp or other parts of the body can significantly impact a person's self-esteem and quality of life. That's why permanent hair restoration techniques have become so widely used for men and women of all ages suffering from different types of hair loss." About the ISHRS The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) is a global non-profit medical association and the leading authority on hair loss treatment and restoration with 1,000 members throughout 70 countries worldwide. Above all, the ISHRS is dedicated to achieving excellence in patient outcomes by promoting the highest standards of medical practice, medical ethics, and research in the medical hair restoration industry. The ISHRS also provides continuing medical education to physicians specializing in hair transplant surgery and is committed to delivering the latest information on medical and surgical treatments to consumers suffering from hair loss, and most commonly from androgenetic alopecia male pattern baldness and female pattern hair loss. It was founded in 1993 as the first international society to promote continuing quality improvement and education for professionals in the field of hair restoration surgery. For more information and to locate a physician, visit www.ishrs.org. About the ISHRS 30th World Congress For a complete copy of the program and schedule, visit: Meeting Outline. Media interested in attending the meeting can register for complimentary press passes by contacting the ISHRS at [email protected]. About the Survey Conducted by Relevant Research, Inc., of Chicago, IL, USA, the ISHRS 2022 Practice Census is a compilation of information provided solely by participating physicians. The information published in this survey was developed from actual historical information and does not include any projected information. The margin of error for the sample is within plus or minus 6.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. For a full reprint of the ISHRS 2022 Practice Census Report, visit Hair Restoration Statistics. SOURCE International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Education Perfect (EP), a leading provider of comprehensive online education, is pleased to announce that Brett Laquercia has joined the company as Head of Sales for the US. Laquercia will be responsible for bringing Education Perfect's world-class suite of online language learning tasks, assessments, individualized learning, and robust progress data to language educators across the country. With an MBA from Columbia University and nearly 20 years' experience in online language education sales and business development, Laquercia is a well-known and respected figure throughout the language education community. His experience includes launching the two most widely-used world language assessments that have become market leaders in the US. Chief Executive Alex Burke sees huge potential in the US K-12 sector and is looking forward to the future. "We are so excited to have Brett join Education Perfect. With his extensive background in US K-12 language education, he is perfectly situated to lead Education Perfect in the US, help educators improve outcomes and ensure teachers have better access to data, as well as more manageable workloads." "I'm so pleased to be joining Education Perfect," said Laquercia. "I am passionate about language education and Education Perfect's suite of tools is a game changer that meshes with my goal of bringing innovation, improved outcomes, and efficiency to the field. In these times of teacher shortages and increased workloads, Education Perfect enables language teachers to offer more individualized learning more efficiently, while making it fun for students. At the same time, meaningful data will be more accessible to teachers and leaders. It's the ultimate combination." Education Perfect is an intuitive digital learning platform that seamlessly provides an exceptional evidence-based toolkit for teachers that is comprehensive, curriculum-aligned, and fully customizable. As a New Zealand start-up company making waves in the global education landscape, Education Perfect has a strong presence across the world with over one million students logging on to learn every year. Education Perfect is on a mission to humanize technology that empowers teachers and students. CONTACT: Brett Laquercia, 646-345-0410, [email protected] SOURCE Education Perfect Significant move cements Destination Canada's business event sustainability commitments and advances the Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Destination Canada is pleased to announce the next phase of its Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan as domestic partners across the country embark on the Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index) annual benchmarking process. The GDS-Index is the world's leading sustainability performance program for business tourism destinations around the world. Used by over 80 cities globally, the GDS-Index benchmarks and improves the sustainability performance and strategies of the municipality, its tourism supply chain, and the destination management organization. The programme is being managed by ConnectSeven Group based in Vancouver, who lead GDS-Movement initiatives in North America. Launched in the spring of 2022, Destination Canada's Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan is a first-of-its-kind national program aimed at improving the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability practices of business events hosted in Canada. Aligned with the mission and vision of the plan, the GDS-Index cements Destination Canada's position as a global leader in business event sustainability and positions Canadian destinations as changemakers accelerating progress toward the industry's 2050 net zero targets. "Sustainability is more than a competitive advantage, it is a collaborative one, too a long-term commitment from the entire business event supply chain is a must-have on the path to sustainability," says Virginie De Visscher, Senior Director of Business Development, Economic Sectors, Business Events, Destination Canada. "That is why having Canadian destination partners from coast-to-coast-to-coast join the GDS-Index and reaffirm their commitments to improving the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability of the business events Canada hosts is so important. It also brings us that much closer to our collective responsibility of fostering a regenerative tourism ecosystem that produces positive net benefits for guests and Canadians, alike." New Business Event Sustainability Advancements: Tourisme Montreal The first Canadian city to join the GDS-Index, Tourisme Montreal recently created and launched an industry leading Guide to Best Practices for Sustainable Business Events as part of its new sustainable tourism strategy. Released in July 2022 to clients, the 28-page Guide was designed to drive concrete action across the industry from new planners to more seasoned experts by capturing a wealth of detailed information about how to make an event more sustainable. From small steps to more complex initiatives, everything is organized per category, with action items, local resources, and handy checklists to help make implementation easy and simple. The first Canadian city to join the GDS-Index, recently created and launched an industry leading Guide to Best Practices for Sustainable Business Events as part of its new sustainable tourism strategy. Released in to clients, the 28-page Guide was designed to drive concrete action across the industry from new planners to more seasoned experts by capturing a wealth of detailed information about how to make an event more sustainable. From small steps to more complex initiatives, everything is organized per category, with action items, local resources, and handy checklists to help make implementation easy and simple. Explore Edmonton The first city in Western Canada to join the GDS-Index, Explore Edmonton launched its Responsible Events Program (REP) in August 2022 . Ranging from social to environmental Giving Projects, the REP provides tangible options for planners to choose from that not only align with their event's objectives but can be rolled out regardless of the event's size, type, or budget. For example, events can donate to Period Promise through the United Way or support reforestation efforts through partners like Wild and Pine. The REP also supports participation in the Carbon Neutral Events program, helping planners reduce event-related emissions. "We are delighted to welcome Destination Canada and an expanding group of Canadian pioneering cities to the GDS-Movement. The commitment to use the GDS-Index at a national level to benchmark, enable knowledge sharing, and drive capability improvement across the events industry is world-class. The GDS-Index provides an operating system to guide and drive transformation across the city, the supply chain, and the destination management organization. This ecosystems approach has been proven to accelerate change and has the potential to improve positive impact more comprehensively than a single, standalone certification might," says Global Destination Sustainability Movement's Chief Changemaker, Guy Bigwood. Once complete, the Canadian Business Event Sustainability Plan will provide turnkey economic, socio-cultural, and environmental sustainability programs to global clients to drive action, raise standards, and propel the entire business event industry toward being more sustainable. About Destination Canada At Destination Canada, we believe that tourism enhances the quality of life of Canadians and enriches the lives of visitors. We believe that Canada's diversity, its greatest asset, is also what touches travellers' hearts most deeply. Our mission is to influence supply, and build demand for the benefit of locals, communities and visitors through leading research, alignment with public and private sectors, and marketing Canada nationally and abroad. Our destination development work ensures that we grow a premier four-season tourism economy that is community centric and regenerative in nature catalysing thriving commerce, culture and reconciliation. Destination Canada's Business Events team is charged with growing Canada's share of international business events by promoting the country's unique meeting, convention, and incentive event possibilities. By driving awareness of Canada's leading economic strengths and how local knowledge capital can elevate business events, Destination Canada's Business Events team helps international organizations meet with purpose in Canada. Destination Canada is a Crown corporation wholly owned by the Government of Canada. For further information, visit http://www.destinationcanada.com . About The Global Destination Sustainability Movement The Global Destination Sustainability Movement (GDS-Movement) is a collaborative platform that acts to catalyze transformation in the tourism and events industry by engaging, inspiring, and enabling destinations to become more regenerative, flourishing, and resilient places to visit, meet, and live in. The GDS-Movement serves to accelerate the transformation from destination marketing at whatever cost towards destination management and stewardship that offers shared value. Our mission is to promote and develop the sustainability and regenerative strategies, skill sets, and mindsets that will enable destinations of the future to thrive. In addition to its flagship offering, the GDS-Index, the GDS-Movement supports destination sustainability through the GDS-Academy, a blended learning institution for destination professionals determined to catalyze positive benefits for people and planet through tourism and events. GDS-Consulting empowers destinations to fine-tune their contributions by facilitating strategy, narratives, and roadmaps to a regenerative visitor economy. www.Gds.Earth About ConnectSeven Group Founded in 2016, ConnectSeven uses events and tourism to drive sustainable and social innovation for communities, destinations and organizations. We work with processes and frameworks to minimize footprints and bring socioeconomic benefits to communities, cultures and associations. ConnectSeven is the North American manager for the Global Destination Sustainability Movement. SOURCE Destination Canada World's largest cruise company honored for second consecutive year on the Forbes annual list of best global employers of 2022 Listing recognizes top companies in the world for providing excellent employment opportunities and a positive culture at the local and international level MIAMI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), the world's largest cruise company, today announced it was named for the second consecutive year as one of the World's Best Employers of 2022 by Forbes, a leading source of business news worldwide. Presented by Forbes and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider, the prestigious annual listing honors the best international employers from over 20 major industries. In Forbes' sixth annual survey, Carnival Corporation whose nine popular cruise line brands include namesake Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn headquartered in the U.S., along with AIDA Cruises, Cunard, Costa Cruises, P&O Cruises UK and P&O Cruises Australia was ranked among the best 800 employers in the world based on survey results and feedback from more than 150,000 workers at multinational companies and institutions from 57 countries. The full list of the World's Best Employers for 2022 is available on the Forbes website. "At Carnival Corporation, our success is a direct result of our incredibly talented employees from over 100 countries who have helped create a dedicated workforce committed to creating happiness by providing unforgettable and much-needed cruise vacations for millions of guests around the world," said Bettina Deynes, global chief human resources officer for Carnival Corporation. "This recognition highlights our ongoing commitment to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion throughout our companywide operations and providing a positive and empowering corporate culture for all shipboard and shoreside employees." The Forbes World's Best Employers list was determined through a globally administered independent survey where participants were asked to anonymously evaluate their current employer based on factors such as willingness to recommend their company to family and friends, while also providing recommendations for other employers in their industry. Respondents also ranked their satisfaction with various aspects of the overall company culture and employee experience, including image, trust, economic footprint, talent development, benefits, gender equality and social responsibility. The latest recognition as a top international employer builds on a series of recognitions Carnival Corporation has earned for its companywide operations and excellence in the workplace. Most recently in 2022, Carnival Corporation was honored as one of the Best Employers for Diversity by Forbes, one of the Best Companies for Latinos by Latino Leaders Magazine and earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2022 Corporate Equality Index, designating the company as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality for the sixth consecutive year. The company was also recognized by Forbes as one of the World's Best Employers and one of the World's Top Female-Friendly Companies in 2021, in addition to being named a Glassdoor Employees' Choice Award Winner honoring the best 100 U.S. places to work. Also in 2021, Carnival Corporation was named as one of America's Most Responsible Companies for its commitment to corporate social responsibility leadership by Newsweek. This recognition underscores Carnival Corporation's commitment to excellence in compliance, environmental protection and the health, safety and well-being of its guests, the communities it visits, and its global team members. About Carnival Corporation & plc Carnival Corporation & plc is one of the world's largest leisure travel companies with a portfolio of nine of the world's leading cruise lines sailing to all seven continents. With operations in North America, Australia, Europe and Asia, its portfolio features Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises (Australia), Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard. Additional information can be found on www.carnivalcorp.com, www.carnival.com, www.princess.com, www.hollandamerica.com, www.seabourn.com, www.pocruises.com.au, www.costacruise.com, www.aida.de, www.pocruises.com and www.cunard.com. SOURCE Carnival Corporation & plc Century Fasteners Corp. and Cherry Aerospace Relationship Showcased at the International Fastener Expo, Las Vegas, NV: October 18th 19th, 2022. ELMHURST, N.Y., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Century Fasteners Corp. (www.CenturyFasteners.com) is an authorized distributor for Cherry Aerospace (www.CherryAerospace.com). The Century Fasteners Corp. and Cherry Aerospace relationship is to be showcased at the International Fastener Expo in Las Vegas, NV on October 18th -19th, 2022 Booth #1755 For more info about the Event, please go to: International Fastener Expo In addition to making world-class Cherry products more broadly available to distributors and OEMs, the partnership expands Century's existing services to the manufacturing community by enabling the company to provide deeper bill of material coverage to complement its product offering. About Century Fasteners Century Fasteners Corp. is a Master Distributor of fastener and nonfastener components to the military, aerospace, electronics, automotive, sheet metal fabrication, contract manufacturing, telecommunications and medical industries. The ISO and AS Registered company stocks more than 100,000 discrete parts, and offers a wide variety of value-added services, including VMI in-plant programs, custom kitting, engineering services, and supply chain management solutions. For Cherry Aerospace product quotes for distributors, call Century Fasteners Corp. toll-free at (855) 332-4445, or email requirements to [email protected]. To learn more about the products and services offered by Century Fasteners Corp., visit online at https://www.centuryfasteners.com/. About Cherry Aerospace Headquartered in Santa Ana, CA, Cherry Aerospace is a global leader in the design and manufacture of fastening systems for the aerospace industry. The Cherry name is synonymous with aerospace fasteners, and the CherryMax line of rivets is the most widely used in the industry. Cherry Aerospace is well known for their industry leading blind rivets, blind bolts, rivetless nut plates, shear pin fasteners and installation tools. The company is a member of the SPS Fastener Division of Precision Castparts Corp. Media contact: John Ringold Director of Marketing Century Fasteners Corp. 800-221-0769 [email protected] Photo(s): https://www.prlog.org/12936154 Press release distributed by PRLog SOURCE Century Fasteners Corp. The new network will service multiple utility, critical and emergency infrastructure sites, and services responsible for providing 90% of irrigation water to the State of California RICHARDSON, Texas, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ceragon Networks Ltd., the global innovator and leading solutions provider of 5G wireless transport, today announced that Ceragon Networks Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary has signed a contract with the Yuba Water Agency in California to replace and modernize its existing private network with a modern high-capacity low-latency 5G network. The upgraded network will provide connectivity to multiple hydroelectric generation facilities, dams, and emergency services including the police and fire departments. Shipping and deployment are expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2023. The agreement with Yuba comes at the heels of Ceragon's recently announced growing focus on private networks, especially in North America. Yuba Water Agency was in search of a wireless transport partner that could deliver an increased level of network performance, reliability, and customer service for an upgraded system to support their communications, video, and digital transformation applications. Following a successful initial demonstration phase resulting in a great service experience and enhanced network performance, Yuba Water officials have entrusted Ceragon to replace their entire legacy network, including wireless transport products and end-to-end planning and deployment services. David DeVore, Lead Information Systems Manager, Yuba Water Agency, shared his thoughts on the first phase of this new partnership stating "Ceragon truly improved our wireless infrastructure. They have exhibited a strong commitment to providing the highest level of quality in their products and service thus far. We have been incredibly impressed with Ceragon's level of professionalism, and we look forward to a long and continued relationship." Ronen Rotstein, President of Ceragon North America, commented, "This important deal, added to other recent wins, is another milestone in gaining market share in the private networks domain which is part of Ceragon's strategy. The Yuba Water Agency is truly inspirational, providing several services and wholesale power generation to multiple communities. Ceragon is proud to play a key role in modernizing and expanding the wireless communications network that makes it all possible. We look forward to a long-term partnership with Yuba and will leverage our growing suite of technologies and services to provide Yuba Water and other public and private players with the connectivity they need." Ceragon's North America leadership will be attending and sponsoring the UBBA Summit& Plugfest 2022, a leading summit on utility connectivity, on October 10-14, 2022, in Costa Mesa, California. For additional information, or to contact our team of experts, CLICK HERE. About Ceragon Networks Ceragon Networks Ltd. is the global innovator and leading solutions provider of 5G wireless transport. We help operators and other service providers worldwide increase operational efficiency and enhance end customers' quality of experience with innovative wireless backhaul and fronthaul solutions. Our customers include service providers, public safety organizations, government agencies and utility companies, which use our solutions to deliver 5G & 4G broadband wireless connectivity, mission-critical multimedia services, stabilized communications, and other applications at high reliability and speed. Ceragon's unique multicore technology and disaggregated approach to wireless transport provides highly reliable, fast to deploy, high-capacity wireless transport for 5G and 4G networks with minimal use of spectrum, power, real estate, and labor resources. It enables increased productivity, as well as simple and quick network modernization, positioning Ceragon as a leading solutions provider for the 5G era. We deliver a complete portfolio of turnkey end-to-end AI-based managed and professional services that ensure efficient network rollout and optimization to achieve the highest value for our customers. Our solutions are deployed by more than 400 service providers, as well as more than 800 private network owners, in more than 150 countries. For more information please visit: www.ceragon.com Ceragon Networks and FibeAir are registered trademarks of Ceragon Networks Ltd. in the United States and other countries. CERAGON is a trademark of Ceragon Networks Ltd., registered in various countries. Other names mentioned are owned by their respective holders. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1704355/Ceragon_Networks_Ltd_Logo.jpg Ceragon Marketing Contact: Tanya Solomon Ceragon Networks [email protected] SOURCE Ceragon Networks Ltd. Stock Market Symbols GIB.A (TSX) GIB (NYSE) cgi.com/newsroom CGI will help Aktia drive operational efficiencies and accelerate product and service development through digitization and IT managed services HELSINKI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - CGI (NYSE: GIB) (TSX: GIB.A) and Aktia (OMXH: AKTIA) have entered into a strategic partnership giving CGI responsibility for a major part of Aktia's banking IT services, including the development and maintenance of 150 mission-critical applications. The partnership, valued at approximately 50 MEUR (approx. 75 MCAD), will enable Aktia to enhance operation and development of existing banking products and services, as well as accelerate the development of new products and services, to improve the customer experience and compete more effectively in today's fast-changing finance sector. "Aktia is committed to long-term product and service development as we execute our strategy in becoming the leading wealth manager bank and compete against other Finnish and Nordic banks, along with new players in the banking industry, and seek to better serve our customers," said Sari Leppanen, the bank's Chief Information Officer. "We have invested in modernizing our core banking systems, and we are continuously improving them to drive operational efficiencies and meet evolving customer expectations. CGI will help us to streamline our IT operations, deliver innovative banking services, and ensure the scalability of those services in response to new business demands. Our partnership with CGI also will provide the critical IT talent we need, as well as strengthen our regulatory compliance and risk management." "We are grateful for Aktia's trust in our capabilities to help drive its performance and growth through strategic IT managed services," said Leena-Mari Lahteenmaa, President of CGI's Finland, Poland and Baltics operations. "Our teams provide the banking and IT expertise required to modernize business models and operations through digitization, enabling clients like Aktia to excel not only in today's competitive business environment but also in the future. We also offer local support, backed by a global network of experts, to ensure high responsiveness, around-the-clock support, and ongoing scalability as business objectives and requirements change." "We extend a warm welcome to the over 50 Aktia banking services experts who will join us as a result of this strategic partnership," said Kimmo Koivisto, who leads CGI's financial services business unit in Finland. "Together, we are stronger, and our professionals enjoy many exciting career opportunities as we continue to grow." The partnership will begin as a joint venture before the start of 2023. As digitization continues to transform the banking world, CGI helps banks move to new business models, modernize legacy IT environments, and become more customer centric. Today, the company partners with 15 of the top 20 banks worldwide, as well as thousands of other financial institutions across the globe, delivering business and strategic IT consulting services, along with a broad portfolio of banking solutions. To learn more, visit cgi.com/banking. About CGI Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. With 88,500 consultants and professionals across the globe, CGI delivers an end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from strategic IT and business consulting to systems integration, managed IT and business process services and intellectual property solutions. CGI works with clients through a local relationship model complemented by a global delivery network that helps clients digitally transform their organizations and accelerate results. CGI Fiscal 2021 reported revenue is C$12.13 billion and CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Learn more at cgi.com. About Aktia Aktia is a Finnish asset manager, bank and life insurer that has been creating wealth and wellbeing from one generation to the next for 200 years. We serve our customers in digital channels everywhere and face-to-face in our offices in the Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Vaasa and Oulu regions. Our award-winning asset management business sells investment funds internationally. We employ approximately 900 people around Finland. Aktia's assets under management (AuM) on 30 June 2022 amounted to EUR 13.9 billion, and the balance sheet total was EUR 11.9 billion. Aktia's shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd (AKTIA). aktia.com. SOURCE CGI Inc. FRANKLIN, Tenn., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Community Healthcare Trust Incorporated (NYSE: CHCT) today announced that on Tuesday evening, November 1, 2022, after the market closes, it will report results for the third quarter of 2022. On November 2, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. Central Time, Community Healthcare Trust will hold a conference call to discuss earnings results, quarterly activities, general operations of the Company and industry trends. Simultaneously, a webcast of the conference call will be available to interested parties via an Internet link at www.chct.reit under the Investor Relations section. A webcast replay will be available following the call at the same Internet site address. Conference Call Details Domestic Dial-In Number: 1-888-347-1332 International Dial-In Number: 1-412-902-4278 Canada Toll Free: 1-855-669-9657 Replay Conference Call Details Domestic Dial-In Number: 1-877-344-7529 International Dial-In Number: 1-412-317-0088 Canada Toll Free: 1-855-669-9658 Conference ID: 4543081 Community Healthcare Trust Incorporated is a real estate investment trust that focuses on owning income-producing real estate properties associated primarily with the delivery of outpatient healthcare services in our target sub-markets throughout the United States. The Company had investments of approximately $869.5 million in 159 real estate properties (including a portion of one property accounted for as a financing lease) as of June 30, 2022, located in 34 states, totaling approximately 3.4 million square feet. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains statements that are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes", "expects", "may", "should", "seeks", "approximately", "intends", "plans", "estimates", "anticipates" or other similar words or expressions, including the negative thereof. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and can include future expectations, future plans and strategies, financial and operating projections or other forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. Because forward-looking statements relate to future events, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of the Company's control. Thus, the Company's actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements. Some factors that might cause such a difference include the following: general volatility of the capital markets and the market price of the Company's common stock, changes in the Company's business strategy, availability, terms and deployment of capital, the Company's ability to refinance existing indebtedness at or prior to maturity on favorable terms, or at all, changes in the real estate industry in general, interest rates or the general economy, adverse developments related to the healthcare industry, the degree and nature of the Company's competition, the ability to consummate acquisitions under contract, effects on global and national markets as well as businesses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the other factors described in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Readers are therefore cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained herein which speak only as of the date hereof. The Company intends these forward-looking statements to speak only as of the time of this release and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by law. CONTACT: David H. Dupuy, 615-771-3052 SOURCE Community Healthcare Trust, Inc. Visit Covalon at booth 1557 from October 13 to October 15, 2022 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center MISSISSAUGA, ON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Covalon Technologies Ltd. (the "Company" or "Covalon") (TSXV: COV) (OTCQX: CVALF), an advanced medical technologies company, today announced its participation in the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet Conference in Philadelphia from Thursday, October 13 to Saturday, October 15, 2022. Register now and visit Covalon at booth 1557 to learn how Covalon's infection prevention and advanced wound care solutions reduce CLABSIs and help sick kids to be kids. Pediatric patient holding IV lines (CNW Group/Covalon Technologies Ltd.) "We know that children who are in the hospital for treatment want to have their siblings come visit without the risk of IV line contamination. They want to be able to play on the floor, free from the worry of infection," said Brian Pedlar, CEO of Covalon. "We've designed advanced medical technology with this freedom in mind. Freedom from the risk of infection, freedom from worried parents and freedom to just be kids. We hope that more healthcare professionals will learn about the difference our compassionate care solutions make to children and their caregivers." 71% of catheter-related infections have been linked to a catheter hub contamination VALGuard was developed to prevent these infections. From tiny babies in the NICU who pull on their lines to children walking down the hospital hallway pushing their IV pole, VALGuard is the world's only vascular access line guard that provides protection from external contaminants. Covalon's compassionate care technology solutions for infection prevention include the following: VALGuard - an FDA listed, transparent, environmental barrier designed to protect catheter hubs and line connections from external contaminants and gross contamination, including body fluids and other secretions. It incorporates a quick-release pull strip for fast access to infusion hubs and for easy removal. - an FDA listed, transparent, environmental barrier designed to protect catheter hubs and line connections from external contaminants and gross contamination, including body fluids and other secretions. It incorporates a quick-release pull strip for fast access to infusion hubs and for easy removal. IV Clear - an antimicrobial vascular access dressing that offers complete transparency at and around the insertion site for easy daily assessment. It uses a soft silicone adhesive to preserve the skin's barrier function and minimize skin injuries and incorporates safe amounts of antimicrobials, without sacrificing efficacy, to protect against chemical irritation. - an antimicrobial vascular access dressing that offers complete transparency at and around the insertion site for easy daily assessment. It uses a soft silicone adhesive to preserve the skin's barrier function and minimize skin injuries and incorporates safe amounts of antimicrobials, without sacrificing efficacy, to protect against chemical irritation. SurgiClear - is the world's only dual-antimicrobial clear postoperative dressing that provides full visibility, allowing for visual surgical site inspection and thus eliminating the need for early dressing removal. - is the world's only dual-antimicrobial clear postoperative dressing that provides full visibility, allowing for visual surgical site inspection and thus eliminating the need for early dressing removal. CovaClear IV - uses the same trusted silicone adhesive technology to protect patients from skin injuries and promote healing in patients who either don't require, or cannot tolerate, antimicrobials. Conference Details Dates: October 13 15, 2022 Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center (1101 Arch St, Philadelphia, PA 19107, United States) Register at: https://www.magnetpathwaycon.org For healthcare providers who are not able to attend the conference but are interested in learning more about Covalon's solutions, visit www.covalon.com or follow Covalon on LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram or Twitter . About Covalon Covalon Technologies Ltd. is a researcher, developer, manufacturer, and marketer of patent-protected medical products that improve patient outcomes and save lives in the areas of advanced wound care, infection management and surgical procedures. Covalon leverages its patented medical technology platforms and expertise in two ways: (i) by developing products that are sold under Covalon's name; and (ii) by developing and commercializing medical products for other medical companies under development and license contracts. The Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, having the symbol COV and trades on the OTQX Market under the symbol CVALF. To learn more about Covalon, visit our website at www.covalon.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events. The forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan, "estimate", "expect", "intend" or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts, but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the factors described in greater detail in the "Risks and Uncertainties" section of our management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2022, which is available on the Company's profile at www.sedar.com, any of which could cause results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Investors should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise, except as required by law. SOURCE Covalon Technologies Ltd. NOIDA, India, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report published by UnivDatos Markets Insights, the CT Scanner Market was valued at more than USD 6 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 6% from 2022-2028. The analysis has been segmented into Type (Stationary and Portable); Technology (High-End Slice, Mid-End Slice, Low-End Slice, and Cone Beam); Application (Oncology, Neurology, Cardiology, Vascular, Musculoskeletal, and Others); End-Users (Hospitals, Diagnostic Imaging Center, Ambulatory Imaging Center, and Others); Region/Country. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/ct-scanner-market/ The CT Scanner market report has been aggregated by collecting informative data on various dynamics such as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. This innovative report makes use of several analyses to get a closer outlook on the CT Scanner market. The CT Scanner market report offers a detailed analysis of the latest industry developments and trending factors in the market that are influencing the market growth. Furthermore, this statistical market research repository examines and estimates the CT Scanner market at the global and regional levels. Request for Sample Pages https://univdatos.com/get-a-free-sample-form-php/?product_id=25012 Market Overview The introduction of CT scanner has been of great benefit to medical care. This technology improves diagnoses, prevents unnecessary medical procedures, improves treatment by providing detailed anatomical imaging, and is a cost-effective imaging technique. It is an essential diagnostics tool, especially for scanning bone, soft tissue, and blood vessels all at the same time. Since CT imaging is quick and easy during emergency cases, internal injuries can be detected early enough to save lives. Thus, the increasing demand for advanced assessment tools in the emergency department and the growing number of ambulatory emergency care units are the factors expected to have a positive impact on market growth. Technological advancements such as the integration of artificial intelligence and the development of accessories to enhance image quality obtained by conventional CT scanners are the major factors expected to fuel market growth. For instance, in May 2021, Siemens Healthineers launched a new CT scanner, Somatom X. need. It is a high-speed, high-resolution CT scanner with an intelligent operation approach that makes procedures easier for medical staff and patients. During COVID-19, the need for effective diagnosis and treatment has surged across the globe. Stakeholders in the medical device manufacturing market are continuously working to facilitate the growing needs of healthcare providers for imaging solutions. For instance, in February 2020, NeuroLogica Corporation accelerated the production of a mobile CT scanner to help mitigate the rising COVID-19 crisis across Chin. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/ct-scanner-market/ The global CT Scanner market report is studied thoroughly with several aspects that would help stakeholders in making their decisions more curated. Based on type, the market has been distributed into, stationary and portable. Among these, stationary CT scanners held a prominent share of the market. Stationary CT is used in the management of many injuries and diseases, such as aortic dissection, pericardial tamponade, cancers, and many others. Two classes of emergent conditions where stationary CT is particularly vital are strokes and traumatic brain injuries. This is attributed to the significant adoption of stationary CT scanners for their growing application horizons. Market growth is mainly driven by the ongoing commercialization of advanced products across major markets, increasing public-private investments in the field of high-slice CT, and growing emphasis on effective & early disease diagnosis & treatment. Moreover, advanced CT imaging capabilities offered by high-slice CT devices which are commonly stationary CT scanners, and their growing adoption for outpatient diagnostic procedures is driving the market for stationary CT scanners. Based on the application, the market is categorized into, oncology, neurology, cardiology, vascular, musculoskeletal, and others. Among these, the oncology segment holds a significant portion of the pie and is expected to expand at a prominent rate over the forecast period. The increasing prevalence of cancer and the growing applications of CT scans in the diagnosis of various types of cancers including lumps and tumors are the factors expected to drive the segment. The introduction of innovative technologies including computer-aided detection and computer-aided diagnosis of suspicious cancer nodules and accessing the risk of malignancy, especially in lung cancer is expected to boost the growth. The software can additionally calibrate the captured image with biopsy outcome helping in accurate diagnosis. Have a Look at the Chapters - https://univdatos.com/report/ct-scanner-market/ CT Scanner Market Geographical Segmentation Includes: North America ( United States , Canada , and Rest of North America ) ( , , and Rest of ) Europe ( Germany , United Kingdom , Spain , Italy , France , and the Rest of Europe ) ( , , , , , and the Rest of ) Asia-Pacific ( China , Japan , India , South Korea , and the Rest of Asia-Pacific ) ( , , , , and the Rest of ) Rest of the World The North American CT scanner market captured a prominent position in the market and is projected to showcase substantial growth over the forecast period. This can be attributed to the rising geriatric population, increasing awareness regarding healthier lifestyles, and the increasing disposable income of consumers in the region. The presence of a prominent number of competitors in this region and the increase in cancer incidence rate are two main factors driving the regional market growth. According to the National Cancer Institute, ~1,806,590 new cancer cases were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2020. Furthermore, the introduction of new technology combined with artificial intelligence and frequent launch of low radiating CT scans is expected to add to the market growth. The major players targeting the market include Koninklijke Philips N.V. GE Healthcare Siemens Healthineers AG Canon Medical Systems Corporation FUJIFILM Corporation NeuroLogica Corporation Neusoft Medical System Co., Ltd. Koning Corporation Shenzhen Anke High-Tech Co. Hitachi Ltd. Competitive Landscape The degree of competition among prominent global companies has been elaborated by analyzing several leading key players operating worldwide. The specialist team of research analysts sheds light on various traits such as global market competition, market share, most recent industry advancements, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, or acquisitions by leading companies in the CT Scanner market. The major players have been analyzed by using research methodologies for getting insight views on global competition. Key questions resolved through this analytical market research report include: What are the latest trends, new patterns, and technological advancements in the CT Scanner market? Which factors are influencing the CT Scanner market over the forecast period? What are the global challenges, threats, and risks in the CT Scanner market? Which factors are propelling and restraining the CT Scanner market? What are the demanding global regions of the CT Scanner market? What will be the global market size in the upcoming years? What are the crucial market acquisition strategies and policies applied by global companies? We understand the requirement of different businesses, regions, and countries, we offer customized reports as per your requirements of business nature and geography. Please let us know If you have any custom needs. Browse Other Related Research Reports from UnivDatos Market Insights CT Scanner Market Report Coverage Report Attribute Details Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2027 Growth momentum Accelerate at a CAGR of over 6% Market size 2020 USD 6 billion Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, Rest of World Major contributing region North America to Dominate the Global CT Scanner Market Key countries covered United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, China, Japan, India, and South Korea Companies profiled Koninklijke Philips N.V., GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers AG, Canon Medical Systems Corporation, FUJIFILM Corporation, NeuroLogica Corporation, Neusoft Medical System Co., Ltd., Koning Corporation, Shenzhen Anke High-Tech Co., and Hitachi Ltd. Report Scope Market Trends, Drivers, and Restraints; Revenue Estimation and Forecast; Segmentation Analysis; Impact of COVID-19; Demand and Supply Side Analysis; Legal & Regulatory Framework; Competitive Landscape; Company Profiling Segments Covered By Type; By Technology; By Application; By End-Users; By Region/Country About UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) is a passionate market research firm and a subsidiary of Universal Data Solutions. We believe in delivering insights through Market Intelligence Reports, Customized Business Research, and Primary Research. Our research studies are spread across topics across the world, we cover markets in over 100 countries using smart research techniques and agile methodologies. We offer in-depth studies, detailed analysis, and customized reports that help shape winning business strategies for our clients. Contact UnivDatos Market Insights Ankita Gupta Director Operations Ph: +91-7838604911 Email: [email protected] Website: https://univdatos.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1225049/UnivDatos_Logo.jpg SOURCE Univdatos Market Insights Private Limited While talent challenges overshadow budgetary concerns, and whole-of-government efforts accelerate LOUISVILLE, Ky., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) today released their 2022 Cybersecurity Study, "State Cybersecurity in a Heightened Risk Environment." The survey captures responses from chief information security officers (CISOs) in all 50 states and three territories about current cybersecurity trends, challenges and opportunities. The survey found that state CISOs throughout the U.S. gained considerable strength and authority over the past few years, as they rapidly migrated government operations and services to a virtual environment and expedited digital transformations to meet the immediate needs of individuals and families. Due to the dedicated efforts of these CISOs, state agencies were able to continue providing high-quality service to their constituents, despite the challenges imposed by a global pandemic. The 2022 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study captures trends, challenges and opportunities for CISOs in all 50 states. Tweet this Additional highlights from the 2022 Deloitte/NASCIO survey include: Addressing the talent gap : In 2022, the demand for high-skilled workers has grown even more acute for public and private sector employers. In this environment, the lack of cybersecurity professionals and other staff remains among the top five barriers cited by state CISOs. : In 2022, the demand for high-skilled workers has grown even more acute for public and private sector employers. In this environment, the lack of cybersecurity professionals and other staff remains among the top five barriers cited by state CISOs. Despite CISOs' growing responsibilities and the increasing sophistication of both technology and threats, headcounts for state cybersecurity professionals remain about the same as in 2020, and more than 6 in 10 CISOs report gaps in competencies among their staffs . . Embracing the entire state : It is an imperative to provide for greater security across the entire state through a tighter collaboration with local governments and state higher education institutions. CISOs made significant progress in enhancing their stature and visibility at the state executive and legislative levels, and they are continuing to get the institutional support and resources they need. : It is an imperative to provide for greater security across the entire state through a tighter collaboration with local governments and state higher education institutions. CISOs made significant progress in enhancing their stature and visibility at the state executive and legislative levels, and they are continuing to get the institutional support and resources they need. All 50 states now have a CISO, and many are establishing new positions for chief privacy officers, chief risk officers and identity program directors. More state legislators are codifying the role of the CISO into state law and funding the position. They are also codifying several cyber initiatives into state law, such as enterprise risk management frameworks, cybersecurity legislative councils and cybersecurity training. More states now require CISOs to provide periodic reports to senior state officials, such as the governor, legislature and agency secretaries. CISOs are looking to establish and activate a shared security services approach to enable a whole-of-state approach to protecting local governments and public higher education institutions. Emerging technologies present new opportunities : In the post-pandemic digital landscape, CISOs have an even more critical role to play in guiding the evaluation and implementation of new technologies. : In the post-pandemic digital landscape, CISOs have an even more critical role to play in guiding the evaluation and implementation of new technologies. State CISOs confirm that many applications have migrated to the cloud. With remote work, digital and mobile platforms have become part of the fabric of daily life by which people work, communicate and transact. States have taken a big step forward to provide digital identities for citizen services. Capabilities, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and robotic process automation, enable states to further enhance digital modernization in service of their missions and constituents. "The complexity of cyber challenges that the state CISOs tackle is increasing with the need to take a whole-of-state approach involving multiple jurisdictions and stakeholders," said Srini Subramanian, principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP, and Deloitte's global risk advisory leader for government and public services. "To address these challenges, state CISOs are increasingly laying the groundwork to adopt emerging technologies, promoting more collaboration with local government agencies and higher education institutions, upskilling state employees and transforming employment practices to attract the next-generation of highly capable cyber talent." "State CISOs played critical roles helping the country successfully navigate the twists and turns of the pandemic, and this year's survey identifies the steps needed to grow this increasingly public role and meet the current and future challenges faced by state agencies," said Meredith Ward, director of policy and research at NASCIO and a co-author of the 2022 Deloitte/NASCIO Cybersecurity Study. "We're proud to again bring the perspectives of state CISOs to the forefront of conversations around cybersecurity." Additional takeaways from the 2022 Deloitte/NASCIO survey include: Thirty states increased their cybersecurity budgets from 2021 to 2022. And for the first time, CISOs report that a handful of states are allocating more than 10% of their IT budgets to cybersecurity, in alignment with federal government levels. However, most states still only allocate between 2% and 10% of their budgets to cybersecurity efforts. Many state CISOs identified the drafting and implementation of the Zero Trust framework as a key initiative. CISOs say that malware, ransomware and phishing attempts continue to present security challenges. Concern among CISOs about foreign state-sponsored espionage has also risen significantly, while the perceived threat from third parties and social engineering has declined. CISOs found that the three leading causes of cyber incidents remain web applications, malicious code and financial fraud. However, CISOs note a rise in cyber incidents involving foreign state-sponsored espionage, zero-day attacks and attacks against cloud platforms. Nearly one-third of state CISOs say that state agencies manage cyber incidents on their own, rather than working with a central state IT security group. CISOs are increasingly contracting cybersecurity professionals and states are demonstrating more interest in outsourcing specific cybersecurity functions to managed service providers. In fact, more than half of CISOs report outsourcing security operations center tasks, which require 24x7 monitoring, and more than 60% of CISOs report having confidence in the cybersecurity services of third-party vendors. State CISOs are starting to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices, such as designating a DEI leadership position or teams to foster a culture of inclusion. However, many CISOs say they do not know if they have such practices in place. See here for the full survey results. See here for learn more about Deloitte's cyber risk practice. About Deloitte Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world's most admired brands, including nearly 90% of the Fortune 500 and more than 7,000 private companies. Our people come together for the greater good and work across the industry sectors that drive and shape today's marketplace delivering measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in our capital markets, inspire clients to see challenges as opportunities to transform and thrive, and help lead the way toward a stronger economy and a healthier society. Deloitte is proud to be part of the largest global professional services network serving our clients in the markets that are most important to them. Building on more than 175 years of service, our network of member firms spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte's approximately 415,000 people worldwide connect for impact at www.deloitte.com. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. SOURCE Deloitte Scientific Leaders Recognized for Community and Global Impact Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic HOUSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Two innovative Houstonians with Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine received the Mayor's 2022 Hispanic Heritage Award in healthcare today. Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and professor and associate dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and Dr. Flor Munoz, director of transplant infectious diseases at Texas Children's Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine, officially received the award jointly during a proclamation ceremony today at City Hall. Drs. Flor Munoz and Maria Elena Bottazzi. Image courtesy of Texas Children's Hospital Mayor Sylvester Turner and the Mayor's Hispanic Advisory Board provides this and other awards to honor exceptional Houstonians during Hispanic Heritage Month, seeking to recognize exemplary Hispanics who have made outstanding contributions toward improving the quality of life within the Houston Hispanic community. Dr. Bottazzi was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize this year alongside her colleague of over 20 years, Dr. Peter Hotez, for significant contributions to global vaccine equality. They were also named two of Fast Company's 2022 Most Creative People in Business. With their team, they researched and developed a patent-free, low-cost recombinant protein COVID-19 vaccine that has received emergency use authorization in several parts of the world. Dr. Bottazzi has led numerous community events to educate Latinos about COVID-19 vaccine development and served on local and national task forces. Dr. Bottazzi was recently named one of Forbes and Bloomberg's most influential people in Central and Latin America, respectively, and was a panelist at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting where she discussed global vaccine equality. "I am honored and humbled to receive, jointly with Dr. Munoz, this award and celebrate our Central American heritage. Together we are using innovative strategies in the vaccine sciences with the goal to reach millions of children globally and close the health inequity gaps making this world more prosperous," said Dr. Bottazzi. Dr. Munoz and her team led treatment and COVID-19 vaccine trials in Houston at Texas Children's Hospital for healthy children under the age of 12 and immunocompromised children. She conducted a NIH sponsored study on COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy to evaluate their protection in mothers and infants. Dr. Munoz has been a steadfast advocate for pediatric patients and pregnant women at Texas Children's Hospital, ensuring equal access to life-saving therapeutic treatments. During the pandemic, Dr. Munoz continually participated in various national and local events and activities to educate the Houston community about the importance of getting vaccinated, methods to stay safe and recruitment for critical vaccine trials. Additionally, Dr. Munoz served in various national and international committees and local task forces in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is co-chair of the COVAX-CEPI Maternal Immunization Group and of the Global Vaccine Development Network maternal vaccine safety working group, and chair of the Institutional Review Board at Baylor College of Medicine. "It is a true honor to receive the Mayor's Hispanic Heritage Award for Healthcare along with Dr. Bottazzi. I am humbled to share this recognition with all those working in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic and proud of our Hispanic community in Houston. I am grateful for Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine's support for our efforts in ensuring and improving the health of children, their mothers, and their families here at home and worldwide," said Dr. Munoz. Media Contacts Dancie Perugini Ware Public Relations / Marta Fredricks, [email protected] / Ashley Pearce, [email protected] / Ginny Montalbano [email protected] / Hannah Curtis, [email protected] ABOUT TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL Texas Children's Hospital, a not-for-profit health care organization, is committed to creating a healthier future for children and women throughout the global community by leading in patient care, education and research. Consistently ranked as the best children's hospital in Texas, and among the top in the nation, Texas Children's has garnered widespread recognition for its expertise and breakthroughs in pediatric and women's health. The hospital includes the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute; the Feigin Tower for pediatric research; Texas Children's Pavilion for Women, a comprehensive obstetrics/gynecology facility focusing on high-risk births; Texas Children's Hospital West Campus, a community hospital in suburban West Houston; and Texas Children's Hospital The Woodlands, the first hospital devoted to children's care for communities north of Houston. The organization also created Texas Children's HealthPlan, the nation's first HMO for children; has the largest pediatric primary care network in the country, Texas Children's Pediatrics; Texas Children's Urgent Care clinics that specialize in after-hours care tailored specifically for children; and a global health program that's channeling care to children and women all over the world. Texas Children's Global Health program leads efforts that advance health care equity through innovative collaboration in care, education and research for underserved populations globally. Texas Children's Hospital is affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine. For more information, go towww.texaschildrens.org. Get the latest news by visiting the online newsroom and Twitter at twitter.com/texaschildrens. ABOUT TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development is one of the leading vaccine development centers in the world. Established in Washington DC as the Sabin Vaccine Institute Product Development Partnership (PDP) in the year 2000 and after relocating to the Texas Medical Center in 2011, it rebranded as Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development. For the past two decades it has acquired an international reputation as a non-profit PDP, advancing vaccines for poverty-related neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and emerging infectious diseases of pandemic importance. In addition, it builds and strengthens capacity for vaccine development locally and with foreign nations and leads global efforts to guide and influence vaccine policy and advocacy through "vaccine diplomacy" as an international bridge for peace and vaccine development capacity. SOURCE Texas Children's Hospital A delicious, Eggo-Inspired cream liqueur to help grownups L' Eggo during the holiday season BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- During the chaos of the holidays, parents need a moment to themselves more than ever. Eggo heard from parents that one of their favorite times to enjoy Eggo Waffles is during their 'evening me time,' when the kids have gone to bed, and they can finally relax and enjoy it in peace. That insight inspired Eggo to create Eggo Nog, a rich and delicious eggnog liqueur to elevate parents' free time and give grownups a unique way to L'Eggo of the holiday stress this season. Eggos first-ever Eggo Nog, made with Sugarlands Distilling Co., inspired by the classic holiday drink. Sip Wisely! Eggo Nog Appalachian Sippin Cream produced and bottled by Sugarlands Distilling Company, Gatlinburg, TN. 20% alc/vo. Must be 21+ to purchase. Made in partnership with craft distillery Sugarlands Distilling Co. out of Gatlinburg, Tenn., Eggo Nog Appalachian Sippin' Cream is a decadent rum-based liqueur with cinnamon and nutmeg flavor notes. To make for an even more delicious experience, it pairs perfectly with Eggo Thick & Fluffy waffles to help keep you feeling cozy (and perhaps slightly toasted) all winter long. "The holidays are exhausting for parents from extra family responsibilities to the pressure of making the holidays perfect, parents rarely have any downtime for themselves," said Joe Beauprez, Marketing Director for Eggo. "We created Eggo Nog to give parents a delicious way to indulge in some well-deserved 'evening me time.' Paired perfectly with our Eggo Thick & Fluffy Waffles maybe even topped with a dollop of ice cream Eggo Nog is sure to help parents L'Eggo during one of the busiest times of the year." "We're very excited to partner with an iconic brand like Eggo to create this fun and festive version of our popular Appalachian Sippin' Cream. Our team at the distillery worked hard to ensure hints of cinnamon and nutmeg came through in the flavors, making every sip reminiscent of a perfectly toasted Eggo waffle," said Greg Eidam, Sugarlands Master Distiller. "We're confident this tasty twist on the classic holiday treat will have parents longing for their 'evening me time,' all holiday season long." Eggo Nog will be available in select retailers nationwide throughout the holiday season. To find a retailer near you, visit Sugarlands.com/EggoNog. Must be 21 or older to purchase. Sip Wisely! Eggo Nog Appalachian Sippin' Cream produced and bottled by Sugarlands Distilling Company, Gatlinburg, TN. 20% alc/vo. Must be 21+ to purchase. About Kellogg Company At Kellogg Company (NYSE: K), our vision is a good and just world where people are not just fed but fulfilled. We are creating better days and a place at the table for everyone through our trusted food brands. Our beloved brands include Pringles, Cheez-It, Special K, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Pop-Tarts, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Eggo, Mini-Wheats, Kashi, RXBAR, MorningStar Farms and more. Net sales in 2021 were nearly $14.2 billion, comprised principally of snacks as well as convenience foods like cereal, frozen foods, and noodles. As part of our Kellogg's Better Days ESG strategy, we're addressing the interconnected issues of wellbeing, climate and food security, creating Better Days for 3 billion people by the end of 2030. Visit www.KelloggCompany.com. For more information on Eggo, please visit LEggowithEggo.com and follow Eggo on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. About Sugarlands Distilling Co. Sugarlands Distilling Company is a craft distillery located in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Producers of award-winning moonshine, rum, cream liqueurs, rye whiskey and vodka, Sugarland spirits are distributed in 42 states and made available for home delivery via Reserve Bar. Sugarlands hand-crafted cocktails can be sipped in restaurants, bars, and festivals across the country, as well as on the Back Porch located at the downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee distillery. The Sugarlands distillery welcomes more than one million guests each year and is rated as TripAdvisor's number 1 thing to do in Gatlinburg as well as the world's top-rated distillery experience. A proud supporter of the community, Sugarlands Distilling Company has donated over $675,000 to nonprofits across the country through their giveback program, MoonShare. For more information, please visit www.sugarlands.com and follow Sugarlands on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @SugarlandsShine. SOURCE Kellogg Company Third major contract win announced in six weeks, with more news to come RESTON, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Electrosoft Services, Inc., an award-winning federal IT and professional services firm specializing in cybersecurity, announced today the Defense Logistics Agency awarded the company a contract worth a potential $6.5 million for AGA Audit Support. Electrosoft will support enterprise segregation of duties (SoD) auditing for financially relevant applications and will support the DLA AGA team with internal audit requirements. The base year of the contract is worth $2.1 million; two one-year options, if all exercised, would bring the total value of this effort to a potential $6.5 million. "Enterprise information assurance is imperative throughout the lifecycle of defense IT systems," said Dr. Sarbari Gupta, Electrosoft CEO. "We are proud to expand our work with DLA, now supporting all DLA enterprise audit requirements for SoD to minimize financial system and data-related risks." Building on the company's success with government financial and IT system audit and audit readiness, Electrosoft will deliver a range of IT and professional services. Among other services, the company will support the Annual Statement of Assurance risk assessment process, conduct quarterly system reviews and support the preparation of the financial statement audit in accordance with applicable government and defense standards and frameworks. DLA's AGA the Account Management and Provisioning System; Governance, Risk, and Compliance; and Application Security Team is central to the agency's future identity, credential and access management solution. DLA's enterprise SoD team is the central focal point for ensuring internal audit requirements are met for all financially relevant applications, coordinating across business data owners, process owners, IT system owners, program managers and the DLA audit body. About Electrosoft Electrosoft delivers comprehensive technology-based solutions and services that propel mission success for federal government customers. Specializing in cybersecurity, Electrosoft supports civilian and defense organizations in advancing cybersecurity postures, modernizing technology ecosystems and adopting agile approaches to improve operational efficiency and security. Recognized for deep domain knowledge and mature management practices, the company is rated at Maturity Level 3 for CMMI-DEV and CMMI-SVC and is certified under ISO 9001, ISO 20000-1 and ISO 27001. The rapidly growing 8(a), economically disadvantaged, women-owned small business (EDWOSB) and WOSB is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Learn more at www.electrosoft-inc.com. Press Contact Jeanne Zepp [email protected] SOURCE Electrosoft Services, Inc. RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- First Citizens Bank today announced the expansion of its Middle Market Banking unit to support the financial needs and goals of midsize businesses across Southern California and the Southwest region. The expansion follows the official launch of First Citizens Middle Market Banking in the Southeastern U.S. in September and the First Citizens Bank merger in January with CIT Group, a leading commercial lender with long experience in serving the middle market. First Citizens Middle Market Banking is now serving clients across the Southwestern and Southeastern regions with offerings including senior secured loans, cash-flow loans, capital markets services, foreign exchange capabilities, asset-based lending and treasury and payment services. The middle market target clientele covers companies with $75 million to $750 million in annual sales. "First Citizens is proud to expand Middle Market Banking to provide best-in-class relationship banking support to even more business owners, entrepreneurs and family offices in the middle market segment," said Brendan Chambers, an experienced banking executive who leads the Middle Market Banking team. "We're leveraging our talented and knowledgeable team, as well as capabilities acquired in our merger with CIT, to deliver exceptional service to our clients throughout their entire business life-cycle," Chambers said. "Our relationship banking model sets us apart in this space, and we're excited to help middle market businesses in the Southwest grow and prosper." First Citizens Middle Market Banking delivers a range of financial solutions to midsize clients through a relationship banking model. The business offers deposit solutions, loans, treasury services and other banking products to manufacturers, distributors and a wide variety of service industries. About First Citizens Bank First Citizens Bank helps personal, business, commercial and wealth clients build financial strength that lasts. As the largest family-controlled bank in the United States, First Citizens is continuing a unique legacy of strength, stability and long-term thinking that has spanned generations. Founded in 1898 and headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., First Citizens also operates a nationwide direct bank and a network of more than 550 branches in 22 states. Industry specialists bring a depth of expertise that helps businesses and individuals meet their specific goals at every stage of their financial journey. First Citizens Bank brings together personal service and powerful tools to help customers do more with their moneyand make more of their future. Visit firstcitizens.com. First Citizens Bank. Forever First MEDIA RELATIONS: Lexa Tutela 212-461-5305 [email protected] SOURCE First Citizens Bank The limited edition collection will be featured during the NFT art auction held within the region's first Web 5.0 Conference on 1 Nov 2022 in Singapore SINGAPORE, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Metaverse Blockchain company Coinllectibles, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cosmos Group Holdings Inc. (OTC: COSG) is pleased to announce that it will be working with Singaporean artist David Chan as well as Marvel Digital to launch a limited edition 3D art DOTs for the upcoming Web 5.0 conference on 1 Nov. Touted to be the first of its kind, the 3D art DOT is derived from David's original art titled Foreplay Perhaps (http://www.artnet.com/artists/david-chan/foreplay-perhaps-WnMgTT9PVlDiBLhUPBLq8Q2). Based on the digital image of the original Foreplay Perhaps artwork, the Marvel Digital team will be adding artistic 3D visual effects (VFX) in autostereoscopic 3D format. This will make the files playable in glasses free 3D devices designed and sold by Marvel Digital. To commemorate the inaugural Web 5.0 conference in Singapore on 1 Nov 2022, only 5 sets of Foreplay Perhaps 3D art DOTs will be produced. Collectors who buy the 3D art DOTs will be given a Marvel Digital autostereoscopic 10" tablet to enjoy the immersive experience of the 3D digital masterpiece. In addition, each set will come with an accompanying print of Foreplay Perhaps that is numbered and signed by the artist David Chan. Collectively, this demonstrates how Coinllectibles uses technology to work with artists. Commenting on this triple crossover partnership, Terry Lee, Head of Art at Coinllectibles, said, "We are extremely excited to work with David and Marvel Digital on this limited edition launch of 3D art DOT. As someone who has been in the arts and collectibles spaces for more than 20 years, I see that this industry is ripe of tech disruption. From Coinllectibles' perspective, not only do we want to disrupt how art is transacted and collected, we want to use autostereoscopic 3D technology to change how collectors can enjoy and become immersed in digital art. Hence, I am very honoured that we are able to pull together such a renowned artist like David and Marvel Digital to showcase the very first 3D art DOT at the upcoming Web 5.0 Conference in Singapore on 1 Nov 2022." Born in 1979, David is a full-time artist and an arts educator. His first solo exhibition, Genetic Wonderland in 2004, gained much critical and public acclaim, and in that same year, he was conferred the winner of the 23rd UOB Painting of the Year Representational Medium Category Award. David has also exhibited his art in numerous countries including China, America, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia. Commenting on using autostereoscopic 3D technology to enhance his artwork, Foreplay Perhaps, David Chan said, "I am really fascinated with the idea of working with a new medium an autostereoscopic 3D screen, for my art. For me, this presents an exciting new frontier as it gives my collectors a new way to immerse themselves in and enjoy my art. From the artist's perspective, it will also challenge me to think about the spatial layout of my works as my art can now extend beyond the flat 2D plane of the screen to directly engage with the aesthetes. Based on all these considerations, I am eagerly anticipating to see how the limited edition 3D arts DOT will do." For more information regarding Coinllectibles and the upcoming 3D art showcase, please visit www.Coinllectibles.Art/. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, which are often indicated by terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "goal," "intend," "look forward to," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would" and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding future business activities including the expansion into the decentralized financing space. These forward-looking statements are not promises or guarantees and involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described or projected herein include uncertainties associated with operating a business in Singapore and Hong Kong, risk of interference by the PRC government, ability to compete, that financial resources do not last for as long as anticipated, and that COSG is a holding company that may not realize the expected benefits of DOT's offered by Coinllectibles. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other risks can be found in COSG's regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including in its annual report on Form 10-K filed on April 15, 2022. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. COSG undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise. For media queries, please contact: [email protected] About Cosmos Group Holdings Inc Cosmos is a business group that operates in two business segments: Arts and Collectibles Financing Through Coinllectibles, the group provides authentication, valuation and certification (AVC) service, sale and purchase, hire purchase, financing, custody, security and exhibition (CSE) services to art buyers through traditional channels, as well as through leveraging blockchain technology through the creation of digital ownership tokens (DOTs). With subsidiaries licensed under Hong Kong's Money Lenders Ordinance, the group currently primarily provides unsecured personal loan to private individuals, with a small portfolio of mortgage loans. The group is integrating the two business segments by offering secured financing services to prospective art and collectibles purchasers to provide a one-stop arts and collectibles purchasing and financing experience. About the Company Coinllectibles Coinllectibles is a technology company supporting the collectibles industry with a focus on rare memorabilia and artworks that exist and have intrinsic value in the real world, whether tangible or intangible in nature. Coinllectibles applies blockchain, marketplace, metaverse and DOT technologies as tools to disrupt and enhance the real world collectibles industry. The technology underpinning DOTs (digital ownership tokens) has multiple functional use cases that Coinllectibles is applying to areas including art, sports, watches, numismatics, limited edition toys, limited edition fashion wear and sneakers. DOTs have the power to transform our societies and some areas may be subject to regulations. Coinllectibles uses DOT technology solely to provide a legally-binding digital ownership token (DOT) to a tangible or intangible collectible. Website: www.coinllectibles.art Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Coinllectibles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coinllectibles/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/coinllectibles LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coinllectibles Telegram: https://t.me/Coinllectibles About Coinllectibles Fusion DOT Coinllectibles prides the Fusion DOT as the industry "Gold Standard". Being a Gold Standard, a Fusion DOT contains the following on Arweave (1) a sale and purchase agreement reflecting the purchase, by the person minting the Fusion DOT, of the underlying asset at a fair value with all rights and restrictions clearly detailed, (2) bailment terms governing the rights to possession whilst the underlying asset remains with Coinllectibles, (3) a transfer deed reflecting the transfer of the ownership of the underlying asset (together with all rights and restrictions) by the transferor to the holder of the Fusion DOT, (4) ownership title deed written into the description of the Fusion DOT and (5) the unequivocal identification file of the underlying asset, whose ownership is reflected in the title deed represented by the Fusion DOT. SOURCE Cosmos Group Holdings Inc. "Frederick the Bald Eagle" is the airline's first A321neo, first GTF-powered aircraft, and first of three special liveries TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pratt & Whitney, a Raytheon Technologies business (NYSE: RTX), and Frontier Airlines ("Frontier") today welcomed the arrival of the carrier's first Airbus A321neo aircraft, outfitted with Pratt & Whitney GTF engines, at a celebration at Tampa International Airport. Frederick the Bald Eagle, named after Pratt & Whitney founder Frederick Rentschler, is Frontier Airlines first Airbus A321neo, and its first of 144 A320neo family aircraft powered by GTF engines. Photo Credit: Airbus In recognition of the companies' relationship, Frontier asked Pratt & Whitney employees to name the first three aircraft. The first plane was named "Frederick the Bald Eagle" in honor of the company's founder Frederick B. Rentschler, recognizing the nearly 100-year history of the engine maker. The aircraft features Pratt & Whitney's hallmark bald eagle on the tail and marks the first of 144 A320neo family aircraft 134 purchased and 10 leased for which Frontier has selected the GTF engine. In the coming months, Frontier will reveal two additional aircraft named after other Pratt & Whitney pioneers, each with its own unique tail design. Rick Deurloo, president of Commercial Engines at Pratt & Whitney, joined Frontier President and CEO Barry Biffle, along with employees and distinguished guests, at Tampa International Airport to mark the occasion and the shared commitment to a more sustainable future. "Our employees are the true trailblazers, who are committed to developing the transformative technologies that will allow the industry to achieve its commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050," said Deurloo. "For the flying public, the Pratt & Whitney GTF engine means a focus on environmental responsibility with less fuel consumption, fewer emissions and lower noise keeping fares low and contributing to quieter flights and cleaner communities." "We are thrilled to welcome our first A321neo, powered by Pratt & Whitney's groundbreaking GTF engines, to the Frontier fleet," said Biffle. "Frontier is already America's Greenest Airline based on our young, highly fuel-efficient fleet, and these new aircraft will take us to the next level in terms of operational efficiency and a further lessening of our environmental footprint. The operational performance offered by these aircraft will generate savings that can be passed on to our customers, helping us continue to deliver on our mission of providing 'Low Fares Done Right' across America and beyond." Rentschler founded the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company in Hartford, Conn. in July 1925. He had a vision for viable commercial aviation: the best planes can only be built around the best engines. The company's first product, designed by the end of that year, was an air-cooled, radial piston engine named the Wasp. The engine transformed the aviation industry and is the only aircraft engine to be designated an historic landmark to this day. The GTF engine extends Rentschler's vision and spirit of innovation with its geared fan design. It has saved airlines more than 800 million gallons of fuel and over 8 million metric tons of CO 2 since it entered service in January of 2016. The Pratt & Whitney GTF engine is the only geared propulsion system delivering industry-leading sustainability benefits and dependable, world-class operating costs. It offers the greatest fuel efficiency and lowest greenhouse gas emissions for the Airbus A320neo family. GTF-powered aircraft reduce fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions by 16% to 20%, NOx emissions by 50% and noise footprint by 75%.* Certified for operation on 50% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and successfully tested on 100% SAF, the engines are capable of further reductions in carbon emissions, which will help the aviation industry meet its goal of net zero emissions by 2050. The engine's revolutionary geared fan architecture is the foundation for more sustainable aviation technologies in the decades ahead, with advancements like the Pratt & Whitney GTF Advantage engine and beyond. Learn more at pwgtf.com. *Reductions vs. prior-generation aircraft, based on 75 dB noise contour and ICAO CAEP/6 emissions regulations. About Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft and helicopter engines, and auxiliary power units. To learn more visit www.prattwhitney.com. To receive press releases and other news directly, please sign up here. [email protected] +1 860 565 9600 SOURCE Pratt & Whitney NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Infrastructure Partners, a leading independent infrastructure investor, and Actis, a leading global investor in sustainable infrastructure, jointly announced the completion of the acquisition of Atlas Renewable Energy by GIP. Atlas is the second largest independent renewables developer in Latin America with 14 fully contracted solar assets that produce 2.3GW of installed capacity, across Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. Atlas Renewable Energy was founded in 2016 by a team of highly-experienced executives, with the support of Actis. From an initial development portfolio, Atlas has increased its installed capacity by 5x over a 4.5 year period. Atlas' approach has been focused on delivering customer-focused energy solutions with the goal of providing green energy at competitive costs through tailor-made, innovative solutions. Atlas benefits from sector tailwinds in the region, as economic growth and the global energy transition, coupled with the availability of abundant renewable resources, are driving increased demand for renewable energy generation. Atlas is well-positioned to help lead this growth through its differentiated offering, scaled regional presence, and strong existing relationships with customers in the region. Ronnie Hawkins, Partner of GIP Emerging Markets said: "We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Atlas Renewable Energy, which further enhances GIP's leading global renewables franchise. Atlas adds a large-scale Latin American platform to our solar, wind and battery storage assets in North America, Europe and Asia. We look forward to supporting Atlas' management team and leveraging GIP's extensive experience and relationships to further scale the solar business across other renewable technologies." Michael Harrington, Actis Partner and Head of Americas, added: "We are immensely proud of the Atlas platform and organization. Building it has called upon our experience and networks across the global renewable energy industry to take it from a restructuring process, to creating one of the region's largest independent renewables businesses and a global sustainability leader. The sale of Atlas marks our fifth renewable platform exit in the Americas, where we have now built and owned over 7 GW of contracted wind and solar capacity, making Actis one of the largest private investors in the energy transition of the region." Carlos Barrera, CEO, Atlas Renewable Energy commented: "In the past five years Atlas Renewable Energy has experienced a remarkable growth journey that now positions us as a regional leader in delivering competitive, clean energy solutions to large corporate customers. We are grateful for Actis' partnership, trust and commitment during this period. The investment by GIP now marks a new and exciting phase for our company as we expand the business into new markets and new technologies, and continue to deliver tailor-made solutions that help corporates transition to clean energy. We look forward to the road ahead, and to continue to set a high bar in our ESG efforts to promote sustainable development through renewable energy." About GIP GIP is a leading independent infrastructure fund manager that makes equity and debt investments in infrastructure assets and businesses. GIP targets investments in the energy, transport, digital infrastructure, and water/waste sectors in both OECD and select emerging market countries. GIP's global renewables portfolio includes solar, wind, hydro, and battery storage assets representing 19 GW of operating and construction capacity, royalty interests in over 20 GW of operating renewable projects, and over 173 GW of assets under construction or in development. Headquartered in New York, GIP operates out of 10 offices: New York, London, Stamford (Connecticut), Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore and Hong Kong. GIP manages c. US $84 billion for its investors. GIP's portfolio companies have combined annual revenues of c. US $68 billion and employ over 100,000 people. For more information, visit https://www.global-infra.com. About Actis Actis, is a leading global investor in sustainable infrastructure. Actis has raised US $24 billion since inception and operates with sustainability at its core. Actis believes Values Drive Value, through deep operational experience, on the ground presence and a value-led approach, Actis delivers competitive returns for its institutional investors and measurable positive impact for the countries, cities and communities in which it invests. Actis is a signatory to the United Nations backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), an investor initiative developed by the UNEP FI and the UN Global Compact. The firm has consistently been awarded the highest rating score in the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) independent assessment. www.act.is About Atlas Renewable Energy: Atlas Renewable Energy is an international renewable energy generation company that has been developing, financing, constructing, and operating renewable energy projects throughout the Americas since early 2017. Atlas Renewable Energy includes an experienced team with deep global power market and renewable energy expertise, and with the longest track record in the renewable energy industry in Latin America. The company's strategy is focused on helping large corporates make the energy transition to 100% clean energy. Atlas Renewable Energy is widely recognized for its high standards in the development, construction, and operation of large-scale projects; as well as a deep and long-standing track record in ESG and sustainable development. For more information, visit: AtlasRenewableEnergy.com SOURCE Global Infrastructure Partners https://spendedge.com/procurement-report/it-support-services-sourcing-and-procurement-intelligence-report Who are the Top Suppliers in the IT Support Services Market? The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several top suppliers. Some of the leading IT Support Services suppliers profiled extensively in this report include: Microsoft International Business Machines Fujitsu Limited These are a few of the key suppliers in the IT Support Services market. Discover more about these vendors, including the detailed analysis of procurement strategies deployed by major category end-users across several industries while sourcing for IT Support Services requirements. https://spendedge.com/procurement-report/it-support-services-sourcing-and-procurement-intelligence-report What are the Most Adopted Procurement Strategies for the IT Support Services Market? The research includes a complete analysis of the most commonly used procurement strategies by buyers across sectors, as well as an insight into these strategies' innovation, regulatory compliance, quality, supply, and cost. Adopting these procurement tactics would enable buyers to minimize category TCO and achieve cost savings while sourcing IT Support Services. What Are the Most Effective Price Strategy That a Vendor Can Adopt and What is The Forecasted Incremental Spend? It is critical to monitor current and future pricing changes in order to maximize the value of the purchase. Price forecasts can assist in purchase planning, especially when combined with constant monitoring of price-influencing factors. The market expects an incremental spend of USD 85.94 billion over the forecast period as a result of several market drivers prevalent across multiple geographies. In addition, the sourcing and procurement report discusses different cost-cutting factors by analyzing the following criteria: Identify favorable opportunities in IT Support Services TCO (total cost of ownership) Expected changes in price forecast and factors driving the current and future price changes Identify pricing models that offer the most rewarding opportunities Download the "IT Support Services Sourcing and Procurement" Sample Report to get detailed insights into a few more pricing strategies. Which are the Key Regions for the IT Support Services Market? The IT Support Services market will register an incremental spend of about USD 85.94 billion during the forecast period. However, only a few regions will drive the majority of this growth. Moreover, on the supply side, North America, Europe, and APAC will have the maximum influence owing to the supplier base. The growth is expected to be primarily driven by increasing demand and adoption of the category across those few regions. To get more information on the volume drivers that are driving the adoption of the category across regions, Read more about this market from our sample report! Smart Procurement Starts Here: SpendEdge's procurement intelligence platform is the go-to tool for companies looking to access the latest procurement research insights and supplier data on an easy to use platform: Signup for our subscription services now for FREE!, to get instant access to over 1000 market-ready procurement intelligence reports without any additional costs or commitment. Table of Content Executive Summary Market Insights Category Pricing Insights Cost-saving Opportunities Best Practices Category Ecosystem Category Management Strategy Category Management Enablers Suppliers Selection Suppliers under Coverage US Market Insights Category scope Appendix About SpendEdge: SpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are the preferred procurement market intelligence partner for 120+ Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence reports and solutions. Contacts SpendEdge Anirban Choudhury Marketing Manager Ph No: +1 (872) 206-9340 https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us SOURCE SpendEdge DUBLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Underwater Communication System Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Component, by Connectivity, by Application (Environmental Monitoring, Pollution Monitoring), by End-user, by Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2022-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global underwater communication system market size is expected to reach USD 7.20 billion by 2030, according to this report. The market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 10.1% from 2022 to 2030. Underwater communication is a way of transmitting and receiving messages beneath the water surface. The use of acoustic waves rather than electromagnetic messages distinguishes underwater acoustic communication from terrestrial communication. The worldwide underwater acoustic communication market is being driven by increased undersea research operations, notably for environmental protection. Underwater communications are classified into two types, namely, hardwired and wireless. Data is transported by cable in a hardwired connection. By removing the impact of outside elements, hardwired communications, comparable to a landline phone, provide the highest quality and most dependable kind of underwater communications. Water is used to convey data in wireless communication. Underwater wireless communications are used for environmental monitoring, underwater exploration, and scientific data collection. One of the primary causes for the expansion of underwater communication systems is an increase in defense spending by various countries. Threats, concerns about disputed territories, and security concerns have led to an increase in worldwide defense spending. The naval defense system relies heavily on underwater communication for safety and dependability. It is used by the military to detect incursions and perform underwater surveillance. The following are some of the benefits of an underwater communication system: Economy: Underwater communication systems are helpful for business applications, notably in the oil and gas industry. The ocean is rich with resources, and these systems are utilized to explore these riches. AUVs are employed in the oil and gas business, for example, to map the seabed before operations. This will keep these oil and gas professionals updated as they build pipelines and other infrastructure. This guarantees that their infrastructure is built without harming the environment. Scientific Exploration and Data Collecting: These systems are also highly valuable to research because they are utilized for underwater exploration and data collection. It is employed in subjects such as marine biology, archaeology, and oceanology. The undersea discoveries might be valuable to the health sector as well as in the development of current innovations. Environmental Monitoring: Underwater communication systems aid the government in environmental monitoring. The activities of corporations in the oil and gas sector can be monitored in terms of how they affect the environment. Environmental contamination may also be monitored and managed with these methods. Climate change is also detectable. Natural catastrophes can also be predicted by detecting early warning indications with these technologies. This minimizes the risk of such calamities occurring. Autonomous underwater vehicles have also been used to locate wrecked aircraft and investigate the reasons for their crashes. The development of communication systems has led to the finding of the Titanic's wreckage as well as the discovery of hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean. These devices identify items that help in mapping and discovery underwater. They are also quite dependable for rescue operations. Underwater Communication System Market Report Highlights The demand for underwater acoustic sensors to analyze various concentrations of pollution from chemical, biological, and radioactive contaminants is anticipated to propel the demand for underwater acoustic communication technology. Underwater acoustic digital signal processors and communications are a growing subject of applied research In August 2022 , Stanford University researchers developed a robot capable of diving deep into sunken planes and ruins. Its operators can have the same sense as OceanOneK's underwater trips. OceanOneK's 3D camera catches the underwater environment in vivid color, and its arms and hands can reach those of a diver , researchers developed a robot capable of diving deep into sunken planes and ruins. Its operators can have the same sense as OceanOneK's underwater trips. OceanOneK's 3D camera catches the underwater environment in vivid color, and its arms and hands can reach those of a diver The wireless segment is estimated to hold the major market share and expand at a CAGR of 10.4% from 2022 to 2030 The oceanography segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period The military & defense segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period Key players in the market include Kongsberg, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., Thales, and Saab AB Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope Chapter 2. Executive Summary Chapter 3. Market Variables, Trends, & Scope Outlook 3.1. Market Segmentation 3.2. Underwater Communication Systems Market Size & Growth Prospects 3.3. Underwater Communication Systems Market - Value Chain Analysis 3.4. Underwater Communication Systems Market Dynamics 3.4.1. Market Driver Analysis 3.4.2. Market Restraint Analysis 3.4.3. Market Opportunity Analysis 3.5. Underwater Communication Systems Penetration & Growth Prospects Mapping 3.6. Underwater Communication Systems Market - Porter's Five Forces Analysis 3.7. Underwater Communication Systems Market - PEST Analysis 3.8. COVID-19 Impact Analysis Chapter 4. Underwater Communication Systems Market Component Outlook 4.1. Underwater Communication Systems Market, By Component Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 4.2. Hardware 4.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 4.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 4.3. Software 4.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 4.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 4.4. Services 4.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 4.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) Chapter 5. Underwater Communication Systems Market Connectivity Outlook 5.1. Underwater Communication Systems Market, By Connectivity Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 5.2. Hardwired 5.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 5.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 5.3. Wireless 5.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 5.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) Chapter 6. Underwater Communication Systems Market Application Outlook 6.1. Underwater Communication Systems Market, By Application Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 6.2. Climate Monitoring 6.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.3. Environmental Monitoring 6.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.4. Hydrography 6.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.5. Oceanography 6.5.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.5.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.6. Pollution Monitoring 6.6.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.6.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.7. Others 6.7.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 6.7.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) Chapter 7. Underwater Communication Systems Market End-user Outlook 7.1. Underwater Communication Systems Market, By End-User Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 7.2. Marine 7.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.3. Military & Defense 7.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.4. Oil & Gas 7.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.5. Scientific Research & Development 7.5.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.5.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.6. Others 7.6.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) 7.6.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Million) Chapter 8. Underwater Communication Systems Market: Regional Estimates & Trend Analysis Chapter 9. Competitive Analysis 9.1. Recent Developments and Impact Analysis, by Key Market Participants 9.2. Company/Competition Categorization (Key Innovators, Market Leaders, Emerging, Niche Players) 9.3. Vendor Landscape 9.3.1. Key company market share analysis, 2021 9.4. Company Analysis Tools 9.4.1. Market Position Analysis 9.4.2. Competitive Dashboard Analysis Chapter 10. Competitive Landscape 10.1. Company Profiles 10.2. Kongsberg 10.2.1. Company overview 10.2.2. Financial performance 10.2.3. Product benchmarking 10.2.4. Strategic initiatives 10.3. L3Harris Technologies, Inc. 10.3.1. Company overview 10.3.2. Financial performance 10.3.3. Product benchmarking 10.3.4. Strategic initiatives 10.4. Thales 10.4.1. Company overview 10.4.2. Financial performance 10.4.3. Product benchmarking 10.4.4. Strategic initiatives 10.5. Saab AB 10.5.1. Company overview 10.5.2. Financial performance 10.5.3. Product benchmarking 10.5.4. Strategic initiatives 10.6. Teledyne Marine 10.6.1. Company overview 10.6.2. Financial performance 10.6.3. Product benchmarking 10.6.4. Strategic initiatives 10.7. Ultra Electronics Holding plc 10.7.1. Company overview 10.7.2. Financial performance 10.7.3. Product benchmarking 10.7.4. Strategic initiatives 10.8. Sonardyne 10.8.1. Company overview 10.8.2. Financial performance 10.8.3. Product benchmarking 10.8.4. Strategic initiatives 10.9. DSPComm 10.9.1. Company overview 10.9.2. Financial performance 10.9.3. Product benchmarking 10.9.4. Strategic initiatives 10.10. Undersea Systems International, Inc. 10.10.1. Company overview 10.10.2. Financial performance 10.10.3. Product benchmarking 10.10.4. Strategic initiatives 10.11. Sea and Land Technologies Pte Ltd. 10.11.1. Company overview 10.11.2. Financial performance 10.11.3. Product benchmarking 10.11.4. Strategic initiatives For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/i3y551 Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets Following the Addition of Two New Dairy Creamers, the Coffee Creamer Brand Will Spotlight Locations That Inspire Its Flavors And Put Goodness Into The World in Upcoming Video Series BROOMFIELD, Colo., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Honest to Goodness, a line of globally inspired coffee creamers made from high-quality ingredients, has expanded beyond its line of plant-based offerings to introduce two new dairy creamers: Chantilly Cream and Sri Lankan Cinnamon Brown Sugar. The two new flavors, in addition to the brand's plant-based creamers, Madagascan Vanilla Bean and Himalayan Salted Caramel, are now available in-store for the first time at Whole Foods, Sprouts and other natural retailers nationwide. Inspired by the flavors of the world, Honest to Goodness aims to deliver an elevated at-home coffee experience and help people to start their day by indulging all five senses and infusing a sense of goodness and wanderlust into their morning routine. Beyond helping people start the day right, Honest to Goodness is on a journey to bring good karma to coffee mugs and the world alike by supporting reforestation efforts and uplifting communities where it sources its key ingredients. To celebrate its new flavors and grocery store expansion, and in-line with the Honest to Goodness ethos, the brand has launched a search to find its first ever Karma Koach, who will help to create four Morning Mantra videos that inspire others to stir up good. The new video series will transport consumers around the world as they drink their morning coffee, with the soothing sounds, stunning visuals, tastes and smells of the global locales that inspire Honest to Goodness creamers, with motivational mantras from across the globe. The idyllic Karma Koach will help bring these videos to life with a voice that can uplift and transport people around the globe. The winning Karma Koach, chosen by Honest to Goodness' panel of judges, will not only have a voice as smooth and globally inspired as Honest to Goodness creamers, but they will also be an uplifting voice that encourages consumers to spark goodness in the world. In return, the winning Karma Koach will receive their own dose of karma! - a once-in-a-lifetime trip to one of the global locations that inspired the brand's creamer flavors, including France, Madagascar, Sri Lanka or the Himalayas, and a year's supply of Honest to Goodness coffee creamers. From October 11- November 1, consumers can enter for a chance to become the Karma Koach by simply submitting a voice recording reciting two short mantras provided by Honest to Goodness as well as a unique, morning mantra of their own on HTGKarmaContest.com. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. Open to legal residents of 50 United States/DC, who are 18 years or older. Sponsored by Danone US LLC. For Official Rules, visit: HTGKarmaContest.com. Contest ends at 11:59 PM ET on 11/1/22. "Honest to Goodness is inspired by the flavors of the world and is helping people start the day with an elevated at-home coffee experience. On a mission to give back with a simple pour of coffee creamer, we're excited to introduce new creamer offerings," said Amanda Simerman, Senior Director, Organic, Dairy & Plant-Based Creamers at Danone North America. "With the debut of our Morning Mantra Series, we'll bring moments of deliciousness to morning routines while spotlighting places that have inspired Honest to Goodness. Hand-in-hand with our Karma Koach, we hope to provide a premium coffee experience that goes beyond the everyday and transports you around the globe without ever having to leave your kitchen." Honest to Goodness' plant-based and NEW dairy creamers are currently available at select natural retailers, including Whole Foods and Sprouts. Find them using Honest to Goodness' store locator at https://www.honestogoodness.com/where-to-buy/ and put some karma in your mug. About Honest to Goodness Our brand is on a mission to bring goodness to your coffee cup. Honest to Goodness is part of the B Corp movement and is a coffee creamer line dedicated to giving its consumers a delicious taste experience they can feel good about. A line of globally inspired plant-based and dairy coffee creamers made with high-quality ingredients sourced from around the world, Honest to Goodness pulls inspiration from the island of Sri Lanka to the hills of the Himalayas and is on a journey to make an impact in the communities where its key ingredients are sourced. Honest to Goodness coffee creamers are gluten-free, carrageenan-free, and non-GMO project verified. To learn more about Honest to Goodness and its mission, please visit www.honestogoodness.com. About Danone North America Danone North America is a purpose-driven company and an industry leader in the food and beverage category. As a Certified B Corporation, Danone North America is committed to the creation of both economic and social value, while nurturing natural ecosystems through sustainable agriculture. Our strong portfolio of brands includes: Activia, DanActive, Danimals, Dannon, evian, Happy Family Organics, Honest to Goodness, Horizon Organic, International Delight, Light + Fit, Oikos, Silk, So Delicious Dairy Free, SToK, Two Good, Wallaby Organic and YoCrunch. With more than 6,000 employees and 16 production locations across the U.S. and Canada, Danone North America's mission is to bring health through food to as many people as possible. For more information, visit www.danonenorthamerica.com/. For more information on Danone North America's B Corp status, visit: https://bcorporation.net/directory/danone-north-america. Contact: Alyssa Feldmann, [email protected] SOURCE Honest to Goodness SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at Next '22 , Google Cloud announced new customer wins, partnerships, and product innovations to help organizations of all sizes, across every industry, adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations and shifting global markets. "This year's event takes place at an inflection point in the cloud industry," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. "Data and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming everything around us, and open, connected ecosystems are essential to everything we do. This week, we are proud to announce cloud innovations that help businesses embrace openness and interoperability, in addition to celebrating the incredible achievements of our customers and partners." Customer momentum across every geography and industry Many of the world's biggest brands are choosing Google Cloud to digitally transform and innovate, including 9 of the top 10 retailers, 8 of the top 10 banks, and 8 of the top 10 automotive companies. Building upon recent momentum with leading organizations like MLB , H&M Group , Banco BV , and ASX ; public sector institutions like the New York State , Central Dutch Government , the U.S. Forest Service , and the U.S. Army ; and new emerging companies like AppLovin , Arize.ai , Rent the Runway , Rightmove , and Tokopedia , Google Cloud today announced new or expanded relationships with Coinbase , Prudential plc , Rite Aid , Snap , T-Mobile , Toyota , and Wayfair . New innovations and partnerships to define the future of cloud At Next '22, Google Cloud is announcing hundreds of new innovations and partnerships across its portfolio, which includes a data cloud so organizations can better understand their data and automate core processes; an open infrastructure cloud to help modernize legacy information systems and build new applications that are reliable and scalable; a trusted cloud to protect users, applications, and data from growing cyber threats; and a collaboration cloud to enable modern, secure communication and collaboration. An open data cloud Customers want to be able to utilize their data from all sources, in all storage formats, and across multiple styles of analysis. Today, Google Cloud announced significant steps to provide the most open, extensible, and powerful data cloud in the industry, along with new applications and services to put powerful, applied Google AI technology in the hands of more data specialists. Innovations announced today include: Big Query support for unstructured data , a new capability that will significantly expand the ability for people to analyze all types of data. , a new capability that will significantly expand the ability for people to analyze all types of data. Support for new data formats , including Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake , and Apache Hudi, as well as a new integrated experience in BigQuery for Apache Spark. , including Apache Iceberg, , and Apache Hudi, as well as a new integrated experience in BigQuery for Apache Spark. Looker Studio , a complete enterprise business intelligence suite based on the unification of Looker and Google Data Studio. Google Cloud is also introducing Looker Studio Pro to provide organizations support and key governance capabilities. , a complete enterprise business intelligence suite based on the unification of Looker and Google Data Studio. Google Cloud is also introducing Looker Studio Pro to provide organizations support and key governance capabilities. Translation Hub , a new enterprise-scale translation AI Agent for self-serve document translation, which lets organizations cost effectively localize content in more than 135 languages. , a new enterprise-scale translation AI Agent for self-serve document translation, which lets organizations cost effectively localize content in more than 135 languages. Vertex AI Vision , a new service that makes powerful computer vision and image recognition AI more accessible to data practitioners. It also reduces the time to create computer vision applications from days to minutes at one-tenth the cost of current offerings. , a new service that makes powerful computer vision and image recognition AI more accessible to data practitioners. It also reduces the time to create computer vision applications from days to minutes at one-tenth the cost of current offerings. Expanded integrations with many of the most popular enterprise data platforms, including Collibra, Elastic, MongoDB, Palantir Foundry, and ServiceNowto help remove barriers between data, give customers more choice, and prevent data lock-in. Easy, transformative, open infrastructure To better help organizations of all types and sizes run on Google Cloud, at the edge, or in their data centers, the company is announcing a series of infrastructure and migration updates, including: Five new Google Cloud regions coming to Austria , Greece , Norway , South Africa , and Sweden . Google Cloud regions coming to , , , , and . Infrastructure enhancements tailored to customers' workloads, including the C3 machine series powered by the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor and Google's custom Intel Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU), and general availability of TPU v4 , which runs large-scale training workloads up to 80% faster and up to 50% cheaper. powered by the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor and Google's custom Intel Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU), and general availability of , which runs large-scale training workloads up to 80% faster and up to 50% cheaper. Anthos enhancements , including a more robust user interface, an upgraded fleet management experience, and the general availability of virtual machine support on Anthos clusters for retail edge environments. , including a more robust user interface, an upgraded fleet management experience, and the general availability of virtual machine support on Anthos clusters for retail edge environments. Dual Run , which will help remove the most common roadblocks from migrating 20+ year old mainframes into the cloud. , which will help remove the most common roadblocks from migrating 20+ year old mainframes into the cloud. Migration Center , which brings assessment, planning, migration, and modernization tooling together in one location so organizations can progress faster through their migration journey. , which brings assessment, planning, migration, and modernization tooling together in one location so organizations can progress faster through their migration journey. OpenXLA Project , a new open-source ecosystem of ML technologies developed by Google, AMD, Arm, Intel, Meta, NVIDIA, and more. An integrated, AI-powered collaboration hub To help hybrid teams communicate and collaborate, create and share ideas, and get work done safely from anywhere, Google Cloud today announced new innovations in Google Workspace and its partner ecosystem that will help organizations transform the way they work, including: New capabilities in Google Meet, such as speaker spotlight, which enables presenters to embed their video directly in Google Slides, and adaptive framing with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech that let everyone in a conference room be seen clearly. in Google Meet, such as speaker spotlight, which enables presenters to embed their video directly in Google Slides, and adaptive framing with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech that let everyone in a conference room be seen clearly. Smart canvas enhancements with custom building blocks in Google Docs, enabling companies to build their own templates that can be easily accessed by all users, and smart chips for third-party applications, including AODocs, Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro, Tableau, and ZenDesk, so people can view and engage with rich third-party data without switching tabs or context. with custom building blocks in Google Docs, enabling companies to build their own templates that can be easily accessed by all users, and for third-party applications, including AODocs, Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro, Tableau, and ZenDesk, so people can view and engage with rich third-party data without switching tabs or context. New security enhancements , including data loss prevention (DLP) rules for Chat and the extension of Client Side Encryption to Gmail and Calendar to help keep people and data safe across more of the apps teams use on a day-to-day basis. , including data loss prevention (DLP) rules for Chat and the extension of Client Side Encryption to Gmail and Calendar to help keep people and data safe across more of the apps teams use on a day-to-day basis. New APIs for Meet and Chat, giving programmatic access to common functions like creating and starting meetings or initiating messages directly from a third-party app. Asana, Lumapps, and ZenDesk will be the first partners to leverage these in their apps. Developers can also embed their app directly into the Meet experience with a new Meet add-on SDK. Advanced security tools to protect what's important The rise of cybersecurity threats has every company rethinking their security posture. With the recent acquisition of Mandiant , Google Cloud is extending its cybersecurity leadership and expertise to help customers stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle. This week, the company is announcing new products, partnerships, and solutions to build the most open and extensible trusted cloud offering, including: Chronicle Security Operations , a modern, cloud-born software suite that better enables cybersecurity teams to detect, investigate, and respond to threats with the speed, scale, and intelligence of Google. , a modern, cloud-born software suite that better enables cybersecurity teams to detect, investigate, and respond to threats with the speed, scale, and intelligence of Google. Confidential Space , a new solution in the Confidential Computing portfolio, that allows organizations to perform tasks such as joint data analysis and machine learning (ML) model training while ensuring the data they own can stay protected from their partners. , a new solution in the portfolio, that allows organizations to perform tasks such as joint data analysis and machine learning (ML) model training while ensuring the data they own can stay protected from their partners. Google Cloud Ready - Sovereign Cloud , a new program for partners and customers to advance digital sovereignty and address growing demand for cloud solutions with the highest levels of control, transparency, and sovereignty. , a new program for partners and customers to advance digital sovereignty and address growing demand for cloud solutions with the highest levels of control, transparency, and sovereignty. Software Delivery Shield , a fully managed, end-to-end software supply chain security solution to help customers better protect the integrity of the software that underpins their business. , a fully managed, end-to-end software supply chain security solution to help customers better protect the integrity of the software that underpins their business. A significant expansion of the company's trusted cloud ecosystem, featuring new integrations and offerings with more than 20 partners focused on digital sovereignty and cybersecurity. Delivering next-generation computing to enterprises The combination of Google's technical strengths, backed by its unique scale and deep experience in connecting that technology with consumer products and ecosystems, enables Google Cloud to put the tools of tomorrow in the hands of organizations today. New developments announced at Next include: Project Starline , which creates a 3D model of a person, making it feel like they are sitting in the same room, will enter its next phase of testing with an early access program with enterprise partners. Starting this year, Google Cloud will deploy units in select partner offices for regular testing to see how Project Starline can help people form strong ties with one another, no matter where they are in the world. , which creates a 3D model of a person, making it feel like they are sitting in the same room, will enter its next phase of testing with an early access program with enterprise partners. Starting this year, Google Cloud will deploy units in select partner offices for regular testing to see how Project Starline can help people form strong ties with one another, no matter where they are in the world. A strategic partnership with Coinbase will help serve the growing Web3 ecosystem and its developers. Google's partnership with Coinbase will make it easier for customers to take advantage of Google Cloud's scalability, reliability, security, and data services, so Web3 founders and developers can focus on innovation. It also builds on recent Web3 announcements with Nansen , BNB Chain , Sky Mavis , and NEAR Protocol . Powerful new ways for organizations to develop sustainably Google Cloud operates the cleanest cloud in the industryand is committed to helping customers by making lasting change through products and services that minimize environmental impact. Today, the company announced that Google Cloud Carbon Footprint is now Generally Available, and provided at no cost for every customer in the cloud console. In addition, eco-friendly routing is coming soon to the Google Maps Platform for developers, to help ridesharing and delivery companies embed eco-friendly routes into their driver applications. And, earlier this year, Google announced the Google Cloud Ready - Sustainability designation to better scale its efforts and help global businesses and governments accelerate their sustainability programs. Since that announcement, more than 20 partners have achieved the designation. For more on Google Cloud announcements during Next, please visit the Google Cloud blog or press corner . Additional Resources About Google Cloud Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems. SOURCE Google Cloud Harbour BioMed, HanAll's licensed partner in China , signed a sublicense agreement with CSPC NBP Pharmaceutical for batoclimab, an FcRn compound originally discovered and developed by HanAll Biopharma , signed a sublicense agreement with CSPC NBP Pharmaceutical for batoclimab, an FcRn compound originally discovered and developed by HanAll Biopharma Batoclimab is one of the most advanced FcRn inhibitors being developed in Greater China , with the potential of becoming the first-in-FcRn class therapy to treat autoimmune diseases , with the potential of becoming the first-in-FcRn class therapy to treat autoimmune diseases The new collaboration is expected to accelerate and expand batoclimab's clinical development and prepare for the nationwide launch in China in multiple indications SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- HanAll Biopharma (KRX: 009420.KS), a global biopharmaceutical company developing innovative medicines, today announced that its licensed partner in greater China, Harbour BioMed, has signed an exclusive sublicense agreement with CSPC NBP Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (NBP Pharma), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CSPC, a RBM 28 billion 2021 sales company based in China, for HanAll's FcRn inhibitor batoclimab. The deal grants NBP Pharma the exclusive rights to develop and commercialize batoclimab in Greater China including mainland of China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Under the agreement Harbour BioMed will receive a total of over RMB 1 billion, including the RMB 150 million worth upfront payment along with the potential milestone payments. "We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Harbour BioMed," said Cuilong Zhang, CEO of CSPC through the press release by Harbour BioMed. "Batoclimab is a promising innovative drug, and we hope to accelerate its clinical development, manufacturing, registration and commercialization in China, so as to benefit the patients in China better and earlier," he added. "HanAll welcomes CSPC to join our journey to develop innovative medicines for patients in China. With its strong track records of R&D and commercialization, CSPC is expected to even further accelerate and expand the clinical development of batoclimab to contribute to autoimmune patients in China," said Sean Jeong, M.D., CEO of HanAll Biopharma. About HanAll Biopharma Co., Ltd. HanAll Biopharma (KRX: 009420.KS) is a global biopharmaceutical company founded in 1973, with a mission of making meaningful contributions to patients' lives by introducing innovative, impactful therapies to address severe unmet medical needs. HanAll has been operating a portfolio of pharmaceutical products in areas ranging from endocrine, circulatory, and urologic diseases for more than 49 years. HanAll has also expanded its focus to ophthalmology, immunology, oncology and neurology to discover and develop innovative medicines for patients with diseases for which there are no effective treatments. A leading pipeline asset, HL161BKN (INN: batoclimab), an anti-FcRn antibody drug, is in Phase 3 and Phase 2 trials across the world for the treatment of rare autoimmune disorders including myasthenia gravis, thyroid eye disease, warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia, neuromyelitis optica, and immune thrombocytopenia. Another main asset, HL036 (INN: tanfanercept), an anti-TNF alpha protein drug, is in Phase 3 clinical trials in the US and China for the treatment of dry eye disease. For further information visit our website, and connect with us on linkedin. For any media inquiries, please contact HanAll PR/IR ([email protected], [email protected]). Disclaimer statement The contents of this announcement include statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms "believes," "estimates," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "may," "will," or "should" and include statements HANALL (the company, we) makes concerning its 2022 business and financial outlook and related plans, the therapeutic potential of its product candidates, the intended results of its strategy and the company, and its collaboration partners', advancement of, and anticipated clinical development, data readouts and regulatory milestones and plans, including the timing of planned clinical trials and expected data readouts, the design of future clinical trials and the timing and outcome of regulatory filings and regulatory approvals. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. The company's actual results may differ materially from those predicted by the forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors our expectations regarding its the inherent uncertainties associated with competitive developments, preclinical and clinical trial and product development activities and regulatory approval requirements, our reliance on collaborations with third parties, estimating the commercial potential of our product candidates, our ability to obtain and maintain protection of intellectual property for its technologies and drugs, our limited operating history, and our ability to obtain additional funding for operations and to complete the development and commercialization of its product candidates. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other risks can be found in Korea Stock Exchange (KRX) filings and reports, including in our most recent annual report as well as subsequent filings and reports filed by the company with the KRX. Given these uncertainties, the reader is advised not to place any undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of publication of this document. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise the information in this press release, including any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by Korean law and regulations. SOURCE HanAll Biopharma New joint venture company to produce battery modules in Fayette County, Ohio EV batteries produced at JV plant to be provided to Honda plants for EV production MARYSVILLE, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Honda and LG Energy Solution (LGES; KRX: 373220) today announced that their new joint venture (JV) battery plant will be located in Fayette County, Ohio, about 40 miles southwest of Columbus, where the two companies will commit to investing $3.5 billion and creating 2,200 jobs, pending final government approvals. The companies' overall investment related to the JV is projected to reach $4.4 billion. The joint venture between Honda and LGES will be formally established in 2022, pending regulatory approvals. The two companies plan to begin construction in early 2023, in order to complete the new production facility by the end of 2024. The plant aims to have approximately 40GWh of annual production capacity as it starts mass production of pouch-type lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2025. Honda already has announced plans to begin production* and sales of Honda EVs in North America in 2026, based on its new Honda e:Architecture. The EV batteries produced at the new JV plant will be provided to Honda auto plants to produce EVs to be sold in North America. "In another major step toward electrification, LG Energy Solution's innovative battery technologies will not only power Honda's brand-new EV models but support Ohio's green economy. We extend our gratitude to everyone who played a role in making this happen," said Dong-Myung Kim, Executive Vice President of Advanced Automotive Battery Division at LG Energy Solution. "With our commitment to building the world-best quality products, together with Honda, we look forward to not only creating thousands of quality jobs here in Ohio, but growing together with the community." In April 2022, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. announced that it was exploring the possibility of creating a joint venture company for battery production in North America, and that the battery plant would be established near a dedicated EV production line to be created in North America. The joint venture with LGES represents the fulfillment of this strategy. "Honda is proud of our history in Ohio, where our U.S. manufacturing operations began more than four decades ago. Now, as we expand Honda's partnership with Ohio, we are investing in a workforce that will create the power source for our future Honda and Acura electric vehicles," said Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "We want to thank the leaders of the state of Ohio, as well as in Fayette County, Jefferson Township, Jeffersonville, and Washington Court House for welcoming this new joint venture between Honda and LG Energy Solution and giving us another Ohio community to call home." This latest JV announcement with Honda reflects the recently announced LG Energy Solution's mid- to long-term strategy to focus on North America, the fastest growing EV market. LGES plans to further expand its production capacity in the region, as well as reinforce its local supply chain for key critical minerals. As part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities by 2050, Honda announced a vision to make battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles represent 100% of its vehicle sales by 2040. About LG Energy Solution LG Energy Solution (KRX: 373220), a split-off from LG Chem, is a leading global manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobility, IT, and energy storage systems. With 30 years of experience in revolutionary battery technology and extensive research and development (R&D), the company is the top battery-related patent holder in the world with over 25,000 patents. Its robust global network, which spans North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, includes battery manufacturing facilities established through joint ventures with major automakers such as General Motors, Stellantis N.V., Hyundai Motor Group, and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. At the forefront of green business and sustainability, LG Energy Solution aims to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2050, while embodying the value of shared growth and promoting diverse and inclusive corporate culture. To learn more about LG Energy Solution's ideas and innovations, visit https://www.lgensol.com. About Honda Motor Co., Ltd. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) is responsible for the development, production and sales of automobiles, motorcycles, power products and aviation products worldwide. Honda now delivers over 30 million products annually through its three product lines. Honda and its partners build products in more than 60 manufacturing plants in 27 countries, employing about 220,000 associates globally. On a global basis by 2050, Honda is striving to achieve carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities, as well as zero traffic collision fatalities involving Honda automobiles and motorcycles. *using domestic and globally sourced parts SOURCE Honda Attributes success to their people and business diversification. BROOKFIELD, Wis., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hydrite announced today that it ranked No. 37 on Deloitte's Wisconsin 75, a ranking of the 75 largest private companies in Wisconsin, based on sales revenue. Hydrite's chief executive officer, Paul Honkamp, credits employees and business diversification with the company's accomplishment. He said, "As Deloitte recognizes the 20th anniversary of the Wisconsin 75, Hydrite is honored to be ranked 17 of the 20 years. Hydrite is a stable and secure business as we focus on operational excellence and safety, and reinvestment into our business. We also strive to be an employer of choice. All these elements are fundamental to our success." "For the 20th year, Deloitte is proud to recognize the economic and community impact of the largest 75 private companies in Wisconsin the Wisconsin 75. This year we will not only celebrate the individual successes of each of these organizations, but also the collective impact of private companies in powering Wisconsin's economy and community," said PJ DiStefano, Wisconsin managing partner of Deloitte LLP. Hydrite previously ranked 39 on the Wisconsin 75 list and has been featured on the list 17 times. About Deloitte's 2022 Wisconsin 75 Deloitte's annual Wisconsin 75 list salutes the largest privately held Wisconsin-based companies. These companies play a key role in the state's economy. Wisconsin 75 award winners are selected based on annual sales revenue. To be eligible for Deloitte's Wisconsin 75 recognition, companies must have a majority ownership by an individual(s), family, employee stock ownership plan, or private equity firm. Public companies are eligible when greater than 50 percent of the value or vote of the shares are owned by individuals, family, an employee stock ownership plan, or private equity. Additionally, companies must have annual sales revenue of at least USD 50,000. The Wisconsin 75 excludes cooperatives and accounting, tax, legal, and consulting service companies. About Hydrite Hydrite, a family-owned company established in 1929, is one of the largest independent providers of chemicals and related services in the United States. Headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Hydrite has a network of manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and laboratories located in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, California, and Texas with nearly 1000 employees in more than 25 states. Hydrite owns and operates a private fleet of over 255 units including tractors, van trailers, tankers, and railcars. Hydrite offers expertise in chemical manufacturing and distribution, food and dairy sanitation, organic processing, liquid sulfites, foam control and water treatment chemistries. With over 5,000 items in its product portfolio, Hydrite's dedicated chemists, engineers, and technical service staff have extensive knowledge and experience to solve the most challenging formulation problems. Hydrite offers superior products and innovative solutions, and has a strong commitment to safety and quality. www.hydrite.com About Deloitte Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. Media Contact: Judy Allen [email protected] SOURCE Hydrite LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- idexo is pleased to announce that it has published new open source smart contracts, written in the Solidity programming language for linking NFTs from different smart contracts to a Soulbound Token, creating a voting contract whereby votes are cast by NFT holders and the votes can spend tokens, and a payments contract where the payment can be in any specified token and be made for specific products, with payments generating a consumable NFT coupon for those products. These contracts are now available in the idexo ido-contracts repository on Github. Uncapped Soulbound Tokens Smart Contract With Linked NFTs Spendable Voting By NFT Holders Smart Contract The Linked NFTs Soulbound Token smart contract enables the linking of NFTs from other smart contracts and blockchains to a Soulbound Token ID, thereby extending the data that can be known and associated with a holder of that ID. Applications of this include creating rich token gated experiences that display all linked NFTs and provide contextual content and access based on those linked NFTs and their attributes. For example, idexo has created a Token Gating tab within its own community dApp that enables its community members (called Idexonauts) to see all of the NFTs they have collected through community campaigns or through staking and unlock special content, discounts, coupons, votes and other applications based on their Soulbound Token profile. Idexo also offers this same functionality to customers of its application who want to offer the same to their community and/or customers. The Spendable Voting smart contract enables the creation and voting of proposals that include an amount of token to be spent as part of the proposal and are issued to specified wallets. Voters on the proposal are holders of NFTs, with the eligible NFT smart contracts set through a contract function. Applications of this include creating flexible DAO structures based on any combination of NFTs and spendable tokens as needed to enable governance utility. For example, idexo is using these contracts to enable holders of NFTs that are generated through its staking pools to vote on spending proposals of its native token. When users stake in any of the idexo staking pools, the stake generates an NFT with data about their stake such as stake amount and locking time period and it is this NFT that is then used in the spendable voting contracts. These voting systems are being integrated into its community Token Gating UI, unlocking the interface when users connect their wallet containing the eligible NFTs. Idexo is also making these Spendable Voting smart contracts and hosted Application User Interfaces available to its customers to use in their communities. The Consumable NFT Coupon smart contract is a payments contract that specifies a native token or tokens to use for purchase and products that include numbers of uses for a given price in tokens. When the purchase function is used for a specified product and given amount paid, then a receipt coupon NFT is generated and sent to the purchaser to be used in consumption. As the coupon NFT is used, its number of uses are reduced accordingly to the point of being fully utilized, wherein it will no longer be valid for use. Applications of this include providing a flexible payment utility for native tokens within a community ecosystem. For example, idexo plans to use this consumable NFT system to provide its community a way to buy single or multi-use access to applications, such as NFT surveys, that would otherwise require a monthly subscription, using its native token to make the purchases. "We're excited to finally release some of these open source contracts to the community and put them into use in our SDK / API, SaaS products and community applications," says Greg Marlin, CEO/CTO of idexo, "Behind the scenes, idexo is continually working on many different types of NFT and Soulbound Tokens innovation smart contracts and we look forward to releasing many more in the near future to address a broad range of use case." Idexo's founder and CEO/CTO Greg Marlin is currently attending Ethereum DevCon in Bogota and is available to connect with any interested parties to discuss these and other recent releases. MEDIA CONTACT Company: idexo Name: Greg Marlin Email: [email protected] City: London Country: United Kingdom Website: https://idexo.com Phone: +44 20 8089 1372 SOURCE idexo RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif., Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Local children with disabilities will have a safe, inclusive and accessible environment to enjoy Halloween this year with a special Trunk-Or-Treat in San Bernardino. The second annual Trunk-Or-Treat event is the result of a partnership between Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) and Southern California Resource Services for Independent Living (SCRS-IL) and will be held on Saturday, Oct. 15, from 5-8 p.m. at the SCRS-IL's San Bernardino office at 1950 S. Sunwest Lane. The second annual Trunk-Or-Treat event is the result of a partnership between IEHP and Southern California Resource Services for Independent Living (SCRS-IL) and will be held on Saturday, Oct. 15, from 5-8 p.m. at the SCRS-ILs San Bernardino office at 1950 S. Sunwest Lane. "This is the only Inland Empire event serving our disabled community in the month of October," said SCRS-IL Chief Executive Officer Rudy Contreras, who organized the inaugural Trunk-Or-Treat in just 30 days last year after learning the community needed a Halloween activity for children with disabilities during the pandemic. The Trunk-Or-Treat will feature carnival games, candy, accessible spooky mazes, snacks, refreshments, community resources and a vaccine clinic. "Last year's event was a reopening of inclusivity, and this year, we're building on that with more sponsors, games, prizes, booths and even more community," added Contreras. "With partners like IEHP, we're able to make that happen and create safe, inclusive spaces that celebrate the diversity of our community." Attendees who receive a vaccine at the event will receive a free cooler or beach chair, and IEHP members ages 6 and older who receive their first vaccine will be given a $50 gift card. Grocery boxes will also be provided to the first 150 families in attendance. "When community partners and organizations come together and support the needs of our neighbors and communities, we move one step closer to ensuring vibrant health to those we serve," said IEHP Independent Living and Diversity Services Community Health Representative Jose Solorzano. "It doesn't get any better than that." For more information, visit https://www.scrs-ilc.org/trunkortreat. About IEHP With a mission to heal and inspire the human spirit, Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) is one of the top 10 largest Medicaid health plans and the largest not-for-profit Medicare-Medicaid plan in the country. In its 26th year, IEHP is supporting more than 1.5 million residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties who are enrolled in Medicaid or Cal MediConnect Plans and has a growing network of over 7,800 providers and nearly 3,000 team members. Through dynamic partnerships with providers and community organizations, paired with award-winning service and a tradition of quality care, IEHP is fully committed to their vision: We will not rest until our communities enjoy optimal care and vibrant health. For more information, visit iehp.org. SOURCE Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) The global industrial inkjet printers market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 4.3% during 2022-2031 Rising demand from varied end-use industries is bolstering the growth in the industrial inkjet printers market Increasing industrialization and urbanization across many emerging economies of Asia Pacific makes it a profitable market region WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global industrial inkjet printers market is prognosticated to gain a value of US$ 13.2 Bn by the end of 2031, according to a research report by Transparency Market Research (TMR). In addition, the study finds that the market for industrial inkjet printers is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% during the forecast period, from 2022 to 2031. Major industrial printer manufacturers are using different strategies such as acquisitions, mergers, collaborations, and partnerships in order to stay ahead of the competition. Furthermore, several enterprises are focusing on the expansion of their product portfolios. Such factors are prognosticated to drive the industrial inkjet printers market growth during the forecast period. Request Sample Report at - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=62547 Industrial Inkjet Printers Market: Key Findings As per the Federal Trade Commission's Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, the manufacturers of household goods are compelled to provide key information including the product name, net product quantity, and location and name of the manufacturer on the product label, states a TMR report on the global industrial inkjet printers market. As per the regulations, not displaying this information on the packaged food and beverages may lead to penalty of a fine to a product manufacturer. Hence, the food and beverage companies are increasing the use of industrial inkjet printers across their production lines. This, in turn, is creating profitable prospects in the global industrial inkjet printers market, note analysts at TMR. Companies producing metal stampings, lumber, and other materials utilize barcodes and lot numbers in order to prevent counterfeiting and ensure traceability of their products, state analysts at TMR. Moreover, the labeling of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs or prescription drugs is being done as per the OTC monograph or the prescription drug labeling rule so as to fulfill the requirements of FDA regulations. Hence, the demand for inkjet printers is being rising among the pharmaceutical companies in order to generate such codes. This factor denotes that the industrial inkjet printers market is expected to observe sizable business prospects during the forecast period. Make an Enquiry before Buying - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=EB&rep_id=62547 Industrial Inkjet Printers Market: Growth Boosters Increase in the use of industrial inkjet printers in packaging film printing globally is expected to help in the growth of the industrial inkjet printers market share The existence of favorable regulations executed by the government authorities of several developed and developing nations worldwide is driving the demand for different inkjet printer types Rising demand for continuous inkjet printers owing to their many advantages including their ability to offer improved efficiency, versatility, and cost-effectiveness, is resulting into profitable prospects in the market Industrial Inkjet Printers Market: Regional Analysis The industrial inkjet printers market in Asia Pacific is expected to gain sizable growth prospects during the forecast period owing to several key factors such as surge in the industrialization and urbanization across many regional developing nations is expected to gain sizable growth prospects during the forecast period owing to several key factors such as surge in the industrialization and urbanization across many regional developing nations The North America industrial inkjet printers market is estimated to expand at significant pace in the forthcoming years owing to the presence of strict government regulations that compel manufacturers to confirm proper labeling and printing of their products as per the requirements of FDA Ask for References - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=ARF&rep_id=62547 Industrial Inkjet Printers Market: Key Players Some of the key players profiled in the report are: Engineered Printing Solutions ANSER CODING INC. InkJet, Inc. Hitachi Industrial Equipment & Solutions America, LLC KEYENCE CORPORATION ITW Diagraph Konica Minolta, Inc. KGK Jet India Private Limited Squid Ink Markem-Imaje, a Dover Company Weber Packaging Solutions Videojet Technologies, Inc. Industrial Inkjet Printers Market Segmentation Type On Demand Inkjet Printer Inkjet Continuous Inkjet Printer Packaging Type Primary Packaging Printing Secondary Packaging Printing Tertiary Packaging Printing Application Pouches Printing Corrugated Boxes Printing Packaging Films Printing Bottles Printing Others (Wire or Cable, Building Materials, etc.) End-use Industry Food and Beverage Chemical Pharmaceutical Packaging Personal Care & Cosmetics Others (Textile, Construction, etc.) Distribution Channel Direct Sales Indirect Sales Region North America Europe Asia Pacific MEA South America Heavy Engineering Equipment Research Reports Industrial Filter Cartridge Market - Industrial Filter Cartridge Market is expected to reach US$ 8.3 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.7% from 2022 to 2031. Stud Welding Machine Market - Stud Welding Machine Market is expected to reach US$ 1.69 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 4.8% from 2022 to 2031. Cotton Picker Market - Cotton Picker Market is expected to reach US$ 1.10 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% from 2022 to 2031. Dispensing Pump Market - Dispensing Pump Market is expected to reach US$ 12.3 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% from 2022 to 2031. Agricultural Shredder Market - Agricultural Shredder Market is expected to reach US$ 2.8 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 4.2% from 2022 to 2031. Multilayer Pipes Market - Asia Pacific multilayer pipes market is expected to reach US$ 1.05 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2022 to 2031. Power Tiller Market - Power Tiller Market is expected to reach US$ 2.3 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.9% from 2022 to 2031. Automatic Checkweigher System Market - Automatic Checkweigher System Market is expected to reach US$ 1.44 Bn by the end of 2031, it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.9% from 2022 to 2031. About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research registered at Wilmington, Delaware, United States, is a global market intelligence company provides syndicated research reports and business consulting services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insights for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools & techniques to gather and analyze information. Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. For More Research Insights on Leading Industries, Visit our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8e-z-g23-TdDMuODiL8BKQ Contact Us: Rohit Bhisey Transparency Market Research Inc. CORPORATE HEADQUARTER DOWNTOWN, 1000 N. West Street, Suite 1200, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 USA Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Blog: https://tmrblog.com Email: [email protected] Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1682871/TMR_Logo_Logo.jpg SOURCE Transparency Market Research The shareholders in RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ), corporate identity no. 556322-6157, are hereby invited to the Extraordinary General Meeting, to be held on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. STOCKHOLM, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors has decided that the General Meeting is to be held only through postal voting in accordance with temporary legislation applicable since March 1, 2022. This means that the General Meeting will be conducted without the physical presence of shareholders, representatives or external parties. Shareholders will only be able to exercise their voting rights by postal voting in advance of the General Meeting in the manner described below. Information on the resolutions passed at the General Meeting will be disclosed on November 9, 2022, when the outcome of the postal voting has been confirmed. Right to participate and notice A person who wishes to participate in the Extraordinary General Meeting by postal voting must: be recorded as a shareholder in the presentation of the share register prepared by Euroclear Sweden AB concerning the circumstances on Tuesday, November 1, 2022 , and , and give notice of participation by casting its postal vote in accordance with the instructions under the heading "Postal voting" below so that the postal voting form is received by Euroclear Sweden AB no later than on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 . In order to be entitled to participate in the General Meeting, a shareholder whose shares are registered in the name of a nominee must, in addition to giving notice of participation in the General Meeting by submitting its postal vote, register its shares in its own name so that the shareholder is listed in the presentation of the share register as of Tuesday, November 1, 2022. Such registration may be temporary (so-called voting rights registration), and request for such voting rights registration shall be made to the nominee in accordance with the nominee's routines at such a time in advance as decided by the nominee. Voting rights registrations that have been made by the nominee no later than Thursday, November 3, 2022, will be taken into account in the presentation of the share register. Postal voting Shareholders may exercise their voting rights at the General Meeting only by postal voting in accordance with section 22 of the Act (2022:121) on temporary exceptions to facilitate the execution of general meetings in companies and other associations. A special form must be used for the postal vote. The form is available on the company's website www.raysearchlabs.com. A hard copy of this form will be sent to shareholders upon request. The postal voting form is considered as notice to participate in the General Meeting. In order to be considered, completed and signed forms must be received by Euroclear Sweden AB no later than Tuesday, November 8, 2022. The completed and signed form must be sent by mail to RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ), "Extraordinary General Meeting 2022", c/o Euroclear Sweden AB, Box 191, SE-101 23 Stockholm, Sweden or by e-mail to [email protected]. Shareholders may also cast their votes electronically through verification with BankID via Euroclear Sweden AB's website https://anmalan.vpc.se/EuroclearProxy/. Such electronic votes must be submitted no later than Tuesday, November 8, 2022. If the shareholder submits its postal vote by proxy, a power of attorney must be attached to the postal voting form. Proxy forms will be provided by the company upon request and are also available on the company's website www.raysearchlabs.com. A power of attorney is valid one year from its issue date or such longer period as set out in the power of attorney, however not more than five years. If the shareholder is a legal person, a registration certificate or other authorization document listing the authorized signatories must be attached to the form. The shareholders may not provide special instructions or conditions to the postal vote. If so, the entire postal vote is invalid. Further instructions and conditions can be found in the postal voting form and at https://anmalan.vpc.se/EuroclearProxy/. Shareholders' right to receive information The Board and CEO shall, if any shareholder so requests and the Board believes that it can be done without material harm to the company, provide information regarding circumstances that may affect the assessment of an item on the agenda, and the company's relation to another company within the group. A request for such information shall be made in writing to the company no later than ten days prior to the General Meeting, i.e. no later than Sunday, October 30, 2022, at RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ) c/o Board of Directors, Box 45169, SE-104 30 Stockholm, Sweden, or by e-mail to [email protected]. The information will be made available on the company's website www.raysearchlabs.com and at the company's head office, Eugeniavagen 18C, SE-113 68 Stockholm, Sweden, no later than Friday, November 4, 2022. The information will also be sent to the shareholders who requested it and stated their address. Proposed agenda Election of a chairman of the General Meeting. Election of one or two minute-checkers. Preparation and approval of the voting list. Approval of the proposed agenda. Determination whether the General Meeting has been duly convened. Determination of the number of members of the Board and deputies. Determination of fees to be paid to the Board. Election of new member of the Board. Proposed decisions ELECTION OF A CHAIRMAN OF THE GENERAL MEETING (ITEM 1) Shareholders representing approximately 67 percent of the total number of votes in the company propose that Hans Wigzell or, in the event he is prevented from participating, the person appointed by the Board, is appointed chairman of the General Meeting. ELECTION OF ONE OR TWO MINUTE-CHECKERS (ITEM 2) Shareholders representing approximately 67 percent of the total number of votes in the company propose Ossian Ekdahl, Forsta AP-fonden and Marcus Neckmar, Andra AP-fonden, or, in the event both or any of them are prevented from participating, the person(s) appointed by the Board, as persons to check the minutes. The assignment to check the minutes also includes verifying the voting list and that the received postal votes are correctly reflected in the minutes of the meeting. PREPARATION AND APPROVAL OF THE VOTING LIST (ITEM 3) The voting list proposed to be approved is the voting list prepared by Euroclear Sweden AB, based on the general meeting share register and received postal votes, verified and confirmed by the persons elected to check the minutes. DETERMINATION OF THE NUMBER OF MEMBERS OF THE BOARD AND DEPUTIES (ITEM 6) The previous Chairman of the Board Lars Wollung and Board member Johanna Oberg have resigned as Board members on September 30, 2022. Against this background, shareholders representing approximately 67 percent of the total number of votes in the company propose that the number of Board members be five, with no deputies. DETERMINATION OF THE FEES TO BE PAID TO THE BOARD (ITEM 7) At the Annual General Meeting 2022, it was resolved that remuneration to Board members, who do not receive a salary from any Group company, shall amount to SEK 840,000 to the Chairman of the Board and SEK 300,000 to each of the other Board members elected by the General Meeting. Furthermore, it was resolved that remuneration for work in Board Committees should be SEK 100,000 to the Chairperson of the Audit Committee and SEK 100,000 to each of the other members of the Audit Committee. Shareholders representing approximately 67 percent of the total number of votes in the company propose that the newly elected member of the Board be paid a remuneration for his work as a Board member for the period from the Extraordinary General Meeting in accordance with the levels of remuneration resolved by the Annual General Meeting 2022, in proportion to the duration of the term of his directorship. Furthermore, it is proposed that Hans Wigzell shall be paid a remuneration for his work as a Chairman of the Board from and including October 1, 2022, in accordance with the levels of remuneration resolved by the Annual General Meeting 2022, in proportion to the duration of the term of his directorship. Otherwise, remuneration for the members of the Board elected at the Annual General Meeting 2022, including any remuneration for work in Board Committees, shall remain unchanged according to the resolution by the Annual General Meeting 2022, as applicable in proportion to the duration of the term of office. ELECTION OF NEW MEMBER OF THE BOARD (ITEM 8) The above-mentioned shareholders propose that Gunther Marder be elected as Board member for the period until the next Annual General Meeting. Gunther Marder is born 1982 and has a Master's degree from Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Since 2015 he is the CEO of the organization Foretagarna. His previous experience includes savings economist at Nordnet Bank, Vice Chairman at Better Finance and CEO at Sveriges Aktiesparares Riksforbund. He is a Board member at Spotlight Group AB, Lundqvist Travaru AB and StyrelseAkademien Stockholm. He is also Chairman of the Board and founder of Kunskapsgruppen Sverige. Gunther Marder is considered independent of the company and its management and the company's major shareholders. His holdings in RaySearch Laboratories AB, as of October 10, 2022, amounts to 57,219 Series B shares (including holdings by closely related persons). The proposal concerning the composition of the Board satisfies the independence requirements under the Swedish Corporate Governance Code. If the General Meeting resolves in accordance with the proposal, the Board of Directors will consist of the following members elected by the General Meeting: Carl Filip Bergendal, Johan Lof, Britta Wallgren, Hans Wigzell and Gunther Marder. Number of shares and votes and information on holding of own shares The total number of shares in the company at the date of this invitation is 34,282,773, of which 8,454,975 are Series A shares, each carrying 10 votes, and 25,827,798 are Series B shares, each carrying one vote, which means that there is a total of 110,377,548 votes in the company. The company holds no own shares. Awailability of documents and other issues Complete proposals are set out above. Information about the proposed Board member is available on the company's website www.raysearchlabs.com. The general meeting share register will be available at the company's head office, Eugeniavagen 18C, SE-113 68 Stockholm, Sweden. Processing of personal data For information on how your personal data is processed, see https://www.euroclear.com/dam/ESw/Legal/Privacy-notice-bolagsstammor-engelska.pdf. Stockholm, October 2022 Board of Directors For more information, please contact: Johan Lof, founder and CEO, RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ) Telephone: +46 (0) 8 510 530 00 [email protected] Bjorn Hardemark, interim CFO, RaySearch Laboratories AB (publ) Telephone: +46 (0) 709 564 217 [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/raysearch-laboratories/r/invitation-to-extraordinary-general-meeting-2022,c3645905 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/1102/3645905/1637059.pdf RaySearch Press Release October 11, 2022 SOURCE RaySearch Laboratories ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hurricane Ian has flooded neighborhoods throughout Florida and has devastated many. In the wake of this natural disaster, Island Fin Poke Co. believes everyone must come together like family, or Ohana, and help each other in times of need. In support of the Florida community, the franchise will collect non-perishables and canned foods throughout the month for its local food pantries and Second Harvest, a central Florida food bank. Staying true to their brand, Island Fin Poke Co. looks to support the community in as many ways as they can. Tweet this Island Fin Poke Co. is a Florida-based fast-casual concept known for its Hawaiian-style build-your-own poke bowls that are more than just a bowl, they're a lifestyle. The Island Fin Poke Co. brand is built on the principle of treating everyone like Ohana and is focused on offering a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, so each guest feels special during every visit, from the moment they walk through the doors until the time they leave. Since the beginning of October, Island Fin Poke Co. has been collecting canned foods and non-perishables to donate to surrounding food pantries. In addition, at Island Fin's Lake Nona, Orlando, Fl. location, all donations will be donated to Second Harvest food bank because of the company's regular established collection times for donations. "The damage from Hurricane Ian weighs heavy on our hearts and we continue to keep those who are impacted in our thoughts as the restoration efforts begin," says Island Fin Poke Co. CEO and co-owner, Mark Setterington. "We all must come together and support our communities by donating and helping those affected by this disaster." Staying true to their brand, Island Fin Poke Co. looks to support the community in as many ways as they can, and collects and donates to local food banks twice a year. We all must come together and support our communities by donating and helping those affected by this disaster." Guests who would like to help donate can drop off food items at any local Island Fin Poke Co. when the months of donations are announced. From there, Island Fin Poke Co. will work with local pantries to get the items where they need to go. The company believes in not only offering healthy and customized poke bowls, but also in coming together during devasting times. To learn more about Island Fin Poke Co. and their locations to donate and help other Floridians, please visit https://www.islandfinpoke.com/. For media inquiries, contact [email protected]. About Island Fin Poke Co. Island Fin Poke Co. is a Florida-based fast-casual concept known for its Hawaiian-style build-your-own poke bowls. From farm-to-fork, the brand uses the freshest ingredients to bring traditional flavors from the islands to local communities nationwide. Founded in 2017, Island Fin Poke Co. has 24+ locations open, with numerous others in various stages of development. Island Fin Poke Co. was listed in Fast Casual's 2022 Movers & Shakers List. For more information, or if interested in joining the brand's Ohana, please visit https://www.islandfinpoke.com/. SOURCE Island Fin Poke Co. GREAT FALLS, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- James Vasquez is a US Army Veteran who couldn't sit by and watch the atrocities against the Ukrainian people. So, in March 2022, he boarded a plane, not knowing what he would face when he landed in Poland, made his way into Ukraine, and fought alongside the Ukrainian Military. The entire time he has documented his days and nights on Twitter @jmvasquez1974. Realizing the fight would take a long time, James returned to America, sold his possessions, and returned to fight again alongside the Ukrainian Military. He is still reporting the fight on Twitter to his more than 400,000 followers. US Army Vet, and volunteer fighter in Ukraine has released North American Tour dates to raise funds to help Ukraine. Tweet this Taking his desire to inform the world of what is going on further, James will be visiting 7 US cities telling real-life stories of what he and the others fighting alongside him have faced. Each event is a fundraising event and will be an open Q&A style. There will be no pre-planned speeches, just honest and authentic answers to what is going on in the war in Ukraine and how it impacts Americans. "I hope to tell the American people the truth of what I experience, see, and know is going on in Ukraine. And to raise awareness of how this war impacts the entire world, including Americans. Democracy is worth fighting for, which is at stake in Ukraine," said James. James has teamed up with Ripley's Heroes, a non-profit run by Retired Lt Co H. Ripley Rawlings, to raise money and ensure the funds buy life-saving equipment and supplies. You can see James and get your questions about the war answered in the following cities: Houston, TX, with HTX4Ukraine on October 14, 2022 Las Vegas, NV, on October 15, 2022 Stamford, CT, on October 21, 2022 Pittsburg, PA, on October 22. 2022 Philadelphia, PA, on October 23, 2022 Washington, DC, on October 29, 2022 New Orleans, LA, on November 2. 2022 After the above cities, in the US, James will be traveling to Canada and the United Kingdom for different meet and greets. Dates and times will be released soon. For more information on how you can help Ukraine, visit www.RipleysHeroes.org or reach out to James on Twitter @JMVasquez1974. For more information or to schedule an interview contact [email protected] SOURCE Ripley's Heroes Project marks the second collaboration between the luxury appliance brand and internationally celebrated tastemaker BENTON HARBOR, Mich., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- JennAir continues to propel the luxury appliance industry forward with a second collaboration with interior designer and entrepreneur Kelly Wearstler. Reflecting both partners' leadership in progressive design that breaks the traditional mold, the second virtual kitchen concept is inspired by the JennAir statement piece, Burlesque industry-exclusive column refrigerator and freezer columns that reveal a beautiful yet shocking burgundy interior upon opening. JennAir and Kelly Wearstler New Kitchen Design Collaboration "My partnership with JennAir provides me the freedom to think, without limits, about what a kitchen design could be. This project is a showcase of digital design's potential, whether in virtual realities or Web," shared Kelly Wearstler, "Responding to the luxurious and avant-garde Burlesque design, I've imagined a unique experience set in the Southern Californian desert." Inspired by Burlesque, Wearstler's kitchen concept features a cavernous, natural form environment that plays off of the bold color and snakeskin motif found inside Burlesque's striking interior. The monochromatic, earthy aesthetics of the desert elements in Wearstler's design ground the interior colors of Burlesque, allowing it to stand out as a true statement piece within the kitchen. Each Burlesque column is etched with the Burlesque name and production number out of the 13 pairs created, giving owners a one-of-a-kind showpiece in their kitchens. Inspired by the velvet interior of an antique jewelry box and the rich leather of vintage luxury cars, Burlesque elevates appliances to art. In addition to Burlesque, the kitchen also features a JennAir 48" commercial range, double wall oven and dishwasher showcasing JennAir as the quietest luxury dishwasher brand.* "At JennAir, our partnerships with rebellious design leaders like Kelly Wearstler cement our commitment to disruptive progress in the luxury appliance space," said Chelsey Whitehead, product and brand marketing director for JennAir. "In creating a second design concept with Kelly, we aim to illustrate for design professionals and consumers alike that products like the Burlesque statement piece elevate their spaces while also providing the disruptive technology they need and expect today." Those interested in seeing the kitchen and learning more about the JennAir products featured can visit JennAir.com or immerse themselves in the JennAir experience by visiting the JennAir showroom located in New York City's Architecture and Design Building . *Based on Normal Cycle About JennAir Defying physics with the invention of downdraft ventilation, Lou Jenn forged the path to an open concept and changed the kitchen forever. Founded in that progress, JennAir fearlessly carries his torch hell-bent on burning down the tired conventions of luxury. JennAir crafts distinctive luxury kitchen appliances that push form and function to transform spaces. With exceptional performance, masterful execution and provocative design, JennAir offerings are powerful, yet bespoke to individual tastes, shattering norms to deliver the progress that today's luxury consumer deserves. To speak with a concierge at the JennAir Epicenter or learn more about the new offerings from JennAir, please visit JennAir.com or join us on instagram.com/JennAir and youtube.com/JennAir . SOURCE JennAir DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB) will issue its third quarter 2022 results on Tuesday, October 25 with a news release issued via PR Newswire and First Call at approximately 6:30 a.m. CDT. In addition to the news release, the company will make available prepared management remarks from Kimberly-Clark's Chairman and CEO Mike Hsu and CFO Nelson Urdaneta at approximately 7 a.m. CDT. These materials, as well as a link to the company's live question and answer webcast for analysts at 9 a.m. CDT, will be provided through the Investors section of Kimberly-Clark's website at www.kimberly-clark.com. Kimberly-Clark will continue to post the date of future quarterly earnings releases and related webcasts on its website. Interested stockholders and others should monitor the website for these announcements. About Kimberly-Clark Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its trusted brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Fueled by ingenuity, creativity, and an understanding of people's most essential needs, we create products that help individuals experience more of what's important to them. Our portfolio of brands, including Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Andrex, Pull-Ups, GoodNites, Intimus, Neve, Plenitud, Sweety, Softex, Viva and WypAll, hold the No. 1 or No. 2 share position in 80 countries. We use sustainable practices that support a healthy planet, build stronger communities, and ensure our business thrives for decades to come. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the company's 150-year history of innovation, visit kimberly-clark.com. [KMB-F] Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/648588/Kimberly_Clark_Logo.jpg SOURCE Kimberly-Clark Corporation Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky seeking answers and justice after Philip Paxson's death HICKORY, N.C., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The family of Philip Paxson, the husband, father, and Navy veteran killed September 30th after his vehicle suddenly plummeted into a creek after his GPS (global positioning system) directed him onto an unprotected, severed "bridge to nowhere", has turned to a team of leading catastrophic- wrongful death attorneys to investigate what caused the accident, hold accountable all those responsible, and prevent future tragedies at the "horrifically dangerous" site in the residential neighborhood near 24th Street Place Northeast, Hickory, North Carolina. Attorneys from Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky, of Philadelphia, PA, and Ricci Law, their local counsel of Greenville, NC, say they are now conducting the first phase of a "painstakingly careful and complete forensic investigation" on behalf of Alicia Paxson, Mr. Paxson's wife of nearly 15 years and mother of their daughters, ages 6 and 9. Philip Paxon, family photo Robert W. Zimmerman, a partner at SMB, stated "Alicia Paxson has been very clear that Phil's death must not be in vain. Alicia's and her daughters' losses are unimaginable. Nine years ago, a bridge that was used daily by the Hickory community collapsed, and for the last nine years it has endangered those who would have no way of knowing the road would abruptly end without any protection. Philip, who was celebrating his daughter's ninth birthday at a friend's home, was led to the danger by GPS guidance. He and his family were new to the area and had no knowledge of the danger lurking between his house and the friend's. The family took two cars to assist in the set up and cleanup of the party, Philip having left minutes after his wife and daughters. Before there's another catastrophe, on behalf of the Paxson family we are urgently calling upon all GPS navigation system developers, suppliers, and service operators who have not yet done so to stop displaying this "road to nowhere" along 24th St. Pl. NE, ending at Snow Creek, as active, until the landowner finally fixes this lethal hazard." Robert J. Mongeluzzi of SMB, said his firm is humbled to represent the Paxson family in its search for answers and, ultimately, justice in the aftermath of the unimaginable tragedy. "As trial lawyers, we are guided by the evidence and are now engaged in fact-finding that will focus on every aspect of this accident, going back decades to when the private road and bridge were constructed and to when the bridge collapsed in 2013," he explained. "It is absolutely alarming to hear the harrowing accounts of neighbors expressing outrage that the so-called "bridge to nowhere" has been a significant public safety concern for nearly a decade. Why was it left unprotected? And why were GPS services still displaying it an existing, active structure?" Attorney Daniel Ceisler, also of SMB, is working alongside Mr. Zimmerman and Mr. Mongeluzzi. Mrs. Paxson, a licensed Physician Assistant (P.A.), on behalf of family and friends of Phil, said through her attorneys, "Phil was only 47-years-old, and the girls are so young. We will never be the same, but we will also not stand by and have his death written off as just another traffic accident. This road should have been fixed long ago, and clearly visible, durable barriers, should have been installed to prevent a driver from crashing into the creek. The road ends and there is no bridge, despite what the GPS says. We have faith in the justice system, and want answers, not excuses." Note: All requests for interviews should be directed to the below contacts. Additional information and photos will be available at www.smbb.com/NCRoadToNowherefatality/. SOURCE Mongeluzzi Law Firm Industry Leader in Electric Propulsion for Aviation Welcomes Former Electra.Aero and Rolls-Royce Executive EVERETT, Wash., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- magniX , a manufacturer of electric propulsion solutions for aviation, today announced the appointment of Jilinda Crowley as Chief Financial Officer. Crowley brings more than 16 years of international leadership experience in corporate finance roles including financial controls, cost management, and investor relations, with deep expertise in the financial leadership of engineering businesses. Jilinda Crowley, CFO, magniX The new appointment comes as magniX gathers further momentum following the successful first flight of the Eviation Alice, the world's first all-electric commuter aircraft powered by magniX electric propulsion systems. "Jilinda brings exceptional industry expertise from both a financial planning and strategic management perspective," said Nuno Taborda, magniX CEO. "Jilinda's results-oriented approach from both large enterprise and dynamic start-up companies will be instrumental to our success as we continue to transform the aviation industry by pioneering electric solutions for the future of flight." Crowley joins magniX from Electra.aero, where she served as Chief Financial Officer, managing all aspects of the company's financial strategy. Prior to this, Crowley served in various leadership roles over a 14-year tenure at Rolls-Royce, including Senior Vice President, Civil Aerospace Programmes. At Rolls-Royce, Crowley honed her analytical, forecasting and change management skills, leading a team of 45 people in a $10 billion global manufacturing and aftermarket business. She has also held senior roles in government and investor relations, overseeing international projects in the UK and Germany. "I am delighted at the opportunity to join magniX, as the company continues to chart the path for a new era of sustainable travel," said Jilinda Crowley. "Over the past few years, magniX has enabled several aviation industry firsts, and I'm proud to be joining a team driving innovation for a cleaner, greener, more efficient tomorrow. I am excited for what the future of electric aviation holds, and for magniX's role in spearheading transformation." About magniX Headquartered in Everett, Washington State, U.S., magniX is dedicated to leading an era of environmentally-friendly and sustainable aviation. magniX offers a range of revolutionary solutions including all-electric motors which produce zero emissions and increased efficiency, for various aviation applications. magniX is a subsidiary of the Clermont Group, an international business group headquartered in Singapore. For further information, please visit www.magnix.aero. Contact FINN Partners for magniX [email protected] SOURCE magniX U.S. Mitsubishi dealer celebrates 40 th anniversary with MMNA CEO Mark Chaffin and Global Marketing & Sales executive officer John Signoriello anniversary with MMNA CEO and Global Marketing & Sales executive officer Mitsubishi supports Florida's resilience with new vehicle purchase incentive to assist Florida , Georgia and South Carolina residents recovering from Hurricane Ian FRANKLIN, Tenn., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following 40 years of continuous business operations, Bill Seidle's Mitsubishi, based in Doral, Florida, was recently recognized by Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) as the brand's longest-standing, single-ownership, dealer partner in the United States. With many communities across Florida just beginning their recovery from Hurricane Ian, the occasion took on greater significance as MMNA President and CEO Mark Chaffin and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation Executive Officer for Global Marketing & Sales John Signoriello made a special trip to Florida to celebrate the longevity and resilience of the company's dealer partner. From left: Michael Seidle, Dealer Principal, Bill Seidles Mitsubishi; Mark Chaffin, President and CEO, Mitsubishi Motors North America; on the occasion of the dealerships 40th anniversary in the US. Bill Seidles is the longest-operating Mitsubishi Motors dealership under the same name, having started operations in September, 1982. "We've always said that our dealer partners are the backbone of our business, and as our longest-standing dealer partner, Bill Seidle's Mitsubishi has been a stalwart supporter of the Mitsubishi brand," said Chaffin. "Over four decades they have established themselves as both good neighbors and a pillar of respect in their South Florida community. Now more than ever, and in this region as much as any other location in the world, symbols of perseverance and resilience need to be recognized." The Seidle dealership opened on September 9, 1982, in the greater Miami area and has since built a reputation for its customer service by putting the community first. The Seidle family has been in the car business since the 1920s, and today, Dealer Principal Michael Seidle and wife Michelle count four daughters and a son-in-law now involved in the operation. After 39 years, Seidle's Mitsubishi recently moved into a new location in Doral, and began a major remodel as part of Mitsubishi's Visual Identity facilities program. "From the first Tredia, Cordia and Starion on our lot back in 1982 to the upcoming 2023 Outlander PHEV, we've seen so many changes over the years, but we've never turned our back on Mitsubishi," said Michael Seidle, current dealer principal and son of the original owner. "I may not be here in the next 40 years, but my kids and grandkids will be, and I hope they'll be carrying on the family name and business, continuing to serve this community." Separately, to help those who suffered complete losses of vehicles because of Hurricane Ian, MMNA is also offering a $500 incentive valid from October 4 until January 3, 2023 toward the purchase of any new 2022 or 2023 Mitsubishi vehicle, valid at Mitsubishi Motors dealer partners located in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.1 About Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. Through a network of approximately 330 dealer partners across the United States, Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) is responsible for the sales, marketing and customer service of Mitsubishi Motors vehicles in the U.S. In its Environmental Targets 2030, MMNA's parent company Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has set a goal of a 40 percent reduction in the CO2 emissions of its new cars by 2030 through leveraging EVs with PHEVs as the centerpiece to help create a sustainable society. MMNA has its headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as corporate operations in California, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, Florida and Virginia. For more information on Mitsubishi vehicles, please contact the Mitsubishi Motors News Bureau at 615-257-2698 or visit media.mitsubishicars.com. Disclaimers Excludes Outlander Sport "S" trim. Customers must provide proof of vehicle damage related to Hurricane Ian from their insurance provider. More details are available at Mitsubishi Motors dealers. Contacts Jeremy Barnes Senior Director, Communications and Events [email protected] Mobile: 714-296-1402 Lauren Ryan Manager, Communications and Events [email protected] Mobile: 404-862-8286 SOURCE Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sparo, an end-to-end corporate social responsibility service of Microsoft Cloud for Retail, announced a Series A investment by Saudi-based Moteco, under a Strategic Partnership Agreement. The Agreement was signed between the two companies at Moteco's headquarters in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Farhan Al-Faisal, the President & CEO of Moteco stated: "We are working with Sparo to obtain the necessary licensing from the Saudi government and we aspire to collaborate with the relevant authorities that regulate the charitable work in the Kingdom such as Ehsan, where with the signing of our strategic partnership, Sparo will be able to scale its social impact suite of products within Saudi Arabia and across the globe. This is fully in line with HRH Crown Prince Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman's Vision 2030." Sheikh Farhan Al-Faisal added: "We are delighted to have signed this Strategic Partnership Agreement to enable Sparo to scale up into a company of global consequence." Sparo, an end-to-end corporate social responsibility service of, announced a Series A investment by Saudi-based Moteco. Tweet this "We hope that someday soon this Saudi-U.S. business partnership with Sparo can be floated on the Tadawul, Saudi Arabia's stock exchange, thus allowing Saudi citizens the joy to buy into a company whose mission is to create local and international positive social impact." Concluded Sheikh Farhan Al-Faisal. Rob Sobhani, Ph.D., the CEO of Sparo stated: "We are honored and delighted to have signed this Agreement with one of Saudi Arabia's world-class companies, Moteco." Sobhani added: "This investment will allow Sparo to leverage its partnership with Microsoft Cloud for Retail and become a destination for asset managers across the globe looking to invest in a company whose business model is the double bottom line: generating revenues for its shareholders and creating an impact for society." The initial focus of this partnership is to market Sparo's patented e-commerce tool for Microsoft Cloud for Retail customers and to companies within Saudi Arabia. In addition, the investment from Moteco will be deployed to design, build and market a faith-based direct donation Sparo app that makes charitable giving rewarding, fun and seamless. A major focus of this Strategic Partnership is to help realize the vision of HRH Prince Mohammad bin Salman for Green Saudi through partnerships with specialized associations such as Ghares a sister company of MOTECO, to make tree planting within the Kingdom and across the Middle East a tool to tackle climate change. In a recent statement, HRH Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohmmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud stated: "The Saudi Green Initiative will provide huge investment opportunities for the private sector, quality job opportunities for the next generation of leaders in the Kingdom and enhanced international relationships that will have a positive impact on the region and the world." Shish Shridhar, Global Retail Lead for Microsoft for Startups, stated: "We are very excited about this new chapter in Sparo's journey to scale their trademark Purchase with a Purpose platform for retailers across the world." About Sparo Corporation Sparo is a U.S.-based corporation focused on building products that monetize the intersection of commerce and charity with philanthropy as a service for corporate clients. Sparo operates globally and is based in the Washington, DC Metro area and The Hague, Netherlands. About Moteco Moteco is a Saudi Arabia-based company with a focus on the cutting-edge technology. Media Contacts: Rob Sobhani CEO & Founder [email protected] SOURCE Sparo Corporation WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, the Transformative Justice Coalition will host a press conference with its national partner organizations: National Newspaper Publishers Association, Rainbow/Push Coalition, Black Voters Matter, Concerned Black Men of America, Hip Hop Caucus, League of Women Voters and the African American Policy Forum to promote their 26-city Arc of Voter Justice Tour. A citizen's right to vote is their voice and TJC and its partners are inviting everyone to join them as they turn voting into a celebration and travel by bus across the United States. Along the way participants will register to vote and check their eligibility to vote while enjoying good food, music, and games, and receive free banned books for all ages, as we transform voting and the voting experience. This is a free nonpartisan event. What: #10MillionMoreBlackVoters Arc of Voter Justice Tour Who: Barbara Arnwine, Esquire Founder/President/Co-Leader, Transformative Justice Coalition Daryl D. Jones, Esquire, Board Chair/Co-Leader, Transformative Justice Coalition Cliff Albright, Co-Founder, Black Voters Matter Kimberle Crenshaw, Co-Founder/Executive Director, African American Policy Forum Rev. Leon Morehead, Pastor, Greater New Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church Marcus Arbery, Father of Ahmaud Arbery Shamayim Shu, Mama Shu's Homework House When: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 4:00 pm Press availability 4:30 pm Book giveaway Where: Mama Shu's Homework House 400 Avalon Street, Highland Park, MI For more information, contact: Alanna Ford [email protected] or Marc Rutledge, (240) 721-0703 or Chinta Strausberg, 312.371.7730 Founded in 2015 by Barbara Arnwine, president emeritus of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, the Transformative Justice Coalition seeks to be a catalyst for transformative institutional changes that bring about justice and equality in the United States and abroad. Learn more at tjcoalition.org. SOURCE Transformative Jusice Coalition It's become accepted wisdom that established companies can't build and scale new ventures the way startups canafter all, startups are lean and agile, while incumbents are too big, slow, and inflexible. But that's nonsense, and Yates' book challenges that idea. Inside every company is a portfolio of game-changing new ventures waiting to be unleashed. In The Unicorn Within, Yates argues that in order to thrive, companies can and must harness their powertheir ideas, talent, data, cash, resources, channels, and customersto build a portfolio of game-changing ventures to drive meaningful growth for their companies, their clients, their team members, their shareholders, their communities and, yes, even the world. In this all-in-one guide, Yates lays out a comprehensive 12-week program, proven in scores of the world's largest companies, for sourcing great new venture ideas; finding customer pain points; creating new products or services; developing a rigorous business and execution plan; and accelerating each funded ventureultimately achieving product-market fit, customer delight, and new sources of revenue. She also shares a blueprint for building your own incubator and acceleratoryour own growth enginealong with a plan for seizing the "Mothership" advantage, the core competencies, assets, customers, capabilities, experience, and other resources that differentiate your ventures from even the most well-funded startups. Yates offers a guide relevant to everyone, from the growth-minded C-suite senior executive to the ambitious, creative intrapreneur, as she covers everything from selecting your new-venture team to creating a new-venture boardthe senior executives who become the venture's internal VCs, helping to remove institutional friction and ensuring that every venture can reach escape velocity and thrive. Focused 100% on execution, the book is filled with methods, assessments, tools, scripts, agendas, and striking visuals that illustrate every step. The Unicorn Within provides everything even the most established company needs to create high-growth ventures that deliver compelling new products and servicesand stay perpetually competitive in the face of relentless change. The Unicorn Within is available for purchase across all booksellers . Learn more at www.theunicornwithin.com . About Linda Yates Linda Yates is the founder and CEO of Mach49 , the growth incubator for global businesses, with clients including Goodyear, Gundersen Health, Hitachi, Pernod Ricard, Schneider Electric, Shell, TDK, and many more. She is a seasoned CEO and board member with over 30 years of experience bridging Silicon Valley and the Global 1000, creating global strategy, building companies, and driving growth and innovation for large multinationals around the world. A native of Silicon Valley, Yates spent a decade as a member of the Board of Directors for NYSE-traded Sybase Inc. (now SAP) and has been a board member and advisor to many entrepreneurs and private companies. Yates was previously CEO of Strategos, pioneering the field of Corporate Innovation with Co-Founder and Chairman, Professor Gary Hamel. Yates has extensive global experience, having lived, worked, or traveled to over 70 countries. She is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute. The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed, published by HBR Press, is Yates' first book. About Mach49 Mach49 partners with global businesses to drive a pipeline and portfolio of new ventures and investments that disrupt existing markets and create new ones. Linda Yates and her team work with clients to deliver the essential features of a successful growth engine: Venture Building, Venture Investing, Strategic Partnering, and Targeted M&A. The company is a unique cadre of successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and C-suite executives who have collectively generated over $50B in market value over their operating careers in companies they've invested in, managed, created, or built. Mach49 is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Redwood City, Boston, London, Amsterdam, and Singapore. Learn more about how Mach49 helps the Global 1000 seize the Mothership advantage and unleash their unicorns within by visiting www.mach49.com . SOURCE Mach49 Biden Challenger Jerome Segal Also Beats Trump, Gets 1/5 of Democrats Against Biden 47% want Biden: WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A new poll by John Zogby Strategies showed that 47% of Democrats want President Biden as their nominee in 2024, 23% do not, and 30% are undecided. Previous polls had showed that a majority of Democrats did not want the President to run again. In July, a New York Times Siena College poll reported that 63% of Democrats preferred that the nominee be someone other than Biden, and in September a Washington Post - ABC poll found that among Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents, by 56% to 35%, voters preferred that he not be the candidate. The new poll surveyed 1006 likely voters on-line. It was conducted Oct 5th and has a margin of error of +/- 3.2 % for all voters and +/- 5.3 % for when only Democrats were queried. The poll was commissioned by "2024 Segal For President" the campaign committee of social philosopher and peace activist Jerome Segal who is challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination. Commenting on these results Segal said, "The new data make clear that it will be more difficult than previously thought for anyone to prevent Biden from getting the nomination, if he decides to run. And this may discourage some from deciding to challenge him. On the other hand, 47% is not a strong showing; less than half of Democrats want a sitting president to run again. The 30% who said they were "undecided" were mostly saying, "It depends on who the alternative is." "Also, the poll did not measure depth of support. In 2020, Biden won the nomination because it was widely believed that he had the best shot at beating Trump. He needs to show that he can do it again, both against Trump or any other likely Republican candidate. If other candidates show they can also beat Trump, they will have strong support; and if someone shows that they are stronger against Trump or DeSantis than Biden, it's a whole new ball game." Biden beats Trump 45% to 41%: The poll gave Biden the critical element that he needs to retain party support, that he can beat off a challenge by former President Trump. Biden won, 45% to 41%, with 7% saying they would vote for "other" and "6.5%" saying they were unsure. Segal also beats Trump: The poll also examined how Segal would do against Trump. It showed Segal beating the former President by 40% to 39%. Trump actually got fewer votes against Segal than against Biden, declining from 41% to 39%. Segal's margin of victory was narrower because those choosing "unsure" almost doubled, going to 12.7%, from 6.5% in the Biden v Trump contest. Segal commented: "This for me is the big news. It puts the campaign in an entirely different light. If you say to voters, "Here are two Democrats, both of them can beat Trump, which one do you prefer?" it totally transforms the race, as it undermines the primary reason Democrats coalesced around Biden. That was his main selling point. No one is really passionate about him." Segal gets 22% against Biden: The poll also pitted Segal in a head-to-head contest with Biden. The President won handily. Segal got 22% of the Democratic vote to Biden's 56%, with another 22% undecided. Segal commented: "If it had been known that I could beat Trump, my vote total against Biden would have, at least, been doubled. Democrats overwhelmingly support the new kind of socialism I am advocating. I'm held back because the assumption is that a socialist, especially one without wide name recognition, can't beat Trump. Once it's clear that I can, attention will focus more on what I'm for than on Trump." Democrats Support Socialism: Segal is the founder of bread and roses socialism. In the poll this was described to voters as: "A new set of ideas that blends Bernie Sanders type policies with a key goal of simple living: being able to meet basic needs with a modest income so that one is free to reduce the amount of time one puts in at the job. This would involve a cultural shift towards lives with more leisure time, or more meaningful work, rather than more money and more stuff. Under this approach, everyone would have a legal right to a 3-day job. And with policies such as higher minimum wages and strong limits on the costs of meeting core needs of healthcare, education, housing, transportation and childcare, everyone could have a vibrant life even without a super job. The other 4 days a week could be devoted to pursuing our passions, whatever they might be, with or without pay, or just having more time with friends and family." Asked how they felt about this new form of socialism, 62% of Democrats said they either "love it" or "like it" and only 12% saying "dislike" or "hate it." Even among Republicans, 33% said "love or like," and 46% said "dislike or hate." Segal commented: "This again shows the real potential of the campaign. With this underlying support for my policies, as I get better known, and as it is clear that I can beat Trump, support will surge." Separate releases will detail voter preferences that were surveyed on eight separate questions about bread and roses socialism and its policy agenda, as well as on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both central aspects of Segal's program. For more information contact Dr. Segal at [email protected] or 445-216-3846 SOURCE Jerome Segal DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NexPoint Residential Trust, Inc., ("NXRT" or the "Company") (NYSE: NXRT) announced today that the Company is scheduled to host a conference call on Tuesday, October 25, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. ET (10:00 am CT), to discuss third quarter 2022 financial results. The conference call can be accessed live over the phone by dialing 888-882-4478 or, for international callers, +1 646-828-8193 and using passcode Conference ID: 7733315. A live audio webcast of the call will be available online at the Company's website, http://www.nxrt.nexpoint.com (under "Resources"). An online replay will be available shortly after the call on the Company's website and continue to be available for 60 days. A replay of the conference call will also be available through Tuesday, November 1, 2022, by dialing 888-203-1112 or, for international callers, +1 719-457-0820 and entering passcode 7733315. The Company plans to issue a press release with third quarter 2022 financial results before market open on Tuesday, October 25, 2022. About NXRT NexPoint Residential Trust is a publicly traded REIT, with its shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "NXRT," primarily focused on acquiring, owning and operating well-located middle-income multifamily properties with "value-add" potential in large cities and suburban submarkets of large cities, primarily in the Southeastern and Southwestern United States. NXRT is externally advised by NexPoint Real Estate Advisors, L.P., an affiliate of NexPoint Advisors, L.P., an SEC-registered investment advisor, which has extensive real estate experience. More information about the Company is available at http://www.nxrt.nexpoint.com. CONTACTS Investor Relations Kristen Thomas [email protected] Media Relations Prosek Partners for NexPoint [email protected] SOURCE NexPoint Residential Trust, Inc. Bend Bioscience, based in Bend, Oregon, to focus on new innovation, product development, and manufacturing. BEND, Ore., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bend Bioscience and QHP Capital ("QHP"), the management company for NovaQuest Private Equity ("NQPE"), have announced plans to invest in a new operation in Bend, Oregon, an emerging hub of biotechnology R&D and manufacturing. The Bend Bioscience team, as part of CoreRx, will focus on drug delivery R&D partnerships, product development, and early phase manufacturing for enhanced formulations utilizing particle engineering-based drug delivery technologies. "This is an exciting development," says Ajay Damani, CEO of CoreRx and Bend Bioscience, "with Bend Bioscience adding a new dimension of technology and innovation capabilities to CoreRx's existing foundation of product development and manufacturing solutions." This investment includes approximately 20,000 square feet of laboratory, processing suites, and office space for 50 employees. This includes state of the art laboratory and process equipment and processing space designed to meet the quality and safety standards of both pharmaceutical clients and regulatory agencies. Bend Bioscience is expected to begin operations in its R&D and innovation lab as early as December of this year, with additional manufacturing and analytical capabilities operational in mid-2023. "We feel Bend Bioscience will fill an unmet need, says Dan Dobry, Bend Bioscience's co-founder and CoreRx's Chief Strategy Officer, "offering problem solving, formulation, and manufacturing for valuable but challenging therapies and collaborating to develop new technologies for the rapidly evolving problem statements in the in pharmaceutical industry." Bend Bioscience, based in Bend, Oregon, to focus on new innovation, product development, and manufacturing. Tweet this Key areas of expertise and infrastructure for the Bend Bioscience team will include bioavailability enhancement, solid dosage form development, stabilization of biologics and vaccines, and particle engineering for pulmonary delivery. This investment follows recent additions of expertise to the CoreRx team including Amber Broadbent, Scott Bone, and Michael Grass, who have a track record of experience in these fields. About Bend Bioscience: Bend Bioscience, located in Bend, Oregon, is an early-phase Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with an emphasis on drug delivery R&D partnerships, product development, and early phase manufacturing for enhanced formulations utilizing particle engineering-based drug delivery technologies. Learn more at www.bendbioscience.com and follow Bend Bioscience on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/bend-bioscience About CoreRx: CoreRx, Inc. is an industry leading (CDMO), providing innovative drug formulation, development, GMP manufacturing and packaging solutions to global pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical partners. From its state-of-the-art, multi-site campus in Clearwater, Florida and its early product development center in San Rafael, California, CoreRx delivers value-added solutions to its partners, from clinic to commercial scale and across a range of dosage forms. For more information on CoreRx, please visit www.corerxpharma.com and follow CoreRx on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/corerx-inc- About QHP Capital: QHP Capital, L.P. (the "Firm"), is the management company for NovaQuest Private Equity ("NQPE"). NQPE is a private equity firm that invests in lower middle market healthcare companies primarily in North America. The Firm invests in services and technology companies where a strategic partner and operating resources can accelerate growth, targeting companies in healthcare and pharmaceutical services industries. NQPE invests in the form of buyouts, growth equity, and recapitalizations. For more information, please visit www.novaquest.com/strategy/private-equity/. Contacts: For more information about Bend Bioscience, please contact: Media Inquiries Melissa Sullivan [email protected] Partnership Inquiries [email protected] SOURCE Bend Bioscience Leading Duchenne Organization Expands Certification of Clinics that Provide Optimal Care for People with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy with 1st Clinic in New York City metropolitan area WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) , a nonprofit organization leading the fight to end Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Duchenne) , announced the expansion of their renowned Certified Duchenne Care Center (CDCC) Program with the certification of Stony Brook Children's Hospital, in Stony Brook, New York. This is an exciting addition to the CDCC Program as it is not only the first certification on Long Island and in the NYC metropolitan area, but brings comprehensive, multidisciplinary Duchenne clinical care to a heavily populated, but underserved region. Rachel Schrader, MS, APRN, CPNP-PC, PPMD's Vice President of Clinical Care and Education says the certification of Stony Brook is an exciting addition to the CDCC network, particularly in relation to the number of families affected by Duchenne living in the area. "We have an extraordinary number of families affected by Duchenne living on Long Island or in the New York City area, and until now, they've had to travel quite a distance, even out of state, to access optimal Duchenne care. We are thrilled to add Stony Brook Children's Hospital to our growing CDCC network not only because of the amazing work they are doing, but because of the access to care it creates for so many families," said Schrader. The Duchenne care program at Stony Brook Children's Hospital has grown significantly over the past several years, particularly due to a generous donation from Hope for Javier, a family foundation and longtime PPMD collaborator. Jen Portnoy, Hope for Javier's co-founder and a Long Island resident, was passionate about improving care for New York families and committed a grant to the hospital to help establish a Duchenne clinic. Led by program director Dr. Peter Morelli, the Stony Brook team worked closely with the organizations to model the new clinic after the PPMD CDCC Program standards. "We are deeply humbled and grateful that PPMD has chosen to certify the leading destination for Duchenne care in the New York area Stony Brook Children's Hospital. As the co-founder of Hope for Javier, my dream has always been to find ways to provide the highest levels of care to children with Duchenne through advocacy, funding, and research. By securing the seed funding behind the Duchenne Center at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, we wanted to continue to build upon this dream. This certification will do just that allowing medically underserved boys in the region to access the most robust and comprehensive care standards, ensuring their needs are met and they are exposed to the latest in research and care," said Portnoy. The Stony Brook program is led by neuromuscular specialist Dr. Simona Treidler and program director Dr. Peter Morelli, with PNP coordinator Dawn Dawson. According to Dr. Morelli, "Our Duchenne program has expanded from only 10 or 11 families in our first year, to now over 70 and growing. Stony Brook Children's has made a huge commitment to improve the lives of families affected by Duchenne. Working with PPMD for the last two years to achieve designation is an important part of this commitment. We are very proud now to be a Certified Duchenne Care Center." PPMD's Certified Duchenne Care Center Program supports standardized, comprehensive care and services for all people living with Duchenne. Certification means centers maintain the highest standards in clinical and sub-specialty services, rapidly apply new evidence-based knowledge, minimize heterogeneity in clinical research outcomes, and comply with standards in clinical care that were established by the CDC's Care Considerations . As part of its ongoing mission to end Duchenne, PPMD continues to insist that all people with Duchenne receive comprehensive care. To learn more about PPMD's Certified Duchenne Care Center Program, visit PPMD's website . Click here to learn more about the history of PPMD's Certified Duchenne Care Center Program and to access PPMD's first published article on the program. ABOUT PARENT PROJECT MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY: Duchenne is a fatal genetic disorder that slowly robs people of their muscle strength. Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) fights every single battle necessary to end Duchenne. We demand optimal care standards and ensure every family has access to expert healthcare providers, cutting-edge treatments, and a community of support. We invest deeply in treatments for this generation of Duchenne patients and in research that will benefit future generations. Our advocacy efforts have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and won five FDA approvals. Everything we doand everything we have done since our founding in 1994helps those with Duchenne live longer, stronger lives. We will not rest until we end Duchenne for every single person affected by the disease. Join our fight against Duchenne at EndDuchenne.org . Follow PPMD on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and YouTube . ABOUT STONY BROOK CHILDREN'S: With 104 beds, Stony Brook Children's Hospital is Suffolk County's only children's hospital. Part of Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook Children's has more than 180 pediatric specialists in 30 specialties. The hospital is Suffolk County's only Level 4 Regional Perinatal Center and Level 1 Regional Pediatric Trauma Center. It is home to the nation's first Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center and also offers a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Center, Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity Center, Healthy Weight and Wellness Center, Cystic Fibrosis Center, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program, Pediatric Cardiology Program, Pediatric HIV and AIDS Center. To learn more, visit www.stonybrookchildrens.org. SOURCE Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) 3x3 foam concentrate to achieve a full complement of hardware and sprinkler listings, including UL-listed non-aspirated sprinklers. CLAYTON, Mo., Oct. 11 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Perimeter Solutions (NYSE: PRM), a leading global manufacturer of high-quality firefighting products and lubricant additives, announced today the launch of SOLBERG RE-HEALING 3x3 SP-100 Fluorine-Free Foam Concentrate. With the UL-162 listing granted, the newest addition to Perimeter Solutions' catalog of fluorine-free firefighting foam concentrates is the industry's first UL-listed fluorine-free 3x3 foam concentrate with the full complement of hardware and sprinkler listings, including non-aspirated, standard sprinkler heads. "This is an exciting breakthrough for the fire safety industry," says Craig McDonnell, General Manager of Fire Suppression for the Americas at Perimeter Solutions. "SOLBERG RE-HEALING 3x3 SP-100 contains cutting-edge technology and is designed for sprinkler applications to extinguish and secure both Class B [hydrocarbon fuel and polar solvent fuel] and deep-seated Class A fires. It has been tested and meets the requirements of UL-162, the industry's highest fire safety standard for Class B foam." In addition to its UL-162 listing, SOLBERG RE-HEALING 3x3 SP-100 is currently going through the Factory Mutual (FM) testing process and is expected to be added to the FM Approval Guide during the first half of 2023. SOLBERG RE-HEALING 3x3 SP-100 is a biodegradable and non-persistent foam concentrate that contains no silicone/siloxane chemistries or intentionally added per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). This fluorine-free foam concentrate is a combination of proprietary hydrocarbon surfactants and additives that delivers excellent foaming, vapor sealing and stability properties for attacking and securing both shallow and fuel in-depth fires. This new foam can be used successfully through both standard and air-aspirated sprinkler heads. It can also be used with low-expansion discharge devices, including a variety of nozzles and monitors. SOLBERG RE-HEALING 3x3 SP-100 is fully compatible and easily proportioned with standard firefighting equipment, including in-line inductors, self-inducting nozzles, fire truck pumps, bladder tanks, pump skids, water driven foam proportioners, balanced pressure systems and other equipment. It is compatible with fresh, salt and brackish water, provides fast knockdown and extinguishing performance, and delivers excellent burnback performance For more information on SOLBERG RE-HEALING 3x3 and Perimeter Solutions, visit www.perimeter-solutions.com. About Perimeter Solutions Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Perimeter Solutions (NYSE: PRM) is a premier global solutions provider, producing high-quality firefighting products and lubricant additives. The company develops products that impact critically important issues of life issues where there often is no room for error and the job doesn't offer second chances. At Perimeter, we characterize the solutions we develop as 'Trusted Solutions that Save' because it underscores what we are trying to accomplish for our customers and the world at large. Perimeter Solutions produces major brands known throughout the world like PHOS-CHEK and FIRE-TROL retardant, foam concentrates and gel products; AUXQUIMIA and SOLBERG firefighting foam concentrates; and BIOGEMA extinguishing agents and retardants. For more info on how we use our experience, responsibility, and integrity to deliver trusted solutions that help improve firefighting performance, visit: www.perimeter-solutions.com. Media Contact Resource Advantage Dan Green [email protected] SOURCE Perimeter Solutions Trend Micro research reveals supply chains are key source of risk DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, today revealed that 86% of global healthcare organizations (HCOs) that have been compromised by ransomware suffered operational outages. To find out more, visit: https://www.trendmicro.com/explore/glrans Trend Micro research reveals 86% of global healthcare organizations compromised by ransomware suffered outages. Tweet this Most (57%) global HCOs admit being compromised by ransomware over the past three years, according to the study. Of these, 25% say they were forced to completely halt operations, while 60% reveal that some business processes were impacted as a result. On average, it took most responding organisations days (56%) or weeks (24%) to fully restore these operations. Ransomware is not only causing the healthcare sector significant operational pain. Three-fifths (60%) of responding HCOs say that sensitive data was also leaked by their attackers, potentially increasing compliance and reputational risk, as well as investigation, remediation and clean-up costs. Respondents to the study also highlight supply chain weaknesses as a key challenge. Specifically: 43% say their partners have made them a more attractive target for attack 43% say a lack of visibility across the ransomware attack chain has made them more vulnerable 36% say a lack of visibility across attack surfaces has made them a bigger target The good news is that most (95%) HCOs say they regularly update patches, while 91% restrict email attachments to mitigate malware risk. Many also use detection and response tools for their network (NDR) endpoint (EDR) and across multiple layers (XDR). However, the study also highlights potential weaknesses, including: A fifth (17%) don't have any remote desktop protocol (RDP) controls in place Many HCOs don't share any threat intelligence with partners (30%), suppliers (46%) or their broader ecosystem (46%) A third (33%) don't share any information with law enforcement Only half or fewer HCOs currently use NDR (51%), EDR (50%) or XDR (43%) Worryingly few respondents are able to detect lateral movement (32%), initial access (42%) or use of tools like Mimikatz and PsExec (46%) "In cybersecurity we often talk in abstractions about data breaches and network compromise. But in the healthcare sector, ransomware can have a potentially very real and very dangerous physical impact," said Bharat Mistry, Technical Director at Trend Micro. "Operational outages put patient lives at risk. We can't rely on the bad guys to change their ways, so healthcare organisations need to get better at detection and response and share the appropriate intelligence with partners to secure their supply chains." About Trend Micro Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro's cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. www.TrendMicro.com. SOURCE Trend Micro Incorporated In partnership with the Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rye Development is moving three regional projects toward construction PITTSBURGH, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rye Development (Rye), the nation's leading developer of new, low-impact renewable hydropower generation, has announced the next phase of its Montgomery Lock & Dam, Emsworth Lock & Dam, and Allegheny Lock and Dam #2 projects in partnership with The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District (USACE). "We are excited to announce that we are advancing final engineering, procurement, and design of our first bundle of projects in Pittsburgh," said Paul Jacob, Chief Executive Officer of Rye Development. "We've released additional engineering work orders for the Montgomery, Allegheny, and Emsworth projects and have secured agreements with equipment supplies across the board." Rye Development Advancing Low-Impact Hydropower Projects in the Pittsburgh Region Tweet this Marking an important step in the construction timeline of the Montgomery Project, Rye has submitted the 30% design package to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The design package is significant as it is the first submission of detailed engineering based on the early design concepts for the Montgomery project and is the culmination of nearly a decade of work by Rye in the Pittsburgh Region. "We are honored to work in close collaboration with the Army Corps on these exciting flagship projects for Rye," said Jacob. "The excellent working relationship we have developed with the Corps allows for the continued progress of not only the Montgomery project, but Emsworth and Allegheny #2, and is vital in establishing the processes and procedures we will need as we look forward to constructing additional projects in the region." The locations for the hydroelectric projects in the Pittsburgh region are at existing lock and dam facilities owned and operated by the USACE. The Army Corps delivers vital engineering solutions to secure the Nation, energize its economy, and reduce disaster risk. The Pittsburgh District provides expertise to help the region and the nation meet water resources development, environmental and other engineering needs. "Locks and dams are vital parts of the inland navigation system that ensure the district continues to provide safe and reliable navigation for decades to come," said Mark Jones, Chief of Engineering and Construction for the Pittsburgh District. "Collaboration with Rye and others ensure project-design concepts are unified, cohesive and bring together the teams' talent and expertise." The Montgomery Project, located on the Ohio River in Beaver County, is the largest planned project in the region. Adjacent to Neville Island, the Emsworth Lock and Dam is located on the main channel of the Ohio River, just downstream from downtown Pittsburgh; Allegheny County has entered into a power purchase agreement with Rye to supply renewable electricity to the County from the Emsworth Project. Located next to the Highland Park Bridge, the Allegheny Lock and Dam #2 project will provide the University of Pittsburgh with on-demand, locally generated renewable power. Each project is expected to generate 150-200 family wage jobs and Rye anticipates breaking ground in 2023. In addition to providing renewable energy, the hydropower facility includes investment in new recreational fishing facilities and a walkway leading from a parking area with designated parking spaces to the fishing platform. To learn more, please visit www.pittsburghhydro.com . About Rye Development Rye Development is a leading U.S. hydropower developer with a current pipeline of over 25 projects in 10 states. Rye's development of new hydropower on existing dams, in conjunction with financing partner, the Climate Adaptive Infrastructure Fund, and Rye's development of new closed loop pumped storage, demonstrate Rye's commitment to the responsible development of untapped hydropower resources while maintaining rivers' balance of environmental and commercial requirements. Rye brings communities around the country substantial infrastructure, job creation, and a local source of renewable, non-consumptive energy. About The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District The Pittsburgh District is one of seven districts that comprise the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A civil works district, the Pittsburgh District has an Army colonel assigned as District Commander, but the technical chiefs, functional chiefs, and most of the more than 600 employees are civilians. Like all Corps civil works districts, the Pittsburgh District's boundaries are defined by the watershed basins for which it is responsible. Pittsburgh's 26,000 square miles include portions of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, eastern Ohio, western Maryland, and southwestern New York. This jurisdiction includes more than 328 miles of navigable waterways, 23 navigation locks and dams, 16 multi-purpose flood damage reduction reservoirs, 42 local flood damage reduction projects and other projects to protect and enhance water resources and wetlands. SOURCE Rye Development Anonymous Alerts to provide Anonymous Reporting, Incident Management and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources FOSTER CITY, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The San Mateo-Foster City School District is committed to ensure students have a safe and secure learning environment. In September, the district implemented the Anonymous Alerts Reporting App. The anonymous reporting system (ARS) empowers students to submit tips about bullying, self-harm, violence, mental health concerns, or other threatening behavior directly to school officials. The Anonymous Alerts reporting system will empower students to 'See Something, Do Something' where they can report an imminent threat without fear of consequence. This allows the school to assess the report and act proactively. Anonymous Alerts Incident Reporting mobile application for San Mateo-Foster City School District. In 2019, the Secret Service published a report detailing targeted school violence. The report found that in 83% of the incidents they studied, the individuals that carried out threats communicated their plans online, through social media, or by other communications prior to the event being carried out. Since COVID-19, the discourse around student mental health has become a major point of conversation for school district communities. The tragedy in Uvalde also heightened public schools' interest in providing additional safety measures. Offering a safe channel for students to communicate about their experiences is instrumental in promoting positive healthy behaviors as they navigate educational adaptations. "We promote building trust with educators at the building level, however giving our students a system to anonymously report a concern is a great way to empower students to be heard and ask for help. The Anonymous Alerts reporting tool will provide a secure outlet for sharing issues and concerns while supplying readily available critical mental health resources to our students. Students can have an anonymous 2-way dialogue with administrators about a tip they submitted giving further details to help with their concern," said Diego R. Ochoa, Superintendent of Schools. Students, parents, and staff members can download the Anonymous Alerts app for free and gain access to the system by using a simple, unique activation code provided by the district. A custom website portal link will be located on district and school website pages to encourage students to send anonymous reports from any web browser. There will also be a comprehensive student Help Center located on the mobile app with mental health resources and other content linked from the Web. By default, anonymous, two-way communication, if selected by the submitter, will be available from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Reports filed outside of these times will be responded to during the next school day. The district will be giving designated school personnel access to the web-based and mobile-based Incident Management System developed by Anonymous Alerts to anonymously communicate with reporters, take action on the submitted information, set threat assessment levels, and much more. "Our Anonymous Alerts reporting system will help San Mateo-Foster schools give students a voice and act as an early warning system for school administrators fostering safer school communities," said T. Gregory Bender, Founder and CEO of Anonymous Alerts, LLC About Anonymous Alerts Throughout the nation and abroad, Anonymous Alerts provides wrap-around safety technology solutions to thousands of educational institutions, organizations, healthcare, and public safety groups. Through rapid innovation, deep experience, vast expertise, and a broad customer base, our award-winning and patented technology protects millions of students, employees, and community members. The safety systems are designed to be completely customizable for each client's specific needs. Anonymous Alerts (U.S. Patent No. 10,944,726; 9,071,579) and Smart Button (U.S. Patent No. 10,419,399) are patented with additional patents pending. Anonymous Alerts, LLC is based in White Plains, New York. For more information, please visit www.anonymousalerts.com . Contact at Anonymous Alerts, LLC Name: Anonymous Alerts Relations Email: [email protected] Phone: (203) 293-9770 Website: www.anonymousalerts.com Contact at San Mateo-Foster City School District Name: Diego Perez, Coordinator of Communications and Community Services Email: [email protected] Phone: 650.312-7391 Website: https://www.smfcsd.net/ SOURCE Anonymous Alerts VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Scottie Resources Corp. ("Scottie" or the "Company") (TSXV: SCOT) (OTCQB: SCTSF) (FSE: SR8) is pleased to report new assays on its Blueberry Contact Zone including intercepts of 11.3 g/t gold over 8.60 metres and 9.12 g/t gold over 16.15 metres. The high-grade mineralized structure has now been drill tested over 1,200 metres in strike and 360 metres in depth. With more than 80% of the results from the 2022 program still to be received and released, the potential for additional expansion of the mineralized system is significant. The Blueberry Contact Zone is located 2 km north-northeast of the past-producing high-grade Scottie Gold Mine, 35 km north of the town of Stewart, BC, along the Granduc Road. The Blueberry Contact Zone is 100% owned and royalty free. Figure 1: Segmented vertical long section of the Blueberry Contact Zone and plan view illustrating the distribution of the sections. Highlighting the distribution and status of drilled targets from the 2022 season and the reported results thus far, grade contour model was created from pre-2022 drilling of the structure. (CNW Group/Scottie Resources Corp.) Figure 2: Overview plan view map of the Scottie Gold Mine Project, illustrating the distribution of the most recent results, and the overall scope of the 2022 drill and the completed 2022 loop electromagnetic geophysical grids. (CNW Group/Scottie Resources Corp.) Table 1: Selected results from new drill assay results (uncut) from the Blueberry Contact Zone. Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Width* (m) Gold (g/t) Silver (g/t) SR22-149 289.5 325.5 36.00 1.38 1.25 including 289.5 292.5 3.00 3.39 1.00 and 299 304 5.00 4.57 1.00 and 311.15 316.5 5.35 2.69 2.68 SR22-152 135.55 140.5 4.95 3.33 7.33 and 206 209 3.00 1.40 10.3 SR22-153 147.1 239.05 91.95 1.74 4.71 including 147.1 155.7 8.60 11.3 5.47 and including 151.3 153.2 1.90 50.4 16.4 and 216.5 222.1 5.60 7.75 24.3 SR22-163 35.35 66.9 31.55 2.74 1.52 including 36.8 45.8 9.00 6.97 2.50 and 50.8 56.8 6.00 2.88 1.00 and 132.9 140 7.10 1.95 1.21 and 171.5 173 1.50 2.52 47.00 and 195.95 210.9 14.95 1.48 4.53 including 199.8 204.9 5.10 3.89 3.57 SR22-169 100.8 215.5 114.70 1.58 10.7 including 114.1 145 30.90 5.07 29.6 and including 128 144.15 16.15 9.12 44.3 and including 133 140.8 7.80 15.8 39.6 * True thicknesses of mineralized intercepts are undetermined President and CEO, Brad Rourke: "Mapping and bedrock sampling in 2021 indicated that the andesite-siltstone contact that defines the Blueberry Contact Zone continues south underneath the Summit Lakebed, and outcrops hundreds of metres south along the contact from previous drilling. The intersection of high-grade mineralization in hole SR22-169 at the lithological contact illustrates that the gold-bearing Blueberry Contact Zone does not diminish to the south, increasing the known strike length of the system to 1,200 metres. Additional assays are pending on drill holes that could further extend mineralization 350 metres to the south, and initial visuals from the holes are encouraging. Our 2022 program has already demonstrated tremendous success with large step outs on the structure intersecting wide zones of high-grade mineralization. Both the large step-outs and the consistency of drilled intercepts, support the potential a of multi-million ounce deposit at the Blueberry Contact Zone." Figure 1: Segmented vertical long section of the Blueberry Contact Zone and plan view illustrating the distribution of the sections. Highlighting the distribution and status of drilled targets from the 2022 season and the reported results thus far, grade contour model was created from pre-2022 drilling of the structure. Current Drill Results Drill holes SR22-149, 152, 153, and 163 all targeted step outs at least 60 metres from the nearest 2021 drill intercept, many of them exceeding 100 metres. All holes intersected gold mineralization around the andesite-siltstone contact. As currently modelled, the contact is near vertical with an undulating surface, with the exception of the north end of the zone which dips moderately to the west. Many of the holes also intersected additional cross-cutting structures on their way to the primary target. Figure 2: Overview plan view map of the Scottie Gold Mine Project, illustrating the distribution of the most recent results, and the overall scope of the 2022 drill and the completed 2022 loop electromagnetic geophysical grids. About the Blueberry Contact Zone The Blueberry Zone is located just 2 km northeast of the 100% owned, past-producing Scottie Gold Mine located in British Columbia, Canada's Golden Triangle region. Historic trenching and channel sampling of the Blueberry Vein include results of 103.94 g/t gold over 1.43 metres, and 203.75 g/t gold over 1.90 metres. Despite high-grade surficial samples and easy road access, the Blueberry Vein had only limited reported drilling prior to the Company's exploration work. The target was significantly advanced during Scottie's 2019 drill program when an interval grading 7.44 g/t gold over 34.78 metres was intersected in a new splay off zone of the main Blueberry Vein. The drill results received in 2020 and 2021, coupled with surficial mapping and sampling suggest that this splay is in fact a major N-S mineralized structure, of which the Blueberry Vein was only a secondary structure. This zone is much wider than pursued in previous exploration models and drilling in 2021 expanded its strike length to 720 meters and its depth to 225 meters. The zone is steeply dipping, and there is no current restraint on its potential depth; the mineralization at the adjacent Scottie Gold Mine has a vertical extent greater than 450 m. The Blueberry Zone is located on the Granduc Road, 20 km north of the Ascot Resources' Premier Project. Newcrest's Brucejack Mine is located 25 km to the north. Thomas Mumford, Ph.D., P.Geo and VP Exploration of Scottie, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed the technical information contained in this news release on behalf of the Company. Quality Assurance and Control Results from samples taken during the 2022 field season were analyzed at SGS Minerals in Burnaby, BC. The sampling program was undertaken under the direction of Dr. Thomas Mumford. A secure chain of custody is maintained in transporting and storing of all samples. Gold was assayed using a fire assay with atomic absorption spectrometry and gravimetric finish when required (+9 g/t Au). Analysis by four acid digestion with multi-element ICP-AES analysis was conducted on all samples with silver and base metal over-limits being re-analyzed by emission spectrometry. ABOUT SCOTTIE RESOURCES CORP. Scottie owns a 100% interest in the high-grade, past-producing Scottie Gold Mine and Bow properties and has the option to purchase a 100% interest in Summit Lake claims which are contiguous with the Scottie Gold Mine property. Scottie also owns 100% interest in the Georgia Project which contains the high-grade past-producing Georgia River Mine, as well as the Cambria Project properties and the Sulu property. Altogether Scottie Resources holds more than 52,000 ha of mineral claims in the Stewart Mining Camp in the Golden Triangle. The Company's focus is on expanding the known mineralization around the past-producing mines while advancing near mine high-grade gold targets, with the purpose of delivering a potential resource. The Company's focus is on expanding the known mineralization around the past-producing mine while advancing near mine high-grade gold targets, with the purpose of delivering a potential resource. All of the Company's properties are located in the area known as the Golden Triangle of British Columbia which is among the world's most prolific mineralized districts. Forward Looking Statements This news release may contain forwardlooking statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forwardlooking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forwardlooking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date such statements were made. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forwardlooking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. SOURCE Scottie Resources Corp. NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Palantir Technologies Inc. ("Palantir" or the "Company") (NYSE: PLTR) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, and docketed under 22-cv-02384, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise acquired Palantir securities between November 9, 2021 and May 6, 2022, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants' violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials. If you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Palantir securities during the Class Period, you have until November 14, 2022 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. [Click here for information about joining the class action] Palantir builds and deploys software platforms to assist the U.S. intelligence community in counterterrorism investigations and operations. The Company has two operating segments, commercial and government, with the latter primarily serving agencies in the U.S. federal government and non-U.S. governments. Palantir also invests in so-called "marketable securities" consisting of equity securities in publicly-traded companies. Palantir has consistently described sources of geopolitical instability and other disruptionse.g., armed conflicts, economic crises, and the COVID-19 pandemicas tailwinds for its business, given that the Company's products and services are purportedly built to aid its customers in assessing and responding to such disruptions. The Complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Palantir's investments in marketable securities were having a significant negative impact on the Company's earnings per share ("EPS") results; (ii) Palantir overstated the sustainability of its government segment's growth and revenues; (iii) Palantir was experiencing a significant slowdown in revenue growth, particularly among its government customers, despite ongoing global conflicts and market disruptions; (iv) as a result of all the foregoing, the Company was likely to miss consensus estimates for its first quarter 2022 ("Q1") EPS and second quarter 2022 ("Q2") sales outlook; and (v) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On May 9, 2022, Palantir issued a press release announcing its Q1 financial results and guidance for Q2. For Q1, Palantir announced adjusted EPS of $0.02, compared to analyst estimates of $0.04 per share, noting on a conference call that the "[f]irst quarter adjusted [EPS of] $0.02 . . . includes a negative $0.02 impact driven primarily by unrealized losses on marketable securities." The Company also disclosed that government revenue grew by only 16% year-over-year for Q1, representing a significant slowdown in revenue growth compared to prior quarters, and that, for Q2, the Company expected $470 million in sales, compared to estimates of $483.76 million. On this news, Palantir's stock price fell $2.02 per share, or 21.31%, to close at $7.46 per share on May 9, 2022. As multiple news outlets reported that day, Palantir's significant decline in revenue growth, particularly from its government customers, surprised investors, especially given the ongoing geopolitical instability and other disruptions caused by, inter alia, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Russo-Ukrainian Warthat is, precisely the type of destabilizing conditions that the Company had previously touted as tailwinds for its business. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com CONTACT: Robert S. Willoughby Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 888-476-6529 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP StreamCaster Mini 4210 Single Channel Data Radio Featuring MN-MIMO Waveform Aims to Solve the U.S. Army's Tactical Network Objectives by Delivering Battalion Size Flat Network in a Narrowband Channel LOS ANGELES and WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Silvus Technologies, Inc. ("Silvus"), a global leader of advanced wireless networking communication systems, today announced the successful results of a demonstration featuring a network of 559 StreamCaster MANET radios, where every node generated position location information (PLI) data. Utilizing the StreamCaster Mini 4210 (SM4210), the Army's Single Channel Data Radio (SCDR) Program of Record (FY'21 and FY'22), Silvus created a rapidly forming, self-adaptive and robust mesh network of 559 radios. Employing Silvus' proprietary MN-MIMO waveform featuring enhanced routing algorithms, the mesh network successfully connected hundreds of nodes with high data rate throughput, and bandwidth efficient capacity. To replicate a real-world scenario, all radios created a single flat network, operating on the same frequency in a single narrowband channel. EUDs attached to each node generated PLI data which was multicast throughout the network (All to All). "We're proud to help solve the Army's Tactical Network challenges by supporting spectrum efficient Battalion Sized Flat Networks without sacrificing EW resiliency or capacity," said Jimi Henderson, Vice President of Sales at Silvus Technologies. "The results of this demonstration are another key indicator that Silvus is pushing the limits, creating a massively scalable MANET Network that can deliver data connectivity to every soldier at the tactical edge." Additional test results included: Cursor on Target (CoT) Visibility - measured at multiple time intervals of up to 60 seconds on both 2.5MHz and 5MHz channel bandwidth. Within the first 10 seconds, the network achieved 98% total visibility, at 30 seconds and above, each radio exhibited 100% visibility. Latency - measured between endpoints in the loaded network, latency of the network averaged less than 45 milliseconds. Network Capacity utilizing Silvus' enhanced multicast routing algorithms, PLI data was distributed across the network, consuming less than 35% of total network airtime and allowing for additional network capacity of up to 5.5 Mbps for voice, video, and other IP data. Visit Silvus Technologies at AUSA Annual (Booth 4013) to learn more about the 559 Node Network Demonstration and ability to create massively scalable mesh networks with StreamCaster MANET radios and MN-MIMO waveform. About Silvus Technologies, Inc. Privately held and headquartered in Los Angeles, Silvus Technologies develops advanced MIMO technologies that are reshaping broadband wireless connectivity for mission critical applications. Backed by an unmatched team of PhD scientists and design engineers, its technologies provide enhanced wireless data throughput, interference mitigation, improved range, mobility, and robustness to address the growing needs of its government and commercial customers. Learn more: https://silvustechnologies.com. Media Contact: Patrick Renegar Phone: 919.623.5577 [email protected] Sales Contact: Jimi Henderson Phone: 310.479.3333 [email protected] SOURCE Silvus Technologies, Inc. BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Simply Business, LLC., a Boston-based digital insurance company focused on small businesses, today announced the launch of a new workers' compensation product in partnership with SolePro, a workers' compensation program administrator. The product, Solo X, is specifically designed to meet the unique needs of businesses that do not have any employees and do not use day laborers or subcontractors. The Solo X product is an "owner-excluded" workers' compensation policy, which is paired with an accident policy providing certain cash benefits in the event of an injury. "We're committed to providing small business owners with the best possible solutions for their individual needs," said David Summers, Group CEO of Simply Business. "This partnership with SolePro allows us to offer customized workers' compensation options to a segment of the market that has been significantly underserved." "The Solo X product grants small businesses the Certificate of Insurance they need without leaving any gaps in protection," said Steve Love, Cofounder of SolePro. "We are proud to partner with Simply Business to provide its small business customers with a workers' compensation solution designed to be simple and effective it's an attractive alternative to the Assigned Risk Plan." SolePro specializes in online workers' compensation programs and is made up of a team of underwriters, account managers and problem solvers. For more information, please visit SimplyBusiness.com. About Simply Business Simply Business is changing the way small business owners find business insurance by offering customers tailored insurance coverage online. The company began in the United Kingdom and expanded to the United States in 2017, naming Boston home. With over 850,000 customers globally, Simply Business has become a leader in the space through its commitment to a customer-first model, focusing heavily on simplicity, choice and value. SolePro SolePro is an innovator when it comes to custom workers' comp products, specifically focusing on the small business segment. Businesses with no employees, as well as new ventures, can face difficulties when it comes to accessing workers' compensation opportunities. SolePro has created that solution. Founded in 2013, SolePro is committed to streamlining workers' compensation. Simply Business Media Contact Jackie Dunn [email protected] SolePro Media Contact Hannah Sullivan [email protected] 804-814-5589 SOURCE Simply Business SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SK Trading International (SKTI), a wholly owned subsidiary of SK Innovation, announced today it has closed a round of institutional funding into Infinium, a clean fuels innovator. The investment will support acceleration of Infinium's commercial developments globally. Infinium Technology Stack Robert Schnetzle, CEO of Infinium Infinium Electrofuels technology converts carbon dioxide waste and renewable power through its proprietary process to create hydrogen-based alternatives to traditional fossil-based fuels. Electrofuels are ultra-low carbon drop-in fuels that can be used in today's infrastructure and engines without modifications or upgrades. Electrofuels are emerging as a next-generation low-carbon fuel alternative. Infinium's technology focuses on production of liquid fuel alternatives for industries that are challenged with decarbonization today, such as long-haul trucking, marine and aviation. Demand for low-carbon fuel alternatives continue to grow globally as companies look for ways to decarbonize their supply chains, while governments enact policies to support the supply of decarbonized fuels. SKTI's investment in Infinium is a significant step toward the implementation of SK Innovation's "Carbon to Green Strategy," announced last year, and is the first investment in the next-generation green energy field. "We welcome SK to our portfolio of investors and appreciate the confidence they have placed in us as we ramp production of Infinium Electrofuels for global markets." noted Infinium CEO Robert Schuetzle. About SK Group & SK Innovation SK Group, South Korea's second-largest conglomerate, is a collection of global industry-leading companies driving innovations in semiconductors, sustainable energy, telecommunications and life sciences. Based in Seoul, SK invests in building sustainable businesses around the world with a shared commitment to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy. SK companies combined have more than $106 billion in global annual revenue and employ more than 100,000 people worldwide. SK companies are investing billions of dollars in expanding their U.S. presence with business operations or partnerships in hydrogen energy and fuel cells, EV battery manufacturing and technology, energy storage solutions, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and development, semiconductors, and advanced materials. For more information, visit sk.com. SK Innovation, an SK intermediate holding company, operates energy, petrochemical, e-mobility battery, information electronic materials businesses, along with eight major subsidiaries including SK energy, SK geo centric, SK on, SK lubricants, SK Incheon petrochem, SK trading international, SK ie technology, and SK earthon. About Infinium Infinium is a clean fuels innovator with a mission to decarbonize the transportation and chemical sector. Its proprietary ultra-low carbon Electrofuels are a drop-in fuel alternative for trucks, planes and ships and are designed to significantly reduce harmful carbon dioxide emissions as compared to petroleum fuels. Electrofuels can also be used as a clean alternative in chemical manufacturing processes like plastics production that typically use traditional petroleum-based fuels. Infinium's proprietary production process follows environmentally responsible protocols, leveraging industrial carbon dioxide waste, renewable power and 'green' hydrogen. www.infiniumco.com SOURCE Infinium HOUSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tajin International Corporation concluded their first-ever design contest, the Fan Pack Design Contest, in a private ceremony in Houston, where Cristina Lopez won a grand prize of $10,000, receiving $5,000 and donating $5,000 to the nonprofit organization Amigos de las Americas (AMIGOS). Also, Tajin unveiled the Variety Pack new packaging with the winning design. Tajin awards $5,000 to their Fan Pack Design Contest winner and donates $5,000 to the nonprofit organization AMIGOS Tweet this FanPack Contest Winner Cristina Lopez received her prize and the representatives from AMIGOS received the donation Last June, Tajin launched a contest to select the new design for the cover of Tajin's Variety Pack, a box that contains a selection of 6 of its most iconic and popular seasoning and hot sauces. Instead of targeting professional designers and artists, the brand decided to open it to its Instagram community and invited fans to participate. Lopez's design was voted the winner by the brand's Instagram community and was chosen among the five finalists who were previously selected out of more than 100 participants' submissions by a panel of judges based on creativity, originality, and theme. "The Variety Pack was created for Tajin's fans, and as they are the reason of our brand success, we wanted them to be part of this new design process," said Juan Carlos Limon, Tajin U.S. Brand Marketing Manager. "Although it was a hard task to select the best design as most of them were of a great caliber, we are very happy with the winning design. It communicates our brand's personality very well. Enhorabuena, Cristina." As part of the competition, the contestants were asked to select a cause or organization they wanted to make a donation. At the event, Jarrod Ford, President of the local Houston Chapter of AMIGOS, received the donation of $5,000. "AMIGOS, like Tajin, is about bringing people together. This support will help empower young people throughout the Americas to learn about new cultures and serve as leaders in their communities," shared Ford. "We are so grateful to Tajin and to Cristina for this generous donation. Thank you." Lopez, who is originally from Aguascalientes, Mexico, and now lives in Texas, was inspired by her Mexican heritage and the emotional connection that she has with the brand. "I am immensely proud and grateful for this experience," expressed Lopez after receiving the prize. "With my design, I wanted to express the brand's joy. Using images, I worked to show the emotions and versatility of using Tajin." The Tajin Variety Pack will be available with the new look for a limited time in Amazon later this year. About Tajin Industrias Tajin is a Mexican-owned company and market leader in both Mexico and the United States in the chili powder category, in addition to being one of the most important brands in the production and commercialization of products derived from chili worldwide. Today, it has a presence in more than 65 countries around the world. Tajin was founded in 1985, surprising consumers with the perfect blend of lime, chili, and sea salt. In 1993, Tajin made its first export to the United States and Tajin International Corporation was established in Houston, TX, from where all commercial activity of the brand in the U.S. is managed. The brand arrived in Central American and European markets in 2006. About Amigos de las Americas Amigos de las Americas (AMIGOS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1965. AMIGOS provides authentic volunteer and immersion programs in Latin America for young people ages 13 to 22. Initially founded to address a polio epidemic in Honduras, AMIGOS is a leader in youth leadership and volunteer service programming. During the past 58 years, more than 30,000 students have participated with AMIGOS in 17 countries throughout the Americas. Across the world, young people play a tremendous role in bringing about community change. AMIGOS programs challenge students to realize their full potential through transformational experiences in leadership, service, and cultural exchange. SOURCE Tajin International Corporation RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Teamsters Joint Council 83 is pleased to announce its support for both Don McEachin and Abigail Spanberger for Congress. Both lawmakers have a history of standing with Teamsters and the union endorses their re-election campaigns. As members of Congress, Reps. McEachin and Spanberger both voted to pass top Teamster legislative priorities: The Butch Lewis Act to secure earned retirement benefits for more than 1 million working families. The bipartisan infrastructure deal to create new, high-paying union jobs and get America moving. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act to ensure that workers who want a union can have a union and can negotiate for fair wages, good benefits, and safe working conditions. "Representatives McEachin and Spanberger are both champions for working families," said Brian Peyton, Political Coordinator for Joint Council 83. "Virginia Teamsters strongly endorse them for another term in office." Joint Council 83 represents workers across Virginia in industries including delivery, logistics, public services, ports, and construction. Contact: Brian Peyton, (804) 282-3131 SOURCE Teamsters Joint Council 83 ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 1, J.D. Power, a world-renowned market consulting and research company, released the 2022 China Initial Quality Study (IQS). According to the study, Chery ranked 9th among mainstream brands including GAC Honda, FAW Toyota, Buick, and SAIC Volkswagen. Chery ARRIZO 6 PRO, TIGGO 8 PRO MAX and many other vehicle models ranked first and second in several market segments. The steady improvement of "internal strengths" has promoted the continuous enhancement of product competitiveness and become the internal driving force of growth for vehicle sales of Chery Group. Source: the official website of J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) is mainly measured by the number of problems per 100 vehicles (PP100) by car owners with 2-6 months of ownership, with a lower score reflecting less problems and higher quality. The 2022 China Initial Quality Study (IQS) is based on the real feedback obtained from 34,914 car owners who purchased cars between June 2021 and March 2022, which covers a total of 247 models from 56 brands. According to the Initial Quality Study (IQS) this year, Chery brands improve their rankings among the mainstream brands by two places compared to that of last year; Chery's ARRIZO 6 PRO surpasses many competitors and ranks No. 1 in the medium-sized SUV segment; TIGGO 8 PRO MAX ranks No.2 in the most competitive medium-sized SUV segment of the auto industry, while TIGGO 4 PRO ranks third among the mini-SUV segment. The significant improvement in the quality and performance of Chery Group's products has led to a sustained increase in market competitiveness, driving the Group's sales in a fast track for growth. In the past August, Chery Group achieves a sales volume of 141,767, an increase of 111% year on year, achieving the "doubling" of sales year on year. From January to August, the sales volume of Tiggo 8 and Tiggo 7 series both exceeded 100,000, contributing a global sales volume of 117,700 and 100,700 respectively, which were appreciated in both domestic and overseas markets. According to news in the market, Tech Chery 3 SUVs have arrived in Turkey. If the quality can be completely accepted by customers as in China, then there will be good prospects in the future. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1901205/Chery_chart.jpg SOURCE Chery Companies jointly submitted a $750,000 USD application to BARDA to use Prepaire Shield discovery platform to assess repurposed drugs combined with onternabez as Chemical Threat Medical Countermeasures. Partnership leverages respective expertise, technology, and capabilities to identify new combination therapies and improve clinical trajectories of patients exposed to pulmonary and nerve chemical agents. OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. ("Tetra" or the "Company") (TSX: TBP) (OTCQB: TBPMF) (FRA: JAM1), a leader in cannabinoid-derived drug discovery and development announced today it has successfully submitted, in collaboration with Prepaire, a grant application to the Office of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Division of Research, Innovation and Ventures (DRIVe). The project aims at improving the management of patients exposed to pulmonary (i.e., chlorine, phosphogene) or nerve chemical agents (i.e., Sarin, Soman, or Tabun) and optimize their clinical trajectories to minimize the outcome following mass casualty events. Tetra and Prepaire will combine their respective expertise and capabilities to reinvent the drug development process through a fast, innovative, and cost-effective approach using the Prepaire Shield discovery platform and Tetra's proprietary compound, onternabez. Prepaire Shield is an integrated multi-modal/level data solution encompassing state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate new potential combination treatments with in vitro validation testing using induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC) and a retrosynthesis tool to help develop a comprehensive Clinical Decision Support system. Newly identified therapies will include repurposed drugs combined with Tetra's investigational compound, onternabez, to treat acute and long-term effects of pulmonary and nerve Chemical War Agents (CWAs). Onternabez is a selective activator of the cannabinoid type 2 receptor (CB2R), which is part of the body's endocannabinoid system and an important target for homeostatic regulation of the Central Nervous System and the Immune System. Pre-clinical efficacy studies have shown that onternabez has anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic properties, decreasing pulmonary and systemic inflammation and ARDS-related drug damage. Additionally, onternabez exhibits neuro-anti-inflammatory and neuroprotectant activities in response to pathophysiological brain insults. Therefore, the management of patients who have been exposed to a pulmonary CWA can significantly benefit from combination treatments that address the acute hyperinflammation/CRS and potential downstream pulmonary fibrosis. Additionally, patients exposed to nerve chemical agents could benefit from the new drug synthesis models for developing AChE (acetylcholine esterase) reactivators to be administered together with an anti-inflammatory and neuroprotectant agent to prevent long-term neuro-deficiency. Carl Freer, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Prepaire, stated "We are excited by the opportunity for Prepaire and Tetra to be considered to partner with BARDA to identify medical countermeasures to managing patients who have been exposed to a pulmonary CWA and can significantly benefit from combination treatments that address this acute hyperinflammation/CRS and potential downstream pulmonary fibrosis. Patients could benefit from the new drug synthesis models for developing AChE reactivators to be administered with an anti-inflammatory and neuroprotectant agent to prevent long-term neuro-deficiency. Prepaire Shield is designed to accelerate the pace of discovery and innovation, including its vast data sets and advanced analytics, enabling faster evidence-based decision-making. These efforts will unlock hidden insights and provide new and unique perspectives using intelligence in previously unavailable ways to analyze relevant therapeutics." Guy Chamberland, CEO, and CRO at Tetra commented "CWA attacks substantially increased over the last decade in certain regions of the globe, but the treatment of civilian populations stayed the same over the last 50 years and is mainly about advanced life support. Prepaire's disruptive technology, Prepaire Shield, together with our onternabez compound, has the potential to unveil new combination treatments to improve the management of choking and nerve agent victims. I'm excited by this innovative drug discovery approach and the opportunity in front of us." About Onternabez Onternabez, the active substance of ARDS-003, a novel First in Human (FIH) drug product, is a potent and selective full agonist of the type 2 cannabinoid receptor (CB2R), an important immunomodulatory target. ARDS-003 is positioned to modulate acute systemic inflammation and prevent Sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and organ damage - ARDS represents the severe end of lung dysfunction resulting from systemic inflammation secondary to infectious or non-infectious clinical insult (McIntosh, 2020). While the clinical profile of ARDS arising from viral (COVID) or bacterial sepsis can vary, hyperinflammation involving a dysfunctional immune response is a common mediator of lung damage. Tetra's pre-clinical studies have demonstrated that ARDS-003 decreases this hyperinflammatory response and slows disease progression. Additionally, pre-clinical efficacy studies have shown that onternabez-induced CB2R activation dampens the pro-inflammatory behavior of microglia, decreasing the expression of neuronal pro-inflammatory cytokines and the release of nitric oxide, ultimately reducing secondary damage to the neurons in the central nervous system. About Tetra Bio-Pharma Tetra Bio-Pharma (TSX: TBP) (OTCQB: TBPMF) (FRA:JAM1) is a leader in cannabinoid-derived drug discovery and development with a FDA and a Health Canada cleared clinical program aimed at bringing novel prescription drugs and treatments to patients and their healthcare providers. Their evidence-based scientific approach has enabled them to develop a pipeline of cannabinoid-based drug products for a range of medical conditions, including pain, inflammation, and oncology. With patients at the core of what they do, Tetra Bio-Pharma is focused on providing rigorous scientific validation and safety data required for inclusion into the existing biopharma industry by regulators, physicians and insurance companies. Connect with Tetra: Email | Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram Neither the TSX Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding potential acquisitions and financings) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, the inability of the Company to obtain sufficient financing to execute the Company's business plan; competition; regulation and anticipated and unanticipated costs and delays, the success of the Company's research and development strategies, including the success of this product or any other product, the applicability of the discoveries made therein, the successful and timely completion and uncertainties related to the regulatory process, the timing of clinical trials, the timing and outcomes of regulatory or intellectual property decisions and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation. SOURCE Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. CEO, Education Consultant and Founder of Tutors International, Adam Caller, and his colleagues will contribute to the Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum today at 3 pm at the Harvard Club in New York City OXFORD, England, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Founder and CEO of Tutors International, Adam Caller, and colleagues, Chief Operations Officer, Victoria Gibbs, Client Account Manager, Joanna Dunckley Phillips and current tutor, Nathaniel Hannan are all looking forward to taking the stage today as esteemed guest speakers at the 2022 Prestel and Partner Family Office Forum. The Forum, which starts today on the 11th October at the Harvard Club at New York City, will continue until 6 pm on Wednesday 12th October. Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum Tutors International will present today on the advantages of specialist private tuition Prestel and Partner are the global leaders in Family Office Forum conferences. Each of their six forums is unique with conference agendas tailored to local and regional interest points along with an international outlook on the most crucial family office and private investor topics. The Forum offers interactive panel discussions, inspiring presentations, insightful case studies, fireside chat interviews, Investment Roundtables, and all-day Networking. This is not a sales event but a content-led forum with extensive networking opportunities. Prestel & Partner greatly respect the personal privacy of all attendees, (which include royals, billionaires, former heads of state, and Single Family Office Principals, CIOs and CEOs), enabling them to enjoy the event with total data privacy. They provide a bespoke and curated programme with considerable time dedicated to in-depth discussions, knowledge and experience sharing and learning opportunities, and Q&As. What Makes the Family Office Forum So Special? CEO and Founder of Tutors International, Adam Caller, is a leading industry expert in the field of private tutoring. Mr Caller founded elite private tutoring company, Tutors International, in 1999. The private home tuition company has established a well-earned reputation as the leading private tuition company specialising in tailored residential tutoring worldwide. Today at 3 pm at the Family Office Forum, Mr Caller and his colleagues will give a presentation on the advantages of specialist private tuition. The Forum will give Tutors International the opportunity to express the importance and efficacy of personalised private tuition in educating the next generation of global influencers. Tutors International advocates strength-based tuition, where the personal goals of each child and family are incorporated into their learning experience wherever possible. This idea of letting individual talents, goals and values fortify each child's education practically tackles a lot of the issues discussed at the Forum. From prioritising wellbeing and being ecologically conscious to learning how to responsibly inherit and manage wealth, Tutors International's approach to education can incorporate these aspects into curricula. Mr Caller commented: "I am very much looking forward to meeting this year's esteemed guests and excited to be reconnecting with former acquaintances. In the context of the recurring themes at the Forum environmental emergency, Family Office responsibility, investment the importance of educating young minds is the uniting common denominator. The need for high-quality education underpins all of the thoughts and discussions around our future. Positioning what we do within the context of world issues and the conversations happening between influential figures from the global elite is an enlightening, affirming and motivating experience." Chief Operations Officer, Victoria Gibbs gives some insight as to why the Family Office Forum is such an important event in the industry's calendar: "I'm really looking forward to the Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum in New York City. It's fascinating to operate in a world with so many interesting people, and to hear some of the most cutting-edge theories on subjects as diverse as block chain, environmentalism, women's rights and finance. The talks themselves are very informative and inspiring, but it's the networking and connecting with people who otherwise wouldn't cross our paths that I think adds the most value to the experience. Each time I attend one of these conferences I leave on a high. Bringing the Tutors International brand to a new market will be hugely beneficial to the company, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this takes the business in the future." Attending the Family Office Forum Prestel and Partner's London 2022 Family Office Forum takes place on the 11th and 12th October in New York City. Tutors International's presentation will take place today at 3 pm. Should you wish to attend the conference, follow the instructions on page 10 of the 2022 conference agenda. Admission is free for Family Offices and UHNWIs. About Tutors International Tutors International provides an unparalleled private tutoring service that matches the right private home tutor with the right child, in order for the student to fully reach their personal potential and academic excellence. Delivering an international private tuition service for children of all ages at different points in their educational journeys, Tutors International is founded on a commitment to finding the perfect tutor to realise the specific goals and aspirations of each student. Tutors are available for residential full-time positions, after-school assistance, and home-schooling. Founded in 1999 by Adam Caller, Tutors International is a private company based in Oxford, a city renowned for academic excellence. Our select clientele receives a personally tailored service, with discretion and confidentiality guaranteed. Contact Details Web: www.tutors-international.com Email: [email protected] Phone: +44 (0) 1865 435 135 Tutors International Clarendon House 52 Cornmarket Street Oxford OX1 3HJ UK Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918272/Tutors_Private_tuition.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/699064/Tutors_International_Logo.jpg SOURCE Tutors International Program Celebrates International Day of the Girl Child in Partnership with Girl Up and Girls on the Run HERSHEY, Pa., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of International Day of the Girl Child, The Hershey Company announced today additional programming and community investments to further recognize, honor and uplift women and girls around the world. Ranked as the World's Top Female Friendly Company, Hershey is committed to continuing its longstanding efforts to advance gender equity through meaningful programming and partnerships that invest in both girls and women and raise awareness of their impact around the globe. As part of the monthlong campaign, the company is proud to announce a new 'Future CEO' program and additional support for nonprofit partners Girl Up and Girls on the Run to help drive mentorship for young girls, reverse mentorship for Hershey leaders and ensure there is a pipeline for an even more diverse workplace in the future. "We're helping build a workforce of the future that reflects the global landscape and creates a more inclusive world." Tweet this "At Hershey, we understand the power of inclusivity, equity and diversity and believe we have an important role in recognizing and empowering diverse voices around the world," said Michele Buck, CEO of The Hershey Company. "On this day when we celebrate young women and girls all over the world - and every day - we are committed to supporting young women and girls by helping them harness their potential and giving them a platform to achieve their dreams. By providing access to opportunities and resources, we're also helping build a workforce of the future that reflects the global landscape and creates a more inclusive world." Future CEO Program Drives Mentorship and Reverse Mentorship As a critical part of Hershey's larger DEI commitments, the company is doubling down on its efforts to foster the next generation of women leaders in the workforce. To kick off this work, Hershey is launching a new 'Future CEO' program, offering hands-on education to young women to provide the skills, tools and mentorship as key tools for success. While the initial phases of the program will kick off immediately, alongside additional Hershey international leaders' and employees' support in an existing Girl Up mentorship program, the educational components will culminate in March surrounding International Women's Day via a virtual event hosted by Hershey CEO Michele Buck and additional women leaders. While this program is focused on the participants, Hershey also believes it will provide powerful lessons for the company and its leadership team through reverse mentorship, allowing them to better understand the next generation and their thinking in learning from these young leaders. To bring the program to life, Hershey is partnering with Girl Up and Girls on the Run to identify the 'future CEOs of Hershey' driven, passionate young girls whom others can look up to and who have the potential and drive to become one of the next great women leaders in business. There will be 10 participants total, five from Hershey's key international markets including Mexico, Brazil, Canada, India and the Philippines (identified by Girl Up) and five from the U.S. (identified by Girls on the Run). Each participant will also receive a scholarship to further their education and develop their leadership skills. Deepening Non-Profit Partnerships to Build Further Opportunities With 48% of Hershey's global workforce comprised of women, carving a path for young women and girls is non-negotiable. To make a lasting impact and influence outside its own walls, the company has partnered with and continues to strengthen its relationship with two key nonprofits Girls on the Run and Girl Up to execute against this belief. Girls on the Run In the U.S., Hershey kicked off its formal partnership with Girls on the Run, an organization with a mission focused on supporting, empowering and inspiring girls to realize their limitless potential, in 2022 and just renewed its partnership for 2023. In addition to added monetary support, employees will continue to volunteer at all levels of the Girls on the Run organization, including 5Ks and other events, as well as co-developing the 'Future CEO' program together. In addition to the support of the national program, Hershey will provide funding to at least five local Girls on the Run councils to ensure greater access to the organization's fun and inclusive lessons designed to meet the unique needs of each girl, no matter her circumstances, ability or background. "We have inspired more than 2 million girls to know and activate their limitless potential over the past 25 years thanks to generous partners like The Hershey Company," said Elizabeth Kunz, CEO of Girls on the Run. "Now, Hershey's 'Future CEO' program is actually showing girls how to reach that potential by paving the path to sweet success in a powerful way. What an incredible program to inspire the next generation of female leaders." Girl Up Hershey International will continue to support Girl Up, a non-profit committed to advancing girls' skills, rights, and opportunities to be leaders, the remainder of this year through its ongoing mentorship program and into 2023 as a key partner for the 'Future CEO' program. On International Women's Day, Hershey announced its initial partnership with the non-profit and a donation to amplify the voices of girls and women who are making a difference around the world on digital and social platforms. The partnership also includes engagement of five Hershey leaders who are serving as mentors as part of Girl Up's alumni mentorship program. "Girl Up is thrilled to be in partnership with Hershey and contribute to the success of their exciting new 'Future CEO' program," said Girl Up Executive Director, Melissa Kilby. "The world needs new solutions and new leadership now. And with the right training, tools, and platforms, we can reach empowered girl changemakers around the world and support them to become the innovative, inclusive, and intentional leaders of a better tomorrow." About The Hershey Company The Hershey Company is headquartered in Hershey, Pa., and is an industry-leading snacks company known for bringing goodness to the world through its iconic brands, remarkable people and enduring commitment to help children succeed. Hershey has approximately 19,000 employees around the world who work every day to deliver delicious, quality products. The company has more than 100 brand names in approximately 80 countries around the world that drive more than $8.9 billion in annual revenues, including such iconic brand names as Hershey's, Reese's, Kit Kat, Jolly Rancher and Ice Breakers, and fast-growing salty snacks including SkinnyPop, Pirate's Booty and Dot's Homestyle Pretzels. For more than 125 years, Hershey has been committed to operating fairly, ethically and sustainably. Hershey founder, Milton Hershey, created the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and since then the company has focused on helping children succeed. SOURCE The Hershey Company HHC to Host Earnings Call on November 10, 2022 HOUSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC) announced today that it will release 2022 third quarter earnings on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, after the market closes and will hold its third quarter conference call on Thursday, November 10, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The Company's earnings release will be posted to the Investors section of the Company's website prior to the conference call. To participate in The Howard Hughes Corporation's third quarter earnings conference call, please dial 1-877-883-0383 within the U.S., 1-866-605-3850 within Canada, or 1-412-902-6506 when dialing internationally. All participants should dial in at least five minutes prior to the scheduled start time, using 0392401 as the passcode. A live audio webcast will also be available on the Company's website at www.howardhughes.com . In addition to the dial-in options, institutional and retail shareholders can participate by going to app.saytechnologies.com/howardhughes to submit questions to Say prior to the earnings call. Shareholders can email [email protected] for any support inquiries. A taped replay of the call can be accessed 24 hours a day through December 8, 2022, by dialing 1-877-344-7529 within the U.S., 1-855-669-9658 within Canada, or 1-412-317-0088 when dialing internationally, using the passcode 6000570. About The Howard Hughes Corporation The Howard Hughes Corporation owns, manages and develops commercial, residential and mixed-use real estate throughout the U.S. Its award-winning assets include the country's preeminent portfolio of large-scale master planned communities, as well as operating properties and development opportunities including: the Seaport in New York City; Downtown Columbia in Maryland; The Woodlands, The Woodlands Hills, and Bridgeland in the Greater Houston, Texas area; Summerlin in Las Vegas, Nevada; Ward Village in Honolulu, Hawaii; and Douglas Ranch in Phoenix, Arizona. The Howard Hughes Corporation's portfolio is strategically positioned to meet and accelerate development based on market demand, resulting in one of the strongest real estate platforms in the country. Dedicated to innovative placemaking, the company is recognized for its ongoing commitment to design excellence and to the cultural life of its communities. The Howard Hughes Corporation is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as HHC. For additional information visit www.howardhughes.com. Media Contact Cristina Carlson, 646-822-6910 SVP, Head of Corporate Communications [email protected] Investor Relations Eric Holcomb, 281-475-2144 SVP, Investor Relations [email protected] SOURCE The Howard Hughes Corporation MESA, Ariz., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Thompson Thrift, a full-service nationally recognized real estate company, hosted a groundbreaking today for the first phase of Elliot Tech Center, a 1 million-square-foot, mixed-use industrial and retail project within Mesa's Elliot Road Technology Corridor. "While today's ceremony marks the official start of construction, we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the tremendous effort of the City and our various stakeholders that brought us to this point," said Ashlee Boyd, managing partner for Thompson Thrift Commercial. "We are thrilled to be underway on a development that will further enhance the options for companies seeking to start or expand their operations in Mesa." Elliot Tech Center is located at the northwest corner of Elliot Road and Signal Butte Road, which is just northeast of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport with direct access to both SR 24 and Loop 202. The new development will be directly north of Apple's Global Command Center and east of the Meta Mesa Data Center, currently under construction, and the forthcoming Google Data Center. The first 25-acre phase is expected to be completed by fall 2023 and will include five retail pads and three industrial buildings ranging from approximately 79,000 to 89,000 square feet. The industrial buildings feature secure truck courts, a variety of bay sizes, and clear heights from 28 to 32 feet. Black Rock Coffee Bar and a convenience store have already committed to two of the retail pads, and lease negotiations are underway with a well-regarded local restaurant for a 4,000-square-foot, sit-down restaurant. "The Gateway area continues to expand as an important economic driver for the East Valley," said Mesa Mayor John Giles. "Elliot Tech Center is a welcome addition that will bring critical industrial space for aerospace/aviation, electric vehicles, semiconductors and high-tech manufacturing companies that continue to choose Mesa as a place to locate." Thompson Thrift also has plans for the remaining 50 acres at the Elliot Tech Center to provide an additional five buildings and more than 620,000 square feet. Construction on the second phase is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2023. Lee & Associates' Ken McQueen and Chris McClurg are the listing brokers for the Elliot Tech Center's industrial buildings while Phoenix Commercial Advisors is marketing the retail component. Butler Design Group designed the first and second phases and Thompson Thrift has contracted with national design-builder Clayco as the general contractor for the first phase. "We are excited to partner with Thompson Thrift on this exciting mixed-use development," said Todd Peters, vice president, industrial from Clayco. "Elliot Tech Center will bring significant industrial and retail flexibility to Mesa's new Elliot Road Technology Corridor, and we are thrilled to be working with the City and our partners to make this happen." Mesa has proven itself to be a preeminent location for high-tech manufacturers and data centers, attracting large corporations like Niagara Bottling, EdgeCore, Boeing, Esurance and Bridgestone, as well as global tenants such as Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon and more. Thompson Thrift is a full-service real estate development company focused on ground-up commercial and mixed-use development across the Midwest, Southeast and Southwest. The company is well-established in Arizona with several properties throughout the state, including projects in Glendale, Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Queen Creek, Tucson, Surprise, Avondale, and Peoria. The company has become known as a trusted partner committed to developing high-quality, attractive projects and is uniquely positioned to provide smart warehouse, logistics and manufacturing solutions in select markets across the country. About Thompson Thrift Real Estate Company Thompson Thrift is an integrated full-service real estate company with offices in Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Indiana; Denver, Houston and Phoenix. Three business units drive Thompson Thrift's successThompson Thrift Residential which is focused on upscale Class A multifamily communities and luxury leased homes, Thompson Thrift Commercial which is focused on ground-up commercial development, and Thompson Thrift Construction, a full-service construction company. Through these business units, Thompson Thrift is engaged in all aspects of acquisition, development, construction, leasing, and management of quality multifamily, mixed-use, retail, industrial and commercial projects across the country. We are passionate about our customer's success and strive to ensure our projects not only meet the needs of our customers but also the communities we serve. For more information, please visit www.thompsonthrift.com About Clayco Clayco is a full-service, turnkey real estate development, master planning, architecture, engineering, and construction firm that safely and sustainably delivers the highest quality solutions to clients across North America on time, on budget, and above and beyond expectations. With $4.9 billion in revenue for 2021, Clayco specializes in the "art and science of building," providing fast-track, efficient solutions for industrial, commercial, institutional, and residential-related building projects. For more information, visit www.claycorp.com. Contact: Jennifer Franklin Spotlight Marketing Communications 949.427.1385 [email protected] SOURCE Thompson Thrift 25-year tech executive to play key role in Thrasio's strategy to revolutionize ecommerce, product development, and supply chain platforms BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Thrasio Holdings, Inc. (" Thrasio "), a market-leading next-generation global consumer goods company, today announced the appointment of Pawan Uppuluri as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The Amazon veteran comes with 25 years of transformational technology leadership across retail, online marketplace, supply chain, cloud computing, and machine learning. Pawan Uppuluri Named one of the 50 Forbes Innovative Technology Leaders and a Female CTO to Watch , Uppuluri was most recently the Chief Technology Officer at billion dollar omnichannel beauty brand Glossier where she built direct-to-consumer digital experiences for ecommerce and physical retail stores. Prior to Glossier, Uppuluri spent 14 years in leadership roles building key products and infrastructure across Amazon, including Product & Technology for Alexa and the technology platform for the Amazon Seller business. She was also part of the founding team to build a three-sided marketplace for food delivery. Uppuluri started her career as a software engineer building supply chain planning systems at i2 (now Blue Yonder). Thrasio CEO Greg Greeley emphasized technology's role in enabling the company's strategy and customer-first approach: "Tech innovation and insights from the data we've amassed underscore every decision we make at Thrasio - how we price our goods one day to the next, the optimal systems to manage inventory, which brands should expand beyond Amazon, and so forth." He continued, "Pawan has addressed a unique blend of technology challenges centered on creating the best possible customer experience and, under her leadership, Thrasio's technology infrastructure will set the standard for our category." "Thrasio has been a pioneer in creating incredible value for high-growth marketplace sellers and entrepreneurs and is now at a pivotal moment for digital transformation," said Uppuluri. "I am thrilled to scale the entire operational footprint across marketing, product development, and supply chain with continued investments in data science and machine learning. We will continue to delight customers every day by making great products accessible wherever they shop. It's a fun time to join Thrasio because it is still early days as we drive new innovations within this exciting category." About Thrasio Thrasio is the next-generation consumer goods company reimagining how the world's most-loved online marketplace products become accessible to everyone. We use a deep understanding of rankings, ratings, and reviews to identify and acquire quality brands selling beloved goods. Then we apply data science, logistical expertise, marketing smarts, and more to expand product lines and help them reach customers around the globe. With every brand we grow, item listing we improve, or product we develop, our goal is to help people everywhere make the most of every moment. We estimate that 1 in 6 US homes has purchased a Thrasio product. Our portfolio includes Angry Orange pet deodorizers and stain removers , Wise Owl Outfitters camping and outdoor gear , and more than 200 other Amazon and ecommerce brands . In an internet-sized sea of choices, we ensure what gets delivered to your door delivers. Thrasio was founded in 2018 by Joshua Silberstein and Carlos Cashman. thrasio.com . How Goods Become Great SOURCE Thrasio RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Policy Pathways will host its Fourth Annual Fall Celebration on Thursday, October 20, 2022, from 6 8:00 p.m. (EST). The virtual event honors remarkable youth and distinguished policy leaders who are making a difference in their schools, communities, and states. Ticket sales support Policy Pathways educational programs & provide scholarships for youth to attend our Summer Academy. Tweet this 2022 Fall Celebration flyer The Keynote Speaker will be the Honorable Betsy B. Carr, Virginia State Delegate (69th House District). She is a fierce advocate for educational equity, women's rights, and the arts. Policy Pathways is pleased to announce that Del. Carr is also our 2022 Excellence in Public Policy and Administration Award recipient! This year's Policy Leadership Award recipient is Mr. Phillip D. Jones, Newport News, Virginia Planning Commissioner. He has served in the United States Marine Corps and is a trustee of Virginia's Veteran Services Foundation. Mr. Jones attended the United States Naval Academy and Harvard Business School. Our five 2022 Youth Public Service Award recipients are: Harvard College graduate Noah Harris (Hattiesburg, MS), University of Richmond student, Christian Herald (Washington, DC), Phoebus High School student Cai Gomes (Newport News, VA), Open High School student Chandler Holeman (Richmond, VA), and Clover Hill High School student Logan Sowers (Chesterfield, VA). All seven honorees have exhibited outstanding dedication to their communities, policy change, and public service. The Fall Celebration is a ticketed event and open to the public. Funds support Policy Pathways educational programs and scholarships for youth to attend our Summer Academy for Policy Leadership and Public Service Online. "Our Fall Celebration will be an evening of inspiration and celebration," shared Dr. D. Pulane Lucas, President and CEO of Policy Pathways. "Please join us in recognizing today's policy leaders and youth public servants! If you are unable to join us, we will graciously accept donations." Please join us in recognizing today's policy leaders while raising funds for future participants in policy-related degree programs and careers! Tickets are $30.00, with the following sponsorship levels available: Bronze- $250; Silver- $500; Gold- $1,000; Platinum- $5,000. You can purchase tickets here; your contribution is tax-deductible. A Zoom link will be sent to registrants' email address. Thank you for your support! For more information, please visit policypathways.org. Author contact: Gretchen Kent, Communications Coordinator [email protected] SOURCE Policy Pathways, Inc. BENTON HARBOR, Mich., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) announced today it has been named to Forbes' 2022 list of the "World's Best Employers." The list includes companies worldwide and acknowledges each company's dedication to make every individual feel at home within the four walls of the business. "At Whirlpool Corporation, the talent of our employees brings our products to life through innovation, diverse ideas, and a focus on continuous improvement," said Carey Martin, chief human resources officer for Whirlpool Corp. "We're honored that Forbes has named Whirlpool to its World's Best Employers list once again in 2022, and proud that our employees can feel part of a larger global family touching the everyday lives of consumers, making those lives a bit easier, a little bit better and a little bit brighter." For nearly 111 years, Whirlpool Corporation has taken meaningful actions to cultivate a strong, inclusive and diverse culture to support its employees around the world. The company has eight Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for underrepresented groups in North America; two in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region; six in Latin America; and one in Asia. The formation of those groups reaches back as far as 1998, with the office for Diversity and Inclusion created a few years later in 2001. The company has also launched several important initiatives to support employee education and advancement, including professional development training and its annual Global Inclusion Week. Whirlpool Corporation is regularly recognized as a leading company in efforts related to employee engagement and support. In 2022, the company was named to Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies List , CNBC and Just Capital's Most Just Companies for 2022 , and received a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Foundation's Corporate Equality Index . The company is also regularly recognized for its strong culture of volunteerism and corporate social responsibility, with awards such as America's Most Responsible Companies from Newsweek, and for its commitment to House+Home with multiple charitable organizations, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, United Way, and a 23-year relationship with Habitat for Humanity International. In addition to serving communities around the globe through volunteerism and charitable giving, the company has made a pledge towards greater environmental sustainability with a commitment to reach net zero emissions in its plants and operations worldwide by 2030. All of these Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) efforts are part of the company's vision to be the world's leading kitchen and laundry appliance company, in constant pursuit of improving life at homenot just for its consumers, but for everyone. About Whirlpool Corporation Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is committed to being the best global kitchen and laundry company, in constant pursuit of improving life at home. In an increasingly digital world, the company is driving purposeful innovation to meet the evolving needs of consumers through its iconic brand portfolio, including Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, JennAir, Indesit and Yummly. In 2021, the company reported approximately $22 billion in annual sales, 69,000 employees and 54 manufacturing and technology research centers. Additional information about the company can be found at WhirlpoolCorp.com. SOURCE Whirlpool Corporation TUNIS,Tunisia, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 29, 2022, the "World Reading Beijing" (Tunisia) - Beijing Kid Literature Salon, sponsored by Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles and co-hosted by China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Ltd. and Beijing Lao She Academy of Literature, was successfully held in Tunis. More than 40 Chinese and foreign guests, including Mr. Xing He, a Chinese science fiction writer and the author of Beijing Kid, and the translator of Arabic version of Beijing Kid, attended the salon. The salon focused on the discussion of creation background and story plots of Beijing Kid. This novel also presented to Tunisian readers with the development of Chinese science fiction influenced by Beijing's history and culture. This aroused strong resonance among Arab readers. The salon aims to help Tunisian readers with better reading and understanding Beijing, and to open the window for Tunisian readers to know more Beijing writers and works. The "World Reading Beijing" Literature Salon is a new brand activity launched by Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles in 2022 to promote the "Going Global" of Chinese literature. By inviting local readers, critics, publishers and translators, the event is to further their communication with Chinese writers. Within year 2022, a series of Literature Salon will be held for the Italian version of Star Fish (written by Zhou Xiaofeng), the Turkish version of Cat City (written by Lao She), the Spanish version of Freaking Food (written by Liu Heng) and the Romanian version of The Wheat (written by Liu Qingbang). SOURCE China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Co., Ltd. DENVER, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Outward Hound is honored to have been recently selected by Pet Age as one of the 2022 Best Pet Companies to Work For. Pet Age has partnered with Best Companies Group to identify pet companies where leaders have excelled in creating quality workplaces. This survey is designed to identify, recognize, and honor the best employers in the pet industry, benefiting the industry's economy, workforce, and businesses. The list is made up of five companies. To be considered for participation, organizations had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements: Must be in business a minimum of 1 year; Be a publicly or privately held business; Have a facility in the United States / Canada ; / ; Have a minimum of 15 employees in the United States / Canada ; and, / ; and, Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business Pet companies from across the United States and Canada entered the two-part survey process to determine Best Pet Companies to Work For. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated organization's workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems, and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top nonprofits and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process, analyzed the data, and determined the ranking. For more information on The Best Pet Companies to Work For program, visit www.BestPetCompaniestoWorkFor.com. About OUTWARD HOUND Outward Hound is a Prospect Hill Growth Partners Portfolio Company that is an award-winning innovator, creator, manufacturer, and distributor of the highest quality toys, games, gear, and feeders for dogs and cats. The company's portfolio of brands includes Outward Hound, Planet Dog, Petstages, Wholesome Pride Pet Treats, Best Friends by Sheri, and Nina Ottosson puzzle toys. Outward Hound is headquartered outside of Denver in Centennial, CO. For more, visit OutwardHound.com and follow @OutwardHound on Instagram. CONTACT: Michael Parness [email protected] SOURCE Outward Hound Timothy S. Hart believes that most tax debt problems are resolvable with the help of a skilled tax resolution attorney. ALBANY, N.Y., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Owing taxes is one of the most dreaded and stressful positions to be in. Consulting with a tax resolution attorney can help you get back on track with the Internal Revenue Service and New York State Tax Department. How to Know You Owe Back Taxes Timothy S. Hart Here are a few ways to find out how much you owe: Log in to your IRS.gov account. Your tax account is accessible once you log into www.irs.gov/payments/your-online-account or call the IRS at 800-829-7650. For New York State , you can find your tax balance by logging into your online tax account at www.tax.ny.gov/online or by calling (518) 457-5434. Tax Debt Solutions If you have tax debt, here are a few ways to get debt relief. You should consult a tax professional before taking any action. "The first action is to contact a tax settlement attorney who will provide you with the best course of action," says Timothy S. Hart, founding partner of Timothy S. Hart Law Group P.C. He adds, "Knowing your options is not enough. Having a tax relief professional formulate the best overall strategy and fight for you can turn the tide greatly in your favor. You will sleep at night knowing that a qualified tax professional is on your side." 1. Installment Plan You can contact a qualified tax resolution attorney to create an affordable tax payment plan. In some cases, a payment plan can be created that will satisfy the tax authorities but will not pay the tax debt in full before it expires by law, and you save the amount written off. 2. Offer in Compromise An offer in compromise is asking the IRS or NYS to accept a lower amount to resolve the tax debt. These programs are available for your federal and state taxes, and the programs cover income tax, payroll tax, and sales tax. There is an application process that includes proving that you are entitled to relief, which must be carefully prepared. The IRS or NYS Tax Department often provides the relief the applicant is seeking, so this should be considered if you have a tax debt. Timothy S. Hart is a New York C.P.A. and NY tax lawyer with expertise in tax resolution, and he provides solutions to both individual and corporate taxpayers. He has helped clients resolve their tax problems by negotiating more favorable outcomes, and he offers free consultations. This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com. SOURCE Timothy S. Hart NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global 3D bioprinting market in 2021 was valued at $1,189.0 million, which is predicted to rise to $5,873.0 million by the end of this decade, progressing at a compound annual growth rate of 19.4% between 2021 and 2030. This is due to the limited number of organ donors and the growing elderly population with chronic illnesses. Bioengineering has grown in importance to the human civilization since it allows for the creation of living tissues and organs. Moreover, researchers have made significant progress in the 3D printing technique due to the growing demand for bio-engineered organs. Get the sample pages of this report: https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/3d-bioprinting-market/report-sample High Demand for Transplantable Tissues and Organs Globally, there is a huge need for the vital body parts for transplantation, which is the key factor propelling R&D in 3D bioprinting. A big discrepancy between the availability of and demand for tissues and organs only worsens things. The kidneys, heart, lungs, liver, and intestines are just a few of the several organs that are required for transplantation. Similarly, there is a strong need for bone, skin, blood vessel, heart valve, and corneal transplants. Although there is a growing need for organs and tissues, donation rates have been about the same over the years. The growing number of patients on the donor waiting list due to the shortage of such parts for transplantation is a significant problem for healthcare providers and organizations. Why Is North America Heavily Using Bio 3D Printing? The significant growth in the elderly population, rise in the prevalence of orthopedic disorders, and improvements in the healthcare infrastructure all contribute to North America generating around 40% of the revenue. With a share of almost 90% in 2021, the U.S. is the larger 3D bioprinting market in North America . This is because tissue engineering and fabrication R&D is expanding, which is advancing the technology in this region. . This is because tissue engineering and fabrication R&D is expanding, which is advancing the technology in this region. Similarly, a large customer base, increasing R&D in this field, government assistance, and tax incentives are why APAC will have the highest growth rate. Major developments in this field have been achieved by Chinese researchers, including the liquid-in-liquid printing technique, which combines liquid polymers to create a stable membrane. Browse detailed report on 3D Bioprinting Market Growth, Development and Demand Forecast to 2030 Inkjet Technology Preferred for 3D Printing of Living Cells The inkjet technology has the largest revenue share because it enables printing complex tissues and organs on culture surfaces, using living cells as bio-inks. Inkjet printers are also widely used in the medical sector because of their excellent dependability. Similarly, the rise in the usage of the magnetic levitation technology is a result of its affordability. The main problems, such as poor biocompatibility in bio 3D printing, are expected to be eliminated by the magnetic levitation technology, due to its higher speed and precision. Global 3D Bioprinting Market Report Coverage By End User Pharmaceutical Companies Research & Academic Institutions Medical Device Manufacturers Contract Research Organizations By Technology Syringe-Based Inkjet-Based Magnetic Levitation Laser-Based By Component Bioprinters Bioinks By Application Surgical Simulation and Training Models Prosthetic Devices Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Orthopedic Implants Dental Implants Medical Sensors Regional Analysis North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany U.K. France Italy Spain Asia-Pacific Japan China India South Korea Australia Latin America Brazil Mexico Middle East and Africa and Saudi Arabia South Africa U.A.E. Browse more reports: Regenerative Medicine Market Size and Share Analysis by Type, Application - Industry Growth and Demand Forecast to 2030 3D Printing Filaments Market Size and Share by Type, Application Industry Analysis and Growth Forecast to 2030 Surgical Simulation Market Analysis by Offering, End-User - Industry Size and Share Forecast Report 2030 About P&S Intelligence P&S Intelligence provides market research and consulting services to a vast array of industries across the world. As an enterprising research and consulting company, P&S believes in providing thorough insights on the ever-changing market scenario, to empower companies to make informed decisions and base their business strategies with astuteness. P&S keeps the interest of its clients at heart, which is why the insights we provide are both honest and accurate. Our long list of satisfied clients includes entry-level firms as well as multi-million-dollar businesses and government agencies. Contact: Prajneesh Kumar P&S Intelligence Phone: +1-347-960-6455 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.psmarketresearch.com Follow Us: LinkedIn Twitter Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1224988/P_and_S_Intelligence_Logo.jpg SOURCE P&S Intelligence NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global 5G IoT roaming market size is expected to grow by USD 1.58 bn during 2021-2026, progressing at a CAGR of 42.48% during the forecast period. The Development of wireless technologies, heavy IoT investment, and demand for private 5G networks from enterprises, governments, and industries are one of the major factors propelling the market growth. However, factors such as lack of standardization in IoT protocols, delay in spectrum harmonization across geographies, and increase in concerns over data privacy and security may impede the market growth. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global 5G IoT Roaming Market 2022-2026 Global 5G IoT Roaming Market Driver One of the key factors influencing the growth of the 5G IoT roaming market is the advancement of wireless technology. Over the next two years, there will likely be an increase in the demand for wireless technologies due to the growing usage of LPWAN, long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN), 5G, wireless sensor networks, and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). The requirement for higher capacity, high data rate, and high connection has also increased as a result of the rising data exchange rate among a significant number of connected devices. As a result, 5G wireless networks are seen as an important force behind IoT. Request Free Sample Report. Global 5G IoT Roaming Market Segmentation The consumer segment's share of the 5G IoT roaming market will expand significantly. Using a SIM card from the same service provider, mobile customers can use mobile IoT (LPWA) roaming to connect their IoT devices to LTE-M or NB-IoT networks and access related IoT services across many countries and mobile networks. North America will account for 47% of market growth. The 5G IoT roaming market in North America is primarily concentrated in the US. This region's market will expand more quickly than those in other areas. Over the course of the projection period, an increase in industrial applications will support the expansion of the 5G IoT roaming market in North America. Buy Sample Report. Global 5G IoT Roaming Market Vendors The growing competition in the market is compelling vendors to adopt various growth strategies such as promotional activities and spending on advertisements to improve the visibility of their services. Some vendors are also adopting inorganic growth strategies such as M&As to remain competitive in the market. The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market vendors, including: AT and T Inc. China Mobile Ltd. Cisco Systems Inc. Deutsche Telekom AG Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Neoway Technology Co. Ltd. Nokia Corp. Orange SA Quectel Wireless Solutions Co. Ltd. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. To find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Download Free Sample Report. 5G IoT Roaming Market Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period Detailed information on factors that will assist in 5G IoT roaming market growth during the next five years Estimation of the 5G IoT roaming market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the 5G IoT roaming market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of the 5G IoT roaming market, vendors Related Reports: Mobile Phone Accessories Market by Product and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Enterprise AI Market by End-user, Deployment, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 5G IoT Roaming Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 42.48% Market growth 2022-2026 $1.58 billion Market structure Concentrated YoY growth (%) 42.15 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution North America at 47% Key consumer countries US, Japan, China, Germany, and UK Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled AT and T Inc., China Mobile Ltd., Cisco Systems Inc., Deutsche Telekom AG, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Neoway Technology Co. Ltd., Nokia Corp., Orange SA, Quectel Wireless Solutions Co. Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sierra Wireless Inc., SIMCom Wireless Solutions Ltd., SK Inc., Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Telefonica SA, Telit Communications Plc, Thales Group, Verizon Communications Inc., and Vodafone Group Plc Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market Overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Global Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by End-user Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 09: Parent market Exhibit 10: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 11: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 12: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 13: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 16: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 17: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 18: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 19: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 20: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 21: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 22: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 23: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by End-user 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by End-user Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by End-user Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by End-user 5.3 Consumer - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Consumer - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Consumer - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Chart on Consumer - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Consumer - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Enterprise - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Enterprise - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Enterprise - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Chart on Enterprise - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Enterprise - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Market opportunity by End-user Exhibit 36: Market opportunity by End-user ($ million) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 37: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 38: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 40: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 41: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.4 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.5 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.6 South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.7 Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 58: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 59: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) and - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.8 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 62: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 63: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 64: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 66: Chart on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 67: Data Table on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 68: Chart on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on Japan - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 71: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 72: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.11 Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 74: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 75: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 76: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 77: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 78: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 79: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 80: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 81: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.13 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 82: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 83: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 84: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 85: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 86: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 87: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 88: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 AT and T Inc. Exhibit 89: AT and T Inc. - Overview Exhibit 90: AT and T Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 91: AT and T Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 92: AT and T Inc. - Segment focus 10.4 China Mobile Ltd. Exhibit 93: China Mobile Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 94: China Mobile Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 95: China Mobile Ltd. - Key offerings 10.5 Deutsche Telekom AG Exhibit 96: Deutsche Telekom AG - Overview Exhibit 97: Deutsche Telekom AG - Business segments Exhibit 98: Deutsche Telekom AG - Key offerings Exhibit 99: Deutsche Telekom AG - Segment focus 10.6 Orange SA Exhibit 100: Orange SA - Overview Exhibit 101: Orange SA - Product / Service Exhibit 102: Orange SA - Key offerings 10.7 Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Exhibit 103: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 104: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 105: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 106: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 107: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. - Segment focus 10.8 SK Inc. Exhibit 108: SK Inc. - Overview Exhibit 109: SK Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 110: SK Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 111: SK Inc. - Segment focus 10.9 Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson Exhibit 112: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson - Overview Exhibit 113: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson - Business segments Exhibit 114: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson - Key news Exhibit 115: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson - Key offerings Exhibit 116: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson - Segment focus 10.10 Telefonica SA Exhibit 117: Telefonica SA - Overview Exhibit 118: Telefonica SA - Business segments Exhibit 119: Telefonica SA - Key offerings Exhibit 120: Telefonica SA - Segment focus 10.11 Verizon Communications Inc. Exhibit 121: Verizon Communications Inc. - Overview Exhibit 122: Verizon Communications Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 123: Verizon Communications Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 124: Verizon Communications Inc. - Segment focus 10.12 Vodafone Group Plc Exhibit 125: Vodafone Group Plc - Overview Exhibit 126: Vodafone Group Plc - Business segments Exhibit 127: Vodafone Group Plc - Key offerings Exhibit 128: Vodafone Group Plc - Segment focus 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 129: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 130: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 131: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 132: Research methodology Exhibit 133: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 134: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 135: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP (ABHR) is delighted to announce the expansion of its North Texas practice with the addition of attorneys Clay E. Crawford, Christopher Jordan, and Jonathan Finke of Crawford & Jordan LLP to the ABHR team, effective January 1, 2023. Crawford & Jordan LLP's legal assistants Kelli Dabbs, Marlo Gordon, and Allison Adams will also join ABHR on the same date. The new attorneys will bring over sixty combined years of practice representing developers and water districts which provide utility and road infrastructure to developments of all types across the North Texas region. They also represent private developers in negotiations with local government entities in various land and economic development matters. With the addition of this team, ABHR has more than 40 lawyers and 140 personnel with expertise in the acquisition and financing of critical infrastructure facilities to serve residential, commercial, industrial, and mixed-use projects across Texas. ABHR Founding Partner Steve Robinson commented on the news: "If you are in the land development business in North Texas, you already know Crawford & Jordan's reputation for excellence in representing their special district and developer clients. ABHR and Crawford & Jordan have worked alongside each other on many projects over the years and have a long history of mutual respect and shared values. As ABHR expands into North Texas, the addition of these experienced lawyers and legal professionals brings additional depth and horsepower to our team. On a personal note, I couldn't be more pleased to welcome them as colleagues." ABHR recently expanded into the North Texas market with the opening of its Dallas office on March 1, 2022, led by Founding Partner, Steve Robinson, who relocated to North Texas to manage the office. With the new office and team growth, ABHR is strategically positioned to represent clients in virtually all high-growth areas of Texas. About Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP was formed in 2003 by some of Texas' most experienced public law attorneys and is devoted solely to the practice of public law and finance. Our exclusive focus is providing public infrastructure in Texas. ABHR attorneys have a broad background in all aspects of public law and public finance. With experience and innovation, we represent tax increment reinvestment zones, municipal management districts, cities, counties, municipal utility districts, water districts and regional authorities, and other public entities with their finance needs. ABHR also acts as underwriters' counsel, disclosure counsel and tax counsel, and represents developers, contractors, and others doing business before public bodies. With offices in Houston, Central Texas, and North Texas, ABHR is the leading special district public finance firm in Texas. Visit www.abhr.com to learn more. SOURCE Allen Boone Humphries Robinson LLP THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The government of the Netherlands welcomes experts and policy makers from all over the world to help combat existing and newly emerging cyber threats. At the ONE Conference in The Hague next week, a new Dutch cybersecurity strategy will be presented. At this two day event, experts will discuss today's key issues in online threats, like the impact of the massive cyber war after Russia invaded Ukraine, dealing with ransomware attacks, and money laundering via cryptocurrencies. Over the past few years, the Netherlands has been conducting innovative research into threats in cyberspace. Dutch security services have caused a stir by tackling online crime, not just technically but also tactically. The Encrochat investigation into encrypted communications between criminals is a gamechanger in the fight against serious organized crime. And very importantly, new deciphering methods have also been locating criminal earnings that were laundered via cryptomoney. Investigators will reveal their newest tactics at the ONE Conference. Intelligence operations have been successful in blocking hacking attacks by state actors, such as when they apprehended the hackers who tried to penetrate the networks of the OPCW. At the ONE Conference on 18 and 19 October in World Forum - The Hague, the Dutch government, experts and participants will share their knowledge about combatting cyberthreats and about how cybersecurity makes a positive contribution to our economy. Minister Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs and Climate Policy): "We really need secure digital products and services to guarantee a properly-functioning online economy. We also need to actively work on making businesses and consumers digitally resilient. Digitisation is offering us many opportunities but we can only take advantage of them when the basics are in order. There are still improvements to be made. That is why it is important to share knowledge about cybersecurity with businesses, researchers, government agencies and experts at the ONE conference in The Hague." Minister for Justice and Security, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius: "Digital threats are on the rise, with criminals and hostile states threatening our interests. That is why action is needed now, to increase our digital resilience, strengthen the system and tackle the threat. Only then will we be able to safely capitalize on the economic and social opportunities of digitization, while protecting our safety and public values at the same time. The Netherlands is one of the most digitized countries in the world. We work digitally, shop digitally and meet each other digitally. Digital systems are the 'nervous system' of our society. That's why we need to protect these systems and make sure we're prepared if something does go wrong." Saskia Bruines, alderman for the municipality of The Hague. "Whereas a lock on the front door is the most normal thing in the world, digital security is still unexplored territory for many people. Cybercrime and digital crime are on the rise and pose a major risk to social stability. The ONE Conference being held during The Hague Cyber Security Week is one of the most important international conferences in the field of digital security. I'm very proud to be able to welcome international experts from all over the world to The Hague. After all, this is the city of Peace and Justice, and now the city where we are working on important innovations in this essential field together with businesses, the education sector and government organisations." But the Dutch approach is much broader than this and shows that a strong focus is also essential in business and education. That is why, for the first time, ONE Conference 2022 includes an innovation market where start-ups and other companies can exhibit the solutions they have developed. There is also a strong focus on the human dimension, which after all is just as important in countering digital threats. These threats are constantly changing shape but are also becoming more and more sophisticated. Communication and a good understanding of human behaviour are becoming increasingly important in cybersecurity. Leading scientists will present research on this subject and participants will discuss practical tips with each other. For more information, visit https://one-conference.nl/programme/ or send an email to [email protected]. Journalists can also apply for accreditation for the conference here. SOURCE ONE Conference Broadband IC chip solution for RDK-B GPON shows the company's strong support for the open-source platform HSINCHU, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Taiwan's premier IC design house, Airoha Technology, a subsidiary of IC giant MediaTek, announced today that it had started to deliver to its customers a Broadband System-on-Chip (SOC) solution powered by RDK-B, an open-source platform that standardizes key functions of customer premise equipment (CPE). As an active member in the RDK community, AIROHA has helped to set and develop Passive Optical Network (PON)-related solutions to enable operators to navigate to an all-fiber environment. RDK-B allows operators to continue to use their existing equipment and software, built upon the legacy coaxial cable and DOCSIS interface standards, to maximize capital investments, and leverage the quality of work that they already providing to the customers. With 20+ years of presence in the European market, AIROHA has accumulated a deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges that the European service provider industry has been facing when migrating to fiber. The company has made every effort to address the pain points of its operator customers and is committed to RDK-B as the best path for broadband operators to achieve a seamless transition from DOCSIS to fiber. AIROHA's RDK-B GPON SoC solution has been adopted by several 1st tier European broadband network operators and has helped them migrate to PON smoothly together with their legacy DOCSIS assets. Fiber migration is imperative and inevitable for European MSOs In past decades, Europe's broadband networks have relied heavily on xDSL or Coaxial cables, which are both essentially copper lines with varied technologies. While facing a continual rise in their customers' demands for increased bandwidth, European operators recognize the growing need to upgrade their infrastructure, and many are at a decisive turning point. In 2021, the European Commission (EC) published the "2030 Digital Compass: the European Way for the Digital Decade," which stated goals for every European household to have access to high-speed internet coverage by 2025 and gigabit connectivity by 2030. As such, many operators have turned to the deployment of all-fiber PON to accommodate their digital transformation initiatives throughout European Union countries. AIROHA takes the lead in supporting RDK-B PON open platform and helps MSOs transform smoothly and quickly Although the latest versions of DOCSIS standards include support for PON, the coaxial cable, due to its physical constraints, cannot match the speed of fiber connections. As 10G-PON technology is reaching maturity and 25G/50G-PON is looming, the cable industry in Europe now is taking a harder look at PON options to traditional technology. The mounting pressure for maintaining competitiveness has driven them to adopt a fiber architecture. AIROHA's support for RDK-B PON solutions is designed to enable operators to expedite the process of cable transformation. AIROHA is committed to becoming the best long-term partner for its customers and helping its customers improve competitiveness. AIROHA's RDK-B PON has been adopted by Western Europe Tier-1 operators with successful commercialization AIROHA is changing the status quo by working with major players in the industry to adopt its innovative technologies. The CPE devices provided by AIROHA's operator customers will come preinstalled with RDK-B and software customized by AIROHA that will facilitate easy upgrades and allow the cable operators to continue to use their existing management systems and applications on the new chipset platform. This should drastically reduce the cost of migration and allow operators to manage different OLT (Optical Line Terminal) equipment under the same system architecture while enjoying the benefits brought by fiber. AIROHA has helped several Tier 1 cable operators in Western Europe deploy RDK-B powered chipsets to upgrade to fiber quickly and smoothly. For broadband, RDK software provides common support for routing, Wi-Fi, device management, diagnostics, DNS, and IoT interfaces, such as Bluetooth, Thread and Zigbee. By standardizing these functions, service providers can develop and deploy applications and services, across various hardware platforms. A key to RDK's growing adoption is that device provisioning, data diagnostics, reporting, and telemetry are consistent across all RDK software profiles, enabling service providers to manage video and broadband in a uniform way. Seeking for a paradigm-shift AIROHA, with its technology capability and service breadth, fully understands the pain points that broadband carriers have been facing during their digital transformations and has already provided solutions in the United States and in Western Europe, aimed at setting new benchmarks for fiber migration. Centered on an engineering culture that puts customers first, AIROHA will continue to work closely with broadband operators who share the same forward thinking. Building a healthier and robust ecosystem for the fixed broadband industry Jason Briggs, President and GM of RDK, said, "Airoha Technology is a global leader in chipset solutions for the broadband industry, and we are delighted that they have made RDK software a centerpiece of their strategy. Thanks to Airoha Technology, CPE manufacturers now have more choices to acquire chipsets that come pre-integrated and shipped with RDK-B as the default software stack to help operators transition to fiber." Bomin Wang, Executive Vice President and GM of Fixed Network Business Group, Airoha Technology, said, "AIROHA's successful case in Europe has demonstrated the company's ability to help its customers upgrade infrastructure via a fast and reliable path, while also providing compatibility and interoperability at the same time to shake off the shackles of the traditional technologies. The changes do not come from chance but from our customers' will to change, and the close cooperation between all of us involved in the partnership. We invite more enterprises to join the ecosystem to bring about more changes and opportunities for users and enterprises to benefit from technology." About Airoha Technology Airoha Technology Corp., one of MediaTek's subsidiaries, is a fabless semiconductor company providing industry-leading IC solutions of highest performance, extendibility, interoperability and lowest power demand. With more than 1,100 staff coming from MediaTek's former IoT department and a number of IC design houses merged or purchased by MediaTek, AIROHA has aggregated unparalleled technology resources and experts of over 20 years experiences in wireless and wired communications. Many of our team members have maintained presence in the market since 2001 with their specialized domains including Bluetooth, Satellite, Broadband, and Ethernet. Sticking to its corporate ethos that puts customer's interests first, AIROHA is committed to shortening product development and service deployment time, reducing total operational cost of its customers and delivering best user experiences to consumers. AIROHA has a broad customer base including most notable brands in the aforesaid market areas. Our corporate vision is to allow as many consumers and businesses as possible to enjoy the opportunities and benefits brought by digital transformation and enabled by our innovative technologies. For more information, please visit www.airoha.com SOURCE Airoha Technology NOIDA, India, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report published by UnivDatos Markets Insights, the Docking Station Market was valued at more than USD 1.3 million in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 5% from 2022-2028. The analysis has been segmented into Product (Laptops, Smartphones & Tablets, Others); End-Use (Residential, Commercial, Industrial); Connectivity (Wired, Wireless); Distribution Channel (Online, Offline); Region/Country. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/docking-station-market/ The Docking Station market report has been aggregated by collecting informative data on various dynamics such as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. This innovative report makes use of several analyses to get a closer outlook on the Docking Station market. The Docking Station market report offers a detailed analysis of the latest industry developments and trending factors in the market that are influencing the market growth. Furthermore, this statistical market research repository examines and estimates the Docking Station market at the global and regional levels. Request for Sample Pages https://univdatos.com/get-a-free-sample-form-php/?product_id=24011 Market Overview Docking stations are electronic portable plug-in devices that allow portable computers to connect with various devices. Essentially, the primary function of a docking station is to provide an extension for laptop ports, through an exclusive connector, which is generally on the laptop's side connected to the rear of the docking station. A rise in internet penetration and increasing use of portable devices among consumers has led to the growing market for docking stations. As of 2021, the global average internet penetration is 65.6%, in which North America region is the leading region with 93.9% whereas Africa has the lowest penetration with 43.2 A rise in the smartphones user across the globe owing to the availability at affordable prices, and numerous players available in countries are some of the prominent factors, due to which the demand for the docking stations is on the rise. Moreover, the benefits of docking stations such as It charges the phone and can also connect it to a 4K monitor, USB devices, and memory cards. The docking station can be connected to a 4K monitor and performed seamlessly, delivering up to 15W power to the device. One can use the split-screen function that allows using the phone independently for calls without interruption or one can mirror your phone screen on the bigger one. COVID-19 Impact During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for PCs and laptops witnessed a sharp rise. As per IDC, Global shipments in the traditional PC market, which includes desktops, notebooks, and workstations, jumped 14.6% year-over-year to 81.3 million units in the third quarter of 2020. Dell Technologies Inc forecast current-quarter sales above market expectations as a pandemic-driven shift to remote work and learning-powered demand for its desktops and notebooks, helping it post a surprise rise in third-quarter revenue. So, with the growing demand for laptops, PC, and tablets, the demand for docking stations also witnessed a sharp rise. However, the border closure, nationwide lockdown, and supply chain interruptions led to the shortage of semiconductors, which restricted the growth of the market. Click here to view the Report Description & TOC https://univdatos.com/report/docking-station-market/ The global Docking Station market report is studied thoroughly with several aspects that would help stakeholders in making their decisions more curated. Based on product, the market is classified into Laptop, Smartphone & Tablet and Others (Power Banks, Smart Watches). Amongst products, the floor & category accounted for a significant share in the market. The wide availability of smart, cost-effective, and portable laptops across countries is one of the prominent factors driving the growth of this segment. As per IDC, the global shipments of traditional PCs are expected to hit 344.7 million units by the end of 2021. Moreover, the growing use of laptop and PCs and the application of docking stations in industries such as e-commerce, supply chain, and warehouse management are contributing to the market growth. Based on connectivity, the market is categorized into wired and wireless. Among these wired segments grabbed the major market share and dominated the market in 2020. Wired docking stations are widely used in the IT industry owing to the high degree of convenience associated with these products. These devices enable high-speed data transfer, which is crucial in the IT industry. Furthermore, wired docking stations connect portable devices to monitors or desktops through an HDMI cable or DisplayPort. However, the wireless segment is expected to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Have a Look at the Chapters - https://univdatos.com/report/docking-station-market/ Docking Station Market Geographical Segmentation Includes: North America ( United States , Canada , and Rest of North America ) ( , , and Rest of ) Europe ( Germany , United Kingdom , Spain , Italy , France , and the Rest of Europe ) ( , , , , , and the Rest of ) Asia-Pacific ( China , Japan , India , Australia , and the Rest of Asia-Pacific ) ( , , , , and the Rest of ) Rest of the World North America is expected to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period as the region is characterized by the presence of many service providers, especially in the United States. Moreover, the rising usage of docking stations owing to a rapidly expanding IT sector coupled with the increasing popularity of BYOD to name a few. Additionally, rising infrastructure spending coupled with favorable policies for an expanding nature will increase the footprint of the docking station market during the advent of the forecast period. The major players targeting the market include Targus StarTech.com Dell Technologies Inc. ACCO Brands Corporation Lenovo Group Limited HP Development Company L.P Plugable Technologies TOSHIBA CORPORATION Acer Inc. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Competitive Landscape The degree of competition among prominent global companies has been elaborated by analyzing several leading key players operating worldwide. The specialist team of research analysts sheds light on various traits such as global market competition, market share, most recent industry advancements, innovative product launches, partnerships, mergers, or acquisitions by leading companies in the Docking Station market. The major players have been analyzed by using research methodologies for getting insight views on global competition. Key questions resolved through this analytical market research report include: What are the latest trends, new patterns, and technological advancements in the Docking Station market? Which factors are influencing the Docking Station market over the forecast period? What are the global challenges, threats, and risks in the Docking Station market? Which factors are propelling and restraining the Docking Station market? What are the demanding global regions of the Docking Station market? What will be the global market size in the upcoming years? What are the crucial market acquisition strategies and policies applied by global companies? We understand the requirement of different businesses, regions, and countries, we offer customized reports as per your requirements of business nature and geography. Please let us know If you have any custom needs. Browse Other Related Research Reports from UnivDatos Market Insights Docking Station Market Report Coverage Report Attribute Details Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2027 Growth momentum Accelerate at a CAGR of over 5% Market size 2020 USD 1.3 billion Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, Rest of World Major contributing region North America to Dominate the Global Docking Station Market Key countries covered United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, China, Japan, India, and Australia Companies profiled Targus, StarTech.com, Dell Technologies Inc., ACCO Brands Corporation, Lenovo Group Limited, HP Development Company L.P, Plugable Technologies, Toshiba Corporation, Acer Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Report Scope Market Trends, Drivers, and Restraints; Revenue Estimation and Forecast; Segmentation Analysis; Impact of COVID-19; Demand and Supply Side Analysis; Competitive Landscape; Company Profiling Segments Covered By Product; By Connectivity; By Distribution Channel; By Region/Country About UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) UnivDatos Market Insights (UMI) is a passionate market research firm and a subsidiary of Universal Data Solutions. We believe in delivering insights through Market Intelligence Reports, Customized Business Research, and Primary Research. Our research studies are spread across topics across the world, we cover markets in over 100 countries using smart research techniques and agile methodologies. We offer in-depth studies, detailed analysis, and customized reports that help shape winning business strategies for our clients. Contact UnivDatos Market Insights Ankita Gupta Director Operations Ph: +91-7838604911 Email: [email protected] Website: https://univdatos.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1225049/UnivDatos_Logo.jpg SOURCE UnivDatos Market Insights Pvt. Ltd. LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement is from Latino Civic Leaders, Fernando J. Guerra, Ph.D., Antonia Hernandez, Monica Lozano, Fabian Nunez, Manuel Pastor, Angelica Salas, Miguel Santana, Gary Segura, Arturo Vargas. We write today in our personal capacity as Latino civic leaders and Angelenos who believe in a just, equitable and inclusive Los Angeles for all. The hateful, racist, and divisive comments heard in the recording released this weekend have no place in public or behind closed doors. We expect better of our Latino elected officials, and Los Angeles deserves better. We are deeply saddened. These public officials have breached the trust and confidence of our entire city. We condemn their anti-Black, homophobic, and prejudiced sentiments against Indigenous people and other marginalized communities in our city. Angelenos deserve elected officials who respect them and reflect their values. We must hold these individuals accountable for their hateful remarks and participation. We call for the resignations of Los Angeles City Council Members Nury Martinez, Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. These elected officials have failed us and our community as leaders. They have deepened the pain that our communities have experienced especially during a time when our nation has been struggling with hate speech and political division. It is imperative that these city council members resign and accept accountability. In Solidarity, Fernando J. Guerra, Ph.D. Antonia Hernandez Monica Lozano Fabian Nunez Manuel Pastor Angelica Salas Miguel Santana Gary Segura Arturo Vargas Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Latino Civic Leaders TAIPEI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Ascenda, the technology company that makes banking rewarding, announced a strategic partnership with CTBC Bank, one of the largest private sector banks in Taiwan, to transform their market-leading rewards program. The cloud-native solution powered by Ascenda will unlock differentiation, increase credit card spend, and greater stickiness across CTBC Bank's significant affluent customer portfolio. Ascenda announces strategic partnership with CTBC to transform their market-leading rewards program. The partnership launches off the back of accelerated appetite for aspirational rewards as international travel returns to pre-pandemic levels. To build deeper customer connections, CTBC Bank is expanding its rewards program by tapping into Ascenda's global content marketplace, including the world's largest points exchange network, TransferConnect, that makes real-time rewards currency conversion accessible to 1.2 billion financial services customers worldwide. Ascenda's solution has been embedded seamlessly within CTBC Bank's digital banking experiences, allowing customers to make the best of their rewards points, save money and access aspirational redemption opportunities. The CTBC Bank's "Home Bank App" will serve as a digital hub and allow instant access to a broad range of favorite merchant partners powered by Ascenda, offering unparalleled ease for customers to unlock value from their everyday banking activities. Sebastian Grobys, co-founder and CSO of Ascenda said: "We're delighted to welcome CTBC Bank to the network of banks and fintechs connected to our global rewards marketplace. There's a great deal of excitement and anticipation in the Taiwanese market as travel finally opens up again, so the timing of this partnership couldn't be better". "Delivering exceptional value to our customers to reward them for their engagement has always been a priority at CTBC Bank. This innovative new program expansion, powered by Ascenda, is an exciting step to continue delivering on that mission." said CTBC Bank. About Ascenda Ascenda is a global technology company that makes banking rewarding. Ascenda delivers digitally native, intuitive and easy-to-deploy rewards solutions that enable banks to build deeper customer connections across the entire financial relationship. The company serves financial services clients in more than 40 markets, from traditional top-tier players to disruptive fintechs, including brands such as HSBC, American Express, Capital One, Brex, Virgin Money, ICBC, and Standard Chartered. For more information about Ascenda, please visit ascendaloyalty.com . About CTBC Bank CTBC Bank is Taiwan's largest privately held bank and has the most extensive international presence of any Taiwanese bank with 368 branches in 14 countries and regions. The Bank has taken the lead in digitalization, leveraging fintech and Big Data to drive innovation and create entirely new and engaging digital experiences for its customers. In the past few years, CTBC Bank has received more than 170 awards at home and abroad and registered more than 335 patents. As of the end of 2021, the Bank's consolidated assets totaled NT$4.88 trillion, the most among all privately owned banks in Taiwan. It is also the best-performing bank in other indicators, such as profits, tier 1 capital, and client base. For more information about CTBC Bank, please visit https://www.ctbcbank.com/twrbo/en_tw/index_en.html SOURCE Ascenda In addition, Ashtrom has a right to take ownership of several other projects at advanced development stages TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Another major milestone for Ashtrom Group (TASE: ASHG) in promoting its renewable energy operations. The subsidiary, Ashtrom Renewable Energy, is reporting its entry to operations in Greece today, following its operations in the U.S. and Poland, which commenced last year. Ashtrom Group announces today that its subsidiary, Ashtrom Renewable Energy, has signed agreements to develop a solar project pipeline in Greece in which a local development partner will develop five projects under initial development and at a cumulative scope of ~476 MW. The cost of establishing the said projects is estimated at 335-380M, based on the assumption that the cost of construction per MW, including the cost of connecting such projects to the grid, estimated at 700-800K. In addition, Ashtrom Renewable Energy was granted a future right to take over several additional projects owned by the Greek corporation at advanced stages of development and which, according to the development partner, are expected to obtain the substantial permits required for construction within the upcoming year. In addition, the agreement contains a mechanism by which consideration to the development partner will be determined according to milestones set forth in the agreement and development progress, where most of the consideration will be paid at advanced development stages and after approval for connecting to the electrical grid. Yitsik Marmelshtein, CEO, Ashtrom Renewable Energy: "Ashtrom's entry to the energy market in Greece corresponds with its strategy for expanding its renewable energy operations to additional countries, following our entry to the U.S. and Poland. We estimate that the Greek market - characterized by accelerated growth, high electricity prices and good solar radiation conditions compared to other European countries - can serve as a significant growth opportunity for Ashtrom Renewable Energy in the near future. We intend to take further measures and develops additional renewable energy projects, thus establishing our operations in the U.S., Israel, Poland and Greece, where we conduct substantial projects of ~1.5 GW total capacity". The renewable energy market in Greece has been demonstrated accelerated growth in recent years and is expected to continue growing in the near future in light of various developments in the European energy market, specifically in Greece. The total installed capacity in Greece in 2022 is estimated at ~21 GW, with an estimated solar capacity of ~4 GW. According to market consultants specializing in Greece, the installed solar capacity is expected to reach ~10GW by 2030, comprising a significant share of the energy generation mix in Greece. Electricity derived of renewable energy projects in Greece can be sold in various methods, including participation in rate tenders published by the government, through long term Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) or selling electricity on the open market. Ashtrom Renewable Energy operates in several major geographical markets, focusing mainly on the U.S. and Europe. This project joins several others that the company operates in Texas and Idaho. These projects, including the current project pipeline, are at various stages of development, comprising ~1,500 MW. Ashtrom recently reported that, together with a partner, it signed a first agreement to sell ~235 MWdc of electricity in a project generating an overall capacity of ~400 MWdc in Texas. The agreement was signed with the San Antonio electric company (Aa2 international rating), which will acquire 60% of the electricity generated by the said project for 20 years. Ashtrom Group is among Israel's leading construction and real estate companies whose shares are traded on Tel Aviv 35. The group operates in several operating sectors: Construction and infrastructure contracting in Israel - including, inter alia, residential and infrastructural contract constructions; Franchise - participation in tenders and executing planning, operations and financing activities for large-scale infrastructure and residential projects; Housing entrepreneurship in Israel, through Ashdar, a subsidiary that is a leader and among the oldest companies in the field; Investment and entrepreneurial real estate, through Ashtrom Properties, a subsidiary operating in Israel, Germany and England, holding and managing shopping malls and commercial centers, office buildings and employment centers, industrial structures and more; Industries - mainly manufacturing, marketing and selling raw materials to the construction industry and importing and marketing finishing products for the construction industry; Construction and infrastructures contracting abroad, as well as residential real estate development int he U.S. and Europe - performed by Ashtrom International; Renewable energy - investment in wind, solar, storage and other energy related projects in Israel and worldwide. Ashtrom Group chairperson is Mr. Rami Nussbaum, Group CEO - Gil Giron. Contact: Yitsik Marmelshtein, CEO, Ashtrom Renewable Energy [email protected] Tel: +972-3-6231447 SOURCE Ashtrom Group LTD. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The " Atole Market in North America by Product and Distribution Channel - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 " report has been added to Technavio's offering. According to the report, the market size is expected to increase by USD 7.69 million between 2021 and 2026. However, the growth momentum in the market is expected to decelerate at a CAGR of 3.19% during the forecast period. The market generated maximum revenue in the market in offline segment. The expansion of the organized retail sector is increasing the sales of atole through offline distribution channels. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Atole Market in North America 2022-2026 The full report on the atole market in North America provides a comprehensive analysis of the key revenue-generating segments, product launches by vendors, and other important statistics to help businesses make informed decisions. Start by Downloading Sample PDF Report Atole Market in North America 2022-2026: Segmentation The global atole market in North America is segmented as below: Product Nut Atole Fruit Atole Others The demand for nut-flavored atole is increasing in North America. The growth of the segment can be attributed to the increased preference for nut-flavored beverages among consumers. In addition, the increased availability of multiple nut-flavored atole mixes in the market will contribute to the growth of the segment. Distribution Channel Offline Online By distribution channel, the offline segment will have the maximum share of the market. The segment includes supermarkets, hypermarkets, mini-markets, kiosks, convenience stores, and others. The increased demand for convenience food coupled with the proliferation of supermarkets in North America will drive the growth of the segment. Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our atole market in North America report covers the following areas: Atole Market in North America 2022-2026: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the atole market in North America, including some of the dominant vendors. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the atole market in North America are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Grupo La Moderna SA de CV: The company offers atole such as chocolate-flavored, walnut-flavored, and strawberry-flavored atole. The company offers atole such as chocolate-flavored, walnut-flavored, and strawberry-flavored atole. HERMEL S.A. de C.V .: The company offers atole such as Hermel Maicena which contains NutraFlora. The company offers atole such as Hermel Maicena which contains NutraFlora. Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico : The company offers atole such as Blue Corn Atole. The company offers atole such as Blue Corn Atole. Nestle SA: The company offers atole such as Nestle Abuelita Atole which is prepared with cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. The company offers atole such as Nestle Abuelita Atole which is prepared with cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. PepsiCo Inc.: The company offers atole such as Quaker Oats Old Fashioned atole. The company offers atole such as Quaker Oats Old Fashioned atole. The Klass Company SA de CV: The company offers atole such as Klass Atole Tradicional. The company offers atole such as Klass Atole Tradicional. Unilever PLC: The company offers atole such as Knorr Maizena Atole which contains vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, and zinc. The market will be driven by the increased consumption of atole in Mexico, increased demand for tamales, and the rising demand for chocolate-based atoles. However, home preparation of atole by consumers will challenge the growth of the market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Identify major segments and regions to invest in over the forecast period. Request Sample Report Now Atole Market in North America 2022-2026: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2022-2026 Detailed information on factors that will assist atole market growth in North America during the next five years during the next five years Estimation of the atole market size in North America and its contribution to the parent market and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the atole market in North America Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of atole market vendors in North America Related Reports: Atole Market in North America Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Decelerate at a CAGR of 3.19% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 7.69 million Market structure Concentrated YoY growth (%) 3.07 Regional analysis North America Key consumer countries US, Mexico, and Canada Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Grupo La Moderna SA de CV, HERMEL S.A. de C.V., Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico, Nestle SA, PepsiCo Inc., The Klass Company SA de CV, and Unilever PLC Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table Of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Country Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Product Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 09: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 10: Parent market Exhibit 11: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 12: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 13: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 14: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Data Table on Regional - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 16: Chart on North America : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 17: Data Table on Regional - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 18: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 19: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 20: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 21: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 22: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 23: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 24: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by Product 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 25: Chart on Product - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 26: Data Table on Product - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Product Exhibit 27: Chart on Comparison by Product Exhibit 28: Data Table on Comparison by Product 5.3 Nut atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 29: Chart on Nut atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Data Table on Nut atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 31: Chart on Nut atole - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 32: Data Table on Nut atole - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Fruit atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 33: Chart on Fruit atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Data Table on Fruit atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 35: Chart on Fruit atole - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 36: Data Table on Fruit atole - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 37: Chart on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 38: Data Table on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 39: Chart on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 40: Data Table on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.6 Market opportunity by Product Exhibit 41: Market opportunity by Product ($ million) 6 Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel 6.1 Market segments Exhibit 42: Chart on Distribution Channel - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 43: Data Table on Distribution Channel - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 6.2 Comparison by Distribution Channel Exhibit 44: Chart on Comparison by Distribution Channel Exhibit 45: Data Table on Comparison by Distribution Channel 6.3 Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on Offline - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on Offline - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.4 Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on Online - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on Online - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.5 Market opportunity by Distribution Channel Exhibit 54: Market opportunity by Distribution Channel ($ million) 7 Customer Landscape 7.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 55: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 8 Geographic Landscape 8.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 56: Chart on Market share by geography - 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on Market share by geography - 2021-2026 (%) 8.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 58: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 59: Data Table on Geographic comparison 8.3 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 60: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 61: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 62: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 63: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.4 Mexico - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 64: Chart on Mexico - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 65: Data Table on Mexico - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 66: Chart on Mexico - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 67: Data Table on Mexico - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.5 Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 68: Chart on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 69: Data Table on Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 70: Chart on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 71: Data Table on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 8.6 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 72: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 9.1 Market drivers 9.2 Market challenges 9.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 73: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 9.4 Market trends 10 Vendor Landscape 10.1 Overview 10.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 74: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 10.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 75: Overview on factors of disruption 10.4 Industry risks Exhibit 76: Impact of key risks on business 11 Vendor Analysis 11.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 77: Vendors covered 11.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 78: Matrix on vendor position and classification 11.3 Grupo La Moderna SA de CV Exhibit 79: Grupo La Moderna SA de CV - Overview Exhibit 80: Grupo La Moderna SA de CV - Product / Service Exhibit 81: Grupo La Moderna SA de CV - Key offerings 11.4 HERMEL S.A. de C.V . . Exhibit 82: HERMEL S.A. de C.V . - Overview . - Overview Exhibit 83: HERMEL S.A. de C.V . - Product / Service . - Product / Service Exhibit 84: HERMEL S.A. de C.V . - Key offerings 11.5 Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico Exhibit 85: Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico - Overview - Overview Exhibit 86: Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico - Product / Service - Product / Service Exhibit 87: Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico - Key offerings 11.6 Nestle SA Exhibit 88: Nestle SA - Overview Exhibit 89: Nestle SA - Business segments Exhibit 90: Nestle SA - Key news Exhibit 91: Nestle SA - Key offerings Exhibit 92: Nestle SA - Segment focus 11.7 PepsiCo Inc. Exhibit 93: PepsiCo Inc. - Overview Exhibit 94: PepsiCo Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 95: PepsiCo Inc. - Key news Exhibit 96: PepsiCo Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 97: PepsiCo Inc. - Segment focus 11.8 The Klass Company SA de CV Exhibit 98: The Klass Company SA de CV - Overview Exhibit 99: The Klass Company SA de CV - Product / Service Exhibit 100: The Klass Company SA de CV - Key offerings 11.9 Unilever PLC Exhibit 101: Unilever PLC - Overview Exhibit 102: Unilever PLC - Business segments Exhibit 103: Unilever PLC - Key news Exhibit 104: Unilever PLC - Key offerings Exhibit 105: Unilever PLC - Segment focus 12 Appendix 12.1 Scope of the report 12.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 106: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 107: Exclusions checklist 12.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 108: Currency conversion rates for US$ 12.4 Research methodology Exhibit 109: Research methodology Exhibit 110: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 111: Information sources 12.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 112: List of abbreviations food allergy among consumers: There is an increase in the number of people suffering from food allergies globally. Food allergy is caused when the immune system reacts to the ingestion of certain foods. Ingredients of packaged foods and meats that can create allergic reactions in some people include (but are not limited to) milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish (e.g., crab, lobster, and shrimp), tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, and pecan), peanuts, wheat, and soybeans. Even consumption of small amounts of food allergens can trigger signs and symptoms such as digestive problems, hives, and swollen airways. In some people, a food allergy can cause severe symptoms, or even a life-threatening reaction is, known as anaphylaxis. For example, in the US, nearly 3% of the adult population suffers from shellfish allergy. About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio MANSON, Iowa, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AviNation announces its October stops for the AviNation American Dream Tour. The tour stops will include three (3) Southern California high schools and the STEM Expo at the Edwards Air Force Base' Aerospace Valley Air Show. This outreach initiative delivers aviation-based inspirational speakers and activities to all youth with a special focus on underserved, underprivileged, and at-risk communities to educate and inspire them about career opportunities in aerospace. AviNation is leveraging its media-based platform of resources, which includes AviNation Magazine, as well as strategic partners to deliver the series of programs to local youth. The tour stops will include three (3) Southern California high schools and the STEM Expo at the Edwards Air Force Base' Aerospace Valley Air Show. Tweet this Beginning October 11th-13th, the tour will visit Southern California area high schools including Santa Monica High School, Kern Career & Technical Education Center in Bakersfield, and Palmdale High School Engineering Academy. AviNation is exhibiting at the STEM Expo at Edwards Air Force Base. Friday, October 14th is a closed event for students only. The event opens to the public on October 15th-16th for the Edwards Air Force Base 75th Anniversary Aerospace Valley Airshow. All are invited to stop by Booth #19 in Hangar 1600 to test their pilot skills on a flight simulator, pick up a copy of the latest AviNation Magazine and share an inspirational story. "We are excited to deliver a personal and impactful experience to young people to inspire them to see themselves in an aerospace career. The goal of the tour is to empower young people to be confident in their abilities to pursue these careers. Aviation-based careers including pilots and A&P mechanics are in high demand and pay extremely well. This tour's objective is to contribute to the solution of addressing the shortage of skilled aviation professionals, particularly in underserved communities," says Jacob Peed, CEO and Founder of AviNation. The AviNation American Dream Tour made stops earlier this year in Peoria, IL and Baton Rouge, LA and was well received by the youth participating, their parents, and mentors. The AviNation American Dream Tour is supported in part by Republic Airways, the U.S. Coast Guard, Antelope Valley College, California Baptist University, California Aeronautical University, Los Angeles World Airports, along with many corporate and individual industry leaders donating their time and resources. Details of the Southern California Stops: Tuesday, October 11th, Santa Monica, CA Santa Monica High School (7:30 AM to 1:00 PM) Wednesday, October 12th, Bakersfield, CA Kern High School Career & Technical Education Center (7:30 AM to 3:00 PM). The U.S. Coast Guard is scheduled to fly in a helicopter in addition to speakers and planned activities Thursday, October 13th, Palmdale, CA Palmdale High School Engineering Academy (7:30 AM to 3:00 PM). The U.S. Coast Guard is scheduled to fly in a helicopter in addition to speakers and planned activities. Friday, October 14th, Edwards Air Force Base - STEM Expo - Edwards Air Force Base - Hangar 1600 Booth #19. This is a closed student event. Saturday and Sunday, October 15th - 16th, Edwards Air Force Base 75th Anniversary Aerospace Valley Airshow - Hangar 1600 Booth #19. This event is open to the public. Media Contact: Thomas W. Flavin Business Development Advisor AviNation 310.709.0844 [email protected] About AviNation: AviNation exists to attract, educate and empower youth in aviation. AviNation magazine strives to give readers insight into the future of aviation by focusing on aviation students, programs, events and innovative approaches to the promotion and continued growth of the aviation industry. AviNation is proud to be the official youth aviation publication. For more information, avinationusa.com . About Aviation American Dream Tour: Peoria, IL: Mr. Carl Cannon's Elite Youth Outreach group's day retreat https://youtu.be/11B3-brvntI Baton Rouge, LA: Several locations including Baton Rouge Community College https://youtu.be/IG5O-SV9SzU SOURCE AviNation SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Axiom Cloud today announced that it has achieved SOC 2 Type 1 compliance in accordance with American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) standards. Conducted by Prescient Assurance, a leader in security and compliance attestation for B2B SaaS companies worldwide, the audit affirms that Axiom Cloud's information security practices, policies, procedures, and operations meet the SOC 2 standards for security, availability, and confidentiality. SOC 2 Type 1 certification demonstrates to Axiom Cloud's current and future customers that their data is managed with the highest standard of security and compliance. Axiom Cloud offers "apps for refrigeration" that help solve its customers' biggest energy, maintenance, and sustainability challenges. Axiom Cloud provides software solutions to Sprouts Farmers Market, Grocery Outlet, Whole Foods, HelloFresh, and other North American companies that rely heavily on refrigeration. Axiom Cloud's apps help solve its customers' biggest energy, maintenance, and sustainability challenges associated with operating their refrigeration systems. These challenges include rising energy costs, a shortage of qualified refrigeration technicians, refrigerant compliance requirements, and supply chain constraints that make emergency equipment replacements extremely challenging. Solving these challenges requires Axiom Cloud to integrate with existing refrigeration equipment and securely manage hundreds to thousands of live data streams for each facility. "Protecting people and data is Axiom Cloud's number one Guiding Principle," said Nikhil Saralkar, CTO of Axiom Cloud. "This SOC 2 Type 1 certification demonstrates to our current and future customers that their data is managed with the highest standard of security and compliance." SOC 2 audit reports focus on a Service Organization's non-financial reporting controls as they relate to Security, Availability, Confidentiality, and Processing Integrity of the systems the service organization uses to process customer data, as well as the confidentiality and privacy of the information processed by these systems. Axiom Cloud is also working toward achieving SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, and the examination period is already underway. For more information about Axiom Cloud's security practices, visit https://www.axiomcloud.ai/security About Axiom Cloud Axiom Cloud's mission is to use software and automation to transform how the world's cooling systems are powered, operated, and maintained, in order to generate significant climate and financial impact. Axiom's team of refrigeration experts, data scientists, energy experts, and software developers solves retail grocery's biggest energy and maintenance challenges by layering intelligence onto their existing refrigeration systems. www.axiomcloud.ai. Media contact: Turner Anderson [email protected] 510-683-5200 x1 SOURCE Axiom Cloud Enhanced API Also Supports Bundled Payments NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America today announced the launch of an expanded CashPro Payment API through which clients can access more than 350 payment types and bundle payments. The development comes as Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) continue to transform business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions given the ability of APIs to provide real-time data, reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies. "A significant feature of APIs is their ability to support 24/7 processing. We're seeing that play out with our Payment API where 20% of the volume is being processed during the weekend. The enhanced API will give clients even more options to process payments in multiple jurisdictions and countries at any time of the day," said Tom Durkin, global product head for CashPro Platform in Global Transaction Services (GTS) at Bank of America. "The development is part of our multi-year digital strategy to make business easier and more secure." The breadth of capabilities of the enhanced CashPro Payment API spans: More than 350 payment types in 38 markets globally 7 real-time payments schemes and services such as Zelle in the U.S. and Pix in Brazil Domestic and cross-border wires Domestic ACH Local payment instruments such as Brazil Boletos Ability to execute payments in bundles, helping clients avoid or reduce backlogs in payment queues "Through our single payment API, clients can disburse payments to hundreds of countries and get real-time data and information, helping to increase their business efficiency and competitive edge," said Stephanie Wolf, head of Global Financial Institutions, Governments, Business Banking Sales, and Risk in GTS at Bank of America. Citing an example of insurance claims, Wolf said, "Our API can be a bridge between an insurer's system and the policyholder, disbursing funds digitally, and instantly provide access to funds following a claim, without the need to use checks." Bank of America's suite of CashPro APIs includes more than a hundred APIs supporting payments and treasury operations. Clients can connect to them through the CashPro API Developer sandbox, which is designed to accelerate onboarding. Clients can also access the APIs through one of the more than 28 Treasury Management System (TMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms that are integrated into Bank of America's platform. Bank of America Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 66 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,300 retail financial centers, approximately 17,000 ATMs, and award-winning digital banking with approximately 41 million active users, including approximately 32 million mobile users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more Bank of America news, including dividend announcements and other important information, visit the Bank of America newsroom and register for news email alerts. www.bankofamerica.com Reporters May Contact: Louise Hennessy, Bank of America Phone: 1.646.858.6471 [email protected] Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1612970/Bank_of_America_Corporation_Logo.jpg SOURCE Bank of America Corporation LAKELAND, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Barney Barnett School of Business & Free Enterprise at Florida Southern College is set to host the 8th Polk Real Estate and Economic Update on Oct. 28, in the George W. Jenkins Field House. Gold sponsors for the event are SouthState Bank and SVN| Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate. Tickets for the event must be purchased in advance on or before Oct. 21, at the following link: https://www.flsouthern.edu/events-center/conferences/polk-real-estate-conference.aspx The event begins at 8 a.m. with continental breakfast, while the first panel begins promptly at 8:30 a.m. Lunch will also be provided. The Barnett School of Business last hosted this event in 2018. The school regularly invites the county's leading real estate professionals, banking and financial experts, market analysts, and economic development professionals to share their insights on the continued economic growth and development in our region. Polk County is the fourth fastest growing metropolitan area in the United States, with 10 million consumers within 100 miles, four international airports within 60 miles, and three deep-water seaports within 75 miles. In the past 24 months, 11 companies have either expanded or found new homes in Polk County, making more than $600 million in capital investment and creating more than 3,500 jobs. The four panel and discussion topics include capital, economic drivers, transportation, and real estate. Moderators will be Mr. James Farrell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Finance and Economics at Florida Southern; Mr. Steve Scruggs, Lakeland Economic Development Council; Mr. H.D. "Jake" Polumbo, Two Blue Aces, Founding Partner and Senior Consultant, Major General USAF (ret.); and Mr. David Hungerford, CCIM, SVN | Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate. Panelists will include Presidents and CEO's from many major corporations in Polk County, including SouthState Bank, MIDFLORIDA Credit Union, Publix Super Markets, Bonnet Springs Park, the Florida Department of Transportation, and SVN | Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate. To conclude the event, FSC President Dr. Anne B. Kerr will present the Economic Development Award to Mr. Ernest S. "Ernie" Pinner, the Executive Chairman of SouthState Bank. A lifelong resident of Polk County, Pinner founded CenterState Bank in 1999 in Winter Haven, serving as Chairman, President, and CEO from 2004 through 2015. He served as Executive Chairman until 2020, when CenterState Bank acquired SouthState Bank. Previous Economic Development Award winners include Mr. Todd Jones of Publix Super Markets in 2018, Mr. Bill Pou of W.S. Badcock Corporation in 2016, Mr. David P. Lyons of Saddle Creek Logistics in 2015, Mr. Joe P. Ruthven of the Ruthvens in 2014, and Mr. Garry Drummond of the Drummond Company in 2013. About Florida Southern College Founded in 1883, Florida Southern College is the oldest private college in the state. The College maintains its commitment to academic excellence through 70+ undergraduate programs and distinctive graduate programs in business administration, education, nursing, and physical therapy. Florida Southern has a 14:1 student-to-faculty ratio, is an award-winning national leader in engaged learning, and boasts 30 NCAA Division II National Championships. Florida Southern is ranked at #8 among the "Best Regional Universities in the South" by U.S. News & World Report in its 2023 "Best Colleges" guide and is included in The Princeton Review's 2023 Best 388 Colleges guide and the "Fiske Guide to Colleges 2023." The 2022-2023 Colleges of Distinction guidebook praises Florida Southern's AACSB accredited Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise alongside the College's School of Education and its Ann Blanton Edwards School of Nursing and Health Sciences. Poets&Quants, U.S. News & World Report, Fortune, and The Princeton Review further laud the Barney Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise and the Ann Blanton Edwards School of Nursing and Health Sciences as foremost programs in the nation for business and nursing education. Home to the world's largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, FSC has appeared on The Princeton Review's top 20 "Most Beautiful Campus" national listing for 13 consecutive years. Connect with Florida Southern College. SOURCE Florida Southern College NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Beard Grooming Products Market Facts at a Glance Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Beard Grooming Products Market 2022-2026 Total Pages: 120 120 Companies: 10+ Including Badass Beard Care LLC, Beardbrand, Beardoholic Co, Edgewell Personal Care Co, EVERY MAN JACK, Happily Unmarried Marketing Pvt Ltd, LOreal SA, Mountaineer Brand Products, Mozzafiato, Mr Natty, Murdock Ltd, Newport Apothecary Inc., Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd., Revlon Inc, Scotch Porter, Smoky Mountain Beard Co., Texas Beard Co., The Estee Lauder Co. Inc., Truefitt and Hill, Unilever PLC, and VAUGHN Grooming LLC among others. 10+ Including Badass Beard Care LLC, Beardbrand, Beardoholic Co, Edgewell Personal Care Co, EVERY MAN JACK, Happily Unmarried Marketing Pvt Ltd, LOreal SA, Mountaineer Brand Products, Mozzafiato, Mr Natty, Murdock Ltd, Newport Apothecary Inc., Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd., Revlon Inc, Scotch Porter, Smoky Mountain Beard Co., Texas Beard Co., The Estee Lauder Co. Inc., Truefitt and Hill, Unilever PLC, and VAUGHN Grooming LLC among others. Coverage: Key drivers, trends, and challenges; product insights and news; value chain analysis; parent market analysis; vendor landscape; COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis Key drivers, trends, and challenges; product insights and news; value chain analysis; parent market analysis; vendor landscape; COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis Segments: Distribution channel (offline and online) Distribution channel (offline and online) Geographies: Europe, North America , APAC, South America , and Middle East and Africa To understand more about market dynamics, Download our FREE sample report According to the recent market study by Technavio, the Beard Grooming Products Market size is expected to increase by USD 2.80 billion from 2021 to 2026, with an accelerated CAGR of 7.51%. The report provides a detailed analysis of drivers and opportunities, top winning strategies, competitive scenarios, future market trends, market size and estimations, and major investment pockets. Latest Challenges, Drivers, and Trends in the Market Beard Grooming Products Market Challenge Availability of counterfeit products Counterfeit products are made of low-quality ingredients and have various side effects. The rising number of counterfeit products will negatively impact the sales and pricing strategies of genuine vendors. These products are inexpensive, which poses a challenge to vendors in the branded beard grooming products market. Beard Grooming Products Market Driver Innovation and portfolio extension leading to product premiumization Vendors are focusing on improving their R&D operations. They are innovating their product ranges and expanding their product lines. The products have an adequate combination of superior-quality ingredients, which further leads to product premiumization. Therefore, high product premiumization and product line extension, along with growing expenditure on beauty products, will strengthen value sales in the global beard grooming products market. Beard Grooming Products Market Trend Growing demand for natural and organic beard grooming products Awareness about issues caused by using synthetic products has increased the demand for natural and organic beard grooming products, which use ingredients such as natural oils, plant extracts, and other natural ingredients. Manufacturers of beard grooming products are focusing on organic beard grooming products. Product line extension helps in differentiating offerings. Find additional information about various other market drivers, challenges, and trends mentioned in our FREE sample report Vendor Insights The beard grooming products market is fragmented, and the vendors are deploying organic and inorganic growth strategies to compete in the market. The key offerings of some of the vendors are listed below: Badass Beard Care LLC - The company offers beard grooming products such as beard oil and balm combo, beard kit, and grooming kit. Beardbrand - The company offers beard grooming products such as beard growth oil, wash, softener, and perfume. Beardoholic Co - The company offers beard grooming products such as shaving cream, shaving toolkits, and beard grooming kit. Find additional highlights on the vendors and their product offerings. Download Free Sample Report Regional Market Outlook The beard grooming products market share growth in APAC will be significant during the forecast period. China is the key country for the market in the region. Moreover, market growth in APAC will be faster than the growth of the market in other regions. The increased popularity of bears, growing fashion consciousness, rising awareness about premium and organic BPC products, and rapid urbanization will drive the beard grooming products market growth in APAC during the forecast period. For more key highlights on the regional market share of most of the above-mentioned countries, View our FREE PDF Sample Report Didn't Find What You Were Looking For? Customize Report Don't miss out on the opportunity to speak to our analyst and find more insights about this market report. Technavio can also help you customize this report according to your needs. Our analysts and industry experts will work directly with you to understand your requirements and provide you with customized data in a short amount of time. Here are Some Similar Topics Personal Care Market for Men by Product and Geography - Forecast and Geography 2022-2026: The personal care market size for men is projected to grow by USD 18.34 billion from 2021 to 2026. Men's Hair Care and Styling Products Market by Distribution Channel and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026: The men's hair care and styling products market share is expected to increase by USD 12.04 billion from 2021 to 2026. Beard Grooming Products Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 7.51% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 2.80 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 6.6 Regional analysis Europe, North America, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution APAC at 31% Key consumer countries US, China, UK, Germany, and France Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Key companies profiled Badass Beard Care LLC, Beardbrand, Beardoholic Co, Edgewell Personal Care Co, EVERY MAN JACK, Happily Unmarried Marketing Pvt Ltd, LOreal SA, Mountaineer Brand Products, Mozzafiato, Mr Natty, Murdock Ltd, Newport Apothecary Inc., Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd., Revlon Inc, Scotch Porter, Smoky Mountain Beard Co., Texas Beard Co., The Estee Lauder Co. Inc., Truefitt and Hill, Unilever PLC, and VAUGHN Grooming LLC Market dynamics Parent market analysis, market growth inducers and obstacles, fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Browse Consumer Staples Market Reports Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Global Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 09: Parent market Exhibit 10: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 11: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 12: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 13: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 16: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 17: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 18: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 19: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 20: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 21: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 22: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 23: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on Distribution Channel - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on Distribution Channel - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Distribution Channel Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by Distribution Channel Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by Distribution Channel 5.3 Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Chart on Offline - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Offline - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Chart on Online - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Online - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Market opportunity by Distribution Channel Exhibit 36: Market opportunity by Distribution Channel ($ million) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 37: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 38: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 40: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 41: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.4 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.5 APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on APAC - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on APAC - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.6 South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on South America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on South America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.7 Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 58: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 59: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) and - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Chart on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) and - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: Data Table on Middle East and Africa - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.8 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 62: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 63: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 64: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 66: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 67: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 68: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 71: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 72: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.11 China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 74: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 75: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 76: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 77: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 France - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 78: Chart on France - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 79: Data Table on France - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 80: Chart on France - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 81: Data Table on France - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.13 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 82: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 83: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 84: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 85: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 86: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 87: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 88: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 Badass Beard Care LLC Exhibit 89: Badass Beard Care LLC - Overview Exhibit 90: Badass Beard Care LLC - Product / Service Exhibit 91: Badass Beard Care LLC - Key offerings 10.4 Beardbrand Exhibit 92: Beardbrand - Overview Exhibit 93: Beardbrand - Product / Service Exhibit 94: Beardbrand - Key offerings 10.5 Beardoholic Co Exhibit 95: Beardoholic Co - Overview Exhibit 96: Beardoholic Co - Product / Service Exhibit 97: Beardoholic Co - Key offerings 10.6 Edgewell Personal Care Co Exhibit 98: Edgewell Personal Care Co - Overview Exhibit 99: Edgewell Personal Care Co - Business segments Exhibit 100: Edgewell Personal Care Co - Key news Exhibit 101: Edgewell Personal Care Co - Key offerings Exhibit 102: Edgewell Personal Care Co - Segment focus 10.7 LOreal SA Exhibit 103: LOreal SA - Overview Exhibit 104: LOreal SA - Business segments Exhibit 105: LOreal SA - Key news Exhibit 106: LOreal SA - Key offerings Exhibit 107: LOreal SA - Segment focus 10.8 Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd. Exhibit 108: Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 109: Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 110: Nykaa Fashion Pvt. Ltd. - Key offerings 10.9 Revlon Inc Exhibit 111: Revlon Inc - Overview Exhibit 112: Revlon Inc - Business segments Exhibit 113: Revlon Inc - Key offerings Exhibit 114: Revlon Inc - Segment focus 10.10 The Estee Lauder Co. Inc. Exhibit 115: The Estee Lauder Co. Inc. - Overview Exhibit 116: The Estee Lauder Co. Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 117: The Estee Lauder Co. Inc. - Key news Exhibit 118: The Estee Lauder Co. Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 119: The Estee Lauder Co. Inc. - Segment focus 10.11 Truefitt and Hill Exhibit 120: Truefitt and Hill - Overview Exhibit 121: Truefitt and Hill - Key offerings 10.12 Unilever PLC Exhibit 122: Unilever PLC - Overview Exhibit 123: Unilever PLC - Business segments Exhibit 124: Unilever PLC - Key news Exhibit 125: Unilever PLC - Key offerings Exhibit 126: Unilever PLC - Segment focus 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 127: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 128: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 129: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 130: Research methodology Exhibit 131: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 132: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 133: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio The Bethel Native Corporation has been awarded a $42 million grant from the NTIA to build a fiber network to Bethel, Platinum, Eek, Napaskiak, and Oscarville. The 405-mile network will start in Dillingham , follow a submarine route to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River, and then transition to an overland route to Bethel . , follow a submarine route to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River, and then transition to an overland route to . As BNC's subgrantee partner, GCI will construct and operate the fiber network. GCI will upgrade its existing cable plant in Bethel and deploy fiber-to-the-premises local access networks in the four other communities. and deploy fiber-to-the-premises local access networks in the four other communities. Consumers in these communities will have access to 2 gig consumer broadband service plans that include unlimited data and affordable prices. Customers who qualify for the Affordable Connectivity Program will be eligible for free internet service. The service is scheduled to launch in Bethel at the end of 2024. at the end of 2024. The Bethel fiber project will connect in Dillingham to another NTIA-funded fiber project to be constructed by Nushagak Telephone, which, in turn, connects to an USDA RUS-funded fiber network that connects to Anchorage . By leveraging other federal investment, BNC and GCI are using every NTIA Bethel grant dollar in the most efficient way possible. GCI has been awarded a $31 million USDA RUS ReConnect grant to construct long-haul fiber and local fiber in the Y-K Delta communities of Atmautluak, Kasigluk, Nunapitchuk, Quinhagak, and Tuntutuliak. GCI will construct and operate the fiber and will deploy fiber-to-the-premises local access networks in the five communities. Consumers in these communities will receive 2 gig consumer broadband service plans that include access to unlimited data and affordable prices. Customers who qualify for the Affordable Connectivity Program will be eligible for free internet service. This project will connect to the Bethel fiber, leveraging federal dollars in an efficient way. "The residents of the 10 grant communities are now looking forward to faster speeds, more data and having much more affordable plans in the coming years," said BNC President & CEO Ana Hoffman. "The people of the Y-K Delta are resourceful, respectful and resilient. We have a strong sense of community, and we depend upon collaboration with our friends and neighbors to be successful. We know the value of presence, and that is why I have so much confidence in this partnership between BNC and GCI and our collective commitment to deliver this service together." "Ana is fond of saying 'a first-class people deserve a first-class internet service.' We couldn't agree more," said GCI President & COO Greg Chapados. "GCI pledges to the people of the Y-K Delta, our partner BNC, and NTIA and RUS that we will build and operate a first-rate network that will not just narrow, but eliminate the rural-urban digital divide for the 10,000-plus residents of Bethel and the other served communities." In addition to Indigenous and community stakeholders, the push for federal support of Alaska's broadband projects, including the Airraq Network, also received broad support from state and federal leaders. "I was a big supporter of these projects and am thrilled about this announcement," said Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. "These types of infrastructure projects are some of the most important investments in Alaska today. These projects will finally bring high-speed, affordable internet to homes, businesses, schools, and health care facilities. High-speed broadband service will attract more investment in Alaska; it will grow our economy. Most importantly, it will create more job opportunities for our youth in the communities where they live." "Congratulations to Bethel Native Corporation and to all the villages in the area that are going to stand to benefit from this expansion of broadband," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski. "We've been working hard on the infrastructure bill, doing everything that we can to try to help facilitate, through NTIA, these grants and opportunities that will be coming to really connect all of Alaska, and most particularly rural Alaska. From Kasigluk to Eek, you're going to see benefits. This is good reason for celebration and I'm glad to be part of it." "Access to high-speed, reliable internet can be life-changing for a community, enhancing the delivery of health care and education, and opening doors for small businesses and entrepreneurs," said Sen. Dan Sullivan. "Many of our rural, Alaska Native communities for too long have found themselves without the broadband connectivity that most Americans take for granted. I'm glad to see the significant federal infrastructure dollars we secured being deployed to break down the digital divide and improve the lives and wellbeing of thousands of Alaskans across the Lower Kuskokwim region." "On this Indigenous Peoples' Day, I'm honored to join you in celebrating the NTIA and USDA awards to Bethel Native Corporation and GCI," said Rep. Mary Peltola. "With this funding, fiber service will be brought to residents in 10 communities, including Bethel, my home. My kids and I can't wait to enjoy the service we will have there once it's constructed. And the name for the network is just perfect." "It was a real pleasure to be able to visit with so many of you in August," said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson, recalling his trip to Western Alaska over the summer. "I was honored on that trip to meet with so many community members in places like Napaskiak and Napakiak and Bethel to hear firsthand from leading educators and health professionals. It was honestly humbling for me and for our team that was there to hear firsthand, to see the real connectivity challenges that people are facing on the ground and the real impacts that these grants could make. We know that delivering connectivity to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is critical, as we were hearing; access to jobs, healthcare, education, all the things that your community needs, but as you so clearly showed us on this visit, this is not just about bringing the internet to the Y-K Delta, this is also about bringing you all, your communities, your local knowledge, your beautiful culture to the broader internet community. And for that I think we are all going to be very grateful." "It's incredible, this big lift, and USDA Rural Development is so thrilled to just be a piece of that federal funding and we're so excited to be working alongside tribes, municipalities, and telecommunications companies like GCI to connect really remote and rural communities," said USDA Rural Development State Director for Alaska Julia Hnilicka. "I've had the honor to go out to the Y-K Delta a few times this summer and I have just been, as a lifelong Alaskan, so blown away by the beauty and the complexity of culture and I'm beyond-words-thrilled to be a part of even a small part of sharing that culture with the world. Internet connectivity is not just about what it brings in, but what we are able to share out from Alaska as well." "It has truly been my honor to work with the Bethel Native Corporation as well as GCI as we've worked through the process of bringing this application forward to fruition," said NTIA Division Chief, Tribal Connectivity and Nation to Nation Coordination Adam Geisler. "We're entering an age now where access to affordable, reliable broadband service is going to be at your fingertips here in the very near future and, again, I want to emphasize affordability." About BNC Bethel Native Corporation is respected as a business leader with offices in Bethel, Anchorage and the Lower 48. Bethel's companies engage in many diverse lines of business including government contracting, construction, logistical support, environmental remediation and commercial real estate. Learn more about BNC at https://bethelnativecorp.org. About GCI Headquartered in Alaska, GCI provides data, mobile, video, voice and managed services to consumer, business, government, and carrier customers throughout Alaska, serving more than 200 communities. The company has invested more than $4 billion in its Alaska network and facilities and has been serving Alaska for more than 40 years. GCI launched Alaska's first 1 gig and 2 gig internet service and Alaska's first standards-based 5G NR service. Learn more about GCI at www.gci.com. GCI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Broadband Corporation (Nasdaq: LBRDA, LBRDK, LBRDP). Learn more about Liberty Broadband at http://www.libertybroadband.com. SOURCE Bethel Native Corporation; GCI Title Sponsor Provides Pet Food Donation from Coast to Coast RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- October officially marks the kick-off of the 24th Annual Home for the Holidays campaign, sponsored by Blue Buffalo. For the fifth year in a row, the pet food company is providing animal rescue organizations and shelters on both coasts of the country a very special holiday gift by unloading a massive amount of free pet food in San Diego and New York City. At the same time, Naturally Fresh will also provide free pallets of their premium kitten litter to West Coast shelters. The media is invited to attend TOMORROW morning, Wednesday, Oct. 12, as representatives from West and East Coast animal groups pick up the high-quality food and litter for shelter pets in their care. Blue Buffalo has supported Helen Woodward Animal Center's Home 4 The Holidays campaign since 2013. Tweet this Rescue organizations throughout Southern California and New York will be gifted bags of pet food for their orphan pets thanks to the generosity of Blue Buffalo. Many animal welfare organizations struggle with limited funding and hungry mouths to feed, while juggling budgets with supply costs and medical expenses. The Coast-to-Coast Blue Buffalo Food Drop helps takes a big bite out of the financial strain; enabling shelters to focus on matching pets with loving families. Founded by Helen Woodward Animal Center in 1999, the Home 4 the Holidays campaign has helped place more than 19 million pets (in partnership with more than 4,000 participating global rescue groups) into loving homes. The program seeks to encourage families to find their four-legged family members at a shelter, rather than a pet store or breeder, during the holiday season when more families choose to bring home a new pet than any other time of the year. Blue Buffalo has supported Helen Woodward Animal Center's holiday campaign since 2013. Last year, Home 4 the Holidays resulted in more than 1 million dogs and cats united with loving families. "Blue Buffalo's mission is to love, feed and treat all pets like family," said Haley Perry, Consumer Activation at Blue Buffalo. "We believe every dog and cat deserves a loving, forever home where they are truly embraced as family. This holiday season, we hope people visit their local rescue centers and consider the love they can give to shelter pets." Many animal welfare organizations struggle with limited funding and hungry mouths to feed, while juggling budgets with supply costs and medical expenses. The Coast-to-Coast Blue Buffalo Food Drop helps takes a big bite out of the financial strain; enabling shelters to focus on matching pets with loving families. Blue Buffalo is delivering several truckloads of food to Helen Woodward Animal Center and the Center's partner, Paws Crossed Animal Rescue in New York. The much-needed holiday meals will be distributed to pet rescues and shelters within those regions. "Blue Buffalo has such a heart for pets," stated Helen Woodward Animal Center VP of Development Renee Resko. "The company is not only dedicated to providing nutritious food to pets in homes, they are also dedicated to animal adoption and making sure shelter pets find their happily-ever-afters. Each year they are the engine behind the push to promote adoption during the holiday season. This gift of free food is an incredible bonus to rescue facilities that really need it." "We are beyond thrilled and honored to be a part of Blue Buffalo's wonderful Home 4 the Holidays food donation," said Jennifer Angelucci, CEO of Paws Crossed Animal Rescue Inc. "This is the 5th year that Paws Crossed has been the eastern hub for this tremendous gift of over 40,000 pounds of pet food, to be used at Paws Crossed and distributed to numerous shelters on the East Coast. We are so grateful to our friends at Helen Woodward Animal Center, the west coast hub, for suggesting our participation in helping so many orphaned pets!" Helen Woodward Animal Center wants to continue to encourage rescue organizations to up their adoption efforts during the holiday season, when more families opt to bring home a new pet. For the fourth year, the Center is offering $25,000 and a custom kennel courtesy of Horizon Structures to the rescue organization that develops the most creative promotion to increase adoptions. There are many ways to get involved in the Blue Buffalo Home 4 the Holidays campaign including adopting and encouraging friends to adopt and then showing the world your newly adopted best friend by posting a photo at https://animalcenter.org/home-4-the-holidays/contest, or sharing on Twitter or Instagram with #IChoseToRescue and tagging @hwac and @bluebuffalo. For more information about the campaign or to find participating local shelters and rescues groups, go to https://animalcenter.org/home-4-the-holidays. The media is invited to attend on Wednesday morning, Oct. 12th, as local rescue groups arrive in shifts to pick up the generous Blue Buffalo food donation at West Coast-based Helen Woodward Animal Center (6523 Helen Woodward Way, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067) and East Coast-based Paws Crossed Animal Rescue Inc. (100 Warehouse Ln S, Elmsford, NY 10523). For information on Helen Woodward Animal Center, call 858-756-4117, visit www.animalcenter.org or stop by at 6461 El Apajo Road, Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067. About Home 4 the Holidays (H4TH) As one of the most successful pet adoption programs in the world, H4TH partners with thousands of animal organizations dedicated to finding forever homes for orphan pets. Founded by Helen Woodward Animal Center and in partnership with Blue Buffalo this year, the program began in 1999 with just 14 participating animal shelters in San Diego County. Since it began 22 years ago, partner organizations in the Home 4 the Holidays campaign have helped more than 19 million families experience the joy of pet adoption, including more than 1.6 million pet adoptions last year alone. For more information, please visit www.home4theholidays.org. About Helen Woodward Animal Center Helen Woodward Animal Center is a private, non-profit organization where "people help animals and animals help people." Founded in 1972 in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., the Center provides services for more than 90,000 people and more than 10,000 animals annually through adoptions, educational and therapeutic programs both onsite and throughout the community. Helen Woodward Animal Center is also the creator of the International Home 4 the Holidays pet adoption drive, the International Remember Me Thursday campaign and The Business of Saving Lives Workshops, teaching the business of saving lives to animal welfare leaders from around the world. For more information, go to: www.animalcenter.org. About Blue Buffalo Blue Buffalo, the country's #1 wholesome natural pet food, started with a promise made to a lovable Airedale named Blue who struggled with cancer, the leading cause of death in dogs. His family, the Bishops, wanted to feed him the best food possible, so they searched for food with high-quality ingredients, but decided to create something even better natural pet food for dogs and cats with nutritious ingredients, real meat first, and some of the highest standards in the industry. Since Day 1, BLUE's team of veterinarians and animal nutritionists have carefully selected high-quality, natural ingredients and upheld its True BLUE Promise to dog and cat pet parents real meat as the first ingredient with NO chicken (or poultry) by-product meals, NO corn, wheat or soy, and NO artificial flavors or preservatives. The result is a portfolio of high-quality, natural food and treats that both dogs and cats love. This simple idea: "Love them like family. Feed them like family." lives on today in every Blue Buffalo recipe. SOURCE Helen Woodward Animal Center The New Mobile App for Tradespeople Gets Upgrade with New Features & Applications BATON ROUGE, La., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The new and popular mobile app community known as LinkedIn for the skilled worker, releases its version 2.0. BoomNation recently rolled out the new version of its app with a more user-friendly experience and new features and capabilities. The app community is known for connecting tradespeople with employers who are looking for a better way to engage with and hire qualified skilled workers, share content and enhance project communications. BoomNation recently rolled out a new version of its app with a more user-friendly experience and new features and capabilities. The app community is known for connecting tradespeople with employers who are looking for a better way to engage with and hire qualified skilled workers, share content and enhance project communications. With thousands of skilled workers and employers already using the app, BoomNation is continuing to utilize its technology platform to modernize and optimize the workforce recruitment and project communications process between job seekers, hiring managers and project managers. Through the 2.0 upgrade, skilled workers will get plugged in with more relatable content, an improved and personalized community, and a new communications system specifically for their community. The founders say these improvements will lead to more and better-fitting jobs. "We keep hearing from our trades communities that one of their biggest challenges is the transparency of opportunity and we knew we had to create a community to solve the inefficiencies of bringing workers and employers together," said Brent Flavin, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of BoomNation. "With 2.0 we are continuing to enhance the platform to ensure a world-class experience for this forgotten workforce." BoomNation is built exclusively for skilled workers and employers. It serves tradespeople like welders, electricians, operators, pipefitters, and others who work in industries including construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, transportation and warehousing, utilities, and more. The app allows them to join the community, network, and promote their skills and craftsmanship, while also finding and applying for jobs. The new features of BoomNation 2.0 include: Enhanced user interface Robust and improved newsfeed with video and more real-time relevant content Ability to share and post videos, and to share and like posts Expanded messaging system with gifs and attachment options New direct messaging capabilities to help build networks Interactive jobs map that allows workers to zoom into a specific area and click on a job to see a pop-up preview of the job description and skills required New jobs postings in the newsfeed with interaction capabilities Ability to search jobs without logging in or creating an account, and prompts to create an account if you want to apply Company profile pages Profile wizard to walk new members through the onboarding process step-by-step Option for workers to add cards to their profiles, such as certifications Profile endorsements Employers can see and directly message job candidates right from their dashboard As BoomNation continues to improve the app's functionality, it will soon offer employers a searchable database of verified skills among workers to provide more efficient communication and interaction with just a few clicks. "As we continue our platform growth, we are excited by the opportunities now provided to workers and employers, and those that are coming," said Chris Meaux, Chairman and Co-CEO of BoomNation. "Word is spreading, and more employers are posting their jobs on BoomNation because they know it's where they can easily connect with and hire the tradespeople needed to fill their jobs." Since its launch in November 2021, BoomNation has built a community of thousands of workers and employers using the app to share content, network and connect with jobs nationwide. About BoomNation: BoomNation is modernizing and optimizing the blue-collar workforce recruitment process by creating an unprecedented bridge of communication between the employer and the skilled worker. With real-time job opportunities and a searchable database of verified skilled workers, employers can fill jobs fast by directly messaging and communicating with a potential hire or current workforce employee in just a few clicks. boomnation.com @boomnationusa @BoomNationJobs @BoomNation2 SOURCE BoomNation DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that Lauren Green has joined the firm's Dallas office as an associate in the Litigation Practice Group. Ms. Green's broad experience includes handling alleged claims involving the Lanham Act, unfair competition, and the Wage Hour Act, as well as matters concerning trade practices, breach of contract, non-compete, and employment related to long-haul COVID discrimination and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ms. Green received her J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law and her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. During law school, she served as an articles editor for the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy and as vice president of the Women in Law Association. She also served as a general litigation summer clerk in the Texas Office of the Attorney General. The addition of Ms. Green continues the significant growth of the firm's Dallas office, which has more than tripled in size over the last three years as part of Bradley's strategic plan to prioritize high-quality, high-value legal services for its clients in Texas and beyond. More than 70 Bradley lawyers are licensed in Texas, including more than 50 lawyers who work from the firm's offices in Dallas and Houston. About Bradley Bradley combines skilled legal counsel with exceptional client service and unwavering integrity to assist a diverse range of corporate and individual clients in achieving their business goals. With offices in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and the District of Columbia, the firm's more than 600 lawyers represent regional, national and international clients in various industries, including banking and financial services, construction, energy, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, real estate, and technology, among many others. Social Media: @bradleylegal, #legalnews, #lawyers SOURCE Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP Analysis of more than 1.1 million test results across the United States suggests more people are living with undiagnosed cancer than before the pandemic, with potential for worse outcomes and higher healthcare costs in the future SECAUCUS, N.J., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- More than two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, diagnoses of breast and prostate cancer, two of the nation's leading causes of cancer death, continue to lag behind pre-pandemic levels, according to a nationally representative Quest Diagnostics Health Trends study by Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services. Published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) Clinical Cancer Informatics, an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) journal, the study "New Cancer Diagnoses Still Lagging in United States in Second Full Year of COVID-19 Pandemic" analyzed rates of diagnoses of eight common types of cancer (prostate, breast, colorectal, lung, pancreatic, cervical, gastric and esophageal) of patients across the United States. Based on 1,144,879 deidentified results of diagnostic tests by Quest Diagnostics between January 2018 and March 2022, the study is believed to be the largest to evaluate the association of the pandemic on cancer diagnoses, based on objective laboratory data, in the United States. The analysis found that cancer diagnoses plummeted by close to 30% in the first few months of the pandemic in 2020, when much of society and healthcare shut down. While cancer diagnoses increased over the subsequent two years, the gains have not been enough to offset diagnoses delayed or missed earlier in the pandemic. The findings suggest more people are living with undiagnosed cancers now than prior to the pandemic. A delayed cancer diagnosis can lead to more advanced disease, more aggressive and costly treatment, and worse outcomes. The study follows unaffiliated research by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) showing the death rate from cancer declined by 32% between 1991 and 2019, the year before the pandemic began, with gains "attributed mainly to the unprecedented progress against lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer[i]." "The decline in the cancer death rate over the past three decades is a major healthcare achievement. And yet, our more recent analysis shows the pandemic, by delaying cancer diagnoses, is putting these gains at risk," said co-author Harvey W. Kaufman, MD, Senior Medical Director and Head of the Health Trends Research Program for Quest Diagnostics. The latest Quest Diagnostics analysis builds on two studies published by the company's medical team in JAMA Open Network in 2020 and 2021. Among the key findings: From March through May 2020 , the monthly number of new diagnoses fell 30% for the 8 cancer types: breast, colorectal, lung, pancreatic, cervical, gastric, esophageal, and prostate. Declines were significant for all cancer types. , the monthly number of new diagnoses fell 30% for the 8 cancer types: breast, colorectal, lung, pancreatic, cervical, gastric, esophageal, and prostate. Declines were significant for all cancer types. From June 2020 through March 2021 , the number of diagnoses declined 15% compared to pre-pandemic levels. through , the number of diagnoses declined 15% compared to pre-pandemic levels. From April 2021 to March 2022 (period 3), the number of diagnoses declined 11% compared to pre-pandemic levels. to (period 3), the number of diagnoses declined 11% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Diagnoses of prostate and breast cancer remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels as late as period 3, at 17% and 11% respectively. "While restrictions to travel and healthcare services lifted by summer 2020, our analysis reveals that the pandemic's adverse influence on utilization of preventative care and cancer screenings continues this year," said co-author Yuri Fesko, MD, Vice President, Medical Affairs, Quest Diagnostics. "As an oncologist, I am particularly disturbed by the finding that cancer diagnoses for breast and prostate cancer are well below pre-pandemic levels. We hope this study encourages people to resume regular preventive care and to move without delay to visit their physician if they suspect a health problem. Doing so may literally save your life." The Quest Diagnostics analysis has implications for hospitals and health systems, which are experiencing an increase in mastectomies (for breast cancer) and longer hospital stays for patients with prostate cancer along with other conditions that could have been caught in routine screenings.[ii] "Hospitals and health systems are struggling to keep up with sicker patients requiring greater care, a trend that our analysis suggests may worsen, at least for some cancers," said Dr. Fesko. The study's strengths include large size, national representation and use of objective laboratory data, while limitations include lack of racial and ethnic data. More than 600,000 people are expected to die of cancer 2022. Breast and prostate cancer are expected to account for nearly 30% of new cancer diagnoses in 2022.[iii] About Quest Diagnostics Health Trends Quest Diagnostics Health Trends is a series of scientific reports that provide insights into health issues, based on patient laboratory data, to empower better patient care, population health management and public health policy. The reports are based on the Quest Diagnostics database of more than 60 billion deidentified HIPAA-compliant laboratory test results, believed to be the largest of its kind in healthcare. Health Trends research has yielded novel insights into allergies and asthma, cancer, COVID-19, diabetes, heart disease, hepatitis, influenza, Lyme disease, prescription drug misuse and workplace wellness. Quest Diagnostics also produces the Drug Testing Index (DTI), a series of reports on national workplace drug positivity trends based on the company's employer workplace drug testing data. About Quest Diagnostics Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve healthcare management. Quest annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United States, and our nearly 50,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com For further information: For further information: Shawn Bevec (Investors): 973-520-2900 or Kim Gorode (Media): [email protected] [i] CancerProgressReport.org. Philadelphia: American Association for Cancer Research. Accessed September 23, 2022. [ii] Fitch Ratings. 2022 Mid-Year Outlook: U.S. Not for Profit Hospitals and Health Systems. https://www.fitchratings.com/research/us-public-finance/fitch-ratings-2022-mid-year-outlook-us-not-for-profit-hospitals-health-systems-16-08-2022. Accessed September 23, 2022. [iii] National Institutes of Cancer. Cancer Stat Facts: Common Cancer Sites. https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/common.html#:~:text=How%20Many%20People%20Die%20of,cancer%20in%20the%20United%20States. Accessed September 23, 2022 SOURCE Quest Diagnostics Developed by Maestra Ronera Jassil Villaneuva Quintana, only 460 Bottles of the Limited-Edition 'Andres Brugal' Sipping Rum and Travel-Inspired Case are Available Worldwide MIAMI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Home to 134 years of Dominican rum mastery, Brugal today unveils its newest and most exclusive expression to date, Andres Brugal. The ultra-premium rum was expertly crafted by fifth generation Maestra Ronera Jassil Villanueva Quintana as an homage to founder Andres Brugal's pioneering spirit of exploration and generations of maestros who traveled the globe to share the passion, warmth and joy of Brugal's liquid artistry. This is the brand's first ever release that skillfully blends two double aged reserves with first fill single casks. At $2,800 each, only 460 bottles are available worldwide, with 50 exclusively sold in the U.S. Brugal Unveils Rare $2,800 Luxury Expression, Honoring the Journey to 134 Years of Rum Mastery Andres Brugal is bottled in a crystal decanter etched in a diamond pattern redolent of the brands iconic netting, and presented in a cabinet inspired by the traveling cases earlier Maestros used. Experience the full interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/9096551-brugal-unveils-rare-luxury-expression-honoring-journey-rum-mastery/ "This limited-edition bottling is a journey that started over a century ago. Andres Brugal combines special single cask family reserves and our signature double aging technique to tell a dual story of my family's legacy of rum making, as well as my own as Maestra Ronera," said Jassil Villanueva Quintana. Andres Brugal's deep, warm and radiant amber liquid boasts rich, balanced notes of roasted coffee beans and freshly harvested Cacao, layered gently with the sweet fragrance of homemade dulce de leche fudge and the buttery softness of Dominican rum cake. On the palate, an enchanting combination of oak, vanilla bean and sweet caramel flan dance together in harmony, and are complimented by fresh ripe berries, delicate notes of aromatic black peppercorns and sweet cloves. The silky, long-lasting dry finish is intensely rich with warming, woody spices. Jassil Villanueva Quintana notes, "Quintessentially Dominican flavors combine to create an extraordinary liquid of astounding character that pushes the boundaries of discovery. With a touch of sweetness on the nose, and a well-rounded, long-lasting mouthfeel, this full-bodied rum is a true celebration of the distinctive flavors of Puerto Plata." Brugal and the Dominican Republic's youngest and first ever female master of rum, Jassil's vast knowledge of the casks around her is revealed in the incredible array of local flavors unlocked in this rare bottling. Andres Brugal is equal parts personal tribute to the treasures of her homeland of Puerto Plata and reverence for all she has learned from the generations before her. A staple of the Brugal family heritage, maestros are encouraged to pursue their own journey to bring out the very best of Brugal rum, progressively building on the accomplishments of their predecessors in a never-ending voyage of discovery that began with founder Don Andres. Settling in the Dominican Republic after journeying from Spain and Cuba, Don Andres Brugal founded Brugal in 1888 with his sons. They cultivated sugar cane first and then began to distill rum, harnessing the warmth of the tropical sun to cask-age and imbue their spirit with complexity and flavor. Don Andres then set sail once again to share the very best of Dominican rum with the world, and each successive generation of Maestros has since followed in his footsteps. They mastered the nuanced art of cask selection and ageing, which led to the brand's signature double ageing technique and use of Bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks. This exclusive release is bottled in a limited-edition, hand-blown crystal decanter and presented in a bespoke display cabinet inspired by the iconic traveling cases earlier Maestros used in their voyages. Rendered from American oak, its exterior surfaces are etched with an iconic diamond pattern redolent of the netting that surrounds many of Brugal's bottles a symbol of the need to protect precious cargo. Skillful joinery unfurls beautifully: twin segments fold down to reveal the hand-blown crystal decanter secreted within, and a sea of surrounding mirrored surfaces create a halo of reflected light that illuminates the rum's rich amber liquid. These surfaces are subtly etched with a map of the world, symbolic of Brugal's journey of excellence that began with the first journey of Don Andres' from Spain to the Caribbean. 134 years later, the legacy continues in an endless pursuit of perfection. Andres Brugal is the first of several ultra-premium releases anticipated from the legacy rum brand in the coming years. For more information on Brugal, the home of rum mastery in the Dominican Republic, please visit: www.brugal-rum.com ANDRES BRUGAL QUICK FACTS: $2,800 USD /bottle /bottle 460 bottles available worldwide and 50 exclusively in the U.S. 41.5% ABV A skillful blend of two double aged reserves with first fill single Bourbon and Oloroso sherry casks. Appearance : Deep warm radiant amber : Deep warm radiant amber Aroma : Rich notes of roasted coffee beans expertly balanced with the scent of freshly harvested Cacao, layered gently with the sweet fragrance of homemade dulce de leche fudge and the buttery softness of Dominican rum cake. : Rich notes of roasted coffee beans expertly balanced with the scent of freshly harvested Cacao, layered gently with the sweet fragrance of homemade dulce de leche fudge and the buttery softness of Dominican rum cake. Palate : An enchanting combination of oak, vanilla bean, and sweet caramel flan dance in harmony on the tongue, complemented by the freshness of ripe berries and delicate notes of warming aromatic black peppercorns and sweet cloves. : An enchanting combination of oak, vanilla bean, and sweet caramel flan dance in harmony on the tongue, complemented by the freshness of ripe berries and delicate notes of warming aromatic black peppercorns and sweet cloves. Finish: Intensely rich with warming woody spices to create a silky and complex long-lasting dry finish. ABOUT BRUGAL: Home to 134 years of rum mastery, Brugal is an award-winning premium rum producer from the Dominican Republic. An esteemed portfolio of high-quality, top shelf aged rums tells the story of five generations of liquid mastery that began in 1888 by legendary founder Andres Brugal. After traveling from Spain and Cuba, Don Andres and his family settled in Puerto Plata and began distilling a uniquely light and pure spirit, harnessing the warm, tropical sun to imbue their spirit with complexity and flavor to create elegant, aromatic and smooth Dominican rum. Since its foundation, Brugal's cherished traditions and production expertise has been passed down through five generations of Maestros Roneros, each continuing to innovate. This mindset ensures that each expression remains of the highest quality, yet relevant through the decades. Over 130 years later, the legacy of Brugal continues to bring out the very best in our rum. ABOUT EDRINGTON: Edrington's vision is to give more by crafting exceptional ultra-premium spirit brands. Edrington owns some of the leading Scotch whisky and rum brands in the world, including The Macallan, Brugal Rum, Highland Park, The Glenrothes, The Famous Grouse, Naked Malt and Noble Oak bourbon. Edrington also has strategic partnerships with No.3 London Dry Gin and Wyoming Whiskey in the American Whiskey category. Edrington is headquartered in Scotland and employs over 3,500 people in its wholly owned and joint venture companies, with over 70% employed overseas. We own our route to market in 16 countries and distribute our brands to more than 100 countries around the world through joint ventures and third-party agreements. Edrington's principal shareholder is The Robertson Trust, which has donated over 320 million to charitable causes in Scotland since 1961. Our business is underpinned by the Edrington values of giving, respect, integrity and excellence. MEDIA CONTACT: QUINN PR [email protected] SOURCE Edrington Prescription Discount Card Benefiting Nonprofits Year-round Reaches $6 Million Donation Milestone FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, BuzzRx, the only provider of free prescription discount cards benefiting nonprofits year-round, announced the company has reached a milestone of donating $6 million to Make-A-Wish, which equates to 600 life-changing wishes for children battling critical illnesses. In the past year alone, the company has donated more than $500,000 to help grant the wish of every eligible child. Continuing to grant wishes is critical to supporting BuzzRx's mission of helping make communities healthier. To mark the company's 600th wish milestone, BuzzRx helped grant 4-year-old Lydia's wish to meet her favorite animals. Queens, New York-based Lydia, who has endured eye surgery and countless rounds of chemotherapy since being diagnosed with retinoblastoma, went with her family to Animal Adventure Park in upstate New York. Together they toured the park with exclusive behind-the-scenes encounters with her favorite animals, including the highlight of visiting the giraffe houses. The trip also involved a stay at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park, where she got to run around in the fresh air while taking in all the excitement of the campground activities. BuzzRx Co-founder & CEO Matt Herfield said, "The entire BuzzRx team is beyond thrilled to help grant Lydia's wish in celebration of this donation milestone. We consider granting wishes vital work in the communities we serve and are incredibly grateful for our 8-year-long partnership with Make-A-Wish, which could make this special day possible for Lydia. It's been proven that granting wishes gives wish kids the strength and optimism they need to continue to persevere against challenging critical illnesses." "This incredible donation milestone by BuzzRx will have a large impact on our mission. Generous individuals and corporate partners fund our wish pipeline entirely," said Richard K. Davis, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish America. "Like Lydia, children battling a critical illness face physical and mental distress. A wish has a long-lasting impactproviding hope and giving these children a piece of their childhood back when they need it most." BuzzRx donates up to $1 every time someone saves using a free prescription discount card benefiting Make-A-Wish. Donations stay in the communities where the card was used to help grant wishes locally and do not affect discounted prices. The ready-to-use card can be used by anyone, insured or uninsured, and is accepted at over 60,000 pharmacies nationwide. Cardholders can save up to 80%, and the average BuzzRx customer saves 60% per prescription, resulting in over $1 billion in savings. Look up prescription discounts by zip code at BuzzRx.com and present the card at the pharmacy when filling or refilling a prescription. To learn more and get the free prescription discount card benefitting the Make-A-Wish, please visit https://www.buzzrx.com/wish. About BuzzRx: Founded in 2010 as Watertree Health, BuzzRx helps make communities healthier by making medicines more affordable and aligning with nonprofit partners that share their mission. The free prescription discount card benefiting nonprofits can help save up to 80% on brand name and generic medications while supporting Make-A-Wish, ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), National Kidney Foundation, and fifteen regional food banksat no cost to the cardholder. To date, BuzzRx has helped Americans save $1 billion on prescriptions and has donated more than $8 million to their nonprofit partners. To learn more about BuzzRx, visit buzzrx.com. About Make-A-Wish Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Make-A-Wish is the #1 most trusted nonprofit operating locally in all 50 states throughout the U.S. Together with generous donors, supporters, staff, and more than 24,000 volunteers across the country, Make-A-Wish delivers hope and joy to children and their families when they need it most. Make-A-Wish aims to bring the power of wishing to every child with a critical illness because wish experiences can help improve emotional and physical health. Since 1980, Make-A-Wish has granted more than 520,000 wishes in nearly 50 countries worldwide; more than 350,000 wishes in the U.S. and its territories alone. For more information about Make-A-Wish America, visit wish.org. Media Contact: Allyson Noonan [email protected] SOURCE BuzzRx SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The California Child Care Resource & Referral Network, a non-profit organization helping to make reliable child care more affordable and accessible for families in California, has launched MyChildCarePlan.org, a new website specifically developed to provide California's parents with the information they need to make the best possible child care choices for their families. Using the site's search tool, parents and families are able to learn what child care providers are in their neighborhood, which have space and availability, their approaches to care, languages spoken, experience in meeting medical and special needs, and more. Data is collected through state records and by local child care specialists, meaning the information on the site is reliable, unbiased, and free to use for both parents and providers. California Child Care Resource & Referral Network Executive Director Linda Asato hopes this resource can dramatically change parents' child care search experience. "We are proud to support MyChildCarePlan.org as a new website and resource for all of California. We understand how challenging it can be for families to find affordable quality child care, and are pleased to launch this site to help ensure they have access to a trustworthy, easy-to-use platform to alleviate these challenges." In addition to a search tool, the site offers information and support resources. Parents can learn how to get financial help to pay for child care, check on licensing information about providers, get expert tips on how to support their child's learning and development, and much more. Families can get personalized, one-on-one support offline, too, via the child care consumer education hotline or by contacting their county's local Child Care Resource and Referral Agency (R&R), where they can speak to a local specialist who can provide personalized support in their journey to find the right child care for them. Asato says that this new site is different from other resources out there because it puts the power in the hands of families. "We're different because we are working to build genuine trust with families. We are empowering the user. Parents now have better and more up-to-date information, and providers have a free way to promote their services and share real-time availability. For such a long time, finding child care was an ongoing burden to families who have had to navigate a complex web of information. Now there is a better way to find child care in California." For more information, visit: MyChildCarePlan.org. The California Child Care Resource & Referral Network is a non-profit membership organization of 58 of California's child care resource and referral agencies (R&R), dedicated to promoting affordable, quality child care through research, education, policy, and advocacy. MyChildCarePlan.org is a project of the California Child Care Resource & Referral Network. MyChildCarePlan.org is a search and support website designed to provide California's families with the information they need to make the best possible child care choices for their children. The site offers a highly customizable child care search tool and live support from local experts to help parents to find child care that meets their family's unique needs. With MyChildCarePlan.org, families can access the information they need to find child care they can trust, and providers can easily promote their services to families who need them. Now there is a better way to find child care in California. SOURCE California Child Care Resource & Referral Network MIAMI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Cansortium Inc. (CSE: TIUM.U) (OTCQX: CNTMF) ("Cansortium" or the "Company"), a vertically-integrated cannabis company operating under the Fluent brand, today announced that Patricia Fonseca has tendered her resignation as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Company, effective November 21, 2022. Patricia, who joined Cansortium in March 2021, will work with the Company over the next month to ensure an orderly transition. The Company has retained a leading executive search firm to find its next CFO. "On behalf of the entire Company, I would like to sincerely thank Patricia for her dedication and contribution to the business," said Chief Executive Officer Robert Beasley. "She has been a key contributor to our leadership team and was instrumental in promoting financial discipline within the Company and providing strategic support to the Company's operational growth. We wish her the best in the next phase of her career." "It's been a privilege to have been a part of Cansortium's turnaround over the past couple of years," said Patricia Fonseca. "I am proud of the work we accomplished and believe the company is well-positioned to continue driving growth and profitability. I look forward to watching Cansortium's leadership and success in the years to come." About Cansortium Inc. Cansortium is a vertically-integrated cannabis company with licenses and operations in Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. The Company operates under the Fluent brand and is dedicated to being one of the highest quality cannabis companies for the communities it serves. This is driven by Cansortium's unrelenting commitment to operational excellence in cultivation, production, distribution and retail. The Company is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Cansortium Inc.'s common shares trade on the CSE under the symbol "TIUM.U" and on the OTCQX Best Market under the symbol "CNTMF". For more information about the Company, please visit www.getfluent.com. Forward-Looking Information Certain information in this news release may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may also contain statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "targets", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "an opportunity exists", "is positioned", "estimates", "intends", "assumes", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections, or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent the Company's expectations, estimates, and projections regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on many opinions, assumptions, and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of this news release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to the factors described in the public documents of the Company available at www.sedar.com. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company; however, these factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. For further information: www.getfluent.com. Company Contact Robert Beasley, CEO (850) 972-8077 investors.getfluent.com Investor Relations Contact Sean Mansouri, CFA Elevate IR (720) 330-2829 [email protected] SOURCE Cansortium Inc Census achieves Google Cloud Ready BigQuery designation to simplify access to data and enable users to act and automate using BigQuery insights SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Census, a leading reverse ETL platform that syncs customer data from data warehouses to key business tools, today announced that it has achieved Google Cloud Ready BigQuery designation. By earning this designation, Census has proven it meets a core set of functionality and interoperability requirements when integrating with BigQuery. Legacy data management platforms and point-to-point solutions tend to be inaccurate and prone to errors. Census designed Reverse ETL to sit on top of the data warehouse and sync data with any software or business tool. Rather than having to migrate data between applications, Census provides data access from a single source of truth, ensuring that data is always current, consistent, and complete. With the Google Cloud Ready BigQuery certification, data and operations teams can set up Census workflows that seamlessly integrate with BigQuery in a matter of hours. Google Cloud Ready BigQuery is a partner integration validation program that increases customer confidence in partner integrations into BigQuery. As part of this initiative, Google engineering teams validate partner integrations into BigQuery in a three-phase process: run a series of data integration tests and compare results against benchmarks, work closely with partners to fill any gaps, and refine documentation for our mutual customers. "Companies are working with a range of partners and applications alongside BigQuery to create new value with their data as they digitally transform their business," said Ritika Suri, Director, Technology Partnerships, Google Cloud. "The Google Cloud Ready BigQuery designation indicates that Census' integrations with BigQuery help deliver excellent value and results for customers that are looking to drive data-driven decisions across their organization." Now, customers can have an additional level of confidence that Census works seamlessly with BigQuery. Census syncs large volumes of data at scale and provides a library of pre-built integrations to popular cloud applications, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Intercom, Google Sheets, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and dozens of others. "The BigQuery certification gives our customers confidence that Census Reverse ETL has been tested to be fully compatible with the Google Cloud data warehouse," said Boris Jabes, CEO of Census. "We are committed to operationalizing data across all data repositories, so our Google Cloud certification is an important step forward." Census will continue collaborating closely with Google Cloud engineering partners and BigQuery teams to develop new solutions that help joint customers extract more value from data stored in the cloud. For more information, visit Census's announcement here. About Census Census turns data warehouses into a hub for business operations, empowering everyone with trustworthy and actionable data. With its reverse ETL (extract, transfer, and load) tool, data teams can validate and publish analytics directly into all their applications in real time. Hundreds of companies like Canva, Figma, Loom, and Notion use Census to sync billions of records to empower their customer success, sales, and marketing teams. Census is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, Sequoia, and Tiger Global. For more information, visit https://www.getcensus.com or follow @census on Twitter. SOURCE Census The program is free and open to individuals and organizations with expertise in building 3D geospatial applications on the Cesium Platform. PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- 3D geospatial software company Cesium has announced a new Certified Developer Program to recognize the expertise of developers who build on the platform and connect them with those who want to build innovative 3D geospatial metaverse applications. The program is free and open to both individuals and organizations. Benefits include official credentials, a liaison to provide support, share roadmap updates and collect feedback, as well access to commercial Cesium products and content. Certified developers will be featured on Cesium's website and connected to those in the community with 3D geospatial development needs. "The Cesium community has grown through the tremendous support of our developer community," said Shehzan Mohammed, Director of 3D Ecosystems and Engineering at Cesium. "Through this program, we want to enable developers and customers to connect and continue building top-tier 3D geospatial applications using Cesium." Inaugural members of the program include: Air Force Research Lab Botts Innovative Research, Inc. Camptocamp Gaia3D Pelican Mapping SimCentric Technologies Terria V2i Realtime Visit https://cesium.com/learn/certifications to learn more or apply. About Cesium - 3D Geospatial for the Metaverse Cesium is the open 3D geospatial platform for the metaverse. Cesium created 3D Tiles, the open standard for streaming massive 3D geospatial data. With offerings like the open source Cesium for Unreal plugin, we're empowering creators to build digitized worlds with real-world data at scale. SOURCE Cesium AMERSFOORT, Netherlands, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CLEVR, the fast-growing European technology solutions company, has strengthened its leadership team. The software and services company has appointed Jeroen Hanekamp as CEO. Hanekamp has deep experience founding, scaling, and integrating technology companies. Robert Pijselman, chairman of the CLEVR supervisory board Jeroen Hanekamp, CEO of CLEVR Hanekamp said: "I'm excited by the role CLEVR can play in helping customers deal with the current global uncertainty. It is more crucial than ever that companies optimize processes to save time, reduce costs, and innovate. This is where CLEVR excels." CLEVR helps companies deploy software strategically to create value. To do so, it leans on decades of experience and the combination of software expertise, industry knowledge, and business consulting. Other additions to the leadership team include Camilo Gaviria (Chief Solutions Officer), Saskia van der Velden (VP of People), and Arnoud Kool (VP of Services and Support). They join Magnus Normann (Chief Revenue Officer) and Rob Blasman (Chief Financial Officer) to round out the executive team. Robert Pijselman, chairman of the CLEVR supervisory board, said: "I have every confidence in Jeroen and his team to drive CLEVR's growth as a leading technology solutions company in Europe." Having been interim CEO, Pijselman handed over the reins to Hanekamp in September. Hanekamp, Gaviria, and Van der Velden most recently held senior roles at Dassault Systemes. While Kool is a respected technology services director, having led teams at Accruent and BlueCielo. All are seasoned and entrepreneurial leaders in the software and services sector. CLEVR is unique among Siemens partners, combining expertise in both product lifecycle management (PLM) and low-code (Mendix) software solutions. "Our customers are global leaders focused on delivering the products and services of tomorrow. CLEVR helps them build the future by harnessing our software and industry expertise," said Hanekamp. ABOUT CLEVR: CLEVR is a technology solutions company operating in 18 countries (including Australia, UAE, Japan, USA, Canada, and the UK). Its main hubs are in the Netherlands, Norway, and Germany. A growing team of 250+ people (including 150+ Certified Mendix developers) provide solutions, services, tooling, and training to over 400 customers. These include Continental, ING, eXp Realty, Siemens Financial Services, Rituals, Cargolux, Nutricia, Kongsberg Maritime, Omron, Nexans, Eneco, Etos, Stella Bikes, Mondi Group, and T-Systems. www.clevr.com "We help our clients build the future bringing together technology and industry expertise." Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1916273/Robert_Pijselman_CLEVR_chairman.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1916274/Jeroen_Hanekamp_CLEVR_CEO.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1916272/CLEVR_Logo.jpg SOURCE CLEVR VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Copper Mountain Mining Corporation (TSX: CMMC) (ASX: C6C) (the "Company" or "Copper Mountain") will be hosting a conference call on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 7:30 am (Pacific Time) for senior management to discuss its third quarter 2022 results. The Company will be releasing its third quarter 2022 financial and operating results before markets open on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. Dial-in information: Toronto and international: 1 (416) 764 8650 North America (toll-free): 1 (888) 664 6383 Webcast: https://app.webinar.net/o02KkbQGrNJ Replay information: Toronto and international: 1 (416) 764 8677, Passcode: 740492# North America (toll-free): 1 (888) 390 0541, Passcode: 740492# The conference call replay will be available until 8:59 pm (Pacific Time) on November 16, 2022. An archive of the audio webcast will also be available on the company's website at http://www.cumtn.com. About Copper Mountain Mining Corporation Copper Mountain's flagship asset is the 75% owned Copper Mountain Mine located in southern British Columbia near the town of Princeton. The Copper Mountain Mine currently produces approximately 100 million pounds of copper equivalent per year. Copper Mountain also has the development-stage Eva Copper Project in Queensland, Australia and an extensive 2,100 km2 highly prospective land package in the Mount Isa area. Copper Mountain trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CMMC" and Australian Stock Exchange under the symbol "C6C". Additional information is available on the Company's web page at www.CuMtn.com. On behalf of the Board of COPPER MOUNTAIN MINING CORPORATION "Gil Clausen" Gil Clausen President and Chief Executive Officer Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as "plans", "expects", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes" or variations of such words, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance and opportunities to differ materially from those implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include the risks set out in Copper Mountain's public documents, including in each management's discussion and analysis, filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although Copper Mountain believes that the information and assumptions used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Except where required by applicable law, Copper Mountain disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. SOURCE Copper Mountain Mining Corporation DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Wilson Allen, specialists in legal technology consulting and services, and Crayon, Microsoft's third-largest Cloud Service Provider globally, announced today they have entered into a strategic partnership. This agreement will strengthen both companies' offerings and provide value to professional firms looking to run next-generation, cloud-enabled analytics solutions by combining Crayon's expertise in IT services and innovation with Wilson Allen's focus on the professional services sector. "The partnership brings together two organizations with mutually beneficial strengths that meet a critical need for law firmsthe ability to extract better and quicker value from Microsoft's modern analytics technologies," said Wilson Allen Chief Strategy Officer Norm Mullock. "Winning new business is an ongoing challenge for law firms. To do this, they need to understand exactly what they do well and devise business strategies that help them do more of it. New cloud-based analytics solutions have a fundamental role in helping law firms understand their business better," Mullock said. "They provide access to broader data over and above traditional financial information, giving law firms more informed, actionable insights." Tara Webb, VP of Business Development, Crayon, said "Wilson Allen is the market and industry-leading technology services firm and the most accomplished partner to introduce this advanced technology to the law firm sector." Wilson Allen and Crayon have collaborated on Wilson Allen's latest business intelligence offering called the Wilson Data Cloud. This is a service-enabled technology that allows customers to leverage Microsoft's cloud-based analytical tools. Using new-generation Microsoft cloud technology, the Wilson Data Cloud provides firms with an extensible and responsive analytical platform that can readily evolve as new business initiatives arise. "As one of Microsoft's largest global partners, Crayon is an unsurpassed source of technical knowledge," said Mullock. "They will help us develop additional functionality to support the Wilson Data Cloud offering as it gathers market momentum. We will also draw on Crayon's consulting expertise to help our customers quickly establish a cloud environment and provide high-level expertise in AI and ML." Crayon has an award-winning Data and AI practice that works with customers worldwide to drive more business value through innovative solutions. "Wilson Allen understands the professional services technology market, the core applications, and the service-oriented paradigm that professional services and law firms are calling for to help them compete," said Bart Czernicki, SVP of Technology Solution Sales, in Crayon US. "These new Microsoft offers can help firms discover a more profound level of information than has been available previously. We are extremely excited to work in lockstep with Wilson Allen to realize the customer transformation benefits a modern analytics solution can bring." About Wilson Allen Wilson Allen specialists are trusted by the operational leaders of the world's largest law firms and professional services organizations to deliver the consulting and managed services needed to run their businesses more profitably by optimizing their use of technology and data. Wilson Allen + LAC Group have more than 350 employees, and serve over 950 customers in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe. CONTACT: Melanie Coffee VP of PR and Communications [email protected] +47 46 74 86 48 About Crayon Crayon is a customer-centric innovation and IT services company with over 3,300 employees across 47 countries. We optimize businesses' IT estate to help them innovate with expertise they can trust. Our services create value for companies to thrive today, and scale for tomorrow. For more information, visit www.crayon.com. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/crayon/r/crayon-and-wilson-allen-enter-into-a-strategic-partnership,c3646378 SOURCE Crayon Crispin Porter + Bogusky welcomes an expanded leadership team and new clients as the agency doubles down on modern growth audiences. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Crispin Porter Bogusky (CP+B) has announced a new leadership team following a suite of new business wins. Brad Simms joins as Global CEO with his remit spanning CP+B's three regions including North America, the United Kingdom and Brazil. Simms will continue his role as CEO of GALE and Chief Product Officer of Stagwell Media Network, and steward CP+B as it cements its positioning as the agency for modern growth audiences. As part of the expanded leadership team, Josh Braithwaite has been appointed North American Chief Creative Officer. Braithwaite is a creative leader who has ignited real change for some of the biggest brands in the world, including Adidas, Instagram and Google. Stefani Chambers joins the team as Group Strategy Director, North America, bringing with her 18 years' experience within the Central American and Hispanic markets as both a multilingual brand strategist and an Effie award-winning creative director. Additionally, CP+B Europe CEO Helen James will take on a wider business development focus globally. CP+B LATAM CEO Vinicius Reis will expand his remit to lead global mergers and acquisitions. "CP+B's position as the agency for modern growth audiences is driving its resurgence with clients recognizing the power of connecting with often-underrepresented segments, from female buyers to Latin and 55+," Simms says. "Now is the right time to reset the CP+B leadership team and come together in support of one unified global vision." "There's an incredible energy around CP+B right now. Ambitious people. Ambitious new client partners and the most ambitious agency brand in the world. It's a hell of a lot of fun," Braithwaite says. The expanded leadership team will support CP+B's client momentum with the recent addition of Lenovo, Tinder, GoFundMe and Consumer Cellular. "After doubling down on our modern growth audiences approach, we're thrilled to see it resonate with Lenovo, Tinder, GoFundMe and Consumer Cellular. These wins show the demand to address underrepresentation, and for creative and media services to be delivered through one partnership," James says. "CP+B has a long history of unbelievable work. This work is tightly coupled creative and media execution, a formula that continues to resonate." For more information: [email protected] About Crispin Porter + Bogusky CP+B is a part of the newly formed Brand Performance Network, with offices in North America, London and Sao Paulo. CP+B has been named Agency of the Decade by Advertising Age and Agency of the Year 13 times in its history. CP+B is also the only agency to have won the Cannes Titanium Grand Prix three times. www.cpbgroup.com About Stagwell Brand Performance Network Stagwell's Brand Performance Network is a group of leading creative, media, and commerce agencies home to more than 6,000 experts with an expansive global footprint across 60 offices in 20 countries, managing $5 billion in media. The network includes creative agencies GALE, Forsman & Bodenfors, Crispin Porter Bogusky, Vitro, and Observatory, media agencies Assembly, MMI Agency, Goodstuff and Grason, B2B specialists Multiview, multi-lingual content agency Locaria, travel and media experts Ink, and commerce experts Brand New Galaxy. The network offers marketers a more dynamic partner for global B2B and B2C connected solutions spanning data, technology, media, and creativity aimed at accelerating business growth for brands worldwide. SOURCE Stagwell Inc. Veristor Recognized on the Prestigious List of Elite Solution Providers for Fifth Time ATLANTA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Veristor Systems, Inc., a trusted provider of transformative business technology solutions, today announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Veristor as a 2022 Triple Crown Award winner. The Triple Crown Award is reserved for those select few companies that earn a spot on all three of CRN's prestigious solution provider award lists in the same calendar year. "It's an exceptional honor to be named again to the CRN Triple Crown list," said Ashby Lincoln, President and CEO, Veristor. "We look forward to collaborating with the talented people of Anexinet in the coming year as we work shoulder-to-shoulder with our customers at every step of their technology journey to deliver business solutions that are truly transformative. This recognition is a testament to the hard work and passion of our entire team." Now in its ninth year, the CRN Triple Crown Award spotlights top North American solution providers for displaying a tireless commitment to achieving high revenue, company growth, and unparalleled technical expertise within the IT channel. To qualify for the CRN Triple Crown Award, companies must earn a place on CRN's Solution Provider 500, a ranking of the largest IT solution providers by revenue in North America; the Fast Growth 150, a ranking of high-growth organizations in the channel; and the Tech Elite 250, which recognizes solution providers that have attained top-level certifications from leading technology vendors in the industry. Being chosen for even one of these prestigious lists is an honor worth celebrating, but meriting a spot on all three lists in a single year demonstrates a rare combination of market leadership, sales acumen and technical prowess. "The solution providers that have earned this year's Triple Crown Award have demonstrated an unceasing enthusiasm towards technical mastery, innovative thinking, consistent growth, and high-caliber customer service within the North American IT industry," said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. "This award represents a chosen company's ability to go above and beyond, and we're excited to see where their dedication, their expertise, and their passion will take them as we venture forward into the future of the IT channel industry." This year's Triple Crown Award winners will be featured in the October 2022 issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/triplecrown. About Veristor Systems, Inc. Veristor, which recently announced a merger with Anexinet, is a leading provider of transformative business technology solutions that helps its customers accelerate the time-to-value for the software, infrastructure and systems they deploy. We do this by harnessing deep expertise in today's most advanced data center, security, networking, hybrid cloud, and big data technologies and guiding businesses to the right solutions for their most pressing challenges. And with a full suite of design, deployment, support, and managed service offerings, we work shoulder-to-shoulder with our customers at every step of their technology journey to make technology truly work for them. IT's just who we are. Learn more at veristor.com. About The Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com Follow The Channel Company: Twitter , LinkedIn, and Facebook . 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved. SOURCE Veristor Systems, Inc. SAN RAMON, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Marilyn Suey, CFP and an Accredited Investment Fiduciary with The Diamond Group Wealth Advisors, based in San Ramon, Calif., was featured in an article in a recent issue of Advisors Magazine, titled, "Putting People Ahead of Portfolios." The magazine asked her: "What needs to fundamentally change in the financial industry that you feel has been missing in the dialogue and approach for investors today?" Diamond Group Wealth Advisors Diamond Group Wealth Advisors Founder Marilyn Suey Profiled in Advisors Magazine She replied: "Our practice focuses on more than just investment returns for our clients. Our clients are focused on living their ideal lifestyle, starting today, tomorrow and for life." Financial advisors should provide a holistic approach to their clients' lifestyles and their financial plans, she said. Having a conversation that covers more than our client's money is key to providing clarity and confidence in one's path to financial independence. "It is not selling products or one-stop solutions. It is the comprehensive discussion that is customized for each family, each business owner or executive, so that they can focus on enjoying their lifestyle, and the people and causes they care about deeply," she said. The Diamond Group offers a complimentary Prosperity Blueprint conversation for people in their 50s and 60s who either own their businesses or who are C-Suite executives. About Advisors Magazine Advisors Magazine provides in-depth analyses of successful corporate executives, business owners and professionals, along with topical investigative news reporting, combining a trade approach with a journalistic emphasis. About The Diamond Group Wealth Advisors The Diamond Group Wealth Advisors is an independent wealth management firm that empowers its clients to design and define their ideal lifestyles starting today, for tomorrow and for life. We follow a disciplined planning process that enables our clients to build their customized Prosperity Blueprint that guides them as they travel on their path toward financial independence. Our clients understand that their wealth is more than their money. Working with us, using our Prosperity BluePrint process, we help guide our clients to take care of their families, and the people and causes they care about deeply. For information, go to www.diamondgroupwealthadvisors.com Marilyn Suey is a registered representative with, and securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Strategic Wealth Advisors Group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Strategic Wealth Advisors Group, LLC. and The Diamond Group Wealth Advisors are separate entities from LPL Financial. CA Insurance License #0E01981. Contacts: Marilyn Suey 925-219-0080 [email protected] Lorna Stegall 817-807-2257 [email protected] SOURCE Diamond Group Wealth Advisors - Acquisition of Cadella Aesthetics Increases MSP Presence in Chicago Area to Three Clinics - TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - MedSpa Partners Inc. ("MSP") is proud to welcome Dr. Eliza Parker and her team at Cadella Aesthetics to its top-tier North American medical aesthetics platform. With two full-service medical aesthetics clinics in Chicago, Cadella is renowned for offering unrivaled personal and compassionate care for thousands of patients over more than a decade. In founding Cadella, Dr. Parker combined her exacting medical training honed at Harvard and Cornell with vanguard aesthetic medicine techniques to create a standard of care that emphasizes patient safety and the highest quality personalized outcomes. Refined by a team of highly qualified and experienced practitioners, the Cadella commitment to patient experience has been recognized through numerous awards, including Cadella being named one of the Top 10 Medspas in the Country by AmSpa, the leading industry association. Speaking on her decision to join MedSpa Partners, Dr. Parker shared, "At Cadella, we pride ourselves on providing individualized, thoroughly attentive care to each and every one of our patients. Therefore, it was imperative to partner with an acquisition platform that shares our dedication to excellence when creating patient experiences. Not only does MSP share this commitment, their approach of honoring and supporting the practices that make each clinic unique gave me the reassurance that we will be able to continue to operate in the way that we know is best for our patients and team." Dominic Mazzone, CEO of MedSpa Partners, stated, "As a Chicago native, I'm thrilled to see the rapid expansion of MSP in Chicago, and we couldn't ask for a better partner than Dr. Parker and the outstanding team at the two Cadella locations. There are many clinics that claim to deliver great patient experience, but the genuine energy and enthusiasm conveyed by Cadella's patients in their testimonials really sets them apart and showcases how unique and special their approach is to delivering MSP's goal of Michelin Star patient experiences. We look forward to supporting the Cadella team's commitment to patients and sharing their best practices with other MSP clinics." About MedSpa Partners Inc. MedSpa Partners is acquiring North America's leading Medical Aesthetics clinics, with the goal of allowing our industry-leading partners to achieve their personal and professional aspirations by creating world-class customer experiences through support, collaboration, and community. MSP is a portfolio company of Persistence Capital Partners, the leading private equity fund exclusively focused on high-growth opportunities in the healthcare field. Additional information on MSP is available at www.medspapartners.com. SOURCE MedSpa Partners Inc. NEWARK, N.J., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- October is International Dyslexia Month, and Ameer Baraka, award-winning, Emmy Nominated Actor, author, and dyslexia advocate, has launched his newest book, "UNDIAGNOSED: The Ugly Side of Dyslexia." The book promotes early detection of the learning disability in schools, and awareness and support for prison inmates in the United States. "Undiagnosed: The Ugly Side of Dyslexia" UNDIAGNOSED: The Ugly Side of Dyslexia is an enlightening read detailing the often-traumatic experiences of illiterate children and adults. It is an inspiring tale of grit, determination, and perseverance. A must-read for families and educators, and a relevant teaching tool for literacy leaders everywhere. Dr. Terrie Noland, Vice President of Educator Initiatives for Learning Ally, wrote the foreword for the book, saying, "As I read Ameer's story, I felt like I was sitting with a secret of what to do as a parent, educator, and literacy leader. I wanted to shake my fists in the air, and tell everyone that we collectively failed Ameer, and we cannot continue to let this happen to anyone else." As a poor kid growing up in New Orleans, Ameer suffered unnecessarily with the consequences of illiteracy not fitting in, feeling stupid, dropping out of school, juvenile detention, delinquency and adjudication, mental health, drugs, prison. Ridiculed at home and at school, Ameer was told repeatedly he was lazy and unmotivated. Feeling isolated and fearful, Ameer turned to the streets and a life of crime. He did not learn he was dyslexic until age 23 in the state prison system. Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability and neurobiological in origin, characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, and poor spelling and decoding. In the U.S., approximately 43 million people have dyslexia, including an estimated 20% of students in schools or one in five. Many more students, like Ameer, go undiagnosed. Dyslexia runs in families and occurs in people of all backgrounds and intellectual levels. People with dyslexia may struggle with comprehension and organizational skills, planning and prioritizing, keeping time, and concentrating. With appropriate evidence-based instruction based in the science of reading, students with dyslexia can learn successfully. In 2016, Ameer Baraka gave testimony on his firsthand experiences with Dyslexia at the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) committee hearing on Dyslexia chaired by Senator Bill Cassidy. Consequently, in 2018, Senator Cassidy's provision providing for the screening of inmates for dyslexia was included in the latest version of the First Step Act. In 2021, Ameer partnered with Learning Ally, a national nonprofit education solutions provider, working with more than 450,000 educators to improve literacy and equity for disadvantaged students struggling to read in Pre-K-12. He keynoted Learning Ally's annual Spotlight on Dyslexia virtual conference, where educators and parents can learn about the latest research on brain-based learning, and effective teaching practices. The actor and dyslexic activist continues to lead the charge in solving the literacy crisis in America's schools and prison systems. His message to young people: "You can overcome meager beginnings and learn to thrive academically through early diagnosis, understanding parents, educators trained in the science of reading, strong faith, and the pursuit of a good education." Ameer Baraka will star in Tyler Perry's Zatima, a number 1 comedy/drama on BET. To purchase UNDIAGNOSED: The Ugly Side of Dyslexia visit Amazon or purchase direct. About Ameer Baraka and his non-profit, Dyslexia Awareness Foundation. http://kingbaraka.com. About Learning Ally and Spotlight on Dyslexia. www.learningally.org. McCoral Publishing, a subsidiary of Simple Words Books, is a premier publisher in the neurodiversity genre, focusing on shining light on learning differences and increasing awareness by sharing real-life stories such as Ameer's. Contact: Valerie Chernek 410-960-4060 / [email protected] SOURCE Ameer Baraka Dedicated to Inclusivity, Encora Contributes to the Vision of Making India a Great Place to Work for All SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Encora, a global next-gen product engineering provider, today announced its offices in India have been certified by Great Place to Work Institute as one of India's 2022 Best Workplaces for Women. Among the 1,122 organizations studied and considered for this award, Encora received recognition as one of the top 100 organizations in the large company category and excelled across the five characteristics of what makes a High-Trust, High-Performance Culture: credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. "I am beyond ecstatic that Encora has been recognized as a Great Place to Work for Women in India, 2022," said Anitha Sarathy, Head of People & Culture India. "I would like to thank all our female colleagues for their steadfast dedication, unwavering effort, and boundless enthusiasm, all of which contributed to the success of this endeavor." To determine which organizations truly reflect the spirit of India's Best Workplaces for Women, Great Place to Work India requires each participating organization to conduct an anonymous employee survey. This provides the institute with a better understanding of the experience for all employees within the organization. An assessment of practices is conducted separately through a research-based framework that seeks to understand if the organization aims to create a gender-equitable culture for all employees. In addition, organizations are required to meet the following criteria: Women employees constitute at least 10% of the workforce, and they must share at least 70% positive feedback on the Great Place to Work Trust Index assessment, a globally-renowned framework used to measure the employee experience. Encora met these criteria through its dedication to creating an environment where all employees are happy, feel safe, and are provided opportunities to grow and express their individuality. At Encora, achieving a state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities including economic participation and decision-making for men and women is paramount. Valuing different behaviors, aspirations, and needs equally, regardless of gender, is standard practice. Encora received this recognition in India due to its commitment to strong organizational culture and fostering a work environment of belonging and inclusiveness where individuals with diverse backgrounds and talents can be their best. As the company has grown from 2,400 employees to more than 7,500 worldwide in the past three years, it has evolved its practices to ensure its culture will positively adapt alongside its growth. Some of the specific practices Encora has implemented to accomplish this goal include work-life balance through flexible work schedules to accommodate employees' varying needs, equal pay and conditions for all genders, employer and employee contributions to the communities Encora serves, and an expectation that all employees have a responsibility to always treat others with dignity and respect. Encora also requires that all employees attend and complete an annual diversity awareness training to enhance their knowledge to fulfill this responsibility and to ensure a culture where people feel safe, respected, empowered, and motivated to bring their best selves. For more information on Encora's commitment to creating a positive culture for all, visit https://www.encora.com/about. About Encora Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona and backed by private equity firm Advent International, Encora is the preferred innovation partner to some of the world's leading technology companies. It provides next-gen services such as Predictive Analysis, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Cloud, and Test Automation. Encora has deep cluster vertical capabilities in HealthTech, FinTech, HiTech, IAM & Cybersecurity, Digital Commerce, EdTech, Supply Chain & Logistics, Telecom and other specialized industries. Encora is an established leader in outsourced product development services that specializes in innovation acceleration for leading-edge technology companies. With over 7,500 associates in 40+ offices and innovation labs across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, India, and Asia Pacific, Encora's global talent pool, micro-industry vertical expertise and proprietary agile engineering capabilities enable clients to improve their speed to impact. For more information, please visit www.encora.com. About Great Place to Work Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture. Since 1992, it has surveyed more than 100 million employees worldwide and has used this information to define that a great workplace is built on trust. The Trust Index employee survey provides leaders with the necessary feedback, results and reports that enable the company to make data-driven decisions. Everything they do is driven by the mission to build a better world by helping every organization become a great place to work for everyone. SOURCE Encora GLASGOW, Scotland, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- EnteroBiotix Limited, the premier full-spectrum microbiome therapeutics company, today announced that it has been granted a Manufacturer's licence for Investigational Medicinal Products (IMP) by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to manufacture microbiome product candidates for clinical trials. The facility also incorporates an in-house QC hub and analytical department. EnteroBiotix's manufacturing capabilities include significant know-how and its novel proprietary AMPLA platform that enables rapid preparation of dry powder from hydrated starting material at static temperature. This technology has potential applicability across the entire spectrum of microbiome therapies that are currently dried using traditional methods, including lyophilisation. Dr James McIlroy, CEO at EnteroBiotix, said: "I am thrilled that we have achieved this significant step in our journey towards transforming the standard of care for patients around the world through using best-in-class full-spectrum microbial therapeutics. Our MHRA licensed facility will support the high quality, safe, and consistent manufacturing of our products. I look forward to initiating a Phase II clinical trial for our lead microbiome therapeutic asset, EBX-102, in patients with liver cirrhosis." Douglas Thomson, Non-Executive Chairman at EnteroBiotix, said: "Manufacturing is a well-known bottle neck for the development of microbial therapeutics. The Board has backed the vision of establishing control of the supply chain and to develop in-house manufacturing and analytical capabilities as a strategic asset. With the capability to manufacture, scale, and characterise product candidates, EnteroBiotix is well positioned to accelerate the development of its product pipeline for the benefit of patients. I am proud to have supported the EnteroBiotix team in achieving another significant milestone." EnteroBiotix's facilities are headquartered in Scotland's Strathclyde Business Park. The GMP-certified manufacturing facility is the most advanced of its kind in Europe. It is designed to operate as a flexible and scalable manufacturing hub, underpinning the Company's therapeutic pipeline and providing end-to-end control of the supply chain. Media contacts: EnteroBiotix Kirsten McAllan [email protected] Scius Communications Katja Stout [email protected] Daniel Gooch [email protected] About EnteroBiotix EnteroBiotix is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel medicinal products that enhance the gut microbiome and target multiple disease indications. Established in 2017, EnteroBiotix is headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland and operates research laboratories and MHRA licensed GMP pharmaceutical manufacturing sites in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The company has raised over 20m from investors to date, including ThairmBio, Kineticos Ventures, and Scottish Enterprise Growth Equity. EnteroBiotix has differentiated platform manufacturing technology that has broad potential applicability across the spectrum of microbiome therapeutic approaches. The Company operates a brand called Number 2, which ensures the safety, security, quality and sufficiency of supply of microbiota obtained from healthy human donors. For more details see https://www.enterobiotix.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterobiotix/ . SOURCE EnteroBiotix BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Housewares supplier Epoca International, LLC has named Becky Blake as Senior Director of Merchandising. Epoca International Names Becky Blake as Senior Director of Merchandising "We are super excited about Becky Blake joining the team. Becky is a vibrant merchant that has over 20 years of success working with suppliers to bring their product assortment to the highest level. Becky has a keen eye for product detail and in-depth understanding of the supply chain. Becky's recent success at Walmart has helped the supplier community raise the bar of its product offerings. Epoca works with renowned media brands and social media influencers to create unique and authentic product offerings. We need savvy merchants like Becky to help these brands and influencers reach their potential in the marketplace with thoughtful product development," Brian Melzer, CEO of Epoca International said. "We will utilize Becky's passion and extensive experience in the housewares industry to aid with Epoca's extensive portfolio of brands to bring new products to life." Most recently, Blake was a Director of the Baby Category at Walmart. Becky gained experience in several product categories including gadgets, cutlery, home decor, lighting, and baby. During her time at Walmart, Blake was involved in numerous category brand launches, giving her experience around the box. "I am delighted to bring my leadership and expertise in the Housewares categories to Epoca International. They have an outstanding reputation for bringing innovative and quality products to the market. Being a part of their dynamic and high-performing team will be an honor," says Blake. "I am confident Becky will be an excellent fit for this position and a strong asset to the fast-paced team," Barbara Pizzella, Executive Vice President of Epoca International LLC said. "I am looking forward to her contributions to several of our product categories, as well as adding strategic direction for our brand partnerships and new launches." Ms. Blake will be reporting to Barbara Pizzella, Executive Vice President of Epoca International LLC. Blake will be joining the Epoca International team at their headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida. About Epoca International LLC Epoca International is a designer and distributor of consumer houseware products. Epoca is focused on building strong consumer brands, driving innovation and differentiation within the marketplace. Within the portfolio includes Ecolution Cookware, Primula Beverage Products, Tasty kitchenware, Goodful kitchenware, Cooking Light home goods, and Country Living kitchenware, as well as a variety of private label retailer offerings, which are sold in over 40,000 locations in 18 countries at major retailers and online. Epoca products have been recognized for their forward-thinking, consumer and environmentally-focused design, and have received honors including many Good Design awards from Chicago Athenaeum, a museum of architecture and design, as well as the Red Dot Product Design Awards. To learn more about the company, please visit www.epoca.com. Media Contact: Joshua Melzer Vice President, Marketing & Communications 561-353-3900 [email protected] SOURCE Epoca International LLC Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS Offer Advanced Imaging Technology and Wider Field-of-View to Foster Seamless Collaboration for Evolving Business Needs LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Meeting the rapidly growing demand for remote assistance technology, Epson today announced the Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS, a new generation of award-winning Moverio augmented reality (AR) smart glasses designed to support seamless remote collaboration with a high-quality AR viewing experience. Purpose-built for mission-critical tasks such as troubleshooting, maintenance, inspection, and training the new Moverio models support immersive, hands-free collaboration between on-site technicians and remote experts to help enhance efficiency, improve safety, and reduce downtime. Purpose-built for mission-critical tasks such as troubleshooting, maintenance, inspection, and training the new Epson Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS AR smart glasses support immersive, hands-free collaboration between on-site technicians and remote experts to help enhance efficiency, improve safety, and reduce downtime. "Field service is undergoing a transformation, with many businesses shifting to remote assistance and adopting immersive AR technology to help enhance work efficiency, save costs and improve workplace safety," said Nathan Cheng, associate product manager, Augmented Reality, Epson America, Inc. "As a pioneer in the AR space with over 10 years of innovation, the latest Moverio platform delivers advanced image quality in a binocular display with improved performance and wearability to provide a more immersive and shared viewing experience to today's remote workforce." Compatible with a wide range of collaboration and remote assistance software, the Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS feature all-new Si-OLED technology, a proprietary optical engine, and a binocular see-through Full HD display with a 34 field-of-view to seamlessly integrate digital content with the outside world. With the USB-C interface, the BT-45C headset can tether to a wide range of compatible Android or Windows host devices to support an array of applications. Designed for businesses working in manufacturing, automotive, field service, IT, logistics, construction, and more, the smart glasses are built with a tough, robust design with high shock and dust resistance to withstand the most demanding and dynamic work environments. With an adjustable, padded headband and helmet mounting options, the BT-45C and BT-45CS can easily fit a variety of frontline work attire and helmet models for added comfort and flexibility. A turnkey hardware solution, the Moverio BT-45CS combines a Moverio headset and an intuitive intelligent controller to help maximize ease of use while on the job. The 13MP camera on the intelligent controller gives users the ability to take detailed, up-close photos for enhanced precision. Its easy-to-use touchscreen interface and array of connectivity options help deliver convenience and usability. More About the New Moverio AR Smart Glasses: The Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS support convenient, hands-free, "see-what-I-see" collaboration between on-site technicians and remote experts with a range of features, including: Incredible Image Quality Integrated Si-OLED technology, proprietary optical engine and binocular see-through Full HD display with 34 field-of-view create a seamless viewing experience Integrated Si-OLED technology, proprietary optical engine and binocular see-through Full HD display with 34 field-of-view create a seamless viewing experience Easy Wearability Adjustable, padded headband, plus helmet mounting options, to comfortably accommodate a variety of frontline work attire Adjustable, padded headband, plus helmet mounting options, to comfortably accommodate a variety of frontline work attire Robust, Durable Design Shock- and dust-resistant with military grade drop test compliance and IP52 rating Shock- and dust-resistant with military grade drop test compliance and IP52 rating Headset Flip-up Function Allows users to secure a clear field of view for enhanced efficiency and safety; tinted and clear ANSI Z87.1 compatible shields can be attached to the headset for added eye protection Allows users to secure a clear field of view for enhanced efficiency and safety; tinted and clear ANSI Z87.1 compatible shields can be attached to the headset for added eye protection Advanced Camera Centered 8MP auto-focus camera with optimized camera angle precisely captures wearer's point of view, allowing for a true "see-what-I-see" experience between wearer and remote expert Centered 8MP auto-focus camera with optimized camera angle precisely captures wearer's point of view, allowing for a true "see-what-I-see" experience between wearer and remote expert Dynamic Usability Headsets are equipped with 9-axis and ambient light sensors, and BT-45CS controller is equipped with GPS sensors, which allow developers to unleash full potential of augmented reality via Moverio SDK Headsets are equipped with 9-axis and ambient light sensors, and BT-45CS controller is equipped with GPS sensors, which allow developers to unleash full potential of augmented reality via Moverio SDK Built-in Audio Integrated speaker and noise-canceling microphone enhance the quality of hands-free communication; can connect external audio devices via the mini audio jack The new Moverio AR smart glasses will be on display in Epson's booth #113 at Augmented Enterprise Summit (AES) in San Diego, Calif. from Oct. 18-20, 2022. Pricing and Availability The Moverio BT-45C and BT-45CS smart glasses will be available through Epson's channel partners and on Epson.com in November. For additional information, visit https://epson.com/moverio-augmented-reality. About Epson Epson is a global technology leader whose philosophy of efficient, compact and precise innovation enriches lives and helps create a better world. The company is focused on solving societal issues through innovations in home and office printing, commercial and industrial printing, manufacturing, visual and lifestyle. Epson will become carbon negative and eliminate use of exhaustible underground resources such as oil and metal by 2050. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the worldwide Epson Group generates annual sales of around JPY 1 trillion. global.epson.com/ Epson America, Inc., based in Los Alamitos, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/epsonamerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica). EPSON and Moverio are registered trademarks, EPSON Exceed Your Vision is a registered logomark of Seiko Epson Corporation. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of Wi-Fi Alliance. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks. Copyright 2022 Epson America, Inc. SOURCE Epson America, Inc. Epson to Present on Manufacturing Considerations for Successful Automation and Offer Live Demos of Robotic Solutions LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Epson Robots, the #1 SCARA robot manufacturer in the world, will be demonstrating its lineup of robotic solutions at The Assembly Show in booth #1231. This year's show will take place at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center located in Rosemont, Ill. from October 25-27. The demand for simple-to-use, adaptable and dependable solutions is increasing as more manufacturers turn to automation for day-to-day operations. To address the need for flexible and high-end automation services, Epson will present robotic solutions that help companies improve production costs, throughput and overall quality. A founding exhibitor of The Assembly Show, Epson Robots is participating in its 10th anniversary, with presentations and booth demos that include: Automation Presentation: "Why Automate? Manufacturing Consideration in Today's 'New Normal'" Scott Marsic , Epson Robots group product manager, will explore the "how and why" of automation and help decision makers evaluate the role of robots and automation within their business. Topics will include changes to customer pain points, onshoring and nearshoring impacts, market trends, and top insights for automation project success. The session will take place on October 26 from 10:45-11:15 a.m. CDT in Theater #1. , Epson Robots group product manager, will explore the "how and why" of automation and help decision makers evaluate the role of robots and automation within their business. Topics will include changes to customer pain points, onshoring and nearshoring impacts, market trends, and top insights for automation project success. The session will take place on from in Theater #1. Robotic Assembly Presentation: "Case Studies in Thinking Differently About Robotic Assembly" Steve Thomas , Aptiv manufacturing engineer, will discuss the importance of connectivity and data in assembly technology and the five companies that will help manufacturers get the most out of using data to improve operations. This session is sponsored by Epson Robots and will take place on October 27 from Noon-12:30 p.m. CDT in Theater #1. , Aptiv manufacturing engineer, will discuss the importance of connectivity and data in assembly technology and the five companies that will help manufacturers get the most out of using data to improve operations. This session is sponsored by Epson Robots and will take place on from in Theater #1. Compact, High-Precision SCARA Robots The Epson GX4 and GX8 SCARA robots offer high throughput, smooth motion control and heavy payloads with advanced Epson GYROPLUS Technology. Offering multiple arm configurations, a 250-350 mm reach with the GX4 and a 450-650 mm reach with the GX8, the robots can achieve ultra-high precision in applications such as assembly, pick-and-place and intricate small-parts handling. The GX4 can handle payloads up to 4 kg and the GX8 can handle up to 8 kg, both from a small form factor. Equipped with Epson RC+ or RC+ Express application development software, the GX SCARA robots offer ultimate ease-of-use for complex robotic solutions . The Epson GX4 and GX8 SCARA robots offer high throughput, smooth motion control and heavy payloads with advanced Epson GYROPLUS Technology. Offering multiple arm configurations, a 250-350 mm reach with the GX4 and a 450-650 mm reach with the GX8, the robots can achieve ultra-high precision in applications such as assembly, pick-and-place and intricate small-parts handling. The GX4 can handle payloads up to 4 kg and the GX8 can handle up to 8 kg, both from a small form factor. Equipped with Epson RC+ or RC+ Express application development software, the GX SCARA robots offer ultimate ease-of-use for complex robotic solutions High-Performance Parts-Feeding Solution This demo will showcase the IntelliFlex Feeding System and Vision Guide with Epson RS-Series SCARA robots. Featuring dual IntelliFlex 240 parts feeders, this system demonstrates a pick and place operation with multiple feeders and multiple components per feeder, illustrating the ultimate in flexibility of the system. The IntelliFlex lineup has four feeder sizes and can handle a variety of parts from 3mm to 150mm with optional anti-roll, anti-stick and medical grade tray configurations. This demo will showcase the IntelliFlex Feeding System and Vision Guide with Epson RS-Series SCARA robots. Featuring dual IntelliFlex 240 parts feeders, this system demonstrates a pick and place operation with multiple feeders and multiple components per feeder, illustrating the ultimate in flexibility of the system. The IntelliFlex lineup has four feeder sizes and can handle a variety of parts from 3mm to 150mm with optional anti-roll, anti-stick and medical grade tray configurations. VT6L All-in-One 6-Axis Robot The VT6L All-in-One 6-Axis robot offers the perfect solution for simple pick and place automation. With a reach of 900 mm and payload of up to 6 kg, it uses a space-saving, built-in controller, can run on 110 or 200V or as a DC-powered mobile version, and features a hollow end-of-arm design and optional pre-engineered cable mounting brackets for simplified cable management. The VT6L can be operated with no-code, easy-to-use Epson RC+ Express visual development software to implement robotic automation solutions quickly and efficiently. The VT6L All-in-One 6-Axis robot offers the perfect solution for simple pick and place automation. With a reach of 900 mm and payload of up to 6 kg, it uses a space-saving, built-in controller, can run on 110 or 200V or as a DC-powered mobile version, and features a hollow end-of-arm design and optional pre-engineered cable mounting brackets for simplified cable management. The VT6L can be operated with no-code, easy-to-use Epson RC+ Express visual development software to implement robotic automation solutions quickly and efficiently. T-B Series All-in-One SCARA Robot The innovative T-B Series All-in-One SCARA robot offers fast, easy integration and installs in minutes. With a built-in controller, 110 V or 220 V power and no battery required for the encoder, the T-B Series allows for quick development and simplified maintenance. The T3-B will be shown with Epson's Vision Guide to demonstrate inspection together with a pick-and-place application. Epson is dedicated to helping both new and experienced automation professionals succeed by providing essential information and education and by delivering the latest robot technologies and innovations to meet their factory automation needs. For more information, visit www.epsonrobots.com. About Epson Robots Epson Robots is a global leader in PC-controlled precision factory automation, with well over 100,000 units sold worldwide1 and a product line of hundreds of models of easy-to-use SCARA and 6-Axis robots based on a common PC-based platform. Building on a four-decade heritage, Epson Robots today delivers robots for precision assembly and material handling applications in the aerospace, appliance, automotive, biotechnology, consumer product, electronics, food processing, medical device, pharmaceutical, plastics, semiconductor, and telecommunication industries. For more information, visit www.epsonrobots.com, or follow our Spotlight page on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/epson-america-robots-/) About Epson Epson is a global technology leader whose philosophy of efficient, compact and precise innovation enriches lives and helps create a better world. The company is focused on solving societal issues through innovations in home and office printing, commercial and industrial printing, manufacturing, visual and lifestyle. Epson will become carbon negative and eliminate use of exhaustible underground resources such as oil and metal by 2050. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the worldwide Epson Group generates annual sales of around JPY 1 trillion. global.epson.com/ Epson America, Inc., based in Los Alamitos, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/epsonamerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica). 1 Epson internal sales data through 2020. EPSON and Epson RC+ are registered trademarks and EPSON Exceed Your Vision is a registered logomark of Seiko Epson Corporation. IntelliFlex is a trademark of Epson America, Inc. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks. Copyright 2022 Epson America, Inc. SOURCE Epson America, Inc. Renowned tattoo artist offers fans the chance to honor a loved one with a lifelong mark of remembrance LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Estrella Jalisco, the Mexican lager with over 100 years of brewing tradition, is teaming up with master tattoo artist Nikko Hurtado to help fans celebrate the memory of loved ones in a daring fashion this season. Together with Estrella Jalisco, Nikko is offering one lucky fan the chance to honor a loved one with a remembrance tattoo. Mexican lager Estrella Jalisco teams up with renowned tattoo artist Nikko Hurtado to offer fans the chance to honor a loved one with a custom tattoo. Known worldwide for his detailed portrait tattoos, Nikko's craft represents the ultimate form of self-expression that lasts a lifetime. To kick off the campaign, Estrella Jalisco is releasing a video announcement set in Black Anchor, Nikko Hurtado's tattoo studio, inviting fans to join the sweepstakes. "Honoring my ancestry is a fundamental part of my Mexican identity and I think this is a beautiful way to memorialize loved ones," says Nikko. "I'm excited to partner with Estrella Jalisco to provide one lucky person with the opportunity to celebrate their loved one's memory through a custom tattoo." "Tattoo art is a powerful form of self-expression and our partnership with Nikko represents a fusion of art and culture, while paying homage to heritage," says Alex Monroy, Senior Brand Director at Estrella Jalisco. "It's part of our continued effort to celebrate the people who live their star and dare to be themselves every day." Estrella Jalisco invites people to enter for a chance to win a remembrance tattoo from Nikko Hurtado. To enter, share a photo of your loved one with the story of why that person deserves to be meaningfully commemorated with a tattoo. Tag @EstrellaJalisco and use hashtag #ViveTuEstrella for a chance to win. Submissions will be accepted through October 18th, 2022. For more information, follow @EstrellaJalisco on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. About Estrella Jalisco With more than 100 years of Mexican brewing tradition, Estrella Jalisco is a refreshing, authentic Mexican Lager beer from Guadalajara, Jalisco, and contains 4.5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). Estrella Jalisco was launched in the U.S. in 2015 and it's quickly becoming a Mexican favorite among cerveza aficionados. Estrella Jalisco is available in bottles and foil top cans, in addition to canned Mango and Tropical Chamoy Micheladas for a colorful spin on a Mexican classic. About Anheuser-Busch For more than 165 years, Anheuser-Busch has carried on a legacy of brewing great-tasting, high-quality beers that have satisfied beer drinkers for generations. Today, we own and operate more than 120 facilities, including breweries, wholesaler distribution centers, agricultural facilities and packaging plants, and have more than 19,000 colleagues across the United States. We are home to several of America's most recognizable beer brands, including Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA and Stella Artois, as well as a number of regional brands that provide beer drinkers with a choice of the best-tasting craft beers in the industry. From responsible drinking programs and emergency drinking water donations to industry-leading sustainability efforts, we are guided by our unwavering commitment to supporting the communities we call home. For more information, visit www.anheuser-busch.com or follow Anheuser-Busch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Media Contacts Lily Herring [email protected] Irma Guardado [email protected] SOURCE Estrella Jalisco VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Rock Tech Lithium Inc (TSXV: RCK) (OTCQX: RCKTF) (FWB: RJIB) (WKN: A1XF0V) ("Rock Tech" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the European Investment Bank (EIB) has recently published its intention to review a potential investment of up to 150 million senior debt to back the Company's Guben lithium converter project in Brandenburg, Germany. The European Investment Bank financing looks to support the creation of capacities to produce lithium hydroxide as one of the key components of electric vehicle batteries, hence enabling the EU's green transition. "The EIB's interest in the project is a very positive signal to the market that Rock Tech is progressing on target with its project development plans in Guben", commented Dirk Harbecke, Chairman of the Board, "we look forward to building on EIB's support as we bring together a consortium of lenders in this important project". The construction of the Rock Tech lithium converter plant in Germany will be the first of its kind in Europe. From spodumene, a lithium bearing ore, to battery-grade lithium hydroxide, the whole refinery process will take place in the Guben converter. Thus, on the one hand, the project meets the growing demand for battery raw materials triggered by increasing electric vehicle mobility, while at the same time allowing the supply chain to become more diverse and resilient in the western hemisphere. The lithium hydroxide from Rock Tech's converter, is expected to be component of up to 500,000 electric vehicle batteries per year - powering the zero-emissions transformation of the transportation sector. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Dirk Harbecke Chairman ABOUT ROCK TECH INC. Rock Tech is a cleantech company on a mission to produce lithium hydroxide for EV batteries. The Company plans to build converters at the door-step of its customers, to guarantee supply-chain transparency and just-in-time delivery. Therefore, Rock Tech has gathered one of the strongest teams in the industry. It holds itself accountable to strict ESG standards and plans to source raw material from its own mineral project in Canada as well as procuring it from responsibly producing mines. In the years to come, the Company will extract its material from discarded batteries. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CAUTIONARY NOTE CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION The following cautionary statements are in addition to all other cautionary statements and disclaimers contained elsewhere in, or referenced by, this press release. Certain information set forth in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which are based on Rock Tech's current expectations, estimates, and assumptions in light of its experience and is perception of historical trends. All statements other than statements of historical facts may constitute forward-looking information. Often, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words or phrases such as "estimate", "project", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "believe", "hope", "may" and similar expressions, as well as "will", "shall" and all other indications of future tense. All forward-looking information set forth in this press release is expressly qualified in its entirety by the cautionary statements referred to in this section. In particular, forward-looking information in this new release includes, but is not limited to: statements regarding Rock Tech's vision, strategy and objectives; Rock Tech's proposed converter project in Guben and the Company's intentions with respect to the development and timing thereof, including the sources and mix of funding in respect of the development of the proposed converter, development targets and milestones and the Company's expectations regarding the project, including the expected costs, production capacity and outcomes thereof; statements regarding the EIB's review of a potential investment in the proposed converter, including amounts invested (if any) and the timing thereof; statements regarding Rock Tech's future plans and expectations, including the anticipated production of lithium hydroxide; statements and expectations regarding the electric vehicle industry; Rock Tech's opinions, beliefs and expectations regarding the Company's business strategy, development and exploration opportunities and projects; and plans and objectives of management for the Company's operations and properties. Forward-looking information contained in this press release is based on certain assumptions, estimates, expectations, analysis and opinions of the Company and in certain cases, third party experts, that are believed by management of Rock Tech to be reasonable at the time they were made. While Rock Tech considers these assumptions, estimates and factors to be reasonable based on information currently available, they may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results. In addition, forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond Rock Tech's control, that may cause Rock Tech's actual events, results, performance and/or achievements to be materially different from that which is expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results, performance and/or achievements to vary materially include: the Company's ability to access funding required to invest in available opportunities and projects (including the Company's proposed lithium hydroxide converter) and on satisfactory terms; the current and potential adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent geopolitical hostilities; the risk that Rock Tech will not be able to meet its financial obligations as they fall due; changes in commodity and other prices; Rock Tech's ability to attract and retain skilled staff and to secure feedstock from third party suppliers; unanticipated events and other difficulties related to construction, development and operation of the Company's proposed lithium hydroxide converter; the cost of compliance with current and future environmental and other laws and regulations; title defects; competition from existing and new competitors; changes in currency, exchange rates and market prices of Rock Tech's securities; Rock Tech's history of losses; adverse impacts of climate change; and other risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Rock Tech's public disclosure documents available on the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, including those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in Rock Tech's most recently filed Management Discussion and Analysis and Annual Information Form, respectively. Such risks and uncertainties do not represent an exhaustive list of all risk factors that could cause actual events, results, performance and/or achievements to vary materially from the forward-looking information. We cannot assure you that actual events, results, performance and/or achievements will be consistent with the forward-looking information and management's assumptions may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information reflects Rock Tech management's views as at the date the information is created. Except as may be required by law, Rock Tech undertakes no obligation and expressly disclaims any responsibility, obligation or undertaking to update or to revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, to reflect any change in Rock Tech's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such information is based. Given these uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to rely on the forward-looking information set forth in this press release. SOURCE Rock Tech Lithium Inc. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The extrusion coatings market size is expected to grow by USD 1.53 bn during 2021-2026, at a CAGR of 5.26% during the forecast period, according to Technavio. The increasing demand from the packaging industry, environment-friendly coating technologies, and growing demand from the food and beverage industry will offer immense growth opportunities. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Extrusion Coatings Market 2022-2026 However, fluctuating raw material costs, higher cost and dry film thickness compared to other coatings, and contribution to carbon footprint will challenge the growth of the market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Increasing demand from the packaging industry has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, Fluctuating raw material costs might hamper the market growth. Request Free Sample Report. Extrusion Coatings Market Segmentation Material Polyethylene Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Ethylene Butyl Acrylate Others Geography APAC Europe North America Middle East And Africa South America The market share for extrusion coatings in the polyethylene category will expand significantly. Polyethylene is by far the most common type of plastic used by consumers. One of polyethylene's most appealing characteristics is how durable it is. At high temperatures, it can melt, and at very low temperatures, it can even retain its properties. It is also very affordable and chemically resistant. These elements will encourage segment growth during the course of the forecast. Buy Sample Report. Extrusion Coatings Market Scope Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our extrusion coatings market report covers the following areas: Extrusion Coatings Market size Extrusion Coatings Market trends Extrusion Coatings Market industry analysis This study identifies the rising demand from the automotive sector as one of the prime reasons driving the extrusion coatings market growth during the next few years. Extrusion Coatings Market Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the Extrusion Coatings Market, including some of the vendors such as vendors Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Extrusion Coatings Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile, and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Akzo Nobel NV Arkema S.A. Borealis AG Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC Davis Standard LLC DuPont de Nemours Inc. Eastman Chemical Co. Exxon Mobil Corp. Formosa Plastics Corp. Hanwha Corp. INEOS Group Holdings SA To find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Download Free Sample Report. Extrusion Coatings Market Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period Detailed information on factors that will assist extrusion coatings market growth during the next five years Estimation of the extrusion coatings market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the extrusion coatings market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of extrusion coatings market vendors Related Reports: Aerogel Market by Application and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Paint Protection Film Market by End-user and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Extrusion Coatings Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 5.26% Market growth 2022-2026 $1.53 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 4.19 Regional analysis APAC, Europe, North America, Middle East and Africa, and South America Performing market contribution APAC at 54% Key consumer countries US, China, India, Germany, and France Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Akzo Nobel NV, Arkema S.A., Borealis AG, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC, Davis Standard LLC, DuPont de Nemours Inc., Eastman Chemical Co., Exxon Mobil Corp., Formosa Plastics Corp., Hanwha Corp., INEOS Group Holdings SA, Lucobit AG, LyondellBasell Industries NV, NOVA Chemicals Corp., Qenos Pty Ltd., Reliance Industries Ltd., Repsol SA, SABIC, The Dow Chemical Co., and The Lubrizol Corp. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table Of Contents : 1 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 1.1 Market drivers 1.1.1 Technological innovations in COB LEDs 1.1.2 Growing adoption of COB LEDs in smart lighting 1.1.3 Growing demand from the automotive sector 1.2 Market challenges 1.2.1 Development of CSP LEDs 1.2.2 Emergence of quantum boards 1.2.3 High import duties 1.3 Impact of drivers and challenges 1.4 Market trends 1.4.1 Adoption of COB LEDs in horticulture 1.4.2 Development of high-color rendering index (CRI) COB LEDs 1.4.3 Growing interest in human-centric lighting 01: Impact of drivers and challenges About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio India is set to exhibit growth at a CAGR of nearly 2.7% in the South Asia cardiac surgery devices market during the forecast period. Growing Medical Tourism in Germany to Aid the Growth in Cardiac Surgery Devices Market NEWARK, Del., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global cardiac surgery devices market is predicted to reach a valuation of US$ 2.4 Bn in 2032, with sales growing at a stagnant CAGR of 3.6% from 2022 to 2032. The target market is expected to reach an estimated US$ 1.7 Bn by the end of 2022. The growing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases have resulted in a heightened demand for cardiac surgery devices in the global market over the forecast period. Owing to the many technological progress happening in the industry and the development of cardiac surgery devices as per the patient requirement, the market for the same is likely to experience gradual expansion in the next few years. The rising prevalence of cardiac conditions have resulted in a swell in the demand for the cardiac surgical equipment. As per a report by WHO, cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death all over the world. This bodes well for the cardiac surgery device market. Again, many healthcare organizations are concentrating on expanding their facilities, products, and services which further propel the growth of the target market. Get Access To Sample Now: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4602 Promising investments and initiatives by the government coupled with the launch of upgraded and innovative product lines from manufacturers is expected to augment the sales of cardiac surgery devices at the international level. Governments, particularly in developing countries, are assisting start-ups and MNCs to ensure the growth of the healthcare device sector. Thus, a rise in government funding for the healthcare sector in countries like Japan, India, and China will foster an environment of growth for the target market at large. Again, a rise in chronic diseases and traumatic injuries in these nations will fuel the growth of the cardiac surgery device market during the assessment period. "A surge in the market release of the target product coupled with incorporation of cutting-edge technology into the same will propel the market growth of the cardiac surgery devices over the forecast period," says an FMI analyst. Key Takeaways: The expensiveness of cardiac surgery devices along with a strict and extended approval period hinders the growth of the target market. The cardiac surgery devices market in Germany will grow at a 4.9% CAGR during the forecast period. will grow at a 4.9% CAGR during the forecast period. In the South Asian market, India's cardiac surgery devices market will grow at a 2.7% CAGR. cardiac surgery devices market will grow at a 2.7% CAGR. The perfusion disposables segment will account for over 3/5th of the total market sales. The coronary bypass grafting segment will hold about 61.6% of the global market sales. Hospital segment will contribute the most to the target market during 2022-2032. Customization Report Before Buying, Visit: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-4602 Competitive Landscape Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic Plc., Boston Scientific Corporation, Lepu Medical technology Co ltd, LivaNova PLC, Terumo Corporation, Getinge-Maquet Germany Holding GmbH, B. Braun Melsungen AG, C. R. Bard, Inc, Teleflex Incorporated, Angiodynamics, Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, MicroPort Scientific Corporation,, Smith Medical, Abiomed, Inc., Estech, Cook Medical Inc, Braile Biomedica, and Biotronik Inc. among others are some of the major players in the cardiac surgery devices market profiled in the full version of the report. Many key players are keen on incorporating advanced technology and designs into their product to strengthen their market position. These businesses are releasing upgraded products as well as engaging in mergers and acquisitions to improve their revenue. More Insights into Cardiac Surgery Devices Market Report In its latest report, FMI offers an unbiased analysis of the global cardiac surgery devices market, providing historical data from 2012 to 2021 and forecast statistics for 2022 to 2032. To understand the global market potential, growth, and scope, the market is segmented on the basis of product type (heart lung machine, breathing heart surgery systems (stabilizers, positioners), catheters (ablation catheter, drainage catheter), perfusion disposables (oxygenators, centrifugal pumps, cardioplegia delivery system)), procedure (coronary artery bypass grafting (on pump CABG, off pump CABG), minimally invasive surgery), end user (hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers), and region. Request Brochure: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/brochure/rep-gb-4602 According to the latest FMI reports, based on segmentation, the perfusion disposables product segment will dominate the market by accounting for more than 3/5th of the target market sales. In terms of procedure, the coronary bypass grafting segment will account for 61.6% of the global market sales while basing on end-user, the hospital segment will lead the market growth over the forecast period. Based on region, the United States, India, and Germany are some of the nations that will likely experience notable market growth. A heightened demand for cardiac surgeries along with a rising prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and obesity-related cardiac conditions will fuel the growth of the cardiac surgery devices market in the U.S. Owing to the availability cost-effective treatment, the cardiac surgery devices market in India will be offered numerous lucrative opportunities. Germany, too, will register impressive target market growth during the projected period. Table of Content 1. Executive Summary 1.1. Global Market Outlook 1.2. Demand Side Trends 1.3. Supply-Side Trends 1.4. Analysis and Recommendations 2. Market Overview 2.1. Market Coverage / Taxonomy 2.2. Market Definition / Scope / Limitations 2.3. Inclusions and Exclusions 3. Key Market Trends 3.1. Key Trends Impacting the Market 3.2. Development/Innovation Trends 4. Key Success Factors 4.1. Product Features/ USPs Analysis 4.2. Product Adoption / Usage Analysis 4.3. Key Promotional Strategies, By Key Manufacturers 4.4. Disease Epidemiology 4.5. Regulatory Landscape 4.6. PESTLE Analysis 4.7. Porter's Analysis Read More: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/cardiac-surgery-devices-market Explore Our Trending Reports of FMI's Healthcare Market Insights Landscape Portable Medical Devices Market - The overall Portable Medical Devices market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 10.7% during the forecast period. Pain Management Devices Market The Overall Pain Management Device Sales Are Expected To Grow At A Healthy CAGR Of 9% Between 2022 And 2032, Totaling A Valuation Of Over US$ 5.68 Bn By The End Of 2032. Aesthetic Medicine And Cosmetic Surgery Market Global aesthetic medicine and cosmetic surgery market sales were valued at around US$ 67.4 Bn at the end of 2021. The market is projected to register 11.7% CAGR and top a valuation of US$ 137.2 Bn by 2032. Lung Cancer Surgery Market - The global Lung Cancer Surgery Market was valued at US$ 1.23 Bn in 2021 and is expected to reach US$ 1.98 Bn by 2029, finds Future Market Insights (FMI) in a recent market survey. Bariatric Surgery Devices Market - The bariatric surgery devices market is growing at a moderate pace with a CAGR of 6.2% during the forecast period 2022-2032. About Future Market Insights, Inc. Future Market Insights, Inc. is an ESOMAR-certified business consulting & market research firm, a member of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce and is headquartered in Delaware, USA. A recipient of Clutch Leaders Award 2022 on account of high client score (4.9/5), we have been collaborating with global enterprises in their business transformation journey and helping them deliver on their business ambitions. 80% of the largest Forbes 1000 enterprises are our clients. We serve global clients across all leading & niche market segments across all major industries. Contact: Future Market Insights, Inc Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive, Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA T: +1-845-579-5705 For Sales Enquiries: [email protected] Browse All Reports: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports LinkedIn| Twitter| Blogs Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1197648/FMI_Logo.jpg SOURCE Future Market Insights PITTSBURGH, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- National Boss' Day is coming up on October 16th. This week, the People's Choice Award nominated podcast Boss Better Now with Joe Mull released guidance on what kind of gift, if any, is appropriate to give for Boss' Day, how to approach the holiday if there is tension between a manager and supervisor, and what it means when a leader doesn't receive acknowledgement on Boss' Day. Joe Mull teaches leaders how to be better bosses. Joe Mull is a professional speaker and founder of the Boss Better movement. Mull says that giving a gift isn't necessary. "Sentiment matters more than a gift. A nice card detailing the difference your boss has made in your work or life will usually win the day." If employees find that a gift is necessary, Mull suggests choosing something personal. "A favorite coffee, snack, or lotion shows that you are paying attention to who they are as a person." Where employees want to do something more significant for an admired leader, Mull's recommendation is to spotlight the leader's contributions. "Make a thank you video from the team or write a letter to your boss's family describing his or her impact. It's about finding a creative way to highlight the specific habits, decisions, and approaches they use that make a difference in the lives of others." Where tensions exist between a boss and employee, Mull advises that a gift would be out of place but advises employees not to ignore the holiday altogether. "If the relationship between you and your boss is strained, a gift that doesn't reflect the reality of that relationship is insincere and can backfire. But ignoring the occasion might also work against you. Try to find something positive to acknowledge that is sincere. A simple note that says 'I know we don't always agree, but I appreciate that you take the time to listen to what I have to say. Happy Boss' Day' can be effective." As for what it means if a supervisor doesn't get anything from their employees on Boss' Day, consider your ongoing relationships with employees. "It can be a signal that there's a problem if there's a larger pattern of people leaving the manager's team, avoiding the manager, etcetera," Mull says. "But it might not mean anything. A lot of people are overwhelmed or distracted at work right now. The occasion might not be on their radar. Be forgiving and tune in to the other ways you know when people trust and respect you as a leader." About Boss Better Now and Joe Mull Boss Better Now is hosted by Joe Mull, a professional speaker and founder of the BossBetter Leadership Academy. Mull is the author of 3 books including his newest: Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work (May 2023, Page Two). The Boss Better Now podcast was launched in 2021 to be "food for the boss' soul" and was recently named by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) as a "can't miss show for leaders" along with podcasts by Brene' Brown and Harvard Business Review. The podcast was a finalist for the 2022 People's Choice Award for podcasts in the Management/Business category. The complete guidance on Boss' Day can be found in Episode 80 Do's and Don'ts for Boss' Day. Joe Mull is available for booking and press inquiries Contact: Jamie DeRosa Director of Outreach & Business Development p: 724-469-3001 e: [email protected] w: www.joemull.com SOURCE Joe Mull WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Vita Inclinata (Vita), developer and producer of precision aerospace and industrial stabilization devices, today announced Daniel Bishop has joined the company's Aerospace Advisory Board. Bishop will leverage decades of Pentagon and the United States Air Force experience to strengthen ties across the DoD and federal agencies and increase Vita's national and international footprint. Former Executive Director, Air National Guard, Daniel Bishop Joins Vita Inclinata As Aerospace Advisor "I greatly respect Vita's innovative roots and business sense that is transforming rescue and load stabilization technology to make it safer and more economical to operate," Bishop said. "I'm excited and honored to join the company's Aerospace Advisory Board. I will bring my years of DoD experience in capability development and integration to accelerate Vita's growth." Bishop entered the Senior Executive Service in 2010 and most recently served as Executive Director, Air National Guard, HQ USAF Pentagon. In this position, he formulated, developed, and coordinated policies, plans, and programs to meet Federal and State missions. Other Headquarters Air Force positions include Deputy Director, Operational Capability Requirements (A5R), Deputy Director, Joint Integration (A5R-J), and Chief, Information, Personnel & Industrial Security. Bishop holds a Master's degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College, a Master's degree in Public Administration from Troy State University, and a Bachelor's degree in Management from the University of Maryland Global Campus. "Daniel Bishop brings a diverse and deep skillset to support Vita's aerospace strategy and goals," said Caleb Carr, CEO of Vita. "He will bring new ideas to expand and extend our national and international footprint and strengthen Vita's ties with many federal agencies. We look forward to his contributions." About Vita Inclinata A friend's death during a rescue operationwith a helicopter close but unable to stabilize due to weather and terrainwas the genesis of Vita Inclinata. Founded in 2015 to solve a real problem, Vita today controls chaotic swinging and spin and adds safety and precision for rotor-wing and fixed-wing aircraft and cranes. With the mission of "Bring them home, every time," Vita's technology changes the narrative while saving lives, time, and money across industries, including search and rescue, military, firefighting, public safety, construction, wind energy, and oil and gas. The company is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, with offices in Washington, DC, and Huntsville, Alabama. For more information, please visit www.vitatech.co . For more information, contact: Betsey Rogers BridgeView Marketing 603-821-0809 [email protected] SOURCE Vita Inclinata Bringing the beloved PureWow brand to life, House of Wow will be unveiled this fall with IRL original programming, events, and activations NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Gallery Media Group's women's lifestyle brand PureWow alongside Cogent World today announced their new experiential space, House of Wow. To be unveiled next month in New York City, the space will provide opportunities to discover, learn, and elevate the everyday. PureWow, which primarily functions in digital and virtual spaces, plays at the intersection of fun and utility, delivering content across a breadth of topics including beauty, food/recipes, wellness, family and fashion. As a beacon for positivity throughout its 12 years of existence, the PureWow team recognized the importance of bringing the brand to life via in-real-life experiences, events, and activations to loyal consumers and readers of the platform. "We're so excited to bring PureWow to life in ways we haven't before, and are thrilled to be working with our amazing partners to create an unforgettable, real-life experience for our consumers," said Ryan Harwood, CEO of Gallery Media Group. "By expanding PureWow's presence in all areas that make sense, we're able to interact directly with our audience and can't wait to bring our expansive network of influencer talent and expert editors to House of Wow." "Partnering with Gallery Media Group to execute their vision of one-of-a-kind experiences is a dream project for our agency" said Mark Zablow, CEO of Cogent World. "The risk of launching a property in this climate is very familiar to us and the value of having PureWow's diverse partners will invigorate downtown New York with tremendous cultural relevance." Alongside partners Samsung, Clinique, Wayfair, and more, House of Wow programming will vary depending upon the day. Planned events include a night of cocktail and dessert pairings, a holiday beauty takeover, an intimate home decor trends panel, new mom meet-ups, Web3 discussions, a sampling event with the newest faces in wellness, live podcast tapings of Gallery Media Group's favorite shows, a living gallery presenting rotating prominent female NFTs, and an evening all about how to survive the holidays. "We're thrilled to partner with PureWow to bring Clinique products and expertise directly to consumers at House of Wow," said Sameer Agarwal, VP for Clinique North America Marketing. "This is a great opportunity for us to share what makes Clinique so unique in beauty, in an environment that is so engaging for consumers." House of Wow is the first in-real-life activation from PureWow of this scale and will run from October-December of 2022. It builds on previous activations from Gallery Media Group including ONE37pm's Clubhouse, and PureWow's annual Hamptons event. For more information about the space and how to access its event slate, please visit https://www.purewow.com/events/house-of-wow. ABOUT GALLERY MEDIA GROUP Gallery Media Group is a rapidly growing publishing company that includes women's lifestyle brand, PureWow, a culture platform, ONE37pm, a podcast arm featuring The CMO Podcast with Jim Stengel, Card Talk, The GaryVee Audio Experience, and a large scale social media portfolio across Instagram and TikTok. It is part of the VaynerX group of companies. ABOUT COGENT WORLD Founded in 2011, Cogent World is a full-service marketing agency with core expertise in branded experiences, influencer programming, and creative strategy. With headquarters in New York, Cogent's clients include Constellation Brands, Coty, Hasbro, and Way of Wade as well as emerging brands engaging with today's hyper-connected consumer. In 2020, Cogent World launched Bleecker Trading, a lifestyle brand and social club in NYC's West Village that caters to Trading Card and Collectibles enthusiasts. Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Gallery Media Group ARVADA, Colo., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Research shows that spending money on others and charities can boost wellbeing and promote happiness. That makes Colorado Gives Day, set for Tuesday, Dec. 6, potentially the happiest day in Colorado when Coloradans come together to give and support Colorado nonprofits. This year, Coloradans can give a buck to any of the 3,200 nonprofits participating in the 24-hour Colorado Gives Day event. Community First Foundation's Colorado Gives Day on Dec. 6 "Good things happen when you give a buck," said Kelly Dunkin, president and CEO of Community First Foundation, the organization that runs Colorado Gives Day. "From mental health care to protecting the environment, every day in Colorado our nonprofits keep us happy, healthy, and safe. Colorado Gives Day is the perfect opportunity to say thank you by donating to your favorite nonprofits." Beginning Nov. 1 and continuing through Gives Day on Dec. 6, all donations made to nonprofits on ColoradoGives.org get a boost from a $1.4 million Incentive Fund that increases the impact of every dollar donated. The online giving platform is free for eligible nonprofits and recently debuted a new look with features that make fundraising even easier. "With just a click, donors can search, find, and give. We make it easy and safe for donors to support their favorite nonprofits," said Erica Thornley, vice president of product development. "ColoradoGives.org is a robust social giving tool that helps donors find and connect to the causes they care about most all in one place." Colorado Gives 365 supports impactful giving every day of the year through ColoradoGives.org, providing easy-to-use fundraising tools for both donors and nonprofits. "Community First Foundation created Colorado Gives 365 to help people discover and support organizations that match their passions and interests every day of the year," added Dunkin. "But by giving on Colorado Gives Day on Dec. 6, we hope to bring joy and happiness to everyone in Colorado." Colorado Gives Day is made possible by Community First Foundation with support from FirstBank and sponsors, including: Delta Dental of Colorado; Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA); Gary Philanthropy; Janus Henderson Investors; Amazon; Daniels Fund; Graystone; Intermountain Healthcare; Ireland Stapleton Pryor & Pascoe, PC; Noodles & Company; T-Mobile for Business; Trinchera Blanca Foundation; Enso Counseling, PLLC; JE Dunn Construction Group; Martin/Martin, Inc.; Syntrinsic Social Capital; Denver7; Grounds for Promotion; Rocky Mountain PBS; Entravision; 5280; Comcast / Xfinity; and Mile High Outdoor. Governor Polis declares Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022, as Colorado Gives Day Community First Foundation has been connecting donors and innovative Colorado nonprofits since 1975. As the community foundation serving Jefferson County, we are committed to connecting people, ideas and nonprofits so that all of Jeffco is thriving. We help donors with philanthropic planning, support nonprofits with grants and resources, and together, build resilient and connected communities. Our work is rooted in radical listening and a commitment to equity and inclusion. In 2021, 73,000 donors raised more than $55 million for 3,151 nonprofits on Colorado Gives Day. Community First Foundation launched the online giving platform that powers Colorado Gives Day in 2007, and since then, donors have given more than $511 million to Colorado nonprofits. Cindy Matthews, 720.898.5909 Director of Communications & Community Outreach [email protected] SOURCE Community First Foundation A study by the European Patent Office (EPO) has confirmed that the EU's largest economy leads the way in patents, trademarks and designs. BERLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Data from the European Patent Office highlights Germany's dominance in practical industrial innovation within the European Union. In a survey of intellectual property rights filings by country of origin in all industries, the EPO identified 67,163 patents, trademarks and designs from Germany. By comparison, the corresponding figure for France was 25,305. German consistently comes in second, behind only the United States, when it comes to EPO filings. One particular German strength is climate protection innovation. 41.7 percent of all patents granted to EU companies went to German firms. Germany also accounted for 30 percent of all green EU trademarks between 2015 and 2021. That's almost three times as many as the second-ranked country, France, the survey found. "There are a number of factors why Germany is so far ahead in intellectual property rights filings," says Robert Hermann, CEO of Germany Trade & Invest. "One is the strength of German industry in general. Another is Germany's unique R&D landscape with its four massive extra-university research institutions, the Fraunhofer and Max Planck Societies, and the Leibniz and Helmholtz Associations." "Germany has traditionally been a pioneer of environmental and climate protection innovations," Hermann added. "And this tradition has only been strengthened by the orientation of the current government." Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) is the economic promotion agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. GTAI supports German companies setting up in foreign markets, promotes Germany as a business location and assists foreign companies setting up shop in Germany. Contact: Jefferson Chase Senior Manager, Communications Germany Trade & Invest Friedrichstrae 60 10117 Berlin +49 30200099170 [email protected] SOURCE Germany Trade & Invest The Believe in What You're Building Photo Trip Giveaway Includes Tools and Mentorship to Help Photographers Advance Their Careers. BELLEVUE, Wash, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- To help photographers build their portfolios, Identity Digital , a leader in connecting the online world with domain names and related technologies, creative agency CP Collectives , and leading photography magazine PetaPixel , have teamed up to present the 'Believe in What You're Building Photo Trip Giveaway.' Through November 18, 2022, photographers can enter to win the grand prize of the portfolio-building trip of a lifetime while getting expert guidance. Photographers who already have a .photography domain name can gain ten bonus entries for more chances to win. Believe in what you're building giveaway The grand prize is a five-day, four-night photo trip in the spring of 2023 to the winning photographer's destination of choice: New York, London, Iceland, or Jamaica. The winner will also receive a one-year free subscription to Zenfolio's ProSuite plan . Besides the grand prize, the winner's photographs will be featured on CP Collectives' Instagram page and select entrants and their portfolios will be profiled on @cpcollectives and in PetaPixel articles this upcoming December, January, and February. (Selection for these features doesn't affect the odds of winning the grand prize.) "As more and more professional photographers choose a .photography domain, it's becoming the differentiator among aspiring pros who want to clearly establish who they are and what they do," says Trang Nguyen, Identity Digital's VP, Vertical Growth. "Our goal is to provide photographers with the most authentic and relevant domain names to express their digital identities. We can empower them to make every word count and express who they are from the very first impression before and after the dot." Michael Zhang, publisher of PetaPixel, comments, "A digital presence is essential for aspiring photographers working to elevate their brands and showcase their art. A .photography domain is a great way to increase visibility online and reaffirm commitment to their craft. We're excited to partner with Identity Digital and CP Collectives on this great opportunity for them to grow their skills, portfolio, and business." "It's great to partner with Identify Digital to give one lucky photographer this amazing opportunity to build an impressive portfolio and learn new skills that can help launch a professional career," Ian Harper, director at CP Collectives, adds. Photographers can enter the 'Believe in What You're Building Giveaway' by Nov. 18, 2022, with their existing portfolios at buildyour.photography. There is no purchase or payment necessary to enter or win. Entry is open to legal residents of 50 United States and Washington D.C. who are at least age 18 upon entry. To enter: (i) submit a completed entry using the online form provided at buildyour.photography and (ii) agree to these Official Rules. The winner will be announced on November 30, 2022. About PetaPixel Established in May of 2009, PetaPixel is a leading publication covering the wonderful world of photography. PetaPixel's mission is to inform, educate, and inspire in all things photography-related. For more information, please visit PetaPixel . About CP Collectives CP Collectives is the community behind the creative agency CP Creatives. CP Creatives started in 2016 and produces work for hotels, brands, and destinations around the world. For more information, please visit cpcreatives.com . About Identity Digital Identity Digital Inc. simplifies and connects the online world with domain names and related technologies to empower people to build, market, and own their authentic digital identities. With the world's largest portfolio of nearly 300 TLDs such as .live, .technology, and .restaurant, Identity Digital operates around 25 million domains on its innovative registry services platform. In addition, they enable customers to discover, register, support and use high-quality domain names with its registrar, Name.com . Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, Identity Digital is a global company with approximately 250 employees. For more information, please visit identity.digital. Contact Sacha Arts Bella Vista Communications (408) 458.6316 [email protected] SOURCE Identity Digital, Inc. Horizon's data-driven approach and CPG experience make the difference NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a competitive seven month review, global nutrition company Glanbia Performance Nutrition (GPN) has named Horizon Media agency of record for its portfolio of brands marketed in the U.S., including SlimFast, Optimum Nutrition, and Think!, among others. Horizon Media, the largest U.S. media agency according to AdAge Data Center 2022, will be responsible for execution of data-driven media strategies that reach each brand's strategic growth audience and guide personalized connections across their consumer journey. Horizon will direct GPN's media investment, deliver real-time performance analytics, and provide strategic consulting and thought leadership for GPN's in-house integrated marketing and media team. "SlimFast, Optimum Nutrition, and the rest of the GPN portfolio, are leading brands in a category that is undergoing significant change relative to generational preferences and consumers' expectations about a brand's behavior beyond the specific product. As people across demographics are becoming more health conscious, nutrition and wellness brands need to drive trust and engagement, well beyond a sales or transactional mindset," said Coleen Kuehn, chief business solutions officer, Horizon Media. "We are inspired by GPN's mission, to inspire people everywhere to achieve their performance and healthy lifestyle goals - to improve people's lives as it reflects our 'Business is Personal' approach and we're excited to work with GPN to build brand reputation, engagement, and loyalty." Horizon Media will help GPN navigate and optimize strategies for an increasingly digital-first purchase journey and build meaningful relationships with consumers. To scale personalization across the entire portfolio, the companies will collaborate to execute creative media and consumer engagement strategies that bolster sales and deliver against key personalization goals from awareness to loyalty. These strategies will be powered by Horizon Media's data-driven approaches and capabilities, harnessing critical behavioral data to identify high-propensity consumers, design tailored creative experiences, and optimize investments. With increased touchpoints to reach consumers, GPN identified blu., Horizon Media's proprietary, connected marketing platform, and the agency's advanced performance and analytical capabilities, as key factors in their decision. blu. provides Horizon with a competitive advantage to better target individuals, personalize messaging, and engage consumers based on more than 11,000 deterministic attributes resulting in actionable intelligence across all media and marketing channels. "Horizon's framework to drive growth, grounded in data insights and proprietary marketing investment tools, coupled with their deep CPG and wellness experience and overall buying power made the difference for us," said Grant Leech, vp of integrated marketing, Glanbia Performance Nutrition. "Health and wellness brands are facing increased competition for mindshare and share of wallet, so we need a partner who is just as focused on business growth as we are and not just marketing KPIs. Horizon brings the right mix of strengths strategic thinking, data and analytics, innovation, and flexibility to help us transform our business." GPN was supported through the media pitch process by growth consultancy firm, ID Comms. About Glanbia Performance Nutrition Glanbia Performance Nutrition (GPN) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Glanbia plc (ISE/LSE: GLAPF), a global nutrition company. GPN's mission is to inspire people everywhere to achieve their performance and healthy lifestyle goals through their leading health and wellness brands, which include Optimum Nutrition, SlimFast, think!, Isopure, Amazing Grass and BSN, among others. Global revenues for GPN in 2021 were approximately $1.4 billion. Visit glanbiaperformancenutrition.com or glanbia.com to learn more. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Horizon Media Horizon Media, Inc, the largest U.S. media agency according to AdAge Data Center 2022, delivers data-driven business outcomes for some of the most innovative and ambitious brands. Founded in 1989, headquartered in New York, and with offices in Edmonton, Los Angeles and Toronto, the company employs 2,400 people and has media investments of more than $9.5 billion. Horizon Media's fundamental belief is that business is personal, which drives its approach to connecting brands with their customers and engaging with its own employees resulting in industry-leading workplace satisfaction levels (Glassdoor). The company is consistently recognized by independent media outlets for its client excellence and has earned several "Best Workplaces" awards reflecting its commitment to DEI and the life and well-being of everyone at Horizon Media. SOURCE Horizon Media DUBLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Sanitary Ware Market - Forecasts from 2022 to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global sanitary ware market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.38% over the forecast period to reach a market size of US$47.112 billion in 2027 from US$32.645 billion in 2020. In the past decade, major developing countries have increased their budget for building and developing proper sanitation facilities for vulnerable and indigent populations. This has led to a rise in demand that will have a positive and significant impact on the market. Major manufacturers and players are spending significant capital on developing novel and innovative composites and materials. The growth in the income of consumers in developing countries has led to the demand for premium quality sanitary ware products. Therefore, major and key players are investing more capital in developing technological aspects and design. The growth in the real estate market will have a significant effect on the global sanitary ware market. The real estate industry is worth trillions and will continue to register significant growth in the coming years. The positive effects of globalization, students travelling to different countries for studies, growth in business-to-business interaction between people of different nations, rise in the tourism sector, and others will have a positive impact on the global sanitary ware market. Growth in the real estate sector will have a significant impact on the Sanitary Ware Market. According to the data given by the National Association of Realtors, a North American Trade Association, 5.34 million existing homes were sold out in the year 2019 in the United States. 682,000 novel build homes were sold out in 2019. The data given by the Association of Real Estate License Law officials gave an estimate that about 2 million real estate licensees are active and working in the United States. The emergence and growth of nuclear families, rising commercial and household income, and rapid urbanization will play a significant growth in the development of the market. 70-75% of India's GDP was projected to come from Urban Areas in 2020. The sanitary ware market is fragmented, and the significance of small, local, and regional players has risen. Major companies are working to invest and penetrate the regional market by working and collaborating with local, small, and medium players. Governments worldwide are spending a substantial sum of capital on smart city projects and urbanization infrastructure development. Sanitation will play an indispensable role in the growth of the market. According to the World Health Organisation, 45% of the global population had access to safely managed sanitation facilities in 2017. 31% of the population worldwide had access to privately managed sanitation facilities, which were connected to sewers that were located on the spot to treat wastewater. 14% of the population worldwide used latrines or toilets where excreta were disposed of on the spot. 74% of the population had access to basic sanitation facilities. This also hurts the overall economic growth as the effects of poor sanitation have been visible on the country's GDP. Some countries have lost billions of dollars in GDP, such as the equivalent of 6.3% of GDP in Bangladesh, 6.4% of GDP in India, and others. The losses are due to premature deaths, lost time in treating a person, and productivity in locating proper sanitation facilities. Nevertheless, there have been recent developments in this sector as more countries are enhancing their infrastructure and eliminating diseases. The government of India announced that it had built more than 90 million toilets by February 2019 under the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin Scheme, which was launched in 2014. The scheme has positively impacted and covered 98% of the rural areas. This has registered significant growth in the sanitary ware market. Segmentation: By Type Cistern Toilet Sink Pedestal Wash Basin By Materials Ceramic Acrylic Plastic Pressed Metal By Applications Household Commercial By Geography North America USA Canada Mexico South America Brazil Argentina Europe Germany Spain United Kingdom France Middle East and Africa and Saudi Arabia UAE South Africa Asia Pacific China Japan Australia India South Korea Indonesia Key Topics Covered: 1. INTRODUCTION 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4. MARKET DYNAMICS 5. GLOBAL SANITARY WARE MARKET ANALYSIS, BY TYPE (VALUE IN US$ MILLION) 6. GLOBAL SANITARY WARE MARKET ANALYSIS, BY MATERIALS (VALUE IN US$ MILLION) 7. GLOBAL SANITARY WARE MARKET ANALYSIS, BY APPLICATIONS (VALUE IN US$ MILLION) 8. GLOBAL SANITARY WARE MARKET ANALYSIS, BY GEOGRAPHY (VALUE IN US$ MILLION) 9. COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT AND ANALYSIS 10. COMPANY PROFILES Companies Mentioned LIXIL Group Corporation Jaquar CERA Sanitary Ware Ltd. Eagle Ceramics Euro Ceramics Ltd. Duratex Hindware Homes Lecico Egypt RAK CERAMICS Villeroy & Boch AG For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/r0n58i Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets DUBLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Telecom Cloud Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Component (Solution, Services), by Deployment Type, by Service Model, by Application, by Enterprise Size, by Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2022-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global telecom cloud market size is expected to reach USD 103.6 billion by 2030, according to this report. The market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 19.9% from 2022 to 2030. A telecom cloud is a next-generation network architecture that integrates cloud-native technologies, network function virtualization, and software-defined networking into a distributed computing network. Orchestration and automation are essential since the computing and network resources are scattered across clouds and locations. Telco Cloud refers to shifting communications service providers (CSPs) from vertically integrating proprietary hardware-based infrastructure networks to cloud-based technologies. It is mainly used in the telecom business to refer to multi-cloud computing. The propelling drivers of the telecom industry are increased customer satisfaction, corporate agility, cost savings, and others. Also, the usage of standard computational hardware and automation reduces CapEx and OpEx resulting in increased adoption of telco cloud in the telecommunication industry. It also delivers innovative bespoke B2B solutions, such as telcos may bring highly customized corporate products to market rapidly and affordably. Telco cloud makes it simple to collaborate with business service partners by providing access to public cloud services from any device, at any time. Additionally, it protects your consumers and profits from competitors; for instance, the telco cloud enables operators to swiftly alter business models to test new goods, services, and pricing schemes. It also makes setting up new consumer experiences and communication channels easier. Furthermore, the lower CapEX and OPEX needs of telco cloud, better service resilience, and capacity to respond swiftly to faults and demand changes allow operators to maintain service levels and competitive pricing. These advantages result in lower client attrition. The top trends in the telecom cloud industry are hybrid cloud hosting, Cloud Native Network Functions (CNNF), and telecom cloud collaboration. A hybrid cloud merges private and public clouds where the software and data are interoperable and portable. It allows telcos to optimize the operations with various patterns to manage workload. It improves resource allocation, optimizes infrastructure spending, provides enhanced organizational agility, and offers the ability to scale using the public cloud and controls available in the private cloud deployment. Also, in the case of CNNF, Software-defined networking is replaced by NFV (Network Functions Virtualization), which provides more independence from proprietary servers and hardware. It provides a cloud-native architecture that combines VNFs and CNFs while adopting 5G features. This will provide maximum market coverage to telecom businesses looking to expand their services. Moreover, telecom cloud collaboration includes partnerships between hyperscalers and telcos which constitute a major cloud computing trend transforming the business. Cloud service providers and telecom enterprises join forces to expand edge computing collaboration and 5G. Telecom cloud service providers are increasing their connectivity with the help of technology advancement to gain a competitive edge over their peers and capture a significant market share. Telecom Cloud Market Report Highlights Telecom cloud computing is a software-defined structure that allows telecom businesses to process and store data remotely in their data lakes or data processing centers In May 2022 , Nokia also announced the launch of the cloud-native IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) Voice Core product, which will help CSPs (Communication Service Providers) to increase operational agility, simplify their network operations, and decrease the cost of managing their network , Nokia also announced the launch of the cloud-native IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) Voice Core product, which will help CSPs (Communication Service Providers) to increase operational agility, simplify their network operations, and decrease the cost of managing their network Based on the component, the solution segment accounted for the largest revenue share of over 60.2% in 2021 as it offers unified communication and collaboration, content delivery networks, and other solutions The rising internet and mobile device penetration are driving the adoption of solutions. Additionally, exponentially expanding media content and demand for rich video content among increasing internet users and the digitalization trend among enterprises across end-user sectors drive the demand for telecom cloud solutions The deployment type segment comprises private, public, and hybrid cloud. The private cloud segment dominated the market in 2021 and is expected to witness a significant CAGR of 56.4% over the forecast period, owing to several benefits offered by this segment such as improved control, better security & data privacy, specialized computational resources such as RAN, VNF, and edge apps and services, along with cost -efficiency Based on the service model, the Software as a Service (SaaS) segment accounted for the largest revenue share of over 55.7% in 2021 owing to its potential to cut infrastructure expenses, shifting the cost base from capex to opex In terms of applications, the network, data storage & computing segment dominated the overall market, gaining a revenue share of 34.4% in 2021. The dominance of this segment is owing to its ability to perform several functions such as web application development, improved scalability, batch processing, and storage, hosting, and handling of peak workloads among others In terms of enterprise size, the large enterprises segment dominated the market in 2021 and is expected to witness a significant CAGR of 61.6% over the forecast period owing to the growing adoption of cloud-based technologies, which help small enterprises streamline their business operations cost-effectively Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope Chapter 2. Executive Summary Chapter 3. Market Variables, Trends, & Scope Outlook 3.1. Market Segmentation 3.2. Telecom Cloud Market Size & Growth Prospects 3.3. Telecom Cloud Market - Value Chain Analysis 3.4. Telecom Cloud Market Dynamics 3.4.1. Market Driver Analysis 3.4.2. Market Restraint Analysis 3.4.3. Market Opportunity Analysis 3.5. Telecom Cloud Penetration & Growth Prospects Mapping 3.6. Telecom Cloud Market - Porter's Five Forces Analysis 3.6.1. Supplier power 3.6.2. Buyer power 3.6.3. Substitution threat 3.6.4. Threat from new entrant 3.6.5. Competitive rivalry 3.7. Telecom Cloud Market - PEST Analysis 3.7.1. Political landscape 3.7.2. Economic landscape 3.7.3. Social landscape 3.7.4. Technology landscape 3.8. COVID-19 Impact Analysis Chapter 4. Telecom Cloud Market Product Outlook 4.1. Telecom Cloud Market, By Component Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 4.2. Solution 4.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 4.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 4.3. Services 4.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 4.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 4.3.3. Professional Services 4.3.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 4.3.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 4.3.4. Managed Services 4.3.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 4.3.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) Chapter 5. Telecom Cloud Market Deployment Type Outlook 5.1. Telecom Cloud Market, By Deployment Type Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 5.2. Private 5.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 5.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 5.3. Public 5.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 5.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 5.4. Hybrid 5.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 5.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) Chapter 6. Telecom Cloud Market Service Model Outlook 6.1. Telecom Cloud Market, By Service Model Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 6.2. Software as a Service (SaaS) 6.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 6.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 6.3. Platform as a Service (SaaS) 6.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 6.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 6.4. Infrastructure as a Service (SaaS) 6.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 6.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) Chapter 7. Telecom Cloud Market Applications Outlook 7.1. Telecom Cloud Market, By Applications Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 7.2. Network, Data Storage, and Computing 7.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.3. Traffic Management 7.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.4. Cloud Migration 7.4.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.4.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.5. Others 7.5.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 7.5.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) Chapter 8. Telecom Cloud Market Enterprise Size Outlook 8.1. Telecom Cloud Market, By Enterprise Size Analysis & Market Share, 2021 & 2030 8.2. Large Enterprises 8.2.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 8.2.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 8.3. SMEs 8.3.1. Market estimates and forecasts, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) 8.3.2. Market estimates and forecasts, By Region, 2017 - 2030 (USD Billion) Chapter 9. Telecom Cloud Market: Regional Estimates & Trend Analysis Chapter 10. Competitive Analysis 10.1 Recent Developments and Impact Analysis, by Key Market Participants 10.2 Company/Competition Categorization (Key Innovators, Market Leaders, Emerging, Niche Players) 10.3 Vendor Landscape 10.3.1 Key company market share analysis, 2021 10.3.2 Company Analysis Tools 10.3.3 Market Position Analysis 10.3.4 Competitive Dashboard Analysis Chapter 11. Competitive Landscape 11.1. Company Profiles 11.2. Juniper Networks, Inc. 11.2.1. Company overview 11.2.2. Financial performance 11.2.3. Type benchmarking 11.2.4. Strategic initiatives 11.3. IBM Corporation 11.3.1. Company overview 11.3.2. Financial performance 11.3.3. Type benchmarking 11.3.4. Strategic initiatives 11.4. Mavenir 11.4.1. Company overview 11.4.2. Financial performance 11.4.3. Type benchmarking 11.4.4. Strategic initiatives 11.5. Affirmed Networks 11.5.1. Company overview 11.5.2. Financial performance 11.5.3. Type benchmarking 11.5.4. Strategic initiatives 11.6. Fortinet 11.6.1. Company overview 11.6.2. Financial performance 11.6.3. Type benchmarking 11.6.4. Strategic initiatives 11.7. Orange 11.7.1. Company overview 11.7.2. Financial performance 11.7.3. Type benchmarking 11.7.4. Strategic initiatives 11.8. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 11.8.1. Company overview 11.8.2. Financial performance 11.8.3. Type benchmarking 11.8.4. Strategic initiatives 11.9. VMWare 11.9.1. Company overview 11.9.2. Financial performance 11.9.3. Type benchmarking 11.9.4. Strategic initiatives 11.10. Cisco 11.10.1. Company overview 11.10.2. Financial performance 11.10.3. Type benchmarking 11.10.4. Strategic initiatives 11.11. Nokia 11.11.1. Company overview 11.11.2. Financial performance 11.11.3. Type benchmarking 11.11.4. Strategic initiatives 11.12. Ericsson 11.12.1 Company overview 11.12.2 Financial performance 11.12.3 Type benchmarking 11.12.4 Strategic initiatives For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/zh0f Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets At Next '22, Google Cloud announces updates to its trusted cloud ecosystem with new Sovereign Solutions initiative and partnerships spanning critical areas of cybersecurity SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Google Cloud today announced a significant expansion of its trusted cloud ecosystem, highlighting new integrations and offerings with more than twenty partners focused on enabling greater data sovereignty controls, supporting Zero Trust models, unifying identity management, and improving endpoint security for global businesses. Global businesses face growing challenges in cybersecurity and data protection, as cyber threats become increasingly sophisticated, hybrid work becomes the norm, and governments adopt new requirements for data sovereignty and control. Google Cloud provides businesses with industry-leading, end-to-end security capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premises environmentsand today it is announcing a series of partnerships that extend its leadership as an open and trusted cloud. By embracing its ecosystem of partners, Google Cloud is ensuring that global businesses have choice and flexibility to work with leading cybersecurity vendors and to deliver diverse sets of applications on infrastructure compliant with growing data protection requirements. "Providing businesses with extensible cybersecurity solutions in the cloud, and a collaborative ecosystem of partners, is the only practical approach to addressing enterprises' greatest cybersecurity challenges," said Sunil Potti, VP, Cloud Security at Google Cloud. "Our partners play a critical role in keeping customers secure and compliant, whether enabling secure hybrid work, safeguarding critical infrastructure, or meeting stringent data residency requirements." "Success with today's digital business platforms requires a connected and trusted ecosystem of partners to help ensure better security outcomes for customers," said Prem Iyer, VP, GSI and CSP Ecosystems at Palo Alto Networks. "We remain committed to continuing our momentum with Google Cloud, delivering best-in-class solutions that simplify cloud security for our joint customers while improving their security posture." "The Symantec Enterprise Division and Google Cloud are committed to addressing critical requirements of governments and highly regulated industries to establish sovereignty over data at rest, in use, and in transit," said Rob Greer, VP and GM at Symantec Enterprise Division, Broadcom. "The Google Cloud ReadySovereign Solutions program provides Symantec customers with a transparent and flexible approach to meet local data security and privacy laws, across our cybersecurity solutions." Bringing partner applications to European sovereign clouds Google Cloud is announcing a new Google Cloud ReadySovereign Solutions program to help customers identify partner applications validated to be compatible with Google Cloud's portfolio of Sovereign Solutions, including partner offerings from T-Systems in Germany and S3NS in France . This program will give customers the confidence to continue using applications that are critical to their business while meeting their digital sovereignty objectives. Today, a diverse group of software partners are committing to validate their platforms for this program, including Aiven, Broadcom (Symantec), Cloud Software Group (Citrix), Climate Engine, Commvault, Confluent, Datadog, DataIKU, Dell Technologies, Elastic, Fortinet, Gitlab, Iron Mountain, LumApps, MongoDB, NetApp, OpenText, Palo Alto Networks, Pega Systems, Siemens, SUSE, Thales, Thought Machine, Veeam, and VMware. Expanding Zero Trust architecture with partners Businesses around the world utilize Google Cloud's BeyondCorp Enterprise Zero Trust solution to enable secure access to applications and resources and to safeguard data. In 2020, Google Cloud announced the BeyondCorp Alliance, creating an ecosystem of partners to help enable customers to integrate products and utilize information from leading security vendors including CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, VMware, and more . Today, Google Cloud is taking a significant step forward in the extensibility of its Zero Trust offerings by partnering with Palo Alto Networks to ensure customers can embrace a ZTNA 2.0 strategy, protecting all users and applications on devices connected across any network. Simplifying identity management across platforms Unified identity management is another critical component to secure hybrid work, because it safely eliminates the need to maintain separate user identities across multiple platforms. Alongside its own Identity and Access Management products , Google Cloud is announcing new integrations with ForgeRock, JumpCloud, Okta, and Ping Identity that will automatically extend identity management capabilities and policies to joint customers, adding significant value to investments customers have already made, and helping further secure commonly-used applications. Improving endpoint security and operations These partnerships build on Google Cloud's existing ecosystem of endpoint and security operations partners. Strong endpoint protection helps businesses maintain data security while giving their workforces the flexibility to access key applications and information seamlessly across devices, including mobile phones, desktops, laptops, and more. Through its Chronicle Security Operations platform, Google Cloud offers a modern, cloud-first suite that better enables cybersecurity teams to detect, investigate, and respond to threats. Google Cloud's ecosystem of partners like CrowdStrike, Cybereason, and Fortinet integrate their platforms with Chronicle, ensuring customers have the flexibility and choice to modernize their endpoint security operations. With the addition of Mandiant to Google Cloud, endpoint partners will also have opportunities to deepen their integrations with Google Cloud's end-to-end security operations suite, with even greater capabilities to support customers across their cloud and on-premises environments. Delivering implementation and managed services through systems integrators Google Cloud's top systems integrators including Deloitte will provide implementation customization and managed services for customers, bringing together Google Cloud's capabilities in security analytics, threat intelligence, automation, and SecOps with those of its ecosystem to help customers more quickly prevent and respond to cyber threats. Learn more about Google Cloud's ecosystem of security partners here . About Google Cloud Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems. SOURCE Google Cloud SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Google Cloud today announced an expanded partnership with Snap Inc. (Snap) that will involve the company using Google's data, analytics, and AI/ML technologies to power growth for Snapchat. Built on a more than ten-year partnership, Snap will expand its use of Google Cloud to transform the customer experience and deliver more personalized solutions. "We're excited to be doubling down on the work we're doing with Google Cloud to power Snapchat," said Saral Jain, Senior Director Engineering at Snap, Inc. "Through our partnership, we have the ability to offer best in class scalability and flexibility that allows us to offer new experiences and the latest innovations to our global customer base." Snap's implementation of a multicloud strategy has demonstrated how a startup can leverage public clouds to drive cost efficiency, accelerate innovation, and its capability to help a business scale and grow. Operating at lightning speed and massive scale are key attributes that enable Snap to support the company's global community of 347 million daily active users. Snap is expanding its use of Google Cloud's data cloud services and critical artificial intelligence/machine learning technology (AI/ML). These data services provide Snap the capabilities to gather, quantify, and develop insights about its community, eco-system, and B2B partner network; while Google Cloud's AI/ML service, Vertex AI, enables Snap to focus on its core business. Snap's visual messaging app, Snapchat, is one of the world's most popular apps. In 2011, the Snapchat platform was created on Google Cloud to provide an architecture that has allowed Snap to focus on its core strengthsbuilding out its platform and ecosystem to attract users and business partners at scale and speed. As Snap Inc. continues to grow its daily active users at an 18% rate in Q2 2022, Google Cloud will support Snap's needs to not only ensure the application infrastructure can scale to reach its global daily active users efficiently, but also power the infrastructure to continue to provide the experiences that Snap is well known for. To support this growth, Google Cloud's team continues to help guide the Snap team to make thoughtful decisions based on cost, innovation, availability and capacity, and performance and flexibility. "Snap operates in a highly competitive environment and must continually innovate, create new products, and enhance existing products," said Kirsten Kliphouse, President, Google Cloud. "We're proud that Google Cloud will continue to be Snap's valued partner as it works to attract, retain, and grow its global community." Additional Resources About Google Cloud Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems. SOURCE Google Cloud Just 7% of government leaders feel their organization has met its digital transformation goals Digitalization is being held back by a lack of capabilities and outmoded ways of working Struggle to retain existing digital talent is among the top three barriers to delivering better public services LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Governments around the world are at risk of failing citizens through lack of digitalization, according to EY research presented in a new report: "How can government workers and technology align to serve future citizens?". Less than one in ten (7%) government leader respondents believe that their organization has achieved their digital transformation goals; and the momentum for digitalization that built up during the pandemic is in danger of being lost. The new report indicates that responding government workforces are ill-prepared to capitalize on the enormous potential benefits of digitalization. This includes improving access to digital services; using data analytics to predict when vulnerable people will need more assistance; and increasing efficiency across the board. Many respondents find themselves constrained by a combination of issues including a lack of digitally aware leaders; a lack of digital and data skills and the training to access them; and an organizational culture that is reactive and uninspiring, hampering the efforts to attract the best digital talent. Coupled with the fact that 38% of Gen Z government worker respondents say they plan to leave their jobs in the next 12 months, governments must also meet the challenge of retaining the digitally literate talent they already possess, as an aging public sector workforce nears retirement. While several global trends are converging to disrupt governments, these present challenges and also significant opportunities for the digital transformation of the public sector. In order to tackle these issues, the report recommends a framework of four key actions for governments to follow when looking to create a workforce equipped for the future: Adopt dynamic workforce planning. Take a longer-term view of capacity and capability needs and creating strategies to access skills. Scale digital capabilities. Upskilling or reskill existing employees, sourcing fresh talent and emphasize purposeful careers to rebrand the public sector to make it more attractive. Foster digital leadership and culture. Managing digital transformation requires leaders who can challenge the status quo, articulating a compelling vision for change while reassuring and educating employees on a digital mindset. Reimagine the employee experience. Create tailored employee experience that treats every worker as a unique individual, offering structured career paths to help workers progress and fulfil their career ambitions. Arnauld Bertrand, EY Global Government Consulting Leader, says: "During the pandemic we were offered a glimpse of the potential of the digital state and how it could deliver for citizens. Working from home became the norm and more services were moved online. In a post-pandemic world, we must not allow this momentum to be lost. The data shows that governments understand there is more to be done, but there remain many barriers to success. "To truly embrace a digital government and deliver for citizens we collectively must continue to help build future-fit public sector organizations with digitally aware leaders and a plan for building the right capacity, skills, culture and employee experience. These will need to be encouraged and developed across the public services with new ways of working and new systems. If they don't, opportunities to improve services through harnessing data and technology will be lost. The chance to individualize and target services will be squandered and with it the ability to better allocate taxpayer resources and deliver maximum benefits as and where needed. Most concerningly, society's most vulnerable people will suffer if public services deteriorate due to inadequate capacity or skill levels. It all hinges on getting in the right people with the right skills." EY analysis shows that citizens now expect levels of quality, speed and convenience on a par with the private sector, with immediate, seamless access to services through a variety of channels. Citizens expect digital to improve the way they conduct many aspects of their lives and they expect governments to keep up. Governments are responding by trying to become more focused on the needs of citizens. According to EY research, 43% of government respondents rank a focus on the customer/citizen experience as one of the top three factors driving successful transformation. This calls for better use of technology and data to understand people's needs and circumstances, as well as new skills such as user experience research and design. Employees also want a digital workplace that keeps pace with their personal experience and feel that governments are not doing enough. The 2022 EY Work Reimagined Survey shows 63% of respondents believe extensive or moderate changes are needed to enhance their workplace digital tools and technologies. Shalinder Bakshi, EY Global People Advisory Services Leader, Government & Infrastructure, says: "The opportunity here is massive and if governments get it right they will be rewarded with a more efficient state, slicker services and most importantly, happier citizens. That being the case, the stakes are high. Governments need to urgently seize the opportunity to reconfigure the workforce to attract, retain and motivate the skilled employees they need. It is also essential that they put human skills at the center of their digital transformation. Data and technology do not get you very far without the buy-in and skills to go alongside them. "Our framework outlines vital areas for transformation, but it is important to realize that these actions are not linear. They work together holistically all at once and one at a time. While it is of utmost importance governments make these changes, there are examples of governments a step ahead of their peers, excelling in their digital transformation providing opportunities to learn from their progress." Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to favor shorter job tenures and to seek greater purpose and fulfillment, with 63% of Gen Z public sector employee respondents saying they value a clear connection between their job and the overall purpose of the organization above monetary compensation. Meanwhile, people of all ages want a healthier work/life balance. Attracting and retaining younger workers is especially important given that many public workers are approaching retirement (nearly one-third of central government workers in the OECD are over 55) and the 2022 EY Work Reimagined Survey shows that 29% of government worker respondents will likely leave their job in the next 12 months, rising to 38% for those in Gen Z. Bertrand says: "When it comes to offering a job with purpose, governments are at a distinct advantage; and it is an opportunity they can seize. The job of the public sector is to provide better lives for citizens. In the ongoing quest for talent across all sectors, this is a unique element to civil servant roles, which governments should be putting front and center when it comes to recruitment. However, without using technology to offer a strong work/life balance, a compelling career path and clear pathways to train their workforce to become more technologically literate, they run the risk of failing to retain recruits who want to deliver the best for citizens." Notes to editors About EY EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today. EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com. This news release has been issued by EYGM Limited, a member of the global EY organization that also does not provide any services to clients. How EY's Global Government & Public Sector can help your organization Around the world, governments and not-for-profit organizations are continually seeking innovative answers to complex challenges. They are striving to provide better services at lower costs and to create sustainable economic development, a safe environment, more transparency and increased accountability. EY combines private sector leading practices with an understanding of the public sector's diverse needs, focusing on building organizations' capabilities to deliver improved public services. Drawing on many years of experience, we can work with you to help strengthen your organization and achieve lasting improvements. Our Global Government & Public Sector brings together teams of highly skilled professionals from our assurance, consulting, strategy, tax and transaction services. We are inspired by a deep commitment to help you meet your goals and enhance public value, for today and tomorrow. SOURCE EY Global COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Lt. Governor Jon Husted, and JobsOhio leaders announced today that Ohio will continue its historic dominance in the automotive manufacturing industry as Honda selected Ohio to lead its electric vehicle (EV) production and, with LG Energy Solution, a joint venture battery plant. During a special event at the Ohio Statehouse this morning, Honda and LG Energy Solution confirmed that their combined investments of at least $4.2 billion will create a combined 2,527 new jobs in Ohio between the establishment of a new EV battery plant in Fayette County and the retooling of existing Honda plants in Union, Logan, and Shelby counties for electric vehicle production. Honda's renewed commitment to Ohio comes exactly 45 years to the day after Honda leadership visited the Ohio Statehouse in 1977 to announce plans for its first vehicle production facility in the United States, the Marysville Motorcycle Plant. "It has been more than four decades since Honda first saw great promise in Ohio, and although the way we manufacture vehicles is evolving, one thing that will stay the same is the quality of our workforce and their ability to get the job done," said Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. "Honda and LG Energy Solution now join a long list of companies that have looked all over the country for the best place to do business and have chosen Ohio because we have the ideal economic climate and an innovative and talented workforce. Today's announcement is further proof that there is no better place to be right now than in the great state of Ohio." Of the total investment announced today, Honda and LG Energy Solution will invest $3.5 billion in the new Fayette County battery plant, which will create at least 2,200 new jobs. A total of $700 million will be invested by Honda to retool its Marysville Auto Plant in Union County, Anna Engine Plant in Shelby County, and East Liberty Auto Plant in Logan County, creating 327 new jobs on top of its current workforce. Once transformed for EV production, the power source for the vehicles made at the Marysville, Anna, and East Liberty factories will come from the new battery plant in Fayette County. "Honda and LG Energy Solution had many other states vying for this historic investment, and they chose Ohio," said Ohio Lt. Governor Husted. "Ohio's talented workforce and strong business environment, along with Honda's commitment to quality, continue to be a winning combination for the company and this state." Construction on the Fayette County battery plant is expected to begin in early 2023, with a goal of starting mass production of advanced lithium-ion battery modules by 2025. The site, at Interstate 71 and U.S. Route 35, offers more than 1,500 acres and is less than an hour's drive from Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Chillicothe. It also includes access to utilities, including water and sewer, electricity, and natural gas. Honda has a legacy of choosing Ohio for trailblazing initiatives. In addition to choosing Ohio for its motorcycle plant on October 11, 1977, the Marysville Auto Plant produced the very first Honda Accord on November 1, 1982, and the Anna Engine Plant, which opened in 1985, now produces more than 1 million four-cylinder, V-6, and turbo engines for Honda auto plants throughout North America. The East Liberty Auto Plant opened in 1989 and has manufactured over 4.5 million Honda and Acura vehicles since its inception. In 1992, Honda opened a major product development center in Raymond, Ohio, that now creates many of the vehicles built in Ohio. "Honda is proud of our history in Ohio, where our U.S. manufacturing operations began more than four decades ago. Now, as we expand Honda's partnership with Ohio, we are investing in a workforce that will create the power source for our future Honda and Acura electric vehicles," said Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "We want to thank the leaders of the state of Ohio, as well as in Fayette County, Jefferson Township, Jeffersonville, and Washington Court House for welcoming this new joint venture between Honda and LG Energy Solution and giving us another Ohio community to call home." Last month , both companies announced an agreement to establish a new joint venture company to produce lithium-ion batteries in the U.S. to power Honda and Acura EV models. The pouch-type batteries produced at the new plant will be supplied to Honda facilities. The plant aims to support Honda's target of making battery-electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles 100 percent of its vehicle sales by 2040. "In another major step toward electrification, LG Energy Solution's innovative battery technologies will not only power Honda's brand-new EV models but support Ohio's green economy. We extend our gratitude to everyone who played a role in making this happen," said Dong-Myung Kim, Executive Vice President of Advanced Automotive Battery Division at LG Energy Solution. "With our commitment to building the world-best quality products, together with Honda, we look forward to not only creating thousands of quality jobs here in Ohio but growing together with the community." American Honda Motor Co., Inc., LG Energy Solution, the DeWine-Husted Administration, JobsOhio, Dayton Development Coalition, One Columbus, and other state, county, and local officials and partners all collaborated to bring the project to Fayette County. JobsOhio, the state's private nonprofit economic development corporation, has placed significant focus on supporting the automotive supply chain as original equipment manufacturers have begun to place a major focus on electric vehicle production. "Honda's new commitment comes after 45 years of collaboration, growth, and success, shaping generational opportunity and investment for Ohioans," said J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO. "Honda and Ohio have partnered to strengthen its current manufacturing while transitioning, together, to build the vehicles of the future." AccelerateOhio is also shaping the future as a collaborative effort between the state of Ohio, JobsOhio, and 15 public and private organizations to create an innovation ecosystem for the advanced mobility sector including automotive, aviation, aerospace, and military industries. To support the expansion of these investments, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority will consider a tax credit at a future meeting, and JobsOhio also plans to provide grant assistance. The Administration also plans to work with the General Assembly to secure state funding for local water and transportation infrastructure. The start of construction is also pending local approvals. Ohio's commitment to innovation makes it a natural fit for the thriving electric vehicle supply chain and electric vehicle manufacturing opportunities. Ohio's vast history in the automotive industry and automotive supply chain, as well as its overall proximity to resources, manufacturers, and end markets, put the state in a prime position for future electric vehicle production. SOURCE JobsOhio H2 Green Steel is partnering with Midrex, a world leader in direct reduction ironmaking technology for the steel industry. Midrex's owner, Kobe Steel is further solidifying the partnership by investing in H2 Green Steel as part of its Series B financing round. STOCKHOLM, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- H2 Green Steel will build the world's first facility for direct reduced iron (DRI) running on 100 percent green hydrogen, based on Midrex's technology. The Midrex H2 Plant will have a yearly production of 2,1 million tonnes of hot DRI and hot briquetted iron (HBI) that will feed the production of initially 2,5 million tonnes of green steel in Boden in northern Sweden. This first-of-a-kind DRI plant will be provided by a consortium of Midrex and Paul Wurth, an SMS group company. "We started working together almost two years ago and during this time, the team at Midrex has demonstrated a capability for rapid technical development, leading to a package that wraps the world's largest hydrogen electrical heater with the DRI process, to secure a completely green solution for iron reduction. This DRI plant will truly be first of its kind and a landmark for large scale green steel production," says Maria Persson Gulda, CTO of H2 Green Steel. H2 Green Steel's purpose is to decarbonize hard-to-abate industries, starting with steel. Its process will remove up to 95 percent of carbon emissions compared to traditional steelmaking with a blast furnace. The bulk of the emission reductions will happen with Midrex's technology when iron ore is reduced to sponge iron. The companies will also work together for optimization services in the DRI-process. "This unique project is a 'lighthouse' to our industry and sets the standard for green steel. There is simply nothing like it - 100 percent hydrogen from day one to produce over 2 million tonnes of DRI with up to 95 percent reduction in CO 2 ," says Stephen C. Montague, President and CEO of Midrex Technologies, Inc. "This is where Midrex wants to be - at the leading edge of technology." Midrex is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kobe Steel, and sealing the partnership further, Kobe Steel has made an investment in H2 Green Steel. In addition, Kobe Steel has begun discussions with H2 Green Steel for the possible purchase of green HBI in the future. H2 Green Steel may have some over-capacity of HBI in the transition for the company's production to reach full capacity. "We are really excited to cooperate with H2 Green Steel as the strategic partners from both aspects of plant supply and equity investment, in order to jointly tackle the challenge toward the global carbon neutrality. We feel confident that H2 Green Steel project will set a good precedent in the world iron and steel industry moving forward to decarbonization," says Kazuto Morisaki, Executive Vice President of Kobe Steel, Ltd. "As a major Japanese steel maker, Kobe Steel's investment in our venture clearly demonstrates the interest from incumbent steel companies in new ventures that will move the entire steel industry forward. It also adds further geographical diversification to our progressive group of investors who provide us solid support," says Henrik Henriksson, CEO of H2 Green Steel. Contact: Karin Hallstan, Head of Public and Media Relations, phone: +46 76 842 81 04, email: [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/h2-green-steel/r/h2-green-steel-partners-with-midrex-for-technology-and-kobe-steel-for-equity-investment,c3646034 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/20623/3646034/1637077.pdf H2 Green Steel partners with Midrex for technology and Kobe Steel for equity investment_press release_FINAL https://news.cision.com/h2-green-steel/i/midrex-direct-reduced-iron,c3099094 Midrex Direct Reduced Iron SOURCE H2 Green Steel Shopify B2B merchants can now offer customers the option to defer payment by up to 60 days New Hokodo plug-in requires no development work Hokodo is the only B2B BNPL provider with a Shopify integration LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading B2B Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider Hokodo has today announced a new plug-in for multinational e-commerce platform Shopify . This integration will enable B2B merchants with a Shopify webstore to offer instant credit terms to their limited company and sole trader buyers, while getting paid up front and remaining protected from the risk of non-payment and fraud. This integration is the first of its kind, positioning Hokodo as the only viable choice for Shopify's B2B merchants who want to offer customers the ability to defer payment by up to 60 days. The plug-in is available to Shopify merchants operating in the UK, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. "Our new Shopify integration has been designed with the merchant experience in mind, and can be installed in just a few steps with no development work required," says Sami Ben Hatit , Hokodo's co-founder and CTO. "This will be welcome news to SME merchants who don't have the technology resources to spare for a several weeks long integration." Sellers who offer Hokodo's deferred payment solution at the checkout have seen an uplift of 40% in conversion rate and a 30% increase in basket size. Meanwhile, business customers benefit from the opportunity to 'buy now, pay later' on their purchases, ultimately promoting healthier cash flow for both parties. How it works A Shopify merchant instals Hokodo's plug-in to make credit terms available to their business customers. The customer visits the Shopify store of the merchant. At the checkout they choose to pay later. Hokodo's bespoke APIs run real-time eligibility checks on the buyer's credit score and fraud risk. The buyer selects their preferred payment terms and settlement method (credit card, direct debit, bank transfer etc.), and confirms their order. The customer pays Hokodo back in line with their payment terms, while the merchant receives up front payment when delivery of the goods is confirmed. Hokodo handles the collections process, and thanks to backing from Lloyd's of London, merchants are always protected against non-payments. For more information: Visit http://www.hokodo.co/shopify-integration Email [email protected] SOURCE Hokodo Includes $700 million investment in three Honda plants in Ohio to re-tool for EV production investment in three Honda plants in to re-tool for EV production $3.5 billion committed by joint venture battery plant in Fayette County, Ohio , that will support production of battery modules for Honda and Acura vehicles MARYSVILLE, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Honda today announced two major investments in Ohio, including $700 million to re-tool several of its existing auto and powertrain plants for production* of electric vehicles and $3.5 billion with LG Energy Solution (LGES) to establish a previously announced joint venture facility to produce the battery modules to power them, pending final government approvals. The JV battery plant will be located in Ohio's Fayette County, about 40 miles southwest of Columbus. The announcement, held 45 years to the day after Honda announced its first production facility in Ohio October 11, 1977 will transform Honda's Marysville Auto Plant (MAP), East Liberty Auto Plant (ELP) and Anna Engine Plant (AEP) for the electrified future, including the creation of over 300 new jobs. Honda plans to begin production and sales of Honda EVs in North America in 2026, based on its new Honda e:Architecture. The $700 million re-tooling will enable AEP associates to produce the battery case, to be combined with the battery modules from the JV plant on a sub-assembly line at MAP, with the complete battery unit then installed in EVs built by associates at both MAP and ELP. These Honda facilities, along with the new EV battery plant, will serve as a new EV hub in Ohio, and play a key role in developing the company's knowledge and expertise in EV production that will be shared across Honda's North American auto production network in the coming years. Honda's EV hub will leverage the company's longstanding production, product development, and purchasing operations located in Central Ohio. As part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality for all products and corporate activities by 2050, Honda announced a vision to make battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles represent 100% of its vehicle sales by 2040 in North America. "This is a very challenging time for our entire industry, but also a very exciting time as Honda invests in full electric vehicle production in the Buckeye State," said Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "Honda has built hybrid-electric vehicles in Ohio for a number of years, and the experience and expertise of our associates in manufacturing, product development, and purchasing will serve as an important foundation as we transition to the electrified future." Honda produced and sold a record of more than 100,000 electrified vehicles in the U.S. last year, including the Accord Hybrid, CR-V Hybrid and Insight hybrid sedan. Honda's new investment in its Ohio plants will support production of electric vehicles and EV components. New EV Battery Production Joint Venture Honda will obtain the battery modules from a new joint venture (JV) between Honda and LGES, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. That JV production facility represents a commitment to invest $3.5 billion in Fayette County, Ohio, and will employ 2,200 associates, who will produce pouch-type batteries to be provided to Honda plants for EV production. Pending regulatory approvals, the joint venture between Honda and LGES will be established in 2022, with the overall investment projected to reach $4.4 billion. The two companies plan to begin construction in Fayette County in early 2023, in order to complete the new production facility by the end of 2024. This will enable the start of mass production of battery modules using advanced pouch-type, Li-ion cells by the end of 2025, with an annual production capacity of approximately 40GWh. "Honda is proud of our history in Ohio, where our U.S. manufacturing operations began more than four decades ago. Now, as we expand Honda's partnership with Ohio, we are investing in a workforce that will create the power source for our future Honda and Acura electric vehicles," said Nelson. "We want to thank the leaders of the state of Ohio, as well as in Fayette County, Jefferson Township, Jeffersonville, and Washington Court House for welcoming this new joint venture between Honda and LG Energy Solution and giving us another Ohio community to call home." Honda Manufacturing in North America Honda has produced automobiles in North America for 40 years, beginning in November 1982 at the Marysville Auto Plant. Honda began manufacturing operations in North America in 1979 with motorcycle production in Marysville, Ohio. Over the past four decades, Honda has steadily grown local production capabilities and now employs more than 30,000 associates at 18 plants with the annual capacity to produce 1.86 million automobiles, nearly 4 million engines, 500,000 power equipment products and 300,000 powersports products, as well as the HondaJet advanced light jet and GE Honda HF120 turbofan engines. In 2021, more than 95% of all U.S.-sold Honda and Acura automobiles were made in North America. Cumulatively, Honda has invested nearly $24.6 billion in its North American manufacturing capabilities, including more than $3.6 billion over the past five years alone. The company works with nearly 800 original equipment suppliers in North America with cumulative parts purchases of more than $535 billion. Learn more with the Digital FactBook. SOURCE Honda LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Silent Eight announced an extension to its existing partnership with HSBC to tackle financial crime. The new service will cover the deployment of Negative News Screening that leverages machine learning to identify individuals who pose a greater risk for money laundering, fraud or terrorist financing. As financial crime continues to present a challenge, banks need to pivot to an increased use of Machine Learning within compliance, and move away from manual processes or alert scoring. Silent Eights' solution provides a more effective approach to address true matches and resolve the issue of false identifications. With this expansion, Silent Eight will be solving name screening matches across every risk type within HSBC. "HSBC is dedicated to drive AI innovation in the financial services field, and with Silent Eight's capabilities, we continue our focus on tackling financial crime more effectively and make the industry safer. We are excited to see the value that they will create by integrating Negative News screening into our platforms," said Mark Turkington, Group Head of Financial Crime Detection. Silent Eight CRO, Matt Leaney, said, "Working with a technology leader like HSBC who is embracing machine learning within compliance is a pleasure for us. It is a true partnership of shared goals and interests, we look forward to deepening our relationship and supporting their goals for many years to come." About Silent Eight: Silent Eight makes crime bad business and with its banking, insurance and payment partners is responsible for stopping bad actors accessing the financial system Silent Eight leads the world in Artificial Intelligence solutions for the compliance challenges of today and tomorrow. Spanning customers and transactions, covering Sanctions, Adverse News, PePs and monitoring Silent Eight ensures all potential risks are investigated and decided quickly, accurately and consistently. SOURCE Silent Eight Pte. Ltd. TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Humble & Fume Inc. (CSE: HMBL) (OTCQX: HUMBF) ("Humble" or the "Company"), a leading North American distributor of cannabis and cannabis accessories, supported by a customer-centric sales team and robust fulfillment infrastructure, today announced the hiring of Charlie Cangialosi, VP of Commercial for the California market. Joel Toguri, Chief Executive Officer of Humble, commented, "Charlie brings over two decades of experience leading sales teams for some of the most successful brands in the cannabis and beverage alcohol space. We are committed to accelerating our expansion efforts in the U.S. and adding Charlie to our team will help us realize that goal." Charlie joins Humble from Old Pal, where he served as Chief Operating Officer, providing leadership across multiple areas, including sales, production, innovation, operations & retail execution. "During my time at Old Pal, I had the opportunity to lead business development efforts to expand the brand into new states and international markets like Canada and Israel," said Charlie. "I am looking forward to working with the talented team at Humble to continue our efforts to become the dominant distributor of cannabis in the California marketplace." His expertise in the cannabis industry also includes reshaping the route-to-market strategies of Kiva Confections and Loudpack. Before he transitioned to the cannabis industry, Charlie spent eighteen years in the beverage alcohol industry in various roles, including sales, marketing, analytics, and senior leadership for Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors. Additionally, Charlie has been an active legislative lobbying contributor in the cannabis industry. Through his work with CCIA & CCMA, he provided insight and strategies from his experience in the alcohol industry, which is subject to significant state and federal regulations. His ability to draw the parallels between these two adult-use product regulations makes him effective in conveying the need for practical and reasonable cannabis regulations. Charlie is a California State University Long Beach graduate and holds an MBA from Pepperdine University. About Humble & Fume Inc. Humble & Fume Inc. is a leading North American distributor of cannabis and cannabis accessories, supported by a customer-centric sales team and a strong fulfillment infrastructure. As the only fully integrated cannabis distribution solution, Humble bridges the gap for retailers, licensed cannabis producers, multi-state operators, and cannabis consumers to maximize sales penetration, and increase financial performance. With over 20 years of North American operating experience, Humble has cultivated extensive vendor and customer relationships, distributing premium cannabis consumables and consumption devices. SOURCE Humble & Fume Inc. Prominent Dallas-based architecture firm add a strategic key player to their executive leadership team DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Humphreys & Partners Architects (HPA) has appointed Jamie DeWispelare to serve as the new Chief Financial Officer. As the new CFO, DeWispelare will oversee the finance and accounting teams, and work alongside the HPA executive leadership team to drive revenue growth. Jamie DeWispelare, Humphreys & Partners Architects Chief Financial Officer With over twenty years of proven leadership and expertise in strategic financial planning and growth development, DeWispelare's demonstrated ability to improve business operations, increase efficiencies, and maximize profits through data analytics will be critical in paving the way for HPA's continued success. DeWispelare returns to the role of CFO at HPA after serving as the CFO of LandSouth Construction in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Prior to joining HPA in 2019, he spent nearly nine years as CFO of Engineering, Automation and Design, a national consulting firm supporting the food, pharmaceutical, parcel, and logistics industries. DeWispelare is a certified public accountant and holds a bachelor's degree in Accounting from Doane University. "We're pleased to welcome back Jamie to the team as our new Chief Financial Officer," stated Greg Faulkner, the President of HPA. "We have big plans for the future of HPA and with Jamie's expertise and many years of proven success, we are confident that he will be a key player in influencing operational decisions and supporting strategy development," said Faulkner. The HPA executive leadership team currently includes Greg Faulkner, HPA President, Walter Hughes, Chief Innovation Officer, and Amanda Tatko, Chief Revenue Officer. DeWispelare will play a critical role in providing strategic direction and executing the current corporate strategic plan. To learn more about Jamie DeWispelare and the HPA executive leadership team, visit humphreys.com/about. To learn more about Humphreys and Partners Architects or to explore our award-winning projects, visit humphreys.com. ABOUT HUMPHREYS & PARTNERS ARCHITECTS Established in 1991, Humphreys & Partners Architects continues to drive the multifamily design industry. With a well-rounded portfolio of projects developed across the country, our teams licensed nationwide combined with our exclusive trademarked concepts, more clients rely on our expertise and experience to bring their multifamily developments from concept to completion than any other firm. To learn more, visit humphreys.com and follow on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Shalott Cecchini, Director of Marketing [email protected] 281-857-2116 SOURCE Humphreys & Partners Architects DUBLIN, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Hyaluronic Acid Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Application (Dermal Fillers, Osteoarthritis, Ophthalmic, Vesicoureteral Reflux), by Region (MEA, EU, North America, APAC), and Segment Forecasts, 2022-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global hyaluronic acid market size is expected to reach USD 16.8 billion by 2030, expanding at a CAGR of 7.45%, according to this report. Factors, such as increasing concern of population regarding chemicals, desire to get quick and evident results, and shorter recovery time are high impact rendering drivers. The industry is evolving rapidly due to the increasing adoption of aesthetic procedures in developed and developing regions. The increasing the use of hyaluronic acid surfaces in cardiovascular implants, such as stents and vascular grafts, for improving the compatibility coupled with the growing awareness about anti-aging products is fueling the growth. The efficacy and evident results of hyaluronic acid-based dermal fillers are attracting this population base. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the dynamics of many industries, with movement restrictions, social distancing, and revised practices becoming the "new normal." As the cosmetic industry is gradually resuming its operations, a number of doctors have reported a significant increase in the inquiries for aesthetic surgeries. Moreover, the lockdown has encouraged all professionals to use video-conferencing facilities, which has made people more conscious of their looks. In some cases, it has led people to opt for cosmetic treatments; this is termed the "Zoom Boom" or the "Zoom effect." Cosmetic surgeons across the world have witnessed a significant increase in the number of patients as a result of the pandemic, particularly in countries, such as the U.S., Australia, and Japan. North America held the maximum revenue share in 2021. Preference for short-treatment regimens, even though high-priced, and the prevalence of target diseases, such as osteoarthritis, are the key factors attributed to the high share. In 2021, the most lucrative product applications in the North America region were in the form of dermal fillers and viscos supplements for the management of osteoarthritis. Asia Pacific is anticipated to register the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. The growing geriatric population in China and Japan provide a large customer base for anti-aging products and services. The rising awareness about product applications and efficacy also fuels the demand. In addition, increasing disposable income levels are further supporting the region's expansion. Europe has undergone impressive changes over the last 2 years. The growing demand is witnessing increasing price competition owing to new entrants. The WHO recently announced the obesity epidemic in the U.K. and Germany. The relationship between the increasing aging population and obesity is a potential driver for the Europe regional sector Hyaluronic Acid Market Report Highlights The osteoarthritis segment dominated the global industry and accounted for the maximum share of the overall revenue in 2021 The rising obesity resulting in osteoarthritis and joint pain has increased the demand for hyaluronic acid injections as a treatment Hyaluronic acid acts as a shock absorber or a cushion and lubricates the joints, thus helping in proper functioning There are a number of ophthalmic surgical products that use hyaluronan/hyaluronic acid as an active ingredient These include Vitrax, Healon, Amivisc Plus, Amvisc, Hylan G-F20, and Opegan The increasing prevalence of age-related eye diseases, dry eye syndrome, adult-vision impairments, and chronic diseases, such as diabetes, are major factors leading to segment growth Market Dynamics Market Drivers Increasing Geriatric Population Growing Awareness for Antiaging Products High Prevalence of Target Diseases Market Restraints Associated Adverse Effects of Hyaluronic Acid High Cost of Products and Related Services Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1 Methodology and Scope Chapter 2 Executive Summary Chapter 3 Market Variables, Trends, & Scope Chapter 4 Hyaluronic Acid Market: Application Analysis Chapter 5 Hyaluronic Acid Market: Regional Analysis Chapter 6 Reimbursement Outlook Chapter 7 Competitive Analysis Companies Mentioned Allergan Sanofi Genzyme Corporation Anika Therapeutics, Inc. Salix Pharmacueticals Seikagaku Corporation F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG Galderma Laboratories L.P. Zimmer Biomet Smith & Nephew plc Ferring B.V Lifecore Biomedical, LLC Htl Biotechnology Shiseido Company, Limited Bloomage Biotechnology Corporation Limited Lg Life Sciences Ltd (Lg Chem.) Maruha Nichiro, Inc. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/yidje8 Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets First of four release announcements deliver IFS's vision to lead as the default Composable Enterprise Application Vendor MIAMI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- IFS, the global cloud enterprise software company, today announced the general availability of the October release of IFS Cloud. The release is focused on enabling organizations with intelligent insight and accelerating automation efforts. Central to the October release are enhancements that will support end-to-end process automation and advanced analytics capabilities that will impact the organization across functions. The release includes over 340 new features and advancements that will accelerate our customer's journey to digitalization. Automation highlights The heightened automation in this release will continue to help organizations transform operations, work efficiently, and liberate staff. IFS Cloud will help to rescue the time, effort, and resource burden while increasing the quality of work and experience across industries. The new automation features include: New cash planning analysis model enabling customers to improve cash management, reduce risk, and better plan for unforeseen scenarios for projects and companies. Streamlined Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to improve production quality control and performance, helping to drive fast decision-making and identify patterns. Simplified expense submission and reporting process, for Human Capital Management (HMC), improving the quality and accuracy of receipt types. Enhanced request management for ordering, delivery, and pick-up of non-stocked consumables to reduce costs. Improved accuracy for work estimates and technical productivity through AI and historical data-driven work schedules and job completion times. Save time through Independent Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MROs) businesses to quickly and easily bulk upload hundreds of maintenance requirements. Drive increased accuracy and reduce error for mobile workers to take lidar-based measurements on mobile devices easily. With regards to Advance Analytics, the October release of IFS Cloud, will build on the new architecture, new user experience as well as automated management and deployment made available in the spring release to further improve experience and capabilities. The enhanced capabilities will allow customers to gain a faster understanding of key challenges across the business, transform operations, work more efficiently, and increase productivity. It also provides simpler, more intelligent analytics for faster time-to-insight and improved predictive capabilities to support planning and reduce downtime for example. Current Capabilities in IFS Cloud include: In-memory analytics engine replacing the old Cubes version and significantly increasing performance. In-memory capability that facilitates more granular data for better drill down Automation of the setup and deployment process that reduces the technical skills needed by businesses and the number of people needed on projects Third-party plug-ins that add capabilities like process mining, forecasting etc. Embed functional analytics models into the business, including CRM, human capital management, enterprise asset management, projects, procurement, sales, finance, and maintenance The October release additionally supports a range of Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities, which will drive faster, more accurate decision-making processes. Christian Pedersen, Chief Product Officer, IFS, said: "With each successive evolution of IFS Cloud, we are continuously looking to develop the solution to ensure it is fully aligned to how customers buy and use technology. Today our customers are telling us they are looking to accelerate automation and attain intelligent insights faster." Pedersen continued, "Customers want to drive productivity and operational efficiencies, and through this latest release, that is exactly what we have delivered to them." For more information about the October 2022 release of IFS Cloud, please visit: https://www.ifs.com/assets/cloud/what-is-new-in-ifs-cloud-22r2 About IFS IFS develops and delivers cloud enterprise software for companies around the world who manufacture and distribute goods, build and maintain assets, and manage service-focused operations. Within our single platform, our industry specific products are innately connected to a single data model and use embedded digital innovation so that our customers can be their best when it really matters to their customersat the Moment of Service. The industry expertise of our people and of our growing ecosystem, together with a commitment to deliver value at every single step, has made IFS a recognized leader and the most recommended supplier in our sector. Our team of 5,000 employees every day live our values of agility, trustworthiness and collaboration in how we support our 10,000+ customers. Learn more about how our enterprise software solutions can help your business today at ifs.com. CONTACT: EUROPE / MEA / APJ: Adam Gillbe IFS, Director of Corporate & Executive Communications Email: [email protected] Phone: +44 7775 114 856 NORTH AMERICA / LATAM: Mairi Morgan Corporate Communications Email: [email protected] Phone: +1 520 396 2155 This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/ifs/r/ifs-cloud-october-2022-release-to-accelerate-business-automation-and-boost-companies--advanced-analy,c3646582 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Public/855/3646582/bb549f48d6a90f20.pdf IFS Cloud October 2022 release to accelerate business automation and boost companies' advanced analytics capabilities https://news.cision.com/ifs/i/ifs-cloud-a-1,c3099683 IFS CLOUD A 1 SOURCE IFS Whether answering the challenge of new technology, setting the sustainability agenda or meeting the needs of ever-more demanding customers, TBD Media Group meets the people changing our world - fast LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Disruption is the new normal: businesses that have remained the same for generations have been swept away by dramatically changing landscape brought about by the new capabilities of technology and a new demand for businesses to be responsible stewards of the future. The Innovation and Disruption Leaders behind our transforming world have stories to tell - and TBD Media Group is bringing those stories to a global audience. Whether answering the challenge of new technology, setting the sustainability agenda or meeting the needs of ever-more demanding customers, TBD Media Group meets the people changing our world - fast After a turbulent few years, it has become clear that the winners are either the Disrupters who have changed the rule book, or the Innovators who have successfully identified the opportunities and adapted to the new environment. Acclaimed production company TBD Media Group says that these Innovation and Disruption Leaders can teach us much about what the future will look like and how other business leaders can thrive in it. In a series of compelling documentaries, TBD Media Group examines how each company, driven by original and visionary leaders, has been able to reshape itself and those around it to take advantage of the new paradigm in which businesses now exist. Paolo Zanini, Founder and CEO at TBD Media Group says: "One of the most important things a business can do is change with the times without losing sight of the values that make them unique in the first place. With Innovation and Disruption Leaders, we are meeting the people who have put their own vision of the world front and center. A generation ago, business leaders may have said, 'It is what it is.' Today's leaders see the opportunity to shape the future as they wish to see it for themselves and the next generations." Zanini believes that the role of TBD Media Group is to educate viewers about the new world in which businesses operate. He says: "It is too easy for people to believe that things don't change for the better.TBD Media Group has a responsibility to show that not only is innovation and disruption possible, now is the perfect time to do it. For every Innovation and Disruption Leaders in the series, there are thousands more. The age of transformation is upon us - it is up to these leaders to decide what we will transform into." The Innovation and Disruption Leaders documentary series will be available through CBSnews.com. Companies featured in this launch: BAYER US SPIRO TUXERA SEMBO COGNITE citizenM APEX Group MORROW SODALI AIRSPACE LIKEWIZE More information on the Innovation and Disruption Leaders Campaign may be found here: https://www.globalthoughtleaders.org/innovation-disruption About TBD Media Group: TBD Media Group is an international, purpose-driven, media developer that helps companies, organizations and governments tell their brand stories in a human and direct way. Learn more at https://www.tbdmediagroup.com/ Media Contact: Anna Berkman Chief Marketing Officer TBD Media Group [email protected] Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1915848/Trailer.mp4 SOURCE TBD Media Group Indigenized Energy Initiative was also awarded The GM Prize supported by General Motors and selected as a finalist for The Elevate Prize supported by The Elevate Prize Foundation The Indigenous-led nonprofit is focused on harnessing the power of renewable energy as a means to diminish poverty and restore economies in Native American communities BERKELEY, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Indigenized Energy Initiative (IEI), an Indigenous-led nonprofit organization with the mission of supporting Native American tribes on their self-determined path to energy independence, economic prosperity, and a restoration of sovereignty and hope, announced today that Founder and CEO Cheri Smith has been selected as a 2022 MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellow. I am humbled and honored to be selected as a 2022 MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellow -Cheri Smith, IEI founder, CEO Tweet this Indigenized Energy Initiative Founder and CEO Cheri Smith Solve is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to drive innovation to solve world challenges. Solve's Indigenous Communities Fellowship seeks solutions that consider both technology and traditional Indigenous knowledge to support and scale positive impact in tribal communities. "Cheri Smith was selected because she and her team are taking an inclusive, systems-based approach to leveraging the power of clean energy to address significant climate, economic, and energy challenges faced by Native American communities," said Aaron Slater, senior officer, Indigenous Communities, for MIT Solve. IEI aims to address the primary problems of energy poverty and loss of self-reliance with a first-of-its-kind approach that supports ancient belief systems and couples Indigenous wisdom with modern technology to solve some of the longest standing problems faced by Native American tribes. "I am humbled and honored to be selected as a 2022 MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellow," said Cheri Smith, IEI founder, CEO, and descendant of the Mi'Kmaq Tribe. "But this fellowship is not about me, or even IEI. This fellowship represents a watershed moment, when a world-class technical institution like MIT has recognized the critical need for the work we are doing supporting tribes in their efforts to move away from extractive and exploitative fossil fueled energy, in a self-determined way. Our Indigenous-led team of clean energy, education, and financial experts recognizes the tremendous value and important role that strategic partnerships have in this initiative, and we are so appreciative for the tremendous opportunities and resources that being part of the MIT Solve community will yield for collaboration on some of the more complex aspects of our work." To bring about change, IEI takes a culturally sensitive, holistic approach to deploying clean energy technology, economic development, education, and job creation. IEI helps expand the capacity of American Indian tribes to develop workforces of tribal members and create Native-owned green businesses, enabling tribes and their members to reap 100 percent of the benefits of clean energy and to keep every dollar spent on energy circulating in the community. Smith originally founded the organization as Covenant Solar Initiative in 2016, in response to the inspiring leadership of American Indian tribes in resisting fossil fuels and the growing desire to realize the regenerative potential of renewable energy on tribal lands. After many years working with Native American leaders to deploy solar demonstration projects in their communities, IEI is now supporting multiple Native American tribes in their efforts to develop energy master plans, strategic energy projects, and job training for a workforce of tribal member "Solar Warriors" tribal member installers who will go on to build this new clean energy infrastructure for their communities. "For our country to truly have a just transition, it is essential that this development be done by Native people, for Native people," Smith said. Over $2 million in prize funding was awarded to the 2022 Solver teams and Indigenous Communities Fellows as well as select Solver teams from previous classes. Indigenized Energy Initiative was named a recipient of the The GM Prize supported by General Motors and is a finalist for The Elevate Prize - supported by The Elevate Prize Foundation Finalists (recipient to be announced in January 2023). "Our goal is to secure an endowment for the initiative, which would allow the focus to be solely on its critical mission of building the capacity of tribes to achieve energy independence in the shortest amount of time," added Smith. "$10 million per year for 10 years would be a good start, and enable us to support as many of the 574 federally recognized tribes who seek our help. The impact we can have is only limited by our own capacity. We believe that being a part of the MIT Solve community will only serve to underscore the importance of this initiative, and bolster the effort to secure this level of funding." Learn more about IEI's 2022 MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellow solution here. About Indigenized Energy Initiative Indigenized Energy Initiative (IEI) is an Indigenous-led non-profit that empowers Native American tribes to pursue a self-determined path towards energy independence and sovereignty. Formed in response to the inspiring leadership of Native American communities in resisting fossil fuel development, IEI is supporting a growing number of tribes in the development of long-term energy plans and projects that will maximize economic impact through job creation, energy savings, and resiliency. Building trust with tribes is vital to the success of this initiative. With a deep respect for the wisdom and values held by Native communities, IEI works side by side with tribes on their path to energy independence. Led by a diverse team of Indigenous change-makers and energy leaders who draw from decades of experience in energy, education, and workforce development, IEI receives support from a growing list of partners including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Energy Foundation, Builders Initiative, Tides Foundation; and founding donors, the Pazala Foundation. IEI is a fiscally sponsored project of Earth Island Institute. Visit http://www.indigenized.energy to learn more. All product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. For more information please contact: KVG Communications, Inc. Tel: 401-480-1840 [email protected] SOURCE Indigenized Energy Initiative Girls and their Allies are Invited to Sign the We Are the Girls Pledge Plan International USA to Raise $200M by 2024 to Execute Girl-Led Programs to Fight Gender Inequality NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, on International Day of the Girl, Plan International USA, a leading international development nonprofit supporting girls' rights, is announcing its We Are the Girls campaign an innovative, world changing initiative that will raise $200 million by 2024 to amplify the voices of girls in the U.S. and around the world and fight the root causes of gender inequality Starting today, Plan USA is inviting the world to support girl leaders around the world by making a gift and taking the We Are the Girls pledge online at WeAreTheGirls.org . The $200 million We Are the Girls campaign will support programs that have shown successes in improving girls' sense of agency, shifting gender dynamics and creating positive environments for learning. In 13+ countries around the world, We Are the Girls' donations will support girl-led programs that fight against child trafficking, stops child marriage, makes cities safer for girls, keeps girls in school and creates economic opportunities for girls. Plan's campaign will also develop young leaders and advocates in the U.S. and around the world to fight against stereotypes and harmful practices that stand in the way of achieving gender equality. Girls are invited to join the community and invite their friends and families to lend their voices as allies in the fight against gender inequality and gender-based stereotypes. Together with our supporters, Plan USA's vision is to ultimately influence and change not only the way the world sees girls, but the way girls see themselves for themselves, and for everyone. "For far too long, the voices, hopes, and desires of girls and young women have been muted and overlooked, especially by people in positions of power. Girls possess limitless potential, and they know what needs to change in their communities. We as allies can stand alongside girls to fight the root causes of inequality and make sure their voices are heard. We are extremely proud to announce this important campaign and support girls and young women as they re-define themselves to the world and emerge as powerful leaders," said Vicki Escarra, Plan USA board member & chair of the We Are the Girls campaign. With more than $165 million raised to date, We Are the Girls is Plan's largest fundraising campaign in its 85year history and builds on the organization's deep commitment to gender equality and girl-led approach. Through its annual State of the World's Girls report, youth-led advocacy and girl-led programs, We Are the Girls has been calling attention to the unique challenges adolescent girls face. From fighting trafficking in Nepal to addressing online harassment and abuse in the U.S., Plan is delivering impactful programs and fighting for policy changes that fundamentally address the root causes of inequality. More recently, Plan USA partnered with Unsplash, one of the internet's largest sources of freely usable visuals, for the campaign's premiere activation to challenge prevailing stereotypes present in our visual media and algorithms. For International Day of the Girl, Plan USA will host Takeovers where girls and young women aged 14-22 will swap places with an executive leader for the day to assume positions of power and realize their full potential. For the 10th anniversary of International Day of the Girl, Plan USA is partnering with AstraZeneca, Smartly.io, and Vertex, to host these Takeovers. We Are the Girls activations will continue into 2023, working with girls to address key issues around important moments in time such as International Women's Day and Menstrual Health Day. "Equal opportunity and gender equity are critically important to a world in which all of us our thoughts, ideas, and concerns can be heard. Plan USA's We Are the Girls campaign will help advance a future in which girls and young women are central decision makers in the issues that most affect them," said Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient and Honorary co-chair of Plan USA's We Are the Girls campaign. "Plan USA's We Are the Girls Campaign is an investment in the future by those who are driven to make change where it matters most - girls' lives around the world. In partnering with girls and working hand-in-hand with them to fight for economic equity, safety, and universal education, we are helping motivate the change we see is most necessary. From child trafficking to child marriage, the gendered struggles informing the inequality we see internationally strike us as challenges worth every ounce of effort, belief, and backing," said Vishwa, Plan USA Youth Advisory board member and We Are the Girls' campaign cabinet member. About Plan International USA : Powered by supporters, Plan International USA partners with adolescent girls, young women and children around the world to overcome oppression and gender inequality, providing the support and resources that are unique to their needs and the needs of their communities, ensuring they achieve their full potential with dignity, opportunity and safety. Founded in 1937, Plan is an independent development and humanitarian organization that is active in more than 80 countries. For more information, and to learn about our commitment to safeguarding, please visit www.PlanUSA.org. SOURCE Plan USA DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Internet Travel Solutions (ITS), a travel management and airline software development leader, has taken a unique approach to calculating carbon emissions from air travel for its clients before they travel. The feature, offered within the booking path of its self-service booking tool TripEasy, automatically calculates carbon emissions by estimating load factors prior to departure date using various factors, such as time of day, seasonality, seats per plane, age of the aircraft, and time from gate-to-gate. The TripEasy Carbon Emissions Calculator evaluates several variables to automatically calculate carbon emissions levels given off by each flight. Travel arrangers and business travelers can easily sort and compare these levels for flights, routes and cabin class before traveling in order to make decisions in keeping with carbon footprint goals and corporate travel policy. The TripEasy Carbon Emissions Calculator makes carbon levels very clear based on a single passenger. Shoppers can sort and easily find those flights estimated to have the lowest carbon footprint. This allows travel arrangers and business travelers to compare carbon emissions levels for any flight, route and cabin class in order to make decisions with their company sustainability goals in mind. "Travelers don't have to enter information into a calculator to estimate a carbon offset purchase and companies can validate estimates received from their offset provider," says Brian Tanis, Vice President, Product & Marketing at ITS. "With TripEasy, travelers can receive guidance without any guesswork required on their part. They can simply leave the calculations to us." The total flight emissions used by TripEasy are based on European Emissions Agency estimations that take into account the type of equipment and full emissions cycle (from scheduled departure to scheduled arrival). Other variables, such as operating airline codes and alternate fuels, are taken into consideration, as well as calculations regarding Capacity that estimate emissions per seat and Load Factor considerations around seasonality, time of day, etc. TripEasy normalizes for 'shorter' and 'longer' flights and then calculates a per-minute emissions estimate to generate the total per flight. On average, client employees are choosing flights with 30% fewer emissions than other options in the market. "Choosing greener flight options couldn't be easier," Tanis adds."What's important to us is important to the traveler, is important to our client organizations' goals, is important to the planet." Contact: Brian Tanis Vice President, Product & Marketing Internet Travel Solutions (ITS) 417.812.6331 [email protected] www.its.com SOURCE Internet Travel Solutions (ITS) Rebates up to $425 are available for YORK, Luxaire, Coleman, Champion and Fraser-Johnston brands Eligible units must be installed between October 1 and December 31, 2022 MILWAUKEE, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson Controls, the global leader for smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, is taking steps to assist eligible homeowners who live and work in areas affected by Hurricane Ian. Effective immediately, the company is providing emergency relief rebates on qualifying heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment to homeowners who live in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina counties within the defined Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Area (DR-4673-FL, DR-4675, EM-3584-FL, EM-3585-SC and EM-3586-NC). These rebates are available for YORK, Luxaire, Coleman, Champion and Fraser-Johnston brand units installed between October 1 and December 31, 2022. "Hurricane Ian has caused a historic level of devastation, and our thoughts are with everyone affected," said Doug Schuster, vice president and general manager of Global Ducted Systems at Johnson Controls. "Johnson Controls is dedicated to helping communities rebuild as they take their next steps on the path to recovery." Homeowners can apply for rebates online at https://ductedsystemsincentives.com using the Personal Use Rebate Program. The program assigns rebates according to equipment efficiency (expressed as Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio or SEER for air conditioners and heat pumps and as a percentage for furnaces), with more efficient products earning larger rebates. Air conditioners/heat pumps 20 SEER: $275 19 SEER: $250 17 SEER: $225 16 SEER: $225 14 SEER: $100 Furnaces 90% AFUE models: $150 80% AFUE models: $75 Air handlers: $50 Residential packaged units: $125 Ductless mini-splits and Mini-VRF Premium and Mini-VRF: $60 Standard: $50 Rebates may not be combined with other Johnson Controls homeowner rebate offers. Claims must be submitted online within 60 calendar days of installation. Homeowners can call (833) 242-7869 (option 3 followed by option 1) for rebate filing assistance. "After storms and flooding pass, it's important for homeowners to contact their local HVAC contractor for a system inspection and thorough duct system replacement or cleaning," said Schuster. "All flood-damaged systems should remain offline until properly inspected by a skilled HVAC professional. Submerged HVAC equipment is typically damaged beyond what is considered practical to repair, and a trusted contractor can help determine the extent of the damage and what a system requires, as well as help homeowners understand their warranty." Damage may include all exposed electrical controls and motors, and gas piping, controls and burner systems would likewise require a combination of component part replacement and cleaning to assure proper, safe operation. To find a contractor, homeowners can use the dealer locators on Johnson Controls brand websites including https://york.com , https://colemanac.com , https://championhomecomfort.com , https://luxaire.com , and https://fraser-johnston.com . Media Contact: Ryan Nolan Public Relations Program Manager Building Technologies & Solutions, Johnson Controls Mobile: +1 414-378-9641 [email protected] About Johnson Controls At Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI), we transform the environments where people live, work, learn and play. As the global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, our mission is to reimagine the performance of buildings to serve people, places and the planet. Building on a proud history of nearly 140 years of innovation, we deliver the blueprint of the future for industries such as healthcare, schools, data centers, airports, stadiums, manufacturing and beyond through OpenBlue, our comprehensive digital offering. Today, with a global team of 100,000 experts in more than 150 countries, Johnson Controls offers the world`s largest portfolio of building technology and software as well as service solutions from some of the most trusted names in the industry. Visit www.johnsoncontrols.com for more information and follow @JohnsonControls on social platforms. SOURCE Johnson Controls VENICE, Italy, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- LILYSILK, the world's leading silk brand with a mission to inspire people to live spectacular, sustainable lives, continues to be the trusted brand of choice for globe-trotting A-list celebrities. American actress and author, Julianne Moore, shared an Instagram selfie on September 7, 2022 looking fabulous in a navy blue LILYSILK Classic Freesia Shirt Dress as she prepared in her hotel room for duty as president of the International Jury of the Competition at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. Julianne Moores Instagram Selfie Smooth and sumptuous against the skin with mother-of-pearl button details, the Classic Freesia Silk Shirt Dress is the perfect addition to any contemporary collection with the silk charmeuse and relaxed fit around the arms giving Ms. Moore the comfort and flexibility she needed as she chilled happily in her room before presiding over the jury at the prestigious event in Venice. A recipient of multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Emmy Awards, Ms. Moore is far from the only celebrity fan of LILYSILK pieces. Emily Ratajkowski recently turned heads in New York in a LILYSILK Poppy Skirt, Viola Davis wore the brand's iconic new SOS Shirt at Deadline's Contenders Television event in April, and Anne Hathaway was also looking chic in LILYSILK recently at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. Moreover, LILYSILK has been regularly gracing the pages of numerous top media outlets with VOGUE, ELLE, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, People, InStyle, and Cosmopolitan all inspiring readers by highlighting spectacular and affordable pieces from the popular global silk brand. "Being recognized by more and more celebrities and media is massive encouragement for LILYSILK and is solid proof of the quality of our pieces," said David Wang, CEO of LILYSILK. "We hope we can continue to inspire women from all walks of life to love and take care of themselves and live spectacularly every day." About LILYSILK LILYSILK is a world-leading silk brand with a mission to inspire people to live spectacularly as well as more sustainably, driven by its care for its customers as well as the planet. For more information, visit http://www.lilysilk.com and follow @lilysilk on Instagram and @Lilysilk on Facebook. SOURCE LILYSILK NORWELL, Mass., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Karen and Rob Hale have donated $1 million to NVNA and Hospice through their family foundation, Fox Rock Foundation . The endowed gift will support offering end-of-life care to families at the Pat Roche Hospice Home regardless of financial limitations. NVNA and Hospice is the largest independent visiting nurse and hospice non-profit serving the South Shore of Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, NVNA and Hospice promotes the full continuum of home care to its daily census of 750 patients. Recognizing a need for a hospice home to serve a specific and growing demographic, NVNA and Hospice invested in a 12-room residence for patients seeking another place to die when their home was not an option. "Hospice access is an urgent healthcare priority," commented Karen Hale of Fox Rock Foundation. "The Pat Roche Hospice Home is a powerful resource for the South Shore community, and our family foundation is honored to invest in this mission so that everyone has access to this extraordinary care." "This is a significant gift from the Hale family and we are profoundly grateful for their confidence in our care," said NVNA and Hospice CEO Renee McInnes. "Our mission as a non-profit is to serve all hospice patients with dignity, and philanthropy is a critical part of that story." The Foundation's recent gift is part of their $52 million commitment in 2022: $1 million a week for 52 individual non-profits. For more information or to make a donation, visit: NVNA and Hospice Charitable Fund . About Fox Rock Foundation Fox Rock Foundation is the private family foundation established by Karen and Rob Hale and their adult children, Trevor, Thomas, and Brett, to inspire health in our communities and our environment, with more opportunity for all. Building on the philanthropy of the Hales and their businesses, Fox Rock Foundation supports a wide variety of organizations within four principal areas of giving: education, health and wellbeing, conservation, and equality. The Foundation's current focus is a series of grant partnerships with small and midsized nonprofits making a difference on a variety of causes in New England and beyond. Fox Rock Foundation builds on the philanthropy of Granite Telecommunications, where Rob is founder and CEO, Granite Gives Back, FoxRock Cares, and other personal giving by the Hales. Through a variety of giving channels, the Hale family has pledged or donated more than $300 million to a broad range of worthy causes. About NVNA and Hospice NVNA and Hospice is an independent non-profit providing the full continuum of care from home health and palliative, to hospice and private pay services to patients and families in 27 communities on Massachusetts' South Shore. It also owns and operates the Pat Roche Hospice Home in Hingham. To learn more, visit www.nvna.org or call (781) 659-2342. Media contact: Merideth McNally for NVNA and Hospice 781-749-0077 x110 [email protected] SOURCE NVNA and Hospice GREENWICH, Conn., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Greenwich Radios, America's largest wholesaler of used two-way radio equipment, awarded Kenwood Communications with the highest resale values for 2022. This inaugural award recognizes that Kenwood has the highest resale values of the major land mobile radio manufacturers in North America. Owners of Kenwood equipment should expect favorable prices if they decide to sell their equipment in the secondary used market, explains Larry Sellers, a spokesperson for Greenwich Radios: "The tailwinds in today's market support high resale values for Kenwood equipment, especially for models in short supply on the new side." Kenwood Communications is recognized by Greenwich Radios for having the highest resale values of a land mobile two-way manufacturer. Greenwich Radios is the leading wholesaler of used radios in America. To determine resale values, Greenwich data scientists analyzed thousands of radio transactions using public and private data and the company's proprietary valuation algorithm. Private data includes Greenwich's wholesale transaction data and pricing from participating dealers, as well as inquiries from the sell used radios form on the company's website. Public data includes government auctions, online auction sites, and third-party sources such as data scrubbing. Only radio equipment manufactured on or after 2011 was included. Data scientists found that some Kenwood products in the used marketplace were sold at prices that exceeded new. This was especially true for products which were recently discontinued by Kenwood but are still sought by end users and radio dealers. While Kenwood won the first-ever highest resale value award for a two-way manufacturer, Larry Sellers explains this might change next year as new-radio supply improves. According to Sellers, there were three primary reasons for Kenwood's 2022 resale leadership: Limited supply of new product forced many Kenwood clients into the secondary resale market, which drove up used prices Kenwood products feature lower MSRPs than some of their competitors, thus lowering depreciation Kenwood's higher-end digital products offer less upgradable features; this limits new pricing and lowers depreciation Secondary reasons: Kenwood's digital product line is increasingly sought by new buyer types, including public safety agencies Kenwood's large dealer network, and established brand, comforts used radio buyers who know they can obtain technical and programming support if needed For do-it-yourself (DIY) programmers, ready access to programming software and cables helps to ensure the radios can be reprogrammed As far as Kenwood's competitors, Larry Sellers explained that Motorola remains the most in-demand brand for two-way radios. However, Motorola's diverse product line includes expensive options on its top-of-the-line models which are not recovered in the used market. These options might be necessary for the radios' first owners but recouping their value in the used marketplace is difficult as used buyers generally have basic needs. Incidentally, it's worth nothing that on a model line basis, Motorola's APX series is the most sought according to Greenwich. Scientists also analyzed transaction data for radios manufacturers like Harris, Tait, Icom, Hytera, and others, and plan to release more industry insights in the future. Why are resale values important for two-way radio manufacturers? While most buyers of two-way radios buy equipment for multi-year or end-of-life terms, the rise of digital technologies is forcing quicker turnover of radio equipment as technology changes. Existing radio buyers may sell their equipment to help pay the costs of technology upgrades, especially for multi-band. Additionally, as a result of environmental laws and social pressure, corporate and government radio end users are demanding environmentally responsible means to repurpose radio equipment rather than send them to the trash or electronics recyclers. High resale values help these organizations achieve their environmental impact goals. Greenwich Radios, with its steadfast commitment to environmental responsibility, plants one tree in America's National Forests for each radio the company purchases. For more information on the resale award, members of the media, financial analysts, and others, can email [email protected]. SOURCE Greenwich Radios Kindred Group plc will publish its interim report for the third quarter 2022 on Thursday 27 October 2022 at 07.30 (CEST). VALLETTA, Malta, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In connection with this, Kindred Group's CEO Henrik Tjarnstrom will host a web presentation in English at 10.00 (CEST) which is webcasted live on https://www.kindredgroup.com/q32022. To access the telephone conference in connection with the presentation, please register at https://conference.financialhearings.com/teleconference/?id=10010042. After registration you will be provided phone numbers and a conference ID to access the conference. Please call in well in advance for registration. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation. For more information: Patrick Kortman, Director - Corporate Development & Investor Relations, +46 723 877 438 Linda Lyth, Investor Relations Manager, +46 767 681 337 [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/kindred-group/r/kindred-group-s-q3-report-2022-and-invitation-to-conference-call,c3646123 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/824/3646123/1637135.pdf Press release - Invitation to Q3 presentation 27 Oct 2022 SOURCE Kindred Group LA's Largest and Longest-Running Art Fair Aims to Inspire Important Social Conversations and Thrill Visitors With Exhibitions From Around the World February 1519, 2023 Los Angeles Convention Center (West Hall) 1201 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015 LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The LA Art Show, LA's largest and longest-running art fair, will return to the Los Angeles Convention Center on February 1519 to kick off the city's 2023 art season. The 28th edition will include a wide variety of exhibitors from Europe, Japan, North America, Latin America and South Korea, plus events and performances. Returning for 2023, the fair's signature curated program DIVERSEartLA, a cultural anchor for the LA Art Show and the only educational project of its kind in the United States, will continue its curatorial focus on the global climate crisis. LA Art Show Guided by the leadership of LA Art Show producer and director Kassandra Voyagis, this year's show will seek to celebrate artglobally and locallyand inspire important dialogue. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital returns as the charitable partner with the LA Art Show donating 15% of all ticket proceeds to its life saving mission. "One of the most powerful things about art is that it brings people together, and ignites transformative conversations about what it means to be human, which feels particularly relevant in a world that's forever shifting," says LA Art Show producer and director Kassandra Voyagis. "At the LA Art Show this year, we are thrilled to have a larger international presence than ever, ensuring conversations are expansive and inclusive, nuanced and bold." The LA Art Show is an unparalleled international art experience with over 100 galleries, museums and nonprofit arts organizations exhibiting painting, sculpture, works on paper, installation, photography, design, video and performance with all works available for purchase. Committed to creating the most comprehensive contemporary art experience possible, LA Art Show 2023 highlights will include: Modern + Contemporary : the largest section at the LA Art Show exhibits a vast selection of contemporary painting, illustration and sculpture from galleries in Los Angeles , the Pacific Rim and around the world. : the largest section at the LA Art Show exhibits a vast selection of contemporary painting, illustration and sculpture from galleries in , the and around the world. The European Pavilion : dedicated to European galleries, the European Pavilion returns for 2023, showcasing curated exhibitions that highlight contemporary movements and stylistic developments in Europe . : dedicated to European galleries, the European Pavilion returns for 2023, showcasing curated exhibitions that highlight contemporary movements and stylistic developments in . The Japanese Pavilion : new this year, introducing more than 10 galleries from Japan . : new this year, introducing more than 10 galleries from . Contemporary digital art: As the first live show to showcase the NFT craze two years ago, LA Art Show will continue to introduce attendees to the incredible trend in digital art, showcasing more eye-catching art trends. Many of the show's favorite participating galleries from Europe, Asia and North America will be returning for the LA Art Show 2023, including Abend Gallery Denver, Pigment Gallery Barcelona, Simard Bilodeau Contemporary Los Angeles, Neue Kunst Gallery Germany, Arcadia Contemporary New York and Rebecca Hossack Gallery from the U.K. Newcomers include 193 Gallery from Paris, El Claustre Art Gallery Spain, Taguchi Fine Art Japan and Markowicz Fine Art in California. For the first time, there will also be over 10 galleries from South Korea, including LP Gallery, a contemporary art gallery from Seoul, and JJ Art Korea. The hugely popular DIVERSEartLA, which began in 2015 and is curated by Marisa Caichiolo, returns for 2023 with an ambitious program, bringing together some of the most important local and international art institutions, museums and nonprofit organizations for elevated and thoughtful dialogue. Expanding on last year's theme, DIVERSEartLA will address the impact of climate change through a variety of installations, immersive experiences, and performances. "The ethnic backgrounds of the people in Los Angeles are varied and vast, just like its natural environments," says DIVERSEartLA curator Marisa Caichiolo. "To honor this unique biodiversity, we'll continue our curatorial focus on diversity and inclusionboth within human communities, and in global ecosystems. We'll encourage visitors to confront the complex challenges of our global climate crisis and also to imagine solutions." Since 2015, the LA Art Show has been a strong and unwavering supporter of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as it leads the way the world understands, treats, and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. In 2023, the LA Art Show is donating 15% of all ticket proceeds to St. Jude and its life saving mission. The LA Art Show is proud to bring together St. Jude and the art community. Owners of the LA Art Show, Scott Diament and Rob Samuels of the Palm Beach Show Group, have recently acquired Art Palm Beach, which will be presented under the innovative leadership of LA Art Show producer and director Kassandra Voyagis, marrying the two fairs in a dynamic state-of-the-art bicoastal enterprise. Please visit www.LAArtShow.com to learn more and purchase tickets. Media Contact: Emma Haber 9178924700 [email protected] SOURCE LA Art Show Leverty & Associates provides advice on how to manage the claims process after an accident, injury, or a claim. RENO, Nev., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Insurance can be complicated. The last thing you want to think about if you are dealing with an insurance company is navigating their complicated rules. You probably just want to be made whole again, especially when you are experiencing an injury from a car accident or damage that resulted in filing an insurance claim. Leverty & Associates offers three tips to manage the process after a car accident or after filing an insurance claim. Bad Faith Happens After a car accident or other loss, insurance companies typically perform their own investigation into the accident or loss. While it is important to be honest with the insurance company because they are obligated to operate in good faith, experienced Attorney Pat Leverty of Leverty & Associates explains, "Unfortunately, insurance companies don't always play fair. We understand how to deal when insurance companies use bad faith practices." What Is Bad Faith? Insurance companies sometimes bend and break the rules when processing insurance claims. These bad faith practices might be intentional or just the product of inexperience. Examples of bad faith practices include: Delay in payments to the insured Lowball payout offers Sub-par or delayed investigations Lack of communication Flat-out denials of compensation Human error Policy cancellation after a claim is filed. Tips to Manage the Insurance Claims Process How can you protect yourself from bad faith practices during the insurance claims process? Don't let insurance companies unfairly deny, underpay, or delay a claim. Confused about the process? The first step we recommend is contacting a lawyer to ensure your rights are protected. Another great tip is to take good notes. Keeping track of when you talk to the insurance company, what information you share with them, and how they respond to your questions is important. Lastly, don't lose hope. Even if your insurance company is acting in bad faith, you can still recover. In fact, in addition to compensation for your original claim, you may be entitled to additional damages for the bad faith actions of your insurance company. About Leverty & Associates Law With a combined experience of nearly 100 years, Leverty & Associates Law has insurance lawyers that provide clients with trusted advice and advocacy in the Reno vicinity. The team of attorneys fights back against low settlement offers, denials, and delays to protect the rights of their clients. Source: Leverty & Associates Law This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com. SOURCE Leverty & Associates Law MONTREAL, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - The Lion Electric Company (NYSE: LEV) (TSX: LEV) ("Lion" or the "Company"), a leading manufacturer of all-electric medium and heavy-duty urban vehicles, today announced that it will release its 2022 third quarter results on November 10, 2022, before markets open. A conference call and webcast will be held on the same day, at 8:30 a.m. (Eastern Time) to discuss the results. To participate in the conference call, please dial (226) 828-7575 or (833) 950-0062 (toll free) using the Access Code 109439. A live webcast of the conference call will also be available at www.thelionelectric.com under the "Events and Presentation" page of the "Investors" section. An archive of the event will be available shortly after the conference call. ABOUT LION ELECTRIC Lion Electric is an innovative manufacturer of zero-emission vehicles. The company creates, designs and manufactures all-electric class 5 to class 8 commercial urban trucks and all-electric buses and minibuses for the school, paratransit and mass transit segments. Lion is a North American leader in electric transportation and designs, builds and assembles many of its vehicles' components, including chassis, battery packs, truck cabins and bus bodies. Always actively seeking new and reliable technologies, Lion vehicles have unique features that are specifically adapted to its users and their everyday needs. Lion believes that transitioning to all-electric vehicles will lead to major improvements in our society, environment and overall quality of life. Lion shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol LEV. SOURCE Lion Electric The leading location insights provider will bring data expertise to the network's vast experience to fuel investment decision-making MONTREAL, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Local Logic , a location intelligence provider that quantifies location at scale to shape smarter developments and more sustainable cities, today announced a partnership with the Black Commercial Real Estate Network (BCREN). Through this alliance, BCREN members will have access to Local Logic's location data expertise, which leverages 75 billion data points, the largest dataset in the industry, as well as countless proprietary insights. BCREN is comprised of commercial real estate industry leaders who are instrumental in bringing groundbreaking data solutions to market through their experience and expertise. With Local Logic's support, the BCREN network will be able to better uncover commercial real estate use cases ripe for disruption. "Innovation and data have always been key drivers to give strategic advantages in real estate investment," said Dustin Sutton, Founder and Manager Director at BCREN. "Through our collaboration with Local Logic, our network will benefit from best-in-class insights that will directly impact their commercial real estate investment and planning strategy." The mission of BCREN is to provide a community of connection, idea sharing, support, and mentorship for Black members of the commercial real estate industry to increase their voice and presence. Additionally, they connect with schools and youth organizations to provide Black youth with an awareness of the real estate field and professional opportunities within the industry. "This partnership is an excellent opportunity to forge a two-way channel with BCREN's expansive network. We will be able to provide our proprietary location insights to help shape the future of CRE technology through industry leaders, as well as garner insights that help us develop solutions to address precise pain points that the BCREN network uncovers," said Vincent-Charles Hodder, CEO and co-founder at Local Logic. Local Logic partners with companies both within the residential and commercial industries, providing data about every aspect outside the four walls of a property. Through this approach, the company seeks to provide a more complete picture of an asset's value. For more information on Local Logic's solutions, please visit locallogic.co . About Local Logic Local Logic digitizes the built world for consumers, investors, developers, and governments delivering unrivaled clarity and actionable insights capable of creating more sustainable, equitable cities. With more than 75 billion unique data points the largest unique location data set in the U.S. and Canada the platform creates a digital twin of cities, quantifying the built world and offering predictive, precise analytics to inform the present and future of over 250 million individual addresses. SOURCE Local Logic NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Just like that we are already approaching the end of the year. Before the leaves completely turn and fall, there's still time to implement new M&A practices that will leave you saying, "oh my gourd". Let's embrace the crisp days of fall, take the time to turn over a new leaf, and hear what other M&A practitioners are doing every day to source the biggest and best "pumpkin" of a deal. M&A Science Fall Summit Join us on Thursday, October 20th for the M&A Science Fall Summit! Topics include integrating capabilities, a panel on valuation, selling sub-scale subsidiaries, how to bring Agile into M&A, and more. See the full speaker lineup and agenda here. Sponsoring this summit is Valuation Research Corporation. Registration for this summit is free for all attendees. While M&A Science Academy students will have access to summit session recordings after the event, anyone who wishes to tune in on October 20th can do so at no cost. Signing up for the event is available here. To celebrate our summit, we're hosting a special M&A Science Giveaway! Enter for a chance to win M&A Science swag, a free Academy membership, or our grand prize: a pair of Apple Airpods Pro. For instructions on entering, go to the bottom of our summit event page here. About M&A Science: M&A Science, founded by Kison Patel, offers educational and technological solutions for modern M&A practitioners. Originally a podcast series, M&A Science has evolved into a diverse community of M&A professionals looking to evolve the industry. Today, along with the M&A Science podcast, its portfolio offerings include the M&A Science Academy, the Agile M&A framework, consulting services, and a job board. Media Contact: Marsha Forester (312-344-3442) [email protected] SOURCE M&A Science TAMPA, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mave, a software sales career platform, officially launched in 2021 to help software companies discover top sales talent. Their platform gives sales professionals the ability to filter companies or opportunities that match their sales experience and interests. Since inception, they have quickly grown to over 10,000 new jobs, exclusive to Software, Tech, and SaaS Sales professionals. "We're excited to offer more job opportunities and ultimately provide more selection to candidates' job search," says Stephen Daspit, Founder at Mave. "As more and more software companies continue to post their sales positions on our platform, we've been able to reach more markets and help match more sales professionals and employers." Mave's mission continues to be critical for software organizations who are in need of sales talent to meet increasing demand for software technology. The platform's ability to filter and refine opportunities or companies has led to a more effective and efficient hiring and job search process. As Mave continues to grow and onboard more employers, they're adding additional search filters and recommendations for new opportunities based on candidate preferences. Their constant innovation in job search technology is paving the way for a better user experience, and ultimately more successful sales hires. To learn more about Mave, visit www.mavehq.com. About Mave: Mave is the only career platform exclusively for software sales professionals that utilizes powerful filters and aggregated insights to discover new opportunities. Mave empowers software companies with branded-profiles that highlight their key statistics, office locations, team information, and sales jobs which allows them to easily be discovered by top sales talent throughout North America. Stephen Daspit, Founder Mave www.mavehq.com (252) 595-5335 [email protected] SOURCE Mave CLEVELAND, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- John Polinko has rejoined the Cleveland office of McDonald Hopkins LLC as Counsel in the Business Department, where he will add his experience to the firm's Commercial Finance and Real Estate teams. Polinko previously worked in the Strategic Advisory and Restructuring Department at McDonald Hopkins. Polinko represents both borrowers and lenders in commercial finance and real estate lending transactions, as well as in restructuring transactions. He has additional experience representing debtors, creditors, liquidating trustees, and court-appointed receivers in strategic advisory and restructuring matters, including out-of-court work-outs, and receiverships. Polinko has also represented both debtors and creditors' committees in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and has extensive experience in representing banks and lending institutions in all aspects of commercial and bankruptcy litigation. Polinko earned his J.D. from The University of Akron School of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from The Ohio State University. He can be reached at 216.348.5817 and [email protected]. A bout McDonald Hopkins Founded in 1930, McDonald Hopkins is a business advisory and advocacy law firm with locations in Baltimore/Annapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, and West Palm Beach. With more than 50 service and industry teams, the firm has the expertise and knowledge to meet the growing number of legal and business challenges our clients face. For more information about McDonald Hopkins, visit mcdonaldhopkins.com . CONTACT: Cynthia Stewart McDonald Hopkins LLC 600 Superior Avenue, East, Suite 2100 Cleveland, Ohio 44114 Phone: 216.348.5733 Email: [email protected] SOURCE McDonald Hopkins BRONX, N.Y., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- McEldrew Purtell has been retained to represent Milagros Bonet, Angelica Diaz, and a minor child who were all seriously injured when a NYPD police vehicle drove through a crowd of pedestrians in the Bronx on Thursday October 6, 2022. McEldrew Purtell partners Dan Purtell, John Coyle, and Jim McEldrew have issued the following statement: "The crash on Thursday was shocking and avoidable devastating the lives of multiple families in the Bronx. Every New Yorker should stand safely on street corners without fear of NYPD vehicles operated recklessly and with conscious disregard for the public. Our clients and their families deserve answers and accountability. We have issued requests for information to the NYPD and call on them to release all details of their investigation, accept responsibility, and hold the responsible officers fully accountable." Ms. Bonet and Ms. Diaz remain in critical condition. Their families have requested privacy in this difficult time as they care for their loved ones. To that end, all media inquiries should be directed to the firm. Furthermore, the firm requests witnesses to the accident reach out to the firm to assist in its investigation. Media Contact: Jessica Gooding [email protected] 215-545-8800 SOURCE McEldrew Purtell DALLAS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- MedCore Partners has completed the acquisition of an 86-unit senior living community called The Grove on Forest Lane (formerly known as The Avenues of Park Forest) in North Dallas. The senior living community offers 70 assisted living and 16 memory care residences and marks MedCore's second acquisition in Texas but the first in the DFW market. The acquisition is MedCore's 19th nationwide. The Grove on Forest Lane The Grove on Forest Lane "The MedCore team is especially pleased to add this community to our portfolio," said Sundeep Jeste, Senior Vice President of Seniors Housing Operations. "Its favorable location, combined with an infusion of capital for renovations, will provide an attractive destination for families seeking the convenience of North Dallas for their loved ones." The renovation effort will include new interior and exterior signage, courtyard landscaping, common area upgrades, and apartment amenities enhancements. Senior By Design and a to-be-named general contractor are delivering the renovations. The acquisition team hopes to leverage the project's tremendous occupancy growth potential and central location to hospital systems, recreational and lifestyle amenities to position it for steady value enhancement. The Dallas MSA is well-positioned for occupancy absorption going into 2023 based on population in-migration. MedCore currently operates 19 senior living communities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Washington, and Oregon. In addition, MedCore has two senior living projects under construction in Texas. This will bring their seniors housing portfolio to 21 assets with approximately 2,500 beds. SOURCE MedCore Partners van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin has filed a complaint against Lincoln University for the death of a student who was killed during a violent crime that was ignored by university staff. PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin has filed a complaint against Lincoln University for the death of a student who died in a violent altercation. According to the complaint, university staff did not attempt to stop or mitigate the violent situation, leaving the student helpless against his attackers. The family of the deceased student is suing the university for its negligent security, poor response to the assault, and history of willful ignorance toward reports of on-campus violence. On Wednesday, February 16th, 2022, the decedent and two of his friends attempted to visit the dormitory room of two other students at Lincoln University. Upon their arrival, the two students and the sister of one of those students confronted them, resulting in a brawl. During the altercation, the sister produced a knife and stabbed the decedent multiple times in the neck, fatally wounding him. As the violent fight occurred, Lincoln University employees and staff members did not attempt to intervene or neutralize the situation. Furthermore, the complaint stated that Lincoln University security staff had prior knowledge of previous confrontations between the two groups earlier that day yet did nothing to improve the security in that dormitory. Also, it is believed that the woman who fatally wounded the decedent arrived on campus without permission, yet campus security did not stop her. Under this argument, the violent altercation was clearly foretold but Lincoln University staff willfully ignored it. The university has also been accused of ignoring a long history of student complaints about raising risks of on-campus violence, which should have been a call for better security measures years ago. Had the university paid attention to the clear signs of on-campus violence and danger, the killing could likely have been prevented. van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin is a nationally recognized law firm for difficult and controversial cases. With its extensive record of multimillion dollar verdicts in state and federal courts, the firm is hoping to achieve another key victory for the family of the decedent in this lawsuit against Lincoln University. In doing so, the firm would not only help the family find closure, but it could also help ensure that the university finally takes appropriate steps to tighten its security measures. For more information about van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin and the legal services that the firm offers, interested parties are encouraged to visit www.mtvlaw.com. Media Contact: Erica Green - [email protected] SOURCE van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin Company continues to expand commercial adoption of innovative surgical robot for use in transvaginal benign gynecological procedures with latest agreement MARGATE, Fla. and FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Momentis Surgical Ltd, a medical device company dedicated to transforming surgery with its proprietary surgical robotic technology, today announced that HCA Florida Northwest Hospital has acquired the Anovo Surgical System for use in transvaginal benign gynecological procedures including hysterectomies. The Anovo System is the first and only FDA-authorized surgical robot with features including shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints designed to mimic human arms and provide human level dexterity. "It is essential for surgeons to use the most advanced tools and technologies to ensure we deliver optimal care to our patients, and this system presents several advantages compared to other available robotic technologies," said Daniel Gomez, MD, FACOG, FACS, a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon and assistant program director of the OBGYN Residency Program at HCA Florida Northwest Hospital. "By enabling the transvaginal approach to benign gynecological procedures including benign hysterectomies, we can perform minimally invasive surgery that may deliver benefits including less pain after surgery, leading to a faster recovery, and virtually no visible scarring. We are also excited to train the next generation of gynecologic surgeons on this new platform to further advance the surgical care that our current OBGYN residents will provide to their patients in the future." The Anovo System was granted de novo marketing authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in February 2021 for use in single site, natural orifice laparoscopic-assisted transvaginal benign surgical procedures including benign hysterectomy, salpingectomy, oophorectomy, adnexectomy, and ovarian cyst removal. Multiple instruments can be introduced to the body through a single portal and the unprecedented articulation offers optimal access and working angles. Anovo is designed to enable surgeons to use the transvaginal approach in gynecological procedures, which has been well documented in clinical research as providing benefits including less patient pain and scarring, shorter recovery times and reduced infection rates, compared to other approaches.i In addition, the Anovo System requires a much smaller footprint and costs significantly less than conventional robotic systems, making it possible for more hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to acquire the system and offer more patients the benefits of less invasive robotic surgery. "We are pleased to have growing support from leading medical facilities in Florida including HCA Florida Northwest Hospital and hope to continue our momentum as we work to build broader commercial adoption of the Anovo System," said Dvir Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder of Momentis. "We are dedicated to making this innovative technology available to more women and improving their surgical experience as well as that of the surgeons." About Momentis Surgical Momentis Surgical Ltd is a medical device company founded in 2013 and based in Tel Aviv, Israel with a wholly owned subsidiary, Momentis Surgical Inc., based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Momentis is dedicated to transforming the field of robotic surgery by developing innovative small footprint, cost-effective, robotic-assisted technologies and techniques for a growing number of clinical applications. Our goal is to empower surgeons to perform minimally invasive, complex procedures, enabling better patient outcomes, lowering cost of care, and opening access to more surgeons, patients, hospitals, and surgery centers across the globe. For more information, visit: https://www.momentissurgical.com/. About HCA Florida Northwest Hospital HCA Florida Northwest Hospital, an award-winning 289-bed acute care hospital, has served communities across northern Broward County and South Florida for more than 30 years. HCA Florida Northwest Hospital provides award-winning care using the latest state-of-the-art advancements in medical technology with a focus on excellence in patient safety and care experience. A Joint Commission-accredited hospital and primary stroke center, HCA Florida Northwest Hospital is known for its heart and vascular care; women's services including maternity care and the only Level III NICU in northern Broward County; 24/7 emergency medicine; minimally invasive robotic-assisted surgery; orthopedic, spine and neurological care, and more. HCA Florida Northwest Hospital is a part of HCA Florida Healthcare, the leading provider of healthcare in the state of Florida. With an employee base of 77,000, HCA Florida Healthcare's comprehensive network includes 49 hospital campuses and more than 450 other care sites. Momentis Media Contact: Lynn Granito Berry & Company Public Relations [email protected] 973-818-3732 Momentis Investor Contact: Greg Chodaczek Gilmartin Group [email protected] 347-620-7010 HCA Media Contact: Jennifer Barb HCA Florida Northwest Hospital C: 561-339-3578 [email protected] iAarts JWM, Nieboer TE, Johnson N, Tavender E, Garry R, Mol BWJ, Kluivers KB. Surgical approach to hysterectomy for benign gynaecological disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015. 2015 Aug 12;2015(8):CD003677. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD003677.pub5. SOURCE Momentis Surgical Supports Development of Disease Modifying Therapy for Parkinson's Disease COPENHAGEN, Denmark and BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Muna Therapeutics (Muna), a biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, announced today that it has been awarded a $4.9 million grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF). The grant will be used to support ongoing preclinical research and development of novel, brain-exposed, small molecule potassium channel type 1.3 (Kv1.3) blockers to abrogate neuroinflammation driven by disease-associated microglia and enhance neuroprotection as a disease-modifying therapy for patients with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with motor symptoms (slow movement, tremor, rigidity, walking and imbalance) and a wide variety of non-motor complications (cognitive impairment, mental health disorders, sleep disorders, pain and other sensory disturbances). Motor impairments, such as dyskinesias (involuntary movements) and dystonias (painful involuntary muscle contractions) contribute to limitations in speech, mobility and restrictions in many life areas. More than 10 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with Parkinson's with no current cure. Muna is focused on addressing the staggering unmet medical need experienced by Parkinson's patients around the world with its transformative, therapeutic all-in-human target discovery and validation platform which aims to preserve brain function and enhance resilience to neurodegenerative diseases. "We are very pleased to receive this significant funding from The Michael J. Fox Foundation to fund this promising research which has the potential to significantly improve the lives of people with Parkinson's. Kv1.3 plays an important role in creating and maintaining neuroinflammation in Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Reducing neuroinflammation by blocking Kv1.3 has tremendous potential to slow or prevent neurodegeneration and disease progression," said Rita Balice-Gordon, Chief Executive Officer of Muna Therapeutics. "The studies will support ongoing medicinal chemistry and structural biology efforts as well as extend understanding of the mechanism of Kv1.3 in microglial activation and the role of Kv1.3 blockade, in vitro in human cells and in vivo in humanized mouse models, to achieve the normalization of disease-associated microglial phenotypes, which will enhance neuroprotection," said Niels Plath, Chief Scientific Officer of Muna Therapeutics. "Fostering a robust and healthy pipeline of therapies to improve the lives of people with Parkinson's is core to MJFF's mission. We are proud to support the work of researchers at Muna Therapeutics investigating a potential disease modifying therapy for people with Parkinson's," said Brian Fiske, PhD, Co-Chief Scientific Officer, MJFF. The grant from MJFF will support work at Muna Therapeutics and in collaboration with Professor Bart De Strooper at VIB/KU Leuven, a scientific co-founder of Muna, for two years. About Muna Therapeutics Muna Therapeutics is a private biopharmaceutical company founded in 2020 and based in Copenhagen, Denmark and Leuven, Belgium and the United States. Muna discovers and develops therapies that slow or stop devastating neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Frontotemporal Dementia and Multiple Sclerosis. These disorders impact memory, movement, language, behavior and personality resulting in disability and death of millions of patients around the globe. Muna's groundbreaking science is focused on identifying new medicines to preserve cognition and other brain functions and enhance resilience to neurodegenerative diseases. Our name reflects this focus: Muna means 'to remember' in Old Norse. For more information, visit www.munatherapeutics.com SOURCE Muna Therapeutics Easy-to-use, cloud-based POS system combines simplicity and flexibility with retail music-specific features and functionality PROVO, Utah, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Music Shop 360 announced today the first all-in-one, cloud-based retail POS software created exclusively to meet the needs of modern music retailers. Music Shop 360 is a true end-to-end retail software solution that supports retail music business operations with real-time visibility and control over in-store and online sales, inventory, repairs, rental management, customer communications, and marketing. Music Shop 360 also includes real-time integrations with My Music Staff, the premier music student management software; Reverb, to significantly expand your retail audience; and Clientbook, the industry's leading clienteling solution. Music Shop 360 combines decades of music industry experience with a proven modern POS solution to deliver the capabilities music stores need to provide the best possible experience to their customers. With industry-specific features that generic POS systems can't match, including rental management and vendor catalog data, Music Shop 360's cloud-based solution and industry integrations enable retailers to improve sales, efficiencies and customer satisfaction. Key features of Music Shop 360 include: Modern, cloud-based platform for anytime, anywhere visibility and control from a computer or mobile device for anytime, anywhere visibility and control from a computer or mobile device Integrated POS and website to provide a seamless omnichannel experience for in-store and online sales, as well as inventory management to provide a seamless omnichannel experience for in-store and online sales, as well as inventory management Strategic third-party business function integrations for lesson scheduling, clienteling, bookkeeping and localization such as My Music Staff , Clientbook, Quickbooks, and more for lesson scheduling, clienteling, bookkeeping and localization such as , Clientbook, Quickbooks, and more Music-specific POS features such as: rental management, repairs, custom work, special orders and consignment "We understand that a music store's main goal is to help their customers make music, and that your POS system should help facilitate that," said Taylor Harnois, General Manager, Music Shop 360. "Music Shop 360 brings together expertise in the music retail industry with industry-leading technology to help make music store management easier and more efficient. Our all-in-one POS software is easy to use, fully integrated and backed by advanced automation capabilities, ensuring that music stores and their customers don't miss a beat. That's why Music 360 POS is the number one rated music shop POS." To learn more about Music Shop 360, visit www.MusicShop360.com. About Music Shop 360 Music Shop 360 is an all-in-one, cloud-based retail software built to meet the needs of modern music stores. The Music Shop 360 integrated POS solution provides end-to-end visibility and control over in-store and online sales, inventory, rentals, repairs, customer communications and marketing. With seamless integrations including My Music Staff, Clientbook and more, Music Shop 360 combines the simplicity and flexibility of a cloud-based solution with the comprehensive functionality that music stores need. Media Contact: Jennifer Moritz 917-748-4006 [email protected] SOURCE Music Shop 360 The satellite relay system provider will study and demonstrate optical ground terminal integration with NASA's Near Space Network MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SpaceLink, a company that provides secure data relay from any orbit, any time, announced it was awarded a contract by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to study how commercial optical ground terminals will integrate into the Near Space Network. The funded study includes a demonstration of end-to-end transport of multi-source data at the SpaceLink gateway in the Mojave Desert. SpaceLink relay satellites on orbit showing optical and RF links (PRNewsfoto/SpaceLink) SpaceLink is creating a TDRSS-like capability in MEO, to significantly increase throughput, provide persistent links to space-borne assets, and securely deliver data in real-time. It is well-positioned as a resource to support NASA's transition towards commercial services for Direct to Earth communications and Space Relay. "Developing our data transport system has pushed the SpaceLink architecture team to optimize across space, ground, client, and network segments, and to address challenges associated with optical high-capacity data delivery solutions," said Rob Singh, SpaceLink Chief Technology Officer. "SpaceLink is excited to explore innovative solutions that can help inform and guide NASA towards the successful commercialization of the Near Space Network services." As part of the study, SpaceLink will identify the barriers, challenges, and solutions associated with integration of optical communications ground terminals into the Near Space Network architecture. The technical demonstration consists of an end-to-end test of multi-source data moving from SpaceLink's Mojave Gateway facility to NASA's terrestrial network using Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. SpaceLink previously selected the Mojave Air & Space Port at Rutan Field as the location for its primary Gateway in the United States. Its RF and optical terminals will be built on a five-acre parcel with redundant high-capacity fiber backhaul to densely interconnected data centers (Carrier Hotels) in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. SpaceLink is establishing its Gateway Development Lab at the Mojave facility to support system development, demonstrations such as the one for NASA GSFC, and for on-boarding high-capacity data relay service customers. "SpaceLink has demonstrated current and state of the art experience and technologies for space-based optical communication link and services," said Dr. Ruma Das, CIS Deputy Office Chief at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. "We selected SpaceLink for the capabilities study award based on its considerable organizational capabilities and highly-qualified key personnel for information related to Optical Communications and road mapping to ground segment integration techniques and concepts." SpaceLink is building a constellation of relay satellites in MEO that use optical intersatellite links to speed communications between spacecraft on orbit and users on the ground. SpaceLink's work with NASA GSFC will explore innovative solutions to inform and guide NASA towards the seamless integration of commercially provisioned communications services. A company recognized for its outstanding innovation, SpaceLink recently announced it was awarded a contract by DARPA to participate in its Space-BACN program. Last month SpaceLink also announced it has entered into a Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Technical Center. About SpaceLink SpaceLink will help advance humanity to a new age of space commerce, exploration, environmental awareness, and security. The Always in Sight data relay system provides global coverage to empower space system operators to maximize use of their assets. SpaceLink Corporation is headquartered in Northern Virginia and has offices in Silicon Valley, California. It is a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Electro Optic Systems Holdings Limited, a public company traded on the Australian stock exchange. SOURCE SpaceLink Industrial sector calls for more accurate intel to help address growing challenges of economic uncertainty, unstable geo-political environments, historic labor shortages and disrupted supply chains. LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AVEVA , a global leader in industrial software, today announced the results of a new global study which found that more than 8 in 10 top executives say key business decisions are being made without full data visibility and insights from their plants and assets. The study, "Connecting the Future," was released in partnership with Wakefield Research and polled 650 executives at global companies with a minimum annual revenue of $50M USD in the chemicals, manufacturing, and power industries across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. With no end in sight to global business disruptions, 87% of executives plan to increase their organization's investment in industrial digital solutions over the 12-months, given the need for the type of connected data that can drive decisions needed to address growing combined challenges of economic uncertainty, unstable geo-political environments, historic labor shortages, and disrupted supply chains. Industrial leaders across key industries such Oil & Gas, Energy, manufacturing, utilities and transportation, also understand the need to leverage digital solutions now more than ever. The greatest investments to tackle supply chain complexities are in analytics and AI, Industrial IoT, cloud computing and edge computing solutions in the next 12 months. "Industrial sectors are navigating complex and constantly changing economic challenges, from rising costs to the need to decarbonize to supply chain to labor shortages. With accurate, trusted data, companies can drive actionable insights that enable them to tackle these challenges head-on," said Kim Custeau, Executive Vice President of Portfolio, AVEVA. "Leading companies are investing in cloud-based software solutions enriched with sector-specific AI to connect their teams, drive deeper collaboration and build the industries of the future. This gives leaders the agility, resilience, and sustainability capabilities they need to succeed in today's fast-evolving industrial landscape." Other key findings include: Cloud, analytics and AI drive the majority of investments to close the gap. Companies are looking at a number of digital solutions to combat lack of insight into data, including cloud computing, data management infrastructure, flexible work options, and analytics and AI. More than 3 in 5 of top execs included cloud computing (63%) and analytics and AI (62%) among their top priority areas for increased investment over the next 12 months, and nearly all (98%) see augmenting their existing industrial engineering and operations workflows with cloud capabilities as essential. Companies are looking at a number of digital solutions to combat lack of insight into data, including cloud computing, data management infrastructure, flexible work options, and analytics and AI. More than 3 in 5 of top execs included cloud computing (63%) and analytics and AI (62%) among their top priority areas for increased investment over the next 12 months, and nearly all (98%) see augmenting their existing industrial engineering and operations workflows with cloud capabilities as essential. The U.S. leads the way in industrial digital solutions: U.S. executives are more likely than execs globally to say their company's investment will increase significantly over the next 12 months (35%, compared to 27% globally). U.S. executives are more likely than execs globally to say their company's investment will increase significantly over the next 12 months (35%, compared to 27% globally). The chemicals industry is prioritizing digital investments to drive a more sustainable future. In fact, 62% of chemicals leaders have increased or accelerated their investment in industrial digital solutions over the past few yearssignificantly higher than the percentage who have done so across other industries. This could be in response to increasing environmental regulations and sustainability pressures, which a third of those in the sector (33%) view as the most significant challenge they'll face over the next 12 months (compared to 23% across all sectors). In fact, 62% of chemicals leaders have increased or accelerated their investment in industrial digital solutions over the past few yearssignificantly higher than the percentage who have done so across other industries. This could be in response to increasing environmental regulations and sustainability pressures, which a third of those in the sector (33%) view as the most significant challenge they'll face over the next 12 months (compared to 23% across all sectors). Historic labor shortages pose an urgent threat to industrial digital initiatives. Nearly half of companies (46%) report it has been very or extremely difficult to find talent with the skill sets needed to support their industrial digital priorities. Nearly half of companies across these industries (47%) will invest significantly over the next 12 months to support workforce opportunities outside of traditional locations and schedules, including workers on the plant floor and those involved in operations and production. Nearly half of companies (46%) report it has been very or extremely difficult to find talent with the skill sets needed to support their industrial digital priorities. Nearly half of companies across these industries (47%) will invest significantly over the next 12 months to support workforce opportunities outside of traditional locations and schedules, including workers on the plant floor and those involved in operations and production. Information sharing within and outside business units is paramount. Nearly half of executives (45%) include enabling information sharing with trusted partners through an open and interoperable information-sharing ecosystem among the top digital initiatives with the greatest potential to impact profitability and sustainability at their organization. In fact, executives report the most common benefits of having an open and agnostic information-sharing ecosystem are greater efficiency and innovation (48%), increasing employee satisfaction (45%), and staying competitive with other companies (44%). About AVEVA AVEVA is a global leader in industrial software, sparking ingenuity to drive responsible use of the world's resources. The company's secure industrial cloud platform and applications enable businesses to harness the power of their information and improve collaboration with customers, suppliers and partners. Over 20,000 enterprises in over 100 countries rely on AVEVA to help them deliver life's essentials: safe and reliable energy, food, medicines, infrastructure and more. By connecting people with trusted information and AI-enriched insights, AVEVA enables teams to engineer efficiently and optimize operations, driving growth and sustainability. Named as one of the world's most innovative companies, AVEVA supports customers with open solutions and the expertise of more than 6,400 employees, 5,000 partners and 5,700 certified developers. With operations around the globe, we are headquartered in Cambridge, UK and listed on the London Stock Exchange's FTSE 100. Learn more at www.aveva.com. Contact Priscilla Tinsley [email protected] SOURCE AVEVA STOCKHOLM, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Poor hygiene standards in public spaces, overall worry for global health threats, knowledge gaps and taboos in discussions around health and hygiene - these are just some of the barriers to well-being identified in the Global Hygiene and Health Survey 2022 conducted by global hygiene and health company Essity. The findings are based on responses from more than 15,000 people world-wide with the aim to find healthier solutions for future generations. The Global Hygiene and Health Survey 2022 focuses on the future of well-being as well as the knowledge gap around issues of hygiene and health. By comparing current behaviors and attitudes of people towards well-being with how they would like to live in the future, several gaps are identified in areas such as personal care, caregiving, health worries and sustainable consumption. "The world is evolving and changing in rapid speed. New pandemics and other global challenges affect our health and well-being. We have conducted this survey as we want progress for people's well-being and raise awareness of the importance of hygiene and health and its link to well-being. Also, by looking at the future of well-being we aim to break barriers for well-being and find solutions for a healthier next generation," says Josephine Edwall Bjorklund, Senior Vice President, Communications at Essity. One of the surveyed areas is public spaces. When it comes to hygiene standards in public spaces, only 1 in 4 say they feel comfortable about hygiene standards in public bathrooms and 3 in 10 in public transport. Out of these, seniors feel the most uncomfortable about hygiene standards in public spaces, especially in public washrooms as only 13% of people aged 66-80 years old claim to feel comfortable about hygiene standards in these venues. A majority also expressed higher expectations on the hygiene standards in public bathrooms after COVID-19. Furthermore, there are higher demands on the cleanliness, accessibility and smart solutions such as connected washroom devices. Improving hygiene standards in public places may also have other positive effects. According to the study, 38% of the respondents say that improvement of hygiene standards in public spaces would make the biggest difference in helping to stop the spread of bacteria resistance to antibiotics. In fact, the worry about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has increased since 2019 when 46% expressed concern. Today more than half of the respondents (54%) are concerned of AMR as a threat to public health where they live. This can be compared to pandemic outbreaks, which 63% are worried about, a slight decrease since 2020 (70%), but still higher than prior to the outbreak of Covid-19 when only 43% experienced this as threat to public health. Besides poor hygiene standards in public spaces and global health threats, lack of knowledge is another concern related to the future of well-being. When asked a set of 12 commons myths about health and hygiene, an average of 1 in 2 (51%) answered wrong or don't know. Also, there are still unfortunately stigmas linked to some areas. For example, 10% going through menopause say they avoid talking about it. Lack of knowledge and dialogue can easily result in stigma and reluctance to discuss health and hygiene, making conditions such as menopause taboo. "The survey results shows that accessible health care, education and dialogues are areas that all need to be addressed to improve health for both societies and individuals. For many years Essity has been educating about the importance of personal well-being and preventive care, often through partnerships with organizations such as UNICEF in Mexico to raise awareness on a global scale. We will maintain our focus on providing smart solutions that contribute to personal and public health and hygiene, as well as continue to talk about personal hygiene conditions to break stigmas and taboos. We encourage other actors to join us in our efforts," says Josephine Edwall Bjorklund, Senior Vice President, Communications at Essity. As an example, since 2016 Essity and its feminine care brand in Mexico, Saba, are collaborating with UNICEF in Mexico to increase dialogue about menstruation and hygiene issues among young people in the country, reaching 7.5 million people. In 2019, the partnership expanded into "Hygiene is our Right", encompassing Essity's Tork brand with the aim to educate pupils and teachers in Mexico City about the importance of good hand hygiene, breaking taboos around menstruation and strengthening standards and guidelines to support good hygiene and health in schools. The partnership was extended for another three years in June 2022 after an additional 200 000 people, including 42,000 pupils and nearly 3,200 teachers all over Mexico was benefited from the partnership. Click here to read the full survey Excerpts from the survey 75% do not feel safe about hygiene standards in public bathrooms 71% do not feel safe about hygiene standards in local transportation 87% of people aged 66-80 years old do not feel safe about hygiene standards in public washrooms 57% expressed higher expectations on the hygiene standards in public bathrooms after COVID-19* 80% say that access to clean drinking water in future public spaces is essential for their well-being 79% say that a high standard of cleanliness in future public spaces is essential for their well-being 78% say that access to washrooms in future public spaces is essential for their well-being 66% say that access to basic personal hygiene products such as menstruation pads, diapers etc. is essential for their well-being 53% say that access to self-cleaning and odor-control toilets is essential for the future public washroom 40% say that access to connected washroom devices (e.g. toilet paper, soap) is essential for the future public washroom 23% say that disease-detecting toilets (e.g. urine tests) is essential for the future public washroom 38% say that improvement of hygiene standards in public spaces (e.g. workplaces, public buildings, airports, public transport) would make the biggest difference in helping to stop the spread of resistance to antibiotics (i.e. antimicrobial resistance) where they live 54% are worried about antimicrobial resistance as a threat to public health where they live 63% are worried about pandemic outbreaks as a threat to public health where they live 54% don't know that being active when menstruating can relieve pain 44% don't know that maintaining a healthy weight can lower the risk of lymphedema 59% of men think that nothing can be done about pain and mood swings women experience during menstruation 75% think that women do not get pregnant once they reach menopause 10% going through menopause avoid talking about menopause * Excerpt included from the 2020/21 Essentials Initiative Survey For further information, please contact: Helena Hansen, Media Relations Manager, +46 70 616 96 69, [email protected] This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com https://news.cision.com/essity/r/new-hygiene-and-health-survey-by-essity-identifies-the-largest-threats-to-the-future-of-well-being,c3644671 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/15798/3644671/1635979.pdf New hygiene and health survey by Essity identifies the largest threats to the future of well-being https://news.cision.com/essity/i/health-hygiene,c3098369 Health Hygiene SOURCE Essity The Deskless Report 2022 uncovers agreement between corporate and frontline, deskless workers around understaffing and burnout, but there is a disconnect on a path forward. TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Axonify and Nudge, top-rated software solutions for frontline learning, communications, and execution today released The Deskless Report 2022 which uncovers new and alarming disconnects between corporate leaders and their frontline workers and managers that could lead to increased turnover in industries already struggling to keep employees. While executives are aware of frontline struggles, this new survey of 268 corporate leaders and 1,018 deskless workers and their managers, suggest they are misaligned on how to address understaffing and burnout the top two issues that both sides agree are the top disruptors facing the front lines today. The full report provides strategic insights to guide operational excellence and a better employee experience in key industries reliant on frontline workers. The data also shows 74% of executives have a positive outlook about the future of their industry, compared with their employees at 58%, and that only 39% of workers feel heard (a staggering drop from 59% last year). The most alarming finding is that 42% of frontline workers are considering quitting their job, up from 36% last year. "Industries that rely on frontline workers are feeling a sense of urgency to better support their people to keep business on track," said Jordan Ekers, COO and Co-Founder of Nudge. "This study points out opportunities to create better alignment between corporate leaders and their people at a time when employee turnover is at an all-time high." The survey, conducted by third-party research firm The Starr Conspiracy, gathered insights from corporate leaders, frontline managers, and workers in retail, hospitality, food services, manufacturing, and facilities management businesses. While corporate leaders are focused on investments that ensure their frontline is loyal and empowered to succeed, there's a disconnect on what this workforce actually needs and whether or not they're getting it. One disconnect uncovered in the study showed corporate leaders advocating for initiatives that target community and culture, while workers are still struggling with more fundamental needs around livelihood and stability. Nearly half (49%) of managers, for example, are burnt out on a daily basis. Considering that 80% of frontline workers rely on their manager for information, the data suggest these industries are nearing a breaking point. Yet only 39% of frontline workers say their companies invest in technologies to meet their needs. While 65% of corporate leaders believe their communication is effective, only 35% of frontline workers agree. And 75% of corporate leaders believe their organization invests in new technologies for frontline workers, yet only 39% of frontline workers agree. Nearly half (43%) of frontline managers also identified a lack of training that impacts their day-to-day work. The study also found that adequate training and upskilling was among the top three contributing factors impacting happiness and success. As a result, frontline workers and managers are desperate for support, stability, and some kind of response to understaffing and burnout all factors that are preventing businesses from thriving and growing. Frontline managers are crucial to execution of corporate goals with workers relying on 8 of 10 key categories of critical information, which is typically shared through 1:1 communication. "It's time to stop talking about employee experience as a vague, nebulous concept and start making sure frontline employees have the tools they need to feel good about the hard work they do every day," said JD Dillon, Chief Learning Architect at Axonify. "Why should deskless workers be asked to rely on antiquated tactics like bulletin boards and paper binders when customers have immediate access to vast amounts of information via their smartphones?" For a deeper dive into the study conducted by third-party research firm The Starr Conspiracy, read The Deskless Report 2022 here . About Nudge Nudge (an Axonify Company) is a frontline enablement solution that empowers workers with the knowledge, tools and resources they need to execute consistently and confidently every day. Nudge's mobile-first platform combines two-way communications and guided task execution to help deskless organizations enable their frontline across every location in real-time. Employees can complete tasks, provide feedback, take part in discussions, and test their knowledge while earning recognition and points. Since 2012, over 65 million Nudges have been delivered, driving profitability, employee retention, and providing teams with the insights to create memorable customer experiences. Based in Toronto, Canada, Nudge has the highest user ratings in its category, and is used by leading brands across North America, including Compass Group, Staples, Mastermind Toys, and Margaritaville. Learn more at www.nudge.co. About Axonify Axonify gets frontline employees ready for anything with a training and communications solution that delivers. Why does it work so well? Because the experience is fun, fast, personalized and designed to make critical information stick. And employees love it83% of users log in 2-3 times a week, which translates into meaningful behavior change that drives business results. More than 200 customers in 155+ countries around the world, including Walmart, Kroger, Levi's and Merck, trust Axonify to fuel their people's performance to keep pace with their business. Founded in 2011, Axonify is headquartered in Waterloo, ON Canada. For more information, please visit www.axonify.com. SOURCE Nudge ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnson // Becker, PLLC is a nationwide products liability law firm with extensive experience representing victims of pressure cooker explosions. The firm has represented over 500 clients who have been severely burned by exploding pressure cookers. Johnson//Becker filed this Complaint against manufacturer Instant Brands, on behalf of Feruze Edun, a resident of Ozone Park, New York, alleging that Mr. Edun was burned during the normal use of his Instant Pot. The pressure cooker explosion occurred when Mr. Edun's Instant Pot lid opened while the contents were under pressure, an outcome that disproves Instant Pot's claim that its lid will "automatically lock to prevent opening the cooker" while it is pressurized. Mr. Edun purchased his Instant Pot from Amazon.com, where the brand consistently ranks as the bestselling pressure cooker on the market. The Complaint alleges Instant Pot was "placed into the stream of commerce in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition for consumers." Johnson//Becker has represented more than 80 people injured by an exploding Instant Pot pressure cooker. This suit is filed by Adam J. Kress of Johnson // Becker, PLLC. Adam exclusively handles injury cases, with an emphasis on national products liability litigation, including cases involving burn injuries from defective products. Questions about an Instant Pot pressure cooker Lawsuit? Contact a Johnson//Becker lawyer today for a free case review. If you or a loved one has been injured by a defective Instant Pot, you may want to speak with the lawyers at Johnson//Becker. We are filing new Instant Pot pressure cooker lawsuits across the country, and you may be entitled to financial compensation for your defective pressure cooker injuries. We offer a free case evaluation. To learn more about Johnson // Becker's product liability cases, or to arrange a free, no obligation case review, please visit Johnson // Becker at https://www.johnsonbecker.com/product-liability/pressure-cooker-lawsuit/, https://www.johnsonbecker.com/product-liability/instant-pot-pressure-cooker-lawsuit/ or contact Johnson // Becker directly at (800) 279-6386. SOURCE Johnson // Becker, PLLC SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global nitrogenous fertilizer market size is estimated to reach USD 94.02 billion by 2030 according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Growth can be attributed to the increasing awareness amongst farmers regarding maintaining nutritional balance in the soil. Increasing population across the globe has generated the need to improve the annual crop yield to feed the population, which has boosted the agriculture sector across the globe. The global nitrogenous fertilizer market size was valued at USD 57.2 billion in 2021 and is projected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.7% in terms of revenue from 2022 to 2030. Key Industry Insights & Findings from the report: In 2021, urea emerged as the dominating product segment by contributing around 33% of revenue share. This is attributed to the affordable cost of urea as compared to the other products. Ammonium sulfate was the second-largest product segment and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 4.9% by 2030, due to its wide agricultural applications and high solubility. Cereals & grains segment was the dominant application segment in terms of both in terms of volume and revenue, owing to the increasing demand for food crops such as maize, wheat, barley, rice, and oats. As of 2021, Asia Pacific was the dominating regional market owing to the existence of large agricultural lands in the region along with the technological advancements in farming methods Browse Fertilizer Industry Data Book - Nitrogenous, Potassic, Phosphatic, Foliar, Water-soluble & Biofertilizers Market, And Fertilizer Additives Market Size, Share, Trends Analysis And Segment Forecasts, 2022 - 2030 Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market Growth & Trends Hydrogen and nitrogen are the major raw materials used for manufacturing nitrogenous fertilizers. Nitrogen is required in large quantities by plants and is the primary nutrient in fertilizers. Hydrogen is a crucial component of ammonia, which is an important ingredient in numerous fertilizers. Nearly all commercial-scale ammonia incorporates nitrogen and hydrogen. Raw material Availability impacts nitrogenous fertilizer prices and production. Key manufacturers are investing profoundly in R&D activities for launching new products and broadening their product portfolios. Major players in the market are increasing the reach of their products to a larger consumer base by setting up retail outlets at strategic locations in various countries to support farming communities in the respective localities. The Asia Pacific is expected to register significant growth in the coming years owing to the presence of numerous agrarian economies such as China, India, Indonesia, and others in the region. India and China are expected to lead the nitrogenous fertilizer market over the forecast period. Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market Segmentation Grand View Research has segmented the global nitrogenous fertilizer market report based on the product, application, and region: Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market - Product Outlook (Volume, Thousand Tons; Revenue, USD Million, 2018 - 2030) Urea Methylene Urea Ammonium Nitrate Ammonium Sulfate Ammonia Calcium Ammonium Nitrate Others Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market - Application Outlook (Volume, Thousand Tons; Revenue, USD Million, 2018 - 2030) Cereals & Grains Oilseeds & Pulses Fruits & Vegetables Others Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market - Regional Outlook (Volume, Thousand Tons; Revenue, USD Million, 2018 - 2030) North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany U . K . K Italy France Spain Netherlands Asia Pacific China India Japan South Korea South America Brazil Argentina Middle East & Africa & Saudi Arabia Qatar Egypt List of Key Players of Nitrogenous Fertilizer Market Kynoch Fertilizer Sorfert Bunge Ltd. Nutrien Ltd. Yara Omnia Holdings Limited Sasol Aquasol Nutri TriomfSA Rolfes Agri (Pty) Ltd. (Pty) Ltd. OCI Nitrogen ICL Fertilizers Eurochem Group AG CF Industries Holdings Inc. Koch Fertilizer, LLC Hellagrolip SA Coromandel International Limited Haifa Group Notore Chemical Industries Plc Check out more related studies published by Grand View Research: Biofertilizers Market - The global biofertilizers market size is projected to reach USD 2.70 billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 12.8%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Rising demand for organically produced food products across emerging economies backed with growing economic stability is the key boost to the marketspace. The global biofertilizers market size is projected to reach by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 12.8%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Rising demand for organically produced food products across emerging economies backed with growing economic stability is the key boost to the marketspace. Fertilizer Catalyst Market - The global fertilizer catalyst market size is expected to reach USD 3.3 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 2.4% from 2021 to 2027. The market is expected to be driven by the growing application in the production of fertilizers and the need for improving process efficiencies. - The global fertilizer catalyst market size is expected to reach by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 2.4% from 2021 to 2027. The market is expected to be driven by the growing application in the production of fertilizers and the need for improving process efficiencies. Fertilizer Additives Market - The global fertilizer additives market size is projected to reach USD 4.01 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Decreasing per capita arable land and rising population density has resulted in increased demand for fertilizers in the agriculture sector, which in turn has boosted the growth. GVR has curated a list of micro markets to provide a holistic view of industry performance. We focus on critical applications and end-use to give all stakeholders a detailed perspective. The data books are available in interactive dashboards and services start at US$ 500 per month. Browse Micro-Markets & Industry Data Books from Grand View Research About Grand View Research Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research Helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead. Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc. Phone: 1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com Grand View Compass | Astra ESG Solutions Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc. SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Non-Fungible Heroes NFT is proud to support the future of women in Web3 by leading a community fundraising effort for Girls Who Code in honor of International Day of The Girl. Non-Fungible Heroes Characters by TheMadverse.io. Through a community-driven charity drive, NFT community Non-Fungible Heroes (NFH) is fundraising on behalf of Girls Who Code, an organization advancing the education and empowerment of women in technology roles. NFH was preceded by Boring Bananas Co., a charity based NFT which unlocked developer tools and video content for community education, leading to the production of collections by dozens of creators, including the Weird Whales collection 12-year-old coder Benyamin Ahmed. "We're thrilled to support such a visionary charity," says Head of Marketing for NFH, MK Bedosky. "As we look ahead to the future of Web3, the metaverse and blockchain technology, there's so much opportunity for girls around the world to build meaningful careers and disrupt the stereotypes of tech roles." "Globally, the percentage of females among Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates is below 15 per cent in over two-thirds of countries," cites the United Nations, who mark Tuesday, October 11th as the 10th anniversary of International Day of the Girl. Girls Who Code echoes the sentiment, "In 1995, 37% of computer scientists were women. Today, it's only 24%. The percent will continue to decline if we do nothing. We know that the biggest drop off of girls in computer science is between the ages of 13 and 17." Non-Fungible Heroes by GenCity Labs is an illustrated collection of Hero, Villain and God characters that are brought to life through games and comics. The collection, represented by WME, imbues NFT holders with intellectual property rights to their characters, allowing them to craft backstories and traits alongside professional artists and writers. Girls Who Code is an international nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology, and leading the movement to inspire, educate, and equip students who identify as girls or nonbinary with the computing skills needed to pursue 21st-century opportunities. Since launching in 2012, Girls Who Code has reached 500,000 students through in-person and virtual programming, and 115,000 of our alumni are college or career-aged. Media Contact: MK Bedosky Head of Marketing [email protected] 203-561-2044 Brand's Twitter, Medium MK's Twitter, Linkedin SOURCE Non-Fungible Heroes Funding will advance the company's long-term goal of closing the opportunity gap in Milwaukee's schools MILWAUKEE, Wis., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its long-term commitment to investing high-quality education to help close the opportunity gap for students in the city of Milwaukee, Northwestern Mutual, through its Foundation, is donating more than $3.5 million in grants to local educational programs, nonprofits and schools. The grants will support the company's goal of increasing the number quality seats available at high-performing schools to ensure all children have access to an enriching and supportive learning environment. Supporting education for Milwaukee's youth has been one of the company's priorities for more than 25 years, investing more than $60 million to date. This year's grants will support nearly 40 Milwaukee-based nonprofits and schools in all three sectors of public, charter and choice schools that act as an academic pipeline from kindergarten to career. These partner schools predominantly serve economically disadvantaged students. "At Northwestern Mutual, we believe education lays the groundwork for a strong community. Every child deserves access to a quality education; however, the reality remains that educational disparities exist," said Steve Radke, president of the Northwestern Mutual Foundation. "Our goal is to sustain our high-quality partner schools and grow their capacity so more students receive the resources they need to succeed." Spotlight: Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy Founded in 2004 by Howard Fuller, the Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy is a tuition-free, nonprofit, public charter high school open to all students in Milwaukee. The academy's mission is to enroll its graduates into higher education and produce responsible leaders. Earlier this year the school launched a $25 million capital campaign, Commit to the Future, to build a new, state-of-the art high school in Milwaukee's Bronzeville neighborhood and pave the way for a proposed new, feeder middle school. Northwestern Mutual shares the school's long-term goal of increasing the number of quality seats in Milwaukee schools and has donated $1 million to the capital campaign. In addition, Northwestern Mutual is providing up to $2.5 million in bridge loan funding to allow the school to move forward with construction while continuing to raise dollars. The company has also invested in two pilot programs and a high-dosage math tutoring program to support current and future teachers. "We are incredibly grateful for Northwestern Mutual's generous donation, ongoing collaboration and its commitment to creating a lasting impact on Milwaukee's educational ecosystem," said Judith Parker, principal at Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy. "This investment will help us improve the quality of life for more students and educators for many years to come." The additional grants will support programming, nonprofits and schools spanning from early childhood education to post-secondary completion. View the company's full list of education partners here. Locally, Northwestern Mutual also collaborates with community organizations to revitalize Milwaukee's Amani, Metcalfe Park and Muskego Way neighborhoods and support the city's leading cultural destinations. About The Northwestern Mutual Foundation The mission of the Northwestern Mutual Foundation is to improve the lives of children and families in need. The Foundation has given more than $400 million since its inception in 1992 and is designed to create lasting impact in the communities where the company's employees and financial representatives live and work. It accomplishes this by combining financial support, volunteerism, thought leadership and convening community partners to deliver the best outcomes. The Northwestern Mutual Foundation's efforts are focused nationally on curing childhood cancer, and locally on education, neighborhoods and making the company's hometown of Milwaukee a great destination. Visit Northwestern Mutual Foundation to learn more. About Northwestern Mutual Northwestern Mutual has been helping people and businesses achieve financial security for more than 165 years. Through a holistic planning approach, Northwestern Mutual combines the expertise of its financial professionals with a personalized digital experience and industry-leading products to help its clients plan for what's most important. With more than $560 billion in combined company and client assets, $34 billion in revenues, and $2.1 trillion worth of life insurance protection in force, Northwestern Mutual delivers financial security to nearly five million people with life, disability income and long-term care insurance, annuities, and brokerage and advisory services. Northwestern Mutual ranked 97 on the 2022 FORTUNE 500 and was recognized by FORTUNE as one of the "World's Most Admired" life insurance companies in 2022. Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Subsidiaries include Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS) (investment brokerage services), broker-dealer, registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC; the Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC) (investment advisory and services), federal savings bank; and Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Company (NLTC) (long-term care insurance). Not all Northwestern Mutual representatives are advisors. Only those representatives with "Advisor" in their title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of NMWMC are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide investment advisory services. SOURCE Northwestern Mutual A new research report from ActiveOps', Are you recession ready? Do more with less, indicates that operations leaders in the US believe a recession is likely, but 91% of organizations are yet to begin preparing. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New research from leading management process automation company ActiveOps, has revealed that despite 77% of US operations teams believing a recession is likely in the next 6-12 months, more than 90% of US operations teams are yet to begin preparations. As well as this, three out of five operational employees across North America, the UK and Australia believe businesses are not equipped to deliver organizational objectives in the event of a global recession. ActiveOps Recession Ready Research Paper PR image The report, Are you recession ready? Do more with less, analyses the current state of play in financial organizations, and surveyed 1,000 employees within operations teams across North America, the UK and Australia. Preparedness in the face of economic crisis is a significant theme in the report, which provides insight into whether operations employees are anticipating a recession, how employees feel their organizations are preparing for it, and what the likely impacts of those preparations are. Findings in the report indicate that 77% of US respondents are anticipating a global recession in the next 12 months, however, less than 1% of senior and junior employees across financial operations believe that their organization is currently prepared. Respondents in the US are also more likely than those in Australia and the UK to not feel equipped to deliver against organizational objectives in the event of a global recession. As well as believing there is a lack of preparedness, 100% of operations employees think that their organizations will be impacted by a financial crisis. Almost half of US respondents think the biggest cuts will be made to existing employees in the event of a global recession, compared to 45% of UK respondents and 40% of Australian respondents. Specifically, 35% believe that the biggest negative impact to their organization's operational teams in the event of a global recession will be mandatory redundancy. Many businesses are already facing a staffing crisis due to COVID-19 and the subsequent 'Great Resignation', indicating that many will be forced to 'cut the fat' where there is little to cut. "The World Bank is warning that a recession is on the horizon, and that means organizations need to start considering how they will prepare for that eventuality," said Bhavesh Vaghela, Chief Marketing Officer at ActiveOps. "Worryingly, our new report indicates that operations teams in the finance sector simply aren't prepared." "Many banks and financial services operations teams have already been working at reduced capacity for some time and so it is unsurprising that those in the US feel underequipped to face recession. The fear that a recession will lead to further redundancies is one that is shared across the Atlantic and so it is no surprise that both regions will seek out greater capacity from their existing teams. Technology will be key in gathering, understanding and implementing the data required to uncover this capacity." Compared to the UK and Australia, US-based respondents are likely to think their organization will absorb increased workload with fixed staffing levels first in the event of a global recession at 35% and 34% also foresee having to review their existing processes. "The last major recession of 2008 holds lessons for today's leaders; however, we live in a vastly different time compared to just 14 years ago. Importantly, the way financial organizations run their operations has changed beyond recognition. As a result, lessons from 2008 aren't enough to respond to a recession in 2022 or beyond," said Vaghela. 40% of respondents anticipate that recession preparations will begin in the next 2-6 months, however the volatility of the global economy means that every day preparations are delayed is a potential cost to business. Organizations are considering the 'usual' crisis responses should a recession hit. Senior respondents identified that their business will likely review processes to find efficiencies, while juniors are expecting that their organizations will absorb increased workload with fixed staffing levels. Vaghela added: "Our survey data, combined with the opinions and experiences of experts, shows that organizations face difficult times ahead. If recession bites, an organization will likely find itself unable to respond without severely damaging the customer experience, the employee experience and operational capabilities." "As a result, the quality of service provided to customers will suffer, and employees that aren't lost to redundancy may leave rather than struggle with low morale and being overworked. Ultimately, these factors will cost revenue and profit. The sooner you start planning, the better chance you have of avoiding this fate." To read the full report, Are you recession ready? Do more with less, click here. Notes to Editors ActiveOps' industry report is based on data gathered by our research partner, Censuswide, investigating attitudes towards a recession and its impact on back-office operations among employees in banks and the financial sector. We spoke to 1,000 individuals, across a range of demographics, geographies, and seniorities, and with a variety of different working models, asking them questions on topics including: Whether a recession is likely to happen Their organization's preparations for a recession The likely impacts of a recession on their operations, people, and customer experience About ActiveOps We help operations teams do more with what they have. Operations teams in banks, insurance and healthcare businesses are constantly under pressure to reduce costs, drive up efficiency, all while trying to maintain a great customer experience. This is easier said than done. Many have invested in all sorts of technology and process principles to help drive efficiency, but still find themselves struggling to meet SLAs and operational targets. That's where we come in through our software and approach we help operations teams find capacity and enable them to use it much better. The result - our clients typically see customer turnaround times increase significantly, including double-digit improvements in productivity with work in progress materially down. They can also leverage the capacity created to invest in non-core activity, as well as reduce levels of new recruitment. Ultimately, our clients talk about how they are now in control of workload, rather than feeling reactive to it. That's our aim and purpose. For more information about ActiveOps visit our website or follow our social channels on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917568/ActiveOps_Recession_Ready_Research_Paper_PR_image.jpg SOURCE ActiveOps Additional capital investments support surgeon training, inventory, and sales support fueling R&D in new market segments. AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- OsteoCentric Technologies, a privately held medical device company pioneering Mechanical Integration technology (UnifiMI) for orthopedic and dental implants, has been issued two new FDA 510k clearances. The OsteoCentric Pedicle Screw Fastener System will feature UnifiMI technology, and the Integrity-SI Fusion System now includes indications in trauma surgery. Both systems will be featured at this month's 37th Annual North American Spine Society Meeting in Chicago, IL, October 12-14th at Booth #2227. With UnifiMITM,& OsteoCentric Technologies is pioneering Mechanical Integration a less invasive method to instantly secure an implant to bone utilizing a proprietary interlocking thread geometry. Due to the importance of acute fixation and multi-axis stability in spine surgery, integrating the Mechanical Integration (UnifiMI) method into a pedicle system is an impactful strategic pathway following the market disruption of UnifiMI technology in the orthopedic trauma space. The pedicle market is now approaching $4.7B (WW)1 with patient demographics and surgical volume both favorably affecting growth. Utilizing UnifiMI, the OsteoCentric Pedicle Screw Fastener System is designed to create stability between the pedicle and implant, limiting construct loosening and enhancing stability. "The UnifiMI Pedicle Fastener will be the only system on the market leveraging Mechanical Integration technology to address implant instability at the bone-implant interface," says Eric Brown, Founder, and CEO of the company. The Integrity-SI Fusion System featuring UnifiMI clearance expands the System indications for use in SI trauma and bolsters OsteoCentric's growing footprint in the $9.2B (WW)1 trauma market. "The Integrity-SI Fusion System coupled with UnifiMI is designed and optimized to incorporate fusion principles rooted in orthopedic history. These principles include: a biomechanically superior surgical approach, aggressive joint preparation, auto and allograft application, joint compression, and leading construct stability," says Dr. William Cross, an orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic specializing in the treatment of SI-related conditions. In parallel to these new clearances, OnPoint Advisors (Dallas, Texas) is leading a growth capital fund to fund sales and inventory across the orthopedic and dental market verticals. As a technology company focused on addressing implant instability at the bone-implant interface, OsteoCentric is guided by input from leading surgeons. The company was founded in 2015 and has offices in Logan, Utah, and Austin, Texas. 1 Future Market Insights, Inc. (FMI). "Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market Report." July 2022. https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/orthopedic-trauma-devices-market SOURCE OsteoCentric Technologies Several initiatives by governments to eliminate the use of plastic and strict regulatory outlook against the use of conventional plastic products for manufacturing of utensils drive the growth of the global paper straw market. PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Paper Straw Market by Material (Virgin paper, Recycled paper), by Product (Printed, Non-printed), by Application (Foodservice, Household): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031". According to the report, the global paper straw industry generated $865.3 million in 2021, and is anticipated to generate $3.0 billion by 2031, witnessing a CAGR of 13.3% from 2022 to 2031. Download Free Sample Report (240 Pages PDF with Insights, Charts, Tables, Figures): https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/8258 Prime determinants of growth Several initiatives by governments to eliminate the use of plastic and strict regulatory outlook against the use of conventional plastic products for manufacturing of utensils drive the growth of the global paper straw market. However, strict government regulations regarding installation of machines used for manufacturing of paper straws restrict the market growth. Moreover, most of the manufacturers in industries, such as packaging, textile, and agriculture are shifting toward bio-based products for manufacturing of straws and other utensils, which presents new opportunities in the coming years. Covid-19 Scenario The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic majorly hampered the growth of the construction, manufacturing, hotel, and tourism industries, which had a negative impact on the global paper straw market. Manufacturing activities were halted or restricted, owing to implementation of global lockdown. This led to the reduction in manufacturing of various equipment used for production of paper straw as well as their demand in the market, thereby restraining the growth of the paper straw industry. Conversely, industries are gradually resuming their regular manufacturing and services. This is leading to reinitiation of paper straw companies at their full-scale capacities thereby helping the paper straw market share to recover by the end of 2021. The printed segment to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period Based on product, the printed segment held the highest market share in 2021, accounting for nearly three-fifths of the global paper straw market, and is estimated to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period. Moreover, the same segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 13.6% from 2022 to 2031, owing to its attractiveness and enhancement of the product. The report also analyzes non-printed segment. The recycled paper segment to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period Based on material, the recycled paper segment held the highest market share in 2021, accounting for around two-thirds of the global paper straw market, and is estimated to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period. Moreover, the same label segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 13.7% from 2022 to 2031, owing to its environment-friendly manufacturing process that serves the intention of paper straw production. The report also analyzes virgin paper segment. The Foodservice segment to maintain its lead position during the forecast period Based on application, the Foodservice segment accounted for the largest share in 2021, contributing to 90.9% of the global paper straw market, and is projected to maintain its lead position during the forecast period. This is owing to the rise in demand for eco-friendly products that can replace plastic products. However, the household segment is expected to portray the largest CAGR of 16.5% from 2022 to 2031, owing to the increase in restrictions on the use of plastic products for personal uses. Purchase Inquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/8258 Europe to maintain its dominance during the forecast period Based on region, Europe held the highest market share in terms of revenue in 2021, accounting for around one-third of the global paper straw market, and is likely to dominate the market during the forecast period. This is owing to the high disposable income of consumers in the region. However, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to witness the fastest CAGR of 14.5% from 2022 to 2031, owing to an increase in consumer awareness of using eco-friendly products in the region. Other regions discussed in the report include North America and LAMEA. Leading Market Players: - ALECO INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD. BioPak, Bygreen, Canada Brown Eco Products Ltd, charta global, inc., Focus Technology Co., Ltd., Footprint, Fuling Global Inc., Hoffmaster Group, Inc., Huhtamaki Oyj, Lollicup USA , Inc., , Inc., Ningbo Jiangbei Shenyu Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Grizzlies Industries Co., LTD, Soton Daily Necessities Co., Ltd., Tipi Straws, Transcend Packaging Ltd., YuTong EcoTechnology (SuQian) Co., Ltd The report provides a detailed analysis of these key players of the global paper straw market. These players have adopted different strategies such as new product launches, collaborations, expansion, joint ventures, agreements, and others to increase their market share and maintain dominant shares in different regions. The report is valuable in highlighting business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and strategic moves of market players to showcase the competitive scenario. Trending Reports in Paper Straw Industry (Book Now with 10% Discount): Waste Management Market is expected to reach $2,483.0 billion by 2030 Beverage packaging market size is expected to reach $133.3 billion in 2026 |At a CAGR of 5.6% Edible packaging market is projected to reach $1,097 million by 2023 Contract packaging market is projected to reach $102.8 billion by 2031 | At a CAGR of 6.9% Rigid Paper Container Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2022-2029 Food Waste Disposable Equipment Market: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2022-2029 About Us: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 [email protected] Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/reports-store/construction-and-manufacturing Follow Us on Blog: https://www.marketinshort.com Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Allied Market Research MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2021 Pepperstone launched its first podcast called The Trade Off ( https://thetradeoff.tv/ ), a fast-paced and entertaining weekly show (video and podcast) with a focus on helping traders make sense of the news flow across global markets, as discussed, and debated by Pepperstone's Head of Research, Chris Weston and Blake Morrow of Forex Analytix. Following its huge success and market demand for more of its type, Chris Weston has teamed up with Pepperstone's Head of Product, Scott Redford to bring Pepperstone's newest edition to its suite of podcasts, Open Outcry. Similarly, Open Outcry, is also a fun, fast-paced, digestible, and entertaining podcast with a focus on helping traders make sense of the news flow across global markets. This podcast, however, comes straight from the dealer's desk and starts at the close of the US session and into the new trading day, providing traders with a unique form of access to information. Chris and Scott engage in an energetic debate and assess the key themes, views, flows, movers, and shakers every Tuesday and Thursday morning, designed to help traders and investors efficiently navigate the financial markets. Tony Gruebner, Pepperstone's Chief Marketing Officer said "Open Outcry is an antiquated trading term which is a fitting way to describe the two presenters who are two of the more seasoned members of the industry. The interest for our Pepperstone insights has been extremely promising, and we look forward to delivering more market insights to our traders more regularly, in this format and beyond". Open Outcry is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can subscribe here: Apple Music and Spotify . For interviews or assistance with hosting the content on your website and distribution to your base, please reach out to Jodi Cutler, Head of Marketing APAC & LATAM on [email protected] About Pepperstone Established in 2010, Pepperstone has grown to become an award-winning online global forex and CFD broker known for delivering exceptional client service to tens of thousands of clients around the world. Pepperstone has subsidiaries across the globe and is regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySec), the Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB), the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and The Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA). Learn more at http://www.pepperstone.com About Chris Wesion Chris Weston or Westy is Pepperstone's Global Head of Research and holds over 2 decades of experience in the industry. A highly-respected financial services expert, Chris has supported both retail and institutional clients at IG, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, covering research as well as sales and trading roles. His extensive exposure to the FX, equities and fixed income markets puts him in a unique position to provide inspiring insights, research, ideas and risk-management strategies that support every step of your trading journey. Based in Australia, Chris is a well-known global media figure, regularly appearing on Bloomberg, Bloomberg Arabia, Channel News Asia and Sky News Business. Follow Chris at: https://twitter.com/chrisweston_PS About Scott Redford Scott Redford, a ten year veteran of the CFD industry, is Pepperstone's Global Head of Product on the Market Risk team. Following a stint in London as an M & A Analyst, Scott began on the dealing desk at IG where he covered the FX and equities books, then settled into the futures desk, specialising in out-of-hours market making. At Pepperstone, he works tirelessly to ensure that our offering is as competitive and compelling as clients have come to expect; keeping spreads tight, execution razor-fast and liquidity deep. Follow Scott at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-redford-19829928/ SOURCE Pepperstone Group Limited -Merchant Processing Solution with Built-In Universal Loyalty Cash Back Program Is Industry First- -Rustin Fichtner Joins Organization to Oversee Payments Business BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the recent success of its mobile application in the marketplace, PointsKash today announced the creation of the first all-inclusive payments platform that integrates universal loyalty and traditional card-based transactions. The Florida-based financial technology company also named Rustin Fichtner, an industry veteran with 30-plus-years' experience as Vice President of Payments, to oversee and drive the implementation of the payments side of the business. "PointsKash now offers an innovative, customizable solution that combines payment processing, technology, and a loyalty rewards program. Our game-changing, best-in-class offering, enhances the transaction experience for our merchant partners and consumers alike. Along with this exciting development, we are pleased to welcome Rustin Fichtner as VP of Payments, who will spearhead enablement of the PointsKash payments solution across the small business and enterprise markets," said Steve Janjic, PointsKash co-founder and CEO. -Merchant Processing Solution with Built-In Universal Loyalty Cash Back Program Is Industry First- Tweet this The new PointsKash merchant services solution takes a concierge approach to merchant partner relationships, offering the added benefit of a direct-to-processor relationship, ensuring best-in-class support, service, and pricing, designed specifically for each partner. Merchant partners will enjoy the convenience of in-person card present capabilities, mobile app, and online functions, as well as the greater flexibility it allows consumers to aggregate, track, and redeem points for cash or use them toward purchases. Fichtner's expertise in channel development, operations and implementation working in concert with sales and marketing, arrives at an exciting time as PointsKash expands its merchant payment services offerings and go-to-market functions for private and public businesses of all sizes. More information about PointsKash is available by visiting pointskash.com/. ABOUT POINTSKASH PointsKash, an innovative first mover, has developed a proprietary platform that services consumers, rewards points issuers and merchants in the conversion of loyalty reward points to cash. Our merchant payment processing services team has over 40 years of experience serving small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses, including local, regional, and national convenience store fuel stations, auto dealerships, manufacturers, sporting events, e-gaming organizations and retailers. PointsKash is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, with additional support in Kansas City, Missouri. Contact: Alexandria Velandia | PointsKash [email protected] | 561-501-8682 SOURCE PointsKash NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Uber Technologies, Inc. ("Uber" or the "Company") (NYSE: UBER) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and docketed under 22-cv-04688, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise acquired Uber common stock between May 31, 2019 and July 8, 2022, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants' violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials. If you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Uber common stock during the Class Period, you have until October 17, 2022 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. [Click here for information about joining the class action] Uber develops and operates proprietary technology applications in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The Company connects consumers with providers of ride services, and connects riders and other consumers with restaurants, grocers, and other stores with delivery service providers for meal preparation, grocery, and other delivery services. Uber has long been plagued by scandal. As the Company's Senior Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs recently stated: "There has been no shortage of reporting on Uber's mistakes prior to 2017. Thousands of stories have been published, multiple books have been writtenthere's even been a TV series." These "mistakes" ranged from allegations of Uber executives knowingly concealing incidents of violence and sexual assault by its drivers, operating illegally in various jurisdictions, and utilizing software to evade authorities and block their access to the Company's databases. Following years of negative publicity, Uber made changes to its top management, purportedly reformed its corporate culture, and touted itself as a new company that had atoned for its prior compliance and cultural issues. However, unbeknownst to investors, the Company and its top management had still not transparently divulged and accounted for the full scope of the Company's prior misconduct. The Complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding Uber's business, operations, and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Uber had defective disclosure controls and procedures; (ii) Uber concealed and/or downplayed the full scope and severity of its prior misconduct, including, inter alia, the extent to which it secretly lobbied government officials and politicians to bypass legal and regulatory requirements, as well as knowingly risked the safety of Uber drivers, to fuel the Company's global growth; (iii) as a result, Uber's present global footprint and market share is in significant part the byproduct of previously undisclosed, unsustainable, and illegal business practices; (iv) all the foregoing, once revealed, was likely to negatively impact Uber's reputation, as well as subject the Company to a heightened risk of governmental and regulatory scrutiny and enforcement action; and (v) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On Sunday, July 10, 2022, news reports emerged regarding a cache of 124,000 internal Uber records, dubbed the "Uber Files" by media outlets, spanning from 2013 to 2017, that were leaked to The Guardian and subsequently shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other news outlets. These files revealed, among other things, how Uber secretly met with various government officials and politicians to skirt laws and regulations around the world, as well as risked Uber drivers' safety, to advance the Company's growth, and how all the foregoing conduct was known to, and in fact encouraged by, the Company's top management. On this news, Uber's stock price fell $1.15 per share, or 5.15%, to close at $21.19 per share on July 11, 2022. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com CONTACT: Robert S. Willoughby Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 888-476-6529 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP The first trade was executed on Aurora, and centrally cleared and settled via the SFT Clearing Service on Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 2.26 pm ET NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Provable Markets is proud to announce that the Firm's SEC registered Alternative Trading System ("ATS"), Aurora, has successfully matched and processed the first ever securities lending transaction cleared through the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation's ("DTCC") Securities Finance Transaction ("SFT") Clearing Service which was approved for operation earlier this year by the SEC. The first trade was executed on Aurora, and centrally cleared and settled via the SFT Clearing Service on Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 2.26 pm ET. Provable Markets leveraged its integration with Fidelity Information Services (NYSE: FIS) to ensure that the positions were accurately reflected in Loanet Books & Records systems for both lender and borrower, in near-real time. The first ever trade was executed on Aurora via the SFT Clearing Service on Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 2.26 pm ET. Tweet this Matthew Cohen, CEO of Provable Markets, said: "We are beyond ecstatic to have facilitated the first ever transaction cleared through the DTCC's SFT Clearing Service. This was only made possible through tremendous work by the entire Provable team, along with, what we hope is the establishment of a new standard of cooperation, coordination, and teamwork among market infrastructure players to leverage relative strengths for the ultimate benefit of our shared customers. We remain hyper focused elevating securities finance market structure working in concert with our respective peers in all facets. The speed to market for this product is a testament to just that, and we are excited to continue to expand and grow this offering by furthering our commitment to being an open, independent, and client driven part of the broader ecosystem." As the first new ATS for securities finance in over a decade, cloud-native Aurora is one of two Approved SFT Submitters for the DTCC's new Service, and the only regulated access point. Aurora provides a full suite of functionality for users, from traditional workflows, towards order book style functionality, leveraging many of the structural nuances the SFT Clearing Service provides the market. In particular, Aurora will seek to finally bring central order book style trading to the securities lending market given the reduced operational and risk management burdens that the Approved Submitter and DTCC can offer participants in coordination with the Service. "We are excited about the growing enthusiasm among market participants around Provable Markets, and our existing and future plans to help maximize the benefits of the SFT Clearing Service and more within the securities finance market. We look forward to a busy end to the year, and early 2023 as we integrate, automate, and expand the platform." Cohen added in closing, "Above all, we thank our partners, customers, and all those who contributed to this milestone by putting their trust and faith in our incredible and fast growing team." About Provable Markets LLC is a New York based broker-dealer member of FINRA and SIPC, and operator of cloud-native trading platform Aurora, which is Registered as an Alternative Trading System ("ATS") with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For more information, visit provablemarkets.com or contact [email protected] . SOURCE Provable Markets LLC PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Renovus Capital Partners ("Renovus"), a Philadelphia-area based investment firm, announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in Premier International Enterprises, LLC ("Premier" or "the Company"). Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Chicago, IL, Premier is a technology services firm offering solutions that reduce the risk associated with complex data challenges through innovative technology and consulting services. Premier leverages its proprietary software tool and team of business consultants, software developers, and subject matter experts to deliver its data-related services to the Company's deep customer base of large enterprises. Renovus' investment comes during a period of exceptional growth at Premier, which was recently named to the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. With Renovus' support, Premier plans to use the investment to further improve its software product, pursue strategic acquisitions and enhance its service offerings to clients. "Renovus brings significant experience investing in the technology services industry, and we are excited to leverage their knowledge to refine our strategy, scale our delivery resources, and expand our offerings both organically and inorganically," said Craig Wood, CEO of Premier. "We remain focused on accelerating the future for our clients by bringing transformative data solutions to them and we are confident Renovus and their investment will unleash the full potential of Premier to support that goal." "As organizations scale and the market for big data grows, enterprises have been more and more focused on having clean, quality data in a centralized location," said Atif Gilani, Founding Partner at Renovus. "Premier is well-positioned to capitalize on these trends due to its differentiated data migration offerings coupled with new capabilities recently introduced, including master data management and data governance." As a platform investment for the firm, Renovus is actively identifying potential acquisitions that will help expand the current product and service offerings of Premier. "With Premier's strong leadership team and clear vision for the future, we are excited to provide the necessary resources to accelerate the growth and success of the Company," said Jane Buckley, Senior Associate at Renovus. Ascent Advisory Partners served as financial advisor to Premier. DLA Piper served as legal counsel to Renovus. About Premier International Enterprises Premier International Enterprises, LLC is a Chicago-based technology consulting firm specializing in data migration. The company's innovative services and Applaud software reduce the overall risk in a technology transformation and ensure projects remain on track in even the most complex environments. Founded in 1985 and with over three decades of successful execution, our solutions have a proven track record across a wide array of industries and applications. We have the knowledge and understanding to provide our clients with tailored solutions to address their specific data migration challenges. For more information, please visit www.premier-international.com. About Renovus Capital Partners Founded in 2010, Renovus Capital Partners is a lower middle-market private equity firm specializing in the Knowledge and Talent industries. From its base in the Philadelphia area, Renovus manages over $1 billion across its three sector focused funds and other strategies. The firm's current portfolio includes over 25 U.S. based businesses specializing in education and training, healthcare services, technology services and professional services. Renovus typically partners with founder-led businesses, leveraging its experience within the industry and access to debt and equity capital to make operational improvements, recruit top talent, pursue add-on acquisitions and oversee strategic growth initiatives. More information can be found at www.renovuscapital.com. SOURCE Renovus Capital Partners EXTON, Pa., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh USA, Inc. today announced that its RICOH ProcessDirector and RICOH Supervisor integration received a coveted PRINTING United Alliance 2022 Pinnacle Product Award for Software - Variable and Transactional. The winning entry can be found online at the Pinnacle Product Awards Gallery. 2022 Pinnacle Product Award winner for Software - Variable and Transactional Integrating RICOH ProcessDirector and RICOH Supervisor delivers users advanced data analytics via customizable dashboards, providing visibility down to the document level, including production volume and printer and inserter operator activities. With this operational data, users can identify trends for capacity planning, production optimization, and operator productivity, as well as detect production bottlenecks and gain actionable insights to produce consistent output more accurately and efficiently. "We are thrilled to receive the prestigious PRINTING United Alliance 2022 Pinnacle Product Award for our game-changing integration of two powerhouse software solutions," said Andrew Vecci, Director, Product & Portfolio Management, Ricoh USA, Inc. "When solution providers have visibility into operational data that they can access in a practical, usable way, they are empowered to make informed business and investment decisions based on constantly evolving facts. Unlocking the power of that real-time information is critical to meeting customer needs in today's highly competitive production print market." "One of the things I like best about our competition is that it is juried, and judges are basing their decisions on objective criteria. And with outstanding entries like the RICOH ProcessDirector and RICOH Supervisor integration, they had their work cut out for them," said Dawn Nye, Program Manager Pinnacle Awards, PRINTING United Alliance. "The Pinnacle Product Award competition represents the best of the best among commercial hardware, software, consumables, and industrial and screen equipment," Nye said. "Congratulations to all the winners." Open to all PRINTING United Alliance supplier members, the Pinnacle Product Award competition evaluates products that will be available for sale in 2022. A highly qualified panel of judges across the printing industry evaluated the annual contest's 160+ entries in more than 58 categories spanning analog, digital, output and non-output technologies. For more information about the awards and how to participate in future Pinnacle Awards Programs, visit https://pinnacleawards.printing.org/. | About Ricoh | Ricoh is empowering digital workplaces using innovative technologies and services that enable individuals to work smarter from anywhere. With cultivated knowledge and organizational capabilities nurtured over its 85-year history, Ricoh is a leading provider of digital services, information management, and print and imaging solutions designed to support digital transformation and optimize business performance. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group has major operations throughout the world and its products and services now reach customers in approximately 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ended March 2022, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 1,758 billion yen (approx. 14.5 billion USD). For further information, please visit www.ricoh.com 2022 Ricoh USA, Inc. All rights reserved. All referenced product names are the trademarks of their respective companies. SOURCE Ricoh USA, Inc. Google Cloud technologies to help Rite Aid make its pharmacies more personalized, data-driven, and resilient PHILADELPHIA and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) and Google Cloud today announced a new, multi-year technology partnership that will help Rite Aid realize its vision of a modern pharmacy. Google Cloud technologies will provide Rite Aid with better insights, increased agility, and improved customer experiences. Modernized applications for personalized digital experiences will enable pharmacists to spend more time directly engaging customers. As part of the new partnership, Rite Aid will be migrating key applications to Google Cloud's Anthos, a managed platform for application deployment. Applications include Rite Aid's popular vaccine scheduling tool, customer messaging infrastructure, and digital engagement platform. With Anthos, Rite Aid's approximately 2,350 pharmacies will have cloud computing capabilities on-site, providing resilient operations. Strategic business continuity enables the company to continue to provide elevated care during natural disasters through robust patient information, advanced prescription management, and offering recommendations without needing to be connected to centralized, legacy mainframe technology. "The power of pharmacies, and the important role pharmacists play in the health of their communities, greatly expanded during COVID. Realizing that potential means making strategic investments in technology that can truly help our customers and maximize the capabilities of our pharmacists," said Justin Mennen, executive vice president and chief digital and technology officer at Rite Aid. "Google Cloud's solutions are uniquely positioned to run at each pharmacy location to allow our store teams to help our customers to achieve whole health for life." In addition to modernizing the technologies powering its pharmacies, Rite Aid has also tapped Google Cloud for digital transformations across other areas of its business, including: Complete enterprise data migration : Rite Aid will migrate its enterprise data to Google Cloud using BigQuery. This move will allow the pharmacy to have better insights into its finances, supply chain inventory, and customer information, powering data-driven decisions for its business operations. : Rite Aid will migrate its enterprise data to Google Cloud using BigQuery. This move will allow the pharmacy to have better insights into its finances, supply chain inventory, and customer information, powering data-driven decisions for its business operations. Enhanced search capabilities: Rite Aid has selected Google Cloud's Retail Search solution to provide customers with more precise search results when shopping on Rite Aid's ecommerce site and mobile app. Retail Search will provide Rite Aid customers with an improved search experience that uses Google-quality search models to understand customer intent and takes into account Rite Aid's first-party data (such as promotions, available inventory, and price) for product ranking results. Rite Aid has selected Google Cloud's Retail Search solution to provide customers with more precise search results when shopping on Rite Aid's ecommerce site and mobile app. Retail Search will provide Rite Aid customers with an improved search experience that uses Google-quality search models to understand customer intent and takes into account Rite Aid's first-party data (such as promotions, available inventory, and price) for product ranking results. Updated pharmacy benefits management application suite: Elixir, Rite Aid's pharmacy benefits and services company, will update its current pharmacy benefits management application suite to a cloud-first experience with artificial intelligence and machine learning-infused business logic capabilities. New Google Cloud data analytics and processing capabilities will help the pharmacy benefits manager better manage prescription benefits on behalf of health insurers. "As a healthcare company with a retail footprint, Rite Aid is at the intersection of two quickly evolving industries and making strategic technology investments to meet rising customer expectations," said Carrie Tharp, vice president of Retail and Consumer Solutions, Google Cloud. "Through these innovations, Rite Aid is defining the modern pharmacy." About Google Cloud Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems. About Rite Aid Corporation Rite Aid is a full-service pharmacy that improves health outcomes. Rite Aid is defining the modern pharmacy by meeting customer needs with a wide range of vehicles that offer convenience, including retail and delivery pharmacy, as well as services offered through our wholly owned subsidiaries, Elixir, Bartell Drugs and Health Dialog. Elixir, Rite Aid's pharmacy benefits and services company, consists of accredited mail and specialty pharmacies, prescription discount programs and an industry leading adjudication platform to offer superior member experience and cost savings. Health Dialog provides healthcare coaching and disease management services via live online and phone health services. Regional chain Bartell Drugs has supported the health and wellness needs in the Seattle area for more than 130 years. Rite Aid employs more than 6,400 pharmacists and operates approximately 2,350 retail pharmacy locations across 17 states. For more information, visit www.riteaid.com . SOURCE Google Cloud COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- River (river.com) is a leading Bitcoin technology company that offers Bitcoin brokerage accounts and full-service Bitcoin mining. Today, River is announcing River Lightning Services (RLS) a Lightning Network API built to power the next generation of payments on the Internet. RLS powers Lightning transactions for El Salvador's Chivo wallet, and River is now in the process of onboarding a number of other well-known customers. RLS "We're incredibly proud to be serving the people of El Salvador and look forward to bringing the power of this incredible technology to the world," says River CEO Alex Leishman. "Our mission at River will continue to be providing the tools necessary for people to plug into the Bitcoin Network and propel adoption." The Lightning Network allows for instant, cheap, and scalable off-chain Bitcoin payments without sacrificing decentralization. River Lightning Services allows companies and developers to integrate Lightning payments into their applications without running any Lightning infrastructure themselves. "River strongly believes that Lightning will drive the innovation and adoption of Bitcoin due to its fast-moving protocol, multi-asset and stablecoin capabilities via Taro, and instant and cheap transactions," says Leishman. "We're excited to work with forward-thinking customers, exchanges, and wallets to make it easy to offer Lightning payments." About River Financial River Financial is a Bitcoin technology and financial services company. River offers the full suite of Bitcoin brokerage, custody, Lightning, and mining services in one easy-to-use mobile app and on river.com . River serves individuals, businesses, family offices, and investment funds looking to grow Bitcoin wealth. To learn more, please visit river.com or follow us on Twitter @River . The company's newest offering, River Lightning Services (RLS), helps developers integrate Lightning payments into their applications. For information specific to RLS, please visit rls.dev or on Twitter @RiverRLS . Media contact Reid Paulson [email protected] SOURCE River Financial Inc. Annual roundup highlights the private equity and venture capital firms with the best track records of success backing founders BOSTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Riverside Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm focused on the technology and healthcare sectors, today announced it has been recognized as an Inc. 2022 Founder-Friendly Investor. Inc.'s list honors private investment firms with the best track records of success backing founder owned businesses. This is the second consecutive year Riverside Partners has been named to this list. The list, which was published on October 4th, recognizes firms that founders and entrepreneurs view as collaborative and trustworthy as they receive the financial support they need to help drive growth. The firms on Inc.'s list have successful track records of remaining actively involved with their portfolio businesses. "Fully investing in an entrepreneur, and their innovative vision, involves far more than the financial investment. By developing relationships with and supporting entrepreneurs for the long-term, these private equity firms are more than investors, they're partners," says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. media. David Belluck, a General Partner at Riverside Partners, commented on the award saying, "It's an honor to be recognized as an Inc. 2022 Founder Friendly Investor. The award is a tribute to our longstanding commitment to partnering with founders to meet their goals for themselves and their businesses, and to help them accelerate the growth of their companies. For over thirty years, we have been investing in founder owned healthcare and technology businesses. The founders we team up with retain significant equity, play a meaningful role going forward, and care deeply about their employees. We are proud to build close relationships with them based on a high degree of trust, alignment, and collaboration and to provide additional resources to further build their businesses." Steven F. Kaplan, a General Partner at Riverside Partners, further commented, "The first factor we look at when considering an investment is the chemistry fit between Riverside Partners and the founder and their management team. The second factor is determining whether we are aligned around a shared vision for the company's growth plan. These growth plans often include new product development, market or geographic expansion, and add-on acquisitions. Ultimately, founders and entrepreneurs rely on our deep experience helping scale businesses." When asked about his experience partnering with Riverside Partners, Dr. Afshin Safavi, founder of BioAgilytix, a recent Riverside Partners' portfolio company, said the following, "Riverside Partners was an exceptional partner for BioAgilytix. The Riverside team professionalized the company and brought a value-added approach that was essential to prepare us for the next phase of growth. They provided deep domain expertise, constant operational and strategic support, introductions to customers, and significant investment for expansion - all of which helped establish the foundation for us to grow into a global leader within the pharma services industry." Upon hearing about Riverside Partners' selection as an Inc. 2022 Founder Friendly Investor, Joe Spytek, co-founder and CEO of ITC Global, had the following to say, "Riverside Partners helped me drive a major transformation of ITC Global. My co-founders and I had built a niche satellite communications business focused on serving the global mining sector. With Riverside's help, we expanded into the much larger oil and gas sector, acquired two companies, one in Europe and one in Africa, and grew into the number two player in the space. In addition, we expanded our global operations from 20 countries to more than 90 in a short timeframe. Riverside helped build our team, including guiding the hire of our first CFO, a very strong executive who had previously served as CFO of another Riverside portfolio company. Finally, Riverside was instrumental in driving and negotiating our ultimate sale to Panasonic Corporation. This recognition is well deserved." Introduced in 2019, the Founder-Friendly Private Equity Firms list quickly established itself as one of Inc.'s most resourceful franchises. It has become a go-to guide for entrepreneurs who want to grow their companies while retaining an ownership stake. To see the complete list, go to: https://www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors/2022 The October 2022 issue of Inc. magazine is available online now at https://www.inc.com/magazine and will be on newsstands beginning October 4, 2022. About Inc. The world's most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community they need to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 list gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com . About Riverside Partners Founded in 1989, Riverside Partners is a middle market private equity firm with total capital commitments of $1.6 billion raised since inception. The firm focuses on growth-oriented companies in the technology and healthcare industries. Riverside Partners is particularly experienced at partnering with founders, owners, and management teams and brings substantial domain expertise and operating experience to its portfolio companies. For more information, visit www.riversidepartners.com. Legal Disclosure Industry recognitions or awards should not be construed as an endorsement or a recommendation to retain the Adviser by the ranking entity or any regulatory authority. Any rankings or awards cited were provided by independent third parties based on their predetermined evaluation criteria. Although Adviser provided an application fee to the ranking entity to be included in the survey, it did not exercise any influence or control over the criteria used or the results generated, other than providing or making available, directly or indirectly, objective numerical data that could have been used by third-party as input variables. Statements by Dr. Afshin Safavi and Joe Spytek are endorsements made by executives of former portfolio companies invested in by Adviser. No direct or indirect compensation has been provided for such statements. SOURCE Riverside Partners SAN DIEGO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Music Company and High Point Music bring the first-ever Ayotl Festival in Mayto, Jalisco, a destination music festival born from an intention to raise money for the school children in the region & year round turtle conservation program. The four-day festival takes place December 1-4, 2022, and features musical guests HIRIE , Thrive , Ethan Tucker, Ted Bowne of Passafire , Shanin Blake, Sammy Brue , SM Familia , Mystic Roots , DJ Lexy Love and DJ Cootdog . Proceeds from the Ayotl Music Festival will benefit the Cabo Corrientes School Foundation. The foundation is committed to providing communities with educational resources that they would not otherwise receive. Currently, many of the local children must walk an hour each way to attend school, which can be a huge deterrent to receiving the education that they want and deserve. Proceeds from Ayotl Fest will fund the purchase of a school bus, gasoline, the hiring of a dedicated bus driver, and the continued employment of a full-time teacher to support the students in the Cabo Corrientes region. Additionally, a portion of proceeds will also fund our year-round conservation projects dedicated to improving the survival rate of sea turtles through education and preservation of their nesting sites as human activity has had a direct negative impact on the survival of the species. The three turtle species most commonly found along the local region are the Olive Ridley, the Leatherback (both considered "vulnerable") and the Green Turtle, considered endangered due to their decreasing populations. Festival guests can participate in the release of baby sea turtles at Campamento Tortuguero Mayto, located near the festival, to help repopulation efforts and provide guests with a first-hand educational and one-of-a-kind experience. "We chose the name Ayotl because it means 'turtle shell' in the local language of Nahuatl," said Ramiro Llamas of Pacific Music Co. "We wanted to honor the local culture and our commitment to giving back to this beautiful area. By hosting a responsible and ethical music festival, we are going to enjoy great music while giving back and making the world a better place too." The Ayotl Music Festival is in the beautiful town of Mayto, a two hour drive south from Puerto Vallarta. With beautiful sunsets and endless beaches, Mayto is one of the last unspoiled beaches on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Festival packages include accommodation for three nights at Hotel Mayto , three nights of music, pool and beach access, free WIFI, day excursions and more. Providing an opportunity for guests to help raise money and awareness for a good cause, experience natural beauty, hear incredible music, and be present with like-minded individuals, Ayotl Festival is the ultimate destination music festival experience. To learn more about Ayotl Festival, visit the website at https://ayotlfestival.com PR Contact Kathleen Gonzales Elevated Public Relations 619.368.2701 [email protected] SOURCE Ayotl Music Festival NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Scentonomy Digital Aromatherapy Wellness--an online tool (scentonomy.com) that curates custom aromatherapy blends--is set to launch late fall. In addition to shipping its organic aromatics to your door, it will also connect all users with other holistic and complementary wellness modalities. Last week, in community with 8 other BIPOC brands, Scentonomy launched a sample collection from its digital aromatherapy algorithm at the popular Allure Store in Soho New York. Scentonomy had hand massages sponsored by their wellness platform using a collection of their organic aromatherapy body oils. Scentonomy will launch two products in 66 blends as part of their algorithm; an organic body oil and inhalation roll-on. The platform was created by former real estate broker turned beauty and wellness entrepreneur, Makeba Lloyd. She came up with the concept after conducting research on the accessibility of holistic and complementary wellness providers. While caring for her mom, she noted a gap in the availability of centralized and vetted resources for easily accessible, complementary online care. Two years later Scentonomy was born. Makeba, a certified aromatherapist and artisanal perfumer, innovated a tool that integrates a simplified process for collecting data that can be used to curate essential oil blends based on the user's wellness concern and scent preference. The Scentonomy Digital Aromatherapy tool uses an algorithm of essential oil blends that have statistically shown to address a myriad of concerns, are formulated with organic ingredients, and are reviewed by a team of certified aromatherapists. One may find various blends to address restlessness, fatigue, scalp and skin irritations and have the additional option to select these in preferred scent; such as floral, citrus or wood. Scentonomy also serves as an aggregate to a community of holistic and complementary wellness providers who offer services in licensed massage therapy, acupuncture, moxibustion, meditation and breathwork. In keeping with traditional holistic wellness practice, it made sense to Ms. Lloyd to create a digital aromatherapy tool as a simplified method of gathering data from the user to assist the platform with knowing how to personalize service. "Aromatherapy is traditionally seen as the introduction to understanding a person's wellness needs from the start of their healing journey", says Ms. Lloyd. The Scentonomy team continues to grow its community of wellness providers while perfecting and elevating the technology that powers its platform. For more information please contact: [email protected] or call 347-674-3638 Instagram: @scentonomy. Facebook: @Scentonomy Contact: Makeba Lloyd Phone: 347-674-3638 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Scentonomy Digital Wellness PARIS, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sentry Software, an innovative technology provider for popular observability solutions, announced today a new integration with Datadog, Inc., the monitoring and security platform for cloud applications. The integration is now available in the Datadog marketplace. Hardware Sentry brings hardware observability and sustainability metrics to Datadog platform users Datadog consolidates metrics, traces, logs and more to help organizations scale their cloud environments, troubleshoot potential issues and provide their customers with excellent digital experiences. The Datadog Marketplace connects Datadog customers with unique technology integrations that allow for more customization and flexibility. The Marketplace is a part of the Datadog Partner Network, which features benefits including access to dedicated sales and marketing resources and premium Datadog product training materials. This Datadog integration differentiates Sentry Software as a valuable Datadog Partner Network (DPN) member helping Datadog customers evaluate and use their technology productively, at scale, and varying levels of complexity. "We are thrilled to partner with Sentry Software," said Alex Vetras, Senior Product Manager at Datadog. "By combining Datadog's host and APM monitoring with Hardware Sentry's infrastructure energy consumption data, customers can ensure their services are performing optimally and with a minimal carbon footprint." "We are thrilled to bring almost 20 years of expertise in hardware monitoring to Datadog customers," said Bertrand Martin, Sentry Software CEO." Hardware Sentry brings hardware observability and sustainability metrics to Datadog platform users. We help them observe and lower the carbon emissions of their data centers without putting their business-critical infrastructure at risk, thanks to our proactive hardware failure detection capabilities. " Hardware Sentry is now available for purchase in the Datadog marketplace. Subscription includes full access to Sentry Desk support services to guarantee the success of the sustainability projects of Datadog customers. For more information, please visit https://app.datadoghq.com/marketplace/app/. About Sentry Software Sentry Software is an innovative company specialized in hardware and storage observability since 2004. Their products are used by the largest organizations worldwide. Foreseeing the urgency of moving to sustainable IT, Sentry Software developed a unique pure-software solution to help organizations assess the electricity consumption of any IT equipment and help them lower their costs and minimize their carbon footprint. Today, Sentry Software drives the niche market of IT sustainability and strives for this critical matter to reach global recognition. Contact: Isabelle Guitton, Communication Manager, [email protected] Image: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917521/Hardware_Sentry.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917522/Sentry_Software_Logo.jpg SOURCE Sentry Software NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The " Sex Toys Market in Japan by Product and Distribution Channel - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 " report has been added to Technavio's offering. According to the report, the market will observe an incremental growth of USD 774.29 million between 2021 and 2026, accelerating at a CAGR of 9.86% during the forecast period. The market will be driven by the growing demand for remote-controlled sex toys. Technavio categorizes the sex toys market in Japan as a part of the global personal products market within the global household and personal products market. The report offers a comprehensive analysis of the market size, growth drivers, parent market, key product launches, and much more. Download PDF Report Sample Here Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Sex Toys Market in Japan 2022-2026 The parent market, the global personal products market, covers products and companies engaged in research and development (R&D) and the production of personal and beauty care products, including cosmetics and perfumes. Technavio calculates the global household and personal products market size based on the combined revenue generated by manufacturers of these products. Growth in the global personal products market will be driven by the increasing disposable income and increasing popularity of online marketing. Sex Toys Market in Japan 2022-2026: Scope Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our sex toys market in Japan report covers the following areas: The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Ann Summers Ltd., Bad Dragon Enterprises Inc., BMS Factory, Church and Dwight Co. Inc, Doc Johnson Enterprises, FUN FACTORY GmbH, Kanojo Toys, LELOi AB, Luvu Brands Inc, Meiki Toys.com, NS Novelties, Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, Safewayz LLC, Tantus Inc., TENGA Co. Ltd., The Aneros Co., Virtuallyabout LLC, and OXBALLS are some of the major market participants. Although the growing demand for remote-controlled sex toys will offer immense growth opportunities, stringent regulatory policies will challenge the growth of the market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Sex Toys Market in Japan 2022-2026: Segmentation The sex toys market in Japan is segmented as below: Product Adult Vibrators Dildos Erection Rings Others Distribution Channel Online Offline Identify major revenue-generating segments and regions in the market. Download Sample Report Now Sex Toys Market in Japan 2022-2026: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the sex toys market in Japan. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research report on the Sex Toys Market in Japan is designed to provide entry support, customer profile, and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Sex Toys Market in Japan 2022-2026: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2022-2026 Detailed information on factors that will assist sex toys market growth in Japan during the next five years during the next five years Estimation of the sex toys market size in Japan and its contribution to the parent market and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the sex toys market in Japan Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of sex toys market vendors in Japan Related Reports: Sex Toys Market in Japan Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 9.86% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 774.29 million Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 9.36 Key consumer countries Japan Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Ann Summers Ltd., Bad Dragon Enterprises Inc., BMS Factory, Church and Dwight Co. Inc, Doc Johnson Enterprises, FUN FACTORY GmbH, Kanojo Toys, LELOi AB, Luvu Brands Inc, Meiki Toys.com, NS Novelties, Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, Safewayz LLC, Tantus Inc., TENGA Co. Ltd., The Aneros Co., Virtuallyabout LLC, and OXBALLS Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table Of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Country Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Product Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 07: Parent market Exhibit 08: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 09: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 10: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 11: Chart on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 12: Data Table on Japan - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 13: Chart on Japan : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Japan : Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 15: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 16: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 17: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 18: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 19: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 20: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 21: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by Product 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 22: Chart on Product - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 23: Data Table on Product - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by Product Exhibit 24: Chart on Comparison by Product Exhibit 25: Data Table on Comparison by Product 5.3 Adult vibrators - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 26: Chart on Adult vibrators - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 27: Data Table on Adult vibrators - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 28: Chart on Adult vibrators - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Adult vibrators - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Dildos - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 30: Chart on Dildos - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Dildos - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 32: Chart on Dildos - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Dildos - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Erection rings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 34: Chart on Erection rings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Erection rings - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 36: Chart on Erection rings - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 37: Data Table on Erection rings - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.6 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 38: Chart on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 40: Chart on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 41: Data Table on Others - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.7 Market opportunity by Product Exhibit 42: Market opportunity by Product ($ million) 6 Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel 6.1 Market segments Exhibit 43: Chart on Distribution Channel - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 44: Data Table on Distribution Channel - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 6.2 Comparison by Distribution Channel Exhibit 45: Chart on Comparison by Distribution Channel Exhibit 46: Data Table on Comparison by Distribution Channel 6.3 Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 47: Chart on Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Data Table on Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 49: Chart on Online - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 50: Data Table on Online - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.4 Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 51: Chart on Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Data Table on Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 53: Chart on Offline - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 54: Data Table on Offline - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 6.5 Market opportunity by Distribution Channel Exhibit 55: Market opportunity by Distribution Channel ($ million) 7 Customer Landscape 7.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 56: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 57: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 58: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 59: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 60: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 61: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 62: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 Ann Summers Ltd. Exhibit 63: Ann Summers Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 64: Ann Summers Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 65: Ann Summers Ltd. - Key offerings 10.4 Church and Dwight Co. Inc Exhibit 66: Church and Dwight Co. Inc - Overview Exhibit 67: Church and Dwight Co. Inc - Business segments Exhibit 68: Church and Dwight Co. Inc - Key news Exhibit 69: Church and Dwight Co. Inc - Key offerings Exhibit 70: Church and Dwight Co. Inc - Segment focus 10.5 Doc Johnson Enterprises Exhibit 71: Doc Johnson Enterprises - Overview Exhibit 72: Doc Johnson Enterprises - Product / Service Exhibit 73: Doc Johnson Enterprises - Key offerings 10.6 Kanojo Toys Exhibit 74: Kanojo Toys - Overview Exhibit 75: Kanojo Toys - Product / Service Exhibit 76: Kanojo Toys - Key offerings 10.7 LELOi AB Exhibit 77: LELOi AB - Overview Exhibit 78: LELOi AB - Product / Service Exhibit 79: LELOi AB - Key offerings 10.8 Luvu Brands Inc Exhibit 80: Luvu Brands Inc - Overview Exhibit 81: Luvu Brands Inc - Business segments Exhibit 82: Luvu Brands Inc - Key offerings Exhibit 83: Luvu Brands Inc - Segment focus 10.9 Meiki Toys.com Exhibit 84: Meiki Toys.com - Overview Exhibit 85: Meiki Toys.com - Product / Service Exhibit 86: Meiki Toys.com - Key offerings 10.10 Safewayz LLC Exhibit 87: Safewayz LLC - Overview Exhibit 88: Safewayz LLC - Product / Service Exhibit 89: Safewayz LLC - Key offerings 10.11 Tantus Inc. Exhibit 90: Tantus Inc. - Overview Exhibit 91: Tantus Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 92: Tantus Inc. - Key offerings 10.12 TENGA Co. Ltd. Exhibit 93: TENGA Co. Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 94: TENGA Co. Ltd. - Product / Service Exhibit 95: TENGA Co. Ltd. - Key offerings 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 96: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 97: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 98: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 99: Research methodology Exhibit 100: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 101: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 102: List of abbreviations About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio MILWAUKEE, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ademi LLP is investigating ForgeRock (NYSE: FORG) for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law in its transaction with Thoma Bravo. Click here to learn how to join the action https://www.ademilaw.com/case/forgerock-inc or call Guri Ademi toll-free at 866-264-3995. There is no cost or obligation to you. Ademi LLP alleges ForgeRock's financial outlook and prospects are excellent and yet ForgeRock holders will receive only $23.25 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $2.3 billion. The transaction agreement unreasonably limits competing bids for ForgeRock by imposing a significant penalty if ForgeRock accepts a superior bid. ForgeRock insiders will receive substantial benefits as part of change of control arrangements. We are investigating the conduct of ForgeRock's board of directors, and whether they are (i) fulfilling their fiduciary duties to all shareholders, and (ii) obtaining a fair and reasonable price for ForgeRock. If you own ForgeRock common stock and wish to obtain additional information, please contact Guri Ademi either at [email protected] or toll-free: 866-264-3995, or https://www.ademilaw.com/case/forgerock-inc. We specialize in shareholder litigation involving buyouts, mergers, and individual shareholder rights throughout the country. For more information, please feel free to call us. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. Contacts Ademi LLP Guri Ademi Toll Free: (866) 264-3995 Fax: (414) 482-8001 SOURCE Ademi LLP NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Azure Power Global Limited ("Azure" or the "Company") (NYSE: AZRE). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980. The investigation concerns whether Azure and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. [Click here for information about joining the class action] On August 29, 2022, Azure issued a press release disclosing, among other items, that "[t]he Company received a whistleblower complaint in May 2022 alleging potential procedural irregularities and misconduct by certain employees at a plant belonging to one of its subsidiaries." Azure further reported that "[a]s part of the Company's review of these allegations, it discovered deviations from safety and quality norms, and it has implemented mechanisms to remediate them and in so doing strengthen safety and quality protocols. Azure's Audit Committee, with the assistance of legal counsel and forensic accounting support, also identified evidence of manipulation of project data and information by certain employees. The Company is implementing immediate remedial measures, and Azure is initiating disclosure of the findings to the appropriate authorities." On this news, Azure's stock price fell $4.61 per share or 44.07% percent, to close at $5.85 per share on August 29, 2022. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com CONTACT: Robert S. Willoughby Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 888-476-6529 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd. ("Dingdong" or the "Company") (NYSE: DDL). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980. The investigation concerns whether Dingdong and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. [Click here for information about joining the class action] On or around June 29, 2021, Dingdong conducted its initial public offering ("IPO"), issuing approximately 4.07 million American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") priced at $23.50 per ADS. Then, on March 17, 2022, Beijing News reported that Chinese regulators had launched a probe into Dingdong for food safety violations. According to the report, Dingdong had replaced labels on expired vegetables and sold frozen fish products as fresh. On this news, Dingdong's ADS price fell $0.46 per ADS, or 10.82%, to close at $3.79 per ADS on March 17, 2022. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com CONTACT: Robert S. Willoughby Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 888-476-6529 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. ("Honda" or the "Company") (NYSE: HMC). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at [email protected] or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980. The investigation concerns whether Honda and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. [Click here for information about joining the class action] On September 28, 2022, a putative class action was filed against Honda alleging that the Company sold thousands of vehicles that contain a critical safety flaw putting drivers and others at serious risk of injury. Specifically, the lawsuit against Honda alleges that a wide range of Honda vehicles share a flawed "auto start/stop" function (also called "Idle Stop") intended to save fuel by shutting the engine down at stops, and that the Idle Stop system in these vehicles routinely fails to restart the engine as designed, leaving drivers unable to move their vehicles. The lawsuit further alleges that Honda was fully aware of the defect before marketing the vehicles. On this news, Honda's American Depositary Receipt ("ADR") price fell $0.74 per ADR, or 3.23%, to close at $22.19 per ADR on September 29, 2022. Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com. CONTACT: Robert S. Willoughby Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 888-476-6529 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLP The Women's World Banking Asset Management and IDC Ventures lead a Series B round of financing to promote financial inclusion in Peru and Mexico. Three out of four stores can't afford the stock they need for their clients, and only half of the stores have access to enough credit. MIAMI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tienda Pago, the leading short-term credits lender based in Peru and Mexico, has announced closing a Series B investment led by the Women's World Banking Asset Management and IDC Ventures for $12 million. Tienda Pago's innovative partnerships, technology, and process have attracted impact investors and traditional VCs. Women's World Banking Asset Management and IDC Ventures led this Series B round of investment in which Alumni Fund contributed as a new investor. Current investors Kaszek, QED, Agrega Partners, Accion Venture Lab, and Oiko Credit also participated in this round. Tienda Pago provides micro, small, and medium enterprises with working capital via short-term stock financing on its digital platform. According to the Peruvian Minister for Production, 99.5% of companies in the country are SMEs. In Mexico, SMEs represent 70% of formal employment. Tienda Pago helps financial inclusion in the region by providing credit to unserved and underserved SMEs, especially women-owned. "Small businesses are fundamental drivers of economic development in Latin America, yet continue to lack access to finance," says Alejandro Rodriguez, Partner at IDC Ventures. "SMEs receive only 12% of total formal credit in the region, though they represent the vast majority of businesses and the majority of employment. Tienda Pago works with product distributors to provide seamless cashless transactions that benefit both store owners and suppliers, providing value at both ends of the supply chain". "Tienda Pago's business model helps entrepreneurs grow in the region and make an impact on our community," said Dan Cohen, CEO and founder of Tienda Pago. "75% of SMEs can't buy all the stock they need to serve their clients, which means a loss of opportunities, and just half of the stores have sufficient access to financial services. This is why Tienda Pago is essential to serve the financial needs of convenience stores in developing regions". "We are very excited to partner with Tienda Pago on this important journey and provide access to finance for small business owners who are the cornerstone of economic development in the region," said Yrenilsa Lopez, Principal Investment Officer at Women's World Banking Asset Management. Tienda Pago has partnered with Consumer Product Goods to finance their stock for Convenience Stores to help them reduce trust risks while increasing sales and improving customer experience through frictionless operations (signup, collection, and default management). About Tienda Pago Tienda Pago is a fintech company that operates in Mexico and Peru. TP Provides short-term credit to small convenience stores in the region to buy stock from established Consumer Good Companies (CPGs) and distributors. Tienda Pago allows stores to receive stock for a week and pays those deliveries directly via bank transfer to the stock suppliers. Tienda Pago uses innovative mobile technology and business models to reach a financially underserved population to foster financial inclusion. For more information, visit https://www.tiendapago.com/. About IDC Ventures IDC Ventures is an investment platform that partners with innovative and disruptive tech companies, investing from Series A through growth. IDC Ventures focuses on companies in the fintech and marketplace verticals in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. To date, IDCV has raised over $500 million for successful portfolio companies such as Lunar, CookUnity, Curve, Bipi, RecargaPay, and Securitize, among many others. For more information, visit http://www.idcventures.com/. About Women's World Banking Asset Management Women's World Banking Asset Management ("WAM") invests in innovative inclusive finance companies in the emerging markets, guiding them to capture the substantial market share of financially under-served women and the largely untapped talent pool of women staff and leaders. WAM's first Fund was a pioneer of gender-focused impact investing in inclusive financial service providers. WWBCP II expands this gender-focused investment strategy with a dedicated technical assistance facility to help portfolio companies achieve strategic objectives toward gender inclusion. For more information, visit https://www.womensworldbanking.org Media Contacts: IDC Ventures Benito Besada [email protected] +1 786-553-8828 Tienda Pago Juaquin Chavez [email protected] +1 786-787-0394 Women's World Banking Asset Management Maggie Callahan [email protected] SOURCE TIENDA PAGO CHICAGO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Smart Card IC Market is projected to reach USD 3.9 billion by 2027 from an estimated USD 2.9 billion in 2022, at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2022 to 2027, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. The growth of the smart card IC market can be attributed to rising usage of SIMs and eSIMs in smartphones and government agencies promoting digitalization. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=29374723 Browse in-depth TOC on "Smart Card IC Market" 150 Tables 72 Figures 222 Pages The 32-bit segment is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period The 32-bit segment is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The growth of the segment can be attributed to the increased focus on data security and rising use of connected devices as well as the increasing penetration of 5G, which are fueling the demand for communication networks. In addition, they are specially used for applications that demand high efficiency The ID cards application is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period The ID cards application is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The growth can be attributed to rising focus of government of different countries on transforming paper-based ID cards into chip-based ID cards to avoid illegal activities and protect citizens from identity theft. Governments of several European countries have rolled out circulars for mandating the integration of chips in ID cards. In response to this, there were over 9 million university students using student smart cards across 279 universities in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=29374723 Asia Pacific is projected to account for the largest global market share during the forecast period Asia Pacific is projected to account for the largest share of the global smart card IC market during the forecast period. The dominance of Asia Pacific can be attributed to the increased focus on data digitalization in the region. Key countries, including China, Japan, India, and South Korea, in the region are focusing on integrating smart card ICs in various government and healthcare applications such as citizen ID cards, drivers' licence, healthcare cards, voter IDs, ePassport, and other essential official documents. For instance, the government of India used embedded ICs in smart cards used for drivers' license and vehicle registration. The country understood the importance of citizen travel record during the COVID-19 pandemic and, hence, is set to roll out ePassports by the end of 2022. Infineon Technologies AG (Germany), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (Netherland), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (South Korea), STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland), Microchip Technology Incorporated (US), CEC Huada Electronic Design Co., Ltd. (China), Analog Devices, Inc. (US), Sony Group Corporation (Japan), Toshiba Corporation (Japan), and ON Semiconductor Corporation (US); are some of the key players in the smart card IC market. Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=29374723 Browse Adjacent Market: Semiconductor and Electronics Market Research Reports &Consulting Related Reports: Embedded Security Market by Security type (authentication and access management, payment and content protection), Application, Offerings (hardware, software and services) and Region (North America, Europe, APAC, RoW) (2022-2027) Smart Card Market by Interface (Contact, Contactless, Dual), Type (Memory, MPU Microprocessor), Functionality (Transaction, Communication, Security and Access Control), Offering, Vertical, and Region (2021-2026) Access Control Market with Size by Offering (Card-based Readers, Biometric Readers, Electronic Locks, Controllers, Software, Services), ACaaS (Hosted, Managed, Hybrid), Vertical, and Region -(2021-2026) eSIM Market by Application (Connected Cars, Laptops, M2M, Smartphones, Tablets, Wearables), Vertical (Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Energy & Utilities, Manufacturing, Retail, Transportation & Logistics), and Geography -- Global Forecast to 2023 Smart Badge Market by Communication (Contact and ContactLess), Type (With Displays and Without Displays), Application (Government & Healthcare, Corporate, and Retail & Hospitality) and Region (NA, EU, APAC, ROW) - Global Forecast to 2025 About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. 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Contact: Mr. Aashish Mehra MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/smart-card-ic-market.asp Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/smart-card-ic.asp Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg SOURCE MarketsandMarkets WEYMOUTH, Mass., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- South Shore Stars, a nonprofit provider of comprehensive early education and youth development programs for the communities south of Boston, announced it has received a transformative $1 million gift from Karen and Rob Hale through their family foundation, Fox Rock Foundation. "As a long-term investment, the Hale family's gift will enable us to expand over time our reach in the community and what we're able to offer families," said South Shore Stars Executive Director Jennifer Curtis. "We will immediately allocate a portion of the funding to rescue and retain services around social emotional and clinical needs for students, families and staff at our Weymouth preschool location." Adding to the Hale family's legacy of prolific philanthropic commitment, Fox Rock Foundation was created to inspire health in our communities and our environment, with more opportunity for all. The Foundation's recent gift to South Shore Stars serves as part of its current initiative to support a variety of causes and nonprofits across New England. "South Shore Stars provides important services that allow parents the opportunity to work and aligns perfectly with one of our core missions of improving youth education in the region," commented Karen Hale of Fox Rock Foundation. "Throughout the COVID pandemic, for close to 500 South Shore children and their families, Stars was there with affordable childcare and educational resources that gives parents the financial security and dignity of being able to work." "We cannot thank the Hale family enough for this generous gift and are excited to experience the first-hand impact of this endowment," added Curtis. "South Shore Stars is honored to be a conduit for the Hale family to continue its work improving the lives of our community members now and for years to come." A non-profit serving financially and culturally diverse communities around the South Shore, Stars relies heavily on grants and philanthropy to fund its services. "We are extremely grateful to the Hale family and for their generosity in providing the opportunity to sustain and grow an organization that's dedicated to the futures of so many of the local children and families that our staff supports," Curtis said. About Fox Rock Foundation Fox Rock Foundation is the private family foundation established by Karen and Rob Hale and their adult children, Trevor, Thomas, and Brett, to inspire health in our communities and our environment, with more opportunity for all. Building on the philanthropy of the Hales and their businesses, Fox Rock Foundation supports a wide variety of organizations within four principal areas of giving: education, health and wellbeing, conservation, and equality. The Foundation's current focus is a series of grant partnerships with small and midsized nonprofits making a difference on a variety of causes in New England and beyond. Fox Rock Foundation builds on the philanthropy of Granite Telecommunications, where Rob is founder and CEO, Granite Gives Back, FoxRock Cares, and other personal giving by the Hales. Through a variety of giving channels, the Hale family has pledged or donated more than $300 million to a broad range of worthy causes. About South Shore Stars South Shore Stars is a nonprofit organization providing the highest quality early education and youth development programs for the communities south of Boston. Using a family support approach in collaboration with schools and other service providers, South Shore Stars aims to enhance the optimal growth of children from economically and culturally diverse families. It has been serving children and youth from newborn through 18 years of age for over 50 years. Media contact: Steve Saleeba for South Shore Stars 401-480-6466 [email protected] SOURCE South Shore Stars ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Spartan Medical Inc., a veteran-owned government contractor, today announced it was named to the Washington Business Journal's 2022 Fastest Growing Companies list. Earlier this year, Spartan Medical was also awarded the Washington Business Journal's prestigious 2022 Best Places to Work. Washington Business Journal's Fastest Growing Companies The Washington Business Journal is the capital region's go-to source for business news. Their annual Fastest Growing Companies list is based on a survey of 2,300 companies in the greater Washington, D.C. region. Each company's financials were fact-checked by national accounting firm Cherry Bekaert LLP. "Making this year's list of Fastest Growing Companies may have been the biggest challenge ever to grow revenue for two years in a row, beginning with at least $2 million in 2019 and ending with at least $10 million in 2021," explained Carolyn Proctor, Data Editor at the Washington Business Journal. "And we decided this year to make it even more competitive by limiting the final list to fifty companies. Other requirements included being locally headquartered and privately owned with no parent company as of the date our survey ended. The ranking criteria is the average percentage of revenue growth between 2019 and 2021." "Being named to the Washington Business Journal's Fastest Growing Companies and their Best Places to Work rankings in the same year shows that Spartan Medical is a leader in a very competitive business environment - while concurrently proving to be one of the region's best employers," said Vince Proffitt, President of Spartan Medical. Mr. Proffitt further explained, "Spartan Medical is independent, financially-stable, and debt-free. We have no conflicts of interest, and most importantly, we only answer to our customers and every member of the Spartan Family. This company has been built brick-by-brick in one of the most competitive industries on the planet. Our incredible growth during difficult economic times is based on three things: our people, our people, and our people. Our culture matters, our military-mindset matters, our belief that nothing is impossible matters, but none of that would matter if we didn't have the right people in the right place at the right time. We do. Recognition of quiet, hardworking professionals is an honor. Congratulations to the entire Spartan family. You've earned this." The Washington Business Journal will be revealing the ranking of each awardee company at an awards ceremony on October 20th at the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner, and the rankings will be published the next day in the October 21st edition. About Spartan Medical: Spartan Medical is a veteran-owned-and-operated government contractor for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and other local, state, and federal agencies. We provide some of the most advanced medical technologies & biologics, licensed medical staff, and best-in-class operations management expertise to our clients both domestic and abroad. Our executive team have all held leadership positions in both the public and private sector and our core strength is solving complex problems through creative thinking, innovative solutions, and highly skilled flexible teams. Spartan Medical maintains its vanguard position by providing medical facilities with best-in-class solutions that improve patient care and outcomes, especially for America's military and veteran communities. Media Contact Nick Goebel: 248-767-6276 [email protected] SOURCE Spartan Medical Inc. LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 10, 2022, Spongelle opened its second retail store at South Coast Plaza (3333 Bear Street, Costa Mesa, CA, Suite 219). Known for their Body Wash Infused Buffers and 200+ other bath & body products, this new location will carry their popular products for sale along with new in-store experiences. The store will be open Monday through Saturday from 10am-8pm and Sunday from 11am-7pm. Spongelle Store in Costa Mesa Elaine Binder, co-founder, certified perfumer and co-creator of Spongelle, has combined research, unique fragrances, and creativity in discovering new formulations and products that provide luxury experiences that fill your home with delightful aromas. These include bath and shower body buffers for men, women and children, candles, diffusers and pedi buffers. Spongelle also offers seasonal offerings for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fall and Halloween. Their latest launches include: Confection Collection Body Wash-Buffer These decadent, creamy blends of triple whipped butter and sweet sugarcane extracts come in fun donut-shaped cleansing buffers that gently exfoliate dead skin for deliciously soft skin and nourishes with extracts of Yuzu, Edelweiss, and Vetiver for 14+ decadent showers. Enchanted Night Halloween Boxed Flower Buffer A Halloween "Spooky Treat" complete with a limited-edition glow-in-the-dark packaging for all the starry night feels. It is enriched with Witch Hazel extracts and autumnal notes of juicy orange, fresh pumpkin, and vanilla musk, this captivating body wash-infused buffer gently cleanses and softens skin with the glowing allure of starry nights for 14+ intoxicating showers. Private Reserve Eau de Toilette Sprays These portable spray bottles come in a 10ml size that travels easily and even fits in your purse. Your go-to scent to set the mood at home can now be your signature scent no matter where you go. They are available in four of the brand's favorite diffuser fragrances: Blackberry, Black Orchid, Morning Bloom, and Peony Flower. The company has built Spongelle into a multi-branded, international manufacturing company with representatives and growing sales in virtually every major city in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. With the company's intuitive market sense and on-site experience, Spongelle's proprietary infusion technology offers enhanced formulas and sophisticated, custom-blended fragrances with every product to create a beyond cleansing experience for men, women and children all proudly made in Los Angeles. According to CEO, Elaine Binder, "I am proud to be opening our second Spongelle retail store. Our stores offer a unique and fun experience into the world of a luxurious bathing experience that is affordable". About Spongelle: Spongelle LLC is a Los Angeles based company specializing in an innovative and proprietary delivery system for the personal care & consumer products industry. Spongelle's patented Body Wash Infused Buffers are an amazing way to take care of your skin. One-of-a-kind fragrances blended with a creamy lather makes Spongelle the most luxurious bathing indulgence for your body and mind. Contact: Janice McCafferty Janice McCafferty Communications (773) 736-9034 Direct [email protected] SOURCE Spongelle GREENWICH, Conn., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Starwood Property Trust (NYSE: STWD) today announced that the Company will release its third quarter financial results on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 before the opening of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. A conference call will be held on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. During the conference call, the Company's officers will review third quarter performance, discuss recent events and conduct a question-and-answer period. Webcast The conference call will also be available in the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. To listen to a live broadcast, go to the site at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will also be available for 90 days on the Company's website. To Participate in the Telephone Conference Call: Dial in at least five minutes prior to start time. Domestic: 1-877-407-9039 International: 1-201-689-8470 Conference Call Playback: Domestic: 1-844-512-2921 International: 1-412-317-6671 Passcode: 13730652 The playback can be accessed through November 16, 2022. Full Text of the Earnings Release Internet -- The full text of the earnings release will be available on Wednesday, November 9, 2022 at the Company's web site, www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. at the Company's web site, www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. Mail -- For those without Internet access, the third quarter earnings release will be available by mail or fax, on request. To receive a copy, please call the Company's Investor Relations line at 203-422-7788. About Starwood Property Trust, Inc. Starwood Property Trust (NYSE: STWD) is a leading diversified finance company with a core focus on the real estate and infrastructure sectors. An affiliate of global private investment firm, Starwood Capital Group, the Company has successfully deployed over $91 billion of capital since inception and manages a portfolio of over $27 billion across debt and equity investments. Starwood Property Trust's investment objective is to generate attractive and stable returns for shareholders, primarily through dividends, by leveraging a premiere global organization to identify and execute on the best risk-adjusted returning investments across its target assets. Additional information can be found at www.starwoodpropertytrust.com. Contact: Zachary Tanenbaum Starwood Property Trust Phone: 203-422-7788 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Starwood Property Trust, Inc. StoreDot demonstrates the exceptional performance of silicon-dominant extreme fast charging battery cells capable of charging over 1000 consecutive cycles, in production ready EV form factor Cells are now being shipped to StoreDot's global automotive OEM partners for testing with further improvements expected by the end of the year The 300Wh/kg, 700 Wh/l XFC cells are being shipped in pouch format StoreDot remains on target for mass production of '100in5' cells by 2024 delivering at least 100 miles of range in just five minutes of charging HERZLIYA, Israel, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- StoreDot, the pioneer of extreme fast charging battery technology for electric vehicles, has proven the superior performance of its extreme fast charging battery cell technology by delivering cells that have exceeded 1000 cycles in production ready EV form factor. StoreDot achieves landmark milestone of 1000 cycles of XFC battery cells ready for EV integration The 300Wh/kg, 700 Wh/l high energy density cells are being shipped in pouch format to StoreDot's global automotive OEM partners for intense real-world testing. The cells exhibit the promised '100in5' EV performance, allowing drivers to charge consecutively 100 miles of range for each 5 minutes of charging. StoreDot's '100in5' cells repeatedly charged from 10 to 80 percent capacity in just 10 minutes and then discharged for one hour before recharging. The EV cells achieved over 1000 of these extreme charging cycles consecutively before degrading below the 80 percent of the original capacity threshold. No noticeable degradation occurred within the first 600 cycles in which the cells were consecutively fast charged between 10 to 80 percent. This landmark milestone follows StoreDot's announcement in March that it had set a world record of 1200 cycles for its extreme fast charging cells in prototype format. StoreDot continues to develop the XFC technology in both cylindrical and prismatic form factors with updates expected soon on shipping those to OEM partners. Yaron Fein, StoreDot Vice President R&D: "The latest tests represent a landmark not just for StoreDot, but also the global battery industry and the entire sustainable mobility ecosystem. Our product performance goal for 2022 was to reach 1000 cycles of consecutive extreme fast charging of 10 to 80 percent in ten minutes, with an energy density of at least 300Wh/Kg. "I am delighted to announce that not only have we achieved our target but have also exceeded it and we already have in our labs enhanced formulation that allows us to show further improved performance. This is the first time ever that cell performance of this magnitude has been achieved. The results stand testament to StoreDot's relentless R&D drive, the enthusiasm of everyone in the company and to the Extreme Fast Charging vision we share with our partners. "When a lithium battery is charged and discharged once, it is called a cycle, and typically lithium battery capacity degrades quickly in fast charging cycles. Our silicon-dominant chemistry is different, allowing EV battery cells to charge for more than 1000 cycles before degrading the battery to 80% of its original capacity." StoreDot remains focused on delivering its hype-free technology roadmap to global automotive companies. This relentless development program extends far into the future, where the target is to deliver 100 miles of range after just 2 minutes of charge within a decade. About StoreDot StoreDot is the pioneer and leader of extreme fast charging (XFC) electric vehicle batteries that overcome the critical barriers to mainstream EV adoption range and charging anxiety. The company has revolutionized the conventional Li-ion battery by designing and synthesizing proprietary organic and inorganic compounds, optimized by Artificial Intelligence algorithms, making it the same experience as refueling a conventional combustion engine car. Through its '100inX' product roadmap, StoreDot's battery technology is delivering 'Range on Demand': 100 miles charged in 5 minutes in 2024, 100 miles charged in 3 minutes by 2028, and extreme energy density solution enabling 100 miles to be charged in 2 minutes by 2032. StoreDot's strategic investors and partners include Daimler, BP, VinFast, Volvo, Polestar, Ola Electric, Samsung, TDK and its manufacturing partner EVE Energy. In 2022, the company achieved a world first by demonstrating a live extreme fast charging of an EV battery cell in 10 minutes. StoreDot is on target for production readiness of its 100in5 technology by 2024. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917490/StoreDot_achieves_1000_cycles.jpg SOURCE StoreDot For Five Consecutive Years, Stratos Listed as one of Nation's Best Independent Advisory Firms BEACHWOOD, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Stratos Wealth Holdings (Stratos), a family of wealth management firms on a mission to support the development of growth-minded financial advisors across the country, today announced its registered investment advisor (RIA), Stratos Wealth Partners, was recognized as one of the leading RIAs in the country by Barron's 2022 Top RIA Firms rankings. Stratos Wealth Partners, Ltd., an SEC Registered Investment Advisor, manages over $10.1 billion in advisory assets, and advises through LPL Financial, over $7.1 billion in brokerage and third party managed assets for a total of $17.2 billion as of June 30, 2022. Jeff Concepcion, Founder & CEO, Stratos Wealth Now in the seventh year, the Barron's annual ranking of independent advisory companies is based on assets managed by the firms, revenue earned, technology spending, staff diversity, succession planning, among other metrics. Barron's has recognized Stratos on this list each year for five consecutive years. Jeff Concepcion, Founder and CEO of Stratos, said, "I am extremely proud that the efforts of the team at Stratos Wealth Partners, the flagship of the Stratos family, on behalf of our clients continues to be recognized around the industry and garner accolades. Stratos' focus remains on supporting the growth and success of financial advisors, regardless of business models and affiliation structures and we're dedicated to consistently delivering a best-in-class experience to our teams around the country." Lou Camacho, COO of Stratos Wealth Holdings and President of Stratos Wealth Enterprises, Stratos' acquisition arm, said, "As we all faced significant hardships over the past two years, Stratos and our affiliated firms and advisors have continued to grow, provided the highest quality client service and attracted incredible new advisors and firms to our team. We thank Barron's for this recognition and look forward to our advisors' continued success and growth." For the complete list, please visit the Barron's website. About Stratos Wealth Holdings Stratos Wealth Holdings is a family of companies focused on supporting the growth and success of financial advisors across business models and affiliation structures. Stratos companies include Stratos Wealth Partners, Stratos Wealth Advisors, Stratos Wealth Enterprises, and Fundamentum. Stratos includes a national network of over 340 experienced financial advisors and financial planning practitioners working across 26 states throughout the country. All entities listed are separate from and unaffiliated with LPL Financial. Contact: Kevin Elvington, 440-505-5608, [email protected], stratoswealth.com SOURCE Stratos Wealth pro disc L is the only total disc replacement system in the U.S. approved for two-level use in the lumbar spine Centinel Spine is the only company with FDA-approved cervical and lumbar total disc replacement devices The prodisc technology is the most studied and clinically-proven TDR system in the world, validated after 30 years of clinical use and by over 540 published papers.* WEST CHESTER, Pa., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Centinel Spine, LLC, a leading global medical device company addressing cervical and lumbar spinal disease through anterior surgical access, today announced findings of a new study to be presented during the North American Spine Society (NASS) 37th Annual Meeting on Thursday, October 13, 2022. Thierry Marnay, MD will present results from the study that support long-term mobility superiority of Centinel Spine's prodisc L Lumbar Total Disc Replacement (TDR) device compared to two-level hybrid reconstruction.** prodisc L Total Disc Replacement The study expands the evidence validating the clinical efficacy of prodisc L and is one of the first long-term mobility comparisons between two-level lumbar TDR and hybrid constructs consisting of one-level lumbar TDR combined with one-level anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF). A total of 235 patients who underwent lumbar surgery from 2003 to 2013 were followedconsisting of 170 patients receiving L4-S1 two-level lumbar TDR and 65 patients receiving L5-S1 fusion and L4-L5 TDR hybrid construct. According to the study, after a minimum of 24 months follow-up, the two-level prodisc L TDR demonstrates superiority in absolute lumbar mobility and pelvic motion. The hybrid construct demonstrates an overall lack of compensation in lumbar mobility and pelvic motion as compared to the two-level lumbar TDR. Although measures of activity and pain were equivalent between the study groups, the two-level TDR also demonstrated functional superiority versus the hybrid construct (Marnay, Thierry. "Mobility Parameters in Two-Level Lumbar TDR vs Hybrid Construct: Clinical Results in 235 Patients", NASS 2022 Annual Meeting, Thursday, October 13, 2022, Chicago, Illinois). Centinel Spine's CEO, Steve Murray, stated, "This study further reinforces the long-term effectiveness of the prodisc system, a proven technology that supports the advancement of patient care. The system was engineered with proven design principles, and this is another study that demonstrates continued positive results of prodisc L after over 30 years of clinical use." The prodisc L Lumbar TDR system, along with the newly-approved prodisc cervical TDR portfolio that allows the disc to be matched to patient anatomy, will be featured at the Centinel Spine booth (#4224) during NASS 2022. * Search performed on Pubmed, Embase, Ovid Medline covering 1988 2021. ** prodisc L is indicated for spinal arthroplasty in skeletally mature patients with degenerative disc disease at one or two contiguous intervertebral level(s) from L3-S1. Please refer to the prodisc IFU012, Rev 2 04/20 for the complete indications, contraindications, and precautions for prodisc L. The safety and effectiveness of the prodisc L has not been established in patients using a hybrid (TDR/ALIF) implant construct. About Centinel Spine, LLC Centinel Spine, LLC is a leading global medical device company addressing cervical and lumbar spinal disease through anterior surgical access. The company offers a continuum of trusted, brand-name, motion-preserving and fusion solutions backed by over 30 years of clinical successproviding the most robust and clinically-proven technology platforms in the world for total disc replacement (prodisc) and Integrated Interbody fusion (STALIF). Centinel Spine continues to advance its pioneering culture and corporate mission to become a catalyst of change in the spine industry and alter the way spine surgery is perceived. Centinel Spine remains the only company with comprehensive motion-preserving and fusion solutions for both cervical and lumbar anterior column reconstruction. For more information, please visit the company's website at www.CentinelSpine.com or contact: Centinel Spine Varun Gandhi Chief Financial Officer 900 Airport Road, Suite 3B West Chester, PA 19380 Phone: 484-887-8871 Email: [email protected] Media Sean Leous ICR Westwicke Phone: 646-677-1839 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Centinel Spine, LLC GREENSBORO, N.C., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE:SKT), a leading operator of upscale open-air outlet centers, announced today that its Board of Directors approved a 10% increase in the annual dividend on its common shares from $0.80 per share to $0.88 per share. Simultaneously, the Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.22 per share, payable on November 15, 2022 to common shareholders of record on October 31, 2022. About Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE: SKT) is a leading operator of upscale open-air outlet centers that owns (or has an ownership interest in) and/or manages a portfolio of 37 centers with an additional center currently under development. Tanger's operating properties are located in 20 states and in Canada, totaling approximately 14.0 million square feet, leased to over 2,700 stores operated by more than 600 different brand name companies. The Company has more than 41 years of experience in the outlet industry and is a publicly-traded REIT. For more information on Tanger Outlet Centers, call 1-800-4TANGER or visit the Company's website at www.tangeroutlets.com . Investor Contact Doug McDonald SVP, Finance and Capital Markets T: (336) 856-6066 [email protected] SOURCE Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. TD reaffirms commitment to the region with opening of new contact center and plans for store expansion JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, recently celebrated the completed renovation of 30,000 square feet of office space in the Deerwood North office park. The new space serves as a contact center hub servicing customers across the TD footprint, including the bank's growing credit card customer base. The bank plans to hire 75% of the more than 200 roles by this fall, with staffing expected to be complete by early 2023. TD maintains an existing corporate presence in the office park. On Monday, Oct. 10, local leaders joined TD executives and colleagues for a ribbon cutting to commemorate TD's ongoing commitment to the Jacksonville region. "We're thrilled to continue our investment in the community with the opening of our new contact center, which will offer TD colleagues a space to collaborate, learn new skills and support our customers as we continue to grow," said Ernie Diaz, Head of Consumer Distribution, Wealth and TD Auto Finance, TD Bank. On Monday, Oct. 10, local officials and Chamber of Commerce leaders joined TD executives and colleagues for a ribbon cutting to commemorate TD's ongoing commitment to the region. As part of the celebration, TD presented donations of $15,000 each to Goodwill Industries of North Florida and City Rescue Mission. "TD Bank has been a part of the Jacksonville community for more than a decade and we've witnessed the population and workforce rapidly expand over the last few years. This is an exciting time for the city, and we look forward to growing here and across Florida for years to come," said Nick Miceli, Regional President for Florida at TD Bank. TD has steadily expanded its presence in Florida with the opening of seven stores throughout the state since October 2021. The bank has plans to open three more stores by the end of the year, including a location in the Normandy neighborhood in the coming weeks. "Jacksonville continues to lead the region in growth and development in financial services," said Mayor Lenny Curry. "I was excited to support this center during its groundbreaking and am excited to see it come to fruition almost a year later. TD Bank continues to inject jobs and growth into our economy, and this new center is a prime example." TD's growth plans include further expansion of its retail presence across Florida in 2023. Currently, TD employs more than 2,600 colleagues and operates a total of 157 stores statewide. About TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, is one of the 10 largest banks in the U.S., providing over 9.8 million customers with a full range of retail, small business and commercial banking products and services at more than 1,100 convenient locations throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Metro D.C., the Carolinas and Florida. In addition, TD Auto Finance, a division of TD Bank, N.A., offers vehicle financing and dealer commercial services. TD Bank and its subsidiaries also offer customized private banking and wealth management services through TD Wealth. TD Bank is headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J. To learn more, visit www.td.com/us . Find TD Bank on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TDBank and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TDBank_US and www.twitter.com/TDNews_US . TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, is a member of TD Bank Group and a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Canada, a top 10 financial services company in North America. The Toronto-Dominion Bank trades on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges under the ticker symbol "TD". To learn more, visit www.td.com/us . SOURCE TD Bank NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Technavio has been monitoring the test kits market for coronavirus testing market and it is expected to decrease by USD -13.39 bn during 2021-2026, decelerating at a CAGR of -4.57% during the forecast period. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Coronavirus Test Kits Market 2022-2026 The increasing spread of COVID-19 globally, increasing screening of passengers in airports, and government regulations for healthcare service providers will offer immense growth opportunities. However, poor healthcare settings in developing countries, inaccuracy associated with rapid diagnostic tests, and threats associated with counterfeit testing kits will challenge the growth of the market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Request Free Sample Report. Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Segmentation End-user Government Non-government Geography Europe Asia North America Rest Of World (ROW) Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Scope Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our test kits market for coronavirus testing market report covers the following areas: Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market size Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market trends Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market industry analysis This study identifies Increasing initiatives from start-ups as one of the prime reasons driving the test kits market for coronavirus testing market growth during the next few years. Buy Sample Report. Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Vendor Analysis The growing competition in the market is compelling vendors to adopt various growth strategies such as promotional activities and spending on advertisements to improve the visibility of their services. Some vendors are also adopting inorganic growth strategies such as M&As to remain competitive in the market. The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market vendors, including: Abbott Laboratories Advaite Inc. Beijing Innotec Biotechnology Co. Ltd. BGI Group Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. Biomedomics Inc. bioMerieux SA Cellex Inc. Chembio Diagnostics Inc. Danaher Corp. Dynamiker Biotechnology Tianjin Co. Ltd. F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. To find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Download Free Sample Report. Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period Detailed information on factors that will assist the test kits market for coronavirus testing market growth during the next five years Estimation of the test kits market for coronavirus testing market size and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the test kits market for the coronavirus testing market Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of the test kits market for coronavirus testing market vendors Related Reports: Intermittent Catheters Market by Product and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 Surgical Clips Market Research Growth by End-user and Geography - Forecast and Analysis - 2022-2026 Test Kits Market For Corona Virus Testing Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Decelerate at a CAGR of -4.57% Market growth 2022-2026 $-13.39 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 25.0 Regional analysis Europe, Asia, North America, and Rest of World (ROW) Performing market contribution Rest of World (ROW) at 10% Key consumer countries US, UK, Spain, Russia, and India Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Abbott Laboratories, Advaite Inc., Beijing Innotec Biotechnology Co. Ltd., BGI Group, Bio Rad Laboratories Inc., Biomedomics Inc., bioMerieux SA, Cellex Inc., Chembio Diagnostics Inc., Danaher Corp., Dynamiker Biotechnology Tianjin Co. Ltd., F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Henry Schein Inc., Mayo Medical Laboratories, Mylab Discovery Solutions Pvt Ltd., Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc, QIAGEN NV, Robert Bosch GmbH, Safecare Biotech Hangzhou Co. Ltd, Siemens AG, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table Of Contents : 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market Overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Global Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by End-user Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Incremental Growth Exhibit 07: Executive Summary Data Table on Incremental Growth Exhibit 08: Executive Summary Chart on Vendor Market Positioning 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem Exhibit 09: Parent market Exhibit 10: Market Characteristics 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition Exhibit 11: Offerings of vendors included in the market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis Exhibit 12: Market segments 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 Exhibit 13: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 14: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 15: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 16: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 17: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2021 and 2026 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 18: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2021 and 2026 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 19: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 20: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 21: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 22: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2021 and 2026 4.7 Market condition Exhibit 23: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2021 and 2026 5 Market Segmentation by End-user 5.1 Market segments Exhibit 24: Chart on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 25: Data Table on End-user - Market share 2021-2026 (%) 5.2 Comparison by End-user Exhibit 26: Chart on Comparison by End-user Exhibit 27: Data Table on Comparison by End-user 5.3 Government - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 28: Chart on Government - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 29: Data Table on Government - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 30: Chart on Government - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Government - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.4 Non-government - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 32: Chart on Non-government - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 33: Data Table on Non-government - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 34: Chart on Non-government - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 35: Data Table on Non-government - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 5.5 Market opportunity by End-user Exhibit 36: Market opportunity by End-user ($ million) 6 Customer Landscape 6.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 37: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 7 Geographic Landscape 7.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 38: Chart on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Market share by geography 2021-2026 (%) 7.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 40: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 41: Data Table on Geographic comparison 7.3 Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 42: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 43: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 44: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.4 Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 46: Chart on Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 47: Data Table on Asia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 48: Chart on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 49: Data Table on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.5 North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 50: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 51: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 52: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 53: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.6 Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 54: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 55: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 56: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 57: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.7 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 58: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 59: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 60: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 61: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.8 India - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 62: Chart on India - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 63: Data Table on India - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 64: Chart on India - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 65: Data Table on India - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.9 UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 66: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 67: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 68: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 69: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.10 Spain - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 70: Chart on Spain - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 71: Data Table on Spain - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 72: Chart on Spain - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 73: Data Table on Spain - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.11 Russia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 Exhibit 74: Chart on Russia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 75: Data Table on Russia - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 ($ million) Exhibit 76: Chart on Russia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) Exhibit 77: Data Table on Russia - Year-over-year growth 2021-2026 (%) 7.12 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 78: Market opportunity by geography ($ million) 8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 8.1 Market drivers 8.2 Market challenges 8.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 79: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2021 and 2026 8.4 Market trends 9 Vendor Landscape 9.1 Overview 9.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 80: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 9.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 81: Overview on factors of disruption 9.4 Industry risks Exhibit 82: Impact of key risks on business 10 Vendor Analysis 10.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 83: Vendors covered 10.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 84: Matrix on vendor position and classification 10.3 Abbott Laboratories Exhibit 85: Abbott Laboratories - Overview Exhibit 86: Abbott Laboratories - Business segments Exhibit 87: Abbott Laboratories - Key news Exhibit 88: Abbott Laboratories - Key offerings Exhibit 89: Abbott Laboratories - Segment focus 10.4 BGI Group Exhibit 90: BGI Group - Overview Exhibit 91: BGI Group - Product / Service Exhibit 92: BGI Group - Key offerings 10.5 Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. Exhibit 93: Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. - Overview Exhibit 94: Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 95: Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. - Key news Exhibit 96: Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 97: Bio Rad Laboratories Inc. - Segment focus 10.6 bioMerieux SA Exhibit 98: bioMerieux SA - Overview Exhibit 99: bioMerieux SA - Product / Service Exhibit 100: bioMerieux SA - Key offerings 10.7 Danaher Corp. Exhibit 101: Danaher Corp. - Overview Exhibit 102: Danaher Corp. - Business segments Exhibit 103: Danaher Corp. - Key news Exhibit 104: Danaher Corp. - Key offerings Exhibit 105: Danaher Corp. - Segment focus 10.8 F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. Exhibit 106: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 107: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 108: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 109: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 110: F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd. - Segment focus 10.9 Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc Exhibit 111: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Overview Exhibit 112: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Business segments Exhibit 113: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Key offerings Exhibit 114: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc - Segment focus 10.10 Robert Bosch GmbH Exhibit 115: Robert Bosch GmbH - Overview Exhibit 116: Robert Bosch GmbH - Business segments Exhibit 117: Robert Bosch GmbH - Key news Exhibit 118: Robert Bosch GmbH - Key offerings Exhibit 119: Robert Bosch GmbH - Segment focus 10.11 Siemens AG Exhibit 120: Siemens AG - Overview Exhibit 121: Siemens AG - Business segments Exhibit 122: Siemens AG - Key news Exhibit 123: Siemens AG - Key offerings Exhibit 124: Siemens AG - Segment focus 10.12 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Exhibit 125: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Overview Exhibit 126: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 127: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Key news Exhibit 128: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 129: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. - Segment focus 11 Appendix 11.1 Scope of the report 11.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 130: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 131: Exclusions checklist 11.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 132: Currency conversion rates for US$ 11.4 Research methodology Exhibit 133: Research methodology Exhibit 134: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 135: Information sources 11.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 136: List of abbreviations generated by emerging segments in healthcare: Growing adoption of healthcare supplies for home-based healthcare, home medical devices, and other advanced application areas such as robotic surgery will aid in the growth of this market. About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio According to official figures from the National Survey on Sexual and Gender Diversity (ENDISEG), 28.7% of the LGBTQ population in Mexico has thought about or attempted suicide in their lifetime This marks the first time that The Trevor Project will offer its life-saving suicide prevention crisis services beyond the U.S. MEXICO CITY, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, on National Coming Out Day in the U.S. and Mexico, The Trevor Project announced the official launch of its free, confidential, 24/7 digital crisis services for LGBTQ young people in Mexico. This milestone is part of The Trevor Project's expansion of its services to more countries around the world and marks the first time in its nearly 25-year history that it is offering crisis services to young people outside of the U.S. The crisis intervention services for LGBTQ youth will be offered in Spanish across TrevorChat and TrevorText, including SMS text messaging, WhatsApp, and online chat. As is the case in the U.S., suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people in Mexico. Tweet this The Trevor Project Mexico Team (PRNewsfoto/The Trevor Project, Inc) As is the case in the U.S., suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people in Mexico. Overall, 28.7 percent of the LGBTQ population has thought about or attempted suicide at some point in their lives. While The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth in the U.S. seriously consider suicide each year, that number is more than 40 million globally. "It's incredibly inspiring to see our vision of providing life-affirming crisis services to LGBTQ young people beyond the U.S. being realized today with our launch in Mexico. This is a major milestone in our goal to end the global public health crisis of LGBTQ youth suicide," said Amit Paley (he/him pronouns), CEO & Executive Director of The Trevor Project. "The Trevor Project is committed to building a world where every single LGBTQ young person has access to resources that affirm who they are, and we couldn't be more optimistic about the impact we'll have on this journey to support more LGBTQ young people around the world." "Today we celebrate the activation of our services in Mexico, kicking off what we hope will be a global social movement around suicide prevention," said Edurne Balmori (she/her pronouns), Executive Director of The Trevor Project Mexico. "For many LGBTQ youth in the country, expressing themselves and simply being who they are can put their physical safety and mental wellness at risk. At The Trevor Project Mexico, we will strive to end the stigma around the issue of mental health, provide LGBTQ youth with a safe and trusted space, and ultimately save lives." The Trevor Project announced its plans to expand its best-in-class crisis services outside of the United States in March 2022. To make this expansion possible, the organization built a team of talented and experienced individuals on the ground in Mexico, led by Executive Director Edurne Balmori. As the organization does in the U.S., The Trevor Project Mexico will rely on a volunteer-based model in which counselors will undergo extensive training and implement an evidence-based crisis support model. The Trevor Project is leveraging its relationships with several of its existing corporate and technology partners to enable and support this international work. Of note, Google.org yesterday announced a renewed grant of $2 million, designed specifically to help scale The Trevor Project's life-saving work to new international geographies. This grant will make Google.org a lead funder of the organization's international work. In addition, The Trevor Project was able to build and customize its crisis services platform for Mexico using Twilio Flex. As described in The Trevor Project's initial international announcement, launching 24/7 digital crisis services for LGBTQ young people in Mexico is part of The Trevor Project's commitment to expand its services to countries around the world, with a belief that every LGBTQ young person regardless of where they live deserves to know that they are not alone. For U.S. Crisis Services: If you or someone you know needs help or support, The Trevor Project's trained crisis counselors are available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386, via chat at TheTrevorProject.org/Get-Help, or by texting START to 678678. For Mexico Crisis Services: If you or someone you know needs help or support, The Trevor Project's trained crisis counselors in Mexico are available 24/7 via chat at TheTrevorProject.MX/Ayuda, via SMS by texting "Comenzar" to 67676, or via WhatsApp by texting 55 9225 3337. About The Trevor Project Mexico The Trevor Project is the world's largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people. The Trevor Project Mexico offers 24/7 crisis intervention programs through TrevorText and TrevorChat. LGBTQ youth in Mexico and around the world can also access TrevorSpace, the world's largest safe space social networking site for LGBTQ youth. For media inquiries, please contact: Jackson Budinger Senior Communications Manager [email protected] SOURCE The Trevor Project, Inc SEATTLE, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Vida Agency (TVA), an award-winning, woman-and-minority-owned, multicultural communications company, has established an advisory board in the wake of exponential growth. The agency has doubled in size since the start of the pandemic as new and existing public and private sector clients seek to commit increased time, research, dollars, and learnings necessary to create culturally appropriate, multicultural campaigns. The TVA Advisory Board will be a source of independent, executive-level business expertise and mentorship to steer continued growth and profitability for the company. The following inaugural members were carefully curated to provide seasoned insights on finance, strategy, operations, and business development to help scale the agency effectively and efficiently. Inaugural TVA Board members include: Murray N. Ross, PhD , Vice President at Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy Ross brings to the board 30 years of experience as a health care finance and policy leader, with expertise in synthesizing and communicating the practical implications of market developments and public policies. Roberto Yglesias , Principal Product Manager, Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle and Records Management Yglesias is a technology leader with 15 years of experience leading teams and architecting processes that deliver strong value to customers. His specialty is streamlining complex and difficult products or processes to foster powerful business outcomes. Reuben Ortega , Senior Managing Attorney, Principal at Gravis Law, PLLC An accomplished business consultant and attorney, Ortega assists clients with business formation, early-stage financing, mergers and acquisitions, commercial contract negotiation, intellectual property protection, corporate governance matters and strategic business planning and advisory services. Maureen Lico , Senior Financial Analyst and Philanthropist Lico brings financial acumen and multinational business experience and ties to community as a philanthropist and board member for Cocoon House where she led the charge for their recent capital project. "I welcome the seasoned leadership support and constructive feedback from this highly accomplished group I have been fortunate to collaborate with throughout the years," shares Amalia Martino, The Vida Agency Founder and President. "Their guidance will afford myself and the expanding TVA team to remain focused on our important and growing work in pursuit of racial, social, and environmental equity for underrepresented and disproportionately impacted communities." ABOUT THE VIDA AGENCY The Vida Agency (TVA) is a full-service communications company specializing in the development and execution of award-winning multicultural campaigns for market segments such as health, transportation, retail, consumer, public policy, and education. TVA services span research, strategy, creative execution, and reporting in support of public agencies and private corporations to collaboratively reach diverse audiences for greater cultural impact. TVA's creative campaigns set the standard for equitable communications that authentically connect clients with audiences, resulting in widespread annual industry recognition. TVA's recent awards include a Northwest Regional Emmy for Community Health Plan of Washington's "Tu eres el centro/You are the center" campaign and multiple Communicator Awards for the Be Ready. Be Hydrated campaign. To learn more, please visit. https://thevidaagency.com/ . The Vida Agency is proud to be a women-and minority-owned business. State WMBE: M5F0025227 Federal DBE: D5F0025227 Media Contact: Janine Worthington Director Strategic Communications and Media Relations The Vida Agency (TVA) [email protected] (206) 354-9093 SOURCE The Vida Agency (TVA) DUBAI, UAE, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tuya Smart ("Tuya" or "the Company") (NYSE: TUYA, HKEX: 2391), a global IoT development platform service provider, and China Mobile International Middle East company (CMI), signed a strategic partnership at GITEX Global 2022 to promote the deployment and implementation of IoT solutions and projects across the Middle East and Africa. They also decided that they will together provide more technical support for smart scenes, such as smart business, smart cities, and more. "China Mobile International is an important partner of Tuya and the two parties continuously work together on driving IoT development. With the help of China Mobile and other channel partners, Tuya-enabled smart devices can quickly enter thousands of households across the globe. With today's strategic cooperation with CMI, Tuya will continue to select high-quality Tuya-enabled products and full-scene business solutions for CMI, working together to accelerate the mature implementation of smart business in the Middle East and Africa," said Johnny Lu, the General Manager of LATEM Region of Tuya Smart. "CMI is committed to providing a more convenient information environment for carrier partners, enterprise customers and mobile users, and help empower the digital transformation for various industries. Leveraging our global digital infrastructure and Tuya's IoT ecosystem, we look forward to creating an ecosystem together through this cooperation, and providing full digital intelligence services for businesses within and beyond the Middle East and Africa region," said Colin Wang, Managing Director of CMI Middle East and Africa Region. CMI to explore IoT market in MEA with one-stop IoT smart platform RINGA CMI, a subsidiary of China Mobile, was officially established in Hong Kong, China in December 2010 to provide better services to meet the growing demand in the international telecommunications market. Leveraging the strong support by China Mobile, CMI provides comprehensive international telecom services and solutions to international enterprises, carriers and mobile users. CMI iSolutions provides 5 pillars of services to global enterprise customers, including cloud network integration, connectivity, data center, ICT and IoT. Its service portfolio covers 50+ industry solutions across logistics, finance, manufacturing, retail as well as solutions for cloud network integration, MNC, IoT sectors etc, with the commitment to help enterprises expand their global business more efficiently. With the continuous expansion of global IoT application scale, CMI launched RINGA, which is an IoT PaaS platform, integrating one-stop IoT services in hardware, platform and applications. RINGA connects global IoT service providers, smart hardware manufacturers and IoT device retailers to help global enterprises and operators to quickly build comprehensive IoT applications. With the in-depth cooperation between both parties, CMI has developed the RINGA+ APP which connects various categories and brands of smart home devices to the platform. In the future, RINGA+ platform will be expanded to smart apartments, smart hotels, smart offices, smart factories and other diverse smart application scenarios to further serve the IoT application needs of all walks of life. Tuya presented the Cube Solution at GITEX to support global customers by helping them establish their own IoT platforms As a global IoT development platform service provider, Tuya is committed to providing its partners with open and neutral IoT ecosystem support and advanced and valuable technologies. As of June 30, 2022, Tuya had more than 629,000 developers in more than 200 countries and regions, with more than 2,200 enabled product categories. Tuya also showcased its Cube Solution at GITEX Global 2022. The Cube Solution is a private IoT service deployment solution that was launched earlier in the year. Within the Cube Solution, developers can build a scalable private IoT platform to handle device management, connectivity, application development, and data analytics. The Cube Solution allows businesses to connect and manage IoT devices, rapidly develop applications, provide data security services, and system auto-scaling, all backed by Tuya's proven IoT PaaS. The Cube Solution helps enterprises keep pace with the ever-changing demand for IoT technologies in business and create personalized IoT platform operations for every industrial vertical and every scenario quickly. The cooperation between Tuya and CMI demonstrates that both parties will combine technical and ecological advantages to promote the landing of IoT solutions in the Middle East and African regions and improve the solution-delivering capability across the globe. In addition, Tuya will take this as an opportunity to continuously cultivate the Middle East and African markets, constantly promote the implementation of smart scenes, and further provide more application cases and market resources for ecosystem partners. About Tuya Smart Tuya Smart (NYSE: TUYA, HKEX: 2391) is a leading technology company focused on making our lives smarter. Tuya does this through offering a cloud platform that connects a range of devices via the IoT. By building interconnectivity standards, Tuya bridges the intelligent needs of brands, OEMs, developers, and retail chains across a broad range of smart devices and industries. Tuya solutions empower partners and customers by improving the value of their products while making consumers' lives more convenient through the application of technology. Through its growing commercial SaaS business, Tuya offers intelligent business solutions for a wide range of verticals. The Company's platform is backed by industry-leading technology complete with rigorous data protection and security. Tuya partners with leading Fortune 500 companies from around the world to make things smarter, including Philips, Schneider Electric, Lenovo and many others. SOURCE Tuya Smart GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A beautiful love affair between two trucks: this is Volvo Trucks' unusual approach to highlight the driveability and fuel efficiency of its bestseller, the Volvo FH. Fuel efficiency and the joy of driving are often seen as two opposites among truck drivers. Simply put, you can't have both. But with Volvo's fuel saving innovations, fun and efficiency can indeed be combined. This is illustrated in the company's latest animated film, which centres on a love story between two Volvo FH trucks. Two trucks fall head over (w)heels in love in Volvos new film, doing things you have never seen a truck do before Volvo Trucks A Love Story In the Clouds The film highlights the product features that make up the fuel efficient I-Save package, including the turbo compound engine, I-Shift, I-See, I-Torque, as well as an improved aerodynamic design demonstrated in a way that you have never seen before. The I-Save package was introduced to customers in 2019 and has since been a sales success for Volvo Trucks. Its features combined can cumulate in improvements to fuel economy of up to 13%.* "We are very proud of the I-Save features, and with this love story we want to give those features the attention they deserve. For our customers, I-Save has come to stand for outstanding fuel economy and great driveability, and the majority of the Volvo FH trucks we sell today are equipped with I-Save," says Peter Franzen, Product Manager Engines at Volvo Trucks. The film was shot in Croatia and all real-life driving was done under safe conditions in a closed-off area. *Compared to consumption levels before I-Save was introduced in 2019. Press images and films are available in the Volvo Trucks image and film gallery at http://images.volvotrucks.com. Volvo Trucks supplies complete transport solutions for professional customers with its full range of medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Customer support is provided via a global network of dealers with 2,200 service points in about 130 countries. In 2021 approximately 123,000 Volvo trucks were delivered worldwide. Volvo Trucks is part of the Volvo Group. Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HayNvnr1MYQ Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917064/Volvo_Trucks_A_Love_Story.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1658359/Volvo_Group_Logo.jpg For further information, please contact: Jan Strandhede Media Relations Director Volvo Trucks [email protected] +46 31 3233715 +46 765 533715 SOURCE Volvo Trucks SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DiscGenics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing regenerative cell-based therapies that alleviate pain and restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of the spine, today announced that Matthew F. Gornet, MD, Board Certified Spine Surgeon at The Orthopedic Center of St. Louis, will present two-year follow-up data from the Company's first-in-human clinical study of its allogeneic discogenic progenitor cell therapy (IDCT) for lumbar disc degeneration at the North American Spine Society (NASS) 37th Annual Meeting to be held October 12 15, 2022 at McCormick Place West in Chicago. DiscGenics previously announced the primary efficacy endpoint of the study was achieved with statistically significant improvement in low back pain observed in the high dose IDCT group at the one-year timepoint. High dose IDCT also produced clinically meaningful, statistically significant improvements in function and quality of life by 12 weeks following intradiscal injection with durability sustained at the one-year interim readout. Dr. Gornet will present final two-year clinical data for three key patient-reported outcome measures of pain, function, and quality of life, as well as MRI results across four study groups: low dose IDCT (n=20), high dose IDCT (n=20), vehicle (n=10) and saline placebo (n=10). "We are thrilled to have Dr. Gornet, a world-renowned spine surgeon, present this data," said Kevin T. Foley, MD, Chief Medical Officer of DiscGenics and Chairman of Semmes-Murphey Neurologic & Spine Institute. "Dr. Gornet was the highest enroller in our study and provides tremendous perspective on the IDCT data given his years of surgical experience and clinical trial involvement in concert with SPIRITT Research in St. Louis." The study is an FDA-approved, prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled, multicenter study designed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of IDCT for the treatment of symptomatic lumbar degenerative disc disease versus vehicle and saline controls. For more information on the study, visit: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03347708. Dr. Gornet's presentation will take place on Wednesday, October 12 at 1:06PM Central Time during the Lumbar Degenerative Pathology Abstract Presentations in Room W471ab. DiscGenics is a sponsor of NASS 2022 and will host Booth# 5040 in the Exhibit Hall. In attendance from DiscGenics will be Flagg Flanagan, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Dr. Kevin Foley, Chief Medical Officer, Bob Wynalek, Chief Operating and Commercial Officer, and Lindsey Saxon, Communications and Business Development. About DiscGenics DiscGenics is a privately held, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing regenerative cell-based therapies that alleviate pain and restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of the spine. DiscGenics's first product candidate, IDCT (rebonuputemcel), is an allogeneic, injectable discogenic progenitor cell therapy for symptomatic, mild to moderate lumbar disc degeneration. IDCT is a mixture of live Discogenic Cells, which are a unique progenitor cell population derived from donated adult human intervertebral disc tissue, and a viscous carrier. As the only company in the world to develop an allogeneic cell therapy derived from intervertebral disc cells to treat diseases of the disc, DiscGenics has a unique opportunity to offer a non-surgical, potentially regenerative solution for the treatment of patients suffering from the debilitating effects of back pain. For more information, visit discgenics.com. SOURCE DiscGenics, Inc. As part of education effort, Unstoppable will distribute $25 million worth of free NFT domains to Latinas SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Unstoppable Domains , founding member of Unstoppable Women of Web3 and a leading Web3 identity platform with more than 2.5 million registered NFT domains, announced today a goal to provide accessible educational materials and resources to onboard over 5 million Latinas into Web3 by 2030. The initiative is being launched in partnership with H.E.R. DAO LATAM, a womxn-led developer DAO championing innovation and diversity in web3, and CryptoConexion, a platform created to close the knowledge gap in the world of cryptocurrencies, blockchain and Web 3 for Latinos. Unstoppable Women of Web3 is a diversity and education group focusing on training the next generation of talent, with a mission to equalize the playing field early in the Web3 era. Unstoppable WoW3 and CryptoConexion will create and share ongoing online courses on crypto and Web3, which will be free and accessible in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The organizations will also launch workshops and hackathons for Web2 women developers that will provide hands-on training in Web3 development. Finally, Unstoppable Domains and Unstoppable WoW3 will distribute over $25 million worth of free NFT domains to 5 million Latinas to help them build and control their digital identity. As part of this effort, partners will reach out to universities and educational institutions in Latin America to distribute free NFT domains to students. In addition, 23 Latinx organizations will join the educational effort, including Web3 Familia, Surge Women, Bit2Me, Latinistas, NoMore, Crypto Mujeres, Mujeres en Crypto, Cripto Curiosas, WE Evolution, Web3 Equity, Cripto Es Cultura, Latino Startup Alliance, Vital Voices Miami, Blockeadas, Disrupt3rs, Dextera, Aureacode, Valera, Hola Metaverso, Educar+, FitBeaute, Planet Lambo, Tecnolochicas. "Web3 can empower and uplift people, but in order to achieve that potential, we must ensure everyone has a seat at the table," said Sandy Carter, SVP and Channel Chief of Unstoppable Domains. "Education is the first step to building a more inclusive Web3, and that's why we're committed to expanding access to educational resources for Latinas. We're thrilled to partner with H.E.R. DAO LATAM and CryptoConexion to support and cultivate the next generation of incredible Latina Web3 innovators." "The organizations coming together to launch this initiative have been doing incredible work to ensure Latinas have access to the information and resources to succeed in Web3," said Monica Talan, Founder of CryptoConexion. "By coming together, sharing our key learnings and leveraging the global efforts of Unstoppable Women of Web3, we know we will have a greater impact towards achieving our shared mission." "Since our inception in January of 2022,we have been working non-stop to ensure we provide equal access for women to enter Web3. We know the interest, commitment and passion for the ecosystem is there, we see it every time we interact with members, from Mexico City to Sao Paulo in Brazil," said Laura Navarro Munoz, Governor of H.E.R. DAO LATAM. "However, even though we have been able to open doors to Latin American women to opportunities via scholarships, online programs and other initiatives, we recognize that local needs differ and for us to be able to scale and reach more women, we need to work and empower local leading organizations sharing our purpose and mission. At H.E.R. DAO LATAM, we know that working as one 'We are all going to make it'." Latinas have been historically underrepresented in the tech industry, with only 2% of computing-related jobs in the U.S. being held by Hispanic women, according to data from BuiltIn . The same applies in Latin America, where women are significantly underrepresented in STEM fields, according to research from IDB . However, data shows that diverse and inclusive teams perform better and are more innovative. Companies that score high in gender diversity on executive teams are 25% more likely to have above-average profitability. When companies have more than 30% women executives, they are more likely to outperform companies that only have between 10-30%. Overall, teams that are gender-diverse are better at making business decisions 73% of the time. The education initiative brings together organizations and partners who are dedicated to removing exclusivity barriers and building a truly diversified inclusive ecosystem in Web3. About Unstoppable Domains / Unstoppable Women of Web3 Launched in 2018, Unstoppable Domains is an NFT domain name provider and digital identity platform working to onboard the world onto Web3. Unstoppable Domains offers NFT domains minted on the blockchain that give people full ownership and control of their digital identity, with no renewal fees. With Unstoppable Domains, people can replace lengthy alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses with a human-readable name and log into and transact with more than 200 apps, wallets, exchanges and marketplaces. The company was named by Forbes as one of America's Best Startup Employers in 2022. Unstoppable Women of Web3 founded by Sandy Carter, is a group of female leaders who don't just believe in an equal, democratized, and decentralized future, we're actively building it. About CryptoConexion: CryptoConexion is a platform created to close the knowledge gap in the world of cryptocurrencies, blockchain and Web 3 for Latinos. The platform offers content to inform and educate the community, while connecting and amplifying the work of Latino innovators in this space. About H.E.R. DAO LATAM H.E.R. DAO LATAM focus on women and non-binary audiences in Latin America. Their mission is to sustainably diversify the blockchain ecosystem, and enable women to build great products that generate value for the ecosystem and ultimately become the go-to talent incubator to increase equity in the space. SOURCE Unstoppable Domains VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Awale Resources Limited ("Awale") or the "Company") (TSXV: ARIC) is pleased to announce that, further to the Company's news release of September 13, 2022, the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") has conditionally accepted the acquisition of Colossal Gold Resources Limited ("Colossal") by Awale (the "Acquisition") pursuant to a letter agreement dated September 12, 2022, (the "Agreement") between Awale, Colossal and the shareholders of Colossal (the "Sellers"). Final TSXV acceptance of the Acquisition is conditional on the Company satisfying the requirements outlined in the TSXV's conditional acceptance letter in compliance with TSXV Policy 5.3 which the Company is in the process of completing. Colossal holds, through its wholly-owned Surinamese subsidiary, Consolidated Gold Resources N.V. ("Consolidated Gold"), a 100% interest in certain existing mineral exploration and exploitation licences in Suriname (the "Licences"). In addition to final TSXV acceptance, closing of the Acquisition remains subject to receipt of the approval of the disinterested shareholders of the Company; Awale having completed a financing to raise a minimum of gross proceeds of CAD$2,000,000 (the "Financing"); the assumption by Awale of the Assumed Obligations (as defined below); and other closing conditions as are standard for a transaction of the nature of the Acquisition, (collectively, the "Closing Conditions"). Awale has now completed its in-country due diligence review of Colossal's assets, which was a condition to closing of the Acquisition, and is satisfied with the results. The Company will seek the approval of the disinterested shareholders of Awale to the Acquisition and the issuance of an aggregate of 21,663,138 common shares of the Company to the Sellers in consideration of 100% of the Colossal shares, at the annual general meeting of the Awale shareholders to be held on November 7, 2022. The management information circular relating to the meeting setting out the details of the Acquisition, will be mailed to shareholders on October 11, 2022. The Sellers in the aggregate currently hold approximately 24% of the outstanding Awale shares. The Sellers will be excluded from voting any of those Awale shares for the approval of the Acquisition. Upon closing of the Acquisition, the Company will assume the following liabilities of Colossal and Consolidated Gold: (a) the following payments owing to Dimitri Lemmer, one of the Sellers, in consideration of Colossal's acquisition of the Licences, (the "Assumed Obligations"): Payment of US$250,000 on closing of the Acquisition or as otherwise agreed; on closing of the Acquisition or as otherwise agreed; Payments totaling a maximum of US$1.75M following issuance of a technical report prepared in accordance National Instrument 43-101 Standards for Disclosure of Mineral Projects establishing a mineral resource on the Project on the following basis: US$0.50 per ounce of gold for reported accumulated ounces of up to 999,999 ounces of gold (the "Initial Ounces); US$1.00 per ounce of gold for reported accumulated ounces of one million ounces or greater of gold plus an additional payment of US$0.50 per Initial Ounce; (b) US$299,614 as at July 31, 2022, owing to third parties in connection with exploration expenditure being salaries, Auger drilling, assaying, logistics and related expenditure; and (c) other monthly operating expenses from August 1, 2022 accruing and amounting to no greater than US$14,450 per month until closing. As at the date of hereof, the pricing and terms of the Financing have not yet been determined. Other than Thierry Dalais, a Seller under the Agreement, who will become an insider of Awale after closing of the Acquisition as he will then hold approximately 10.69% of the Awale outstanding shares, no other insiders of the Company will be participating in the Financing. Although the Financing is a condition to closing the Acquisition, which may be waived, closing of the Financing is not contingent or conditional on completion of the Acquisition. Under the terms of the Agreement, any party could terminate the Agreement if any of the Closing Conditions for the benefit of the terminating party was not satisfied or waived by October 15, 2022 (the "Outside Date"), unless such date was extended by mutual written consent of Awale and Colossal. Awale and Colossal have agreed to extend the Outside Date to November 30, 2022. About Awale Resources Awale is an exploration company focused on the discovery of large high-grade gold and copper-gold deposits. The Company currently undertakes exploration activities in the underexplored parts of Cote d'Ivoire. Awale's success to date at the Odienne Project in the Northwest of Cote d'Ivoire has culminated in a fully funded earn-in Joint Venture with Newmont (the "Newmont JV") covering the Odienne Project where two primary targets for world-class discoveries have been made: i) the gold-rich Empire corridor and ii) the recently defined Charger, Sceptre and now Lando Iron Oxide Copper Gold ("IOCG") targets. Parts of the remaining 200km2 of granted tenure and 400km2 under application remains underexplored and offers significant IOCG potential. The Newmont JV forms the solid foundation for the Company to continue looking at new opportunities in new jurisdictions which offers significant potential for district scale discoveries. Awale is currently in the process of completing the acquisition of Colossal Gold Resources, a private company with a highly prospective gold exploration portfolio in Suriname, which provides an excellent strategic fit and future growth potential for Awale. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD AWALE RESOURCES LIMITED "Derk Hartman" Independent Director and Chairman of the Special Committee Derk Hartman, Director Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by such information. The statements in this news release are made as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information except as required by applicable law. Cautionary Statement NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE SOURCE Awale Resources COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ventech Solutions, Inc. has hired Fred Altimont and Tony Meyer, two new growth and development senior vice presidents. Each reporting to Chief Executive Officer Tonia Bleecher, Altimont and Meyer will be responsible for growing Ventech Solutions' business across the public sector. Fred Altimont, Senior Vice President of Growth and Development at Ventech Solutions Tony Meyer, Senior Vice President of Growth and Development at Ventech Solutions "We're thrilled to have Fred and Tony join our leadership team and at the helm of our business development efforts," said, Tonia Bleecher, Chief Executive Officer at Ventech Solutions. "With their track record of success and our range of technology products and offerings, we're looking forward to extending our ability to serve more of our federal customers with the solutions and services that enable their mission." Altimont comes to Ventech Solutions with 30+ years of leadership focused on strategic business growth, revenue generation and business operations for commercial and public sector organizationsprimarily within the health care sector. Prior to joining Ventech Solutions, Fred was vice president, business development at Optum Health and has held a number of leadership positions within the health care and IT space over his career. Altimont is a board member for Battle Against Neurological Disease (B.A.N.D.) and the Alex Popek Never Back Down Foundation. Meyer brings his deep background in the federal health IT space to Ventech Solutions. He has focused his career on health care and health IT sharing initiatives, health care-related information management and IT projects and policy issues concerning information technology and information systems. Prior to joining Ventech Solutions, Tony held a number of leadership positions, including vice president of veterans affairs & defense health at Halfaker and Associates, director of business development at CSRA and chief business development officer at MicroHealth. Meyer has also served on the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) National Capital Area Chapter Board including past roles as a board member, president and vice president. With the addition of Altimont and Meyer, Ventech Solutions is poised and ready to expand their core capabilites across multiple IT sectors within the government market. About Ventech Solutions Ventech Solutions is a technology and health care solutions provider that leverages emerging technologies to deliver a wide range of enterprise services, including cloud modernization, infrastructure, data, security and service integration support. Ventech Solutions leads and manages some of the most critical technology transformation initiatives for the public sector that empower government agencies to achieve their missions. For more information, visit www.ventechsolutions.com. Media Contact For more information, contact Media Relations at [email protected]. SOURCE Ventech Solutions, Inc. Cash Prize Awards for Veteran-Owned Startups SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- VetsinTech, the leading national non-profit dedicated to supporting veterans through tech-based programs and opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship, announced the top finalists in its 2022 Startup Pitch Competition. The event is hosted by VetsinTech and sponsored by JPMorgan Chase, Oracle Netsuite, and AWS Startups. The five veteran, military, and spouse-owned startups named will advance to the concluding round of the tech startup pitch competition. Winners will be selected from the five advancing companies in the final phase that will take place via a live, virtual pitch competition on October 13, 2022. The five veteran, military and spouse-owned startups that are advancing are: Grapefruit Health Grapefruit Health is addressing the massive staffing shortage in healthcare by creating the first and only workforce composed of clinical students who perform work remotely on behalf of healthcare organizations. https://www.grapefruit.health/ Grapefruit Health is addressing the massive staffing shortage in healthcare by creating the first and only workforce composed of clinical students who perform work remotely on behalf of healthcare organizations. Parlay Parlay is a financial education SaaS that creates alternative credit decisioning data to help mission-driven lenders rapidly underwrite loan applications from underrepresented borrowers. https://www.parlay.finance Parlay is a financial education SaaS that creates alternative credit decisioning data to help mission-driven lenders rapidly underwrite loan applications from underrepresented borrowers. Native Native is a secure platform for multilingual messaging that creates access to opportunity by empowering people to communicate in the language they know best. https://www.nativechats.com Native is a secure platform for multilingual messaging that creates access to opportunity by empowering people to communicate in the language they know best. Voi Voi provides AI-driven solutions that identify suicide risk, prevent suicides, and solve behavioral healthcare challenges. https://www.voi.health Voi provides AI-driven solutions that identify suicide risk, prevent suicides, and solve behavioral healthcare challenges. Zimba Zimba develops automated core banking software for financial institutions in emerging markets, so they can be more efficient in helping people and businesses. https://zimba.io To be eligible to compete in VetsinTech's startup pitch competition, each business must be an early-stage startup founded by veterans or military spouses and ideally offering innovative products or services that are filling a big gap in the market. Companies' diversity, equity and inclusion, and social impact efforts are also considered. Cash prizes are awarded to the top winners as follows: 1st place prize: $25,000 2nd place prize: $10,000 3rd place prize: $5,000 "We're thrilled to be hosting our 2nd annual tech startup pitch competition and recognizing some of the most promising early-stage veteran and military spouse startups. We congratulate the five finalist companies who have progressed to this stage of the competition," said VetsinTech Founder and CEO Katherine Webster. "This event is a great opportunity to showcase the amazing work that our veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs are doing in the tech industry and to celebrate their successes." Over the years, VetsinTech has supported veteran entrepreneurs, equipping them with extensive mentorships, workshops, boot camps, hackathons, and virtual office hours. This pitch competition extends a broad range of ongoing entrepreneurship initiatives provided by VetsinTech. Registration Media and the public are invited to the free live event and can register here: http://zip2.it/pitch . About VetsInTech Based in San Francisco, with more than 70,000 vets strong and 20 chapters across the country, VetsInTech is the leading national non-profit devoted 100% to springboarding veterans into tech careers. VetsinTech harnesses the national technology ecosystem to benefit veterans returning from active military duty who want to apply their exceptional training, skills, and experience to a new technology career. Comprising technology industry leaders and former service members, VetsinTech is the only non-profit supporting our veterans through tech-based programs and opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship. For more information, interested parties can visit www.vetsintech.co . About JPMorgan Chase's commitment to service members and veterans: JPMorgan Chase, a leading global financial services firm with assets of $3.7 trillion and operations worldwide, has supported our veterans since before World War I. Since establishing the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs in 2011, the firm has hired more than 16,000 veterans; facilitated more than 680,000 veteran hires through the Veteran Jobs Mission coalition; awarded more than 1,050 mortgage-free homes to military families in need; and helped nearly 50,000 participants enroll in Onward to Opportunity, a free career training program of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, which was co-founded and is supported by JPMorgan Chase and Syracuse University. Learn more at: www.jpmorganchase.com/veterans . Press Contacts: For VetsinTech Carmen Hughes Ignite X [email protected] 650.453.8553 SOURCE VetsinTech WELL Health is acquiring CloudMD's Cloud Practice entity which includes OSCAR 1 based Juno EMR or "Electronic Medical Record" and ClinicAid billing Software applications as well as three primary care clinics located in the province of British Columbia . based Juno EMR or "Electronic Medical Record" and ClinicAid billing Software applications as well as three primary care clinics located in the province of . The combined entities serve more than 2,500 healthcare practitioners across Canada and represent WELL's entrance in the Alberta and Saskatchewan markets for its EMR and billing products. and represent WELL's entrance in the and markets for its EMR and billing products. Post transaction WELL expects the assets to operate profitably while contributing more than $9M in topline revenues. in topline revenues. WELL will pay approximately $5.75 million for all assets, subject to post-closing adjustments and holdbacks, reflecting an accretive transaction. VANCOUVER, B.C, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - WELL Health Technologies Corp. (TSX: WELL) (the "Company" or "WELL"), a digital health company focused on positively impacting health outcomes by leveraging technology to empower healthcare practitioners and their patients globally, is pleased to announce it has entered into an agreement to acquire Cloud Practice Inc. ("Cloud Practice") and three clinics (the "Transaction") from CloudMD Software & Services Inc. ("CloudMD"). Hamed Shahbazi, CEO and Founder of WELL, said, "This transaction demonstrates our dedication to expanding and strengthening WELL's Canadian healthcare offering through disciplined capital allocation. This acquisition will also enable our EMR and billing divisions to enter new markets in the Canadian Prairies where we look forward to supporting healthcare practitioners' access to new digital health innovations." Cloud Practice is a medical software application company with products including Juno EMR, a cloud based EMR solution based on OSCAR1, and ClinicAid, a medical billing software used by healthcare practitioners who don't need access to a full EMR. Outside of WELL who is the largest provider of OSCAR1 EMR products and services, Juno EMR represented the largest remaining asset and market share available in the OSCAR1 based EMR industry. Both Juno EMR and ClinicAid represent WELL's entrance into the Alberta and Saskatchewan markets for its EMR and medical billing related lines of business. Both assets will be integrated into WELL's Provider Solutions Business Unit, under WELL's existing EMR and Billing platforms. Amir Javidan, COO of WELL commented, "This transaction is a win for healthcare practitioners and their patients as it will allow software users and clinicians joining our network to have access to WELL's innovative Apps.Health platform which includes dozens of apps designed by leading 3rd party digital health companies providing advanced physician tools such as an AI-powered virtual assistant to premium digital patient engagement tools that can drive significant operating efficiencies for clinics." The three primary care clinics being acquired in the Transaction currently have a total staff of 20 physicians operating out of two clinics in Vancouver, BC and one clinic in Surrey, BC. These clinics are owned by subsidiaries of CloudMD, with all of the shares of these entities being acquired as part of the Transaction. These three clinics will be integrated into WELL's existing primary care clinic network under WELL Health Canada Clinics Inc. Transaction Details: The consideration to be paid by WELL in connection with the Transaction is $5,750,000, with $5,100,000 to be paid in cash at closing, and the balance subject to customary post closing adjustments and holdbacks. Closing of the Transaction is expected in Q4 2022 and is subject to standard closing conditions. INFOR Financial Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor and Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP acted as legal advisor to CloudMD. Notes: 1. OSCAR, an acronym for "Open Source Clinical Application Resource", is an open-source EMR system developed by McMaster University's Department of Family Medicine to inspire collaboration between the wide spectrum of health professionals with the goal to drive downstream benefits to patient care. WELL HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES CORP. Per: "Hamed Shahbazi" Hamed Shahbazi Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Director About WELL Health Technologies Corp. WELL is a practitioner focused digital healthcare company whose overarching objective is to positively impact health outcomes to empower and support healthcare practitioners and their patients. WELL has built an innovative practitioner enablement platform that includes comprehensive end to end practice management tools inclusive of virtual care and digital patient engagement capabilities as well as Electronic Medical Records (EMR), Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and data protection services. WELL uses this platform to power healthcare practitioners both inside and outside of WELL's own omni-channel patient services offerings. As such, WELL owns and operates Canada's largest network of outpatient medical clinics serving primary and specialized healthcare services and is the provider of a leading multi-national, multi-disciplinary telehealth offering. WELL is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "WELL" and on OTCQX under the symbol "WHTCF". To learn more about the Company, please visit: www.well.company . Forward-Looking Information This news release may contain "Forward-Looking Information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including without limitation the completion of the Transaction, the expected topline revenue associated with the assets, and clinic future growth. Forward-Looking Information is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties, and contingencies. Forward-Looking Information generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "should", "will", "could", "intend", "estimate", "plan", "anticipate", "expect", "believe" or "continue", or the negative thereof or similar variations. Forward-looking Information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such Forward Looking Information and, which are not guarantees of future performance. WELL's statements expressed or implied by Forward Looking Information are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and conditions, many of which are outside of WELL 's control, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Forward-Looking Information is qualified in their entirety by inherent risks and uncertainties, including: direct and indirect material adverse effects from the COVID-19 pandemic; adverse market conditions; risks inherent in the primary healthcare sector in general; regulatory and legislative changes; that future results may vary from historical results; inability to obtain any requisite future financing on suitable terms; any inability to realize the expected benefits and synergies of acquisitions; that market competition may affect the business, results and financial condition of WELL and other risk factors identified in documents filed by WELL under its profile at www.sedar.com, including its most recent Annual Information Form. Except as required by securities law, WELL does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise. SOURCE WELL Health Technologies Corp. The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research Honors Tiffanie Courtney AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tiffanie Courtney, CIC, CISR, CRIS Senior Account Manager for M3 Insurance, in De Pere, Wisconsin has been awarded the most prestigious honor available to insurance customer service representatives: National Outstanding CSR of the Year. The Society of Certified Insurance Service Representatives (CISR) and the Society of Certified Insurance Counselors (CIC) selected Ms. Courtney as the national winner from a field of 35 state winners. After five national finalists were chosen, a panel of judges evaluated their individual contributions to the insurance community and essays written on the topic: "Transferable Skills are learned from experience which includes prior careers, education, volunteer work, or personal encounters. What are the top three skills you transferred from outside the insurance industry to your current job role? Discuss how you leverage your skills, continue to develop and evolve them, and how you transfer your expertise to others to ensure perpetually exceptional customer service." In her essay, Ms. Courtney mentions the legacy that she would like to leave behind. She states: "It isn't the large experiences that make you who you are. It's the small ones. I am my own painting. Every brush stroke is a conversation, a touch, an opportunity to share, learn, guide, and reflect. We change directions and colors. When you look closely you can see each one but take a step back and see the whole picture, it's a masterpiece! The masterpiece I want to leave behind in this industry is that I cared enough to take the time to make someone feel heard and important, to share my knowledge in a usable capacity, and to exceed expectations. Paving a path for others to see the potential in the industry and have a passion for service." Ms. Courtney receives a cash award of $2,000, a distinctive gold and diamond lapel pin, and her name on a sculpture at The National Alliance headquarters. A National Alliance scholarship will be awarded to her employer, M3 Insurance. In addition to the national winner, four national finalists were chosen from a competitive field of applicants: Suzanne Sanders Durante , ACSR, CLP with Durante Insurance & Financial Services, in Las Vegas, Nevada , ACSR, CLP with Durante Insurance & Financial Services, in Amber Patterson , CISR, with Howard Hanna Insurance Services, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , CISR, with Howard Hanna Insurance Services, in Amy Jo Ratcliff , CIC, CISR with HUB International Mountain States Limited, in Casper, Wyoming , CIC, CISR with HUB International Mountain States Limited, in Brittany Ratke with Christensen Group Insurance, in Eden Prairie, Minnesota Each finalist receives a gold and garnet lapel pin, $500 cash award, and publicity in a national trade journal. For additional information about this award, contact The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research: PO Box 27027, Austin, Texas 78755-2027; 800-633-2165; Email [email protected]; Website: www.TheNationalAlliance.com . Media Contact: Danielle Janecka Chief Experience Officer The Society of Certified Insurance Service Representatives 512-349-6181 [email protected] SOURCE The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research Racial Equity 2030 will unleash bold solutions to improve the lives of children, families and communities around the world. BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) announced five awardees for its Racial Equity 2030 challenge, an open call for bold solutions to drive an equitable future for children, families and communities around the world. Over the next eight years, WKKF will contribute a total of $80 million to help build and scale actionable ideas for transformative change in the systems and institutions that uphold racial inequities. Five Racial Equity 2030 Challenge awardees to advance racial equity around the world! Tweet this Announcing the 5 awardees for the W.K. Kellogg Foundations Racial Equity 2030 Challenge! "The bold work proposed by each of the awardees fills me with hope that together we can attack the roots of inequity in our communities and build a future in which all children can thrive," said La June Montgomery Tabron, WKKF president and CEO. "But this change won't happen unless we act, and I believe we must act now. I am excited to partner with these teams to address racism in their communities and support systemic change across the globe." The challenge was announced in 2020 during the 90th anniversary of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and received 1,453 submissions from 72 countries. In September 2021, the Kellogg Foundation announced the top 10 finalists for the challenge, each of whom received a $1 million planning grant and nine months of capacity-building support, including advising from the Dalberg Group, to further develop their project and strengthen their application. The five awardees announced today are advancing racial equity with unique approaches from transforming education systems to healing communities and empowering historically marginalized Indigenous people. The awardees are: The SETA Project: Transformative Anti Racist Education Systems in Brazil : In Brazil , where most of the population identifies as Black or mixed race, systemic racism persists. A coalition of organizations believe that while schools perpetuate the problem, they can also spearhead its eradication. ActionAid , the Brazilian National Campaign on the Right to Education, CONAQ, UneAFRO Brasil, Geledes, Makira-E'ta and Acao Educativa will work together to transform the Brazilian public school network into the world's first anti-racist education system, harnessing youth, education and Black movements, and sparking a national healing process. Internationally, ActionAid and the University of Bristol's Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education will mobilize a global network and promote racial equity as a priority in global education. In , where most of the population identifies as Black or mixed race, systemic racism persists. A coalition of organizations believe that while schools perpetuate the problem, they can also spearhead its eradication. , the Brazilian National Campaign on the Right to Education, CONAQ, UneAFRO Brasil, Geledes, Makira-E'ta and Acao Educativa will work together to transform the Brazilian public school network into the world's first anti-racist education system, harnessing youth, education and Black movements, and sparking a national healing process. Internationally, ActionAid and the University of Bristol's Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education will mobilize a global network and promote racial equity as a priority in global education. Healing Through Justice: A Community-Led Breakthrough Strategy for Healing-Centered Communities in Illinois, U.S.A. : For many Black and Brown youth in Chicago , systemic racism has a profound impact on their mental health, as well as the well-being of their communities. Communities United and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago will bring to scale "Healing through Justice," a youth-led movement for community healing through community engagement, leadership and advocacy training and the development of strategies for health system changes. For many Black and youth in , systemic racism has a profound impact on their mental health, as well as the well-being of their communities. and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of will bring to scale "Healing through Justice," a youth-led movement for community healing through community engagement, leadership and advocacy training and the development of strategies for health system changes. Indigenous Lands Initiative: Securing Land Ownership Rights for Indigenous Communities in Mexico and Central and South America : The ability of Indigenous peoples to use and protect their land is under threat across the Americas, due to the harmful acts of illegal settlers, miners, drug traffickers and commercial interests, as well as governments' failure to protect their rights. The Indian Law Resource Center , the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon and the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon will build a permanent Indigenous-led institution to provide essential technical and legal assistance to help Indigenous peoples secure ownership of their lands and to speed up and improve Indigenous land titling processes in Mexico and Central and South America . : The ability of Indigenous peoples to use and protect their land is under threat across the Americas, due to the harmful acts of illegal settlers, miners, drug traffickers and commercial interests, as well as governments' failure to protect their rights. The , the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon and the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon will build a permanent Indigenous-led institution to provide essential technical and legal assistance to help Indigenous peoples secure ownership of their lands and to speed up and improve Indigenous land titling processes in and Central and . Overcoming Environmental Racism by Knowing, Using and Shaping Law in Kenya , Sierra Leone and the U.S. : Throughout the world, marginalized communities of color disproportionally suffer the impacts of climate change and other environmental harm. Yet, they have little say in the making and implementation of the environmental laws that most affect them. Namati and its partners will equip frontline communities with the power of law, so they can protect their own well-being and ultimately make systems of environmental governance more equitable. Globally, Namati and members of the Legal Empowerment Network will launch an international policy advocacy campaign and drive cross-border learning on grassroots environmental justice. Throughout the world, marginalized communities of color disproportionally suffer the impacts of climate change and other environmental harm. Yet, they have little say in the making and implementation of the environmental laws that most affect them. and its partners will equip frontline communities with the power of law, so they can protect their own well-being and ultimately make systems of environmental governance more equitable. Globally, Namati and members of the Legal Empowerment Network will launch an international policy advocacy campaign and drive cross-border learning on grassroots environmental justice. Kawailoa: A Transformative Indigenous Model to End Youth Incarceration in Hawai'i and Beyond: In Hawai'i, young Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are disproportionately represented in the juvenile justice system. As a vulnerable population, they encounter setbacks that are indicative of systemic failures and generational challenges, including foster care, substance abuse, human trafficking and loss of loved ones. The Opportunity Youth Action Hawaii collaborative, representing community-based and state entities (Partners in Development Foundation and its Kupa Aina Farm, Kinai Eha, Hale Lanipolua, Residential Youth Services & Empowerment, Hawaii Youth and Correctional Facility and Olomana School) at the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center is committed to replacing youth incarceration with a Native Hawaiian restorative system that empowers communities, trains youth healers and shifts resources to community-driven and culturally-grounded sanctuaries of support. The Racial Equity 2030 Challenge was managed in partnership with Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that connects donors with bold solutions to the world's biggest problemsincluding issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity and climate change. "We are uplifted by the ambition and creativity of the projects proposed by these teams," said Cecilia Conrad, CEO of Lever for Change. "We invite others across the philanthropic, public and private sectors to join forces in funding the awardees and other outstanding organizations that participated in Racial Equity 2030, in order to challenge the systems and institutions that uphold inequity around the world. We have an opportunity now to create ripples of impact throughout our global community to be felt for years to come." More information about the Racial Equity 2030 Challenge, the awardees, and the finalists can be found at wkkf.org/re2030. W.K. Kellogg Foundation The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life. The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. To learn more about WKKF, visit www.wkkf.org or follow WKKF on Twitter at @wk_kellogg_fdn. Lever for Change Lever for Change connects donors with bold solutions to the world's biggest problemsincluding issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change. Using an inclusive, equitable model and due diligence process, Lever for Change creates customized challenges and other tailored funding opportunities. Top-ranked teams and challenge finalists become members of the Bold Solutions Networka growing global network that helps secure additional funding, amplify members' impact, and accelerate social change. Founded in 2019 as a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Lever for Change has influenced more than $1 billion in grants to date and provided support to more than 145 organizations. To learn more, visit www.leverforchange.org. SOURCE W.K. Kellogg Foundation BEIJING, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Quanzhou city of east China's Fujian Province has attached much importance to science and technology innovation as the driving force of development to build itself into a leading manufacturing hub with stronger capacity. Quanzhou is committed to the development of the real economy. It has formed nine industrial clusters worth 100 billion yuan respectively including textile and clothing, footwear, food, building materials, etc. Photo shows the intelligent production and storage base of Fujian Hengan Group. In 2021, the city's GDP reached 1.13 trillion yuan, with the total industrial output value jumping over 2 trillion yuan and the industrial added value ranking among the top ten in China. Quanzhou is also among the first batch to be listed as a national demonstration city of private economy and innovation. Quanzhou municipal government has taken efforts in the past ten years to promote sci-tech innovation and formulated 19 policies for industrial transformation and upgrading as well as optimizing supply chains. In Jinjiang city of Quanzhou, enterprises are encouraged to step up sci-tech innovation and industrial transformation in the next two years with incentive support funds of 3 billion yuan. In addition, Quanzhou has also built a batch of technology platforms with universities, enterprises and academic institutions to help nearly 2,000 enterprises solve technical problems. These platforms have covered sectors such as intelligent equipment, information, textile and building materials. Under the support of multiple sci-tech innovation policies, the city's industrial output capacity has soared dramatically. In the past 10 years, Quanzhou's total industrial output rocketed up from 950 billion yuan in 2012 to 2.4 trillion yuan in 2021 while the number of industrial enterprises worth 100 million yuan increased from 1,704 in 2012 to 3,091 in 2021. Currently, the high-tech industry is becoming a new engine for Quanzhou's high-quality development. By the end of 2021, a total of 1,630 high-tech enterprises have settled in the city. In the first half of this year, the added value of high-tech industry above the designated size grew by 13.5 percent year on year. Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/330486.html SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road BEIJING, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Quanzhou city of east China's Fujian Province has attached much importance to science and technology innovation as the driving force of development to build itself into a leading manufacturing hub with stronger capacity. Quanzhou is committed to the development of the real economy. It has formed nine industrial clusters worth 100 billion yuan respectively including textile and clothing, footwear, food, building materials, etc. Photo shows the intelligent production and storage base of Fujian Hengan Group. In 2021, the city's GDP reached 1.13 trillion yuan, with the total industrial output value jumping over 2 trillion yuan and the industrial added value ranking among the top ten in China. Quanzhou is also among the first batch to be listed as a national demonstration city of private economy and innovation. Quanzhou municipal government has taken efforts in the past ten years to promote sci-tech innovation and formulated 19 policies for industrial transformation and upgrading as well as optimizing supply chains. In Jinjiang city of Quanzhou, enterprises are encouraged to step up sci-tech innovation and industrial transformation in the next two years with incentive support funds of 3 billion yuan. In addition, Quanzhou has also built a batch of technology platforms with universities, enterprises and academic institutions to help nearly 2,000 enterprises solve technical problems. These platforms have covered sectors such as intelligent equipment, information, textile and building materials. Under the support of multiple sci-tech innovation policies, the city's industrial output capacity has soared dramatically. In the past 10 years, Quanzhou's total industrial output rocketed up from 950 billion yuan in 2012 to 2.4 trillion yuan in 2021 while the number of industrial enterprises worth 100 million yuan increased from 1,704 in 2012 to 3,091 in 2021. Currently, the high-tech industry is becoming a new engine for Quanzhou's high-quality development. By the end of 2021, a total of 1,630 high-tech enterprises have settled in the city. In the first half of this year, the added value of high-tech industry above the designated size grew by 13.5 percent year on year. Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/330486.html Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1918125/1.jpg SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road Press Release October 11, 2022 'POWERR' FOR ONLINE WORKERS, DELIVERY RIDERS: HONTIVEROS BATS FOR GIG WORKERS' PROTECTION Senator Risa Hontiveros is pushing for a measure to protect the rights and welfare of the increasing number of Filipino workers in the gig economy, which covers delivery riders and other freelancers. Hontiveros filed Senate Bill No. 1373, or the Protektadong Online Workers, Entrepreneurs, Riders at Raketera (POWERR) Act. "Ang layon ng POWERR Act ay ma-empower ang delivery riders at freelancers. Ang pagpasa nito ay magbibigay sa kanila ng kaukulang social protection katulong ang iba't ibang ahensya ng pamahalaan," she said. "This will guarantee that the rights of the delivery riders and online freelancers are protected. It will mandate the state to craft standards for regulations in relation to the services that these workers perform," Hontiveros added. The proposed legislation requires that workers of online platforms be paid at least the legally mandated minimum wage, whether it be on an hourly or per-task basis. Furthermore, a portability mechanism of social protection programs in which the online providers should ensure that the workers are enrolled in government social protection programs such as PhilHealth, SSS, PAg-IBIG among others, should be included. Female workers shall also be provided with a maternity benefit upon childbirth in a manner and amount determined by the SSS. "Because work conditions in the gig economy are often unstable, workers in this sector are more affected by economic shocks and the lack of clear rules. Kailangan nila ng steady income at masasandalan na mga benepisyo para may matanggap sila sakaling magsakit, mabuntis o magretiro," she said. Once the bill is passed, online platform workers can organize, collectively bargain and negotiate with their providers. They will also have the right to be informed about any decision or action, taken or assisted by an algorithmic system affecting their employment or working conditions. Online platforms will also be held liable for injuries sustained by the workers in the performance of their duty, especially among delivery riders. The online platforms are also required to uphold transparency in their algorithmic management systems and placed these under human supervision. "Despite being our 'quarantine heroes', their safety and health are always on the line. Kung tunay silang katuwang ng mga kumpanya para maghatid ng serbisyo, hindi ba't nararapat lang din na may pananagutan sila sakaling may madisgrasya sa gitna ng trabaho?," she said. "Dapat nang tugunan ang mga hinaing ng ating delivery riders at online platform workers. They have been bearing the risk of labor abuses due to gaps in our laws and policies. It's time we put their sufferings to an end," Hontiveros concluded. United Nations, Oct 11 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for making mental health a global priority and urged actions to promote universal quality mental health care. Nearly 1 billion people live with a mental health condition. But mental health remains one of the most neglected aspects of health care, Guterres said on Monday in a message marking the World Mental Health Day, which falls on October 10, Xinhua news agency reported. "Some countries have only two mental health workers for every 100,000 people. The social and economic repercussions are profound," he said, noting that anxiety and depression alone cost the global economy an estimated $1 trillion dollars per year. The UN chief stressed the need to strengthen the capacity of health services to offer quality care to those in need, in particular young people. Stigma and discrimination must be addressed along with breaking down the barriers that stop people from seeking care and support, he said. Guterres also underscored the importance of preventing the root causes of mental health conditions, including violence and abuse, adding that the UN is committed to working with partners to promote mental wellbeing. "As we mark World Mental Health Day, let us make it a global priority and act urgently so that everyone, everywhere has access to quality mental health care," he said. Tehran, Oct 11 : Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani "warned" the US and Europe not to associate Iran's recent "internal problems" with the nuclear talks. "We believe that the internal issues is related to the (Iranian) government and the people of Iran and we do not allow any other country to interfere in Iran's internal affairs," Kanaani said during his weekly press conference, Xinhua news agency reported. "The positions and views of Iran (on nuclear talks) have been expressed many times, and we are ready to proceed in the same direction and reach a comprehensive agreement that will meet the interests of all parties," he added. The talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 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 the Austrian capital in early August after a five-month hiatus. On August 8, the EU put forward its final text of the draft decision on reviving the JCPOA. Iran and the United States later indirectly exchanged views on the EU proposal in a process that has so far failed to produce any favorable outcome. Madrid, Oct 11 : Six people have been arrested following the fatal shooting of a member of the Spanish armed forces in the country's North African enclave of Ceuta, Spanish police said. The shooting occurred early on Monday in a garage in the El Principe neighborhood of Ceuta. The victim, who has been described as a "37-year-old man", was shot "multiple times" in the legs and waist, Xinhua news agency reported. The emergency services rushed him to the hospital, where he later died of his wounds. The incident is the latest in a series of violent crimes involving firearms in the neighborhood. Recently, seven police officers suffered injuries as they carried out an arrest in El Principe. The police said that the solider, who was a resident in Ceuta, had not been involved in any other incident, although a member of his family had previously received threats, which are now being looked at. It is still not certain if the shooter was among those detained by the police. Lucknow, Oct 11 : The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested eight members of terror outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), officials said. According to an official release, those arrested have been identified as Luqmaan, Shahzad, Kari Mukhtar, Mudassir, Kamil, Alin Noor, Nawazish Ansari and Aleem. ATS officials said that Mudassir was arrested from Haridwar and the others from Saharanpur. They all have been booked under the charges of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and concealing with intent to wage war. ADG (Law and Order), Prashant Kumar said that the ATS was receiving information from intel agencies that al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS) and its associate agency JMB were spreading their network in Uttar Pradesh and planning to wage a war against the state. The officer said that the arrested Bangladeshis used to add orthodox people in their group, inviting them in the name of jihad while they used to keep their identities a secret. The ATS said that Luqmaan had given shelter to terrorist Abdul Talha for 11 months and also funded terror activities. Police also seized an anti-country literature, a pen drive and a mobile phone and sent it for forensic examination. Abdul Talha is wanted by the NIA and STF, West Bengal in multiple terror acts. The officer said that Shahzad was adept in bomb making and had also spread the wings of the outfit to Madhya Pradesh. "Mudassir was given Rs 80,000 by Talha for a terror act. Another accused Kamil had used his bank account in which Rs 2. 5 lakh was sent by Talha," ATS sources said. Further, Alinoor was involved in radicalising youths by tutoring them and had hidden his real identity. Other accused, Nawazish and Aleem also provided logistics support to terrorist Talha. Bhopal, Oct 11 : Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, also called Mahakal's Nagari after the ancient Mahakaleshwar temple here, will witness the grand inauguration of the newly developed 'Mahakal Lok' on Tuesday, which will be live-streamed across 40 countries. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the first phase of the mega project at 6.30 p.m. The ceremony of Mahakal Lok will be telecast live in 40 countries to connect the devotees of Lord Shiva. Here in Madhya Pradesh, all prominent temples of Lord Shiva will be decorated with hundreds of earthen lamps. The Madhya Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has prepared an elaborate arrangement to make the occasion extravagant. The project in the holy city of Ujjain, which is expected to significantly boost tourism in the state, is a key part of the party's "cultural resurgence" plank to increase its support base in the state, country and across the globe ahead of the 2023 Assembly and then 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The state BJP president Vishnu Dutt Sharma said the party's NRI cell reached out to NRIs in 40 countries, including the US, the UK, the UAE, New Zealand and Canada. "We reached out to the people from Madhya Pradesh residing in these countries. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and I held a virtual meeting with them and they were excited to join the event. We are planning to extend the list of countries to 50. Apart from virtually attending the event, the NRIs will organise special ceremonies like lighting of lamps to mark the occasion," Sharma said. Sharma further said that over 1,000 giant screens will also be put up across the state to facilitate the public viewing of the event as part of the BJP's efforts to draw more people to the party. The party workers have been exhorted to organise 'Diwali-like events' at the booth level to celebrate the event. According to state Home Minister Narottam Mishra, Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to arrive in Indore from Ahmedabad at 4 p.m. and then will reach Ujjain between 5 to 5.30 p.m. The Prime Minister will offer his prayers at the Mahakaleshwar temple and then will inaugurate the newly constructed part of the temple. San Francisco, Oct 11 : CNN has surprisingly shut down its crypto and Web 3.0 project called 'Vault' where the company aimed to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of news stories. The shocked users accused CNN of a "rug pull", a term used when crypto developers abandon a project and run away with investors' funds. The media giant launched 'Vault by CNN' in 2021 as a marketplace for its own NFTs that would "offer collectors the opportunity to own a piece of history." In a statement late on Monday, the company said that it is "saying goodbye to Vault by CNN." "The Vault team is honoured to have partnered with amazing journalists, producers, artists, photojournalists, and collectors from all over the world during our time together," the company added. Vault was originally launched as a six-week experiment, but the support and engagement from the community let CNN expand this project into something much larger. "We learned a lot from our first foray into Web3, and we are excited to carry Vault's concepts around community storytelling into future projects," the company said. In a Discord channel for the service, the company said that the Vault website will "undergo changes," but will remain available for creators to view their collections and use its marketplace. CNN said it plans to compensate "the thousands of collectors who joined us in this experiment". "The distribution will be either FLOW tokens or stablecoins deposited into each collector's wallet. We are currently working out the details, but expect the distribution amount to be roughly 20 per cent of the original mint price for each Vault NFT owned," the company was quoted as saying in The Verge. A Vault user commented: "Is an announcement of rug supposed to be consoling to a community who waited patiently for slow-but-promised utility?" Caracas, Oct 11 : The death toll from landslides that swept away houses in the Venezuelan town of Las Tejerias last weekend has increased to 36, while 56 people still remain unaccounted for, a government official announced. In his announcement on Monday, Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos said the government has distributed 300 tonnes of food and water in the affected area, Xinhua news agency. The Minister added that more than 3,000 members of police and fire departments, the Civil Protection agency and the Bolivarian National Armed Forces have been deployed to help with the recovery efforts. Earlier, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said that 317 houses had been completely destroyed and 757 damaged. While electricity has been restored, potable water service is still out of order, she added. The landslides occurred after torrential rainfall caused the river El Pato to burst its banks. The resulting floodwaters swept away, trees, cars, houses and shops in the town, some 50 km south-west of the capital, Caracas. Wellington, Oct 11 : There have been two mass strandings of pilot whales on New Zealand's Chatham Islands in the past two days, according to an organisation that specialises in the protection and conservation of marine animals. "Sadly, there has been a second mass stranding of pilot whales on the Chatham Islands, this time on Rangiauria/Pitt Island, about 40 km south from the stranding over the weekend," Xinhua news agency quoted Project Jonah New Zealand as saying on Tuesday. Reports suggest up to 250 whales in this second stranding event. A Department of Conservation (DOC) team is being mobilized from the Chatham Islands in response. The Chatham Islands are a challenging spot for stranding response, known for great white sharks, remote beaches, and a resident population of fewer than 800 people. These factors sadly meant the whales alive on discovery were euthanised by the DOC, according to the Project Jonah New Zealand. This incident followed a mass pilot whale stranding on the Chatham Islands on Sunday when 215 whales were involved, many of which had died. In March this year, at least 31 pilot whales died after a mass stranding at a beach near Farewell Spit on the South Island. Last year, rescuers were able to save 28 long-finned pilot whales of a pod of about 50 who had stranded on the beach, but the rest died. The worst stranding occurred in February 2017, when almost 700 whales beached, resulting in 250 deaths. The area has seen at least 11 pilot whale strandings in the past 15 years. Singapore, Oct 11 : An Indian-origin banker has been issued a 10-year prohibition order and a 24-month conditional warning by Singapore's top banking regulator for his role in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, involving former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Raj Sriram, former deputy chief executive and head of private banking at BSI Bank's Singapore branch (BSIS), was banned by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) from providing any financial advisory services for a 10-year period starting from Monday, The Straits Times reported. Najib Razak, who was Malaysia's prime minister from 2009 to 2018, and is serving a 12-year jail term, co-founded 1MDB and chaired its advisory board until 2016. The MAS order follows a 24-month conditional warning issued to Sriram in September 2021 by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), which investigates financial crimes. CAD's probe found that there were reasonable grounds for BSIS to file suspicious transaction reports regarding 1MDB's transactions with its subsidiaries and with a purported subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments. It said that BSIS did not file the reports due to Sriram's neglect. "BSIS, of which Sriram was deputy-CEO and head of private banking, was a key conduit for tainted funds in the 1MDB debacle," Ho Hern Shin, MAS deputy managing director for financial supervision, was quoted as saying in media reports. Under the conditional warning, Sriram paid $150,000 to the Singapore Government's Consolidated Fund, which is analogous to a bank account held by the Government, The Straits Times report said. According to CAD, Sriram will also continue to cooperate in 1MDB-related investigations and will not accept any directorship positions for a period of four years from September 6 last year. BSI Bank's Singapore unit was shut in 2016 for its role in the scandal, and the Swiss bank paid a composition penalty of $13.3 million. 1MDB raised billions of dollars in bonds for use in investment projects and joint ventures between 2009 and 2013. The US Department of Justice said $4.5 billion was diverted to offshore bank accounts and shell companies, many linked to Malaysian financier Jho Low, who helped set up 1MDB in 2009. United Nations, Oct 11 : While External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar kept the world in suspense on how India would vote on the upcoming resolution in the UN General Assembly condemning Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine, New Delhi has voted with the West on three procedural matters. When the Assembly met on Monday morning to discuss the resolution it became embroiled in a controversy over whether the voting should be by secret ballot necessitating the procedural votes. Russia which had launched a missile barrage on Ukraine a few hours earlier lost all the three votes on the procedural matters. The Assembly resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions is expected to come up for a vote in the Assembly on Wednesday or Thursday. It is nearly identical to the resolution that was vetoed by Russia last week in the Security Council. India had abstained in the Council vote. To preempt Moscow's anticipated move to have the resolution decided by secret ballot in the Assembly, Albania proposed a motion to have an open vote. Despite Russia's objections, it was put to vote and it was carried by 107 votes to 13, with 39 abstentions. Russia then asked for another vote on the matter, which Assembly President Csaba Korosi ruled would be a vote to reconsider the motion for open voting that was approved. But before it could be voted Russia's Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzia objected to Korosi's ruling and his challenge was put to vote. Showing Moscow's isolation on Ukraine, it was defeated, getting only 14 votes, with 104 against it and 38 abstentions. When the motion to reconsider open voting was put to vote, it got 16 votes to 104 against with 34 abstentions, marking Moscow's third defeat of the day. When asked by reporters earlier in Canberra how India would vote on the resolution on Russia's annexation of Ukraine territories, Jaishakar said: "As a matter of prudence and policy, we don't predict our votes in advance." India joining the West against Russia on procedural matters is not necessarily a precursor to a change in New Delhi's neutrality in voting on substantive matters involving Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As a diplomat pointed out, procedural votes are not on substantive matters and India had already voted with the West, once in the Council and another time in the Assembly, on the procedural issue of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing meetings remotely but abstained on resolutions condemning Moscow. Unlike the Council, the Assembly does not have enforcement powers, but its votes carry moral authority. In reaction to Moscow's veto in the Council in February soon after the invasion began, the Assembly took up a similar resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine and demanding it withdraw its troops. It was passed with 141 votes, with India among the 35 abstaining. The West is no9w on a mission to improve that tally in the vote this week. Asking for a secret ballot, Nebezia said that countries were being unduly pressured to vote with the West and a secret vote would shield those who were against the resolution but could not publicly vote their intent. During the debate on the resolution, Russia and Ukraine called each other terrorist nations, with Nebenzia citing the explosion on its vital bridge connecting it to Crimea, which it had annexed in 2014. "Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state," through the latest missile attacks which had endangered even his own relatives, Ukraine's Permanent Representative Sergey Kyslytsya said. In a personal attack on the Russian diplomats, he said that the chamber is filled with "the smell of smouldering human flesh" when they enter it with a "trail of blood". The countries, from Fiji to Mexico, that spoke on Monday condemned Russia. (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis) Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War Shimla, Oct 11 : High-altitude tourist destinations in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday witnessed season's heaviest snowfall while the state capital and Manali experienced overnight rains, pushing the mercury down by several notches, the weather office here said. Hoteliers cheered up in the hope of arrival of winter tourists with the timely onset of snowfall. The high-altitude Spiti and Lahaul valleys experienced moderate snowfall, making hill stations Kaza, Losar and Chicham more picturesque. Hills overlooking the picturesque tourist destinations of Chitkul, a village close to China border, in Kinnaur district and the majestic Rohtang Pass (13,050 feet), located 52 km from Manali, experienced snowfall. "High-altitude areas of Lahaul and Spiti, Chamba, Kullu, Kinnaur and Shimla districts have been experiencing light to moderate snow since Monday night, while mid and lower hills getting widespread rain," an official of the Met department told IANS. The majestic Dhauladhar ranges of the Himalayas surrounding Dharamsala wore fresh blanket of snow. Shimla, which received 19.2 mm rain, recorded the minimum temperature at 9.4 degree Celsius. Nearby tourist spots like Kufri, Fagu and Narkanda experienced rains. Manali, which saw a low of 10.4 degree, received 15 mm snow, while Dharamsala saw 81.3 mm rain, the highest in the state. Kalpa in Kinnaur district, which saw rain, recorded a low of 6.4 degrees Celsius, while the temperature was 3 degrees in Keylong. The Met department's forecast said that Western disturbances - a storm system originating from the Mediterranean-Caspian Sea region and moving across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region - would start withdrawing Wednesday. Chennai, Oct 11 : The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) will operate 16,888 buses in the state to cater to the festive rush during Diwali. Around 4,218 buses will be put into service from Chennai to other parts of the state. The State transport corporation in a statement on Tuesday said that 6,370 buses will ply from Chennai city to outside the city. The rest of the buses will be put into service as and when the need arises based on the rush. State Transport Minister S.S. Sivasankar in a meeting of senior transport officials on Monday has directed them to press into service maximum buses expecting huge rush in the state. According to the corporation, buses will be operated from six bus stations in Chennai between October 21 and October 23. It has also made arrangements for advance bookings of these buses. The corporation and police will also be on alert against minibus operators who charge heavily taking into consideration the rush during Diwali. Hyderabad, Oct 11 : Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and former Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu will attend the last rites of Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav later in the day. Telangana Chief Minister and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president Chandrasekhar Rao left for Saifai, Mulayam's native village in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh. KCR will pay respects and tributes to the mortal remains of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Later, he will participate in the funeral rites. Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and national president of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chandrababu Naidu also left for Uttar Pradesh to attend the last rites of Yadav. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and former Union minister Mulayam Singh Yadav died on Monday at the age of 82, following prolonged illness. In his condolence message, KCR noted Mulayam Singh Yadav, a secularist, came into politics with the inspiration of great leaders like famous socialist leaders Ram Manohar Lohia and famous freedom fighter Raj Narayan. KCR recalled that Mulayam, who served as the chief minister of the largest state Uttar Pradesh for three terms and also as the union minister,A worked for the welfare of the poor and weaker sections throughout his life. Chandrababu Naidu stated that he lost a dear brother. "Over 4 decades, I have had the fortune of spending plenty of time with the OBC stalwart who always impressed me with his charm, humility and deep understanding of Indian politics," said the TDP leader. "A rare gentleman, he was polite, and quietly went about achieving his socialist goals that transformed the lives of millions, becoming a much loved mass leader in the journey," added Naidu. San Francisco, Oct 11 : Following issues like roller coaster rides triggering the new iPhone 14 crash detection, tech giant Apple's executives have said there's no single "silver bullet" behind crash detection. According to AppleInsider, there have been real crashes, as well as erroneous rollercoaster reports, plus independent testing has shown that crash detection won't always work. Now two of Apple's executives have explained how crash detection works, and so why there can be these failures, or false positives. "It's mostly the G Force detection (of the new gyroscope and accelerometer)," Kaiann Drance, Apple's vice president of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing, was quoted as saying. "It is able to detect G Force up to 256 Gs. That was one of the key differences for the new accelerometers that the new watches and phones have," it added. Vice president, Sensing & Connectivity, Ron Huang, said: "It started off with our fundamental understanding of what is experienced during a crash." "In these crashes, you see impact forces over 100[Gs]," continued Huang. While Apple did not detail all of the different sensors, Huang stressed that it has to be a combination effort -- and that which sensors are combined will change depending on the situation. "There's no silver bullet, in terms of activating crash detection," he explains. "It's hard to say how many of these things have to trigger, because it's not a straight equation," he added. -- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed Silchar/Agartala, Oct 11 : Border Security Force (BSF) troopers accompanied by the Assam Police on Tuesday seized 9.477 kg of heroin worth Rs 47.4 crore in Karimganj district and arrested one person in connection, officials said. A BSF spokesman said the joint team intercepted a Tripura-bound truck near New Karimganj Railway Station. Upon searching the vehicle, 764 soap cases containing the heroin were recovered from a cavity made in the ceiling of the truck cabin. The spokesman added that the driver of the truck which was coming from Mizoram, has been arrested. BSF officials suspect that the drugs were smuggled from Myanmar. On October 8, Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a meeting in Guwahati with the Chief Ministers, Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police of all northeastern states on 'Drug Trafficking and National Security'. It was revealed during the meeting that since 2014, drugs worth of Rs 20,000 crore have been seized and 4,888 drug peddlers were arrested in the northeastern states. Guatemala City, Oct 11 : Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has declared a state of calamity to address the damage caused by tropical storm Julia, now downgraded to a tropical depression. The decision, made during a cabinet meeting on Monday, will be sent to Congress for ratification in the coming days, Xinhua news agency quoted the President as saying on social media. "The damages caused by Julia, in Central America and Guatemala, are copious. We are expecting very heavy rains and already have flooding, people buried, seven affected bridges, damaged roads and people without electricity," Giammattei said. There was a high probability of flooding in the next 48 to 72 hours, he said. The President also called on people living near rivers to evacuate to higher ground or take refuge at one of the 1,858 shelters set up. So far, the National Coordination for Disaster Reduction has reported 153,000 people affected by the heavy rain, with 1,302 people evacuated, 1,042 in shelters and two missing. In addition, the storm damaged 17 roads and seven bridges, and destroyed one bridge. Bengaluru, Oct 11 : The funding in Indian startups nosedived a massive 80 per cent (year-on-year) in the third quarter (July-September period) this year, with the late stage funding seeing the biggest fall, a report showed on Tuesday. Indian startups raised $3 billion in Q3, which was also 57 per cent lower as compared to the previous quarter (Q2) this year. The average ticket size also witnessed a drop across all funding stages, with the late stage seeing the biggest fall of over 70 per cent, from $142 million in Q3 2021 to $42 million in Q3 2022. This indicated that investors are not willing to make large investments until economic conditions stabilise, reports market intelligence platform Tracxn. "India is currently experiencing a funding slowdown which is expected to continue for the next 12-18 months and the effects of the funding slowdown are expected to intensify going forward," said Neha Singh, Co-Founder, Tracxn. Executives across the world anticipate a recession in the near future and are making preparations to cut costs. "To add to their woes, the recent energy crisis in the UK and Europe and also the sliding GBP and EUR have increased the likelihood of a global recession," Singh added. Genomics sector in India saw maximum investor interest in Q3, receiving over $231 million in funding, which is higher than the total funding received in the year 2021. The five companies that raised funding rounds of more than $100 million in the quarter were EarlySalary, 5ire, InsuranceDekho, OneCard, and BookMyShow, with the most active investors being Better Capital, Venture Catalysts and Surge. Some of the other key highlights were 109 startups closing their first funding round, three startups turning unicorns, 39 startups getting acquired, and two filing for their IPOs. Molbio Diagnostics, 5ire and OneCard turned unicorns and Zopper, LifeCell, Jar, DotPe, Vegrow Bigspoon, InsuranceDekho, CUSMAT, Airtribe and Serentica Global joined the Soonicorn club. India received $752 million in funding in the month of September, down by 15 per cent as compared to August and down by 83 per cent as compared to the same period last year. "We are seeing large PE and VC funds treading cautiously led by significant changes in the investment environment in recent quarters. We expect this to continue until we see signs of stabilisation globally,a said Abhishek Goyal, Co-Founder, Tracxn. New Delhi, Oct 11: India has taken strong exception to the Justin Trudeau administration not taking adequate steps to curb anti-India activities in Canada being carried out by extremist outfits such as the proscribed Sikhs for Justice which has led to the souring of bilateral relations between the two countries. Rajinder S Taggar New Delhi, Oct 11: India has taken strong exception to the Justin Trudeau administration not taking adequate steps to curb anti-India activities in Canada being carried out by extremist outfits such as the proscribed Sikhs for Justice which has led to the souring of bilateral relations between the two countries. India's External Affairs Minister has made it clear that New Delhi has taken up the issue of extremist violence and anti-India activities in Canada with the Trudeau government, and is not satisfied with the response from Ottawa. Jaishankar while replying to a journalist in Canberra, Australia yesterday said that Canada should not allow freedom of expression to be misused by anti-India forces preaching violence and bigotry. Jagmeet Singh, a Canadian MP and a leader of the New Democratic Party that supports the Trudeau government, recently made an irresponsible statement during an interview with a Vancouver-based Punjabi radio channel "welcomed the demand" of separatist forces to carve out a Sikh homeland outside India. Such loose talk also creates differences in the Indian diaspora. However, Trudeau is looking at political expediency and does not appear to be serious about reining in such elements. India has served a demarche to the Justin Trudeau government asking it to bridle forces behind the so-called Khalistan referendum. The second leg of the referendum is slated to be held in Mississauga, Ontario on November 6. New Delhi has flagged its strong concern that the exercise will be used to divide the Indian diaspora by allowing students to vote under the aegis of the proscribed Sikh for Justice organization. Canada in response to a note verbale issued by India has said it "will not recognise the so-called referendum" organised by the Sikhs for Justice but at the same time cited its lack of jurisdiction to instruct the municipal authorities of the city of Brampton and Mississauga not to allow the use of public properties for holding an anti-India referendum. The Canadian government's letter to the Indian High Commission tries to explain away the incidents of vandalism of Hindu temples like that of Swaminarayan mandir in Brampton, by saying that several suspects were arrested by the police in March this year and further investigations were going on. The Sikh extremists are also brazenly supported by the Pakistan Consul General in Vancouver who had also timed his visit to a gurudwara in Brampton at the time the so-called referendum was being carried out. India's hostile neighbour is known for promoting cross-border terrorism and harbouring terrorist groups on its soil. (The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative Jaipur, Oct 11 : The Rajasthan government is planning to launch full moon tourism where visitors will be taken to remote areas to view the clear sky. These tourists will also have the opportunity to see the moon, stars, planets and many other things which people miss in their day-to-day lives. The state government's Department of Science & Technology (DST) has written a letter to the Department of Tourism in this context, officials have confirmed. Recently, Rajasthan had launched astro-sky tourism, becoming the first state in the country to do so. Under the initiative, the state government has been organising camps in all of Rajasthan's 33 districts. "In this context, we have already got approval to buy 38 telescopes under astro sky tourism. While 33 will be placed in all districts of Rajasthan, four will be placed in Jaipur at the Jantar-Mantar, Jaipur, Amber Fort, University of Maharaja, Jaipur and JKK will as these will become the venues to watch astronomical events this year," said the DST's outgoing secretary. The DST has taken many innovative steps to bring out hidden scientists amongst students even from villages and small towns. Next, in line is the idea to install these telescopes in all districts where visitors and locals can gaze at the moon, stars, and planets. The interiors have clear skies in the state and hence it shall give a boost to rural tourism also, said tourism official. Hyderabad, Oct 11 : Unidentified persons set afire Congress party's office in Telangana's Munugode Assembly constituency where by-election is scheduled on November 3. The Congress party office at Chandur in the constituency in Nalgonda district was set ablaze by some unidentified persons early Tuesday. Party's campaign material was gutted in the incident. Party flags, posters and scarves stored for Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy's road show were gutted. The Congress leaders blamed the rival parties for the incident. They said they were present in the party office till 11 in the night but when they came to office in the morning, they noticed smoke and damaged material. They alerted the police. The Congress leaders demanded an impartial probe into the incident. They said fascist BJP and its friendly party TRS were scared of the Congress. Terming it as an act of cowardice, they said it reflects the fear of defeat by BJP and TRS. Last night, some unidentified persons pasted wall posters against BJP candidate Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, alleging that he received Rs 18,000 crore contract to join the BJP. The Congress leaders suspect that their office was set afire in a revenge action. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy condemned the Chandur incident. He expressed his anguish over the Congress office being set ablaze. Revanth alleged that the Congress party's rivals in Munugode were resorting to criminal acts as they were unable to digest the public support Congress was receiving in the constituency. Revanth Reddy said such actions cannot stop the Congress party from winning the by-election. The by-election is scheduled to be held on November 3. The vacancy arose after sitting MLA Rajagopal Reddy resigned from the Assembly and also Congress party to join the BJP. The constituency is set to see a three-cornered contest among the ruling TRS and opposition BJP and Congress. The TRS has named Kusukuntla Prabhakar Reddy as its candidate while the Congress has fielded Palvai Sravanti. Moscow, Oct 11 : Sergei Surovikin, the new unified Russian battlefield commander in Ukraine, has been described as "absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life" and has also brought his violent Syria playbook closer to home, a media report said. On Monday morning, just two days after being appointed as the first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, Surovikin ordered the launch of flurry of missiles against civilian targets across Ukraine, which included a major road junction next to a university and a children's playground, said The Guardian report. Surovikin's "defending" of Moscow's interests in Syria involved dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure, according to a 2020 Human Rights Watch report, which said Russian forces under his command struck Syrian "homes, schools, healthcare facilities, and markets -- the places where people live, work, and study". "I am not surprised to see what happened this morning in Kiev. Surovikin is absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life," a former defence ministry official, who has worked with Surovikin, told The Guardian. "I am afraid his hands will be completely covered in Ukrainian blood." Surovikin first gained notoriety during the 1991 coup d'etat launched by Soviet hardliners, when he led a rifle division that drove through barricades erected by pro-democracy protesters. Three men were killed in the clash, including one who was crushed, The Guardian reported. His ruthless reputation grew in 2004 when Russian media reported that a colonel serving under him had killed himself after he received a heated reprimand from Surovikin. His colleagues have since given him the grim nickname "General Armageddon" for his hardline and unorthodox approach to waging war. Surovikin's main challenge in Ukraine, experts say, will be to solve the structural problems plaguing the Russian military as it faces a fierce Ukrainian counter-offensive, The Guardian reported. Gleb Irisov, a former air force lieutenant who worked with Surovikin up to 2020, said the new general was one of the few people in the army who "knew how to oversee and streamline different army branches". Surovikin's appointment has, however, softened some of the public anger among Russian hardliners, who were growing increasingly impatient with the country's military failures. From his time in Syria, he had developed a good working relationship with the Wagner private military company, said Irisov, and his appointment was welcomed by top critics of the war effort, including Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen republic, and the Wagner head, Yevgeny Prigozhin. "Now, I am 100 per cent satisfied with the operation," Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel on Monday morning, referring to the shelling of Kiev, where at least six civilians were killed. Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War Kanpur, Oct 11 : The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur will showcase 12 critical R&D projects across domains at the IInvenTiv, the mega R&D Showcase among the IITs, to be held from October 14-15 at IIT Delhi. According to an official release, the event would mark the first instance where all the 23 IITs would come under one platform to highlight India's global R&D prowess and to seek more collaborative avenues among state universities and institutes, industry, and the IITs for ensuring holistic research and developmental implications, covering the grassroots level. The inaugural session will be graced by union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, as the chief guest. IInvenTiv will have six showcase projects and 75 projects in total on diverse themes. IIT Kanpur will lead the showcase on drone technology and will jointly lead the showcase on 5G Technologies with IIT Madras. Prof. Abhishek from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur, will moderate the Drone Technology Showcase, where he would lay emphasis on IIT Kanpur's R&D works in the domain and would highlight how IIT Kanpur is leading as one of the only institutes to have expertise in all the three UAV types - fixed wing drones, flapping wing drones, and unmanned rotor-wing/helicopter drones. IIT Kanpur also boasts of some leading drone start-ups such as, EndureAir, VTOL Pvt. Ltd., to name a few. In terms of 5G, IIT Kanpur developed the Baseband Unit (BBU) of the 5G NR base station under the multi-IIT project funded by the Department of Telecommunications, Govt. of India, for developing an indigenous 5G Testbed for India. Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur said, "As India sprints towards the Amrit Kaal, critical R&D across sectors is the need of the hour. At IIT Kanpur, we have always had a front-foot approach when it comes to research and innovation at the national as well as grassroots level. We are glad to be featuring twelve of our projects at IInvenTiv and to lead the drone and 5G technologies showcases." IIT Kanpur filed a record-breaking 107 patents (97 national and 10 international) last year, the highest in the institute's history. The selection of the 12 projects for IInvenTiv also makes IIT Kanpur the institute with highest-approved projects for the showcase. The two-day fair would bring representatives from IITs, and several other higher educational as well as small-town institutions; the industry, and government institutions, together. The mega R&D showcase commemorates the 75 years of India's Independence as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, and is aligned with the Atmanirbhar Bharat, Make in India, and Digital India initiatives. This fair is also aimed at being annual affair to seek out collaborations among the state institutions, industries and the higher academia for futuristic research and innovations. Kolkata, Oct 11 : Three persons drowned in the River Ganga near the Nimtala Crematorium in North Kolkata where they had gone after performing last rites of one of their relatives. The incident happened late Monday night. The local police sources said that a group of people went to the river despite repeated warnings by the policemen deputed there about the forthcoming high tide. They refused to get out of the water quickly and three of them were washed away by a high tide in the river. Three more persons were somehow rescued, while the other three drowned. Their bodies have not been found yet. The divers from the state disaster management department were conducting search operations till the report was filed. All of them were residents of the Beliaghata area in North Kolkata. A similar tragedy took place on October 5, on the occasion of Vijayadashami when a flash flood hit River Mal at Malbazar in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. As many as eight people died and several went missing. Jaipur, Oct 11 : Hundreds of students from villages, towns and cities gathered in Jaipur to discuss the basic science and sustainability in the State Science Seminar 2022. The seminar was organised by the Department of Science and Technology in Birla Auditorium, Jaipur on Sunday. Themed as 'Basic Science for Sustainable Development- Challenges & Prospects', the young students from different age groups discussed how science and sustainability can go together to make the earth a green planet. Kailash Mishra, Curator of Science Dept said, "Organising this event helped students to gain confidence and share their novel ideas on stage. They learnt to adjust themselves in the competitive environment. Thirdly, they got an exposure to spread their wings." On this occasion, astronomer and educator Preeti Sharma, said, "It was a much-needed exposure for the students to discover their potential. This event was helpful for students as well as for the guests present there. It's important to give opportunities to students who come from small villages and districts. For instance, the students have a lot of study material available in books on space science, but it's only limited to the books, so we have introduced sky tourism to witness such things in real life through telescopes. It's important to introduce such students to these things to bring their hidden scientist out." "We all have a scientist hiding somewhere within us who just needs a push to come ahead... so opportunities should be given to these students. Therefore, it's important to give right exposure to these students as who knows -- one of them might be the next Kalpana Chawla," she added. Lakshay Jain from Jayshri Periwal school, Jaipur notched first rank at the state level competition for sharing his ideas on science and sustainability. He will now go to Kolkata to participate in the national seminar where winners will get an annual scholarship of Rs 2000. The second ranker was Kashvi Bhalothia from Pali. Her presentation focussed on a holistic education and integrating ancient knowledge with basic technology paving the way for a green planet," she said. Kashvi wants to become a doctor and go abroad for higher studies and work for a better and green world. Divyadarshini Ranawat from Nathdwara stood third. She said, "I have presented my ideas and thoughts on basic science for sustainable development." With dreams shining high in her eyes to become a neuro-surgeon, Divyadarshini said, "It's the need of the hour for everyone to care for Planet Earth," she said. Islamabad, Oct 11 : Pakistan's President Arif Alvi, who belongs to Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), seems to be slowly but surely siding ways from the narrative of his party leader as he expressed dissatisfaction over the former Prime Ministers claim over the US led conspiracy of regime change being behind his ouster from the government. President Alvi said: "I am convinced that there should be an investigation on this, but I do not agree that there was a conspiracy." Calling for an investigation into the issue of cypher, which Khan claims was the reason why his government was ousted off power through a no-confidence motion against him in Parliament, President Alvi said that while Pakistan has issued a demarche to Washington, stating that the words used by the US Under Secretary Donald Lu were inappropriate, it was imported to have a thorough probe into the matter with an aim to settle the dust of uncertainty that prevails in the country's political circle. "I am not convinced about a conspiracy for the removal of the government of Imran Khan but I did sent ahead a letter on the issue to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, asking for a probe to remove the doubts in the PTI chief's mind," he said. The President's remarks come amid Khan's months-long campaign, engaging with the masses with the narrative that his government was ousted off power by the US-led conspiracy of regime change in the country, which he claims was implemented by local political handlers and the military establishment. Alvi was appointed as the President by Khan and was the one who approved dissolving assembly in view of the same regime change claim. However, it seems that the President is parting ways from the same and is clearly hinting towards leaving the ranks of Khan, at least on the matter of the regime change narrative. Alvi also stated that he preferred to remain impartial, when asked about his role and efforts to bridge the gap between the current coalition government of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Khan. He even went on to say that affiliation with PTI was a thing of the past. "PTI is my past.. It is a very good past." President Alvi's surprising inclination away from Khan is significant and can prove to be a major deteriorating factor in the political standing, the call for long march and the campaign of the former leader against the current sitting government. Canberra, Oct 11 : Two Australian watchdogs on Tuesday announced that they have commenced formal investigations into Optus, in response to the telco's data breach of up to 10 million customers in September. The Office of the Australia Information Commissioner (OAIC) said in a statement that its investigation would inspect the personal information handling practices of Optus Mobile, Optus Internet and their parent company Singtel, reports Xinhua news agency. Whether the companies took reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, inference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, whether the information the company collected and retained was necessary to their business and whether they complied with the Australian Privacy principles are the investigation's focus. In September, Optus, Australia's second-largest mobile network operator, said a cyber attack had exposed the data of up to 10 million current and former customers, with 2.8 million people significantly affected. According to the statement, if the investigation finds serious and/or repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of the Australian privacy law, then the Commissioner has the power to seek civil penalties of up to A$2.2 million for each contravention. The OAIC's investigation will be coordinated with that of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which was also released on Tuesday. "All telcos have obligations regarding how they acquire, retain, protect and dispose of the personal information of their customers. A key focus for the ACMA will be Optus' compliance with these obligations," said Nerida O'Loughlin, ACMA's chair. Mumbai, Oct 11 : As it is megastar Amitabh Bachchan's birthday today, his friend and producer Anand Pandit "wanted to celebrate this momentous day with a special gesture". He has pledged to distribute 8000 meals in orphanages across Mumbai and Gujarat. He will also be donating 800 hearing aids to senior citizens and kids in Mumbai. He said: "At a time when most people would be content to wind down and enjoy the fruits of their labour, Mr Bachchan is at the peak of his powers as an actor and continues to strike awe in the hearts of his millions of fans. Completing eight 'parikramas' around the earth with such joy and magnificence is no small milestone and I wanted to make a special gesture to celebrate this momentous day." To mark Big B's birthday, Pandit has pledged to distribute and donate to the needy. He explains the motive behind this gesture: "As a fan, I watched every Bachchan film on the big screen and then had the privilege of working with him in couple of films. What I have learnt from observing him is that human-beings have immense power to not just achieve extraordinary success for themselves but to also inspire others to dream big and achieve unimaginable glory." "The impact he has had on others through his life and work is immeasurable and I wanted to pay tribute to the man and his legacy by making this gesture." Chennai, Oct 11 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a charge sheet against former Union telecom minister and DMK leader A. Raja in a case related to the disproportionate assets case. The CBI in its charge sheet before a special court in Chennai alleged that an amount of Rs 4.56 crore was transferred to the account of a company, Kovai Shelters Promoters by a Gurugram-based real estate company in February 2007. The premier agency mentioned that the company, which was set up in January 2007, belongs to C. Krishnamoorthy, a close associate of A. Raja. The agency alleged that the Rs 4.56 crore that was transferred to the account of this company was the commission for purchase of land in Kancheepuram. The CBI also alleged that the company was not in the real estate business, but the payment was for getting the real estate firm the status of an infrastructure company. The agency alleged that during his tenure as the Union Minister, A. Raja had accumulated assets worth Rs 5.33 crore, including the payment of Rs 4.56 crore transferred to the account of his close friend, Krishnamurthy's company. The CBI had registered a case against Raja and 16 others, including his nephew Paramesh, his wife Parameswari, and Raja's close associate, Krishnamurthy of Kovai Shelters Pvt Ltd. Mumbai, Oct 11 : Spice Money on Tuesday announced that it is the only rural fintech player and one of the four buyer-side apps to be implemented on the centre-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) that has gone live for beta testing in Bengaluru Urban District. The soft launch is said to be invite-only before it moves out of the beta phase and is made available to the public. It will facilitate Spice Money to help its Adhikaris access small merchant stores without being restricted to only their localities. "Since inception, fostering inclusivity for the citizens of Bharat has been foremost in our minds," Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO, Spice Money, said in a statement. "We have been working closely with ONDC, that will solve the problem of discoverability for small businesses who cannot afford to pay substantial commissions or spend for getting better visibility on established e-commerce platforms," Kumar added. ONDC is not an application, platform, intermediary, or software but a set of specifications designed to foster open, unbundled, and interoperable open networks, thereby eliminating the dependency on a single platform. "With ONDC, e-commerce in India is going to get democratised like never before. Our Spice Money Adhikari stores in rural India will benefit immensely through this e-commerce revolution. At Spice Money, we are delighted to currently be the only rural fintech player to be a part of this movement," Kumar said. The current market penetration of ecommerce, in terms of the overall economy, stands at 8 per cent. With ONDC, it is expected to grow to 25 per cent in the next two years. With almost 70 per cent of the country's population residing in rural regions that contribute almost 50 per cent of the GDP of the country, the lion's share in this projected growth of ecommerce will be from this sector. Spice Money, the category creator for rural fintech, is uniquely positioned to play the torchbearer in this regard, owing to its expertise and understanding of the rural market, and is positioned to become a strategic ally in this initiative. Islamabad, Oct 11 : The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has expressed hope that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will consider the prevailing economic challenges and crisis triggered by the recent catastrophic floods and would provide relief in its present conditions and terms, paving way for Islamabad to receive about $4 billion from various global creditors. The central bank also highlighted that the country has already made payments of $4.6 billion in foreign debts, which it says will be significant in establishing Islamabad's intent and credibility as it works towards establishing its case in front of the IMF during the upcoming review of the bailout programme. "The IMF programme was on track and the central bank had fully complied with the targets up till September 2022," SBP Governor Jameel Ahmed said. "We are hopeful that this will help in attaining a positive outcome with reconsideration of the conditions post floods in the next review." Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has repeatedly stated in interviews and at global platforms that the devastation caused by the floods since mid-June has also washed away with it, the country's economic capability to meet up with the demands and terms of the IMF. Bilawal said that the floods have caused over $40 billion of losses with one-third of the country underwater and over 3.5 billion people forced to live under the open skies, while some 1,700 others have died. And with floods wrecking havoc in the country, Pakistan is looking ahead towards another outbreak in health sector, which will further damage the country's financial standing. Pakistan aims to put this on the table during the next IMF review and hopes to get leverages on its repayments through extensions in the payment plan and also in easing on terms and condition in financial policies. However, the country's hopes of getting financial commitments from global lenders like the World Bank, relies on the outcome of the IMF review. "The World Bank's commitment depends on implementing a few conditions," said Sana Tawfik, an economist working with a financial institution. "The government would not seek to defer debt payment to the international lenders and would make the due payments. So far, $4.6 billion have been repaid to the external lenders in the current fiscal year." New Delhi, Oct 11 : The Congress on Tuesday countered the claims of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the issue of J&K was not resolved by India's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru. Even though PM Modi did not take the name of Nehru, the Congress said he should check the facts first. The party blamed Maharaja Hari Singh, the then ruler of the J&K for not acceding to India soon after Independence, but took the decision only after invaders from Pakistan tried to take over the place. Jairam Ramesh, the Congress General Secretary in-charge of the Communication department cited Rajmohan Gandhi's book and said, "The PM has once again whitewashed REAL history. He overlooks the following facts only to castigate Nehru on J&K. All this has been documented well in Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of Sardar Patel. These facts are also known to the PM's new man in J&K." Jairam was referring to Ghulam Nabi Azad, who resigned from the Congress and formed a new political party. Jairam Further said, "Maharaja Hari Singh dithered on accession. There were dreams of independence. But when Pakistan invaded, Hari Singh acceded to India Sardar Patel was okay with J&K joining Pakistan till Sept 13 1947 when the Nawab of Junagadh acceded to Pakistan." But Jairam pointed out that, "Sheikh Abdullah championed accession to India entirely because of his friendship with and admiration for Nehru, and his respect for Gandhi." Jairam quoted from Rajmohan Gandhi's book -- 'Patel: A Life' by Rajmohan Gandhi page 439 and page 591 (1991) "Vallabhbhai's lukewarmness about Kashmir had lasted until September 13 1947. That morning, in a letter to Baldev Singh, he had indicated that "if (Kashmir) decides to join the other Dominion," he would accept the fact. His attitude changed later that day when he heard that Pakistan had accepted Junagadh's accession". In the book Rajmohan writes that,"If Jinnah could take hold of a Hindu majority State with a Muslim ruler, why should the Sardar not be interested in a Muslim majority State with a Hindu ruler. From that day Junagadh and Kashmir, the pawn and the Queen, became his simultaneous concerns. He would wrest the one and defend the other. He would also defend Hyderabad, to him the King on the chessboard. Had Jinnah allowed the King and the pawn to go to India, Patel, as we have seen, might have let the Queen go to Pakistan, but Jinnah rejected the deal." Rajmohan Gandhi quoted this from, "Sardar Patel's Correspondence Volume I page 37 (66) Sardar Patel Correspondence Volume I page 74, and Jinnah remarks to Mountbatten 1.11.47." PM in a veiled attack on Nehru on Monday said Sardar Patel resolved issues of merger of other princely states, but "one person" could not resolve the Kashmir issue. While addressing a rally in Gujarat, Modi targeted the first PM without naming him, and said, "Sardar saheb managed the merger of all the princely states with India but another person handled this one issue of Kashmir," he said, and added that is why it still is unresolved and he is following Patel footsteps. London, Oct 11 : The Bank of England has been forced to unveil more measures aimed at calming markets, warning of a "material risk to UK financial stability". It's going to extend its purchases of government bonds (also known in the UK as gilts) to stave off worries about a collapse in their value, the BBC reported. Bonds are effectively IOU notes which are bought by investors, with pension funds especially reliant on buying them. The backdrop is last month's mini-budget delivered by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, which shook market confidence in the UK economy, BBC reported. The Bank of England made its latest intervention amid warnings of a fresh risk to UK financial stability. The move is part of a continuing response to a huge sell-off of the government bonds by investors in the wake of the chancellor's mini-budget late last month. The backdrop is the weakening of the pound, which initially plunged to its lowest value on record at the end of September before recovering and in recent days dropping again. As a result, the Bank is committing yet more money to snapping up gilts, in order to try and maintain their value. It describes the move as "a further backstop to restore orderly market conditions". Chennai, Oct 11 : In the space sector it is the satellite that showers continuous cash to the operators -- the cash cow -- and not the glamourous rocket. With the trend of small satellite constellations, satellite manufacturing offers good scope for India, states a sectoral report titled 'Developing the space ecosystem in India: focusing on inclusive growth' was prepared by the Indian Space Association (ISpA) and EY. As per the report, the satellite manufacturing business in India is expected to touch $3.2 billion in 2025 from $2.1 billion in 2020. New age low earth orbit (LEO) players are showing interest to leverage Indian companies for locally built satellite communications equipment, the report said. Foreign companies are looking to reap the benefits of satellite manufacturing services in India. Coupled with the government's 'Make in India' initiative, satellite manufacturers are ideally placed to capitalize on the growing demand for small satellites. According to the report, currently, the Indian space ecosystem is well developed to manufacture the satellite bus system. However, the manufacturing of critical payloads (e.g., high precision camera) is very nascent and has not taken off. In addition, testing of satellites plays a very important part in ensuring robustness and longevity. Rigorous testing is required for larger and critical satellites. Currently, the test facilities in India are with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Setting-up space parks across the country is likely to give a fillip to companies operating across the space value chain, especially manufacturing. "It will be key to attracting global startups working in the space sector and help to incubate spacetech companies in India. Space parks will provide a ready ecosystem for SMBs (small, medium business) and startups focused on the component and sub-component of satellite manufacturing," the ISpA and EY report said. In addition, space parks can significantly improve the unit economics of satellite manufacturers by using shared resources and facilities. Apart from satellite manufacturing, space parks can be a breeding ground for companies in the satellite application space. It will help to come-up with new business cases in the downstream segment and identify revenue generating potential, the report notes. Wellington, Oct 11 : The New Zealand government has released for consultation a proposal to reduce agricultural emissions, helping give the country "a competitive advantage in green conscious global marketplace", Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday. The proposal will also put New Zealand on track to meet Zero Carbon Act 2030 methane reduction target, Xinhua news agency quoted Ardern as saying. The government has included many of the recommendations of the agriculture sector groups for farm-level emissions pricing, and proposed modifications in the consultation document based on advice from the Climate Change Commission. "This is an important step forward in New Zealand's transition to a low emissions future and delivers on our promise to price agriculture emissions from 2025," Ardern said. The proposal aims to give New Zealand farmers control over their farming system, providing the ability to reduce costs through revenue raised from the system being recycled back to farmers, which will fund further research, tools and technology and incentives to reduce emissions, said the Prime Minister. "New Zealand is taking on the challenge of becoming one of the first nations in the world to price agricultural greenhouse gas emissions," said Honorary Professor Troy Baisden of the University of Auckland School of Environment. Robyn Dynes, a senior scientist at AgResearch, said this approach will provide clear incentives to reduce emissions, with some of the revenue generated from the pricing system directed back into research to identify and develop greenhouse gas mitigations. Hyderabad, Oct 11 : The Rs 18,000 crore contract received by the company of Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy appears to have taken the centre stage of the election campaign in Munugode Assembly constituency in Telangana. Both the ruling Rashtra Samithi Samithi (TRS) and opposition Congress are trying to derive political mileage by slamming Rajagopal Reddy for selling himself to the BJP for the contract. Rajagopal Reddy, who resigned from the Congress recently, is contesting the November 3 by-election as a BJP candidate. In an interview to a Telugu channel, Rajagopal Reddy admitted that his infrastructure firm bagged Rs 18,000 contract in competition. Both TRS and Congress have been slamming him for imposing a by-election on Munugode for the sake of the contract. The ruling party has even offered to withdraw from the contest if the Centre provides Rs 18,000 crore for the development of the constituency and Nalgonda district. TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao said on Tuesday that the TRS will withdraw its candidate if the BJP government at the Centre comes forward to provide the amount equal to the contract given to Rajagopal Reddy for the development of Munugode. KTR said as working president of the party he is committed to the word given by energy minister Jagadish Reddy that TRS will withdraw its candidate if the Centre gives Rs 18,000 crore for the development of Nalgonda. He said by buying a contractor, the BJP was hoping to buy the people of Munugode as a commodity. He reiterated the allegation that Rajagopal Reddy has promised to the BJP leadership that he will spend Rs 500 crore in the by-election. "This by-election is a fight between Narendra Modi's arrogance and the self-respect of the people of Munugode," he said. Meanwhile, wall posters have come up in the constituency, highlighting how Rajagopal Reddy switched loyalties to the BJP after bagging Rs 18,000 crore contract. The posters have come up in the format of a digital payment app. Using a fictitious name ContractPe, it declares that Rs 18,000 crore contract awarded to Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy. The poster mentions Transaction ID as 'BJP18thousandcrores'. A video of the fictitious digital transaction of Rs 18,000 crore from the BJP to Rajagopal Reddy was also uploaded from the official Twitter handle of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee. The TRS has already urged the Election Commission of India to disqualify Rajagopal Reddy from the by-election as he was awarded the massive contract to lure him to switch loyalties. TRS leader and finance minister Harish Rao had claimed that the BJP has booked 200 Brezza cars and hundreds of motorcycles to buy leaders from other parties in the constituency. On October 8, Rajagaopal Reddy had threatened to file a defamation suit against KTR for making the allegation. The BJP leader said he is giving 24 hours time to prove his allegation. Rajagopal Reddy was reacting to an earlier tweet by KTR. "Quid pro quo - open confession of the BJP MLA candidate from Munugode. His company gets a massive Rs. 18,000 crore contract from and in return he joins BJP," wrote KTR KTR posted a clip of a video clip from a debate on a Telugu television channel. During the debate, Rajagopal Reddy revealed that the company received a contract worth Rs 18,000 crore in competition about six months ago while he has been talking of joining BJP for the last three years. New Delhi, Oct 11 : Aiming coordinated action and cooperation of all stakeholders to combat air pollution that affects Delhi-NCR region in this season, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav held a meeting with the Environment Ministers of NCR states, Delhi and Punjab to review the activities being undertaken and planned by the states. The major sectors discussed in the meeting included agricultural stubble burning, industrial pollution, pollution from diesel generator sets, vehicular pollution, electric mobility, dust from road and open areas and dust from construction and demolition activity. While the issue of stubble burning is a prime concern for all stakeholders, action taken and planned on the incidents of paddy residue burning were also highlighted by the states in the meeting. The state governments have informed that they have involved the local bodies and are innovatively providing the machinery to the farmers to promote in-situ methods of handling crop residue. Expansion of area under bio-decomposers as an important strategy towards in-situ stubble management was also discussed in the meeting. The states informed about the progress in the ex-situ crop residue management and activities undertaken to promote alternate usage of paddy straw as an economic resource. The virtual meeting was attended by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who is also in charge of the state environment portfolio, Hemaram Choudhary, Rajasthan, Gopal Rai, Delhi, Arun Kumar, UP and Gurmeet Singh Meet, Punjab. The states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi also informed about the dust control and management actions being undertaken. The area under green cover has expanded with 2,72,01,113 plantations till September 30, 2022. Sixty (60) Dust Control and Management Cells have been set up by road owning/ maintaining agencies with 11 in Delhi, 18 in UP, 17 in Haryana and 14 in Rajasthan. States have also deployed machines for road sweeping and water sprinkling. Officials said that efforts are being made to combat pollution from dust from construction and demolition activities. The web portal which is functional in Delhi, Haryana and UP mandates registration of projects on plot size more than 500 sqm to follow directions to control dust from construction activity. Deployment of anti-smog guns as per the total construction area as a requirement to counter pollution by dust was also discussed. The issue of vehicular pollution was also deliberated upon in the meeting and the states informed about strict action being taken to ensure that all vehicles have the pollution under check (PUC) certificate. Road traffic management systems were also discussed. Chennai, Oct 11 : Pure play electric vehicle (EV) player BYD India Private Ltd on Tuesday launched its premium sport utility vehicle (SUV) Atto 3. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BYD, China - one of the largest EV players in the world. "With proven and innovative technology, we are on track towards building a stronger ecosystem that facilitates EV adoption in our country. The launch of BYD-Atto 3 is a step towards this mission. We will constantly contribute to building a greener future," Sanjay Gopalakrishnan, Senior Vice President of Electric Passenger Vehicles of BYD India, said. Sales of the new model equipped with seven airbags, a robust steel body structure, and a safety-oriented chassis design and several other features will start happening from January 2023. "We intend to sell 15,000 units of BYD-Atto 3 in India over the next year and plan to set up a local manufacturing facility in the due course," said Ketsu Zhang, Executive Director of BYD India. In India BYD has two plants - one for car making and the other for electronic items - involving a cumulative investment of about $200 million. The company assembles its cars by importing the parts from China. It started operations rolling out e6 model - a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV). The company's plant near here has a capacity to roll out 10,000 units per year. Shimla, Oct 11 : The government school in Shimla's Krishnanagar, a thickly populated area, now has a smart classes facility, thanks to the Smart City project. Urban Development Minister Suresh Bhardwaj on Tuesday reviewed the project and revealed that all selected schools have functional smart classrooms. This school along with 10 others in the state capital has 33 smart classrooms, said Bhardwaj, the local legislator. He said Shimla made it to the Smart City list in the second phase. "Since then, several projects took off and many of them have been completed," he said, adding, "In the last two years, people can feel the change." He said making Shimla's school equipped with technology and other infrastructure is his priority. "We selected 12 schools and today we have almost three smart classes in each school. Besides this, some civil work was also proposed, which is on," said four-time legislator Bhardwaj. Shimla has some British-era convents and public schools, besides government-owned ones. "We are committed to providing better infrastructure to the people. We begin with 12 schools and I can satisfactorily say the project took off really well," he said. Krishnanagar, Chota Shimla, Khalini, Sanjauli, Tutikandi, Phagli, Boealeganj, Totu, Shimla, Summerhill, Lakkar Bazar, Portmore and Lalpani are the schools equipped with smart classes, he added. The minister explained that the objectives of the project are to increase knowledge assimilation and retention among schoolchildren of the government schools. This is also aimed at harnessing the use of technology to improve the overall reach and quality of education in the government school, especially where there is a lack of skilled staff. This project will also provide smart user-friendly solutions for students to learn in Hindi and in English medium, besides enhanced proficiency in academic subjects. Director (Urban Development) Manmohan Sharma said after the smart classrooms, the focus now is on civil works. "The work is delayed due to the rainy season. Recently, the minister reviewed the project and the civil work in all these schools will be done by the end of this year," he said. Chandigarh, Oct 11 : Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will be meeting his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann regarding the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal on October 14 in Chandigarh. "We will try our best to amicably resolve the matter with the Punjab Chief Minister. We have time and again raised the SYL issue before the Centre also. We've a right over SYL waters and we are going to claim it at any cost," an official statement quoting Khattar said. He added that the SYL water is important for Haryana. "Now fixing a deadline to resolve this issue at the earliest has become very essential," he said, while inaugurating the newly renovated media centre at the Haryana Civil Secretariat here. The Haryana Chief Minister through a demi-official letter on May 6 had requested Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to convene the second-round meeting of the Chief Ministers of both states at the earliest to discuss the river water issue. Besides, Khattar had also written a demi-official letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, requesting him to organise a meeting of the Chief Ministers of both states over the issue. Khattar had written three demi-official letters to the Punjab Chief Minister for the meeting. Mumbai, Oct 11 : The newly-christened Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray is an old hand at handling its new party symbol of a 'mashaal' (flaming Torch) - allotted by the Election Commission ahead of the upcoming Andheri East Assembly bypolls. It was way back in 1985, when the Shiv Sena founder-patriarch Balasaheb Thackeray had nominated his close confidante, Chhagan Bhujbal to contest the Mazagaon Assembly seat. Thackeray had himself campaigned for Bhujbal - who won hands down, becoming the sole party MLA in the 7th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly then. "The 'Flaming Torch' was chosen because it was a symbol of revolution, showing a new path to the people of the state... I became the only candidate to win the polls that time and Balasaheb was very pleased about it," Bhujbal told media persons. "History repeats itself... The 'flaming torch' was easy to remember, we could easily draw it on posters, even during campaigns," recalled the 74-year-old Bhujbal, who also became the Mayor of Mumbai. In his first comments on the issue on Tuesday, Shiv Sena-UBT President Uddhav Thackeray said the 'flaming torch' will burn out injustice and oppression even as the party celebrated the new symbol across the state. The party's candidate from Andheri East, Rutuja R. Latke will file her nomination papers for the assembly bypoll with the new symbol. The Shiv Sena-UBT, the Congress, and the NCP have extended their full backing to Latke and have assured to work hard and ensure her victory. The Shiv Sena was given a permanent election symbol - 'Bow and Arrow' - in 1989, on which it had contested all subsequent elections. However, after the rebellion by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's group in June, the EC has frozen the party's name and symbol. The poll panel allotted new names to both the Thackeray and Shinde factions, and the 'flaming torch' symbol to the Shiv Sena-UBT, while the Shinde-led 'Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena' is awaiting its electoral symbol. Interestingly, as far as Bhujbal was concerned, after his flaming torch-led victory for Shiv Sena in 1985, he also became the first 'rebel' to quit the party in a huff in 1991 to join the Congress, then headed by the veteran Sharad Pawar in the state. Later, in 1999, when Pawar raised the banner of revolt against the Congress and walked out to form the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Bhujbal followed him. Subsequently, after the Congress-NCP won that year's Assembly elections, Bhujbal was rewarded with the post of Deputy Chief Minister in the Democratic Front government which ruled for 15 years till 2014. Noida, Oct 11 : Aas Mohammad, a resident of Palla village in the Dadri Kotwali area of Greater Noida, is currently in Ghaziabad police's custody. They are now trying to unearth his entire network. The police have been questioning the neighbours about Mohammad and his absconding family members. Aas Mohammed is also linked to the Popular Front of India (PFI), and married non-Muslim girls by taking funds from the PFI. The Delhi police also reached his house when one of his relatives was found to have attended the Tablighi Jamaat in the past, said sources. According to the sources, Mohammad has been married thrice and worked as a blacksmith along with his father. Despite being out of work for many years, the duo still had money coming in. The first marriage reportedly took place in Morna village of Noida. Details of his second marriage aren't known yet and he went by the name Sameer Sharma and married a girl from the neighbouring village in his third marriage. On October 3, the Ghaziabad police arrested a man named Sameer Sharma with a pistol and a knife from a temple in Mussoorie, on the allegation that he was there with the intent to kill Mahamandaleshwar Swami Prabodhanand Giri Maharaj, the national president of the Hindu Raksha Sena. It was revealed during interrogation that Sameer Sharma was none other than Mohammad of Greater Noida. Kolkata, Oct 11 : The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday rejected the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) appeal for transit remand to take Sehgal Hossain, bodyguard of Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal to New Delhi for questioning on the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam. A single-judge bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh rejected the ED's application for transit remand mainly on two grounds. He questioned that after the Rouse Avenue Court in New Delhi rejected the ED's similar plea, why did the central agency not approach the Delhi High Court challenging the order. Secondly, he said that the case relating to Sehgal Hossain is being heard by a special court at Asansol in West Burdwan district, and that particular court would have been the right forum for the ED to approach in this matter. Justice Ghosh also observed that the manner in which the ED was keeping options of approaching multiple courts open in the matter is not acceptable in the eyes of law, as he rejected the ED plea. Earlier in the day, Justice Ghosh asked the ED to file an explanatory report to the bench as to why it is so keen to take Hossain to Delhi. The ED's explanation that since the main case has been registered in New Delhi and the ED officers are coming to Kolkata from New Delhi only, there is a need to take Hossain to New Delhi for questioning did not satisfy the bench. However, the court has kept the option open for the ED to question Sehgal Hossain at Asansol Special Correctional Home where he is lodged in judicial custody. Incidentally, Mondal is also housed at the same correctional home. Kolkata, Oct 11 : A division bench of Calcutta High Court on Tuesday upheld an earlier order of the single-judge bench of the same court ruling out the requirement of a parallel probe in the coal smuggling scam by the CID. The division bench has also upheld the earlier order of the single-judge bench that if CID gets any clue in the coal smuggling scam it would pass on the same to the CBI, which is conducting a probe in the matter. On September 27, Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha observed that when the CBI was already probing the coal smuggling case, a parallel probe by the CID-West Bengal in the matter was unnecessary. Justice Mantha passed this judgement on a petition filed by BJP leader from Asansol, Jitendra Tiwari challenging a summon from CID in the matter. In his petition, he raised the same point on justification of the parallel CID probe in the coal smuggling scam when CBI was already investigating the matter. Justice Mantha also stayed CID from sending summons to Tiwari in this connection and observed that the petitioner cannot be summoned as witness in the matter by the state agency. Tiwari is the former Trinamool Congress MLA from Pandaveswar assembly constituency in West Midnapore district from 2016 to 2021 and also the mayor of the Trinamool Congress Asansol Municipal Corporation. However, before the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls, he left the state's ruling party and joined the BJP. The state government challenged the order by Justice Mantha at Calcutta High Court's division bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Apurba Sinha Ray. However, the division bench too on Tuesday affirmed the earlier order of the single-judge bench on this count. The division bench also agreed with the single-judge bench observation that there is no justification of a parallel probe by CID-West Bengal in the same case. The division bench also asked CBI to file an affidavit on its part after the full operations at Calcutta High Court resume after the festival holidays. When contacted, Tiwari told IANS that the state government's unnecessary dragging a matter for the purpose of political vengeance was found to take a halt at the court. "Instead of spending so much in unnecessarily dragging such matters, the state government should spend that money behind the development of the state," he said. New Delhi, Oct 11 : With the aim to introduce a new way to enable people to enjoy digital experiences, Google Play on Tuesday announced that it is bringing its global rewards programme -- Google Play Points -- to India. Google Play Points helps users earn points and rewards for the many ways they use the platform. It will be rolled out to users in India in the coming week. "Users will be able to earn points when they make purchases with Google Play, including in-app items, apps, games and subscriptions," the company said in a statement. The rewards programme has four levels -- Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum -- that give members different perks and prizes depending on the tier they are in, based on the number of points they have collected. Users can redeem their points for Google Play Credit to use how they would like to on the app store. Google Play has also partnered with developers of popular apps and games worldwide to help users redeem their points for special in-app items. In India, they are partnering with more than 30 participating titles that include games from global studios such as Miniclip (8 Ball Pool), TG INC (Evony: The King's return), games from local studios such as Gametion (Ludo King), Playsimple Games (Word Trip), Gameberry Labs (Ludo Star), and popular apps such as Truecaller and Wysa. Google Play will look at expanding the programme to more global and local developers in the future. Google Play Points will also provide local developers a new avenue to build a local and global user base; helping them engage their users, drive discovery, and acquire users across markets with Google Play Points. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the Bombay High Court order granting bail to former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in a money laundering case. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli said: "We will not interfere with the high court order granting bail...". It added since the observations in the high court order were only confined to if he was entitled to bail, it would clarify that these observations will not affect the merits of the trial or any other proceedings. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had moved the apex court challenging the high court order granting bail to Deshmukh. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the ED, contended that the high court drew incorrect conclusions in connection with dismissed cop Sachin Waze, who was co-accused in the case before he turned into an approver. He added that the money collected from bar owners was for Deshmukh, and if he has health problems, he can be transferred to a hospital, but cannot get bail. The top court said that it is only on bail and not on the merits of the case and it will only interfere with the high court order, if it is perverse. Mehta submitted that he is attempting to show the perversity which is writ large in the order. The bench asked how long Deshmukh has been in custody. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Deshmukh, said his client has been in custody for one year and added that the high court order cannot be interfered with, unless it is perverse. Mehta said this offence is not any less serious than terrorism, and added, "throughout it said that no. 1 is Home Minister. How can it be said that there was no collection for him because of no phone calls?" On the aspect of Deshmukh's health, Mehta said the diseases mentioned to get bail were associated with lifestyle, which could be taken care of in a hospital. Justice Chandrachud said, "See if say somebody who is 35, certain different standards will apply... But a lot of things have to be looked into. There can be age and occupational hazards". Sibal vehemently argued that there is no evidence that money was laundered and also there is no corroboration of statements. He said, "You have to show that the money was laundered, not through 161 statements." Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court allowed Deshmukh's bail plea in the money laundering case being probed by the ED. It had noted that Waze's statements lacked certainty. Waze had made a statement that an amount of Rs 1.71 crore was transferred during the months of February and March, 2021 allegedly extorted from the bar owners and handed over to Deshmukh's personal assistant. The CBI had booked Deshmukh and his associates for alleged corruption that took place between 2019 and 2021. In April 2021, the Bombay High Court issued directions for an inquiry in response to a petition filed by Param Bir Singh, former Commissioner of Mumbai Police. The ED initiated a case of money laundering against Deshmukh and arrested him last year. Chandigarh, Oct 11 : Amid the "rift" between Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government led by Bhagwant Mann, the former on Tuesday declined to clear the appointment of cardiologist Gurpreet Wander as Vice Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, saying the government violated the rules by recommending only one name. The Governor, who is the Chancellor of the university, has returned the file by asking the government to send a panel of three candidates for the selection to the post. Interestingly, the Chief Minister has already announced the appointment of noted cardiologist Wander as the next Vice Chancellor. The post fell vacant after one of country's top orthopaedic surgeons Raj Bahadur had resigned citing humiliation by state Health Minister Chetan Singh Jouramajra during his visit to Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital in Faridkot. The minister was caught in a row when he asked Bahadur to lie on a "dirty" patient's bed during the visit. A video of the minister "forcibly asking the Vice Chancellor to lie on the bed" had gone viral on the social media. The minister can be heard speaking "rudely" with the Vice-Chancellor over the lack of cleanliness in the medical college. The move to appoint Wander as the Vice Chancellor comes just two days after the Governor took strong exception over the absence of the Chief Minister at the civic reception organised by him in honour of visiting President Droupadi Murmu. Reminding the Chief Minister of constitutional obligations that have to be met on such occasion, the Governor, amidst the presence of President Droupadi Murmu, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and his Haryana counterpart Bandaru Dattatreya had said publicly from the stage: "I had personally called him (Chief Minister) up, but he has not come apparently due to some compulsion." "Whatever the compulsion, the Constitutional obligations are more important and have to be fulfilled on such an occasion." Chief Minister Mann was on a political tour to poll-bound Gujarat along with AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday. Mann was also conspicuously absent at the Indian Air Force's 90th Air Show at Sukhna Lake here on that day. Chennai, Oct 11 : Sport utility vehicle (SUV) major Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) and Reliance BP Mobility Ltd (brand Jio-bp) on Tuesday announced strengthening of their tieup. Jio-bp - a fuels and mobility joint venture between Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and bp - will be setting up a robust charging network for Mahindra's upcoming e-SUVs launches. Last year, the companies had signed an MoU for exploring the creation of EV products and services, alongside identifying synergies in low-carbon and conventional fuels. Starting with 16 cities, Jio-bp will install DC fast chargers at M&M dealership network and workshops across the country. With these chargers being open to the public, the partnership will benefit all stakeholders in the electric vehicle (EV) value chain. M&M launched its first all-electric C segment SUV - the XUV400 at Mahindra Research Valley, Chennai earlier this month. The company also made rapid strides towards electrification by unveiling its Born Electric Vision with a range of world-class electric SUVs to be launched in the country in the next few years. The group is supplementing the launch of electric vehicles with access to extensive fast-charging infrastructure. To this end, M&M has partnered with Jio-bp to provide EV users with a wide, accessible and convenient fast-charging network. The RIL and bp joint venture is aggressively expanding its Jio-bp pulse branded EV charging network by setting up charging facilities at multiple touch points within cities and major highways to ensure smooth intra-city and inter-city commutes for EV owners. Islamabad, Oct 11 : Pakistan is planning to engage with bilateral creditors and seek debt rescheduling, putting forward the financial challenges that the country is faced in the wake of the devastating floods, coupled with the looming health outbreak, say sources in the Ministry of Finance. Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has also stated that he will be putting forward the proposal of debt rescheduling, which, he said, will be coupled with timely payments to commercial and Paris Club lenders, to maintain a balance between growing financial needs and maintaining creditworthiness. "We are okay with the bilateral debt rescheduling," he said. "We hope to bring back economic normalcy in the next six months and then look towards venturing into the international capital markets," Dar added. Pakistan has about $97 billion in external debts, of which, bilateral debts make up to $20.3 billion. And as per plans of the Finance Ministry, if bilateral creditors agree to roll over their respective debt, Pakistan may get a small breathing space of about $2 billion in the current financial year. Pakistan's efforts will be inclined towards China as out of the $20.3 billion in bilateral debt, China's debts amount up to about $9.7 billion, which is 48 per cent of the total principal debt amount. The move will come after Islamabad was advised to seek rescheduling of external debts from China by western creditors. However, the Finance Minster believes that if the government can arrange $34 billion, then it can certainly raise another $1.2 billion, an amount due to be paid to Paris Club in the current financial year. On the other hand, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated Pakistan's financial needs at about $40 billion. "The cost of Paris Club debt rescheduling is more than its benefits," Dar stated. However, Moody's credit rating agency has recently downgraded the country's rating from CAA1, making Pakistan's public debt highly risky. But Dar seems optimistic that the government had already got a plan to raise debt through Eurobonds, adding that he would go to the capital markets only when economic fundamentals are strong. Moscow, Oct 11 : Moscow would not turn down a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, at the G20 meeting next month, as per Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, media reports said. Moscow was open to talks with the west on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any "serious offers" to negotiate, Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television, The Guardian reported. He said US officials including the White House's national security spokesperson, John Kirby, had said the US was willing to engage in discussions but Russia had refused. Lavrov said: "This is a lie. We have not received any serious offers to make contact." He suggested Russia was willing to listen to any suggestions regarding peace talks. "We have repeatedly said that we never refuse meetings. If there is a proposal, then we will consider it." About the possibility that Turkey could host talks between Russia and the west, Lavrov said Moscow would be willing to listen to any suggestions but could not say in advance whether this would lead to results, The Guardian reported. He said Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would have the opportunity to put forward proposals to Putin when both visit Kazakhstan this week. Lavrov also claimed the US had long been involved in the war in Ukraine, which he said was "being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons". The Kremlin has confirmed that President Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart, Erdogan, on Thursday to discuss Ukraine. The meeting will take place in Astana, Kazakhstan, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov had told reporters on Monday that it was "possible" the two leaders would discuss a Turkish proposal to host talks between Russia and the west on peace in Ukraine, The Guardian reported. The pair will meet on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit in the Kazakhstan capital. They last met in mid-September in Uzbekistan on the sidelines of a summit of the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War Chennai, Oct 11 : A 17-year-old boy studying in a polytechnic tied the nuptial knot with a 16-year-old minor girl at a bus shelter in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu in the presence of onlookers. The video of the incident went viral on social media and the Cuddalore police arrested the boy under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. The district police and the District Child Protection Unit launched an investigation after the video of the act went viral and finally, the police arrested the boy on Tuesday. The boy was sent to a juvenile observation home in Cuddalore while the girl was given counselling at the office of the child welfare committee. The Cuddalore police in a statement on Tuesday said that it arrested another person, Balaji Ganesh. P (51) for circulating the video of the marriage. Balaji was booked under the Juvenile Justice Act, Prevention of Women Harassment Act, and the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act as the boy and girl belong to the Scheduled Caste. New York, Oct 11 : Jesus Salgado, the 48 year-old involved in the kidnapping and killing of an Indian-origin Sikh family, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, one for each life lost, the Merced County Sheriff's Office said. Jesus Manuel Salgado was booked for kidnapping and murdering four members of an Indian-origin family, including an eight month-old child, in California on October 3, and was sent to the county jail on October 6. The Merced County district attorney's office said in a news release that it would not make a determination this year on whether to pursue the death penalty in the case of Jesus Manuel Salgado, the Los Angeles Times reported. Salgado is said to have had a long-standing feud with the family and was a former employee in their trucking business. In a mindless act of revenge, Salgado murdered the family. Salgado is currently undergoing medical treatment after he attempted to kill himself before officials arrived to arrest him on October 4. Relatives of the family told investigators that Salgado had sent angry text messages or e-mails about a year ago after working with the trucking business, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said. He was also arrested 17 years ago for robbing a family he then used to work for, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Salgado's younger brother Alberto Salgado, 41, was also taken into custody last week and has been accused of criminal conspiracy, accessory, and destroying evidence. The bodies of 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her parents Jasleen Kaur, 27, and Jasdeep Singh, 36, and her uncle Amandeep Singh, 39 were located in an "extremely remote" area near the intersection of Indiana and Hutchins roads. Chennai, Oct 11 : Bengaluru's Pragathi Gowda kept Indian hopes alive in the FIA Rally Star Asia-Pacific Final as she qualified for Stage 3 of the competition at the Madras International Circuit, here on Tuesday. Australia's Jaidyn Gluskie was the overall quickest with a blistering best lap of 01min, 34.08secs over a 1,300-metre course. The 25-year-old Pragathi, who clocked a best lap of 01:41.96, was among 12 qualifiers for the final round which will be run on Wednesday when the Asia-Pacific champion is decided. "I am extremely happy to qualify for tomorrow's Stage 3. The conditions in the afternoon when I drove were much better than in the morning and I was able to perform well. Yesterday was my first experience driving a Cross Car, but now, I am a little more comfortable with it and happy for the opportunity to compete in this competition," said Pragathi. Earlier, six other Indians -- Harkrishan Wadia, Arnav Pratap Singh, Tarushi Vikram, Vedant Jouhari, Jasmehar Jubbal and Jeremy Miller -- were knocked out. Of the lot, Wadia, the quickest Indian on Monday, was distinctly unlucky to miss the qualification for Stage 3 as he was docked a two-second penalty for knocking down a couple of marker cones in his second timed lap which put him third in the group, just one second behind Sri Lanka's Eshan Pieris, the organisers informed in a release on Tuesday. "In the first timed lap, the gear slipped into neutral and I lost time. On my second outing, I think I knocked down a couple of marker cones. But overall, it was a good experience," said a disappointed Harkrishan. As in the case of Wadia, much was expected of Arnav Pratap Singh who had fared well in Stage 1 on Monday, but a couple of driving errors during the timed runs on Tuesday cost the Delhi driver. The 25 contestants in Stage 2 on Tuesday were divided into five groups of five each. The two quickest in each group advanced to Stage 3. They were joined by two others who topped a modified version of Nacon's WRC 9 game in the Digital Challenge, open to the drivers eliminated after Stage 2. The conditions, following overnight rain, were tricky. The slush caught out many drivers, especially those starting down the order. The mud thrown up by the early cars rendered the terrain, which was a mix of tarmac and dirt, slippery, putting a premium on car control. The terrain improved considerably later in the day under bright sunshine and the drivers were able to clock faster times. The winners of the Asia-Pacific region will be announced on Wednesday after all the drivers have been interviewed by the four-member Jury comprising FIA Rally Director Andrew Wheatley (Chairman), Pernilla Solberg, Maciej Woda and Guy Botterill (Driver Advisor). Shillong, Oct 11 : After having 'strained relationship' with the National People's Party (NPP), which dominated Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced to field candidates in all the 60 seats in the next assembly elections, due in February next year. Meghalaya BJP President Ernest Mawrie said that the party would contest in all 60 Assembly seats in the state in the assembly election, which is less than five months away from now. "The BJP would do well in Meghalaya in the upcoming polls as the people are very happy for the schemes being implemented by the BJP-led Central Government," Mawrie told the media. He said that the party has already finalised its strategies to take on the other parties in the ensuing assembly polls. In the last assembly polls in 2018, the BJP had nominated 47 candidates including two women nominees, and won two seats - Pynthorumkhrah (Alexander Laloo Hek) and South Shillong (Sanbor Shullai). Shullai is now a cabinet minister of the MDA government headed by Chief Minister and the NPP President Conrad K. Sangma. With two members, BJP is the junior partner of the NPP-led MDA government but the saffron party's relations have been deteriorating since last year on various policy matters. Last month, state BJP leaders threatened to withdraw support from the MDA government. But the party is now silent on the pullout decision. BJP MLA and Minister Shullai, who holds the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary, Arts and Culture, Prisons and Correctional Services, Labour Departments, recently indicated that his party might not withdraw support from the MDA government. With state BJP leaders largely mum after their pullout threat, political pundits are saying that the party's Central leaders did not endorse the state unit's decision. Chief Minister Sangma has already termed the state BJP leaders' threat as an "individual decision" while NPP state President W.R. Kharlukhi described it as "total farce". Meghalaya BJP President Ernest Mawrie, former Health and Family Welfare Minister Alexander Laloo Hek, BJP national Vice-President and party's Meghalaya in-charge M. Chuba Ao earlier separately said that the state party leaders unanimously decided to withdraw support from the MDA government but the final decision would be taken by the Central leadership. To a query about the reasons behind the decision to quit the ruling coalition almost at the end of the full five year term, Hek had told IANS that "everything would be disclosed and explained in detail at an appropriate time". NPP's relation with the BJP had been gradually souring over various issues, specially after the arrest of BJP state Vice President Bernard N. Marak, who was arrested from Uttar Pradesh by the Meghalaya Police on July 25 for allegedly running a brothel in the West Garo Hills district. Chennai, Oct 11 : JSW Cement on Tuesday said it will invest over Rs 3,200 crore to set up an integrated greenfield cement manufacturing facility in Madhya Pradesh as well as a split grinding unit in Uttar Pradesh. The combined cement capacity across both these units will be 5 million ton per annum (MTPA), the company said. The proposed investment includes an integrated cement plant with 2.5 MTPA clinker capacity, 2.5 MTPA grinding capacity, 15 MW Waste Heat Recovery System, a modern residential colony in Madhya Pradesh, and a 2.5 MTPA grinding unit in Uttar Pradesh. On Monday, JSW Cement acquired Springway Mining Private Ltd (SMPL) owning limestone land for Rs 476.87 crore from India Cements Ltd. Springway Mining was in the process of setting up a cement mill in Madhya Pradesh. According to India Cements, out of the total consideration, a sum of Rs 373.87 crore has been received on Monday. The balance Rs 103 crore will be received on completion of certain conditions of the Share Purchase Agreement, on or before December 31, 2022. JSW Cement said the acquisition gives it access to limestone reserves of about 106 million ton, including a mining lease valid until 2065. The limestone mine is spread over about 500 hectares of land located in Panna District of Madhya Pradesh. The company has secured most of the regulatory approvals for mining operations and is pursuing requisite approvals for setting up the integrated cement manufacturing facilities. JSW Cement's integrated manufacturing facility will be located adjacent to this mining reserve. "The acquisition of Springway Mining from India Cements puts JSW Cement on its path to 50 MTPA capacity with a pan-India footprint. This strategic investment marks our entry into the highly attractive Central Indian market with specific focus on servicing the prolific needs of customers in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh," said Parth Jindal, Managing Director, JSW Cement. Bhubaneswar, Oct 11 : The arrest of Archana Nag, a Bhubaneswar-based young woman, for allegedly honey-trapping an Odia film producer is said to be giving sleepless nights to many prominent personalities in Odisha. As per reports, nearly 20 leaders from the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), besides prominent businessmen, film producers and real estate tycoons were honey-trapped by the woman, who had allegedly hired high-profile call girls to please wealthy customers. This came to light when a girl filed a complaint against Odia film producer Akshaya Parija, accusing him of sexually exploiting her. Following this complaint, some purportedly obscene pictures of Parija with a girl went viral on the social media. A day later, the film producer lodged a complaint at the Nayapalli police station alleging that Archana and another woman, Shradhanjali Behera, had made extortion demands of Rs 3 crore from him. "They issued a threat. If I fail to give the money, they would cut me into pieces," said the film producer in his complaint. Bhubaneswar Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Prateek Singh, said that another woman had also lodged a complaint against Archana at Khandagiri police station on October 2, alleging that she was in possession of some of her obscene photos and was blackmailing her. Archana had taken a few photos of the complainant's private moments by forging a friendship with the latter. Subsequently, the accused woman started blackmailing her. Archana even forced the girl to blackmail Parija, the DCP added. Soon after receiving a complaint from the woman, Khandagiri police arrested Archana and seized four mobile phones, two tablets, one laptop and pen drive, and passbooks from the latter's house in Bhubaneswar. The police found some incriminating evidence like photos and video clips of several renowned personalities with the accused. Therefore, the police produced Archana in court. Archana's appearance in the local court through video-conferencing has also raised several eyebrows. According to sources, the girls working at the behest of Archana were having physical relations with powerful people and hidden cameras were capturing their private moments. Later, Archana used those photos and videos to blackmail and extort money from rich and powerful people. Archana and her husband Jagabandhu Chand, who hail from a middle-class background, were enjoying a luxurious lifestyle. They were staying in a palatial building, and were using luxurious cars and bikes. Odisha Assembly's former Speaker Surjya Narayan Patro, former Congress MLA Kailash Chandra Kulesika, a former Divisional Railway Manager Anup Kumar Satpathy were seen posing for photos with the couple inside the palatial building, which was also used for shooting films and TV serials. These photos have also gone viral on the social media. The photos of former Union Minister Jual Oram with Archana have also gone viral. Oram said he does not know Archana or her husband. Since he is a public figure, many people click photos with him, the BJP MP said. While Archana was introducing herself as a lawyer before powerful people, her husband had mentioned on his Facebook account that he was a BJD member. However, neither Archana and her husband nor the BJD has issued any statement yet on this issue. On Tuesday, the Opposition BJP and Congress demanded a CBI probe into the case. New Delhi, Oct 11: The horrific bomb blast at the Kaaj Learning Centre in Kabul which left 53 dead -- mostly girls -- has only made the 400-odd Afghan refugee students studying at the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan High School in the heart of New Delhi even more resolute in their determination in seeking peace. While inaugurating the "Peace Club" at their school on Friday they recited the same oath that was read out by the students at Kaaj minutes before they were killed in the blast. The club and its activities are aimed at spreading the message of universal peace, harmony and non-violence, in an era otherwise marked by uncertainty in Afghanistan, school authorities said. "At this critical phase of their lives, it is important for all of us to keep reiterating that it is only peace that is the way forward," one of the staff members said. A host of events promoting peace and mutual respect have kicked in since October 2 -- the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. While Dari and Pashto are the two languages used to teach the students, they speak Hindi fluently as well. The school is now looking to apply for an affiliation with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to enable the students passing out from here to be able to pursue higher education in India without any hassle. Though the school, which had no official premise till August, has finally managed to get a small building in Jangpura to hold offline classes, authorities are hopeful that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) would help in getting a modern building with more space. "We are in talks with the MEA on this issue..it is important to ensure that the refugee children here get quality education who have been fighting all odds. It is critical for us to give them the opportunity to merge into the mainstream society despite the current uncertainty in Afghanistan," Navita Srikant, a commentator on international affairs, who has also been working with the Afghan refugees to promote education, told India Narrative. Classes at the school are currently being held in two shifts as the space is inadequate to accommodate all the students at the same time. The number of students is increasing by the day, the staff members added. The number of Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR India till December 31, 2021, stood at 15,916, as per the annual report of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, the unofficial number is significantly higher. A report published by Hindustan Times noted that Ahmed Zia Ghani, head of the Afghan solidarity committee in India pegged the number at more than 22,000 Afghans. (The content is being carried under an arrangement with indianarrative.com) --indianarrative New Delhi, Oct 11 : A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its order on whether to refer the plea on the practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community to a larger bench. The five-judge bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, A.S. Oka, Vikram Nath, and J.K. Maheshwari said the fact that this matter has been pending since 1986 troubles it. "The options before us is to determine the limited issue that remains before us, or to refer it to the nine-judge bench," it said. The five-judge bench is examining the correctness of a 1962 judgment, where the top court had protected the rights of the Bohra community to excommunicate members. This judgment was delivered by a five-judge bench. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, submitted that reconsideration of the Dawoodi Bohra excommunication verdict, which was pronounced by a five-judge bench may not be possible by a bench of the same strength. The respondents urged the apex court to wait for a nine-judge bench decision in the Sabarimala matter or refer the present case also to a nine-judge bench. On September 20, the Supreme Court had agreed to examine whether practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community can continue as a "protected practice", against the backdrop of the Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2016. Senior advocate Siddharth Bhatnagar, representing the petitioners, submitted that writ petition is not infructuous as the question arising is whether excommunication as practised in the Dawoodi Bohra community is unconstitutional or not, which would survive the repeal of the Act. He further submitted that the question of whether excommunication is a practice which is unconstitutional is not specifically framed and before the bench of nine judges in the Sabarimala reference and accordingly, a specific issue would have to be framed on this aspect. After hearing detailed arguments, the top court proceeded to reserve its verdict. The petitioners were represented by senior advocate, Siddharth Bhatnagar, briefed by advocate Jatin Mongia and a team of advocates from Karanjawala & Co. In 1962, the apex court had held that religious faith and tenets of the Dawoodi Bohra community gave its religious heads the power of excommunication as part of their "management of religious affairs" under Article 26(b) of the Constitution. This verdict had come on a challenge to Section 3 of the Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act of 1949. In the previous hearing, it was argued before the top court that after the 2016 law, the 1949 Act had become non-existent and the excommunication is not legally feasible now and the current law deals with several kinds of social boycott. A counsel in the matter argued that a general law on social boycott would not be sufficient to protect members of the Bohra community facing excommunication. The bench was informed that excommunication, through the 1962 judgment, was protected as a religious practice under Article 26(b) of the Constitution. A counsel said his clients have challenged the practice. It was argued that the religious heads of the community would never themselves say excommunication is bad. The 2016 Act had identified 16 types of social ostracization and made them illegal, punishing the perpetrators with imprisonment for upto three years. Bell Bottoms : , polka dots, androgynous clothing, psychedelic patterns -- '70s fashion was flamboyantly eye-catching and Bollywood films of the decade replicate it faithfully. Iconic crime thriller "Don" (1978) is a case in point with even the supporting actor dressed in monogrammed shirts and the villains sporting trendy T-shirts and waistcoats. Why was then poor Amitabh Bachchan fated to wear the same costume for the entire last hour-plus of the film? Those who have seen the film may recall that Bachchan, as street performer Vijay, who is impersonating the killed 'Don', is tastefully garbed in a beige coat, brown trousers, a brown-patterned waistcoat, a white shirt, and a canary yellow bowtie, when he sashays in to sing "Arre diwanon mujhe pehchano..." at a party held to celebrate him regaining his memory. This is roughly the first hour and half mark, or around 96 minutes into the 166-minute film. From then on till the end, as the police raid the hideout, the DSP who knows his secret is killed, leaving Vijay trapped as the fake don. He manages to escape from the gang after engineering a brawl in the prisoner transport, eludes the police, sings an iconic song, learns who the real villain is, engages in at least two scraps before the climactic free-for-all at a graveyard, and things end happily for the hero, heroine, and others. Thoughout all this, he is seen wearing the same costume. The coat and the bowtie, though, disappear along the course, and Vijay picks up a 'gamchha' on the way -- probably from his eastern UP compatriots -- and ties in around the head like a bandana sometimes. The reason why Bachchan was forced to wear the same clothes was rooted in the intention of the scriptwriters, the legendary Salim-Javed, to retain control over the spirit of their narrative even if they had offered it nearly gratis. For this, we need to take a slight detour into the making of "Don", whose brisk pace, sharp dialogues and timeless finesse made it a fit candidate for remakes. Bachchan, in his first abortive foray into films in 1967, had met Manoj Kumar, who took a liking for him, more so after coming to know that he was the son of Harivansh Rai Bachchan, whose poetry he appreciated. Bachchan eventually found fame with "Zanjeer", but Manoj Kumar cast him in "Roti Kapda Aur Makaan" (1974). There, Bachchan got to know Manoj Kumar's cinematographer Nariman Irani, who was a producer as well and had made a huge loss on his last film. Hearing about it, Bachchan and Zeenat Aman offered to act in his next film, and Manoj Kumar's assistant director, Chandra Barot, volunteered to helm it. For the script, Irani and Barot approached the up-and-coming Salim-Javed and sought their help. The writers offered them a script that everyone in the industry had rejected, but Irani and Barot found it suitable and started work on it. Irani, meanwhile, died in a set accident and Barot and the actors were more determined than ever to complete the film successfully, so they could help his family. When the film was done, Barot showed it to his mentor, Manoj Kumar, who observed that the last hour was too fast-paced and could do with two songs to alleviate the tension a bit. The director went back to the script writers who conceded the point but held that one song would be enough. That is how the iconic "Khaike Paan Banaraswala" became a part of the film -- and though shot and incorporated later, it fits so seamlessly that it appears it was part of the original. Bachchan, too, had a request. As he was wearing the same clothes for quite some time, could the writers facilitate his paramour Roma (Zeenat) getting him a set of new ones when she appears to meet him, and a police patrol sends them scurrying to where the UP-walas are having a sing-song. Salim-Javed put their foot down here, contending that this was unnecessary and would compromise the anxiety and terror felt by Vijay as he sought to elude both the police and the smugglers' gang, and manage to establish his innocence. Whether convinced or feeling unable to contest the point, Bachchan backed down -- and stayed in the same clothes. It also must be mentioned that "Don" was initially deemed a failure, but by the second week, it began picking up pace. The inclusion of the "Khaike paan..." bolstered it. And Bachchan's costume -- the white shirt stayed pristine bright throughout -- didn't bother the audience. (Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in) New Delhi, Oct 11 : Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian on Tuesday revealed company's plans for metaverse and Web 3.0, including a new partnership with leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase which has selected Google Cloud to build advanced exchange and data services. Google last year announced Project Starline, a technology project that enables coworkers to feel like they are together, even when they are cities apart. It creates a 3D model of a person, making it feel like you are sitting with someone in the same room -- not at the other end of a video call. Kurian said during the 'Google Cloud Next 2022' event that after thousands of hours of testing in own offices, including demos with enterprise partners, "we're seeing promising results". "Today, we're announcing our next phase of testing with an early access program with enterprise partners such as Salesforce, T-Mobile, and others. Starting this year, we'll be deploying units in select partner offices for regular testing," Kurian informed. Google is also helping Web 3.0 founders and developers with scalability, reliability, security, and data, so they can spend the bulk of their time on innovation. "We're announcing a new partnership with Coinbase, who has selected Google Cloud to build advanced exchange and data services. We will also enable select customers to pay for cloud services via select cryptocurrencies by using Coinbase Commerce," said Google Cloud CEO. The company also announced new innovations in Google Workspace. In Google Meet, "we're taking it a step further with new capabilities, including adaptive framing with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech that lets everyone in a conference room be seen clearly, and speaker spotlight, which enables presenters to better engage their audience by embedding their video directly in Google Slides," Kurian announced. "Beyond meetings, we're helping teams have more authentic and expressive communications with custom emojis and inline threaded conversations for Google Chat," he added. Google said the smart canvas experience is also getting richer with custom building blocks in Google Docs, enabling companies to build their own templates that can be easily accessed by all users. Raichur : , Oct 11 (IANS) Ruling BJP in Karnataka on Tuesday sounded poll bugle by kick-starting Jan Sankalp Yatra from Raichur district of the state. Addressing the huge gathering, BJP Central Parliamentary Committee member and former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa called Rahul Gandhi a 'bachcha'. "At a time when the whole world is appreciating the leadership of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this 'bachcha' Rahul Gandhi criticises him," Yediyurappa stated. Addressing the crowd, he further continued that this gives an idea on how low the Congress party can stoop down to. Yediyurappa asked Opposition leader Siddaramaiah to stop day dreaming about coming to power in the state. "We (BJP) are going to win more than 150 assembly seats in the state. No force can stop it," he announced. Further targeting Siddaramaiah for criticism against RSS and BJP, Yediyurappa stated that in the upcoming assembly session his true colours will be revealed. His scandals will be investigated and he will be made stand in appropriate place, he said. The victory march has begun from here for the BJP, he added. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai chided that backwards and Dalits have left Congress party and only minorities are with them. Taking a dig at Siddaramaiah's visit to Raichur, he said, their prince (Rahul Gandhi) has taken up a padayatra. That is why Siddaramaiah is here. They are feared that they wouldn't get enough people here for their convention. He further slammed Congress for trying to take credit for enhancement of reservation of SC's and ST's in the state. Reacting to the statement that he is just a puppet in the hands of RSS, Bommai stated that RSS is a patriotic organisation and involved in nation building. Referring to Rahul Gandhi as a small boy, he said, "if the small boy runs you will also run, if he sits, you will sit. You can do anything for power. This shows the level of self respect one has." Rahul Gandhi has taken up Bharat Jodo Yatra to become relevant in politics. The planners of Congress padayatra say they will have to re-launch Rahul Gandhi. This is all about him not about the country, CM Bommai stated. Congress is a sinking ship. The leaders of Congress are already sending signals, he said. Countering BJP charges, Congress retaliated that, panic stricken by the sea of people marching in Bharat Jodo Yatra, CM Bommai-Yediyurappa begin their "Plane-Helicopter' Yatra today. Targeting the BJP, Karnataka Congress in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala posed a series of questions on Twitter. Quoting 10 questions, he said, people of Karnataka want answers for them. "Was Yediyurappa removed as CM on charges of Corruption? Has a corruption FIR lodged against him now by Lokayukta?, Isn't BJP Govt now known nationwide as #40 Percent Sarkara? Isn't PayCM the buzzword on everyone mouth? Why? Why have u not taken action on 40 per cent Commission complaint of "Contractor's association"? Why have u not acted on the 40 per cent Commission Complaint of 13,000 Pvt Schools Association?," he said. "Why have even Mutt's Swami ji accused your Govt of 40 per cent Commission? Why have you given clean chit to murderers of Santosh Patil in 40 per cent case? Why is your own MLA saying that BJP Govt in Karnataka is most Corrupt? Why is your own MLA saying even CM post is on sale for Rs 2,500 Crores? Haven't your own ministers saying that there is no Govt in Karnataka and u are just passing time?," the Congrees leader questioned. "Mr. Bommai, the plain truth is you have zero plans, zero vision for Karnataka - your's is a zero-sum game. You lord over the most corrupt govt in India. Your incompetence is becoming legendary. Your mal-administration is exemplary. Stop fooling people, People will defeat you," Randeep Singh Surjewala stated. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has decided to establish the 'International Sikh Advisory Board', which will comprise Sikh representatives from different countries. The board will make efforts to resolve issues and grievances of Sikhs living in foreign countries and support the local Gurdwara management committees in activities of 'Dharam Prachar' (preaching of the Sikh faith). This decision was taken in the SGPC's Executive Committee (EC) meeting held here in Amritsar under the leadership of SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami. During the meeting, an approval was also given to establish sub-offices of SGPC in different countries. Talking to mediapersons, Dhami said Sikhs were living across the world and this trend was accelerating. In view of this, the SGPC had decided to establish an International Sikh Advisory Board for better follow-up of Sikh issues worldwide. Hazaribagh, Oct 11 : A Dalit youth was dragged out of his house and murdered in Pachda village in Keredari police station area of Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. His body was tied with his shirt and hung from an electric pole. The victim has been identified as Sitan Bhuiyan. The body was seen hanging on Tuesday morning by the villagers. The Keredari police reached the spot and brought the body down and had to face the villagers' opposition while sending it to Hazaribagh for post-mortem. The villagers protested that they will not allow the police to take the body until the accused were arrested. This argument went on for around three hours. The police were able to take the body after assuring of assistance as per the government provisions. The victim's wife, Paro Devi, has accused 8-10 people of the village, including Shankar Sahu, Janardan Sahu, Suresh Sahu and Deepak Sahu of murder. Late at night on October 10, some people came to our house and forcibly took my husband away, said Devi in her complaint. Devi, in the statement to the police said that the accused entered her house and locked her and her children in a room. Their cries for help couldn't be heard due to the loud noise of the DJ playing in the village. Bhuyan was 35 years old and worked as a labourer. He is survived by his wife and four children. The motive behind the murder is not known yet but the villagers are linking it to a love affair. Keredari police station in-charge, Sadhan Chandra Gorai has said that an FIR has been registered against 10 people in this case. Raids are being conducted to nab the culprits involved in the murder. Keredari Block Pramukh Sunita Devi, Pachda Panchayat Mukhiya Mahesh Prasad Sahu and local social worker Prem Ranjan Paswan have demanded the arrest of the accused and compensation from the administration to the family members. Chennai, Oct 11 : The replacement work of the collapsed centre shutter of Parambikulam dam - located in Kerala but maintained by the Tamil Nadu government - began on Tuesday, officials said. After the shutter collapsed on September 21, the Tamil Nadu authorities conducted inspection of the dam but could not commence work due to heavy water flow in it. When the water level came down from the full reservoir level of 72 feet to 45.06 feet on Monday, the PWD authorities decided to commence the replacement work on Tuesday. According to a senior official, the water flow on Monday was 35 cusecs while on September 21 immediately after the shutter collapsed, the water flow was 20,000 cusecs. The Tamil Nadu government has allocated an amount of Rs 7.2 crore for installing a new steel shutter and 35 tonnes of counterweight. The water from the Parambikkulam dam is irrigating farmland in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore and Tirupur districts as well as agricultural land in Kerala's Palakkad district. After the shutter was damaged last month, Kerala Police and authorities asked people to be on alert and some families were removed to rehabilitation camps. Sources in the Tamil Nadu Water Works department told IANS that the complete work will take a maximum of one month. Chandigarh, Oct 11 : Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday warned Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against reducing Punjab's river waters to a negotiable issue between Punjab and Haryana. In a statement here, the SAD President said it was shocking that the Chief Minister had not made the Punjab government's stand clear before holding a meeting with his Haryana counterpart on this issue. He said Punjab had an exclusive right over its river waters and Haryana being a non-Riparian state had no locus standi in the matter. "There is nothing to discuss here with Haryana." Badal's assertions come in the wake of Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar saying that he will be meeting his Punjab counterpart regarding the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal on October 14 in Chandigarh. Asserting that no country could go against the internationally accepted principle of Riparian rights, Badal said "if non-Riparian Haryana is allowed to demand a share in Punjab's river waters, what can stop Tamil Nadu or Bengal or Kerala, all non-Riparian states with respect to the Ravi, the Satluj and the Beas rivers from demanding the same. Similarly if the same used stick is applied what stops Punjab from demanding waters from the Godavari or the Ganges". Badal also said the issue of the Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal had been closed in 2016 when the Parkash Singh Badal government denotified the land which had been taken for establishment of the SYL and handed it back to its original owners free of cost. "Parts of the canal had been even been ploughed and the canal does not exist in its old state in Punjab." Asking the Chief Minister to clear the air, Badal said there were deep misgivings in the minds of Punjabis that the AAP government was in the process of handing over their river waters to Haryana and Delhi. He said during a recent visit to Haryana, Mann had even endorsed this proposal which was made by AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal in his presence. "Earlier also the AAP government in Delhi has submitted identical affidavits along with Haryana in the apex court and made its anti-Punjab position clear. But despite all this the Chief Minister has neither clarified the state's stand nor categorically told Punjabis that he would not let a drop of water pass to Haryana from Punjab". Asserting that the entire state would turn into a desert and that its agri economy would be doomed in case the AAP government in Punjab succumbed to pressure from its high command to release water to Haryana, Badal said SAD was ready to make any sacrifice to secure the river water rights of Punjab. "We have made this clear to the erstwhile Central governments as well as courts. We will not allow AAP to sell off the state's River water rights to please its high command," he added. Chennai, Oct 11 : At least 15 school children were injured when their van overturned in Virudhachalam in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu. The accident occurred after the van carrying the students entered into a race with another van from the same school. The school van, according to the police, entered into a race with the other van at Adhanur near Virudhachalam and the driver tried to overtake it. He lost control after the van hit the other van, veered to one side and overturned. The driver of the van was also injured. Police have registered a case against the drivers of the two vans for speeding and rash driving. Nine people including 5 school children lost their lives in Vadakanchery, Palakkad district of Kerala due to rash driving by a tourist bus driver on October 5. The students were on a trip to Ooty when the accident occurred. The Kerala motor vehicles department has now launched a crackdown on tourist buses and vans that do not have proper documents. Meanwhile, the local people have blocked the Virudhunagar- Chidambaram road protesting against the rash driving by school bus drivers. Kannan Ramanathan, a businessman, told IANS that "The local people had complained several times to the school authorities and the police against speeding school vans and buses. This incident is an eye opener and the police must take stringent action against those involved in this accident." New Delhi, Oct 11 : Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit, who will retire on November 8, on Tuesday named Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the senior-most judge in the Supreme Court, as his successor. After the Centre clears his name, justice Chandrachud would become the 50th CJI. Chief Justice Lalit, in presence of all Supreme Court judges, handed over the letter of recommendation to Justice Chandrachud. He will retire on November 10, 2024. Justice Chandrachud is son of former Supreme Court judge Y.V. Chandrachud who was the longest serving CJI for being in office for about seven years and four months between 1978 to 1985. During his tenure, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud overturned two judgments of his father - which were related to adultery and the right to privacy. Justice Chandrachud obtained a PhD from Harvard Law School and is known as a non-conformist judge. He has played a key role in introducing virtual hearings during the Covid time, which has now become a permanent feature. He has been part of the landmark judgments on Ayodhya title dispute, decriminalisation of homosexuality, adultery, privacy, entry of women into Sabarimala etc. On September 29, a bench headed by Justice Chandrachud said that all women -- including the unmarried -- are entitled to safe and legal abortion, and also the meaning of rape must be understood as including marital rape, solely for the purposes of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act and any rules and regulations framed thereunder. Married women may also form part of the class of survivors of sexual assault or rape, added the bench. Justice Chandrachud practised in Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. He passed BA with honours in economics from St Stephen's College, New Delhi and completed LLB from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. He also served as Additional Solicitor General of India from 1998 till 2000. He was first appointed as judge of the Bombay High Court on March 29, 2000. He has also served as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court since October 31, 2013 until his elevation as an apex court judge on May 13, 2016. Justice Chandrachud has been a visiting Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Mumbai and at Oklahoma University School of Law, US. In June 1998, he was designated as senior advocate by the Bombay High Court. The Centre, as per Memorandum of Procedure, asks the outgoing CJI to name the successor, just before a month of retirement. Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, on October 7, sent a letter to the Chief Justice Lalit to make recommendation for appointment of his successor. Ranchi, Oct 11 : The Jharkhand police have arrested three cybercriminals from Jamtara district, who learned Tamil specially to dupe hundreds of people in Tamil Nadu, to the tune of Rs eight to Rs 10 lakh. The accused have been identified as Shamshad Ansari, Iqbal Ansari and Shahbaz Ansari. However, the leader of this gang, Guddu Ansari, fled as soon as he was tipped off about the police raid. According to the police in Jamtara cyber police station, all three accused are brothers and residents of Bihajori village under Narayanpur police station in Jamtara district. The accused planned to target the people of Tamil Nadu as they feared being caught by the police while duping the people of Hindi-speaking states. The gang's masterminds Guddu Ansari and Shahbaz Ansari lived in Tamil Nadu and did small menial jobs there as well as learned Tamil. After returning to Jamtara, the accused used to contact people in Tamil Nadu through local numbers in a pre-planned manner by posing as a person from a courier company or a customer care officer of a bank and asked them to send a transaction link of Rs 5 on their mobile phones. Through this link and with the help of specially designed software, the accused used to trace the details and PIN number of people's bank accounts and then used to withdraw money from their bank account. During investigation, the police found that the mobile numbers and SIM cards used by the accused were either stolen or have been issued on fake IDs. Seven mobile phones and 12 SIM cards recovered from the possession of the accused have been confiscated. Although no victim from Tamil Nadu has lodged an FIR against these cybercriminals but the cyber police caught all the accused during the investigation. They have been sent to jail. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested a person in Jammu and Kashmir after conducting day-long raids at 18 locations in the union territory in connection with the suspicious funding activities of the Al Huda Educational Trust (AHET), an official said on Tuesday. The raids were conducted in Rajouri, Poonch, Jammu, Srinagar, Bandipora, Shopian, Pulwama and Budgam districts of Jammu and Kashmir. The arrested individual has been identified as Md. Ameer Shamshi, a resident of Rajouri. An official said that Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), after being declared as an 'unlawful association' under UAPA Act, has been continuing its activities through its frontal organisations. One such organisation is AHET, in Rajouri district. "AHUT has been found raising funds through various means, including donations, hawala etc, purportedly for charitable purposes. But they are instead using these funds to radicalise and incite the youth of J&K for unlawful activities and disrupt the territorial integrity and sovereignty of India. NIA had suo-moto registered the case on September 3, 2022," the official said. The NIA said that investigations have revealed that Shamshi is the Chairperson (Nizam-e-ala) of AHET and acts on the directions of the Chief Patron of the Trust. Investigations have also revealed that the ex-officio Chief Patron of AHET is the Ameer-e-Jamaat, JeI (J&K). "The trust has been raising funds even after the declaration of JEI, J&K as an 'unlawful association'. Suspicious links with other NGOs and trusts operating in the Kashmir Valley have also emerged during investigations," the official said. During the searches conducted, several mobile devices and documents related to funding, properties etc., have been seized. Hyderabad, Oct 11 : The University of Hyderabad (UoH) and the Centre for Cellular Molecular Biology (CCMB) in collaboration with VINS Bioproducts Limited, a leading immunological company based in Hyderabad, announced the successful completion of the Phase-two clinical trials of VINCOV-19, India's first antidote and a cure against SARS-CoV-2 virus. VINCOV-19 is now ready for market authorisation and for simultaneous phase-three clinical trials, UoH said on Tuesday. Phase-two clinical trials were conducted across multiple centres in India and included more than 200 patients. The Phase-two clinical trials also included testing the antidote against the Omicron variant to ensure maximum coverage against the virus and its known mutations. The Phase-two clinical trials were completed successfully in September 2022. In this phase, VINCOV-19 was administered to patients with moderate severity of Covid-19. One group of patients was given VINCOV-19 along with Standard of Care (SoC), and another group was given SoC only. VINCOV-19 showed an excellent safety profile in the Phase-two trials. There was a good and early improvement in the clinical condition of the patients administered VINCOV-19. VINCOV-19 contains Equine polyclonal antibodies (EpAbs) against the Covid-19 virus. VINCOV-19 comprises highly purified F(ab')2 antibody fragments that have a high neutralising capacity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Since neutralising antibodies could block the internalisation of SARS-CoV-2 to lung cells, it was postulated that their passive administration should render maximal clinical benefits if they are applied at the early stages of the disease. B.J. Rao, Vice-Chancellor, UoH, expressed happiness at this academia and industry collaboration with complementing technical and infrastructural strength available in the three partnering organisations yielding fruitful results in less than a year. Vinay K. Nandicoori, Director, CSIR-CCMB, said, "These therapeutic antibodies are the first in India and among the few around the globe. It is essential to have multiple options, including therapeutic antibodies, especially for severe clinical cases of Covid. It is a major step for the future targeted collaborations between academia and industry." The team, led by Krishnan H. Harshan at CCMB, isolated SARS-CoV-2 in April 2020, which led to this successful collaboration. His group led the studies pertaining to the characterisation of the virus, antigen, and viral neutralisation assays. He said, "We are happy that we overcame all the uncertainties pertaining to the development of this product and are excited to see its success in clinical trials." The UoH team is headed by Nooruddin Khan, an Associate Professor at the Department of Animal Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad. Khan specializes in the area of immunology and Vaccinology. His expertise in immunological studies helped in the success of VINCOV-19 in clinical trials. Speaking on the successful completion of the Phase-two clinical trials of VINCOV-19, Siddharth Daga, Chief Executive Officer, VINS Bioproducts Limited, said, "Phase-2 clinical trials of VINCOV-19 have been very successful. VINCOV-19 has been shown to be safe and ensures the speedy recovery of patients suffering from Covid-19. The development of VINCOV-19 by VINS Bio is an affirmation of "Aatmanirbhar Bharat" and the collaboration between the three partners is a step in the right direction. We would urge the authorities to allow us the market authorisation so that we can strengthen our fight against Covid-19." The development of VINCOV-19 is through a collaborative effort between the CCMB that helped develop the viral antigen; the UoH that helped with product characterization; and VINS Bioproducts Limited that managed the equine immunization and clinical development in their state-of-art manufacturing plant in Telangana. Kolkata, Oct 11 : A special ED court here on Tuesday remanded Trinamool Congress MLA and former president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE), Manik Bhattacharya, to 14 days custody of the probe agency for his alleged involvement in multi-crore West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam. Bhattacharya will now be presented at the same court on October 25. After arrest, ED officials took him to ESI Hospital at Joka on southern outskirts of Kolkata for medical check-up and from there he was presented at a lower court in Kolkata. While he was being presented at the court on Tuesday, the people present addressed him as a thief and some of them also showed him their shoes. Even after he was taken within the courtroom, a group of protestors continued with their demonstrations within the court premises clapping their shoes and shouting slogans claiming that all in Trinamool Congress are 'thieves'. In the court, ED's counsel claimed an amount of Rs 2.64 crore has been tracked from the bank account of a company owned by Manik Bhattacharya's son. "The said company had an agreement with Bengal Teachers' Training Institute. The Central agency sleuths have traced agreement and transactions of the said company with a number of bachelor of education colleges in the state which needs to be probed further," the ED counsel informed the court. During this argument, the ED counsel questioned what would be the future of the state where ineligible candidates have been recruited as teachers and many of them teaching currently. "The eligible candidates are still protesting on the streets of Kolkata. Despite being eligible, they did not get appointment letters since they could not pay for their appointment," he said. Manik Bhattacharya's counsel argued that ED had not issued an arrest memo either to his client nor his family. However, ED counsel countered that and claimed that an arrest memo has been issued to Bhattacharya and a note has been given that initially he refused to accept the arrest memo. Meanwhile, ED sources said that from the mobile phone of Bhattacharya, the ED sleuths have some WhatsApp message exchanges with two numbers one saved in the name of "RK" and the other in the name of "DD". "Such conversations were regarding the final merit list in recruitment. Now we are trying to track the persons against whom such numbers were registered," an ED official said. Srinagar, Oct 11 : The driver of a truck carrying fruit was killed on Tuesday by a shooting stone on J&K's Mughal Road, police said. Police sources said that a fruit carrying truck was hit by a shooting stone near the Panar Bridge on the Mughal Road. "The driver of the truck, identified as Toffiq Ahmad of Sitapur (UP), was killed on the spot while the helper of the truck escaped unhurt," a police source said. The Mughal Road connects the Valley with Poonch district of Jammu division. Authorities have been working hard to allow priority passage to fruit carrying trucks going to outside markets. To ensure that maximum number of such trucks reach the markets, the Mughal Road has also been thrown open for trucks carrying fruit. Tokyo, Oct 11 : Japan's Nissan Motor Company has decided to sell its Russian operations with an option to buy it back within six years, the company said. The company also said it will take a one-off impact of approximately 100 billion yen from this exit. According to Nissan, its Executive Committee on Tuesday approved the sale of its Russian operations to NAMI, the Central Research and Development Automobile and Engine Institute. The sale will transfer all Nissan operations in Russia under the Nissan Manufacturing Russia LLC (NMGR) legal entity to NAMI for future passenger vehicle projects, Nissan said. This covers Nissan's manufacturing and R&D facilities in St Petersburg, and Sales and Marketing centre in Moscow, which will operate under a new name. The terms of the sale would allow Nissan the option to buy back the entity and its operations within the next six years. Nissan had suspended its Russian operations following Russian military operation in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed by the West. Under the new ownership of the NMGR entity, all of Nissan's employees in the market will receive employment protection of 12 months. The sale is expected to be formalised in the coming weeks following approvals from the relevant authorities. Nissan said it maintains its full-year guidance and details will be reported after further assessment as part of the regular disclosure during the second quarter results in November 2022. Meanwhile, French auto major Renault that holds sizeable stake in Nissan said the latter's exit from Russia will have a negative contribution to Renault Group's net income estimated at 331 million euros for the second half 2022 (before IFRS adjustments). This transaction will not impact Renault Group's operating margin, free cash-flow and financial outlook, Renault added. "On behalf of Nissan, I thank our Russian colleagues for their contribution to the business over many years. While we cannot continue operating in the market, we have found the best possible solution to support our people," said Nissan President and CEO Makoto Uchida. Since Nissan assumed zero activity in the market in this fiscal year, Nissan remains on track to achieve its business objectives under the Nissan NEXT transformation plan, as the company progress towards its Ambition 2030 goals. Panaji, Oct 11 : Claiming that the coastal state will face loss of Rs 500 crore if tourists from United Kingdom don't visit, Goa Forward Party (GFP) President and MLA Vijai Sardesai has appealed to the BJP government to relax visa conditions. Sardesai, though in opposition, said that he is ready to fight together for the cause and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the issue. "I want to appeal to Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lift the visa restrictions. We can come together and meet the PM over the issue," Sardesaid said. "Goa is facing cancellation of 7 to 8 bookings per day in small and medium hotels, due to new visa restriction by the Ministry of External Affairs, where British tourists have to seek a visa from nine centres (Visa Processing) in England," he said. "This (lifting restriction) is important because in Goa annually minimum 40,000 to 50,000 tourists arrive from the UK. As per statistics of pre pandemic period, each tourist spends around Rs 98000, which means around Rs 500 crore turnover takes place from this area," Sardesai said. According to Sardesai, the state exchequer gets 10 per GST from the total turnover, which amounts to Rs 50 crore. "Government will lose it if visa restrictions are not relaxed," he pointed out. He said that earlier 35 to 40 per cent tourists from Russia used to arrive in Goa. But now due to Russia and Ukraine war these tourists will not come in the coastal state. "Hence now we need to fill this space from England," he said. Earlier in August, Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte had said that providing e-visa is also important for the state to get the same flow of people, which the government is looking forward. He had said that the government had decided to take up the issue of e-visa' to the United Kingdom with the Central government to help the tourism industry of the state. Expressing concern about the low footfall of foreign tourists due to COVID and other issues, Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) had also urged Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to convince the Central government to include UK for issuance of e-visas. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed the Calcutta High Court judgment quashing the re-appointment of Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee as Vice Chancellor of the Calcutta University. Banerjee was re-appointed by the Mamata Banerjee government, despite disagreement with the decision of the Governor, who is the ex-officio Chancellor of all state varsities. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli said: "The state government chose the incorrect path under Section 60 (of the Calcutta University Act) by misusing the 'removal of difficulty clause' to usurp the power of the Chancellor to make the appointment. A government cannot misuse the 'removal of difficulty clause' to remove all obstacles in its path which arise due to statutory restrictions. Allowing such actions would be antithetical to the rule of law." The top court said there is neither an express provision nor a necessary intendment by which it could be inferred that the power which is entrusted to the Chancellor to appoint a VC is taken away in the case of a re-appointment. It added there is no intrinsic reason or rationale to accept the interpretation which has been urged on behalf of the state of West Bengal and a re-appointment is the appointment of an existing incumbent who fulfils the conditions of eligibility. "The power of appointment including re-appointment is entrusted to the Chancellor and not to the state government. The amended provisions of Section 8(2)(a) cannot therefore be construed to mean that the power of re-appointment has been taken away from the Chancellor and entrusted to the State government. Reading the provisions in such a manner, would make the provisions entrusting the power of appointment of the VC with the Chancellor redundant," said Justice Chandrachud, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench. Banerjee was re-appointed with effect from August 28, 2021 for a period of four years. The top court added that misusing the limited power granted to make minor adaptations and peripheral adjustments in a statute for making its implementation effective to side-step the provisions of the statute altogether would defeat the purpose of the legislation. Dismissing the appeals filed by the West Bengal government and Banerjee challenging the order of the Calcutta High Court, the bench said: "Accordingly, the high court in our view was justified in coming to the conclusion that in the guise of removing the difficulties, the State cannot change the scheme and essential provisions of the Act." "We hold that the judgment of the high court is correct in law and in fact and does not warrant interference in appeal. The State government could not have issued the order re-appointing the VC". Banerjee is married to Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who was the former Chief Secretary of West Bengal and now serving as the Chief Advisor to the Chief Minister. On September 13, the high court set aside the state Education Department's decision to re-appoint her as Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University. A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj passed the order on a PIL, which challenged her appointment, contending that the state government had no power to reappoint a V-C "as the power to appoint/reappoint lies with the Chancellor". "The order of the re-appointment of respondent No. 4 as the Vice Chancellor, Calcutta University, issued by the state government, has no legal force and is void in the eyes of law and non-existent, hence liable to be set aside," it ruled. Wellington, Oct 11 : New Zealand has proposed taxing the greenhouse gases that farm animals produce from burping and urinating in a bid to tackle climate change, the media reported. The world-first scheme will see farmers paying for agricultural emissions in some form by 2025, the BBC reported. The country's farming industry accounts for about half of its emissions. But farmers have been quick to criticise the plan, with one lobby group saying it would "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand". Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said money raised from the proposed levy will be pumped back into the industry to finance new technologies, research and incentive payments for farmers. "New Zealand's farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food," she told reporters while announcing the proposals from a farm in Wairarapa, BBC reported. The pricing has not yet been decided on, but the government says that farmers should be able to make up the cost of the levy by charging more for climate-friendly produce. But some farmers have condemned the plans, saying they could prompt many of them to sell up. Federated Farmers national president Andrew Hoggard said the plan will "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand", leading to farms making way for trees. He added that the body was "deeply unimpressed" with the government's interactions with farmers while examining alternative proposals. Farmers will now be selling their land "so fast you won't even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off", he added, BBC reported. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The government has urged all distilleries to maximise production of ethanol to ensure the success of its ethanol blending programme. In a meeting conducted by senior officials of the department of food and public distribution recently, supplies of ethanol were reviewed from all sugar based distilleries of major sugar producing states, except for Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Sources privy to details said that all distilleries were requested to maximise the production of ethanol for ensuring success of government's ethanol blending programme. The meeting was attended by officials of all sugar producing states, oil marketing companies, industry associations and distilleries. Ethanol is an agro-based product, mainly produced from a by-product of the sugar industry, namely molasses. The ethanol blending programme seeks to achieve blending of ethanol with motor sprit with a view to reducing pollution, conserve foreign exchange and increase value addition in the sugar industry enabling them to clear cane price arrears of farmers. The Central government has scaled up blending targets from 5 per cent to 10 per cent under the programme. Jaipur, Oct 11 : Rajasthan BJP office bearers on Tuesday called a meeting at the Rajasthan BJP headquarters in Jaipur to discuss preparations for the proposed visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the state on November 1. Officials said that PM Modi will address a large public meeting at Mangarh Dham in the tribal district of Banswara. Mangarh is situated on a hill near Anandpuri in Banswara district on the Rajasthan-Gujarat border. Assembly elections in Gujarat are due this year while Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will go to polls in 2023. In such a situation, the meeting of Modi's Mangarh will also play a big role in forming a new political equation in the tribal belt of the three states, namely Gujarat, MP and Rajasthan. Those who attended the meeting on Tuesday included state in-charge and national general secretary Arun Singh, co-in-charge Vijaya Rahatkar, state president Satish Poonia, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, MP C.P. Joshi, deputy leader of opposition Rajendra Rathod, MLA Vasudev Devnani and senior party leaders. Rajasthan Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathod told newsmen that Mangarh is the land where the freedom struggle started. "Now the visit of PM Modi will offer rich tributes to those who sacrificed their lives and will make people aware of this lost part of history," he added. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said that in wake of the proposed meeting of PM Narendra Modi to Mangarh Dham, the state BJP office bearers meeting was called on Tuesday. "PM Narendra Modi's programme will be held in Mangarh Dham. In this Dham, 1500 Bhils were martyred in a single day by the bullets of the British. Now, if the PM will do a programme in their memory, then the programme will be bigger and the message will also be bigger," he said. Since many decades, there has been a demand that Mangarh Dham should be given the status of a national monument. New Delhi, Oct 11 : Meta (formerly Facebook) Chief Information Security Officer Guy Rosen on Tuesday slammed The Wire for publishing two stories, which, according to Rosen, were "outlandish and riddled with falsities". Rosen, in a Twitter thread, said that he wanted to set the record straight about two stories run this week by The Wire "with untrue claims about Meta's content moderation operations and processes". "These stories are fabrications. The stories are simply incorrect about the cross-check programme, which was built to prevent potential over-enforcement mistakes. It has nothing to do with the ability to report posts, as alleged in the article," he posted. The Wire on October 10 published an article titled "If BJP's Amit Malviya Reports Your Post, Instagram Will Take It Down -- No Questions Asked". The article alleged that BJP's Malviya is an all-powerful individual who can get any social media post on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram down. Rosen said that in "its October 10 story, @thewire_in links to a supposed internal report about the incident in question. It appears to be a fabrication. The URL on that 'report' is one that's not in use. The naming convention is one we don't use. There is no such report". The Wire did a story again on October 11, saying Meta's policy communications director Andy Stone sent an angry email to the team asking that the "activity report" of the leaked document be sent to him and that The Wire's reporter and editor be put on a "watchlist" so that communications to them from Meta staff can be monitored. Rosen said that the supposed email from Andy Stone "is a fake". "The supposed email address from which it was sent isn't even Stone's current email address, and the "to" address isn't one we use here either. There is no such email. That same story makes reference to an internal journalist 'watchlist'. There is no such list," Rosen posted on Twitter. "These accusations are outlandish and riddled with falsities. Let's hope @thewire_in is the victim not the perpetrator of this hoax," the Meta Chief Information Security Officer posted. The Wire was yet to react to Rosen's tweetstorm. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The Noida and Greater Noida authorities on Tuesday strongly opposed the plea to sell unused and additional floor area ratio (FAR) in Amrapali housing projects to raise funds for the completion of unfinished projects. Senior advocate Ravindra Kumar, representing the Noida and Greater Noida authorities, vociferously contested the proposal for sale of FAR. As a bench, headed by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit said the authorities should think out-of-box solution to resolve the issue with the unfinished housing projects, as thousands of homebuyers are yet to get possession of their flats, counsel for the authorities said the unused FAR in the existing projects should be used for construction purposes. As the bench also asked the authorities to spell out what action was taken against officers who had connived with Amrapali promoters in cheating the home buyers, they said that they should not be punished for the wrong committed by their officials. The top court also asked the authorities to apprise it whether the land allotment policy, which existed during allotment of Amrapali housing projects continues to exist, or some changes have been introduced to it. It will continue to hear the matter on Wednesday. On August 8, the Noida and Greater Noida authorities had strongly opposed the court-appointed receiver's suggestion to sell unused floor area ratio (FAR) to raise funds to complete the unfinished Amrapali housing projects. They had opposed the plea to sell unused and additional FAR and also sub-dividing the plots in Amrapali housing projects to raise funds. Kumar had then contended before a bench headed by Justice Lalit that the court-receiver proposal has to be examined in light of provision of the lease deed, the building regulations, FAR utilised/sanctioned and actual construction at site, to find out whether any vacant land or FAR or both is available. Flat buyers, who were part of the court proceedings, also opposed the receiver's suggestion. In July, the court receiver had told the apex court that there are many instances where a portion or part of land is lying unused and without any construction. "In such cases, the available capacity of such portion of open land can be utilised in open market to generate sufficient resources for flat buyers' benefit." "In his submission, the element of unused and unutilised FAR may as well be worth Rs 700 crore and if permission is granted by this court, the interested buyers may come forward for purchasing that component which is presently lying unutilised. This component in reality belongs to the home buyers and if sold, will help in carrying out construction of unfinished towers/flats," said the top court's order on July 25. The receiver had submitted that the fact that the authorities were requesting for separation of such component is indicative that it is quite possible and permissible. Bhopal, Oct 11 : The first phase of mega project 'Shri Mahakal Maharaj Vikas Yojana' of the Madhya Pradesh government -- named "Mahakal Lok" -- has been inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a glittering event in Ujjain on Tuesday evening. With inauguration of the 900-metre-long corridor, the longest in any temple in the country -- as PM Modi mentioned in his speech, was opened for visitors or devotees of Lord Shiva. People visiting there will find a glimpse of Shiva Leela through different murals of Lord Shiva. As the BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government was preparing for the mega religious event in Ujjain and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was personally monitoring the development, there has also been "credit seeking race" between the BJP and the Congress. During his address, Chouhan said the project was initiated by his government in 2018. The Chief Minister though, did not mention more about the "credit seeking" row. He, however, said: "The project was initiated by my Cabinet in 2018 and today, the first phase work has been completed. It could happen because of the dedication and the relentless efforts of each and everyone associated with the project. The senior BJP leader also took a dig at the Congress, which had claimed that the project was initiated by former Chief Minister Kamal Nath during his 15-month rule in Madhya Pradesh. Notably, the Madhya Pradesh Congress on Monday had also underlined its role in the Mahakal corridor project, and also released details of the cabinet meeting wherein the project was approved. New Delhi, Oct 11 : The Delhi Police's Special Commissioner, Vigilance has received a complaint from women staff of south Delhi's Fatehpur Beri police station against duty officer, head constable Mahavir Singh, for sexually harassing them. The women personnel also alleged that the head constable also indulged in taking bribes, misbehaving and insulting the police station staff, and was even involved in extortion. Deputy Commissioner of Police, South, Chandan Chowdhary said that an enquiry has been initiated. However, a month after the complaint, there was no information regarding the head constable's suspension or being sent to police lines, pending the enquiry. According to the complaint, Mahavir, posted as 'Chitta Munshi' or duty officer at the police station, misbehaves and sexually harasses women police personnel, seeking physical relations for giving them duty posts of their choice. The women police personnel also alleged that the head constable's post of 'Chitta Munshi' is not appropriate as per standing order of Police Commissioner. "Mahavir Singh even takes bribes in cash and valuable items for granting leave to certain officers. He also tries to manipulate duty records of the police station and also officers on duty are never given women staff, if needed, saying that there is a shortage of staff," the complaint read. "Even the station house officer (SHO) believes and runs the police station according to Chitta. HC Mahavir Singh also asks the beat staff to allow bribes and extortion," it added. The women personnel also alleged that when they complained to the SHO, he replied that he and Mahavir Singh are both are male officers and no one will believe them as "they are women". The women police personnel also alleged that the head constable uses his links in different departments to stop complaints against him and that is why no action is taken till now. "Whenever a senior officer asks for a reply on certain complaints, he forces 2-3 staff officers to reply to the complaint in his favour using his power to create pressure on them. His confidence has increased so much that he is fearless in performing illegal activities in the area," the women said. Gijon : , Oct 11 (IANS) Britain's Andy Murray produced a stunning turnaround to beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the opening round of the Gijon Open, here on Tuesday. Murray pulled off a difficult forehand volley on the stretch at 2-4, 30/40 to avoid going for a double break down in the first set of his first-round clash against the sixth seed. It proved a pivotal moment, as the Briton held serve for 3-4 before raising his level to claim 10 of the next 13 games and storm to a 7-5, 6-2 victory. "In the first set he was playing much better than me. He had a lot of chances to get the second break of serve and I managed to stay tough in those moments. At the 4-3 game he played a bad game to give me the break back and after that I started to play a little bit better," said Murray after his one-hour, 44-minute win. "I think he was a bit frustrated, and then in the second set his level dropped a little bit, but the end of the first set was very important because he was playing very well and it was a difficult first set," he added. The win improved Murray's record for the 2022 season to 24-16. The 35-year-old, who has reached finals in Sydney and Stuttgart this year, is chasing his first tour-level title since he triumphed in Antwerp in 2019. Murray remains as eager as ever as he looks to add to his 46 tour-level titles. "Obviously I still enjoy it. It's not easy, the young guys are moving up extremely well, and they're all hitting the ball harder and harder. Sometimes it is difficult to keep up, but I still enjoy it," said Murray. "We had a fantastic crowd today, a really nice atmosphere for the first round of a tournament... I really enjoy playing in new places, I've never been here before and it's a beautiful place, so I'm happy to be here," he added. Davidovich Fokina had come out firing in front of his home fans as he dominated the early exchanges against Murray. His heavy groundstrokes had the Briton scrambling in defence as the Spaniard opened a 4-2 lead. Then came Murray's crucial intervention, as he moved to his right to intercept Davidovich Fokina's powerfully driven backhand pass and deny the Spaniard a double-break lead. Murray's escape appeared to invigorate him, and the Briton's dialled-in return helped him convert five of nine break points from that point on as he charged to an impressive victory. The former World No.1 will take on Pedro Cachin or qualifier Alexey Vatutin in the second round. Bengaluru, Oct 11 : A Dalit woman who was into her second month of pregnancy suffered a miscarriage after she was allegedly assaulted by the owner of the farm where she works over a petty issue that arose following a quarrel among the workers' children, officials said. The incident that took place in Pura village near Janugadde in Karnataka's Chikkamagaluru district has come to light on Tuesday. According to sources, the farm owner also unleashed brutality on 14 Dalit labourers by locking them up in a room and torturing for many days in a coffee plantation. The farm owner has been identified as Jagadeesh Gowda, the police said. Police said a quarrel had broken out between the children of the labourers and others. When Gowda came to know about it, he allegedly assaulted the labourers and women. Arpita, who suffered miscarriage, was also assaulted by the accused farm owner. Six Dalit families work in the accused's farm. He had taken away mobile phones of all workers while assaulting them. When Arpita was being assaulted, her husband tried to rescue her but he was also attacked by the accused. Arpita, who had been attacked seriously, was later taken to the hospital. According to the health staff, she had suffered severe blood loss and miscarriage. He mother Geetha has filed a complaint in this regard. The police have lodged a FIR in connection with the case. The police booked a case against accused Gowda and his son Tilak under IPC Sections 504, 320 and 342. Geetha said when she had rushed to the farm after being informed by her son-in-law about the situation there, she saw all families were locked up. When she asked Gowda, he said they need to give him back the money they had taken as loan. Arpita said that the accused assaulted labourers in the backdrop of the children's quarrel. "We had decided not to go to work. The accused owner got furious and started asking back the loan amount. He came to assault us... and asked me to hand over the phone to him. When I refused, he hit me," she said. Brussels, Oct 12 : Nato's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance is "closely monitoring" Russia's nuclear forces and that any deliberate attack against allies' critical infrastructure "would be met with a united and determined response", the media reported. The Nato military alliance "is not party" to the conflict in Ukraine, Stoltenberg said during a news conference. "But our support is playing a key role," he added, The Guardian reported. Allies remained "united in their support for Ukraine's sovereignty and self-defence", he said. Stoltenberg told reporters that Ukraine has the momentum and continues to make significant gains. While Russia is increasingly resorting to horrific and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure, The Guardian reported. "President Vladimir Putin is 'failing in Ukraine' and his attempted annexations, partial mobilisation, and reckless nuclear rhetoric represent the most significant escalation since the start of the war," he said. The Russian leader's veiled nuclear threats are "dangerous and irresponsible", Stoltenberg added: Russia knows that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. We are closely monitoring Russia's nuclear forces. We have not seen any changes in Russia's posture. The leaders of the G7 have condemned Russia's most recent missile attacks in Ukraine 'in the strongest possible terms', and vowed to stand "firmly" with Kyiv "for as long as it takes", The Guardian reported. The "indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime" by Russian forces, they said in a joint statement following their meeting with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They also said they would "never recognise" Russia's "illegal annexation" of Ukrainian territory or 'the sham referenda that Russia uses to justify it'. Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War Budapest, Oct 12 : Peter Szijjarto, Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has said here that he will travel to Moscow on Thursday to deliver a strong message of peace and to discuss ways to ensure Hungary's energy supplies. He will be there to participate in the event "Russian Energy Week", Xinhua news agency reported. "It is clear that the escalation in Ukraine is moving in an extremely dangerous direction. Now we are really in the last moment to reverse the events," he said at a press conference held with Slovenia's minister of economic development and technology Matjaz Han. "Instead of escalation efforts and war rhetoric, I think it would be time for us in Europe to switch to focusing all our efforts on creating peace," he said. He said he will meet with representatives of Russian energy giant Gazprom, state nuclear company Rosatom and government officials in charge of Russia's energy policy for talks on ways to prevent an energy shortage in Hungary this winter. Szijjarto is the only European Union (EU) minister to attend the event in Moscow. "Those who criticize me for this (participating in "Russian Energy Week") do not want peace, they are not interested in whether the Hungarian people will have energy supply or not," he said. Although Hungary's government voted together with other EU members in favor of Western sanctions against Russia, it is fervently opposed to extending the sanctions to Russia's energy sector. Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War With nearly 2,500 new hotel rooms due to open over the next 18 months the Portuguese capital of Lisbon will continue to attract keen interest from investors as the popularity of the city grows, according to a new report from HVS. The Market Pulse report, Lisbon Hotel Market Returns to Grace, shows th... [] 100% Cork is proud to join Wines of Chile (WOC), a non-profit, private organization made up of Chilean winegrowers dedicated to promoting Chilean wines, at its Chiles Mosaic of Sustainability celebration in Miami, Florida on November 17th. The tasting, a first of its kind event, will showcase the Chilean wine industrys commitment to protecting the environment with a focus exclusively on sustainable producers that choose to seal their wines with cork. We are excited to join Wines of Chile to celebrate their countrys unique wine and food, and support their dedication to sustainable winegrowing. Through partnerships such as this, and with sustainability certifications like Napa Green and events like NapaTHRIVES, APCOR and the 100% Cork campaign are committed to working with organizations around the globe that emphasize broad sustainability goals when it comes to preserving our natural resources and environment, which are crucial to the long-term viability of the wine industry, said Joao Rui Ferreira, Vice President of The Portuguese Cork Association (APCOR). Cork is the most sustainable wine closure on the market. That is a fact. Cork oak forests spread across 5.4 million acres in the western Mediterranean, and have been recognized by the World Wildlife Fund as one of the 36 top biodiversity hotspots in the world. The trees also serve as a carbon sink. When considering the full life-cycle of a cork, from the carbon sequestered in the forest, to manufacturing and distribution, cork remains carbon negative, or climate positive. We are pleased that Chiles wine industry recognizes the importance of cork as a 100 percent natural and renewable resource, and a pillar of sustainability in packaging. Cork is a perfect balance between environmental preservation and sustainable development. As a foraged and not cultivated material, cork bark is carefully peeled from cork oak trees every nine years to produce natural cork wine closures. After the bark regenerates it continuously removes CO2 from the atmosphere. A single tree can be harvested up to 20 times and capture 20 tons of CO2 over its 200-plus-year lifetime. Cork oak forests are one of the most important ecosystems in the world for preserving biodiversity, similar to the Amazon, and the African Savanna. It is the natural habitat for 135 plants and over 200 animals. Home to many endangered species that would not survive outside of these unique ecosystems, harvesting cork ensures that these forests are well taken care of. Wine producers can turn to cork to help them become carbon neutral. According to a Cork Quality Council (CQC) review of audited life cycle assessment studies of cork, an average wine cork has a net negative carbon footprint of -276 grams per cork when the biogenic carbon cycle of cork oak forests is included, which is specifically allowed under EU Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules. The net amount is substantially higher for champagne and certain other types of corks, which can help producers offset their carbon footprint. Chile is an international leader in sustainable winegrowing and our winemakers are united in protecting our land and preserving our natural resources, said Julio Alonso, North America Director of Wines of Chile USA. We launched our Sustainability 365 campaign to highlight our producers dedication to sustainable practices from viticulture and wine tourism to social equity. Cork is an important part of this commitment and we are excited to have 100% Cork join us to educate wine lovers about its many benefits as a closure. Cork is the gold standard for sealing wines around the world due to its inherent natural qualities, which make it ideal for protecting and aging wine. According to studies commissioned on behalf of APCOR, cork closures continue to be the market leader for the premium wine market in the US. Surveys have also found that cork is the preferred wine closure by wine trade and consumers. Supported by ProChile, the Chiles Mosaic of Sustainability event will take place at Miamis renowned Rubell Museum. It will showcase the regions sustainably-focused initiatives with a tourism seminar and a grand tasting featuring more than 40 sustainable producers, with a focus on the countrys largest wine region, Maule. The event will also feature the premiere of a Netflix documentary about Chiles fight against climate change by Oscar Nominee Maite Alberdi. XXXX About 100% Cork 100% Cork is an educational communications campaign about wine cork stoppers. The mission of the campaign is to provide the wine industry and consumers with the latest information and research on the benefits of natural cork. The campaign was established by the Portuguese Cork Association (APCOR) with support from the Cork Quality Council to increase awareness of the unique qualities and sustainability of natural cork. About APCOR Associacao Portuguesa da Cortica (APCOR) exists to represent and promote the Portuguese cork industry and its products. APCOR is the employers association of national scope, created in 1956 and is based in Santa Maria de Lamas, at the heart of the cork industry around 30 kilometers from Porto, Portugals second largest city. Membership of the association is open to all companies operating in the fields of production, marketing or export of cork products. The organization advocates on behalf of the Portuguese cork industry worldwide and is the driving force of an industry based on tradition, innovation and sustainability. About Wines of Chile Wines of Chile (WOC) is a non-profit, private organization of 100+ Chilean wine producers dedicated to promoting the quality and image of Chilean wines. It is the oldest organization of its kind, formed in 1949 through the merger of two groups. With offices in the United States, Canada, China, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Chile, WOC develops and offers promotional and educational programs for its members. Activities include lobbying, research and development, worker assistance, and serving as a network hub for associates. With Snowflake and Logics expanded partnership, we can further help retailers around the world compete, and win, on data and analytics." Logic, the worlds largest consultancy focused exclusively on the retail sector, today announced that it has expanded its partnership with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, to now include global markets spanning Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa, as well as its deeply staffed offshore development centers in India and Nepal. Logics expansion will extend the power of the Data Cloud globally, building on its go-to-market and delivery capabilities as a Snowflake Premier Partner. In North America alone, Logic has completed more than a dozen successful Snowflake implementations for major retailers. With additional implementations underway in Europe and Asia-Pacific, extending these capabilities to all offices around the world was the logical next step to support the companys clients, most of whom operate in multiple geographies around the world. With Logic and Snowflake together, retailers are further enabled to bring disparate types of data into one, central store by unifying omnichannel sales, supply chain and inventory, customer data with external market and competitor data, demographic information, and more. With Snowflake and Logics expanded partnership, we can further help retailers around the world compete, and win, on data and analytics, says Paul Winsor, Head of Retail and CPG for EMEA and APAC at Snowflake. Retailers and CPGs can now connect with more partners and each other in the Data Cloud, enabling them with data-driven insights that will help them better serve their customers. As part of its deepened investment in its partnership with Snowflake around the world, Logic will be joining Snowflakes 2022 Data Cloud World Tour events in London and Dubai. The Data Cloud World Tour is making 19 stops around the globe, so organizations can learn about the latest innovations to Snowflakes Data Cloud. The tour is all about exploring how organizations can use and collaborate with data in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. At the events,Logics Data practice will showcase its Snowflake-specific capabilities and accelerators including: Retail data and analytics strategic consulting Cloud analytics migration services Full-scale cloud retail EDW design and implementation Snowflake Retail Data Model implementation, in partnership with Robling Best-practices retail reporting, advanced analytics, and AI/ML design and deployment Comprehensive data analytics managed services Logic believes that data and analytics in the cloud is retailers ideal path to empowering their organizations with valuable insights that significantly improve the business, says Bill Szlaius, Chief Executive Officer of Logic. We are deeply committed to our partnership with Snowflake, a commitment that is reflected in our significant investments in Snowflake-specific intellectual property, consulting, and delivery capabilities around the world. About Logic Logic works with the worlds leading retailers to help them move faster, innovate smarter, and thrive in the face of retail disruption. Our expert retail business and technology consultants apply Logics proven methodologies and unique technology assets to partner with retail executivesfrom strategy to executionin delivering on initiatives that drive customer loyalty, boost revenues and margins and help outpace the competition. For more than 25 years, over 150 retailers such as 7-Eleven, Al Shaya, David Yurman, Express, Louis Vuitton, Makro, Oxxo, Ralph Lauren, Renner, Total Wine, and more have counted on Logic to deliver on their most important business outcomes. To learn more, visit http://www.logicinfo.com. StoneCoat Smooth used on a commercial business exterior There has been much focus on energy efficiency in decarbonization efforts and we want to help those same constituents focus on what is on the side of their buildings or homes as it is yet another way we can achieve net zero emissions. For the last decade, StoneCoat has brought its patented, climate-positive stucco products to buildings across Texas and is now going nationwide under new leadership and significant investment. StoneCoat is a company focused on sustainable, green building, creating limestone-based products that currently produce ninety percent (90%) fewer carbon emissions than traditional stone stucco products. StoneCoat Smooth is a new, green alternative to stucco that produces considerably fewer carbon emissions, but has the same qualities and textures as other stucco products. Other benefits include: In most cases, requires no demolition on renovations and rehab projects Can be applied to almost any surface Requires little to no maintenance; natural stone pigments are UV-resistant Offer cost-saving solutions for rehabs and stacked stone repairs Waterproof and mold resistant Comes with a 20-year manufacturers warranty Can match any color or stucco texture Stucco exteriors have been popular across the United States for well over a century, creating a colonial Spanish finish to home exteriors that many people feel is a timeless look. Unfortunately, while stucco is excellent for its insulation properties, making homes more energy-efficient, how its manufactured is another matter. The main ingredient in traditional stucco is Portland cement, which produces up to 1,371 pounds of carbon dioxide for every ton produced. The cement industry as a whole is thought to be responsible for 8% of annual global carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of carbon released during the process of making cement is created when limestone is reduced down to a substance called clinker. At this point, 40% of the limestone's mass is lost and emitted as carbon dioxide. By using limestone directly as the base for its products, StoneCoat cuts out this huge source of emissions by a factor of 6x (or 90%) based on a current cradle to grave life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis. There has been much focus on energy efficiency in decarbonization efforts and we want to help those same constituents focus on what is on the side of their buildings or homes as it is yet another way we can achieve net zero emissions, said Joseph Mrak, CEO of StoneCoat. We have recently added an extended executive team and are constantly investing in R&D to further improve our product formulation to enhance our carbon negative factor. A stucco replacement is only useful if it adequately performs the same function as the traditional material it replaces. Fortunately for builders and contractors, StoneCoat has many other advantages over traditional stucco besides its environmental credentials. In contrast to traditional stucco, which requires a minimum 48-hour drying period, StoneCoat products dry overnight. StoneCoat continues to cure and harden for up to six months and actually absorbs carbon dioxide during this process. It also doesn't require any maintenance during this period, unlike stucco, which may require periodic misting as it cures. Another advantage of StoneCoat is its relatively high pH level, which makes it much less susceptible to mold and cracking. It also gives 100% UV protection and is actually carbon negative during the curing process, absorbing carbon dioxide as it dries out. As long as there's adequate preparation, StoneCoat products can be used on almost any surface. Adhesion to cementitious surfaces such as brick or concrete requires no additional bonding agent, so it provides a substantial cost saving over stucco and has been tested to meet AC11 cementitious building material international standards. StoneCoat's innovative, green product offerings are providing a cost-effective alternative to traditional stucco. In an industry that's usually very conservative, they provide an alternative to traditional stucco that even the most hidebound construction professional can get behind. STOKR, the EUs pioneering digital investment marketplace for alternative assets, has received VASP registration by Luxembourg financial regulator CSSF (Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier). STOKR is now the first digital securities issuance platform outside of the US to have exchange integrations with regulated securities trading venues, able to independently conduct Know Your Customer (KYC)/Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks on the investors investing in digital securities. The recognition as a Virtual Asset Service Provider by the CSSF, also puts the firm on a firmer regulatory footing in Europe. Situated in Luxembourg, we are extremely happy having obtained the registration by one of the most experienced financial regulators in the virtual asset space. At STOKR, we will strive to facilitate enhanced processes for KYC/AML services, providing institutions, asset managers, and investors with all needed assurance to thrive in this next generation market," said Tobias Seidl, co-founder of STOKR. Becoming a VASP helps STOKR to provide financial services to market participants for the sale and offer of virtual assets. To meet the growing demand of institutional and professional investors in the digital securities market, the supervision of the regulator will ensure enhanced anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing processes in line with European and international law. STOKR uses the digital KYC-management solution Digital KYC provided by Proximus, a well-reputed KYC technology provider. Digital KYC enables STOKR to onboard investors within minutes and access screening information on PEP/ sanctions, adverse media and legal proceedings. For compliance on crypto transactions STOKR additionally conducts Know your Transaction (KYT) checks on crypto-based investments through Scorechain, fulfilling a full suite of compliance checks meeting enhanced international standards. "We are proud to enable a secure and fast investor onboarding and monitoring for such an innovative tokenised capital market platform. DigitalKYC, a flexible solution that includes ID-Document Verification, Liveness, 2-Factor authentication and other KYC modules is ideal to drive investor conversion, while warranting compliance. We look forward to continuing to support the promising growth prospects of STOKR from a technological angle, said Frank Roessig, Head Digital Trust Solutions at Proximus. Luxembourg has historically been well known for its fund industry and has been active in adopting digitalisation in the modern financial markets. This has made the country become an increasingly popular jurisdiction for serious and visionary businesses. To date, there are seven entities recognised as VASPs by CSSF, including PayPal, Bitstamp, and BitFlyer. STOKR is the only digital securities issuance platform in the EU to have a VASP supervision from a EU member state, as well as exchange integrations with regulated securities trading venues, like Bitfinex Securities and Merj. The VASP approval obliges STOKR to ensure enhanced anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing processes in line with European and international law. STOKR has so far supported tokenisation of over 60M US$ assets. Tokenisation projects encompass Blockstream Mining Note, a debt instrument enabling investors participating in the upside of Bitcoin mining (raised over 43M US$), and the Aquarius Fund, an alternative investment fund for tokenised assets well suited for treasurers looking for high yield return (raised over 5M US$). ABOUT STOKR STOKR is a seamless launchpad and a leading digital marketplace for alternative investments, connecting entrepreneurs and asset managers to next-generation professionals and retail investors. On STOKR, both institutional and retail investors can access diverse and high-quality investment opportunities and directly control their alternative assets. As a Luxembourg Virtual Assets Service Provider, STOKR offers turn-key solutions for young and growing ventures looking to raise capital in the EU through all elements of institutional-grade asset tokenisation, including sophisticated investment structuring, smart contract management, AML/KYC verification, payment rails (crypto and fiat), and the full life-cycle management of digital securities. I am excited to become part of the Nutrient TECH team, a time honored and trusted industry partner that growers have counted on to maximize both yield and quality. Nutrient TECH, Dinuba, CA proudly welcomes Paul Wulf as the new Director of Sales and Marketing. Paul brings an extensive ag industry background including agricultural retail and basic manufacturing experience, including fertility and ag chemicals covering a wide range of markets. Most recently he held the position of Commercial Director at Rotam USA, a global manufacturer of crop protection products. Additionally, Paul has held management positions with several national retail distributors. He also ran his own ag consulting firm for two decades. Paul will now bring this experience to Nutrient TECH and report directly to the companys President, Greg Johnson. Greg says, "Mr. Wulf brings significant experience and a proven history of success, which will be invaluable in meeting our goals at Nutrient TECH, and those of our parent company De Sangosse. I am confident that Paul will be an excellent match for this position and a strong asset to the team. We welcome Paul and look forward to collaborating with him. Wulf says, I am excited to become part of the Nutrient TECH team, a time honored and trusted industry partner that growers have counted on to maximize both yield and quality. I look forward to being a part of this group and the very bright future for Nutrient TECH. Paul has a Bachelor of Science in Ag Business from Fresno State and will be responsible for expanding the companys presence in North America and into BioSolutions, including biofertilizers and biostimulants. He will coordinate with both Nutrient TECH and De Sangosse to drive continued in-house product development and to streamline the introduction of new products. His guidance will be what leads Nutrient TECHs constant innovation and efforts to support the sustainable growth of food and fiber for growers. ### About Nutrient TECH Nutrient TECH focuses on the development and marketing of advanced plant nutrition products and BioSolutions for agriculture in North America. Nutrient TECH continually strives to improve its production and QC/lab support for its advanced foliar nutrition and BioSolutions platform to consistently meet and exceed the exacting demands of todays quality-conscious growers. Based in Dinuba, California, Nutrient TECH was founded in 1986 and was purchased by the De Sangosse Group in December 2015. About De Sangosse The De Sangosse Group, based in Agen, France, is a major international player in BioSolutions for crop protection and crop nutrition as well as for pest control. De Sangosse has been awarded the Committed to CSR label by Afnor. Overall, the company has 975 employees, 26 operating companies and distribution activities in over 60 countries. The groups mission is to bring about a major transformation in the agricultural industry through BioSolutions, thanks to dedicated investments and fruit of its R&D efforts, technical development, registrations and several strategic partnerships and make them available for all types of agriculture and all means of cultivation. The cross synergy of these technologies can Nourish, Boost and Protect crops for a three-way economic, social and ecological performance. The group's aim is to develop, manufacture and market biofertilizers, biostimulants, biocontrol solutions, adjuvants and services to meet food needs, climate risks and environmental challenges, and to comply with regulatory changes in Europe and the rest of the world. De Sangosse contributes to creating value for its customers and the industry through innovation and by offering an elevated level of expertise. De Sangosse's share capital comes mostly from its employees thus guaranteeing its independence and ensuring a long-term vision of its business plan. Citizen Cosmetics Limited, the UK Headquartered owner of the award-winning global cosmetics brand, CTZN Cosmetics, has announced a partnership with Suuchi Inc. to overhaul their digital supply chain strategy. CITIZEN will utilize the PLM, Product Information Management and ERP modules of the Suuchi GRID platform to create and manage product and purchasing lifecycles. The GRIDs strong project management functionality will enable CITIZEN to collaborate with their internal team members, manufacturers, and external supply chain partners to execute a digital strategy across the entire length of their supply chain operations. Connecting previously siloed data across each stage of the product, purchasing and shipment lifecycle will enable CITIZEN to improve lead times, improve margins, and reduce operational overhead at scale while continuing to focus on its sustainability mission statement. The Suuchi GRID is the modern standard for supply chain management built for apparel, cosmetics, footwear, manufacturing, and over twenty other consumer product industries. The GRID combines the best of PLM and ERP, with robust collaboration, project management, and procurement layers across the length of the platform. The GRID is a single-source-of-truth for brands and manufacturers to create, track, collaborate, and report across both upstream and downstream supply chain operations. Whether the GRID acts as a standalone tool or seamlessly integrates with the existing technology stack, the platform provides an end-to-end view of the supply chain across product development, sourcing, production, quality, and logistics. Suuchi Inc. offers a full suite of supply chain solutions that is powered through their proprietary software, the GRID. Suuchi customers can purchase the GRID as an independent software offering or receive access to the GRID when they utilize the platform for production and sourcing solutions. The GRID allows full visibility across the supply chain, provides real-time updates, streamlined communication, and analytics for data-backed decision making. Brands have the option to integrate internal systems into the GRID with the platform functioning as a single-source-of-truth to digitize the entire length of their upstream and downstream supply chains. CTZN is growing quickly, and we needed an intuitive end-to-end platform that could help us digitize our increasingly massive and complex supply chain. We have found the perfect match with the GRID. The easy-to-use interface helps more easily onboard the variety of skill sets we have throughout the world and gives us a single-source-of-truth. We are incredibly excited to have a scalable and modern technology stack that can support our fast growth, according to Tariq Khan, Chairman and CEO of CTZN Cosmetics. We have been watching CTZNs explosive growth over the last few years and are thrilled to be working with Tariq and the powerhouse team of Los Angeles-born, Dubai-raised, sister-founders. With its numerous suppliers, components, and manufacturing complexity, the GRID is particularly effective and powerful within the cosmetics vertical. CTZN has expanded quickly on a global scale, with operations across US, Dubai, UK, and other parts of Europe. We are excited to be an integral part of CITIZENs supply chain operations and growth trajectory as they further expand into new markets throughout the world. We love how culturally aligned the two teams are, each taking a long-term view of supply chain strategy and company building, said Suuchi Ramesh, Founder and CEO of Suuchi Inc. About the GRID The GRID is the modern standard for consumer brands, retailers, and manufacturers for managing supply chain operations. The platform provides a seamless end-to-end view of the supply chain, including updates and analytics on sourcing, design, production, and logistics. Suuchi Inc partners with customers to deploy its platform as a software solution to digitize their upstream and downstream operations through its PLM and ERP offerings. Customers interested in a long-term investment of nearshore sourcing may choose to also have access to the GRIDs Global Sourcing Network (GSN). Suuchis GSN is a managed marketplace of factories and mills, mostly located in Central and South America, driving more effective sourcing outcomes in the Western Hemisphere. With the GRIDs robust collaboration layer extending across the PLM, ERP, and GSN products, companies can create, track, collaborate, and report across the entire length of their supply chain. Suuchi Inc is digitally transforming what high growth brands and manufacturers think is possible in supply chain management. For more information, visit http://www.suuchi.com About CTZN Cosmetics CTZN (pronounced Citizen) Cosmetics is a revolutionary makeup brand breaking barriers within the beauty industry, co-founded by Los Angeles-born, Dubai-raised, ethnically Pakistani sisters Aleena, Aleezeh, and Naseeha Khan. As a brand intended for all CTZNs of the world, CTZNs focus is primarily on the underrepresentation of demographic groups by mainstream makeup companies. The brands deeper why is to enhance cultural awareness through beauty, demonstrated through their Culture-torial segments on Instagram where you can learn about someones culture while watching them perform their makeup routine. All CTZN products are strictly genderless, cruelty-free, paraben-free, and talc-free. The brand began as a DTC brand, and since its launch has expanded into other ecommerce platforms as well as physical retail locations. For more information, please visit http://www.ctzncosmetics.com Baja Californias Valle de Guadalupe was recently named one of the worlds top wine regions in USA Today 10Bests annual Readers Choice Awards, after being selected for consideration by a panel of the top travel and wine writers. This recognition is the latest wine industry accolade for Baja California which is home to more than 150 wineries best known for tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon, chenin blanc, and sauvignon blanc. Baja California will also host the 43rd World Congress of Vine and Wine this fall which brings together scientists, scholars, and producers to share new findings surrounding cultivation, production, and more. Travelers seeking to find out what all of the buzz is about should consider visiting Baja Californias wine country in the coming months, then explore the surrounding areas to take in the following experiences: Valle Food & Wine Festival (October 21 23, 2022) After a three-year hiatus, the Valle Food & Wine Festival returns for its 4th annual edition to celebrate the distinctive Mexican wine region, support the local community through charitable contributions, and welcome culinary enthusiasts to experience dishes from more than 30 local chefs, along with visiting chefs including Rick Bayless of Chicagos Frontera Grill and Gabriela Camara of Mexico Citys Contramar. Wine Down in Valle de Guadalupe Valle de Guadalupe offers numerous accommodation choices for travelers many with vineyards, tasting rooms, and delectable restaurants on-site. Hacienda Guadalupe, Villa Montefiori, and El Cielo Winery & Resort offer exceptional accommodations. For unique wine experiences, visit Finca la Carrodilla, the first certified organic and biodynamic vineyard in Mexico, or Concierto Enologico Winery, which offers activities for visitors including creating their own wine and experiencing wines with a musical pairing and other surprises. Craft Breweries Baja California may be best known for its wine, but there are plenty of other opportunities to drink in the area. Take a trip to El Sauzal, the award-winning Wendlandt Cerveceria offering a brewpub, tasting room, and beautiful views, or head to Cerveceria Transpeninsular in Esenada or Lucky Irish 4 in El Sauzal. Hike & Hot Springs in the Canon de Guadalupe Just 50 miles from the California border crossing, Guadalupe Canyon Oasis Hot Springs and Nature Reserve offer a spectacular desert environment for hiking during the day, followed by relaxing natural springs. The 2022/2023 season opened on September 16. Reservations for private geothermal hot tubs start at US$8 and can be made at here. About Baja California The State of Baja California occupies the northern half of the Baja California peninsula, providing some of Mexicos most dramatic sea and landscapes in seven tourist destinations, including its capital, Mexicali, along with Tijuana, Ensenada, San Felipe, Rosarito, San Quintin, and Tecate. From remote deserts and beaches to lush forests, the region is known for an array of outdoor activities, including spectacular camping, hiking, world-class surfing, sailing, deep sea fishing, and more. Baja California is also home to a growing culinary movement, with world-renowned restaurants and chefs, along with wineries and craft breweries that produce more than 80 percent of craft beer and 90 percent of wine in Mexico. In addition to tourism and hospitality, its unique bi-national location with California and Arizona to the north presents collaborative business opportunities on a global scale. For more information, visit https://bajacalifornia.travel. Press Release October 11, 2022 Poe on POGOs: It's overwhelmingbenefits outweighed by negative consequences Sen. Grace Poe said the country is being used as a venue by Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) to market online gambling in a country like China where it is prohibited. Poe issued a firm call anew to the government to pave the way to cease their operations eventually, stressing the overwhelming social costs to the public. On Tuesday's hearing of the Senate ways and means committee joint with public order, Poe pointed out that POGOs hire service providers (SPs) that offer services such as telemarketing, video streaming and the like to market online gambling. "Their job is to promote gambling in a country where online gambling is illegal. Basically, we are condoning them to violate their own laws in our country," Poe said. The senator expressed disbelief on the statement of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) that players are not necessarily from China. "Are you saying the players are Chinese in America or Europe. Are you sure about that or are you just turning a blind eye? Because if you can tell us categorically na hindi sila from China kasi bawal 'yan doon, malaking kasinungalingan yan," Poe said. "Ngayon, nahuli na kayo. Sinasabi n'yo hindi namin papayagan 'yang mga lisensyadong POGO kung sila'y nag-ooperate sa mga bansang bawal 'yan, alam naman natin ang pinakamalaking market nila ay China. Babawiin 'yung lisensya nila, ganu'n ba 'yun?" Poe added. Poe, who earlier filed a resolution to look into the social costs of POGO operations in the country, also cited during the hearing the remarks from National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon that between 2017 and 2019, the Anti-Money Laundering Council said that P14 billion out of the P54 billon transactions of POGOs were dubbed suspicious. Poe also highlighted NEDA's statement that the Philippines' attention was called for continuously hosting POGO operations despite China's ban and appeal to other countries to do the same. "The Philippines, of course, didn't really heed that call and in effect you mentioned something about the decrease in tourist arrivals or at least the Chinese government directive to discourage tourism in the Philippines," she told the NEDA official. Meanwhile, questioning Pagcor, Poe was able to ferret out that only 11 percent or 2,218 out of the 19,726 employees of SPs are Filipinos. Of the P81.9 billion income of Pagcor in 2019, only P5.7 billion came from POGOs. Poe allayed unfounded fears of massive job losses in case POGOs are shut down in the country, saying many other industries can be strengthened to generate employment for Filipinos. "Iyong sinasabing unemployment, hindi natin 'yan minamaliit, lahat ng trabaho ay importante para sa ating mga kababayan. Pero may ibang mga industriya naman na pwedeng suportahan ng ating gobyerno para matumbasan kung hindi man mahigitan pa ang mawawala dahil dito sa ganitong uri ng negosyo," Poe said. "When we talk about social costs, I think more than anything, we can quantify it with all of these examples that we're given, and in this case, it's overwhelming that the benefits are outweighed by the negative consequences," Poe added. Samuel C. Pang, MD I have two children conceived through IVF, so I have experienced both sides of the IVF process, as a physician and as a patient. I empathize with my IVF patients and am very grateful to have been able to build my family through the same services I provide." Samuel C. Pang, MD Boston IVF, a worldwide leader of infertility treatment and family building, is honored to announce that Samuel C. Pang, M.D. has been selected by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) as the recipient of its 2022 Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award for Practicing Physicians. This award is to be presented to Dr. Pang on October 23, 2022 at the 78th annual ASRM Scientific Congress and Expo in Anaheim, CA. The ASRM is a worldwide leader for multidisciplinary education and standard of care in reproductive medicine, with the goal of ensuring accessible, ethical, and quality care for all people. Dr. Pang, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, is Co-Director of Third-Party Reproduction at Boston IVF. He treats individuals and couples at the networks fertility centers in Lexington, MA and Worcester, MA, where he is a valuable infertility treatment and family building resource for all Massachusetts residents. This includes numerous surrounding local communities, such as Milford, MA. His exceptional reputation, commitment to clinical excellence, and meticulous attention to detail in patient care make Dr. Pang the prototypical honoree of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award for Practicing Physicians, which uniquely recognizes a physicians respectful and compassionate communication with patients, thereby engendering their trust and confidence. I have two children conceived through IVF, so I have experienced both sides of the IVF process, as a physician and as a patient, said Samuel Pang, M.D., who is a resident of Lincoln, MA. I can empathize with my patients who are undergoing the IVF process. Im very grateful to have been able to build my family through the same services I provide to my patients and am deeply honored to be recognized by the ASRM with this award. Along with this ASRM recognition, Dr. Pang has been the recipient of eleven consecutive Top Fertility Doctor awards by Boston Magazine (2012-2022). Third-Party Reproduction refers to the use of eggs, sperm or embryos that have been donated by a third party (donor), or use of a gestational surrogate. The donor eggs, donor sperm, donor embryos or gestational surrogate are used in assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures such as IVF to enable an infertile individual or couple to become parents. Third-Party Reproduction is commonly utilized by members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Dr. Pang is a pioneer in providing reproductive care to LGBTQIA+ patients. In 1998, he was among the earliest physicians in the United States and the world to apply assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to gay men who sought parenthood via donor eggs and gestational surrogacy. In 2007, he began providing IVF services to lesbian couples without infertility, coining the term reciprocal IVF for one person providing oocytes and the other gestating. In 2012, he began treating transgender people for fertility preservation and reciprocal IVF, as well as transgender men who choose to gestate themselves. Dr. Pang holds a deep commitment to advocating for the rights of all people and an individuals reproductive freedom. He has been a passionate philanthropic supporter of multiple LGBTQIA+ organizations which advocate for equality, among them GLBTA Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and Greater Boston PFLAG. "Dr. Pang is a passionate advocate for all people who wish to build a family, said David Stern, CEO of the Boston IVF fertility network. "On behalf of everyone at Boston IVF, we congratulate him for being selected to receive such a meaningful and well-deserved, national award. Dr. Pangs superior level of reproductive care and longstanding philanthropic efforts continue to make a difference in the lives of his patients and the vital organizations he supports. To learn more about Dr. Pang, receive fertility advice, or to schedule a consultation, visit http://www.bostonivf.com/ Follow Boston IVF on Instagram Follow Boston IVF on Facebook Follow Boston IVF on LinkedIn Subscribe to Boston IVF on YouTube ABOUT BOSTON IVF Boston IVF is one of the largest and most experienced fertility networks in the United States, with more than 125,000 babies born since 1986. Founded as one of the nation's first private practice IVF centers, the Boston IVF network has grown to include over 30 reproductive endocrinologists across 30 centers throughout Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Utah. A renowned innovator of reproductive technologies, advanced protocols, and cutting-edge research, Boston IVF has achieved numerous "firsts" in reproductive care. Its scientific and research arm continues to pave the way for breakthroughs in fertility care and its accredited REI Fellowship Program has graduated numerous reproductive endocrinologists as part of its mission to train the next generation of fertility experts. EDOBIO cultivates plants that have been popular in Japan since the Edo period, and combines them with the latest biotechnology EDOBIOs new flagship space was designed and built by Koji Takmatsu, EPA Environmental Conversion Equipment Architects and the companys branding agency HI (NY). Drawing inspiration from Japanese minimalism, the store was designed to capture EDOBIOs simple and sophisticated style, while also providing a warm and welcoming environment for shoppers. About EDOBIO With the social vision of "creating new things that are useful for people's health," EDOBIO develops beauty and skincare products that are gentle to the mind and body, infusing them with natural and holistic botanical ingredients. EDOBIO cultivates plants that have been popular in Japan since the Edo period, and combines them with the latest biotechnology to extract more active ingredients of natural origin. The brands mission is to improve quality of life through technology in order to meet the demands of todays modern lifestyle. Collections developed by EDOBIO include their Floradiance, Inner Beauty, and Saketernal Series, all of which contain a range of innovative skincare products and complementary wellness formulas. About Exclusive Products Coming to the EDOBIO Flagship Store The new shop location is also the first to pre-launch products being added to the EDOBIO lineup including Smoothing Shampoo, Glossing Conditioner, and Renewing Body Soap from the brands new hair and body care series starting September 30. Items from the up-and-coming collection contain EDOBIOs signature ingredient BiProGE Lactobacillus, for improving skin and hair health. They also feature Kunisato No. 35 blueberry stem extract, and essential oils such as geranium, lavender, and rosemary, for a holistic approach to wellness care. Additional Store Information Store Name : EDOBIO Shin-Marunouchi Building Phone number : 03-5539-8529 Address :100-6503, 3F Shin-Marunouchi Building, 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Hours of operation: Monday - Saturday 11:00 - 21:00 Sundays and holidays 11:00 - 20:00 *Open on Sundays and holidays only on the last day of consecutive holidays Official website Official website https://edobio.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edobio.japan LBX Food Robotics, the leader in hot food vending, and Buddy Valastro, celebrity chef and owner of the world-famous Buddy Valastro Restaurants, today revealed that they partnered to customize Bake Xpress hot food kiosks to serve foods from The Boss Cafe by Buddy Valastro restaurant, which opened in Las Vegas in April. The first two machines are co-located at the LINQ Hotel + Experience with The Boss Cafe, which offers casual dining inspired by East Coast neighborhood delis. The custom-branded Bake Xpress machines currently bake a variety of bakery-style pizzas and are open 24 hours per day. Valastro debuted the Bake Xpress machines in August and highlighted their popularity among hotel and casino guests during a formal launch event for The Boss Cafe last week. Our customers crave our food outside of normal operating hours, so we had to get creative on how we could meet those demands in a 24/7 place like Vegas. Bake Xpress is the only solution that delivers the quality I require. The fact that we are selling out multiple times a day and setting sales records proves that our vision was spot on, said Valastro, whose Las Vegas restaurants include Carlos Bake Shop, PizzaCake, Jersey Eats, and Buddy Vs Ristorante in addition to The Boss Cafe. We are the first restaurant to have this 24/7 robotic option, and it is another example of how we are leading the charge with the latest innovations in the food industry. Were looking forward to continuing to expand to bring our amazing food to more people. The Boss Cafe serves variety of fresh baked breads, Italian sandwiches, bakery-style pizza, a hand-crafted on-site fresh mozzarella bar and pastries. While The Boss Cafe Bake Xpress machines currently offer a selection of pizzas from the traditional restaurants menu, Valastro intends to expand the machines menus. Bake Xpress custom bakes each item within 60-190 seconds at the time of order in a smart oven that uses a precisely-tuned combination of microwave, convection and infrared baking technologies to properly heat, brown and crisp each item and can also serve chilled foods like salads. We are thrilled to partner with one of the most prominent and innovative restauranteurs in the food industry today, said Benoit Herve, founder and CEO of LBX Food Robotics. Buddy has very high and specific requirements for his foods and was not going to compromise quality for convenience. Bake Xpress unique baking capabilities were able to replicate the in-restaurant experience to Buddys exacting standards. The Boss Cafe by Buddy Valastro is located at The LINQ Hotel + Experience, across from the new District 3 Elevators and CAESARS FORUM bridge. The Boss Cafe is open seven days a week 6 a.m.-6 p.m, with the Boss Cafe Bake Xpress machines open 24/7. For more information, please visit http://www.bosscafe.com. For more information on the Boss Cafe Bake Xpress machines, please visit http://www.lebreadxpress.com/lbx-for-boss-cafe. About Buddy Valastro Celebrity Baker Buddy Valastro, a pioneer of the custom cake movement, has accomplished an insurmountable amount of influence through his work with the long-standing family business Carlos Bakery and the hit TLC series Cake Boss. With four New York Times best-selling books, four hit television shows and a following of more than 20 million social media fans internationally, Valastro continually establishes himself as a powerhouse in the culinary field. Established in 1910, Carlos Bakery is a family-owned business with 12 locations nationally and numerous Cake ATM locations in North America. In 2013 Valastro, along with renowned restaurateurs Elizabeth Blau and Kim Canteenwalla, opened Buddy Vs Ristorante at The Venetian Las Vegas focusing on the savory side of the Valastro family with dishes passed down from generation to generation. 2022 is set to be an exciting year for Valastro with the opening of The Boss Cafe, additional concepts and locations of existing favorites, and a growing e-commerce business. For additional information on Buddy Valastro, please visit http://www.carlosbakery.com or follow @buddyvalastro on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok or @cakebossbuddy on Twitter. About LBX Food Robotics LBX Food Robotics is revolutionizing the food service industry with Bake Xpress, a ground-breaking robotic hot food vending kiosk. Bake Xpress is a compact vending unit that combines robotic, AI, sensor, wireless, and software technologies with infrared, convection, and microwave heating to custom bake a variety of meals and pastries on demand. With a customizable menu ranging from croissants and muffins to pasta, pizza, pastries, gourmet sandwiches and refrigerated foods like salads, Bake Xpress provides 24/7 access to the convenient, healthy food consumers demand and is a significant upgrade to traditional vending options. LBX was founded in 2015 as Le Bread Xpress and has installed Bake Xpress kiosks in universities, hotels, hospitals, retail centers, factories and office parks world-wide, with machines in continuous operation for more than three years. For more information, please visit http://www.lebreadxpress.com. Francis Ford Coppola Winery, the iconic Sonoma County winery behind the award-winning Diamond Collection label, today announces its first annual Perfect Your Pizza competition. The campaign tasks home chefs with developing their own original pizza recipes for the chance to win $25,000 and the title of Pizza and Wine Pairing Principal. The top four contestants will receive an expenses-paid trip to the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Sonoma County to compete in a cookoff for the grand cash prize. The inspiration for Perfect Your Pizza came from the notion that Italian cuisine, and specifically pizza, are intrinsically present in the Coppola family and brand DNA, as it has and continues to be an ideal companion dish to the dynamic portfolio of Diamond Collection Wines. Rustic, the storied dining destination at the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville, CA, has been serving delicious wood-fired pizzas for years to legions of fans and visitors. As a popular and well-known U.S. wine brand, we wanted to find a way to involve our fans on a deeper level and provide something fun and interactive in return for their years of support, said Gabriela Becker, VP of Marketing for Coppola Wines. Everyone loves pizza, and nothing pairs with it like a glass of our Diamond Collection wines, so we are excited to see the recipes America comes up with! To help inspire prospective pizzaiolos, Coppola has enlisted one of the countrys foremost authorities on the subject: Dan Richer, author of New York Times best-selling cookbook, The Joy of Pizza: Everything You Need to Know. Richer has developed three original recipes, specifically designed to pair perfectly with Diamond Collection wines, to help spark the creativity of those who want to try their hand at submitting for the competition. Recipes are available upon request with high-res images. Margherita al Filetti: Fresh plum tomato sottolio (confit), fresh mozzarella, garlic and basil This is a variation on the classic Margherita pizza. The fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil combination is endlessly inspirational because if one component is changed, it changes the entire experience- texture, flavor, and appearance of the pizza. Here we substitute the classic tomato sauce for a fresh tomato, gently cooked in extra virgin olive oil, which transforms the tomato into a meltingly juicy and sweet bite that perfectly balances the rich mozzarella. Coppola Diamond Collection Prosecco Rose perfectly cuts this pizzas rich cheese and picks up on the wines sweetness and acidity and tomato and basil notes. Fields of Green: Green olives (preferably Castelvetrano), capers, pine nuts, lemon, parsley, oregano, and ricotta salata This pizza has all of the flavors of Sicily and will make you dream of a day in the summer sun. It pairs beautifully with Coppola Diamond Collection Sauvignon Blanc. The Cal-Ital: California dates, fresh mozzarella, arugula, prosciutto di Parma, Parmigiano Reggiano. The dates are cooked in red wine (ideally cabernet) creating an incredible sauce that is drizzled on top of arugula, prosciutto and a flurry of Parmigiano. Sweet, salty, savory! The salty ham and sweet wine sauce make this a fabulous pairing with Coppola Diamond Collection Claret. Ive made pizza my lifes work, said Dan Richer, author of The Joy of Pizza: Everything You Need to Know (Little Brown and Company). Through this, Ive learned that the right glass of wine can make one of the best pizzas even better, and Im excited to partner with Coppola to help contestants find the perfect pizza pairing with the winerys amazing lineup of Diamond Collection wines. Contestants can enter by visiting http://www.coppolaperfectyourpizza.com and providing their ingredient lists, full recipe and inspiration for their creations. The deadline for entry is October 31st. Follow along on Instagram @coppolawine and at http://www.francisfordcoppolawinery.com. About Francis Ford Coppola Winery Rooted in Sonoma County, California, Francis Ford Coppola Winery is known for its superior level of quality and integrity. Owned by Delicato Family Wines, one of the fastest-growing top-ten wine companies in the U.S., Francis Ford Coppola winery is home to more than forty wines produced on-site in a state-of-the-art winemaking facility, encompassed by sustainably farmed vineyards. These award-winning, globally recognized wines are crafted uniquely for every wine occasion and include the popular Diamond Collection and sparkling Sofia wines, as well as the winery-exclusive Francis Coppola Reserve wines. The winery grounds are, as Francis puts it, "a wine wonderland, a park of pleasure where people of all ages can enjoy all the best things in life: food, wine, music, dancing, games, swimming and performances of all types. A place to celebrate the love of life." Located in Geyserville, the estate offers visitors a variety of tasting experiences and seasonal events, as well as culinary delights from the on-property restaurant Rustic, two swimming pools joined by views of surrounding vineyards, and a vast collection of cinematic history. About Dan Richer Richer is the chef and owner of Razza in Jersey City. A graduate of Rutgers University, he skipped his own graduation to fly to Italy and begin his real education: in pizza. He is a four-time semifinalist for the James Beard Foundations Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic award, as well as a James Beard Rising Star Chef semifinalist. About Dan Richers The Joy of Pizza: Everything You Need to Know The Joy of Pizza starts with the basicsdough, sauce, cheese, and toppingsthen takes the reader through the infinite possibilities and expressions of Americas favorite food. Complete with instructions for making dough with commercial yeast as well as sourdough starters, baking the pies in your standard home oven as well as wood-fired outdoor pizza ovens, Richer helps beginner and expert pizza makers take their skills to the next level. Rich with step-by-step photography, including QR codes that link to instructional videos and portraits of every pizza both before and after it is cooked, this book is the quintessential guide for home bakers and professionals alike to master drool-worthy pizzas. Zuddl at IMEX 2022 We want to empower marketers to focus on their strengths - using events as a key pillar of their demand generation strategy and customer engagement. Leave the heavy lifting to Zuddl. Zuddl, a unified platform provider for events and webinars, announced that it will showcase its newly developed end-to-end platform at IMEX America 2022 between October 11th and 13th, 2022 at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. Zuddls unified platform is primarily focused on B2B marketers and conference organizers. The companys goal is to simplify the event tech stack and solve for better sales and marketing collaboration, optimize the total cost of ownership, and make it simpler for event teams of all sizes to run event programs at scale. Substantiating the need for an end-to-end platform, Zuddls CEO & Co-founder Bharath Varma stated: Today, B2B event marketers depend on a plethora of tools to run an event. This introduces an increased cost of ownership, the absence of a single window into cross-event attendee behavior, and eventually leads to a messy and unviable event tech landscape. We want to empower marketers to focus on their strengths - using events as a key pillar of their demand generation strategy, and customer engagement. Leave the heavy lifting to Zuddl. Enterprises such as Microsoft, Google, Service Now, VMWare, and associations like the United Nations, NASSCOM, NAMIC, HBA, etc work with Zuddl to run their event programs. Zuddls platform capabilities will be on display for visitors at booth #C4751 at IMEX America 2022, USAs largest annual trade show for events. About Zuddl Zuddl is a unified platform for events and webinars that helps event marketers plan and execute events that drive growth. Large organizations and associations across the globe such as Microsoft, Google, Service Now, the United Nations, etc. trust Zuddl to host their events. In January 2022, Zuddl announced that it closed $13.35 mn in Series A funding. For more information about the company, please visit http://www.zuddl.com Stroking metaCats plush artificial fur can relieve anxiety, reduce stress, and boost mood, making it a great companion to those who are suffering from loneliness or require comfort, said Joey Song, CEO of Elephant Robotics. Today, Elephant Robotics announced their participation in Amazons inaugural Prime Early Access Sale. Poised to jump-start the holiday shopping season, this sale takes place over 48 hours on October 11-12, launching at midnight. The robotics brand will be selling their lifelike robotic cat, named metaCatwhich has been turning heads (and causing people to check over their shoulder)for the lightning deal of 30% off plus free shipping in their Amazon store. Whats in a name? metaCat didnt get its title from the pervasive social network that takes up a lot of people's time. However, gazing into this robot cats expressive LED eyes might make you wonder if this piece of circuitry is well-versed in the abstract concepts of metaphysics such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space. Or perhaps, in the true thats so meta style, this robot cat is so self-aware that it is simply choosing to behave as a robot cat should. But what about this robot has prompted such headlines as, may heal your inner loneliness and has the sort of piercing blue eyes that could freeze a priest? Elephant Robots designed metaCat to be a robot companion cat thats interactive, lifelike, and active. Unlike others on the market, this one has two screens for eyes that move dynamicallywinking, blinking, shrinking, and movingto evoke realistic moods. Its modeled after the popular Ragdoll breed, with a colorpoint coat, vibrant blue eyes, and a friendly dog-like demeanor. Its head and tail move realistically based on deep learning technology that mimics the interaction and actions of real cats. And, also much like a real cat, you might be left wondering if this one is plotting your downfall. Stroking metaCats plush artificial fur can relieve anxiety, reduce stress, and boost mood, making it a great companion to those who are suffering from loneliness or require comfort, said Joey Song, CEO of Elephant Robotics. It reacts to touch with realistic meowing and purring with real vibrations. In so many ways, its just like a real cat (minus the feeding, litter-changing, and pricey vet bills). Media wishing to interview Elephant Robotics personnel should contact PR agent Renu Singh-Joseph. Media Contact Renu Singh-Joseph Proper Propaganda renu@properpropaganda.net About Elephant Robotics Founded in 2016, Elephant Robotics is a technology firm based in Shenzhen specializing in the design and production of robotics, development, and applications of operating systems, and intelligent manufacturing services in the industry, commerce, education, scientific research, and home. Elephant Robotics has independently developed Collaborative Robots (Elephant RoboticsP/C/E Series) and Bionic Robots (MarsCat). The collaborative robots manufactured by Elephant Robotics have been sold to Korea, Japan, the United States, Germany, Italy, Greece, and more than 30 other countries. Under the harsh verification of real working conditions in companies from Fortune 500 Companies, the smart solutions and product quality of Elephant Robotics have been unanimously recognized and praised. The team is now using its advanced robotics knowledge to build products to mitigate loneliness. Solas Energy Consulting receives 2023 Clean50 Top Project award for environmental innovation The Residential Solar Calculator provides Calgary residents with the economic and environmental data Calgarians need to make informed decisions about adopting solar energy for their homes. Solas Energy Consulting Inc., a provider of comprehensive energy solutions, today announced that its work supporting the City of Calgarys Solar Residential Calculator received a 2023 Clean50 Top Project award. Canadas Clean50 Top Project awards are amongst the awards announced annually by Delta Management Group and Canadas Clean50 organization, recognizing the best sustainability-oriented projects completed in Canada over the prior two years. Clean50 Top Projects are chosen based on impact, innovation, capacity to inform and inspire, and ability to be readily imitated. Solas Energys award-winning project Mapping Solar Potential for Calgary Residents launched in February 2020, when the company contracted with the City of Calgary to design a Residential Solar Calculator to support the Citys residential solar (photovoltaic) development program. The calculator provides Calgary residents with a view of cost savings associated with residential rooftop solar installation over conventional energy usage. The calculator also provides estimated cost for installation, production potential based on residential address, and environmental benefits, including potential for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Solas Energys work included developing a model to benchmark, monitor, and verify environmental performance of solar installations for residential addresses throughout Calgary. Throughout the course of the two-year project, Solas Energy refined the model to provide the most accurate outputs possible for Calgarians. This innovative project could not have been completed without the collaboration and passion of so many people at the City of Calgary. As a Calgary-based team, we are grateful to the City of Calgary for its vision, environmental stewardship, and the leadership role it plays in inspiring other communities to invest in a net-zero carbon future. The Residential Solar Calculator provides Calgary residents with the economic and environmental data Calgarians need to make informed decisions about adopting solar energy for their homes, noted Paula McGarrigle, President and CEO of Solas Energy Consulting Inc. - Canada. Carolyn Bowen, Director of Climate and Environment at the City of Calgary added, The Residential Solar Calculator is a valuable component of the City of Calgarys environmental strategy and journey towards a net-zero carbon future. We appreciate the collaboration and expertise Solas Energy provided to support the development of this innovative tool for Calgary residents. The Residential Solar Calculator launched on the City of Calgarys website in February of 2022. Since then, the site has received tens of thousands of visitors who are eager to learn about the benefits of solar installation on the rooftops of their Calgary homes. Visit the City of Calgarys website to learn more. Learn more about Solas Energys award-winning project and other 2023 Clean50 award winners here. About Solas Energy Consulting Solas Energy Consulting provides comprehensive strategy and consulting services for renewable energy solutions to support the energy transition throughout the US and Canada. The companys expertise spans development and management of utility and commercial projects involving wind, solar, biomass, hydropower, geothermal, hydrogen, energy storage, grid modernization, and electric vehicles (EV). With over 20 years of experience in project development, construction management, and climate change advisory, Solas Energy provides its clients with the depth and perspective required to navigate the complex issues associated with renewable energy project development and climate change policy. Solas Energy maintains offices in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. More information about the company can be found on Solas Energy's website. About Delta Management Group and Canadas Clean50 Leading sustainability and clean tech search firm Delta Management Group in 2011 founded and remains the steward of Canadas Clean50 awards. The awards were created to annually identify, recognize, and connect 50 Sustainability Leaders, 10-20 Emerging Leaders, and Top Projects from every sector of Canadian endeavor. The firm also annually convenes the Clean50 Summit, in order to facilitate understanding, collaboration, and innovation in the fight to keep human caused climate impacts below 1.5 degrees C. Learn more about Canada's Clean50. I am looking forward to helping develop The Facilities Group platform as we continue our growth as a leader in the facility maintenance and janitorial industry. - O'Connell An experienced leader in the facilities industry, OConnell joins The Facilities Group Board of Directors to assist in the continued growth of the company. Fergus was the previous Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Kellermeyer Bergensons Services (KBS). He joined KBS following the sale of Pristine Environments in 2019, where he was also the CFO. Prior to this, Fergus was the Chief Financial Officer and Interim CEO of ISS North America and Deputy CFO for ISSs UK & Ireland divisions. He has also held various finance and operational facilities management positions across his career. Joining The Facilities Group was the next logical step in my career. I am looking forward to helping develop The Facilities Group platform as we continue our growth as a leader in the facility maintenance and janitorial industry, OConnell stated. The Facilities Group, with 20 offices, now services more than 27,000 locations across the country. We are excited to be adding an industry expert such as Fergus to our board and are confident his guidance and experience will enhance the next level of our growth, stated Bryson Raver, Chief Executive Officer of The Facilities Group. OConnell joins one of the fastest growing national providers of facilities maintenance and janitorial services in the United States, with additional acquisitions expected in 2022. The Facilities Group The Facilities Group partners with premier local, regional, and national facility maintenance providers, while maintaining brand legacy and driving high powered technology to provide the best-in-class service experience. For more information, please visit http://www.thefacilitiesgroup.com "The synergies that exist between our two companies are powerful, and will help Lendovative Technologies achieve its mission of connecting financial institution clients to more businesses across the U.S. Patrick True, President at Lendovative RelPro, the fast-growing business development and relationship management solution for Financial Services professionals, announced today a new partnership with Lendovative Technologies, Inc., a provider and developer of niche lending technologies for financial institutions. The partnership enhances both companies ability to assist financial institutions that serve businesses across the United States. RelPro delivers valuable insights and time-saving efficiencies to business development and relationship management professionals in banking and other financial services sectors - including Business & Commercial Bankers building relationships with small and mid-market private companies. RelPros platform integrates data on more than 7 million companies, including intelligence on UCC, PPP, SBA and Commercial Real Estate loans & filings. Lenders can use this information to find prospect companies in targeted industries and revenue ranges, and can also identify the key decision-makers with accurate contact details. Lendovatives flagship platform, BB-360 connects businesses to financial institutions through advanced technology, maximizing access to short-term capital. BB-360 allows businesses to leverage their accounts receivable, inventory and other assets as collateral. Combining RelPros business development efficiencies with Lendovatives unique lending collateral tracking platform delivers a powerful solution for financial institutions to deploy in growing their commercial lending business. We are excited to be partnering with RelPro. Loan growth is a key strategic goal for our financial institution clients, and that starts with actionable business intelligence, noted Patrick True, President at Lendovative. I have worked with similar service providers for more than 30 years, and no one is better at helping develop quality leads for commercial lending than RelPro. The synergies that exist between our two companies are powerful, and will help Lendovative Technologies achieve its mission of connecting financial institution clients to more businesses across the U.S. RelPro integrates best-in-class data to address bankers needs for a business development and relationship management solution that combines accurate company and decision-maker data with actionable insights, RelPro CEO and Founder, Martin Wise, said. This partnership with Lendovative saves time for community financial institutions as they identify the businesses in their market most in need of their specific lending solutions. By delivering deeper insights on small- to medium-sized companies and their decision-makers, we are helping financial services professionals identify more potential clients who need access to capital, noted Lauren Meyers, RelPros VP of Partnerships & Customer Success. This partnership with Lendovative enables us to accelerate the prospecting initiatives of lenders while providing them with a solution to help businesses navigate their cash flow needs in unique and innovative ways. About RelPro Founded in 2009, RelPros Relationship Intelligence platform was built with the experience that there is no one nirvana source of B2B Company and Decision-Maker data so why rely on one source of data? RelPro integrates data from best-in-class partners and the web to deliver a unique global database of over 7 million Companies and 150 million business decision-makers, allowing B2B Marketing, Business Development and Relationship Management professionals to quickly identify new prospects and close deals faster. RelPro includes automated Prospect Research to quickly inform business development outreach, and powerful Alerts that provide a call-to-action prompting timely interactions with prospects and clients. To learn more about RelPro, visit our website http://www.relpro.com, give us a call (888) 561 7890, send us an email info@relpro.com, or schedule a demo now. To learn what our customers are saying about RelPro, read the reviews on G2 Crowd. About Lendovative Lendovative Technologies, Inc., headquartered in Brentwood, TN, is a provider of niche lending technologies for financial institutions. Lendovative's borrowing base lending platform, BB-360, empowers financial institutions to serve the cash flow needs of business clients more effectively. To learn more about Lendovative, visit http://www.lendovative.com. Royal Armouries and Windlass Steelcrafts are collaborating to release a collection of high quality replicas of historically important weapons and armour based on pieces from the museum. Each reproduction will be carefully prototyped under the expert guidance of an historical weapons researcher. Curators from the Royal Armouries will then inspect and certify the piece to ensure the specifications exactly match those of the original piece. The Royal Armouries, the UKs national collection of arms and armour, has entered into an agreement with Atlanta Cutlery Corporation of Conyers, GA, USA, and its parent company, Windlass Steelcrafts of Dehradun, India, allowing them to produce high quality replicas of historically important weapons and armour from the museum's collection. These will be accurate replicas based on meticulous study of the originals. The origins of the Royal Armouries may be traced back to the working armoury of the medieval kings of England. Some of the most compelling narratives of human experience have been shaped by arms and armour. Royal Armouries celebrated collection originated in the nations working arsenal, which was assembled over many centuries at the Tower of London. The Master of the Armoury was responsible for maintaining a store of armour and weapons for use in the event of war and had an office in the Tower of London. The first use of the title was in 1462. Today the Royal Armouries has three museums across the United Kingdom and cares for one of the most important collections of arms and armour in the world. Its treasures are displayed and housed in its historical home at the White Tower in the Tower of London, at the purpose-built Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds and at Fort Nelson near Portsmouth, Hampshire. Atlanta Cutlery will offer these reproductions through its Museum Replicas Limited division. Museum Replicas Limited sparked the modern interest in historical sword reproductions by being the first company to widely offer accurate, affordable copies of historical swords 36 years ago. Atlanta Cutlery was initially formed in 1971 to sell antique knives purchased from the old stock of Sheffield knifemakers, such as Joseph Rodgers and Sons, and later transitioned to sword and knife reproductions from early American and post Victorian European history. Windlass Steelcrafts began in 1943 as a major supplier of Kukri knives to the famous Nepalese Gurkhas. In the 1980s, they expanded their output to include reproductions of historical swords, knives and edged weapons from cultures all over the world. Combining age-old techniques and appropriate materials, highly experienced smiths, and modern technology, they have gained prominence as one of the world's leading makers of high-quality swords, knives, and armour. Windlass Steelcrafts currently supplies military swords to several countries and is an official manufacturer to the United States Marine Corps. Each reproduction will be carefully prototyped under the expert guidance of an historical weapons researcher. Curators from the Royal Armouries will then inspect and certify the piece to ensure the specifications exactly match those of the original piece. Reproductions will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the current Master of the Armouries. About the Royal Armouries Entry to the museum is free but some activities carry a small charge. Royal Armouries has sites in Leeds, HM Tower of London and Fort Nelson in Hampshire. The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds houses a major part of the national collection of arms and armour, and displays over 8,500 objects throughout its five themed galleries Open all year daily, 10am-5pm. Closed 24-26 December Website About Windlass Steelcrafts Chad Eikhoff, Aaron Soriero, Chad Shockley Virtual production and extended reality offers new creative opportunities while also reducing hassle and risk. - Chad Eikhoff Virtual production industry leader, Reveal XR, has joined forces with Atlanta-based production powerhouse, Music Matters Productions, and immersive content studio, TRICK 3D, to launch Atlantas newest extended reality (XR) studio, Reveal XR - Atlanta. Strategically located at Eagle Rock Studios in Norcross, Ga., Reveal XR - Atlanta provides a highly-accessible and versatile virtual production set-up designed to provide best-in-class virtual production services to all verticals of production, with focused attention supporting brands and agencies' content needs. The state of Georgia has done an incredible job over the past decade embracing new technology for film, television, gaming and esports content creation, remarked Studio Partner Chad Shockley. Our number one goal with Reveal XR - Atlanta is to embrace the learnings from these endeavors and our collective experiences in live events, immersive content, marketing, production and technology to provide brands with new opportunities to create content like never before. Reveal XR - Atlanta offers XR production that is calibrated for the worlds leading brands and content creators. Reveal XR Atlanta represents the culmination of years of experience designing studios and integrating technology for clients around the country. The studio is flexible and configurable to meet the needs of the project. Reveal XR Atlanta is a fully staffed studio with award-winning creatives and technicians that can support any size content need. The team is also experienced in design and deployment of XR production rigs, providing the flexibility of on-site volume solutions. As of the announcement today, Reveal XR - Atlanta is available for booking for brand, commercial, TV, film, and music productions. Todays brands need to connect with a digital-first generation of customers and, as such, the demands for creativity in content production is huge, noted Studio Partner Chad Eikhoff. Virtual production and extended reality offers new creative opportunities while also reducing hassle and risk. The Reveal XR - Atlanta studio has been expertly constructed with Absen PL 2.9mm LED walls, an Absen X5 5.2mm ceiling that is high-bright and height adjustable, all powered with next-generation Novastar MX40 processing. A ROE BM4 4.4mm Matte LED floor is available by client request. The studio is powered by Disguise VX4+ for 4K 60fps compositing, RXII render nodes, and uncompressed 10 bit video workflow. A Supertechno Technodolly with automated telescoping crane, RED Komodo and RED Raptor camera packages, and flexible studio staging and lighting options are all available based on production need. About Reveal XR Reveal XR is an industry leading XR and Virtual Production organization focused on creating Emmy Award-winning content with next generation technologies. Our team of storytellers, animators, production crew and engineers are transforming the film industry and solving creative challenges for the world's largest brands & IPs. Visit http://www.revealxr.com for more information. About Music Matters Productions Music Matters Productions is an event and experience production company with an extensive product range of high-end staging, audio, video and lighting equipment, as well as a team of creators who specialize in producing unforgettable live experiences for festivals, concerts, corporate events, nationwide tours and more. Visit mmp-atl.com for more information. About TRICK 3D TRICK 3D Studio is a 3D animation and immersive content studio specializing in real-time animation, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). TRICK 3D Studio is home to creator Chad Eikhoff who crafts imaginative, wonder-filled stories and worlds using 3D animation as well as immersive media. Visit TRICK3D.com for more information. ### Jim DeVoe-Talluto, Assistant Director of Captive Insurance Jim has deep knowledge and perspective to bring to the licensing team and we are thrilled to welcome him. Examiner-In-Charge Jim DeVoe-Talluto has been promoted to Assistant Director of Captive Insurance at the Department of Financial Regulation. Jim will fill the role that Christine Brown held, who was recently promoted to Director of Captive Insurance of the Captive Insurance Division. Were committed in Vermont to maintain quality regulation and a stable environment for captives to thrive. Promoting Jim to the Assistant Director role is another example of our commitment, said Sandy Bigglestone, Deputy Commissioner of Captive Insurance. It made sense to round out our leadership team once again from within. Jim is kind, inquisitive, and is always willing to provide a fresh perspective. I look forward to whats to come with this great team and all the staff that support this important work in the Division. Jim has been with the Captive Division since 2004, has served as Examiner-In-Charge for 17 years, and was an examiner/analyst prior to that. Prior to joining the Division, Jim spent three years in public accounting and captive management. Jim received an MS in Accounting and an MBA from Northeastern University and a BA in English from Stanford University. Jim served for the last two years as the Chair of the Risk Focused Surveillance Working Group, an internal team that reviews NAIC guidance and presents updated guidance and procedures to the Department to ensure compliance with NAIC Accreditation requirements. Jim is an extremely respected member of our regulatory team and is a pleasure to work with. He has built many valued relationships within the Vermont captive insurance industry over the years with his inquisitive and helpful nature, and we expect he will broaden these relationships in his new role, said Christine Brown, Director of Captive Insurance. Jim has deep knowledge and perspective to bring to the licensing team and we are thrilled to welcome him. Were fortunate to have a deep bench of highly qualified captive regulators in Vermont and Jim is a prime example. Jim has been a valuable member of the Exam Team for nearly 20 years where he has honed his skills as an examiner, an analyst, a supervisor, and a teacher, said Dan Petterson, Director of Examinations. Hell be missed on the exam team, but his vast experience will serve the Vermont captive community well as the new Assistant Director. Its great to see the Vermont regulatory leadership team complete and full of robust experience and expertise to serve Vermont captives, said Kevin Mead, President of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association. Our members have been reflecting on how smooth this transition has been and how each promotion has felt right. Naming Jim to his new position reflects this, as he is well known to the VCIA and our members. Vermonts continued development as a strong and stable domicile through transitions truly maintains the Gold Standard. Jim DeVoe-Talluto begins his work as Assistant Director of Captive Insurance on September 26th. For more information on Vermonts captive insurance industry, visit http://www.vermontcaptive.com, call Brittany Nevins at 802-398-5192 or email Brittany.nevins@vermont.gov. ### About Vermont Captive Insurance Captive insurance is a regulated form of self-insurance that has existed since the 1960s and has been a part of the Vermont insurance industry since 1981, when Vermont passed the Special Insurer Act. Captive insurance companies are formed by companies or groups of companies as a form of alternative insurance to better manage their own risk. Captives are commonly used for corporate lines of insurance such as property, general liability, products liability, or professional liability. "We anticipate that Europe will be one of our fastest-growing regions, and Emmanuel will be instrumental in executing our on-the-ground strategy." MarqVision, developer of the world's first AI-powered intellectual property protection platform, today announced that it has expanded its presence in Europe with a new office in Paris, France, and the appointment of Emmanuel Alavoine as Head of Expansion Europe. With significant business momentum over the last year, this new stage of growth is focused on replicating the success and growing demand for the companys products and services. Emmanuel will be responsible for driving the development of the business in Europe and raising awareness of the MarqVision platform and the resulting IP protection services among brands. Emmanuel Alavoine, a graduate in business law and from Science Po Paris in economics, finance, and international trade, moved to Hong Kong in 1990 to work for L'Oreal Scental. For 10 years, he held financial and supply chain positions. In 2000, he joined the Chanel group for the Bourjois Paris brand, and became head of global demand and supply chain. He was then appointed Finance Director and Operations Director of the brand, before returning to Hong Kong in 2007 as Managing Director of Bourjois Asia Pacific, and then President. His diverse experiences have exposed him to real-world issues related to online and offline intellectual property. From counterfeits to grey markets, Emmanuel Alavoine has observed the consequences of the explosion of online e-commerce sales. This has led him to provide consultancy services to brands for the development and protection of their intangible assets (IP, software, staff training) and for international business planning. "We anticipate that Europe will be one of our fastest-growing regions, and Emmanuel will be instrumental in executing our on-the-ground strategy. His passion for technology, international operational experience, and business acumen will help us meet the growing demand from brands for our technology platform now and in the future." Mark Lee, CEO, and co-founder of MarqVision. "Intellectual property issues are not new; I have been witnessing and fighting them since the 2000s. As their growth is intrinsically linked to that of e-commerce, tools to detect counterfeits are essential for brands, retailers, and platforms. I am particularly excited to take on this role at MarqVision because my colleagues believe, as I do, that solving these problems requires the deployment of powerful AI-based technologies," says Emmanuel Alavoine. Counterfeiting is a massive problem, affecting all corners of the globe, and Europe is no exception, with nearly 7% of EU imports being counterfeit and pirated goods accounting for 121 billion. MarqVision delivers the only fully automated AI-powered brand protection solution to help digital content owners and global brands protect their IP. Its technology has been adopted by many of the worlds leading brands, including three LVMH Maisons. As Head of Expansion Europe, Emmanuel Alavoine will also lead MarqVisions participation in the LVMH acceleration program, La Maison des Startups. The company was selected to participate in this program after winning the LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) 2022 Innovation Award in the Special Mention data and artificial intelligence category. This expansion comes on the back of the companys $20 million Series A funding round, with DST Global Partners and Atinum Investments joining the historical investors. MarqVisions new Paris operations will transform how European brand owners manage and protect their intellectual property online. About MarqVision MarqVision helps global brands identify and remove counterfeits from more than 1,500 online marketplaces across the world. Counterfeiting is a massive and growing threat worldwide, and MarqVision is on a mission to protect creativity and innovation with technology that allows brands to automatically monitor and protect their IPs. Harnessing image recognition and natural language processing, this AI-powered SaaS makes it faster than ever before to take down counterfeits. MarqVision was founded in 2020 by Harvard Law graduates and is backed by DST Global Partners, Softbank, Atinum Investments, Bass Investment, and Y Combinator. The recipient of a prestigious 2022 Innovation Award from LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), MarqVision is also part of the LVMH accelerator program, La Maison des Startups, at the Station F incubator. MarqVision is bringing forth the next evolution of brand protection for businesses everywhere. Learn more: http://www.marqvision.com. Recent studies have shown that pursuing happiness through social means like spending more time with family and friends is more likely to be effective than other methods. And since the Cubacel bonuses are available again, HablaCuba.com invites all Cuban expats to seize the moment, connect with their favorite Cubans and send them good vibes together with a Cubacel top-up. What do the bonuses look like this week? This is a GB, minutes and texts bonus type of promo, so here are the extra benefits that accompany the international mobile recharges sent to Cuba: 500 CUP: 5 GB + 80 Minutes + 80 SMS 1000 CUP: 10 GB + 160 Minutes + 160 SMS 2000 CUP: 20 GB + 320 Minutes + 320 SMS 2500 CUP: 25 GB + 400 Minutes + 400 SMS What stays the same? Customers enjoy the same special extra offer: NO FEES for top ups of 3000 CUP or more. When will the transaction be processed? The top-up reaches the destination almost instantly. However, top ups of 1000 CUP or more will be divided into separate top ups, so that you receive the maximum bonus possible. The recharges may arrive several minutes apart. Besides sending top ups, customers can also recharge their familys and friends Nauta accounts, in order to help them gain access to the internet. Or, if they prefer calling to say Hello personally, they can also use HablaCuba.coms calling services. Customers can place their calls: From any landline, mobile or even payphone in the world, through access numbers. Through the smartphone app called KeepCalling, available for iOS and Android. The rate for international calls to Cuba is 69.9/min, for both landlines and mobiles, and the cost of a text message is 7. All services HablaCuba.com offers revolve around the websites mission, which is to bring people together, no matter the distance, no distance is too long if people stay connected. About HablaCuba.com HablaCuba.com is an interactive website designed by KeepCalling, a global telecommunications company registered in 2002 in the USA. Presently, KeepCalling provides its services to hundreds of thousands of consumers, with a focus on customer satisfaction. KeepCalling has been listed by Inc 5000 as one of the fastest growing companies in the USA for 5 consecutive years. In 2015 the company registered a revenue increase of over 200% from 2011 to 2014. AWS Announces 2022 FABTECH Events AWS will be showcasing its full suite of products and services to help the welding community, said Gary W. Konarska II, AWS Executive Director & CEO. I encourage everyone to stop by the AWS booths to learn more about how AWS can support your personal and professional growth. FABTECH returns to the Georgia World Congress Center from November 8-10, 2022, and the American Welding Society is pleased to announce its plans for the event. Welders and fabricators looking to reconnect with suppliers, find new ones, fill workplace gaps, or increase productivity will find that FABTECH is a one-stop shop to enhance their business operations. Attendees walking the exhibit hall will find the latest in manufacturing equipment, discover innovations by application and industry, and see advanced manufacturing solutions that could bring new levels of productivity and efficiency to their operations. AWS will be showcasing its full suite of products and services to help the welding community, said Gary W. Konarska II, AWS Executive Director & CEO. I encourage everyone to stop by the AWS booths to learn more about how AWS can support your personal and professional growth. Here are ways that attendees can take advantage of all that the American Welding Society has to offer: o Visit Booth C11361 to learn more about AWS, including how welders and welding professionals can advance their careers, our available educational programming and certifications, and how to save on AWS products and services by becoming a member. While visiting the booth, take advantage of these FABTECH only offers:- - New members can take advantage of Take The Torch member pricing: get 15 months for the price of 12. Enter our giveaway for a chance to win access to an online course and a Kindle Fire. Join Arc Junkies podcast host, Jason Becker, for his live broadcast from the AWS booth every morning throughout the show. His show starts 30 minutes after the exhibit hall opens. o The AWS Bookstore is offering 40% off all AWS publications and toolkits purchased from show floor inventory (excludes replicas or third-party publications). Stop by Booth C11567 early as supplies are limited. While there, enter for your chance to win a FREE D1.1 or D1.5. o Attendees looking to maintain their certification or earn PDHs towards their professional license can attend the AWS Welding Track. Led by industry experts, it focuses on best practices and new developments in the welding and manufacturing industry. o Register for the AWS Professional Program and be there as authors present abstracts about novel developments and research related to materials joining technology and processes, including additive manufacturing. View the Schedule and Register for the Professional Program. o Poster Session: The AWS Poster Session is an integral part of the AWS Professional Program. Stop by to view graphic displays of technical achievements in welding, and see which students take home cash prizes. o The FABTECH theater located in Hall A will feature daily panel discussions at 11 AM. Join AWS as we cover topics relevant to welders of every level with a panel of experts in the industry. Tuesday - How to Add Automation to Your Business Wednesday - Questions Youve Always Wanted to Ask a CWI Thursday - The Benefits of Welding Competitions o Wednesday Afternoon Meet & Greet, 34 pm: The FABTECH theater will host some of the welding industry's most known social media influencers, including Stephanie Hoffman, Jason Becker, Sean Flottman, Chloe Hudson, and Rae Ripple. o Hall A will also feature the newly designed AWS Foundations Careers in Welding Mobile Exhibit, sponsored by Lincoln Electric. Learn more about career opportunities in the welding field, be the high score on our virtual welding machines for a daily $1,000 scholarship, and get some AWS swag. o Wednesday, November 9, 6-10pm: The Arcs and Ales after-hours networking event will happen at the New Realm Brewing Co. Brought to you by AWS and hosted by Stephanie Hoffman and Jason Becker, this event is your chance to network with other welding professionals. Don't miss outyour first beer or hard seltzer is on us. To learn more about AWS events taking place at FABTECH, visit aws.org/fabtech2022. We are excited to have Quest Benefits join us, said Randy Larsen, President of AssuredPartners. Their partnership is a great addition in the greater DC area and for AssuredPartners. We are looking forward to continued growth in the Mid-Atlantic with the addition of this talented team. AssuredPartners, Inc. is pleased to announce the acquisition of Quest Benefits, Inc. (Quest) located in Chantilly, VA. This marks the 23rd acquisition by AssuredPartners in 2022. The team will remain under the leadership of President, Sami Satouri. Quest Insurance was thrilled to celebrate our 30th Anniversary on September 21, 2022. Many of our clients have seen us through this journey for ten years or longer, which evokes immense pride. Throughout our 30 years, Quest has placed our focus on the client, Satouri said. We value these partnerships because we know they are the foundation of our mutual success. Joining AssuredPartners will allow us to continue to operate our business with that philosophy in mind, while giving us the additional resources of a national operation. Quests commitment to providing the best insurance protection to the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area is unmatched, Brian Bair, AssuredPartners Regional President stated. Enhancing AssuredPartners capabilities and client offerings in this region will allow for greater expansion in the ever-changing landscape. We are excited to have Quest Benefits join us, said Randy Larsen, President of AssuredPartners. Their partnership is a great addition in the greater DC area and for AssuredPartners. We are looking forward to continued growth in the Mid-Atlantic with the addition of this talented team. For more information on Quest Benefits, Inc., please visit: https://questinsurance.us/ ABOUT ASSUREDPARTNERS, INC Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, AssuredPartners is a full-service insurance broker providing commercial insurance, risk management, employee benefits through consulting and services. With over 7,500 employees located in offices throughout North America, London, Belgium and Scotland, AssuredPartners is in the business of building relationships. While cementing powerful, lasting relationships built on trust earned from working openly and honestly with our partners. Thats what we call, Power through Partnership. For more information, call 513-624-1779, email jamie.reinert@assuredpartners.com or visit http://www.assuredpartners.com. Reproductive Specialists of the Carolinas (RSC) is pleased to announce that Dr. Luwam Ghidei, an award-winning reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist, has joined the boutique fertility practice, making it possible for even more patients to receive advanced and inclusive reproductive care. Dr. Ghidei has the training and experience to diagnose and treat all infertility causes, with a specific interest in recurrent pregnancy loss, infertility, fibroids, polycystic ovarian syndrome, fertility preservation, third-party reproduction, and resolving healthcare disparities. She received her medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School before completing an Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at Brown University/Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. She completed her fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, as well as a Master of Science in clinical investigation at Baylor College of Medicine. In addition to her impressive background and training, Dr. Ghidei has also won numerous awards, including most recently the Presidents Presenter Award from the Society for Reproductive Investigation, and has published many studies in peer-reviewed journals to further advance reproductive medicine and optimize patient experiences. As a passionate supporter of equal rights for everyone, Dr. Ghidei is committed to honoring the pillars of inclusivity and advocacy that define the RSC practice. "It is my goal and privilege to provide each of my patients with compassionate and respectful care, while helping them achieve their individualized reproductive goals," she says. Dr. Johnson said: "I am so grateful to have a new, young, intelligent, and passionate REI join our team at RSC! With Dr. Ghidei s passion and modern outlook on fertility care, I know that our patients and staff alike will undoubtedly benefit with her addition to the team. Welcome to RSC, Dr. Ghidei!" The addition of Dr. Ghidei to the staff comes on the heels of a practice relocation earlier this year. The new 11,000-square-foot facility in Charlotte, NC includes a state-of-the-art IVF laboratory, and further enhances treatment offerings for patients, which include intrauterine insemination (IUI), infertility assessments, oncofertility, in vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, and more. Reproductive Specialists of the Carolinas is located at 1918 Randolph Rd, Ste 410, Charlotte, NC 28207-1109. To learn more, please email info@fertilitycarolinas.com or call to schedule an appointment to see Dr. Ghidei at (704) 247-2209. Cherokee County joins the Georgia Purchasing Group by Bidnet Direct Cherokee County invites all potential vendors to register online. Cherokee County announced it has joined the Georgia Purchasing Group and will be publishing and distributing upcoming bid opportunities on the system. Bidnet Directs Georgia Purchasing Group connects 26 participating agencies from across Georgia. The purchasing group provides a transparent bid process through which the bid is available to all vendors at the same time. Cherokee County invites all potential vendors to register online at http://www.bidnetdirect.com/georgia/cherokeecounty. Cherokee County joined the purchasing group in September. Cherokee County will utilize the system to streamline their purchasing process including bid distribution, bid management, and vendor relations. The Georgia Purchasing Group is a single, online location for managing sourcing information and activities and provides 26 local government agencies the tools needed to have a transparent bid process while minimizing costs and saving time. "BidNet Direct provides the County with a substantial upgrade in performance and capabilities in its web-based solicitation platform. All the information we have regarding the bid/proposal, addenda, schedule, awards and the Q&As are available and are easy to locate. We anticipate that this product-line will encourage greater public participation and collaboration in the bid/proposal process while improving the cost effectiveness of Procurement overall, stated Dale Jordan, Procurement Director of Cherokee County. As a participating agency of the Georgia Purchasing Group, it allows Cherokee County to expand their vendor pool and enhance vendor competition without increasing distribution costs. To be added to the existing list of vendors on the Georgia Purchasing Group, any suppliers looking to do business with Cherokee County can register online: http://www.bidnetdirect.com/georgia/cherokeecounty. Cherokee County encourages all interested bidders to register today. Registered vendors can access open bids, related documents, and files, additional addendum, and available award information from all participating agencies. In addition, the Georgia Purchasing Group offers a value-added service to notify vendors of new bids targeted to their business, including all addenda and advance notification of expiring term contracts. With one click, Cherokee County can now see how many vendors match a specific opportunity, how many have downloaded documents, responded and more. Cherokee County also has its own, branded page on the public side of the Georgia Purchasing Group in which taxpayers can view all closed bids and any awarded information. Vendors may register on the Georgia Purchasing Group: http://www.bidnetdirect.com/georgia/cherokeecounty. Bidnet Directs vendor support team is available to answer any questions regarding the registration process or the bid system at 800-835-4603 option 2. Other local Georgia government agencies looking to switch from a manual bid process, please contact the Georgia Purchasing Group for a demonstration of the no-cost sourcing solution. About Cherokee County: Located 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta, Cherokee County is part of the 11-county metro-Atlanta area. Cherokee County boasts a population of more than 279,000, according to the 2022 Atlanta Regional Commission population estimates. It is the one of the fastest growing counties in the metro region and its overall Board of Commissioners-controlled tax burden per capita is one of the lowest in the region. Cherokee County has world-class parks and recreational facilities, is a destination for corporate headquarters and is a great place to live, work and play. Cherokee County is the best of both worlds because its where Metro Meets the Mountains. Learn more at cherokeega.com. About Bidnet Direct: Bidnet Direct, powered by mdf commerce, is a sourcing solution of regional purchasing groups available at no cost to local government agencies throughout the country. Bidnet Direct runs regional purchasing groups, including the Georgia Purchasing Group, across all 50 states that are used by over 1,600 local governments. To learn more and have your government agency gain better transparency and efficiency in purchasing, please visit https://www.bidnetdirect.com/buyers Clear Labs, the leader in fully automated, next-generation sequencing (NGS) for turnkey genomic surveillance and diagnostics, is announcing plans to attend key events in October. Clear Labs, the leader in fully automated, next-generation sequencing (NGS) for turnkey genomic surveillance and diagnostics, is announcing plans to attend key events in October that are focused on microbiology, pathogen surveillance, and outbreak management, including sponsoring and presenting at this years IDWeek in Washington, DC. In addition, Clear Labs is sponsoring a Learning Lounge at the event, which is the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA), the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP). The company is also attending important regional events on the West Coast, including the California Association of Public Health Lab Directors (CAPHLD) Annual Institute and the Southern California branch of the American Society for Microbiologys (SCASM) Annual Meeting. IDWeek -WHAT: Clear Labs is a sponsoring Learning Lab and presenting on Is Whole Genome Sequencing Ready for Prime Time? Removing the hurdles to adoption of WGS in the hospital setting for infection control and prevention -WHEN: Friday, October 21, 2022, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. -WHERE: Walter E. Washington Convention Center; Hall A, Learning Lounge 3, in Washington, D.C. -WHO: Clear Labs Associate Director of Bioinformatics, Adam Allred, Ph.D and Assistant Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Kyle Rodino, Ph.D. CAPHLD Annual Institute -WHAT: Clear Labs is attending the event focused on improving and protecting public health through the promotion and advancement of public health laboratory practice. -WHEN: October 17-19, 2022 -WHERE: Embassy Suites in Walnut Creek, CA SCASM Annual Meeting -WHAT: Clear Labs is attending the meeting focused on promoting microbiology education and research in Southern California - spanning areas from clinical, public health, environmental, basic research, education, industrial, food safety, veterinary, and more. -WHEN: October 20-22, 2022 -WHERE: Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine in La Jolla, CA Clear Labs continues to see momentum for its Clear Dx platform that determines the nature of pathogen transmission, differentiates strains, and monitors mutations and new variants; it is currently being used by more than half of the public health labs in the United States. For more information about Clear Labs and upcoming events, visit https://www.clearlabs.com/newsroom/. About Clear Labs Clear Labs harnesses the power of next-generation sequencing (NGS) to simplify complex workflows for clinical and applied markets. By creating a fully automated platform that brings together DNA sequencing, robotics, and cloud-based analytics, Clear Labs liberates genomics to deliver increased clarity. Clear Labs turnkey platform accelerates outcomes and improves accuracy for the detection and surveillance of infectious diseases. With a novel approach, Clear Labs is helping the world better understand, track and mitigate tomorrows novel pathogens. This premier event has no equal and provides the maintenance and sustainment communities a unique opportunity to engage with senior leaders, subject matter experts, and fellow colleagues. The DoD Maintenance Symposium, along with SAE Internationals co-located Defense Maintenance and Logistics Exhibition, is the only DoD event solely focused on maintenance of weapon systems and equipment. More than 1,600 members of the defense maintenance and sustainment communities will convene to discuss current and future initiatives, address challenges, share lessons learned, as well as establish and maintain valuable networks. The symposium also hosts the annual Secretary of Defense Maintenance Awards ceremony to recognize the best DoD maintenance units. Steve Morani, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment, is a staunch supporter of the symposium and stated, I have been involved with the DoD Maintenance Symposium for many years throughout my military and civilian career. This premier event has no equal and provides the maintenance and sustainment communities a unique opportunity to engage with senior leaders, subject matter experts, and fellow colleagues. There is no other event like it to build life-long networks and no better bang for the buck! The theme of this years symposium, Next Generation Materiel Readiness Forged through Data Advantage, Technology, and Innovation offers a wide range of sustainment topics that are critical to defending the homeland and securing Americas interests around the globe. Plenary panel speakers will address the Departments long term maintenance and sustainment strategy, contested logistics, and harnessing transformation. SAE is proud to support this forum for the public and private maintenance and sustainment communities. Representatives from all ranks and specialties will build professional networks and actively engage in constructive conversations to address vital national security issues of mutual interest, said Frank Bokulich, Product Content & Business Development Manager, SAE International. The symposium will be held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, December 12-15, 2022. Registration is currently open for anyone from military, government, industry, and academia with a vested interest in DoD maintenance. To learn more and register, visit https://www.sae.org/attend/dod/registration. This event has been reviewed and approved as a DoD event and accordingly meets Departmental guidelines for attendance by all Military Services, agencies, and industry. Read the DoD-approved memo. About SAE International SAE International is a global organization committed to advancing mobility knowledge and solutions for the benefit of humanity. By engaging nearly 200,000 engineers, technical experts and volunteers, we connect and educate mobility professionals to enable safe, clean, and accessible mobility solutions. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including award-winning programs like A World In Motion and the Collegiate Design Series. More at http://www.sae.org. ### Contact: SAE International Jeff Laskowski 248.925.4770 pr@sae.org Chestnut Ridge Dental Associates NJ Top Dentists has reviewed and approved Dr. Samuel Mufson and Dr. Joseph Lota, Jr. of Chestnut Ridge Dental Associates for 2022. Located in the Bergen County community of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, Dr. Samuel Mufson and Dr. Joseph Lota, Jr. of Chestnut Ridge Dental Associates are proud to offer a full range of services to their patients to help them achieve and maintain a beautiful, healthy smile for a lifetime. The NJ Top Dentists at Chestnut Ridge Dental Associates are committed to working individually with each of their patients to create a personalized treatment plan catered to meet their specific needs and desires. Personalized and progressive dentistry with a commitment to excellence thats what you can expect from Chestnut Ridge Dental Associates. Contact their team today to schedule an appointment 201-391-4466. Dr. Samuel Mufson received his DMD from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He makes a difference for his patients by providing the highest level of dental care and personal service. Dr. Joseph Lota, Jr. is a specialist in general and cosmetic dentistry. He received his DMD degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. With his patients it is about building trust, that has always been our primary goal. To learn more about these reviewed and approved NJ Top Dentists, please visit: https://njtopdocs.com/nj-dentists/chestnutridgedental/ --- About Us NJ Top Dentists is a division of NJ Top Docs. NJ Top Docs is a comprehensive, trusted and exclusive healthcare resource featuring reviewed and approved Top Doctors and Dentists in New Jersey online in an easy to use format. NJ Top Docs only reviews and approves providers based on merit after they have been extensively vetted. NJ Top Docs is a division of USA Top Docs which allows patients to meet providers online before making their appointment. For more information, please click here to contact us or visit http://www.NJTopDocs.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. Since 2017, Dream Vacations has been ranked the top travel agency franchise for veterans by Entrepreneur magazine, always ranking either first or second out of 150 franchises nationwide. That is what drew my wife and me to Dream Vacations. The HQ leadership and support teams have committed to the vision and goal of the ultimate success of Dream Vacations franchisees. They are dedicated to supporting, training, and equipping their network of Travel Advisors to be successful. Dream Vacations recently ranked #2 in Entrepreneurs Top Franchises for Veterans list, published in the magazines October/November issue. Since 2017, Dream Vacations has been ranked the top travel agency franchise for veterans by Entrepreneur magazine, always ranking either first or second out of 150 franchises nationwide. "This is one of the lists of the year that I am most excited to share with our franchisor partners and our audience, said Entrepreneur Senior Vice President of Franchising Liane Caruso. The 150 companies featured here represent not just wonderful opportunities for anyone to start their entrepreneurial journey but go the extra step to provide even more support and appreciation for our veterans who have proven their ability to work hard, navigate challenges, and understand the importance of teamwork in achieving success. To determine the annual ranking of the Top Franchises for Veterans, Entrepreneur invited companies who offer incentives for veterans to participate in a survey about their veteran programs. From there, Entrepreneur determined their ranking of the top 150 franchises for veterans, taking into account each company's Veteran incentive, how Veteran franchisees are attracted to and supported by the company, and how each company scored in the 2022 Franchise 500 ranking. Over the years, we have developed new benefits and programs to guide them and their families on a journey to become successful entrepreneurs, said Drew Daly, senior vice president and general manager for Dream Vacations. Our support of the military community is an honor, and we are excited to receive this recognition each year. Military veterans interested in starting a work-from-home business can purchase a Dream Vacations travel agency business at a 30 percent discount and receive an enlistment package valued at more than $5,000, which includes waived administrative fees valued at $1,350. In addition to having access to the Command Center, an internal portal with veteran-specific training and veteran-themed marketing assets, all veterans receive a waived training fee for a business partner and the ability to hire active-duty military spouses and veterans as associates at a discount. Additional veteran incentives include the ability to move residences and stay in business, travel discounts for military customers and access to veteran networking groups. Strong leadership includes a clear vision of the mission, a plan for flawless execution, and a dedication to training and equipping those who will ultimately carry out the mission to completion, said Mark Furlan, ambassador of veteran affairs and Dream Vacations franchise owner. That is what drew my wife and me to Dream Vacations. The HQ leadership and support teams have committed to the vision and goal of the ultimate success of Dream Vacations franchisees. They are dedicated to supporting, training, and equipping their network of Travel Advisors to be successful, added Furlan, a Vietnam veteran. The only travel franchise to receive a 5 STAR ranking from the International Franchise Associations VetFran initiative, Dream Vacations proudly supports military veterans and is consistently recognized by leading industry publications as a veteran-friendly franchise. Accolades include number one rankings from Military Times and Forbes, as well as inclusion on G.I. Jobs annual Hot Franchises for Veterans, US Veterans magazines Top Veteran-Friendly Companies, USA Todays 50 Top Franchises for Military Veterans and recognition by MSC Cruises in its Seaside Salute Award. The Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General program won gold from the Travel Weekly Magellan Awards and the IFA Franchising Gives Back Awards. To view Dream Vacations in the full ranking, visit https://www.entrepreneur.com/franchises/topfranchiseveterans. Results can also be seen in the October/November issue of Entrepreneur magazine. Military veterans with a passion for travel and entrepreneurship who are interested in opening a Dream Vacations travel franchise, please visit http://www.dreamvacationsfranchise.com or call 888-249-8235. About Dream Vacations Travel agents with the top-ranked home-based travel agency franchise Dream Vacations have the resources to plan and create seamless vacation experiences for their customers while offering the best value. A member of the International Franchise Association, Dream Vacations is part of World Travel Holdings and has received franchise partner of the year, a top-ranking status, by all the major cruise lines as well as national recognition for its support of military veterans. For more information about Dream Vacations, visit http://www.DreamVacationsFranchise.com. Like Dream Vacations on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DreamVacationsFranchise, follow on Twitter at @Dream_Franchise and watch its videos at http://www.youtube.com/DreamVacationsBusiness. ### DuPont (NYSE:DD) has announced the launch of liveo.dupont.cn, its new DuPont Liveo Healthcare Solutions regional website serving Greater China. The company actively has expanded its global footprint with the new website being the latest development to better serve customers in China and around the world. The Liveo website helps customers find Chinese-language product and application information for the three markets Liveo serves: Biopharma Processing enabling cost-effective, safe manufacturing of biologics used in innovative drugs and vaccines with a wide range of Liveo pharma tubing and overmolded assemblies Pharmaceutical Solutions enabling safe, effective new therapeutic drug delivery routes with a unique offering in topical and transdermal solutions, as well as gastrointestinal active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) Medical Devices enabling safe, convenient, effective diagnostics, monitoring and treatment at the point of care with a broadening range of specialty medical adhesives and elastomers to support the trend for connected devices and wearables. DuPont also has made other recent investments in the China market. In August, DuPont announced increased production capabilities for its silicone Liveo Pharma Tubing by adding manufacturing capacity in eastern China. The manufacturing expansion aims to meet demand for high-purity biopharmaceutical tubing in Greater China. DuPont is committed to pursuing investments in healthcare capabilities to meet the needs of our many fast-growing customers, both in China and elsewhere around the world, said DuPont Healthcare & Specialty Lubricants Global Business Director Eugenio Toccalino. We hope to enable our customers to grow, innovate and save lives as we continue our long-term commitment to the healthcare industry. The new website can be viewed at liveo.dupont.cn. For Liveo product and application information in English, visit liveo.dupont.com. About DuPont Liveo Healthcare Solutions DuPont Liveo is a globally recognized leader in technology for a broad range of innovations in medical devices, biopharmaceutical processing and pharmaceutical solutions. DuPont high-performance materials help create safer healthcare environments and protect the health of patients and healthcare providers worldwide. We help enable smarter healthcare and positive patient outcomes. More information can be found at liveo.dupont.com. About DuPont Electronics & Industrial DuPont Electronics & Industrial is a global supplier of new technologies and performance materials serving the semiconductor, circuit board, display, digital and flexographic printing, healthcare, aerospace, industrial, and transportation industries. From advanced technology centers worldwide, teams of talented research scientists and application experts work closely with customers, providing solutions, products and technical service to enable next-generation technologies. About DuPont DuPont (NYSE: DD) is a global innovation leader with technology-based materials and solutions that help transform industries and everyday life. Our employees apply diverse science and expertise to help customers advance their best ideas and deliver essential innovations in key markets including electronics, transportation, construction, water, healthcare and worker safety. More information about the company, its businesses and solutions can be found at http://www.dupont.com. Investors can access information included on the Investor Relations section of the website at investors.dupont.com. Overview On November 2, 2021, DuPont announced it has entered definitive agreements to acquire Rogers Corporation (Rogers), (the Intended Rogers Acquisition). On January 25, 2022, Rogers shareholders approved the transaction. Closing, is expected by the end of the second quarter 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. On February 18, 2022, DuPont announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to divest a majority of its Mobility & Materials segment, excluding certain Advanced Solutions and Performance Resins businesses, to Celanese Corporation (Celanese), (the M&M Divestiture). Closing is expected around the end of 2022, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. The Company also announced on February 18, 2022 that its Board of Directors has approved the divestiture of the Delrin acetal homopolymer (H-POM) business. In addition to the entry into definitive agreements, the Company anticipates that the closing of the sale of Delrin would be subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, (the Delrin Business Divestiture and together with the M&M Divestiture, the "M&M Divestitures). Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements This communication contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "see," "will," "would," "target," and similar expressions and variations or negatives of these words. Forward-looking statements address matters that are, to varying degrees, uncertain and subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, many of which that are beyond DuPont's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results. Some of the important factors that could cause DuPont's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (i) the parties ability to meet expectations regarding the timing, completion and accounting and tax treatments of the M&M Divestiture to Celanese, including (x) any failure to obtain necessary regulatory approvals, anticipated tax treatment or to satisfy any of the other conditions to the proposed transaction, (y) the possibility that unforeseen liabilities, future capital expenditures, revenues, expenses, earnings, synergies, economic performance, indebtedness, financial condition, losses, future prospects, business and management strategies could impact the value, timing or pursuit of the proposed transaction, and (z) risks and costs and pursuit and/or implementation, timing and impacts to business operations of the separation of business lines in scope for the M&M Divestiture to Celanese, (ii) the timing and outcome of the Delrin Business Divestiture, including entry into definitive agreements, and the risks, costs and ability to realize benefits from the pursuit of the Delrin Business Divestiture; (iii) ability to achieve anticipated tax treatments in connection with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and other portfolio changes actions and impact of changes in relevant tax and other laws; (iv) indemnification of certain legacy liabilities; (v) risks and costs related to each of the parties respective performance under and the impact of the arrangement to share future eligible PFAS costs by and between DuPont, Corteva and Chemours; (vi) failure to timely close on anticipated terms (or at all), realize expected benefits and effectively manage and achieve anticipated synergies and operational efficiencies in connection with mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and other portfolio changes including the Intended Rogers Acquisition and the M&M Divestitures; (vii) risks and uncertainties, including increased costs and the ability to obtain raw materials and meet customer needs, related to operational and supply chain impacts or disruptions, which may result from, among other events, the COVID-19 pandemic and actions in response to it, and geo-political and weather related events; (viii) ability to offset increases in cost of inputs, including raw materials, energy and logistics; and (ix) other risks to DuPont's business, operations; each as further discussed in DuPonts most recent annual report and subsequent current and periodic reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Unlisted factors may present significant additional obstacles to the realization of forward-looking statements. Consequences of material differences in results as compared with those anticipated in the forward-looking statements could include, among other things, business or supply chain disruption, operational problems, financial loss, legal liability to third parties and similar risks, any of which could have a material adverse effect on DuPonts consolidated financial condition, results of operations, credit rating or liquidity. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. DuPont assumes no obligation to publicly provide revisions or updates to any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws. DuPont, the DuPont Oval Logo, and all trademarks and service marks denoted with , SM or are owned by affiliates of DuPont de Nemours, Inc. unless otherwise noted. 10/11/22 For further information, contact: Fiona Paul Pinter Global Communications Leader, Healthcare +41 79 5713084 fiona.paul-pinter@dupont.com Image: https://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/amer/us/en/liveo/public/images/articles/16993_News_Release_Image_ss_1930545608.jpg Proposed caption: The recently launched liveo.dupont.cn offers Chinese-language product information and resources to customers in Greater China. More than two years into our partnership with Micromedex, we continue to see the value of DynaMedex and how the combined solution benefits all clinicians across the continuum of care. DynaMedex will continue to serve as a one-stop-shop for clinicians at the point of care. EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) and Merative add a new face to their integrated clinical decision support solution. Under a new name, DynaMedex, formerly DynaMed and Micromedex with Watson, continues to enhance clinical decision support and operations for healthcare providers and health systems. DynaMedex offers the power of combining two award-winning disease and drug solution suites DynaMed and Micromedex into one seamless experience. DynaMed quickly surfaces peer-reviewed clinical content, with recommendations supported by the latest clinical evidence from comprehensive disease topics, health conditions, and abnormal findings to highly focused topics on evaluation, differential diagnosis and management. Micromedex is a leading evidence-based online reference database for medication information. More than 3,300 hospitals and health systems worldwide rely on Micromedex to support decision-making in medication therapy management, toxicology, alternative medicine and patient education. DynaMed was named 2022 Best in KLAS for Clinical Decision Support for the second consecutive year and is a flagship product of EBSCOs Clinical Decisions suite, which received Frost & Sullivans 2022 North America Product Leadership award. Since the partnership began in March 2020, DynaMedex has continued to grow and increase its offerings connected to the DynaMedex ecosystem. With the integration of - DynaMed Decisions, a tool designed to drive meaningful patient-clinician interactions, clinicians have easy access to additional resources to streamline their workflow and support shared decision-making. The addition of Isabel, a diagnostic decision support tool available in DynaMed, enables clinicians to experience an improved diagnosis quality, leading to cost-effective patient care. EBSCO Executive Vice President of Clinical Decisions Betsy Jones says that the solutions new name is indicative of the companys intent to move the resource forward as EBSCO Clinical Decisions new flagship product. More than two years into our partnership with Micromedex, we continue to see the value of DynaMedex and how the combined solution benefits all clinicians across the continuum of care. DynaMedex will continue to serve as a one-stop-shop for clinicians at the point of care. DynaMed Editor in Chief Peter Oettgen, MD, FACC, FAHA, FACP, says that the breadth and depth of the evidence-based content available in DynaMedex has grown tremendously in the last few years. With DynaMedex, clinicians have access to the most current drug and disease content, extensive coverage of specialty topics, and recommendations that are based on the latest evidence and clinical practice guidelines, providing decision support when they need it. With the leading drug information resources, together with the most current disease and condition topics, across the most specialties and unique tools for differential diagnosis and shared-decision-making, DynaMedex is not just a name change, it is the beginning of a new era in clinical care. For more information on DynaMedex, visit http://www.dynamedex.com. About EBSCO Information Services EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the preeminent provider of online research content and search technologies serving academic, school and public libraries; healthcare and medical institutions; corporations; and government agencies around the world. EBSCOs Clinical Decisions suite of products is designed to improve patient care by providing healthcare professionals with the most current, evidence-based answers to clinical questions as they arise at the point of care. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: http://www.ebsco.com. For more information, please contact: Jessica Holmes EBSCO Information Services Communications Director 978-414-0420 jmholmes@ebsco.com Entech Receives SOC 2 Type II Attestation As one of the only SOC 2 Type II-compliant managed technology service providers in the region, we are eager to continue strengthening the security postures of small and mid-sized businesses throughout Southeast Florida. Entech, a leading Managed Technology & Cybersecurity Service Provider, today announced it has completed its SOC 2 Type II audit, performed by KirkpatrickPrice. This attestation provides evidence that Entech has a strong commitment to security and to delivering high-quality services to its clients by demonstrating that they have the necessary internal controls and processes in place. A SOC 2 audit provides an independent, third-party validation that a service organizations information security practices meet industry standards stipulated by the AICPA. During the audit, a service organizations non-financial reporting controls as they relate to the security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of a system are tested. The SOC 2 report delivered by KirkpatrickPrice verifies the suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of Entechs controls to meet the standards for these criteria. We pursued this designation because we are dead serious about data protection and committed to bringing that extra layer of expertise and peace of mind to our customers, said Chris Brenes, Entechs Chief Information Security Officer. As one of the only SOC 2 Type II-compliant managed technology service providers in the region, we are eager to continue strengthening the security postures of small and mid-sized businesses throughout Southeast Florida. Security and compliance are top of mind to Entechs customers and the company continues to grow and invest in these areas with this latest accomplishment further cementing that commitment. The SOC 2 audit is based on the Trust Services Criteria, said Joseph Kirkpatrick, President of KirkpatrickPrice. Entech delivers trust-based services to their clients, and by communicating the results of this audit, their clients can be assured of their reliance on Entechs controls. About Entech Entech is a leading Managed Technology & Cybersecurity Service Provider serving Fort Myers, Naples, Sarasota, Bradenton, and Tampa Bay. Priding itself on exceptional customer service, Entech unites people, process, and technology to keep companies on the move and data as secure as it is flexible. At its core, Entech is a family business thats been doing what matters for more than two decades. We are passionate about partnerships, fanatical about fast IT support, and unwaveringly committed to results. Learn more at http://www.entechUS.com or reach out to our team at 866-800-0026. About KirkpatrickPrice KirkpatrickPrice is a licensed CPA firm, PCI QSA, and a HITRUST CSF Assessor, registered with the PCAOB, providing assurance services to over a thousand clients in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. The firm has more than a decade of experience in information security by performing assessments, audits, and tests that strengthen information security practices and internal controls. KirkpatrickPrice most commonly performs assessments on SOC 1, SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITRUST CSF, GDPR, ISO 27001, FISMA, and FERPA frameworks, as well as advanced-level penetration testing. For more information, visit http://www.kirkpatrickprice.com, follow KirkpatrickPrice on LinkedIn, or subscribe to our YouTube channel. ### FlexIP Solutions Partners with BCEDC to Deliver Free Custom Telecom Assessment to Bucks County Businesses Were excited to be partnering with BCEDC to offer local businesses our free custom telecom assessment and report. We can step into a business environment and make the recommendations Bucks County businesses need to improve their IT setup and most importantly save them money; no strings attached. FlexIP Solutions, a nationwide provider of custom managed communications solutions for businesses, announced today that it is partnered with Bucks County Economic Development Corporation (BCEDC), a non-profit economic development organization in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to deliver a free custom telecom assessment and report to businesses in Bucks County. Were excited to be partnering with BCEDC to offer local businesses our free custom telecom assessment and report, said Robert Latronica, Vice President of Business Development at FlexIP Solutions and Board Member of the BCEDC. Most business owners arent really thinking about their telecom services unless they stop working or are adding a new regional location. The conversations that companies should be having, especially small to medium size businesses, about how to support new processes, enhance capabilities of their telecom tech stack and select solutions that positively impact their bottom-line, are driven by providers like FlexIP. We can step into a business environment and make the recommendations Bucks County businesses need to improve their IT setup and most importantly save them money; no strings attached. FlexIP Solutions is a recent member of the BCEDC, having joined the organization in February 2022. Bucks County Economic Development Corporation is a non-profit, non-political economic development organization designed to support economic growth in Bucks County. BCEDC offers a wide array of services, including financing, site selection, research information, education, networking opportunities with economic development agencies, workforce development and international trade. BCEDC offers low-cost financing options to businesses for purchasing land, building, machinery and equipment. These and other incentive programs offered through BCEDC create a strong and vital economy for Bucks County and in return create and retain jobs for Bucks County residents. BCEDC is thrilled to be entering this partnership with FlexIP Solutions, said Bob Cormack, Executive Director at BCEDC. One of BCEDCs major goals is to develop innovative programs that will lead to future economic growth and FlexIPs telecom assessment does exactly that. Businesses in our local community are understandably concerned about the uncertainty currently presenting itself in the economy, with a recession likely imminent. This new complimentary offering in our services portfolio will simultaneously identify the areas our community can save costs and increase efficiencies, while providing reliable recommendations to future-proof their communications setup. FlexIP Solutions free custom telecom assessment includes: Research and evaluation of all telecom invoices, services and assets The documentation and inventory of phone numbers and their purpose Analysis and evaluation of current communications costs, including Internet, phone lines and systems, inter-office connectivity, fax systems and more Site survey of IT and telecom networks Following the assessment, FlexIP Solutions delivers a free report, which includes: Summary of findings, recommendations and best practices Financial Impact Analysis of current services compared to recommendations that improve services and/or reduce costs The report is delivered in three to five business days for single-site businesses. Additional time is needed for multisite businesses. Businesses interested in learning more about FlexIP Solutions free telecom assessment can visit https://www.flexipsolutions.com/telecom-assessment/ or call 888.905.6311. About BCEDC Bucks County Economic Development Corporation (BCEDC) is a non-profit, non-political economic development organization established in 1958 to support economic growth in Bucks County. BCEDC is a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania certified economic development agency. BCEDC is the best contact for the resources companies needs to grow in, or relocate to, Bucks County. BCEDC offers a wide array of services, including financing, site selection, research information, education, networking opportunities with economic development agencies, workforce development and international trade. For more information, visit https://www.bcedc.com/. About FlexIP Solutions FlexIP Solutions delivers managed communications services customized for businesses of all sizes and optimized for best value and performance. The company was founded in 2009 on the principles of consultative solutions engineering; white-glove service implementation; ongoing monitoring, management and reporting; and on-demand customer service from real people. Today, those best practices are the foundation of the FlexIP Perfect-Fit-Promise. Solutions include Cloud PBX, Unified Communications as a Service, Contact Center as a Service, Collaboration as a Service, SIP Trunking, Secure SD-WAN, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, Business SMS and MMS Texting, and more. For more information, visit FlexIP Solutions at http://www.flexipsolutions.com. Business Awards by GLOBEE Globee Business Awards are all about achievements. Each achievement helps a business grow further. Achievements help entrepreneurs run their businesses better. Achievements help employees stay motivated. The need for achievement is to strive for something that challenges you. The Globee Awards organizer of the worlds premier business awards programs and business ranking lists has announced the Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in the 12th Annual 2022 Business Excellence Awards. The coveted annual Business Excellence Awards is the worlds premier awards program honoring the best employers, employees, and HR achievements. The awards recognize the worlds best employers, employees, and human resources professionals, teams, achievements, and HR-related products, services, training, and consultants who help to create and drive the best places to work. This annual awards program celebrates the individuals and teams who set industry benchmarks for excellence. All organizations private or public, corporations, nonprofits, associations, vendors, and government organizations worldwide are eligible to enter. Judges from a broad spectrum of industry voices from around the world participated and their average scores and inputs determined the 2022 award winners. Winners of one or more Gold Business Excellence Awards include BMW Northern Europe, TISK (Confederation of Employers Unions of Turkey), LinkShadow, CEIS (Cement Industry Employers Union), IKIO LED Lighting, Algoworks Technologies Pvt. Ltd., IBM CIO Experience Team, RAK TRANSPORT AUTHORITY UAE- RA, IBM Global Asset Management Tools Squad, Onit, Anadolu Efes, Fareportal, Barilla, Delta Electronics, Inc., Ezoic, Chargebacks911, Atera, FiVerity, Incedo Inc., Enerjisa Enerji, IBM ISA Procurement Team, ModMed, FiiT4GROWTH, IBM Dalian Center PRC, Navisite, Resolute Forest Products, Migros, Ensana Health Spa Hotels, Panda Restaurant Group University of Panda, Blackpanda, UnityOneCloud, EstateExec, QuintEvents, PayJunction, Optoro, Komprise, Inc., International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited, 247.ai, Panda Restaurant Group University of Panda, Megaphone, AIB, Hawke Media, ZER, Segal Communications, Epicor, HALKBANK, Viettel Group, The Edge Picture Company, Mona, Think Tank AlterContacts, Akcansa, ChatLingual, AdTech Holding Ltd, HALK YATIRIM, Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, ISS Turkey, OPET, Dell Technologies Education Services, Innoveo, The Warrior Academy, Sabanci Holding, Atos Turkey, Atos & Agesa, Soma Cimento, SteadyMD, Starkey, PeopleAdmin, ADP, Bright Machines, Intel Corporation, Consolidated Asset Management Services CAMS, Flare, TAC Security, LastPass, iboss, TheSoul Publishing, ASCIRA Global, Grip Security, IBM, Dubai Health Authority, Medidata Solutions, RV Retailer, LLC, PricewaterhouseCoopers EMEA, Lottie Leigh Fine Jewllery, Unlu&Co, Radixweb, Venue@Cornerstone, Globe Telecom, Inc., 1903 Public Relations, IBM Quote-to-Cash (Q2C) Operations APAC & Japan, DuraServ, and Chetu Inc. About the Globee Awards Globee Awards are conferred in nine programs and competitions: the American Best in Business Awards, Business Excellence Awards, CEO World Awards Leadership Awards, Cyber Security World Awards, Disruptor Company Awards, Golden Bridge Awards, Information Technology World Awards, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, & Operations Awards, and Women World Awards. Learn more about the Globee Awards at https://globeeawards.com Subscribe to the Globee weekly Newsletter Subscribe to Globee Awards YouTube channel Follow Globee Awards on twitter Follow Globee Awards on LinkedIn Watch the Globee video All trademarks belong to their respective owners. Granite CEO Rob Hale Recognized for Driving Diversity in Tech "At Granite, (DE&I) are business priorities and integral to our corporate culture. We know through our own experience that diversity of background, thought, ethnicity and frame of reference is vital not only to our success as an organization, but to the community as a whole. Granite Telecommunications, a provider of communications service and technology solutions to multilocation businesses and government agencies, announced today that the company's President and CEO Rob Hale was named to Channel Futures DE&I 101. The list recognizes individuals driving diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) efforts and awareness in the technology channel. Hale's enthusiastic support for Granite's corporate DE&I initiatives has earned many accolades for the company, including recognition by Forbes as one of America's Best Employers for Diversity. Granite, also recognized for its philanthropic and charitable work, has embraced and encouraged engagement and advocacy at all levels of the organization. In 2019, for example, Hale backed the formation of Granite RockOUT, an employee resource group for Granite's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and asexual (LGBTQA+) community and their allies. Granite RockOUT's mission is to create a culture of positivity and acceptance within the Granite workplace. During Pride Month 2022, Granite RockOUT hosted a series of educational events, guest speakers and fundraisers which resulted in $16,000 in donations to LGBTQA+ organizations. In June 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Granite also launched Community Awareness Networking Diversity Inclusion Development (CANDID) to promote diversity through education, advocacy, networking and community partnerships. In April 2021, when anti-Asian violence and discrimination were rising throughout the nation, CANDID donated $50,000 to Asian-American support groups to foster tolerance in the community. "At Granite, diversity, equity and inclusion are business priorities and integral to our corporate culture," said Hale. "We know through our own experience that diversity of background, thought, ethnicity and frame of reference is vital not only to our success as an organization, but to the community as a whole. About Granite Granite delivers advanced communications and technology solutions to businesses and government agencies throughout the United States and Canada. The $1.8 billion company serves more than two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies and has 1.75 million voice and data lines under management, supporting more than 650,000 locations. Founded in 2002, Granite has grown to be one of the largest independent telecommunications providers in the U.S. by simplifying sourcing and management of voice, data and cellular service with a single point of contact and consolidated invoicing for all locations nationwide. Today, Granite supports customers with a wide range of advanced business communications services, including access, UCaaS, mobile voice and data, and MSP solutions for SD-WAN, monitoring and network management. Granite employs more than 2,250 people at its headquarters in Quincy, Mass. and 11 regional offices nationwide. For more information, visit http://www.granitenet.com. Martye Kendrick, of counsel in global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLPs Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice, will speak at the annual National Association of Bond Lawyers (NABL) conference in Chicago, Oct. 12-14. The conference will be a hybrid event. Kendrick will be a panelist during the session Private Activity Bond Test Oct. 13. The session will discuss basic principles of the private activity bond tests and issues commonly encountered in the identification, measurement, and allocation of private business use. NABL provides high level educational forums and strong community for bond lawyers, Kendrick said. It is a true honor to share my knowledge and experience at such a well-regarded conference. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NABL has more than 2,500 members. The organization exists to promote the integrity of the municipal market by advancing the understanding of and compliance with the law affecting public finance, according to its website. Kendrick is a highly accomplished attorney based in the firms Houston office. She has deep experience handling matters relating to tax-exempt bond financings, commercial real estate transactions, structured finance, and tax. Known for being both thoughtful and decisive, she takes a collaborative and consultive approach with her clients and helps them make sound decisions to drive their businesses forward. As a strategic advisor, Kendrick cultivates and nurtures relationships with clients, peers, and partners in both the public and private sectors. About Greenberg Traurigs Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice: Greenberg Traurig, LLP has a national public finance practice that consistently ranks among the top bond, disclosure, and underwriters counsel firms according to The Bond Buyers nationwide and statewide rankings. Greenberg Traurig LLPs Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice has been serving the needs of state and local issuers, underwriters, credit providers, bondholders, and conduit borrowers throughout the United States for more than forty years in virtually every area of public finance. The firm currently has more than 35 attorneys in the Public Finance & Infrastructure Practice in its Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, D.C. offices. About Greenberg Traurig, LLP Texas: Texas is important to Greenberg Traurig, LLP and the firms history. With approximately 150 Texas lawyers in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Greenberg Traurig has deep roots in the Texas business, legal, and governmental communities. Greenberg Traurig Texas works with clients to address their interdisciplinary legal needs across the state utilizing the firms global platform. The Texas attorneys are experienced in industries key to the states future, including: aviation, chemicals, construction, education, energy and natural resources, financial institutions, health care, hedge funds, hospitality, infrastructure, insurance, media, medical devices, pharmaceutical and biotechnology, real estate, retail, sports, technology and software, telecommunications, transportation, and video games and esports. About Greenberg Traurig: Greenberg Traurig, LLP has more than 2500 attorneys in 43 locations in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. The firm reported gross revenue of over $2 Billion for FY 2021 and is consistently among the top firms on the Am Law 100, Am Law Global 100, and NLJ 250. On the debut 2022 Law360 Pulse Leaderboard, it is a Top 15 firm. Greenberg Traurig is Mansfield Rule 4.0 Certified Plus by The Diversity Lab and the Center for Resource Solutions Green-e Energy program certifies that the firms U.S. offices are 100% powered by renewable energy. The firm is often recognized for its focus on philanthropic giving, innovation, diversity, and pro bono. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com. Harriet Chapel (Catoctin Episcopal Parish) and The Catoctin Furnace Historical Society announce Crossing Over, a concert to honor the legacy of the enslaved people who lived and labored at Catoctin Furnace. The concert, which is free to the public, will take place at 4pm on November 6 at Harriet Chapel, 12625 Catoctin Furnace Road, Thurmont, MD 21788. Crossing Over will uplift audiences through spirituals and the interplay of musicians, Shana Oshiro (vocals), Jodi Beder (cello), and Edmond Charles, (piano). Selections will include such works as Sometimes I Feel, Didnt My Lord Deliver Daniel, Deep River, and more. The concert is free of charge, funded by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. Shana Oshiro is a soprano and music therapist, who has curated several concert collaborations. An alumna of Morgan State University and Shenandoah Conservatory, she has performed with the Baltimore Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, Theatre Alliance, and others. She leads the organization HALO, Inc, and the affiliated program, Race and #RealTalk, a community music therapy initiative using barbershop music as a framework to guide fruitful dialogue about racism in and beyond the United States. Jodi Beder, cellist, brings an eclectic mix of classical, rock and multi-cultural experience even klezmer - to the ensemble. A composer, she composes and arranges theater music in collaboration with Caleen Jennings, and performed with Jennings in her powerful Hands Up, a response to events in Ferguson. As an accompanist, a solo musician and a session musician, pianist Edmond Charles has performed at the White House, the Senate House, the Kennedy Center, and venues throughout the US and abroad. He embraces diverse styles including jazz, classical, gospel and island music. He is the pianist/organist for Howard Universitys Rankin Chapel. Along with the concert, original works by Vincent Dion Stringer will be on view. Stringer is a self-taught visual artist. Widely collected in the US and abroad, his first commission was a 2015 painting entitled "On Purpose," a work in acrylic and gold leaf for the Open Church of Maryland. Stringer is not only a visual artist but a poet, and an acclaimed Baritone and educator, now retired from Morgan State University where he was Coordinator of Vocal Studies and Artistic Director of the Morgan State University Opera Workshop. Harriet Chapel (c. 1828), a structure likely built by laborers, some of which were held in bondage by furnace owner John Brien, will provide a powerful backdrop for the concert. Evidence exists that men and women enslaved by furnace owners worshiped in and held baptisms, marriages, and funerals at Harriet Chapel. In 1973, The Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc. was formed by G. Eugene Anderson, Clement E. Gardiner, J. Franklin Mentzer, and Earl M. Shankle to foster and promote the restoration of the Catoctin Furnace Historic District...and to maintain the same exclusively for educational and scientific purposes, as well as to exhibit to coming generations our heritage of the past. Our recent financial success shows were on the right track toward creating a new framework for industrial commerce. Inxeption, the leader in Industrial Commerce and supply chain digitization, has ended the third quarter of 2022 with run rate revenues of more than $220 million, representing more than 150-percent growth over the previous year. Executives have been invited to share the companys success disrupting how industrial customers buy and sell goods to create more efficient markets at investor conferences hosted this month by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Investors can meet with Inxeption at the Morgan Stanley Spark Conference in Los Angeles October 11 and 12, and the Goldman Sachs Private Innovative Company Conference in Las Vegas on October 26 and 27. Our recent financial success shows were on the right track toward creating a new framework for industrial commerce. Were solving a complex problem that has been exacerbated in the past two and a half years of supply chain systemic failures, and word is getting out, said co-founder and CEO Farzad Dibachi. We are eager to share that story with the investment community. Industrial manufacturers have been plagued by supply chain complexity for decades. These complexities which include logistics, procurement, financing and global disruptions create challenges that distract from core business functions. Inxeption serves an expanding slate of industrial buyers and sellers looking for the optimal way to digitally finance, purchase and ship the goods needed to run their expanding businesses. Inxeption is poised to finish 2022 with topline results that have increased by 3x from last year. This is all while improving operating margins to near breakeven. Financial growth for the Supply Chain as a Service company has come from new customer acquisition as well as driving collaboration among all industrial commerce stakeholders to ensure seamless facilitation and optimal performance throughout both buyer and supplier networks. About Inxeption Inxeption is the Industrial Commerce SuperApp. Its secure and scalable cloud-based digital commerce platform brings Capital, Data, Products and Services on-demand for industrial and supply chain businesses. Companies of any size, in any industry, can drive more sales, gain operational visibility and realize cost savings. Inxeption Commerce Partners enjoy access to sell products on the Inxeption B2B marketplace and to develop new online commerce channels by utilizing valuable applications that simplify and streamline logistics and other operations. Inxeptions challenge to the Industrial sector is Lets Do Business Better. Babs Ryan In 2023, market leaders will shift focus from price and process to acquisition through differentiated products and partnerships that capture untapped mass markets. Javelin Strategy & Research, part of the Escalent family, is pleased to announce the addition of Babs Ryan as the firms lead analyst for the digital lending practice. Ryan has over 20 years of experience in the global digital lending industry, prioritizing digital innovation that aligns with human behavior and financial needs. Drawing on her deep retail and financial services knowledge and extensive international experience as a growth and turnaround leader, Ryan will help clients navigate the space by providing strategic insights, advice, and thought leadership on a range of topics such as consumer lending products, digital account opening, and alternative credit scoring. Babs brings diverse global experience and a wealth of lending and digital banking subject matter expertise, said Jacob Jegher, president at Javelin. The collapse of mortgage originations, shifting digital priorities, an upswing in consumer debt, and jockeying among banks, fintechs and specialist lenders are top of mind for clients. Ryan joins Javelin with more than two decades of global experience and seven patent filings in financial services, fintech, payments, research, innovation, digital transformation, and marketing. Prior to joining Javelin, she held P&L, agile innovation, and marketing roles for GE Capital Card Services (now Synchrony), ThoughtWorks, Sparks Worldwide, Kawasaki, and Citibank UK, where she doubled personal loan assets in one year. She also served as an analyst and consultant with Forrester and PwC. Ryan has a masters degree in international business from Thunderbird School of Global Management and a bachelors degree in English from American International College. Both banks and non-banks have lost share to specialists, partnerships outside financial services, and a plethora of globally inspired new digital offerings, said Ryan. In 2023, market leaders will shift focus from price and process to acquisition through differentiated products and partnerships that capture untapped mass markets. Ryans new report, Global Greats: Translating Digital Lending Innovations for the US, showcases innovative global trends in lending and the cardinal consumer data and insights behind them, and delves into how these can be translated and adapted for the US market. Ryan will attend Money20/20 in Las Vegas during October 23-26. Please contact mail to: inquiry@javelinstrategy.com to schedule a meeting. To learn more about Javelins digital lending practice, visit https://javelinstrategy.com/digital-banking/digital-lending About Javelin Strategy & Research Javelin Strategy & Research, part of the Escalent family, helps its clients make informed decisions in a digital financial world. It provides strategic insights to financial institutions, including banks, credit unions, brokerages and insurers, as well as payments companies, technology providers, fintechs, and government agencies. Javelins independent insights result from a rigorous research process that assesses consumers, businesses, providers, and the transactions ecosystem. It conducts in-depth primary research studies to pinpoint dynamic risks and opportunities in digital banking, payments, fraud & security, lending, and wealth management. For more information, visit javelinstrategy.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Contact Tejas Puranik tejas.puranik@javelinstrategy.com We are fortunate to be a part of a company whose expertise and global resources will help ensure the growth and long-term success of AerieHub for many years to come. JDM Technology Group, a leading global software business of best-in-class software providers, has acquired Greenville, SC based AerieHub. AerieHub makes award winning facility management software that provides secure, fast access to critical information to improve maintenance efficiency and strengthen building safety. The transaction closed on September 29, 2022, with approval from owner Lori Morton. Founded in 1998, Aerie has served facility owners through its patented software, AerieHub, a customizable building information app which allows users to quickly search, view, and share important documents like facility drawings, equipment information, space management data, compliance status, and more. Its intuitive cloud-based solution is used by North American clients across numerous sectors including healthcare, education, manufacturing, and transportation. I am thrilled for AerieHub to become a member of the JDM Technology Group, said Morton in a statement. Our passion for value-driven software and service aligns nicely with JDMs customer-focused approach. For a long time, we felt the information we store in AerieHub would pair nicely with a like-minded CMMS application. After years of searching, we can now give our customers what they so desperately need; an integrated asset / information management system to simplify their world. We are fortunate to be a part of a company whose expertise and global resources will help ensure the growth and long-term success of AerieHub for many years to come. JDM Technology Group is known for its commitment and attention to their customers, creating exceptional software solutions for architecture, engineering, construction, and operations industries. As a private, family business, the company focuses on long term growth. A unique aspect of JDMs strategy is to never end-of-life their software so that its customers can always choose their preferred solution. JDM has always invested in robust building technology that helps customers succeed. Acquiring AerieHub strengthens our existing facility management portfolio and broadens our product offering to our customers, said JDM CEO Jim McFarlane. We look forward to working with the AerieHub team and continuing its long-standing tradition of innovation, respect, and integrity. AerieHub joins CMMS providers, EPAC, MicroMain Corporation, MPulse Software, and TeamWORKS as part of JDMs facility management software group. The company will continue to operate as a separate brand with its existing staff, based in Greenville, SC. About AerieHub AerieHub, a patented and award-winning software, has been helping customers better manage their building information and facility documents since 1998. The customizable software helps facility managers achieve excellence and efficiency in their day-to-day operations by providing secure, easy access to drawings, documents, compliance, space information, and more. About JDM Technology Group JDM Technology Group is a global software business focused on delivering business software systems for the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations industries with over 150,000 users served in 40 countries on 7 continents, employing over 550 staff. The JDM Technology Groups core philosophy is a long-term commitment to customer support and service coupled with providing the best possible solutions to customers. JDM Technology Group companies include CavSoft, CSSP, CostCon, LEVESYS, Nimbus, Plusfactor, and Spearhead Software in Australia and New Zealand; AerieHub, Builder Software Tools, Computer Guidance Corporation, ConEst Software, Deneb Software, Explorer Software, EPAC, IndustrySmarts, JOBPOWER, Maestro Technologies, MicroMain Corporation, MPulse Software, TeamWORKS, and Vision InfoSoft in North America; and Estimate, Integrity, RedSkyIT, Rendra, and Safran in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. JPMA Cares will host the 2nd annual Benefit for Babies on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. ET at SPIN New York 54. As JPMA Cares secures the right resources, we partner with like-minded charities to distribute these resources to people and places in high need," said Executive Director of JPMA and JPMA Cares Lisa Trofe. JPMA Cares will host the 2nd annual Benefit for Babies on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. ET at SPIN New York 54, 7 East 54th Street, New York, NY 10022. Those interested in advancing the health and safety of babies and young children are invited to attend, including manufacturers and retailers of baby and childrens products. The JPMA Cares Benefit for Babies is all about coming together to have a good time while advancing the foundations mission, which is to contribute to the long-term success of babies and young children by reducing barriers to healthy development, ensuring fundamental needs are met, and promoting a safe and nurturing environment to learn and grow. JPMA Cares works to improve outcomes for all children and is intentional about meeting the needs of babies and young children, said Executive Director of JPMA and JPMA Cares Lisa Trofe. For some, the need is products or education, but for others, fundamental needs like housing, food and basic medical care are not being met. As JPMA Cares secures the right resources, we partner with like-minded charities to distribute these resources to people and places in high need. JPMA Cares has partnered with the Injury Free Coalition for Kids; Cradles to Crayons; Family Promise; and the United Nations Foundation to name a few. Benefit for Babies attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy networking, food, drinks, music and a silent auction at the event. SPIN New York 54 is a unique and vibrant ping pong venue, so those who are interested can also play ping pong while raising funds to support one of the worlds most vulnerable populationsbabies and young children in need. If youre interested in attending Benefit for Babies, you may purchase tickets to the event at https://jpmacares.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/jpmacares/eventRegistration.jsp?event=4. The cost is $280/person or $1,000 for a ping pong team of up to 4 people. At Benefit for Babies, JPMA will also announce the following: Winners of the prestigious Innovation Awards, which showcase the most ground-breaking new baby and childrens products in the marketplace today. Core Values honorees, which are companies in the baby and childrens products industry that exemplify excellent Customer Care; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Integrity in Manufacturing Practices; Philanthropy; Safety; and Sustainability. Additionally, JPMA Cares will honor Dr. Sadiqa Kendi with the 2022 Impact Award for making a positive impact on the long-term success of babies and young children. Dr. Kendi serves as the Division Chief of the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Division at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. She is an expert in pediatric injury prevention, with a focus on health equity. JPMA Cares thanks the following organizations for their generous sponsorship of the 2022 Benefit for Babies: Amazon; the BreathableBaby Family of Brands; and ASTM International. Additionally, JPMA thanks Everyday Health Group Pregnancy & Parenting, which includes What to Expect and BabyCenter, for sponsoring the 2022 Innovation Awards. If you have questions about JPMA Cares or Benefit for Babies, visit https://jpmacares.org or contact Meredith Birkhead at mbirkhead@jpmacares.org. About JPMA Cares JPMA Cares contributes to the long-term success of babies and young children by reducing barriers to healthy development, ensuring fundamental needs are met, and promoting a safe and nurturing environment for them to learn and grow. JPMA Cares is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, founded by JPMA (the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association) and supported by the broader baby and childrens products industry. Learn more at https://jpmacares.org. About the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) is the voice of the industry on quality and safety for baby and children's products in North America. We work to advance the interests of manufacturers, parents, children and the industry at large by advocating for safety through product certification programs and legislative and regulatory involvement. We support our broad and diverse membership through member-only programming and industry promotion, and we act as a comprehensive source for baby product information and education. Established in 1962, this year JPMA marks its 60th year of helping protect future generations by advancing the availability and safety of products used to care for babies and young children. Light Side Floats, the premiere floatation therapy center in Frederick, Maryland backed the FLOATING documentary, with the goal of spreading global awareness about Floatation-REST, an effective therapy for anxiety, PTSD, pain relief and eating disorders without the use of drugs. The long-awaited documentary made its worldwide debut on October 9th, 2022. Light Side Floats owners Tom and Alyssa Palermo received casting credits for their roles in the film. In the FLOATING documentary Shane Stott, author of The Float Tank Cure, introduces floating to people in different parts of the United States who are suffering from chronic pain, PTSD, and anxiety. We follow their journey of floating and witness how they learn to heal themselves. Floatation-REST is the most advanced tool our society has to help calm a stressed and anxious nervous system. Dr. Justin Feinstein, Ph.D. Clinical Neuropsychologist FLOATING is a GoldenStott film, directed by Bridger Dopp. https://youtu.be/mRaJAzZ2LoM Light Side Floats is a business born out of pain. Co-founder Tom Palermo began floating in 2015 to ease his chronic back pain and PTSD. After his first float, he was able to sleep through the night which is something he hadnt done for years. Soon after his wife Alyssa began floating to help reduce stress. The closest float center was more than 30 miles away from their home. Wanting to help people in their community feel better naturally, the couple opened Light Side Floats in 2016. In addition to Floatation Therapy, the business also offers hydro massage and infrared sauna. Were thrilled to welcome Marc to the FirstService Residential family, said Michael Mendillo, president, FirstService Residential. He has a proven track record of success and brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of service industries. FirstService Residential, the leading residential community management company, named Marc Kamhi as its New Jersey/New York market business development director. As an accomplished business professional, Kamhi brings his experience in sales and marketing, strategic planning and building relationships with clients to the role. Were thrilled to welcome Marc to the FirstService Residential family, said Michael Mendillo, president, FirstService Residential. He has a proven track record of success and brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of service industries. Im excited to be a part of the FirstService Residential team and for the opportunity to work with the industry leader, said Kamhi, business development director, FirstService Residential. It is my mission to deliver the highest level of service and support to local associations as we educate them on the benefits of partnering with us. In his role, Kamhi will work closely with community association board members to present FirstService Residentials depth of resources, technology platforms and commitment to service excellence. Kamhi reports directly to David Calloway, vice president of sales. We are excited to have Marc on the business development team. In addition to his time in the service industry, his sales experience and passion for providing solutions will serve him well in his new role, said Calloway. ~http://www.fsresidential.com~ About FirstService Residential FirstService Residential is North Americas property management leader, partnering with more than 8,600 communities across the U.S. and Canada, including low-, mid- and high-rise condominiums and cooperatives; single-family communities; master-planned, lifestyle and active-adult communities; and mixed-use and rental properties. HOAs, community associations and condos rely on their extensive experience, resources and local expertise to maximize property values and enhance their residents lifestyles. Dedicated to making a difference, every day, FirstService Residential goes above and beyond to deliver exceptional service. FirstService Residential is a subsidiary of FirstService Corporation (FSV), a North American leader in the property services sector. Visit http://www.fsresidential.com. This is an opportunity for veterinary students to receive substantial financial support to wrap up veterinary school while also jump-starting a fulfilling career in emergency medicine after graduation with the team that is Leading Specialty Healthcare for Pets. MedVet has opportunities for aspiring emergency medicine veterinarians in the class of 2023 to receive a scholarship, signing bonus, and guaranteed position in MedVets profession-leading Emergency Clinician Mentorship Program (ECMP) after graduation. Candidates who sign at an eligible location by Dec. 31, 2022, will receive a $15,000 scholarship for their last semester of veterinary school (amount not to exceed the total for tuition and fees). Theyll also receive a signing bonus of up to $35,000 which varies by location. Eligible hospital locations include Akron (OH), Asheville (NC), Cincinnati (OH), Chicago (IL), Diley Hill (OH), Indianapolis (IN), Lexington (KY), Mobile (AL), Norwalk (CT), Pittsburgh (PA), and Toledo (OH). This is an opportunity for veterinary students to receive substantial financial support to wrap up veterinary school while also jump-starting a fulfilling career in emergency medicine after graduation with the team that is Leading Specialty Healthcare for Pets, said Dr. Jon Fletcher, Director of Post-Graduate Medical Education at MedVet. Following graduation, accepted candidates will join MedVet as ECMP doctors. The ECMP is an accelerated training program that allows new veterinarians to enhance their diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities, advance clinical decision-making and technical skills, and hone their communication. At the center of the program is a mentor-mentee relationship that ensures a smooth transition into emergency medicine. The ECMP is the premier training program for developing ER veterinarians. They are entrusted with all the duties of an emergency veterinarian, but with their mentor by their side, they are never left alone or lost in the shuffle. This program is tailor-made to fit the unique needs and goals of the mentee and, as a result, they show unbelievable clinical growth, explained Dr. Mackenzie Ruehl, Medical Director at MedVet Hilliard and ECMP Training Director. To apply, veterinary students in their final year of veterinary school should contact Amanda Purcell at Amanda.purcell@medvet.com or 614.368.2568. Candidates can also learn more about MedVet and the ECMP on medvet.com. About MedVet: MedVet is the leading veterinarian owned and led family of specialty and emergency hospitals dedicated to delivering exceptional care and a deeply supportive experience to pets and their loving families, referring veterinarians, and team members. For more than 30 years, MedVets empathetic, insightful, and driven team of expert caregivers has helped the organization grow to be the preferred choice for high quality, compassionate care, proudly serving more than 500,000 patients each year in communities throughout the United States. To learn more about MedVet and its mission of Leading Specialty Healthcare for Pets, visit medvet.com. ### Omron Automation Americas recently announced TOA SE Inc, an automation solution provider in North America, as a new partner in its Certified Systems Integrator program. TOA SEs recent successful deployment of a complex SYSMAC Automation Controller solution at a Large Automotive Manufacturer confirmed their capabilities to support customer needs with Omron technologies. With their Engineering passion and expertise in complex machine design, they provide customers with a complete turn-key project including Multi-Axis Servo Motion using Omron SYSMAC controller. TOA SEs goal is to provide the experience and expertise to design and build custom machinery to realize customers production goals About the Omron Certified System Integrator program The Omron Certified System Integrator program matches best-in-class solution providers with the technology, training and resources required to deliver innovative and competitive solutions. With the rapid growth in automation technologies, manufacturers and business partners strive to deliver open and secure Industry 4.0 solutions that support flexible manufacturing and deliver a competitive advantage. The combined strength of this relationship solves customer challenges today while enabling more efficient, fully integrated systems that will successfully weather future demands. For Omron, systems integrators play a critical role in designing and delivering fully integrated automation solutions. They also possess industry and application expertise in implementing the latest technologies from Omron and providing turnkey system solutions. Our certified system integrator program provides end users peace of mind when procuring automation solutions, says Peter Brouwer, Vice of Sales Omron Automation Americas. These companies have proven expertise when it comes to implementing our latest technologies, and they have full access to local training and resources needed to successfully deliver fully integrated automation solutions. About TOA SE Inc. TOA SE proudly provides Industrial Controls, Factory Automation and Engineering Services, supported by an extensive international network of resources for over 60 years. Our diverse group of engineers and technicians equates to a team that pairs quality and safety with ingenuity and innovation. TOA Electric USA, Inc. started in 2001 in Lexington, Kentucky with one goal in mind - to provide advanced manufacturing solutions through engineering excellence. In 2007, we renamed to TOA SE (Systems Engineering) and have since grown and expanded our capabilities to best serve the leading manufacturers in the region. We pride ourselves on our automation prowess and industry acclaimed service and support. The difference lies in our people and customer-first principles. From concept to confirmation, the TOA difference remains apparent. About Omron Automation Omron Automation is an industrial automation partner that creates, sells and services fully integrated automation solutions that include sensing, control, safety, vision, motion, robotics and more. Established in 1933 and currently headed by President Yoshihito Yamada, Omron's 30,000 employees help businesses solve problems with creativity in more than 110 countries. Learn more at automation.omron.com. The Fermi-Hubbard instance in this experiment represents a crucial step towards solving realistic materials systems using a quantum computer, says Phasecraft co-founder, and Professor of Quantum Computation at the University of Bristol, Ashley Montanaro. Today researchers from Phasecraft, the quantum algorithms company; the University of Bristol; and Google Quantum AI published the results of an ambitious experiment in Nature Communications. The article, Observing ground-state properties of the Fermi-Hubbard model using a scalable algorithm on a quantum computer, describes how Phasecraft has taken an important first step towards using quantum computers to determine low-energy properties of strongly-correlated electronic systems that cannot be exactly solved by classical computers. Modelling quantum systems of this form has significant practical implications, including the design of new materials that could be used in the development of more efficient solar cells and batteries, or even high-temperature superconductors. However, doing so remains beyond the capacity of the worlds most powerful supercomputers. The Fermi-Hubbard model is widely recognized as an excellent benchmark for near-term quantum computers because it is the simplest materials system that includes non-trivial correlations beyond what is captured by classical methods. Approximately producing the lowest-energy (ground) state of the Fermi-Hubbard model enables the user to calculate key physical properties of the model. In the past, researchers have only succeeded in solving small, highly simplified Fermi-Hubbard instances on a quantum computer. This research shows that much more ambitious results are possible. Leveraging a new, highly efficient algorithm and better error-mitigation techniques, Phasecraft and their research partners successfully ran an experiment that is four times larger and consists of 10 times more quantum gates than anything previously reported in the literature. The work was partly funded by the ERC through Prof Ashley Montanaros Consolidator Grant Quantum Algorithms: from Foundations to Applications, and partly by UKRI through the EPSRC Prosperity Partnership scheme, which enabled the collaboration between the partners. The Fermi-Hubbard instance in this experiment represents a crucial step towards solving realistic materials systems using a quantum computer, says Phasecraft co-founder, and Professor of Quantum Computation at the University of Bristol, Ashley Montanaro. And we succeeded by developing the first truly scalable algorithm that anyone has managed to implement for the Fermi-Hubbard model. Thats particularly exciting because it suggests that we will be able to scale our methods in order to leverage more powerful quantum computers as the hardware improves. Phasecraft brings together many of the worlds leading quantum scientists and engineers and partners with the worlds leading developers of quantum hardware. Their research has led to fundamental breakthroughs in quantum science and is aimed at significantly reducing the timescale for quantum advantage in several critical areas. Beyond developing algorithms that will be able to scale to larger quantum computers, the Phasecraft team is also focused on continuing to build practically relevant features into their models so that they more accurately represent real-world systems. We are delighted to see this experiment designed and executed by Phasecraft, representing one of the largest digital fermionic simulations to-date, and also one of the largest variational algorithms to-date, performed on Google's quantum computing hardware, says Ryan Babbush, Head of Quantum Algorithms at Google AI. The scalability of their approach derives from being state-of-the-art in terms of both error-mitigation and algorithm compilation for near-term quantum hardware. This experiment represents a new milestone. It tells us what todays quantum computers are capable of when we apply the best algorithmic technology available, says Stasja Stanisic, Senior Quantum Engineer at Phasecraft, the papers lead author. We can build on this work to develop better algorithms and better encodings of realistic problems for today's devices. To learn more about Phasecrafts scientific research, business partnerships, career opportunities, and fellowships, please visit phasecraft.io. About Phasecraft Phasecraft is the quantum algorithms company. Were building the mathematical foundations for quantum computing applications that solve real-world problems. Our team brings together many of the worlds leading quantum scientists, including founders Toby Cubitt, Ashley Montanaro and John Morton, and quantum consultant Andrew Childs. Through our partnerships with Google, IBM, and Rigetti we enjoy unprecedented access to todays best quantum computers, which provides us with unique opportunities to develop foundational IP, inform the development of next-generation quantum hardware, and accelerate commercialization of high-value breakthroughs. We are always looking for talented research scientists and partners interested in joining us on the front lines of quantum computing. To learn more about our scientific research, business partnerships, career opportunities, and fellowships, please visit phasecraft.io. About the ERC The European Research Council (ERC), set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept Grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Since 1 November 2021, Maria Leptin is the new President of the ERC. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than 16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, under the responsibility of the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel. About EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences research in the UK. We invest in a range of fields from healthcare technologies to structural engineering, manufacturing, mathematics, advanced materials and chemistry. The research we fund provides a platform for future UK prosperity by contributing to a healthy, connected, resilient, productive nation. Protect Environmental Acquires Reliant Radon "Im honored to join the Protect Environmental family to continue this commitment in the communities we serve," Terry Kerwin, owner of Reliant Radon Solutions, said of the acquisition. Louisville-based Protect Environmental, a national leader in the environmental consulting and construction industry, with a focus on radon and chemical vapor intrusion management, today announced its acquisition of Reliant Radon Solutions. After acquiring Denver-based ACE Radon earlier this year, the company is continuing to expand its capacity to serve Colorado and the western United States. Founded in 2003, Reliant Radon Solutions has focused on building trust with residential and commercial customers seeking radon testing, mitigation, and monitoring in Colorado and throughout the western region of the country. Terry Kerwin, owner of Reliant Radon Solutions, says of the acquisition, over the years weve been committed to our community through providing education and quality services, and Im honored to join the Protect Environmental family to continue this commitment in the communities we serve. Coupled with the acquisition of ACE Radon, the expanded operation is the largest, most experienced soil gas contractor in the state of Colorado. Reliant Radon Solutions has always been a strong competitor in the market, which is why we are excited to join forces to amplify our ability to serve the Denver area and beyond, said Jeff Goard, Director of Colorado Operations. As part of the acquisition, Kerwin will transition to a national role within the company, leading its market development team and supporting its national accounts team. We are excited to welcome Reliant Radon Solutions to Protect Environmentals growing family, particularly given the alignment with our core values and vision, said Kyle Hoylman, CEO of Protect Environmental. I look forward to working with Terry on the national level to assist our clients with building and maintaining healthy, safe, and sustainable indoor environments in the communities where we live, work, and learn. About Protect Environmental Protect Environmental is a national leader in the environmental consulting and construction industry, focusing on radon and chemical vapor intrusion management. With a proven track record spanning 18 years and more than 200,000 completed projects in all 50 U.S. states and 2 U.S. territories, the company provides expert service from its trusted professionals to provide peace of mind protection to property owners seeking to build and maintain healthy, safe, and sustainable indoor environments. For more information, call 502-410-5000 or click on https://www.protectenvironmental.com. -xxxx- Customers who wish to buy the newest 2023 Toyota 4Runner 40th Anniversary Edition can do so at the Ammaars Toyota Vacaville dealership. The Toyota 4Runner has been one of the brands best-selling vehicles for decades. Drivers who love powerful SUVs that help them handle all types of terrains in all weather conditions with ease cherish the high-end performance and capability offered by the SUV. To celebrate this monumental success of over 40 years, Toyota has released the 40th Anniversary Edition of the Toyota 4Runner. This vehicle is now available for purchase at the Ammaars Toyota Vacaville dealership. Buyers who want to explore the all-new 40th Anniversary Edition of the Toyota 4Runner can check out the SUV up close via the dealerships website. They can also visit the dealership in person and test-drive the vehicle to analyze how the vehicle performs in real-time. The 2023 Toyota 4Runner 40th Anniversary Edition comes with a powerful 4-liter V6 engine that offers impressive power and performance specs. Prospective buyers are encouraged to get in touch with the dealerships sales team to learn about this special edition vehicle in detail. Please visit the toyotavacaville.com website to learn about the various Toyota offers, services and coupons available at the Ammaars Toyota Vacaville dealership. For detailed information on the advanced 2023 Toyota 4Runner 40th Anniversary Edition, kindly visit the dealership at Ammaars Toyota Vacaville, 500 Orange Dr. Vacaville, CA 95687 or contact them by phone at 707-446-7000. Local search is increasingly becoming a more visual experience said Mick Wilson, Vice President of Customer Success at Rio SEO. "High quality, current photos can visually enhance local listings and provide more context as to what a searcher can expect when engaging with your business." Rio SEO, the leading all-in-one local marketing platform proven to increase online visibility for enterprise brands, announced its new Local Photos solution. Local Photos complements Rio SEOs existing Local Listings solution and ensures business listings are equipped with high-quality photos optimized for Googles search ranking algorithm. To curate a first-class catalog of professional photos, Rio SEO connects businesses with a professional photographer in their area who follows Google images best practices, optimizing photos for Google crawlers and ensuring each photo is shot to Googles image standards. In turn, the business photos are put front and center on its local business listings, helping visibility, engagement and click through rates stay as high as possible. Local search is increasingly becoming a more visual experience said Mick Wilson, Vice President of Customer Success at Rio SEO. High quality, current photos can visually enhance local listings and provide more context as to what a searcher can expect when engaging with your business. It also shows Google your business prioritizes user experience, which is rewarded with higher search rankings. Local Photos streamlines the photo collection and optimization process using proven best practices, allowing marketers to focus on other initiatives. Google research shows businesses that add photos to their Business Profiles receive 42% more requests for directions on Google Maps, and 35% more clicks through to their websites than businesses that dont. In addition to increased conversions, professional photos can also be repurposed to enhance other marketing activities such as email, social media marketing, and print advertisements. Other ways enterprise brands benefit from leveraging Local Photos include: Real-time Photo Delivery Can monitor shoots remotely Content is delivered as soon as the shoot ends Photos generated by Rio SEO can be shared at full and web sizing White Glove Service Rio SEO coordinates all shoots Custom requests welcomed Collects test shots before full rollout Use Of Google Vision AI Superior Technology All photos sent to Google Image AI Collect keyword scores from photos Optimizes photos for Google crawlers Superior Technology Rio SEOs AI enhances selected photos API to transfer content to any partner Photos are delivered with descriptive names and alt text To request a demo or learn more about how your business can benefit and leverage Local Photos, visit rioseo.com/local-photos. About Rio SEO Rio SEO is the leading local marketing platform for enterprise brands. The Open Local Platform provides multi-location organizations with a comprehensive, seamlessly integrated suite of turnkey local marketing solutions proven to increase brand visibility across search engines, social networks, map applications, and more. The worlds leading enterprise brands retailers, restaurants, hospitality, financial services, healthcare, and more rely on Rio SEOs innovative technology and local marketing expertise to drive motivated, measurable online traffic to websites and physical locations. Rio SEO is part of Forsta, a global leader in customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX) and market research (MR). The combined technologies of Forsta and Rio SEO enable brands to engage consumers throughout the entire customer journey from discovery to purchase to advocacy. For more information, visit http://www.rioseo.com. Debbie Snyder, Group Vice President, Marketing I'm excited for StratusLIVE to present this roadshow series to the nonprofit community. We are dedicated to providing resources for those within the philanthropic space to efficiently and effectively achieve their missions," said Debbie Snyder, Group Vice President, Marketing. StratusLIVE, an industry leader of software for social good, announced today their roadshow series, The Future of Fundraising. This series will be held in four US cities this fall. By partnering with other subject matter experts in the fields of development and nonprofit technology, this intimate event will inspire conversation and explore new, innovative strategies, all designed for fundraising, development, and marketing professionals. The Future of Fundraising invites nonprofit professionals within Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and the surrounding areas to learn and consider current and upcoming trends within development. The agenda will differ from city to city; however, some of the topics to explore include: Creating a Community of Supporters that Sustains presented by Dr. Otis Fulton, VP for Psychological Strategy, and Kate Bullard, VP of Client Engagement and Partner, Turnkey Consulting Turnkeys VP Client Engagement will talk with social psychologist Dr. Otis Fulton about the psychology of people who are engaged in a community to make things happen, and how nonprofits can channel their passion for change. The Next Chapter in Digital Tech: Replacing Busywork with Joy presented by Allison Fine, Author, Technology for Social Good Strategist, and Board Member Allison Fine will present an overview of what Smart Tech is and how it can remake work from her recent book written with Beth Kanter, The Smart Nonprofit. Attendees will also hear from other renowned fundraising experts including Courtney Van Shura and Meghan Leffner of MedStar Health and Paige Deegan of Heller Consulting. In addition to these learning opportunities, attendees will participate in honest conversation discussing current challenges facing the industry: Why does work feel so exhausting and unfulfilling today? How can Smart Tech remake work, so nonprofit staff can build relationships, tell stories, or just think? How can we create a culture of joy in our fundraising departments that helps us not only retain staff but become more effective at our jobs? The Future of Fundraising promises attendees that they will leave the event with energy and passion for executing year-end campaigns with renewed intent, driving new enthusiasm in their work. I'm excited for StratusLIVE to present this roadshow series to the nonprofit community. We are dedicated to providing resources for those within the philanthropic space to efficiently and effectively achieve their missions. Attendees will leave feeling inspired and ready to implement new and improved strategies within their organizations," said Debbie Snyder, Group Vice President, Marketing. For more information and to register, please visit: https://hubs.ly/Q01pkS-j0 About StratusLIVE, LLC StratusLIVE, an industry leader of Software for Social Good, empowers organizations to drive change and increase impact. Through its Nonprofit Industry Cloud Solution, enterprise nonprofits access CRM Fundraising and Engagement, Mission Delivery through Programs and Partners, a comprehensive Online Giving Suite, an Online CSR solution for Corporate Engagement, and a personalized application for donors. This end-to-end solution equips the modern nonprofit with a comprehensive digital toolset to enact mission delivery with features including virtual giving, relationship management, business intelligence, and team collaboration. With a basis on the Microsoft commercial platform and native integrations with Office, Teams, and Mobile environments, nonprofits experience ease of use and increase collaboration and accessibility. StratusLIVE, headquartered in Chesap- eake, Virginia has empowered enterprise nonprofits, federations, and foundations across the United States since 2010. Visit StratusLIVE.com to learn more. Bo Joe Jewelry out of Sheridan, Wyoming, won the $5,000 Best of Show Award at the 30th annual Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale. When we collaborate, we inspire other artists and the public alike, says Executive Director Allison Merritt. The 30th annual Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale in Jackson Hole was again a grand event, with strong attendance, big sales, design awards and incredible talent. Cited recently by the "Jackson Hole News & Guide" as the event where "cowboy and contemporary commingle", this years Exhibit + Sale brought an outpouring of talent from across the country says executive director Allison Merritt, with artists and designers representing 20 different states featuring the finest in functional artand cash prizes for award winners. Kicking off with a wildly fun Opening Preview Party, guests sparkled in their Western best to celebrate 30 years of Western Design with live auction proceeds totaling over $18k, a variety of spirits offered at five open bars, tasty catered bites and the always anticipated live runway fashion show featuring couture from 13 designers. When we collaborate, we inspire other artists and the public alike. I am forever grateful for the energy and ingenuity of the artists and designers who are an integral part of the continued success of the Western Design Conference, Merritt told the News & Guide. The artists comment that Jackson Hole is their favoriteour town, our restaurants. And they spend a lot of time immersed in all things Fall Arts Festival, she adds about the Western Design Conferences destination appeal, but its the sophisticated buyers and friendly culture that has them returning year after year. Design Excellence prizes totaling $20,000 were awarded to 16 artists in honor of their superb concepts and skill, with Best Artist and Honorable Mentions in six categories, as well as a Best of Show, Sonny Tuttle Spirit Award, and Exhibitors Choice. Beginning with the Best of Show, Bo Joe Jewelry out of Sheridan, Wyoming, received $5,000 in prize money for the pieces the artist, of Navajo and Ute descent, crafts from turquoise, diamonds, gold and other precious metals and gems. Many Tears and Lake AntlerWorks received this years coveted Exhibitors Choice honor, where the best work is selected by a vote of the artists peers, with a prize of $1,500. Collections from 13 designers were strutted on the runway and even more fashion-focused art to wear was exhibited throughout the 28,000-square-foot Snow King Events Center showroom. As they did last year, the judges recognized Tres Outlaws Boot Co. of Cody, Wyoming, as the Best Artist in the Art to Wear Fashion category with a $1,000 prize, while the $1,000 for Best Collection in the Fashion Show went to Colorado designer Living and Dyeing for her unique naturally-dyed, hand-stitched and hand-painted apparel. Jackson Hole Beadwork artist Lillie Lauterbach took home the Best Artist award in the Jewelry category for her hand-stitched beaded collection, while TimberFire Studio of Manvel, Texas, earned the Best in Accents award for handcrafted heirloom furniture, decor and lighting. Returning award-winner How Kola Furniture by Tim Lozier of Cody, Wyoming, earned Best Artist honors in the Mixed Media awards category for his Molesworth-style pieces. Grain of Thought Woodworks received $1,000 as Best Artist in the Woodworking category in recognition of Johnny Geraghtys wood-first approach to handcrafting one-of-a-kind furniture to last for generations. The Sonny Tuttle Spirit Award of $1,000 went to returning fine art carver Keoni of Keoni Wood Art from Colorado Springs, honored again for his process in re-imagining wood as woven and beaded basketry, sculpture and vessels. Other 2022 Design Excellence awards went to Gina Pannorfi for Honorable Mention in the Fashion Show category; Kelly Maxwell Design in the Honorable Mention Woodworking category; Mountain Girl Studios earned Honorable Mention in the Accents category for unique shed-antler and colorful glass lighting; and the Honorable Mention Mixed Media Award went to Red Tail Forge Works out of Tennessee. The full list of 2022 winners can be seen here: westerndesignconference.com/about-us/awards/. Some of our exhibitors, including Henneford Fine Furniture, award-winner Grain of Thought Woodworks, and popular fashion designer Montana Dreamwear, reported record sales, says Merritt, who also offers a shout-out to the 2022 Lifetime Achievement award winner Lone Wolf Western Furnishings as an example of the Western Design Conferences enduring appeal. Roy Fisk was at the very first WDC, she says of the Lone Wolf furniture maker, and he joined us this year for the 30th with a sideboard hutch that took five years for the now 92-year-old woodworker to create. Planning has already begun for the next Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale scheduled for September 7-10, 2023. About the Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale: Celebrating 30 years in 2022, the annual Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale is a four-day, multimillion-dollar event that brings together craftspeople, collectors, interior designers, architects, and fashion designers with a love of the West. The Western Design Conference was founded 30 years ago in Cody, Wyoming, to promote contemporary artists working in historical American craft methods. The Western Design Conference Exhibit + Sale moved to Jackson Hole in 2007, where Executive Director Allison Merritt continues the strong commitment to Western arts in Wyoming while expanding the reach of the show. Additional information, including schedules and tickets, is available at westerndesignconference.com and on Facebook and Instagram. The Lightbridge Foundation, the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization associated with the early education and child care franchise Lightbridge Academy, has officially surpassed $1 million in dollars raised as it continues its mission to support children and working parents in the communities it serves and beyond. This is a very exciting time for both the foundation and Lightbridge Academy, said Lightbridge Foundations Executive Director Audrey Feci. The company has been growing rapidly over the past year, and as we open more centers, we are able to raise more money for the Lightbridge Foundation. This allows us to expand our support of those in our Circle of Care. Established in 2001 by the brands founder Guy Falzarano, the Lightbridge Foundation is a non-profit organization supporting working parents and children along life's journey. Its work is central to the core beliefs of all Lightbridge family members meeting the needs of all parents and children is a natural extension of the Circle of Care philosophy, which inspires everything Lightbridge does as a company. Were so proud to have been able to surpass this $1 million mark right before Guy retired as it highlights his incredible dedication to giving back through the foundation, said Lightbridge Academy CEO Gigi Schweikert. The Lightbridge Foundation enables us to support those children and families going through a difficult time in their life, whether it is a child suffering from an illness, a family devastated by a fire or a community recovering from a natural disaster. When a Lightbridge Academy opens up in an area, it is our honor and privilege to give back to the community. We realize that the well-being of our educators, parents, children and even our vendors contribute to the strength of our communities, enriching our lives in countless ways. Instead of focusing on a single cause, our foundation provides a wide range of services to people in our Circle of Care. And as the foundation grows, Feci notes that its ability to give back has also expanded. We were primarily giving out scholarships and grants to students in the past, but now weve been able to expand our philanthropic efforts to larger causes as well, she said. For example, in April of this year, the Lightbridge Foundation pledged $30,000 through the local efforts of its 63 centers to support the children and families of Ukraine. After the Uvalde shooting in Texas, the foundation donated $5,000 to an organization helping the victims families and the centers also supported organizations on a local level. The foundation also has a partnership with the Spread the Joy non-profit to bring Joy Boxes to hospitalized children. Looking ahead, Feci says the Lightbridge Foundation will continue to grow its college scholarship programs in new markets while expanding its partnerships with other charitable organizations. Lightbridge Academy has also integrated the Kindness Curriculum which incorporates the foundation's values and educates young children on the joys of giving back. Our centers do an amazing job at raising funds in ways that are fun for the staff and the children, whether it is an art show where parents can purchase childrens artwork or a dunk tank to dunk their favorite teachers, said Feci. These are really teachable moments for our children, and it is so rewarding to come together to give back through the Lightbridge Foundation. Overall, while the $1 million mark is a major milestone for the Lightbridge Foundation, Schweikert says it's the people behind the contributions that make this such an exciting moment for the entire Lightbridge family. Even more than the money, this is about the people of the Lightbridge Foundation, said Schweikert. Their smiles, their time, their kindness, their dedication to helping others. What is so amazing is to realize that the $1 million came from a series of 50-cent lemonades, $5 artworks, $2 muffins all those small gestures and that hard work has added up, and we couldnt be more proud. About Lightbridge Academy: Established in 1997, the company was founded as a family business based on core values and a Circle of Care philosophy that places equal importance on the needs of children, their families, teachers, center owners and the community. Lightbridge Academy provides quality early education and child care programs to children aged six weeks through kindergarten. The company currently has over 140 child care centers either open or in development throughout Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. In response to COVID-19, Lightbridge Academy launched The Lightbridge Promise as the Gold Standard for health & safety in the child care industry. In 2020, the company was featured on the Inc. 5000 ranking, Franchise Times Top 200+ awards, and on Newsweeks 2021 list of Americas Best Customer Service. In 2022, Lightbridge Academy was featured for the 7th year on Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 and for the 2nd year on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies. What I Learned about God in Medical School: an engrossing examination of the authors personal experiences with finding God. What I Learned about God in Medical School is the creation of published author Troy Vines, M.D., a husband, father, grandfather, family physician, and church elder. He lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he currently practices medicine. Dr. Vines is an elder at Compass Church in Jonesboro. He is an alumnus of Arkansas State University and later received his pharmacy degree and became a registered pharmacist (RPh), followed by a Doctor of Medicine degree (MD), both from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas. Dr. Vines shares, In What I Learned about God in Medical School, Dr. Vines will use the knowledge and insights he learned in medical school to reveal the evidence and assurance that God does exist. He will take you on a journey that will provide information about the human body, allowing you to independently answer the following questions: Does God exist? How do we know? What are the evidences? How sure can we be? He presents the information in a way that is fun, interactive, and thought-provoking by having you, the reader, casually experience the evidence as you go through your weekly activities. You will be able to formulate your own conclusions regardless of any opinions that you may have previously formed. You will be introduced to how the visible organs function within the body. You will also be introduced to an unseen component of the human being. One that will help to explain the supernatural aspects of why certain organs such as the heart and brain function as they do. According to the Pew Research Center Statistics, in the United States adult population, the number of nones people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or nothing in particular when asked about their religious identity has increased from 16 percent in 2007 to 29 percent in 2021. If you are still searching, find yourself in this group, are a parent of a teen or young adult who is questioning their faith and belief in God, or if you want to help someone who needs reassurance of the existence of God, this book is for you. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Troy Vines, M.D.s new book will aid readers in their pursuit of deepening their faith and pursuing God in all things. Dr. Vines brings a unique and encouraging perspective for readers to reflect on as they balance the seemingly opposing constructs of science and religion. Consumers can purchase What I Learned about God in Medical School at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about What I Learned about God in Medical School, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Valyou Furniture Los Angeles Showroom We see that our area of strongest customer support is in California, so thats where we want to be, said Shaul Rappaport, Co-Founder of Valyou Furniture. Its our goal to make furniture shopping an easy and pleasant experience." Valyou Furniture announces its first California showroom in the Chinatown district, part of its continued expansion to cater to consumers looking for the latest trends from acclaimed designers. The storefront boasts an expertly designed showroom stocked with in-demand and hard-to-find furniture items. Valyous Los Angeles offers art-inspired, boutique shopping in the eclectic downtown neighborhood known for distinct architecture, famous cuisine, trendy pop-ups and destination shopping. This marks the fourth storefront for the Hawaii-based company and the second on the mainland following its Las Vegas showroom opening this past winter. To represent their commitment to on-trend, unique furnishings, Valyou made intentional design and architectural choices to their showroom through the work of award-winning architect Miona Mijic. With a canvas of 3,000 square feet, Miona begins the customer experience with an open commercial-style concept. The journey leads through cohesive vignettes representing each of Valyous six brands. We see that our area of strongest customer support is in California, so thats where we want to be, said Shaul Rappaport, Co-Founder of Valyou Furniture. Its our goal to make furniture shopping an easy and pleasant experience. Were bringing our products to the people that love them. Stop in to browse or make a day of exploring the neighborhood. Were here to make design dreams come true, making it easy for anyone to create beautiful spaces. After years of involvement in the furniture and home goods industry, the owners of Valyou Furniture set out to create a single place where consumers could find high-end luxury and lifestyle brands with a niche selection of design choices, superior finishes and materials and innovation in patent design. All of this was rooted in a desire to offer accessible products and top-of-the-line service. Valyou Furniture markets collections and products that are on-trend and at the height of consumer interest. Valyou Los Angeles is located at 676 N Spring St. and is open daily. For more information, visit http://www.valyoufurniture.com/pages/los-angeles-california. About Valyou Furniture: Valyou Furniture changes the way people buy furniture to create an experience that focuses on whats important to each consumer. Valyou makes design dreams come true by curating a selection of over 10,000 items from acclaimed designers so anyone can create beautiful spaces with the latest trends. 2022 Vertical Flight Workforce Report: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is Vital This report by HYSKY is the first time that the aerospace and defense sector has officially discussed intersectionality how different experiences overlap which is essential to capturing data and identifying a root cause, said VFS Executive Director Mike Hirschberg. The Vertical Flight Society (VFS) has today published the results of a groundbreaking study, 2022 Vertical Flight Workforce Report: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is Vital. The study was conducted for VFS by HYSKY Society, both of which are 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organizations. The 28-page report is available at http://www.vtol.org/workforce. The results of a VFS workforce analysis in January 2020 indicated that the vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) technology workforce is at a critical juncture. At the same time that the US Department of Defense has kicked off several multi-billion dollar rotorcraft acquisition efforts under the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) initiative, and traditional aerospace and defense (A&D) companies struggle to fill hundreds of vacancies seeking talented VTOL engineers, the Electric VTOL Revolution also requires thousands of engineers. This report by HYSKY is the first time that the aerospace and defense sector has officially discussed intersectionality how different experiences overlap which is essential to capturing data and identifying a root cause, said VFS Executive Director Mike Hirschberg. We hope that this study will help to focus attention on how the VTOL industry can improve its ability to attract and retain top talent. VFS estimates that each clean-sheet civil VTOL aircraft development requires on the order of $1B, a decade of development, and 1,000 employees to get to certification. While several eVTOL companies have been working for several years, many additional developments are also underway. Military rotorcraft developments typically require significant more time, money and employees. VFS forecasts 10,000 additional engineers (over and above the current workforce level) are needed in the next decade to support planned military and civil rotorcraft developments, as well the burgeoning eVTOL / advanced air mobility (AAM) market. Key findings from the report include: Significant additional funding for academia is needed to train enough highly skilled engineers to meet industry demands. Training new engineers is not enough. New engineers must also be attracted and retained. The most impactful metric to predict employee retention is whether or not employees feel valued and appreciated at work. An employees perceived value is more important than their salary amount. It costs a company about $1M to replace 1 highly skilled engineer, so high attrition rates can be detrimental. The legacy Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry has 2x the attrition rates than that of the national average. The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) sector has 4x attrition rates of the national average. Workplace ostracism is likely a major cause. Workplace ostracism, or social death, is the number one predictor of attrition rates. If it can be predicted, it can be mitigated. Successful programs exist to mitigate workforce ostracism. Workforce ostracism could result in a threat to national security. A&D companies that have equitable representation at the highest level will be the most competitive and most likely to succeed in the coming years. Conversely, companies without equitable representation at the highest levels will likely atrophy and die. Examining the challenges of the future vertical workforce is not about being woke, its about collecting and analyzing data to understand what causes someone to be attracted to a company, feel valued, and want to stay. The greatest threat to the A&D industry is the lack of DEI in the workforce, especially in executive and leadership positions, said Danielle McLean, CEO of HYSKY. Lack of diversity leads to underrepresented groups experiencing workplace ostracism, which is the most harmful type of workplace mistreatment and most detrimental to a companys bottom line. The good news is that workforce ostracism is predictable, measurable and preventable, so addressing DEI challenges aggressively is key to maintaining a strong A&D industry. About the Vertical Flight Society: VFS was founded as the American Helicopter Society in 1943 by the visionaries of the early helicopter industry, who believed that technological cooperation and collaboration were essential to support this new type of aircraft. Today, history is repeating itself, with VFS playing a similar role helping to advance todays revolutionary eVTOL aircraft and advocating for the vertical flight profession. Since VFS began supporting the Electric VTOL Revolution in 2013, the Society has been the leading voice for the eVTOL community in industry, academia and government. VFS hosted the worlds first eVTOL technical meeting in 2014, launched the worlds first eVTOL eNewsletter in 2016, worlds first dedicated eVTOL website in 2017, the worlds first eVTOL short course in 2018, and North Americas first hydrogen aviation symposium in March 2022. VFS is @VTOLsociety on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Vimeo and YouTube. This press release is also available as a pdf. The Vertical Flight Society 2700 Prosperity Avenue, Suite 275, Fairfax, VA 2203 USA 1-703-684-6777 fax: 1-703-739-9279 staff@vtol.org http://www.vtol.org This company creates revolutionary million-scale nanomaterial that can be used in wide-ranging applications, from routine health monitoring to cancer detection, and everyone is an opportunity to improve the lives and reduce suffering. - Kathie Callahan Brady, FITCI Nearly 6 million people in the U.S. suffer with chronic wounds. That care translates to more than $96.8 billion in annual Medicare costs. Nanobiofab, a nanotechnology startup founded by Dr. Xiaonao Liu, is working to make detection and care of such wounds quicker and more efficient by utilizing their proprietary real-time agnostic patch for infection detection, an intelligent nose known as RAPID-iNose. The company is a member of the Frederick Innovative Technology Center, Inc. and was recently awarded a $250,000 Defense Health Agency SBIR Program contract for their proposal, "RAPID-iNose: Real-time Agnostic Patch for Infection Detection using Intelligent Nose." The project combines a patented, wireless and highly-sensitive nanosensor array with artificial intelligence algorithms. In tests to date, the RAPID-iNose automatically and continuously captures information on the types and amounts of pathogens. Results can then prompt infection alerts to patients and doctors, eliminating some of the biggest challenges in wound care. Dr. Liu explains, Currently, clinical judgment is required for diagnosis and treatment. However, symptoms of wound infection are commonly masked in patients with complex wounds. Considered the current gold standard, culture-based antimicrobial susceptibility testing is now conducted under aseptic conditions in laboratories. This requires assessment by specialists using reagents, which may not be logistically feasible, especially in a battlefield environment. Turnaround is also slow, taking anywhere from hours to days for processing, depending upon transportation of the sample. Caregivers lack the means for continuous sampling to monitor patient progress. And there is no Food and Drug Administration approved, telemedicine-capable, deployable device for early detection of wound infections or real-time monitoring in either field environments or hospital settings. Nanobiofabs previous work with the Small Business Innovation Research Program includes efforts to improve medical training through AI-enhanced clinical simulators with West Virginia Universitys Center for Simulation Training and Education for Patient Safety. Kathie Callahan Brady, Nanobiofab advisor and FITCI CEO, says, This company creates revolutionary million-scale nanomaterial that can be used in wide-ranging applications, from routine health monitoring to cancer detection, and everyone is an opportunity to improve the lives and reduce suffering. RAPID-iNose will be the worlds first wearable intelligent device for real-time monitoring of wound infection, replacing current resource-intensive detection methods. The device has the potential to help clinicians identify pathogens quickly, safely and easily, allowing for effective use of antimicrobials as well as reducing treatment costs substantially. For more information on Nanobiofab or their nanosensor research, log on to http://www.nanobiofab.com. This material is based upon work funded by the Defense Health Agency Small Business Innovation Research /Small Business Technology Transfer Programs under US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense, DHA SBIR/STTR Programs or USAMRAA. The WiCyS conference program showcases the strength of diversity, where a wide spectrum of able voices are seen, heard and celebrated. The technical conference is an inclusive space for women to gain professional development opportunities to pave the way for career advancement. Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is planning its next technical conference March 16 to 18 in Denver, Colorado, and looking for participants to present and share their knowledge. At its annual conference, WiCyS has contributors showcase their expertise, skill and talents on a global stage to encourage more women to join or advance in the cybersecurity field. Individuals, organizations and companies can submit multiple proposals in one of these tracks: Todays Technology and Challenges, Looking Ahead, Best Practices and Career Development. These sessions could be student research posters, technical presentations, workshops, Birds-of-a-Feather (informal discussions), lightning talks or panels. "The WiCyS conference program showcases the strength of diversity, where a wide spectrum of able voices are seen, heard and celebrated. The technical conference is an inclusive space for women to gain professional development opportunities to pave the way for career advancement. The 2023 program will no doubt highlight thoughts, experiences and achievements of outstanding female professionals who contribute to a strong and diverse cybersecurity workforce," said Dr. Ambareen Siraj, WiCyS program chair. Each accepted proposal will receive one complimentary registration. One student per research poster will receive a scholarship to attend. Anyone new to submitting a presentation or who is looking for guidance can work with WiCyS mentors. To request a mentoring session, email program@wicys.org. Submissions are due Oct. 31. Student research posters are due Dec. 12. Accepted proposals will be notified on Nov. 28. For more information, visit http://www.wicys.org/events/wicys-2023/callforparticipation/. About WiCyS: Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is a nonprofit organization with international reach dedicated to the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity. WiCyS was founded by Dr. Ambareen Siraj in 2013 through a National Science Foundation grant awarded to Tennessee Tech University. In less than 10 years, it has grown into an organization (est. in 2017) representing a leading alliance between trailblazers from academia, government, and industry. WiCyS offers opportunities, trainings, events, and resources for its members. Strategic partners include Tier 1: Amazon Web Services, Battelle, Bloomberg, Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, Cisco, Fortinet, Google, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Microsoft, Optum, Sandia National Laboratories, SentinelOne. Tier 2: AbbVie, Aristocrat, Dell Technologies , JPMorgan Chase & Co., LinkedIn, McKesson, Navy Federal Credit Union, Nike, Wayfair, Workday. To partner, visit http://www.wicys.org/support/strategic-partnerships/. Hannah and Forrest are helping shape the firm daily in the decisions we make internally on how to run the office, as well as the quality and service they provide on the projects they oversee." - Bruce Zavos, President, ZA+D ZA+D, a full-service architectural firm servicing projects across 7 States with over 750,000 SF of new construction projects currently in design has announced the promotions of Hannah Weikel and Forrest Popkin to Principals. Hannah was formerly Vice President and Director of Interiors, Forrest was formerly a Senior Project Manager. Both will continue to manage their own projects while overseeing other staff and providing mentorship. They will now have more active roles in the business decisions day to day, directing firm management. Weikel and Popkin will be integral in the long-term planning for the firm, both in seeing how to meet the current mission of the company while pursing ways to adapt and grow the portfolio of projects. Weikel, who has been with the firm since 2003, graduated from Longwood University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Interior Architecture. She became a member of American Society of Interior Designers in 2007 and acquired her LEED Accreditation in 2008. She has served a wide range of commercial, housing, residential and education clients and brings focus and demands results from her projects. It is clear that she plays a key role in the companys growth and continued success. Weikel has managed over 7 new multifamily design and constructions in the last 2 years alone and is the Revit standard bearer, pushing the use of BIM and other visualization technologies in the firm. Popkin, who was strategically hired to the firm in 2020, earned his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from The University of Maryland. He has over 14 years of project experience, which has recently expanded into multifamily new construction with a foundation on Commercial Interiors. He is proactive and understands how to achieve team cohesion on more complex projects. He oversees his own and other staffs projects, including several brewery spaces, a historic rehabilitation, and most notably the new construction project of a 76-unit St Anne's Senior Housing apartment building in Damascus, MD. When he is not working on projects, he is working to find new challenges and opportunities. Hannah and Forrest are helping shape the firm daily in the decisions we make internally on how to run the office, as well as the quality and service they provide on the projects they oversee, says Bruce Zavos, President. Forrest is an entrepreneur that communicates what we can offer new clients at ZA+D, evidenced in the growth of our commercial portfolio in his short tenure here. Hannahs experience and knowledge allows us to take on more impressive scaled projects, where she is overseeing the design and construction of 800 units on her projects in 2022 alone. ZA+D is pleased to announce to the community and the profession that these two respected designers are equipped to be principal decision makers in this firm. Founded in Frederick, MD in 2003, ZA+D is a full-service architectural firm of professionals whose diversity and experience enables us to handle the most complex and challenging projects while meeting the needs of our clients. Our long-term client relationships and buildings have positively impacted peoples lives and the environment. Our company works with clients in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington DC, and West Virginia. ZA+D has won numerous recognition awards, including the Passive Housing Institute US (PHIUS) Affordable Housing Winner. Our focus is on agency-intensive and community-oriented projects, including non-profit entities, schools, and local government authorities. Our work expands into commercial and custom sustainable residential projects. We possess expertise with new construction as well as the renovation, rehabilitation, and adaptive re-use of existing structures, including those of historical significance. Learn more about ZA+D at za-d.com Its an honor to receive the Cybersecurity Solution for Government award as we continue to ensure our Zero Trust SSE platform implements the NIST 800-207 architecture to protect governments users, data and applications from breaches. iboss, the leading Zero Trust Edge cloud security provider, announced it was named a Gold winner in the Cyber Security Solution for Government category at the 12th Annual Globee Business Excellence Awards. iboss is a cutting-edge Zero Trust cloud security company that helps protect government entities and civilians from increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, often from nation state threat actors. The iboss platform is a purpose-built, patented, cloud delivered security solution that has been trusted by organizations worldwide to implement Zero Trust architecture as laid out specifically in the NIST 800-207 Special Publication. The companys containerized cloud architecture makes it the only platform that can control what NIST refers to as the Implicit Trust Zone to ensure that all data and resources are completely private. The Boston-based company is FedRAMP authorized, allowing its leading platform to be used by all U.S. government customers. Implementing Zero Trust according to frameworks such as the NIST 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture is critical for government agencies seeking the best possible protection from breaches as well as to ensure government-mandated compliance is met, shared iboss CEO and Co-founder Paul Martini. Its an honor to receive the Cybersecurity Solution for Government award as we continue to ensure our Zero Trust SSE platform implements the NIST 800-207 architecture to protect governments users, data and applications from breaches. The coveted annual Business Excellence Awards is the worlds premier awards program honoring employer excellence, employees, and HR achievements. The awards recognize the worlds best employers, employees, and human resources professionals, teams, achievements, and HR-related products, services, training, and consultants who help to create and drive the best places to work. This annual awards program celebrates the individuals and teams who set industry benchmarks for excellence. All organizations private or public, corporations, nonprofits, associations, vendors, and government organizations worldwide are eligible to enter. Judges from around the world representing a wide spectrum of industry experts participated in the judging process. See the complete list of 2022 winners here: https://globeeawards.com/business-excellence-awards/winners/ For more news and information from iboss, sign up for the company newsletter: https://www.iboss.com/newsletter/ About iboss, Inc. iboss is a cloud security company that enables organizations to reduce cyber risk by delivering a Zero Trust service designed to protect resources and users in the modern distributed world. Applications, data and services have moved to the cloud and are located everywhere while users needing access to those resources are working from anywhere. Built on a containerized cloud architecture, iboss delivers security capabilities such as SWG, malware defense, browser isolation, CASB and data loss prevention to protect all resources, via the cloud, instantaneously and at scale. This shifts the focus from protecting buildings to protecting people and resources wherever they are located. Leveraging a purpose-built cloud architecture backed by 230+ issued and pending patents and more than 100 points of presence globally, iboss processes over 150 billion transactions daily, blocking 4 billion threats per day. More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies. iboss was named one of the Top 25 Cybersecurity Companies by The Software Report, one of the 25 highest-rated Private Cloud Computing Companies to work for by Battery Ventures, and CRNs Top 20 Coolest Cloud Security Companies of 2022. To learn more, visit https://www.iboss.com/ All trademarks belong to their respective owners. About the Globee Awards Globee Awards are conferred in nine programs and competitions: the American Best in Business Awards, Business Excellence Awards, CEO World Awards, Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards, Disruptor Company Awards, Golden Bridge Awards, Information Technology World Awards, Sales, Marketing, Service, & Operations Excellence Awards, and Women World Awards. Learn more about the Globee Awards at https://globeeawards.com twitter @globeeawards #globeeawards #employerexcellence #businessawards Todds experience with some of the most renowned Silicon Valley tech companies is a great asset to reinforce our position as the most secure SaaS Management Platform in the industry. Zluri, provider of an enterprise SaaS Management Platform, today announced Todd Dekkinga has joined the company as Chief Information Security Officer. He brings years of experience in areas such as cloud computing, AI and ML, IoT, and blockchain. Dekkinga has held multiple senior IT and security roles and serves as an advisory board member for leading technology companies. Throughout his career, Dekkinga has defined and executed cost-effective IT and cybersecurity initiatives for companies spanning multiple sectors, including software, hardware, health, and biopharmaceuticals. From its founding, Zluri has been at the forefront of adopting the industrys best practices for information security, said co-founder and CTO Chaithanya Yambari. Today, we are compliant with SOC Type 2, ISO 27100, GDPR, and PCI DSS. As we expand our footprint globally and bring on more enterprise customers, bringing on strong leadership that can bolster our Information Security function is a top priority. Todds experience with some of the most renowned Silicon Valley tech companies is a great asset to reinforce our position as the most secure SaaS Management Platform in the industry. Most recently, Dekkinga served as CISO for Airgap Networks, a company that provides solutions for preventing the lateral movement of Ransomware. Prior to that, he held senior IT roles at various San Francisco Bay area companies including Armis; Oncopeptides AB; Versartis, Inc., and Crescendo Bioscience, a Myriad Company. Zluri has quickly established itself as a leader in SaaS Management and I am extremely impressed by the companys commitment to cybersecurity at the highest level, said Dekkinga. Companies that operate at the center of application ecosystems, APIs, and other integrations are duty-bound to prioritize security for everyone that uses and touches their platform. As Zluri continues to scale, well focus on establishing and implementing the best possible security practices for us, our customers, and partners. Dekkinga is based in the San Francisco Bay area and holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration, Management, and Operations from Western Michigan University. For more information about how your business can manage and optimize your spend on SaaS applications, visit https://www.zluri.com/. About Zluri Zluri empowers enterprise IT teams to discover, manage & optimize, secure and automate their SaaS Applications from a single dashboard. With Zluris SaaS Management Platform (SMP), IT, Finance and Procurement teams can easily maximize the value and productivity of their subscription-based software ecosystem. Zluris platform integrates seamlessly with 800+ of the most popular SaaS applications. Founded in 2020, Zluri is headquartered in San Francisco. To learn more, visit https://www.zluri.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn. Click here for old website The Purdue University Research Center in Economics (PURCE) is offering a lunchtime presentation Wednesday (Oct. 5) that will focus on The Changing Location of Affordable Housing in Indiana. Registration for the event is due today (Oct. 3). Housing in Indiana remains the most affordable in the nation, although significant gaps in affordability still exist for some households. Recent research suggests significant increases in lifetime earnings for impoverished children raised in moderate-income neighborhoods, although the majority of subsidized housing is located in the highest poverty areas. Mike Eriksen, director of the Dean V. White Real Estate Finance Program and professor of economics, will discuss changing trends in income and housing affordability within and across Indiana, especially as compared to regional peers. He will also discuss how recently enacted federal policies will affect incentives for both developers and low-income households in where subsidized housing is located across the state. Eriksen will conclude with suggestions on how policymakers can make housing even more affordable in the future despite anticipated population growth. The talk will be held 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in Rawls Hall's Third Floor Commons. Lunch will be provided. To attend, RSVP online. Parking is available in Grant Street Parking Garage; parking passes are available at check-in upon request. For more information, contact purce@purdue.edu or 765-494-3782. Titanium orthopedic screws with and without silver immobilized onto their implant surfaces using a process developed by Purdue University researcher Rahim Rahimi. Researchers observed that titanium surfaces with laser-immobilized silver had efficient, stable, antimicrobial properties lasting longer than six days. (Photo provided by Rahim Rahimi.) Process to create nanostructures on implant surfaces also enhances bone cells attachment WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. A patent-pending process developed by Purdue University engineers could improve the quality of life for the more than 6 million people who undergo orthopedic and trauma surgery annually, according to a paper published in Langmuir: The ACS Journal of Fundamental Interface Science. Infection is a major complication when rods, plates, screws and other devices are embedded into people during procedures like joint replacement surgery and spinal fusion surgery. Most infections occur because the devices titanium implant surfaces have poor antibacterial and osteoinductive properties; osteoinduction is the process that prompts bone formation. Rahim Rahimi, a Purdue University assistant professor in the School of Materials Engineering, has created a process that immobilizes silver onto the implant surfaces of titanium orthopedic devices to improve antibacterial properties and cellular integration. The process can be implemented onto many currently utilized metal implant surfaces. The antibacterial efficacy of laser-nanotextured titanium surfaces with laser-immobilized silver was tested against both gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria. The surfaces were observed to have efficient and stable antimicrobial properties for more than six days. The laser-nanotextured titanium surfaces also provided a 2.5-fold increase in osseointegration properties as compared to the pristine titanium implant surface. The first step of the two-step process creates a hierarchical nanostructure onto the titanium implant surface to enhance the bone cells attachment, Rahimi said. The second step immobilizes silver with antibacterial properties onto the titanium implant surface. The technology allows us to not only immobilize antibacterial silver compounds onto the surface of the titanium implants but also provide a unique surface nanotexturing that allows better settle attachment mineralization. These unique characteristics will allow improving implant outcomes, including less risk of infection and fewer complications like device failure. Rahimi said the traditional method to address infections caused by implanted orthopedic devices often utilizes antibiotics or other surface modifications that have their own associated complications. Long-term antibacterial protection is not possible with these traditional drug coatings because a large portion of the loaded drug is released in a short time, Rahimi said. There also is often a mixture of microbes that are found in implant-associated infection; it is essential to choose a bactericidal agent that covers a broad spectrum. Rahimi disclosed the innovation to the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization, which has applied for a patent on the intellectual property. Industry partners seeking to further develop this innovation should contact Patrick Finnerty, pwfinnerty@prf.org, about reference number 2022-RAHI-69768. Rahimi said the next steps to develop the laser process to texturize and immobilize silver onto orthopedic devices are to implement it onto standard orthopedic fixtures, validate the technology to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and license it to companies working in the orthopedic sector. Rahimis research was funded by Purdues School of Materials Engineering. About Purdue University Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked in each of the last five years as one of the 10 Most Innovative universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at https://stories.purdue.edu. About Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization The Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the universitys academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. In fiscal year 2021, the office reported 159 deals finalized with 236 technologies signed, 394 disclosures received and 187 issued U.S. patents. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which received the 2019 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Place from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In 2020, IPWatchdog Institute ranked Purdue third nationally in startup creation and in the top 20 for patents. The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for more information. Writer: Steve Martin, sgmartin@prf.org Source: Rahim Rahimi, rrahimi@purdue.edu ABSTRACT Laser-Assisted Nanotexturing and Silver Immobilization on Titanium Implant Surfaces to Enhance Bone Cell Mineralization and Antimicrobial Properties Vidhya Selvamani, Sachin Kadian, David A. Detwiler, Amin Zareei, Ian Woodhouse, Zhimin Qi, Samuel Peana, Alejandro M. Alcaraz, Haiyan Wang, Rahim Rahimi Despite the great advancement and wide use of Titanium (Ti) and Ti-based alloys in different orthopedic implants, device-related infections remain the major complication in modern orthopedic and trauma surgery. Most of these infections are often caused by both poor antibacterial and osteoinductive properties of the implant surface. Here, we have demonstrated a facile two-step laser nanotexturing and immobilization of silver onto the titanium implants to improve both cellular integration and antibacterial properties of Ti surfaces. The required threshold laser processing power for effective nanotexturing and osseointegration was systematically determined by the level of osteoblast cells mineralized on the laser nanotextured Ti (LN-Ti) surfaces using a Neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser (Nd-YAG, wavelength of 1.06 m). Laser processing powers above 24 W resulted in the formation of hierarchical nanoporous structures (average pore 190 nm) on the Ti surface with a 2.5-fold increase in osseointegration as compared to the pristine Ti surface. Immobilization of silver nanoparticles onto the LN-Ti surface was conducted by dip coating in an aqueous silver ionic solution and subsequently converted to silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by using a low power laser-assisted photocatalytic reduction process. Structural and surface morphology analysis via XRD and SEM revealed a uniform distribution of Ag and the formation of an AgTi-alloy interface on the Ti surface. The antibacterial efficacy of the LN-Ti with laser immobilized silver (LN-Ti/LI-Ag) was tested against both gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria. The LN-Ti/LI-Ag surface was observed to have efficient and stable antimicrobial properties for over 6 days. In addition, it was found that the LN-Ti/LI-Ag maintained a cytocompatibility and bone cell mineralization property similar to the LN-Ti surface. The differential toxicity of the LN-Ti/LI-Ag between bacterial and cellular species qualifies this approach as a promising candidate for novel rapid surface modification of biomedical metal implants. Over the course of her career, Gaule has worked for several other leading television and film distributors including DRG and Handmade Films International. She joins Beyond from BBC Studios, where she has spent the past six years licensing unscripted, scripted and kids content to a wide range of territories. Prior to that she worked for formats business Small World IFT and spent four years as VP of sales at Zodiak Rights.We are excited to welcome Tara to the team today and are delighted she will be with us at MIPCOM next week. Not only does it provide a timely opportunity to meet our clients face to face, but its also a wonderful way to quickly get to know the team, said Beyond Rights head of sales Sarah Bickley commenting on the appointment. Taras experience across unscripted, formats and kids perfectly reflects the current focus points for our business, with our new MIPCOM slate featuring great new content from each of these genres. With her expertise and deep knowledge of key markets such as France, she is well placed to make an immediate and important contribution to the team.For her part, Gaule added: Beyond Rights size, catalogue and ambition and the fact that it is part of an evolving international group - are all very appealing factors for the next stage of my career and I am excited to be joining the business at this time. Amid much hoopla and fanfare, the Administration of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin recently released what it calls the 2022 Virginia Energy Plan - Virginia's Energy Future. This document was much awaited by CFACT and other observers of Virginias energy policy, because it marked the first time that the Governor's office had issued a comprehensive commentary on the laws governing electricity generation in Virginia. In the 2021 election, Virginia voters replaced Democratic office holders in all three of the top Executive offices, and also flipped the House of Delegates to Republican control. But would that be enough to also change Virginias energy policy, which was rammed into law by Democrats in 2020 through the partisan passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA)? There can be no question that Republicans wanted a serious change in electricity policy. In addition to sweeping out all three Democratic Executive office holders, Republicans in the House of Delegates voted unanimously in last years legislative session to repeal the VCEA. The cornerstone of the VCEA is its mandate for the construction of the worlds largest offshore industrial wind facility, and also the construction of solar projects equal in the aggregate to the size of 35 New York Cities. Would the new Youngkin Plan rein in these massive renewable energy boondoggles? The Plan begins with language suggesting that the Youngkin Administration understands the folly of reliance on intermittent and costly solar and wind to replace abundant and reliable natural gas and nuclear energy. For example, it states: Baseload generators, like nuclear power stations and combined cycle natural gas, operate continuously and consistently over time to meet the minimum level of power demand. Intermittent generators, such as solar and wind, can only operate when conditions are right, with the sun shining and the wind blowing. On the issue of reliability, the Plan further notes that: The VCEA .... introduced uncertainty into the Commonwealths energy landscape, placing additional costs on consumers and raising concerns regarding the reliability of the electrical grid, which was historically strong. The Plan also acknowledges the VCEAs fundamental mistake of legally requiring the retirement of all (emphasis added) natural gas baseload generation, which will then require the construction of utility scale storage... which is not currently cost effective. Moreover, full compliance with the VCEA will necessitate present implementation of currently unavailable grid storage technologies. With respect to electricity costs, the Plan recognizes that the VCEA will increase electricity costs over 2020 levels by 53% by 2030 and 72% by 2035. And these levels would be much greater were it not for the fact that Virginia will be forced to rely on electricity imports from other states that are generated by coal, gas, and nuclear sources. Finally, the Plan notes that the VCEA requires the Commonwealth to retire its natural gas power plants by 2045, which currently provide 67% of current baseload generation, as well as 100% of peak demand. This switch has not occurred successfully anywhere in the world (emphasis added). Well, given all that rhetoric, one would certainly expect the Plan to advocate serious reversal, if not outright repeal of the VCEA. Right? Wrong. Instead, the Report fully embraces the Offshore Wind Project, and also endorses the VCEA solar mandates as a chance to seize a global competitive advantage in emerging supply chains and technologies. What? After all that preamble, the Plan still endorses the Offshore Wind Project - the cornerstone of the VCEA, the single largest, costliest, riskiest, and most unreliable project in the history of not only Virginia, but the entire world? How is this possible? Where is the logic? Surely Dominion Energys stranglehold on Virginia energy policy does not reach this far. Or does it? To be fair, the Plan does "recommend" that the VCEA should be reevaluated based on the latest technology availability and cost assessments, and reauthorized in 2023 and that there should be restoration of discretion to the [State Corporation Commission] concerning power plant retirement timelines, including proactive authority to defer [Renewable Portfolio Standards] requirements to ensure reliability. Ok, but what do reevaluate, reauthorize, proactive authority, and restoration of discretion actually mean in reality? How does the Commonwealth legally get there? Unless these concepts are captured in legislative language and enacted into law by both the House of Delegates and the Senate in the upcoming legislative session next January, they are nothing more than empty promises wrapped in a thick cloak of virtue signaling. In fact, the whole Plan is nothing but empty rhetoric unless backed by legislative language which will amend current law. In practice, this means repealing or drastically amending the VCEA. Without a robust and aggressive legislative push from the Governors office during the legislative session this coming January, the whole fabric of the Plan evaporates into nothingness. So, the question of whether the Plan is a serious exercise in reform, or merely a public relations exercise remains to be seen. Governor Youngkin and his team need to propose tangible legislative initiatives over the next several months. The Governors political reputation as a leader who can cut through Democratic ideology and overcome the power of the climate industrial complex hangs in the balance. Collister Johnson serves as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Washington, D.C.-based Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. Thanks to efforts by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Congress is giving permitting reform the attention it deserves. Fixing the nations broken permitting process must be an urgent priority. After all, if you cant build things, productivity stops, jobs are lost, and people suffer. For a variety of reasons, Sen. Manchins permitting reform bill came up short. But thats not unusual; passing significant legislation takes time. Sen. Capito introduced her own highly compelling bill last month. Republicans and Democrats should follow their lead and pass meaningful, bipartisan improvements to the permitting process. If done right, Congress can foster economic growth, strengthen environmental protection, and enhance Americas global competitiveness. A new bill must be guided by three basic principles: 1) We must reduce the excessive litigation that causes costly delays and, in some cases, kills projects outright; 2) We must push needless bureaucracy out of the way; and 3) We must substantively update permitting laws passed in the 1970s to fit the needs of the 21st Century economy. Litigation is first for a reason: its the biggest problem. According to The Permitting Institute, a non-partisan group of former officials from the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), lawsuits are delaying the deployment of more than $1 trillion in energy projects (renewable and conventional) commenced in the last four years. A good deal of lawsuits stem from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a statute signed into law in 1970 that requires federal agencies to issue detailed statements on the environmental impacts of their actions, such as granting permits. In the landmark case interpreting NEPAs requirements, a federal judge predicted, These cases are only the beginning of what promises to become a flood of new litigation. He was right. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which implements NEPA, found that, based on data from 2001 to 2013, there are approximately 115 challenges to NEPA decisions in court per year. NEPAs environmental impact statements (EISs) can be hundreds, or even thousands, of pages and take years to complete. Remember President Obamas American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus bill? It didnt work, in good part because of NEPA and other bureaucratic impediments. These delays and obstacles are extremely costly. FPISC analyzed 69 major projects and found that bureaucratic delays cost developers $100 billion. On average, 20-30% of total project funding is wasted on unnecessary red tape. The problem, however, extends beyond NEPA. Developers encounter multiple agencies implementing an array of statutes passed over five decades ago, each of which have unique, and sometimes conflicting, requirements. Consider a recent report from the Brookings Institution, which analyzed the web of federal permits required for an offshore wind farm. Building one requires reviews under, among others, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act (CWA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Marine Mammal Protection Act, National Marine Sanctuaries Act, National Forest Management Act, and Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act. So what is to be done? Start with some straightforward, practical steps to make incremental progress. First, the default in the system should be yes for every project. Generally speaking, reviews should take no more than one year. Once the deadline hits, its pens down, meaning federal review stops. To ensure project owners and operators follow the law, require regular audits during construction. Second, stop the endless litigation train. Theres no reason projects should be mired in court over NEPA, which is a procedural statute. Lawmakers should either prevent judicial review outright or give plaintiffs one shot to make their case. The same should hold for actual permits and authorizations. Again, courts can tell agencies how they got it wrong, agencies can comply with the courts directives, and then litigation should end. To do this, its necessary to change the standard of judicial review, so that courts cant stop projects based on trivial errors that have no real impacts. Finally, its time to amend federal permitting laws for the 21st Century. Start with NEPA, CWA, and ESA. For example, NEPA documents should be no more than 100 pages (no exceptions), they should analyze only direct impacts from a project, and consider one reasonable, economically- and technically-feasible alternative to the project proposal. Congress must also end the insanity of legal conflict over what constitutes waters of the United States, under the CWA. Clearly delineate that such waters are those for interstate navigation and adjacent wetlands. As for ESA, give agencies one month to do so-called species consultations. Senators Manchin and Capito have done the right thing by attempting to fix this massive problem. Their efforts are not in vain; Republicans and Democrats can build on them. And if any or all of the above reforms are passed, we can make real, bipartisan progress for America. Google is honoring legendary musician Tito Puente with a Doodle during U.S. Hispanic Heritage Month. ADVERTISEMENT Known as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music," Puente was a percussionist, composer, songwriter, recording artist and bandleader. Born on April 20, 1923 in New York City's Spanish Harlem, he was exposed to Cuban, Puerto Rican and big band music while growing up. He started drumming when he was just a teenager. During World World II, he served in the Navy where he played alto sax as the ship's bandleader and also 10 other instruments. When he returned home, he studied at Juilliard School of Music. In 1948, he started the Tito Puente Orchestra and was known for his skills on the timbales. His first professional recording, "Ran Kan Kan," is featured in today's animated Doodle, created by Carlos Aponte, a New York-based Puerto Rican artist. Puento recorded over 118 albums and was featured on many more. The iconic musician was also known for creating opportunities in the Latin community and created a scholarship fund for young Latin percussionists. Puento died on June 1, 2000 and was so revered that many people waited in line for several days to say goodbye. He was honored posthumously at the first Latin Grammy Awards and the street where he grew up in Harlem was renamed Tito Puente Way. The Tito Puente Monument, located next to Tito Puento Way, was unveiled on Oct. 11, 2021. South Korean boy band NCT 127 took to the stage on The Jennifer Hudson Show. ADVERTISEMENT The K-pop group discussed and performed its song "2 Baddies" during Tuesday's episode of the talk show. "2 Baddies" is the title track from NCT 127's album of the same same. The group released a single and music video for the song in September. On The Jennifer Hudson Show, NCT 127 explained how "2 Baddies" expresses their ambition. "There's a Korean name for the songs we write -- it means 'high speed,'" Mark said. "We're planning on going for our dreams and going for our goals at the highest speed we can, and it really shows our ambition." The group then showed host Jennifer Hudson some of the "2 Baddies" dance moves. The 2 Baddies album also features the songs "Faster," "Time Lapse," "Crash Landing," "Designer," "Gold Dust," "Black Clouds," "Playback," "Tasty," "Vitamin," "LOL (Laugh Out Loud" and "1, 2, 7 (Time Stops)." NCT 127 consists of Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Yuta, Doyoung, Jaehyun, Jungwoo, Mark and Haechan. The group is a subunit of the boy band NCT, which has 23 total members. The Georgia midterm elections take place on Tuesday, Nov. 8. All polling locations will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. that day. Early voting begins on Monday, Oct. 17 at 8 a.m and closes on Friday, Nov. 4 at 5 p.m., although times may vary depending on polling location. Every year, within the first few days of classes starting, hundreds of newly-christened freshmen flock to Herty Field, a former athletic field turned multi-purpose greenspace. At the far end of the field lies one of University of Georgias many landmarks, the Herty Field Fountain. Once the sun sets, this peaceful field becomes the focus of freshman fervor, as hundreds of incoming UGA students throw themselves into the fountain as a celebration of their first few steps into college life. Since Annie Ernaux won the Nobel literature prize last week, the French authors books have gained enough new admirers that many titles are out of stock on Amazon Brattleboro Museum & Art Center held its 15th Annual Domino Toppling Extravaganza on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. Veteran domino toppler and YouTube superstar Lily Hevesh returned with her team to assemble over 25,000 dominos in two and half days that covered the museums Wolf Kahn & Emil Poe: SIM registration a good first step in deterring scams, crimes Sen. Grace Poe said the registration of subscriber identity module (SIM) is a good first step in combatting text scams as well as other crimes. In an interview, Poe dismissed arguments that SIM registration was not effective in fighting crimes in other countries, saying it is not an option for government to sit idly by while people are being scammed and taken advantage of. "Unang una, hindi tayo pwedeng umupo na lang at sabihin nating hindi ito magiging epektibo. Hindi 'yun totoo. Hindi man mapipigil 100%, meron pa ring mahuhuli," Poe said. She said identifying perpetrators of crimes and scams is important in holding them accountable and meting out punishments. "The first step is to be able to identify who sent the text. Ang batas na ito ay isang paraan para matunton kung sinu-sino ang mga ito. Kasi, kahit may batas tayo laban sa krimen, tulad ng pagbabanta, kung hindi naman natin malaman kung sino ang nagpadala noon, e 'di walang mangyayari," Poe said. The senator said the SIM registration law is not limited to just text scams because it would also be a big help in the investigation of crimes such as murder, terrorism, and kidnapping. "Kaya po natin ito ipinasa, sapagkat marami na talagang naloloko at nabibiktima. Hindi naman natin pwedeng payagan na maraming nananakawan at nagogoyo," Poe added. The SIM registration law becomes effective 15 days after it is published in the Official Gazette or a newspaper of general circulation. Poe said the implementing rules and regulations must ensure that the process of registration is easy and the safety and security of information submitted by subscribers are guaranteed. People put on their favorite flannel as they enjoy food and music during the second Southern Vermont Flannel festival that was held at the Rockingham Hill Farm in Rockingham on Oct. 16, 2021. To the editor: I want to thank Susan Smallheer for her coverage of the Vermont Board of Libraries meeting to rename Negro Brook in Townshend ( 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. Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook. James Lyall is executive director of the ACLU of Vermont. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media. Cambodian opponent in exile and leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Sam Rainsy, arrives at the courthouse for the defamation lawsuit filed by Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, in Paris, Sept. 1, 2022. A court in France has dismissed two defamation cases brought against Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy by Prime Minister Hun Sen and a senior police official, but both sides were quick to claim victory in the proceedings, citing elements that advanced their own narrative. The Paris tribunal judiciaire ruled on Monday that Sam Rainsy a dual citizen of France and head of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was guilty of defamation against Hun Sen when he posted a message to social media in 2019 claiming that the prime minister had ordered the assassination of Cambodias former National Police Chief Hok Lundy. However, the court found that Sam Rainsys right to freedom of expression trumped the ruling and granted him clemency. Hok Lundy died in 2008 when his helicopter crashed in Svay Rieng province during bad weather, but Sam Rainsy maintains that the aircraft was downed in an explosion. The correlative factual basis for this imputation [that Hun Sen is responsible for Hok Lundys death] is tenuous, the court said, adding that Sam Rainsys statements were made in a context of denunciation of violations of human rights by a political opponent who cannot go to Cambodia in order to continue its investigations of the incident. Under these conditions, it appears that a criminal conviction would undermine manifestly disproportionate to the right to freedom of expression protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court also ruled that an allegation in Sam Rainsys social media post that Hok Lundys son, Deputy Commissioner General of the National Police Dy Vichea, was aware of Hun Sens involvement in his fathers death and planned to take revenge on the prime minister, did not meet the legal definition of defamation. Dy Vichea is also Hun Sens son-in-law. The reference to a political opponent who could have other reasons to dismiss Hun Sen from power does not necessarily refer to recourse to violence but may as well refer to an alliance of a political nature, the ruling said, noting that Sam Rainsy provided no details in his comments about the details of the alleged revenge plot and its status. Therefore, in the absence of precision on the projects thus imputed to Dy Vichea making it possible to establish their illegal nature and even to discern their exact content, the remarks do not undermine his honor and his consideration. In addition to granting clemency to Sam Rainsy, the court dismissed a countersuit by the opposition leader that Hun Sen pay for his expenses related to the proceedings. In a June 2019 Facebook post that prompted the lawsuits against him, Sam Rainsy wrote that Hun Sen killed Hok Lundy using a bomb placed inside his helicopter because he knew too much about Hun Sens misdeeds. He also claimed that Dy Vichea knows well the cause of his fathers assassination and is hatching a plan to avenge his fathers death. The Paris tribunal judiciaire heard both defamation cases against Sam Rainsy in a five-hour session on Sept. 1 before delivering its verdict Monday. Ruling reactions In a statement that followed the verdict, Sam Rainsys legal team welcomed the two acquittals, saying that the French justice system has solemnly confirmed the legitimacy of his actions and defended his freedom of expression. For our client, this judgment is much more than a personal victory, but is a ray of hope for defenders of freedom and justice in Cambodia and elsewhere. Sam Rainsy said Monday that he had won the case, despite the courts ruling that he was guilty of defamation and then spared. [The] French court rules that Sam Rainsy wins the case against Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son-in-law, he said in a post to the Telegram social media network, referring to Dy Vichea. On Facebook, Sam Rainsy characterized the courts decision as good news.. Hun Sen also jumped on the ruling as proof of his innocence in Hok Lundys death during a speech he made to a university graduation ceremony in the capital Phnom Penh on Tuesday, saying the court found Sam Rainsys accusations baseless and unwarranted because they lacked evidence to support them. He said Sam Rainsy had failed to provide direct evidence or any testimony through witness affidavits to prove the crash was due to an explosion, and no autopsy report was available to provide the court. It means that [Sam Rainsy] just made these accusations without having any evidence to submit to court. So the court said that this had nothing to do with Hun Sen, he said, referring to himself in the third-person, according to a report by the Phnom Penh Post. What did Hun Sen want from this that prompted him to trouble Rainsy at his home? Hun Sen wants innocence and nothing else. [Rainsy] claimed that they won the case somehow and I dont know how they can possibly say this. Hun Sen said he has no intention of appealing the court decision, but would follow along if Sam Rainsy does. Hun Sens comments follow those of his lawyer, Ky Tech, who told local media in France on Monday that the courts ruling showed Sam Rainsy had provided no clear evidence or confirmation of the prime ministers involvement in Hok Lundys death. Ky Tech also claimed that the court also gave another reason to confirm that Sam Rainsy did indeed defame [Hun Sen], which cannot be denied, without providing further details. Cambodia case The French courts ruling follows Sam Rainsys December 2021 trial in absentia by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for falsifying information regarding the death of Hok Lundy. Sam Rainsy has lived in France since 2015 to avoid what he says are a string of politically motivated charges and convictions against him. The acting CNRP leader tried to return on Nov. 9, 2019 to lead nonviolent protests against Hun Sen, urging Cambodian migrant workers abroad and members of the military to join him. However, his plan to enter Cambodia from Thailand was thwarted when he was refused permission to board a Thai Airways plane in Paris. CNRP President Kem Sokha was arrested in September 2017 for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Two months later, the Supreme Court banned the CNRP for its supposed role in the scheme. The move to dissolve the CNRP marked the beginning of a wider crackdown by Hun Sen on the political opposition, NGOs, and the independent media that paved the way for his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) to win all 125 seats in the countrys July 2018 general election. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convenes in Beijing on Oct. 16, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA Cantonese and Mandarin examined the 69-year-old Xi's decade at the helm of the world's most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, Chinese intellectuals, civil society and rural poverty. The announcement by the Hong Kong government that it will shelve further draft national security legislation at least until the end of the year could be a temporary move, and does little to reverse the loss of the city's freedoms over the past 10 years under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, political commentators said on Tuesday. National security legislation mandated by Article 23 of the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, was conspicuously absent from a list of bills to be presented to the Legislative Council (LegCo) by the end of the year, after appearing in a similar list in January 2022. Hong Kong chief executive John Lee, who vowed on taking office to press ahead with more "effective" security laws, told reporters that the government needs more time to study the exact form such laws should take. "In terms of legal research, we need to conduct an in-depth and comprehensive review of possible methods, in the light of recent changes in the international situation," Lee said. "We don't want to make a law that contains loopholes and then have to revise it, so we need to carry out sufficient and comprehensive legal research." "The most important thing is that the law we make is truly effective," Lee said, citing rapid geopolitical changes as a factor in the decision. He said among measures being considered were those targeted people deemed a potential threat to national security, including "preventing them from leaving somewhere," or subjecting them to "repeated bans." Concerns over travel bans being used to prevent people from leaving Hong Kong first emerged in 2021, when the government amended the city's immigration laws to enable security chiefs to ban passengers from taking any form of transport in or out of the city. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee delivers a speech on stage during an official reception marking the Chinese National Day in Hong Kong, China, Oct. 1, 2022. Credit: Reuters On hold during congress It was unclear whether Lee was referring to such bans, however, and he gave no further details. Dozens of former opposition lawmakers and democracy campaigners have been held on remand awaiting trial for more than a year under the existing national security law, while those granted bail have been forced to surrender travel documents, effectively preventing them from leaving. Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the withdrawal of the Article 23 legislation could be linked to the forthcoming CCP 20th National Congress, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16. "It's because the authorities are busy with the biggest political power game of all; the CCP 20th National Congress," Sang told RFA. "Maybe this means there will be a little bit more slack in some areas." But he said he didn't expect this to continue once Xi wins an expected third term in office at the party congress. Lee, a former high-ranking policeman and government security chief who was the only candidate in an "election" for the city's top job held earlier this year, has said the ongoing crackdown on dissent under the national security law will be his "fundamental mission." The crackdown has led to the closure of civic groups including labor unions, pro-democracy newspapers and an organization that once organized annual candlelight vigils for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. More than 10,000 people have been arrested and the 2,800 prosecuted under the national security law, among them 47 former pro-democracy politicians and activists awaiting trial for "subversion" after they took part in a democratic primary election in July 2020. The government later postponed the Legislative Council elections the primary was preparing for and changed the electoral system so that pro-democracy candidates couldn't run. The Lai family, who are emigrating to Scotland, wave goodbye to their friends who are seeing them off before their departure at Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, China, December 17, 2020. Credit: Reuters Damage to 'One Country, Two Systems' The amendment to the Immigration Ordinance sparked concerns that it will be used to prevent people from leaving amid an ever-widening crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political opposition, and the mass emigration of hundreds of thousands of people since the National Security Law for Hong Kong took effect on July 1, 2020.Dozens of former opposition lawmakers and democracy campaigners have been held on remand awaiting trial for more than a year under the existing national security law, while those granted bail have been forced to surrender travel documents, effectively preventing them from leaving.Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the withdrawal of the Article 23 legislation could be linked to the forthcoming CCP 20th National Congress, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16."It's because the authorities are busy with the biggest political power game of all; the CCP 20th National Congress," Sang told RFA. "Maybe this means there will be a little bit more slack in some areas."But he said he didn't expect this to continue once Xi wins an expected third term in office at the party congress.Lee, a former high-ranking policeman and government security chief who was the only candidate in an "election" for the city's top job held earlier this year, has said the ongoing crackdown on dissent under the national security law will be his "fundamental mission."The crackdown has led to the closure of civic groups including labor unions, pro-democracy newspapers and an organization that once organized annual candlelight vigils for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.More than 10,000 people have been arrested and the 2,800 prosecuted under the national security law, among them 47 former pro-democracy politicians and activists awaiting trial for "subversion" after they took part in a democratic primary election in July 2020.The government later postponed the Legislative Council elections the primary was preparing for and changed the electoral system so that pro-democracy candidates couldn't run. Current affairs commentator Ching Cheong said the recent waves of mass popular protest since the 1997 handover to China, which included demonstrations against Article 23 legislation as early as 2003, are directly linked to the erosion of the city's promised freedoms under Xi Jinping. "Since Xi Jinping came to power, the damage to 'one country, two systems' [under which Hong Kong was supposed to maintain its freedoms] has been enormous," Ching told RFA. "The [1984 Sino-British] Joint Declaration and the Basic Law both stipulate that Hong Kong should have a high degree of autonomy, but then the central government published a white paper in 2014, saying that it basically had full control over the running of Hong Kong,2 he said. "This distorted the spirit of the Basic Law." Beijing followed that up with an Aug. 31, 2014 decree offering the city a one person, one vote arrangement, but only for a slate of candidates pre-approved by Beijing. "The Aug. 31 resolution by National People's Congress (NPC) [standing committee] in 2014, also during Xi Jinping's tenure, denied people the right to stand for election," Ching said. "This castrated version of universal suffrage showed that the CCP fully intended to manipulate election results." Further signs that the writing was on the wall came with the cross-border detentions of five publishers of books banned in mainland China, though not in Hong Kong at the time, including titles containing political gossip about Xi. Then, plans emerged to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance to allow the extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland Chinese courts. "The purpose of the amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance was to tear down the firewall between the two systems," Ching said. "There were riotous protests against it in Hong Kong at the time, which the CCP felt had to be suppressed by force." Under the "one country, two systems" terms of the 1997 handover agreement, Hong Kong was promised the continuation of its traditional freedoms of speech, association, and expression, as well as progress towards fully democratic elections and a separate legal jurisdiction. But plans to allow extradition to mainland China sparked a city-wide mass movement in 2019 that broadened to demand fully democratic elections and an independent inquiry into police violence. Rights groups and foreign governments have hit out at the rapid deterioration of human rights protections since the national security law was imposed. Its sweeping provisions allowed China's feared state security police to set up a headquarters in Hong Kong, granted sweeping powers to police to search private property and require the deletion of public content, and criminalized criticism of the city government and the authorities in Beijing. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. The Tesla founder was told to try letting his company become part of the Chinese economy Tesla CEO Elon Musk visits the construction site of a Tesla factory in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 3, 2020. The suggestion by the worlds richest person, billionaire Elon Musk, that China should figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan, was met with angry responses from Taiwan but a nod of approval from Beijing. During an interview with Britains Financial Times on Friday the Tesla and SpaceX founder, who was described as an admirer of as well as an investor in China said that he believed a conflict over Taiwan is inevitable. My recommendation would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, Musk was quoted as saying. He also suggested that they could have an arrangement thats more lenient than Hong Kong. The billionaires recommendation immediately sparked an outcry in Taiwan, with all the major political parties voicing condemnation. A legislator from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Chao Tien-lin, called for a boycott of Tesla's products indefinitely unless the businessman changed his tone about Taiwan. Chen Chi-mai, mayor of Kaohsiung, southern Taiwans economic hub, suggested that Musk could try it himself, let his company become part of the Chinese economy and see if it works. Then he will understand why his recommendation won't work with Taiwan, Chen said. The islands Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said neither Taiwan nor any other country would accept Musks proposal, which is based solely on corporate investment interests. Taiwan occupies a key position in regional democratic politics and the global technology economy, it said. It is not the product of any commercial transaction or acquisition, and it has long rejected any institutional arrangements of the Communist Party of China, the Council said. The MAC also pointed out that Taiwan has an important role in the supply chain of high-tech industries such as semiconductors and has been working with Tesla for a long time. High degree of autonomy When asked about Elon Musks Taiwan recommendation, Chinas Foreign Ministry reiterated that the Taiwan question is Chinas internal affair. We remain committed to the basic principle of peaceful reunification and One Country, Two Systems, spokeswoman Mao Ning told a press briefing on Saturday. On Sunday, Mao elaborated that if sovereignty, security and development interests are ensured, Taiwan can adopt a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region. Taiwans social system and its way of life will be fully respected and the lawful rights and interests of our Taiwan compatriots will be fully protected, the spokeswoman said. Chinas reunification will not undermine any countrys legitimate interests, Mao Ning said. In his interview with the FT, Musk said Tesla would be caught up in a conflict over Taiwan, but his company wouldnt be alone. Apple would be in very deep trouble, he said, adding that the global economy would take a 30 percent hit. Teslas Chinese factory in Shanghai reportedly produces 30% to 50% of the companys total electric car production. Huang Chun-mei in Taipei contributed to this story. North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un oversees a missile launch at an undisclosed location in North Korea, in this undated photo released on Oct. 10, 2022 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Pyongyang is not yet in a position to deploy tactical nuclear weapons that could hit precise targets in South Korea but is likely to begin testing such weapons in the near future, experts told Radio Free Asia. Recent high-profile missile tests carried out by the North were described by North Korean state media on Monday as having been a simulation of loading tactical nuclear warheads to strike military centers in the South. But experts say the North is far from reaching such capabilities and was likely readying to test a tactical weapon a smaller bomb not intended to cause widespread destruction at its underground Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, where its six previous nuclear weapons tests took place. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director-general for safeguards at the International Atomic Energy Agency, told RFA that Pyongyang did not have adequate fuel to produce multiple tactical nuclear weapons. The bulk of its plutonium has the wrong composition for short-range targeted strikes, Heinonen said, adding that the North was striving to produce good fissile material for miniaturizing nuclear weapons. Yet even once Pyongyang builds up enough of the plutonium, he added, the testing of weapons would lead supplies to be depleted. They need to conduct nuclear tests if they want to miniaturize weapons. Once they will test it, they will see if it works, Heinonen said. Only then can they manufacture more efficient and smaller weapons. Not serious operational tests The recent missile tests were themselves not very serious operational tests, added Bruce Bennett, a senior defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, who said Kim Jong Un may have been driven by a desire to make sure his personnel really understand how to fire the missiles. In real operations, these theater missiles would need to be fired within a few tens of seconds of each other to then give their launchers time to escape before they could be targeted, Bennett told RFA. But on the Norths five recent test events involving two missiles, the shortest separation in the launches was nine minutes, the longest 22 minutes, and the average 14 minutes. That is not really operational, he said. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a press briefing on Tuesday that the United States was committed to dialogue and diplomacy to defuse tensions with North Korea but was also ensuring that its deterrent capabilities are where they need to be. We want to see the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Price said. We believe that the best way to do that is through diplomacy through principled, hard-nosed diplomacy with the DPRK, referring to North Korea. Clearly the DPRK is not there yet. Andrew Yeo, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Brookings Institution's Center for East Asia Policy Studies, said Pyongyang was widely expected to soon shift toward ramping up its tests of tactical nuclear weapons. North Korea may be seeking to diversify its nuclear arsenal by advancing tactical nuclear capabilities, Yeo told RFA, adding that its desire to test tactical weapons was consistent with speculation from U.S. experts. The U.S. and [South Korea] as well as Japan need to be vigilant in monitoring any military activity or movements in North Korea, he said. Written in English by Alex Willemyns, who also contributed reporting. Authorities said the killings were likely related to business dealings gone sour. The grisly killings of two Chinese nationals, whose bodies were found stuffed into bags and floating in rivers within two weeks of each other, have put residents of Laos on edge. No connection between the two killings has been confirmed, but authorities say both may have been involved in business deals gone sour, sources in Laos told Radio Free Asia. On Sept. 15, villagers from Vientiane Provinces Phon Hong district found a body floating near a dam that was identified as belonging to Chinese businessman Yang Youhai, 37, who had operated an iron bar manufacturer. The body was found in a plastic bag with his hands and feet bound, a police official said. They are still investigating and the cause is unknown, a police official from Vientianes Naxaythong district told RFAs Lao Service. There is no closed-circuit camera at the location where they dumped the body. They dont know where it came from, what direction. They know only that this body is of the person from the iron bar company. Yang was a big boss at his company, and had come to Laos three months prior, another police official from the capital said. The body was cremated in Vientiane, and some of the bones are to be sent to China for further investigation. The suspected motive is a business-related conflict, the second police official said. Dismembered body Two weeks later, Thai police on Sept. 29 discovered a suitcase floating in the Mekong River containing the dismembered body of Viphaphone Kongsy, 36, chairwoman of the Lao VIP investment company. A dual citizen of Laos and China, the woman also went by the name Li Jun Vp. She had been missing since Sept. 10. The Lao Ministry of Public Security set up a special committee to investigate, but hasnt released any statements or information about evidence. An official from the rescue team in Thailands That Phnom district, where the body was found, told RFA he went to pick up the body bag and found evidence that suggested murder. Her face was beaten by something strong like an iron bar, he said. The right side of her stomach has been torn out. She might have been beaten hard with an iron bar before she died. A couple days later, residents in Vientiane spotted what turned out to be her car floating in the Mekong River. Her decomposing body parts are being kept at the Nakhon Phanom hospital in Thailand, a Thai police official said. They have to test her relatives' DNA before they can return her body to Laos, the official said. The two killings are the latest in a string of similar incidents involving Chinese nationals engaged in business in Laos, where China has invested heavily in infrastructure and manufacturing projects. Very Afraid With the news of each case, the Lao public has grown ever more fearful, sources told RFA, sparking fears of growing lawlessness. News of the murder is making villagers very afraid. They want local officials, police and soldiers to patrol all the time, and the villagers want to take part to be the eyes and ears helping them as well, said a villager from Phon Hong, where Yangs body was found. Soldiers patrol the dam where the body was found 24 hours a day, he said. This was a murder with the intent to kill this guy without mercy, a police official said, asking not to be identified. There have been killings in many provinces in Laos in the past mostly from drug trafficking and drug trades or robbery and stealing, conflict in the family, or among friends, but not as harsh as this one. Reports of such killings have increased in recent years of growing resentment in Laos over Chinese business presence in the country, over Chinese casinos and special economic zones which have been linked to human trafficking and crime. Viphaphones investigation should be handled in a transparent way to ease the fears of the people, a Lao source who has been following the case told RFA. They should announce what they know to the public, whats going on, right now, he said. Another Lao source who is following the case said that it was likely a business-related killing. Based on observation, this case of murder looks like it stems from business conflict. But the police have not revealed anything yet, the second source said. We never dreamed that anything like this would happen in Laos. A former Lao government official with knowledge of cases like these also believes the deaths are a result of business conflicts, perhaps with Laotian, Vietnamese or Chinese who invested money and had a conflict with her and lost, he said. A Lao expert on criminal law declined to express an opinion on the case or speculate on its outcome. But I believe that related sectors must urgently solve this case because it is a horrible case for the public to think about, the expert said. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya and Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Locals say they were raped and murdered but the killers are unknown. A file photograph of Mai Shwesin Ye, one of two women whose bodies were discovered on Oct. 9. Locals have discovered the bodies of two ethnic Chin women from Magway regions Ngape township who went missing on Sunday. They were identified as 14-year-old Mai Hnoun Par Hla and 21-year-old Mai Shwesin Ye, both members of the Asho tribe from Bone Baw village, a resident who did not want to be named for safety reasons told RFA. Two girls disappeared around 8 p.m. that night, the local said. They were returning from Goke Gyi village to Bone Baw village. They were found near Myay Lat village at around 5 p.m. on October 9. Locals say both women were raped and murdered but RFA has not been able to confirm this independently. Their bodies have now been returned to their families. There are 11 Asho Chin villages on the mountain where Ngape township is based, on the Rakhine mountain range. The villages lie close to each other on the highway which runs from Mandalay to Sittwe city in Rakhine State. There is a police station in Goke Gyi village, and the military juntas 88th division is often stationed in Myay Lat village. The 14th division of Ngape township and junta forces from Pa Dan village are also active in the area, along with three artillery units from nearby villages. The ousted National Unity Governments Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs told RFA in March that around 150 women and 130 children had been killed across the country since the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup. Womens League of Burma officials told RFA the same month that more than 100 women had been killed, more than 1,500 arrested and there had been at least 10 cases of sexual violence against women across Myanmar since the coup. Fighting over the weekend in northwestern Myanmars restive Sagaing region between the military juntas soldiers and Peoples Defense Force (PDF) militias left 16 rebels dead, with some corpses showing signs of severe torture, local sources told RFA. They had tortured them inhumanely. They cut the skins everywhere severely to keep them from being distinguished from each other, Tauk Te, a member of the PDF Myanmar Defense Force, said of the seven bodies they found. Some had their insides spilling out through open holes in their stomachs and some had their brains coming out of their heads. Sagaing, an agricultural region where resistance against the junta is strong, has seen some of the most intense fighting in Myanmar since the military took control in the February 2021 coup. More than half a million people in Sagaing have been displaced by the fighting, according to a U.N. report released last month. The fighting took place in two separate battles, in Wetlet township, just north of Mandalay, and in Taze township, farther north. In Taze, two rebel units attacked junta soldiers with artillery near Tat Thit village around noon on Friday, local sources told RFA, reportedly killing six junta soldiers. The next day, fighting continued, forcing about 4,000 civilians to flee their homes in eight villages, including Ka La Zin, Dei Yauk and Chaung Yoer, the PDF press department in Taze said. Farther south, in Wetlet township, junta soldiers attacked a small rebel camp near Pha Yar Lay Kone and Nay Pu Kone villages, local PDF sources said. The attack included an hour-long air raid by 2 fighter jets and a Mi-35 military helicopter that were followed by two Mi-17 supply choppers that dropped off around 100 junta soldiers, they said. Both the Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters are made by Russia, which has resisted international pressure not to arm Myanmars junta amid its crackdown on civilians that began after the military took control in a February 2021 coup. Six rebel fighters were killed in the airstrikes, a PDF source said, and three were captured and tortured to death. They cut their skin and faces, and hit their heads with gun butts until they were killed, the source said. The rebel unit lost hand-made guns, 40MM grenades and over 450 million kyat worth of military hardware. The soldiers also reportedly burned down their camp buildings in the area. Undated photo of Taze Peoples Defense Force. Credit: Taze PDF Locals told RFA that four people in their 20s and five people in their 30s were among the deceased, and their names have not been released yet. So far, RFA has received no response from junta spokesperson and minister for social affairs Aye Hlaing about the hostilities in Sagaing. Area residents also said that junta troops stationed at a monastery on Du Thin hill near Nay Pu Kone village captured 15 local civilians in the process. One civilian fleeing Nay Pu Kone said there have been more frequent air attacks by the junta in their region lately. We had to be really cautious at the sound of airplanes. No fighter jets flew over us before. Now that they are here on us, you can imagine the danger we are in. We had nowhere to run when they came. Local residents said that more than 1,000 villagers from Nay Pu Kone and are too afraid to go back to their homes with junta soldiers still stationed there. Myint Oo, the ousted parliamentary representative of Wetlet, said that the junta has used more air strikes because they have been faced with landmines in ground assaults. They dare not come by trucks. Lately, they have to leave their trucks somewhere safe and walk as our PDF forces have set up landmines in several locations. But even then, they still face landmine attacks. So they now rely mainly on air strikes, Myint Oo said. Their acts of human rights abuse go beyond any words. They dont care about any local or international law. They just do whatever they want, Myint Oo said. They have given full authority to even juniors who, as a result, kill indiscriminately without moral conscience for civilians, including children. Reported by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Nawar Nemeh. Chinese authorities warn residents to stay at home and threaten punishment for spreading rumors of the disease. Two Tibetans have died from a pneumonic plague spread by mice and other rodents in a southern county of Tibet, with Chinese authorities now ordering county residents to stay at home, RFA has learned. The two victims, who lived in Lhoka city in Lhoka (in Chinese, Shannan) prefectures Tsona (Cuona) county, both died in September, a source living in the region told RFA, adding that neither has been publicly identified. Moreover, people are not allowed to discuss it, the source said, requesting anonymity in order to speak freely. But we have learned that the two individuals had been helping someone else showing symptoms of the plague. One of them died at a hospital in Tsona county, the source added. A strict lockdown is now in force in Tsona, with county residents being told not to leave their homes, the source said. And authorities are warning people not to talk openly about this issue, saying they will be charged with spreading rumors if they are caught. A Sept. 27 statement by the Disease Control Center of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and other official Chinese reports have so far confirmed one of the two deaths, saying the individual died on Sept. 25 after developing breathing difficulties and a high fever. Reached for comment, staff at Tsona countys Public Office also confirmed one death but declined to provide further details of the plagues spread or the numbers of people now infected. We have been able to contain the rodent plague for now, so if anyone wants to travel to Tsona county they just need to follow the protocols already established to stop the spread of COVID, the staff member said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. Official sources on Monday reported 18,501 cases of COVID infection in the TAR, where sources have reported harsh conditions of lockdown including quarantine with inadequate food and medical care and the forced mingling of infected and uninfected persons. Authorities in Chinas Inner Mongolia in April issued a rodent plague warning in the regions Baotou city, warning residents to keep away from mice and other wild animals, after finding a dead mouse in Baotou, according to an April 3 report in the official Global Times. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney. Her family say they believe guards attacked her for helping other inmates. Huynh Thuc Vy is shown next to a search warrant served by police on Aug. 9, 2018. UPDATED AT 00:06 A.M. ON 10-11-2022 Blogger and human rights activist Huynh Thuc Vy has been beaten and strangled by prison guards, according to family members, who found out after Vy whispered a call for help to her young daughter. Vy is serving a 33-month prison term for offending the national flag under Article 276 of Vietnams criminal code. She is being held in Gia Trung Prison in Vietnams Central Highlands, about 200 km away from her home, making family visits difficult. However, on a visit this month Vy told her six-year-old daughter about her treatment at the hands of prison staff. About five minutes before the end of the meeting, Vy was allowed to hold her two little kids, Vys younger brother Huynh Trong Hieu told RFA on Monday. She said softly into the daughters ear Mom was beaten and her neck was held tightly by the guards. Please tell the family to tell lawyer Dang Dinh Manh to save Mom. Hieu said the girl told her grandfather what Vy said as the family returned home. RFA called the number of Gia Trung Prison to follow-up on the claims but no one answered the phone. Hieu also told RFA that on Aug. 10 guards refused to allow Vy to hold her children. Vy reacted by throwing the meeting room phone on the floor and breaking it. One month later, the family came to see her again and she told them she had not been penalized for that. Hieu said he believes Vy was beaten for helping her cellmates by sharing her food or giving their relatives phone numbers to her father so he could tell their relatives how they were being treated. Vy had told her family the prison guards did not want her to help other cellmates in that way. Vys former husband, Le Khanh Duy, said in May that political prisoners at Gia Trung were being locked in their cells all day for refusing to work and that Vy had been harassed by other inmates who had been told to make political prisoners lives difficult. Other political prisoners held at Gia Trung include Nguyen Trung Ton, a member of the Brotherhood for Democracy, who is serving a 12-year jail sentence, and Luu Van Vinh, a member of the Vietnam National Self-Determination Coalition, serving a 15-year term. Vy, 37, was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2018 after spraying paint on Vietnam's national flag. At the time, she was allowed to postpone the sentence because her children were young, but she was sent to prison on November 30, 2021. This story has been updated in the final paragraph to add details of Vy's sentence. A general view of the opening day of the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, June 13, 2022. Vietnam was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite calls by human rights groups that the country should be excluded because of its dismal rights record. The Southeast Asian nation received 145 of 189 valid votes, becoming one of 14 countries elected by members of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to a three-year term on the council beginning Jan. 1, 2023. The required number of votes to win a seat on the council was 97. The other countries elected to the council are Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Romania, South Africa and Sudan. Vietnam conducted an intense propaganda and lobbying drive to support its effort to be elected to the Council, though critics said Hanois poor record at home and diplomatic support for major rights violators abroad disqualified the one-party state. Critics said Hanois record of cracking down on journalists, activists and social media commentators would make it a poor choice for the council and that Vietnam would join the bloc of countries that block council action on major crises, as it did in its previous 2014-16 term. The council has long faced criticism that countries seen as major rights abusers are members who team up to shield each other from scrutiny. The Vietnamese government should demonstrate a genuine commitment to robust and rights-respecting climate policies by immediately and unconditionally releasing wrongfully imprisoned environmental defenders, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, in a statement issued Tuesday after the voting. As a new Human Rights Council member, the Vietnamese government should show that its prepared to uphold human rights rather than violate them, he said. On Monday, four human rights groups Amnesty International, Article 19, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists issued the latest statement calling on Vietnam to respect human rights and uphold international obligations to promote and protect them. Viet Nam [sic] must immediately commit to taking concrete steps to improve its human rights performance, including by releasing arbitrarily detained human rights defenders, including journalists, ensuring the rights to freedom of expression and association, and improving cooperation with international human rights mechanisms, the groups said in their joint statement. Such steps would be needed for Viet Nam to become a credible member of the Council. The rights organizations noted that since announcing its candidacy for the Human Rights Council in February 2021, Vietnam had detained, arrested or sentenced at least 48 journalists, activists and NGO leaders for arbitrary crimes under Articles 117 and 331 of the Criminal Code, such as abusing democratic freedoms and promulgating propaganda against the state as well as committing tax evasion. On Aug. 4, Vietnam addressed the president of the General Assembly of the U.N., professing its human rights accomplishments and sharing its voluntary pledges. The four rights groups recommended that Hanoi immediately release and drop charges against those arbitrarily detained for alleged violations and called for the amendment of the articles to bring the laws into line with Vietnams international legal obligations that protect the rights to freedom of expression and association. The groups demanded that Hanoi repeal or revise decrees arbitrarily used to restrict the right to freedom of association and to ensure that NGOs can provide human rights education to the public and conduct other activities protected under international human rights law. They also jointly called on Hanoi to accept requests by the U.N. Human Rights Council Special Procedures to allow full and unfettered access to the country in order to monitor the situation and report back to the Council on the visits findings. Vietnam previously has rejected such requests. On Oct. 3, three other NGOs UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights jointly issued a report on rights abuses by the 14 candidate countries, including Vietnam, to circulate to U.N. diplomats. The report said the rights situation inside Vietnam had not improved. It noted that when Vietnam served on the Council from 2014-16, it opposed resolutions supporting rights victims in Belarus and Iran and failed to support resolutions on behalf of rights victims in Burundi and Syria. Another coalition of rights NGOs groups from Europe, the U.S. and Canada had called on U.N. member states to oppose the election of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan and Venezuela, countries deemed unqualified because of their grim human rights records and voting records on U.N. resolutions concerning human rights. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Russian air strikes have destroyed almost one-third of Ukraine's power stations since October 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on October 18 as Moscow launched a fresh wave of air attacks that hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, targeting residential areas and energy infrastructure. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. Zelenskiy tweeted that the attacks had caused massive blackouts across Ukraine and that there was "no space left for negotiations" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Another kind of Russian terrorist attacks: targeting (Ukraine's) energy & critical infrastructure. Since Oct 10, 30 [percent] of Ukraines power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country. No space left for negotiations with Putin's regime," Zelenskiy wrote. The Kyiv prosecutor's office said two people were killed in the October 18 strikes in the Ukrainian capital after five others lost their lives in drone attacks the previous day. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will deliver air-defense systems to Ukraine in the coming days. Speaking at a security conference in Berlin, Stoltenberg said the systems would help Ukraine defend itself against attacks, including by drones made in Iran that have been used in a new wave of lethal kamikaze drone strikes across the country. "The most important thing we can do is deliver on what allies have promised, to step up and deliver even more air-defense systems," Stoltenberg said. Earlier on October 18, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said there had been three Russian strikes on an unspecified energy facility in northern Kyiv. "The situation is critical now across the country. It's necessary for the whole country to prepare for electricity, water, and heating outages," Tymoshenko told Ukrainian television. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack was on "critical infrastructure." The northern Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr was left without water and electricity supply after Russian air strikes, but its mayor told RFE/RL that the services had been largely restored. "Around noon, we connected the main sewage plant, and the water supply was more or less operational. Currently, approximately 80 percent of the city has electricity, but the central part of the city remains without it," he said. Russian troops also shelled energy facilities in Dnipro and blasts were reported in Kharkiv. Explosions also shook the cities of Kriviy Rih and Mykolayiv, local officials said, a day after Russia launched waves of kamikaze drone strikes that killed at least seven people, four of them in Kyiv, and damaged infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital and several other cities across the country. "Kriviy Rih. Explosions in the northern part of the city. We are in shelters," Oleksandr Vilkul the head of the central Ukrainian city's military administration said on social media, adding that so far there were no reports of casualties or damage. In the southern port of Mykolayiv overnight shelling killed at least one person, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkovych said early on October 18. The same day, British intelligence identified the drones used by Russia in the attacks as being Iranian-made. In its daily intelligence bulletin on October 18, the British Ministry of Defense said that Russia's heightened tempo of long-range strikes over the past week against targets across Ukraine included so-called kamikaze drones provided by Iran. "[Strikes] have been conducted by cruise missiles, air defense missiles in a surface-to-surface role, and Iranian-provided Shahed-136 one way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles," British intelligence said. U.S. President Joe Biden's spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters that the White House strongly condemns Russias missile strikes and said the attacks continue "to demonstrate [Russian President Vladimir] Putins brutality. She said the United States "will continue to impose costs on Russia, hold them accountable for its war crimes." The United States, Britain, and France agreed that Iran supplying drones to Russia would violate a UN Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six powers. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on October 17 that more than 100 such drones had struck Ukraine in the past week, hitting power stations, sewage treatment plants, bridges, and playgrounds. "A third of Ukraine's energy infrastructure was affected," a ministry statement said. Both Russia and Iran have repeatedly denied that Iranian drones are being supplied to Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on October 18 that Moscow had no information about whether or not Iranian drones were used in attacks against Ukraine earlier this week. On October 17, Iran also stuck to its denial that it is supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented. Asked for comment, the Iranian mission to the United Nations repeated a statement issued by the government on October 14 that said it supports upholding the UN Charter and the UN attempts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine. The United States warned on October 17 that it would "not hesitate to use sanctions or take actions" against companies and countries working with Iran's drone program. "Anyone doing business with Iran that could have any link to UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) or ballistic missile developments or the flow of arms from Iran to Russia should be very careful and do their due diligence -- the U.S. will not hesitate to use sanctions or take actions against perpetrators," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters. "Russia deepening an alliance with Iran is something the whole world -- especially those in the region and across the world, frankly -- should be seeing as a profound threat," Patel said. With reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and AFP There are now five French nationals being held in Iran, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna has said, after Paris last week said it was verifying if a fifth French national had been detained during protests in Iran. France last week urged its citizens to leave Iran as soon as possible, saying they were exposed to the risk of arbitrary detentions. "I will speak to the Iranian foreign minister this afternoon to again demand the immediate release of all our compatriots who are held in Iran. There are five at the moment," Colonna told France Inter radio on October 11. Protests have broken out in Iran over the last month following the death of a 22-year-old woman. Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of Iran's morality police after being arrested for "improperly" wearing the hijab, a mandatory headscarf. Iran has repeatedly accused outside forces of stoking the protests, without showing any evidence to back up its claim. On October 6, the state-run IRNA news agency published a video showing two French citizens, Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, "confessing" to being spies and fomenting unrest in Iran. France called the video "shameful." Kohler and Paris were arrested in early May in Tehran while on vacation sightseeing in the Islamic republic. Iranian officials have offered no public evidence to support the spying accusations. Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP Rights groups have accused Iran's security forces of launching "an all-out military attack" on protesters in Kurdish areas in the western part of the country as anger intensifies over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody last month. Iran has been rocked by the unrest that was sparked by Amini's death on September 16 while she was being detained for allegedly wearing a hijab improperly. Protesters have challenged the authorities, who have responded with heavy-handed tactics that rights groups say have left almost 200 dead, many from the Kurdish part of the country where Amini came from. Some videos posted on social media of protests in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj showed security agents shooting directly at protesters on October 10, the same day Amnesty International warned about a crackdown by "security forces using firearms and firing tear gas indiscriminately, including into peoples homes." Added another rights group, the Hengaw Human Rights Organization: "Sanandaj has been under an all-out military attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the same time, access routes, including the Internet, have been cut off, the access to immediate treatment of the wounded is under pressure from the security agents, and documents received by Hengaw show the use of prohibited war weapons." WATCH: More than 1,000 Iranian oil workers have joined in nationwide protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Hengaw also reported that it had received information that government forces stationed in the western cities of Saghez and Divandareh also had weaponry such as machine guns. Videos posted on social media from the southern Iranian city of Marvdasht showed protesters tearing down pictures of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force, who was killed by the United States in a drone attack in Iraq in 2020. The protests over Amini's death came after a summer of unrest across Iran over poor living conditions, water shortages, and economic difficulties resulting from crippling sanctions the United States has imposed on Iran over its nuclear program. Iran's oil industry, one of the few sectors of the economy able to bring in money for the government, has joined in the demonstrations, with videos on October 10 showing striking workers burning tires and blocking roads outside the Asalouyeh petrochemical plant in the southwest. WATCH: The mother of Nika Shakarami -- a 16-year-old who wound up dead after participating in anti-government protests in Tehran on September 20 -- has accused the Iranian authorities of "lying" about her daughter's death in an attempt to "exempt themselves." The demonstrators could be heard shouting slogans including "Death to the dictator" and "Don't be scared. We are all together!" More than 1,000 workers at the Bushehr, Damavand, and Hengam petrochemical companies also went on strike, while those at the Abadan oil refinery and Kangan Petro Refining Company joined in on October 11. The Organizing Council of Oil Contract Workers in Iran said that a number of protesters were arrested during a strike by Bushehr petrochemical workers in the southern Iranian city of Asaluyeh on October 10. Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda Just after midnight on August 21, 1991, a column of armored personnel carriers manned by soldiers from a unit of Russias 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, a storied force known as the Taman Guards, rumbled into a central Moscow tunnel, where it was met by protesters angered over an attempted coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. The protesters had barricaded the road with buses and street-cleaning vehicles, and in the chaos that ensued, three of them were killed. Ultimately, the column retreated. The clash was a turning point in the coup, which collapsed the next day. The man who commanded the unit was Captain Sergei Surovikin, 24, a mid-ranking officer who was briefly arrested for his orders but later cleared. Surovikin went on to a long career in Russias military, where he was repeatedly promoted and gained a reputation for unalloyed brutality in Chechnya and, more recently, in Syria. On October 8, President Vladimir Putin appointed the much-decorated Surovikin, who is now 56, as the overall commander of Russias flagging war on Ukraine. Two days later, Russia unleashed the largest barrage of missiles and air strikes since the invasion in February, pushing the war into a potentially even deadlier new phase with Surovikin in charge. For Ukraine, Id worry a lot about Surovikins absolutely unforgiving attitude to the enemy -- seen as combatants and civilians alike -- and his laser-like focus on achieving military progress no matter the cost or risk, said Charles Lister, who is director of the Syria program at the U.S.-based Middle East Institute and followed Surovikins earlier command of Russian forces in Syria. Ultimately, civilians are likely to suffer the most, particularly as Ukraine looks set only to continue its effective and heroic fight for its territory, Lister said in an e-mail. It is doubtful whether he can change the underlying dynamic of the war, as Ukraine fields increasingly well-trained troops and advanced weapons, Mark Galeotti, a longtime expert on Russias security forces, wrote in a column for The Spectator. Nonetheless, he will presumably be expected to try and that is likely to mean many more air raid sirens in towns and cities across Ukraine. A Meteoric Rise Surovikins career stretches back to some of the Soviet Unions leading military schools. He first graduated from an officer training academy in Omsk in 1987. According to a 2005 profile in the Defense Ministrys newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, he served for a time in Afghanistan with Soviet special forces. During the chaos in Moscow in August 1991, Surovikins military career was accelerating. He was already a captain and battalion commander with the Taman Guards, a prestigious command for a young officer. Some news reports from the time claim that Surovikin fired on one of the Moscow protesters himself, an allegation that was never fully substantiated. But he ended up being detained in Moscows notorious Matrosskaya Tishina jail for a few months before being freed in December 1991, reportedly on orders from then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He was also promoted to major and enrolled at Moscows Frunze Military Academy, one of the countrys most prestigious Defense Ministry academies. While there, however, Surovikin was caught up in a criminal investigation involving arms trafficking and illegal weapons sales. Surovikin ended up being convicted on three charges by a Moscow military court, but he was sentenced only to one years probation, a ruling that provoked grumbles among some military brass, particularly as Surovikins promotion continued unchecked. News of the case, the lenient sentence, and the internal dissatisfaction was leaked to Russian newspapers in 2012, as were his efforts to expunge the case from his military record. In a comment to the newspaper Komsomolskaya pravda in 2012, Surovikin said the case had been closed in 1995, claiming that he had been cleared and received an apology. 'Everyone Has Their Own Destiny' After the Frunze academy, Surovikin was sent to Tajikistan, where he was rapidly promoted while serving in the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, the largest Russian unit in all of ex-Soviet Central Asia. His promotions continued, with training at the academy of the General Staff in Moscow and then an assignment to command the 34th Motorized Rifle Division of the Volga-Urals Military District. In 2004, Surovikin was investigated for an incident in which one of his chief subordinate officers committed suicide. That case was closed abruptly as well, which also sparked grumbling among some in the Defense Ministry. "Officers of a good commander do not shoot themselves in the office with service weapons, one officer who served in the General Staff told RFE/RLs Russian Service in a 2017 profile of Surovikin. WATCH: At least 13 people were killed and over 80 injured, including children, as a result of missile strikes in Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzya on October 9, according to the region's governor, Oleksandr Starukh. Surovikins leadership also came under scrutiny after he took command in June 2004 of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division in Chechnya. At the time, the second war in the renegade North Caucasus region had already morphed from full combat operations into a counterterrorism operation, in the Kremlins description. In February 2005, nine reconnaissance soldiers in a regiment under the 42nd division were killed when a wall collapsed on them in the capital, Grozny. Surovikin vowed retribution in TV appearances, but the newspaper Novaya gazeta later called the account into question, suggesting the wall had collapsed when a drunken soldier had accidentally fired a grenade launcher or mishandled a land mine. In an interview with Krasnaya Zvezda in April 2005, Surovikin repeated the claim that Chechen bandits were responsible for collapsing the wall. In general, you can endlessly say what was done right and what was not. Its easier to be clever when you already know what happened. But fighting is fighting. And here it is not always possible to realistically assess the situation, he was quoted as saying. Everyone has their own destiny. Anything can happen to anyone, he told the newspaper. And not only in Chechnya. He joined the General Staffs Main Operational Directorate in the aftermath of the August 2008 war in which Russia invaded Georgia. Russia was victorious, but the conflict exposed deep problems in the armed forces, prompting a sweeping effort to reform and modernize the military. According to a 2017 TASS profile, Surovikin took this post in the context of a large-scale reform of the Russian Army, which began after the 'operation to force Georgia to peace.'" 'General Armageddon' In 2017, Surovikin, then a colonel general, was promoted to command Russias Aerospace Forces, a sprawling amalgam encompassing the air force as well as missile units. The fact that an army officer was appointed the force commander raised eyebrows, particularly among air force officers: The first non-flying commander in the history of Russian military aviation, as Novaya gazeta later described him. He was also sent that year to Syria, where Russian forces had staged an intervention in 2015 to prop up government troops in their fight against anti-government rebels and extremist forces. The effort was successful, not only stabilizing Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assads forces but also expanding the Russian military base at the port of Tartus. But during his two tours there, Surovikin gained a reputation for merciless tactics, including oversight of the bombardments of Ghouta and Aleppo, both of which were largely controlled by rebels at the time. His command also coincided with repeated use of chemical weapons, such as chlorine bombs, by Syrian forces against civilian targets. Surovikins time in command of Russias campaign in Syria was a pivotally important one, during which Russia was finally able to determinedly shift the course of the conflict in Assads favor, Lister told RFE/RL. Surovikins command was clinical, brutal, and most of all, ferociously calculated. He also doubled down on tactics, Lister said, working with Iranian proxies in Syria, particularly with the Quds Force, an elite unit of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Hizbullah, an Iranian-linked militia that has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union. Though mostly covert and little acknowledged, that direct coordination with the Quds Force unquestionably contributed to the strategic relationship the world now sees between Iran and Russia, he said. In a 2020 report regarding military attacks on Syrian civilians, Human Rights Watch named Surovikin as one of several Russian commanders who knew or should have known about the abuses and took no effective steps to stop them or punish those directly responsible. Russias intervention in Syria was also marked by the increasing involvement of private mercenary companies, in particular Vagner, whose owner is Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg businessman with close ties to the Kremlin. In February 2018, a group of Vagner mercenaries and Syrian allies attacked a base where Kurdish forces and U.S. advisers were housed; U.S. forces responded with massive air strikes that killed a couple hundred Russians. After the attack, Russian military bloggers pointed the finger at Russian commanders for either granting permission to the mercenary group to advance or for not providing more protection against U.S. forces. According to Komsomolskaya pravda, Surovikins leadership in Syria earned him the moniker General Armageddon among officers. The Kremlin awarded Surovikin the Hero of Russia medal the countrys highest military honor for his Syrian command. In August 2021, he was promoted to full general. The Invasion Of Ukraine Four months after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Surovikin commanded the southern group of Russian forces that was later responsible for, among other things, a grinding assault on the Luhansk region city of Syevyerodonetsk, which fell to Russian forces on June 25. Surovikin was also still formally in charge of the southern group in Ukraine in September when Ukrainian forces staged a stunning counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region, pushing Russians troops out of the region and later taking control of the key Donetsk region rail hub of Lyman -- considered a major defeat for Russian troops. That defeat drew howls of outrage from military bloggers, right-wing commentators, and nationalists, who took to Telegram to deride Russian commanders, though not Surovikin by name. The anger spilled into wider public view in newspapers and state TV. WATCH: As Russia bombed cities across Ukraine on October 10, fighting continued to rage along the front lines in the east of the country. Artillery battles erupted in the hotly contested Donetsk region near Bakhmut, a strategic city in the Donbas. Russian forces have been focused on capturing Bakhmut in recent weeks. On October 8, Putin abruptly announced that Surovikin would be taking over as unified commander for the Ukraine conflict. The appointment came on the same day that an explosion on the bridge that connects the Russian-held Ukrainian peninsula to Russia badly damaged the structure. The blast is widely believed to have been the work of Ukrainian forces. Surovikins promotion was met with plaudits from bloggers and commentators, who had been calling for a harsher approach to the Ukraine fight. That included Prigozhin, who called him the most competent commander in the Russian Army. After receiving orders, Prigozhin said in a statement released by his company, Surovikin got in his tank without hesitation and rushed to save his country. Two days later, Russia pummeled Ukraine with missiles. RFE/RL's Russian Service contributed to this report. U.S. President Joe Biden turned heads last week by warning Russian President Vladimir Putin is "not joking" when he issues thinly veiled threats of using weapons of mass destruction as his invasion of Ukraine struggles, potentially threatening his 23-year hold on power. Days earlier, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican member of the upper U.S. legislative chamber's intelligence committee, also made headlines when he said he feared Russia could launch a conventional strike against a NATO member to impede the alliance's military aid to Ukraine. But analysts say Putin may be more likely to use other, less kinetic means to try to intimidate the West into curtailing its support for Ukraine such as targeting critical offshore energy pipelines and data cables, as well as satellites orbiting Earth. "All of these methods of attack would be more logical for Russia to pursue" than a direct military attack on NATO facilities or use of a nuclear weapon, said Sean Monaghan, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who previously served at the British Defense Ministry. For one thing, Monaghan said, a Russian strike targeting a weapons supply route in a NATO country such as Poland would trigger the 30-member Western military alliance to respond. "The war with Ukraine is not existential [for Russia]. It's a war of choice," he said. "A war with NATO would be existential." Nord Stream 'Sabotage' In the case of undersea energy pipelines, there are accusations Russia has already carried out such an attack. Blasts that hit two Russian natural gas export pipelines to Germany late last month were a sign of things to come, Monaghan said, calling it a "precursor to more brazen hybrid attacks." Russia-controlled Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines suffered extensive damage in late September when several hundred pounds of explosives were detonated, according to Danish and Swedish investigators, in what Biden and other Western officials have called sabotage. Officials have largely avoided direct accusations, but many in the West say they believe Russia sabotaged its own pipelines to deter Europe from aiding Ukraine. Russia has been curtailing natural gas exports to Europe for months, driving up prices to record highs and steeping the continent's energy crisis. The Kremlin has denied the accusations and blamed the United States, which had opposed the pipelines in the first place. The pipeline blasts deepened concerns in the West about Russian attacks against European subsea pipelines and cables. On October 8, damage to cables on land caused an hours-long stoppage of all rail traffic in northern Germany. The state-owned railway operator blamed "sabotage" and launched an investigation into who was behind the interference. Monaghan said attacks against such critical infrastructure are deniable and ambiguous and "purposely do not cross the threshold of decisive [military] response," he said. William Courtney, a former career diplomat who took part in U.S.-Soviet defense talks, also said Russia is more likely escalate by attacking a pipeline, Internet cable, or satellite. In addition to other factors, a strike against Poland might not be successful, he said -- the country has strong armed forces and is on high alert. "Rather than striking the territory of a NATO member, Russia might look at a target that is more ambiguous in terms of how NATO would respond," said Courtney, who is now an analyst with Washington-based RAND Corporation think tank. Estonia Cyberattack Russia has carried out major hybrid attacks against NATO members and other countries in the past. In 2007 Russia launched a weeks-long, coordinated cyberattack against Estonia, targeting websites of the Baltic nation's government, banks, telecommunications companies, Internet providers, and media outlets after Tallinn relocated a controversial Soviet war memorial that had stood in the center of the city. At the peak of the attack, bank cards and mobile-phone networks were temporarily frozen. Russia has been suspected in other incidents. In 2021, underwater cables off Norway's coast were severed and removed. The sensors attached to the cables had the ability to pick up information about Russian submarines, leading some to believe that Moscow may have been behind the incident. Then, on January 7 of this year, one of two undersea fiber-optic cables that provide Internet and communications links between mainland Norway and the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean was knocked out. The cables also provide power for Space Norway to run the Svalbard Satellite Station, one of only two ground stations that can download data from polar-orbiting satellites. Russia had previously expressed concern that the SvalSat site could be used to download data from military satellites as well as commercial satellites. Also in January, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of Britain's Defense Staff, raised concerns about the "phenomenal increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity" over the past two decades. In an interview with The Times of London, he said Russia has the naval capability to put at risk and "potentially exploit" undersea cables. Monaghan said although subsea communications networks are resilient, there is still a large amount of data traffic that goes through a small number of cables under the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. "Western economies are reliant on this data exchange as we have predominantly digital knowledge economies, and Russia knows that," he said. "So, I do see the gas pipeline explosions as a kind of an implicit warning around advanced undersea capabilities, which NATO has to respond to." While Russia has suffered major battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, it has "extremely potent maritime, space and cyberspace forces that are capable of inflicting damage where it hurts," Monaghan said. Satellite Targets Russia's potential targets are not just below the sea. Last November, Russia carried out its first test of a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile (ASAT), destroying a Soviet-era target in low-Earth orbit and raising concerns abroad about its space capabilities. The weapon was fired from the Earth's surface as the satellite passed overhead. Konstantin Vorontsov, head of Russia's delegation to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, said last month the uses of commercial and civilian satellite assets by the United States and its allies to assist Ukraine "constitute indirect involvement in military conflicts" and "quasi-civilian infrastructure," as he put it, "may become a legitimate target for retaliation." Ukraine's forces have relied heavily upon satellite Internet access to carry out operations against Russian forces. Elon Musk's SpaceX has sent more than 15,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine to boost Internet coverage and connectivity following a Russian cyberattack against its critical infrastructure. Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies, commercial satellite imagery firms, have also provided key intelligence by sharing high-resolution images of the battlefield from above. Courtney said NATO is probably now undertaking more surveillance of vulnerable infrastructure. He said he could not speculate how NATO would respond to such an attack. As Russia bombed cities across Ukraine on October 10, fighting continued to rage along the front lines in the east of the country. Artillery battles erupted in the hotly contested Donetsk region near Bakhmut, a strategic city in the Donbas. Russian forces have been focused on capturing Bakhmut in recent weeks. Ukrainian authorities say they have discovered at least 10 locations in the recently liberated city of Izyum where Russian forces tortured civilians and Ukrainian soldiers. Former captives said they endured beatings, electric shocks, and burns. Ukrainian forces say they discovered the network of torture chambers and hundreds of bodies in a mass burial site when they retook Izyum in September. Russia has launched a fresh wave of missile strikes on several regions of Ukraine, a day after bombing multiple cities, including Kyiv, and killing at least 19 people as reprisals for a blast at the weekend that destroyed the only bridge between Moscow-annexed Crimea and mainland Russia. Following the latest escalation in Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialized countries in a video meeting to urgently provide Kyiv with anti-aircraft weapons to defend itself from Russian missiles. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. Russia's Defense Ministry said on October 11 that its forces had renewed strikes on Ukraine's energy facilities. The Russian military "continued to deliver mass strikes with high-precision, long-rage... weapons against military command facilities and the energy system of Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement adding that "all assigned targets were hit." Ukrainian media reported that 20 rockets landed on the morning of October 11. The authorities in Ukraine's southern region of Zaporizhzhya reported 12 rocket attacks, while blasts were also reported near Kyiv and the western city of Khmelnytskiy. In Kyiv, air-raid sirens went off again, prompting people to seek safety in emergency shelters. Areas of the Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsya, Mykolayiv, and Rivne regions were also under fire. In the Vinnytsya region, southwest of Kyiv, a thermal power station was attacked with combat drones. There were no casualties, the power plant's press office said. Explosions were heard in Lviv, Mayor Andriy Sadovy reported on October 11. "Explosions are heard in Lviv. There are problems with electricity," he said. On October 10, Ukrainian authorities counted more than 80 Russian attacks by land, sea, and air. Many were averted by air defenses. Ahead of the G7 meeting, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged continued support for Kyiv in a call with Zelenskiy on October 10 and vowed to hold Russia accountable for what he called "its war crimes and atrocities." "President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air-defense systems," the White House said in a statement on October 10. WATCH: Ukraine reported dozens of missile strikes across its territory, including the capital, Kyiv, in a significant escalation of Russian attacks on October 10. In an earlier statement, Biden said that the strikes demonstrated the "utter brutality" of the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The strikes "may have violated the principles of the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, told reporters in Geneva on October 11. "Intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, that is objects which are not military objectives, amounts to a war crime," she added. During an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly that came just hours after the Russian strikes, Ukraine's ambassador on October 10 denounced Russia as a "terrorist state." "Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways," Ambassador Serhiy Kyslytsya said. The 193-member UN General Assembly decided on October 10 to hold a public vote, rather than a secret ballot, on a draft resolution that would condemn Russia's "illegal so-called referenda" held in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya regions, as well as Russia's "attempted illegal annexation" of the territories. Diplomats said the vote on the resolution would likely be held on October 12. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on October 11 that Moscow was open to talks with the West on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any serious proposal to negotiate. In an interview on state TV, Lavrov said officials, including White House national-security spokesman John Kirby, had said that the United States was open to talks but that Russia had refused. "This is a lie," Lavrov said. "We have not received any serious offers to make contact." Lavrov added that Russia would not turn down a meeting between Putin and Biden at a forthcoming G20 meeting and would consider the proposal if it receives one. Kyiv, which has retaken large swaths of Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine's south and east in recent weeks, has ruled out negotiations with Putin, saying that Russia is making unacceptable demands and that Putin's actions have made talks impossible. With reporting by AFP, AP, BBC, CNN, and Reuters Andrey Grachev, Vice President of Norilsk Nickel, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta on the sidelines of the international forum Public-Private Partnership for the Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples taking place in Murmansk, while talking about the program to support the indigenous peoples of the North, emphasized that the first criterion that the company set as a cornerstone in its creation was the principle "Nothing for us without us."When we drew up the program, we did not write it ourselves, we visited indigenous communities, negotiated with them, and they gave us their proposals. These included the most pressing issues related to the life of the indigenous peoples of the North, which were the most worrying for our neighbors. And after we came up with a plan, we re-negotiated it with community leaders who signed up for this program, he said.Andrey Grachev also noted the popular nature of this program and its fundamental transparency, since it was discussed in the communities, and everyone knew what activities would be included in it and when a particular project would be completed. In addition, according to him, each provision of the program has its own estimate, the deadline for the completion of a facility. And this specificity was introduced by us. Each program should have a supervisory body, which is constantly obliged to monitor the degree of implementation. At the request of representatives of the communities of Taimyr, together with the Polar Division of the company, a Coordinating Council was created, which monitors the implementation of plans and corrects these plans in connection with the emergence of new ideas, he said further.Speaking about the initiator of the Council, Andrey Grachev said: A year and a half ago, Vladimir Potanin received an appeal from representatives of the communities of Taimyr with a request to create such a Council in the company. In his opinion, the Coordinating Council should act on the territory where the indigenous peoples of the North live compactly. Therefore, a counter proposal was made: let's create it not in Moscow, but in Taimyr. And the Council should include representatives of municipal authorities, representatives of communities and representatives of the Norilsk division of the company.Referring to the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) procedure implemented by Norilsk Nickel for the first time in the Arctic zone of Russia, the vice president of the company emphasized that the principle Nothing for us without us is the main thing in this process, noting that negotiations and accounting interests are part of Norilsk Nickel's corporate culture. We have always said that our policy towards the indigenous peoples of the North is based on three principles. The first is taking into account the interests of the indigenous peoples of the North. The second is the maintenance of traditional crafts. And the third is a constant dialogue with representatives of the peoples of Taimyr, he said.Concerning the development of tourism in the areas inhabited by the indigenous peoples of the North, Andrey Grachev said that in the near future a visitor center would be built in Ust-Avam, which would contribute to the development of ethno-tourism on the territory of Taimyr, and that Nornickel considers these objects not only in terms of additional jobs for the local population, but also hopes that they will be the hallmark of this region. "Representatives of the communities believe that it is tourism that will supplement their earnings along with traditional activities," he added.Speaking about the prospects for the development of the Kolmozerskoye lithium ore deposit in the Murmansk Province, Andrey Grachev spoke about the work that the company is doing to take into account the interests of the Saami living in these places. We have experience, we are ready for further conversation, he said. Especially since there is an opportunity to rid Russia of "lithium dependence". Since June, we have started preliminary consultations with the Saami on the lithium project. So far, everything is at the stage of informing and collecting data.Summing up the forum, the vice president of Norilsk Nickel said: Firstly, we felt that business in addressing the development of indigenous peoples is in demand by the state. Secondly, we made sure that the goals of indigenous peoples, and those of the state and business either completely coincide or are identical. And this is the key to future cooperation. And thirdly, we agreed that the practices of relations with indigenous peoples that exist in various subjects will be analyzed. I heard a lot of interesting things from the representatives of Yakutia and from Yugra. Everyone has their own experience, and it is necessary to collect it, post it on the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs website and make it publicly available to the entire business community and all subjects of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Working together suits us. ABOUT THE COMPANY MMC Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the worlds largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper. The company also produces cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium and other products. The production units of Norilsk Nickel Group are located at the Norilsk Industrial District, on the Kola Peninsula and Zabaykalsky Krai in Russia as well as in Finland. MMC Norilsk Nickel shares are listed on the Moscow and on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchanges, ADRs are accepted for trading on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchange. Norilsk Nickel fully supports the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The company considers social responsibility and commitment to the principles of sustainable development as one of the pillars of operational efficiency and business development. Nornickel seeks to continuously improve its activities in the areas of environmental protection, human rights, health and safety, environmental impact assessment, and biodiversity preservation. The company spent RUB 221.5 billion on SDG-linked projects in 2021. Andrey Bugrov, Chairman of the Board of Norilsk Nickel, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, which he gave during the international forum "Public-Private Partnership in the Sphere of Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples" held in Murmansk, said that Nornickel, when forming the company's program to support indigenous peoples of the North was guided by their practical needs and requirements.Therefore, we consulted with most of the communities of Taimyr and collected their needs. And the needs sometimes boil down to building a refrigeration unit for storing venison, fish and wild plants, building a club in one of the villages, and supporting folk crafts. These needs belong to the production chain of these communities and actually help them create added value. This is not just help in the form of a gift, but something that can be used for production purposes and be useful, he explained.Andrey Bugrov said that the program is designed until 2024, its total funding is two billion rubles, and that it should be continued and expanded further. We are in direct interaction with the communities, he said further. Under the auspices of our Polar Division, a Council of Indigenous Communities was established, which included a large number of communities. And we expect this Council to help coordinate the needs that these communities will have in the future. For communities that are not on the Council, we will have to communicate with them within a two-way pattern to understand what their needs are. One of the last things we did, we built houses in two villages in Ust-Avam and Volochanka. Families moved there, improving their living conditions. Six houses in Volochanka were commissioned in September of this year.According to him, the main thing in such work is to prioritize tasks in the assistance provided by Norilsk Nickel, focus on the most pressing needs, and then, as the program develops and meets the needs of communities, expand the range of financial assistance and the coverage of various initiatives.I think that development will go in this direction, since the main task is to provide support to indigenous peoples who lead a rather difficult and complex way of life and economic management, being located in hard-to-reach areas. It is important for the company to provide them with protection and support for their traditional way of life, Andrey Bugrov emphasized in conclusion. ABOUT THE COMPANY MMC Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the worlds largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper. The company also produces cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium and other products. The production units of Norilsk Nickel Group are located at the Norilsk Industrial District, on the Kola Peninsula and Zabaykalsky Krai in Russia as well as in Finland. MMC Norilsk Nickel shares are listed on the Moscow and on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchanges, ADRs are accepted for trading on the Saint-Petersburg Stock Exchange. Norilsk Nickel fully supports the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The company considers social responsibility and commitment to the principles of sustainable development as one of the pillars of operational efficiency and business development. Nornickel seeks to continuously improve its activities in the areas of environmental protection, human rights, health and safety, environmental impact assessment, and biodiversity preservation. The company spent RUB 221.5 billion on SDG-linked projects in 2021. Iran is working on a major project to link its national grid with Russia and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization through a transmission line in the east of the Caspian Sea, according to comments made by the Iranian energy ministers adviser in international affairs. Mohammad Ali Farahnakian said the decision to connect the power systems in Iran and the former Soviet republics was made at the recent Caspian Sea summit, and that efforts are underway to connect the countrys national grid to Russia and other SCO member states through a transmission line passing through Turkmenistan. In order for the plan to be implemented, it is only necessary to construct the third transmission line between Iran and Turkmenistan, the second of which has already come into operation, he noted. According to Farahnakian, Iran has completed the construction of the transmission line as far as the Iranian border, and as soon as Turkmenistan embarks on the project, the power transmission capacity will rise by 200 percent. Considering the possibility of connection of national grids in the former Soviet republic, a rise in the power transmission capacity will allow Iran to export its electricity from the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, he added. Iran is holding consultations to allow for the connection of its national grid to those of the SCO member states through Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, Farahnakian said. In recent years Iran has put greater emphasis on participation of domestic and foreign investors in the electricity generation sector, with projects underway to add 40,000 MWh more capacity to the national grid. Energy officials say one of Irans policies is to turn the country into the regions main energy hub. Irans southern neighbouring countries are located in a tropical area while the northern neighbours lie in cold, sometimes polar climates. Such a unique position has given Iran the opportunity to meet the energy demands of neighbours both in the summer and winter. Related Reading Press Release October 11, 2022 Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva's reaction on reports that the Philippines is blacklisted for Chinese tourists The statement of the Chinese ambassador, as relayed by Senate President Zubiri, on blacklisting the Philippines for Chinese tourists only concretizes our position that the social-and now economic-costs of POGO operations outweigh its contributions to our country. In addition to wreaking havoc in peace, order, and morality in the country, POGOs now also pose a threat to our tourism industry. We had as much as 1.74 million tourists coming from China in 2019 who spent as much as $2.33 billion when they visited. Our tourism industry had only just begun getting back to its feet from the pandemic, and China blacklisting the Philippines for tourism is not a good sign for the industry and for our economy as a whole. As we have said time and time again, it all boils down to policy: Do we want our country to be known as a POGO hub or a tourism hub? The answer is clear. Let's put an end to POGOs. For 50 years, freshmen have walked into University 101 classrooms unsure of what to expect, maybe a little overwhelmed and certainly a bit nervous as they navigate their first semester of college life. In those classrooms, they find a community: instructors to teach them, peer leaders to guide them and classmates to lean on. A few months later they walk out, confident, comfortable and armed not only with the desire to succeed on the University of South Carolina campus, but also the tools to make that happen. None of it happens by accident. All of it is by design. University 101 is the international leader in freshman seminars, a model followed by universities around the world. It is an inclusive program aimed at all students, helping them not just to survive their first year of college, but to thrive. The results are hard to argue with. Students who take University 101 295 sections are being taught this fall are more likely to return for their sophomore year, have better GPAs and graduate at higher rates than their peers who dont take the freshman seminar. What we know from 50 years of research is the No. 1 predictor of a student's decision to stay at Carolina is helping them establish a sense of belonging. That means that they like the people and they find it easy to make friends. It's kind of the heart of University 101, says Dan Friedman, executive director of University 101 programs. Community is the most essential ingredient. What we know from 50 years of research is the No. 1 predictor of a student's decision to stay at Carolina is helping them establish a sense of belonging. Community is the most essential ingredient. Dan Friedman, executive director of University 101 programs Friedmans office spends a lot of time researching and retooling the course and, perhaps most importantly, preparing the 250 instructors who will lead the classes, which are capped at 19 students. The course is only as good as the person teaching it. So what we have to do is get really great people who have a kind and caring spirit and want to be helpful to our first-year students. And then we give them a lot of development and support to be excellent instructors. That includes a robust faculty development system that invests heavily in the people teaching it. Before entering the classroom, they are guided by a supportive cohort and a 650-page resource manual that covers anything and everything that could come up in a U-101 classroom, along with assessment-driven best practices. Its also not stagnant. The content and the curriculum are evaluated every couple of years to ensure its relevance. As the institution changes, as our priorities change, as our students needs change, so too must University 101, Friedman says. It is built to be adaptive by gathering feedback from students, former students and staff and faculty about what is needed. We talked to a U101 instructor, a peer leader, a student and an alumna about their experiences in U-101. Here are their stories. Ashley Elliott Dukes University 101 instructor Ashley Elliott Dukes teaches an early morning section of University 101 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, making it the first time most of her students step into a college classroom. And Dukes, the manager of scholar engagement at the Darla Moore School of Business, is thrilled to be standing at the front of the room. Having that be the very first college class for many of them is impactful. Its creating a foundation to say, We're going to make sure that we give you the resources and tools you need to be successful. But not only that, we want you to build community. We don't want you to feel isolated. We want you to know that there are many individuals here to make sure that you win and that you're successful, Dukes says. Dukes has been teaching U-101 since 2014, soon after she arrived at the university, when she worked in marketing for the Career Center. She has previously taught general sections of the course, along with sections for undeclared or undecided students, who were seeking to identify their major choice. It was a natural fit because I tailored my sections specifically around career services and helping students discover their skills, strengths, and interests to in-turn identify what they wanted to do after graduation, she says. I wasnt confident in my major choice when I first got to college, and didnt know the career I wanted to enter into, so I felt like my purpose was to help my students with that and it was very rewarding to have that opportunity. They come in and theyre reserved, theyre quiet, theyre often very nervous By the end of the semester, theyre confident. Ashley Elliott Dukes Now working in the Moore School, she teaches two U-101 sections for Rising Scholars, a program designed to connect diverse and underrepresented, South Carolina business students with opportunities and resources across campus. And while the past several years have been filled with challenges Dukes lost two family members in 2018 and 2019, and then COVID-19 hit she said the students in her classroom have inspired, motivated and encouraged her. There was uncertainty and many challenges around the pandemic. But my students were brave and they pushed through. They sacrificed a lot, she says. We sometimes think that this generation of students are not resilient, but they absolutely are. Their presence alone and displays of resiliency helped me navigate adversity and that was inspiring because I was instrumental in helping teach them this vital skill. In her U-101 classes, she notices quite a change in every student. They come in and theyre reserved, theyre quiet, and often very nervous. It doesnt matter where they are from, it doesn't matter what dimensions of diversity they identify with, its natural to have these feelings, she says. However, by the end of the semester, they're confident. They say, You know what, I can do this. I can make it the next three years. They feel like they belong and that they are at home, no matter where theyve come to us from. They feel like a true Carolinian. And that makes me really happy and very proud of them. Jacob Lenski University 101 peer leader Jacob Lenski, a University 101 peer leader, is different from every other student in his U-101 classroom he didnt take U-101 as a first-year student. But it was that fear of what he had missed that led him to apply to be a peer leader a student who works as a mentor and assists the instructor in each U-101 class. A lot of my classmates had really good experiences with it, and they said it was super beneficial for them, Lenski says. And then there was an email that came out saying that they were looking for peer leaders. I thought, Hey, this seems like something thatd be really interesting. It was something I missed out on as a freshman, but I may be able to experience in a different way as a peer leader. Lenski, a senior majoring in biology and minoring in computer science, is now in his second year with the U-101 program. And the South Carolina Honors College student from Columbia is thriving in the role. A peer leader helps with teaching the lessons and giving examples, but theyre also a role model. And since you are so close in age to the people youre teaching and youve been through the same things that they have, youre a mentor in a way, Lenski says. You give a lot of advice, and you help them learn from your mistakes and your successes. For example, Lenski says he didnt have a perfect first-year roommate experience, and now knows that he waited too long to clearly voice his concerns. So when my student came to me with a very similar type of situation, I was able to say, Hey, this is kind of what I did and what didnt work so well, and this is what I would have done differently. As for his successes, he is able to share some of his tips on study habits, such as how he blocked off time for difficult classes and how he contacted classmates to set up study group sessions. I think the most rewarding thing about being a peer leader is that youre really making a difference in some peoples lives. In every class that you have, theres a couple of people that are really quiet and reserved. And the best thing in the world is to see them start off as very shy and not forthcoming at the beginning of the semester. And then by the end of the semester, theyre involved in clubs, theyre making friends, they are really enjoying their freshman year, he says. So I think thats the most rewarding thing, seeing how people really thrive in college when maybe they didnt think they were going to at first. Mali Hunter University 101 student When Mali Hunter arrived at the University of South Carolina from Greenville, she says she found it a little difficult to make friends during her first days on campus. That changed in her University 101 classes. Soon, she saw familiar faces around campus, at her home in Green Quad and even in the library, where her peer leader also worked. I feel like our class was really close and I was able to hang out with people and go to games with them and go to the carnivals and other on-campus events, Hunter says. My teacher (Sandy Greene), she really kind of made us a community. Hunter says she first became interested in taking U-101 after reading about the programs reputation and the academic success rate for students who took the first-year course. Hunter also called on Greene, who is the associate director for communications and partnerships with University 101 Programs, for advice when she was trying to figure out her next steps at Carolina. At the mid-point in the semester she met with Greene and told her she wanted to apply to be an international business major in the Moore School of Business. We sat down and we basically were laying out what type of clubs and organizations I could join to become more involved on campus. It was really nice to sit down with the instructor and have that kind of help. Hunter learned this summer that she was accepted into the IB program. As a German minor, she hopes to eventually work in Germany. Now starting her sophomore year, Hunter says she is still friends with her classmates from U-101, and she has advice for incoming students at South Carolina. I would definitely recommend that they take (U-101), because it may lead to other opportunities that they dont even know about, she says. They dont want to not take it and regret it later. Maya Sabbagh University 101 alumna Maya Sabbagh, who earned her degree in 2018 from the Arnold School of Public Health, recently offered some advice to a co-worker whose daughter is starting the college application process. I told her, First of all, you should look at USC because I adored going there. But secondly, you should look for a school that offers a program similar to U-101, although I dont think there are any quite as good, said Sabbagh, who earned her masters in public health with a concentration in epidemiology from the University of Michigan in May. She now works at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta. As a Capstone Scholar who came to the university from Toledo, Ohio, Sabbagh says much of her success in college and beyond can be traced back to the U-101 classroom. I remember that was a really impactful class for me. And also having the peer leader who was a role model of someone who had done what I at the time hoped to do in college was really great. Maya Sabbagh Its really important to have that cornerstone, that touchpoint in your first year when everything seems so chaotic and youre thrown into pseudo adulthood, Sabbagh says. Her section of U-101 was a service-oriented class for Capstone Scholars. She took it with her freshman roommate, and the two are still best friends. She also has remained close with others from her U-101 class. Its been really cool still being friends with the people I took that class with. Ive been watching them graduate law school, get engaged, move to cool places, get cool jobs. I think, Wow, we all really started together and here we are now. Along with the class helping her navigate the campus, she remembers discussions about values and how those shape the decisions people make. I remember that was a really impactful class for me. And also having the peer leader who was a role model of someone who had done what I at the time hoped to do in college was really great. She was such a fan of the class that she ended up working in the U-101 office from her sophomore through senior years, and was a peer mentor and team teacher while at UofSC. It helped me make a blueprint for my college years that I very much followed throughout. And I dont know how well I would have done without that. I think I probably could have figured it out, but having that groundwork really helped me, she says. Looking back at college, I really dont have any regrets. Im very proud of what I did, and pretty much all of it can be linked back to what I learned in U-101 and the opportunities I got from taking it. Both the first and second interstellar meteors, IM1 and IM2, are outliers in material strength and may have originated in supernova explosions, according to new research by Harvard University astrophysicists. IM1 was detected by U.S. government sensors in 2014, identified as an interstellar object candidate in 2019, and confirmed in 2022. Also known as CNEOS1 2014-01-08, the object had an estimated diameter of 0.45 m (1.5 feet), a mass of 460 kg, and a pre-impact velocity of 60 km per second (37.3 miles per second). IM1, detected by U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) sensors through the light that it emitted as it burned up in the Earths atmosphere off of the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2014, was determined to be an interstellar object in 2019, a conclusion that was confirmed by independent analysis conducted by the DoD in 2022, explained Harvard University researchers Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb. The object predated the interstellar object Oumuamua by 3.8 years, and the interstellar object 2I/Borisov by 5.6 years. The measured peak are apparent in the light curve of IM1 at an altitude of 18.7 km (11.6 miles) implies ambient ram pressure of 194 MPa (Megapascals) when the meteor disintegrated, they added. This level of material strength is over 20 times higher than stony meteorites and 2 times larger than iron meteorites. IM1 was also dynamically unusual its speed relative to the Local Standard of Rest is shared by less than 5% of all stars. The second interstellar meteor, IM2 or CNEOS 2017-03-09, was identified in data from the CNEOS fireball catalog. The object was detected on March 9, 2017, at an altitude of 23 km (14.3 miles) over Atlantic Ocean near Portugal. It was roughly a meter (3 feet) in size, 10 times more massive than IM1, and was moving at a speed of 40 km per second (24.9 miles per second). The researchers also compared the material strength of IM1 and IM2 with that of other CNEOS objects. IM1 and IM2 are ranked 1 and 3 in terms of material strength out of all 273 fireballs in the CNEOS catalog, they said. This implies that interstellar meteors come from a population with material strength characteristically higher than meteors originating from within the Solar System. Additionally, we find that if the two objects are representative of a background population on random trajectories, their combined detections imply that approximately 40% of all refractory elements are locked in meter-scale interstellar objects. Such a high abundance seemingly defies a planetary system origin. We assume that IM1 and IM2 are composed of refractory elements, even though their material strengths imply that they were primarily metallic in composition, they added. Interestingly, there is a paucity of refractory elements observed in the gas phase in the interstellar medium, an observation which could potentially reflect refractory elements being locked in interstellar objects. Supernovae have been observed to produce iron-rich bullets, which could be a possible origin of IM1 and IM2. The teams paper will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. _____ Amir Siraj & Abraham Loeb. 2022. Interstellar Meteors are Outliers in Material Strength. ApJL, submitted for publication; arXiv: 2209.09905 Cooperation between the UN and Regional and Sub-Regional Organisations: Debate on the Partnership with the AU Tomorrow (11 October), the Security Council will hold a debate on cooperation between the UN and regional and sub-regional organisations, focusing on the partnership with the African Union (AU). Gabons Foreign Minister Michael Moussa-Adamo will chair the meeting. The expected briefers are Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat and Chairperson of the Commission of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) Gilberto da Piedade Verissimo. Some African countries may participate under rule 37 of the Councils provisional rules of procedure. A presidential statement proposed by Gabon is a possible outcome of the meeting. At the time of writing, the draft has yet to be shared with Council members. Gabon has circulated a concept note ahead of tomorrows debate. The meeting, which will mark the 20th anniversary of the AU, aims to facilitate a discussion on how to build a constructive multipolar world. Gabon would like Council members to explore ways and means of strengthening the partnership between the UN and the AU to support this objective and to promote sustainable peace, development and human rights in Africa. In light of the renewed interest in Security Council reform, Gabon also wants to encourage discussion on this issue and draw attention to African views on the matter. The Secretary-Generals annual report on Strengthening the partnership between the UN and the AU on issues of peace and security in Africa, including on the work of the UN Office to the AU (UNOAU), which was published on 25 August, also forms the basis for tomorrows debate. The report covers the activities carried out by UNOAU and the UN system since the previous report on 30 August 2021. It describes the cooperation between the UN Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) and their regular engagement through a monthly informal videoconference (VTC) meeting, in which they exchange views on their respective programmes of work and related matters. Another cooperation mechanism between the two Councils is their annual consultative meeting, which rotates between New York and Addis Ababa. On 14 October, the 16th joint annual consultative meeting between the UN Security Council and the AUPSC will take place in New York. It will focus on the situations in West Africa and the Sahel and in the Great Lakes region; the application of sanctions in conflict situations in Africa; and the longstanding issue of securing adequate, predictable and sustainable financing for AU-led peace support operations. This meeting will be preceded by the seventh informal joint seminar of the two Councils, which is set to take place on 13 October. At the seminar, the two Councils will exchange views on how to enhance cooperation in peacebuilding and sustaining peace in Africa. Other issues to be deliberated at the seminar relate to working methods and how the two Councils can work together towards a common agenda in Africa. In line with existing practice, the two Councils are expected to adopt a joint communique as the outcome of their annual meeting. Currently, Council members are negotiating a draft which covers a wide range of topics to be considered at the annual meeting and the joint seminar. So far, they have held one round of negotiations on 6 October. It appears that language related to the financing of AU-led peace support operations, climate change and sanctions is controversial. Council members may convene for another round of negotiations to finalise the draft before they meet with their AUPSC counterparts, who have arrived in New York in advance of the annual meeting. Discussion on the financing of AU-led peace support operations has been revived in the Council in recent months. This issue was contentious during the negotiations on a Chinese-initiated presidential statement, which was adopted on 31 August. In an apparent compromise, Council members agreed to language requesting the Secretary-General to submit, by 30 April 2023, a report on progress made by the UN and the AU to fulfil the commitments set out in resolution 2320 of 8 November 2016 on cooperation between the UN and regional and sub-regional organisations and resolution 2378 of 20 September 2017 on peacekeeping reform. The report is also expected to include recommendations on moving forward that reflect good practices and lessons-learned with the view to secure predictable, sustainable and flexible resources. (For background, see our 30 August Whats in Blue story.) Climate change is also a divisive issue in the Council, resulting in difficult negotiations on the inclusion of references to climate change and security in Council products. In the 31 August presidential statement, however, Council members agreed on language recognising the need to enhance capacity-building support to African countries in their efforts to mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. The A3 (Gabon, Ghana and Kenya) have been critical about the adverse effects of sanctions and have questioned their utility. Other members, such as China and Russia, have been raising the issue of unilateral coercive measures. But compromise language was agreed in August, which expresses [the Councils] readiness to review, adjust and terminate, when appropriate, its sanctions regimes taking into account the evolution of the situation on the ground and the need to minimize unintended adverse humanitarian effects. Council members may consider using such agreed language to circumvent some of the contentious issues in the negotiations on the draft communique. The Secretary-Generals annual report also describes the cooperation between the UN Secretariat and the AU Commission in the context of the UN-AU Framework for the Implementation of Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The two organisations coordinate their work through platforms that include an annual conference attended by senior leadership and a Joint Task Force (JTF) meeting, which takes place biannually at departmental level. This years annual conference is expected to be held in Addis Ababa in December and is likely to review progress in the implementation of the various UN-AU cooperation frameworks. It will be preceded by a JTF meeting in November to discuss a number of country-specific and thematic issues. At tomorrows debate, Guterres may elaborate on the work that the UN has carried out in cooperation with the AU across a range of issues, including conflict prevention and peace-making, peacekeeping and peace support operations, peacebuilding and the rule of law. He may also describe the UNs partnership with African regional economic communities and regional mechanisms in this regard. Guterres might highlight the challenges and opportunities for peace and security in Africa, which are outlined in his latest report. These include the political impasse in Libya, the deteriorating security conditions in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the difficult political transitions in the Horn of Africa, the ongoing conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, and the threat of terrorism and violent extremism in West Africa and the Sahel. Regarding the last issue, Guterres may note that the UN, together with the AU, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Group of Five for the Sahel (G5 Sahel), formally launched in September an Independent High-Level Panel on Security, Governance and Development in the Sahel, to provide recommendations for effective response to and coordination of the challenges facing the region. He might also refer to Africas challenges in relation to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse consequences of climate change and the impact of the war in Ukraine, including on food security. Faki may speak about the food, energy and financial crisis facing Africa. He might reiterate Africas support for dialogue to resolve the ongoing war in Ukraine and highlight the AUs engagement in this regard. Moussa may also describe the AUs efforts to counter the growing threat of terrorism and violent extremism, as well as the resurgence of coups detat. In light of the 27th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27), which will be held in Egypt in November, he may underscore the continents needs and circumstances in light of the devastating effects of climate change and appeal for international support to Africas mitigation and adaptation efforts. Verissimo may highlight ECCAS role, together with the AU and other regional mechanisms, in addressing peace and security issues in the Central Africa region. Vietnam is named as the host country of Miss Tourism World 2022 for the first time. The international pageant will attract more than 60 beauties from countries and territories. The contestants will participate in a trip to visit landscapes, cultural and historical sites in Hanoi and localities in the northern region, such as Tran Quoc pagoda, Van Mieu Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature), Thang Long Imperial Citadel , Bat Trang traditional pottery village, Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex, Hoa Lu Ancient Capital, Bai Dinh pagoda, Special National Historical Relic of Hung Kings Temple, Tay Thien Scenic Relic Site and others. The contestants will participate in a trip to visit landscapes, cultural and historical sites in Hanoi and localities in the northern region. The event is a chance to promote Vietnamese tourism to international friends and foreign visitors. The tourism industry is valued at US$100 billion. The Miss Tourism World Organization hopes to help the host country draw local and international tourists, and investors as well as raise tourism spending worldwide to revive the global tourism industry post-Covid-19, Mr. John Singh, founder of Miss Tourism World said. By Tieu Tan Translated by Kim Khanh Thank you for visiting the Daily Journal. Please purchase an Enhanced Subscription to continue reading. 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! Australias privacy and telecommunications watchdogs have launched investigations into the embattled telecommunications giant Optus to scrutinise whether it needed to keep extensive data on millions of its customers and how it was stored. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced co-ordinated investigations on Tuesday, after almost 10 million people had their data stolen from the countrys second-largest telecommunications company. The OAIC has launched an investigation into Optus. Credit:Brendon Thorne If the privacy commissioner's investigation finds serious or repeated breaches of privacy law, then she can apply to the Federal Court for penalties of up to $2.2 million per issue. Privacy commissioner Angelene Falk said Optus had co-operated with her preliminary inquiries but that a full investigation would give her the power to compel the production of information and documents. Ive decided that a full investigation is warranted because Australians are entitled to know whether Optus had reasonable security safeguards in place to protect their personal information at the time of the breach, she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. An international movement that has seen climate activists smear cake across the Mona Lisa and superglue their hands to masterpieces by Sandro Botticelli, Vincent van Gogh and Umberto Boccioni has arrived in Australia. Two Extinction Rebellion protesters were arrested at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) on Sunday after glueing themselves to the 1951 Picasso painting Massacre in Korea. At their feet lay a banner reading Climate Chaos = War + Famine. Protesters glue themselves to a Picasso painting at the NGV. Credit:Twitter: Jane Morton The incident follows a spate of similar protests in Europe. And, according to sociologist and activism expert Dr Justine Lloyd, the trend shows that protesters are increasingly exploring avenues for action with less punitive consequences, as anti-protest laws targeting the climate movement grow harsher. Extinction Rebellion and groups like Blockade Australia have been increasingly prevented from traditional forms of protests like street protests and the blocking of the traffic, Lloyd says. Indie-pop artist Rex Orange County has been charged with six counts of sexual assault against a woman, according to reports by British news outlet The Sun. The 24-year-old, whose real name is Alexander OConnor, allegedly assaulted a woman twice in Londons West End on June 1 this year, and a further four times the following day once in a taxi and three times at his Notting Hill home. The Sun has reported the woman was over the age of 16 at the time. Rex Orange County, aka Alexander OConnor, has been charged with sexual assault. Appearing at Southwark Crown Court in London on Monday, OConnor pleaded not guilty on all six counts. He was released on unconditional bail and given a provisional trial date set for January 3 next year. Alex is shocked by the allegations which he denies and looks forward to clearing his name in court, a representative said in a statement on behalf of OConnor. He is unable to make any further comment because of the ongoing proceedings. Carrie Bickmore will leave Channel Tens The Project, stepping down as presenter after 13 years in the job. A tearful Bickmore, 41, announced the decision at the end of Tuesdays program, confirming she will remain with The Project until the end of the year. Carrie Bickmore has announced her departure from The Project after 13 years. Credit:Twitter/@theprojecttv Flanked by co-hosts Hamish Macdonald, Kate Langbroek and Peter Helliar, Bickmore said she was leaving the show to spend more time with her family. Its been the hardest decision of my professional life to make this call but its time for a new challenge, she said. Im gonna miss my best mates on the desk, the job itself which is just so incredibly fulfilling, our wonderful viewers whove been on the journey over the last 13 years. In a typically bloated column published on Sunday, former Australian editor Chris Mitchell warned journalists about the dangers of uncritical reporting on a companys environmental, social and governance commitments. We thought wed take Mitchells advice and apply that eye to News Corps own ESG report, a document dripping in self-serving nonsense and a masterclass in corporate doublespeak which was distributed among staff on Tuesday. <> Credit:John Shakespeare It begins with a message from ailing emperor Rupert Murdoch himself, spruiking the companys achievements in working toward a cleaner and healthier world and advancing the cause of equal opportunity. Those achievements include Foxtels six-star green offices, the fact that 400 employees have taken a Carbonauts workshops where they learn how to be greener, and the Mission Zero campaign undertaken by News Corps Australian mastheads to make the tentative case for emissions reduction. Former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro has pleaded not guilty to assaulting a cameraman and causing malicious damage outside a Manly restaurant in August this year. Footage of the scuffle shows Barilaro pushing freelancer cameraman Matt Costello and his camera away from him before walking away and waiting at traffic lights to cross the road. John Barilaro (inset) in a scuffle with a cameraman in Manly. Barilaro, 50, will vigorously defend the two charges, his lawyer Danny Eid said outside Manly Local Court on Wednesday. Were not lying down on this one, he said. North Sydney Council will appoint an independent consultant to investigate the $64 million-plus redevelopment of its historic harbourside pool after worsening cost blowouts and delays. Mayor Zoe Baker received support from fellow councillors at a meeting on Monday night for an urgent inquiry into the councils handling of the revamp of North Sydney Olympic Pool, which opened at Milsons Point in 1936. The famous pool overlooking the harbour, originally due for completion in November, is not forecast to reopen until July at the earliest. The project is not meeting the projected timing and cost due to significant delays and variations under the building contract, Baker said in a mayoral minute at a council meeting on Monday night. HSC students are increasingly shying away from extension English courses with thousands fewer selecting the subjects compared with more than a decade ago. The latest enrolment data from the NSW Education Standards Authority reveals plummeting Extension 1 and 2 English enrolments over the past 15 years, with the number of pupils taking the courses dropping by 40 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively. NESA data shows Extension 1 and 2 English enrolments over the past 15 years have fallen dramatically. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer Teachers warn students are reluctant to embark on harder English courses due to unpredictability around marking, especially for major works that can include a film script, poetry or short fiction or non-fiction essays. Marking for Extension 2 can be variable because of the range of options students have for their major work, from a television script to up to 6000-word non-fiction pieces. The variability in forms and media can make it difficult to rank disparate scripts, said executive officer at the English Teachers Association Eva Gold. Hawke to US: hands off The PM warned the US Secretary of State, Mr Shultz, that special American-Japanese trade deals would cause a serious souring of Australian relations with the US. In some of the bluntest comments Australia has put directly to the Reagan Administration, Mr Hawke said he feared that the US, as part of its pressure on Japan to reduce its trade surplus, might do deals which were against Australias interests. Joh faces sack: Sparkes The conflict in the Queensland National Party reached new depths of bitterness yesterday with a public warning to the Premier by the State president, Sir Robert Sparkes. Sir Robert said Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen would be sacked if he conducted a witch-hunt against opponents, and failed to consult the party on important decisions. Sir Roberts comments are a major departure from his recent conciliatory approach. Go eat an ashtray A jealous divorcee who ran down his former wifes new partner before repeatedly striking him in the head with an axe has been found guilty of murder. Cabramatta West man Thanh Tran, 79, admitted striking Pok Min Fah on the head with the axe after knocking him down with his car on March 14, 2019. Thanh Tran has been found guilty of murdering his ex-wifes new partner in Cabramatta West in 2019. Credit:ninevms But he pleaded not guilty to murder and guilty to manslaughter, saying his judgment was substantially impaired due to a loss of control caused by trauma from his lived experience of Cambodian dictator Pol Pots regime. The NSW Supreme Court jury deliberated on its verdict for two days before unanimously rejecting Trans claims, and finding him guilty on Tuesday afternoon. Public housing residents seek compensation for forced lockdown in 2020 Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss A fleet of drones could be ferrying pathology samples in minutes from remote communities as early as next year, under a partnership between Mater hospitals and drone company Swoop Aero. The proposal would see the company base itself out of Maters Springfield site, south-west of Brisbane. Mater and Swoop Aero have partnered to ferry pathology samples from remote communities in minutes instead of hours. Sabrina Ravail, Swoop Aeros chief commercial officer, said from that base they could reach Moreton Bays island communities in a quarter of an hour. Russell Island could be reached in 14 minutes, Stradbroke Island in 16 minutes, and Hope Island on the Gold Coast in 15 minutes, she said. A Queensland father accused of withholding insulin from his dying eight-year-old daughter and relying upon the healing power of God has been committed to stand trial for her alleged murder. Jason Richard Struhs, his wife Kerrie and 12 others from a fringe religious group based in Toowoomba have been charged over the death of type 1 diabetic Elizabeth Rose Struhs, whose body was found in a Rangeville home on January 8. Kerrie and Jason Struhs with their eight-year-old daughter Elizabeth. Credit:A Current Affair Police alleged she had gone days without insulin. At Tuesdays conclusion of the fathers committal proceedings, police prosecutor Alister Windsor detailed statements from witnesses and experts, including paediatric consultant Dr Catherine Skellern, who said Elizabeths death would have been painful and was over a prolonged period of days. As Queensland residents filled out census forms in early August last year, Brisbane had just emerged from its fifth COVID lockdown and state health authorities had recorded fewer than 2000 infections. The latest batch of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics described as a fascinating insight into working life during the pandemic reveals 5 per cent of the states population was working from home. A Brisbane resident walks past a closed restaurant during the COVID lockdown in early August last year. Credit:Jono Searle/Getty Images While 344,696 of the 2.4 million people employed across the state on August 10 last year clocked on remotely, a further 171,840 worked no hours because they were on leave, in lockdown or self-isolation. Across the country, more than 20 per cent of the 12 million people with jobs worked from home with those in eastern states and capital cities more likely to have done so than their western and regional counterparts. A 23-year-old man has died in an explosion while four-wheel-driving with friends in bushland north of Perth. Detective Sergeant Jeremy Spivey of the Homicide Squad said a group of six friends were driving in two vehicles in Pinjar on September 22, when they saw the fire in the distance. They went to investigate, and as Jack Kinneen, of Heathridge, approached the fire there was an explosion. He died at the scene despite efforts from his friends to save him. Spivey said police believed the fire was deliberately lit and called for two people seen in the area prior to the incident to come forward. Rome: Italy s Uffizi galleries is suing Jean Paul Gaultier after the French fashion house used images of Botticellis The Birth of Venus on a range of T-shirts, trousers and wraps, allegedly without asking permission. As well as The Birth of Venus, painted by Sandro Botticelli in 1485, which hangs in the Uffizi, the clothing collection also features The Three Graces (1635) by Peter Paul Rubens, which is held by the Prado Museum in Madrid. Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, painted in 1485. The Uffizi first launched a protest in April, when the clothing line appeared. It said the clothes should be immediately withdrawn from sale, or the French company should come to a commercial arrangement to pay to use images from the artworks. The Florence art museum said the letter was ignored by the fashion house, with the result that it now intends to take legal action. A little over three weeks ago, I sat in a large conference room in Kyiv and listened to President Volodymyr Zelensky outline how his country, despite the heroic achievements of its armed forces, would need a continuing flow of military assistance from the West. At the very top of his priorities was air and missile defence systems to close the skies, to use his exact words. The past 24 hours has again shown why Zelensky was so strident about this particular requirement. After the attack on the Kerch Bridge, Russia unleashed a barrage of 84 missiles and 13 Iranian kamikaze drones on Ukrainian cities. While about half were shot down, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Kyiv and others were attacked. None were Ukrainian military targets, but residential, tourist and business areas as well as several civil infrastructure targets. A Russian warship launches a cruise missile at a target in Ukraine. Credit:AP This is hardly a new act from the Russians. Since the beginning of this war, they have mastered the art of the atrocity. Shopping malls, train stations, parks, playgrounds, hospitals, theatres, cultural sites and residential areas are all fair game for the brutal yet clueless Russian military commanders. These attacks are given a thin veil of legitimacy by the Russian military by calling their targets military, but nothing is further from the truth. These are deliberate attacks to terrorise the people of Ukraine. What conclusions might be drawn from this latest round of missile attacks? London: One of Britains top spies says the West is on the verge of sleepwalking into allowing China to export its fear-and-control state to the rest of the world via its technological domination. Delivering the RUSI think tanks annual security lecture in Westminster, Sir Jeremy Fleming, the head of GCHQ, identified China, rather than Russia, as the national security issue that would define our future. Huawei was banned from supplying equipment to Australias 5G network in 2018. Credit:AP And he singled out the Solomon Islands as an example of a nation that did not know which way to face and said the West had to be a credible alternative to Chinas offers of loans and infrastructure. He said China had patiently and strategically set out to dominate the global technology space and that its politically motivated misuse of that power had become an increasingly urgent problem. The response was supposed to show power, but in fact it showed powerlessness, Gallyamov said. Theres nothing else the army can do. The attacks killed at least 14 and wounded scores of others, while countless more in cities across Ukraine were terrified by dozens of incoming missiles explicitly targeting civilian infrastructure. After the strikes, some of the invasions harshest critics among the Russian hawks declared that the military was finally doing its job. The strongman leader of the Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov who recently excoriated the armys incompetent leadership said in a Telegram post that he was now 100 per cent happy with the war effort. Run, Zelensky, run, he wrote, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Other cheerleaders of the war triumphantly recalled Putins declaration in July that Russia had not started anything yet in earnest in Ukraine. Now, it seems, its started, said a state television talk show host, Olga Skabeyeva. A firefighter helps his colleague escape from a crater as they extinguish smoke from a burned car after a Russian attack in Kyiv. Credit:AP Hard-liners in Russia have been pushing this strategy for a very long time, said Greg Yudin, a professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Like, we have to scare them into submission, he said of the hard-right viewpoint. So, in order to do that, we have to be really, really violent. The strike on the Crimean bridge, Yudin said, meant that the Kremlin had no choice but to give in and escalate the attacks on Ukraine. Putin described the strikes as a response to Ukrainian terrorist acts, casting them as a one-time assault to deter future Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. In his home city, St Petersburg, where he had travelled on Friday for his 70th birthday, Putin spoke on national television for just over 3 minutes in what the Kremlin characterised as the start of a meeting with his Security Council. Loading He made a point of saying the strikes had occurred at the militarys initiative, an apparent effort to head off assertions that he was plotting the war effort in isolation. This morning, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Defence and according to the plan of the Russian General Staff, a massive strike with air, sea and land-based high-precision long-range weapons was launched against Ukrainian energy, military command and communications facilities, Putin said. If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, the measures taken by Russia will be tough and in their scale will correspond to the level of threats posed to the Russian Federation. No one should have any doubt about it. In his speech, Putin made one notable omission: He did not mention the West as the ultimate culprit behind Saturdays Crimean bridge explosion or other suspected Ukrainian attacks. That was a departure from the typical Kremlin rhetoric that portrays Washington and London as the puppeteers behind Ukraines resistance. The streets of Kyiv after a missile attack. Credit:Twitter/ZelenskyyUa The shift was a possible signal that the Russian leader was interested in controlling the escalation of the war and that he was not on the verge of provoking a direct conflict with NATO. Still, the deadly and seemingly indiscriminate strikes, while satisfying the bloodthirstiness of Russian hawks, carry some risk for Putin, not least because they clash with the Kremlins claims that Russia was not targeting Ukrainian civilians and was simply conducting a special military operation. They could also put pressure on Putin to escalate further in the case of additional Ukrainian attacks or front-line successes, potentially increasing the discord within Russias ruling elite over how hard to push in Ukraine. Indeed, pro-Kremlin figures, while celebrating the strikes, struggled to explain the incongruence of the fiery assault on cities that, in Putins telling, are core to Russias cultural heritage. Some justified the mayhem by blaming Ukraine and the West. It is bitter for us to see missile attacks on one of the most beautiful cities in the world, our Kyiv, Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin commentator who is frequently on state television, wrote on Telegram. All responsibility for the attacks on Kyiv lies with the occupiers and their collaborators. That is, on Biden and Zelensky personally. Inside Russia, few voices on Monday urged restraint. Even as the hawks praised the attacks, some lamented that Putin did not go far enough; Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current vice chair of Putins Security Council, said on Telegram that the only way to protect Russia was to completely dismantle the government in Ukraine. Loading Some signs pointed to Putins being prepared for a wider escalation of the war. On Saturday, he appointed a general known for his ruthlessness, Sergei Surovikin, to lead the war effort in Ukraine. And Putins closest international ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, declared on Monday that thousands of Russian soldiers would soon arrive in the country to form a joint military group with Belarusian forces creating the spectre of a new threat to Ukraines north. Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian political scientist and lawyer, said Putins escalations run counter to his own intuition and seriously limit his policy options by backing him into a corner. All of Putins actions today are aimed at getting out of this corner from which the only way out is the nuclear button, Pastukhov, an honorary senior research associate at University College London, said in a phone interview. In a sense, what has just happened really increases risks for him. Israel said it reached an historical agreement with Lebanon after both sides approved the latest draft of a US-brokered deal that settles a maritime border dispute in a gas-rich part of the Mediterranean Sea. The accord could pave the way for both countries to ramp up offshore gas production, including Israeli exports to Europe, which is desperate for more supplies after Russia cut flows after invading Ukraine. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement that the agreement will inject billions into Israels economy, while a tweet from the Lebanese presidents office said that it preserves its rights to its natural wealth. Israels offshore Leviathan gas field in the Mediterranean Sea. Credit:AP US President Joe Biden spoke with Lapid and Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Tuesday (US time), and both leaders signalled their willingness to end the dispute and push forward with implementation of the agreement, a senior US official said. The US believes that natural gas could quickly flow to Lebanon if implemented under its current terms, according to the official, who briefed reporters on the deal on the condition of anonymity. Energyparticularly in the Eastern Mediterraneanshould serve as the tool for cooperation, stability, security, and prosperity, not for conflict, Biden said in a statement. The agreement announced by both governments today will provide for the development of energy fields for the benefit of both countries, setting the stage for a more stable and prosperous region, and harnessing vital new energy resources for the world. It filled me with dread, he wrote. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral. For three seasons in the mid- to late-1960s, Shatner brought space, the final frontier, into homes as Captain James Kirk in Star Trek: The Original Series. William Shatner, looks through the Blue Origin capsule window during his flight. Credit:AP It was about the time that he was portraying the fictional commanding officer of the USS Enterprise that Shatner read Rachel Carsons seminal ecological text Silent Spring, which he described last year as an eye-opener. I read it and began to bleat about the warming of the planet, he said. But nobody took it seriously. Still, Shatner kept bleating about the environment. He starred in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, in which his crew travels back in time to save humpback whales, which were endangered at the time, as they were the only creatures that could communicate with an alien probe that threatened to destroy the Earth. The movie was inspired by Greenpeace, which saw donations increase after the blockbusters release and reacted to the film by saying it subtly reinforces why Greenpeace exists. William Shatner as Captain James Kirk (right), with his crew members of the USS Enterprise in a scene from the TV series Star Trek. Credit:AP In 2009, Shatner scolded Hewlett-Packard for failing to keep its promise to produce a toxic-free computer. And he has consistently warned that overpopulation and climate change are existential threats to humanity. After playing a fictional spaceship captain for decades, Shatner finally got his own chance to venture into the final frontier. Last August, two months before his flight, Shatner said he wanted to go to space so that he could look back at the blue orb and hinted that a very enterprising and entrepreneurial friend had once explored how to get Shatner on a civilian flight. Two months later, Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post), announced that Shatner and three other passengers would fly into space on its second human spaceflight mission. In a news release, Shatner described the opportunity to see space for himself a miracle. A day before taking off, Shatner was excited for his imminent trip. In one video clip, he joked about jumping out of the spaceship capsule. In another, he said he planned to have his nose pressed against the window and that, when he did, he didnt want to see a little gremlin looking back at him. Then, it was launch day, and at 9.49am on October 13,Blue Origins New Shepard rocket named after Alan Shepard, the first American to go into space blasted off. Shatners flight lasted a little more than 10 minutes, climbing to a height of about 106 kilometres, about six kilometres beyond one of the thresholds generally considered the edge of space. While in flight, the crew saw the Earth below and the dark abyss on the other side, experiencing weightlessness for a few minutes. Shatner said he looked out of the window, preoccupied with the colour and curvature of the Earth beneath him, even as he endured the discomfort of weightlessness and then the ominous blackness of space. Then, they descended. Slowed by parachutes, their capsule landed in the desert near Van Horn, Texas, as Blue Origin celebrated a successful mission. Immediately after the spaceflight, Shatner thanked Bezos for giving him the most profound experience I can imagine. Im so filled with emotion about what just happened. Its extraordinary, Shatner said. I hope I never recover from this. I hope I maintain what I feel now. I dont want to lose it. He didnt, he told the Post on Sunday. But he did process it over the ensuing hours, days and months. He described the experience as a clarion call to stop climate change. Shatner said the devastating effects were already beginning to show, citing Hurricane Ians recent destruction of the Florida Gulf Coast and torrential rains in Pakistan. Such seismic forces have the power to snuff out animal and plant species, sometimes without humans ever knowing they existed. Loading I am aware that every moment that goes by, things that took 5 billion years to emerge are going extinct, Shatner told the Post. Well never know them. Referring to the effort to build the atomic bomb in World War II, he called for a second Manhattan Project of scientists, a brain trust charged with removing carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Theres no time for war, he told the Post, referring to Russias invasion of Ukraine. That only contributes to the coming extinctions, which will include human beings. The Washington Post Wellington: New Zealands Labour government has proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The Ardern government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products. The NZ government has proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. Credit:AP But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industrys main lobby group, said the plan would rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand and see farms replaced with trees. Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldnt decrease food production. Madame Chairlady, members of Parliament ..My fellow Sint MaartenersGood Morning! And a happy Constitution Day. I Ajamu Baly have just handed over to this esteemed body a duplicate of the Royal decree concerning my appointment and the official record of my oath-taking, and I am about to notify you, the residents, of my acceptance of the office of Governor. But before I do that, Madam Chairlady please permit me to share with you a story. A story about: A village; Its greatest asset; & Progress. The Village I stand before you today not as a product of my own concern, but of one molded, encouraged, invested in, loved, and inspired by my village. A village built on blood, sweat, and tears inspired solely by a vision of a better tomorrow. The tomorrow of then that we experience today. A heritage of our ancestral village. We are all here as a result of the struggles, actions, and triumphs of our direct and distant ancestors. You see, it took a village to raise this child. You brought me to this point, it is only right that I do my part to ensure that we are able to bring the next villager to this or whichever point they wish to arrive at. This in order to keep the circle of life flowing and maintaining our human capital. To the Sint Maarten Diaspora; your village needs you!! Its greatest asset So, what is the greatest asset of our village? Is it our beautiful beaches, the sunshine, our lush green hills, our expansive hilltop views, our world-class cuisine, the uniqueness of our French and Dutch side and the list goes on and on? I once read that a person/people will never rise above the opinion they have of themselves. What opinion do we have of ourselves? It is said that we are traditionally hard-working, friendly, proud, and resilient people. We were entrepreneurs long before entrepreneurship was a thing. My Grandmother, Mrs. Olinie Sherwood-Romney ran a successful bakery right here on Backstreet selling amongst others some of the sweetest sweetbreads you ever tasted. And I say the following with all respect to those baking sweetbreads today; I have yet to taste another that comes even close. But hey, I am biased. She also had a franchise of this bakery on Anguilla where she also had property. My Great Grandmother Ms. Eler Brown; we called her Gran, farmed cattle, on Bush Road, right here in Cul-de-Sac where I was raised. Gran fed that cattle with the best grass that Gran herself would go to Beacon Hill to cut. Gran used to go to Great Bay very early in the morning where she closed deals on the sale of the milk and meat of her cattle, then traveled back home to Cul-de-Sac to instruct (the eldest of her ten children Mrs. Floricia Baly-Brown) my grandmother; to deliver the products; said milk and meat to her clients in Great Bay and this was all done by foot mind you, before the midday hour. Yeah, I don't know how either, I guess time really moved slower back then. But I digress... These are just two examples of some phenomenal women on our island. And so there are many more examples of phenomenal men and women alike. You see, it is important for us to remember where and who we came from, and the challenges that our ancestors have overcome for us to be here. Our resilience is no happenstance it is ingrained in our DNA. So we owe it to them to give it our all every day but we also owe it to ourselves and to the future. (A future whose blueprint is in our hands as architects of our own future and that of the next generation). A tremendous responsibility. But, with our individual and collective brilliance, tenacity and propriety we are determined and destined to continue to rise to this challenge. And in doing so inspire the next generation as we are inspired by the generations before us. In the event, it is not yet evident or I have not been clear on what our greatest asset is; it is you; our people of this great nation Sint Maarten/Soualiga. As leaders of this beloved village, we should take decisions with this asset always in mind. Those decisions taken today ought to be taken with the reverence of our villagers that came before us and with the determination for a sustainable future for the villagers that are to come after us. As it states on our Coat of Arms, Semper Pro Grediens; always progressing. ~ SZV's financial statements comply with GAAP guidelines.~ PHILIPSBURG:--- For the first time, Social & Health Insurances SZV received a clean audit report for its 2021 financial statements. The clean audit report was issued on September 27, 2022, by the government audit bureau, Stichting Overheids Accountants Bureau (SOAB). A clean audit report also termed an 'Approved Control,' means that the auditors found that the financial reporting by SZV was accurate and transparent. SZV has prioritized improving both the timeliness and quality of its financial statements, which has contributed significantly to this year's approved control and milestone. Weve worked very hard to improve our financial reporting and processes over the years, and receiving this approved control shows that we are moving in the right direction. I am extremely proud of our entire team at SZV. The commitment of every staff member to ensure that our processes are effective has made this milestone possible. We are advocates for sustainable solutions and could not do this without SZV's Supervisory Council, which has an instrumental role in guiding me as the Director of SZV and Minister of VSA, Mr. Omar Ottley. I want to thank Minister Ottley for the strong collaboration and support in addressing the legislative areas that must be improved to safeguard the health care funds. I would also like to thank the Minister of Finance, Mr. Ardwell Irion, for continuously supporting the urgency for improved compliance in government. Mr. Glen A. Carty, Director SZV. The clean audit report of SOAB includes recommendations relating to SZV's financial compliance. Due to no fault of its own, SZV's ability to improve financial compliance has been hampered by some pending legislative changes. However, the organization has been working with legislative experts and receiving tremendous support and cooperation from the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development & Labor to address these within the shortest possible time. "I congratulate SZV and their team for this historic achievement. It's an honor to witness this financial milestone; I feel very proud. The Ministry of VSA has been dedicated to resolving issues with SZV to ensure that the healthcare funds remain sustainable for the future. In a short time, we've made significant and overdue legislative changes to improve the long-term financial position of SZV and will continue to make more improvements. I am confident this is just the beginning of a series of financial milestones for our public health care funds." Mr. Omar Ottley, Minister of VSA. Minister of Finance, Mr. Ardwell Irion, joined in congratulating the management and staff of SZV, commenting, "SZV receiving a clean audit report is the result of exemplary hard work and ongoing organizational transformation. This result is important for us as a country, striving for a financially sound government apparatus and providing effective public services. Congratulations to the team of SZV, and much success on the journey ahead." SZV is continually striving for progress in its mission to provide citizens peace of mind, simplify access to its services, and use state-of-the-art technology. In prior years, SZV had received a 'Disclaimer of Opinion,' which was improved to a 'Qualified Opinion' for the 2020 financial statements. For the 2021 financial statements, SZV received an Approved Control' (Unqualified Auditors Opinion). The condensed version of the 2021 Annual Report will be made available on SZVs website in the coming weeks. PHILIPSBURG: On Monday morning the Coast Guard substation in St. Martin was notified by the police (KPSXM) that they received a notification that a body was seen floating in the Simpson Bay Lagoon. A Metal Shark was immediately sent to the location to investigate the matter. The Coast Guard officers retrieved the body of a male person and brought him to shore. The body of the deceased was handed over to the police and the public prosecutor, who will now continue with the investigation. The Coast Guard would like to express its condolences to the family SABA:--- The Public Entity Saba is grateful for the support that the Dutch Government has been making available to help mitigate the electricity price. But even with these subsidies, it is unavoidable that consumers will still see the effects of the energy crisis on their electricity bills due to the high fuel price. As part of the latest Dutch Government subsidy of 15 million euros for Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba, the fixed fee for electricity will remain zero in 2023. The fixed fee was already reduced to zero through a subsidy for this year. This subsidy will now continue into next year. The Dutch Government will also subsidize half of the increase of the variable fee for electricity if the price exceeds the US $0.38 per KWh. Consumers need to know that the variable fee will remain reliant on the fuel price and the tariff that the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) sets. The variable tariff will be capped to $0,38 per KWh and costs that are above the threshold of $0,38 will be compensated for 50% for all customers. The ACM will stipulate a new tariff per January 1, 2023. If the fuel price rises, so will the variable tariff. Gratitude The Executive Council expressed its gratitude to the Dutch Government for the new subsidy, which is significant. Without Dutch Government subsidies and the six-month subsidy provided through the Public Entity Saba, the electricity bills would have been substantially higher than what consumers are paying now. Over the past months, members of the community have voiced their concerns regarding the rising prices of electricity on Saba. The local and national government have worked together to provide subsidies to reduce the impact of these increasing costs as much as possible. However, the energy crisis is not only a problem here; it is impacting the world, stated the Executive Council. Renewable energy The high energy prices emphasize the importance of becoming more self-sustainable and making investments in renewable energy. It is important to further reduce Sabas dependency on fossil fuels to decrease electricity prices and have a sustainable, reliable energy supply. The only way to do this is to invest in more renewable energy sources. Until then, prices will continue to be greatly influenced by the price of fuel. The additional 10 million euros that the Dutch Government is making available for renewable energy on Saba will help the island to reach a percentage of close to 90% in renewable energy in the future. The plan is to invest in wind, more solar energy, and additional battery storage. Smart investments The Executive Council stated that it was confident that smart, no-regret investments have already been made, which are having a positive impact even though this was not truly represented on the monthly bills because of the extremely high price of fuel. With larger renewable energy investments which are planned to start soon, we can be optimistic that our government, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK), and Saba Electric Company (SEC), are all working towards sustainable, long-term solutions that will benefit all electricity consumers. 1,450+ Organisation Identified in the UAE Web3 Space as per the Crypto Oasis Ecosystem Report 2022 The report is the most detailed account of the Fastest Growing Blockchain Ecosystem in the World and was launched at the opening of the Future Blockchain Summit 2022 Key Highlights: Research suggests that more than 7,000 individuals work in organisations in the Crypto, Blockchain, Metaverse and Web3 Ecosystem of the UAE native organisations account for 65 percent (950 organisations) of the total number and non-native organisations are 35 percent (500 organisations) The Report is broken down into 6 parts which identify the main elements of the Ecosystem: Governments & Associations, Startups & Projects, Investors & Collectors, Service Providers, Corporates and, Education & Research The Report was created in partnership with Roland Berger, one of the leading strategy consulting companies with a dedicated crypto economy and web3 team DUBAI, Oct 10, 2022 (ACN Newswire) Crypto Oasis, the fastest growing Web3 ecosystem in the world, announced that it had identified more than 1,450 active Web3 organisations in the UAE at the end Q3 2022. The research also identified more than 7,000 individuals working in the industry. The organisations that are active in the Blockchain space are broken down into native and non-native according to their dependency on this emerging technology. native organisations which only exist because of this technology account for 65 percent of the total number identified and non-native organisations are at 35 percent. Dubai Multi Commodities Centre(DMCC) has registered more than 460 native organisations which is more than 50% of all native Blockchain organisations in Dubai. Out of the 7,000+ individuals working in the Web3 industry, approximately 77 percent work in Blockchain native organisations and 23 percent work in non-native organisations. The Crypto Oasis Ecosystem Report is a periodic report which is now on its inaugural edition and was created in partnership with Roland Berger, one of the first top-tier strategy consulting firms to have entered the world of Blockchain and is steering their global Crypto Economy advisory out of the UAE. The Report focuses on market development and emerging technologies such as Crypto, Blockchain, Metaverse and Web3. It establishes the first quantitative and qualitative ecosystem study of the Crypto Oasis Ecosystem and identifies its various stakeholders. It includes, a deepdive into the opportunity that Web3 represents for the region, has exclusive content such as the insights on one the largest greenfield mining sites in the world being carried out by Phoenix in Abu Dhabi, as well as survey results by Roland Berger, that assesses the state of the global Crypto Economy for which they collected insights from over 150 C-level executives and innovators across 10 industries. \We strongly believe in the transition towards a crypto economy and see this reflected in the top C-Level executive agendas. The UAE is accelerating its global position as a Crypto and Web3 hub, also thanks to prime ecosystem developers like Crypto Oasis,\ says Pierre Samaties, Partner and global co-head of the firm\-s Crypto economy team. The UAE is uniquely positioned to play a leading role in the global innovation economy. The growth of the Crypto Oasis Ecosystem will continue in the coming months as we can already witness how regulators in the region are welcoming innovation and disruption, making it simpler for Blockchain-related companies to secure licenses and operate. Ralf Glabischnig, Founder of the Crypto Oasis said, \We are pleased to see the UAE supporting forward-thinking organisations such as startups, service providers, investors, as well as science and research institutions in the Web3 space. We also have industry leading stakeholders like ADGM, DIFC, DMCC, Simmons and Simmons, State Street featured in our report which will provide the audience with a deeper insight into industry trends as well as educate and inform the reader of this ever growing and evolving ecosystem. Through the report, you are provided with a snapshot of the Ecosystem, which will help set the baseline from which growth can be identified in the following years as the Crypto Oasis becomes a centre of Blockchain excellence.\ Crypto Oasis catalyses the growth of organisations in the Crypto space and brings together Investors, Start-ups, Corporates, Researchers, Service Provider, and Government entities. It aims to advance the digital economy in the Middle East and bring distributed ledger technologies to the mainstream. Faisal Zaidi, Co-founder and CMO of the Crypto Oasis stated, \Our role is to curate the Crypto Oasis Ecosystem and our goal is to bring all stakeholders together on one playing field to assert the region as the leading global player in Web3.\ He added, \The Crypto Oasis Directory and the parallely launched report, are tools that we have developed and created inhouse and published, in order to create transparency and awareness of this emerging region.\ The report also contains insightful thought leadership articles from major players in the industry like 4ARTechnologies, Pulse, Ripple, Securrency, Singularity DAO, TDEFI, Tokengate, Virtua to name a few. Report Link: https://cryptooasis.ae/ecosystem-report-2022/ Directory Link: https://cryptooasis.ae/directory/ About Crypto Oasis The Crypto Oasis is a Middle East focused Blockchain Ecosystem supported by initiators of Crypto Valley Switzerland. The core elements needed for its growth are Talent, Capital, and Infrastructure. The Ecosystems stakeholders include Investors & Collectors, Start-Ups & Projects, Corporates, Science & Research Institutions, Service Providers and Government Entities & Associations. Crypto Oasis\- vision is to be one of the leading Blockchain Ecosystems in the world. Today it is the fastest growing, with more than 1,450 organisations identified in the UAE alone. www.cryptooasis.ae About Roland Berger Roland Berger is the only management consultancy of European heritage with a strong international footprint. As an independent firm, solely owned by our partners, we operate 51 offices in all major markets. Our 2,700 employees offer a unique combination of an analytical approach and an empathic attitude. Driven by our values of entrepreneurship, excellence and empathy, we at Roland Berger are convinced that the world needs a new sustainable paradigm that takes the entire value cycle into account. Working in cross-competence teams across all relevant industries and business functions, we provide the best expertise to meet the profound challenges of today and tomorrow. www.rolandberger.com Hannan Exploration update on the Belen Cu-Au Porphyry Discovery in Peru Hannan Metals Limited (aHannana or the aCompanya https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/mawson-gold-ltd/ ) (TSXV: HAN) (OTCPK: HANNF) is pleased to provide an update at the Belen copper-gold porphyry prospect at the 100%-owned Valiente project in central Peru. The Belen Cu-Au porphyry is located 19 km east from the township of Tingo Maria in central Peru, within a previously unknown Miocene-age porphyry-epithermal copper-gold mineralized belt. The project is contained within a 140 km by 50 km area where Hannana?s exploration team has identified at least seven intrusion related porphyry/epithermal/skarn targets, of which Belen is the most advanced and described here in more detail (Figure 1). Highlights: First outcrop recognition of a linked porphyry copper-gold and epithermal gold mineral system at Belen within an 8 km by 2 km trend (Figures 2-4) across three prospect areas (Ricardo Herrera, Vista Alegre and Sortilegio). Detailed field work has been ongoing at the Belen prospect, which represents a small proportion (4%) of Hannana?s total landholding at the Valiente project. Hannan has six geologists and support team working full time on the project.A Field work has focused on detailed mapping, channel and systematic soil sampling to cover the entire 8 km intrusive trend at the Belen porphyry target (Figure 1). A Soil sampling to date covers about 50% of the 8 km Belen trend on a grid spacing of 100 m x 100 m. A total of 1,630 samples have been taken. The Company has also completed a successful 4,880 line km aeromagnetic survey across all of its 100% owned mining concessions at Valiente.A Results from this survey will be provided post processing in the coming month. Ricardo Herrera Field work has identified a leached copper-gold porphyry coincident with soil anomalies, with well-developed quartz veining at upper topographic levels and evidence for an enriched chalcocite blanket sampled over 1 km within lower lying creeks at the Ricardo Herrera Copper-Gold Porphyry Target.A Detailed 1:2,500 mapping has revealed an early hornblende feldspar porphyry of andesitic composition with phyllic alteration, intermediate argillic alteration, relics of potassic alteration with veins of early biotite (EB), M-type and A-type. The alteration zone extends for 850 m x 250 m within a broad footprint of a copper anomalous and altered zone of intermineral hornblende feldspar porphyry stock of andesitic composition that extends over 1,600 m x 800 m (Figure 2). A detailed pole-dipole induced polarization geophysical survey over the Ricardo Herrera target is planned in the coming month and the initial stages of drill permitting are being undertaken. Vista Alegre A 1.8 km long gold-bearing epithermal target area identified by large gold mineralized boulders of quartz-pyrite and iron oxides as well as strongly gold anomalous soil samples has been discovered 2.5 km NW of Ricardo Herrera, where systematic 100 m x 100 m soil sampling has identified two strong gold anomalous trends that extend for 1,800 m and 970 m respectively. Infill sampling at 25 m x 25 m has been initiated. Sortilegio Earlier stage work (soil sampling and prospecting) at the Sortilegio porphyry target have indicated the presence of a second copper-gold porphyry at Belen located 7 km northwest of Ricardo Herrera.A Michael Hudson, CEO, states: aWe are now starting to unlock the potential of our first mover-advantage at the new Miocene-age copper-gold mineral camp within a 140 km by 50 km area at Valiente. At Belen we see extensive and systematic soil and rock geochemical anomalies over >8 km with the emergence of two copper-gold porphyry targets separated by an epithermal gold target area. What is most encouraging is that more detailed work at Ricardo Herrera has highlighted the presence of outcropping leached copper-gold porphyry mineralization with well-developed porphyry-style alteration and quartz veining at upper topographic levels with evidence of an enriched chalcocite blanket within lower lying creeks. This is the first bone fide bedrock find at the Valiente project. Additionally, the completion of the extensive airborne magnetic survey is a step change for the project.A The Company is also initiating work to commence drill permitting.a The Belen prospect, 100% owned and explored by Hannan Metals Ltd, is located 19 km east of the city of Tingo Maria, in central Peru (Figure 1). The deposit site is characterized by steep topography on the eastern flank of the Central Cordillera with elevations between 800 and 2000 m above sea level (a.s.l.). The project was discovered in 2021 during an extensive greenfields exploration program initiated by Hannan. Peru has been a major copper and gold producer since precolonial times. Currently known gold deposits include orogenic gold, porphyry Cu-Au, porphyry Au, transitional porphyry-epithermal, epithermal, and placer gold. The Belen project may represent a transitional porphyry-epithermal style within the newly discovered Valiente metallogenic belt of the central eastern Andes. The Valiente project is located further east than most of the conventional Andean porphyry settings and shows regional similarities to deposits such as the large Bajo de Alumbrera copper-gold porphyry in Argentina. It is interpreted that Valiente was formed in a tectonically favourable area associated with an arc-oblique wrench fault system, that may have aided the ascent of oceanic arc-related magmas into the transfer zone so far inboard from the magmatic arc. Ricardo Herrera Copper-Gold Porphyry Target A linked porphyry copper-gold and epithermal gold mineral system has been identified at Belen within an 8 km by 2 km trend (Figures 2-4). Recent detailed field work has identified a leached copper-gold porphyry with well-developed quartz veining at upper topographic levels and evidence for an enriched chalcocite blanket sampled over 1 km within lower lying creeks at the Ricardo Herrera Copper-Gold Porphyry Target.A This coincides with a highly anomalous Cu-Au-Mo soil anomaly, initially reported here, over a 1,600 m by 800 m area above a mapped and radiometrically dated Miocene-age porphyry intrusion. The Ricardo Herrera porphyry stock was intruded in several stages, broadly termed early, intermineral, and late, all interpreted within a relatively short time interval. The early stages are hornblende feldspar porphyries of andesitic composition, whereas the late stages consist of unaltered feldspar porphyries of andesitic composition. The intrusions caused contact metamorphism and hydrothermal alteration that partially obliterated the original texture and composition of the sedimentary country rocks. Two early porphyries are identified.A The first being an intermediate argillic (chlorite from secondary biotite-white micas) with relicts of potassic alteration (secondary biotite-magnetite) with aEBa type veinlets (early biotite), M-type (magnetite) veinlets and few A-type veinlets (quartz). The second early porphyry intrusion is characterized by A-type veinlets, jarosite-goethite iron oxide veinlets with phyllic alteration (quartz-white sericite), argillic alteration (kaolinite). The intermineral stock is dominated by supergene argillic alteration and propylitic alteration (chlorite, epidote). In porphyry copper systems, the area with the highest copper grade often corresponds to the early porphyries. The focus of the detailed geological mapping has therefore been to identify this area and to sample it with systematic rock sampling. Assays from this work are pending. At Ricardo Herrera the combined early hornblende feldspar porphyry is at least covering an area of 850 m x 250 m on the surface. But limited exposures, that are mostly constrained to creeks and rare outcrops, make it difficult to define the true area. Observed copper minerals include pyrite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite, molybdenite, neotocite and chrysocolla mineralization. The intermineral hornblende feldspar porphyry contains supergene argillic alteration and minor neotocite. Moderate to pervasive secondary biotite alteration is common throughout the host rock. Strong chloritization and pyritization is observed replacing the secondary biotite. At this initial stage of exploration at the Ricardo Herrera porphyry target, the early porphyry occupies a surface area of 0.21 km2 which is comparable to the 22.37 Moz gold La Colosa deposit in Colombia where the early diorite porphyry occupies a surface area of 0.35km2. Channel sampling at Ricardo Herrera has been focused on creeks where outcrop exposures are good. In many places access is a limiting factor of what can be sampled. Most channels have to date been taken from zones peripheral to what is interpreted to be the core of the system (Figure 3). The results are summarized in Table 1. Results from 34 individual channels include 5 m @ 0.11% Cu and 5 ppm Mo. This channel is open to either side and is from the strongly leached and weathered exposure of the early diorite porphyry. Fractures are rich in jarosite and goethite after pyrite and chalcopyrite (Figure 3). Importantly, the best and highest-grade results have been achieved from the leached early porphyry. The results are also low in manganese therefore interpreted to be representative of a leached porphyry system. Channel sampling continues. Vista Alegre Epithermal gold target Vista Alegre consists of a gold-bearing epithermal target identified by large gold mineralized boulders of quartz-pyrite and iron oxides. Strongly gold anomalous soil samples have been discovered 2.5 km NW of Ricardo Herrera (initially reported here). Infill sampling at 25 m x 25 m on the target has now been initiated. Previous work has also included: Systematic 100 m x 100 m soil sampling program. Two strong gold anomalous trends that extend for 1,800 m and 970 m respectively have been identified. Assays have been received to date from 376 samples covering an area of 2 km x 1.7 km. Values range from <0.001 ppm to 0.094 ppm, average 0.0056 g/t in soil. The gold anomaly correlates very well with several elements including arsenic. (Figures 2 and 4). Soil anomalies are coincident with gold found in quartz-iron oxide boulders (reported here). To date 19 boulders >0.1 ppm Au have been sampled over a trend of 1.6 km that is parallel to the main gold anomaly. A total 43 rock samples from boulders average 0.48 g/t Au, 6 g/t Te and range from below detection limit to 2.69 g/t Au and Her MoMA Moment: Susan Fitzsimmons Returns to New York for Museum of Modern Art Exhibit In a University of South Alabama gallery, Susan Fitzsimmons stands with a series of sculptures, "Sentinels and Guardians," which were inspired by the border wall with Mexico when she was teaching in McAllen, Texas. Two other sculptures by the chair of South's Department of Art and Art History will be featured in a Museum of Modern exhibit that opens this month. Posted on October 7, 2022 In 1977, a young artist named Susan Fitzsimmons dragged a heavy bag of Lucite sculptures to art galleries across Manhattan. She took day jobs to pay the rent on ragged apartments, but found little interest in her acrylic art. Every day, she tried to find a place for her work, and every day she met rejection. Then she stopped by a West 57th Street gallery called Just Above Midtown. The founder of the gallery, Linda Goode Bryant, liked the Lucite sculptures and stunned the artist with an offer. She said, I want to give you a show in three months can you be ready? said Fitzsimmons, who is now chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of South Alabama. When I walked out of there, it was like I was floating above the ground. Just Above Midtown jolted the art world in New York City by promoting black artists, along with female ones, and offering live events featuring performance art and video screenings. This year, nearly half a century since the founding of the gallery, the Museum of Modern Art is doing an exhibit called Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present. Two of Fitzsimmons sculptures will be featured in the show, which will run Oct. 9 to Feb. 18. This has been one of my goals for most of my life, she said. MoMA, thats the top of the line in contemporary art, being considered part of the canon, so to speak. During the 1970s, Susan Fitzsimmons showed different kinds of metal and Lucite sculptures at the Just Above Midtown gallery in Manhattan. During the 1970s, Susan Fitzsimmons showed different kinds of metal and Lucite sculptures at the Just Above Midtown gallery in Manhattan. In New York, Fitzsimmons was part of a group of artists known as Contexturalists. One of her pieces for the MoMA exhibit is called Hang Ups: Hair. It features thick locks of long brown hair her own suspended in Lucite, then draped from a clothes hanger. I did a whole series of pieces with objects relevant to my history, she said. Its very personal. The hair piece represents a change of identity from when I was younger until my time in New York. Also, there are lots of implications for women and hair, long hair in particular. When Thomas J. Lax, curator of media and performance at MoMA, made a formal loan request to Fitzsimmons, he described JAM as one of the most vibrant alternative art spaces. It organized path-making exhibitions that explored art and society and critiqued the commercialization of art. Her sculptures were part of that scene. The works represent the technical experimentation in Lucite that Goode-Bryant and Marcy Phillips admired and cited in Contextures (1978), where they describe your practice as one that allowed for control and happenstance, where random and arbitrary choice integrate to form a final object, Lax wrote. In showing them, we hope to mark your presence within the JAM community of artists, pushing the boundaries of experimentation from the 1970s to the present. Fitzsimmons says she wouldnt miss this show for the world. For her visit to New York, shell be staying at a Manhattan hotel. Its a far cry from the cheap flats she rented years ago, which included a converted pigeon coop on the roof of a building. Despite the hardships, I think it was one of the most exciting periods of my life, Fitzsimmons said. New York was smaller then, and I had the opportunity to meet fantastic artists and writers, especially on the Lower East Side. It was a time when I really felt free. College Teaching Career That time didnt last long. In 1981, Fitzsimmons left Manhattan for upstate New York. She got married, had two sons, and began a career in academia. She later became an administrator. Teaching art remains the most rewarding part of her career. I love being with the students, she said. Thats the fun part. Fitzsimmons grew up in St. Louis, where her father was a lawyer. She was always an artist. In Catholic school, the nuns had her illustrate posters for school events. She attended Webster College in St. Louis and earned a Masters of Fine arts degree at Southern Illinois University. In Chicago, Nancy Spero, a visual artist and female activist, encouraged her to go to New York City. After leaving Manhattan, Fitzsimmons became associate dean of graduate studies at Empire State College. After a year at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, she returned to the Midwest and did a series of performances at several galleries in downtown St. Louis and the University of Missouri St. Louis. In 2005, she became chair of the art department at the University of Southern Mississippi and later became chair of the art department at the University of Texas Pan American. While at UTPA, the University underwent a merger to become University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She was chosen to be director of the new School of Art for campuses in Brownsville and Edinburg. In 2017, she moved to Mobile, where one of her sons lives, to became chair of the art department at South. Her most prominent students include Alejandro Macias, from Brownsville, Texas, who teaches at the University of Arizona and has had solo shows around the country. In Alabama, she recruited Bruce Larsen, an accomplished sculptor from Fairhope, to join the graduate program at South. Hes someone who can inspire the other students, she said. Hes in the second year of the MFA program right now. Art and the Avant-Garde At Just Above Midtown, Fitzsimmons had two solo exhibitions. In 1977, there was Transparent Relationships. In 1979, it was Moving from the Transparent to the Invisible. She remembers being disappointed with that second show a blizzard filled the streets with snow and only a handful of people made it to the gallery opening. Fitzsimmons did participate in popular art performances at JAM. We all did crazy stuff, she said. For one show, I had written a long childrens story, and I hired this actress to read it. The story started to go on and on, and the place was packed, with people sitting on the floor, people were uncomfortable and so impatient, they started throwing things at her. Ill never forget that. It couldnt have been better planned, but I think it ruined poor Kathy from acting again. Fitzsimmons describes herself as shy, but says she enjoys inciting people. Years later, in St. Louis, she was part of an art demonstration called Drawing As You Like It. Part of the show was encouraging male members of the audience to get up and pose nude for the artists. When Fitzsimmons was teaching in McAllen, Texas, she created a more serious series of sculptures called Sentinels and Guardians, inspired by the border wall with Mexico. At South in Mobile, managing the art department keeps her busy. She teaches graduate courses and works with students on their thesis projects. In her spare time, she reads and spends time with her grandchildren. Just this year, Fitzsimmons was awarded a $5,000 grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The project period for her sculpture fellowship will be October of 2022 through September of 2023. She just completed a solo exhibition at the Midland Art Center in Michigan. In January, the Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery in Montgomery will feature works by the faculty at South. The same gallery will follow that exhibit with a program on art by women in Alabama. In recent years, Fitzsimmons has done abstract works in bronze and aluminum. A portfolio of her work may be seen at susanfitzsimmons.com. She isnt sure what shell create for the Montgomery exhibits next year. I usually need a show coming up, she said, to get inspired. Berlin, October 11, 2022 (SPS) - The Supervising Committee of the European Conference on Solidarity and Support for the Sahrawi People (EUCOCO) has launched its website for registration to participate in the works of its 46th edition, to be held in the German capital, Berlin, on 2 and 3 December 2022. The website, launched yesterday, allows participating delegations the opportunity to register and choose one of the four workshops set by the committee, to shed light on the real situation of human rights in the occupied zones of Western Sahara, and the situation of Sahrawi political detainees in Moroccan occupation prisons, especially the Gdeim Izik group. This important conference will also be an opportunity to mobilize international support and strengthen the efforts of the Solidarity movement to put an end to the illegal exploitation of Sahrawi natural resources, in accordance with the partnership agreements concluded between the European Union and Morocco, which are still under consideration by the European Court of Justice after the appeals submitted by the Polisario Front. The conference will discuss topics of support for the national institutions of the Sahrawi Republic at various levels and fields, as well as ways to break the media blackout, provide information and national developments, and share them by all legitimate means with the whole world. Regarding the 46th edition of EUCOCO, Mr. Oubbi Bushraya Al-Bashir, member of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, in charge of Europe and the European Union, confirmed in a press statement that this solidarity event comes at a critical circumstance for the Sahrawi issue, marked by many diplomatic and legal victories for the Sahrawi people, and in light of a new situation marked by the resumption of the armed struggle and the dangerous bets of involving external forces to destabilize the security and stability of the region, which requires the mobilization of all the Sahrawi people and solidarity movements to win the current bets and accelerate the path of national independence. He added, "The choice of Berlin comes from the great importance of Germany within the European and global context, and among the future challenges surrounding the Sahrawi issue at the level of the natural resources file, the upcoming European Court decision, and the role required of the European Union in pressing to accelerate a just settlement on the basis of international law and legitimacy." The Sahrawi official concluded expressing his hope that the 46th edition of the International Conference of European Coordination in Support of the Sahrawi People will be a prominent solidarity event that will conclude to an effective solidarity roadmap of the year 2023, and meet the aspirations of the current stage from various aspects. It is worth mentioning that the 46th edition of the European Conference on Solidarity and Support for the Saharawi People, known as (EUCOCO), is expected to receive an official delegation representing the Saharawi state, as well as significant international delegations and representatives of the solidarity movement from various countries. SPS 110 TRA https://eucocoberlin.fpolisario.eu/inscripcion/ Madrid (Spain), October 11, 2022 (SPS) - The Saharawi civil society launched yesterday, Western Sahara is Not for Sale campaign, in order to sensitize Spanish public opinion about the seriousness of Sanchez's new decision against the international legitimacy concerning the Sahrawi cause. The organizers said that this campaign comes against the unexpected transformation of the position of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, regarding the conflict in Western Sahara to support Morocco in its illegal occupation and changing the traditional position of successive governments of Spain. The Western Sahara is not for sale campaign which was launched by the Sahrawi Central Directorate of Information and Research Studies and the Unions of Sahrawi Students and Youth, aims at raising awareness of Spanish public opinion about the negative impact of this unexpected decision of Sanchez, and calls on the Spanish government to correct the decision which supports the proposal of the Moroccan occupation state. The campaign comes also to express its condemnation of this decision, considering it a betrayal of the Sahrawi people, and to remind Spain of its historical responsibility towards the Sahrawi people. It is worth mentioning that a media campaign with the same name was launched about the illegal plundering of the natural resources of Western Sahara. SPS 110 TRA New York, October 11, 2022 (SPS)- Mr. Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, Member of the South African Parliament and grandson of the late South African leader and activist, Nelson Mandela, told the United Nations that "we cannot rest while Western Sahara is occupied", reiterating his country's solidarity with the liberation struggle of the Sahrawi people. Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela added, in a speech before the work of the UN Fourth Committee (Committee on Decolonization): "We cannot rest while Western Sahara remains under occupation; this is our commitment and our position, which we will adhere to unequivocally until the liberation of the Sahrawi Republic. "Just to think that in this 21st century we can still support colonial occupation on our beloved continent is a disgrace that must be eradicated," he continued. Nelson Mandela's grandson said we must, work together, make things right and unite, through forums like this, and fight for the decolonization of the last colonial outpost in Africa quickly." He called on the Moroccan occupation to abandon its expansionist policy, saying: We demand Morocco to abandon its imperialist ambitions in Western Sahara and end the occupation now. we demand an immediate end to the occupation and the release of all political prisoners who are imprisoned in Moroccan prisons he stressed. Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela pointed out that there is a similarity between what his country has experienced and what the Sahrawi people live under occupation, saying that "South Africans were themselves victims of colonialism and racial discrimination that destroy the lives of peoples." He expressed his belief in the inevitable victory of the Sahrawi people by saying: "We know for sure that the Sahrawi people will win in spite of all odds, and because the outcome of just causes is the victory that will crown the sacrifices of generations of brave fighters in the Polisario Front and the Sahrawi people in general, we will stand by you until dawn Freedom". He said that Spain, the former colonial power, had "easily washed its hands of Western Sahara", referring in this context to his country's experience with colonialism and how it affected its development path. Nelson Mandela's grandson affirmed his conviction that just as South Africa won because its cause is just, the Sahrawi people will also win over all the difficulties of history. SPS 110 TRA This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. 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"Taking place in Cluj Napoca during the month of education, the triennial conference event will bring together international leaders to discuss and plan the future growth of the Award worldwide," according to the British Embassy in Romania. "The Award's global ambition is that every 14-24 year old has the opportunity to participate in the Award and to challenge themselves and build on the universal skills that will serve them and their communities for years to come.' The theme of the event, "supporting the infinite potential of young people," will look at the challenges and opportunities facing young people today and examine how the Award can work with and alongside its participants, so as to ensure they are fully equipped to face the world and their futures head on. The global Forum 2022 officially begins with the welcoming ceremony on October 11, where delegates and special guests will be addressed by The Earl of Wessex in his capacity as chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award Foundation; Margareta, Custodian of Romanian Crown and Prince Radu of Romania; The Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg, in his capacity as Chair of The Merite Jeunesse Luxembourg; Lord Boateng, International Trustee and Chair of the Award's International Council and Cluj-Napoca Deputy Mayor Dan Tarcea. During the four-day event, The Earl of Wessex will meet young Gold Award holders from across Europe to hear first-hand about the positive impact the Award has had on their lives. The National Public Health Institute (INSP) informed on Tuesday that in the October 3 - 9 week, Romania reported 174 sequences of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron, told Agerpres. According to INSP, as of September 25, 2022, 9,303 COVID-19 Omicron cases were confirmed. Of these, the BA.2 subvariant was detected in 2,972 cases (32%). The BA.4 sub-variant was detected in one case, and the BA.5 sub-variant in 173. So far, the BA.5 subvariant was detected in 2,895 cases (31.1%). According to INSP, as of October 9, 17,636 sequences were reported to the INSP - CNSCBT. Out of the 174 sequencing investigations of last week 44 were reported by the Matei Bals Institute and 40 by INCDMM Cantacuzino. The General Inspectorate of the Border Police informs that, on Monday, 71,660 people entered Romania through the border crossing points nationwide, of whom 7,474 were Ukrainian citizens, down by almost 4pct compared to the previous day, told Agerpres. According to a press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday, approximately 149,500 people, Romanian and foreign citizens, with more than 40,400 means of transport, went through the control formalities at the border check points throughout the country, both on the way in and on the way out. As of February 10, 2022 (pre-conflict period), 2,549,170 Ukrainian citizens entered Romania. In their areas of competence - the border crossing points and the "green border" - the border police detected 63 illegal acts (36 infractions and 27 contraventions) committed by both Romanian and foreign citizens, and the value of the contravention fines applied amounts to over 12,200 lei. On Monday, 11 foreign citizens who did not meet the conditions provided for by law were not allowed to enter the country, and 16 Romanian citizens were not allowed to leave for various legal reasons. The Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, informed the Standing Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday that he cannot come to the plenary for the debate and vote on the simple motion submitted by the Save Romanian Union (USR) and the Right Force against him and requested its rescheduling, told Agerpres. "I am asking you to reschedule this debate for the week of October 17-21, considering the fact that during October 11 I am engaged in a series of activities with foreign officials, and starting from Wednesday I will be in Belgium, respectively Luxembourg, for activities on the sidelines of the Council of the European Union in the format of Justice and Internal Affairs. I mention the fact that one of the events scheduled for October 11 concerns the signing of the contract for the purchase of multi-role ships by the IGSU," Bode wrote in the request to address the Permanent Office of the Chamber of Deputies. The Minister of National Defence, Vasile Dincu, will be invited next Monday to the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies, for the "Government's Hour" debate, told Agerpres. The standing bureau of the Chamber of Deputies approved, on Tuesday, the request of the USR (Save Romania Union) parliamentary group in this respect. "According to the provisions of art. 208, paragraph 1, of the Regulation of the Chamber of Deputies, the parliamentary group requests the participation of Mr. Vasile Dincu, the Minister of National Defence, for the political debate organized for the "Government's Hour" debate on October 17, 2022, with the theme: "Through repeated blunders and the amplification of Russian propaganda, the defence minister brings prejudices to Romania in the relationship with the EU and NATO partners," the USR request states. "Minister Dincu must come to Parliament for "Government's Hour" to explain why he takes all the Kremlin's rhetoric to the public space, why he endangers our treaties with our European partners and with NATO, because it is not the first time when he does it. I have seen again this weekend how he repeats parts of the Kremlin's rhetoric and that is very dangerous for a Minister of Defence in a NATO country," said the leader of the USR deputies, Ionut Mosteanu, on Tuesday. The "Government's Hour" is scheduled for Monday, starting at 5.30 pm, after the debate of the simple motion submitted by the USR and the Right Party against Interior Minister Lucian Bode. Vasile Dincu stated on October 8 that the only chance for Russia to make peace with Ukraine is through negotiations. "The war will continue, (...) the only chance for peace may be negotiation with Russia. Of course, it will be a complex negotiation. (...) The countries of the world, NATO, the United States should negotiate security guarantees for Ukraine and peace with Russia. Ukraine alone will not be able to negotiate with Russia, because the political class in Ukraine at this moment cannot afford to assume (...) the loss of territories, which will be an unjust loss of territories, after all. It would be too great a defeat for the Ukrainian politics," Dincu told Prima TV private television channel. According to him, Russia has the resources to prolong the war. "It would be ideal to reach a situation of negotiation, even if it were to reach a frozen conflict, the negotiation would still do more good than what is happening now, the destruction of human lives, property," explained Dincu. The Deputies' Chamber is scheduled to debate and vote, on Tuesday, the simple motion against Interior Minister Lucian Bode, tabled last week by 55 Save Romania Union (USR) and non-affiliated MPs belonging to the Right Force Party (PFD), told Agerpres. Through the motion called "Safety and trust or disorder and theft? Minister Bode must answer for the disaster that he created," the signatories demand that he leave the leadership of the Interior Ministry (MAI), because he failed to reform the institution, and the "greatest success" of his mandate is "the rigged tender for the purchase of 600 BMWs." The signatories mention that "the greatest success" of Minister Bode is "the rigged tender for the purchase of 600 BMWs from President Klaus Iohannis' friend." "The efficiency of Minister Bode was seen when he helped President Iohannis' friend to sell to the Romanian Police 600 BMWs of only 32,000 euro each, without the VAT. Obviously, through a rigged tender, with a well adjusted tender book, so that the right person can win," the motion's initiators argue. According to the USR and the Right Force Party MPs, Minister Lucian Bode also recorded a failure regarding the implementation of the programme for the protection of domestic violence victims. The motion's signatories also argue that Minister Bode classified his doctoral thesis "a day before the deadline announced for the full publication" and that "he would be the father of the corrupt people in the ministry." Salome Zourabichvili, the President of Georgia, will be received, on Tuesday, at the Cotroceni Palace by the President Klaus Iohannis, on the occasion of her official visit to Romania. The visit of President Salome Zourabichvili to Bucharest takes place in an anniversary context, as this year Romania and Georgia are marking 30 years since the restoration of diplomatic relations. According to the Presidential Administration, the political consultations of Presidents Klaus Iohannis and Salome Zourabichvili will focus on the recent developments and transformations at the regional and international level, especially the profound change in the security environment of the Black Sea region, against the background of the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, will also participate in the discussions, told Agerpres. Also, the decisions taken at the NATO Summit in Madrid with relevance in this area and, respectively, at the June European Council meeting in Brussels regarding Georgia's European perspective, will be addressed. The discussions with President Salome Zourabichvili will also focus on concrete ways to increase connectivity between Romania and Georgia, with capitalizing on the transit potential between Europe and Asia of the two countries in terms of transport, energy and interpersonal contacts. At the end of the talks, the two presidents will sign the Joint Declaration on the establishment of a Strategic Partnership between Romania and Georgia. Salome Zourabichvili will also have meetings with Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Marcel Ciolacu. The President of Georgia is paying an official visit to Romania at the invitation of President Klaus Iohannis. President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that Romania is working with Georgia and other partner states on carrying out major strategic projects, showing that a priority is the construction of an electric cable linking Romania, Georgia and Azerbaijan, under the "Green Electricity Corridor" initiative that will connect the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea and the European Union. "In our conversation, I agreed with the president that physical interconnections in the Black Sea have an essential role in consolidating the stability and prosperity of the region, through its sustainable anchoring in the European space. Romania is already working with Georgia and other partner states on major strategic projects. Thus, one of our priorities is the construction of an electric cable linking Romania, Georgia and Azerbaijan, under the 'Green Electricity Corridor', which will connect the region of the Caspian Sea with the Black Sea and the European Union. This would be doubled by a Romania-Georgia optical fiber undersea cable for the development of digital connectivity between the European Union, Georgia and, further, towards Central Asia," Iohannis told a joint news conference with his Georgian counterpart Salome Zourabichvili at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, told Agerpres. He also said that they are working with Georgia on commissioning a Black Sea-Caspian Sea freight corridor, an initiative of Romania. "We are discussing the establishment of a regular Black Sea ferry line linking Romania to Georgia. It is an essential project to encourage trade and improve connectivity between the European Union and Georgia," said Iohannis. President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that Romania is one of the staunchest supporters of Georgia's aspirations for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. "Romania will remain one of the staunchest supporters of Georgia's aspirations for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. I want to congratulate you on obtaining the European perspective at the European Council in June. Integration requires complex structural reforms, while an inclusive political system and the continuation of modernisation and democratisation efforts are mandatory items on the agenda of Georgia's accession to the European Union," Iohannis told a joint news conference at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace with his Georgian counterpart Salome Zourabichvili, told Agerpres. He gave assurances that Romania will be with Georgia throughout this process. He also appreciated Georgia's firm position regarding the imperative of continuing reforms. Also, Iohannis pointed out that Romania continues to support Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations in accordance with the decisions of the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit. "As a concrete expression of our support, Romania will take over, from January 1, as NATO Contact Point in Tbilisi," said Iohannis. Acting Senate president Alina Gorghiu and Chamber of Deputies Speaker Marcel Ciolacu had a joint meeting on Tuesday with President of the Republic of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, who is on an official visit to Romania; talks focused on the priorities of the bilateral agenda and regional and international developments amid the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine, a Senate release informs. Gorghiu welcomed the signing by the Romanian and Georgian heads of state of the Joint Declaration on the establishment of a Strategic Partnership between Romania and Georgia, as the signatory states celebrate the 30th anniversary of the restoration of their diplomatic relations, Agerpres informs. The Senate head expressed appreciation for the favorable dynamics of bilateral relations, voicing interest in stepping up parliamentary dialogue and concrete cooperation. Also, Gorghiu highlighted the importance of Romania and Georgia's strategic position "as key nodes" in connecting Europe to Asia. The Senate's acting president offered congratulations for the recognition of Georgia's European perspective at the European Council in June, reiterating Romania's willingness to support Georgia in carrying out the necessary reforms for acquiring EU candidate status. Alina Gorghiu also emphasized the commitment of the Romanian state to continuing support for Georgia's NATO membership bid, mentioning that as of January 1, 2023, Romania will take over together with the United Kingdom the responsibilities of the NATO Contact Point in Tbilisi, for a two-year period (2023 - 2024). The Senate's top official went on to show the importance of gender equality and gender electoral quotas, congratulating the Georgian side for adopting this measure and invited President Salome Zourabichvili to participate on November 1 in the International Conference 'Romanian Women MPs and Gender Equality as a National Commitment', organized under the High Patronage of the President of Romania. The President of Georgia said that her visit to Romania represents an important moment and emphasized the importance of the two states' solidarity with Ukraine. The documentary film Phoenix - The Story will have its gala premiere, on Sunday, at the Palace Hall in Bucharest, informs a press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday. The extraordinary presence of founding members Nicu Covaci and Mony Bordeianu is announced at the event. Among the guests are Mircea Baniciu, Costin Petrescu, Ovidiu Lipan Tandarica, Mani Neumann, Valeriu Sepi, together with other members of the original lineup, but also new members: Cristi Gram, Costin Adam, Flavius Hosu, Vlady Sateanu and Lavinia Sateanu. Directed by the filmmaker Cristian Radu Nema, the documentary film tells the band's story, as we all experienced it, and transposes in cinematography the spirit and message of the cultural phenomenon that was Phoenix, at its 60th anniversary, Agerpres informs. "Practically, this documentary, from the imagery that can be found in it, shows that although someone tried before in the 90s, and in the 2000s, it had to be created, on this 60th anniversary," Cristian Radu Nema declared for AGERPRES. According to him, the film "belongs to Romania, to Romanian culture", just as "Phoenix does not belong to Covaci or Baniciu or Kapl, it belongs to Romanian culture". "It is a phenomenon beyond the idea of a musical band, it is a phenomenon belonging to the essence of the Romanian culture, and this film joins this phenomenon. The intention of this film is for the Phoenix phenomenon to remain on the screen, immortalized and forever. This film tries to convey on the screen what the band conveyed in concerts, to convey in the cinema hall what the audience in 70s received live," Nema further said. Nicu Covaci, leader and founding member of Romanian rock and cult band Phoenix, confessed that when he saw the film for the first time, he had tears in his eyes. According to him, the basic idea is "for the world to be left with a pleasant impression of Phoenix". "Phoenix is moving forward, our signal is positive. It doesn't matter what fights there were or what stupid things happened in the past. Almost 60 people have been through Phoenix and every one of them was the best of the best and everyone made great efforts, that's why Phoenix is appreciated today, with each and everyone's effort," highlighted Covaci. Phoenix - The Story is a large-scale documentary film that transposes, on its anniversary, the spirit and message of the Phoenix cultural phenomenon into a cinematic product. The film describes the history of the Phoenix band, which transcends the trajectory of a rock band and becomes a national symbol that reflects a state, but also a system of thought transposed into a scale of values. The film is not necessarily a narrative about the members of the band and their success, but rather describes the evolution of the Phoenix phenomenon in three major stages, starting from the musical impact and reaching the social and cultural aspects, placing it at the same time in a a kind of parallelism with the European and international cultural space, the release states. During its 60 years of activity, cult band Phoenix transmitted to the public, beyond the music, a state of mind, a breath and an energy that endure even today, overcoming political regimes and various other factual situations. The spectators, covering almost four generations, equally perceive the protesting message conveyed in such a complex manner over time by means of the Phoenix symbol. The members of the band experimented with many musical genres, starting with the rock'n'roll of the Beat Generation, psychedelic rock, hard rock and culminating with ethno-rock. Songs like "Vremuri", "Fata Verde", "Negru Voda ", "Strunga", "Canarul", "Mugur de fluier", "Mica tiganiada" and "Nunta" are masterpieces that still write the history of Phoenix. Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca had a meeting with the President of Georgia, Salome Zurabichvili, at the Victoria Palace of Government on Tuesday, the two officials reviewing, in context, the good relations between the two states, the security situation in the Black Sea region and the bilateral cooperation projects, informs the Government, in a press release. Prime Minister Ciuca congratulated the President of Georgia, who is paying an official visit to Romania, for obtaining the European perspective and offered support for fulfilling the conditionalities necessary to obtain the candidate country official status. "The two officials discussed the major infrastructure projects aimed at connecting Georgian ports to Constanta and Central Asia, via the Caspian Sea, via the South Caucasus and the Black Sea, to Romania and the European Union - electricity cable, data cable, naval transport lines and connectivity projects between the two states," reads the release, Agerpres informs. The President of Georgia thanked Romania for all the support it granted, including with regard to the EU membership application and the constant support for joining NATO. "Ms. Zurabichvili emphasized the massive support of the population - over 80 percent - for Georgia's European path and the difficult challenges facing Georgia today: two territories occupied by the Russian Federation, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees and an influx of Russian citizens. The President of Georgia mentioned the responsibilityimposed by the new status on the prospect of EU membership, as well as the mobilization of society to fulfill the conditionalities set out in the European Council Resolution," the Government's release further mentions. Romania is a regional model as regards owning up to the Holocaust and encouraging Holocaust research and education, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Tuesday at a meeting at the Victoria Palace of Government with Colette Avital, Secretary General of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, the government informs in a release, told Agerpres. Nicolae Ciuca reaffirmed Romania's staunch commitment to promoting the memory of the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism, citing as examples in this regard the progress made in implementing the 2021-2023 National Strategy for the prevention and combat of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, radicalization and hate speech, as well as the sustained activity of the Interministerial Committee tasked with monitoring the implementation of the strategy. Secretary General of the World Jewish Restitution Organization and Chairperson of the Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, Colette Avital, expressed her appreciation for Romania's efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, fight anti-Semitism and honor the memory of Holocaust victims. Avital thanked the Prime Minister for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Romania and Israel on the grant of compensation allowances to Holocaust survivors who reside in the State of Israel and commended the activity of the National Property Restitution Authority as regards the restitution of Jewish properties, the release also says. The resumption of the activity of the working group on the restitution of Jewish properties and pensions for Holocaust survivors, set up at the level of the government's Secretariat General was also discussed at the meeting, with the sides agreeing that the group needs to be reactivated so that the restitution process is sped up. Israel's ambassador to Romania, Reuven Azar, was also present at the meeting, emphasizing on the occasion the quality of Romania - Israel bilateral relations and highlighting the potential for the development of economic relations, especially in the fields of energy, tourism and the food industry, the Executive's release states. President Klaus Iohannis condemned on Tuesday the attacks with Russian missiles over the cities and civil infrastructures of Ukraine, showing that the analysis doesn't reveal, at the moment, an increase of risks in Romania. "Yesterday, the Russian missiles struck again cities and civil infrastructures of Ukraine. Such attacks must be condemned by the entire international community, and the killing of innocent civilians must stop. Alongside our partners, Romania will continue to support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in the fight against the Russian Federation's aggression," President Iohannis said at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, in the joint statement with Georgian counterpart Salome Zourabichvili, told Agerpres. He stated that "our analysis, however, doesn't reveal an increase of risks at the moment." President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday welcomed visiting Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace, with military honours. The welcoming delegation included Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, as well as presidential advisers Luminita Odobescu, Sergiu Nistor, Cosmin Marinesu, and Daniela Barsan. The two presidents will have one-on-one official talks, at the end of which they will hold a joint news conference. Zourabichvili's visit to Bucharest takes place in an anniversary context, the 30th anniversary of restored diplomatic ties between Romania and Georgia. According to the Romanian Presidential Administration, in their the political talks, Iohannis and Zourabichvili will focus on recent regional and international developments, especially the profound change in the security environment of the Black Sea region amidst the ongoing Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine. Foreign Minister Aurescu will also participate in the conversations, told Agerpres. Also discussed will be NATO Madrid Summit decisions with relevance in this area and the June European Council in Brussels regarding Georgia's European perspective. Discussions will also focus on concrete ways to increase connectivity between Romania and Georgia by capitalising on the transit potential between Europe and Asia of the two countries in terms of transport, energy and people-to-people contacts. At the end of the talks, the two presidents will sign a joint statement establishing a strategic partnership between Romania and Georgia. Zourabichvili is also scheduled to meet Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and Speaker of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies Marcel Ciolacu. Her visit to Romania is paid on an official invitation from Iohannis. The plenary meeting of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) passed, within the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-22) in Bucharest, Resolution No.138 which strengthens the importance of the Global Symposium for Regulators event, dedicated to the national regulatory authorities, but also the place where the next year's edition is to be held, namely Egypt, in Sharm-el-Sheikh, told Agerpres. "On 6 October, the Plenary passed Resolution 138, which considers the importance of maintaining the Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) for regulatory bodies to continue to share and exchange experiences. The updated resolution notes new challenges for regulators over programmes to finance network deployment, particularly through universal service funds - a method of assessing long-distance telecom carriers to subsidize services to low-income households or high-cost areas," an official release of the PP-22 organisers informs. The 2023 edition of the Global Symposium for Regulators will be held in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, over 5-8 June. The annual GSR has brought together heads of national telecom/ICT regulatory authorities from around the world since 2000. "The updated Res. 138 calls for holding future GSRs in different regions of the world in rotation, while ensuring balanced regional representation among participants, speakers and stakeholders," reads the release. In this regard, "the Director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) is instructed to consult Member States and stakeholders in advance on GSR topics and annual best practice guidelines to ensure GSR outcomes reflect the interests of stakeholders and attract participation from all countries. In addition, the BDT Director should promote the participation of regional and subregional regulatory organizations and associations in preparing GSR meetings and best practice guidelines," the organisers' release notes. Also in Bucharest, it has been decided within these two weeks of PP-22, that the next Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU, in 2026 (PP-26) be held in Quatar, in Doha. Previously, Qatar hosted the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference - in 2006, the Connect Arab Summit (2012) and ITU Telecom World (2014). Moreover, the delegation attending the PP-22 also voted for the United Arab Emirates to host the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23) in 2023, between 20 November and 15 December. The conference is organized every four years, for a period of four weeks, and has the authority to update the Radio Regulations, the only international Treaty which regulates the use of the radio frequency spectrum and the orbits of geostationary and non-geostationary satellites. The Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU is taking place in Romania, in Bucharest, between 26 September and 14 October 2022. Partners of the event, alongside the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) and the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Tourism (MAT), are the following Romanian institutions: the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the General Secretariat of the Government, the Finance Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, the Health Ministry, the Ministry of Culture, the Bucharest City Hall, the Special Telecommunications Service (STS), the Protection and Guard Service (SPP) and the Romanian Television Society. The National News Agency AGERPRES is a media partner of the event. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs), driving innovation in ICTs together with 193 Member States and a membership of over 900 companies, universities, and international and regional organizations. Established over 150 years ago, ITU is the intergovernmental body responsible for coordinating the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promoting international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, improving communication infrastructure in the developing world, and establishing the worldwide standards that foster seamless interconnection of a vast range of communications systems. Romania will participate with full rights and on an equal footing at the upcoming meeting of the European Space Agency (ESA) in November, where the projects for the next three-year cycle will be discussed and decided, the Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Sebastian Burduja said on Tuesday, in Brussels, for AGERPRES. The Romanian minister met, on Tuesday, in Brussels, with the general director of the Defense Industry and Space Directorate, Timo Pesonen, to whom he gave assurances that Romania will solve the problem of the outstanding contribution to the ESA, Agerpres informs. "It is an amount that we pay in a single installment. It is true, there are approximately 40 million euros left to pay until the end of the year and we are in discussions with the Ministry of Finance to secure these funds," he added. The Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization emphasized that all the sums that Romania pays as contributions to ESA return to Romania, even directly, in a proportion of over 85-90%. "We participate in major European projects, (...) the recent Vega-C rocket had the Romanian flag on it, and this is because Romania participated in the testing of the model in our hypersonic facilities at IINCAS, contributing to the electronics part, of components, of aerodynamics. We are really respected at this level, because we have a very good school and our research institutes, the academic environment, the Bucharest Polytechnic University are entities with tradition and results in this field," the minister assessed. He also said that this "is a good signal" for young researchers in Romania, namely "that they can perform while remaining in Romania, on ESA projects assigned to Romanian entities". Romanian photographers won 13 awards at the 23rd edition of the International Photographic Art Salon, rated with five stars, with almost 4,000 images from all over the world enrolled in the competition, informs a press release sent to AGERPRES. "The International Photographic Art Salon is certainly one of the most important events of its kind in Europe and I am not exaggerating when I say worldwide. Every year we are overwhelmed by the large number of participants who enter the competition and their works are absolutely fascinating. In 2021, over 2,000 salons were organized in the world under FIAP Patronage, only five of them being 5-star rating (maximum possible). The salon in Sibiu is one of these five," said the president of the Orizont Photoclub in Sibiu, Oscar Margarintoni. The photos awarded can be admired by the public at the opening that will take place in the last weekend of October, according to the organizers. As in previous editions, the photographs were judged by influential people in photography: Balasi Csaba - M. FIAP (Romania), Silvana Retter - E. FIAP (Germany), Mark Lamay - A. FIAP (France), Radu Stanese - E FIAP (Romania), Louis Guermond - (France/Romania) The event is organized by the ORIZONT Photo club and the Culture House of Students in Sibiu, co-financed by the Sibiu City Hall, the Sibiu County Council and the Ministry of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities. The event takes place under the patronage of the following specialized organizations: Federation Internationale de l'Art Photographique (FIAP), Global Photographic Union (GPU), Image Sans Frontiere (ISF), Association of Romanian Photographic Artists (AAFR). As many as 1,000 new cases of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 were recorded in the last 24 hours in Romania, up 556 from the previous day, with over 18,000 RT-PCR and rapid antigenic tests performed, the Health Ministry informed on Tuesday, told Agerpres. Of the new cases, 247 were in re-infected patients, who tested positive more than 90 days after the first time they recovered from the disease. Most of the newly confirmed COVID-19 cases in Romania since the previous reporting were recorded in Bucharest City - 240, and in Cluj County - 83. The highest 14-day notification rate is in Bucharest City - 1.22, followed by Cluj County - 1.18, and Timis County - 1.05. As of Tuesday, 3,277,020 cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus were confirmed in Romania. - Hospitalisations - As many as 1,015 people with COVID-19, down 117 from the previous reporting, including 56 minors, are hospitalised in Romania at specialist care facilities. Out of the total number of hospitalised patients, 108 are in intensive care, down 10. Of the 108 patients admitted to ICU, 90 are unvaccinated against COVID-19. - Deaths - According to the ministry, 13 Romanians, seven both men and six women, are reported dead in the last 24 hours. Of the 13 deaths, one was recorded in the age group 30-39 years; two in the age group 60-69 years, four in the age group 70-79, and six in the age group over 80 years. Thirteen deaths were in patients with comorbidities, and three deaths were in vaccinated patients. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 67,097 people diagnosed with the SARS-CoV-2 infection have died in Romania. The Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation, General Philippe Lavigne, is visiting Romania, until Wednesday, at the invitation of the Chief of the Defense Staff (SMAp), General Daniel Petrescu, the Ministry of National Defence (MApN) informs. On Monday, the high representative of NATO had a meeting with the state secretary for defense policy, planning and international relations, Simona Cojocaru, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense. The two officials addressed the main topics on the allied agenda that will be the subject of the upcoming meeting of the Defense Ministers from the NATO countries. General Lavigne presented the main concerns of the Allied Command Transformation (ACT), emphasizing the importance of the steps to implement the decisions adopted at the Madrid Summit, Agerpres informs. At the meetings with the head of SMAp, the discussions focused on the analysis of the security situation, significantly affected by the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, as well as on the strengthening of the deterrence and defense posture, especially through the defensive reconfiguration of the Eastern Flank. According to General Philippe Lavigne, Europe is facing the biggest security challenge since the Second World War. He highlighted Romania's commitment to NATO, adding that transatlantic unity is now more important than ever. Our dialogue was an opportunity to share our perspectives on several topics. It helped me to better understand the Romanian approach to the regional security context, said the Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation. An important objective of General Philippe Lavigne's visit to Romania is to participate in the NATO seminar dedicated to the development of the concept of Layered Resilience (NATO Layered Resilience Seminar), which takes place at the National Military Circle, between October 10 and 12. During the reunion, he will deliver a presentation of the fourth edition of the "NATO Innovation Challenge" project, a competition open to companies from member states whose innovative solutions contribute to keeping the Alliance at the forefront of technological development. General Daniel Petrescu presented the ways in which our country can contribute to the initiative coordinated by the Allied Command for Transformation "North-Atlantic Innovation Accelerator", to apply innovative solutions for military capabilities. General Lavigne will also have meetings with the command team of the Southeast Multinational Corps Command in Sibiu and with soldiers from the NATO Battle Group deployed in the National Joint Training Center in Cincu, Brasov. A team of teachers and students, master's and doctoral students, will perform in theatre shows and workshops of artistic pedagogy through games in the Romanian-language schools in Italy as part of the UNATC Caravan, which will take place between October 13 and 21, told Agerpres. The initiative is part of the "UNATC Caravan for the diaspora and Romanians everywhere" project, organized by the National University of Theatre and Cinematography "I.L. Caragiale," under the high patronage of the Presidential Administration and supported by the Romanian Ministry of Education. The main partner of the programme in Italy is the Embassy of Romania in the host country, informs a press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday. The official inauguration of the project in Italy will take place on October 14, at the headquarters of the Romanian Embassy in Italy, in the presence of the Romanian ambassador to Italy, Gabriela Dancau, the president of the Commission for Education in the Chamber of Deputies, Natalia Intotero, and the rector of UNATC, Liviu Lucaci. The itinerant cultural platform for practice and theoretical introduction to the tools of artistic pedagogy, "UNATC Caravan for the Diaspora and Romanians everywhere" facilitates the knowledge of the culture and the learning of the Romanian language, through methods and means made available by the art of theatre and film. Italy is the second country that will be visited by the UNATC Caravan, after the trip in the Republic of Moldova - September 23-October 1, dedicated to Education through Theatre. Babes-Bolyai University (UBB) from Cluj-Napoca marks, with a festive moment, the completion of 150 years of university education in the Hungarian language in Romania, informs UBB on Tuesday, in a press release. "Wednesday, October 12, 2022, in the Aula Magna of the University, the academic community of UBB is celebrating 150 years of Hungarian university education in Romania! The Hungarian University of Cluj has had a complex history, which left an impressive number of graduates. Thus, this continues the tradition of the Universitas Claudiopolitana, started in 1581 with education in Latin, to which the German language was later added and will be transformed in 1919 by King Ferdinand into the Romanian University of Cluj, the latter evolving into what we call Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj (UBB) today. If the Universitas Claudiopolitana conferred the first doctorate titles on the current territory of the country (the first identified so far since 1715), the Hungarian University of Cluj offered from 1872 the first doctorate and Doctor Honoris Causa titles in the modern, Humboldtian format," the UBB press release reads, told Agerpres. According to the source, the science schools of the Hungarian University of Cluj were of international reference, the mathematics school, for example, bringing together some of the most important mathematicians of the respective times, in this period Henri Poincare also becoming Doctor Honoris Causa of this university. "If in 2019 we celebrated 100 years of Romanian university, and in 2021 we celebrated 440 years of academic tradition (including the tradition of education in German), now is the time to honor 150 years of Hungarian university. Although higher education in Hungarian already exists in Cluj through institutes/academies, some derived from Universitas Claudiopolitana, Hungarian university education begins on the current territory of the country with this academic institution founded in 1872, which will include the infrastructure and staff of these pre-existing higher education institutions," said the rector of UBB, Professor Dr. Daniel David. Save Romania Union (USR) leader, Catalin Drula requested on Monday that President Klaus Iohannis dismissed the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, stating that he is "a corrupt minister, because of whom Romania risks not entering Schengen." "The Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, ran away from Parliament today, where he had to give explanations in the scandal of the BMWs purchased with dedication. It is very serious, and even if Lucian Bode is only an executor for Iohannis in this scandal (.. .), it is very serious in the context of Romania's accession to Schengen. A corrupt minister of the interior endangers Romania's accession to Schengen and I am demanding that Iohannis dismiss him. That is why we called him with a motion before Parliament, to be dismissed by Parliament," Drula said at Parliament, told Agerpres. The leader of the USR claims that the accusations of corruption against the political class in Bucharest represent the "nail" on which the goal of Romania's accession to Schengen hangs. He pointed out that "those who ran away from the Parliament at the last moment did not end well politically". The permanent office of the Chamber of Deputies decided, on Tuesday, that the simple motion against the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, be debated and voted on next week. Donald Trumps private company arranged for the Secret Service to pay for rooms at his properties in excess of government-approved rates at least 40 times during his presidency including two charges for more than $1,100 per room, per night. That is according to documents released Monday by a congressional committee investigating the former president. The House Oversight Committee said the Secret Service was charged more than $800 per night at least 11 times by his properties. The Trump Organization denied anything improper. It said it provided rooms to the Secret Service at cost or deep discount, adding that its business did not profit at all from the presidency. ST. LOUIS Litigation involving a former developer and millions of dollars in unpaid bonds are creating a logjam in bringing any new life to downtown St. Louis long-vacant Railway Exchange Building, according to a preservationist who worked on a recent attempt to develop the property. Those hurdles are clouding the real estate title of the 21-story building, once Famous-Barrs flagship store impeding new developers from securing the money needed to buy and renovate the property. The issues already prevented one potential developer, New York-based Carnegie Management Inc., from moving forward with plans to transform the empty building into more than 700 apartments. And real estate specialist and preservationist Patrick Ciccone, who worked with the development team, said the propertys size one of Missouris largest at 1.2 million square feet already creates its biggest challenge. The Railway Exchange is the historic and future jewel of downtown St. Louis, said Ciccone, who spoke to the Post-Dispatch on behalf of himself and not the company. Its rebirth should not be held hostage by the recent past. Without a new plan, the more than 100-year-old building will remain as one of downtowns biggest albatrosses. I believe that there is a window of time to keep this attempt to redevelop the building alive, hopefully led by a St. Louis developer with a civic interest in the critical importance of the project to downtown, Ciccone said. An immediate, concerted effort from the city and St. Louis stakeholders to make all those parties come to the table should yield a viable path. A hulking mass of brick and concrete, the Railway Exchange occupies an entire block at 615 Olive Street in the heart of downtowns central business district. It was built in 1914 and served as the headquarters of Famous-Barr parent May Department Stores before Macys acquired the company in 2005. Generations of St. Louisans admired the tinseled model train displays during the winter holidays when the retailer occupied the building. But today, colorful graffiti and crumbling, ornate terra cotta pilasters adorn the property. The stately structure has proven to be a quagmire in a downtown in need of a revival after corporations pulled out of the central business district in the 1990s and early 2000s. The neighborhood has the highest office vacancy rate in the region. In 2010, developer Rick Yackey bought the Railway Exchange from Macys and planned a $111.7 million redevelopment that included a pricey renovation of the Macys store, which shrunk its footprint to just a few floors. The city of St. Louis issued nearly $28 million in tax increment financing and $4.6 million in bonds for the project. But Macys soon closed and the property has remained vacant since 2014. Florida-based Hudson Holdings, led by Andrew Avi Greenbaum and Steven Michael, bought the Railway Exchange and its parking garage in 2017 and planned a $300 million mixed-use development. But their project was plagued with problems: A water main rupture dumped millions of gallons of water and tons of sludge in the basement, destroying infrastructure and prompting a lawsuit that is still ongoing. Hudson Holdings also is mired in litigation involving a bevy of lien-holders, including New York-based Gamma Real Estate Capital, which lent Hudson $19.7 million to acquire the building. The lien litigation complicates any purchase of the property. And the unpaid bonds, which now total more than $7.5 million in principal and interest, are holding up the buildings progress, Ciccone said. The parties involved in the previous failed development efforts remain trapped in a classic prisoners dilemma, where in attempting to minimize their losses individually, he said, they are failing to see that a collective solution is the only way where all parties will not, in fact, lose everything. Neither Gamma Real Estate nor Greenbaum responded to a request for comment. Ciccone said the liens and debts total more than the Railway Exchanges value and that if all parties agree to a lower number, it would clear the path for the redevelopment to proceed. Carnegie Management Inc., which did not respond to a request for comment, spent the past year attempting to work past those issues as well as putting together a redevelopment plan that included St. Louis-based Trivers architecture firm and design-build firm Paric Corp. The developer was going to tackle the project in halves: working to replace infrastructure and put apartments on the buildings south side, for example, before doing the same on the north side. Trivers and Paric have worked on historic renovations, including the multifamily redevelopment of Downtown Wests Butler Brothers Building that Ciccone said shows the demand for hundreds, if not thousands, of new apartments in the downtown area. Downtown Alderman Jack Coatar this summer introduced Board Bill 53 that seeks to authorize the use of eminent domain and tax abatement for the Railway Exchange, though the eminent domain would just clear title issues for the garage. Coatar, in a recent committee meeting, postponed discussion of the bill until the Oct. 20 meeting. He did not respond to a request for comment. Neal Richardson, executive director of the citys economic development agency, St. Louis Development Corp., said SLDC would continue to provide help to developers to remove barriers for a project to move forward. Dustin Allison, chief real estate officer for the regions business development organization Greater St. Louis Inc., in a statement called Carnegie Management Inc.s decision to walk away a setback but that city and state leaders would continue to work together to find a new developer. This is a challenging project, Allison said, but the groundwork undertaken to date has demonstrated the viability of redeveloping this key downtown asset. There arent too many artists who move between the worlds of pop and classical music as easily or as assuredly as pianist, guitarist and vocalist Gabriel Kahane. That makes him an excellent choice to perform as part of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestras Crafted series of informal happy-hour concerts. Kahane, speaking by phone from San Luis Obispo, California, just before hopping on a plane to Seattle, says that the SLSO is an orchestra I have admired for a long time since childhood. So its really thrilling to have this opportunity. And Powell Hall is such a beautiful sounding space. This wont be his first time performing at Powell or with the SLSO, however. Both were guests on a broadcast of Live From Here, the now-defunct radio variety show hosted by Chris Thile, which in late May 2019 originated from Powell. Still, Kahane calls his upcoming performance my proper debut with the orchestra. For the Crafted program, the SLSO will perform Aaron Coplands Appalachian Spring Suite and then back Kahane, who will primarily feature songs from his two most recent albums, 2018s Book of Travelers and Magnificent Bird, which was released earlier this year. Both of those records are concept albums, or at least they each had parameters surrounding their methods of composition. Magnificent Bird was written after Kahane abstained from the internet for a year. Then in October 2020, he wrote a song a day 28 with lyrics and three instrumentals and chose the albums 10 tracks from among them. Book of Travelers, meanwhile, was composed after Kahane boarded a train the day after the 2016 presidential election and logged 9,000 miles traveling through 30 states. He chatted with his fellow passengers and observed the landscape, keeping a log of it all, which led to the album. Kahane thinks of the two releases as being connected. For one thing, during his Amtrak odyssey, he left his cell phone at home, which hatched the idea he explored on the later album. Then, too, theres this: I guess the thing that kind of brings them together is that theyre both projects interested in how technology is changing the way we relate to one another, he says as to where its improving relations between people and where it is making them more challenging. In the case of Book of Travelers, he says, I have this kind of Hallmark-y instinct that we have more in common than we have that divides us. But there are people in power who preserve their power by convincing us that our neighbors are our enemies. Its the same con thats been going on for hundreds of years. And Book of Travelers is about trying to break through those levels of mediation that prevent us from discovering our joys and our griefs are bound up with each other. For Magnificent Bird Kahane spent the year leading up to the 2020 election offline but kept in touch with the world by reading newspapers, reading print magazines and listening to the radio. It was a concerted effort, he says, to tamp down the rage I felt every time I went on the internet. I was using a huge amount of emotional energy to not write mean things on the internet. Ultimately, writing a song a day for the project was not so much about inspiration as it was Kahanes dedication to craft. His method, he says, was journaling longhand every morning writing until I felt like I had something or my arm got tired. After that, he went to his studio, typed up what he had written and worked it over, draft after draft. Eventually, hed have something he deemed worthy of taking to his piano, where hed compose the music to accompany his words. Theyre vignettes, he says of the finished songs. Theyre briefer. But I stand behind them. Magnificent Bird was made with the help of a cadre of Kahanes close friends from both the classical and non-classical worlds, including Thile, Caroline Shaw, Sam Amidon, Andrew Bird and Nathalie Joachim, among others. Each of them recorded their parts remotely, meaning that Kahane ultimately made an album about avoiding the internet by using the internet. So theres a bit of irony there, no? There is, and there isnt, Kahane says. I think what I realized in trying to square that circle is that, obviously, the internet has done extraordinary things for the world, whether its activating social movements, holding power to account, connecting people, providing access to education for people living in remote places, and so on. But where it falters is when were trying to scale up our communication to a large group of people whose identities we dont really know. Twitter is the worst example of that. Kahne takes a measure of revenge on Twitter and other social media platforms by composing humorous, quick-hit songs he calls Twitterkreis taking kreis from the German liederkreis, which means song cycle. A recent example of this is a lyric Kahane took directly from a Nextdoor posting. Its called Can I Sue My Bee Keeper Neighbor. Kahane says hell likely do a few of his Twitterkreis numbers during his Powell performance. He also intends to perform Empire Liquor Mart (9127 S. Figueroa St.), a long, elegiac piece fraught with racial tension from his 2014 album The Ambassador. It concerns the killing of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African American girl in L.A.s Koreatown a year before the Rodney King riots. Harlins, it turns out, was born in East St. Louis moved to L.A. with her family in the early 80s. Because of the local connection, Kahane says, I had always kind of wanted to play that song for a St. Louis audience. So were doing that as well. Because Cornish hens are so petite, it means they are the perfect bird to air-fry whole. Thanks to the short cooking time (a smaller size hen will only take around 35 minutes!), the meat stays juicy while the skin gets nice and crispy. Each serving is one whole hen per person, which means its perfect for dinner parties. Its also a quick and easy Thanksgiving turkey substitute if youre thinking of a low-key celebration. Bonus for any scenario: No carving required! What are Cornish hens? Cornish hens, also known as Rock Cornish game hens or Cornish game hens, are not actually game birds, nor are they all females! The name is given to a chicken that has been slaughtered at a younger age than the average chicken, which means they can weigh as little as one pound and are usually never more than about two pounds. A few tips Heat your air fryer for 10 minutes. After experimenting with different temperatures, I found air frying at 380 F in a preheated air fryer gave the best results, turning the skin a deep golden-brown without drying out the interior. Adjust the cook time according to size. As the sizes of Cornish hens can differ from 1 to 2 pounds, the smaller size hen will only take around 35 minutes to air fry. If you air-fry a 2-pound Cornish hen, it can take up to 40 minutes. For larger hens, start checking the internal temperature at 35 minutes in the thickest part of the thigh. A hack for repairing a tear in the skin covering the breast Some Cornish hens are sold frozen or defrosted, which can damage the delicate breast skin. Some are even sold with tears. To fix this, thereby preventing the meat from drying out, pull the skin over the exposed area and use a toothpick to secure the skin in place. Or pull the skin over the exposed area and then cover the hen with a slice of bacon, securing the bacon in place with a toothpick under the hen. No tear? This recipe gives you the option to add the bacon regardless. Because, why not? Air Fryer Cornish Hen Serves 2 to 4 2 (1 to 1 1/4-pound) Cornish hens 1/2 small lemon 2 large sprigs fresh rosemary 1 teaspoon kosher salt 3/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning, or 1/2 teaspoon ground sage plus 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder 3/4 teaspoon onion powder 3/4 teaspoon sweet paprika 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 2 slices bacon (optional) 1. Pat two Cornish hens dry with paper towels, including behind the wings, legs, and inside the cavity. Place on a wire rack fitted over a large plate. Refrigerate uncovered for at least 1 hour, or up to overnight to dry the exterior and help create crispy skin. 2. Heat an air fryer to 380 F for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the following: Cut 1/2 small lemon in half again to create 2 quarters and remove any visible seeds. Cut 1 of the large rosemary sprigs in half crosswise. Place 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 3/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning, 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 3/4 teaspoon onion powder, 3/4 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar in a small bowl and stir to combine. 3. Pat the Cornish hens dry again with paper towels. Rub 1 tablespoon of the olive oil on each hen, including the underside, wings, and thighs. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of the spice mixture inside each the cavity of each hen. Sprinkle the outside of the hens with the remaining spice mixture, liberally rubbing the spices into the oil to create an even coating so that there are no spice clumps, which will burn in the air fryer. Place 1 lemon quarter and half a rosemary sprig inside each cavity. Wrap 1 slice bacon lengthwise over the center of each hen, and secure with a toothpick underneath, if using. 4. Brush the air fryer basket with a very thin layer of the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, reserving the rest. Carefully place both hens in the air fryer basket breast-side down. If you have a small basket, alternate the direction of the hens, so they face each other to ensure they snugly fit in the basket. You may need to use tongs to arrange the hens in the basket. Drizzle any remaining olive oil over both hens. 5. Air fry for 20 minutes. Flip the hens and continue air frying until an instant-read thermometer registers 165 F in the thickest part of the thigh, 15 to 20 minutes more. Meanwhile, pick the leaves from the remaining large rosemary sprig and finely chop until you have about 1 teaspoon. 6. Transfer the Cornish hens from the air fryer with tongs to a large plate or clean cutting board. Let rest for 10 minutes. Discard any toothpicks and garnish with the chopped rosemary. Remove the lemon wedge from the cavity with a fork and carefully squeeze the juice over the Cornish hen if desired. Recipe notes Cornish hens can range from 1 pound to 2 pounds; for air frying, the smaller size (1 to 1 1/4 pounds) is better, as you can fit two hens in the basket. If you can only get the larger 2-pound Cornish hens (which can be shared between two people), the cooking time will be longer if cooking two larger hens at once (if they can fit in your basket). Start checking the internal temperature after 30 minutes. If you have an air fryer with a small basket, you may only be able to fit one 2-pound hen in at once. To serve a larger 2-pound hen to share, use kitchen shears to cut each hen in half down the breast bone and along the backbone. Leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to four days. (Tara Holland is a contributor to TheKitchn.com, a nationally known blog for people who love food and home cooking. Submit any comments or questions to editorial@thekitchn.com.) TUESDAY, Oct. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with complicated urinary tract infection (UTI) or acute pyelonephritis caused by gram-negative pathogens, cefepime/enmetazobactam is noninferior and superior to piperacillin/tazobactam for clinical cure and microbiological eradication, according to a study published in the Oct. 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Keith S. Kaye, M.D., Ph.D., from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues conducted a randomized trial at 90 sites in Europe, North and Central America, South America, and South Africa to examine whether cefepime/enmetazobactam was noninferior to piperacillin/tazobactam for the primary outcome of treatment efficacy in patients with complicated UTIs or acute pyelonephritis. The prespecified noninferiority margin was 10 percent; a superiority comparison was also prespecified if noninferiority was established. A total of 1,041 patients were randomly assigned, and 995 completed the trial. The researchers found that the primary outcome (proportion of patients who achieved overall treatment success, defined as clinical cure combined with microbiological eradication) occurred in 79.1 and 58.9 percent of patients receiving cefepime/enmetazobactam and piperacillin/tazobactam, respectively. Treatment-emergent adverse events occurred in 50.0 and 44.0 percent of patients receiving cefepime/enmetazobactam and piperacillin/tazobactam, respectively; most were mild to moderate in severity. "Further research is needed to determine the potential role for cefepime/enmetazobactam in the treatment of complicated UTI and pyelonephritis," the authors write. Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Allecra Therapeutics, which is developing cefepime/enmetazobactam and funded the study. WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) New Zealand's government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products. But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry's main lobby group, said the plan would rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand and see farms replaced with trees. Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn't decrease food production. Our plan was to keep farmers farming," Hoggard said. Instead, he said farmers would be selling their farms so fast you wont even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off. Opposition lawmakers from the conservative ACT Party said the plan would actually increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food. New Zealands farming industry is vital to its economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nations largest export earner. There are just 5 million people in New Zealand but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep. The outsized industry has made New Zealand unusual in that about half of its greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Farm animals produce gasses that warm the planet, particularly methane from cattle burps and nitrous oxide from their urine. The debate in New Zealand is part of a broader global reckoning about farming's impact on the environment and the steps some say are needed for mitigation. In the Netherlands, farmers have dumped hay bales on roads and driven tractors along busy highways to protest government proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants. In New Zealand, the government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes a pledge that it will reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050. Under the government's proposed plan, farmers would start to pay for emissions in 2025, with the pricing yet to be finalized. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said all the money collected from the proposed farm levy would be put back into the industry to fund new technology, research and incentive payments for farmers. New Zealand's farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food," Ardern said. Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor said it was an exciting opportunity for New Zealand and its farmers. Farmers are already experiencing the impact of climate change with more regular drought and flooding, O'Connor said. Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is both good for the environment and our economy. The liberal Labour government's proposal harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labour government in 2003 to tax farm animals for their methane emissions. Farmers back then also vehemently opposed the idea, and political opponents ridiculed it as a fart tax although a burp tax would have been more technically accurate as most of the methane emissions come from belching. The government eventually abandoned the plan. According to opinion polls, Arderns Labour Party has slipped in popularity and fallen behind the main opposition National Party since Ardern won a second term in 2020 in a landslide victory of historic proportions. If Ardern's government can't find agreement on the proposal with farmers, who have considerable political sway in New Zealand, it's likely to make it more difficult for Ardern to win reelection next year when the nation goes back to the polls. WASHINGTON (AP) Video of a landmark 2010 trial that cleared the way for gay marriage in California can be made public, the culmination of a years-long legal fight. The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would not intervene in the dispute over the recordings, leaving in place lower court rulings permitting the videos release. The trial more than a decade ago led to the resumption in 2013 of gay marriage in the nations most populous state. That was two years before the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a nationwide right. As is typical the justices said nothing about the case in declining to hear it, and it was among many the court declined. The case the justices rejected began in 2008 when a California Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage. Voters, however, responded by passing Proposition 8 forbidding it. Two gay couples then sued and proponents of Proposition 8 defended it when the state said it wouldn't. Because of the interest in the case, the judge overseeing it, Vaughn Walker, initially ordered that it be livestreamed to other courthouses. Proponents of the measure objected, and the Supreme Court stopped the proposed broadcast from happening. Walker did, however, record the trial under rules allowing the practice, but he said it was for his own use and not for the purpose of being broadcast or televised. The video became part of the record of the case but remained under seal. In the case itself, Walker eventually sided with the gay couples, ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional and barring the state from enforcing it. The case went to the Supreme Court and in a 2013 technical ruling the justices cleared the way for the resumption of same-sex marriage in the state. Two years later the justices ruled 5-4 that same-sex marriage was a nationwide right. Walker, for his part, has been retired since 2011. After the trial was over, however, the judge used video clips of it during public appearances. A court stopped that practice but there continued to be efforts to unseal the recording. An appeals court determined that the seal on the video would expire in 2020 under local rules. Some proponents of Proposition 8 argued that the video should remain sealed. But a judge concluded that there was no evidence that anyone involved in the case fears retaliation or harassment if the recordings are released." The judge also said no one believed at the time of the trial that Walker's commitment to personal use of the recordings meant that the trial recordings would remain under seal forever. A federal appeals court also ruled against the Proposition 8 proponents, leading them to appeal to the Supreme Court. The case is Dennis Hollingsworth v. Kristin M. Perry, 21-1304. Joe Holleman Joe Holleman is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Joe Holleman Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The majority of the main players involved in a conflict-of-interest probe of St. Louis County Councilwoman Lisa Clancy continue to give the silent treatment to the councils ethics committee. Of five people involved in 2019 with Clancy and the countys zoning laws for medical marijuana industry all of whom refused to attend a committee meeting on Sept. 6 only one has responded to written questions the committee sent out last month. The committee asked for a response by Oct. 5. I am disappointed, said Councilman Mark Harder, R-7th District, the committee chair. We just wanted some information, and we made it easy on them. But their silence is very interesting, Harder said. The four who have yet to respond to the ethics committee are Winston Calvert, former chief of staff to County Executive Sam Page; Stephen Hiotis, a lawyer at the Summer Compton Wells firm; a representative of VG S. Lindbergh LLC, the dispensary that benefited from Clancys work; and Shelby Partridge, who worked on marijuana licenses for Summer Compton Wells in 2019 and whose texts and emails were given to the ethics committee in July. Calvert, Hiotis and the VG company also did not return calls Monday from the Post-Dispatch. The office of Steven Tilley, a marijuana lobbyist and former speaker of the Missouri House, submitted a response Monday afternoon several hours after the Post-Dispatch had left a message seeking comment. Clancy, a Democrat who represents the 5th District, earned about $4,500 in the summer of 2019 by working for Summer Compton Wells, writing grant applications for VG, a company that successfully sought a dispensary license in unincorporated St. Louis County. Clancy was recommended for the job by Calvert, who had a personal relationship at the time with Partridge. At the same time as Clancy worked on the license applications, she also was an active participant in council discussion and was a strong supporter of measures beneficial to the marijuana industry. Several months after the county adopted its zoning ordinance for marijuana businesses, Tilley donated $500 to Clancys campaign coffers. Clancy has denied that her actions constituted a conflict of interest. In his responses submitted Monday, Tilley stressed that he did not hire Clancy nor did he have any role in her employment. Later, in response to another question, Tilley said he did not even know of Clancys involvement, or any other specific persons involvement, in securing a license for VG. When asked why he chose not to attend the September ethics committee hearing, Tilley said he had a scheduling conflict and furthermore, the ethics committee lacks jurisdiction to harass private citizens. The information provided to the ethics committee also included an exchange between Partridge and Clancy that indicates that Clancy ended her involvement with the law firm after County Executive Sam Page objected. About one month into Clancys work, on July 31, 2019, Clancy told Partridge by text that she would have to stop working on the applications because of Pages reaction. I thought I was fine until Sam flipped out about it the other night, Clancy wrote. Page has said on two occasions that he does not recall discussing the matter with Clancy. As to not responding to the ethics committee, Partridge told the Post-Dispatch that instead of sending questions to her and the four other people, she would prefer that the committee question Clancy and Page. It seems to me these two elected officials should come forward and answer the questions, as they will more clearly recall their actions and the timing of the contributions received, she said. Harder said he would wait a short time to see if more responses are forthcoming. Then, he said, he would talk with the committees other members to discuss further actions. The other ethics committee members are Rita Heard Days, D-1st District; Shalonda Webb, 4th District; and Tim Fitch, R-3rd District. Originally posted at 4 p.m. Monday. JEFFERSON CITY The Missouri Supreme Court needs nearly $7 million to pay for the cost of erasing past marijuana-related convictions as part of a budget request submitted to Gov. Mike Parson earlier this month. The money would only be budgeted if Missouri voters approve a question on the Nov. 8 ballot asking if the state should join 19 others in legalizing the sale of marijuana for recreational purposes. The proposal would launch an automatic expungement process for people who have past marijuana-related convictions for nonviolent offenses and for those whose convictions didnt include selling to minors or driving while affected by the drug. According to the courts budget request, the majority of the cost will fall to local courts, who may have to hire temporary staff and pay overtime to process the paperwork. The court is seeking $2.2 million for the current fiscal year to bankroll the initial months of the process and $4.5 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1 to continue the expungements. The personal services costs were estimated for 500 clerks at the courts statewide working overtime to meet the timelines for expungement of records, the court said in its request. John Payne, campaign manager for Legal Missouri 2022, which is supporting the initiative, said the numbers are no surprise. Thats pretty in line with what we were expecting, Payne said Tuesday. Parson, a Republican who opposes the amendment, typically doesnt significantly alter the judicial branchs budget requests when he presents his spending blueprint to the General Assembly in January. Once he unveils the plan, lawmakers begin debate on the spending proposal with an eye on finishing their work in early May. Under current state law, someone seeking to expunge their records must initiate the process themselves. President Joe Biden last week announced the pardons of Americans with federal convictions for marijuana possession and urged states to follow suit. Parson, however, is not changing his approach to pardons. He has been active in granting clemency petitions as governor, working through a backlog of requests that existed before he took office in 2018. Most recently, his office said he pardoned 26 individuals in September. Governor Parson has used his state constitutional authority to grant pardons to individuals who demonstrate a changed lifestyle, commitment to rehabilitation, contrition, and contribution to their communities rather than as a blanket approach to undermine existing law, Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones said. The amendment, if approved by a majority of voters, gives courts six months to expunge past misdemeanors and a year for eligible felonies. The ballot language calls for the courts to be reimbursed with money raised from a 6% tax on the sale of pot products, with the remaining funds going to veterans homes, drug addiction treatment services and public defenders. The state auditors office, in analyzing the proposed constitutional amendment, said it is expected to generate about $41 million in revenue once fully implemented. Cost estimates compiled by the auditor, however, did not include expenses for administrative court costs related to the expungement process. Payne said money raised from the taxes will first go toward the rollout of the proposal, including repaying the court system for the cost of the expungement process. It should not be a problem for us to pay it, Payne said. That money comes off the top. The legalization effort, which is being largely financed by existing medical marijuana companies, has drawn mixed reviews from various groups. The Missouri Democratic Party, for example, is not taking a position on the ballot measure, citing the expungement process among other concerns. At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union is backing the initiative because of the expungement language. ST. LOUIS Three pedestrians have been hit and killed by vehicles in the St. Louis area since Sunday, putting Missouri near a record pace for pedestrians killed this year. One woman was run over on a sidewalk in Overland. Another was struck while standing on a street in south St. Louis. The latest, a man, was found early Tuesday lying on St. Charles Rock Road. Two involved hit-and-run drivers. Another was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Those deaths added to what was already a grim trend in Missouri. In 2020, the state set a new record for pedestrian deaths, with 128. By Oct. 9 of that year, it had recorded 92. This year, as of Sunday, 87 pedestrians have been killed statewide not including the three killed since then. The St. Louis region alone has 37 pedestrian deaths this year. The region includes St. Louis, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County and Franklin County, said Tara Van Loo, pedestrian program manager for Missouris Highway Safety and Traffic Division. As overall traffic deaths surged in 2020, analysts blamed the pandemic, with more speeders, impaired drivers and inattention behind the wheel, coupled with less traffic enforcement. State investigators cite driver impairment, failure to yield and driver inattention as the most common contributing factors, Van Loo said. The states public safety campaign focuses on driver behavior, urging motorists to slow down and move over if they see a pedestrian along a road or highway. But some pedestrians are making bad choices too. Some were killed wandering onto roads while intoxicated about one in five, according to one statewide statistic. Some pedestrians might be suicidal, though exact numbers arent available. The state Highway Patrol keeps a list of what the pedestrians were believed to be doing when they were hit. That list includes crossing in a marked crosswalk, crossing without a traffic signal, playing in traffic, walking or running in traffic, standing or lying in the road and pushing a disabled vehicle. Many pedestrians who died werent paying attention either, and Van Loo has some simple advice for people trying to cross a street. Keep your head up, Van Loo said. Dont be playing on your phone. Make sure the driver sees you. Kinda do a little wave, that kind of thing, to make sure were all being careful. In just 33 hours from Sunday to Tuesday, these were the three incidents where pedestrians were killed here: An unidentified woman was struck just after 6 p.m. Sunday in the 3700 block of Gravois Avenue, in St. Louis Tower Grove South neighborhood. Police said they dont know if she was standing in the parking lane or a traffic lane when she was struck. Police are still searching for the driver of a red sedan. Kristin L. Freebersyser, 34, of Maryland Heights, was on a sidewalk in Overland about 8:30 p.m. Monday when a Mercedes Benz veered off Woodson Road, near Tennyson Road, hit three parked pickup trucks and then struck Freebersyser. Police arrested the driver, but prosecutors asked for more investigation before filing any charges. Police found a man lying in the road about 2:50 a.m. Tuesday at St. Charles Rock Road and Normandy Avenue. He died at a hospital. St. Louis County police said he was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Police havent released the mans name or a description of the vehicle that hit the man. A fourth pedestrian suffered life-threatening injuries about 7:30 p.m. Monday at Jennings Station Road and Florence Place, on the same block as the police precinct station in Jennings. The man whose car hit the woman stayed at the scene and tried to help her until paramedics arrived, police said. Police initially said the woman had died, then later corrected their statement to say she was alive. In 2020, during its record year, Missouri ranked 17th in the country for pedestrian fatalities, with a rate of 2.08 pedestrians killed per 100,000 people. The highest per capita rate that year was New Mexico with 3.75. Nationwide, 18 pedestrians were killed a day that year. Aside from education and enforcement, advocates trying to reduce pedestrian deaths say sidewalk construction and better street lighting are some countermeasures. A report by the Governors Highway Safety Association said pedestrian refuge islands can improve pedestrian safety. The islands are in medians of two-way streets and allow pedestrians to cross in two stages. Single-lane roundabouts also substantially improve pedestrian safety compared to comparable intersections with traffic lights, the report said. Last week, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said she wants to put at least $40 million in federal aid toward a citywide approach to making streets safer, including traffic-slowing measures on major streets such as Jefferson Avenue and Kingshighway. Jones announcement came amid growing angst about safety on city streets, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. At least 13 pedestrians or cyclists have been killed so far this year in the city, including a pedestrian and a cyclist around the South Grand Boulevard business district and two pedestrians outside the iconic Ted Drewes frozen custard stand on Chippewa Street. A spokesperson for the St. Louis County Department of Transportation declined to comment on the deaths until the department had time to thoroughly review the police reports. Kelsey Landis of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. CLAYTON The St. Louis County jail, led by its sixth director in three years, has launched reforms officials hope will improve the long-troubled facility and help keep people from reoffending once released. For the first time, the jail in August hosted a polling place for the primary election so eligible people awaiting trial could vote. There are new college classes, job training and help enrolling in Medicaid for health coverage when a person leaves. Since last fall, detainees could use tablets for classes, court updates and passing the time. The changes come years after the Buzz Westfall Justice Center dominated headlines and prompted protests inside and outside its walls over claims of staff misconduct, use-of-force practices and inmates dying in custody. Over the past two years, employees have described bullying under previous directors, and dozens have said theyre on the verge of quitting. Millions have been invested to reform the jail, including nearly $6 million in grants from the MacArthur Foundation. Since 2015, the nonprofit has funded a pretrial release program, provided qualified inmates with housing and employment assistance, help for substance abuse and mental health treatment. If we can all be treated with dignity, I think we can help people be successful and keep the public safer, said jail Director Scott Anders. In his office hangs a poster with an image of the late Congressman John Lewis and his renowned principle of Good Trouble. As part of the jails focus on preventing recidivism, researchers are examining racial inequities in jail policies, practices and culture. For example, theyll be looking at whether people of color are more likely to be put in restraints by corrections staff or assigned to specific housing units. Data shows a person being targeted in such ways while in jail is one factor in a cycle that makes a person more likely to reoffend and end up back in custody within 90 days, said Beth Huebner, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at University of Missouri-St. Louis, who sits on the Justice Services Advisory Board. She is leading the racial inequity study. How youre treated in jail affects how you then reacclimate to the community, said Huebner. You want to make sure that people who are released from jail are ready to go back to work, go back with their families. Looking for answers The jail has been a research target as officials sought reasons and solutions to its perennial problems and flashpoints. The upcoming study will be the first to examine the culture and specifically look for racial inequities in a jail setting rather than in a prison; and it will look at staff and inmates. If staff are unhappy due to racial biases in the jail, then staff are less likely to take care of people in the jail, said Huebner. Protests erupted in 2019 after five people died in jail custody. Inmates and their families reported staff misconduct and misuse of force, prompting an examination by police and the County Prosecuting Attorneys office. The county reactivated its Justice Services Advisory Board in response. Among other damning findings, investigators highlighted the availability of illicit drugs in the jail and identified instances where nurses failed to perform basic medical functions and barely knew jail procedures. A 2021 study by University of Missouri-St. Louis researchers found the jail population declined by 40% over a 10-year period but that the length of stay increased. Black people make up the overall population of the jail and have longer stays than their white counterparts. Detainees stay an average of three months, according to the county jails August data, the most recent available. Last November, St. Louis County approved a $121,505 contract with Florida-based consulting group CGL to conduct a six-month review of the jail, in response to complaints of a toxic work environment. Results were made public in July. The audit, which the county touted as creating a roadmap for future reforms, contradicted the toxic work environment staff reported in 2020. CGL found that the jail is top heavy with too many supervisors and, at the time, was understaffed with 45 vacancies. Anders said there were 30 open positions as of September. The jails staff shortages lead to inmates being placed on lockdown when there arent enough employees on duty, resulting in less out-of-cell time, recreation and program services, the report stated. Anders said those lockdowns were also due to the pandemic, and said in September that detainees are out of their cells at least eight hours a day. Some jail medical staff, who are contracted by the Department of Health, accused inmates of faking illness, according to the audit. A health care manager said in an interview for the study medical staff would not take referrals from security officers. This is contrary to standard practice in most jails, as security personnel often have the most interaction with inmates and are likely the best source of information related to their condition, the study states. Today, each housing floor has an infirmary instead of funneling everyone to a main infirmary. The CGL report was criticized by some advisory board members for not detailing the causes and circumstances of the five 2019 deaths. In May, board member the Rev. Phillip Duval said he doubted if staff interviewed for the audit felt they could speak freely. Duval resigned from the advisory board, citing, in part, limitations of the audit. He became the third person to resign from the jail board in the past year and a half. Ultimately, the consulting firm, which did not have full access to complete medical records, didnt find any wrongdoing leading to the five in-custody deaths in 2019. Concerns remain about how forthright the county administration is when deaths occur. Councilman Mark Harder criticized Page in a County Council meeting this summer after finding out about the deaths from Post-Dispatch coverage. Is there something going on over there we need to know about? Harder said. Three people have died at the county jail since January. Those types of things will happen, but its important that were making sure theres nothing that were doing that contributes to that, said Anders, in an interview. Questions remain about the inmate who died last month after being found unresponsive in his cell. Looking to the future While Anders says he thinks morale is improving at the jail because of better communication, he said the $3-per-hour pay increase for jail staff the County Council approved in November has been a significant boost. In April, the county executive and jails director proposed increasing the amount charged to municipalities for holding their inmates from $30 to $120 per person the first increase in more than 20 years. Many municipalities objected. The cost to house each detainee is about $150 a day but dwindles to about $120 a day when applying the jails revenue and money from grants. The council has yet to approve the change. The Rev. Elijah Hosea Hankerson III, a pastor in national and local leadership with the Church of God in Christ, and Nina Riaz, a law school graduate who has worked with incarcerated people with mental illnesses, were sworn in as new advisory board members in August. Ive witnessed firsthand what can happen to someone when theyre released and they dont have resources or theyre traumatized by something that happened in the jail, Riaz told the County Council. When asked by Councilman Tim Fitch if there are some people who belong in the jail, Riaz responded: Do all of them need to be there? No. Do some of them need to be there? Yes, and knowing who needs what and when will be the key to the success of that system. ST. LOUIS A toddler fatally shot himself Monday afternoon on South Kingshighway, on the border of the city's Tower Grove South and North Hampton neighborhoods. The boy was taken to the hospital before officers arrived, police said. He was pronounced dead later Monday. The parking lot of an AutoZone in the 3600 block of Kingshighway was taped off by police on Monday afternoon. The police Child Abuse unit is handling the investigation. No other details were immediately available. As of Sunday, 18 children have died this year by gunfire across the metropolitan area. At least 73 others have been injured in shootings. Nearly all of them were in St. Louis. Another toddler, 21-month-old Khori Patterson, died Aug. 31 after accidentally shooting himself in the head in his mothers home, in the citys Baden neighborhood on Melvin Avenue just east of Jennings. Khori woke up from a nap and found a loaded gun left on a TV stand by his mother's friend, according to police and the child's grandfather. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Indiana voters can begin casting early, in-person ballots Wednesday for the Nov. 8 election in which Democrats are looking for a backlash against the Republican-backed state abortion ban approved over the summer. Republicans in the tightest races are largely avoiding the abortion issue while emphasizing economic topics as they seek to extend their dominance over statewide offices and the General Assembly. Republican U.S. Sen. Todd Young is seeking reelection by following a front-runner strategy of mostly ignoring Democratic challenger Thomas McDermott ahead of their only televised debate scheduled for Sunday. Democrats, meanwhile, are targeting the Indiana secretary of states race, in which former Mike Pence aide Diego Morales won the Republican nomination despite twice leaving jobs in that office after being written up for poor job performance. Here is a look at top races on Indiana ballots: U.S. SENATE Young entered the campaign with huge fundraising and organization advantages over McDermott, who has been the mayor of Hammond, Indiana, since 2004 but is little known outside northwestern Indiana. Indianas Senate race hasnt seen the tens of millions in outside spending that it attracted four years ago when Republican Mike Braun defeated Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly and in 2016 when Young won the Senate seat over former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh. Young avoided a primary challenge this year despite not fully embracing Donald Trumps presidency and not getting a Trump endorsement. Young voted to acquit Trump in his Senate impeachment trial but voted to uphold President Joe Bidens election win. McDermott, a lawyer and U.S. Navy veteran, has tried to build an appeal to working-class voters attracted to Trump while advocating congressional protection of abortion rights and federal marijuana legalization. The lack of national groups spending money in the race when Democrats and Republicans are fiercely fighting for control of the current 50-50 Senate makes it difficult to see Young as vulnerable, although the abortion issue is a wildcard, said Paul Helmke, the former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne and the partys 1998 U.S. Senate candidate. It might be something that gives a little new spark to Democrats in the state, said Helmke, now an Indiana University public affairs professor. But whether thats enough to overcome the strong Republican mindset is hard to tell. SECRETARY OF STATE Morales won the Republican nomination to become Indianas top elections office after talking up a push for tighter state voting restrictions and calling the 2020 presidential election a scam while pointing to unfounded claims Trump and his allies have made about other states. Democrats criticize Morales as an election denier and see a chance to defeat him by pointing to him leaving low-level secretary of state office jobs in 2009 and 2011 after job performance write-ups. Morales returned to state government as an aide on Pence's gubernatorial staff until Pence left to become Trumps vice president in 2017. Democratic candidate Destiny Wells, an attorney and Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, says Morales is sowing seeds of fear and doubt about elections and that the secretary of state should focus on improving Indianas troubles with low voter turnout. Libertarian Jeff Maurer, who is also on the ballot, is advocating improved statewide paper versions of all ballots and independent audits of vote tallies in all counties. U.S. HOUSE SEATS Republicans are making their first serious challenge in several decades for the northwestern Indiana congressional district that has long been a Democratic stronghold. Black U.S. Air Force veteran Jennifer-Ruth Green is challenging Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan, who won his first term in 2020 in the 1st District that hugs Indianas Lake Michigan shoreline. Democrats have typically won there by large margins, but Trump closed the gap by appealing to working class voters in the district that has some of the countrys largest steel mills. Green, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Indiana Air National Guard, touted herself as a Trump supporter during the Republican primary campaign. Democrats have focused much of their criticism on her opposition to abortion rights. STATE LEGISLATURE Democrats are trying to pick up enough state legislative seats to break the Republican supermajorities that have left Democrats largely powerless against conservative proposals such as the abortion ban that's been blocked by a court order. Democrats need to gain five seats in the 100-member House needed to break the two-thirds supermajority that allows Republicans to act even if no Democrats are present. New district maps taking effect with this election protect most current Republican lawmakers, but Democrats are targeting some Republican-held seats in the northern suburbs of Indianapolis and in the South Bend and Fort Wayne areas. State Democratic Chairman Mike Schmuhl said the abortion ban is an example of government overreach stemming from the decade-long Republican legislative supermajority. I think that really crystallizes things for people, Schmuhl said. That something so personal, that really should be between a woman, her family, her faith, her doctor, have Republican politicians kind of step in front of those folks and say, Oh, no, were going to make those decisions for you. WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) A Connecticut jury deliberated Tuesday but has reached no verdict so far in its effort to decide on how much conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay for spreading the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged by crisis actors. The jurors ended their second full day of discussions by asking to revisit testimony Wednesday from William Sherlach, who lost his wife, Mary, in the massacre. He is one of the plaintiffs in the defamation lawsuit. Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages last year to 15 plaintiffs for broadcasting a conspiracy theory that no children died in the shooting and that the victims' relatives were part of an elaborate hoax. Twenty-six people died in the attack at the school in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones repeatedly told his millions of followers on his Infowars website show that the shooting didn't happen. In often-emotional and tearful testimony in a Waterbury courtroom, victims' relatives and the FBI agent said they have been tormented and threatened in person, by mail and on social media by people who believed those lies. The plaintiffs' lawyers have suggested to the jury that a just verdict could be in the hundred of millions of dollars. Jones lawyer has said any damages awarded should be minimal. Jurors asked Tuesday morning for help interpreting a sentence in their instructions on determining damages. In response, they were advised to consider the lengthy instructions as a whole. The trial began Sept. 13. On the witness stand, Jones said he was done saying I'm sorry for calling the shooting a hoax. Outside the courthouse, he's called the legal proceedings a show trial aimed at putting him out of business. Prosecutors have charged a California man in the kidnapping and killings of an 8-month-old baby, her parents and uncle. The Merced County District Attorney's Office on Monday filed four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances against Jesus Salgado. He could spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Salgado is accused of kidnapping the family at gunpoint from their trucking business on Oct. 3. Authorities say Salgado, a former employee with a longstanding dispute, likely killed them within an hour. Salgado appeared in court Monday on video. He did not enter a plea and asked for more time to find an attorney. He is scheduled to return to court Thursday. The Ferguson City Council could learn a lot by studying the management reforms instituted by St. Louis Public Schools instead of continuing down its current road of year-after-year upheaval. Elected boards too often have a tendency to micromanage their professional staffers and engage in loud political antics at the managers expense. The managers wind up quitting in frustration, which is almost what happened in Ferguson recently. City manager Eric Osterberg was fed up with what he perceived as hostile treatment from city council members. After a heated exchange on Sept. 27 with council member Toni Burrow, Osterberg stated, This is the last time Im going to be speaking with you, Councilwoman Burrow. I would like to announce my resignation effective immediately. He later rescinded his resignation. That was after 13 months on the job. His interim predecessor lasted six months, having taken over from a previous interim manager. The city has been through four police chiefs since 2014, the year an officer shot and killed Michael Brown. As the Post-Dispatchs Taylor Tiamoyo Harris reported, Osterberg complained: Theres a pattern of behavior happening with some of the city council members where they do not follow the city charter and they interfere with my ability to do the day-to-day administrative work of the city. Osterbergs experience bears a close resemblance to what happened at St. Louis Public Schools before the state intervened in 2007, when the badly mismanaged district lost accreditation and was mired in $25 million of debt. The district had burned through six superintendents in four years. The state imposed a three-member Special Administrative Board to oversee the district, and that board hired Superintendent Kelvin Adams. Together, their strong working relationship and respect for each others boundaries helped bring the district into fiscal health and managerial discipline. In 2017, the district returned to full accreditation, and a slow transition began back to elected-board oversight. But part of that transition involved lengthy training sessions to acquaint elected board members with the basics of public decorum, parliamentary procedure and state open meetings laws. Todays Board of Trustees, under the guidance of President Matt Davis and Vice President Antoinette Cousins, is a radical and welcome departure from the craziness of the past. Cities like Ferguson that pay professionals to manage their operations need to understand the boundaries. Osterberg says there were times when council members interfered with his reorganization efforts and went behind his back to assign new responsibilities to his staffers. Why hire a city manager or superintendent if the board isnt prepared to let them do their jobs and instead seems intent on driving them away as quickly as possible? Professional management and a non-micromanaging board has allowed St. Louis Public Schools to gain the stable leadership continuity it so badly needed. Learning from the districts mistakes, instead of repeating them, could save Ferguson a lot of headaches and money. Eric Schmitt, Missouris lawsuit-happy attorney general and Republican Senate nominee, recently declared that school children are being exposed to radical ideology. Hes right: Any kids who happen to follow political news in Missouri are seeing the worst kind of radicalism being advanced by Schmitt himself. Schmitt was asked Sunday whether children are under threat in schools. They are by the determined refusal of Schmitts party to allow commonsense gun restrictions. But thats not the threat Schmitt has in mind. I think whats happened in a lot of our school districts is crazy, Schmitt said. Weve exposed a lot of them with this radical ideology, critical race theory, and people who tell you its not happening in our schools, thats not truthful. As is so often the case, its Schmitt who isnt being truthful here. Critical race theory is an academic concept in law schools regarding institutional racism, one that isnt generally taught in elementary or secondary schools for the simple reason that its too advanced. Schmitt presumably knows this, since his campaign of litigious harassment against Missouri school districts has included hounding school administrators to turn over critical-race-theory curriculum that isnt there. But then, Schmitt and other Republicans who fixate on the term are just using it as barely concealed code, anyway, for any curriculum that merely touches on race a topic they dont believe white students should have to endure at any level. In a nation with as long and impactful a racial history as Americas, attempting to wrap the whole topic in a veil of silence is, in a word, radical. Schmitts radicalism also includes multiple other lawsuits against school districts and local governments over masking policies, based in part on the medically ridiculous argument that masks dont inhibit the transmission of the coronavirus. For someone like Schmitt, who has no medical training, to suggest he knows the topic better than the medical professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an inherently radical position. And consider Schmitts stance regarding former President Donald Trumps unlawful hoarding of classified documents that belong to the government. Hours after the FBI peacefully executed a court-ordered search warrant of Trumps home in August a last resort after months of attempting to get Trump to return the records willingly Schmitt tweeted that when he is in the Senate, he will take a wrecking ball to the Department of Justice. Schmitt has also joined legal action attempting to overturn results of the 2020 presidential election, embracing Trumps thoroughly disproven claims of mass voter fraud. Court after court has found Trumps democracy-undermining assertions to be based on, literally, nothing. Yet theres Schmitt, helping spread Trumps falsehoods in his capacity as Missouris top legal official. Anyone searching for toxic radicalism in Missouri today need look no further than that. Spencer Fane LLP is pleased to announce Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis as the recipient of the firms 2023-2025 charitable grant program in St. Louis. As part of its charitable grant program, Spencer Fane will donate $50,000, paid in installments over the next three years, to Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis to support its mission to nurture and guide motivated youth in need to become well-educated, career-ready men and women for others. After being selected as a grant finalist by the STL Charitable Contributions Committee, the organization received an overwhelming number of votes. We are thrilled by this generous support from Spencer Fane and look forward to a meaningful partnership, said Cassandra Sissom, Executive Director of Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis. This donation will allow us to develop more young people into happy, prosperous change-makers. Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis was founded in 1977 and is one of 16 Boys Hope Girls Hope affiliates across the U.S. and Latin America. It has dedicated the past 25 years to helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds graduate and maximize their potential. Currently, they serve 99 junior high through college students in the St. Louis metro. As participants of the nonprofit organization, students will participate in extracurricular activities, create and achieve life and academic goals, utilize tutoring services, and receive college scholarship packages after graduating high school. Funds from the grant will go toward at least one of the three programs Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis operates to serve the community: the Residential, BHGHSTL Academy, and College Road programs. The Residential Program provides a healthy, nurturing environment for up to 20 scholars in the form of value-centered, family-style homes. The homes include professional, live-in counselors; provide room, board, and clothing; and offer access to medical, dental, and optical services. These and other services provided by the Residential Program help students excel in and outside the classroom. The BHGHSTL Academy provides academic, psychological, financial, and spiritual support to scholars who do not require residential placement. Its services involve after-school programming with transportation, homework help, cultural activities and family meals, summer programming and camp scholarships, college readiness preparation, and community involvement opportunities. The College Road program, available to both residential and nonresidential scholars, prepares participants for campus life and independent living. The interactive, multiyear program utilizes personalized guides, specific activities, and a curriculum that assist in the college planning process. Through these components, participants develop competency, connectedness, and confidence to thrive academically and professionally. Boys Hope Girls Hope has fostered the success of countless young people with the opportunities provided in their programs, said Amy Mistler, St. Louis office managing partner at Spencer Fane. As a firm dedicated to making a positive impact in our community, we are honored to advance the mission of Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis. We look forward to maintaining this relationship now and in the future as this organization continues to serve as a valuable asset to our local community. The Spencer Fane charitable grant in St. Louis is part of the firms overall charitable donation program. The Spencer Fane Charitable Giving Program aims to provide significant assistance to a select local nonprofit organization through a $50,000 donation over a three-year period as well as volunteering and other support. The primary goals of the program are to encourage a long-standing relationship with a nonprofit organization where the firms donation can truly make a difference and to provide Spencer Fane employees with additional opportunities to become involved with the firms charitable causes. Boys Hope Girls Hope of St. Louis follows Duo Dogs, Inc. and Epworth Children and Family Services as the Spencer Fane principal charitable partner for St. Louis. Other organizations that have benefited from the firms support include Craig Hospital in Denver and Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. About Spencer Fane Spencer Fane is a full-service business law firm focused on providing results that move clients and their businesses forward. With direct access to firm leadership and a different approach to client engagement, its attorneys instill confidence and certainty that the clients interests are the firms priority. The firm has offices in Phoenix, Arizona; Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado; Tampa, Florida; Overland Park, Kansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Cape Girardeau, Jefferson City, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Las Vegas, Nevada; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Greenville, South Carolina; Dakota Dunes, South Dakota; Hendersonville and Nashville, Tennessee; and Austin, Dallas, Houston, and Plano, Texas. For more information, visit spencerfane.com or follow @spencerfane on Twitter. # # # DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Workers at refineries crucial for Iran's oil and natural gas production protested Monday over the death of a 22-year-old woman, online videos appeared to show, escalating the crisis faced by Tehran. The demonstrations in Abadan and Asaluyeh mark the first time the unrest surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini threatened the industry crucial to the coffers of Iran's long-sanctioned theocratic government. While it remains unclear if other workers will follow, the protests come as demonstrations rage on in cities, towns and villages across Iran over the Sept. 16 death of Amini after her arrest by the country's morality police in Tehran. Iran's government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their mandatory headscarf, or hijab. From the capital, Tehran, and elsewhere, online videos emerged despite authorities disrupting the internet. Videos on Monday showed university and high school students demonstrating and chanting, with some women and girls marching through the streets without headscarves as the protests continue into a fourth week. FREEPORT, Ill. The Pecatonica River runs two blocks from Laurie Thomas' mother's stoop here in northwest Illinois. After a recent two-day deluge, floodwaters reached the basement's ceiling. It was Freeport's fifth major flood in just the past four years, at least the 15th in the past 20 years, and it's left Freeport residents in a pickle: Should they stay? Or move to higher ground? "People have always lived over here and there's always been the Pecatonica, but lately the floods, they've been worse," Thomas said. "But they've been worse everywhere else too." Relocating communities away from flood hazards on rivers and coastlines has been happening in the U.S. for more than 100 years. Now, as increased rainfall and repetitive flooding strain aging infrastructure in many towns, many residents and municipal officials along the Mississippi River are asking the same question: Do we pack up and move out? Staying put in the face of flooding can be dangerous and is growing increasingly costly to towns, residents and U.S. taxpayers alike. And catastrophic weather is hitting more often. Even after adjusting for infl ation, there were twice the number of billion-dollar events during the 2010s compared with the decade prior. Sometimes leaving is the only feasible option. But moving away can come with its own pain. Relocating a town is "always expensive, complex and contentious," writes Nicholas Pinter, a professor at the University of California-Davis, in a 2021 paper. Voluntary buyouts, meanwhile, have cost the Federal Emergency Management Agency billions of dollars that still fall short of the need that will continue to grow as the climate gets wetter. Analyses show the money doesn't flow out equitably and the buyout process often takes too long. What's left is not always attractive to the remaining residents. "It looks like missing teeth in a poorly maintained mouth," Pinter described in an interview. "It is not your vision of a thriving town." Choosing to stay or go is difficult and that's if communities even get a fair shot at pulling it off. Meanwhile, the flooding doesn't stop, taking a toll on economies and quality of life. It takes a village to save a village Charley Preusser, editor of the Crawford County Independent newspaper in Gays Mills, Wisconsin, remembers the sound the water made as it rushed over the ridge one night more than a decade ago. It was the first of back-to-back floods of the Kickapoo River that hit the small, southwestern Wisconsin town in 2007 and 2008. The next day, he made his way carefully from his home in the hills to the newspaper office downtown. He used a canoe to get down Main Street. The first thing he saw when he opened the door was their mini fridge, floating in nearly 3 feet of water like a fishing bobber. It took weeks for them to get back into the office, where the water and mud destroyed everything but their paper archives and a clock on the wall. After a second flood 10 months later, the village got help from FEMA and other grants to move some businesses, village services and homes to higher ground. Driving into town today, you'll come upon a general store attached to a gas station, elevated and protected from the river's backwaters below. Inside, the items for sale include fresh produce, dairy and meat. It's unusual to have a grocery in a village of this size population 523. "If we hadn't (relocated), there would not be a store in Gays Mills," said Larry McCarn, who was village president during the floods. "There would be absolutely nothing." Gays Mills has remained connected to its history. The village hosts its annual Apple Festival every fall in the old downtown. In the grocery store, a sign advertises square dancing in the old community center once a month. Communities were built along the Kickapoo the longest tributary of the Wisconsin River for access to water and convenient travel for trading. They're no strangers to coping with floods. Soldiers Grove, a small village about 10 minutes from Gays Mills, moved to higher ground in the 1970s. Today, nearby Ontario and Viola are both pursuing new construction in parts of town outside the floodplain. Even before the historic floods that led to relocation in Gays Mills, the village had flooded 20 times since 1900. Pinter said communities typically come to a crossroads about relocating after a particularly catastrophic flood, needing to decide whether to rebuild in place yet again or "solve the problem once and for all." Moving away and staying are both costly The future for flood-prone Freeport looks much different. Two years after a historic flood in 2019 in which the Pecatonica rose more than 17 feet, FEMA granted the city nearly $3.4 million so it could buy out over 120 properties in the river floodplain. City officials authorized another $1.1 million in matching funds. Thomas said she's known her neighbors, some of whom are family, her whole life. The amount the city is offering for them to leave isn't enough, she said, plus many are too old to start over someplace else. "The lady over there is in a wheelchair. She's been there all her life. These are older people," Thomas said, pointing up and down the street. "Where the hell are they going?" Buy-in won't make a difference if there's no money involved. Pinter pointed to the case of Pinhook, Missouri, a majority-Black community near the Bootheel that wanted to relocate wholesale to preserve its social bond after massive flooding in 2011. But the community wasn't able to find the support to foot the bill. Residents scattered. Communities that relocate successfully typically take advantage of a disaster and keep the pressure on to obtain resources, Pinter said. Gays Mills secured more than $10 million in federal, state and local grant funding, as well as private money, to move. A few years after the floods, it had a new village hall, library and community center, a mercantile building for businesses, and several houses and apartments situated along Highway 131 overlooking the river's backwaters, safe on higher ground. Not everyone agreed with it, and not everyone moved. The village still has empty lots for sale in the newer residential development area. When the community got walloped with another record flood in 2018, it was helpful to have fewer businesses and residents in the floodplain, McCarn said, and thus less damage. It also helped to be able to work from the village hall, which was left untouched. Back in Freeport, the city buys its first home In August, nearly a year after Freeport launched its home buyout program, Patricia Norman was the first eastside resident to accept an offer on her home. She remembers a flood a few years back so bad that the fire department had to come evacuate their home. "My mom was, at the time, 92," Norman said. "We just knew that this was not a good situation for her." Norman has fond memories of growing up on the east side, going to Taylor Park School and watching the fireworks from Taylor Park. "All the activities that used to take place on the east side, well, none of those take place now," she said. Due to severe repetitive flooding, the Freeport School Board voted unanimously to close Taylor Park School the only elementary school on the town's east side in 2020. Norman didn't disclose the purchasing offer the city made for her home, but said she was satisfied with the final number. Many on the east side, Norman said, are conflicted about whether to leave. Either choice has an uncertain outcome, and she's sympathetic to families like Laurie Thomas' who don't want to sell. For her part, Norman plans to move to higher ground in Freeport. She adds that the east side will always be part of her and Freeport, after all, is home. This story is part of When it Rains, a special series from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and the Society of Environmental Journalists, funded by the Walton Family Foundation. On her previous trip to Italy, actress Kathleen Garrett had an in. I had recorded an audiobook titled Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride by Lorenzo Carcaterra, which took place in Ischia, she said. I became so fascinated by the island that I had to go to it. The book spoke of several locations describing its natural beauty, delicious food, great wines and restaurants. I had a head start in researching the territory before we left. I then did my own Google research on the island and its villages. Garrett, who is based out of New York and Santa Monica, is best known for her work in the Emmy-nominated miniseries Inventing Anna and The First Lady. Q: Of all the characters you've portrayed, which one do you think would make a good travel partner and who would be a nightmare? A: I think Laura Bush would make a good travel partner. When studying her for The First Lady, I realized what an interesting person she is and (I) would love to have the chance to know her better. My nightmare character would definitely be Sasha Thomas in Inventing Anna. Youd better have some clout or she wont give you the time of day. Dont get on her bad side. Q: If you had to cancel travel plans due to the pandemic, where were they to? A: England. I have several longtime friends living there whom I havent seen in a while, who all lead rather interesting lives. One is a former MI6 agent, another is a BAFTA award-winning costume designer and the others are a couple who are writers. One is the London bureau chief for the Washington Post and his wife is a journalist and novelist. I was bummed the pandemic foiled my plans. Q: What is your favorite vacation destination? A: Italy has always been my favorite go-to. I was just there for my birthday on the isle of Ischia. What a magical and romantic place. Its a thermal island with many natural thermal baths. I highly recommend staying at a hotel spa that offers several thermal pools and fine dining. If the hotel (or) spa is too pricey, there are several thermal parks that are quite affordable. The Tyrrhenian Sea is beautiful. I would recommend hiring a boat to take you to different coves and beaches throughout. SantAngelo is a must for quaint shops and restaurants. The Castello Aragonese is a medieval castle that once guarded the island and is a must-see. Definitely drink the local wines and spirits. The people are wonderful, but I highly recommend you brush up on your Italian. Though the (employees at the) higher-end hotels and restaurants speak English, if you want to mingle with the locals, Italian is a must. Q: Where are some of the places you've filmed on location? A: Australia was where I shot a pilot for CBS. I loved Australia. It felt like the States in a 1950s time warp. I also did an Italian film in Cinecitta, which was great fun. Even though I spoke Italian, my lines were in English and everyone elses lines were in Italian. Go figure, but I guess the Italians are into dubbing. San Francisco is also a fabulous town to shoot in. I shot several commercials there and in Chicago. Coming from Los Angeles, I didnt realize how cold Chicago is in October and brought light clothes. Dumb, right? Needless to say, I fled to a department store for warmer wear almost immediately after leaving the plane. And, of course, New York City and Los Angeles are always a gift to be working in. Q: What was the first trip you took as a child? A: The very first trip was to Lake George in the Adirondacks. What a beautiful lake so peaceful and calming. Q: What's the most important thing you've learned from your travels? A: History, culture and how people live and think. Many countries preserve their culture (and) their history by preserving their buildings. I find it tragic in this country that we dont cherish the history of buildings with the same regard, and tear down beautiful historical architecture. It is important to travel to get out of ones comfort zone and experience life in a foreign land with people who are different. It widens ones perspective and understanding of life and the world around us. Q: Where are your favorite weekend getaways? A: There are several. Lake George (New York), Cape May (New Jersey), Santa Monica. When Im in New York City, Vermont in the fall. But I guess thats not a weekend getaway. Q: Do you speak any foreign languages? A: I was fluent in Italian when I was younger and am re-learning it. It was great fun to be in Italy and able to converse with the locals. Im not sure if I pick up languages easily, though I have to say my Italian has come back fairly quickly. Q: What are your favorite cities? A: This may sound cliche, but theyre Rome, Paris, London, Budapest and the two cities I live in. Q: Where have you traveled to that most reminded you of home? A: The terrain in Norway reminded me of the Adirondacks with the pine trees and vegetation. I love Paris and feel its one of the cities I could live in, but it doesnt necessarily remind me of home. I just feel at home there. Q: Where would you like to go that you have never been to before? A: Tunisia, Morocco and New Zealand. Q: When you go away, what are some of your must-have items? A: Makeup and hair products! Vanity, thy name is Kathleen! Q: What would be your dream trip? A: Its hard to say at the moment. My recent trip to Ischia, the Amalfi Coast and Rome was pretty spectacular, so I have to think about what my next exotic adventure will be. Business travel used to mean sending employees from their home office to somewhere else to meet with clients or coworkers at other offices. But for many remote-first companies, it now means the opposite: Bringing employees together from their far-flung homes to work and meet in person. These so-called off-sites a holdover term from when these companies had actual sites have the potential to change the face of business travel. While consumer travel has roared back in 2022, business travel has been slower to rebound. Company off-sites could make up a larger share of that budget than in years past. Doist, a software company with employees distributed around the globe, wanted something different for its companywide retreat in July. We rented a small village in the Austrian Alps, says Chase Warrington, head of remote at Doist. We did a lederhosen party and went to traditional lodges for dinners. Warrington says the purpose of these off-site gatherings differs markedly from the goals of traditional business travel. Rather than hunkering in meetings to get work done, these retreats aim for connection and fun. That means throwing out the traditional business travel playbook. Business or pleasure ... or something else? Rather than replacing traditional business travel, the off-site retreat is seen by many as an emerging trend of its own. There will still be business travel, it will just look different, says Bruno Muchada, head of expansion for property partners at Surf Office, a company retreat management company. Youre traveling to see your company as much as you are going to see clients. And as the line between business and pleasure blurs into so-called bleisure travel, off-site organizers are recognizing the relative unimportance of traditional meetings and schedules. In this upside-down scenario, employees are now working at home and playing with their co-workers at the office, instead of vice versa. I have this theory on the division of the structure of the day, says Warrington, who also manages off-site events for Doist. It should be 20% work, 30% activities and 50% free time. This free time allows the kind of spontaneous connection and conversation that return-to-office apologists have lauded. And it fundamentally alters how and where these off-sites are organized. Dont take us to some big hotel in the middle of a city and give us a big itinerary, Warrington says, channeling employee sentiment. This might spell trouble for traditional conference centers and hotels that depend on a steady drumbeat of business travel. Yet it has created a new small-business ecosystem geared at helping remote businesses manage employee morale via retreats. Enter the off-site startups Investment has poured into the budding off-site industry. The software company Salesforce has built a dedicated wellness retreat in the California redwoods in which to hold team-building events. And Workation Village, a custom-designed site in Italy for company retreats, launched in 2021. Yet remote companies are discovering that, while companywide gatherings with hundreds of employees may help boost morale, theyre a pain to organize. Many companies are introducing a travel manager position, Muchada says. But they realize that its a lot of work to organize everything, and thats why many companies are contacting us. Surf Office manages retreat locations around the globe, from Santa Cruz, California, to Tuscany, Italy, and aims to alleviate the guesswork (and paperwork) for travel managers and human resources teams. Similar businesses are popping up to address this sudden spike in demand. When the vaccines started to roll out, I started to recognize that the world is changing, says Hunter Block, founder of Offsiter, which offers an Airbnb-like marketplace of retreat locations. People are never going to go back to the office. Block quickly realized that organizations needed more than just a location they needed an organizer. So Offsiter now offers full-service management of everything from catering to collecting T-shirt sizes for company swag. We can handle all of it, all the way down to holding the clipboard and telling people where to go, says Block. Then, the whole team gets to participate in it, rather than being distracted by the nitty-gritty. Were very much like a wedding planner. Despite its sudden rise, the off-site industry remains in its infancy and has plenty of kinks to work out. Ive tested some tools that are meant to serve this market, but theyre very raw, Warrington says. Theyre building the airplane as they fly it. This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press. Sam Kemmis writes for NerdWallet. Email: skemmis@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @samsambutdif. Event Stream Team's Jimmy Reid Discusses Live Production with a Customized Blackmagic Kit Jimmy Reid of Event Stream Team talks with Streaming Media's Tyler Nesler about his company's improvement in live production performance thanks to their upgrade to a customized Blackmagic ATEM 2 M/E Constellation HD live production switcher kit and their transition to the Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio 18 editing, grading, visual effect (VFX) and audio postproduction cloud-based software. Page 1 With the recent pivot back to in-person live events, how have video production companies readjusted their workflows and in what ways has rapidly evolving technology leveled the playing field for producers? We spoke with Jimmy Reid, Chief Technology Officer, Event Stream Team, a family-run company based in the Washington DC area, about their current approaches to live production and the use of their dynamic new live streaming kit featuring a Blackmagic Design workflow. Asked about how the period of remote production impacted the way that Event Stream Team now approaches onsite productions, in terms of new equipment or new modifications to the ways that they previously worked on location, Reid replied, I would say we used the virtual production time, not having to move gearas a way to really optimize how we do stuff in person, Reid says. For example, before we would have a lot of road cases with individual gear and having to connect cablesduring the pandemic break from in-person events we built this kit behind me that we can roll into any venue and be ready to go within 40 minutes. That saves a lot of time, and so we just really invested in technology to assist us with, one--minimizing setup time, and two--being able to deliver a higher-end service. Asked for details on their current kit--visible in the video that accompanies this article--Reid said, This kit is a dream of mine that I've been having for like the last five years. Over the pandemic, I was able to partner with Z-Case and ProX cases and they built this design that we came up with collectively. And so it's a creation that was on a piece of paper that ended up becoming something in the real world, and it's based on Blackmagic. And so the original plan was to go with a smaller Blackmagic switcher, but the new Constellation line came out in perfect timing. And so we have an ATEM 2 M/E Constellation HD as the heart of this case. As for Blackmagic Design's role in building the custom kit, Reid explained, Well, [we made] a lot of phone calls to them. My goal was to simplify cable management, and to just make sure that there are camera converters for the new studio cameras that will get the job done for me. You'd be a little leery with new technology, but we decided, after speaking with Blackmagic, to just really trust their word that the technology was dependable, and I have to say, utilizing the Studio Camera 4K Pros with their studio converters and having a single ethernet cable really simplified setup and cable management, because it's got to be neat at the same time. Event Stream Team has taken the kit out into the field in some unique and challenging projects recently, including a four-hour live streamed court hearing in Baltimore County, and the historic unveiling of William Arthur Smiths painting, "Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker Surveying the Boundaries of Washington, DC," at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis. Reid described some of the challenges his crew faced on the Douglass-Banneker event in particular. The biggest challenge was in the physical space, Reid said. It was a hybrid event, so they did have some studio audience and so it wasn't a lot of space for us to set up, so we ended up having to have all the gear on the third floor and all the cameras and microphones on the second floor. So utilizing the Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K Pros with the studio converters, being able to only have to run three cables down for cameras, just made it so easy to tape them down and have it be safe and look neat. And also at the same time, utilizing the 2 M/E Constellation, I was able to feed a projector with a separate video feed for our slides and PowerPoints essentially like having two switchers in one. It just made it much easier to execute. The "studio" configuration that integrates camera and switcher and allows a technical director to adjust camera settings through the ATEM switcher has proven valuable as well. We actually invested in their camera controller unit as well," Reid said. "That allows us my camera operators to focus on getting a good shot. Then I have a live colorist. Their job is to make sure the shots look great as far as gain, ISO, just all the nerdy technical camera stuff. It makes it much easier, and we are able to turn around a quality product, as far as the live is concerned. Of course, in postproduction you could fix stuff, right? When it comes to live, you get one opportunity to get it right. Asked about Event Stream Team's recent switch to the DaVinci Resolve Studio 18 editing, grading, visual effect (VFX) and audio postproduction software and its overall postproduction process, Reid said, Editing takes a lot of time. Before, you had to send hard drives or strictly depend on Dropbox, and there was no real way to collaborate using some of the other editing suites that we've used. But our goal is to use the Blackmagic cloud platform and that way I can partner with editors and colorists across the planet and form these relationships where we can turn around the end product almost as soon as we finish shooting and be able to upload it to the cloud and have an editor get started right away. With Blackmagic, this whole technology infrastructure is taken care of, especially since being able to synchronize the files and they can have proxy copies. I'm looking forward to it! Reid said that he has ordered the 20 TB unit but has yet to deploty it in Event Stream's edit suite. Once we get that in place then capacity won't be an issue, he said. We have a lot of gigs on the books and so I fill up eight terabytes pretty quick! And so for being able to have 20 terabytes available, it's just gonna be set it and forget it! As for upcoming projects, Reid said, We actually are live streaming a conference coming up in two weeks. And this conference is going to be one where we have to be able to really show off the technology a little bit because we are encouraging our clients to be more inclusive and really pay attention and try to incorporate ASL interpreters, make sure closed captioning is in there. He highlighted that they will have a picture-in-picture with the ASL interpreter live. Utilizing the Blackmagic cameras USB output to record in 4K to have ISO copies of all the cameras[its] just really raising the bar." Reid emphasized that improving accessibility for the visual or hearing-impaired is important to his company, and these new streamlined workflows are vast improvements on allowing for accessibility accuracy without having to overinvest time. He mentioned that many times his team has had to go back and update the closed captioning generated by YouTube because it is often inaccurate, which was a very time-consuming task. But this new technology, he said, separates his company from competitors, though he added with a laugh, I don't have competitors, I have future people to partner with! As satisfied as Event Stream Team is with their current custom live production kit, they've still got their eyes on some upgrades as new gear rolls out. Coming up first quarter 2023, we're going to be doing an additional investment in our Blackmagic infrastructure and we are going to be deploying Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 cameras," he said. "And so we're really excited to add those to the fold for some of our larger projects and opportunities that we are pursuing. And so that's going to be awesome tools to have in the kit. Page 1 BOWLING GREEN, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- A-Gas, a world leader in environmentally responsible refrigerant management announced an expansion of service offerings in Southern California, providing the Riverside and Los Angeles HVACR communities with quick and easy cylinder swaps. Southern Californian HVACR contractors already know A-Gas through our Rapid Recovery service. Were thrilled to now offer our Rapid Exchange program in Riverside and Los Angeles, making it easy for HVACR contractors to access clean, vacuumed, in-date cylinders for their businesses, said Ben Stapleton, Director, Network Operations. Californians have always been ahead in adjusting business practices to minimize negative impacts on the environment. Now, with Rapid Exchange, it will be easier for HVACR contractors to recover refrigerant gases, which prevents any harmful venting to the atmosphere, noted Michael Borchard, Business Development Sales. This also promotes the circular economy, enabling A-Gas to reclaim and recertify refrigerant gases, and then bring those products back into the market. With Californias recently passed SB 1206, the states focus on reducing the Global Warming Potential of HFCs in use has made gas recovery and reclamation even more important. As a modern refrigerant reclaimer, A-Gas is focused on environmental stewardship through the lifecycle management of refrigerant gases and contributing to the circular economy. A-Gas manages the full life cycle of refrigerants for its partners around the world and safely reclaims millions of pounds of material each year. About A-Gas A-Gas (U.S.), headquartered in Bowling Green, Ohio, is a trading subsidiary of A-Gas International (headquartered in Bristol, UK) and is the Worlds largest refrigerant recovery and reclamation company. The companys core business offers environmental solutions and lifecycle management services for ozone depleting substances and global warming agents including CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, and Halons in the HVAC/Refrigeration and Fire Suppression Industries. For more information about A-Gas, please visit www.agas.com/us View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005373/en/ Jaclyn Schilkey [email protected] 419-704-4737 Source: A-Gas AMSTERDAM, Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) of a- (Excellent) of rsted Insurance A/S (ORIAS) (Denmark). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. The ratings reflect ORIAS balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). ORIAS is the captive commercial property insurer for rsted A/S (rsted), a global sustainable energy group headquartered in Denmark. ORIAS very strong balance sheet strength assessment is underpinned by its risk-adjusted capitalisation, which is significantly above the level required for the strongest assessment, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). The company also benefits from a very conservative and liquid investment portfolio. Offsetting factors in the assessment include the companys high dependence on reinsurance, although the risks associated with this dependence are partly mitigated by ORIAS longstanding relationship with its highly rated reinsurance panel. The adequate operating performance assessment reflects the companys track record of good but volatile underwriting results. The captive has reported underwriting profits, net of reinsurance, in four of the past five years, benefiting from low claims frequency. In 2021, ORIAS reported a net profit of DKK 28.3 million (USD 4.3 million), boosted by reserve releases from claims relating to the previous year (2020: DKK 28.8 million (USD 4.7 million) loss, driven by prudent reserving for three large claims, which have been adjusted down significantly in 2021). Prospective performance is subject to volatility from the companys exposure to potentially large property losses, but underwriting volatility is moderated on a net basis by the captives comprehensive reinsurance programme. As a captive monoline insurer providing commercial property insurance covers for rsted, ORIAS underwriting portfolio is concentrated in commercial property insurance but well-diversified geographically. ORIAS neutral business profile assessment also reflects its strategic importance to rsted. AM Best remains the leading rating agency of alternative risk transfer entities, with more than 200 such vehicles rated throughout the world. For current Bests Credit Ratings and independent data on the captive and alternative risk transfer insurance market, please visit www.ambest.com/captive. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Bests Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Bests Credit Ratings, Bests Performance Assessments, Bests Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Bests Ratings & Assessments. AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright 2022 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006093/en/ Morgane Hillebrandt Senior Financial Analyst +31 20 308 5422 [email protected] Dr. Mathilde Jakobsen Director, Analytics +31 20 308 5427 [email protected] Christopher Sharkey Manager, Public Relations +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159 [email protected] Al Slavin Communications Specialist +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5098 [email protected] Source: AM Best TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Arizona Metals Corp. (TSX.V:AMC, OTCQX: AZMCF) (the "Company" or "Arizona Metals") is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated October 3, 2022, the Company has received final approval to list its common shares (the Common Shares) on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the TSX). We are very pleased to graduate to Canadas largest stock exchange, which is a significant milestone for the Company and our shareholders, and a reflection of the hard work and exploration success by our team at the Kay Mine Project since listing, commented Marc Pais, President and CEO of the Company. Upon listing on the TSX, the trading symbol for the Common Shares will remain as AMC. The Common Shares will begin trading on the TSX effective as of the opening of the market on October 13, 2022. In conjunction with listing on the TSX, the Common Shares will be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSXV) upon commencement of trading on the TSX. Shareholders are not required to exchange their share certificates or take any other action in connection with the TSX listing. There will be no change in the Companys CUSIP. Disclaimer This press release contains statements that constitute forward-looking information (collectively, forward-looking statements) within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that discusses predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as expects, or does not expect, is expected, anticipates or does not anticipate, plans, budget, scheduled, forecasts, estimates, believes or intends or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results may or could, would, might or will be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In making the forward- looking statements contained in this press release, the Company has made certain assumptions. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations of any forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward-looking statements or otherwise. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005473/en/ Marc Pais President and Chief Executive Officer Arizona Metals Corp. (416) 565-7689 [email protected] www.arizonametalscorp.com https://twitter.com/ArizonaCorp Source: Arizona Metals Corp. MONTERREY, Mexico--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CEMEX, S.A.B. de C.V. (CEMEX) announced today that it has teamed up with Red Ambiental and Ocean Conservancy to help clean Cancuns beaches and use the collected waste as a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels at cement plants. This initiative is part of Future in Action, CEMEXs program to achieve carbon neutrality. CEMEX is firmly committed to the circular economy by integrating our value chain to the production of climate-friendly fuels that we use in cement production. Cancuns beaches are key to Mexicos tourism and a destination for millions of people worldwide, we are proud to contribute to achieving cleaner beaches, said Ricardo Naya, President of CEMEX Mexico. CEMEX, through its affiliate Pro Ambiente, the leading Mexican waste management company, worked alongside Red Ambiental to clean Playa Tortugas. Ocean Conservancy simultaneously cleaned Playa Gaviota Azul. The collected waste from both efforts will be used as a climate-friendly fuel to power CEMEX's operations in Mexico. CEMEX takes advantage of the energy generated from the processed waste to use in its plants. Thanks to this process, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are reduced by replacing fossil fuels, one of the most significant contributors to global warming. CEMEX (NYSE: CX) is a global construction materials company that is building a better future through sustainable products and solutions. CEMEX is committed to achieving carbon neutrality through relentless innovation and industry-leading research and development. CEMEX is at the forefront of the circular economy in the construction value chain and is pioneering ways to increase the use of waste and residues as alternative raw materials and fuels in its operations with the use of new technologies. CEMEX offers cement, ready-mix concrete, aggregates, and urbanization solutions in growing markets around the world, powered by a multinational workforce focused on providing a superior customer experience, enabled by digital technologies. For more information, please visit: cemex.com CEMEX assumes no obligation to update or correct the information contained in this press release. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. CEMEX intends these forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements in the U.S. federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect CEMEXs current expectations and projections about future events based on CEMEXs knowledge of present facts and circumstances and assumptions about future events, as well as CEMEXs current plans based on such facts and circumstances. These statements necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from CEMEXs expectations. The content of this press release is for informational purposes only, and you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. CEMEX is not responsible for the content of any third-party website or webpage referenced to or accessible through this press release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006179/en/ Media Relations Jorge Perez +52 (81) 8259-6666 [email protected] Analyst and Investor Relations Alfredo Garza / Fabian Orta +1 (212) 317-6011 +52 (81) 8888-4327 [email protected] Source: CEMEX, S.A.B. de C.V. SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Chegg, Inc. (NYSE: CHGG), the leading student-first connected learning platform, announced today that it is scheduled to release its earnings results for the third quarter of 2022, which ended September 30, 2022, on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, after the market close. Chegg will host a conference call to discuss the third-quarter financial results at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (4:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time) on the same day. To access the call, please dial 1-855-327-6837 or outside the U.S. +1-631-891-4304. A live webcast of the call will also be available at https://investor.chegg.com under the Events & Presentations menu. An audio replay will be available from 7:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on November 1, 2022, until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on November 8, 2022, by calling 1-844-512-2921 or outside the U.S. +1-412-317-6671, with Conference ID 10020493. An audio archive of the call will also be available at https://investor.chegg.com. About Chegg Millions of people all around the world Learn with Chegg. Our mission is to improve learning and learning outcomes by putting students first. We support life-long learners starting with their academic journey and extending into their careers. The Chegg platform provides products and services to support learners to help them better understand their academic course materials, and also provides personal and professional development skills training, to help them achieve their learning goals. Chegg is a publicly held company based in Santa Clara, California and trades on the NYSE under the symbol CHGG. For more information, visit www.chegg.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006021/en/ Investor Relations Contact Tracey Ford, [email protected] Media Contact Tonya B. Hudson, [email protected] Source: Chegg Clearfork has executed several new commercial agreements, including two separate producer agreements with minimum volume commitments to support significant expansion projects, including: A 700 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) expansion of treating capacity on Clearforks Holly System, which will bring the total Holly treating capacity to approximately 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) during the first quarter of 2023; and New large-diameter gathering pipelines stretching east across the Red River and west into the Spring Ridge area to serve new and existing customers production growth. Clearfork is also permitting an additional increase of treating capacity across its Holly System that could utilize Clearforks existing assets to bring total Holly treating capacity from 1.3 Bcf/d to approximately 1.8 Bcf/d in 2023, subject to commercial demand. FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Clearfork Midstream LLC (Clearfork) today announced the signing of several new producer-customer commercial agreements and treating capacity expansions on its Holly System in North Louisiana. The announcement highlights Clearforks continued commercial success and growth following its acquisition in February 2022 of a natural gas gathering and treating platform serving core areas of the Haynesville Shale in North Louisiana and East Texas. Clearfork is actively developing new midstream gathering and treating projects in addition to increasing downstream takeaway optionality for Haynesville producers. In connection with a long-term acreage dedication finalized in August 2022, Clearfork is expanding the footprint of its Holly System by constructing a 24-inch diameter pipeline to the east side of the Red River in northeast Red River Parish, Louisiana. On the west side of the Holly System, Clearfork is constructing a 16-inch diameter pipeline that will expand Clearforks capacity in the Spring Ridge area in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, to service expected customer production growth in 2023. As part of these expansions, Clearfork plans to build new interconnects for additional takeaway capacity and downstream market optionality for customers. In conjunction with the gathering expansion, Clearfork is increasing its overall treating and compression capacity across its Holly System. Treating capacity at Clearforks Holly 3 facility will increase with the installation of new contactor towers, optimization projects, and additional compression across the system, which will provide lower-pressure service while also meeting the pressure requirements of downstream pipelines. Treating capacity at Clearforks Holly 6 facility will increase with the installation of a recently acquired amine plant and related assets. Looking beyond these expansion projects, Clearfork also owns idle amine treating assets that could, when paired with additional commercial activity, further increase treating capacity to bring the total treating capacity across Clearforks Holly System to approximately 1.8 Bcf/d in 2023. Were pleased to announce these new commercial agreements and expansion projects on our Holly System, which provides our Haynesville producer customers with access to premium downstream markets, said Clearfork CEO Kipper Overstreet. These expansions strengthen our position in the Haynesville, where we remain focused on deploying growth capital and developing the infrastructure needed to serve our customers needs. Our commercial and operational teams have been instrumental in building relationships with our customers in accordance with our core values. We know our customers put their trust in us to be a dependable partner and a reliable operator, so weve also invested heavily in making operational improvements to support our uptime targets. Were committed to making additional improvements as we strive to exceed customer expectations and industry standards. About Clearfork Midstream Formed in 2020 and based in Fort Worth, Clearfork is a growth-oriented midstream company that provides midstream solutions for natural gas producers in the Haynesville Shale formation. The companys vision is to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with producers by offering reliable midstream services and a collaborative approach that maximizes the value of production. Clearforks services currently include natural gas gathering, treating, dehydration, compression, and transportation in North Louisiana and East Texas. Clearfork is backed by a $400 million equity commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream. For more information, please visit clearforkmidstream.com. About EnCap Flatrock Midstream EnCap Flatrock Midstream provides value-added growth capital to proven management teams focused on midstream infrastructure opportunities across North America. The firm was formed in 2008 by a partnership between EnCap Investments L.P. and Flatrock Energy Advisors, LLC. Based in San Antonio with offices in Oklahoma City and Houston, the firm manages investment commitments of nearly $9 billion from a broad group of prestigious institutional investors. EnCap Flatrock Midstream is currently making commitments to management teams from EFM Fund IV, a $3.25 billion fund. For more information, please visit efmidstream.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006151/en/ Redbird Communications Bevo Beaven 720.666.5064 m [email protected] Source: Clearfork Midstream LLC Providing access to cross-border payments and currency risk management solutions LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Corpay1, a FLEETCOR (NYSE: FLT) brand and global leader in business payments is pleased to announce a new collaboration between Corpays Cross-Border business and Greenbackers Investment Capital (Greenbackers), a specialist venture firm focused on climate & cleantech capital globally. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005014/en/ Through this collaboration, Greenbackers ecosystem network of clean technology providers and investors will be able to gain access to and utilise Corpays innovative solutions to help mitigate foreign exchange exposure for their day-to-day business needs. Additionally, Corpay Cross-Borders award-winning platform will enable eligible companies to manage their global payments from a single point of access. Corpay is truly honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with Greenbackers and providing their growing ecosystem of clean technology companies* access to our global payments and foreign exchange services. I am confident that these companies will benefit from access to our comprehensive cross-border payments and currency risk management solutions, allowing them to better streamline their payments processes and effectively manage their FX exposure, says Nathan Cheema, Managing Director EMEA, Corpay Cross-Border. Our team across the EMEA looks forward to helping these innovative enterprises power their cross-border payments, execute plans to manage their currency risk and support their aspirations to grow their businesses globally. Greenbackers is pleased to partner with Corpay Cross-Border and welcome them to our growing support network. Corpays in-depth knowledge and expertise in the global payments and currency management space sets them apart especially with time-sensitive payments and on-demand delivery. They are a natural fit for our growing ecosystem of service Partners and highly relevant to both growing start-ups and funds alike, says Robert Hokin, Managing Partner, Greenbackers Investment Capital. About Corpay Corpay is a global leader in business payments, helping companies of all sizes better track, manage and pay their expenses. Corpay provides customers with a comprehensive suite of online payment solutions including Bill Payment, AP Automation, Cross-Border Payments, Currency Risk Management, and Commercial Card Programs. Corpay is part of the FLEETCOR (NYSE: FLT) portfolio of brands. To learn more visit www.corpay.com About Greenbackers Investment Capital Greenbackers is a specialist venture firm focused on climate & cleantech capital globally. Operating from London, Glasgow and Houston, their mission is to accelerate equity capital into investable climate and clean technology businesses. To learn more visit www.greenbackers.com. 1Corpay (a Fleetcor (NYSE: FLT) brand) in this document primarily refers to the Cross-Border Division of Corpay https://payments.corpay.com/cross-border; a full listing of the companies that are part of the Corpay brand is available here: https://payments.corpay.com/compliance. * Subject to credit and compliance approval from the relevant Corpay company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005014/en/ Corpay Contact: Brad Loder VP, Cross-Border Marketing +1 (647) 627-6635 [email protected] Greenbackers Investment Capital Contact: Robert Hokin Managing Partner +44 7957 201203 [email protected] Source: Corpay ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Famous Footwear, in partnership with the Ticket to Dream Foundation, has helped over 20,000 foster youth start the school year with the supplies and opportunities they need to succeed in the classroom. This was made possible by customer donations made in-store, in the Famous Footwear app and online at famousfootwear.com. Ticket to Dream is so thankful to Famous Footwear and their generous customers who made a big difference for foster kids this back-to-school season, said Gina Davis, CEO of Ticket to Dream Foundation. Together weve helped bring much needed supplies and support to help thousands of foster kids start the school year on the right foot, she said. Monetary donations received from customers helped provide foster youth with: Nearly 16,000 backpacks, school supplies, and new clothes/shoes Over 300 new laptops and over 2,400 tech accessories Tutoring assistance for over 200 foster youth Nearly 600 pairs of Converse shoes Fall extracurricular access for 500 foster youth At Famous Footwear, we have the amazing opportunity to leverage our footprint and our platform to support significant causes, like Ticket to Dream, said Mike Edwards, Division President, Famous Footwear. During our Back-to-School season Famous Footwear was able to raise $1.1M for Ticket to Dream. I look forward to seeing our Associates and customers coming together to help make a difference in the lives of foster kids. Its no easy feat to raise $8.2M which is the total amount weve raised since 2020 it truly demonstrates the kindness and compassion of our shoppers, our communities, and our Associates. In addition, Famous Footwear hosted over 250 children and teens in-store across the country for shopping sprees. Each foster youth received a brand-new pair of shoes, socks, adidas backpack and school supplies. For many foster youth, shopping for themselves is a rare commodity, so thats what makes these Famous Footwear Shopping Sprees so special, said Davis. These kids get free reign of the store to find the shoes of their dreams, new socks, and a backpack. Its a day full of smiles and excitement. The support doesnt end at graduation. In August, Famous Footwear and Ticket to Dream helped two foster youth move from their college dorm to their first apartment near campus to finish out their degrees. Only 3% of foster youth receive their college degree, so providing them with a place to retreat to and to pursue their dreams is a special experience, Davis said. We are so grateful for the many ways Famous Footwear went the extra step for foster kids this summer and year-round, adds Davis. Ticket to Dream Foundation works to ensure those experiencing the foster care system have everyday essentials and opportunities to thrive by working in partnership with a nationwide network of supporters, corporations, and over 200 non-profit foster care agencies, to help foster youth quickly and efficiently in local communities. Famous Footwears upcoming support will provide gifts and experiences for foster youth throughout the holiday season as well as targeted support to Hispanic and Latinx foster youth by celebrating diversity, aiding in the recruitment of Spanish-speaking foster parents and mentors, and providing ESL training and/or translation services. To learn more about this partnership or to donate online, visit tickettodream.org/famousfootwear. About Ticket to Dream: Ticket to Dream Foundation works to ensure those experiencing the foster care system have everyday essentials and opportunities to thrive by working in partnership with a nationwide network of supporters, corporations, and over 200 non-profit foster care agencies, to help foster youth quickly and efficiently in local communities. Over the years Ticket to Dream has helped over 2.4 million foster children. To learn more, please visit www.tickettodream.org. About Famous Footwear: Famous Footwear was founded on one simple idea: everyone deserves to feel the joy that comes from a new pair of shoes. And today, across the US, Canada and even online, we make sure families experience that joy with styles from top brands thatll make everyone feel on top of the world. Youll find styles for women, men, and kids from favorites like Nike, Vans, Steve Madden, Timberlands, Dr. Martens, Converse and many more. Whatever your style, we want to help you wear it with confidence. Famous Footwear is part of Caleres Inc. a diverse portfolio of global footwear brands dedicated to helping every person find the perfect pair of shoes. With a legacy of over 130 years of craftsmanship and passion for fit, Caleres continues their mission of inspiring people to feel good feet first. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006166/en/ Gina Davis, Ticket to Dream Foundation 916-229-9637 [email protected] Coded Agency [email protected] Source: Caleres Prof. Jimmy Choos JCA shows at London Fashion Week City Wide Celebration unveiling Patrick McDowells and its first graduating MA Designers collections: Angels Wear Nada, Melissa-Kate, Size-A and Sophie Park. LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Prof. Jimmy Choos Mayfair based JCA | London Fashion Academy hosted its debut London Fashion Week City Wide MA show featuring 5 new designer entrepreneurs on the evening of Monday alongside JCAs Designer in Residence, Patrick McDowell. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006118/en/ Professor Jimmy Choo, OBE and Zandra Rhodes at the JCA x Patrick McDowell x MA show. (Photo: Business Wire) Attendees included Layton Williams, Ella Eyre, Isabella Charlotta, Chris Grave, Laura Pradelska and Leo Kalyan. Stephen Smith, Founder and CEO of the JCA comments: "Our London Fashion Week show has been a momentous occasion for us all at the JCA. Since officially opening our doors only one year ago in September 2021 we have nurtured our first graduating MA cohort from our home on Hanover Square. Opening our doors to the public one year on has been the perfect moment to celebrate the successes of these hugely talented designer entrepreneurs as they launch their new brands: Size-A, Melissa-Kate, Angels Wear Nada, Maryam Orchid and Sophie Park." Taking place across 3 storeys of the JCAs Grade II Period Building, the show commenced at 6.30pm leading to a private party that took place at the Sketchs glamorous cocktail lounge. Showing first, British Fashion Designer Patrick McDowell unveiled his latest collection Marie Antoinette goes to Liverpool, merging the uncanny world of Marie Antoinette with his own Liverpudlian background. Opening the MA Show, Noon Khouri presented her nomadic, inclusive and up-cycled denim brand Angels Wear Nada, followed by Melissa-Kate, who showcased For the Love of Venus PT.III, the third capsule in a three-part, year-long series which delves into the spirituality, symbolism and conspiracies behind the planet Venus. Afterwards, Annabelle Barton presented Size-A, a luxury womenswear brand born from the desire for creatively designed, luxury clothes that can fit a range of petite women, followed by Sophie Park showcasing the first collection of her eponymous plant-based gender-neutral footwear brand that fuses whimsical Wes Anderson-esque symmetry with the ambiguous silhouettes seen often in the work of Rei Kawakubo. Patrick McDowells collection comprises 30 looks and draws from lighter pastel palettes that reflect Marie Antoinettes preference for youth and femininity and strong bold shots of yellow and black. In Marie Antoinette goes to Liverpool the designer experiments with varying proportions of waspy waistlines and bouffant skirts, blending these classic silhouettes with modern Liverpudlian twists. The prints from this collection have been created from family pictures of Patrick, his Mother and Grandmother in their childhood years, drawing on the element of personal storytelling that is integral to his design practice. Patricks show "'Marie Antoinette goes to Liverpool' is a deeply personal expression of who I am and where I come from. Ive doubled down on my sustainable ethos to create a collection that embodies peacock dressing for now. Working with amazing materials like Taroni silk, Manteco Wool, Tencel and Tencel Luxe has really given me room to expand my offering of special emotionally connected pieces. All the pieces are designed and made here in London with a low carbon footprint in mind. This collection is a big step forward for me as I take my brand into this new chapter. In many ways the show title reflects my own journey as a queer working class scouser to 'The cake'; the affectionate term we have given to the incredible 5 story Georgian town house at 20 Hanover square where the JCA is located. Pastel colours and plaster work has been painstakingly restored to its former glory, perfectly setting the scene for the show." The JCA MA Graduates in Fashion Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation showing their collections included: Angels Wear Nada - an inclusive up-cycled denim brand, collaborative art project and experimental event space founded by Noon Khouri. In Noon Khouris words, Angels Wear Nada is the new eco-friendly alternative, battling the issue of landfills, one garment at a time. Manufacturing denim is one of the most unsustainable practices in the fashion industry, but we pride ourselves on challenging societal norms. Melissa Kate - A demi-couture label that mixes themes of Hollywood Glamour, rocknroll and spirituality to create the look of the modern pin-up. In Melissa-Kates words, her label is: a world where the patriarchy doesnt exist, influenced by the power of the divine feminine energy through witchcraft and pin-up style, hand crafted by a female for the feminine. Size-A - A uniquely designed label for petite women by Annabelle Barton. In Annabelle Bartons words, Size-A offers innovative, creative sets styled purposefully to enhance the anti-fit look. Every garment is exclusively for petite women like myself who have struggled to find a luxury brand that fits our personal requirements. Sophie Park - a plant based, gender-neutral footwear brand bringing a range of innovative designs and ideas to the market. In Sophie Park's words, her label pairs: stylistic originality with rigorous ethics making it the perfect collection for fashion-forward individuals who not only reach for their classic go-to staple shoes but also enjoy adding an avant-garde edge to their style by customising their pieces. Mark Eley comments: "The first graduating cohort clearly illustrates the diversity and entrepreneurial ambitions of the programme with all 4 designers showcasing a myriad of creative business concepts through their design practice." After the show, Professor Jimmy Choo OBE hosted drinks at the JCA I London Fashion Academy, where french champagne by Moet & Chandon and sweets from Fortnum & Mason were served. Afterwards, VIP guests and designers were invited to Sketchs cocktail lounge to further celebrate the show. Following JCAs and Patrick McDowells commitment to sustainability, Ecologi planted a tree for each guest. - Ends - EDITORS NOTES: JCA x Patrick McDowell x MA Show & Party took place on Monday October 10th 2022. ABOUT JCA JCA | London Fashion Academy is a pioneering fashion school and professional incubator founded by Prof. Jimmy Choo OBE and Mr Stephen Smith. It opened its doors in Mayfair in September 2021 to play a pivotal role in re-galvanising Londons fashion community post-pandemic and has been established as Mayfairs international hub for all those interested in design and luxury brands. Taking inspiration from and disrupting the boundaries from the likes of the V&A, Royal College of Art, Parsons New York and Somerset House, the facility will be more than just an educational academy, providing contemporary co-working spaces for fashion start-ups, gallery and exhibition space and a calendar of networking and fashion-focused events.. Since its opening in September 2021, the school has helped many students launch their projects, like Melissa-Kate, a Master's student invited to show at the Northern Fashion Week, and Scottish mature student Paul McCann, who has launched his label whilst in the first-year of his degree. It houses a number of professional designers, including its Designer in Residence, Patrick McDowell. Students and emerging designers can discover more information about the JCA via its website at, www.JCA.ac.uk and via its Instagram handle, @JCALONDON ABOUT JCA MA Fashion Entrepreneurship in Design & Brand Innovation The MA Fashion Entrepreneurship in Design and Brand Innovation has been designed with enterprise creation as a central distinctive feature. Students on the course will establish themselves as freelancers or micro-SME's and will be encouraged to develop a commercial enterprise from the outset. ABOUT PATRICK MCDOWELL Based in London, Patrick started his career studying fashion design at Central Saint Martins. Whilst learning his craft Patrick worked at Burberry, working under Christopher Bailey before going on to launch his own brand at London Fashion Week in 2018 with discarded Burberry fabrics and Swarovski crystals. In 2019 Patrick was nominated by Anna Wintour for the Stella McCartney today for tomorrow award. In 2020 Patrick became a Graduate Fashion Week Global Ambassador while also receiving a British Fashion Award nomination. At the beginning of 2021, he was appointed Sustainability Design Director of the Italian womenswear brand Pinko and Sustainability Ambassador for Prof. Jimmy Choos newly founded JCA London fashion academy, moving his studio into the Academy as Designer in Residence in 2022. Patrick has been featured in global fashion press, such as, WWD, Vogue, Dazed and the Guardian to name a few. He is considered a Leading voice on sustainability speaking on many global platforms most notably in summer 2022 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City and the BFC Institute of positive fashion annual meeting. Patrick continues to work across the fashion industry developing Reimagine collections while pushing the boundaries of what sustainable fashion can be in his own name sake collections to reduce fashions global impact and supporting his brands three founding pillars: People and the planet, Uplift the queer community, and Support Creative Education. ABOUT PROFESSOR JIMMY CHOO Malaysian born Jimmy Choo grew up in a family of shoe designers. From an early age Choo took an interest in creating beautiful shoes, making his first pair at the age of 11 under his father's guidance. After graduating from the London Technical College in 1983, Choo opened his first shop three years later and subsequently became one of the most successful shoe designers in the world. His unique style and beautiful designs become increasingly popular with high end clients including Diana, Princess of Wales. Jimmy Choo sold his share of the company in 2001 and in 2002, Jimmy Choo was honoured with an Order of British Empire to recognise his service to the fashion industry. ABOUT STEPHEN SMITH, FAUA, MBA (Dist.), PGCE FAHE, BA (Hons,) CEO & FOUNDER Stephen Smith, has more than 20 years in leadership roles across the public and private higher education sector. During his career, he has undertaken roles such as Head of School, Dean of Faculty, Vice Principal, Provost, Registrar, Managing Director and now CEO. He has worked in large Metropolitan Universitys, specialist Colleges of Art and Design and international educational institutes of Design. Stephen has worked closely with international, UK and local governments to develop and deliver strategies aiming to build a sustainable creative industry. Threading together Stephens career is the focus on education and its bridge to enterprise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006118/en/ Media: Lois Clark Co-Founder and Managing Director at In+Addition Communications [email protected] Claudia Llena Communications Assistant at In+Addition Communications [email protected] Source: JCA London Fashion Academy Share Buyback Transaction Details October 3 October 7, 2022 LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- MotorK Plc (AMS: MTRK) (MotorK or the Group") announces today that it has purchased the following number of ordinary shares in the Company. This is part of a repurchase program announced on July 18, 2022. MotorK intends to buy back its own ordinary shares by way of off-market purchases on Euronext Amsterdam and via block trades up to a maximum aggregate value of 3,000,000 (the Programme). The authorization will expire following the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting of the Company to be held in 2023. Aggregate Information Date Transactions Number of Ordinary Shares Total Consideration () Average price ( per share) Minimum price ( per share) Maximum price ( per share) 03/10/2022 Purchase 543 1,249 2.30 2.30 2.30 04/10/2022 Purchase 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 05/10/2022 Purchase 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 06/10/2022 Purchase 1,229 3,011 2.45 2.45 2.45 07/10/2022 Purchase 1,668 4,087 2.45 2.45 2.45 Total Weekly 3,440 8,347 2.43 2.30 2.45 Cumulated to date 64,406 182,274 Transactions Details The Programme is implemented within the limitations of the authority granted by the General Meeting on July 18, 2022. Any shares so repurchased shall be treated as cancelled pursuant to section 706(b) of the Companies Act 2006. The Group has entered into non-discretionary instructions with Kepler Cheuvreux SA (Kepler Cheuvreux) to conduct the Programme on its behalf and to make trading decisions under the Programme independently of MotorK. REGULATED INFORMATION This press release contains information that qualifies or may qualify as inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation (596/2014/EU) ABOUT MOTORK PLC MotorK (AMS: MTRK) is a leading software as a service (SaaS) provider for the automotive retail industry in the EMEA region, with over 400 employees and eleven offices in eight countries (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, the UK, Belgium and Israel). MotorK empowers car manufacturers and dealers to improve their customer experience through a broad suite of fully integrated digital products and services. MotorK provides its customers with an innovative combination of digital solutions, SaaS cloud products and the largest R&D department in the automotive digital sales and marketing industry in Europe. MotorK is a company registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX - Company Registration: 9259000. For more information: www.motork.io or www.investors.motork.io. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221010005447/en/ FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MotorK Investor Relations Etienne Jacquet [email protected] +33 6 22 18 39 09 MotorK Corporate Communications [email protected] Source: MotorK plc SANTA ANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Civic and community leaders from across California will celebrate 10 years of inspiring the youth through the arts and opportunities at the 2022 Illumination Gala, hosted by OASIS Center International. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006164/en/ OASIS Art Leads program provides an experiential engagement to students and positively impacted student performance in both English and Math. - Priyanka Shrivastava, PhD (Photo: Business Wire) Art and the act of creating it enriches our community and our lives, said Jin Sung, OASIS Center Internationals Founder and Executive Director. We are proud that OASIS Center has provided free after-school opportunities for thousands of young people from across Southern California to engage in performance, visual and industrial arts. Our work is made possible by mentors, volunteers, corporate partners, area schools, and generous donors who believe the arts illuminate our path to a brighter future. Over the last 10 years, OASIS Center International has allowed thousands of young people to unleash creativity, boost confidence and expand opportunity through the arts, said Rep. Young Kim. I am grateful for their hard work to enrich our communities and all of the partners behind the scenes who make it happen. Congratulations to OASIS Center International on its 10th anniversary, and I look forward to seeing the program continue to grow and thrive over the next 10 years. This 10th annual Illumination Gala celebrates students who participate in OASIS Center programs and honors the special contributions to its mission by awardees Mike Sievert, President & CEO of T-Mobile; Katrina Foley, Supervisor of Second District County of Orange Board of Supervisors; and Ricardo Lopez, Organization Facilitator of Los Angeles Unified School District. The event features performances by OASIS Center Alumni and area artists, a cocktail reception, dinner, silent auction, and raffle. Scheduled guests include executives of Orange Countys largest corporations, businesses, and banks; civic leaders; and local artists and performers. What: The 10th Annual Illumination Gala Where: Bowers Museum, 2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706 When: October 13, 2022 at 5:00PM Members of the media are welcome and should contact Xin Wang at (314) 309 - 9215 for details. The program is sponsored by T-Mobile, The Otting Family Charitable Foundation, EastWest Bank, The Anthony DeChellis Charitable Fund, Banc of California, Charter Communications, Citizens Business Bank, Enterprise Bank and Trust, First Republic Bank, Island Pacific Market, Mechanics Bank, MUFG Union Bank, Pacific Premier Bank, Pacific Western Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Umpqua Bank, and US Bank. Follow OASIS Center International on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. About OASIS Center International OASIS Center International revitalizes underserved communities through the power of the arts. With free after-school programs such as architectural design, cartooning, creative art journaling, and tap dance; OASIS inspires young people to dream beyond what may seem possible. We are Empowering this generation one artist at a time. For more information, visit: www.OASIScenterintl.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006164/en/ Xin Wang Phone: (314) 309 - 9215 Email: [email protected] Source: OASIS Center International EL CAMPO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Prairie Energy Partners, a wholly owned company of Southern Rock Energy Partners (www.southernrockenergypartners.com), is working to finalize the location of its proposed $5.56 billion and 423-job next-generation, full conversion crude refinerywith the final two competing sites in Victoria County, Texas and Payne and Lincoln County, Oklahoma. The refinery complex will reduce and eliminate 95% of greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur oxide); reduce water production and consumption by 90%, with 80% further recycled and repurposed; and use a reduced footprint of only 400 acres while still producing approximately 91.25 million barrels or 3.8325 billion gallons annually of cleaner transportation fuels including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from crudes sourced domestically from the Eagle Ford, Permian, DJ, and Bakken Basins. While most refineries consume natural gas in the process heating units, this proposed facility would instead combine pure oxygen with "blue" hydrogen (produced from refining off-gases) and "green" hydrogen (from electrolysis), with steam being the primary waste stream. The Prairie Energy Partners' refinery will be powered by 100% renewable electricity, either sourced from the grid or generated on-site from recycled and repurposed waste heat, geothermal, and solar assets. The facilitys hydrogen complex will be the only unit of the facility that produces carbon dioxide, which will be captured and sequestered. Logistics would be provided by a new bidirectional refined products pipeline connecting to nearby terminals, an 8-bay truck terminal, a 300-car rail terminal, and a 4-barge marine terminal located at or near the project site. The resulting facility would be a novel, best-in-class, decarbonized refinery. Prairie Energy Partners intends a capital investment of $5.56 billion, while creating at least 1,250 temporary jobs during the multi-year construction period and 423 full-time, permanent jobs to operate the facility. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2023, with commercial operations commencing in 2025. The facility is expected to benefit the local community with an estimated $3 billion economic impact during the construction period and $150 million annually thereafter. This scale of project is not possible without strong support from the local community, which has agreed to support Prairie Energy Partners with local economic development incentives and service agreements. Advisors: Baker Botts L.L.P (www.bakerbotts.com) is advising Southern Rock Energy Partners. The Baker Botts team is led by Julie Mayo, and includes Renn Neilson, Matt Larsen, Bucky Brannen and Connie Simmons Taylor. About the Company: Led by Steven Ward, Southern Rock Energy Partners is a next generation integrated energy company established in 2017 to decarbonize and advance hydrocarbon industry while further assisting in the development of the renewable industry. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221010005809/en/ Steven Ward at [email protected] Source: Southern Rock Energy Partners TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Tricon Residential Inc. (Tricon or the Company) (NYSE: TCN, TSX: TCN), an owner and operator of single-family rental homes and multi-family rental apartments in the United States and Canada, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell its 20% equity interest in its portfolio of 23 Sun Belt apartment buildings (the Portfolio). The interest is being acquired by a vertically integrated residential real estate investment and property management company, which will assume all asset and property management responsibilities after a customary transition period. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close on or around October 18. In aggregate, Tricon will receive approximately $315 million of gross proceeds from the sale, including performance fees earned for managing the third-party joint venture through which the Portfolio is held. Tricon intends to use the net sale proceeds primarily to repay outstanding debt on its corporate credit facility, enhancing its balance sheet flexibility to pursue future growth in its core single-family rental business. The sale of our U.S. multi-family business marks a significant step in our quest to simplify our business and focus our balance sheet exposure primarily on single-family rental, where we continue to see strong demand and growth opportunities, said Gary Berman, President & CEO of Tricon Residential. Our investment in this portfolio has generated an attractive IRR of over 20% to Tricon since inception, inclusive of fees, and helps validate the difference between private and public market valuations in todays economic environment. To the dedicated employees that have made our U.S. multi-family business a success: I want to thank you all for your hard work and for consistently going above and beyond to elevate our resident experience, Mr. Berman added. We expect the vast majority of onsite property management staff to remain in their roles after a smooth transition to the new owner of the portfolio a respected operator that shares our principles and commitment to putting the needs of our employees and residents first. Eastdil Secured acted as Tricons exclusive financial advisor on this transaction. About Tricon Residential Inc. Tricon Residential Inc. is an owner and operator of a growing portfolio of approximately 41,000 single-family rental homes and multi-family rental apartments in the United States and Canada with a primary focus on the U.S. Sun Belt. Our commitment to enriching the lives of our residents and local communities underpins Tricons culture and business philosophy. We strive to continuously improve the resident experience through our technology-enabled operating platform and innovative approach to rental housing. At Tricon Residential, we imagine a world where housing unlocks lifes potential. For more information, visit www.triconresidential.com. Forward-Looking Information This press release contains forward-looking statements and information relating to expected future events and the Companys financial and operating results and projections that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the Companys intentions, growth and investment opportunities, and performance goals and expectations. Such forward-looking information is typically indicated by the use of words such as will, may, expects or intends. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding: the sale of the Companys interest in the Portfolio; the proceeds of disposition; the Companys use of those proceeds and the expected debt reduction and balance sheet impact of that use; and the Companys intentions for some of its current employees. If unknown risks arise, or if any of the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may differ materially from management expectations as projected in such forward-looking statements. Examples of such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the inability to complete the transaction described herein due to the failure to satisfy its requisite conditions, and other risk factors described in the Companys continuous disclosure materials from time to time, available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Accordingly, although we believe that our anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information are based upon reasonable assumptions and expectations, the reader should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by applicable law. Non-IFRS Measures The Company has included herein certain non-IFRS financial measures as well as certain measures of investment performance which are supplementary financial measures. These measures are commonly used by entities in the real estate industry as useful metrics for measuring performance. We utilize these measures in managing our business, including performance measurement and capital allocation. We believe that providing these performance measures on a supplemental basis is helpful to investors and shareholders in assessing the overall performance of the Companys business and investments. However, these measures are not recognized under and do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS as issued by the IASB, and are not necessarily comparable to similar measures presented by other publicly traded entities. These measures should be considered as supplemental in nature and not as a substitute for related financial information prepared in accordance with IFRS. The definitions of the Companys Non-IFRS measures are provided in the "Glossary and Defined Terms" section as well as Section 6 of Tricon's MD&A. The non-IFRS financial measures and supplementary financial measures presented herein should not be construed as alternatives to net income (loss) or cash flow from the Companys activities, determined in accordance with IFRS, as indicators of Tricons financial performance. Tricons method of calculating these measures may differ from other issuers methods and, accordingly, these measures may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other publicly-traded entities. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011006193/en/ Investors Wissam Francis EVP & Chief Financial Officer Wojtek Nowak Managing Director, Capital Markets Email: [email protected] Media Tara Tucker Vice President, Communications Email: [email protected] Source: Tricon Residential Inc. America's oldest bank, Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon), said Tuesday that select clients can now hold and transfer bitcoin and ether. The company has now launched its Digital Asset Custody platform in the U.S., which it says supports client demand for a provider of traditional and digital asset servicing. In 2021, the bank formed an enterprise Digital Assets Unit in order to develop digital asset technology solutions. It has plans to launch the industry's first multi-asset platform that "bridges digital and traditional asset custody." Earlier in the day, The Wall Street Journal said BNY Mellon had gained approval from New York's financial regulator in the fall and can receive "select customers" bitcoin and ether as soon as this week. "Touching more than 20% of the world's investable assets, BNY Mellon has the scale to reimagine financial markets through blockchain technology and digital assets," said Robin Vince, Chief Executive Officer and President at BNY Mellon. BNY Mellon said there is significant institutional demand for a financial infrastructure able to accommodate both traditional and digital assets. According to a sponsored survey, 91% of institutional investors are interested in investing in tokenized products, while 41% of institutional investors already hold cryptocurrency in their portfolio. BNY Mellon is the world's largest custodian bank, and as of June 30, it had $43 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $1.9 trillion in assets under management. By Sam Boughedda Chinese electric vehicle maker, BYD announced on Tuesday that they launched the companys first passenger car in India. The Atto 3 is an electric SUV fitted with BYDs renowned Blade battery technology. The launch is the first step in the Warren Buffet backed companys plan to corner 40% of the country's electric car market by 2030. The move also comes amid a wider global push by the Chinese carmaker which has begun selling EVs and plug-in electric hybrids in markets around the world, including Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, Costa Rica and Colombia. "We intend to sell 15,000 units of BYD-Atto 3 in India over the next year and plan to set up a local manufacturing facility in due course," BYD India executive director Ketsu Zhang said. "India will be one of the key markets in BYD's global portfolio," Sanjay Gopalakrishnan, senior vice president of electric passenger vehicles at BYD India told media. The India push comes during tight scrutiny of investments from bordering nations, including China. Strict controls on such incoming investments forced Chinese carmaker Great Wall to shelve its $1 billion India entry plan. By Michael Elkins | [email protected] FILE PHOTO: Zhao Changpeng, founder and chief executive officer of Binance, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier By Elizabeth Howcroft LONDON (Reuters) - A blockchain linked to Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, has been hit by a $570 million hack, a Binance spokesperson said on Friday, the latest in a series of hacks to hit the crypto sector this year. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a tweet that tokens were stolen from a blockchain "bridge" used in the BNB Chain, known until February as Binance Smart Chain. Blockchain bridges are tools used to transfer cryptocurrencies between different applications. Criminals have increasingly targeted them, with some $2 billion stolen in 13 different hacks, mostly this year, researcher Chainalysis said in August. The hackers stole around $100 million worth of crypto, Zhao said in his tweet. BNB Chain later said in a blog post that a total of 2 million of the BNB cryptocurrency - worth around $570 million - was withdrawn by the hacker. The majority of the BNB remained in the hacker's digital wallet address, while about $100 million worth was "unrecovered," the Binance spokesperson said by email. BNB Chain supports BNB, formerly known as Binance Coin, which is the world's fifth-largest token with a market value of over $45 billion, according to data site CoinGecko. Elliptic, a London-based crypto blockchain researcher, told Reuters that the hacker had minted 2 million new BNB tokens before transferring most of the funds to other cryptocurrencies including Tether and USD Coin. BNB Chain suspended its blockchain for several hours before resuming at around 0630 GMT, it said in a tweet. BNB Chain was "able to stop the incident from spreading" by contacting the blockchain's "validators," - entities or individuals who verify blockchain transactions, it said in its blog post. There are 44 validators across several different time zones, it added without elaborating. BNB Chain, described by Binance as a "community-driven, open-sourced and decentralized ecosystem," said it would introduce a new "governance mechanism" to counter future hacks, as well as expand the number of validators. In March, hackers stole around $615 million from a blockchain bridge called Ronin Bridge, in one of the largest crypto heists on record, ter linked by the United States to North Korean hackers. (Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Tom Wilson, Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Louise Heavens) FILE PHOTO: Boeing 787 Dreamliners are shown in final production at widebody factory in North Charleston, South Carolina, U.S., January 17, 2019. Picture taken January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Eric Johnson/File Photo By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co said Tuesday deliveries rose in September to 51 airplanes, while orders rose by 90 as the planemaker continues to see strong demand for new aircraft. Boeing deliveries last month tied its 51 deliveries in June, when it exceeded the 50-plane threshold for the first time since March 2019. In August, Boeing deliveries rose to 35 airplanes after it resumed handovers of its 787 Dreamliner after a 15-month delay. Last month, Boeing had 51 new 737 MAX airplane orders and 45 widebody airplanes, including 14 777s. In September, Boeing delivered 14 widebody planes, including 7 787s, including three 787-8s to American Airlines. American Airlines told Reuters Friday that since August it has received four 787s from Boeing and all are in service. Boeing's commercial order backlog now stands at 4,354 planes. Boeing has delivered 328 airplanes in the first nine months of 2022, including 267 737 MAXs. Boeing faces a December deadline to win regulatory approval for the MAX 10, which is slightly larger than current 737 MAXs in service, as well as for a smaller variant, the MAX 7. Unless it gains an extension from Congress, Boeing must meet new modern cockpit-alerting requirements that could significantly delay the planes' entry into service. Last week, regulators told Congress that Boeing does not anticipate winning approval for the 737 MAX 10 before next summer. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Tim Hepher) FILE PHOTO: The new GM logo is seen on the facade of the General Motors headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -General Motors Co said on Tuesday it will invest up to $69 million and take an equity stake in Queensland Pacific Metals to secure a new source of nickel and cobalt for battery cells for use in the U.S. automaker's vehicles. GM said the investment will help support electric-vehicle eligibility for consumer incentives under new, clean energy U.S. tax credits. GM said the nickel laterite ore is expected to be processed using a new, proprietary process that helps reduce waste. Under a law passed in August, automakers must source battery minerals from countries with free trade agreements in order to qualify for the U.S. consumer EV tax credits. The GM investment is to assist in the development of its proposed Townsville Energy Chemicals Hub (TECH) Project in Northern Australia. High-grade nickel laterite ore will be imported from nearby New Caledonia, GM said. GM already has binding agreements securing all battery raw material supporting its goal of 1 million units of annual capacity in North America by the end of 2025. GM said the "new collaboration builds on those commitments as we look to secure supply through the end of the decade, while also helping continue to expand the EV market." Queensland Pacific Metals CEO Stephen Grocott said "GMs investment in our company and the associated offtake brings us one step closer towards construction of the TECH Project." In August, GM said it was prepaying Livent Corp $198 million for a guaranteed six-year supply of lithium, a deal that reflects the auto industry's rising worry about a tightening market for the electric vehicle battery metal. Prepaying cash for a guaranteed metal supply is unusual in the mining industry. Livent produces lithium in Argentina and has processing facilities in the United States. (Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio) FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arch Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: ARTH) (Arch or the Company), a marketer and developer of novel self-assembling wound care and biosurgical products, today announced that two abstracts highlighting the role of the Companys AC5 Advanced Wound System (AC5) in clinical cases were accepted for Poster Presentations at the upcoming 2022 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) Fallwith one receiving the honor for Highest Scoring Poster Abstract in Case Series/Study Categorya distinction awarded by a panel of expert judges during a blind-review. The SAWC Fall conference takes place at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada from October 13-16, 2022. AC5 is a proprietary self-assembling, synthetic wound care product that provides multi-modal support to clinicians and has utility across all phases of wound healing. AC5 is indicated for the management of partial and full-thickness wounds, such as pressure sores, leg ulcers, diabetic ulcers, and surgical wounds. The following clinical cases, which examine the use of AC5 in patients with acute, chronic, and challenging wounds, will be presented. The Use of a Synthetic Self-Assembling Peptide Matrix in a Limb Salvage SettingChristopher Gauland, DPM East Carolina University, Brody School of Medicine, Greenville, NCPoster Number: CS-046Honor: Highest Scoring Poster Abstract in Case Series/Study Category Treatment of Hard to Heal Acute and Chronic Wounds with a Synthetic Self-Assembling Peptide MatrixTerry Treadwell, MD, FACS, FAAWC and Lyudmila Nikolaychook, DO Institute for Advanced Wound Care, Montgomery, ALPoster Number: CS-140 In addition to the Poster Presentations by wound care experts Dr. Christopher Gauland and Dr. Terry Treadwell, key opinion leader Dr. Brock Liden will also present case studies utilizing AC5 at the prestigious Innovation Spotlight on October 16, 2022, between 11:20 AM to 12:20 PM PT. The slides for Dr. Lidens presentation will be available on the Companys website in the Investors section under the subheading Investor Relations at https://ir.archtherapeutics.com at the time of the presentation. Representatives from Arch will be available at SAWC booth #534 in the exhibit hall for inquiries. Dan Yrigoyen, Vice President of Sales for Arch Therapeutics, stated, We believe the ongoing observations by wound care experts regarding the utility of the AC5 Advanced Wound System continues to demonstrate the significant impact this technology could have on improving outcomes and lowering the overall costs of managing challenging, chronic and non-healing wounds. Over 1,000 wound care specialistsphysicians, nurses, physical therapists, researchers, scientists, and podiatristsare registered to attend SAWC Fall. The agenda is focused on sharing best practices to improve patient outcomes. Registration for the symposium can be found at https://www.sawcfall.com/. About Arch Therapeutics, Inc.Arch Therapeutics, Inc. is a biotechnology company with a novel approach to stop bleeding (hemostasis), control leaking (sealant) and manage wounds during surgery, trauma, and interventional care. Arch is developing wound care and biosurgical products based on an innovative self-assembling peptide technology platform with the goal of improving healing outcomes for patients. Arch has received regulatory clearance to market AC5 Advanced Wound System in the United States and AC5 Topical Hemostat in Europe. Arch's development stage product pipeline includes AC5-GTM for endoscopic resection of gastrointestinal tumors, AC5-V for hemostasis during vascular surgery and AC5 Surgical HemostatTM for general surgical hemostasis, among others.1,2 Notice Regarding Forward-Looking StatementsThis news release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, references to novel technologies and methods, our ability to recruit additional field sales representatives and their effectiveness, our business and product development plans and projections, or market information. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with developing new products or technologies and operating as a development stage company, our ability to retain important members of our management team and attract other qualified personnel, our ability to raise the additional funding we will need to satisfy our existing obligations and continue to pursue our business and product development plans, our ability to obtain required regulatory approvals, our ability to produce commercial quantities of our products within projected timeframes, our ability to obtain the inclusion of our AC5 Advanced Wound System on targeted federal supply schedules, our ability to develop and commercialize products based on our technology platform, and market conditions, and our ability to establish additional commercialization partnerships and build a critical mass of field sales representatives. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations, and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in the reports and other documents we file with the SEC, available at www.sec.gov. 1 AC5-G, AC5-V, and AC5 Surgical Hemostat are currently investigational devices limited by law to investigational use.2 AC5, AC5-G, AC5-V and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Arch Therapeutics, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Contact:ARTH Investor RelationsToll Free: +1.855.340.ARTH (2784) (US and Canada)Email: [email protected] Website: www.archtherapeutics.com or Michael AbramsChief Financial OfficerArch Therapeutics, Inc.Phone: 617.431.2333Email: [email protected] Source: Arch Therapeutics, Inc. RAPID CITY, S.D., Oct. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Black Hills Corp. (NYSE: BKH) today announced that its Arkansas natural gas utility, Black Hills Energy, Arkansas, Inc., doing business as Black Hills Energy, received approval from the Arkansas Public Service Commission for new rates to recover more than $220 million of investments since 2018 in its 7,200-mile natural gas infrastructure system. This approval supports our commitment to our customers and communities for safe and reliable service and to support the rapid economic growth in Arkansas, said Linn Evans, president and CEO. These investments support our customers decision to enjoy the benefits of natural gas as a reliable, highly-efficient and clean energy choice. The approved settlement agreement will generate an estimated $8.8 of new annual revenues and migrates approximately $10 million of rider revenue to base rates. The approval allows a capital structure of 45% equity, 55% debt and a return of equity of 9.6% with new rates beginning in mid-October 2022. The settlement also approves a comprehensive Safety and Integrity Rider which combines three existing riders and supports the companys priority on safety-focused infrastructure projects. These investments will also support Black Hills commitment to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2035 for our natural gas distribution system. Black Hills Corp.Black Hills Corp. (NYSE: BKH) is a customer focused, growth-oriented utility company with a tradition of improving life with energy and a vision to be the energy partner of choice. Based in Rapid City, South Dakota, the company serves 1.3 million natural gas and electric utility customers in eight states: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. More information is available at www.blackhillscorp.com. Investor RelationsJerome E. Nichols605-721-1171[email protected] 24-Hour Media Relations Line888-242-3969 Caution Regarding Forward Looking StatementThis news release includes forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. We make these forward-looking statements in reliance on the safe harbor protections provided under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this news release that address activities, events or developments that we expect, believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future are forward looking statements, including anticipated revenues from the new rate increase. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions which we believe are reasonable based on current expectations and projections about future events and industry conditions and trends affecting our business. However, whether actual results and developments will conform to our expectations and predictions is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that, among other things, could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, the risk factors described in Item 1A of Part I of our 2021 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC, and other reports that we file with the SEC from time to time. New factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward looking statements emerge from time-to-time, and it is not possible for us to predict all such factors, or the extent to which any such factor or combination of factors may cause actual results to differ from those contained in any forward-looking statement. We assume no obligation to update publicly any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Source: Black Hills Service Company, LLC MONTREAL, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Boralex Inc. (Boralex or the Corporation) announces that the release of the 2022 third quarter results will take place on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, at 11 a.m. Financial analysts and investors are invited to attend a conference call during which the financial results will be presented. Date and time Wednesday, November 9, 2022, at 11 a.m. ET To attend the conference Webcast link: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/7pqreg63 To attend the event by phone: Click here to register for the earnings call. Once you have completed your registration, you will receive a confirmation email containing the link and your personal PIN to connect to the call. If you lose this link and your PIN, you will be able to register again. You must register if you wish to attend the call by phone. Media and other interested individuals are invited to listen to the conference and view a presentation which will be broadcasted live and on a deferred basis on Boralexs website at www.boralex.com. A full replay will also be available on Boralexs website until November 9, 2023. The financial information will be released through a press release and on Boralex's website on November 9, 2022, at 7 a.m. About Boralex At Boralex, we have been providing affordable renewable energy accessible to everyone for over 30 years. As a leader in the Canadian market and Frances largest independent producer of onshore wind power, we also have facilities in the United States and development projects in the United Kingdom. Over the past five years, our installed capacity has more than doubled to 2.5 GW. We are developing a portfolio of close to 4 GW in wind and solar projects and over 200 MW in storage projects, guided by our values and our corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach. Through profitable and sustainable growth, Boralex is actively participating in the fight against global warming. Thanks to our fearlessness, our discipline, our expertise and our diversity, we continue to be an industry leader. Boralexs shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BLX. For more information, visit www.boralex.com or www.sedar.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. For more information: Media Investors Camille Laventure Stephane Milot Advisor, Digital Communications Senior Director Investor Relations Boralex Inc. Boralex Inc. 438-883-8580 514-213-1045 [email protected] [email protected] Source: Boralex Inc. Source: Boralex Inc. NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HIIs (NYSE: HII) Newport News Shipbuilding division joined elected officials and community leaders today to break ground on two houses that shipyard volunteers will build in the coming weeks in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg while employing new technology. The groundbreaking marks the first time NNS has sponsored two homes at once, and the 20th and 21st sponsored by the shipyard since 2002. It is also the first time the homes sponsored by NNS are being built partly by Habitat for Humanity building partner Alquists 3D printing technology. NNS is familiar with 3D printing technology, or additive manufacturing, using it to support both aircraft carrier and submarine production. These will be the first Habitat for Humanity homes built in the city of Newport News using 3D printing technology and are just the third and fourth Habitat for Humanity homes in the country being built using 3D printing technology. BayPort Credit Union is also a partner on the 20th home. Photo accompanying this release are available at: https://hii.com/news/newport-news-shipbuilding-habitat-for-humanity-2022. In keeping with shipbuilding heritage, NNS designates a sponsor for each house. NNS Shipbuilding President Jennifer Boykin, the 20th president of the shipyard, is fittingly the sponsor of the 20th home, while Dave Bolcar, NNS vice president of engineering and design, is the sponsor of the 21st home. Where we see vacant lots now, there will be not one but two high-quality houses, demonstrating the craftsmanship for which Habitat for Humanity and our shipbuilders are known. These houses will energize this neighborhood like our efforts to revitalize the entire Southeast community, Boykin said. Building two houses at once allows volunteers to take knowledge learned from the first and apply it to the second. We experience this momentum when we build our nations nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines in series production, applying lessons learned to continuously improve. Using the 3D printing technology, which NNS engineers will lend expertise to during construction, and building two homes at once will leverage efficiencies and allow the homes to be built faster, much like shipbuilders build ships. The three-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot homes are being built in the Southeast community of Newport News on land donated by the Newport News Redevelopment & Housing Authority. It is amazing to have a company like HII not only provide financial support, yet actually come out to help build two homes at once, said Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg. Habitat is so fortunate to have such a caring and committed partner for this historic project and in our community. Tuesdays groundbreaking also featured remarks from LaShand Coleman, a current Habitat for Humanity homeowner and NNS shipbuilder. Coleman owns the 13th house that NNS sponsored and shipbuilders helped build. The family selection process for homes 20 and 21 is underway. The homebuyers will be required to maintain steady employment, good credit and provide 400 hours of sweat equity to help build their homes. Once construction is complete, the families will purchase the homes from Habitat with a 30-year, no-interest mortgage, which illustrates Habitats objective to give families a hand up rather than a hand out. The payments will be cycled back into the community so more homes can be built for qualifying families. Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg is a non-profit organization serving the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson and Williamsburg and the counties of Charles City, James City, New Kent and York. For more information, visit www.HabitatPGW.org. About HII HII is a global, all-domain defense partner, building and delivering the worlds most powerful, survivable naval ships and technologies that safeguard our seas, sky, land, space and cyber. As Americas largest shipbuilder and with a more than 135-year history of advancing U.S. national defense, we are united by our mission in service of the heroes who protect our freedom. HIIs diverse workforce includes skilled tradespeople; artificial intelligence, machine learning (AI/ML) experts; engineers; technologists; scientists; logistics experts; and business professionals. Headquartered in Virginia, HIIs workforce is 44,000 strong. For more information, visit: HII on the web: https://www.HII.com/ HII on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamHII HII on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/WeAreHII HII on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WeAreHII Contact: Todd Corillo[email protected] (757) 688-3220 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e4d52648-599e-492a-b5f9-11d256b2d92e HII Newport News Shipbuilding - October 2022 HIIs Newport News Shipbuilding joined elected officials and community leaders Tuesday to break ground on two houses that shipyard volunteers will build in the coming weeks in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg. These are the 20th and 21st homes that the shipyard has sponsored since 2002. (Photo by Lexi Whitehead/HII) Source: Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. Washington, DC, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This morning the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) held a ceremony to mark the transfer of ownership of the National Gallery of Arts sole Benin Bronze to the Nigerian National Collections along with 29 sculptures from the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of African Art (NMAfA), and one sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum. These 31 objects from the National Gallery, NMAfA, and RISD Museum are among the first Benin Bronzes to be repatriated to Nigeria by American institutions on the basis of the 1897 British colonial raid of the Royal Palace of Benin. Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, delivered remarks at the ceremony held at the Smithsonians National Museum of African Art, saying The National Gallery of Art is pleased to work with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments to repatriate this sculpture and return the remarkable work where it belongswith the people of Nigeria. We are honored to join with the Smithsonian Institution and RISD Museum in this historic moment, as the first American institutions to return Benin Bronzes stolen 125 years ago from their place of origin. Nigeria is immensely gratified at the commendable decision of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Rhode Island School of Design to return these artefacts that left Africa over a century ago. Nigeria looks forward to working with these institutions on joint exhibitions and other educational exchanges. By returning the artefacts, these institutions are together writing new pages in history. Their brave decision to return the timeless artworks is worth emulating, said the Honorable Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture of Nigeria. I am very delighted that these transfers to Nigeria by these eminent institutions are actually taking place. This event opens a new vista regarding American cultural institutions relationship with Nigeria. The event is a harbinger of greater things to come as other museums and institutions here in the United States with collections of Benin Bronzes are expected to follow suit. We hope for great collaborations with these museums and institutions and we have already opened promising discussions with them concerning this. The entire world is welcome to join in this new way of doing things. A way free from rancours and misgivings. A way filled with mutual respect, said Professor Abba Isa Tijani, director general of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM). Remarks were also made by Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Ngaire Blankenberg, director of the National Museum of African Art, Professor Abba Isa Tijani, director general of the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture of Nigeria, and Prince Aghatise Erediauwa of the Benin Kingdom. Following the ceremony, representatives signed documents officially transferring ownership of the objects to the NCMM. While it is National Gallery policy not to deaccession objects from its collection, in rare and special cases it may determine that objects should be deaccessioned for restitution or repatriation. Following years of research by the National Gallery staff into the provenance of the Fowl, the National Gallery of Arts Board of Trustees voted on May 7, 2020, to deaccession the sculpture. Subsequently, the National Gallery communicated its interest in repatriating the sculpture to the Oba of the Royal Court of Benin. Since then, the National Gallery has worked with the NCMM to transfer ownership of the object on a mutually agreeable schedule and terms. The Fowl was reportedly taken in 1897 from the Royal Palace of Benin, in present-day Nigeria, by colonial British forces during a punitive expedition. In addition to exiling the Oba and burning the palace, the British forces looted the royal treasures, distributing some to individuals involved, but selling most at auction in London to pay for the cost of the expedition. The Fowl was acquired by Alexander A. Cowan, a British merchant who worked for trading firms based in Nigeria, and sold at Sothebys, London, in 1954. The object was then purchased in 1955 from J.J. Klejman Gallery, New York, by Mr. and Mrs. Winston F.C. Guest and given later that year to the National Gallery. The sculpture has been installed in the galleries of the National Gallery periodically and has been lent several times to the National Museum of African Art. The Fowl is considered one of the finest extant examples of Benin sculptures of roosters. It is believed that these objects were placed on royal altars honoring queen mothers. The rope border along the base of the copper-alloy sculpture suggests a date in the reign of Oba Eresonyen (17351750). The double-twist pattern represents the rope of the world, a royal emblem and symbol of infinite wisdom. Attachments Anabeth Guthrie National Gallery of Art 2023163540 [email protected] Source: National Gallery of Art October 11, 2022, Oslo, Norway: PGS will release its Q3 2022 results on Wednesday October 26, 2022 at approximately 08:00am Central European Summer Time (CEST). The earnings release and the earnings presentation will be published on www.newsweb.no and on PGS website www.pgs.com. President & CEO Rune Olav Pedersen and EVP & CFO Gottfred Langseth will present the results the same day at 09:00 am CEST at PGS' headquarters, Lilleakerveien 4C, Oslo, Norway. The presentation is open to the public and will also be webcasted live. To log on to the webcast, copy and paste the link below into your browser, or go to PGS website www.pgs.com. Webcast link: https://channel.royalcast.com/landingpage/hegnarmedia/20221026_6/ Webcast Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk8Rsuz08LA A replay of the audiocast will be made available on PGS website shortly after. FOR DETAILS, CONTACT: Bard Stenberg, VP IR & Corporate Communication Mobile: +47 99 24 52 35 *** PGS ASA and its subsidiaries (PGS or the Company) is an integrated marine geophysics company, which operates on a worldwide basis. PGS business supports the energy industry, including oil and gas, offshore renewables and carbon storage. The Companys headquarter is in Oslo, Norway and the PGS share is listed on the Oslo stock exchange (OSE: PGS). For more information visit PGS website www.pgs.com. --END-- Singapore, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Planetarium Labs, the community-driven Web3 game company, have successfully sold out its 3,000 original PFP NFT series called D:CC (De:Centralized Cat) based on its popular decentralized MMORPG, Nine Chronicles. Launched on September 23rd, the minting of D:CC NFTs ended with nearly 500 unique owners eager to become a member of the Nine Chronicles Community. The successful minting of the D:CCs NFT stood out among NFT projects during the crypto winter in which not many projects sell out. Out of a total supply of 3,000 unique NFTs, 2,800 NFTs were allocated for the stages of minting, including minting exclusive for existing Nine Chronicles players, collaborations, and partnerships. 200 remained for the team. The candidates for minting were chosen via applications to the Pionyan Programs (pioneer + nyan), determined by their participation and engagement within the Nine Chronicles community. The NFTs were priced at 999 WNCG (Wrapped Nine Chronicles Gold), a 1:1 NCG-backed ERC-20 token native to the ecosystem of Nine Chronicles. The D:CCs NFT project unlocks exclusive features to owners, including rewards, benefits, special in-game items, and an invitation to alter their identity within the Nine Chronicles multiverse. Moreover, the NFT holders will receive special roles within the community and have access to additional and exclusive cryptocurrencies, vote on future collaborations, and more in the expansive Nine Chronicles world. D:CC NFT project is just one of the first steps of Planetarium Labs mission to expand its creative platform and gaming ecosystem with its collaborative community. The company plans to launch more NFT projects in the future themed around Nine Chronicles as they continue to play a pioneering role in open-source decentralized blockchain games. About Nine ChroniclesNine Chronicles is a decentralized, open-source, free-to-play MMORPG based on Norse mythology and the first title to be developed with Libplanet. Nine Chronicles is run on a peer-to-peer network of players without requiring any central server to host. The entire game, from crafting an item to complex battles, takes place fully on-chain. Nine Chronicles is governed by its community and supported by a complex economy where supply and demand are the greatest currencies. To learn more about Nine Chronicles, visit Nine Chronicles' Twitter, Discord, and Medium About Planetarium LabsPlanetarium Labs is a community-driven Web3 game company that believes that communities can create infinite possibilities through decentralized innovations and strives to empower massively multiplayer online games with creative freedom and player governance. The company recently raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands. Planetarium Labs is partnered with the industry's leading companies, including Binance, Ubisoft, The Sandbox, Wemade, Hashed, Sfermion, IDEO COLAB, XLGAMES, and SAMSUNG NEXT. Source: Planetarium Labs PRESS RELEASE : INSIDE INFORMATION / REGULATED INFORMATION 11 October 2022, 07:00 CEST Biocartis Announces Successful Amendment of its Existing Convertible Bonds Mechelen, Belgium, 11 October 2022 Biocartis Group NV (the "Company" or "Biocartis"), an innovative molecular diagnostics company (Euronext Brussels: BCART), is pleased to announce the successful amendment of its 4.00% convertible bonds due in 2024 (the "Existing Convertible Bonds") as part of the comprehensive recapitalization arrangements announced on 1 September 2022. As per the previous announcement issued on 1 September 2022, holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds were asked to approve certain amendments to the Existing Convertible Bonds such as a partial equitization equal to 10% of notional amounts outstanding, a maturity extension by 3.5 years to November 2027, and remaining coupons to be paid as Payment-In-Kind (via capitalization of coupons) to preserve cash. These amendments have been approved by the required majority and the amendments have become effective. As previously announced, holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds are also offered the right to exchange their Existing Convertible Bonds into new second lien secured convertible bonds (the New Convertible Bonds), subject to their commitment to participate pro-rata in a fully backstopped EUR 25 million investment into additional New Convertible Bonds. The New Convertible Bonds will benefit from asset security, shares security and certain guarantees, and mature in November 2026 with a higher 4.50% cash coupon. Existing holders that do not provide additional funding pursuant to the New Convertible Bonds terms will not be permitted to exchange, and their Existing Convertible Bonds will remain outstanding with the amended terms. The deadline for the exchange offer for holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds is 24 October 2022. The documentation in relation to the exchange offer has been uploaded on a dedicated website, and holders of the Existing Convertible Bonds should contact their brokers or the Company if they have not already received access to the relevant documentation. To fully effect the comprehensive recapitalisation transaction, the Company has invited its shareholders, holders of subscription rights, holders of convertible bonds, directors and statutory auditor to an extraordinary shareholders' meeting (EGM) which will be held on Thursday 27 October 2022 at 2:00 p.m. CEST at the offices of the Company at Generaal de Wittelaan 11B, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium. The convening notice and other documents relating to the EGM can be consulted on the website of the Company. --- END --- More information: Renate Degrave Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Biocartis e-mail [email protected] tel +32 15 631 729 mobile +32 471 53 60 64 About Biocartis Biocartis (Euronext Brussels: BCART) is an innovative molecular diagnostics (MDx) company providing next generation diagnostic solutions aimed at improving clinical practice for the benefit of patients, clinicians, payers and industry. Biocartis' proprietary MDx Idylla platform is a fully automated sample-to-result, real-time PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) system that offers accurate, highly reliable molecular information from virtually any biological sample in virtually any setting. Biocartis is developing and marketing a continuously expanding test menu addressing key unmet clinical needs, with a focus in oncology, which represents the fastest growing segment of the MDx market worldwide. Today, Biocartis offers tests supporting melanoma, colorectal and lung cancer, as well as for COVID-19, flu, RSV and sepsis. More information: www.biocartis.com. Follow us on Twitter: @Biocartis_. Biocartis and Idylla are registered trademarks in Europe, the United States and other countries. The Biocartis and Idylla trademark and logo are used trademarks owned by Biocartis. Please refer to the product labeling for applicable intended uses for each individual Biocartis product. This press release is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in any jurisdiction where to do so would be unlawful. Any persons reading this press release should inform themselves of and observe any such restrictions. Biocartis takes no responsibility for any violation of any such restrictions by any person. This press release does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities in any jurisdiction. No securities of Biocartis may be offered or sold in the United States of America absent registration with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or an exemption from registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Forward-looking statements Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect the Company's or, as appropriate, the Company directors' or managements' current expectations and projections concerning future events such as the Company's results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, performance, prospects, growth, strategies and the industry in which the Company operates. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, assumptions and factors could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities are not guarantees of future performance and should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. In addition, even if actual results or developments are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, those results or developments may not be indicative of results or developments in future periods. No representations and warranties are made as to the accuracy or fairness of such forward-looking statements. As a result, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based, except if specifically required to do so by law or regulation. Neither the Company nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such person's officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Important information This announcement is not a prospectus for the purposes of Regulation 2017/1129, as amended (together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State of the European Economic Area, the Prospectus Regulation) or the Prospectus Regulation as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the UK European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and as amended by The Prospectus (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (each as amended) (the "UK Prospectus Regulation"). THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN, SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD BE PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ONLY AND DOES NOT FORM PART OF ANY OFFER TO SELL OR PURCHASE, OR THE SOLICITATION OF ANY OFFER TO SELL OR PURCHASE, ANY NEW BONDS, OUTSTANDING BONDS OR OTHER SECURITIES. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND THE OFFER, SALE AND PURCHASE OF THE NEW BONDS, NEW TERM LOANS OR THE OUTSTANDING BONDS DESCRIBED IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IN CERTAIN JURISDICTIONS MAY BE RESTRICTED BY LAW. ANY PERSONS READING THIS ANNOUNCEMENT SHOULD INFORM THEMSELVES OF AND OBSERVE ANY SUCH RESTRICTIONS. There shall be no offer, solicitation, sale or purchase or exchange of the Existing Convertible Bonds or the New Convertible Bonds in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, sale, or purchase would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended from time to time (the "U.S. Securities Act") or the securities laws of any state of the United States, and may not be offered or sold in the United States unless these securities are registered under the U.S. Securities Act, or an exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act is available. Biocartis has not registered, and does not intend to register, any portion of the offering of the securities concerned in the United States, and does not intend to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States. This communication is only addressed to and directed at persons in member states of the European Economic Area (each a "Member States") and in the United Kingdom who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Article 2(e) of the Prospectus Regulation and of the UK Prospectus Regulation, respectively ("Qualified Investors"). This communication is only being distributed to and is only directed at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order") or (iii) high net worth companies, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The securities referred to herein are only available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be engaged in only with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents. This announcement cannot be used as a basis for any investment agreement or decision. Biocartis is not liable if the aforementioned restrictions are not complied with by any person. HONOLULU, Oct. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Multidiscipline consulting engineering firm Coffman Engineers, Inc. (Coffman) announced today that structural engineering firm Shigemura, Lau, Sakanashi, Higuchi and Associates, Inc. (SLSH) has executed a letter of intent to join Coffman. The companies plan to finalize the asset purchase agreement by Nov. 1. Once the agreement is finalized, Coffman will welcome SLSH's four owners and all six staff members to the company before the end of the year. The decision to join Coffman is part of SLSH's ownership transition plan to provide continued support to their staff and established clients while the ownership plans for retirement. "We were selective and committed to finding the right firm to partner with that would benefit our clients and staff. We were motivated by Coffman's drive for the same level of client care and attention to detail that our clients have become accustomed to. Our work and values are also complementary. We look forward to bringing our teams together to start a new chapter and to serve our clients with increased resources," said Howard Lau, PE, Shigemura, Lau, Sakanashi, Higuchi and Associates' President. SLSH owners Howard Lau, PE, Craig Sakanashi, PE, Wayne Higuchi, PE, and Beverly Ishii-Nakayama, PE, will join Coffman as principal advisors. The addition of SLSH expands Coffman's Honolulu structural group from three to 13. SLSH has provided consulting structural engineering services to private and public clients throughout the Pacific Region for more than 52 years. SLSH's experience augments Coffman's structural engineering capabilities and complements the company's other engineering disciplines. SLSH and Coffman have an ongoing working relationship and share many of the same clients. The two companies' markets and clients align, particularly in military/DoD, healthcare, housing, and education. "We are honored and humbled that SLSH has chosen Coffman as part of their leadership transition. We have a lot to learn from their 52 years of doing business in Hawaii. We welcome them to our office 'ohana and are prepared to continue the level of service they have established with their clients," said John Thielst, Coffman's Senior Vice President, Managing Principal, Pacific Region. After the agreement is finalized, SLSH, as Coffman Engineers, will continue to support clients and honor their project commitments with the same staff and quality. The SLSH staff will move to Coffman's downtown Honolulu office before the end of the year. For more information, visit the announcement page at: https://www.coffman.com/news/SLSH-joins-coffman-engineers/. The announcement page will be updated after the deal closes. About Shigemura, Lau, Sakanashi, Higuchi and Associates, Inc. (SLSH) SLSH is a Hawaii-based full-service consulting structural engineering firm providing services to clients in both the private and public sectors. The firm was started in 1970 by Stanley Shigemura and has provided engineering services for the past 52+ years for various types of projects utilizing all available construction materials. SLSH uses the latest technology and software to arrive at solutions more rapidly, investigate more structural options, and results in cost-effective solutions for clients. About Coffman Engineers, Inc. Coffman Engineers is a multidiscipline engineering consulting firm that integrates many disciplines, including civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, fire protection, and other specialties, to offer clients local, high-touch services. Coffman has 620 employees in 20 offices across the U.S. committed to building a better world. Coffman's Pacific Region has 68 employees and includes offices in Honolulu and Guam. Their multidiscipline services support clients and projects throughout the Pacific and Asia. Visit coffman.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. ### Contact Information: John Thielst Senior Vice President, Managing Principal, Pacific Region [email protected] 808-687-8884 Related Files SLSH Will Join Coffman Engineers_Press Release_Fact Sheet.pdf Related Images Image 1: Coffman Engineers Logo This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Coffman Engineers Logo Coffman Engineers Logo Source: Coffman Engineers, Inc. HOUSTON, Oct. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tara Energy, a subsidiary of Just Energy Group Inc (NEX:JE.H; OTC: JENGQ), and a longstanding member of the Texas community, has launched a campaign to partner with Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) to support the people of flood-stricken Pakistan. More than 33 million people have been affected by catastrophic monsoon flooding since June, with extensive damage to homes and critical infrastructure. Reports cite the displacement of as many as seven million people and damage to more than 1.8 million homes.1 With the country declaring a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, the latest threat to life includes the spread of waterborne diseases, and over three million children facing malnutrition. In response, Tara Energy is taking action to donate a portion of their sales, from now and throughout the month of October, towards relief efforts. Specifically, the company will donate $5 for every new residential online enrollment and $25 for every new business customer enrollment2. With the help of HHRD, money will be directed to priority needs such as Dry Food Packages; Cooked Meals and Clean Water; Temporary Shelter Home Kits; Dignity Packages; and Medical Camps. An established part of the Texas market for 20 years, Tara Energy is proud to serve a vibrant local South Asian community, says Mehnaz Zaidi, Tara Energys Senior Director of Business Development. With such a strong connection, our employees have always been among the first to step up in times of need, as they have now, with the creation of care packages and donation collections for the people of flood-ravaged Pakistan. We consider such effort as a natural extension of support for our own community close to home. In taking this further, as an organization, we seek to help even more in a larger, more impactful way. Our partnership with HHRD enables us to maximize and channel urgent and critical aid exactly where its needed most. The campaign runs now until October 31st. 1 Source Unicef 2 donations will be made following customer payment of their first months bill. About Tara EnergyA leading Texas retail electricity provider since 2002, Tara Energy serves both residential and commercial customers with competitively priced plans and outstanding customer experiences. Tara Energy is a subsidiary of Just Energy Group Inc. For more information, visit www.TaraEnergy.com About Just Energy Group Inc.Just Energy is a retail energy provider specializing in electricity and natural gas commodities and bringing energy efficient solutions, carbon offsets and renewable energy options to customers. Operating in the United States and Canada, Just Energy serves residential and commercial customers. Just Energy is the parent company of Amigo Energy, Filter Group, Hudson Energy, Interactive Energy Group, Tara Energy, and Terrapass. Visit https://investors.justenergy.com to learn more. Media Contact: Boyd ErmanLongview Communications and Public AffairsPhone: 416-523-5885[email protected] Source: Just Energy Group Inc. Source: Just Energy Group Inc Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A farmer in Ukraine will draw attention to the plight of Europes breadbasket at the World Food Prize Foundations International Borlaug Dialogue next week. Kees Huizinga, who has reached global audiences chronicling the impact of Russias war with Ukraine on food production, will join a panel to discuss the triple threats of conflict, Covid-19 and climate change on Tuesday, October 18. The war in Ukraine has sent global wheat futures spiraling amid negotiations to release stockpiles of grain from blockaded ports, leaving farmers facing prolonged uncertainty. The impact of the war in Ukraine on commodity prices has clearly shown how interconnected and interdependent the global food supply is, said Huizinga, who has a 15,000-hectare farm about 200 kilometers south of the capital city of Kiev. The only way many farmers have survived is through diversified production beyond wheat, Huizinga said. Striving for peace is a matter of both national security and food security. This years Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, will bring together more than 600 scientists, farmers, policymakers, students, academics and business leaders to focus on the theme of Feeding a Fragile World. Huizinga will join panelists Dhanush Dinesh, founder at think tank Clim-Eat; Yossi Kofman, CEO at Groundwork BioAg; Alanna Koch, Board Chair at the Global Institute for Food Security; and Priscilla Trinh, a member of the World Food Prize Fondations Council of Advisors, at a session on Tuesday, October 18. Farmers are the frontline of our food systems, which means their resilience in the face of evolving challenges will define global food security, said Barbara Stinson, President of the World Food Prize Foundation. This is why the World Food Prize Foundation ensures a seat at the table for farmers like Kees, whose insights and experience are critical, Stinson added. In addition to expert panels, speakers such as USAID Administrator Samantha Power; Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture; and Rodger Voorhies, president of Global Growth and Opportunity at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will deliver keynote speeches. The event will also recognize this years World Food Prize Laureate, NASA climate scientist Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig and the Borlaug Field Award Recipient, Mahalingham Govindaraj. ## Notes to editors Journalists can register to attend the Borlaug Dialogue in person or virtually via the event platform, using the discount code borlaug22press on the payment page. In-person and virtual press conferences will be scheduled with many of the key speakers, including World Food Prize Laureate Cynthia Rosenzweig, Borlaug Field Award Recipient Mahalingham Govindaraj, roundtable participants and high-level international government ministers and representatives. A full list of speakers and a full agenda is available here. For more information and interview requests, contact: Emily Boyden+1 515-205-6319[email protected] Donna Bowater+1 314 599 0415[email protected] Emily Boyden World Food Prize Foundation 515-205-6319 [email protected] Donna Bowater +1 314 599 0415 [email protected] Source: World Food Prize Foundation Dallas, Texas, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Commemorative Air Forces Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow returns to the skies this coming Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 11-13, 2022. The interactive event features spectacular flying demonstrations, battle reenactments, veteran appearances, living history encampments, hands-on family and educational activities, aircraft rides, cockpit tours, and more. Tickets for Wings Over Dallas are currently on sale at www.wingsoverdallas.org, with advance purchase discounts available. More than forty World War II-era aircraft including bombers, fighters, and support airplanes are expected to participate in the airshow. Aircraft featured this year include the B-29 Superfortress FIFI, B-24 Liberator Diamond Lil, C-47 Thats All, Brother, P-51 Mustang Tuskegee Airmen, B-17 Flying Fortress Texas Raiders, and more will participate in aerial activities and historic reenactments of air battles. Wings Over Dallas will also feature TORA, TORA, TORA, an aerial reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor complete with pyrotechnic effects. In addition to the spectacular aerial displays, attendees also will enjoy activities on the ground including living history encampments that provide the authentic vintage military feeling and allow the crowd to step back in time. Through the events Veterans Voices, members of the Greatest Generation, including World War II veterans and a Rosie Riveter, will share their personal stories of service and sacrifice. At the events Aviation Discovery Zone, students will be able to participate in hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) activities and explore various careers in aviation through simulated experiences. Students can earn rewards based on completing workstations, including make-and-take riveting activities, flight simulators, pre-flight aircraft inspection checks, and more. On Friday, November 11, Wings Over Dallas will host an Education Day allowing thousands of area students to experience World War II history up close. This unique opportunity is free for a limited number of teachers and students who register in advance online and will feature living history displays, interactive exhibits, and veterans sharing their stories with students. Wings Over Dallas is the perfect way for families to honor our nations veterans, said Hank Coats, CAF President, and CEO. This living history experience celebrates the brave men and women who served our nation and their lessons of leadership, character, and selfless service. Were proud that Wings Over Dallas is becoming the pre-eminent World War II-themed airshow in the nation as well as an important part of the continued development of southern Dallas and the entire north Texas region." Event Details Dates: November 11-13, 2022 Times: Friday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Location: Dallas Executive Airport, 5303 Challenger Dr., Dallas, Texas 75387 Tickets are available online. Prices range from $10 - $84 About the Commemorative Air Force Founded in 1957, the Commemorative Air Force has amassed more than 180 World War II aircraft the largest collection of flying vintage military warbirds in the world. Through the work of more than 12,000 volunteers across 85 units, the CAFs educational outreach programs reach an estimated 20 million Americans each year, providing unique, compelling hands-on access to history. For more information about the Commemorative Air Force, visit www.commemorativeairforce.org. Attachments Leah Block Commemorative Air Force 713-366-1481 [email protected] Source: Commemorative Air Force Perth, Western Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 10, 2022) - Besra Gold Inc (ASX: BEZ) ("Besra" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed a Subscription Agreement with Quantum Metal Recovery Inc. ("Quantum"), a substantial shareholder of the Company, for the issue of 11,111,111 new CDIs to raise A$1,000,000. The CDIs will be issued pursuant to the Company's existing capacity under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 at an issue price of A$0.09 per CDI and will rank equally with existing fully paid CDIs on issue. This compares with a closing price of A$0.032 per CDI on 7 October 2022, the last day of trading. Proceeds from the placement will be used to fund activities at the Bau Gold Project and general working capital. The Placement was negotiated with the assistance of Noblemen Ventures Limited, a Sydney based investment and corporate advisory group. Besra is also in advanced discussions with Quantum concerning broader funding support of Besra's activities though there is no assurance that such discussions will result in binding agreements. This placement follows Quantum having acquired a substantial shareholder interest in Besra, as announced to the ASX on August 24, 2022. Quantum is a US-based corporation and part of a group whose principals are based in Malaysia, with strong relationships to Sarawak stakeholders including within the district of Bau. Besra's CEO, Dr Ray Shaw commented: "Quantum has with this Placement shown a clear commitment to support our exploration and development strategies at Bau and we welcome their increased investment in Besra. The Bau Gold Project has a Resource estimate of 72.6Mt @ 1.4 g/t for 3.3Moz1(JORC 2012) of gold, involving a number of discrete deposits as well as an Exploration Target ranging between 4.9Moz and 9.32Moz2(on a 100% basis). I am very excited with the enthusiasm Quantum has shown for Bau and I look forward to further developing our relationship." This announcement was authorised for release by the Chairman of Besra Gold Inc. Ray Shaw Chief Executive Officer [email protected] For further information: Australia Ray Shaw CEO Email: [email protected] North America James Hamilton Investor Relations Services Cell: +1 416 471 4494 Email: [email protected] Competent Person's Statement The information in this Announcement that relates to Exploration Results, Mineral Resources or Ore Reserves is based on information compiled by Mr. Kevin J. Wright, a Competent Person who is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng), and a Chartered Environmentalist (C.Env). Mr. Wright is a consultant to Besra. Mr. Wright has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code (2012 Edition) of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, and a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. Kevin J. Wright consents to the inclusion in this Announcement of the matters based on his information in the form and context that it appears. Disclaimer This Announcement contains certain forward-looking statements and forecasts concerning future activities, including potential delineation of resources. Such statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve unknown risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors which are beyond the control of Besra Gold Inc. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements depending upon a variety of factors. Nothing in this Announcement should be construed as either an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell securities. Unless otherwise indicated, all mineral resource estimates and Exploration Targets included or incorporated by reference in this Announcement have been, and will be, prepared in accordance with the JORC classification system of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Disclosure Prior information contained in this announcement is based on the following publicly available announcements previously lodged on the SEDAR platform: Besra Gold Inc Bau Gold Project Sarawak Malaysia Exploration Target Inventory. Lodged SEDAR Platform Feb 26, 2021; Besra Bau Project - Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve Updated to JORC 2012 Compliance. Lodged SEDAR Platform Nov 22, 2018; which are available on Besra Gold Inc SEDAR Company Information Platform or on Besra's website www.besra.com. Besra (Accipiter virgatus), also called the besra sparrowhawk, occurs throughout southern and eastern Asia. It is a medium sized raptor with short broad wings and a long tail making it very adept at manoeuvring within its environment and an efficient predator. ____________________________ 1Refer Prospectus dated 8 July 2021, Section 3.11 Mineral Resource. 2The potential quantity and grade of the Exploration Targets are conceptual in nature; there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and it is uncertain if further exploration work will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140089 Expands the Width and Breadth of the Mineralized Zone Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Graycliff Exploration Limited (CSE: GRAY) (OTCQB: GRYCF) (FSE: GE0) (the "Company" or "Graycliff") is pleased to release the next batch of assay results from the Phase Four drilling program at the Shakespeare Gold Project located on the Canadian Shield near Sudbury, Ontario. Phase Four drilling focused on testing the boundaries of the mineralized zone, both along strike and at depth. Drill Hole J-52 intersected 14.39 grams per tonne of gold ("g/t Au") over 3.0 metres ("m"), including 41.00 g/t Au over 1.0 m. Additionally, J-53 intersected 5.35 g/t Au over 5.0 m, including 21.40 g/t Au over 1.0 m. Significant intervals for Holes J-52 to J-53 are detailed below. Table 1 - Highlighted Gold Assay Results from Holes J-52 to J-53 Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Width (m)1 Au (g/t) 2 J-52 175.0 178.0 3.00 14.39 including 176.0 177.0 1.00 41.00 J-53 173.0 174.0 1.00 1.31 180.0 185.0 5.00 5.35 including 180.0 181.0 1.00 21.40 196.0 197.0 1.00 1.58 1 Reported intervals are down-hole lengths and not true thicknesses. True width of the mineralization cannot be determined due to the early-stage nature of the current program. 2 Length-weighted average grades are calculated using un-capped gold assay data. James Macintosh, Graycliff's President and CEO, stated: "Drill Hole J-52 was drilled to the northeast and expanded the width and breadth of the mineralization zone. Hole J-53 intersected three anomalous intervals at depth of over 150 m from surface within a 25 m section of the hole. Given the intersection of high grades over the strike as well as depth drilled to date, we feel it's time for us to initiate preliminary metallurgical sample test work. Our team will complete one or several drill holes of large diameter to collect material for the anticipated work. This should become an important step in moving the Shakespeare Project forward." Figure 1 - Holes J-52 to J-53 Location and Cross Section To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8952/139890_40e3dadf4441da57_001full.jpg Qualified Person Bruce Durham, P.Geo., is a Qualified Person, as that term is defined by Canadian regulatory guidelines under NI 43-101, and has read and approved the technical information contained in this press release. About Graycliff Exploration Limited Graycliff Exploration is a mineral exploration company focused on its 1,025 hectares of prospective ground, located roughly 80 kilometres west of Sudbury on the prolific Canadian Shield. The Company's Shakespeare Project consists of one crown patented lease, two crown leases and 40 claims on a property associated with the historic Shakespeare Gold Mine, which operated from 1903 to 1907. Graycliff's Baldwin Project is adjacent to the east and is comprised of 68 claims covering 1,500 hectares. QA/QC Protocol: https://graycliffexploration.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/graycliffexploration-qa-qc-protocols-june-2021.pdf For more information, please contact investor relations at 1-647-249-9298, or email [email protected]. On Behalf of the Board of Directors, James Macintosh President and CEO Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider has reviewed or accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business of the Company. Forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the management of the Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based on are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, other than as required by applicable securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/139890 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - MAX RESOURCE CORP. (TSXV: MAX) (OTC Pink: MXROF) (FSE: M1D2) ("Max" or the "Company") is pleased to report the commencement of the very first drill program at URU-C and URU-CE lying along the 20-km-long URU District, within the Company's wholly-owned 90-km-long CESAR copper-silver project in Northeastern Colombia (refer to Figure 3). The inaugural drill program at URU-C and URU-CE consists of at least 2,000m of drilling on 4 pads with 8 drill holes testing to a maximum depth of 350m. This is the first ever drilling program within the URU 20-km-long copper-silver District (refer to Figures/Videos 1, 4, 5 and 6). A second phase drilling program will immediately follow and continue through to year-end. Highlights Drilling is currently underway at URU-C and URU-CE targeting down dip continuity, while identifying the broader large-scale potential of this copper-silver mineralized system Multiple geophysical targets within the URU-C and URU-CE zones will also be drill tested Max anticipates mineralized intervals will be released prior to assays, as the chalcocite copper mineralization is distinctly visual as veinlets, stockworks and breccias (refer to Figure 2) URU-C and URU-CE Drill Target Delineation Max has extended the Ground Magnetometry (TMI) survey to 20-line-km over the northern extension Representative rock and soil sampling will be carried out along all IP and TMI lines (20-line-km) and along the northern extensions to delineate new drill targets (refer to Figure 6) In addition, a magneto telluric (MT) survey is also planned to complement historic seismic data available for the Cesar basin. "This inaugural drill program at URU will provide the first peek at the geology, the continuity and broad extent of the copper-silver mineralization at depth, for both URU-C and URU-CE discoveries. Follow-up drilling will target mineralization along strike and newly defined geophysical targets," commented Max CEO, Brett Matich. "To gauge the enormity of the URU District, Max's drilling is currently targeting a significant 1-km of strike of the URU 20-km-long surface copper-silver mineralized system," he continued. "In addition, Max's $20 million treasury allows the Company to continue its aggressive exploration and geophysical programs well into 2023 and highlight the immense district scale potential of its CESAR copper-silver project," he concluded. First URU-Central discovery (URU-C) returned chip channel widths of 9.0m @ 8.0% copper + 115 g/t silver (new results) and 16.8m @ 8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver at the lower of the prospect. The upper level of URU-C (+190m vertically above and +290m along strike) returned 4.9% copper + 41 g/t silver along a 52m ridgeline, true width is yet to be determined. The second discovery, URU-CE is located 750m to the east of URU-C and 373m vertically above URU-C chip channels that returned 9.0m @ 7.0% copper + 115 g/t silver and 16.8m @ 8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver. URU-C consists of substantial sized outcrops with visible copper mineralization trending for over 250m of strike and open in all directions. Continuous channel sampling at URU-CE returned 19.4m @ 1.3% copper + 2.5 g/t silver to be drill tested Figure 1. Drilling underway at URU-C (Click play image to view video) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ENkNibnKTAg To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_002full.jpg Figure 2. URU-C, disseminated chalcocite rock To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_003full.jpg Figure 3. CESAR 90-km-long copper-silver belt To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_004full.jpg Figure 4. URU 20-km-long (drilling 1-km portion) To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_005full.jpg Figure 5. The URU-C and URU-CE drone video (Click play image to view video) https://youtu.be/7ErABV-krC0 To view an enhanced version of Figure 5, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_006full.jpg Figure 6. Representative sampling conducted along TMI/IP lines, TMI survey extends north and proposed drill holes To view an enhanced version of Figure 6, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3834/140091_34aaedc94401ba89_009full.jpg Quality Assurance & Quality Control Max adheres to a strict QA/QC program for core handling, sampling, sample transportation and analyses. Drill core samples will be securely transported to the Company's core facility in Valledupar, Colombia. Samples will be sawn in half, labelled, placed in sealed, securitized bags and shipped directly to ALS Laboratories for prep in Medellin, Colombia and subsequent assaying in ALS Lima, Peru. QA/QC control procedures include the systematic insertion of duplicate, blank and certified reference materials (CRM), at regular intervals into the sampling stream. Geochemistry analyses will consist of four acid / ICP-MS (ME-MS61) with overlimit values subsequently analyzed using the four acid / ICP-AES (ME-OG62) technique. In addition, all drill holes are surveyed for deviation via north-seeking gyro surveys. The deviation surveys provide accurate data about the true inclination and azimuth of the drill hole. Obtaining an accurate survey of the drill holes will result in a better contextual understanding of the drill samples, and a more robust 3D geological model. Max is not aware of any drilling, sampling, recovery, or other factors that could materially affect the accuracy of the data referred to herein. Cesar Copper Silver Project Summary CESAR lies along the copper-silver rich 200-kilometre-long Cesar Basin in Northeastern Colombia. This region provides access to major infrastructure resulting from oil & gas and mining operations, including Cerrejn, the largest coal mine in South America, held by global miner Glencore (refer to Figure 1). Max's twenty-one mining concessions collectively expanse over 188-km. Max is proactive, with the corporate goal of transitioning the Cesar basin towards the mining of copper, the key metal for the Colombia's transition to clean energy. Max executed a 2-year co-operation agreement with Endeavour Silver Corp., which assists Max to significantly expand its 100% owned landholdings at CESAR, Endeavour will hold underlying 0.5% NSR. Max is focusing on three major copper-silver districts individually located along the CESAR 90-kilometre-long belt, with the objective of defining drill targets. Next step is inaugural drilling program at URU-C and URU-CE: The 32-km long AM district with highlight values of 34.4% copper and 305 g/t silver with highlight values of 34.4% copper and 305 g/t silver The Conejo district , averages 4.9% copper (2% cut-off) over 3.7-km , averages 4.9% copper (2% cut-off) over 3.7-km The 20-km long URU district , includes the URU-C and URU-CE discoveries, highlight channel sampling of: 9.0m @ 7.0% copper + 115 g/t silver 16.8m @8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver 52mn @ 4.9% copper + 41 g/t silver 19.4m @ 1.3% copper + 2.5 g/t silver , includes the URU-C and URU-CE discoveries, highlight channel sampling of: 9.0m @ 7.0% copper + 115 g/t silver 16.8m @8.3% copper + 146 g/t silver 52mn @ 4.9% copper + 41 g/t silver 19.4m @ 1.3% copper + 2.5 g/t silver Regional exploration continues along the CESAR 90-kilometre-long copper-silver belt Geologically, Max interprets the sediment-hosted copper-silver mineralization in the Cesar basin to be analogous to both the Central African Copper Belt (CACB) in the south and the Kupferschiefer deposits in Poland of the CESAR copper-silver belt to the north. Almost 50% of the copper known to exist in sediment-hosted deposits is contained in the CACB, including Ivanhoe Mines Ltd 95-billion-pound Kamoa-Kakula discovery in the Congo. Kupferschiefer, the world's largest silver producer and Europe's largest copper source, is a mining orebody ranging from 0.5 to 5.5m thick at depths of 500m, grading 1.49% copper and 48.6 g/t silver. The silver yield is almost twice the production of the world's second largest silver mine. Source: Central African Belt Descriptive models, grade-tonnage relations, and databases for the assessment of sediment-hosted copper deposits with emphasis on deposits in the Central Africa Copperbelt, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia by USGS 2010. Kamoa-Kakula by OreWin March 2020. World Silver Survey 2020 and Kupferschiefer Deposits & Prospects in SW Poland, September 27, 2019. Max cautions investors that the presence of copper mineralization of the Central African Copper Belt and the Polish Kupferschiefer are not necessarily indicative of similar mineralization at CESAR. Qualified Person The Company's disclosure of a technical or scientific nature in this news release was reviewed and approved by Tim Henneberry, P Geo (British Columbia), a member of the Max Resource Advisory Board, who serves as a qualified person under the definition of National Instrument 43:101. About Max Resource Corp. Max Resource Corp. (TSXV: MAX) is a mineral exploration company advancing the newly discovered district-scale CESAR copper-silver project. The wholly owned CESAR project sits along the Colombian portion of the world's largest producing copper belt (Andean belt), with world class infrastructure and the presence of global majors (Glencore and Chevron). In addition, Max controls the RT Gold project (100% earn-in) in Peru, encompassing a bulk tonnage primary gold porphyry zone, and 3-km to the NW, a gold bearing massive sulphide zone. Historic drilling in 2001, returned values ranging 3.1 to 118.1 g/t gold over core lengths ranging from 2.2 to 36.0-metres. The safety of our people and the communities where we operate is most important. We conduct exploration in a manner which supports protection of ecosystems through responsible environmental stewardship. Source: NI 43:101 Geological Report Rio Tabaconas Gold Project for Golden Alliance Resources Corp. by George Sivertz, Oct.3, 2011 For more information visit: https://www.maxresource.com/ For additional information contact: Tim McNulty E: [email protected] T: (604) 290-8100 Rahim Lakha E. [email protected] *The Venture 50 ranking is provided by TSX Venture Exchange Inc. ("TSXV") for information purposes only. Neither TMX Group Limited nor any of its affiliated companies guarantees the completeness of this information and are not responsible for any errors or omissions in or any use of, or reliance on, this information. The Venture 50 program is not an invitation to purchase securities listed on TSX Venture Exchange. TSXV and its affiliates do not endorse or recommend any of the referenced securities or issuers, and this information should not be construed as providing any trading, legal, accounting, tax, investment, business, financial or other advice and should not be relied on for such purposes" Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the TSXV. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the commercialization plans for Max Resources Corp. described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140091 Seoul, South Korea--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Seoul Metropolitan Government will hold Seoul Fashion Week 2023 S/S, the key event during Seoul Beauty Month, for 5 days from Tue, Oct. 11 to Sat, Oct. 15 at DDP. Considering its long hiatus as an on-site festival, it will open its doors previously restricted to people in the fashion industry to citizens and expand the points of contact between citizens and Seoul Fashion Week. The 'Seoul Fashion Week 2023 S/S' will issue 1,500 NFT invitations with the ambassador's voice for the first time in the history of international fashion week. Created by the voice NFTs startup 'LOVO,' the NFT invitation will present the invitation message from Actor Kwon Sang-Woo, the global ambassador of the fashion week. In particular, various videos and pictures of the actor wearing Korean designers' clothes will be shown in multiple promotions around the world, like in Paris and New York. In addition, virtual fashion models, RyuID, and SEO-HI will be the online ambassadors. They will reveal the clothes of participating brands online. RyuID and SEO-HI plan to wear designer clothes from Seoul Collection and Generation Next clothes, respectively. The 'Seoul Fashion Week 2023 S/S' will focus on The success of the fashion show The expansion of point of contact with citizens The advancement to the overseas market. The four main programs of the Seoul Fashion Week are On-site fashion shows by all designers Order consultation meetings with domestic and foreign buyers Beauty and fashion activities to be participated by the public Advancement into the TRANO fashion trade shows to make K-fashion known to the world. A total of 30 on-site fashion shows will be held. The 'Seoul Collection' with 23 established designers will be held at DDP Art hall, special outdoor stages, and Dohwaseogil in Insa-dong, while the 'Generation Next' fashion show with 7 rookie designers will be held at Oullim Square of DDP. Moreover, there will be order consultation meetings with domestic and foreign buyers, and activities will be provided for the citizens to try out designer clothes through a virtual fitting event. The SMG will give its continuous support to domestic designers to present their clothes at the Paris Fashion Week, one of the top 4 fashion weeks held in the world, and plans to further expand its support. Hwang, Bo-Yeon, Director of Economic Policy Office stated, "We plan to support the Seoul Fashion Week to emerge as the world's fashion festival, promote the fashion industry around Dongdaemun area, and help it to become a bridgehead for K-fashion to advance into overseas markets." He also added, "In cooperation with major cities around the world, it will become an example enhancing the competitiveness of Seoul as the city of beauty and fashion in the world." Media Contact Brand: SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT Contact: Bo Youn Hwang Email: [email protected] Phone: +82 2-2133-8771 Website: https://www.seoulfashionweek.org SOURCE: SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140101 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - UGE International Ltd. (TSXV: UGE) (OTCQB: UGEIF) (the "Company" or "UGE"), a leader in the commercial and community solar sector, interconnected a 740kW rooftop community solar project in late September, with final commercial operation scheduled for later this week. The project is located on the rooftop of a distribution center in Peekskill, New York owned by D. Bertoline & Sons, a family-owned beverage distributor established in 1933. D. Bertoline & Sons earns lease payments over a 25-year term in exchange for hosting the solar installation on its building. "D. Bertoline & Sons is proud to serve as a community solar project host. We've turned our rooftop into a source of cleaner, cheaper electricity, and simultaneously a source of long-term lease revenue for our business," said Dominick Bertoline, President and Chairman of D. Bertoline & Sons. Off-takers of the clean energy generated by the project includes T-Mobile, who, in addition to reducing the carbon footprint of their operations, are saving on electricity costs. As announced in 2021, UGE was selected by T-Mobile to provide clean community solar to offset the wireless provider's energy consumption. This project joins UGE's growing portfolio of self-owned and operated community solar projects in the United States. The project is expected to generate annual recurring revenue of approximately $222,000 per year. Community solar is projected to be the fastest growing segment of the U.S. solar industry. UGE has community solar projects in development in most of the country's community solar markets. About UGE UGE develops, owns, and operates commercial and community solar projects in the US and strategic markets abroad. Our distributed energy solutions deliver cheaper, cleaner energy to businesses and consumers with no upfront cost. With over 500MW of global experience, we work daily to power a more sustainable world. For more information, contact UGE at: +1 917 720 5685 [email protected] Forward-Looking Statements Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the anticipated use of proceeds, and the listing of the Green Debentures on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140083 Signage is seen at the United States Department of Labor headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly By Daniel Wiessner, Nandita Bose and David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. Department of Labor rule proposed Tuesday would make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, a change that is expected to shake up ride-hailing, delivery and other industries that rely on gig workers. Gig company stocks were hammered by the news, with Uber, Lyft and DoorDash all falling at least 10%. The proposal would require that workers be considered employees, entitled to more benefits and legal protections than contractors, when they are "economically dependent" on a company. It could have wide-ranging impacts on company profits and hiring, household incomes and worker quality of life. The final rule is expected next year, after a 45-day public comment period that begins Thursday. The Labor Department said it will consider the worker's "opportunity for profit or loss, investment, permanency, the degree of control by the employer over the worker, (and) whether the work is an integral part of the employers business," among other factors. Most federal and state labor laws, such as those requiring a minimum wage and overtime pay, only apply to a company's employees, who can cost companies up to 30% more than independent contractors, studies suggest. Millions of Americans are working "gig" jobs and this labor has become vital to some transportation, restaurant, construction, health care and other industries. U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh in a statement said businesses often misclassify vulnerable workers. "Misclassification deprives workers of their federal labor protections, including their right to be paid their full, legally earned wages," Walsh said. Liz Shuler, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), said the proposal gives the government the tools to protect workers from the "escalating problem of misclassification." BIDEN VS TRUMP The proposed rule is the latest move in a politically charged battle that has pitched Republicans and companies against Democrats and worker groups over the past decade. It would replace a Trump administration regulation that says workers who own their own businesses or have the ability to work for competing companies, such as a driver who works for Uber and Lyft, can be treated as contractors. Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda, the department's top legal official, said on Tuesday that the Trump-era rule was out of step with decades of federal court decisions. The new proposal mirrors legal guidance issued by the Obama administration, which was withdrawn under former President Donald Trump. It also incorporates elements of strict tests in U.S. states including California, which require companies to treat most workers as employees under state wage laws. More than one-third of U.S. workers, or nearly 60 million people, did some freelance work in the past 12 months, a December 2021 survey by freelancing marketplace Upwork showed. Seth Harris, President Joe Biden's former top labor adviser, said the rule will not directly impact how courts determine whether workers are employees or independent contractors. Instead it will influence the Labor Department's "own enforcement activities and the position it takes in litigation," he said, allowing the department to argue for a much broader definition of employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act in court. BUSINESSES, WORKER GROUPS REACT Worker advocacy groups welcomed the announcement, while employer groups were critical. Nicole Moore, a part-time Lyft driver and the president of the group Rideshare Drivers United, said it was a "really important step to clarify rules at a federal level," that she hoped would "inspire lawmakers to change laws and clarify and codify against misclassification." Christina Brown, who drives for Uber and Lyft in Arizona, said she makes $25 to $60 an hour, but describes what she takes home as "minimum wage." Gig workers' pay is eroded by expenses like gas, insurance and car payments. Brown, however, feels the "government needs to stay out of how the middle class makes money." Groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest U.S. business lobbying group and Associated Builders and Contractors, argue that any broad rule would hurt workers who want to remain independent and have flexibility. The National Retail Federation on Tuesday said it "staunchly opposes a change" and called the rule unnecessary. Lyft said it would have "no immediate or direct impact" on its business at this time. Uber asked the administration to listen to workers. Reclassification of workers as employees "would essentially throw the business model upside down and cause some major structural changes if this holds," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a research note on Uber and Lyft. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Nandita Bose in Washington, Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and Nivedita Balu in Bangalore; Editing by Heather Timmons, Mark Porter and Lisa Shumaker) FILE PHOTO: Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during an interview with Reuters, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine September 16, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo/File Photo By Max Hunder KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday asked the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations for more air defence capabilities to stop Russia, and to back his initiative for an international observer mission on the Belarusian border. Joining the G7 leaders' virtual meeting a day after missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities including the capital Kyiv, Zelenskiy called for tough new sanctions on Moscow and again ruled out talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defence systems, the key element of Russias terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work," Zelenskiy said, thanking German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for speeding up delivery of the IRIS-T air defence system and U.S. President Joe Biden for deliveries of air defence systems. "We hope, Mr President, that these will be systems with a medium to long range of effectiveness, which will allow the creation of a layered system of defence." Ukraine's Western allies have pumped aid and heavy weapons to Kyiv since Russia's invasion in February. Zelenskiy's government has mixed gratitude with pleas for more powerful weapons and faster deliveries. Belarus this week announced its troops would be deployed with Russian forces near Ukraine, signalling a potential further escalation of the war. So far Belarus, a close Russian ally, has been a staging post for the invasion. Ukraine has no plans to attack Belarus, Zelenskiy said, but wants to make sure there is no threat from its northern neighbour. "On the border of Ukraine and Belarus, we can place a mission of international observers to monitor the security situation. The format can be worked out by our diplomats. I ask you, on the level of the G7, to support this initiative," he said. (Reporting by Max Hunder; Writing by Matthias Williams, Editing by Timothy Heritage) Brides-to-be seeking their perfect wedding dress can now enter to win $500 off from Couture by Tess Bridal in Cookeville, Tennessee. Couture by Tess Bridal is hosting a Valentines Day drawing giving away $500 off toward the purchase of a wedding dress when they book their appointment at Couture By Tess Bridal. The winner may purchase a dress from the stores long list of designers including the Couture by Tess and Tess Mann Haute Couture labels. This offer excludes sale dresses. Participants may enter the Valentines Day drawing with wedding dates from January 1, 2023 through June 1, 2024. Every bride-to-be that books an appointment at Couture by Tess Bridal by calling (931) 559-4696 or by booking online will be entered into the drawing upon acceptance of rules and regulations of the contest. If a winner purchases a wedding dress from Couture by Tess Bridal before the drawing takes place, they will be entitled to a $500 rebate. If they book their appointment for the future and are the winner of the drawing, they will receive $500 off a wedding dress purchase. Even if participants book their appointment for a future date beyond the drawing date of February 14, 2023, they still have to call to make that appointment before the entry deadline of February 13, 2023 in order to be in on the drawing. Interested brides-to-be can contact Couture by Tess Bridal to learn how to enter. Rules and requirements will be discussed prior to entry. Please note, we do require that the winner grants permission to our team for use of their wedding photos for publication submissions, press releases and social media use, which should be discussed with their photographer prior to entry into the drawing, said Tess Mann with Couture by Tess Bridal. There is always something fun happening at Couture by Tess Bridal! We are thrilled to announce this Valentines Day drawing that one lucky bride-to-be will win. Winning $500 off a wedding dress will be helpful when it comes to those wedding budgets. I am personally excited to work with the winner on getting their wedding published in a beautiful wedding magazine or blog. We love telling our Couture by Tess Bridal brides love stories and showing off their gorgeous weddings, says Meredith Corning with Meredith Corning PR. About Tess Mann: Tess Mann is the fashion designer behind the Tess Mann Haute Couture and Couture by Tess labels in addition to owning a bridal boutique under the name, Couture by Tess Bridal. Tess has been in the bridal industry since 2013. Prior to her formal entry into the industry, she had been designing since she was a young teenager, however chose a different career path in order to serve her country for over twenty years as a federal officer. In September 2018, Tess became a United States Trademark Designer with her designs being protected by the United States Patent Office. After serving the Memphis, Tennessee area for a little over six years providing luxury bridal couture, Tess and her husband, Joe, opened Couture By Tess Bridal on 31 W. Broad Street in Cookeville, Tennessee in November of 2019. Tess is also the talk show host of Couture Chats with Tess on Youtube where she interviews fashion and event industry professionals. Photo included in this press release by Barrett Dennison/El Osito Films. About Us: Couture by Tess Bridal is a bridal boutique located in Cookeville, TN, owned and operated by fashion designer, Tess Mann, producing the Tess Mann Haute Couture and Couture by Tess labels. Contact Info: Name: Meredith Corning Email: Send Email Organization: Couture by Tess Bridal Website: https://www.couturebytessbridal.com/ Video URL: https://youtu.be/DST5GsZxhwY Release ID: 89082955 If you detect any issues, problems, or errors in this press release content, kindly contact [email protected] to notify us. We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 8 hours. BERWYN, Pa., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Annovis Bio, Inc. (NYSE: ANVS) ("Annovis" or the "Company"), a late-stage clinical drug platform company addressing neurodegenerative diseases, today announced the publication of Phase 2a clinical study data in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease. The published study, titled 'Buntanetap, a Novel Translational Inhibitor of Multiple Neurotoxic Proteins, Proves to Be Safe and Promising in Both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients', evaluated safety, pharmacokinetics, biomarkers, and efficacy of buntanetap in treating early Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients. The study demonstrated that buntanetap was well tolerated, safe and significantly improved cognition in AD patients and motor function in PD patients. "Given the short duration of our Phase 2a clinical trial, we are delighted to see that patients treated with buntanetap had a statistically significant improvement in cognition and function," said Maria L. Maccecchini, Ph.D., Founder, President, and CEO of Annovis Bio. "We believe that the effects on cognition and motor function after such a short treatment are due to buntanetap's ability to restore neuronal function through the improvement of axonal integrity, synaptic transmission, and reduction of inflammation." Cheng Fang, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Research & Development at Annovis Bio, added: "These fast-acting effects suggest that buntanetap can function as a symptomatic drug to give patients quick relief of their neurological symptoms. Based on animal studies, we also believe that buntanetap can function as a disease-modifying drug in both AD and PD patients as it will continue to reduce the levels of neurotoxic aggregating proteins and preserve neuronal integrity. We are testing this hypothesis further in our late-stage clinical trials with larger patient populations and longer treatment times." Annovis has begun dosing patients in the Company's Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating buntanetap in early PD. The Phase 3 trial is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial investigating the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of buntanetap. The trial will enroll a total of 450 early PD patients to be treated with 10mg buntanetap, 20mg buntanetap or a placebo, on top of their standard of care for six months. In early October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a Phase 2/3 clinical study of buntanetap in moderate AD. The Phase 2/3 study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial investigating the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of buntanetap in moderate AD patients. The trial will enroll a total of 320 AD patients to be treated with 7.5mg buntanetap, 15mg buntanetap, 30mg buntanetap or a placebo, on top of their standard of care for three months. About Buntanetap Buntanetap (previously known as ANVS401 or Posiphen) is an oral translational inhibitor of neurotoxic aggregating proteins (TINAPs), which mode of action leads to a lower level of neurotoxic proteins and consequently less toxicity in the brain. In a Phase 2a clinical trial in AD and PD patients, buntanetap was shown to be well-tolerated and safe, and its pharmacokinetics were found to be in line with levels measured earlier in humans, meeting both the primary and secondary endpoints. Additionally, exploratory endpoints were also met, as treatment with buntanetap resulted in statistically significant improvement in motor function in PD patients and cognition in AD patients. Presently buntanetap is being studied in a phase 3 early PD study and will enter a phase 2/3 study in AD patients later in the year. About Annovis Bio, Inc. Headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Annovis Bio, Inc. is a clinical-stage, drug platform company developing transformative therapies that treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD) and other chronic and acute neurodegenerative diseases. The Company believes that it is the only company developing a drug that inhibits more than one neurotoxic protein, improves the information highway of the nerve cell, known as axonal transport, reduces inflammation and protects nerve cells from dying in chronic and acute neurodegeneration. Annovis conducted two Phase 2 studies: one in AD patients and one in both AD and PD patients. In the AD/PD study, buntanetap showed improvements in cognition and memory in AD as well as body and brain function in PD patients. For more information on Annovis Bio, please visit the Company's website www.annovisbio.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release contain "forward-looking statements" that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "expect," "believe," "will," "may," "should," "estimate," "project," "outlook," "forecast" or other similar words, and include, without limitation, statements regarding the timing, effectiveness, and anticipated results of buntanetap clinical trials. Forward-looking statements are based on Annovis Bio, Inc.'s current expectations and are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Further, certain forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. These and other risks and uncertainties are described more fully in the section titled "Risk Factors" in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made as of this date, and Annovis Bio, Inc. undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law. Media and Investor Contact: Nic JohnsonRusso Partners, LLC (303) 482-6405[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/annovis-bio-announces-publication-of-phase-2a-clinical-data-in-the-journal-of-prevention-of-alzheimers-disease-301645519.html SOURCE Annovis Bio MEXICO CITY, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aplazo, the first omnichannel buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform in Mexico, today announced that it has acquired Sensai Metrics ("Sensai"), a software platform that analyzes data using different data science algorithms and machine learning to help brands gain access to valuable customer insights. The acquisition presents a significant market opportunity that will enable Aplazo to accelerate merchant growth and provide greater access to e-commerce products for consumers in Mexico. The combined company's capabilities will ensure both consumers and merchants benefit from developments in infrastructure. "The acquisition of Sensai underscores our complementary missions of helping merchants connect with consumers in a more purposeful way," said Angel Pena, Co-Founder and CEO of Aplazo. "Together, we'll be able to scale our offerings and bring even greater value by empowering merchants with the tools that will propel their businesses to new heights." Founded in 2019, Sensai offers retail brands a platform to make important, data-driven business decisions. Sensai integrates with retailers' underlying commerce and marketing channels into a single platform that provides brands actionable insights, recommendations and predictions to help them reach target audiences more effectively, optimize budgets and scale revenue. Sensai's co-founders Salo Dabbah and Daniela Gorra will join Aplazo. Dabbah will assume the role of Head of Growth while Gorra will become a Product Manager. The Aplazo-Sensai platform equips brands with a unified marketing tech stack that is designed to eliminate many of the drop-off points in commerce. It optimizes conversion at the purchase channel through: Data Centralization: AI powered insights, real time data consolidation, projections, visualizations, all delivered in an easy-to-use interface; Performance Measurement: Evaluate marketing performance and funnel analytics, detailed omnichannel data, demographic summaries, customer journeys; Actions Hub: Recommendation engine to optimize performance based on analytics, build lists and execute marketing campaigns via email or SMS, launch personalized loyalty programs and targeted discounting. "We are excited to work with Aplazo and rally around our shared objective of empowering businesses," said Dabbah, Co-Founder and CEO of Sensai. "We look forward to helping Aplazo's customers optimize their marketing efforts, budgets, audience definition and campaign execution through the Sensai platform." About Aplazo Aplazo is a "buy now, pay later" service based in Mexico that allows consumers to live their ideal lifestyle, making it easier to acquire the products they want. Through Aplazo, consumers can split their online and offline purchases into multiple installments without needing a credit card and avoiding the debt trap. Aplazo's integrated, tech-enabled platform offers merchants the ability to increase average basket size, conversion and customer engagement. The company was founded by Angel Pena and Alex Wieland with a mission of empowering consumers in Latin America with simple, inclusive and financially responsible payment solutions. For more information, visit https://aplazo.mx/. About Sensai Metrics Sensai Metrics is an ecommerce analytics software powered by different data science algorithms and machine learning to give merchants actionable insights, recommendations and predictions that enable them to scale their revenue, optimize their budget and save a lot of time and money analyzing. PR Contact:Amalia Lytle, Prosek Partners[email protected]646-818-9271 View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aplazo-acquires-sensai-metrics-to-help-brands-capture-next-gen-consumers-301645613.html SOURCE Aplazo LAS VEGAS, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aristocrat Gaming today announced that Joe Kaminkow has taken on a new, expanded position with the company as Chief Innovation Officer. In this role, Kaminkow will help drive innovation across Aristocrat enterprise, including in new gaming products and mobile game genres, while further growing the Group's capabilities and fostering world-class talent. The appointment extends Kaminkow's long association with Aristocrat Gaming, dating back to his initial appointment as SVP of Game Development in 2013. Kaminkow will report to the Chief Product Officer of Aristocrat Gaming, Matt Primmer, while working with teams across Aristocrat Gaming, Pixel United, and Anaxi (Aristocrat's Online RMG business). "We are delighted that someone of Joe's caliber will be working full-time across the company to champion innovation, helping us to further penetrate growth opportunities and develop even more outstanding talent within our business," said Hector Fernandez, CEO of Aristocrat Gaming. "As a valued colleague and contributor to our success for almost a decade, Joe's brilliance and creativity is well-known to us at Aristocrat Gaming and across the industry. In this newly dedicated role, we look forward to Joe's focused efforts to help our teams take their product portfolios to the next level." Kaminkow previously served as Chief Creative Officer at Zynga, where he led development of social games, and was the original creator of several successful game titles. Joe holds over 130 patents throughout the fields of game design, operations, and networks, and has either created or contributed game design intellectual property to more than 1,500 games across multiple game formats and markets. "I am thrilled to expand my commitment to Aristocrat in a dedicated, full-time role, enabling me to devote my creative energies to all areas of the Group's ongoing growth and success," Kaminkow said. "I have been so impressed with the talent and drive of our employees over the past nine years and am excited to help Aristocrat take its next steps forward." About Joe Kaminkow Joe Kaminkow is a renowned game designer who is widely credited as pioneering the use of licensed brands and bringing new cabinet form factors to the casino floor. He has been inducted into the Pinball Hall of Fame, the American Gaming Association's Hall of Fame, and the EKG Hall of Fame, as well as being named a "Top Ten Most Influential Person in Gaming" by Strictly Slots Magazine. Kaminkow has created some of the industry's most successful slot games, along with several hit free-to-play, mobile social casino games. About Aristocrat Gaming Aristocrat Gaming is part of Aristocrat Leisure Limited (ASX: ALL), a global games leader with more than 6,500 employees. The company is licensed in over 300 gaming jurisdictions, operates in more than 90 countries, and offers a unique blend of products and services. The company is the leading designer, manufacturer, and distributor of Class III games as well as Class II Innovations for American casinos and emerging markets. The company's mission is to bring joy to life through the power of play. Its values are rooted in creativity and technology, and the company has a rich history of innovation that has shaped the gaming industry over many decades. For further information, visit the company's website at www.aristocratgaming.com. Media Contact:Oriana Branon, [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aristocrat-gaming-appoints-joe-kaminkow-as-chief-innovation-officer-301644444.html SOURCE Aristocrat Technologies Inc. Century Fasteners Corp. and Cherry Aerospace Relationship Showcased at the International Fastener Expo, Las Vegas, NV: October 18th 19th, 2022. ELMHURST, N.Y., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Century Fasteners Corp. (www.CenturyFasteners.com) is an authorized distributor for Cherry Aerospace (www.CherryAerospace.com). The Century Fasteners Corp. and Cherry Aerospace relationship is to be showcased at the International Fastener Expo in Las Vegas, NV on October 18th -19th, 2022 Booth #1755 For more info about the Event, please go to: International Fastener Expo In addition to making world-class Cherry products more broadly available to distributors and OEMs, the partnership expands Century's existing services to the manufacturing community by enabling the company to provide deeper bill of material coverage to complement its product offering. About Century Fasteners Century Fasteners Corp. is a Master Distributor of fastener and nonfastener components to the military, aerospace, electronics, automotive, sheet metal fabrication, contract manufacturing, telecommunications and medical industries. The ISO and AS Registered company stocks more than 100,000 discrete parts, and offers a wide variety of value-added services, including VMI in-plant programs, custom kitting, engineering services, and supply chain management solutions. For Cherry Aerospace product quotes for distributors, call Century Fasteners Corp. toll-free at (855) 332-4445, or email requirements to [email protected]. To learn more about the products and services offered by Century Fasteners Corp., visit online at https://www.centuryfasteners.com/. About Cherry Aerospace Headquartered in Santa Ana, CA, Cherry Aerospace is a global leader in the design and manufacture of fastening systems for the aerospace industry. The Cherry name is synonymous with aerospace fasteners, and the CherryMax line of rivets is the most widely used in the industry. Cherry Aerospace is well known for their industry leading blind rivets, blind bolts, rivetless nut plates, shear pin fasteners and installation tools. The company is a member of the SPS Fastener Division of Precision Castparts Corp. Media contact: John RingoldDirector of MarketingCentury Fasteners Corp.800-221-0769[email protected] Photo(s):https://www.prlog.org/12936154 Press release distributed by PRLog View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/century-fasteners-corp-and-cherry-aerospace-at-2022-international-fastener-expo-301646132.html SOURCE Century Fasteners Corp. CLEVELAND, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Age discrimination has long been a part of the landscape of the U.S. workplace, with countless studies examining the problem over the decades. Hiring managers consistently regard older job seekers less favorably, despite their on-the-job performance being strong. Even with measures in place such as The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the issue remains. E3 (Encore Employment Enterprise, Inc.), a program which assists workers over 50 to find meaningful employment and works to eliminate ageism in hiring, has advanced from a grant-funded program to an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Formerly known as Encore Staffing Network, the program first lived under the non-profit, Vantage Aging. In 2021, Fairhill Partners was awarded the grant funding for the Encore Engagement Enterprise pilot program (E3). E3 and Fairhill Partners had a shared vision and incorporated E3 to be its own Ohio non-profit. Simone Mcnitt, who has led the program since 2018 from the beginning, serves as executive director. Stephanie Fallcreek, CEO at Fairhill Partners says, "Simone McNitt and E3 are a welcome and terrific addition to NE Ohio's menu of organizations promoting employment for older adults and fighting agism wherever it lurks." McNitt, E3's Executive Director, partnered with The Cleveland Foundation and legal consultants to complete the application process and to ensure that the funding would remain secure through the transition. Simone says, "I believe that seniors can be the answer to some of the gaps that exist in the workforce today. As for tomorrow, I haven't met anyone that's getting younger; and people are living longer. As a society, we should treat ageing like the invaluable resource it is. It's an honor for E3 to be the connector for encores and employers creating an intergenerational workforce." Kathleen Hallissey, program director at The Cleveland Foundation says, "E3 is an important resource in our community, supporting older adults to find meaningful work. Executive Director Simone McNitt brings her years of expertise, commitment and passion to support older workers on their employment journey." The people helped through E3 find the services valuable as well. As one beneficiary wrote, "It just goes to show how much one person who cares can impact another person's life. Thanks to Simone's motivation, my passion for writing has been renewed. I will forever be grateful for her help." About E3 E3 envisions a community that thrives from the rewards of lifelong work experiences gained by individuals 50+, respectfully referred to as Encores. This vision inspires society to embrace aging and see the limitless potential of having a collaborative intergenerational workforce. E3 stands firm in their commitment to speak out on ageism, and to building a community where marginalization doesn't occur. They are committed to using their human resources to advance inclusive, equitable, and holistic-based workforce strategies for all. E3 is located in the Cleveland area and is currently serving the counties of Cuyatoga, Geauga and Lake, OH. To learn more, visit https://www.e3encore.org/. Sources for first paragraph: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/beyond-bls/is-there-age-discrimination-in-hiring.htm https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/talent-acquisition/ageism-in-hiring-process View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/encore-employment-enterprise-aids-older-adults-in-finding-meaningful-work-301646368.html SOURCE Encore Employment Enterprise Coercive Jet Bridge Stops Violate Airline Passengers' Rights ATLANTA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Actors and comedians Eric Andre and Clayton English filed a lawsuit today against Clayton County for its police department's program of racial profiling and coercive stops in jet bridges at Hartfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL). The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of these stops under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Policing Project at NYU School of Law and pro bono counsel from the law firms of Jones Day and Lawrence & Bundy represent Andre and English. Press conference video link Filing link Andre and English, both Black men, were profiled and illegally stopped in nearly identical situations several months apart. On April 21, 2021, Andre was traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles. As he walked through the jet bridge to board the plane, two Clayton County police officers intercepted him and immediately asked if he was carrying illegal drugs. After approximately five minutes of questioning and reviewing Andre's ticket and IDduring which other passengers squeezed by and gawked at the scenethe officers allowed him to board his flight. Clayton English, a stand-up comedian and actor based in Atlanta, had a very similar experience traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles on October 30, 2020. The Clayton County Police Department ("CCPD") has defended these coercive jet bridge stops as "consensual encounters" and tell those who are stopped that they were selected at "random." "I was blocked in a jet bridge by two police officers who interrogated me about drugs," said Andre. "I didn't see any other Black people boarding at the time. It's hard to believe I was selected at 'random' for questioning. It was a humiliating and degrading experience." As today's lawsuit explains, the inherently coercive nature of these stops violate the Fourth Amendment. From the legal filing: "By ambushing passengers in this manner, the Unit's officers compound the enormous, preexisting compulsion to cooperate with airport law enforcement by exploiting the passengers' fear they will create an untoward scene or will appear guilty, subversive, or dangerous to their fellow passengers. By design, all of these factors exert tremendous coercive pressure on an individual passenger on the jet bridge to acquiesce to the officers' wishes. Those pressures are even greater for persons of color, given the history of racial profiling by airport security officers." In addition, data obtained through an Open Records Act request filed by the Policing Project reveals that in the eight months preceding Andre's stop, 56% of the hundreds of passengers stopped by CCPD in ATL jet bridges whose races were recorded were Black. But overall, only 8% of airline passengers in the U.S. are Black, making the odds that Black travelers were "randomly" selected for these stops less than one in 100 trillion. "These are cases of flying while Black, plain and simple," said Barry Friedman, co-founder of the Policing Project at NYU School of Law and the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law. "Every day in America, people of color are unjustly stopped on the pretense that these encounters are consensual. It is humiliating, it is deeply inappropriate, it is unconstitutional, and it must stop." The open records request also revealed that these jet bridge stops are ineffective at confiscating drugs or arresting drug smugglers. The stop program is, however, an effective civil asset forfeiture operation, in which money is seized from travelers based on the slightest suspicion that the funds are connected to criminal activity. In the eight months preceding Andre's stop, CCPD made 402 stops; only two resulted in charges (of a passenger traveling with 10 grams of marijuana and mushrooms and another with six prescription pills for which no valid prescription allegedly existed). However, in that same period, officers seized close to $1 million in cash and money orders from passengers against whom no related charges were ever filed. "Neither Georgia residents nor travelers are safer because of these unlawful, discriminatory stops," said Richard Deane, Of Counsel at Jones Day and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. "What CCPD appears to have created is a cash-grab scheme operated out of the busiest airport in the world." "No matter where you've come from or where you're going, everyone has the right to be free of discrimination and harassment by Clayton County law enforcement," said Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Co-Founder, Lawrence & Bundy. "We urge the court to shut down CCPD's airport stop program immediately." Andre and English are asking the federal court to declare the CCPD's jet bridge stop program at the Atlanta airport unconstitutional. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The Policing Project at NYU School of Law promotes public safety through transparency, equity, and democratic engagement. Learn about the Policing Project at www.policingproject.org. Jones Day is a global law firm with more than 2,400 lawyers in 42 offices across five continents. The Firm is distinguished by: a singular tradition of client service; the mutual commitment to, and the seamless collaboration of, a true partnership; formidable legal talent across multiple disciplines and jurisdictions; and shared professional values that focus on client needs. Lawrence & Bundy is a nationally recognized boutique commercial litigation firm. The Firm partners with clients, delivering superior legal services, providing knowledge and strategic legal counsel of uncompromising quality, and anticipating the needs of each client to help position them for success. Learn about Lawrence & Bundy at www.lawrencebundy.com. Contact: Joshua Manson, [email protected], 914.357.0000 View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eric-andre-and-clayton-english-sue-clayton-county-for-unconstitutional-stops-at-atlanta-airport-301646530.html SOURCE The Policing Project at NYU School of Law; Jones Day NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Lions Lingerie Group is announcing their full package design and manufacturing program for startup lingerie brands looking for a full service manufacturing for lingerie and sleepwear. Full service USA lingerie manufacturing available for start up e-commerce brands and small retail stores. New York based lingerie manufacturing management company Lions Lingerie Group is a one stop shop for new and emerging lingerie brands. With the rising MOQs of India and China for lingerie production, Lions is providing a solution for smaller, ethnical brands. Lions Lingerie Group is able work with emerging brands so they can work with a domestic team. Lions Lingerie Group has a turn key approach by offering product development (lingerie design), manufacturing, warehousing and distribution. Lions Lingerie Group works as the project management team to oversee all elements of the lingerie production. Offering eco sustainable fabric and mass production abilities. All faculties of production have ink sublimation, printing of fabric, custom lace and hardware abilities. With virtual assisting Lions Lingerie Group can accept brands that are not just NYC based. Lions Lingerie Group has virtual project management system and each client is assigned a Project Manager who will assist them with updates and can do virtual meetings and fittings. For more information visit their site at www.lionslingeriegroup.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lions-lingerie-group--full-service-lingerie-manufacture-management-in-new-york-301645738.html SOURCE Lions Lingerie Group CHICAGO, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Brian DeYoung has joined the Chicago office of McDonald Hopkins LLC as an Associate in the Litigation Department and part of the firm's Commercial Litigation Team. DeYoung focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation and general litigation matters in federal and state courts. He has experience advising a broad range of clients, including those in the healthcare, retail, technology and finance industries. Prior to the start of his legal career, DeYoung served for six years in the United States Navy as a surface warfare officer (SWO). DeYoung received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He received his Bachelor of Science in economics from the United States Naval Academy. He can be reached at 312.642.6733 and [email protected]. About McDonald HopkinsFounded in 1930, McDonald Hopkins is a business advisory and advocacy law firm with locations in Baltimore/Annapolis, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, and West Palm Beach. With more than 50 service and industry teams, the firm has the expertise and knowledge to meet the growing number of legal and business challenges our clients face. For more information about McDonald Hopkins, visit mcdonaldhopkins.com. CONTACT:Cynthia StewartMcDonald Hopkins LLC600 Superior Avenue, East, Suite 2100Cleveland, Ohio 44114Phone: 216.348.5733Email: [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mcdonald-hopkins-welcomes-brian-deyoung-to-litigation-department-in-chicago-301646537.html SOURCE McDonald Hopkins Three new additions, including Chief Technology Officer, Chief Data & Analytics Officer and Chief Product Officer, aim to further the company's corporate growth strategy and bolster revenue QUEBEC, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Today, Plus Company has announced the creation of its Technology Leadership Team with the hiring of Sujal Patel, Michael Cohen and Alex Cote. The newly formed 'Plus Company Platform Team' will further the company's commitment to deliver technology-amplified creative and multidisciplinary collaboration, with the intention to drive industry firsts. Building upon Plus Company's corporate growth strategy, the new roles will enhance the company's technology & data capabilities for current and future business needs, integrate infrastructure and investments globally, and deliver increased revenue from technology, digital and data streams. Supporting the company's employees and clients globally throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, the leadership team will enable agencies to leverage the latest technology for both internal and external objectives. "The formation of a Technology Leadership Team was a priority as we aim to enhance Plus Company's advanced technology and data capabilities and give our agencies additional tools to drive outside the box ideas and outcomes for our clients," says Brett Marchand, Plus Company's CEO. "Our agency leads will continue to be experts in our client's business, driving strategy, creative and execution, while the newly formed Plus Company Platform team adds a centralized hub building advanced technology and data products to support our agencies in delivering world-class work." Sujal Patel has been named Chief Technology Officer, taking on the responsibility of executing a global technology and data strategy to support Plus Company's growth aspirations. Patel joins Plus Company from his previous role as Global Chief Technology Officer at digital marketing agency iCrossing, with previous experience from Digitas North America as SVP, Technology. "The CTO role was a compelling opportunity to work with a company that allows its agencies to maintain an independent spirit and creative-led culture, while operating with a high level of collaboration between agencies," says Patel. "This role gives me the opportunity to develop a technology strategy that allows our company to be competitive and drive innovation in an area under constant change. Ultimately, we want to enhance the employee and customer experience, create operational efficiencies that lead to faster decision-making, and drive growth for the company through additional revenue streams." Michael Cohen joins Plus Company in the newly created role of Chief Data & Analytics Officer, and will work closely with the network of agencies to enhance client offerings, data security and use of new technologies. Cohen joins the company from his previous role as COO at Marketing Evolution, and his extensive experience in machine-learning and AI algorithms will be integral to enhancing data, insights and econometric modelling critical to the success of client campaigns. Alex Cote will take on the role of Chief Product Officer, joining Plus Company from his current role within the company's agency alliance as Senior Vice President of Technology at Cossette. After more than 20 years working with Cossette and its sister agencies, Cote will use his intimate knowledge of the company's agencies to develop products that move Plus Company towards an industry-leading role in digital and technology offering for clients. Learn more about Plus Company and our network of agencies by visiting PlusCompany.com or online @PlusCompany on Twitter and Plus Company on LinkedIn. About Plus Company: Plus Company, founded in 2021, is a 21st century alliance of best-in-class creative brands focused on collaboration and synergy through an integrated service model. With over 25 agencies that deliver creativity fueled by an innate understanding of culture, technology, and data. Plus Company agency brands include: We Are Social and its sister agencies, Socialize, Hello, Kobe and Metta; fuseproject; All Inclusive Marketing (AIM), Aperture1, Camp Jefferson, Citizen Relations, Cossette, Cossette Media, Eleven, Impact Research, Jungle Media, K72, Level Eleven, Magic Circle Workshop, Magnet, Mekanism, Middle Child, PathIQ, Septieme, and The Narrative Group (TNG). Plus Company has more than 3,000 employees, across 12 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/plus-company-expands-executive-roster-with-formation-of-technology-leadership-team-301646430.html SOURCE Plus Company -Merchant Processing Solution with Built-In Universal Loyalty Cash Back Program Is Industry First- -Rustin Fichtner Joins Organization to Oversee Payments Business BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the recent success of its mobile application in the marketplace, PointsKash today announced the creation of the first all-inclusive payments platform that integrates universal loyalty and traditional card-based transactions. The Florida-based financial technology company also named Rustin Fichtner, an industry veteran with 30-plus-years' experience as Vice President of Payments, to oversee and drive the implementation of the payments side of the business. -Merchant Processing Solution with Built-In Universal Loyalty Cash Back Program Is Industry First- "PointsKash now offers an innovative, customizable solution that combines payment processing, technology, and a loyalty rewards program. Our game-changing, best-in-class offering, enhances the transaction experience for our merchant partners and consumers alike. Along with this exciting development, we are pleased to welcome Rustin Fichtner as VP of Payments, who will spearhead enablement of the PointsKash payments solution across the small business and enterprise markets," said Steve Janjic, PointsKash co-founder and CEO. The new PointsKash merchant services solution takes a concierge approach to merchant partner relationships, offering the added benefit of a direct-to-processor relationship, ensuring best-in-class support, service, and pricing, designed specifically for each partner. Merchant partners will enjoy the convenience of in-person card present capabilities, mobile app, and online functions, as well as the greater flexibility it allows consumers to aggregate, track, and redeem points for cash or use them toward purchases. Fichtner's expertise in channel development, operations and implementation working in concert with sales and marketing, arrives at an exciting time as PointsKash expands its merchant payment services offerings and go-to-market functions for private and public businesses of all sizes. More information about PointsKash is available by visiting pointskash.com/. ABOUT POINTSKASH PointsKash, an innovative first mover, has developed a proprietary platform that services consumers, rewards points issuers and merchants in the conversion of loyalty reward points to cash. Our merchant payment processing services team has over 40 years of experience serving small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses, including local, regional, and national convenience store fuel stations, auto dealerships, manufacturers, sporting events, e-gaming organizations and retailers. PointsKash is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, with additional support in Kansas City, Missouri. Contact: Alexandria Velandia | PointsKash[email protected] | 561-501-8682 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pointskash-announces-revolutionary-new-offering-and-expansion-of-leadership-team-301646578.html SOURCE PointsKash Why SFBU, based in Silicon Valley, gives out more scholarships than most institutions FREMONT, Calif., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Many college graduates are looking forward to President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, expected to go live this week. This forgiveness is intended to lessen the burden of their financial debt. But while the wait may be agonizing for some students, San Francisco Bay University students and graduates have a different outlook on the matter because few have to worry about college debt repayment at all. Not only does SFBU offer degree programs at exceptionally reasonable tuition rates, but it also offers some form of scholarships and grants to 100% of its current applicants and students. Paul Choi, EVP and COO of SFBU, stated, "We are very proud to offer our students such great opportunities. Our scholarships and grants help reduce the overall cost of attendance, which is already reasonable, and allow our graduates to enter the workforce without the burden of college debt." Choi continued, "We believe that our students should be able to focus on their careers and not worry about how they will repay tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. SFBU's career-focused mentality is why we continue investing in scholarships, grants, and affordable tuition. Students shouldn't have to struggle to achieve a quality education." While President Biden's college debt plan is important to many students with significant loan obligations, SFBU students are entering the workforce with a lighter financial burden. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. SFBU is a premier WASC/WSCUC-accredited, nonprofit university located in the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley. SFBU offers degree programs in computer science, engineering, technology, and management. Learn more at www.SFBU.edu. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/president-bidens-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-good-news-for-some-but-san-francisco-bay-university-graduates-dont-have-to-worry-301646208.html SOURCE San Francisco Bay University In partnership with the Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rye Development is moving three regional projects toward construction PITTSBURGH, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rye Development (Rye), the nation's leading developer of new, low-impact renewable hydropower generation, has announced the next phase of its Montgomery Lock & Dam, Emsworth Lock & Dam, and Allegheny Lock and Dam #2 projects in partnership with The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District (USACE). Rye Development Advancing Low-Impact Hydropower Projects in the Pittsburgh Region "We are excited to announce that we are advancing final engineering, procurement, and design of our first bundle of projects in Pittsburgh," said Paul Jacob, Chief Executive Officer of Rye Development. "We've released additional engineering work orders for the Montgomery, Allegheny, and Emsworth projects and have secured agreements with equipment supplies across the board." Marking an important step in the construction timeline of the Montgomery Project, Rye has submitted the 30% design package to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The design package is significant as it is the first submission of detailed engineering based on the early design concepts for the Montgomery project and is the culmination of nearly a decade of work by Rye in the Pittsburgh Region. "We are honored to work in close collaboration with the Army Corps on these exciting flagship projects for Rye," said Jacob. "The excellent working relationship we have developed with the Corps allows for the continued progress of not only the Montgomery project, but Emsworth and Allegheny #2, and is vital in establishing the processes and procedures we will need as we look forward to constructing additional projects in the region." The locations for the hydroelectric projects in the Pittsburgh region are at existing lock and dam facilities owned and operated by the USACE. The Army Corps delivers vital engineering solutions to secure the Nation, energize its economy, and reduce disaster risk. The Pittsburgh District provides expertise to help the region and the nation meet water resources development, environmental and other engineering needs. "Locks and dams are vital parts of the inland navigation system that ensure the district continues to provide safe and reliable navigation for decades to come," said Mark Jones, Chief of Engineering and Construction for the Pittsburgh District. "Collaboration with Rye and others ensure project-design concepts are unified, cohesive and bring together the teams' talent and expertise." The Montgomery Project, located on the Ohio River in Beaver County, is the largest planned project in the region. Adjacent to Neville Island, the Emsworth Lock and Dam is located on the main channel of the Ohio River, just downstream from downtown Pittsburgh; Allegheny County has entered into a power purchase agreement with Rye to supply renewable electricity to the County from the Emsworth Project. Located next to the Highland Park Bridge, the Allegheny Lock and Dam #2 project will provide the University of Pittsburgh with on-demand, locally generated renewable power. Each project is expected to generate 150-200 family wage jobs and Rye anticipates breaking ground in 2023. In addition to providing renewable energy, the hydropower facility includes investment in new recreational fishing facilities and a walkway leading from a parking area with designated parking spaces to the fishing platform. To learn more, please visit www.pittsburghhydro.com. About Rye Development Rye Development is a leading U.S. hydropower developer with a current pipeline of over 25 projects in 10 states. Rye's development of new hydropower on existing dams, in conjunction with financing partner, the Climate Adaptive Infrastructure Fund, and Rye's development of new closed loop pumped storage, demonstrate Rye's commitment to the responsible development of untapped hydropower resources while maintaining rivers' balance of environmental and commercial requirements. Rye brings communities around the country substantial infrastructure, job creation, and a local source of renewable, non-consumptive energy. About The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District The Pittsburgh District is one of seven districts that comprise the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A civil works district, the Pittsburgh District has an Army colonel assigned as District Commander, but the technical chiefs, functional chiefs, and most of the more than 600 employees are civilians. Like all Corps civil works districts, the Pittsburgh District's boundaries are defined by the watershed basins for which it is responsible. Pittsburgh's 26,000 square miles include portions of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, eastern Ohio, western Maryland, and southwestern New York. This jurisdiction includes more than 328 miles of navigable waterways, 23 navigation locks and dams, 16 multi-purpose flood damage reduction reservoirs, 42 local flood damage reduction projects and other projects to protect and enhance water resources and wetlands. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rye-development-advancing-low-impact-hydropower-projects-in-the-pittsburgh-region-301646373.html SOURCE Rye Development The New Pinot Noir & Chardonnay Blend is Best Served Chilled MIAMI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Wildlilly wine announces the U.S. launch of its pinot noir and chardonnay blend, debuting initially in South Florida and shipping to select states through online ordering. Inspired by the French Beaujolais style, Wildlilly's first release is a light-bodied, soft blend that goes down easy and gets better with a slight chill. Composed of fruity pinot noir and crisp chardonnay, it's a playfully sophisticated wine bursting with flavors of strawberries, wild cherry and vanilla bean. Wildlilly wine announces the U.S. launch of its pinot noir and chardonnay blend created by Shera and Maxime Kaan-Lilly Wildlilly is the newest brand under the Blended Estates portfolio, created by sisters Shera and Maxime Kaan-Lilly and founded by New York financier and venture capitalist Keith Glickman. Wildilly was aptly named by combining the sisters' wild and free spirits with their last name. Already well known as two of South Florida's premier realtors, Shera and Maxime are no strangers to building a successful business from the ground up. Then came the idea for Wildlilly. They found that they enjoyed drinking their red wines chilled to stay cool in the tropical heat. They soon realized they weren't the only ones who preferred to chill down reds and that a majority of young and sophisticated consumers were seeking a refreshing alternative to whites and roses. "We decided it was time to create a wine that speaks to our generation, without being labeled as an 'on-ramp' or 'intro' to the first time wine buyer," says Shera. "In fact, it's quite the opposite. Wildlilly is a chic and sophisticated wine but has a wild side because it's a blend that's born to be chilled." "Like so many innovations, we drew a lot from the past in order to help step into the future," continues Maxime. "For example, two of the oldest and most prestigious wines in the world (Chateauneuf-du-pape, and Cote-Rotie) both blend small amounts of white grapes into their reds. For our first release, we took this a step further and got more creative with our blending game. After two years of obsessive crafting and blending, we finally had that sip where we both instantly knew we had achieved the balance we were so longing for and Wildlilly was born." Produced and bottled by Blended Estates in Napa, CA, Wildlilly is a work of modern craftsmanship. The dynamic blend of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes brings forth the lush aromas of wild cherry and toasted caramel, while the mouth feel is light bodied with silky smooth tannins. The simplistic and sculptural "Instagram-worthy'' design of the glass bottle befits the artful blend and allows for consumers to enjoy its day-bright garnet hues. Wildlilly is currently available for purchase throughout South Florida at many restaurants and select liquor stores through Parkstreet distributors. It also ships to select states via online purchases at www.wildlillywine.com. For additional information and up-to-date news please follow on social media @WildlillyWine. CONTACT:Carma Connected[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wildlilly-wine-makes-its-us-debut-in-south-florida-with-online-ordering-in-select-states-301646077.html SOURCE Wildlilly According to the head of the Special Investigation Service, Koka Katsitadze, the answers to the separate examination on the case of possible inhumane treatment of Mikheil Saakashvili are already known, and at this stage, no one has been found guilty.Katsitadze spoke about this in an interview with IPN.According to Katsitadze, on the initiative of the lawyers, several additional examinations have been appointed and the investigation is ongoing."They demanded to conduct a commission forensic medical examination regarding how adequately, correctly, and qualifiedly his treatment was carried out in the 12th and 18th penitentiary institution and in the military hospital of Gori. We have met this request and these examinations have been scheduled today. Of course, the results of the examination will be very important.According to the results of the examination, which are known at this stage, nobody's guilt has been revealed, and the actual circumstances of the case are being studied. In order to create a complete picture, it is very important for us to receive the answers to the appointed examinations", said Koka Katsitadze.A trial is underway in Ukraine, where Saakashvili is to be questioned as a witness. The case concerns the possible inhumane treatment of him.The "People's Power" movement published another statement where MPs addressed the American ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan again.They said that they have addressed questions to the ambassador, but she does not address the issues they have raised."Our movement called on the American ambassador to make public the information about the American financing in Georgia. However, Mrs. Degnan did not break the tradition in this case either and answered our call with silence. However, recently, in the background of leaving our questions unanswered, she once again stated that America has generously helped Georgia over the past years.The party stated that during the last 20 years, America received no less financial benefits from Georgia than Georgia received from America.Unfortunately, we did not get an answer to the question of how much of the 3.5 billion spent actually remained in Georgia and how much returned to America, for example, in the form of thousands of salaries received by their own American employees or large sums of money received by American companies for services.We didn't even get an answer to the question why twice more money was spent on Georgia under Saakashvili's authoritarian regime than after 2012", read the statement of the People's Power" party reads. Form SC 13G/A DMC Global Inc. Filed by: BROWN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC Tweet Share E-mail 0 shares Get instant alerts when news breaks on your stocks. Claim your 1-week free trial to StreetInsider Premium here. t: 11pt Times New Roman, Times, Serif; margin: 0; text-align: center"> SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 SCHEDULE 13G INFORMATION TO BE INCLUDED IN STATEMENTS FILED PURSUANT TO RULE 13d-1(b), (c), AND (d) AND AMENDMENTS THERETO FILED PURSUANT TO RULE 13d-2(b) (AMENDMENT NO. 20)* DMC Global Inc. (Name of Issuer) Common Stock, Par Value $0.05 (Title of Class of Securities) 23291C103 (CUSIP Number) Eddie C. Brown Brown Capital Management, LLC 1201 N. Calvert Street Baltimore, MD 21202 (410) 837-3234 (Name, Address and Telephone Number of Person Authorized to Receive Notices and Communications) September 30, 2022 (Date of Event which Requires Filing of this Statement) Check the appropriate box to designate the rule pursuant to which this Schedule is filed: [x] Rule 13d-1(b) [ ] Rule 13d-1(c) [ ] Rule 13d-1(d) * The remainder of this cover page shall be filled out for a reporting person's initial filing on this form with respect to the subject class of securities, and for any subsequent amendment containing information which would alter disclosures provided in a prior cover page. The information required on the remainder of this cover page shall not be deemed to be "filed" for the purpose of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Act") or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section of the Act but shall be subject to all other provisions of the Act (however, see the Notes). CUSIP No. 23291C103 13G Page 2 of 5 Pages 1. NAMES OF REPORTING PERSONS I.R.S. IDENTIFICATION NOS. OF ABOVE PERSONS (ENTITIES ONLY) Brown Capital Management, LLC 2. CHECK THE APPROPRIATE BOX IF A MEMBER OF A GROUP (see instructions) (a) [ ] (b) [ ] 3. SEC USE ONLY 4. CITIZENSHIP OR PLACE OF ORGANIZATION State of Maryland NUMBER OF SHARES BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON WITH 5. SOLE VOTING POWER None 6. SHARED VOTING POWER None 7. SOLE DISPOSITIVE POWER None 8. SHARED DISPOSITIVE POWER None 9. AGGREGATE AMOUNT BENEFICIALLY OWNED BY EACH REPORTING PERSON None 10. CHECK IF THE AGGREGATE AMOUNT IN ROW (9) EXCLUDES CERTAIN SHARES (see instructions) [ ] 11. PERCENT OF CLASS REPRESENTED BY AMOUNT IN ROW (9) 0.00% 12. TYPE OF REPORTING PERSON (see instructions) IA CUSIP No. 23291C103 13G Page 3 of 5 Pages Item 1. (a) Name of Issuer DMC Global Inc. (b) Address of Issuer's Principal Executive Offices 11800 Ridge Parkway, Suite 300 Broomfield, CO 80021 Item 2. (a) Name of Person Filing Brown Capital Management, LLC (b) Address of the Principal Office or, if none, residence 1201 N. Calvert Street Baltimore, MD 21202 (c) Citizenship Brown Capital Management, LLC is a Maryland Limited Liability Company (d) Title of Class of Securities Common Stock, Par Value $0.05 (e) CUSIP Number 23291C103 Item 3. If this statement is filed pursuant to 240.13d-1(b) or 240.13d-2(b) or (c), check whether the person filing is a: (a) [ ] Broker or dealer registered under section 15 of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78o). (b) [ ] Bank as defined in section 3(a)(6) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78c). (c) [ ] Insurance company as defined in section 3(a)(19) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78c). (d) [ ] Investment company registered under section 8 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-8). (e) [x] An investment adviser in accordance with 240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(E); (f) [ ] An employee benefit plan or endowment fund in accordance with 240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(F); (g) [ ] A parent holding company or control person in accordance with 240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(G); (h) [ ] A savings associations as defined in Section 3(b) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813); (i) [ ] A church plan that is excluded from the definition of an investment company under section 3(c)(14) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-3); (j) [ ] Group, in accordance with 240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(J). CUSIP No. 23291C103 13G Page 4 of 5 Pages Item 4. Ownership. Provide the following information regarding the aggregate number and percentage of the class of securities of the issuer identified in Item 1. (a) Amount beneficially owned: None (b) Percent of class: 0.00% (c) Number of shares as to which the person has: (i) Sole power to vote or to direct the vote: None (ii) Shared power to vote or to direct the vote: None (iii) Sole power to dispose or to direct the disposition of: None (iv) Shared power to dispose or to direct the disposition of: None Item 5. Ownership of Five Percent or Less of a Class. If this statement is being filed to report the fact that as of the date hereof the reporting person has ceased to be the beneficial owner of more than five percent of the class of securities, check the following [X] . Instruction. Dissolution of a group requires a response to this item. Item 6. Ownership of More than Five Percent on Behalf of Another Person. Not applicable Item 7. Identification and Classification of the Subsidiary Which Acquired the Security Being Reported on By the Parent Holding Company. Not applicable Item 8. Identification and Classification of Members of the Group. Not applicable Item 9. Notice of Dissolution of Group. Not applicable CUSIP No. 23291C103 13G Page 5 of 5 Pages Item 10. Certification. By signing below I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the securities referred to above were not acquired and are not held for the purpose of or with the effect of changing or influencing the control of the issuer of the securities and were not acquired and are not held in connection with or as a participant in any transaction having that purpose or effect. Signature After reasonable inquiry and to the best of my knowledge and belief, I certify that the information set forth in this statement is true, complete and correct. CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea A Stryker Brigade Combat Team from the 2nd Infantry Division arrived in South Korea on Saturday as part of the Armys annual rotational force in the country. Stryker vehicles and other equipment from the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were offloaded at the Port of Pyeongtaek near Camp Humphreys, according to a news release from 8th Army on Friday. The base is the home of U.S. Forces Korea, U.N. Command, 8th Army and the 2nd Infantry Division. The division announced in July that the team out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., would replace the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division from Fort Bliss, Texas, which will be returning home after a nine-month tour in South Korea. Roughly 4,000 soldiers are attached to Stryker brigade combat teams. Centered on Stryker vehicles that can be configured for narrowly defined missions, they are able to perform with fewer resources than armored brigade combat teams. Stryker brigade combat teams provide the Korean theater of operations an expeditionary, combined arms force organized around mounted infantry, 8th Army spokesman Lt. Col. Neil Penttila said in the release. They operate effectively in diverse terrain and weather conditions, while enabling greater mobility and concentration of combat power. The majority of the new forces will be stationed at Humphreys and at Camp Hovey, roughly 15 miles from the border with North Korea. Around 28,500 U.S troops are stationed in South Korea, mostly at Camp Humphreys. The Stryker team from Washington will be the 12th rotational brigade since the Korea Rotational Force program launched in 2015. An Army news release in June said the transition from an armored to a Stryker brigade combat team would enable the U.S. to maintain capabilities on the Korean peninsula to rapidly respond to any acts of aggression. The Stryker teams arrival in South Korea comes amid a record number of North Korean missile tests. The communist regime has fired over 40 missiles in 24 rounds of tests since January, its most recent launch on Sunday. North Koreas state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday said its tests were prompted by joint military drills between the United States and South Korean forces. U.S. and South Korean ground forces restarted their large-scale drills in August after a five-year pause; the two countries and Japan also held naval drills earlier this month. TORII STATION, Okinawa A U.S. Army officer was recognized for rescuing three people from a riptide at a popular Okinawa dive spot in an episode that apparently killed a well-known Japanese manga artist. Maj. Robert Bourgeau, 49, of Missoula, Mont., the deputy operations officer for the 10th Support Group at Torii Station in Yomitan, was nominated by his command last month for the Soldiers Medal for his actions during the July 4 rescue at Mermaids Grotto in Onna. The medal recognizes acts of heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy. Kazuki Takahashi, 60, the creator of the popular Japanese manga series Yu-Gi-Oh!, attempted to aid Bourgeau in the rescue, unbeknownst to the American, and drowned in the process, a pained Bourgeau told Stars and Stripes on Oct. 3. "You play that what if game a lot," Bourgeau said. "This guy had a huge impact on the world." Takahashi's body was found two days later about 1,000 feet offshore in Awa, Nago city, a Japan Coast Guard spokesman told Stars and Stripes by phone Oct. 4. His rental car was later found at Mermaid's Grotto, the spokesman said. The Coast Guard spokesman declined to confirm Takahashi's participation in the rescue attempt, however, his actions that day are detailed in several sworn witness statements provided by the Army. Bourgeau, a scuba diving instructor, met a pair of students at Mermaid's Grotto at just after 2 p.m. that day. "The conditions were really, really rough, he said. Bourgeau spotted a Japanese woman calling for help, he said. She pointed toward her daughter, 11, and a U.S. soldier, 39, who were trapped in a rip current about 100 yards from shore. The rip current was sucking the pair out, but incoming six-foot waves were crashing on them, creating a whirlpool effect, Bourgeau recalled. Still wearing his running shoes, he and one of his students made their way out to the snorkelers through shallow water while the other student called emergency services. Bourgeau jumped into the rip current and sped out to the girl, but was quickly exhausted as he worked to bring her toward the shallows, he said. Then he encountered her mother who had somehow been sucked into the swirling waters as well. I grabbed mom and I grabbed [the girl] and I just kicked for all life, Bourgeau said. At some point during the rescue, Takahashi entered the water, Bourgeau said. He said he didn't see the Japanese icon during the ordeal. Bourgeau's students caught glimpses of him until he disappeared beneath the waves. "He's a hero," Bourgeau said of Takahashi. "He died trying to save someone else." Bourgeau said he got the women into the shallows and returned for the soldier. He tried to help him out of the whirlpool but was soon out of energy and in danger of drowning himself. That was one the hardest things I have ever had to do, I let [the man] go so I could save myself, he wrote in his witness statement that the Army provided. I didnt think I was going to make it, Bourgeau said, adding that he thought about his children. His student barked words of encouragement. Somehow, Bourgeau found his last bit of strength and made it out, he said. He was then able to direct the soldier out of the whirlpool and onto the shore. Stars and Stripes reporter Keishi Koja contributed to this report. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter seized an estimated $48 million in illicit drugs from a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Oman earlier this week, bringing an international maritime task forces total to more than $300 million in drug busts so far this year. The fast response cutter Glen Harris seized 11,023 pounds of hashish and about 1,764 pounds of methamphetamine Monday from the vessel, which was in international waters, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement Tuesday. Glen Harris is part of the Saudi-led Combined Task Force 150, one of four under the Combined Maritime Forces. CTF 150 conducts maritime security operations in the gulfs of Oman and Aden, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, according to the task force website. The interdiction follows an Oct. 2 bust by a British navy frigate also operating in CTF 150 that netted $45 million in crystal meth from another fishing vessel in the Gulf of Oman, NAVCENT said in a separate statement Sunday. Last month, another Coast Guard fast response cutter seized 5,313 pounds of heroin worth an estimated $85 million, also from a fishing vessel traveling in the same waters. A day later, a U.S. Navy destroyer confiscated $10 million of hashish from another fishing vessel, also in the Gulf of Oman, Stars and Stripes reported Sept. 30. The Glen Harris, which arrived in the NAVCENT/5th Fleet area of responsibility in January, also interdicted heroin, methamphetamine, amphetamine pills and hashish worth a total of $48 million in busts in May and August, the Navy said. Headquartered in Bahrain alongside NAVCENT/5th Fleet, the Combined Maritime Forces includes 34 member countries that operate across the Middle East. The U.S.-led NATO alliance will agree this week to a plan for ramping up munitions and weapons production to replenish stockpiles after months of arms shipments to Ukraine, NATOs top official said Tuesday. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking on the eve of a two-day defense ministers conference in Brussels, also said that next week, allies will carry out a long-planned nuclear deterrence exercise in Europe. The exercise, which is held annually, comes as allies are on edge over Russian President Vladimir Putins nuclear saber-rattling in recent weeks. Now is the right time to be firm and to be clear that NATO is there to protect and defend all our allies, Stoltenberg said when asked about the timing of the exercise, Steadfast Noon, and whether it should be delayed, given current nuclear tensions. Stoltenberg said canceling the drill would send the wrong signal to Putin at a time when firm, predictable behavior is what is called for to prevent further escalation. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will lead the U.S. delegation to the talks, which are at NATO headquarters in Brussels. On the sidelines, Austin also will hold a separate meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a collection of allies and partners supplying Ukraine with weapons. Stoltenberg said allies remain committed to getting Ukrainian forces the weapons they need to keep up the momentum against Russia, so speeding up production is imperative. The longer this war drags on, the more important it is that we also then are able to replenish these stocks, Stoltenberg said. Part of that means setting more ambitious targets for production so the defense industry can invest in new production capabilities for the long term, Stoltenberg said. Russias barrage of missile strikes Monday across Ukraine targeting civilian infrastructure in cities is a sign of Putins increasing desperation after repeated military setbacks, he said. Russia is actually losing on the battlefield, Stoltenberg said. They are giving up territory because they dont have the capabilities to stop the Ukrainian forces (from) making advances. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia Ethiopia's Tigray rebels say Eritrea has extended its offensive into their region, as diplomats scramble to convene peace talks to resolve the almost two-year-long conflict. In a statement Monday, the Tigray forces said that Eritrea's military has launched an "extensive offensive" in the direction of Rama, Zalambessa and Tserona towns in northeastern Tigray. They called on Tigray's population to "further intensify their campaign of self-defense." Communications to the areas affected by the fighting are down. The Associated Press was unable to verify the Tigray forces' claims. Hostilities between the Tigray forces and Ethiopia's federal government renewed in late August, breaking a fragile truce in place since March. "We are witnessing the heaviest fighting since the war restarted (on August 24)," a humanitarian worker based in Tigray's Rama town told the AP by Telegram. "Many civilians were killed, and major buildings and infrastructure destroyed, mainly by heavy weapons fired from the Eritrean side." They spoke anonymously, citing safety fears. Ethiopian officials have not yet commented on the latest fighting. But Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde told lawmakers Monday that the government is committed to ending the war and negotiating without any preconditions. "But any provocations will be met with the necessary measures," she added. The fresh fighting has halted aid deliveries to Tigray, where 5 million people need humanitarian assistance. It has also seen Eritrea renew its involvement in the Tigray war, which first broke out in November 2020. Last month, the Tigray rebels claimed that Eritrea had sent troops across Tigray's northern border. At the time, Mike Hammer, the U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, said Washington was aware of Eritrean troop movements into Tigray and described them as "concerning." A diplomat in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, told the AP that an estimated 100,000 Eritrean troops, including around 10 mechanized divisions, are involved in the current fighting. Satellite imagery last month showed an extensive military buildup inside Eritrea, near the border with Tigray. Multiple drone strikes have targeted Tigray towns, including the capital Mekele, in recent weeks. Dimtsi Weyane, a Tigray-based broadcaster, showed graphic images of people killed in a drone strike on Oct. 7. Both the Tigray rebels and Ethiopia's federal government said last week they were ready to participate in African Union-brokered peace talks amid reports of heavy clashes in Tigray. According to the AU, the talks were due to start in South Africa on Oct. 8. But they were delayed while logistical issues and security arrangements are being ironed out. Millions of people in northern Ethiopia, including the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar, have been uprooted from their homes and tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed since the conflict broke out. An Associated Press reporter in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report. SEOUL, South Korea South Korea's military said Tuesday its capable of detecting and intercepting the variety of missiles North Korea launched in a barrage of recent simulated nuclear attacks on its rivals, though it maintains the Norths advancing nuclear program poses a grave security threat. North Korea said Monday its two weeks of firing drills involved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, warplanes and other assets to practice possible strikes on South Korean and U.S. targets. North Korea said the drills were meant as a warning to Seoul and Washington for staging dangerous joint naval exercises involving a U.S. aircraft carrier. The North Korean launches, part of its record-breaking run of weapons tests this year, were seen as an attempt by leader Kim Jong Un to acquire a more intimidating arsenal to pressure its rivals to accept his country as a legitimate nuclear state and lift economic sanctions on the North. Moon Hong Sik, acting spokesperson at the South Korean Defense Ministry, described North Korean nuclear threats as very grave and serious. But he told reporters that the South Korean missile defense system is capable of detecting and intercepting the weapons systems that North Korea said it mobilized in its drills. Moon said South Korea is still pushing to introduce spy satellites, various surveillance drones and additional sea-based reconnaissance assets to better monitor North Korea. Despite Moons comments, some observers have said a portion of the Norths newly developed weapons such as a highly maneuverable KN-23 missile modeled on Russias Iskander missile and a developmental hypersonic missile may overcome South Korean and U.S. defenses. They also say if North Korea launches multiple missiles from different sites simultaneously, it would be more difficult for the allies to spot liftoffs in advance and shoot them down. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol reiterated his vow to strengthen South Koreas defense in partnership with the United States and Japan. He said the recent weapons demonstrations showed that the Norths nuclear threat is getting serious every day." North Korea has been consistently developing and advancing nuclear weapons capabilities and is now threatening not only (South Korea) but the entire world, but I think there is nothing North Korea could gain through nuclear bombs, Yoon told reporters at his office in Seoul. He tried to reassure the public, calling for South Koreans to not worry too much and do your best with economic activities and livelihoods. Outside concerns about North Koreas nuclear program have grown since the North last month adopted a law authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in certain situations. South Koreas military has since warned North Korea that it would self-destruct if it uses its bombs. In August, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un, ridiculed what she called the U.S. and South Korean militaries misidentification of the exact site for the Norths two previous missile tests. If the data and flight trajectory (of the missiles) are known, (South Korea) will be so bewildered and afraid, she said. North Korea said the weapons used in its drills include a new type of intermediate ballistic missile that traveled about 2,800 miles, a distance sufficient to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond. Some experts say the new missile may aim to target a faraway site like Alaska or Hawaii. Another missile that North Korea said was launched from a silo under an inland reservoir was likely a new version of its KN-23, whose highly maneuverable and lower-trajectory flight provides it with greater chances of evading defense systems. North Korea's first missile firing under a reservoir was believed to be aimed at diversifying its launch sites to curtail enemy missile defenses. In recent years, North Korea has also been pushing to build bigger submarines to acquire a nuclear retaliatory attack capability. Before the Norths announcement, South Korean, Japanese and U.S. authorities reported all seven rounds of missile launches. But none of their public reports included a reservoir-launched missile, an apparent failure to detect whether the weapon was launched from underwater. Kim Jun-rak, a spokesperson at South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that a missile launch from a reservoir was seen as a desperate attempt by North Korea to escape South Korean and U.S. surveillance. He said a ballistic missile launched from a submarine is an effective weapons system but didnt say whether the reservoir-fired missile would pose a new security threat to South Korea. In the face of the increasing North Korean nuclear threat, South Korea has been strengthening its missile defenses while also developing preemptive attack plans. The United States, which deploys about 28,500 troops in South Korea, has been operating an advanced anti-missile system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense in southern South Korea since 2017, apparently aimed at protecting nearby regions and additional U.S. forces that may arrive through southern South Korean ports in the event of war. The U.S. and South Korean militaries also operate Patriot batteries to defend key military facilities and the Seoul capital region, and South Korea is also developing indigenous systems designed to intercept various kinds of North Korean missiles. U.S. stealth bombers and precision missile strikes used to wipe out Russian forces in Ukraine could be a White House option to deliver promised catastrophic consequences if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders a tactical nuclear strike. Another, less risky choice: remove all restrictions on the types of weapons the Biden administration is willing to send into Ukraine. Untapped economic penalties, such as unlimited U.S. secondary sanctions on any entity doing business with Russia also could be on the table. If Russia violates a nearly 80-year-old global taboo and drops a nuclear bomb of any size on Ukraine, the dilemma facing the U.S. will be imposing costs severe enough to meet the magnitude of the moment while averting the kind of nuclear showdown feared during the Cold War. We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis, President Joe Biden told reporters last week. I dont think theres any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon. U.S. intelligence analysts continue to say that they have no evidence that Putin is planning an imminent strike, and several analysts and former U.S. military officers who spoke with Stars and Stripes characterized the threat as unlikely, given the consequences, but not out of the realm of possibility. Bidens comments come as the Kremlin has ratcheted up its nuclear saber-rattling in the wake of repeated losses on the battlefield. And over the weekend, Putins forces unleashed a wave of indiscriminate shelling across Ukraine, following an explosion that severely damaged the bridge Russia built in Crimea after its illegal annexation of the peninsula. National security adviser Jake Sullivan has said the Biden administration spelled out to Moscow the consequences it will face if it carries out a nuclear strike. U.S. options if Russia goes nuclear Sullivan did not elaborate on what those entail. But such an attack would be historic and have implications for the U.S military in some form. Russia is very concerned about direct involvement of U.S. conventional air power, and so weve got to keep that option on the table, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Power Studies in Washington. But weve got to be ambiguous about it. To send Russia a signal of deterrence, the U.S., should consider moving B-52 and B-2 bombers into the European theater to put the Russians on notice, he said. Deptula stopped short of advocating a direct military response in the event of a nuclear attack in Ukraine or detailing what it could look like, citing the need for tactical ambiguity. But some former military officials have been more explicit. Retired Gen. David Petraeus said the U.S. could use its vast conventional arsenal to obliterate the Russian military in Ukraine. Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a NATO, a collective effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea, Petraeus told ABC News earlier this month. But such a move could increase the odds that Russia responds with the kind of nuclear escalation Biden has described in apocalyptic terms. Putin is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, Biden told reporters in New York on Thursday. We are trying to figure out what is Putins off-ramp. Where does he find a way out? For that reason, the administrations position from the outset, that its not in vital U.S. interests to become directly involved in the Russia-Ukraine war, is likely to hold even if the conflict goes nuclear, said John Deni, an expert on global security at the U.S. Army War College. A more likely response than American boots on the ground or American planes in the skies would be to remove all inhibitions on Western aid to Ukraine, Deni said. Advanced Abrams tanks and longer-range missile systems would flow into Ukraine. Allies also could use cyberattacks and mobilize more U.S. Air Force and Navy assets in Europe, Deni said. So I think there are a whole number of things that we can do to ratchet up the pressure on Russia without necessarily escalating through a direct attack on Russian forces in Ukraine, he said. Deptula agreed that the supply of such weaponry is a near certainty if Russia resorts to a nuclear attack. It needs to be made clear to (Putin) that at a minimum, what this would trigger would be complete and total support to the Ukrainians with the weapons that had been withheld so far and the restrictions that have been in place so far, he said. That would mean Ukraine could use Western arms to launch attacks inside Russia. Fears over Putins next move coincide with a series of embarrassing military setbacks in Ukraine, raising questions about how a desperate Putin could lash out if faced with defeat. Russias arsenal Russias nuclear arsenal includes between 1,000 and 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, designed for use on the battlefield, according to various assessments. Compared with strategic nuclear weapons, which include intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads, tactical weapons have a smaller yield. Depending on their design, they can be used to take out military bases or small towns, with the aim of concentrating the radiological damage. Tactical yields can range from 1 kiloton to 50 kilotons, whereas strategic nuclear weapons range from 100 kilotons to more than a megaton, according to Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, a nuclear weapons expert at the University of Southern California. Still, tactical nuclear weapons are capable of enormous destructive power. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II registered at 15 kilotons. The weapons can be deployed from land, sea and air. Russias tactical bombs are stored at various depots and would need to be moved to a delivery system. Those sites are likely under close surveillance for indications of activity. The effectiveness of tactical nuclear weapons for use in turning the tide of the war is debatable, analysts say. In their smaller form, these weapons are not really capable of changing the situation on the ground because the nature of this war is such that there are no large concentrations of troops, said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. Its not clear how (a tactical nuclear bomb) would be used to stop the Ukrainian offensive. To be effective, Russia would need to use numerous tactical weapons over a large area, given the dispersed nature of the war, he said. If Russia would decide to use nuclear weapons, the idea might be to shock Ukraine into surrender and that means it would have to be on the scale of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Podvig said. Tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people (killed.) Deni, however, said smaller tactical weapons could have military utility for Russia. One could argue that if he were to use a tactical a nuclear weapon at a particular place on a battlefield, it would freeze the front at that location at a minimum, he said. They probably take out a lot of Ukrainian forces in the process. Still, both of them concurred that the chances of Putin using such weapons is remote because of the political and economic consequences and the risk of Russia becoming a pariah state. But if Ukraines counteroffensive continues to gain momentum or if the return of Crimea to Kyivs control comes into military play, circumstances could change. Crimea is the one area where I feel like the risk is highest for him to do something like this, Deni said. At that point, much could hinge on finding a diplomatic solution, which looks politically untenable for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has said he is intent on taking back the peninsula. Deptula put the odds at about 15% that Putin deploys nuclear weapons. Given the amount of damage Russia has inflicted on Ukrainian cities, there is no reason to think that going nuclear would give Putin moral pause, Deptula said. Whats going to hold him back is the global response, he added. We need to make sure that he understands that there will be significant consequences and that they may not be the ones that he anticipates, Deptula said. LONDON The head of Britain's cyber-intelligence agency on Tuesday accused China of trying to "rewrite the rules of international security," saying Beijing is using its economic and technological clout to clamp down at home and exert control abroad. Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, said that despite war raging in Europe since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Beijing's growing power is the "national security issue that will define our future." In a rare public speech to the Royal United Services Institute think tank, Fleming alleged that Beijing's Communist authorities want to "gain strategic advantage by shaping the world's technology ecosystems." "When it comes to technology, the politically motivated actions of the Chinese state is an increasingly urgent problem we must acknowledge and address," Fleming said. "That's because it's changing the definition of national security into a much broader concept. Technology has become not just an area for opportunity, for competition and for collaboration, it's become a battleground for control, for values and for influence." He argued that the one-party system in Beijing seeks to control China's population and sees other countries "as either potential adversaries or potential client states, to be threatened, bribed or coerced." Relations between Britain and China have grown increasingly frosty in recent years, with U.K. officials accusing Beijing of economic subterfuge and human rights abuses. British spies have given increasingly negative assessments of Beijing's influence and intentions. Last year the head of the MI6 overseas intelligence agency, Richard Moore, called China one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies. In 2020, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson followed the United States in banning Chinese tech firm Huawei as a security risk, ordering it to be stripped out of the U.K.'s 5G telecoms network by 2027. Fleming warned that China is seeking to fragment the infrastructure of the internet to exert greater control. He also said China is seeking to use digital currencies used by central banks to snoop on users' transactions and as a way of avoiding future international sanctions of the sort imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Fleming argued that China's BeiDou satellite system an alternative to the widely used GPS navigation technology could contain "a powerful anti-satellite capability, with a doctrine of denying other nations access to space in the event of a conflict." Fleming warned that the world is approaching a "sliding doors" moment in history a reference to the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow film in which a woman's fate hinges on a seemingly trivial moment. He called on Western firms and researchers to toughen intellectual property protections and for democratic countries to develop alternatives that can prevent developing nations from "mortgaging the future by buying into the Chinese vision for technology." He said the world's democracies can't afford to fall behind in cutting-edge fields such as quantum computing, and warned of a potential weakness over semiconductors, the critical chips used in everyday electronics. Taiwan which China regards as a breakaway province to be reclaimed by force if necessary is a world leader in their production. "Events in the Taiwan Straits any risk to that vital supply chain have the potential to directly impact the resilience of the U.K. and global future growth," Fleming said. Fleming also addressed the war in Ukraine, saying Russia is running short of weapons and Ukraine's "courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace is turning the tide." "Russia's forces are exhausted," he said. "The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation." GCHQ, formally known as the Government Communications Headquarters, is one of Britain's three main intelligence agencies, alongside MI5 and MI6. It did not disclose the sources of its intelligence on China and Russia. In little more than a month, the war in Ukraine has turned abruptly from a grueling, largely static artillery battle expected to last into the winter, to a rapidly escalating, multilevel conflict that has challenged the strategies of the United States, Ukraine and Russia. Russias launch of massive strikes on civilian infrastructure Monday in nearly a dozen Ukrainian cities far from the front lines brought shock and outrage. The strikes, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken described as wave after wave of missiles struck childrens playgrounds and public parks, left at least 14 killed and nearly 100 wounded, and cut electricity and water in much of the country. By launching missile attacks on civilians sleeping in their homes or rushing toward children going to schools, Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways, Ukraines United Nations Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said at the opening of a General Assembly session scheduled before the assault to promote world condemnation of Moscow. The attacks were the latest of many head-spinning events from Ukrainian victories on the ground to Russian President Vladimir Putins threat of nuclear weapons use that have changed the nature and tempo of the war in recent weeks, and raised questions about whether the United States and its partners may have to move beyond the concept of helping Ukraine defend itself, and instead more forcefully facilitate a Ukrainian victory. So far, the U.S. supply effort has been deliberative and process-oriented in the kinds of weapons it provides and the speed at which it provides them, so as not to undercut its highest priority of avoiding a direct clash between Russia and the West. That strategy is likely to be part of the agenda at Tuesdays emergency meeting of G7 leaders, and a gathering of NATO defense ministers later in the week. U.S. officials continue to express caution about precipitous moves. Turning points in war are usually points of danger, said a senior Biden administration official, one of several U.S. and Ukrainian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy deliberations. You cant predict whats around the corner. Russian leaders have cited their own turning point. Viktor Bondarev, head of the foreign affairs committee of Russias upper house of parliament, wrote in a Telegram post on Monday that the strikes were the beginning of a new phase of what the Kremlin calls its special military operation in Ukraine, with more resolute action to come. Putin, speaking early Monday to his security council, said the attacks were retaliation for what he called Ukrainian terrorism, including the blowing up over the weekend of the strategic Crimean Bridge that is a crucial logistics route for Russian occupying forces in southern Ukraine. The bridge destruction, for which Ukraine has only indirectly claimed responsibility, came after a steady stream of Ukrainian gains that buoyed both Kyiv and its Western supporters. In a surprise counteroffensive begun in early September, Ukrainian forces recaptured more than 1,000 square miles of Russian-occupied territory in the north east, followed by other gains in the south. The Ukrainian victories, along with persistent reports of poorly equipped and low-morale Russian soldiers who fled the onslaught, abandoning equipment and leaving behind their dead, brought public criticism of the conduct of the war from inside Russia, including from some senior Putin advisers. Within days, Putin had called for the military mobilization of up to 300,000 civilians to bolster his failing forces. The humiliation was compounded by a chaotic implementation and the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of military-age men across neighboring borders. In what was widely interpreted as a reference to nuclear weapons, Putin threatened to use all means available to defend Russian-occupied territory, even as he moved to annex four Ukrainian regions. I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction ... and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all means at our disposal, he said on Sept. 21. This is not a bluff. The mobilization and nuclear threats, the senior administration official said, were signs of two things: Putin does know how bad hes doing. ... That was a question mark before. Two, its definitely a sign that hes doubling down. That were not close to the end, and not close to negotiations. Those realities dont give anyone any great comfort here, the official said. Rose Gottemoeller, a former senior State Department official for arms control and nonproliferation issues, and former deputy secretary general of NATO, said: The use of nuclear weapons is a dead end. It shows the final failure of [Putins] policy if hes somehow driven into that corner, Gottemoeller said. Its the final throwing of the dice, thinking that somehow . . . everyone will panic and all of their supporters will force the Ukrainians to sue for peace ... I dont see that happening. I think we have to take these threats very, very seriously, she said. With the Monday strikes inside Ukraine, Putin was clearly trying to reclaim the initiative, but also to bolster the image of a unified strategy and leadership. In his security council remarks, reported by Russian media, he said the missile attack had been fashioned and recommended by his Defense Ministry, in accordance with the plan of the Russian General Staff. He made particular reference to the role of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose absence from public view in recent days had led to speculation that he had been fired. For its part, Ukraine has long combined its profuse gratitude for Western weapons aid with demands for stepped up delivery of more, and more sophisticated, supplies. The counteroffensive on the ground brought calls for battle tanks to move into contested territory, which the United States and its allies have been reluctant to send. This week, Kyiv attached new urgency to sophisticated air defense systems. A Ukrainian official, referring to a list provided by the senior military command, said Ukraines priority items include the Patriot surface to air missile system, MIM-23 Hawk missiles, attack drones and NASAMS (National Advance Surface-to-Air Missile Systems) as well as Israeli air-defense systems. Ukraines pleas found new resonance in some quarters of Washington after the Monday attacks, with senior Democrats, in particular, demanding that President Joe Biden move more quickly to supply Ukraine. I am horrified by Russias depraved and desperate escalation against civilian infrastructure across Ukraine - including in Kyiv, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said in a statement. I pledge to use all means at my disposal to accelerate support for the people of Ukraine and to starve Russias war machine. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a former senior official at the CIA and the Pentagon, tweeted that the need for air defense is urgent given the scale of these attacks. Providing these systems is a defensive not escalatory step, and our European friends need to step up along with us to get the Ukrainians what they need. But there was little initial sign that the administration intends to change the relatively lengthy approval process by which it decides what weapons to send to Ukraine, and when. The process includes a U.S. analysis, based on its own reporting of conditions on the battlefield, of what Ukraine needs, a senior U.S. defense official said, and second, do we have that stuff? Third, do they already know how to use it? If not, whats our plan to train them? Fourth, how are they going to sustain the stuff? Keep it in the field? Maintain it? Repair it? Spare parts? ... If we cant do those things, who among our allies and partners can do it? the defense official said. Once those questions are answered, the request and recommendation is vetted for comment and concerns from other government departments with equities in the decision before going to the White House, where Biden makes a final determination. When decision is made, delivery can be made within days for equipment taken from U.S. defense stocks, months if extensive training for use and maintenance is required, or years if particular items need to be manufactured. For example, Biden approved sending the NASAMS air-defense system early in the summer, and defense officials have said that two will be shipped this fall, once the systems are ready and training is complete. An additional six NASAMS, announced by the Pentagon at the end of August, will take years to manufacture. Patriot systems are already in short supply within NATO and usually travel with their own U.S. or NATO operating teams a commitment the West is unlikely to make. Israel, whose prime minister on Monday for the first time condemned Russia, over the missile attacks, has its own complicated relations with Moscow. We certainly understand that we are at a potential inflection point here in the war, on many levels, the senior Biden administration official said. That thinking is baked into [our] decision-making. ... Ukraine has certainly done better and been more aggressive recently, and Putin is feeling the heat on the battlefield, at home and overseas. There is no question that is a different set of conditions. But we believe that these changes on the battlefield and in Russia have only validated even more our decision-making process, the official said. The Washington Posts Shane Harris and Alex Horton contributed to this report. (Tribune News Service) With Russias war in Ukraine in its eighth month, some European nations that have funneled weapons to Kyiv are running low, and it could take years for defense contractors to meet the shortfall. NATO states are urging companies to boost production to help them restock to both resupply Ukraine and reinforce their own stores in a climate of heightened tension, according to people familiar with the matter. Thats as Russian President Vladimir Putin escalates his threats, including warning of a potential nuclear attack, with his troops facing numerous setbacks on the ground in Ukraine. Kyivs allies have already sent in billions of dollars in arms, munitions and equipment since Russia invaded in February. Thats putting pressure on ammunition stockpiles, including 155 mm shells for artillery, some of the people said, of which the U.S. has given Ukraine well over a million rounds since the start of the war. Defense companies in the U.S. and Europe are now seeing demand rise for air defense and anti-tank arms alongside other equipment, with governments increasingly recognizing that Ukraine will probably need military support for years to come. But it will be a struggle to quickly expand manufacturing after decades of limited orders. As the war drags on, Ukraines partners may be tempted to prune back support as they worry about their own security needs, potentially creating the types of fissures Putin is seeking to exploit alongside tensions over access to energy in Europe. Apart from multiple launch rocket systems, Ukraines allies have mostly focused on sending it Soviet-era weapons and tanks, which are also running low in supply. Those stocks need to be replaced with modern weapons. At the same time, North Atlantic Treaty Organization members need more arms to shore up the alliances presence on its eastern flank. Defense ministers will meet in Brussels this week to discuss these issues, following a gathering of national armaments directors in late September. Enhancing NATO stockpiles will ensure we can keep supporting Ukraine, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after that meeting. It could take years before supply catches up with demand. Defense companies face hurdles to expand production to the scale that is necessary. European defense firms will also have to modify assembly lines after many governments cut defense spending following the Cold War and as the focus on equipment shifts back to what has worked for Ukraine. Defense spending in Europe and Canada amounted to a total of around $310 billion in 1990, before dropping off for two decades, according to data from NATO, which bases the figures on 2015 prices and exchange rates. Only after 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, did spending start to pick up again. Weve been operating in that modus for decades and now all of a sudden were entering a totally different ball game, said Burkard Schmitt, defense and security director at the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe. You have to scale up massively and this is simply an enormous effort and takes time because you have to reconfigure everything. Firms are also struggling to access certain semiconductors and rare-earth metals, while skilled workers are in short supply. On an analyst call on April 26, Raytheon Technologies Corp. Chief Executive Officer Greg Hayes said the company wouldnt see orders come in before 2023 at the earliest for larger replenishments of Stinger missiles and Javelin anti-tank munitions, noting difficulties sourcing materials needed to produce them. Both Stingers and Javelins have played a role in helping Ukraine beat back Russian troops. Unfortunately, DOD hasnt bought a Stinger in about 18 years and some of the components are no longer commercially available, Hayes said at the time, referring to the Pentagon. He said Raytheon would have to redesign some of the electronics in the missile, and thats going to take us a little bit of time. The U.S. Army in May subsequently awarded the company a $624 million contract to produce 1,300 Stinger missiles, including support to address obsolescence, modernize key components, and accelerate production. Dassault Aviation SA Chief Executive Officer Eric Trappier on July 20 echoed concerns about supply chains and a shortage of skilled workers, stressing it would take at least an additional year to increase the pace of production of its fighter aircraft, which already take approximately three years to manufacture. If we have to accelerate, we will accelerate, but we need time to accelerate, Trappier said. We cant just click our fingers and accelerate the delivery of fighter aircraft. While allies havent sent Western-made fighter jets to Ukraine, the European Union in a defense investment gap analysis published in May recommended member states modernize their fleets of multi role fighter aircraft. It also suggested countries upgrade and expand their inventory of main battle tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and invest in frigates, submarines and high-end interconnected ships. Officials are trying to work out how to better communicate their procurement needs with industry so that companies can invest in production for the long-term. And while they want to replenish stocks, governments also need to be wary about excessive stockpiling given the shelf lives of some weapons. That constraint was highlighted in August, when Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said her government wouldnt send Ukraine the Leopard tanks it had been considering after finding them in a deplorable state after years of disuse, according to media reports. The industry both in our country and around the world want to know, is there a sustainable longer-range plan for this production, William LaPlante, the U.S. defense acquisition chief, told reporters after the national armaments directors meeting. And not that this will be something which has traditionally been feast or famine; that we go into panic mode, we increase production, and then when the crisis passed, we just go back to minimal production again. LaPlante said allies were looking into setting clearer standards. That would, for example, allow for ammunition to be used in artillery produced somewhere else, while countries would consider joint procurement to create larger quantity orders for industry. While defense spending has become a priority since Russias invasion, its unclear how long that will remain the case, particularly in Europe, where nations face a potential energy crisis this winter, according to Lucie Beraud-Sudreau, director of the military expenditure and arms production program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Countries spending needs are going to increase further if they want to keep pace with China, when it comes to investing in emerging technology, she said. With the difficult economic situation were getting into, theres going to be trade offs, Beraud-Sudreau said. There are tough decisions coming for European governments. 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. KYIV, Ukraine Russian forces showered Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in an attack the U.N. human rights office described as "particularly shocking" and amounting to potential war crimes. Air raid warnings sounded throughout Ukraine for a second straight morning as officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. The strikes have knocked out power across the country and pierced the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the war's front lines. "It brings anger, not fear," Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as crews worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from the capital's streets. "We already got used to this. And we will keep fighting." The leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers condemned the bombardment and said they would "stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes." Their pledge defied Russian warnings that Western assistance would prolong the war and the pain of Ukraine's people. Russia launched the widespread attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast. The Ukrainian government has applauded it but not claimed responsibility. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the G-7 leaders during a virtual meeting to respond "symmetrically" to the attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector by doing more to stop Russia from profiting off its exports of oil and gas. "Such steps can bring peace closer," he said. "They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war." Ukrainian officials said the diffuse strikes on power plants and civilian areas made no "practical military sense." However, Putin's supporters had urged the Kremlin for weeks to take tougher action in Ukraine and criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing battlefield setbacks. Pro-Kremlin pundits lauded the attacks as an appropriate and long-awaited response to Kyiv's successful counteroffensives. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity to win a war now in its eighth month. The head of Britain's cyber-intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, said Tuesday in a rare public speech that Russia is running out of military supplies and struggling to fill its ranks. "Russia's forces are exhausted," Fleming said. "The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation." Like Monday's strikes, the bombardment Tuesday struck both energy infrastructure and civilian areas. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire, the State Emergency Service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities. Energy facilities in the western Lviv and Vinnytsia regions also took hits. Officials said Ukrainian forces shot down an inbound Russian missile before it reached Kyiv, but the capital region experienced rolling power outages as a result of the previous day's strikes. The governor of Mykolaiv, Vitaliy Kim, urged residents to remain in bomb shelters as "there are enough missiles still in the air." The State Emergency Service said 19 people died and 105 people were wounded in Monday's strikes. At least five of the victims were in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 cities and towns lost power. A spokesperson for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that strikes on "civilian objects," including infrastructure such as power plants, could qualify as a war crime. "Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations," Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva. "Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law." War crimes investigations have long been underway in towns where mass graves were found, along with other evidence of atrocities, after they were liberated from Russian occupation. In Lyman, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, forensic workers pulled several bodies from a mass grave Tuesday, part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the bodies of 32 Ukrainian soldiers have been exhumed so far from one mass grave. The tempo of the war in the last month fanned concerns that Moscow might broaden the battlefield and resort to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. As Ukraine's counteroffensives in the east and south forced Russia's troops to retreat from some areas, a cornered Kremlin ratcheted up Cold War-era rhetoric. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow would only employ nuclear weapons if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state TV, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlin's intentions. Russia's nuclear doctrine envisions "exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state," Lavrov said. In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the 30-nation military alliance would hold exercises next week to test the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities. The war games, dubbed "Steadfast Noon," are held annually. Asked whether it was the wrong time for such exercises, Stoltenberg replied: "It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, longtime-planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine." Stoltenberg said Putin's nuclear rhetoric was "irresponsible" but he believes "Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought." NATO as an organization does not possess any nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries the United States, the U.K. and France. Those countries make up the G-7 along with Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union. In their statement after hearing from Zelenskyy, the G-7 leaders said they were "undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity." "We will hold President Putin and those responsible to account" for this week's strikes, it continued, saying "indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime." The pledge appeared to come in response to Kremlin warnings that Western military assistance, including training Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries and feeding real-time satellite data to target Russian forces, increasingly made Ukraine's allies parties to the conflict. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said continued U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the fighting and inflict more damage on the country without changing Russia's objectives. As Russian forces pounded three districts around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant overnight, Ukraine's state nuclear operator said Russian forces kidnapped the plant's deputy human resources director. Russians previously detained the facility's general director and released him following pressure from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Grossi, who met with Putin in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, urged him to agree to establish a "safety and security protection zone" around the Russian-occupied plant to prevent shelling at and near the site from causing a radiation disaster. "Now, more than ever, during these extremely difficult times, a protection zone must be established around the ZNPP. We can't afford to lose any more time," Grossi said in a statement. The IAEA said Grossi would return to Kyiv for another meeting with Zelenskyy. Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. Jason McCormack gave up work to care for his wife, and had tried every legal medication but cannabis was the only thing that worked A quantity of cannabis was found in different jars, with a total value of 5,950. Stock photo A 46-year-old man found in possession of almost 6,000 worth of cannabis had the drug to treat his wifes Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Balbriggan District Court has heard. Jason McCormack made an incredibly poor decision out of desperation, his barrister said. The defendant, with an address at Courtlough, Balbriggan, pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis and having the drug for sale or supply at his home address. The court heard gardai attached to Balbriggan Drugs Unit carried out a search of the property on November 5th last year. Garda Aidan Marks said a quantity of cannabis was found in different jars, with a total value of 5,950. The defendant came home soon after the search and admitted ownership of the drugs. Barrister Deirdre Flannery said McCormack, a father of three, has never been in trouble before and this process had been very daunting for him. She said his wife has MS and he gave up work to care for her. During the course of her treatment, they had tried every legal medication but cannabis was the only thing that worked which is why he had the drugs. She said in retrospect, this had been an incredibly poor decision on his part but one that was made out of desperation. Judge Dermot Dempsey adjourned the case to December 22 for a Probation and Welfare Report. He said if the report was positive he would consider 240 hours of community service in lieu of a three month prison sentence. All dogs removed have recovered and were rehomed A Carlow man has been banned from keeping dogs for life after making money from the suffering of a number of dogs. The man, from Craanpursheen, Ballon, Co. Carlow, admitted to offences under the Animal Health and Welfare Act (AHWA) 2013 at Carlow District Court on Wednesday 28 September. Giving evidence, ISPCA Inspector Fiona Conlon described to the court how she visited the accuseds property on Monday 15 March last year in response to reports of a possible illegal dog breeding establishment existing at the address. Inspector Conlon described to the court how she found several dogs of various breeds including Cocker Spaniels, Poodles, Bichons, Cockapoos, German Shepherds, Terriers, and Lurchers. Photo: ISPCA She found the pups living in unsuitable accommodation with insufficient light and ventilation with wet and soiled bedding. Many of the dogs were being used for breeding and some were found with severely matted, urine stained and faeces impacted coats, skin issues, overgrown nails, and odorous ears with dank matter inside. 13 of the dogs were surrendered due to immediate concerns and taken for veterinary assessment. 7 were found to have ear infections and 7 also required immediate dental attention. Inspector Conlon said that this case was very serious as the defendant had been making money from the suffering of these dogs as part of a commercial operation. Ms Conlon added that all dogs removed had recovered and were rehomed. Brendan OFlaherty, defending, cited other cases that Inspector Conlon had brought before the court which he viewed as more serious. He noted that all dogs had survived and were all in good bodily condition. Inspector Conlon acknowledged that they werent hungry. Mr OFlaherty also highlighted that his client had cooperated with the removal of the dogs and said that the man visited his vet regularly. In response, Inspector Conlon asked if that vet had seen the dogs in question and Mr OFlaherty accepted that they had not. Judge Geraldine Carthy said that the facts were stark and that photographs presented by Inspector Conlon were upsetting to see. The accused produced 3,500 in court to cover costs. Judge Carthy imposed a further 3,000 in fines and disqualified the man from keeping dogs for life. Inspector Conlon commented: Dog breeding continues to be a major welfare problem in Ireland. I believe this to have been an opportunistic set-up in response to unprecedented demand for puppies during lockdown. The focus was on profit rather than the welfare of the dogs or the quality of puppies produced, and the result was that dogs suffered. Aurelia Nosaci wiped away tears as she stepped down from the witness box in court A traffic accident that was investigated by gardai protecting the then Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, when they stayed at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park, ended in tears today for a woman who unsuccessfully sought 60,000 damages for personal injuries. Barrister Shane English told Judge Terence OSullivan in the Circuit Civil Court that there had been gardai all over the place in May 2017 while the British royal couple were resident in the park during a visit that took in Dublin, Kilkenny, Thomastown and the Curragh. Patricia Hill, counsel for mother-of-two, Aurelia Nosaci, of The Gallen Apartments, Granitefield Manor, Rochestown Avenue, Co Dublin, asked that her case be struck out, with an order for District Court costs, following a dispute as to whether her car had been struck at all in an alleged rear-ending at Whites Road, Phoenix Park. Judge OSullivan, following claim and counter claim over contact or otherwise between the two vehicles, gave the legal parties several minutes to discuss matters outside the court room. He was told Ms Nosaci, who claimed she had been in pain all over my body immediately after the incident and suffered a fractured finger, had settled the case which could be struck out on payment of district court costs for her legal team. Ms Nosaci (54), and formerly of Manorfields Road, Clonee, Dublin, wiped away tears as she stepped down from the witness box in court and afterwards outside the Four Courts, sobbed into her handkerchief. She had claimed she had been treated in hospital and by her GP after the accident. Judge OSullivan said a fractured finger was not a typical injury suffered in such accidents. Following an outline of issues in the case, Judge OSullivan said the court would initially decide whether there had been actual contact between the vehicles involved and invited the parties to have talks prior to the court reaching any decision on the matter. Mr English, who appeared with Helene Coffey of Crowley Millar Solicitors, said the defendant Cian ODonovan, of Somerton, Castleknock, Dublin, and Garda Sergeant Seamus P Leonard, who investigated the incident, would tell the court there had been no contact between the vehicles. Garda Sergeant Seamus P Leonard, Lucan, who was on duties surrounding the visit of the now King Charles and his Queen Consort and who investigated the incident, had stated in a garda report there had been no visible damage to either car. Judge OSullivan struck out Ms Nosacis claim and, on the invitation of both legal teams, made an order covering her legal teams costs at District Court level. Marcus Wynne (41) broke down in tears when Judge Martin Nolan ruled that he did not deserve a custodial sentence A national school principal who stole more than 44,000 from his school over a three-year period in an appalling breach of trust has been given a suspended three year sentence. Marcus Wynne (41) broke down in tears in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday when Judge Martin Nolan ruled that although he had let his former school community down, he did not deserve a custodial sentence. The judge ordered Wynne to give 30,000 he has saved over to Grace Park Educate Together immediately and he gave him a period of two years to save up the remaining 14,370 that he owes. People trusted you, Judge Nolan told Wynne. You let them down. You should be properly ashamed of yourself. The court heard Wynne was appointed principal of Grace Park Educate Together National School in Drumcondra, Dublin 9, in 2016 when it was first established. Between August 2016 and January 2019, Wynne stole 44,370 in 430 transactions, before going on to spend the money on day-to-day expenses including groceries, fuel, hotels, jewellery, clothing, taxis, holidays and restaurants, Detective Garda Shay Woods told the court. He forged invoices to account for the missing money, including regular invoices for rent to ChildVision, the national education centre for blind children, where the Educate Together school was housed for two years. The rent for ChildVision was paid by the Department of Education, the court heard. Wynne, with an address at Cloughanover, Headford, Co Galway pleaded guilty to nine counts of theft and eight counts of producing a false instrument at various locations in Dublin and Galway between 2016 and 2019. He has no previous convictions. Det Gda Woods told the court that the fraud came to light when Wynne went on sick leave in January 2019 and the school administrator and a teacher discovered fraudulent documentation in his desk. The court heard that Wynne and the school administrator had access to the school bank account but he was the only one who was authorised to withdraw money. He used the school bank card to withdraw cash and to pay for purchases. In the wake of the discovery of the forged documents, an internal investigation took place and the school board of management then reported the theft to gardai. Wynne went on sick leave from the school in February 2019 and formally resigned in October 2020, the court heard. He was arrested and interviewed in April 2021. In his interview with gardai, Wynne said the guilt and shame of what he had done was difficult to bear. He apologised to the school board of management for the hurt, pain and stress he had caused. Prior to his crimes coming to light, Wynne had been highly regarded in the school and his colleagues were full of praise for him, Det Gda Woods said. Many of the staff considered him to be a friend and were very upset when they found out what he had done. Brian Gageby BL, defending, said Wynne has sincere remorse and regret for his actions. He is currently working five nights a week in a factory and has saved up 30,000 to repay to the school. If he was not imprisoned, he would continue to save and repay the school in full, counsel said. The court heard Wynne was extremely vulnerable at the time of the offending and was struggling with alcohol, prescription tablets and gambling addictions. He has since spent time in rehab. Mr Gageby said his client is likely to be struck off the register of teachers and has lost his career. He submitted his offending was an appalling breach of trust but was not done out of avarice or malevolence. He had a lot of issues, defence counsel said. Judge Nolan accepted that Wynne had addiction issues at the time and he noted he has lost his respected position as a school principal. His chances of ever teaching again are very limited, the judge said. He said there was excellent mitigation in the case, including that Wynne had taken work in a factory to save up money to return to the school. The judge said while the amount of money stolen was serious, it was not at the extreme end. When questioned, John Hanley (45) took full responsibility for the drugs and said no one else in the shop knew anything about them A tile shop owner who accepted a delivery of just under 2 million worth of cannabis has been jailed for four years. John Hanley (45) told gardai he was targeted to take in the drugs delivery because he owned a legitimate business and that he did so out of fear for himself and his family, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard on Tuesday. Hanley, with an address at Balruddery Wood, Balrothery, Balbriggan, Co Dublin pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly permitting the importation of drugs at his premises at Malahide Road, Coolock on October 10, 2020. Oisin Clarke BL, prosecuting, told the court that Hanley was the co-owner of a tile shop in Coolock. On the day in question, a pallet containing 1.94 million worth of cannabis was delivered to the store and signed for by a shop worker. Gardai then raided the premises and the drugs were seized. When questioned by gardai, Hanley took full responsibility for the drugs and said no one else in the shop knew anything about them. He said he had been threatened by some individuals to hold the drugs and that he did so because he was fearful for his safety and the safety of his family. He has two previous convictions for minor offences. John Hanley at the Criminal Courts of Justice Paddy Cummins - PCPhoto.ie James Dwyer SC, defending, said his client suffered from depression and anxiety and had a history of cannabis use, which led to him being targeted. The court heard Hanley received no award for holding the drugs. Sentencing him, Judge Martin Nolan noted Hanley had cooperated with gardai, made full admissions and pleaded guilty to the charge. He noted the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had opted to deal with Hanley by way of an importation charge, rather than a drug dealing charge, which the judge said would have merited a sentence of six to eight years. He handed down a four year sentence. Michael Lawrence (55) filmed his daughter Jessica Maughan (28) attacking her own mother-in-law Mary Maughan (65) as the older woman was leaving a doctors appointment. A man and his two daughters have been given suspended sentences after a video recording of the sisters beating two women was shared on social media. Michael Lawrence (55) filmed his daughter Jessica Maughan (28) attacking her own mother-in-law Mary Maughan (65) as the older woman was leaving a doctors appointment. He also recorded his other daughter Marie Stokes (31) attacking Marys daughter, Rosie, while Rosie was sitting in her car waiting to pick up her mother. The court heard that although the women have physically recovered from the attack, they still suffer psychologically due to the humiliation of the attacks being posted on YouTube and subsequently viewed 3,500 times. Lawrence and Maughan, both of Rathvilly Drive, Finglas, Dublin, and Stokes of Archers Wood, Clonee, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting causing harm on September 30, 2021. Marie Stokes (31), leaving Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after she received a suspended sentence. PIC: Collins Courts Sarah Jane OCallaghan BL defending Lawrence, asked the court to accept that her client never posted the recordings to social media and wouldnt even know how to upload the material. She said her client is utterly ashamed of his behaviour. She said there had been difficulties in Jessica Maughans marriage with the victims son. The man had walked out on his daughter. They had four children together and she was pregnant with their fifth child at the time. He felt his daughter had been dishonoured which led to the irrational madness that came over him, Ms OCallaghan said. Jessica Maughan (28), of Rathvilly Drive, Finglas, leaving Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after she received a suspended sentence Counsel accepted that her clients decision to record the attack was strange and acknowledged that he can be heard clearly encouraging both his daughters to beat the women. She described that behaviour as depraved. She handed in a number of references into court, which described Lawrence as a good neighbour who goes to Mass every day. She said her client had 1,000 to offer the victims but they did not wish to accept the money. Ms OCallaghan said society will look at the video and say my client deserves a custodial sentence but she asked the court to accept that Lawrence got involved in a misguided way to defend his daughter. Judge Martin Nolan said the familys motivation for the attack was known only to them before he described the assault as disgraceful and vicious. Obviously they had their reasons but it is not acceptable to behave in this way. The situation was aggravated and the humiliation of the victims greatly increased by the footage going on social media, Judge Nolan continued. Having heard evidence last Wednesday he adjourned to this morning for sentence. Michael Lawrence (55), of Rathvilly Drive, Finglas, leaving Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after he received a suspended sentence Judge Nolan had remanded Marie Stokes and Michael Lawrence in custody pending sentence but allowed Jessica Maughan to remain on bail. He said today that he had decided not to imprison the father and two daughters before he imposed a two-year suspended sentence on each of them. If this is repeated again, or anything like it, it would be brought back to court and you will go to jail these two ladies didnt deserve what you did, Judge Nolan said addressing Lawrence, Maughan and Stokes directly. He also ordered that they each hand over 1,000 to the investigating garda which he said was to be passed on to a charity in the area where he was stationed after he acknowledged that neither of the victims want to accept the money. It is alleged Arakas was part of a three-man gang that conspired to murder a man said to have had an affair with pop star Vita Jakutien Notorious international hitman Imre Arakas is alleged to have acted as a mercenary and supplied guns to an organised gang involved in the murder of a Lithuanian pop star's lover, the High Court has heard. Lawyers for Estonian native Arakas, wanted in connection with the murder, say they are opposing his extradition to Lithuania as the authorities there had "changed the narrative" in their description of the charges. Arakas (64) is wanted for murder but has challenged his surrender on the grounds that no charge had been "formalised" against him. The State had written to authorities in Lithuania to clarify what exactly Arakas was wanted for in their bid to extradite him over the murder of a male there. An eyewitness to the murder of the pop star's lover has said that the hitman, who has also been jailed here for his role in a Kinahan cartel murder plot, was not present at the scene. Lithuanian authorities allege that Arakas was part of a three-man gang that conspired to murder a man said to have had an affair with pop star Vita Jakutiene. Arakas told gardai, however, that he was in Spain on the relevant dates. Arakas, whose last address was in Sopruse, Tallinn, Estonia, is to face charges, which include a count of murder as well as firearms and conspiracy-related charges in relation to the shooting of Deimantas Bugavicius in November 2015. The ex-wrestler was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018, after he admitted to conspiring with others to murder James 'Mago' Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. Imre Arakas appeared by video-link in court Yesterday at the High Court, Mr Justice Paul Burns was told by Remy Farrell SC, for Arakas, that his client had supplied an alibi to pre-trial investigators in Lithuania stating that he was in Spain at the time of the shooting. Mr Farrell said that there may also be an issue regarding the location of the alleged offences against his client. Mr Farrell said that the European Arrest Warrant needed to have specific circumstances cited when making an allegation about his client's involvement. Mr Justice Burns said that the murder offence was still alleged but it had now been clarified that Arakas was no longer thought to have been the actual shooter at the scene. Mr Farrell said there had been a "change of narrative" in the warrant, which had to make it clear both where the accused person was at the time of the alleged offence and when it took place. Responding, Siobhan Ni Chulachainn BL, for the State, said that additional information had been received in July of this year regarding the warrant, which said that Arakas was part of an organised group when he was acting with others "for mercenary reasons". It alleges he was engaged in preparatory actions, including surveillance, supplying weapons and plotting routes for the organisation. Ms Ni Chulachainn said that the warrant alleged that Arakas supplied two nine-millimetre handguns and provided clothes and chemical cleaning substances to others when in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, before the shooting. Imre Arakas She said that while the factual basis of the allegation may have changed the legal basis had not and that the Lithuanian authorities always intended to prosecute Arakas for his alleged role in the murder. Counsel said it was "very clear" that the legal nature of the allegation stayed the same. Mr Justice Burns said he hoped to have a judgement in the case by November 7. Arakas, who appeared in the court today with a long beard and pony-tail, was jailed by the non-jury Special Criminal Court after he pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to murder Mr Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. James Mago Gately He was contracted by the Kinahan crime gang to assassinate Mr Gately and had told his associates in coded text messages that he would take out his target with "one shot to the head". Passing sentence at the Special Criminal Court, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Arakas had agreed to the "vital role" of pulling the trigger for financial gain and he was prepared to offer his "own detail" on how the murder of Mr Gately was to be performed. Arakas had travelled to Ireland from Alicante in Spain on April 3, 2017, for the purpose of killing Mr Gately and has been in custody in Ireland since April 2017. Byrne was arrested near an address linked to innocent Kinahan cartel target Jonathan Hutch A man arrested near an address linked to innocent Kinahan cartel target Jonathan Hutchis facing at least five years in prison after pleading guilty to weapons offences. Appearing before Gorey District Court on Tuesday last, Gerard Byrne of Spencer Dock, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to three separate offences arising from his arrest in Gorey on March 15, 2018. Dressed in a grey Under Armour tracksuit, Byrne spoke only briefly during the hearing. The 31-year-old pleaded guilty to possession of a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol and a .38 calibre Webley six-shot revolver at Millands, Courtown Road in Gorey on March 15, 2018. He further pleaded guilty to possession of a dozen 9mm calibre Parabellum bullets and 6 .38 calibre bullets. Byrne pleaded guilty to a further charge of damaging an interview room at Enniscorthy Garda station in the wake of his arrest. The court heard a co-accused of Byrnes had already pleaded guilty to weapons offences and had been sentenced by the court. In October of last year, Daniel Delaney (29) of 3 Mariners Court, Sheriff Street, Dublin 1 admitted possession of a Glock semi-automatic pistol and a Webley revolver on the same date. Investigating, Garda Tomas OLeary reported that Delaney had 152 previous convictions and that he was on bail when he arrived in Gorey. Gerard Byrne One man was arrested that night when officers arrived at a temporary council yard on the outskirts of Gorey at Millands where the guns and bullets were found in bag in a Volkswagen. Two others fled but Delaney was arrested later that night in Ramsgate Village where he was hiding in a camper van belonging to a Thomas OBrien. Delaney was sentenced to six years for possession of firearms with three years suspended. At Gerard Byrnes plea hearing this week, the court heard a third man facing charges as a result of the events of March 15 has elected to take a trial date. The court heard it is likely that the trial of this individual will last approximately two weeks. Byrnes sentencing was adjourned to a later date. Jonathan Hutch who is not involved in crime and wasnt part of the feud had been staying in the Gorey area after being targeted by the Kinahan cartel because of his family name. Mr Hutch was nearly killed by the Kinahan gang on a holiday to Majorca in August, 2016. During the botched hit, innocent 41-year-old father Trevor ONeill was shot dead instead. Mr ONeill was shot once in the back as he walked close to the gangland target who was staying in the Costa de la Calma area of Majorca on August 17, 2016. The Dublin City Council worker had only just met Hutch who has survived two attempts on his life because the pair were staying at the same apartment complex. The raids were carried out on Monday morning and involved the Tallaght Drug Divisional Unit, uniform units and Garda Dog Unit. Gardai have seized 1.36m worth of cigarettes and tobacco during a number of searches in the Tallaght area. The raids were carried out on Monday morning and involved the Tallaght Drug Divisional Unit, uniform units and Garda Dog Unit. Following the searches, the seized items were later handed over to staff from Revenues Custom Services, gardai said. The cigarettes seized represent a potential loss to Revenue in excess of 1m. The force said no arrests were made and investigations are ongoing. Former Garda superintendent caught with 260K of drugs stashed in his Dublin home The former senior garda jailed on drugs offences was still a serving officer when he was unexpectedly found socialising in a criminals house with cocaine on the table during a garda raid sources have said. Former Superintendent John Spud Murphy (63) was sentenced to six-and-a-half years behind bars this week after pleading guilty to possession of 260,000 worth of cannabis at his Dublin home last year and is likely to face further charges in relation to confidential information being passed onto the Hutch gang. Gardai were surprised to find the drugs when they arrested Murphy last September on suspicion of enhancing the ability of a criminal organisation to commit or facilitate a serious offence. Murphy is suspected of working with the Hutch gang and providing them with confidential Garda information through his contacts in the force. The investigation into leaking of information to the Hutch gang is ongoing and sources say there are expected to be further charges in the case. Two serving officers were suspended from the force as part of the investigation, but they have not been charged with any offences. Murphys links to the Hutch gang are believed to stretch back to when he was still a serving officer. He rose through the ranks to the position of superintendent before he unexpectedly retired early at the age of 50 in 2010. Sources say he was encouraged to go early by senior officers who were worried by his behaviour. John Spud Murphy There were several issues of concern about him while he was in the force. Sources say one of the incidents related to officers unexpectedly coming across Murphy when they carried out a raid targeting a criminal figure. They went in and Spud was sitting at a table drinking with the target and a few women and there were lines of coke on the table. The source said some of the women present were suspected of being prostitutes. The bizarre incident was just one of many which raised red flags about Murphys behaviour and is believed to have influenced his decision to retire early. Murphy spent much of his career as a detective in Dublin and subsequently as a detective inspector in Raheny and Pearse Street before being promoted to superintendent, where he had a stint in Cavan before moving to traffic and eventually to the Bridewell station. His handling of intelligence sources raised eyebrows in the force and he was subject to a number of internal disciplinary inquiries and had been fined for bringing the job into disrepute. According to sources, during another incident, a drug dealer who was caught importing drugs into Ireland told the arresting officers that he was working as an informant for Murphy, who was aware of the operation. The source said gardai went to Murphy to demand to know why the informant wasnt registered. He claimed that it was all upfront, but he couldnt name the dealer because he refused to be officially registered and this was the only way hed work with him. He was insisting he didnt do anything wrong. Another one of Murphys sources was serious criminal Sean Dunne, from Donaghmede, in north Dublin, who went missing in Alicante in 2004 and is believed to have been murdered. Dunne was a well-known figure in the underworld who graduated through the criminal ranks from armed robber to international drug trafficker at the time of his death. Dunnes drugs operation grew from strength to strength over the years and he amassed a multi-million euro fortune from criminality before his death. Murphy also had a reputation for squaring road traffic tickets, particularly from his time in traffic onwards. Sources say he was one of the most prolific members of the force engaged in the practice of quashing motoring offences and would regularly ask regular gardai to cancel tickets. Despite rising to a high position in the force, Murphy found plenty of time for outside interests while still serving. He owned six taxi plates, which at the time cost tens of thousands each and rented them out to drivers. While he garnered a high income from renting out the plates, he is understood to have lost money when deregulation came in and the value of the plates plummeted. His barrister said this week that Murphy had to re-mortgage his house as a result of the loss on his investment. He also used to work as a barman in a pub in Malahide, north Dublin, while still in the force. Sources described Murphy as money hungry and said he was always trying to make money through various business schemes. He was involved in several business ventures but his barrister claimed this week he had the opposite of the Midas touch and was currently hundreds of thousands of euro in debt. When he retired from the force with a full pension in 2010 a host of well-known figures in Irish life turned up at a glitzy leaving party at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. He didnt invite any of his friends from the criminal fraternity to the bash but forged even closer links to them after his retirement. Gardai started to investigate Murphys links to the Hutch crime gang some time before his arrest last September. They were expecting to find evidence relating to the leaking of information to the Hutch gang but were surprised to find 260,000 worth of cannabis in the home, in Murphys car and the coal shed out the back. While he admitted possession of the drugs immediately, the investigation into his leaking of information to the Hutch gang remains ongoing and further charges are likely to be brought. It is understood evidence has been garnered from communication devices which implicates Murphy. all i want is u(k) | Bono says we really need the UK to go back to leading the world Allison Morris reveals the tale of an assassin on a mission to rid Northern Ireland of crime kingpins Two masked man flee the scene of Sean Fox's murder It took two gunmen just 21 seconds to murder drug dealer Sean Fox in a packed Belfast bar in an assassination which was meticulously planned, calm and ruthless. Captured on CCTV before and after the Sunday afternoon killing, the assassins wore distinctive clothes and escaped on foot, disappearing into a Belfast housing estate without trace. So what does the murder tell us about the killers and why was Sean Fox, a member of the so-called 'Marbella Crew', targeted? Nicola Tallant chats with Belfast Telegraph journalist Allison Morris about the shocking daylight shooting, Foxs links to murdered drug dealer Jim 'JD' Donegan and about an assassin on a mission to rid Belfast of crime kingpins. Crime Word Podcast can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Soundcloud. MORE EPISODES An anti-mafia operation led to the seizure of over four tonnes of cocaine worth more than 800 million Kinahan gang associate Raffaele Imperiale has been arrested in his Italian prison cell following a massive anti-mafia operation that led to the seizure of more than four tonnes of cocaine worth more than 800 million. The drug kingpin was just one of 36 arrested after 300 police officers carried out coordinated raids as part of a Europol operation against a highly professional criminal syndicate linked to the Ndrangheta crime organisation based in Italy. The Italian Financial Corps (Guardia di Finanza) dismantled the criminal network which relied on corrupt workers in the port of Gioia Tauro to smuggle hundreds of millions of euros worth of cocaine into Europe. Property searches were also carried out in the provinces of Reggio Calabria, Vibo Valentia, Bari, Naples, Rome, Terni, Vicenza, Milan and Novara that resuled in dozens of arrests and the seizure of 7 million worth of criminal assets. The arrests follow a complex investigation that identified a corrupt customs officer who allegedly altered the outcome of an x-ray scan performed on a container containing 300 kilos of cocaine. He is believed to have received a sum equivalent to 3 % of the value of the illicit cargo in return. Italian investigators were also able to identify members of the Ndrangheta, who would arrange for the cocaine to be shipped from South America. Their investigation also led them to field coordinators, who would recruit and manage the corrupted dockers, paying them a commission varying between 7 to 20% of the value of the illegal cargo. Complicit port operators who would arrange for the contaminated containers to not be intercepted as they were being smuggled into the port of Gioia Tauro were also arrested. Europol had developed reliable and crucial intelligence concerning the activities of the criminal network and had been working closely with Italian investigators to bring down the whole network. The Head of the European Serious and Organised Crime Centre at Europol, Jari Liukku, said the investigation revealed how the Ndrangheta is using corruption to enable its criminal activity and undermine law enforcements efforts. Europol sees the use of corruption, in the private or the public sector, as a major enabler of organised crime, Liukku, said. In this particular investigation we are very pleased to have joined forces with the Italian Guardia di Finanza to support them in fighting large-scale drug trafficking as well as corruption at an EU entry point. In this regard this investigation sets an example. Raffaele Imperiale One of those arrested, 48-year-old Imperiale, is considered one of the most important cocaine traffickers in the world. The Camorra-linked Italian mobster who is a former part of a so-called super-cartel along with the Kinahan cartel, the Dutch-Moroccan Mocro Mafia led by Ridouan Taghi, and the Balkan-based Tito and Dino cartel was extradited to Italy in March to face organised crime charges. Imperiale, who is a close associate of Daniel Kinahan, was arrested last year at his luxurious desert bolt-hole in Dubai and was finally flown to Rome in March to face charges. Ranked number two on Italys most wanted fugitive list, Imperiale was arrested last August as he basked with his family by a swimming pool at his luxury villa. Imperiale later tried to claim his extradition from Dubai to Italy was a kidnapping and in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. It emerged that his lawyers had filed an appeal to request the cancellation of his detention, issued by the preliminary investigation judge at the request of the Antimafia Investigation Directorate. Italian news outlet Metropolis reported that Imperiales lawyer, Fausto Brizzi, argued that he had effectively been kidnapped. He said: Imperiale lived in the United Arab Emirates, and the request for extradition to Italy was rejected by the Emirate court. After that court ruling, the Italian justice minister flew to UAE in February to request Imperiales extradition. Suddenly, on March 25, 2022, Imperiale was loaded on a plane and taken to Italy, where the report of the execution of the measure was drawn up in Ciampino [Rome] Airport, he claimed. The lawyer said the way the transfer occurred violates the treaty between Italy and the United Arab Emirates the territorial sovereignty of the United Arab Emirates and the European Convention on Human Rights, Imperiale was the subject of a seizure in person [kidnapping]. An Italian court said there was no grounds to bring a direct appeal to the Supreme Court. He is now expected to remain behind bars until his trial on organised crime offences. Italian authorities allege Imperiale was a top figure with the Amato-Pagano clan, a Camorra clan from Naples, and sourced drugs and weapons for the gang for over a decade. He also forged wider international connections with Taghi and other super-cartel figures. The super-cartel, most of whom were based in the United Arab Emirates, pooled their resources to arrange large drug shipments from South America into Europe. Another cartel associate serving life in prison in the Netherlands for directing murders has been moved to a lighter prison regime sparking fears he will be able to direct criminal activities. Naoufal Fassih (36), a Dutch national of Moroccan origin, was arrested during a raid on a Kinahan-linked safe-house on Baggot St, Dublin, in 2016 and extradited to the Netherlands where he was jailed for various offences including two murders. He is a key associate of gang boss and fellow Kinahan associate Ridouan Taghi, who is currently on trial for organised offences. Convicted sex offender Christian Bruckner is the chief suspect in the case and is currently in jail in Germany Christian Bruckner is suspected in the disappearance and murder of Madeleine McCann A German man suspected in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been charged with the alleged rape of an Irish woman in Portugal in 2004. The woman (20) was allegedly raped in the Praia da Rocha area of the Algarve. German prosecutors said on Tuesday they had charged the 45-year-old German man, who is the chief suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, with several sexual offences he committed in Portugal between December 28, 2000 and June 11, 2017. "The accused is the same person against whom charges were brought in connection with the disappearance of the then 3-year-old British girl Madeleine Beth McCann," the Braunschweig prosecutor's office said in a statement. Convicted sex offender Christian Bruckner is the chief suspect in the case and is currently in jail in Germany. Earlier this year it was reported that he was set to be charged in relation to the rape of an Irish woman in Portugal in 2004, near to where Madeleine McCann disappeared three years later in 2007. More to follow... Michael Williams (37) and Jessica Waldron (36) were arrested at Heathrow in December 2019 as they attempted to smuggle drugs worth around 1.75 million Two smiling cocaine couriers from Dudley in the West Midlands have been jailed in the UK over a failed Heathrow smuggling attempt. Michael Williams (37) and Jessica Waldron (36) were both arrested by National Crime Agency officers at Heathrow in December 2019 as they attempted to smuggle drugs worth around 1.75 million into the UK. The pair, who had just arrived into Heathrow as passengers on a flight from Bogota, Colombia, had concealed the drugs their checked-in baggage. However, they did not realise that Colombian police, who were working with the NCA, had already carried out searches of their bags in Bogota airport. The Colombians had removed the 22 kilo blocks of cocaine and substituted them for blocks of wood. After being arrested and questioned by NCA officers following their arrival into Heathrow Waldron and Williams were charged with attempting to import class A drugs. Both later admitted charges and were sentenced to six years and eight months each. NCA Heathrow Operations Manager Darren Barr said organised crime groups need couriers like Waldron and Williams for their business model to function. Their role is crucial in a chain that starts with the cartels that produce drugs in South America and ends with violent street gangs on UK towns and cities, he sad. I hope the sentences handed out to today make those who would consider getting involved in such an enterprise to think again. It simply isnt worth it. Producer Harvey Weinstein, That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson and House of Cards star Kevin Spacey are all facing court dates Actor Kevin Spacey leaves court following the day's proceedings in a civil trial, Thursday, Oct 6, 2022, in New York, accusing him of sexually abusing a 14-year-old actor in the 1980s when he was 26. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) AP/PA Images Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 4 2022. (Etienne Laurent/Pool Photo via AP) AP/PA Images High-profile trials of three celebrities accused of sex offences are set to begin this month. Producer Harvey Weinstein, That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson and House of Cards star Kevin Spacey are all facing court dates for cases relating to sexual assault claims. Convicted sex offender Weinstein (70), who accumulated over 80 accusations of sexual assault and harassment that kickstarted the #MeToo Movement, is on trial in California. The movie mogul is already serving more than 20 years in prison for a rape conviction in New York. He is faced with life in prison in California if convicted in Los Angeles of the sexual assault of five women in separate incidents from 2004 to 2013. One of his lawyers, Mark Werksman, said the goal was to avoid having a trial, according to The Associated Press. "Mr. Weinsteins notoriety and his place in our culture at the center of the firestorm which is the #MeToo movement is real, he said. And were trying to do everything we can to avoid having a trial when there will be a swirl of adverse publicity toward him. Jury selection began today for Weinstein's trial and the trial of actor Danny Masterson, also taking place in Los Angeles. That 70s Show star Danny Masterson (46) faces sexual offence charges in court this month. He has three charges of forcible rape against him and looks at a possible sentence of 45 years to life. Masterson played the role of Hyde in the iconic sitcom That 70s Show and has pleaded not guilty in the case against him. Actor Kevin Spacey leaves court following the day's proceedings in a civil trial, Thursday, Oct 6, 2022, in New York, accusing him of sexually abusing a 14-year-old actor in the 1980s when he was 26. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) AP/PA Images Kevin Spacey (63) faces a civil court case this month relating to claims of sexual abuse brought against him in 2017. The House of Cards star is being sued for $40 million in damages by Anthony Rapp, who has claimed Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was a teenager. Spacey denies the accusation and his lawyers say the case does not quantify as abuse under New York law. The actor was dropped from his role as Frank Underwood in hit Netflix series House of Cards when allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him in 2017. School students, employees and members of organisations across the country are being encouraged to don their favourite County, Club, Country or Provincial team jersey to raise vital funds to help GOALs lifesaving work with vulnerable communities all over the world. Funds raised from GOAL Jersey Day will go towards the agency's life changing work in emergency response, health, nutrition, and livelihoods in 15 countries. Last year alone, GOAL reached more than 18.5 million people with life-changing support in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and more recently in Ukraine, with humanitarian aid being delivered to people impact by the ongoing conflict. GOALs Director of Fundraising & Communications, Eamon Sharkey, said: GOAL Jersey Day is one of Irelands longest running fundraisers, and has been in existence for more than three decades. Now more than ever GOAL needs the continued support of the Irish people who have never been found wanting in supporting the worlds most vulnerable communities. Get your kit on for GOAL this Friday Photocall Ireland Schools and companies look forward to GOAL Jersey Day every year and it is a day when people can come together, have fun, and give to communities in need at the same time. This year the support of the people of Ireland is more crucial than ever as global crises continue to have an impact on the worlds poorest countries, said Eamon Sharkey. The combined impact of Covid-19, Climate Change and Conflict is having a devastating effect on global food security. This is especially acute in East Africa, where 23 million people are experiencing crisis levels of hunger. GOAL is responding, delivering water, food and medical aid, but we need your support this Jersey Day. Elizabeth Ivory, Head of Marketing & Comms, Folens said: We are delighted to partner with GOAL as part of our Folens Giving Programme. GOAL Jersey Day helps to raise vital funds for vulnerable communities across the world, and we are delighted to help raise awareness of this great initiative. As well as showing solidarity and support for some of the worlds most vulnerable communities, primary and secondary schools that register will be entered for a draw to win a 1,000 prize from Folens. To sign up for GOAL Jersey Day, see jerseyday.org The fintech company is dismantling its Irish operations, but Irish users will still be able to use its services. Online banking company Revolut is in the process of dismantling its Irish operations after abandoning plans to run its western European business from Dublin. However, this does not mean that Irish e-banking users will no longer have access to Revolut and its features. The fintech company, which is headquartered in London but licensed as a bank in Lithuania, will continue to serve its nearly two million customers in Ireland, while products and services will continue to be managed from Lithuania. Revolut bosses had originally planned to implement an east/west strategy in which western European operations would be run from Dublin while western European operations would be run out of Lithuania. Revolut Payments Ireland was intended to operate the Irish licences, once they were authorised, and Revoluts Western European customers were going to be migrated over. However, after a two-year spend of about 4m on hiring and operational set-up, the strategy was dumped. Sources told the Irish Independent that the companys Irish operation has been downgraded in importance within the wider group after it was left with just one director for most of 2022 and missed a September 30 deadline to file its annual return with the Companies Registration Office. Revolut Bank chief executive Joseph Heneghan is the only board member remaining after five other directors were let go earlier this year following the withdrawal of Revoluts application to be licensed by the Central Bank of Ireland. About 60 employees mostly in sales, marketing and support remain in Dublin, but prospects for expansion are limited, the sources said. As was widely reported at the time, in February 2022 Revolut decided to serve its Irish customers using its new European full banking licence, rather than via the Irish e-money licence, a spokesperson said. "This meant we were able to offer customers in Ireland new credit products, including personal loans, as well as a bank account backed by a deposit guarantee scheme. Plans for a new Revolut business hub in Ireland began to crumble in December 2021 when the company was awarded a banking licence by Lithuanias central bank. At the time, Revolut had already been waiting 30 months for authorisation as an electronic money institution and retail intermediary. Sources said the company, founded by Nikolay Storonsky, eventually grew frustrated with waiting for the process with the Central Bank of Ireland to cooperate, so it went in a different direction. The digital finance firm is now passporting banking services to various European markets using just its status as a Lithuanian bank. "While we cannot take that pain away for you, we want to walk with you," he said. Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O'Neill arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for the funeral mass of Jessica Gallagher. PA PA Local TD Joe McHugh arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for the funeral mass of Jessica Gallagher. PA PA The hearse carrying the coffin of Jessica Gallagher (24) arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass. PA PA Jessica Gallagher (24) one of the ten victims of the explosion at Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA Priest Fr John Joe Duffy sprinkles holy water on the coffin of Jessica Gallagher as it arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass. PA PA The funeral of the first of the ten victims of the Creeslough tragedy has taken place in the Donegal village today. At the outset of the service for Jessica Gallagher, Fr John Joe Duffy expressed "sincere and heartfelt sympathies" to her family, and in his homily he described the 24-year-old fashion designer as a jewel of her family. "We would love to be able to put in our hands to your hearts and take away that grief and that pain that you are suffering this morning," he said. "But to even think of that would not be a sensible thing to do. Because in that void, in that grief, there you hold in your hearts Jessica." Fr Duffy described Jessica as a "jewel" of her family. "While we cannot take that pain away for you, we want to walk with you," he said. "We cannot feel your pain but we will walk with you in that pain because to even say that we feel that pain would not be right or not be fair to you, but we walk in that pain. "The greater someone is loved, the greater that pain and that pain is so immense, and Jessica will forever remain in your heart, but she will also be with you, she will remain with you." Hundreds of mourners from the village of Creeslough and around Donegal flocked to St Michaels Church, with many standing outside through out the service. They lined the streets as Ms Gallaghers wicker coffin was carried into the church followed by her family. Priest Fr John Joe Duffy sprinkles holy water on the coffin of Jessica Gallagher as it arrives at St Michael's Church, Creeslough, for her funeral mass. PA PA President Michael D Higgins was represented at the funeral by his aide-de-camp. Local TD Joe McHugh and Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O'Neill were among those in attendance. Symbols representing Jessica's life were taken to the front of the church. In his homily, Father John Joe Duffy said Jessica "radiated a warm and positive feeling" to all who knew her well. The priest said she left ripples of "love, affection, kindness and warmth" wherever she went. "We are experiencing, you the family, are experiencing that most difficult challenge of all - the pain and hardship of having to say goodbye to Jessica today," he said. "That pain and hardship that other families are experiencing and I know that other families have been with you that have lost a loved one and those who have a loved one in hospital at this time. "That pain has been felt in our parish and in our neighbouring parishes when the pathway in which Jessica and others were travelling through life was so abruptly ended by this tragic accident. "I wish I as a priest could explain that more fully in a way that words could explain it, but we do not have words to explain it, for words would make no sense or couldn't give it sense. Jessica Gallagher (24) one of the ten victims of the explosion at Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA "I am part of you, part of this community, and it is together that we will make the journey and travel that journey going forward, supporting each other as so many people have been doing. Our entire community is hurting. Our hearts are heavy, but our spirits are strong." Ms Gallagher had been visiting her boyfriend Conor in his apartment above the Applegreen petrol station when the explosion occurred. He remains in hospital in critical condition. Father Duffy looked back on who Jessica was as a person, describing her as someone who could light up a room with that infectious smile. She was described as a practical joker, an animal lover and very strong in every way possible. I believe animals sense goodness in people, and they flocked to Jessica, Father Duffy said. He spoke about her outgoing personality, describing her to have huge confidence in every facet of her life. She could talk for Ireland, and people that knew her best said she had no off switch. Father Duffy mentioned that this is the first time that Jessica is sadly silenced. Willing to do anything for her loved ones as they would have done for her, Father Duffy joked that her boyfriend Conor made one big sacrifice for her. A girlfriend that Conor would do anything for, even eat gluten free food for. Jessica had a love for travelling from studying fashion in Paris, which was followed by being offered a chance to further her education in Shanghai, thriving in her career in fashion. An unfinished top that Jessica was currently designing was brought up as a symbol of Jessicas love for her career. Mourners gather for the funeral of Jessica Gallagher. Picture: Steve Humphreys She knew the success she was already building from hard work and determination. There was no eulogy, and at the end of the funeral mass, a cousin of Ms Gallagher sang The Climb. Her coffin was carried out of the church and taken for burial at Doe cemetery. Ms Gallagher, who had been due to start a new job on Monday, was one of ten people, aged from five to 59, killed in the tragedy in the village of Creeslough on Friday. The funeral of Martin McGill, 49, who was originally from Scotland, will also be held at St Michael's Church later on Tuesday. An Garda Siochana, continues to investigate the cause of the blast in a building complex that included the service station and convenience store and residential apartments. It is being treated as a "tragic accident". A gas leak is one theory, it is believed. The other eight victims were 50-year-old Robert Garwe and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe, who were in the shop to buy a birthday cake; 48-year-old James O'Flaherty; 14-year-old Leona Harper; 39-year-old Catherine O'Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan; 59-year-old Hugh Kelly; and 49-year-old Martina Martin. Mr O'Flaherty's funeral will be in St Mary's Church in Derrybeg on Wednesday morning. A joint service will be held for Ms O'Donnell and her son James at St Michael's in Creeslough on Wednesday afternoon. A funeral for Ms Harper is to take place at St Mary's Church, Ramelton on Thursday. Mrs Martin, a mother of four, will also be laid to rest on Thursday with a service at St Michael's Church, Creeslough. A large attendance is expected at the funeral with family, friends and neighbours expected to travel from all over Ireland and the UK A father-of-seven who was stabbed to death at a Kerry funeral will have his funeral held in Offaly. Thomas 'Tommy' Dooley (43) died after he suffered fatal stab injuries at New Rath cemetery, in Rathass, Tralee on October 5, as he attended the burial of a Kerry mother-of-five. His wife, Siobhan, was injured as she bravely went to her husband's aid when he was surrounded by a group of assailants. Despite desperate efforts by paramedics to help Mr Dooley, he was pronounced dead shortly after being rushed to nearby University Hospital Kerry (UHK). His wife was also treated at UHK for slash-type injuries but was subsequently discharged on Thursday. Mr Dooley resided in Killarney but had lived for a period in Cork. Details of Mr Dooley's funeral arrangements have now been posted on social media by his family. His remains have been released from the morgue at UHK and his funeral will take place in Tullamore, Co Offaly. A post mortem examination was conducted on Mr Dooley's remains last Thursday. Gardai recovered a number of weapons from the scene with a large garda presence being maintained in both Killarney and Tralee since the brutal killing. Siobhan Dooley is a native of Tullamore and her husband's removal will now be held in the Offaly town on Wednesday. Mr Dooley's Requiem Mass will take place at 11.30am on Thursday with subsequent burial to the local cemetery. A large attendance is expected at the funeral with family, friends and neighbours expected to travel to Offaly for the arrangements from all over Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK. The Dooley family have asked for no photographs or video to be taken during the funeral arrangements as a mark of respect to the 43-year-old. Funeral details were posted on social media by his family with the tribute: "Rest in Peace Daddy. I love you from the bottom of my heart. Two men have already been charged before Kenmare District Court in relation to Mr Dooley' death. A third man continues to be questioned by Gardai after he was arrested on Monday. Gardai have again appealed for anyone who witnessed the incident at Rathass last Wednesday to contact them amid concerns a number of people who may have spotted events before, during and after the fatal attack have not yet come forward. Between 80 and 100 people are believed to have been at the cemetery at the time of the fatal incident at lunchtime on October 5. Last week, Mrs Dooley, her children as well as extended family, friends and neighbours attended a special vigil for him. The tribute was staged outside the Dooley family home on Thursday evening. Coloured balloons were released to his memory and prayers were offered at the Killarney estate by a large attendance of more than 100 people. US Border Patrol agents intercepted the human smuggling attempt after two vehicles crossed the border near Roseau last month A total of 12 people from Ireland and Great Britain have been arrested in Minnesota for illegally entering the US. US Border Patrol agents assigned to the Grand Forks sector intercepted the human smuggling attempt after two vehicles crossed the border near Roseau last month. An agent with the Border Patrol station in Warroad who had been alerted that both vehicles had illegally entered the US on September 25, drove south on Highway 89 toward Grygla where he spotted one of them at a gas station. As the agent approached, one of the vehicles sped off but the agent made contact with the other driver, which led to the arrest of four of the occupants one a citizen of Great Britain, and three others from Ireland. All four passengers were taken into custody for unlawful entry into the United States. An alert was issued for the second vehicle which fled the gas station, and the following day a border patrol agent assigned to the International Falls, Minnesota, sector spotted it parked at a restaurant in Bemidji. Seeing that the car was empty, the agent went to a nearby hotel and spoke with an employee at the front desk who said a couple had recently checked in, but left shortly before the agent arrived. With the help of the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office, the agent later located the couple and eight migrants in the second vehicle seven citizens of Great Britain, and one from Ireland, who were all detained for unlawful entry into the US. "This was a great response by our agents, Chief Patrol Agent Anthony S Good said in a statement. The communication and collaboration between two of our stations was the reason we were able to catch the migrants. As a reminder, it is unlawful to enter the United States anywhere other than a designated Port of Entry. Earlier this year, a Florida man was charged with human smuggling in Minnesota after the bodies of four people were found in Canada near the US border. Authorities said the four had frozen to death during a blizzard in a failed crossing attempt. Hundreds died after becoming stranded near the shark-infested waters of the Chatham Islands A picture of a previous mass stranding posted by New Zealand's Department of Conservation It is feared that as many as 500 pilot whales have died in two mass strandings on a remote New Zealand island chain over the weekend. Hundreds died after becoming stranded near the shark-infested waters of the Chatham Islands, 840 kilometres east of the main South Island in the South Pacific, rescue teams and conservationists have reported. Dave Lundquist, a marine technical adviser for the New Zealands Department of Conservation, said it does not attempt to refloat stranded whales in the area due to the risk of shark attacks to both people and the whales. The surviving whales were euthanized to prevent further suffering, he said. This decision is never taken lightly, but in cases like this it is the kindest option, Lundquist said. Daren Grover, general manager of rescue organisation Project Jonah, said most of the pilot whales were already dead when they came ashore, and the survivors were in poor health. Having such a high number of whales in one location is unusual, but its certainly not unheard of, he said. In addition to the risk posed by sharks, it was almost impossible for rescue teams to travel to the Chatham Islands on short notice, he said, compounding the difficulty of saving the whales. On Friday, 250 beached pilot whales were found at Chatham Island, and then three days later another 240 were reported on Pitt Island, the government said. Its common for pilot whales to become stranded but the behaviour is not well understood, according to the Department of Conservation. Most scientists believe that individual whales strand because they are diseased and coming to the end of their natural lifespan. The Chatham Islands, which are home to about 600 people, are among the top three stranding hotspots in New Zealand. In 1918, the archipelago saw the biggest recorded stranding in the country of about 1,000 pilot whales, according to the department. A Department of Conservation team was dispatched to Chatham Island to support the lone DOC ranger stationed on Pitt Island, Project Jonah said. "This is an incredibly isolated and remote part of the world, with a small population and known for great white sharks which pose risk to both people and whales," the group said. "Our thoughts are with the DOC staff and local community." "I find it laughable that the people who are calling for arms for Ukraine never call for arms for the people of Palestine Reality star George Galloway has dubbed Irish MEP Clare Daly a Joan of Arc who has come back to walk among us for her take on the war in Ukraine. The ex-MP called the politician crusading for speaking so powerfully the walls of the European Parliament shake. Big Brother star George played a clip of Clare Daly addressing the European Parliament on his online talk show The Mother of All Talk Shows. He used to present the show on the Russian state-owned Radio Sputnik service before taking it to YouTube and Facebook. Galloway filed a High Court action in Dublin against Twitter in May for defamation as the social media platform labelled his account Russian state-affiliated media. He denies the label as he no longer presents his show on any Russian-linked channel. He said the "unjust link by Twitter is a daily stab to the heart of who I am and what I am. George Galloway. Photo credit: Danny Lawson/PA Wire PA The clip of Clare Daly shows her speaking in the European Parliament. The war in Ukraine is quickly escalating into a wider horror and from what I can see, practically nobody in this chamber is doing anything to prevent it, she said. "In fact most people seem to get off on the fact that its escalating. The MEP for Dublin said anyone who opposes the war are labelled traitors, cronies, Putin puppets, Kremlin stooges, Russian agents. "Frankly, it's pathetic. She told fellow members of the European Parliament they should be ashamed of the attitude on Ukraine. "I find it laughable that the people who are calling for arms for Ukraine never call for arms for the people of Palestine, she said. "Unlike you, I oppose all war. The Dublin politician was one of 26 European Parliament members to vote against a resolution condemning Russias escalation of its war of aggression against Ukraine last week. She, along with fellow MEP Mick Barry, voted in favour of certain parts of the resolution. She told Pat Kenny on Newstalk yesterday that she was questioning whether economic sanctions on Russia were helping Ukraine. She said a dialogue is more important than importing arms or sanctioning Russia as it doesnt make sense to cut our nose and it is not helping Ukraine. If Ukraine isnt happy with it then it wont be an agreement and they can go back fighting then if they want but my God, isnt it worth a chance? Because the road were on now is only a road to horror. Its an unnecessary cloud because Irish dancing is a beautiful art form and culture RIVERDANCE supremo John McColgan has said that he was shocked to hear last weeks allegations of corruption in the multi-million money-spinning world of competitive Irish dancing. Award-winning producer and director McColgan told the Sunday World that Irish dancing has been tainted by the scandal, but he predicts that it will recover. It does taint it, definitely, he said. Its an unnecessary cloud because Irish dancing is a beautiful art form and culture. In the long term I dont think it (the scandal) will be damaging, but if there are bad apples I think they should be rooted out. And theres no doubt about it, what Im hearing seems outrageous and seems entirely inappropriate in the world of young competitors. Something seriously root and branch has to be done to make sure that it doesnt continue and that it doesnt happen again. The allegations, which are now being investigated by a former Court of Appeal judge, are said to involve teachers and dancing judges colluding to fix results. In one leaked text, it appears that sex is being offered as an incentive to give a pupil first place in a competition, with the judge saying to the teacher: Isnt it time you came to my room. Irish dancers in Glasgow (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) Getty Images An Coimisiun Le Rinci Gaelacha (CLRG), the global body that governs Irish dancing and which has appointed the court judge, said its ethics committee has received allegations, with supporting documentation, of several grievous breaches of our code of conduct. CLRG said that such unethical behaviour cannot and will not be tolerated by this organisation. John McColgan says that the furore over the adjudicating wont have any impact on Riverdance the show, which is one of the most successful dance productions to come out of Ireland. He and his wife Moya Doherty remortgaged their family home in 1995 to stage their first Riverdance show at Dublins Point Theatre (3Arena) and hit the jackpot, going on to put Irish dancing on the world map. Riverdance has since been seen by 30 million people around the globe and its worldwide success made John and Moya a fortune, estimated by Irelands Rich List to be more than 90 million. Neither McColgan nor Doherty have ever been involved in the competitive side of Irish dancing, and the showbiz mogul said yesterday that he had been unaware of the shenanigans that came to light this week. I was shocked because I was never at the sharp edge. The whole competitive world is known to be hyper competitive, John says. I hadnt heard a lot of the things Im hearing in the last few days. Its not anything I would have been aware of. I dont operate at that sort of level. But it seems that it doesnt surprise people in the competitive world from what Im hearing on Joe Duffy and so on. It sounds terrible. Lots of Irish dancers who have gone on to perform in Riverdance and Michael Flatleys Lord Of The Dance came up through the Irish schools and the competitive dancing system. The kids that start Irish dancing at four really fall in love with it because its a great art form, its great exercise and theres a lot of camaraderie, John acknowledges. I would imagine for the majority of people who go through the system that its a fantastic experience, and I accept the fact that for some people it might not be a great experience. They are very highly trained, but once you audition and you are in Riverdance that level of competition that is in the competing world doesnt exist. They compete with each other within the show, but that thing of extreme competitiveness doesnt exist. One caller to RTEs Liveline this week told how Irish dancing had been her entire world from childhood, and she fell into depression and didnt get out of bed for days when she retired from the scene. She said there was no support network in Irish dancing to help her cope with the fallout. However, McColgan says that Riverdance has a strong and dedicated care of duty to their dancers, even when they leave the show. We have a very definitive culture of supporting kids, supporting young people right through the years and even the years after it, John stresses. We take very seriously the physical and mental health of our kids and there is a culture of minding what they call themselves the Riverdance family. and Im very proud of that culture in Riverdance. Our main man Padraic Moyles (Riverdance associate director) has a very clear culture of caring for and minding our dancers. We have mentors who are past pupils and when some of the younger ones are getting used to the system our alumni are assigned to mentor them and guide them and support them and look after them. If there is any unhappiness or whatever we take care of them, and that is very much part of the culture of caring that we have in the Riverdance family. We try to mentor them to be happy in their work There are times when they are not feeling the best because they have issues, and when they have issues we have people for them to talk to in complete confidence, either within the company or mentors who are normally alumni of Riverdance. When they leave us we continue that mentorship from our Riverdance alumni. The standard of care is much higher than it ever was and I know that when we take a break most of the dancers say they cant wait to get back on stage. They love what they do. They love the dancing and they love the standards that they set for themselves. A seagull coming in contact with power lines is being put down as the cause of a power outage in Taurangas central business district. Power was cut to 185 customers in central Tauranga at 9.15am, says a Powerco spokesperson. Field crews were dispatched to site after reports that a bird had flown into lines. Power was estimated to be restored around 1.56pm, but contractors have managed to get it back on sooner. Power was restored at 10.20am. Powerco thanks Tauranga customers for their patience as crews work to restore power. The most up-to-date outage information can be found on Powercos outages webpage here: powerco.co.nz/outages Former leader of the opposition, former leader of the New Zealand National Party and Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is sharing his thoughts on the housing market crisis to Sun Medias newest platform, Buzzworthy. In this weeks Future Buzz Don Brash attends the in-studio interview with producer Ross Crowley to chat all things housing across New Zealand, as a newly branded Tauranga local. New Zealands [housing market] has been regarded as one of the highest risk in it, says Brash. Brash adds relative to rent and income, New Zealand house prices have risen so much to the point they are way out of line. This therefore makes us the riskiest market in terms of a fall. Personally, I think we need a fall [in the market]. This would hurt a number of people who are highly leveraged and have recently bought a home with a big mortgage, but lets face it, at the moment, 40 to 45 per cent of New Zealanders have effectively no realistic chance of ever owning their own home. Thats a scandal, and has serious social and economic consequences. Brash says the conventional way of analysing the housing market is to compare the median house price in an area with the median household income. A median house price of three times the median household income is considered a good income and is affordable housing. When John Key became Prime Minister in 2008, the median household income to median income ratio was six times, which he considered as wildly too high. When National left office in 2017, it was nine times. Currently, last November it was 11 times in Auckland. In Tauranga, it is very similar. Median house price in Tauranga compared with the median income was about 10 to 11 times. That is outrageously expensive, but it is the national standard. To find out more about the housing crisis from one of New Zealands most well-known politicians and respected economists, visit Buzzworthy website for the full episode. narayans80 Senior - BHPian Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Madras Posts: 2,587 Thanked: 3,411 Times The unexpected purchase - My 2022 Hyundai Alcazar But then life has other plans.. The first surprise was that we were expecting another child. We now had to accomodate 2+3 in the car, which in theory was fine, since we had a 5-seater right? It was not until I purchased and installed the Chicco Nextfit did I realize the apparent lack of space. But it was not that alone. The lap belts in our 5-seaters are a joke. They simply are too small for adults to wear. So while the intention to buy a bigger car was there, we were not willing to start another EMI. We were looking at a 2 year timeframe to decide. Besides I was looking at buying an EV in 2025-26 that would take care of my commuting needs and S-Cross gets used as a highway runner. Then the seminal event happened..Mr. Cyrus Mistry met his maker in a car accident by not wearing seat belts in the rear. This was it, want became need and we starting looking for a replacement. I have penned my requirements and initial thoughts Car Ownership History A brief history of my cars over the years. My first car, the one that taught me driving a car and how to own a car. I remember the delivery date 27-August-2010. This was brought at a time when I had zero awareness on car ownership, about the time I got my Team-BHP membership. I had moved to Italy for work related commitments. The i10 was sold sometime in 2013 still on car loan. 2010 Hyundai i10 Magna 1.2 Over the car-less hiatus, I read through official reviews of Tata Hexa and S-Cross cover-to-cover I really wanted to get the S-Cross in the 1.6 avatar. Those limited units of 1.6 were still there as of Q3 of 2017. I had a poverty spec budget where I had to buy the car cash down, with no chance of EMIs. I was out of touch driving a manual transmission, so looked for City and Corolla in AT avatar. Found a 2010 Corolla AT with 72000 km on the clock in September 2017. The 4-speed AT made this 4500 mm long sedan such a breeze to drive, that I've taken this fella into gully roads in the city. The car not just had a drinking problem, but also needed super expensive part replacements. Toyota servicing was nothing to write home about. The last straw was them suggesting an engine rebuild for a 94K run petrol car, which was taken to the ASC for a FE problem. This car taught few things: Never buy an used car for high mile usage No more petrol for my sort of usage Regular Toyota maintenance is cheap, part replacements are not. I needed better GC. I could bottom out on full load at my office backyard. And I was regularly driving into the unknown roads. 2010 Toyota Corolla VL-AT With that seminal incident, we sold the Corolla clocking 22K in less than 14 months under conservative usage. We needed a daily driver with a new urgency. Started at 10L as a budget looking at C1-C2 segment cars. A pre-facelift Creta SX was available at 16L. Seemed a stretch at that time. I had a soft corner for S-Cross, a car I'd been following since its launch. It was a diesel from a low risk apetite OEM. Ciaz was considered due to budget and rejected due to GC. As King Theoden says, and so the stellar ownership began... To summarize the S-Cross ownership: Frugal sub 5 Rs/km fuel cost. The car taught me to fall in love with manual transmission. Contrary to popular belief, the transition from AT to MT was a breeze. I became a long distance runner driving as many as 1400 km in 24 hours. Made Maharashtra look like a neighborhood town. Brought back confidence in the steed, that undertook 8000 km in 16 days just like that. Bad roads, no roads, knee deep water ? No problem! The car could've easily seen few lakh kms, cut short to 85000 km due to our additional space requirement. The only annoyance in the ownership was the glow plug replacements. I had to replace 8, between 28000 and 63000 km. The replacements stopped after the glow plug control module got replaced at 63000 kms. 2018 Maruti Suzuki Zeta Budget We started at 15L, but quickly knew, there was nothing other than XL6 that satisfied this financial requirement. So we knew we had to stretch, but 24L seemed a bit too much. Another school of thought was, this was the time in life when we'd need such a big car, so why not? Candidates Tata Safari - I had seen this earlier in July. I liked it, my daughter liked it. However the major gripe was that I have to stretch to 24.6L and get the XZ to have ISOFIX. Every other criteria was satisfied by XT. Why have the ISOFIX only in the top variant in a D segment car, when budget segment has it on base variant is beyond me. The waiting time was a decent 6-8 weeks. Toyota Innova - My wife wanted to get the Innova for a long time, so did I. But the diesel being discontinued and buying the petrol Innova with a fuel cost of 10 Rs/km was yaanai katti theeni potta kadhai (buying and feeding an elephant). Was dropped even without a showroom visit. MG Hector Plus - This came as a suggestion from AYP to my What car post. The Super variant was 22.x L on-road and Select was 24.7 L on-road. The waiting times were at 6 months for Super, 1-2 months for Select. Servicing wise, nearest service center was 30 km away at Ekkaduthangal. Kia Carens - Visited the showroom on the 10th and took a test drive. I was impressed and so was the family. Prestige Plus was the variant of choice which retailed at 17.6L. I quite liked the drivability. This was the prime candidate. The looks were polar which I was willing to live with for the practicality it offered. There was only one problem, the waiting time was 5-6 months. Service centers were again 30 km away either at Ambattur or Perungudi. I was almost ready to book, but I wanted to see and test drive the Alcazar before taking the plunge. Maruti XL6 - This could have been a no-brainer if it had the MJD. Or atleast a petrol with better drivability. Based on the official review and many other impressions, I was prepared. The Hyundai Alcazar - This was the last car we saw. I was fine with the practicality. No big difference in terms of drivability compared to Carens. The entry level Prestige variant had all I wanted. The on-road I was offered was 19.15L with a promised delivery in a week. Decision At the time of decision, the S-Cross had crossed 85000 km. Much before we became serious in looking for a car. I was clear to either sell the S-Cross before 100,000 km or wring it for life. Given the pace I was raking miles, waiting 6 months would mean further drop in trade-in price from what I had from each of the dealers. Plus if we were not stretching to 25L, we had to compromise with the Alcazar or Carens. The sticker price, short waiting time proximity of servicing, sealed the deal in favour for Hyundai Alcazar. Short summary of my likes, dislikes and neutral points Likes Refined diesel powertrain that has adequate juice for urban and highway runs. Good service network across the country. I have as many as 6 service center choices in reasonable distance. Kia and MG lose out on this regard. Dark shade interiors! Am a big sucker for black interiors. Sufficient brakes that decelerate from 80 to 0 without any drama. Gets most of the basic kit right on the base Prestige variant. Noise insulation of the cabin is good, tire noise from those JK UX Royales are rather muted. Dislikes Short gearing that makes you work through the gears during urban runs. Loud keyless entry beep that will wake your neighbors. No side-curtain airbags as standard on car that's classified under D-segment costs nearly 2 million rupees. Unstable wireless Carplay connectivity that makes you forget the convenience it provides. Ultra light Hyundai steering that needs careful handling coming from S-Cross. Overdone front chrome grill and rear name band is an eyesore. Overpriced by 1.5L compared to its sibling Carens for identical kit. Blatant omissions like rear washer, day-night IRVM. Neutral Speed limit beep for 80 is livable. Will learn to ignore it over time. JK UX Royales are ok for now. They'll be replaced on next swap. LED headlamps are acceptable for me. Not everybody's cup of tea. Feels rather top heavy coming from S-Cross. Concerns over BS6 diesel exist. Hoping my usage pattern will take care of it. Boot space was a planned compromise, given the budget constraints. Stiff suspension is not for every use case. I made the booking on 17-September and took delivery on the 26-September. It could have been the 24th, if the RTO formalities were done on the 23rd. Review Index Exterior Interiors Driving Impressions In car Entertainment Other significant observations and quirks If someone asked me earlier this year about changing the car, I'd have brushed off the idea as crazy and unnecessary. After all, my S-Cross was loan-free and chugging along at a fuel cost of 4 Rs/liter. Even more so, since my commute ballooned from 22 to 75 km a day. This meant, even without doing highway trips I was clocking 8000 km a quarter.But then life has other plans..The first surprise was that we were expecting another child. We now had to accomodate 2+3 in the car, which in theory was fine, since we had a 5-seater right?It was not until I purchased and installed the Chicco Nextfit did I realize the apparent lack of space. But it was not that alone. The lap belts in our 5-seaters are a joke. They simply are too small for adults to wear.So while the intention to buy a bigger car was there, we were not willing to start another EMI. We were looking at a 2 year timeframe to decide.Besides I was looking at buying an EV in 2025-26 that would take care of my commuting needs and S-Cross gets used as a highway runner.Then the seminal event happened..Mr. Cyrus Mistry met his maker in a car accident by not wearing seat belts in the rear.This was it,becameand we starting looking for a replacement.I have penned my requirements and initial thoughts here (Mahindra Scorpio-N vs Tata Safari vs Hyundai Alcazar vs Mahindra XUV700 vs Others) A brief history of my cars over the years.My first car, the one that taught me driving a car and how to own a car. I remember the delivery date 27-August-2010. This was brought at a time when I had zero awareness on car ownership, about the time I got my Team-BHP membership.I had moved to Italy for work related commitments. The i10 was sold sometime in 2013 still on car loan.Over the car-less hiatus, I read through official reviews of Tata Hexa and S-Cross cover-to-coverI really wanted to get the S-Cross in the 1.6 avatar. Those limited units of 1.6 were still there as of Q3 of 2017.I had a poverty spec budget where I had to buy the car cash down, with no chance of EMIs.I was out of touch driving a manual transmission, so looked for City and Corolla in AT avatar.Found a 2010 Corolla AT with 72000 km on the clock in September 2017. The 4-speed AT made this 4500 mm long sedan such a breeze to drive, that I've taken this fella into gully roads in the city.The car not just had a drinking problem, but also needed super expensive part replacements. Toyota servicing was nothing to write home about. The last straw was them suggesting an engine rebuild for a 94K run petrol car, which was taken to the ASC for a FE problem.This car taught few things:With that seminal incident, we sold the Corolla clocking 22K in less than 14 months under conservative usage. We needed a daily driver with a new urgency.Started at 10L as a budget looking at C1-C2 segment cars. A pre-facelift Creta SX was available at 16L. Seemed a stretch at that time. I had a soft corner for S-Cross, a car I'd been following since its launch. It was a diesel from a low risk apetite OEM. Ciaz was considered due to budget and rejected due to GC.As King Theoden says, and so the stellar ownership began...To summarize the S-Cross ownership:We started at 15L, but quickly knew, there was nothing other than XL6 that satisfied this financial requirement. So we knew we had to stretch, but 24L seemed a bit too much. Another school of thought was, this was the time in life when we'd need such a big car, so why not?- I had seen this earlier in July. I liked it, my daughter liked it. However the major gripe was that I have to stretch to 24.6L and get the XZ to have ISOFIX. Every other criteria was satisfied by XT. Why have the ISOFIX only in the top variant in a D segment car, when budget segment has it on base variant is beyond me. The waiting time was a decent 6-8 weeks.- My wife wanted to get the Innova for a long time, so did I. But the diesel being discontinued and buying the petrol Innova with a fuel cost of 10 Rs/km was(buying and feeding an elephant). Was dropped even without a showroom visit.- This came as a suggestion from AYP to my What car post. The Super variant was 22.x L on-road and Select was 24.7 L on-road. The waiting times were at 6 months for Super, 1-2 months for Select. Servicing wise, nearest service center was 30 km away at Ekkaduthangal.- Visited the showroom on the 10th and took a test drive. I was impressed and so was the family. Prestige Plus was the variant of choice which retailed at 17.6L. I quite liked the drivability. This was the prime candidate. The looks were polar which I was willing to live with for the practicality it offered. There was only one problem, the waiting time was 5-6 months. Service centers were again 30 km away either at Ambattur or Perungudi. I was almost ready to book, but I wanted to see and test drive the Alcazar before taking the plunge.- This could have been a no-brainer if it had the MJD. Or atleast a petrol with better drivability. Based on the official review and many other impressions, I was prepared. The test drive (2022 Maruti XL6 Facelift Review) impression vindicated that this isn't for me.- This was the last car we saw. I was fine with the practicality. No big difference in terms of drivability compared to Carens. The entry level Prestige variant had all I wanted. The on-road I was offered was 19.15L with a promised delivery in a week.At the time of decision, the S-Cross had crossed 85000 km. Much before we became serious in looking for a car. I was clear to either sell the S-Cross before 100,000 km or wring it for life. Given the pace I was raking miles, waiting 6 months would mean further drop in trade-in price from what I had from each of the dealers.Plus if we were not stretching to 25L, we had to compromise with the Alcazar or Carens.The sticker price, short waiting time proximity of servicing, sealed the deal in favour forShort summary of my likes, dislikes and neutral pointsI made the booking on 17-September and took delivery on the 26-September. It could have been the 24th, if the RTO formalities were done on the 23rd. Last edited by narayans80 : 9th October 2022 at 13:46 . denzdm BHPian Join Date: Feb 2022 Location: MH04 Posts: 43 Thanked: 203 Times re: Tent camping road-trip across the 6 US States | Jeep Cherokee Day 9 --> Drive 100 kms (1 hour 30 mins) to Fruita Campground This campground was the most serene with ample sights of green, people and deer grazing around. The wide canopy of the trees was a bonus. As the name states Fruita name was coined after various fruit orchards that exist around. The drive around is jaw dropping and the most stunning I have ever seen. Day 10 --> Drive 230 kms (2 hours 30 mins) to Goose Island Campground This was as basic as you can get to staying in the wild. Right next to the rapid Colarado river flowing with full gusto, we setup our tent. Hardly had we popped out and our neighboring campers warned us of a rodent in their tent. However, this place doesnt have luxury of moving into a different room, so we just decided to keep the food packed in the car and not take any edible item inside the tent. Though the camping days were coming to an end, the excitement was building up. After all, it was time to visit the Delicate Arch. Its a 30 min trail from the car park and heat will suck the H2O out of you. The famous Delicate Arch is one of the most recognizable symbols of Utah and one of the world's most famous geologic features. Many people travel from all over the world just to visit Arches National Park and see this particular free-standing stone arch. The free-standing Delicate Arch is 52 feet tall and even part of the Utah vehicle license plates. When you reach the place, its so mesmerizing that you can watch the Arch all day long. This place is actually inside a cave. One good meal after a long time The Jeep takes you all places Did the deer cross the road or road crossed the forest? Over the moon Camping by river Colarado The Delicate Arch This place is actually inside a cave.One good meal after a long timeThe Jeep takes you all placesDid the deer cross the road or road crossed the forest?Over the moonCamping by river ColaradoThe Delicate Arch Day 11 --> Drive 240 kms (2 hours 40 mins) to Monument Valley and Four Corners Monument Three red sandstone hills form the horizon of the Monument Valley, which is now a symbol of the American West. For me, Forest Gump is the most memorable Hollywood movie filmed at this location. This is one place where I saw many cars stopping on the shoulder to click some memorable shots. The beauty of this place is unparalleled and its difficult to take your eyes off the place. The Four Corners Monuments on the other hand is a man-made tourist spot. It has a granite disc with a smaller bronze disc inserted around the point. Smaller, strategically placed state seals and flags that represent the local states and tribal nations surround the granite disc. Despite being in a far-off, lonely place, it is still frequented by many tourists. Breaking Bad fans - Remember the scene where Skyler visits this place? No filters Couldn't resist clicking the beautiful ride Moi posing (and admiring) the view. No filtersCouldn't resist clicking the beautiful rideMoi posing (and admiring) the view. Four corners Monument Day 12 --> Drive 270 kms (2 hours 45 mins) to the Grand Canyon The last to do on the list was Grand Canyon. Though I must admit, we thought of striking this off the list if our feet were bruised beyond recognition. So, on that day, we changed our definition of bruises and happily chugged along to witness the Grand Canyon in its full glory. The Grand Canyon needs no introduction. Its probably one of the best instances of land erosion in the world. The Colorado River has carved a 400+ km long canyon that is enormous and averages 4,000 feet in depth. At its largest and deepest points, it is 25+ kms across and 6,000 feet deep. No wonder it is one of the most studied landscape in the world. The Grand Canyon in its glory - Picture doesn't do justice to its mammoth size A Hummer Tour car to take you around the Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon in its glory - Picture doesn't do justice to its mammoth sizeA Hummer Tour car to take you around the Grand Canyon And finally, stayed on the famous Route 66 motel. Hope you enjoyed reading and admiring the pictures of the beautiful landscape. Hope this inspires you all motor heads to take that long drive. I will say adios and part with these beauties. This campground was the most serene with ample sights of green, people and deer grazing around. The wide canopy of the trees was a bonus. As the name states Fruita name was coined after various fruit orchards that exist around. The drive around is jaw dropping and the most stunning I have ever seen.This was as basic as you can get to staying in the wild. Right next to the rapid Colarado river flowing with full gusto, we setup our tent. Hardly had we popped out and our neighboring campers warned us of a rodent in their tent. However, this place doesnt have luxury of moving into a different room, so we just decided to keep the food packed in the car and not take any edible item inside the tent.Though the camping days were coming to an end, the excitement was building up. After all, it was time to visit the Delicate Arch. Its a 30 min trail from the car park and heat will suck the H2O out of you.The famous Delicate Arch is one of the most recognizable symbols of Utah and one of the world's most famous geologic features. Many people travel from all over the world just to visit Arches National Park and see this particular free-standing stone arch. The free-standing Delicate Arch is 52 feet tall and even part of the Utah vehicle license plates. When you reach the place, its so mesmerizing that you can watch the Arch all day long.Three red sandstone hills form the horizon of the Monument Valley, which is now a symbol of the American West. For me, Forest Gump is the most memorable Hollywood movie filmed at this location. This is one place where I saw many cars stopping on the shoulder to click some memorable shots. The beauty of this place is unparalleled and its difficult to take your eyes off the place.The Four Corners Monuments on the other hand is a man-made tourist spot. It has a granite disc with a smaller bronze disc inserted around the point. Smaller, strategically placed state seals and flags that represent the local states and tribal nations surround the granite disc. Despite being in a far-off, lonely place, it is still frequented by many tourists. Breaking Bad fans - Remember the scene where Skyler visits this place?The last to do on the list was Grand Canyon. Though I must admit, we thought of striking this off the list if our feet were bruised beyond recognition. So, on that day, we changed our definition of bruises and happily chugged along to witness the Grand Canyon in its full glory.The Grand Canyon needs no introduction. Its probably one of the best instances of land erosion in the world. The Colorado River has carved a 400+ km long canyon that is enormous and averages 4,000 feet in depth. At its largest and deepest points, it is 25+ kms across and 6,000 feet deep. No wonder it is one of the most studied landscape in the world.And finally, stayed on the famous Route 66 motel. Hope you enjoyed reading and admiring the pictures of the beautiful landscape. Hope this inspires you all motor heads to take that long drive. I will say adios and part with these beauties. Last edited by denzdm : 10th October 2022 at 18:52 . Reason: Duplication of content A hot potato: A US company headquartered in Florida must pay a Netherlands-based remote worker thousands of dollars after it fired him for refusing to keep his webcam activated all day. The Dutch court that ruled in the employee's favor has suggested this sort of surveillance violates human rights. Chetu said the employee was required to attend a virtual classroom, which involved leaving their webcam turned on all day and having their screen remotely monitored. The unnamed person said being monitored for "9 hours per day" was an invasion of his privacy and made him feel uncomfortable, so he refused to turn the camera on. Software development company Chetu promptly fired the employee over his "refusal to work" and "insubordination." He took the company to a Dutch court for unfair dismissal and won the case. "Tracking via camera for eight hours per day is disproportionate and not permitted in the Netherlands," the court said in its verdict. Working in your underwear is becoming increasingly risky The court also appeared to suggest the case was a human rights issue when it quoted from the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: "Video surveillance of an employee in the workplace, be it covert or not, must be considered as a considerable intrusion into the employee's private life." TechCrunch notes that Chetu would probably have gotten away with any repercussions from the firing had the employee been based in Florida, an at-will state where employers can dismiss workers for any reason. Chetu has been ordered to pay the employee $2,600 in unpaid salary, $9,245 in worker transition assistance, and $8,150 for wrongful contract termination. It must also pay a $50,000 fine and has been issued an order to remove the employee's non-compete clause. Chetu never showed up for the case. It has since dissolved its Dutch branch and, as of September 1, 2022, deregistered from the country's trade register. The pandemic saw most of the world shift to working from home. Today, companies such as Apple and Tesla have been trying to bring staff back into the office, and that's led to a lot of pushback. More firms are allowing staff to work remotely permanently, but the cost could be more invasive monitoring, at least in countries that allow it. In brief: China's semiconductor industry continues to suffer the effects of strict Covid policies, a struggling economy, and US sanctions. The country saw its largest-ever monthly drop in the production of integrated circuits in August, marking the sector's second consecutive month of decline. The South China Morning Post reports that output of ICs was down 24.7% year-on-year to 24.7 billion units in August, the single largest monthly fall recorded since records began in 1997. Production volume was the lowest on record since October 2020. This is the second month in a row that Chinese IC production has fallen; it was down 16.6% to 27.2 billion units in July. There had been a slight rebound in May and June, the result of lockdowns easing in Shanghai, where many assembly plants are located. The SCMP writes that the decline can be attributed to new coronavirus outbreaks coupled with China's zero-Covid policy, as well as consumer spending cuts, power shortages caused by local heatwaves, and the global economic downturn. But a significant factor is likely to have been US sanctions. Related reading: US-China semiconductor battle: Second and third order consequences The Biden administration introduced more restrictions on tech exports to China last week in a bid to hamper the country's ability to "obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors," which the White House says are used to produce military systems including weapons of mass destruction. China's Global Times newspaper warned that the move would have dire consequences for the US. The US previously introduced new export rules prohibiting Nvidia and AMD from selling high-end accelerators to China and Russia. The administration also has its entity list, with Huawei being the most famous name it contains. The Chinese tech giant has suffered enormously since its addition. The Post notes that a record 3,470 companies in China, including those that use the Chinese word for "chip" in their registered names, brands, or operations, went out of business in the first eight months of the year. With the impact of the most recent US restrictions yet to be felt, there's likely more woe in store for the country's tech industry. In context: When it comes to tech products, concepts are often more elegant than reality. Capabilities and functions that sound logical and straightforward often prove to be much more complicated or arduous than they first appear. Part of the problem, of course, is that many of the most advanced technologies are complex, and it can be very difficult to bring them to life. But an even more common problem is that pre-existing requirements aren't fully explained, or the number of steps required can prove to be much more challenging than first appears. To put it simply, "the devil is in the details." This is true of many cloud and AI technologies. High-level product ideas, such as the ability to quickly analyze any type of data to help generate artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML)-driven models using the new types of hardware accelerators, have been talked about for years. As Google made clear through several announcements at its Cloud Next event, however, there are a lot of important details that need to be in place in order for these ideas to become reality. To start with, not all data analysis tools and data platforms can work with any type of data. That's why the ability to import, or ingest, new and different format data types into a wider range of analytics tools is so important. Opening up the ability for data platforms like Elastic to get access to data stored on Google Cloud, and Google bringing support for Elastic into its newly expanded Looker line of business analytics tools, are just two of the many open data-related announcements made at Cloud Next. Similarly, different types of data are often stored in different formats, and analytics tools have to specifically enable support for these data structures in order to make them more useful to a wider variety of users and application developers. In the growing field of data lakehouses, for example, where large "lakes" of unstructured data, such as video and audio, are allowed to be queried with the kinds of tools found in structured data warehouses, the open-source Apache Iceberg table format is becoming increasingly popular. That's why Google added support for it and other formats, including Delta and Hudi, to its BigLake storage engine and added support for analyzing unstructured data to its BigQuery data analytics tools. Not only does this provide additional flexibility, but it also means unstructured data can leverage other Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Big Query tools, including ML functions like speech recognition, computer vision, text processing and more. Another important area of development has to do with the use of various types of hardware accelerator chips to improve AI model performance. Google has created several generations of TPUs (tensor processing units), for example, that offer important benefits for applications like AI model training or inference. In addition, there have been many recent announcements from established semiconductor companies like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm as well as a slew of chip startups focused on this burgeoning area. As you might expect, each of those chip companies use different techniques to perform the acceleration of AI and ML models. What isn't as clear is that the methods necessary to write software or create models for the different accelerators is also proprietary. As a result, it can be challenging for software developers and AI/ML model creators to take advantage of these different chips because of how difficult it can be to learn all these unique approaches. To address this, a couple of Google's more intriguing announcements from Cloud Next are the launch of a new industry consortium called the OpenXLA Project and the debut of new open-source software tools designed to ease the process of working with multiple different types of hardware accelerators. OpenXLA is designed to increase the flexibility of choices that AI/ML developers have by providing connections between most of the popular front-end frameworks used for building AI modelsincluding TensorFlow, PyTorch and JAXand a host of different hardware accelerator backends. The initial software tools being released include an upgraded XLA compiler and a portable set of ML computing operations called StableHLO. Companies that have also joined Google in the initiative include Intel, Amazon Web Services, AMD, Nvidia, Arm, Meta and more. The inclusion of Intel is interesting because in many ways, the goal of the OpenXLA Project is similar to Intel's own OneAPI, which is targeted at allowing developers to leverage Intel's several types of computing architectures such as CPUs, GPUs, and Habana Gaudi AI accelerators, without having to learn how to program for each of the different chip types. OpenXLA takes that concept to an industry-wide level and, thanks to the inclusion of many key cloud computing players, should open up a number of important new opportunities, and speed along the adoption of hardware accelerators. Like many of the announcements Google made at Cloud Next, the real-world benefits of the OpenXLA Project and the tools associated with it will take some time to make a significant impact. In the big picture of tech industry trends, these tools may seem a bit modest on their own. Collectively, however, they represent very important steps forward and are indicative of the kinds of efforts Google is making to make its tools more useful to a wider audience of people. They also reflect a strong emphasis on open-source tools and a desire to make to make its Google Cloud Platform and related offerings more transparent and more flexible. The process of leveraging all the technology tools that Google offers is still undoubtedly complex, but with the broad collection of announcements that the company unveiled at Cloud Next, it is clear that the company's evolution as a major cloud provider continues to advance. Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech. Something to look forward to: As SSD and NAND prices gradually decline, analysts now believe the price drops have no end in sight. The latest projections show that next year, consumers may be able to add 2TB worth of SSD storage to their PC for less than $100. It's safe to say that one of the best inventions for PC components was the creation of NAND flash and the subsequent M.2 SSDs. The ability to store upwards of multiple terabytes of data on a storage device nearly the same size as a stick of gum is fantastic.Unfortunately, M.2 drives with those high amounts of data have been unfathomable for most consumers for a while. Recently, SSDs have seen significant price cuts and capacity increases. Just six years ago, a 1 TB NVMe drive from Samsung cost nearly $500. Now, the same SSDs go for $90. That's an 80-percent price cut. Analysts believe this steady price decline will continue. Estimations indicate current SSD costs could be cut in half by the middle of 2023. If projections prove correct, 1 TB M.2 SSDs could retail for around $50, 2 TB SSDs might reach sub-$100 prices, and the 4 TB drives approaching the $200 mark might put them within reach of budget-minded customers. Continued oversupply won't limit price drops exclusively to M.2 SSDs, as SATA SSDs should reach noticeable lows next year. Depending on which brand you choose, a 1 TB SATA SSD might cost anywhere between $50 and $90. We could see these SSD prices fall below current 3.5" hard drive prices. Trendfocus notes that the primary influence accounting for the recent steep price cuts is OEMs can now produce NAND chips much faster than ever. The contracting tech sector and over-manufacturing resulted in a surplus of products that will not sell at their initially determined price point. These next few months should be an excellent time for those looking to upgrade their PC's storage. Next year could be even better. Unfortunately, for AM5 early adopters or those already on Intel's LGA1700 architecture, these price cuts won't affect the upcoming PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Those drives will be a hot commodity, and retailers will likely try to make up losses by taking advantage of the high demand. CAPSTONE team has successfully executed an operation to stop the spin of the spacecraft, according to SciTechDaily. This can now help the spacecraft return to its normal operations. (Photo : NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Image) Visitors stand next to a mockup of a new Russian orbital space station, presented by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, during the Army-2022 International Military-Technical Forum at the Russian Armed Forces' Patriot Park in Kubinka, outside Moscow on August 16, 2022. Last month, CAPSTONE encountered an issue that put it in safe mode. Later, it was discovered that the spacecraft was spinning beyond the capacity of the onboard reaction wheels to control and counter. Based on the data found, the possible cause was a valve-related issue in one of its thrusters. The partially open valve meant the faulty thrust generated thrust every time the propulsion system was pressurized. After reviewing telemetry and simulation data, the mission team performed multiple tests on the spacecraft to formulate a plan to stop the spacecraft's spin despite the problem. Recovery operations were conducted last week, and it showed that the maneuver was successful. The spacecraft has stopped its spin and has regained full 3-axis attitude control. Therefore, this means CAPSTONE's position can be controlled without unplanned rotation. Now, the spacecraft has oriented its solar arrays to the Sun for maximum power generation. Additionally, it adjusted its antennas to ensure better data connection to Earth. Also Read: NASA CAPSTONE is Unreachable, CubeSat Gone Dark in Space The CAPSTONE CAPSTONE is a satellite that is specifically designed to detect possible sources of gravitational waves. It is part of the larger mission to locate the sources of these waves, which can be the sources of some of the celestial objects. Gravitational waves are produced by some of the most violent and energetic events. So they could unveil the mysteries of the universe. These waves are faced as the ripples that are created by the collision of black holes, the mergers of neutron stars, and the coalescence of pairs of super-dense neutron stars. CAPSTONE has been said to be the most sensitive instrument ever made. The mission will also help scientists detect gravitational waves from a variety of sources through space. The mission will make future space missions possible. Better CAPSTONE Now that CAPSTONE's spin has stopped, the team will continue to work on its recovery operations, including better communication and storing important science data. CAPSTONE is expected to send more data to Earth in the coming days. The collected data will be used to deliver important scientific information to the scientific community. CAPSTONE is also expected to resume its observations of gravitational waves as soon as possible. The CAPSTONE team will also perform some tests to ensure their instrument is functioning properly before sending it back to its research. Related Article: NASA Finally Reestablishes Contact With New Spacecraft to the Moon This article is owned by Tech Times Written by April Fowell 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Ivacy VPN) Ivacy VPN is among the leading VPN services currently present in the VPN market. The modern world is dependent on the internet greatly for added convenience in everyday life. And as such, it has created a vulnerability for the users because cyber criminals can easily access user information if proper precautions are not taken. Ivacy VPN is there to help users keep themselves secure and private using a seemingly simple mechanism. Ivacy VPN helps hide users' actual IP addresses from third parties and further replaces that IP address with a virtual IP address from a different geographical location. By hiding your true IP address, you can keep your personal bits of information, such as your physical location, your browsing history, and login credentials, safe from prying eyes who wish to do you harm. And if you hurry up, you can get the Ivacy VPN 5-year plan at phenomenal rates. Ivacy VPN is currently offering its 5-year plan for a total of $71.64. This would mean that the 5-year plan would ultimately cost you only $1.19 per month. What makes Ivacy VPN so Great? Now then, let us also tell you why Ivacy VPN is worth subscribing to right now. Here are some of the most prominent features Ivacy VPN offers to all of its subscribers: Unblock Geo-Restricted Content One of the best uses of an Ivacy VPN subscription is to unblock geo-restricted content with it. There are numerous streaming sites available in the world. And unfortunately, many of them are only accessible within certain regions only. 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Ivacy VPN Limited-Time Deal Ivacy VPN offers numerous other charming benefits awaiting you once you subscribe to it. But none of them are as charming as Ivacy VPN's limited-time deal on the 5-year plan. If you subscribe to Ivacy VPN right now, you can get the 5-year plan for a total of $71.64. That's right, you will just be paying a maximum of $1.19 per month for the entire 5-year period. On a Final Note Now then, getting the 5-year plan for Ivacy VPN is just a click or call away. For a total of $1.19 per month, you can secure your internet activity and access blazing-fast internet speeds instantaneously. Just get in touch with an Ivacy VPN Customer Service representative to get a subscription right away. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. "MetaFork in the Road" is the latest artwork from Tesla, and it was from Hunter Leggitt Studio, which made the metaphorical piece in Palo Alto, California, for the Burning Man 2022 event. Tesla and Elon Musk are massive on artwork and pieces, as there are several installations from the company found on different Gigafactories, centering on the showcase of multiple artists. The artwork from Hunter Leggitt is a commission request from the multi-tech CEO, which Musk praised online in his latest tweet. Elon Musk and Hunter Leggitt Deliver the Tesla Fork (Photo : Stephane Lanoux, Hunter Leggitt) Yes, Elon Musk is back again with commissioning artworks from renowned contemporary creators for Tesla, centering on a visionary take on life. While the latest design from Hunter Leggitt Studio is not technologically-inclined as much as other art from Tesla, it presents a timely masterpiece that represents the life and decisions of a person. The art was made by a Denver, Colorado-based creator, Hunter Leggitt, and their team, centering on the "MetaFork in the Road" sculpture that may be found in Palo Alto. Elon Musk confirms this online, saying that this was "built and paid for" as per the tech CEO's request from the Denver-based studio. Hunter and the team created this on short notice, with only four weeks to conceptualize, design, fabricate, and install in time for Burning Man 2022. Read Also: Tesla Semi Production Kicks Off: Elon Musk Says Pepsi to Get First EV Truck Deliveries It was built & paid for at my request. Hunter & team did great work. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2022 What is 'MetaFork in the Road'? The "MetaFork in the Road" is a modern take on a classic metaphor about decision-making, and it represents a person at a crossroads on which path to take. However, in this take, Hunter Leggitt stuck a massive fork in the middle of the road, which separates one choice from the other. It is a 30-foot tall and 4,500 lbs steel installation which its team did for Burning Man 2022, showcased in the famed week-long event. Elon Musk and Art The world's top billionaire is also an art fan, and he let the world know of his fascination with the many artworks he admires and showcases online and at events, including the latest showcase called "Burning Man." Earlier in 2021, Musk also asked for graffiti artwork in the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin, making the factory's facade a canvas to showcase designs. Back when the Gigafactory Berlin was almost done with its construction, Musk showed the different designs available in the plant, and he asked for more to add to its exterior. Musk also brought his art fascination over to SpaceX, where he aims to showcase an anonymous Swiss art curator that will feature the first Mars Art Exhibition. It is a venture where he did not reveal the name of the individual to avoid any copies or being taken away from him by rival companies, including Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin or Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Musk and Tesla's latest venture truly created a masterpiece that gives the public a metaphorical representation of decision-making in life, something which people may visit time and time again. People may view this artwork in Palo Alto and take the time to contemplate their life and choices while basking on the MetaFork in the middle of the road. Related Article: Tesla GigaPress is Coming to Gigafactory Texas for Cybertruck Production-Elon Musk Can't Wait This article is owned by TechTimes Written by Isaiah Richard 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Elon Musk has voiced his opinion about China-Taiwan relations, and the Taiwanese are not impressed, according to CNBC. (Photo : CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images) Tesla CEO Elon Musk smiles as he addresses guests at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 (ONS) meeting in Stavanger, Norway on August 29, 2022. - The meeting, held in Stavanger from August 29 to September 1, 2022, presents the latest developments in Norway and internationally related to the energy, oil and gas sector. Musk suggested an arrangement in which China would have some form of control over Taiwan. Beijing views Taiwan as a renegade province that should e reunified with the mainland. In fact, China is willing to use force when necessary. According to Financial Times, Musk's recommendation "would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won't make everyone happy." He continued, "And it's possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that's more lenient than Hong Kong." One Country, Two Systems Hong Kong, which is a part of China, has been running under a policy of one country and two systems since 1997. This lets the city run as a semi-autonomous region under Beijing's rule. Therefore, Musk's suggestion has been praised by Beijing yet criticized by Taiwan. Qin Gang, the ambassador of China to the US, thanked Musk for his suggestion of having a special administrative zone for Taiwan. The ambassador also added that Taiwan would have a high degree of autonomy and a huge space for development. Also Read: Beijing Disapproves Starlink Rollout in China, Elon Musk Confirms Taiwan Isn't Up for It Taiwan has rejected the one country, two systems arrangement many times now. And it doesn't look like they will change their mind soon. Tsai Ing-wen, the President of Taiwan, delivered a National Day address but did not reference Musk's comments but discussed its relations with China. He said that they are willing to work with Beijing authorities provided there is rationality, equality, and mutual respect. Additionally, he said that they are willing to find a mutually agreeable arrangement with the country. Musk and Geopolitics Musk is known to share his opinions on geopolitics and political matters. He has been a vocal critic of Trump's trade tariffs with China. Musk isn't just sharing his opinions on Twitter. He is confidently on China's side when it comes to global affairs. It seems that he's willing to do whatever he can to make it happen. This comes as no surprise as Musk's company, Tesla, is working closely with China to build affordable electric vehicles. This is in hopes of improving the company's sales in the country. China is known to be one of Tesla's biggest markets in Asia. Additionally, his gigafactory is based in China, which is why it's not a surprise that he's showing his support for the country. Related Article: Elon Musk Wants US and China's Cooperation on Space Missions, Would It Be a Collab for SpaceX, CNSA? This article is owned by Tech Times Written by April Fowell 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. PayPal announced on Monday that it would not penalize users for providing misinformation after releasing an earlier policy update saying that individuals would be subject to fines of $2,500, as reported first by Bloomberg. After the update, which PayPal claimed "included inaccurate information," provoked severe outrage on social media over the weekend with shares of the San Jose, California-based corporation declining by almost 6%. (Photo : Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 02: A sign is posted in front of PayPal headquarters on February 02, 2022 in San Jose, California. PayPal stock fell over 25 percent after the company reported weaker than expected fourth-quarter earnings. The company also announced projected first-quarter earnings to be $.87 per share compared to analyst expectations of $1.16 per share. Acceptable Use Policy The announcement picked up steam over the weekend after the business released policy revisions that forbade users from using the PayPal service for actions it defined in its Acceptable Use Policy as "the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials." According to the reports, the new policy was supposed to start on November 3. David Marcus, the former president of PayPal, criticized the policy in a tweet on Saturday, saying it goes against everything he stands for. "It's hard for me to openly criticize a company I used to love and gave so much to. But @PayPal's new AUP goes against everything I believe in. A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something they disagree with. Insanity," Marcus tweeted. Elon Musk, the co-founder of PayPal, and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX responded to the tweet saying he "Agreed." Read Also: Indonesia Blocks Paypal, Yahoo, Gaming Platforms After Failing to Meet License Requirements Conservative Politicians Pounce on the Issue Right-wing politicians in the US have long claimed that powerful digital companies block conservative opinions, with social media giants like Twitter and Meta Platforms drawing the most criticism. Musk, who is offering to pay $44 billion to acquire Twitter, has declared that free speech will take precedence on the social media site after criticizing its treatment of individuals like artist Kanye West and former President Donald J. Trump. Progressives have supported Republican calls for greater regulation of big tech, but current proposals mandating platforms to protect user privacy and security have mainly failed as Congress prioritizes other issues. Conservative politicians and social media figures also pounced on the PayPal controversy, urging people to terminate their PayPal accounts. Republican senator from South Carolina Tim Scott said that his office will look into the policy's constitutionality and take whatever actions were required to stop such "business activism" before PayPal's recent announcement. "Allowing private companies to become thought police would be an egregious and illegal overreach. My office will be looking into the validity of PayPal's new policy and taking any necessary action to stop this type of corporate activism," Scott wrote in a tweet. Related Article: Tech Time: Amazon's Prime Air Service Drones, PayPal BNPL Extension, Microsoft Surface Deals, and More This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victo Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. ?? El Ministerio de Salud informa que 2350 personas han sido dadas de alta por #ViruelaDelMono y se han detectado 81 casos nuevos en los ultimos dias. Todos vienen recibiendo asistencia medica y se viene realizando seguimiento a sus contactos. pic.twitter.com/w1Ais7tU4O Apple's iPadOS 16.1 is set to release this late October after Apple had to delay it to focus on its all-new iPhone. So it looks like iPad users will have to wait for a couple of days more before they get their hands on the new major update of iPadOS. (Photo : George Frey/Getty Images) SALT LAKE CITY, UT - NOVEMBER 24: A shopper checks out iPads at the Apple Store at the City Creek Center looking for 'Black Friday" deals on November 25, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The day after Thanksgiving, called Black Friday, is typically the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States. Apple's iPadOS 16.1 to Release This Late October As per the latest report by 9to5Mac, Bloomberg journalist, Mark Gurman, revealed in his recent tweet that the upcoming iPadOS 16.1 is seeing the light of day by the last week of October. The online news outlet notes that Apple confirmed last August that it has decided to delay the rollout of iPadOS 16 to October. However, the renowned tech giant did not provide any specific release date. On the other hand, iOS 16 arrived to iPhone users last September along with the debut of the new iPhone 14 series. And as such, the first release of the new iPadOS is version 16.1 due to a one-month delay. But this time, Gurman says that his sources are claiming that Apple is "on track" to start rolling out the upcoming iPadOS 16.1 on October 24. What to Expect from iPadOS 16.1 Besides the release date of the next iPadOS, the Bloomberg journalist also bared what to expect from the new update. He says that the stable version of the software smashes tons of annoying bugs that the beta counterpart has been notoriously plagued with. (Photo : Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) NOVATO, CALIFORNIA - JULY 13: A iPad is displayed at a Costco store on July 13, 2021 in Novato, California. According the U.S. Labor Department, the U.S. consumer price index increased 0.9% in June and 5.4% from the same month one year ago, the highest 12-month rate increase since 2008. 9to5 Mac reports that early users of the iPadOS 16 Beta have complained about its instability issues. But it appears that this new update addresses the problems. According to Mac Rumors, the upcoming update works with various iPads. It includes the fifth-generation iPad mini and later, the fifth-generation iPad and its newer siblings, and the third-generation iPad Air and its successors. Not to mention that it is also compatible with all iPad Pro releases. Read Also: iPadOS 16 Stage Manager Optimization Now Allows Small iPhone Apps To Work on iPad - Including Instagram! New iPad and MacBook This October? Gurman furthered that the late October release of iPadOS 16.1 could potentially come along with a new hardware launch. 9to5 Mac says that Apple has been unveiling some of its new products in October in time for its earning calls with investors. To be more precise, the 2021 MacBook Pro saw the shimmer of the spotlight last October. And none other than the iPhone 12 also had an October launch. Related Article: iPadOS 16 Beta Reportedly Comes with SECRET Custom Lock Screen! How to Get it? This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Teejay Boris 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. ByteDance released its newest virtual-reality headset in China earlier this month. The Pico 4 VR headset saw immediate success when the TikTok owner managed to sell over 100,000 units of it in just two weeks. Pico 4 Sales Boom in China (Photo : Pico) The newest Pico 4 VR headset features a lower price compared to Meta's Quest 2, but still it needs further improvements to compete with other global brands. Just a couple of weeks after the release of Pico 4 stand-alone VR headset, ByteDance immediately reaped profits from selling it in the biggest market. According to The South China Morning Post, the popular wearable technology has quickly caught the attention of Chinese buyers who are looking for a good alternative to Meta's Quest 2. At the moment, the Quest 2 VR headset is not yet available in China. ByteDance sold at least 10,000 units of Pico 4 thanks to the bigger distributors in China including JD.com and Taobao. The latter was owned by Alibaba Group Holding. Regarding the sold products, Pico did not specifically reveal the exact figures for the offline sales. However, Zhao Siquan, the senior analyst of IDC, said that the recent sales performance can be considered "fairly good" given that it just got released in the region. "Most VR users in China are young people in first- and second-tier cities. Given Pico 4's specs and pricing, the product could be highly accepted by consumers. But its sales will also depend on the economic situation, as well as the company's promotions and content [on the platform]," Zhao said. Related Article: Pico 4 Standalone VR Headset to Compete With Meta Quest 2: Snapdragon XR2 Chip, 8GB RAM, and More Why is Pico 4 a Good Pick For VR Fans? In the same report by SCMP, the Pico 4 can compete with Quest 2 when it comes to some of its specifications. Both of these wearables boast a Snapdragon XR2 chipset, as well as a 90Hz refresh rate. When it comes to the display, Pico 4 has an edge over Quest because it offers 2,160x2,160 pixels per eye. On the other hand, Meta's VR headset only features 1,823x1,920 pixels. Aside from that, the Pico 4 VR headset sits at a lower price across Europe. It starts at $420 (429 Euros) for the 128GB variant. For bigger storage at 256GB, it is priced at 499 Euros. The Quest 2 128GB model sells for 449.99 Euros while the 256 variant sits at 549.99 Euros. It should be noted that Quest 2 offers Facebook access to Chinese users. Despite that, China has blocked social media access to all users in the country. As of now, the reviewers are enjoying Pico 4 especially because of its lightweight design. However, some critics said that its lower price compensates for the lack of specs that will make it more balanced. For Quest 2 users, VR Scout shares a list of the ten amazing games that you can play on this virtual-reality headset. Read Also: Pico Pro 4 Headset Coming Next Week? Meta VR Hardware Rival Posts Teaser for Upcoming Event This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joseph Henry 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Some major U.S. airports' websites were inaccessible early on Monday due to what appears to be a concerted denial-of-service attack orchestrated by pro-Russian hackers, according to a report by AP. Fortunately, officials said that flights were not compromised by the attack. (Photo : CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images) A person watches planes take off from the Tom Bradley International terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Los Angeles, California, on August 10, 2022. DoS Attack A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack aims to bring down a computer system or network so that its intended users are unable to access it. DoS attacks achieve this by providing the victim with an excessive amount of traffic or information that causes a crash. The attacks were reportedly carried out by a shadowy organization going by the name of Killnet. The group posted a target list on its Telegram channel the day before the attacks. According to Andrew Gobeil, a spokesman for Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, they discovered this morning that the external website was down and their IT and security team are investigating the disruption. Gobeil added that their operations have not been impacted by the attack. The Los Angeles International Airport website's public-facing portion was also interrupted, according to its spokesperson Victoria Spilabotte. She noted that there were no operational delays or compromised internal airport systems. The airport's information-technology staff was attempting to restore all services and look into the cause, according to Spilabotte, who also stated that the airport had alerted the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration. Other airports that were on Killnet's list of targets also reported having issues with their websites, according to AP. The websites for O'Hare International and Midway airports went offline early on Monday, according to a statement from the Chicago Department of Aviation, although no airport operations were impacted. Denial-of-service assaults, such as those directed against airports and state governments, are normally brief and usually "superficial", according to John Hultquist, vice president for threat intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant. Read Also: US Government Charged Four Russian Government Employees for Allegedly Hacking Hundreds of Companies Killnet's Previous Attacks A distributed denial-of-service attack against public and private institutions in Lithuania was carried out in June after Lithuania prohibited the passage of steel and ferrous metals to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea. Killnet claimed responsibility for the attack. In August, Killnet was reported to have shut down the websites of Lockheed Martin Corp. The Mandiant division of Google LLC provided evidence that there is a connection between Killnet and the Russian government in a study published in September. "Mandiant has also identified limited links between XakNet Team and the pro-Russia so-called "hacktivist" group KillNet, and we assess with moderate confidence that XakNet and KillNet have directly coordinated some of their activity," the firm said in an executive summary of their study. Related Article: Solarwinds Hack 2020: Russian Hackers Target 5 US Agencies Using 18,000 Software Users as Access Points-Report This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A Samsung 49-inch curved monitor is now dropping its price to $849. This particular listing is much more affordable than one of its popular curved gaming monitor units, the 55-inch Odyssey Ark, which costs $3,500. 55-inch Odyssey Ark Curved Gaming Monitor Sells at a Steep $3,500 While some argue that the extra six inches would go a long way, some gamers have been having a hard time justifying if the 55-inch Odyssey Ark is worth it. For $3,500, gamers can already afford another high-powered gaming computer. Due to the price of the 55-inch Odyssey Ark monitor, it can be hard for gamers to justify spending that much on a curved monitor. The good news is that Samsung has an alternative that isn't extremely far off. New Samsung Alternative is a 49-inch Curved Monitor that Costs Just $849 The Samsung alternative is a 49-inch curved monitor that has dropped its price to $849. This is a $350 discount from its previous price of $1,199. Even at its original price, the curved monitor is still about a third of the price of the 55-inch Odyssey Ark monitor. According to the story by ZDNet, buyers can choose between the 55-inch Odyssey Ark curved gaming monitor for $3,500 or a Samsung Super Ultra-Wide 49-inch DQHD Curved Gaming Monitor for just $849. 49-inch Samsung Curved Gaming Monitor Reportedly Gives Players VR Feels The 49-inch Samsung curved gaming monitor was found on GameStop at just $849, a $350 drop from its original price. The more affordable Samsung alternative has a 32:9 ultra-wide ratio that curves over the user's view field. As per the article, the monitor can give players a feel of VR without actually being in Virtual Reality. Users will reportedly also get a special Eye Comfort mode for reducing blue light emissions to help minimize the strain on the users' eyes. Read Also: 34-Inch Dell Curved Monitor Slashes Prices by $250: Worth It at $620? 49-inch Samsung Curved Gaming Monitor Specs Due to its large viewing angles, users can use the Picture-by-Picture option to multitask with multiple window tabs and games when they are done working. The most important specs, as per ZDNet, is that the gaming monitor can have 1000 nits of brightness on the QLED screen. The monitor also comes with a dual QHD display and support for the AMD Radeon FreeSync 2, which helps enhance the quality of pictures while reducing the overall input latency and stuttering. The monitor's refresh rate is impressive at 120 Hz, making it perfect for gaming. Samsung 55-inch Odyssey Ark is Also Being Sold at a $200 Discount Bringing Its Price Down to Just $3,299.99 Samsung is also selling the 55-inch Odyssey Ark 4K UHD 165Hz 1ms Quantum Mini-LEd curved gaming screen for those who do not want to compromise on power and still want the best. The Samsung website is selling the massive curved gaming monitor at a $200 discount bringing the price to just $3,299.99 or about $3,300. Related Article: Samsung Announces First QD-OLED Gaming Monitor, Available for Preorder Now This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Urian B. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Royal Navy announced that its newest aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, will be resuming its front-line operations. The aircraft carrier has departed Portsmouth and is set to return to Rosyth. (Photo : Andrew Matthews-Pool/Getty Images) PORTSMOUTH, UNITED KINGDOM - SEPTEMBER 22: Princess Anne, Princess Royal, as Commodore-in-Chief Portsmouth, meets Royal Navy personnel as she visits Portsmouth Naval Base to meet and thank members of the armed forces involved in her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's funeral on September 22, 2022 in Portsmouth, United Kingdom. In Rosyth, the aircraft carrier will have its starboard propeller shaft worked on as it suffered a mechanical defect as it left New York last month. Divers saw that the shaft coupling had failed, and the fastest way to repair it was in Rosyth. Since the aircraft carrier returned to Portsmouth Naval Base last month, engineers, naval architects, and divers have been working to ensure the HMS Prince of Wales has everything it needs when it goes back to operations. Also Read: UK's Royal Naval Gets $284M Revamp With New Induction of US Tomahawk Missiles Unknown Repair Time Until the aircraft carrier arrives in the dry dock, that's only when they will know how long it will take for the HMS Prince of Wales is fully operational again. To prepare for its return to Rosyth, the navigation team of the carrier has trained on a simulator alongside Forth pilots and tug captains at South Shields Marine School at the South Tyneside College to practice anchorage and sailing under the three Forth bridges and into the dry dock. The ship has sailed with 750 men and women who will stay on the ship and continue training for renewed operations and support the maintenance package while in Rosyth. They will continue to crew and train on the systems of the ship for their operational role. Royal Navy's Newest Aircraft Carrier On the other hand, this is the third time that the HMS Prince of Wales has been in Rosyth since it was handed over to the Royal Navy. It was previously in the dock in 2017, where it was fitted out and made ready to sail out of its dock on its first sea trial in June 2017. It was also in the dry dock for its handover trials. This carrier is currently in the design stage of its second aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which was commissioned in December 2017. The HMS Prince of Wales is the Royal Navy's largest-ever warship and, unlike its sister ship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth is configured for incorporating a centerline landing deck with four landing spots for the F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft. Each landing spot can support the launch and recovery of two aircraft. The carrier and its air wing of 40 aircraft can carry out a range of tasks which include providing air defense for the UK and to help with the protection of UK airspace and operations acting far from home. Related Article: US Navy Will Deploy the Most Expensive Aircraft Carrier in the World This article is owned by Tech Times Written by April Fowell 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Astrophysicists looking into the Milky Way's beginnings may have found the "ancient heart" of our galaxy, which is the original, prehistoric core around which all of its stars and planets evolved, according to a report by Live Science. The Milky Way protogalaxy, which is more than 12.5 billion years old and composed of primordial gas and dust that formed the earliest stars of a newborn galaxy, contains a cluster of 18,000 galaxy's oldest stars. These stars are found in the constellation Sagittarius. The group, which accounts for an estimated 0.2% of the mass of our galaxy, served as the starting point for the ultimate formation of the Milky Way as a whole, according to the researchers. The research findings have not yet received peer review, but it is now published on the preprint server arXiv on Saturday, Sept. 8. Locating the Ancient Heart with Gaia's Data European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia observatory, a 3594-pound (1,630 kilograms) probe launched in 2013 to produce the most accurate and detailed Milky Way map, provided the data the astronomers used to find the primordial collection of stars. According to Hans-Walter Rix, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, and the study's lead author, it has long been assumed that the oldest stars are located at the galaxy's core, and the research has now demonstrated that they are there in significant quantities. "It's like doing archeology in an old city. We have shown that the oldest and most primitive ruins are at the 'modern' city center," the researcher said in a statement with Live Science. The most crowded area of our galaxy, its central bulge, was initially searched for the tiny fraction of stars that were nearly the same age as the Milky Way's approximately 13 billion-year-old core. The researchers combined data from Gaia on 2 million stars within 30 degrees of the center of the galaxy, seeking lower-mass, longer-lived stars with low metal content to extract this little group. Read also: Astronomers Unveil the First-Ever Map of the Milky Way's Graveyard Two Discoveries Two things came to light during the researchers' analysis of the Milky Way's ancient heart. Firstly, the fact that older stars revolve less slowly than younger stars at the galactic center supports earlier discoveries that the Milky Way's core was initially motionless before building up rotational speed as the galaxy's center of mass evolved. Secondly, the dense clustering of stars in the Milky Way's center suggests that its core has not been invaded by collisions with other galaxies despite numerous mergers with smaller galaxies. The researchers are hoping that further research on the ancient heart will reveal even more information about the early history of our galaxy, including the kinds of supernova explosions that must have taken place at that time to produce the proportions of the earliest chemical elements that are present today. Related Article: Gaia Space Probe Finds Weird 'Starquakes' in the Milky Way Through 3D Map This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. General Motors (GM) intends to take on Tesla's solar Powerwall business after announcing that it will release its own solar power and storage system beginning in the latter part of next year, according to a report by Bloomberg. The business said in a statement that a new business unit named GM Energy is collaborating with SunPower to offer solar panels and in-home energy storage for residential and commercial users. Bloomberg noted that this venture is comparable to Tesla's energy business, in which automaker-built panels charge a battery that provides houses with electricity during blackouts or at night. The home energy system will be offered with GM's electrified Chevrolet Silverado, which is anticipated to go into production next year. Read also: GM to Deliver on Ultium Battery Packs for Military EVs-US Forces to Adapt Clean Energy Too GM Enters the Energy Sector This new business venture allows GM to enter the energy storage sector and gives electric vehicle owners a more inexpensive way to charge their vehicles. As part of the program, GM is also striking agreements with utilities to let owners of its electric vehicles (EVs) utilize their cars' batteries to power their homes in the event of a blackout. The service will begin the following year as part of a test project between GM, and PG&E. Ford Motor's F-150 Lightning pickup offers a comparable capability, as per Bloomberg. Travis Hester, vice president of GM EV growth operations, emphasized there has never been a more crucial time for the stability of the American electrical power grid. "Sustainable energy solutions and services that can assist reduce the impact of power outages and give clients with resilient and cost-effective energy management," Hester said in a statement. According to the company, GM is collaborating with Consolidated Edison and New Hampshire Electric Cooperative to establish similar pilot initiatives. The business reported a 25% increase in solar deployments in the second quarter. According to analyst Wood MacKenzie, GM's partner SunPower is the country's fifth-largest solar provider after Tesla at number 4. Sam Abuelsamid, the principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights, told Bloomberg that more businesses would be competing to provide power solutions, particularly solar, for use in homes and commercial fleets as some US regions experience an increase in blackouts. Related Article: General Motors Will Push for New EPA Standards to Promote Mass EV Adoption This article is owned by Tech Times Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An AI tech brought back the deceased Apple founder, Steve Jobs. The technology behind this is Podcast.ai. It seemed the late CEO was able to guest in an interview with Joe Rogan. (Photo : Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Apple head Steve Jobs speaks arrives at a press conference to announce that T-Mobile will be the partner for selling the iPhone in Germany September 19, 2007 in Berlin, Germany. The iPhone will go on sale for EUR 399 in Germany starting November 9. For the past few years, artificial intelligence systems that can copy dead people have been developed and enhanced. There are some models that can take pictures of deceased individuals moving, making their loved ones happy. Now, a new AI-based audio toolkit was able to copy how Steve Jobs talked. Here's what the former Apple CEO said when he was brought back by Podcast.ai. AI Brings Steve Jobs Back, Thanks to Podcast.ai According to 9to5Mac's latest report, Podcast.ai explained that it chose Steve Jobs as its first guest since it wanted to create inspirational content. (Photo : Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivers the keynote address at the 2004 Worldwide Developers Conference June 28, 2004 in San Francisco, California. Jobs announced the 2005 release of OSX Tiger and a new line of flat panel cinema displays including the first 30-inch model designed for the personal computer. Also Read: Google's AI Tool Imagen Lets You Generate High-Res Videos from a Text-Prompt The company added that there's no one more inspiring than the former Apple founder himself. Because of this, they decided to bring back the voice of Jobs. Podcast.ai explained how they were able to copy Steve Jobs' voice. "The Steve Jobs episode was trained on his biography and all recordings of him we could find online so the AI could accurately bring him back to life," said the artificial intelligence firm. However, the AI version of Jobs' voice still has some flaws. These include a slight robotic sound. On the other hand, there were some instances when artificial intelligence couldn't match the content. What Steve Jobs AI Shared Interesting Engineering reported that the Steve Jobs AI version discussed many things about technology. However, he didn't include Macintosh and other Apple products. Instead, artificial intelligence focused on the absence of "aesthetic sense" at Microsoft. On the other hand, the former Apple founder also shared his opinion about Adobe and how the software company can be fixed. If you want to learn more about the AI version of Steve Jobs, you can visit this link. In other news, a new AI-powered laser system was developed to kill cockroaches. Meanwhile, another AI system was created to protect endangered whales. For more news updates about AIs and other similar technologies, always keep your tabs open here TechTimes. Related Article: Steve Jobs Apple-1 Computer Prototype 1976 Model Now Auctioned for Almost Half a Million Dollars! This article is owned by TechTimes Written by: Griffin Davis 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. ?? COMUNICADO | En el marco del compromiso del Ministerio de Salud de proteger a los peruanos contra el virus Monkeypox se informa a la ciudadania lo siguiente. pic.twitter.com/7qeYjxGtLt The Spanish fan who traveled on foot to Qatar to watch the World Cup has disappeared: "We fear that he is being held in Iran due to the political situation" At the end of the meeting, Rennan Espinoza, Mayor-elect of Puente Piedra, commented that democracy is being strengthened on the basis of dialogue between local authorities and the Government. Espinoza remarked that dialogue is imperative for the development of districts and the capital city. Moreover, he noted that they cannot turn their back on neighbors in order to seek the best for the city. For his part, Pedro Espadaro, virtual mayor of Callao, described this first meeting with the Head of State as beneficial and productive. According to the mayor-elect, the meeting covered topics like public safety, infrastructure, housing, environment, education, and health. In addition, Espadaro said that he forwarded the request to President Castillo to hold a meeting in order to set a Callao agenda for the next four years, by addressing the demands of each district. "We have expressed our willingness to work together," he pointed out. (END) VVS/JCR/RMB The President of the Republic Pedro Castillo on Monday met with virtual mayors-elect of Metropolitan Lima and Callao, who highlighted the Government's willingness to undertake joint efforts in favor of citizens.Published: 10/10/2022 Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace & Democracy 11th October 2022 Annihilation of Human Rights in Indian Jails: the Demise of Mr. Altaf Shah The unfortunate and avoidable demise of jailed Kashmiri leader Altaf Shah is really shocking, sad and speaks volumes about the continued insensitivity of the Indian Govt towards political prisoners. Despite a SC order to get him shifted from RML to AIIMS for renal cancer treatment, the Govt delayed this and killed the possibility of any effective treatment that could have been provided to the esteemed leader from J&K. This is despite the family reaching out to the Prime Minister of India and other authorities for a humane response to his medical emergency. This goes on to prove that government of India believes that it can get away with political murders in this heinous fashion where not only the family and immediate society, but rule of law itself is made helpless in coming to the aid of political prisoners. The BJP government believes in making death a fate accompli is evident from this. The demise of Altaf Shah is another body blow to any possible peace process regarding the Kashmir conflict. This extra-legal murder should be condemned by Indian society and all international institutions. After the political murder of Fr. Stan Swamy in custody, that of Altaf Shah, exposes the animosity with which government of India is dealing with the framework of human rights, in Indian jails. PIPFPD joins the family of departed leader Altaf Shah and the people of Jammu & Kashmir in condemning the culpable negligence and indifference of Government of India that led to the death of Mr. Shah. We demand that those responsible for his death be made accountable. We demand immediate release of all political prisoners, especially those suffering from ailments and chronic diseases. The barbarism as reflected in the killings of political prisoners must not be allowed to become a norm, tarnishing the constitution of India and rule of law. PIPFPD India Chapter pipfpd.india[at]gmail.com YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Defense of Armenia Suren Papikyan received Isabelle Dumont, advisor to the French President, the ministry said in a news release. The meeting was also attended by French Ambassador to Armenia Anne Louyot. Minister Papikyan thanked the French government for strongly condemning the Azerbaijani large-scale aggression against Armenias sovereign territory, for giving clear and addressed assessments, as well as for supporting the efforts aimed at establishing peace in the region. The minister also presented the current situation resulting from the latest Azerbaijani aggression. In her turn Isabelle Dumont reaffirmed the position of the French side according to which the Azerbaijani armed forces must withdraw from the sovereign territory of Armenia, and that the existing issues must be solved exclusively peacefully. The Armenian-French defense cooperation, in particular the implementation of the agreements reached during the Defense Ministers recent to France were discussed during the meeting. What do Jennifer Aniston or Eugenia Silva do to their faces? All the secrets of facial treatment that rejuvenates without surgery and naturally YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Around 22:10, 10 October, the Azerbaijani armed forces opened gunfire from various caliber small arms at Armenian military positions deployed in the eastern section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the Armenian Ministry of Defense said. The Azerbaijani gunfire was suppressed with countermeasures. There are no losses from the Armenian side. Members of The Louisiana Association of Educators and members of Together Baton Rouge cheer at a rally for a petition drive to persuade the EBR School Board to reject all future requests for industrial tax exemptions. The groups hope the taxes to fund a raise for all school employees. It may seem remarkable that anyone would view their short-term profits as more important than the survival of humankind, but this is the simple reason were losing the battle against global warming. The complex reason is slightly trickier. In the words of British philosopher Timothy Morton, the warming of the planet is a hyperobject so massive and diffuse that it defeats our understanding of space and time. We find it conceptually difficult to connect so many diverse events in different corners of the world wildfires in Europe, floods in Pakistan and see them as one thing. Morton may be stating the obvious in an elaborate manner, but its useful to have a term that helps define our complacency in the face of apocalypse. Artist Richard Mosse at the NGV. Credit:Eddie Jim The Irish photographer Richard Mosse has talked about hyperobjects in relation to a body of work so politically and aesthetically ambitious it defies comparisons. Its commonplace for artists to claim a cheap profundity for a piece that signals their concern with issues of politics or identity, but Mosse spends much of his time in the field, usually in the most inhospitable locations. His new film, Broken Spectre, which debuted at the National Gallery of Victoria last week, is the result of three years toil in the Amazon basin, tracking the destruction of the rainforest. The statistics are well-known but bear repeating: the Amazon produces more than six per cent of the worlds oxygen, it contains 40 per cent of the worlds remaining rainforest and 25 per cent of its biodiversity. At present, an area of forest larger than a football field is being cleared every minute. By 2030, more than a quarter of the jungle will be gone, and by 2050, with the escalating effects of global warming, it could be entirely lost. Under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro, elected in 2018, and currently angling for a second term, exploitation of the Amazon has increased by more than 90 per cent. Long COVID clinics across the country are being inundated with requests for assessments from patients struggling with ongoing symptoms, an inquiry has heard. Doctors told the federal parliamentary inquiry into Long COVID and Repeated COVID-19 infections on Wednesday they are struggling to keep up with demand and waitlists are increasing. At least 10 million Australians have been infected with COVID-19 and its estimated three to five per cent will develop long COVID at some point. Burnet Institute epidemiologist Professor Margaret Hellard says long COVID numbers in Australia are not yet known, but may be three to five per cent of people with previous infections. Long COVID is characterised by long-term health issues including heart palpitations and extreme fatigue, which usually arise three months from the onset of COVID-19, with symptoms lasting at least two months, according to the World Health Organisation. Our waitlist is increasing because what weve observed is that it can take some time for the recognition of post-COVID conditions, particularly with the fatigue-predominant types, to reach us, Royal Childrens Hospital Associate Professor Shidan Tosif told the inquiry. Patients are usually referred to specialist clinics through a GP and while there is no official cure, symptoms can sometimes be treated on a case-by-case basis. Loading The inquiry by the House of Representatives health committee is investigating the economic, social, educational and health impacts of long COVID and repeat infections in Australia. Infectious disease physician Irani Thevarajan from Melbournes Peter Doherty Institute said more resources are required to keep up with demand. I wouldnt say its overwhelming the health system, I just think weve got an increased demand and were trying to meet that demand by increasing our resources and capacity, Dr Irani said. Margaret Hellard, deputy director at Melbournes Burnet Institute, said official data on how many Australians are suffering from long COVID is not yet known, but is generally quoted as three to five per cent. If youve got 10 million people infected, if its three per cent thats 300,000 people big numbers, she said. Even if theyre overestimates, in a disease where theres a high proportion of the community getting infected then a small percentage becomes consequential. AAP YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to Tunisia Arshak Poladyan held meetings with Khalil al-Tazarki, the Director-General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad, heads of the departments of international cooperation, consular and legal affairs, La Francophonie department, as well as the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Moncef Boukthir, the foreign ministry said in a press release. Issues related to enhancing bilateral and multilateral cooperation, conducting mutual high-level visits, developing a legal-contractual framework, organizing political consultations between foreign ministries of the two countries and simplifying entry visa for citizens of the two countries were discussed. The upcoming La Francophonie summit which will be held in Tunisia in November was also discussed. During the meeting with Minister Boukthir, Poladyan discussed opportunities for organizing academic mutual visits between Armenia and Tunisia, establishing cooperation between various universities and conducting joint scientific research. The issue of establishing cooperation between the Yerevan State University and University of Tunis El Manar was also discussed. During the meetings ambassador Poladyan briefed the officials on the May, November 2021 and 13-15 September, 2022 Azeri aggressions against Armenias territorial integrity and sovereignty and invasion into Armenias internationally recognized territories, attaching importance to the international communitys clear position over the withdrawal of the Azeri troops from Armenias territory back to their initial positions. If only Labor had blocked the legislation originally The irony of the debate is not that Labor, prior to the 2022 election, promised not to rescind the tax cuts to people who are managing quite well without them, but that it allowed them through. Scott Morrisons shock win in 2019, with a one-seat majority, allowed Josh Frydenberg to put the tax cuts to the Parliament with a time fuse due to ignite as we approached the 2025 election cycle, and as a carrot for voters to re-elect the Coalition in 2022. Labor walked into both traps. Blocking the legislation in the first place would have removed the need to promise to stand by the cuts in 2022. John Mosig, Kew Changing commitments to suit changed conditions Why do politicians call this a promise to be set in stone? It is a policy setting made under conditions prevailing at the time. As with any setting, if conditions change the setting should be adjusted to accommodate the changed reality. Ray Bincart, Port Melbourne The recommendations we should consider Has everyone forgotten about the major tax review conducted by Dr Ken Henry in 2009? Surely some of his sound principles would still have relevance today. Sue Acheson, Rokeby Taking a big picture look at the entire system The discussion on stage 3 tax cuts has generated the ideal time to review the entire tax system. This is being called for by businesses and unions. Whether the tax cuts come in 2024 is totally irrelevant. Howard Barnes, Docklands The tax changes that would most benefit Australians The Albanese government is committed to the stage 3 tax cuts. It should also commit itself to basing the capital gains tax on 100 per cent of the gain rather than the current 50per cent, to introducing a federal wealth tax and to raising the top marginal income tax rate by five percentage points. Alan Gunther, Carlton Adding lightness and humour to a serious topic The highly regressive stage 3 tax cuts hardly make entertaining reading, but Sean Kellys latest article (Comment, 10/10) was a delight. This was not only for the clarity and acute analysis that always mark his work, but for a phrase I have never heard before: speaking in tea-leaves. It has a subtle charm and humour all its own. Just thinking of it makes me smile. Anthea Hyslop, Eltham THE FORUM A well-being budget Much is being written about the cost of the stage three tax cuts to the budgets bottom line. Another major cost is the offshore processing of asylum seekers and long-term mandatory detention. According to the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales, in 2021 it cost $3.4million to hold someone in Nauru or Papua New Guinea and $362,000 to hold someone in detention in Australia. This is a waste of taxpayers money and human resources. In contrast it costs about $4429 for an asylum seeker to live in the community on a bridging visa while their claim is processed, not to mention the benefits to their mental health. Lets widen our focus on savings to to a well-being budget that benefits us all. Kate Malangre, Bayswater North How strong is our defence? The Australian Defence Force programs are billions over budget, in addition to being well behind schedule (The Age, 11/10). Some programs are now redundant. If the Ukraine war has taught us anything, it is the importance of missile defence, particularly for an island nation. Undoubtedly there are intercontinental ballistic missiles pointed in our direction. We need both defensive counter missiles and an offensive missile defence to act as a deterrent to attack. I have not heard of any such program. Perhaps the ADF can enlighten us on our current missile defence capability. Look at Chinas missile program, perhaps now the best in the world. Brett Osborn, Mornington Cancelling all dissenters As usual, John Silvester is right on point (The Age, 8/10). I am appalled by trial by media, social and other, that is prevalent today. No longer do we have guillotining in the public square or accusations of witchcraft. Instead we have twitter and all the other forms of media that are so quick to see only one side of a story. There is no longer any acceptable way to voice dissent as one is automatically cancelled by those who assert there is only one true answer. Sadly, these days most people are satisfied to judge based on the half story, the sexy story, and are not interested in alternative points of view. Recently it was the Day of Atonement, the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. One verse that is repeated many times includes these words when referring to the Almighty: Compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and truth. I suggest these principles are ones that we would do well to aspire to. Deborah Wiener, barrister, East St Kilda Dont warn us, take action Re A nightmare: Dangerous potholes are putting drivers and cars at risk (Sunday Age, 9/10). It appears that VicRoads is unable to fix any potholes as it has spent its entire road maintenance budget on Rough surface signs. David Zemdegs, Armadale All power to independents Congratulations to The Ages editor Gay Alcorn. The new approach to the state election creating a Citizens Agenda that defines issues and then asks questions of politicians on behalf of those citizens is timely. However, if citizens want their questions answered, then it is timely to vote in more independents. We would also get a new age of politicians in Victoria. Anna Cook, Kew Listen to voters concerns Congratulations to The Age for changing how it will respond to the upcoming election. Effective change can only be achieved if taxpayers needs and concerns, along with the wise guidance of experts in all fields, are listened to and addressed. Change only happens through awareness, not by election promises Christine Baker, Rosanna Pie in the sky promises| Both major parties appear to be living in an alternative universe on public transport promises. The Coalition promises discounted metropolitan public transport fares, and half-price regional train fares, without a commitment to improving frequency, reliability or speed of services. Labor promises a not-so-fast or direct airport-rail link, via Sunshine, which is a bit like driving from Melbourne to Bendigo via Geelong. I hope some of the alternative parties and candidates land some real world rail policies that Victorians actually need. Nick Roberts, Shepparton Putins criminal regime Russia cannot win the military battle so Vladimir Putin now deliberately targets Ukrainian civilian targets, exactly what Hitler did during the London Blitz of World War II. And look how that ended for him and for Germany. Russia has a choice: remove Putin or end up a broken country. We should help by closing the Russian embassy in Australia as we cannot tolerate the presence of representatives of this criminal regime. Wayne Alexander, Eltham Standing up to Putin Your editorial Wounded Putin makes world more dangerous (The Age, 10/10) makes me wonder what options Ukraine had but to fight back when it was invaded. It is starting to make headway in this war which it did not start, nor want. The blowing up of the Kerch Bridge was necessary to disrupt supply lines and delay Russian reinforcements. Putin is refusing to negotiate. It is naive to think that simply appeasing him, rolling over and not fighting back will stop him. Putin has to fall before Ukraine is free from Russian oppression. All power to Ukraine for fighting this world battle largely on its own. A wounded Putin may be dangerous, but not standing up to him is a whole lot worse. Greg Tuck, Warragul Our vital water resources A half-dozen Australian experts nominated undersea internet cables as critical Weakest links offer soft targets (Comment, 11/10). Their focus with modern technology and cyber security overlooks Dorothea Mackellars epic poem, containing the words of drought and flooding rains. We can live without the internet for a few days or months. However, sabotage of the water resources of the driest continent could result in loss of water supply or flooding from dam bursts. Both would rapidly disrupt food supply, hydro generation, the health sector (outbreaks of disease due to poor hygiene), and other critical sectors. We would not survive for long. If that is the best thinking our critical infrastructure experts can manage, then our country is in deep trouble. Frans Brouwer, Ringwood North Is the Big Build too big? It is all very well for The Age to report on climate change action and carbon emissions, but why doesnt it highlight the fact that about 40 per cent of Victorias emissions come from the construction industry, and question the impact of the governments Big Build agenda? Is there too much construction happening? Moving the buildings and construction sector onto a low-carbon pathway will slow climate change and deliver strong economic recovery benefits, so it should be a clear priority for all governments. Sophie Paterson, Hawthorn VCE, the rite of passage Alexandra Cowens article After final exams comes a test we couldnt prepare for (Comment, 10/10) could have been written by any senior student for decades, or by others for decades ahead. There was a time when a student could leave school at 14 and get an OK job; that stepped up to 15. A Leaving Certificate at 16 or 17 gave entry to most of the world. Matriculation at 17 or 18 was only for university aspirants. It then became the de facto mandatory requirement, and hence TAFE or university beyond. Nobody can prepare you for what lies ahead. Year 12 is a rite of passage. You get more tense and snappish. Wise parents will support students without demanding anything. Weeks after the final exam, you are human again, without necessarily falling for the trap of the newspaper-espoused Schoolies Week, encouraging the gullible to squander their money. Hopefully you will do something useful at home to show your gratitude. A year later, you are 19, and into a new world. The once all-important year 12 is but a distant memory, and now insignificant. Roderick Smith, retired secondary teacher, Surrey Hills The very spooky Santa Annie Flynns point about the ghastly collide of Halloween and Christmas in the shops (Comment, 11/10) rings true that mostly we are at the mercy of consumerism. Yet in the spirit of ghoulish joy and togetherness, there is nothing quite like themed celebrations to bring a smile to our collective faces as we share in the festivities. Stephanie Ashworth, Pascoe Vale South Inexcusable persecution I have no problem with religious beliefs that only affect the individual involved, such as wearing a scarf, not drinking alcohol or their personal sexual practices. That is their business. But when their religious beliefs are used to justify the persecution of others, particularly vulnerable minorities, that can never be justified. It must be condemned. Jill Edwards, Camberwell Optional common sense COVID-19 mandates during the last few years existed because people (generally) did not take sensible precautions to prevent transmission of the virus. People tend to live for the moment, and with optional case reporting, isolation and vaccination now the order of the day, do our governments seriously think everyone is going to pause, consider and do the right thing? It is only a matter of time before cases rise again, and we only will have ourselves, and our governments, to thank for it. Claire Merry, Wantirna Pressures on borrowers The Reserve Bank says a majority of borrowers will face a 20 per cent cut in their household cash flow for the next two years (The Age, 8/10). This could be correct. But saying that most home buyers will be able to cope may be a false prophecy.| Malcolm McDonald, Burwood AND ANOTHER THING Credit:Illustration: Matt Golding Transport Matthew Guys $2-a-day fares: a nice idea, but it sounds more of a thought bubble than good policy. Mary Cole, Richmond How will the opposition fund the $2-a-day fares? Easy: cut services and there will be standing room only in more crowded trains. Vaughan Greenberg, Chewton The Liberals cant be trusted on rail projects after failing to deliver a 2010 election promise of a rail service linking Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. Tony Gill, Blampied War There is no pride in genocide, Putin. A bridge was blown up, so the president spits the dummy and targets civilians. Sharyn Bhalla, Ferntree Gully Putin says the attack on the bridge to Crimea was an act of terror. The world says Russias invasion of Ukraine is an act of terror. Francis Bainbridge, Fitzroy North So our defence procurement is cumulatively 97 years behind schedule (11/10). What are we preparing for? The Boer War? Bob Muntz, Ascot Vale Taxes Welcome to La La Land, where we demand better services from government but are not prepared to pay taxes to fund them. Michael Brinkman, Ventnor What a delicious irony. The Liberals, masters of breaking election promises (remember ICAC), counselling Labor not to do the same. Brian Morley, Donvale Do those people who prefer spending cuts to tax increases (11/10) also want better health facilities, road maintenance and government services? Phil Alexander, Eltham Your survey found 48per cent of respondents supported a reduction in negative gearing tax concessions. Will they vote that way at the only poll that counts? John Hughes, Mentone The grisly details of the final moments of Perth mother Nardia Spices life before she was allegedly bludgeoned to death by three of her housemates have been revealed in court. WA Police claim the 40-year-old was murdered by couple Zachariah Brough and Eve Marsh and a 24-year-old man on September 23 after being lured to a Byford dog park around 3am under the guise of sex work. Zachariah Brough and his partner Eve Marsh (left) are accused of murdering Nardia Spice (right). Credit:Composite image During a bail application hearing for Jesse Jones, who is accused of helping to dispose of the body after the death, the Perth Magistrate Court heard Spice was hit on the back of the head and had her hands cable tied before she was wrapped in plastic, bundled into a car boot and then buried in a bush grave. Jones claimed before the death, she drove Spice to the park and slept in the car as she waited to drive her home again. She said she woke to her housemates putting Spices body in the boot and was threatened she would get the same if she didnt drive to Jarrahdale bushland and help conceal the body. Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe has declared I will not be campaigning No in the upcoming referendum over constitutional recognition and a Voice to Parliament for Indigenous Australians. And The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal Thorpe tweeted Senator Pauline Hanson asking for help to stop constitutional change in March 2017, three years before the Victorian senator entered federal parliament. The tweet sent by Lidia Thorpe to Pauline Hanson. The tweet from Thorpe, sent from the now-suspended @lidia_thorpe Twitter account, said: Pauline help us stop the constitution changes. Aboriginal people say no to constitutional change. At the time, Thorpe was not a federal Greens senator and the Uluru Statement from the Heart would not be finalised for another two months. Denpasar: Indonesian polices anti-terror chief has hailed the reform of Bali bomb maker Umar Patek as a success story in the countrys fight against Islamic extremism but concedes there is always a risk of militants returning to their old networks after being released from prison. The prospect of the former explosives guru walking free only 11 years into his 20-year jail term prompted outrage from people who lost family members and friends in the 2002 Bali terror attack and brought objections from the Australian government. Umar Patek. Credit:Lapassurabaya Patek, who admitted mixing chemicals for devices that killed 202 people including 88 Australians, became eligible for parole in August after a series of reductions to his sentence and his release has been approved by Indonesias counter-terrorism forces. He has remained in custody in East Java, with Indonesias ministry of law unwilling to issue a final sign-off in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of the Bali bombings on Wednesday. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan and his delegation met today with representatives of the United Russia faction of the State Duma in Moscow, at the proposal of State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, the Armenian Parliaments press service said. At the beginning of the meeting Alen Simonyan said that he is expecting from Russian partners a productive and sincere cooperation on issues of achieving security and lasting peace in the region. Currently, we live in very worrying times which is directly affecting the countries and peoples, he said. In their turn the Russian partners highlighted the fact of the successful implementation of joint projects, particularly highly appreciating the mutual partnership between parliamentary friendship groups. The situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border was discussed. The Speaker of Parliament informed that yesterday the Azerbaijani armed forces again opened fire on the border. The Armenian side introduced the Russian partners on the current situation in Jermuk resort town resulting from the latest Azerbaijani aggression, as well as the damages caused to infrastructures. As a ruling party, we are ready to hold discussions and consultations in different formats about the issues you voiced, faction head Vladimir Vasiliev said. Issues relating to the activities of Armenians living in Russia were also discussed. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Acting Minister of Justice of Armenia Grigor Minasyan met with President of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) Berge Setrakian and AGBU Armenia President Vasken Yacoubian, the ministry said in a news release. The meeting aimed at discussing the reforms in the field of arbitration in Armenia, as well as the issues connected with the creation of a new arbitration center and the support of the AGBU to that process. The Acting Justice Minister presented the program of establishing a new arbitration center in Armenia, the activities done so far and the future steps. The establishment of the center derives from Armenias judicial and legal reforms strategy of 2022-2026, he said. AGBU President Berge Setrakian also highlighted the necessity of developing the arbitration field in Armenia and stated that AGBU is interested in these processes since 2019. Attaching importance to the steps done so far, he emphasized the issue of the reform of legislation regarding arbitration, the opportunities that could be created for Armenia in case of a presence of a developed arbitration center, as well as stressed the importance of ensuring the reliability, independence and reputation guarantees of the new center. In the end of the meeting both sides highlighted the cooperation in this area, and the AGBU representatives emphasized the key readiness of the Organization in assisting the establishment of the new center in Armenia. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Human Rights Defender of Armenia Kristinne Grigoryan met with French Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group H.E Mr. Brice Roquefeuil. During the meeting, the Defender presented the consequences of the military attack on Armenia by the Azerbaijani armed forces, referring to the gross and ongoing violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. During her speech, the Defender presented the cases of torture, inhuman and humiliating treatment of Armenian servicemen, and in particular of female servicepersons, by the Azerbaijani armed forces. The Defender also presented the closed ad hoc report of the Human Rights defenders Office which confirms these facts. During his speech, H.E Mr. Brice Roquefeuil highlighted the importance of the work conducted by the Defenders Office, and presented his readiness to continue the cooperation. The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to Armenia, H.E. Mme. Anne Louyot was also present during the meeting. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Irish lawmaker Paul Gavan, speaking at the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, raised the issue of the Azerbaijani military invasion into Armenian sovereign territory and the war crimes committed by Azerbaijani troops. During the debates on the military actions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Gavan noted that the clashes have taken place in Armenian sovereign territory in September. It is important that all hostilities took place in the territory of Armenia. None of them took place in the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh, he said. Gavan emphasized that the Azerbaijani troops targeted civilian settlements, civilian infrastructure, and that these facts are documented. 36 towns and villages were hit, including Goris, Sisian, Kapan, Vardenis, Tegh and Geghamasar, resulting in the deaths of 4 civilians and 7 more wounded civilians. Another civilian is missing. Gavan highlighted the fact that Azerbaijani side doesnt deny attacking the Armenian towns. First of all we must all clearly realize that a countrys invasion into another countrys sovereign territory can never be acceptable. Its also important to note that as a result of this invasion Azerbaijan continues to occupy a part of Armenian territory. And this is unacceptable. Weve received also concerning reports on possible war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani military, he said. The lawmaker also talked about the video showing the extrajudicial killing of 7 Armenian prisoners of war and the mutilation of the bodies of women troops committed by Azeri forces. Ive seen the footage, it is really horrifying, and it can really be evidence of war crime, Gavan said, adding that both sides should resume peace talks without delay. We must see greater efforts by the international community for that to happen, he added. Gavan added that Turkey, who actively supported Azerbaijan during the 2020 war, must display a more balanced approach. The lawmaker also welcomed the planned deployment of a civilian EU mission along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Batavia, NY (14020) Today Clear skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low around 35F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Clear skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low around 35F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Batavia, NY (14020) Today Cloudy with showers. Snow may mix in. Low around 35F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Cloudy with showers. Snow may mix in. Low around 35F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Ambassadors of EU member states are expected on October 11 to discuss and make a decision on the civilian mission to Armenia, the EU Special Representative for South Caucasus Toivo Klaar said, according to RFE/RLs Armenian service. Klaar was speaking at the defense committee of the European Parliament. The decision on sending a mission must yet be adopted by the member states in the political and security committee. Full support from member states of the union, as well as the European Parliament are extremely important for implementing the peacemaking efforts of the European Union, Klaar said. The European Union will send a monitoring mission to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border to build confidence and facilitate the work of an Armenian-Azerbaijani commission on delimitation. Ear ringing, or tinnitus medically, is hearing sounds that come from inside your body instead of external factors. (Shutterstock) 10 Deeper Causes of Tinnitus, and How to Treat It Ear ringing is no fun. Ear ringing, or tinnitus medically, is hearing sounds that come from inside your body instead of from external sources. Types of Ear Ringing Although it is often called ear ringing, some patients may hear other sounds, such as buzzing, humming, whistling, and hissing. According to NHS Inform, some patients may hear noises that beat in time with their pulse, which is Pulsatile Tinnitus. The sounds can come from one or both ears. Tinnitus sounds can be constant, intermittent, or steady. What Causes Ear Ringing? In an article published by the Harvard University of Medicine, pulsating tinnitus is more likely to occur in older people. Older peoples blood circulation tends to be more turbulent in arteries. The walls of arteries may have hardened over aging. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Dr. Wu Kuo-pin, mentioned that tinnitus and loss of hearing are most common, and studies have found that people begin losing their hearing at age 50. Twenty-five percent of the worlds population aged 50-65 have a hearing impairment. Over half of the 85-year-olds have hearing issues. Loud noises also contribute to ear ringing. Attending loud concerts is one of the perfect examples, which may trigger short-term tinnitus. Is There a Cure? In the Western medicine world, the American Tinnitus Association and British Tinnitus Association both confirmed there is currently no cure for ear ringing. Alternative Medicinal Treatment Harvard Medicine stated that evaluating the underlying problems for treating tinnitus is vital Tinnitus can be a side effect of many medications, especially when taken at higher doses. The study also showed that musculoskeletal factors, such as jaw clenching and tightening, tooth grinding, or muscle tension in the neck, could aggravate tinnitus symptoms. Healthline discussed several ways of treatment for tinnitus, including lifestyle changes, noise reduction machines, prescribed medication, mindfulness practice, and alternative medicine such as nutritional supplements and acupuncture. Dr. Wu expressed that there are challenges in treating hearing damage clinically. There are no blood tests or developed equipment available yet to give a proper diagnosis. The other reason is that tinnitus is a complex topic, as other illnesses usually trigger it. To treat ear ringing, we must find the root cause of it. Dr. Wu said physicians must tend to other symptoms within each patients body to treat tinnitus effectively. While many symptoms might look as if they are irrelevant, they can be the key to the treatment. The following 10 medical case studies show how Dr. Wu treats his patients and improves tinnitus, partial deafness, difficulty hearing, or ear blockage, using acupuncture over time. Case Studies of Acupuncture for Tinnitus Dr. Wu shared his case studies of patients symptoms, acupuncture treatment methods, and acupuncture therapy results. Case Studies: Acupoints specific 1. Auditory Convergence (acupoint GB2) A 45-year-old female, Patient A, had tinnitus, and she mentioned a painful spot on her ear just above her earlobe, where the acupoint Auditory Convergence is. Dr. Wu focused on the pain point and treated it with local acupuncture. Her tinnitus disappeared after the treatment. GB2 Auditory convergence (Shutterstock) 2. Valley Lead (acupoint GB8) A 57-year-old male, Patient B, had tinnitus for 3 years. Acupuncture in the head, hands, and feet was ineffective. But when the Dr. pointed at Valley Lead at 45 degrees before pinning the needle, the ringing stopped immediately. The biliary meridian is the most important meridian for the treatment of tinnitus. The Auditory Convergence Point and the Valley Lead Point happen to be on the path of the biliary meridian and are close to the ear, so they are more effective in treating tinnitus. GB8 Valley Lead (Shutterstock) The study of Caspian J Intern Med in 2018 also found that acupuncture is effective in reducing the loudness and severity of tinnitus and can be a useful treatment for non-pulsatile chronic tinnitus, and recently in 2022, a piece of research from Original Research provided the neurophysiological evidence for acupuncture treatment of tinnitus clinically. 3. Completion Bone (acupoint GB12) Patient C wanted some relief from her ear ringing so she looked for a hot pack to apply to her ear. She ended up using a warm hard-boiled egg. To her surprise, it worked. Dr. Wu said that one can use other ways of hot compressing, but the advantage of using an egg is that it keeps the heat in, and the heat time is longer. GB12 Completion Bone (Shutterstock) Case Studies: Internal system specified 4. Nervous system imbalance Seventy percent of tinnitus patients suffer from chronic anxiety, tension, panic, and difficulty sleeping. Insomnia is the most common symptom of all tinnitus patients. The worse the sleep quality, the worse the ear ringing. It becomes a vicious cycle. Peaceful Sleep (EX-HN22), Wind Pool on both sides (GB20), Celestial Pillar (BL10), and Completion Bone(GB12). Shutterstock) People who often have insomnia will find the muscle ligament strained behind their neck. When treating Patient I, Dr. Wu targeted the bones under the skull, Completion Bone (GB12), Peaceful Sleep (EX-HN22), Wind Pool on both sides (GB20), Celestial Pillar (BL10), and Hair Clip (EX-B2) on both sides of the cervical spine. The acupuncture treatment improved Patient Is insomnia. Some patients with similar issues found that acupuncture therapy reduced their tinnitus or double hearing. Double hearing is a form of hearing loss that usually causes the patient to receive echoing sounds due to the sound traveling from one ear faster than the other. 5. Ear blockage Ears feeling stuffy comes from occiput blockage as well as poor blood circulation of the posterior mastoid process (a pressing pain on acupoint completion bone, GB12) Eustachian or auditory tube obstruction can cause the pressure in the middle ear to unbalance, resulting in ear ringing or stuffiness. Patients usually describe their symptoms as unsound, hollow, muffled, or separated. Additionally, if the surrounding is loud or in a confined space, patients ears might feel exceptionally swollen or painful. Dilated nasal inflammatory substances (sputum) are typical for patients with allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux, and colds. Delay in treatment causes stuffiness, a symptom of auditory tube obstruction. To effectively treat ear blockage, target the nasal acupoints on both sides of the upper nose wing, white bone hole (DU25), Hall of Seal (EX-HN3), Valley Lead (GB8), Auditory Convergence (GB2), Wind Pool on both sides (GB20) and Hundred Convergences (DU20). The combination of these acupoints will quickly unblock the Eustachian tube and subside ear and nasal congestion. 6. Improper curvature of the cervical spine A 58-year-old, patient, E, has lived with double hearing for 40 years. His Western medical physician had diagnosed him with congenital double hearing. When he first arrived for a consultation, the primary complaints were stiffness, soreness behind his neck, headache, bloating, eye tiredness, and poor sleep. And double hearing in both ears. Dr. Wus diagnosis showed that the Patients cervical spine was too straight and had lost its natural curvature. Patient E had five acupuncture treatments, taking the prescribed traditional Chinese medicine for blood circulation, and diligently practicing his neck therapy at home. Five treatments later, the Patient reported that the double hearing dissipated, and other symptoms also improved drastically. Cervical dislocation Patient F has been suffering from ringing in his ears for three years. However, the tension in his neck started to loosen through neck workouts and muscle relaxation created by Dr. Wu. One day, as he was exercising his neck, he felt a click. A misaligned joint from the cervical spine corrected itself, lessening his ringing by 80 percent. 7. Allergies and nasal congestion A 65-year-old, Patient G visited Dr. Wu, who has been suffering from tinnitus for many years. He had previously had acupuncture around the ears, hands, and feet, but it was ineffective. Since the Patient often has a stuffy nose due to severe allergies, Dr. Wu added needling on Upper Welcome Fragrance (HN8) in addition to the previous acupuncture points. The Patient finally found relief from his ear ringing. 8. Liver and gallbladder deficit Dr. Wu found that patients who suffer from prolonged insomnia or rage are prone to liver and gallbladder inflammation. Ear ringing in this type of patient tends to be much louder and roars like a machine. Dr. Wu aimed to treat Patient Hs acupoints of Great Surge (LR3), Hill Ruins (GB40) and Suspended Bell (GB39) to remove the heat (inflammation), resulting in significant improvement. Dr. Wu aimed to treat Patient Hs acupoints of Great Surge (LR3), Hill Ruins (GB40) and Suspended Bell (GB39) to remove the heat (inflammation), resulting in significant improvement. (Shutterstock) 9. Spleen and Qi deficiency For those with palpitation, tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, or poor digestive system, Dr. Wu gave treatment on the hands and feet to repair energy and blood circulation and restore the balance of the internal design of the heart, spleen, and lungs. Healthline stated that Qi deficiency is the root cause of many common illnesses also in the West, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, indigestion, and menstrual pain. 10. Kidney deficiency An 80-year-old woman lost her hearing entirely in both ears after the flu. In the first week of her visit, Dr. Wu began from her head, around the ears and the limbs, with no success. So after thorough consideration of her old age and deficiency in her kidney and brain marrow, the practitioner added food therapy to her acupuncture treatment plan. He prescribed a therapy food formula for the 80-year-old. After consuming a stew with two Chinese herbs of anemone altaica and davallia mariesii and pig kidney for a week, the patient could hear the doorbell ring. Final Thoughts Patients with tinnitus may sometimes have both stuffiness and double hearing since the symptoms of stuffiness result in double hearing. Other than the above acupuncture method, Dr. Wu suggested addressing additional acupoints on Peaceful Sleep (EX-HN22), Celestial Pillar (BL10), and Hair Clip (EX-B2) on both sides of the cervical spine. Based on the severity of the Patients symptoms, pinpointing additional acupoints for patients physical wellness, such as spleen, kidney, or liver, enhances the efficacy of their treatment plans. 30,000 Noncitizens in Colorado Receive Voter Registration Notices Roughly 30,000 noncitizens in Colorado received postcards prompting them to register to vote late last month. The states secretary of state office put it down to a database glitch, while Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, insisted the online voter registration system would block those recipients when they tried to go through. It comes at a time of widespread skepticism of voting integrity following the 2020 presidential election and as Griswold, who has touted her role as a national advocate for secure elections, seeks reelection in the November midterms. The incumbent faces Republican Pam Anderson, a former suburban Denver clerk and head of the states county clerks association, who is a staunch advocate of Colorados all-mail voting system. State GOP chairwoman, Kristi Burton Brown, condemned Griswold for the error, saying in a Monday statement to the Associated Press that Jena Griswold continues to make easily avoidable errors just before ballots go out by mail. The error occurred as Griswolds office mailed the notices on Sept. 27 to residents who had non-citizen Colorado drivers licenses. The message on the front reads, Make sure your voice is heard this November, and then directs people to Register to VOTE today at www.GoVoteColorado.gov, according to Colorado Public Radio News. Colorado sends postcards every two years to eligible but not yet registered residents, encouraging them to vote. Our records indicate that you or your household may be eligible to vote, but do not appear to be registered at your current address, the postcards said. The report said the mailing did include the states voter eligibility requirements, such as age, nationality, and being a long-term local resident for at least 22 days. Poll workers check in voters at a polling location on election day in Denver, Colo., on Nov. 3, 2020. (Chet Strange/AFP via Getty Images) Department employees later compared a list of names of 102,000 people provided by the Electronic Registration Information Center with a local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) database, spotting a formatting error from the latter, which caused the system to fail to flag the ineligible names before the mailers went out, Griswolds office said in a Monday statement. The office said the incident is under investigation and its sending another notice to the approximately 30,000 individuals. The state is also applying more efforts to stop anyone not eligible to vote from registering, including comparing Social Security Numbers required for each application, on a daily basis. County clerks also will refer suspect cases to local district attorneys for review. Griswolds office said it was unaware that anyone who received the postcards in error had tried to register. Colorado is among at least 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, that issue drivers licenses to non-U.S. citizens, according to the National Council on State Legislatures. Colorado also automatically registers eligible voters when they obtain their drivers license from the DMV. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Women walk by a panhandler along Madison Avenue, one of Manhattan's premier shopping and residential streets in this 2011 file photo taken in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) A Tough Ask: Are Panhandlers After a Hand Out, Or a Hand Up? Differing views on an increasingly obvious problem across the streets of pandemic-hit America COTTONWOOD, Ariz.Catherine Schwab of Michigan sat in a folding chair holding a cardboard sign in the dry heat of the afternoon sun. Please Help, the sign in magic marker said. Wearing a wide-brim summer hat and shorts, Schwab watched the cars enter and leave the Walmart parking lot in Cottonwood, Arizona, her face without expression. Every day, its the same deal. The drivers slow down, stare, or give her strange looks and move on. Many could care less; others might roll down a window to chat with her out of curiosity or compassion. Catherine Schwab sits near the main entrance to Walmart in Cottonwood, Ariz., on Oct. 3. Schwab said she panhandles almost daily to raise the money she needs to drive home to Michigan. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) Sometimes, Schwab will receive money, bottles of water, and food. Mostly, the cars keep going; the drivers never make eye contact. This bothers me having to come out here like this, said Schwab, 56, a lit cigarette between her thumb and forefinger. I feel like kind of a low-life. A series of unexpected events left Schwab stranded in Cottonwood about six months ago. Shes been living with friends and remains stuck in this desert oasis town of nearly 13,000 until she can save enough money to drive back to Michigan and start over. Things didnt work out. I aint doing too good, she said. Stranded in Arizona Nearly every day, Schwab panhandles for money in the relentless Arizona sun just beyond the main entrance to the Cottonwood Walmart on a public right of way. She averages anywhere from a few dollars to around $40 in contributions on a good day but needs $1,500 to return home. Much of the money she receives she spends on food and helping her friends with rent. Her backstory is sad, to say the least, but it is for each person to decide how much of it is true, says Cottonwood Police Chief Stephen Gesell. Hes had years of experience dealing with the homeless and panhandlers as the former police chief in San Luis Obispo, California. Panhandling is a problem in Cottonwood, as it is nationwide, and seems to follow a seasonal pattern. Some local merchants say the situation has gotten worse with a slowing economy. One shop owner said panhandling is an accelerating problem, and its not good for business. In the affluent town of Fountain Hills, Arizona, home of Americas Toughest Sheriff Joe Arpaio, theres been an alarming rise in the number of street homeless and panhandlers. According to the towns website, homelessness is a national issue, affecting every community in America, including the town of Fountain Hills. Endhomelessness.org reported that 17 out of every 10,000 people in the United States567,715 in totalwere homeless on a single night in January 2019. Economy Fuels Panhandling Like other cities and towns, Fountain Hills experienced a sharp rise in panhandling due to higher eviction rates resulting from lost employment and resources in the COVID-19 pandemic economy. The community is looking to address both related problems on a regional scale through the Maricopa Association of Governments. However, Gesell said that a large percentage of panhandlers arent necessarily homeless but do it mainly out of personal choice. They dont want public assistance programs, rules, regulations, or daily structure. Gesell said many good samaritans feel the pang of conscience and give freely to panhandlers out of a sense of altruism. They feel good about themselves once theyve helped the needy. Since many panhandlers require money to buy alcohol or illicit drugs, Gesell said these samaritans often cause more harm to the community than good. Giving becomes a form of enabling risky or bad behavior. Cottonwood, Ariz., Police Chief Stephen Gesell monitors the towns panhandlers with offers of help, housing and resources through social services. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) I tell people the reality is you are doing the polar opposite. You are helping them get closer to the grave, Gesell told The Epoch Times. We know how much they make. Its significant. My argument would be most panhandlersnine times out of 10, youre fueling a destructive choice and hurting the community. Missing from the discussion is the communitys welfare. In San Luis Obispo, a central California city of about 60,000, the homeless problem grew to the point where crime was becoming rampant. There was a hue and cry for city officials to act, Gesell said. The city launched several programs and even hired a biologist to monitor hygiene among the homeless population. When I got there, I started asking questions, Gesell said. The city had a biologist. Why do you think that is? Gesell learned that around 40 percent of homeless people are Will Not homeless. These people opt out of the system and are not interested in social service programs that might help them live productive lives. They survive panhandling for money, often preying on the generosity of others. So when you talk about the plan to end homelessness, thats a two-way street, Gesell said. Most [Will Not homeless] dont want anything to do with rules or structure. They will exploit human goodwill and then move on. While the willfully homeless comprise most panhandlers, Gesell considers homelessness and panhandling separate but overlapping problems. Another category of homeless is the Cannots, who make up another 40 percent. Through addiction, theyve become trapped in physical dependency and financial need, panhandling to feed an alcohol or drug habit. Woneta Odem-Thompson, formerly of Nevada, holds a sign asking for help near the front entrance to a retail strip mall in Cottonwood, Ariz., on Oct. 3. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) Panhandling becomes a means to a disastrous end, Gesell said. About 20 percent of the total homeless population are the Ready Homelesspeople who have fallen on hard times, either through a divorce, job loss, eviction, or home foreclosure. But they dont have the issues these other two groups have, said Gesell. They realize they dont want to be [homeless] and will do what it takes to avail themselves of programs and transition out. The public believes the vast majority of [panhandlers] are those 20 percent, but thats not necessarily the case. It follows that these 20 percent who panhandle to survive will continue to grow in number as economic conditions deteriorate, the chief said. The National Homeless Law Center (NHLC) said falling wages and rising rents are two key factors contributing to a nationwide increase in panhandling. In response, more communities are criminalizing panhandling to control or eliminate it43 percent more communities have done so during the past ten years alonethough many communities fail to recognize the systemic causes of panhandling. Complicating matters is that panhandling is free expression under the U.S. Constitution, so long as it takes place on public property. On private property, it is trespassing. The NHLC said studies show most panhandlers spend their money on food and other necessities, noting that the average panhandler makes about $300 a month. Some communities, like Oklahoma City, have launched programs to reduce the number of panhandlers by paying them to clean city parks. Gesell said that these programs dont pay enough to discourage panhandlers, who can earn more begging on the street. The city of Cottonwood recently began formulating a 10-year plan to end homelessness and, under Gesells guidance, posted signs at five retail store locations to discourage panhandling. Its OK to say no to panhandlers, the sign reads, instructing samaritans to increase donations to local charities that serve the homeless. It Pays to Smile In a court jesters cap and holding a cardboard sign, Family In Need, Woneta Odem-Thompson, 46, smiled and waved at motorists as she stood near the front entrance to the Safeway retail complex in Cottonwood. Odem-Thompson said she and her two young daughters and three small dogs have been homeless since July and living in a 2006 Dodge Caravan. Both girls attend a Cottonwood elementary school. Formerly of Nevada, Odem-Thompsons backstory is a tragic one of spousal abuse and betrayal. The situation reached the point where leaving was the only solution. Odem-Thompson aims to trade her minivan for a 1979 camper and set down roots in a local RV campsite. That way, shell have stability and a place to call home. Woneta Odem-Thompson said her hope is to trade her 2006 Dodge Caravan minivan for a 1979 camper for permanent housing. Here, she advertises the vehicle on Oct. 5, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) We knew the consequences of coming here: we would be homeless for a while, said Odem-Thompson. Theres not enough housing, but there are tons of job opportunities. Ive got applications in so many places. Im just waiting for return calls. Odem-Thompson said her daily routine begins with getting her daughters dressed and ready for school before she drops them off. With that phase accomplished, she heads back into town, finds a place to park, and checks her phone for email. Then shell dash off another job application or two before the next phase of her day beginspanhandling for money to buy food and gas. No Address, No Job Odem-Thompson said not having a physical address deters most employers from hiring her as it makes her appear unreliable. I think thats why we get overlooked a lot. We dont have that physical address saying we have stability. Buy my vehicle runs and takes me wherever I need to go. Thats my stability right now. On a good day, Odem-Thompson can bring in as much as $125 panhandlingtwo bucks on a bad day. She panhandles only when she needs food and fuel for the minivan. Being willing to smile and talk to people does seem to help attract contributions. It passes the time for me. You know, when I first started, I felt degraded. I felt low. Then I realized, you know what? Im brave enough to stand out here and do this. Thats a total step up. I know a lot of people who will go completely without. Theyll go hungry. Im not letting my kids go hungry. What keeps her going is knowing that Ive got my kidsand knowing that life is going to get better. Woneta Odem-Thompson and her two daughters and three small dogs call their 2006 Dodge Caravan home for now on Oct. 5, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) When Chief Gesell learned of Odem-Thompsons situation, he sent an officer to check on her and confirmed she has two daughters enrolled in a local school. However, school officials expressed concern about their absences and safety. Gesell said that a single homeless mother with children normally would try to find immediate housing and resources through social services. Odem-Thompson has turned down multiple housing offers, illustrating a great example of the complexity of the topic, he said. A 2002 study by the Arizona State Universitys Center for Problem-Oriented Policing found that panhandlers fall into two categories: passive and aggressive, along with two distinct views of panhandlers, sympathetic and unsympathetic. People who sympathize with panhandlers see them doing what they need to survive. Those who share no such sympathy view them as a blight on the community and a source of crime. Gesell said the evidence supports the latter view and that many panhandlers use intimidation to solicit money. Others resort to fraud, using fake oxygen tanks, crutches, children, pets, and other emotional props for tugging at a samaritans heartstrings. The ASU study said that panhandlers usually choose high-profile locations to beg for money: street corners, store entrances, highway off-ramps, sidewalks, and traffic light intersections, and generally run in seasonal patterns. Cottonwood Police Chief Stephen Gesell says these anti-panhandling signs were as it appears at a local Walmart on Oct. 5, 2022 to direct samaritan dollars to social services which serve the needy. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times) It sounds callous, but thats the intent of a panhandlerits a sales pitch, Gesell said. Thats the most frustrating part, knowing whether its true or not. Gesell said the law in many cases has a chilling effect on communities trying to control the proliferation of panhandlers. You can see that chilling effect. Why not proactively address [the problem] and meet with panhandlers? We understand that in this demographic, there are people who have fallen on hard times and dont know where to go. The alternative is we allow these scenes to devolve into a higher level crime where people go to jail and become a burden on the taxpayer, Gesell said. That panhandlers are an eyesore is the top complaint Gesells department hears from residents and businesses. Still, the question remains: Is it better to give to or ignore panhandlers? Gesells advice is caveat emptorLet the buyer beware. Thats your starting point. If youre OK with the odds thats a personal decision, [but] think about the community as well. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. On October 10, the permanent member of the Delegation of the Armenian Parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Armen Gevorgyan delivered a speech on the progress of the activities of PACE Bureau and the Standing Committee, the Parliaments press service said: The speech particularly read: Dear President, In the context of the continuous aggression of Azerbaijan against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, I would like to raise the following questions: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) speaks to the press after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) was ousted from her leadership role in the House Republican Conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on May 12, 2021. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP Photo) Adam Kinzinger Endorses Litany of Democrats for State, Federal Offices Outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) has unveiled a list of endorsements for state and federal level candidates for public office that includes several Democrats. Kinzinger has been notorious among Republicans for his vote to impeach President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally and for his subsequent activities on the Jan. 6 panel. On the panel, Kinzingerwho was appointed as a minority party member by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) against all prior House precedentserves with Ranking Member Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as one of only two GOP members. Kinzinger has been vocal on the committee in blaming Trump for the events of Jan. 6. Like other members of the Jan. 6 panel, Kinzinger has painted Trump and his claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election as an existential threat to American democracy. The long-time Trump critics list of endorsements includes several Democrats and a few Republicans currently on the defensive against Trump-backed Republican challengers. Sen. Lisa Murkowski First on Kinzingers list of endorsements is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Murkowski, alongside Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), is generally considered one of the most liberal members of the GOPs caucus in the upper chamber. Like Kinzinger in the House, Murkowski was one of seven senators to vote for Trumps conviction and removal from office in 2021. Only one of those seven, Murkowski, is up for reelection this year, and shes facing a steep primary challenge by Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka. Murkowski was able to take some solace from the results of the ranked choice primary this year, where she came in first place with 45.05 percent of the vote to Tshibakas 38.55 percent. Still, the real test for Murkowski is ahead, and the results will be the first indication of whether voters will be as tough on senators who voted to impeach Trump as theyve been on House members. Of the 10 Republicans who voted for Trumps impeachment in the House, only Reps. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) and David Valadao (R-Calif.) are still left standing. The other eight have either been defeated in a primary by GOP challengers or have announced that they will not seek reelection. Kinzinger and Cheney were censored and cut off from national GOP funds and resources in February 2021 for their roles on the committee. Early into the 117th Congress, Kinzinger announced that he would not seek reelection. Likewise, Cheney was handily defeated for Wyomings lone House seat because of her position on the controversial committee. Murkowski courageously put her country before party by voting to convict Donald Trump at his impeachment trial, the only Republican to do so who is up for re-election [sic] this cycle, Kinzinger wrote. Throughout her tenure in the Senate, she has been a model for bi-partisan [sic] bridge building. Her opponent has been endorsed by Trump, and continues to help perpetuate the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump Critic Evan McMullin Kinzinger also threw his support behind Utah Independent Evan McMullin, who is vying to replace Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) this year. McMullins claim to fame largely comes from his 2016 campaign for president. Though he received no electoral votes, the Trump critic won 732,273 votes, or 0.53 percent of the popular vote, in 2016. Most of that support was in the Mormon stronghold of Utah, where some Republicans found Trump too socially liberal for their tastes. Though he is now running against Lee, Lee was one of three Republican senatorsthe other two being former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)to vote for McMullin in the 2016 presidential election. In his endorsement, Kinzinger tied his support for McMullin to Lees position on the 2020 election. McMullin is an independent conservative voice who has built bi-partisan [sic] coalitions to ensure our country and its people come before party and politics, Kinzinger said. His opponent, U.S. Senator Mike Lee, has been endorsed by Trump, and continues to fuel conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen. State Positions Kinzinger also handed out several endorsements for state level positions. On that list is Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat running for governor. Shapiro is a staunch defender of our democratic institutions and will lead the state with integrity, Kinzinger wrote. His opponent, Doug Mastriano, is an election denier who has spread dangerous conspiracy theories, fought to overturn Pennsylvanias election results, and was present at the Capitol on January 6th after paying to bus people from Pennsylvania to D.C. Kinzinger also threw his support behind Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who oversaw the 2020 elections and played a role in the contested results of the states presidential returns. The position has thrown Hobbs into the spotlight because of the importance of Arizona to electoral politics and ongoing disputes over the legitimacy of the 2020 election in several states. Kinzinger said of Hobbs: As the current Arizona Secretary of State, Hobbs has been a staunch defender of our democratic institutions, despite threats of violence, and will lead the state with integrity. Her opponent, Kari Lake, is an election denier who has spread dangerous conspiracy theories, advocated for overturning Arizonas election results, and demonstrates greater loyalty to Donald Trump than to our constitution and institutions. Kinzinger in turn endorsed Democrat Adrian Fontes for Hobbss current position as secretary of state. Fontes is competing with Republican Mark Finchem for the position. Finchem has made clear in the past that he is skeptical of his states reported returns in 2020. Fontes has proven he has the experience and integrity to serve as Secretary of State, the top election official in Arizona, Kinzinger said. His opponent is an extremist election denier who masterminded the bogus Arizona Audit and demonstrates greater loyalty to Donald Trump than to our constitution and institutions. Kinzinger also endorsed three other Democrat secretary of state candidates, including Nevadas Cisco Aguilar, Minnesotas incumbent Secretary of State Steve Simon, and Michigans incumbent Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. While Minnesota leans blue, Nevada and Michigan are considered very much in play by members of both parties. Kinzingers comments on each are a word-for-word repeat of his endorsement of Fontes. One of the only Republicans on Kinzingers list of state-level endorsements is Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In 2020, Raffensperger drew the ire of Trump for his handling of the election. The resultswhich saw Georgia go blue for the first time since 1992, when Georgians sent Bill Clinton to the Oval Officehave been among the most scrutinized of the cycle. As the incumbent Secretary of State, Raffensperger has proven he has the experience, integrity, and courage to serve Georgians again in that office. As the top election official in Georgia, he overcame tremendous pressure from Donald Trump and his supporters to find enough votes to declare Trump the winner, Kinzinger wrote. Few politicians are willing to risk their careers to do the right thing, which is why its so important to support those, like Brad Raffensperger, who do. Kinzinger is also backing Republican Thomas Knecht for the Minnesota state House. Knecht wants to build bridges to combat polarization and partisanship in the Minnesota House, Kinzinger said. Knecht and his campaign can serve as an important model for Republicans of good conscience to follow. US Representative Endorsements Finally, Kinzinger handed out a smattering of endorsements to House candidates, including one Republican and one Independent. The first of these, Independent Clint Smith, is challenging Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), an outspoken critic of the Jan. 6 committee and a staunch Trump ally. Smith is someone devoted to country before party, and who felt compelled to run as an independent after extreme elements of the GOP sought to overturn Arizonas election results, Kinzinger wrote. His opponent, Rep. Andy Biggs, is actively using his position in Congress to undermine the foundations of American democracy and perpetuate the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Kinzinger also threw his backing behind Republican Larry Labor, who is running for Connecticuts 1st congressional District. Lazor insists the GOP must break from the dishonest narrative and divisive vitriol that led to the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol,' Kinzinger said. Lazor and his campaign can serve as an important model for Republicans of good conscience to follow. The effect that Kinzingers endorsements will have is unclear, as Trump has continued to dominate Republican politics since leaving office. Kinzingers list of endorsements came after Cheney said that she would campaign for Democrats if Trump were named the Republican nominee in 2024. Alex Jones Warns of AI and Genetic Engineering in Best-Selling Book The Great Reset 'It is essential that the population of the world understand that they are under attack by a scientific elite hell-bent on omnipresent control' Alex Joness new book The Great Reset has made it to several top-selling lists, despite a steady stream of recent news about lawsuits targeting him that put the beleaguered radio and TV host in a negative light. The book was published on Aug. 30. During its first week, it hit #2 in The Wall Street Journal, #10 in USA Today, and it also appeared as #2 in Publishers Weekly, according to Tony Lyons, the CEO of Skyhorse, the publisher of The Great Reset. The book appeared as of Oct. 10 as the #1 best seller in Communication and Media Studies on Amazon, boasting a 95 percent five-star rating with almost 2,000 reviews. The book did not appear on the New York Times best-selling list. Jones explains that The Great Reset is not just a term popularized by the head of the World Economic ForumKlaus Schwabit is the massive, long-term plan of extremely powerful corporate combines to abolish all of the old existing systems and cultures, and on their ashes build a technocracy, the final goal of which is depopulation and transhumanism, Jones told The Epoch Times. According to him, these corporate combines are seeking to create a new type of corporate empire that controls every facet of government, industry, academia, medicine, and even religious systems. Jones says he wrote The Great Reset: And the War for the World because he wants peoplenot just in America, but the whole worldto understand that it is the equivalent of the blueprints to the Death Star. He notes that globalist leaders openly talk and write about their plans for an anti-human, anti-freedom, anti-family, anti-god, anti-free market system of world governance. A still from the film Alexs War about Alex Jones. (Courtesy of Alexs War) Posthuman World by 2045 We are witnessing their declaration of war against every form of freedom and everything that is seen as good in human history. In short, The Great Reset is the name given by the globalists to their hostile corporate takeover, not just of industry and farming and the entire infrastructure, but of the minds and the physical bodies of humans, and even (in their endgame) of every form of life on this planet. This is a hostile takeover of reality, said Jones. A senior person at Simon & Schuster, the distributor for Skyhorse, told The Epoch Times that by Sep. 29: total gross shipped units (globally) of The Great Reset by Alex Jones equal 130,346 units. Giving further credence to the assertions made in his book, Jones extensively quotes some of the publications from Schwab and his adviser and technocrat author Yuval Noah Harari throughout his best seller. When you read the words of Yuval Noah Harari and Klaus Schwab, theyre fantastical. They talk about the posthuman world being here by 2045. They openly discuss how the future is not human. They admit that they are going to forcibly colonize our bodies with microchips and nanotech, and create a second immune system, Jones said. You will own nothing and you will have nothing is their goalcomplete and total domestication of the population of earth. It is not an exaggeration to say that everything is the Great Reset. It is the final revolution, or what the technocrats who control the New World Order call, the end of history. They do not want any future revolutioneither peaceful or violent, cultural, economic, or technologicalto threaten their absolute monopoly over the future of humanity. Thats why this book is beyond critical: It is essential that the population of the world understand that they are under attack by a scientific elite hell-bent on omnipresent control through AI and genetic engineering of all life on this planet and, in the future, beyond, Jones added. Despite all the bad news, he still has hope and believes that there is a populist uprising against The Great Reset. The good news is, at an accelerating rate, we are seeing populist leaders being elected to local, state, and national offices across the planet. Thats why the technocratic social engineers are accelerating their plan. They know the time for their megalomaniacal plan is running out. Chinas leader Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with founder and executive chairperson of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab prior to delivering a speech during the first day of the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 17, 2017. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) Jones further explains in his book how China is the model for the future architecture, both cultural and economic, of the whole planet. The Epoch Times editorial published a special series in 2018 titled How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World. In one of the last chapters, the editorial expounds on the relationship between communism and globalism in great detail. Debate, Not Censorship Lyons said that if Joness critics actually had better, rational arguments, and if they had the actual means to convince the American people that so-called misinformation or conspiracy theories were incorrect, they wouldnt have to vilify, deplatform, censor, run hit pieces, falsify bestseller lists, manipulate algorithms, misrepresent likes, and use other big tech product features to steer the public towards their myopic and self-serving perspectives. In 2018, the radio and TV host was censored from major internet platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Apple, and Spotify, accused of violating their policies. We need more speech, more open dialogue in this country rather than less. The First Amendment is meant to protect, even and perhaps especially, the arguments that you hate, that you want to fight with every bit of strength you have, Lyons told The Epoch Times. If you disagree, make a better argument, do the work, take the time, dont quit, dont give in to fascism. Because its all fine when youre censoring other people to protect your own narrative, but its obvious where it leads, the publisher added. A string of dead pilot whales line the beach at Tupuangi Beach, Chatham Islands, in New Zealand's Chatham Archipelago, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Tamzin Henderson via AP) Almost 500 Whales Die in Two Mass Strandings in Remote Chatham Islands Almost 500 pilot whales have become beached on New Zealands remote Chatham Islands over two mass strandings, with an expected survival rate of zero. Project Jonah, which specialises in the protection and conservation of marine mammals, reported that a second mass stranding of about 250 pilot whales had occurred on Pitt Island on Oct. 10. This was around 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the earlier stranding of another 215 pilot whales on Oct. 8. The remote beaches of Chatham Islands are known for the presence of great white sharks that pose a risk to people who try to refloat the whales, as well as the whales themselves. Dead whales and ones with open injuries could draw great whites and other predators to the area, heightening the risk of shark attacks to anyone who attempts refloating. This means stranded whales that are still alive on discovery in the islands are always euthanised by New Zealands Department of Conservation (DOC). These mass strandings are distressing events, and while we always hope for surviving whales are able to be refloated, this wasnt an option here, Project Jonah wrote on a Facebook post after the first stranding. Our thoughts go to the DOC rangers and the local community at this time. A string of dead pilot whales line the beach at Tupuangi Beach, Chatham Islands, in New Zealands Chatham Archipelago, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Tamzin Henderson via AP) Whale strandings at the Chatham Islands are not uncommon. The largest recorded pilot whale stranding occurred at these islands and involved an estimated 1,000 whales in 1918. DOC media adviser Brian McDonald told Stuff news that the whales would be left to decompose naturally. This decision is never taken lightly, but in cases like this, it is the kindest option, he said. Pilot Whales Are Known For Strandings On its website, the DOC describes pilot whales as prolific stranders and that this behaviour was poorly understood. Most scientists believe that individual whales strand because they are diseased and coming to the end of their natural lifespan, the DOC said. Another theory points to pilot whales highly sociable behaviourwhen one whale loses its way and strands, its pod mates may swim to its aid. The stranding comes almost four weeks after another stranding occurred in Tasmania, the southern island state of Australia. A 230-strong pod of pilot whales beached on Tasmanias west coast, and rescuers managed to refloat all 35 surviving whales. The remaining carcasses were disposed of by long lining them out to the deep ocean. The Chatham Islands is located about 850 kilometres east of the main islands of New Zealand, with a total population of around 800 people. Pitt Island, the second largest island of the Chatham archipelago, has a population of 40. Signage at an Amazon facility in Staten Island, New York, on April 24, 2022. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) Amazon.com to Invest Over 1 Billion Euros in European Electric Van, Truck Fleet LONDONAmazon.com Inc. said on Monday it will invest more than 1 billion euros ($974.8 million) over the next five years in electric vans, trucks, and low-emission package hubs across Europe, accelerating its drive to achieve net-zero carbon. The retailer said the investment was also aimed at spurring innovation across the transportation industry and encouraging more public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs). The U.S. online retailer said the investment would help its electric van fleet in Europe more than triple from 3,000 vehicles to more than 10,000 by 2025. The company did not say what percentage of its European last-mile delivery fleet is electric today, but said those 3,000 zero-emission vans delivered over 100 million packages in 2021. Amazon said it also hopes to purchase more than 1,500 electric heavy goods vehiclesused for middle-mile shipments to package hubsin the coming years. Although a number of large logistics firmsincluding package delivery companies United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp.have committed to buying large numbers of zero-emission electric vans and trucks, there are still not many available for purchase. A number of startups are racing to bring electric vans or trucks to market and are facing increasing competition from legacy manufacturers like General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.. Amazons largest electric van order is for 100,000 vehicles from Rivian Automotive Inc. through 2025. The company said that alongside EVs, it will invest in thousands of chargers at facilities across Europe. The retailer said it will also invest in doubling its European network of micro-mobility hubs from more than 20 cities today. Amazon has used those centrally located hubs to run new delivery methods including electric cargo bikes or on-foot deliveries to cut emissions. The company plans to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040. ($1 = 1.0259 euros) By Nick Carey Cars are seen on fire after Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) Australia Looks to Increase Aid to Ukraine Following Russian Bombing The Australian government has indicated it may send military staff to Europe as part of an increase in military aid for Ukraine as it continues to push back against Russias military aggression. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles told Sky News Australia on Oct. 11 that the government was considering what more could be done to help Ukraine, with the possibility of sending military forces to Europe to help train Ukrainians on the table. Were talking with Ukraine about the best ways in which we can support them over the long-term, Marles said. The objective of those countries supporting Ukraine is to make sure that Ukraine is in a position to resolve the end of this conflict on its own terms because the unprovoked aggression of Russia against Ukraine is just not a proposition that can be allowed to stand, and that means we need to be with Ukraine over the long-term. While the deputy prime minister noted that the government was looking at offering training resources to Ukraine, he also said that the government was looking for what would be most impactful in the long-term. We just need to work out, obviously, what we can do, but what we can do in a way which gives the best bang for buck and actually does support Ukraine over the long-term, he said. Russia Initiates Largest Bombing Campaign Since the Start of the Conflict The consideration of providing extra military resources to Ukraine comes as Russia has initiated the largest bombing campaign since the beginning of the conflict on Tuesday, with bombs hitting Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and other areas. Marles has condemned the bombing, calling it an appalling act by Russia in a press conference on Oct. 11. Whats really clear is that these strikes have been done with complete indifference to civilian populations. Theyve been directed at population centres in Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, he said. I was with the Ukrainian Ambassador yesterday when the news broke about these strikes, and the heartbreak was palpable. So what this says to us is that this is going to be a protracted conflict, and we need to be making sure that we are able to stand with Ukraine over the long term so that we can put Ukraine in a position where they can resolve this conflict on their own terms. Australian Aid to Ukraine Continues to Grow Australia has provided one of the largest contributors of aid to the Ukrainian war effort of any non-NATO member country. Currently, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade states that Australias military aid to Ukraine now totals $388 million (US$243 million). This included 60 Bushmasters and 28 M113AS4 Armoured Vehicles. The Ukrainians have praised the Bushmasters calling them a great asset in the field. Additionally, Australia has provided $65 million in humanitarian assistance, $32.6 million of coal supplies to support Ukraines energy security, and $8.7 million to assist Ukraines Border Guard Service to upgrade border management equipment, improve cyber security and enhance border operations. A further $1.68 million was also provided for radiation detection/protection equipment through the International Atomic Energy Agency to help ensure the safe and secure operation of nuclear facilities, and $200,000 to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to help protect against chemical attacks. The Australian government has also given duty-free access for Ukrainian imports to Australia and prioritised visa applications from Ukrainian nationals with 8,500 visas to Ukrainians being granted since Feb. 23. Bank of England Doubles Bond Buying Limit The Bank of England (BoE) will double the amount of government bonds it can buy daily before the buy-back programme ends on Friday, the central bank said on Monday. Between Monday and Friday, the bank will offer to buy up to 10 billion ($11 billion) of gilts per day, up from the previous limit of 5 billion ($5.5 billion) per day. The BoE said the measure aims to support an orderly end of its emergency bond-buying programme. The programme was introduced on Sept. 28 after a plummet in bond value following the governments mini-budget announcement, which threatened to collapse pension funds and send bond prices on a further spiral. In order to steady gilts, the bank said at the time it would buy bonds on whatever scale is necessary until Oct. 14. By Monday, BoE had carried out eight daily auctions, offering to buy 40 billion ($44 billion) of bonds, and had made around 5 billion of purchases. The gilts market dropped after the announcement, and yields rose across all maturities, as investors fretted about how the BoE would eventually sell these recent buy-backs. The market wants their intervention to be as little as possible because that means there is less to unwind eventually, Simeon Willis, chief investment officer at consultancy XPS Pensions Group, said. LDI Funds The BoE also announced two further measures to help banks release liquidity pressure facing liability driven investment (LDI) funds. LDI is a popular strategy used by pension funds to reduce risk of shortfall in money to pay pensioners, but it has been found wanting when markets move suddenly, potentially freezing pension funds. The BoE said it will launch a temporary expanded collateral repo facility, which will run beyond Oct. 14. The liquidity insurance operations will accept a wider range of collateral than normally eligible, such as corporate bond collateral, the bank said. It also said its ready to support further easing of liquidity pressures facing LDI funds through its regular indexed long term repo operations each Tuesday. The announcement, which was made before markets opened, was followed shortly afterwards by Chancellor Kwasi Kwartengs move to bring forward the publication of his medium-term fiscal plan and independent economic forecasts to Oct. 31. Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said it was a two-pronged attempt to calm markets. Policymakers and politicians are clearly nervous about seeing a repeat of the mini-financial crisis unleashed following the presentation of the Truss administrations slash and spend plans, and fresh moves are being made to try and repair the damage, Streeter said. She said there was still much scepticism about the governments plans just as Kwasi Kwarteng prepares to head to the International Monetary Funds annual conference where his policies are set for fresh scrutiny. Reuters and PA Media contributed to this report. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko walk during a meeting in Sochi, Russia, on May 23, 2022. (Sputnik/Ramil Sitdikov/Kremlin via Reuters) Belarus President Lukashenko Threatens Retribution If Ukraine Strikes Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday threatened fierce retribution if Ukraine carries out an attack in his country as he claimed to have received a warning about planned strikes, according to Belarusian media. Additionally, Lukashenko said hed spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation and theyd agreed to deploy a regional military group near Ukraine. Lukashenko noted Belarus had already started pulling forces together two days ago. It comes after the attack on the 12-mile-long bridge linking Russia and Crimea on Saturday, which Putin blamed on Ukraine. Yesterday we were warned through unofficial channels about strikes on Belarus from the territory of Ukraine. They said that it would be the Crimean Bridge 2, Lukashenko reportedly said at a meeting with security leaders, according to Belta. My answer was simple: Tell the president of Ukraine and other insane people, if they are still there, that the Crimean Bridge will be just the thin end of the wedge to them, if only they touch a single meter of our territory with their dirty hands, he added. Lukashenko, who has maintained power in Belarus since 1994, provided no evidence for his assertion that Ukraine was discussing strikes on the Russian ally. Lukashenko Claims Ukraine Planning Strikes Lukashenko accused the West of pushing Ukraine to force Belarus into the conflict. I have already said that today Ukraine is not just contemplating, but planning strikes on the territory of Belarus, he said. Lukashenko said the move would be madness from the point of view of the military but claimed that the process had begun nevertheless. They are being pushed by their patrons to unleash a war against Belarus in order to draw us in it and deal with Russia and Belarus at a time, he said. Lukashenko said Belarus has been preparing for this for decades and that the countrys military will respond if necessary. The comments signal a potential for escalation in the UkraineRussia war with the possible RussianBelarus joint force in the north of Ukraine. A tank moves along a field during joint exercises of the armed forces of Russia and Belarus near Minsk on Feb. 17, 2022. (Maxim Guchek/Belta/AFP via Getty Images) The new joint deployment comes after Russia fired cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities Monday in what Putin called an equivalent retaliatory response to the destruction of a strategically important bridge. Putin accuses Ukraine of the attack and deemed it a terrorist action on Russian soil, promising to respond firmly and on a scale corresponding to the threats created against Russia, according to state-run media. There are around 60,000 people in Belaruss army. The country has had six battalion-tactical groups numbering in the thousands deployed to border areas for several months. On Sunday, the head of Belaruss border guards accused Ukraine of provocations at the border. Russian forces used Belarus as a staging post for their Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, sending troops and equipment into northern Ukraine from bases in Belarus. President Joe Biden announces student loan relief with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona (R) at the White House in Washington, on Aug. 24, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) Biden Administration Unveils Application for Student Debt Cancellation as Legal Challenges Loom President Joe Bidens administration has released a preview application for people seeking up to $20,000 in student debt relief as the government moves forward with the scheme after surviving initial court challenges. The administration has published the application form, which has boxes for information such as name, social security number, and date of birth. Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, a Biden appointee, announced the scheme in September. People are eligible for relief if they make less than $125,000 annually, or are married and make less than $250,000 annually as a couple. People applying for the program are warned that by signing the form, theyre certifying under the penalty of perjury that all of the information is correct. That means they could get in trouble if they claim to be eligible but are not. A separate document for verifying a persons income has also been released. It says an applier must provide a tax return or tax return transcript from the IRS from 2020 or 2021. Alternatively, people can provide IRS verification of non-filing status if they did not file a return. A third form is for parents who have to attest to their income. That form comes into play if their dependent child asks for student debt cancellation. Parents are subject to the same income requirements. Dependents of single parents are only eligible if their parent makes less than $125,000 annually. Dependents of married parents are only eligible if their parents make less than $250,000 annually. The income limits are for 2020 or 2021. Officials have said they hope to start canceling debt in October. The new forms are not ready to fill out, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing on Wednesday. They were released to help people know what to expect. Were trying to be transparent, were trying to lay out how this process is going to work. In short, the form is simple, its easy to do, it should take less than five minutes to complete, and it will be available on mobile and desktop this month, she said. Its taking some time but the Department of Education is very much focused on this. Tens of millions of Americans were expected to be eligible, though the administration quietly scaled back eligibility in late September. Officials allege the relief is allowed under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003. That law lets the education secretary take certain actions during a national emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic is an emergency, officials say. Multiple legal challenges have been filed against the scheme, asserting the pandemic does not meet the definition of an emergency. Several of the lawsuits have been thrown out, including a Wisconsin suit based on a judges conclusion that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Others are still moving forward which could lead to the program being blocked temporarily or permanently. One suit, filed by Nebraska and five other states, is set for oral arguments on plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction. The arguments will be livestreamed on Oct. 12. In another case, plaintiffs were ordered to meet and provide a proposed schedule to address a motion for an injunction, producing the report no later than Oct. 17. President Joe Biden issued an executive order that increases government spy operations in the United States, yet leaves the door open to expand surveillance powers. The order establishes that the president can create new surveillance operations, and can keep these operations hidden from the public if he believes it would jeopardize the integrity. Meanwhile, evidence is growing on alleged criminal activities of Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden. Federal agents may have enough evidence to bring charges against Hunter. In this live Q&A with Crossroads host Joshua Philipp, well discuss these stories and others, and answer questions from the audience. Subscribe to the new Crossroads newsletter and stay up-to-date! *Big thanks to our sponsor Sekur! Use promo Code JOSHUA for 25% off at https://www.sekur.com The Real Story of Jan. 6 Documentary102 Minutes, Color The Real Story of Jan. 6, a documentary by The Epoch Times, reveals the truth that has been hidden from the American people. While a narrative has been set that what took place that day was an insurrection, key events and witnesses have been ignored, until now. The Real Story DVD: https://www.epochtv.shop/product-page/dvd-the-real-story-of-january-6 , Promo Code Joshua for 20% off * Click the Save button below the video to access it later on My List. Donate to Support Crossroads: https://donorbox.org/crossroads Crossroads merchandise: https://www.epochtv.shop Follow Crossroads on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Crossroads.Josh Twitter: https://twitter.com/crossroads_josh Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/Crossroads_JoshuaPhilipp Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@crossroads_josh Gettr: https://www.gettr.com/user/crossroads_josh Gab: https://gab.com/Crossroads_Josh Telegram: https://t.me/Crossroads_josh Biden Promises Ukraines Zelenskyy Advanced Air Defense Systems After Russian Missile Attacks President Joe Biden on Monday promised President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington will supply Ukraine with advanced air defense systems amid Russias ongoing invasion. The two leaders spoke on the phone shortly after Russia launched its largest air strike yet on Ukraine following the destruction of a bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula over the weekend. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraines security services of perpetuating the attack. Russias strikes killed at least 11 civilians, Ukrainian officials said, and knocked out Ukraines power grid, leaving parts of the country with no electricity, water, or heat. Thousands of residents were forced to shelter in bomb shelters throughout the day as missiles rained down on multiple cities, with explosions reported in Kyiv, Lviv, Ternopil, and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro, and Kremenchuk in the center, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. During Mondays call, Biden expressed his condemnation of Russias missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks according to a White House readout of the call. President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems, the readout said. Smoke rises over the city after a Russian missile strike, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Oleksandr Klymenko/Reuters) He also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance, the statement added. The White House did not state exactly which air defense systems Biden said he will supply to Zelenskyy during their call but earlier this year, Washington committed to provide Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Those anti-aircraft systems are manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and used to protect the airspace around the White House and Capitol in Washington. They can be used to strike Russian cruise missiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sept. 8, 2022. (Genya Savilov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Sign of Russian Weakness Zelenskyys office also issued a statement on Monday detailing his phone call with Biden which stated that the Ukrainian president informed Washington about the consequences of the massive missile strikes against civilian infrastructure perpetrated today by the Russian aggressor. Zelenskyy said the strikes against civilian targets throughout Ukraine are a sign of weakness of the Russian army which is losing on the battlefield. It is pure terror but that Ukraine will not succumb to the Russian missile blackmail, according to the statement. Biden and Zelenskyy also discussed the importance of air defense, and continued U.S. contributions to increase this capability the statement adds. Cars are seen on fire after Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) Russia-Ukraine Conflict Escalates The two leaders also discussed the upcoming extraordinary meeting of the Group of Seven Leaders (G7) dedicated to Ukraine and most pressing measures of support for Ukraine which can be adopted by the international community, according to Zelenskyys office. In total, the Biden administration has committed a total of $15.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The latest promise of advanced air defense systems to Ukraine comes as its conflict with Russia continues to escalate. On Monday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of Vladimir Putins closest allies, said that some of his countrys 60,000-strong army will deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine. Lukashenko said the decision was made because Ukraine had been preparing to attack Belarus with help from allies Poland and Lithuania, although he did not provide any evidence relating to such claims. Strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine today, but are also being planned, Lukashenko said at a meeting on security. Their owners are pushing them to start a war against Belarus to drag us there. Following Lukashenkos announcement, Polish citizens in Belarus were being advised by the government to leave the country as relations between the two countries increasingly turned sour. Reuters contributed to this report. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in the Government with the leaders of parties participating in the Consultative Assembly on Cooperation with Extra-Parliamentary Forces in the Government, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia. The meeting was attended by Republic Party Chairman Aram Sargsyan, Chairman of the Christian Democratic Party of Armenia Levon Shirinyan, United Motherland Party Chairman Mher Terteryan, Social Democrat Hunchakian Party Armenia Office Head Sedrak Achemian, Chairman of the European Party of Armenia Tigran Khzmalyan, Chairman of Sovereign Armenia Party David Sanasaryan and Chairman of Power of the Fatherland Party Tigran Arzakantsyan. Children prepare to watch drag queens perform at the Chattanooga Pride parade in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Oct. 2, 2022. (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times) Businesses Bow to Outrage, Reverse Course on Drag Shows for Children For unspecified reasons, Chattanooga, Tennessees Big Chill and Grill restaurant and bar has backed down. It will ban children from its Drag Queen Bingo nights. Its one of several businesses nationwide to scale back on offering what some argue is age-inappropriate content and services for children. We are now running DQB [Drag Queen Bingo] as an 18+ event, The Big Chill and Grill announced on its Facebook page on Oct. 3. Only six days earlier, it had hosted an event aimed at children. Businesses have often supported radical pro-LGBT events and practices that drew public ire, only to change course after the response attracted coverage by news organizations. Although its not clear why the Big Chill and Grill changed course, recent events have suggested that public anger has had a strong influence over whether companies back radical content marketed to children. The outside of the Big Chill and Grill, which hosted a child friendly Drag Queen Bingo night in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Sept. 26, 2022. (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times) Its not just mom-and-pop outfits. Powerhouses like Disney and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have also backed down after a public outcry. Drag Defeated In Tennessee, drag events for children have rapidly retreated. Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville canceled an all-ages drag event, and the Carl Perkins Civic Center in Jackson nixed plans for a drag show open to children. More than 1,000 people signed a petition from a Chattanooga group, the Hamilton County Conservatives, demanding the end of drag shows for children. The best laws are those that are moral, constitutional, practical, serve the greater good, are supported by the majority of the citizenry and protect the most vulnerable among us, the petition stated. In Idaho, event organizers postponed a child-friendly drag show, citing safety concerns. The organizers did not provide specifics. The Epoch Times contacted the Big Chill and Grill, but the business declined to comment. Several local businesses sponsored the Chattanooga Pride parade and held drag shows for children. Photo taken in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Oct. 2, 2022. (Jackson Elliott/The Epoch Times) Ijams Nature Center and the Carl Perkins Civic Center didnt respond to a request for comment by press time. Secret, Then Stopped On the national level, exposure also resulted in the temporary pausing of Vanderbilt University Medical Clinics [VUMC] gendertransition program, as reported by The Epoch Times. Vanderbilts program included surgeries such as hysterectomies (to remove the womb), mastectomies, and chemical castration of children as young as 16. All the patients were 16 or older, none received genital procedures, and parental consent was obtained for all patients, according to company deputy CEO, Dr. C. Wright Pinson, as previously reported by The Epoch Times. The clinic faced outrage on Twitter after a video revealed a hospital representative discussing how gender transition surgeries make a lot of money. Daily Wire podcast host and commentator Matt Walsh exposed VUMCs gender transition surgery policies for children. He reported finding that videos on the groups website encouraged sex organ mutilation surgeries as a moneymaking tool for VUMC. Conscientious objectors to this practice were problematic, and those who expressed them would face consequences, a VUMC doctor said in a video. Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., is pictured on July 16, 2013. (Mark Humphrey/AP Photo) Furthermore, VUMC partnered with transgender activists who attended medical appointments with patients to encourage doctors not to misgender them, according to videos Walsh collected. VUMCs videos also said that VUMC has given puberty blockers and opposite-gender hormones to children as young as 13. Soon after, VUMC removed several videos detailing its practices from its website. VUMC issued a formal letter to Tennessee state Rep. Jason Zachary (R) on Oct. 7. VUMC began its Transgender Health Clinic in 2018 because transgender individuals are at high risk for mental and physical health issues, and have been consistently underserved by our nations health care systems, the letter reads. It further states that VUMC has followed the current guidelines for transgender care by the Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health. VUMC also said it allows employees to conscientiously object to gender characteristic mutilation surgery. Walsh said he plans a protest against child mutilation on Oct. 21 outside the Tennessee State Capitol, according to the Daily Wires website. Government Against Gender Mutilation In September, Tenn. State Rep. Jason Zachary, along with 61 other Tennessee House Republicans, sent a letter to VUMC asking that they pause surgical mutilations of minor children, as reported by The Epoch Times. Lawmakers called on VUMC in a letter to halt the procedures with legislative action pending. Disney has provided significant support for marketing LGBT ideology to children. Photo shows fireworks over The Sleeping Beauty Castle as part of the premiere of RememberDreams Come True the biggest fireworks display in Disneylands history during the 50th Anniversary Celebration at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif., on May 4, 2005. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images) We are winning, Walsh announced triumphantly on Twitter on Oct. 9. In another apparent example of companies responding to public pressure, Disney Plus removed the animated horror-comedy show Little Demon from its platform on Oct. 4, after its release about a month ago, according to Survive the News. Nationwide parental rights group One Million Moms gathered over 52,000 signatures for a petition to cancel the show. The show told the story of a woman who was impregnated by Satan and has an antichrist teen daughter. It includes graphic violence, nudity, and satanic rituals, according to an article by the Christian Post. Little Demon was rated TV-MA for mature audiences, the television equivalent of an R rating. In the past, Disney Plus has stated that it wont put R-rated shows on its platform. The Epoch Times asked Disney why it canceled the show but has yet to receive comment. California Man Charged in Familys Kidnapping, Slaying MERCED, Calif.Prosecutors on Monday charged a California man in the kidnapping and killings of an 8-month-old baby, her parents, and uncle. Jesus Salgado is accused of kidnapping the family at gunpoint from their trucking business on Oct. 3. Authorities say Salgado, a former employee with a longstanding dispute, likely killed them within an hour. Their bodies were not found until late Wednesday, when a farm worker in an almond orchard in a remote area of the San Joaquin Valley, Californias agricultural heartland, discovered the remains of Aroohi Dheri; her 27-year-old mother Jasleen Kaur; her 36-year-old father Jasdeep Singh; and her 39-year-old uncle Amandeep Singh. (Left) Eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri. (Center) Aroohi Dheri uncle Amandeep Singh. (Right) Aroohi Dheri with her mother Jasleen Kaur and her father Jasdeep Singh. (Merced Police Department) Salgado, 48, tried to kill himself a day after the kidnappings before he was taken into custody. He faces four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances, the Merced County District Attorneys Office announced Monday. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. The special circumstances allege that the slayings were committed during the commission of a kidnapping and were part of multiple killings in the same case. Salgado appeared in court Monday on video, KFSN reported. He did not enter a plea and asked for more time to find an attorney. He is scheduled to return to court Thursday. Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke last week would not discuss the condition of the adults remains in the orchard and said it was unclear how the baby died. Warnke said the child had no visible trauma. Warnke called for Salgado to face the death penalty, but District Attorney Kimberly Lewis on Monday said she would defer that decision to next year. Salgado is also charged with arson and the possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He was previously convicted of first-degree robbery with the use of a firearm in Merced County, attempted false imprisonment and an attempt to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness after he held a family he had worked for at gunpoint and forced them to follow his orders nearly 20 years ago. In 2007, he was sentenced to 11 years in state prison in that case. He was released in 2015 and discharged from parole three years later, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He also has a conviction for possession of a controlled substance, the department said. Salgados younger brother Alberto Salgado, 41, was arrested late Thursday and accused of criminal conspiracy, accessory, and destroying evidence. Alberto Salgado. (Merced County Sheriffs Office via AP) Warning signs for shark sightings remain in Long Beach, Calif., on May 16, 2017. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images) New California Fishing Law Bans Luring White Sharks to Shore Fishers in California can no longer use shark bait, lures, or chumchopped-up fish parts used as baitto attract white sharks within one mile of the shore because of a new law that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in September. The law prevents the illegal killing or capture of white sharks near shore, as well as luring them to shore for viewing purposes. It will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Sharks are one of Californias most iconic marine species, and its our responsibility to ensure that their populations are sustained, Assemblyman Steve Bennett, the sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement. At the same time, public safety is of the utmost importance. While the new law provides additional safeguards for the speciesprotected by the state since 1994its purpose, according to the statement, is also to limit the number of sharks near human activity. Doing so not only reduces the rare incident of a shark biting a person but allows sharks to swim in waters that are naturally further from shore. The white sharks that do come near the shore are often juveniles who are only there to feed on sting rays and small fish, according to John Ugoretz, a manager with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. With more protection put in place over white sharks, their numbers will grow. Californians shouldnt have to take extra precautions against white sharks since theres no indication that the number of injuries involving the species has increased as the shark populations have increased since the 1950s, according to Ugoretz. He said stingrays can be a bigger threat than sharks since roughly 500 people statewide were injured by stingrays in 2019 during Labor Day weekend. A Bluespotted stingray swims in the Aquarium of the Pacific complex in Long Beach, Calif., Nov. 8, 2006. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images) Shark incidents are extremely rare, Ugortez wrote in an email. When I go into the ocean, Im much more likely to shuffle my feet to avoid stepping on a stingray, than to scan the horizon for a shark fin. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will continue working with partners to address fishing activities that threaten the survival of white sharks. This bill represents a collaborative engagement between anglers, the scientific community, [and] the [department] to develop proactive, common-sense approaches to further protect Californias iconic white sharks while also protecting ocean users and preserving recreational fishing opportunities, Charlton H. Bonham, director of the department, said in a statement. Minister of National Defence Anita Anand and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrive to hold a press conference in Ottawa on Sept. 26, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick) Canada Sending 40 Military Engineers to Poland to Train Ukrainian Forces Canada is sending 40 military engineers to Poland to train Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. Defence Minister Anita Anand announced the deployment during a visit to Warsaw this morning before a planned meeting with NATO counterparts in Belgium. The new contribution is on top of the roughly 225 military trainers working with Ukrainian forces as part of a British-led training mission. It is also in addition to the deployment of three Hercules transport planes to Scotland, where the aircraft are helping deliver supplies to Ukrainian forces battling Russia. The Department of National Defence says the engineers will be attached to a Polish-led training effort focused on teaching Ukrainian on how to use explosives, among other things. Anands announcements comes days after an explosion damaged an important bridge connecting Russia and Ukraines Crimean Peninsula, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to order missile strikes on several Ukrainian cities. Canadians Concerned About Feds Management of the Pandemic: Report Internal government research by six focus groups in various Canadian regions found that many participants expressed concern with several areas of Ottawas management of the pandemic. The March 2022 report was prepared for the Privy Council Office and delivered on May 16. The Federal Accountability Act orders all confidential polling that the government does to be open to the public within six months of its release. The report was obtained and originally reported by Blacklocks Reporter. Discussing whether the Government of Canadas management of the pandemic at present [March 2022] was better, the same or worse when compared to earlier stages of the pandemic, participants expressed a variety of opinions, said the report, titled Continuous Qualitative Data Collection Of Canadians Views. While participants in Manitoba found that pandemic management had been poor throughout the entire pandemic, most participants throughout the six regions felt that the governments management worsened as the situation unfolded. Several felt the federal approach lacked direction, the report said. Still, a smaller yet significant number felt government performance improved or remained relatively the same. Unfairly Treated by the Government The ongoing vaccine mandates was also a concern for some participants, according to the report. A number of participants expressed disappointment regarding the continued implementation of federal vaccine-related mandates, it said. A few also felt those who had lost their jobs due to their lack of compliance with federal vaccine mandates had been unfairly treated by the Government of Canada, believing individuals careers should not have been impacted by what they perceived to be personal health decisions. Some participants felt that mandates were contradictory, such as when indoor mask mandates were lifted but still required in primary and secondary schools or how gyms and fitness studios were closed, but malls and restaurants were allowed to stay open. The entire group of participants in Newfoundland viewed vaccine requirements to be largely harmful, referring to them as divisive and ineffective. They felt that those who had made the personal decision not to get vaccinated were unfairly targeted. Some felt more emphasis should have been placed on acknowledging the perceived protection provided by natural immunity gained by those who had previously recovered from COVID-19, while others were of the opinion that public health officials should have placed a greater emphasis on encouraging Canadians to live healthier lifestyles in general, rather than focusing on vaccines as the primary means to protect Canadians, the report stated. The group in Manitoba found that the governments efforts had little impact overall and were concerned about the divisiveness and anxiety caused by the handling of the pandemic. In particular, the youths mental health was a concern. A few [of the Manitoba participants] specifically mentioned adopting rigorous sanitizing and hand washing practices, which they felt had served to reinforce pre-existing phobias they held regarding the spread of viruses and bacteria, the report added. A number of participants who either contracted the virus themselves or had someone close to them contract it felt this experience had generally served to provide greater reassurance that the virus was manageable in most situations. Overall, most participants felt things were returning to normal and were no longer concerned about the virus. CERB Although some participants were satisfied with the prompt delivery of financial support and the governments job of keeping the public informed at the initial stages, the report also showed that financial support programs, such as the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), were perceived to be mismanaged with a lack of oversight that helped lead to labour shortages. CERB was one of the first COVID-related relief programs passed by Parliament in March 2020, shortly after the pandemic started. The program offered a $2,000 per four-week payout to those whose employment was affected by the pandemic. At first, CERB was expected to cost the government $24 billion. By Aug. 16, 2020, nearly 8.6 million people received $70 billion. The records say that the program ended up paying out $81.6 billion. According to a Sept. 20 Inquiry of Ministry reported by Blacklocks, 1.7 million people (around 19 percent), received CERB benefits but did not qualify. Those figures did not include payments to high school students who received $636 million, about $186 million of which went to 15-year-olds. Andrew Chen contributed to this report. Cant Afford California? Thank an Environmentalist Commentary The world that we invented, from an environmental perspective, is now getting in the way of moving these projects forward, said California Governor Gavin Newsom on Aug. 11. This moment of candor, coming from a man who seems determined to be the most environmentally correct politician in the world, was with reference to water projects. But Newsom, and anyone else paying attention to California politics, knows that for every major project, of whatever type, environmental regulations and litigation are getting in the way of moving them forward. Thats life in California, and when even Governor Newsom starts to complain, you can bet the problem is real. Environmentalism run amok isnt just stopping infrastructure projects and destroying economic opportunities for millions, its even harming the environment. That isnt hard to miss, if you look around. Notice the dead or dying trees in front of homes, businesses, or in the traffic medians on the boulevards of major cities? Thank environmentalists, who for decades have successfully blocked any projects that might have drought-proofed our water supply and eliminated the need to triage urban water use. A sign advocating water conservation is posted in a field of dry grass in San Anselmo, Calif., on April 23, 2021. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Are you sweltering in neighborhoods adjacent to fields turned into heat islands, where toxic plastic rugs have replaced natural turf, supposedly to save water and hence save the planet? Are your kids coming home with torn ligaments and synthetic particles embedded in their skin and clothes, because they competed on these fake lawns? Thank an environmentalist. Have you been forced to buy LED lights, all of them equipped with cheap transformers, and noticed the unhealthy impact of spending half your life exposed to their oscillating flicker? Wouldnt you prefer to have access to the newest warm, safe energy-efficient incandescent bulbs instead of having them banned? Thank an environmentalist. Are you using battery powered blowers, mowers, pruners, and weed whackers that are clearly not ready for prime time? Do you enjoy having to obsessively charge and discharge them and store them according to demanding specifications so they dont burn out after six months? Hows that working out for you? Thank an environmentalist. Have you been stranded in your electric vehicle (EV), waiting for an hour or more to get to a charger and get recharged? What do you do when it rains so hard its hazardous to charge an EV, or when you cant find a charging station, or you dont have hours to wait to add range to your car? Someday, EVs may be practical, safe and affordable. But why are they being forced upon the public today? Thank an environmentalist. An EV Go station for charging electric vehicles in Irvine, Calif., on March 25, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) None of this stuff helps the planet. There ought to be plenty of water and energy to allow Californians to live with comfort and dignity, but instead of building enabling water and energy infrastructure, sue-happy environmentalists stop every project in its tracks, while their cronies profit from sales of marginal products that use far more resources and ultimately leave a bigger environmental footprint. Does anyone really think astroturf, or LED lights, or lithium batteries, can be sustainably manufactured and recycled? What about thousands of square miles being smothered with photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, and battery farms? What about electric vehicles? In most cases, the manufacture, maintenance, and replacement requirements of renewables consume orders of magnitude more resources than conventional energy. In California, the entire economy is critically damaged thanks to extreme environmentalism, starting with housing. In the old days, homes were built with lumber that was logged and milled in California. Water heaters, cooktops, and space heaters used natural gas extracted from California wells, and electricity came from an in-state mixture of hydroelectric, natural gas and nuclear sources. Water came from a system of reservoir storage and transfer via aqueducts and pumping stations that remains a marvel of the world. The new roads and freeways were constructed out of a combination of government operating budgets and bonds. The land homes were built on was rezoned without litigation or onerous delays and fees. On this foundation of government-funded enabling infrastructure and less regulations, homes were affordable. Back then, California worked for ordinary people. It became a magnet for people from all over America and the world. Those days are gone. Thank an environmentalist. Theres a reason homes cost almost twice as much in California as they do in the rest of the nation. Getting land approved for development takes years if not decades, during which at any point the permit can be denied by any number of agencies or deterred by endless environmentalist litigation. On top of land scarcity is water scarcity, also politically contrived, which prevents many housing developments from even being proposed. New homes under construction at a housing development in Novato, Calif., on March 23, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Then there is the cost of lumber and concrete, products that used to come from local sources that competed for customers. But with Californias lumber harvest down to a quarter of what it was only 30 years ago, and the virtual impossibility of opening new quarries, home builders have to import their materials from other states and nations, driving costs way up. Adding to the cost of homes as well are the environmentally-correct appliances now required, that are energy and water efficient to a fault. Equipped with sensors, software that requires updates, and connected to the internet, these hyper-efficient machines cost twice as much as they otherwise would, dont last very long, and do a poor job. And what about those low flow faucets and shower heads that barely release water, and turn off automatically before youre done with them? Theres nothing wrong with designing greater efficiency into appliances. But these appliances go well beyond the point of diminishing returns, and the only beneficiaries are crony manufacturers and tech companies. Thank an environmentalist. The counterproductive impact of environmentalism defies reason. Its not just the colossal, destructive footprint of supposedly renewable products or sources of energy. Its land management. Thanks to environmentalists, in Californias forests and woodlands, in order to log, graze livestock, do controlled burns or mechanical thinning, property owners confront an obstacle course of regulations and permit requirements coming from several agencies at once. Many of the regulations are in conflict with others; it is an expensive and protracted process that very few can navigate. And so the overcrowded forests burn. This is perhaps the most egregious example of counter-productive environmentalism. Bigger than their war on nuclear power and natural gas. Maybe even bigger than their success in making California unaffordable and inconvenient for all but the super rich. For the last 30 years, as CalFire snuffed out every small fire they possibly could, every practical means of thinning the forests to compensate for fire suppression was made nearly impossible. Thank an environmentalist. Firefighters work on extinguishing the Coastal Fire in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on May 11, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Californias forests are approximately seven times as dense (pdf) as they have historically been for millennia prior to these atrocious circumstances. In previous centuries, because they werent overcrowded, the forests survived droughts more prolonged than the ones we experience in this century. But today, the rain we get cant even percolate into the ground. The crowded trees desperately absorb every drop, and it still isnt enough, because where one tree used to grow, seven trees are competing for the same nutrients and moisture. This is why the trees are dying. This is why we have superfires. When Californias forests have burnt down to the dirt, and ash laden silt is eroding into every stream and river in the state, thank an environmentalist. It should go without saying that environmentalism is an important value to incorporate into public policy. We may thank environmentalists for getting the lead out of gasoline, and saving the majestic condor, to name two noteworthy achievements that happened right here in California. But environmentalism becomes a negative value when its primary benefit is only to line the pockets of environmentalist litigants or pad government bureaucracies or enrich crony businessmen. Today there is no balance. Environmentalism in California is out of control, because it empowers a powerful coalition of special interests. The interests of the planet, as well as the interests of Californias striving humans, have become secondary. Newsoms criticisms are helpful. Now they need to be followed up with action. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Russian hackers strike again, this time attacking U.S. airports. Ukraines capitol, Kyiv, was targeted with air strikes Monday. The attack killed around a dozen civilians and injured nearly 100 others. President Joe Biden is calling it an act of brutality. Taiwan is vowing to bolster its defenses against a Chinese invasion. What does the Taiwanese president say about a potential war with Beijing? Floridas surgeon general had a tweet blocked by the media platform. The tweet shared findings by Floridas Health Department on the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine in men. Another doctor has been banned from Twitter. Cardiologist and author Dr. Peter McCullough joins us. Is there encroachment on Second Amendment rights? The FBI is beginning to collect the addresses of some gun buyers. BUY Jan 6 DVD: The Real Story of Jan. 6 Documentary102 Minutes, Color), Promo Code [Steve] for 20% off. * Click the Save button below the video to access it later on My List. Follow CapitolReport on social media: Twitter https://twitter.com/capitolreport Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CapitolReport/ Gettr https://gettr.com/user/capitolreport 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 CCP Harassing Chinese Dissident in Netherlands, Victim Says A 21-year-old Chinese dissident, living in the Netherlands, says he has been constantly harassed in recent months by what he believes are Chinese agents and individuals hired by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Wang Jingyu, from Chongqing, China, is living in exile. He expressed his support to Hong Kong protesters on social media in 2019 and had to flee China to avoid the regimes persecution. In 2021, he was wanted for questioning the CCPs official number of Chinese soldier deaths during the conflict with Indian military at the border between the two countries. He was detained by United Arab Emirates (UAE) police in Dubai when he was changing flights to get to the United States and faced the threat of the UAE sending him back to China. With the intervention of the U.S. government and attention from international organizations and international media, he was released and sent back to Turkey. The Turkish government confiscated his passport citing that he hadnt applied for reentry in advance. Wang Jingyu, a Chinese dissident, is living in exile in the Netherlands. (Courtesy of Wang Jingyu) Wang and his girlfriend eventually made it to the Netherlands and were granted political asylum in April 2022. Fake Bomb Threats Wang told The Epoch Times on Oct. 8 that he has been followed, threatened, and had his photo taken by Chinese individuals in recent months. Moreover, someone used his name, phone number, and passport number to make bomb threats to hotels in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Canada, and other countries, and demanding money. He received a call from a Belgian police station in Brussels on Oct.7, The police said that someone said that you had put bombs in seven or eight hotels in three countries. He said that I had to go to the police station in the Netherlands immediately. If you dont go, you will be in great trouble. I was horrified when I heard this. He and his girlfriend were locked in a room for an hour in a Dutch police station, where the police also took their phones and watches. Later, a senior officer approached the couple. The detective has a very friendly attitude towards us, because he read our previous records and knew that it is the CCP whos doing this to us, Wang said. He returned their phones and watches, told them to leave, and said that there was no guarantee what would happen next. He said that because of the very serious nature of the bomb threat and involving many countries, he could only say that he would not arrest me now, but if I went to other countries, he said that I might be arrested. If another country applies for a European arrest warrant, then the Dutch police will arrest us, but he said that at least in the Netherlands, the whole Dutch police know about me, Wang said. On Oct. 8, another bomb threat was made in Canada by someone impersonating him, and he had to go to the Dutch police station to explain what was happening. These events have seriously affected his life, Wang said. Continuous Harassment and Threats Wang said that the CCPs harassment of him in the Netherlands started on June 9, when a group of people went to his residence to threaten him, and one of them had a knife. He immediately called the police, and the man with the knife fled and it turns out, was wanted by the police. The knife-wielding man went to Germany and then to Luxembourg on the next day. He continued to contact Wang and make threats and provoke the Dutch police by recording a video saying that he would come to the Netherlands to cut Wang. The Dutch police believed Wang and his girlfriend were in danger and sent them to a hotel for protection. On Sept. 10, someone sent an e-mail to the Dutch royal gendarmerie, saying that there was a bomb in Wangs home and that Wang hated the democratic system and wanted to go to The Hague court to kill people. The Dutch police dispatched seven police cars, special police, and helicopters to search Wangs residence. Wang said: The police said that when they receive such a report, whether it is true or not, they dispatch a large number of police officers to the scene. From then on, the CCP went crazy. Either they sent people to stalk, harass, and verbally abuse me, or they made a false police report. The police came to my home at midnight after they received the false reports. Its really annoying, and has happened 10 times. The man in the picture intercepted Wang Jingyu on his way to the Chinese embassy on Oct. 1, 2022, and verbally abused him. Wang called the Dutch police, and the police filed a criminal investigation of the man. (Courtesy of Wang Jingyu) On Oct. 1, Wang Jingyu went to the Chinesee embassy in the Netherlands to protest what he was experiencing. On the way there, a man wearing a black T-shirt with the words CCP military on the front and the CCPs five-star flag on his sleeve, intercepted him and began insulting him. After I arrived at the embassy, a person in the embassy called the police and reported that I was making a false case as I stood there. He said I was a Uyghur terrorist, Wang said. Wang said the CCPs harassment has seriously affected his life. It makes me on the verge of a mental breakdown, as the police could rush over any time, for no reason, making me look like a terrorist. He also revealed that Jordan (E.Y. Jordan, Police number HGL05791), a senior officer of the Dutch National Police headquartered in The Hague, recently advised him to enter prison for his safety, because prison is the only place the CCPs agents cannot freely enter. Wang did not comply with the suggestion. Wang recorded the Dutch police officer Jordan while he was giving the advice. The Epoch Times called the Dutch police headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands. The police said that they would not accept telephone interviews, and the press needs to go to the police station to inquire in person. The Epoch Times also called the above-mentioned senior police officer, and the phone was turned off. Gu Xiaohua and Li Yan contributed to this report. Residents queue outside a polling station at an elementary school to vote in local elections in Taipei on Nov. 24, 2018. (Chris Stowers/AFP/Getty Images) CCP Taints Taiwans Local Elections Using Agents in Business, Religion, and Cyberspace: Experts Taiwans upcoming local elections are considered to be a skirmish prior to the presidential election in 2024. Beijings attempts to influence Taiwans political environment are known to local voters. Experts say that the impact of communist agents has been a major concern on the self-ruled island. Nine local political offices will be voted on Nov. 26, including mayors, councilors, and local representatives. In a recent interview with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times, experts on the island explained how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been meddling in Taiwan elections at all levels through agents in businesses and religious organizations. Democracy Tainted by the CCP Tzu-yun Su is a military analyst at Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank in Taiwan. He says there are three means the CCP routinely exploits to shape the political narrative on the island: agents who engage in information war; businesses that aid pro-CCP candidates; and grassroots organizations such as, religious groups and local agricultural and fisheries associations, that attract adherents in favor of a particular candidate. According to Su, the CCP typically has its agents tempt its targets with financial incentives, also known as the white gloves, to aid a political figure, and often implicate the Taiwanese businessmen, local organizations, and the political candidates in its corrupt practices. He explained that the CCP exerts its material influence through cross-strait agents, followed by cognitive warfare with disinformation. Therefore, its important to track the cash flow to prevent the CCPs influence. The CCP adopts indirect and roundabout ways of cash flow [to Taiwanese businesses], such as granting them businesses in China through special licenses or via underground financial exchanges, similar to money laundering, Su said. He suspects that foreign investment in individual businesses in Taiwan is also a form of manipulation by the CCP. The audits of cash flow and finance are worthwhile security-checks to the government, Su said. Tzu-yun Su, Director Defense Strategy and Resources Division, Institute for National Defense and Security Research, speaks at a forum held by the National Policy Foundation in Taipei on March 8, 2021. (Min-Chou Wu/The Epoch Times) CCP Tactics Often Repulse Voters Taiwans voters generally have a negative impression of candidates who have CCP support, according to Titus C. Chen, Associate Professor, Institute of Political Science, National Sun Yat-sen University. He said, Past elections in Taiwan showed that the CCPs manipulation often backfired on the candidates. As for the cash flow, Chen pointed out that donations from China-based Taiwanese businessmen are often questioned regarding the sources of the funds, namely are they pure business revenue or political funds from the CCP? Chen indicated that there are certain businessmen who collaborate with the CCP and their donations are considered to be foreign influence or interference in local elections. He said, Red capital influencing political figures is not surprising. Influence of Religious Leaders Taiwans 2021 official data showed that there were a total of 15,183 temples and churches, and 943,874 active and regular participants attending local church and temple services and activities on the island. In the name of religious exchanges, the cultural and language similarity has offered Beijings United Front Work Department access to the naive Taiwanese religious groups. In 2019, the Taiwan-based Mirror Media reported that CCP agents infiltrated 30 temples organizations, including some of the most prominent temples in Taiwan. The report revealed that CCP agent, Chang An-lo, known as white wolf to local gangs, received 500 million RMB (about $69.5 million) annually from the CCP. Chang, president of the Taiwan-based Chinese Unification Promotion Party, which he founded in 2005, absorbed a number of leading figures of Taiwanese temples as its party members. According to the report, these temples are alleged to serve as money laundering channels for capital from the mainland. Chen indicated that the chairman of the temple or the head monk would give temple-goers hints to support a particular candidate. He said, It is a political mobilization of those who share the same religious ritual. He mentioned that private donations from smaller temples are of specific concern because its difficult to track their activities, and that investigators would typically focus on the major temples. Ye Xiaowen (second from right), then director of religious affairs of the Communist Party of China, at the closing ceremony of the World Forum on Religions in Taipei, Taiwan, on April 1, 2009. (You-Hao Chin/The Epoch Times) Cyber Propaganda Gets Meticulous Chen said that in the past, during elections online public figures received funds from unknown sources sponsoring a particular candidate just days or weeks before the election day. But, he believes the tactics will be even more sophisticated for the upcoming elections. He said, It used to be that every YouTuber seemed to suddenly carry the same line, same slogan; but now, they can be categorized and specifically designed to fit different viewers and channels. It is unknown how efficient the cyberspace propaganda can get, in terms of the number of votes; but The spreadability is wider than the temples and cheaper in cost, Chen said. Underground Agents Chen says the temple leaders are especially effective because of their connection to the local populace, and thus the elected heads of local offices. Speaking of effectiveness, the candidates personal aid is the hidden agent that could serve the CCP the best, Chen noted. Judging from the current situation in Taiwan, the CCP has shifted from supporting one particular political party to secretly working on a specific candidate, Chen says. The campaign advisers and even political operators under the table are often beyond the scope of media attention. Outsiders would not know about their overseas contacts with the CCP. The CCPs manipulation of one political party on the island was ineffective based on the past elections, therefore, To secretly support a specific candidate could be the latest move of the CCP, Chen stated. Taiwan, home to the government of the Republic of China after 1949 when then President Chiang Kai-shek lost the civil war in China to the CCP and retreated to the island, has its own constitution, military, education system, and elections. The CCP now claims Taiwan as part of its territory and conducts its united front work by infiltrating the island on all fronts, including the economy, education, technology, and politics. Chun-Lin Hou contributed to this report. China Admits European Sovereignty Means Nothing Commentary An official from Chinas foreign ministry admitted that Beijing cares little for the judicial sovereignty of European countries if they dont serve Chinas interests. The fact that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will go after its targets abroad using any means necessary is nothing new, nor is it news that government bodies, officials, and individual law enforcement officers have made it known that if Beijing cant get people back because a country refuses to engage in law enforcement cooperation, such as not ratifying an extradition treaty, it will use alternative methods. This should have caused outrage in courts and parliaments in countries with extradition treaties with China, yet it hasnt. However, that might change after a remarkable answer following a new report by Safeguard Defenders that exposes the almost unbelievable scope of the CCPs long-arm policing and how Chinese police service stations are being set up around the world. This development began with a recent investigation carried out in Spain, which has nine service stations. Local media not only confirmed their existence and that at least one of them had been used to coerce a target to return to China, but the investigation yielded a surprising response from Beijing. Spain, unfortunately, is one of a dozen or so countries in Europe that maintains an extradition treaty with China, signed in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Moreover, no country in the world has extradited as many people to China as Spain since then, with more than 200 people sent back, and with courts that seemingly pay no attention to their (legally binding) commitments to block such extraditions if it violates the rule of law or human rights. Despite this, Beijing apparently feels its both too slow and cumbersome to use such extraditions, and that in Europe, some countries sometimes deny these requests. The America ChangLe Association in New York City on Oct. 6, 2022. An overseas Chinese police outpost in New York, which is called Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, is located inside the association. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) When an official from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Shanghai was approached by a major Spanish newspaper that investigated the situation, the official, who spoke anonymously, said that bilateral treaties are very cumbersome, and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. Because of this, the official went on, Chinese authorities see nothing wrong with pressuring or using coercion to force victims back to China. The Safeguard Defenders report exposed that police had outlined the various forms of pressure that could be used on Beijings targets, including investigating and punishing family members who refuse to cooperate with the police to get their relative back, depriving families of social security benefits, depriving their children back in China the right to education, and harassment and intimidation. In essence, Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs is saying that extradition treaties are to be respected only when courts decide to approve extraditions. Even then, Beijing will intentionally choose not to use the judicial process (which affords legal safeguards to the target) if it thinks a country might say no, or if the process is deemed too slow. In short, theres no judicial sovereignty for other countries in the eyes of China. If this isnt a wake-up call and yet another reminder that signing these treaties, which undermines the rule of law, offers no protection against Chinese government overreach in their countries, then what will be? Its clear that Beijing has no intent to honor its bilateral extradition agreements with other countries. These agreements need to be suspended immediately, similar to what happened to Hong Kong before, or it will encourage even worse behavior and more violations of the judicial sovereignty of those countries. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Akil Davis Named Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Office Director Christopher Wray has named Akil Davis as the special agent in charge of the FBI Phoenix Field Office. Mr. Davis most recently served as a section chief in the International Operations Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Mr. Davis grew up in Mesa, Arizona. He joined the FBI as a special agent in 2005 and was assigned to the Palm Springs Resident Agencya satellite of the Los Angeles Field Officewhere he investigated violent crime, organized crime, and narcotics trafficking. He was also a member of the Los Angeles Field Offices SWAT team. In 2008, Mr. Davis deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, working with the U.S. Armys 10th Special Forces Group. In 2011, Mr. Davis was promoted to supervisory special agent and transferred to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate at FBI Headquarters. In 2014, he returned to the Los Angeles Field Office to manage the Transnational Organized Crime Program. He served as the FBIs acting assistant legal attache to The Hague, Netherlands, in 2017. Mr. Davis was named assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office in 2019 and was responsible for the violent crimes, crimes against children, human trafficking, violent gangs, and organized crimes programs. In 2021, Mr. Davis. was promoted to section chief in the International Operations Division. Mr. Davis earned a bachelors degree in political science from the University of California at Los Angeles and a masters in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University. Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Davis was a police officer for the Scottsdale Police Department in Arizona. This story has been published on: 2022-10-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. NEWS PROVIDED BY Orthodox Christian Laity Oct. 10, 2022 WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 10, 2022 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Peter Zarras, President, and George D. Karcazes, Secretary, Orthodox Christian Laity: To the Orthodox Christian Faithful in America: On July 5, 2022, A Declaration for Orthodox Christian Unity in America was published and widely distributed. It addresses the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America and solicits the signatures and support of all Orthodox Christians to reassure the Hierarchy of the rectitude of the call for a united, autocephalous American Orthodox Church. This paper will address concerns raised by those who are still uncertain whether to support the Declaration and the action it promotes. The first concern addressed is that the establishment of a united, Autocephalous "sister" Church in America alongside the fourteen existing Autocephalous Churches[*] will weaken the "Mother Churches". Those Churches and the dates they were founded or attained autocephaly are as follows: [*] 1-Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (AD 37). 2-Alexandria (AD 62). 3-Antioch (AD 34). 4-Jerusalem (AD 55). 5-Russia (AD 988/Patriarchate 1448 AD). 6-Serbia (Founded AD 867-88, Patriarchate, 1920). 7-Romania (1925). 8-Bulgaria (1945 3rd Patriarchate, 1961). 9-Georgia (1917). 10-Cyprus (AD 431). 11-Greece (1850). 12-Poland (1924). 13-Albania (1937). 14-Czech Lands and Slovakia (1998). How valid is the concern that an administratively united, autocephalous American Orthodox Church will weaken any of her 14 sister autocephalous Churches? No argument can reasonably be made that the State-supported (or State-privileged) Churches in Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Cyprus, and Greece would be weakened by a united, autocephalous American Orthodox Church. The same applies to the Constitutionally protected Orthodox Churches in Poland, Albania, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia. The four ancient Patriarchates of Constantinople (EP), Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria are in areas that are either hostile or lacking in local support. No concerns have been expressed that a united, growing, autocephalous American Orthodox Church will weaken the Churches of Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria. This paper will address concerns that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (EP) will be weakened if the 14 divided, overlapping, ethnic "jurisdictions" in America are united under a single synod of canonical bishops and the Church in America is recognized as autocephalous. - An autocephalous American Orthodox Church will not cause the EP to lose the financial support it receives from the Church of Greece and the Greek Government, the principal sources of its funding. - An autocephalous American Orthodox Church will not cause the EP to lose the financial support of Orthodox Christians in America. The support it receives from the Greek Archdiocese annually can be continued under a united, growing American Orthodox Church. A new Foundation explicitly to support the EP was recently established. That effort can only be strengthened by a united, growing American Orthodox Church. - An autocephalous American Orthodox Church will not cause the EP to lose the diplomatic/political support it receives from the US government, UN Agencies, European Countries, the Order of St. Andrew-Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and other Non-Governmental Organizations, in its relationship with Turkey or its relationship with Russia. Support will be enhanced by a united, growing American Orthodox Church. - An autocephalous American Orthodox Church will not cause the EP to lose its titular status as "the first among equals" in world Orthodoxy. Since the collapse of the atheist Soviet Union, Russia under Vladimir Putin has used the Russian Patriarchate as a tool of the State to supplant the EP as the leader of world Orthodoxy; e.g. Moscow as the "Third Rome" and the heresy of the "Russian World" Russkii Mir Teaching. The unprovoked war against Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill's support of the war, and the US and West's support of Ukraine prove that a united, strong American Orthodox Church will be more effective in supporting the EP in its relationship with Moscow than the current fragmented ethnic jurisdictions acting alone. PUBLIUS [*] Note: For the purposes of this paper, we do not list the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) which was granted a Tomos of Autocephaly by Moscow in 1970, or the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, whose Tomos was granted by Constantinople on January 5, 2019, because they are not among the 14 Autocephalous Orthodox Churches universally recognized as autocephalous by all the others. We further note that the OCA is included in the Assembly of Canonical Bishops of the USA, and its de facto autocephaly is unquestioned. Around 22:10, 10 October, the Azerbaijani armed forces opened gunfire from various caliber small arms at Armenian military positions deployed in the eastern section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the Armenian Ministry of Defense said. October 11, 2022, 09:20 Azerbaijani forces open fire at Armenian military positions STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: The Azerbaijani gunfire was suppressed with countermeasures. There are no losses from the Armenian side. A protester is holding a defund the police sign at a Black Lives Matter protest in Manhattan on July 13, 2020. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times) China Conducting Race-Baiting Social Media Campaigns to Polarize Americans: Former CIA Officer Chinas communist regime is using social media to weaponize racial enmity in the United States, according to a former intelligence officer. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is actively working to erode trust in the U.S. political system and to increase political polarization among Americans by inflaming racial tensions on social media, according to Nicholas Eftimiades, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. China works a lot now attempting to divide the United States, Eftimiades said during a Sep. 30 interview with NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times. Race baiting is a tactic that weve seen starting to evolve from China in the United States. This goes back to the riots in 2020. Race-baiting refers to the encouragement or coaxing of racism or anger about racial issues for political gain. Eftimiades, who previously worked in the Central Intelligence Agency, State Department, Diplomatic Security Service, and Defense Intelligence Agency, said that the CCP maintained several organizations that carried out overseas information operations and could promote such campaigns. Among these, he said, were the CCPs propagandistic United Front work department, the intelligence-focused Ministry of State Security, and the Peoples Liberation Army, all of which have conducted covert influence operations in foreign countries. Often, Eftimiades said, CCP social media campaigns were short-lived because they were found out by security professionals employed by the social media companies. Some, however, could fester and grow within insular echo chambers online, where readers often only see content designed for them based on proprietary algorithms. You can question how effective some of these are because they dont have time to build up a massive following before theyre taken down, Eftimiades said. So, you typically look for echo chambers. You look for that type of race-based politics that Chinas trying to divide and conquer [with] in the United States. CCP Now Targeting Americans Domestically Eftimiadess comments follow an announcement by Meta Platforms that it had dismantled a China-based misinformation campaign ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The purpose of the campaign appeared to be to inflame tensions and increase polarization among Americans on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Eftimiades said that this phenomenon presented an evolution in CCP information tactics, as the regime previously focused on swaying opinions about Americans abroad rather than interfering with its people internally. Id say its the first time weve seen a lot of attacks in the U.S., Eftimiades said. Its a concept of divide and conquer internally. In the United States we have our issues with racism and theyre exploiting those differences as of late, Eftimiades said. The comments echo similar remarks made by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who now hosts a program for the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. The worst lie they [the CCP] tell is that America is somehow a racist country, Pompeo said in the first episode of the show. [But] that is the exact opposite of the truth. America is the only country in the world founded on the idea that all humans are treated and created equally. Pompeos remarks in turn followed a propaganda push by the Chinese state-run media CCTV, which claimed that racism was an unhealable wound in the United States. To that end, Pompeo said that Chinese communist authorities were shielding themselves from criticism at home while exploiting U.S. freedoms to undermine Americas place in the world. Twitter is not allowed in China, but CCP propagandists use it [in America], Pompeo said. The undeniable truth, the one that the CCP doesnt want you to know, is that the most anti-Chinese force in history is the CCP. The remarks were an apparent reference to the fact that the CCPs policies and actions have killed more people than any other regime in history, including Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and the Mongol invasions started by Genghis Khan. I look forward to the day when the Chinese people will be able to participate in those same kinds of debates and fights for freedom that Americans have had since 1776, Pompeo said. Chinese paramilitary police border guards train in the snow at Mohe County in China's northeast Heilongjiang province, on the border with Russia, on Dec. 12, 2016. Mohe is the northernmost point in China, with a sub arctic climate where border guards operate in temperatures as low as -32 degrees F. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) China Pursuing Strategic Military Interests in the Arctic: Pompeo Chinas ruling communist regime seeks to expand into the Arctic region to exploit natural resources, secure trade routes, and garner a military advantage against the United States, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader, Xi Jinping, are putting China on a path toward confrontation with the United States by pursuing strategic objectives in the region, Pompeo said in an interview with the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank where Pompeo is a distinguished fellow. Xi Jinping has made very clear that he wants to rule forever and that his rule should be over everything, Pompeo said. I think we should take that seriously. Make no mistake about it, the CCP has deep, strategic military intentions in the Arctic. Pompeo said that the CCP is encroaching on the Arctic region as part of a wider effort to secure military and economic security against the West. That effort goes back a number of years but reached new highs in 2017 when the CCP attempted to purchase a decommissioned naval base in Greenland. The Arctic region is critical to U.S. defense and national security, Pompeo said, not just because of the resources located there, but also because ballistic missiles launched by China or Russia at the United States would need to pass over the region. Americas national security depends on this region, Pompeo said. Every single Chinese land-based ICBM must fly through the Arctic region to hit its targets here in the United States and Canada. Our missile defense against such ICBMs, whether they come from Russia or China, are deployed primarily in the Arctic, in Greenland, and Alaska. Pompeo said that the eight nations of the Arctic Council should ban military presence in the Arctic by non-Arctic countries. The eight nations that exercise sovereignty over land within the Arctic region are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. The CCP has dubbed China a near-Arctic state to legitimize its move into the region, but the designation has no legal authority and is not recognized outside of China. The Chinese Communist Party lacks any legitimate claim to sovereignty [in the region] even though it has made this idea of it being a near-Arctic nation,' Pompeo said. The CCP should never be permitted to be part of any organization, including the Arctic Council, that is trying to deliver outcomes for this special space. To that end, however, Pompeo warned that the CCP and Kremlin were closely aligned and that the United States might reasonably expect to see Sino-Russian cooperation in the region as the two powers work to undermine the U.S.-led West. I dont think theres any chance Chinas going to do much independently, Pompeo said of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. I think these two are now locked in. The Arctic will be another place where we will find the two of them working together. Pompeo said that the recent decision by Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership was a good outcome and hoped that the admission of the two into the defensive alliance would increase security cooperation in the Arctic. Jeremy Fleming attends an event at Watergate House in London on Feb. 14, 2019. (Niklas Halle'n/AFP via Getty Images) Chinas Tech Presents Huge Threat to Freedom: UK Intelligence Chief The chief of Britains signals intelligence agency will accuse China of using economic and technological means to crush dissent at home and force compliance abroad, according to transcripts of a speech released ahead of schedule. Beijings communist leadership is driven by fear and poses a huge threat to us all, according to extracts of a speech set to be delivered by Jeremy Fleming, director of the United Kingdoms Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). GCHQ is one of Britains three main intelligence agencies, alongside MI5 and MI6. According to the extracts, Fleming will tell a meeting of the Royal United Services Institute think tank that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, seeks to shape the global tech ecosystem through the manipulation of digital currencies and predatory use of satellite systems. They seek to secure their advantage through scale and through control, Fleming will say. This means they see opportunities to control the Chinese people rather than looking for ways to support and unleash their citizens potential. They see nations as either potential adversaries or potential client states, to be threatened, bribed, or coerced. Underlying this need to control the Chinese people and attack non-communist ways of life is a sense of fear, Fleming will say, including an immense fear of the Chinese people themselves. And were seeing that fear play out through the manipulation of the technological ecosystems which underpin our everyday livesfrom monitoring its own citizens and restricting free speech to influencing financial systems and new domains, Fleming will say. He is also slated to warn that CCP leadership seeks to fragment the internets infrastructure to exert greater control over populations worldwide. Those comments appear to echo the sentiments of previous reports that found the regime is attempting to build its own distinct technosphere with its technologies, policies, and practices. Fleming will also speak on the issue of how CCP authorities are using digital currencies to snoop on users transactions and leveraging BeiDou satellite systems to deny other nations access to space-based data. He will call on Western firms and researchers to strengthen intellectual property protections and to develop alternatives to Chinese technology, which Fleming will argue brings hidden costs. Reuters contributed to this report. Chinese Police Overseas Service Station in Ireland Removes Sign, While Feds Investigate Similar Offices in Canada An unofficial Chinese police station in Dublin removed its signage in recent days after the Irish government began questioning the local Chinese Embassy about the stations activities. The development comes as reports about three similar stations in Canada are being investigated by the federal government. The sign at the Dublin office read, Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, followed by Dublin, Ireland. The police stations are among the more than 50 outposts established by two provincial-level police agencies in China, according to a recent report released by Safeguard Defenders. The Spain-based human rights NGO was investigating Beijings claims that 230,000 Chinese living overseas were persuaded to return to China via an anti-fraud program supported by some of these alleged unofficial police stations. After an overseas police service station in Dublin, Ireland was exposed in a [Safeguard Defenders] report, they have now removed the sign outside the buildingall while the Irish government is seeking answers from China, Peter Dahlin, founder and director of Safeguard Defenders and co-author of the report, wrote on social media. Irish ministers were questioned in the countrys Legislature last week about the activities of the unofficial police station. Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said his department has raised the issue with the Chinese Embassy and discussions are ongoing, The Irish Times reported on Oct. 8. Coveney said Irish officials are consulting across government to address the issue to ensure the appropriate application of relevant international and domestic law. The Chinese Embassy in Ireland previously denied that the station was involved in any law enforcement activities, saying it was offering administrative assistance to Chinese nationals living abroad, such as drivers licence renewals. The sign for the station, located at 27 Capel Street, was removed last week, according to The Irish Times, while queries to the embassy and a phone number associated with the station went unanswered this week. Its unknown if the station remains operational. The station is among the first batch of 30 overseas Chinese police service stations established in 25 cities in 21 countries in January. These stations, also called 110 overseas service stationsnamed after the Chinese national police emergency phone number, 110are under the supervision of the Public Security Bureau in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, according to a news release from the Fujian provincial authority. Stations in Toronto Three of the unofficial overseas police stations run by the Fuzhou City police are located in Greater Toronto Area, the Safeguard Defenders report states. The addresses of the stations, provided in the Fujian authorities news release, correspond to a convenience store in Scarborough and a private home in Markham. The third address is that of a property owned by the Canada Toronto FuQing Business Association (CTFQBA), a federally incorporated nonprofit. The Epoch Times made multiple attempts to contact the CTFQBA for comment. Someone from the organization who answered a phone call didnt respond to questions. Subsequent calls were unanswered. Weldon Epp, director general for Global Affairs Canadas North Asia and Oceania Bureau, told parliamentarians last week that an investigation into reports of the stations has started, adding that Ottawa has no bilateral treaties with Beijing that would allow the Chinese police to reside in Canada and open their police stations on Canadian soil. We are waiting for evidence, not just from media reports, but from operations underway, he said while testifying at the Canada-China committee on Oct. 4. Map of the 30 countries where Chinese police have established 54 known 110 Chinese overseas police stations. (Courtesy of Safeguard Defenders) Dahlin told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that in addition to the three stations in Toronto, there are likely other unofficial Chinese police stations either existing or being established in Canada, though they have yet to be discovered. Given the large Chinese diaspora population in Vancouver, he said he would find it very strange if the city didnt have at least one of the unofficial police stations. Weve also seen a [Chinese] government notice that said that 10 different provinces should launch these types of operations on a pilot basis, he said, pointing to his reports citation of a July 5, 2018, news release issued by Beijing. The news release is in relation to the Chinese State Councils 2018 Work Plan for the Supervision of the National Special Struggle Against Gang Crimes. A Chinese state media outlet reported in January 2019 that Beijing had conducted its first round of month-long supervision training in July 2018, in the 10 provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning, Fujian, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Sichuan. Another report that year, in April 2019, said the regime had completed the second round of training for another 11 provinces, including Zhejiang Province where the Qingtian police service is located. The Safeguard Defenders report has identified 22 overseas police stations operated by the Qingtian police service. A March 4, 2021, statement from a Chinese organization in Qingtian announced the creation of another five stationsin the cities of Lisbon, Bratislava, Santiago, Odessa, and Dar es Salaamrun by the Qingtian police. Canada Worse Than Europe The Safeguard Defenders report, published in September, stated that at least 230,000 Chinese nationals had been persuaded to return to China to face criminal proceedings between April 2021 and July 2022 under a campaign launched by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2018 aimed at combating fraud. The report stated that persuasion to return is a key method of the CCPs involuntary returns operations, which include its Fox Hunt operation and broader Sky Net campaign. The method includes tracking down the targets family in China in order to pressure them into returning voluntarily, through means of intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment. The target may also be approached directly through online means or the deployment ofoften undercoveragents and/or proxies abroad to threaten and harass the target into returning voluntarily.' This campaign, which started on a humble scale in 2018, has developed alongside the establishment of overseas Chinese police service stations,' the report stated. When asked about the severity of the CCP overseas operations, Dahlin told The Epoch Times that the impact in Canada is certainly worse than Europe. Canada has such a significant Chinese diaspora communitymuch bigger than pretty much all of Europe togetherso certainly, theres a lot more people at risk in Canada, he said, adding that Canada, the United States, and Australia are the big three destinations when it comes to Chinese asylum-seekers and relocation. Dahlin said that following the release of his organizations findings, security police or related government agencies from North America and Europe have approached his organization asking to sit down and have a briefing discussion on the Chinese operations overseas. Issac Teo contributed to this report. Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) delivers a 20-minute campaign speech at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox during the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 9, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Could Tulsi Gabbard Be Trumps VP? Commentary Someone sent me a text message early on Oct. 11 that reads: Tulsi Gabbard leaves Democratic Party. Trump VP?? Talk about synergy, I had been thinking the exact same thing at the moment I received it. Could we be alone? I tend to doubt it. At the least, the choice of Gabbard would make a striking comparison on many levels to Kamala Harris, though its highly unlikely our current vice president will be anywhere near the 2024 Democratic presidential ballot. That party tries to keep her out of sight as much as possible now, but even when they send her as far as the border of North and South Korea, she seems to have trouble remembering which is our ally. A second vice presidency isnt in the cards. Notwithstanding Harris, however, the case for Gabbard isnt frivolous. Her video statement on formally leaving the Democratic Party is as eloquent and well-taken as any potential Republican vice presidential candidate I can think of: I can no longer remain in todays Democratic Party. Its now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, who actively worked to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, and who are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, who demonize the police who protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans who believe in open borders, who weaponize the national security state to go after their political opponents, and above all, are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. Amen, sister! I dont care if she ever joins the Republican Party officially. Shes yards ahead of many of the RINOs in leading positions in the party now. What this country is in dire need of at this moment is originalnot traditional party linethinking. Wouldnt you prefer this womans passion over what we often hear from the leadership of the Republican National Committee? She also has called upon other disenchanted Democrats to join her. And, of course, theres the little matter of finally bringing this country together again. Trump himself, much as I love him, has great trouble doing this, especially since he has been characterized so unfairly for so long. Tulsi Gabbard is positioned to at least reach out to some of the people. Of course, the left Democrats will dismiss her. Shes an apostate. But they are hopeless for the most part. The center of the country is still here. We should try to save it. I write this well aware that I may not agree with Tulsi on everything. (I dont even agree with myself on everything.) I write it in a desire to move things forward in the worst of times. Im also well aware there are several other worthy potential Republican vice-presidential candidates, notably Gov. Ron DeSantis, who certainly deserves to be president someday. He would be a great one. Hes done a superb job in Florida and has continued to do so with Ian, miraculously restoring electricity to the state within days. But Trump clearly has the GOP rank-and-file behind him as no one in any of our lifetimes. Unless he decides otherwisewhich seems increasingly unlikelyhe will be the nominee, and Tulsi as a choice of running mate doesnt look like a bad idea at this time. It would sure beat Mike Pence. One other thing worth noting is the propitious timing of her departure from the Democratic Party just before the midterms. This is particularly good for the state of New York, where it may add to that crime-ridden state finally coming to its senses in the gubernatorial election, if a drive-by shooting in front of the home of Republican nominee Lee Zeldin wasnt enough. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Danielle Smith is sworn in as Alberta's new Premier by Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Tyler Shandro and Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Salma Lakhani, in Edmonton on Oct. 11, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Jason Franson) Danielle Smith Sworn In as Albertas 19th Premier EDMONTONDanielle Smith was sworn in as Albertas 19th premier in a ceremony at the Government House in Edmonton on Oct. 11. The ceremony came just five days after Smith won the United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership contest on the sixth ballot, beating outgoing premier Jason Kenneys former finance minister Travis Toews. Alberta Lieutenant-Governor Salma Lakhani said Kenney offered his resignation, which she accepted and asked Smith to form government. I thank you for your willingness to serve our province and its people, Lakhani said. Best wishes to you as you assume the very important responsibilities in your role as premier and thank you to all who serve the people of Alberta. The short ceremony also included a blessing from former Enoch Cree Nation chief Billy Morin, who will act as Smiths special advisor on indigenous relations. In her remarks, Smith said Albertas best days are ahead. Alberta is truly one of the best places in the world to live and work and raise a family, she said. You can come here from any walk of life and any corner of the world, and if youre willing to put in hard work then youre going to thrive. Theres just so much opportunity. The new premier said she promises to protect Albertans rights and freedoms, uphold Albertas provincial areas of jurisdiction, and demonstrate compassion for Albertas most vulnerable during the cost-of-living crisis. We are Albertans, she said. We also have heart and compassion that matches the size of our mountains. Smith was the only of the seven UCP leadership candidates who doesnt have a seat in the Alberta Legislature. On Oct. 9, she announced she would run in a Brooks-Medicine Hat byelection after UCP MLA Michaela Frey resigned and encouraged Smith to run. The riding is a safe seat for the UCP. Deloitte-China agreed to pay a $20 million fine to settle charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the firm asked its clients to conduct their own audit work. (Tim Boyle/Getty Images) Deloitte-China Ordered to Pay $20 Million SEC Fine The SEC has issued a $20 million fine against Deloitte-China, for failing to comply with U.S. audit requirements. In a Sept. 29 announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) penalized Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Certified Public Accountants LLP (Deloitte-China) for failing to comply with fundamental U.S. auditing requirements in its component audits of U.S. issuers and its audits of foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges. The announcement revealed that, In the course of numerous audits, Deloitte-China personnel asked clients to select their own samples for testing and to prepare audit documentation purporting to show that Deloitte-China had obtained and assessed the supporting evidence for certain clients accounting entries. This created the appearance that Deloitte-China had conducted the required testing of clients financial statements and internal controls when there was no evidence in the audit file that it had in fact done so. SEC chair Gary Gensler said in a statement: We find that Deloitte-China fell woefully short of professional auditing requirements in numerous component audits of the Chinese operations of U.S. issuers and audits of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges. While the SECs action today does not imply a violation of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, the action does underscore the need for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to be able to inspect Chinese audit firms. In response, Deloitte-China agreed to pay the $20 million fine and to take extensive corrective measures. Statement of Protocol Agreement Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) staff arrived in Hong Kong to begin an audit inspection. According to a Sept. 22 report by Reuters, sources familiar with the matter disclosed that the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance dispatched about 10 officials to Hong Kong to participate in the audit inspection, which began on Sept. 19. The sources further revealed that the officials would also be present to assist a team from the PCAOB, whose job is to interview and collect evidence with audit firm staff. The accounting audit inspection of Chinese stock companies launched by the PCAOB in Hong Kong was carried out in accordance with the Statement of Protocol (SOP) agreement signed between China and the United States in August. On Aug. 26, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance officially announced the signing of the SOP agreement with the PCAOB and stated that cooperation in the oversight of PCAOB-registered public accounting firms in China and Hong Kong, as required by the agreement, would be launched in the near future. Two weeks prior, on Aug. 12, five Chinese state-owned enterprisesPetroChina, Sinopec, China Life, Aluminum Corporation of China, and Shanghai Petrochemicalcollectively announced their delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. CCP Fears Financial Decoupling Shi Shan, a U.S.-based Chinese current affairs expert on political and economic issues, believes that, since the United States has already taken actions to proactively decouple from China in the fields of science and technology, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is worried about a financial decoupling and has to make concessions. Shi told The Epoch Times that the delisting of these five enterprises from the New York Stock Exchange was a desperate move by the CCP. It had to hide the fact that these enterprises are fully controlled by the CCP in order to evade the requirements of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA). In December 2020, the HFCAA was signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump. Subsequently, the SEC issued detailed rules for the implementation of the act. The most important HFCAA rules stipulate that the PCAOB must be allowed to inspect the audits of China-based, U.S.-listed firms, and these companies must declare that they are not owned or controlled by the Chinese regime. Shi pointed out that in Chinas so-called three-year reform of state-owned enterprises, the CCP helped state-owned enterprises become industry giants through state monopoly. Their goal is to participate in global competition and influence the global economy by manipulating the domestic market, he said. For nearly a decade, U.S. regulators have been demanding audit documents from U.S.-listed Chinese companies. But the CCP, citing national security concerns, refused to provide them and refused to allow U.S. regulators to inspect accounting firms, leading to a stalemate between the two sides. Since March this year, Chinese concept stocks that did not meet the PCAOB audit requirements were placed on the pre-delisting list. Then in April, the CCP was forced to revise relevant regulations, so that the two countries could finally sign the SOP agreement. According to Shi, the CCP had to make concessions out of fears that the United States would start financial decoupling from China, indicating that the CCP has fallen into a passive position in its confrontation with the United States. Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower the day after FBI agents raided his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach home, in New York on Aug. 9, 2022. (David 'Dee' Delgado/Reuters) DOJ Asks Supreme Court to Reject Trump Request in FBI Classified Documents Case The Justice Department (DOJ) asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to reject former President Donald Trumps bid to have the court intervene in a dispute over documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago resort two months ago. The 45th president last week filed an emergency request asking the high court to lift an appeals court decision preventing a special master from reviewing 100 documents that were allegedly marked classified. Those documents were among some 11,000 records that FBI agents seized on Aug. 8. While urging the Supreme Court to reject Trumps petition, DOJ officials wrote (pdf) the former president certainly cannot establish the clear error required to justify the relief he seeksparticularly because he does not acknowledge, much less attempt to rebut, the court of appeals conclusion that the district courts order was a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the Executive Branchs authority. On Aug. 22, Trump filed a petition to restrict the DOJs access to the records as it pursues an investigation into whether he retained classified documents after departing the White House in January 2021. A federal judge in Florida sided with Trumps attorneys and appointed a special master, retired Judge Raymond Deare, to review the documents. His lawyers previously told the Supreme Court that Dearie should be able to look into the records to see whether the FBI-seized materials bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or presidential records. Further, they wrote that the DOJ is trying to criminalize a document management dispute and now vehemently objects to a transparent process that provides much-needed oversight, his lawyers added. Justices of the US Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 7, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) The former president has maintained on social media and in interviews that he declassified those documents and accused the FBI and DOJ of acting on Democrats behalf to target a political opponent and a possible 2024 presidential candidate. When he was president, he enjoyed broad powers of declassification that needed no formal process, Trump argued in a Fox News interview last month. Different people say different things but as I understand it, if youre the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying its declassified, even by thinking about it, he said. Because youre sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever youre sending it. There doesnt have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesnt have to be, the former president asserted. Youre the president you make that decision on whether to declassify, he said. And a former aide, Kash Patel, who hosts Epoch TVs Kashs Corner, said that the documents likely pertained to the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation into whether Trump colluded with the Russian government. An FBI special counsel, Robert Mueller, found no collusion after a several-year-long investigation. Appeals Court Ruling The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 21 put on hold a decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Trumps lawsuit. Cannon had temporarily barred the Justice Department from examining the seized documents until the special master she appointed, Judge Raymond Dearie, had identified any that could be considered privileged. Cannon had tasked Dearie to review all of the seized records, including classified ones, to locate anything subject to attorney-client confidentiality or executive privilege, described legal doctrine that shields some White House communications from disclosure, making it off limits to investigators. The three-judge 11th Circuit panel gave the department access to the documents marked as classified for its ongoing criminal investigation, and prevented Dearie from vetting those, noting the importance of limiting access to classified information and ensuring the departments probe would not be harmed. Cannon also blocked the DOJ from reviewing all of the seized materials in connection to its criminal investigation, and she later named Dearie to review the records. An aerial view of Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. (Steve Helber/AP Photo) In February, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said Trump took some government records with him to Mar-a-Lago. The agency spent months negotiating with the former president before Trump handed over 15 boxes of materials in early 2022. The DOJ investigation was triggered after NARA staffers discovered presidential records in the boxes, according to then-Archivist David Ferriero in a letter to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in February. DOJ court filings indicated that other records were found when DOJ and FBI agents visited Trumps home in June. Reuters contributed to this report. Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks before unveiling the Model Y at Tesla's design studio in Hawthorne, Calif., on March 14, 2019. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo) Elon Musk Denies Claims He Recently Spoke to Putin Tesla CEO Elon Musk denied claims that he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin before posting a Twitter poll on Oct. 3 suggesting that locals in parts of Ukraine want to be part of Russia. Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk research firm Eurasia Group, alleged that Musk spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin before he posted the poll, according to Vice News. Bremmer asserted Musk had a direct conversation with Putin about the conflict. Vice, citing Bremmers claims, alleged Musk was told by Putin that he prepared to negotiate but only if the Crimean Peninsula remained under Russian territory amid other claims that Ukraine must adopt the formal status of neutrality and has to recognize Russias annexations of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Musk, however, denied those claims on Twitter. I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space, Musk wrote Tuesday. Responding to a question about whether the Vice report is true, Musk said, No, it is not. Earlier this year, Musk challenged Putin to single combat, adding he spoke to the Russian president through a video conference in 2021. In Ukraine, Musk became popular by sending his Starlink Internet terminals to keep the Ukrainian military online following the February invasion. Ukrainian and some U.S. officials in recent days have sharply criticized the Tesla CEO after he posted that most of Ukraine unequivocally wants to be part of Ukraine, including areas that were taken over by Russia this year. In one example, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested that the Senate could take away tax breaks for electric vehicles, which Tesla manufactures, in a thread criticizing Musks Ukraine comments. With all due respect to Elon Muskand I do respect himI would suggest he needs to understand the facts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Graham wrote on Twitter. Suggesting we end the Russian invasion by simply giving Russia parts of Ukraineafter all the sufferingis dumb. It is also an affront to the bravery of the Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland. Later in the thread, Graham suggested lawmakers should revisit the electric vehicle tax credit boondoggle in what some said was a thinly veiled threat against Tesla. This week, Musk drew controversy when he suggested Taiwan become a special administrative zone under the Chinese Communist Partys control, which drew praise from Beijing. His suggestion also drew condemnation from top Taiwanese officials. We welcome Musk and other international business people to visit Taiwan and learn the democracy, freedom, innovation, and development in Taiwan which are starkly different from the authoritarian market system and malicious coercion and suppression under the [Chinese] Communist Party, said Taiwans Mainland Affairs Council on Oct. 9. Protesters stand on the back of a truck during the Freedom Convoy demonstrations against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Jan. 29, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Emergencies Act Public Inquiry Releases Official Witness List The official witness list for the public inquiry into the federal governments use of the Emergencies Act has been released by the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) and includes the prime minister, key Freedom Convoy organizers, and prominent cabinet members. The commission, which will begin its public hearings on Oct. 13, lists a total of 65 anticipated witnesses, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Attorney General David Lametti, along with convoy organizers Tamara Lich, Benjamin Dichter, and Chris Barber. The Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 in response to convoy protests, granting police extraordinary powers to clear out protesters from Ottawas downtown area and granting banks the power to freeze the accounts of convoy organizers and supporters. Trudeau announced in April the creation of the POEC to investigate the circumstances leading up to the governments Emergencies Act invocation and appointed Ontario Appeal Court Justice Paul S. Rouleau as POEC commissioner. The commissions public hearings will take place in Ottawa and will begin with six weeks of factual hearings, scheduled to run until Nov. 25, during which time the commission says it intends to call over 50 witnesses. This critical phase will shed light on the events that led to the declaration of the public order emergency and fully explore the reasons advanced for the declaration, said Rouleau in a POEC release on Oct. 11. Zexi Li, a plaintiff in a lawsuit against convoy organizers, is listed second on the commissions witness list. The lawsuit also lists downtown residents, businesses and workers from Ottawa as plaintiffs, seeking $306 million in damages. Other Witnesses In addition to Freeland and Lametti, other prominent Liberal cabinet ministers are also expected to testify before the commission including Marco Mendicino, Omar Alghabra, Anita Anand, Bill Blair, and Dominic LeBlanc. Former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly, interim chief Steve Bell, and Ottawa mayor Jim Watson are also slated to testify, along with RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki. Jim Willett, mayor of Coutts, Alta., where protesters blockaded a Canada-U.S. border crossing in February in solidarity with the convoy, is listed as an anticipated witness. Once the factual hearings are completed, the commission will begin its policy phase on Nov. 28, during which time it will hold a series of round-table panel discussions with experts in various fields related to the Commissions mandate, with each panel focusing on a common theme or set of questions that have been developed in consultation with the Commissions Research Council. I am confident that, with the cooperation of all of the parties, the hearings will provide a fair and thorough process for the presentation of the evidence required for the Commission to be able to give the public the answers to which it is entitled, said Rouleau in the Oct. 11 statement. The commission will present its final report, including findings and recommendations, to the House of Commons and Senate by Feb. 20, 2023. If the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is not clearly mentioned in the 5 points presented by Azerbaijan for the draft peace agreement with Armenia, it, in fact, means that these two processes are separated. October 11, 2022, 11:12 Artsakh cannot have anything to do with territorial integrity of Azerbaijan ruling faction head STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: Artur Harutyunyan, Head of the Free Motherland-UCA faction of the Artsakh Parliament, said in an interview to ARMENPRESS, commenting on the quadrilateral statement adopted in Prague on October 6 according to which Armenia and Azerbaijan confirmed their commitment to the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, through which both sides recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. The message of that statement adopted as a result of the quadrilateral meeting in Prague was that the two countries recognize each others territorial integrity, which the authorities of Armenia were also talking about before. When Azerbaijan presented its 5-point proposals for the draft peace treaty, the Armenian authorities expressed their position that they have not had and do not have any demand to its territorial integrity. Here the issue concerns the exercise of the right of Armenians of Artsakh to self-determination in accordance with the nations right to self-determination enshrined by international norms, he said. The Republic of Artsakh cannot have anything to do with the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan because we have declared our independence under the jurisdiction of the respective USSR legislation and all international norms, like Azerbaijan. We have repeatedly said that under the law adopted in USSR in April 1991, according to which the states, including separate entities, can withdraw and create a separate state, we have adopted a declaration of independence, then we held a referendum with the same jurisdiction as Azerbaijan has left the USSR, the head of the faction said, adding that within the frames of the same legal norms 2 states have been created taking into account the fact that the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast has also been a separate entity within the Azerbaijan SSR. As for Artsakhs direct dialogue with Azerbaijan, Artur Harutyunyan said Artsakh is ready to that if it is recognized internationally as a party to the conflict and a full party to the negotiation within the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship. If there is the idea to hold negotiations directly between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, we are ready only if the international community guarantees that Artsakh is a full party. In that case we are ready for discussions, but, of course, based on the three principles that are enshrined within the Co-Chairmanship format the nations right to self-determination, territorial integrity and non-use of force, he said. A tanker heads out to the channel in Rochester, England, ahead of the first gas shipment of liquefied natural gas from Australia to Europe in more than half a decade, on Aug 22, 2022. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Europe Facing Record High Shipping Rates for Liquid Natural Gas, Running Out of Storage Capacity A lack of ships is the latest challenge for buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) this winter, as Europe prepares for a season without Russian energy supplies and shipping rates are hitting records highs, according to a Bloomberg report. European countries are actually paying to keep LNG-loaded ships nearby as onshore storage facilities are maxed out. The scramble to charter fleets of ships to carry LNG has sparked fears that many buyers will not have enough ships capable of transporting the fuel from exporters. Demand for LNG in Europe surged by 65 percent for the first eight months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its third quarter Gas Market Report released on Oct. 3. LNG shipments are now being sought from suppliers like the United States, Nigeria, and Qatar. Europe Competes for LNG Shipments In June, the EU imported more gas from the United States than from Russia for the first time in its history, after Moscow reduced its exports to Europe following sanctions, according to OilPrice.com. As much as 70 percent of all U.S. natural gas exports were sent to Europe in September, up from 63 percent in August, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, nations in Northeast Asia and South America are also beginning to charter LNG-bearing ships in preparation for the winter, adding additional pressure. States in New England, which are dependent on LNG imports for the winter to supplement energy supplies, are being forced to compete against European buyers, Seeking Alpha reported. The cost to charter an LNG-carrying ship in the Atlantic Ocean rose to $397,500 per day on Oct. 11, Bloomberg reported. The new record for Atlantic LNG freight rates topped the previous record of $374,000 per day set on Oct. 3. This is an increase of over $306,500 per day, or 337 percent, compared to the 2021 shipping rate of $91,000 per day, and a 500 percent increase since the beginning of 2022, according to Spark Commodities. The LNG shipping price assessor said this broke last years all-time record high from the Pacific Ocean during the height of the supply chain crisis. Rates are expected to rise as traders and utilities proceed to hoard more natural gas, which is presenting a hurdle to buyers this winter. A Global Shipping Shortage The race to buy LNGand charter vessels to carry itcould create the next big shortage in the energy market, say analysts and traders. LNG exporters in Asia are now selling gas directly from their ports rather than offering to ship the fuel, due to the shipping shortage. Buyers who lack LNG transport are being forced to pay extremely high rates to ferry the fuel, or in certain cases are failing to find any ships at all. There are few vessels left to charter through the rest of the year, and those that are still available are charging astronomical rates, according to LNG traders. Once you have full utilization, theres nothing that prevents rates to go to any level, other than if freight becomes so much of the total that it kills it, said Hafnia Tankers CEO Mikael Skov at the Capital Link New York Maritime Forum, according to American Shipper. Theres really no cap until the freight becomes really, really high. Traders report that energy majors, which typically lease their vessels to other buyers, are reluctant to do so this quarter, as they fear being caught without ships as winter gets closer. The demand for ships globally will be driving freight rates higher, and traders say rates still have more room to climb. Reuters contributed to this report. FBI: Over Twice as Many People Killed With Knives in 2021 Compared to Rifles The FBIs Uniform Crime Report (UCR) indicates that knives or cutting tools were used in over twice as many homicides across the United States in 2021 compared to people who used rifles to commit murder. According to the agencys annual data, 447 people were killed with rifles last year, while 1,035 people were killed with knives or cutting instruments. Overall, murders increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021, or a 4.3 percent increase, according to figures released by the FBI earlier this month. The analysis also revealed that the aggregate estimated volume of violent crimeswhich includes murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assaultdecreased by 1 percent nationwide in 2021. The latest data is based on 11,794 of 18,806 law enforcement agencies across the country who voluntarily reported an expanded homicide report, meaning the number of murders is likely higher. The average U.S. murder rate hit 6.9 murders per 100,000 people in 2021the highest figure its been in more than 20 years. According to Breitbart News, which reported UCR data for past years, the elevated number of stabbing deaths over homicides by rifle fluctuates year to year, with knives and cutting objects being used in murders up to five times more than rifles in 2018. The publication reported in September 2019 that UCR data indicated a total of 1,515 people were killed with knives or other cutting instruments versus 297 who were shot and killed by people using a rifle. For 2020, UCR data shows that 454 people were shot and killed with rifles, while 1,732 were stabbed to death with knives and other cutting tools. The category of rifle includes all kinds of rifles, not just bolt action, pump action, or semiautomatic, which those on the political left label assault weapons. So, the gap between knife homicides and rifle homicides is likely even larger if contrasted only with semiautomatic rifles versus rifles of all kinds. Handguns, the majority of which are semiautomatic, were used in most of last years murders, with 6,012, followed by firearms of a type not stated, according to the FBI report. This is likely due to the murder rate being typically higher in urban areas than in rural ones. In the United States, many of the handguns that are being used in murders are illegally obtained. Shocking Numbers The number of violent crimes across the United States has soared this year and is set to return to pre-pandemic levels, despite a drop in homicides, a new survey shows. According to the midyear comparison survey (pdf) from the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), there were 236,962 incidents of major crimes such as robberies and aggravated assaults reported in the first six months of 2022 compared to 226,967 in the same period last year. Despite a surge in violent crime, the number of homicides and rapes saw a slight decline, according to the survey. A total of 4,511 homicides were reported in the first half of 2022 compared to 4,624 in the first six months of 2021; a 2 percent decrease. However, the decline in homicides was not seen everywhere across the country, with Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, New Orleans, and Phoenix all among those cities that have seen a spike in homicides so far this year. Compared to 2019 midyear figures, MCCA member cities have experienced a 50 percent increase in homicides and a roughly 36 percent increase in aggravated assaults. These shocking numbers demonstrate how the sustained increase in violent crime has disproportionately impacted major urban areas, MCCA said in a press release (pdf). MCCA is an organization of police executives and represents the biggest cities in the United States and Canada. The report surveyed over 70 major U.S. law enforcement agencies. Epoch Times reporter Katabella Roberts contributed to this report. From NTD News FBIs Handling of Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal Reveals US Has a Two-Tiered Justice System, Delaware State Rep Says DEWEY BEACH, Del.Computer repair store owner, John Paul Mac Isaacwho was caught up in the Hunter Biden laptop scandalwas unable to attend the Freedom Festival Banquet at the Rusty Rudder restaurant on Friday due to health concerns. Those who were at the event were sorry for missing him but admired what he had done for the country. Ruth Briggs King, GOP state representative from the 37th District, said Isaac did the right thing in bringing to light the content from Hunter Bidens laptop that allegedly included shady financial dealings and overseas exploits. I appreciate very much that he realized this is unlawful, she said referring to the alleged laptop content. I think that in many ways he should be considered a true hero for America and for others as well for him doing what he did, and keeping that and realizing somethings not right here. Isaac said that a man whom he believed was Hunter Biden dropped off three laptops in April 2019. The customer didnt return for the laptops within 90 days, and Isaac was unable to get in contact with him despite several attempts. Before the scandal became public knowledge, Isaac contacted the FBI, U.S. Congressional staff members, and a lawyer for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani over the laptops content from late July 2019 to Oct. 14, 2020, according to court documents (pdf). Two months later the FBI later required him to turn over the laptop and hard drive, which he did, and he also provided a copy of the recovered data to Giulianis lawyer, the documents said. A lawyer for Hunter Biden contacted Isaac in mid-October 2020 enquiring if he was still in possession of the laptops. The next day the New York Post ran an expose on the laptops alleged content. Hunter Biden, left, and then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden cheer on stage during a rally in Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 7, 2020. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) Since then the FBI has been accused by GOP senators of having an animus against former President Donald Trump and raiding his Mar-a-Lago in August, but slow-walking the Hunter Biden investigation. People at the Freedom Festival Banquet shared the same concern. It shows that our whole country has a two-tiered justice system, state Rep. Richard G. Collins (R-41st District) said. Now you have one side for the politically favored, and you have another side that is on the back end of everything. If youre a Democrat, you can do almost anything, and youre fine, Collins said. However, if you are Republican, especially anywhere near Trump, youre running into real risk of being arrested and having the FBI show up at your door with 20 or 30 agents. It is truly a dangerous time in America. State Rep. Ruth Briggs King (R-37th District, right) and state Rep. Richard G. Collins (R-41st District) at the Freedom Festival Banquet in Rusty Rudder on Oct. 7, 2022. (William Huang/The Epoch Times) FBI Leadership Not Well Regarded M. Jane Brady, chair of the Delaware Republican Party, a former Delaware attorney general, and a former Delaware Superior Court judge, said that she was a prosecutor for 12 and a half years. I worked wiretaps and other things with the FBI. I know how they work and what theyve done with that laptop is not how they usually work, she said. Brady said a number of friends who are FBI agents told her of their dissatisfaction over the FBIs handling of the laptop scandal. Theyre embarrassed at the disparity and the difference in the way the FBI is conducting investigations, the priorities that the FBI has adopted, [that] follow a political agenda, not a law enforcement purpose, she said. And the leadership in the FBI is not very well regarded by many of the people within the agency. M. Jane Brady, chair of the Delaware Republican Party at the Freedom Festival Banquet, at the Rusty Rudder restaurant on Oct. 7, 2022. (William Huang/The Epoch Times) I believe that it is very politically sensitive to be looking at the presidents son, and I give credit to our USA attorneys office who seems to be trying to diligently work through what they have, said Brady. But the FBI in Washington had that laptop. And when you hear what Tony Bobulinski says he told them years ago, you wonder why nothing has happened yet. Bobulinski, a former Hunter Biden associate, recently told Fox News that former FBI agent Timothy Thibault never followed up with him on the Hunter Biden investigation. In the interview, Bobulinski asserted again that President Joe Biden was highly involved in his sons overseas business operations. Tony Bobulinski, a former associate of Hunter Biden, speaks to reporters at a hotel in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 22, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) One of the Great Scandals of Our Time Stephen Moore, former senior economic advisor to President Trump and senior economist at FreedomWorks, said a fair investigation into what happened is needed. The Biden administration has covered up Hunter Bidens pay-for-play. And I think this goes right up to the big guy, Joe Biden. And so this could be one of the great scandals of our time, he said. Moore hopes when Republicans take over Congress, they will investigate what occurred. When we get to the bottom of it, we cannot have a president whos in the hip pocket and on the payroll of the Chinese, he said. I simply say that the laptop has incredible incriminating evidence that really shows that its not just about Hunter Biden, its about Joe Biden, that these two were in cahoots in partnership, taking money from foreign governments and foreign companies, and that compromises his position as a leader of our country. Robert Faigin, the former director of Legal Affairs for the San Diego Sheriffs Department, was unanimously appointed as the new head of the Orange County Office of Independent Review by the Orange County Board of Supervisors in Santa Ana, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2022. (Courtesy of County of Orange) Former Attorney for San Diego Sheriff to Head Orange Countys Law Enforcement Watchdog Robert Faigin, the former director of Legal Affairs for the San Diego Sheriffs Department, was unanimously appointed as the new head of the Orange County Office of Independent Review by Orange County Supervisors Oct. 4. In the position, starting Nov. 4, Faigin will review the countys sheriffs department, public defenders office, its district attorney, and probation and social services agencies to ensure their operations are efficient and free of misconduct. Faigin replaces Sergio Perez, who has moved on to become the Inspector General for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to investigate fraud and waste allegations in the agency. The Orange County Board of Supervisors listen to local residents at a board meeting in Santa Ana, Calif., on Aug. 10, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Faigin has worked for the San Diego County Sheriffs Department since 2001 as the Chief Attorney to the Sheriff, in charge of minimizing risk and liability through legal work and coordination between the board of supervisors, county counsel, the district attorney, and public defender offices. We were all happy to see [Faigins] background. He clearly knows the process [and] procedures so he can hit the ground running with knowledge on how those agencies are supposed to operate, Supervisor Don Wagner told The Epoch Times. Wagner did not want to compare Faigin with his predecessor. However, he said he believes Faigin will allow the Supervisors to analyze his findings more before releasing them to the media, which, he said, Perez did not do. The Orange County Board of Supervisors meet in Santa Ana, Calif., on Aug. 25, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Faigins close work with the San Diego police also gives him the ability to already know the ins and outs of the sheriffs department, Wagner said. Robert has continuously worked to improve our operations and his influence will be felt for a long time to come, Undersheriff Kelly Martinez from the San Diego Sheriffs Department told The Epoch Times. Orange County will benefit from his experience and approach, and we wish him well in his future endeavors. Before his work in San Diego, Faigin was a prosecutor in Solano County and the senior deputy district attorney for Lassen County, both in Northern California. He has a Masters Degree in public administration from Cal State Dominguez Hills and a law degree from Pepperdine University. Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) speaks during the fourth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, on Oct. 15, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Leaving Party Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) announced on Oct. 11 that shes leaving the Democrat Party. In two videos, Gabbard said the move is driven in part by President Joe Biden and his administration not responding after activists started protesting outside the homes of Supreme Court justices before and after the court struck down Roe v. Wade. Federal law prohibits protesting outside the homes of judges with the intent to influence them, which is what many of the protesters have said is their intent. Gabbard compared that treatment with how the administration has been arresting pro-life activists for alleged violations of another law. When the party in power does not believe in the rule of law but theyre responsible for writing and enforcing laws, our democracy is doomed, Gabbard said. Todays Democratic Party does not believe in our constitutionally protected right to free speech. Gabbard, 41, represented Hawaii in Congress from 2013 to 2021, when she chose to run for president instead of reelection. Gabbard endorsed Joe Biden after dropping out of the race. Gabbard has been increasingly critical of what she sees as growing extremism among Democrats on topics like education, gender, and war. Her platform included vowing not to involve the United States in forever wars and to withdraw the country from Afghanistan. I can no longer remain in todays Democratic Party. Its now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, who actively worked to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, and who are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, who demonize the police who protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans who believe in open borders, who weaponize the national security state to go after their political opponents, and above all, are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war, Gabbard said in one of the videos. Gabbard did not say whether she would join the Republican Party or alternatives such as the Forward Party, which 2020 Democrat candidate Andrew Yang helped form. A query sent to the former congresswoman was not immediately returned. But Gabbard did call on other Democrats to join her in departing the party. Today, Im calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in taking action. Join me in leaving the Democratic Party, she said. If you can no longer stomach the direction that the so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking this country, I invite you to join me. Former French Presidential Candidate Says COVID-19 Vaccine Almost Killed Me A former French presidential candidate claimed this weekend that he underwent several operations and nearly died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Jean Lassalle told NTD Television, a sister media of The Epoch Times, that he underwent four operations since January 2022 and blamed the COVID-19 vaccine, saying it nearly killed him after it distorted his heart. Lassalle represented the fourth constituency of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department in the National Assembly for several decades before he ran for president. I got the vaccine that almost killed me, that distorted my heart, he said. I have had four surgeries since Jan. 3 of this year. If he did not receive those operations, Lassalle said that I would certainly be dead, according to a French-to-English translation. When asked why he took the COVID-19 shot, he said that he was a member of Parliament and didnt want to give the feeling that I wasnt doing my job before alleging that French President Emmanuel Macron was not vaccinated. He did not elaborate. I wanted to set an example, Lassalle said. This was the time when Mr. Macron, [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson, and others encouraged everyone to get vaccinated. During the first round of the French presidential election, Lassalle got about 3 percent of the vote. Vaccine Passports Last year, France set up a COVID-19 vaccine passport system, dubbed a health pass by the government, to enter restaurants, clubs, and a number of other public places. Those passports drew widespread protests across the country for weeks. At one point, Macron told Le Parisian that he wanted to make life difficult for unvaccinated people. I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do so, to the bitter end. Thats the strategy, he said in a comment that drew protests in Paris and elsewhere. Rules that mandated people to show a COVID-19 vaccine passport to access venues were lifted in March, it was announced. The COVID-19 certificate that was issued to people who tested negative or who have been fully vaccinated with one of the vaccines recognized by the government was lifted in August. Travellers no longer have any formalities to complete before arriving into mainland or overseas France, and the COVID certificate can no longer be required, irrespective of the country or area of origin, says a French government website. Both Denmark and Sweden, which, like France, are European Union members, moved to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for younger people. The Swedish Public Health Authority will stop recommending that healthy children between the ages of 12 and 17 receive the COVID-19 vaccine. In nearby Denmark, authorities issued a similar rule change and wont offer people younger than age 50 more COVID-19 vaccine boosters. Former Top FBI Agent Convicted of Accepting Bribes A former FBI special agent was convicted of accepting bribes worth at least $150,000 in exchange for providing law enforcement information to a lawyer with ties to organized crime. Babak Broumand, 56, from California, was found guilty of two counts of bribery of a public official, one count of conspiracy, and one count of monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a news release last week. Broumand is slated for a sentencing hearing on Jan. 30, 2023, during which he could face decades in prison. Broumand conspired with the very types of criminals he was trusted to investigate. Todays guilty verdict sends a clear message that no one is above the law, and any Department of Justice employee who participates in these types of schemes will be brought to justice, Zachary Shroyer, the special agent in charge of the DOJ Office of the Inspector General Los Angeles Field Office, said in a DOJ news release. Another FBI official, Don Alway, described Broumand as a veteran FBI agent who turned his back on the bureau. Alway claimed the conviction is proof the FBI will root out corruption of any kind. This prosecution was the result of hard work by multiple partner agencies to work through the painful truth of having to investigate one of its own, Alway added. Broumand, who joined the FBI in 1999, worked until 2018 in the bureaus San Francisco office, where he was responsible for national security investigations, prosecutors said. Prosecutors said that from 2015 to 2018, Broumand accepted cash, checks, private jet flights, a Ducati motorcycle, hotel stays, escorts, meals, and other items of value in return for searching law enforcement databases to help a self-proclaimed lawyer and his criminal associates learn if they were under investigation and avoid prosecution. Court documents refer to the lawyer only as E.S. but his name was Edgar Sargsyan, who earlier pleaded guilty to bribing Broumand and another federal agent and testified at his trial. To conceal the nature of their corrupt relationship, Broumand made it falsely appear that E.S. was working as an FBI source and wrote false reports stating he was making legitimate database queries, according to the DOJ. One involved Levon Termendzhyan, whom prosecutors described as an Armenian organized crime figure for whom Sargsyan had worked. In exchange for the illegal inquiries, E.S. paid Broumand at least $150,000 in cash and check bribes, including a Ducati motorcycle and accessories valued at more than $36,000, the DOJ said. The bribes were deposited into the accounts for Love Bugs LLC, a Lafayette-based lice-removal hair salon business that Broumand and his wife started in 2007. The Associated Press contributed to this report. "In Memory of our Angels" is engraved on the memorial for the victims of the attack of July 14, 2016 with pictures and names of the victims along Nice's Promenade des Anglais, to commemorate the 2016 terror attack, in Nice, South of France, on Sept. 4, 2022. (Daniel Cole/AP Photo) Frances Ex-President: Bastille Day Attack Was Terrorist Act PARISFormer French President Francois Hollande told a special terrorism court on Monday that the man who drove a truck into a crowded beachfront in Nice on Bastille Day six years ago, killing 86 people, was a terrorist who had gone undetected by security services despite France being on high alert for extremist attacks following the ISIS massacres in Paris. Thousands of people had packed Nices famed boardwalk on the Mediterranean coast on July 14, 2016, to celebrate Frances national holiday. Shortly after the end of a fireworks display, the truck careered through the crowd for two kilometers (1.25 miles) like a snowplow, slamming into person after person. The final death toll was 86, including 15 children and adolescents, while 450 others were injured. The attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian with French residency, was killed by police soon afterward. The ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the carnage. However, French prosecutors said while Bouhlel had been inspired by the terrorist groups propaganda, investigators found no evidence that ISIS orchestrated the attack. Eight people are on trial in a special Paris terrorism court accused of helping Bouhlel carry out the attack. The trial opened on Sept. 5 and is being broadcast live to a convention center in Nice for victims family members not traveling to Paris for the proceedings. Many survivors of the attack have given heart-wrenching testimony of the horrors and carnage they had experienced that Thursday summer night in 2016, and the wrecked lives they have lived since. Holland, the French president at the time of the attack, told the court Monday he was celebrating the holiday in the nearby southern town of Avignon when he was informed of the assault in Nice. Prosecutors pressed him on the wisdom of public celebrations that year, while France was reeling from the ISIS attacks in Paris eight month earlier in which 130 people were killed. We took the decision to allow public celebrations to show that we continue to (enjoy) life, Holland said. Former French president Francois Hollande participates in a debate on the occasion of an event dubbed Demain le sport (Sports tomorrow), in Paris on Sept. 22, 2022. (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images) Security measures were tightened in all major cities, including in Nice, as the threat of extremist violence remained high despite the fact that the ISIS had been significantly weakened due to allied air strikes on the groups strongholds in Syria and Iraq, Holland said. The threat was still there, but it changed, Holland said, adding that authorities feared radicalized ISIS followers who wanted to strike with a knife or with a vehicle. Bohlel was such an individual, who remained under the radar when he drove his rented truck to a murderous rampage, Holland said, calling the attack a terrorist act. A deliberate act aimed at killing and killing as many people as possible, children and parents, Holland said, adding that, by striking on Bastille Day, Bohlel had declared war on us. A verdict in the trial is expected in December. By Nicolas Vaux-Montagny and Barbara Surk A woman dances and waves a Canadian flag during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Noe Chartier/The Epoch Times) Freedom Convoy Protesters Believed They Were Patriotic and Stood up for Rights: Spy Service Analysis People who took part in the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa this past winter believed they were being patriotic and standing up for civil liberties, says a declassified briefing by Canadas spy service. The Canadian flag was the most prevalent flag on display in the crowd, likely reflecting participants belief that they are patriotic Canadians standing up for their democratic rights, says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analytical brief obtained by Blacklocks Reporter and reviewed by The Epoch Times. The brief, dated Feb. 2, 2022, focuses on the flags and other imagery seen at the trucker-led protest, which began on Jan. 29 and was dispersed three weeks later after the Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act. During the first days of the protest, a Nazi flag and a few Confederate flags were seen displayed, which the prime minister honed in on. We vigorously condemn the hatred and the intolerance that we have seen in the streets of Ottawa over the past number of days, said Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons on Jan. 31. Meanwhile, CSIS commented on the small number of flags reflecting racist and bigoted world views. The presence of these flags is not unique to this event and are often seen at anti-lockdown/mandate events across the country, says the briefing marked Secret/Canadian Eyes Only. Several parts of the briefing were redacted, but most of those parts were initially marked Unclassified, indicating that the information likely came from open sources. CSIS described the protest as being part of the broader movement against COVID restrictions and having been sparked by truckers opposed to the vaccination mandate at the border that came into force in mid-January. As with any movement, only a small, fringe element supports the use of violence or might be willing to engage in it, says the briefing. CSIS said the protesters were united by their opposition to COVID-19 restrictions, expressing grievances against policies and actions such as vaccine mandates and government overreach. Relevance of Flags The CSIS brief was produced by the organizations Intelligence Assessments Branch (IAB), staffed by career intelligence analysts with subject-matter expertise. The briefs section The Relevance of Flags provides a summary analysis of the different imagery displayed by the protesters. It noted that some of the Canadian and provincial flags were being flown upside down likely as an indication of the bearers belief that [the] nation is in distress. CSIS also provided its interpretation of drawn swastikas that appeared on placards and flags. It said this was not necessarily to self-identify as Nazis but to imply that the prime minister and federal government are acting like Nazis by imposing public health mandates. Conservative MP Michael Cooper had been criticized and asked to apologize for meeting with the convoy protesters and being filmed in front of one such Canadian flag featuring a hand-drawn swastika. We want the rest of the country to know that MP Coopers presence at this rally in no way reflects the values of Edmontonians and St. Albertans, Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, a former Liberal cabinet minister, tweeted on Jan. 30 Cooper, who represents the Alberta riding of St. Albert-Edmonton, later issued a statement in defence of his attendance at the protest, saying, Whoever flew this flag is personally responsible for that reprehensible decision and should be eternally ashamed of him or herself. The brief also commented on the presence of symbols such as the Patriotes flag (associated with Quebec nationalism), the Gadsen flag (Dont Tread on Me), and the Mohawk Warrior flag. Often, these flags have been used by more than one group/cause, thereby making it difficult to determine any particular allegiance of the bearer without additional context and nuance, according to the brief. A protester with a Mohawk warrior flag dances on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Jan. 29, 2022. (Noe Chartier/The Epoch Times) Presence of Extremists The CSIS brief alluded to the presence of extremists within the convoy, suggesting it was tracking some of those individuals while saying it wasnt aware of the presence of specific groups per se. Aside from individuals who specifically identified themselves as part of the convoy group, the Service is unaware of the presence of IMVE groups at this weekends protest, says the brief. IMVE is the acronym for Ideologically-motivated violent extremism, a catch-all concept adopted by the government in recent years. It encompasses political violence from across the spectrum, but CSIS is largely focused on violence from the right. Similarly, various types of terrorism linked to religious causes are no longer described by specific qualifiers but rather called religiously-motivated violent extremism. The first portion of the section titled Implications in the brief, where CSIS provided its assessment of the issue, was redacted. The latter part indicated that Freedom of expression is constitutionally protected in Canada. CSIS investigative thresholds may be met once a threat actor facilitates or advocates for serious violence in support or furtherance of ideological, political or religious objectives with the intent of affecting societal change. It adds that CSIS doesnt investigate lawful advocacy, protest or dissent, unless it is linked to activities considered a threat to national security under the CSIS Act. CSIS Director David Vigneault and his deputy Michelle Tessier are set to testify at the Public Order Emergency Commission, whose public hearings began on Oct. 13. A commission is required by law after an invocation of the the Emergencies Act. Renaissance art gives divine direction to human knowledge The Middle Ages were coming to an end. Its art presented holy beings in a golden, heavenly realm. The Renaissance then burst onto the scene, and it was time for great art to appear on earth, followed by exciting discoveries in science. Renaissance artists depicted spiritual figures, but they placed them in natural settings and earthly places. One artist led the way: Giotto di Bondone (12671337) created paintings that, like highway signs telling whats ahead, connected with common people and encouraged them to believe in God and respect nature. He painted scenes of miraculous events that showed the power of faith and how belief can accomplish the seemingly impossible. Natural settings had rarely been expressed in Western paintings before. But they are shown prominently in Giottos paintings of St. Francis, the poor man from Assisi, who had passed away only 20 years before Giotto was born. The wondrous actions performed by the holy man of Assisi seemed to be scientifically impossible, but they provided believers with many great spiritual lessons. People who saw the frescoes began to understand that our natural environment was indeed a gift from heaven. Accurate Observations Giotto depicted the natural environment so accurately in his frescoes that they provide a clue to events in the past. The rocks that he painted were part of his local landscape: limestone, which is common in the region of Umbria. St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, circa 12971299, by Giotto di Bondone. Louvre Museum. (PD-US) The fresco of the stigmata of Francis in the Bardi Chapel of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, shows Christ imprinting the wounds from his crucifixion onto Francis as he prayed on a rock. Giottos frescoes point to some of Earths geologic mysteries while portraying a miraculous event. In her article published by the European Geosciences Union, geologist and Renaissance scholar Ann C. Pizzarusso describes the painting from a scientists perspective: Giotto portrays Francis on a block of limestone which has been weathered and uplifted, as seen by its nearly vertical relief. A cleft in the side of the cliff, common to calcareous deposits, has opened. Giotto uses this rock, which has been sliced open, to imitate the wounds in St. Franciss hands and feet. The church in the foreground is made of the gray limestone found in the area and commonly used for construction. To the left of the church, grikes (solution fissures) and clints (limestone separated from adjacent sections by solution fissures) are starting to form. The Scaglia Rossa limestone depicted in the fresco was mined at the Mount Subasio quarry. Pizzarusso writes that Giottos accurate depictions of local rock formations allow geologists to identify the rock type down to the exact place it can be found, compare past and present differences of strata and geological features, and then better pinpoint the rate of geological change in the region. This same rock type later gave clues to scientists who offered one well-accepted theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Speaking With Birds Most of us dont understand the language of birds. Their loud and complex buzzes, chirps, and trills mystify. Its a mystery to most of us how to interact with our winged friends. Yet Francis of Assisi spoke to them. Giottos fresco Sermon to the Birds, tells the story of Francis speaking to these winged creatures about God and other spiritual truths. The scene depicts Francis and another friar coming toward a small flock on the ground as more fly down. The birds listen expectantly as the saint tells them about God. Francis blesses them and the birds fly off. Giotto explained whats going on in this miraculous event pictorially, through the reaction of the other figure in the painting. A friar raises his hand with a surprised expression on his face: How could this happen? Legend of St. Francis Sermon to the Birds by Giotto di Bondone. Fresco; Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy. (PD-US) The Learn Bird Watching website claims that birds do indeed interact with human beings, as recent scientific research suggests. They also seem to be able to understand the tone and emotional content of human speech. This suggests that they are capable of understanding at least some aspects of human language. People recognized Francis in his day for his humble demeanor and kind preaching; perhaps the birds also recognized the poor man of Assisi, because they listened to him. Learn Bird Watching states: Birds have long been known to be able to recognize individual humans. Studies have shown that they can distinguish between different peoples faces. Giottos painting shows the truth expressed in an internet meme by muses from a mystic, which reads: A compassionate heart knows that every little life matters. Water From a Rock Another of Giottos frescoes, The Miracle of the Spring shows how water answers Franciss prayer. Out of compassion, Francis brings forth a spring from a rock to give water to a man dying of thirst. As the story goes, Francis, who was with two monks, was approached by a farmer who was suffering from thirst and had collapsed. Giottos painting shows that Francis pities the poor farmer and prays fervently. Then, water comes gushing out of the rock near the farmer. The farmer leans down to the rock and drinks from the miraculous spring, and he is saved. After this kindness, it is said that the spring disappeared as if it had never existed. Again, to help the viewer understand what a miraculous event this was, Giotto showed Franciss two companions reacting to the miracle. With their expressions of amazement, they demonstrate how most people would react if they had witnessed this event. Legend of St. Francis Miracle of the Spring by Giotto di Bondone. Fresco; Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy. (PD-US) Scientists have come to understand that everything at the most microscopic level is made mostly of watereven rocks, as strange as it may seem. Recent research has discovered that water can reside in and among the smallest particles of rock. Pizzarusso notes Giottos accuracy in painting the scene with wave-like patterns formed by the erosion of stratified limestone. She writes: Limestone is porous, and often springs will gush forth from the interior of the Earth. Hydrologists use the name groundwater to refer to the water existing within the smallest elements of rock, and it offers a surprising but ready source of fresh water. According to an article by Donald DeYoung, professor of physics at Grace College: People sometimes assume well water comes from literal caves or underwater streams, but that is not the case. It flows straight out of the soil and rocks. It may be difficult for most people to believe that most things are made of water. However, NASA explains that an earthquake releases water from rock, in what is termed earthquake dewatering. We have that amazing accomplishment depicted in Giottos fresco of the miracle of the spring. Giottos Billboards Giottos frescoes were the billboards of his day, telling all who passed by that believing in the divine could reveal the secrets of creation. His frescoes show that Francis first believed something could happen, and then it happened. Water springs from rock, and birds listen to a human talking to them. He did not have to see to believe; he believed and then witnessed miraculous events. Giottos frescoes foretold scientific breakthroughs that would only be researched by scientists hundreds of years later. If we can clear our thinking, we will see and experience how the divine realm reveals heavenly secrets to science. Giotto sought to embrace the message of St. Francis: that people could begin to see and experience the goodness, truth, and beauty of God already in this world, according to the website Aleteia. Miracles happen because people believe, and then they can experience a touch of the divine. On October 11, the opening ceremony of the monument commemorating the famous musician, violinist, honored figure of NKR culture Boris Babayan took place in the Military Pantheon of the Stepanakert Memorial Complex. October 11, 2022, 14:48 A monument to famous violinist Boris Babayan erected in Stepanakert STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: As "Artsakhpress" informs, those present first paid tribute to the memory of the violinist. The idea of erecting the monument to Boris Babayan belongs to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh, Karen Sargsyan. And with the support of the latter the honored sculptor of the Republic of Armenia, Tigran Arzumanyan, took over and created the statue of the violinist. Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Artsakh, Lernik Hovhannisyan said: "Very often, war and culture merge, as evidenced by the experience of the world history. At all times of the Armenian national liberation movement, Armenian fidayins and freedom fighters went into battle with songs and dances. During the Patriotic War, Soviet divisions went into the battle to the music of the violin. Boris Babayan was constantly speaking with our fallen freedom fighters in the language of music. He was able to create a harmonious musical connection between the survivors and our freedom fighters. He is also present here with his music. I think that his music will bring immortality to all our freedom fighters in the heavenly life," said L. Hovhannisyan. ''From 1957 to 2020, Boris Babayan worked at the Komitas Music School as a violin teacher,'' said the school director Zarine Babayan and noted that Boris Babayan was irreplaceable in the development of Artsakh culture. The honor of opening the monument was given to Karen Sargsyan and Boris Babayan's grandson, Arsen Babayan. " I was lucky to receive the education of my grandfather Boris. He was one of the symbols of our city, and from now on he will forever be present in his favorite place, in the Memorial Pantheon, next to our hero brothers, with his faithful violin," said the grandson of the violinist, expressing gratitude to Karen Sargsyan on behalf of his family. The event was attended by Karen Shahramanyan, Chief of the Office of the Artsakh Republic President , Stepanakert Mayor Davit Sargsyan, other officials, Boris Babayan's relatives, friends and citizens of Stepanakert. Overview of the session of the Human Rights Council during the speech of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 27, 2020. (Reuters/Denis Balibouse/File Photo) Global NGOs Reject Authoritarian Regimes Bids for UN Human Rights Posts Non-governmental groups have called on United Nations member states to oppose the admission of Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan, Venezuela, and Vietnam to the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), citing problematic human rights records. The U.N. General Assembly will hold elections for 14 new council members on Tuesday. A joint NGO report [pdf] released on Oct. 3 drew attention to the unqualified nations running for seats in the council. These nations include Venezuela, which is running for re-election in the Latin America group, as well as Afghanistan and Vietnamwhich are both vying for four vacant seats in the Asia-Pacific group. Algeria and Sudan are also controversial candidates vying for four vacant seats in their regional group. United Nations Watch said both are almost guaranteed to win unless member states refuse to endorse candidates running on a clean slate. The joint report states the five nationsall of which were rated as not free by Freedom Housewere unqualified due to their serious human rights violations and diplomatic support for major rights violators abroad. It will be an insult to their political prisoners and many other victimsand a defeat for the global cause of human rightsif the UN helps gross abusers act as champions and global judges of human rights, Hillel Neuer, executive director for United Nations Watch, said in a statement. Afghanistan has been under Taliban control since last year, but the former government still holds the sole U.N. credentials to represent the country because the Taliban has not been recognized globally. Admitting Afghanistan to the UNHRC would be outrageous given the councils earlier condemnation of the Talibans mistreatment of women, the report states. The Taliban has denied women and girls the right to a full education. If Afghanistan wins election in October for the Human Rights Council, and if the U.N. eventually decides to recognize the Taliban, then the terrorist group would automatically inherit a seat on the worlds top human rights body, it stated. Two-thirds are Non-Democracies Two-thirds of the UNHRC members are non-democracies, including China, Libya, Qatar, Cuba, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. Neuer said that non-democracies could no longer use their membership as a shield of international legitimacy to cover up the abuses of their regime. If our own democracies continue to disregard the election criteria by voting for abusers, then we should just scrap elections altogether, and make every country a member, as is the case in the General Assemblys human rights committee, he said. GOP Candidates Can Make Democrats Sweat With These 4 Questions on Crime Commentary The FBI has confirmed what millions of Americans already knew: the Democrat-enabled, post-George Floyd crime surge continued in 2021. Homicides rose another estimated 4.3 percent last year, on top of 2020s 29 percent spike, according to the FBIs newly released 2021 crime report. Aggravated assaults, which include the drive-by shootings that are terrorizing urban neighborhoods, were up 4 percent, though violent crime overall was down one percent, thanks to a reduction in robberies. In the first six months of 2022, aggravated assault rose by another 4 percent, and robberies were back up by 19 percent, according to a non-governmental study of nearly three dozen representative cities. Larcenies were up 20 percent through June 2022, and car thefts up 15 percent, according to that Council on Criminal Justice analysis. Social order, in other words, continues to break down as a result of the Democrats glorification of the 2020 George Floyd riots and of the elite establishments vilification of the police. At least 12 major American cities reached their highest number of homicides ever in 2021. Corporate media is spinning the FBIs 2021 crime report as good news: The 2020 homicide surge has crested! That surge really was about pandemic lockdowns, just as we always maintained! This spin is specious. The chance that 2020s 29 percent homicide spike would be repeated was minimal. By June 2022, homicides were still up 39 percent, compared with June 2019. And international data undercut the COVID explanation for the post-George Floyd carnage. Nations with more severe lockdowns and a higher death toll than the United States experienced sharp drops in violent crime; only the U.S. saw an epidemic of gun violence, and only starting after the Floyd race riots. The FBIs 2021 crime report does come with a major caveat, however: it is based on crime numbers from just over half the nations police departments. For the first time, the bureau required police agencies to use a more labor-intensive, if more comprehensive, data reporting system than in the past. Only 52 percent of all police agencies, covering a little over half of the nations population, actually submitted a full year of data. Some of the largest police and sheriffs agencies, including in New York City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, opted out of the voluntary program. The FBI arrived at its 2021 national numbers through an unusually large amount of estimation; those estimates are nevertheless roughly in line with those from non-governmental entities. Trying to head off a crime backlash in the midterms, most Democrats have stopped spouting defund the police rhetoric. President Joe Biden proposed throwing a bunch of federal dollars at police departments in his July 2022 Safer America Plan. Biden even had the gall to claim that it was Republicans who were anti-law enforcement. The Democrats should not be allowed to get away with this revisionist history. Democrat lies about systemic police racism fueled the volatile situation that inner-city cops now face when trying to arrest criminals; Democrat lies led the police to back off of essential proactive enforcement and created a recruiting and retention crisis in police departments across the country. Left-wing prosecutors have stopped enforcing a host of offensesfrom theft to resisting arreston the theory that punishing minority criminals for such crimes is racist. The Republican challenge to every Democratic candidate should be: If a criminal loots a store, should he be arrested and prosecuted? Do you support the de facto decriminalization of shoplifting, turnstile jumping, squeegee extortion, trespass, burglary, and illegal gun possessionjust some of the crimes that left-wing district attorneys are declining to prosecute on racial justice grounds? Should race play a role in criminal justice policy? In May 2022, Biden released an executive order alleging that there is systemic racism in our criminal justice system and that the police disproportionately kill Black and Brown people. Do you agree? Fatal police shootings make up a much smaller percentage of black homicide deaths than they do white and Hispanic homicide deaths. In 2021, a police officer was 400 times as likely to be killed by a black suspect as an unarmed black individual was to be killed by the police. The post-George Floyd urban anarchy halted the crime-fighting successes of the previous three decades. If Democrats are not willing to explicitly repudiate the narratives and the policies that led to that reversal, voters most hold them accountable for the loss of thousands more mostly black lives; for the lethal ambushes of cops; for the assaults on struggling businesses; and for the spreading sense in urban areas that civilization is ebbing away. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles on Oct. 4, 2022. (Etienne Laurent/Pool Photo via AP) Harvey Weinstein Goes on Trial in LA, California First Lady Among Accusers to Testify at Trial LOS ANGELESHarvey Weinstein is going on trial in Los Angeles. Already serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault in New York, the 70-year-old former movie mogul faces different allegations including several that prosecutors say occurred during a pivotal Oscar week in Los Angeles. Jury selection for an eight-week trial begins Monday. Weinstein has been indicted on four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts involving five women, who will appear in court as Jane Does to tell their stories. He has pleaded not guilty. Four more women will be allowed to take the stand to give accounts of Weinstein sexual assaults that did not lead to charges, but which prosecutors hope will show jurors he had a propensity for committing such acts. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and actress who is married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is among the accusers of Weinstein who will testify at his rape and sexual assault trial, her attorney said. Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap, Newsoms attorney Elizabeth Fegan said in a statement. She intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors, and as part of her lifes work to improve the lives of women. The Associated Press does not normally name people who say theyve been sexually abused, but Newsom agreed to be named through her attorney. The news of her involvement was first reported by The Los Angeles Times. California First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom (C) joins others to announce the #EqualPayCA campaign, in Sacramento, Calif., on April 1, 2019. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo) Newsom, 48, appeared in small roles in dozens of films and television shows between 2002 and 2011. She wrote about her experience with Weinstein in a 2017 essay in the Huffington Post, but gave few details. Weinstein, who is being held in a Los Angeles County jail, was brought Monday into court in a wheelchair through a side door, and climbed from it carefully into a seat next to one of his lawyers at the defense table. He was wearing a blue suit, which he is allowed to change into from his jail attire during the trial. He stood with the rest of the room as the first panel of 67 prospective jurors were brought in, but sat down about halfway through the process. He waved at them from his seat when his lawyers introduced them. The jurors were given a lengthy questionnaire intended to screen out those who need to be dismissed. Both the questions and answers on the forms are private, but previous hearings on its contents revealed that it contains questions on how much media coverage of Weinstein they have seen, and whether they have formed opinions from it, though the judge rejected questions on specific stories and media outlets. The prosecution will be allowed to introduce as evidence parts of Weinsteins conviction for rape and sexual assault, where the states highest court has agreed to hear his appeal. The questionnaire also includes a question about a California law that says the testimony alone of a sexual assault victim can be sufficient evidence to convict if a juror believes them. The jurors were also given a long list of names of witnesses in the coming trial, including those of the accusers to determine whether they have any connection to them. The initial witness list in the case had more than 270 names, though fewer than half that are expected. Most of the prospective witness list has not been made public. One witness, Barbara Schneeweiss, a producer on Project Runway and other television shows, was present in court early Monday and was told by a judge she was on call to come in at any time. Two more panels of up to 75 jurors will be brought in Tuesday and Wednesday. Questioning of individual jurors is not expected to begin until next week, and opening statements may not begin for two weeks. Most of the incidents in his indictment, like Newsoms, happened under the guise of business meetings at luxury hotels in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, which Weinstein used as his California headquarters and where he could be seen during awards season and throughout the year. Four of them occurred during Oscars week 2013, when Weinstein releases Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained would win Academy Awards. Hate and Fear Are Now Major Motivators on Campus Commentary Almost every university in North America has committed to what is called social justice, which is the implementation of identity politics through the mechanisms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Identity politics divides everyone into one of two categories: evil oppressor or innocent victim. Through official mandatory policies, universities have transformed academic culture from a quest to discover truth about the world and its beings, to the indoctrination of identity politics and enforcement of social justice policies. As Armin Rosen puts it, higher education is a system that has transformed itself over the past three decades into a vast federally funded cartel that has shunted aside tradition academic occupations of teaching and research in favor of bureaucratic thought-policing and ideology indoctrination. In practice, this means the adoption of identity ideology to the exclusion and suppression of other views. An elaborate bureaucracy of diversity and inclusion officers are charged with policing thought, speech, and action. Activists, and those who support them, encourage active hate against their alleged oppressors: males, whites, Christians and Jews, heterosexuals, and cis-normal individuals. How do we know this? Three ways: First, the vehement rejection of any criticism of or counter-argument to their neo-sexist/racist/bigoted ideological positions, and complete unwillingness to entertain any alternative position to their narratives. Second, the immediate use of the most hateful rhetoric imaginable to designate anyone challenging their position. Third, their immediate and unrestrained demands that the challenger be severely punished and preferably destroyed. Let us take these in order. In response to any opinion contrary to their own, these activists do not offer counterarguments and contrary evidence. They do not claim that the facts are wrong or the position is untrue. No, they reject the opinion on identity grounds, saying that the challenge denies their existence as people, and that it makes them feel unsafe. Or just that it denies the truth of their sacred narrative, and that the complainant is therefore a heretic, any of whose words must be rejected. Of thousands of possible examples, let us begin with physicist Alessandro Strumia who was associated with the Counseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN), which managed the Large Hadron Collider. According to Strumias account Why Discussing Gender and STEM is So Dangerous, around 2015, CERN began importing identity politics and established a diversity office and gender quotas. Strumia published in 2019 a bibliometric publication using the InSpire database about papers and authors in fundamental physics worldwide from 1970 to now. Checks with bibliometric data showed no bias in hires against female researchers in fundamental physics. This quantitative data was presented in a talk that Strumia gave at CERN in 2018 in the 1st workshop on high energy theory and gender. The immediate result was that CERN suspended Strumia, saying everyone is welcome regardless of beliefs, but investigated whether he had broken internal rules, which include obligation to exercise reserve and tact and reserve in expressing personal opinions. CERN also erased Strumias data slides, audio, and video. While much comment was supportive, some politicians demanded that Strumia be fired, and some newspapers called Strumia sexist for mentioning differences in the interests of women and men. Activists continue to discuss on social media how to get Strumia fired. A group of mostly American physicists started Particles for Justice to attack Strumia, claiming not only that he had attacked women in physics, but was belittling the ability and legitimacy of scientists of color, although Strumia had not spoken about race. There was no substantive challenge to Strumias data, just offense at his conclusions. His attackers were acting not out of reasoned disagreement, but out of emotion: hate. So the Particles for Justice took the next step of calling him hateful names, labeling him as sexist and racist. And then they took the third step of calling for his cancellation, for Strumia to be fired from his job. Strumias experience was similar to that of at least hundreds of academics who refused to support identity politics. My own experience was similar to that of many other academics. Eight student organizationsthe Students Society of McGill University executive team, the Anthropology Students Association, the Anthropology Graduate Students Association, the World Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies Association, the Black Students Network, the Muslim Students Association, Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, and the Thaqalayn Muslim Associationsigned a public letter condemning material I had published on violence in the Middle East and on public issues of the day, which they characterized as racist and Islamophobic dialogues, although neither race nor Islam were ever mentioned in the article cited. While criticizing my publications, at no point did these student critics claim that my assertions are untrue, nor did they make counterarguments or present contradictory evidence. In other words, the student critics made no academic response; rather, they began with an ideological position that they regarded as inviolate, and moved to crush anyone who disagrees. And so they moved on to the third phase, cancellation, in which they demand the removal of Professor Philip Carl Salzmans Emeritus status. To ensure lasting change we, furthermore, demand an immediate, transparent, and student-centred overhaul of McGills Statement of Academic Freedom, enshrining the Universitys commitment to inclusivity in teaching and research in policy. The response on campus to this identity-fueled mob hate and its manifestation in attacks, condemnations, and cancellations is fear. Students fear bad grades if they do not repeat identity politics talking points, and they fear social isolation if they are attacked as enemies of social justice. Professors fear both students and administrators, especially the diversity and inclusion officials whose job it is to weed out dissenters for re-education, punishment, and exile. Self-censorship by college students is well documented in multiple surveys. A survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reported that 83 percent engaged in self-censorship. Hyper-leftist Inside Higher Ed takes these results as evidence of free speech and diversity: If by self-censorship we mean that someone ever feels reluctant to speak, then self-censorship is an inevitable condition in any free society, and in any free university. The surveys revealing self-censorship among students provide no definitive evidence of repressionin fact, they may actually show strong levels of free speech and diversity on campuses. Uh-huh. Many professors who have been under fire for not bowing to the truths of identity politics, such as Alessandro Strumia, report that some colleagues express support in private, but are afraid to go public. Anonymous supporting articles and letters reflect the fear of repercussions. The officially touted diversity systematically excludes diversity of opinion, and everyone on campus knows it. The great majority, fearing for their careers, jobs, and futures, stay silent. One tenured associate of mine refused to sign a letter in support of academic freedom, on the grounds that I had signed it, and he wanted to avoid being seen as supporting me against the student attacks. How far our colleges and universities have come! From open fellowships of research inquiry and intellectual exchange, they have become seminaries of true believers and doctrine enforcers. Identity politics has divided students, professors, and administrators into warring sexes, races, sexualities, genders, ethnicities, and ablenesses, and mandated hate between them. Admission and success, once based on academic achievement, merit, and potential, is now based on ones sex, race, sexuality, etc., and ones devotion to the identity politics social justice narrative. We have regressed from Enlightenment openness back to a Medieval religious order. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Certain governments across the globe have established a compensation program to compensate their citizens who suffer injuries or death from the COVID-19 shots and treatments recommended during the pandemic. This article will examine and compare three such programs from the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom. While slightly different in the amount of compensation that is paid out and time to file a claim, there are commonalities between the three programs, such as the claimant must prove causation between the vaccine and the adverse effect, something that critics say is often difficult to do. US Compensation Program Still Yet to Pay Any Petitioners After two years, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) has not awarded any of its nearly 10,000 claims alleging injuries or deaths as a result of COVID-19 vaccines. Three claims have been approved for payment but are awaiting a medical benefits review, according to the federal agency in charge of the program. Brianne Dressen, a co-founder of the React19 nonprofit and who was severely injured in the AstraZeneca phase 3 trial, said that she is one of the petitioners waiting for a response from the CICP. In comparison to other [government] programs, the application process isnt bad, Dressen told The Epoch Times. The lack of follow-up has been questioned for sure. Not very many people have actually gotten feedback from the CICP. Dressen said she was one of the few people who was contacted by the program asking for her medical records about two months after submitting her claim. But now its just sitting there, I havent heard anything since, she said. Although AstraZeneca is not authorized for use in the United States, the CICP does not state on its website that Americans who were part of a trial will not qualify for compensation. After receiving her first dose of the AstraZeneca shot in November 2020, Dressen suffered severe side effects that included her skin being so sensitive that she couldnt bear the touch of her young son who wanted to comfort her, and not being able to tolerate any kind of sound. She had to confine herself to her bedroom 24/7. She was eventually diagnosed with post-vaccine nerve damage by a physician at the National Institutes of Health. Dressen, like other vaccine-injured individuals, believes that vaccine manufacturers and federal officials havent done enough to address vaccine injuries. AstraZeneca was not involved whatsoever, in any of my care, Dressen said. I had not received a single phone call from AstraZeneca up until this day. She added, They have sent me a series of emails beginning mid-part of this year, asking for medical records to finally process a claim. We sent them everything as soon as we could. And then of course, again, its been months without any feedback you know, Im coming up on two years, my two-year anniversary is in a month. And so the fact that the drug company is completely you know, dismissing my need as a result of their drug, its been very disheartening for me, and its not what I signed up for. The Epoch Times has reached out to AstraZeneca for comment. (L-R) Maddie de Garay suffered severe side effects from the Pfizer COVID-19 shot, Maddies mother Stephanie de Garay, and Brianne Dressen in Washington on Jan. 22, 2022. (Bao Qiu/The Epoch Times) Dressen, a preschool teacher, saw the toll that the pandemic took on elementary children, including the mask-wearing, and wanted to help end the pandemic by enrolling in the trial because of the way the vaccines were presented by the government and doctors. I trusted the government and I trusted the doctors, she told The Epoch Times earlier this year. I dont anymore. Dressen has come a long way in her recovery, especially after being part of an NIH study where she was treated with an experimental drug that consists of a bunch of immune cells. She continues to use the medication every two weeks since the study ended. She is no longer sensitive to light and sound, and she is able to go for walks around several blocks, which is huge. Its definitely a medication Im going to need to stay on for life, Dressen said, adding that the drug is so expensive, her out-of-pocket fee is $1,100 biweekly. Shes grateful for being part of the NIH study because of that, her health insurance was willing to pay for part of the $3,500 drug. The organization Dressen is involved with, React19, consists of members who have been injured by one of the COVID-19 shots administered in the United States and who volunteer their time to help other vaccine-injured. React19 is a non-profit organization that provides financial, physical, and emotional support to those who have experienced COVID-19 vaccine adverse events. Every single dollar we bring in, we turn around and we give back to the injured, kind of like a Robin Hood situation, Dressen said. We had an 8-year-old that was in a wheelchair and diapers, and we were able to get her money through React19, and we got her a doctor and the girl walked into school this fall as if nothing had happened to her. You know, its all worth it even just to give one 8-year-old girl her life back, but at the same time, were doing the governments job. This should not be the responsibility of a small mishmash of sick people to figure this out, and to find money to support these people, and to find medical support for these people. The government has told the public that all of these programs are in place in case something goes wrong. The truth isand the public is not aware of thisthose programs are broken. Every single one of them, theyre all smoke and mirrors, she added. The U.S. compensation program has the shortest timeframe allowed for people to file a claim, within a year of receiving a vaccine or other countermeasures. Israels Compensation Program Sara (who wishes to not use her real name) had a 75-year-old father who passed away several days following his third dose of a Pfizer mRNA shot in August 2021. After getting his second shot, her father experienced severe back pain that radiated down his right leg and worsened every day. He also began losing sensation in the leg and dragging it when he walked. I had to take him to a doctor and they gave him some pills to help him alleviate the pain, and so he could sleep a bit, Sara told The Epoch Times. But it just got worse and worse. Sara said that her father was hesitant to get the booster shot, but without it, the government wouldnt recognize him as being fully vaccinated and he wouldnt be able to enter places of business, including grocery stores. Since he lived by himself, he reluctantly went and got the shot. Sara said that she wasnt aware of a compensation program for people whove been injured or died due to the COVID-19 injection. She also doesnt remember the Israeli government making an announcement about it. Although it wasnt made publicly known, the COVID-19 injections were added to Israels compensation law in February 2021. A medic prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Tel Aviv, Israel on Jan. 3, 2022. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images) Israel only allows people one of two ways to submit a claim for compensation. The first is to file a claim proving the government was negligent by using the countrys tort law, according to Iris Agassi Maimon, a vaccine lawyer representing a doctor who was severely injured by the Pfizer COVID-19 shot. You have to prove the states negligence, the damages, and the causal link between the negligence and the damages caused, Agassi Maimon told The Epoch Times. And lawyers have found this very difficult. The few claims that have tried to prove the governments negligence regarding injury from other vaccines have all failed, Agassi Maimon said, adding that its just too hard to prove, or the state just wont accept any proof. The second way to try to get compensation is through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Law that was passed in 1989 to compensate any person who has been harmed by a vaccine. With the compensation law, claimants only need to provide supporting evidence of the causal relationship between the jab and the physical or mental injury. Compensation covers a disability that may have occurred temporarily or is permanent. The claim is heard and decided by a committee of experts made up of two doctors and a judge. Agassi Maimon says that the program caps the amount of compensation paid at only one million shekels [$282,000], regardless if an individual became 100 percent disabled from the injection. This is very low Im not aware of anyone receiving compensation for COVID-19 vaccination under this mechanism, she said. She also added that even though there are two ways [for compensation], I think the both of them miss the purpose of the law. The burden of proving a causal link between the COVID vaccine and the injury is very difficult. So the law in Israel, in its current form, therefore doesnt achieve its goal and doesnt provide a good response for the people affected by the COVID-19 vaccine. In a study that examined the objective and barriers of the vaccine compensation law, a judge who was interviewed by the author revealed that he had never awarded a claim that was submitted to him because no one managed to pass the bar of proving a causal link and this, in my opinion, is one of the laws faults. The study was published in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research in September 2021. In addition to the difficulty in proving causation, the author said that it is impossible to meet the requirements to meet the scientific causality based on the Bradford Hill criteria. Critics of the program are calling for the government to make it easier to prove causality. Data on claims filed to the compensation and the amount paid are not published on the Israeli Minister of Healths (MoH) website. Israelis have three years from the time they learn of their injury to file a claim with the compensation law or seven years if through the tort law, according to Agassi Maimon. The MoH did not return The Epoch Times emails inquiring information on the number of claims related to the COVID-19 vaccines that have been filed to the compensation program and how many have been awarded. Israel is the only country to sign a unique agreement (pdf) with Pfizer allowing its executives access to some of the countrys health data in exchange for early shipment of the vaccines that were authorized in December 2020. Pfizer did not reply to The Epoch Times request for comment. UKs Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme People seriously injured or family members of those whove died as a result of a COVID-19 shot in the UK can claim damages from the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS) for up to 120,000 pounds ($133,000). However, claimants must prove that they are at least 60 percent disabled due to vaccination or they are not qualified for compensation. Charlotte Wright, whose husband died after receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 shot, was the first of a dozen people to receive payment from the VDPS. She and others were awarded 120,000 pounds regardless of the victims condition. So whoever gets a yes [to payment], gets the same thing, theres not a sliding scale, Wright told The Epoch Times. Theres people in worse situations than I am so if its a yes, then you get 120,000. If its no, you dont get anything. A spokesperson at the NHS Business Service Authority in charge of the payment scheme wrote in an email to The Epoch Times that the VDPS is not a compensation scheme but rather that it provides a one-off tax-free payment. All claims are medically assessed by an independent, third-party medical assessorregistered doctors with a license to practice, the spokesperson said. And People have about six years upon receiving the vaccine to file with the program. According to the agencys most recent response to a Freedom of Information request for claims figure that the agency makes public on its website, 2,407 COVID-19 vaccine claims have been submitted as of Aug. 12. Of the 2,470 claims, 52 have been given a decision: 12 were entitled to a payment, 13 were rejected after medical assessment, and 27 did not meet the schemes criteria. 1,080,000 [$1.19 million] in Vaccine Damage Payments has been paid in total to claimants who have submitted a claim in respect of a COVID-19 vaccine, the agency wrote. The UK government allows people to still take legal action to claim compensation even after they were awarded by the payment scheme for their vaccine injury or the death of a family member. However, the amount of any compensation scheme payment will be deducted from the court award. Blood Clots with Low Platelets Wrights husband, Stephen Wright, a clinical psychologist and a father of two young sons, was sent to the hospital where he suffered a stroke and passed [away] on Jan. 26, 2021, 10 days following his first dose of the AstraZeneca jab. He was only 32 years old. He was healthy and fit prior to receiving the shot, according to Wright. It wasnt until several months later that Wrightthrough a discussion with a hematologist from the hospitallearned that her husbands death was due to a blood clot that developed after receiving the vaccine. He also had seizures, multiple brain bleeds, and a very low platelet count. AstraZeneca was requested by the European drug regulators to update its product label to list the serious condition as an extremely rare potential side effect in April 2021. The viral-vector vaccine was granted emergency use authorization in the United Kingdom on Dec. 30, 2020, and was initially distributed to priority groups that included health and care workers. According to the UKs adverse events reporting system, 446 cases of blood clotting events with low platelets following an AstraZeneca shot were reported as of Sept. 28, 2022. Of the 446, 220 occurred in women and 221 in men ages 18 to 93. The overall case fatality rate was 18% with 80 deaths, six of which occurred after the second dose, the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency wrote, adding that the overall incidence after first or unknown doses was 15.9 per million doses. Considering the different numbers of patients vaccinated with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in different age groups, the data indicate that there is a higher reported incidence rate in the younger adult age groups following the first dose compared to the older groups (21.7 per million doses in those aged 18-49 years compared to 11.3 per million doses in those aged 50 years and over). About 24.9 million first doses of the AstraZeneca injection have been given in the UK and 24.2 million doses of the second shot as of Sept. 28. Still Waiting Claire Hibbs, prior to her injury following the first dose of the AstraZeneca shot. (Courtesy of Claire Hibbs) Claire Hibbs, spokesperson for the Vaccine, Injured, Bereaved UK (VIB UK) organization, said that she was never informed about filing a claim with the payment scheme while she was hospitalized. Hibbs told The Epoch Times that the consultants at my original hospital never even mentioned it and they were even reluctant to talk about vaccine damage or vaccine injury. It wasnt until after she was discharged and reached out to a lawyer regarding her situation that she was informed about the payment program. I was never aware of it before, Hibbs said. It certainly wasnt something that was made public during the vaccine rollout. Hibbs developed vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) about 10 days following her first dose of the AstraZeneca shot on March 31, 2021. She said shes also been diagnosed with chronic migraines and chronic fatigue syndrome as a result of vaccination. She has been unable to work due to her injury. She has been waiting for over a year to hear back on her claim. Many people, like Hibbs, dont know the existence of the VDPS. Prior to getting the vaccine, Hibbs was healthy and enjoyed going to the mountains often to hike. Now, she only goes there for fresh air, saying that she doesnt have the energy to do it anymore. Both Hibbs and Wright are calling for a reform to the outdated and non-responsive program. Electronic filing is not available. And like in the United States, the claimants do not know if their case has been assigned to someone. Hibbs has sent an FOI request to the government asking about the criteria used to determine who meets the 60 percent disability to be awarded payment. She has not received a response but was informed that the compensation scheme has qualified doctors who can make these decisions. From The Forgotten Side of Medicine Substack, this essay brilliantly details the history, current state, and future of the criminal control of information, corruption of science, and coercion of the public in regards to vaccines. I consider it an honor to host this essay for my subscribers. When I was younger, a friend who was a corporate executive told me about tiger teams, an approach industry would utilize to solve a complex problem facing them or to develop a plan for achieving a long-term strategic goal. After he vividly described the tenacity with which they attacked their problem, I realized large corporations could be expected to conduct highly strategic and Machiavellian plans over long timelines that would be difficult for anyone but the most talented observer to spot. Since that time, Ive also come to appreciate how most businessmen and their industries will default to reusing tools that have previously proven themselves for addressing each new problem that emerges. As a result, once you learn what each of the tools are, it becomes possible to predict each of the sequential steps a tiger team will choose to accomplish its goals. Since I have held a long-term interest in the politics of vaccination, I have been able to witness the sequential steps that played out first in California and then throughout the nation. What I still find remarkable about these events was how each one directly enabled the subsequent event, and that in many cases, what happened subsequently had previously been promised to never come to pass. Given everything that I have observed, I am almost certain one or more tiger teams working for the vaccine industry chose to have California be the means through which to accomplish their goal of regular mandatory vaccinations for the entire American population. At this moment, a highly unpopular law that prevents physicians from spreading misinformation by questioning any orthodox perspective on COVID-19 is awaiting the governors signature, and if this law passes, it will likely be disastrous for the nation as additional jurisdictions adopt it. The purpose of this article will be to discuss exactly what brought us to the point a law like that could be on the verge of passing and the important insights that can be taken from the entire process. The Truth Throughout human history, one of the most valuable commodities has always been ownership over the truth, as so much power and profit results from holding a truth that aligns with your vested interests. Once larger societies formed, determining truth, was always a key societal need, and excluding a few enlightened societies, the method of determining truth normally evolved as follows: Might makes right. Judging the preponderance of evidence. A growing, and eventually unsustainable corruption of most evidence. Societal collapse or evolution. Note: This trend roughly follows the 250 year life cycle of empires mapped out by a British general some suspect the U.S. is nearing the end of. In many ways, forcing two opposing viewpoints to present their evidence and then having the appropriate parties determine which side presented the preponderance of evidence and thus wins is the best solution our species has developed for settling otherwise irreconcilable differences of opinion. Unfortunately, as our times have shown, the natural response to having our society place a heavy weight on evidence is to have dishonest parties win, not by being on the side with the best evidence, but rather by buying out the entire evidence base and censoring the opposition effectively creating a much more sophisticated form of might makes right. In many ways, the anatomy of corruption within science-based medicine is quite simple and like many other things in business, continually reuses the same formulas. As a result, once you understand how corruption plays out in a few areas, it becomes feasible to understand how things will play out in many others. I thus would argue many of the events we witnessed throughout COVID-19 (e.g. the sudden extreme censorship of scientific debate recently detailed by Pierre Kory), simply represents all of this longstanding corruption metastasizing to a degree which finally became visible to the general public. Public Relations Although Sigmund Freud is typically thought of as the most influential psychologist in history, his nephew Edward Bernays created an invisible industry that has had a far greater influence than Freud. To create his mark on the world, Bernays argued that the principles of psychology should be utilized not for individual psychotherapy but rather to control the population so that the irrational impulses of the masses could not derail the progress of society, and not surprisingly, the power-hungry elite fully embraced his narrative. When you study the organizational structure of modern society, you will continually come across hierarchal pyramids being utilized that allow the top of the pyramid to exert a massive influence over the rest of society. This is for instance why in medicine, doctors are expected to follow guidelines created by unaccountable committees that are typically composed of individuals being paid off by the pharmaceutical industry, and why in most cases it is nearly impossible for a patient to have any type of care provided to them without the approval of a doctor. Thus, by buying out a few committees, it becomes possible to exert a massive influence on the general public. Public relations is essentially the science of how to create a pyramidal hierarchy throughout the media and to leverage that control so the general public can be manipulated into serving the interests of the sponsor. We recently witnessed what I believe to be the most aggressive PR campaign in history and the collective effort to pull out every possible stop to sell the COVID-19 vaccines to the American public (ironically one of the individuals I know who became disabled from these vaccines worked in the industry and worked with a passionate zeal for over a year beforehand on the PR campaign for Moderna). Studying the PR industry is quite depressing because it shows how much of the news is fake, just how manipulative much of it is, and how many foundational beliefs we hold in the culture are simply the product of a corporations public relations campaign. For those interested in this subject, an excellent book can be found here, a youtube documentary here, and an article here. One of the most common tactics utilized in public relations is to take a complex subject and distill it down to a simple phrase that reframes it in terms that are favorable to the sponsor and removes the critical nuances from a debate (frequently this process is equated to weaponizing language). Because the entire PR process is based around creating a pyramidal hierarchy that defers to the top, you can frequently observe these messages or scripted phrases that were developed by a PR firm be simultaneously disseminated on countless networks, including the independent ones: Note: This behavior exists on both sides of the political spectrum; I am citing this one because it is the best montage I have come across. Misinformation During Obamas presidency, the term misinformation started to come into vogue and was deployed to sink Trumps presidential campaign (which failed as Trump managed to make the fake news meme every media platform was promoting stick to CNN instead of him). Before long, this steamrolled into misinformation being used as a justification to censor any viewpoint that challenged the status quo. Initially, easy to disparage groups such as members of the far-right were targeted for censorship by Silicon Valley, before long liberal friends I knew who practiced holistic medical approaches (and had supported the initial censorship) were targeted, and by the time COVID-19 happened, this behavior had metastasized to the point it was nearly impossible to publicize any treatment for the disease or any potential harm from the vaccines. Governments have continued their relentless push for censorship, best illustrated by the recent U.N. speech by New Zealands prime minister that declared free speech on the internet a weapon of war and called for the international community to work towards curating (censoring) all online information that questions government narratives. Prior to Obamas presidency, I had heard there was a push to establish a pyramidal hierarchy for all information on the internet, with a few major tech companies serving as the gatekeepers the public could access the information through, but until 2016, this always seemed like something that would happen in the far distant future. Recently, I learned that Sharyl Atkinson was able to identify when and where this all began: I first heard the term [curated] applied to controlling news and information in October 2016 when President Obama introduced the concept at an appearance at the private research university Carnegie Mellon. Obama claimed a curating function had become necessary. The public at large had not been asking for any such thing. Instead, it was the invention of powerful interests that apparently felt the need to get a grip on public opinion interests that were losing the information war online. But the concept is contrary to the nature of a free society and an open Internet. It would take some clever manipulation to convince the public to allow such curating. Were going to have to rebuild, within this Wild, Wild West of information flow, some sort of curating function that people agree to, said Obama. [T]here has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard because they just dont have any basis in anything thats actually happening in the world. As far as I know, that signaled the start of what would become a global media initiative to have third parties insert themselves as arbiters of facts, opinions, and truth in the news and online [prior to this they were viewed as a joke and fortunately still are by half of the electorate]. Credible Sources Most of our modern hierarchies operate on the basis of being credible. For example, in journalism, about a century ago during the era of Bernays, the concept of professional journalism was created and a standard was set that news could not be considered credible unless it was disseminated by someone who belonged to a corrupt credible news organization that served the bidding of those in power. This article for example discusses the profound consequences of the monopolization of journalism, and how as the decades have gone by, the issue has only gotten worse and worse. Sharyl Attkissons book (the source of the above quotation) describes how pervasive corruption gradually entered her industry, and how despite her clout in the network as a premier news anchor, more and more of her investigations were not permitted to air by her superiors. For example, in 1997, Clinton legalized direct pharmaceutical advertising to consumers. As the networks become beholden to their new advertisers, anything critical of that industry, such as vaccine safety, was no longer permitted to air. In the early 2000s, Atkinson was assigned to report on the controversial military anthrax and smallpox vaccinations, and not long after, the smallpox campaign was cancelled. Now, in contrast, no criticism whatsoever is permitted of the much more dangerous COVID-19 vaccines (and now even the government is paying to incentivize this censorship). To see how much things have shifted consider this report that was aired on the nightly news after the 1976 swine flu vaccine debacle (this vaccine was not safe and I directly know people who developed permanent complications from it that persist to this day, but at the same time, it was much safer than the COVID-19 vaccines): Something like this could never air today. Evidence-Based Medicine The pyramidal hierarchy of our society requires creating faith in authoritative sources and then having each institution work in unison to promote the sanctity of those (easy to control) sources. Professional journalism is one such example, another is the widespread societal adherence to the CDCs arbitrary and ineffective guidelines (best illustrated by the absurd dictates they and other Western health authorities put forward in regards to social distancing during physical intimacy). When evidence-based medicine (EBM) started, it was sorely needed by the medical profession because many disastrous practices were unchallengeable dogmas. However, in due time, as corruption entered the process, EBM became yet another means for [financial] might to make right as its authority was shifted into a pyramidal hierarchy. Presently, the authority in EBM rests in 5 areas. The sanctity of all data. Conducting large randomized clinical trials. Peer-reviewed publications in high-impact scientific journals. Authoritative committees reviewing the previous three to produce guidelines. Other institutions (e.g. the media and the courts) upholding the sanctity of the data and evidenced-based guidelines. There have been major issues in each of these areas for decades as industry has steadily worked to expand its influence over EBM, but as many observers noted, these issues spun completely out of control during COVID-19. Lets review each of them: Curating Information As I think through all the things that had to come together to enable the pandemic profiteers to destroy our economy, withhold life-saving treatments from the American public, and mandate a disastrous vaccination on the populace, I believe Obamas push for the Silicon Valley to become the arbiter of what we were allowed to see online was by far the most consequential. Since that time, I have observed a remarkable decline in the quality of discourse on many social media websites (as many worthwhile topics are now censored or flooded with bots Substack is a rare exception) and it has become much more difficult to find the information I am looking for online (to the point I sometimes need to use Russias search engine to find it). Throughout history, freedom of speech has always been a hotly contested subject as people tend to support it, except for viewpoints they disagree with, and frequently lack the insight to recognize why those positions are at odds with each other. Societies likewise follow cyclical trends towards and away from totalitarianism and fascist censorship. The earliest example I know of was shared with me by a scholar who had reviewed the plays of ancient Greece and had found that as censorship (e.g. political correctness) entered the plays, it immediately preceded the fall of Greek democracy and an authoritarian government taking over. From studying countless iterations of this cycle, I now believe the following: It must be acknowledged that any position you hold could be wrong or based on erroneous information. It is important to defend the right of those you disagree with to speak and not hate them because they hold viewpoints you adamantly oppose. If you refuse to defend your position in an open and fair debate, you are probably wrong. Very strict stipulations must exist on what speech can be outlawed, and those stipulations must be agreed upon by (nearly) the entire society. Some things such as shouting fire in a movie theater as a prank everyone can agree on. Anything everyone cannot agree on I would argue does not meet the standard that must be met for censorship. The government may incentivize speech it agrees with, but it cannot restrict speech it disagrees with. Any attempt you make to censor a viewpoint you disagree with is not worth it because the censorship you helped create will inevitably be turned on you in the future. During Obamas presidency, two major changes emerged in Silicon Valley. The first many are aware of was an obsession (by these otherwise evil companies) with saving the world through social justice that I would argue was analogous to the well known practice of Greenwashing, where an egregious polluter conducts a token environmental initiative and through doing so successfully recasts themselves as protectors of the environment. This social justice focus was particularly problematic as it was used to justify the censorship of anything that was not politically correct and I would argue that many of the tech employees who helped spearhead the movement are now directly experiencing the consequences of the climate they created. Note: This focus on censorship in lieu of debating opposing (unsafe) viewpoints also creeped into the university system and then the culture during Obamas presidency and I believe was a direct consequence of policies enacted by his Department of Education. The second, much more important one was that Big Tech became a key financial supporter of the Democrat party, and to varying degrees merged with the pharmaceutical industry and biotech. Because of this, there was a seismic realignment in the priorities of the Democrat party and it began ardently supporting those industries. It is important to recognize how these two trends dovetailed. Big Tech was able to use their altruistic focus on social justice to distract the public from the more sinister direction their industry was moving in by using the standard for censorship they had established in the name of creating a safe (politically correct) environment; while at the same time targeting threats to their partners in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry by censoring any voices suggesting dangers were associated with those products. From watching each piece of the plan that has been rolled out throughout my career, I suspect the vision of these three industries is to transform medicine into an algorithmic practice where most medical decisions in patient care are made by an AI system and the human body is treated as a genomic software code that can be solved by programmers. Although this approach will have the ability to overcome certain issues we presently face in medicine, it is also fundamentally incapable of addressing many of the needs of each human being who goes through the healthcare system and will likely prove disastrous to our species. Antitrust Activity At the time Bill Gates founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he was one of the most disliked individuals in America. This was because he had leveraged the power of his operating system Windows, which was on almost every computer in America, to also monopolize the software market and prevent competitors like Netscape (an early internet browser) from being used by consumers. Since this monopolistic behavior was illegal, Microsoft was sued for antitrust violations, and throughout the court process, Bill Gates was revealed to be a nasty individual who was doing everything he could to bury his competitors. To address the negative public perception of him, Gates founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to recast himself as a philanthropist and through this PR stunt was able to successfully remediate his public image. From the foundations inception, Gates repeated the same antitrust behavior he had leveraged in the past but instead directed it toward the field of global public health. I first became aware of this behavior after I learned of the disastrous vaccination campaigns he conducted in India. For example to quote The Real Anthony Fauci: Indias Federal Ministry of Health suspended the [HPV vaccine] trials and appointed an expert parliamentary committee to investigate the scandal. Indian government investigators found that Gates-funded researchers at PATH committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying illiterate parents, and forging consent forms. Gates provided health insurance for his PATH staff but not to any participants in the trials, and refused medical care to the hundreds of injured girls. Gates also diverted a large portion of the global health budget towards eradicating the last few remaining cases of polio by giving large numbers of the (live) oral vaccine to third world countries, in some instances 50 doses by the age of five. This was disastrous around the world, for example paralyzing approximately 491,000 children over two decades in India. In addition to vaccine fanaticism, Gates engaged in other public health measures that are more accurately described as colonialist practices. These included forcing poor women around the world to receive Depo-Provera (this is a long-acting injectable birth control that can permanently impair fertility) and pushing communities to abandon their traditional forms of farming and switch to genetically modified industrial agriculture (which places them at risk of starvation anytime a commodity price goes up). One of my friends who has worked for the WHO for decades told me that the WHO has implemented a lot of good public health measures that saved lives. Unfortunately, ever since Gates got involved, those measured have fallen to the wayside and the focus has been on monopolistic public health practices that ultimately serve to enrich a few select industries at the expense of the third-world citizens the measures are alleged to help. Similarly, many in the global health community have stated that since Gates has so much influence over the global health budget (and the WHO), it is nearly impossible to criticize or question any policy he promotes. To further entrench this monopoly, his foundation has prioritized buying out the press (be it groups like the Cochrane Collaboration or putting over 300 million into countless media outlets around the world), so that anything that challenges his vision of public health is misinformation. Much more could be said about Gates (and is aptly summarized within The Real Anthony Fauci). However, we will focus on the two most important correlates to the misinformation epidemic: Gates made a lot of money from the pandemic. For example, on 9/4/2019, two months before COVID-19 emerged in China, he invested 55 million in the company that produced Pfizers vaccine. Last year that investment was worth 550 million. It has now been admitted by the mainstream media that Gates (and the Wellcome Trust) directed the pandemic response that failed disastrously from a public health perspective (but not in money-making). One quote from that article is particularly telling: Leaders of three of the four organizations maintained that lifting intellectual property protections [which would prevent everyone from making money] was not needed to increase vaccine supplies which activists believed would have helped save lives. In the second half of this series, we will show how this antitrust behavior and militant censorship metastasized within Silicon Valley and how increasingly draconian laws enforcing vaccine mandates for the pharmaceutical industry have been implemented by the California legislature. Originally published onThe Forgotten Side of Medicine Substack, reposted on from Mercola.com People walk as Israeli navy boats are seen in the Mediterranean Sea as seen from Rosh Hanikra, close to the Lebanese border, in Israel, on May 4, 2021. (Ammar Awad/Reuters) Historic Deal Struck Between Israel and Lebanon Resolving Maritime Dispute Israel and Lebanon have reached a U.S.-mediated agreement settling a long-running maritime border dispute and delineating the two countries economic waters in the Mediterranean Sea. The deal, which has the potential to unlock additional natural gas production in the Mediterranean at a time of global energy flow disruptions, was finalized on Oct. 11, according to both Israeli and Lebanese officials. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement that the deal is a historic achievement that will strengthen Israeli security, will bring billions to Israels economy and ensure stability on the northern border. The office of Lebanese President Michel Aoun said in a statement that the final version of the offer satisfies Lebanon, meets its demands and preserves its rights to its natural resources. Details of the agreement were not immediately available, with Aoun saying he hopes the terms will be announced soon. Indeed Historic Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor and professor emeritus at Israels Bar Ilan University, said in a statement on Twitter that, if the deal holds, it is indeed historic. A rare case of placing shared interests over ideology, and signaling weakened Iranian control, he added. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, took to Twitter to say that, until the terms of the agreement are made public, it will be difficult to formulate accurate assessments. Some say its great, some say its terrible. I just have one question: what are the specific terms of the deal? Absent disclosure, the discussion is childish and meaningless, he said. The Israeli Prime Ministers Office said in a statement that a Security Cabinet meeting would be convened on Oct. 12, followed by a special government meeting at which the agreement will be put forward for executive branch approval. The agreement will later be presented to Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset. Lapid issued a statement thanking U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein, with CNN reporting that Hochstein delivered Israels final offer to Lebanese negotiators hours before the deals success was announced. Critical Stage Talks culminating in Tuesdays landmark deal entered their final stretch last week when a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem told Reuters that the two sides were at a critical stage in the negotiations and the gaps have narrowed. Top Lebanese negotiator Elias Bou Saab told Reuters on Oct. 6 that the deal was 90 percent done but the remaining 10 percent could make it or break it. Israeli media reported that the main sticking point was over Lebanese recognition of a line of demarcation buoys Israel has placed out to sea from its coast. Lebanon, which does not officially recognize the state of Israel, was reportedly concerned about any action that might be seen as a formal acceptance of a shared land border. Experts say any settlement of the land border dispute between Israel and Lebanon would likely need to come as part of a broader peace deal that is still a ways off. Reuters contributed to this report. Ah-shu (pseudonym), who had applied for "jab-free certs" from the arrested doctor, was worried that he would be forced to stop working and would even be held accountable by the authorities. (Sung Pi-Lung /The Epoch Times) Hong Kong Detains Doctors and Patients Over Medical Exemption Certificates Patients No Way to Seek Help for COVID-19 Jab Medical Exemption Cert Since the Hong Kong government is trying to increase the COVID-19 vaccination rate, although people are allowed to apply for a COVID-19 vaccination medical exemption certificate, commonly known as a jab-free cert, from doctors because of their own illness, the authorities tightened the threshold at the beginning of this year, forcing many people who need the certs searching for doctors to issue them. More than 20,000 jab-free certs, which were allegedly issued by seven doctors without consultation, will expire on Oct 12 (however the result of a judicial review may negate this). The Hong Kong Police Force arrested four female civil servants on Oct. 7. Therefore, civil servants holding this batch of jab-free certs are worried that they would be held accountable, and they questioned whether the government is now making a judgment before trial. Headache Looking for New Cert Civil servant Ah-shu (pseudonym) suffers from chronic respiratory disease. He has been working with a jab-free cert since August last year. Later, he had been confirmed with COVID-19 during the fifth wave of the pandemic in March this year. He applied for the renewal of the jab-free cert in early Aug. as his recovery record expired in early Sept. His doctor is one of those who were accused of suspected scamming on issuing jab-free certs. He (the doctor) just asked me a few questions, then he issued it [the jab-free cert] to me, but the questions were not too detailed, Ah-shu said that he was surprised to learn that the doctor had been arrested. Most of his colleagues in Ah-shus work team have already got vaccinated. In recent months, his boss had recommended he get vaccinated in an unfriendly tone occasionally, which put him under pressure. He had planned to find the doctor, who had issued the jab-free cert to him before, but he was worried that the doctor might not issue it again easily due to pressure. Recently he went to another doctor for consultation in another district, but the doctor refused to issue the cert, as the doctor mentioned that he did not meet the requirements. Ah-shu worried that if he fails to hand in a new jab-free cert by the deadline on Oct.12, not only he would be suspended from work, but he also worried that the authorities would settle a score. Therefore, he does not know what to do. Doctors are Under Pressure R (pseudonym), who works as a teaching assistant, has blood pressure and eczema. Last year, due to the request of the school, he had to find a registered doctor to apply for a jab-free cert in order to go to work. The paper and electronic versions of the jab-free cert he has held for months were issued by one of the doctors who had been arrested. R said that his latest jab-free cert was originally scheduled to expire in Nov., but since the authorities announced that they would not recognize the jab-free certs issued by the seven arrested doctors, the school asked him to find other doctors to reissue it. But it was very difficult to search for a new one, so he does not know what to do. R mentioned that there were doctors in the market who issued a jab-free cert at HK$4,000 (approx. US$509), he sighed with regret that the cost was so high that it was difficult to afford. H (pseudonym), who had applied for a jab-free cert from a doctor, revealed to the Epoch Time that because the authorities tightened the threshold for issuing jab-free certs, many doctors issue the certs with extra precautions to avoid being suspected by the authorities of spamming. Moreover, fees have skyrocketed. At the same time, he received introductions from friends occasionally, saying that some doctors are still willing to issue the certs with cheaper consultation fees, and even attracted a large number of people to queue and apply for jab-free certs before the authorities tighten the requirements for Vaccine Pass. Unclear Guidelines In fact, the Hong Kong Department of Health has issued guidelines since March last year to assist doctors in assessing whether a patient is suitable for vaccination. And it added a template and guidelines for doctors to issue jab-free certs. The template stipulates that, unless there are special medical reasons, the validity period should be less than three months, and if there are special medical reasons, it should be limited to six months. The guidelines also mentioned that since jab-free certs are expected to be uncommon, doctors must certify that patients should not be vaccinated with both two vaccines (there are only two types of COVID-19 vaccine available in Hong Kong) in order to issue the certs. If the medical condition is listed as a contraindication or precaution for vaccination, it may be exempted. In case the patients condition is only a contraindication to one of the vaccines, the patient will be advised to receive the other vaccine. However, Ms. Chau, a senior nurse who used to work in a public hospital, quoted a case that a single mother, who had just recovered from cancer, had her first injection as required for her job, at the beginning of this year, but she often vomited due to the suspected side effects a month later. But she did not get the jab-free cert from the consultation of the public hospital. The mother obtained the jab-free cert from a private doctor successfully three months later, and then she renewed it successfully in the public hospital. While a 70-year-old man with an immune disease argued with the doctor in charge of the public hospital and finally received a jab-free cert from the doctor. Ms. Chau asked, is it ridiculous? She said that there are no consistent guidelines from the authorities and meanwhile putting pressure on the doctors. It is unfair and it seems like forcing people who need to be exempted to get injected. Doreen Kong Yuk-foon, a pro-establishment member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, has recently severely criticized the governments anti-pandemic policy, and she has become one of the few members in the Legislative Council, who has become fully red (all members are pro-CCP), to oppose the government. Kong questioned the fact that the authorities did not recognize more than 20,000 jab-free certs at one time as a joke. She mentioned that there should be an assessment to check if all the exemptions are valid or not, and the authorities also need to state the legal principle behind them, otherwise lawsuits may be involved. She also said that the regulation does not clearly explain why the Hong Kong Health Bureau has the power, and under what circumstances it will not recognize jab-free certs, nor does it say that it has the power to even not recognize the certs at once. Kong asked the authorities to clarify the difference between not recognize and abolish. If this kind of wordplay is used, I also find it funny to hear that. In addition to the principle of presumed innocence in Hong Kong, the authorities cannot simply say reasonable doubt and then disqualified more than 20,000 jab-free certs. If the people apply for judicial review for everything, even if the government wins the case finally, it will lose public opinion. Doctor Being Monitored Since the Department of Health tightened the threshold for issuing jab-free certs earlier this year, seven doctors in public hospitals are now required to issue jab-free certs to patients through the Clinical Management System (CMS). More than one nurse working in a public hospital told the Epoch Times that since the LeaveHomeSafe app added the storage function of jab-free certs at the end of January this year, the system added a reminder. Before doctors press the button for issuing the cert, a prompt will pop up asking whether the patient really needs the cert, therefore many doctors hesitated to issue it. But Chau said that she is not sure whether the prompt function for issuing jab-free certs has been added recently, but the prompt function in other operating procedures of the system already existed, which aims to improve the accuracy of the work of medical staff, it was not surprising that even if a prompt about jab-free cert was added later. However, Chau questioned that after the authorities digitized the jab-free certs, it would be easier for the authorities to know the status of the doctors issuance of the jab-free certs, maybe it would put a certain pressure on doctors. It also allows the authorities to use the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHealth) to identify people who had applied for a jab-free cert from the seven doctors and hold them accountable. The Epoch Time inquired with the Hong Kong Hospital Authority on the issue of jab-free certs issued by public hospital doctors, but the authority did not respond directly. It also said that there were no statistics on the number of jab-free certs issued by doctors in public hospitals from January last year to the end of last month. The Authority mentioned that family doctors will refer patients in need to the Authority for further follow-up based on their clinical assessment. It provided assessment services to more than 3,500 patients and made recommendations on COVID-19 vaccination. Civil Servants Detained The police arrested four female civil servants on Oct. 7, accusing them of conspiracy to defraud by purchasing and using jab-free certs from the seven doctors. The four arrested were aged between 25 and 48. Three of them were employees of the Social Welfare Department, it was reported that two of them were social workers, and the other was a teacher in a Government School under the Education Bureau. According to the police, the four arrested persons had repeatedly purchased jab-free certs for HK$500 (approx. US$63) to HK$2,500 (approx. US$318). The police reiterated that they would check whether there is any doubt in each cert issued by the doctor involved, and the investigation is still ongoing. Leung Chau-ting, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Federation of Civil Service Unions, replied to the Epoch Times that civil servants lacked third-party witnesses in the process of applying for jab-free certs, and it is difficult for the authorities to verify the authenticity of jab-free certs. He continued to point out that due to the allegation of using false instruments, this police operation has caused concern among the civil servants holding the relevant jab-free certs, but the authorities still have to wait for the courts judgment before further action. However, he emphasized that if the civil servants holding the relevant jab-free certs have medical certificates and can prove that they have communicated with the doctor during the consultation, they can still argue legally, and he believes that there is no need to worry too much. A Hong Kong government spokesman said that the Civil Service Bureau is aware that the police are investigating the incident and they will cooperate with the police in their investigation. The spokesman also pointed out that they pay great importance to the conduct of the governments employees. If an individual is suspected of breaking the law or discipline, the authorities will definitely deal with it seriously according to the established mechanism, and they do not comment on individual cases at this moment. According to the data, there are about 370 civil servants and 222 non-civil service government staff currently holding jab-free certs issued by the relevant doctors, but the authorities have not yet explained whether these civil servants will be subjected to internal disciplinary action or will be referred to law enforcement agencies for follow-up. The authorities have arrested 39 people related to the incident at this moment, including 26 people and seven clinic staff. Among them, Dr. Tai Kong-shing has been temporarily charged with accessing computers with dishonest intent and is being released on bail. How Many People Did Ventilators and Iatrogenesis Kill in April 2020? To date, we still dont have especially good studies on the actual causes of excess deaths by state and country when the world first went into lockdown in spring 2020. For political reasons, these deaths were all generally been lumped together as COVID deaths, but this coding was appallingly sloppy. According to the World Health Organizations initial coding guidance, if a decedent had either tested positiveusing a PCR test later confirmed by the New York Times to have a false positive rate over 85 percentor been in contact with anyone who had within several weeks prior to their death, then the death should be classified as a COVID death. This enormous number of COVID deaths was obviously belied by the fact that many places reporting those COVID deaths, such as Maine, actually had no excess deaths to speak of. Thus, this article reexamines data from the U.S. CDC on all-cause excess deaths by state during peak lockdown in April 2020 using the information we now know to determine what actually caused them. This examination concludes that, contrary to popular belief, there was no uniquely deadly strain or variant emanating out of New York in spring 2020; this is clear from the fact that several states close to New York such as Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine experienced little to no excess deaths during that time period. On the contrary, over 30,000 Americans appear to have been killed by mechanical ventilators or other forms of medical iatrogenesis throughout April 2020, primarily in the area around New York. This result is not altogether surprising, as subsequent studies revealed a 97.2 percent mortality rate among those over age 65 who were put on mechanical ventilators in accordance with the initial guidance from the WHOas opposed to a 26.6 percent mortality rate among those over age 65 who werent put on mechanical ventilatorsbefore a grassroots campaign put a stop to the practice by the beginning of May 2020. As one doctor later told the Wall Street Journal, We were intubating sick patients very early. Not for the patients benefit, but in order to control the epidemic . That felt awful. To put this in perspective, patients over age 65 were more than 26 times as likely to survive if they were not placed on mechanical ventilators. Weekly Excess Deaths by State in April 2020 Below are all-cause excess deaths and percentage of all-cause excess deaths per capita (Percent Excess Estimate) by state for each week of April 2020. All data used in this examination is obtained from National and State Estimates of Excess Deaths, available on the U.S. CDC website at Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19. (Note: Although many of these hospitalizations and deaths may have actually occurred in March 2020, due to time lag in reporting, the vast majority were recorded in April 2020. Thus, April 2020 provides the most consistent and robust data set. After April 2020, excess deaths taper off significantly.) The first pattern that emerges from this data is a clear correlation between population density particularly in low-income areas, cold weather, and excess deaths per capita. For example, percent excess deaths were high in Michigan and Illinois, both of which are cold states with fairly dense and relatively poor urban centers. Percent excess deaths were likewise high in Louisiana, a warm but especially poor and dense state. Percent excess deaths were also somewhat high in Wyoming, a sparse but very cold state. By contrast, percent excess deaths were relatively low in California and Florida, both of which are somewhat dense but also warm and relatively rich states. A clear cluster forms at the top of the chart in the area around New York City, with New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts generally experiencing the greatest percentages of excess deaths per capita for each week of April 2020. To be sure, each of these four states is a cold state with dense low-income areas, which goes a long way to account for their high excess deaths. However, outside of those four states, excess deaths per capita fall into a more normal range. It may be tempting, therefore, to conclude that a particularly deadly strain or variant emerged around March 2020 in New York and began emanating from there, which was generally the mainstream narrative at the time. However, the idea that a particularly deadly strain or variant began emanating from New York in March 2020 is belied by the fact that states like Vermont and New Hampshire, which are both very close to New York, had some of the lowest percentages of excess deaths of any states. Even more remarkably, Maine is very close to New York and had virtually no excess deaths to speak of throughout April 2020. These counterexamples of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, each of which is very close to New York but experienced few if any excess deaths in spring 2020, strongly refute the notion that a particularly deadly virus began spreading from New York in March 2020. This is also in line with the many studies that have now shown COVID actually began spreading undetected all over the world by fall 2019 at the very latest. Explaining Outsized Excess Deaths in NY, NJ, CT, and MA in April 2020 If Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine belie the notion that a supervirus emanated from New York in March 2020, then what may account for the particularly high excess deaths in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in April 2020? The answer is that the area around New York experienced a particular hysteria for the use of mechanical ventilators in spring 2020 to an extent that other states did not. Although no one has yet collected data on just how many patients were placed on mechanical ventilators in spring 2020, we can get a sense for the level of this hysteria from the hundreds of headlines advocating mechanical ventilators that sprung up around that time. For example, Google yields hundreds of results for the query New York mechanical ventilators 2020. A sample of the hundreds of headlines are ones such as: NY may need 24,000 more ventilators to fight COVID-19. Heres how it could get them, Which coronavirus patients will get life-saving ventilators? Guidelines show how hospitals in NYC, US will decide, New York City Needs 400 Ventilators by Sunday, de Blasio Says, Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, Governor Cuomo Announces 1,000 Ventilators Donated to New York State, A New York hospital is treating two patients on a device intended for one. Likewise, Google yields hundreds of results for the query New Jersey mechanical ventilators 2020. A sample of some of these headlines include: New Jersey hospitals scrambling for more ventilators as coronavirus cases surge, Why Ventilators Are Critical and How NJ Is Preparing for a Possible Shortage, New Jersey officials planning for possibility of rationing ventilators, There could be a shortage of lifesaving equipment in New Jersey. Who decides who gets it? Google also yields many results for the query Massachusetts mechanical ventilators 2020, such as: Massachusetts hospitals scramble to get more ventilators before deluge of coronavirus patients, Mass. Delegation Urges FEMA to Immediately Release Enough Ventilators from the Strategic National Stockpile to Massachusetts as Hospitals Prepare for Surge, Facing COVID-19 Surge, Massachusetts Is Short 1,300 Ventilators Baker Requested. This phenomenon was not nearly as pronounced in other states. Compared to the many hundreds of results for New York and New Jersey, Google yields relatively few results for the query Michigan mechanical ventilators 2020. Likewise, Google yields relatively few results for California mechanical ventilators 2020, Texas mechanical ventilators 2020, or Florida mechanical ventilators 2020, despite the fact that each of these latter states is larger than New York by population. Given we now know that patients over age 65 were more than 26 times as likely to survive if they were not placed on mechanical ventilators, its not hard to see how this hysteria for mechanical ventilators in the New York area accounted for the particularly high excess death rates in that region. Additionally, because the neighboring states of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine experienced little to no excess deaths during this time period, the overuse of mechanical ventilators and other medical iatrogenesis in spring 2020 provides a far more robust explanation for the particularly high rates of excess deaths in the New York area than does a particularly deadly strain or variant. How Many Were Killed by Mechanical Ventilators? So just how many people were killed by the overuse of mechanical ventilators and other iatrogenesis in spring 2020? Unfortunately, no one has yet seriously answered that question. However, we can form a conservative estimate based on the data above by using the percentage of excess deaths in a comparable state that did not experience as much ventilator hysteria. As mentioned, outside of the New York area, Michigan also experienced a high percentage of excess deaths per capita in April 2020. Michigan is even colder than New York and New Jersey in terms of its climate, and its low-income urban centers are even more dense, both of which were primary factors correlating with excess deaths in spring 2020. Like New York and New Jersey, Michigan also had a strict lockdown at that time. However, Michigan did not experience nearly the same level of hysteria for mechanical ventilators as did the New York area, and Michigans rate of excess deaths, while high, was more in line with that of other states. Thus, we can assume that if New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts had not engaged in ventilator hysteria, then their percentages of excess deaths per capita would have been more similar to that of Michigan. Accordingly, below, Ive calculated the number of excess deaths that New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts would have experienced for each week if theyd had the same percentage of excess deaths as Michigan. By subtracting the number of excess deaths that each state would have experienced if their excess death rate had been the same as that of Michigan from the number of excess deaths they actually experienced each week, we can see that in total, during April 2020, approximately 17,289 deaths in New York City, 7,347 deaths in New Jersey, 803 deaths in Massachusetts, 788 deaths in Connecticut, and 3,725 deaths in New York outside New York City were attributable to the overuse of mechanical ventilators or other iatrogenesis. All told, this data indicates that some 30,000 patients in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts were killed by mechanical ventilators or other medical iatrogenesis in April 2020. This is, of course, a very conservative way of estimating the number of patients killed by ventilators and iatrogenesis during this timeframe. To be sure, some unknown number of patients were put on ventilators in Michigan and other states as well. Thus, the true number of Americans killed by mechanical ventilators and other iatrogenesis in April 2020 is likely higher than 30,000. While this methodology may be simple, it has proven accurate in the past. For example, my calculation that approximately 200,000 Americans had been killed by lockdowns and COVID mandates by comparing the rate of excess deaths in America to that of Sweden was subsequently borne out in a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. In conclusion, low-income population density, cold weather, and the overuse of mechanical ventilators were all strong correlates with excess deaths in spring 2020. The popular belief that a particularly deadly strain or variant emanated out of New York in March 2020 is belied by the absence of excess deaths in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Rather, the outsized number of excess deaths in the area around New York is better explained by the particular hysteria in that region for mechanical ventilators which decreased the survival rate for patients over age 65 by 26-fold. Some 30,000 patients in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts appear to have been killed by mechanical ventilators or other medical iatrogenesis in April 2020. The importance of further study into the actual causes of excess deaths in spring 2020 and the source of the guidance that led to them cant be overstated. The legal protections afforded to the WHO by virtue of its status as an international governing body and to China by virtue of its status as a globally-connected totalitarian dictatorship make it uniquely difficult to bring class action lawsuits over this deadly initial COVID guidance or to shed light on it. However, given the sheer number of Americans who were killed by this guidance, its worth asking whether this is really a cost of doing business that we can continue to afford. Originally published on the authors Substack, reposted from the Brownstone Institute Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban looks on during the EU-Western Balkans leaders' meeting in Brussels on June 23, 2022. (Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images) Hungary, Serbia Form Joint Plan to Build Russian Oil Pipeline to Belgrade The governments of Hungary and Serbia have agreed to invest in a pipeline to allow oil to flow to Serbia from the Russian Urals through the Druzhba pipeline. Oil shipments via Croatia were hit under the new energy sanctions on Russian by the European Union, according to the government in Budapest on Oct. 10. The EU slapped new restrictions against Moscow over the ongoing war in Ukraine, which includes an oil price cap for crude deliveries via sea from Russia to third countries. Serbia gets most of its Russian oil supplies from the JANAF oil pipeline, which passes through Croatia. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have agreed to build an oil pipeline to Hungary, said Hungarian Secretary of State for International Communication and Relations spokesman Zoltan Kovacs in a statement. The new oil pipeline would enable Serbia to be supplied with cheaper Urals crude oil, connecting to the Friendship oil pipeline, he noted. Kovacs said the Serbias oil supply at the present is largely via a pipeline through Croatia, but this is unlikely to be possible in the future because of the sanctions that have been adopted. Hungary is also receiving oil from the southern branch of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which is delivered to the Czech Republic and Slovakia through Ukraine as well. The Central European nation, which is heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas, has been the most vocal critic of sanctions against Russia in the bloc. The oil pipeline has been the primary source of crude for the three countries refineries for years. Orban has complained that the sanctions would drive up energy prices, but his government voted in favor of last weeks sanctions package. He recently announced that Hungary would hold a national poll on the sanctions on Russia. The Hungarian Prime Minister said that his country is holding gas reserves worth about five to six months of consumption. He said earlier this month, that his government would help out Serbia with gas if needed. NIS, Serbias state oil company, has Russias Gazprom Neft and Gazprom as majority stake holders. The EU and the United States is taking issue with the Serbian government, after it signed an agreement with Russia that it would hold long-term consultations on foreign policy matters. Meanwhile, Serbia has been attempting to join the 27 member European bloc. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Berlin on Oct. 10 to discuss the Ukrainian crisis. Orban later spoke at an economic forum held by the Eastern Committee of German business, an organization that focuses on boosting Germanys economic links with Eastern and Central Europe. The Prime Minister of Hungary will attend a discussion regarding the war in Ukraine and the current energy crisis in Europe, hosted by Cicero magazine on Oct. 11. Russian President Vladimir Putin has started talks with United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in St. Petersburg where the Russian leader had been staying for the past few days, the Rossiya-24 television channel reported, informs Tass. October 11, 2022, 16:22 Putin is holding talks with UAE president STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the one-on-one format was chosen for the conversation. The Kremlin hasnt announced the issues to be discussed at the talks. According to the UAE government newspaper Al-Bayan, the agenda includes issues of friendly relations between the UAE and Russia, and some regional and international issues that are of mutual interest. The UAE Foreign Ministry said the presidents visit aims to achieve "effective political solutions" for the crisis in Ukraine. Two Nicaraguan nationals hold up the cell phones they received from Border Patrol before being released into the United States, in Kinney County, Texas, on April 29, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) ICE Issues Smartphones to 255,602 Illegal Border-Crossers; Cost Is $89.5 Million a Year U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies issued more than 255,000 smartphones to illegal aliens during fiscal year 2022, according to data on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website. The phones are trackable and the individual is responsible for checking in with ICE on a regular basis, often by sending in a geo-tagged photo of themselves. The cost for the 255,602 phones and their accompanying technology is $245,377 per day. Over a year, thats $89.5 million. The majority of the phones were issued to single adults. ICE has failed to provide any data on the compliance rate of the smartphone program or on how many aliens have absconded from it, despite repeated requests by The Epoch Times. ICE began issuing the smartphones within the past year as border stations became overwhelmed. Agents started processing illegal aliens under a newly created category called Parole+ATD. ATD is an alternatives to detention program, which acts as a workaround for the legal requirement to detain illegal aliens. By law, parole is designed to be used on a case-by-case basis and for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit, according to the Immigration and Nationality Act. The status allows foreign nationals who may not otherwise be admissible to the country under the immigration laws to live and work in the United States temporarily without being formally admitted to the country and without having a set pathway to a permanent immigration status, according to a 2020 Congressional Research Service report. Under parole status, illegal immigrants dont have to provide Border Patrol with evidence of credible fear for asylum and are permitted entry without any preconditions, except for a quick background check in the U.S. crime database. A Customs and Border Protection spokesman previously told The Epoch Times that the parole designation allows for overwhelmed Border Patrol stations to process and release large numbers of illegal aliens significantly faster than the more involved traditional system, which releases an illegal alien with a notice to appear that includes a court date for their first immigration hearing. In addition to the smartphones, nearly 41,000 additional illegal aliens in fiscal 2022which ended Sept. 30were fitted with ankle monitors that have built-in GPS tracking. Almost 20,000 others were placed in another type of alternative to detention program. No Consequences U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said in July that a lack of consequences for illegal entries is a large driver of the border crisis. In my experience, we have seen increases when there are no consequences, Ortiz said on July 28 during a deposition for a lawsuit against the federal government brought by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. Ortiz said that as long as the Biden administration isnt detaining or removing most illegal immigrants, the numbers will increase. There is an assumption if migrant populations are told that theres a potential that they may be released, then yes, you can see increases, he said. In addition, the deportation cases for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are being dismissed before getting to court because Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials are failing to file the requisite paperwork, a recent report reveals. One out of every six new cases (16.6 percent) is being dismissed for failure to follow due process, according to the immigration court docket tracker Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. For the six-year period from fiscal year 2013 through fiscal 2018, fewer than 1 percent of the cases, or 1,221, were dismissed due to DHSs failure to submit the necessary notice to appear paperwork. The notice includes the date of the illegal immigrants first court hearing. The number of dismissals because of the same paperwork failure has increased dramatically every year since, with 47,330 cases so far in fiscal 2022 with three months of data outstanding, according to the TRAC report. The final month of border crossing data for fiscal year 2022 is yet to be published by Customs and Border Protection, but the number of arrests just at the southern border had already hit 2 million for the year. In total, border agents nationwide will have apprehended more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants from more than 160 countries during the year. Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the cost per day for the smartphones. The Epoch Times regrets the error. Protesters who are members of the Muslim Solidarity Movement hold placards during a protest against the violence and treatment of Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese Community Party in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, on Dec. 21, 2018. (Antara Foto/Novrian Arbi/via Reuters) Indonesia Denounces Politicization of UN Council After Rejecting Debate on Uyghur Abuses Indonesias government said it rejected a Western-led proposal to debate Chinas alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang as it seeks to avoid the politicization of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). A total of 17 countries voted in favor, 19 were against, and 11 abstained in a vote to debate the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) suppression of Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim country, was among those 19 nations that voted against the motion, besides Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan. Febrian Ruddyard, Indonesias permanent representative to the U.N., said the motion would not yield meaningful progress because it does not enjoy the consent and support of the concerned country, Benar News reported. Achsanul Habib, director of human rights at Indonesias Foreign Affairs Ministry, said that UNHRC member states should engage in impartial dialogue and not take a selective approach to human rights issues. We voted no because we dont want the politicization of the Human Rights Council, [for it] to be used for the purpose of political rivalry, he told reporters on Friday. Achsanul noted that Indonesia has consulted with all parties regarding its decision, including China and those who have backed the proposal. Human Rights Groups Voice Regrets The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland sought a debate on the human rights situation in Xinjiang after a U.N. report alleged possible crimes against humanity. Had the motion been passed by the UNHRC, victims and activists would have been able to tell the international community about the real situation in the region, the World Uyghur Congress said in a statement. We deeply regret that 19 governments decided to oppose dialogue on the issue, while 11 states preferred to remain silent in light of genocide and crimes against humanity, said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress. It urged countries to refrain from expelling Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims from their territories back to China, and instead provide them humanitarian assistance, including medical and psychosocial support. The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) has pledged to continue efforts to hold China accountable for its atrocities in Xinjiang. It is shameful that Global South governments who profess their commitment to dialogue, Muslim countries supposedly committed to religious rights and freedoms, and African governments who purport to oppose systematic discrimination have overwhelmingly failed to even support a U.N. discussion on rights abuses against Uyghurs, said Phil Lynch, ISHR executive director. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon speaks during the Business Roundtable CEO Innovation Summit in Washington, on Dec. 6, 2018. (Jim Waton/AFP via Getty Images) Jamie Dimon Bats for Musks Twitter Takeover: I Hope Musk Cleans Up Twitter Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, hopes Elon Musks takeover of Twitter would be for the good, and is looking toward more flexibility on the platform. I hope Musk cleans up Twitter, Dimon said in an interview with CNBC, while adding that the Tesla founder should look into wiping out anonymous accounts from the network. The JPMorgan Chase CEO echoed Musks concerns about spam accounts on the platform. In April, Musk revealed that he wanted to defeat the spam bot and authenticate all real humans on the platform while ensuring that free speech is protected on the network. Dimon also wants the company to provide its users with more control over recommendation algorithms. Musk has indicated that he wants to make Twitters ranking algorithm open source. Why cant Twitter know who you are when you come on board, so they can eliminate all those people in the public square who are robots and emails and stuff like that? Dimon said. Why cant they give you a choice of algorithms? As opposed to one that just jazzes you up. Musk had announced his intent to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in April. But in July, Musk tried to back out from the deal due to concerns about bots and fake accounts. Twitter sued Musk, and the case was supposed to go to trial on Oct. 17. However, Musk confirmed that he intends to buy Twitter in an Oct. 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Tesla founder also sent a message to Twitter management indicating that he intends to buy the platform for the previously agreed price of $54.20 per share. Twitter Censorship, Deals Future In an interview with The Epoch Times, Jeffrey McCall, a professor of communications at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, points out that even though Twitter positions itself as a so-called public forum, it has tried to manipulate that forum for ideological purposes. The platform has not been very transparent about its procedures. Due to the apparent bias and suppression of free speech, Twitters credibility has taken a hit. Twitter has been highly biased and inconsistent in how it applies its vaguely articulated protocols, he argues. There are several noteworthy examples of Twitter trying to alter the rhetorical sphere, with the New York Post Hunter Biden story being a key one, along with sanctions on Trump, all the while allowing Twitter activity from a wide range of international extremists, McCall said, alluding to the platforms decision to allow North Koreas communist dictatorship to open an account. Meanwhile, Twitter has confirmed that it has received Musks new buyout proposal. If an agreement between the two sides is reached, both parties could avert going to trial. Adam Badawi, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that Twitter will be extra careful with the deal this time, according to Breitbart. They thought they had a deal before, he said. So to actually accept something from him, its going to have to be as ironclad as it possibly can. Michael Washburn contributed to the report. John Eastman, former lawyer of President Donald Trump, appears on screen during the fourth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington on June 21, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) Jan. 6 Committee Harassing Targets, Engaging in Fishing Expedition: Lawyers As the House Jan. 6 committee heads towards its final public hearing, lawyers are criticizing the panel for engaging in overreach and harassing targets through onerous document production requests. The comments were made as the committee is currently locked in a battle with former President Donald Trumps election attorney John Eastman on the production of 576 emails subpoenaed by the panel. The committee in an Oct. 3 filing before a federal district court argued that Eastman was improperly holding back documents, under the guise of attorney-client privilege and attorney work-product privilege. Eastman, 62, helped prepare legal filings for Trump that contested the results of the 2020 presidential election in several states. The committee has contended, in part, that the filings were an attempt to overthrow the government. Eastmans attorneys, in response, accused the committee of attempting to undermine the attorney-client relationship. His lawyers further said that the court has already ruled on the matter and found in the vast majority of cases for Eastmans claim that attorney-client privilege prevented Eastman from disclosing the documents to the committee. Judge Carter found Dr. Eastmans privilege logs perfectly adequate to dismiss a majority of the January 6 Committees attempts to subvert attorney-client privilege, said Eastmans attorneys from Burnham & Gorokhov said in the statement. As proof of Eastmans alleged attempts to improperly shield documents from investigators, the Jan. 6 committee released an email between Trumps election lawyers in which they joked about Trump. One of the emails authors, former Trump lawyer Bruce Marks, accused the committee of releasing the exchange in an attempt to embarrass Trumps lawyers. At the time of the emails on December 30 and 31, 2020, Professor Eastman, Ken Chesebro, and I were representing President Trump in litigating a U.S. Supreme Court petition filed on December 23, Marks told Politico. These emails were part of a privileged exchange. Regardless of whether specific tongue in cheek emails were protected by the attorney-client privilege, they were clearly protected by First Amendment rights of political association and free speech. Fishing Expedition One lawyer who has defended a half-a-dozen people who have been charged as a result of actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6. applauded Eastman and his attorneys for pushing back. The Committees endless speculation does not trump the power of attorney-client privilege, attorney Joseph McBride told The Epoch Times in an email. McBride has a reputation for fiercely criticizing the government for its detention and prosecution of people regarding the events of Jan. 6. More people need to stand up to these communist psychopaths. I, for one, am glad that John Eastman is doing it, he added. Another lawyer who is suing the government over the seizure of phone records cautioned that the dispute between Eastman and the committee was only a small part of the panels excesses. I think [Eastmans lawyers] were basically trying to show the court that that was a claim of attorney-client privilege that applied to that email. But the larger issues in the Jan. 6 Committee is they are overreaching, Paul Kamenar, an attorney with the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a conservative watchdog group, told The Epoch Times. The NLPC is suing the select committee over phone records of a Jan. 6 protest organizer that the panel demanded in their probe. Theyre not respecting that attorney-client privilege and work-product privilege. And even so, some of this is first amendment protected communications that we have, Kamenar said. To Kamenar, the committee has exceeded its authority. I think at this point, its just a matter of a fishing expedition and harassment, as I see it, and theres no more need for any other emails from other people, he said about the continued investigation of the panel, adding that there are no new facts being discovered by the committee. McBride said that the continuation of the committee is just being used to hurt so-called MAGA-Republicans, without really investigating what happened. The committee is, without question, suppressing exculpatory evidence. It is also selectively editing videos to proffer a narrative to the public that caricatures all MAGA Republicans in the light of domestic extremism, McBride said, noting that the same members of Congress gave Hillary Clinton a pass when she destroyed 33,000 emails she improperly kept on a private email server when she was secretary of state. Electoral Reforms According to Kamenar, the dispute over privilege claims is obscuring an obvious purpose of the Jan. 6 Committee hearings, which is to make it toxic to oppose proposed legislative reforms that would make it harder to decertify presidential results. Thats the purpose of the committee: Rep. Liz Cheney has a bill that would reform the Electoral Count Act, which is also co-sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, said Kamenar. In September, the House passed the Presidential Electoral Reform Act, introduced by Jan. 6 Committee members Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Lofgren (D-Calif.), that makes a number of changes to the 1887 Electoral Count Act. These include making the vice presidents role in election certification a ceremonial one, and increasing the number of lawmakers needed to sustain an objection to a states reported electoral slate. A Matter of Politics Kamenar believes that the committee previously postponed hearings because of Hurricane Ian not out of sympathy for the victims but because the networks were busy covering the hurricane and wouldnt give the hearings top billing. They want to make sure theyre in primetime and get maximum TV coverage. So its clear that its a matter of politics there. And also, the Committee is trying to be assistant prosecutor to the Justice Department for the criminal investigation into Jan. 6, Kamenar said. Meanwhile, McBride contended that the committees rush-to-judgment of the selective release of information wouldnt stand up in a real court of law. The January 6th Committee is no different from a counsel of 17th-century puritans looking to burn witches in Salem, McBride said. The Committee is not looking for the truth: Instead, it seeks to identify, prosecute, and burn at the stake, anyone who dares to question the Biden regimes action, he added. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Jan. 6 committee for comment. Stella Assange, wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, delivers a speech in front of the Home Office as protesters gather to Demand Julian Assange's Immediate release, in London on May 17, 2022. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Julian Assange Tests Positive for COVID-19, Locked in Cell for 24 Hours a Day: Wife WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has tested positive for COVID-19, his wife Stella Assange confirmed on Monday, adding that she is concerned for his health. Julian was feeling unwell last week but started feeling sick on Friday, Stella Assange told the PA news agency. He started coughing and had a fever. He was given some paracetamol. He tested positive for COVID on Saturday. Assange is wanted in the United States on 18 criminal charges of breaking an espionage law and conspiring to hack government computers after WikiLeaks published a U.S. military video in 2010 showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed multiple civilians, including two Reuters news staff. The organization also released thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables, which included critical appraisals of world leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Assange faces up to 175 years behind bars if convicted. The WikiLeaks founder has argued that he will not get a fair trial in the United States if he is extradited there. His wife said her husbands health has deteriorated since he was sent to Londons high-security Belmarsh Prison in 2019 after being arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. He previously sought refuge inside Ecuadors London Embassy from 2012. I am obviously worried about him and the next few days will be crucial for his general health. He is now locked in his cell for 24 hours a day, she said. Stella Assange, wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaks to the press during a demonstration to protest against the extradition of her husband in front of the Home Office building in London on July 1, 2022. (Niklas Hallen/AFP via Getty Images) Health Woes Assange had applied, unsuccessfully, to be released on bail in early 2020, citing the risk of contracting COVID-19 in prison as cases soared across the globe. That request was denied by British judge Vanessa Baraitser who said there were substantial grounds for believing that Assange would not return to court to face an appeal by the United States over his extradition. At the time, lawyers for Assange said he had suffered from four respiratory tract infections during the years he spent living in the Ecuadorean Embassy and had heart problems. Assanges latest health woes come after a group of journalists and lawyers filed a lawsuit against the CIA and its former Director Mike Pompeo over claims the agency spied on them when they visited Assange while he was living inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. The lawsuit, which also names Spanish security firm Undercover Global as a defendant, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Aug. 15. Plaintiffs argue that the agency violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure when they swiped information on electronic devices that they were required to surrender when visiting Assange at the embassy between January 2017 and March 2018. They claim that the sweeping of the data from phones was authorized and approved by Pompeo. Russian analyst Igor Danchenko walks to the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse during a break in his trial in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Jury Selected in Trial of Key Source for Anti-Trump Dossier ALEXANDRIA, Va.A 16-member jury was selected and seated on Tuesday for the trial of a key source for the anti-Donald Trump dossier. Igor Danchenko, a Russian national who supplied information to dossier author Christopher Steele, is facing five counts of making false statements to the FBI during interviews with agents. Danchenko could land up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Jury selection took place in the U.S. courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. It lasted 90 minutes. U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, is presiding over the trial. Jurors were drawn from a pool of 91 candidates, 89 of whom were present in the courtroom. Four of the 16 selected are alternates. Before jury selection, special Counsel John Durham unsealed the governments witness list and Trenga was presented with three issues the prosecution and Danchenkos attorneysStuart Sears and Danny Onoratowant resolved before getting too deep into the proceedings. Durham sought clarity from Trenga on a defense motion to limit evidence from previous counter-espionage cases, including the FBIs investigation into Danchenko after the Russian allegedly told colleagues he had a way to get them money in exchange for classified information. That was 10 years before the allegation here, Sears said. I dont think is necessary for it to be discussed in this case. The defense also wants to introduce a series of articles from May to June 2016, an email chain, Amtrak tickets, and other documents that it maintains will show Danchenko did not lie to federal agents when he said he did not talk to Charles Dolan, a longtime associate of the Clinton family, about allegations contained in the dossier, which was paid for by the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign and other Democrats. Trenga was set to rule on lingering issues later Tuesday. Danchenko also allegedly lied when he said that he thought he spoke over the phone with Sergei Millian, a pro-Trump businessman, and intended to meet with Millian in New York. Defense lawyers maintain Danchenko was never asked by the FBI to specifically name his sources. Thats untrue, Durham said. The FBI made it abundantly clear they were asking for any and all information related to Steele dossier sources, the special counsel said. There was no misunderstanding. The case is the second to go to trial for Durham, who was appointed in 2020 by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the governments counterintelligence probe into Trump, his campaign, and Russia. The first trial, for Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann, ended in Sussmanns acquittal. Neither Steele nor Millian is expected to testify. Prosecutors plan to question Dolan, FBI agent Brian Auten, and others. John Haughey Follow John Haughey has been a working journalist since 1978 with an extensive background in local government, state legislatures, and growth and development. A graduate of the University of Wyoming, he is a Navy veteran who fought fires at sea during three deployments aboard USS Constellation. Hes been a reporter for daily newspapers in California, Washington, Wyoming, New York, and Florida; a staff writer for Manhattan-based business trade publications. Los Angeles Councilwoman Nury Martinez attends an event at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles on May 23, 2019. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)) LA City Council President Steps Down After Racist Audio Recordings Leaked Los Angeles City Councilor Nury Martinez stepped down as the councils president on Oct. 10 after audio recordings of her and two other councilors racist remarks surfaced the day before, with a wave of politiciansincluding Mayor Eric Garcetticalling for them to resign from the council altogether. After the audio was leaked, a slew of California officials and political candidates, as well as Gov. Gavin Newsom, came forward to condemn her comments. The incident comes just a month away from the Nov. 8 general election. The recording, dated October 2021published by a now-suspended Reddit user and first reported by the Los Angeles Timesincluded Councilmen Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. In the recording, Martinez, 49, spoke about Councilman Mike Bonins black son as Parece changuitowhich is translated to like a little monkeywhile recalling seeing Bonins son on a float during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, where she said the child was like an accessory. Councilmember Mike Bonin attends the Palisades Village grand opening private ribbon-cutting ceremony at Palisades Village in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2018. (Amanda Edwards/Getty Images) De Leon chimed in and said Bonin treats his child the same way as when Nury brings her Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag. Martinez appeared to suggest Bonins son was misbehaving on the float, and if she and another woman didnt step in to parent his kid the float may have tumbled over. Theyre raising him like a little white kid, Martinez was heard saying. I was like, this kid needs a beatdown, let me take him around the corner, and then Ill bring him back. During the conversation, Martinez used multiple slurs in Spanish to describe Bonins son. While referencing Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, Martinez said [Expletive] that guy, hes with the blacks. The conversation, which the officials did not know was being recorded, also included Martinez making disparaging comments about Oaxacans, a particular tribe from Mexico. At one point in the conversation, de Leon could be heard saying Mike Bonin wont [expletive] ever say peep about Latinos, hell never say a [expletive] word about us. The group also spoke of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomass suspension amid an indictment on federal corruption charges, and Martinez said Controller Ron Galperin would decide whether Ridley-Thomas still gets paid. You need to go talk to that white guy, she said. Its not us. Its the white members on this Council that will [expletive] you in a heartbeat. The officials further discussed the citys redrawn council district process, which was happening during the time of the conversation. The group discussed the need to keep Latino councilors so that those districts would not lose important financial assets, such as the Van Nuys Airport and the University of Southern California. Los Angeles City Councilmember Nury Martinez speaks onstage at an event at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, Calif., on Oct. 6, 2016. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for PPAP) Martinez Apologizes I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments. I am so sorry, Martinez said in a statement Oct. 10. Martinez said moving forward, reconciliation will be her priority and that she has already reached out to her black colleagues to express her regret. I ask for forgiveness from my colleagues and from the residents of this city that I love so much. In the end, it is not my apologies that matter most; it will be the actions I take from this day forward. I hope that you will give me the opportunity to make amends, Martinzs statement read. Therefore, effective immediately I am resigning as President of the Los Angeles City Council. On Oct. 9, Bonin and his husband released a statement via Twitter calling for the council to remove Martinez as president and for her and de Leon to resign their seats entirely. We love our son, a beautiful, joyful child, and our family is hurting today, the statement continued. No child should ever be subjected to such racist, mean and dehumanizing comments, especially from a public official. It is painful to know he will someday read these comments. We are equally angry and disgusted by the ugly racist comments about our son from Kevin de Leon and Ron Herrera, who should also resign their posts, and by the tacit acceptance of those remarks from Gil Cedillo. It hurts that one of our sons earliest encounters with overt racism comes from some of the most powerful public officials in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Councilman Kevin de Leon speaks at The Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro, Calif., on Feb. 27, 2022. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Herrera, Cedillo, and de Leon also issued statements apologizing for the incident. There were comments made in the context of this meeting that are wholly inappropriate, and I regret appearing to condone and even contribute to certain insensitive comments made about a colleague and his family in private, De Leon said. On that day, I fell short of the expectations we set for our leadersand I will hold myself to a higher standard. Herrera said, I apologize to all of you, Mike Bonin and his family, the affiliates and community members, specifically those in the Black and Oaxacan community. There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room. Period. Cedillos statement read, I want to start by apologizing. While I did not engage in the conversation in question, I was present at times during this meeting last year. It is my instinct to hold others accountable when they use derogatory or racially divisive language. Clearly, I should have intervened. Leaders Condemn Leaked Comments By the end of the day on Oct. 9, several local officials chimed in to condemn the remarks. About a dozen more poured in on Oct. 10. Bigotry, violence, and division too often live in unseen and unheard places, but have severe consequences on the lives of our fellow Angelenos when they are not confronted and left to infect our public and private lives, Garcetti said. Stepping down from the council would be the right response by these members in a moment that demands accountability and healing at a time of great pain and deep disappointment. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Michel Moore wrote on Twitter that [the] revelation of the remarks by our members of our council leaders hurts me to my core. This is not the Los Angeles I know or reflective of the beliefs of the women & men of LAPD. Such remarks are unacceptable in any setting. A dark day for our City of Angels, Moore said. LA Mayoral candidate Rick Caruso said the comments were racist and deeply offensive. My heart goes out to Councilman Bonin and his family. Now, strong action must be taken, Caruso said in a statement, calling on all three counselors to resign. Mayoral candidate Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) issued a statement Oct. 9 calling the content on the tapes appalling, anti-Black racism. I have devoted my life to bringing people together to move us forward. For more than 30 years, I have built alliances between Los Angeles Black and Latino communities to increase our neighborhoods; health, safety and prosperity, Bass said. Newsom also condemned the remarks but didnt call for resignation. He said in a statement hes encouraged that those involved in this have apologized and begun to take responsibility for their actions. Words matter, and racist language can do real harm. These comments have no place in our state, or in our politics, and we must all model better behavior to live the values that so many of us fight every day to protect, the governor wrote on Twitter Oct. 9. Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn wrote on Twitter Oct. 9 that now that Martinez has resigned, it would be appropriate for Councilman Mike Bonin to become President until a new council is seated. Currently, it is unclear who recorded the conversation and who leaked it on Reddit. This is a developing story. Since 2013, Martinez served on the LA City Council and represented the 6th District in the San Fernando Valley. Six years later, she became the first Latina to become president of the City Council when she was elected in 2019, replacing long-time President Herb Wesson. City News Service contributed to this report. LA Councilwoman Martinez Resists Resignation Calls, Takes Leave of Absence LOS ANGELESLos Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez, who is facing a torrent of criticism and calls for her resignation over racially charged remarks she made in a recorded conversation last year, announced Oct. 11 she is taking a leave of absence from the council. This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognize this is entirely of my own making, Martinez said in a statement. At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders. I am so sorry to the residents of Council District 6, my colleagues, and the city of Los Angeles. Her announcement came one hour before the City Council was scheduled to convene its first meeting since the weekend leak of the recorded conversation from October 2021, which has unleashed a firestorm of criticism toward Martinez and two other council members in the meetingKevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, who also took part in the conversation, resigned from his post on Monday night, Oct. 10. Los Angeles City Council member Kevin de Leon speaks during an event in Redondo Beach, Calif., on May 22, 2021. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images) Martinez on Oct. 10 resigned as council president, but she has resisted calls to resign her seat altogether. Calls from other council members, city and community groups, and area politicians piled up throughout the day Monday and into Tuesday morning demanding the three elected officials in the conversation resign their seats. On Monday night, City Councilman Curren Price organized a protest and vigil on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall demanding the resignations of council members Nury Martinez, Kevin de Leon, and Gil Cedillo. More activists gathered outside City Hall Tuesday morning, hours ahead of the councils meetingthe first to be held since the recording was leaked. Those activists blasted Martinezs announcement about a leave of absence, again insisting that she resign. We are not accepting apologies at this time, said Pastor Stephen Cue Jn-Marie. We are not accepting a leave of absence. We need you to be absent permanently. We need you to leave the building. Do not take a leave of absence. Do not show up at all. Resign immediately. The Rev. Eddie Anderson, a pastor at McCarty Memorial Christian Church, told City News Service that Martinez has lost credibility with the constituents. Not good enough, Anderson said. She has to resign. Leave of absence says, Oh, I feel bad but I can still serve. No, youve lost all trust. Youve broken the contract with the people. The activists marched inside City Hall before the meeting, walking right up to the council chambers closed doors and chanting the council members namesfollowed by afuera, Spanish for out. Martinez immediately came under fire following the release of the recorded conversation Oct. 9 in which she made racist comments aimed at Councilman Mike Bonins 2-year-old Black adopted son and at other ethnic groups while the group discussed the politically sensitive process of redrawing council district boundaries. The recorded conversation was leaked, appearing on Reddit before being removed from the site. City News Service reviewed the conversation, but it was unclear who was responsible for the recording and its leak. The meeting apparently occurred at a Federation of Labor office, and the federation is investigating its source. In an email sent to some of its union affiliates and first obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the federation said there was a serious security and privacy breach at its offices. The federation noted that the illegal recordings were posted online, but the organization was successful at getting the posts removed and the unidentified user suspended. The email stated that the federation is investigating the source of the leak and will make sure these crimes are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Herrera resigned Monday night as the Labor Federation president, a post he was re-elected to in March. Thom Davis, chairman of the federations executive board, said in a statement Tuesday: Racism in any form has no place in the House of Labor. Davis called the comment in the recorded conversation unconscionable, repulsive and vile. He said the federation is also calling for the resignation of the three council members in the conversation. Martinez issued a statement Monday announcing her decision to surrender the council presidency, and apologizing to Bonin, his husband Sean Arian, and their son. But she, de Leon, and Cedillo have thus far resisted calls for their resignations. With Martinez stepping down from her leadership role, Councilman Mitch OFarrell, the council president pro tempore, was elevated to interim council president, according to his office. OFarrell was among a number of officials Monday saying Martinez, de Leon, and Cedillo should all resign their council seats. I dont see how that presence continuing in city leadership is going to allow the city to move forward, OFarrell said Monday. I just think that that presence will continue to be an obstacle if it is still there in the halls of power at City Hall. He added, Angelenos deserve better. A group of elected officials including Councilman Marqueece Harris- Dawson and Assembly members Isaac Bryan and Tina McKinnor also held a news conference Monday morning calling on Martinez, de Leon and Cedillo to immediately resign their council seats. Council members Bonin, Nithya Raman, and Heather Hutt also called on the trio to resign, as did Mayor Eric Garcetti, City Attorney Mike Feuer, Controller Ron Galperin, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) local Reps. Tony Cardenas, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu, and an array of community and political organizations, including the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and county Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis. Councilman Paul Koretz called on Martinez to resign. Martinez, 49, has served on the council since 2013 and represents the 6th District in the San Fernando Valley. She was just the second Latina to serve on the council and was the only female member of the council when she won election. Six years later, she became the first Latina to become president of the City Council when she was elected in 2019, replacing long-time President Herb Wesson. Prior to joining the council, Martinez served on the San Fernando City Council from 2003 to 2009 and on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board from 2009 to 2013. De Leon, 55, has been on the council since 2020 and made an unsuccessful run for mayor this year. He previously served in the state Senate and Assembly. Cedillo, 68, has been in office since 2013 but lost his bid for reelection this year. His term will expire in December, and he will be replaced by Eunisses Hernandez. Among other comments in the recorded conversation, Martinez belittled Bonin, who is white and has a Black son, and criticized the child for his behavior at a Martin Luther King Day parade, saying Bonins son was misbehaving on a float, which might have tipped over if she and the other women on the float didnt step in to parent this kid. Theyre raising him like a little white kid, Martinez said. I was like, `This kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and then Ill bring him back. Martinez also called the child ese changuito, Spanish for that little monkey. De Leon also criticized Bonin. Mike Bonin wont [expletive] ever say peep about Latinos. Hell never say a [expletive] word about us, he said. De Leon also compared Bonins handling of his son at the MLK Parade to when Nury brings her little yard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag. Su negrito, like on the side, Martinez added, using a Spanish term for a Black person thats considered demeaning by many. At another point in the leaked conversation, Martinez recalls a conversation with businessman Danny Bakewell about possibly transferring Los Angeles International Airport out of Bonins Council District and into that of Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson. Martinez said she told Bakewell to go get the airport from his little brotherthat little [expletive] Bonin. On the subject of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomass suspension amid an indictment on federal corruption charges, Martinez said Controller Ron Galperin would decide whether Ridley-Thomas still gets paid. You need to go talk to that white guy, she says. Its not us. Its the white members on this Council that will [expletive] you in a heartbeat. Martinez also took aim at Los Angeles County District George Gascon in profane terms, after the group appeared to discuss whether Gascon would endorse Cedillo in his re-election campaign against Hernandez. [expletive] that guy. (inaudible) Hes with the Blacks, she said of Gascon. Gascon issued a statement late Sunday saying he was saddened and disappointed in the comments. I share the outrage of Council member Bonin as well as all members of the African-American community. Anti-Blackness has no place in Los Angeles, he said. Martinez, de Leon, Herrera, and Cedillo apologized separately on Sunday for their roles in the racially charged conversation. In a moment of intense frustration and anger, I let the situation get the best of me and I hold myself accountable for these comments. For that I am sorry, Martinez said in a statement provided to CNS on Sunday. The context of this conversation was concern over the redistricting process and concern about the potential negative impact it might have on communities of color. My work speaks for itself. Ive worked hard to lead this city through its most difficult time. De Leon said: There were comments made in the context of this meeting that are wholly inappropriate, and I regret appearing to condone and even contribute to certain insensitive comments made about a colleague and his family in private. Ive reached out to that colleague personally, he said. On that day, I fell short of the expectations we set for our leadersand I will hold myself to a higher standard. Herreras statement said: The calls for accountability are loud clear and deserved. I recognize that the community and our affiliates deserved an apology earlier and I am sorry this has not been the case. I had to face my family and granddaughters personally and apologize to them for my failure to stand up to racist and anti-Black remarks in that immediate moment. I failed them in the moment and for that I hold the deepest regret. And now, I apologize to all of you, Mike Bonin and his family, the affiliates and community members, specifically those in the Black and Oaxacan community. There is no justification and no excuse for the vile remarks made in that room. Period. And I didnt step up to stop them and I will have to bear the burden of that cross moving forward, Herrera said. I will do better and I hope that all of you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. Cedillo issued a statement saying, I want to start by apologizing. While I did not engage in the conversation in question, I was present at times during this meeting last year. It is my instinct to hold others accountable when they use derogatory or racially divisive language. Clearly, I should have intervened. I failed in holding others and myself to the highest standard. The hurtful and harmful remarks made about my colleagues son were simply unacceptable. We choose public life, but our families should always be off limits and never part of the political discourse. Bonin and Arian tweeted a lengthy statement from the family Sunday calling for the council to remove Martinez as president and for her and de Leon to resign their seats entirely. We love our son, a beautiful, joyful child, and our family is hurting today, the statement continued. No child should ever be subjected to such racist, mean and dehumanizing comments, especially from a public official. It is painful to know he will someday read these comments. We are equally angry and disgusted by the ugly racist comments about our son from Kevin de Leon and Ron Herrera, who should also resign their posts, and by the tacit acceptance of those remarks from Gil Cedillo. It hurts that one of our sons earliest encounters with overt racism comes from some of the most powerful public officials in Los Angeles. About 50 protesters gathered at Martinezs home in Sun Valley on Sunday, carrying signs and chanting, and said they will continue to protest at her home, church and office until she resigns. Beginning Sunday afternoon, official statements began pouring in from city leaders, criticizing Martinez and demanding accountability. Hernandez, who defeated Cedillo in June, was among those calling for Martinez to step down. Council President Nury Martinez needs to resign, council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo should be removed from committees, Hernandez tweeted. This is the reason why Angelenos voted out [Councilman] Gil Cedillo, she wrote. We cannot have people in leadership who hold racist views, and employ them to negatively impact the lives of Angelenos. Mayoral candidates Rick Caruso and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) both called Monday for the meeting participants to resign. I do believe that in their hearts they are better people than the vile comments we heard on that tape, Caruso said in a statement. But they also know they are role models and they have let our city down. Being a leader means taking full responsibility for your actions. In this important moment for our city, anything short of resignation completely fails that test. Bass said the city must move in a new direction, and that is not possible unless the four individuals caught on that tape resign from their offices immediately. To move forward as a city, we must move past the politics of divide and conquer, she said in a statement. There is no place for division and hate in Los Angeles. The challenges we face in our city affect us alland we must unite around our shared values if we are to overcome them and achieve the common dreams we all have for our families. Children play in a flooded area after water levels of the Yamuna River increased due to recent rainfalls, in New Delhi on Sept. 28, 2022. (Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images) Late Monsoon Brings More Misery to North India,18 Dead NEW DELHIIncessant rain lashed parts of northern India on Monday forcing schools to close in several cities as an unusually late rainy season prolonged havoc across the country, and killed 18 people over the past 24 hours. The state-run Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said heavy rainfall was expected for the northwestern states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Rajasthan until Tuesday. Parts of northwest India got 1293 percent more rainfall than normal on Sunday, with Uttar Pradesh state receiving as much as 22.5 mm, the IMD said. Eighteen people were killed in various accidents attributed to the rain over the past 24 hours in Uttar Pradesh, including drownings and electrocutions, authorities said. Three people were killed when a building collapsed in the capital, New Delhi, as heavy rain drenched the city on Sunday, Reuters partner ANI reported, but it was not immediately clear if rain caused the collapse. One benefit of the rain has been cleaner air. Delhis air improved significantly because of the weekend downpours with the quality index at 36, in the good category, early on Monday, according to the U.S. Embassys air pollution monitor. Incessant rain and floods have been a bane for big Indian cities in the past month, including the tech hub Bengaluru in southern India and the business district of Gurugram near New Delhi. Neighboring Pakistan has also been hit by flooding. Heavy rain over the past five days has triggered landslides and flash floods across Nepal, stranding dozens of foreign hikers and climbers in several places, authorities there said. Man Charged With Murder in Detroit-Area Hotel Shooting DEARBORN, Mich.A man accused of killing a suburban Detroit hotel employee and barricading himself in a room for hours was charged Sunday with murder and other crimes. Reichsrd Williams-Lewis, 37, was denied bond during an appearance in court. He is accused of fatally shooting a 55-year-old employee on the third floor of a Hampton Inn in Dearborn, Michigan. Williams-Lewis also shot at another employee Thursday, striking an office door on the first floor, and pointed a rifle at a guest and another worker, according to the prosecutors office. In court, police said the incident began when Williams-Lewis was confronted by staff for being loud and disturbing other guests. Williams-Lewis, who was told to leave the hotel, fatally shot an employee who rode an elevator to the third floor to check his co-workers, said Cpl. Nicholas Damphousse. It wasnt immediately known if Williams-Lewis has a lawyer who could comment on the allegations. Law enforcement personnel work to the scene of an active shooter in Dearborn, Mich., on Oct. 6, 2022. (Chris Rizk/Detroit News via AP) The hotel and surrounding businesses were evacuated for hours Thursday while police, with help from a lawyer, persuaded Williams-Lewis to peacefully give up. Gabi Silver said Williams-Lewis asked for her, although she doesnt know him. I just kept saying the same thing over and over, talking to him about his family, telling him he wouldnt get hurt if he surrendered, Silver told The Detroit News. In the Mokhratagh community of Artsakh's Martakert region, the construction of the internal water supply network is underway. October 11, 2022, 16:19 Mokhratagh will have newly built first aid station and water supply network STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: The head of the community, Norayr Amiryan, informed "Artsakhpress", adding that the construction will be completed in about 10 days. Referring to the other ongoing construction projects in the village, the head of the community said that the 5-kilometer section of the road leading from the village to the regional center has been paved. In addition, the streets of the village will be provided with lighting. After the completion of the water supply network construction, the inter-village road, which was partially destroyed due to the laying of pipes, will be repaired again," Norayr Amiryan said, also informing that a new building of the first-aid station is being built instead of the previous one. The construction of 5 houses damaged during the 44-day war is underway. The head of the community noted that they have around 100 vacant houses and they are ready to accept displaced families. 6 displaced families have already settled here. Mokhratagh school and community hall need renovation. "The school has 65 students. There is also a kindergarten where 18 children attend," he said. Referring to the residents' employment, the head of the community noted that the residents of Mokhratagh are mainly engaged in agriculture. The empty Qantas departure terminal at Melbourne Airport on Aug. 20, 2020. (William West/AFP via Getty Images) Melbourne and Adelaide Airports Descend Into Chaos After Security Breaches Frustrated passengers have been forced to evacuate from Melbourne and Adelaide airports after security breaches, causing long delays and missed flights. Federal police shut down one section of a Melbourne Airport terminal and ordered passengers from a plane ready for take-off after an apparent security breach on Tuesday morning. A Qantas passenger allegedly entered security gates at Tullamarine without being screened, which led to other passengers having to evacuate the area before being re-screened. The airline has since apologised to customers as it investigates. A passenger appears to have inadvertently passed from an unscreened area to a screened area of the airport in Melbourne, a Qantas spokesperson said. As a precaution, all Qantas operations have been put on hold and passengers in the terminal are being re-screened, which is causing delays to some services this morning. Safety is our number one priority, but we know this disruption is causing some inconvenience for our passengers, and we apologise for that. We are investigating how this incident occurred. In a post on Twitter at about 7.30 a.m., Melbourne Airport officials said screening of passengers in T1 had resumed, although delays were expected. In Adelaide, passengers were also subjected to travel delays after a similar incident. In a Facebook statement, Adelaide Airport said it was investigating its breach, likely caused by technical issues. Adelaide Airport is currently investigating a security breach at Adelaide Airport that occurred this morning (October 11, 2022) shortly after 9 a.m., a statement read. The breach is believed to be linked to the failure of a piece of security equipment. An orderly evacuation of the terminal has been undertaken, and re-screening of passengers has commenced. There are likely to be some flight delays as a result, and passengers are asked to check with their carrier for up-to-the-minute flight information. In September, confusion reigned after a passenger inadvertently passed from an unscreened area to a screened one in Sydney ahead of a Melbourne-bound flight. A plane-load of people were escorted straight to the baggage terminal on arrival to avoid compromising the security of Melbourne Airport upon landing. The Boeing 737 MAX aircraft at the Farnborough International Airshow, in Farnborough, Britain, on July 20, 2022. (Peter Cziborra/Reuters) Mongolian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX Flight in China the First Since 2019: Flightradar24 BEIJING/SYDNEYA Boeing 737 MAX flight by MIAT Mongolian Airlines that landed in Guangzhou on Monday morning was the first commercial flight by the model to China since the country grounded the plane in March 2019, flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said. Chinese airlines have not returned the 737 MAX to commercial service and Boeing last month said it would begin to remarket some of the planes meant for Chinese customers. The 737 MAX has returned to commercial service in almost every market globally, with the exceptions of China and Russia, which is now sanctioned over its invasion of Ukraine. Flight OM235 from Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar landed in Guangzhou on Monday morning, according to FlightRadar24 and VariFlight. Boeing declined to comment on the MIAT flight, saying it continued to work with global regulators and customers on the safe return of the MAX, which was grounded after two fatal crashes. MIAT, Chinas aviation regulator and Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport did not respond immediately to a request for comment. MPs Call on UK Government to Ditch 2030 Ban of New Petrol and Diesel Cars A number of MPs on Tuesday called on the government to ditch its plan to ban the sales of new petrol- and diesel-powered cars and vans from 2030 as a new analysis estimated the cost of the policy will be five times the benefit. Craig McKinlay, Conservative chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group and the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers, said the policy is unjustifiable with such an unbalanced ratio of costs to benefits. But a spokesperson for the Department for Transport said the report has misleading claims on the cost to households and ignores the benefits of electric vehicles. The analysis, which was published on Tuesday, was carried out by consultancy firm Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr); funded by campaign groups FairFuelUK, the Alliance of British Drivers, and the Motorcyle Action Group; and sanctioned by the Fair Fuel APPG. The analysis says the 2030 ban will cost Britons an estimated 400 billion, compared to 76 billion worth of benefits, and that the central benefit-cost ratio estimate is 0.19. The cost analysis included monetised costs such as CO2 emissions during vehicle manufacture, purchasing costs of new vehicles, and time and infrastructure needed for charging the vehicles; and non-monetised impacts such as job losses and the international demand for raw materials and the associated environmental damage. Cebr recommended the government undertake its own analysis, saying, The findings of this report strongly suggest that a similar government-led analysis would come to a similar conclusion: that the benefits to UK households of implementing the fossil fuel vehicle sale bans are far outweighed by the costs. estimated to be just over five times higher than the benefits. Calling the finding staggering, McKinlay called on the government to abandon the policy, which he said can only leave people worse off, adding that there are also a limited supply of the elements required for batteries [that are] largely under Chinese control and human misery associated with the mining process. Karl McCartney, Conservative member of the Transport Select Committee, also called on the government to ditch the plan, saying the UKs more than 35 million vehicles cannot be removed nor replaced by expensive electric vehicles. There is [sic] not enough raw materials for the batteries required in the world, nor is there the power generation capacity available, nor is there the infrastructure to deliver such power requirements even if such power could be generated, he said. Conservative MP John Redwood and Labour MP Graham Stringer also joined the call for the government to U-turn on the policy. A woman rides along a cycle lane next to heavy traffic in Birmingham, England, on Jan. 25, 2022. (Jacob King/PA) FairFuelUK founder Howard Cox accused the government of decreeing a scientifically baseless ill-informed green policy and sleep-walking into an economic Armageddon, calling on Prime Minister Liz Truss to put an end to the virtue signalling and un-consulted attempt to ban new diesel and petrol cars. As part of the governments ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in November last year that the UK will ban the sales of new petrol- and diesel-powered cars and vans from 2030, ten years ahead of the governments original plan. A consultation on phasing out new petrol, diesel, and hybrid cars and vans had been carried out in 2020 between Feb. 20 and July 31. According to the government, three broad positions emerged from the responses from 1,305 individuals and 173 organisations: The earliest feasible phase-out date is in 2040; its achievable to bring the date forward to 2035 but not earlier; and 2035 is not sufficiently ambitious and will not go far enough in reducing carbon emissions. Asked about the consultation, Cox told The Epoch Times in an email that its hardly a consultation because the number of individual respondents represented 0.004 percent of drivers in the UK. In an email to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Department for Transport said, This report has misleading claims on the cost to households and ignores the benefits of electric vehicles, which are becoming more affordable as manufacturing costs fall and second-hand cars enter the market. Electric vehicles offer opportunities for savings against their petrol and diesel counterparts thanks to cheaper charging, lower maintenance costs and tax incentivesnot to mention the potential for creating growth and jobs in the UK, the statement reads. (L-R) Sen. Michael MacDonald, Taiwan Representative Harry Ho Jen Tseng, Liberal MP Judy Sgro, and Conservative MP Michael Cooper at the Taiwan National Day celebration at the Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa on Oct. 5, 2022. (Limin Zhou/The Epoch Times) MPs Unanimously Pass Motion Endorsing Taiwans Bid for WHO Membership A motion supporting Taiwans bid to join the World Health Organization passed unanimously in the House of Commons on Oct. 5, ahead of the islands annual National Day celebration on Oct. 10. The motion concurs with the Commons health committees recommendation back in April to endorse Taiwans full participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Health Assembly (WHA), WHOs governing body. It is in the interest of global public health to have Taiwans full participation in the WHO and WHA, said Conservative MP Michael Cooper during a speech at the Taiwan National Day celebration in Ottawa on Oct. 5, shortly after the motion was carried in the House. We must double our effort to support Taiwans full participation throughout the U.N. system, including ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization], Interpol, and other multilateral forums, said Cooper, who co-sponsored the motion. It is disappointing that as the 41st ICAO convenes in Montreal as we speak, Taiwan is yet again wrongly excluded. Taiwan is shut out of all U.N. affiliated international forums due to the objections of the Chinese regime, including WHO, WHA, ICAO, and Interpol, though Taiwan participated in the WHO as an observer from 2009 to 2016. Taiwan deserves a seat at the table and should be allowed to participate on the world stage, said Conservative MP Michael Barrett, who sponsored the motion, during debate in the House of Commons on May 16. Now, more than ever, the need for rational states in the regions influenced by aggressive, authoritarian regimes has been made clear. Conservative MP and sponsor of the motion Michael Barrett speaks in the House of Commons on May 16, 2022. (ParlVU/screenshot/The Epoch Times) Cooper said during the debate that there is no legitimate reason for Taiwans exclusion from the WHA. There is only one reason and one reason alone for Taiwans exclusion, and that is politics by the Chinese communist regime to deny Taiwan its rightful seat at the table since 2017, he said. This is part of a broader campaign of aggression being perpetrated by the Chinese communist regime to delegitimize and isolate our democratic ally Taiwan. Taiwan has received more support in its efforts to participate in the WHO in the wake of its success in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Barrett noted that when Taiwans disease surveillance systems picked up on COVID in December 2019, it advised the world about the person-to-person transmission of the COVID-19 virus at the end of 2019, while the Communist Party of China was saying the opposite. Taiwan was able to provide pandemic information on the leading edge in 2019, while we were being met with misinformation and coverups from the very country that would see Taiwan denied admission to the WHO and the WHA, he said. From a health perspective alone, it is outrageous that Taiwan is not given the opportunity to participate. New Jersey Parade Keeps Columbus Day Alive SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J.A grand Columbus Day Parade was held on Oct. 9 in the beach resort borough of Seaside Heights to honor the Italian community and protest the cancellation of Italian heritage and culture. Colorful floats, the Italian flag, the American flag, marching bands, musical groups, waist drummers, and dignitaries filled the streets to celebrate the ethnic culture festival. This year marks the 31st Anniversary of the Ocean County Columbus Day Parade and the Italian Festival. The first to be held since 2019, because of the pandemic, the celebration lasted for three daysfrom Friday, Oct. 7 through Sunday, Oct. 9. Its our biggest crowd ever, the event committee Chairman Michael Blandina told The Epoch Times, We have 19 bands, probably about 70 different organizations. Michael Blandina, the Chairman of Ocean County Columbus Day Parade and the Italian Festival, marches in the 31st Ocean County Columbus Day Parade in Seaside Heights, N.J., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Andrew Li/The Epoch Times) Around 13 Italian-American organizations came to show their support and solidarity. Some participants came all the way from Italy. Among the visiting revelers were representatives of the Italian State Police. We bring them from Italy Its a pleasure to have them here because they bring back our heritage and our spirit that we fight for our country, for what we believe and what we stand for, Ocean County Sheriff Foundation President Jerry Bove told The Epoch Times. Jerry Bove, the president of Ocean County Sheriff Foundation, at the 31st Ocean County Columbus Day Parade in Seaside Heights, N.J., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Andrew Li/The Epoch Times) We are here to represent our culture, said John Capodanno of the Italian State Police, We are here in front of a lot of people, the Italian flag and the American flag when we pass, it was an incredible emotion. Other groups, such as the Falun Dafa waist drummers from New York, joined the parade to share their Chinese traditions with the community. John Capodanno, one of the Italian State Police representatives, at the 31st Ocean County Columbus Day Parade in Seaside Heights, N.J., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Andrew Li/The Epoch Times) Enjoying the diversity of the parade, Blandina said, This is a great Chinese group. We hope they have more and more each year. We want to show our support for them like theyre showing support for us. Its wonderful. Proud to be an American and Italian descendant, Carol Greco, a retired teacher and parade watcher, told The Epoch Times. Its time to have fun and enjoy the culture. The heritage and the contribution should be celebrated. Also, recognize the errors and mistakes and try to find a way to reconcile them. The community of Seaside Heights, N.J., celebrates the 31st Ocean County Columbus Day Parade on Oct. 9, 2022. (Frank Liang/The Epoch Times) Controversy Surrounding Columbus Statue and Columbus Day There have been many debates in recent years surrounding the Columbus statue and Columbus Day. The City of Philadelphia on Monday commemorated Indigenous Peoples Day. Reframing the annual celebration, Mayor Jim Kenney declared last year that the holiday would be known as Indigenous Peoples Day in Philadelphia and will no longer be recognized as Columbus Day. A 145-year-old statue of Christopher Columbus in South Philadelphias Marconi Plaza has been covered with a plywood box for about two and a half years. The statues future is uncertain, depending on the outcome of a legal battle between the city and the Friends of Marconi Plaza. After a years-long battle, a judge in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, recently declared that Pittsburgh officials are free to remove the Christopher Columbus statue from Schenley Park. The statue was erected in 1958 and has remained wrapped in plastic for nearly two years. Mayor Ed Gaineys office said the administration was reviewing the opinion and looking at the next steps moving forward. Camden, New Jersey, removed the Columbus statue from Farnham Park in June 2020. Statues of Columbus have been removed or vandalized in many other cities across the country, including in Richmond, Virginia; St. Paul, Minnesota; Miami, and Boston, where one was decapitated. Many Italian Americans want the Columbus statue and Columbus Day to stay. They see it as a source of pride, while opponents say its a divisive reminder of the past and a racist landmark. It takes away from everything were talking about, the contributions of Italians and what theyre doing, Philadelphia city councilmember Mark Squilla, an Italian-American, told The Epoch Times last year. Why would you take that day away from a group of people and give it to another group of people, Squilla argued. Marchers in Seaside Heights, N.J., entertain parade watchers at the 31st Ocean County Columbus Day Parade on Oct. 9, 2022. (Frank Liang/The Epoch Times) Parade-Goers: Keep Italian Heritage and Culture Alive Columbus Day is a federal holiday in the United States. Many parade attendees said its about families, friends, and culture. They told The Epoch Times they are against cancel culture and will keep fighting to protect their heritage and culture. Its very important to keep Italian heritage alive before its forgotten. Our children must remember this beautiful culture, food, and nationality, said Alan Floria, Unico Nationals District Governor and Chapter President of Brick, New Jersey, the countrys most prominent Italian-American service organization. Youve got to keep the traditions going. Otherwise, no one will know years down the road how important these days are, said Nancy Hayes, a clerk in the mayors office in Edgewater, New Jersey. Every time you remove a statue, whether it represents good or bad, youre taking history away. And how will anyone learn if you remove history? Bove believes no country or race should ever be ignored for whatever reason. He said: It doesnt matter what country were from. Were all one because, at the end of the day, we are in this country. Were all Americans. Blandina vowed to keep Columbus Day going on forever. He said its time to move Italian heritage and culture forward like other nationalities. Were not against anybodys [holidays], while were against them trying to attack Italian heritage and culture, he said, We deserve a holiday as everybody else deserves theirs. Were not saying take away anybody elses holiday, but give us our day. Its Columbus Day. You cant remove history. History is here forever, the event chairman continued. Columbus discovered America. Columbus Day is something to stay and something to celebrate. Andrew Li contributed to this report. Justices of the US Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on Oct. 7, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) New SCOTUS Session Will Consolidate Courts Right-Leaning Reputation: Legal Experts News Analysis The new session of the Supreme Court of the United States is likely to issue rulings and decisions that will have a lasting impact on university admissions and the rights of states and local communities vis a vis federal prerogatives and power, according to legal experts. The most hotly anticipated decision of the new term involving affirmative action policies at the nations top schools is likely to be a 6-3 split, with Republican and Democrat appointees on opposing sides of the question. This and other rulings are all but certain to upset many liberals who cherish the idea of the Constitution as a living document adaptable to their political needs, while solidifying the courts reputation as one with a distinctly conservative bent, the experts said. In contrast to past courts, the current one may not be prone to the phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect in which justices appointed to the court gravitate to a bloc other than the one with which they were originally identified, according to one legal analyst. The Supreme Courts June ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wades legalization of abortion throughout the United States, touched off outrage among liberals and led mainstream media publications to run repeated editorials and opinion pieces questioning the legitimacy of the court. But it would be a mistake to assume that the controversy in which the court is and will continue to be embroiled is a function purely of its Dobbs ruling, when so many other closely watched cases are on the docket, believes Mark Graber, a professor of law at the University of Maryland. Every public opinion poll indicates a loss of confidence. Most liberals do not trust this court for many reasons, abortion being only the lead. Defections in liberal support are not being compensated by increases to the same degree of conservative support, Graber said. Turn to the Right Graber said he predicts the court to continue a sharp right turn in coming months, a view shared by other legal experts who do not see a crisis of confidence so much as a solidification of the courts identity as an institution favoring an originalist legal philosophy that does not sit well with the policies of the Biden administration or past Democrat administrations. There are a few major cases coming up. A big one involves affirmative action, and theres also a case involving voting rights. And I do think there will be a conservative tilt, Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, told The Epoch Times. Blackman does not credit arguments that the court has jeopardized its legitimacy by issuing rulings more consistently favorable to one side of the political divide than the other. I dont put much weight in the legitimacy argument. For the most part, legitimacy is what progressives want it to be, its not a real thing, he said. Blackmans comments echo those of other legal experts who find fault with the progressive concept of the Constitution as a living document whose meaning is subjective and can be adapted to suit the partisan political goals and objectives of a given moment. Highly Anticipated Rulings The race-based affirmative action policies used in admissions at two of the nations most prestigious schools, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard University, are subject to challenges in cases on which the Supreme Court is soon expected to rule. The policies of both schools are the target of lawsuits by Students for Fair Admissions, an organization that believes that Asian and white applicants suffer unfair disadvantages and that the universities policies constitute illegal discrimination. The approach taken by the plaintiffs marks a shift from the stances articulated by past challengers of race-based admissions, Akram Faizer, a professor at Duncan School of Law at Lincoln Memorial University in Knoxville, Tennessee, told The Epoch Times. Right now, the law is that you can use race in admissions to achieve a diverse student body. Previously, all the litigation has been based on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But now it invokes Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which applies to private colleges and universities, and the argument is that both schools are using race to suppress the number of Asian-American applicants, Faizer said. This represents something of a revolution in legal thinking, applying, as it does, certain long-established protections in business, employment, and housing to the realm of university admissions, and not just in the state, or public, domain. Youre protected from race and sex discrimination under Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act, but Title 6 also enables you to require nondiscrimination by colleges and universities that are not state actors, Faizer commented. Setting aside questions of jurisdiction and public versus private actors, there are basic questions of fairness and nondiscrimination at play in the twin lawsuits, Faizer believes. The schools are being a little dishonest about it, in terms of the impact on Asians of the admissions process. On one of the affidavits evidence, its significantly harder to get in if youre an Asian candidate rather than black or Hispanic, he said. While some of the decisions coming up this term may yield 9-0 rulings, the affirmative action cases are likely to produce votes split along the commonly perceived lines, with the conservative blockJustices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanagh, and Amy Coney Barrettopposing the universities policies and the liberal judges appointed by Democrat presidents, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in favor. The same will be true for other high-profile cases on the courts docket this term, Faizer predicted. Voting Rights and Clean Water The case of Merrill v. Milligan, for which the court heard arguments on Oct. 4, presents a challenge, based on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, to redistricting in Alabama that has allegedly shifted black voters heavily into one Congressional district while reducing their presence in a number of others, thereby sharply limiting the ability of black voters to elect numbers of representatives consistent with their overall share of the states population. In her analysis on SCOTUSblog, reporter Amy Howe wrote that in her assessment, it is likely that the court will end up throwing out a district courts blocking of the implementation of the new electoral map. But, again, the vote is likely to be a 6-3 split along political lines, Faizer believes, much to the disappointment of progressives who favored the preexisting electoral map. I think liberals like to prefer the status quo, he said. The question is complicated, Faizer acknowledged, because having a higher concentration of members of a given demographic group in one district can make it easier for them to elect the candidate of their choice, while limiting the competitiveness of the same demographic as a voting bloc in other districts. The solicitor general of the state of Alabama, Edmund LaCour, takes a strong position, arguing that the redistricting is discriminatory neither in conception nor in practice, a stance with which Kagan, an Obama appointee and one of the most outspoken liberals on the Supreme Court, disagrees, as does Biden-appointed Jackson. Yet another closely watched case for which the justices have already heard opening arguments is Sackett v. EPA, which addresses an Idaho couples assertion of their right to erect a home in an area that the Environmental Protection Agency has deemed to be wetlands. The plaintiffs here claim that the Army Corps of Engineers has improperly subjected their property, which is an isolated piece of land not adjacent to the waterway, to its jurisdiction and required them to get a 404 permit, which takes several years and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, Faizer explained. Though lacking the racial component of the other cases, Sackett v. EPA is controversial, pitting the property rights of local residents against the authority of a federal agency. Here, too, Faizer and others expected a 6-3 ruling along partisan lines. No Greenhouse Effect Besides the tendency of the Republican appointees on the court to vote together, and the likelihood that it will continue in coming months, one factor buttressing the current courts reputation for conservatism is the absence of a phenomenon that has influenced the outcome of rulings in the past, Faizer argued. This is known as the greenhouse effect, whereby judges originally thought to emblematize a given judicial philosophy at the time of their confirmation hearings drift in a different direction over time. That was some peoples perception of David Souter, tapped for the court by then-President George H.W. Bush in 1990 to replace retiring Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. This allegation was also made of Justices Sandra Day OConnor and Anthony Kennedy, who were Reagan appointees. And Justice Harry Blackmun, appointed by President Nixon, made a remarkable transition from a conservative businessman and lawyer to one of the most liberal justices on the court, Faizer said. Chief Justice Roberts has a reputation in some quarters as a moderate, having provided the swing vote in a 5-4 June 2020 ruling striking down a Louisiana law imposing strict requirements on doctors seeking to carry out abortions. But Roberts is no longer in the position of being able to cast a swing vote now that the replacement of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Barrett has tipped the balance on the court from 5-4 to 6-3, noted Faizer. It is useful to maintain perspective and remember that for all the partisan division, the judges on the court also agree on a great many things, he suggested. To be honest, I think that some of the people who caricature the court are being unfair in calling the justices politicians. Theyre people who try to do their best. There are so many cases going before the court that are going to be 9-0, Faizer added. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Supreme Court for comment. A herd of cows make their way down the race to the milking shed at a dairy farm in Morrinsville, New Zealand, on April 18, 2012. (Sandra Mu/Getty Images) New Zealands Cow Burp Tax Proposal Angering Farmers The New Zealand government has attracted the ire of the countrys farmers after it announced a proposal to impose taxes on greenhouse gasses that farm animals emit as part of burping and urinating. New Zealandhome to around five million peoplehas about 10 million dairy and beef cattle as well as 26 million sheep. Roughly half of New Zealands greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to come from farm animals. According to the government plan, farmers will start paying for emissions beginning in 2025. The collected funds will be invested back into the industry for research and incentives for farmers. New Zealand had pledged to make the nation carbon neutral by 2050, which includes cutting down methane emitted by farm animals by 10 percent by 2030 and by 47 percent by 2050. Agriculture Minister Damien OConnor insisted that the proposed tax is good for both the environment and the economy, calling it an exciting opportunity for the nations farmers, according to the Associated Press. Federated Farmersa lobbying group for New Zealand farmers which had more than 13,000 members in 2021has slammed the government move. The plan envisaged by the government aims to cut down dairy farming by 5 percent, and sheep and beef farming by 20 percent, to achieve the unscientific pulled-out-of-a-hat greenhouse gas emission targets, Federated Farmers said in a post on Oct. 11. We didnt sign up for this. Its gut-wrenching to think we now have this proposal from government which rips the heart out of the work we did, said Andrew Hoggard, Federated Farmers National president and climate change spokesperson. Our plan was to keep farmers farming. Now theyll be selling up so fast you wont even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute [pickup truck] as they drive off. The Myth of Cow Emissions Attempts to control emissions from farm animals are often based on the belief that such emissions contribute to global warming. In a 2019 interview with animal nutrition company Alltech, Dr. Frank Mitloehner, a professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis, dismissed such claims. Mitloehner pointed out that there are three greenhouse gasses central to the global warming issue: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. Cows are being blamed for the methane they produce. Both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide have a very long lifespan and can last in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years. However, methane only has a lifespan of 10 years, he noted. After a decade, the emitted methane is destroyed. As such, if countries like the United States and New Zealand keep their livestock steady, they also keep the methane steady, thus never actually increasing global warming, he stated. All the emission inventories and all the media output that you hear assumes that all the methane thats generated by, lets say, cattle, adds up, but it doesnt. At the rate its emitted, its being destroyed. That makes methane very, very different from the other gases. This is critical to know, Mitloehner said. Ominous: The Lights Go Out on the Eiffel Tower Commentary The Paris city council, on the encouragement of the government of Emmanuel Macron, has made the shocking decision to turn off the lights to the Eiffel Tower at 11:45 p.m. and leave them off all night, thus robbing the city of its most iconic and beautiful symbol of peace, prosperity, and industrial civilization. The idea of leaving them on at night is a way of saying, it might be dark but hope still lives in this great city. Shutting them off only saves 4 percent in costs per year, and besides, whats the point of electricity except to light things up? And of all things to light up, it seems like the Eiffel Tower would rank up at the top. Conservation is only meritorious if it serves the cause of a flourishing human life. This isnt just a management error, its a grotesque omen for the future. Its no secret that some very powerful people in what was once known as the developed world have turned against modernity, industry, and all that they represent, including freedom, peace, and prosperity. They have in mind a different system thats best described as technocratic primitivism, in which the masses of people live in depressed dependency on political and intellectual elites. That wasnt the idea that gave birth to the glories of the Belle Epoque, during which time the Eiffel Tower was completed. It came to France only a few years after it gave the United States the magnificent Statue of Liberty, which remains the best symbol of this country. The United States and France had a good relationship that traced back to the American Revolution, which France helped support, and inspired the fruitful journeys of both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to the great country. After the U.S. Civil War, the United States and France both embarked on the great mission to spread peace and prosperity to all their citizens and to the world. This was a period in the United States that came to be known as the Gilded Age but there was much more to it than that. In France and the United States, we saw the unveiling of so many magnificent technologies and life improvements. Notably, the Eiffel Tower was built from iron, likely because it was planned just before the mass availability of commercial steel, which enabled cities to stretch to the heavens and bridges completed to transverse huge bodies of water. Because it was made of iron, it has to be repainted regularly, of course. Even with the limitations of iron, it was the tallest building in the world (81 stories) from its unveiling in 1889 through 1930, when the Chrysler Building in New York City surpassed it. The point is that it was a mighty symbol of hope, technology, and progressnot only for France but for the whole world. It was originally lit by gas but was unveiled at a time when electricity was gradually coming to replace gas lighting in American homes of the rich and eventually everyone. Fourteen years after the Eiffel Tower was completed came what is called the first flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk but France also had made great progress in flight. The consumer was gradually becoming the king the world over and the commercial marketplace gave rise to the democratization of indoor heating, photography, book production and distribution, a massive variety of clothing choices, better medical technology and sanitation, along with longer and richer lives for everyone. In arts and literature, optimism abounded as the intellectual classes came to embrace a belief in progress, peace, and prosperity, provided we let go of the remnants of the feudal past and celebrate and instantiate universal human rights in law and literature. A generation of writers came to believe that all of this was somehow baked into the fabric of history, now that we had discovered the tools we need to build bigger, richer, better societies. The core idea of course was human freedom. In those days, there seemed to be nothing left to stop it from advancing step by step in a bright future. Another building featured at the magnificent 1889 Worlds Fair was the Galerie des machines, by the architect Ferdinand Dutert, which highlighted the glory of the practical arts and was then the longest interior-spaced building in the world. Two machines riveted the public: Thomas Edisons new and improved phonograph and the super-cool elevators that showed the world how people could get up and down in taller buildings quickly. It wasnt just about technology but art, too. The new Palaces of Liberal and Fine Arts displayed great art and hosted musical performances to reveal the beauty of the future to all visitors. The Barnum and Bailey Circus was also there! And also Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, with the sharpshooter Annie Oakley. In those days, every nation competed to host the Worlds Fair as tremendous and expensive exhibits of the beautiful future in store for humanity. Of course, we know how this story ends, at least this chapter of it. The four-plus years of the Great War that lasted from July 1914 to November 1918 pulled back the curtain on the ghastly brutality of which humanity was also capable. The Belle Epoque and the Gilded Age (and the Victorian period of the UK) all came to an end, along with the optimism that fueled it. States turned into killing machines unlike anything in the Middle Ages because democracy also universalized the carnage of war. It was the first total war in the sense that it wrecked the totality of societies and the hope of those years. Art and music darkened and so did the expectations of a beautiful future in the public mind. A century later, and after another world war worse than the last one, civilization got on track again in the late 20th century with a renewed hope that human hands could again work to emancipate the human family from despotism and poverty. Totalitarianism fell apart in many countries in the world and freedom once again seemed like a real hope for the future. A fly boat navigates the Seine river in front of the Eiffel Tower at sunset in Paris on Oct. 8, 2022. (Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images) Its hard to say precisely when that hope came to be dashed again, but certainly, the lockdowns of 2020 codified that we once again live in times of tremendous danger to human freedom. Every terrible event in the previous 20 years might have been written off as episodic but lockdowns were universal and truly unthinkable. Now, we look around and wonder: Where is the hope? Where is the light? Where is the genuine progress that ennobles the human family once again? And at this very moment, the lights of the Eiffel Towerthat mighty symbol of achievement and hope for allgo dark. The French people cant allow this to happen. Those lights need to come on right away and stay that way. We wont go back to premodern times. They simply cant be allowed to do this to us, not in Paris, not in New York, not in London, not anywhere. Now is the time. If this dreary ideology of suffering and privation at the hands of a powerful elite is allowed to perpetuate itself, the lights of the whole of civilization will go out. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Characteristic mushroom shaped cloud begins formation after the first H-Bomb explosion (U.S.) at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific on Nov. 6, 1952. (Three Lions/Getty Images) One in Six Chance of Worldwide Nuclear War: Physicists Post Goes Viral Elon Musk agrees 'probability is rising rapidly' With the Russia-Ukraine war still raging, physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark has estimated the odds of global nuclear war in the near future at one in six, in an article and a social media post that went viral. The Swedish-American MIT professor made the prediction in an Oct. 8 post on LessWrong, a rationalist community blog created by American artificial intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky. SpaceX founder Elon Musk is among those who share Tegmarks concerns. Nuclear war probability is rising rapidly, Musk wrote in response to the Tweet from Tegmark linking to his blog post. Tegmark had praised Musk for urging de-escalation. Thanks in part to Musks attention, Tegmarks Tweet went viral. It has been shared nearly 34,000 times on Twitter alone. SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk waves during a joint news conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (not pictured) at the SpaceX Starbase, in Brownsville, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2022. REUTERS/Adrees Latif Musk, who has used his Starlink satellites to assist Ukraine following Russias invasion, has been criticized by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), and others for urging the pro-Ukraine West to pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict, with concessions to both Ukraine and Russia. In a Tweet responding to Musks recommendations, Zelenskyy adviser and psychological warfare expert Oleksiy Arestovych posted a doctored, clearly satirical, image of the tech titan in handcuffs. In the last few days, Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed Ukraine for an Oct. 8 explosion that destroyed part of the Kerch Bridge, a key supply line between Russia and Crimea. Russia responded on Oct. 10 by hitting cities across Ukraine with cruise missiles. A Russian cyberattack targeted airports across the United States on the same day. The Crimea bridge attack and predictable subsequent escalation happened after Id done my original analysis, Tegmark told The Epoch Times in an Oct. 10 email. Black smoke billows from a fire on the Kerch Bridge that links Crimea to Russia, after a truck exploded, near Kerch, on Oct. 8, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images) Meanwhile, and despite opposition from some lawmakers, the United States moral and financial support for Ukraine has not openly flagged. Congresss latest stopgap spending bill includes more than $12 billion in aid to Ukraine. President Joe Biden said on Oct. 6 that the risk of nuclear Armageddon is at its highest level since 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. A U.S. patrol plane flies over a Soviet freighter during the Cuban missile crisis at the height of the Cold War in this 1962 photograph. (Getty Images) In his viral analysis, Tegmark argues there is a 30 percent chance Russia will deploy nuclear weapons against Ukraine. In that scenario, he expects there is an 80 percent chance of a non-nuclear counterstrike by NATO against Russia. If that occurs, he thinks there is a 70 percent chance of a Russian counterstrike, leading to further escalation and global nuclear war. My 70 percent estimate factors in that the long history of nuclear near misses has convinced me that both the U.S. and Russia are much less competent in de-escalation than in escalation, he wrote in the blog post. Seventy percent of 80 percent of 30 percent can be calculated as 30 percent times 80 percent times 70 percent (0.3 times 0.8 times 0.7). The resulting probability is a little under 17 percent, or one out of six. Tegmark calls that outcome KABOOMa major U.S.-Russia nuclear war that might cause nuclear winter and kill most people on Earth. In his email to The Epoch Times, Tegmark said that comments on his post at LessWrong have led him to rethink the probabilities he initially furnished. For example, if recent history is any guide, theres no clear outcome that would necessarily flow from a Russian defeat. The Gulf War example argues for a higher probability that Putins leadership will survive total defeat, while the Falklands War example argues for a lower one, he said. The Maclaurin Building is shown on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Feb. 22, 2006, in Cambridge, Mass. The Institute admitted its first students in 1865 and continues with the mission to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) He fears Russia and the West are caught up in a cycle of retributive escalation. In a Shakespearean tragedy, that sort of vicious circle ends in a pile of dead bodies; on the world stage, it could end human life as we know it. Tegmark highlighted a recent study in Nature that predicted almost all Americans could starve to death in a nuclear winter following a nuclear conflict between Russia and the West. Most of the rest of the northern hemisphere would endure similar casualties. Metaculus, a reputation-based prediction community that Tegmark cited in his analysis, pegs the probability of nuclear deployment in Ukraine by 2023 at 7 percent as of the afternoon of Oct. 10. Experts Offer Mix of Support and Criticism Tegmark, a highly influential researcher and thinker on everything from the nature of the universe to the way our minds work, does not claim special expertise on this subject. Yet, experts on the risk of nuclear conflict did not dismiss his concerns out of hand. Predicting the future represents an interminable problem for analystsand Tegmarks analysis could end up being right, but could just as easily be wrong, Andrew Reddie, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information with expertise in wargaming, nuclear weapons policy, and related topics, told The Epoch Times in an Oct. 10 email. Reddie, who also founded the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab, wondered about the sources of Tegmarks probabilities, for fear that they are being pulled from thin air. The post is primarily useful for driving an important conversation regarding the increased risks of nuclear conflict and its existential consequences, rather than the merits of analysis itself, he added. I largely agree with its key points with one big exception: I think that nuclear strike against Ukraine is very low probability, said Nikolai Sokov, senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, in an Oct. 10 email to The Epoch Times. Cars are on fire after Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) Like Reddie, he emphasized the difficulty and subjectivity involved in assessing the likelihood of a nuclear confrontation. He agreed with Tegmark that de-escalation could prove challenging if the conflict spirals out of control. Even a relatively small occurrence, such as a confrontation of aircraft, could trigger an escalation dynamic, said Sokov. He warned that politicians who pursue de-escalation in such a scenario would be rendered politically vulnerable in domestic politics. When asked about Sokovs comments, Tegmark said other estimates suggest the likelihood of a nuclear strike against Ukraine may be uncomfortably high. In addition to Metaculuss 7 percent estimate, he cited a 16 percent estimate from researchers Nuno Sempere and Misha Yagudin, both with the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. I think American voters have the right to know about risks politicians take on their behalf, said Tegmark. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (C) reacts after his press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 9, 2022. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo) The Epoch Times has reached out to other nuclear war experts for comment. None of them responded by press time. Snow covered hills are seen behind Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, June 1, 2022. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch Parties Weaponising Taxpayer-Funded Ads Independent Australian MP Helen Haines says its disturbing major parties routinely abuse taxpayer-funded advertising and hijack public information campaigns. The Grattan Institute found nearly one-quarter of the federal governments annual $200 million advertising outlay was going towards politicised messages. Over the past 13 years, the amount spent federally on advertising that lauded government achievements was worth $630 million. The think tank says the issue exists on both sides of politics and at state and federal levels. Haines said taxpayers expected public money would be used in their best interests. She said the millions of dollars being spent for political purposes fuelled cynicism from the public. Public trust and confidence in government is diminished, she told the ABC. Its time for this to stop. Independent MP Dai Le said the amount governments had spent was eye-watering, with those outside the tent being forced to spend their own money campaigning. The major parties having those funds, its taxpayers money to promote their own machinery, she told Nine. It needs to be really reassessed. Of the 10 most politicised federal advertising campaigns during the past 13 years, half came from Labor and the other half from coalition governments. Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood, the reports lead author, said the research showed Australians couldnt rely on the goodwill of government ministers to stop public money being spent for political purposes. Weaponising taxpayer-funded advertising for political advantage wastes public money, undermines trust in politicians and democracy, and creates an uneven playing field in elections, she said. The report recommends tougher rules at state and federal levels to stop governments from abusing the use of advertising. Campaigns should only be allowed when they encourage specific actions, while those that only promoted policies or programs without a call to action should be banned. Haines backed the institutes calls for an independent panel to assess government advertising and the push for a new parliamentary committee. The prime minister has moved to ban political fundraisers inside Parliament House ahead of the budget week. The government has also pledged to take a stronger stance on responsibility, with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles telling reporters the buck stops with ministers. We accept responsibility. We accept the responsibility of government, and we do so going forward, he said. No ifs, no buts about all of that. Its not ultimately for departments to stand here and accept responsibility for government performance. It is ministers. On October 10, the permanent member of the Delegation of the Armenian Parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Armen Gevorgyan delivered a speech on the progress of the activities of PACE Bureau and the Standing Committee, the Parliaments press service said: STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: The speech particularly read: Dear President, In the context of the continuous aggression of Azerbaijan against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, I would like to raise the following questions: Our organization had preferred to limit itself by vague and unaddressed statements which would put signs of equality between and among the parties to this conflict. Hence, I would like to be told: what's the clear and unambiguous position of our organization: is Azerbaijan an aggressor state, and should it withdraw troops from the occupied sovereign territories of Armenia? There are two paths forward in Nagorno Karabakh and only one of which, I believe, the Council of Europe must encourage and endorse: namely, the respect for the right of people to self-determination. The other alternative is silent indulgence of the authorities in Azerbaijan to gradually annihilate and uproot the Armenians from their historic homeland - just as they did in Nakhijevan. What's the preferred choice for the Council of Europe? It has become a new normal to witness when democratic norms, freedoms and traditions are being sacrificed for geopolitical interests and access to energy resources in the Caspian. I would like to know when has Azerbaijan been a more democratic state for the Council of Europe - when it was actively fighting against the Armenian population in Nagorno Karabakh, or today - as it engages in war crimes and other forms of crimes against humanity against the people in Republic of Armenia? It's clear by now, that in those international forums, where Turkey and Azerbaijan do not partake or have dominant roles, the issues of Nagorno Karabakh or armed aggression against Armenia are being discussed more objectively. Do I understand it right, that in our organization the issues of human rights, democracy and rule of law are being decisively influenced by lobbying and resources by certain national delegations? A health care worker in Israel prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in a file photo. (Ahmad Ghababli/AFP via Getty Images) Pfizer Exec Concedes COVID-19 Vaccine Was Not Tested on Preventing Transmission Before Release A Pfizer executive said Oct. 10 that neither she nor other Pfizer officials knew whether its COVID-19 vaccine would stop transmission before entering the market last year. Member of the European Parliament, Rob Roos, asked during a session: Was the Pfizer COVID vaccine tested on stopping the transmission of the virus before it entered the market? Pfizers Janine Small, president of international developed markets, said in response: Did we know about stopping immunization before it entered the market? No we had to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market. Roos, of the Netherlands, argued in a Twitter video Oct. 10 that following Smalls comments to him, millions of people around the world were duped by pharmaceutical companies and governments. Millions of people worldwide felt forced to get vaccinated because of the myth that you do it for others,' Roos said. Now, this turned out to be a cheap lie and should be exposed, he added. The Epoch Times has contacted Pfizer for comment. What Was Said The Food and Drug Administration wrote in late 2020 that there was no data available to determine whether the vaccine would prevent transmission and for how long it would protect against transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. At this time, data are not available to make a determination about how long the vaccine will provide protection, nor is there evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person, the agency specifically noted. Meanwhile, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, around the same time, said his firm was not certain if those who receive its mRNA vaccine will be able to transmit COVID-19 to other people. I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now, Bourla told NBC News in December 2020 in response to a question about transmissibility. Former White House medical adviser Dr. Deborah Birx in June revealed that there was evidence in December 2020 that individuals who received COVID-19 vaccines, including Pfizers, could still transmit the virus. We knew early on in January of 2021, in late December of 2020, that reinfection was occurring after natural infection, Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator during the Trump administration, told members of Congress this year. Not Going to Get COVID A number of officials in the United States and around the world had claimed COVID-19 vaccines could prevent transmission. Among them, President Joe Biden in July 2021 remarked that youre not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations. President Joe Biden speaks, flanked by White House Chief Medical Adviser on COVID-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci, during a visit to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 11, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Chief Biden administration medical adviser Anthony Fauci in May 2021 said in a CBS interview that vaccinated people are dead ends for COVID-19, suggesting they cannot transmit the virus. When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community, Fauci said. Two months later, in late July of that year, Fauci said that vaccinated people are capable of transmitting the virus. In the coming months, Fauci, Biden, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and others pivoted to say the vaccine prevents severe disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. When a huge brown bear was quietly making use of a big tree to reach every bit of that prickly itch he couldnt scratch himself, a photographers camera trap was sneakingly recording it all. The early morning footage was captured by a trail cam, situated near a camera trap, which was originally set up to gain footage of Siberian tigers. But it instead got this brilliant candid footage of a 2.5-meter-tall (8.2-foot) brown bear looking for relief from a clearly very annoying itch. Sascha Fonseca, 45, a program manager from Dubai, shot this footage while in the far east of Russia in April, during a camera trap project to photograph Siberian tigers. (Courtesy of Caters News) Fonseca said: To me, getting a glimpse into the private world of wildlife, while undisturbed and in their natural habitat, is very special. I didnt expect this large male brown bear rubbing against the tiger marking tree in front of my camera trap. But it goes to show that in the Russian far east, brown bears and Siberian tigers co-exist, and often utilize the same marking trees. Camera traps allow me to capture close-up images of secretive wildlife, which I would otherwise not be able to get. The fact that you can have cameras out there working for you 24/7 is a major advantage over traditional wildlife photography and one thats extremely beneficial when youre photographing rare, secretive, or potentially dangerous wildlife. (Courtesy of Caters News) (Courtesy of Caters News) Epoch Times staff contributed to this report. Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at: https://www.theepochtimes.com/newsletter A pill designed to cut down flatulence and belching from cows is now being sold around the world as part of the global push to reduce emissions, according to Australias CSIRO. Scientists have blamed the livestock industry for being the number one agricultural source of emissions, accounting for an estimated 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases, according to the University of California, with a single cow being estimated to belch around 220 pounds of methane a year, a gas considered worse for the environment than carbon dioxide. This has left the industry and scientists grappling with how to deal with cattle emissions. However, the Australian government research agency, the CSIRO, in conjunction with James Cook University and Meat and Livestock Australia have worked together to create an amazing seaweed that can reduce methane from cows. Feedstock for cattle designed to reduce flatulence and belching in cows. (Courtesy of the CSIRO) A company for FutureFeed was set up, that company has been working with seaweed growers around the world, and a couple of them most recently have started to provide products into market, said Michael Battaglia, mission lead of The Towards Net Zero Mission. A handful of seaweed a day. Theres a range of ways we can deliver it to cows; we can stick it into oil and put the oil into their feed like producers often do, he told 6PR on Oct. 11. Or you can freeze dry it and grind it up into a powder to feed to cows in their feed. Just like sprinkling a bit of extra vitamins on top of your muesli in the morning. The invention is now being exported to cattle feedlots around the world with support from Australian businesses such as Woolworths, GrainCorp, and Harvest Road. Battaglia said that based on trials conducted at the University of California, Davis and in Europe, around 20 grams of seaweed per day could cut methane production by livestock by 80 to 99 percent. Its a hell of a reduction, Battaglia said. Theyll produce the same amount of biomass or product with less feed intake, or theyll get their animals in feedlots, and theyll get to their market weight faster. Push to Create Global Sustainability Standards The sale of the supplement comes as organic groups push for the United Nations to create global sustainability standards for livestock producers. Yet Tony Mahar, CEO of National Farmers Federation, warned against a blanket approach, saying a more nuance was needed. Australias farming systemsparticularly for grazingare radically different to those of, say, Europe or North America, he previously told The Epoch Times. Our approach to reducing emissions and caring for our land will be unique because our environment is unique. Read More Farmers Chief Wary of Calls for United Nations Global Sustainability Standards for Livestock Racing Towards Net Zero The pill is one of several initiatives being launched by the CSIRO as part of its A$90 million research mission to halve emissions by 2035. Larry Marshall, CEO of the CSIRO, said the initiative involves creating new technologies that can be monetised and generate economic growth. The transformation of these hard-to-abate industries and regions is critical to our nations future prosperity, and Australian science will ensure no one gets left behind in this enormous transition. Every Australian is part of the journey to net zero, he said in a statement. The CSIROs focus spans developing innovations to lower emissions in agriculture, steel and iron ore processes and create sustainable aviation fuel. The move comes as the Australian Labor government embarks on an ambitious campaign to cut emissions by 43 percent by 2030 and to reach net-zero by 2050. The governmentwith its state counterpartshas rolled out a series of initiatives to decarbonise the economy and transport systems, including closing coal-fired power plants, incentives for electric vehicle take-up, money to build new renewable energy generators, and new regulatory frameworks such as a carbon credit trading system. However, the heads of energy firms are concerned the sum of these initiatives will drive up electricity prices for residents. What cost me A$1 billion (US$630 million) to acquire is going to cost me A$8 billion (US$5.04 billion) to replace, so lets talk about that and [someone] explain to me how energy prices still come down, said Jeff Dimery, CEO of Alinta Energy. I dont get it. Am I missing something? he told The Australian Financial Reviews Energy and Climate Summit. PQ Leader Wants to Take Seat in Quebec Legislature Without Swearing Oath to King Parti Quebecois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is refusing to swear an oath to King Charles III. Before they can take their seats in the legislature, newly elected members are required to swear an oath to the British Crown and to the Quebec people. St-Pierre Plamondon, who is scheduled to be sworn into office on Oct. 21, is asking the legislature to stop requiring that members pledge allegiance to the King. He told reporters in Montreal today that he has sent a formal letter to the legislature asking that he be allowed to sit after taking an oath only to the people of Quebec. St-Pierre Plamondon, who won his seat in the Montreal riding of Camille-Laurin on Oct. 3, says one cannot serve two masters and that there is a conflict of interest in swearing an oath to both. But the PQ leader is remaining evasive about what he will do if his request is denied, adding that he will take things one step at a time. The PQ won three of the provinces 125 seats in the October election. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino rises during question period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on May 12, 2022. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press) Public Safety Department Censored Hundreds of Pages of Freedom Convoy Documents, Says Bloc MP Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicinos department censored hundreds of pages of documents related to security measures taken against the Freedom Convoy in February, according to Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Fortin. Public Safety provided the documents to the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency after being ordered to do so by the committee in May. Fortin told the committee on Oct. 6 that it needs to address why large portions of the Public Safety documents have been censored. You have these entire pages with massive redactions. [Were] talking about hundreds of pages of redacted documents, Fortin said, as first reported by Blacklocks Reporter. What do we do with this? said Fortin. I dont know what is hidden here. I dont know why this information is hidden. On May 31, the committee requested that all security assessments and legal opinions which the government relied upon in deciding that the Freedom Convoy constituted a national emergency be provided. The government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, allowing police to use extraordinary measures to clear protesters from Ottawas downtown core while granting banks the power to freeze accounts belonging to convoy members and supporters. Fortin said the censored documents were unacceptable, and called for the individuals who produced the documents to appear before the committee to explain the reasoning behind the redactions. We are entitled to an answer as to why these things are blacked out, he said. The Epoch Times reached out to Public Safety for comment on the redactions but didnt immediately hear back. Hampering Committee Work Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan said she doesnt see why it would be helpful to have a Public Safety representative appear before the committee to explain the redactions, saying the person wouldnt be able to provide detailed information. Whoever will testify will not be in a position to tell us substantively what supports that redaction, she said. Well still be here in 2026 If we keep focusing on this issue. Senator Claude Carignan argued the redacted documents are hindering the committee from carrying out a thorough investigation. We just cant wait until the end of our hearings to then get an explanation and see if theres some way to clean things up or open up more information than what we have received, said Carignan. As an example, I use these documents to ask the witnesses questions, he added. There might be areas that are blacked out that I could use, but I cant wait until the very end [when] the witnesses have all left. Carignan added that the redactions are really hampering us in our work. The public inquiry into the federal governments use of the Emergencies Act will begin on Oct. 13 and run throughout November, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, key Freedom Convoy organizers, and prominent cabinet members expected to testify. Correction: The headline of this article initially misstated the the number of document pages. The Epoch Times regrets the error. Putin Says Russia Not Working Against Anyone in Energy Markets President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was not working against anyone on energy markets and was seeking a balance between oil supply and demand, a week after Washington criticized a decision by OPEC+ to steeply cut oil production. Speaking with President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, Putin said Russia aimed to create stability on energy markets and ensure that supply and consumption were balanced. We are also actively working within the framework of OPEC+. I know your position, our actions, our decisions are not directed against anyone, we are not going to and do not do it in such a way as to create problems for anyone, Putin said at the meeting in St. Petersburg. Our actions are aimed at creating stability in the global energy markets, so that both consumers of energy resources and those involved in production, suppliers to the global markets feel calm, stable, and confident. So that the supply and demand would be balanced. U.S. President Joe Biden has called on his administration and Congress to explore ways to boost U.S. energy production and reduce OPECs control over energy prices after what Washington called the cartels shortsighted production cuts. The move drew a sharp response from Biden that underscores the growing rift between the United States and Saudi Arabia on energy policy. Before the meeting, the UAEs foreign ministry said the visit aimed to help reach effective political solutions to the Ukrainian crisis. The UAE sought to achieve positive results for military de-escalation, reduce humanitarian repercussions, and reach a political settlement to achieve global peace and security, the ministry added. Sheikh Mohammed wrote on Twitter about his meeting with Putin: We discussed several issues of mutual concern, including the Ukraine crisis, and the importance of engaging in dialogue to reduce tensions and arrive at a diplomatic solution. The Kremlin on Sunday praised OPEC+ for agreeing production cuts that it said had successfully countered the mayhem sown by the United States in global energy markets. Teach them to build internal character, good relationships with advice from an American literary classic I recently wrote an article providing some forgotten tips on how to raise boys to be real men. But boys arent the only sex that we need help raising. Boys are getting sucked into the feminist vortex of our culture, but that vortex also is swallowing girls at perhaps an even greater frequency. So how do we raise our girls to be real women, the kind who are loving, gentle, and kind, instead of brazen, brash, and self-centered? For some insight, I turned to one of the most famous mothers in all of literature: Marmee March from Louisa May Alcotts Little Women. In a conversation with her two oldest daughters, Meg and Jo, Marmee lays out her plan for raising and launching her daughters into the worlda plan thats a far cry from the feminist one we commonly hear today. Take Care of the External Marmees first advice revolves around external qualities, as she declares she wants her daughters to be beautiful and accomplished. These are both traits that our current society emphasizes greatly, encouraging cosmetic surgeries so girls can imitate the airbrushed models who appear on social media, or exhorting girls to get out there and break glass ceilings and outdo the men in education and achievements. But given other clues in Little Women, I would wager that the beauty Marmee would have us instill in todays girls is the beauty of true femininity. She would have us train our girls to dress modestly but not in a frumpy fashion, to put on a skirt or dress that is tight enough to show youre a woman and loose enough to show youre a lady, as Academy Award-winning costume designer Edith Head once said. Marmee would also have us teach our girls to polish their talentsnot so that they can lord them over men, but so that they can use them to help and support those around them. Encourage girls to polish their talents so they can bless those around them. (BIba Kayewich) Cultivate Internal Character Marmee moves from external characteristics to internal character, mentioning that she wants her daughters to be good and respected, to be happy, beloved, contented, and to avoid being without self-respect and peace. Marmee knows that building character takes time, and that parents themselves need to start early to model good character and work on fighting their own flawsin Marmees case, her quick temperif they want to ensure that their daughters live good and respectable lives. Teaching our girls to be happy and contented means not spoiling them with material goods or giving in to every demand, but rather teaching them to be grateful for what they do have. Steer Them Away From Materialism In conjunction with being grateful, Marmee also teaches her girls not to be materially minded, exhorting them not to marry for money or seek to land a splendid house. Marrying for money isnt as much of a temptation in our day as it might have been in the 1800s, but chasing after material things is the same. Whether married or single, women are constantly told they must have it all: a good job, nice house, fancy car, and regular vacations to exotic places. If we want our daughters to be real women, then we must teach them what Marmee teaches her girls: Money is a needful and precious thingand, when well used, a noble thingbut I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for. Pursue Good Family Relationships While Marmee doesnt want her girls to pursue excessive amounts of money, she does want them to pursue good relationships, particularly within the family. Mother is always ready to be your confidant, Father to be your friend, she tells Meg and Jo, exhorting them to make their childhood home happy before they leave it for homes of their own someday. Our daughters would benefit from a similar lesson. Todays world often encourages them to make friends with and confide in anyone other than their parents. But building good relationships with Dad and Mom provides them with wise confidants and a support structure for the future, whether that future involves college, a career, or raising a family of their own. Teach Them to Be Marriage-Minded The most prominent message Marmee gives her girls revolves around marriage. She notes her desire that her daughters be well and wisely married and encourages them to hope for and prepare themselves for such a position. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience, she says. Even non-feminists may feel a scream rising in the throat at that declaration, for the idea that girls should just settle down and get married, even forgoing college and career, has become anathema in our day. But Marmee puts her finger on the very thing that has caused men to wonder where all the real women are: Namely, many contemporary women arent marriage-minded. Raising a marriage-minded woman is a challenging task, but one of the most effective ways to do so is for parents to model a good marriage for their daughter. Teach her to love children and to respect men, instead of bashing both groups and continually railing about all the problems each brings to women. And finally, make sure she doesnt view marriage with rose-colored glasses, but that she views it as a worthy calling. Its hard work and takes a lot of loving sacrifice, but, as Marmee says, its a beautiful experience worth hoping for. We live in a world far more chaotic and upside down than the one in which Marmee and her girls live. As society crumbles, it wont be the materialistic girl who has her career and coffee order all figured out who will know how to respond when the crash comes. Instead, it will be the one with internal character, the one who has a love and interest in the most basic building block of societythe familywho will know how to begin rebuilding society gently and faithfully. A sign that welcomes people to the city of Port Jervis sits off an exit from highway I-84 in Orange County, New York on Sept. 9, 2022. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times) Recent Rains Raise Port Jervis Water Reservoirs to 73 Percent Full Three reservoirs providing drinking water for Port Jervis, New York, are now 73 percent full, according to the citys chief water plant operator Scott Decker on Oct. 11. Following a good amount of rain, the citys smallest reservoir at the head of the water filtration plant is now full, followed by the Huguenot Brook reservoir at 75 percent full. The largest reservoir on Sparrowbush Brook, which is four times the size of smallest lake, is 65 percent full. Over the past 30 days, the city had 8 inches of rain, Decker said. He estimates future fall rain will raise the water levels to 80 percent, a safe amount for the city to weather through the winter. Decker works with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration on long-range weather forecasts. If we dont get the rain, then we just hope for heavy snow in the winter. When the snow melts in the springtime, it will fill our reservoirs back up, Decker told The Epoch Times. Rainfall and snowmelt are two major water sources for the city. A few connected ponds also supply water but to a much lesser extent, he said. Honestly, Im not a big fan of rain or snow, because of all the things that come with itit is messy, it is tough. But you learn to respect it over time because thats where our water comes from, he said. This years dry season affected a big portion of the Hudson Valley and Western New York, including Port Jervis, whose water levels dropped to below 50 percent in July. On July 11, the city began asking residents for voluntary water conservation. Nearby Middletown also recommended conservation as the drought brought its full reservoirs down to 80 percent. Rockland County, just south of Orange County, declared a stage two water emergency and enacted mandatory restrictions on water use in mid-August. Following increased fall rain, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recently took nearby Sullivan, Delaware, Greene, and Columbia counties off the drought watch list. However, Orange and Rockland County remain on the list as of Oct. 11. Port Jervis draws water from three interconnected reservoirs in a 3000-acre watershed, two-thirds of which are owned by the city, according to its 2020 water quality report. The reservoirs have a combined capacity of 572 million gallons. In 2020, the city produced a total of 330.5 million gallons, with the highest single-day water distribution at 1.2 million. About a decade ago, the city had a year-long drought, bringing the reservoir levels down to 30 percent. The city enacted mandatory water restrictions and violators were fined, Decker said. The rainbow flag on a police officer during Pride in London on July 6, 2019. (Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images for Pride in London) Record Number of Reported Hate Crimes After Scary Change in Police Activity: Former Officer New government figures show that the number of hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales has risen by 26 percent this year, but critics say this is indicative that the police believe that hate is everywhere. On Thursday, the Home Office released the latest data on hate crime which saw the biggest yearly increase since records began in 2012. The majority of hate crimes were racially motivated, but transgender hate crimes saw the biggest rise at 53 percent, up from 2,630 in 20202021 to 4035 in 20212022. While the government signposted that there had been increase, it also said, Due to significant improvements in police recorded crime made in recent years, it is uncertain to what degree the increase in police recorded hate crime is a genuine rise, or due to continued recording improvements and more victims having the confidence to report these crimes to the police. But critics say that the rise is down to the polices hyper-focus on collating hate crimes. There is an entire industry that is entirely predicated on there being a vast amount of hate out there. Its not in their interests to solve it. They would solve themselves out of business, former policeman Harry Miller told The Epoch Times. Miller, who is a part of organisations Fair Cop and the Bad Law Project, brought a judicial review against the professional body for the police in England and Wales, the College of Policing (CoP), and Humberside Police after an officer visited him at work to check his thinking over reposting a gender-critical limerick on Twitter. In 2021, a top court ruled that CoPs guidance on recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) violated Millers freedom of expression as set out in Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Non-crime hate incidents are described as any non-crime incident which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice. Former police officer Harry Miller speaks to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Dec. 20, 2021. (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Hate crimes are any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic, though in England, there is no such thing legislatively as a hate crime, but rather there are several pieces of relevant legislation under which people can be prosecuted for offences towards protected characteristics. Marc Glendening, head of cultural affairs at the think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, called hate crimes an Orwellian device. Its an Orwellian device that is applied asymmetrically so that any rhetoric can be directed at Tories, TERFs, Brexiters, but then becomes selectively applied when opinions they consider to be transgressive are employed, Glendening told The Epoch Times by email. TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Cleverly it is then attached analytically to membership of some identity groups rather than the actual intellectual content of the view being expressed. Thus the assertion that the law of identity states that, say, a biological male cannot also simultaneously be a woman, is said to be an attack on the very existence of people who identity as trans, which it is clearly not, he said. The think tank Civitas pointed out in a recent report (pdf) that there is activist-led influence on the police to take up hate crime as a police priority, despite the evidence showing most recorded hate crimes to be non-violent, and that serious crimes are going unsolved. Police officers wear masks as they patrol the city centre in Manchester, England, on Oct. 20, 2020. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) Police in the UK actively encourage the public to report hate crimes. This week, for example, they are promoting Hate Crime Awareness Week, a campaign pledging action to encourage local authorities, key partners, and communities affected by hate crime to work together to tackle local hate crime. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), the national coordination body for British police, also has a site that encourages the public to report hate crime and non-crime hate incidents. Defining Hate Miller said that the justification for recording NCHIs is based on a theory of escalating hate as set out by American psychologist, Gordon Allport, in 1954. The Allport Scale has five stages: antilocution, avoidance, discrimination, physical attack, and extermination. Hate speech is included in the antilocution stage. During Millers legal challenge, Police Superintendent Paul Giannasi, who is developing and delivering the England and Wales Hate Crime Policy, described Millers reposted limerick as a staging post on a five-step journey that leads to genocide. Its really scary as in the 2014 iteration of the [CoP] hate crime guidance, it says a decrease in hate crime is not an appropriate measure of success, as this would be discouraging to officers, said Miller. The College of Policing 2014 Hate Crime Operational Guidance (pdf) states that, Targets that see success as reducing hate crime are not appropriate as they can be discouraging to staff, and are unlikely to motivate managers to promote positive recording or to increase the opportunity for victims to report through third-party reporting structures. But Miller said: Can you imagine a murder squad that says a decrease in murders is not appropriate as it would demotivate the murder squad? The entire point is to decrease murder. If you are on the burglary squad, you decrease burglary. If you are the hate squad, a decrease in hate is not appropriate.. No One Should Suffer in Silence The NPCC did not answer specific questions. A spokesperson pointed to a recent comment by the lead for hate crime, Deputy Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, who said, Whilst the report shows a rise in recorded crime, we know this type of crime has historically for many generations been under-reported, but over the last decade we have seen our engagement with communities build confidence to be able to report these crimes. He added that no one should suffer in silence, and it is important victims have the confidence to come forward, and when they do, they know we will take them seriously. The long-term picture points to that being the result of more victims coming forward and improved recording by the police, but it is still concerning to see that people are being targeted for who they are, said Hamilton. The College of Policing did not answer specific questions and pointed to the latest guidance on non-crime hate incidents. Regime Pseudoscientists Enforce Climate Change Narrative Commentary Although the field of experimental psychology has a very dubious track record in meeting scientific standards, its nevertheless continually used to discredit the views of select subjects under study. It does this by pathologizing said subjects and their views. For example, the field has been mobilized to discredit so-called conspiracy theorists by attempting to identify the mistaken mental processes that conspiracy theorists exhibit. The methods and results of such studies have proven to be less than stellar, to say the least. Now, the field is also being wielded to discredit climate change deniers.[1] By pathologizing the thinking processes of these stubbornly mistaken subjects, the views of said subjects can be safely dismissed. After all, the theory of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is obviously true, or so says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the planetary authority on the matter. Likewise, those who doubt or deny ACC must be crazy. The point of psychological studies is to discover just whats wrong with these people and how, if possible, to change their minds. Of course, such studies focus exclusively on the deniers, without ever considering climate change believers and whether something is wrong with them. The field lacks even a semblance of symmetry. Never mind that the science is dubious or that climate change is ludicrously being blamed for heart attacks, obesity in children, increased violence, and terrorism, among other medical and social maladies. Believing in a causal connection between a questionable climate change theory and these phenomena must be perfectly rational, according to this kind of research. Such is the thrust of a recent study of Australian climate change skeptics conducted by a lecturer in psychology and a professor of geology at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Titled Associations of Locus of Control, Information Processing Style, and Anti-Reflexivity with Climate Change Skepticism in an Australian Sample, the study examined climate change skeptics in terms of thinking styles rather than values and sociodemographic factors. Since past research has found values and sociodemographic factors to be intractable, the researchers in this study sought to identify factors that presumably can be changed and that should likewise prove useful for study. They deemed locus of control, information processing style, and anti-reflexivity to be mental factors worthy of examination. Locus of control (LoC) is a psychological concept that refers to whether and to what degree a subject considers events to be externally or internally controlled. That is, does the subject believe that he or she has control over events, or that powerful others do? The authors hypothesized that those who are prone to believing that they have control of events are less likely to be climate change deniers and vice versa. Previous studies have shown that having an internal LoC in regard to the environment increases environmental concern as well as pro-environmental intentions and behavior. Information processing style refers to the degree to which subjects display rational-analytical or experiential-intuitive mental processing. The former is conscious, deliberate, and analytical thinking based on established rules. Its considered superior to the latter, which is preconscious, intuitive, automatic, and rapid. Research demonstrates that analytical processing is negatively associated with unfounded beliefs above and beyond variables such as cognitive ability and sociodemographics, the study reads. Research also shows that intentionally eliciting analytical thinking through experimental manipulations is effective in reducing conspiracy beliefs. That is, rational-analytical thinkers are less likely to hold unfounded beliefs, while experiential-intuitive thinkers are more likely to hold unfounded beliefs and are more likely to be conspiracy theorists. Anti-reflexivity theory (ART) is a recent paradigm developed specifically to explain climate change skepticism. This theory is based on the concept of reflexive modernization, which refers to the process by which an individual acknowledges and challenges the problems associated with our modern industrial capitalist system. Previous literature has shown that public trust in groups representing the industrial capitalist system [anti-reflexive groups] increased the likelihood of skepticism regarding the actuality and cause of climate change. Conversely, increased trust in environmental groups and the scientific community [reflexive groups] decreased the likelihood of skepticism. The presumption here is that reflexive thinkers acknowledge that something is undeniably wrong with our modern industrial capitalist system and that anti-reflexivity, or supporting that system, is based on a lack of acknowledgment of this systems obvious flaws. Since most ART research has been conducted in the United States, where the highest levels of climate change skepticism persist, studying this factor in the Australian context is supposed to be of value. The researchers aimed to study the impact of these factors on four kinds of climate change denialism: 1) denying the reality of climate change, 2) denying the human cause of climate change, 3) denying the consequences of climate change, and 4) denying the types of responses necessary to mitigate climate change. I wont detail all the results but rather generally characterize the findings, some of which the researchers expected and some of which they found surprising, even disappointing. Contradicting their hypothesis that locus of control would be a significant variable for most of the kinds of climate change denialism, the researchers found no meaningful connection between climate change skepticism and the LoC variable. Accordingly, individuals who perceived powerful others as having little control over events in their life were more likely to be skeptical about the impacts of climate change. One interpretation of this finding is that the climate change deniers studied by the authors werent particularly prone to conspiracy theorizing. But the authors failed to come to that conclusion. The most surprising result (for the researchers) was that climate change skepticism was positively associated with high levels of analytical thinking. Contradicting Hypothesis 2 and the propositions of the CEST [cognitive-experiential self-theory, which measures processing styles along this axis], individuals high in analytical processing were found to be more likely to be skeptical about the human causality of climate change. This finding surely throws a major wrench into the works and makes discrediting climate change deniers more difficult. However, the authors rationalize the finding by suggesting that individuals with an increased cognitive ability were more likely to misinterpret information that was inconsistent with their political views. Were told that analytical thinkers are more capable of complex reasoning, which enables them to generate alternative interpretations of the data ad hoc. In terms of anti-reflexivity, the findings were mixed, with ART predicting some types of climate change skepticism while failing to predict others. Generally, the study found that ART predicted low trust in reflexivity forces such as environmentalist groups, and higher trust in anti-reflexive groups such as those in support of industrial capitalism. In other words, in terms of the authors four hypotheses, ART merely affirmed the definition of the feature being examined. The study of this feature is itself circular and reflexive. In an article about the study for lay readers titled Inside the Mind of a Skeptic: The Mental Gymnastics of Climate Change Denial, the researchers offer a harsher and more revealing interpretation of the data. Where the most significant blow was dealt to their hypothesesregarding the analytical abilities of climate change skepticsthey dismissed the fact that climate change skeptics showed high analytical capabilities by writing off said abilities as mistrust of mainstream climate change science and an unwarranted trust in alternative science. This maneuver virtually turns one of the main features under study, analytical ability, which the researchers had figured as a positive attribute, into a liability. The researchers assumed that the climate change skeptics they studied would be less analytical than they found them to be. But never do they consider the possibility that their subjects may have put their high analytical capabilities to good use or that they may be right. Instead, their subjects use of analytical thinking is deemed mental gymnastics. Their intelligence merely enabled these analytical thinkers to reject consensus science and generate other explanations. Never mind that real science, as Michael Crichton so eloquently pointed out, has nothing to do with consensus and everything to do with the reproducibility of resultssomething that the consensus science has failed miserably to provide. Never mind also that this research is merely environmental activism dressed up in pseudoscientific jargon and make-believe methodologies. It ends precisely where it beginsassuming that climate change skeptics must be cranks and crackpots, no matter how analytical they are, and even because of it. Finally, while heaping scorn on climate change skeptics, its the researchers themselves who exhibit the mental gymnastics that they ascribe to their subjects. They will get away with such tactics in academia, because academia is an echo chamber where questioning climate change orthodoxy is verboten. But those who know that skepticism is a necessary virtue for undertaking scientific inquiry will call them out for the charlatans they are. Note [1] As Jeff Deist noted in a talk for the Federalist Society in Pittsburgh, the term deniers is used to associate climate change skeptics with Holocaust deniers (Sept. 22, 2022). Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Michael Rectenwald Follow Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., is a former professor at New York University and author of eleven books, including of Beyond Woke, The Google Archipelago, and Springtime for Snowflakes. . Ambassadors of EU member states agreed to send a civilian mission to Armenia which must be deployed along the border with Azerbaijan aimed at strengthening trust and contributing to delimitation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Libertys Armenian service reports citing its diplomatic sources. October 11, 2022, 17:39 EU ambassadors agree to send civilian mission to Armenia RFE/RL STEPANAKERT, OCTOBER 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: It was reported that the decision was made during the closed-format session of the Political and Security Committee. Currently, the details of the decision are being discussed, in particular those concerning how many people the mission will consist of, from which countries and the dates of their arrival to Armenia. But its clear that the mission will arrive, the diplomatic source of Brussels told RFE/RLs Armenian service. Peter Daszak speaks to media upon arriving at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images) Republicans Demand Agencies Terminate Grant Funding to EcoHealth A group of Republican lawmakers has sent letters to the National Institute of Health (NIH) (pdf) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) (pdf) requesting them to halt federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that provided finance to Wuhan Lab. The bicameral effort led by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) came following September reports that nearly $3 million of federal funds had continued flowing into the New York-based nonprofit group, the largest sum the organization has received from the NIH in a single year. NIH is under heavy scrutiny for its role in funneling public money to a key laboratory in China for bat coronavirus research that many believe may have caused the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawmakers pointed to the failure of the group to provide information about the taxpayer-funded coronavirus research being conducted with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) as requested by NIH. EcoHealths president, Peter Daszak, called the questioning inappropriate and heinous, the group noted. He also orchestrated an effort to taint the investigation into the origins of COVID-19, calling suggestions that there could have been a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute conspiracy theories, the Oct. 7 letter further stated. Related Coverage Fauci Defends Funding of EcoHealth, Dismisses Lab Leak Theory In July 2020, the NIH suspended a multi-year grant worth $3.7 million to EcoHealth to study bat coronaviruses in China in collaboration with WIV over concerns the grantees werent complying with the grant terms. The health agency eventually terminated the WIV sub-award on Aug. 19, citing the groups refusal to report a WIV experiment that made the bat coronavirus more dangerous. The lawmakers questioned in the letters, Given this history of compliance failure and concerning lack of transparency, what made NIH suddenly reverse course to award EcoHealth new funding? Resuming the funding to the health group amounts to gross abuse of hard-working Americans tax dollars, Reschenthaler said in a statement on Oct. 10. EcoHealth and its president, Peter Daszak, are complicit in failing to comply with federal law and collaborating with a Chinese Communist Party secret laboratory, he further stated. According to the Pennsylvania congressman, the move is part of their bid to hold the Biden Administration accountable to end the relationship with this negligent organization. In late September, days after the latest grant was handed out, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced legislation that would ban providing federal funds to EcoHealth Alliance, specifically over its research at the Wuhan lab. Giving taxpayer money to EcoHealth to study pandemic prevention is like paying a suspected arsonist to conduct fire safety inspections. You would think we would have learned a lesson the first time, but here we are again with the same plot but a bigger budget! Ernst told The Epoch Times in an email. Eva Fu contributed to this report. Restoring Journalistic Integrity Commentary Those concerned with the rise of misinformation must confront the erosion of journalistic integrity and independence over the last decade or so. Once, journalists traded on their reputation for being trustworthy. Now, though, most repeat too many ideological talking points to credibly maintain their independence or integrity. As a result, many Americans read newspapers and watch the nightly news less frequently than they once did, making them more vulnerable to misinformation and other forms of information manipulation. Much can be learned from the views and techniques of corporate activist gadfly, PR whiz, and staunchly independent financial broadcast journalist Wilma Soss (19001986), the subject of our new book. Soss was most notorious for showing up at stockholder annual meetings in eye-catching costumes to scold corporate executives for paying themselves too much, not putting enough qualified women on their boards, engaging in various accounting shenanigans, and so forth. But that was her third career. During the Depression and World War II, she made a small fortune in her second career as a corporate PR consultant. But her first career was journalism. After graduating from college in 1925, she wrote for a few years for a Brooklyn newspaper. But not until 1957 did Soss move onto the national journalism scene in a big way with her nationally syndicated radio show Pocketbook News. She boasted over a million listeners during at least part of the shows run, which ended in 1980 due more to Sosss advanced age than a ratings slip. Tellingly, early in the run Soss gave up a lucrative sponsorship with a prominent pharmaceutical company because she found it too editorially intrusive to be beholden to a corporation. Better to make less money but maintain audience trust and thus reach more people. NBC execs agreed. Soss didnt pretend to be unbiased but she did promise that she believed whatever came out of her mouth because it was based on her own understanding of her own research and experience, not some business or political agenda. Many people did not like what Soss said on air and let her bosses at NBC know about it. But Soss didnt care because she promised to speak her version of the truth, and she delivered it week after week for almost a quarter of a century. Soss learned about journalistic integrity and independence at Columbias school of journalism, where she matriculated as an undergraduate after the Great War. Although it was the newest of Columbias professional schools, and not yet as respected as it would later become, the J-school boasted a tough curriculum that included writing classes, courses in practical journalism, and content courses in core social scientific disciplines such as history and economics. The J-school also employed some great professors, such as Merryle Stanley Rukeyser (18971988), who apparently mentored Soss for decades. What Soss learned at school and in her career was that the best journalism is an empirically grounded interpretive art. Her moderate Republican political views certainly informed her interpretation of the weeks news, but it did not, indeed could not, dominate it. Her listeners sought trenchant analysis of the course of the economy and financial markets, not political spin. Understanding the economic implications of policy changes, not scoring political points, was the key to investment success. Soss liked to spin a good yarn, especially about her own exploits in corporate boardrooms, but only and always to make a broader point that could help listeners. She tried to persuade listeners to her views about the economic importance of peace and the gold-backed dollar but never deliberately misled anyone. And persuade she did, through logic, empirical evidence, experience, theory, integrity, and independence. Surely journalists today can learn from skilled progenitors such as Soss and return journalism not to an ahistorical utopia somehow free from bias but to a period when journalists could be trusted to serve as independent checks against mindless mantras and political talking points. Journalistic integrity will return when journalists again speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as they see it, and, especially, when they remain silent when they know not of what they speak. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Janice Traflet Follow Janice Traflet, Ph.D., is the Howard I. Scott Research Professor of Management in Bucknell's Freeman College of Management and co-author of Fearless: Wilma Soss and America's Forgotten Investor Movement. 1951 | Approved | 1h 45m Ive always associated great Western films with the likes of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Henry Fonda. But after watching Gregory Peck in Westerns such as The Gunfighter (1950) and The Big Country (1958), Ill happily watch anything when the words Peck and Western are associated together. And fortunately, theres quite a few to choose from. Soldiers Redemption When Only the Valiant was released in 1951, it didnt seem to get much credit for what it was: a straightforward and entertaining Western tale about one mans courage and attempt at redemption. The film kicks off by displaying a beautiful hand-drawn map of a section of New Mexico Territory. As the narrator describes the area, we see a narrow pass in the Flinthead Mountains through which a large group of Apache warriors have long conducted raids, killing everything in sight. Eventually, the U.S. Army builds Fort Invincible at the pass to put an end to the Apache raids. But in a smart strategic move, the Native Americans cut the fort off from its water supplies and then attack its cavalry troops while they are compromised. Cavalry Capt. Richard Dick Lance (Gregory Peck) soon arrives on the scene with a sizable patrol, only to find the soldiers stationed at Ft. Invincible dead. However, Lance and his force manage to capture a very valuable prisoner: Apache leader Tucsos (Michael Ansara). Trooper Kebussyan (Lon Chaney, Jr., L) and Capt. Richard Lance (Gregory Peck), in Only the Valiant. (Warner Bros) Army scout Joe Harmony (Jeff Corey) tells Lance to kill Tucsos on the spot to force the tribe to get reasonable just as fast as they can. But Lance is a stickler to military regulations and refuses to kill prisoners, even though Harmony warns him that leaving Tucsos alive will prompt the Apaches to attempt to rescue him. Lance and his patrol quickly transport Tucsos back to their headquarters at Ft. Winston, where we learn that Lance isnt very popular with many of the men stationed thereincluding his direct subordinate, hard-drinking Cpl. Timothy Gilchrist (Ward Bond). One of Lances only supporters is 1st Lt. William Holloway (Gig Young), but hes involved in a love triangle involving Lance and blond bombshell Cathy Eversham (Barbara Payton), whose father is also stationed at Ft. Winston. Things become even more dramatic when Ft. Winstons commander, Col. Drumm (Herbert Heyes) orders Lance to assign an officer to escort Tucsos to another fort farther away from the Apaches, in order to mitigate any rescue attempts. Wanting to prove himself to his unit, and to Cathy, Lance volunteers to lead the escort party. But Drumm orders Lance to stay at Ft. Winston and for Holloway to lead the party. Soldiers, ignorant of this order, perceive Lance to be a coward. Capt. Richard Lance (Gregory Peck, L) and Cpl. Timothy Gilchrist (Ward Bond) find themselves in a tense situation, in Only the Valiant. (Warner Bros) Things dont go as planned for the escort party, and Lance is blamed for the tragic event that transpires. From there, he embarks on a crusade to redeem himself. Valiant Effort This is one of Pecks stiffer roles, but it fits his characters demeanor wella West Point graduate who is spit and polish thats all he is, as one of Lances more grizzled soldiers describes him. Lance represents measured civility in a dust-parched Wild West full of rough-and-tumble characters. Capt. Richard Lance (Gregory Peck) seeks redemption in Only the Valiant. (Warner Bros) Ward Bond provides a good deal of comedic silliness to the proceedings, as he plays a familiar role: an alcoholic Irishman who is quick to engage in bouts of fisticuffs. Barbara Payton is also great as the woman who is romantically drawn to two officers. Although I wouldnt consider Only the Valiant to be one of my favorite Westerns, it is reasonably fun to watch and wonder if Pecks character will be able to redeem himself by the end of its well-paced, one hour and 45-minute running time. Only the Valiant Director: Gordon Douglas Starring: Gregory Peck, Barbara Payton, Ward Bond Not Rated Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes Release Date: April 21, 1951 Rated: 3 stars out of 5 Ian Kane is a filmmaker and author based out of Los Angeles. To see more, visit IanKanebooks.com or follow him on Instagram: @TheRealIanKane. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) meets with President Joe Biden in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), partially obscured by First Lady Jill Biden, looking on, on Oct. 5, 2022. (Courtesy Marco Rubio US Senate) Rubio, Demings Battle Over Budget Bill With Billions for Disaster Relief In the two days after Hurricane Ian ripped into Florida on Sept. 28, killing at least 119 people and leaving more than $50 billion in insured losses in its wake, none of the states 16 Republican congressional representatives and neither of its two U.S. senators voted for a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through Dec. 16 despite it including nearly $21 billion for disaster relief. Democrats, most notably Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) who is challenging two-term incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, are making a campaign issue of those votes, which saw the stopgap measure adopted on Sept. 30 by the Democrat-majority House in a 230-201 near-total party-line tally. Rubio was not present when the Senate approved the resolution on Sept. 29 in a less-partisan 72-25 vote but said if he was not dealing with Ians aftermath in Florida, he would have voted against it because it contains too much pork and doesnt directly earmark money for hurricane recovery in the state. We are capable in this country, in the Congress, of voting for disaster relief after key events like this without using it as a vehicle or a mechanism for people to load it up with stuff thats unrelated to the storm, he said on CNN Oct. 2. It had been loaded up with a bunch of things that had nothing to do with disaster relief. Florida Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rep, Val Demings (D-Fla.), a former Orlando Police chief, speaks at a September campaign stop in Tampa alongside Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, right, who is a former Tampa Police chief. (Courtesy Val Demings for U.S. Senate) The continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded through mid-DecemberCongress has only adopted proper annual budgets before the beginning of the fiscal year six times in the last 40 yearsincludes $2 billion for disaster relief and an $18.8 billion appropriation to boost the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund to approximately $35 billion. The measure includes $1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), $112 million for security at federal courts, caps on insulin prices, and an array other allocations, prompting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to call it a lame duck spending bonanza that allows Democrats to spend over a trillion dollars at the end of the year and continue funding for 87,000 new IRS agents before a new Congress is seated in January after Novembers midterm elections. I would never put out there that we should go use a disaster relief package for Florida as a way to pay for all kinds of other things people want around the country, Rubio said on CNN, claiming the measure is larded with pork. Florida Democratic congressional representatives blasted their GOP colleagues for playing politics in an emergency, with Demings in an Oct. 3 Twitter post zeroing in on Rubio. Floridians deserve better than a Senator who says hed vote against Hurricane Ian relief, she said in the first of a series of statements not about the reason for Rubios opposition to the measure, but in his abstaining from the vote. The Demings campaign has made an issue of Rubio missing votes. According to GovTrack.us, the former Florida Speaker of the House has missed 9.2 percent of roll call votes since being first elected to the Senate in 2010. The average missed votes among his chamber contemporaries is 2.4 percent, GovTrack.us documents. Over and over again, time and time again, when Florida has needed Marco Rubio the most, he has not shown up. We deserve better, Demings told Joy Reid on MSNBC Oct. 5. A 27-year career law enforcement officer and former Orlando Police chief elected to the House in 2016, Demings launched a 33 reasons why campaign theme on why Rubio should not be reelected on Oct. 6. A new reason is being posted each day before the election. Reason #3 why we need #RetireRubio: He doesnt show up to work, and when he does bother to show up, he hurts Florida, Demings said in her Oct. 8 33reasonswhy statement. Rubio notes Demings voted by proxy 41 times in 2021 during the pandemic, among the upper third of proxy voters, and his campaign is now nearly exclusively focusing on his on-the-ground hurricane response efforts. Despite his opposition to the continuing resolution, like 12 of the 16 Floridas House representatives who voted against the measure, he joined fellow GOP Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)who was on hand on Sept. 29 to vote nayin calling on the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide much-needed assistance to Florida. Hurricane Ian will be remembered and studied as one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the United States, the GOP senators wrote in a joint Sept. 30 letter. Communities across Florida have been completely destroyed, and lives have been forever changed. A robust and timely federal response, including through supplemental programs and funding, will be required to ensure that sufficient resources are provided to rebuild critical infrastructure and public services capacity, and to assist our fellow Floridians in rebuilding their lives. Through Aug. 3, when their campaigns last filed financial reports with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC)the next quarterly filing deadline is Oct. 15, Demings had significantly out-raised Rubio but the incumbent had nearly twice the cash on hand. Demings had to run a primary campaign against three opponents, which she easily won on Aug. 23, while Rubio was uncontested in the GOP preliminaries. According to Demings campaign, it had raised $47.2 million, spent $39.16 million, and had nearly $8.82 million on hand in early August. Rubios campaign reported raising nearly $36.5 million, spending $21.62 million, and having $15 million on hand. Despite a spirited campaign and her credentials as a career police officer, Demings remains a significant underdog with elections forecaster FiveThirtyEight giving Rubio an 86 percent chance of winning a third term. A rash of recent polls appear to confirm that prognosis. Real Clear Politics average of six polls since late August show Rubio with a 4 percentage point lead over Demings, with 10 percent of voters undecided. That average includes a Mason-Dixon survey released in early October that showed 49 percent of 800 respondents favored Rubio to 42 percent who were for Demings. The poll also noted that 16 percent of those 800 likely voters128 respondentshad never heard of Demings compared to 99 percent who recognized Rubio as one of the states U.S. senators. Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), flanked by General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov (R) and Defense Minister Sergei Shogu (L), attend the Vostok 2022 (East 2022) military exercise outside Vladivostok in far eastern Russia on Sept. 6, 2022. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) Russia Building Floating Nuclear Reactor Fleet to Power Remote Projects Chinas Wilson Heavy Industry shipyard held a keel-laying ceremony in August for the first of four barges thatll eventually employ not one but two nuclear reactors. Once completed, the barge will become Russias second floating nuclear power plant. The first, the Akademic Lomonosov, was commissioned in 2020 and was the worlds first floating nuclear power plant since the 1960s. Its also currently the only floating atomic reactor and a key component in Russias plan to open a significant shipping lane through the Arctic. But a shipping lane is only the beginning of Russian president Vladimir Putins plan for floating nuclear power plants. Last year, Rosatom, a Russian state nuclear energy corporation, presented Putin with a reported $2.3 billion proposal to build up to five floating nuclear reactors. Along with opening a Northern Sea Route, Russias easternmost province is home to a copper and gold mine thats said to be the worlds largest unexploited deposit. The area has no roads and little power, necessitating a creative power source. A view shows Russias floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov and tugboat Dixon before the departure from the service base of Rosatomflot company for a journey along the Northern Sea Route to Chukotka in Murmansk, Russia, on Aug. 23, 2019. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters) Nuclear Fuels Expansion In the 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers converted a former World War II Liberty Ship into the first floating nuclear power plant. Containing a single-loop pressurized water reactor, the MH-1A STURGIS generated electricity in the Panama Canal at a time when building a new energy plant wasnt cost-effective or feasible. While the STURGIS proved practical and reliable for supplying power to an onshore grid for military and civilian use, the Army Corps shut it down in 1976 after the Panama Canal Company installed permanent power supplies in the area. From 1976 to Russias latest endeavors, no floating nuclear power plants were built or proposed, according to the American Nuclear Society. In 2020, Russia finished building and launched its first floating nuclear power plant in Pevek, a remote and sparsely populated Russian port off the northern coast of Siberia. Pevek is a strategic location for Putins expansion plans because he views it as a future central shipping hub and because Pevek is close to Chukotka, an area rich in copper, lithium, gold, and silver. A merchant ship sails along the Panama Canal on March 23, 2015. (Rodrigo Arangua/AFP via Getty Images) In 2019, Putin stated at the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, [Artic expansion] is a realistic, well-calculated, and concrete task. We need to make the Northern sea route safe and commercially feasible, RadioFreeEurope reported. Currently, Peveks harbor is only accessible for four months a year. Still, Putin believes a changing climate will eventually enable a Northern Sea route and an economically viable North-East passage between Russia and the West, the Arctic Institute reports. More importantly, Putin isnt alone in his belief. The United States, Norway, Denmark, and Canada also believe in a Northern Sea route future and have realized the need to compete for jurisdiction in the area. In 2017, then-U.S. defense secretary Jim Mattis said of Russias Arctic expansion, The Arctic is key strategic terrain. Russia is taking aggressive steps to increase its presence there. I will prioritize the development of an integrated strategy for the Arctic. Floating Nuclear Power Chukotka is the farthest northeastern portion of Siberia and is said to be where the worlds day begins. It also borders Alaska by the sea and is heavily populated with reindeer. Reindeer herding is the main focus of agriculture in the region, which is something Putin hopes to change with his Arctic mining venture. Located within Chukotka is Baimskaya, a mining project, which the company in charge of the project, Kaz Minerals, reports has the worlds most significant undeveloped copper assets with the potential to become a large scale, low cost, open pit copper mine. The deposit was discovered in 1972 but remained undeveloped due to a lack of infrastructure and roads. Russia is using its floating nuclear power plants to address part of the problem. The Academic Lomonosov wont reach full ramp-up until 2023, and even then, it wont be enough to supply all the necessary power for Putins Arctic expansion plan in Chukotka. Consequently, Russia commissioned four more floating nuclear power plants. The Academy Lomonosov passes by the island of Langeland, off the coast of Spodsbjerg in Denmark, on May 4, 2018. (Tim Kildeborg Jensen/AFP/Getty Images) The required infrastructure is being processed with the Russian government in accordance with the Complex Development Plan for the Chukotka region. Carbon-free power will be supplied to the site from a nuclear facility to be constructed and operated by Rosatom, enabling the Group to produce very low-carbon copper, Kaz Minerals reports. It adds, The project is located in a region identified by the Russian Government as strategically important for economic development and is expected to benefit from the provision of tax incentives. According to the World Nuclear Organization, the Baimskaya development requires approximately 300 megawatts of electricity. Rosatom plans to provide the power via its scheduled three floating nuclear power plants. Each ship will have a pair of pressurized water nuclear reactors designed to produce 55 megawatts of electricity. The fourth ship will be held in reserve and used for emergencies and repairs. Realizing the potential for Arctic expansion made possible through floating nuclear power plants, Danish start-up Seaborg Technologies is developing a Seaborg Power Barge. The development was made possible by a grant from the European Union. The Sanctity of the Doctor-Patient Relationship Is Being Destroyed Commentary Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill that threatens doctors with suspension or disqualification from practice if they contradict the scientific consensus on COVID-19 and disseminate misinformation. As we know, the words scientific and consensus should never be used together. Remember when the consensus was that thalidomide was a proven treatment for pregnant womens morning sickness, only for their children to be born without limbs? Most recently, the U.S. Centre for Diseases Prevention and Control (CDC) backflipped on the science, stating that COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a persons vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur. It now advocates for taking personal responsibility and for everyone to decide for themselves which prevention behaviours to use and when (at all times or at specific times), based on their own risk for severe illness and that of members of their household, their risk tolerance, and setting-specific factors. Before this, the Lancet published an article noting the futility of vaccine mandates in they stated: The demonstration of COVID-19 breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated health-care workers (HCW) in Israel, who in turn may transmit this infection to their patients, requires a reassessment of compulsory vaccination policies leading to the job dismissal of unvaccinated HCW in the USA. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford School of Medicine and author of the Great Barrington Declaration, says the new law will have a chilling effect on free speech. He wrote in a Twitter post: The attempt to regulate medical speech violates civil liberties, harms science, and will ultimately harm patients. There is no mortal who can credibly claim to unerringly distinguish true scientific and medical information from misinformation. It is hubris to pretend otherwise. The attempt to regulate medical speech violates civil liberties, harms science, and will ultimately harm patients. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) October 1, 2022 Breaching Medical Free Speech in Queensland Unfortunately, Australia is set to follow California down the path of state-sanctioned trashing of the doctor-patient relationship. Amendments to a bill (Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act 2009) have been put before the Queensland Parliament, due to be debated and passed into law this month. The proposed amendments, which appear to have broader implications beyond advice about COVID-19, have angered medical groups like the Australian Medical Network (AMN), representing over 10,000 health professionals and private citizens. In a media release, the AMN stated: Doctors will no longer be able to express their opinion or use their experience, training, and education if their opinion goes against what the health bureaucrats say is in the interests of public confidence in safety. Doctors will be bound to follow government policy, which means that government health bureaucrats will determine how doctors should approach treatment recommendations for their patients. A doctor holds his stethoscope in this file photo. (Dirk Waem/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images) The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a textbook patient. Everyone is different, based on his or her own individual conditions and circumstances. This is why treatments have been, until recently, recommended. What treatment may work for one person may not necessarily work for another. That is the beauty of the doctor-patient relationship: where a doctor, in the privacy of his or her own office, can determine, based on his or her own training, experience and knowledge of the patient, built up through a relationship of mutual trust over many years, what will work best for that patient. This may mean not following the recommendations. For how many years did doctors decideagainst the advice of regulatorsthat medical cannabis would be a worthwhile pain relief treatment option for their patients? The deleterious effects of state-sanctioned medical tyranny have been laid bare over the best part of three years, where those challenging the narrative were cancelled and labelled dangerous, only for them to be vindicated later on. Accordingly, the state has no place putting its ugly tentacles into the doctor-patient relationship, and its attempts to do so must be fiercely resisted by doctors and patients alike. If the CDC advocates that we should all take personal responsibility, to do anything else would be misinformation. Right? Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe speaks during a media event at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon on June 28, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Liam Richards) Saskatchewan Moves to Defend and Protect Economy From Federal Emission Regulations Estimated to Cost $111 Billion by 2035 REGINASaskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says his government will take steps to protect Saskatchewans families, businesses, and jobs from federal policies that could cost the provinces economy $111 billion by 2035. A policy paper released on Oct. 11 clearly defines the boundaries between provincial and federal jurisdiction when it comes to our natural resources and the potential they have for a strong and growing Saskatchewan, Moe said on Twitter. Titled Drawing the Line: Defending Saskatchewans Economic Autonomy the paper considers policy options in light of the current federal government intrusions into Saskatchewans exclusive areas of jurisdiction under the Constitution. The analysis by the Ministry of Finance indicates that nine different federal climate change policies are estimated to cost Saskatchewans economy $111 billion between 2023 and 2035. The situation has been exacerbated in recent years by the current federal governments continued interference in the provinces jurisdiction over natural resources under the guise of federal environmental regulation, Moe said in a press release. It is time to defend and assert Saskatchewans economic autonomy by drawing the line: taking a number of steps including the introduction of provincial legislation to clarify and protect Saskatchewans constitutional rights. In a ruling earlier this year striking down The Impact Assessment Act, Alberta Chief Justice Catherine Fraser wrote: Through this legislative scheme, Parliament has taken a wrecking ball to the constitutional rights of the citizens of Alberta and Saskatchewan and other provinces to have their natural resources developed for the benefit. This cannot continue, Moe said. We have so much potential in Saskatchewan to grow and prosper. A strong Saskatchewan means a strong Canada, but we cannot allow continued federal intrusion into our exclusive constitutional right to develop our natural resources and grow our economy. We will defend and protect Saskatchewan jobs and our economic future. In comments to the Battlefords & District Chamber of Commerce carried by CPAC, Moe said, Good fences make good neighbours. He said the cost of federal policies are $9.6 billion annually, or $6500 per person per year, and would cost even more if they hindered future investment. The paper recommends new ways to recognize Saskatchewan industry contributions to sustainable growth, including the development of a carbon credit market to support its natural resource industries. The paper calls for provincial legislation to clarify and protect constitutional rights that belong to the province. It also advises Saskatchewan to increase its population and for greater autonomy over immigration policy, as Quebec has done. Last November, Moe called Saskatchewan a nation within a nation. The paper recommends legal action, legislative or otherwise, to maintain control of electricity, fertilizer emission and usage targets, and oil and gas emissions and production. It also calls for greater provincial autonomy in tax collection. The announcements were made shortly after Danielle Smith was sworn in as Alberta premier. In her leadership campaign, Smith proposed an Alberta Sovereignty Act. Moe said Saskatchewan would work closely with Alberta and with other provinces, but his province may follow in Quebecs footsteps by unilaterally changing the constitution. Moe said the government will further elaborate and outline next steps in the speech from the throne on Oct. 26. He added he would not preclude the government taking additional steps even beyond what youre going to see this fall. The "Anarchy Princess," Brianne Marie Chapman, destroyed a floral tribute to slain Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 10, 2022. (Anarchy Princess YouTube/Screenshots via The Epoch Times) Self-Described Anarchy Princess Destroys Ashli Babbitt Floral Tribute at US Capitol While Police Watch A social-media personality who calls herself the Anarchy Princess kicked over and stomped on flowers left at the base of the steps to the U.S. Capitol in memory of Ashli Babbitt on the slain Air Force veterans 37th birthday, and then went on a profanity-laced live stream justifying her destruction of the memorial. It was the second anti-Babbitt tirade the woman went on in as many days in Washington D.C. A video posted on Twitter from Oct. 8 showed her screaming obscenities about Babbitt, who was killed by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on Jan. 6, 2021. The woman identified herself in another live stream video as 37-year-old Brianne Marie Chapman. Online court records indicate she is from Fredericksburg, Va. Although Chapman destroyed the Babbitt memorial in full view of the Capitol Police, they did not intervene. One officer carrying a rifle said something inaudible to her as she filmed the flowers lined up along a metal police barricade. This right here? she asked. I know. Thats what I was going to do. I was hoping you werent going to arrest me or something if I do it. Chapman broadcast her vandalism live on YouTube. Nobody wants any of this [expletive], she said as she kicked the roses and other flowers leaning against the barricade. [Expletive] Ashli Babbitt. I just kicked Ashli Babbitts flowers off the [expletive] Capitol, she bragged to the nearly 5,000 people who viewed her video on Oct. 10. Yep, they let me do it. Capitol Police dont like Ashli Babbitt. This is abandoned property, she said. Technically, it can just be thrown in the trash. Chapman said one Capitol Police officer suggested she might be in some trouble as she finished stomping on and grinding the flowers under her heel. Im done, she said. Leave your [expletive] memorial. Bye, [expletive]. As she walked away from the Capitol, Chapman repeatedly sang, [expletive] Ashli Babbitt. Babbitts mother, Micki Witthoeft, had asked on social media that people place flowers on the steps of their state capitol buildings in commemoration of her daughters 37th birthday. Extensive video evidence shows that Ashli Babbitt tried to stop rioters in the hallway outside the Speakers Lobby. The Anarchy Princess accuses Ashli Babbitt of trying to kill police and lawmakers on Jan. 6, 2021. (Tayler Hansen/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) Read More US Capitol Police Investigating Killing of Ashley Babbitt; Family Speaks Out Witthoeft told The Epoch Times that Chapman showed up later on Oct. 10 at the nightly vigil held for Jan. 6 pretrial detainees outside the D.C. jail. Yes, she follows me, Witthoeft said. She was also at the vigil tonight. [Its] getting harder and harder not to kick her [behind]. The vandalism drew swift condemnation on social media, although the videos have not been removed from Twitter or YouTube as hate speech or branded as hateful conduct. Evil, remarked the Hodge Twins, Keith and Kevin Hodge, to their 1.1 million Twitter followers. Another person in deep darkness, unfortunately, replied one of the twins followers. Only hope for her is Jesus. An Antifa member supporting police is something I did not expect to see today, remarked another. Chapman continued her live stream as she walked around D.C. for nearly two hours, wearing a Santa Claus sweater. Those were like [expletive] Walmart flowers, she said. They were half-dead anyway. Absolute Evil Independent journalist Tayler Hansen, who first posted a clip of the video on Twitter, called Chapmans actions absolute evil. Its Ashli Babbitts birthday today for those who werent aware, Hansen wrote. The kind of people that hate Ashli and her mother for no reason are not just mentally ill, but sick in the heart as well. Ashlis widower, Aaron Babbitt, told The Epoch Times he saw the video. She seems like a very disturbed person, he said of Chapman. Hansen said Chapman has been stalking Witthoeft around Washington D.C. for weeks. On Oct. 4, Chapman stood across the street from the D.C. federal courthouse, filming Witthoeft standing in front of the building during the Oath Keepers seditious-conspiracy trial. Im surrounded by literal [expletive] terrorists, Chapman said at one point during the 2-hour 12-minute broadcast. During the pro-abortion Womens March in D.C. on Oct. 8, Chapman went on a wild tirade about Ashli Babbitt in front of media cameras. [Expletive] Ashli Babbitt. She deserved to die, Chapman screamed. As she walked away from the destruction she wrought on the floral tribute, Chapman said to her live-stream audience: Can I have weed money now? Cmon guys, its going to be a long day. Visitors are seen beyond a K2 tank (foreground) during the Defense Expo Korea (DX Korea) in Goyang, west of Seoul, on Sept. 21, 2022. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images) South Korea Aims to Become Worlds 4th Largest Arms Exporter It's the only Asian nation exporting arms to NATO members New Analysis The Russia-Ukraine war has shaken the global arms industry as nations bulk up defense budgets to expand their militaries. Amid an intensified global arms race, South Korea is seeking to become one of the worlds top four weapons suppliers. By entering the [list of the] worlds top four defense exporters after the United States, Russia, and France, the defense industry will become a strategic industrialization and a defense powerhouse, President Yoon Suk-yeol said in a speech on Aug. 17, marking his first 100 days in office. This year, the country has inked massive arms deals with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Poland, Egypt, and others. Experts believe South Korea, the only Asian country that exports arms to NATO members, will soon surpass China and become Asias largest weapons exporter. Successful Defense Exhibition South Koreas 2022 Defense and Security Expo (DX Korea) was held at the Korea International Exhibition Center in Gyeonggi Province from Sept. 21-25. The event gathered over 350 companies worldwide from 50 countries and regions, including the defense ministers and military industry officials of Slovakia, Romania, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. The exhibition showcased cutting-edge weapon systems from domestic defense companies such as Korea Aerospace Industries, Hanwha Corp., Hanwha Defense, Hanwha Systems, LIG Nex1, Hyundai Rotem, etc. Various equipment on display included drones, fighter jets, military vehicles, remote-controlled weapons, radar systems, and assorted ground combat equipment. In the events opening ceremony, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup announced the governments ambitious plan to develop its defense industry into a national strategic industry. South Koreas Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup speaks at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 12, 2022. (Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images) Lee said countries worldwide have significantly invested in their national defense science and technology. In order for South Korea to become a leader in the global security environment, it must not only enhance its national defense and armed force but also create an impetus for economic growth by sharing its industry experience with nations worldwide. He said South Korea would combine its cutting-edge technology with national defense while adding that the country is committed to building a robust scientific and technological army that can adapt to the evolution of the global security environment. To expand defense industry cooperation with other countries, South Korea will provide comprehensive and systematic support services for various export projects such as joint weapons research and development, technology transfer, overseas production, and training programs, Lee added. Largest Increase in Arms Export Market Share South Korea is emerging as a major defense industry player driven not only by the need to counter growing military threats from North Korea but also by its ambition to become one of the worlds top arms suppliers. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on March 14 released a report (pdf) on recent trends in the international arms trade. The report indicates that the United States, the worlds largest arms exporter, increased its arms exports by 14 percent in the period 2017-2021 compared to 2012-2016, while arms exports of Russia, the second largest weapons supplier, fell by 26 percent in the same period. Meanwhile, the U.S.s global share increased from 32 to 39 percent, more than double Russias 19 percent share. Frances arms exports in the period 2017-2021 increased 59 percent compared to 2012-2016, accounting for 11 percent of the global share in 2017-2021, making it the worlds third-largest arms exporter. Chinas arms exports fell 31 percent in 2017-2021 compared to 2012-2016, but it remains the worlds fourth largest arms exporter with a 4.6 percent global share. Among arms exporting nations, South Korea had the most considerable development with a 177 percent growth in export volume in 2017-2021 from 2012-2016. Its global share expanded from 1 percent in 2012-2016 to 2.8 percent in 2017-2021, making it the worlds eighth-largest arms exporter. The top seven arms exporters in 2017-2021 are the United States (39 percent in global share), Russia (19 percent), France (11 percent), China (5 percent), Germany (4 percent), Italy (3 percent), and the United Kingdom (3 percent). Among the top 25 arms exporters in the world, South Korea had the largest increase in market share. Series of Massive Arms Deals A recent series of breakthrough arms deals have fueled South Koreas ambition to become one of the worlds top weapons suppliers. In late August, Poland and South Korea sealed a $5.8 billion military deal for the supply of tanks and howitzers, according to Seouls arms procurement agency. The accord is part of a comprehensive arms deal reached by the two nations in July as Poland seeks to bolster its military defenses amid the ongoing RussiaUkraine war. Under the agreement, South Korea will also supply Warsaw with FA-50 fighter jets. A South Korean-made FA-50 multirole light fighter aircraft performs a fly-past during a ceremony prior to landing at the Clark Air Base in Angeles City, Pampanga province, north of Manila, Philippines, on Nov. 28, 2015. (Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images) The parties have not announced the value of the entire deal, which is estimated at up to $14.5 billion, according to the Japan Times. The deal was widely dubbed the largest arms deal in South Koreas history. It is expected to provide Poland with around 48 FA-50 light combat fighter jets, 1,000 K2 Black Panther tanks, and 672 K9 self-propelled artillery from Hyundai Rotem, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), and Hanwha Defense, respectively. The K9 Thunder155-millimeter self-propelled howitzerhas become one of South Koreas most exported weapons. It reportedly has a maximum range of more than 40 kilometers (24.8 miles) and is considered one of the worlds most advanced in shooting accuracy, response time, and automation. South Korean soldiers sit on the top of a K9 Thunder 155mm self-propelled Howitzer during an equipment demonstration at the Defense Expo Korea 2016 in Goyang, north of Seoul, on Sept. 10, 2016. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images) Currently, it has been exported to some major military powers worldwide, including Australia, Turkey, India, Egypt, Poland, Finland, Norway, and Estonia. The FA-50 light fighter is also one of South Koreas primary exports of military equipment. It is a more heavily armed combat variant of the T-50 Golden Eagle trainer jet, a light combat aircraft developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI). The advanced combat variant contains more internal fuel capacity, enhanced avionics, and precision-based combat features. Presently, FA-50 and T-50 series aircraft have been exported to Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and other countries. On Feb. 1, South Koreas Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced that the country inked a $1.7 billion arms deal with Egypt. The contract would provide Egypt with K9 self-propelled howitzers and support vehicles such as K10 ammunition resupply vehicles and K11 Fire Direction Control Vehicles. In mid-January, South Korea finalized a $3.5 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to export its M-SAM medium-range air defense missile systems. The two countries also pledged deeper cooperation in defense technologies. In December last year, South Korea and Australia signed a $1 billion weapons contract. The deal with South Korean defense giant Hanwha will provide 30 self-propelled howitzers and 15 armored ammunition supply vehicles. The deal is Australias largest defense contract with an Asian country. In addition, South Korea has a strong arms export presence to countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Philippines and Indonesia are the two largest customers, accounting for 16 percent and 14 percent of purchases over the past five years, respectively, according to SIPRI. Alternative to Expensive US-Made Weapons In an interview with The Korea Times published on Aug. 10, Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation, a U.S.-based policy think tank, said South Korea had captured the niche market where its weapons could thrive against more costly competitors. They offer a niche opportunity for export to other countries that cant afford to modernize fully with top-of-the-line weapons (which means most countries). Of course, some weapons the ROK (South Korea) is developing are top-of-the-line or close to it, Bennett said. The ROK has done a great job of identifying this kind of niche relative to the U.S. and European countries and filling it with lower cost ROK systems. Although South Korean weapons may not be the most advanced in the world, they are still competitive and up-to-date, especially when the country is constantly developing weapons for its own defense against North Korea. By producing and selling these weapons, the ROK brings down the price that it pays for the ROK military to acquire these weapons because the more that are made, the lower the unit cost, Bennett said. This was a clever strategy developed by the ROK many years ago, and it is now paying off. Bennetts comment came as the massive Seoul-Warsaw deal made headlines. Koreas challenge will be whether it can provide weapons on time to Poland and provide superior maintenance and logistical support. The other European countries will watch ROKs performance with Poland, and that will affect whether they do or do not consider the ROK as a potential weapons source, Bennett added. South Korea May Soon Become Asias Largest Arms Exporter On Aug. 29, Korea Joongang Daily published an op-ed by Raymond Pacheco Pardo, an international relations professor at Kings College London. The op-ed said the recent massive Seoul-Warsaw arms deal would consolidate South Koreas status as the only Asian country selling arms to NATO members. The article added that Estonia, Norway, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and soon-to-be-member Finland have also acquired South Korean military equipment. Meanwhile, Australia, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America, have also recently signed deals with Seoul. These deals have propelled South Korea to the Top Ten List of arms exporters in the world, Pardo said. Pardo said a primary reason for South Koreas quick rise as a major weapons supplier is because of its non-threatening and non-polarizing imageunlike Russia and China, two of the largest arms exporters, which have seen their share of arms exports plummet to new lows in recent years. He added South Korea could soon become Asias largest arms exporter, surpassing China, and that it can thank Beijing for making itself a less attractive partner for third countries who do not trust the Chinese government. The article pointed out that South Korea also benefited from its close military alliance with the United States as its weapons systems include U.S. technology more often than not. Although it may not be the latest or state-of-the-art, it is certainly sophisticated enough to help enhance the systems quality. Pardo added that South Korean firms are even willing to include technology transfers in their arms deals, giving them a comparative advantage over other arms suppliers. Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, on Oct. 7, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images) Supreme Court Backs Republican in Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballots Case The Supreme Court on Oct. 11 vacated an appeals court decision that required Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots even if there is no date on the envelope. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot, wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson (pdf), siding with David Ritter, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for a judgeship. They also threw out a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that allowed the counting of mail-in ballots in the race that Ritter had sought to remove because voters did not write the date on the ballots. Ritter lost his 2021 bid to serve on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas after 257 mail-in ballots that didnt have dates were counted. Pennsylvania Republican legislators and conservatives filed amicus briefs saying the 3rd Circuits ruling threatened the integrity of the 2022 midterm elections. But the Supreme Courts action on Oct. 11 means that the 3rd Circuit ruling cannot be used as a precedent in the three states covered by this regional federal appellate courtPennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delawareto allow the counting of ballots with minor flaws such as the voter failing to fill in the date. Vacating the ruling does not change Ritters loss in his race. Previous Ruling Earlier this year, the Supreme Court denied Ritters attempt to block the counting of ballots that lacked dates. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Days before that (pdf), a panel on the 3rd Circuit ordered the counting of the undated ballots. Alito had written that the lower courts ruling could well affect the outcome of the elections this year as voters go to the polls on Nov. 8 in midterms in which Republicans are seeking to seize control of Congress from the Democrats. And he cited concerns that an individuals vote is not counted because he or she did not follow the rules for casting a ballot, adding that the appeals court interpretation is very likely wrong. Law The 3rd Circuit had ruled that invalidating the undated ballots would violate a provision of a landmark 1964 federal law called the Civil Rights Act aimed at ensuring that minor ballot errors do not deny someone the right to vote. The May ruling by the 3rd Circuit came in a lawsuit by several elderly voters upset that their votes would not be counted for neglecting to write the date on the mail-in ballot envelope, and what they called a meaningless technicality. The 3rd Circuits rulings also apply to the U.S. Virgin Islands territory. However, Pennsylvania law stipulates that voters are mandated to write the date on the outer envelope on their mail-in ballot. Before the Supreme Courts Oct. 11 ruling, Republican state Sen. David Argall told The Morning Call that there are likely to be many issues that come up during the November election and noted other provisions, including the controversial Act 77 overhaul that was enacted in 2019 that made widespread vote-by-mail possible in Pennsylvania. Several Republican-led states have enacted tougher voting rules, including for mail-in ballots, following the 2020 election. In Pennsylvania, there is a closely watched U.S. Senate race between Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman that could help determine which party controls that chamber. Reuters contributed to this report. Now that summer is over and the cold weather is starting to creep up, gone are the days for outside bars and beach drinking. But of course, th Dylann Storm Roof is escorted from the Cleveland County Courthouse in Shelby, N.C., in this file photo. (Chuck Burton/AP Photo) Supreme Court Declines Appeal of White Supremacist Mass Killer Dylann Roof The Supreme Court refused to hear the death-penalty appeal of an avowed white supremacist who killed nine people in a shooting rampage at a black church in South Carolina in 2015 in an effort to spark a race war. The court announced in an unsigned order on Oct. 11 that it wouldnt take the case of Dylann Storm Roof, a self-described white nationalist and the first individual in the United States to be sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. No justices dissented from the order. The Biden administration had urged the court not to hear the case. Roof, now 28, dismissed his lawyers and represented himself during the sentencing portion of his trial. The attorneys wanted to argue that Roof was mentally ill but Roof resisted, saying that to do so discredits the reason why [he] did the crime. He added he would rather die than be labeled autistic. Roof told FBI agents that he was a white nationalist and that he carried out his shooting rampage because black people are killing white people every day and rap[ing] white women. Roof said he was attempting to agitate relations between the races in the hope of causing a race war. The attack took place on June 17, 2015, when, after posting a manifesto of his racist beliefs online, he went to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a Bible study session was in progress. The parishioners welcomed Roof who sat with them for about 45 minutes. He then began firing on the church attendees with a handgun about 74 times. Seven people died at the scene and two more succumbed to their injuries soon after, according to the governments brief. Roof was indicted by a federal grand jury for racially motivated hate crimes resulting in death, along with various other charges. The government pursued the death penalty and rejected Roofs offer to plead guilty in exchange for life imprisonment. During a competency evaluation, Roof told a court-appointed examiner that it was his goal to stay alive as long as possible by creating appellate issues at trial that would help to prolong his life. But he was angered when his attorneys told him they planned to call an autism expert to the witness stand during the trials penalty phase. Roof told the prosecutors in a letter what my lawyers are planning to say in my defense is a lie and will be said without my consent or permission. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued in a brief filed with the court on Aug. 31, that the high court should refuse to entertain Roofs petition. The document stated, Although a criminal defendant who chooses to be represented by counsel retains the ultimate authority to make certain fundamental decisions regarding the casenamely, whether to plead guilty or otherwise concede guilt, waive a jury trial, testify in his own behalf, or appealhe does not have a more general right to supersede counsels judgment on how to present a defense. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan stands for a group photograph of the justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) Supreme Court Hears Challenge to Allegedly Unconstitutional California Pork Industry Restrictions A voter-ratified law in California banning the sale of pork from hogs raised in spaces smaller than industry norms is unconstitutional, an industry group told the Supreme Court on Oct. 11. The case is important because whatever ruling the court issues could have implications reaching well beyond agricultural law. State-level energy and climate regulations have also been challenged under the so-called dormant commerce clause, or negative commerce clause, in the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from enacting legislation that discriminates against or excessively burdens interstate commerce. In 2008, California voters easily approved Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which outlawed gestation crates for pregnant pigs, cages for egg-laying hens, and veal crates for calves. However, the measure didnt forbid the sale of food that comes from animals confined in prohibited ways, Ballotpedia reports. A decade later, California Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, was also easily approved by state voters in 2018, according to Ballotpedia. The initiative establishes minimum space requirements based on square feet for calves raised for veal, breeding pigs, and egg-laying hens and bans the sale of (a) veal from calves, (b) pork from breeding pigs, and (c) eggs from hens when the animals are confined to areas below minimum square-feet requirements. Separately, the Humane Society of the United States, a respondent in the case, said in a statement released while the hearing was underway that states have the right to keep immoral and unsafe products out of their markets, including pork from cruelly confined pigs. As we await the Courts decision, we applaud the many retailers and major pork producers who are already meeting consumers increasing demand for safer, more humane pork, Humane Society CEO Kitty Block said. The case is National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) v. Ross, court file 21-468. Respondent Karen Ross is secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The NPPC, the petitioner, describes itself as an agricultural organization representing the interests of the $26 billion-per-year U.S. pork industry. Among its members are pig farmers, as well as the entire pork chain and associated businesses, such as veterinarians, pork packers and processors, and other allied businesses that serve the industry. The Biden administration is siding with the NPPC in the case. The hearing ran 133 minutes, almost double the allotted 70 minutes. Justices expressed concerns that allowing the California law to stand would allow states to regulate farmers outside their borders and promote disunity at the national level. At the same time, they wondered aloud if striking down the law would make it difficult for states to pass new health and welfare measures. They also discussed whether the best remedy would be to simply remand the case to a lower court. Timothy S. Bishop, attorney for the NPPC, told the court during oral arguments that Proposition 12 violates the Commerce Clause because its an extraterritorial regulation that conditions pork sales on out-of-state farmers adopting Californias preferred farming methods for no valid safety reason and because it burdens interstate commerce for no local benefit. California wants to change farming methods everywhere to prevent animal cruelty by phasing out extreme methods of farm animal confinement. That confinement occurs in other statesCalifornia imports 99.9 percent of its pork, Bishop said. Even when a law is triggered only by in-state sales, a state may not project its legislation into other states in that way. To do so infringes the territorial autonomy of sister states, and it impedes our national common market. No other state makes its farmers house pigs the way that California does, and very few farmers do. If Proposition 12 is lawful, New York can say that pigs have to have 26 feet of space and send inspectors into farms to police compliance as California does. Oregon can condition imports on workers being paid the minimum wage, and Texas can condition sales on the producer employing only lawful U.S. residents. And at that point, we have truly abandoned the Framers idea of a national market. Justice Clarence Thomas asked Bishop when an intra-state regulation [becomes] impermissibly extraterritorial. Bishop said theres no doubt a state could ban a product, even pork. It can ban lumber to be used in building houses. What it cant do is condition sales in the state on a business in another state adopting particular methods of production. That tramples on the other states rights, he said. Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested that Bishop was urging the court to adopt a freewheeling balancing test to protect an economic liberty rather than defer to state regulation on health and safety. The Commerce Clause is intended to prevent balkanization, Bishop replied. It was intended to stop interstate strife over these sorts of rules. California Solicitor General Michael Mongan said in passing the state law, California voters chose to pay higher prices to serve their local interest in refusing to provide a market to products they viewed as morally objectionable and potentially unsafe. The Commerce Clause does not prohibit that choice. Prop 12 is not protectionist or discriminatory, Mongan said. Prop 12 places no restrictions on how out-of-state businesses produce pork for sale in other states, and petitioners own allegations show that producers can continue selling pork to other states using different production methods. Justice Elena Kagan told Mongan that we live in a divided country, and the balkanization that the Framers were concerned about is surely present today. Do we want to live in a world where were constantly at each others throats and Texas is at war with California and California is at war with Texas? she asked. Mongan replied, I think that there is and should be a constitutional check on that, which is that a state regulation of a product has to be sufficiently tied to the actual process of producing that product. A COVID-19 vaccine is administered in in New York City on April 8, 2021. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Supreme Court Rejects Request to Block New York City COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate The Supreme Court on Oct. 11 turned down a request from a detective to block New York Citys COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers. Anthony Marciano, a New York Police Department detective, sued the city over the mandate, which applies to all city employees. A New York Supreme Court judge blocked the mandate in late December 2021 but that temporary restraining order was dissolved by an appeals court, prompting Marciano to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Marcianos first emergency application was rejected by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee. He refiled in September. The new application made it past the initial stage when Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, distributed it to the full court. But five or more justices on Tuesday rejected the application, which sought a preliminary injunction against the mandate. The court does not identify how each justice acts on applications for injunctions nor does it list the vote count but under court rules, if the full court considers an application, five justices must agree in order for the court to approve a temporary block. Marciano had asked the nations top court to intervene as proceedings continue in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. We will continue in the Second Circuit with the case, and move our way up the ladder again if needed, Patricia Finn, a lawyer representing Marciano, told The Epoch Times in an email. We are optimistic about moving forward and expect to reach the Supreme Court in the near future and obtain a favorable ruling. According to Finn, the sought-after injunction may have become moot when the New York Supreme Court ruled Sept. 23 that the citys vaccine mandate, as it applies to members of the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), a police union, was invalid. A spokesman for New York City did not respond to a request for comment. The city is set to end its mandate for private workers on Nov. 1 but has announced no date for ending the public worker mandate. Marciano asked the Supreme Court to step in because he has remained unvaccinated but said a looming deadline meant he either had to get a vaccine or be fired. Marciano has said he filed a religious request for an exemption from the mandate but that officials denied the request. An appeal of that denial is still pending. The appeal will likely be denied along with nearly every other exemption request and appeal, given that the City has denied 99% of all religious and medical exemptions for municipal workers to the [Emergency Use Authorization] Covid 19 vaccination thus far, the application for injunction stated. NSW Police check drivers on Enmore Road as part of the enforcement of Public Health orders in Sydney, Australia on July 31, 2021. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images) Sydney COVID Lockdowns Targeted Blue Collar Workers: Report A new report by the Australian Catholic University has argued COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney were unequal and targeted blue-collar and migrant areas unfairly. The report (pdf), published on Oct. 11, found that during the Delta Wave (June 21Oct. 24, 2021) of the coronavirus in Australia, the New South Wales (NSW) government allegedly utilised data modelling that asserted the biggest driver of COVID-19 infection rates in a community was the proportion of residents in blue-collar occupations. Specifically, it noted that regions with a higher proportion of residents employed as technicians, tradespersons, machine operators, drivers, and labourers, followed by a high proportion of overseas-born workers who primarily spoke a language other than English at home, would see a growth in COVID-19 case numbers. The NSW government is alleged to have utilised this modelling as its reasoning for the punitive approach it took to locking down 12 local government areas (LGA) of Sydney and targeted them with harsher restrictions, showing little sympathy for the residents response to the restrictions. These LGAs included Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Strathfield, as well as some suburbs in Penrith LGA. All of these areas, the report noted, had a high proportion of residents either working in these occupations or who are immigrants. Residents of suburbs in these LGAs faced stricter stay-at-home orders, a night-time curfew and more overt enforcement by government and police authorities, the reports authors said. A COVID-19 warning sign is seen at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on July 10, 2021. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) The lockdowns also saw the state government significantly expand police numbers in the LGAs and bring in around 300 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel to enforce stay-at-home orders. This led to police and the military roaming the streets of Western Sydney in July and August 2021, doorknocking and even inspecting residents homes for any breaches of lockdown rules. Additionally, residents of these areas were told by the state government they would only be permitted to leave their LGA for work if their workplace possessed Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) kits or if they had gotten their first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of August 2021. Lockdowns Made Western Sydneysiders Feel Targeted Interviews with residents in the LGAs found that inhabitants felt targeted by the government, with one resident from the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA, named Lydia, telling the authors that the experience was extremely stressful. [It] was stressful So many people [said] Police [will] be out, be careful. There were [police] helicopters. [They] would fly around at night checking to make sure that everybody was off the streets, she said. NSW Police block off main roads surrounding Broadway in Sydney, Australia, on Aug. 21, 2021. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images) Another resident from Blacktown named Michael, who worked in manufacturing, said he felt targeted by the governments harsh restrictions. They targeted us. Im not happy at all. Why is [Western Sydney] different from other [places in Sydney], especially the eastern suburbs? People can go out there. If they [had] locked down the eastern suburbs right from the beginning [in June 2021], it [would not have] spread to Western Sydney. [Its] unfair treatment Why not just [have] total lockdown [for the whole city]? he said. Meanwhile, others said they felt the lockdowns were racially motivated. [This] is one of the problems with the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA being labelled as plague central. I thought that was really, really unfair Sydney City Council, [the] eastern suburbs why not them as well? And then to hear [in the media] that the Chief Health Officer suggested locking down [all of] Sydney, but the government decided, no, it was only these ones. It was a little bit too blatant Theres just no two ways about it. It was racist, said interviewee Lydia. Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam is seen via videoconference as Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos looks on during a news conference in Ottawa on Jan. 7, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press) Tam Says Get Boosted Against COVID-19 Every 6 Months Canadas chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam is telling Canadians to get boosted within the federal recommended timeline or risk getting themselves and others hospitalized due to falling vaccine immunity against COVID-19. Across Canada, as more people go beyond the six-month time lapse since their last vaccine dose or infection, population immunity is falling and leaving us all less protected, said Tam in a press conference on Oct. 7. Without up-to-date vaccination to help prevent serious illness, many people could land in hospitals due to COVID-19, she said, adding that the shots may also help reduce the risk of developing post-COVID-19 conditions or long COVID. Tams statement made reference to the recommendations provided by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization in its Updated Guidance on COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Doses in Canada, published on the same day. She made the announcement during an update on Health Canadas approval of Pfizers bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the original strain of the novel coronavirus, as well as the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants. The federal agency authorized Modernas version on Sept. 1. Tam said the countrys booster shot uptake early last month has remained quite low with just half of the population vaccinated with an additional dose. As of Sept. 11, government data shows a cumulative 49 percent of Canadians have had their primary series completed and at least one additional dose since December 2020, while 13.1 percent have received a fourth. The number of Canadians who have received two doses is 80.6 percentover 30 percent higher than those who have received three doses. In the last six months, only 15.9 percent of Canadians took up a booster dose or completed the two doses, the data added, while the uptake since Aug. 1 was 2.8 percent. Concerns Over Side Effects A survey by polling firm Angus Reid in July found that among Canadians who said they have received one or two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, just 17 percent say they will seek another dose, while three in five (60 percent) say no. The poll also reported a significant minority (22 percent) of Canadians who believe keeping up with vaccinations is not effective at protecting them from infection, serious illness, or death. An earlier study by Statistics Canada in January reported that about half of Canadians (56 percent) were hesitant to get a third dose because of concerns over long-term side effects. Reports recently submitted to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) vaccine surveillance system suggested that cases of post-COVID-19 vaccine-linked heart inflammation among young males have risen. The reports, presented to the CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Sept. 1, show that within seven days of getting the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, there were 14 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis among 102,091 males between the ages of 16 and 17. And of the 206,000 12- to 15-year-old males who got the same two-dose vaccine series, there were 31 cases within a week. The incident rate for the 16- to 17-year-old age group was 137.1 per million while the 12- to 15-year-old group was 150.5 per million. Following the first booster dose, the figures jumped to 188 per million for the first group while the second group declined to 61.3 per million. In the press conference on Oct. 7, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the COVID-19 vaccines will boost our immune system and give us better protection against Omicron. If it has been six months or more since your last dose, it is time to recharge your immune vaccination, immune system, and get a booster dose, he said. The health minister also urged all parents to get their children from six months to 811 years of age vaccinated with the primary series of COVID-19 vaccine so that they can be better protected. Peter Wilson and Jack Phillips contributed to this report. AFT President Randi Weingarten and Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus pose with a poster that mistakenly placed Ukraine's national colors in reverse. (Twitter) Teachers Union Boss Goes to Ukraine to Assess the Situation as US Children Struggle After fighting to keep many American public schools closed for almost two years, the president of the nations second-largest teachers union has traveled to Ukraine to assess the poor remote learning conditions for children there. Randi Weingarten, who leads the 1.7 million member-strong American Federation of Teachers (AFT), announced the trip on Monday in the wake of a new Russian missile blitz targeting major cities across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the attack as a retaliation for the sabotage of the bridge connecting Russia to Russian-controlled Crimea. Woke up this am to reports of disgusting Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Lviv & other cities. Heading to the border now to assess the situation, Weingarten wrote on Twitter. This Russian attempt to frighten civilians & the effect on children (who are learning online today) is why this [trip to Ukraine] is so important. According to the AFT, Weingarten was visiting Ukraine at the invitation of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine, the Eastern European nations largest trade union. She is scheduled to donate childrens books and school supplies at school visits in Lviv on Tuesday, and address educators in Warsaw, Poland, at the Polish Teachers Day event on Friday. Were not going to let Putin get away with terrorizing peoplePutin terrorized people today with this wave of indiscriminate bombings throughout the cities of Ukraine as he has terrorized people since February, Weingarten said in a video posted on Twitter. Our trip of solidarity and bearing witness is probably more important today than it was when we planned it. The schools are closed, children are learning remotely in bunkers right now, she added, implying that a shift from in-person to remote instruction has a negative impact on children. Weingartens latest advocacy drew widespread criticism on social media, with many pointing to the role her organization played in the widespread public school closures in the United States in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Ukraine, kids got stuck with extended remote learning because of an actual war. In America, kids got stuck with extended remote learning because of Randi Weingarten, wrote Republican strategist Matt Whitlock. You fought to keep schools closed for over a year and now youre concerned about remote learning in Ukraine? wrote Corey DeAngelis, the executive director at pro-school choice think tank Educational Freedom Institute. Can you just assess the situation of failing to properly educate millions of children here? American Children Suffer Learning Loss According to the latest federal assessment data, math and reading scores for Americas 9-year-olds took a dramatic hit between 2020 and 2022, a period marked by prolonged school closures, on-and-off remote learning, and amplified social isolation. The report, known as the Nations Report Card, shows that average long-term math scores fell for the first time since the test began in the 1970s. Reading scores also saw the biggest decline since the 1980s. Meanwhile, the AFT has left a record of attempts to make it harder for schools to reopen for in-person instruction. A publicized email exchange between the AFT and the CDC shows that the union successfully lobbied the health agency to modify its school reopening guidelines, allowing teachers and staff living with a high-risk person to work remotely, and demanding that schools in communities with high COVID-19 case levels stay closed pending updated guidelines. When the CDC revised its school-distancing guidelines from 6 feet to 3 feet, Weingarten opposed the change, declaring that the union was not convinced that the evidence supports changing physical distancing requirements at this time. Despite those efforts, Weingarten recently blamed the school closures on the Trump administration. While former President Donald Trump and his education secretary, Ms. [Betsy] DeVos, ranted and raved, their successors put the safety measures in place to get reopening done, she argued after The Wall Street Journal called her out for flunking the pandemic. The AFT didnt respond to a request for comment on the criticism. By Steve Rosen From Tribune Content Agency Teens these daysand many parents tooare obsessed with social media. So are scammers looking for identity theft targets. For victims, the day-to-day impact of letting your guard down can be life-changing, both financially and emotionally. And the problem appears to be worsening, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) recently-released 2022 Consumer Impact Report. The report showed an alarming 1,000 percent increase in social media account takeovers over the past year compared with 2021. The report reflects the responses of 120 victims who contacted the San Diego-based nonprofit consumer organization between April 2021 and March 2022. ITRC, which has released its consumer impact report since 2003, also sought feedback in an online survey of more than 1,300 consumers to gain a broader understanding of how identity theft had impacted victims lives. Granted, the overall sample was small, but the findings should raise cautionary signs for teens and adults who spend time on Facebook, Instagram, online shopping marketplaces, and other social media platforms. Ive always felt that scammers were always one step ahead of the law when it comes to new ways of stealing personal information, such as Social Security numbers, and personal online accounts. Sooner or later seemingly everyone will be victimized. The latest twist, according to ITRC, is known as the Google Voice scam. It works like this: When you sign up for Google Voice, or add a phone to your account, Google sends you a text message with a verification code to activate your phone. Now the scam. Essentially, scammers pose as interested buyers and sellers on online marketplaces. But in reality, theyre seeking to steal your Google verification code to access your personal information and create a fake Google Voice account in your name that would then be used to scam others. ITRC said some criminals are creating posts online to sell an item, rent a room, or look for a lost pet. The victim reaches out because they are interested, and the criminal requests a Google Voice code. In addition, the consumer organization said it has also received reports of scam artists targeting dating sites. To avoid such scams, ITRC recommends taking your time while buying and selling. And if someone asks you to share a Google verification code? Dont do it because it is likely a scam. Other highlights from the report: Nearly 40 percent of ITRC victims said their personal information was stolen, compromised, or misused in the past year. 85 percent of respondents had their Instagram account compromised, while 25 percent had their Facebook account compromised. 48 percent clicked on a link they mistakenly believed was from a friend. 22 percent responded to a cryptocurrency scam. Older consumers are falling for scams more than teens and young adults. Most than half were ages 55 and up, compared to 3 percent who were 18 to 24. Most victims report losing less than $500, although there was a 30 percent increase in those victims who lost at least $10,000. 66 percent of victims reported having a strong emotional reaction to losing control of their social media account, including feeling violated, feeling vulnerable, feeling angry and even suicidal. If youve been victimized or want to report a scam, contact ITRC at (888) 400-5530 or visit www.idtheftcenter.org. (Questions, comments, column ideas? Send an email to sbrosen1030@gmail.com.) 2022 Steve Rosen. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The Epoch Times Copyright 2022 The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided. Former President Donald Trump walks to the podium for a campaign rally at Legacy Sports USA in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Trump Warns US Saying Exactly the Wrong Thing on RussiaUkraine War: Well End up in World War 3 Donald Trump warned that the RussiaUkraine conflict could morph into World War III and that the United States should be urging for peace between the two countries. What Happened The former presidents comments were made at a stump speech for Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake and senate candidate Blake Masters. We have to be very smart and very nimble. We have to know what to say, what to do. And we are saying exactly the wrong thing. Well end up in a World War III, said Trump at the rally organized at Mesa, Arizona, reported The Hill. Warning on the dangers of a potential worldwide conflict, Trump reportedly said, We must demand immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will never be a war like this. Why It Matters In the wake of President Joe Bidens remarks warning of nuclear armageddon last week, Trump said the U.S. is saying exactly the wrong thing to Russia, according to the Hill. However, it was recently reported that the Department of Health and Human Services has purchase $290 million worth of anti-radiation drugs in the wake of comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin accused the West of nuclear blackmail and warned Russia was not bluffing about using all means to protect its territory. Trump shared clips from the rally on his Truth Social account. He also proclaimed solidarity with protestors in Iran at the event. Truth Social is a part of Trump Media & Technology Group, which is set to go public through a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp.. By Shivdeep Dhaliwal 2022 The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Jack Sepple, of Tennyson Road, Chelmsford, appearing in the dock at Colchester Magistrates' Court accused of the murder of a 19-year-old Canadian woman who was found dead in Chelmsford. (The Canadian Press/Elizabeth Cook) UK Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder of Canadian Teenager A British man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a Canadian teenager who moved to England last year after meeting him online. Essex Police said Monday that Jack Sepple will spend a minimum 23 1/2 years in prison for the death of Ashley Wadsworth of Vernon, B.C. Wadsworth, 19, was stabbed and strangled during a sustained attack in the 23-year-olds home on Feb. 1, police said. Sepple pleaded guilty to Wadsworths murder last month. Det. Supt. Scott Egerton said in a statement the evidence against him was so overwhelming that he had no choice other than to admit his guilt. My thoughts today are entirely with Ashleys friends and family. Nothing will bring Ashley back, but I hope they find some comfort afforded by the sentence, Egerton said. In a statement shared by police, her mother Christy Gedron described Wadsworth as a beautiful and smart young woman, whose love of and thirst for adventure brought her to the U.K. You were the backbone of our little family, her mother said. Wadsworths Facebook page showed she moved to England last November. She posted photos of what she described as an amazing trip to London with Sepple just weeks before she was killed. Police said Monday that on the day of the attack, two of the teens friends received texts saying she needed help and wanted to leave Sepples home. The texts asked the pair to come get her, but were followed by messages saying everything was sorted. Concerned for their friends safety, the friends went to the address. They heard movement in the one-bedroom home but got not response so they called police, the statement said. Officers arrived minutes later and forced their way into the property. They found Sepple in the bedroom on his mobile phone, next to Wadsworths body. Sepple calmly told officers the had strangled and stabbed Ashley, the statement said. Forensic investigators found a bloodstained knife behind a radiator in the lounge of the property, it said. Sadly, despite the best efforts of our officers and medics, Ashley, who had moved to the U.K. from Canada to be with Sepple, was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy found she had been stabbed more than 90 times and had bruising on her neck consistent with strangulation, police said. During the investigation, officers discovered the messages telling her friends that everything was sorted had been sent after her death, police said. Sepple was jailed for life at Chelmsford Crown Court Monday. Gedrons statement said her daughter had a moral and spiritual compass second to none and always looked out for others. When you helped someone, they knew they were loved, she said. Ashleys father Kenneth Wadsworth also issued a statement via police saying she told him she wanted to take a year off to visit Sepple then come home and go to college. Her father described her as a bright student who was quick to learn everything, from walking at seven months to playing sports. I wasnt keen on you going to England, being away from everyone, but you are such a strong person and knew what you wanted in life, he said. The statement says he thinks about why she stayed with Sepple. It plays on my mind; at the same time, I know you are such a kind and loving person and would have just wanted to help him with everything that was going on. The police department said domestic abuse is a key priority and urged anyone who is affected by it, or knows some subject to abuse, to come forward and make a report. By Amy Smart United Nations Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif delivers a speech during the opening day of the 51st session of the U.N. Human Rights Council at the U.N. offices in Geneva on Sept. 12, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) UK Votes Against UN Racism and Slavery Reparations Resolution The United Kingdom has voted against a resolution from the United Nations Human Rights Council to pay reparations from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. On Friday, a resolution titled From rhetoric to reality: a global call for concrete action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, was tabled before a 47-strong U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva. The UK joined the United States, France, Germany, and Ukraine in voting against the resolution. A total of 31 countries voted in favour of the call, including China, India, and Pakistan. The resolution prescribes comprehensive measures for the U.N.s blueprint to combat racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia based on pledges made at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. Durban Declaration The resolution reiterates the Durban Declarations claim (pdf) that the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism were grave violations of international law and that states must make reparations proportionate to the harms committed. The UKs Human Rights Ambassador, Rita French, delivered a statement on Friday explaining the countrys vote on the racism resolution. French said that the UK remains resolute in our commitment to combating all forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance whether that be at home or abroad. Nonetheless, we have a number of concerns with this text. We do not agree with the multiple references to the Durban Conference, given the historic concerns over antisemitism, she added. General view at the opening of the UN Human Rights Councils 44th session in Geneva on June 30, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images) Last year, a total of 38 countries boycotted the 20th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, citing concerns of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias. We do not agree with claims made in this resolution that states are required to make reparations for the slave trade and colonialism, which caused great suffering to many but were not, at that time, violations of international law, said French. Moreover, these claims divert focus from the pressing challenges of tackling contemporary racism and global inequality which are global challenges affecting all regions, she added. In 2021, the United States said that the resolution endorses overbroad restrictions on freedom of speech and expression. It also rejected the resolutions call for former colonial powers to provide reparations. Modern Slavery Historian and author Zareer Masani has long argued that paying reparations for historic crimes is both impractical and unethical and criticised the countries that voted for the reparations resolution. The numbers [of] the majorities are made up by post-colonial countries where regimes actually thrive on blaming colonialism for their own failings and shortcomings. I think that is the tendency within the U.N., Masani told The Epoch Times. Its quite right that countries like the UK and the U.S. resist that, he said. On the call for reparations, Masani said that its difficult to prove who has a claim from such a long time ago. Furthermore, it would be costly to taxpayers and it would even be paid by British people who are themselves are descendants of slaves. What [the reparations] dont cover, and should cover, is the fact that there was and still is global slavery, and no one is going to get reparations for that, he said. There were slave trades all around the world, some of which the British stamped out. And there is modern slavery where more than 10 million people are enslaved in Africa every day, and even more in China, and no one is actually claiming reparations for those people, said Masani. Set up in 2006 to replace the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. Human Rights Council meets three times a year, but has faced widespread criticism for letting countries with poor human rights like China become members. On Oct. 6, for example, the Human Rights Council rejected a move to debate Chinas ongoing human rights abuses. Leaders from the United States, UK, and Canada called for a debate on the Chinese Communist Partys suppression of the Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang after a U.N. report documented possible crimes against humanity in the region. Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report. BASEL, Switzerland, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascensia Diabetes Care, a global diabetes care company, maker of the CONTOUR blood glucose monitoring (BGM) system portfolio and exclusive distributor of Eversense Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Systems, announces that it has successfully completed the initial European launch of the next-generation Eversense E3 CGM System. The unique benefits of this fully-implantable, long-term CGM system are now available to people with diabetes in all launch markets across Europe, as planned. Ascensia_Diabetes_Care_Logo Following the successful US launch in April 2022, the Eversense E3 CGM System has been undergoing a phased roll-out across Europe since August, in line with timings announced with the CE Mark approval in June. The system is now available in Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Andorra. Developed by Senseonics Holdings, Inc., the Eversense E3 CGM System was designed to build on the benefits of the previously available Eversense XL CGM System but with further improvements to enhance user experience. These improvements include reduced frequency of calibration, enhanced sensor survivability and non-adjunctive use allowing people to make treatment decisions without confirmation of glucose levels through a fingerstick test. The next-generation system offers people with diabetes: A long-term CGM option, with up to 6-month sensor wear duration and essentially two sensor insertion and removal procedures per year Exceptional accuracy, with a mean absolute relative difference (MARD) of 8.5%* demonstrated in the PROMISE Study 1 for the duration of sensor wear An ability to make treatment decisions without fingerstick testing, due to non-adjunctive label Fewer calibrations, with primarily one calibration required per day after three weeks of use 1 A fully implantable fluorescence-based sensor, with a removable smart transmitter** that provides discreet on-body vibratory alerts and transmits data to a mobile app An innovative design modification to enhance sensor survivability up to 6 months Story continues Torstein Myhre, Region Head of Europe at Ascensia Diabetes Care, commented: "We are proud to have successfully brought the Eversense E3 to Europe, where we believe it can make a big difference in the lives of people with diabetes. The Eversense E3 CGM System makes managing diabetes easier, offering unparalleled convenience and flexibility alongside exceptional accuracy. With a six-month sensor lifespan, the system frees patients from frequent sensor insertions, and its other features have been specifically designed to address improvements desired by the diabetes community. We are looking forward to bringing these benefits to more people than ever." People with diabetes and healthcare providers interested in learning more about Eversense E3 can find out more at www.ascensia.com/eversense. * Overall MARD evaluated vs YSI for glucose between 40-400mg/dl ** There is no glucose data generated when the transmitter is removed. [1] Garg S. et al. Evaluation of Accuracy and Safety of the Next-Generation Up to 180-Day Long-Term Implantable Eversense Continuous Glucose Monitoring System: The PROMISE Study. Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics 2021; 24(2): 1-9.DOI: 10.1089/dia.2021.0182 Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/749389/Ascensia_Diabetes_Care_Logo.jpg Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ascensia-diabetes-care-completes-initial-european-launch-of-the-next-generation-eversense-e3-contuinous-glucose-monitoring-system-301642947.html SOURCE Ascensia Diabetes Care A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-60 Jayhawk hovers over their rescue swimmer during a rescue, approximately 25 miles offshore from Empire, La., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi) US Coast Guard Rescues 3 Boaters Left Stranded, Fending Off Sharks After Fishing Trip Went Wrong Three boaters were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard about 25 miles offshore from Empire, Louisiana, on Sunday after a fishing trip went drastically wrong. The U.S. Coast Guard 8th District Heartland said in a press release that the three individuals were discovered after they failed to return from a fishing trip on Saturday, prompting a family member to contact Coast Guard Sector New Orleans and inform them they were missing. The boaters found themselves in a dangerous situation after their 24-foot center console boat sank at around 10 a.m. on Saturday morning, leaving them stranded and without communication devices. When they were eventually discovered, two of the three individuals were fending off sharks and had injuries to their hands, officials said. After being informed by the relative of the three individuals, the Coast Guard launched a coordinated response, sending both air and boat crews out to search an area spanning approximately 1,250 square miles. Coast Guard Cutter Jacob Paroo crew, Coast Guard Station Venice boatcrew, a Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircrew, and a Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircrew were also involved in the search and rescue effort. A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-60 Jayhawk aircrew treats three rescued boaters for injuries, approximately 25 miles offshore from Empire, La., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans) Could Have Been Completely Different Outcome During the search, a Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircrew tracked down the three individuals in the water and pulled two of them out of the sea via a 45-foot Response Boat. They were transferred to the Jayhawk helicopter before being taken to University Medical Center New Orleans for treatment. Both are in stable condition, officials said. The third individual was hoisted to safety by a Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-60 Jayhawk aircrew, the Coast Guard said. All three individuals were wearing lifejackets when they were rescued and were experiencing severe hyperthermia, dehydration, and fatigue after being in the water for over 28 hours, Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi said in a separate statement. The statement added that a family member had also received a phone call from one of the survivors floating in the water prior to the search. We searched an area roughly the size of Rhode Island and are thankful to have found these missing boaters, said Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Keefe, a Sector New Orleans Search and Rescue Mission Coordinator. If the family member had not notified the Coast Guard, and if these three boaters were not wearing life jackets, this couldve been a completely different outcome. We appreciate the assistance of the boating public, who were instrumental in helping identify possible areas where these boaters could have been operating before the vessel became in distress. When Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang, who lives in exile in the United States, was giving a speech at the University of Southern California, pro-CCP Chinese nationalists, provocatively questioned the violence of the Hong Kong protesters and called their actions terrorism. (Cheung 's Facebook page/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) US College Resists CCP Pressure to Ban a Speech by Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activist School was asked to cancel the event Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang, an advisor to the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), living in exile in the United States and wanted by the Hong Kong regime, was harassed by Little Pinks (pro-CCP Chinese) when he gave a speech at the University of Southern California on Oct. 3. It is reported that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) asked the university to cancel the event, but the school refused. Some scholars have pointed out that the CCP has upped its attempts at intimidation because it knows the influence of the words and actions of the expatriate Hong Kong people throughout the world. The event was titled In Defense of Democracy: an Insider View on Hong Kong Protests from Student Leader Sunny Cheung. A staffer of the Chinese embassy called on the eve of the event to ask the dean of the law school to cancel the talk, claiming the university should not invite a wanted criminal, who pretends to be democratic and free, to give a speech, but the dean refused the request on the grounds of academic freedom. The CCP sent people to the event to harass Cheung during his speech by using a provocative tone to question the violence of the Hong Kong protesters, and calling their actions terrorism. Some violated the organizers regulations by secretly recording the event and uploading it to WeChat (Chinese social media). The Dean of the Law School attended the speech and the Presidents Office sent people to watch over Cheung in case incident control was needed. Cheung criticized the CCP for using invasive wolf warrior diplomacy, and for believing that it could interfere with the independence and academic freedom in America. He believes that embassies around the world will abide by local cultures. The CCPs defamatory actions however, will only arouse international backlash. Cheung appreciates that the school withstood the pressure from the Chinese side and significantly strengthened security during his speech. He also hopes that American colleges and universities can continue to uphold academic freedom, and that the American government will face up to the problem of CCP authoritarianism. Cheung said the CCP was trying to cast a psychological shadow on the audience, and wanted to influence students from Hong Kong and the Chinese students who support Hong Kong democracy. Other Speeches by Cheung Cheung recalled that when he gave a speech at Pomona College in California on Sept. 29, some pro-CCP Chinese exchange students hung the CCP flag outside the venue. According to his testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Hearing on Protection from Persecution: Establishing Humanitarian Pathways for Hongkongers and Uyghurs Cheung said that the social movement in Hong Kong in 2019 was changed from the original anti-extradition protest to an anti-authoritarianism movement. They fought for the freedom and democracy of Hong Kong and the world. They were on the front line, countering the aggression of the CCP. On Oct. 7, Cheung made a speech for the University of Southern California (USC), Claremont College, and The Southern California Taiwan Center, in which he explained the background of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, the controversy over the legal system under one country, two systems, the phenomenon of identity politics in Hong Kong, and the strategic status of Hong Kong under the conflict between the United States and China, to let the audience understand the story of Hong Kongs democratic movement. Many students, professors, and deans attended the event and asked questions. Cheung said the number of people in attendance and their responses far exceeded his expectations. The university organizer even said that it was one of the most well-received events in recent years. Litt le Pinks in Britain On February 12, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, one of the Hong Kong pro-democracy activists nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and a former member of the Legislative Council, now in exile, gave a speech at Durham University in the United Kingdom. When Durham Stands With Hong Kong (DSWHK), a Hong Kong student-led group in the UK, and organizer of the event, promoted the event online, many Little Pinks left messages insulting and intimidating the organization and cursing the participants for being cockroaches. Some even claimed that there would be ten times more Chinese students than Hong Kong students at the event. In the end, the organizer notified the school to tighten its security. Benson Wong: Positive Influence by Hong Kong Expats In an interview with The Epoch Times, Dr. Benson Wong, former assistant professor of politics and international relations at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that the CCP knows that the Hong Kong expatriates all over the world are invited by universities or government officials to give public speeches, during which they directly unveil the CCPs suppression and dirty tricks. With the increase in Hong Kong people permanently emigrating and the cooperation between them and other groups persecuted by the CCP that has attracted the attention and involvement of local government officials and parliamentarians, the CCP continues to increase its attempts at intimidation. Wong believes that in recent years, relevant polls have shown that people in various countries have a negative perception of the CCP, to which the intimidation by Chinese embassies and Little Pinks has contributed. Continues Lobbying in the US Sunny Cheung served as the vice president of the Hong Kong Baptist University Student Union in 2015. During the 2019 anti-extradition movement he served as the spokesperson for the Hong Kong Higher Institutions International Affairs Delegation, went to many countries to promote and lobby for the legislation of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, and strived to sanction relevant officials of the CCP and the Hong Kong government. In 2020, he founded a social movement group Network DIPLO; in July 2020, he participated in the Hong Kong legislature election, which originally received the second highest voter support, but the Hong Kong authorities later used the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to suspend the electoral process and postpone the election for one year. On Aug. 15, 2020, Cheung revealed on Facebook that he had left Hong Kong. The next day he announced that he had applied to the U.S. government for political asylum and had been accepted in a masters program at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland. In Hong Kong, Cheung was charged with knowingly participating in an unauthorized assembly and inciting others to participate in an unauthorized assembly for his participation in the 2020 Candlelight Vigil commemorating the June 4 Massacre (the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in China). He fled Hong Kong in August 2020. Cheung was absent from the hearing, and an arrest warrant was issued by the Hong Kong authorities in September 2020. In December 2021, he publicly called on Hong Kong citizens to boycott the election of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. The office of Konnech Corporation in Okemos, Michigan, near Lansing, on Oct. 8, 2022. (Steven Kovac/Epoch Times) Election Offices Severing Ties With Software Firm After CEOs Arrest Governments across the country are reconsidering contracts with a firm whose CEO was arrested last week on suspicion of illegally storing election workers personal data on servers in China. Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested on Oct. 5 near Lansing, Michiganwhere his firm is basedon data theft charges lodged by Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon. Storing such data offshore violates its contract with the county, Gascons office said. Konnech subsequently lost contracts with Detroit and Fairfax County, Virginia. However, the elections board of DeKalb County, Georgia, voted on Oct. 10 to continue its contract with Konnech. The boards two Democratic appointees, plus the at-large member appointed by a judge, voted first not to sever the contract and then to require the data in question be held only on the countys servers. The two Republican appointees opposed. The countys information technology director assured the board that data using Microsoft Azure business software, like many other county systems, would be secure. The board didnt address the broader concerns that county Republican Party Chair Marci McCarthy raised in a letter read during the meetings public comment period. My grave concern is that our active account could become inactive in a single moment, and doing so during 19 days of early voting or on Election Day could cause havoc with our election operations. We would have no advance warning and no recourse, she said. It comes down to the basics of who will pay the bills and what employees will continue to work as the company is in turmoil, McCarthy said. What happens if Konnech cannot pay its cloud hosting fees? When they cant make payroll? The county also is exposing itself to financial liability if a worker damaged through a personal data breach decides to sue, she said. Dele Lowman Smith, a Democrat who chairs DeKalb Countys five-member Board of Registration & Elections, downplayed the privacy concerns, noting that only election workers names, addresses, and phone numbers had been stored with Konnech. And just witness every single person whos spoken [during] public comment just publicly gave their address, and thats been the practice for this board and for pretty much any other public board, Smith said. One of the public commenters, though, said thats damaging enough. Ninety-five percent of that type of fraud is committed just by using that type of dataname, address, email address, and telephone number, said Jenine Milum, a Republican state House candidate who said she works in the field of consumer fraud. Several other members of the public expressed concerns that, as election volunteers, their data could be compromised. One said she refrains from social media and has declined to give the county her bank account information for direct deposit of her paychecks, all because of privacy concerns. True The Vote, an organization fighting for election integrity, has taken some credit for exposing Konnechs China ties. The Los Angeles County district attorneys office has yet to confirm that. In an email to The Epoch Times on Oct. 7, that office said it was delaying comment on how it determined Konnechs use of Chinese servers until Yus arraignment. Yu was born in China, immigrated to the United States in 1986, and is an American citizen. A Michigan prosecutor who termed him a flight risk last week noted that he was on his way to the airport with luggage, has numerous foreign business and family ties, and had left his cellphone at home. A judge set bail at $1 million and required Yu to wear a GPS tether, surrender his passport, and report to California authorities by Oct. 14. Detroits $320,000 contract with Konnech, set to expire in June 2024, also included software for ballot scanning and absentee ballots. Our data, which is now back under our exclusive control, was housed on servers located in Lansing, Michigan. Konnech, per its contract, only provided logistical and call center support, City Clerk Janice Winfrey was quoted as saying by WDET, an NPR station. Out of an abundance of caution, all proper steps are being takenincluding the termination of Konnechs contract. My staff and I are confident that the 2022 election process will run smoothly, delivering, after all votes have been counted, an unimpeachable work product. The Michigan secretary of states office said voting hadnt been compromised. Konnech operates a payroll management system for poll workers that is used by Detroit and has never had access to voter data or election data, said Angela Benander, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. The Michigan Bureau of Elections does not contract with Konnech. Michigan elections remain secure, and voters can be confident in their integrity and accuracy. US Supreme Court Rejects Case on What Rights Unborn Children Have The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 11 turned away a case that sought to clarify what rights unborn children, or fetuses, have. Justices rejected an appeal by Catholics for Life and two mothers who challenged a 2019 Rhode Island law, the Reproductive Privacy Act (RPA), that enabled abortions up until birth. Justices did not say why they rejected the appeal, which came after the case was dismissed by a Rhode Island judge and a subsequent negative ruling from the Rhode Island Supreme Court. A lawyer for petitioners did not respond to a request for comment. An official with the state did not return a query. Petitioners, including mother Nichole Leigh Rowley, noted that the U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment says that no states shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. That may mean the new state law is unconstitutional, they said, particularly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade earlier this year in a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization. The Fourteenth Amendment has no textual definition of the term any person therein. And it neither includes nor excludes unborn human beings specifically, the petitioners said in a brief to the court. In light of this Courts decision in Dobbs, and in the absence of any Rhode Island statute establishing when an unborn human being is entitled to the federal guarantees of the due process and equal protection clauses of the United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, this Court should grant the writ to review the constitutionality of Rhode Islands RPA. State defendants did not file a brief with the court. The RPA repealed laws that prohibited abortion and that had been declared unconstitutional due to Roe, the 1973 ruling that concluded access to abortion was a constitutional right. It also repealed a law that said human life begins at the instant of conception and that said human life at said instant of conception is a person within the language and meaning of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. The last ruling in the case came from the Rhode Island Supreme Court in May, before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe. The state Supreme Court, in upholding a lower court decision, cited how the Supreme Court in Roe concluded that the word person in the Fourteenth Amendment does not include the unborn. Justices also found that the mothers lacked standing because they did not assert a particularly injury other than being unable to vote against the RPA. Justices also said the unborn children lacked standing because the fetuses did not have any legal rights or status under state law that had been found unconstitutional due to Roe, and that the unborn children were not in danger or somehow threatened as potential crime victims. A Vancouver Police Department patch is seen on an officer's uniform in Vancouver on Jan. 9, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck) Vancouver Police Respond to 1,200 Calls in a 40-Hour Time Span Vancouver police had a busy Thanksgiving weekend after a slew of incidents sparked hundreds of calls for help. For approximately 40 hours, starting on Friday, Oct. 7 at 6 p.m., the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) dealt with 1,200 calls. There were 145 high-priority emergency calls, 23 calls related to weapons, 34 calls of assaults in progress, six people injured in a stabbing, and one person shot with a crossbow, according to Deputy Chief Howard Chow. In the Downtown Eastside, a male victim in his 20s was shot in his chest by an assailant with a crossbow. The incident was reported to police on patrol by bystanders, according to Global News. Someone removed the arrow from the young mans chest and applied pressure to the wound before the man was rushed to hospital, police said. Investigators believe the shooting resulted from an altercation earlier in the day. In a separate incident, a stabbing at the Crab Park homeless encampment left several people injured. Police say they were patrolling the area around 3 a.m. on Oct. 8 when two victims flagged them down for help. As victims and bystanders fled the area, police arrested a 42-year-old suspect as he tried to leave. He has been charged with attempted murder. Three identified victims were all badly wounded, a man in his 30s, a man in his 40s, and an unidentified man. Police think there may have been more victims and are encouraging them to come forward. There was also a police presence at multiple protests, the largest being an anti-hate rally held at the Komagata Maru memorial in downtown Vancouver. Police say the Komagata Maru memorial was damaged for the second time in 14 months on Oct. 5, causing a protest from the West Coast Coalition Against Racism with approximately 8,000 people on Oct. 8. The first time the monument was vandalized, it led to a four-month investigation, resulting in the arrest of Yuniar Kurniawan, who was charged with mischief. Investors look at stock price movements on a screen showing stock prices at a securities company in Beijing, China, on Oct. 11, 2018. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images) White House, Pentagon Officials Traded Chinese Stocks While Mulling Blacklist: Report High-ranking Pentagon and White House officials traded in Chinese stocks even as their offices were tasked with considering the companies for blacklisting, according to a new report. More than 2,600 government employees owned or traded stocks whose prices would rise or fall depending on their actions, according to a new investigative report by The Wall Street Journal, which analyzed 31,000 financial disclosure forms from 12,000 senior government employees and political staffers. Of those 2,600 federal officials, more than 400 owned or traded in Chinese stocks, including in the Department of Defense, Department of State, and White House, the Oct. 11 report said. The Defense Department was among the federal agencies with the most officials who invested in Chinese stocks, even as the Pentagon in recent years has shifted its focus to countering China, the report said. The report also found that, from 2016 through 2021, more than 25 percent of government employees at the Department of the Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Federal Reserve traded in stocks of firms that were actively lobbying their agency. Notably, officials in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House were found to have traded in numerous Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Baidu, and the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec. Sinopec is owned by the China Petrochemical Corporation, which is overseen by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, a special commission of the Chinese Communist Party. A man works in a filling station of Sinopec, China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, in Shanghai, China, on March 22, 2018. (Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images) Among those who were found to have traded in Chinese stocks were Reed Werner, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for south and southeast Asia, and Jack Wilmer, who served as senior White House cybersecurity adviser and later as a chief information security officer at the Pentagon. Werner owned Alibaba stocks at the time the Pentagon was debating adding the company to a blacklist. Alibabas stock rose 4 percent in one day when the Pentagon did not add the company to the list. Werner sold his Alibaba stock for a profit three days later, just before officials were slated to renew their push for blacklisting. At the Defense Department, officials in the office of the secretary reported collectively owning between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies on average each year, examined by the Journal. Some held stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. was considering blacklisting the companies, the report said. The apparent conflict of interest demonstrated in the Defense Department and White House appeared to be part of a broader pattern in which government employees actively traded stocks of companies whose businesses ran counter to the stated mission of the employees department. In one example, a top official for the Environmental Protection Agency traded in oil and gas stocks. In another, an employee of the Food and Drug administration owned stocks explicitly listed on the agencys no-buy list. The report found that the agencies in question would, at times, waive the rules when it was discovered that an employee had a conflict of interest. Other times, the agencies would sign off on the use of one of several exemptions established to allow government officials to own stocks. The report noted that many of the thousands of records requested as part of the investigation had not yet been handed over by the government and that some agencies appeared to be stalling their release. In the case of the Department of Homeland security, for example, no documents had yet been turned over. Why Did We Ever Think Russia Was a Military Power? Commentary Russia continues to lose big in Ukraine. First, it failed to meet its No. 1 objective of capturing Kyiv in the first few days of the war, and then it was forced into a mortifying retreat from the northern part of Ukraine. Now, Moscows successes in capturing most of the four oblasts in Ukraines south and eastand then annexing them in sham referendumsare quickly being undone by rapid Ukrainian counteroffensives. The war is by no means over, and it will likely take months, if not years, to push Russia out of the country, but Moscows (and therefore Vladimir Putins) humiliating military adventure in Ukraine begs the question: Why did we ever believe that Russia was a great military power? On the surface, the question seems to answer itself. Russia is a large country, with perhaps a million men under arms and twice as many reservists. Before the war with Ukraine, the Russian army deployed more than 17,000 tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery pieces (with perhaps four times as many in reserve). The Russian air force (VVS) was believed to possess nearly 4,000 modern aircraft. Russia is among the top five when it comes to military spending. It has over 6,000 nuclear weapons and the worlds largest nuclear warheads and bombs inventory. Finally, Russia inherited from the Soviet Union a military-industrial complex that was one of the largest and most advanced in the world. On paper, the Russian military appeared to be an unstoppable juggernaut. When then-President Barack Obama in 2012 ridiculed his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, for identifying Russia as the greatest geopolitical threat facing America, he was roundly criticizedand then later panned again after the Russian invasion. It was surprising that a rag-tag military like the Ukrainian armed forces could blunt and then repel a supposedly larger and more modern Russian military. To be sure, the Ukrainians had the advantage of some very good Western weaponry, particularly antitank weapons like the U.S. Javelin and the Anglo-Swedish NLAW, and months of training and preparation (again, much of which was provided by the West). A Ukrainian serviceman sits next to a destroyed tank at an abandoned Russian position near the village of Bilogorivka not far from Lysychansk, Lugansk region, on June 17, 2022. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images) More than that, however, the Russian military lost. It was (and still is) manned by demoralized, hazed, and inadequately trained troops (many of them disgruntled conscripts), poorly led due to the lack of noncommissioned officers and low-end field officers (such as lieutenants and captains), and hobbled by deficient logistics. At the same time, a slime of corruption smears the whole military. Russian defense spending may have been robust over the past decade or more, but a lot of it was skimmed off by crooked officers. As a result, army trucks were outfitted with cheap, counterfeit Chinese tires (which quickly shredded), soldiers ate expired rations, and tank commanders got to fire one live round a year. For their part, Russian fighter pilots in the VVS receive little training, lack precision-guided weapons, and are generally not experienced in operating in contested airspace. This is definitely not the Red Army that rolled into Berlin in 1945. Again, we go back to the original query: Why were we ever fooled into thinking the Russian armed forces were anything but a military Potemkin village? In particular, why do so many smart people, particularly at prestigious think tanks, fail to see the Russian war machine for the paper tiger that it is? There is an old saying that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. A corollary could be that no national security analyst ever lost his job hyping a threat. Only a few years ago, for example, analysts at the RAND Corporation claimed that Russia was turning a corner when it comes to military modernization. For its part, the London-based International Institute of International Studies (IISS) asserted, in a report published in late 2020, that the Russian armed forces had benefitted from more than a decade of investment and reform. IISS went on to argue that Russias political leaders now have at their disposal well-equipped conventional armed forces built around professional rather than conscript personnel, and that Russias army is better equipped, with elements constituting a force held at higher readiness than before. Hence, Russias military modernization efforts are providing Moscow with a credible military tool for pursuing national policy goals. A Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launcher parades through Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2022. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images) Why such a failure of analysis? Bias plays a role, of course, as does the need to be relevant. After all, who wants to write a 200-page report that basically says, nothing to worry about here? That said, so many indicators of ongoing stagnation in the Russian military were often ignored. Russian defense spending seems large, but it is still smaller than Indias and only slightly greater than the United Kingdoms or Frances. And this is before taking any embezzlement of funds into account. Russias military-industrial base is practically at a standstill and has developed few new weapons over the past 30 years. The VVS still flies MiGs and Sukhoi fighters originally developed in the Soviet era, while the Russian navy has not commissioned any ship larger than a frigate in more than two decades. Russia does possess some modern equipment, such as its S-400 air-defense missile. However, most new weapons systems, such as the T-14 Armata tank and the Su-57, Russias putative fifth-generation fighter jet, are apparently too expensive for Moscow to buy; hence, only small numbers of these systems have been produced. In fact, Russia has long been a weak military power, practically a third-world nation. It looked robust in some areas (such as numbers of troops or tanks), but it was much more anemic regarding less quantifiable qualities, such as morale, leadership, training, and logistics. And this was pretty obvious to many; it only required giving sufficient worth and weight to all the evidence. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Firefighters work at the scene of a residential building that was heavily damaged after a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Oct. 9, 2022. (Leo Correa/AP Photo) Will the Ukrainian War Lead to Another Cuban Missile Crisis Moment? Commentary Sixty years ago this month, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war. With Russian threats that all options are on the table in its ongoing war in Ukraine and U.S. fears that the Kremlin may resort to tactical nuclear weapons to counter Ukraines counteroffensive, is the world hurling toward another Cuban Missile Crisis-like nuclear confrontation? Recently, I sat down with Robert Wallace, a retired CIA officer and intelligence historian, as well as an old friend, to discuss the parallels between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the current Russian-American confrontation in Ukraine. Wallace is also the author of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIAs Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda and co-executive producer of the eight-episode Netflix series Spycraft. The main events of the Cuban Missile Crisis are well known. According to Wallace, U.S. intelligence had collected imagery of Soviet-aided missile site construction in Cuba for weeks before the October 1962 crisis. Much of the photography came from stepped-up U-2 reconnaissance flights over the island. When confronted, the Cuban and Soviet governments disingenuously claimed the sites were defensive only. While some defensive surface-to-air missile sites were confirmed, analysis of overhead imagery revealed that a site at San Cristobal supported nuclear-tipped SS-4 medium-range offensive missiles capable of reaching, in a matter of minutes, Washington and much of the U.S. east coast and interior. Wallace points out, however, that the White House had another important source of intelligence in addition to the photographic evidence supplied by the U-2 flights. For several years, Soviet GRU Col. Oleg Penkovsky, the Wests most important spy in Moscow, had been supplying critical information and insight into Soviet capabilities and the thinking of key decision-makers. Penkovsky, notes Wallace, who had been run jointly by American and British intelligence for two years, had provided a stream of top-secret information so voluminous that multiple code names such as Hero, Ironbark and Chickadee were used to create an illusion the intelligence originated from multiple sources. Then-President John F. Kennedy described the threat to the American public in a somber television address on Oct. 22, 1962, declaring it would not be tolerated. U.S. President John F. Kennedy signs the order for a naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, on Oct. 24, 1962. (AFP via Getty Images) Per Wallace, analysis of the overhead images from the U-2 overflights combined with Penkovskys reporting presented Kennedy with response options, including a naval blockade to prevent Soviet ships from reaching the island. Wallace notes that Kennedy made this intelligence-enabled a short-of-war decision, opening a path to a peaceful resolution. On Oct. 28, following tense message exchanges with Kennedy, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev publicly announced the missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba, ending the crisis. Russian threats to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine are the closest the world has been to a nuclear confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wallace points out, however, that while there are important similarities between the two confrontations, there are also important differences. Historical events are never parallel, argues Wallace. In the Ukraine war, the Russians are threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the local battlefield against Ukrainian military forces, not launching nuclear-armed missiles against the United States. The consequences of such action, he notes, should, however, not be minimized. More than 75 years of international nuclear restraint would be breached. It is unlikely NATO would tolerate the engagement of such weapons by Russia without a proportional response. Once the nuclear genie escapes from the lamp, escalation becomes more likely, more deadly, more destructive. On the other hand, argues Wallace, intelligence capabilities have grown significantly over the intervening period. The superiority of 21st-century technical intelligence capabilities of the US and NATO over those of 1962 is astounding. While the Corona satellite was circling the earth 60 years ago, its mission orbit did not take it over Cuba during the tensest days of the standoff. Today, real-time collection and data dissemination are embedded in satellite, airborne, ground, and ocean systems. Imaging targeted electronic signals and communications are collected and distributed in real-time. Analytic capabilities have been enhanced by cyber technologies. He notes that undetected clandestine physical movement of nuclear materials, weapons, and support equipment are unlikely, pointing out that the U.S. should have ample warning that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons. Knowledge of a readiness to use any weapon is likely before the event, he argues, although predicting the timing of launch remains ambiguous. He adds, Positioning these for use would be provocative, but the decision to use is likely one that not even those authorized to make will know much in advance. Because the actual use of theater weapons is often in the hands of local commanders, a particular danger, warns Wallace, lies in the unauthorized or accidental firing of a nuclear device. Wallace also points out that Russian use of theater nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be problematic for China, a key Moscow ally. On the one hand, argues Wallace, the cynic might say China welcomes Russia and the U.S. breaking the worlds nuclear containment chamber proving neither can be trusted. This now creates the universal danger of nukes, and any country can now assert a need to have those in the military inventory. Future actual use would be more readily justified. A missile is launched from an unspecified location in China on Aug. 4, 2022. The Chinese military fired missiles into waters near Taiwan as part of its planned exercises on Aug. 4. (CCTV via AP) Without question, Wallace points out that China would seize the opportunity to let the world, especially Taiwan, know tactical nuclear weapons are part of its arsenal and, should it be necessary to use, China wasnt the first. On the other hand, Wallace believes that China is more likely to oppose Russian use and do so privately as well as publicly. The resulting destabilized international environment could only serve to interrupt Chinas 25-year successful expansion of influence and interest in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Moreover, he points out that the China and Russia relationship is tenuous. They share a border that is not always peaceful, and past diplomatic relations have been uneven. China understands that once used against Ukraine, Russian tactical nukes know no national boundaries. Ultimately, the decision to use theater nuclear weapons in the Ukrainian war will fall on Russian President Vladimir Putin. No one knows what Putin might do, including, at this point, Putin himself. Putting aside the issue of whether there would even be a battlefield scenario that justifies the use of such weapons, Putin might well opt to use a nuclear weapon to pursue a strategy of escalation to de-escalate the conflict, gambling that to avert the Russian use of nuclear weapons. The United States and NATO would pressure Kyiv to rein in its offensive or force them to reduce the flow of military assistance to Ukraine. It is clear that the world is closer to witnessing the use of nuclear weapons than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis 60 years ago. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Eraserheads, arguably one of most influential bands in the history of the Philippines, made headlines recently when they announced they would be reuniting for a one-night-only concert this December. Its been eight years since the foursome played together at a decade-defining Esquire Philippines collaboration where they launched two singles, 1995 and Sabado, and 13 years since their last official reunion concert, Eraserheads: The Final Set in 2009. The upcoming reunion is just the latest chapter in the bands colorful and storied history, which began when Raimund Marasigan, Ely Buendia, Buddy Zabala, and Marcus Adoro formed the band in 1989 while they were all students at the University of the Philippines. They exploded into the mainstream with their groundbreaking debut studio album, Ultraelectromagneticpop! in 1993. Their impact on the countrys music scene was so large that many have described them as The Beatles of the Philippines. But Buendia, the bands frontman, has described the Eraserheads as a Frankenstein monster that somehow worked. Until it didnt. After several successful albums, tours, and concerts, the band started the downward spiral that ultimately led to them breaking up in 2002. Still, theres no denying their massive influence on the local music scene, as the Eheads continue to gain new generations of fans two decades on, many of whom were not even born around the time of their breakup. Even though the band seems to have patched up some of their old wounds and gotten back together for a few shows over the years, fans had been waiting with bated breath for 8 years to find out if the original Eraserheads would ever play together again. Now thats its finally happening, we thought it would be a good time to do a deep dive into the bands history to explain how momentous this reunion is, particularly for younger Eheads fans who may not have any memories of what went down behind the breakup of the biggest band of the 90s. Story continues 1989-1993: The Early Days Before the Philippines Fab Four came to be, they were all students at the University of the Philippines, playing with different college bands. Adoro, Marasigan, and Zabala were members of the band Curfew, whose female vocalist had just left. Around the same time, Buendia posted an ad for auditions at freshman dormitory Kalayaan Residence Hall for his band, Sunday School. As if by fate, only the three showed up at the audition, with Marasigan initially taking on bass and Zabala drums, but soon they decided to switch instruments. The four formed a new band and called themselves the Eraserheads, inspired by the black-and-white film Eraserhead by David Lynch. The band would later say it wasnt the best name, but somehow it stuck. They started playing covers of bands such as The Cure, The Beatles, and Metallica at school gigs and in the local rock club circuit, but to little success. As a band, their sound was raw and their musical proficiency technically lacking, but they found potential in their original songs particularly after the crowd warmly received the expletive-laden Pare Ko, one of the first songs Buendia wrote and one that would later become one of their biggest hits. In an Esquire interview, Buendia recounted: I was aware that we were lacking somewhat in chops. Raimund was just starting out. Marcus just started learning guitar and Buddy wasnt really a bass player. That was one of the reasons why I had to focus on songwriting and tried to be unique and new as possible. The band began recording a nine-song demo in Marasigans provincial home in Candelaria, Quezon, and later shopped the demo around in clubs, music labels, and radio stations. But each time, they got rejected, with reasons ranging from their music not sounding pop enough to them not being handsome. A humanities professor, Robin Rivera, who would later serve as the bands producer, helped them re-record and mix better versions of their demo and called it Pop U! a cheeky retort to the not-pop criticisms. Buendia had begun working as a copywriter at BMG Records, writing for BMG during the day and writing songs with the bands at night. The demo reached the labels A&R director, Vic Valenciano, who took an interest in the band he thought they were technically raw but had something promising. The label took a chance on the Eraserheads and signed them to a three-year record deal in 1992. In 1993, the band released their debut album, Ultraelectromagneticpop!, featuring Pare Ko in both original and radio-friendly versions, as well as Toyang and Tindahan ni Aling Nena, which were all present in the demo. Initially released with 5,000 copies, Ultraelectromagneticpop! became a smash hit and turned sextuple platinum, with the label selling 300,000 at the end of the year. This marked the bands foray into mainstream success. They would go on to release a total of seven albums throughout the rest of the 90s and early 2000s, garnering international attention along the way. They released an album aimed at the Asian regional market, Aloha Milky Way, which had a single, Julie Tearjerky, that topped Indonesian charts and earned them one of the famous Moon Man trophies for the 1997 MTV Asia Viewers Choice Award. 2002: The Bands Breakup A year after their last album, Carbon Stereoxide, was released, Eraserheads broke their fans hearts when they announced they were splitting up. Long-time followers were even more inconsolable when they found out that the breakup happened over text, with frontman Buendia simply saying, Its time to graduate. Buendias manager and wife, Diane Ventura, spoke to music magazine PULP to recount their version of events on the day Buendia decided to quit the band. According to Ventura, it was spurred by a conflict caused by a miscommunication with the bands roadie. This resulted in Buendia being late for a mall show, which resulted in the band giving him the cold shoulder. Ventura insisted she and Buendia didnt received the usual text or handout they normally get to confirm the gig. Since neither of these happened, for the record, we were absolutely oblivious of the mall show that day! that was [the roadies] job. Ventura and Buendia resented the fact that the roadie made the couple look bad and unprofessional, as the latter insisted he had informed the two of them verbally at a previous bar show. The bands manager, Butch Dans, also reportedly took the roadies side without considering Buendias version of events and said the couple was probably too high on drugs to remember the gig schedule. This led to Buendias famously cryptic text message, which Marasigan said he was semi-surprised to receive. In an email to PULP, Buendia wrote, Eheads was an experiment gone bad. It had escaped from the lab and wreaked havoc upon its creators and the unsuspecting townspeople. Me, Ive already made my mind up about the band. It was good while it lasted, but now all I can remember vividly is the ugly business that led to the breakup. I just wish those people hadnt involved Diane and our family. While the actual split seemed like it came from left field, later accounts by the band and those close to them revealed that this was a long time coming. Buendia apparently already felt burned out by the time they released their sixth album, Natin99, in 1999. Buendia and Adoro who were once roommates had been arguing more frequently, while others alleged Buendia and Marasigan were caught in a Lennon vs. McCartney-esue feud. Although both later denied they had fought, Buendia later acknowledged that he was resentful of Marasigans creative success with his band Sandwich, which he founded in the later years of the EHeads. Speaking to Esquire editor-in-chief Erwin Romulo in an interview, Buendia said: I was envious of Raimund. Because he was playing with a band [Sandwich] that was close to what he wanted. It was the sound he wanted. It was the bandmates that he wanted. Thats why they played well and I was stuck with the Eheads. I was stuck with a band that I didnt form in the first place. They recruited me. I was a recruit. It was the three of them: Buddy, Raimund and Marcus. In a 2020 MYX documentary, producer Robin Rivera said that the band had outgrown each other and the tensions were not just between Buendia and Marasigan, citing a mix of creative and personal differences between the foursome. Within a few weeks, the Eraserheads quickly introduced their new bandmate, Kris Gorra-Dancel of the band Fatal Posporos, who would serve as singer-guitarist. That was short-lived, however, as Adoro decided to quit the band soon thereafter. Remaining members Marasigan, Zabala, and Gorra-Dancel went on to form Cambio with Diego Mapa and Ebe Dancel. Adoro founded Markus Highway, while Buendia started the short-lived Mongols and Pupil. 2008 and 2009: The Reunion Concert and The Final Set In 2008, fans rejoiced when the Eraserheads announced they would reunite for a one-night-only concert. Yet the events leading up to the sold-out show were marred by controversy. Just a week before the show, anti-tobacco lobbyists had pushed for a major tobacco sponsor to pull out of the concert, threatening the shows cancellation but the band itself saved the concert, announcing it was pushing through as scheduled. Sadly, two days before the concert, Buendias mother passed away. But organizers assured the press the show would go on as scheduled. Halfway through the show, Buendia, who had already been suffering from heart problems, had to be rushed to the hospital. The singers sister, Lally, had to break the news to the audience: Thank you for supporting the reunion concert of Eraserheads. We, however, regret to inform you that due to my brothers poor health, the emotional and physical stress that hes been experiencing, we apologize for cutting the concert short. My brother Ely had to be rushed to the hospital for medical attention. Again, we apologize and thank you all for coming here tonight. The year after their reunion concert came to an abrupt end, the Eraserheads redeemed themselves to their fans by staging a second reunion concert, dubbed The Final Set. Unfortunately this concert was also marred by tragedy as their guest performer, king of rap Francis Magalona, passed away due to cancer the night before. 2014: 1995 and Sabado After a smattering of shows here and there abroad, Eraserheads announced the band was releasing new material for the first time in 12 years the songs 1995 and Sabado, which were released in a special issue of Esquire Philippines with a cover of the four walking on Abbey Road like the iconic Beatles album cover. Playing before an exclusive guest list at the Dusit Thani in Manila, the foursome was adamant that they were not officially playing together as their old band. They told viewers, This is not the Eraserheads. We are not the Eraserheads, before calling out names of their current bands. 2018-2021: Will they or wont they? In 2018, Buendia sparked interest and semi-controversy after posting a cryptic tweet that read, Some people will never understand that people who dont get along cant work together. Fans took that to refer to his former Eheads bandmates, who just days before, had played at a gig called ULTRA COMBO with Moonstar88 vocalist Maysh Baay, spurring calls by fans for the band to get back together. In 2021, fans hopes were reignited when Buendia quote-tweeted a fan who asked if there was a chance the Eraserheads would play again. The singer replied, Pag tumakbo si Leni (When Leni runs), but later backtracked on his comment after the then-Vice President announced her candidacy for the May elections, saying it was a half-serious joke. Finally, on Sept 19, the band made good on all the teases by announcing they would be getting together for an officially for another reunion concert on December 22 at the SMDC Festival Grounds at Paranaque City. The Instagram caption of the official announcement includes the line Ilang awit pa ba ang aawitin, o giliw ko? (How many more songs will be sung, my love?), which is a lyric from 1993 hit song Ligaya from their debut album. Tickets for the show have already sold out because no one is sure if Eraserheads will ever play together again or if this will be their last performance together. But one thing is for sure, their music will live on. That release could not be found. G7 to hold crisis talks on Russias bombing blitz in Ukraine GENEVA: The United States and other G7 powers will hold crisis talks today (Oct 11) on Russias recent bombing blitz across Ukraine, with Britains Liz Truss expected to insist they must not waver one iota in their support for Kyiv. RussianUkrainedeathviolencemilitarypolitics By AFP Tuesday 11 October 2022, 12:03PM Demonstrators protest against Russian strikes on Ukraine during a rally organised by Ukrainian refugees and activists, in Tbilisi yesterday (Oct 10). Photo: AFP The meeting comes a day after Russian missiles rocked the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months, with President Volodymyr Zelensky warning Moscow that his country cannot be intimidated. Russian forces rained more than 80 missiles on cities across Ukraine yesterday, according to Kyiv, in apparent retaliation for an explosion that damaged a key bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to Russia. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes showed Moscow was desperate after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks, as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of severe responses to any further attacks. At an urgent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly yesterday - called to debate Moscows declared annexation of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions - Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya branded Russia a terrorist state, noting his own immediate family had come under attack yesterday. Unfortunately, you can hardly call for a stable and sane peace as long as an unstable and insane dictatorship exists in your vicinity, he said, telling member states at least 14 civilians were killed and 97 wounded in the strikes. Stay the course Zelensky and G7 leaders are set to convene today to discuss the latest Russian attacks. Trusss office said the British prime minister, who succeeded Boris Johnson just over a month ago, would use the call to urge fellow leaders to stay the course. The overwhelming international support for Ukraines struggle stands in stark opposition to the isolation of Russia on the international stage, she is expected to say. Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve to help them win it. German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters yesterday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him of the solidarity of Germany and the other G7 states. US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, condemned yesterdays strikes in stark terms, saying they demonstrate the utter brutality of Putins illegal war. In a statement, the White House said Biden had spoken to Zelensky and had pledged to furnish Ukraine with advanced air defence systems. Ahead of yesterdays General Assembly session, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the latest attacks as an unacceptable escalation of the war, his spokesman said. Though Russian representative Vasily Nebenzya did not directly address the missile strikes at the session, he defended his countrys annexation of Ukrainian regions, saying the aim was to protect our brothers and sisters in eastern Ukraine. In an instant... its death Residents across Ukraine expressed shock and rage after yesterdays barrage. Ivan Poliakov, 22, was so angry he struggled for words as he tried to describe one of the strikes on Kyiv. I saw children and women cry, he told AFP. I love Kyiv. The people are good, they are courageous. But in an instant... its death. In Dnipro, soldier Maxim was on leave from the front lines for the first time in six months to celebrate his wifes birthday when Russian missiles slammed into the central Ukrainian city, damaging their home. We are fighting on the front exactly to protect these places far from enemy lines, he said. But they still manage to hit them. The strike, he said, had made him more determined than ever to push back the Russians in northeast Ukraine. Since Russia launched its invasion on Feb 24, more than 7.6 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe, while another nearly seven million people have been displaced within the country. Yesterdays missile strikes prompted a fresh warning from the UNs refugee chief that more people could soon be forced to flee their homes. The bombing of civilians, of houses... of non-military infrastructure in an indiscriminate manner in many cities across Ukraine, means the war is becoming harder and more difficult for civilians, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told journalists in Geneva. I fear that the events of these last hours will provoke more displacements. Guns to be confiscated from rogue police, officials BANGKOK: Police officers and administrative officials who exhibit behavioural problems will have their guns confiscated, according to the national police chief. deathmurderpolicehealthSafety By Bangkok Post Tuesday 11 October 2022, 10:54AM Senior police officers, right, hand firearms to the subordinates who bought them with discounts under the polices welfare gun project in 2017. Photo: Somchai Poomlard Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas, the national police chief, said yesterday (Oct 10) the Royal Thai Police Office and the Interior Ministry planned to recall guns from police, administrative officials and other governmental officials who were issued government-sponsored weapons but showed aggressive behaviour. Officials who had faced complaints about their behaviour and retired officials with such characteristics would not be spared, reports the Bangkok Post. He added that people who wanted gun icences would first have to be certified for good mental health, and holders of such licences would have to pass mental checkups over time. Relevant officials would discuss such gun control measures in a meeting convened by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha tomorrow, Pol Gen Damrongsak said. The movement followed the brutal massacre by a sacked policeman at a childcare centre in Nong Bua Lam Phu province last Thursday. The ex-cop, who had been previously prosecuted for drug abuse, murdered 37 people - including 24 children - in Na Klang district on Thursday afternoon before taking his own life. He also killed his wife and son. Earlier the national police chief said the man had mental problems after extensive drug abuse. Self-harm fears rise in massacres wake Meanwhile, at least 10 out of the 170 residents of Nong Bua Lam Phus Na Klang district who were directly affected by the massacre last week are considered to be at high risk of self-harming behaviour, according to the Department of Mental Health. DMH director-general, Amporn Benjaponpitak, said the department is working closely with residents in the community, especially the relatives of those who were killed in the bloody rampage. The DMH has sent a team of counsellors to look after the victims relatives, Dr Amporn said, noting they will receive psychological support for two or three months, as determined by mental health professionals. That said, Dr Amporn said she was concerned counselling might not be enough for some individuals. Out of the 170 people who were directly affected by the tragedy, at least 10 are at risk of developing self-harming behaviour, she said. This includes the killers mother, who is facing a lot of social pressure from her community. For the time being, she should stay away [from other members of her community] to avoid a confrontation, she added, noting some residents of tambon Uthai Sawan want her to leave the area as they couldnt accept the fact that her son was responsible for the tragedy. To prevent the situation from deteriorating further, Dr Amporn called on media outlets to refrain from referring to the incident as a shooting rampage, out of concerns that it could spark copy-cats from carrying out a similar act. It could aggravate the mental health issues of those directly affected by the tragedy, which could happen especially when they are repeatedly exposed to images of the incident, she said. Separately, Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul came out to defend the protracted autopsy process, insisting that the entire process has to be done properly. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijan and Moldova have discussed prospects for strengthening the economic-trade cooperation, Azernews reports. The discussion took place during a meeting between Azerbaijan's Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov and Moldova's Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, who is on an official visit to Azerbaijan. "During the meeting with Moldova's Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita (@natgavrilita), we discussed the current state and prospects of strengthening the #economic-trade cooperation between our countries," Mikayil Jabbarov tweeted. The minister emphasized that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to relations with Moldova and spoke about the potential for strengthening trade and economic cooperation. Mikayil Jabbarov stated that there are great opportunities for expanding relations between the two countries in investment, trade, industrial, agricultural and other sectors. He drew attention to the work done to develop investment activities in Azerbaijan and invited Moldovan companies to active cooperation. For her turn, Natalia Gavrilita stressed the importance of discussing the expansion of economic ties and outlined the directions of partnership development. She stressed that Azerbaijan is a reliable partner and expressed the interest of Moldovan companies in Azerbaijan's economy. Additionally, the parties exchanged views on ways of expanding trade and economic cooperation. To note, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita arrived in Azerbaijan on October 10. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on May 29, 1992. The embassy of Azerbaijan in Moldova was opened on October 5, 2005, while the embassy of Moldova in Azerbaijan was opened on November 1, 2005. In total, fifty-nine documents were signed between the two countries. The trade relations between Azerbaijan and Moldova amounted to $6.2 million in 2021. Temple lintel of King Amenemhat III from Hawara, Egypt, 12th Dynasty, 18551808 BCE (British Museum) Ask any of the staff members helpfully loitering around the entrance to the British Museums Great Court and theyll tell you - there are three things that people ask for. The mummies, the toilets and the Rosetta Stone. The latter, for future reference, is normally found in the Egyptian Sculpture gallery, though its usually impossible to see due to the mass of people crammed around its case, holding up their phones for a snap before moving on, one more world-famous artefact ticked off the list. For the next five months or so, however, the Rosetta Stone will be the centrepiece of the museums new exhibition, Hieroglyphs: unlocking ancient Egypt, which celebrates the 200th anniversary (almost exactly) of the decoding of one of human historys oldest written languages. It tells the story of our slow road to understanding hieroglyphs, how two men pursued a (mostly) cordial rivalry over the course of a 20-year race to decipherment, and the vast wealth of invaluable information that the decoding which happened thanks to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone gave to the world. The Rosetta Stone (British Museum) The stone will sit alongside a host of exceptional loans, and treasures from the museums own collection. Alongside statues, sarcophagi and a number of beautiful texts, from love poetry to tax returns, international treaties and shopping lists, highlights of the exhibition include the Enchanted Basin a black granite sarcophagus from about 600 BCE, richly decorated with hieroglyphs and images of gods. It was actually the coffin of Hapmen, a nobleman of the 26th dynasty - it was thought on discovery that bathing in it could offer magical relief from the torments of love. Then theres a length of mummy bandage of Aberuait, on loan from the Musee du Louvre and never seen in the UK before. A souvenir from an unwrapping party held in 1698 CE yes early European collectors would unwrap a 1,500 year old mummy, cut up the bandages and hand them out with a mummy from the royal burial grounds at Saqqara, about 30km south of modern-day Cairo. Story continues Theres the even older, beautifully painted cartonnage containing the mummy of the lady Baketenhor, dating from about 945 to 715 BCE, which arrived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1821 (though she was briefly removed, she was returned to her box mercifully unmolested, and less invasive digital techniques have since been used to identify the various objects carefully concealed within her wrapping). It will be shown alongside warm correspondence between 19th century scholars about the hieroglyphs it carries, soon after the decoding breakthrough - of which more later - that expanded our knowledge of Egypts history by some 3,000 years. Mummy bandage of Aberuai from Saqqara, Egypt during the Ptolemaic period (Musee du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Georges Poncet) Ever since we stopped being able to read them, humans have been fascinated by hieroglyphs. You can see why the sheer richness and beauty of the carving or painting on what were often high-end objects, and the mystery of who these lavish people were must have been maddening. And for an awfully long time, we had completely the wrong end of the stick as to what they meant. Scholars from both East and West (many of whom no doubt thought of themselves as men of reason) indulged in all kinds of flights of fancy as to what the symbols birds and eyes, boats and snakes, and is that water? Do we think thats a cup? might represent. Medieval Islamic scholars leaned on magical interpretations says the exhibitions curator, Ilona Regulski; they thought the markings contained secret knowledge, the key to the laws of nature, whatever that means, while European scholars contributed to the misunderstanding of ancient Egypt owing to their tendency to view the culture through the lens of classical and biblical sources. They thought hieroglyphs were symbols that corresponded to the essential natures of the things they represented (again, whatever that means). It didnt occur to them that it might actually be writing. One or two early Arabic scholars did dare to posit the idea that hieroglyphics might be a language, but that work was mostly lost to view and not picked up again for centuries due to Western scholars mainly not bothering to learn Arabic (eye roll). Senior conservator Stephanie Vasiliou and conservation student Shoun Obana clean The Enchanted Basin at the British Museum (British Museum) Things started to move again with the massive increase in Egyptian artefacts travelling to Europe in the 17th century, due to the explosion in popularity of Cabinets of Curiosity (the site of the infamous unwrapping parties). Scholars started to get excited about it again, but decipherment still far eluded them. Then everything changed, with the discovery by a classically educated young French lieutenant of a large, dark, very dusty stone in the rubble of the old fort at Rashid (then known as Rosetta; now a thriving fishing port about an hours up the coast from Alexandria) in 1798. It was a time of both an enthusiastic flowering of interest in ancient cultures, and an equally if not more enthusiastic treasure hunt. In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt to cut off Britains lucrative overground trade with India and it led to an amazing discovery. During the conflict, Lieutenant Pierre-Francois Bouchard was supervising the rebuilding of a 15th-century fort using ancient Egyptian blocks, when he noticed an interesting slab poking out of the rubble. It bore three distinct texts, each in a different script - ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs at the top, ancient Greek at the bottom and something else in the middle, now known to be Demotic, a cursive script that represents a later development of the ancient Egyptian language. Cartonnage of the lady Baketenhor, between 945 and 715 BCE (Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums) If these three texts were the same, reasoned Bouchard, might it prove useful in the decoding of hieroglyphs? He took it to the Commission of Arts and Sciences, 167 scholars known as the savants Napleon had brought with his invading force, and, according to the exhibitions curator Ilona Regulski, its importance was recognised immediately. In the meantime, the British, unhappy about the French incursion into Egypt, retaliated, led by Lord Nelson and in 1801, the French capitulated. Following an occasionally bad-tempered negotiation, the savants relinquished much of their scholarly material and acquisitions (though in the spirit of global intellectual advancement they were allowed to take copies). The stones discovery inspired a fever of scholarly endeavour for the next 20 years, bolstered by the material that flooded out of Egypt in the decades that followed the British victory (the de facto ruler Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman viceroy, was keen to retain both British and French support for his modernising agenda, and granted huge numbers of permissions to excavate, collect and remove pharaonic antiquities). In the end though, it came down largely to the work of two men, to unlock 4,000 years of ancient Egyptian history. Thomas Young was a British physician and polymath who also established the wave theory of light, among other remarkable achievements (he literally pursued his hobby of deciphering one of the worlds oldest written languages in his leisure hours). Jean-Francois Champollion was the precocious son of a rather rackety bookseller, who became fluent in Coptic, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Arabic and gave his first public paper on the decipherment of Demotic while still in his teens. The process by which both Young and Champollion incrementally but steadily worked towards decipherment is so complicated that trying to understand it made me want to lie down in a desert tomb. But it is, as ever, not a story of individual genius but one of scholarly collaboration and breakthroughs precipitated by other peoples work. Portrait of Dr Thomas Young on a copper medal (British Museum) Both men published frequently and though they didnt agree on many things, it was clearly Youngs work that led Champollions own thinking down the necessary path, to the point of understanding that hieroglyphs are not just symbolic, alphabetic or phonetic, but all three. This led the Frenchman, on September 14, 1822, to stagger to his brothers front door clutching a sheaf of notes and gasp, Je tiens mon affaire, vois! (look, Ive got it!) before collapsing in a dead faint. As Regulski notes dryly, Champollions eureka moment literally knocked him off his feet. Inevitably, the Rosetta Stone, the British Museums star exhibit, is, in and of itself, a bit dull. It carries the rather tedious, formulaic text, in triplicate, of a decree issued at Memphis (the original none, not the one in Tennessee) on March 27, 196 BCE, establishing the divine cult of the new ruler, 13-year-old King Ptolemy V. It describes what the priests should be doing to glorify and deify the king and the various reasons for doing it, including his generous gifts of silver and grain to the temples, and his damming of the excess waters of the Nile during a period of particularly high flooding, to benefit the farmers. Basically is a glorified parish newsletter. Portrait of Jean-Francois Champollion by Eugene Champollion (Musee Champollion les Ecritures du Monde | Figeac) But what it represents, its status as the key to 4,000 years of civilisation, means that this slab of black granodiorite still has a tight hold on the imaginations of scholars and the public alike. The Rosetta Stone, the first object of its kind to be found, has been in the British Museums collection since 1802. Since its discovery, 28 stelae engraved with the same decree have been discovered, and 21 of those remain in Egypt. But its this one (which, comparatively, is not in the best nick, having been broken at some point during the French-British handover) that people want to see. Just this week a new petition has been set up by prominent Egyptian archaeologists for its return to the country, though according to the British Museum, there has been no formal request for the return of the stone from the Egyptian government. Even among all these treasures, its still the star of the show. Hieroglyphs: unlocking ancient Egypt is at the British Museum from October 13 to February 19; britishmuseum.org Phuket airport taxi driver banned over drug use, road rage PHUKET: A Phuket taxi driver has had his licence revoked after testing positive for drug use following a road rage incident in Kathu last night. tourismtransportcrime By The Phuket News Tuesday 11 October 2022, 07:19PM Kornphithak Assuwan of the Phuket Provincial Land Transport Office (PLTO) confirmed the news at Kathu Police Station this morning, announced a report by the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket) earlier today (Oct 11). The taxi driver was named as Jirasak Raiyai, 33. Referring to Jirasak as a public service driver, Mr Kornphithak recognised that the incident became known after a video clip of Jirasaks behaviour was posted online. Jirasaks licence has been revoked due to evidence of substance abuse, he said. Jirasak also will be fined no more than B5,000 for the vulgar language he used during the incident, he added. Kathu Police Chief Col Rungrit Ratanaphakdi confirmed that Jirasak has been charged after testing positive for a Category 1 narcotic (methamphetamine). Jirasak has also been charged with operating a vehicle while under the influence. The video posted online showed Jirsak abusing a man who had asked him to calm down after he abused drivers of other vehicles for not getting out of his way while they were waiting at a red light at the busy Si Kor Intersection in Kathu. The man who recorded the video, Passakorn Sirichuchot, also asked the taxi driver why he was behaving so rudely to the other drivers when all they were doing was waiting for the light to turn green. The taxi driver responded, Im Phuket [person]. Where are you from? Dont come here. Mr Passakorn pointed out that the people of Phuket didnt want to let such behaviour destroy the image of the Phuket people, so he called the police. The taxi driver, angered further, exited his vehicle and unloaded a tirade of vulgar abuse at Mr Passakorn before getting back in his taxi, shouting obscenities about Mr Passkorns mother then driving off. The taxi driver was in a hurry. He was trying to push through the red light, but there were other vehicles in front of him, Mr Passakorn later told reporters. Jirasak was trying to turn left towards Phuket Town, but the lane was blocked by vehicles waiting for the red light, he added. He opened his window and scolded the drivers in the other cars. There was a motorbike in front of him, and he moved his car to push the motorbike out of the way. The motorbike driver moved his motorbike, but then other cars still blocked his way, he continued. I cautioned him, and told him that he was being obnoxious, but he just replied angrily and shouted, Im a Phuket person, he added. The taxi involved was emblazoned with the logo of one of the cooperatives that have exclusive rights to pick up passengers at Phuket airport. The taxi also carried the legally required sticker informing people of the taxi complaints hotline 1584. The taxi also carried the official sticker confirming the vehicle was an approved SHA+ taxi, as needed in order to operate during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of note, the statements to the press today by police and the PLTO made no mention of the random drug tests on taxi drivers operating at Phuket airport launched in July in the hope of having the airport declared a White Airport and boost confidence among tourists that they are getting a clean driver. Additional reporting by Eakkapop Thongtub Dennis Connors, at an early age, understood his own story. He grew up in Lackawanna, across the street from Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica. His extended family lived in a row of houses with double porches, ending up there for one reason: Connorss great-grandfather, Jeremiah Shea, was from Scranton, Pa. He worked for Lackawanna Iron and Steel. Around 1900, Jeremiah followed the company when it left Scranton for the Lake Erie waterfront, just west of Buffalo, part of an industrial shift that transformed the landscape of Western New York, physically and economically. More than 120 years later, to his own astonishment, Connors a curator emeritus from the Onondaga Historical Association asks himself if he is about to see a similar kind of economic transition, in Syracuse. I look at my three sons, all three who decided to stay here, and I wonder about the impact this can have on their lives, said Connors, 71, a graduate of the University at Buffalo and one of the most respected civic historians in central New York. He was referencing last weeks Micron Technology announcement in Onondaga County, the kind of this-can-never-happen moment every big upstate city has daydreamed about during more than a half-century of what too often was a timeline of industrial struggle. Idaho-based Micron says it intends to spend as much as $100 billion over 20 years to create an estimated 9,000 jobs paying around $100,000 a year for manufacturing computer chips at the 1,400-acre White Pine Commerce Park in the Onondaga County town of Clay Generational change ahead, shouted The Syracuse Post-Standard, in its Sunday headline. Along the Thruway, from Utica to Ripley, this is a region accustomed to hearing half-baked civic dreams some of us are old enough to remember the doomed quest for a Saturn automotive plant in Chautauqua County, or the fantasy of a Ghermezian megamall in Niagara Falls but this situation has profoundly different bones. Micron's announcement made national headlines. Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra offered details alongside Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon. President Joseph Biden, who lived in Syracuse as a law student, lauded the deal from the White House. Micron to bring massive microchip plant to Onondaga County Micron, one of the worlds largest microchip manufacturers, announced Tuesday it would open a semiconductor plant in upstate New York, promisi All the reasons cited are familiar: The right site. Powerful incentives. Lots of water and power. A four-hours-from-everywhere location. Many nearby universities. The recent umbrella of friendly and specific federal and state legislation. Still, what strikes Connors and many others is the probable sea change in fundamental regional direction: For the first time in upstate memory, Connors said, a city's challenge will be responding swiftly to the benefits and pitfalls of potentially unbridled growth. My call left Connors reflecting on his own lifetime perspective. As a child, he learned a Buffalo sensibility, an affinity for western New York triumphs and hardships. But his journey for the past 50 years helped him realize a similar narrative binds all the cities in Upstate New York, and he sees Micron as an affirmation of the possible for the interconnected community along the old Erie Canal corridor. The fortunes of many upstate cities had already started a bit-by-bit rebound, he said, "and you see it in the energy in places like Syracuse and Buffalo. You hope Micron just reflects it, in both perception and in this tremendous opportunity for employment. To Van Robinson, the scope and reach of those jobs will determine everything. At 84, he is a couple of weeks past joining other veterans on an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., to visit national military shrines. He spent 18 years on the Syracuse Common Council, and he and his wife, Linda, are both past presidents of the Syracuse Onondaga NAACP. Robinson sees Micron's announcement as massive reinforcement for the great political achievement of his life. When he arrived in Syracuse in the late 1960s, an elevated portion of Interstate 81 had just leveled the 15th Ward, longtime home of the citys African American community. To Robinson, the highway became a lasting statement of estrangement between communities of prosperity and struggle, as well as an ugly, littered wall rupturing the city fabric. He was one of the few voices, decades ago, advocating for its removal. Gradually, the movement caught on. Following extensive study, the state last spring formally chose to replace the Syracuse I-81 bridges with a street-level grid, a project expected to cost about $2 billion an infusion of capital most likely coincidental with the first proposed wave of Micron spending. Robinson witnessed the disappearance in Syracuse of such industries as General Electric. His wife turned down an out-of-town transfer and lost her job when New Process Gear closed, after 124 years of operation. Robinson said it is almost unimaginable to consider what Micron's investment means to a metropolitan area of roughly 650,000 people. Beyond all else, he finds opportunity within this expansion to shatter the same barriers of segregation and suffering in Syracuse that have wounded Upstate communities for generations. According to the 2020 U.S. census, the city's child poverty rate is 48.4 percent the worst for any city with a population above 100,000. Such numbers spiral into pain resulting all too often in hunger, illness, violence and addiction and Robinson describes everything coming together right now as a we-cannot-afford-to-bungle-this civic moment. This is the issue, he said, if we want Syracuse to be the kind of place it was intended to be. All the early public conversations about job training, about serving disadvantaged communities, about making sure workers without cars have access to the site, about honing the regional educational impetus to be sure it is preparing enough young people to do the work seem pointed in that direction. If that talk becomes real change, Robinson said the community "gratification would be indescribable." On an immediate level, in a way any of us raised within upstate frustration can understand, there is also the simple hope that block-by-block, once-wistful civic dreams suddenly have a greater chance to be locked in, for good. Ive seen it all downtown, said Selena Giampa, managing partner in the new Parthenon Book Store on South Salina Street, the main corridor in Syracuse. Her father drove city snowplows for 40 years, while her mother worked for a nearby sub shop, and she is old enough to recall when the department stores were shuttered and the lights went out downtown. That district has come back in Syracuse. The market for downtown apartments remains strong, and you combine it with restaurants, theaters, festivals and taverns and there are plenty of times when it is hard to find a place to park which was hardly a problem 15 years ago. That vitality remains a work in progress, and one missing element was a bookstore. Giampa worked for Borders before that chain shut down at a local mall. She made no secret that she wished to open a bookstore downtown, at the same time that Buffalo-born developer Steve Case of Acropolis Realty, who has partnered on several Syracuse projects with Ryan Benz, visited Athens and loved the vibrancy of bookstores there. Through a friend-of-a-friend, Case, Giampa and Benz brought those visions together. Parthenon Books opened last summer in a critical but fragile piece of Salina Street. While rumors about a chip plant had floated around for months, their decision was an unrelated exercise in faith, since the last major bookstore in downtown Syracuse closed decades ago. Weve seen all the ups and downs, said Giampa, though she admits one up she could not anticipate involved billions in local investment by a semiconductor giant. She and Case contemplated what Micron could mean from a table in their store the other day, while a few quiet customers drank coffee and poked around the stacks. With energy and imagination, the owners said, the bookstore could have worked downtown, Micron or not. Even so, have they slept better over the last few nights? You have no idea, Case said, on behalf of Syracuse. Have an interesting bit of news youd like to see mentioned in the Along the Way column? Email it to Natasha Connolly at news@thesunchronicle.com . Two votes cast by Julie Abbott, an Onondaga County legislator and Republican candidate for the 48th Senate District seat, are the focus of a TV ad paid for by a union-affiliated PAC. The 30-second commercial was paid for by New Yorkers Together PAC, which is linked to the Communication Workers for America. The union is supporting one of Abbott's opponents, Democratic state Sen. Rachel May. The ad notes that Abbott voted for the $85 million Onondaga County aquarium project in August. There was a months-long debate over whether the funding should be used for that purpose, but ultimately enough legislators supported Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon's plan to build an aquarium at the Inner Harbor in Syracuse. Abbott told The Citizen on Monday that plans for the aquarium were part of luring Micron, a major semiconductor chip manufacturer, to Onondaga County. Federal, state and local officials announced last week that Micron will invest $100 billion over 20 years to build a chip manufacturing plant in the town of Clay. It will be the largest private investment in New York state history. But Abbott also believes that the aquarium will boost tourism and help the county increase its sales tax revenue. "I think we are better off taxing visitors as opposed to our people so we can continue to fund the vital services that we do as a county," she said. The ad also criticizes Abbott's vote for a new energy tax in 2020. The tax was on residential energy sales and cost households an average of $6 per month. The purpose of the tax was to help the county overcome a $100 million budget deficit amid the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, there was uncertainty about whether local governments would receive federal aid. Abbott recalled that McMahon's team informed legislators that there would be a budget shortfall. Since lawmakers did not want to cut jobs or services, they voted to impose the energy tax. The vote was 10-6, with some Democrats joining Abbott and other Republicans in supporting the tax. But Abbott said that they only agreed to the energy tax if there was a sunset clause. The tax was scheduled to end in November 2022, but what's not mentioned in the ad is that Abbott and county legislators voted to end it in April 2021 more than a year earlier than planned. "As responsible, good and right fiscal stewards when we saw the projection of loss was not accurate, we rescinded it before the sunset clause," she said. Abbott thinks the ad is a good sign for her candidacy that Democrats view her as a threat to May, who is seeking a third term. While May is an incumbent, the new 48th district is different than her previous district. It includes all of Cayuga County and most of Onondaga County. The cities of Auburn and Syracuse are in the district. Democrats have an enrollment advantage in the 48th district. There are 75,296 active Democrats and 52,535 Republicans, along with nearly 50,000 unaffiliated voters. The ad is not the first time New Yorkers Together has sought to influence the outcome of the 48th district race. The PAC paid for a mailer that was sent to Conservative voters before the Aug. 23 primary. The mailer included a side-by-side comparison of Abbott and Justin Coretti, an Owasco attorney who entered the race after the state party allowed Abbott to run on the Conservative line. The mailer's objective was to show that some of Abbott's stances on issues, such as abortion and gun rights, were not aligned with the Conservative Party. Coretti won the primary by 14 votes. Oct. 11, 1992 WATERLOO For the past two months, someone taped dozens of state Senate candidate Mike Nozzolio's telephone conversations, trying to collect enough dirt to sink his campaign. The cassette tapes which were sent anonymously to The Citizen last week show that Nozzolio has been unfaithful to his wife over an extended period. Nozzolio, 41, doesn't dispute the authenticity of the tapes but said he is sick, shocked and disgusted "that someone invaded our home and privacy" through "illegal eavesdropping." Nozzolio called the taping cowardly and "sick gutter politics at its absolute worst." He said it was clearly "a pointed attempt to hurt me politically" just weeks before an election. But he stopped short of blaming the tapes on his Senate race opponent. At a tense press conference at the Waterloo Holiday Inn yesterday, held jointly with his wife, Rosemary, Nozzolio said he will ask federal authorities Monday for a full investigation to determine if criminal prosecution of the snooper is warranted. Job Title: Data Officer (3 Fresher Jobs) Organisation: Uganda Episcopal Conference (UEC) Duty Station: Hoima, Luwero, Mityana, Uganda Reports to: Senior Technical Advisor Quality Improvement About US: The Uganda Episcopal Conference (UEC), the legal body of Catholic Bishops of Uganda with funding from Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) is implementing the Comprehensive HIV Epidemic Control project through FBO/PNFP health facilities in the seven CDC supported regions within Uganda. The project supports PNFP facilities in Masaka, Kampala, Mubende, Soroti, Hoima, West Nile and Rwenzori regions. Internally the project is known and shortened as FLASH Faith Led Action to Sustain HIV Epidemic Control. The five-year project (Oct 2020- Sept 2025) is in its 3rd year of implementation. Job Summary: The Data Officer is responsible for ensuring timely and quality data from PNFP supported sites, support functionality of Uganda EMR, participate in data entry at multiple sites, compile and submit HMIS, weekly surge and finer age HIBRID data of regional sites. Key Duties and Responsibilities: Mentor health facility staff in documentation into appropriate national HMIS tools. Ensure completeness, consistency and accuracy of data captured into the HMIS Support facility staff in the timely compilation of the routine HMIS reports. Support health facility staff in producing data summaries that inform continuous quality improvement initiatives in HIV and TB programming. Participate in analysis and interpretation of data Ensure availability of required tools at the facility levels. Provide forecast to avoid stock-outs of HMIS tools at facility level. Support facilities to compile and submit weekly reports Any other duties as may reasonably be assigned from time to time. Qualifications, Skills and Experience: The applicant must hold a Degree in any data management related field. Postgraduate training in M&E is an added advantage Two years of related data management experience Experience in medical data management is an added advantage. Experience in the navigation of DHIS2 and USG-databases. Previous experience in supporting busy TB / HIV district data systems is an added advantage Ability to work under pressure and accomplish tasks with minimal supervision. Understands client confidentiality and exhibits a high level of ethical conduct Has basic computer literacy including word processing, excel, internet and PowerPoint. Attention to detail Good interpersonal skills and ability to work in a team Ability to work under pressure and accomplish tasks with minimal supervision. Good communication skills How to Apply: All eligible and interested candidates should apply and attach their signed CVs, copies of certificates, degrees, and testimonials. Suitable candidates residing in highlighted regions are encouraged to apply. Applications indicating duty station applied for and job reference number should be directed to the address below; The Secretary General Uganda Catholic Secretariat Plot 672, Hanlon Road, Nsambya Hill P.O. Box 2886 Kampala. Uganda Deadline: 21st October 2022 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline Money Mail is today calling on banks and building societies to give cash Isa savers a better deal. Savings rates have soared to a decade-high this year and are poised to leap higher if the Bank of England continues to hike the base rate as expected. It means tax-free cash Isas are back in the limelight as savers seek to protect their returns from HMRCs clutches. Tax-free: Savings rates have soared to a decade-high this year meaning cash Isas are back in the limelight as savers seek to protect their returns from HMRCs clutches Our best cash Isa savings tables Yet many providers are paying far lower rates than on almost identical ordinary accounts. In the worst cases, savers can be short-changed by as much as 1.9 percentage points. Meanwhile, some firms, including Britains biggest building society Nationwide, are not offering fixed-rate cash Isas to new customers at all. Others, such as Virgin Money, will only let you open an account online. And many major High Street banks are still paying a pittance on all deals, despite seven base-rate increases. Cash Isas lost their sparkle after the introduction of the annual personal savings allowance in 2016. This allows basic-rate taxpayers to earn up to 1,000 in interest a year tax-free or 500 if you are a higher earner. With rates so low for so long it meant few were in danger of breaching this annual limit. A year ago, when the best easy-access rate was a meagre 0.65 per cent, you could hold 154,000 in an account before paying tax or 77,000 if a higher-rate taxpayer. But with a top rate of 2.35 per cent now, you will owe tax once your balance exceeds 42,500 and 21,250 respectively, according to research by investment firm AJ Bell. Tax-free Isas are the easy answer to this problem and you can deposit up to 20,000 each year. In 2015, the year before the personal savings allowance was launched, savers took out more than ten million cash Isas. When do tax bills land? HMRC will know if you have bust your personal savings allowance It is up to providers to report to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) how much interest savers have been paid each tax year. So it should know if you have bust your personal savings allowance. This information usually filters through during the summer. If you are employed or get a pension, your tax code will be changed to recoup what you owe. HMRC will also assume you will earn the same amount in the following year and adjust your tax code in line. If you are not employed, do not get a pension or do not complete a self-assessment tax return, HMRC will contact you if you need to pay tax. You only need to declare how much interest you have earned if you fill in a self-assessment form. If you think you are paying too much tax you can claim through your self-assessment tax return. Or fill in HMRCs R40 form. It usually takes six weeks to get a refund. But in the tax year to April 2021, this number had fallen by a fifth to eight million. Even after rates began edging up this year, Bank of England data shows that about 3.7 billion was withdrawn from Isas between January and August. During the same period, 30 billion was piled into ordinary easy-access and fixed deals. But now rates are rising at pace, cash Isas are set for a comeback. And the tide is already turning. Yorkshire Building Society told Money Mail it saw a 30 per cent jump in the number of cash Isas opened between August and September. Coventry BS says it has also seen an uptick in enquiries, with more savers switching providers. Yet while cash Isa rates have increased, they often still lag behind ordinary accounts. Kent Reliance pays 4 per cent on its one-year bond but just 3.2 per cent on its one-year fixed rate Isa. And with Charter Savings Bank, the gap is even bigger after increasing its one-year bond to a leading 4.4 per cent today, while leaving its Isa rate at 2.5 per cent. Isas are trickier to set up and slightly more expensive to administer. But industry insiders told Money Mail this should only result in a rate difference of 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points at most. And the gap should be even smaller on easy-access accounts. Justin Modray, at independent adviser Candid Financial Advice, adds: Being cynical theyre effectively pocketing savers tax relief, since it doesnt cost that much more to run an Isa. The good news is the gap is starting to close. Even after rates began edging up this year, Bank of England data shows that about 3.7bn was withdrawn from Isas between January and August In January, the best one-year fixed bond paid 1.35 per cent, whereas the top equivalent Isa rate was 0.95 per cent. It meant you could end up earning less with an Isa even if you had to pay tax at 20 per cent. But research by Savings Champion shows the average easy-access cash Isa rate has risen by 21 per cent from 1.62 per cent to 1.97 per cent since the beginning of September. The typical ordinary easy-access rate has increased by just 11 per cent to 2.35 per cent though it is still higher. The top easy-access Isa now pays 2.25 per cent from Coventry BS as long as the saver makes no more than six withdrawals a year. The most you can earn on an equivalent taxable account is 2.35 per cent (1.88 per cent after basic-rate tax) with Al Rayan Bank. After paying a pittance for years, Santander has also joined in with a competitive 3.7 per cent one-year deal for new savers. It is hoped this could encourage other major providers to follow suit. Rachel Springall, finance expert of data analysts Moneyfacts, says: Savers ignoring Isas will miss out on the long-term tax benefits, particularly as there is no telling how long the personal savings allowance will last. sy.morris@dailymail.co.uk ALBANY New York's attorney general has changed the rules of a state gun buyback program after a participant exploited the system by using a 3D printer to make firearm parts in bulk that he then turned in for $21,000 in gift cards. The seller, who identified himself by a pseudonym, said he traveled from West Virginia to a gun buyback Aug. 27 in Utica to take advantage of a loophole in the program and to demonstrate that buybacks are futile in an era of printable weapons. At the buyback, he turned in 60 printed auto sears, small devices that can convert firearms into fully automatic weapons. Under the rules of the buyback, hosted by Attorney General Letitia James office and city police, that entitled him to $350 for each of the printed parts, including a $100 premium, since they were deemed ghost guns lacking serial numbers. The seller, who declined to provide his real name, said in an email to The Associated Press on Monday that the prospect of making money was enticing, but that the big reason he took part in the buyback was to send a message. He called the idea of buybacks ridiculously stupid, adding that the people running this event are horribly uneducated about guns, gun crime, and the laws surrounding the regulation of guns. James office said it responded to the exploited loophole by giving buyback personnel more discretion to determine the value of weapons being handed in, and setting a standard that all 3D-printed guns accepted by the program must be capable of being fired more than once. The new rules were in place by Sept. 17, when the attorney general's office hosted a gun buyback in the Syracuse suburb of Camillus. Its shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence, James office said in a statement. Buybacks are a popular way for government officials to try to get guns off the streets, typically with a promise of no questions asked, and amnesty for someone who turns in an illegal weapon. Some firearms turned in to those programs are legally owned. Others are relinquished by people who aren't allowed to own weapons or are turning in guns that have been illegally altered. The rule change by James comes as state and federal officials attempt to deal with the proliferation of ghost guns. President Joe Biden announced in April changes to the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, which would include those made by 3D printers. The New York attorney generals office has been hosting buybacks since 2013. James has recently warned that ghost guns are fueling a gun violence epidemic and sees buybacks as part of the solution, as do police forces in Syracuse and elsewhere. We have partnered with local police throughout the state to recover more than 3,500 guns, and one individuals greedy behavior wont deter us from fighting for public safety for all New Yorkers, her office said. Beijing (Gasgoo)- In September, Dongfeng Motor Group Company Limited (Dongfeng Motor Group) sold 199,037 vehicles, representing a 10.7% decrease from a year ago. Photo credit: Dongfeng Honda In the first nine months of this year, the groups cumulative sales volume reached 1,881,203 vehicles, notching down 7.01% year over year. In the passenger vehicle sector, Dongfeng Motor Group sold 177,503 vehicles in September, down 6.7% from the previous year. In the past nine months of 2022, the group sold 1,644,348 passenger vehicles in total, representing a 3.7% growth year-on-year. Sepcifically, the groups premium new energy vehicle (NEV) brand, VOYAH, delivered 2,519 vehicles in the past month, which edged up 3.7% over the previous month and shot up 98% over a earlier year. In the first nine months of 2022, VOYAHs cumulative sales volume summed up to 13,619 vehicles. As to the groups joint ventures, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen sold 13,945 vehicles in the ninth month of 2022, representing a 72.1% surge from a year ago. By the end of September, the companys cumulative sales volume amounted to 90,424 vehicles in 2022, hiking up 46.10% year over year. Meanwhile, Dongfeng Nissan (including Nissan, Venucia, and Infiniti brands) sold 93,629 vehicles last month, resulting in a year-to-date sales volume of 863,115 vehicles by the end of the month, down 11.14% compared to a year ago. Lastly, Dongfeng Honda saw a 32.9% year-on-year decline in September sales, which came in at 43,884 vehicles. In the Jan.-Sept. period, the joint venture sold 511,840 vehicles in total, notched down 4.51% from the same period last year. Russia rained cruise missiles on busy Ukrainian cities on Monday in what the United States called horrific strikes, killing civilians and knocking out power and heat with its most widespread air attacks since the start of the war. Missiles tore into intersections, parks and tourist sites in the capital Kyiv and explosions were reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in the centre, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. Ukrainian officials said at least 11 people were killed and scores injured and suspended electricity exports to Europe while it tried to end blackouts across the country. Thousands of residents raced to bomb shelters as air raid sirens rang out through the day. The barrage of dozens of cruise missiles fired from air, land and sea was the biggest wave of air strikes to hit away from the front line, at least since the initial volleys on the wars first day, Feb. 24. President Vladimir Putin said he had ordered massive long range strikes after an attack on the bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula over the weekend, and threatened more strikes in future if Ukraine hits Russian territory. To leave such acts without a response is simply impossible, he said, alleging other, unspecified attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. Ukrainian military intelligence said the Russian attacks were ordered in early October. The objects of critical civil infrastructure and the central areas of densely populated Ukrainian cities were identified as targets, it said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said they were deliberately timed to kill people and knock out Ukraines power grid. His prime minister said 11 major infrastructure targets were hit in eight regions, leaving parts of the country with no electricity, water or heat. They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth, Zelenskiy said. The body of a man in jeans lay in a street at a major Kyiv intersection, surrounded by flaming cars. In a park, a soldier cut through the clothes of a woman who lay in the grass to try to treat her wounds. Two other women were bleeding nearby. BATTLEFIELD SETBACKS These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose. They once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putins illegal war on the Ukrainian people, U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement. The Kremlin was humiliated two days ago when a blast damaged the bridge it built after seizing Crimea in 2014. Ukraine, which views the bridge as a military target sustaining Russias war effort, celebrated the blast without claiming responsibility. With troops suffering weeks of setbacks on the battlefield, Russian authorities have been facing the first sustained public criticism at home of the war, with commentators on state television demanding ever tougher measures. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. army forces in Europe, said the scale of the strikes suggested Russias plan to escalate may have been drawn up before the bridge was attacked. On Saturday, Russias Defence Ministry named General Sergei Surovikin, who won acclaim in Syria, as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. A Russian air campaign in Syria helped the government crush its enemies. Mondays blasts tore a huge crater next to a childrens playground in one of central Kyivs busiest parks. The remains of an apparent missile were buried, smoking in the mud. More volleys of missiles struck the capital again later in the morning. Pedestrians huddled for shelter at the entrance of Metro stations and inside parking garages. This constitutes another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, while its aid organization and others said their aid work in Ukraine had been disrupted. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the strikes horrific and he and Biden reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine. Ukraines defence ministry said in its evening update Russia had staged at least 84 missile and air strikes, and Ukraines air defences had destroyed 43 cruise missiles and 13 drones. Russias defence ministry said it had hit all its intended targets. Security camera footage showed shrapnel and flames engulfing a glass-bottomed footbridge across a wooded valley in Kyivs centre, one of its most popular tourist sites. One pedestrian could be seen running from the blast. Reuters later saw a crater below the bridge which was damaged but still standing. Zelenskiy said the strikes targeted energy infrastructure and people. Such a time and such targets were specially chosen to cause as much damage as possible, he said in a video message filmed on a mobile phone on an empty central Kyiv street. Prime Minister Denys Shmygal promised to restore utilities as quickly as possible. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: Putin is a terrorist who talks with missiles. Olena Somyk, 41, sheltered with her six-year-old daughter, Daria, in an underground garage with hundreds of people. She had fled the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, crossing Russia and Europe to get to Kyiv. Putin, she said, is a small angry man, so we dont know what more to expect. Reuters Graphics BELARUS ESCALATION In another sign of possible escalation, Putins closest ally, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, said he had ordered troops to deploy jointly with Russian forces near Ukraine, which he accused of planning attacks on Belarus with its Western backers. Russia used Belarus as a staging ground early in the war but Lukashenko has not sent in his troops. Within Russia, the strikes were cheered by hawks. Ramzan Kadyrov, the staunchly pro-Kremlin leader of Russias Chechnya region who had recently demanded that military commanders be sacked, wrote: Now I am 100% satisfied with how the special military operation is being conducted. We warned you Zelensky, that Russia hasnt even got started yet, so stop complaining and run! Russia has faced several setbacks since early September, with Ukrainian forces bursting through front lines and recapturing territory. Putin responded by ordering a mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of reservists, proclaiming the annexation of occupied territory and threatening repeatedly to use nuclear weapons. SOURCE: REUTERS Venezuelans in the town of Las Tejerias, in the countrys Aragua state, on Monday waited as rescuers searched for the more than 50 missing persons who were swept away on Saturday by devastating floods following heavy rain. Rain on Saturday night swept large tree trunks and debris from surrounding mountains into Las Tejerias, 40 miles (67 kilometers) southwest of Caracas, killing at least 25 people and damaging businesses and farmland. Standing in front of what was once her two-story house, before the floods destroyed it, Jennifer Galindez waited for news of her husband, one of the 52 people reported missing after water surged through the town. The flood also killed her young granddaughter, she said. My husband was by the window. I couldnt help him either and the water took him away, said Galindez, 46, adding that her husband Jose Segovia, 55, suffers from severe diabetes. Galindez left to seek help amid the rain when she saw the water enter her home, before the flood took her too. The water swept me away, she said, adding that she eventually found refuge on a platform where there was no current. Houses, shops and other premises in Las Tejerias were fully or partially filled with mud and other debris carried by the water. The area is currently without electricity or drinking water. On Monday, bulldozers could be seen clearing roads in Las Tejerias as the sun shone after several days of rain. Though Galindez managed to make her way back to what had been her house half buried in mud on Saturday, through a hole in the wall she saw her husband was not in his bed, while her granddaughter Estefania Romero, not yet 2, had drowned on the sofa. I havent been able to sleep, Galindez said. I cant close my eyes because thats what I see. I see my granddaughter, where I put her. I left her there and I couldnt get her out. SOURCE: REUTERS With Gasgoo Daily, we will offer daily important automotive news in China. For those we have reported, the title of the piece will include a hyperlink, which will provide detailed information. XPeng's flying car finishes first overseas open flight XPeng-affiliated UAM (urban air mobility) company, HT Aero, completed its first overseas public flight in Dubai, with its Voyager X2. According to Brian Gu, vice chairman and president of XPeng, HT Aero will disclose its latest R&D development in the UAM field on XPeng Tech Day on October 24. Photo credit: XPeng Lotus ELETRE to hit market on October 25 with price revealed The battery-electric SUV under Lotus, ELETRE, will officially hit the market on October 25 with its price unveiled at the same time. Positioned as a sporty mid-to-large size SUV, the ELETRE will be produced at Geelys intelligent factory in Wuhan, and kick off delivery from 2023. Photo credit: Lotus MINI to launch limited Multitone Edition models in China MINI plans to introduced the Multitone Edition models in China, with a limited supply of 800 units. Specifically, there will be 450 three-door MINIs, 150 five-door MINIs, and 200 units of the CLUBMAN. Hyundai IONIQ 6 said to make debut on November 6 in China Hyundais all-new mid-size battery-electric sedan, the IONIQ 6, may make its official debut on November 6 in China. The electric model offers a maximum range of 610km. Dongfeng Motor Group's YTD passenger vehicle sales up 3.7% YoY In September, Dongfeng Motor Group Company Limited (Dongfeng Motor Group) sold 199,037 vehicles, representing a 10.7% decrease from a year ago. China auto sales jump 25.7% YoY in September 2022 In September, the slew of government policies and campaigns continued to drive Chinas passenger vehicle consumer demands. In the third quarter of 2022, auto output and sales maintained a blooming momentum, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). GAC Group gains two-digit YoY growth in both Sept., YTD auto sales GAC Group, one of the major Chinese automobile groups, announced it sold 237,172 vehicles last month, representing a 44.32% leap year-on-year, while also posting an 8.88% growth month-on-month. China's locally-made PV retail sales jump 21.2% YoY in Sept. 2022 In Sept. 2022, China's passenger vehicle (PV) retail sales amounted to 1.947 million units, jumping 21.2% compared to the previous year, while also climbing 2.8% from the previous month, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). JAC Group sees 13.82% YoY increase in Sept. sales JAC Groups September sales volume amounted to 47,675 vehicles, increasing 13.82% year over year and 5.8% from the previous month, according to the companys report. Trial begins for analyst who was source for Trump dossier A federal jury in Virginia has heard opening statements in the trial of a think tank analyst who played a major role in the creation of a flawed dossier about former President Donald Trump Zoos are just prisons for animals . . . The teaching value isn't any greater than an online video. Evey worse, taxpayer subsidized spending for zoos is often misguided and haphazard. Notice that poor planning has sprawled the KC Zoo out into hike that keeps most seniors away. Accordingly . . . Here's a sad occasion worth consideration . . . "Curtis gave his illness a great fight and will be dearly missed by his Zoo family," a release from the Zoo said. He arrived to Kansas City with his brother Charlie in March 2020. The KC Zoo says that Curtis "won the hearts of everyone that met him" and that he was "easy-going and inquisitive." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Kansas City Zoo mourns death of 'Curtis the gorilla' KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Kansas City Zoo is mourning the loss of one of its gorillas after it was euthanized due to congestive heart failure on Oct. 1, the zoo announced Monday. Curtis, the western lowland gorilla, lived to be 28-years-old. Kansas City Zoo mourns death of popular gorilla KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Kansas City Zoo is mourning the death of a beloved Western lowland gorilla. "Curtis" passed away from congestive heart failure at the age of 28. His death on Oct. 1 came a year after receiving a blood transfusion from his brother, Charlie. Well-loved 28-year-old Kansas City Zoo gorilla euthanized after fight with congestive heart failure The Kansas City Zoo is mourning the loss of one of its Western lowland gorillas - one in a pair of brothers that arrived at the zoo in 2020.Zoo officials said in a news release that 28-year-old gorilla Curtis had to be euthanized on Oct. 1 after a fight with congestive heart failure. Developing . . . Three residential break and enters were reported in the citys East York district from Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, according to Toronto Police Service. Thats up from one reported during the previous week. LOS ANGELESAlpha Studio Group has signed adult performer Nico Coopa for another year as an exclusive model, appearing on sites across its network, including Next Door Studios, Disruptive Films, Rods Room and others. Beyond excited to have Nico sign on with us for another year, said company CCO Jeremy Babcock. Nico is one of the most versatile talents on our roster. He pairs well with virtually anyone, he elevates everyone around him, his acting skills are on another level, and on top of it all, he looks dang good doing all of it. Glad to have you back Nico! This last year has really been a blast working with NDS, Coopa said, referring to Next Door Studios and related brands. Im thankful to continue to be able to work with the talented folks at Alpha Studio Group and excited to see what the new year will bring! Coopa recently starred in Best Head Ever, a new scene for Next Door Studios with Carter Woods. He also starred in the inaugural scene for the Next Door Films brand, Weekend Getaway,'' released on July 23. Im super proud to have Nico re-sign with Alpha Studio Group as an exclusive, said director Walden Woods. Nico Coopa is a home run in every aspect of the word. He is a great actor, a great personality and he is stunning physically. Every single time I have him in front of my camera, I know that we are making magic. Can't wait for everyone to see the amazing films he makes this year. Coopa will be appearing in Fraternity Fantasies: Pledges Strike Back with fellow exclusive Jayden Marcos and co-stars Des Irez and Max Lorde, set to debut on Oct. 15. He will also be appearing in a scene for newly-launched site Rods Room with fellow performer Jordan Starr. For more, follow Coopa on Twitter and visit NextDoorStudios at NextDoorStudios.com or follow the brand on Twitter. 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 This morning , we kick off the show today with someone who is no stranger to the Morning Edi The Ohio Innocence Tour made a stop at the UC College of Law Monday, Oct. 10, to feature three Ohio Death Row exonerees individuals wrongly convicted and sentenced to death but are now free as part of an effort to end the death penalty in the state of Ohio. Kwame Ajamu, Derrick Jamison and Ray Krone were part of a panel discussion. They were interviewed by Local 12 News for segments about abolition of the death penalty. Ajamu had his name cleared with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project at UC. According to the Witness to Innocence website, Ajamu was a teenager in Cleveland, Ohio, when he was wrongfully convicted due to false eyewitness testimony and police misconduct. Ajamu spent 28 years for a crime he didnt commit. The sole evidence against Ajamu, known as Ronnie Bridgeman at the time, and his co-defendants, brother Wiley Bridgeman and friend Ricky Jackson, was the false, coerced eyewitness testimony of a 13-year-old boy. Russia's bombardment of Ukrainian cities is a war crime that is not subject to any statute of limitations and falls under the jurisdiction of international courts. The presidents of 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe said this in a joint statement, Ukrinform reports, citing the Polish presidential administration. "We, the Presidents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia condemn the mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities recently carried out by Russia, which constitute war crimes under international law," the statement reads. They recalled that war crimes and crimes against humanity are not subject to any statute of limitations and are covered by the jurisdiction of courts all over the world. "On behalf of our states we demand that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets. We will not cease our efforts to bring to court persons responsible of today's crimes," the presidents said. They emphasized that they "find any threats by Russian representatives to use nuclear weapons unacceptable." In this context, they reaffirmed their commitment to protecting their countries and allies. Early on October 10, Russia launched multiple missile strikes on Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Dnipro and other cities. In total, 84 rockets were fired across Ukraine. Forty-three of them were shot down. Russian invaders are using missiles and suicide drones to attack Ukrainian cities, causing terror against civilians. The city of Zaporizhzhia is remaining under continuous enemy fire. The city is situated close to the contact line, and Russian missiles can reach it in less than a minute. Russians are deliberately targeting high-rise residential buildings, civil and critical infrastructure. On October 10, 2022, a Russian missile struck an apartment block in downtown Zaporizhzhia, having destroyed one of its sections. Now, one can see a dreadful chasm there instead of once cozy apartments. Rescuers recovered six civilian bodies from under the rubble. On the night of October 9, 2022, the Russian aircraft fired a dozen of S-300 and Kh-22 missiles at Zaporizhzhias residential areas. Apartment blocks, detached houses and educational institutions came under enemy fire. Russian missiles directly hit and destroyed one to seven storeys in a 9-storey apartment block. The remaining two floors destroyed during dismantling works. A 5-storey apartment block located nearby and neighboring houses were also damaged. The blast wave caused serious damage to balconies, windows and facades. The cars parked close to the impact area caught fire. In addition, stores, office premises, kindergartens, schools and other infrastructure objects were damaged in that district. Russian troops also launched two missile strikes on the detached house suburbs in the Dniprovskyi district. Houses were destroyed at the intersection of streets. Some of them were completely ruined, while others were seriously damaged. At least fourteen civilians were killed and 60 injured, including six children. In the morning of October 6, 2022, the Russian military opened fire on downtown Zaporizhzhia, having destroyed over 50 buildings. Several detached houses and apartment blocks came under enemy fire. One to five storeys were ruined in two 5-storey apartment blocks. Cars were damaged. Many of the neighboring houses were left with the windows blown out, facades damaged, balconies and roofs destroyed. Rescuers, municipal workers and volunteers had been dismantling the rubble of two apartment blocks for more than three days. Twenty civilian bodies were recovered from under the rubble. One of Russian missiles struck the detached house suburbs, having destroyed two houses completely. Three civilians were reported killed. Generally, at least 49 people had been killed in a series of Russian missile strikes on Zaporizhzhia since October 3, 2022. A reminder that, in the morning of October 10, 2022, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Ukraines territory. Infrastructure objects were struck in eight regions and the city of Kyiv. Russian invaders fired 84 cruise missiles and used 24 unmanned aerial vehicles. According to the available data, a total of 19 people were killed and 108 injured. Photo: Albert Koshelev, Dmytro Smolienko mk The UAE Minister of Economy, H.E. Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, held bilateral meetings, at the UAE Pavilion in Thessaloniki International Fair TIF 86, with several high-ranking Greek Ministers & officials to boost cooperation & bilateral relations between the UAE and Greece. The extensive meetings between the two-shed light on the most attractive economic sectors to invest in the UAE including non-oil industries, whose foreign exports have recently hit an all-time high. The Greek Prime Minister, H.E Kyriakos Mitsotakis, opened the UAE pavilion at Thessaloniki International Fair 86, on Monday in the presence of the UAE Minister of Economy, and then held a meeting with the UAE Minister of Economy, to discuss ways to boost cooperation between the two countries and enhance bilateral trade & investment relations. The Minister of Economy, H.E. Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, also met H.E Vassilis Kikilias, Greek Minister of Tourism, where they discussed several issues, including mechanisms to boost Tourism in the two countries. The plan is to enhance the sustainable development of the Tourism sector in the UAE & Greece and boost the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The UAE pavilion also shed light on the UAEs new economic model and strategy of establishing a diverse economy & developing the nations non-oil economic sectors, in addition to its pioneering position on the global trade map. UAEs upward trajectory in non-oil exports is astounding. The UAE has recorded its highest-ever non-oil exports in the first half of 2022, with a total value of AED 180 billion. In the Manufacturing sector, the UAE aims to raise the industrial sectors contribution to GDP from AED 133 billion to AED 300 billion by 2031. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has informed Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about Russia's missile attacks on Ukrainians and called for increased security assistance to Ukraine. The head of state said this on Twitter, Ukrinform reports. "Had a fruitful conversation with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Informed about Russia's missile terror. Noted the importance of Australia's security assistance and called for its strengthening. The free world is united in supporting Ukraine and opposing the aggressor!" Zelensky said. Early on October 10, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine, killing at least 19 civilians and wounding more than a hundred. Critical infrastructure in Kyiv and other regions in Ukraine was damaged. On Tuesday, Russia continued its missile attack on Ukraine. Photo: President's Office Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the Group of Seven (G7), namely Germany and the United States, to provide air defense systems and a sufficient amount of relevant ammunition to Ukraine. The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during his speech at the video conference of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) and Ukraine, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Now, reacting to Russian terror, sham referenda and the attempt to annex our territory, we can apply the peace formula so that the terrorist state stands no chance. The first point is defense support. Air shield for Ukraine. This is part of the security guarantees that are an element of our peace formula. When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russian terror missile strikes will cease to work, Zelensky stressed. The President of Ukraine expressed gratitude to Germany and Chancellor Olaf Scholz personally for speeding up the delivery of IRIS, as well as the United States and personally President Joseph Biden for the decision to provide modern missile defense and air defense systems. Zelensky also thanked everyone who had already helped Ukraine to secure its air defense system. According to Zelensky, Ukraines anti-aircraft missile systems destroy some of Russian missiles and drones. However, following the data from the Ukrainian intelligence, Russia ordered 2,400 Iranian-manufactured Shaheds alone. And thats why, dear Mr. Chancellor, dear President of the United States, it is important that we have sufficient missiles for the air defense and anti-missile systems provided and that these systems are integrated with our defense system. Tomorrow in the format of Ramstein I would ask that our defense ministers discuss this, Zelensky noted. When addressing the President of France and the Prime Minister of Italy, Zelensky emphasized that Ukraine is very much looking forward to the delivery of the SAMP-T systems, as soon as in the coming months if possible. Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine mk facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter Published October 11, 2022 Pictured from left to right: Rising Young Alumni recipient, Morgan Livingston; Golden Arrow Award recipients, Debbie and John Luffey. MONROE, LA The University of Louisiana Monroe Alumni Association honored John and Debbie Luffey and Morgan Livingston at its annual Good Morning Gala on Saturday, October 8 at Bayou Pointe Event Center during Homecoming festivities. The annual brunch honors recipients of the prestigious Golden Arrow and Rising Young Alumni awards. They are recognized for their commitment, advocacy and dedication to the Alumni Association and to ULM. Alumni and community members nominate the recipients and a committee reviews submissions and announces award winners. Since 1981, the Golden Arrow Award is the highest honor given from the ULM Alumni Association. This award goes to a graduate who has distinguished themselves through personal and professional achievement while serving the Alumni Association above and beyond the call of duty over a period of years. This year the committee was pleased to honor not one, but two alumni John and Debbie Luffey. John Luffey first became acquainted with the university then named Northeast Louisiana State College when his mother took him to class as a baby. He later graduated from Northeast Louisiana University with a degree in Accounting. John has practiced law in Monroe for 46 years and currently serves the ULM Foundation as a board member. Debbie Luffey graduated from the University in Speech and Hearing Therapy and Speech Education. A former president of the Junior League of Monroe, Debbie has served the community in various nonprofits and current serves on the St. Francis Medical Center Foundation Board of Directors. During the nomination process, it was a unanimous decision to award the Golden Arrow to both Debbie and John for their unique contributions to ULM, said Sarah Siereveld, ULM Director of Alumni Affairs. This years Golden Arrow Award was presented by 2021 winner Tag Rome. The Rising Young Alumni Award was established in 2013 and is given to an alumnus who is involved in community organizations and philanthropy, a general supporter of his or her community and actively seeks ways to positively impact ULM programs and influence others on behalf of ULM. This year, the Alumni Association recognized Morgan Livingston. Morgan Livingston graduated from ULM in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology. He is an attorney at Hudson, Potts & Bernstein and is the representative of the firms title company, Hudson Lane Title Company, LLC. Livingston is an active member of the ULM Alumni Association and says his favorite memories from college are tailgating in the Grove. Livingston was recently appointed to represent the 4th Judicial District in the Louisiana Bar Association House of Delegates. Livingston has also been named one of Northeast Louisianas Top 20 Under 40 Young Professionals and is a graduate of Leadership Ouachita. Morgan is a strong advocate for this community and our university, said Chris Williams, ULM Director of Student Development. This years Rising Young Alumni Award was presented by 2021 winner DeAndre Alexander. More than 64,000 ULM alumni work, serve and change lives across the world. To join the ULM Alumni Association, visit alumni.ulm.edu to sign up. Membership starts at just $35 and gives graduates access to the worldwide alumni network database, informational newsletters to stay connected to ULM and discounts to local, regional and national businesses. A displaced man rests in a community shelter in Bandundu, the capital of Kwilu Province. UNHCR/Simon Lubuku UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is alarmed by a surge of deadly intercommunal violence which has displaced thousands since July in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's western locality of Kwamouth. Clashes reportedly started over customary taxes on agricultural land use between the Teke and Yaka communities. More than 142 people have been killed, including some who were beheaded. As of 6 October, some 27,000 most of them women and children have been displaced by the violence and need urgent assistance in Kwilu and Mai Ndombe provinces. Another 2,600 people have sought refuge in the Republic of the Congo after crossing the Congo River in canoes. Many have become separated from family members during their flight. Heavy rains have made getting to safety more difficult for civilians, and several key routes have become impassable to humanitarian vehicles delivering life-saving assistance. Families remain traumatized by the sudden and violent clashes that erupted in the past weeks. They told our teams that they fled for their lives and found refuge in the surrounding forest with their children. Many have left their farms and fields and abandoned their harvests in the granaries. The displaced continue to feel vulnerable because their survival depends on the goodwill of others, including host families and the authorities. The government has negotiated with local leaders and has deployed DR Congos army to Kwamouth to restore order. However, the security situation remains tense. Many families who were living in Kwamouth and surrounding villages have left the area as the conflict was quickly spreading. They walked for days before reaching safety in Bandundu, the capital of Kwilu Province, 245 kilometers from Kwamouth town. Kwamouth town and several surrounding villages are now partly abandoned. Host families in Bandundu and other towns have been welcoming those forced to flee, with several local chiefs leading by example. One of them is hosting 28 people, including a woman who underwent a caesarean section in the hospital in Bandundu shortly after the clashes and a young man who was injured during the fighting. Another host family that the assessment team visited is accommodating 77 people with just one toilet for all. The living conditions are precarious, with host families resources quickly running out. Households have begun rationing and some eat only one meal a day. The provincial governments in Mai Ndombe and Kwilu have established a crisis coordination committee and a multi-sectoral government-level plan to address needs. UNHCR and partners are scaling up support. UNHCR is dispatching tarpaulins to building community shelters in Bandundu and is ready to support other priority needs for shelter, household items and protection. In the Republic of the Congo, local communities and authorities have welcomed the arriving asylum-seekers. UNHCR is supporting authorities at the border, including by registering new arrivals and providing assistance. Once in the Republic of the Congo, many asylum-seekers are received by host families. However, more than half are living in precarious conditions, some sleeping in the open air, while others have erected makeshift shelters. Those with host families face crowded conditions. Food is scarce. Over 30 malnourished children have been identified by local health staff, including one child with severe malnutrition who was referred to the nearest hospital in Gamboma. UNHCR is calling on the international community to support efforts to ease tensions in Kwamouth and alleviate the suffering of those affected by the violence. The latest displacement in the DRC exacerbates an already severely underfunded response to assist the 521,000 refugees and more than 5.5 million internally displaced people from the country. Just 40 per cent of the US$225.4 million required has been funded. In the Republic of the Congo, UNHCR has only received 16 per cent of the requested US$37.4 million needed for its refugee response in 2022. For more information on this topic, please contact: By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijan and Switzerland have discussed the opportunities for cooperation in the alternative energy sector, Azernews reports. The discussion took place during a meeting between Azerbaijan's Small and Medium Business Development Agency Board Chairman Orkhan Mammadov and the Swiss Kromatix SA company, which is a member of the Swiss-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Director-General Rafic Hanbali. During the meeting, the parties discussed the application of the company's technologies in projects implemented in Azerbaijan and support in finding local partners in this sector. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on January 21, 1992. Azerbaijan and Switzerland cooperate in various economic sectors. There is mutually beneficial cooperation between Baku and Bern in the non-oil sector. In addition, Baku will host a meeting of the Commission on Trade and Economic relations between Switzerland and Azerbaijan in 2022. The trade turnover between the two nations amounted to $457.2m in 2021, with exports accounting for $272.5m and imports for $184.7m. Moscow, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Oct, 2022 ) :Minsk said Tuesday that a contingent of Belarusian troops deploying alongside Russian forces was a "purely defensive" grouping whose aim was to defend the borders of the ex-Soviet republic closely aligned with Russia. "We emphasise once again that the tasks of the Regional Grouping of Forces are purely defensive. And all activities carried out at the moment are aimed at providing a sufficient response to actions near our borders," Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin was cited as saying in a statement. Earlier this week the strongman leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who is a close personal ally to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, announced the countries had deployed forces together but did not specify where. He said the formation of these troops coincided with an explosion on a bridge linking Crimea to Russia -- a blast that Moscow has blamed on Ukraine. The deployment has raised fears that Belarusian troops could join Russian forces in their struggling mission to capture and hold territory in east Ukraine. However the head of Belarus' Security Council Alexander Volfovich said Tuesday those concerns were unwarranted and said Western countries were considering attacking Belarus on that pretext. "In the West, unfortunately, the opinion is being implanted that the Belarusian army may enter into a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine," he was cited as saying by the defence ministry. "European countries are already openly considering possible options for aggression against our country. In the highest echelons of power in Ukraine, the possibility of striking at Belarus is also being discussed," he added. Belarus relies financially and politically on its key ally Russia. Lukashenko allowed Russian troops into the country under the pretext of military exercises in the months before Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine. bur/jmm (@FahadShabbir) Geneva, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Oct, 2022 ) :Heatwaves will become so extreme in certain regions of the world within decades that human life there will be unsustainable, the United Nations and the Red Cross said Monday. Heatwaves are predicted to "exceed human physiological and social limits" in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and south and southwest Asia, with extreme events triggering "large-scale suffering and loss of life", the organisations said. Heatwave catastrophes this year in countries like Somalia and Pakistan foreshadow a future with deadlier, more frequent, and more intense heat-related humanitarian emergencies, they warned in a joint report. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released the report in advance of next month's COP27 climate change summit in Egypt. "We don't want to dramatise it, but clearly the data shows that it does lead towards a very bleak future," said IFRC secretary-general Jagan Chapagain. They said aggressive steps needed to be taken immediately to avert potentially recurrent heat disasters, listing steps that could mitigate the worst effects of extreme heat. - Limits of survival - "There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive," the report said. "There are also likely to be levels of extreme heat beyond which societies may find it practically impossible to deliver effective adaptation for all. "On current trajectories, heatwaves could meet and exceed these physiological and social limits in the coming decades, including in regions such as the Sahel and south and southwest Asia." It warned that the impact of this would be "large-scale suffering and loss of life, population movements and further entrenched inequality." The report said extreme heat was a "silent killer", claiming thousands of lives each year as the deadliest weather-related hazard -- and the dangers were set to grow at an "alarming rate" due to climate change. According to a study cited by the report, the number of poor people living in extreme heat conditions in urban areas will jump by 700 percent by 2050, particularly in west Africa and southeast Asia. "Projected future death rates from extreme heat are staggeringly high -- comparable in magnitude by the end of the century to all cancers or all infectious diseases -- and staggeringly unequal," the report said. Agricultural workers, children, the elderly and pregnant and breastfeeding women are at higher risk of illness and death, the report claimed. "As the climate crisis goes unchecked, extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and floods, are hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest," said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths. "The humanitarian system is not equipped to handle crisis of this scale on our own." - 'Previously unimaginable' - Chapagain urged countries at COP27 to invest in climate adaptation and mitigation in the regions most at risk. OCHA and the IFRC suggested five main steps to help combat the impact of extreme heatwaves, including providing early information to help people and authorities react in time, and finding new ways of financing local-level action. They also included humanitarian organisations testing more "thermally-appropriate" emergency shelter and "cooling centres", while getting communities to alter their development planning to take account of likely extreme heat impacts. OCHA and the IFRC said there were limits to extreme heat adaptation measures. Some, such as increasing energy-intensive air conditioning, are costly, environmentally unsustainable and contribute themselves to climate change. If emissions of the greenhouse gases which cause climate change are not aggressively reduced, the world will face "previously unimaginable levels of extreme heat". Jakarta, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Oct, 2022 ) :The last surviving bomber in the Bali blasts that killed more than 200 people two decades ago has expressed regret for the deadliest terror attack in Southeast Asia ahead of its 20th anniversary on Wednesday, but victims have rejected his apology. Ali Imron was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the blasts that ripped through a nightclub and a bar on the Indonesian resort island, killing 202 people including 88 Australians. "I will regret it until I die. And I will apologise until I die," he told AFP uncuffed in front of an Indonesian flag and a picture of President Joko Widodo at Jakarta's sprawling metro police headquarters. But victims and the Australian government have refused to accept the remorse of the remaining members of the Bali bomb cell. "When people are in a bind they will say anything to get out of the problem," said Thiolina Marpaung, a 47-year-old survivor left with permanent eye injuries. (@FahadShabbir) British High Commissioner, Dr Christian Turner on Tuesday expressed his grief over the devastation caused by floods in Pakistan and offered sincere condolence to the families of the victims RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Oct, 2022 ) :British High Commissioner, Dr Christian Turner on Tuesday expressed his grief over the devastation caused by floods in Pakistan and offered sincere condolence to the families of the victims. The British High Commissioner called on Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa here at GHQ. During the meeting, matters of mutual interest and regional security situation including bilateral cooperation in various fields were discussed, said a news release issued by Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR). Talking to the British High Commission, the COAS said Pakistan valued the UK's balanced role in regional affairs and looked forward to enhance mutually beneficial relationship based on common interests. The dignitary appreciated Pakistan's efforts for regional stability and also pledged to play his role enhancing cooperation with Pakistan at all levels. (@Abdulla99267510) Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will address the plenary meeting of CICA on Thursday. ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Oct 11th, 2022) Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif participates in the 6th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia being held in Astana, Kazakhstan from Wednesday. He will be accompanied by members of the Cabinet and senior officials in the two days conference. The Prime Minister will address the plenary meeting of CICA on Thursday. He will elaborate upon the significance of CICA as a unique forum for promoting interaction, understanding and collaboration amongst countries across Asia to address common challenges. The Prime Minister will also highlight Pakistans perspective on regional and global issues. On the sidelines of the Summit, the Prime Minister will hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of various CICA Member States aimed at fostering greater cooperation, particularly in the fields of trade, investment and energy. CICA is an intergovernmental process comprising 27 countries from all across Asia. Established in 1992, it focuses on promoting peace, security and socio-economic development in the Asian continent. Pakistan is one of its founding members. CICA offers an invaluable platform for advancing the objectives of regional stability and prosperity through dialogue and win-win cooperation. It promotes confidence building measures under five broad domains: economic dimension, environmental dimension, human dimension, new challenges and threats, and military-political dimension. The Prime Ministers participation in the CICA Summit attests to the importance attached by Pakistan to promoting connectivity and economic cooperation in Asia, in keeping with the objectives enshrined in the CICA Charter. (@FahadShabbir) MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) The government of Belarus has instructed the Foreign Ministry to hold talks with Russia on a draft memorandum of understanding on biological security issues and sign it, according to a resolution of the Belarusian Council of Ministers published on the national legal portal. The Russian government in July instructed the Russian Foreign Ministry to sign a memorandum of understanding with Belarus on biosecurity issues. "The Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus rules to approve the draft memorandum of understanding between the government of the Republic of Belarus and the government of the Russian Federation on issues of ensuring biological security as a basis for talks," according to the document. Chad's Prime Minister of the transitional government, Albert Pahimi Padacke, resigned to pave the way for a new government after the country decided to postpone the elections for two years, the office of President Mahamat Idris Deby Itno said on Tuesday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) Chad's Prime Minister of the transitional government, Albert Pahimi Padacke, resigned to pave the way for a new government after the country decided to postpone the elections for two years, the office of President Mahamat Idris Deby Itno said on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Padacke handed in his resignation at a meeting with Deby, who was sworn in as president for the transition period on Monday. "During this audience, the prime minister thanked the president for the trust placed in him to lead the first stage of the transition period... and submitted his resignation to the president, wishing him good luck in leading the country in the second stage of the transition period," the communique said. In April 2021, long-ruling Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno died from wounds sustained in clashes with rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad. Following his death, the country's military established the Transitional Military Council set to rule for 18 months until new elections were held. The council was headed by 37-year-old General Mahamat Idris Deby Itno, the son of the deceased president. As that deadline approached, a nationwide forum organized by Deby junior set a new 24-month time frame for holding the elections, and proclaimed him Chad's interim president on October 8. PRAGUE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) The Czech Republic does not plan to recall its diplomats from Ukraine and close its diplomatic missions in the country, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said. "We do not plan to close our diplomatic missions in Ukraine, our embassy in Kiev is working. We have taken all the necessary security measures. The embassy is guarded by a special team that coordinates its work with Ukrainian representatives. There are no plans to evacuate embassy personnel in connection with the events of Monday," Lipavsky told Ukrinform. At the same time, he recalled that the Czech Foreign Ministry after February 24 recommended that all citizens of the republic leave the territory of Ukraine, adding that the recommendation remains in force. In Ukraine, the Czech Republic, in addition to the embassy in Kiev, also has a consulate general in Lviv. Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the Russian Security Council on Monday, said Moscow has made precision strikes on infrastructure facilities across Ukraine in the morning. Putin called the recent blast on Russia's Crimean Bridge a Ukrainian terrorist attack aimed at destroying Russian civilian infrastructure. According to him, Kiev has put itself on a par with the most odious terrorist groups, and it is impossible to leave the crimes of the Kiev regime unanswered any longer. In addition, according to Putin, Ukraine committed three terrorist attacks against the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and tried to blow up the TurkStream gas pipeline. (@FahadShabbir) The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) said on Tuesday that they are "deeply troubled" by the deliberate damage caused to Russia's Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and welcome the ongoing investigations into the matter WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) said on Tuesday that they are "deeply troubled" by the deliberate damage caused to Russia's Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and welcome the ongoing investigations into the matter. "We are deeply troubled by the deliberate damage to the Nordstream pipelines in international waters in the Baltic Sea and strongly condemn any deliberate disruption of critical infrastructure," the G7 said in a joint statement. "We welcome ongoing investigations." The leaders of the G7 held a virtual meeting earlier in the day in response to Russia's most intense missile strikes in months on Kiev and other Ukrainian cities. Russia launched the strikes in retaliation for what is believed to be a Ukrainian attack last Saturday on the bridge linking Russia with Crimea. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee rejected on Tuesday US calls to act upon a Russian-owned superyacht anchored in the city's waters, saying there was "no legal basis" to enforce unilateral sanctions on Russia's billionaires HONG KONG (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee rejected on Tuesday US calls to act upon a Russian-owned superyacht anchored in the city's waters, saying there was "no legal basis" to enforce unilateral sanctions on Russia's billionaires. "We cannot do and we will not do anything that has no legal basis," Lee said during a press conference. He said Hong Kong only had the legal basis to comply with UN sanctions. Named Nord, the superyacht is believed to be owned by Russian tycoon Alexei Mordashov, who is facing US, EU, and UK sanctions amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It arrived in Hong Kong on October 5 from Vladivostok, Russia and has since been docked in the city's harbor. The US State Dept warned Monday that Hong Kong risked damaging its business reputation if it offered a safe haven to parties seeking to evade sanctions. DUSHANBE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) A delegation from Kyrgyzstan arrived in Tajikistan on Tuesday to participate in the meeting of the Tajik-Kyrgyz intergovernmental commission on delimitation and demarcation of the border in Dushanbe, the administration of the Tajik northern region of Sughd said. "The agenda of the negotiations, which will take place throughout the next four days, will be the demarcation of the joint border between the states," the administration said. Large-scale clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border flared up on September 14. On September 16, Kyrgyzstan announced that the fighting had spread along the entire border line, accusing Tajikistan of shelling and escalating the situation. As a result of the clashes, Kyrgyzstan reported at least 63 people dead and 198 injured, while Tajikistan said 41 people were killed and 30 injured. On September 25, both countries agreed to cease fire and facilitate the process of border delimitation and demarcation. WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) Russian Ambassador to Ottawa Oleg Stepanov told reporters on Monday that Russia has demanded that Ottawa boost security of the diplomatic buildings in Canada after the incident with the Molotov cocktail last month, however, has seen no desire on the part of Canada to take preventive measures to secure the diplomatic missions. "As for employees in Montreal and Toronto, we are mobilized inside, we try to protect the perimeters of our missions on our own, and we are in contact with the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, mounted police and municipal authorities. We demand from the Canadian side that the security regime of our diplomatic missions be strengthened," Stepanov said. The diplomat noted that the Canadian side says that their patrols in the areas of the Russian diplomatic missions are enough to ensure security. "But we say that this is not so. The consequences can be catastrophic, the police arrive in a few minutes, we see no desire on the Canadian side to take preventive steps to protect our diplomatic missions from such terrorist attacks," he said, adding that a police car stationed near the diplomatic mission is needed. "We explain our logic to the Canadian side that in any moments, throwing eggs, Molotov cocktails, none of the perpetrators were apprehended," Stepanov shared. "They come after (an incident) and can only testify to the damage, and we, Russia, as the responsible party to the Vienna Convention, we protect all diplomats in Moscow all the time. Here very often there is no police. We try to ensure the safety of our employees, our families on our own. living and working here is not easy." With regards to the incident with the Molotov cocktail in September, Stepanov said that the Canadian police are investigating the incident but no interim results have been provided. Stepanov told Sputnik in September that Russian officials have provided Canadian police with video footage of a Molotov cocktail attack on Russia's embassy in Ottawa and expected that a thorough investigation would be conducted. In the end of September, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Canadian ambassador in Moscow Alison LeClaire and issued a strong demarche over the attack on the Russian embassy in Ottawa. LeClaire was notified that Russia strongly objects to the criminal actions of the unidentified person who threw the Molotov cocktail onto the territory of the Russian embassy in Ottawa. The ministry also conveyed its strong protest regarding another incident that saw aggressive demonstrators block access to the service entrance of the consular department at the Russian embassy while a police squad that had arrived to the scene failed to act. The ministry also demanded that Canada take immediate measures to ensure the security of Russian diplomatic missions. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu discussed by phone with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar the situation in Ukraine, including the exports of grain from Ukrainian ports under tha "food deal," as well as Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu discussed by phone with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar the situation in Ukraine, including the exports of grain from Ukrainian ports under tha "food deal," as well as Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. "On October 11, 2022, a phone conversation was held between the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. During the talks, the state and prospects of bilateral relations, issues of regional security, as well as the situation in Ukraine and Syria were discussed," the statement says. The ministers reviewed the progress of the project for the export of grain from Ukrainian ports in direct connection with the implementation of agreements on the export of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers. "The Turkish side reaffirmed its readiness to provide comprehensive assistance in resolving the situation in Ukraine through diplomatic means," the ministry said. In addition, during the conversation, the importance of interaction to prevent the terrorist threat in Syria, as well as the readiness to comply with all agreements reached on this issue, was noted. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) The Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group (banned in Russia) shelled Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone twice over the past 24 hours, Maj. Gen. Oleg Yegorov, deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, said at a briefing. "Two shelling attacks from the positions of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group were registered in the Idlib de-escalation zone over the past day," Maj. Gen. Yegorov said. "One attack in Aleppo province, one in Latakia," he said. The Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides and Control over the Movement of Refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic was established in February 2016. Its tasks include the signing of agreements on illegal armed groups and individual settlements joining the regime of cessation of hostilities, as well as coordinating the delivery of humanitarian aid. (@ChaudhryMAli88) KHERSON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) A total of 320 tonnes of humanitarian cargoes from the Russian government arrived in the Kherson Region, mainly medicines, personal protective equipment for doctors and vaccines, the regional Ministry of Health said in a statement. "With the support of the Russian Health Ministry, our region received another batch of humanitarian medical aid from the Russian government - 320 tonnes," it said. The ministry said these are mainly medicines for oncological, surgical, traumatological and endocrinological treatment. The general list of humanitarian aid also includes personal protective equipment for medical staff: insulating suits, masks, gloves, shoe covers and respirators. US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking will travel to Yemen on Tuesday to support the UN-led negotiations aimed at bringing Yemeni parties to an agreement on extending the truce in the country, the US State Department said in a statement on Tuesday WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking will travel to Yemen on Tuesday to support the UN-led negotiations aimed at bringing Yemeni parties to an agreement on extending the truce in the country, the US State Department said in a statement on Tuesday. "US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking will travel to the region starting October 11 to support intensive, UN-led negotiations with the Yemeni parties to reach agreement on a truce extension and expansion, for the sake of Yemenis," the statement said. According to the State Department, the Houthis will get an opportunity to support an expanded truce agreement that is highly supported by the US. "(The agreement) would provide millions of Yemenis with immediate relief, including much-needed civil servant salary payments, opening roads to and through Taiz and across the country, more flight destinations from Sanaa, and a path to a durable, inclusive Yemen-led peace process, that includes Yemenis' calls for justice, accountability, and redress for human rights violations and abuses," it said. In April, a two-month ceasefire was declared in Yemen under the auspices of the United Nations and with the support of the parties to the conflict. In early August, the warring sides agreed to extend the truce by two months to negotiate an expanded truce agreement. The State Department said earlier that the United States is concerned by the recent Houthi actions that undermine the truce and called on the Houthis to continue to honor the commitments they undertook on August 1 under the terms of the truce. A truce expansion would pave the way for a permanent ceasefire and durable Yemen-led resolution of the conflict in the country that addresses the concerns of the people, according to the State Department. WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) Senior defense officials from the United States, France, Germany and the UK have discussed support for Ukraine ahead of the upcoming meeting of NATO defense ministers, the Pentagon said in a statement. "Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl participated in a meeting hosted by French Ministry of the Armed Forces Director General for International Relations and Strategy Alice Guitton, joined by German Federal Ministry of Defense Director General for Security and Defense Policy Jasper Wieck and UK Ministry of Defence Director General Security Policy Paul Wyatt in Paris, France, Oct. 7," according to the statement. "The leaders previewed the forthcoming NATO Defense Ministerial, discussing a range of security challenges facing the Alliance. They underscored the importance of Alliance unity and reaffirmed unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. They also discussed developments related to mutual security interests, including in the middle East, Africa, and Indo-Pacific region," the US Department of Defense said. It said Kahl, Guitton, Wieck and Wyatt agreed to remain in touch on important issues. WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th October, 2022) The United States has imposed visa restrictions against officials of the Taliban (under UN sanctions for terrorism) and other individuals responsible for repressing Afghan women and girls, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. "Today I am announcing a visa restriction policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to restrict the issuance of visas for current or former Taliban members, members of non-state security groups, and other individuals believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, repressing women and girls in Afghanistan through restrictive policies and violence," Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday. The United States calls on other world governments to take similar action as well, Blinken said. Blinken said the Taliban have restricted access to secondary or higher education in Afghanistan for girls and women, preventing their full participation in the workforce and their ability to choose their careers, and restricting women's movement, expression, or privacy, The Secretary of State also said the Taliban have also engaged in violence and harassment including unjust arrest and detention of women, girls, or their family members for noncompliance with discriminatory policies. There will be a new king of the Omaha skyline, and it will bear the lion logo of Mutual of Omaha. Mutuals new headquarters in the heart of downtown will become the citys tallest building when it opens in 2026, company CEO James Blackledge said in an interview last week. The now-completed construction plans for the $600 million, 44-story skyscraper call for it to rise 677 feet. Thats 43 feet taller than First National Bank Tower, which has been the citys tallest structure for the past two decades. Blackledge said constructing the citys tallest building was not an objective of the company as it launched its pursuit of a new headquarters. But he said Mutual is proud to add to the citys skyline and the energy and vitality of the citys downtown core. I think people see skylines and it does create an impression of all the things we want Omaha to be perceived as a vibrant, growing, thriving place where people can live and work and prosper, he said. Indeed, the Fortune 500 insurers new skyscraper figures to reshape downtown Omaha, and in more ways than one. Urban planning experts say downtown skylines help define a city. Tall buildings become powerful symbols of a citys stature and growth, their gravity-defying reach for the clouds embodying human aspirations to achieve new heights. An iconic tall building enhances the global image of the city ... signaling and promoting its significant economic progress and advancement, wrote Kheir Al-Kodmany, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Mutual of Omaha tower represents the first significant addition to downtown Omahas skyline in a generation. It also may be the largest single infusion of workers into Omahas downtown core. The move of Mutual of Omahas metro workforce of 4,000 into downtown dovetails with an ambitious chamber of commerce goal of pulling 30,000 additional jobs and 30,000 new residents into Omahas urban core over the next two decades. In addition, the Mutual building is serving as a catalyst for a proposed downtown-to-midtown streetcar system. Mayor Jean Stothert in January pledged her support for the $306 million, 3-mile streetcar line, which was announced in conjunction with Mutuals plan to anchor its headquarters downtown. The two projects are now linked by a development agreement signed by the city and Mutual that obligates the city to follow through on the streetcar plan if the building goes up as planned. Newly released images of the Mutual of Omaha building show it towering over the block bounded by Douglas, Farnam, 14th and 15th Streets that for decades was home to Omahas main library. The skyscrapers east windows stare down the newly revamped Gene Leahy Mall and to the rest of the riverfront beyond. Another image depicts the citys new skyline looking south from the airport drive, with Omahas three tallest buildings all aligned: the Mutual tower, First Nationals and the headquarters tower for WoodmenLife. On Friday, the first visible steps toward the construction of Mutual of Omahas new tower could be seen. Demolition of the former library was underway, with a front-end loader hauling piles of debris out of the old buildings busted-out west doors. Other city plans call for opening a new downtown library branch on Jones Street and building a new main city library at 72nd and Dodge. Formal construction of the Mutual building is set to start in January and finish sometime in 2026 the same year the streetcar line is supposed to start running. The new Mutual building will not only be the tallest in Omaha, but also the tallest in a multi-state region. Among states surrounding Nebraska, only Denver has buildings that rise higher. While Blackledge said hes excited that the building will arguably become the tallest between Chicago and Denver, hes equally excited about what it will mean for Mutuals workers. Its designed to bring workers together in ways that foster teamwork, engagement and innovation while also including amenities that can help the company keep and attract talent. Particular highlights include a first-floor lobby atrium that will beckon the public, a sky lobby with services for employees and top-floor meeting spaces with 360-degree views of the city. Part of the spirit of this is how we bring people together, Blackledge said. We believe it will truly be a beacon for our associates, for new generations of talent, and for the community. * * * Mutual of Omaha, based near 33rd and Dodge Streets for more than eight decades, for years has been studying its facilities needs and pondering a potential new headquarters. Mutual was approached more than a year ago by developer Jason Lanoha, who proposed the insurance company build its new headquarters downtown. Blackledge said it certainly would have been cheaper for the company to build on vacant ground somewhere in the suburbs. But he said Mutual of Omahas board liked the idea of investing in the future of downtown and locating in the heart of the city. Omaha is in our name, Blackledge said. We bought in early to what we see as the positive economic impact of this project. Initially, Lanohas focus was to locate the tower on the long-vacant block it owned at 14th and Dodge, site of the former Union Pacific headquarters. Lanoha also suggested that Mutual of Omaha ask the city if it would be willing to reroute its developing streetcar system to include the new headquarters site along its path. So Mutual approached the city in September 2021 with just such a plan. At the time, the city was in the process of relocating the downtown library and quietly considering half a dozen potential developments for the site. Rather than mess with the streetcar route, the city instead offered up the library site to Mutual. Blackledge and Stothert jointly announced plans for Mutuals new headquarters in January. But up until now, its precise number of stories and height were not known. Those couldnt be determined until the companys exact space needs were determined and plans for the buildings specifications drawn up. That planning is now complete. Mutuals 677-foot tower will top the 634-foot First National Bank Tower, which has been the citys tallest since it opened in 2002. First Nationals tower can still lay claim to having the most stories 45, which is one more than the new Mutual building. Mutuals will be taller in part because its floors will be spaced farther apart, the result of a modern air-handling system thats among the buildings features. Blackledge said other features of the building will include: A sky lobby that will greet associates as they enter from the parking facility. Located on floors 16 through 20, it will feature a variety of food services, a fitness center, employee wellness services, a technical support center to service employees laptops and other devices, and meeting spaces. The three lower floors of the sky lobby will feature outdoor terraces with sweeping views of downtown, outdoor dining, meeting and fitness spaces. The 44th floor will offer views in all directions from a two-story atrium and hold large conference rooms and other meeting spaces. The public street-level lobby will feature displays paying homage to the companys history, the services it offers and impact. A parking garage extending up through the 15th floor can hold 2,200 vehicles. The city has agreed to pay nearly $100 million for the garage, recouping the expense by leasing the spaces to Mutual employees during the day and to downtown visitors during off-hours. Blackledge said city ownership and shared public-private use of the garage is more efficient and will benefit both Mutual of Omaha and the city. I know people will look at that and say, The city is just giving you a parking garage, Blackledge said. Well, no, the city is building a parking garage, and were going to lease it from them. The city is in the parking business, and they do it pretty well, its my understanding. I think thats a win-win. At 800,000 square feet, the new headquarters will be half the size of Mutuals current 1.7 million-square-foot campus. Blackledge said thats taking into account that the work-from-home and hybrid work models induced by the pandemic will continue into the future. Its believed only about 2,400 of the companys workers will be in the building on any given day. Some workers will have formal desks. Others who primarily work from home will have shared hoteling space when in the office. Blackledge said the company worked closely with its design partners to create a headquarters that is appropriately sized, designed to foster collaboration, and adaptable to new ways of working that could emerge in the future. Blackledge said the building will also be more cost-efficient to operate than the companys current headquarters. The building wont have an executive floor. Senior leaders will be positioned near the workers of the divisions they oversee. Blackledge is not even sure there will be a formal CEOs office. During the pandemic, he said, hes become used to putting a laptop in a backpack and roaming around Mutuals current headquarters, interacting with other executives and workers. Im really loving it, he said. Theres nothing so far where anyone has tried to design an office for me. Mutual has a number of partners on the project in addition to the city and Lanoha Real Estate. Mutual is working with a design team that includes global architecture firm HOK; design architect Pickard Chilton of New Haven, Connecticut; architect of record Kendall/Heaton Associates of Houston; and Omahas Alvine Engineering. JE Dunn Construction Group, a major construction company whose primary office is in Kansas City, is the general contractor. For its part, the city has advanced numerous pieces of the project. The City Council approved $1 million to demolish and prepare the library site, passed some $60 million in tax-increment financing to help Mutual pay for public improvements related to the project, and backed the development agreement. Blackledge said he has not yet spoken to Clark Lauritzen, president of First National, to break the news of the size of Mutuals building. We were never in an arms race to build the biggest one, Blackledge said. In fact, if someone else wants to one day add a taller one to Omahas skyline, Blackledge said, thats all the better. SAN DIEGO, CA Utah Valley University (UVU) received the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) Outstanding Member Institution award on Oct. 9 at the HACU national conference in San Diego. Dr. Kyle A. Reyes, vice president of institutional advancement, accepted the award on behalf of the university. We believe in inclusive education, said Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez, president of Utah Valley University. We especially focus on creating opportunities for those who are underrepresented. Since its inception in 2007, the Latino Initiative has increased UVUs Hispanic enrollment by 398% and graduation by 724%. UVU has the largest Latino student enrollment among four-year higher education institutions in Utah. Dr. Reyes is part of that success; before his recent roles, he served as UVUs chief diversity officer and developed our nationally recognized, campus-wide strategic inclusion and diversity plan. The 36th annual conference was themed Championing Hispanic Higher Education Success: Rebuilding a More Resilient and Inclusive America. The HACU award was established to honor institutions that provide extraordinary support for HACUs mission and to recognize these institutions' efforts to facilitate educational success among Latino students. Part of HACUs mission is to improve: access to and the quality of post-secondary educational opportunities for Hispanic students. We are so grateful for the support from HACU as we continue to serve our growing and diverse communities, Reyes said. It was an honor to accept this distinguished award on behalf of Utah Valley University. Inclusivity is among our founding pillars. We have led the way in initiatives to open the door to success for everyone. We are especially proud of the Latino Scientists of Tomorrow Summer Bridge Program and its success in helping students envision a future and providing the tools they need to achieve their goals. HACU will also recognize UVUs collaboration with HACU and Dominion Energy to replicate UVUs Latino Scientists of Tomorrow Summer Bridge Program at six universities across the United States and Puerto Rico. Dr. Yudi Lewis, former program director of the Latino Initiative, will be honored for her role in creating the program. Now in its 13th year at UVU, the Latino Scientists of Tomorrow Summer Bridge Program is designed to assist Latinos and other students in becoming scientists, engineers, and business leaders. Each summer, approximately 50 tenth- and eleventh-grade students across Utah participate in the seven-week course on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Through the program, students explore science fields such as biotechnology and geology. All students should have access to a quality education and be provided with the skills to achieve exciting new career opportunities," said Carter Reid, executive vice president and chief of staff for Dominion Energy. This is a step toward improving equity for Hispanic students and increasing diversity in STEM careers. Students can earn three to six college credits by participating in the Latino Scientists of Tomorrow Summer Bridge Program and are surrounded by success teams, which include parents, mentors, and faculty. To date, more than 450 students have completed the program. In 2021 alone, 134 students from 42 Utah high schools and two out-of-state schools graduated from the program. The Catholic University of Zimbabwe has opened its eighth satellite campus in Victoria Falls town, Hwange Diocese. Leonard Ncube - Hwange, Zimbabwe. Enrolment at the Catholic University of Zimbabwe (CUZ) Hwange campus academic programmes has started in earnest at the Dioceses St Josephine Bakhita Primary School. The Hwange Diocese campus In a Diocesan update, the Bishop of Hwange Diocese, Raphael Macebo Mabuza Ncube, said the diocese had welcomed the university. The Diocese has welcomed the Catholic University of Zimbabwe into the Diocese, and it has opened its doors in Victoria Falls from where it will, with time, spread to other parts of the Diocese, said Bishop Ncube. He added, St. Josephine Bakhita Primary School will be temporarily used as its Hwange Diocese Campus. CUZ Vice Chancellor Professor Ranga Zinyemba was recently in Victoria Falls, announcing, to parishes, the new diocesan institution. He said the university is already discussing with the Victoria Falls City Council to get land to build a permanent satellite campus in the tourism city. In the meantime, lectures will be conducted at St. Josephine Bakhita until a full campus is built. Towards a student population of 10 000 CUZ is a Catholic Church affiliated university established in 1999 in Harare. It started with just over 200 pioneer students. The overall student population has since grown to over 2 500. The opening of the eighth campus is in line with CUZs 10-year strategic plan (2013-2023), whose objective is to grow enrolment to about 10 000 students and open campuses in each of the churchs dioceses countrywide. We had 280 students when we started, and we came up with the Catholic University of Zimbabwe Growth and Development Strategic plan (2013 to 2023) that by the end of next year, we should be in all the eight dioceses and grow enrolment. We have grown 10 times in numbers to over 2 500 students as we target 10 000, said the Vice Chancellor. Already there is a campus in each diocese. These include the Archdioceses of Bulawayo and Harare, Dioceses of Gweru, Gokwe, Chinhoyi, Mutare and Masvingo. Tertiary education closer to the people Spreading to all parts of the country aims to bring tertiary education closer to the people and is in keeping with the Zimbabwean Governments policy of devolution and decentralisation. The university offers four faculties: Commerce, Innovation and Technology; Education, Social Sciences and Humanities; Theology, Ethics, Religious Studies and Philosophy as well as Graduate Studies, Research and Innovation. There have been calls for the institution to introduce tourism-related courses to get direct entry by Victoria Falls residents whose main economy is tourism. From the rise of atheism among young people to massive migration and the pandemic, there are many challenges facing the Church in Chile. The testimonies of the Bishop of La Serena and of the Apostolic Vicar of Aisen in a documentary edited by Father Gaetano Borgo, however, show a strong desire for rebirth, starting from the directives contained in Laudato si'. By Lorenzo Marcato - La Serena* Enclosed on one side by the Andes Mountain range and on the other by the Pacific Ocean, Chile appears as a long, narrow strip of land crossed, from North to South, by different histories, cultures and peoples. Among the main objectives pursued by the local clergy is to accompany such a heterogeneous population helping it to come together as one big Christian family, overcoming diversities and prejudices. Among other things, the Church in Chile has been suffering in recent years from an increase in atheism, especially among young people, while the high percentage of those who say they are Catholics, do not practice their faith and places of worship are more and more empty. Already back in 2017, Father Gaetano Borgo, now the parish priest of Crespano del Grappa in the Italian diocese of Padua, released a reportage produced on behalf of the diocesan missionary centre in the city, highlighting how 'the Chilean Church is, however, an extremely lively community that wants to redeem itself, that wants to be among the people, and become a shepherd among the sheep'. In what way? Through dialogue of course, but also with concrete initiatives that often spring to life in the wake of the Laudato si encyclical. The documentary that tells of this experience of the Chilean Church was produced with the help and contribution of the Archbishop of the Diocese of La Serena, Rene Osvaldo Rebolledo Salinas, and by Bishop Luis Infanti della Mora, Apostolic Vicar of Aisen. Archbishop Rene Osvaldo Rebolledo Salinas with Fr. Gaetano Borgo during the making of the documentary Four pastoral orientations In the documentary made by Fr. Borgo, Archbishop Rene Osvaldo Rebolledo Salinas illustrated the cornerstones on which the commitment of the Archdiocese of La Serena is based, emphasising a number of principles that are widely reflected in the text of Pope Francis: the common good, social peace, circular economy and distributive justice. At the foundation of the Chilean society the greatest pillar is represented by the family, the first domestic church. The desire is to rediscover a united spirit that supports families in adversity, in order to achieve a minimum of collective well-being. The second pillar that sustains the archdiocese of La Serena regards the protection of the dignity of people who are forced to migrate due to environmental causes, disasters, famine, drought, caused mostly by climate change. The Church of Chile has for years welcomed people mainly from Haiti, Peru and Venezuela, offering sustenance and prospects for the future. This sense of solidarity is considered a duty that the faithful of the archdiocese fulfil with energy and optimism. Immigration is also a wealth from a cultural and religious point of view, as pointed out in the documentary by Father Gianluca Roso, a Combonian and former director of the Pontifical Missionary Works in Chile. Many volunteers in the parishes have committed themselves over the years to teaching Spanish to those arriving in the country, so as to facilitate integration and job opportunities. Finally, with regard to the fourth pillar of support, the archdiocese of La Serena is involved in an intense pastoral care of vocations since, in just a few years, there has been a drastic decrease in vocations to the extent that priests and nuns have become a rarity. Inversely proportional to this, the commitment of the laity has increased, so the diocese has intensified its training activities, instituting courses on biblical and liturgical topics. Opening of the synodal process in the Archdiocese of La Serena The diocese of La Serena and care for our common home The cornerstones of the pastoral action of the Archdiocese of La Serena strongly recall the appeals that Pope Francis has disseminated in Laudato si'. Indeed, in the document illustrating the diocese's pastoral plan, explicit reference is made to environmental sustainability, universal solidarity, a commitment to reconciliation with Creation and the vocation to be not masters or predators, but custodians of God's work. When a person stands in this place called La Paloma, Archbishop Rebolledo Salinas explains - referring to the lake area in the Coquimbo region - he cannot help but think of the gift that Pope Francis has given us with Laudato si, in which each person is challenged and each person is invited to act for the good of others, for the good of future generations. So, never have a selfish thought, do not think only of yourself but look also to the future so that the children of this generation and those who will come after us can enjoy this great gift that is nature, which the Lord God has given us in all its extraordinary beauty. With a far-sighted outlook, the archdiocese has focused its commitment to caring for our Common Home, projecting it for the future generations, not only focussing on current emergencies. Bishop Infanti della Mora in Coyhaique Cathedral with the clergy of Aisen The Apostolic Vicariate of Aisen Bishop Luis Infanti de la Mora, Apostolic Vicar of Aisen in southern Chile, also presented an outline of the project activities his community is undertaking in relation to Laudato si after preventing this area of Patagonia from becoming a nuclear waste dump or a territory for massive aluminium production. "I personally drafted the pastoral letter Give us today our daily water, Bishop Infanti della Mora explains, following a long journey undertaken by the Church of Aysen, which lasted three years. During this period, we organised numerous reflection meetings and pastoral days in which we discussed very concrete environmental issues such as water and energy. In the wake of these meetings, we decided to celebrate some care for Creation days, such as Water and Environment Day, and we established the 'Creation Day', which was later extended worldwide by Pope Francis. The Christian community of Aysen expanded its awareness-raising efforts for the care of our Common Home by convening the Agora de ninos y ninas de la Patagonia in 2019, a meeting that resulted in a Manifesto that highlights, among other things, the issue of environmental sustainability, and the development of a project supported by the German institution Misereor aimed at encouraging home economics through the recovery of traditional knowledge, including the therapeutic properties of medicinal plants. In connection with what is indicated in Laudato si, the Christian community of Aysen has also given life to programmes to welcome the many migrants caused by the climate crisis from Haiti, Venezuela and Colombia, providing them with assistance and, in some cases, even housing. Bishop Infanti della Mora in Patagonia Contributing to the new Chilean Constitution "Beginning with Pope Francis invitation contained in Laudato si number 49, the Apostolic Vicar said, that is, to listen both to the cry of the earth and to the cry of the poor, we have elaborated our own reflection called 'poverty is not accidental' in which we explain how the lack of material and spiritual goods is also the result of social systems that increasingly marginalise people. In Chile, the ecological issue is strongly felt, so we also offered our contribution to the drafting of the new Constitution by proposing topics related to environmental sustainability. In particular, we focused on the care and management of water as a common good, trying to protect it from private initiative, which here in Chile enjoys a great deal of autonomy. Compared to before the pandemic, we have gained a new awareness of the good relationship that should exist between man and the planet: the Earth has shown us that it can live without us, but we need it to live. *Cube Radio - Salesian University Institute Venice and Verona Demonstration in solidarity with Iranian women, in Santiago An Iranian human rights group claims Iranian security forces have shot at protesters in two Kurdish cities. By Nathan Morley An Iranian human rights group has claimed Iranian security forces have shot at protesters in two Kurdish cities. Demonstrations have swept Iran since mid-September following the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman held in police custody for allegedly flouting strict laws that force women to cover their hair with a hijab. Her family claim that she died as a result of police brutality. Authorities deny the accusation. Now, the Iranian human rights group Hengaw has tweeted that security forces have been shooting at protesters in Sanandaj and Saqqez. Hengaw also said riot police were using tear gas. Rights groups say more than 150 people have been killed during protests since the death of Amini last month. Earlier, France urged its citizens to leave the country for fear of being detained arbitrarily in Tehrans crackdown on protesters. At the same time, the Dutch government has urged its nationals to leave Iran and advised against all travel to the country. The warning came just hours after the European Parliament backed a resolution condemning the death of Amini. Four years ago, Jon Herron experienced a retinal detachment in his right eye. Last year, he faced a cancer diagnosis in his left. So his doctor told me that the best way to describe it is no vision out of your right eye, Lori Herron, Jons wife, said. If you look at your left eye through a little pinhole, that's about what he can see. A ten millimeter tumor grew inside his eye, sending him to specialists across the area. The two things that we do with cancer is you have to fight it, Jon said, and the other one is you have to learn what caused it and how to possibly prevent it from happening to other people. Jons brother died nine years ago of prostate cancer. His father also died young. My dad was a POW in World War II in Japan, he said. So literally, he faded away to about 71 pounds after four years of not being fed by the Japanese. And so we really didn't know everything that killed our dad. He died at a very young age. Jon couldnt be sure if the cause of his cancer was primarily genetic or environmental, so he went through a series of tests. He was worried hed pass it on to his children and grandchildren. But when the tests returned, they found what drove his cancer was primarily environmental. I was surprised, Jon said. Ive been healthy all my life. I didnt expect to get cancer. Throughout his life, Jon flew for the US Air Force and the Department of Homeland Security. He piloted drug surveillance planes, monitoring and detaining traffickers in Central and South America. High above the Andes Mountains, above canopies of jungle trees, hed spot unmarked planes and report them. His life devoted to seeing may have left him blind. A study from the Air Forces School of Aerospace Medicine on 35,000 pilots who flew between 1970 and 2004 found them to be at higher risk for certain cancers. Originally from New York, Jon and Lori moved to Beatrice in retirement. Over the past year, Jon learned to cope with his blindness. Despite and because of the challenges posed by his lack of eye sight, he joined a group from St. Johns Lutheran Church for a 100 kilometer walk on the El Camino de Santiago, a collection of pilgrimage sites primarily in Spain. Jon and Lori had already planned to someday walk parts of the El Camino with Jons brother, but his brother's prostate cancer diagnosis foreclosed that possibility. Now, Jon walked to find spiritual and physical solace in the face of his cancer. His tumor has stabilized and shows no signs of growth, but that doesnt guarantee a clean, easy future. A lot of people with my diagnosis dont last long, Jon said. I wanted to pray and come to terms with the cancer On the physical side, I learned balance. But that lesson didnt come easily. I fell three times, Jon said. I still have a small stone in my knee that I need to get cut out. Jon and Lori said the uneven cobblestone of the historic pilgrimage path created walking hazards for Jon almost every step of the way, especially with the momentum of a sharp decline. Every day there was fear, Jon said. There was fear that I experienced, fear that he was going to trip or fall. But everyone in the group pitched in to help me. Lori said horses and bikes on the path proved especially troubling. In one incident, Lori thought Jon would face a serious injury. Around this corner behind me come really fast bicycles, Lori said. And I think there was a pack of about five of them at that time. And I looked ahead to Jon and in the split second I screamed, Jon, right! because I wanted him to move over to the right. And Joanie was on his right. And she turned around and saw out of the corner of her eye a variety of bikes coming in a blur. And she was about to pull him out of the way. And she didn't. And he froze. And she jumped out of the way and they kind of went right around. Well, and after that, I was gun shy, I was, you know, shocked. And I was in shock for a long time because I really thought he was going to get hit. The group started about a 100 kilometers away from the end of the El Camino and walked to its terminus at Finisterre. Thats where Lori and Jon honored Jons late brother, who so wanted to walk the El Camino with them. Thats where we spread his brothers ashes, Lori said. I can't even describe it. You're at the Atlantic Ocean. So you're the end of the world. The sun is setting. The wind is howling, and we opened up the bag that had his ashes in it and the wind just caught them. Theres a cliff that drops down to the Atlantic Ocean, Jon said. So youre about 1000 feet up. Thats where we spread my brothers ashes. Finisterre basically means finished. Youre at the end of your journey. Jon said he is grateful for the support of his family, his doctors, and the group that helped supported along the El Camino. He said the El Camino helped him to find his footing, and every day, he is learning how to live without sight. It gave me a sense of fulfillment, he said. It really got me outside my comfort zone. And thats where Im at right now. Im outside what my comfort zone used to be. Im dealing with the fact that I cant do things I used to do. With a strategic geographical location, a competitive labor force, and a range of cost-saving factors, Vietnam is considered an attractive investment location for foreign investors. In this context, the Vietnamese government has been continually improving business conditions through reform and upgrade of investment incentives, making the country more appealing to foreign investors. We examine what foreign investors can take advantage of including the available tax and import/export incentives. Foreign direct investment enterprises (FDIs) are enterprises that have relatively specific characteristics in terms of legal and business activities regarding Vietnamese regulations. Most of these organizations would have their main business activities related to trading goods within and outside of Vietnam. Thus, to avoid any unnecessary tax risks and legal breaches, it is vital that such FDI businesses are aware of the relevant regulations prior to undertaking any trading activities. Rights of FDI enterprises to export, import, and distribute In 2018, the government issued Decree No. 09/2018/N-CP detailing the Commercial Law and the Law on Foreign Trade Management on the purchase and sale of goods and activities directly related to the purchase and sale of goods by investors, foreign investors, and foreign-invested economic organizations in Vietnam. As per the Decree, the rights for an FDI to export, import, and distribute are defined as follows: Right to export means the right to buy goods in Vietnam for export, including the right to be named on the export declaration to carry out and take responsibility for export-related procedures. Export regulations do not include the right to purchase goods from entities other than traders for export unless otherwise provided by Vietnamese law or an international treaty to which Vietnam is a contracting party. Right to import means the right to import goods from abroad into Vietnam for sale to traders who have the right to distribute such goods in Vietnam, including the right to be named on the declaration of imported goods for execution and responsible for the procedures related to importing. The right to import does not include the right to organize or participate in a goods distribution system in Vietnam unless otherwise provided by Vietnamese law or an international treaty to which Vietnam is a signatory. means the right to import goods from abroad into Vietnam for sale to traders who have the right to distribute such goods in Vietnam, including the right to be named on the declaration of imported goods for execution and responsible for the procedures related to importing. The right to import does not include the right to organize or participate in a goods distribution system in Vietnam unless otherwise provided by Vietnamese law or an international treaty to which Vietnam is a signatory. Distribution means wholesale, retail, and franchising activities and the sale of goods by agents. The right to distribute means the right to directly perform distribution activities. Condition of FDI enterprises to export, import and distribute FDI enterprises having (i) export rights are allowed to export goods purchased in Vietnam, goods processed in Vietnam, and goods legitimately imported in Vietnam to a foreign country or a separate non-tariff zone, or (ii) import rights, are allowed to import goods from a foreign country or separate customs zone into Vietnam, provided that: They are not included in the list of goods banned from export and import, the list of goods temporarily excluded from export and import, and the list of goods not eligible for export and import as specified in international treaties to which Vietnam is a signatory; If the goods are included in the list of goods for export and import under license, or under certain conditions, the FDI enterprise has the relevant license or meets the conditions according to the regulations, apart from registering as prescribed in the Law on Investment and the Law on Enterprises. According to the regulations in the Schedule of Specific Commitments in Trade in Services for Vietnam of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the limitations to market access with regard to FDI enterprises on business lines described as wholesale trade, retailing have expired. Thus, FDI enterprises are allowed to conduct such business lines without restriction. Tax incentives Among all the investment incentives, tax incentives are one of the most attractive features of the Vietnamese business landscape. Corporate income tax (CIT) incentives are granted to both foreign and local investors, to promote investment in sectors or areas that are on par with the national development strategies. There are two main CIT incentives in Vietnampreferential tax rates (reduced tax rates), and tax holidays (tax exempted for a certain period or the lifetime of the project). Besides, the government also offers customs duty incentive policies and land rental exemption policies that further help to encourage businesses. Tax incentives available in the country can be summarized as follows. Eligibility for tax incentives The Vietnamese government provides tax incentives for businesses on the basis of four factors: sector, location, and size of the investment. Incentives for prioritized sectors Certain sectors in Vietnam are encouraged for investment, including industries that the government plans to incentivize, prioritize, or which are beneficial to society: Firms making new investments in technology-related sectors, garments, footwear, automobiles, goods that are not produced domestically, and investments where the products meet the EU quality standard, are taxed at 10 percent for 15 years. This period also includes a tax holiday for the first four years and a 50 percent reduction in the CIT rate for nine subsequent years. Companies operating in the sectors of education and training, health care, sports, culture, and environment, have a tax rate of 10 percent for the entire lifetime of their project. Companies earning their income from prescribed agricultural and related activities are eligible for a 15 percent tax rate for the entire lifetime of their project. Firms producing equipment for the above prescribed agricultural sectors can also receive a tax incentive in the form of a 17 percent tax rate for the entire lifetime of their project. Incentives in disadvantaged locations The tax incentives based on location are as follows: Firms operating in extremely difficult areas, special economic zones (SEZs) or high-tech zones (HTZs) are taxed at 10 percent for the first 15 years of revenue generation. This period also includes a tax holiday for the first four years followed by a 50 percent reduction for the subsequent nine years; Firms operating in difficult areas are taxed at 17 percent for 10 years of revenue generation. This period also includes a tax holiday for the first two years, followed by a 50 percent reduction for the subsequent four years; Firms operating in industrial parks are eligible for two years of tax holidays, followed by a 50 percent corporate tax reduction for the subsequent four years. Project size Tax incentives are also granted for large manufacturing projects except for those in natural resources. There are two criteria for categorizing large projects: Manufacturing projects with an investment capital of more than VND6 trillion (US$261 million) invested within three years of being licensed: the minimum revenue is VND10 trillion per annum by the fourth year of operations at the latest; or the minimum headcount is 3,000 by the fourth year of operations at the latest. Manufacturing projects with an investment capital of more than VND12 trillion disbursed within five years of being licensed and using prescribed high technology. The investments meeting either criterion are required to pay CIT at 10 percent for 15 years. These companies are also eligible for a tax holiday for the first four years, followed by a 50 percent reduction in the CIT rate for the next nine years. Other incentives Customs duty exemptions Businesses can also enjoy exemptions from import duty if they meet one of the following criteria: Goods are imported to form fixed assets of select projects prescribed under the law; Goods are imported for implementing export processing contracts with foreign parties; Raw materials and supplies are imported to directly serve the production of software products, and cannot be produced domestically; Goods are imported for use in scientific research and technological development, and cannot be produced domestically. Land rental incentives Subject to specific conditions, some investment projects can also enjoy land rental fee exemption: Exemption for the whole operational periodprojects on the list of special investment encouragement sectors investing in areas of particularly difficult socio-economic conditions; 15 years of exemptionprojects on the list of special investment encouragement sectors investing in areas of difficult socio-economic conditions or projects on the list of investment encouragement sectors investing in areas of extremely difficult socio-economic conditions; 11 years of exemptionprojects investing in areas of extremely difficult socio-economic conditions; projects in the list of special investment encouragement sectors; projects in the list of investment encouragement sectors investing in difficult socio-economic areas; Seven years of exemptionprojects investing in areas of difficult socio-economic conditions; Three years of exemptionprojects on the list of investment encouragement sectors; business and production relocation under urban planning or due to environmental pollution. Special investment incentives More recently, the Prime Minister issued Decision 29/2021/QD-TTg providing the levels, duration, and conditions for the application of special incentives for investment projects which are granted based on the satisfaction of the law-specified criteria on investment capital, high technology, technological transfer, added value, and value chain participation of Vietnamese enterprises. The new regulation is expected to encourage foreign investors with large capital amounts and high technologies to make long-term commitments with Vietnam while promoting the process of technology transfer and increasing the spillover effects of FDI. Investors can therefore assess the conditions as well as the incentives offered to best avail the regulation from the legal document here. Key considerations In light of the above, FDI enterprises should assess an application for a business registration license for business lines on the right to export, right to import, and the right to distribute, apart from registering as per the Law on Investment and the Law on Enterprises to fully comply and minimize any risks related to legislation, tax, and tariffs. Vietnams tax incentives, while attractive, can present challenges to investors unfamiliar with the countrys complex legal system. Foreign investors interested in investing in Vietnam wanting to secure their investment incentives must ensure they are aware of the available incentives which will save their time and money later on. The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is in charge of granting investment incentives. However, the implementation of these incentives is conducted in conjunction with local governments. In addition, during the application process, various technical ministries may be involved to assess an investment project. Once investment incentives are granted, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and tax departments are responsible for scrutinizing the applicable incentives at a later stage. Investors should take these into account in order to best avail the available investment incentive policies while fully adhering to the regulations. Vietnams digital economy has seen significant growth over the last decade and is expected to be valued at US$57 billion by 2025. The countrys digital... Malaysia's jailed ex-leader Najib Razak could be freed if his ruling party wins snap elections expected next month, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Tuesday. Najib is serving a 12-year prison term for corruption linked to the misuse of billions in public money. He was ousted from power at polls in 2018 by Mahathir's opposition alliance amid anger over the scandal. But Najib's long-ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) returned to office in August last year and is now seeking a fresh mandate after dissolving parliament Monday. "If they win and form the government, their first objective is to free Najib," Mahathir told a media conference Tuesday. "Najib will be pardoned and released and all other charges will be dropped." The disgraced former leader remains a member of UMNO but cannot stand for election because of his conviction on a batch of charges linked to the financial scandal at 1Malaysia Development Berhad. He still faces more corruption charges that could land him in jail even longer. Billions of dollars were plundered from the sovereign wealth fund and spent on everything from a luxury yacht to artwork in a fraud involving Najib and his inner circle. After Najib was ousted from office, nonagenarian Mahathir became prime minister for the second time in his long political career. But Mahathir's reformist coalition lasted only 22 months due to infighting, paving the way for UMNO's return to power. Malaysia's next elections were not due until September next year but current Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob dissolved parliament Monday, clearing the way for early polls, most likely next month. UMNO is confident of securing a big win despite rivalry among its leaders. Mahathir, now 97, said he will seek re-election as an MP. His party has decided to field him once more in his constituency of Langkawi, north of the capital Kuala Lumpur, the veteran said. In a Sikh temple tucked in the narrow lanes of the Indian capital, New Delhi, 60-year Harbans Singh offers a prayer of gratitude. The temple has become his temporary home after he fled Afghanistan, where his family had lived for generations. We have left our homes, our shops and come here to save ourselves. Conditions there are very bad, said Singh. We have arrived empty-handed. Singh and his son along with other family members were in a group of 55 Afghan Sikhs who arrived in India in late September they were among the last members of the community still living in the strife-torn country. Only a handful remain in Afghanistan, according to those who have come to India. Afghan Sikhs numbered in the tens of thousands during the nineteen eighties when they ran well-established businesses. But driven out by decades of conflict and persecution, only a few hundred were left when the Taliban took power last August. Although the Taliban had assured the community of their right to remain in Afghanistan and to practice their religion, its return reignited fears of a resurgence in violence that had targeted the community. The latest exodus of the Afghan Sikhs was sparked by a deadly attack in June on a Sikh temple in Kabul that killed one worshipper and wounded seven others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Even before Taliban rule, Sikh temples had been the target of attacks that were also claimed by the Islamic State group. The dread of waiting for the next attack or staying hidden from sight is over for those fleeing Afghanistan. Harbans Singhs son, Harminder Singh, said it is a relief not to live in fear of explosions and gunfire that had become commonplace in their hometown, Jalalabad and had petrified them. The Indian government has facilitated the repatriation of Sikhs and Hindus leaving Afghanistan by offering visas, residency permits and organizing evacuation flights. The birthplace of Sikhism, India is home to most of the worlds Sikh population. The Singhs, who had never visited India, feel safe in the Sikh temple where they have got refuge. It has long been the first stop for those leaving Afghanistan and is known in the neighborhood as the temple for those from Kabul. But uprooting themselves from a country they had called home for generations was also hard. We had our temples there, our community and we used to organize fairs on special occasions. Leaving our life there makes me feel sad, recalled Harminder Singh. It was not just fear of violence that prompted them to leave. The collapse of the economy after the Taliban took power hit their businesses making the future look bleak. The Singhs owned a shop selling spices in Jalalabad most members of the community in Afghanistan were either shop owners or pharmacists, selling goods that came from India or Pakistan. They said there was amity among Sikhs and ordinary Muslims, many of who they counted as their customers. But in the past year, work had dwindled. It was not what it used to be earlier. There was too much turmoil and customers had stopped coming, according to Harminder Singh. His two children also could not get an education which was organized for the community in the temple in the last year. The teacher stopped coming, he explained. But while India offers safety, the future may not be easy for Singhs family because the wait for citizenship can be long and uncertain. It presents a conundrum for the Afghan Sikhs, said Partap Singh, who heads the Sikh temple, Guru Arjan Dev ji gurudwara, that offers shelter to those returning from Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, they used to say we are Indians. Here they say we are Afghans, said Partap Singh, Where do we belong? We dont know where to go or what to do. We have no future. The community is urging the government to extend more help as it confronts the agonizing task of rebuilding life from scratch. They dont have proper homes, work, or citizenship papers that would facilitate their rehabilitation. Even educating their children is a challenge, according to Partap Singh. They are facing so many hardships. Some are setting up pavement stalls or selling street food to earn a living. These are problems that Singh and his son will have to grapple with in the coming years. For the time being, they are just getting used to a new country but for the time being the temple where they are sheltered offers both refuge and comfort many here understand the language they used to speak in Afghanistan, a mix of Pashto and Dari. More than 50 Afghan Sikhs arrived in India recently from Afghanistan, where they had been living for generations. They were among the last members of the Sikh community to quit the strife-torn country due to violence that has also targeted them. Anjana Pasricha in New Delhi speaks to one family that has returned. Videographer: Darshan Singh Afghanistan, South Korea and Venezuela lost their bids Tuesday to serve three-year terms on the U.N. Human Rights Council. With nearly all the 193-member states voting in the General Assembly, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Romania, South Africa, Sudan, and Vietnam were voted onto the 47-member Geneva-based rights body. Seats are allocated through regional groups. Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and other groups all ran uncontested slates of candidates. But all winners still needed to achieve at least a 97-vote majority. Among the contested seats, Chile and Costa Rica easily ended Venezuelas re-election bid (states can serve two consecutive terms). Chile won 144 votes, while Costa Rica took 134. Venezuela only received 88 votes. The General Assembly rightly closed the door on Venezuelas attempt to remain on the U.N. Human Rights Council, said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch. A September report by the U.N. human rights office details repression by Venezuela President Nicolas Maduros military and intelligence agencies, committing what the investigators say include grave crimes and human rights violations, including acts of torture and sexual violence. A government facing these kinds of allegations has no business sitting on the U.N.s top rights body, Charbonneau added. Now U.N. member states should seek ways to hold accountable those Venezuelan officials responsible for grave human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and torture. The Maduro government has dismissed the accusations as "false and unfounded." Afghanistan also lost its bid to join the council, receiving just 12 votes. The Talibans mistreatment of women, girls and minorities, and their broad crackdown on personal freedoms has led to international condemnation. While the country is under de facto Taliban control, its U.N. seat is still in the hands of the previous government, in large part because no country has officially recognized the Taliban leadership. Afghanistan is part of the Asia-Pacific group, as is South Korea. There were four vacant seats and six candidates. South Korea lost its re-election bid, winning 123 votes, putting it behind other candidates that received more votes in its group, including Vietnam, which received 145 votes. Electing abusive governments like Vietnam to the council only undermines its credibility, HRWs Charbonneau said. The rights group says Vietnams one-party rule of the Communist Party systematically suppresses basic civil and political rights. Government critics are also often subjected to police harassment, arbitrary arrest and jail. Countries that join the council are expected to "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights" both at home and abroad. Members serve for a period of three years and are not eligible for immediate re-election after serving two consecutive terms. The new members will start their terms on January 1, 2023. Criticism The council has a mixed reputation. Diplomats say it has produced some important and strong reports on war crimes in places such as Syria and spotlights domestic abuses in North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, among others. But it is also frequently criticized for its focus on Israel and the inclusion among its members of several countries with poor rights records of their own, such as China, Eritrea and Pakistan. This year, the council took the rare action of suspending a member for its bad behavior. On April 7, Russia became only the second state to be suspended (Moammar Gadhafis Libya was the first) from the HRC, when the General Assembly voted Moscow off for atrocities it has been accused of in its war in Ukraine. The Czech Republic was voted to finish the remainder of the term through December 2023. The Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace the dysfunctional U.N. Human Rights Commission, which was disbanded. The Rosetta Stone stars in a new exhibition opening Thursday at the British Museum marking one of the most significant dates in Egyptology 200 years after a French scholar finally cracked its code and deciphered hieroglyphs. The exhibition comes at a time the British Museum is under pressure from some Egyptologists to hand the Rosetta Stone back to Cairo as British institutions are beginning to return to other countries artifacts looted during the colonial era. Once seen as magical symbols unrelated to spoken language, Egyptian hieroglyphs were swathed in mystery for centuries until philologist Jean-Francois Champollion decoded their meaning in 1822. French troops had discovered the stone in the walls of an Egyptian fort in 1799 and gave it to British forces as part of a surrender agreement. The British Museum has displayed it since 1802. The basalt slab dating from 196 BC was so crucial because it has inscriptions of identical meaning in three languages: hieroglyphs, an ancient Egyptian vernacular script called Demotic and Ancient Greek, which provided the translation key. "We decided because the Rosetta Stone was such an important key to that decipherment that we will do this properly: with an exhibition that also features our star objects," said Ilona Regulski, curator of Egyptian written culture at the museum. "It's a wonderful moment to celebrate." Yet the anniversary exhibition is controversial to some. Egyptian archaeologist and former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass recently released a petition for the return of the stone and other foreign-held treasures he considers "stolen." The British Museum told AFP that Egypt has never made a formal request for the Rosetta Stone's return. 'Muddied legacy' Regulski added that it was a "universal object" and "it doesn't really matter where it is, as long as it's available to people." Activists from a group called Culture Unstained protested in the museum Tuesday, calling for Cairo to release political prisoners including British activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, and criticizing sponsorship by BP oil giant. The exhibition, "Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Ancient Egypt" tracks hieroglyphs' fall into obscurity after Egyptians switched to other forms of script. It explores the rich discoveries about life in ancient Egypt that came from unlocking the symbols. "For the first time in 3,000 years, Ancient Egyptians spoke directly to us," the museum's director, Hartwig Fischer, said. The exhibition does acknowledge attempts by non-Europeans to grasp the symbols but focuses on the race between Western scholars to crack the code. "Our travelers ... went to Egypt and were amazed by all these intriguing picture-like signs on the temple walls," said Regulski. This led to their "interpretation as magical signs, as secret knowledge, the idea that if you would be able to decipher hieroglyphs, you will understand the meaning of everything." Champollion was the first to fully grasp the logic of hieroglyphs, outdoing an English rival, Thomas Young, who was in correspondence with him. The exhibition suggests the French scholar has a "muddied legacy, however, and "often relied on the work of others," including Young. It also depicts the more bizarre side of Egyptology, including special events where enthusiasts unwrapped a mummified body and took lengths of bandages home as souvenirs. Several hundred students demonstrated Tuesday in Djibo, the main city in northern Burkina Faso under a jihadi blockade for several months, to claim their "right to education," including the sending of teachers. The young demonstrators walked the streets of the city carrying signs that read: "We are also Burkinabe, we have the right to education," "Education is a right for all," "School in dotted in Djibo." They then gathered in front of the offices of the High Commission of the province of Soum where they were received by the prefect of Djibo, Marou Ilboudo. According to their spokesman Ali Dicko, the students asked to have teachers flown in, communication networks restored, and the city secured, among other requests. "Classes have resumed since the beginning of October and we do not have all our teachers. The Gaskinde attack (committed by jihadis at the end of September) is still in the minds of those (teachers) who left for the holidays and have not returned, given the security situation," a student contacted by AFP said on condition of anonymity. "We want security to have access to education like other students in the country. We demand our teachers," added another student, who also requested anonymity. According to the National Union of Secondary and Higher Education Teachers, the current school year is marked by the closure of more than 4,258 schools, which affects 708,341 students, throughout the country. Added to this is a famine, including in some towns like Djibo, the main teachers union said. In recent months, attacks affecting dozens of civilians and soldiers have multiplied in the north and east of Burkina Faso, where cities are now subject to a blockade by jihadis. On September 26, a supply convoy of more than 200 trucks bound for Djibo was attacked by armed men in Gaskinde. At least 37 people were killed, including 27 soldiers and 10 civilians, according to the army. This deadly attack, claimed like many others by al-Qaida, was seen as the catalyst for the coup d'etat of Captain Ibrahim Traore, who took power on October 2, overthrowing Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who led the coup on January 24 of the democratically elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore. Laurie Richards and Alexander Payne on the red carpet for the premiere of "Nebraska" at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. (Courtesy of Laurie Richards) LINCOLN Laurie Richards remembers boarding a flight from Nebraska to Florence, Italy, and then taking five trains before reaching Cannes, France, back in 2013. It was an exhilarating adventure, Richards said, to walk a double red carpet at the invitation-only Cannes Film Festival with movie stars from around the world. She went with her husband and a group of friends to watch the film Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne. It was incredible, Richards said recently. You know, dont dont wait any longer than you have to to do something like this. Richards reflected on her multi-decade career in film after retiring last month from her role as a film officer through the Department of Economic Development. Finding film Before becoming the states film officer, Richards worked as an actress for about 12 years. She acted in plays at the Emmy Gifford Childrens Theater in Omaha and booked roles for television commercials in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. But she always had a passion for film, which stemmed from being a student in the 1970s and attending the Sheldon Film Theater at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Richards began her adventure behind the camera in the film industry almost three decades ago in 1994 as the film liaison during former Gov. Ben Nelsons administration. She applied for the position after getting the opportunity to work on the movie, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, as an assistant to the sets location manager. After the movie wrapped filming in Nebraska, the state saw the film industry as an opportunity to diversify economic opportunities and created the film liaison role within the Department of Economic Development, Richards said. It sort of found me, and I found it at the same time, Richards said. It was a good relationship, for sure. The most significant part of the job, Richards said, was managing various locations for films. She said she would hear about development projects through contacts she built in the industry and would help find filming locations in Nebraska. From there, she would be on set to help make sure logistics for filming went smoothly. Award-winning films Over time, Richards network grew, leading her to work with some of Hollywoods most prominent directors, producers, and actors, including the Coen brothers. The Academy Award winners filmed parts of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in Scottsbluff. Richards has also worked with Alexander Payne, an Omaha native and Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter and producer who filmed scenes of the following movies in Nebraska. Citizen Ruth, starring Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Kelly Preston and Burt Reynolds. Election, starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon. About Schmidt, starring Jack Nicholson. Downsizing, starring Matt Damon. Nebraska, starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte, the film Richards watched at the Cannes Film Festival in France. Hes a very good filmmaker and a very good storyteller, Richards said of Payne, while highlighting that the Coen brothers are also pretty cool. The silver screen Richards said one of the most interesting things about her job was to see the final film on the silver screen. Once you have worked on a film and behind the scenes, on the side of the camera, youll never watch a film the same way again, Richards said. From Richards perspective, the only way to do so is to suspend your reality a little because you know who is on the side of the camera and all the technical aspects that went into shooting the scene playing on the screen. Still, she said, she enjoys watching the magic and has been able to do so at home, in local theaters and at international film festivals, such as the Sundance Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival. Richards said she had more approachable interactions with producers, directors and actors at smaller film festivals. Youre all standing in the same area together, meeting each other and introducing yourselves to each other, Richards said. Throughout the years, Richards has connected more professionals in the film industry to Nebraska. She would introduce filmmakers and directors to the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center on UNL, which led to new films being played for Lincolnites to enjoy. After almost three decades of helping bring Nebraskan prairies and skies to the silver screen, Richards retired from her role as a film officer. However, she said, she is excited to see the future projects of the film office and will still be around to help if needed. Its an exciting adventure Ive been on, and its not over yet. In Cameroon, hundreds of displaced girls have protested the conflicts that have disrupted or halted their education. Close to a million Cameroonian children have lost school time in recent years due to the separatist conflict in western regions and Boko Haram terrorism on the borders with Chad and Nigeria. The demonstrators are calling Tuesday for better security so children, especially girls, can return to classrooms. Sixteen-year-old Adama Issatou tells onlookers in Maroua, a town on Cameroon's northern border with Chad and Nigeria, that she needs an education. She said she speaks for scores of other girls who were deprived of an education by Boko Haram militants. Adama said in 2018, militants forcefully took her out of a school in Kolofata, a town on Cameroons northern border with Nigeria. She said a Boko Haram fighter impregnated her, then abandoned her for three years in a camp on the border with Nigeria. Adama said in 2021, she was freed from the camp by government troops fighting Boko Haram. Adamas plea to have an education was broadcast several times by media Tuesday, including on Cameroons public broadcaster, CRTV, Canal 2 and Satellite FM Radio. The government says hundreds of girls demonstrated in several cities, including Yaounde, Bamenda and Kumbo in the Northwest region, Buea, Kumba and Limbe in the Southwest region and Maroua on the northern border. The protests were scheduled to coincide with the U.N. International Day of the Girl Child. The day is meant to recognize girls rights and the challenges they face around the world. Emmanual Kimbi is an official of Education for All Children, a rights group headquartered in Yaounde. He said a coalition of 20 groups organized Tuesdays demonstrations. Kimbi said Cameroon rights groups want separatist fighters, Boko Haram militants and government troops to spare schools and allow children to have an education. "You get into a village and you see a girl of 12 years already having a child. These are children who are supposed to be in school. Those who triggered these issues recruited children, pupils as child soldiers. We should rescue them, we should move around and preach so that people should see the essence of education. Reconstruct the schools, allow the children to go to schools," he said. Handerson Quetong Kongeh is the highest government official in Ngoketunjia, an administrative unit in Cameroons Northwest region, where the government says separatists have closed several dozen schools since September, when the school year began in Cameroon. Kongeh said the government has deployed troops to make the schools safe. He says troops will not spare anyone who wants to interrupt teaching. "Any proponents of boycott who will continue to insist on boycott should know that they have another agenda which is hidden, and therefore woe betide anybody who will continue to carry out a campaign and sensitization for this doctrine of boycott," he said. Cameroon separatist groups accuse the government of attacking schools and blame the attacks on the separatists an allegation the government denies. Human Rights Watch says both sides are responsible for attacks on schools. The United Nations says the separatist crisis that began in Cameroon's English-speaking western regions in 2016 has deprived some 750,000 children of an education, a majority of them girls. It says another 250,000 have been deprived of learning in the north because of the Boko Haram conflict. China has opened dozens of what it calls "110 Overseas Police Service Centers" in cities around the world, some of which are being used to blackmail suspects into returning home to face criminal charges in breach of global extradition laws, according to a new report. There are fears the networks could be used to target political dissidents, as well as criminal suspects. Global surveillance The investigation by the human rights group Safeguard Defenders says that while the overseas police service centers may help Chinese diaspora and tourists with everyday problems, they also are part of a complex global web of surveillance and control, allowing the Communist Party to reach far beyond China's borders. The report claims Chinese regional police forces have set up at least 54 offices on five continents, according to freely available official data. The centers are named after the police emergency telephone number in China, 110. The police service stations connect with local Chinese Overseas Home Associations in foreign countries, which in turn are linked to the ruling Chinese Communist party. 'Persuasion' tactics The authors say a key method used to track down and return suspects to China involves so-called "persuasion to return" operations. This can include tracking down the target's family in China in order to pressure them through means of intimidation, harassment, detention or imprisonment into persuading their family members to return "voluntarily." It also involves approaching the target online or through undercover agents abroad to threaten and harass the suspect into returning "voluntarily." "These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate the international rule of law and may violate the territorial integrity of third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods," the report says. China response In an email to VOA, the Chinese embassy in London said the Safeguard Defenders report "is rife with speculation and lies," adding that "China's judicial and law-enforcement authorities strictly abide by international rules and fully respect the judicial sovereignty of other countries." But China appears to be doing little to conceal the operations. A video produced in 2020 by the prosecutor's office in the western city of Lishui shows police conducting a remote video call with a suspect in Madrid, Spain, who was accused of criminal environmental pollution in his home city. A representative of the suspect's family in Lishui sat alongside the police and prosecutors. The video says the suspect was "persuaded" to return home to face charges, and subsequent photographs show the target in handcuffs at an airport in China. Since the publication of the Safeguard Defenders report last month, Spain confirmed it is investigating the incident. Laura Harth, a co-author of the report, says the Chinese Communist party has long tried to control and monitor overseas Chinese through what it calls "United Front Work" organizations. "A lot of the overseas Chinese hometown associations, United Front Work organizations, we've known they've been involved in, let's say, controlling patrolling in a way the overseas community. But what we're now seeing, and what came out of this report, what I think also in staggering numbers from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, is how all these systems are increasingly being integrated. "They want to instil that fear that you are not safe anywhere," she said. 230,000 returns Chinese authorities boast that between April 2021 and July 2022, they "persuaded" more than 230,000 Chinese nationals to return home to face criminal proceedings. Many are accused of committing fraud through online and telephone scams. However, Harth says China also is targeting other individuals. "Overseas Chinese dissidents, critics of the regime, religious and ethnic minorities anywhere in the world. The Chinese regime is becoming increasingly brazen, its institutions increasingly brazen in pursuing these illegal means across the globe and not even hiding it very well." Sovereignty issues "Equally worrying is the fact that democratic governments are apparently not very aware or even concerned about this happening on their soil in violation of their territorial sovereignty, really undermining basic freedoms, human rights of individuals that are residing within their territories," Harth told VOA. The report lists three 110 Overseas Police Service Centers in Britain, taken from official documents. At one premises in north London visited by VOA, three businesses appeared to operate from the address: a real estate agency, a language college, and a law firm specializing in China. They denied any links to the Chinese government, but they declined an interview. Most of the local Chinese community told VOA they did not know about the overseas police centers and did not want to be interviewed on camera. The British government told VOA that "any foreign country operating on British soil must abide by British law" but it did not confirm whether it was investigating. Hong Kong dissident Finn Lau knows well the long reach of the Chinese Communist Party. As a leader of the 2019 Hong Kong protests against Beijing, he was sought by Chinese police and fled to Britain. But he wasn't safe in London. In 2020, on a street close to his south London home, he was attacked by three masked men who he is convinced were working for the Chinese government. "Because they didn't say anything racist, they didn't take any of my personal belongings," Lau told VOA. "I don't really feel safe in London, especially after the physical or near-death assault in London. Because, well, for years we have many Chinese and Hong Kong dissidents being followed or assaulted by the Chinese Communist Party by different means," he underscored. Lau said that Britain, and other governments, must take the threat more seriously. "I would say there is a growing awareness coming from maybe MI5 [British intelligence services] or other agencies. However, in terms of local authorities' level, say the Metropolitan London police, their awareness of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] threat is quite low," Lau said. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Kyiv reporter describes impact of Russias first strike on the city in months. Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor discusses how Mondays Russian strikes may affect wars trajectory. The United States and Canada should take the lead in forming a strike force to confront Haitian gangs that have created a humanitarian crisis by blocking access to a key fuel terminal, Haiti's ambassador to the United States said Monday. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed "a rapid action force" to help Haiti's police confront the gangs, without saying that the United Nations itself should lead such a force. No countries have yet stepped forward to offer personnel. "We wish to see our neighbors like the United States, like Canada, take the lead and move fast," said Bocchit Edmond in a telephone interview, in reference to providing security assistance. "There is a really big threat over the head of the prime minister. If nothing is done quickly, there is a risk of another head of state (being) killed in Haiti," he said, referring to the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. Prime Minister Ariel Henry last week asked the international community to provide a "specialized armed force" to control gangs that have been blocking the Varreux fuel terminal since last month. Mounting frustration Sporadic looting and gun battles between gangs and police have become increasingly common in Haiti in recent weeks as the shortages have led to mounting frustration and desperation. Frequent protests have also been staged in different parts of Haiti to demand Henry's resignation, and a group of activists Sunday rallied outside the White House to call on the Biden administration to halt support for Henry. The United States on Saturday said it was reviewing Haiti's request for support. Nineteen members commmitted to help Canada's foreign ministry Friday said 19 member countries of the Organization of American States were committed to helping Haitians "overcome the complex security challenges facing the country." Acute shortages of gasoline and diesel have crippled transportation and forced businesses and hospitals to halt operations, just as the country faces a renewed outbreak of cholera. Since the 1930s, Columbus Day has been recognized as a federal holiday in the U.S., where it aims to honor the Italian-born explorer credited with having discovered America. In the past several years, Los Angeles has been celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day instead. Genia Dulot has the story. Just a harbor away from a cluster of skyscrapers, in the poorest district in Hong Kong, Szeto, a resident who declined to give his full name due to security concerns, struggles to endure the heat inside his shoebox apartment. The heat wins. "It's so stuffy," says the 47-year-old. "I felt like I couldn't breathe and had to go out." Szeto shares his 6-square-meter apartment with nine other people in Hong Kong's infamous "sub-divided flats" because the territory's rental rates are among of the highest in the world. Hong Kong's summer heat has been scorching, with July and September reaching record-high temperatures amid the region's most severe heat waves since 1961. Climatologists attribute the frequency and severity of heat waves around the world to global warming. The United Nations says that it will only increase in the decades to come. In Hong Kong, the heat waves have pushed residents like Szeto into a more desperate situation, according to social worker Esther Wu. "We did a survey [a] few months before, and we found that in cubicles in subdivided units, the temperature is much more hotter than outside," Wu said, adding it's "like five to six degrees hotter than outside because of the bad design of the structure of the inadequate housing." The sweltering summer has worsened the high-income financial hub's longstanding housing crisis. Currently, some 200,000 residents live in what the government called "inadequate housing" they are often subdivided apartments, rooftop shacks, and cage homes, among others. They average in size only about 4 square meters per person smaller than the size of a prison cell. The temperatures inside these apartments were up to nine degrees higher than on the city streets this summer, according to a survey from a local NGO. The units are poorly ventilated; many have no windows, and some are illegal structures built with metallic materials, making these dwellings similar to a "sauna room," the NGO said in a statement. Fai Yeung lives in an apartment subdivided into eight studios in the Sham Shui Po district. There is not much space left after fitting a double bunk bed into the windowless space, with the top bunk storing most of his personal belongings. He usually sits on his bunk bed with the fan hanging on the wall circulating some much-needed air, while his air-conditioner remains idle during daytime. "I usually go out during the daytime. I go out to parks to chat with my friends," the 67-year-old told VOA News. Power cost too high Yeung only switches on his air-conditioner when he sleeps a practice commonly seen in subdivided flats with air-conditioners, according to Wu. "Most [subdivided apartment] residents have to use a lot of electricity when they turn on the air conditioners, leading to a high utility cost. This cost might be set by the landlords but not the electricity provider. To save such costs, the residents usually go outside instead of staying at home and switching on the air-cons," Wu told VOA. The average utility cost each month amounts to HK$638, on top of the HK$5,000 average rent for such apartments, taking up more than 40% of tenants' household income and becoming what Wu calls a "burden" to the tenants. About 40% of those receiving social security allowance are paying rent higher than the monthly allowance and 70% say the heat has piled additional financial pressure on them, according to a report by the Society for Community Organization, a Hong Kong-based non-governmental and human organization. Hong Kong law bans landlords from charging tenants electricity and water costs more than the bill from the providers, but more than 75% of these property contracts still state a different price for utility each month. Tenants tend not to hold these landlords of subdivided flats accountable, as only about half are able to contact their landlords directly, and many cannot afford to lose the roof over their heads by taking legal action, Wu said. As a result, the sweltering heat this summer has pushed these residents out of their homes, and even when they are back for sleeping, they face more serious nuisances, such as bedbug infestation, fueled by the summer heat and humidity. These issues drove some to sleep in the corridor instead of their own beds. On his way out to the shopping mall, Szeto told VOA that even though he has an AC unit in his subdivided apartment, it doesn't function well. "It isn't cool enough and the room is still stuffy. The temperature inside the room is about the same as outside," Szeto said. Heat shelters To cope with the urban heat, the government has opened 18 heat shelters for those in need, but Wu said these shelters only operate at night and can't help subdivided apartment residents much. Wu, social workers and some tenants called for a high-temperature subsidy to pay for the cost of using air-conditioners. The recommendation is not new the government has been aware of such requests for several years, but so far, a subsidy has not been implemented. The city aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and a coal-free power generation by 2035, but electricity still makes up over 60% of Hong Kong's greenhouse gas emissions. Social worker Wu urged the government to also tackle illegal structures and double down on regulating the design of subdivided flats and inadequate housing. "There's no window, there's no AC in the [subdivided] units. The living environment isn't good. If they can do more checks and sue landlords for not providing flats with windows, that'd be much better," she said. In the long run, Wu said the government has to boost the housing supply. Many subdivided flat residents are waiting for public housing units, but it takes on average six years for a Hong Konger to be allocated one, and more than four years for single elderly people, government data shows. The government has planned to provide 20,000 transitional housing for those waiting for their public housing units a far cry from the more than 150,000 households who submitted their application. While passing a spot in the corridor where some of his roommates choose to sleep, Szeto said he's not hopeful conditions will improve. Exiled Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani said Tuesday that she was filled with admiration for the protesters in Iran: "beautiful, feminine, hair in the wind, asking simply for freedom." The 39-year-old star of films, including "Extraction" and "Body of Lies," has lived in exile in France for more than a decade. She has largely avoided politics in the past, but that has changed with the protests that broke out last month in Iran over the death in custody of a young woman arrested for breaking the strict Islamic dress code. "I have never really talked about politics, but this event triggered something very physical and visceral in me," she told AFP. Farahani now relays information constantly to her 14 million followers on Instagram. She said some people in the West were nervous about supporting the protests for fear of seeming Islamophobic, adding that she was saddened by the silence of some feminists in the United States and elsewhere. "This is not a fight about religion, about Islam, or a judgement on the headscarf -- it's just about the freedom to choose whether you wear it or not," she said. Despite many protests in Iran over the years, she feels "this time it's different". Her peers were afraid and traumatized by the revolution of 1979 and the war with Iraq in the 1980s but the youth on the streets today do not carry that baggage, she said. "We were afraid, but they aren't scared, they aren't ashamed," she said. Farahani said she used to shave her head as a child to pass as a boy. "I was able to be free in Iran only be killing my femininity. I thought being a woman would always be an obstacle," she said. "This generation wants to keep their hair long and not wear the headscarf." The actor said she felt absurd promoting a new film (French movie "Une Comedie Romantique") while dozens were dying in the streets back home. But she hopes that "symbolically it shows that no one can stop us from laughing, dancing, being joyful. Militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group are increasingly relying on money raised by extortion of local communities in eastern Syria to fund their terror activity, local officials said. The practice has largely been taking place in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, according to military officials with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against IS. Large parts of Deir el-Zour have been under the control of the SDF since 2019 following a major U.S.-backed military campaign that marked the territorial defeat of IS, also known as ISIS or Daesh. The terror group has maintained a network of sleeper cells, though, and they have carried out occasional attacks against civilians and SDF fighters throughout the region. Daesh uses several ways to demand money from storeowners, said Turki al-Dhari, an official with the Deir el-Zour Military Council, an SDF-affiliated group. This includes the use of violence or the threat of violence against civilians to extort money. The military official said IS militants also have used this method to collect money from people who work or cooperate with the SDF and its civilian institutions. We have seen Daesh doing this activity increasingly in the eastern countryside of Deir el-Zour, al-Dhari told VOA. Those who refuse to pay them face punishment often by bombing their stores, houses or cars. Some of the money collected from locals goes to the families of killed IS fighters, al-Dhari added. Last month, an IS spokesman released an audio message in which he called on his followers around the world to support the group with men and financial donations. With no physical territory under their control, IS militants in recent months have struggled to secure a steady source of revenue to finance their operations, hence they have resorted to other methods such as extortion, experts said. According to local news reports, IS networks increasingly have been using messaging applications to target people in Deir al-Zour, demanding Zakat and other forms of Islamic taxation. Jason Blazakis, a senior research fellow at the New York-based Soufan Center, says IS has proven to be creative in how it uses technology to its advantage. The use of messaging applications to target and extort businesses is unsurprising, given ISISs history of diversifying its sources of incomes, he told VOA. In the case of the use of messaging apps, this provides the organization instant access to potential victims whilst at the same limiting the exposure of the extorters to law enforcement since they are conducing these activities 'online' and not in physical spaces, Blazakis said. SDF officials say their preoccupation with other security threats facing the region, including clashes with Turkish-backed armed groups, has given IS militants more room to operate in eastern Syria. Despite losing all the territory they once controlled, Daesh terrorists have been able to continuously regroup and wage attacks on the civilian population and our forces, said Siyamend Ali, a press officer with the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the main element within SDF. Their extortion activities in the area have increased because of a security gap in some areas of Deir el-Zour, he told VOA. With support from the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF recently conducted several counterterrorism operations against IS operatives in the region, including a multi-week campaign inside the al-Hol Camp, where thousands of people live, including families of IS fighters. The operation ended in mid-September with the arrest of more than 200 people. A Syrian Kurdish official said a U.S. drone strike Monday killed an IS militant in an area of northeast Syria that is under the control of Turkish-backed Syrian opposition groups. The U.S. hasnt commented on the reported attack. Last week, the U.S. military announced that its special forces had conducted a helicopter raid targeting three key IS leaders in a village controlled by Syrian government forces in northeast Syria. One of the militant leaders was killed, while the other two were captured, U.S. Central Command confirmed. This story originated in VOAs Kurdish service. For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine. The latest developments in Russias war on Ukraine. All times EDT. 11:40 p.m.: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday called on partners and allies to swiftly make good on their existing commitments to support Ukraine and to join the United States in doing more. Yellen expressed her condolences to Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and senior Ukrainian officials for the latest Russian attacks, aimed at the capital Kyiv and other haven cities, and pledged Washington's continued support. Washington intends to disburse $4.5 billion in direct budget support to Ukraine in coming weeks, she said. Congress approved that funding two weeks ago, bringing total U.S. direct budget support for Ukraine to $13.5 billion, all in grants. Washington had also joined with Ukraine's major creditors to suspend its Ukraines bilateral debt service payments this year and next year, she said. Ukraine has said it needs up to $5 billion a month in long-term commitments to cover its budget costs, including pensions, military spending and to continue servicing its debts. International creditors have frozen debt payments, but about 80% of its payments are to domestic banks. 10 30 p.m.: The Ukrainian presidency said on Tuesday that 32 of its soldiers had been freed and the body of an Israeli citizen recovered in the latest prisoner swap with Russia, Agence France-Presse reported. "Another exchange of prisoners took place today. We managed to free 32 of our soldiers and get back the body of Israeli citizen Dmytro Fialka," Andriy Yermak, head of the president's office, wrote on Telegram. 8:39 p.m.: France will step up its military presence in eastern Europe, with plans to deploy additional Rafale fighter jets in Lithuania and additional armored vehicles and tanks in Romania, as the war in Ukraine intensifies, the office of the defense minister said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Paris also plans to deploy additional infantry troops to Estonia, it said in a statement as Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu presented the army's draft budget to lawmakers. 8 p.m.: NATO members and allies meeting in Brussels on Wednesday are likely to focus on providing additional air defense systems to Ukraine, the U.S. ambassador to NATO said, according to Reuters. Julianne Smith told an online briefing that more than 50 nations of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group would meet on the eve of a NATO ministerial on Oct 12-13 to determine what more could be done to help Ukraine in its war with Russia. Smith said discussions would likely focus on air defense support. 7:22 p.m.: The United States and Germany responded to a call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Tuesday, according to Reuters. The U.S. announced that it has approved sending Ukraine eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) so far, with two expected to be delivered soon and six more sent over a longer time frame. "We think that we're on track to get those first two over there in the very near future," said John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesperson, during a briefing for reporters. "We are certainly interested in expediting the delivery of NASAMS to Ukraine as soon as we can." And Ukraine received on Tuesday the first of four IRIS-T air defense systems that Germany had promised to supply, a German defense ministry source said, confirming a report by Der Spiegel magazine. The delivery had taken place earlier than planned, the source added. The government did immediately respond to a request for official comment. 6:47 p.m.: 6:12 p.m.: Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Tuesday for wealthy Western nations to help Kyiv create an "air shield" after a rash of deadly Russian aerial attacks, Agence France-Presse reported. Zelenskyy, who told the G-7 club of rich nations "millions of people would be grateful" for help fending off attacks from the sky, warned Russia "still has room for further escalation" after Monday's bloody missile salvoes across Ukraine. "When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russias terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work," Zelenskyy told G-7 leaders at a virtual meeting where he again ruled out peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 5:36 p.m.: The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing a long list of threats that include Russias war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the global pandemic, The Associated Press reported. The 190-country lending agency forecast Tuesday that the global economy would eke out growth of just 2.7% next year, down from the 2.9% it had estimated in July. The IMF left unchanged its forecast for international growth this year a modest 3.2%, a sharp deceleration from last years 6% expansion. The worst is yet to come, said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas. Three major economies the United States, China and Europe are stalling. Countries accounting for a third of global economic output will contract next year, suggesting that 2023 will feel like a recession to many people around the world, he said Tuesday. 4:55 p.m.: Ukrainians crowdfunded about $10 million in one day to purchase kamikaze drones, the Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday. Ukrainian comedian, politician, and volunteer Serhiy Prytula said that he and activist Serhii Sternenko had raised nearly $10 million in one day to buy RAM kamikaze drones for the army, the media organization reported. The crowdfunding campaign got underway shortly after Russia's mass missile attack on Ukraine Monday morning, it said. 4:06 p.m.: The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a British money manager with conspiracy to evade sanctions and wire fraud on behalf of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin shared the details on Twitter. 3:16 p.m.: Ukraines president has urged the U.N. cultural agency to expel Russia because Russian military strikes have damaged hundreds of cultural sites around Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. In a speech Tuesday to UNESCO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine has nominated the embattled Black Sea city of Odesa to be inscribed on the agencys World Heritage list. Zelenskyy said 540 objects of cultural heritage, cultural institutions and religious buildings in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed since Russia invaded February 24. He asked: Why are representatives of Russia still among you? What are they doing at UNESCO? Russia currently holds the rotating presidency of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which Zelenskyy said devalues the institution itself -- its significance, its reputation. UNESCO itself cannot expel Russia because all members of the United Nations are automatically members of the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Agency. 2:30 p.m.: 2:20 p.m.: Covered head-to-toe in protective suits, forensic workers pulled several bodies wrapped in black plastic from a mass grave Tuesday in Ukraines devastated city of Lyman, part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation, The Associated Press reported. Ten body bags lay beside a roughly 100-foot (30-meter) trench from which authorities said 32 bodies have been exhumed so far in the city in Ukraines eastern Donetsk region. The bodies were Ukrainian soldiers who had been buried together in a mass grave, the head of the Donetsk regions military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in Lyman on Tuesday. Another 22 civilians have been exhumed from individual graves at the burial site, located on the edge of a cemetery in a forested area on the outskirts of Lyman. Further exhumations are planned. The burial site was the second found in Lyman so far, Kyrylenko said, adding that initial investigations suggested the bodies had been buried by local residents and not by Russians. We have already found more than 50 bodies of soldiers and civilians, he said. We have one long trench or mass grave ... We are finding bodies and parts of bodies here. 2:05 p.m.: 1:55 p.m.: Ukraines capital began to clean up after a second-day air raid scare, Reuters reported Tuesday. Sitting cross-legged in a passageway deep within Kyiv's Zoloti Vorota metro station, 10-year-old Daria Kucher ignored roaring trains and hundreds of other people taking refuge from the threat of Russian missiles, etching a flower on a pad with her colored pencils. "We are afraid. But we are more irritated," groused her mother, Helena Kucher, 44, as she, her daughter and her seven-year-old son waited for the all-clear advisory automatically dispatched to the Ukrainian capital's cellphones. The family was among untold numbers of citizens who headed for a second day on Tuesday into nuclear blast-proof metro stations, basements and underground garages after air raid sirens disrupted the morning rush hour, the same time that Russia barraged Kyiv the day before. Fresh strikes hit the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and doused power in part of the western city of Lviv. While Kyiv was spared new attacks, the danger of further carnage all but emptied its broad avenues and narrow streets of traffic and pedestrians. 1:45 p.m.: The death toll from Russia's missile attacks this week has risen to 20, the Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday. Russian missile strikes on Oct. 10 injured 108 people, the media organization quoted State Emergency Service spokesman Oleksandr Khorunzhyi as saying. The strikes also damaged the power supply in 15 regions, it reported Khorunzhyi saying. 1:30 p.m.: 1:15 p.m.: Ukraine urged civilians on Tuesday not to use domestic appliances like ovens and washing machines to save electricity as millions faced blackouts after the biggest Russian attack on its energy network since war broke out, Reuters reported. Authorities are trying to repair the damage after Russia fired missiles at energy facilities across Ukraine on Monday, causing widespread power outages and prompting Kyiv to announce it was halting electricity exports. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukrainians had voluntarily cut their electricity consumption by an average of 10% on Monday after Russia's attacks, and urged them to limit use between 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) and 11 p.m. on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials say Russian attacks are now focused on damaging Ukrainian energy infrastructure and sowing fear among civilians. At least 20 people were killed and 108 wounded in Monday's attacks. Russia has denied deliberately targeting civilians since its forces invaded Ukraine in February. 12:55 p.m.: The Ukrainian General Staff says in the past day its forces have shot down 21 cruise missiles and 11 drones fired by Russia, including all eight Iranian-made drones targeting critical infrastructure in the Mykolaiv region, according to The Associated Press. 12:35 p.m.: 12:15 p.m.: The head of the U.N. weather agency says the war in Ukraine may be seen as a blessing from a climate perspective because it is accelerating the development of and investment in green energies over the longer term even though fossil fuels are being used at a time of high demand now, The Associated Press reported. The comments from Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, came as the world is facing a shortfall in energy needs prompted in part by economic sanctions against key oil and natural gas producer Russia and prices for fossil fuels have risen. That has led some countries to turn quickly to alternatives like coal. But rising prices for carbon-spewing fuels like oil, gas and coal have also made higher-priced renewable energies like solar, wind and hydrothermal more competitive in the energy marketplace. 12 p.m.: The head of the U.N.s International Atomic Energy Agency met with Russias president Tuesday to discuss the urgent need for a security zone around Ukraines Zaporizhzhia power facility, which has come under fire during the conflict. 11:45 a.m.: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the 30-nation military alliance will hold a long-planned exercise next week to test the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities, according to The Associated Press. Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that this is routine training that happens every year to keep our deterrence safe, secure and effective. The exercise, dubbed Steadfast Noon, is held annually and usually runs for about one week. It involves fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads but doesnt involve any live bombs. Conventional jets, and surveillance and refueling aircraft also routinely take part. NATO as an organization does not possess any nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries the U.S., U.K. and France. Asked whether it was the wrong time to be holding such an exercise, Stoltenberg said: It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, long-time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. Stoltenberg said that Russian President Vladimir Putins nuclear rhetoric over the war in Ukraine is irresponsible. He added: Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. 11:25 a.m.: 11:10 a.m.: Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers have pledged after a videoconference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that they will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes, The Associated Press reported. The leaders said in a statement after Tuesdays virtual meeting that they had reassured Zelenskyy they are undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They said they will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support to Kyiv, and that they are committed to supporting Ukraine in meeting its winter preparedness needs. The G-7 leaders condemned this weeks barrage of Russian missile strikes against cities across Ukraine and said that indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime. They said: We will hold President [Vladimir] Putin and those responsible to account. The G-7 is made up of the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Germany currently chairs the group. 11 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) that they must block Russia's energy sector with sanctions to disrupt Russian revenues from oil and gas, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Speaking to the major industrialized nations virtually, Zelenskyy said the G-7 and "our entire democratic world" must respond "symmetrically" to Russian attacks on the energy sector and energy stability. "Such steps can bring peace closer they will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war," Zelenskyy said, according to an excerpt of his speech posted on his Telegram page. The Ukrainian president also appealed for the G-7 countries to supply Ukraine with air defenses, saying the main Russian threat will be stopped when Ukraine has the ability to defend itself from air attacks. Zelenskyy also said the G-7 must recognize that there can be no dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he said only believes in terror and "has no future." One person is blocking peace, he said, and "this person is in Moscow." Talks can be held either with another Russian leader one who "will comply with the UN Charter, the basic principles of humanity, and territorial integrity of Ukraine" or with a different configuration of negotiators "so that the key terrorist does not have the opportunity to influence key decisions through terror." 10:50 a.m.: According to Ukraine's Health Ministry, more than 90 percent of Ukrainians have one or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the ongoing war. It's estimated that only three in every 100 Ukrainians with PTSD are receiving support. 10:25 a.m.: U.S.-led NATO said on Tuesday its member states were boosting security around key installations as Russia escalated its attacks on Ukraine and stepped up threats against the West, Reuters reported. Russian missiles pounded Ukraine for a second day, after dozens of air raids across the country on Monday that killed 19 people, wounded more than 100 and knocked out power supplies. Moscow has annexed new tracts of Ukraine, mobilized hundreds of thousands of Russians to fight and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear arms in recent weeks, spreading alarm in the West. A European diplomat said NATO was considering convening a virtual summit of the Western defense alliance to consider its response. 10:10 a.m.: 9:50 a.m.: Canada says it will deploy approximately 40 combat engineers to NATO ally Poland to train Ukrainian sappers in mining, de-mining, engineer reconnaissance and explosives, The Associated Press reported. Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand made the announcement during a visit to Warsaw on Tuesday. Anand also signed a memorandum of understanding with her Polish counterpart to strengthen the two countries defense cooperation. 9:35 a.m.: 9:20 a.m.: A deputy head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been kidnapped by Russian forces and is being detained in an unknown location, Reuters reported, citing Ukraine's state nuclear energy company Energoatom. In a post on the Telegram messaging app Tuesday, Energoatom said the official, Valeriy Martynyuk, had been seized on Monday. No further details were immediately available. 9 a.m.: Moldovas president has demanded that her countrys borders be respected after three Russian missiles bound for Ukraine crossed its airspace, The Associated Press reported. President Maia Sandu said in a video address to the nation on Tuesday, a day after the incident, that we respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries and also demand that our borders be respected. Sandu said she would do everything to maintain peace in Moldova despite what she called growing pressure by pro-Russian political forces in the eastern European nation who she said had promised to Moscow to overthrow our constitutional order and install a government that will allow Russia to use our country in its war against Ukraine. 8:50 a.m.: 8:35 a.m.: The Kremlin is saying that the continuation of U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine will extend the fighting and increase the damage to Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that the U.S. de facto has become deeply involved. Asked during a conference call with reporters about U.S. President Joe Biden telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington has agreed to his request to provide advanced air defense systems, Peskov said that it would only exacerbate Ukraines condition. He said: It will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result. 8:20 a.m.: Economic activity in Russia slowed significantly at the end of September, Bank of Russia Deputy Governor Alexei Zabotkin told lawmakers on Tuesday, but payments to mobilized troops should cushion the negative effect on consumer demand, Reuters reported. President Vladimir Putin announced on September 21 that 300,000 people would be mobilized to boost Russia's efforts in what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, but details of the economic impact have so far been thin on the ground. The central bank has been instrumental in limiting the economic fallout from the conflict in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions targeting Russia, introducing capital controls to steady the ruble, which had plunged to a record low against the dollar in early March. 8:05 a.m.: 7:45 a.m.: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Russia will not turn down a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden at a forthcoming G-20 meeting and would consider the proposal if it receives one, Reuters reported. Speaking on state television, Lavrov said Russia was willing to listen to any suggestions regarding peace talks, but that he could not say in advance what this process will lead to. 7:30 a.m.: Western governments plan to ratchet up pressure on Russia over its war in Ukraine, underscoring continued support for Ukraine when finance officials from around the world gather in Washington this week, senior U.S. officials said on Tuesday. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen "will clearly, vocally and repeatedly highlight the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine on the global economy," one of the officials told reporters ahead of high-level meetings planned in coming days. Yellen will meet with counterparts from the Group of Seven rich nations on Wednesday and the Group of 20 major economies which include Russia on Thursday, during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Reuters reported. She will also meet with Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko on Tuesday, and participate in a ministerial roundtable discussion about support for Ukraine that will be hosted by the World Bank on Wednesday, officials said. U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday after Russia rained cruise missiles on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday in its most widespread air attacks since the start of the war on February 24, killing at least 11 people and wounding 64. 7:15 a.m.: 7:05 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address the leaders of the Group of Seven nations during a virtual meeting Tuesday that follows a series of deadly Russian missile strikes on Ukraines capital and other cities located across the country. Hours before the meeting, Ukraines State Emergency Service reported multiple fresh missile strikes in Zaporizhzhia that killed at least one person. Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv and other areas. The mayor of Lviv said a missile strike there disrupted power and water services. 6:55 a.m.: Lvivs city mayor Andriy Sadovyi said a Russian missile strike on critical infrastructure in the city on Tuesday left part of the west Ukrainian city without power. A Reuters witness reported three explosions in the city shortly after noon local time (0900 GMT). "As a result of the missile strike, 30% of Lviv is temporarily without electricity," Sadovyi wrote on the Telegram messaging app, adding that the water supply had also been interrupted in two districts of the city. Russian missile strikes had also hit the electricity supply in the Lviv region on Monday. City authorities said late on Monday that power had been largely restored in the region, but Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Yevheniy Yenin said some settlements in the region were still without electricity on Tuesday morning. 6:40 a.m.: Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said Tuesday that Russian leaders who ordered missile strikes on Ukrainian cities must be held to account. 6:20 a.m.: The United Nations said on Tuesday the wave of attacks may have violated the laws of war and would amount to war crimes if civilians were deliberately targeted. "These strikes may have violated the principles of the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office, told reporters in Geneva, adding that intentionally targeting civilians and civilian objects, "amounts to a war crime." 6 a.m.: Minsk said Tuesday that a contingent of Belarusian troops deploying alongside Russian forces was a "purely defensive" grouping whose aim was to defend the borders of the ex-Soviet republic closely aligned with Russia. "We emphasize once again that the tasks of the Regional Grouping of Forces are purely defensive. And all activities carried out at the moment are aimed at providing a sufficient response to actions near our borders," Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin was cited as saying in a statement, Agence France-Presse reported. 5:30 a.m.: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the margins of a regional summit in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on Wednesday, a Turkish official told Agence France-Presse. Turkey, which has stayed neutral throughout the conflict in Ukraine, has good relations with its two Black Sea neighbors Russia and Ukraine. Erdogan has not yet commented on the mass Russian strikes across Ukraine on Monday, which killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100. But Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held a phone call with Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba after the attacks, a Turkish diplomatic source said, without elaborating further. Erdogan met Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan last month. 5 a.m.: The Russian assets of Japanese automaker Nissan will be transferred to Russian state ownership, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Moscow's trade ministry. The sale will include Nissan's production and research facilities in St Petersburg as well as its sales and marketing center in Moscow, the ministry said, adding that Nissan would have the option to buy its assets back within six years. 4:30 a.m.: The head of GCHQ, Britains electronic intelligence agency, says Russia is running short of weapons and its troops are exhausted. Jeremy Fleming said Tuesday that we believe Russia is running short of munitions. Fleming is due to give a public speech later, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in judgment throughout the war, The Associated Press reported. According to GCHQ, he will say that we know and Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies and munitions are running out. Russias forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation. GCHQ did not disclose the sources of its intelligence. 4 a.m.: Billionaire Silicon Valley investor Yuri Milner said he had renounced his Russian citizenship. "My family and I left Russia for good in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea. And this summer, we officially completed the process of renouncing our Russian citizenship," the Moscow-born Milner tweeted. Milner, founder of the internet investment firm DST Global and one of the original investors in Facebook, has been an Israeli citizen since 1999, DST Global said in a fact sheet on its website, Agence France-Presse reported. The venture capitalist and physicist has no assets in Russia and 97 percent of his wealth was created elsewhere, it said. "Yuri has never met Vladimir Putin, either individually or in a group," it said. Milner's non-profit Breakthrough Prize Foundation has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 3:30 a.m.: In its update on the death toll, Ukraines State Emergencies Service said that 19 people were killed and 105 others were wounded in Mondays Russian missile strikes across Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. It said Tuesday that critical infrastructure facilities were hit in Kyiv and 12 other regions, and 301 cities and towns were without power. Russia on Monday retaliated for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months. They hit at least 14 regions, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the wars front lines. 3 a.m.: Russian state-owned news agency RIA quoted Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that direct conflict with the United States and NATO is not in Moscow's interests, but it will respond to the West's growing involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, Reuters reported. "We warn and hope that they realize the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals," Ryabkov said Tuesday. 2:30 a.m.: Emergency services put all Ukraine on alert for more missile strikes on Tuesday, a day after heavy Russian attacks, Reuters reported. "Warning. During the day there's a high probability of missile strikes on the territory of Ukraine. Please remain in shelters for your own safety, do not ignore air raid signals," it said on the Telegram messaging app. The emergency services also said 19 people had been killed and 105 wounded in Monday's missile strikes. 2 a.m.: Belarus could face more sanctions if it gets more and more involved in the Ukraine conflict, French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna told French radio on Tuesday. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday that he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers in the West. The remarks from Lukashenko, who has held power in Belarus since 1994, indicate a potential further escalation of the war in Ukraine, possibly with a combined Russian-Belarus joint force in the north of Ukraine. 1:30 a.m.: 12:30 a.m.: United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan will travel to Russia on Tuesday to meet with President Vladimir Putin, Reuters reported Monday, citing UAEs state news agency WAM. WAM reported that UAE's foreign ministry said the visit aims to help reach "effective political solutions" to the Ukrainian crisis. The UAE seeks to "achieve positive results for military de-escalation, reduce humanitarian repercussions, and reach a political settlement to achieve global peace and security," the ministry added. The visit came less than a week after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC+, a group of oil producers that includes the UAE and Russia, agreed to make steep oil production cuts in defiance of U.S. pressure. 12:05 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address the leaders of the Group of Seven nations during a virtual meeting Tuesday that follows a series of deadly Russian missile strikes on Ukraines capital and other cities located across the country. Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukraine cannot be intimidated, and rather than instill fear, Russias attacks made the whole world take notice. We will do everything to strengthen our armed forces, Zelenskyy said. We will make the battlefield more painful for the enemy. The Ukrainian leader tweeted after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden that air defense was his top priority, and that he was looking to the United States for leadership on a tough stance from the G-7 as it considers its response to Russias attacks. Biden and Western allies were quick to condemn the attacks and vowed to continue to send military aid to Ukraines forces to help fend off Moscows invasion, now in its eighth month. A White House statement said Biden told Zelenskyy the U.S. would provide advanced air defense systems. Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Mexico said that it filed a second lawsuit Monday against the U.S. firearms industry after a Massachusetts court last month dismissed its first $10-billion case against gunmakers. The new suit brought in the border state of Arizona seeks sanctions against five dealers that sold guns used in serious crimes in Mexico, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said. "It's evident that there is arms trafficking, and that it's known that these weapons are aimed at our country," Ebrard said in a video posted on social media. If the United States wants Mexico to cooperate in the war on drugs, "we also want them to help us by reducing this flow of weapons that does us a lot of harm," he added. The case, filed in a U.S. District Court in Tucson, targets Diamondback Shooting Sports, SNG Tactical, Loan Prairie, Ammo A-Z and Sprague's Sports, the foreign ministry said. Mexico filed its first lawsuit in August 2021 against nine U.S. gun manufacturers and two distributors for what it deemed a "negligent and illicit" trade that encourages drug trafficking and violence in its territory. But a judge in Boston ruled September 30 that the nation's claims failed to overcome the extensive protections offered to firearm makers by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2005. Mexico tightly controls weapons sales, making them practically impossible to obtain legally, but drug-related violence involving firearms remains widespread. More than half a million weapons are trafficked into Mexico from the United States annually, according to the government of the Latin American nation. Mexico has seen more than 340,000 murders since 2006 when it deployed the military in the fight against drug-trafficking, most of them are blamed on criminal gangs. A bull moose wandered into Billings West End Monday and has taken up a brief residence within the city limits prompting police to urge the public to give the massive animal space to find his own way out of town. As the animal roamed the neighborhoods, campuses and fields around the West End and Midtown, people took to social media to document their encounters to include posts from ZooMontana. Police also took to monitoring the creature, which can be very dangerous to people. "Patrol Officers responded to multiple calls yesterday and did their best to keep the moose from entering areas where there were a lot of people on foot, but an animal this large is hard to entice to only go where we want him to go, and continually pressuring him only adds to his stress. The Police Department would prefer to allow the moose to find his own way out of town and are asking the public's help in allowing this to happen," BPD Lt. Matt Lennick wrote on Facebook Tuesday morning. Police were continuing to watch the animal and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks was "aware of the situation" Lennick added. "Moose can be dangerous when frightened or cornered so please keep a safe distance away," he added. More than a dozen calves wait at a research farm in New Zealand to be fed Kowbucha, a punnily named probiotic that studies show reduces burps or methane emissions. The Kowbucha powder is blended into a milk-like drink fed to the calves at the Massey University farm in Palmerston North. The regular feeds are part of a series of trials being carried out by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra since 2021 to gauge how effective the probiotic is in reducing methane emissions. New Zealand has pledged to cut biogenic methane emissions by 10% on 2017 levels by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050. The "true eureka moment" came when early trials suggested that calves emit up to 20% less methane when they receive the probiotic supplement, said Shalome Bassett, principal scientist at the Fonterra Research and Development Center. "Probiotics are great because they're a really natural solution," Bassett told Reuters. "Whatever we do, it has to be something that's easy for the farmer to use, has to be cost effective, and we have to ensure that it's good for the cow and doesn't have any effect on the milk." Ongoing trials have shown similar, promising results, she said. If that continues, Fonterra hopes to have Kowbucha sachets in stores by the end of 2024, Bassett said, before farmers have to start paying for animal burps. Fonterra said it did not yet have any pricing information for the sachets. Some feed additives available abroad have proved to be more efficient. Royal DSM's Bovaer feed additive can reduce methane emissions by 30% in dairy cows and by more in beef cattle. Fonterra said Kowbucha likely provides an easier solution generally as farmers only have to feed it to calves when they are being reared, given it is expected to have a lasting impact. Burp pricing New Zealand will in 2025 become the first country to price agricultural emissions, including methane emissions from burping cows and sheep, whose digestive systems produce methane when breaking down vegetation. Agricultural emissions account for around half of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Ahead of that, farmers, businesses and scientists are working on ways to cut emissions without reducing herd numbers, given agricultural products make up more than 75% of the country's goods exports. As well as the early optimism around Kowbucha, AgResearch scientists said in December they had successfully bred low methane producing sheep, while a product called EcoPond that almost eradicates methane in farm sewage has been on sale since late 2021. New Zealand is also considering whether supplements that have had success abroad can be adapted locally. Much of the science overseas focuses on altering barn animals' food and is harder to implement in a country where animals largely live outdoors and eat grass. "The easiest way to reduce emissions is to reduce production or have less animals basically, so that's a real challenge when we're trying to also produce food and keep our export returns at the level that we want them," said ANZ agricultural economist Susan Kilsby. Ahead of 2025, the government has released a proposal where biogenic methane and long-lived gases will be priced separately but those prices will be set by the government. While pricing farm emissions is not universally popular, many believe it is the push farmers need to reduce them. Mike Manning, general manager of innovation and strategy at agricultural cooperative Ravensdown, said farmers have been slow to adopt its EcoPond technology without financial incentives. The system cuts up to 99% of the methane emitted from the manure-sludge left behind in a dairy shed after milking. "People go, 'Well, I might wait until I have a price of methane then I have a financial driver,'" Manning added. Research New Zealand's government said in May it would spend NZ$380 million ($213.22 million) on research over four years to counter agricultural emissions. The cash injection may accelerate research and get some emerging technologies into the hands of farmers and growers "much earlier" said Sinead Leahy, principal science adviser at the government-funded Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Center. A lot of research is already underway. After discovering that some sheep naturally produce less methane than others, AgResearch headquartered in Hamilton bred sheep with this inheritable trait with one another and found that the lowest emitting sheep produced close to 13% less methane than the highest emitters. If such breeding were to be carried out on a national level, it could reduce New Zealand's methane emissions by up to 1%, said AgResearch. The dairy industry is now looking at how to apply that research to cows, Leahy said. For Fonterra, research also remains key as it aims to cap farm emissions at 2015 levels. In addition to Kowbucha, it is also testing other feed additives and seaweed. "It's definitely important for us to be leading in this space. Our farmers need a solution and New Zealand needs a solution," said Bassett. Somalia is getting support for its campaign to have an arms embargo lifted after Ethiopia joined Uganda in backing the action. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote in November on renewing the partial ban, which Somalia says should be removed so it can better fight al-Shabab terrorists. Ethiopia's support came after a rare July incursion by Islamist militants into Ethiopia amid a large-scale offensive by Somalia and its allies against the group. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed say the three-decades-long U.N. Security Council sanctions should be removed so Somalia can better fight the militant Islamist group al-Shabab. The two leaders issued a joint statement September 30 amid an offensive by Somali troops and their allies. Somalia called on African Union member states in July to support its campaign to lift the embargo, which includes bans on high-caliber weapons and military vehicles. The Somalia-based security research group Hiraal Institute said in a February report the arms embargo was failing to stop al-Shabab from smuggling weapons that federal forces were not allowed to buy. The institute's Samira Gaid said Somalia's capabilities are limited because it needs permission from U.N. security council members to buy certain arms. "But on the other hand, you have al-Shabab, that is able to purchase from the local markets and illegally smuggle these weapons from, say, Yemen or elsewhere," Gaid said. "And so for them, they have access to anything without any obligations. But on the other hand, the government is restricted." Despite the restrictions, Somali forces and their allies have been making gains against the militants. Somali President Mohamud's "all-out war" against al-Shabab has seen scores of villages recovered from the militants in recent weeks of intense fighting. The terrorist group says it has inflicted losses on the Somali military, though casualty figures cannot be confirmed. Mohamed Muse Matan, who teaches political science and international relations at the University of Somalia, said the sanctions mean Somali forces do not have enough firepower to defeat the militants. But Matan admits allowing Somalia to get high-caliber weapons is risky. He said giving high-caliber weapons to Somalia is dangerous due to lack of regulatory mechanisms, but that it is essential that the government's weapons be better than those of al-Shabab if the government is to win the war against al-Shabab. The U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Somalia in 1992 because of civil war and factional violence. The embargo was partially lifted in 2013 to help Somalia's security forces develop and fight the Islamist militants. The remaining sanctions, which require requests for certain weapons to be approved, are renewed annually. While Somalia has for years called for the embargo to be lifted, Mohamud has been campaigning since he was elected in May for the support of neighbors. In August, Mohamud and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called for the embargo to be removed during Mohamud's visit to Kampala. Former Somalia national intelligence deputy director Abdisalam Guled said Somalia needs heavy weapons like battle tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs). Guled said the arms embargo on Somalia was mostly supported by neighboring countries because they were afraid if Somalia got heavy weapons, it could use those weapons against its neighbors. Now that Ethiopia, which is among the strongest countries in the region, is campaigning for lifting the arms embargo, it's a good step that has already been taken, Guled added. Analysts say al-Shabab's July incursion into Ethiopia's Somali state, one of the deadliest reported in recent memory, was a major factor in Prime Minister Abiy's public call for lifting the embargo. Ethiopian officials say they repelled the invasion, killing more than 800 of the Islamist militants. It's not possible to confirm the casualty figures directly because the area is off-limits to journalists. At the last U.N. Security Council vote on the embargo's renewal in November 2021, Kenya was among the 13 council members that endorsed the extension of the partial ban. With the next vote just weeks away, it's not clear if Kenya will back Somalia's push to have the embargo lifted. There was no response to requests for comment from Kenya's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Even if Nairobi supports the move, Somalia would need more support on the council for the embargo to be lifted. Somalia argues it will need the weapons as it is expected to eventually take over its own security from international forces helping in the fight against the militants. In a step toward that goal, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) changed its name in April to the African Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS). Ukraine appealed to the international community Monday to condemn Russia's deadly missile strikes on its capital and several other cities, and to reject Moscow's attempt to annex four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine. "A trail of blood is left behind the Russian delegation when it enters the General Assembly, and the hall is filled up with the smell of smoldering human flesh," Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Kyslytsya said at least 84 missiles and two dozen drones had been launched at cities across Ukraine, leaving a trail of death and destruction. "Energy facilities, residential buildings, schools and universities, museums and crossroads in the city centers were among the targets that the Russian Defense Ministry later declared legitimate," he said. "The entire world has once again seen the true face of the terrorist state that kills our people." Monday's special emergency session was convened to discuss Russia's so-called referendums and attempted annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine's east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the country's south. But it was overshadowed by the airstrikes that rained down on Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, which had been quiet since June. Of the 20 countries that spoke, all but Russia condemned the latest attacks, some noting they could rise to war crimes. Moscow's envoy said Monday's strikes were in response to Saturday's bombing of the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. "We warned that this will not be conducted with impunity," Vassily Nebenzia said. "When you do these acts of sabotage, when you kill those who are unfavorable to you, the Kyiv regime is on the same level with the most outrageous terrorist organizations." Ukraine has strongly suggested its security agents carried out the truck bomb attack on the bridge but has not publicly claimed responsibility. Of the Kremlin's "referendums" and "annexation," Nebenzia said an "absolute majority" in the four regions supported the idea of joining Russia. "In the east and south of Ukraine, peaceful civilians are dying, and the people in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia know that very well. And that's why they decided to opt for the future with Russia," Nebenzia said. "I call upon you to respect their choice." The General Assembly debate will resume again Wednesday morning, and another 45 countries have requested to take the floor. Among them, a few Russian allies, including Belarus, North Korea and Syria. Of Russia's friends in the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), only China has signaled it will address the assembly. African nations are notably absent from the debate, with only the Democratic Republic of Congo so far planning to take the floor. The United States will speak at the end of the debate. Ahead of Monday's meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that no country of principle could be unmoved by the horrors Russia is inflicting on Ukraine. "The international community has a responsibility to make clear that President [Vladimir] Putin's actions are completely unacceptable," he said. "Now is the time to speak out in support for Ukraine. It is not the time for abstentions, placating words or equivocations under claims of neutrality. The core principles of the U.N. Charter are at stake." The debate will culminate with the 193-nation assembly being asked to vote on a resolution put forward by Ukraine and the European Union condemning and rejecting Russia's move to annex Ukrainian territory. "Russia is putting global peace and security at risk," EU envoy Silvio Gonzato said. "If we do not condemn the actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine today, then we condone similar blatant attacks on any and all of our countries tomorrow." Russia's ambassador tried but failed repeated procedural maneuvers to turn what will be a public, recorded vote into a secret ballot. U.N. agencies say restrictions in accessing information in Iran make it difficult to verify the number of people killed and injured in the anti-government protests that began last month. Iranian state media report 41 protesters and security forces have died; however, Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based nonprofit organization, says at least 154 people have been killed by security forces. Whatever the true number, U.N. agencies agree the use of lethal force against protesters and bystanders has led to the killing of dozens of individuals, including an alarming number of children. The protests across Iran show no signs of letting up despite a crackdown by authorities. The protests were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody nearly a month ago. Her death came three days after she was arrested by Irans so-called morality police for improperly wearing her hijab. UNICEF spokesman James Elder raised concern about reports of children and adolescents being killed, injured, and detained amid the ongoing public unrest. We share in the outrage and shock of all fair-minded people who are seeing these images of girls and women being beaten. UNICEF calls again on the protection of children from all forms of violence and harm, including during conflicts and political events, Elder said. Violence against children by anyone, and in any context, is, of course, indefensible. The U.N. human rights office acknowledged that its information is patchy; however, it noted reports in the provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan indicate at least 66 people, including children were killed. This, after security forces fired live ammunition, metal pellets and tear gas at protesters, bystanders and worshippers after Friday prayers on September 30. Human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the government has attributed the use of force in these provinces to terrorist groups. We have also received reports of mass arrests and detentions of protestors and at least 90 members of civil society, Shamdasani said. This includes human rights defenders, lawyers, artists and journalists. We have also seen very worrying reports of killings of human rights defenders. And again, it is very difficult to verify the circumstances. Shamdasani is renewing a call for the Iranian authorities to mount an independent investigation into Mahsa Aminis death. She urged authorities to heed the calls and demands of the protesters rather than resorting to violence, arrests and other means to disburse them. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said the widespread protests following Aminis death are not the actions of ordinary Iranians. He accused the United States and Israel of planning the demonstrations. The government also claims Amini died of a heart attack and was not mistreated. Her family said she had no history of heart trouble and that her body bore bruises and other signs of beating. The U.N. refugee agency will have to make "severe cuts" unless it gets extra funding soon, its chief said on Monday, warning cuts could lead to more malnutrition and child marriages as well as unrest in some of the world's poorest regions. The war in Ukraine has sent millions fleeing, and there are now more than 100 million people forcibly displaced in the world. This, along with an ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, floods in Pakistan, and violence in Cameroon, has caused the budget of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to balloon to a record of almost $11 billion. "I regret to inform you that for the first time during my tenure, I'm worried about UNHCR's financial situation," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a speech to member countries' representatives in Geneva after being reappointed as head of the agency last month. "If we do not receive at least an additional $700 million, especially for our most underfunded operations, between now and the end of this year, we will be forced to make severe cuts with negative and sometimes dramatic consequences for refugees and host communities," he added. The United States is by far the agency's biggest donor, contributing over $2 billion so far this year. Now, 12 of the agency's programs are funded at 50% or less, a spokesperson said. Asked which of them might be cut, the spokesperson expressed concerns about parts of the Middle East, including Yemen, and Ethiopia. "We fear the consequences (of cuts) will be far reaching from increasing malnutrition rates to rising risks of increasing gender-based violence, child marriage, labor exploitation, increased tensions and unrest within local communities over resource scarcity, and so on," the spokesperson said. In the same sweeping speech in Geneva, Grandi also said he was worried about the impact of cold weather during the Northern Hemisphere's winter on some 6.2 million people internally displaced in Ukraine. "I share the government's concerns about the looming winter," he said, adding that the elderly and disabled were especially vulnerable. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says missile attacks by Russias armed forces against civilian targets and infrastructure across several cities in Ukraine Monday could amount to war crimes. The U.N. reports Russian attacks on nearly a dozen cities including Kyiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia, have killed at least 20 civilians and injured more than 100. U.N. monitors say the series of attacks appears to have been coordinated. They say the location and timing of the strikes when people were commuting to work and taking children to school is particularly shocking. U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said critical civilian infrastructure, including at least 12 energy facilities, were targeted. She noted some of these facilities may be indispensable for the survival of the civilian population just ahead of the cold winter months. We have seen the story of elderly people trapped in their homes. People with disabilities were also unable to flee. I mean, this is unconscionable, she said. We have to stress that intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives, amounts to a war crime. Russian President Vladimir Putin says the missile attacks were in retaliation for what he called a terrorist blast that destroyed parts of a bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. Shamdasani said Russian-targeted attacks have destroyed or damaged many residential buildings and key power stations. She warned that the lack of a steady supply of energy to stave off the winter cold will likely put the lives of particularly vulnerable people at risk. We urge the Russian Federation to refrain from further escalation, and to take all feasible measures to prevent civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, she said. Shamdasani noted that the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine will keep tabs on the evolution of the war in Ukraine. She said the mission will continue to corroborate civilian casualties resulting from these attacks and document violations of human rights and international humanitarian law throughout the country. A year after Iraq's last general election, the United Nations mission urged political factions to end the deadlock paralyzing the oil-rich country, warning that "Iraq is running out of time." "The protracted crisis is breeding further instability ... it threatens people's livelihoods," the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq said, urging "dialogue without preconditions" toward a stable government in the war-scarred nation. Iraqis last voted on October 10, 2021, in an election triggered by an earlier wave of mass protests against endemic corruption, rampant unemployment and decaying infrastructure. One year on, the country has yet to form a new government, leaving caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi in charge but unable to have parliament pass a new state budget. The U.N. said that the vote a year ago "was a hard-earned election, brought about by public pressure from nationwide protests in which several hundreds of young Iraqis lost their lives and thousands were injured." "Regretfully, this reaffirmation of democracy was followed by divisive politics, generating bitter public disillusion," it added in a statement. Rival Shiite Muslim factions in parliament have been vying for influence and the right to select a new prime minister and government. The standoff that has seen both sides set up protest camps and at times sparked deadly street clashes. "All actors must engage in dialogue without preconditions," the U.N. mission said. "Through compromise, they must collectively agree on key outcomes... to service the needs of the Iraqi people and establish a fully empowered and effective government. The time to act is now." The political impasse pits the powerful cleric Moqtada Sadr, who has demanded snap elections, against the Iran-backed Coordination Framework, which has been pushing to appoint a new head of government before any new polls are held. Tensions last boiled over on August 29 when more than 30 Sadr supporters were killed in clashes with Iran-backed factions and the army in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the capital's government and diplomatic district. The Coordination Framework welcomed the U.N. statement, saying it was ready "for dialogue with all political actors" to "form a government with full powers. The French embassy in Iraq has also backed the U.N. mission's call, urging "all parties" to engage in "true dialogue without preconditions and with sincere willingness to compromise. Iraq has raked in huge revenues from energy exports this year, and the central bank is holding a colossal $87 billion in foreign exchange reserves. However, the money remains locked up because Kadhemi is not authorized to submit an annual state budget to parliament in his capacity as caretaker. The U.N. mission said it is "imperative" that a budget is adopted before the end of the year. Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthiest nations, meeting Tuesday in a crisis video conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pledged Tuesday they will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes after Russia continued its barrage of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. The G-7 leaders said in a statement after the virtual meeting that they had reassured Zelenskyy they are undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. They said Moscows indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime. We will hold President [Vladimir] Putin and those responsible to account, the G-7 leaders said. The G-7 comprises U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Amid Putins ongoing threats to use nuclear weapons, the G-7 reiterated it would direct severe consequences should Moscow use weapons of mass destruction but did not imply direct military involvement in Ukraine. U.S. officials have said they have not seen indications that Putin has decided to use nuclear weapons and underscored there is no change in U.S. nuclear posture. John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told VOA in a briefing to reporters Tuesday that the U.S. is not considering deploying tactical nuclear weapons smaller and less destructive than strategic nuclear weapons in Ukraine. There's absolutely zero interest from our side and from our allies and partners to see this war escalate into the use of the weapons of mass destruction at all, he said. Russia is estimated to have 2,000 of these tactical nuclear weapons, including some so small and portable that they are referred to as suitcase bombs. It's unclear whether we have the ability to track how Russia is moving or not moving their tactical nuclear weapons, Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, told VOA. We have to plan for all contingencies. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on reports that President Andrzej Duda of Poland has offered to participate in a nuclear-sharing agreement in which his country would host nuclear arsenals. Air defense systems Earlier this week, President Joe Biden told Zelenskyy the U.S. would provide Ukraine with advanced air defense systems, according to the White House. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is set to discuss details at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, with chiefs of defense from nearly 50 nations the sixth meeting of the group since it formed in April. The air defense systems under consideration would include those that can counter so-called loitering munitions, which wait around an area and attack once a target is located. These include drones that Russia recently obtained from Iran, said Becca Wasser, senior fellow in the defense program at the Center for New American Security. To ensure that, frankly, Ukraine can have better control of its airspace, not only for some of its military operations but to assure that it won't actually have some of these attacks on civilians and on some critical infrastructure, Wasser told VOA. These systems are necessary to create a sense of normalcy within the country, now in its eighth month of Russian attacks, Wasser added. To make it so that folks are willing to return to places like Kyiv and ensure that Ukraine can actually restart its economy, she said. The White House would not elaborate on the kinds of systems it is considering for Kyiv, including whether they would deploy the long-range Patriot air defense system that can counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft. We have provided air defense systems to Ukraine, Kirby said during his briefing. We plan to continue to provide air defense systems to Ukraine. And when there's something to announce in that regard, we'll do that. Mondays strikes, which included 84 cruise missiles and 24 drones, killed at least 19 people. Moscow said they were in response to an attack Saturday on a bridge that links Russia to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally seized by Moscow in 2014, which has been a major supply route for Moscows operations in southern Ukraine. Ukraine has hinted its security agents carried out the truck bomb attack on the bridge but has not publicly claimed responsibility. Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told reporters that more Western military aid for Ukraine risked further escalation and a possible clash between Russia and NATO. Tougher sanctions The G-7 said it is committed to helping Ukraine meet its winter preparedness needs and will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support to Kyiv. Zelenskyy urged the Western allies to impose even tougher sanctions on Russias energy sector to stop the flow of money from its oil and gas exports, which Moscow uses to help fund the war. It would be a symmetrical response to Russias attacks on the energy sector and energy stability of our countries, he said. G-7 leaders also condemned the involvement of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko after more than two dozen missiles were fired at Ukrainian targets from the country, calling it the most recent example of the Belarusian regime's complicity with Russia. The G-7 focus on Belarus is a good first step, since for too long, Lukashenko has received a pass on the Russian invasion, according to the Hudson Institutes Coffey. On Monday, Lukashenko announced Russian troops would return to Belarus in large numbers, a replay of the military buildup there prior to Moscows invasion of Ukraine in February. The leader of Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) has attacked President Emmerson Mnangagwa saying his government wants to destroy the secessionist movement by locking up its top members in a similar manner in which PF Zapu, once led by the late Joshua Nkomo, was weakened and swallowed by the ruling party. Mqondisi Moyo made these remarks in a scathing petition written to Mnangagwa and copied to Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Kazembe Kazembe, Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda, the Joint Operations Command, British parliament and commission in Zimbabwe and several senior state officials and security agents. Moyo bemoaned the locking up of nine members of his party, who protested outside Bulawayo Central Police Station and were nearly gunned down by the police while looking for him following reports that he was picked up for questioning over a farm invasion saga in Ntabazinduna, about 45 kilometers north of the countrys second largest city. He said, I have written to you several times raising questions about your conduct and that of your State Security agents against myself, my party members and Mthwakazi people at large. Moyo said he was nearly abducted by state security agents in March 2021, who also attempted to punish MRP activists - Nqobani Donga and Mongameli Xukuthwayo Mlotshwa. He said some of members of his party were also seriously injured when police opened fire at Bulawayo Central Police Station where they were looking for him. Some of these people, Moyo said, ended up in court and were jailed for engaging in public violence. Some commotion ensued between members of the police force and members of my party resulting in shootouts from your irresponsible forces, and in the process MRP members sustained a lot of injuries with some of them getting heavily bashed by your rogue police. It was during that time that nine members, mainly officials of my party were arrested and detained at Central police station before being taken to Bulawayo Tredgold magistrate Court. He said the nine MRP members are Tinos Nkomo, Livison Ncube, Nkosinathi Ncube, Mongameli Xukuthwayo Mlotshwa, Welcome Moyo, Ackim Ndebele, Maxwell Nkosi, Sibongile Banda and Busi Moyo. These were later to be sentenced on 02 May 2022 having been found guilty of inciting public violence and bigotry. The nine were sentenced to 33 months and 36 months respectively, and according to the magistrate Tavengwa Sangster, the Public Prosecutor of the day and the defence counsel of the MRP 9 members, it was ruled that they were to serve their sentences at Khami Maximum prison and Mlondolozi respectively. We know that their sentencing was politically motivated as incitement of political violence do not warrant such a charge as one of our member Patron Xaba was also charged with incitement of public violence but was sentenced to 525 hours, which is approximately three months, of community service. The sentencing of our MRP9 was a way of instilling fear on our members and Mthwakazi people at large to never stand up to fight for their fundamental rights and total independence. Your continuing provocation on us won't end well. On 28 August 2022, eight of the nine members were transferred to Chikurubhi Maximum prison and one was transferred to Gwanda as he had another pending case, which was not politically related. The transfer was without their consent and that of their relatives. While, on the other hand this is against the constitution of the country that stipulates the rights of prisoners, part of their rights include rights to be closer to their relatives, you will reckon that Chikurubi Maximum prison is 451km from Bulawayo and all the eight members currently incarcerated at Chikurubi Maximum, none of them has relatives that side of the country. On the other hand, we have received a lot of complaints from them that there is no food at the prison and for the fact that you directed that they be transferred to Chikurubi you intentionally wanted to frustrate, intimidate, and torture them. To me this is a violation of their constitutional rights. Moyo said his brother, Dinginhlalo Moyo, has also been given torrid time in the past few months as they locked him up, demanding to know his activities. It later emerged that the state found no case against him and on the last date of his routine appearance the magistrate of the day lashed out at police who had arrested him citing lack of true policing and professionalism where someone can be arrested without adequate evidence. His case was to be struck from the roll call. My brother's unprocedural and unjustified arrest was motivated by him being my biological brother, and for the fact that weeks before his arrest we had a successful meeting at Gwandavale Village which happens to be my rural village. Moyo further noted that his rallies in rural areas are being blocked by state security agents that have been assigned to eliminate him. At the same time, he said, there were attempts to plant weapons on MRP members houses following claims that an arms shipment, which was dismissed by the police, was heading to Bulawayo. The unfounded confiscation of so called heavy weapons to me was to portray us a state security threat as you did to Zapu in the early 80s when you were preparing for the Gukurahundi Genocide of 1983 to 1987. Two weeks ago Maxwell Nkosi one of the MRP nine members who was transferred to Gwanda prison was found guilty of having been caught with a pistol but surprisingly no evidence was produced to prove he had a gun and he was sentenced to seven years in prison with three years suspended. Again to us all this shows your dirty tactics against myself and the party members. This further show that you are afraid of MRP. He said the part has gathered a lot of intelligence information about how the Zanu PF government through its partisan State Security agents wants to destroy MRP using the same old tactics they used to destroy Zapu. Two months ago some information leaked to us that 40 men were taken for training in Namibia as brigade solely to deal with me and the members of the party. According to information at hand the 40 men will be given uniforms that resembles national park uniforms, and as soon as I get arrested and other members of the party these men will pounce on us and apply all dirty games on us. The information we have is that of the 40 men that were trained two are dead and according to the information gathered they might have been eliminated for demanding their dues before they were dispatched to pounce on us. We have the information that MRP is to be crushed before the anticipated 2023 elections as it is the only serious threat to the Zanu pf government. Other measures that are said to be taken against myself and MRP members are continued arrests, food poisoning and other dirty tactics. We are aware that the plans are hatched at a place at Domboshava where there is military camp that houses around 200 strong military men who are the decision makers on what action is to be taken against, those who are perceived to be anti Zanu pf government. According to our sources, said Moyo, MRP is at the top of the agenda of that Domboshava task force. The list of targeted parties and individuals has been compiled and my name is at the top. A week ago, an amnesty on the surrender of unlicensed weapons was ended on the 30th of September 2022. According to police, 538 firearms and 260 rounds of ammunition were surrendered voluntarily and it was announced that by the 1st of October 2022 the police would conduct some searches at those people whom they suspected to be in possession of unlicensed weapons. We know that this is another way that such weapons will be planted on people like us the way you, Mnangangwa did in early 80s against Zapu. I am aware that it was you Emerson Mnangangwa, Sydney Sekeramayi who took the then leader of Zapu Dr Joshua Nkomo to the Zapu farm in Gweru where you unearthed the weapons that you said belong to Zapu. But its a known fact that those weapons were planted by you as the Minister of State Security then who presided over the mass killings, disappearances of our people during Gukurahundi. I put it to you Emerson Mnangangwa that you a murderer, a gangster leader, and cruel at the same time, your barbarism will not deter us from pursuing our only lasting permanent solution to the woes of 129 years that both Shonas and whites particularly the West inflicted on us. He said Mnangagwa should provide a conducive level playing ground for all political parties in Zimbabwe; stop barbarism against myself and members of my party; stop these unprocedural and unlawful arrests of us; re- transfer the MRP eight members back to Khami Prison and Mlondolozi respectively; take your hands off the judiciary system as it is there to serve the country, not you alone and allow us out of Zimbabwe. We don't belong there. We have our own country which Zimbabwe is illegally occupying. Moyo added that we are aware that you are the same Emerson Mnangagwa who during the Genocide era in 1983, denied the late two ZPRA commanders their freedom on trumped up treason charges even if the highest court in the land had found them not guilty and acquitted them. Instead you scoffed at them when you visited them at Chikurubhi maximum prison that their freedom and release was dependent upon you and that they had to join Zanu pf if they were to be released. They refused and you told them you were going to throw their prison cell keys to the river, meaning that you had no will to have them out of the jail. These were Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku. The reason why I have decided to write you this letter is that on 23 March 2022 at a Zanu Pf rally at St Mary's at Chitungwiza you threatened me and the members of my Party that you were going to shorten the days of our lives on earth (meaning that you would kill us). On June 23, 2022 again while addressing your supporters at Bata Company in Gweru, you said we were possessed with the spirit of Legion and you would exorcise us of it. On 07 July 2022 at Marondera when addressing your supporters, you hammered on us threatening to deal with us. He noted that we are bringing all this to your attention not that we are afraid of you and your agents but because we want to let you know that we are aware of your dirty feelings and thoughts about myself and members of my party and Mthwakazi people at large. We want the world to also know of your brutality and cruelty. Your continued threats and arrests of myself and members of my party clearly indicate that our clarion call for self determination vindicates us and upset you and your government. MRP will not die and will not be bullied by your government. We are a political party that is destined to liberate our people from your oppression. We are fighting for our total independence. All these communiques will act as a reference in near future and the forthcoming generations will refer to. Presidential spokesperson, George Charamba, and information secretary, Nick Mangwana, were unreachable for comment as they were not responding to calls on their mobile phones. Mnangagwa was quoted a few months ago that his country wont allow the proliferation of secessionist movements like Mthwakazi Republic Party. He vowed to crush them by all means necessary. TUESDAY, Oct. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Many language skills are "left brain," but a new study shows that when a newborn suffers a stroke in that region, the brain is able to shift those language duties to the right. The researchers said the findings highlight the striking malleability of the infant brain, and could potentially point to ways to treat adults who suffer similar strokes. Strokes occur when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off, starving the tissue there. Depending on the location and extent of the damage, strokes can leave people with physical disabilities or problems with memory, thinking or communication. While older adults account for most strokes, they can strike younger adults, kids and even babies. Perinatal strokes those that occur around the time of birth affect roughly one in every 4,000 newborns, according to the International Alliance for Pediatric Stroke. The new study, published Oct. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, included 15 teenagers and young adults who'd suffered a perinatal arterial ischemic stroke. That's the most common type of perinatal stroke, and it occurs when an artery in the brain is blocked by a blood clot. In these cases, the stroke had damaged the language-governing areas in the left hemisphere of the brain. Despite that, all 15 young people had normal scores on tests of language skills including the ability to process spoken words and sentences and to interpret vocal emotions. Specialized MRI scans revealed how that was possible: Their brains had moved the responsibility for all language skills to specific areas in the right hemisphere of the brain. The "right brain" normally handles the vocal-emotion piece, but not word processing. The results demonstrate the remarkable "plasticity" of the brain in early life, said lead researcher Elissa Newport, a professor of neurology at Georgetown University Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. It's been known that people who suffered such strokes as a newborn can go on to have typical language skills. But it's important to understand what is happening in the brain to allow that, according to Newport. That knowledge could prove useful in developing treatments for strokes that happen later in life, she noted. Researchers have had different ideas on how language abilities are recovered after perinatal stroke. One is that uninjured parts of the left hemisphere take over; another is that the newborn brain is so malleable, that language duties can be assumed by areas that normally have nothing to do with language. A third hypothesis, Newport said, holds that left-brain language skills are transferred to a specific part of the right hemisphere the frontotemporal cortex, which normally takes care of interpreting the emotional part of communication. That's what Newport's team saw in their study participants. Their language recovery is remarkable, Newport said, since their left-hemisphere injuries would have devastated communication skills in an adult. "We think they do so well because in young children, the brain is not so lateralized," Newport said. That is, the brain's various jobs are not as fixed to one hemisphere, as is the case in adults. According to Dr. Solomon Moshe, a neurologist and professor at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City, "The developing brain does have the ability to compensate for very serious injury." Moshe, who was not involved in the new study, said, "We've seen babies recover from injuries that adults cannot tolerate." He said the message from these findings for parents is, "Be optimistic." If a newborn suffers this type of stroke there is still a good chance for normal language development, Moshe added. Newport said that while older brains are not innately capable of such plasticity, one question is whether they can be encouraged in that direction. Could, for instance, noninvasive stimulation of right-hemisphere structures, along with standard speech therapy, help stroke survivors with language impairments? Of course, a large stroke to the left hemisphere can affect functions beyond language. And not all can be recovered, Moshe noted. The 15 young people in this study did have some lasting effects from their early-life stroke including paralysis of the right hand, and mild problems with short-term memory and information-processing speed. But overall, they were thriving, Newport said, with many working toward or having higher-education degrees. More information For more about stroke in newborns, visit the International Alliance for Pediatric Stroke. SOURCES: Elissa Newport, PhD, professor, neurology, director, Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.; Solomon L. Moshe, MD, chair, neurosurgery and neurology, Montefiore Medical Center, professor, neurology, neuroscience & pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y.; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Oct. 10, 2022, online Enrollment numbers at Montana State University Billings are slightly down from last fall, but the university saw progress in several their target demographics. The university announced Monday that 4,057 total students enrolled with 2,322 at its main campus and 1,735 at City College. Last fall, 4,112 students were tallied with 2,375 at the main campus and 1,737 at City College. Where the university experienced growth was in its freshmen class, ethnic student populations and military-affiliated students. First-time freshmen enrollment increased 4% from last year while nontraditional freshmen enrollment increased 14% from a year ago. Nontraditional students are classified as having been out of high school for three or more years. Compared to fall 2021, Hispanic student enrollment increased 9% from 208 to 231 and Native American student enrollment increased 1.3% from 319 to 323. Military-affiliated student enrollment was reported to have jumped by almost 10%. MSUB Chancellor Stefani Hicswa said these figures reflect recent pushes by the university to recruit and retain students from these demographics. We have intentionally increased our recruitment efforts to better serve students from a wider range of backgrounds, she said in a press release. MSUB offers a robust and diverse range of in-demand programs, and it is apparent that our students recognize the industry demand to fill workforce needs in many of these areas. Efforts over the past year include a new online platform streamlining communication between students, faculty, staff, and advisors and a new scholarship program from the Montana University System known as the Montana 10 program that provides a community of support staff for scholars throughout their time in college. The program is open to any first-time freshmen from Montana eligible for the Federal Pell Grant who plans to attend college full-time. There are currently 77 scholars enrolled at the university campus and 31 enrolled at City College. MSUB also recently joined the Interstate Passport Network, a national program that enables students to transfer a block of their lower-division general education courses from one institution to another. Students who complete MSUBs passport block with a minimum grade of C in each course wont have to repeat or take additional courses at their new school. MSUB is the third higher education institution in Montana to join the network after Miles Community College and Salish Kootenai College. The Montana University System also reported slight increases in dual-enrollment high school students in School District 2 and enrollees aged between 25 and 49. Students taking an online or Hyflex class (a class with the option to attend either in-person or online) increased by 2.2%, the highest level of participation in the universitys history. As far as overall enrollment is concerned, the dip from last fall still tops 2020s total the universitys lowest over the past twelve years at 4,000 but continues the trend of a gradual decline in enrollment. Hoping to end this decline, MSUB last year developed a dedicated council focusing on student retention and graduation. The council will set incremental retention and graduation rates both from spring-to-fall and fall-to-fall semesters over the next five years. We found this to be the most important time to make an intervention, MSUB Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Dr. Sep Eskandari said. If a student decides to stay with their university after the first year, their chances are much higher to earn their degree. Early results of this initiative showed a 3.6 percent increase in the fall 2021 to fall 2022 retention rate for first-time freshmen and transfer students, which Eskandari said significantly exceeded their first-year goal of 54.7% retention. The councils ultimate goals by the fifth year are a fall-to-spring student retention rate of 90% and a fall-to-fall rate of 70%. Following this strong start, Eskandari said they will continue their current initiatives while also continuing to monitor student needs and possibly introducing additional new programs in the coming years to meet these goals. We always try to respond to industry demands for our students, he said. Well start new programs as the data demands and review our older programs to best meet the students needs. Additional metrics from MSUBs 2022 fall enrollment data include: Health and Human Performance 3+2 program (includes a combined bachelors and masters program) enrollment increased 94%. Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Nursing program enrollment increased 37%. Master of Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling program enrollment increased 25%. Master of School Counseling program enrollment increased 22%. Bachelor of Business Administration Finance Option enrollment increased 39.5%. Computer technology associate programs saw an enrollment increase of 23%. Fire science associate program enrollment increased 50%. The Associate in Nursing enrollment increased by 14%. For many, fall is a time for hunting especially in Wyoming. But fall offers great opportunities for fishing throughout the Cowboy State, and fisheries supervisors at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department expect good fishing at various lakes, reservoirs, rivers and streams. Darren Rhea, Game and Fish fisheries supervisor in the Jackson Region who also used to work in the Pinedale Region said the Snake River, Flat Creek and all the bigger rivers in the Jackson Region historically offer good fall fishing as well as small, wadeable streams. Jackson Lake is closed in October to protect spawning lake trout. Sam Hochhalter, Game and Fish fisheries supervisor in the Cody Region, said the opportunities for anglers throughout the Big Horn Basin are numerous. Between Buffalo Bill Dam and Willwood Dam there are more than 4,000 trout per mile with good access for shore and float anglers. Paintrock, Medicine Lodge and Shell creeks in the Bighorn Mountains should have brown trout gearing up to spawn. Closer to Cody, Dead Indian, Crandall and Sunlight creeks also should be good. Two large bodies of water that should offer good fishing this fall in the Sheridan Region are Keyhole Reservoir and Lake DeSmet. Andrew Nikirk, Game and Fish fisheries biologist in Sheridan, said netting in August revealed walleye that are a good size to eat. Crappie fishing at Keyhole can be good in the fall in deeper water with vertical jigs. Check updated boating protocols for Keyhole meant to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species before heading out. Lake DeSmet offers anglers diversity with kokanee salmon, rainbow trout, Bonneville cutthroat trout, walleye and lake trout. Healy Reservoir offers anglers a chance at largemouth bass, tiger muskie and walleye. Paul Mavrakis, Game and Fish fisheries supervisor in the Sheridan Region, said the Middle Fork Powder River should offer anglers good trout fishing opportunities this fall. He also said Sand Creek near Beulah should be good for brown trout. Green River Anglers can pursue lake trout this fall at Flaming Gorge Reservoir in the Green River Region. Its especially good for smaller lake trout less than 24 inches long. We need more small lake trout harvested to reduce impacts on the kokanee salmon population, said Robb Keith, fisheries supervisor in the Green River Region. These smaller lake trout spawn along the reservoirs shoreline. Keith said in recent years it has been between Oct. 10 and Nov. 10 with a two- to three-week window where fishing is best. Another spot to check out is the Green River below Fontenelle Dam, although the first mile below the dam is closed Oct. 1-Dec. 31. Bobby Compton, Game and Fish fisheries supervisor in the Laramie Region, said his neck of the woods offers quality lake and stream fishing. The Laramie Plains Lakes, especially Twin Buttes, Meeboer, Alsop and Diamond should be good for trout. Lake Hattie and Wheatland No. 3 are low but still accessible by boat and shore angling where fall-spawning rainbow trout cruise the shorelines. The Miracle Mile stretch of the North Platte is known for its brown trout run in the fall. Matt Hahn, Game and Fish fisheries supervisor in the Casper Region, said anglers should have a chance to target big browns along that stretch from mid-to-late October through December. Hahn reminds anglers, especially fly anglers along rivers and streams, to take precautions to not spread aquatic invasive species by following the "Clean, Drain, Dry" message for boats, boots, waders and other fishing equipment. We have New Zealand mudsnails in all of the North Platte River reaches, plus curly pondweed is working its way downstream, Hahn said. Walleye fishing at Alcova, Glendo and Pathfinder reservoirs in the Casper Region should be good, especially for bigger fish. Hahn said jigging spoons for suspended walleye is a good technique at Glendo. Swim baits over rock piles or steep drop-offs are effective at Alcova and Pathfinder. Lander Ocean Lake and Boysen Reservoir in the Lander Region are expected to be good for walleye. The walleye population in Boysen is doing really well, said Paul Gerrity, Game and Fish fisheries biologist in Lander. There are lots of good eater-size fish under 20 inches, but also have some good year-classes in 2011 and 2014 that provide people a chance to catch walleye over 20 inches. Boysen should also have good fishing for sauger and rainbow trout. Joe Deromedi, Game and Fish fisheries biologist in Lander, said Lake Cameahwait near Boysen Reservoir also known as Bass Lake should be good for largemouth bass and tiger muskie. The Popo Agie and Wind River drainages should be good for trout with solid water flows this year. Wiggins and Bear creeks should provide stream anglers opportunities to catch cutthroat this fall. Brooks Lake near Togwotee Pass is scenic and a good place for rainbow trout with a chance at small brook and lake trout too. Ring and Trail lakes east of Dubois give anglers opportunities for trophy-sized trout. The Finger Lakes near Pinedale are good spots to target lake trout. The New Fork River for brown trout and the Green River should be good for brown and rainbow trout until they ice up. Tragedy occurred in a school near Verona. A teacher collapsed and died in the classroom in front of her young students at a primary school near Verona in northern Italy on Monday afternoon. The 44-year-old teacher, identified as Giovanna Fabrica, died at the end of a lesson at the Carlo Ederle school in Villa Bartolomea, reports local newspaper L'Arena. She fell to the floor moments after taking over from Italian teacher Tommaso De Stefani who carried out immediate resuscitation attempts while directing colleagues to remove the children from the classroom. De Stefani continued his efforts to revive his colleague, including with a defibrillator, until the arrival of emergency services however all attempts to save her were to no avail. "It all happened in a few seconds" - De Stefani told L'Arena - "I had just said goodbye. She was calm and smiling, as always. I went to the front door for a moment when I heard a thud." The principal Cristina Ferrazza had to break the news to Giovanna's husband Angelo, a teacher in another school in the area, who stressed that his wife did not suffer from any health conditions. The teacher's funeral will take place in Naro, near Agrigento in her native Sicily, while the school provides psychological support for the shocked students and staff. A note on the school's website reads: "Dear Maestra Giovanna, Your smile went out too soon in the place you loved most. We hug you tightly on your last journey, so that you are not afraid." Photo L'Arena Bus driver to receive award for her actions. Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri has praised the actions of a Roman bus driver who rescued a teenage boy being bullied by giving him refuge in her driver's cabin. The incident occurred one morning last week. The driver, identified only as Simona, first observed the boy being bullied by a gang at a bus stop in a north-east suburb of the city. The bullying, both verbal and physical, intensified on board the bus, according to a statement from Rome's municipal transport company ATAC. After hoping that fellow passengers would step in to save the boy from the bullies (nobody intervened to help him), Simona decided to take matters into her own hands and stopped the bus at the next stop. With the excuse of checking the vehicle's rear door, she went to the back of the bus and calmly invited the boy to travel with her in the driver's cabin. The stunned bullies suddenly fell silent. Once back in the driver's seat Simona asked the boy to call his family. "She wants to be sure that he will not suffer again when she leaves him at the terminus" - ATAC stated - "The young man's mother meets them. Shocked by what happened, she goes away with her son, exchanging a few words with our young driver. Then, in the afternoon, she contacts us on our Facebook page. She wants to thank the ATAC driver who saved her son from bullies". Rome's mayor also wants to thank Simona, described by ATAC as the mother of a small girl and the daughter of a support teacher. "Rome is proud of these virtuous gestures that make our city a community in solidarity and close to those who are defenceless" - Gualtieri wrote on Twitter - "We will award you in the Campidoglio for this. Brava!" About 150 items considered sacred by the Sioux peoples that have been stored at a small Massachusetts museum for more than a century are being returned, museum and tribal officials announced Monday. The items including weapons, pipes, moccasins and clothing about seven or eight of which are thought to have a direct link to the the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre are due to be formally handed over during a ceremony scheduled for Nov. 5, Ann Meilus, president of the board at the Founders Museum in Barre, said during a news conference on a day that several people present noted is more commonly being celebrated as Indigenous Peoples Day. This is not our history of Barre. This is the Lakota Sioux's history, and we should honor the Lakota Sioux and what they desire, she said. It is a repatriation project that has been decades in the making. The return of the items is a chance to begin that process of healing," Kevin Killer, president of the Oglala Sioux tribe said. The items being returned are just a tiny fraction of an estimated 870,000 Native American artifacts including nearly 110,000 human remains in the possession of the nation's most prestigious colleges, museums and even the federal government that under federal law are supposed to be returned to the tribes under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, often referred to as or NAGPRA. While the Barre museum maintains that as a private institution that does not receive federal funding, it is not subject to NAGPRA, returning items in its collection that belong to Indigenous tribes is the right thing to do, Meilus said. Wendell Yellow Bull, a descendant of Wounded Knee victim Joseph Horn Cloud, said the items will be stored at Oglala Lakota College until tribal leaders decide what to do with them. Upon the return of the items, there will be a mass meeting and a very meticulous discussion on how and what we're going to do with the items," he said. Most of all, there are items from the massacre site, so a lot of preparations and ceremonies must take place in order for us to proceed forward." More than 200 men, women, children and elderly people were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in December 1890 in one of the countrys worst massacres of Native Americans. Congress issued a formal apology to the Sioux Nation for the massacre in 1991. The Barre museum acquired its Indigenous collection from Frank Root, a 19th century native of the town about 70 miles west of Boston. He was a traveling shoe salesman who collected the items on his journeys, and once had a road show that rivaled P.T. Barnum's extravaganzas, Meilus said. The items being returned to the Sioux people have all been authenticated by multiple experts, including tribal experts. The museum has other Indigenous items not believed to have originated with the Sioux. Artist Michael He Crow used his expertise of traditional Lakota Sioux artwork and craftsmanship. I am able to recognize some of the designs and the colors that the Lakota used at that time," he said. There was a time when specific designs could be traced back to a particular family, but because those designs have been reproduced and replicated so many times over the years, that is now nearly impossible, he said. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share They took their time about it, but Irans oil workers seem finally to have joined the anti-regime protests. Videos on social media platforms reportedly show marches and demonstrations in Abadan and Assaluyeh, vital hubs in the countrys petroleum and petrochemicals sector. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Such unrest would represent a significant widening of the uprising against the Islamic Republic: It will give protesters elsewhere in the country a much-needed fillip and draw more international attention to their cause. The government will likely meet it with swift and bloody retaliation. The turn in the south comes as the regime in Tehran has intensified a crackdown against nationwide protests, which have been sustained mainly by women for nearly a month. (More recently, schoolgirls have joined the demonstrations.) The spark for the protests came from the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the so-called morality police, but the kindling was provided by decades of misrule by the theocratic elite. After starting out with slogans against the Islamic Republics restrictive dress codes, the women quickly switched to demands for the end of the regime. Cries of Death to the dictator, a reference to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, are now routinely heard in the demonstrations and appear in graffiti across the country. Advertisement With the regime ratcheting up repression police have been shooting live rounds into the demonstrations, and the death toll is reckoned to be approaching 200 the protesters could use a boost from other powerful constituencies within the country. And constituencies dont come any more powerful than the workers of the oil and gas sector, the mainstay of the Iranian economy. The government has been anxious about the growing organization of oil workers in recent years, and rattled by a series of strikes in the refineries. Another disruption in the oil sector would come at a particularly bad time. The regime is hoping to capitalize on Western sanctions against Russian oil sales to meet demand in Europe if, that is, it can get the Europeans to persuade the Biden administration to ease sanctions on Iranian supplies. A strike will hamper those hopes, and more repressive measures will dampen any European enthusiasm to advocate on the regimes behalf. Advertisement Until now, much of the discontent among oil workers has been over pay and working conditions, and the unions have used strikes to extract some salary hikes. Unions in other sectors have been inspired to launch industrial action. A nationwide strike by teachers at the start of the year brought educators into the streets in more than 50 cities. When the womens protests began last month, there were mere murmurs of support from some unions. But revulsion over the regimes repressive measures against the protesters has led to more full-throated backing. In videos posted on Twitter, workers reportedly marching in Assaluyeh can be heard chanting, Dont be afraid! Were all together, and Death to the dictator! Videos reportedly from Abadan show workers leaving their stations in apparent solidarity with the protesters. Advertisement Abadan is home to one of Irans oldest oil refineries; Assaluyeh hosts facilities that process natural gas from the giant South Pars field. Respectively in the hydrocarbon-rich provinces of Khuzestan and Bushehr, the two cities are a long way from Tehran. But the workers slogans will have been heard by the regimes leaders, who need no reminding that strikes by oil workers were decisive in the success of the 1979 revolution. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, may have regretted his reluctance to use his security forces against the oil workers. Khamenei will not be so restrained. He will likely move swiftly to forestall sector-wide strikes. Until now, the regime has relied primarily on the police to deal with the womens protests. Having already overcome any qualms he may have had in inflicting violence against women and girls, Khamenei will feel no compunction about unleashing the more ferocious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia on the workers. Advertisement He has used them to brutal effect in putting down previous uprisings, notably the Green Movement of 2009 and the anti-regime protests ten years later. More than 1,000 people were killed in the 2019 crackdown, and tens of thousands were arrested. But the inspiration provided by the women protesters seems to have helped the workers to overcome any fear of a reprise in repression. Their actions may, in turn, inspire other groups to join the fight. Teachers associations, indignant about the use of violence against student protesters in campuses, have signaled their solidarity. Undoubtedly there will be more blood. But Khamenei may find that isnt enough to quell this uprising. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Irans Protesters Need More Support at Home: Bobby Ghosh The Iran Nuclear Deal is Stalled. Time for Plan B: The Editors Advertisement Irans Drone Piracy Shows the Future of War: James Stavridis This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering foreign affairs. Previously, he was editor in chief at Hindustan Times, managing editor at Quartz and international editor at Time. 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 Russian President Vladimir Putin can wage war everywhere and in every way, and he wants all of us in the West to know it. Thats why hes not just blowing up parts of Kyiv again. Hes also threatening Ukraine, the European Union and NATO with nuclear escalation while simultaneously ramping up the hybrid warfare that he, as a KGB-trained warlord, has spent decades mastering. Technically, the Western countries he attacks cant always prove right away that Putin is personally responsible for a specific act of aggression. Thats in the nature of hybrid warfare, which deliberately blurs the boundaries between military, technological, psychological and other kinds of combat and dodges easy attribution. But experts are picking up that signature whiff. Over the weekend, rail traffic in northern Germany came to a screeching halt for several hours. Two separate radio cables had been severed concurrently, one acting as backup for the other, hundreds of miles away. Investigations are underway. But the consensus is that this was professional, and highly sophisticated, sabotage. Advertisement That outage followed suspiciously choreographed explosions deep under the Baltic Sea the other week. Those detonations damaged two pipelines meant to pump natural gas from Russia to Germany which Putin wants to blackmail into submission via energy starvation. The giant Baltic methane bubble reminded the entire Western alliance that it has hundreds of other vulnerable links on the ocean floors, carrying everything from gas to electricity and internet data. With every such act of sabotage and provocation this week, thereve also been cyberattacks against several US airports an interesting dynamic unfolds in some Western countries. The cognoscenti immediately point to Putin as the likeliest perpetrator. But others, upon hearing the name, react as though somebody had just shouted Voldemort. Right on cue, they dredge up conspiracy theories from the nether regions of the Kremlins propaganda swamp. Maybe it was the Yanks, maybe it was us, maybe it didnt even happen at all. And that, too, is what Putin wants. He needs Americans, Germans, Italians, Hungarians and others to fight with and even to start hating their own compatriots. He wants us to start believing, as the author Peter Pomerantsev has put it, that nothing is true and everything is possible. He wants to gaslight us into doubting reality good and evil, victim and aggressor, self-defense and escalation. Advertisement This way, Putin knows, many of us will be even more frightened of him. Of course were scared that he might drop nukes. But now we also worry that he could take out our power and water supply, our telecommunications and hospitals, or that he could otherwise mess with our lives, wherever we happen to be. As a top brass in Germanys army told a newspaper, were in a state of being no longer fully at peace and not yet really at war. Contemplating all these theaters of war in their entirety, we must give Putin a certain kind of credit. Hes probably long been laughing at the arbitrary distinctions Western military analysts have drawn, which have become silos in our minds, and therefore in our preparations to defend ourselves against him. That starts with the term hybrid warfare. The underlying idea of strategic ambiguity in fighting, basically is as old as war, and therefore humanity. But the term was coined only in 2007 by Frank Hoffman, an American military think-tanker to describe what Putin was already well on his way to practicing. Advertisement The same applies to the so-called domains of war. Originally, these were land and sea, later joined by air, then space and then cyberspace. These distinctions may have made sense to logistics planners in defense ministries, which could assign a service army, navy, air force to each domain. But theyre irrelevant to an enemy like Putin, who intuitively mixes all the means provided by the physical and psychological universe to manipulate, blackmail and violate his adversaries. He has already used migrants, hydrocarbons, wheat, Novichok, Manchurian candidates, conspiracy theories and much else. Hed just as gladly avail himself of viruses, radiation and whatever else comes along. We must expect more cables to be cut, and more pipes to explode. We should get ready for factories to turn dark without warning, satellites to behave strangely, navigation systems to crash and cash dispensers to deny our PINs. And every time, well see more of Putins useful idiots his sock puppets in Western politics and media telling us not to believe whatever is happening. Advertisement Since 2016, NATO has stated that hybrid actions against one or more Allies could lead to a decision to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Thats the clause saying that an attack on one is an attack on all. That German general is right: Were in a liminal place somewhere between peace and war, and thats a new and uncomfortable experience. But we better get used to it fast and show Putin that we know his vulnerabilities too. More From Bloomberg Opinion: A Decision Tree for Biden If Putin Goes Nuclear: Andreas Kluth An Unhinged Putin Is A Warning to China and Xi: Clara Ferreira Marques Putins War Hawks Are No Longer In Step: Leonid Bershidsky This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European politics. A former editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist, he is author of Hannibal and Me. 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 death in September of a young woman in police custody after she was detained for violating Irans strict dress code has sparked violent protests across the country. Popular anger was focused initially on the so-called Guidance Patrol -- officers who target women they deem to be improperly dressed in public -- but soon broadened to encompass decades-long grievances toward the government generally. Unlike previous protests, the current demonstrations have unified people over class and ethnic lines and across provincial boundaries. Protesters have faced a major crackdown by security forces, which retain a strong grip on the country as they seek to protect the clerical establishment. 1. What provoked the protests? The immediate trigger was the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which was announced on Sept. 16. According to state media, shed traveled from the western province of Kurdistan with family to Tehran, where a Guidance Patrol team detained her outside a metro station claiming she was inappropriately dressed. Amini was forced into a minivan and taken to a police station, according to an account in the reformist Shargh newspaper. The Guidance Patrols have increased their activity since the election last year of conservative Ebrahim Raisi to the Iranian presidency. After news of Aminis death emerged, Iranian state TV released CCTV footage of Amini collapsing over a chair and onto the floor. Tehrans police force said she suffered heart failure. Her father, Amjad Amini, told the BBC that doctors found her collapsed outside the hospital with no explanation of who she was or what had happened to her. She went into a coma and died two days later. Her family accused authorities of beating her and covering it up, saying she had no underlying health conditions. Advertisement 2. How deep is the anger? Large protests have been reported in scores of cities across Iran. They have transcended ethnic lines, touching an especially raw nerve in Mahsa Aminis Kurdish community in western Iran, where people have long complained of being sidelined by the state. Oil workers have also joined the protests, staging strikes in solidarity at two facilities on the Persian Gulf, according to social media reports. Industrial action in the energy sector was crucial to the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled Irans monarchy. Celebrities, politicians and athletes condemned the police on social media and criticized the Guidance Patrols. Young women have removed and, in many cases, burned their head scarves or cut their hair in public to show solidarity with Amini. Footage of the protests on social media, none of which can be verified by Bloomberg, has shown demonstrators beating back security forces, demonstrating a level of fearlessness unseen in previous protests. 3. Why has the anger spread to other causes? Advertisement The unrest is tapping into broader frustration with Irans hard-line rulers over the state of the heavily sanctioned economy, entrenched corruption and social restrictions. Many of the grievances cited by the protesters in slogans and songs go back decades. 4. What are protesters demanding? One of the most unusual aspects about the protests is that theyre being led by women. At a minimum the protesters want laws imposing mandatory hijab (the term used in Islam to describe modest dress) for all females from the age of nine to be overturned. More broadly, they want Iranian law to be less governed by religious dictats that usually come from elderly clerics who are often out of touch with society. Many of the protests have included chants calling for the complete end of the Islamic Republic. The rules stipulate a chador -- a black cloak that envelopes the body from head to toe -- or long, loose-fitting overcoats and tightly tied head scarves. The laws came into effect after the revolution when exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran, deposing the pro-Western Shah. They became immediately unpopular among the countrys educated middle class and divided female activists who had fought for the revolution. Over the years, women have gradually pushed the boundaries of whats permissible. Loose shawls and robes, often open and worn with leggings, are common attire in most cities; thats how Amini was dressed when she was detained. Advertisement 5. Are these the first protests against hijab laws? Opposition to the dress code has been a feature of the countrys tightly controlled civil society ever since the revolution. The first major protests were on International Womens Day in 1979 when both secular and religious women joined forces to challenge the proposed law in rallies in Tehran. In more recent years, public rebukes have taken the form of silent acts of protest such as in 2017 when a number of women were photographed standing on public electrical cabinets and benches in Tehran, holding their head scarves aloft. They were all arrested, and some were seen being aggressively pushed to the ground by police. In August, a woman named Sepideh Rashno was arrested and forced to make a confession on state TV after being filmed arguing with a chador-clad individual whod been harassing another young woman over her attire. Rashnos face showed clear signs of bruises and swelling. 6. How have authorities responded to the current protests? Advertisement The security forces, which include armed riot police, plainclothes security forces and a religious militia known as the Basij, have tried to suppress protests by charging at demonstrators with tear gas, batons and Tasers. Theres widespread reports of riot shotguns and paintball guns being used. Several social media videos, which cant be verified by Bloomberg, have shown riot police clubbing people on the head and body. The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights has said at least 185 people have been killed so far, including 19 children. Despite this, it appeared that authorities werent resorting to killings to the extent they did during protests in November 2019, when human rights groups said hundreds of people were shot dead in the streets. On Oct. 4, in his first comments addressing the protests, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pledged his support for the security forces, denouncing protesters for challenging the police and claiming the demonstrations are designed by the US and Israel. There were reports that the Guidance Patrol had disappeared from the streets, but it was unclear whether this would last. 7. What were previous protests about? The biggest domestic challenge to the government came in 2009 from the so-called Green Movement, sparked by allegations of fraud in the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Demonstrations focused largely on political issues and attracted millions of middle-class Iranians in Tehran. The state reacted swiftly to quash dissent, with dozens killed, hundreds arrested and web access significantly impeded. But protests continue to flare and be put down: Advertisement IN MAY 2022, demonstrations erupted in southwest Iran after the collapse of a 10-story building, poorly constructed and commissioned by a government official, killed at least 40 people. IN JANUARY 2020, Iranian security forces mistakenly shot down a passenger jet, killing the 176 people on board, sparking protests. Public anger was fueled by the incompetence of the security establishment and efforts to hide the states culpability for days. IN NOVEMBER 2019, protests were sparked by a sharp and sudden increase in the price of gasoline ordered by the government, which subsidizes the fuel. Iranians were already being squeezed by US sanctions, imposed the year before by then-President Donald Trump. Security forces responded with deadly force. IN LATE 2017, Iranians took to the streets to express frustration with economic insecurity in protests that expanded to include opposition to the regime. Advertisement In the oil-rich, southwestern province of Khuzestan, which has a large population of Arabs, a minority in mostly Persian Iran, protests against corruption and poverty are common, prompting a crackdown by security forces. 8. Whats the state of the opposition in Iran? There is no legitimate, organized opposition inside Iran. People criticize the leadership privately, but such views are rarely reflected in the countrys tightly regulated media. The only political factions that can function are those that support the core values of the Islamic Republic. Secularists, communists and groups that promote religions other than Islam are effectively banned. Iranian politicians fall roughly into three categories: ultra-conservatives such as Khamenei, moderate or pragmatic conservatives like former President Hassan Rouhani or Ali Larijani, and reformists like former President Mohammad Khatami. The reformists believe that the political system should be open to improvement. However, their popularity and influence has declined substantially since Rouhanis government failed to keep several promises to improve civil liberties. His administration was also widely blamed for mismanaging the economy after the US reimposed sanctions in 2018 after abandoning a 2015 agreement concerning Irans nuclear program. Advertisement 9. What protects the current system? Khamenei has built a strong relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the largest and most powerful wing of Irans military, which has helped fortify his position. Khamenei is the ultimate authority behind all major decisions of the state, including economic and foreign policy, and hes also the de facto head of several large religious foundations that run some of the countrys biggest conglomerates and pension funds. Its this consolidation of military power and economic influence that has helped the Islamic Republic, in its current manifestation, to maintain an iron grip on politics. All of Irans major state institutions, from the state broadcaster (which has a complete monopoly on broadcast services) to the judiciary, are managed by people close to the supreme leader or are politically aligned with him. Since last years election of Raisi, all levers of Irans state and government have been under the control of hard-liners who fiercely defend the centrality of their Islamic ideology. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2022 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share LYMAN, Ukraine Covered head-to-toe in protective suits, forensic workers pulled several bodies wrapped in black plastic from a mass grave Tuesday in Ukraines devastated city of Lyman. It was part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Ten body bags lay beside a roughly 100-foot (30-meter) trench from which authorities said 32 bodies have been exhumed so far in the city in Ukraines eastern Donetsk region. The bodies were Ukrainian soldiers who had been buried together in a mass grave, the head of the Donetsk regions military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in Lyman on Tuesday. Another 22 civilians have been exhumed from individual graves at the burial site, located on the edge of a cemetery in a forested area on the outskirts of Lyman. Further exhumations are planned. Advertisement The burial site was the second found in Lyman so far, Kyrylenko said, adding that initial investigations suggested the bodies had been buried by local residents and not by Russians. We have already found more than 50 bodies of soldiers and civilians, he said. ___ KEY DEVELOPMENTS: More missiles, drones strike Ukraine, alarms keep up fear Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine Analysts: Russian missiles seek to levy pain, could backfire Russian troops carry out industrial-scale looting of Ukrainian historical treasures Weather chief: Ukraine war may be blessing for climate Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine ___ PARIS Ukraines president has urged the U.N. cultural agency to expel Russia because Russian military strikes have damaged hundreds of cultural sites around Ukraine. Advertisement In a speech Tuesday to UNESCO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine has nominated the embattled Black Sea city of Odesa to be inscribed on the agencys World Heritage list. Zelenskyy said 540 objects of cultural heritage, cultural institutions and religious buildings in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed since Russia invaded Feb. 24. He asked: Why are representatives of Russia still among you? What are they doing at UNESCO? Russia currently holds the rotating presidency of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which Zelenskyy said devalues the institution itself -- its significance, its reputation. ___ WASHINGTON U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met Tuesday in Washington with Ukraines finance minister, Sergii Marchenko, where she stressed the importance of providing financial assistance to support you as you rebuild the prosperous and free Ukraine that your country has fought so hard to secure. Advertisement Yellen said the U.S. had provided $13 billion in economic assistance grants to Ukraine. We are calling on our partners and allies to join us by swiftly disbursing their existing commitments to Ukraine and by stepping up in doing more -- both to help Ukraine continue its essential government services and to help Ukraine begin to build and recover, she said. ___ KYIV -- The Ukrainian General Staff says in the past day its forces have shot down 21 cruise missiles and 11 drones fired by Russia, including all eight Iranian-made drones targeting critical infrastructure in the Mykolaiv region. ___ MOSCOW International Atomic Energy Association chief Rafael Mariano Grossi met Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking to prevent a nuclear accident during the military conflict in Ukraine. Advertisement Grossi stressed the urgent need to establish a safety and security protection zone around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Now more than ever, during these extremely difficult times, a protection zone must be established around the ZNPP. We cant afford to lose any more time. The stakes are high. We must do everything in our power to help ensure that a nuclear accident does not happen during this tragic conflict, he said. Putin told Grossi he was glad to see him and was happy to discuss all of the issues that are of mutual interest to us and perhaps even cause concern to some, and to us as well. He said those concerns involve the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. ___ KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the West to impose even tougher sanctions on Russias energy sector to stop the flow of money from its oil and gas exports. Advertisement Speaking virtually to the leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers on Tuesday, he said this would be a symmetrical response to Russias attacks on the energy sector and energy stability of our countries. Such steps can bring peace closer, Zelenskyy said. They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war. The Ukrainian president repeated his insistence that no peace talks can be held with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ___ BERLIN -- Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers have pledged after a videoconference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that they will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes. The leaders said in a statement after Tuesdays virtual meeting that they had reassured Zelenskyy they are undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Advertisement They said they will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support to Kyiv, and that they are committed to supporting Ukraine in meeting its winter preparedness needs. The G-7 leaders condemned this weeks barrage of Russian missile strikes against cities across Ukraine and said that indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime. They said: We will hold President (Vladimir) Putin and those responsible to account. The G-7 is made up of the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Germany currently chairs the group. ___ BRUSSELS NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the 30-nation military alliance will hold a long-planned exercise next week to test the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities. Advertisement Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that this is routine training that happens every year to keep our deterrence safe, secure and effective. The exercise, dubbed Steadfast Noon, is held annually and usually runs for about one week. It involves fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads but doesnt involve any live bombs. Conventional jets, and surveillance and refueling aircraft also routinely take part. NATO as an organization does not possess any nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries - the U.S., U.K. and France. Asked whether it was the wrong time to be holding such an exercise, Stoltenberg said: It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, long-time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. Stoltenberg said that Russian President Vladimir Putins nuclear rhetoric over the war in Ukraine is irresponsible. He added: Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought. Advertisement ___ GENEVA The head of the U.N. weather agency says the war in Ukraine is accelerating the development of and investment in green energies over the longer term even though fossil fuels are being used at a time of high demand now. The comments from Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, came as the world is facing a shortfall in energy needs prompted in part by economic sanctions against key oil and natural gas producer Russia and prices for fossil fuels have risen. That has led some countries to turn quickly to alternatives like coal. But rising prices for carbon-spewing fuels like oil, gas and coal have also made higher-priced renewable energies like solar, wind and hydrothermal more competitive in the energy marketplace. ___ KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraines state nuclear operator is accusing Russian forces of abducting another senior official at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Energoatom wrote on its Telegram channel Tuesday that Valeriy Martyniuk, the plants deputy director general for human resources, had been kidnapped. It wrote that they keep holding him at an unknown location and (are) probably using methods of torture and intimidation. The plant has been held by Russian forces for months but operated by its Ukrainian staff. Reports of intimidation of the staff and abductions began trickling out over the summer. Ukrainian authorities have said that the plants director, Ihor Murashov, was seized and blindfolded by Russian forces on his way home from work, then released in early October after being forced to make false statements on camera. ___ MOSCOW The Kremlin is saying that the continuation of U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine will extend the fighting and increase the damage to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that the U.S. de facto has become deeply involved. Asked during a conference call with reporters about U.S. President Joe Biden telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington has agreed to his request to provide advanced air defense systems, Peskov said that it would only exacerbate Ukraines condition. He said: It will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result. ___ CHISINAU, Moldova -- Moldovas president has demanded that her countrys borders be respected after three Russian missiles bound for Ukraine crossed its airspace. President Maia Sandu said in a video address to the nation on Tuesday, a day after the incident, that we respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries and also demand that our borders be respected. Sandu said she would do everything to maintain peace in Moldova despite what she called growing pressure by pro-Russian political forces in the eastern European nation who she said had promised to Moscow to overthrow our constitutional order and install a government that will allow Russia to use our country in its war against Ukraine. Moldova, a former Soviet republic located between Ukraine and Romania, has been a strong supporter of Kyiv during the war. Russian troops have occupied its breakaway Transnistria region since 1991, when the region fought a brief war for independence from Moldova with Moscows support. ___ GENEVA The U.N. human rights office says Russian missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday were particularly shocking and could amount to war crimes. Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Russia Tuesday to refrain from further escalation and expressed concerns about strikes on civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings and energy facilities. Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations, she told reporters at a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law. Shamdasani added: We have to stress that intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects that is objects which are not military objectives amount to a war crime. ___ KYIV, Ukraine -- The mayor of Lviv says Russian forces have struck an energy facility in the western city. About a third of the city remains without power and there are issues with water supplies. Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said Tuesday afternoon that numerous explosions are again heard in Lviv. He didnt clarify what facility was attacked. It wasnt immediately clear if there were any casualties. Sadovyi asked city residents to stock up on water due to possible interruptions to water supplies. ___ KYIV, Ukraine -- The Kyiv regions regional administration says that rolling power shutdowns following Mondays Russian strikes on Ukraine may last for up to four hours each. The capitals mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said Tuesday that the strikes killed at least five people in the city and wounded 51. He vowed that the evil will be avenged. The governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said that Russian forces overnight continued to pound three districts around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is on the front line of the conflict. Those included Nikopol, a Ukranian-held city across the Dnieper River from the plant. Vinnitsya governor Serhiy Borzov said the Ladyzhynska thermal power plant was attacked with two Shahed-136 drones. The plants administration said the strikes injured six people and damaged some equipment. In Kryvyi Rih, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said that hundreds of miners stuck underground because of power blackouts were rescued by Tuesday morning. He said the rescue operation lasted all night and all 854 miners were brought up to the surface. ___ KYIV, Ukraine -- Officials in different parts of Ukraine have reported explosions, drone strikes and missile strikes by Russian forces. Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyi said three explosions shook two energy facilities in the region on Tuesday. He wrote on Telegram that it wasnt immediately clear if there were any casualties there. There were reports of new power outages in Lviv only hours after it had been restored after Mondays attacks. In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian forces on Tuesday shot down four Russian missiles, according to the regions governor Valentyn Reznichenko. Four more Russian missiles were downed by Ukraines forces in the south, as well as five drones over the Mykolaiv and the Odesa regions, Operational Command South said. The governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, urged local residents on Tuesday not to leave shelters as there are enough missiles still in the air. Another missile was shot down in the Kyiv region, governor Oleksii Kuleba said. ___ MOSCOW -- Russias foreign minister has rejected speculation about Moscows possible use of nuclear weapons, saying that it could do so only if Russia faces imminent demise. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russias nuclear doctrine envisions exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state. Speaking on Russian state television, Lavrov accused the West of spreading speculation about Russias alleged intentions to use nuclear weapons and urged the U.S. and its allies to show the maximum responsibility in their public statements on the subject. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Ukraines State Emergency Service says that 12 S-300 missiles have slammed into public facilities in Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire in the area. It says that one person was killed in the attack early Tuesday. The S-300 was originally designed as a long-range surface-to-air missile. Russia has increasingly resorted to using repurposed versions of the weapon to strike targets on the ground. ___ PRAGUE The presidents of NATO members in central and eastern Europe are condemning Mondays Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities and saying that they constitute war crimes under international law. The presidents of the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Montenegro said in a statement that war crimes and crimes against humanity arent subject to any statute of limitations and are covered by the jurisdiction of courts all over the world. They demanded that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets and said that We will not cease our efforts to bring to court persons responsible of yesterdays crimes. The presidents said that any threats by Russian representatives to use nuclear weapons are unacceptable. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Air raid warnings throughout Ukraine have sent some residents back into shelters after months of relative calm in the capital and many other cities. That lull had led many Ukrainians to ignore the regular sirens, but Mondays attacks gave them new urgency. Besides the usual sirens, Kyiv residents were jolted early Tuesday by a new type of loud alarm that blared automatically from mobile phones. The caustic-sounding alert was accompanied by a text warning of the possibility of missile strikes. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers operating over the Caspian Sea launched missiles over Ukrainian territory around 7 a.m. Tuesday. It did not provide information about the targets. It said four inbound missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian southern air command around 9 a.m. The governor of the Vinnytsia region, Serhiy Borzov, said there was an air strike there in the morning. There was no word on casualties. ___ LONDON The head of GCHQ, Britains electronic intelligence agency, says Russia is running short of weapons and its troops are exhausted. Jeremy Fleming said Tuesday that we believe Russia is running short of munitions. Fleming is due to give a public speech later, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in judgment throughout the war. According to GCHQ, he will say that we know and Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies and munitions are running out. Russias forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation. GCHQ did not disclose the sources of its intelligence. ___ KYIV, Ukraine Ukraines State Emergencies Service says that 19 people were killed and 105 others were wounded in Mondays Russian missile strikes across Ukraine. It said Tuesday that critical infrastructure facilities were hit in Kyiv and 12 other regions, and 301 cities and towns were without power. Russia on Monday retaliated for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months. They hit at least 14 regions, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the wars front lines. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share NEW DELHI Altaf Ahmad Shah, a prominent politician in Kashmir who challenged Indias rule over the disputed region for decades and had been jailed by Indian authorities for the past five years, has died while in police custody, his family said Tuesday. He was 66. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Shah was arrested by Indian authorities in 2017 in a terror-funding case and was held in New Delhis Tihar jail, where he was diagnosed with kidney cancer in September. After repeated family appeals to senior government officials, including a letter to Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, the jailed leader was moved to New Delhis All India Institute of Medical Sciences for treatment, where he died Monday night. Tihar jail officials did not immediately comment on Shahs death. Shah is the fourth separatist leader from India-controlled Kashmir to have died in police custody in the last three years. He was part of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, an anti-India political group, and one of the staunchest supporters of demands for Kashmirs merger with Pakistan. Advertisement Last year, Shahs father-in-law and the regions staunchest anti-India leader, Syed Ali Geelani, 91, died at his residence in Srinagar after nearly 10 years of house arrest. Earlier in 2021, separatist leader Mohammed Ashraf Sehrai, 78, died due to multiple ailments while in jail. India has arrested thousands of Kashmiris under stringent laws imposed when an armed rebellion erupted seeking the regions independence or merger with Pakistan, which controls another part of the territory. Rights groups say India has used the law to stifle dissent and circumvent the justice system, undermining accountability, transparency, and respect for human rights. India considers the armed rebellion a proxy war by Pakistan and deems it to be state-sponsored terrorism. Most Muslim Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle and support the rebels goal for the divided territory to be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. Advertisement Pakistans Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, said he was deeply grieved by Shahs death. The Modi regime denied him treatment despite knowing he was a cancer patient. Custodial killings are the norm in Modis India, Sharif wrote on Twitter. Shahs daughter Ruwa Shah, tweeted about her fathers condition on Sept. 21, saying he needed a proper hospital instead of the jails ICU. In a letter written to the Delhi High Court, she also sought for her fathers release on bail due to his poor health. Shah was first shifted to New Delhis Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, according to Ruwa, who said the health facility did not treat cancer patients. He was later shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Indias premier health facility, after an intervention from the Delhi High Court. This was always his biggest concern since being jailed, that he will die a prisoner, Ruwa told the Indian news website The Quint last week. In August 2019, when India stripped Kashmir's semi-autonomy, Indian authorities harshly clamped down on the groups leaders, detaining scores of them and barring them from leading public protests. ___ Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and 18 members of his cabinet have requested the immediate deployment of foreign troops in response to gangs and protesters who have paralyzed the country. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight Fuel, water and other basic supplies have dwindled nearly a month after one of Haitis most powerful gangs blocked access to a main fuel terminal in Port-au-Prince where more than 10 million gallons of gasoline and diesel are stored, along with more than 800,000 gallons of kerosene. In addition, demonstrators have blocked roads in the capital and other main cities to demand Henrys resignation and protest rising fuel prices after the prime minister announced in early September that his administration could no longer afford to subsidize fuel. Gas stations and schools remain shuttered. Banks and grocery stores are operating on a limited schedule. Advertisement The United Nations secretary-general has offered the Security Council various options, including the immediate deployment of a rapid action force. Opponents claim Henry hopes to use foreign troops to keep himself in power a leadership he assumed last year after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise and that many consider illegitimate because he was never elected nor formally confirmed in the post by the legislature. He has failed to set a date for elections, which have not been held since November 2016, but has pledged to do so once the violence is quelled. Here is a look at previous foreign military interventions in Haiti and the impact theyve had on the country of more than 11 million people: HOW MANY FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTIONS HAVE THERE BEEN IN HAITI? Since the early 1900s, there have been at least three major foreign military interventions in Haiti led by the United States and the United Nations. Advertisement The U.S. first occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Nearly 60 years later, the U.N. launched a peacekeeping mission in 1993, followed by the arrival of U.S. troops in 1994. Another intervention occurred in 2004. The first of those was to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. The second followed a rebellion that removed him again. WHAT LED TO THE INTERVENTIONS? The interventions came at moments of great political instability. Seven Haitian presidents were ousted or killed from 1911 to 1915, prompting U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to send U.S marines to Haiti in 1914. The U.S. removed half a million dollars from the Haitian National Bank for alleged safekeeping in New York. A formal U.S. occupation began in July 1915 and lasted until August 1934. In September 1994, the U.S. sent more than 20,000 troops and two aircraft carriers to Haiti as part of an operation dubbed Restore Democracy under President Bill Clinton. The aim was to restore to power Aristide, who had been ousted in a 1991 military coup. Aristide had become Haitis first democratically elected president the year before. A smaller contingent of U.S. troops remained in Haiti until early 2000, often under U.N. auspices. Advertisement A parallel United Nations peacekeeping effort was launched in September 1993 and ran until 2000. Aristide was overthrown again in February 2004 in a rebellion originally launched by a street gang. The U.S., which had pushed him to resign, flew Aristide out of the country and sent troops as did Canada, France and Chile. They were soon replaced by troops of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which stayed until 2017. WHAT IMPACT HAVE FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS HAD ON HAITI? Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said that overall, The occupations didnt really improve anything in Haiti. He said the 1915-1934 occupation created a unified Haitian military, which was the countrys dominant force until the dictatorial regime of Francois Duvalier and later his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, from 1957 to 1986. Advertisement The occupation also established a type of unpaid forced labor known as corvee in which U.S. officials used Haitian peasants to build roads, railroads and other infrastructure. The occupation was very coercive, Fatton said. It was also very centralizing and ... very racist. He said the second intervention in 1994 was more popular because it helped restore the charismatic Aristide, a former priest who once served poor communities. The invasion led to the creation of Haitis National Police, which effectively replaced the Haitian Army that was disbanded in 1995, though many police officers were former soldiers. However, there were two failed coup attempts during that occupation and deepening political chaos. The U.N.s 2004-2017 peacekeeping mission was marred by allegations of sexual assault by its troops and staffers and the fact that peacekeepers from Nepal were blamed for introducing cholera into Haitis largest river in October 2010 by sewage runoff from their base. The U.N. has since acknowledged it played a role in the epidemic and that it had not done enough to help fight it, but it has not specifically acknowledged it introduced the disease. Fatton said that while the U.N. mission established a modicum of order, in Haiti, it was a very repressive organization. To destroy gangs, they used forceful means. That left a very bad taste with poor Haitians, he said, noting that they live side-by-side with gangs in slums. Whether youre with the gangs or not, you suffered the consequences. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share MASERU, Lesotho Lesothos businessman-turned-politician Sam Matekane is set to become the southern African countrys next prime minister after cobbling together a coalition headed by his Revolution for Prosperity party. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. ArrowRight Matekane, 64, announced the new three-party coalition Tuesday in the capital, Maseru. His party will team up with two smaller parties, the Alliance of Democrats and the Movement for Economic Change parties, to secure a parliamentary majority needed to form a government. Matekane, whose party was only launched in March this year, won 56 of the legislatures 120 seats in last weeks general election. That was five shy of the 61-seat threshold required for any party to form a government on its own. Although he had emphasized the importance of governing alone to enable his party to implement what he called a developmental agenda, Matekane joined forces with other parties after he failed to secure an outright win. Together the two smaller parties are bringing 9 seats into the new coalition, giving Matekanes government a slim majority of 65 seats. Advertisement Addressing the media Tuesday, Matekane said he chose the two parties because they share the same vision of cutting down on government expenditure and improving the delivery of government services to Lesothos population. Matekane is a newcomer to politics but the leaders of the two partner parties bring experience in government. Alliance for Democracy leader Monyane Moleleki served as deputy prime minister from June 2017 to May 2020. Movement for Economic Change leader Selibe Mochoboroane was development planning minister in the outgoing All Basotho Convention-led government which will hand over power when Matekane is sworn-in to office on a date to be announced. Matekane said the coalitions immediate tasks will be reining government expenditure, stabilizing the economy and uniting the nation. Lesotho has been plagued by chronic instability and widespread poverty. He said he would hold a weekend retreat with coalition partners to map the way forward. Advertisement Hundreds of people lined the streets near Matekanes offices to celebrate his announcement of a new government. Commenting on Matekanes victory in his first election, National University of Lesotho political science lecturer Tlohang Letsie said his new party won because the electorate was fed up with the political status quo. The votes came from a place of anger ... The election outcome is a clear message to all political parties that when people choose them to govern, they expect them to deliver, he said. Matekanes incoming government must deliver, the peoples expectations must be met, Letsie said. Maseru resident Tene Mabuse voiced similar views. I want the new government to create jobs. Previous governments failed the people, they only sought to promote and serve their own interests, Mabuse said. Im happy the Revolution for Progress has won because we need new players. We need them to create jobs. He said Matekane and his party should be warned that if they disappoint us, we wont hesitate to dump them the same way they did the parties that we have ditched. GiftOutline Gift Article A police statement said the migrants were found late Monday during a routine check on a road near the town of Valandovo. They were inside a specially constructed hiding place within the large vehicle. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russias war in Ukraine. SKOPJE, North Macedonia Police in North Macedonia have detained 44 Syrian migrants, including 14 minors, found carefully hidden in a truck near the southern border with Greece, authorities said Tuesday. The migrants are believed to have entered illegally from Greece and to have been headed to Serbia, on their way to wealthier European countries. They were taken to a holding facility pending deportation to Greece. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Improvement of Azerbaijan's healthcare system is a priority issue for the country, Health Minister Teymur Musayev said, Azernews reports. He made the remarks during a meeting with the World Bank Technical Assistance Mission, which is on a working visit to Azerbaijan. Speaking at the meeting, the minister emphasized that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to cooperation with the World Bank, the worlds most influential financial institution. Cooperation with the World Bank in various areas is of particular importance from the perspective of applying international best practices, he said. Teymur Musayev also noted that the use of digital technologies is the basis for reforms in Azerbaijans healthcare system. In addition, he stated that regular meetings of the ministry with the World Bank missions give a strong impetus to strengthening cooperation. Expressing gratitude for the warm welcome and high hospitality, World Banks Lead Health Economist Driss Zine Eddine El Idrissi emphasized the fruitful cooperation between the World Bank and Azerbaijan and also expressed support for the reforms carried out in the countrys healthcare system. Azerbaijan joined the WB in 1992. Since then, the bank has financed over 50 projects with total commitments of $4.4 billion. It started economic cooperation in Azerbaijan to help increase the countrys institutional capacity and build efficient oil reserves management. The WB has always supported the large-scale reforms carried out in Azerbaijan. Local officials have advanced a replacement name for a community in western North Dakota that contains a Native slur amid a federal effort to rid the term from maps. The McKenzie County Board of Commissioners last Wednesday supported the name "Homesteaders Gap" proposed by the Squaw Gap community, Auditor/Treasurer Erica Johnsrud told the Tribune. Residents didn't want to drop "gap" from the name, and "It's all commonplace that we all come from homesteaders," Squaw Gap native Ron Whited told the board. The proposed new name has been submitted to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Johnsrud said the commission is awaiting word on whether the name will be accepted, but she didn't have a timeline on when that might be known. Commission Chairman Howdy Lawlar said he was glad residents put forth the name. "I think they should have all the say in it, personally," he said. The renaming hasn't been without opposition. Whited said most residents have accepted that the name will change, though "some are going to call it Squaw Gap forever, and that's fine, but it'll go down as a new name." Commissioner Clint Wold said, "I think the government changed the name. Some of us won't. Every time we drive by, it'll be the old name, and we don't want to change it." The U.S. Board on Geographic Names last month voted on final replacement names for nearly 650 geographic features containing the slur in their names. U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland last year declared the word to be derogatory and established a 13-member Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force. Squaw Gap is one of seven unincorporated, populated places that brought additional review by the board. The site is little more than a community hall and old schoolhouse. The community's name "notes a local rock formation said to resemble an Indian squaw carrying a papoose, and its location in a gap in a hill," according to "North Dakota Place Names" by Douglas A. Wick. Squaw Gap acquired telephone service in 1971, "one of the last regions in the country" to do so, the book said. Five other sites in North Dakota, mostly water bodies, have been renamed. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico The United Kingdom announced Tuesday that it has deployed a ship and specialized police to the Turks and Caicos Islands to fight a spike in violence. Two dozen specialists who were stationed in the Bahamas arrived Friday on the archipelago, while a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker with a helicopter is en route and will be used as a platform for operations, said the UKs Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. The archipelago of some 58,000 people has reported 15 fatal shootings since early September. Among the victims was Kent Carter, an NAACP leader from Virginia who was killed Oct. 2 while on vacation. The U.K. has a moral and constitutional responsibility to support and protect the people of the overseas territories, who are a valued part of the U.K. family, said U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. We had to act following the terrible violence weve seen in the Turks and Caicos Islands these past few weeks. The UK also said it would create and fund a new crime team within the police department to fight gangs, give training and procure a maritime surveillance aircraft. Local police have blamed the gang violence on drug trafficking, turf wars and retribution. GiftOutline Gift Article Telstra chairman John Mullen said the telco was working with the federal government on improving privacy laws as he defended rival operator Optus, which has faced widespread criticism of its response to last months historic cyberattack. Mullen urged companies to avoid complacency when it comes to protecting customer data in wide-ranging comments that included his plans to retire from the chairmanship within two years. His retirement is contingent on helping new chief executive Vicki Brady settle in her new role and strengthening Telstras board of directors. Telstra chairman John Mullen will retire within the next two years. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer We are very much involved in discussions with [government], trying to minimise [issues], Mullen said. On the one side, were required to keep information for fraud purposes - we need to be able to help authorities by law. But equally, does that need to be kept forever? No, it doesnt. The government is going to hopefully come up with a streamlined set of rules that everybody can adhere to. A Melbourne couple who mistakenly received $10.4 million from a cryptocurrency company following an administrative bungle in Bulgaria will face trial over allegations they spent the money on items including a $1.2 million house. Jatinder Singh, 37, and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, appeared at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday where it was revealed the company, crypto.com, had intended to refund $100 into Manivels Australian bank account in May 2021 but mistakenly paid $10.4 million. A sketch of Thevamanogari Manivel in Melbourne Magistrates Court. Credit:Nine News Singh, who held an account with crypto.com, told police he believed he had won the money from the company before his partner a Malaysian national was arrested at Melbourne Airport in March with a one-way ticket to the South-East Asian county and $11,000 cash. Investigations have since found $4 million of the money was allegedly transferred to an offshore bank account with other amounts spent on items including a $1.2 million home in Craigieburn and three other properties, a car, art, furniture and gifts to friends in Melbourne of more than $1 million each. A Perth doctor who didnt tell a patient she had cancer until it was terminal has been found guilty of professional misconduct following an investigation by the medical watchdog. The State Administrative Tribunal heard in 2016 Fiona Stanley Hospital practitioner Dr Amro Labib failed to inform a 28-year-old fly-in, fly-out worker she had stage four cancer on her adrenal gland until seven months after her first scan. Amro Labib, whose patient died two months after finally receiving her diagnosis. The woman first came under his care in late 2015 when she was referred to the endocrine surgical team suffering abdominal pain. Labib consulted with the patient for a year and initially believed a mass identified above her right adrenal gland was a haematoma and not the rarer condition of an adrenal tumour. Montana state investigators will probe a nearly $1.8 million construction cost overrun incurred under North Dakota's late attorney general. The move follows North Dakota lawmakers' direction for further investigation by an independent agency after they heard a critical investigative report read by State Auditor Josh Gallion late last month. Lawmakers said the report raised questions of trust and double-billing. The Attorney General's Office under Wayne Stenehjem leased the Stealth Properties building at 1720 Burlington Drive in south Bismarck to house its numerous divisions. Parkway Property Management co-owner C.J. Schorsch has said the "build-to-suit" upgrade project was punctuated by coronavirus pandemic delays, overages and change orders. Attorney General Drew Wrigley in June disclosed the cost overrun under his predecessor to the Legislature's Budget Section, saying it was in the interest of transparency. The Attorney General's Office last year under Stenehjem used $1.4 million from its 2019-21 budget and rolled the remaining $400,000 into a new rental rate of the lease to cover the overrun. The lease is for 10 years. Gallion's report named state Rep. Jason Dockter, R-Bismarck, as an owner in three companies involved in leasing and remodeling the building, including a contracting company that received about $322,000 in payments without invoices. Dockter has said he had nothing to do with billing or day-to-day operations. He also has told the Tribune that he plans to resolve issues identified in the report with the Attorney General's Office. Montana Wrigley told the Tribune he spoke Tuesday with Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, and handed off the cost overrun matter to that state's Division of Criminal Investigation. There was no particular reason he chose the Treasure State, other than it being a neighboring state and South Dakota being short-staffed on investigative agents, according to Wrigley. He said the bounds of the investigation will be up to Montana. "I'm not going to direct them one way or the other. I think the nature of this has to be a full-on handoff of the matter -- 'Here's the investigative materials that we have,' and they'll go through there and decide what additional inquiries they want to make, if there's other information that they want or if there are interviews (to do), so that's up to them," Wrigley said. His office is preparing "for the transmittal of absolutely every bit of evidence, information that we've got," he said. Deleted email accounts It's unclear if Montana's probe will include the deletions of the state government email accounts of Stenehjem and former Chief Deputy Attorney General Troy Seibel. Stenehjem spokeswoman Liz Brocker directed the deletion of both accounts, including Stenehjem's just days after he died Jan. 28 due to cardiac arrest. She resigned in July, days after the deletions came to light from a Tribune records request. Wrigley has said repeatedly there was no criminal wrongdoing in the deletions. Montana investigators are "free to" look into the deleted email accounts, he said. A timeline for the probe isn't known, according to Wrigley. North Dakota will pay room and board for Montana investigators if needed, but otherwise the costs will be handled as a professional courtesy as law enforcement agencies have done so in the past, he said. The Montana Division of Criminal Investigation did not immediately respond to a Tribune email seeking comment. Email recovery North Dakota's Information Technology Department recently tapped Microsoft consultant service Planet Technologies to attempt to retrieve the deleted email accounts. The 30-day job isn't to exceed $9,240. Chief Technology Officer Duane Schell said he expects the job to come in under budget and be completed sooner than 30 days. In this trade period special episode of the Real Footy podcast, Jake Niall and Michael Gleeson discuss the action from day six of trade period, including the groundbreaking four-way deal that got Jason Horne-Francis to Port Adelaide, and look at the state of play in the deals that havent yet been done. North Melbourne made the bold move of trading away pick one as part of the deal, which GWS now hold. Who will the Giants target in the draft with that top selection? And why were North happy to give up No.1? Other big ticket deals got done on Monday, including Izak Rankine to Adelaide and Luke Jackson to Fremantle. We look at the way players are valued, and the imperfection of the trading system. Did Melbourne get unders for Jackson? Or is it too easy to say the Demons got a bad deal? There are also deals that are looking less likely to get done, and one of those is a move for Ollie Henry from Collingwood to Geelong. We discuss the hold-up in those negotiations and what Geelong would have to do to meet the Pies current request. The purchase of eight nuclear submarines under the AUKUS pact is expected to add at least another $100 billion to the nations already ballooning defence bill, as the Albanese government seeks to rein in cost blowouts and delays of major military projects. The government went on the attack over defence spending on Monday, accusing the Coalition of bungling the portfolio in government by focussing on new project announcements rather than delivering the assets required to keep the nation safe. Australias decision to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines will add to the budget pressures. The government released an analysis showing the Australian Defence Force has 28 major projects running behind schedule, with cumulative delays of 97 years and a total cost blowout of $6.5 billion. Defence spending is set to hit $80 billion a year by the end of the decade, up from $49 billion currently. Crucially, that figure does not include the cost of nuclear submarines or an expansion in Australian Defence Force personnel. Australian Defence personnel would travel to Europe to help train Ukrainian soldiers under a plan being considered by the federal government after Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. The government is preparing to deliver another round of military assistance to Ukraine on top of the $388 million it has already committed to the war effort. Defence Minister Richard Marles says the government is considering providing training to Ukrainian troops. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen While Ukraines ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko has focused on securing extra military equipment and ammunition, he said Ukraine would welcome any training assistance from Australia. The United Kingdom has led efforts to provide basic military training to thousands of Ukrainian civilians by hosting them for combat courses in England. London: A close-knit Irish community have lined the streets to honour an Australian man who was among 10 locals killed in a petrol station explosion on Friday. Mourners paid their respects to the grieving wife and son of James OFlaherty, 48, who had popped in to fill his car at the Applegreen service station and shop in the village of Creeslough, Donegal. James OFlaherty, 48, originally from Sydney, died in the explosion that occurred at the Applegreen petrol station in Ireland. Credit:PA, Supplied His wife Tracey and young son Hamish were comforted by relatives and friends at the Eternal Light Chapel of Rest in Letterkenny on Monday (London time). The grieving pair travelled in the same car as the coffin to the funeral home, Derrybeg, before OFlahertys remains are removed on Tuesday to the family home in Dunfanaghy. A guard of honour was formed outside the chapel by his wifes colleagues from Letterkenny University Hospital, where she works as a nurse, as OFlahertys coffin was carried out to the hearse. Kyiv: Russia will respond to the Wests growing involvement in the Ukraine conflict, although direct conflict with NATO is not in Moscows interests, Russias deputy foreign minister said after Washington pledged more military aid for Kyiv. Ukraine said it needed to strengthen its air defence following Russias biggest aerial assaults on cities since the beginning of the war, retaliation for what Moscow called a Ukrainian attack on a strategic bridge in Crimea. A medical worker runs past a burning car after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit:AP Russian forces showered Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones on Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people. Air raid warnings sounded throughout the country for a second straight morning as Ukrainian officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. US President Joe Biden promised to provide advanced air defence systems, and the Pentagon said on September 27 that it would start delivering the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System over the next two months or so. Walk me through the day you were released. Loading I got released around 4pm from Orange County, and then around 6.30pm they brought me to 26 Federal Plaza - exactly the place I got arrested in March last year. I sat there in a little holding room. I kept knocking on the window. I was like, Can you just tell me whats going on? And they were showing me the thumbs-up and signalling patience. The ICE guys drove me here 11-ish; they handed me over to Chris, my art dealer; we went on the rooftop really quick; and then you literally caught me 15 to 20 minutes after I got here. You didnt have to stay behind bars. You could have fought your immigration status from Germany. I just did not want it to go down the way ICE wanted it to. Letting them deport me would have been like a sign of capitulation - confirmation of this perception of me as this shallow person who only cares about obscene wealth, and thats just not the reality. I could have left, but I chose not to because Im trying to fix what Ive done wrong. I have so much history in New York and I felt like if I were in Europe, Id be running from something. But if jail does not prove people wrong, then what will? How was detention? Youre always at somebody elses mercy. Getting anything for myself, it was just impossible. While waiting on the outside, at least you can do that. I mean, not me, but So why is house arrest better? Better food, I guess. And I can have visitors beyond just 1.30pm on Thursdays. Well just see what I can do from here. I guess everybody will be coming to me. What are you most excited about doing now that youre out? Finding my way back. Loading With an ankle bracelet. With an ankle bracelet, yeah. Apparently if I have any issues with it, then somebody will come fix it. Its a 24/7 service. Im thinking what I can do with it. You want to glam it up? Im not a glam-it-up type of person, but the possibilities are endless. When we spoke earlier this year, you said that you had changed a lot since the crimes you committed in your mid-20s. But the judges order doesnt seem convinced of your remorse. I definitely have a way different perspective now than I did when I came out the first time last February. Its just impossible to have been through what Ive been through without changing. I learned so much being in jail. Theres a very well-documented arc about how Ive felt about everything. It wouldnt be right if I were just to switch in one day. That would be very disingenuous. Its a process. I am regretful about the way things played out. The way Ive tried to see my experience is to learn from it: Who I am today is because of the decisions I made in the past. You got the news you could leave Wednesday morning, but you didnt have an apartment. Fast-forward to Friday night, and here we are sitting in your living room. In this New York market, Ive got to ask: How did you find an apartment so quickly, Anna? John [Sandweg], my lawyer, found it for me. I obviously wasnt able to do anything from jail. I have a great team around me, so it was all thanks to them. You post bail, pay three months rent on a six-month lease for a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village. Wheres all the money coming from? I guess youll have to ask the government. Is the bail and apartment money yours? Yes. How do you plan to support yourself going forward? Ive not figured my whole life out in two days. But Ive managed to do something out of my life while being in jail, so I guess this will be a little easier. Is your ultimate goal to be an artist? I have so many projects that Im working on. Art is definitely one of them. So you dont want to be hemmed into just art? I have a lot going on. Im working on my own podcast with different guests for each episode. But its not shaped up yet. It was pretty hard to record anything high quality from jail. And then theres my book. Id love to do something with criminal-justice reform to kind of highlight the struggles of other girls. Where does your celebrity status fit into your future plans? Its literally the last thing Im thinking about right now. I dont feel like I have a lot of control over it, especially now that Im in house confinement without access to social media or electronics. Youve been really active on social media, even from behind bars, with members of your team posting to your 1 million Instagram followers. The social media ban will be a big change. Maybe thats for the best? Its really hard to tune out distractions. Hopefully, its not forever. Do you plan to keep to the all-day schedule you had in jail, co-ordinating with people from 8.30am to 10pm? I dont know. Ill have to do so many things. Im really excited right now, so its pretty hard to sleep. I mean, you guys, I literally just got out of jail! You have been and will continue to be under intense scrutiny going forward, from ICE officials as well as the public at large. I perform better under pressure. So many people just cant wait to see me do something crazy, or illegal, and go back to jail. I would not want to give them the satisfaction. The first time we spoke at Rikers [Island jail], I asked about your parents. And I know those relationships are complicated, especially with your mum. How have they felt about these past years of court proceedings? My parents, especially my dad, are pretty sarcastic. Theyre like, Well, how many more years are you going to be in jail? But they accepted that this is what I want. Im not choosing some questionable path, Im actually trying to improve and learn, and I hope they understand and respect my choices. I talk to them every other day. Your mum, too? My mum, too. I try to call at night, so they tend to be together. This isnt the end of your immigration case. You could still be deported. My immigration case is just beginning. Im creating a lot of jobs for my lawyers. So everybodys happy. How long could this immigration process take? A pro-Russian group is claiming credit for a series of disruptions that temporarily knocked the websites of some US airports offline. The group, called Killnet, has engaged in a series of cyberattacks in recent months against Western targets, including incidents that temporarily rendered some state government websites offline last week, according to cybersecurity experts. Airplanes wait on the tarmac during a power outage at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas. Credit:AP Los Angeles International Airport issued a statement saying its website was partially disrupted and that the interruption was limited to portions of the public-facing website. There were no disruptions to internal airport systems nor were there any operational difficulties, according to the statement. The site for LaGuardia Airport was also affected, in addition to Des Moines International Airport, ABC News reported. Websites for OHare and Midway airports in Chicago were offline on Monday, according to a statement from the Chicago Department of Aviation, but no airport operations were affected. Mr. W is a regular patient for the ENT department in Georgetown University Hospital. I saw him at least two times before the pandemic, and three times this year. I first met Mr. W in 2019. That day, I saw a skinny old man in a wheelchair accompanied by a middle-aged Spanish woman. After talking to both of them, I found out that the woman was the old mans caregiver paid by the government, and the old man does not understand any English, and the helper does not speak any Chinese. As a result, they only communicated by body language and hand gestures. Additionally, the old man could not hear me if I used a normal voice because of severe hearing loss, so I needed to yell at him. Also, his speech is so extremely distorted, I could not understand anything he said. Therefore, he brought out his notebook and pen he carried with him, and wrote down the sentences he wanted to say. Because of all of these difficulties, I sensed that it would be a difficult appointment. I found that the staff of the clinic were familiar with him, and gave him much convenience, therefore he must be a regular patient here. When the doctor came in, I interpreted for him by yelling and reading from his notebook. With their slow conversations , I found that the old man had nasal cancer and was removed several years ago. The cancer recurred and metastasized to the brain, and was treated with brain surgery and radiation. He was required to be followed up with the ENT department every three months to monitor his health situation. The disease and treatment affected his throat, and left him with difficult swallow and talk and constant discomfort. Despite all his health problems, the old man was still energetic and was eager to talk. He asked all the functions and side effects of his new medicines, and recorded them in his notebook, and also asked some questions that were not directly related with his current treatment in the ENT department. After the appointment, it was time to schedule for the next visit. The old man did not head to the check-out counter as other patients, but asked his aid to take him to an office at the back of the clinic. Here we met an amicable middle-aged woman, who is the chief secretary of the department. The woman is very familiar with the old man, and treated him with lots of patience and kindness. She showed us more than 10 pieces of colorful paper crafts on her desk, and said they were gifts from the old man. It turned out the old man was an craftsman expertised in making various items with hundreds of individually folded small pieces of paper, such as flowers, dragons, the Empire Building et al. He had owned a small roadside stall in DC for many years where he sold his paper crafts to travelers. The old man was obviously relaxed with the secretary. He took out a bunch of stuff, and began to make his request. To me, he asked to translate a letter for the city, and to the secretary, he asked for copying some documents as well as how to deal with some legal queralls his son was involved with. Therefore, the visit to the secretary took longer than the appointment with the doctor. At the end the old man thanked the secretary and left the clinic. It was such a unique experience for me, therefore, I recalled the old mans name when I accepted another appointment at Georgetown University Hospital one and half years after the onset of the pandemic during which I did not accept any appointment. When I saw the person sitting in the wheelchair at the waiting area of the ENT department, I recognized the old man at once. However, he did not recognize me at all when I greeted him. He was thinner and weaker than before, and his hearing loss was so advanced that he could not hear anything I yelled to his ear. Therefore, the only way we can communicate was to write, which made our communication even slower than before. More importantly, he lost the energy he had before. He complained to the doctor about the constant pain in his post nasal area. But when the doctor suggested a pain management doctor, he was not interested. To my surprise, he asked the doctor to help to end his life since he did not want to suffer any longer. However, after I euphemistically told the doctor about what he said, the doctor did not show any astonishment. He just told the old man that it was not something that he could do, and he should ask for anti-depressant from his primary doctor. It turned out that the old man was depressed and asked about the physician assisted suicide several times in a year. When I asked him why he did not consult his family about such a problem, he slowly wrote down that he does not have any family because his family abandoned him. After this lamentable encounterment, I met him two more times. He was still thin and weak, but stopped talking about suicide. The last time I met him, he was with a new aid, a temp for his regular aid who needed to leave town for a while. The old man disliked, almost abhorred, the new aid. He asked me to tell the new aid that he was not qualified for service because of his lack of patience. On the contrary, the aid said that because he could not communicate with the old man, he misunderstood him about which hospital the old man needed to go to. Therefore, he took the old man to the wrong bus stop, and pushed the wheelchair for six blocks before they came to the Georgetown University Hospital following the old mans direction. They had some arguments during the process. According to the policy of the aid service company, the maximum distance to push a wheelchair patient is 500 meter, therefore, the aid did not want to push the wheelchair after two blocks. Of course, the old man was very angry about it, which led to a heated quarrel between them. At the end, the aid said that the old man could get another aid from the company and he would not return to the old mans house to serve him the next day. Although I already interpreted the aids speech to the old man, he was still gloomy, and insisted on telling the friendly secretary about the whole situation. The elderly craftsmans story is a sad one. Although I believed that he worked hard to support his family, I did not see great talent in his work. If the USA government did not cover the bills for his treatment and care giver, it is more than likely that he cannot survive so long after his illness. Though he does not need to worry about the medical bill, his life is lonely, agonizing and forlorn. But he is a fighter, and he still strives to live. Carla and I have been enjoying Love and Rockets (the comic book, not the band that swiped the name) since the 1980s, when Carla bought a copy at a comic book store in Sacramento. For those of you unfamiliar with the comic books series, it was created in 1981 by the Hernandez Brothers Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario from Oxnard, California, and it focuses on the lives of people living in Hoppers (a stand-in for Oxnard) and the fictional South American town of Palomar. Love and Rockets was one of the first alternative comic books. It's not a superhero comic book. The characters are, for the most part, normal people, and they have been aging for the last forty years. As artists and writers, Gilbert and Jaime are masters of the comic book art form. I can't think of any other comic book artists who have worked on the same title (and for the same publisher, Fantagraphics) for that long! Last week, Carla and I attended the premiere of Love & Rockets: The Great American Comic Book, a fantastic hour-long documentary produced by KCET in Los Angeles as part of its superb Artbound series, now in its 13th season. It screened in North Hollywood, and the Hernandez Brother attended, along with the filmmakers Omar Foglio and Jose Luis Figueroa of Dignicraft. It was great to hear the origin story of Love and Rockets and learn about Gilbert and Jaime's upbringing in the agricultural town of Oxnard, about an hour north of Los Angeles. You can watch Love & Rockets: The Great American Comic Book for free on the KCET website. From the KCET companion article, "How a 40-Year Old Comic Series Grew Out of a Punk Mentality": The brothers' mom collected comic books in the '40s and often copied drawings of characters. Mario, the older brother, started collecting comics like Robert Crumb's "Zap Comix."As part of the tapestry of their cultural influences, Mexican music and rock 'n roll played in their home. Gilbert watched "so many hours of crappy movies" that informed his sci-fi sensibilities. The brothers soon started going to live shows every weekend, seeing bands like the Germs and X. Punk taught them to follow their instincts. "We just wanted to do what we wanted to do, and there was no one to tell us no," says Jaime. "And if they did say no, we weren't going to listen it was very liberating to do it this way, because we had nothing to lose." Rather than aiming for a job at Marvel or DC, the brothers forged their own path. They sent the first issue of "Love & Rockets" to The Comics Journalfor review consideration. Instead of a write-up, they received an offer for publication from Fantagraphics. Gilbert (l) and Jaime Hernandez, creators of Love and Rockets. Photo by Mark Frauenfelder As a bonus, here's an interview I did with Jaime in late 2003. It was for a website that is long since gone, and never got saved to the Internet Archive: Jaime Hernandez Interview You could make a good argument that Jaime Hernandez is the greatest living comic book artist in the world. For the last 23 years, Hernandez has written and drawn a series of naturalistic stories for Love & Rockets, a comic book he founded with his brothers, Gilbert and Mario in 1981. Hernandez' stories, about two Mexican American women named Maggie and Hopey who were punks in the early 80s and are now dealing with life as 40-somethings has made an indelible mark in popular culture, and caused a ripple effect on people who aren't even aware of the comic book. Aside from his outstanding artistic talent for page and panel composition, and for rendering the human form, Hernandez has a tremendous ability to tell an engaging story. His ability to weave the small events of life into larger issues of culture and race puts him way ahead of most graphic novelists working today. This month, Fantagraphics, the publisher of the Love & Rockets comic series, is releasing Locas, a 700-page graphic novel featuring almost every story Hernandez has created for Love & Rockets from 1981 to 1996. I interviewed Hernandez at his house in Pasadena in September 2004 Mark Frauenfelder Mark: So Locas is kind of like a summation of a career. How does that feel? Jaime: Half of me is very excited and the other half is, "Haven't we seen this stuff before?" But I'm very impressed. I almost couldn't picture it when it was being put together. I couldn't picture it being in my hand, what it would look like. Mark: Fantagraphics is more visible now than ever before. I think they've taken comic book publishing to a new level. And if you've seen their catalog, they've got great books. They're getting to be one of the best book publishers in the country. So I think that this book is going to expose you to a completely new audience for the first time. Jaime: Yeah, I was thinking of that, too. And also, every day I run into people who don't know what I do. And even after I explain it they still don't know what I do. So now I can just say, "Pick up the Locas book!" And that tells them all. Mark: And it'll be available everywhere. Jaime: Yeah, just walk into a bookstore, and there it is. Maybe just one copy but, still. Mark: After looking at Locas, I see this remarkable continuity in the stories, and characters. How fully fleshed-out were your character designs and back-stories? Jaime: Basically, the only thing that was etched in stone was Maggie being a mechanic. And I remember I was toying with different names for Hopey, and at the last minute, my brothers asked me to do this work, and I just had to spill it out. She was Hopey. I remember after that thinking, "Oh yeah I was going to change her name." I don't know why I was going to change her name. But I'm glad it ended up that way because, for some people, it's still such an odd name, that I kind of like that it only belongs to her. I haven't known too many Hopeys. There's been Hopes. A lot of people can't even say her name. They call her "Hoppy." And I'm like, "Is that name that odd?" Mark: How did you come up with it? Jaime: There was a little girl that lived down the street. About three houses down where I grew up, and my childhood buddy, he lived next door to her, and he used to tease her when she'd come out to play He'd shout, "Hopey!" And she'd go, "Shut up!" And I just thought that was the cutest name. Mark: When you introduced a new character, like Rena, or Tiger Rosa, did you have an idea of how they'd fit in the larger framework, or was it kind of an organic thing? Jaime: It was kind of organic. Rena filled in a type of character that I'd been creating since I was a kid. So it was easy "She's kind of this legendary person, so I will create a legend around her." It was kind of like that. Pretty simple stuff. And at first I'd start off pretty vague, and then details would start to drop in when I began to feel safe enough to go with the character. And I still leave enough open where even if I want to, lets say, " Rena went through an alcoholic period," there's still room enough to put that in and it doesn't mess up the continuity. I just try to think of how they are in real life. Someone like Amelia Earhart, how her life was told I just try to do it like that. Mark: So you have this whole universe in your head. Jaime: Yes, but I leave a lot open so I can fill it in later. If I don't have any ideas right away I can fill it in later. Mark: Do you keep a notebook when you come up with ideas for stories? Jaime: Sometimes I have to but a lot of its stored in my head, so if I get pelted by a brick and lose it all then it's gone! I've been at times lying up in the middle of the night and I'd think, "Hey, I'm going to do a story about that," and then it's gone. But sometimes when I'm doing a story I go, "Haven't I seen this before? Am I repeating myself? And I'll go back to older issues, and go, "I never did this." So it must have been something I tracked from the back of my head. Mark: When was the last time you read your complete works from start to finish? Jaime: I used to do that, years ago. I used to always read my stuff. And I could never understand why artists would say, "Oh, I can't read my older stuff." I'd go, "Are you crazy? I could read my stuff forever!" Now it's a little harder. Mark: How so? Jaime: You see the mistakes. You just see, like, "Oh, I can't believe I had him say this," or, "I can't believe I went in this direction." But as far as reading the old stuff, it's kind of hard because there's so much of it and if I need a bit of information I don't know where to find it a lot. Mark: Well, there are people on the Internet who have created these timelines Jaime: Yeah. Mark: Have you ever referred to those? Jaime: I kept one because he was pretty close. I wrote him and told him he was pretty much dead-on. He thought "pretty much dead-on" meant "dead-on." There are still a couple of years that he's off with some stuff. But he was pretty close. And I was kind of proud of myself that I kept the continuity together that someone else could follow it the way I meant it. Mark: That's the part that I think is amazing. How it all just kind of worked out even though it sounds like you didn't do a ton of advanced planning. Like in a movie they have back-stories for all the characters. Jaime: I knew creating a series it was on my side. I thought the continuity would come as it went along. I've made a few mistakes getting dates wrong, or getting a person wrong when they did something or what they said. Stuff like that. Every once in a while I make a mistake, and then sometimes I have to do a whole story that clears that up. Kind of, "Yes, that's what they said, but this is what actually happened. Mark: It kind of creates an opportunity then, for you to come up with a way to Jaime: And sometimes it's created really good stories from that. I go, "Hey! There's going to be a whole story from that!" Mark: When you started out doing these stories, I'm sure that you weren't expecting them to be compiled in a big anthology. Do you think you would have done this differently if you would have done it as one big book? Jaime: I can't work that far ahead in the future. My brother Gilbert can. He has stories going years down the road. I can't think that far. I think more in hundred-page increments instead of 700 pages. Of course I always dreamed that, "One day these will all be put together in one big book. One big novel." But I can't make myself do it like that, like, say, an artist like Seth who's got his whole big book planned so it all has the same flow. And that's fine for someone like him because that's his style. But I'd just bore myself to death if it was one length of 500 pages. Mark: I'm interested in hearing about your process of writing and drawing and how you prepare a new story. Can you describe that to me? Jaime: It's rare that I actually have a story in my head. I have events or "what's the next move?" Like, Maggie, where's she going to go in this story, where's she going to end up? Then the story has to fill in the in-between, and that comes as I'm starting it. Usually when I actually start, I'll have four pages written. While I'm doing it, the gears are turning "Oh! I can send her this way!" And then sometimes by the end of the story, I've forgotten what the original idea was. It keeps me from getting bored. If I knew what a story was from the first panel to the last panel, by the second page, I'd be so bored. So I'm constantly surprising myself. Mark: Kind of discovering it as you're doing it. Jaime: Yeah, and it keeps my interested all the times. Mark: Do you do little roughs of the pages or do you just go straight to the Bristol board? Jaime: I never did thumbnails, I used to write a script, more like the dialog. And then chop it up and take it from there. Lately I'll write dialog on the paper and go directly to the Bristol board and rewrite on the Bristol board. I get out a blank page and have notes written on the side. Mark: One thing I think you do really well is panels that have no dialog at all. And you usually use those in scenes that have a strong emotional impact. How did you come up with that? Jaime: Pretty much using old tricks from comics, how they got emotion across. Some character going somewhere and then they stop and go, "huh." It's a panel that sets the mood for what's coming after. There were really talented kids' artists who did stuff like that; who kind of storyboarded it so that it perfectly moved. And then I learned from my own brothers. Gilbert I learned a lot from Gilbert about storytelling; just watching him as a kid. And he got the same comics we were reading. There was a writer who did Little Archie comics and he just wrote the best sentimental little kid stories. He just had a great feel for them. He was basically one guy that we patterned our way of storytelling. His name is Bob Bolling. He's old now and he's finally getting back all the praise from people who he influenced or who read his work as kids and thought "this is just kid stuff." It's really terrific storytelling. The pacing and he was able to make the world as seen through kids' eyes. I would say as far as storytelling he was the biggest influence. Mark: I was also going to say that other cartoonists who remind me a little bit of your work and might have been an influence were Hank Ketchum and John Stanley, who did Little Lulu. Certainly compared to superhero comics and underground comics, yours have much more of a link to those guys, and Carl Barks a little bit too. Jaime: Sure. All those guys just knew how to take simple kids' stories and just draw you in; make you part of it. Hank Ketchum was just such a superb artist that his pictures alone carried it. Even his ghost artist who did his comic books. A guy named Owen Fitzgerald, who was an old animator who drew in the Ketchum style, and he was such a superb cartoonist that his mood and the way he drew bodies standing; the posturing of the characters, was just amazing. And he was fast; it was really fast work. He had it down. He was just amazing. Mark: Do you have the old Dennis the Menaces that you used to read? Jaime: Oh yeah. Over the years going to the comic conventions I just peruse the old boxes. I ended up with a whole collection of stuff I wanted. And then there's Hank Ketchum himself. I collect his pocket books. Mark: The single panel gags? Jaime: Amazing art. And a lot of people didn't get where we were coming from when we'd say, "Nobody draws like Hank Ketchum!" They say, "That silly Dennis the Menace comic?" We'd go "Yeah, but you're not looking at what's really beyond that. He was a master!" Mark: Talking about Hank Ketchum's posing and the characters body placement that's something that's really one of your strong points to and I'm interested in hearing how you developed that ability. Did you spend a lot of time in life drawing classes? Jaime: Long enough. I had a really good life drawing class in junior college. Really old cranky guy, I had him for three semesters and he was a really cool teacher. People say "Well, what did he do?" and I'll think back and say "I don't know I don't remember!" I just remember I went in there and came out this whole other artist. Mark: Do you remember any rules he told you? Like some people say "Squint." Jaime: One thing he'd do was exercises where a model would get into a position and he'd say "Go!" And we'd just scribble what their body would look like. And then the next time it would be a slower drawing it would be thirty seconds. I guess it was just getting you in the movement and to be fluid. I just remember his main piece of advice was, "The only way to learn to draw is to draw." And that makes sense. Just draw. Mark: Since you started the first Love & Rockets, has comics been your only job? Jaime: My main job. I've done illustration on the side. But other than that comics have been my main things. Mark: Do you do much commercial art now? Jaime: For money. When I need money. Mark: And what kind of clients are they? Jaime: I've done stuff for the New Yorker. I've done record covers occasionally. I used to work for Hustler. It's a lot different, though, from what I do. You've got editors, so My [Love and Rocket] editors are just like, "When's a new comic coming up?" "Uh, you'll get it soon!" [Laughs] Mark: How does your relationship work with the Fantagraphics guys? Jaime: Pretty easy. When we first started, they picked up our self-published copy we did, and they said, "can we publish this?" We said OK, and from then on, the editor and publisher, Gary Groth, he kind of knew that we knew what we wanted. Early on he'd try to put in his two cents once in a while, but he eventually found that he was kind of getting in the way. We just had this vision of where we wanted to go and he didn't want to get in the way of that. I'm glad he gave us that freedom and he handled the other part, the publishing. And it's been that way ever since. Once in a while they'll talk to us and say, "How long are you going with this story?" And I'll start to think, "Well, if I do this one too long, sales may drop because it's continued and it's confusing people," things like that. Mark: Do you think that your sales are affected because you don't have it coming out once every month or every two months? Jaime: I don't know because we've never been that fast. I don't know if it would pick up right away. When we decided to end it at fifty issues, we said, "We're going to quit. We're done." People woke up and said "Why? Why?" and these were people who were not buying it. But they want Love & Rockets to always be there. "Why are you quitting?" "Well, for one thing, you guys aren't reading it any more!" Mark: Now that you are in your 40s and your characters have aged along with you, have the things that have happened to you as you've grown older played a large part in the way you look at the world. Jaime: I do really pay attention how life is in the mid-40s and how it affects them. Even if we try not to live life by this timeline, we do. You're at a certain age where you say, "Where do I go from here? Do I want a family? By the time I'm this old, do I want a house?" Things like that. When you're younger, you don't think about that stuff, and some people are forced to think about it. It doesn't work out that well for some people. And so, so that's what I think about a lot. I think about which of my characters are going to slide into old age gracefully and which ones are going to go in kicking and screaming. That's an important point in my work right now. That's one of the things I think about a lot. "Ok, I'm doing a character here, where are they going? They're this age, they should be at this point, or maybe not, why aren't they? Why aren't they married and have kids?" Mark: Obviously you know from having a kid how it changes your life in a huge way. Does that change things for your characters? Jaime: It does. That's part of what I think about when I think about characters getting older. I've shied away from kids a little bit, because I kind of need my characters free still. And judging from the past, you can take sitcoms. When the couple has a baby the show is over they couldn't go anywhere. Even a show like I Love Lucy that was successful at having a kid there were a lot of episodes where they'd say, "I'll ask Mrs. Strumble to take care of the baby." And you never see Little Ricky; and they run off to their adventure. I think about that a lot. I think, "Maybe Maggie will have a baby." Well if she has a baby this thing's going in a totally different direction, and am I ready for that? So I cheat and I make secondary characters have babies that I don't show that much. There's ways to make it work with a kid, but it's hard. Doing it in a way that interests readers is really tricky. I'm preparing myself for it, because eventually something has to give. I see what happens to old friends that never ended up having families and they're older and they're still living alone and some of them pretend to like it and some of them admit they're miserable or they're still lost and they're like, "I've got gray hairs and I'm still a kid." Mark: It's interesting to see how your lettering style has evolved. Your earlier lettering was slanted and scratchier. Was that a conscious decision? Jaime: The only change I've ever made with my lettering was that I made it straight up because that's how comics were. When we had it slanted, someone, I think Gilbert, pointed out, "You know, they don't slant comic lettering." I went, "They don't? OK." and I just went straight up. And I've always kept it loose the way it is, because I was too impatient to try to make it neat. So I kind of try to develop my style so it's loose so when I letter it's almost like I'm doing it with a pencil. Mark: Do you use the same pen nib for lettering as you do for drawing? Jaime: No, I use a Rapidograph. Mark: Are there still things that you're challenged with drawing? Jaime: Everything is hard but people. To this day, everything is hard to draw. And cigarettes. Drawing a car is a total pain. Mark: Do you use photo references for a car? Jaime: No I think I should because every time I copy something I can draw it for the rest of my life. But research is so painful I mean just opening up a magazine looking for a picture of a car or looking out the window looking for a car is just hard! Mark: One other thing that I like is that your presentation is very clean and direct. And you don't have odd geometric panels and stuff like that. Was that a conscious decision to present your stories in a straightforward manner? Jaime: Yeah, I always wanted the action and the characters to create the tension or whatever. And the borders were just like your movie screen or TV screen. I don't know what made me decide that but it might have been I didn't want to worry about layout that way, that the layouts were an afterthought because after I gad three panels on a page, after I already had art on the page, so the layout came at the end of the page instead of the beginning. Mark: Can you appreciate people who do creative things with panels? Jaime: Yeah, I guess so but you know, I kind of like my stories straightforward. I prefer panel to panel to panel. If they stretch it I thought since I was a kid, "Oh, they're trying to be groovy." Maybe it's something in my personality; it just never impressed me. Like the late '60s when comics tried to catch up with "pop art." And they started doing weird things with the panels. I think its fun sometimes, but it's never clear. Mark: Do you read Chris Ware's work? Jaime: Uh, sometimes. To tell you the truth, it's hard. Mark: Yeah, it's hard for me, too. Jaime: Yeah, it's work and I get lazy. It's like I don't want to read it anymore. This is not slighting his talent, the guy is very talented. The work is really hard and that's not the main thing I'm looking for when I'm reading something. Mark: What cartoonists working today do you admire? Jaime: All of them (laughs). I don't buy hardly anything. I don't know much. As a matter of fact, I have a cartoonist fried who is in town who fills me in on what's new. I don't know any of these people. They're a different generation because they're taking a different turn. I still come from a comics generation. And they're coming from an alternative comics generation. And I notice a lot, they're leaning more toward fine art. Comics as art. I do comics as comics, and my opportunity to tell stories. Simple. Basic. Let the characters have the excitement, not the package. That's where I come from. I missed the debate between MAGA cultist J.D. Vance and Representative Tim Ryan, who are running for U.S. Senator from Ohio, but if these two clips are any indication, Ryan had a swell time pointing out that J.D. Vance is a Trumpian "ass-kisser" and a puppet of the Sackler family drug cartel. Vance just stood there like a befuddled grump. Transcript 1: Ryan: You know what I haven't done? I didn't start a fake nonprofit pretending like I was going to help people with addiction, like JD Vance did. He literally started a nonprofit and didn't spend one nickel on anybody. In fact, he brought in somebody from Purdue Pharma to be the spokesperson for the nonprofit, the same drug company, Big Pharma, the big drug company that had all the pill mills going, got everybody addicted. One million people dies, JD, one million people died, and you started a nonprofit that tried to take advantage of people in Ohio. And you know what? All you did with it was launch your political career. His campaign manager worked for that nonprofit. He ran a poll to check his own standing from that nonprofit. I'm not gonna take a backseat to you or anybody else on fentanyl, drugs or immigration or anything else. Transcript 2: Just a few weeks ago in Youngstown, on the stage, Donald Trump said to JD Vance, "all you do is kiss my ass to get my support." He said that. That's bad, because that means JD Vance is going to do whatever he wants. Mitch McConnell's given hin 40 million. He's going to do what he wants and Peter Thiel gave him 15 million, he's is going to do what he wants. And here's the thing that's most troubling about this lack of courage. After Trump took JD Vance's dignity from him on the stage in Youngstown, JD Vance got back up on stage and said, started shaking his hand taking a picture saying, "Hey, aren't we having a great time here tonight?" I don't know anybody I grew up with, I don't know anybody I went to high school with that would allow somebody to take their dignity like that and then get back up on stage. We need leaders who have the courage to take on their own party, and I've proven that, and he was called an ass-kisser by the former president. Of course, no minds were changed in the debate because MAGA cultists are delighted by the prospect of having a Trump puppet in office, especially one who wants to force children to give birth to their rapist's baby. The cruelty is the point for the far-right, and if elected, Vance will deliver it in droves. On September 4, 2022, most Chileans who voted in the Constitutional Referendum chose not to approve the new proposed document. The vote was historic because of a two-year process of convening, designing, and considering proposals and completing a new Constitution. A new essay in The Forge by Carolina Bank Munoz and Rodrigo Starz explains the context leading up to the vote." October 2019 marked a clear shift in the decades of transition to democracy in Chile. The system of neoliberalism aggressively imposed by Augusto Pinochetcame crashing down as millions of people took to the streets to protest disinvestment, privatization, severe wealth inequality, and eroding standards of livingSocial movements that had been working on far-ranging issues from free tuition to abortion to climate justice to pension reform pulled hundreds of thousands of people into the streets. The labor movement called for a general strike. Increasingly, the public pushed for President Sebastian Pinera's resignation and a new constitution." The repression against these movements was widespread and brutal, the ghosts of Pinochet's past haunting the Chilean present. Yet, the organized protests forced a peace agreement and a vote on two issues: 1) whether or not to create a new Constitution; and 2) who would participate in the convention. Then, Covid hit. Chile was on lockdown, and the repression against the movements continued. That did not stop the convention from drafting an ambitious blueprint for the future. The New York Times reported, "In addition to housing, health care and education, the new constitution would enshrine the right to freedom of expression, religion, and worldview. There would be the right to free time, physical activity, sex education, cybersecurity, the protection of personal data and "free and full legal advice" for anyone "who cannot obtain it." And while 62% of voters rejected the new document, the participation of Chilean society is a vital living example of direct democracy at work. This issue of The Forge has numerous articles and first-person accounts of the political moments that led to the Constitutional Convention and the process of drafting a new document. Topics include perspectives from student and labor organizations; testimonies from delegates to the convention; the impact of Constitutional reforms on the Mapuche indigenous land struggle; the art and music of revolt; and a discussion of the state violence when "a dozen protestors and some innocent bystanders lost their lives, and a shocking 400 people suffered from ocular trauma, mostly resulting from rubber bullets. This last number is particularly striking because it represents 70% of all ocular traumas in the world over the last 21 years." Not agreeing on a new Constitution means Chile continues to live under Pinochet's laws. For more on Chile, Pinochet's US-supported dictatorship, and political movements, check out the following: Chile: The Other September 11, edited by Ariel Dorfman and Pilar Aguilera, and A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet, by Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela. For resources on the multi-nation dirty wars against political movements in South America supported by the CIA and the US State Department known as "Operation Condor," see Peter Kornbluh's The Pinochet File or this Guardian article. I'm currently having a weird coincidence experience on top of a weird sort of Mandela experience. Last night I opened a jar of "Talk o' Texas" brand pickled okra, and while doing so, I exclaimed how when I was younger, my favorite brand of pickled okra was "Texas Pete." And I marveled at how even though Louisiana really does have the best food overall, Texas sure knows how to do a pickled okra. Then I proceeded to devour half the jar of Talk o' Texas pickled okra, because, well, I just love any kind of pickled okra. Then this morning, I opened my computer, and the first story I read was how the "Texas Pete" company was being sued because it is not a Texas company, but was actually founded in 1929 in North Carolina. Upon hearing this news, I searched the Texas Pete website and realized they've never actually made pickled okra, so the pickled okra I've eaten throughout my life was always from the Talk o' Texas brand. My brain, it hurts! Justyn Melrose of Nexstar Media Wire explains the lawsuit against Texas Pete: A grocery shopper in California has filed a class-action lawsuit against the T.W. Garner Food Co., alleging false advertising over their Texas Pete brand of hot sauce. His issue? Texas Pete hot sauce is not made in Texas, but rather North Carolina. Philip White, of Los Angeles, claims he was under the impression that Texas Pete hot sauce was produced in Texas when he purchased a $3 bottle at a Ralph's supermarket in September 2021, according to the complaint. "White relied upon the language and images displayed on the front label of the product, and at the time of purchase understood the product to be a Texas product," the complaint said. The label includes "the famed white 'lone' star from the Texan flag together with a 'lassoing' cowboy," which are images White assumed to be distinctly Texan, the lawsuit stated. White said he was later surprised to learn that Texas Pete is not a product of Texas, but manufactured in Winston-Salem, North Carolina a fact T.W. Garner Food Co. readily admits on its website. Read more of the article here and find out why Texas Pete is called Texas Pete. And I'll go back to pondering why I thought Texas Pete made pickled okra, while eating some more Talk o' Texas pickled okra (which are made in San Angelo, Texas). If you know of local business openings or closings, please notify us here. PREVIOUS OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS - The Palmer Township Board of Supervisors denied a conditional use for two warehouses proposed by developer Abe Atiyeh. - B. Braun bought Starboard Medical's Clif-FIX line of devices that secure catheters for an undisclosed price. - The Lowhill Township Planning Commission denied a plan for a warehouse at 7503 Kernsville Road, saying it would change the character of the rural township. - Just A Dream Frozen Yogurt in Forks Township closed its doors after 10 years. - Khanisa's Pudding Bar held a grand opening at its new Downtown Allentown Market location after having moved from Easton. - Mussel Polymers Inc. says its glue for bonding carbon and synthetic fibers is a big step toward creating lighter and stronger fiber-reinforced materials. - Poke Bar 25 & Bubble Tea in the Shops at Bethlehem (the Giant shopping center on Easton Avenue in Bethlehem Township, on the border with the City of Bethlehem) will open in late November or early December. - The former Rosanna's Restaurant in Bethlehem, which closed in February, will reopen as a deli and bar called Rosa's Corner. - Victaulic has expanded in Tennessee with the acquisition of Tennessee Metal Fabricating, price not disclosed. - The old Forks Diner will be serving auto-repair customers by early spring of 2023 with a six-bay garage known as Wrenchtec. - Lehigh County-based Shift4 Payments stepped in to help the owners of Better on the Bone Butcher and Deli in Pottstown finally open their doors. - Mid Penn Bank opened a new, bigger location in Blue Bell. - Balloon Junction held a grand opening in Pottsville for its store offering custom balloon creations. - Rentschler's Ice Cream has reopened just a few doors down from its former location in Ringtown after it was destroyed by a fire in February. - Mill Street Aesthetics, a day spa and skincare boutique, held a grand opening in Belvidere, New Jersey. - Provident Financial Services agreed to acquire Lakeland Bancorp in a stock deal valued at $1.3 billion, creating a bank that will hold 4% of the deposits in New Jersey. NWS Weather Alert NOTE: This information is provided by the National Weather Service. Forecast may differ from local information provided by our own 69News Meteorologists ...FREEZE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 9 AM EDT WEDNESDAY... * WHAT...Temperatures in the lower 30s. * WHERE...In New Jersey, Morris, Hunterdon and Somerset. In Pennsylvania, Berks, Lehigh, Northampton, Western Chester, Western Montgomery and Upper Bucks. * WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM EDT Wednesday. * IMPACTS...Frost and freeze conditions will kill crops and other sensitive vegetation. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Take steps now to protect tender plants from the cold. && READING, Pa. At Monday's meeting of its committee of the whole, the Reading City Council heard a presentation from Jamal Abodalo, the city's community development director, about the possible creation of a land bank for the city. Land banks were established by Pennsylvania in 2012 to help communities combat problems with blighted properties. Under the law, a land bank is able to buy a property ahead of a judicial sale, and back taxes and municipal claims are discharged. In this way, the city through the land bank controls redevelopment of the property. Abodalo told the council that Reading currently has 268 certified blighted properties. Of the 268 properties, 168 have transferred ownership, while 100 remain under the same ownership. The process, Abodalo explained, is that the land bank would acquire a property. It then would decide to either demolish the property or refurbish it. If it is refurbished, the property could either be sold or restored to productive use. While the property is being restored, the land bank holds the property tax-free. Then, it can share up to 50% of the taxes from the city, county and school district for five years after being redeveloped. A blighted property steering committee has prepared a land bank plan that can be presented to the city council, Abodalo said. The plan proposes the creation of a city blight coordination team lead by Mayor Eddie Moran's office and also including the city managing director and the community development director. The team would be responsible to set blight priorities, target blighted blocks and identify funding strategies. Abodalo said the day-to-day operations of the land bank would be managed by city staff. The land bank would also hire outside legal counsel and engage experienced consultants. The next steps, Abodalo foresees, would be for the council to pass a land bank ordinance and for the council, the county and the Reading School District all to sign an intergovernmental co-op agreement. Councilmembers had several pointed questions for Abodalo. Christopher Daubert, representing District 1, asked why the land bank would not be run by the Reading Redevelopment Authority instead of the city, similar to what other regional municipalities with land banks have done. Abodalo replied that Erie runs its land bank through the city. Also, residency requirements pose potential problems if the Reading land bank were run through the Reading Redevelopment Authority, he said. Councilwoman Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz, District 2, commented that she was concerned that members of the mayor's staff do not have the specialized expertise to manage a land bank. She also asked that other structural options be explored by the blighted property steering community. District 5 Councilwoman Donna Reed said she was strongly opposed to running the land bank out of the mayor's office. In addition, Reed said that she believed the core strategy should be to "strengthen the strong neighborhoods" and grow them out so they pull together. Also, Councilman Chris Miller, District 6, expressed concern for how the land bank would handle larger properties like those owned by the city at Fifth and Penn streets. Council President Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz wrapped up the council's comments, asking, "What can we do to ensure that we can achieve success?" Abodalo closed the presentation by saying that in two weeks, he will give the council a report on the options that can be used to establish a land bank and the approaches used by the 28 entities in Pennsylvania that have them. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A malfunctioning furnace caused a carbon monoxide leak at Happy Smiles Learning Center on Allentown's south side. The leak Tuesday morning sent 28 children and four adults to the hospital. Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk said all of them are in stable condition. "Thankfully, due to the quick action of our first responders, we were able to avoid tragedy in Allentown today," said Tuerk in a news conference Tuesday. According to the Lehigh Valley Health Network, 19 of the children had carbon monoxide levels in their blood three to 10 times higher than normal. The daycare owner, Jessina Gautreaux, said at first they didn't know what was going on. "I got a call from one of my staff that one of my children collapsed. He was in the cozy area, and all of a sudden he just collapsed," said Gautreaux. It was later confirmed through the gas company UGI that a faulty furnace and a blocked ventilation system allowed carbon monoxide to leak into the building. LVHN said some of the children had to be transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for treatment with hyperbaric oxygen. Allentown passed an ordinance requiring carbon monoxide detectors in daycares back in February, but it doesn't take effect until Oct. 27. Gautreaux said she had been planning to get them. "I called my alarm system so they can have it installed, but I was waiting for someone to get back to me, but it just never happened," said Gautreaux. We talked with the owner of another daycare just across the street, the Kula Children's Center, who said that explanation doesn't cut it. "In your home, nine times out of 10 you have a detector, right? So this is a business with children, why wouldn't you put one in?" said Kula owner Jimmy Jackson. Mayor Tuerk said, after Oct. 27, the Allentown Fire Department will be checking carbon monoxide detectors throughout the city, making daycares their first priority. "We're going to make sure that daycares and anybody that is taking care of vulnerable populations has their carbon monoxide monitors up to date," said Tuerk. Because Happy Smiles wasn't required to have the detectors yet, the business was actually inspected back in August and passed by the city. Mayor Tuerk said it will likely be several weeks before the daycare is cleared to go back into operation. Ellie Herb has all the confidence in the world, some of which is due in part to the YWCA's Perfect Fit program. "The Perfect Fit is a place where women can come who are re-entering the workforce. If you're unemployed or underemployed we provide job readiness skills, training, mentoring," said Sarah Barrett, the program's executive director. Professional development is a major component of the confidence boosting program. But The Perfect Fit also helps working women look the part, thanks to donations from the community, and volunteers or confidence ambassadors like Sharon Benner. "They come in and they're uncertain, they don't always know their size or what color they like or anything like that and so getting them to try colors is a big thing," Benner said. "We distribute more than 10,000 articles of clothing, shoes and accessories every year to the women that we serve so that's about 650 women each year come through The Perfect Fit clothing program," Barrett said. The Perfect Fit also has a retail store that helps fund the program and provide an affordable option for working women. Herb says her experience with The Perfect Fit changed her life, and got her career off to a great start. "After three months working for them I got a promotion," Herb said. If you'd like to help the Perfect Fit continue its mission to empower women, you can attend the Perfect Fit for Working Women luncheon on Friday. BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Three teachers in the Bethlehem Area School District are being honored for how they celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion. The Air Products Salute to Diversity in Education Awards picks an elementary, middle and high school teacher from the nominations within the district, according to a joint news release. The winners were surprised with the award at their school. Here are the winners and their nomination descriptions: "Our elementary school recipient is Katia Rodriguez, a teacher at Calypso Elementary School. She was nominated for this award by her principal, Kathleen Bast. Mrs. Rodriguez is willing to have the hard conversations in her classroom around race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. Originally from Peru, Mrs. Rodriguez uses every opportunity to add value to her lessons by being inclusive of cultural differences. In addition, Mrs. Rodriguez makes sure her students know how much she cares for them, how much she wants them to be successful, and puts in the effort to call out and address any anti-inclusive behavior." "Our middle school recipient is Adam Carpenter, a teacher at East Hills Middle School. He was nominated for this award by the administration at East Hills Middle School, principal, David Horvath and Assistant Principals Regina Braun and Patrick Tannous. Mr. Carpenter is dedicated and committed to modeling and sharing his work in restorative practices throughout the building. This work allows him to utilize circles in his daily routine(s) to give all students a voice. Additionally, Mr. Carpenter is an integral member of the East Hills school improvement task force. He often helps to lead meetings attended by school stakeholders as we work to develop plans and identify needs around the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, his work has contributed to the success of the East Hills Charger PRIDE program, student-led conferences, Lynfield collaborations, and being a trauma informed school. Mr. Carpenter is an excellent advocate for the students who observe and identifies obstacles that get in the way of students performance in the learning environment. He provides possible solutions and includes students in the process. Lastly, he has a welcoming classroom environment where all students feel included and valued." "Our high school recipient is Nicole Hart, a special education teacher at Freedom High School. Ms. Hart was nominated by her principal, Laurie Sage. Ms. Hart teaches the STEPs (Site Training and Employment Program) Expansion course at Freedom High school. Students enrolled in this course often exhibit negative behavior, poor attendance, and lagging academic skills, and they are in need of social skills, are at risk of dropping out of school, and require support in their transition to employment. Ms. Harts patience and belief in her students is unwavering. She tirelessly makes community connections to empower her students to gain valuable skills via service learning. She opens the students' eyes to the support and love of the community via organizations like New Bethany Ministries and builds their belief and confidence in themselves, while empowering them with the capacity to become a powerful source of self-support. Ms. Hart does all this quietly and without fanfare. In addition, a core component of Ms. Harts course is service learning, in which she teaches her students that one of the ways to cultivate happiness is to serve others. Ms. Harts greatest strength is forming meaningful and dynamic relationships with her students." An armed gentleman in North Carolina failed his home invasion attempt, but kindly left a severed finger behind to help investigators track him down. The 67-year-old gunman, Vernon Forest Wilson, tried to force himself into a man's house at 7am on Thursday as the resident was returning from his car. The burglar even fired his gun, grazing the resident in the chest. The resident fought back, however, managing, even after the gunshot, to slam the door in the burglar's face as well as on his gloved hand. In the end, the resident gained the "upper hand" when the burglar ran off without his glove, which still included part of a finger that had most likely been snipped by the door. This led police to Wilson, who was charged with first-degree burglary and "assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill," according to Yahoo!. From Yahoo!: The resident of the home had gone outside to start a vehicle in the driveway and was walking back inside when an armed stranger approached, according to police. The stranger tried to get into the house, and there was a struggle at the door. The stranger's weapon was discharged at one point, and a bullet grazed the resident's chest, the release says. The resident was not seriously injured and was able to shut the door. Investigators later found a glove at the scene with a severed finger inside. They believed the glove belonged to the man who had tried to break into the home, and they used the finger to identify him as Wilson, the release says. Police say Wilson's finger likely got severed when the resident forced the door shut on his hand. Wilson's bail is set at 250,000. PALMER TWP., Pa. Suburban EMS, which provides emergency medical services and transportation, is struggling. That was the essence of a presentation made by the organization's officials during the Palmer Township Board of Supervisors meeting Monday night. "Make no mistake, there is a crisis in emergency medical services," said Donald DeReamus, a Suburban EMS administrator. "...The EMS system is broken." The brokenness, according to DeReamus, is due to the lack of a "consistent" funding mechanism for emergency medical services. That has created a wealth of problems augmented within the last few years by a workforce shortage, below-cost reimbursement for services and a general economic downturn, he said. During 2021, Suburban EMS provided 482 public-assist calls for Palmer Township's 22,317 residents. Overall, Suburban EMS provides medical services in 14 municipalities in Northampton County and five in Monroe County, covering 232 square miles with more than 125,000 residents. According to its website, Suburban EMS "receives negligible funding from federal, state or local governments and relies on the generosity of our community for funding." Supervisors did not receive any funding request from Suburban EMS on Monday night, as the presentation was informational. Other news Supervisors approved a township submission to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources for a grant to continue rehabilitation project at Penn Pump Park. The park, located along Bushkill Creek is at 2100 Northwood Ave., is described by the township as "rustic." It has a softball field, children's play area, picnic tables, pavilion, restrooms and access to fishing on the Bushkill Creek. In addition, a biking and walking path section passes through the park. Finally, supervisors approved legislation again allowing Palmer Township to pursue another Pennsylvania DCNR grant for a master plan involving Penn Pump Park and the Sept. 11 National Memorial Trail. BETHLEHEM TWP., Pa. - The former Star Crete site in Bethlehem Township has been sold for $1.58 million, perhaps clearing the way for a proposed medical office building. The five-acre site sits at the southwest corner of the intersection of Easton Avenue and Farmersville Road. Remnants of the former concrete business remain, visible mainly from Farmersville Road. Northampton County recorded the sale on Oct. 6. The buyer is a limited liability corporation, TSV-HPIII Lehigh Valley, with an address listed in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The seller is a limited partnership operating under the name Alchemy Bethstar. The proposed medical office building, as proposed earlier to the township, would be two stories high with a total of 45,048 square feet. That plan is under administrative review with Bethlehem Township. It will go before the township's planning commission at a future meeting. The land around the intersection is home to several businesses, including blue grillhouse, Dunkin', a car wash and a Sunoco station. The site is just a few hundred feet north of the 52-acre farm where Kay Builders plans to construct 166 housing units, including single-family homes, townhomes and apartments. ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Allentown Fire Department says every ambulance in the city, and mutual aid from several surrounding towns, all rushed to Happy Smile Learning Center when the carbon monoxide leak was reported. Given the ongoing shortage of EMS workers, it raised the question: what would happen if those crews were needed for another emergency? All four ambulances from Allentown were called to the daycare. "Cetronia, Northampton, Macungie, Upper Saucon," Allentown Fire Capt. John Christopher said, listing some of the other agencies that provided mutual aid. He tells us the list goes on, also including Emmaus, Northampton Regional, Lower Saucon and Bethlehem. "For EMS, this is definitely an all-hands event," said Christopher. Christopher says the response to the carbon monoxide leak went smoothly among the more than 50 fire, police and EMS workers at the scene. But the massive response brought attention to the shortage of EMS workers, since if any of those crews were needed elsewhere at the same time, there would likely be delays. "Other resources have to fill those resources to take the daily calls," said Donald DeReamus, QA manager and government relations liaison at Suburban EMS and a legislative committee chair and board member at the Ambulance Association of Pennsylvania. As Lehigh Valley ambulances made multiple trips to different hospitals, the state House Republican Policy Committee was holding a discussion on the EMS crisis. "This is a local, state, and national issue," said DeReamus. Monday, Suburban EMS told Palmer Township supervisors the emergency medical services system is broken. "We're losing money on every 911 call," said DeReamus. "It's not uncommon for EMS providers to work multiple jobs to make a living, we're never up to full staff." DeReamus says thirty years ago, there were 20 ambulance companies in Northampton County. Now there are seven. The fight for funding continues to ensure quality service continues. "Currently, we are funded through insurance reimbursement," said DeReamus. "Those reimbursements are below costs of what it actually costs to provide the service." Suburban EMS says not a day goes by when local departments aren't called to help another because they're so taxed for coverage. PORTER TWP., Pa. Two people were injured after an explosion at a quarry in Schuylkill County, authorities said. The explosion at Summit Quarry in Porter Township was reported at 11:45 a.m. Monday, dispatchers said. Porter Township is about 16 miles north of Bethel, Berks County. According to authorities, two employees suffered what are believed to be non-life threatening injuries. The two people injured were employees at Maine Drilling and Blasting, a company that has its Mid Atlantic North Division headquartered in Bethel Township, Berks County. Pennsylvania State Police said the explosion happened as workers were disposing of boxes which previously contained boosters used in the blasting process. Several vehicles and a Maine Drilling and Blasting office trailer were damaged, state police said. One neighbor said he was in his Porter Township auto repair shop when he felt something he never experienced before. "I just felt this big gush of air and before you know it, it kind of took, like it kind of took the breath away from me and just this big explosion," said James Madenford. Federal, state and local authorities were notified after the blast. The company said Monday's explosion was an isolated incident and that it maintains a very good safety record. Madenford said the blast knocked items off his shelves and sent him to the ground, causing ringing in his ear which he said prompted him to go to the emergency room. "When I get up and start moving around and start looking around, I'm like what just happened?" Madenford said. State police say the investigation is ongoing. As for Madenford, he said he hopes nobody has to ever experience what he endured. "My prayers are out to all the people up there that had to endure that because I know what I endured here," he said, "and I can only imagine what it was up there." "Man, that's a big one. That's huge," said White House Superintendent of Grounds Dale Haney while looking up at a Douglas fir in Schuylkill County. Camera crews aren't typically part of the hunt for a conifer, unless they're following the White House Superintendent and Chief Usher Robert Downing, in their search for the White House Christmas tree. "I guess we'd have to take the furniture out of the room to fit this one in," Haney laughed while looking at the Douglas fir. Evergreen Acres Christmas Tree Farm in Schuylkill County is the 2022 Grand Champion Grower. Since 1966 the winner of the National Christmas Tree Association's competition has presented a tree to the first lady. It's then displayed in the Blue Room. "Seeds from these two came out of a genetically improved seed orchard in West Virginia," said Paul Schealer as he looked toward two Douglas firs. The tree from Schealer's farm will be Pennsylvania's 11th White House Christmas tree, the first since 2019 and his second. "So what do you love so much about growing Christmas trees?" I asked him. "I like to see how they develop over the years," he said. Schealer's family started selling Christmas trees in 1953. In 2000 he presented a Douglas fir to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. This year he passed the business to his son but kept the emotional ties. "He does a lot of the cutting. I do a lot of the bailing and as I come across the tree, I keep thinking this tree is going to be the focal point of someone's Christmas and that kind of makes you feel warm," he said. After the conspicuous search, a 20-year-old 20-foot high Concolor fir fit the bill. It was the right height and width, and had no holes. "We will have 100,000 people walk by this tree. That's why it's important we pick the right one," Haney said. With deep family roots. HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Pennsylvania's top-ranking state elections official said Tuesday a new U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding how rules for the state's mail-in ballots had been applied in a county judge election doesn't change her agency's guidance about counting them. Acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman said county elections officials should count mail-in votes that arrive in exterior envelopes with inaccurate or nonexistent handwritten dates, despite a requirement in state law. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Tuesday had declared as moot a decision in May by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had said mail-in ballots without a required date on the return envelope had to be counted in a 2021 Pennsylvania judge race. Chapman issued a statement saying the high court decision did not affect a separate, previous ruling by state Commonwealth Court in favor of counting ballots without properly dated exterior envelopes. The new decision, Chapman said, "provides no justification for counties to exclude ballots based on a minor omission, and we expect that counties will continue to comply with their obligation to count all legal votes. Chapman works in the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. The 3rd Circuit had said state election laws requirement of a date next to the voters signature on the outside of return envelopes was immaterial. That lower court had said it found no reason to refuse counting the ballots that were set aside in the Nov. 2, 2021, election for common pleas judge in Lehigh County. Those votes were enough to propel the Democrat, Zac Cohen, to victory in the race. He has since been sworn in and the new U.S. Supreme Court decision is not expected to reverse the results of Cohen's election contest. In the latest decision, the justices ruled 7-2 that the 3rd Circuit must dismiss the case as moot. Joshua Voss, a lawyer who represents the losing judicial candidate in the Lehigh County race, Republican David Ritter, said in a phone call Tuesday he believes the effect of the new high court ruling is that state law goes back to where it had been. The Department of State certainly should update their guidance, Voss said. But at the end of the day, elections are administered by counties and counties will need to assess what the state of the law was. Adam Bonin, a lawyer for Cohen, said voters should not leave anything to chance. Voters should still be careful to follow all of the instructions, Bonin said, including the use of a security envelope and signing and dating the exterior return envelope. Voss had argued to the Supreme Court that the 3rd Circuit ruling was already being cited in other cases but should be declared moot. He said it's possible that more litigation over the undated envelopes might occur if there is a close race in November and a candidate wants to seek a court review. I don't know about likely because it would require a close race. So, possible? Yes. Likely? I don't know. Remember, these ballots made the difference in Ritter's race, which is why the case existed, Voss said. Jason Gottesman, a spokesperson for the state House Republican Caucus, said in a statement that Pennsylvania law is clear: ballots must be dated, and urged the Wolf administration to work on comprehensive election law changes that will make the process more uniform, accessible, modern and secure. The case involves the law's requirement for handwritten dates on return envelopes that are also logged in by county election workers and generally have been postmarked. Pennsylvania allowed only limited use of absentee mail-in ballots until 2019, when a state law OK'd them for voters who did not otherwise qualify from a list of acceptable excuses. A lawsuit by Republican lawmakers challenging the mail-in voting law is pending in state court, while in August the state Supreme Court upheld the law against a separate challenge. More than 2.5 million Pennsylvanians voted by mail during 2020s presidential election, most of them Democrats, out of 6.9 million total votes. Chapman said Tuesday that more than 1.1 million absentee and mail-in ballots have been requested for the fall General Election. ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) Prosecutors dropped charges against Adnan Syed on Tuesday in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee after additional DNA testing excluded him as a suspect in a case chronicled by the hit podcast Serial. Marilyn Mosby, the states attorney for the city of Baltimore, said her office would continue to pursue justice for Lee but that it had closed its case against Syed, who spent 23 years in prison for the killing. She said the decision was made after additional DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect in the strangulation of Lee, whom Syed had dated. This case is over. There are no more appeals necessary, Mosby said during a news conference. She said her office decided to drop the charges after receiving the results on Friday of DNA testing on Lee's skirt, pantyhose, jacket and shoes that was conducted using a more modern technique than when evidence in the case was first tested. Although no DNA was recovered from the skirt, pantyhose or jacket, some was recovered from Lee's shoes, and most compellingly, Adnan Syed, his DNA was excluded, she said. Mosby said that even though her administration wasn't responsible for the pain inflicted on Hae Min Lee's family or the wrongful conviction of Syed, as a representative of the institution, it is my responsibility to acknowledge and to apologize to the family of Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed. She also said her office "will continue to utilize every available resource to prosecute whoever is responsible for the death of Hae Min Lee. Syed's attorney Erica Suter celebrated the news, noting that Syed wasn't ready yet to speak about it publicly. Todays the day that Adnan Syed and his loved ones have been waiting for 23 long years, Suter said during a Zoom call with reporters. The results of the DNA testing excluded Adnan and confirm what Adnan and his supporters have always known: that Adnan Syed is innocent. The state of Maryland has dropped the charges. Adnan Syed is free. Suter, an assistant public defender and the director of the University of Baltimore Law Schools Innocence Project Clinic, said Syed's legal team would begin working with the state's attorney's office as soon as possible to formally certify his innocence. She said it was premature to say whether they would seek compensation for wrongful conviction. Today we are just elated that Adnan is free," Suter said, noting that Syed plans to spend time with his loved ones. "I think hes just really elated to be able to have the small quiet everyday joys of freedom that many of us take for granted. A Baltimore judge last month overturned Syeds murder conviction and ordered him released from prison, where the 41-year-old had spent more than two decades. Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn also gave prosecutors 30 days in which to decide whether to retry Syed or drop the charges. Phinn ruled that the state had violated its legal obligation to share evidence that could have bolstered Syeds defense. Syed was placed on home detention with GPS location monitoring after he got out of prison, but those restrictions were lifted on Tuesday. Lee's family last month asked the Court of Special Appeals, which is Maryland's intermediate appellate court, to halt the case. Attorney Steve Kelly said Lees family was not challenging Syeds release, but instead wanted the judge to hold another hearing that the family can attend in-person and address the court Lees brother Young Lee appeared via videoconference on short notice during the previous hearing. In a statement Tuesday, Kelly said the Lee family learned about prosecutors' decision to drop the charges through news accounts. The family received no notice and their attorney was offered no opportunity to be present at the proceeding," Kelly said. "By rushing to dismiss the criminal charges, the States Attorneys Office sought to silence Hae Min Lees family and to prevent the family and the public from understanding why the State so abruptly changed its position of more than 20 years. All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Todays actions robbed them of both. Mosby said Tuesday that the familys appeal would have no effect on her offices decision to drop the charges against Syed. Asked about the status of the Lee familys appeal, Suter noted that the appeals court hadn't dismissed it and that Syed's legal team was awaiting that courts next action. Syed has maintained his innocence for decades and captured the attention of millions in 2014 when the debut season of Serial focused on the case and raised doubts about some of the evidence, including cellphone tower data. The state's attorney's office has said that a reinvestigation of the case revealed evidence regarding the possible involvement of two alternate suspects. It said the two might have been involved individually or together, but it didn't disclose their names. One of the suspects had threatened Lee, saying he would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her, according to a court filing. The suspects were known persons at the time of the original investigation and were not properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense, prosecutors said. Prosecutors also said new information revealed that one of the suspects was convicted of attacking a woman in her vehicle, and that one of the suspects was convicted of engaging in serial rape and sexual assault. Prosecutors also acknowledged that unreliable cellphone data had been used to convict Syed. Syed served more than 20 years in prison for the strangling of Lee, who was 18 at the time. Her body was found weeks later buried in a Baltimore park. More than a decade later, the popular Serial podcast revealed little-known evidence and attracted millions of listeners, shattering podcast-streaming and downloading records. WASHINGTON Standing in front of Floridians who had lost everything during Hurricane Ian, President Biden on Wednesday recalled his own house being nearly destroyed 15 years ago: "We didn't lose our whole home, but lightning struck and we lost an awful lot of it," he said. Biden has mentioned the incident before, once saying he knows what it's like "having had a house burn down with my wife in it." In fact, news reports at the time called it little more than "a small fire that was contained to the kitchen" and quoted the local Delaware fire chief as saying that "the fire was under control in 20 minutes." The story is not an isolated example of embellishment. The exaggerated biography that Biden tells includes having been a fierce civil rights activist who was repeatedly arrested. He has claimed to have been an award-winning student who earned three degrees. And last week, speaking on the hurricane-devastated island of Puerto Rico, he said he had been "raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically." For more than four decades, Biden has embraced storytelling as a way of connecting with his audience, often emphasizing the truth of his account by adding "Not a joke!" in the middle of a story. But Biden's folksiness can veer into folklore, with dates that don't quite add up and details that are exaggerated or wrong, the factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences. Biden's instances of exaggeration and falsehood fall far well short of those of his predecessor, who during four years in office delivered what the Washington Post fact checker called a "tsunami of untruths" and CNN described as a "staggering avalanche of daily wrongness." Former President Donald Trump lied constantly, not only about trivial details (suchas insisting it hadn't rained during his inauguration when it clearly had) but about consequential moments misleading about the pandemic, perpetrating the "big lie" that Biden stole the 2020 election and claiming falsely that the Capitol was not attacked by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Biden's fictions are nowhere near that scale. But they are emblematic of how the president, over nearly five decades in public life, has been unable to break himself of the habit of spinning embellished narratives, sometimes only loosely based on the facts, to weave together his political identity. And they provide political ammunition for Republicans eager to tar him as too feeble to run for re-election in two years. His stories have been repeatedly and publicly challenged, as far back as his 1987 campaign for president, when his attempts to adopt someone else's life story as his own, and his false claims about his academic record, forced him to withdraw. White House officials disputed the characterization of Biden as a serial exaggerator and emphasized the contrast with his predecessor. "President Biden has brought honesty and integrity back to the Oval Office," said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson. "Like he promised, he gives the American people the truth right from the shoulder and takes pride in being straight with the country about his agenda and his values; including by sharing life experiences that have shaped his outlook and that hardworking people relate to." But ethicists said contrasting himself with Trump does not excuse Biden. "I worry about the corrosive effects on democracy, of making 'more honest than Donald Trump' the standard for politicians," said Michael Blake, a professor of philosophy, public policy and governance at the University of Washington. Two days before his remarks in Fort Myers, Fla., Biden made his comments about the Puerto Rican community back home in Delaware as he toured the destruction on the island. I'm one of you, he seemed to be saying. But Biden made not a single mention of Puerto Rico in either of his biographies. Officials could not point to specific instances when Biden had worked on issues involving the island, although Ted Kaufman, Biden's former chief of staff, defended his close friend's description, saying Biden had personally engaged with Puerto Ricans early in his career, in the same way he had with other groups, such as the Black or Jewish communities. Biden's critics have seized on his falsehoods to depict him as either a purposeful liar or a forgetful old man. "When you lie about big things, you lie about small things," Greg Kelly, a host on the conservative network Newsmax, said this year, "and always in a political sense, always in a way to try to get people to like him, and exaggerating along the way." Biden has been delivering exaggerations at least as far back as his first presidential campaign. During his first presidential run in 1987, Biden said he "went to law school on a full academic scholarship," bragged that he "ended up in the top half" of his law school class and insisted that he "graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school." If fact, as he later admitted, he had only a partial scholarship, was 76th out of 85 law school student and graduated with one bachelor's degree (with a double major in history and political science). The most curious stories that Biden continues to tell may be the ones about his interactions with the law. Earlier this year, Biden suggested during a speech in Atlanta on voting rights that he had been arrested while protesting for civil rights. "Because I'm so damn old, I was there as well," he said. "You think I'm kidding, man. It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested." There is no evidence he was ever arrested during a civil-rights protest. During the 2020 campaign, he said he had been arrested while visiting Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He later admitted that he had been blocked from moving by police but not arrested. In 2008, he said he had been arrested as a college student following a group of women into an all-female dorm. He hadn't, as he conceded years later. In 2007, he recounted being arrested by a Capitol Police officer as a 21-year-old student in 1963. But in his memoir, he writes that the officer "didn't arrest me or anything." Blake suggested that there could be a cumulative effect even if Biden had excuses and explanations for individual instances of inaccuracy. "It's an attempt to create a sort of picture of who he is as someone who has empathy and knowledge and connection with people who are unlike him," Blake said. "But the problem is," he added, "when it's verifiably a false story, at that point trust in that story, it fails." This is a series of articles focusing on estate and legacy planning. Authors are Kaleena Miller, MSU Extension Madison-Jefferson County Agent, kaleena.miller1@montana.edu and Marsha Goetting, MSU Extension Family Economics Specialist, marsha.goetting@montana.edu. The Legislature has authorized the Attorney Generals Office to set up and support an End-of-Life Registry website for Montana citizens. The goal is to provide a place for citizens to securely store their advance directives online and to give authorized health care providers immediate access to them. An advance directive is a document that expresses the level of care you would want if you were seriously ill and unable to make decisions for yourself, says Kaleena Miller, MSU Madison-Jefferson County Agent. The document supplies instructions saying what you would want done or not done about life-sustaining treatment and other health care issues. You may order that your life be prolonged as long as possible. Or you may order that your attending physician withhold or withdraw treatment that would only prolong the process of dying. Two examples of advance directives are the model health care power of attorney for Montanans and a living will (called a declaration in Montana), both available from MSU Extension. You cannot file or change an advance directive online. To register a directive, you must be at least 18 years of age. The process of filing an advance directive is easy. First, complete an advance directive that meets the requirements of Montana. A form that meets the requirements is available from the End-of-Life Registry at https://app.mt.gov/registry/. MSU Extension also has a declaration (living will) form that is included in the MontGuide, Montana Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (MT199202HR), says Marsha Goetting, MSU Extension Family Economics Specialist. The publication is available through the Madison-Jefferson County Office. Call 406-287-3282 or download here https://www.montana.edu/estateplanning/eppublications.html. Second, complete the Montana End-of-Life Consumer Registration Agreement. The form is available from the End-of-Life Registry at https://www.endoflife.mt.gov. The form allows you to specify the level of privacy you want for your personal information. If you do not mark which choice you want, you will be assigned the standard privacy level. The standard privacy allows access by the person who filed the directive, registered health care providers, and anyone with that persons Social Security number, birth date, and mothers maiden name, or with the name and access code. Higher privacy allows access only by the person who filed the directive, registered health care providers, and anyone with the name and access code. After you have completed your advance directive and Consumer Registration Agreement, you will want to make a copy of each so you will have a record of your submission, emphasizes Miller. Next, send the original forms to Montana End-of-Life Registry, Office of Consumer Protection and Victim Services, P.O. Box 201410, Helena, MT 59620-1410. Within approximately three weeks, the Office of Consumer Protection will send a letter saying whether your advance directive has been registered in the Montana End-of-Life Registry. The letter will also confirm your identifying information. Enclosed will be a wallet card and four labels two to place on the back of your drivers license and insurance card, and two extras. The card has the access code you use to check your advance directive through the online Montana End-of-Life Registry Service, shared Goetting. If the Office of Consumer Protection decides that an advance directive does not meet the legal requirements, it will return the directive and Consumer Registration Agreement with a letter saying what other information is needed. You can always change your mind about their advanced health care directive. To change an advance directive registered with the Attorney Generals Office, mail the following to the Office of Consumer Protection: the new advance directive and the Montana End-of-Life Consumer Registration Agreement saying that you wish to replace your existing directive with a new one. More information about the Montana End of Life Registry is available from MSU Extension in a MontGuide at https://store.msuextension.org/publications/FamilyFinancialManagement/MT200602HR.pdf. For those who do not have computer access, copies are available from the Madison-Jefferson County Extension office at 287-3282. Its Fancy Day at Gordon L Willson Elementary School. There are girls stepping off the bus in dresses. There are boys in the hallways wearing neckties. A child is heading off to class in a tuxedo T-shirt. Other children have on spiffy shoes and their hair is done just right. The staff, too, are fancy. People are in gowns and dresses. There are people in dress shirts and wearing silk. Fancy Day is fancy, a day of pomp and circumstance, but also one of sweetness and care. The day is elevated, but, at the school, every day is elevated. Every day children get an outstanding education surrounded by outstanding teachers and staff. That fact was recently proved. The school was recently named a 2022 National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Secretary of Education, Dr. Miguel Cardona. Gordon L Willson (GLW) is one of 297 schools nationwide, and only one of eight in the state of Wisconsin, to be selected a 2022 National Blue Ribbon School. GLW is recognized as an exemplary Achievement Gap-Closing school because it is one of Wisconsins highest performing schools in closing achievement gaps between student subgroups and their grade level peers. Of course, the kids, said principal Sarah Brings, celebrating her first year as principal at GLW, after the departure of Erick Blasing. The kids make you want to come to work every day. Theyre joy makers. The childrens joy is infectious. It motivates Brings to support them any way she can. The people here, the staff, the families, the community. We all support each other to support every child. The award goes to everyone involved with the school. Its because of everyone, noted long-time kindergarten teacher Liz Gulden. A winner in her own right as the 2019 Wisconsin Elementary Teacher of the Year, she appreciates the teamwork involved in improving the lives of Baraboos youth. There are opportunities to grow every day, she said. Every day teaching is a new adventure. That adventure includes a trip to Washington, DC. Baraboo School District representatives will travel to the nations capital on Nov. 3 and 4 to be formally recognized with the other schools across the country at an awards ceremony. The National Blue Ribbon School Program is part of the US Department of Education. The program was established in 1982, and is supported through ongoing collaboration with the National Association of Elementary School Principals, Association for Middle Level Education, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. GLW has around 300 students supported by approximately 60 staff members. Ive lived in Baraboo my whole life, said Gulden, who is a 2000 Baraboo High School graduate. It was the easiest decision to work here. This is a family. Principal Brings said, I love this community. The blue ribbon certificate is on the wall. The official blue ribbon pin is in her hand. I wanted a caring community, she said of her job, and Ive found it here in this building. A bell rings. Brings stands, smooths out her dress worn for Fancy Day. She heads out the front doors of the school to welcome in children for another day of learning and celebration at Baraboos blue ribbon school. It was a celebration of the past but also a commemoration of hope for a better future as members of the Ho-Chunk Nation and from the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes throughout the Midwest came together Monday to honor Indigenous Peoples Day in Sauk County. Ho-Chunk member Wilfrid Cleveland opened the ceremony with a prayer in his native language. The Winnebago Sons beat drums honoring the tribal members who are veterans of different branches of the U.S. Armed Services. Robert Williamson, of Stroud, Oklahoma, a member of the Sac and Fox Tribe of Oklahoma, is a leader of the fish clan. He described the area as beautiful country before making a note that the area named after the Sauk people is best known for a restaurant called Culvers, eliciting laughter from the crowd. While grateful for the recognition of his people and ancestors through the county proclamation, Williamson said from the crowded tent in Sauk City that there is still work to be done. Today, we want to just say, to the governor and to the Sauk board thank you so far for this, Williamson said. But theres a lot more to do yet. Sauk County supervisors passed a proclamation in November 2018. The event has only been canceled once since then. The celebration at Meyer Oak Grove Park was the third of its kind. The 2021 celebration was held in Reedsburg. Sauk County Administrator Brent Miller read the proclamation declaring the day Indigenous Peoples Day in Sauk County. We the people of Sauk County seek to continue to support indigenous nations struggles for social and environmental justice, religious freedom and tribal sovereignty, Miller said. As the descendants of the original inhabitants of this land, indigenous people, particularly members of the Ho-Chunk Nation, remain on their ancestral homeland and have a special place among the varied cultures and beliefs of the residents of Sauk County. Members of Indigenous Students United at Baraboo High School introduced themselves and took part in the ceremony. Visitors from the state government also came to share their feelings about the importance of the day, though Gov. Tony Evers was unable to attend. Preston Cole, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, spoke to managing the states natural spaces with the help of tribal governments. Gov. Evers has always said that door will remain open and that light will remain on for our indigenous families in the state of Wisconsin as it relates to natural resource management, Cole said. We know we are better as a state when we support one another, respect tribal sovereignty and our tribal neighbors, and when we work together as a state, we have a stronger state. Much of the day of remembrance centers around history. Paul Wolter, director of the Sauk County Historical Society, pointed to the importance of the word Sauk in the area and his hope that the majority of county residents better understand the history of the people it is named after. While the word Sauk is ubiquitous in this area, many people probably dont know what it means, let alone that it refers to a peoplethe Saukand a language, Wolter said. I hope that changes today. On Oct. 9, 256 years ago, a group of white men were gliding along the river on birch canoes, noting admirable Sauk villages with fruitful land and the best market within 800 miles. More men came, noting the opportunity to hunt buffalo. In 1773, a man named Peter Pond encountered Sauk villages, writing descriptively about well-built homes and the population of likely more than 1,000 people within the tribe. In 1851, visitors described more than 400 acres of corn crops. The Sauk village described in these journal entries was established in the area in 1740. After allying themselves with the Meskwaki, or Fox, people in the 1730s, the Sauk people fled west of the Mississippi after becoming targets in the Meskwaki war with the French people. The Meskwaki people were reduced to just a few hundred from thousands during this ongoing conflict. When the fighting finally subsided, the Sauk returned to lands east of the Mississippi River and established a village here on the Wisconsin River next to a great prairie, where they flourished for about 40 years, Wolter said. But under pressure from the Chippewa people, they moved south in 1780 to the Mississippi River valley. The Treaty of 1804 in St. Louis ordered the Sauk and Meskwaki, considered one tribe by the U.S. government, to give up all of their land east of the Mississippi River. The treaty divided the people as they argued over whether it was legitimate. A leader named Black Hawk was one of the resisters. He returned to the village of Saukenuk in northwestern Illinois on the Rock River, where he was born, with a group of followers. It became known as the Black Hawk War of 1832. The group traversed hundreds of miles, attempting to avoid troops while warriors were outnumbered 10 to 1. Hundreds of followers crossed the Wisconsin River during the Battle of Wisconsin Heights a few miles south of what is now Sauk City. The war ended weeks later with hundreds of Sauk people dying and Black Hawks defeat at the Battle of Bad Axe. Eventually, Ho-Chunk people settled where the Sauk people had been. Just like the Sauk, the Ho-Chunk were compelled to sign treaties that gave away their lands east of the Mississippi, Wolter said. The Treaty of 1837 with the Ho-Chunk led to this side of the Wisconsin River being opened for American settlement. When a new county was laid out in 1840, it was decided it should be named Sauk. Though the Sauk had not lived here for over 50 years, their former presence on the prairie was still highly visible. One of the area's main groups working to help lower-income individuals just received a boost to its program assisting people seeking a nursing career. The Central Wisconsin Community Action Council (CWCAC) recently received a $200,000 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services that will help individuals who want to either get into nursing or move up in the field. Potential nurses or their families who earn 80% or less of their county's median household income will be eligible for assistance. "The intent of the grant is to increase the availability of anyone trained in nursing fields," said Fred Hebert, CWCAC executive director. "They could be anywhere from a CNA (certified nursing assistant) to an RN (registered nurse). We just started it, and we can help pay for tuition, book supplies and any incidentals that are associated with the training program." Nursing assistance with CWCAC Anyone interested in beginning or advancing their nursing career and currently earning 80% or less of the county median income can contact Central Wisconsin Community Action Council at (608) 254-8353 or email Executive Director Fred Hebert at fred@cwcac.org for potential financial assistance from CWCAC. Hebert said that CWCAC has a two-year contract with the state to disperse the grant funds to potential nurses. He hopes to assist 25 people in advancing their careers. More than 25 people could receive assistance, but Hebert said that depends on how the funds are dispersed. DHS has identified a need to expand the workforce in nursing, according to Hebert. He said this is because of nurses' fatigue and eventual resignations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the overall increase in health care needs in the area. Anyone who wishes to receive potential financial aid for advancing their nursing careers can fill out an application with CWCAC. Hebert said that along with being at 80% or less of the county median income, the applicant must either be enrolled in a nursing program, have been accepted to an upcoming program, or considering a program. "Our staff would work with each individual and help them navigate through the process of application and certification and identify a training site unless they already have a training site," said Hebert. Hebert anticipates that CWCAC will receive a lot of interest in the program. CWCAC serves Dodge, Adams, Juneau, Columbia and Sauk counties. Criminals are not the most welcome visitors in a tourist community, and Lake Delton is looking into a system that will help better capture them if they are in the village. Lake Delton Police Department (LDPD) Chief Daniel Hardman addressed the village board on Oct. 10 to discuss implementing Flock Safety Automated License Plate Readers. These cameras would be placed around the village, particularly in high-volume areas, to capture photos of license plates and notify nearby officers if the plate is affiliated with someone who is wanted for criminal activity. At a chiefs meeting six months ago, the Flock system was shown to us, said Hardman at the Oct. 10 board meeting. We went up to Green Bay to do some further research on it. This is a very cost-effective system. They are already tied in, so theyve already worked through the logistics of tying into the national crime information center. Department Lt. Steven Smith is working closely with Hardman on the potential project and wrote the staff report on it for the board. The board did not make a decision on installing the system at the meeting. Hardman said that the system would cost the village $22,500 per year after the first year and that it is a part of his 2023 emergency management budget for the village. If that budget is approved, the installation would occur later in the year. The idea for this type of system was started by village President John Webb a couple years ago, according to Hardman. Webb also explored the idea of a mesh network which would have been a group of devices placed around the village to produce Wi-Fi throughout the village. Hardman eventually deemed this system as cost-prohibitive along with other types of camera systems. Its not a camera system that flows all the time, said Hardman of the Flock system. Its driven by motion of plates. Flock Safety Automated License Plate Readers, once they capture a license plate associated with a wanted individual, would flash on a nearby officers screen inside their patrol vehicle, according to Hardman. He added that the system will be very beneficial during high traffic volume periods, including Automotion in May. Before they get to your resorts or restaurants a lot of times, well get hit on it and well be able to stop them before they get in, said Hardman. Hardman describes a fair amount of the crime in Lake Delton to be corridor crime, where individuals would start crime sprees such as retail theft and counterfeit currency transactions in other regions and pass through the village. He referred to a burglary incident at the villages Kohls Department Store as an example, where he said the Flock system would have allowed LDPD to capture the thieves. Other Lake Delton news The board unanimously approved an annexation of a portion of the Town of Delton into the village for Cedar Lodge and Settlement. Introductions of ordinances for two zoning reclassifications within the village were also approved by a unanimous vote. An exemption from the Sauk County library tax was also renewed unanimously because of the villages joint library fund with the City of Wisconsin Dells for the Kilbourn Public Library in the village. New bleachers are slated to be installed at the Lake Delton Ice Arena. Aaron Kirby, the arenas director, said he hopes to have the seating installed by the upcoming weekend. It was best known as the place to get authentic British culinary delights in Buffalo from pork, chicken and beef pies to fish and chips but the home of the now-closed Parker's Great British Institution will soon be known more for parking cars. Parker's closes to the public, will move fish and chips shop to Wheatfield Parkers Great British Institution, a food manufacturer on South Park Avenue that has been home to several quirky Britain-themed concepts, has closed to the public. The facility, which manufactures and ships British delicacies across the country, has closed Parkers Proper Fish & Chips and will relocate the restaurant to the former Summit Mall in the spring, according to owner Vicky and Damian Parker, owners of the South Buffalo business that closed to the public in 2018, are selling their property at 1216 South Park Ave. to Brendan Properties NY, which plans to convert the 7-acre site and existing warehouse facilities into an automotive dealership run by a Cleveland businessman, Mark Sims. Sims owns Dealership Acquisitions and the Cash for Car Store, which is part of the Sims Car Mall that he operates in Cleveland. Sims has been in the car dealer business since 1988 and he started Sims Chevrolet in 1999, which evolved into the Sims Car Mall known for "buying your car in 10 minutes." Sign up for the Buffalo Next free newsletter The News' Buffalo Next team covers the changing Buffalo Niagara economy. Get the news in your inbox 5 days a week. According to his website, he now operates locations in Milwaukee, Albany, Rochester, Columbus and Cincinnati, and his dealerships have bought and sold over 35,000 vehicles. But he would not disclose what brands he will be selling or even whether the dealership would be selling new or used vehicles. The South Buffalo property is located across South Park Avenue from the Tesla plant. Built in 1998 and previously a manufacturing facility under authorization from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, it contains 2,200 square feet of office space, 3,000 square-feet of retail and showroom space, plus manufacturing and distribution capacity. It's now owned by Parker & Rice Holdings and was remodeled in 2017 and 2021, but has been under contract since May 11. Plans call for reuse of the 43,871-square-foot building as an interior showroom, customer-delivery space and vehicle maintenance facility, while adding a 354-space parking lot for vehicle inventory and customer parking, according to an application to the city Planning Board. Part of the existing parking area will remain with no changes. The property is zoned as "flex commercial," but falls within the city's waterfront corridor, so the developer received a coastal consistency determination from the Planning Board. Its interesting to have a nontraditional use on the waterfront, said Planning Board member Horace Gioia. I think its cool, and pretty exciting to have a use thats not common in the city. No major changes are planned to the exterior facade. "Were going through the motions to redesign the interior to accommodate the car dealership but the building itself will not change," said architect Joseph Palumbo from Carmina Wood Design. If approved, the $2 million project would take 60 days of construction. Major partnership to drive digital transformation in Africa The Afretec network has made 20 million US dollars available to members, including Wits, to collaborate in engineering and technology. The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) has secured the largest partnership in the history of the university, which will drive digital transformation in Africa. It made this announcement as it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2022. Wits becomes a member of the African Engineering and Technology Network (Afretec), a pan-African collaboration of technology-focused universities from across the African continent. The network, led by Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa), has over 20 million US dollars available for network members to engage in collaborative activity that drives inclusive digital transformation in Africa through engineering and technology. The network is generously supported by a recently announced investment from the Mastercard Foundation in CMU-Africa. The Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic at Wits University, Professor Ruksana Osman says, It is an absolute privilege for Wits to have been selected as a member of this prestigious network, especially as we celebrate 100 years of excellence in 2022. We look forward to working with members of the Afretec Network to expand, educate, and empower the next generation of African technology leaders. We want to co-create opportunities and drive the inclusive digital transformation and growth of Africa, one of Wits centenary goals. The 2022 Afretec Conference will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from 6-8 November and will focus on the inclusive digital transformation of Africa. A plan of action will be developed to ensure the realisation of the goals and objectives of the network in advancing digital transformation, knowledge creation and entrepreneurship in Africa. Professor Nithaya Chetty, Dean of the Faculty of Science at Wits University adds, Some of the collaborative activities may include the establishment of joint capacity building programme; the exchange and sharing of best practices; the delivery of faculty enrichment and exchange programmes to promote teaching excellence; programmes to better prepare students for postgraduate programs in engineering and technology; the organisation of social leadership activities; and student and staff exchanges to advance research with a focus on job creation. We could also look at developing new certificate and degree programmes, online short courses and work across sectors and disciplinary and geographic boundaries to bring our best talent and resources to bear to solve 21st century challenges. The Afretec Network seeks to: Promote and share effective approaches and best practices to engineering, technology, entrepreneurship, education, and knowledge creation activities to influence and shape practice and policy; Advance the digital development of Africa by developing skilled educators, engineers, and technologists; Encourage and support deep multidisciplinary research collaborations, to enhance research capacity and to develop focused engineering and/or technology research on African matters; Identify and create pathways to opportunity for engineering and technology students through entrepreneurial development and opportunities; Leverage the collective engineering and technology education, research and entrepreneurial strengths of members of the network and industry partners; and Maintain a consistent commitment to social impact, diversity, inclusion, and sustainability as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030) and the Africa Agenda (2015-2063). Driving digital transformation is a priority area for Wits University and forms a key component of its Centenary Campaign. The Centenary Campaign seeks to raise R3 billion to support Wits eight priority areas: driving digital transformation; catalysing innovation and entrepreneurship; ensuring better health for all; solving global challenges; advancing society, governance and justice; future-proofing our national treasures; developing the next generation of leaders; and energising broad-based alumni support, and this partnership fits squarely with these priorities. We are deeply grateful to CMU-Africa, to the Mastercard Foundation, to members of the Afretec Network, and to Professor Osman for leading, enabling and stewarding this important partnership at Wits, with her colleagues. May it grow from strength to strength and drive digital transformation in Africa, concludes Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits University. By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Moldova is set to deepen trade relations with Azerbaijan, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita said during a meeting with business circles in Baku, Azernews reports per Trend. We are equally determined to deepen our trade and investment ties with key countries from the South Caucasus and Azerbaijan in particular, she said. Noting that Moldova sees Azerbaijan as a strong and reliable partner, she emphasized that this view is shared by Brussels, along with key EU capitals. I commend the recent effort of deepening the partnership between Azerbaijan and the EU, which adds another important strategic dimension to the prospects for our cooperation. We are in fact building digital bridges between the public and the private sectors to allow for much-needed systemic alteration, but also for a real change in our national and regional mindset. Were more than ready to welcome and accommodate Azerbaijani investors on this journey, she said. Moreover, Natalia Gavrilita also noted that as the EU seeks to mitigate the economic consequences of the situation in Ukraine, to facilitate economic links between Moldova and the EU, Azerbaijan can be a trusted partner in this process. Demand for Azerbaijani gas The Moldovan prime minister underlined that there is a large demand for gas from Azerbaijan. She noted that at the moment, Moldova is looking for short-term solutions. We are looking for partners to fill our gas storages, to ensure the supply for two months. It will be about 300 million cubic meters, she said. At the same time, she emphasized that Moldova is also looking for long-term partners, adding that in this regard, she counts on Azerbaijan as a reliable partner. No country can rely on a single supplier of energy resources. We hope to have productive negotiations with Azerbaijan in the future. Today there is a great demand for Azerbaijani gas. We are closely watching the EU interest in Azerbaijani gas, she said. Economic relations Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Economy Minister Sahib Mammadov stated that Azerbaijan and Moldova are developing relations in all economic spheres. He noted that trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $13.5 million in January-August 2022, adding that export from Azerbaijan to Moldova grew by 13 times. The deputy minister also mentioned that Azerbaijan invested about $9.7 million in Moldova, while Moldova invested $3.8 million in Azerbaijan from 1995 to 2021. Cooperation in agricultural sector Likewise, Natalia Gavrilita stated that Azerbaijan and Moldova seek to expand cooperation in the agricultural sector. "We talked about a number of issues. I had very productive discussions with Azerbaijani officials. There are a number of potential areas of cooperation," she said. Noting that Moldova is currently in the phase of diversifying not only energy resources but also fertilizers, she stated that Moldova is already importing fertilizers from Azerbaijan. "We are looking for investors in the processing of our agriculture. Our cooperation in this sense is already productive," she said. The prime minister also added that Moldova received a very positive response in terms of increasing transport operations with Azerbaijan. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on May 29, 1992. The embassy of Azerbaijan in Moldova was opened on October 5, 2005, while the embassy of Moldova in Azerbaijan was opened on November 1, 2005. In total, fifty-nine documents were signed between the two countries. The trade relations between Azerbaijan and Moldova amounted to $6.2 million in 2021. BY JON HARRIS Oct. 10, 2022 Cardiac, stroke patients could see faster care Catholic Health System calls it a game changer new technology that it believes could help save lives in Western New York in situations where seconds matter. The health system's Mercy Hospital late last month rolled out cloud-based technology that works on smartphones and tablets and boosts communication between emergency medical services personnel and medical providers at the hospital. The secure system, developed by Montana-based telehealth communications firm Pulsara, provides first responders with consistent two-way communication with emergency physicians, allowing for the transmission of patient data and live video consults before patients even get to the hospital. Without Pulsara, such communication typically involves multiple phone calls, costing time that is crucial especially when dealing with stroke and heart patients. "I have been a paramedic in Western New York EMS for 20 years, and there has always been kind of a struggle to streamline communication between the pre-hospital world and the hospital world," said Emily James, Catholic Health's system manager of emergency and neuroscience services. Efforts to bring Pulsara's technology to Catholic Health started before the pandemic but were placed on the back burner while Western New York's second-largest health system, like all hospitals, scrambled to care for Covid-19 patients. But the pandemic only reinforced the need for such technology, and it took about a year to get it up and running at Mercy Hospital. How it works Let's say EMS responds to a call at a home in Colden, in the southern part of Erie County. They arrive, evaluate and determine the patient is having a stroke. As they prepare to transport to Mercy Hospital, the paramedics hop on Pulsara and communicate directly to a doctor, such as Dr. Edward Cosgrove, medical director of Mercy's emergency department. The hospital's neurology team is looped in, too, initiating a case and getting hospital staff prepared to intervene as quickly as possible. And the communication continues while the patient is en route, allowing the neurologist to evaluate and actually see the patient through the app. "The value of good communication is really critical to the care of these types of patients, principally cardiac emergencies and neurologic emergencies," Cosgrove said. "Prior to the availability of this sort of communication tool, if I were the receiving physician and I got a call from the field from an EMS agency, and I got some of the information I needed, but then I had other questions subsequently, my ability to reach back out to the team in the field as they're coming in was really limited," he said. It's also a big help for the charge nurses, who can plan ahead of time what will happen when the patient arrives: For example, what room to put the patient in, who needs to be in that room and what equipment is needed. "From a nursing perspective, the charge nurse is managing and juggling many balls," said Lori Dufresne, system director of emergency and neuroscience services at Catholic Health. "And so to be able to be warned ahead of time and alerted that this is coming in, instead of having them just roll in the door and say, 'Hey, we're here,' it's very helpful for the charge nurses." Officials got a good look at how Pulsara works on the second or third day after it was launched, when two heart attack patients came to Mercy Hospital within seven minutes of one another. James said both cases were alerted through Pulsara, communicated directly to the interventional cardiologist who was able to immediately pull his team in and, on one platform, discuss things such as which patient was coming to the cardiac catheterization lab first. Before Pulsara, James said that communication would have consisted of at least three or four phone calls. "Both of those patients received care faster, because of faster, more streamlined communication," she said. What's next Ryan Sheedy, coordinator of Erie County's Medical Emergency Radio System, or MERS, said Catholic Health is the first health system in Erie County to launch Pulsara. He noted that many area EMS agencies already are using Pulsara, and the county is working with Catholic Health to ensure all EMS providers are using it properly. (Catholic Health said there is no cost for EMS providers to use it.) In the coming weeks, Catholic Health plans to roll out Pulsara to its other hospitals, including Kenmore Mercy Hospital, Sisters Hospital and Mount St. Mary's Hospital. Welcome to Buffalo Next. This newsletter from The Buffalo News will bring you the latest coverage on the changing Buffalo Niagara economy from real estate to health care to startups. Read more at BuffaloNext.com. THE LATEST Catch up on the latest news from the Buffalo Niagara economy: The deadline for a stadium benefits plan is nearing with no sign of a final deal in sight. Pioneer Credit Recovery is cutting 230 jobs in Arcade and Perry because of declines in its student loan collection business. Oishei Children's Hospital president is leaving for a new job. ImmunityBio is eliminating nearly 40 jobs in Dunkirk as its plans to ramp up operations are paused. A California plastics maker is planning to turn a former pet supply company facility in Angola into its East Coast distribution center. Clarence manufacturer Seal & Design is planning to expand its facility, and it is seeking tax breaks from the town's IDA. For Kaleida, meeting the increased staffing requirements included in its tentative labor agreement with its main unions won't be easy. ICYMI Five reads from Buffalo Next: 1. For kids with autism, a different way of learning: Canisius College's Institute for Autism Research offers a unique social skills intervention that starts with young children but could improve the quality of life for all autistic people. 2. As Micron picks Syracuse, will Genesee County ever land its own semiconductor win? The Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park, or STAMP, pitches its ability to lure workers from both Rochester and Buffalo. But is its location, in an isolated spot in the Town of Alabama, more of a liability than economic development officials think? 3. Will there be enough snowplow drivers this year? Some municipalities say they are short-staffed and others say they are ready for the winter months. 4. A handful of solar farms proposed for sites across Western New York will be among the biggest in the state, which is pushing to get more electricity from renewable sources. 5. Let's strike! But just for a day or two: It's all part of a shifting strategy by labor unions to pressure employers, while limiting the financial pain work stoppages inflict on workers. The Buffalo Next team gives you the big picture on the regions economic revitalization. Email tips to buffalonext@buffnews.com or reach Deputy Business Editor David Robinson at 716-849-4435. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to get the latest in your inbox five days a week. Zhu Xuelan picks tea leaves in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. [Xinhua/Lu Boan] NANNING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) When Zhu Xuelan raised the idea of disclosing her family's tea-making secret to fellow villagers, she received strong opposition from her family members. "How can we share the crafts passed down from our ancestors with other people?" This was the most common response. Zhu comes from a family of master tea-makers in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. They make Liubao tea, a Chinese dark tea characterized by its strong and lingering fragrance and medical effects. The tea, with a history of more than 1,500 years, was named after Zhu's hometown Liubao Town. Zhu, 51, is the Party chief of Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao. She was elected a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Once in poverty, the village has prospered thanks to Zhu's leadership and generous sharing of her family secret. Most households in Zhu's village of Shanping know how to grow and make Liubao tea. However, about a decade ago, the tea quality varied greatly due to different tea-making skills, and those who had achieved success kept their crafts as a family secret. That did little to help the local tea industry, which suffered from inconvenient transportation and limited information back then due to the mountain-locked landscape. Zhu, elected Party chief of the village in 2008, was determined to change the situation and seek fortune for her folks. Among the first things she did was to build cement roads to connect the village to the outside world. Then, she turned to vitalize the traditional tea-making trade of the village. Despite opposition from her family, Zhu insisted on sharing the family tea-making secret. "To develop an industry, you can never do it alone. Only by creating our brand can the industry really prosper," said Zhu, who keeps in mind her identity as a Party member. "As a Party member, I always remember my original aspiration when I joined it," said Zhu. "Tea-making is a good path to prosperity. If I didn't share my family craft to others, how could our mountainous village achieve better development?" She turned the bungalow where she processed tea into a classroom and began imparting tea-making skills to tea planters from Shanping and surrounding villages. Over the years, Zhu has helped nearly 1,000 tea industry practitioners master traditional tea-making skills for high-quality products to increase their income. Gradually, the Liubao tea produced by the Shanping Village won fame in the country, and more and more people in the village joined the industry. In 2016, Shanping Village was lifted out of poverty, and tea plantations have expanded from 20 hectares 10 years ago to more than 170 hectares now. By the end of 2021, the villagers' annual per capita income reached 21,000 yuan (about 2,958 U.S. dollars). "I have witnessed the changes in Shanping over the past decade," Zhu said, adding that she is preparing to combine the local tea culture with Yao ethnic culture for tourism development in the future. Zhu Xuelan walks on a country road in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. [Xinhua/Lu Boan] Zhu Xuelan (R) and a villager weigh a bag of newly-picked tea leaves in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. [Xinhua/Lu Boan] Zhu Xuelan (front) walks down a hill with villagers after picking tea leaves in Shanping, a Yao ethnic village in Liubao, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2022. [Xinhua/Lu Boan] (Source: Xinhua) Hidden beneath beautiful sights on the ground, Cappadocia in Turkey is home to a complex network of underground cities. Thousands of years old and massive in size, these cities are full of ancient architecture and provide us with an insight into the engineering of ancient times. With functional ventilation systems, unique establishments and even defensive design, these underground cities are a magical sight to behold. That being said, mystery isnt far back with this wonder and the cities are shrouded with conspiracy theories as to their residents, engineering, and much more. Even with many excavations and surveys conducted, it is still unknown how large this network is and what we may find within it. So, lets learn about the magical underground cities in Cappadocia, Turkey! Read MoreMap of Turkey Location And Geography Of The Underground Cities Hotels carved from stone rock in Cappadocia, Turkey The underground cities are located in the Cappadocia region of Central Turkey. This region is known for its dynamic landscape which consists of volcanic mountains, soft tufa rock, and many unique rock structures known as fairy chimneys by the locals. Below all of this, the underground cities make up a large network of tunnels and chambers that span for kilometres in each direction. Derinkuyu cave city in Cappadocia, Turkey As of 2022, dozens of underground cities have been discovered with Derinkuyu being the largest at a depth of 85 metres below ground. Apart from Derinkuyu, some of the key cities within the network are: Tatlarin Underground City - One of the oldest known subterranean cities in the area, Tatlarin is comprised of 2 floors and can be found in the Acigol District. Ozluce Underground City - This city is 6 km west of Kaymakli town and is known for the 15 metre primary walkway which is made of rubble stone. Mazi Underground City - Mazi is located 10 km from Kaymakli and has a unique layout within the west slope of a village. Kaymakli Underground City - It is 20 km from the city of Nevsehir and has a total of 8 floors, with 4 of them being accessible to tourists. That being said, a recent systematic survey of the region with seismic tomography utilised 33 measurements to estimate that the entire network was larger than 450,000 sq. metres and reached depths of up to 113 metres. If this information were to be accurate, this would suggest cities much larger than Derinkuyu which may be hiding secrets covered up by time! Read MoreFairy Chimneys - Magical Places Of Turkey History Of The Underground Cities Guzelyurt town and the underground city near Ihlara valley in Cappadocia, Turkey Parallel to the immense architectural skill and tourist wonder of these underground cities, they have also been known for their historical importance. With the earliest traces of the cities actually going as far back as the 8th century BC, it is believed that the caves were formed by the soft volcanic rock in the region. The initial habitats were believed to be the Phrygians who were close relatives of the Greeks. While they began living in the caves, their rapid fall gradually saw the caves come under true Greek control. Throughout this time, the caves were developed and many Greek inscriptions portray the building of multi-level structures and religious buildings. Over the next centuries, this region shifted hands many times due to continuous conflict. At first, the caves were taken under Muslim Arab control during the Byzantine era and further developed into a network which connected multiple underground cities together. Shortly after this, during the 14th century, the cities were used by Christian natives as a site for temporary residences to hide from Mongolian incursions. Followed up by the Ottomans who also used the hidden cities for refuge, the underground network finally became home for the Cappadocian Greeks who were there till the 20th century, after which the tunnel systems were forgotten. It wasnt until 1963 that the tunnels were rediscovered by mistake when a man found a hidden wall in his home, thanks to which they were subsequently opened to visitors. Sunset in the city of Goreme in Cappadocia, Turkey Throughout the thousands of years, these underground cities have existed, they have acted as an important source of refuge across religions and societies. Whether it was during the Ottoman Empire or for Christians fleeing persecution, these cities managed to hide tens of thousands and protected them from harm. Thus, the cities are often lauded for being well-hidden and defensively sound. That being said, with the network of cities being so large and ancient, many are still being unearthed with major cities such as Derinkuyu making up most of what we know. So, with such little evidence from when they were initially built, there is still much to be discovered when it comes to the tale of this hidden underground network. Read MoreThe Byzantine Empire: 4th Century AD To 1453 Climate Of The Underground Cities In terms of the climate of these underground cities, they tend to stay the same year-round. This is primarily due to the entire network being located 50-100 metres below ground and most visitable cities such as Derinkuyu having proper ventilation. So, while you may find feel the heat of the sun above ground, these cities rarely get hotter than 13C. Moreover, with no direct access to the ground, there is no effect of precipitation on the massive underground network in Cappadocia. Architecture In The Underground Cities Ancient town and a castle of Uchisar dug from a mountains in Cappadocia, Turkey One of the most enticing factors about these underground cities is the immensely well-designed and intricate architecture that has gone into developing them. Given the time that these cities were developed and the fact that they are below ground, it is astonishing how aptly ancient societies were able to build structures. To shed some light on these masterpieces of ancient architecture, here are some facts about the largest known city in the network, Derinkuyu: The city has a ventilation system that consists of a large 55-metre-long shaft which goes above ground to act as a passageway for air, water, and more. Derinkuyu features various levels which are connected by vertical staircases to indicate smart use of the increased ceiling. There is a total capacity of 20,000 people and various establishments such as stables, cellars, chapels, and even schools for a functioning underground city. Each floor of the city could be individually closed off as a means to increase defence for lower levels in case the entrance was breached. Tourism & Recreation In The Underground Cities A couple vacationing in Cappadocia, with hot air ballons in the background Due to the amazing history, architecture, and mysterious depths of these subterranean cities, the attraction is a famous tourist spot in the Cappadocia region. As the region itself is a tourist hub that attracts millions of people per year, the underground cities are also known to be a sight seen by hundreds of thousands. While the recent pandemic has slowed down tourism, figures from before 2020 indicate anywhere between 200,000 and 500,000 visitors per year. To accommodate such large numbers, local officials have developed a short tour that will show you around many key places in about 1 hour. As of now, the tour covers both of the largest subterranean cities, Derinkuyu and Kaymakli, through which a tour guide will show you the houses, underground church, defensive doors, and even the central ventilation well. While the tour currently only covers half of the Derinkuyu, recent surveys point to much more hidden beneath these rocks which could be open to your eyes soon! So, with thousands of years of history merged with natural beauty and architectural intellect, the magical underground cities in Cappadocia are a must-visit! Nearly 50,000 servings of pet food delivered across Wales to help with cost-of-living crisis Nearly 50,000 servings of pet food have been distributed across Wales via RSPCA branches since June. The Wales Pet Food Bank involves securing dog and cat food donations from suppliers and then distributing these via RSPCA branches to food banks and organisations across Wales. All 11 RSPCA branches in Wales are part of the food bank initiative with a group of branches in North Wales (Aberconwy, Clwyd & Colwyn, West Gwynedd, Wrexham District & Deeside and Ynys Mon) initially coming together to fund and make the scheme possible. It was then rolled out across Wales in June so all branches could join the effort to distribute the food where it was needed most. The charity has warned that the cost-of-living crisis poses an enormous issue to pet owners, describing it as an urgent threat to pet owners. This summer the RSPCA recently released its Animal Kindness Index, a groundbreaking inaugural report, in partnership with the Scottish SPCA, which looked at the nations attitude towards animals. The report, based on a YouGov survey of more than 4,000 UK adults, revealed that the rising cost of living and the cost of pet ownership could threaten our love for our pets. 72% of pet owners said they think the cost of living will impact their animals, while almost 70% expressing concern that the cost of care was increasing, and a fifth worried about how theyll afford to feed their pets. The study showed cat owners seem to be most impacted and concerned about cost of living pressures. Carl Lloyd, who has been coordinating the Wales scheme, said: Since June we have distributed just over 49,000 servings of food to over 20 food banks and other groups across Wales. We know this is very much needed across Wales and we are very pleased to be able to help distribute this food which has been kindly donated to us. We have three RSPCA distribution hubs in Wales Mochdre, Newport and at Llys Nini Animal Centre in Swansea, and from our last delivery, North Wales received 10 pallets, Newport received 19 and the Llys Nini hub received 10. No witnesses saw 19-year-old Linda Tschari get fatally stabbed 44 years ago in her West Side cottage. But blood evidence collected at the scene analyzed for DNA decades later brought the killer to justice, according to Erie County prosecutors. "The DNA evidence became a witness and provided you with evidence no other witness could," Assistant District Attorney Ashley Morgan told the jurors during her closing arguments Tuesday morning. After about 2 hours of deliberations, the jury convicted John M. Sauberan, 63, of second-degree murder in the 1978 killing of Tschari in her home on Pooley Place, off Grant Street. Inside the packed courtroom, Tschari's family members cried after the verdict was read. They hugged after Sauberan was led away in handcuffs. In the back of the courtroom, some family members hugged Buffalo police cold case Detective Mary Evans, who pursued the case after being contacted by the family in 2016. Sauberan, also known as John Fullagar, faces 25 years to life in prison at his sentencing, scheduled for Dec. 13. After the verdict, defense attorney Paul Dell, who along with Brian Towey represented Sauberan, said his client was disappointed in the outcome and plans to file an appeal. Dell said he, himself, was surprised by the jury's verdict. Tschari's brother found her body in a pool of blood in her living room about 2:30 p.m. Feb. 8, 1978. Sauberan was charged with Tschari's murder in 2020 after prosecutors linked crime scene evidence to Sauberan through DNA analysis. DNA evidence leads to trial in 1978 cold case: 'He was banking he would get away with murder' John M. Sauberan, 63, also known as John Fullagar, was charged in March 2020 with second-degree murder in Linda Tschari's death after prosecutors say he was linked to the crime scene through a DNA match. In closing arguments delivered Tuesday morning, Sauberan's defense attorneys asked the jury to acquit their client because they say the DNA evidence collected in 1978 was contaminated. Prosecutors described the DNA evidence to the jury as "significant," with science supporting what appeared to be the minuscule chances the DNA came from someone else besides Sauberan. Sauberan's trial began Oct. 3, prosecutors rested their case Wednesday and the defense rested its case Thursday. Blood samples taken from three areas of Tschari's home, analyzed for DNA decades later, led to a hit in a national DNA database in 2019. The strength of the DNA evidence varied by item, though several results put the chances that the DNA is from someone other than Sauberan as one in billions, the prosecution's DNA expert testified. "Those numbers are undisputed and supported by scientific evidence," Morgan told the jury on Tuesday. Defense attorneys sought to raise doubts in jurors' minds about police evidence collection practices, pointing to what they called the possibility that Sauberan's DNA was either present at the scene before the crime or that it was transferred to items of evidence afterwards. A photo from the crime scene showed a police radio sitting on a table in Tschari's home as detectives collected evidence, something defense attorneys argued could lead to contamination. The defense has also suggested fingerprint brushes used by police could have transferred DNA from prior crime scenes. "If you believe it's reasonably possible it was contaminated, you must find Mr. Sauberan not guilty," Dell said in his hourlong closing argument. Sauberan's attorneys also argued that the quality of the DNA samples collected in 1978 were missing some genetic information that, if present, could have excluded their client. Morgan, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant District Attorney Ryan Flaherty, told the jury believing Sauberan's DNA got onto evidence through contamination "is based on complete speculation with zero credible evidence to support that theory." Old blood, new technology and new evidence: How a 44-year-old murder case went to trial More than four decades after the slaying of Linda Tschari, John M. Sauberan is on trial for her murder. A jury will hear closing arguments in the case on Tuesday. Prosecutors called nine witnesses, including Howard Tschari, the victim's brother, and Peter Dubiel, one of the first police officers at the scene in 1978. The defense's case consisted of a retired FBI special agent who testified about evidence collection procedures and requirements for the chain of custody of evidence. The defense also called its own DNA expert. Cold case detectives from the Buffalo Police Department began looking into the case in 2006. Some DNA analysis on case evidence was completed in 2007. In 2019, the Erie County Central Police Services forensic lab was notified of a hit in the national database to a sample of Sauberan's DNA collected in 2008 in Oregon. Among the prosecution's DNA evidence was a sample from a blood stain found in a first-floor hallway of the cottage. The chance that sample was taken from a randomly selected person in the United States unrelated to Sauberan was at least one in 3.854 billion, forensic biologist Amanda Finbar testified last week. Plans unveiled to trial automatic voter registration in Wales The Welsh Government has unveiled plans to trial automatic voter registration in Senedd and local government elections. The Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, said the proposals are designed to remove barriers to voting. It comes as a consultation opens on new legislation to modernise electoral administration and wider electoral reform. Currently people must register in order to vote, but under the new proposals anyone who is eligible would be added to the electoral register automatically by their local authority. The Welsh Government argue that this will make voting simpler especially for young people and for those who have moved to Wales from another country. It is proposed that ministers will work with a number of local authorities to run a series of pilots focusing on how best to collect data and use existing data to support automatic registration, and will be inviting local authorities to take part in pilot projects. Views are also being sought on how best to improve student and young peoples registration rates, who have a proportionately lower rate of registration and participation. Other areas being considered are the accessibility of information on parties and candidates, the equipment available to help disabled people vote, and the digitization of elections in Wales. Mick Antoniw, Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, said: This is another step in improving the accessibility of Welsh elections. We want it to be as easy as possible to vote, with people able to play their full part in our democracy. We also want to create political structures that are more representative of the people they serve. Im proud to say that since we assumed responsibility for local and Senedd elections in 2017 we have lowered the voting age to 16 and enfranchised qualifying foreign nationals. As part of building a 21st century electoral system, the time is now right to accelerate our ambitious long-term vision for electoral reform in anticipation of the next major devolved and local elections in 2026 and 2027. We have outlined a wide range of proposals about the best way forward, and encourage people from every part of society to have their say and help us deliver our vision. However the decision has been questioned by the Welsh Conservatives, who say that the change isnt needed. Welsh Conservative Shadow Constitution Minister Darren Millar MS, said: It is not clear why these changes are necessary. Registering to vote is already simple and millions of people in Wales manage to do so every year without any issue whatsoever One thing is certain, any changes to the voting system which apply only to some elections and not others will cause unnecessary confusion. Automatic registration for Senedd and local elections could lead to voters incorrectly assuming they are registered to vote in all elections and cause them to miss out on voting. Worse still, automatic enrolment of people who move home or students at university could increase the risk of people being registered in two places and voting twice. He added:The Welsh Government would do better to focus on getting to grips with the problems in our NHS and education systems instead of unnecessary constitutional tinkering. Protesters rallied around the world on Saturday to oppose the United States governments bid to extradite courageous journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder is being persecuted for exposing vast troves of data implicating American imperialism in crimes ranging from efforts to subvert foreign governments to brutality inflicted on populations under military occupation throughout the world. Over 200 gathered outside the US Department of Justice in Washington D.C. to rally and hear speeches from a number of speakers. Among the speakers were Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, Consortium News editor Joe Lauria, and Central Intelligence Agency whistleblower John Kiriakou. In 2007, Kiriakou disclosed the CIAs role in government torture programs operating out of various black sites, at secret locations throughout the world. He was instrumental in revealing the CIA torture of Abu Zubaydah, a high-value detainee currently held in Guantanamo Bay. Zubaydah remains confined in the prison camp despite evidence of his torture. Kiriakou explained his revulsion at Zubaydahs treatment in a 2018 Washington Post column. He wrote, I had a moral and ethical problem with torture and that I thought it was illegal. Unfortunately, there were plenty of people in the US government who were all too willing to allow the practice to go on. Despite the US government determining that Kiriakou broke no laws in his disclosure, in 2013 the Democratic administration of Barack Obama prosecuted him and he was convicted and sentenced to 30 months imprisonment for revealing the name of a CIA officer to a reporter, among other things. Kiriakou has gone on to be a highly respected defender of democratic rights. The World Socialist Web Site was able to speak with Kiriakou about the implications of the US attempt to extradite Assange, the defense of democratic rights, and the importance of Assanges plight for working people. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length. *** WSWS: Can you shed some light on what Assange has exposed to the public about the US government, and also speak about the current situation and how this is significant for the political situation today? John Kiriakou: Sure. Assanges first major exposure was the Chelsea Manning revelations back in 2010. This was tens of thousands of diplomatic cables. Diplomatic cables almost never have anything to do with national security. They are generally accounts of conversations between US diplomats and host-government officials. John Kiriakou at Washington, D.C. rally for Julian Assange [Photo: WSWS] Julian, by releasing those documents, embarrassed some US ambassadors, State Department officials. But there was no damage to national security. The government has never alleged that there was damage to national security. That got Julian on the Department of Justices radar. In 2013, [former National Security Agency contractor] Edward Snowden released revelations [about the NSAs warrantless spying on the population] in concert with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras in the British Guardian and Barton Gellman in the Washington Post. From the perspective of the intelligence community, that was a bit more damaging. Still, there was no CIA information that was compromised. WSWS: There is a constant argument you hear from defenders of government secrets that the reason this information cannot be disclosed is that it saves lives of people working undercover, behind enemy lines. JK: They say that all the time: You have the blood of American soldiers on your hands. Name one American soldier whose blood is on my hands. They said that to [former NSA official and whistleblower] Thomas Drake. He released unclassified information and they said he had the blood of American troops on his hands. But, regarding WikiLeaks, that revelation ramped it up to a tier one threat. Then the Hillary Clinton revelations from the Democratic National Committee emerged. We learned through Julian Assange that Hillary Clinton rigged the Democratic primaries to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders. That turned the Democrats against WikiLeaks. But Vault 7 really pushed things over the edge. Joshua Schulte, a hacker employed by the CIA, was alleged to have taken thousands of documents that exposed the modern day Crown Jewels of the CIA. WSWS: Could you explain the significance of Vault 7 to some of our readers who might be less informed about this episode? JK: Vault 7 revealed that the CIA can, for instance, defeat any encryption technology. The CIA can take over your Smart TV and make it double-back as a microphone even when its turned off. The CIA can remotely take control of your car. For what reason? To drive you off a cliff? Into a tree? Off a bridge? Why would they even need the technology to do that? That was when they decided to prosecute Assange. You might have heard one of the speakers [at the DOJ rally] say that, as bad as the Obama administration was toward whistleblowersthey prosecuted eight of usit didnt indict Julian. The Trump administration indicted Julian. Really, the force behind that indictment was [former Trump CIA director and Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo. Do you remember when Pompeo [in April 2017] called WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service? There was a reason that he did that. Many in the media at the time missed the fact that those were carefully chosen words. The reason he did that is because if the CIA is going after a foreign intelligence service, state or non-state, that makes it a counterintelligence operation. Counterintelligence operations are the only covert operations that dont have to be reported to the oversight committees. The reason for that is to guard against the possibility that a member of the committee is a foreign spy. Counterintelligence operations are the most sensitive things that the CIA does. The fewer people that know about them, the better. If youre not reporting them to the oversight committees, then theres nobody to tell you you cant do that. Thats when you come up with ideas, maybe, to murder Julian Assange in the streets of central London. Or maybe shoot out the tires on a Russian diplomatic flight were he to board one. You come up with all of these cockamamie ideas that are clearly illegal and theres nobody to tell you no. WSWS: This was revealed last year by Yahoo! News. Dozens of CIA agents admitted that plans were in place to kidnap or kill Assange in Britain. JK: I know the reporters who did that story. They interviewed 36 current and former CIA officers who had direct knowledge of the plots. That is astounding. I mean, you might get one source who may say something. If you get a second to confirm it then youve got a story. But to have 36 people confirm that this operation was being planned? Thats Pulitzer-worthy. WSWS: Its virtually impossible to deny it. JK: Yes, and they didnt deny it. They just said no comment. WSWS: In this regard, could you speak about the media attitude toward Assange? The level of demonization is at such a point that the US could theoretically murder him and the media response would be almost indifferent. JK: I asked someone Im close to, a cousin, why they werent interested in the Assange story. They replied: Julian Assange? Isnt he that Russian spy? You get that all the time. Thats in part because of the mainstream media, which is not interested in covering the story. I was on a panel recently with a journalist. One of the questions for them was, why arent you or other members of the mainstream media not willing to come out in support of Julian Assange? WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange greets supporters from a balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on May 19, 2017 [AP Photo/Frank Augstein] He said, and this was just crazy to me: I dont view Julian Assange as a journalist. I view him as an activist. Even if you dont view him as a journalist, you have to admit that hes a publisher. How many stories were written based on the information he published? If Julian Assange goes down because of the Espionage Act, literally every national security journalist in America is subject to prosecution just for having sources. WSWS: The only people that would be allowed to publish anything would be the official stenographers for those in charge. JK: Have you heard of [NBC chief national security reporter] Ken Dilanian? He is formerly New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, serious journalist. A friend of mine, Jason Leopold, did a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all of the communications between the CIAs Office of Public Affairs and national security journalists. It took him years and a court case to finally get it released. It included an email exchange between Ken Dilanian and the CIA. Dilanian was sending his articles to the CIA for clearance before sending them to his own editors. Thats not journalism. Thats propaganda. Thats not unusual. We see that at the Washington Post with [national security columnist] David Ignatius. We see it at the New York Times. WSWS: What youre describing, in terms of the consequences of an Assange prosecution, isnt so much a chilling effect on journalism, but its outright illegalization. Under these conditions, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg would be imprisoned today. The US could have remained at war, with hand-picked, embedded news reporters who only showed the side of Vietnam that it wanted the public to see. JK: Absolutely. Ellsberg says this all the time: What happened to him, would not happen today. Today, he would be locked in some dungeon for the rest of his life and nobody would ever hear from him again. WSWS: We have referred to Julian Assange as a class war prisoner. What we mean by this is that he has been punished primarily because of what he revealed for the worlds population to see. While the Washington Post and New York Times might have defended these rights in court 50 years ago, now it has fallen to a movement of the international working class, in a mass political movement, to defend him and what he stands for. Can you give me your thoughts about that statement? JK: I couldnt agree more. I come from a long line of labor union members. My grandfather told me a story, a long time ago, about how he risked losing his job at a steel mill in Pennsylvania because he took a day off to go to a Sacco and Vanzetti rally. This has always been very important to us. Even though, like every family, my parents wanted to achieve the American Dream of owning a home and raising children, they never lost that class consciousness. Part of the reason we are having trouble getting Julians message out there is because, unfortunately, many Americans have lost it. But youre absolutely right that this is something that all working people can and should take up, but they havent. One of the reasons they havent is because the mainstream media has been successful at squelching this story. I would say most people in this country dont understand his story or what he did. He exposed war crimes and crimes against humanity for which no person was ever prosecuted. The United States murdered Reuters journalists in cold blood! Not only was nobody prosecuted, we dont even know the names of the helicopter pilots and gunners that carried it out. After all these years, the CIA still wont admit that it has a drone program! So we really do have to bring people together to demand Julian Assanges release and recognition of the public service that he has performed. WSWS: Were supporting the campaign of Will Lehman, a socialist worker who is running for president of the United Auto Workers union. He is running as a socialist. This is unprecedented in the UAWs history. I mention this because workers are being drawn into these discussions on bigger issues. Perhaps my last question to you is to ask if you could maybe imagine youre speaking to an autoworker, explaining to him why the First Amendment should be defended just like their wages should be? JK: Wow. There are very few things, in my view, that are more important than the First Amendment of the US Constitution. If weve lost that, weve lost everything. I think its fantastic that a socialist is running for president of the United Auto Workers. We need someone who can connect with other workers and pull them away from this dangerous kind of populism that weve experienced for the past several decades. WSWS: Youre referring to American nationalism. JK: Yes. This America First stuff is nonsense. WSWS: Internationalism is a central plank of Wills campaign. He is aiming to unify workers across borders. Auto companies operate internationally, workers cannot allow workers in other countries to be pitted against them. JK: Absolutely not. We have to be in this together. It is the only way to win. WSWS: Mr. Kiriakou, thank you for your time and insights. JK: Thank you. Like the Liberal-National Coalition government before it, Australias Labor government is exploiting laws passed under the flag of the US-led war on terror to override basic democratic and legal rights. Last week, the government made it known, through the pages of the Murdoch medias Australian newspaper, that 16 Australian women and 42 children would be repatriated after years of detention in hellhole conditions in northeastern Syria, only for the women to be detained immediately upon arrival in Australia. Syrian children hold hands as they wait for toys to be donated in a refugee camp for displaced people run by the Turkish Red Crescent in Sarmada district, on the outskirts north of Idlib, Syria, Friday, Nov. 26, 2021. [AP Photo/Francisco Seco] These wives and children of dead or former Islamic State (ISIS) members have been detained in tent encampments since the defeat of ISIS in March 2019. Previously, the Coalition government callously refused point blank to help them, resulting in illnesses and deaths among the children. But the Labor government has now taken a different tack. According to the newspaper, Labors national security committee of cabinet convened in Canberra on Tuesday to discuss final details. Some of the women are to be charged with terrorism-related criminal offences for entering Syria. The others will face courts to be subjected to control orders. These orders will force them to wear ankle monitoring devices and allow the police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to monitor their social media activity, internet use, communications, movements and associates. Supposedly, family and kinship groups will care for some children in the short term, while others will be placed in state care. Reportedly, 25 of the children are eight years or younger, and the youngest is just two. This will be the largest yet use of control orders, which override basic freedoms such as speech, movement, association and communication, and can reach the level of complete home detention. The police only have to assert that such an order would substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act. That is far less than evidence of criminal intent, let alone any plan or act. Control orders were introduced in 2005 by the Howard Coalition government, with Labors support, as a supposed response to an unspecified dire terrorist threat. But they have always been designed for wider use. Under the more than 120 counter-terrorism laws rubber stamped by Australias parliament since US President George W. Bush declared the war on terror in 2001, terrorism is defined so broadly that it can cover many forms of anti-government political activity. The Labor government is paving the way for the broader imposition of control orders, while also responding to security concerns expressed in Washington about the Syrian detention camps becoming a focus for ongoing anti-US sentiment throughout the Middle East. An October 3 the Australian editorial stated: Security is paramount. That is why the US is keen to see the camps emptied as soon as possible, fearing a fresh security crisis could arise in such a hothouse environment. Accordingly, senior Labor minister Bill Shorten told Nine media outlets that national security was the governments paramount priority in repatriating the women and children. I just want to reassure people its about national security first, he said. Likewise, Liberal-National leader Peter Dutton embraced the switch from the Coalition governments refusal to assist the refugees. His only question was whether the Labor government would sufficiently boost ASIOs funding, which has already soared during the past two decades, to maintain extensive surveillance of the women and their families. For all the media demonisation of the women, ISIS is largely a creation of the drive by US imperialism and its allies to overturn the regime of Syrian President Assad. The real aim was, and remains, to secure control over the entire Eurasian landmass, where the US confronts Russia and China. The US and its partners turned to Islamic fundamentalist forces to carry out their objectives, as they did earlier with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Foreign fighters were allowed to flood into Syria, including from Libya, where they had been supported by the US and NATO in 2011 to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. Having helped create ISIS, the imperialist powers then exploited its existence to justify further military intervention in Iraq and Syria and attacks on democratic rights at home. Australia redeployed troops to Iraq in 2014 to support the US occupation of the country and military operations against ISIS fighters who had crossed into the country from Syria. Successive Australian governments, Coalition and Labor alike, had previously sent troops to the illegal US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, aimed at securing US dominance over the resource-rich region. More than a million people have died in these wars and entire societies have been destroyed, with tens of millions made homeless. Amid the denunciations of the women there is no mention of the social conditions that have provided fertile ground for the recruitment of vulnerable youth by Islamists. In Australias working-class suburbs, young people from immigrant backgrounds face low-wage employment, poor educational and social facilities, and constant police harassment. The October 3 Australian editorial linked the repatriation plan to another far-reaching assault on core legal and democratic rights. It insisted that the plan underscored the necessity for Prime Minister Anthony Albaneses government to retain draconian laws to keep prisoners convicted of terrorism-related offences in jail, potentially indefinitely, after serving their sentences. The editorial reinforced a message the newspaper had sent to the government the day before, when it declared: With 21 convicted terrorists due for release in the next five years and another 30 also in jail, the Albanese government faces a critical, potentially life-and-death decision. Continuing Detention Orders (CDOs) were legislated by the Coalition government in 2016, also with Labors backing. They allow prisoners to be incarcerated indefinitely, using renewable detention orders, regardless of the original terms of their imprisonment. They violate the core legal principle of habeas corpusno detention without a criminal trial. Such orders require no proof of any intent to commit a further offencejust a high degree of probability that a crime could occur. This involves speculative allegations by police and ASIO of an unacceptable risk that a prisoner might commit a violent act, based on their religious beliefs. Like many other terrorism laws, this legislation extends beyond terrorism-related offences. It also covers prisoners convicted of treason or foreign incursions. Treason includes assisting countries or forces engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force. That could mean opposing US-instigated wars and other military interventions. The extensive list of relevant offences also includes membership of, or raising funds for, an organisation declared by ministerial decree to be terrorist, and providing support to such a terrorist organisation. To attempt to poison public opinion, the Australian said the prisoners due for release by 2027 feature some of Australias most notorious terrorists. Invariably, as the WSWS has earlier documented, these men were convicted on the basis of vague conspiracy charges involving undercover police or ASIO agents who entrapped them into making statements about possible terrorist attacks. Under laws rushed through parliament in 2005, with Labor and Greens support, people can be convicted for allegedly discussing a possible terrorist act, even where there is no mooted location, time or method of attack. Any talk of killing innocent people expresses the reactionary perspectives of Islamic fundamentalism and individual terror. But jailing people for voicing hostile sentiments toward the government and the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan sets a dangerous precedent for use against political dissent. These prisoners include Abdul Benbrika, who was due for release in November 2020 but became the first prisoner to be kept in jail via a CDO. Benbrika challenged this in the High Court, arguing it was unconstitutional. However, by a majority, the judges gave a green light to CDOs. They ruled that CDOs were needed for the safety and protection of the community and therefore did not violate the principle of no imprisonment without trial. As the WSWS has warned from the outset, unprecedented police-state powers have been created via the war on terror that can be used to outlaw, silence or intimidate political and working-class discontent as social inequality intensifies, the danger of nuclear war rises and preparations mount for a US-led war against China for global hegemony. The seven-month-old war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine escalated Monday, after Russia carried out a series of attacks against largely civilian infrastructures throughout Ukraine. Some 14 people were killed and 97 injured in the strikes, according to Ukrainian officials, and power was disrupted in more than half the countrys regions. The Wall Street Journal reported that most strikes were hitting electricity substations and other targets outside city centers, away from civilian homes. On Friday, the Ukrainian Special Forces orchestrated a terrorist bombing on the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia to Crimea. The move came after the former commanding general of the US Army in Europe, General Ben Hodges, urged Ukraine to drop the bridge, and current US officials publicly gave a green light to attack it. Days after the attack, the aim of the Kerch Bridge bombing comes into sharper view. Its purpose was to provoke a military response by Russia against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, which could then be used to justify a massive increase in US-NATO involvement in the conflict. For months, US officials had been expressing concern that Russia had not been provoked into expanding the war into western Ukraine, which had been largely spared in recent months. Last month, former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor complained to The Hill that, despite the fact that the White House had provided larger, more capable, longer-distance, heavier weapons to the Ukrainians, the Russians have not reacted. Up to this point, Taylor said, the Russians have kind of bluffed and blustered, but they havent been provoked. With Tuesdays attack, Russian authorities had, in fact, allowed themselves to be provoked, setting the stage for an even more massive escalation of US-NATO involvement in the war. The attack on the Kerch Bridge was timed to take place just days before the NATO defense ministers meeting on October 12 and 13, which is expected to expand the level of direct NATO involvement in the conflict. A senior Biden administration official interviewed by the Washington Post called the escalation of the war a turning point. The attacks, in the words of the Washington Post, raise the question of whether the United States and its partners may have to move beyond the concept of helping Ukraine defend itself, and instead more forcefully facilitate a Ukrainian victory. The Post wrote: So far, the US supply effort has been deliberative and process-oriented in the kinds of weapons it provides, and the speed at which it provides them, so as not to undercut its highest priority of avoiding a direct clash between Russia and the West. That strategy is likely to be part of the agenda at Tuesdays emergency meeting of G7 leaders and a gathering of NATO defense ministers later in the week. In other words, dominant sections of the US political establishment will use the attacks as a pretext to carry out a long-planned escalation of the war. In this way, the attacks on civilian infrastructure ordered by Putin play right into the hands of the US and NATO, which had hoped that by provoking Russia, they would be given a pretext to intervene more directly in the war and ensure Russias military defeat. Ahead of the meeting, US officials are demanding an expansion of arms shipments to Ukraine. I pledge to use all means at my disposal to accelerate support for the people of Ukraine and to starve Russias war machine, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez. CIA Democrat Representative Elissa Slotkin tweeted that the dispatch of more air defense systems for Ukraine was urgent, adding, Providing these systems is a defensivenot escalatorystep, and our European friends need to step up along with us to get the Ukrainians what they need. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial demanded that the United States provide Ukraine with more weapons, including better air defenses, declaring, Mr. Putin wont end his war until it becomes clear the cost of continuing it is too high. Speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems, according to a summary of the call from the White House. On Tuesday, Zelensky will address a meeting of the G7, which is likewise expected to pledge more military support to the conflict. Zelensky will, according to the Guardian, emphasize anti-aircraft systems, and repeat the longstanding demand for longer-range missiles. Ukrainian officials claimed that Russia conducted missile attacks against more than 20 cities, including the capital, Kiev. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces launched more than 84 cruise missiles and 24 drone attacks. The Institute for the Study of War reported that Russian forces launched missiles from 10 strategic bombers operating in the Caspian Sea and from Nizhny Novgorod, Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems, and 6 missile carriers in the Black Sea. In a sober assessment of the military consequences of Mondays strikes, the Institute for the Study of War wrote, Ukrainian and Western intelligence have previously reported that Russia has spent a significant portion of its high-precision missiles, and Putin likely knows better than Medvedev or the milbloggers that he cannot sustain attacks of this intensity for very long. It continued, The October 10 Russian attacks wasted some of Russias dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets. It added that Ukrainian air defenses also shot down half of the Russian drones and cruise missiles, and noted that Russias use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts. Throughout the war, the Russian military has had problems with target selection and the accuracy of their missiles, Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, told the New York Times. As the war goes on, their supply of precision-guided weapons has dwindled, and they are using weapons that are not suited to land targets or that are old and unreliable. Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had ordered troops to deploy together with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border. Lukashenko declared that Strikes on the territory of Belarus are not just being discussed in Ukraine today, but are also being planned. Poland urged its citizens to leave Belarus with available commercial and private means. Blood stains in a first-floor hallway, in an empty second-floor room and on the sleeve of a Grand Funk Railroad album link John Sauberan to the West Side cottage where a woman was stabbed to death 44 years ago, according to Erie County prosecutors. Sauberan's DNA "matched" those samples of blood left at the scene of Linda Tschari's 1978 homicide, prosecutors told jurors at Sauberan's murder trial last week. But Sauberan's defense has suggested to the jury that there are issues of quality and possible contamination of the evidence. A defense DNA expert told jurors that using the term "match" is the wrong way to characterize the scientific conclusions in the case. DNA is what led to the break in the cold case in 2019 and Sauberan's trial, which continues with closing arguments Tuesday. So what DNA evidence do prosecutors have that they say connects him to Tschari's killing, and how has Sauberan's defense tried to get the jury to view that evidence? More than four decades ago, when Buffalo police were conducting their investigation in a cottage on Pooley Place, off Grant Street, the concept of DNA as a matter of understood science didn't exist. Old blood, new technology and new evidence: How a 44-year-old murder case went to trial More than four decades after the slaying of Linda Tschari, John M. Sauberan is on trial for her murder. A jury will hear closing arguments in the case on Tuesday. After Tschari's brother found her body in a pool of blood in the living room on the afternoon of Feb. 8, 1978, detectives gathered potential items of evidence. They dusted for fingerprints. They collected swabs of blood from around the home, fingernail clippings from Tschari and an item described as a brown hair or fiber found in her hand. At the scene, they found Type O blood, which Tschari had, as well as samples of Type A blood. But the case went cold and decades passed. After cold case detectives requested evidence in the case be pulled from police storage in 2006, the property office found the first box that May. The rest was found in December 2007, now-retired Detective James Maroney testified. At that time, Maroney repackaged some of the items of evidence for which the seals on the original containers were beginning to "fall apart," he told jurors. He also repackaged evidence stored in containers that did not meet current standards, he told the jury. Evidence thought to possibly contain DNA was to be kept in paper or cardboard containers, not in plastic, because storing in plastic can lead to growth of mold and degradation of DNA, experts testified at the trial. DNA evidence leads to trial in 1978 cold case: 'He was banking he would get away with murder' John M. Sauberan, 63, also known as John Fullagar, was charged in March 2020 with second-degree murder in Linda Tschari's death after prosecutors say he was linked to the crime scene through a DNA match. Within the boxes were some record albums that were loose, so Maroney said he packaged them together in paper. DNA analysis of that evidence began in 2007 at the Erie County Central Police Services forensic lab. In June 2019, after investigators got a DNA hit from a national database from a sample Sauberan provided in Oregon in 2008, police resubmitted evidence in the case to the county forensic lab. This time, analysts were asked to test blood stains on the sleeve of a vinyl record. DNA results Amanda Finbar, supervisor of the DNA section at the county lab, performed the initial DNA analysis on the blood swabs from the floors, and later of the album sleeve. She testified at Sauberan's trial for about five hours over two days, spending the most time on the stand of any witness in the case. None of the analysis ruled out Sauberan as a possible source of the DNA, Finbar told the jury. The defense's expert, Tiffany Roy, who testified Thursday, agreed on that point. These were Finbar's conclusions: The chance that the blood sample taken from the hallway was a randomly selected person in the United States unrelated to Sauberan is at least one in 3.854 billion, Finbar testified. The probability that the sample taken from the upstairs room was a randomly selected person in the United States unrelated to Sauberan is at least one in 41.2 billion, she told the jury. There were samples taken from three stains on the record sleeve, two that were determined to be from a male and one that had both male and female DNA, Finbar said. DNA from the first record sample was found to be at least 4.11 billion times more likely to have come from Sauberan than from an unknown individual in the U.S. population, she said. DNA on the second sample was at least 196,000 times more likely to have come from Sauberan than an unknown individual. The third sample, which had both male and female DNA, was at least 3.45 million times more likely to come from Sauberan and Tschari than two unknown people in the U.S. population, Finbar told the jury. For the analysis of the record sleeve blood samples, any result with a figure higher than 1 million is considered to show "very strong scientific support," she said. That designation is the highest of four classifications assessing the strength of the DNA evidence. Before and after Sauberan's arrest, DNA samples taken from more than two dozen other men connected to Tschari or her neighborhood excluded them as the person who left blood at the homicide scene. For the analysis of Tschari's fingernail clippings, Finbar opened two police evidence envelopes, one each for the clippings from the right and left hands. The envelope that was supposed to have clippings from Tschari's left hand was empty, Finbar said. There was one nail clipping in the other envelope on which there were "small flakes of dried red staining," but no DNA profile was developed from that clipping. In her analysis of the item labeled by the original lab analyst in 1978 as a fiber or hair, Finbar said she could find no root material that would allow for DNA analysis. Sauberan's defense Paul Dell and Brian Towey, Sauberan's defense attorneys, have questioned the quality of the DNA evidence, pointing to what they described as the incompleteness of the samples and suggesting the handling of the evidence by police led to contamination and therefore unreliable conclusions. The DNA profiles developed from the evidence were "partial," attorneys on both sides told jurors. A partial DNA profile is one that is missing some genetic information, as compared to a "full" profile, Finbar testified. A sample considered partial could result if there was not enough genetic material available to sample, or if the sample had degraded, or had broken down, over time, she said. Roy, the defense's expert, told the jury the DNA that was analyzed was missing about half of the information a "full" DNA profile would contain. Under questioning from Sauberan's attorneys, Roy said it was possible that DNA from a fingerprint brush previously used by police could transfer DNA to a piece of evidence. Timothy Crino, a retired FBI special agent, testified for the defense it was common practice in the late 1970s for police to use the same fingerprint dust and brush at crime scenes. In his opening statement, Dell told the jury the prosecution of Sauberan is based on "speculation" based on a DNA analysis "based on horribly degraded evidence missing more than half the information it should contain when forensic biologists look at it." "If DNA evidence was a log used in constructing a log cabin," Dell said, "that log would be rotten and could not support the building of a cabin." Even as it intensifies its war against Russia in Ukraine, Washington is more and more openly and provocatively preparing for war with China over Taiwan. A New York Times (NYT) article last week entitled US aims to turn Taiwan into giant weapons depot reveals the extent of the military planning and preparations underway to transform Taiwan into a heavily-armed camp as the Biden administration goads Beijing into taking military action. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in formation during Rim of the Pacific exercises July 28, 2022. (Canadian Armed Forces photo by Cpl. Djalma Vuong-De Ramos) 220728-O-CA231-2003 For 50 years, following President Nixons trip to China in 1972, tensions in the narrow Taiwan Strait between the island and the Chinese mainland have been minimised through the One China policythe tacit recognition by Washington and virtually every other country that Beijing was the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan. When formal diplomatic relations between the US and China were established in 1979, Washington ended its military and diplomatic ties with Taipei, and withdrew all military forces from the island. Now the Biden administration, following Trump, is more and more blatantly calling the One China policy into question, knowing full well that any declaration of formal independence by Taipei would provoke war with China. Biden has emphatically declared on four occasions that the US is committed to joining Taiwan in any war with China, effectively ending the policy of strategic ambiguity, designed to keep both Beijing and Taipei guessing as to any American military involvement. Citing current and former US officials, the New York Times article points to high-level discussions in the White House and the Pentagon aimed at transforming the island into a huge armed camp. American officials are intensifying efforts to build a giant stockpile of weapons in Taiwan, it states, after studying recent naval and air force exercises by the Chinese military around the island. The conclusion being drawn in American strategic circles is that any Chinese military action to reunify Taiwan with the mainland would begin with a military blockade. Officials say Taiwan needs to become a porcupine with enough weapons to hold out if the Chinese military blockades and invades it, even if Washington decides to send troops, the NYT declares. Buoyed by the advances against Russian forces in US-orchestrated operations in Ukraine, Washington is seeking to replicate similar tactics in any war in Taiwan to inflict maximum losses on the Chinese military. The NYT explained: US officials are determining the quantity and types of weapons sold to Taiwan by quietly telling Taiwanese officials and American arms makers that they will reject orders for some large systems in favour of a greater number of smaller, more mobile weapons. The NYT noted that shoot-and-scoot types of armaments, including shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, along with mobile HIMARS rocket launchers, provided to the Ukrainian military, had inflicted major losses on Russian forces. US officials are telling Taiwan that more of those weapons should be ordered to transform the island into a porcupine bristling with armaments. In other words, as in Ukraine, the US is pushing for and arming Taiwan for a war fought on the island with complete indifference to the resulting death and destruction. US imperialism aims to weaken and destabilise China, encourage separatist movements in Tibet, Xinjiang and elsewhere, and undermine the Chinese Communist Party regime. Far from being a war to defend democracy or little Taiwan, the US is recklessly confronting another nuclear-armed power in its bid to break up both Russia and China and secure domination over the Eurasian landmass and its vast human and natural resources. Washington last month announced a sixth arms sale to Taiwan involving more than $1.1 billion worth of weaponsthe largest so far under the Biden administration. Drew Thomson, a former Pentagon employee, told the NYT that while some arms sales have been greater, the latest is aimed at ensuring that Taiwan will have a larger supply of war reserve munitions on hand in advance of a conflict. The package includes 60 Harpoon coastal anti-ship missiles. The Taiwan Policy Act that was approved by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations last month would authorise a further expansion of arms sales to Taiwanto the tune of $6.5 billion over the five years to 2027. Significantly, the legislation would also declare Taiwannominally still regarded by Washington as part of Chinato be a non-NATO ally of the US, effectively ending the One China policy. The Act still has to pass Congress and receive presidential approval. Commenting last week, the NYT voiced the concerns in US military circles that supplies to Taiwan could be held up given Washington has prioritised sending weapons to Ukraine. It noted that arms makers are reluctant to open new production lines without a steady stream of long-term orders. The very fact that the issue is under discussion signifies that an expansion of arms production is already being considered as the war in Ukraine expands and the US continues to provoke conflict over Taiwan. The NYT article indicated that Washington was already considering how to speed up military supplies to Taiwan. Last week, a US State Department official was to address the annual US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conferencea three-day event held behind closed doors. Laura Cressey, director of the bureau overseeing arms sales to Taiwan, was joined by her counterpart in the US Defence Department. The event underscored the escalation of high-level discussions between US and Taiwanese officials following the provocative visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August. A delegation from Taiwan to the defence industry conference was headed by the Deputy Minister of National Defense Wang Shin-lung. Biden, following Trump, has torn up longstanding diplomatic protocols under the One China policy that limited official contact between Taiwan and the US. Washington is not only conducting a huge arms build-up on Taiwan, but is also considering how to ferry military supplies to the island in the event of war and a Chinese blockade. Defence consultant Eric Wertheim told the NYT: The sheer amount of materiel that would likely be needed in case of war is formidable, and getting them through would be difficult, though may be doable. However, any US attempt to breach a blockade threatens a direct clash between the United States and China with the potential to escalate into a war that would quickly involve US bases and allies throughout the region, including Japan, South Korea and Australia. Wertheim continued: The question is: How much risk is China and the White House willing to take in terms of enforcing or breaking through a blockade, respectively, and can it be sustained? The Biden administration has already answered the question in deeds, if not in words. Even as it is recklessly plunging the world towards nuclear war in Europe, the US is deliberating inflaming tensions with China over Taiwanarguably the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. The escalating arms sales are just one of the many indications that the US is determined to prevent China challenging American global hegemony by every means, whatever the cost to humanity. This years Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Swedish geneticist Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany. The Nobel Assembly cited his pioneering work in deciphering the genetic codes of ancient humans, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, the latter first identified by Paabos research, thus contributing to the study of human evolution. Professor Svante Paabo [Photo by Duncan Hull / CC BY-SA 4.0 The Assemblys citation states, Through his groundbreaking discoveries, Paabo opened a new window to our evolutionary past, revealing an unexpected complexity in the evolution and admixture of ancient hominins, as well as providing the basis for an improved understanding of genetic features that make us uniquely human. These accomplishments were made possible by research the geneticist led resulting in the development of techniques to sequence ancient DNA despite tens of thousands of years of degradation, and the separation of ancient DNA from modern contamination, thus founding the field of paleogenetics. Paabo announced the first sequencing of ancient human DNA, from mitochondria (organelles within cells), in 1997, from a roughly 40,000-year-old Neanderthal, which had been found near Dusseldorf in the 1850s. Mitochondria, known as cells powerhouses, have their own DNA, which is much shorter than the cells nuclear genetic material and, therefore, easier to sequence. With further refinement of the necessary methods, Paabo and colleagues accomplished the sequencing of the full Neanderthal genome in 2010. The oldest ancient human DNA that has so far reconstructed is from 430,000-year-old remains from Spain. Paleogenetic research benefited greatly from the sequencing of modern human DNA by the Human Genome Project. In order to identify ancient genetic sequences it is essential to have the modern code for comparison. The ability to sequence ancient DNA adds a powerful tool in the study of human evolution and biological evolution more generally. Previously, paleontologists have had to rely on the comparison of the physical characteristics of fossils in the attempt to identify degrees of similarity and difference as clues to the relationships between extinct animals indicating evolutionary pathways. Obviously, fossils do not reproduce. Therefore, the degrees of genetic relationships, key to the modern definition of species, are not discernable. Paleogenetics provides an independent source of data regarding genetic similarities and differences that help illuminate the course of evolution. Paabos research resulted in the discovery that the modern Homo sapiens, who had originated in Africa between approximately 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, interbred with both Neanderthals, in Europe and the Near East, and Denisovans in Siberia, during periods of coexistence when the moderns expanded into Eurasia, roughly 50,000 or 60,000 years ago. Neanderthals disappear as a distinct population about 30,000 years ago. The conclusion that these groups interbred is based on the persistence of small portions of genetic material from the latter two groups in modern Eurasian populations. Notably, such admixture is not present in modern Africans, indicating there was no significant back migration from Eurasia. Modern humans of European or Asian descent retain 1 to 4 percent of Neanderthal DNA. Fragments of Denisovan DNA are also found in many modern populations, as high as 6 percent in some Southeast Asian populations. This important conclusion demonstrated that these three groups were not different species (i.e., were not genetically isolated), as some have thought. Neanderthals and modern humans shared a common ancestor approximately 600,000 years ago. Subsequently, after dispersion, each group evolved in geographically distinct regions over hundreds of thousands of years and, therefore, had developed some differences in response to varying environmental factors and genetic drift. Nevertheless, despite the long period of significant separation, their basic common adaptation, primarily the reliance on culture and language, limited the degree of divergence. Therefore, when migration brought segments of these populations in contact, they were able to interbreed successfully and produce viable offspring. A significant follow-on finding is that contrary to some extreme interpretations, modern Homo sapiens did not drive the archaic groups to extinction in bloody massacres or by outcompeting them for resources, due to the formers supposed intellectual superiority. While such behaviors cannot be entirely ruled out, nor can relative differences in intelligence, in a significant proportion of inter-group encounters the participants engaged in some form of productive interaction. These exchanges were apparently not exclusively genetic. For example, tool assemblages of some late Neanderthal populations, known as Chatelperronian, were altered by adoption of aspects of modern human technology, presumably from nearby groups. Further benefits of this new field of research include the ability to trace the migrations and interactions of various more recent populations of humans and to examine, for example, the development of variations in the immune systems of various populations. Some of these adaptations may have provided advantages to these ancient populations, such as high-altitude adaptation, which have been passed on to modern people living on the Tibetan Plateau, apparently derived from Denisovan ancestors. Some genetic traits inherited from ancient humans may not be so salubrious. Dr. Paabo and a colleague announced in 2021 that a certain segment of DNA inherited from Neanderthals may result in carriers suffering more severe symptoms from COVID-19. Recent genetic research that benefits from the study of ancient DNA also highlights differences between archaic (Neanderthal and Denisovan) and modern humans. Newly published work identified a gene variant found in the latter but not the former that appears to promote greater neuronal growth in laboratory trials, suggesting that modern humans may indeed have had some intellectual advantage over their ancient cousins. In all cases, however, the growing body of knowledge derived from the study of ancient DNA contributes to our understanding of human biology, including the potential for improved health outcomes. The recognition of the value of this research is fully justified. On Sunday, October 9, representatives of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) held a meeting to begin organizing a global movement of young people against the US-NATO war with Russia over Ukraine. Representatives from 11 different countries participated in the meeting, including members of the IYSSE in the United States, Turkey, the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand. Particularly significant was the presence of members of the Young Guard of the Bolshevik-Leninists, an organization in Russia that has declared its political support for the ICFI. The meeting was conducted in both English and Russian, with all contributions translated into the two languages. The meeting voted unanimously to take immediate steps toward building an antiwar movement among students and youth, including holding an online global webinar next month. The meeting also resolved to deepen the international organizational connections of the IYSSE, the student and youth movement of the ICFI. In opening the meeting, David North, the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US) and chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, said its purpose was to set into motion a world antiwar movement against the conflict in Ukraine, instigated by the imperialist powers but for which the regime of Putin as well bears immense responsibility. The ICFI, North explained, understands the conflict in Ukraine as the beginning of a third world war. Whatever the events that immediately triggered the conflict, he said, its essential aim is the subordination of Russia to US imperialism, its integration into the bloc of the US and NATO allies, and is, in that sense, the antechamber of war with China. On the eve of World War II, Germanys slogan was Today Germany, tomorrow the world. Today, the slogan of American imperialism is Today Russia, tomorrow China and the world. The meeting was held as the conflict over Ukraine threatens to develop into a nuclear war. The leaders of the major imperialist powers have made clear, however, that the warnings from the Putin government that it could use nuclear weapons in response to a series of defeats will not deter them from escalating the confrontation and defeating Russia militarily. It cannot be overemphasized, North said, that the willingness of the American ruling class to accept the deaths of over one million Americans from COVID-19, not to mention millions more internationally, is of the greatest social, political and historical significance. A ruling class whose slogan in response to the pandemic is live with the virus is a ruling class that can also raise the slogan, live with nuclear war. Both positions are socially and politically insane. But capitalism has degenerated into the realm of social and political insanity. For the ICFI, North emphasized, the central question in the fight against imperialist war is the mobilization of the international working class, based on a socialist perspective. However, this does not diminish the need for the building of a mass, international and socialist movement of youth and students. When we consider the present situation and the extreme danger of war, he said, what it means very directly is that the youth of the world are threatened with the loss of their right to a future. The reality of modern-day capitalism and imperialism not only threatens youth with poverty and disease but also their very right to life, because that is the reality of the consequences of nuclear war. The building of an antiwar movement among young people on the campuses is particularly important, North said, because the defense of imperialism, the justification of imperialist war, finds reactionary expression in the ideologies promoted on the universities, in the form of the many brands of pseudo-leftism. But the essential orientation of that fight, if it is to be successful, must be towards building a movement of the working class based on a revolutionary and socialist program. The youth on their own cannot defeat imperialism. The opening report was followed by contributions from many of those attending. Gregor, a leading member of the IYSSE in Germany, said that the experiences of working class youth are very similar throughout the world. Young workers face the prospect of nuclear war, poverty, climate catastrophes, dictatorships and a deepening social and political crisis, he said. At the same time, young workers and working class youth are internationally connected with each other as never before, and this globally integrated character of working class youth must find an organizational expression. Evrim, a leading member of the IYSSE in Australia, reviewed the efforts to block the building of the IYSSE on campuses, in the context of the broader attack on democratic rights by the ruling class. He stressed the global character of the IYSSE and the need for international organization. The I in IYSSE is there for a reason, he said. We stress to students that we are an international movement. Tom Scripps, the assistant national secretary of the SEP in the UK, said, Particularly on the universities we encounter efforts to turn young people away from class as the essential category. They have been cut off from the tradition of socialist internationalism, which is now urgently raised by the war. The organizations of the upper middle class, he said, promoted identity politics in opposition to international working class solidarity. Comrade Andrei, a representative of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists, gave a statement explaining how the group of young socialists in Russia initiated contact with the ICFI and came to agree with its political perspective and analysis of the role of Stalinism. Inasmuch as our organization is a Trotskyist youth organization, the most important next step will be our integration with the IYSSE, the youth organization of the ICFI, he said. Integration into the work of the IYSSE will be critical in building the influence of the ICFI in Russia, Ukraine and throughout the former Soviet Union. Ulas Atesci, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Group in Turkey, reviewed the evolution of the middle class left, from its involvement in the antiwar movement of the 60s and 70s into open supporters of imperialism today. The massive global antiwar movement before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was demobilized by the middle class tendencies, he said. Since then, the main function of the pseudo-left internationally has been to legitimize imperialist war, especially the wars against Libya and Syria, and now the war against Russia over Ukraine. Today, the majority of pseudo-left tendencies and trade unions internationally are the main supporters of the imperialist campaign against Russia. Kapila, IYSSE convener and member of the political committee of the SEP in Sri Lanka, said that the impact of the war in Ukraine, two years of the pandemic, and cuts in education, health care and other basic social services are common to all countries. He explained,These conditions expose the bankruptcy of the nationalist programs of the capitalist governments and other nationalist organizations. He noted that the ruling classes in South Asia, including in Sri Lanka, are aligned with international finance capital and the imperialist war, while the pseudo-left organizations that have led protests of young people and workers work to channel opposition behind the political establishment. Tomas Castanheira, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Group in Brazil, reviewed the experiences of previous youth movements in that country. Through the influence of Stalinism and Pabloism these movements were used as tools to subordinate the working class to the bourgeoisie. Today, under the perspective of the ICFI, the youth in Brazil will orient themselves to the working class but with a new, revolutionary and socialist perspective, he said. Clara Weiss, a leading member of the IYSSE in the United States, stressed that the present war is the outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, both in terms of the eruption of US imperialism and in terms of the reactionary response of the oligarchic regimes that emerged out of the Soviet Union. She noted that an entire generation of young people in Asia, Africa, the former Soviet Union and in the centers of world imperialism confront the disastrous consequences of capitalism and the social counterrevolution that followed the dissolution of the USSR. At the same time, young people have been cut off from the history of the working class movement by the attacks on Marxism and the promotion of all kinds of reactionary ideologies and historical falsification, she said. There is no tendency outside of our movement that opposes this war, opposes capitalism from a socialist standpoint and can speak of the history of the Trotskyist movement and the Marxist struggle against war and Stalinism. In concluding the meeting, David North emphasized the significance of the discussion and the broad representation of speakers from throughout the world. More important than the quantitative representation of speakers and countries, however, is the qualitative unified perspective rooted in the entire history of the Trotskyist movement. In this war, he said, we are confronting the unsolved problems of the 20th century, and we understand that if these problems are not solved in the years immediately before us, it will mean the end of human civilization. That is why the question we are posing is so critical: The youth, if they are to have a future, will have to fight for it, and that fight has as its content the fight for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism. At the same time, he said, the building of a movement of young people against war must be based on opposition to all the reactionary currents that have, in one way or another, claimed to represent the youth: Stalinism, Pabloism, social democracy, bourgeois nationalism, infinite forms of contemporary identity politics, and even the hypocrisy of various forms of pacifism, which oppose war in times of peace and oppose peace in times of war. Another tendency that must be opposed, he said, is the infection of pessimism, the belief that change is impossible, an outlook that is encouraged by all the tendencies to which I referred. Our party is the party of optimism and therefore the party of the future. The future can be won, but young people must fight for it and fight for it on the basis of a correct historical perspective. All of history demonstrates that revolution is possible, capitalism can be overthrown, but the great problem is the development of leadership in the working class. The World Socialist Web Site will publish in the coming days details on the upcoming meeting organized by the IYSSE. We encourage all students and youth to join the IYSSE today and help build a movement against imperialist war. Supporters of Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker running for United Auto Workers president, visited auto plants in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio over the last several days. Ballots are set to be mailed out October 17 in the first direct membership election of top UAW officers. Lehman is calling for the formation of rank-and-file committees in every workplace to spearhead the fight for real gains after decades of concessions engineered by the corrupt UAW apparatus. He has placed the abolition of the UAW bureaucracy and the empowerment of rank-and-file workers at the center of his campaign. Lehmans program includes a 50 percent wage increase, the abolition of tiers and the hiring of all part-time workers as full-timers. The socialist candidate for UAW president has also insisted that UAW members must unite with other workers throughout the US and internationally in a common fight to achieve their goals, pointing out that whether they are German, Mexican or Canadian, workers are employed by the same transnational corporations. At the Stellantis Toledo North Assembly complex, where workers build the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator, supporters of Will Lehman spoke to workers at the afternoon shift change on Saturday and distributed hundreds of copies of Lehmans campaign flyer. Several part-time supplemental employees told campaigners that they have been stuck in this inferior status, with no job protection, pensions and other benefits, for five and six years. Supporters of Will Lehman campaign at the Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio (WSWS medi) [Photo: WSWS] One worker said he had read Wills demands, and while agreeing with them, felt it would be difficult to achieve a 50 percent pay increase and triple time when the company forced workers to work overtime. The campaigner explained that nothing workers ever won was achieved without a determined, collective struggle, and that Lehman was fighting to build a powerful rank-and-file movement to win these and other critical demands. If the UAW had not given up annual wage improvements and cost-of-living adjustments, he said, autoworkers would be making more than $65 an hour today. When the worker asked, Wouldnt the companies just shut their doors and move production to a lower-cost country? the campaigner explained that is why Will was fighting to unite American workers with workers across the world to stop the competition the corporations and the unions imposed on us to see who will work for the worst wages and conditions. He pointed to the heroic stand of GM workers in at the companys Silao, Mexico plant who refused to accept speedup and forced overtime during the strike of 48,000 US GM workers in 2019. The workers want to unite across national boundaries but that means a fight against the nationalism of the UAW apparatus, he said. Another Jeep worker told campaign supporters she liked everything Will said, but that she was planning to vote for Stellantis autoworker Brian Keller because she didnt think it was possible for workers to be able to get everything Will is calling for. She also said that she thought that the only way to get better wages would be to take over the current UAW structure. When a campaign team member explained that to wage an effective fight, autoworkers needed an international strategy, she agreed, acknowledging that the auto companies are global. The worker said she understood that Kellers nationalist program would not be effective in uniting workers internationally and she said she would read about Wills campaign and reconsider. A team of Will Lehmans supporters also visited Fords Chicago Assembly Plant (CAP) last week to speak to workers about Lehmans campaign. A CAP worker who started six years ago at the plant explained why she was interested in Wills program. We had COLA, we had pension, which we dont have anymore. And the cost of living is very high now. One person cant live by themselves off the income that we have. If one bedroom is $1,000-$1,200 in Chicago and if your paycheck is way less than that, its a problem. COLA is very important; we need to adjust for cost of living. I would say that starting we should be making $35. Weve been so conditioned to believe that we should take less. At this point in time, we cant even afford the cars we make. You want me to buy Ford, but I cant afford the car I make? Thats a problem. We used to have more. Now we get less and less. The UAW, they can do more for us, but they dont. Our bargaining is not as good as it should be on the floor. There are a lot of us on the floor getting in trouble, because theyre not enforcing the policy or protocol. Management gets away with a lot of stuff. If you follow the protocols, you get punished. At the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in suburban Detroit, campaigners spoke with workers at the early morning shift change. Many workers were unaware of the UAW presidential election because the UAW bureaucracy has kept workers in the dark in order to suppress the vote. Several workers, however, knew about Lehman. One young worker on the midnight shift came out the plant saying, I know Will, hes the people's champion. Im voting for him. Supporters of Will Lehman speak to workers at Stellantis Sterling heights Assembly Plant in suburban Detroit (WSWS media) Others were also very concerned about the threats to jobs of workers at the nearby Warren Truck Assembly plant, with top Stellantis executives and UAW officials saying the third shift would be eliminated and the plant potentially closed if workers did not improve quality and lower absenteeism rates. Campaigners explained that Lehman is fighting to mobilize workers to defend all jobs, in the US and internationally, and oppose the efforts of the global automakers to pit workers against each other. Supporters of Will Lehman also spoke to workers during a shift change at the new Ultium Cells battery plant in Warren, Ohio. The operation is a partnership of General Motors and LG Energy Solution. The plant, that opened in August, currently employs 800 workers who will build batteries for GMs electric Hummer and SUV built at Factory Zero in Detroit. The plant was built adjacent to the former General Motors Lordstown Assembly plant, which was closed in 2019 after the betrayal of the GM strike by the UAW, throwing 3,500 workers out of work. The Ultium Cells plant is currently nonunion; however, the UAW reports that up to 90 percent of the workers have signed cards for union representation. GM has reportedly agreed to a card count to determine UAW representation. Workers at the plant were eager to find out about Lehmans campaign, stopping their cars to talk with campaigners and take materials. Many workers took extra flyers to give to coworkers the next day. Most workers did not know that an election was taking place but were eager to hear about Lehmans platform and to discuss conditions inside the plant. What they reported is a chilling example of what the global automakers intend to impose, with the assistance of the UAW, on all workers in electric vehicle and component production. I feel like we have no rights in here, one worker told campaigners. We have no choices. It is just do what they say to do or you can get walked out, thats it. The shifts, they change the time on you every other week, whenever they want, and if you dont like it, they will fire you. It is just outrageous; we have no say-so. It is a startup company. We make $16.50 but being that we deal with dangerous chemicals, I think we should be making more, she concluded. Another worker pointed out that management has no respect for the employees. Conditions in the plant are good. Everything is new. What I dont like is the way that they (management) talk to you. The way that they treat you like you are nothing. They just tell us anything, they can change our shifts, move us to different jobs. Whatever they say we have to do. They dont treat us with any respect. The team leads are not picked by what they know, but they are just somebodys friend or relative. Another worker pointed out that since he started working, he has not worked the same shift for more than two weeks. They are constantly changing your shift. You cant plan your life around that. Many people have to have child care or someone to watch their children after school and you dont know what time you will be getting home from day to day. A chapter in the International Monetary Funds (IMF) Global Financial Stability Report prepared for this weeks semi-annual meeting in Washington has identified the source of a potential crisis for the global financial system. It concerns the operation of open-ended investment funds (OEFs) which allow investors daily redemptions of their investments while the funds invest in long-term illiquid assets that cannot be turned quickly into cash. Attendees walk inside an atrium at the 2022 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky] The mismatch between the conflicting short-term and long-term nature of investments is a permanent feature of financial markets and has always been a major factor in financial turmoil. But the growth of OEF funds means they have become much more significant in the past decade and a half. Summarising their expansion, the report said: Since the global financial crisis, there has been a remarkable growth in the open-ended investment funds. The total value of their net assets has quadrupled since 2008, reaching $41 trillion in the first quarter of 2022 and accounting for approximately one-fifth of the assets of the nonbank financial sector. While such funds play an important role in financial markets, it said, those that offer daily redemptions while holding illiquid assets can amplify the effects of adverse shocks by raising the likelihood of investor runs and asset fire sales. This contributes to volatility in asset markets and potentially threatens financial stability. The rise of these funds exemplifies a now well-established process in which attempts by governments and regulatory authorities to control one area of disruption leads to its re-emergence in another area as finance capital, ever involved in the search for profit, seeks new avenues for speculation. Major banks were at the centre of the financial crisis of 2008 and measures were put in place to curb some of their more egregious speculative activities. But as the IMF report explained, the growth of OEFs reflects the increasing shift in financial intermediation from banks to nonbank financial institutions, which can be attributed at least in part to the tighter regulations on banks as well as balance sheet deleveraging following the global financial crisis. It noted that OEFs generally invest in equities in the advanced economies but the share of funds investing in relatively less liquid assets, such as corporate bonds or emerging market bonds and equities, has been rising rapidly. Financial stability concerns about OEFs arose during the financial market turmoil in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic. The resilience of the sector may be tested again if financial conditions tighten abruptly as central banks normalize the stance of monetary policy. Already the interest-rate hikes by the Fed and almost all other central banks, characterised by economic historian Adam Tooze as the most comprehensive tightening of monetary policy the world has seen, have resulted in large outflows from high-yield corporate bonds and emerging market equity and bond funds. The IMF analysis noted that despite financial stability risks, effective implementation of policy measures or regulatory authorities to mitigate the vulnerabilities associated with OEFs holding illiquid assets has been lacking. An existential problem facing any would-be reformers, however, is rooted in the very nature of this sector of the financial markets. It was laid out by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney to a UK parliamentary hearing in June 2019well before the pandemic and associated financial turmoil had appearedinto the collapse of a British equity fund. The structure of such funds was a big deal and you can see something that is systemic. These funds are built on a lie, which is that you can have daily liquidity, and that for assets that fundamentally arent liquid. The lack of any adequate liquidity management by funds, the IMF report said, meant that central banks have stepped in during episodes of severe markets stress to provide liquidity backstops to the financial sectors, including to OEFs. This phenomenon was again seen in the 65 billion bond buying program initiated by the Bank of England when UK pension funds were threatened with insolvency because of the collapse in bond prices, which they had used as collateral to obtain loans to finance operations in derivative markets. There was the real prospect of a doom loop in which the funds had to sell long-dated government bonds, gilts, to meet margin calls from their lenders, threatening to send down bond prices even further and exacerbating the crisis. The same scenario could play out in the OEF sector, the IMF report noted. Those holding illiquid assets may experience outflows in times of market stress forcing them to sell assets and putting further downward pressure on prices amid tightening financial conditions. Moreover, in the presence of herding by funds, trading activity in the same direction could exacerbate selling pressure leading to depressed asset values, inducing further redemptions and asset fire sales, amplifying the impact of the shocks. The liquidity of OEFs portfolios had deteriorated dramatically during the March 2020 market turmoil and has been worsening in recent months. The liquidity of funds portfolios worsened again in the first half of 2022, especially for high-yield and emerging markets bond funds. In fact, for the latter, liquidity reached levels similar to that observed in March 2020. OEFs are by no means the only source of the mounting crisis in the global financial system. Another is private equity funds which are heavy investors in so-called junk bonds, those which have a less than investment-grade rating but bring a higher rate of return. As Financial Times (FT) columnist Gillian Tett has commented, junk bond prices have recently tumbled and it was not possible to track the true values of the assets held by private funds. Maybe they are marking these down correctly. But I doubt it, particularly given that they are increasingly selling assets to each other. Expect a future reckoning. This phenomenon was highlighted in an article published last month in the FT citing comment by a top executive of the largest Danish pension fund in which he compared the private equity market to a pyramid scheme. According to the report: Mikkel Svenstrup, chief investment officer at ATP, said he was concerned because last year more than 80 percent of the sales of portfolio companies by the private equity funds that ATP has invested in were either to another buyout group or were continuation fund deals, where a private equity group passes it between two different funds that it controls. Svenstrup used measured language. But he said this was potentially the start of a pyramid scheme before going on to describe what is taking place. Everybodys selling to each other Banks are lending against it. These are the concerns Ive been sharing, he said. The FT report noted that similar comments were made back in June by the chief investment officer at Amundi Asset Management, Vincent Mortier. He told a private equity conference in Cannes, that parts of the sector look like a pyramid scheme in a way. That description can increasingly be applied to the financial system as a whole. The official number of deaths from Hurricane Ian reached 137 over the weekend with the majority of those in southwest Florida where the Category 4 storm first struck landfall with destructive power on September 28. Holly Harmon places a rose into a memorial for victims of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Fla., on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. More than 100 died during the hurricane, with the greatest number in Lee County [AP Photo/Jay Reeves] ABC News reported on Monday that authorities have concluded the major search for victims using cadaver dogs, while residents of Lee County and the city of Fort Myers were still sifting through the mud-covered rubble of their wrecked homes left behind by the storm surge that rose to as much as 18 feet of water. Many have lost everything, and, ABC News said, residents are bracing for what will be months, if not years, of work to remove debris and fights with insurance companies to try and pull their lives back together. As the details of what happened to both those who survived and those who died from the deadliest storm to strike Florida since the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the criminal negligence of the capitalist ruling establishment is evident. The state and federal governments failed to prepare the public even as powerful hurricanes fueled by climate change have hit the United States repeatedly over the last two decades. While tens of billions have been spent on the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russianot to mention the trillions spent on the wars in the Middle East and Africa since 2001the American ruling establishment has done little or nothing to put in place structures and evacuation systems to prevent the kind of devastation wrought by a series of deadly storms, beginning with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed more than 1,800 people. In a region of the US with a large percentage of retirees, who moved to Florida to get away from cold winters in the Northern states, many will not be able to remain in the area with no place to live. Brenda Palmer was living with her husband Ralph in a mobile home in Fort Myers when the hurricane hit and destroyed it. She told the Associated Press, Im 86 years old, and Im homeless. Its just crazy. I mean, never in my life did I dream that I wouldnt have a home. But its gone. The New York Times reported that the ComptonsJane, 77, and Del, 81from Louisville, Kentucky, bought a mobile home in Fort Myers for their retirement. The hurricane destroyed everything they owned, including their car, and they do not have homeowners insurance because their policy was cancelled in June due to the age the mobile home. They are going back to Kentucky to move in with their daughter while they figure out what they will do next. Our bubble has been burst, Jane said. The death toll from the hurricane will rise in the coming days as medical examiners offices have been overwhelmed with bodies requiring identification and autopsies to determine the causes of death. NBC News reported that the medical examiner for Charlotte County, Florida, requested the assistance of the Florida Emergency Mortuary Operations Response System to process more than 40 bodies in a facility designed to handle no more than six at a time. Most of the victims were 50 years of age and older who drowned when they could not escape the rising flood waters. The Lee County medical examiner reported that a 54-year-old man died when he attempted to climb out of a window and became trapped. Another resident of Lee County who was 73 years old shot himself after seeing the damage due to the hurricane, the medical examiners summary said. A 96-year-old man was found under a car in Charlotte County in high water. He was the oldest and among five Floridians aged 90 and older killed in the storm. The medical examiner in Collier County, which is south of Fort Myers and includes the coastal community of Naples, Florida, released details of the five deaths in the area. Sarah Billings, 73, drowned after suffering a heart attack. Becky Higgie, 63, slipped in a puddle, fell down and later died of an aortic dissection. Sueann Shell, 64, drowned in her apartment from the hurricane storm surge. Rosemarie Santangelo, 73, drowned in her one-story home during the storm surge. Thomas Robert, 57, died from a heart attack after climbing seven flights of stairs when the lobby of his condo building flooded, and the elevator was not working. The negligence of the ruling establishment and financial elite in the face of the devastating impact of hurricanes is also evident in the parasitic insurance industry. The Wall Street Journal reported on October 7 that lawsuits are being prepared to force insurance companies to pay for flood damage that the carriers say they arent legally obligated to cover. Just over 40 percent of the homes in Lee and Collier counties are covered by flood insurance. The Journal reported that standard homeowners policies in the U.S. for decades have excluded flood damage and that billions of dollars are at stake as homeowners seek to rebuild. At the heart of the battle is distinguishing between hurricane wind damage and flood damage. When a similar battle took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the plaintiffs lawyers won victories in the lower courts by exposing the ambiguous language in the policy documentation and getting decisions that favored the homeowners interpretation. However, the insurance corporations were able to win the cases on appeal, and many families got nothing. In another aspect of the criminal exploitation of the hurricane damage by business interests, USA Today reported on October 6 that migrant workers are being used by disaster recovery firms offering cleanup services in the storm zone. Immigrant workers from Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala and Honduras are being recruited and transported to Florida. Ariadna Phillips of the South Bronx Mutual Aid said the companies from the multibillion-dollar disaster recovery industry recruit migrants, take them down there, dont pay them and get them deported. Weve seen it with other hurricanes. Phillips also said that in some cases the workers take the jobs because they are homeless and penniless and then are told that their initial wages will be used to cover transport and housing. In another incident in 2020, labor brokers recruited Venezuelan migrants from Miami and brought them to Michigan following heavy rains and historic flooding. The workers were never paid what they were owed, and the company that recruited them violated the states COVID-19 safety protocols, which led to many of them getting sick. Saket Soni of the migrant advocacy group Resilience Force told USA Today, Labor brokers routinely offer good rates, but when workers arrive in the disaster zone, the promises turn out to be false. Many of the relatives of nine people killed during a Bible study in an historic African American church in Charleston, S.C., forgave the white supremacist convicted of that crime. Some even wished mercy on Dylann Roof at a hearing just days after the June 2015 mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church a show of grace and forgiveness amid horror. Five months after the Tops Markets shooting on Buffalos East Side that killed 10 Black people, some here, too, are forgiving, but others struggle with the notion of forgiving accused murderer Payton Gendron. It was Buffalos worst mass shooting. Its not one that has an easy answer, and its really not something that I talk about, former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell W. Whitfield Jr. said of forgiving the white supremacist charged with murdering his 86-year-old mother inside the store. Its not something that Im required to share with people. Its just something that I have to come to grips with my creator. Zaire Goodman, a Tops employee, was collecting carts in the stores parking lot when he became one of the first victims shot, said his grandfather, Charles Everhart. Though a bullet went through his neck, Goodman, now 21, survived. For me to forgive him, Id have to pray about that, Everhart said of the shooter. I have to pray that God understands my heart, understands my mind. Im thinking of my grandson. He was helping people and for someone to come after him and injure him to the point where it could have killed him, its unforgiveable. Gendron of Conklin in Broome County was arrested outside the market when he surrendered to Buffalo police moments after the May 14 slayings. Gendron, who turned 19 a month after the shooting, faces murder, weapons and domestic terrorism charges. He also faces federal hate crime charges that could result in the death penalty if he is convicted. He has pleaded not guilty. The racist attack hit close to home for Common Council President Darius Pridgen, pastor of True Bethel Baptist Church. The Jefferson Avenue Tops is in his district. Pridgen said some of his clergy colleagues have gotten to that point of forgiveness for the shooter, but he has not at this point. But that does not make him or anybody else whos not there yet a bad person. When individuals are traumatized, forgiveness is not as easy. We all get to different levels of forgiveness in our own time, he said. Personally, I am struggling to get to a point of full, complete forgiveness" for the Tops mass shooting and other heinous crimes against mankind and innocent people. But forgetting is a different matter, Pridgen said. I always say the Bible is specific about forgiving, but it never says to forget so because certain memories will always be with us especially concerning Tops, its never going to go away because we are human. It will trigger certain emotions and feelings and until people get to a place of either understanding or healing, it can be difficult to forgive, he said. Its not been difficult for Murray Holman, executive director of Stop the Violence Coalition, a cousin through marriage of 77-year-old victim Pearl Young. Holman said he is dictated by his faith to forgive Gendron. But Holmans act of forgiveness is more for his own benefit than the suspects, he said. It lifts some stuff off of me. I believe in the Lord. I have to forgive because that has been taught to us. Its our culture to forgive and let God have his way, said Holman, who works with youth who are about the same age as Gendron on gun violence in Buffalo and says forgiveness is a topic they often work on and talk about. If we carry the anger and hate, it will kill us. I have seen that happen. I have seen family members that keep carrying this burden, and you can feel them just being drained. They cant let it go, he said. But you got to start living. Academics and various studies also say the act of forgiveness is for the person giving it not for the person to whom its directed. A 2016 report by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Forgiveness: Your Health Depends on It said studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, anxiety levels, depression and stress. And a January 2017 study by the American Psychological Association said forgiveness can improve mental and physical health. Forgiveness is a personal choice and process that is really about releasing rage and anger, said Drew Kahn, a SUNY Buffalo State distinguished service professor and founding director of the Anne Frank Project, a social justice program that highlights the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. The annual program, which runs from Oct. 12 through Oct. 14 this year in the colleges Campbell Student Union, focuses on conflict-resolution, community-building and healing. Its hard for me to say any one thing about forgiveness. I think forgiveness is really personal. Forgiveness to you might be something totally different for me, and I think forgiveness is a process, Kahn said. Forgiveness is about forgiving yourself, releasing yourself of the anger. Its really not like saying, Im going to take my enemy off the hook. Its about Im no longer going to burden myself with the anger and fury and rage I have for that person because that person never feels any of that. ... They dont get any of that. Its not moving anything forward. What its doing is pushing you further and further into that dark place. The heroes are the families who have been traumatized by those unspeakable tragedies and publicly forgive the perpetrators, Kahn said. They are providing a lesson to the rest of us that should not go unnoticed, Kahn said. Theyre providing a lesson for the rest of us to get closer to our personal forgiveness story, otherwise its just a word. Forgiveness for the alleged perpetrator is not in the cards, at least for now, for Everhart. Like I say, Im a Christian. Im a believer. I love the Lord. I love people, but when people are evil, I cant love evil. I cant agree with evil. I cant get on the same page with evil, Everhart said. I think (others) look at Christians as were supposed to be not human, but were human. Weve got feelings. WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden said Tuesday there will be "consequences" for Saudi Arabia as the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance moves to cut oil production and Democratic lawmakers call for a freeze on cooperation with the Saudis. Biden suggested he would soon take action, as aides announced that the administration is reevaluating its relationship with the kingdom in light of the oil production cut that White House officials say will help another OPEC+ member, Russia, pad its coffers as it continues its nearly eight-month war in Ukraine. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Ro Khanna of California introduced legislation that would immediately pause all U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia for one year. This pause would also halt sales of spare and repair parts, support services and logistical support. But it remains to be seen how far Biden is willing to go in showing his displeasure with the Saudis, a vital but complicated ally in the Middle East. Biden came into office vowing to recalibrate the U.S. relationship because of Saudi Arabia's human rights record but then paid a visit to the kingdom earlier this year. Biden said in a CNN interview he would look to consult with Congress on the way forward, but stopped short of endorsing the Democratic lawmakers' call to halt weapons sales. "There's going to be some consequences for what they've done, with Russia," Biden said. "I'm not going to get into what I'd consider and what I have in mind. But there will be there will be consequences." John Kirby, a White House National Security Council spokesman, said Biden believes "it's time to take another look at this relationship and make sure that it's serving our national security interests." Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday the White House has no timeline for its review nor has the president appointed an adviser to serve as point person. Meanwhile, officials underscore the central role that Saudi Arabia plays in addressing broader national security concerns in the Middle East. Blumenthal and Khanna unveiled their legislation one day after Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said it was unacceptable that OPEC+ had moved to cut oil production and effectively assist Moscow in its war on Ukraine. Menendez promised to use his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to block any future arms sales to the Saudis. Menendez did not warn the White House before announcing his intention to block future Saudi arms sales, Kirby said. OPEC+, which includes Russia as well as Saudi Arabia, announced last week it would cut production by 2 million barrels a day, which will help prop up oil prices that are allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep paying for his eight-month invasion of Ukraine. The production cut also hurts U.S.-led efforts to make the war financially unsustainable for Russia, threatens a global economy already destabilized by the Ukraine conflict and risks saddling Biden and Democrats with newly rising gasoline prices just ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told Saudi-owed Al Arabiya on Tuesday that his government's justification of the production cuts was "purely economic." Biden and European leaders have urged more oil production to ease gasoline prices and punish Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine. Putin has been accused of using energy as a weapon against countries opposing Russia's invasion. "They are certainly aligning themselves with Russia," Jean-Pierre said. "This is not a time to be aligning with Russia." As for the Saudis, Sen. Blumenthal said, "We cannot continue selling highly sensitive arms technology to a nation aligned with an abhorrent terrorist adversary." However, the White House takes note that its weapon sales to Riyadh serve, in part, as an important counterweight in the region to Iran, which is quickly moving toward becoming a nuclear power. "There's 70,000 Americans living in Saudi Arabia right now, not to mention all the other troops we have throughout the region," Kirby said. "So, it's not only in our interest that missile defense in the region become more integrated and cooperative. It's in the interest of our allies and partners in that part of the world as well." Still, the pressure is mounting for Biden. As a candidate for the White House, he vowed that Saudi rulers would "pay the price" under his watch for the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the kingdom's leadership. Biden said that he'd look to make the oil-rich country a "pariah." But in July, amid rising prices at the pump around the globe, Biden decided to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia. During the visit, he met with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who he once shunned as a killer for the death of Khashoggi. The U.S. intelligence community determined that the crown prince, often referred to by his initials MBS, likely approved the killing of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. MBS denies he was involved. The Saudis have also drawn international criticism for airstrikes killing civilians in the years-long war between the kingdom and Houthi rebels in Yemen as well as for embargoes that exacerbated hunger and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. "Saudi Arabia's disastrous decision to slash oil production by two million barrels a day makes it clear that Riyadh is seeking to harm the U.S. and reaffirms the need to reassess the U.S.-Saudi relationship," Khanna said. "There is no reason for the U.S. to kowtow to a regime that has massacred countless civilians in Yemen, hacked to death a Washington-based journalist and is now extorting Americans at the pump." ___ Harry Potter concludes happily with the wizarding community coming together to assert justice and right rule. Sacrifices, great courage and conscience are all ingredient in building a better world. The series reaffirms that true freedom is possible with law and order, a magnificent paradox. The United States and Russia, even a great part of the world is being menaced by individuals seeking to grab absolute power for themselves. It is not just Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin who are attempting this imposition on all of us, it is economic oligarchs in business as well. Dogma, arrogance and ignorance consciously imposed gives the rest of us persecutions, conformity and oppression. To avoid this ending, humility in the face of enormously complex and difficult issues is required. In my faith, it is love incarnate which solves enigmas. Love is not forced on another it is kindness and self-sacrifice extended toward all through rational choice. Neither Trump or Putin, dripping with arrogance, cruelty, malice and selfishness, nor anyone they endorse, represent the proper way forward. Throughout history prohibitions imposed by absolute power have worked about as well as edicts not to eat forbidden fruit or commands not to drink alcohol in the 1920s. The midterms are upon us and I am not abdicating my responsibility and letting someone choose for me, I am voting Democrat or responsible and mature governance. That would insure, through appropriately exercised freedom, a happy ending for all of us. Bill Licata Buffalo Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images Russia hailed OPEC+ for its "thoughtful" decision to slash oil production targets, per media reports Sunday. The move will balance the "mayhem" created by the US in energy markets, a Kremlin spokesman said. With midterm elections ahead, the White House slammed OPEC+ for "aligning" with Moscow on the oil market. Russia's government has hailed OPEC+ for making a massive cut to oil production targets, reportedly saying it balances out the "mayhem" the US has spread in global energy markets. The Kremlin comments on Sunday come after the White House slammed the output cut, accusing the oil group of "aligning with Russia." The deal is adding political pressure on the Biden administration, which wants to avoid a run-up in gasoline prices ahead of the hotly contested midterm elections in November. OPEC and its allies last week agreed to slash their oil production quotas by 2 million barrels a day, despite President Joe Biden's efforts to persuade de facto leader Saudi Arabia to boost the targets, to ease pressure on prices for oil and in turn gas. It's good to see the "balanced, thoughtful and planned work of the countries, which take a responsible position within OPEC, is opposed to the actions of the US," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian news agency reports cited by Reuters. "This at least balances the mayhem that the Americans are causing," he added. After the OPEC+ decision, the Biden administration ordered the release of 10 million additional barrels from the US's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The move is meant to counter a rise in crude prices from any squeeze in supply. But Peskov said it showed the US was starting to lose its composure. "They are trying to manipulate with their oil reserves by throwing additional volumes into the market. Such a game will not lead to anything good," he said. Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary, said in a Financial Times interview published Sunday that the OPEC+ move was "unhelpful and unwise" for the global economy and would end up harming developing countries struggling with high energy prices. Story continues But she would not say what the White House's next move could be in response to OPEC+. Right now, the US is leading a G-7 push to cap the price of Russian oil exports, to limit its revenues funding the Ukraine war and to manage the risk of a supply shock. The cap's backers believe there is a gap in the EU ban on seaborne Russian crude coming in December that needs to be plugged. The price cap would restrict refiners, traders, and financers from handling Russian crude oil unless it was traded below the set price. While the move aims to lower oil prices, it could fundamentally shift the balance of power between OPEC and the west, according to an S&P Global analyst. The plan is heavily opposed by Russia, which has threatened to cut its oil production if it comes in. Read the original article on Business Insider Last week LG announced that it would allow third-party TV manufacturers to use its webOS platform and now its main rival is following suit. Samsung has revealed that it will license its Tizen OS TV platform for use in non-Samsung TV models for the first time, partnering with Akai, RCA and a bunch of other brands (Bauhn, Linsar, Sunny, Vispera) sold in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The partnership gives those manufacturers access to Tizen OS features like Samsung TV Plus (a free streaming TV and video platform), Universal Guide for discovery and personalized recommendations, and Samsung's Bixby and other voice assistants. As we noted when LG first announced it would license webOS to other TV makers, these deals give buyers another option on lower-priced smart TVs that might otherwise run Android TV, Roku or Amazon's Fire TV. While you've probably never heard of many of the brands mentioned, the fact that Samsung is opening its Tizen platform means it could come to TVs sold in the US at some point. Samsung's Smart TV and LG's webOS are good options instead of Android TV, as both offer good search and personalization capabilities, a choice of multiple voice assistants (their own plus Alexa and Google) and support for Apple Airplay (though not Chromecast). Google TV is a big update from Android TV, but the majority of TVs and streaming boxes like NVIDIA's Shield TV still use the latter though Google's plan is to eventually have all third-party devices running Google TV. The death toll from a boat accident in Nigeria's south-eastern state of Anambra has risen to 76, with others still reported missing. A statement from the Nigerian presidency posted on Twitter said rescue teams on Sunday confirmed the higher death toll. The boat capsized on Friday in the Ogbaru area of Anambra state, one of the regions affected by deadly floods. Most of the victims were women and children who had been trying to reach the nearby Ogbakuba market after their community was hit by floodwaters. Roads inundated It was impossible to get there by the road, which was swallowed up by the floodwaters of the Niger River after weeks of torrential rains, said RFI correspondent Liza Fabbian in Lagos. The fields, farms and many homes in the area have been completely submerged. Minutes into the trip the skipper reportedly lost control of the boat after its engine failed. The vessel then got carried away by the current and apparently crashed into a bridge. Anambra is among 29 of Nigeria's 36 states to have experienced heavy flooding this year. The waters have washed away homes, crops and roads and affected at least half a million people. (with wires) Read more on RFI Read also: Badagry Museum, a sobering reminder of Nigeria's long slave trade history Nigeria disturbed by acute fuel shortfalls Blood and Bronze: unveiling the British Empire's brutality in Nigeria By Azernews By Ayya Lmahamad Azerbaijani Parliament has adopted the bill on approving the "agreement between the government of Azerbaijan and Israel on air traffic", Azernews reports per Trend. The bill was submitted for discussion at the plenary session of the Parliament. During the discussion, the MPs stressed that the new agreement would further contribute to improving relations between the two countries. Following the discussion, the document was put up for voting and adopted. Azerbaijan and Israel have been expanding bilateral cooperation over years. Cooperation between the two countries is based not only on economic partnership but also on traditional historical and cultural roots, as well as mutual respect and trust. In 2021, the two countries' trade turnover totaled $928.4 million. Memorandum of understanding with Latvia The parliament also approved the memorandum of understanding between Azerbaijan's Food Safety Agency and Latvia's Food and Veterinary Service on cooperation for food security. The bill approving the memorandum was submitted for discussion at parliament's plenary session. During the discussion, the MPs emphasized the document's crucial role in contributing to the development of relevant cooperation between Azerbaijan and Latvia. Following the discussions, the memorandum was put to a vote and adopted. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on January 11, 1994. The Azerbaijani embassy in Latvia was opened in 2005, and the Latvian embassy in Azerbaijan in 2006. Relations between Azerbaijan and Latvia have developed at a high level in all areas. The political dialogue between the two countries continues through regular reciprocal visits at the highest possible levels. The trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $27.1 million in 2021. An axe ready on a block to kill chickens A viral video clip showing two primary school children slaughtering a chicken in Kenya has caused uproar and some hilarity about the country's new curriculum, which has more of a focus on practical skills. During the outdoor lesson for 11 year olds on how to kill and cook a chicken, one boy is seen pinning down the fowl as another holds a knife nervously to its neck. Some curious classmates watch as the teacher, who is filming the episode with his mobile phone, congratulates the boy for cutting off the head and then instructs another, who holding the body, to put it in a nearby cauldron of boiling water. But as the child lets go over the pot, the headless chicken flaps its wings and escapes. The 19-second clip ends with the teacher's laughter and the hapless and headless chicken still running around as screaming children scamper after it. When a chicken's head is chopped off it can run around for several minutes as for a short period its spinal cord circuits still have residual oxygen. It is unlikely to be something this grade-six class will forget. The video sparked an outcry on social media with many people concerned about the safety of the children, although hardly anybody raised the issue of the chicken's suffering, asin rural Kenya, the sight of chickens being slaughtered is a common one. Since they started primary school, they have been the guinea pigs for a new curriculum, and have experienced many different practical projects over the last few years - from making scarecrows to selling goods at markets. Supporters of the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) see them more as pioneers, saying it is an improvement on the old theory- and exam-based system as it better prepares them for life and to find jobs in the 21st Century. They also argue that as there is continuous assessment it will reduce cheating in exams, which has been a massive problem for the government. About 1.25 million grade-six pupils are soon to sit exams as part of the Kenya Leaving School Certificate that determines their entrance to secondary school. Story continues For the first time, the exam will only contribute 40% to their final marks as their assessment scores since grade one will make up the rest. 'Feasting at parents' expense' But some parents are unhappy at the expense of the new curriculum as schools expect them to contribute material and money for items - like chickens - needed for the practicals. A home science teacher at Kangundo Primary School in eastern Kenya says that those from less well-off households are sometimes forced to watch others do their practicals. "My grade-five pupils, for example, were sewing a handkerchief for their project and some could not afford to buy the fabric, so we ended up using the few that were bought by some pupils," Jemimah Gitari told the BBC. Kenyan pupils now spend less time sitting at their desks, and more doing practical subjects She feels some colleagues take advantage too - asking pupils to bring in meat, but she says this was not in fact compulsory for the stewing project. "My school is in a village where some families cannot even afford a meal due to the rising cost of food so I couldn't ask them for meat," she said. Following the chicken practical - done by grade-six pupils nationwide in September - photos were shared on social media which appeared to show teachers eating chicken in a staffroom. An MP from western Kenya, Didmus Barasa, accused them of feasting on food paid for by parents who could ill afford it. "Now there are no hens in homesteads," he said in remarks which angered the teachers' union. The heated chicken debate even reached the ears of Kenya's newly elected President William Ruto, who has since set up a 49-member task force to evaluate the new curriculum, which was a pet project of his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta. It has until the end of the year to make recommendations about whether the CBC rollout should continue for the grade-six students going into their first year of secondary school, which starts in January. "The books and curriculum designs are ready but we are holding on to get advice before we can distribute them," Prof Charles Ong'ondo, who heads The Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, told the BBC. Some parents do not mind the practical side of the curriculum, but say it lacks balance as book work suffers. "My daughter, who is in grade four, is doing 12 subjects and each of them has a project. They spent most of their time last term doing projects and so most classwork was not covered," Rozina Kisilu, a mother of two who lives in the capital, Nairobi, told the BBC. The focus on practicals makes it harder for teachers to finish the syllabus in time, adds Ms Gitari - pointing to the two-week interruption to the last term because of the general election. In fact the last two academic years have been unusual, with four instead of three terms - to make up for time lost during the Covid pandemic. Others argue it will just take time for teachers to get to grips with the new curriculum. This also came in for criticism recently when several videos trended showing pupils in rural areas lying on the ground pretending to swim as they had no access to a swimming pool. But Nairobi teacher Marion Muthoni says the physical activity project gave teachers two options: pupils could either swim or skip using a rope depending on their facilities. "Some of my colleagues are just exaggerating things. The things I've seen on social media are quite different from the guidelines we have. With time, teachers will realise not everything needs to be practical," Ms Muthoni told BBC. Teachers say they need more time time to implement the new curriculum Indeed the recommendation of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) after a two-year pilot was that the CBC should not be introduced across the board until teachers were properly trained. Some educationists recommend that a pilot should allow for a complete education cycle before a full rollout is considered so that adjustments can be made. Sophia Mbevi, the director of a private school in Nairobi, agrees, saying that while the CBC had the best intentions, it was too hurriedly implemented. Her school offers an alternative curriculum - which under Kenya law is allowed for private institutions as long as it is approved by the education department. Some parents who can afford it are opting for private schools with established curriculums, like the one Ms Mbevi heads, as they do not want their children's future to be an experiment. "There are far-reaching implications to overhauling an education system. A lot needs to be done to expand resources and train teachers before a full rollout," Ms Mbevi told the BBC. "I just hope we can stop politicising education and do the right thing to ensure good quality education for the children." The fate of the CBC now rests with the task force, which has six months in total to give its full evaluation. Ms Mbevi suggests that one solution would be for the government to invest in community learning centres where "learners could be assisted to complete their projects, especially in households where the parents themselves are school drop-outs". And to further ease the burden on parents and address the social divide, Ms Muthoni says the government should provide some of the materials needed for projects. As to whether this should include live chickens, she suggested that schools should rear their own. As Andy Cohen and The Real Housewives of Atlanta cast members continued to reflect on the shows 14th season during Part 3 of the RHOA reunion on September 25, Andy took a moment to praise a particularly memorable choice of Marlo Hamptons. I think it is brilliant that you brought chicken to the airport, Andy told Marlo, referencing the KFC meal Marlo picked up on her way home from Jamaica, which ultimately led to her reconciliation with Kandi Burruss (more on that in the video above). Andy, have you had Jamaican KFC? Sanya Richards-Ross asked the host. Its legendaryand, you see, it can mend relationships. In The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 14 After Show video above, Kandi explains why she decided to make amends with Marlo after seeing that her castmate had brought chicken to the airport. Everybody kept saying that the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Jamaica is better than the United States, and I had not tried it, and I really wanted to try it, and it was fresh and hot, she said, later adding, I had to break down. I had to be nice I had to make amends. Press play on the video above to see Kandi and Marlo talk more about how the chicken brought them back together. Watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta on Bravo Sundays at 8/7c and the next day on Peacock. Catch up on the Bravo app. In 2015, Carlos Estevez was on his way to an artist residency in Charlotte, N.C., when he stopped in Savannah. Some of his friends, local architects, encouraged him to see for himself downtowns well-planned layout and design. Estevez had enough time to explore Forsyth Park and a few adjacent squares. But the brief visit made a lasting impression: a few years later he completed, Savannah, a large format, oil and watercolor pencil work depicting an aerial view interpretation of the historic districts precise geometry. Estevez vowed one day he would return. And this month, thanks to curators at Sulfur Studios, Miami-based, acclaimed Cuban visual artist, Carlos Estevez, heads back to Savannah as part of Sulfurs On::View Artist Residency Program. Recent ON::VIEW artists: Japanese book artist Kazumi Wilds brings 400-year-old painting techniques to Savannah folklore 'This is my office now': Savannah artists find community, inspiration along Forsyth Park path 'That is the mission': Savannah artist le diegue is challenging the perception of Latin art 'Savannah' by Carlos Estevez From Wednesday through Nov. 5, Estevez focuses on creating a body of work called, Cities of the Mind, in which hell study urbanism and the history of local architecture to understand the socio-political roots of human settlements, their implications from the past and their projection to the future. Having grown up in Cuba, Estevez is quick to point out how having access to less can actually foster more creativity. Art of Texts: Heather Szatmary's latest works trace connections between data and relationships Cuba is like another planet. Its an island geographically and politically isolated, said Estevez. Things move slowly, which allows for a lot of time to be with yourself, and being alone lends itself to observing the people, places and nature around you. Cuba also taught me to be inventive and creative with supplies, since I didnt have many. Limitation became the inspiration of invention. I had to be creative to be creative, does that make sense? Story continues Carlos Estevez Estevez lucked out when he was 11-years-old, accompanying a friend who had signed up for an art school entrance exam. There was space for Estevez to take the test, too, and he spent a few hours drawing a required still life arrangement plus a landscape of his choice. Though his friend wasnt selected, Estevez was, and the chance opportunity altered the course of his life. Destiny put art in my path, recalled Estevez. All that time as a child drawing, being creative, using my imagination to make things from whatever was around, unknowingly helped me get into the special middle school. When you go with innocence, not knowing any sense of benefit, sometimes that can open doors. For that test, I did what Id been doing. It was all I knew. More: These three Savannah artists are creators to watch as the art scene continues to flourish After middle school, Estevez was accepted into an art academy high school and then went on to graduate from the University of Arts of Cuba. In the past 30 years, his talent and rigorous training have landed him top notch, international residencies in London, Paris, New York, Boston, Charlotte, and now, Savannah. 'Ciudad Celeste' (2017) by Carlos Estevez In his work Estevez seeks to reveal the invisible realm to the spirit that lies hidden beneath the visible world. And he achieves this by incorporating symbols, lines, dots and circles to create pieces in which elegant geometries both undergird as architecture and swirl above as constellations. The patterns further give rise to a sense of order commanding the seeming machinations of chaos within. More: With 'Avant Gardener,' Savannah artist Lisa Watson is saving the environment through art Im fascinated by symbols, they are universal, mused Estvez. Circles are important because across cultures, they represent the infinite, cycles going and moving forward, coming back again. In technical schematics, often with many circles, Im looking for metaphors that I can translate into colors and shapes and overlay onto the human experience. This process I am describing it is itself a circle and principle of creation. What we create is based on what and how we choose to observe the things around us. A piece designed by Carlos Estevez. Estevez will be in the ON::VIEW studio Saturdays during his residency from noon until 5 p.m. with his artist talk taking place Oct, 22 at 2 p.m. His residency concludes Nov. 4 with the unveiling of his works created in Savannah. Art is a magical endeavor, said Estevez, Art and its magic will connect me with the people of Savannah and their stories. What I create will be documenting my encounter, and I am excited to discover how my experiences will influence what I create, how new people, their stories and culture will become symbols and metaphor in my work. We are all universes on our own, through art I seek to find the hidden spirituality uniting us all. IF YOU GO What: On::View Artist in Residence, Carlos Estevez Where: Sulfur Studios, 2301 Bull Street, Savannah When: In studio from Oct. 12 thru Nov. 5; Artist Talk, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2 p.m.; Project Finale, Nov. 4, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Info: sulfurstudios.org This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah GA art galleries: Carlos Estevez at Sulfur Studios Austin Stoker, the Trinidadian-American actor from Assault on Precinct 13 and Roots, has died. His wife Robin Stoker confirmed the actors death happened on Friday, October 7, his 92nd birthday. Stoker reportedly died peacefully and surrounded by his loved ones due to renal failure. The actor is survived by his wife of over 40 years, his daughter Tiffany, his son Origen and his two grandsons Marcus and little Austin. More from Deadline Born and raised in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Stoker began acting at the age of 11. When he was 16, he joined The Whitehall Players and four years later he would travel to NYC when he joined the dance troupe Holder Dance Company. RELATED: Hollywood & Media Deaths 2022: A Photo Gallery Stoker would later be drafted by the U.S. Army and following his service was honorably discharged. He would continue preparing himself as an actor and one of his first television credits was in the series Mod Squad in 1969. He would go on to have television roles in series like Love, American Style (1970), Men at Law (1971), Monty Nash (1971), Love Thy Neighbor (1973), McCloud (1974) and Kojak (1974). Stoker would also land film roles in Battle of the Planet of the Apes (1973) and Horror High (1973). In 1975 he starred opposite Pam Grier in the film Sheba, Baby. The same year he would lend his voice to the Return of the Planet of the Apes animated series. The following year, he would star in one of his most memorable performances in John Carpenters Assault on Precinct 13 where he played Lt. Ethan Bishop, a cop who was put in charge of a decommissioned L.A. police station. Other television shows Stoker participated in included The Six Million Dollar Man (1975), the 1977 ABC mini-series Roots where he played Virgil Harvey, The Incredible Hulk (1979), Lou Grant (1977), Falcon Crest (1989), among others. Story continues In the early 90s, he joined the cast of The Bold and the Beautiful where he portrayed the character of Mitchell Owens. His last acting credit is in the 2022 film Give Till It Hurts where he played Reverend Bishop. 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. Richland County Transit offering services to voters Richland County Transit (RCT) is offering the following transportation options to promote voter access in partnership with the Richland County Board of Elections (BOE): Temporary service to the Board of Elections: Weekdays during early voting, Oct. 12 to Nov. 7, passengers can request a stop at the BOE on West Longview when traveling Route 5 (Springmill/Bowman) or Route 9 (West 4th Street). Passengers on other routes can transfer to Route 5 or 9 at the RCT Transit Center. Early voting hours are posted on the BOE website boe.ohio.gov/richland/. For more information about RCTs services, call 419-522-4504. Voter registration and absentee ballot request forms: Voter registration and absentee ballot request forms are available for pickup at the RCT admin office (232 N. Main St.) and the RCT Transit Center (74 S. Diamond St.). Fare-FREE week: To encourage voting and to recognize our veterans, RCT will offer services free to all passengers from Nov. 7-11, in honor of Election Day and Veterans Day. The free service is thanks to a grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) notes that public transportation plays an important role connecting millions of Americans to jobs, vital services, and civic participation, such as voting. Applications accepted for 2022-2023 Ohio Scholars in Aging program COLUMBUS The Ohio Department of Aging (ODA), in conjunction with the Ohio Association of Gerontology and Education (OAGE), is now accepting applications for the 2022-2023 Ohio Scholars in Aging program. For the past decade, ODA and OAGE have teamed up to offer the Ohio Scholars in Aging program for undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled in an accredited educational institution in Ohio. The free program is open to emerging professionals in careers such as nutrition and allied health sciences, city and regional planning, gerontology, social work or other relevant focus areas. Story continues The program stipend has been doubled this year. Participating students who complete all program requirements will each receive $2,000. Ten students will be selected. Applications are due by Nov. 4. For more information, visit aging.ohio.gov/scholarsinaging. Mansfield church to host murder mystery The First Congregational Church, at the corner of Millsboro Road and Marion Avenue, is hosting the dinner theater production "Pasta, Passion and Pistols" from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday. This is a murder mystery that guests will have to solve. Tickets can be purchased at the First Congregational Church or reserved by calling the church office at 419-756-3046. Upcoming meeting: Richland County Transit Board, 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, Richland County Regional Planning Commission office, 19 N. Main St., Mansfield This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Richland County Transit and the Elections Board promote voter access PUTEAUX, France, October 10, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News: Laurent Guillot, appointed Chief Executive Officer on 1 July, establishes the new ORPEA (Paris:ORP) Group Executive Committee which will be responsible for the transformation and management of the strategic plan to ensure the successful reconstruction of the Group. Commenting on the new organisation, Laurent Guillot said: "My objective for ORPEA was to build a new, streamlined management team with a focus on the companys challenges. These experienced professionals will serve our facilities, countries and regions, achieving the performance required to successfully transform ORPEA. I am counting on the commitment of Pierre Krolak-Salmon and Fanny Barbier to focus on the care pathway for our residents and patients and the quality of support and development for our employees, one of the main drivers of this transformation. The companys financial soundness, its reputation, and a completely revamped real estate strategy are all challenges that will be met by Laurent Lemaire, Frederique Raoult, and Gery Robert-Ambroix. This Executive Committee is made up of: The Executive Management Committee: - Laurent Guillot, Chief Executive Officer, - Pierre Krolak-Salmon, Executive Vice President, Medical Director, - Fanny Barbier, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, - Laurent Lemaire, Executive Vice President, Finance, IT and Purchasing, - Frederique Raoult, Executive Vice President, Communications, - Gery Robert-Ambroix, Executive Vice President, Real Estate. And Chief Executive Officers for countries and regions: - Erik Hamann (Germany), - Anton Kellner (Central and Eastern Europe), - Thibault Sartini (New Countries), - Geert Uytterschaut (Northern Europe), - Yen Wang (Latin America), - Asuncion Zaragoza (Iberian Peninsula), - Laurent Guillot is acting CEO for France. Missions and biographies of the new Executive Committee members: Chief Executive Officer, Laurent Guillot, began his career in civil service as technical advisor to Frances Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Housing. In 2002, Laurent joined Saint-Gobain. He managed various activities both in France and abroad until 2009. Laurent was then appointed Group Chief Financial Officer before becoming Chief Operating Officer. In 2016, he was nominated Chief Executive Officer, High-Performance Materials. Laurent Guillot is an Independent Director and Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee at Safran. Story continues Laurent Guillot is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts ParisTech engineering school, and holds a postgraduate degree in macroeconomics from Universite Paris I (Pantheon Sorbonne). The Legal, Strategy, Internal Audit and Control, Risk management and Compliance, Quality and CSR Departments will report to Laurent. He is acting CEO for France. Professor Pierre Krolak-Salmon, Executive Vice President, Group Medical Director, will be tasked with supporting the Group in setting the strategic priorities for the care pathway. Pierre Krolak-Salmon has specifically researched care, outpatient and hospitalisation pathways, with an additional focus on accommodation, in direct connection with other areas of specialisation such as general medicine. Pierre Krolak-Salmon holds a PhD in Medicine and Science with a Neuroscience option, a Diploma of Specialised Studies in Neurology and an Additional Specialised Diploma in Geriatrics (Claude Bernard University, Lyon). He also enjoys an active teaching role to conduct research. Fanny Barbier, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, will be responsible for defining and implementing the Human Resources policy. Fanny will be tasked with placing HR at the heart of the Groups challenges to restore employee confidence, improve their work-life balance and well-being in the workplace, and to develop the attractiveness and excellence of ORPEAs professions. She will oversee the social and human aspects of the Groups transformation, on the strength of constructive and balanced social dialogue. Fanny has spent her entire career in Human Resources in the private sector, notably with SUEZ. At SUEZ, she held various Human Resources positions: Regional Operations Human Resources Director, then Human Resources Director for France before becoming Senior Vice President, Human Resources, in charge of leadership, talent and culture for the Group, against the backdrop of a transformation. Fanny Barbier has a degree in private and labour law. Laurent Lemaire, Executive Vice President, Finance, IT and Purchasing, will be responsible for managing ORPEAs economic and financial performance and will also be tasked with heading up the Groups Information Systems and Purchasing Department whose transformation he will support. Laurent began his career at Danone where he spent almost 20 years in various financial roles. In 2007, he joined the listed group Steria, as General Manager of Finance, Legal, Procurement, IT & Transformation and then as Group Chief Financial Officer in the context of the merger with Sopra. In 2016, he joined Korian as Group Chief Financial and Administrative Officer before being appointed Group Chief Financial Officer of Idemia, a company undergoing an LBO. Laurent Lemaire is a graduate of the ESSEC Business School. Frederique Raoult, Executive Vice President, Communications, will be tasked with enhancing the companys appeal and reputation in addition to renewing confidence and dialogue with all stakeholders. Frederique spent a large part of her career at SUEZ where she held various Communications positions in the Groups French and international businesses before becoming Senior Vice President Communication and Sustainable Development. In particular, she led SUEZs Initial Public Offering and its transition to a single brand. Frederique then went on to join Keolis Group as Executive Vice President, Communications and Branding. Frederique Raoult is a graduate of Sciences Po and has a Masters degree in Contemporary History. Gery Robert-Ambroix, Executive Vice President, Group Real Estate, will be responsible for repurposing and implementing the real estate strategy in line with the transformation plan. Gery is in charge of arbitrage, acquisitions, Asset Management and Property Management with the aim of harnessing the companys real estate potential. Gery has more than 30 years experience in various real estate businesses; from beginning his career at BOUYGUES Group to his position as Chief Executive Officer at MERCIALYS and then CARMILA from 2005 to 2021, before joining BATIPART. Gery Robert-Ambroix is a graduate of HEC Business School. Chief Executive Officers for Group regions are as follows: Erik Hamann, Chief Executive Officer, Germany After starting his career as a consultant with Roland Berger, Dr. Erik Hamann joined the University Hospital Mannheim as Head of the Business Development division as well as Chief Executive Officer at its nursing home subsidiary, Altenpflege Mannheim GmbH. From 2005 to 2017, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the listed clinic operator, Rhon-Klinikum. Dr. Hamann also held the positions of Chief Financial Officer at Acrest Property GmbH, operating partner at a large cap private equity firm, and Chief Financial Officer at Artemis Augenkliniken. Dr. Erik Hamann started with ORPEA in 2016 as Chief Executive Officer of Germany, which has remained his position to date. Dr. Erik Hamann holds a degree in business administration and a PhD from the University of Mannheim, as well as a degree in business administration and management from ESSEC Business School. Anton Kellner, Chief Executive Officer, Central and Eastern Europe Anton Kellner worked in different positions in the District Administration of Hollabrunn, federal province of Lower Austria. He was Head of the Social Department before taking the position of Facility Manager in a nursing home in this region from 1995. In 2004, he joined the SeneCura Group as Operations Director before being appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2015. Since 2019, Anton has held the Chief Executive Officer position for Central and Eastern Europe. This region also includes Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Switzerland. Anton Kellner holds an MBA in "Health Care Management" from the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Thibault Sartini, Chief Executive Officer, New Countries Thibault Sartini began his career in 2003 working in the field as a nurse. He then joined the ORPEA Group in 2008 as Clinic Facility Director before being promoted to the role of Regional Director. In 2016, Thibault was appointed Chief Executive Officer of ORPEA Italy. He was then nominated Chief Executive Officer of the New Countries cluster in 2019, spearheading five markets: Italy, Middle East, Poland, Latvia and Asia. Thibault Sartini graduated from Paris 2 Pantheon-Assas University in 2008 with a Master's degree in Human Resources Management and Labour Law. He completed an Executive Masters degree in Healthcare Strategy and Management at ESCP Europe Business School in 2013. Geert Uytterschaut, Chief Executive Officer, Northern Europe Following a career in retail spanning 22 years, Geert Uytterschaut made a move in 2010 by becoming Chief Operating Officer of a large nursing home group in Belgium. In 2019, he joined ORPEA as Chief Executive Officer of ORPEA Belgium. Geert now holds the Chief Executive Officer post for ORPEA Northern Europe, which includes activities in Belgium, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Geert is a graduate of Ghent University and holds certificates from INSEAD (Financial Management), EHSAL (Master in Industrial company Management) and CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY (Strategic Management) among others. Yen Wang, Chief Executive Officer, Latin America Yen spent more than 15 years as a management consultant in global firms (McKinsey & Company, A. T. Kearney and Arthur D. Little) before taking up executive positions at Carrefour and Oi in Brazil. From 2017 to 2021, he worked as Chief Executive Officer of Carrefour Property in Brazil before joining ORPEA Group in 2022 as Chief Executive Officer of the Latin America region. Yen graduated from the University of Sao Paulo in Computer Science, holds a postgraduate degree in Business Administration from Fundacao Getulio Vargas, a MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a MBA from the Wharton School. Asuncion Zaragoza, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Iberian Peninsula (Spain & Portugal) Asuncion began her career working as a consultant for the consulting firm Accenture. She was then appointed Finance Manager at one of General Electrics subsidiaries before becoming Finance Director at La Casera Company Plc, followed by Grupo Care, which was acquired by ORPEA in 2002. Asuncion then became Chief Financial Officer for ORPEA in Spain. And in 2017, she was nominated Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer for the Iberian Peninsula (Spain & Portugal), a position she has held since 2018. Asuncion holds a Master's degree in law and an MBA from ESAD. About ORPEA ORPEA is a leading global player, expert in the care of all types of frailty. The Group operates in 22 countries and covers three core businesses: care for the elderly (nursing homes, assisted living, home care), post-acute and rehabilitation care and mental health care (specialized clinics). It has more than 71,000 employees and welcomes more than 255,000 patients and residents each year. https://www.orpea-group.com/ ORPEA is listed on Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0000184798) and is a member of the SBF 120, STOXX 600 Europe, MSCI Small Cap Europe and CAC Mid 60 indices. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221010005305/en/ Contacts Media Relation ORPEA Isabelle Herrier-Naufle Medias & e-reputation Director Tel. : 07 70 29 53 74 i.herrier-naufle@orpea.net Image 7 Charlotte Le Barbier Tel.: +33 (0)6 78 37 27 60 clebarbier@image7.fr Laurence Heilbronn Tel. : 06 89 87 61 37 lheilbronn@image7.fr What is it like to purchase weed in Vermont's new legal adult retail cannabis market? It's a very different shopping experience than for other products you're probably used to buying. A variety of regulations dictate everything from how product is displayed and handled to who can enter the store. As of the beginning of October when retail sales began, one dispensary in Burlington Ceres Collaborative had obtained its retail license and opened. On its heels, a half dozen locally owned shops across Chittenden County were busy with construction altering their shops to ensure compliance and to provide a welcoming customer experience that would define the way a new product is purchased in Vermont. Many of these retailers were putting the final touches on their stores and had expectations for opening before the end of the year. What will be different about the marijuana buying experience? Other types of shopping might allow a customer to browse and touch products on their own, but at cannabis shops, it's necessary to interact with workers. Tito Bern is in the process of converting one-third of the Burlington-based glass-blowing shop Bern Gallery into a retail cannabis dispensary and said that's where a concierge comes in. "The difference is there will be a concierge there to help you with your needs in a very personal way," Bern said. He said the concierge would be able to answer questions about terpene concentration for those who may be looking for medicinal applications or help a brand new customer familiarize themselves with the types of products available to meet their needs. Legalizing MarijuanaWeed is legal now, but how much product will there be on the shelf? While samples may be available to sniff, it will be a hands-off experience for the customers until the product is purchased. Rajive Bhasin is a co-owner of an upcoming Burlington cannabis business yet to be named, with a Church Street location. He said some product will be displayed on product shelves under lock and key, but most of the sellable items will be housed in an adjacent storage room. Once a customer has made a decision about what they'd like to buy, a worker with access to the supply room would retrieve the individually-packaged item and bring it to the register for the customer to purchase. Story continues NationwideMarijuana use is outpacing cigarette use for first time ever in US, new poll says What types of cannabis products will you be able to buy? Once the Bern Gallery's cannabis sales are open, the store anticipates offering every category of product possible, Bern said. Cannabis flower, pre-rolled joints, edibles, drinkables yes, there's a cannabis seltzer, which has faster effects than some edibles and tinctures are all on the menu. A consumer is allowed to buy up to one ounce of cannabis flower per day, according to Andrew Subin, an attorney with Vermont Cannabis Solutions. Some of the products not available for purchase include cannabis flower with more than 30% THC and solid concentrate with more than 60% THC. Flavored oils and flavors in flower that are not naturally occurring will be banned as well as oil products not prepackaged for use with battery powered devices. Products for sale cannot contain both THC and nicotine or alcohol. Cured cannabis buds are displayed at Grassroots Vermont, a medicinal cannabis production facility, Dec. 7, 2018, in Brandon, Vt. Vermont has started taking prequalification applications from potential marijuana growers and retailers as it prepares for a retail market to open this fall of 2022. What does cannabis cost in Vermont? And what are the taxes on marijuana? Bern was unable to give a price range for products, suggesting they were at the mercy of their suppliers' cost structure due to not having a lot of product ready to go immediately. He said prices were anticipated to fluctuate wildly in the beginning until the market settles. He believed the increased competition from other stores entering the market would eventually cause prices to level off, but couldn't yet venture a guess where they might land. Tacked onto cannabis sales will be 20% tax made up of 14% in excise taxes and 6% sales tax. A town or city could also charge a 1% local option tax. What's the ID requirement to enter Vermont marijuana dispensaries? Establishments will have someone checking government-issued photo IDs at the door to ensure only customers ages 21 and older may enter and make purchases. Stores are required to have video surveillance at entry and exits, the point of sale and anywhere the product is stored or handled. Employees must wear an ID badge, and retailers are required to limit the number of customers in the store to the number that can be easily managed by workers. Therefore, customers might find themselves waiting outside the building if all the employees are engaged helping customers. Marijuana and moreNew Vermont laws that you should know about in 2022 What you will see on the packaging of Vermont cannabis products Before sale, the product will be tested for potency, human pathogens, heavy metals, pesticides and moisture content, when applicable. Individually-wrapped products will have test result information clearly marked on the packaging. Using cannabis products on the premises, even for medical reasons, is strictly forbidden. In some cases, you may be able to bring back consumer packaging waste for the store to reuse. Brandon Coburn of St. Albans holds his purchase - an eighth of an ounce of cannabis flower - Oct. 1, 2022 near the Ceres Collaborative store in Burlington on the first day of retail adult-use cannabis sales in Vermont. Can you buy cannabis in Vermont with a credit card? Stores can accept cash for cannabis purchases. While credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard don't allow direct cannabis purchases with their cards, retailers can get around this by accepting debit cards using a process known as a "cashless ATM" where a debit is withdrawn but the money goes to the retailer, according to Subin. The Bern Gallery plans to use this system. 'Serious health risks':Industry experts warn of contaminants in marijuana alternative delta-8 What one Vermont dispensary owner expects for the future consumer experience Bern anticipated that there will a lot of fluidity around how cannabis businesses are set up to start versus what they may evolve to become. He is hoping one day consumption lounges will be permissible. In addition to adhering to regulations, businesses are taking the time to make buying an event. Bhasin said they are putting a lot of effort into the store experience so it's not just a cash and carry business. Near the back of the Bern Gallery will be an area with glass-blowing benches where customers will look through a window into an area where cannabis products are being processed such as joints being rolled or oil being pressed. Public SafetyBurlington gun violence has been on the rise for nearly three years. The reasons are nuanced. Bern said things are changing day by day and they are working to keep up with all the rules. If all goes according to plan, he'd like to open Bern Gallery's dispensary by Dec. 1. Contact reporter April Barton at abarton@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1854. Follow her on Twitter @aprildbarton. This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Legal Marijuana in Vermont: Rules for buying cannabis at dispensaries Korean film and TV story-telling has expanded and adapted under the influence of both COVID and streaming video. As a result, screenwriting today may be more in touch with audience needs, media executives in Busan heard. A panel discussion on Saturday, organized by the Busan Story Market, a new wing of the Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) sought to define Korean story telling and analyze why it is currently so successful. More from Variety One explanation offered by Hwang Hyejung, chief content officer at Korean streamer TVing, was that writers have broadened their outlook to include more current and realistic topics. Romantic comedies and melodramas are no longer the defining genres. Korean content has its foundations in family values and Confucianism. That compares with Hollywoods super fantasy stories, said Hwang. These days, Korean realism is well-received among the MZ generation [people born between 1981 and 2005], due to COVID and the crises were experiencing. Seokyung Chung, writer of recent TV series Little Women and Park Chan Wooks latest film Decision To Leave, said that she had deliberately changed her writing style from a top-down perspective to one that is more attentive to her audiences. [When it comes to the creative process], theres a lot of capturing, discussion and analyzing. Being sensitive to the audience and always being ready to update is important, said Chung. People want to feel closer and to discuss issues in our society together. So, I now consider the audience as [my] best friends, sharing secrets with them. Thats how I think the audience relates. The pandemic accelerated the growth of OTT platforms in Korea and in doing so put new emphasis on viewing convenience, such as binge-watching, and on social media feedback. Story continues People are waiting to see other peoples reactions before watching content. We can get this [feedback] almost immediately with social media meaning that initial reactions can determine the success or failure of a series, said Hwang. If that means a higher level of risk, platforms and broadcaster have attempted defray that by putting greater emphasis on franchises and shows with multiple seasons. are now adopted to extend the lifespan of K-stories. The twin effects of COVID and more streaming has increased demand for new Korean shows to be produced. According to Hwang, Korean streamer Tving has reported a 300% growth in subscribers since it began creating originals in 2020. 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. Nonprofit organizations often have to find unique ways to raise funds, from grants to public events to donations. In the central Missouri region, nonprofits receive an extra bit of fundraising help through CoMoGives. Previously: CoMo Gives fundraising campaign raises $1.8 million in another record year The Community Foundation of Central Missouri established CoMoGives in December 2013. This year marks the 10th consecutive year where CoMoGives will serve as the central hub for area nonprofits to post their end-of-year fundraising campaigns. The 2022 campaign starts Nov. 29 on Giving Tuesday and runs through Dec. 31, featuring just over 150 nonprofits. CoMoGives keeps a running tally of how much money is raised and aims to raise at least $2 million this year. Last year's goal of $1.25 million was far exceeded at roughly $1.8 million. "CoMoGives is collaborative. It is amazing how many of our donors, when they go online to give to the organization of their choice, give to another or multiple organizations," said John Baker, Community Foundation of Central Missouri executive director. Giving Tuesday: How CoMoGives campaign will support nearly 150 central Missouri nonprofits A woman provided donations in 2021 to 99 organizations right before the cutoff on Dec. 31, he said. A couple years ago, a man had planned on giving $100 to one organization. That $100 became $1,000 when he instead selected 10 organizations to support after reading through the individual campaign pages, Baker said. "This is a way people can do significant charitable giving. They can really make a difference and really support the community," he said. A humble start The now-yearly campaign had slightly humble beginnings, while still managing to raise a significant sum for participants. "We had to scratch and cajole to get 30 participating organizations. We took in a grand total of $62,400," Baker said. Organizations do not necessarily have campaigns hosted by CoMoGives each year, but the program has seen upward of 235 nonprofits take part throughout the last 10 years. There are 17 first-time participants for 2022, Baker said. For organizations in their second year and beyond, information on their individual campaign pages lists how the money raised was used over the year. Story continues "We want (people) to know who you are giving to, why you are giving to them, why they are worth giving to and what they do with their money," Baker said. More: How Goldie's Bagels in Columbia went viral with fund to offer free bagels to those in need Participant organizations this year come from Boone, Cole, Callaway and Audrain counties. "Each community that is in the campaign needs to have a minimum of three organizations that indicate with that locality," Baker said, adding this means municipalities, not the county as a whole, so it includes Columbia, Jefferson City, Fulton and Mexico nonprofits. CoMoGives focuses its efforts on year-round social media campaigns promoting participant nonprofits. A mailer will go out close to this year's start date. "Now in the fall, we'll pick up with a more intense social media campaign," Baker said. "All posts direct people to learn about the organizations, what they do with the money and to be on the lookout for the beginning of the campaign." How nonprofits create a campaign Organizations that participate in CoMoGives are either 501(c)(3) nonprofits with status in good standing or other funds with connections to a governmental subdivision, such the City of Columbia or the University of Missouri. In early years, CoMoGives would reach out to organizations. Since the yearly event now is so well-known, nonprofits contact CoMoGives to join. More: Columbia Credit Union, Love Columbia kick off yearlong car-giveaway campaign Organizations are vetted when they call or email about joining, Baker said. "We get to know a little bit about what they do and have conversations with whoever the leader is that has been assigned to reach out," he said. Invitations to be part of that year's campaign are sent in April. The letter includes all the requirements to participate. If CoMoGives receives the $350 participation fee by the end of June, that organization is added to the list of participant nonprofits. This fee covers the website donation page, the ability to host peer-to-peer campaigns, notation in a mailer, accounting services, tax deduction letters and marketing training. More: Missouri River Relief gets boost in CoMoGives Campaign from Santa and Mrs. Claus For new or smaller participant nonprofits who may not have the monetary resources to pay the fee, CoMoGives has a 100% scholarship for the first year and a 50% scholarship for the second year, if necessary. "We figure that an organization that is in the campaign, they can hold back the participation fee for the following year from the proceeds from the previous year if they want to be in the campaign again," Baker said, adding each year is a net loss for the foundation, despite the fee collection. "We simply cannot charge a participation fee large enough, at this point, to find a way to monetize the campaign positively. We really do all of this as a community service." Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism. This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: CoMoGives marks 10-year anniversary of nonprofit fundraising MUNCIE, Ind. The Delaware County coroner's office is seeking the publics help in finding family members of two Muncie men who recently died. David Riddle, 62, died Sept. 24 at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, according to Delaware County Coroner Rick Howell. Robert Purvis, 67, died Sept. 28, also at the hospital. Anyone with information on either man's survivors is asked to call the coroner's office at 765-747-7724. A voice-mail message can be left if the call is made when the office is not staffed. Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Coroner seeks help in finding deceased Muncie men's families James Lastovic, best known for portraying Joey Johnson on Days of Our Lives, has been found after going missing while on vacation in Hawaii. Lastovic and roommate Nevin Dizdari were reported missing on Monday after they failed to return home to Los Angeles from their vacation. More from TVLine They were last seen Sunday at the Hanalei Bay Resort, where they asked their hostess about hiking prospects at Kokee State Park. They did not return to the hotel on Sunday night, nor were they on their flight back to Los Angeles on Monday. All of their suitcases were left at the resort. Then on Tuesday, some good news: My sister and James are okay, Dizdaris sister Emma posted to her Instagram story. They got lost on their hike but made it back to their car and are on their way back to the resort now. Thank you everyone for reposting and helping us reach Nevin. Lastovic played the role of Steve and Kaylas son Joey from 2015 to 2020. He also portrayed Christian on Netflixs Insatiable. Best of TVLine Get more from TVLine.com : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter Click here to read the full article. Kent Chatfield is nothing if not determined. For 19 years, the longtime local resident has researched Wilmington's 1898 coup and massacre, digging through archives and chasing down documents. Now, "McKinley's Guns," the first in a series of four planned film documentaries about the coup, its planning and its long-term effect on Wilmington, is ready for a public screening. The hour-long film actually premiered at Thalian Hall on Sept. 29, but Hurricane Ian washed out two planned screenings for Sept. 30. The final public screening of "McKinley's Guns" is 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, at Thalian Hall. In the film, Chatfield argues that the white supremacist coup, which left dozens of Blacks dead and is the only instance in U.S. history of the violent overthrow of a local government, had involvement from military officers and U.S. government officials at a higher level than has previously been revealed. "This wasn't just a mob," said Jared Smith, one of the film's researchers, at a private screening of the film on Oct. 2. That's not to say that "the bar owners and shop owners weren't involved," he added, but they weren't the ones driving the violence. Chatfield said his research took him to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where he pulled thousands of pages of century-old regimental histories of U.S. troop movements, "all of it in cursive. None of it's online." What he found, he said, points to involvement by Col. Joseph Franklin Armfield, who commanded a regiment of North Carolina Army troops and later rose to the rank of brigadier general, and by Fitzhugh Lee. Lee was a former Confederate general (and nephew of Robert E. Lee) who was governor of Virginia from 1886-1890 and later became a general in the U.S. Army and a diplomat appointed by President William McKinley. Chatfield said both Armfield and Lee conspired to have weapons and soldiers sent to Wilmington to participate in the coup, and that many of the so-called "Red Shirts" who terrorized the Black community in the days leading up to and during the massacre were active U.S. soldiers. Story continues It's a complex but compelling narrative that weaves in the Spanish-American War, a regiment of Black Army troops who were sent out of the state during the massacre and Wilmington's own Donald MacRae, father of Hugh MacRae, who Chatfield said allowed his fertilizer plant in Navassa to be used as base for the Red Shirts, who would cross the Cape Fear River to make their attacks. Previously, Chatfield has appeared in Wilmington filmmaker Christopher Everett's 1898 documentary "Wilmington on Fire," in which his wry, indignant insights about 1898, delivered in a pronounced Southern accent, played a starring role. He said "McKinley's Guns" will be available for streaming online starting Nov. 10, and that he and his filmmaking team are currently raising money to make the next three films in the series. Chatfield, who ran unsuccessfully for Wilmington City Council in 2003, has a long of battling authority. In 2002, he won a victory in court when a judge declared that Wilmington Housing Finance and Development is a public agency, and thus subject to the state's public records and open meetings laws. The case was later overturned on appeal. He's also run afoul of the law a number of time. Charges include marijuana possession in (he says police planted it in an attempt to discredit him as he battled the Wilmington Housing Authority) and assault with a deadly weapon in 2003 when police say Chatfield attacked a Burgaw police sergeant (Chatfield said all he did was witness a fight). But while his past may be checkered, Chatfield's interest-bordering-on-obsession with the events of 1898 feels genuine. With "McKinley's Guns," he said, he wants to get all the facts out there in the hope that information that has long been buried might lead to a clearer understanding of the past. Want to go? What: "McKinley's Guns," a documentary about Wilmington's 1898 coup and massacre, presented by Wind Tree Research and Crane House Films When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13 Where: Thalian Hall, 310 Chestnut St., Wilmington Info: Tickets are $21.40, taxes and fees included Details: 910-632-2285 or CraneHouseFilm.com Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com. This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: McKinley's Guns doc film points to U.S. military involvement in 1898 Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy. The superintendent of a school district in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 fourth-grade students and two teachers earlier this year, has announced his plans to retire. Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell -- along with other school officials and local law enforcement -- has faced intense scrutiny over the handling of the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School, one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Nearly 400 law enforcement officers rushed to the scene, but "egregiously poor decision-making" resulted in allowing the 18-year-old shooter to remain active inside a classroom for more than 70 minutes before he was finally confronted and killed, according to a damning investigative report released by Texas lawmakers in July Harrell's impending retirement was announced on Friday. In a statement posted on his wife's Facebook account on Sunday, Harrell said the decision was "not made lightly and was made after much prayer and discernment." "My heart was broken on May 24th," he added. MORE: Uvalde school district suspends entire police force, superintendent to retire amid fallout from shooting On Monday evening, after an hour and a half of closed-door deliberation, the school board confirmed their acceptance of Harrell's retirement and unanimously approved a motion to conduct a search for his replacement. Walsh Gallegos, an education-focused law firm with offices in Texas and New Mexico, will oversee the hiring process. Harrell has said he intends to stay on through the academic year until a new superintendent is named. A crowd of people gathered outside before the start of Monday's meeting to show their support for Harrell, with many holding up homemade signs, hugging him and cheering him on. Harrell has worked for the school district since he started as a special education teacher in 1992, eventually working his way up to Uvalde High School principal and then following in his father's footsteps in 2018 when he became superintendent. Story continues Families of some of the Robb Elementary School shooting victims spoke at Monday's meeting, telling the school board that they believe negligence and incompetence contributed to the massacre. They pleaded with Harrell directly to bring the tragedy-torn community together. They also expressed frustration at their fellow community members, saying they didn't receive as much support after the shooting as Harrell has this week. "I'm disgusted with this community," said a tearful Kimberly Rubio, the mother of 10-year-old student Lexi Rubio, who was among those killed. "We can't get people to care enough to come to the school board meetings, the city council meetings or anything else," said Brett Cross, the guardian of 10-year-old victim Uziyah Garcia. Cross had been staging a sit-in protest outside the school district's administration building until Friday MORE: Uvalde school district fires recently hired officer after learning she was under investigation for shooting response After voting on Harrell's retirement, school board members continued with other items on the agenda for Monday's meeting as dozens of people in the audience got up and left. "What happened to accountability?" one Uvalde resident said on their way out. "We're not getting none." Last week, the school district suspended its entire police force. Some officers employed with the police department were placed on leave, while others were reassigned. The school district also fired a recently hired officer who had been a Texas state trooper on the scene at Robb Elementary School when the shooting took place and was under internal investigation for her actions that day. Emotions run high at Uvalde school board meeting amid superintendent's retirement originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Californias summer crops are shriveling amid ongoing drought conditions, putting pressure on grocery prices across the U.S. Without rain or snow in central California and limited water supplies from the Colorado River, tomatoes and onions have wilted, while leafy greens grown in the winter face a dicey future, according to Reuters. Theres just not enough water to grow everything that we normally grow, Don Cameron, president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, told the outlet. Reuters reported that one Fresno County farmer planted just 25 percent of his 2,000 acres and harvested tomatoes two weeks early to minimize drought damage. I dont think farming in California has ever been more complex and more challenging, and the drought is a large part of that, the farmer said. While California produces nearly a third of the worlds processing tomatoes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its 2022 forecast down 10 percent from its previous estimates, Reuters reported. With fewer tomatoes and onions and garlic available, farmers were able to negotiate higher prices, which had led to increases to both produce processes and consumers downstream, according to Reuters. The onions and garlic have already been negotiated for 2023, with another 25 percent increase in price, Cameron told the outlet. Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Were Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. Subscribe here. Today well start by exploring how a decision by some of the worlds largest oil producers to cut production has left Democrats quivering ahead of the midterms. Then well see why global demand for biofuels poses a threat to food supplies. OPEC cuts leave Democrats vulnerable With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, a move by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to slash oil production has become a troublesome thorn in President Bidens side. Story continues What happened with OPEC? Last week, the OPEC+ coalition of 13 member nations and 11 non-members including Russia declared it would reduce oil production by 2 million barrels. This decision raised concerns that U.S. gasoline prices could soar, creating challenges for Democrats just a month ahead of the midterm elections, our colleague Rachel Frazin reported. Spotlight on an awkward visit: The OPEC decision, shepherded by Saudi Arabia, has set off a fresh tirade of criticism about Bidens visit to the Kingdom this July, The Washington Post reported. That visit had been touted as a chance to improve the U.S.-Saudi relationship, with hopes of convincing the kingdom to increase oil production. But Biden stressed last week that the cartels decision didnt undermined the purpose of his July visit, which he described as not essentially for oil. Going too far: I think America really shamed itself by doing that, Hossein Askari, of George Washington University, told CNN, referring to Bidens July appeal to Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known by his initials MBS. Of course, MBS did not respond positively, Askari continued. But now he, in fact, has gone over the top. He has agreed within OPEC and of course hes the main spokesman in OPEC with Russia that they will cut back. Bad news for Democrats: While fuel prices are part of a global marketplace and are mostly outside the presidents control, Republicans will likely use the situation to appeal to voters who are fed up with high costs, Frazin reported for The Hill. Analysts said theres little the administration can do to solve the problem between now and early November. Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, said he expected prices would be too high for the administrations liking. What can the US do? Askari suggested that the U.S. be much tougher with Saudi Arabia, stressing that America has bent over backward to accommodate them in every way, according to CNN. Some people think that OPEC decisions are purely economic, Askari told CNN. Some people think purely political. It has always been both, especially for Saudi Arabia. Oil cuts for weapon cuts: Two Democratic lawmakers have proposed halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia in response to oil production cuts from OPEC. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called on Congress to slash sales to Saudi Arabia until it reverses its embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an op-ed on Sunday for Politico. In order to fortify U.S. national security, the lawmakers stressed the need to pause all U.S. military supplies, sales and other weapons aid to Saudi Arabia. Financial implications: Also on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the OPEC decision could hurt the global economy and that developing countries could especially struggle. I think OPECs decision is unhelpful and unwise its uncertain what impact it will end up having, but certainly, its something that, to me, did not seem appropriate, under the circumstances we face, Yellen told the Financial Times. Were very worried about developing countries and the problems they face, she added. Biofuel demand ups food prices, political risk Rising demand for plant-based fuels are driving up food prices around the world, leading to political risks for nations from Indonesia to the United States. A combination of corporate interest in renewable fuels and Western government subsidy programs is pulling in food crops. These crops from sugar to soybeans are being used to make products ranging from ethanol to sustainable aviation fuel. Global price increases arent yet critical, but in regions like southeast Asia, rising prices at markets and restaurants are starting to become a political problem, according to commodities strategist Walter Kunisch. Food prices throughout Southeast Asia both at home and at restaurants have gone up sharply, Kunisch, of consultancy Hilltop Securities, told Equilibrium. That food fuel issue really has the ability to impact greater slices of the global population, he said. Interest in renewables: Both the EU and the U.S. are positioning plant-based fuels as major components of their renewable energy programs and the market is responding by building new plants and buying up new feedstocks. The Biden administrations signature climate spending package contains $500 million to fund higher proportions of ethanol in U.S. gasoline, Time magazine reported. The package also continues several subsidies in the ethanol-supporting U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, which had been set to expire, according to S&P Global. California is a dramatic case: The Golden States Low Carbon Fuel Standard has helped drive a wave of investment to convert fossil fuel refineries into biofuel refineries, Kunisch told Equilibrium. For example, oil refining company Phillips 66 announced in 2020 plans to convert a San Francisco oil refinery to produce biodiesels. Before the Biden climate package, several oil refiners outside California were considering doing the same but avoided such conversions because the grains needed as feedstocks were so expensive, the Houston Chronicle reported. But the new and continued federal subsidies in addition to a growing corporate embrace of ethanol as a climate solution helps to shift the calculus back in favor biofuels. ETHANOL DEPENDENCE MEANS LONG-TERM RISKS Whether ethanol is truly beneficial to the climate remains a subject of ongoing dispute. Meanwhile, the fuel contains only about two-thirds as much energy per gallon as gasoline, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Home-front benefits: What ethanol production does do very effectively, however, is keep the U.S. corn sector afloat, Kunisch said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that ethanol production will gobble up more than a third of the countrys corn production in 2022 and 2023, Ethanol Producer Magazine reported. Ethanol production has been increasing steadily for decades, according to the Energy Information Administration. Long-term liability: That dependence on ethanol puts farmers in a serious long-term bind because internal combustion engine cars are going away, Kunisch said. The U.S. government is aiming to have half of new cars be electric by 2030, based on targets put forward by the Biden administration. States like California and New York have passed laws banning sales of new gas-powered cars in their states by 2035, as we previously reported. An unseen risk: This threatens to drop the bottom out of the ethanol market within the next decade or so something farm country isnt prepared for, Kunisch said. Thats going to be a real shock to us, he added. And honestly, I dont think anybodys talking about that right now. Start now to avoid next COVID-19: scientists Meeting the growing risk of emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19 requires a more comprehensive and hands-on view of public health, according to a global team of public health researchers. Staying vigilant: COVID-19 is unlikely to be the worlds last serious pandemic particularly if we do not prepare, the researchers argue in a new essay in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Zoonotic diseases like SARS-CoV-2 are diseases present in wild animals that make their way to humans, often with a stopover in domestic animals. Human population growth and expansion of settlements and livestock into wildlands which harbor wild viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are making these risks worse. Avoiding the next pandemic: The researchers identified three urgent targets to help head off or at least mitigate the next pandemic: Guard the gates: The scientists urged smart surveillance of domestic populations that live near wild ones, which can be critical interfaces between humans and wild diseases. Conduct proactive research: Research into coronavirus vaccines was notoriously underfunded before the COVID-19 pandemic. To avoid a repeat of this situation, the researchers urged public health officials to monitor emerging disease threats and develop vaccines and treatments early. Reduce risks: Finally, the researchers pressed public health officials to identify the drivers that cause spillover disease like human conversion of forests to farmland or the transport of live wildlife from forests into cities. Taking steps to reduce these drivers before the next big one is difficult but will ultimately save money and lives, they argued. Modification Monday: Animal edition Climate change pushes primates to forest floors, unlikely animals come together and frogs find thrive in new habitats. Human-caused climate change pushes primates from trees Climate change and deforestation is pushing tree-dwelling primates to the ground, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). While some species may thrive in their new terrestrial lifestyles, less versatile animals will require urgent conservation strategies to ensure their survival, an expert from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said in a statement. The mysterious world of animal hybrids While some animal hybrids like mules are well-known, interbreeding occurs in species from corals to cats to birds and butterflies, according to a National Geographic explainer. Analyzing their genetics could help unravel evolutionary mysteries: When you have two species whose genomes have undergone independent evolution for hundreds of thousands of years, and then you bring them back together, one expert told National Geographic, you get to understand what works and what doesnt. A housing plan to stop frog decline Amphibian population declines can be reversed by engineering new habitats, a second study in PNAS has found. Researchers built artificial habitats for amphibians and found that over two decades, their new pools teemed with life even as populations around the world declined. Please visit The Hills Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. Well see you tomorrow. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The filibuster is a term used frequently by people in Washington, but few Americans understand it, at least according to recent polling. The procedural tactic has been used by Democrats and Republicans at key moments in modern U.S. history to prevent legislation from being considered in the Senate. In popular culture, the most famous example of a filibuster came from Hollywood, when fictional Sen. Jefferson Smith, played by Jimmy Stewart, staged one in the 1939 film, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." That was the traditional filibuster, in which a senator monopolizes the floor for as long as he or she can talk while standing. A sympathetic Senate colleague might give the filibustering senator some relief by asking the senator to pause for a question, enabling the filibusterer to make a quick run to the bathroom. Sen. Huey P. Long of Louisiana filibustered several times in the 1930s over economic matters, and Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina famously staged one for 24 hours and 18 minutes still the record against civil rights legislation in 1957. The filibuster is grounded in the tradition of unlimited debate, the basis of the U.S. Senate's claim to being "the world's greatest deliberative body." Its defenders note that the ability to talk at length is designed to protect minorities from potential overreach of the majority, or to at least slow down consideration of sweeping legislation. It could ostensibly also give parties time to forge a compromise, though the most prominent recent example of this is probably also fictional from the second season of "The West Wing" (it has a terrific explanation of the filibuster). In this Aug. 29, 1957, file photo, Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., waves as he leaves the Senate chamber at end of his 24 hour, 18 minute filibuster against the Civil rights Act. / Credit: / AP Trying to cut off unlimited debate was a real issue back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At different times, senators sought to prolong debate indefinitely over establishing a national bank, or ratifying treaties, or, perhaps most famously, over civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s in order to prevent those measures from becoming law. In 1917, frustrated by the extended debate of several issues, senators took steps to stop filibusters by passing a rule allowing two-thirds of members to invoke "cloture," which would bring an end to debate and allow a bill to receive a Senate vote. But frustrations persisted because it was so difficult to get that many senators to agree to end debate, so in 1972, senators voted again to lower the threshold to three-fifths of all senators 60 out of 100. That's why there's so much talk about a "super majority" and the need to secure 60 votes to pass certain pieces of legislation and why in the modern era, having 50 senators plus the vice president's tie-breaking vote as Democrats currently do isn't nearly enough to achieve certain legislative goals. The rise of the silent filibuster You won't see much actual filibustering on the Senate floor anymore, thanks to a 1972 rule instituted by the Senate that made filibustering far easier: the two-track system. This enabled senators to filibuster while considering other legislation, ushering in what's known as the "silent" filibuster. Instead of talking on the floor for hours on end, a senator may stop a bill from being considered merely by notifying Senate leaders that he or she intends to block a vote with the support of at least 40 other senators. That rule remains in effect today. In more recent times, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas held the Senate floor for hours at a time in opposition to budget legislation, but it was not considered a formal filibuster, since he didn't have the support to stop the bill from passing eventually. And in 2013, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and others held the floor for a day over concerns over the use of unmanned aerial drones. Can a filibuster be used to block presidential nominees? Not anymore. A series of rules changes adopted in the 2010s allow a simple majority of senators to end debate on legislative and judicial nominees. That takes much of the political drama out of fights over Cabinet or U.S. Supreme Court nominees if the party that controls the White House also controls the Senate. What happens when the White House and Senate are controlled by different parties? Ask Attorney General Merrick Garland. After the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Feb. 2016, Garland, then the chief judge on the D.C. Court of Appeals, was nominated to the Supreme Court by Democratic President Barack Obama. At the time, the Senate was controlled by Republicans, and GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell was majority leader. He never allowed Garland to receive a confirmation vote, arguing at the time that the American people should weigh in on the next Supreme Court justice. The seat remained open until then-President Donald Trump selected Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy. Who supports a filibuster? Who doesn't? Most Democrats say they'd end it, as a general matter, according to a CBS News poll from Jan. 2022. Two-thirds of Republicans say they'd keep it. But the partisan split appears strongly connected to more immediate policy concerns. Of the Democrats who feel it's very important to pass a federal voting rights bill, an even higher portion, seven in 10, would generally end the filibuster. That, of course, is the measure over which some Democratic leaders have discussed ending it. President Joe Biden has called on the Senate to make an exception to its filibuster rules to allow Congress to codify abortion protections and privacy rights previously afforded under Roe v. Wade. In March, he voiced his support for temporarily changing Senate rules to allow a simple majority to pass the bill, something he generally opposes. "The most important thing to be clear about is, we have to change I believe we codify Roe v. Wade in the law, and the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that," Mr. Biden told reporters at a news conference at the NATO conference in Madrid. "And if the filibuster gets in the way, it's like voting rights, it should be we provide an exception for this. We require an exception to the filibuster for this action." But there appear not to be enough votes in the Senate to allow for such a rule exception. Do most Americans even know what a filibuster is? Well, it isn't exactly on every American's mind: Our January poll found a third of Americans haven't heard enough about it to say whether it should be kept or ended. That shouldn't be surprising, since outside of the most politically engaged, most Americans don't closely follow Senate procedure. Younger people under 30 are the most likely to have not heard enough about it to offer an opinion; older Americans mainly have, the poll found. By the way, where does the word filibuster come from? According to the Senate Historian's Office, the term began appearing in American legislative debates in the 1850s. It's derived from the Dutch word for "freebooter" and the Spanish word "filibusteros," pirates who raided Caribbean islands. The historian notes one early usage of the term by Mississippi Senator Albert Brown, in 1853, who observed "my friend standing on the other side of the House filibustering." Exclusive discounts from CBS Mornings Deals on items designed to save time and money Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and pediatrician Dr. Scott Cohen discuss new podcast Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and pediatrician offer parenting advice Liz Truss. Illustrated | Getty Images British Prime Minister Liz Truss has had a whirlwind of a start to her term. Elected by her Conservative Party, not in a general election, Truss' economic proposals quickly sent British markets reeling, but her climate policy has also attracted controversy and drawn out a number of eco-protesters. At a time when Europe is facing an energy crisis and just ended its hottest summer on record, taking climate action has become a top priority both for Europe and the world. Here's everything you need to know about Liz Truss' controversial climate policy: What is Truss' platform on climate? Even before Truss assumed the position of prime minister, she wasn't exactly known as an environmentalist. She pledged during her leadership campaign to move the U.K. closer to United Nations net-zero carbon emission goals by 2050, but other pieces of her platform are contradictory. Many of her policies encourage the use of fossil fuels and make it difficult to expand renewable sources of energy. For example, Truss has pledged to suspend the U.K.'s "green levy," which is a system where a portion of people's energy bills go to fund green energy projects, BBC News reports. The charges currently make up about 8 percent of a typical energy bill, and Truss says suspending the tax would reduce energy bills as gas and oil prices soar due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and OPEC+ production cuts. Many experts counter that that green projects can curb the cost of energy and that just removing the levy would not decrease bills by much. Drill, Britain, drill? Truss also lifted a 2019 moratorium on fracking. In her first speech as prime minister, she said lifting the ban "could get gas flowing in as soon as six months, where there is local support." Lifting the ban was controversial in Britain, where polls show that only about 27 percent of the public supports fracking, CNBC reports. During a speech about how her policies will encourage growth, Truss was interrupted by two members of Greenpeace, an environmental nonprofit, holding a sign saying reading, "Who voted for this?" Truss had security escort them out and then called them part of the "anti-growth coalition," Politico reports. Story continues Truss has also announced new North Sea oil and gas licenses, pitching the future increase of domestic production as a way to "reduce reliance on authoritarian regimes." The U.K.'s National Grid has warned of potential rolling blackouts if Britain runs short on gas this winter. Truss has also sparked concern with her Cabinet picks. Despite saying she will aid in the net-zero goal by 2050, her two main Cabinet picks that would be working on that goal are vocal climate change skeptics. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, has advocated for extracting "every last drop" of North Sea oil and has voiced his doubts about climate science. Ranil Jayawardena, the environment secretary, has dismissed the idea of more solar farms in the countryside. He has noted the potential for wind energy, but neither he, Truss, or Rees-Mogg have jumped at the opportunity to expand it, BBC News reports. How do her policies compare to other countries? Overall, Western Europe has seen quite a rightward shift in leadership, and several major countries have similarly eased their ambitious climate goals. Italy elected far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, for example, and the Sweden Democrats, a party based on neo-fascist roots, placed second in September elections. France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen came within striking distance of unseating President Emmanuel Macron. With conservative leaders come conservative climate policies. An analysis done by the Italian Climate Network found that Meloni's administration scored low in moving away from fossil fuels and environmentalist ambition, for example. Meloni and her party, Brothers of Italy also with neo-fascist roots have proposed increasing domestic natural gas production, and renewables are absent in their agenda. The Sweden Democrats have promised to cut gas prices and call the Swedish emissions targets too ambitious, Politico notes. France's Macron, on the other hand, has been a climate advocate. In last week's inaugural European Political Community meeting in Prague, Macron openly dismissed the construction of the giant MidCat pipeline, a proposed conduit that would bring gas from Spain to Germany and the rest of Europe. He also opened France's first offshore wind farm amid the energy crisis. What does Truss' climate shift mean for Britain? Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Truss' Conservative predecessor, set tough climate goals after having a change of heart. He talked enthusiastically about the economic opportunities of clean energy at COP26, even though Britain's Conservatives were already eyeing a new leader. Johnson left behind a lot of unfinished climate business that will languish under Truss' leadership, Politico explains. Truss never hid skepticism about the net-zero pledge even as she campaigned on pushing toward that goal. And she hasn't been ambitious about keeping the pledge. Instead, there has also been confusion as to who will attend the COP27 Summit in Egypt this November. King Charles III had been set to attend the climate conference before his accession to the throne, but Truss quickly advised him to cancel his plans. The new king has been a long-standing environmental activist and made a speech at COP26 last year in Glasgow. Instead, Truss herself and climate skeptic Rees-Mogg will reportedly attend the summit, The Guardian reports. "There was a broad sense that we were reflecting [at COP26] the kind of country we want ourselves to be," says Alok Sharma, the Tory Cabinet minister who served as president of last year's COP26 summit. "This government is now betraying all of that." You may also like Did Trump's 'death wish' comment toward McConnell go too far? Russia's use of scarce missiles to slam Ukrainian civilians baffles Western analysts, thrills hardliners Beer can thrown at comedian after she's asked if she 'voted for Biden' A Florosa man who was being held in a Seneca County, Ohio, jail on an Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office warrant is now back in Florida. Chad Long, 46, of Florosa was recently booked into the Okaloosa County Jail in Crestview and is facing charges of manslaughter/negligent homicide in connection with an overdose death of a woman in Mary Esther. An Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office investigation began when deputies were called to a Reynolds Circle home on Aug. 26, 2021, for a medical emergency. Deputies found a 42-year-old woman deceased in an apartment shed in the backyard. Sentencing: Man who supplied Okaloosa drug trafficking group with meth, heroin gets 10-year sentence Investigators learned the victim and another man had gone earlier to Long's nearby home on Woodland Avenue to buy what they believed to be heroin, then went back to the shed to snort it. The man woke to find the woman was not breathing. The Medical Examiner's Office determined she died from the toxic effects of narcotics, including fentanyl. Investigators found evidence that established narcotics transactions between Long and the victim. They say Long's unlawful distribution of controlled substances, namely fentanyl, resulted in her death. Long was denied bond and is awaiting a court hearing. This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Florosa man charged with manslaughter in 2021 overdose death of woman Even deer can't outrun toxic "forever chemicals. Whether youre heading into the woods this fall in pursuit of one, or a lover of the forest that deer inhabit, that's probably worth knowing. Certainly wildlife managers in several states are taking notice. Elevated levels of the ever-present chemicals known technically as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have turned up in deer harvested in several states, prompting localized do not eat health advisories, according to an Associated Press report. The human-made chemicals, which do not break down over time, are often found in water and soil and can be absorbed by plants eaten by deer. They are also used in cookware, food packaging, firefighting foam and other manufactured products. At high concentrations, they have been linked to cancers and other health problems. PFAS research: URI center that studies 'forever chemicals' awarded five-year grant Other states have issued advisories about eating deer In Maine, where hunting and fishing are important drivers of the economy, the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife issued a do not eat advisory last year for deer harvested in about a 200-square mile area around Fairfield, north of Waterville. The source of the PFAS contamination there is thought to be sludge from area papermills which had been spread as fertilizer on several Fairfield fields as far back as the 1970s, Nate Webb, wildlife division director at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said in an interview with The Journal. Deer subsequently foraged in those fields. Five of eight deer from the area harvested by hunters and tested had concerning elevated levels of PFAS. The health advisory generated a lot of concern from hunters in that area and across the state, Webb said. So, it is definitely a pretty high-profile topic again as the annual deer hunting season is under way. New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan have also issued advisories about eating deer liver or other deer organs after similar tests detected elevated levels of the chemicals. Story continues RI does not currently test deer for PFAS In Rhode Island, PFAS testing is focused and expanding on identifying sources of contamination in ground and surface waters, and setting standards for the ubiquitous chemicals found everywhere including in most humans. The state does not currently test for PFAS in deer, Mike Healey, spokesman for Rhode Islands Department of Environmental Management, said in an email. Healey noted that in Maine, the fields around Fairfield were known to have high levels of PFAS, thus helping to identify an area of deer habitat worthy of testing. In Rhode Island the state Health Department and the DEM share oversight of PFAS testing and both agencies would need to agree to a new policy of testing deer for PFAS. Healey, however, shared the same potential economic and environmental concerns raised by Maine sportsmen and biologists if sometime in the future a similar discovery of elevated levels of forever chemicals were found in Rhode Island's deer population. Managing the deer population As hunting is the most effective way to manage deer populations, a health advisory like the one issued in Maine could make managing deer and other species far more difficult, said Healey. Hunters might opt out of the annual harvests, Healey said, leading to more deer over-population, an increase in car/deer collisions (each year about 1,000 in Rhode Island, 1,163 in 2020) and destruction of forest habitat from over grazing. And the loss of hunting-generated income "would be profound." Former State Police Supt. James Manni, an avid deer hunter, says he's concerned about forever chemicals now appearing in wild game. "One of the main reasons people hunt for and eat venison is because its organic and the deer arent fed chemicals or antibiotics," he said. "Its alarming to me that these very harmful substances, typically associated with factory made goods, are showing up in the wild. Rainer Lohmann is an oceanography professor at the University of Rhode Island who also codirects a science partnership with URI, Harvard and the Silent Spring Institute that studies PFAS. Lohmann says finding forever chemicals in Rhode Island deer would not be a major surprise. The question, he said, would be at what level? And whether an advisory is needed. Given that PFAS are in a lot of items, this gets tricky fast. Email Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI's DEM doesn't test for PFAS in deer, but has been found in ME. NH PROVIDENCE Gov. Dan McKee on Tuesday voluntarily made public his state and federal tax returns, and he called on his Republican challenger Ashley Kalus to do the same. In April, both sent word they had filed for extensions, but their spokesmen indicated they would make their tax filings public when they were filed. According to the filings that McKee, 71, made public on Tuesday, he and his wife, Susan, paid $30,068 in federal income taxes, and $8,085 in state income taxes to Rhode Island on their $203,508 adjusted gross income. Their 2021 income included her $56,511 pension as a retired public school reading teacher, and $41,808 in Social Security benefits. No law requires any political candidate in Rhode Island to make their tax returns public, but the majority of top office candidates have done so in recent years. Most of their filings are reflections of salaried government employees who at top echelons in Rhode Island often make less than the career state employees around them. In some cases, they are revealing, however, like former Gov. Gina Raimondo's disclosures, which detailed income from her blind trust holdings in Point Judith Capital during years when the state was locked into its own investment in her former venture capital company. When asked why McKee was willing to make his own family's returns public, spokeswoman Andrea Palagi said: "The Governor believes its in the publics interest to release this information." The McKees' returns reveal little new about their life. But Kalus is a relatively new arrival to Rhode Island. On her financial disclosure filings with the state Ethics Commission earlier this year, she indicated that Doctors Test Centers - the entity created by her plastic surgeon husband, that had the state contract for a Covid testing and vaccination site - paid her between $500,001 and $1 million in 2021. Political Scene: McKee, Kalus duking it out in public and in private over testing contract Story continues The filing did not provide a full picture. It is unclear, for example, to which state Kalus and her husband - Jeffrey Weinzweig - paid their resident tax returns in 2021, whether it was Florida where Kalus was registered to vote until shortly before declaring her run for governor or Illinois, where she had a "homestead exemption" on a home. A Kalus spokesman told The Journal on April 19 that: "Ashley had to file for an extension, but will release her returns upon completion." With the Oct. 17 tax filing deadline for people who sought extensions now less than a week away, there was no immediate response on Tuesday from the Kalus campaign on when she intends to make good on that pledge. Previous coverage: Questions swirl amid Ashley Kalus and Gov. Dan McKee's still-unreleased tax returns Noting that McKee has made his returns public since he last faced voters in 2018, his campaign spokesman Alana O'Hare said recently: "We hope Ashley Kalus will also release at least three years of tax returns as well." This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Gov. McKee releases tax returns, upping pressure on Kalus to do same Earlier this year, Greta Thunberg strongly opposed including nuclear power on the European Unions list of approved forms of green energy as the bloc looked to decarbonize its economy. But as the war in Ukraine spurs historic energy shortages across Europe, the Swedish teenage activist said this week its better to keep reactors going rather than turn to coal-fired power plants. Personally, I think its a very bad idea to focus on coal when this is already in place, Thunberg said. Before calling it a very infected debate, Thunberg told 19-year-old German talk-show host Sandra Maischberger: If we have them already running, I feel its a mistake to close them down in order to focus on coal. Ahead of the interviews Wednesday night air date on the broadcaster ARD, an English-language clip began to circulate online Tuesday, Are the #nuclear power plants the better choice for the time being now? @GretaThunberg: If we have them already running, I feel that it's a mistake to close them down in order to focus on coal. Watch the full interview on Wednesday evening on #maischberger! ARD/@DasErstepic.twitter.com/0ds39dNVqo Maischberger (@maischberger) October 11, 2022 Germany began rapidly shutting down its nuclear fleet after the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan. While Europes largest economy deployed large numbers of renewables, the country became heavily dependent on natural gas from Russia to provide heat and backup electricity when solar and wind power underperformed. Once Russias invasion of Ukraine disrupted that supply, Germany started facing severe energy shortages, crippling its industrial sector and sending utility bills skyrocketing. Story continues Opposition to nuclear energy has cut across ideological lines in Germany. The Energiewende transition from atomic power began under conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her successor, Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democratic Party member, expected to continue that trajectory, particularly since his ruling coalition includes the fiercely anti-nuclear Green Party. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who serves as economy minister and oversees energy policy, is from the Green Party. Many countries that turned against nuclear power after Fukushima have recently reversed course amid soaring energy costs and concerns over the grip autocratic countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China have over the supply chains for fossil fuels and renewables. Japan vowed to restart its mothballed nuclear reactors. South Korea elected a new conservative president who pledged to undo his liberal predecessors efforts to shrink the countrys nuclear industry. Last month, California lawmakers voted to keep the states last nuclear plant open through the decades end. An aerial view shows steam rising from the Isar nuclear power plant, which includes the Isar 2 reactor, on August 14, 2022 in Essenbach, Germany. Isar 2 is one of the last three still operating nuclear power plants in Germany and all three are scheduled to shut down by the end of this year. However, due to the disruption in energy imports from Russia, politicians and other actors are debating extending the operational life of the plants. Some are advocating an extension until the middle of 2023, while others are pushing for longer. Approximately 80% of people polled among the general public support some kind of extension. (Photo: Alexandra Beier via Getty Images) An aerial view shows steam rising from the Isar nuclear power plant, which includes the Isar 2 reactor, on August 14, 2022 in Essenbach, Germany. Isar 2 is one of the last three still operating nuclear power plants in Germany and all three are scheduled to shut down by the end of this year. However, due to the disruption in energy imports from Russia, politicians and other actors are debating extending the operational life of the plants. Some are advocating an extension until the middle of 2023, while others are pushing for longer. Approximately 80% of people polled among the general public support some kind of extension. (Photo: Alexandra Beier via Getty Images) Despite three high-profile disasters over the past eight decades, nuclear energy remains the most efficient source of electricity production ever harnessed by humans among the safest, producing vast sums of 24/7 power without carbon emissions. Supporters of atomic energy say reactors are unfairly conflated with nuclear weapons, and argue that fear of radiation accidents are disproportionate to the benefits nuclear reactors provide and the harm other energy sources, particularly fossil fuels, cause. Opponents have long said the risks of an accident are too great and cast the relatively small volumes of radioactive waste produced from reactors as a crisis with no clear solution. Mirroring Germanys retreat from nuclear power, Belgium shut down its first reactor last month, despite calls to extend its operation through the current crisis. While most Germans polled over the summer supported keeping their countrys last three nuclear plants open, voters in Lower Saxony delivered Scholzs party a decisive win this week in a regional election widely seen as a referendum on the national governments handling of the crisis. Like at the national level, the victorious Social Democrats will likely form a coalition with the Greens. The German parliament will be forced to debate keeping nuclear plants open if a petition currently circulating generates 50,000 signatures worldwide in the next three days. If things continue to worsen, however, the Lower Saxony election also offered a dark harbinger: Germanys far-right party doubled its share of the vote. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Getty Images Japanese PM Fumio Kishida backed the Bank of Japan's loose monetary policy despite the yen sliding to a two-decade low against the US dollar. He told the Financial Times the BOJ needs to maintain its policy until wages for workers increase. "At the moment, I am not thinking of shortening his term," Kishida said about BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's tenure. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday said he supports the Bank of Japan's loose monetary policy stance despite the yen sliding to a two-decade low against the US dollar. He said the BOJ needs to maintain its policy until wages increase and urged companies that have raised prices to raise pay for workers pay as well. "By passing on rising prices, we hope businesses will have some latitude to raise wages," Kishida told the publication. "In the past, wage hikes were viewed as a cost factor, but going forward, companies need to invest in people for the economy and for businesses themselves to grow." He said the government will prepare measures to help companies increase wages even as they pass on increasing input costs. While most central banks are raising interest rates to combat high inflation, the Bank of Japan has kept interest rates in negative territory and has maintained a cap on its 10-year bond yield via bond purchases to fight deflation. Economists now say that after years of on-and-off deflation, Japan could be at a historic inflection point as the global energy crisis prompts businesses to raise product prices, creating pressures that will lead workers to demand pay raises, according to the FT. Kishida also dismissed speculation he would push for the central bank to halt negative interest rates or cut short BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's tenure, saying he will continue to work closely with Kuroda. "At the moment, I am not thinking of shortening his term," Kishida said. Kuroda's 10-year tenure will end in April 2023. Story continues Kishida's comments come as the yen dropped to a 24-year year low against the dollar earlier this year in part because the Federal Reserve's aggressive pace of rate hikes has sent US Treasury yields soaring, widening the differential between US and Japanese government bond yields. The dollar on Tuesday traded at 145.65 yen. Japan recently intervened in the foreign exchange market to aid the slumping yen but its value is back at the 145 handle, where it was before the intervention. Japan's foreign currency reserves hit a five-year low of $1.24 trillion, due in part to the intervention. The US 10-year Treasury yield hit 4% on Tuesday while Japan's 10-year bond yield hovered around its cap of 0.25%. Separately on Tuesday, Japan's 10-year bonds were untraded for a third consecutive session, while nine-year bond yields hit a nine-year high. Bond yields and prices move inversely. "Japan's 10-year bonds have gotten expensive because yields on other notes have risen. No one is interested in trading such bonds," Kazuhiko Sano, chief strategist at Tokai Tokyo Securities, told Yahoo Finance. Read the original article on Business Insider The designer of the future is a technological artisan with a scientific mind, according to Enrique Silla, president of Jeanologia, a Spain-based sustainable textiles solution firm that contributed to promoting the inauguration of the Future of Fashion international congress for the World Design Capital event held in Valencia, Spain, on Oct. 5 and 6. Jeanologia, whose mission is to create an ethical, sustainable and eco-efficient textile industry, is taking part in ushering in a new era through sustainability, digitalization and automation. To that end, Silla said that the future of fashion and design is to align beauty and the planet. More from WWD Silla emphasized that the aligning of technology with the spirit and soul of an artisan in fashion will lead the industry forward, and noted that futuristic tools such as robots, tablets, nanobubbles and lasers will replace traditional means for design such as water, canvas and even scissors in fashion design and production. In promoting sustainability, particularly for denim, Silla said that design is not only form and function, but it is also the planet, and encouraged designers to incorporate non-polluting products and procedures into design processes. Jeanologias Research Innovation Lab. The firms technologies allow for 100 percent of waste to be eliminated from jean production, from the fabric to the final garment, minimizing the use of water, energy and chemical products, they noted. Representatives of the Swedish Embassy in Spain and companies such as H&M and Ikea visited Jeanologias facilities to learn about the firms technologies and methods for promoting sustainability and efficiency throughout the textile industry. Jeanologia said that Future of Fashion is a milestone in the official program of World Design Capital Valencia 2022, which, for the first time, brought together national and international educational institutions and members of the industry. The congress offered activities, talks and workshops on the future of the fashion industry, based on six themes: raw materials; design; supply chain; production; consumption and waste; and emissions and biodiversity, all according to Jeanologia. Story continues The congress features participants such as Christiane Dolva and Maria Bystedt, from the H&M Foundation; Christopher Raeburn, an award-winning British designer; Alice Bah Kuhnke, member of the European Parliament; professors from Glasgow and the London School of Fashion, and Fernando Cardona, head of BrainBox at Jeanologia, among others. MORE BUSINESS NEWS FROM WWD: Astronaut Karen Nyberg Launches Earth Views Fabric Line Evrnu Develops Recyclable Material Made Entirely of Textile Waste Citizens of Humanity, Net-a-porter Partner for Denim Collaboration Click here to read the full article. Iconic California architect John Lautner is widely celebrated for his midcentury masterpieces in the Hollywood Hills. Now, his acclaimed Bergren Residence is up for grabs. Built in 1953 for Big Band guitarist Ted Bergren, the two-bedroom modernist gem sits just above Runyon Canyon and has gone through a series of remodels since its conception nearly 70 years agoonce by Lautner himself and most recently, by LA-based firm Escher GuneWardena. Overlooking the San Fernando Valley, the angular abode still remains faithful to Lautners original design despite its reimagining. Think a V-shaped roof, concrete floors, large glass windows and wood-beamed ceilingsall features the architect picked up as an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. More from Robb Report Ive always been a fan of good architecture, like [Richard] Neutra and Lautner, seller Hiram Banks tells Mansion Global. I worked with the architects who actually wrote the book on Lautner and did the archives at the Getty Center on Lautner. They took it back to what it was, because a lot of things have been done over the years that were not good to the house. A home in the Hollywood Hills designed by John Lautner just listed for $2.9 million In its former state, the Bergren Residence was designed as a bachelor pad. Lautner later expanded the home and added an extra bedroom and bathroom per Bergrens request. Today, it spans 1,582 square feet and the layout has been modernized by way of open-concept living and dining areas. Elsewhere, the Poliform kitchen was once overhauled by Norman Foster. However, Banks chose to keep the stainless steel-clad space for its minimalist appeal. The Bergren Residence has gone through many renovations and features a new stainless steel kitchen A few of the updates Banks oversaw during the recent GuneWardena reno included transforming a planter box on the side of the house into a contemporary water feature. In addition, the firm also revealed the original concrete flooring, replaced the roof and added new appliances and lighting. Story continues Everyone loves midcentury modern architecture, but its not always the most functional, listing agent Anthony Mian of Douglas Elliman tells Mansion Global. I think the fact that this is a single level and actually has an open floor plan, actually could be lived in functionally, mixed with the fact that its an original John Lautner house is really what sets it apart. The price to buy into one of the architects most iconic residential projects? A cool $2.9 million. Click here to see all photos of John Lautners Bergren Residence. Bergren Residence Best of Robb Report Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Last Film Show (Chhello Show) Indias contender in the Oscars international feature category, will release across India on Oct. 14. Cashing in on the fact that it is in contention at the 95th Oscars, the distributors Roy Kapur Films in partnership with PVR are pricing previews on Oct. 13 across 95 Indian cinemas at INR95 ($1.16). More from Variety The partly autobiographical drama takes director Pan Nalin back to his roots in Saurashtra, Gujarat, western India, where Last Film Show was filmed. The story is set against the backdrop of Indian cinemas witnessing a massive transition from celluloid to digital where hundreds of single-screen cinemas are either in ruins or have disappeared altogether. The Gujarati-language film will have an extensive release in Gujarat and at selected centers in the rest of India. We want to ensure that we give it the optimum release, so all the key centers will be covered. Well make sure that anyone who wants to watch the film gets a chance to watch it, producer and distributor Siddarth Roy Kapur told Variety. Producer Dheer Momaya told Variety: Its been dubbed and localized in so many languages, including Spanish, German, Russian, Hebrew, we just felt that, if it can travel across the world, why cant it travel across India? Its made the larger journey and now theres a large journey to be made within the country. The film will be released in its original Gujarati version and a Hindi-language dubbed version will be deployed when demand grows. Its not a dialog heavy film, its very emotional. This is the English subtitled version for the urban Indian audience. But I think it should be able to speak to audiences across India, Nalin told Variety. The director added that the pandemic has been a blessing in disguise in that audiences are used to consuming content in a plethora of languages. Story continues People have opened up to stories if they think its a great story they will watch shows or movies and we have seen that across the world, Nalin said. The film follows nine-year-old boy Samay, whose life turns upside down after watching his first movie. He passionately falls in love with films against his fathers wishes. Samay strikes a deal with Fazal, the projectionist, who will let him watch movies for free in exchange for eating the contents of his lunchbox. Their food-for-films deal turns into an endearing friendship, but heartbreaking choices lie ahead. Last Film Show was chosen as Indias official Oscar entry over S.S. Rajamoulis period action film RRR, which has grossed more than $11 million in the U.S. over two releases this year. After being snubbed by India, RRR U.S. distributor Variance Films is mounting an Oscar campaign across the other major categories. Not to be outdone, Last Film Show U.S. distributor Samuel Goldwyn Films is backing their film with president Peter Goldwyn describing it as a really strong contender. In India, after initial dismay from RRR aficionados, the cream of Bollywood, including superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan and filmmaker Karan Johar, among many others, have expressed support for Chhello Show.. T 4429 Chello Show tells the story of our vanishing film heritage. So proud of @FHF_Official s association with Indias official entry to the Oscars. In cinemas on Oct 14 by @roykapurfilms. Heres the trailer ..https://t.co/f59kQ6sI6I @jugaadmotionpictures @PanNalin Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) October 3, 2022 My teacher told me, dont worry about your exams, go and win the Oscar, the young Last Film Show lead Bhavin Rabari told Variety. The film is represented in international markets by Frances Orange Studio. Indian companies involved in the production include: Jugaad Motion Pictures, Monsoon Films, Chhello Show LLP and Roy Kapur Films. The French co-producer is Virginie Films. Momaya points to the track record of Samuel Goldwyn Films, which distributed Oscar winner Another Round in the U.S. and another film distributed by them, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, scored a nomination and that Orange Studio produced Oscar winners The Father and The Artist. They believe that it would speak to that core voting base of the AMPAS because, its an authentic story that tells of an authentic culture, says Momaya. Theres a love for film and a passion for film thats built into it. It plays into the nostalgic 35 mm era. At the end of the day, the voting members of the academy are film professionals and anyone whos a film professional who watches this film will understand the multiple layers of the film. Momaya also indicates that the second and third highest AMPAS voter base is in the U.K. and France and they will be targeted by Samuel Goldwyn and Orange. Nalin adds that many academy voters have already watched Last Film Show at festivals, including at Tribeca, where it premiered last year and that the academy has honored him by inviting him to be a member of its Directors Branch this year. On the RRR situation, Roy Kapur says: There always is a debate around which film should have been sent by which country to the Academy Awards, and rightly so because all filmmakers are passionate about their work and obviously would like to represent the country. We are honored and privileged to have been selected to represent India and we hope to give it our best shot there. If there are more than one Indian film in contention in other categories thats great for the country, we welcome it. I see no issue with that at all. Our best campaign is showing the film. And if that happens, that really is pretty much the battle won in terms of making sure that youve got the best chance of success, because the film will speak for itself. So, our main motivation is to be able to get all the AMPAS members to watch the film, adds Roy Kapur. 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. Paramedic David Liske administers a COVID-19 booster shot to Michael Meade at the Island Pacific Seafood Market in Oxnard, California, on Sept. 23. Alabama reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 3,589 new cases. That's down 15.2% from the previous week's tally of 4,231 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. Alabama ranked 34th among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 7.7% from the week before, with 298,674 cases reported. With 1.47% of the country's population, Alabama had 1.2% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 13 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Montgomery County reported 132 cases and three deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 179 cases and no deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 66,905 cases and 996 deaths. Elmore County reported 49 cases and no deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 56 cases and no deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 27,715 cases and 358 deaths. Autauga County reported 26 cases and one death in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 37 cases and no deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 18,422 cases and 228 deaths. Dallas County reported 25 cases and one death in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 19 cases and no deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 10,113 cases and 255 deaths. Lowndes County reported four cases and no deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported seven cases and no deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 3,072 cases and 80 deaths. Across Alabama, cases fell in 42 counties, with the best declines in Calhoun County, with 119 cases from 719 a week earlier; in Madison County, with 208 cases from 364; and in Winston County, with 16 cases from 144. >> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases Within Alabama, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Henry County with 337 cases per 100,000 per week; Shelby County with 316; and Geneva County with 232. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week. Story continues Adding the most new cases overall were Shelby County, with 689 cases; Jefferson County, with 372 cases; and Madison County, with 208. Weekly case counts rose in 25 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Shelby, Blount and Etowah counties. In Alabama, 51 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 27 people were reported dead. A total of 1,525,724 people in Alabama have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 20,473 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,699,237 people have tested positive and 1,062,564 people have died. >> Track coronavirus cases across the United States Alabama's COVID-19 hospital admissions rising USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Oct. 9. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state: Last week: 736 The week before that: 697 Four weeks ago: 991 Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation: Last week: 50,835 The week before that: 49,835 Four weeks ago: 58,231 Hospitals in 18 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 15 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 29 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows. The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery County reported 132 additional COVID-19 cases this week CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova may revoke the citizenship of its nationals who go to fight for Russia in Ukraine after being called up because they also hold Russian passports, pro-Western President Maia Sandu said on Monday. Russia launched a "partial" mobilisation last week to reinforce its troops in Ukraine, and there are 200,000 people with dual Moldovan-Russian citizenship who live in the breakaway Moldovan region of Trandniestria. Sandu said there was a risk that some of those people could be called up by Russia to fight. "To prevent that happening, we are analysing the possibility of applying the process of revoking Moldovan citizenship for those people (with Russian passports) who fight on the side of the aggressor," Sandu said. "We are also looking at the possibility of making punishment harsher for Moldovan citizens (without Russian passports)... who are in the ranks of the aggressor's armed forces," she said. She said Moldova was holding consultations with Moscow to prevent cases of its citizens being called up. Russia has had peacekeeping troops stationed in Transdniestria since the early 1990s when an armed conflict saw pro-Russian separatists wrest most of the region from Moldovan control. (Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Writing Tom Balmforth, Editing by Timothy Heritage) International streaming company Netflix has unveiled six new titles representing its first wide-ranging slate of content from Thailand. Its four films and two series span the comedy, suspense and comedy drama genres and hail from six different local production firms GMM Studios, International, GDH, Song Sound Productions, Transformation Films, 18 Tanwa and Jungka Bangkok. Significantly, too, they are sourced from established directors or producers. More from Variety Writer-director Prueksa Amarujis dark comedy film Lost Lotteries is produced by Ekachai Uekrongtham (Beautiful Boxer, Pleasure Factory) and will stream from mid-November. Writer-producer Kongdej Jaturanrasmee and veteran indie producer Soros Sukhum (Memoria, Pop-Aye) are behind director Sitisiri Mongkolsiris Hunger, a family drama with food as its central theme. It stars Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, aka Aok Bap, the breakout star of Bad Genius and a former Talent to Watch, selected by Variety and the International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Veteran director Wisit Sasanatieng (Tears of the Black Tiger) is directing The Murderer, a dark comedy set in one of Thailands poorest and most looked-down-upon regions in which a British man is accused of murdering his wifes family, but it is the wife that has to defend him. Another veteran director Nonzee Nimibutr (Jan Dara) is set to deliver Mon Rak Nak Pak, a drama about the good old days of Thai cinema when dialog was narrated live and medicine carts were used to bring in audiences. Shutter director Parkpoom Wongpoom directs and jointly produces series Delete, a love triangle thriller in which a complicated relationship leads to people being erased from others lives. Aok Bap also stars. Story continues Nithiwat Tharatorn, who previously worked with Wongpoom on Shutter and Phobia 2 is directing series Analog Squad, in which a group of misfits is hired to play the part of estranged family members in order to fill in the cracks of a broken family. Netflix has previously commissioned individual shows in Thailand, rather than a slate of local titles and enjoyed success with Bangkok Breaking, and the recently launched Thai Cave Rescue. The approach is changing as the company tries to drill down to local level in more territories and as it responds to competitive pressure from rival platforms who have also targeted Thailand for expansion. Were always looking for stories that are authentically local and when we give it the greenlight, we make sure its created in the best possible format to bring that story to life, said Yongyoot Thongkongtoon, an experienced local director (Iron Ladies) and now Netflixs Thailand content lead, told Variety. For this initial slate, it just so happened that most of the stories that were pitched to us were most suited for film. However, were always looking for opportunities to optimize for more balanced programming as we continue to expand our slate in the next few years. The firms Southeast Asia content head Malobika Banerji told Variety that the use of experienced filmmakers represented a first step and Netflixs that future Thai productions will usher in a newer generation of creators and diversify the genres in which it works. [Upcoming] we also have those that will be rising stars. But most importantly, we have projects that have talented female directors in many projects as well, said Banerji. Banerji said there are no plans to give theatrical releases to any of the new films. Thai content, especially comedy and horror, has a track record of doing well overseas. The supernatural thriller The Whole Truth spent five weeks in Netflix global top 10 list for non-English films and made the top 10 list in 35 countries. Thailand has always had a very high standard and quality of production. That was actually the main reason why Netflix was also attracted to start doing regional productions in the country, said Thongkongtoon. The industry probably earlier did not have that many opportunities to create so much content. It has been limited in certain ways. With the streamers now coming in the market, it is creating a lot more opportunities for local storytelling, of diverse genres. Netflix has previously set out content spending figures in other territories, but declined to do that in Thailand, where budgets are significantly lower. I dont think we compare with what we are spending in other markets. What we look at is, if a local story is pitched to us, how much we need to invest to make the best version of that story. Thats our guiding principle. And, we dont really compare [to what it might have cost] if it were made for TV, said Thongkongtoon. In Korea and Japan the industry is different, their production ecosystem is very different. 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. Sports Associated Press Tom Brady is losing more than just his cool. The seven-time Super Bowl champion, who missed nearly two weeks of Tampa Bay's training camp to tend to a personal matter this summer, gave his offensive line a tongue-lashing during the Buccaneers' 20-18 loss at Pittsburgh on Sunday. There's too many plays we're not making, Brady said after the Bucs fell to 3-3 his worst start after six weeks since 2012. The offices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus are housed in the building to the left of St. Joseph Cathedral. The Diocese of Steubenville in southeastern Ohio said its bishop plans to propose merging with the Columbus Catholic diocese soon. The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Steubenville has expressed interest in possibly merging the diocese with the Catholic Diocese of Columbus. Steubenville Bishop Jeffrey Monforton plans to discuss the idea with the five other Ohio Catholic bishops, Dino Orsatti, the director of communications for the Diocese of Steubenville, told The Dispatch Monday in an email. 'A wonderful experience':Columbus Catholic bishop is in Rome with Pope Francis Monforton is suggesting the merger for several reasons, Orsatti said, including a declining Catholic population in the Steubenville diocese, the depressed economy in the Ohio Valley, an aging population of priests and Catholics, and a a financial scandal that cost the diocese there millions of dollars. If the other bishops representing the dioceses of Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati approve Monforton's recommendation of the merger, Orsatti said he will present the idea in November to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, a national membership organization of Catholic bishops. If the council approves it, Orsatti said, the proposal would go to the Vatican, with Pope Francis making the final decision. 'Serving the universal church':Catholic seminary in Columbus gets warning, probation from national accrediting agencies Columbus Bishop Earl K. Fernandes didn't have a response to Monforton's proposal on Monday or Tuesday, and the diocese won't really until it has more information about the proposal, according to Diocesan spokesman Jason Mays. "We're all one Catholic church. We'll work together and do what we can," Mays said. 'Here I am, Lord': Next Catholic bishop of Columbus felt call to priesthood early Steubenville is located along the Ohio River, west of Pittsburgh, and the Catholic diocese based there covers a 13-county area in southeastern Ohio with 50 parishes and 36 active priests, according to its website. Comparatively, the Diocese of Columbus covers 23 counties with 105 parishes and 97 active priests. Story continues The Diocese of Columbus has more than 278,000 Catholics, and the Diocese of Steubenville has fewer than 30,000. The Steubenville diocese also faced a financial scandal in 2017, according to Orsatti. David A. Franklin, the former comptroller for the Steubenville diocese, was sentenced to one year in prison for tax crimes and embezzlement in federal court in December 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He also had to serve two years of supervised release and was ordered to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution. 'A great honor':Catholics express joy, shock at basilica announcement in Lancaster Franklin pleaded guilty to failing to account for and pay the government withheld employment tax, making a false personal income tax return and wire fraud. He embezzled $299,500 in diocesan funds between 2008 and 2017 by issuing fraudulent checks to himself. The Diocesan Entities provide support to individuals and families, youth educational programs, a thrift store, an emergency food bank and more, said U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers, in a statement at the time. Franklins actions cost the Diocese and the community $1.3 million." As a result of Franklin's actions, the diocese had to pay the Internal Revenue Service and state agencies $3.5 million in 2018 to account for withheld payroll taxes and employment taxes, including interest and penalties. A 'devastating' change for some:Ohio State's Catholic student ministry to get new leadership at Newman Center In 2017, the Diocese of Steubenville applied to become, and was named, a "home mission" in the United States. These are dioceses and parishes in the United States that can't provide basic pastoral services to Catholics without outside help, according to the Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Steubenville diocese is one of 80 home missions in the U.S. because the conference said the Catholic church is "poorly established" in many parts of the country, including Appalachia, which includes areas within the Steubenville diocese, as well as places in the South, Alaska and elsewhere. The Diocese of Columbus is in the midst of a two-year campaign with the focus of reimagining use of its resources to best serve its people. Called Real Presence, Real Future, the campaign is one example of how dioceses are dealing with dwindling numbers of priests. Mays said decisions on parish closings and other campaign recommendations likely will not happen before next summer unless a situation of unsustainability would need a more timely decision. There is some precedent for diocesan mergers. In 2020, for example, an archdiocese and a diocese in Alaska merged, according to the Associated Press. The Archdiocese of Anchorage and the Diocese of Juneau were merged by Pope Francis, who named a new archbishop. The Juneau diocese had been the smallest in the country for several years, according to the article, and the new archdiocese serves more than 30,000 Catholics. dking@dispatch.com @DanaeKing This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Might Columbus Catholic diocese merge with Diocese of Steubenville? For far too many years, Milwaukeeans have heard that they live in the most segregated community in the United States. A lot has been written and said about how we acquired this status and the detrimental outcomes associated with segregation. Marc Levine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center on Economic Development has detailed the stark disparities that make segregated Milwaukee one of the more difficult places for Blacks to live in the country. Of the 50 largest metro areas in the country, Milwaukee has: the second lowest Black homeownership rate; the highest Black male incarceration rate; the lowest Black median family income; and the highest Black poverty rate. One of the common laments among residents is that we do too much talking about the problem and not nearly enough to fix the problems. Now, a new national organization, The Redress Movement, has landed in Milwaukee and is working to change this situation. The Redress Movement is working collaboratively with people and organizations who want to change metro Milwaukee. The Redress Movement is a national, not-for-profit organization, whose mission is to begin the process of redressing the damage caused by decades of legal and illegal segregation policies and practices. The organization was created as a result of the work of Richard Rothstein and his award-winning book, "The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America." Conversations and book clubs around the country focused on his assertion that explicit government policies at the local, state and federal levels led to residential segregation by race across the country. The Milwaukee area was home to multiple groups hosting book reads and public programs about segregation. In 2016. I began doing a presentation I call The Hidden Impact of Segregation, detailing the history of segregation and what makes Milwaukee stand out from other highly segregated metropolitan areas around the country. I have had the honor of sharing the stage with Rothstein on three separate occasions, co-presenting about segregation nationally and locally. Story continues Rothstein's presentations focus on dispelling the myth that segregation is caused solely by private actors such as Realtors, bankers and residents of neighborhoods, whats known as de facto segregation. His research has exposed the fact that explicit government policies at the local, state and federal levels, what is known as de jure segregation, also created the segregated spaces we still see in metro Milwaukee today. As a result of the popularity of his book, a group of national civil rights leaders, convened by Ted Shaw, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina, decided to create an organization to take on redressing racial segregation. This is how The Redress Movement was formed. Initial phases of its work have been launched in Charlotte, North Carolina; Denver, Colorado; and Milwaukee. Teams are working in each of the three cities to garner support from community members and organizations that want to change the status quo. Eventually, The Redress Movement plans to expand into other cities across the country. The Redress Movement is an emerging racial justice organization that aims to organize racially and ethnically diverse local movements in communities throughout the U.S. We want citizens to get involved by researching the history of segregation, documenting the history of segregation and agitating for change. We believe that just as segregation was caused by specific laws, specific policies and specific decision-makers, segregation and its multigenerational impacts can be redressed. Our vision is a society no longer divided and separated. So far in metro Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Redress has convened several meetings with key stakeholders from diverse communities. We have had community discussions about the growth of corporate landlords as well as disparate increases in assessed home values, and increasing homeownership access across the city. We host Redress Roundtables, where relevant issues are discussed and plans are developed. This effort will lead to committees from the various communities that are most impacted by and most interested in redressing the damage caused by segregation, working together on the solutions people have long asked for. Members of the African American, Latinx and white communities are coming together to find out how they can work with each other in developing goals that will ultimately define how Milwaukee moves forward in redressing the damage caused over many decades. The work will not be easy. This is a first attempt to create steps toward fixing segregation issues by bringing people and groups together outside the normal silos we see so often in Milwaukee. There are multiple organizations in metro Milwaukee that have become part of the early Redress Movement roundtables such as: The Greater Milwaukee Foundation; The Milwaukee NAACP; The Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council; The Sherman Park Neighborhood Association; Bridge the Divide; Bay Bridge; Voces de La Frontera and many others. Housing experts, governmental agencies, nonprofits, community-based organizations and everyday citizens in the city and suburbs are coming together to build capacity to make redress real here. The national leadership of Redress has continued to raise awareness and identify dedicated people in the three cities who will lead the work. Three of the basic principles that will guide the work are: Bringing visibility to racial segregation and how its impact has undermined the success of Black communities for decades. Helping to educate, organize and mobilize local communities to redress past harms done by intentional efforts to segregate our nation. Organizing Redress campaigns that are driven by local Redress Committees and Roundtables. We are in the early stages of the work, but so far there has been a steady growth of support for The Redress Movement in Milwaukee. More information about The Redress Movement can be found at www.redressmovement.org. You can also find a researched story map of the history of segregation in Milwaukee at redressmovement.org/storymaps-milwaukee/. Reggie Jackson, co-owner of Nurturing Diversity Partners and a Milwaukee historian, is a researcher with The Redress Movement. Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal. DOWNLOAD THE APP: Get the latest news, sports and more This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Redress Movement works at healing after decades of racism in Milwaukee Oct. 11Sarah Palin, Patriot Freedom PAC, Dena'ina Convention Center, U.S. House race, politics In Alaska's U.S. House race, the two Republican candidates are urging their supporters to "rank the red" even as they continue to attack each other, in an effort to unseat newly elected Democrat U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. At an Anchorage event hosted by a political action committee on Sunday, former Gov. Sarah Palin railed against her opponent, Nick Begich III, and the new ranked choice voting system. After a forum hosted by the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Begich returned fire against Palin. But both said that their supporters should rank the other Republican in the race to ensure Peltola doesn't hold the seat for a full term. Under Alaska's new voting system, Begich and Palin who spent weeks attacking each other in ads and at in-person events split the Republican share of the vote in an August special election, allowing Peltola to come away with the victory to replace Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young. Now, all three candidates along with Libertarian Chris Bye are running for the full two-year House term that begins in January. [Alaska's 2022 election: Compare the candidates for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House] Peltola, the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, has campaigned on a message of bipartisanship and carrying on the legacy of her Republican predecessor. Meanwhile, the criticism Begich and Palin have toward one another has continued largely unabated, even as political observers have noted that the biggest beneficiary of their criticism is Peltola. 'The cards that we have been dealt' U.S. House candidate, politics, Nick Begich U.S. House candidate, politics, Nick Begich Since announcing her U.S. House bid in April, Palin has held a limited number of campaign events in Alaska. Aside from an appearance at an Anchorage rally with former President Donald Trump that drew thousands, Palin's campaign strategy has appeared to include primarily appearances on national right-wing media outlets and social media posts. Story continues But last week she announced she would attend a rally organized by a newly formed political action committee, Patriot Freedom PAC, led and funded by Trump allies who said they intended to spend $400,000 in Alaska in support of Palin and Trump-endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka. [Watch: Alaska U.S. Senate and U.S. House candidate forums] Palin, whose official campaign is barred from coordinating with super PACs, hosted a fundraiser at the Dena'ina Center prior to taking the rally stage for around 15 minutes in front of a crowd of less than 100 that gathered Sunday afternoon in a room that can hold thousands. The event included appearances by singer Tony Wilson, a Chicago performer who goes by the stage name "Young James Brown," and David Clarke, a Trump surrogate and former sheriff from Wisconsin. There was also a mechanical bull and bounce house that didn't appear to get any use. At the event, Palin stuck to a familiar message. She derided Alaska's new ranked choice voting system, a prominent part of her campaign since Trump attacked the new voting rules at his Anchorage rally. On Sunday, Palin called ranked choice voting "convoluted and complicated" and "no good for Alaska." Sarah Palin, Patriot Freedom PAC, Dena'ina Convention Center, U.S. House race, politics Before the August special election, Palin told voters that she only ranked herself. Her message, she said, was "don't comply." But since her loss in the special election, Palin has adapted her message to her supporters to include that while she continues to view ranked choice voting negatively, she must operate with "the cards that we have been dealt." "In principle, I was so opposed to this screwy system that was put in place for nefarious reasons, but until things are changed legally when it comes to how we elect our officials now in Alaska, we have to rank the red. Because Alaska cannot afford to have that Democrat in office," Palin told the crowd at the Dena'ina Center. [Alaska campaign roundup: Pierce resurfaces, Al Gross returns to the political scene, and Outside group holds rally for Palin and Tshibaka] Still, when asked about her Republican opponent Begich the same candidate she was telling her voters to rank second on their ballots she criticized him for campaigning negatively against her. "I've taken the high road from day one," Palin said. But Begich, she added, "drew first blood." In a series of campaign ads released before the special election, Begich accused Palin of being a "quitter" and a "self-absorbed celebrity." Sarah Palin, Patriot Freedom PAC, Dena'ina Convention Center, U.S. House race, politics Palin's U.S. House race is her first run for elected office since stepping down from the governor's office partway through her first term in 2009 after her unsuccessful vice presidential bid put her in the national spotlight. Begich, a businessman who has never held statewide elected office, has earned millions from a business that offshores information technology jobs to other countries. "Nick Begich, my fellow Republican, has planted a seed in people's minds that I don't live here," Palin said on Sunday. Palin says she has "traveled the world promoting Alaska." [In her few days in Congress before the election, Peltola enjoyed Democratic support even as she straddled party lines] 'We've asked them not to run negative ads' Jerry Ward, a former state lawmaker who ran Trump's Alaska campaigns and is now involved in Palin's campaign, said Sunday that he recently met with Begich's campaign manager, Truman Reed, and Truman's father Ashley Reed, a registered state lobbyist, to ask them to stop running negative ads attacking Palin. "I had Ashley Reed and his son Truman sitting in the campaign headquarters and we had a discussion," Ward said. "We've asked them not to run negative ads against a fellow Republican." Ward said that Begich's campaign manager "said that they will consider doing that." Asked Monday about the meeting, Truman initially denied it had occurred, saying he had only ever communicated with Ward "in passing." "I don't know what Jerry Ward's talking about," Truman said, but moments later he corrected himself, acknowledged that he and Ashley Reed had met Ward while they were at Judy's Cafe, an Anchorage establishment that shares a parking lot with Palin's campaign headquarters, located in a building owned by Ward. According to Truman, Ward then invited Truman and Ashley to Palin's campaign headquarters "but it was very casual." Ashley Reed, a longtime influential Alaska lobbyist, is earning more than $191,000 this year to lobby for several companies including in the oil and gas sector, according to state disclosures. He has made frequent appearances at Begich fundraisers but has not publicly been involved with Begich's campaign. Truman said his father "doesn't have any official role" in Begich's campaign, but that "he helps out whenever he can, as any dad would." Ashley Reed has in the past participated in fundraising for state candidates while working as a Juneau lobbyist, which is not allowed under state law. Asked about the request from Palin's campaign to tone down the negative ads, Begich said Monday he had not been in touch with Ward. "I'm sure other campaigns would like folks to stop talking about records and start talking about something else, but that's part of the campaign process," Begich said. 'Part of campaigning' After a candidate forum on Monday, Begich responded to criticism from Palin's campaign regarding his negative campaigning, saying it was about sharing his opponent's record. "We're going to talk about records," Begich said. "That's part of campaigning." Palin was absent from the candidate forum hosted by the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce on Monday. Her campaign manager Kris Perry did not provide an explanation for Palin's absence when asked. Peltola, who was in Sitka for a celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day, participated in the forum by Zoom. Begich, who came in third in the special election, says he is still in position to emerge victorious from the U.S. House race by convincing some Palin voters to switch and by appealing to voters who did not vote in the special election but intend to vote in the regularly scheduled November election. Results of the special election indicated that in a head-to-head race, Begich would have beaten Peltola where Palin had lost. "For most people that I speak with, they're looking for someone who's serious about the state of Alaska. Not somebody who's going to bring a James Brown impersonator from Chicago and do backflips on stage. People who are actually going to work hard to solve the problems of Alaskans," Begich said. "We have to stop thinking about politics like political entertainment. This is one of the big problems that we've experienced as a nation for the last decade, that politics have become entertainment. That degrades our opportunity to govern properly, to represent our people properly. It takes the arguments that are cogent and throws them out the window for dancers and singers and entertainers. That's not going to fix the problems that we have as a country." 'A deep red state' When it comes to the Democrat in the race, Palin and Begich have both taken the strategy of tying her to some of the Democratic Party's national messages, even as Peltola herself has campaigned on a message of bipartisanship. "Mary Peltola I love her. She's adorable. She's wonderful. We're friends," Palin said on Sunday. "I really love her. But Alaska cannot afford to have the Democrat in office. We're a deep red state." In a series of videos posted recently on social media, Begich attached Peltola's name to national Democratic leaders and to the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that passed Congress before Peltola was elected but one she said she would have supported. "It seems like everything is going in the wrong direction. This is what happens when you put Democrats in charge," Begich said in one of the videos. "Unfortunately for Alaska, we've got a Democrat representing us in the House. That's got to stop, that's got to change." In a pre-recorded video message by Palin shared at the Monday forum, she railed against the federal government and what she called a "leftist agenda." "The feds want to make Alaska one big old national park and that's about it. They don't care about our economy," Palin said. "Any of the things that we need as a civilized society in Alaska they don't care about that. Their interests in Alaska are the antithesis of what ours are." Later in the forum, Peltola appeared to respond directly to Palin's message. "I'm not one to beat up on the federal government. It seems like Alaska's favorite sport. I'm not sure why people run for a federal seat if they just want to make it sound like the federal government is out to get us," Peltola said. The Courier Journal, together with the League of Women Voters of Louisville and the Louisville Bar Association identified the following three questions to ask Supreme Court Judge candidates in District 4. Our intention is to help voters at the polls. We asked for answers in 200 words or fewer. Every Jefferson County judicial seat will be on the ballot this November. Use this election guide for judicial races to help you in the voting booth. Remember, Judges are nonpartisan elected officials, which means you cannot rely on party lines when casting your vote. If you missed the Judicial Forum that also featured our Supreme Court Candidates you can watch that here. The link takes you directly to the 12-minute Supreme Court portion of the video. What can the Supreme Court do to shorten length of appeal cases which often take many years to resolve? Angela McCormick Bisig Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Angela McCormick Bisig "The Supreme Court makes critical decisions that interpret our laws and apply them to real business and personal conflicts. As the ultimate arbiter of cases, the Court must consider the implications of their decisions not only for the case in front of them, but its impact on the jurisprudence of our Commonwealth. As part of this process, the Justices review legal briefs, hear oral argument, conference about decisions and write and review an opinion. Clearly this important process takes time. "That said, one of the primary complaints I've heard as I've been out on the campaign trail is the length of time it takes for decisions to be rendered by the Court. If I am elected to the Supreme Court, I plan to use the skills I have developed in 20 years as a trial judge in issuing timely decisions to work with my fellow Justices to improve the timing of case progression. Perhaps the increased use of remote technology can also play a role in speeding up case management." Jason Bowman "Delays in decisions are delays in justice, and the current system takes too long. Cases can take years to go through the trial court and then additional years to go through the appellate process. Even appeals that are required to be expedited can still take years to get an opinion. The current rules that control appeals and the proposed rules of appellate procedure do not take steps to shorten the length of appeal. If a party appeals a trial court decision, the appellate process does not immediately start. Story continues "The actual appeal process does not start until the appellate court issues an order starting the process. The Supreme Court should include rules requiring the entry of timely orders that clearly state the timing of each step of the appeal process. In addition, the rules of appellate procedure should set out a timeline of when an appellate court is required to issue an opinion. Trial courts are required to issue a final order within 90 days of final adjudication, and I believe appellate courts could be held to a similar standard for appeals." More:Judges are the referees of our legal system and must remain impartial on the bench Since they affect the lives of people, why arent all cases published, including those of the Court of Appeals? Angela McCormick Bisig "In our American system of justice, the statues and codes adopted by our legislatures, and their interpretation and application by the courts, form the basis for the rule of law that governs our everyday lives. For this reason, opinions written by our state Supreme Court provide the guidance for lawyers and trial courts as we do our work. "Any lawyer can attest to the fact that it can be incredibly frustrating when there isnt a Kentucky case published to rely on when examining a given issue. There is an old saying in the law that 'bad facts create bad law.' This adage comes from the Courts awareness that decisions necessary to resolve a given dispute may not seamlessly apply to other types of disputes involving the same laws. Therefore, Justices may opt not to publish some decisions. This creates a natural tension with the legal communities need for precedent. Balancing these considerations, it seems a more aggressive approach to publishing decisions would be welcome by lawyers and judges. This will give our Commonwealth a more robust body of jurisprudence and improve our stature around the country." Jason Bowman "This year there have been 756 appellate decisions (98 in the Supreme Court, 658 in the Court of Appeals). To publish all those decisions would create an unmanageable amount of binding precedent that would create confusion, double standards and increase the cost of litigation. Lawyers, Judges and litigants would be forced to pour through thousands of cases to ensure their case is supported by case law. Also, by publishing all cases, there is an increased likelihood that a bad precedent could be set by a bad decision. "Appellate Courts issue unpublished opinions because the court deems that case to either has insufficient precedential value or the issues in the case have sufficiently been covered by currently published opinions. However, I do believe the appellate courts should issue more published opinions to correct mistakes they have made in the past, or in areas of the law, such as family law, that lack sufficient published opinions." More:Hard-right PAC forms 'battle plan' to take on 'radical left' judges in 3 Kentucky races The complaint process against lawyers in Kentucky has been slightly opened but there are still private reprimands. Why should such cases be kept from the public? Editors note: Per Order 2022-11 which amended rules of the Supreme Court. Private reprimands in lawyer disciplinary cases were removed as a degree of discipline effective April 1, 2022. This questions was presented prior to understanding the change in protocol. Angela McCormick Bisig "I am a firm believer that public confidence in our justice system is critical to its success. Court processes should be open and transparent. Our hearings and trials in cases in state courts are recorded everyday and open to the public. We must be mindful of the concerns of citizens when it comes to lawyer complaints. We have a code of ethics that governs attorney conduct. "There is a process for the public to file complaints against lawyers, and those who violate the standards of the profession should be accountable. Conversely, a lawyer's reputation is an important part of his or her ability to do their job. The nature of the practice of law and our justice system is to resolve disputes and conflicts in a fair and impartial manner. Lawyers take on the problems of their clients and serve as advocates. We must be aware that anyone can take a complaint against an attorney, whether or not it is well-founded, and balance this with the need for full public disclosure." Jason Bowman "I believe complaints against lawyers and Judges should be opened to the public. No other person who goes through the legal process has the option of a private reprimand. People are fined, put on probation, or sentenced to jail, but that is not done privately; it is public knowledge. The legal system is designed to be open to the public, and the public should have the ability to know if a lawyer or a Judge has been reprimanded by the State Bar or Judicial Conduct Commission. "However, private reprimands are typically reserved for cases of minor misconduct, where there is little or no injury to a client, the public, the legal system or the profession. If a lawyer or judge faces this type of complaint and it is their first complaint, then maybe a private reprimand would be appropriate to correct the behavior. If they have received a private reprimand before, then at some point, the public should have the option to know of this discipline so they can understand who represents them or who will be ruling on their case." Read more about Jefferson County Judicial Candidates: District Court Candidates Circuit Court Candidates Court of Appeals Candidates This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Why arent all KY Supreme Court rulings published? Candidates weigh in Pig-tailed macaque in Thailand. U.S. Senator Cory Booker is calling for the federal government to investigate why the University of Washington was given more grant money despite problems revealed by a series of The Arizona Republic stories that showed higher than expected rates of sickness and death at its monkey farm near Mesa. Booker wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Department Secretary Xavier Becerra asking why the National Institutes of Health renewed UW's $65 million five-year grant funding "despite documentation of multiple unresolved, serious issues." The New Jersey senator's letter said those issue includes "failure to maintain biosecurity which threatens not only public safety but has also compromised the health of the monkeys and data from studies using them repeated animal welfare violations, financial issues with taxpayer funds, and failure to comply with both state and federal laws." This facility north of Mesa is the largest U.S. breeding center for pigtailed macaques. "Detailed documentation of these failures and violations was exposed in a series of articles by The Arizona Republic," Booker's letter said. "I ask that the Department of Health and Human Services investigate the oversight and approval of this grant." Five members of the U.S. House of Representatives also sent a letter in late August to NIH requesting an investigation into the grant renewal. The Republic's investigation published one year ago found that Valley fever, a common flu-like illness caused by a fungus from the soil in the desert around Phoenix, ran rampant among the macaque colony and killed at least 47 monkeys died from the illness over the past eight years. The illness at the Arizona facility also threatens the results of tens of millions of dollars in research aimed at finding cures and vaccines for some of humankinds most serious viruses and diseases AIDS, HIV, hepatitis, Zika, Ebola and even COVID-19. That's because valley fever can come back when the monkeys' immune systems are suppressed during research, potentially compromising results. Story continues Read The Republic's full investigation: Sickness and death at Mesa-area monkey farm threaten primate center viability The Republic's investigation also found: The monkeys at the Mesa breeding facility are drinking well water tainted with perchlorate, a contaminant leached from ponds containing rocket fuel runoff from an adjacent defense contractor. Despite recommendations that a water treatment system be installed at the breeding facility in 2016, no such precaution has been taken. The primate center's long-term financial situation is in disarray, according to federal reports. Staff turnover has been high. Morale remains low as staff has reeled from years of poor decision-making and an embarrassing public sexual harassment scandal. The primate center has run afoul of state and local regulators. It was cited for failing to alert Washington state regulators that macaques imported into the state had Valley fever. And it has been cited by federal regulators for conduct detrimental to animal welfare. At least five monkeys have died since 2017 because of poor care or improper oversight. The Health and Human Services Department and NIH did not respond to requests for comment Monday. Booker said in his letter that he is specifically concerned about five issues: diseases affecting the monkeys in Arizona and Seattle, violations of Washington state health and agriculture laws, repeated violations of the Animal Welfare Act, financial and staffing issues at the primate center and the UW's destruction of data in violation of Washington State's record laws. At one point, the NIH took the unusual step of restricting some of UW's grant funding, the letter said. "Despite all of these issues, many of which have direct consequences for public health and scientific integrity, NIH has decided to invest significant additional taxpayer funds in the (primate center)," Booker wrote. Booker said in his letter he wants several questions answered, including: Determining what oversight the NIH has over its grantees and whether that oversight was performed with the UW primate center. Was the NIH and grant overseers aware of the issues at the primate center? If so, what actions did they take in response? Did grant committee members have expertise in infectious diseases? Were all grant review committee members free of all conflicts of interest, including with UW? How is NIH assessing the effect of past issues such as valley fever on research that has used the primate centers monkeys? What standards does NIH rely upon to assess the extent of animal care violations that would lead to the termination of grant funding? Lisa Jones-Engel, a senior science adviser for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the investigation is desperately needed. "University of Washington's primate center kills endangered macaques by the hundreds, threatens public health, defies state laws, and ignores good science," Jones-Engel said. "We're grateful to Sen. Booker and we suspect that an investigation by Sec. Becerra will reveal multiple reasons for cutting off taxpayer funding immediately." University of Washington spokesperson Tina Mankowski said allegations against the primate center are "historical and without merit." Senator Booker asks important questions about federal oversight of animal research, particularly non-human primates. The Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides rigorous oversight of all animal research performed in the Unites States that is supported by taxpayers," her statement said. She said UW is happy to meet with Sen. Booker "at any time and share information on the life-saving research we are conducting at our center and our unwavering commitment to non-human primate health, well-being and conservation. Previous investigations into UW's primate center by NIH didn't bear fruit. In December 2021, The Republic reported that the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare launched an investigation into UW after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a complaint with the federal government. However, the OLAW investigation concluded in early January that "there is no evidence of animal welfare concerns or noncompliance with ... policy." Contact reporter Rob O'Dell at rob.odell@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @robodellaz. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Corey Booker calls for investigation into monkey farm near Mesa South Korean officials said the country is able to intercept the missiles that North Korea has launched over the past couple weeks but that the developing nuclear program is still a threat. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Moon Hong-sik, the acting spokesperson for the South Korean defense ministry, told reporters that the countrys missile defense system can detect and intercept the weapons systems that North Korea has said it has mobilized in its drills. But Moon also said nuclear threats from Pyongyang are very grave and serious. Moon said South Korea is looking to introduce spy satellites, surveillance drones and sea-based reconnaissance to better observe North Korea. The AP reported that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told reporters in his office that North Koreas weapons demonstrations show that the nuclear threat is getting more serious every day. He said he intends to strengthen the countrys defense in working with the United States and Japan. North Korea has conducted a succession of missile tests over the past two weeks. The country fired its most recent round of missiles on Saturday after the U.S. and South Korea conducted joint military drills in response to an earlier round of missiles the North sent off. Some analysts have said that North Koreas newer weapons might beat U.S. and South Korean defenses, and if North Korea launches multiple missiles from different locations, the U.S. and its allies will have more difficulty stopping them, the AP reported. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion is revealing the growing influence of Catholic health systems and their restrictions on reproductive services including birth control and abortion - even in the diminishing number of states where the procedure remains legal. Catholic systems now control about 1 in 7 U.S. hospital beds, requiring religious doctrine to guide treatment, often to the surprise of patients. Their ascendancy has broad implications for the evolving national battle over reproductive rights beyond abortion, as bans against it take hold in more than a dozen Republican-led states. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The Catholic health-care facilities follow directives from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that prohibit treatment it deems "immoral": sterilization including vasectomies, postpartum tubal ligations and contraception, as well as abortion. Those policies can limit treatment options for obstetric care during miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, particularly in the presence of a fetal heartbeat. "The directives are not just a collection of dos and don'ts," said John F. Brehany, executive vice president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center and a longtime consultant to the conference of bishops. "They are a distillation of the moral teachings of the Catholic church as they apply to modern health care." As such, he said, any facility that identifies as Catholic must abide by them. The role of Catholic doctrine in U.S. health care has expanded during a years-long push to acquire smaller institutions - a reflection of consolidation in the hospital industry, as financially challenged community hospitals and independent physicians join bigger systems to gain access to electronic health records and other economies of scale. Acquisition by a Catholic health system has, at times, kept a town's only hospital from closing. Story continues Four of the nation's 10 largest health systems are now Catholic, according to a 2020 report by the liberal health advocacy organization Community Catalyst. The 10 largest Catholic health systems control 394 short-term, acute-care hospitals, a 50 percent increase over the past two decades. In Alaska, Iowa, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin, 40 percent or more of hospital beds are in Catholic facilities. "It's all about market share," said Lois Uttley, a senior adviser to the hospital equity and accountability project at Community Catalyst. Uttley, who has been tracking hospital mergers and acquisitions since the 1990s, said that with fewer choices, patients today face more difficulty obtaining reproductive services. In Schenectady, N.Y., Ellis Medicine is in talks with the multistate Catholic giant Trinity Health. Last month, in Quad Cities, Iowa, Genesis Health System signed a letter of intent to enter a partnership with MercyOne, also part of Trinity Health. And this semester, Oberlin College had to find a new provider to prescribe contraceptives after outsourcing student health services to a Catholic system that would not provide them. In rural northeast Connecticut, residents are protesting the prospect of their 128-year-old hospital becoming part of a Catholic system and the potential impact on reproductive services. "It would be very troubling to see cutbacks in a state like Connecticut," said Ian McDonald, a stonemason who opposes the proposed deal between Day Kimball Healthcare in Putnam and Massachusetts-based Covenant Health. Kyle Kramer, chief executive of Day Kimball Healthcare, said the proposed affiliation with Covenant Health would rescue the financially challenged 104-bed hospital. "Obviously it has connotations," Kramer said of the proposed move to faith-based ownership. The Catholic directives would "provide guidance," he said in an interview, while insisting that "the services that we have provided in the past are the same services that we will continue to provide in the future." Kramer did not answer questions in a follow-up email about how contraception and elective sterilizations could continue to be provided under Catholic doctrine if their primary purpose is for birth control. Nor did he specify how emergency obstetric care that could result in terminating a pregnancy might be affected. Covenant Health spokeswoman Karen Sullivan said in an email that as part of the regulatory process, the Catholic health system is drafting a public response to questions by the state's Oct. 23 deadline. The system, she said, is committed to "ensuring that the Ethical and Religious Directives are applied thoughtfully and with empathy, compassion and respect for every person we serve." Catholic hospitals and providers are accredited and held to the same standards as their secular equivalents, according to the Catholic Health Association of the United States, which lobbies on behalf of Catholic hospitals. But reproductive rights advocates say there has been a steady erosion of services in both Republican- and Democratic-led states because of the growing dominance of Catholic hospitals. Many patients are unaware of the restrictions because hospital administrators typically don't outline the services they do not offer, said Sister Simone Campbell, a lawyer who until recently led the liberal-leaning NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. "Many hospitals have dealt with this by being pretty quiet. Dobbs has made it more of a question," Campbell said, referring to the case that led to the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Catholic facilities may not "promote or condone" contraception, according to the directives - a stance that is not widely shared by the public. Just 4 percent of U.S. adults think contraception is immoral, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center poll. Among Catholics who attend weekly Mass, only 13 percent say contraception is morally wrong, and 45 percent find it acceptable. The directives, developed in the late 1940s by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, were updated in 2018, largely to ensure that Catholic doctrine prevails after mergers and acquisitions, according to Amy Chen, a lawyer with the National Health Law Program. They limit options for referring patients to secular facilities, saying employees must not "manage, carry out, assist in carrying out, make its facilities available for, make referrals for, or benefit from the revenue generated by immoral procedures." Interpretation of the directives varies among hospital ethics committees. But decisions ultimately rest with the local bishop, who is to be kept informed, the directives say, if "a Catholic health care institution might be wrongly cooperating with immoral procedures." "Bishops have a great deal of authority in their dioceses," Brehany said. "A bishop should ensure that a Catholic organization is abiding by the directives." A 2018 survey published in the journal Contraception found that more than one-third of women who go to Catholic hospitals for reproductive care are not aware of the facilities' religious affiliation. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of California at San Francisco, called for increased transparency among hospitals to raise awareness that patients' options may be limited at institutions with religious ties. "Even people who had a very wanted pregnancy are at the mercy of policies not driven by their personal values or by the best interests of their health," said Debra Stulberg, the chair of family medicine at the University of Chicago and one of the researchers in the 2018 survey. April King, 40, said she wanted to have her tubes tied immediately after giving birth to her second child in December 2020. The Los Angeles talent agent had suffered three miscarriages and knew her family was complete. Then she learned she could not get a tubal ligation at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, where she planned to deliver. "I was just surprised that [the hospital] could decide that for us," said King, who ultimately elected to go ahead with her delivery at Providence Saint John's because of the care she had received there in the past. Doctors, too, face surprises - and can even be reported to hospital ethics committees for following standards of care. In Washington state, where 41 percent of beds are Catholic-run, legislators passed a law last year to prevent hospitals from interfering with a doctor's ability to provide medically necessary care to a pregnant patient whose health or life is at risk. Annie Iriye, a retired OB/GYN who used to work for a Catholic hospital in Olympia, Wash., testified in support of the bill. In a recent interview, Iriye described wanting to administer medication to hasten a woman's delivery to stave off infection after her water broke at 18 weeks, before fetal viability. Even though the woman was in active labor, Iriye said other staffers refused to follow her direction as the attending physician because a heartbeat had been detected. By the time the woman delivered, she had a fever and needed antibiotics. Staffers reported Iriye to the hospital ethics committee. "I was flabbergasted," Iriye said. "It's like, 'Oh, come on guys. Can't we just practice medicine and give good care?' " Patients say there appears to be little consistency in how hospital staffers interpret religious directives, with doctors sometimes having to make decisions on the fly. Whitney Marshall, 29, learned only after waking up from exploratory surgery for endometriosis in 2019 at Ascension Crittenton in Rochester Hills, Mich., that her IUD had not been replaced. Marshall, who uses the device to reduce the pain associated with the condition, had to undergo a second procedure in her gynecologist's office to have the IUD reinserted. The spokesman for Ascension Crittenton did not respond to requests for comment about the case. "Some women cannot afford surgeries" to treat endometriosis, Marshall said. "So their only form of recourse is to try to regulate their hormones by using contraceptives." Catholic hospitals' tradition of serving women and children in the neediest neighborhoods is "rooted in our reverence for life," said Brian Reardon, spokesman for the Catholic Health Association. But the lack of choice has been felt keenly in rural and low-income communities where patients cannot easily transfer to secular institutions, reproductive rights advocates say. Hospitals operating under Catholic restrictions are "the sole community providers of short-term acute hospital care" in more than 52 communities across the country - up from 30 in 2013, according to Community Catalyst. In Putnam, Conn., residents have relied on Day Kimball Healthcare, the town's only hospital, for more than a century. Kramer, the chief executive, said the hospital has been exploring partnerships with larger systems over the past decade to ensure its long-term survival. The proposed arrangement with Covenant Health requires the approval of Connecticut's Office of Health Strategy, which has been examining how services might be affected. The need to preserve access to reproductive health services can bring an end to negotiations. In 2012, the investor in a proposed joint venture with two hospitals in Waterbury, Conn., one of which was Catholic, pulled out after reproductive health advocates and the local archbishop raised opposing concerns about creating a "hospital within a hospital" to provide reproductive services - a workaround that had been successful elsewhere. Access to reproductive services has shrunk recently around Day Kimball after the 2020 closure of Planned Parenthood in nearby Danielson. Like many hospitals, Day Kimball does not provide elective abortions, according to documents filed with the state. But it has provided other care prohibited by Catholic directives, including elective sterilizations. Those services are key to preventing unwanted pregnancies, said Lee Wesler, an internist who has been affiliated with Day Kimball for a decade. "Any unwanted pregnancy is a potential abortion," Wesler said. Members of the group Save Day Kimball Healthcare said that in conversations, Kramer and other representatives of the hospital have sought to be reassuring. "They say, 'Everything will be fine,' " said Margaret Martin, a retired social worker and member of the group. Kramer, who said he intends to stay on if the Covenant deal goes through, repeated those assurances to The Washington Post. "What we have been we will still be," he said, while declining to describe how contraceptives could be offered for the sole purpose of birth control. In a Q&A posted in September on the Day Kimball website, Kramer suggests that other justifications could be found for using "tools" such as oral contraceptives, including "to maintain health and wellness, to address a medical condition, prevent disease, and mitigate cancer risk." Bruce Shay, a member of the Save Day Kimball Healthcare steering committee, says he worries doctors may leave if they have to abide by the directives - or might evade them by making "a sketchy diagnosis." Nandini Seshadri has seen that happen. The 40-year-old Latham, N.Y. resident received a copper IUD after delivering her first child at a secular hospital that Trinity is in the process of acquiring. She was denied the device after giving birth to her second child at a Catholic hospital now affiliated with Trinity. "I remember laughing and saying, 'What? Seriously?' " Seshadri recalled. "I didn't know that Catholic hospitals still did that." She was even more surprised when her nurse-midwife offered her a hormonal IUD instead, on the grounds that she needed it to stabilize her menstrual cycle. "I didn't have that problem," Seshadri said. To give her the contraception, she said, the nurse "was essentially falsifying my medical record." Related Content In crucial Nevada, economic woes threaten to shake Democrats' grip West Virginians fear a road meant to help their towns could destroy them Chicago scientists are testing an unhackable quantum internet in their basement closet A Las Vegas man is accused of using a brick to kill another man just off the Las Vegas Strip, before reportedly telling officers he did so in cold blood. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department received reports of a man down, according to police, just after midnight on Oct. 3. Responding officers found an unresponsive male suffering from a head wound at the 4200 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip, across from the Mandalay Bay resort and pronounced him dead on the scene. According to court documents obtained by Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS, the victim was identified as Christopher David. An investigation allegedly showed the victim was struck in the head with a brick. Police described the weapon as a large decorative brick, which was found covered in blood at the crime scene. A couple of witnesses at the scene told responding officers that one had allegedly been punched by the suspect, according to the arrest report. A third man from a nearby Motel 8 about a block north of where David's body was found claimed he heard Price rambling about leaving a trail of blood before Price allegedly attempting to sell him a firearm. Crime Scene Tape 4 G Photo: Getty Images Police say they subsequently noticed Malik Price, 27, wandering on Las Vegas Boulevard near the murder scene, allegedly with blood on his pants and shoes. They arrested him. Officers then attempted to interview Price, but decided it was going nowhere when the suspect reportedly began rapping and rambling about Jesus Christ, Navy SEALS, 9/11, the Koran, and other non-relevant topics, according to police. RELATED: Cops Looking For Texas Woman Indicted For Trafficking Jaguar Who Was Later Abandoned Prices incoherent statements continued after investigators stopped the interview and attempted to collect a DNA sample from the suspect. I did it. Im a filthy murderer, yup! Price said, according to the police report. I hit him upside [the head] with a tombstone. I saw a sign to be a violent gentleman today. Story continues Body-worn cameras worn by police officers also captured Price confessing to the crime while being transported to jail after the interview, according to KLAS. Oxy App I killed that man in cold blood, Price allegedly said. If you let me out of jail, Ill become a serial killer. It was later discovered that blood found on the sole Prices shoe allegedly matched a bloody footprint found at the crime scene, according to the arrest report. Jail records obtained by Oxygen.com show Price was booked into the Clark County jail on open murder charges and is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 24. Israeli soldiers take position amid clashes with Palestinian demonstrators following a protest (AFP via Getty Images) A 12-year-old Palestinian boy has died in hospital two weeks after being shot in the stomach by Israeli forces raiding his refugee camp. Mahmoud Samoudi suffered critical injuries to his colon, kidneys and bladder during an army raid in Jenin, a refugee camp and stronghold of armed Palestinians. During the raid on September 28, soldiers entered the camp and surrounded a house. 12-year-old Mahmoud Mohammad Khalil Samoudi died today after Israeli forces shot him with live ammunition in the abdomen on September 28. He sustained critical injuries to his colon, kidneys, & bladder. He underwent surgery & was in the ICU until succumbing to his wounds today. pic.twitter.com/X1unYRf0Cl Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) October 10, 2022 In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of gunfire could be heard. At the time, Palestinian health officials said two teenagers, aged 16 and 18, were killed and that 11 people were wounded. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mondays death. Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids across the West Bank since a spate of attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people. The army said it had traced some of the perpetrators of those attacks back to Jenin. Israeli fire has killed more than 100 Palestinians during that time, making it the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2015. The Israeli military says the vast majority of those killed were militants or stone-throwers who endangered soldiers. But several civilians have also been killed during Israels months-long operation, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone. Local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed. Israel says the arrest raids are meant to dismantle militant networks. The Palestinians say the operations are aimed at strengthening Israels 55-year military occupation of territories they want for an independent state. The Fairfield Township Offices, 718 Wabash Ave., Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021 in Lafayette. LAFAYETTE, Ind. Two townships in Tippecanoe County Fairfield in Lafayette and Wabash in West Lafayette became the catalyst for revising Indiana law to ouster rogue trustees. Typically, trustee races fall under the news radar, but this year, the J&C is focused on the townships embroiled in controversy. Former Wabash Township Trustee Jennifer Teising is a convicted thief who is appealing her Jan. 5 conviction and her sentence. Fairfield Township Trustee Taletha Coles stands at the brink of being forced from office using Indiana's revised law to remove trustees. She's also being investigated by the Indiana State Police and the Indiana State Board of Accounts for her management of township finances. Coles, a Democrat, lost her primary bid for re-election in May, so she will not be returning to the office in 2023. The Journal & Courier requested the trustee candidates from the two townships respond to three questions. Here are their answers. Fairfield Township Fairfield Township trustee candidates are Monaca Casanova running on the Democratic Party's ticket and April O'Brien running on the Republican Party's ballot. Monica Casanova Q: Name three goals you plan to accomplish in the trustees office if elected. A: Open the office. Provide financial documents to the board and public. Provide township assistance. Q: Given the turmoil in the trustees offices over the last two years, how will you repair the damage done to the office and the township? A: Have consistent public board meetings at the township office, post financial records online and have them readily available, expand office hours, open the office, and provide access to the office by offering opportunities to provide feedback to the trustee in the form of public forums such as an open house and/or town halls. Q: What makes you the better candidate? A: I have experience running a unit of government as a library director and social service experience as a case manager for a community mental health center. I have a passion for serving the public. I am community oriented and have a track record of community activism. Story continues April OBrien Q: Name three goals you plan to accomplish in the trustees office if elected. A: Open doors, open records: It is essential to immediately make the office open for the board, the staff and the clients. We will immediately be accountable to the residents of Fairfield Township. Township assistance will be a major goal for 2023. As trustee, I will be treating clients with kindness and compassion. Create a working relationship with the township board that includes a financial review process of expenditures. Together we will manage the office. Q: Given the turmoil in the trustees offices over the past two years, how will you repair the damage done to the office and the township? A: I have a good network of people who are willing to come alongside and help rebuild the office. This includes Bill Jones, Tippecanoe Township trustee, who was responsible for helping Wabash Township out of their mess in 2022. Im confident using my management skills, I will be able to hire quality staff and train them to run the office including the case management aspects of township assistance. I have formed two boards previously, and I know the importance of collaborating with each member. They all bring different skill sets which are an asset to the office and community. Q: What makes you the better candidate? Management experience. The trustee in Fairfield Township must be a manger of resources, including staff and financial management. As a small business owner, I know the importance of hiring and training staff well and utilizing the resources of the board. I have the ability to listen, learn, and lead! I have dedicated my adult life helping those who face the tallest hurdles and had the greatest degree of hopelessness. Kindness and compassion go a long way when working with people. Wabash Township After Teising's felony conviction, township board President Angel Valentin was appointed interim trustee. The week after his appointment, a Democratic Party caucus elected Valentin to file the remaining months of Teising's term, which is at the end of the year. Eric Hoppenjans participated as a private citizen in the township meetings during the turmoil brought by Teising. Angel Valentin Q: Name three goals you plan to accomplish in the trustees office if elected. A: If elected, I will continue to work with our fire department's leadership to sustainably grow the number of paid and volunteer personnel, which will allow us to improve the quality of service we provide in emergency situations. I also would like to continue working with non-profit organizations and communities of faith to help streamline the process when residents in need are seeking assistance to cover rent, utilities, prescription medications, etc. Finally, I want to continue working to build stronger relationships with West Lafayette, Area Plan Commission, and other units of local government so that we can better plan for the future growth of our thriving community. Q: Given the turmoil in the trustees offices over the last two years, how will you repair the damage done to the office and the township? A: Since my appointment in January, we have worked to rebuild the trust and working relationship between our office, the township board, and the paid and volunteer personnel of our township's fire department. Going forward, we will continue to work with our fire department leadership and our board to address the needs of our constituents, and ensure that constituents have access to resources and documents through our township website. We will also continue to work with non-profits, communities of faith, and property managers to ensure that folks facing emergency needs are able to get help from our township. Q: What makes you the better candidate? A: We have earned the trust of our firefighting staff over the last year as we've planned for our township's continuing growth, which is why I am proud to have the support of our state and local firefighters' unions. That trust, along with the strong relationships we have cultivated with officials in Greater Lafayette, and my experience serving on different boards in our community, will help us to succeed in building our township's future. Lastly, my experience working as a resource coordinator for our local food bank and my work with communities of faith in the community will enable our township assistance program to better serve those facing emergency needs. Eric Hoppenjans Q: Name three goals you plan to accomplish in the trustees office if elected. A: My first goal will be to begin the rebuilding of the fire department in a cost-effective and efficient way. Second, increasing township assistance over the next few years will be critical as we navigate high inflation and the coming recession. The final goal of my time in office will be restoring public trust in the office. Q: Given the turmoil in the trustees offices over the last two years, how will you repair the damage done to the office and the township? A: Transparency and accountability are key to restoring public trust. Strictly adhering to clearly defined, board-approved policies is a must. Also, accurate and timely reporting of financial records, and providing easy access to the records will go a long way in repairing the damage done to the office. Q: What makes you the better candidate? A: I have 12 years of experience owning and operating my own business. I know what it takes to balance organizational needs with available funding. I also come from a family of firefighters, and ensuring they have the necessary resources required to complete their mission safely and effectively is a personal goal for me. Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2. This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Candidates aim to bring 'trust' back to the title trustee The U.S. is wading deeper into Russias war on Ukraine on multiple fronts, even as the president and the Senate Armed Services Committee chair liken the conflict to the height of the Cold War. Days after Ukraine is alleged to have bombed the sole bridge linking Crimea to Russia and Moscow responded with missile attacks on more than 20 Ukrainian cities, a senior U.S. official confirmed Tuesday that sending advanced air defenses to Kyiv is now the top priority of Ukraines Western backers. The announcement followed President Joe Bidens pledge to offer such assistance in a call with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy. At the United Nations this week, American diplomats are lobbying countries to support a resolution rebuking Russia for its claim to have annexed four Ukrainian territories. A vote is expected Wednesday. U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, are invoking Ukraine as they moved to punish Saudi Arabia for an OPEC oil production cut that could help Russia and deepen an energy crisis that is already testing the resolve of the Western alliance. Theres also bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill in favor of boosting Ukraines ability to defend itself from missile strikes and drone attacks as anger flares toward Russian leader Vladimir Putin over his threats of nuclear retaliation. Taken together, the developments underscore Americas commitment to cooperation with Kyiv, even as Biden remains keen to avoid a direct U.S.-Russia conflict and the war drags on with no end in sight. The looming winter months promise to further stall momentum and strain supply lines on the battlefield. Were in a situation that we have not seen since the Cuban [missile] crisis, Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) told POLITICO in an interview. The more we can do to secure the airspace of Ukraine and help protect the Ukrainian people thats something we have to do. Reeds comments echoed recent ones from Biden, who used the term Armageddon when referring to Putins ongoing tough talk. Story continues In addition to Reed, powerful Republicans on the Hill are also pushing for the Biden administration to do more to help secure Ukraine from the air and prevent more strikes like those that hit Kyiv earlier this week. Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the U.S. should respond by immediately sending longer-range artillery and additional air defense systems to Ukraine. The top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, went even further by calling for the transfer of fighter jets as well. Better arming and equipping of Ukraine will help save lives and give Ukraine the capacity to end this war faster, Risch said. The Biden administration can and must do more to defend Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested Tuesday that it has long been Washington, not Kyiv, calling the shots against Moscow. It seems to me that the Americans have been participating de facto in this war for a long time, Lavrov told Russian state television, according to Reuters. This war is being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons. That allegation ignores the fact that, up to this point in the conflict, Western officials had walked a fine line in sending munitions to Ukraine making sure it had enough to defend itself but stopping short of providing weapons that could be used to escalate the war. And tensions had flared between the U.S. and Ukraine as to the appropriate response to Russias actions: U.S. officials were angered when the Ukrainians detonated a car bomb in Moscow in August that killed the daugther of a promiment Russian analyst. The public release of information about that plot in recent days was meant, in part, as a warning to Ukraine not to repeat a similarly provocative move, according to an official familiar with the matter. But Putins indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets like parks, playgrounds and a popular pedestrian bridge has tightened the U.S.-Ukraine alliance. In his call with Zelenskyy, Biden repeated his vow from this summers NATO summit in Madrid that the U.S. would stand with Ukraine as long as it takes to thwart Russias aggression. Americas aim there is also to keep NATO allies from succumbing to what U.S. officials believe is Putins goal: breaking the will of the Western alliance by terrorizing Ukraine with missiles launched against civilian targets while plunging Europe into a winter that could foment economic hardship and second thoughts about directing resources to Kyiv. Weapons alone wont sustain the Ukrainians, however, if Moscow keeps getting lifelines like the one OPEC nations provided by deciding last week to cut their oil output, enraging U.S. and European officials who wanted a production boost to help further starve Russias energy revenue. The decision has prompted top U.S. lawmakers to call for an immediate freeze of security cooperation between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia including the halting of all weapons sales to the kingdom and removal of all U.S. troops and equipment. Senate leaders are further considering legislation that takes aim at OPEC for price-fixing and antitrust violations. If they dont have any concern for international security and the stability of the world economy, why should we be helping them? said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, echoing calls to cut off U.S. cooperation with the kingdom. The Saudi actions have angered many inside the Biden administration, too, especially after the president visited Riyadh over the summer in a bid to ease tensions. White House spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that Biden would work with Congress right away to re-evaluate the U.S.-Saudi relationship, although he didnt offer specifics. For many Ukraine supporters, that action cant come soon enough as Western governments worry that energy prices will continue to spike if the global supply remains strained while Russia is cut off. The United States, the American people, the people of Western Europe are making sacrifices every single day to support Ukraine, Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) said on CNN Tuesday. Saudi Arabia just decided to intensify our sacrifices to make our pain harsher in order to help Putin. For years, many in Washington have overlooked concerns about anti-democratic actions and human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia in the name of advancing mutual security interests in the region, especially on countering the Islamist regime in Iran. Yet Biden administration officials see a potential shift on the horizon after the kingdom effectively sided with Russia. Weve been trying to pull them onto the right side of history as the international order is threatened by Russias invasion of Ukraine, and the Saudi response is thanks, but we need higher oil prices so the crown prince can build his ridiculous city in the desert, an administration official told POLITICO, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. In New York, the U.S. has worked with the U.K. and European Union countries to intensely lobby an array of countries to back the Russia-rebuking resolution being set forth at the General Assembly. Russia vetoed a similar resolution at the U.N. Security Council last month. While Russia doesnt have a veto to wield at the General Assembly, many countries for historical, economic and other reasons have been unwilling to take sides between the West and Moscow. The goal this time around, for the U.S. and its allies, is to get at least some of those countries many of which are in Africa or Latin America to move to a yes vote from an abstention. A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to provide on the record comments, said the U.S. camp is very confident of winning the motion with more than 100 votes, but they want to get as much support as possible. There are 193 U.N. member states. Despite the latest U.S. efforts to boost the Ukrainians, Bidens team insists that the United States still has no intention of putting American troops on the battlefield and directly facing off with a fellow nuclear power. We do not seek conflict with Russia. The president has been crystal clear about that, Kirby said, adding, No one wants to see this war escalate into the nuclear realm. Cristina Gallardo and Lara Seligman contributed to this report. Discover the history and natural charm of Ile Sainte-Marguerite. Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Looking to get away from the throngs of tourists and experience a quieter side of the French Riviera for a few hours? Located about half a mile offshore from the glitz and crowds in Cannes sits heritage-rich Ile Sainte-Marguerite. Despite its proximity to the mainland, the largest (though to be clear, its still pretty small) of the Lerins Islands seems like a different world with a laid-back Mediterranean tempo and untouched natural appeal. It has a magnificent rocky coastline, astoundingly turquoise tides, and fragrant forests. There are a couple of interesting man-made attractions, too, including an old fortress and an underwater sculpture museum. The vibe on Ile Sainte-Marguerite is very relaxed. Though things get a bit buzzier with the arrival of summer vacationers, the leisurely feeling and quiet still remain. Lindsay Cohn What to Know Before You Go Ile Sainte-Marguerite is the ideal day trip for a slower pace and beautiful scenery. Its easy to explore on foot just be sure to wear sensible shoes for traversing the stone stairs and pine needle-carpeted dirt pathways, as well as aqua socks for the pebbly beaches. You wont find any shops, so its essential to pack sunscreen, towels, snorkeling gear, and any other necessities. Its also a good idea to bring along a water bottle to refill at the fountains and some snacks as food options are limited. Getting There The most convenient and affordable way to reach Ile Sainte-Marguerite? The ferry takes 15 minutes and runs every hour until the evening. Tickets cost about $16 and come with a map of the island. The alternative method of transport would be to hop on an organized tour or rent a boat for the day. The latter offers more flexibility in terms of departing and returning, but the price is significantly higher. Related: 7 Destinations in France Where the French Love to Go Lindsay Cohn What to Do on Ile Sainte-Marguerite The ferry drops passengers at the historic port. Follow the coast for an endless string of photogenic coves that are perfect for spreading out a towel on the warm rocks (or seeking out a tree-shaded spot) and cooling off in the clear, shallow tides. Suffice to say, Ile Sainte-Marguerite provides ample opportunities for swimming and snorkeling. Perhaps the most intriguing attraction is the underwater museum with sculptures by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor. Its a free and deeply fascinating exhibition that only requires a snorkel and sense of wonder. The interior of the island, meanwhile, brims with fragrant eucalyptus and Aleppo pine trees. Story continues History buffs should head to Fort Royal. Originally built as a Spanish fortress, it was later used as a French penitentiary even imprisoning the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask for a time. Today, it houses Musee de la Mer, which displays relics from ancient Roman shipwrecks and prison artifacts. Where to Eat and Drink on Ile Sainte-Marguerite Ile Sainte-Marguerite has two sit-down restaurants. Fun and atmospheric, La Guerite is the closest thing to the lively French Riviera beach clubs. The music acts as a siren call, luring day-trippers down the long stone stairs. Patrons savor Mediterranean cuisine and some even dance on tables overlooking the waves. L'Escale serves tender grilled octopus and whole sea bream in a warm setting with staggering views of the sea and Cannes. If youd rather grab something to go, there are a couple of snack kiosks Le Leronos and Glaciar by the harbor that sell sandwiches, cold drinks, popsicles, and chips. Many visitors choose to pack a lunch and eat at one of the rocky outcrops or the dedicated picnic tables around the island. Lindsay Cohn Where to Stay on Ile Sainte-Marguerite The island doesnt have any overnight accommodations anymore (the only hotel closed in 2005), so your best bet is to stay in Cannes. For a taste of the glamorous film festival well after the red carpet gets rolled up, check into Hotel Barriere Le Majestic Cannes, a five-star legend in the upscale area around La Croisette. Nearby, Hotel Martinez The Unbound Collection by Hyatt shines as a ritzy respite with a cocktail bar, fine-dining restaurant, and chic rooms. Sophisticated, contemporary, and warm defines the ambience at Hotel Barriere Le Gray d'Albion, which remains an enduring favorite. For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Travel & Leisure. The NFL chopping block sent former Penn State linebacker and staff member Matt Rhule to the unemployment line on Monday. Rhule was fired by the Carolina Panthers after s tough start to the season, and he has immediately been recognized as a top candidate for a couple of college football jobs. After flunking out of the NFL in a short period of time, Rhule could easily return to the college football world and redeem himself. The evidence is there to suggest Rhule will be able to navigate just about any program into a winner with a solid game plan. Rhule has done so at Temple, where he more or less continued to build off the groundwork laid by former head coach Al Golden (and patching up what was left from Steve Addazio). He also did so at Baylor, a program rocked by its own scandal situation that left the Bears in a rough spot. Baylors success now is credited to head coach Dave Arranda but has the fingerprints of Rhules initial work clearly visible. It just so happens that the Big Ten has two jobs that need a coach with a vision and ability to build from the ground up. Wisconsin and Nebraska each are in need of a head coach, and the Huskers are the school to watch when it comes to Rhule. The feeling is the Wisconsin job may actually be interim head coach Jim Leonhards to lose (and his open audition got off to a great start vs. Northwestern). Wisconsin also isnt in need of a major turnaround as a program. Nebraska, however, needs a lot of help and Rhule is a guy who should be hearing from the offices in Lincoln if he hasnt already. Paul Myerberg of USA TODAY Sports says Nebraska should act quickly to make sure they do not miss out on Rhule. Nebraskas search for a reboot under athletics director Trev Alberts should lead directly to Rhule, who meets every prerequisite for the job as subtly outlined by Alberts in announcing Scott Frosts dismissal last month, Myerberg wrote. Hes a culture builder and a grinder, as Alberts noted among the top qualities he was evaluating in the Cornhuskers coaching search. Story continues Another USA TODAY Sports writer, Dan Wolken, says Rhules firing may be a suggestion that NFL teams should stop trying to take chances on successful college coaches, but Rhule has proven to be too good a coach to not get another college job. Rhule will undoubtedly do the same wherever he lands, which is why a school like Nebraska should do whatever it can to court him, Wolken said. Hes too good of a college coach not to succeed. Many Penn State fans would love to see Rhule join the staff under James Franklin as an analyst, and he would undoubtedly have plenty to offer Penn States staff in any role he could potentially be given. But it is probably unlikely Rhule takes up time in Happy Valley. He is owed $40 million from the Panthers so he doesnt have to do a darn thing right now. And the buyout from the Panthers allows Rhule to take some time off if he chooses and evaluate all of his options moving forward. Taking on an analyst role at Penn State may not be desired in any capacity given those circumstances. But do not be surprised when you see Rhules name floating around the rumor mill for a Big Ten job. He would be a great fit in the conference even as it expands in the coming years. Nebraska would be lucky to have him, and it would be good to see Rhule in the conference. List Social media reacts to former Nittany Lion Matt Rhule's firing Related Former Nittany Lion Matt Rhule fired by the Carolina Panthers Penn State's make-or-break run begins this week at Michigan AP Top 25: Alabama stumbles, James Madison makes first appearance USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll remains unchanged in top 10 247Sports bumps Penn State commit to four-star rating Follow Kevin McGuire on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Follow Nittany Lions Wire on Twitter and like us on Facebook for continuing Penn State coverage and discussion. Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment on this story below. Join the conversation today. Story originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) wasted no time in fulfilling his education campaign promises after he was elected to office. Since his inauguration earlier this year, Youngkins administration saw the passage of a substantial education budget; the governor signed the Virginia Literacy Act and executive orders banning critical race theory; and the Virginia Board of Education released new model policies retracting accommodations for transgender students. The actions represent policy wins on issues that are popular among the broader GOP. Experts say his performance could make him a standout in the leadup to the 2024 presidential election, where making good on campaign promises could give him an extra boost. Youngkins victory last year made him the first Republican elected to a statewide office in Virginia since 2009. The businessman-turned-politician made education and parents role in their childrens education a key issue on the campaign trail, resonating with suburban and independent voters. The 55-year-old governor was able to harness interest in national education topics such as critical race theory, mask mandates and LGBT issues during his campaign. The governor ran on and was elected on his premise of empowering parents and restoring excellence in education. Since being elected, hes been delivering on it since day one, an official with Youngkins office told The Hill. Youngkin signed orders to make masks optional in all schools, directed schools to ban lessons that were inherently divisive and ordered an investigation into the Loudoun County school district after it gained national attention for an alleged case of sexual assault. The early actions taken by the commonwealths governor mirror those of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is up for reelection and is widely viewed as a top potential GOP presidential contender in 2024. DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill and legislation that would ban transgender students from participating on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity. Story continues In late September, the Virginia Board of Education released an updated set of model policies mapping out the treatment of transgender students in schools, from use of names and pronouns to the use of bathrooms and sex-designated school facilities. These policies have garnered backlash from Virginia Democrats and even high school students in the state whove staged walkouts in protest. Students at McLean High School in McLean, Va., walk out of classes to protest Gov. Glenn Youngkins proposed changes to accommodations to transgender students. But some bipartisanship has also been found in Virginia, following the passage of an extensive education budget back in April. The Youngkin official praised the bipartisan work on the budget, highlighting teacher pay raises, money for school resource officers and school safety, $100 million to lab schools and school construction. Gianni Snidle, press secretary for the Democratic Party of Virginia, described the most recent education budget to The Hill as historic but doesnt believe the governor deserves the credit for it. We did end up passing a historic education budget, but that was due to Senate Democrats efforts, not Governor Youngkin, Snidle said, adding Republicans only got on board with the teacher pay raises after Democrats proposed it. Still, Youngkins policy wins have made him popular among Republicans in his state and have grabbed the attention of the GOP nationwide. Veteran Republican strategist Doug Heye told The Hill that following through on campaign promises can often be a rare thing in politics. Hes following up on promises that he made, which in politics sometimes can be a rare thing. And its why you see he has a net approval rating in the state and more and more Republicans are wanting him on the campaign trail in these closing weeks of the campaign, Heye said. Youngkin has made the rounds during his short time in office, campaigning for fellow Republicans like Maine gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage. Hes also campaigned for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who is seeking reelection this year. Youngkin campaigned with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in September as he faces off against Democrat Stacey Abrams for the governorship in November. This type of popularity can be useful for a presidential bid. The best way to do this is talk about [education issues] in the context of delivering on promises. If youre running for president, obviously we dont know that he is, different issues react differently in primary states and things like that. But if hes able to talk about how hes delivered and continues to deliver on promises he made, hes on good footing, Heye said. But for now, Youngkin has waved off questions about a potential 2024 presidential run. The Youngkin official told The Hill the governor is focused on keeping his education promises in office. Hes focused on delivering for Virginians, and empowering parents and focusing on education and restoring excellence will always be some of his key priorities, the official said. But even Democrats say that the Republicans efforts in office indicate that he has lofty political ambitions. Snidle said he has no doubt Youngkin has 2024 ambitions. I think right now everything that Youngkin is doing is through the lens that he is running [in] 2024. Theres no doubt about it, Snidle said. The far-right policies that hes trying to push in Virginia Virginians dont want that, but it works for his MAGA Republican base. He has to show them that if he wants to be the nominee, hes going to cater to them and thats what hes doing here. The next challenge Youngkin will have to face in education in Virginia is the ever-growing teacher shortage that is plaguing the country. While Youngkin has proposed a plan to make licensure for teaching in Virginia more flexible to make it easier for out-of-state teachers and retirees to help fill the void, Democrats and the Virginia Education Association (VEA) have said it is not enough. We have a teacher shortage because of Governor Youngkin and Republicans attacking our public schools. Our teachers, they get harassed, Snidle said. The VEA said at the time of Youngkins proposal that they can get behind some of his plan but that there is more he needs to do to help alleviate the shortage of teachers. Our current budget surplus could be used effectively to solve this problem, which affects all Virginias citizens. By what he decides to do with those funds, our governor will show us if he truly values education and solving our teacher shortages, VEA President James J. Fedderman said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Top Los Angeles officials are in turmoil following a leaked recording of racist remarks. Tulsi Gabbard is waving goodbye to the Democratic Party. And why an Andy Warhol image of Prince is headed to the Supreme Court. Hello! Laura Davis here. It's Tuesday, which means it's time for *checks notes* Tuesday's news! But first: It's National Coming Out Day. "I'm gay." "I'm transgender." "I'm nonbinary." Could the traditional "coming out" narrative someday be a thing of the past? The Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here. It's not me, it's Democrats Tulsi Gabbard, probably She's out. Calling on "fellow commonsense independent-minded Democrats" to join her, former Hawaii Rep. and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday she is leaving the Democratic Party. In a minute long video posted on Twitter, Gabbard said she can no longer remain in today's Democratic Party, which is "now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness." Gabbard ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race before suspending her campaign in March 2020 saying she would support President Joe Biden. She served in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party. Racist leaked recording leads to LA resignations Two days after audio leaked of a conversation between some of Los Angeles' top political players that included racist remarks, two Los Angeles officials have resigned and it's still heating up. Catch up with the latest. What we know: Who resigned? After being heard making racist statements, Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez announced Tuesday she is taking a "leave of absence" from the council. Another person at the meeting, Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, resigned from his position on Monday. What's in the audio? Martinez made racist statements about a white council member's child, saying her colleague "handled his young Black son as though he were an accessory" and describing the colleague's son in Spanish as "like a monkey. Martinez issued an apology and stepped down as president on Monday. The bigger picture: The resignations complicate upcoming political races in the nation's second most populous city, where elections for mayor and councilmember seats are set for Nov. 8. The city council is set to meet Wednesday. Story continues Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, here at a news conference on April 1, 2022, announced on Oct. 11 that she's taking a leave of absence after leaked racist remarks. What everyone's talking about The Short List is free, but several stories we link to are subscriber-only. Consider supporting our journalism and become a USA TODAY digital subscriber today. Murder charges dropped against Adnan Syed More than 20 years ago, a shaky murder case against Adnan Syed landed him in prison for the killing of Hae Min Lee. On Tuesday, Syed became a free man. The city of Baltimore's state's attorney's office dropped its case against Syed, who was convicted in the 1999 killing that was spotlighted in the hit podcast "Serial." Syed has maintained his innocence since before he was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years, in the strangling of Lee, who was 18 at the time. The state's attorney's office said it will continue to pursue justice for Lee, adding that there is an open, pending investigation into her death. Adnan Syed, center, leaves the Elijah E. Cummings Courthouse on Sept. 19 in Baltimore. Lives shattered: Stories from the siege of Mariupol It was a normal day in Mariupol when the first shells began to fall in late February. People were hurrying about their business. Within a week, Russian troops had surrounded the city. Water was the first to go, then electricity and cell service. When the heat was cut off, cold and terror gripped those who remained. Life became suffering. Illustrated stories from the siege of Mariupol. In their own words: Volodymyr: "The city was completely dark. There was no light to be seen anywhere. The only thing visible was something burning in the distance, consequences from the daytime shelling." Volodymyr's memories of Mariupol. Alla: She and her family were convinced the Russian soldiers arriving in Mariupol were there to liberate them. But then the bombing began. Alla's story, in her own words. Olga: "We walked on the glass and on the corpses. You know, when you see a dead bird, you immediately turn away, it's a kind of reflex in a person. And when you see dead people, you just walk and you can't move on." Mariupol through Olga's eyes. Oleksandr: "The worst thing is that in our time, in modern times, our children are small, they know what an arrival of a shell is, what a departure is. Can you imagine? They know war." Oleksandr's life in Mauriupol. Ukraine news: Zelenskyy urges G-7 to provide 'air shield'; Russia declares Facebook's Meta a terror group. Tuesday's live updates. For Oleksandr, banding together with his neighbors kept them all human and alive during the siege of Mariupol. Real quick What's the weather up to in your neck of the woods? Check your local forecast here. Andy Warhol image of Prince headed to SCOTUS Copyright disputes can be interesting! On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could significantly change how courts interpret and copyright protection. The litigation before the court involves one of the country's best-known artists Andy Warhol and a rock-and-roll photographer who asserts that Warhol's colorful silkscreen images of Prince are based too closely on a photograph she took of the musician in 1981. Keep reading. Poll: Do you think these two images are too similar? Click to cast your vote. Exhibits included in a Brief in Opposition filed on behalf of photographer Lynn Goldsmith to the Supreme Court of the United States for a copyright case between Lynn Goldsmith and the Andy Warhol Foundation. The case concerns a 1981 photo by Lynn Goldsmith of the musician Prince (l) and illustrations by Andy Warhol based on the image including an illustration published in Vanity Fairs November 1984 issue. A break from the news Amazons October Prime Day is here! Shop our massive list of major deals. Save big on more: Laura L. Davis is an Audience Editor at USA TODAY. Send her an email at laura@usatoday.com or follow along with her adventures and misadventures on Twitter. Support quality journalism like this? Subscribe to USA TODAY here. This is a compilation of stories from across the USA TODAY Network. Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LA council leaked racist remarks, Tulsi Gabbard, Adnan Syed, Andy Warhol art SCOTUS case. Tuesday's news. After wiping their website and Instagram clean yesterday, seemingly in preparation for some big news, Blink-182 has come through with a major announcement: Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge and Travis Barker are reuniting for a massive 2023 world tour. The trio have also made some new music: Their new song, "Edging," will be out this Friday. The band made the announcement in a very on-brand double entendre-filled video. The tour starts in Latin America in March 2023 with the band Wallows as the opening act. North American tour dates start May 4 in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the band Turnstile opening. That leg of the tour wraps up July 16 in Nashville, Tennessee. The band will then head to Europe in September with The Story So Far as openers, and Australia/New Zealand in 2024 with Rise Against on the bill. The tour also includes an Oct. 12, 2023 appearance at the When We Were Young festival, and appearances at Lollapalooza Argentina, Lollapalooza Chile and Lollapalooza Brazil. Tickets go on sale Monday, Oct. 17, 2022 at 10 a.m. local time at blink182.com. The band's return to the stage is significant, considering its members have been dealing with a lot in their personal lives: Bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus has been continuing to recover from his 2021 cancer battle, while drummer Travis Barker was hospitalized earlier this year with pancreatitis. Blink-182 reuniting for massive 2023 world tour, new song coming Friday originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com State wildlife commissioners on Monday passed emergency rules to establish a special surveillance area in the Oklahoma Panhandle to monitor chronic wasting disease in deer and elk. The special surveillance area will run south of U.S. 412 from Boise City to the New Mexico state line and south of U.S. 287 from Boise City to the Texas state line. Upon approval by Gov. Kevin Stitt, the emergency rules will restrict the movement of deer and elk carcasses or parts from within the boundaries of the special surveillance area to outside of it. Hunters who harvest deer or elk within the boundaries must clean those animals first before leaving the special surveillance area. The special surveillance area has been established because a deer carcass was recovered along a Texas road about 2.5 miles south of the Oklahoma border near Felt that tested positive for chronic wasting disease. 'Every kid learns differently:' Why a downtown OKC school is offering fishing to students A deer runs across the walking trail at Bluff Creek Park in Oklahoma City on Feb. 4. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation will place a special emphasis on testing samples from hunter harvested deer and elk within the area. The Wildlife Department will be reaching out to hunters and landowners in the area who may be willing to volunteer samples from their deer or elk to be tested. Oklahoma's archery season for deer and elk is underway, and the muzzleloader season for deer and elk opens Oct. 22. Chronic wasting disease is an always-fatal neurological disease that affects the brains of deer, elk, moose, and other members of the cervid family, creating holes that resemble those in sponges. The disease does not affect pronghorn antelope. CWD is a fatal, neurological illness that occurs in North American cervids (members of the deer family). Since its discovery in 1967, CWD has spread to 30 states and two Canadian provinces. It is transmitted freely among deer and elk. CWD is transmitted directly through animal-to-animal contact and indirectly through contact with objects (including carcasses) or environment contaminated with the infection. Story continues There has been no known documented transmission of CWD from deer and elk to humans and livestock. However, in areas where CWD is known to be present, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that hunters strongly consider having those animals tested before eating the meat. The CDC does not recommend eating meat from an infected deer. Chronic wasting disease has never been documented in wild deer in Oklahoma but it has been found in two captive elk herds in the state. In total, 30 states now have detected the disease within their borders. Oklahoma hunting seasons:Here's your guide to 2022 regulations, dates Safety first Now that archery season is open, bow hunters should be vigilant about safety. Falling from a tree stand is the most common injury among deer hunters and it is important to be connected to the tree by a safety harness. "Ever since we started focusing on tree stand safety we have talked about not only being attached at all times, but also to have a plan to get back in the stand or down the tree safely if you do fall," said Lance Meek, the hunter education coordinator for the Wildlife Department. Meek said hunters should always practice these basic safety precautions while hunting in tree stands: Always be connected to the tree with a safety harness whether installing, climbing in or out, or sitting in it. Always wear a full body harness meeting Treestand Manufacturers Association standards, even during ascent and descent. Do not rely on belt or chest harnesses. Never exceed the weight limit of the tree stand specified by the manufacturer. Be aware of the hazards (suspension trauma) associated with full body harnesses and the fact that prolonged suspension in a harness may be fatal. Suspension trauma is the development of presyncopal symptoms and loss of consciousness if the human body is held motionless in a vertical position for a period of time. Have a plan in place for rescue, including the use of cell phones or signal devices that may be easily reached and used while suspended. If rescue personnel cannot be notified, you must have a plan for recovery or escape. If you have to hang suspended for a period of time before help arrives, exercise your legs by pushing against the tree or doing any other form of continuous motion. Have a plan if you do fall. Know how you will get back in your seat or down the tree safely. Make sure someone knows where you are and when you plan to come back on every hunt. Hunt with a buddy if possible. Always carry emergency signal devices such as a cell phone, walkie-talkie, whistle, signal flare, personal locator device and flashlight at all times and within reach, even while you are suspended in your full body harness. Inspect your tree stand each time before climbing in it Make a haul line and use it to pull up your bow or unloaded firearm and other gear. Make sure the muzzle of the gun is pointing away from you when pulling into the tree stand. The Wildlife Department has provided videos on YouTube on tree stand safety. Go to Outdoor Oklahoma on YouTube and search under the hunter education playlist. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma Wildlife Department to search for CWD in the Panhandle VANCOUVER, British Columbia, October 11, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New Found Gold Corp. ("New Found" or the "Company") (TSX-V: NFG, NYSE-A: NFGC) is pleased to announce that Raymond Threlkeld has joined as an independent member of the Company's board of directors. Highlights: Mr. Threlkeld is a geologist with over 40 years of extensive technical expertise managing teams through exploration, reserve estimates, feasibility studies, and construction, leading several operations through to production including Cowal Gold Mine Australia, Veledaro Argentina, Lagunas Norte & Pierina Peru, and Bulyanhulu Tanzania. The Pierina Mine produced over 8 million ounces of gold in a 20-year period and launched Barrick Gold to the top of the South American mining industry. In senior executive positions with Barrick Gold, Western Goldfields, Newmarket Gold, Inc., and Rainy River Resources, among others, Mr. Threlkeld has been involved in the acquisition of more than $1-billion in assets, managed an estimated $1.4-billion in construction spending, and created billions in shareholder value. As Chairman of Newmarket Gold, Inc., the team sold the company for more than $1-billion in 2016. The sale of Newmarket Gold created over $4-billion in value for Newmarket shareholders from an initial acquisition cost of $25-million. Mr. Threlkeld was inducted into the U.S. National Mining Hall of Fame in 2020. Collin Kettell, CEO of New Found stated, "I am thrilled to welcome Raymond Threlkeld as an independent director of the Company. Raymond is a seasoned mining professional with over 40 years of technical and executive experience in mineral exploration, project development, and mine construction and operation. Raymond also brings extensive board experience including serving as a director of Calibre Mining and Kirkland Lake Gold. I am excited for the contributions and insights Raymond will bring to our Company." Raymond Threlkeld, Director of New Found stated, "New Found Gold presents an extremely exciting exploration and development opportunity. The Queensway Project is as close to a Fosterville analog as I have seen and has excellent exploration potential as it is open in all directions along a strike length of 100km and only explored to very shallow depths. The multiple high-grade free-gold zones at Queensway certainly have the potential to extend far beyond the current exploration efforts. Exploration will continue at Queensway to identify shallow high-grade gold and determine a base for long term mine development. I look forward to working with Collin, the Board and the entire New Found team in advancing this exciting new high-grade gold discovery." Story continues At-The-Market Quarterly Update In addition, the Company is pleased to announce a quarterly update with respect to the Companys at-the-market equity offering program (the "ATM") implemented on August 26, 2022 pursuant to an equity distribution agreement (the "Equity Distribution Agreement") with BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., Paradigm Capital Inc. (together, the "Canadian Agents") and BMO Capital Markets Corp. (the "U.S. Agent" and, together with the Canadian Agents, the "Agents"). From the commencement of the ATM to September 30, 2022, the Company issued an aggregate of 87,400 common shares in the capital of the Company (the "ATM Shares"), through the facilities of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"), at an average price per ATM Share of C$5.0389 for aggregate gross proceeds of C$440,400.14. Pursuant to the Equity Distribution Agreement, a cash commission of C$10,349.40 was paid to the Agents in connection with the issuance of the ATM Shares, resulting in aggregate net proceeds of C$430,050.74. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor will there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. About New Found Gold Corp. New Found holds a 100% interest in the Queensway Project, located 15km west of Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, and just 18km from Gander International Airport. The project is intersected by the Trans-Canada Highway and numerous logging roads, high voltage electric power lines run through the project area, and the Company benefits from a highly skilled local workforce. The Company is currently undertaking a 400,000m drill program at Queensway, now approximately 69% complete. The Company is well funded for this program with cash and marketable securities of approximately $62 million as of October 2022. Please see the Companys website at www.newfoundgold.ca and the Companys SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com Contact To contact the Company, please visit the Companys website, www.newfoundgold.ca and make your request through our investor inquiry form. Our management has a pledge to be in touch with any investor inquiries within 24 hours. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statement Cautions This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian and U.S. securities legislation (including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995), including statements relating to the exploration and development potential of the Queensway Project; the zones of high-grade gold mineralization at the Queensway Project; the merits of the Queensway Project; plans for future exploration; the ATM; the use by the Company of the ATM; and the benefits of the ATM. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "suggests," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," "possibly," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made, and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSXV or the NYSE American, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include risks associated with the Companys ability to satisfy certain conditions under the Equity Distribution Agreement; the Companys ability to obtain all necessary approvals in connection to the ATM; possible accidents and other risks associated with mineral exploration operations; the risk that the Company will encounter unanticipated geological factors; the risks associated with the interpretation of assay results and the drilling program; the volatility of capital markets; uncertainty regarding the availability of additional capital; and fluctuations in commodity prices. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's Annual Information Form and Management's Discussion and Analysis, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com or through the SECs Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval System (EDGAR) at www.sec.gov for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221011005507/en/ Contacts New Found Gold Corp. Per: "Collin Kettell" Collin Kettell, Chief Executive Officer Email : ckettell@newfoundgold.ca Phone : + 1 (845) 535 1486 The Chicks took the stage to headline Austin City Limits Music Festival on Friday night (Oct. 7), and the group took a moment to show their support for Texas gubernatorial hopeful Beto ORourke. The group took to Twitter to share a clip from their performance, in which Natalie Maines is seen wearing a t-shirt with Ruth Bader Ginsburg on it, passionately telling the crowd, Do you have a mother? Do you have a daughter? Do you have a sister? Do you have a girlfriend? Vote Beto! If there is a female in your life that you care about, vote for Beto. More from Billboard #Texas! The registration deadline for the Nov. 8th election is TOMORROW, Oct. 11th. Make sure you are registered! the caption reads, along with the link to register to vote in Texas. ORourke, who is challenging incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in the Nov. 8 general election, was a Democratic candidate for president of the United States in 2020. In 2018, ORourke was a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas. Incumbent Senator Ted Cruz defeated ORourke in the general election by a margin of just three percentage points. Story continues Last week, Harry Styles also voiced his support for ORourke during his Love on Tour Austin concert, rocking a black-and-white sticker on his guitars bottom right corner that read Beto for Texas. Click here to read the full article. Voters in southern Arizonas competitive 6th Congressional District may not get to see the candidates for the open U.S. House seat go head to head on issues because they are not participating in a televised debate. Democrat Kirsten Engel and Republican Juan Ciscomani were expected to face off next week in a televised debate hosted by Arizona Public Media in Tucson, but the format was changed to two separate interviews that will air Oct. 14. Engels campaign accused Ciscomani of dodging the debate and of having a pattern of avoiding large televised debates with opponents, whereas it said Engel has and wants to debate live. Engels campaign said Ciscomani didnt confirm in time with Arizona Public Media, so the debate couldnt go forward on such short notice. Ciscomanis campaign rejected the claim that he doesnt want to debate, and said he was looking forward to the TV debate, but that the host decided to change the format to separate interviews. The two have yet to appear together in front of voters or participate together in a televised debate. Juan Ciscomani and Kirsten Engel: US House rivals discuss abortion rights, southern Arizona's needs As a longtime Arizonan and Tucson resident, I know that Arizona Public Medias debates are a fixture of each election year in this district, Engel said in a written statement. By dodging this debate, Juan Ciscomani is depriving voters of the opportunity to hear where he stands on crucial issues. My question for Ciscomani is simple what are you afraid of? Arizona Public Media said the change was because of logistics and did not respond to questions asking for clarity on what prompted the change. Logistics prevented us from doing the debate, Christopher Conover, Arizona Public Media news director, said. We will have both candidates in for extended interviews which will air on our TV side on the night of October 14. Engel, a former state senator, and Ciscomani, a longtime aide to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, are competing for Arizonas only open congressional seat. Incumbent Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., is retiring. Post-census redistricting shifted the old 2nd Congressional District into the new 6th Congressional District, which includes the states southeastern border and stretches north almost as far as Alpine and as far west as eastern Tucson. Story continues The race is considered competitive. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report as of Friday described it as leaning Republican, meaning the seat could flip. Election guide: November 2022 Debating the debates Engels campaign said Ciscomani has a pattern of refusing to do TV debates. He did not participate in two Arizona PBS debates this cycle one with his Republican opponents in the primary (while Engel did the Democratic debate) and another with Engel last month for the general election. The four primary candidates debated without him, and Engel later had a solo interview for the general. The host of those debates said at the start of the primary debate that Ciscomani declined the invitation, and at the start of the general debate that he did not respond. Is Ciscomani hiding from the voters to avoid answering for his radical and unpopular views? Engel said in a statement. The Engel campaign also is highlighting a video that spread widely on social media of Ciscomani appearing to walk away after being asked about his views on abortion. Becky Freeman, Ciscomanis campaign manager, said he is not dodging debates. Ciscomani wanted to do the Arizona Public Media debate against Engel, Freeman said, and had told that to the host. Its unfortunate" it was canceled because he wants in-district debates, she said. The only pattern regarding debates is Juan confirming and attending, and Engel ditching debates throughout the district after she confirms ..., Freeman said in a written statement. She has no interest in the district, no interest in showing up for the constituents, and no interest in rural Arizona. Ciscomani last week called out Engel for missing a local candidate forum in Pinal County. Her campaign said she never confirmed her appearance in that one. Whether televised or in-person, Juan will show-up, has shown up and looks forward to continue meeting voters across the district with his message, Freeman said. Debate attendance has been a point of contention in Arizona and elsewhere this election cycle. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs has declined to debate her Republican rival Kari Lake, who has made an issue of Hobbs' refusal in the Arizona governor's race. Ciscomani plans to attend an Oct. 12 debate hosted by the Sierra Vista Chamber of Commerce and the Sierra Vista Herald, Freeman said. Engels campaign hasnt yet confirmed for that, but said its misleading to compare the major debates held by journalists and televised for the whole district to smaller local community forums. Reach the reporter at Alison.Steinbach@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-444-4282. Follow her on Twitter @alisteinbach. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: No TV debate for Kirsten Engel, Juan Ciscomani in 6th Congressional District Paramedic David Liske administers a COVID-19 booster shot to Michael Meade at the Island Pacific Seafood Market in Oxnard, California, on Sept. 23. Oregon reported 4,237 new cases of coronavirus in the week ending Sunday, down slightly from 4,269 the week before of the virus that causes COVID-19. Oregon ranked 17th among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week, coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 7.7% from the week before, with 298,674 cases reported. With 1.27% of the country's population, Oregon had 1.42% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 13 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Marion County reported 356 cases and two deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 354 cases and four deaths. Throughout the pandemic, it has reported 83,097 cases and 789 deaths. Polk County reported 86 cases and no deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 80 cases and two deaths. Throughout the pandemic, it has reported 19,108 cases and 152 deaths. Within Oregon, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Grant County with 500 cases per 100,000 per week; Crook County with 205; and Jefferson County with 203. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week. Adding the most new cases overall were Multnomah County, with 809 cases; Washington County, with 589 cases; and Clackamas County, with 433. Weekly case counts rose in 18 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Lane, Klamath and Clackamas counties. >> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases Across Oregon, cases fell in 15 counties, with the largest declines in Josephine County, with 55 cases from 103 a week earlier; in Jackson County, with 162 cases from 195; and in Linn County, with 97 cases from 130. In Oregon, 29 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 41 people were reported dead. Story continues A total of 899,013 people in Oregon have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 8,590 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,699,237 people have tested positive and 1,062,564 people have died. >> Track coronavirus cases across the United States Oregon's COVID-19 hospital admissions falling USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Oct. 9. Likely COVID-19 patients admitted in the state: Last week: 637 The week before that: 659 Four weeks ago: 667 Likely COVID-19 patients admitted in the nation: Last week: 50,835 The week before that: 49,835 Four weeks ago: 58,231 Hospitals in 18 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 15 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 29 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows. The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon COVID-19: Marion County reports 356 cases this week A Democratic advocacy group launched a radio ad in Georgia on Tuesday to boost support for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams among Black male voters, amid concerns of declining support. The new ad from People For the American Way is part of a larger multiplatform campaign by the organization in Georgia to drum up support for Abrams and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in the last four weeks of the midterm elections. Tuesdays ad aims to show that GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Senate candidate Herschel Walker are the wrong choices for Black male voters in Georgia, the group said in a press release. Look I know shes not your favorite, one man says in the ad of Abrams. But Brian Kemp? You gotta watch what he does, not just what he says. The ad points to Kemps opposition to expanding Medicaid coverage in the state and his decision to end pandemic-related unemployment benefits from the federal government. The ad also takes aim at recent allegations that Walker, who has positioned himself as a strong anti-abortion candidate, paid for a womans abortion in 2009. Walker has denied the allegations. Dude! That brothers not right who asks his girlfriend to get an abortion one day and then says we should outlaw all abortion the next? the man in the ad says. Listen things are getting real. Weve gotta look out for us. Im definitely voting, just not for those jokers. Abrams on Sunday dismissed concerns that support for her among Black Georgians has diminished as a manufactured crisis that is designed to suppress turnout. When Abrams ran for governor in 2018, she received the support of about 93 percent of Black voters. Her support among Black men was slightly lower, with 88 percent supporting Abrams in that election compared to the 97 percent of Black women that backed her. In contrast, a recent poll from the Atlanta Journal Constitution found that this year, 79 percent of Black voters backed Abrams, and that support dropped to 75 percent among Black men. Recent polling has showed Kemp pulling ahead of Abrams. The incumbent governor held a 5-point lead over Abrams in new polling from InsiderAdvantage and Fox 5 released on Thursday, and a 7-point lead in a Fox News poll from late September. However, a Quinnipiac University poll from mid-September found the race too close to call, with the two separated by just 2 points. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. By Kirstin Ridley LONDON (Reuters) - A former Credit Suisse banker, who was convicted and sentenced to prison in Romania for a decade for alleged espionage in 2013, is hoping to revive an $86 million London claim against the Swiss bank for lost earnings. Vadim Benyatov, a former head of European emerging markets focused on energy sector privatisations, is urging the Court of Appeal to overturn a lower court decision to dismiss his case, in which he alleges the Swiss bank owes him a duty of care and that his employment contract implied a considerable indemnity. A lawyer for Benyatov told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that his client, who was made redundant in 2015 and has been unable to find suitable work since then, had been convicted for doing his job. "Mr Benyatov was an employee of Credit Suisse who, as a direct result of doing his job and through no fault of his own was convicted in Romania for doing his work," Charles Ciumei told the first day of a three-day hearing. "The impact of that conviction was to end his career in the financial services industry." Credit Suisse said it would continue to defend itself against a "meritless" claim. The case is being closely watched by employment lawyers because it raises questions about the nature and extent of the risk to which employees can be exposed. Benyatov, who earned 450,000 pounds ($497,565) plus bonuses per year, was arrested alongside two colleagues in 2006 in connection with a Romanian privatisation. He was jailed for 56 days before being tried and convicted in 2013 in absentia for alleged espionage and membership of an organised criminal group. Credit Suisse, which originally agreed his conduct had been in line with accepted business practice, supported and paid for his defence and appeals, including to the European Court of Human Rights - and his sentence was cut to four-and-a-half years in 2015. But the bank challenges his claims of duty of care breaches, negligence and causation of loss and damage. Story continues In 2015, Benyatov fled to the United States to avoid any European Arrest Warrant. He has not served his sentence. ($1 = 0.9044 pounds) (Additional reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Mark Potter) Ohio's U.S. Senate candidates traded barbs on stage Monday in their first debate of the general election, underscoring major differences between the candidates who want to replace GOP Sen. Rob Portman. In the first of two debates, Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance went after each other's views on abortion, inflation and trade during the fiery hourlong event. The debate gave voters an opportunity to hear from the candidates directly, but it also gave the candidates air time to spew talking points that weren't always accurate. Here's context for some of the claims that Vance and Ryan made throughout the night. Ryan: "J.D. Vance invested in China and companies that shipped products back." Vance has invested between $1,000 and $15,000 in Global Uprising, PBC, which does business as a Utah-based outdoor gear retailer called Cotopaxi, according to his latest financial disclosure. The company, which makes clothing, hats and bags, says it gives 1% of its profits to a foundation that distributes grants to humanitarian organizations. Cotopaxi gets its headwear products from a Chinese manufacturer in Shanghai. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the company was importing about 22% of its products from China in 2019. J.D. Vance and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan met for their first debate in the U.S. Senate race Monday night. Vance: "In 2018, 2019 and 2020, you opposed the tariffs that started to bring some of that manufacturing and industrial base back to Ohio." On the campaign trail and during Monday's debate, Ryan said he supported former President Donald Trump's trade policy and strategy on China. The congressman was among nearly 200 Democrats to back the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement negotiated during Trump's presidency to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2018, he called Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum a "long overdue" move that would protect Ohio jobs, although he questioned why European countries weren't excluded. He repeated those concerns during his 2020 presidential campaign, saying tariffs on China are an "absolute necessity" but need to be implemented in a more targeted way than Trump's plan. Story continues Ryan: "J.D., you called rape inconvenient." While Vance supports "life of the mother" exceptions, he has said he doesn't believe abortions should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. When asked about this in a Spectrum News 1 interview last year, Vance said "two wrongs don't make a right." "It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term," Vance told Spectrum News 1. "It's whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society. The question really to me is about the baby. We want women to have opportunities. We want women to have choices. But above all, we want women and young boys in the womb to have the right to life." Vance: "He said he supported Ohios natural gas industry and hes always done so, and yet Tim Ryan, when he ran for president, was it two years ago, you supported banning fracking, both on public lands and generally speaking. In a climate forum during his 2020 presidential campaign, Ryan said he would "absolutely" support a fracking ban on federal lands. "The natural gas piece is a transition for us ... there are a lot of people where I come from that are making pretty good money working there," he continued. "It's some of the best paying jobs left in the country, frankly. But we have got to move so much faster. We've got to move on this stuff." A Washington Post analysis of the presidential candidates' views on fracking labeled Ryan as someone who supports more regulations as opposed to an all-out ban. Ryan acknowledged the economic benefits of fracking in the newspaper's questionnaire but said the government needs to "ramp up our oversight" to prevent leaks and other problems. "If the industry cannot rapidly innovate on these issues, I believe the federal government would need to step in and halt fracking operations," Ryan told the Post. Ryan also supported Biden's decision in 2021 to suspend drilling on federal land and waterways, telling The Vindicator that fracking could still continue and create jobs elsewhere. Ryan: "J.D. Vance raised money for the legal defense fund of the insurrectionists." In a January tweet, Vance shared a link to an organization that raised money for people who were charged with crimes in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The tweet doesn't indicate if Vance donated to the organization personally. Vance also encouraged those who couldn't donate to consider "writing a letter or offering words of encouragement." "*Even if* the very worst of the Democrats claims about J6 are true (theyre not), it is an insult to all of us that so many people are rotting in prison without being offered a speedy trial," Vance tweeted. "These people are political prisoners, and their captivity is an assault on democracy." According to CNN, most of the people facing charges were released shortly after their arrests, and 40 defendants were being held in a Washington, D.C., jail as of late 2021. Vance: "The leadership of the FBI approached Facebook and told them to censor information that was negative about Joe Biden, about Hunter Biden's corrupt business dealings." In a lengthy interview with podcaster Joe Rogan in August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg fielded questions about Facebook's decision to limit the circulation of a New York Post article about Hunter Biden's business dealings during the 2020 election cycle. Zuckerberg said the FBI came to Meta and asked company officials to be on high alert for potential Russia propaganda circulating online. Zuckerberg said Facebook decreased the distribution of the New York post article on its platform, meaning it could still be shared, but fewer people ultimately saw it. When asked if the FBI warned Meta about that story specifically, Zuckerberg said, "No. I don't remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern." After the Rogan interview, a Meta spokesperson reiterated that the FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference in the election not anything specific about Hunter Biden. Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Senate debate: Fact checking claims from Tim Ryan, J.D. Vance Nearly a dozen candidates are running in Brazils presidential election but only two stand a chance of reaching a runoff: former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (whose image appears at left) and incumbent Jair Bolsonaro (whose image appears in the center). (Photo: (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)) Nearly a dozen candidates are running in Brazils presidential election but only two stand a chance of reaching a runoff: former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (whose image appears at left) and incumbent Jair Bolsonaro (whose image appears in the center). (Photo: (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)) SAO PAULO Last fall, right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro made it clear that there was only one way he would leave power: Only God, he told raucous supporters in Sao Paulo, can remove me from office. Ordinary Brazilians, however, may do just that on Sunday when they head to the polls in an election that carries massive stakes for the future of the worlds fourth-largest democracy. Bolsonaros chief rival in the election, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has held a commanding lead in polls for more than a year, and recent surveys suggest that the leftist former president has an outside chance to win an outright majority in this weekends first round, preventing the need for a two-person runoff three weeks from now. But over the last two years, Bolsonaro has openly suggested that he does not intend to accept the results of an election he loses and has pledged to his supporters that he will go to war to prevent the end of his presidency. An ardent ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has spread baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud, accused Brazilian electoral authorities of rigging the election against him, and unleashed a relentless series of attacks against Brazils electronic voting system, which experts regard as one of the safest and most efficient in the world. In recent days, Bolsonaro and his right-wing party have abandoned any remaining semblance of a traditional campaign and seemingly let go of any lingering hope that he could win the election legitimately. Instead, the president has intensified his attacks: This week, the New York Times reported, Bolsonaros party released an official document alleging falsely that Brazilian election observers could manipulate results without leaving a trace of evidence behind. Story continues With 24 hours remaining before the first vote is cast, the question looming over Brazils election is not whether Bolsonaro will attempt to provoke a democratic rupture in response to a defeat, but what it might look like: A military coup? A Brazilian version of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol? Violence and chaos that disrupts a free election and peaceful transfer of power? Or something else entirely? Im sure that he will not concede, Thomas Traumann, a Brazilian political analyst, told HuffPost last month. Im sure that he will contest. Im sure that he will try to put people in the streets saying he won anyway. The possibilities have attracted attention from across the world and turned Brazils election into the latest test of whether a right-wing movement that has prospered via legitimate elections over the last four years can succeed in using its victories to fully tear down a major democracy. The stakes are massive: Aside from the United States, Brazil is the largest democracy in the Western Hemisphere, and even a failed attempt at an authoritarian takeover would likely reverberate across the Americas and the world. Jair Bolsonaro, wearing yellow, has sought to mobilize his supporters in the hopes that they will help him cast doubt on the results of Sunday's election, especially if he loses outright in the first round of voting. (Photo: (AP Photo/Andre Penner)) Jair Bolsonaro, wearing yellow, has sought to mobilize his supporters in the hopes that they will help him cast doubt on the results of Sunday's election, especially if he loses outright in the first round of voting. (Photo: (AP Photo/Andre Penner)) A second term for Bolsonaro, whether won legitimately or not, would allow him to consolidate the authoritarian gains of his first four years, in which he has targeted the rights of Brazils minority populations including LGBTQ Brazilians, Black people and Indigenous tribes and eroded democratic institutions. Environmental experts also fear that it would spell doom for the Amazon rainforest, which has experienced record levels of deforestation on Bolsonaros watch, further inhibiting the global effort to combat climate change. The United States and European Union have focused intently on the election. Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Bolsonaro and his allies to stop undermining the elections, and the U.S. Senate this week passed a resolution that called on the Biden administration to review and reconsider its relationship with any government that comes to power in Brazil through undemocratic means. Dozens of EU lawmakers, meanwhile, argued this week for trade sanctions on Brazil if Bolsonaro succeeds in contesting the results. Those efforts may prevent the most alarming scenario: a military intervention on Bolsonaros behalf. Bolsonaro, a former Army captain who has long expressed affinity for the dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, has stocked his government with a record number of soldiers and leaned on them in his quest to undermine the election. His running mate, retired Gen. Walter Braga Netto, reportedly threatened Brazils Congress to make election changes Bolsonaro sought last year, and military leaders have sought certain reforms that Bolsonaro has called for to address problems that election officials say do not actually exist. Experts, however, have regarded a coup attempt as unlikely, in part because it does not enjoy the sort of support from the United States and other Western democracies that tolerated the overthrow of a leftist government during the Cold War in 1964. (Brazilian financial elites and the media, two other crucial pillars of support for that coup, have also largely rebuked Bolsonaros efforts to draw the armed forces back into electoral politics.) Top Army officials seemingly put any remaining doubts about how the institutional armed forces would react to bed on Friday, saying they intended to respect the results of the election no matter who wins. A version of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, however, may be more plausible. On Sept. 7, Brazils independence day, Bolsonaro called his supporters to the streets for massive rallies meant to demonstrate his ability to mobilize his base. Bolsonaro and his backers have already used the size of those demonstrations to question the polls. If and when he does cast doubt on the results, he will likely use the images of those events much as Trump cited crowds at his own rallies in 2020 as a suggestion that crowd sizes are indicative of how true Brazilians voted and that something must be amiss. They will be the base for his refusal to accept the result of the elections, Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said after the rallies. Brazils primary electoral institutions, including its Supreme Court and Superior Electoral Tribunal, have for months prepared for post-election scenarios in which Bolsonaro attempts to question the results. But he still commands the support of nearly one-third of the Brazilian population, and many are susceptible to his conspiratorial claims, which have spread like wildfire across social media sources like WhatsApp and Telegram, two chat services that are widely used in Brazil and have been linked to fake news campaigns that have helped radicalize the Brazilian right. Hes trapped in his own radicalism, in the sense that even if hes willing to accept the results, most who are around him are probably not going to let Bolsonaro just give up on his candidacy or the presidency.Guilherme Casaroes, Brazilian political analyst And there are questions about how rogue elements of Brazils violent police forces, which have shown substantial support for his election conspiracy theories, will react in a potential election dispute. A loss in the first round, experts say, would leave Bolsonaro weakened and likely unable to pull off a substantial threat to Brazils democracy. But it doesnt mean that he wont try or that his supporters and allies wont launch an attempt on his behalf. Bolsonaro has expanded gun rights for Brazilians over the last four years, and many of his supporters are now heavily armed and touting that fact ahead of a potential election dispute. The beast that Bolsonaro has created is pretty much out of control, said Guilherme Casaroes, a Brazilian political expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo. Were talking about 700,000 Brazilians with new gun licenses. Were talking about members of the [police] forces and some members of the military who are really willing to back Bolsonaros authoritarian instincts. Hes trapped in his own radicalism, in the sense that even if hes willing to accept the results, most who are around himare probably not going to let Bolsonaro just give up on his candidacy or the presidency, Casaroes said. Brazils election season has already been marred by violence. Bolsonaro supporters have pelted crowds at da Silvas events with urine and feces and have waged worse attacks. In July, a Bolsonaro backer raided a birthday party and killed a member of da Silvas leftist Workers Party. This week, a da Silva supporter was stabbed and killed in a bar after telling a man that he would vote for the former president this weekend. Fears that more violence could erupt at voting centers, rallies or other events have consumed many Brazilians, more than one-third of whom now say theyre uncomfortable discussing their vote with others, according to a recent poll. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, center, who is running for president again with the Workers' Party, campaigns in Salvador, Brazil, on Sept. 30, 2022. Brazil's general elections are scheduled for Oct. 2. (Photo: (AP Photo/Raphael Muller)) Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, center, who is running for president again with the Workers' Party, campaigns in Salvador, Brazil, on Sept. 30, 2022. Brazil's general elections are scheduled for Oct. 2. (Photo: (AP Photo/Raphael Muller)) Four years ago, Bolsonaro rode discontent with Brazils political establishment to the presidency, capitalizing on anger over a collapsed economy, rising levels of violent crime, and political corruption to win a race many believed he couldnt. Da Silva, who was imprisoned on a corruption conviction and barred from the race, symbolized many of those problems at the time, creating a perfect scenario for a politician like Bolsonaro who has always seen the left and its policies especially those aimed at bolstering the rights of Brazils minority populations as the countrys biggest problem. Four years later, however, the Brazilian economy and Bolsonaros handling of it has dominated the race. Da Silva, whose conviction was annulled thanks to judicial improprieties last year, has focused on the subject, promising Brazilians that he will deliver the sort of prosperity the country experienced when its economy boomed during his eight years as president. Da Silva has pledged to restore Brazilians right to barbecue a reference to the rising food costs that sent hunger rates skyrocketing and left many poorer Brazilians unable to afford the beef that is a staple of traditional weekend cookouts. The people have to go back to eating a barbecue, eating a picanha and having a beer, he said during a nationally televised broadcast last month, a line that inspired sales of online merchandise bearing a potentially powerful, if unofficial, slogan: Steak, beer and Lula 2022. To Bolsonaro, the election has always been a battle of 'good vs. evil,' and he has proved incapable of approaching it any other way. That has inflamed his supporters but turned off most Brazilians. Bolsonaro has been unable to adjust, even as the economy has improved in recent months. To him, the election has always been a battle of good vs. evil, and he has proved incapable of approaching it any other way. That has inflamed his supporters but turned off most Brazilians. Much like Trump, Bolsonaros reelection strategy has suffered from a miscalculation: He won the presidency in 2018 not because a majority of Brazilians fully agreed with him, but because he was the alternative to a political system they saw as decrepit and in need of total change. Now hes the system, and many Brazilians who held their nose and chose Bolsonaro in 2018 seem fatigued by the violent rhetoric, chaotic politics and anti-democratic governance that defines Bolsonarismo. Clearly, hes not as strong now as he was four years ago when he was the man of the moment, Santoro told HuffPost last month. Now he seems more like a politician in decline. Tired of Bolsonaros machismo-fueled politics, his cavalier approach to the coronavirus pandemic and his lack of focus on the economy, women have turned against him in droves. A majority of Brazilians overall say they wont vote for him under any circumstances. In recent weeks, da Silvas campaign has focused nearly all of its efforts on turning out voters, especially those from poorer backgrounds who are typically more likely to favor the left but less likely to cast ballots, even though voting is mandatory in Brazil. They have also attempted to persuade supporters of other candidates to cast strategic votes for da Silva, in the hopes of pushing him across the majority threshold Sunday. A first-round victory, they believe, would blunt whatever Bolsonaro does to try to subvert the election. Three more weeks of campaigning, by contrast, may put Brazils democracy in even more peril than its already facing. The second round, Casaroes said, will give Bolsonaro an extra month to cause as much turmoil as he can. This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated. Related... Anselm Bilgri and husband Markus Achter A former Benedictine monk in Germany married his boyfriend recently, and the pair expressed hope their public act of commitment would normal the practice and inspire others. According to Reuters, Anselm Bilgri, 68, wed his long-term partner, Markus Achter, 41, on Saturday in the Old Catholic Church, a splinter denomination from the Roman Catholic Church that recognizes marriage equality. Bilgri left the Roman Catholic Church in 2020 after 40 years as a priest and monk. I immediately thought, now I have actually received all seven sacraments, from ordination to marriage, Bilgri told Reuters following the ceremony. And I would like it [marriage equality] to become normal. It goes without saying that two men, two women it doesnt always have to have sexual connotations. Bilgris husband, Achter, said that while same-sex marriages are commonplace in Munich where their ceremony was conducted, he cautioned such unions are not viewed as normal in less progressive communities and that it is still something extraordinary when two men get married in those areas. He expressed the hope that as marriage equality becomes more self-evident, then, at some point, it will no longer be something special. Bilgri was ordained into the church as a priest in 1980 by Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict. Bilgri left the church in 2020 in response to the revelations of sexual abuse as well as the churchs inability to adapt and remain relevant in modern society. The happy couple was wed in the Old Catholic Church, which officially split from the Roman Catholic Church in the mid-19th century, primarily over the issue of papal infallibility. The Old Church exists primarily in The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It left the Roman Catholic Church following the First Vatican Council of 1869-70; however, the church has a history dating back to the late 16th century in the region as the See of Utrecht, a group of priests in the region who did not recognize the popes infallibility. Texas Pete You might assume that Texas Pete hot sauce is surely made in the Lone Star State. Well, my friend, it's actually produced hundreds of miles east of Texas, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. While many of us might be slightly surprised by this spicy factoid, one Los Angeles man was so disappointment that he filed a class-action lawsuit against Texas Pete. Today reports that shortly after Phillip White purchased a $3 bottle of Texas Pete from his local Ralphs store, he made the discovery that the hot sauce is made in North Carolina. White understood that the hot sauce was made in Texas based on the words and images on the product's label. The lawsuit adds that he would not have purchased the Product, or would have paid significantly less for it" had he known its true origins. By representing that its Texas Pete brand hot sauce products (Products) are Texas products, when they are not, Defendant has cheated its way to a market-leading position in the $3 billion-dollar hot-sauce industry at the expense of law-abiding competitors and consumers nationwide who desire authentic Texas hot sauce, the suit reads, according to Today. "By way of its false marketing and labeling, Defendant knowingly and intentionally capitalizes on consumers desire to partake in the culture and authentic cuisine of one of the most prideful states in America." The Texas Pete website does offer an explanation for how a hot sauce from North Carolina came to be called Texas Pete. After a failed attempt at naming the hot sauce "Mexican Joe," the site reads, "Sam [Texas Pete creator] suggested they move across the border to Texas, which also had a reputation for spicy cuisine. Then he glanced at son Harold, whose nickname was 'Pete' and the Texas Pete cowboy was born." In response to the lawsuit, a rep for Texas Pete manufacturer Garner Foods had this to say: "We are aware of the current lawsuit that has been filed against our company regarding the Texas Pete brand name. We are currently investigating these assertions with our legal counsel to find the clearest and most effective way to respond." You Might Also Like Boston Globe - Getty Images Most popular in the Northeast, the haunted hayride has gained traction across other regions of the United States since its inception. The allure of a haunted hayride during Halloween season is all about getting scared with your friends by your side (while sitting on bales of hay, of course). Some of the oldest commercial haunted hayrides have a history dating back more than three decades. When you cant force yourself to take another step through a haunted house, youve got another option: Climb up on a wagon, get cozy on a bale of straw, and hope your friends can give you some comfort. These haunted hayrides, first made popular over three decades ago in the Northeast, have only continued to grow in popularityyet no one knows exactly who started the popular Halloween trend. I own a hayride, and I dont think anybody knows [when the first haunted hayride was], says Larry Kirchner, president of Blacklight Attractions, which runs the popular Creepyworld Scream Park in St. Louis, Missouri, and operates The Darkness, one of the top-rated haunted houses in the country. When you move over to the East Coast, you see a lot of hayrides. You had a lot of farms out there that couldnt survive and turned to agritainment. What these farmers started doing were attractions on the family farm. The haunted house industry has always been a copycat industry, so somebody started a hayride on the East Coast, and it did well, and another person did it, he tells Popular Mechanics. Love to learn new things? Were here to help. Join Pop Mech Pro to feed your mind. Kirchner says some of the biggest haunted hayrides in the country started as small attractions, but have now expanded, transforming into entire scream park destinations that maintain the haunted hayride as the main attraction, but add in a haunted house (or two), a haunted trail, or other haunted attractions. In the haunted industry, each region of the country has a specialty, Kirchner says. The Midwest is known for turning abandoned buildings into warehouses. The West Coast is a place where amusement parks become haunted attractions. And the East Coast has haunted hayrides. Story continues One person does it and another and then next thing you know you have 50 to 60 haunted houses in Detroit in abandoned buildings, Kirchner offers as an example. On the East Coast, it was a farmer and another farmer. That is how it all got started. While lists abound on the top hayrides across the country, Kirchner says he believes some of the best hayrides are the ones with history, simply because of the scope and experience needed to build an attraction the size of a hayride. A typical haunted house is relatively small compared to a haunted hayride, which might be multiple acresif not up to 10 acresin size, much of it themed with skits. Hayrides are definitely harder to do, Kirchner says. It is harder to scare people on a hayride than it is in a haunted house. You cant have actors jump through the floorboards of the wagon. You have very few haves and a lot more have nots. It takes a lot of money and a lot of skill, and they just dont grow on trees. When you trace the haunted house, you can go back to London in the 19th century, where Marie Tussaud began with decapitated wax sculptures as a temporary exhibit and then created a Chamber of Horrors permanent exhibition. Call that the origin of the haunted house, created by a maker of death masks for guillotine victims. The haunted house then took a theater twist in places like England and France, and the modern haunted house was a Great Depression-era addition to the United States, writes author Lisa Morton. The addition of Walt Disneys Disneyland Haunted Mansion in 1969 turned the concept mainstream. But for the hayride, according to multiple haunted historians and experts contacted by Popular Mechanics, that first ride is a mystery. Photo credit: FOX - Getty Images What isnt a mystery is the popularity of the haunted hayride, especially in places like Pennsylvania and Maryland, but also a variety of locations across the country. Pennsylvanias Valley of Fear claims to be home to the original haunted hayride. Now in its 32nd year, the Feasterville, Pennsylvania location has an ever-evolving hayride with other attractions on site. The Bates Motel haunted hayride in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania has been going strong for over three decades, too. The 25-minute ride includes a mockup of a New England church and an insane asylum (separate parts of the ride, mind you). The list keeps going, from Kirchners St. Louis attraction to Bushy Run Battlefield in Pennsylvania, featuring an 18th-century reenactment. Then theres the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride that started in 2009, inspired by the Northeasts hayrides, and the Niles Scream Park in Michigan that includes a mile-long trail with over 40 sets meant for humor and scares. The Legends of the Fog haunted hayride in Maryland bills itself as one of the longest. With so much money and over-the-top engineering required, it can take years to build the attraction up. A lot of haunted hayrides will have animations and scary effects, Kirchner says. That is one of the cool things about the best hayrides, they are engineering these major effects like if you were on the Jaws ride from many years ago. Good hayrides incorporate pulling you into something and a bunch of stuff happens to everyone. One of the best rides hes seen involved somebody driving a giant combine behind the wagon, coming up close as if he was going to shred the entire lot. It was pretty cool, but then he makes a left turn, and it is like a roundabout, and he gets back into position for the next wagon, Kirchner says. On a hayride you have to think things through so everything is timed. There are so many types, the majority are not very scary. The throughput of customers for a hayride takes a lot longer than a haunted house and when it gets busy you need more wagons, tractors, and tractor drivers to keep up. A hayride has plenty of logistical hurdlesactors keeping their distance from the wagon for safety, the cadence of wagons pulling through the attraction, and the expanse of the area to themebut the allure is there for customers. Inside a hayride you feel safer, Kirchner says. You are sitting there and have a whole bunch of friends together, so you feel more comfortable. Well, comfortable until a giant combine almost swallows you up. You Might Also Like (This Sept. 13 story corrects name of group to "Investor Agenda," not "Investor Alliance," in last paragraph) By Ross Kerber and Simon Jessop BOSTON/LONDON (Reuters) - Investors managing $39 trillion have called on governments to raise their climate ambition, including setting plans to phase out fossil fuel use and forcing companies to set out science-based transition plans. The move by some - but not all - top fund firms comes ahead of the next round of global climate talks in Egypt in November. This year's letter is the most ambitious appeal to officials yet, backers of the effort said, with additional requests for action on tackling methane pollution and scaling up finance to poorer countries. Organised by the Investor Agenda, a group of investor-focused groups that count many of the world's largest fund managers as members, the "2022 Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis" was the 13th one to be issued. Investors are taking action as it is not only permitted by law but is in many cases required to ensure their ability to generate returns in the long-term as a core fiduciary duty and benefit from the opportunities associated with the shift to a net-zero emissions economy," the statement said. Other requests by the investors included scaling up low-carbon energy systems; implementing carbon pricing mechanisms that rise over time; establishing new or more ambitious plans to end deforestation. In all, 532 investors signed the latest iteration including UBS Asset Management, Amundi SA and Federated Hermes. However, none of the top three U.S. index fund managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Corp signed onto this letter. The reticence comes as the process of investing with an eye on environmental, social and governance-related issues, or ESG, faces growing pressure in the United States.[L1N3011D2] Representatives for BlackRock declined comment, while Vanguard did not respond to queries. A representative for State Street, whose asset-management arm signed an Investor Agenda statement last year, declined to comment. (Reporting by Simon Jessop in London and Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Marguerita Choy) TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan and Canada said on Tuesday they would launch talks on an information security agreement, saying challenges to the rules-based international order, underlined by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, made such cooperation all the more important. The announcement to start negotiations for the pact, which would facilitate intelligence-sharing and promote security ties, was made after a Tokyo meeting between Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his Canadian counterpart Melanie Joly. "Both sides showed a strong expectation of further strengthening bilateral cooperation, including between the Japanese Self-Defence Forces and the Canadian Armed Forces" through the conclusion of the pact, a joint statement said. "The two ministers shared a strong sense of urgency that Russia's aggression against Ukraine would have serious and enormous repercussions" for the world, and this made Japanese- Canadian cooperation more important than ever. Japan has sealed similar pacts with other countries including the United States, and is in negotiations with New Zealand. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Oct. 3The Missouri Right to Life chapter of St. Joseph partnered with several organizations throughout the city to hold its nineteenth annual "Life Chain" rally on Sunday. According to John Kreipe, a member of Missouri Right to Life, today's rally, which took place from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. outside of Bishop LeBlond High School, consisted of community members holding various signs to show support for what he deems as the sanctity of life. "We're just lining up on the sidewalk here outside of LeBlond holding signs like this one it's off camera but it says Jesus forgives and heals and there's others; adoption the loving option, life the first inalienable right, that's just what some of our signs say," Kreipe said. "So, we're just bearing witness to the sanctity of human life and praying for the day when it receives the reverence it deserves." With the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, which allowed Missouri's trigger law to institute a nearly complete ban on abortion throughout the state, local pro-life advocates have a lot to be happy about. Still, Missouri Right to Life Treasurer Veronica Warner, who started the rally 19 years ago alongside her husband, Bill Warner, says that there is a lot more work to be done. "My opinion is, its just getting started," Warner said. "Each state has to do away with abortion or keep abortion, so it hasn't really (changed). We're done with the Federal government, not with the issue." Both Kreipe and Warner stated that the group plans to bring back the annual "Life Day" next year, which did not take place this year due to outside complications. Missouri Right to Life invites anyone who would like to stand with the pro-life movement to join them. More information on the Missouri Right to Life is available at https://missourilife.org. Tulsi Gabbard speaking at an event in June in Washington, DC, aimed at excluding transgender women from sports. Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images In news that will be deeply distressing to her supporter, Tulsi Gabbard, the former lawmaker from Hawaii whose total flameout in the 2020 presidential primary led her to look for any shreds of political relevance she could find in right-wing culture wars, announced she was leaving the Democratic Party on Tuesday. In a video posted to Twitter in which she parroted right-wing talking points on crime, wokeness, and anti-white racism, Gabbard said she was leaving the Democratic Party and instead hosting a new self-titled YouTube show. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me, Gabbard said. For good measure, her message also included what appeared to be veiled antisemitism and QAnon references in which she said the party was under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers that weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents. Gabbard also sounded positively Trumpian in the first 28-minute episode of her show, accusing Democrats of rejecting the rule of law and turning the country into a banana republic seemingly ignoring all the evidence that Trump and his Republican allies have consistently sought to undermine that bedrock principle of democracy. (In 2019, she was the only member of Congress to stay neutral by voting present at Trumps first impeachment.) The reality is that Gabbard, who represented Hawaiis 2nd Congressional District from 2013 to 2021, had long since drifted to the right on a variety of issues. In 2020, she decided to use the final days of her time as a lawmaker openly signaling the beginnings of her right-wing shift, trying to restrict abortion and attacking transgender women and girls. Since leaving office, she has slammed President Joe Biden for calling out Republican attacks on voting and has railed against his former signature domestic policy law known as Build Back Better as furthering a cradle-to-grave mentality of government dependence. Story continues She has also compared so-called cancel culture to ISIS terrorism and has encouraged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to go even further with his Dont Say Gay law. (While courting Democratic voters in 2019, Gabbard apologized for her past conservative views on LGBTQ issues, including on marriage equality, but I guess thats old news now.) This year, she was also a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, where she told the crowd she felt right at home. In January, the left-leaning British magazine New Statesman even called her a dark-horse contender for the 2024 GOP nomination. At the end of an interview last November on Fox News, far-right Trump acolyte Sean Hannity seemed already satisfied with Gabbards political transition to the right. You dont sound like a Democrat to me, he told her. I hereby raise your right hand youre definitely a conservative. Always a pleasure, Sean, Gabbard responded. More on this Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called for a cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia as he accused the U.S. of fueling the war and said former President Trump offers the best hope for peace. Speaking at a forum in Berlin hosted by news outlet Berliner Zeitung and Cicero Magazine, Orban, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said any cease-fire in the war must be negotiated between the U.S. and Russia. It would be better if the public didnt hear what Im saying now, the Hungarian leader said, according to Cicero Magazine. The cease-fire does not have to be between Russia and Ukraine but between Russia and the USA. Orban made clear he was on the side of Ukraine because Russia violated international law, but he urged an immediate cease-fire, saying, Otherwise tens of thousands will die and the war will be carried to Europe. I belong to the peace camp, so I am for an immediate cease-fire, no matter what the Ukrainians think of it, he said. That distinguishes me from those who want to derive decisions from Ukrainian interests. The Hungarian prime minister, a darling of conservatives in the U.S. who appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the summer in Texas, also argued that President Biden has escalated tensions with Moscow while appearing to back Trumps efforts to de-escalate. Thats why Joe Biden went too far with his comments about Putin, Orban said, per Cicero Magazine. The hope for peace is Donald Trump. Trump has used his political prestige to slam Bidens handling of the war in public appearances and on Truth Social, including at an Arizona rally over the weekend. We must demand the immediate negotiation of the peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will be nothing left of our planet all because stupid people didnt have a clue, Trump said. They really dont understand what theyre dealing with. The power of nuclear. They have no idea what theyre doing. Story continues Trump has offered few suggestions for what the U.S. should do to end the war in Ukraine other than calling for a cease-fire and posting that he would head up a group on negotiations. Biden, meanwhile, warned of Armageddon after Putin threatened he could deploy nuclear weapons amid humiliating setbacks for Russia in the war and domestic disturbances at home. American public support for Ukraine remains high, and Congress has provided billions of dollars to the nation in security and financial aid. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. When it comes to the awareness of store-level struggles, new research from Axonify and Nudge reveals a disconnect between frontline, deskless workers and their bosses in the C-suite. The authors of the report, titled The Deskless Report 2022, said in a statement that the research reveals new and alarming disconnects between corporate leaders and their frontline workers and managers that could lead to increased turnover in industries already struggling to keep employees. More from WWD The survey data showed that 74 percent of executives polled have a positive outlook about the future of their industry, which compares to 58 percent of employees. And of frontline workers polled, 39 percent said they feel heard, which compares to 59 percent in the 2021 report. This years survey also found that 42 percent of workers polled said theyre considering quitting their job, which is up from 36 percent last year. The research also showed that 49 percent of frontline managers said they are burnt out on a daily basis. Considering that 80 percent of frontline workers rely on their managers for information, the data suggest these industries are nearing a breaking point. Yet only 39 percent of frontline workers say their companies invest in technologies to meet their needs. Another disconnect revealed is that 65 percent of corporate leaders polled believe their communication is effective, while 35 percent of frontline workers polled agree. More startling is that 75 percent of executives believe their organization invests in new technologies for frontline workers, yet only 39 percent of frontline workers agree, the report stated. Additionally, 43 percent of deskless workers polled cited a lack of training that negatively impacts their daily work. As a result, frontline workers and managers are desperate for support, stability and some kind of response to understaffing and burnout all factors that are preventing businesses from thriving and growing, the authors of the report noted. Frontline managers are crucial to the execution of corporate goals with workers relying on eight of 10 key categories of critical information, which is typically shared through 1:1 communication. Story continues Jordan Ekers, chief operating officer and cofounder of Nudge, said industries that rely on frontline workers are feeling a sense of urgency to better support their people to keep business on track. This study points out opportunities to create better alignment between corporate leaders and their people at a time when employee turnover is at an all-time high. One way to bridge the disconnect is to give deskless workers and their frontline managers the right technology and tools for them to succeed. JD Dillon, chief learning architect at Axonify, said its time to stop talking about employee experience as a vague, nebulous concept and start making sure frontline employees have the tools they need to feel good about the hard work they do every day. Why should deskless workers be asked to rely on antiquated tactics like bulletin boards and paper binders when customers have immediate access to vast amounts of information via their smartphones? The survey polled 268 executives and over 1,000 deskless workers. Click here to read the full article. The Kyiv strikes also suggest that President Putins windy threats about nuclear escalation are just that a bluff (AP) The wrath of Putin, some call the Russian strikes on multiple cities, including central Kyiv, which are plainly acts of retaliation for the attack on the Russia-Crimea Kerch bridge on Saturday. Wrathful they certainly were. They were also a nasty reminder that the Russians, though demoralised and in retreat, still have some heavy missile weaponry at their disposal. It was no accident that downtown Kyiv was included in the strikes (though the hit on the visa office of the German embassy may not have been deliberate). Vladimir Putin wants to intimidate Ukrainian leaders, terrorise civilians and further destroy Ukrainian cultural identity by taking out museums. It is a characteristically callous, cowardly and counterproductive attack. It also illustrates a number of things about Russian weakness such as just how badly the special military operation is going. A remote attack on mostly civilian targets from far away reminds us, once again, that the Russian military has been unable to occupy Ukrainian territory and subjugate the country as planned in February. The Russians will not be able to prevail militarily purely by bombing Ukrainian towns and cities. If that were the case, then the war would have been won long ago. The flag of the Russian Federation would now be flying over the presidential palace in Kyiv. The Kyiv strikes also suggest that President Putins windy threats about nuclear escalation are just that a bluff. The Russians are sticking to the same failed playbook and are fully conscious that any use of nuclear weaponry would trigger an American-led response. It is simply not worth the risk. What they have left is pulverising settlements into dust and torturing and murdering Ukraines population. The appointment of a new commander, General Sergei Surovikin, with a reputation for savagery won in Syria, confirms that Russia has no other strategy than terror and annihilation. This sort of approach tends not to win over Ukrainian hearts and minds. Story continues The Kremlin, ever arrogant, has further alienated the United States. But it has also placed the other superpower on the outside; one that has been obligingly propping up the Russian economy China. At his last summit with President Xi, Mr Putin publicly admitted Beijings concerns about his failing war. Now, China says it hopes for a de-escalation a polite but desperate plea for Russia to declare victory and end the war, more or less immediately. The Chinese Politburos concerns are purely centred on the interests of the Peoples Republic. The war in Ukraine has already inflicted enough damage on the world economy and Chinas crucial export markets; more threats of a nuclear dimension might be enough to tip the world into a slump. The Ukraine war certainly does little to strengthen Chinas security, any chance of rapprochement with America or hopes for a peaceful reunification with Taiwan. To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here Most of all, the attack on Kyiv will merely strengthen the resolve of the Ukrainian people to fight on. Their resistance to the invaders has awed the world. It was especially impressive in the early stages of the conflict, before sanctions and Western military assistance began to take their toll on Mr Putins poorly equipped and badly led troops. There can be no peaceful or permanent annexation of Ukrainian territory because Ukraine and its friends in the West find it intolerable. Russia, therefore, cannot win the war, even if it prevailed militarily. It would be permanently isolated from the world economy. The Ukrainians would make the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s look like a tea party. Yet the resolve of Europeans generally has held, despite Mr Putins weaponisation of energy supplies and the cost of living crisis. Western Europe faces its most difficult winter since the end of the Second World War but is prepared to make sacrifices, rather than be forever held hostage by Russia. The United States is also prepared to stand up for the rights and sovereignty of smaller nations; a welcome break from the recent practice of American foreign policy. President Putin is gambling that, eventually, Western democracies will cave in and accept at least the status quo and thus abandon Ukraine. Unfortunately for him, there are signs that the Russian people and elements in the Russian government and military will abandon him first. According to a document, the Competition Bureau of Canada is investigating "certain marketing practices" at RBC. Canadas largest commercial bank is facing an investigation by the Competition Bureau of Canada over allegedly deceptive advertising related to its climate action, the federal watchdog confirmed on Tuesday. According to a Sept. 29 letter from the bureau obtained by Yahoo Finance Canada, Royal Bank of Canada is under an investigation related to certain marketing practices at the bank. The letter is addressed to lawyers at Ecojustice, a non-profit environmental law organization, that previously filed a complaint with the bureau. The inquiry seeks to determine the facts relating to allegations that RBC has contravened the Act by making false or misleading environmental representations, the letter reads in part. Competition Bureau spokesperson Marie-Christine Vezina confirmed an investigation into RBC's alleged deceptive marketing was initiated at the request of six Canadian residents. She declined to provide further details, citing the agency's obligation to work confidentially. An investigation by the Competition Bureau of Canada is not evidence of wrongdoing. No claims have been proven, and no charges have been laid. In an emailed statement Royal Bank said it "strongly disagrees" with the allegations in the complaint, calling them "unfounded and not in line with Canadas climate plan." "RBC has been engaging with our clients, partners and other stakeholders, working towards solutions to help Canada meet its net-zero commitments," wrote Andrew Block, the bank's senior director for climate communication. "Its critically important that we get the transition to net-zero right in order to address climate change, and we have taken a measured, thoughtful, and deliberate approach in our climate strategy." Ecojustice lawyer Matt Hulse says RBC's ongoing dealings in the oil and gas industry are at odds with its stated climate strategy. RBC has claimed that it will achieve net-zero in its lending and investments by 2050 and will come out with targets and plans over the next two years," he said in an emailed statement. "This commitment is undermined by RBCs continued financing of fossil fuels and its failure to account for the bulk of emissions from the fossil fuel companies that it finances." Story continues According to Ecojustice, RBCs financing of fossil fuel companies in 2021 topped $34.4 billion in loans and underwriting, and included $50.4 billion in investments. In October of that year, RBC became a member of the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a commitment to align lending and investment practices with achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. John Yorke, CEO of the marketing agency Rain43, says it's unfortunate that significant consumer backlash is unlikely. "Nobody is going to take their money out of RBC," he said by phone on Tuesday. "The only way it has a big effect is if the Competition Bureau comes down really hard and makes a big deal of it, which I can't see happening." Adam Zimmerman, a senior competition law officer with the bureau, whose name and signature are included in the document obtained by Yahoo Finance Canada, declined to comment on the matter. The Toronto Star newspaper reported in April that two environmental groups, including Ecojustice, asked the Competition Bureau to investigate the bank over allegedly misleading advertising regarding its climate commitments. Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. Huge solar energy output from Egypt will help provide clean energy to Europe via a massive undersea power cable (Getty Images/ iStock) Solar energy harvested on the edge of the Sahara desert in Egypt is set to be sent to Europe via a massive undersea electricity cable. The 1,373km (853 miles) cable will deliver 3,000 MW of electricity to the European grid, powering both households and heavy industry. The ambitious energy project is expected to be completed before the end of the decade, with the Copelouzos Group backers recently meeting with Egyptian leaders in an effort to speed up the project. By bringing 3,000 MW of clean energy to Europe via Greece, we are helping Europe wean itself off Russias fossil fuels and natural gas, said Copelouzos Group chief executive Ioannis Karydas. Also, the green energy we will transport will be much cheaper than todays energy prices. You understand that this will help both Greek and European consumers. The GREGY Interconnection cable will run from Sidi Barrani in the east of Egypt to Attica in Greece, costing an estimated 3.5 billion. The electricity will be produced in solar energy facilities in Egypt and other African countries and will serve shared grids in Bulgaria, Greece and Italy. A similar initiative dubbed the Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project will see clean electricity sent from North Africa to the south of England via a 3,800km cable. A feasibility study for the wind and solar power project has already been completed and it is hoped that it will deliver 3,600 MW of renewable energy to meet the needs of roughly 7 million UK homes. Once complete, the project will be capable of supplying 8 percent of Great Britains electricity needs, Xlinks outlined in a mission statement on its website. Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility will provide sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day, a dedicated, near-constant source of flexible and predictable clean energy for Britain, designed to complement the renewable energy already generated across the UK. Salem Police Department headquarters in Salem, Oregon on Monday, March 15, 2021. Nearly a dozen officers in Oregon, including two who have worked for the Marion County Sheriff's Office and Oregon State Police, could permanently lose their police certification due to allegations that include theft and driving while drunk. The Department of Safety Standards & Training is the state agency responsible for certifying and licensing officers, emergency dispatchers, private investigators and other groups that deal with the law. The department also investigates cases involving officer discipline, including economic sanctions. DPSST's Police Policy Committee has made recommendations to thedepartment's board regarding the discipline of 11 officers. The board will vote Oct. 27. In November 2019, Marion County Sheriff's Office deputy Jerry Wollenschlaeger medically retired with a settlement agreement during a criminal investigation after he was charged with theft for stealing a $12 credit from a video poker machine, according to court documents. Wollenschlaeger reached a civil compromise with the woman whose money he used and paid her $1,000. In the proposed action document from DPSST, his certification would be revoked for life. Raymond Dube, a former officer with the state police, was terminated in October 2019 after allegations he was untruthful during a criminal investigation into whether he was intoxicated while driving his vehicle. After an investigation, DPSST issued a notice of intent to revokehis police certification because Dube does not "meet the requirements of good moral fitness," according to the investigation report. The Police Policy Committee is proposing to revoke Dube's certification for 10 years. Tyrone Jenkins, a former deputy with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, was being investigated by DPSST for a criminal citation involving a domestic disturbance. The Linn County district attorney decided not to prosecute. The Police Policy Committee is recommending the board take no action against his certifications. Story continues Steve Bellshaw, a former deputy chief for the Salem Police Department, is also under investigation by DPSST. His case is not before the board at its next meeting. Bellshaw retired under a separation agreement earlier this year where he was paid $53,500 in severance pay. DPSST is investigating the separation agreement. This was first reported by the Salem Reporter. Requests for records for the DPSST investigation by the Statesman Journal were denied except for the general release of the agreement. Dejania Oliver is the breaking news reporter for the Statesman Journal. Contact her at DAOliver@salem.gannett.com or follow on Twitter @DejaniaO This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: State board to vote on revoking police certifications for officers Rian Johnsons Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion, will screen in UK cinemas after Netflix struck a deal with two major chains. The film, with Bond star Daniel Craig, will be shown at select Vue and Cineworld cinemas for a week between November 23 and 29. Discussions are also taking place for Vue cinemas in Italy and Germany, and at The Space and CinemaxX companies. Tim Richards, founder and chief executive of Vue International, said: This is an exciting moment in our relationship with streaming platforms and for the wider ecosystem as a whole. Studios have recognised the value of the theatrical window and now were seeing Netflix embracing the big screen theatrical release too. The Knives Out franchise has a huge following and its fantastic that fans of the first movie will be able to experience Glass Onion on our big screens where all great films deserve to be seen. Craig reprises his role as suave detective Benoit Blanc for the sequel, which will see his character travel to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colourful suspects. The European premiere of Glass Onion will close the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday October 16. The film will have a gala screening at the Royal Festival Hall. Also starring in the much-anticipated feature are Dave Bautista, Edward Norton, Janelle Monae, Leslie Odom Jr, Kate Hudson and Madelyn Cline. The exterior of Spirit Halloween's flagship store in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Amanda Krause/Insider Spirit Halloween is a national chain of costume stores that open around Halloween each year. The retailer's flagship store is in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, so I drove two hours to visit. At the store, I found countless costumes, horror-movie collectibles, and so much more. I'm a Halloween fanatic, and Spirit Halloween is one of my favorite places to shop. It took two hours for me to drive to Spirit Halloween's flagship store. Amanda Krause/Insider My obsession with all things spooky is relatively new, but it's strong. I watch Halloween movies all year round, and my Chucky and Pennywise T-shirts are regular fashion choices for me not seasonal ones. So to kick off October, I drove two hours from where I live in northern New Jersey to Spirit Halloween's flagship store in Egg Harbor Township a southern area of the state located less than 10 miles from Atlantic City. While that might seem like a long drive, it's short compared to the lengths other Halloween fans have gone. I scrolled through a Spirit Halloween fan group on Facebook before visiting and saw posts from people planning to visit from as far away as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania a six-hour drive. There are a few reasons why Halloween fans like myself travel far distances to visit the flagship store. The checkout area of Spirit Halloween's flagship store. Amanda Krause/Insider The store is bigger than your average Spirit Halloween and opens earlier in the year than pop-up shops usually in late July. The flagship also sells some online-only merchandise while supplies last, and a big celebration is held on opening day each year. Customers who attend and often line up overnight to do so get gift bags full of free merchandise, play Halloween-themed games, and receive coupons to shop. There are also corporate offices attached to the store, and Spirit Halloween's headquarters are located down the street. When I arrived at Spirit Halloween's flagship store, it felt like fall had officially started. The exterior of Spirit Halloween's flagship store in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Amanda Krause/Insider The weather was gloomy with a chill in the air, which made black-and-orange flags that were strung above the parking lot flutter in the wind. The banners led me straight to the store's entrance, which was decorated with costume posters, Spirit Halloween's logo, and a giant inflatable pumpkin on the roof. Story continues Fittingly, the Halloween shop is located inside an abandoned Circuit City store. Like most Spirit Halloween stores, there were costume posters outside. Amanda Krause/Insider Spirit Halloween is known for setting up shop in the locations of shuttered businesses, from old Kmarts to former Modell's Sporting Goods. Even the upcoming "Spirit Halloween" movie is set in an abandoned Toys R Us store. So it was fitting to see that Spirit Halloween's flagship store is housed in what was once a Circuit City. As I stepped through the automatic doors, I was greeted with a welcome banner featuring Spirit Halloween's mascot Jack the Reaper. The sign reads "Welcome To Our Flagship Location - Egg Harbor Township, NJ." Amanda Krause/Insider Of course, I had to stop for a picture with Jack. I could tell right away that this was the biggest Spirit Halloween I'd ever been to. I didn't know where to start when I entered the Spirit Halloween flagship. Amanda Krause/Insider There were animatronic displays to the left, and costumes to the right. Beyond that, I couldn't see past countless Halloween decorations. The store is so big that there were rolling baskets available for customers. While there, I noticed a few customers walking around with shopping baskets. Amanda Krause/Insider I've never noticed shopping baskets at other Spirit Halloween stores, but customers seemed to appreciate them at the flagship. I first checked the T-shirt wall, as Halloween tees always sell out at my local Spirit Halloween stores. There were tons of T-shirts to buy, but limited sizes. Amanda Krause/Insider Unfortunately, T-shirts at the flagship location were also pretty picked over. There were plenty of designs available with most priced around $20 but many sizes were sold out. Then I moved on to the costumes, which were fully stocked. If you need a circus-themed costume, Spirit Halloween has you covered. Amanda Krause/Insider I first came across a circus-themed section, and couldn't believe how many options there were. I found makeup kits, accessories, props, and numerous different clown costumes, most of which cost between $40 and $60 each. In between costume displays were larger-than-life animatronics. This animatronic perfectly matched the surrounding circus costumes. Amanda Krause/Insider Some of the animatronics matched the sections they were in. A 6-foot-tall decoration called Monty, for example, was displayed in between circus costumes. Designed like a classic monkey musical toy, the $299.99 decoration has glowing eyes and plays giant cymbals. I then browsed aisles dedicated to popular movies, like "It" and "Killer Klowns from Outer Space." This section had "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" merchandise. Amanda Krause/Insider These sections were a little more sparse, with decorations clearly sold out and clothes flipped through by shoppers. One thing I love about Spirit Halloween is how organized its stores are and the flagship is the ultimate example of that. These unisex animal costumes were all displayed in one section. Amanda Krause/Insider There were animal suits in one section, plastic masks in another, and an entire wall of single-colored outfits and accessories that were perfect for sporting events or school spirit weeks. The setup makes it easy to find exactly what you're looking for without having to check every item in the store. As I continued to shop, I started noticing merchandise that I haven't seen at my local stores. Alongside adult Disney costumes were princess-themed jewelry pieces. Amanda Krause/Insider There was a Disney section, for example, with princess costumes and jewelry for adults that I'd never seen. Though most costumes were stored in plastic bags, some were displayed on mannequins. These Sanderson sister costumes were prominently displayed. Amanda Krause/Insider "Hocus Pocus" costumes are always popular for Halloween, so it makes sense that they would have their own display in the middle of the adult costume section. In the middle of the store across from the adult costumes were displays of home decor. The decor ranged from understated items to statement pieces. Amanda Krause/Insider Some of the decorations were traditional, featuring pumpkins, flickering lights, and broomsticks. But others were inspired by cult-favorite franchises, including Disney's Haunted Mansion and cult-favorite movies like "Beetlejuice." My favorite items included horror-movie signs and plush toys of beloved characters. There were plenty of options for fans of "It," "Halloween," and "Trick 'R Treat." Amanda Krause/Insider Most of the signs cost between $13 and $37 each, while the plush toys were priced at around $30 for one. Next, I headed to the back wall, where I found makeup, wigs, tights, and lots of fake blood. The back of Spirit Halloween's flagship is filled with cosmetic products. Amanda Krause/Insider This section is also where I found vampire teeth, colored hairspray, and prosthetics. Also nearby was a vast selection of hats and headbands. I was in awe of how many hat and headband styles were available. Amanda Krause/Insider From classic witch hats to off-brand Mickey Mouse ears, Spirit Halloween had just about every type of head accessory you could imagine. But personally, I thought the mask aisle was the most impressive. Some of the masks were cute, but most were designed to be scary. Amanda Krause/Insider I'd never seen so many Halloween masks in my life. There were vintage-looking designs made from plastic for $13, full-face vinyl ones for $25, and fur-covered animal masks that moved, which cost around $60 each. It was then time to move on to the other side of the flagship store. Many of these decorations aren't for the squeamish. Amanda Krause/Insider Towards the back, there were outdoor decorations that ranged from giant skeletons to plastic zombie babies. Some other fun items included moving doorknockers and pumpkin-shaped lights. But before I could get very far, I found myself distracted by the store's interactive displays. I walked through this display a few times before leaving the flagship store. Amanda Krause/Insider My favorite was designed to look like a mad scientist's laboratory. When you walked through it, video screens showed creepy characters, hanging decorations lit up, and the floor shook beneath your feet. Eventually, however, I returned to shopping. The second half of Spirit Halloween's flagship store is filled with children's costumes. There were tons of kid costume options, from classic designs to scary ones. Amanda Krause/Insider There were just as many costumes for children as there were for adults. Whereas some costume retailers prioritize the former, it felt like there was something for everyone at Spirit Halloween's flagship. The children's costume section was connected to a lifestyle section my favorite in the store. I was really tempted to buy a "Trick 'R Treat" pillow and blanket for my home. Amanda Krause/Insider In this area, you could find family pajama sets, horror-movie throw pillows, spooky welcome mats, and blankets. The sign above the merchandise read "That Halloween Life," which made me think this area was geared towards shoppers like myself who use Halloween items all year round. That's not to mention the endless amount of mugs available. There were so many mugs at the store that I lost count. Amanda Krause/Insider Of course, there were plenty of Halloween mugs on the shelves, from ones shaped like Ghostface from "Scream" to others featuring Gremlin prints. But there were also lots of cute ones with characters like Stitch and Marty McFly. Most of the mugs cost $9.99 each. And don't worry, there were some costume options for dogs too. There weren't a ton of dog costumes, but the ones they had were adorable. Amanda Krause/Insider The Pennywise costume would have come home with me if I had a dog. At this point, I had seen just about every part of the Spirit Halloween flagship store. Even when making a purchase, I was overwhelmed with merchandise options. Amanda Krause/Insider The store was as huge as I imagined it would be, with dozens of aisles to browse. So at that point, I entered the merchandise-lined queue, with a $10 Halloween necklace set and a $10 "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" mug in hand to purchase. When it was time to leave, I found myself wanting to rush home and start a scary-movie marathon. The flagship store was worth the trip at least once. Amanda Krause/Insider I spent about an hour in the store and loved looking through everything it had to offer. I found just about every costume I could imagine, and collectible items that any horror fanatic would love. I also really appreciated the store's displays, from festive costumes hung on the walls, to interactive walk-throughs and animatronics. At regular Spirit Halloween stores, in my experience, many of the animatronics stop working within the first week or two of being open. But at the flagship store, each one came to life with the press of a button. The same goes for merchandise. While costumes and collectible items sell out quickly at my local stores, the flagship location had plenty of stock. That said, two hours is a long drive, and I'm not sure I'd make it a priority every year. But if you're a Halloween fan and can visit at least once, I'd argue it's worth the trip. Read the original article on Insider Photo by Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images For the second year in a row, the United States is celebrating National Indigenous Peoples' Day on October 10. Last year on October 11, 2021, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation honoring the "invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples," a day that recognizes their "inherent sovereignty and commits to honoring the Federal Government's trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations." Long before colonization of the Americas began, millions of Indigenous people already lived in what we know today as North, South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. In the U.S. alone, Alaska Natives, American Indians, and Native Hawaiians have safeguarded valuable traditions and knowledge throughout generations despite the violence inflicted upon them. Today across the Americas, Native American women have continued the arduous work of preserving the environment, pushing for Indigenous rights, and representing their diverse communities in business, government and the arts. The below five Chica Bosses are just a few of the women leading the charge. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Getty Images Deb Haaland Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland became the first Native American to serve as cabinet secretary in the U.S. She is a 35th-generation New Mexican and a member of the Pueblo of Laguna. In addition to her historic position, she is one of the first two Native American women in the U.S. House of Representatives, is a single mother and the founder of "Pueblo Salsa," a company she ran while attending law school and caring for her daughter. Through her work in politics, Haaland has highlighted the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women and the need for more equitable representation. Photo by LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images Sara Omi As a proud Embere leader from the Alto Bayano Congress in the Darien forests of Panama, Omi is a lawyer, human rights expert and the President of the Coordinator of Territorial Women Leaders of Mesoamerica. Story continues The 36 year old is the first woman in her community to have studied at a university and has amplified the voices of the Embera women through her profession while defending Indigenous communities against climate change, deforestation and the impact on their lands. Paulette Jordan A fighter for natural resources and the environment, Jordan is a member of the Coeur d'Alene community in Idaho. In 2008, she became the youngest person elected to the Coeur d'Alene Tribal Council. In 2014, she won the race to represent Idaho's 5th District in the Idaho House of Representatives, where she ran for a second term in 2016. In 2018, she became the first Native American woman in U.S. history to run for governor. BREAKING NEWS! @_alenarvaez & @AlexLucitante are this year's @goldmanprize winners - in recognition of their leadership that led to a historic court ruling guaranteeing Indigenous pples the right to decide the future of their lands in Ecuador. https://t.co/hTWk8G3GO3 pic.twitter.com/iFJjrjcUEr AFrontlines (@AFrontlines) May 25, 2022 Alexandra Narvaez Narvaez is the first female land patrol member to join Ai Cofan's Sinangoe territory Indigenous patrol in Ecuador. "We risk our lives to protect our life and our land," Narvaez, told INSIDER. "The Ai Cofan fight is about defending 73,000 hectares that belong to usour home, our territory." Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Sharice Davids As the first LGBTQIA+ Native American in Congress, Davids has been fighting for representation and environmental activism throughout the U.S. She is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation born in Frankfurt, Germany, to a single mother who was a drill sergeant in the army. She began her work in politics in 2016 when she earned a White House Fellowship and ran for a seat in Kansas at the House of Representatives in 2018. Kim, 51 (San Diego, Calif.) and Usman, 33 (Nigeria) TLC Kim and Usman from 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After Kim Menzies and Usman "Sojaboy" Umar have every reason to feel nervous as they prepare to ask his mother's blessing of their engagement and eventual marriage. The San Diego native expressed her concern over going to Sokoto, Nigeria, after their brief stay together in Abuja, to meet his family as they continue to fight for their relationship. During Sunday's episode of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After?, Kim was rightfully on edge after Usman's mother, Fadimatu, did not hold her tongue when it came to her dislike of her 33-year-old son's age-gap romance. After heading to Sokoto, Usman visited his mother on his own a day prior to Kim's arrival. Ahead of the visit, Usman said in a confessional interview: "I am crazy-nervous meeting my mother with an older, American lady. We know that we have a big challenge because even though this is the first time they are going to meet Kimberly, all they're going to have in their head is what happened with my ex. I don't want that. I want them to see her for who she is. She's amazing person." RELATED: 90 Day Fiance's Usman and a Female Friend Trigger Kim's Insecurity: 'She's Everything I'm Not' 90 Day Fiance's Kim Reconsiders Letting Usman to Have a Second Wife: 'Your A-- Is Pissing Me Off' TLC Kim and Usman Kim expressed her fear too. "Our whole relationship is at stake if we don't get his mom's blessing, because we want to get married, and I want to help bring him to America. But that won't happen if his mom says no." At his mother's home, Usman told her why he came. "I came for a specific reason," he said, before asking her if she recalled one of his "friends" she spoke to on the phone a while back when he was in Tanzania. "Her name is Kimberly. I will bring her here tomorrow so that you may greet each other," Usman said, adding, "She came to Nigeria with the sole mission to meet you and greet you." RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After' 's Kim Plans Proposal to Usman and a Second Wife So They Can Have Children His mother's first question was an inquiry of her age, which caused Usman to put his head down and hide his face before he told her, "She is 50." Story continues She looked at him and asked, "God, really?" She didn't mince words: "As far as a request for marriage, I assure you that I won't accept it." Fadimatu then explained her wishes for her son's future wife. "I just want you to get married so that you will stop bringing such women from a far away world. And marry a fertile girl who is of tender age. I have a variety of girls among our people. They are of different varieties. I cannot continue to sit by and watch you make mistakes. We want to celebrate in our way, so that one day we will be able to see your children." "Yes that's true. I also want to produce children," Usman replied. 90 Day Fiance's Kim Admits She Put Relationship with Usman 'on the Line' and Vows Never to Date Again. TLC TLC RELATED: 90 Day Fiance's Kim Tells Usman to 'Go Look for 5,000 Wives' and Searches for Flights After Polygamy Fight In a confessional interview, his mother admitted she is scared of a foreign woman taking Usman away from his hometown. "It's better if he can get a wife here at home. I've seen how easily he changed with foreigners. I'm afraid they will snatch my son away to America," she said. "He should come home, get a wife and later he can look for an American woman to marry. I surely have the opportunity to get him married. I can find him a wife in just seven days. There are currently some girls who admire him. We only need his nod, and it will be done." Usman, who decided to wait until Kim met his mother before asking for her blessing to get engaged, said, "I cannot even imagine how difficult it is going to be to get her blessing. The relationship with my ex really affects the way my mom sees Kimberly. I will still bring Kimberly to meet my mom. We have to tell my mom that this is the woman and I really love her. We'll just go in tomorrow and we'll pray hard tonight." Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free weekly newsletter to get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday. 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET on TLC and discovery+. Oscar Marquez was arrested in the fatal shooting of his brother, Jose Marquez. A man who was arrested on suspicion of killing his brother on Saturday claims he acted in self-defense. Court documents show that Oscar Marquez, 30, says he acted in self-defense in the slaying of his brother, 32-year-old Jose Marquez, after the two got into an argument about 3 a.m. Saturday. According to court documents, Jose Marquez arrived at the family's house near 127th Avenue and Illinois Street in Avondale in the early hours of Saturday, causing a disturbance and waking up people in the house. Oscar Marquez, who had been asleep in the living room, told police he let out an audible sigh of frustration, then his older brother responded by cursing at him, court documents state. Jose Marquez then physically attacked him after he cursed back, leading to the first altercation, which was broken up by their father, the younger Marquez told police. Court documents state that Oscar Marquez then went to retrieve his gun so his brother could not get it and tried to collect himself in the backyard of the residence. Oscar Marquez told Avondale police he then saw his older brother in the front yard and went back inside the house to grab his clothes and cellphone. Upon entry, Oscar Marquez went to ask his father if Jose Marquez had left the residence, court documents state. Oscar Marquez then approached his older brother, who was now located on the couch in the living room. Jose Marquez then began shouting at the younger Marquez and started walking toward him quickly, court documents say. Court documents state that Oscar Marquez told police he then pulled out his gun and aimed for Jose Marquez's leg. He hoped to subdue or hurt his older brother but missed, shooting his brother in the abdomen instead, court documents say. Oscar Marquez then called police, and his older brother was rushed in critical condition to the hospital, where he underwent surgery. Jose Marquez later died at the hospital, police said. Story continues According to court documents, detectives were called to conduct an investigation in which they learned another sibling living at the residence had an audio recording of the incident. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the property, collecting the audio recording, a projectile and blood as evidence, court documents show. Avondale police told The Arizona Republic that the investigation remains ongoing. Oscar Marquez has been booked into jail pending several charges and is being held on $1 million bail. Reach breaking news reporter Kye Graves at klgraves@gannett.com or on Twitter @kyegraves. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Avondale man claims self-defense in his brother's slaying, records say President Joe Biden has embraced storytelling as a way of connecting with his audience, but his folksiness can veer into a personal folklore. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times) WASHINGTON Standing in front of Floridians who had lost everything during Hurricane Ian, President Joe Biden on Wednesday recalled his own house being nearly destroyed 15 years ago: We didnt lose our whole home, but lightning struck and we lost an awful lot of it, he said. Biden has mentioned the incident before, once saying he knows what its like having had a house burn down with my wife in it. In fact, news reports at the time called it little more than a small fire that was contained to the kitchen and quoted the local Delaware fire chief as saying that the fire was under control in 20 minutes. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times The story is not an isolated example of embellishment. The exaggerated biography that Biden tells includes having been a fierce civil rights activist who was repeatedly arrested. He has claimed to have been an award-winning student who earned three degrees. And last week, speaking on the hurricane-devastated island of Puerto Rico, he said he had been raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically. For more than four decades, Biden has embraced storytelling as a way of connecting with his audience, often emphasizing the truth of his account by adding Not a joke! in the middle of a story. But Bidens folksiness can veer into folklore, with dates that dont quite add up and details that are exaggerated or wrong, the factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences. Bidens instances of exaggeration and falsehood fall far well short of those of his predecessor, who during four years in office delivered what the Washington Post fact checker called a tsunami of untruths and CNN described as a staggering avalanche of daily wrongness. Former President Donald Trump lied constantly, not only about trivial details (such as insisting it hadnt rained during his inauguration when it clearly had) but about consequential moments misleading about the pandemic, perpetrating the big lie that Biden stole the 2020 election and claiming falsely that the Capitol was not attacked by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Story continues Bidens fictions are nowhere near that scale. But they are emblematic of how the president, over nearly five decades in public life, has been unable to break himself of the habit of spinning embellished narratives, sometimes only loosely based on the facts, to weave together his political identity. And they provide political ammunition for Republicans eager to tar him as too feeble to run for reelection in two years. His stories have been repeatedly and publicly challenged, as far back as his 1987 campaign for president, when his attempts to adopt someone elses life story as his own, and his false claims about his academic record, forced him to withdraw. He obviously has this tendency, where hes a good and decent man who in politics has felt like he could stretch the truth up to a point just like virtually every president has done, said Eric Alterman, author of Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie and Why Trump Is Worse and a professor at City University of New York. With Biden, people have decided these are not the kind of lies that matter, Alterman added. These are the kinds of lies that peoples grandfathers tell. White House officials disputed the characterization of Biden as a serial exaggerator and emphasized the contrast with his predecessor. President Biden has brought honesty and integrity back to the Oval Office, said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson. Like he promised, he gives the American people the truth right from the shoulder and takes pride in being straight with the country about his agenda and his values; including by sharing life experiences that have shaped his outlook and that hardworking people relate to. But ethicists said contrasting himself with Trump does not excuse Biden. I worry about the corrosive effects on democracy, of making more honest than Donald Trump the standard for politicians, said Michael Blake, a professor of philosophy, public policy and governance at the University of Washington. Two days before his remarks in Fort Myers, Florida, Biden made his comments about the Puerto Rican community back home in Delaware as he toured the destruction on the island. Im one of you, he seemed to be saying. But Biden made not a single mention of Puerto Rico in either of his biographies. Officials could not point to specific instances when Biden had worked on issues involving the island, although Ted Kaufman, Bidens former chief of staff, defended his close friends description, saying Biden had personally engaged with Puerto Ricans early in his career, in the same way he had with other groups, such as the Black or Jewish communities. You know, all that kind of casework that you do, Kaufman said. They were big on that. Plus, he went to their events. Many presidents, of course, have stretched the truth in ways big and small. Bill Clinton lied under oath when he said, I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. Ronald Reagan insisted that he did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages during the Iran-Contra investigation. Like Biden, Reagan exaggerated his own actions, once saying that he had shot footage of Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II. He never did. Bidens critics have seized on his falsehoods to depict him as either a purposeful liar or a forgetful old man. When you lie about big things, you lie about small things, Greg Kelly, a host on the conservative network Newsmax, said this year, and always in a political sense, always in a way to try to get people to like him, and exaggerating along the way. Biden has been delivering exaggerations at least as far back as his first presidential campaign. During his first presidential run in 1987, Biden said he went to law school on a full academic scholarship, bragged that he ended up in the top half of his law school class and insisted that he graduated with three degrees from undergraduate school. If fact, as he later admitted, he had only a partial scholarship, was 76th out of 85 law school student and graduated with one bachelor's degree (with a double major in history and political science). I exaggerate when Im angry, Biden told The New York Times in September 1987, but Ive never gone around telling people things that arent true about me. The controversy came shortly after Biden admitted plagiarizing parts of a speech from Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour Party in Britain at the time. Biden dropped out of the presidential contest. Thirty-two years later, as he campaigned for the presidency in 2019, Biden described how he had traveled to Afghanistan to pin a Silver Star on a Navy captain for retrieving the body of a fellow American from a 60-foot ravine. This is the Gods truth, he said, repeating a story he had told many times, my word as a Biden. But as The Washington Post pointed out, it was an Army specialist, not a Navy captain, who had rescued his comrade. Former President Barack Obama, not Biden, awarded that soldier the Presidential Medal of Honor, not the Silver Star. And the ceremony took place at the White House, not in Afghanistan. White House officials said Biden was recalling a time years later, when he went to Afghanistan to pin a Bronze Star on an Army soldier. But as the Post put it: In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony. Since becoming president, he has continued to shave the truth. At least four times, Biden has described a ride on Amtrak to visit his sick mother in 2015 or 2016, recalling a conversation with a friendly train conductor. But Bidens mother died in 2010. The conductor also had been dead for several years by 2015. Last year, Biden said he remembered spending time at and going to the Tree of Life Synagogue, where 11 people were massacred in 2018. The White House later admitted he had never visited but had talked to the rabbi on the phone. The most curious stories that Biden continues to tell may be the ones about his interactions with the law. Earlier this year, Biden suggested during a speech in Atlanta on voting rights that he had been arrested while protesting for civil rights. Because Im so damn old, I was there as well, he said. You think Im kidding, man. It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested. There is no evidence he was ever arrested during a civil-rights protest. During the 2020 campaign, he said he had been arrested while visiting Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He later admitted he had been blocked from moving by police but not arrested. In 2008, he said he had been arrested as a college student following a group of women into an all-female dorm. He hadnt, as he conceded years later. In 2007, he recounted being arrested by a Capitol Police officer as a 21-year-old student in 1963. But in his memoir, he writes that the officer didnt arrest me or anything. The White House said Biden was referring in the voting rights speech to a story his mother told about a time when he was a teenager and was brought home by police after standing with a Black couple during a desegregation fight. Administration officials pointed to other interviews where he said, I wasnt John Lewis. I dont mean to imply that. Blake suggested that there could be a cumulative effect even if Biden had excuses and explanations for individual instances of inaccuracy. Its an attempt to create a sort of picture of who he is as someone who has empathy and knowledge and connection with people who are unlike him, Blake said. But the problem is, he added, when its verifiably a false story, at that point trust in that story, it fails. 2022 The New York Times Company The stock prices of Uber, Lyft and DoorDash slid on Tuesday after the Department of Labor announced proposed changes to how workers should be classified. The prospective guidance is intended to "combat employee misclassification," the federal agency said in a statement. Soon after, Uber's share price dropped by more than 10% to $24.61, while Lyft's tanked more than 12% to $11.22 and DoorDash's fell more than 5% to $44.98 at the time of writing. The rule could make it easier for contractors to gain full employment status if they are economically dependent on a company. However, the scope of the proposal itself would be limited to areas such as minimum wage enforcement. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash depend extensively upon gig workers, who haul people and meals around on their behalf but do not receive many hard-won benefits of employment such as employer contributions toward their Social Security and Medicare taxes. Despite pressure from labor organizers and some lawmakers, some tech firms have fought to continue classifying their workers as independent contractors, arguing the status benefits their businesses, other local businesses and workers themselves. Ride-hail and meal-delivery companies say that changing how gig workers are classified would threaten their businesses, yet these firms Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have also posted hefty net losses under the status quo. Attempts to alter gig worker classification in the U.S. include a recently rejected ballot measure in Massachusetts, which could have explicitly defined such workers as independent contractors. In California, an effort to secure benefits for gig workers AB-5 passed in 2019. A year later, app-based gig workers in California were excluded from the law via Proposition 22, which itself was deemed unconstitutional in the state in 2021. However, app-based gig companies have appealed that ruling and continue to operate in California under the guidance of Prop 22. (Every day is a winding road.) Story continues In a statement, Lyft said the new Labor Department proposal had "no immediate or direct impact on the Lyft business at this time." The firm reiterated its argument that classifying gig workers as employees could deny those workers independence and flexibility. DoorDash published a similar statement on its blog today. Uber also mentioned flexibility in an email to TechCrunch, and said the "proposed rule takes a measured approach, essentially returning us to the Obama era, during which our industry grew exponentially." In stark contrast, groups such as Gig Workers Rising assert that independent classification denies gig workers "basic worker protections and rights," such as unionization, living wages, paid time off and other benefits. "The Department of Labor remains committed to addressing the issue of misclassification," said Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. "Misclassification deprives workers of their federal labor protections, including their right to be paid their full, legally earned wages." The Labor Department's proposal is subject to a public comment period, which runs from from October 13 to November 28. The latest episode of the "Great British Bake Off" is drawing criticism - and it has nothing to do with contestants' soggy bottoms or uneven bakes. This week's installment of the beloved baking competition show featured a "Mexico Week" theme that featured challenges involving the preparation of Mexican confections including pan dulce and tres leches cakes. But some viewers and people reacting to clips and quotes posted on social media dinged the use of broad stereotypes of Mexican cuisine and culture, from maracas to sombreros to a cake bearing a thick black mustache. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The episode, which aired this week in the United Kingdom and is slated to stream on Netflix starting Friday (as "The Great British Baking Show"), began with one of the show's signature goofy opening sequences featuring co-hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas, both of whom are clad in serapes and tasseled sombreros. "I don't feel like we should make Mexican jokes because people will get upset," Fielding says. "Wait, not even Juan?" Lucas responds. "Not even Juan," Fielding replies. In an indication that it was unaware of just how cringey the exchange was, the show used it in a tweet promoting the episode. The episode also featured mispronunciations ("peek-o-de-gally-o" was one variant) and generalizations (in one scene, judge Prue Leith declares that cakes "look Mexican - there are lots of bright colors") that came in for social media mocking. A representative for Netflix did not respond to a request for comment, and emails to the show and its production company were not returned. The show met with similar criticism for its 2020 "Japanese Week," when many people said the producers conflated various Asian cuisines. And it has faced more general condemnation for its Anglo-centric attitude: As Jaya Saxena wrote for Eater, "anyone who's watched GBBO also knows how prickly the judges get when they think something has too much spice, how easily they exoticize non-British foods, and how the standard marker of a good baker is their ability to make a Victoria Sponge." Story continues Mexican chef and TV host Pati Jinich said that when she first saw the latest social media reaction, she thought it might be the "authenticity police" overreacting. But when she had a chance to view a few clips, she realized they had a point. Jinich says she doesn't object to non-Mexicans using symbols of Mexican culture - even ones that have become seen as stereotypes - as long as they're also delving deeper. "If there had been a little bit more about the depth and the substance, you can get away with some of those jokey things, because those things are part of the culture - like, yes, mariachi musicians do have the big mustaches," she says. "But taking it out of context and putting it on a stereotypical platter is just tired. It's basic." Jinich thinks the GGBO producers underestimated their audience, which in today's international and interconnected world, she says, could have handled a deeper dive into Mexican cuisine and culture, even if they weren't immediately familiar with it. "They do that for obscure British baking traditions and baking traditions of Europe," she says. "They could have had better recipes and better contests, but when it's only isolating the stereotypical elements, then it's irritating." Gustavo Arellano, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America," was quick to draw distinctions in what he found offensive in the episode. He wasn't bothered, he says, by the mispronunciations or the lack of familiarity that some contestants had with ingredients (one removed the skin of an avocado with a vegetable peeler, for example). But the "Juan" exchange? "That's the cheapest joke," he said. Generally, he says, Mexicans and people of Mexican heritage should welcome others embracing their cuisine, even if it's a little awkward. "You should be happy that Brits are trying to cook Mexican foods - it's a testimony to the popularity and power that Mexican food has not just in the U.S., but across the world," he says. "And I'd like to see a Mexican or a Mexican American try to cook a good Yorkshire pudding." U.K. audiences also complained that the show had veered from its nominal focus - baking, obviously - to include cooking challenges. Last week, the contestants were directed to prepare pizza, and in the latest episode, tacos. But some also saw the shift to a savory dish - the taco - as a lack of awareness or appreciation for the breadth of Mexican baked goods. Jinich said producers could have chosen from a deep trove of Mexican "bakes," from tortilla casseroles to tamale pies that would have been on-theme without resorting to a dish that doesn't display the makers' baking skills - which is ostensibly the point of the show. Arellano, though, saw a positive in the choice of "the most familiar Mexican food of them all" - which he likened to a gateway to lesser-known parts of Mexican cuisine. "It shows the power of the taco," he says. "They want to ride the taco wave. That's baby steps." Related Content How Ukrainians, targeting by drone, attacked Russian artillery in Kherson The National Gallery thought this painting was a Vermeer. Now? Not so much Political spam is out of control. Now Gmail is about to make it worse. Even as Ukraine endured a second day of intensified Russian strikes condemned by the U.N. and the Group of Seven leaders, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outlined Tuesday a plan to end the war -- and it doesn't involve negotiating with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Addressing an emergency virtual summit of the G-7 called after Monday's barrage on Ukrainian power plants and civilian areas, Zelenskyy warned that Putin may yet escalate his attack now that he has ordered 2,400 Shahed drones from Iran. "This possibility is a threat to all of us,'' Zelenskyy said before presenting his three-point "peace formula.'' It calls for the West to provide weapons that would allow Ukraine to create a defensive "air shield,'' protecting the country's territorial integrity and punishing Russia for its invasion with stronger sanctions and political isolation. "Such steps can bring peace closer,'' Zelenskyy said. "They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war.'' However, Zelenskyy dismissed the notion of holding peace talks with Putin, saying he's "in the final stage of his reign'' and "only believes in terror.'' The U.S. and Germany have committed to sending Ukraine advanced air-defense systems. The first of four such weapons from the Germans arrived Tuesday, when the U.N. human rights office called Russia's blistering missile strikes particularly shocking. The G-7 reiterated in a statement its steadfast support for Ukraine, warned of "severe consequences'' if Russia resorted to using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and condemned its latest assault. "Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime,'' the statement said. "We will hold President Putin and those responsible to account.'' LIFE BECAME SUFERING: Illustrated stories from the siege of Mariupol. Other developments: Jeremy Fleming, head of Britains electronic intelligence agency, said Tuesday that Russia is "running short of munitions'' and its troops are exhausted. Story continues Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, met with Putin on Tuesday in an effort to set up a protection zone and prevent a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia power plant. Russian missile strikes hammered Ukrainian cities again Tuesday. Ukraine said it intercepted about 20 of the missiles. The U.N. human rights office says Russian missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday were particularly shocking and could amount to war crimes. Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. says it is pulling out of Russia and plans to sell its operations to its Russian partner. Putin a 'rational actor' but 'miscalculated' on Ukraine, Biden tells CNN President Joe Biden doesn't question the sanity of his Russian counterpart, but he believes Vladimir Putin's objectives weren't realistic when he launched an invasion of Ukraine in February. More than seven months later, Russia has sustained repeated embarrassing losses on the battlefield, prompting Putin to lash out this week with a barrage of missile strikes across Ukraine that killed tens of civilians, damaged energy infrastructure and destroyed dwellings, but accomplished little militarily. I think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly, Biden told CNN in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday night. Putin's state of mind has been the subject of considerable speculation as analysts ponder whether he would take the extreme measure of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Putin's actions, including ordering a highly unpopular mobilization of civilians, have seemed more desperate as the war's momentum shifted in Ukraine's favor. "I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv ... and I think he just totally miscalculated, Biden told the network. Facebook owner Meta placed on Russian terrorist list Russian financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring placed U.S.-based social media giant Meta Platforms on its list of extremists and terrorists Tuesday. It was not immediately clear what the effect of the move would be the action comes more than six months after Moscows Tverskoy Court declared Meta networks Instagram and Facebook extremist and banned them across Russian territory. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY. The ruling in March stemmed in part from a Russian criminal inquiry that cited "illegal calls for the murder of Russian nationals" by Meta employees. Meta has said it relaxed rules against violent speech for people inside Ukraine directed at Russian military in that country. Meta does not allow calls for violence against Russian people. NATO to conduct nuclear readiness exercises NATO will hold a long-planned exercise next week to test nuclear readiness, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday. Stoltenberg stressed that the training was an annual event and was not related to recent attacks by Russia on Ukrainian cities. Stoltenberg said NATO was monitoring Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear activity but saw no change in Russia's nuclear posture. It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly canceled a routine, longtime-planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine," he said. Hong Kong won't seize Russian's luxury yacht Hong Kong won't seize a $500 million luxury yacht belonging to a Russian oligarch and will implement only sanctions against Russia imposed by the United Nations, city leader John Lee said Tuesday. The luxury yacht Nord, believed to be owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov, docked in Hong Kong waters last week. U.S. and European authorities have seized more than a dozen yachts belonging to sanctioned Russians, sending oligarchs scrambling for safe havens. The Nord measures more than 460 feet, and has two helipads, a swimming pool and 20 cabins. Hong Kong is a major financial center for Western nations, but China sets Hong Kong's foreign policy and has declined to press sanctions against Russia for its invasion of of Ukraine. Lee reaffirmed his administrations stance of not implementing sanctions imposed by the United States and the West and said he has laughed off U.S. sanctions placed on him and other officials in 2020 for implementing Beijing-imposed national security laws. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that the possible use of Hong Kong as a safe haven by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions further calls into question the transparency of the business environment. Ukraine says power plant official kidnapped by Russians A deputy director at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was kidnapped by Russian forces and is being held at an unknown location, the Ukraine nuclear energy company Energoatom said Tuesday. The company said on Telegram that it feared Valeriy Martyniuk was being tortured into providing personnel files of plant employees with a goal of forcing Ukrainian staffers to work for the Russian energy company Rosatom. The plants six reactors have been shut down for weeks. Energoatom appealed to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi and the world community to "take all possible measures for the immediate release" of Martyniuk. A destroyed apartment remains in the frontline town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on October 11, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. - This week's Russian missile attacks on power plants threaten cities across Ukraine with blackouts, but many frontline communities have been under shellfire and without power or water for months. The wine-making and salt-mining down of Bakhmut, in the eastern region of Donetsk, is still held and grimly defended by Ukrainian forces, but its desperate residents have been within range of Russian guns since May. (Photo by Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP) (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images) ORIG FILE ID: AFP_32L76NN.jpg UN considers resolution denouncing Russian 'annexations' The U.N. General Assembly will hold a historic vote this week on a resolution harshly denouncing Russia's claim to have annexed four Ukraine regions. The document calls Russian-orchestrated referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia illegal and "incompatible with the U.N. Charter." The resolution, which calls on Russia to withdraw its armed forces from Ukraines territory, requires approval by a two-thirds vote. A similar resolution in the U.N. Security Council was vetoed by Russia, which has no such power in the General Assembly. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine live updates: Zelenskyy pushes peace plan, seeks more weapons Eight years ago, Shane Adams jolted from the tent he was camping in - underwear-clad and scurrying to get dressed - when he heard a herd of wild mustangs zoom past. His heart broke when he saw his beloved horse had joined them, running off into the Utah desert. Mongo, a gentle stallion who loved to munch on Sour Patch Kids candy, had been missing ever since, but Adams never let go of his hope that the horse would eventually find its way home. Last week, it finally happened when Mongo was returned by federal officers with the Bureau of Land Management. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. "He was his calm, mellow and normal self - like he had never left at all," Adams told The Washington Post. "But I was overjoyed. I couldn't believe it. It was like a dream come true." Seeing Mongo - now 18 years old and "a few hundred pounds" skinnier - brought back a flood of memories, the 40-year-old said. He could easily picture the "goofy," bigheaded horse nickering for treats and their weekend camping trips to northwestern Utah. But he also remembered the dreaded scene of Mongo scurrying off into the brush-speckled landscape. Some six inches of snow covered the desert plains that cold March morning, Adams said. "I ran after him and I tried driving, but I really couldn't get anywhere because of the snow," he said. "Then I went back every weekend for three years to see if he was there. I reported him missing and tried every person I could to find him. But I never saw Mongo again." In less than five minutes, Mongo had joined the approximately 71,000 wild mustangs that roam the West, according to Bureau of Land Management figures. In Utah, some 22 herds have called the state home since the 1800s, most of them descending from horses that banded together after escaping from early settlers and ranchers. They now live on nearly 2.4 million acres controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. Story continues Since 1971, when Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses & Burros Act, the horses have been protected as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West." But their mushrooming population has sometimes eroded Utah's ecosystem. And in the midst of a severe drought, some of the horses haven't been able to find enough to eat and drink. That's why the Bureau of Land Management in September rounded up about 700 wild mustangs in the Cedar Mountain herd management area - where about 920 horses free-roam in a space with the appropriate resources to manage between 190 to 390. It was during this roundup in Tooele County that the Bureau of Land Management finally found Mongo, Adams said. Unlike the other horses, Mongo behaved like he had been trained in a previous life, and the branding in his coat was a telltale sign that he wasn't feral like his mates. Now that Mongo has returned home, Adams is trying to get him back to a more healthy weight after years of free-roaming on scarce land. "There's not a lot of food out there with this drought, and the horses look like walking death because they're so skinny," he said. "I get why Mongo ran off - horses are tribal animals and will follow each other. But I'm happy we can take care of him now and make sure he eats enough food." In the time they had spent apart, Mongo had become a bit of a legend in the Adams household. Pictures of the chocolate-colored, Persian and Quarter horse mix were still displayed at home. Adams's son - who was only 2 when the horse vanished - had made up songs about Mongo's escape. But while the horse's memory had been preserved in time, many aspects of Adams's life had changed. The former construction worker had gotten into a car crash in 2021 that left him disabled after a serious brain injury. He had to relearn how to walk and said his doctors told him the odds of him ever getting back to work - or atop a saddle - were fairly low. "They said it'll be probably like five years before I could think of getting on a horse. But I've already proved them wrong on that," said Adams, who is now easing his way back into the saddle. Though he can ride again, he said he is still working on regaining the same level of control he had before. These days, Adams enjoys taking his two kids, an 11-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter, on rides. The two are often atop the family's ponies, Captain, Pretty Boy and Sleepy Old John. Now they're also taking out Mongo, whose name is a reference to the character in the 1974 Western spoof film "Blazing Saddles." "Now I'm a firm believer that you have to look past your trials and trust that things are going to get better," Adams said. "Everything happens, but you've got to keep your chin up. I mean, a month ago I would've never imagined Mongo would be back." And Adams isn't the only one excited to see Mongo return. His daughter, who was a 3-month-old baby when the horse disappeared, is already showering him with kisses - and, of course, Sour Patch Kids. Related Content In crucial Nevada, economic woes threaten to shake Democrats' grip West Virginians fear a road meant to help their towns could destroy them Chicago scientists are testing an unhackable quantum internet in their basement closet Oct. 9Hurricane Julia has run ashore in Nicaragua and is continuing its move westward toward the Pacific Ocean, dumping up to a dozen inches of rain on Central America in the process. Julia's eyewall came ashore around 2:15 a.m. CDT Sunday with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane. Some computer models were forecasting that the storm would head north into the Bay of Campeche, potentially threatening the Texas coast if it re-formed. But all models now say the storm will head out into the Pacific without entering U.S. waters. Julia took a curious path, beginning as a tropical rainstorm, as it hugged the coast of South America. It seems likely this interplay with land prevented it from becoming a more powerful tropical system. AccuWeather meteorologists said Sunday they are confident Julia will continue tracking westward over Nicaragua, losing wind intensity and falling back to tropical storm status in the process. They do think, however, Julia is likely to survive the trip westward across Nicaragua and cross into the Pacific to become the 18th named storm of the season in that ocean. In the Atlantic basin, no tropical disturbances are forecast for the next five days. Hurricane season ends Nov. 30. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) An 85-year-old Iranian-American detained for six years in Iran on what the U.S. says were specious espionage charges left the country and was flown to Oman and then to the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday for urgent medical treatment. A lawyer for Baquer Namazis family and the Omani government confirmed his arrival in Muscat. Irans state-run IRNA news agency published video of Namazi boarding a Royal Oman air force jet in Tehran and later Omani state TV aired video of his arrival in Muscat. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday evening that Namazi had been reunited with his family in Abu Dhabi and would soon receive treatment. Namazis release is the first of an American by Iran since President Joe Biden took office, although his son, Siamak, 50, and several other Americans remain in Iranian custody. Baquer Namazis release on humanitarian grounds, which was brokered by the United Nations, comes as talks have stalled on reviving the tattered 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers. Jared Genser, a Washington-based lawyer representing the Namazi family, shared a photo of Namazi on the plane in a suit and tie. Today is a good day for the Namazi family, but the work is far from over, Genser said in a statement. We now need the United States and Iran to act expeditiously to reach an agreement that will finally bring all of the American hostages home. In addition to Siamak Namazi, there are at least three other Americans still held by Iran. After a brief stop in Oman, Namazi will undergo a procedure at the local branch of the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi to clear a severe blockage to his left internal carotid artery, Genser said. That blockage put Namazi at high risk of a stroke. Blinken said: Baquer has asked that we convey his deepest thanks to all of those who worked so tirelessly to secure his release. I add my own gratitude for all of the friends and partners who helped bring about his freedom. Story continues In particular, we thank the Sultanate of Oman, which worked with Iranian authorities to arrange for his flight out of the country, and the United Arab Emirates, which is generously hosting him and his family during his medical treatment, he added. Namazi is a former UNICEF official who served as governor of Irans oil-rich Khuzestan province under the U.S.-backed shah. He was arrested in 2016, apparently drawn to Iran over fears about his incarcerated son detained in 2015. He was placed under house arrest for medical reasons in 2018 but prevented from leaving Iran despite his familys pleas that he travel to receive emergency heart surgery after suffering multiple hospitalizations. Last October, he underwent surgery in Iran to clear a blockage in an artery to the brain that his family and supporters described as life-threatening. Security forces arrested his son, Siamak Namazi, an advocate of closer ties between Iran and the West, while he was visiting Iran on a business trip. Both Namazis were sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran on what the U.S. and U.N. say were trumped-up spying charges. The U.N.s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention dismissed the cases against the two men, saying in 2017 their case is part of an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals. There is no evidence either Mr. S. Namazi or Mr. B. Namazi had a criminal record, including in relation to national security offenses, their report read. There is nothing to indicate that they have ever acted against the national interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran. ___ Lee reported from Washington. WEST PALM BEACH The first-degree murder trial of Sheila Keen-Warren, the woman accused of dressing as a clown and killing her lover's wife, Marlene Warren, in 1990, is almost underway. It's been five years since deputies arrested Keen-Warren for allegedly committing Wellington's most notorious crime, though a slew of logistical problems delayed the trial from its original start date in early 2020. It took months to track down witnesses, many of whom are ailing or long gone from Palm Beach County. Others turned out to be dead. The case has changed hands a number of times since then neither the original judge, defense attorney nor prosecutor remain. Those left in their stead will work to convince jurors of Keen-Warren's guilt or innocence in the trial scheduled to begin Oct. 21. Here is a rundown of the key figures in the courtroom. True Crime of Palm Beach County: Killer clown with balloons fatally shoots woman at front door in Wellington Defense: Evidence does not prove woman dressed as clown, killed Wellington mom in 1990 Wellington 'clown' homicide: Lawyers for woman accused in Wellington clown murder accuse state of hiding possible suspect Sheila Keen-Warren: The defendant Sheila Keen-Warren, accused of dressing as a clown and fatally shooting her lover's wife in 1990, enters court ahead of her first-degree murder trial. In 1990, 27-year-old Sheila Keen worked for the victim's husband, Michael Warren, repossessing cars in West Palm Beach. She and Michael were rumored to be romantically involved. Keen married Michael Warren 12 years after the shooting. The couple moved to Virginia, where Keen-Warren started a new life under the alias "Debbie." She and Warren managed a small drive-through restaurant in Kingsport, Tennessee, called the Purple Cow. In 2017, new DNA evidence from a strand of hair linked Keen-Warren to the decades-old murder, investigators said. She was indicted for first-degree murder in 2017 and has awaited trial in the Palm Beach County Jail ever since. Keen-Warren pleaded not guilty to the crime. Story continues Scott Suskauer: The judge Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer, seen here in December 2021. Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer took over the Wellington clown murder case from retired Circuit Judge Joseph Marx in 2021. Former Gov. Rick Scott appointed Suskauer to the Circuit Court in 2015. Prior to that, Suskauer was a private defense attorney alongside his wife and former Florida Bar President, Michelle Suskauer. He also served as a Palm Beach County public defender. He received a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and a J.D. from the University of Miami. Reid Scott: The prosecutor Assistant state attorney Reid Scott at the Palm Beach County Courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach. Reid Scott, chief of homicide for the Palm Beach County State Attorneys Office, replaced Brian Fernandes as lead prosecutor following Fernandes' removal as chief assistant state attorney for Palm Beach County in 2018. He is not seeking the death penalty in this case. Scott has drawn criticism from Keen-Warren's attorneys for sending evidence for testing at the last minute, and for withholding information that would have allowed them to interview Edward Bahr, a man who allegedly confessed to killing Warren. Scott, a 2006 Stetson University College of Law graduate, denied having any obligation to tell Keen-Warren's attorneys about his conversation with Bahr. Amy Morse and Greg Rosenfeld: Defense attorneys Defense attorney Greg Rosenfeld. Greg Rosenfeld and Amy Morse are private attorneys representing Keen-Warren. A third attorney, Richard Lubin, was once a part of the defense team, although health complications caused him to drop the case in August. Morse received her J.D. from New York Law School in 2000 and specializes in criminal and health care law. Rosenfeld graduated from the Roger Williams University School of Law in 2011. Rosenfeld was an assistant public defender in Palm Beach County and is the president of the Palm Beach Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 2017, Rosenfeld represented Dalia Dippolito of Boynton Beach who was dubbed the "murderous madam" for trying to hire an undercover cop to kill her husband. Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Killer clown: Key players in the murder trial of Marlene Warren Mindy Cohen, who said she opposes Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, "because of his stance on antisemitism, on religion, on abortion," at Hymie's Delicatessen in Merion Station, Pa., Sept. 29, 2022. (Hannah Beier/The New York Times) MERION STATION, Pa. Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the states Jewish community, alarming liberal Jews with his remarks and far-right associations, and giving pause to more conservative ones. Some of those voters have recoiled from Mastrianos opposition to abortion rights under any circumstance, or from his strident election denialism. But the race between Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro a Jewish day school alum who features challah in his advertising and routinely borrows from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish ethics has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Shapiros religion. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mastriano calls a privileged, exclusive, elite school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Shapiros disdain for people like us. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times It is a Jewish day school, where students are given both secular and religious instruction. But Mastrianos language in portraying it as an elitist reserve seemed to be a dog whistle. Apparently, now its some kind of racist thing if I talk about the school, Mastriano said at a recent event as he cast himself as a champion of school choice for all. Its a very expensive, elite school. The focus on Shapiros religion has freighted one of the nations most consequential elections with an unusually raw and personal dimension. You have a candidate who is Jewish, an observant Jewish candidate, who puts his observance and his faith in his campaign ads, said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. And then you have someone who associates with unapologetic, unabashed antisemites running against him. Story continues In a closely divided state where races are often won on the margins, Mastriano is now losing ground with a small but significant part of the Donald Trump coalition, squandering opportunities with more conservative and religiously observant Jews who embraced the former president and his party because of his often-hawkish stance concerning Israel but who now express grave reservations about Mastriano. This past summer, Mastrianos campaign came under scrutiny for paying $5,000 to far-right social media platform Gab. The man accused of perpetrating the Pittsburgh shooting had posted antisemitic screeds on Gab, and Mastrianos payment drew bipartisan condemnation. The platforms founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mastriano and declared that were not bending the knee to the 2% anymore, an apparent reference to American Jewry. Only after significant pressure did Mastriano release a statement saying that he rejected antisemitism in any form, appearing to leave the site and stressing that Torba did not speak for him. But a late-September campaign finance report showed that Mastriano had accepted a $500 donation from Torba in July. His campaign did not respond when asked whether he planned to return the money, and he and his aides ignored a reporters shouted questions about the donation during an event on a recent Friday. Mastriano has also spread the lie that George Soros, a Holocaust survivor and liberal billionaire often vilified on the right, was a Nazi collaborator. And Mastriano has baselessly accused Shapiro of holding a real grudge against the Roman Catholic Church. That may have been part of a misleading reference to debates over enforcement of contraception coverage. But Shapiros office also led a bombshell investigation into the Catholic Churchs cover-up of sexual abuse of children. Mastrianos campaign did not respond when asked what he was referring to. In the final weeks before the midterm elections, candidates across the country are clashing bitterly over the threat posed by extremism. But no major contest this year has been shaped more prominently, persistently or explicitly by concerns over antisemitism than the Pennsylvania governors race. Taken together, Mastriano has left even conservative swaths of Pennsylvanias otherwise liberal-leaning Jewish community feeling deeply uncomfortable. The Orthodox community would generally swing more toward Republican, said Charlie Saul, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer from the Pittsburgh area. A registered Democrat, Saul said he voted twice for Trump and plans to back Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee, as well as Shapiro. But in this situation, he added, because of the association of Mastriano with antisemites, I think that theyll swing Democrat. Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, suggested that because of Shapiros relationship with the Jewish community and the fact that Mastrianos not doing any outreach to the Jewish community, and has these issues hanging over his head, Shapiro stood to overperform with center-right Jewish voters. The coalition is supporting Oz but has criticized Mastriano over his Gab associations. Recent polls show Mastriano trailing Shapiro by double digits, although Pennsylvania polling has been substantially wrong before and the political environment is challenging for Democrats. His campaign did not respond to three requests for comment or provide the names of any Jewish surrogates. Representatives for the Republican National Committee did not respond to questions, and several other Republican leaders declined interviews. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who has campaigned for Mastriano, defended the candidate, calling him a strong Christian Zionist and saying he did not see any antisemitic concerns at all. I just dont think, necessarily, being a strong Christian necessarily makes you someone whos intolerant of other faiths, he said. But he acknowledged he did not know Mastriano well. As explosive as antisemitism can be, and even as antisemitic incidents are on the rise, it is seldom openly displayed by candidates for high office. But responding to someone who uses tropes or dog whistles but stops short of baldfaced hate speech can be challenging, and there is the risk of getting derailed by focusing too much on ones identity and not enough on what concerns the broader public. The key is to discuss such corrosive matters in a way that resonates with a broad audience, said veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod. He noted that former President Barack Obama positioned himself as both proudly of the Black community and a president for all. Josh Shapiro isnt running to be the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, hes running to be the governor of Pennsylvania, Axelrod said. Your job, as prospective leader of a state, is to speak to it in a larger context. To that end, Shapiro portrays Mastrianos antisemitic associations as evidence that he is dangerously extremist, with a governing vision that excludes many Pennsylvanians, an argument he has amplified in ads. (During the primary, Shapiro also ran an ad that appeared to elevate Mastriano, a move he has defended.) There is no question that he is courting antisemites and white supremacists and racists actively in his campaign, Shapiro said in an interview, although he stopped short of calling his opponent an antisemite. He said Mastriano draws on his view of religion to press policies that would have significant consequences for others, citing Mastrianos blanket opposition to abortion rights, for instance. Unless you think like him, unless you vote like him, unless you worship like him or marry like him, then you dont count in his Pennsylvania, Shapiro said last week. I want to be a governor for all 13 million Pennsylvanians. At the same time, Shapiros Jewish identity is a defining aspect of his public persona. His first television ad this year featured him at Sabbath dinner with his family, challah on the table and a hamsa a hand-shaped symbol often seen in the Middle East, including in Israel on the wall. It was important to let people know who I am and what Im all about, said Shapiro, saying that his faith has played a central role to me and has motivated me to do service. He added: Thats an important part of who we are. As he discusses civic engagement on the campaign trail, he frequently deploys a version of a line that, he said, resonated as he studied religious texts with a rabbi years ago: No one is required to complete the task but neither are we free to refrain from it. It helps him connect with people of diverse faiths, and it is a flash of his own day school roots. He said he keeps kosher, is always home for Sabbath dinner and admires how former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, an observant Jew, practiced his faith in his long career in politics, a subject the men have discussed over the years. Shapiro works on Saturdays the Jewish day of rest but observed Rosh Hashana in synagogue and fasted and attended Yom Kippur services last week. Shapiro will have a significant national platform if he wins. Asked whether he aspired to be the first Jewish president, he insisted, No! God willing, Ill have the chance to serve as governor, he said, and that is all I am focused on doing. At Hymies Delicatessen in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, Democratic-leaning diners brought up antisemitism concerns unprompted during a recent lunchtime rush. Mindy Cohen, 64, said she opposed Mastriano because of his stance on antisemitism, on religion, on abortion. Stanley Isenberg, 98, drew parallels to how both John F. Kennedy and former New York Gov. Alfred Smith, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928, faced anti-Catholic sentiment. He said he was especially angry at Mastrianos references to the Jewish day school, an attempt, he believed, to tell those people who dont like us that, to be sure and know that Mr. Shapiro was Jewish. Down the street, at an upscale kosher restaurant, some were more open to Mastriano. David Keleti, 51, leaned toward the Republican ticket, but questioned some of Mastrianos positions, citing, in particular, the Jewish school issue. I just dont think that hes been effective in responding to these charges, Keleti said. The matter of Mastrianos associations has bothered some of the Pennsylvanians who talk to the political director of the group Republicans4Shapiro, Craig Snyder, who is Jewish. He opposes Mastriano for many reasons but said concerns about antisemitism alone should be disqualifying. Is the candidate an antisemite or only a friend of antisemites? he said. Its just crazy that this is even an issue. In Pittsburgh, Saul who lost friends in the synagogue shooting said memories of the attack four years ago this month prompted a certain degree more of concern about Mastrianos associations. He may not be antisemitic, said Saul. But the fact that he seems to have some antisemitic supporters that he hasnt forcefully denounced makes me anti-Mastriano. 2022 The New York Times Company By Hyonhee Shin SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has attended the opening ceremony of a new massive greenhouse farm built on a former air base where the country had test-fired missiles until last year, state media said on Tuesday. The launch on Monday of the Ryonpho Greenhouse Farm, located in the eastern county of Hamju, was to mark the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party, a major holiday in North Korea. Kim attended the event after guiding nuclear tactical exercises targeting South Korea over the past two weeks, which state media said were designed to counter recent joint naval drills by South Korean and U.S. forces involving an aircraft carrier. The North's ruling party unveiled the project to transform the Ryonpho air base into a "highly automated farm" and a model for rural civilisation, calling it a "top priority task" to help achieve its goal of improving people's lives set at its key policy meeting last December. The isolated country had used the area for several launches of short-range ballistic missile, including the KN-25s in November 2019 and the suspected KN-23s in March 2021. The farm has more than 850 blocks of modern greenhouses covering 280 hectares, to be harmonised with some 1,000 houses, schools and cultural and service facilities, the official KCNA news agency said. Kim has spearheaded the farm initiative to boost vegetable supplies and praised soldiers and workers for completing the construction in just a few months, KCNA said. The party plans to "more dynamically and confidently push forward the overall rural development of the country with the Ryonpho Greenhouse Farm as a model," Kim was quoted as saying at the ceremony. He called for building more large farms, increasing the variety of vegetables to be supplied and ensuring scientific, industrialised production and management at those farms. North Korea first introduced the similar but slightly smaller Jungphyong Greenhouse Farm in the northeast county of Kyongsong in late 2019 as it pushed for self-reliance amid tightening international sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes. (Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Kim Coghill) Editor's Note: This column has been updated to include Sarah Botstein and Lynn Novick as co-creators and directors of the PBS documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust. Americans have long trusted Ken Burns to tell our stories: The Civil War, baseball, jazz, national parks, the Vietnam War and country music. This trust in Burns in this moment of universal mistrust is an important part of what we bring to the PBS series The U.S. and the Holocaust, which Burns co-created and directed with Sarah Botstein and Lynn Novick. Burns has focused on hard stories before such as the Civil War and Vietnam. But this is perhaps the hardest to hear, especially for worshippers of the so-called Greatest Generation and American exceptionalists in general. Brent Harold The story we like to remember of that terrible era, what most of us grew up thinking, the story told in so many movies in the years after World War II, is how we saved the world from the horrors of Hitler and fascism. The Nazis were the bad guys and we were the good guys. It is that self-congratulatory story that Burns, Novick and Botstein's film is meant to correct. Yes, once we entered the war after Pearl Harbor, we were crucial in winning it and saving what was left of Europe's Jews. But the story is not nearly so clear-cut. As Burns, Novick and Botstein make clear, for years we refused to allow the immigration of refugees fleeing Hitler's genocide and left them to their fate. Immigration: Lawyers for Civil Rights explain lawsuit filed on behalf of Martha's Vineyard migrants Despite newspaper reports making clear much of what Hitler was doing to Jews in the 1930s and even as the Final Solution began to take shape, antisemitism was as widespread here as anywhere, as evidenced in polls opposing immigration and showing that the majority of Americans thought the Jews had it coming. Prestigious Americans such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and his sweet wife, Anne Morrow, and Catholic Father Coughlin's hugely popular radio broadcasts, were supportive of Hitler's rise in the 1930s and even into the war. Story continues The PBS Holocaust documentary is much the same told in Philip Roth's novel Plot Against America (2004). In Roth's counter-factual novel popular hero Lindbergh actually wins the 1941 election over Franklin Delano Roosevelt and widespread antisemitism has America looking a lot like Germany of the 1930s until we are saved by the bell, as it were, by the Pearl Harbor attack. Stalemate: Why immigration reform has been so elusive over the years Since we know the real history of the period, what actually happened that Roosevelt won that 1941 presidential election and kept pushing for the U.S. to come to the aid of our allies and defeat the fascists why bother telling the counter-history? The answer is: because the counter-history is in many important respects truer history than the version we, as victors, have told. ('History is written by the winners. Winston Churchill.) We have long been used to being told the importance of remembering the story of the Holocaust as a cautionary tale, lest we forget the depth of depravity in theory all humans are capable of. Holocaust denial is a crime in many countries. Forbidden fruit?: Here's a way to join Cape Codders in reading banned books But the documentary is not just about what they did, an ocean away, but of what we did, our failure. Our role in the Holocaust. It's a very hard story to hear, to watch. In fact, I'm surprised the extremist GOP, our white supremacists, Tucker Carlson and the rest of the Right in this country have not loudly boycotted or attempted to ban The U.S. and the Holocaust. Why have the anti-Critical Race Theory people not been out in force declaring the series, like the truth about the slavery chapter of our story, unacceptably bad for our morale? Or just dismissed as fake news? (My foray online turned up nothing of the sort on the first couple of Google search results pages.) Radioactive water: Why a nuclear waste by-product has people upset with the Pilgrim power station It speaks reassuringly of the health of what's left of our troubled democracy that the PBS series has taken front and center for a few days to be watched by millions. Burns, Novick and Botstein are not content to leave implicit the parallels between their story and our current drift toward fascism. The series ends with 2017 footage of the torch-carrying Charlottesville mob shouting, "Jews will not replace us," and of the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. A clip of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol shows a man in a "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt. Housing crisis: Where are the most affordable homes for purchase on Cape Cod? Geography plays a role The history of this time has not been written. There are no foregone conclusions. In the middle of it, still creating it (part of the problem or part of the solution, as Eldridge Cleaver, famously put it), without the benefit of hindsight, we don't know how this will turn out. But with an election coming up that may well play a huge role in establishing the next chapter in this story, the timing of the PBS Holocaust series could not be more appropriate. Brent Harold, a Cape Cod Times columnist and former English professor, lives in Wellfleet. Email him at kinnacum@gmail.com. Gain access to premium Cape Cod Times content by subscribing. Check out our subscription offers. This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: PBS Holocaust film tells of the U.S. failure to help Jews Gov. Greg Abbott is advocating for a vouchers program in the name of parental choice, but every Texan should question this because of the potential negative impact vouchers have on students and the states public school system. School vouchers are relatively simple they are taxpayer-funded government subsidies that parents use to pay private school tuition although tuition and transportation at many private schools exceeds the voucher. Families must pay the difference. Gov. Greg Abbott is advocating for a vouchers program in the name of parental choice. When a family uses a voucher, public school districts lose funding. Education savings accounts and tax credit scholarships are less traditional approaches to vouchers, but they still take away money from public schools. With less money, districts are forced to cut popular programs such as dual language education, STEM initiatives and vocational training. Such cuts narrow curricular and programmatic offerings and disproportionately impact low-income communities that may not be able to afford private school tuition and transportation costs even with a voucher. Private schools are also not held to the same standard of accountability as public schools. And they are not legally required to provide fair access and quality services to students with disabilities. These simple facts are concerning, but it gets worse. School vouchers have been studied for decades in cities such as Milwaukee, New York and Toledo. Most studies find little or no statistical impact on achievement for students receiving vouchers. In fact, four recent studies in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and the District of Columbia found that on average, students attending private schools with vouchers did less well on tests relative to their similar peers in public schools. In Arizona, a vouchers program was sold as a policy to help low-income families. In practice, vouchers were primarily used in high-performing districts by wealthy parents. Arizona House Minority Leader Eric Meyer said the states voucher program essentially gives the wealthy a discount at a private school. He added that the lack of money to cover transportation and additional tuition costs makes it difficult for families with fewer resources to use the vouchers program. Story continues Texans should keep this in mind. Texans should also keep in mind that our state already ranks among the worst for public school funding and has been cited by the U.S. Department of Education for illegally cutting special education funding. When vouchers are implemented, more money will come out of the public education system. Consider Cleveland ISD in Liberty County outside of Houston, which enrolls approximately 9,000 students in 11 schools. The districts total budget was about $130 million for the 2021-22 school year, with nearly $100 million going to cover staff salaries, busing and transportation costs, and facilities maintenance and operations. If some families currently attending Cleveland ISD were to use a voucher to attend private schools, the most likely outcome is that their children would experience a lower-quality education. Meanwhile, the loss of 10 or 20 students would force Cleveland ISD to cut one to two staff members, such as a teacher or school nurse. Schools in rural Texas like those in Cleveland ISD are not just places where children go to school. They also serve as community hubs, host important events and gatherings, and provide access to health care providers and counseling given the states long-term failure to ensure rural communities have access to hospitals and mental health services. Policymakers should not disrupt the public education system given the states constitutional obligation to make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools. Taking money out of the public school system amid a global pandemic that disrupted learning and triggered a massive teacher shortage is even more illogical. Lets also not forget the significant school safety concerns and security infrastructure problems brought to light by the recent school shooting in Uvalde. Vouchers in Texas are a terrible idea. We should be investing in our public schools and focused on ensuring every school is well resourced, staffed with high-quality teachers, and offering innovative educational programs that prepare the next generation of Texans for postsecondary success. We should not have a program that does the opposite. David DeMatthews is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas. David S. Knight is an assistant professor of education finance and policy at the University of Washington. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Opinion: School voucher program is not right for Texas education Central Bucks School District Sign (CNN) A Pennsylvania school district is under fire for allegedly discriminating against LGBTQ students. After a months-long investigation, the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint Thursday with the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary students in the Central Bucks School District, accusing the state's fourth-largest district of illegal gender discrimination in maintaining, perpetuating and exacerbating what the civil rights organization deems a hostile education environment for LGBTQ+ students. "We spoke to dozens of students, parents, teachers, guidance counselors, librarians, and community stakeholders," said Witold J. Walczak, the Pennsylvania ACLU legal director. "Trans and nonbinary and LGBTQ+ students are harassed, bullied, persistently, severely and the school district historically has done very little to help and support these students." The complaint indicates administrators were well-aware of the hostile environment, quoting Superintendent Abram M. Lucabaugh's comment at a school board meeting in May that for LGBTQ+ students "a successful day is getting through the day and not being harassed." The filing argues the district's treatment of LGBTQ+ students has been "at best indifferent" and says it has more recently become "overtly discriminatory and hostile" with tragic consequences, citing multiple serious incidents of student self-harm, including a trans student attempting to take his life at school in 2019. The district's superintendent declined to comment explicitly on the complaint. "We believe it is paramount that all students and teachers are cared for and respected as members of our learning and teaching community," said Superintendent Abram M. Lucabaugh, Ed.D., "With regard to yesterday's filing, we do not comment on legal matters." CNN reached out to the Departments of Justice and Education and to the school board president and did not receive an immediate response. Story continues 'Extremists' on school board Walczak said "extremists" who won election to the Central Bucks school board last year had an agenda aimed at targeting LGBTQ+ students. "Since the election of new school board members in November 2021, the new board and central administration have adopted policies and taken actions that target LGBTQ+ students, like directing removal of pride flags as inappropriate "political symbols," intimidating teachers into removing LGBTQ+ themed resource materials from their classrooms, directing teachers not to use preferred names and pronouns unless the student has parental consent," the complaint says. While details on the claims made by the seven Central Bucks students are redacted, because they are minors, the filing includes other explicit examples of alleged discrimination, like the district's decision to suspend a teacher in a highly public way the complaint called it a "perp walk" after the teacher helped a trans student file a report with the Office for Civil Rights. The district also passed new library and textbook policies focused on "sexualized content" that the complaint calls a thinly disguised effort to censor LGBTQ+-themed materials. The Pennsylvania ACLU is asking that the Justice Department or the Department of Education investigate the hostile environment in the school district and order it to take remedial measures recommended by the DOE for supporting transgender and other gender non-conforming youth in school, including using welcoming and inclusive language that is free from discrimination and harassment. The complaint, which argues many of the district's policies run counter to the DOE'S recommendations, also asks that the district provide mandatory training for staff, the administration and the board on supporting LGBTQ+ youth. A nationwide battle The filing is the latest salvo in a nationwide battle over education policies regulating everything from which books school libraries can offer to what teachers and students can say or display in the classroom. The American Library Association reports attempts to ban books are on the rise in schools across the country and could even surpass the record set in 2021. Meanwhile, lawmakers in several states, often driven by conservative activists, have introduced legislation that would limit classroom instruction. Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed what critics call the "don't say gay" law in March, banning classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade or an a manner that is not age- or developmentally appropriate. The move inspiring legislators in other states, like Ohio, to take similar steps. And in August, a Wisconsin school district affirmed a ban on teachers displaying Pride materials in classrooms or writing their pronouns in email signatures, deeming those acts political and in Texas that same month, a school district approved restrictions on how race and gender are discussed, including allowing teachers to call students by pronouns that do not match their gender identity. The board also set rules for multiple-occupancy bathrooms that require they be designated for and used only by persons based on their biological sex policies the ACLU of Texas described as "egregious." The-CNN-Wire & 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. Related: Pennsylvania Governor Signs Anti-Conversion Therapy Order A man was found shot to death Monday inside a second-floor room at a hotel where police routinely investigate stabbings, shootings, drug overdoses and other problems. The shooting happened about 9 a.m. at the Plaza Inn, 3200 S Interstate 35 Service Road. A spokesman said officers were still looking into what prompted the shooting and who might have been involved. Multiple shots were reported, said Oklahoma City police Sgt. Dillon Quirk, who added he couldn't confirm whether the victim had been armed. "Obviously, we are in the very early stages of the investigation," he said. More:Fatal shooting leads to arrest of Oklahoma City woman Family members react Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, at the scene as Oklahoma City police investigate a fatal shooting at the Plaza Inn in Oklahoma City. Owners of troubled Plaza Inn 'trying very much' to correct problems The Plaza Inn, which has about 100 rentable rooms, has been open along the east side of I-35 in southeast Oklahoma City since 1971. It has been owned by Plaza Hotels LLC, headquartered in El Reno, since about 2015. Between Jan. 1 and late August, police responded to calls involving at least 10 assaults, two shootings, eight attempted suicides, three stabbings, 13 thefts, four acts of vandalism and 11 overdoses. Steve Ketter, a part owner of the company that operates the motel, said Monday it really has only become a magnet for problems over the past few years. He said the company hired Blackhawk Security more than a year ago to increase its customers' safety after it decided its motel staff needed help. Ketter said the motel's employees work with both the security company and the Oklahoma City Police Department's Santa Fe division, which he strongly praised, to boost public safety in the area. Ketter said the Plaza Inn's managers routinely evict anyone they suspect of being involved in illegal activities, often calling officers for help. He said what often happens, however, is that people just go to a motel next door to set up shop there. "We have been getting a lot of newer people there in the past few months, and we feel like that has been kind of straightening it out," Ketter said. "We just want to stand up for our motel, to let the public know we are trying trying very much to do the right things." Story continues As for Monday's fatal shooting, police didn't attribute it to conditions at the motel. "I know that we have responded to more than one homicide in this location, but right now, there is no evidence that they are connected or correlated in any way," Quirk said Monday. More than a dozen officers responded to the scene Monday, where they conducted interviews and looked for witnesses. More:9-year-old boy killed in drive-by shooting identified by Oklahoma City police As officers were conducting interviews, several women arrived at the motel and approached the crime scene before being escorted back outside and being interviewed by a homicide detective. A woman, who said she was the victim's mother, told reporters she had last seen her son, a 41-year-old father, on Sunday and had no idea why he might have been at the motel Monday morning. She declined to provide her name or the name of her son. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Man found dead in second-floor room at trouble spot motel by police Nitrate compounds were the top toxic substances released into U.S. waterways in 2020, including the Mississippi River, according to a recent study conducted by an environmental policy and advocacy group. Industries primarily petroleum refineries and meat and poultry processing facilities discharged more than 175 million pounds of nitrates that year, comprising 91% of all toxic chemicals released by weight in the U.S., according to the reports analysis of federal data. The findings pose particular relevance to the Mississippi River basin, which drains a 31-state watershed and conveys nitrates and other chemicals to the Gulf of Mexico. Nitrates encourage algae blooms, which contribute to the gulfs hypoxic dead zone, where oxygen-poor waters suffocate marine wildlife. We have huge flows of toxic pollution into our waterways across the country, said John Rumpler, senior director of the Environment America Research and Policy Centers clean water program, who co-authored the report along with researchers from the Frontier Group and U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. Released in late September, the report analyzed data collected in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Toxics Release Inventory. The agency requires certain industries to report toxic releases. That does not include runoff from farm fields and animal feeding operations, which is most typically associated with nitrate pollution, meaning that the report includes only a portion of toxic releases. Nitrate is a naturally occurring nutrient found in food and human and animal waste. But exposure can pose health hazards to babies and pregnant women, and nitrate is one of the most common groundwater contaminants in some states. Some studies suggest that it contaminates at least 10% of wells in Wisconsin, for instance. People who consume water high in nitrate face increased risk of colon, kidney and stomach cancers and thyroid disease. It also is associated with birth defects. The Environment America report spotlights the vast flows of toxic compounds into the countrys waterways, even under the 1972 Clean Water Act. The landmark legislation sought to make most waterways fishable and swimmable by 1983, while eliminating toxic discharges into navigable waters by 1985. The Clean Water Act requires states, territories and tribal governments to develop standards to protect water bodies within their borders based upon designated uses, like recreating, protecting wildlife or providing public drinking water. Waterways that fail to satisfy those standards become subject to a restoration plan, which limits daily discharges of pollutants. Polluters must comply with those limits until the water body can support its designated uses. The law has increased the number of fishable waters across the U.S., but about half of U.S. water bodies remain impaired. Toxic substances continue to enter U.S. waterways in large volumes, hindering restoration efforts, the new report illustrates. Regulated industries released about 94.5 million pounds of nitrates into the Mississippi River basin in 2020, accounting for nearly half of all reported toxic releases nationwide. More than 30 million pounds of that total originated in slaughterhouses and meat processing industries. Meat processors use nitrates to cure ham, bacon and other foods. That important process increases the shelf life of products and reduces the transmission of foodborne pathogens, said Jeffrey Sindelar, a University of Wisconsin-Madison animal science professor and extension meat specialist. The excess and the stuff that isnt used is typically run down into a drain, he said. Some discharges of nitrates and other chemicals go unreported because of certain industry exemptions from EPA reporting requirements, the September study notes. Likewise, not all toxic substances must be reported, and the EPA exempts reporting for facilities with fewer than 10 employees. In addition to closing reporting loopholes, the EPA could update permitting standards to reflect current pollution control technology, Rumpler said, to the benefit of public and environmental health. State and local and federal officials have the tools, he said. Now it just takes the political will to implement those tools as the Clean Water Act intends. In an emailed statement, an EPA spokesperson said that the agency is considering updates to pollution standards that would apply to meat and poultry processing plants, power plants and industrial dischargers of PFAS chemicals. The EPA is pursuing a rule to remove a reporting exemption for low concentrations of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which have been linked to a range of health problems. President Donald Trumps administration allowed PFAS releases to qualify for a de minimis exemption, which excuses polluters from documenting discharges of toxic chemicals comprising less than 1% of a mixture or .1% for carcinogens. The EPA is moving to rescind that loophole eligibility, the spokesperson said. The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates. Fast-rising Nigerian star Asake roared into New York Friday night with a show in support of his debut album, Mr. Money With the Vibe, which features Afrobeats icon Burna Boy as well as American rapper Russ. Asake (full name: Ahmed Ololade) released his first single in 2018 and has struck an individual blend of West African Afrobeats and South Africas Brazilian-tinged ampiano. Photo: Emmanuel Agbeble His set Friday night at New Yorks Palladium Times Square the largest venue on his tour saw him backed by a full band, including horns, to bring his jazz-influenced sound into a live setting. Clad in an all-denim ensemble and his trademark black sunglasses, he performed his entire debut album in order, starting with the albums mid-tempo opener, Dull. But as the setlist continued and the songs became more lively, so did Asake. Photo: Emmanuel Agbeble He launched into some of the fan-made dances his supporters have shared on platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels, and the audience shouted along loudly on the track Organise and at times he even put down his mic and let the crowd sing entire lines, a capella, as his name appeared in huge letter on the LED screen behind him. Photo: Setor Tsikudo Later in the show Asake changed into a more casual outfit, wearing athletic shorts and a dry-fit long-sleeved shirt. He performed the rest of his album, along with an extended remix of Sungba, which featured a recording of Burna Boys verse. Asake has an outsized stage presence, and it will be interesting to see how he works in larger venues, with bigger productions and dancers. Even on this, largest room of his tour, at times the stage felt too small for him which is just about the best problem to have as a performer. Photo: Emmanuel Agbeble 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. Romes innovative MIA market dedicated to international TV series, feature films, and documentaries kicks off its eighth edition Tuesday, headed by new chief Gaia Tridente, who has added an animation section and been busy raising the curated marts international profile. The Oct. 11-15 MIA mart its acronym stands for the Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo or International Audiovisual Market this year is positioned prior to the Mipcom content market and conference that runs Oct. 17-20 in Cannes, since Mipcom has shifted its dates back. More from Variety But this non-voluntary repositioning has not impacted the number of registered MIA attendees, which is up more than 12% compared with past editions. More than 900 international industry execs are registered for the boutique event being held in central Romes Palazzo Barberini, which is Italys National Ancient Art gallery that during MIA doubles as the markets hub where company stands are set up amid Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces. Screenings are held in a nearby state-of-the-art multiplex. Variety spoke to Tridente, formerly head of the markets TV section, about her vision for taking MIA to the next level. Gaia, since taking the MIA reins whats been your main goal? My approach from the outset has been to position MIA strategically not just within the markets calendar but the industry at large. To understand what role we can play. And the focus of my work is all geared towards making MIA a highly curated market. Not a place where you come just to buy finished product, but a market that can intercept new IPs and attract top industry players who can drive the industry in all its different segments. I think that MIA must continue to raise its profile and increasingly become an unmissable reference point for the international industry. Story continues Were you concerned about being before Mipcom this year? When Mipcom moved back, we stayed in our slot since we didnt want to be too close to AFM; we had to maintain our distance from Venice; and also need to overlap with the Rome Film Festival. The calendar situation is tricky because this part of the year is packed with other markets and we work with several different industry segments. But I dont think being positioned before or after Mipcom makes much of a difference. Our attendance numbers are up. Of course in positioning our new animation section we scheduled it between Oct. 12-14 to give animation industry people time to then go from Rome to Cannes for Mip Junior, which starts on Oct. 15. Why did you add an animation section to MIA? This was a necessity felt both by Italys motion picture association ANICA and the TV producers organization APA, who represent Italian animation companies. It actually started last year in embryonic form with an animation content showcase. This year I felt it was time to meet the challenge and support the Italian animation sector more fully with a full-fledged section comprising an international co-production market and specific panels and the response has been very positive. Whats MIAs rapport with the Rome Film Festival, which is under new management? From the outset we had a dialogue with [new Rome fest artistic director] Paola Malanga and [Rome fest foundation chief] Gianluca Farinelli to figure out how we could bring the two events closer together. This year, we both got started late, but basically what MIA can do is be at the festivals service. So this year we will have several market premieres of films that are at the festival. Next year my ambition is to have more synergy. Whats the main market trend you are seeing that is reflected at MIA? The main trend now is content with a global perspective. Think Squid Game. All geographical barriers have fallen. We have a panel at MIA on the global production landscape titled Time to Stop Saying Foreign Language. This is reflected in the fact that there are companies these days specifically looking only for international IPs, like Erik Barmacks Wild Sheep Content and Matt Brodlie and Jonathan Kiers Upgrade Productions. They are working to find local content for global platform play. This change of perspective is the main thing I see, and the Italian industry is becoming more ambitious in expanding its global horizons. Amazons new Italian original Prisma is an example of this in the writing, the acting, the production values. Its very Italian, but its also very international. 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. New Mexico cannabis dispensaries sold $1 million less in medical products in August than in July, as combined sales for medical and adult use appeared to sit at a plateau six months after the state opened commercial sales of cannabis to adults. Since the state's regulated marketplace opened for business on April, monthly combined sales have ranged from $37.7 million to $40.7 million. In September, the combined total reported by New Mexico's Cannabis Control Division was $39,651,326.49. Tax-exempt medical cannabis, available for state-enrolled patients, amounted to $15,420,930.70 in September, over $1 million less than in August. While medical cannabis sales fell, adult use or "recreational" cannabis sales increased by less than a percent over the month, with $24,230,395.79 in September. U.S. Army Vet Jamar Wilson buys THC products from the R. Greenleaf dispensary in Las Cruces, Friday, April 1, 2022. On April 1, the Land of Enchantment became the 18th state to regulate retail cannabis, and several stores in Las Cruces celebrated the historical date by opening their doors at 12:01 a.m. The data is based on reported sales from dispensaries in 59 municipalities. The state Taxation and Revenue Department reported returns of $2,862,752.04 from 179 filers as of Sept. 28, a slight increase over August. Between July and August, the number of cannabis retailers filing taxes grew by 15 percent while revenue grew by just 2 percent. That growth slowed in September, with eight more filers than in August and dispensaries operating in five more towns or cities than in August. Sunland Park, which sits on the Texas border, passed Rio Rancho for the first time since adult use sales opened, earning a spot in the top fives cities with $1.55 million in combined sales. The top four remained Albuquerque ($14.1 million), Santa Fe ($3.3 million), Las Cruces ($3 million) and Hobbs ($1.7 million). The unincorporated community of Chaparral, also situated close to El Paso, saw another sizable leap in combined sales, with $392,197 in September compared to $306,533 in July. In that month, Chaparral retailers reported a 92 percent month-to-month increase as more dispensaries opened there. Carlsbad, with $1.16 million in combined sales, remained in the top 10 cities for cannabis revenue, as did Ruidoso ($964,728) and Alamogordo ($919,706). All three cities saw dips in sales over the month: Carlsbad sold less in medical cannabis, while in the latter two cities sales retreated in both classes of cannabis product. Story continues In the southwest, Deming's combined sales jumped by 40 percent over the month, with $354,855 reported in September. Silver City, on the other hand, reported a 14.3 percent drop, with decreases in both medical and adult use cannabis. Before the revenue report was released, Steve Pear, the president of the New Mexico division of Schwazze, predicted September's numbers might come in below July and August. Schwazze owns the R. Greenleaf chain of dispensaries throughout New Mexico. Pear said R. Greenleaf's Las Cruces store, which opened at 12:01 a.m. on the first day of legal adult use sales, was the chain's top performing dispensary statewide. For recreational or "rec" sales, Pear said retailers located near Texas, where cannabis remains illegal except for select medicinal uses, benefit from the neighboring state's prohibition. "You're still building the rec side of the business," he said of sales trends in the first six months. "The medical business is what it is; it's got a huge base and there's definitely been some increased medical consumers, but the upside is really on the recreational side, all the new people coming into the category and that continues to grow for us each day week month." When asked if he shares a concern voiced by some producers that New Mexico's plant count limits are inflating prices by holding supplies down, Pear answered, "No. Not at all. ... We have no issues with supply." While the price per gram on New Mexico's regulated market remains high compared to the non-regulated market, Pear expressed confidence that dispensaries will grow more competitive as the market matures. "It will slowly but surely continue to grow and take hold," he said. "People want quality products that are safe, not stuff that's grown by who knows who and showed up on the market and could be laced with stuff." The dispensaries under his purview had met with greater challenges, he said, in meeting the requirements of New Mexico's new cannabis regulations and in staffing their stores. "It's not just a gold rush, like some may think," he continued. "You still have to be able to run the business and be prepared for the challenges ... and not everyone's set up to do that." Others are reading: Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter. This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: New Mexico's cannabis sales hit plateau after first six months WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared willing to allow litigation to continue over a California law aimed at ensuring pregnant sows can turn around in their pens, a case with implications for one state's ability to regulate the industries of another. California voters enacted Proposition 12 in 2018 in an effort to prevent animal cruelty. The law, which has yet to take effect, bans the sale of bacon, chops and other pork products in the most populous state unless the sow from which it was born was housed in at least 24 square feet of floorspace a standard that industry officials acknowledge few farms can meet. While Californians account for 13% of the nation's pork consumption, the state is home to few pig farms. That means the cost of complying with Proposition 12 would fall mainly to out-of-state farmers, many of whom are based in the Midwest. California's law also mandates more space for egg-laying hens, and in a nod to bacon and eggs, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has denounced it as a "war on breakfast." Reflecting that, the lead plaintiff in the case is the National Pork Producers Association, based in Urbandale. Iowa is the nation's top producer of both pork and eggs. Justice Samuel Alito asks: Is California a bully? Several of the justices asked probing questions of both sides during more than two hours of argument that included more than two dozen references to Iowa. The underlying questions appeared to split traditional conservative and liberal alliances. But there seemed to be agreement among a majority of the court that the case could go back to a lower court for further review. Associate Justice Samuel Alito suggested that only a large state such as California could have such an impact because of the size of its population, nearly 40 million residents. "Is California unconcerned about all this because it is such a giant? You can wield this power. Wyoming couldn't do it," Alito said, pressing California Solicitor General Michael Mongan. "You can bully the other states and so you're not really that concerned about retaliation." Story continues More:Judge strikes down 4th Iowa 'ag-gag' law in ongoing conflict over free speech vs. trespassing California argues that the law is a restriction on sales within its borders that applies evenly whether the pork originates from within its borders or outside of them. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned whether federal courts should be involved in trying to balance a state's interest in such a regulation against the effect on out-of-state industries. U.S. farmers are weighing whether they'll meet new space requirements for breeding pigs in California to sell pork in the state. The National Pork Producers Council says it will cost producers nearly $350 million to meet the requirement. "We're going to have to balance your veterinary experts against California's veterinary experts, the economic interests of Iowa farmers against California's moral concerns and their views about complicity in animal cruelty," Gorsuch told Timothy Bishop, the attorney for the pork producers council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, also a plaintiff. "Is that any job for a court of law?" At the core of the controversy is the widespread use by pork producers of gestation crates for pregnant sows. Proponents of the law contend tight pens, which prevent the animals from turning around, are inhumane and encourage crowding that can lead to disease transmission. Farmers counter that the pens are intended to prevent the mothers from unintentionally crushing their piglets, and that the cost of replacing them with larger enclosures would drive up the cost of pork across the country, not just in California. Scott Hayes, a Missouri pig producer, said at a National Pork Producers Council's news conference after the hearing that sows are aggressive and keeping them in individual pens where they can be fed and watered and cared for individually is a very humane way of housing them. "It's what works best on our farm and I think across the industry, Hayes said. Other producers make other systems work well. But it's really up to the producer. Were the experts. Thats what we do every day. We get up and take care of our animals. The dispute has ramifications far deeper than the price of bacon: At a time when policies embraced by conservative states often look significantly different from those adopted by liberal ones, the question is when and how much such laws may reach beyond a state's boundaries. That led to many hypothetical questions from the justices: What would happen, for instance, if Texas banned the sale of fruit unless a producing state could demonstrate that it was harvested by U.S. citizens? Could a liberal state ban the sale of a product from a conservative-led state, for instance, that had adopted anti-LGBTQ policies? Bishop pushed back on the suggestion that the primary motive of the opponents to the California law was the cost to themselves. He also suggested that the farmers' economic concerns have a moral aspect, framing the case as a question about whether California's view of the morality of animal treatment should be allowed to outweigh Iowa's. "If California can tell folks in Iowa how to raise their sows, then Iowa can take the moral position that the most important moral thing to do here is to feed people at a reasonable cost by raising sows using pens," Bishop told Associate Justice Elena Kagan, adding, "You should decide this case on the basis that Iowa's views on how pork should be raised, whatever those are, are just as weighty as California's." Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wondered if there wasn't some sort of middle ground. "Why can't California solve for its morality issue in a different way?" she asked. "If we assume that it's really going to create a burden to allow California to ban all Iowa pork on the grounds that California disagrees with how Iowa produces pork, why shouldn't the balance to the extent we're making one be to simply allow California to express its morality interest through a less burdensome means, like segregating Iowa's pork when it comes in, putting a big label over it that says this is immorally produced or whatever, and that won't hurt Iowa as much?" Law's principles could reach beyond questions about food The case centers on a legal doctrine known as the dormant commerce clause, which generally bars states from passing laws that burden interstate commerce. If Congress has not passed a law affecting interstate commerce, the assumption under the doctrine is that Congress intends an open market without state-imposed regulations. But the contours of the doctrine are murky and experts see the potential for additional litigation. Some believe, for instance, that the case could have implications for the thorny question of whether lawmakers in one state may prohibit people from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion. That question took on new meaning after the Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade decision in June. More:Iowa will test whether farmers can make money turning prairies, manure into renewable natural gas The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dismissed the farmers' lawsuit last year, writing that while the dormant commerce clause "is not yet a dead letter, it is moving in that direction." If the Supreme Court rules against pork producers, Lori Stevermer, who feeds pigs in Minnesota with her husband, Dale, said losing the California market could push farmers like her family out of business. "The people we raise pigs for may say, 'We dont need your farm anymore,' Stevermer, the National Pork Producers Council's vice president, said at the group's news conference. The decision could be life-changing for us and everyone in this room, she said. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: U.S. Supreme Court hears challenge to CA pig law requiring more space A dispute between two men in downtown Athens early Saturday resulted in gunfire that hit one man in the face and wounded a bystander identified as a female University of Georgia student, according to Athens-Clarke police. The shooting occurred at about 2 a.m. on the 200 block of West Clayton Street, according to the report. There was an altercation between a 24-year-old Lawrenceville man and a 30-year-old Athens man. They apparently did not know each other, police Lt. Shaun Barnett said Tuesday. More: Teen shot in downtown Athens and another teen was arrested on gun charges And: Fight in downtown Athens leads to gunfire by unknown shooter A firearm was discharged and the Athens man was hit in the face with the bullet passing through the mans face and striking the hand of a 22-year-old University of Georgia student from Dacula, who was standing nearby and not involved in the dispute, according to police. Police arrived to find the victim lying on the sidewalk with blood coming from his head, while witnesses pointed to a man leaving the scene, whom they identified as the shooter. An officer arriving on scene arrested the suspect and another officer located a handgun on the back of a car, according to the report. Both victims of the shooting were transported to a local hospital. The UGA student reported on her Facebook page that her wound will require two surgeries. The condition of the Athens man wasn't immediately available on Tuesday. The Lawrenceville man, who remained in jail Tuesday without bond, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Athens shooting: UGA student, man shot during dispute downtown A man said his horse was returned home to him after eight years. Emily Beck/EyeEm via Getty Images A Utah man said his horse was found 8 years after he ran off with a herd of mustangs. Shane Adams said his horse, Mongo, ran off while the pair were camping in West Desert when a herd ran by. After years, the Bureau of Land Management found Mongo with a herd and returned him to Adams. A Utah man said his horse was returned home to him after running off and joining a herd of mustangs for eight years. His owner said that now that the horse is home, "he acts like nothing ever happened." It had been years since Shane Adams of Fielding, Utah, had seen his beloved horse, Mongo, he told KUTV. Adams said he and Mongo were camping in Utah's West Desert when a herd of mustangs ran past their camp. He told the outlet that he ran out of his tent and tried to stop Mongo as the horse broke free from where he was tied up, but Mongo still managed to run off with the herd. According to KUTV, Adams spent three years searching West Desert for his missing horse. He reported Mongo's disappearance to the Bureau of Land Management, but as time passed, he said his family had to move on. Adams said "never in my life" did he expect a call like the one he got last week from the bureau, KUTV reported. In late September, officials spotted a herd of mustangs by military land in Utah's Tooele County. They noticed that, unlike the other mustangs, Mongo "fell in step like he had been trained" and had a brand matching the description Adams described nearly a decade before when he reported Mongo missing, per KUTV. Mongo, now about 18, was reunited with Adams at his farm. Though Mongo is a few hundred pounds underweight, Adams said he doesn't show any other signs of his near-decade of roaming free, KUTV reported. "It's crazy. He still acts the same, same horse," Adams said, according to the outlet. "Eight years of being wild, and he acts like nothing ever happened." Read the original article on Insider Supporters of Burkina Faso's new junta leader Ibrahim Traore hold national flags of Burkina Faso and Russia during a demonstration near the national radio and television headquarters (RTB) in Ouagadougou on 6 October 2022 The latest coup in Burkina Faso saw young people waving Russian flags in the streets of the capital, Ouagadougou - something that must have warmed hearts in the Kremlin. Although fairly small in number, it has prompted speculation that there may have been some Russian involvement in the events that saw Captain Ibrahim Traore seize power in a nation beset by growing jihadist violence. Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the founder of the Wagner Group - a shadowy mercenary organisation active in several African countries - congratulated the young junta leader, describing him as "a truly worthy and courageous son of his motherland". "The people of Burkina Faso were under the yoke of the colonialists, who robbed the people as well as played their vile games, trained, supported gangs of bandits and caused much grief to the local population." Here he is referring to former colonial power France - and those welcoming the coup in the West African nation not only waved Russian flags but attacked French institutions, including the embassy. The violence sent shockwaves across the region, once more demonstrating the strength of anti-French resentment in many of France's former colonies in Africa. For nearly a decade France has been trying to help armies in the Sahel region - a strip of semi-arid land south of the Sahara Desert that includes Burkina Faso - to tackle jihadist militants, some of whom are linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group. But it has recently withdrawn from neighbouring Mali, also a former colony, following a breakdown in relations with the military junta there, which has been accused of increasingly turning to Russia for aid to fight the militants. Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, has been more forthright in his observations: "Our people helped the new leader [of Burkina Faso]. "Another African country will move from co-operation with France to an alliance with Russia." Story continues For geopolitical analyst Dr Samuel Ramani, this marks a departure from Russia's usual responses to political instability in the region. "In previous coups Russia has tried to position itself as an accidental beneficiary of regime changes," says Dr Ramanai from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), a defence and security think-tank, and author of Russia in Africa. "This time around Russia is a lot more proactive in support for the coup, and that has led to speculation that Russia has played a co-ordinating role." This points to the Wagner Group, though Russia has consistently denied that the mercenaries have any connection to the state and there is no evidence of direct Russian involvement. Shortly after taking power, Capt Traore made it clear he wanted to work with new international partners to push back Islamist militant groups that have been active in the country since 2015. Many assumed he meant the Russians. Private Russian soldiers have been active in the Central African Republic since 2018 But with his focus being on defeating the jihadists, he says he is also open to working with the US or any other country willing to help improve security in the country. The US organises a big annual counter-terrorism training exercise for countries in West Africa - though this year both Mali and Burkina Faso were absent from Operation Flintlock. "I think that Burkina Faso wants to avoid the trap that Mali got into," says Dr Ramani, noting that Mali's junta was very hostile towards the Europeans and the Americans since they took power in 2020. "They're now completely dependent and captured by the Russian state," he says. "Once the Russians come into these theatres they can't get them out. The same thing happened in the Central African Republic (CAR)." The Wagner Group has been active in the CAR since 2018 and its operatives have been accused of human rights violations, including mass killings, torture, enforced disappearances and rape. Holding groups like Wagner accountable can be difficult, says Dr Sorcha MacLeod, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and chair of the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries. "When you've got these mercenary proxies there, then the state can be involved in an armed conflict, without being an official party to the conflict. "And then you've got plausible deniability and of course that has huge implications when it comes to responsibility and accountability." On top of that their very presence can prove counter-productive, she says. "When these kinds of actors are inserted into armed conflicts, the conflict is prolonged and there is a greater risk of war crimes. "The reality is these organisations have no incentive in bringing a conflict to an end. They are financially motivated." "Wagner exploits client states who pay for their heavy-handed security services in gold, diamonds, timber... this is part of Wagner Group's business model"", Source: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Source description: US ambassador to the UN, Image: Linda Thomas-Greenfield The US agrees, saying the Russian mercenaries are exploiting natural resources in the CAR, Mali and Sudan to fund Moscow's war in Ukraine. In a starkly worded warning last week, the US ambassador to the UN said it was a heavy price for Africa to pay. "Rather than being a transparent partner and improving security, Wagner exploits client states who pay for their heavy-handed security services in gold, diamonds, timber, and other natural resources - this is part of Wagner Group's business model," Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a UN Security Council briefing. "We know these ill-gotten gains are used to fund Moscow's war machine in Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine." This may all explain Capt Traore's reluctance to put all of his eggs into Russia's basket. "I think that Traore is trying to hedge his bets and show that he can try to balance all sides," says Dr Ramani. "But of course any co-operation with Russia will almost certainly be a death knell for France and for the West. The Americans and the French won't co-exist with the Russians. "That's the dilemma for Traore - does he side all the way with Russia? Or does he hedge, and risk having no real external backer." Yet the anger demonstrated by young Burnikabes shows that dealing with the jihadist threat must be the new junta leader's priority. One regional leader observed this week that Burkina Faso had been "on the brink of collapse" because of the insecurity. Nonetheless there are questions about how effective Wagner fighters would be in Burkina Faso. Islamic State and al-Qaeda's JNIM compete for power in the Sahel Although operatives from the group have been active in Mali for less than a year, early signs are not looking good as jihadist attacks are increasing and they have been accused of human rights abuses. The country is regaining its place as the epicentre of the Sahel crisis, recording the highest number of fatalities from militant attacks so far in 2022. Furthermore, 2022 is set to be the deadliest year for both Burkina Faso and Mali since the insurgency began. "Wagner is good at creating chaos. But as a fighting force it struggles, particularly in new and hostile terrain," says Dr Ramani. Still he believes that juntas in the Sahel region may choose to work with Russian mercenaries given France's failure to stop the spread of the violence. Plus Russia is a much less demanding foreign ally. "Russia is seen as a partner that doesn't meddle in terms of human rights and democracy," says Dr Ramani. "Nor does it try to impose its way of life on you - and that's seen as very desirable for would-be autocrats and kleptocrats." You may also be interested in: Cows greatly outnumber people in New Zealand (REUTERS) New Zealand has proposed taxing the polluting gases released by the bodily functions of the 36 million cows and sheep in the country. Announced on Tuesday, the policy would be the first in the world to place a levy on cow burps and flatulence as well as sheep pee. The move was immediately condemned by New Zealands powerful farming sector. Farmers warned it risked crippling domestic food production, with Federated Farmers, the industrys main lobby group, saying the plan would rip the guts out of small town New Zealand and see farms replaced with trees. The groups president Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that would keep farmers farming. The proposed levy, he said, would lead farmers to sell their farms so fast you wont even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute [a pick-up truck] as they drive off. Opposition politicians argued the plan would increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food. But prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the levy would bolster New Zealands agricultural sector as all the money would be put towards new technology, industry research and incentive payments for farmers. New Zealands farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food, Ms Ardern said. New Zealands farming industry is vital to its economy but it contributes about half of the countrys greenhouse gas emissions. There are just 5 million people in the Pacific island nation but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep. The governments net zero plan includes a pledge to reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10 per cent by 2030 and by up to 47 per cent by 2050. Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville from Alabama has refused to apologize for saying that Democrats want reparations for slavery because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. The right-wing GOP lawmaker has not responded to howls of outrage over the racist remark falsely equating Black people with criminals that he made Saturday at a raucous rally for former President Donald Trump in Nevada. Tubervilles comments are flat out ignorant, racist and utterly sickening, said NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. His words promote a centuries-old lie about Black people. This racist rant at a MAGA rant just cannot go uncalled out, said former Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., who lost his reelection fight to Tuberville. (I am) embarrassed for the state of Alabama. Its a white nationalist appeal that harkens back to a really dark time in the United States, a really dark time in Alabama, Jones added. Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., denounced Tuberville for making deeply white supremacist comments. The Rev. Al Sharpton called Tubervilles comments patently racist, as well as offensive and insulting to all Americans, Black and white. Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach, made the outrageous claim at a Saturday evening campaign rally in Nevada featuring his political mentor Trump. Without offering any evidence, Tuberville accused Democrats of promoting crime to control what you have and punctuated his claim by branding calls for reparations bulls--t. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got, Tuberville bellowed at the crowd. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Tuberville did not mention the controversy or dial back the attack in a tweet lauding the rally as a fantastic night. Alabama state Rep. Chris England, a former state Democratic chairman, said the remarks showed Tubervilles true colors. Story continues The bulls--t is that this guy is a United States senator in the first place, England tweeted. Besides being offensive, Tubervilles claims are demonstrably false. FBI data shows crime has slowed in the last year and most crimes are committed by whites. Moreover, Democrats have not backed reparations for Black Americans to compensate for years of unpaid slave labor by their ancestors, although progressives have pressured the party to do so. Reaction to Tubervilles remarks was shockingly muted among Republicans, with no fellow GOP senators stepping up to denounce him. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a relative moderate who is locked in a tight reelection race in his Omaha-based seat, Sunday said the remarks were poorly worded. But he refused to condemn Tubervilles rant. Thats not the way I present things, Bacon said on Meet the Press on NBC. But got to be honest that we have a crime problem in our country. On 10 October, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Azernrews reports, citing Azartac. During the telephone conversation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the recent meetings as positive steps towards a lasting peace agreement. He emphasized in this regard the importance of the meetings held at the level of foreign ministers in Geneva and at the level of leaders in Prague. The Secretary of State also noted the importance of the meeting held between representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia at the initiative of the US President's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House. Evaluating the return of 17 Armenian prisoners by Azerbaijan as a positive step, Antony Blinken said the United States was ready to provide support in the delimitation of borders, the opening of transport lines, the determination of the fate of missing persons, as well as addressing other humanitarian issues. The Secretary of State also touched upon the importance of conducting negotiations on a peace agreement within a specific timeframe and praised the discussions on ensuring the rights and safety of ethnic Armenian residents living in Karabakh. Antony Blinken noted the discovery of a mass grave in Azerbaijan and expressed his condolences to the head of state. For his part, President Ilham Aliyev positively assessed the first bilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Geneva. The head of state also expressed hope that the statement adopted as a result of the meeting in Prague would contribute to the peace process. President Ilham Aliyev expressed his confidence that if Armenia showed political resolve, a peace agreement could be signed before the end of this year. The head of state also touched upon the meetings held between representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia at the initiative of both Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, evaluating them as steps toward peace. The President of Azerbaijan reminded that more than 3,900 Azerbaijani compatriots were considered missing after the first Karabakh war and noted the importance of Armenia sharing information on the location of mass graves. President Ilham Aliyev asked the US Secretary of State to use his capabilities to help resolve this issue. The head of state said that the International Committee of the Red Cross had certain information about the locations of some mass graves based on witness statements and other information. The sides also discussed the future development of Azerbaijan-Armenia relations. North Korea Funding Weapons Programs with Vast Cache of Stolen Crypto Source: Creativa Images/Adobe International investigators claim that North Korea stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptoassets to pay for its nuclear weapons programs while a row has broken out in South Korean political circles over politicians alleged ties to the crypto developer Virgil Griffith. The development comes as Pyongyang claimed that recent missile launches were a simulation for nuclear attacks on South Korea. The North is set to conduct its first nuclear weapons test for five years in the coming days, per South Korean-United States intelligence reports. And all this Seoul and Washington say is being funded, at least in large part, by stolen crypto. Per Yonhap, the UN Security Councils North Korea Sanctions Committee has blamed North Korean hacking groups such as Lazarus for both the Ronin Bridge and the Harmony hacks. The committee claimed that the hacks had been directly authorized by Pyongyangs General Bureau of Reconnaissance. The committee added that North Korean hackers, including Lazarus members, had used social engineering hacking methods to infiltrate systems and had preyed on individuals in a bid to force a way in behind the bridges defenses. The committee further claimed that the BlueNoroff hacking group blamed by Western powers for the 2016 attack on Bangladeshs Central Bank had now been repurposed by the General Bureau of Reconnaissance to focus solely on stealing crypto. And the committee claimed that while it could not be certain if BlueNoroff had, like Lazarus, succeeded in generating illegal revenue for North Korea, it claimed that it was likely that these types of operations were likely to continue in the future. North Koreas Stolen Crypto Sparks Political Discord Per Digital Today, the issue of the North and its alleged cryptoasset-related operations is in danger of creating an ugly political spat between the Democratic Party the largest party in the National Assembly and the Peoples Power Party, which has control over the executive. A Democrat MP has claimed that Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon visited the United States District Prosecutors Office for the Southern District of New York in July this year to investigate possible links between Democrats and the Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith. The developer was jailed for five years for attempting to help Pyongyang evade sanctions using cryptoassets. Some Democrats claim that Peoples Power Party officials are trying to engineer a connection between Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party Chairman, and Griffith. Per court documents, Griffith appears to have had a contact in South Korea. Politicians have claimed that this contact may have been linked somehow to Lee and Park Won-soon a leading Democratic Party member and the former Mayor of Seoul. Park committed suicide on June 9, 2020. Allegedly, documents indicate that both Lee and Park were very interested in creating an Ethereum server research center in North Korea. Han did not address the accusation directly when questioned on the matter, stating it was right to cooperate with the United States on crypto-related matters, but claimed he was not at liberty to reveal specific details on the nature of his visit to the United States. TAIPEI, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Ascenda, the technology company that makes banking rewarding, announced a strategic partnership with CTBC Bank, one of the largest private sector banks in Taiwan, to transform their market-leading rewards program. The cloud-native solution powered by Ascenda will unlock differentiation, increase credit card spend, and greater stickiness across CTBC Bank's significant affluent customer portfolio. Ascenda announces strategic partnership with CTBC to transform their market-leading rewards program. (PRNewsfoto/Ascenda) The partnership launches off the back of accelerated appetite for aspirational rewards as international travel returns to pre-pandemic levels. To build deeper customer connections, CTBC Bank is expanding its rewards program by tapping into Ascenda's global content marketplace, including the world's largest points exchange network, TransferConnect, that makes real-time rewards currency conversion accessible to 1.2 billion financial services customers worldwide. Ascenda's solution has been embedded seamlessly within CTBC Bank's digital banking experiences, allowing customers to make the best of their rewards points, save money and access aspirational redemption opportunities. The CTBC Bank's "Home Bank App" will serve as a digital hub and allow instant access to a broad range of favorite merchant partners powered by Ascenda, offering unparalleled ease for customers to unlock value from their everyday banking activities. Sebastian Grobys, co-founder and CSO of Ascenda said: "We're delighted to welcome CTBC Bank to the network of banks and fintechs connected to our global rewards marketplace. There's a great deal of excitement and anticipation in the Taiwanese market as travel finally opens up again, so the timing of this partnership couldn't be better". "Delivering exceptional value to our customers to reward them for their engagement has always been a priority at CTBC Bank. This innovative new program expansion, powered by Ascenda, is an exciting step to continue delivering on that mission." said CTBC Bank. Story continues About Ascenda Ascenda is a global technology company that makes banking rewarding. Ascenda delivers digitally native, intuitive and easy-to-deploy rewards solutions that enable banks to build deeper customer connections across the entire financial relationship. The company serves financial services clients in more than 40 markets, from traditional top-tier players to disruptive fintechs, including brands such as HSBC, American Express, Capital One, Brex, Virgin Money, ICBC, and Standard Chartered. For more information about Ascenda, please visit ascendaloyalty.com . About CTBC Bank CTBC Bank is Taiwan's largest privately held bank and has the most extensive international presence of any Taiwanese bank with 368 branches in 14 countries and regions. The Bank has taken the lead in digitalization, leveraging fintech and Big Data to drive innovation and create entirely new and engaging digital experiences for its customers. In the past few years, CTBC Bank has received more than 170 awards at home and abroad and registered more than 335 patents. As of the end of 2021, the Bank's consolidated assets totaled NT$4.88 trillion, the most among all privately owned banks in Taiwan. It is also the best-performing bank in other indicators, such as profits, tier 1 capital, and client base. For more information about CTBC Bank, please visit https://www.ctbcbank.com/twrbo/en_tw/index_en.html SOURCE Ascenda National Coming Out Day a date on the calendar when members of the LGBTQ+ community celebrate their identity and the courageous rite of passage commonly called "coming out." NCOD was created in 1988 by activists Robert Eichberg and Jean O'Leary. They chose October 11th as a day of awareness to mark the anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights held in the previous year. In 2022, the idea of having a specific day to celebrate coming out seems a bit limiting to some. Instead, they see the goal in broader terms. "Coming Out Day isn't necessarily meant to be the day you come out unless you really, really want to," says Queer Eye fashion guru Tan France. "It's more of a day to reflect and support the journey of others." Watch the video above to see a deeply emotional moment when a young man comes out to his mother. Nonetheless, to many members of the LGBTQ+ community, "coming out" remains a badge of honor and self-esteem, a statement of identity that they're proud to share with the world. But will that always be the case? Well, there are certainly some in the gay and lesbian community who hope it won't be. SA Smythe, an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, sees a day where "coming out" will be unnecessary. "There's going to be a future where coming out is not relevant because I politically believe that there's going to be a future where gender is irrelevant. That's part of why we have to come out. It's because there is an overwhelming norm that is called the patriarchy, that is called heterosexuality that is presumed. And I fundamentally believe that that's going to be abolished in our lifetimes." For now, National Coming Out Day endures as a symbolic gesture of unity and support among and for the LGBTQ+ community, which honors the pride its members feel in being who they are. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Beautiful moments of coming out shared on National Coming Out Day Bone Therapeutics SA REGULATED INFORMATION Article 14 of the Law of 2 May 2007 on disclosure of major holdings Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, 11 October 2022, 7am CET BONE THERAPEUTICS (Euronext Brussels and Paris: BOTHE), the cell therapy company addressing unmet medical needs in orthopedics and other diseases, today announces that it has received a transparency notification from S.F.P.I (Societe Federale de Participation et dInvestissement)/F.P.I.M (Federale Participatien en Investeringsmaatschappij) dated 04 October 2022. The transparency notification indicates the shareholdings held by S.F.P.I/F.P.I.M have passively crossed below the threshold of 5%. The notification dated 04 October 2022 contains the following information: Reason for the notification: Downward crossing of the lowest threshold Passive crossing of a threshold Notification by: A parent undertaking or a controlling person Persons subject to the notification requirement: S.F.P.I/F.P.I.M Belgian State Transaction date: 29 September 2022 Threshold that is crossed: 5% Denominator: 23,835,971 Voting rights Previous notification After the transaction Holders of voting rights # of voting rights # of voting rights % of voting rights Belgian State 0 0 0% S.F.P.I/F.P.I.M 416,406 1,165,380 4.89% Total voting rights 416,406 1,165,380 4.89% Full chain of controlled undertakings through which the holding is effectively held: The Belgian State controls 100% of S.F.P.I/F.P.I.M. The notification can be consulted on the website of Bone Therapeutics, under the heading Shareholder Information. About Bone Therapeutics Bone Therapeutics is a leading biotech company focused on the development of innovative products to address high unmet needs in orthopedics and other diseases. Currently Bone Therapeutics is concentrating specifically on the development of its most advanced clinical asset, the allogeneic cell therapy platform, ALLOB. Bone Therapeutics core technology is based on its cutting-edge allogeneic cell and gene therapy platform with differentiated bone marrow sourced Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSCs) which can be stored at the point of use in the hospital. Its leading investigational medicinal product, ALLOB, represents a unique, proprietary approach to bone regeneration, which turns undifferentiated stromal cells from healthy donors into bone-forming cells. These cells are produced via the Bone Therapeutics scalable manufacturing process. Following the CTA approval by regulatory authorities in Europe, the Company has initiated patient recruitment for the Phase IIb clinical trial with ALLOB in patients with difficult tibial fractures, using its optimized production process. ALLOB continues to be evaluated for other orthopedic indications including spinal fusion, osteotomy, maxillofacial and dental. Story continues Bone Therapeutics cell therapy products are manufactured to the highest GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards and are protected by a broad IP (Intellectual Property) portfolio covering ten patent families as well as knowhow. The Company is based in the Louvain-la-Neuve Science Park in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium. Further information is available at www.bonetherapeutics.com. For further information, please contact: Bone Therapeutics SA Miguel Forte, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Officer Tel: +32 (0)71 12 10 00 investorrelations@bonetherapeutics.com For Belgian Media and Investor Enquiries: Bepublic Bert Bouserie Tel: +32 (0)488 40 44 77 bert.bouserie@bepublicgroup.be International Media Enquiries: Image Box Communications Neil Hunter / Michelle Boxall Tel: +44 (0)20 8943 4685 neil.hunter@ibcomms.agency / michelle@ibcomms.agency For French Media and Investor Enquiries: NewCap Investor Relations & Financial Communications Pierre Laurent, Louis-Victor Delouvrier and Arthur Rouille Tel: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94 bone@newcap.eu Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect the Company or, as appropriate, the Company directors current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. As a result, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. Neither the Company nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such persons officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Healthcare worker Christine Chichester swabs a woman's nose for COVID-19 testing at a Healthcare District Mobile Testing unit set up outside the community center in Greenacres, Florida. Despite concerns that some county employees could be left without coverage, county commissioners called on staff to finalize a five-year contract with its new health care insurer, United Healthcare. County staff had wanted Cigna, the current provider, be given a one-year extension and the contract with United Healthcare to begin Jan. 1, 2024. The issue, staff said, was timing. They raised concerns that there may not be enough time between now and Jan. 1 for United Healthcare to take over from Cigna without issues developing. The commission, nonetheless, voted 6-1 to deny the staff request after receiving pledges from United Health Care Vice President Laurie Mandell that her firm would devote all of the necessary resources to ensure that a smooth transition occurs. Read more: University of Miami opens medical offices in downtown West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Also : Jupiter Medical, UF Health plan hospital for Avenir community And : With millions of dollars on the line, Florida has high Census undercount, report estimates Before the vote, Assistant County Administrator Reginald Duren urged that Cigna be given the one-year extension, noting that staff had already tentatively negotiated the terms of the extension. Nothing would be more disappointing to this board that come January, some members find that coverage they thought they had, they wind up not having, said Duren. A bid protest filed by Cigna had prevented the county from moving ahead with a United Healthcare contract. With the protest denied, the county can now legally sign a contract with United Healthcare. County Mayor Robert Weinroth said giving Cigna an extension would amount to a reward for filing the bid protest. Andrea Mackey, the countys manager of group insurance, noted that a change of this magnitude so close to open enrollment will create issues, and said she is concerned that county employees may not have enough information to make decisions: Story continues The process needed to start weeks ago," she said. "This will be bumpy ride. Open enrollment is scheduled for Oct. 18 and the deadline for employees to make their health care choices is Dec. 8. Both dates may have to be extended. Dwight Mattingly, the president of the union that represents workers at Palm Tran, is concerned there might be issues that could leave his members without health coverage. Mandell said she understood staffs trepidation about the timing issue but added United Healthcare would be disappointed to wait a year to provide what it knows will be a superior health care experience. County Administrator Verdenia Baker said her staff will make this happen, adding: We just wanted you to know this may not be a smooth process. Baker said the county will push United Healthcare to accept doctors that are currently part of the Cigna network. CIGNA has provided coverage for the county for more than 15 years, but United Healthcare's proposal was found to be superior to that of Cignas by a county selection committee. Cignas bid protest was based on a claim that the committee inappropriately gave local preference bonus points to United Healthcare. The appeal was denied; Cigna is not pursuing any further appeals. Neil Schiller, an attorney for Cigna, said county staff called on his client to negotiate the one-year extension. We did it in five hours. We do feel that there will be disruption to service for some employees if you make a change this late in the year, he said. Commissioner Dave Kerner was the only commissioner to vote for the Cigna extension but Maria Sachs also had concerns. Sachs asked staff if it could delay its request for a few weeks to allow her to further review the issue. Scott Marting, the director of Risk Management for the county, said that was not possible. We are here now to make an emergency request because we feel we are out of time. We cannot afford to wait any longer, he said. Mike Diamond is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He covers county government. You can reach him at mdiamond@pbpost.com. Help support local journalism. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Health care for county employees? Will it be available by Jan. 1? State Supreme Court members last year listened to arguments in a dispute over the governor's executive power. A new conservative PAC formed in Kentucky this week with a goal of reshaping "radical left" courts plans to spend up to $1.6 million on three key nonpartisan judicial races this fall with a TV ad buy starting Friday in the high-profile Franklin Circuit Court race. Fair Courts AmericaKentucky was formed Monday by chairman Doug Truax, who runs a group of conservative PACs and political nonprofits under the umbrella of Restoration of America, including Fair Courts America. Its website says Truax, an Illinois Republican, is a West Point graduate and Army veteran whose goal is to "preserve our way of life." Truax did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the new Kentucky group this week, but The Courier Journal has obtained a strategy document described as its "battle plan" that shows the network plans to spend heavily on the Franklin Circuit race and two key Kentucky Supreme Court races. More:Biden calls on governors to pardon marijuana possession. Will Beshear follow in Kentucky? The group hopes to raise $22.5 million for judicial races it has targeted in seven states, according to its 12-page plan. "We are the only national conservative organization battling the Left in state court fights," its plan says. Its targets include "Democrat-controlled courts who invent law out of thin air and left-wing prosecutors who refuse to lift a finger to bring criminals to justice - or simply let them off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist," it says. "America will soon cease to be a nation of laws if this is allowed to continue." In Kentucky, one of its targets is a Supreme Court race that already has drawn scrutiny for its partisan tone, with Joe Fischer, an anti-abortion state legislator, promoting himself as "the conservative Republican" in his challenge to incumbent Justice Michelle Keller for the court's 6th District. The other Supreme Court race targeted by the new PAC is the 2nd District race between state Appeals Court Judge Kelly Thompson Jr. and Bowling Green lawyer Shawn Marie Alcott, who are running for the seat to be vacated by retiring Chief Justice John D. Minton. Story continues The third is a high-profile race for Franklin Circuit Court where incumbent Judge Phillip Shepherd, who has often drawn the ire of conservatives, is facing GOP-backed lawyer Joe Bilby in a race already shaping up as the most expensive circuit court race in Kentucky history. Headquartered in Frankfort, the court gets some of the state's most controversial cases including constitutional challenges to state laws. Shepherd has raised about $460,000 and Bilby around $172,000, according to the most recent campaign spending reports. A large, last-minute infusion of outside cash could mean even more money spent on the judicial races without knowing who's exactly behind it, several candidates said. "It is an insult to Franklin Countians and to all Kentuckians that this shadowy, dark money group is targeting Judge Shepherd and other judges in our state," Diana Taylor, a volunteer spokeswoman for the Shepherd campaign, said in a statement. "Their focus on defeating Judge Shepherd makes it clear that they do not want an independent judge who will follow the law and defend justice and not be a rubber stamp for their wealthy special interests. We call on this organization to identify its supporters who want to buy judgeships in Kentucky." Bilby's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More:Jewish women sue to block Kentucky abortion ban, say it violates religious freedom Stephen Voss, a University of Kentucky political science professor who studies elections, said he's not surprised conservative groups are turning to state courts. "State courts have been a big arena (for) leading policy changes for decades," Voss said. And outside cash and more political ads will change the nature of races that under the state constitution are supposed to be nonpartisan, he said. "The main effect of having money injected into judicial races is that we will see judicial races look like partisan races," Voss said. If that follows trends of other elections in Kentucky, it would lead to more conservative state judges, he said. Keller, who has raised about $200,000 compared to Fischer's $54,000, said she has no idea what Fair Courts has planned, but she's bracing for a wave of negative ads against her. "It really is unfortunate that forces outside the commonwealth of Kentucky want to interfere and control our state judiciary," said Keller, a nine-year member of the Supreme Court and a judge for 16 years. "Kentuckians should ask themselves why that is." Fischer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thompson said he was astounded to learn the group plans to spend $1.6 million in Kentucky on three judicial races. "This means the court system in Kentucky is going to be for sale," Thompson said. "If you want to come in and spend half a million dollars, you can probably win it." Though he is registered as a Republican, as is his opponent, Thompson said he has no doubt Fair Courts plans to promote Alcott. Thompson, who expects to spend about $100,000 on his campaign, also objected to the dark money aspect of the Fair Courts plan since it won't have to file detailed spending reports until closer to the Nov. 8 election. Meanwhile, donors are unknown. "These could be the Russians," he said. Alcott was not aware of any outside effort and had no comment, a campaign spokeswoman said. More:First TV ad airs against Kentucky constitutional amendment to eliminate abortion rights While Keller and Shepherd hold commanding leads over their challengers in fundraising, Bilby and Fischer have already received public and financial support from Republican elected officials and committees and now appear likely to get a significant boost from Fair Courts. On its website, Fair Courts America is described as standing against the tide of "progressive activists" who "seek to take control of the courts away from the people, to enact a liberal agenda resulting in violence and crime in our communities and creating victims of our neighbors." In one section noting its target of the Kentucky judicial races, the plan says it is targeting "ongoing attempts by the radical Left to invalidate school choice." Shepherd angered conservatives last year when he struck down as unconstitutional the state's "education opportunity" law, which would have created a system where donors get tax credits for providing money students can use for private school tuition. The state Supreme Court next week is scheduled to hear arguments in an appeal of Shepherd's decision. The plan further states that Fair Courts intends to spend $1,640,000 on the three Kentucky races, including $750,000 on TV ads and $500,000 on mailers. Those TV ads are now underway, as Fair Courts has purchased $90,000 of ads on cable TV in Frankfort that begin Friday. It plans to spend the rest of about $21 milliion in judicial races in six other states: Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, and appeals to donors to fund the effort, urging people to give "at least $1,000." The Fair Courts America plan calls Restoration PAC, the group's affiliated federal super PAC, "the third-largest conservative super PAC in the country," behind only Americans for Prosperity and Club for Growth. The mission statement of its website, Restoration of America, says it is taking on the nation's two most significant threats: "internally the elite, Marxist neo-liberals and, externally Communist China." Restoration PAC reported spending $24 million in the 2020 election cycle and has already reported spending $15 million in the 2022 election cycle. Contact reporters Deborah Yetter at dyetter@courier-journal.com and on Twitter at @d_yetter and Joe Sonka at jsonka@courier-journal.com and on Twitter at @joesonka, This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Ultra-conservative PAC to spend $1.6M on Supreme Court, judicial races BERLIN (AP) The head of Germanys national cybersecurity agency is under scrutiny over reports of ties to Russian intelligence, officials said Monday Arne Schoenbohm, who heads the BSI agency, co-founded a cybersecurity group a decade ago that brings together experts from public institutions and the private sector. German media reported that one of its members is a company founded by a former Russian intelligence agent. The Interior Ministry takes the matters reported over the weekend seriously and is investigating them comprehensively, the ministry said in a statement. There is growing concern in Germany that the countrys critical infrastructure might be targeted by Russia because of Berlins support for Ukraine. On Saturday, an apparent act of sabotage forced German rail company Deutsche Bahn to halt passenger and cargo trains across the northwest of the country for nearly three hours. After the nearly three-hour suspension, Deutsche Bahn said the problem a failure of the digital train radio system had been resolved but that some disruptions could still be expected. It later said the outage was caused by sabotage. Transport Minister Volker Wissing said cables that are essential for handling railway traffic safely were deliberately severed at two separate locations. He said Germanys federal police were investigating the incident. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. TORONTO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - Girls around the world continue to face considerable human rights violations with little change from 10 years ago, according to new analysis by Plan International. Standard Plan International Canada logo (CNW Group/Plan International Canada) In a report published on the 10th annual International Day of the Girl, a day celebrating the importance of girls' power and potential, Plan International found that a combination of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, humanitarian conflict and the rise of right-wing politics has profoundly set back progress on girls' rights. While the International Day of the Girl has generated considerable dialogue and awareness on the unique barriers that girls face due to intersecting factors, including their age and gender, there is much more to be done. Though improvements have been recorded on key development indicators, such as education and child mortality, a growing youth population means that more girls are being denied rights today rights that are guaranteed under international law than in 2012. Of the 144 countries in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Gender Index, which account for 98% of the world's girls and women, not one country has achieved gender equality. As of 2020, more than three billion girls and women still live in countries with 'poor' or 'very poor' scores for gender equality. "Far too often, girls around the world are denied the opportunity to realize their rights and full potential due to harmful gender norms and practices, including violence," says Saadya Hamdani, Director of Gender Equality and Inclusion at Plan International Canada. "While gains have been made on some of girls' fundamental rights, we know they are tenuous and can easily slide back." According to Plan International's analysis within the Realizing every girl's right to flourish report, key gains in gender equality over the last 10 years include: Since 1990, the global under-five mortality rate has dropped by 60%, from 93 deaths per 1,000 live births to 39 deaths per 1,000 live births for boys and 34 for girls in 2020. Gender parity has been largely achieved in primary school enrolment and learning outcomes, while secondary school enrolment for girls increased from 72% in 2012 to 76% in 2020. More legal protections from certain forms of abuse and harmful cultural practices, such as the banning of child marriage in the Dominican Republic in November 2020 and female genital mutilation/cutting in South Sudan in April 2020. A 15% decrease in the proportion of girls married as children, meaning the rate has dropped from nearly one in four to one in five. A decrease in the global adolescent birth rate amongst girls aged 1519 from 47 to 41.2 births per 1,000 between 2012 to 2020. Story continues However, change has been slow and unequal, with girls who are growing up in poverty or in conflict settings, living with a disability or identifying as 2SLGBTQIA+ being less likely to benefit from these gains. Key factors that suggest a failure to sustain girls' development over the course of their lives include: There are still 5.5 million more girls of primary school age out of school than boys. Girls and young women aged 1524 make up the majority of the 267 million young people worldwide who are not in education, training or employment. As of 2019, 42% of young women, compared to 12% of young men, are not in education, training or employment. No region is on track to meet the United Nations' SDG target of eliminating child, early and forced marriage by 2030. In 2019, 43% of sexually active girls (aged 1519) who wanted to avoid pregnancy were not using modern contraception, leading to 10 million unintended pregnancies and 5.7 million abortions. While several countries have improved legal protection of access to safe abortion, others, notably Nicaragua, Poland and the United States, have repealed laws that previously protected the right to safe abortion. There has been little legal progress in protecting the rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ people. In 2020, there were still 70 countries that criminalize consensual same-sex activity. "We are still very far from a gender just world," Hamdani adds. "Now more than ever before, we need to rally with girls in support of their inherent power as leaders and changemakers. We must tackle discrimination, amplify girls' voices and invest in their empowerment, including education, health and safety." As one of the driving forces in the creation of the International Day of the Girl, Plan International Canada is offering several ways for everyone to celebrate, get involved and take action for girls' equality: Celebrate: Our online social campaign aims to inspire girls and young women to see themselves as powerful and capable of leadership. We're asking the public to reflect on the question: If I could write a message to my younger or older self, what would I say? Submit your words of encouragement on our website or post it on your preferred social platform along with the tags @PlanCanada #EqualPowerNow #DayOftheGirl Advocate: Champion girls' rights by engaging in our conversations online. Use our International Day of the Girl GIFs on Instagram and TikTok, our special virtual background and LinkedIn profile banner. Download our graphics. Donate: Buy a Gift of Hope or start a personal fundraiser to contribute to a world where every girl has the chance to shape her own life and the future. Plan International Canada also welcomes the return of our longstanding youth leadership program, Girls Belong Here. This October, more than 30 girls and young women will partner with participating civil society organizations, corporations and politicians for meaningful professional development and mentorship opportunities, working together toward a future of leadership that is more diverse and inclusive. Since 2016, the program has engaged more than 150 girls across Canada, and this year, it has expanded to two moments in time. In addition to fall 2022, activities will take place in the spring of 2023 as part of Plan International Canada's International Women's Day celebrations. To learn more, please visit plancanada.ca/day-of-the-girl Join Plan International Canada's conversations online: #EqualPowerNow #DayOfTheGirl Twitter: @PlanCanada | Instagram: @PlanCanada | Facebook: @PlanCanada NOTES TO EDITORS Realizing every girl's right to flourish: a review of progress on the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl, is released on the 10th annual International Day of the Girl on October 11, 2022. It is available at plancanada.ca/day-of-the-girl#reports ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL Plan International Canada led an extensive two-year campaign in 2009 that engaged thousands of Canadians in a call for an International Day of the Girl, a global initiative to recognize girls' rights as human rights. In December 2011, with unanimous all-party support, the Canadian government led the United Nations to officially declare October 11 as the International Day of the Girl. ABOUT PLAN INTERNATIONAL CANADA Plan International Canada is a member of a global organization dedicated to advancing children's rights and equality for girls. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for 85 years and are now active in more than 75 countries. Visit plancanada.ca for more information and follow @PlanCanada on social media to join the conversation. SOURCE Plan International Canada Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/11/c1309.html Hunter Rescued After Being Impaled by 'Lost' Arrow While Hiking in Remote Colorado Wilderness facebook A hunter was airlifted out of a remote area in Colorado after being impaled by a "lost arrow" while hiking off-trail, according to Routt County Search and Rescue (RCSAR). The incident occurred last week near the South Fork of Mad Creek when the hunter walked into the arrow, which reportedly pierced his leg above the knee, making him unable to move from his spot, CBS News reported. Fortunately, he was able to request help using his rescue beacon to send an SOS before shutting off the device due to low battery power, per the outlet. RELATED: 3 People Fending Off Sharks Rescued 'Just in the Nick of Time' in Gulf of Mexico After Boat Sinks "The arrow was presumably released earlier in the archery hunting season," the statement from RCSAR's official Facebook page read. "This is RCSARs second rescue involving a hunter walking into and being impaled by a lost arrow in the past two years." The RCSAR team was able to locate the hunter after venturing deep into the remote area where he was last heard from, including riding four miles to the Elk Park Trailhead north of Steamboat Springs and hiking 2.5 miles before going through woods and swamps to reach him. Hunter Rescued After Being Impaled by 'Lost' Arrow While Hiking in Remote Colorado Wilderness facebook Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Due to the difficulty of the landscape, the team called a helicopter to help carry the hunter out of the area. He was later airlifted and transported to UCHealth's Yampa Valley Medical Center for treatment, according to RCSAR Vice President Harry Sandler via CBS News. Per the outlet, Sandler recommended, "Hunters should also always carry the 10 Essentials and be prepared for rapidly changing weather as is common this time of year in the rockies." RELATED VIDEO: Mystery Man Risks His Life Dangerously Jumping Across Rooftop of New York High-Rise As a precaution, Sandler added, "While we know that it is not always feasible, bowhunters should make every effort possible to find a lost arrow." A representative from RCSAR said they did not have "any updates" when contacted by PEOPLE. As Ironman 70.3 North Carolina arrives in Wilmington on Saturday, local race director Sami Winter is, of course, worried about the big things. A mention of the weather forecast produces a hasty, and only half-joking, shush. She walked out of a recent meeting for a couple minutes because, When the DOT calls, you answer. But, in her second year in charge of the areas major triathlon event, she finds herself more apt to fix what appears, from the outside, to be the little things, too. BREAKING ITS 'HEX':Ironman NC finally gets off the ground in 2021 after stops, starts REMEMBERING SHAWN:Wilmington mourns loss of popular chef, endurance athlete IRONMAN NC 2021:Athletes embrace Wilmington as triathlon comes out from COVID I've talked to two brides oh my gosh, how is everybody going to get to the Ballast Hotel from my venue? Winter said. Helping them try to navigate that problem. And people say, You do that as a race director? But if I can help take care of the community and make sure they go through with their lives, theyre going to say, Hey, Ironman came in, but they provided me with a way to figure this out. And I reached out to the race director, and they responded to me. With cancellations and adjustments from the COVID-19 pandemic coming to a close, Winter says the amount of confirmed participants is more predictable than a year ago. The 2021 event had 2,029 finishers; this year it should surge past 2,300, the most ever for the race locally. Participant numbers are rising, so the number of volunteers goes up with it. About 10 days before the race, Winter had filled 900 spots on a list that reaches 1,341 if completely full. WANT TO VOLUNTEER?Click here for opportunities to help out at Saturday's race Course layout and affordability are key factors for out-of-town athletes making their race decisions. Getting them to give good reviews, or even come back, means everything on the ground has to be great. From packet pickup to transition points in the race, thats where Winter and her team rely on the hundreds of locals who arent racing to be the voice of the city. Story continues It takes the community to help out, she said, And I think Wilmington has grown into that, too. Everyone raves about the volunteers, and the city. The (visitors bureau) puts our flags up. And the athletes pay attention to that. Winter, a veteran racer herself, rehashed her experience at Ironman Couer DAlene (Idaho) in 2014. A lot of my memories from my tough races are from volunteers, she said. I remember pulling into (the bike-run) transition, and all these volunteers to welcome me. I was like, Im so happy to see you, and I jumped in his arms and he picked me up. It is the funniest picture. My feet are off the ground, hes hugging me Its moments like that I remember. Not that I was shuffling at the 15th hour. Volunteers are everything. Whats the course for Ironman 70.3 North Carolina? The 1.2-mile swim begins in Banks Channel at 7:10 a.m. Saturday, at the Hanover Seaside Club in Wrightsville Beach. Competitors will get into the water in waves (fastest swimmers first) and swim to Seapath Marina. From there, theyll cross Causeway Drive to Wrightsville Beach Park to get their bikes for a 56-mile ride. Athletes go out on Eastwood Road, make quick turns on Market Street and College Road, then turn west on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway to US 421. After a loop through Pender County, they return to downtown Wilmington and park their bikes at Cape Fear Community College, near the corner of Front and Brunswick streets. Then its a 13.1-mile run, mostly down Front Street to Greenfield Street, up to Fifth Street and nearly a full lap around Greenfield Lake before turning around and doubling back. The finish line is at Riverfront Park. Wilmington traffic hotspots for Ironman 70.3 North Carolina If youre coming downtown for the finish line, itll be best to come in via Market Street or other streets from the north. Road closures and traffic stoppages will occur off Front Street throughout downtown, and the intersection of Third and Greenfield can get backed up quickly. Restaurants and shops downtown will be open throughout the race, and fans are encouraged to come out and cheer on people from the street. On Saturday morning, getting onto and off Wrightsville Beach will be limited by a bike lane, and Causeway Drive will be closed around Seapath Marina and Wrightsville Beach Park. Traffic also will be stopped at Eastwood and Military Cutoff for cyclists before 10:30 a.m., so expect delays if youre trying to get to Landfall and Mayfaire. The bike course will have dedicated lanes on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and US 421 as well, through 2 p.m. The Isabel Holmes Bridge also will have a dedicated bike lane, which will mean some traffic slowdowns, starting in the late morning. The run course will close quite a few downtown streets from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., including significant portions of Front Street, the intersection of Third and Wooster streets, as well as Greenfield Street between Front and Fifth streets. Around Greenfield Lake, cars will only travel counterclockwise around the lake. All vehicles entering Lake Shore Drive must turn right. This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Ironman 70.3 NC 2022: Wilmington traffic, volunteer opportunities Russian Government to Hold Key Crypto Regulation-themed Meeting Today Source: Mikhail/Adobe Russian ministers have tabled a meeting on the thorny matter of crypto regulation today as the government attempts to finalize its much-delayed attempts to police the sector. A stand-off between the relatively pro-industry Ministry of Finance and the more conservative Central Bank has resulted in a regulatory impasse for the sector that has lasted several years. Efforts to regulate the sector thus far have resulted in delay after delay. And while a small amount of common ground has been found as the bank reluctantly warms to crypto, the two parties are still some way apart when it comes to crypto legislation. To date, the only piece of crypto-related legislation passed by Russias State Duma has been a law that prevents the use of crypto as a form of payment. The law was dismissed by experts as a mere glossary of terms. But it appears that the Kremlin is running out of patience and wants the parties to finalize a draft law before the year is out. Finversia quoted Ivan Chebeskov, the head of the financial policy department of the Ministry of Finance, as stating that the ministry needed a couple more days to fine-tune its policies. But he confirmed that a government meeting on the matter had been slated for October 11. Chebeskov added that some smaller Russian businesses were already doing business in crypto and added: We would like to give [companies] a legal foothold for the use of cryptoassets in business. And we are currently discussing this issue with the Central Bank. Chebeskov noted that the ministry wanted to create a mechanism for businesses who want to make use of crypto as a settlements tool in international trade. But the Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, has given the ministry and the Central Bank an ultimatum. The PM states that the parties had until the end of the year to develop an agreed position on draft federal laws governing the issuance and circulation of digital [assets] in Russia. Mishustin also told the ministry and the bank that their draft bill should also cover crypto mining regulation and the use of digital assets in international transactions. Industrial miners, who have been calling for regulation for several months, will likely welcome the development. President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on three Los Angeles City Council members to resign over remarks that were made in a leaked audio recording. He believes that they all should resign, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters today. The language that was used and tolerated during that conversation was unacceptable and it was appalling. They should all step down. More from Deadline RELATED: Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin Responds To Colleagues Apologies Over Leaked Audio: First You Must Resign And Then Ask For Forgiveness Councilwoman Nury Martinez said Tuesday that she was going on leave from her office, having already stepped down as city council president. That followed the Los Angeles Times publication of excerpts in which she used a racist remark to describe the son of a council colleague, Mike Bonin. Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo also took part in the conversation, recorded last year, but they have remained on the council and were present for a public meeting today. Another participant in the conversation, Ron Herrera, the president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stepped down from his post on Monday evening. Jean-Pierre said that Biden also gave her a direct quote to release: Hate never goes away, it only hides. But lately it is just out in the open at these extreme MAGA rallies. The press secretary specifically mentioned comments made over the weekend by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (D-AL), in which he said that Democrats support reparations for descendants of slaves because they think that people that do the crime are owed that. Jean-Pierre also called out remarks made by Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has attacked his opponent Josh Shapiro for sending his children to what he called a privileged, elite school. Shapiro sends his kids to a Jewish day school, and Mastrianos reference has raised alarms that it was a dog whistle for anti-Semitism. Story continues RELATED: SAG-AFTRA Joins Chorus Calling For L.A. City Council Resignations In Wake Of Leaked Tape The press secretary said that the furor over the Los Angeles council members comments showed the difference between the parties. When a MAGA Republican says something racist and anti-Semitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated and sought after endorsements, she said. Biden is visiting Los Angeles on Wednesday and Thursday with an itinerary that includes an event with Nancy Pelosi for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In another appearance, Biden also will make remarks on infrastructure investment. RELATED: L.A. County Federation Of Labor Chief Ron Herrera Resigns Amid Scandal 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. The 2022 midterm elections in Johnson County on Nov. 8 will help determine the makeup of Congress, the Iowa Legislature and the Board of Supervisors in addition to the passage or failure of a constitutional amendment on guns. Johnson County voters will join those in 19 other counties to help determine the winner of the 1st Congressional District. They will vote in statewide races for U.S. Senate, governor and other offices, including whether to retain several judges. The back of the ballot will include a question on whether to enshrine 2nd Amendment strict scrutiny protections for firearms into the Iowa Constitution, plus races for Soil & Water Conservation District commissioners and County Agricultural Extension council members. Johnson, Washington and Iowa counties will send a new slate of legislators to Des Moines in a year of historic turnover, with seven contested races, five of which are without an incumbent. Two seats on the Johnson County Board of Supervisors are also up for grabs with five candidates running, including one incumbent. More:Democrat Deidre DeJear slams Gov. Kim Reynolds' education, abortion record in her first ad Here is a guide to this year's midterm general election, explaining how to register to vote; where to find your voting precinct; how to vote early or by mail; and what voters can expect to see on their ballot on or before Nov. 8. How do I register to vote in Iowa? Oct. 24 is the last day to register to vote before Primary Election Day on Nov. 8. Missing this deadline does not bar you from voting, but you will have to clear additional hurdles at the ballot box to prove identification and residency to register Nov. 8. To qualify to register to vote in Iowa, you must be a U.S. citizen, an Iowa resident, and at least 17 years old. A person may vote if they will be 18 years old on or before Election Day, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's website. A person is not qualified to vote in Iowa if they are a convicted felon, unless their voting rights have been restored. A person could also not be qualified if they are judged mentally incompetent to vote by a court; or if they claim the right to vote in any other location. Story continues There are multiple options for people who want to register to vote in Iowa, including online. The Iowa Secretary of State's website allows you to fill out an online voter registration application or download a voter registration form to print out and return to the county auditor's office. To register, a potential voter needs to fill out the following information on the registration form: Full name, sex and date of birth. Address where you live and address where you receive mail if it is different. An ID number from an Iowa drivers license, a nonoperator ID number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number. Previous voter registration information. Political affiliation (No Party, Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian). A signature and the date of the signature. More:Meet Todd Halbur & Rob Sand, running for Iowa state auditor in the 2022 election midterms If someone is not registered to vote on Election Day, they can still cast a ballot and register to vote that day. To do so, they first must go to the correct polling place for their current address on Election Day. At the polling place, they must prove both identification and place of residence with a valid Iowa drivers license with current address printed on it, or other documents. There were 90,171 active registered voters in Johnson County as of May 2. It's officially spooky season and nothing scares us more than not knowing your voter registration status! Make sure yours is up to date: https://t.co/a4Vf16LvIe #jocovotes pic.twitter.com/9sh6uQ2thT Travis Weipert (@jcauditor) October 3, 2022 How do I vote early in-person or absentee by mail in Iowa? Voters in Johnson County are able to start voting early in-person, or by mail on Wednesday, Oct. 19. To vote early in-person, a voter can go to the Johnson County auditor's office, or to a satellite voting location. In-person early voting is available in the auditor's office. Drive-up early voting will be available at the parking ramp north of the Johnson County Health and Human Services Building, 855 S. Dubuque St., at the entrance off of Clinton Street. You can track the status of your absentee ballot on the secretary of state's website at sos.iowa.gov/elections/absenteeballotstatus. To request an absentee ballot that can either be mailed or returned in-person, a voter must fill out an absentee ballot request form, which is available on the auditor's website. The form requires much of the same identification information needed to apply for registration, but also requires the voter to specify the name or date of the election for which they are requesting an absentee ballot. The absentee ballot request must be submitted by Oct. 24. The actual ballot will be mailed soon after. The ballot must be returned to the auditor's office either by mail or in-person by the time polls close on Election Day at 8 p.m. More:Meet Roby Smith & Mike Fitzgerald, running for Iowa state treasurer in the 2022 election midterms Where do I vote on Election Day and what do I need to bring with me? Voters are each assigned a voting precinct when they register that is often at a local community gathering space like a church or fire station. You can find out what precinct you are assigned to by looking up your voter registration online at the Iowa Secretary of State's website or the Johnson County Auditor's website. Voting precincts have changed since the last general election due to the re-precincting process after the 2020 U.S. Census. To show up in person to vote, you'll need to bring proof of identification, such as an Iowa drivers license or non-operator ID, U.S. passport, U.S. military ID or veterans ID, tribal ID or document, or Iowa voter ID card. Voters can wear campaign buttons and clothing, but they must leave the polling place as soon as they are done voting. Campaigning or electioneering in a polling place is illegal; loitering in a polling place while wearing political items is considered electioneering, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's website. Where you are registered to vote also determines what races you can vote for depending on the city, school district, county, state and federal legislative district you live in. More:What Iowa ag secretary candidates Mike Naig & John Norwood say about eminent domain, ethanol What races and issues are on the ballot? Which are contested? Few races in Johnson County have only one candidate, but others have up to five to choose from. You can look up a sample ballot by using a tool on the Johnson County Auditor's website, which will tell you your polling place and what races will be on your ballot. Some of the contested local races include: The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives for the 1st Congressional District. The Iowa governor, auditor of state, treasurer of state, secretary of state, state attorney general, and secretary of agriculture. Four seats in the Iowa House of Representatives and two in the Iowa Senate. Two seats where voters will pick two candidates on the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. A yes or no ballot question asking whether Iowa should enshrine 2nd Amendment protections subject to strict scrutiny into the Iowa Constitution. Read more about Johnson County's contested races in the 2022 midterm election Other races for Iowa House District 90, 86, Senate District 43 and other Johnson County offices remain uncontested on the ballot. Voters can write-in candidates for any races in Johnson County in the space provided on the ballot. More information on voting in Iowa is also available at voterready.iowa.gov. This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: How to vote in Johnson County, Iowa for 2022 midterm election Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has asked the Department of Justice to preserve documents tied to its school board directive, a sign of how House Judiciary Committee Republicans will direct their energy if the GOP regains control of the House. Attorney General Merrick Garland signed the memo in October of last year, noting a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff amid broader discussion over COVID-19 policies and how issues like race and gender are addressed at school. The memo largely encouraged coordination, asking the FBI to convene meetings with local law enforcement in the following 30 days to discuss how to respond to threats of violence. Though little resulted from the memo, Republicans have remained laser-focused on the directive, with House Judiciary Republicans by their own count sending more than 100 letters to the Justice Department on the matter. In a Tuesday letter to Garland obtained by The Hill, Jordan, the panels ranking member, said the anti-parent directive remains in effect, and as a result, the threat of federal law enforcement continues to chill the First Amendment rights of American parents. He asked the Justice Department to preserve any documents related to the numerous requests theyve sent for information a common request from minority leadership without subpoena power. Jordan said that in response to the more than 100 requests, the Republicans had gotten just two half-page letters and no documents. The Justice Department declined to comment. Jordan has repeatedly called the memo part of a case study for how the committee views its oversight role. It would be one of a number of probes where Republicans have vowed to up the ante if they take over the House, along with a focus on the border, the Afghanistan withdrawal and Hunter Biden. The memo has been a headache for the Justice Department and the National School Boards Association since shortly after its release. Story continues The group sent a letter to the White House the week before Garlands memo was released, laying out a spate of incidents at recent school board meetings, noting that some threats could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes. The ensuing political storm caused the National School Boards Association to issue a statement saying its members regret and apologize for the letter. There was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for consultation on a communication of this significance, the group wrote later that month. Jordan has suggested that the Biden administration coordinated with the National School Boards Association to craft the policy, accusing them without evidence during a recent Fox News appearance of encouraging a pretext to go after parents. The initial letter from the National School Boards Association references a meeting with the White House and the Department of Education, and asks for the Justice Department to review whether the threats may violate a number of different federal laws. The Justice Department memo fell far short of what the group was asking for, however, stressing coordination and partnership with local law enforcement over any legal review. But Jordans letter said the Justice Departments response has not alleviate[d] our concerns. We intend to continue to pursue this serious misuse of federal law-enforcement resources, Jordan wrote. While Jordan has said the policy has a chilling effect on free speech, a D.C.-based federal judge last month dismissed a suit from parents in Michigan and Virginia, saying the memo does not impact constitutionally protected conduct. The alleged AG Policy is not regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature because it does not impose any regulations, requirements, or enforcement actions on individuals. None of the documents that the plaintiffs allege establish the policy create an imminent threat of future legal actions against anyone, much less the plaintiffs, Judge Dabney Friedrich wrote in the September opinion. The Attorney Generals memorandum does not apply to the plaintiffs activities, and even if it did, the policy does not label anyone a domestic terrorist, as the plaintiffs suggest, Friedrich added. This story was updated at 3:49 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, a number of articles were picked up by the press and media in Kazakhstan linking former President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Jusan Bank (the"Bank") and its London-based parent company, Jusan Technology Limited (UK) -- JTL. The articles alleged that Mr. Nazarbayev controls both the Bank and JTL. The Bank wishes to state unequivocally that neither Mr. Nazarbayev nor any member of his family have any affiliation with Jusan Bank, its subsidiaries and its parent company, JTL. Neither are they shareholders, nor do they exercise any form of control over the Bank or JTL. The ultimate purpose of Jusan Bank and its affiliated companies is to further educational goals for the creation of a prosperous Kazakhstan. Aside from reinvesting profits in order to develop Jusan's eco-system with technology-driven products and services that will improve customers' lives, the rest of the Bank's profits are directed to finance educational projects that meet international standards and benefit Kazakhstan's society at large. In light of the above, Jusan Bank is committed to preserve its reputation, and will continue to correct any unjustified allegations. Corporate Communications Service Jusan Bank Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/jusan-bank-and-parent-company-jusan-technologies-refute-reports-of-links-to-former-president-nursultan-nazarbayev-301646571.html LOS ANGELES For four days Hollywood, California, was abuzz with crowds lining up to see the various L.A. Fashion Week shows organized by a new owner in a new location. Lines stretched down the sidewalk on Sunset Boulevard outside the Lighthouse ArtSpace, where an immersive art show featuring works of Vincent Van Gogh and a show on King Tut had taken place until they were temporarily suspended for the fashion event. More from WWD A few blocks away, talks and panel discussions were organized in the historic Citizen News building, which houses event spaces and the hip new Mother Wolf restaurant. Everyone was holding their breath to see how a reconfigured L.A. Fashion Week, now under the ownership of N4XT Experiences, would turn out for its Oct. 6 to 9 run. By most accounts, it was a success. Attendees were particularly taken with the new venue that had a large, cavernous room where images could be projected on the wall showing starry nights or fireworks marking the end of a show. Models walked down the concrete floor lined with long white benches where fashion followers viewed the creations from brands including AnOnlyChild, Gypsy Sport, Attachments, Revice Denim and Sami Miro Vintage. On average the shows started about 35 to 45 minutes late with a certain amount of chaos in the air as fashiongoers wondered when they would be seated. Show organizers said the late start times were due to a larger crowd showing up than expected. One attendee, who asked not to be named, believed the shows werent as organized as previous L.A. Fashion Weeks but liked the new location. She thought the new owners were doing well considering this was their first event. I chalk it up to being new, she said. Many fashion followers were pleased with the Hollywood location and the variety of events organized around L.A. Fashion Week. Story continues Those events included a host of panels, fireside chats and master classes talking about various fashion and beauty-related subjects, including how digital closets encourage sustainability and a panel on the future of beauty. Danielle Lauder, the great-granddaughter of Estee Lauder and a beauty adviser to N4XT Experiences, moderated a Live Art Meets Luxury talk with Donald Robertson, an artist who is also senior vice president and creative director for the Estee Lauder Cos. Inc. Robertson drew smudged images of models on a large canvas while answering questions from Lauder about his artistic process and being a creative disruptor. Donald Robertson explains his creative process to Danielle Lauder and the audience. He recalled that while working with the cosmetics line Smashbox, he marketed the brand by having the company buy an enormous 60s-era white Cadillac convertible. He had red lips painted all over it and parked it near the Art Basel show in Miami Beach, Florida, to generate buzz and attention for the cosmetics company, which is now an Estee Lauder subsidiary. Miley Cyrus crawled on the top of it, and then it ended up in People magazine, Robertson recalled. I love stuff like that. It was those experiences that pleased fashion-show attendees like Amanda Stinson. I liked this fashion week better than the one in April, she said. Before, there was not that much to do, but the panels were thought provoking. The shows were also inclusive of various communities. Rio Uribe, the designer and founder of Gypsy Sport, created an edgy, gender-bending show with male models wearing dresses, zaftig female models wearing skimpy dresses and Zoot suit-like creations that reminded the L.A. designer of his Latino roots. Were all about celebrating community. In Los Angeles, there is so much Latino and queer community, and I just wanted to give them a chance, said the designer, who moved his company back to Los Angeles from New York in 2019 and has shown at New York Fashion Week and showed last year during L.A. Fashion Week held at the Petersen Automotive Museum. His collection included lots of sequins seen in minidresses and miniskirts with matching skimpy tops. Plaid was also a popular fabric used in dresses with lace trim and pleated and billowy skirts. Spaghetti-strapped dresses with a lingerie look were also popular. A look from the Gypsy Sport spring 2023 collection. Uribe said this L.A. Fashion Week felt different from others. He said there was more buzz about it. Maybe it is the venue, but I felt more people were talking about it, he said. He was amazed when he was standing in line at a Koreatown post office in Los Angeles and heard someone talking about the show and asking about getting tickets. I was like, oh my God, that is amazing, he said. L.A. Fashion Week was also the event where Moss Adams LLP chose to present its annual MAFI Award to one outstanding L.A. designer who epitomizes innovation. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the award had been on hiatus since 2019. The award was given to Revice Denim for its sustainability efforts using deadstock, upcycled and organic cotton fabrics, its commitment to diversity in the workplace and domestic production done primarily in downtown Los Angeles. They produce beautiful vintage, iconic pieces, use sustainable fabrics and have a big commitment to a diverse workforce, which checked all the boxes for us, said Martin Hughes, the apparel national practice leader for Moss Adams, a global accounting and consulting firm. Revice Denim showed its spring 2023 collection using vintage looks seen over the years. Shai Sudry, the founder of Revice Denim, said his company takes its inspiration from Los Angeles. His spring 2023 collection centered around Hollywood movies over the ages. The concept for the show was a Hollywood revival incorporating six different movie genres, he said. The collection, shown on Saturday, encompassed patchwork jumpsuits, matching sets, low-rise denim silhouettes, baggie jeans, mini shorts, dresses, micro tops and vegan leather pants and tops. The array of shows left fashion goers pleased that L.A. Fashion Week was back in the swing of things after an on-again-off-again period due to the pandemic. I felt these were real shows, said Mitch Ramey, who attended the Gypsy Sport show. I hope they make something of it. Best of WWD Click here to read the full article. This article originally appeared on Outside You don't need to be a meteorologist to know that the weather in the Arctic--the northernmost region on the planet--mostly alternates between cold and bitterly cold. With an average winter temperature of negative 30 degrees, the Arctic has a well-deserved reputation as a proving ground for explorers who want to test themselves against the planet's harshest conditions. If you can make it above the 66 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, you can make it anywhere. An untrained eye might see these areas of Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia as barren and empty, but to adventure lovers the Arctic is one of the last great frontiers. Fjallraven, a Swedish company established in 1960, has been outfitting Arctic explorers for decades, and it takes everyday adventurers on an annual expedition called Fjallraven Polar, an event where ordinary folks can join Fjallraven explorers on a one-of-a-kind polar expedition in northern Scandinavia. "Expertise grows from experience," says Carl Hard af Segerstad, Fjallraven's global event manager. "Our founder, Ake Nordin, realized rather quickly that more experiences leads to better products. We've carried on this legacy to invite people to nature, both for the sake of being in nature and to continue to develop products that enable experiences in nature, even if the conditions are cold and hostile." The Fjallraven team knows a thing or two about dressing for cold climates. Follow their advice, and you can stay warm whether you're heading to the Arctic or a wintry trail in your backyard. Start With a Warm Foundation When it's 20 below, you need maximum performance from your base and midlayers. And once you have those key pieces dialed, they'll provide the foundation for a versatile system. No matter the activity, a base layer goes on first to wick sweat away. Grab the Bergtagen Long Johns and pair them with the Bergtagen Woolmesh Sweater. Both are made with a technical and soft merino-wool blend that is durable and easy to clean. Wool, the original performance fabric, is still the best: it's inherently temperature-regulating, moisture-wicking, odor-resistant, and insulative even when wet. "It's a fantastic fiber for outdoor pursuits, and it's natural and renewable," says Hard af Segerstad. "It can be developed for different layering solutions and was the natural choice before we started producing from plastic materials." With strategically placed varied knitting patterns, both garments provide warmth, flexibility, and ventilation in all the right places. Story continues Put your layering know-how to the test on the Fjallraven Polar--an event where ordinary folks can join Fjallraven explorers on a one-of-a-kind polar expedition in northern Scandinavia. The trip length and travel by sled dogs are a couple of aspects that make Fjallraven Polar a one-of-a-kind experience.(Photo: Fjallraven) When it comes to midlayers, you want a high level of insulation combined with breathability. The Keb Fleece Hoodie is crafted from a functional synthetic-and-wool-blend fleece that balances both needs. The hoodie features two zippered hand pockets and a zippered chest pocket--perfect for storing your phone (and a power bank to keep it charged even in extreme cold). Its slim-fitting hood traps heat to keep your head warm but isn't too bulky to accommodate additional accessories. Choose Activity-Specific Outerwear You've got your base layer and midlayer dialed. Now, when deciding what to wear for each activity, consider the forecast and level of physical effort required. Dog Sledding Traveling by dogsled is an incredible way to move through a snowy landscape. It's fast and fun, but it requires careful layering. Consider this: sled dogs can run between ten and 20 miles per hour, and that extra windchill will make you feel significantly colder. For example, if it's minus 20 degrees and there's a ten-mph wind, it will actually feel more like minus 40 degrees. That kind of cold requires an outer layer like the Expedition Down Jacket. The 90 percent goose-down, midlength jacket is a classic 1974 Fjallraven design that extends below the hips for added warmth without restricting your movement. Because the coat is also wind-resistant, thanks to the polyamide exterior fabric, it's the ideal outer layer for days when you're fighting the windchill. "We were inspired by the legendary Iditarod, the dogsled expedition through Alaska, to test Fjallraven under these conditions," says Hard af Segerstad. "At Fjallraven Polar, amateur mushers from around the world were invited to experience the Nordic Arctic tundra over a demanding route in a very remote and exposed environment." Whether you're flying behind a pack of dogs or just out on a windy day, it's critical to protect your skin. Put on the Keb Fleece Balaclava to cover up as much as possible around your face and neck. The balaclava's wool-polyester blend keeps you warm even in wet conditions and wicks away moisture from your mouth and nose. Top it with the Polar Padded Cap, an insulated, wind- and water-resistant hat with a brim for added protection from sun and precipitation. Traveling by dogsled is an incredible way to move through a snowy landscape. (Photo: Fjallraven) Self-Propelled Travel Whether you're pulling a sled in the Arctic or simply out traveling on skis, snowshoeing, climbing, or trekking, you'll generate body heat, so you need to layer appropriately. In cold weather, you want to avoid sweating so the moisture doesn't soak your clothes and freeze when you stop moving. To accomplish this, swap the Woolmesh Sweater base layer for the Bergtagen Woolterry Hoodie, which is made of terry knit that helps you stay dry even when you're working hard. The smooth finish on the exterior helps reduce friction against other layers when you're active. Add the Keb Fleece Hat, made with a light wool blend that adds just-right warmth when you're on the move. On a windy or snowy day, you'll need the Bergtagen Eco Shell Trousers and Jacket. These breathable and durable layers are waterproof and made partially from recycled polyester. The stretchy material and articulated design let you move without restriction. Unwinding at Camp Enjoying camp comforts in the latter half of the day when temperatures drop and you're not moving much can often feel like its own kind of expedition. After a long day in the elements, swap your daytime footwear for the Expedition Down Booties. Stay warm head to toe with your favorite down jacket topped with the Singi Heater, a heavy-duty wind-resistant cap with a thick synthetic fur lining and ear flaps that can be secured with a chin buckle. Explore the Arctic with Fjallraven Stoked on the idea of an Arctic adventure? Who isn't? Put your layering know-how to the test on the Fjallraven Polar--an event where ordinary folks can join Fjallraven explorers on a one-of-a-kind polar expedition in northern Scandinavia. Participants will travel over 185 miles via dogsled from Signaldalen to Vakkarajarvi, among beautiful mountains along an old Sami trade route and across Europe's largest area of permafrost. "They get to learn how to dress, how to sleep, how to cook, and how to make shelter," says Hard af Segerstad. "Each participant also learns the intricate interdependency between themselves and the sled dogs as each musher, teamed up with six dogs on their own sled, is completely dependent on the dogs to make their way through the wilderness." These trips are just one place where Fjallraven puts its clothes and equipment to the ultimate test in extreme winter environments, so you can be ready for anything. Find out how you can go along for the ride. In 1960, Ake Nordin founded Fjallraven in his basement in the town of Ornskoldsvik in northern Sweden. Today the company's timeless, functional and durable outdoor equipment that can be found in over 70 countries. Fjallraven's product range comprises outdoor clothing and accessories for men and women as well as backpacks, tents and sleeping bags. As a company, Fjallraven makes every effort to act responsibly towards people, wildlife and the environment. For exclusive access to all of our fitness, gear, adventure, and travel stories, plus discounts on trips, events, and gear, sign up for Outside+ today. Tommaso Boddi/Getty Angela Lansbury, the British-born actress who became a beloved American icon across eight decades and three different mediums, has died. She was 96. The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday, her family said in a statement. The indefatigable Lansbury was known across the world as Jessica Fletcher, the busybody, bestselling author, and amateur sleuth who presided over the notoriously murder-rich town of Cabot Cove, Maine, in the long-running CBS series Murder, She Wrote. In more recent years, Lansbury had completed a tour of Noel Cowards Blithe Spirt playing an eccentric medium, a role that brought her a fifth Tony Award in 2009 (the only actor with more is Audra McDonald). It was the kind of over-the-top part that she excelled at, chiefly because they were nothing like herself. The art of acting is a built-in ability I cannot take credit for, Lansbury told the SFGate. I have been an actress for as long as I can remember, ever since I was very young. Ive never grown away from my ability to play roles, to become someone else. As an individual, Im the most boring thing on two feet. Where most performers have a single acting career, Lansbury had three distinct ones. When she was 17 and George Cukor cast her in Gaslight, Lansbury was a war immigrant who had escaped The Blitz with her mother and two younger twin brothers, first to New York and then Los Angeles, where she was supporting her family with a $28 a week job at the cosmetics counter of Bullocks department store. She had already experienced what she would consider the defining moment of her life when her father died of cancer when she was nine. If anything good came out of my fathers early death, it was being catapulted into maturity ahead of my contemporaries, Lansbury told the Daily Mail. I grew up fast because I had to. Story continues Playing a cockney trollop of a maid, Gaslight would earn Lansbury her first of three Oscar nominations. It was a remarkable debut performance, shocking even to her. How did I have all that assurance? she would remark years later. I have much less assurance now. In those days, I suppose, I went ahead on trust. She would follow Gaslight immediately with National Velvet and The Picture of Dorian Gray (her second Oscar nod), but Hollywood was perpetually at a loss as to how to use her unclassifiable mix of intelligence and atypical beauty. Said George Cukor, her Gaslight director, She was consistently miscast. She married the late actor and artist Richard Cromwell at 19 and divorced nine months later citing "extreme cruelty" apparently 1940s speak for "my husband dates guys" (including, allegedly, Howard Hughes). It made me in, a way, a little bit tough, Lansbury, who remained friends with Cromwell until his death in the '60s, said of the experience. She found the love of her life almost immediately after the divorce when she started dating Peter Shaw, a failed actor turned executive and agent whom she would marry in 1949, a union that lasted until his death from heart failure in 2003. He was everything to me, she told the Daily Mail. We were partners at work as well as husband and wife and lovers. I dont know how we had such a long marriage, but the simple fact was that we were devoted to one another. She spent most of the 50s and 60s happily making house for Shaw and their two childrenAnthony and Deirdreand less happily, 40 or so largely forgettable movies. Cursed and blessed with what she called "an inner age" I started playing mothers in my twenties, she has saidLansbury was forever cast in parts much older than herself. Hedy Lemar was 16 years her senior when Lansbury played her older sister in 1949s Sampson and Delilah. Warren Beatty was just 12 years younger when she played his mother in All Fall Down; when she played Elvis mom in Blue Hawaii, the King was nine years her junior. [Elvis] was into karate at the time, said Lansbury, according to Rob Edelmans Angela Lansbury: A Life on Stage and Screen. Between takes, he would break bricks with his hands. Still, shell go to movie heaven thanks in no small part to her masterful and Oscar-nominated performance as the archetypal mother-from-hell in John Frankenheimers The Manchurian Candidate, the 1962 box-office failure which has gone on to become one of the most beloved political thrillers ever made. (Unsurprisingly, her son in the film, Lawrence Harvey, was only 3 years younger). The movie disappeared after the assassination of JFK only to be re-released in theaters in 1988, when Lansbury was in her fourth season of Murder, She Wrote. Modern critics were agog. Words are puny to describe Angela Lansburys acting, wrote Peter Travers. Lansbury creates a modern-day Lady Macbeth with the skill of a sorceress. It is an astonishing, engulfing performance. Tired of being treated by studios the way kung-fu Elvis dealt with bricks, Lansbury decamped to Broadway to try her hand at musical theater. I always fancied I had a sexy singing voice, but nobody would let me use it, she said, making her singing debut with the 1964 Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle. The show flopped, but it led to her being cast in the title role in Mame, the massive hit that kicked off her second career as one of the brightest lights ever to hit the Broadway stage. Almost overnight, she went from being a Hollywood never-was to the toast of New York. Hell, I want all the glamour there is, she told Life. Ive been starving for it for years. Added Lansbury, It was like everything youve ever read aboutthe front table at Sardis, like living on another planet. Everyone loves you; everyone loves the success and enjoys it as much as you do. Lansbury would get her second chance with Sondheim in 1979 when she created Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a part she considered among the greatest she ever got to play. Of course, when it came time for the movie versions, her Mame role went to Lucile Ball, and Mrs. Lovett was played on screen by Helena Bonham Carter. Personal tragedy struck amidst her Broadway glory when her familys Malibu home burned down during a period when both of her kids were fighting drug addiction. (According to Lansbury, her daughter had fallen in with the Manson crowd.) She and Shaw moved to Cork, Ireland, to regroup and get their kids clean. She kept a home there ever since. Im very, very comfortable there, she told the Irish Post. I find it an extraordinarily warm and informal place to live. Im left alone there. Her third but far from final act came when she landed Murder, She Wrote, the part that made her internationally recognized and a meme well before such things actually existed. (I killed them, I killed them all!). She was nominated for an Emmy for each of the show's 11 seasons, but she never won. Nobody in Los Angeles ever watched Murder, She Wrote, she told me in 2012, by way of explaining the decade-plus snub. It was a show for everyone else. Still, it wasnt as though she lacked recognition. In 2012, the film industry attempted to right a half-century of wrongs by giving her an Honorary Academy Award. A year later, she was reclaimed by her birthplace when Queen Elizabeth named her Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. But for Lansbury, none of those accolades compared to what she experienced every time she got on stage and connected with an audience. Im like a racehorse getting out of the gate, she told the BBC in 2014. Im like, Get me out there! Added Lansbury, Food and drink for an actor is laughter and acceptance. Those given moments when you know something's working and they are with youthat is what you work to achieve in a role. We live for that, and if we dont get it, we are really very worried indeed. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. When University of Florida officials announced last week that U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska was the sole finalist to be the schools next president, it naturally triggered efforts to examine his past. A Harvard-trained historian, Sasse spent five years as president of Midland University a small, private Lutheran school in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska where he gained a reputation as a relentless reformer. An outspoken critic of Donald Trump, Sasse was one of the few Republicans to vote in favor of Trumps impeachment in 2018. But these facts leave little fodder for prognostication when it comes to the dangers of murder hornets or the burgeoning field of rodent psychology. In 2020, the second-term senator expounded on these and other topics in a virtual commencement address to graduating students at his alma mater, Fremont High School. The meandering and energetic speech lasting seven minutes offered little context or clarity on these points, but may offer a glimpse into the mind of UFs future leader. Asked about the speech during his Monday visit to the Gainesville campus, Sasse acknowledged that parts of it fell flat. Here are some highlights: On modern psychology: There are a whole bunch of people who make a whole bunch of money by just trying to help other people forget high school, Sasse said. Theyre called psychologists. Those that arent in the business of self-induced amnesia, he added, just research hamsters who got lost in mazes, which come to think of it, is a lot like high school. Those hamsters also need their own psychologist now. On nominative determinism: If an insect grows up being called a murder hornet, you cant be surprised when they actually start ripping the heads off of honeybees, Sasse said. We all sort of do grow into our names. Thats why everyone named Jeremy is the worst, he added. Sorry, Jeremy. Its not my fault. Blame your mom and dad. On Carole Baskin: The Tiger King lady definitely killed her husband. Story continues On the importance of upper body strength: Once or twice a week in real-world life, someones going to ask you to climb a giant rope, Sasse told the graduates. Every now and then the rope might be a metaphor for a real-life challenge that theyll face as adults, he explained. But honestly, most of the time, its just a big rope and you have to climb it. Gym teachers, those of you who chose to do it as a calling, and those of you whove been forced into it as a calling, I salute you. On silver linings: Youre going to remember your high school graduation. Sasse told the Fremont graduates. Youre graduating in your living room and youre having a Senator come and talk to you about some dude named Joe Exotic. Ian Hodgson is a higher education reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, in partnership with Open Campus. Sign up for the Gradebook newsletter! Every Thursday, get the latest updates on whats happening in Tampa Bay area schools from Times education reporter Jeffrey S. Solochek. Click here to sign up. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 11, 2022) - Red Light Holland Corp. (CSE: TRIP) (FSE: 4YX) (OTC Pink: TRUFF) ("Red Light Holland" or the "Company"), an Ontario-based corporation engaged in the production, growth and sale of functional mushrooms, including mushroom home grow kits in North America and Europe, and a premium brand of magic truffles to the legal, recreational market within The Netherlands, is pleased to announce that Red Light Holland Advisory Board member, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah will participate at Bloomberg CityLab 2022, being held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 9-11, 2022. Bloomberg CityLab is the preeminent global cities summit organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Aspen Institute. The summit brings together city leaders, notable innovators, business leaders, and urban planners from around the world to uncover and share some of the boldest thinking and most actionable solutions to problems facing urban centers. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah will join an international panel of experts to discuss promising approaches to drug legalization on October 11, 2022. "Akwasi is recognized as a global thought leader in the area of drug policy, and it is always nice to see him speaking on the international stage, but also in the backyard of our recreational business, in The Netherlands," said Todd Shapiro, CEO and director of Red Light Holland. "We've built an incredibly strong team of business leaders and experts to wisely advise and help grow Red Light Holland, while also aiming to spread the message on affordable and equitable access and the responsible use of naturally-occurring psilocybin. Personally, I'm grateful for Akwasi's support and voice, representing Red Light, on such an important stage," added Shapiro. "It's an honor to be invited by Bloomberg CityLab 2022 to speak about drug policy around the world. I look forward to representing Red Light Holland, proudly, with some of the world's brightest minds, innovators and empathetic leaders," said Akwasi, Owusu-Bempah, Red Light Holland Advisor. Story continues For more information: https://citylab.bloomberg.org Akwasi Owusu-Bempah Bio: https://redlight.co/team/#advisory-board About Red Light Holland: The Company is an Ontario-based corporation that specializes in the mushroom industry, and specifically home grow kits for functional natural mushrooms, while being engaged in the production, growth and sale (through existing Smart Shops operators and an advanced e-commerce platform) of premium brands of magic truffles to the legal, recreational market within the Netherlands, in accordance with the highest standards, in compliance with all applicable laws. For additional information: Todd Shapiro Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Director Tel: 647-643-TRIP (8747) Email: todd@redlight.co Website: www.RedLight.co Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not clearly historical in nature may constitute forward-looking statements. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "will continue", "will occur" or "will be achieved". The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to, statements regarding: the Company's advisor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah speaking on behalf of the Company and the timelines for disclosed herein; the Company's advisor potentially not attending Bloomberg CityLab 2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, the plans and goals of the Company; future product offerings of the Company; the timelines and markets associated with launching products; the future educational, marketing and advertising campaigns of the Company; and future changes in legislation and the regulations surrounding, among other things, the ability to sell the Company's products in new markets. Forward-looking information in this news release are based on certain assumptions and expected future events, namely: the Company completing the acquisitions upon the terms and timelines disclosed herein; the Company gaining and utilizing synergies from the acquisitions; the Company meeting its future business plan targets; continued approval of the Company's activities by the relevant governmental and/or regulatory authorities; the continued growth of the Company; the Company meeting their anticipated timeline and process for growth, sales, production and commercialization; the Company's products being safe and providing their anticipated benefits; the Company's advisor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah speaking on behalf of the Company and the timelines for disclosed herein; the Company's advisor potentially not attending Bloomberg CityLab 2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, the Company fulfilling its future plans and goals; future product offerings of the Company succeeding; the Company, launching future educational, marketing and advertising campaigns; the Company's revenues will continue to grow; additional jurisdictions permitting sales of the brand's products in the future; future changes in legislation and the regulations not impacting the Company's ability to fulfill its plans and growth goals, including the ability to sell the Company's products in new markets; the plans and goals of the Company; future product offerings of the Company; the timelines and markets associated with launching products; the future educational, marketing and advertising campaigns of the Company; and future changes in legislation and the regulations surrounding, among other things, the ability to sell the Company's products in new markets. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, including but not limited to: the Company's advisor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah speaking on behalf of the Company at Bloomberg CityLab 2022 and the timelines for disclosed herein; the Company's advisor potentially not attending Bloomberg CityLab 2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, including changes in the financial and stock markets; risks related to infectious diseases, including the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; legal and regulatory risks inherent in the industry, including the global regulatory landscape and enforcement related to the brand's products; political risks and risks relating to regulatory change; risks relating to anti-money laundering laws; compliance with extensive government regulation and the interpretation of various laws regulations and policies; public opinion and perception of the industry; risk that the Company's products will be unsafe for personal consumption and/or not provide their anticipated benefits; the Company will be unable to increase revenues; risks surrounding additional jurisdictions not permitting sales of the brand's products in the future; risk of future changes to regulations surrounding the brand's products and/or to the Company's business which may hinder the ability of the Company to attain its goals and/or pursue its plans and/or sell its products in additional markets; and such other risks contained in the public filings of the Company filed with Canadian securities regulators and available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive. Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions, or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement and reflect the Company's expectations as of the date hereof and are subject to change thereafter. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, estimates or opinions, future events, or results or otherwise or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking information, except as required by applicable law. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/140099 Robbie Williams (PA) (PA Archive) Robbie Williams was left a little distracted as he kicked off his UK tour on Monday night when a female fan flashed him. The former Take That star, 48, halted his gig at Londons O2 Arena and informed the crowd of one fans rowdy antics near the stage. As reported by The Sun, the happily married father-of-four shared: There is a lady here getting her breasts out for me down here. Incredible. Total scenes. Although initially a little stunned, Williams was able to laugh it off and joked: But for me, it is like being a diabetic in a cake shop. Theres nothing I can do about it, is there? Williams new UK tour comes just weeks after he claimed his 14th chart-topping album with XXV, which features orchestral versions of the hitmakers biggest tracks and celebrates his 25 years in the music industry. Robbie Williams was left distracted whilst performing on Monday when a fan flashed him (PA) The feat means that he has now taken over Elvis Presleys previous record of 13 number one albums and has become the solo artist with the most albums to climb to the top of the UK charts ever. Recently, Williams teased that his upcoming Netflix documentary will be full of sex, drugs and mental illness. The Let Me Entertain You hitmaker explained that while he has editorial control over the finished product, there will no limits to the topics discussed when it starts filming later this year. Speaking on New Zealands Newstalk ZBs The Mike Hosking Breakfast show, he shared: Itll be full of sex and drugs and mental illness. They havent started. Im sure it will be warts-and-all, and Im sure it will be me giving away too much information about my life and times. Im looking forward to getting it started and finding out what it is myself, he continued. Williams kicked off his UK tour on Monday at Londons 02 Arena (PA) No rules. Im more likely than most people to leave everything in, I very rarely, if ever, have said, Thats too much, take it off. I normally think that its not enough. The documentary series charting the highs and lows of Williams career was first announced during the Edinburgh TV Festival in August. Directed by Joe Pearlman, who was behind the Bros documentary After The Screaming Stops, the rockumentary will feature 25 years worth of never-before-seen archive and intimate footage of Williams. Asif Kapadia, best known for his documentary films about Amy Winehouse, Ayrton Senna and Diego Maradona, will executive produce alongside Dominic Crossley-Holland. As a Carlisle photographer, its Cari Mercers job to ensure that her work tells a story. Five of her pieces on display at the East Village Art Collection in New York City last weekend did just that. Her portraiture came as part of a series of trauma-inspired work designed to highlight the effect of abuse, but the photos didnt just tell a story; they contained elements of her own story. Mercer, who is originally from Boston, previously worked as a U.S. Air Force journalist. She lives with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from her experiences as a disabled veteran and survivor of military sexual trauma and domestic violence. Mercer uses her studio in Carlisle to create a safe space for her, her clients and other trauma survivors to help bring healing through photography. She works out of Eva Seraphine Studios at 45 Army Heritage Drive to deliver a variety of portraits, head shots and legacy family portraiture among other sessions. The EVAC exhibit was on display in New York City Friday through Monday and prints of the five photos on display, as well as pre-orders for her photobook Raw Emotions, a pictoral story of trauma and healing, are available on Mercers website. She already has plans for a new photo project next year called Love Letters to Myself, which she described as as way for women to fall in love with themselves all over again. She said the project will allow them to see themselves in ways theyve always imagined, giving them the opportunity to write letters to themselves in a book Mercer plans to publish in 2024. The Sentinel spoke with Mercer to learn more about her story, her work and how the two went hand in hand to create the pieces featured in New York last weekend. Q1: When did you get into photography and how has that interest grown into the business you have today? A: I started out as a broadcast journalist in the Air Force in the mid-90s, which allowed me to transition to print/photo journalism a few years later. Even then, I loved human interest stories, capturing people in their most unique moments, but I needed more. So I transitioned to portrait work, getting a job at Sears. Unfortunately, I couldnt conform to the regimented poses they required and it soon made me realize I needed to venture out on my own. Life got in the way, but eventually, about 12 years ago, I was able to finally quit my government job and pick up a camera once again. That is when I started creating art, art that had a purpose. But art doesnt always pay for itself so I decided to get back into portraiture work. About two years ago, right after the COVID shutdown was over, I opened my own studio and decided to focus on both artistic projects and fine art portraiture for clients who wanted a more artistic and luxury portrait experience. Q2: If you could describe your photography style in one word, what would that be and why? A: I would say artistic, however most people use the word ethereal. I think I like their word better. I have never been good at taking a straight forward picture. I see things differently. Everyone and everything is a work of art to me. I grew up imagining my life was a musical and would sing and dance because I felt the situation warranted it. So when I look at life now, I see people in the same way. As if they are a lead in their own movie, a character in their own novel or a model who would fit in a concept I have spent sleepless nights creating. Q3: Where do you draw inspiration for your work? A: My inspiration comes from the people I meet and my wildly vivid imagination. I listen to people and their stories and build upon that. I am a writer as well, so every concept or portrait session is a story I need to tell. Even if I am shooting a family photo shoot, I will build a concept (even a simple one) that allows their tale to be told. Q4: How is your work therapeutic both for you and for your clients? A: For me it is a creative outlet. I used to teach poetry as a therapeutic tool to recovering addicts. I used to explain to them that art was a form of expression that allowed us to dig deeper into the recesses of our mind than simple thinking might do. As a person who is open about my experience with trauma, assault and PTSD, my art is a way to express the feelings I might not be able to ... articulate in any other way. For my clients, being able to be in an environment where they can feel safe to express themselves, be themselves and shine, can be very therapeutic. I have found that my openness has drawn people to open up themselves and we are able to start a conversation about topics that truly allow for healing, love and understanding. Q5: How did you choose each of these pieces for the exhibit, and what does it mean to you to have them on display? A: So these five pieces are part of a much larger project. About a year ago I started the I Speak For Her project. It is a photo/video documentary project about living with the long term affects of trauma. The photo project entitled Raw Emotion gave people the opportunity to express untapped emotions which are deeply attached to their trauma. None of the people in this project are models. It was hard to choose which five pieces to send, because they all are incredible people with incredible stories and I wanted to showcase them all, but unfortunately I could only submit five. In the end, I felt these five pieces would give the project the traction it needed so that when I open the entire show in my own studio/gallery, people would come and support and celebrate the group as a whole. The UK and EU have agreed to ban insurance for Russian oil cargoes, reports said. VCG/Getty Images Seaborne oil shipments from Russia to Europe have fallen 60% since the February invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions will prove difficult for the Kremlin to export oil elsewhere. The latest EU penalties restrict Russian crude from being transported on EU tankers. Russian seaborne crude oil shipments to Europe have plummeted 60% since the February invasion of Ukraine, according to data collected by Bloomberg. Crude shipments from Russia to Europe moved at an average of 630,000 barrels per day for the four week period ending October 7, according to Bloomberg. Overall crude oil shipments out of Russia were higher, though, and barrels sent to Asia increased for a fourth-straight week. As the European Union's latest swath of sanctions take hold in eight weeks' time, the European market will essentially completely vanish for the Kremlin. The forthcoming penalties, implemented in response to Moscow's war campaign on Ukraine, ban any Russian crude oil from being transported on EU tankers. Bringing crude to India, for example, will take roughly ten times as long as before due to the sanctions. The move will make it exceedingly difficult for Russia to move crude to other buyers and threatens a key source of revenue for Moscow as the Ukraine war extends into its eighth month. The European sanctions have also been further ratified to include a key provision championed by the US, which imposes a price cap on Russian crude. Under the revised sanctions, Russian crude oil can be transported on EU tankers, but only if the barrels are priced below a specific ceiling from Dec. 5 onward. In response, Russia is refusing to sell oil to nations participating in the price cap while also threatening production. The price cap, however, will likely solidify leverage for buyers like China, India and Turkey over future purchases. Read the original article on Business Insider The Razoni was the first vessel to leave Ukraine under the UN agreement. YASIN AKGUL / Contributor / Getty 150 Ukrainian grain ships are waiting to be cleared by UN inspectors, the agency told Insider. The progress of the grain ships has been closely monitored since the beginning of the Ukraine war. As one of the world's biggest wheat exporters, Ukraine has a huge impact on global food markets. The time taken to inspect Ukrainian ships carrying vital supplies of grain, fertilizer, and other foods was more than double than normal at points last month, analysts say, leading to a backlog of more than 100 ships waiting to enter or leave Ukraine. 150 ships are currently waiting to be cleared by UN inspectors, a spokesperson for the United Nation's Black Sea Grain Initiative Joint Collaboration Centre (JCC) told Insider on Monday. "There are several factors contributing to this queue, including increased interest from the industry to send more vessels to participate in the Initiative, lack of readiness for inspection by some vessels," the spokesperson said. The progress of vessels leaving Ukraine has been closely monitored since the beginning of the Ukraine war. Ukraine is known as Europe's breadbasket, accounting for around 10% and 15% of the world's wheat and corn production respectively between 2018 and 2020, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Exports virtually stopped following Russia's invasion, prompting concerns over the possible impact less Ukrainian grain being available could have on global food security. In July, the UN brokered a deal between Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey to restart shipments of grain and other supplies from blockaded Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Under the deal, vessels are provided safe passage through un-mined areas of the Black Sea and are inspected in Turkey, before heading to their final destination. The Financial Times first reported the backlog of ships waiting inspection, citing figures published by SovEcon which tracks Black Sea agricultural markets. SovEcon's data, which was shared on Twitter by the firm's director, Andrey Sizov, showed that the time taken between vessels leaving the port of Odesa to passing clearance in Turkey has increased sharply. Story continues At the beginning of August the wait was between two and six days, while by mid-September it was between 10 and 15 days on average. Amir Abdulla, United Nations Coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, told the FT that more ships were arriving than had been predicted, leaving the committee's five inspection teams stretched. "We basically need to get all parties to agree that we need to add inspectors," Abdulla told the FT. Inspections are carried out daily by joint inspection teams comprised of Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, and UN inspectors, the JCC said. As of Monday, more than 90 ships are yet to reach their final destination, according to the Black Sea Grain Initiative's tracker, although some of these left port recently. As of October 7, 285 voyages from Ukrainian ports have carried a collective 6,429,098 metric tons of grains and other foodstuffs. In August, the first ship to leave under the agreement, the Razoni, was temporarily stranded after the intended buyer of its 26,000 tons of grain rejected the shipment. Read the original article on Business Insider LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- For World Sight Day 2022, the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation, an NGO founded by Nepalese 'God of Sight' Dr Sanduk Ruit and London philanthropist Tej Kohli, has announced the results of its first projects in Bhutan and Ghana. 1,619 patients have been screened at two surgical outreach camps in Bhutan in August, where 246 people were cured of blindness over a six-day period, with Dr Sanduk Ruit performing 171 surgeries. 444 patients have been cured of blindness in Ghana at an inaugural surgical outreach camp in September, marking the NGOs first move into Africa. Patients line the corridors to await surgery at a Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation microsurgical outreach camp in Bhutan. Photo: Michael Amendolia. Needless blindness remains a public health challenge throughout the developing world that worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic when eye health services faced severe disruption and delay. Tej Kohli has committed to spending a portion of his wealth eradicating this needless blindness from low-income communities. Since launching their NGO in March 2021, Ruit and Kohli have already screened 164,616 people and cured 21,159 of cataract blindness in Nepal, Bhutan and Ghana. In November their NGO will start to cure blindness at scale in Tanzania, followed by Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation aspires to cure as many as 500,000 of cataract blindness in the developing world by 2030. In Bhutan the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is seeking to completely eliminate cataract blindness from the Kingdom in a joint project with the Ministry of Health. Bhutan has already achieved a 33% reduction in blindness since its first Rapid Assessment of Avoidable Blindness (RAAB) survey in 2009. Now a joint program of outreach and surgical interventions combined with the training of new ophthalmologic surgeons will seek to clear the backlog of 10,460 people who are currently awaiting cataract surgery. In Ghana 54.8% of all blindness is due to cataracts but the average cataract surgical rate of 523 surgeries per million of population falls well below the WHO target of 3,000 per million. The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation will cure 1,000 of blindness in the country by the end of 2022 and will ramp up its efforts throughout 2023. In Tanzania the NGO will also provide medical training to improve the rate of success of cataract surgeries in the country, which stands at 58.7% compared to a global average of 85%. Story continues Tej Kohli, co-founder of the Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation said: "World Sight Day 2022 is an opportunity to take stock of the many NGOs like ours who are contributing toward global efforts to prevent and cure the unnecessary blindness that restrains social and economic progress in the developing world. We know that the socio-economic return of curing someone of blindness in a low-income country is 1,500% of the cost of surgery in just one year. That is very good value in terms of impact. I hope the international community will soon play a bigger role in spreading this impact further." About the Tej Kohli &Ruit Foundation The Tej Kohli & Ruit Foundation is a restricted fund operating under the auspices of Prism The Gift Fund, registered UK charity number 1099682. The Foundation targets the #1 United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing poverty by making large-scale surgical interventions to cure blindness at the grassroots in the developing world. All treatments are provided completely free, with 100% of the funding coming from Tej Kohli and the Kohli family. For more information visit: Website: www.tejkohliruit.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tejkohliruit/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tej-kohli-ruit-foundation/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/tejkohliruitfoundation Medium: https://tejkohliruitfoundation.medium.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tkrfoundation Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1914078/Tej_Kohli_Ruit_Foundation_Bhutan.jpg Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/tej-kohli-and-dr-sanduk-ruit-take-their-fight-against-blindness-to-bhutan-and-ghana-301644839.html Columbus landing in the Americas in 1492 (Getty) Once upon an ocean blue in 1492, the great Italian Christopher Columbus sailed across the waters and discovered America. Its the foundation of so much of the start of liberties that we patriots are supposed to celebrate. Its whats been taught in schools for decades or at least it was when I was a kid back in the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, as lessons learned in my adulthood would show, despite the move toward an understanding that Columbus did NOT, in fact, discover America, the fabled story would still continue to misinform todays populace as a celebrated, albeit renamed and deterred holiday here in the US under the name of Indigenous Peoples Day. This storyline would, of course, in this writers opinion, be a double slap in the face. As a person with Italian American lineage (I recently even went back to my great grandfathers original homeland country of Italy this summer) combined with an Indigenous connection to family who migrated through Mexico, todays date is a bit strange to say the least. While I didnt know all of the absolute horrors that the original colonialist did to the Indigenous ancestors of yore until MUCH MUCH later, I feel a bit remiss. None of the truth about the true atrocities of what Columbus did was ever taught to me as a child. The truth, I would learn, was painful to share on the levels I did with this horrible historical and yet still revered and celebrated American hero. Instead, I had to deliberately seek it out. Surely this great Italian of the 15th century couldnt be that horrible could he? He couldnt be the horrific pillaging, raping, abusive, hateful toxic global terrorist that scholars have him in a 2016 scholarly book called Phases of Terrorism in the Age of Globalism which compares Columbus to Osama bin Laden ? But oh it was. History has unraveled us to know better now. Older me, with these mixed backgrounds and knowledge feels ripped off and lied to. I feel, sadly, that this lack of learning the truth in my upbringing is tied to another part of ongoing American history: the love of playing the part of the American design of cognitive dissonance. Story continues Some folks will continue to press forward the narrative that Columbus, and this day, should be celebrated nonetheless. This sentiment is one shared across the aisle. Happy #ColumbusDay. Christopher Columbus was a bold faithful follower of Christ who kept working toward his goal even though there were many excuses to quit. Shame on the Marxists at Google for hating Italian Americans so much they are ignoring this Federal Holiday, read one tweet by GOP Nominee for Arizona Secretary of State Mark Finchem . Italian Americans have a rich history in New Jersey. Today we honor the achievements, successes, and heritage of Italian immigrants and Italian Americans. #ColumbusDay, read another tweet by Democratic New Jersey governor Phil Murphy much to the chagrin of his constituents. Ah yes, here comes the display of yet another historical American pastime: division among the parties and within the parties themselves in the sake of blind and ignorant patriotism. As the years pass, it becomes ever more important to be mindful that American history is one that was written by and for a certain purpose. It is not one that, I have learned, has been taught the hard truths of the failings of the white men in the mass stories of commercialized American history books. It is not one that is meant to unify anything in its truth than blind false worship of undeserving often and frequently (read: most all of them) idols. Our true American history is one which would make a critical thinker and ardent student feel shame not patriotism. Its a dark, divisive truth that has made me embarrassed and angered by both sides of my genealogical spectrum. Taiwan Military Live-fire Training Amid Increasing Tensions With China CM-11 tanks fire artillery during the 2-day live-fire drill, amid intensifying threats military from China, in Pingtung county, Taiwan, 7 September 2022. Taipei has been receiving more arms sales and weapons from the US, while fostering its ties with countries like Japan, the UK, Canada and India, as Beijing vows to unify Taiwan without excluding the possibility of using force. Credit - Ceng Shou Yi-NurPhoto Why is it worthwhile for Americans to defend Taiwan? In very concrete terms, whats in it for us? At this point, there is widespread agreement among Americans that China is a major threat and that U.S. policy needs to address it. At the same time, though, most Americans are rightly opposed to the forever wars of the past two decades and skeptical of more military interventions. In brief, there is agreement that China is a major challenge, but not on how far to go in confronting it. Indeed, there is a rising strain in American politics that advocates seeking to avoid confronting Beijing in Asia while focusing on reducing our economic dependence on China through reshoring and industrial policy. But, while steps to strengthen our economy at home make abundant sense, this approach will not suffice for Americans concrete interests. We cannot let Asia go. Its worth starting with first principles. What is the rightful purpose of American foreign policy? We can wish others well, but its not about pacifying or democratizing the world, as we learned over the last twenty years. Rather, a small r republican foreign policy should focus on protecting and promoting Americans physical security, our liberties, our prosperity, and economic security. If we identify the threats to those goods, by far the most dangerous is a very great power that could attack or undermine them. Hard power, namely economic strength and the military might it can provide, is the main thing. Lesser threats by definition can be dealt with more easily. America is roughly 20% of global GDP, and economic productivity is the root of power in the modern world, so this means that only a very great state could hope to become so strong as to menace us. And the only state today that matches up to that description is China. Story continues But China on its own is not strong enough. It too is roughly 20% of global GDP. So how could China pose such a threat to our interests? By dominating Asia. Asia is now again the center of the world, upwards of 50% of global GDP going forward. If Beijing could dominate Asia, it would be in a very strong position to dominate the worldand us. Now is China actually going to pursue this goal? This could have been the topic of a good debate a decade ago. But now the answer seems fairly clearly to be yes. Beijings behavior, and at a deeper level Chinas interests, all point in the direction of Beijing pursuing a form of soft imperial controlwhat we might call hegemonyover Asia. This would likely take the form of formally independent states in Asia orienting their economic, foreign, and securityand ultimately even their domestic affairsaround Beijings preferences. Beijing would not directly control them, but it would be the center and leader of the system, and would have immense leverage to enforce its will. If China becomes dominant in such a way over Asia it will have a controlling influence over roughly half of the global economy. With this power, it will undoubtedly ensure that it is the center, the prime beneficiary, and effectively the director of the global economy. And why not? In this context, Beijing could ensure that China is the richest, most economically secure, and most influential country in the world. In such a scenario, global trade and commercial flows will gravitate toward and around China. China will have a scale and power to ensure that its companies are the world leaders, that its universities are the best, that its standards are met, and that its rules are followed. It will be the gatekeeper to the worlds largest market area, with unmatched scalewhich is of course key to economic development. To those who play ball with such a China, falling into line in its value chain, following its rules, and toeing its diplomatic line, there will be rewards. But for those who resist, there will be penalties: exclusion from access, tariffs, and sanctions. Think of the economic power America can now wield against Russia in Beijings hands, and at even greater scale. In this world, American autarky just will not work. First of all, America will be at best roughly 20% of global GDP, a far smaller base for competition, making it likely our economy would be outclassed and left behind by Chinas much larger area over time. Read More: The Worlds Future Is in the Hands of Chinas Xi Jinping Even more, though, China will very likely seek to diminish the U.S. This is just basic power politics: America is the only country that can possibly stand up to China. So, to secure its ascendancy, China will seek to weaken and by extension impoverish us. And Beijing will have many instruments to use against the U.S. Meantime, we will be unable to count on our allies. The Asian ones will have fallen under Beijings dominance. Fractious and economically anemic Europe will likely cut a deal. In this world, Americans might be physically secure, given our two oceans and our nuclear arsenal, but we would be much less prosperous and economically secure, and thus also much less free. Most Americans would effectively be working for Chinese companies or their subsidiaries in one way or another, answer to Chinese regulators, and read and consume information curated in Beijing. Wed all be compelled to dance to Beijings tune. To make it concrete: Many if not most Americans agree that there are huge problems with our social media companies and the way they are regulated today. But we are all assuming that Americans have the power to remedy the problem. But if Beijing is dominant over the world economy, that will not be the case. The social media companies will ultimately be answerable to Beijing, and the situation will be even worse. The fact is, though, that we do not need to speculate. Beijing is already showing us what this world will look like. Observe the way China wields economic sanctions not only against their neighbors but even far off Canada and Lithuania. And as for the nature of their rule, observe Hong Kong, and bear in mind that China is a famously nationalist country and that is how it treats its own people. We have little reason to expect we would get better treatment. These are the stakes, then. The reader might notice perhaps that neither Taiwan nor Chinas military has yet come up. That is not an accident. The stakes here are economic and political: about who has power in the future world economy. And, as has again become increasingly clear in recent years, political power especially geopolitical power matters a very great deal for economics. Free and fair markets do not just spontaneously emerge. They are created, sustained, and shaped by politics, and thus by power. But the means that China will need to use to achieve its ascendancy over Asia are military. And Taiwan occupies a central position along Beijings path to this goal. Chinese sand dredgers are seen from a local beach on September 24, 2022 in Kinmen, Taiwan. Kinmen, an island in the Taiwan strait that is part of Taiwan's territory, is so close to China that the deep-water port of Xiamen, one of China's biggest, lies less than three miles away across the water. It is one of the few areas of Taiwan that mainland Chinese tourists can visit without visas or permits, and has deep ties with the adjacent Fujian province of China. Annabelle Chih-Getty Images This is because countries are unlikely to accept Chinese hegemony just due to economic sanctions and suasion. Witness the difficulties Beijing is facing with its Belt and Road Initiative, and how even Australia, dependent on Chinas imports for its economy, has stood up to Chinas daunting economic pressure over the last year. Beijing appears to agree with this assessment, as it is embarking on an historic military buildup of both its conventional and nuclear forces. This is clearly a military buildup designed not only to resolve the Taiwan issue but to project power throughout the region and ultimately the globe. Meantime they are actively preparing for a conflict with us. In this context, Americas goal should be to prevent China from dominating Asia without a war. That is the optimal aim: a decent peace without war. But the only prudent way to achieve that goal is to be prepared to fight in a way that shows Beijing it just will not gain if it starts a conflict. This is a cliche: if you want peace prepare for war. But the reason it is so cliched is that it is deeply rooted common sense. The key to achieving this goalof blocking China from dominating Asiais a coalition. The need for this coalition is not rooted in anything about sacred alliances or the rules-based international order. It is practical reality necessary to achieve this aim. The U.S. needs a coalition because it is neither realistic nor fair for Americans to take on the enormous task of blunting Beijings ambitions alone. Fortunately, there are many countries in Asia that have the will and the way to help stand up to China, like India, Japan, Australia, and Taiwan itself. The key, though, is to make sure this coalition worksthat it stands up and holds together in the face of Chinese pressure and, if necessary, aggression. But we cannot take that for granted. Countries in Asia are quite reasonably wondering whether it is prudent to stand up to China. Most do not want to live under Beijings thumb, but if the alternative is disaster and exclusion from all the goods Beijing has to offer, they are much more likely to cut a deal. Thus the key to making this coalition work is the conviction that it is prudentthat the coalition, by necessity led by a strong and purposeful America, is powerful and resolute enough to hold together and stand strong in the face of Chinese pressure or aggression. Its in this hard-nosed context that Taiwan takes on such importance. We might admire its democracy and entrepreneurial spirit, but those are not enough to justify Americans going to war. Instead, Taiwan is important to Americans for two reasons: because it is militarily critical and because it is a bellwether. Read More: The Chips That Make Taiwan the Center of the World First, Taiwan is vital to the defense of Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. If China occupied Taiwan, it would pose a much greater threat to these countries and be able to project power deep into the Pacific, a very real possibility as we can see from Chinas activities in Solomon Islands and its construction of an enormous oceangoing navy, including aircraft carriers. Second, Taiwan is the canary in the coal mine. Credibility arguments always deserve to be met with skepticism. But it is only rational for Taiwans neighbors to look at how we treat Taiwan as an indicator of how we would treat them. Whether we like it or not, Taiwans fate will play a major role in whether countries think America is reliable as the cornerstone of the coalition. Indeed, as a result, if Taiwan fell we would probably have to do far more aggressive things to prove we were reliable at all. This all adds up to a very significant American interest in Taiwan. But it is not existential. Taiwan is not American territory. This is where a denial defense comes in. Americans cannot rationally rely on a strategy of total war or prosperity-crashing economic warfare to defend what is, for us, a significant but not existential interest. Rather, Americans need a strategy that is keyed to the importance of the interest. This is what a denial defense does: it focuses on defeating a Chinese invasion of an ally, ensuring Beijing cannot seize and hold their key territory. If that can be done, as Ukraine has commendably shown, then the aggressor basically cannot bring it to heel. And if we can do that for Taiwan, essentially by definition we can do that for our other allies in Asia like Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. And if we can do this, the coalition should stand strong and succeed in its ultimate goal: denying Chinas hegemonic aims in Asia. This is actually a relatively low strategic standardjust denial of the invasion, not conquest, dismembering China, or changing its regime. But it is very demanding in practice because of how strong China is, how near it is to Taiwan and our other allies, and how focused it iswhile we are distracted. But the good news is that it is feasible: If we actually focus more on walking the walk than talking the talk. Taiwan, is after all an island a hundred miles off the coast of China. And Americas military strong suits are in the areas of aerospace, maritime, and high technologyexactly the kinds of things we need we would need to defeat a cross-Strait invasion. These are also areas of strength for Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. The bewilderingand indeed infuriatingthing is that we are not doing what is needed to build an effective denial defense. The best way to avoid war on decent terms is to show China that we have the ability to defeat their invasion in a manner that is not crazy for us to implement. Yet that is not what our government is doing. Defending far-off Taiwan and our allies seems to many like yet another foolish military misadventure for our country. But it is not. This strategy is rooted in a practical, hard-nosed assessment of what is in Americans concrete economic and political interests. It is not about ending evil in the world or making it safe for Wilsonianism. It is about defending Americans security, liberties, and prosperity from a very realand, in terms of Chinas gigantic scale, unprecedenteddanger. For that reason, Americans should support it. A Yakima police officer and car outside the main entrance to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital Monday, Oct. 10, 2022. Six nurses and a police officer were sickened after a patient was found smoking what was believed to be fentanyl in a third-floor hospital room, according to police. If you are sending a Letter To the Editor, please be sure to follow these rules: Letters have a firm 200-word limit and will be edited for grammar, clarity and accuracy. The person who signs the letter must be the author. Anonymous letters will not be considered. Letters must address the editor, not a third party. We will not print form letters, libelous letters, business promotions or personal disputes, poetry, open letters, letters espousing religious views without reference to a current issue, or letters considered in poor taste. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters. Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month. Three years of advocacy will earn supporters of the Sheepford Road Bridge the People Saving Places Award from Preservation Pennsylvania during a ceremony scheduled for Nov. 14. Members of the West Shore Historical Society and Friends of Sheepford Road Bridge will be recognized for their efforts in saving the bridge, which connects Cumberland and York counties over the Yellow Breeches Creek. Their time and energy paid off when Cumberland and York counties applied to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for funding to restore the bridge. That funding was awarded in April. A nonprofit, all-volunteer educational and historical organization, West Shore Historical Society describes itself as being dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the heritage, landmarks and artifacts of Lower Allen, Hampden, Fairview and Silver Spring townships and Lemoyne and Wormleysburg boroughs. In March 2021, the Friends group merged with the society to act as a committee of the group. This is a tremendous affirmation of the incredible hard work done by so many people to save the historic Sheepford Road Bridge, said Don Paul Shearer, society president. Its exciting to know that the bridge will be restored and preserved and we appreciate Preservation Pennsylvanias support of those efforts. Along the way, we received strong support from many organizations, government officials and agencies, said Janice Lynx, who is society executive director and founder of the Friends group. Its rewarding to have our work recognized on the statewide level when there were so many other worthy projects that were considered for this award. West Shore Historical Society has agreed to be the new owner of the bridge once the rehabilitation project is complete. In a news release issued last week, the society and the Friends group thanked those who helped to form the coalition in support of the bridge. They mentioned Cumberland and York county commissioners, state Sen. Mike Regan (R-31), state Rep. Dawn Keefer (R-92), state Rep. Sheryl Delozier (R-88), U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, the Cumberland Area Economic Development Corp. and the Cumberland County Historical Society. The 2022 Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards ceremony will take place in West Chester. 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. MUIR Authorities say at least five people were reported injured in an explosion at a quarry in eastern Pennsylvania. Emergency officials in Schuylkill County said the 11:45 a.m. Monday blast reportedly occurred on a dynamite truck at the Summit Quarry in Porter Township. One person was flown from the scene to a hospital and four others were taken by road for medical treatment; there was no immediate word on their injuries or conditions. State police and a fire marshal are investigating the blast. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, addressing a forum on Hungarian-German economic ties in Berlin, said Hungarys economy held no surprises and the government had its medium and long-term plans mapped out for each sector. The Hungarian government has agreements in place with several German companies on cooperation in areas like telecommunications, digitalisation and the green transition, Orban said. He said the foundations of Hungarian-German economic cooperation were not economic but cultural in nature. He said there was a positive prejudice towards Germany in Hungary, partly for historical reasons and partly because of Germanys cultural performance. The fundamentals of bilateral cooperation cannot be torn down by any kind of political campaign or economic disagreement, Orban said. He noted that there are 6,000 German companies doing business in Hungary employing some 300,000 people. Hungary has the worlds fifth most high-tech economy and ranks higher in terms of exports than the size of its population would suggest. Hungary is also among the worlds ten most open economies in terms of exports relative to GDP and is one of the ten most complex economies, he said. Orban said the biggest challenge today was the threat of recession in Europe partly because of rising energy prices. The main question, he said, was whether Hungary could weather the downturn on its own if the continent were to slip into a recession. Orban said that to this end, Hungary needed to focus on developments, investments and innovation. It was because of this effort, he said, that the Hungarian economy is growing by 5-6% this year after expanding by 7% in 2021. He said the Hungarian government envisaged a labour-based society at the centre of which is the family. Hungary spends the most relative to GDP on supporting families, he said, adding that the government financed families through work. Whereas in 2010 the employment rate in Hungary barely reached 50%, it is now around 75%, Orban added. The government also builds on national pride and wants it to be based increasingly on performance, he said. Theres no multiculturalism in Hungary, Orban said. He said a low tax rate was a key element of the economic foundation of the Hungarian model. Hungary is the only country in the world with a flat personal income tax rate, there is no inheritance tax and the corporate tax rate is 9%, he said. Orban said that when it came to equality, it was education and jobs where people needed to be given equal chances. But when it comes to the output, or performance, we tend to favour differences, he added. YORK A man who set himself and a bathroom on fire, inside a traveling bus on Interstate 80 in York County, has been sentenced to traditional probation. He earlier pleaded guilty to arson, drug possession and criminal mischief resulting in more than $5,000 in damages. Aaron Ray, 34, of Brunswick, Georgia, appeared this past week in York County District Court. This case began in late February when a deputy with the York County Sheriffs Department received a call for service on the interstate, at mile marker 358 (two miles west of the Waco exit) regarding a fire on a transport bus. According to court documents, when the deputy arrived, all the passengers on the bus had already been evacuated and were standing in the ditch. The driver immediately pointed to Ray as the person that started the fire in the bus. As I approached Mr. Ray, the passengers of the bus all started screaming that he was trying to kill everyone on the bus, the deputy says in the affidavit he filed with the court. Given these reasons, I placed Mr. Ray in handcuffs and told him he was being detained until the investigation could be completed. I noticed Mr. Ray had minor burns on his arms from the fire. The deputy called for an ambulance so Mr. Ray could be examined. Mr. Ray kept stating he did in fact start the fire but believed that people were trying to hurt him, so he was trying to defend himself, the deputys report says. Another deputy arrived on scene and during a search of Rays person, deputies found five used syringes, two plastic bags containing methamphetamine and a lighter. Meanwhile, a passenger on the bus had used a fire extinguisher to put out the fire in the bathroom on the bus. The bathroom was filled with smoke and still smoldering. A few passengers told the deputies Ray had been in the bathroom of the bus for almost 30 minutes when they observed smoke coming from the bathroom. They said he came out of the bathroom on fire and the bathroom was engulfed in flames. The affidavit also says Ray told deputies he was paranoid from the drugs he had taken earlier and he said he started his clothes and some tissues on fire, in the bathroom. He also said he was injecting the meth into his body with syringes. Ray was transported to York General Hospital for medical clearance before he was taken to the York County Jail. Initially, he pleaded not guilty to three counts of terroristic threats, all Class 3A felonies; possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony; third degree arson with a value of more than $1,500, a Class 4 felony; and criminal mischief with a value of more than $5,000, a Class 4 felony. Later he pleaded guilty to possession, arson and criminal mischief. In return, the three counts of terroristic threats were dismissed. His cumulative sentence is three years of supervision under probation. YORK Thanks to the Ten Free Trees program, an effort of the Nebraska Forest Service and the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum, the City of York Parks and Recreation Department has been awarded two grants for 10 trees for the East Hill Park and Beaver Creek Trail projects. Trees were planted along the city auditorium, Miller Park, East Hill Park, Minks Park and on the west side of the Beaver Creek Trail. York Parks and Recreation director Cheree Folts said this is their fourth year of getting trees through the Nebraska Statewide Arboretums Trees program. The diverse tree assortment was chosen by the Nebraska State Arboretums Trees for Nebraska Town Initiative. This project provides the City of York a way to continue to be proactive in the fight again the Emerald Ash Borer. The City of York has over 550 ash trees in the public right-of-way and within city parks. Despite providing a wide range of social, economic and environmental benefits, most Nebraska community forests have been in steady and sometimes dramatic decline. Many challenges contribute, including extreme weather, insects, disease and lack of diversity. The Emerald Ash borer is the latest major challenge added to the list. In an effort to stop this decline and increase community forest resilience, the Free Trees program grants up to 10 high quality trees for tree-related educational events and community celebrations promoting trees and fall planting. In addition to simply planting more trees, the program goals include increasing appreciation and awareness of the value of community forests in Nebraska. Special emphasis is placed on species diversity and higher impact projects, especially street tree planting and projects in neighborhoods of highest need. Ten Free Trees is supported by the Nebraska Statewide Arboretums Trees for Nebraska Towns Initiative funded by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, and a U.S. Forest Service Landscape Scale Restoration grant received by the Nebraska Forest Service. The Kalyani M4 armoured troop carrier, developed by Bharat Forge is the newest deployment in the Indian Army. Bharat Forge Limited has dispatched a total of 16 units of the made-In-India Kalyani M4 vehicles to the Indian Army for United Nations Peacekeeping missions. The Kalyani M4 is a Quick Reaction Fighting Vehicle (Heavy), indigenously developed and manufactured by Bharat Forge Ltd. It offers unprecedented levels of security and protection to the occupants in case of high Kinetic Energy threats, like severe mine blasts and grenade attacks. Moreover, it can carry an Infantry Platoon in full combat gear. The Kalyani M4 successfully completed a series of extreme vehicle trials in some of the toughest environments in India. The trials were conducted in the freezing terrains of Leh and Ladakh, and the unforgiving deserts of Rann of Kutch. Speaking on the occasion, Baba N. Kalyani, Chairman, and Managing Director, Bharat Forge Ltd. said, We are proud to be delivering the Made in India Kalyani M4 for UN Peacekeeping missions. This encourages us to work for the benefit of our armed forces and it reinforces our commitment to harness our Prime Ministers vision for Atmanirbharat and self-reliance in the defence sector. Also read - Ola Electric to roll out new MoveOS3 this Diwali; Affordable scooter on cards too The Kalyani M4 can enhance the required combat power in minimum time in all types of terrain with the help of a combat radius of approximately 800 kms. It is equipped with modern military-grade power terrain will all-time situational awareness. The Kalyani M4 today is the best mobility platform available in the world and variants such as the ambulance and command post vehicles have been delivered to the Indian Army in the past. Recently, Army's northern command inducted the Kalyani M4 to its fleet of armoured vehicles under an emergency procurement amid the China-India border standoff. The vehicle can withstand three 10 kg TNT charges under the wheels and one 50 kg IED blast at one side. To expant its flight fleet for A320 planes, Tata-SIA owned Vistara is looking to rope in pilots on deputation from budget airline AirAsia India to ensure adequate crew for its expanding fleet. Both airlines are part of the Tata group and the latest move indicates efforts to have more synergy as well as optimal use of manpower among group carriers. Tata Group also owns Air India and Air India Express. AirAsia India operates a fleet of A320 planes. Vistara -- a joint venture between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines -- has a fleet of 53 aircraft. These include 41 A320s and five A321s. The airline is planning to increase the fleet to 70 planes by December 2023. "Vistara has sought some pilots from AirAsia India on deputation in view of the induction of new aircraft, a proposal which the budget carrier has consented to," one of the sources said on condition of anonymity. However, both Vistara and AirAsia India declined to comment on the matter. According to the sources, Vistara has been expanding its Airbus fleet but does not have an adequate number of pilots to operate them. "The airline was banking on the huge pool of pilots that was created due to the pandemic but the dynamics have completely changed now with a number of both serving and non-serving pilots taking the flight to the Gulf airlines, which offer fatter pay packages besides other benefits," one of the sources said. Also read: Mumbais CSMIA switches to green sources, becomes one of Indias 100 percent sustainable airports The source also said Vistara had looked at hiring some pilots from a Mumbai-based low-cost airline but the plan did not work out due to notice period issues. Another source, on condition of anonymity, said even though AirAsia India has 27 planes in its fleet with around 400 pilots to operate them, the airline has not been operating more than 18-20 aircraft. "With this much fleet in operations, an airline would not require more than 240-250 pilots. Since AirAsia India does not have plans to induct any new aircraft in the short term, more so amid the talks of its possible merger with Air India Express, it leaves around 150-160 pilots as surplus," the source said. Further, the source said after receiving the Vistara proposal, AirAsia management left it to the decision of the pilots and then take a call on how many of them should be sent on deputation. Meanwhile, Tata group has started an exercise to evaluate options to consolidate AirAsia India and Vistara under Air India to bring operational synergies among the three airlines under its umbrella. Air India has set up a team under its Director of Operations R S Sandhu in this regard, sources had said earlier. (With inputs from PTI) International Day of the Girl Child 2022: The International Day of the Girl is being observed on October 11 to draw awareness to the gender inequality that girls confront all around the world. This day also aims to educate girls about their rights, which will enable them to realise their full potential and transform the world around them. This year, the theme chosen by UNICEF for the International Day of Girl Child is 'Our Time Is Now Our Rights, Our Future.' "Girls are ready for a decade of acceleration forward. It is time for us all to stand accountable with and for girls and to invest in a future that believes in their agency, leadership and potential," UNICEF noted on its website. But around the world, the lives of girls and women are fraught with challenges. Let's check out the problems women and girls are facing across the world. Iranian unrest Girls in Iran were seen waving their headscarves in the air and chanting slogans against the authorities amidst the ongoing wider unrest sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old young woman as a result of the beating she took. Amini was arrested by the Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police of Iran's government for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards. There are protests in Iran by schoolgirls in the cities of Tehran, and Karaj among other regions. Many girls are now taking off their headscarves and standing up for their future i.e. making their own choices in life. The unrest in Iran shows the bigger picture of how even women's struggle is not their own and that of young girls, especially after the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comment on the unrest and accusing the west and Israel of orchestrating "riots". These schoolgirls protesting might not understand the politics behind this movement but they do understand that they do not have the freedom to live their lives the way they want. War in Ukraine The war that broke between Russia and Ukraine is now in its sixth month and with everyone affected, the war in Ukraine is a crisis for women and girls says the UN. Women and girls are impacted differently and disproportionately. A risk of insecurity and gender-based violence is imminent. Psychological support for items like sanitary napkins that only girls need is not available to them, which adds to the existing troubles. The Indian picture Young girls and women in India frequently face moral policing - be it about the clothes they wear, friends they make and when and with whom they go out. While a former chief minister once commented on women wearing tattered jeans, another had asked why the girl, who was raped, was out at that late an hour. Recently, a young girl was schooled by an IAS officer in Bihar when she asked for free sanitary pads. Ways you can get involved It is easy to discuss these matters within the secure walls of your homes but you can do more by following these measures given by UNICEF on this International Day of the Girl Child. 1. On social media, share details about remarkable organizations that are empowering girls, enabling them to lead, and enhancing services for girls, as well as human interest stories, blogs, and videos of female changemakers. 2. Encourage decision-makers at all levels of government to focus their efforts on addressing the inequities that girls face, particularly when attempting to access mental health and psychosocial support services in the face of conflict, forced migration, natural disasters, and the effects of climate change. 3. Engage influential women in all fields to represent the transformation we want to see in girls. The words of role models are quite powerful. Let's alter the popular opinion and view of female leaders worldwide. 4. Strengthen your dedication to educating people about and addressing issues that affect girls in your nation and region. Also Read: International Day of the Girl Child 2022: History, theme, significance and wishes The real question remains, for young girls will there be a gloomy future or a bright one? We don't know for sure but we do know that girls cannot grow up in this present world with no actual rights. Our young girls will fight for their freedom, and they will eventually win. Change is coming. Now is their time, their rights, and their future. New Delhi: The Delhi Police will on Tuesday question former AAP minister Rajendra Pal Gautam over his presence at a religious conversion event where Hindu deities were allegedly denounced. Gautam has been issued a notice to appear for questioning along with some others, a senior Delhi police official said. The former minister will be questioned about his presence in the event and details will be sought from him regarding what actually happened there, he said. Gautam resigned from his post on Sunday amid a controversy over his presence at the religious conversion event. The BJP had used the issue to attack AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal during the election campaigning in Gujarat and accused him of being "anti-Hindu". In a letter shared on Twitter, Gautam said he attended the event in his personal capacity and it had nothing to do with his party or the ministry. He lashed out at the BJP for targeting Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), alleging the saffron party was doing "dirty politics" on the issue. Gautam, who was the Minister for Social Welfare, SC and ST, Registrar of Co-operative Societies and Gurudwara Elections, said he is resigning as minister as he does not want his leader or AAP to be in trouble because of him. New Delhi: Food regulator FSSAI has made it mandatory for foreign food manufacturing facilities to register with it for exporting products such as meat, milk and infant foods to India. This will be effective from February 1, 2023. (Also read: Apple to declare iPhone 5c 'obsolete' by next month) In an order issued on Monday, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said that it has been decided that registrations of foreign food manufacturing facilities, falling under five food categories, who are intended to export these products shall be mandatory. (Also read: PM Kisan 12th installment: Rs 2,000 to be credited in farmers account before Diwali? Here is all we know) These categories are milk and milk products; meat and meat products, including poultry, fish and their products; egg powder; infant food; and nutraceuticals. The FSSAI has requested all competent authorities of exporting countries to provide the list of existing manufacturers and those who are intended to export these food products to India. Based on information provided by them, the FSSAI will register these facilities on its portal. Petrol prices in India have increased by over 30-40 per cent in the last few years. While the prices used to be around Rs 70 per litre a few years ago, it now keeps hovering around Rs 100. The current petrol price in the national capital Delhi stands around Rs 96 per litre while that in Mumbai stands around Rs 106 per litre. At a time when crude oil prices are at a high and the Indian rupee is constantly falling against the US dollar, there are concerns over the stability of fuel prices. International factors often impact the fuel prices in Asian countries and in this article, we would be taking a look at petrol prices in Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the island nation facing the worst economic crisis in decades. Petrol price in Pakistan today: As on October 11, the petrol prices in Pakistan stood at Pakistani Rs 224.80 per litre after prices were slashed by Rs 12.63 on October 1. However, if you convert it to the Indian rupee, the price comes to around INR 85.5 per litre. Also Read: 7th Pay Commission: Jharkhand government employees DA hiked to 38% with effect from July 1 this year Petrol price in Bangladesh today: In Bangladesh, petrol prices cost around BDT 130 per litre. When converted to the Indian rupee, the price comes to around Rs 106 per litre, which is equal to prices in Mumbai. Petrol price in Sri Lanka today: In Sri Lanka, fuel prices have rocketed after the country slipped into an economic crisis. At present, a litre of petrol costs around LKR (Sri Lankan rupees) 450 after the price was slashed by LKR 40 per litre on October 1. When compared to the Indian rupee, the prices come around to Rs 101 per litre, roughly similar to petrol prices in Bengaluru. International Girl Child Day 2022: Invest Rs 411 per day in Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and get nearly Rs 66 lakh upon maturity for your girl child, check payment calculation here Petrol price in China today: According to reports, petrol costs CNY (Chinese Yuan) 8.791 per litre in China. When converted to Indian Rupee, the petrol price per litre comes to around Rs 101 per litre. NEW DELHI: Rising crude oil prices, the falling Indian rupee and the production cut announcement by OPEC+ have been a cause of concern for India and other oil-importing countries. Brent crude futures fell 81 cents to $97.11 a barrel yesterday while West Texas Intermediate crude was trading at $91.88 a barrel, lower by 76 cents. Petrol and diesel prices in India gets changed every midnight. However, Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) like Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum have kept their fuel prices unchanged for quite some time now. Petrol in the national capital Delhi costs Rs 96.72 per litre while Diesel costs Rs 89.62 per litre. In Mumbai, the prices are on a little higher side as petrol costs Rs 106.31 per litre and diesel Rs 94.27 per litre. Below is the petrol and diesel prices for key cities: Chandigarh: Petrol- Rs 96.20 per litre, Diesel- Rs 84.26 per litre Chennai: Petrol- Rs 102.63 per litre, Diesel- Rs 94.24 per litre Kolkata: Petrol- Rs 106.03 per litre, Diesel- Rs 92.76 per litre Lucknow: Petrol- Rs 96.57 per litre, Diesel- Rs 89.76 per litre Noida: Petrol- Rs 96.57 per litre, Diesel- Rs 89.96 per litre Also Read: 7th Pay Commission: Jharkhand government employees DA hiked to 38% with effect from July 1 this year Bengaluru: Petrol- Rs 101.94 per litre, Diesel- Rs 87.89 per litre Gurugram: Petrol- Rs 97.18 per litre, Diesel- Rs 90.05 per litre Check petrol, diesel price in your city by SMS If your city is not on the list, you can still check petrol, and diesel prices by sitting at home. All you have to do is to send a message from your mobile to 9224992249 with your city code. City codes are available on Indian Oil's website. Suppose your city is Trivandrum, then you can send a message on 9224992249 by typing RSP 124923 and you will get the latest fuel price on your mobile. Check your city list at iocl.com/petrol-diesel-price. In a Sept. 11 guest column (Ensuring third graders can read an urgent need in Akron), Steve France bemoaned the fact that despite years of effort to improve reading outcomes of students in Akron and around the country, a third of fourth- and eighth-graders read at a level described as Below Basic by the U.S. Department of Education. Only one-third of fourth-graders read at a level considered proficient or advanced. Indeed, as documented in the Beacon Journal, Akrons own I Promise School has experienced difficulties in helping struggling readers accelerate their progress in reading. France suggests that a communitywide effort is needed to increase the reading achievement levels of our students. We agree. However, we also feel that relatively minor changes at the school and classroom levels could have a dramatic impact on student achievement. The National Reading Panel, a group of reading experts commissioned by Congress to review the science that supports reading development, identified five key components for success in reading: phonemic awareness (the ability to detect and manipulate the sounds of language), phonics or word decoding, vocabulary or word meaning, comprehension and reading fluency. It is this last competency that is often neglected in our elementary classroom reading instruction. Greater emphasis in this one area would alone, we feel, lead to significant improvements in overall reading performance. Likewise, whenever literacy instruction happens without this essential component in place, the opposite outcome also holds true. More:Akron superintendent: Report card confirms need for increased academic supports We have proof. We are former directors of the Kent State University reading clinic (we call it Camp Read-a-Lot as it takes place over five weeks in the summer). We worked with children, primarily finishing grades K-8 who were experiencing significant difficulties in reading. In our initial assessments of these children, we found that they were progressing in phonemic awareness, phonics and vocabulary. Their comprehension also was adequate if a text was read to them. However, when they had to read on their own, comprehension usually faltered. Although the problem on the surface was poor reading comprehension, the deeper concern was reading fluency. Although the students could decode the words they encountered, they usually read at an excessively slow pace and in a word-by-word manner. Story continues Their focus was on decoding the words which they could do, albeit with great effort and not on the meaning of the texts they were reading. When oral reading fluency and reading expressively (prosodic reading) became the foundations of literacy instruction, we observed children making significant gains in all areas of reading. We developed a Fluency Development Lesson that aimed at improving students' ability to read words effortlessly and with good expression so that they could focus on meaning rather than on individual words. Through repeated practice of short texts such as poems, plays, and jokes and riddles, children developed their reading fluency muscles and, as a result, their overall reading performance improved. In as little as 20 days (90 minutes per day) of instruction students made significant progress in reading in many cases over a years growth. Keep in mind that as struggling readers, these were students who in school failed to make a years growth in reading for a years worth of instruction. Our research findings of students success in reading have been published as peer-reviewed studies in major literacy journals. More:'Largest score decline' in reading for nation's 9-year-olds, first-ever drop in math The problem is that reading fluency was identified years ago as a missing component of most reading programs. Yet it continues to be relatively neglected in many classrooms where the instructional emphasis has been placed primarily on developing students competencies in phonics. As professors, we are clearly big proponents of explicitly teaching phonics in the classroom. However, time and again we have observed that when fluency and meaning are not at the forefront of this instruction, children often do not develop the traction they need to move forward with greater reading success. Exemplary educators understand this research and know how to apply it creatively and artfully. They personalize and go beyond the many prepackaged reading methods and programs to keep fluency and understanding at the forefront of their instruction. The results are significant gains in literacy acquisition, development and ultimately, learner success. Research universities such as KSU, the University of Akron, the Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati, and others have conducted study after study demonstrating what is needed to develop successful readers. Schools only need to reach out and partner with their local universities to develop reading programs that meet the specific needs of our children. When schools and universities work together and focus on what matters for struggling readers, we will see remarkable improvements in our students reading achievement. Timothy Rasinski, Ph.D., is professor of literacy education and the Rebecca Tolle and Burton W. Gorman Chair in Educational Leadership at Kent State University. Belinda Zimmerman, Ph.D., of Cuyahoga Falls is professor emeritus of literacy education at Kent State. This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Grasping fluency, meaning helps young children learn to read New Delhi: In the 2020 Palghar mob lynching case of 2 Sadhus and their driver, the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra has allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct a probe on the incident. The Maharashtra government told the Supreme Court that it has no problem if the case is handed over to the CBI. Earlier, the state government which was led by Uddhav Thackeray claimed that the state forces had completed the investigation into the matter and the guilty were punished. On April 16, 2020, two sadhus - Chikne Maharaj Kalpavrukshagiri, 70, and Sushilgiri Maharaj, 35, and their driver Nilesh Telgade, 30 were travelling to attend a funeral of their Guru Shri Mahant Ramgiri in Surat. Along the way, they were stopped by a forest department official at night. When they were talking to the official, a group of angry villagers mistook them for child abductors and organ harvesters and attacked them with sticks. The police who tried to intervene were also beaten by the villagers resulting in injuries of 4 policemen and a senior police officer. The Supreme Court has upheld the Calcutta High Court's decision to set aside Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee's reappointment as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta. The Supreme Court is of the view that the state government cannot take such a decision without the approval of the Governor of West Bengal. In fact, earlier on September 13, the Calcutta High Court, while hearing public interest litigation, had dismissed Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee's reappointment for the post of Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University, saying that it was wrong. A division bench of High Court Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj had said that the post of Calcutta University vice-chancellor Sonali had been 'forcibly usurped' by appointing her for the second time. As a result, the judgment given by the High Court will stand. The Vice-Chancellor is no longer the Vice-Chancellor from the time the decision was announced. Let us tell you that Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee was re-appointed as the Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University on August 27 last year by the Mamata government. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed against this in the High Court. The Mamata government had moved the Supreme Court against the High Court's decision. In which they have been disappointed. KOLKATA: In a big setback for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday formally arrested TMC MLA and former president of West Bengal Primary Education board Manik Bhattacharya in connection with teachers recruitment scam. Bhattacharya was arrested by the central agency after questioning him overnight in connection with the case. He is the former chairman of the state primary education board and was removed from his post by the Calcutta High Court in June. He is the second high-profile TMC MLA to be arrested after Partha Chatterjee in connection with the teachers recruitment scam. The CBI had in August issued a lookout notice against Bhattacharya regarding his alleged role in anomalies found in Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) to appoint state primary teachers. Soon after Bhattacharyas name surfaced in the scam, the state police said that he will no longer be provided police security. The Calcutta High Court had earlier ordered the removal of Bhattacharya from the post of chairman of West Bengal Board of Primary Education over allegations of widespread corruption in the teachers recruitment. Bhattacharya was then grilled by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The ED has already arrested then Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and his close associate Arpita Mukherjee in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment scam. After the arrest of Chatterjee and Mukherjee, the ED also summoned Bhattacharya for interrogation. The CBI has also arrested former West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) advisor Shanti Prasad Sinha, former WBSSC chairman Ashok Saha and former president of WBSSC Kalyanmoy Ganguly in connection with the scam. Mumbai: As the 'flaming torch' (mashaal) symbol turns over a new leaf for the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction of Shiv Sena, it is not something new for the party as it had contested an election successfully using it in 1985. Senior politician Chhagan Bhujbal, who was then in the Shiv Sena, had won the election from Mazgaon constituency in Mumbai on the 'flaming torch' symbol when the organisation did not have a fixed poll symbol. Bhujbal later rebelled and quit the party to join the Congress and is now a prominent leader of the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The 'flaming torch' symbol was used by the Sena in the past during civic body and Assembly polls. The Shiv Sena was founded by Bal Thackeray in 1966 and it took 23 years for the party to get the dedicated 'bow and arrow' symbol. The Sena was recognised as the state party in 1989, which meant it could use a uniform symbol in the state. But earlier, from 1966 to 1989, it contested on different symbols in the Lok Sabha, Assembly and civic polls. After nearly 33 years, the Election Commission last week froze its 'bow and arrow' symbol for an interim period following a feud between the two Sena factions --- one led by Uddhav Thackeray and the other by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. It also asked the two sides not to use the name 'Shiv Sena'. The EC on Monday allotted 'ShivSena - Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray' as the party name for the Thackeray faction, and 'Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena' (Balasaheb's Shiv Sena) as the name for the Eknath Shinde group of the party. Shiv Sena MP Gajanan Kirtikar, who has been with the party since its inception, said the organisation in 1967-68 first contested the civic body polls, including Mumbai, when most of its candidates got the 'sword and shield' symbol. In 1985, many party candidates got 'flaming torch' as the symbol, he said. Yogendra Thakur, who has authored several books on the Shiv Sena and its founder Bal Thackeray, in an article in the July 23 issue of 'Marmik' magazine, said senior party leader Madhukar Sarpotdar contested the 1985 Assembly poll from the Kherwadi seat in northwest Mumbai on the 'flaming torch' symbol. Bal Thackeray had campaigned for him. At that time, a flaming torch was placed on the left side of the stage to convey the message to voters about the party symbol, Thakur said. Marmik, a magazine dedicated to cartoons, was edited by Bal Thackeray and his brother Shrikant in 1960s, when the Sena founder through his caricatures portrayed what he called as "injustice" against the 'Marathi manoos'. In the 1985 Maharashtra Assembly polls, while some candidates contested on the 'flaming torch' symbol, the others contested on the 'bat', 'sun' and 'cup and saucer' symbols, Kirtikar said. Chhagan Bhujbal was one of the candidates elected on the 'flaming torch' symbol. In October 1970, during a bypoll in Mumbai, necessitated due to the death of Communist leader Krishna Desai, Wamanrao Mahadik contested on the 'rising sun' symbol and won, Kirtikar said. Explaining the history behind the Shiv Sena's symbols, Yogendra Thakur said in 1988, the Election Commission of India decided that all political parties need to be registered. Bal Thackeray then decided the Shiv Sena should also be registered. A panel comprising Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai, advocate Balkrishna Joshi and Vijay Nadkarni was formed to prepare a constitution for the party with Manohar Joshi's guidance. Bal Thackeray suggested some changes in the draft and after necessary amendments, the team went to Delhi to present its case before the election body. They submitted all the necessary documents and the party was registered. This had also helped the Shiv Sena get the 'bow and arrow' symbol on which it contested the subsequent elections, Thakur said. "Till that time, the Shiv Sena contested polls on different symbols," he added. United Nations: Going against its closest ally, India has voted to reject Russia's demand for a secret ballot in the UN General Assembly on a draft resolution to condemn Moscow's illegal annexation of four regions of Ukraine, with New Delhi favouring a public vote on the text along with over 100 other nations. Albania has put forward a motion before the 193-member UN General Assembly on Monday that action on the draft resolution that would condemn Russia's illegal so-called referendums and attempted illegal annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine be taken by a recorded vote. In response to it, Russia demanded that the resolution be voted upon by secret ballot. However, Moscow's demand for a secret ballot was rejected after 107 UN member states, including India, voted in favour of a recorded vote. Only 13 nations voted in favour of Russia's call for a secret ballot while 39 abstained. Russia and China were among the countries that did not vote. After the motion to hold a recorded vote was adopted, Russia appealed against the ruling of the president of the general assembly. A recorded vote on Russia's appeal was held and India was among the 100 nations who voted against the challenge made by Moscow. Russia then sought reconsideration of the decision to adopt the motion submitted by Albania for a recorded vote. The General Assembly decided not to reconsider the motion after 104 nations, including India, voted against such a reconsideration, while 16 voted in favour and 34 abstained. Slamming the UNGA, Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia said the UN membership had become witnesses to an outrageous fraud in which the president of the general assembly, unfortunately, played a key role". "We were not given the floor to make a point of order (the indicator light at our seat is still on), our statement was distorted, and now UN member states are being robbed of their right to express their opinion freely. This is an unprecedented manipulation undermining the authority of the general assembly and the United Nations as a whole. Of course, in such circumstances we opted to not take part in the vote, he said. Interestingly, India last month had abstained while Russia vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution tabled by the US and Albania to condemn Moscow's illegal referenda and declared the annexation of four Ukrainian territories as invalid. The 15-nation UN Security Council had voted on the draft resolution on Illegal So-Called Referenda in Ukraine, hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin in a ceremony in the Kremlin had signed treaties to annex the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. The resolution failed to get adopted as permanent UNSC member Russia vetoed it. Of the 15-nation council, 10 nations voted for the resolution and China, Gabon, India, as well as Brazil abstained. Following Russia's veto, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield vowed to continue to pursue accountability at the United Nations in the General Assembly, where every country has a vote. The action in the UNGA came hours after Russia carried out strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv where at least 10 people were killed and around 60 others wounded across Ukraine. In New Delhi, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the escalation of hostilities was in no one's interest and noted that India stood ready to support all such efforts aimed at de-escalation of the situation. "India is deeply concerned at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, including the targeting of infrastructure and deaths of civilians," he said, urging the immediate cessation of hostilities. India has not yet condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and maintained that the crisis must be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue. India has abstained on votes on the Ukraine conflict in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. (With Agency Inputs) New Delhi: An Indian Army assault dog was critically injured during an encounter between security forces and terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district on Monday (October 10, 2022). During the encounter, two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists were killed, while dog 'Zoom' along with two soldiers sustained injuries, and were rushed to the hospital. "Zoom was sent inside the house during the operation where terrorists were hiding. As Zoom was a trained assault dog, he was sent with the task to track the terrorists," an Army officer said. He added that as Zoom was on job, he received bullets during the exchange of fire. He was hit by two bullets but still helped to track the terrorists' location. Earlier in July this month, Army sniffer dog 'Axel' was killed in an anti-terror operation in J&K's Baramulla district. Axel was later honoured with 'Mention-in-Despatches' in this year's gallantry awards. It was the highest bravery award that an Army dog has received in recent times for their involvement in a counter-insurgency operation. Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the first phase of the Rs 856-crore Mahakaleshwar Temple corridor development project on Tuesday which is expected to significantly boost tourism in this holy city of Madhya Pradesh. The holy city of Ujjain, which is also called Mahakals Nagari after the ancient Mahakaleshwar temple here, will witness the grand inauguration of the newly developed Mahakal Lok, which will be live-streamed across 40 countries. According to reports, the ceremony will be telecast live in 40 countries to connect the devotees of Lord Shiva. Here in Madhya Pradesh, all prominent temples of Lord Shiva will be decorated with hundreds of earthen lamps. The Madhya Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has prepared an elaborate arrangement to make the occasion extravagant. The project in the holy city of Ujjain, which is expected to significantly boost tourism in the state, is a key part of the party`s "cultural resurgence" plank to increase its support base in the state, country and across the globe ahead of the 2023 Assembly and then 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The state BJP president Vishnu Dutt Sharma said the party`s NRI cell reached out to NRIs in 40 countries, including the US, the UK, the UAE, New Zealand and Canada. "We reached out to the people from Madhya Pradesh residing in these countries. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and I held a virtual meeting with them and they were excited to join the event. We are planning to extend the list of countries to 50. Apart from virtually attending the event, the NRIs will organise special ceremonies like the lighting of lamps to mark the occasion," Sharma said. MP CM Shivraj Chauhan welcomed the PM ahead of his arrival. "Here is a festive atmosphere here today. I welcome PM Modi on behalf of all people of Madhya Pradesh, he is an inspiration to all of us," CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said. Madhya Pradesh | There is a festive atmosphere here today. I welcome PM Modi on behalf of all people of Madhya Pradesh, he is an inspiration to all of us: CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan on PM Modi's visit to Ujjain to inaugurate Mahakal Temple Corridor today pic.twitter.com/961HDeguxy ANI MP/CG/Rajasthan (@ANI_MP_CG_RJ) October 11, 2022 1000 screens to be put up for public viewing of the event Over 1,000 giant screens will also be put up across the state to facilitate the public viewing of the event as part of the BJP`s efforts to draw more people to the party. The party workers have been exhorted to organise `Diwali-like events` at the booth level to celebrate the event. According to state Home Minister Narottam Mishra, Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to arrive in Indore from Ahmedabad at 4 pm and then will reach Ujjain between 5 to 5.30 pm. The Prime Minister will offer his prayers at the Mahakaleshwar temple and then will inaugurate the newly constructed part of the temple. Ujjain decked up for the event Ahead of PM Modi's visit, the Ujjain city has been decked up with colourful flags on a large number of lamp posts, while many streets and flyovers have been decorated with lights, including the Hari Phatak flyover that overlooks the new corridor which has turned into a selfie point of sorts for locals. The city has been decorated with fairy lights, and 'diyas' giving an appearance of an early Diwali. From October 7, several cultural events have been hosted in the run-up to the inauguration, including a laser show, Ramlila at Ram Ghat and daily 'mahaarti' on the banks of Kshipra river. A large-size 'shivaling' covered in strands of 'moli' (sacred) threads has been placed below the grand gateway - Nandi Dwar - of the 'Mahakal Lok', sources said, adding that according to plan, the prime minister will officially unveil the 'shivaling' to symbolically mark the opening of the mega corridor. The Mahakal Lok Corridor measures over 900 metres in length and is dotted with 108 ornate sandstone columns in a row which bear decorative 'trishul' design on top and 'mudras' of Lord Shiva. It also has gushing fountains surrounded by artistic sculptures of the deity as well as 53 illuminated murals depicting stories from the Shiv Puran. Mahakaleshwar Temple The Mahakaleshwar Temple is one of the 12 'jyotirlings' in the country and gets devotees throughout the year. The mega corridor in Ujjain is located around 200 km from the state capital Bhopal. The Mahakaleshwar Temple is considered one of the holiest places on earth by Hindus, and lakhs of people converge here from all parts of the country during the Shravan month of the Hindu calendar or Mahashivratri. Ujjain Smart City Project Ujjain Smart City Ltd has described the project with the tagline -- "Adbhut. Anupam. Allokik". Twitter feeds of various government departments and other agencies are filled with images of the Mahakaleshwar Temple and cultural events being held prior to the opening. Chief Executive Officer of Ujjain Smart City Ltd, Ashish Kumar Pathak said that after the opening, the excitement of people will only multiply and lead to a "huge jump" in tourist footfall. The project after completion will expand the temple complex area from 2.87 ha earlier to 47 ha, and the holding capacity will be significantly enhanced, officials said. 'Mahakal Lok' development also includes a mid-way zone, a park, a multi-storied parking lot for cars and buses, florist and other shops, solar lighting, a facility centre for pilgrims, water pipeline and sewer line, among others. A light and sound system has also been developed, and work on phase two of the project is currently underway, under which Rudrasagar Lake has been rejuvenated. Bhopal: As many as 2,600 persons were so far booked for operating illegal liquor business in Madhya Pradesh under the state government`s `Nashamukti` operation that was launched on Friday. Over 2,500 persons involved in the illegal business of drugs and liquor were detained, while over 200 people were booked under Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act. Similarly, around 200 people were booked under Tobacco Prohibition Act. As per the official information, around 2,500 locations were raided since Saturday. Superintendents of Police (SPs) of all districts in the state, besides submitting the details of actions to the Police Headquarters in Bhopal, also uploaded it on social media accounts, mentioning that the action was carried on the direction of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Charing a meeting with senior police and administrative officials to take stock of the operation, Chouhan praised the police for strict action in all districts. "We have decided to take action against the nexus operating illegal business of liquor and other narcotics. Operation Nashamukthi has been started in many districts and it will be followed in other remaining districts in the coming days. I would thank to Madhya Pradesh Police for their efforts," Chouhan said on Monday. Interestingly, while the ruling BJP has been busy thumping its back claiming that the government has taken action against the nexus operating illegal liquor business and narcotics, the opposition Congress has raised questions on the timing of the action. Also read: Shivraj Singh Chouhan's TOUGH ACTION for 'Bhanjas'! CM suspends SP for abusing students Congress leaders said the operation came when the elections are not very far and the BJP government wants to make its good image while the fact is that the law and order situation in the state has been very poor. The Congress also raised questions on whether the state police was waiting for a signal from Chief Minister to kick start an operation. "Action against illegal sale of liquor and drugs are daily activities of the police. Why the police should wait for Chief Minister`s order to take action against illegal activities? All places where raids were conducted have not been established all of sudden. They were operational for several years. It`s good that action was carried out, but the BJP government should also tell names of people who are operating these illegal businesses," said Sangeeta Sharma, vice-president of the state Congress media cell. Also read: Madhya Pradesh: Bulldozer of Shivraj Singh went to the house of gangrape accused Reacting over the operation, former Chief Minister and Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath on Monday said, "The entire BJP is under the intoxication of power. They did nothing for 17 years and when the elections are nearing, the Chief Minister doing all these things to turn the attention of people from real issues." Incidentally, the action came within a week after senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti announced to kickstart a two-month-long yatra as a symbolic protest against illegal activities, including the sale of liquor and drugs. Bharti would start her march against the state government`s liquor policy on November 7, which would conclude by January next year. In an attempt to make her presence felt in state politics, Bharti has been cornering Chouhan and state BJP president VD Sharma through the liquor policy issue, however, before she could start her movement for the same, Chouhan kicked start the mega operation. SRINAGAR: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is carrying out searches at multiple locations in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with its ongoing probe into the terror funding case, sources said on Tuesday. National Investigation Agency (NIA) carries out searches at multiple locations in Jammu and Kashmir in a terror funding case: Sources ANI (@ANI) October 11, 2022 According to sources, the NIA is conducting searches at multiple locations in Rajouri, Poonch, Jammu, Srinagar, Pulwama, Budgam, Shopian and Bandipora districts of J&K in the case relating to the suspicious activities of Al Huda Educational Trust, Rajouri. NIA is conducting searches at multiple locations in Rajouri, Poonch, Jammu, Srinagar, Pulwama, Budgam, Shopian and Bandipora districts of J&K in the case relating to the suspicious activities of Al Huda Educational Trust, Rajouri: Sources ANI (@ANI) October 11, 2022 The NIA had earlier registered a suo-moto case about the funding pattern and activities of Al Huda Educational Trust, which is functioning as a frontal entity for Jamaat-e-Islami J&K, which was declared as an unlawful association under UAPA in 2019, the sources said. It is alleged that the suspects were involved in terror financing in J&K. Jamaat-e-Islami, which was declared an unlawful association in 2019, continued to raise funds in various forms on the pretext of charitable purposes. These funds were allegedly being diverted to terrorist organisations, such as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba, etc., for promoting terrorist activities in Kashmir valley as well as the rest of India. The case was registered by the NIA suo moto on February 5, 2021. The NIA had earlier filed a chargesheet against four persons in the case. The NIA in August conducted raids at six places and recovered incriminating literature, receipts of funds raised by Jamaat-e-Islami J&K, bank and property-related documents, and electronic devices. Harthikote: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has yet again made a scathing attack on the BJP, alleging its government in Karnataka is the most corrupt in the country. Addressing a public meeting in a village in Hiriyur near Chitradurga in Karnataka, the Congress leader said that the BJP government in Karnataka is taking commissions for almost everything. Rahul Gandhi also called upon the government to immediately implement the Nagamohan Das Committee report by increasing reservations to SCs and STs. "For two-and-a-half years, they have done nothing about this report. Why are they taking no action on this report? They should not waste time and should implement this report at once," he asserted. LIVE: Bharat Jodo Yatra | Pochkatte to Harthikote | Tumkur to Chitradurga | Karnataka https://t.co/DDEhWvjug4 Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 10, 2022 Attacking the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, Rahul Gandhi said the people of the country are not going to tolerate an unfair India where millions of youths are without jobs and a vast majority of people are drowning under the weight of rising prices. The Congress MP said that his party's Bharat Jodo Yatra is about fighting hatred, violence and anger that the BJP and the RSS are spreading in this country. "It is a message to the BJP that India will not be divided, India will stand united and that message is clearly visible in this yatra, because there is no violence, there is no hatred, there is no anger in this yatra," he said. Thanking all those who walked with him and came out in his support, Gandhi invoked leaders such as Basava and Narayana Guru and B R Ambedkar and said today their voices are resonating in this country as none of these leaders preached violence or hatred. "We are not going to tolerate an India where billions of youngsters cannot get jobs. We are not going to tolerate an India where the vast majority of our people, millions and millions of people, are drowning under the weight of rising prices," the Congress leader noted. Highlighting the plight of farmers and women, he said, "We are not going to tolerate an India where a few people have the right to steal anything they want and the rest of India starves and the rest of India does not have a job." The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered its 33rd day on Monday. The yatra started from Kanyakumari on September 7 and will conclude in Kashmir, completing 3,500 km and passing through 12 states. The former Congress chief said this yatra is about fighting unemployment and price rise. In particular, this yatra is defending the interests of farmers, of labourers, of small and medium businesses, he noted. Republicans have vowed to use the full power of the House of Representatives if they take control in November, threatening everything from shutting down investigations into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol to impeaching President Biden and his cabinet secretaries. While Republicans are all but certain to terminate the select committee on the Jan. 6 attack, its less clear whether theyll risk the political uncertainties of an impeachment trial. But if they take the plunge, their sights will be on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In a letter to Mayorkas last week, GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) explicitly threatened impeachment over the secretarys gross dereliction of duty in managing the U.S.-Mexico border. That missive followed an April letter led by the Republican Study Committee and signed by 133 House Republicans that avoided explicitly calling for impeachment, but laid out the case for Republicans to raise immigration policy differences to the level of impeachable offenses. Your actions have willingly endangered American citizens and undermined the rule of law and our nations sovereignty. Your failure to secure the border and enforce the laws passed by Congress raises grave questions about your suitability for office, wrote the lawmakers. The Constitution allows for impeachment of the president and other civil officers for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. But its unclear what is meant by high crimes and misdemeanors, and impeachment is understood to be an essentially political act a Senate would need very little substantial cause to convict an official impeached by the House. With my political scientist hat on, Id say what counts as a high crime or misdemeanor is what you can get two thirds of the Senate to vote to convict on. And that in itself, its not a substantive standard. Its a procedural one, said Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Georgetown University. Story continues But Chafetz added thats a very high bar, since it would require significant buy-in from the presidents party. And while technically there are no limits other than whip counts in both chambers to what behaviors Congress can interpret as high crimes and misdemeanors, precedent does set some boundaries. The Constitution provides for impeachment in the case of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors not for political revenge or partisan retribution, said David Rapallo, director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown Law. That reading still leaves space for debate as to what constitutes grounds for conviction under impeachment. Theres been a debate about whether there must be a statutory code violation of a crime to impeach. The general view is that it doesnt necessarily have to be a criminal act under the statutory code, but rather an abuse of power in some way, said Rapallo. The Republican case against Mayorkas lies largely on high migrant apprehension and drug interdiction numbers at the southwest border. U.S. officials encountered 2,150,639 immigrants entering the country without prior authorization in the first 11 months of fiscal 2022, breaking the record for encounters in a year. And fentanyl seizures continue to rise, as Mexican drug cartels abandon other drugs for the cheaper-to-produce synthetic opioid. If the GOP takes control of the House, they will almost certainly bring down the hammer on Mayorkas through congressional oversight, but Republicans seem eager to raise the specter of impeachment. In their letter, Graham and Cruz accuse Mayorkas of aggravating conditions on the border, in part by attempting to end policies put in place under the Trump administration, namely construction of the border wall; the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as Remain in Mexico; and Title 42, a policy to quickly expel foreign nationals under the guise of pandemic protections. While the Department of Homeland Security halted border wall construction shortly after Biden took office, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials announced a plan to return to construction sites in the Sonoran Desert to resume construction of some segments of the wall. But Graham and Cruz zeroed in on Mayorkas attempts to end MPP, which are tangled up in the courts. Your expedited and repeated rejection of President Trumps successful Migrant Protection Protocols demonstrates your willingness to embrace an open-borders agenda that undermines Americas safety, they wrote. You have been specifically instructed by the court to implement the protocol in good faith or take new agency action that complied with the law. You have done neither. While the Biden administration was originally directed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to continue MPPs implementation in good faith, the case was returned to a lower court after the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administrations plans to end the policy. A lower court lifted the order to continue implementing MPP and DHS has been winding the program down. In short, MPP is over for now, although there is confusion surrounding its ending, reads a post on MPPs current state of affairs on the American Immigration Lawyers Association blog. That distinction could blunt the GOP senators call for impeachment. The traditional story we tell about impeachment in America is that it doesnt apply to just bad policy. Its not about maladministration, but rather, its about malfeasance or nonfeasance, said Chafetz. And historical precedent is on cabinet members side when it comes to impeachment. The only cabinet member ever impeached was President Grants secretary of war, William Belknap, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a contractor he appointed to run the trader post in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. While most historians agree the accusations against Belknap were credible, he avoided conviction in his 1876 impeachment trial because he resigned on the same day he was impeached. Like President Nixon nearly a century later, Belknap chose to resign rather than face almost certain conviction in the Senate, although the House did pass Belknaps articles of impeachment. If it were something like Richard Nixon that era where his own party was telling him what was coming, and it would be better for him to resign than go through that process he chose to resign, and after that occurred, they didnt go forward, said Rapallo. The precedent that being out of office obviates an impeachment conviction was reinforced in 2021, when Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial after leaving office. Because of that precedent, any official facing probable impeachment conviction is more likely to resign than to become the first executive officer convicted by the Senate. I just dont see any way they would get to 67 [Senate votes] based on what weve seen now, said Chafetz. Now, again, if it turns out tomorrow that some member of the cabinet has a freezer full of cash that they got from a foreign government, sure. But of course in that situation, theyd almost certainly resign or be fired, he added. Conversely, Biden and his cabinet are unlikely to yield in an impeachment trial they can win, even if the proceedings disrupt an officials duties. If youre Biden, its a short term-long term trade off, because maybe the department can get a move on with business, but the Republicans have successfully claimed a scalp and whats to prevent them from going after the next cabinet official? said Chafetz. And if Republicans do take the House, their leadership ranks will have their hands full controlling an ideological and outspoken caucus. While at least two separate articles of impeachment have been filed against Biden by Republican lawmakers in the current Congress, GOP leadership has not invested political capital in those bills. Any GOP impeachment of Biden risks being seen as a tit-for-tat over the two Democratic impeachments of Trump, and that protection could extend to cabinet secretaries. The Constitution doesnt provide for impeaching a cabinet secretary because you think impeaching the president is too much politically, said Rapallo. And dragging immigration into a constitutional controversy could backfire for Republicans. Its well known that the Republicans were close to agreeing on legislation related to immigration, but changed their minds and havent been interested in solving the problem since then, said Rapallo. So on one hand, to walk away from the effort to legislate, and then on the other, to go after the cabinet secretary whos charged with implementing the laws is a little rich, I would say. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Saifai: The last rites of Samajwadi party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav were performed at his ancestral village, Saifai in Uttar Pradesh today and were attended by senior leaders and top officials. Mulayam Singh passed away on Monday morning at the age of 82 at Gurugram`s Medanta Hospital due to age-related ailments. He was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital last Sunday after his health deteriorated. He is survived by two sons, Akhilesh and Prateek. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav and PSP chief Shivpal Yadav were present at the last rites ceremony of former CM of UP, Mulayam Singh Yadav expressing his grief over the death of Mulayam Singh Yadav Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, "We had a very strong relationship. Mulayam Singh Yadav was a big personality in Indian politics, it is a huge loss for the country. We all have come here to pay our tribute to him. PM Modi could not come here but he asked me to pay tribute on his behalf". Congress presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari and other leaders of the party reached the ancestral village to attend the last rites of former CM of UP, Mulayam Singh Yadav. Meanwhile, condolences poured in after the demise of the veteran Samajwadi Party leader and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. \President Droupadi Murmu expressed condolences on the demise of veteran politician and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday, saying his death is an "irreparable loss" to the country. "The death of Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav is an irreparable loss to the country. The achievements of Mulayam Singh Yadav ji, who came from an ordinary environment, were extraordinary. `Dharti Putra` Mulayam ji was a down-to-earth veteran leader. He was respected by people of all parties. My deepest condolences to his family members and supporters!" the Rashtrapati Bhavan tweeted. Soon after learning about the demise of the Samajwadi Party founder, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recollected his relationship with the veteran leader and tweeted, "Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav Ji was a remarkable personality. He was widely admired as a humble and grounded leader who was sensitive to people`s problems. He served people diligently and devoted his life towards popularising the ideals of Loknayak JP and Dr Lohia." Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla said, "I express my deepest condolences on the demise of former UP CM & veteran politician Mulayam Singh Yadav. Despite his old age and deteriorating health, he regularly attended Lok Sabha sessions. He served the country staying in various imp positions." Born on November 22, 1939, in Saifai village of Etawah district, Mulayam Singh rose quickly in politics and became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice; he also served in the Union government once as the Defence Minister. He was elected 10 times as MLA and 7 times as Lok Sabha MP. His career began when he was elected MLA in 1967 at the age of 28. He founded the Samajwadi Party on October 4, 1992, and soon turned it into a regional party based in Uttar Pradesh. His son Akhilesh Yadav took over the party`s reins later and is now its president. NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on AAP leader Satyendar Jain's plea challenging the Delhi High Court order which dismissed his plea challenging trial court order allowing the agency's petition to transfer his case to another judge. Jain is under the ED scanner in connection with the money laundering allegations against him. Supreme Court issues notice to Enforcement Directorate on AAP leader Satyendar Jain's plea challenging the Delhi HC order which dismissed his plea challenging the trial court order allowing the agency's petition to transfer his case to another judge. pic.twitter.com/YWyxItMj56 ANI (@ANI) October 11, 2022 The Delhi High court had last week dismissed Jains plea challenging the trial court order transferring his money laundering case to another judge. Justice Yogesh Khanna dismissed Jain`s plea challenging the order of September 23, 2022, passed by the Principal District and Sessions Judge transferring his money laundering case from one court to another. Justice Khanna noted in the order that the question is not of integrity or uprightness of the Judge but apprehension in the mind of a party (ED). Satyender Jain had moved Delhi High Court challenging Principal District and Sessions Court of Rouse Avenue Court order allowing ED Petition for transfer of his case to another judge. Justice Khanna while passing the order observed that the facts show that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) did not merely harbour an apprehension of bias but had acted upon it as well by rushing to the HC and therefore the apprehension cannot be said to be flimsy or not reasonable. The court further observed, "The apprehensions raised were not at a belated stage, as the request for an independent medical evaluation was consistently made."The court held that the district judge while transferring the case has considered all these aspects and therefore does not suffer from any illegality and does not require any interference. The ED had contended that the doctors and jail authorities were managed as the accused earlier had the Health and Jail Department portfolio as Delhi cabinet Minister. During the rebuttal argument, Senior Advocate Rahul Mehra argued that there is no material to show biasedness on the part of the judge. Rahul Mehra had referred to the application moved by ED seeking transfer of the case to another judge which said that the agency is not casting any aspersions but there is a grave likelihood, and reason to believe that issues were premeditated. The ED on June 6 claimed to have seized Rs 2.85 crore in cash and 133 gold coins weighing 1.80 kg from Satyendra Jain`s aides during its day-long raid conducted at various places across Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). (With Agency Inputs) New Delhi: Lucknow schools and higher education institutions will remain closed on Tuesday (Oct 11) as well as per an official announcement by the Lucknow District Magistrate Suryapal Gangwar. This came decision came due to the continuation of heavy rains in the city among other parts of Uttar Pradesh. The DM added that higher education institutions will also remain shut on Tuesday following a government order which said that higher educational institutions will remain closed in the districts where the authorities have declared a holiday in view of heavy rains. Also Read: Delhi rains: Traffic Police issues advisory, asks commuters to avoid THESE waterlogged roads Special Secretary, Higher Education Department, Manoj Kumar has said in an order sent to the Director of Higher Education and all the regional higher education officers that in view of the possibility of heavy rains in the state, District Magistrates of many districts have declared holidays in educational institutions and such orders issued by the district magistrates would also be applicable to higher educational institutions. Earlier on Sunday, the district authorities in Lucknow, Noida, Ghaziabad, Agra, Meerut, Aligarh, Mathura, Kanpur, Etah, Mainpuri, and Firozabad had ordered the closure of schools on Monday. Several parts of Uttar Pradesh continued to receive heavy rains on Monday. (With PTI inputs) Patna: Congress presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said that he was asked to contest the election for the top party post less than 24 hours before he filed the nomination papers. Kharge, who proudly recalled his several decades' old association with the party, underscored that he has entered the fray while holding the view that former Congress president Rahul Gandhi should have taken up the mantle. "I was asked to fight the presidential poll 18 hours before the filing of nomination papers. When I questioned why am I being asked to throw my hat in the ring, I learnt that Rahul Gandhi does not want any member from his family to occupy the top party post," Kharge told a press conference at the Bihar Congress headquarters here. Widely seen as the clear favourite, Kharge, added "I am of the belief that the party needs Rahul Gandhi and his leadership. He should have been the party president again. But I respect the nobility of his sentiments". It is widely believed that Gandhi has put his foot down to blunt the BJP's allegation of 'dynasty rule' in the Congress. The octogenarian iterated that his priority, if he is elected as national president of the party, would be to ensure implementation of the 'Udaipur Declaration', including 50 per cent tickets in elections to those aged under 50 years. 'Udaipur Declaration' is a set of proposals that was adopted at a 'chintan shivir' (brainstorming session) organised by the Congress in Rajasthan in May this year. In remarks that may be construed as an indirect dig at his rival Shashi Tharoor, Kharge said he saw no need for releasing his manifesto or giving too many interviews in the media. Tharoor, party MP from Thiruvananthapuram, is also in the race for the post. "These elections are like an internal family matter (ghar ki baat). I am here to play a role but there are many things which I would not like to say in public," said the veteran leader. He also asserted that the Congress was committed to 'saving the Constitution' which was allegedly under assault from the ruling BJP at the Centre. They say brokers are the bridge between financial traders and the market. They can be in the form of a person or firm, helping link up sellers of securities and commodities to their respective buyers. Finding the right broker in this modern age of financial inclusion and a cashless economy can be a bit challenging. The openness of the world economy has created a high level of competition among stakeholders in the financial market. This increasing competition in the industry is responsible for the market's exponential growth over the years. Due to the high competition in the sector, most brokers offer little or no service fee as a marketing strategy to attract traders to their platform. To choose the best broker, especially in one of Europe's biggest economies, France, a trader must put into consideration many factors. These factors to be considered must directly impact your success and safety as a trader. When choosing a French brokerage firm, you must select one that offers a comprehensive range of commodities and securities from the country across the globe. Their trading track record as brokers must span over three years to prove their experience. Also, the best brokers must offer services like copy/social trading, and market analysis and provide a wide range of research trading tools. 7 Top Brokers In France Here are some of the leading brokers in France: Capital Com Capital.com avis provides leverage as high as x200 with zero commission fees. Judging from their years of experience, they are one of the most reliable and trusted brokers in France. Their trading platforms are user-friendly, with a complete catalogue of all necessary trading tools. Capital com Avis also offers copy trading services to investors who do not have the time to trade. Etoro In France, most traders rely on Etoro to provide trading signals, as their predictions are mostly accurate. This platform is known for its social trading services. They are a fully accredited brokerage firm offering traders zero commission fees. Libertex This is one of the leading brokers in Paris. They are highly reliable with zero commission fees. Libertex had an interactive and user-friendly platform, which makes them one of the safest brokers for young French traders to trade different commodities, including cryptocurrency. Axi Experienced traders mainly use Axi. They offer zero commission fees and no minimum deposit. With no minimum deposit axi has made trading with little amounts easy for traders. Interactive Brokers Interactive brokers offer the best services to traders looking to trade commodities and securities across the globe. They guarantee their clients low trading fees and a wide variety of research tools they can use to their advantage. However, the only disadvantage is that they have poor customer service, which makes it difficult to report any challenge you must have had on their platform. FlowBank FlowBank offers low trading fees and the opportunity to trade some of the biggest and most popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, USDT, and a host of others. This broker is predominantly used in France. Traders from European Union member states can't access this broker as they are only licensed to operate within France. This broker is reliable as they have been fully tested by stakeholders. FXCM FXCM is highly rated among traders in the financial markets. They have a minimum initial deposit of $50, giving you access to trade currency pairs, cryptocurrency, bonds, stocks, and rare metals. Their trading fees are low, and they have incredible customer care service. All the brokers on this list offer copy/social trading services, but only a few traders understand what social trading is all about. In the next paragraph, we will discuss the meaning of social trading and its economic importance to traders. What Is Copy Trading? Copy trading is the most straightforward technique of trading in the financial market. This technique doesn't require a trader or investor to have a former knowledge of the market. As the name implies, copy trading is simply mimicking the trading strategy of another trader in a bid to make a profit. Contrary to popular belief, copy trading isn't illegal or wrong as it is practised even among experienced market traders. According to a survey, 75% of day traders practice social trading annually. Most French brokers heavily rely on this technique in analyzing the price movement of commodities. Brokers analyze the market predictions of traders by copying and comparing them to their trading predictions. On a good day, copy trading can be one of the most reliable means of navigating through the financial market as a novice, but on a bad day, it can feel like the end of the world. Here are some of the pros and cons of copy trading. Pros Of Copy Trading Some of the advantages of copy trading are listed below: Saves Time Not everyone has the time to sit for hours analyzing, calculating and predicting the perfect outcome of the market. To become a successful and profitable trader, a lot of time and energy is needed to achieve this feat. But thanks to social trading, anyone can become a successful investor by copying the trading positions of experienced traders. This technique helps you channel your time and energy towards other productive endeavours. Effective Risk Management The higher the risk, the greater the reward. When copying trading positions, traders can manage their risk as they see fit. This can help reduce losses and also maximize gains. For effective risk management, traders must have an idea of the market and develop a suitable risk management strategy based on their financial capacity. Diversified Trading Portfolio Experienced traders tend to focus their attention on a particular trading instrument. They do this because that's where their trading technique works best. As a copy trader, you are not restricted by these constraints as you are at liberty to copy from different traders trading different instruments. This diversity in a trader's portfolio guarantees higher chances of profit. Perfect For Young Traders For young traders looking to test the waters, social trading is the perfect way to start. This technique allows new traders to learn from professionals without losing funds due to a lack of experience. Cons of Copy Trading Some of the disadvantages of copy trading are: Finding the right trader with a good track record can be challenging, especially now everyone on social media is claiming to be an expert in the field. Most social trading platforms require traders to pay exorbitant amounts of money to get a chance to copy their trading positions and buy the software. Every trade is based on predictions, which makes it as risky as trading like a novice. Top Trading Tools For Trader Below are some popular tools for traders: Trading Platform Without a trading platform, there can't be financial traders. Trading platforms provide a platform where traders can make their bets on the market and either make or lose money. There are different trading platforms on the market, but the most common and advanced platform is Meta trader 4 and 5. They offer innovative features traders can use in analyzing the market in real time. Trading Journal A trade journal is used to keep track of trading history. It also helps a trader in analyzing his performance over a particular period. Sometimes, trading platforms offer trading journals so you can check the official website of capital.com to see if there are journalling options available. Otherwise, make your own trading journals using a word processor. Charting Program To have a full view of the market's direction, you must have software that lets you see the real-time price movement of items on the financial market. When choosing a charting software, ensure the software has features that enable you to view price movement within minutes or even seconds for better market analysis. Time Zone Converter The performance of commodities and securities tends to be tied to happenings in different time zones. Knowing the perfect time to open and close a trade is important to stand a chance of becoming a successful trader. With a time zone converter, trading at the right time becomes easy as your risks are decreased. Volatility Calculator Currency pairs and cryptocurrencies are some of the financial market's most volatile commodities. To trade these commodities, a trader must be able to calculate, understand and make predictions on the market's direction. A volatility calculator calculates a particular commodity's performance using historical data and helps investors base their predictions on it. It also allows traders to calculate the risks of trading a specific commodity. Bottom Line There are thousands of brokers on the internet today, the ability to pick the best of them can be the beginning of your successful journey as a trader. Also, note that you don't have to be an experienced professional to be a successful financial trader, all you need is the best social trading platform with the right trading tools and financial freedom will be closer than you think. (Disclaimer: Above mentioned article is a Consumer connect initiative. This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of IDPL, and IDPL claims no responsibility whatsoever.) New Delhi: Kriti Sanon has become a household name as she has cemented her place amongst the leading ladies of Bollywood. While the actress never fails to impress her fans on the work front, they are always looking forward to her social media posts to as she keeps them regularly updated not just with her glam looks, home reels and work updates but also with her motivational posts and poetry. On World Mental Health Day, the actress took to her social media to share her thoughts on mental health and what it means to be kind to yourself. In the caption, she wrote The person you spend the maximum time with- Is YOU! Be kind. Stop being over-Kritical Be Nicer to Yourself, than you are to others. In the video, the actress says, You know what, the person you talk to the most, listen to the most and whose words affect you the most is you. So be kind, be gentle to yourself in your head. The Mimi actress has always been very clear about her thoughts through her social media and keeps on sharing her feelings through poetry too. Watch the video here - Nupur Sanon chimed into the comments section to support her sister and wrote, I love you yaaaaar! #besthuman. Fans of the actress also could not control their excitement as soon as she dropped the video. Keep Spreading your positivity everywhere, wrote one fan. Thank you for making us realise this ,you always inspire us, added another fan. On the work front, Kriti Sanon is gearing up for her many massive upcoming releases including Adipurush, Ganapath, Bhediya and Shehzada. New Delhi: Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are two of the most popular and celebrated superstars of their generation. While Big B has been the angry young man of Bollywood for decades, Shah Rukh Khan is the quintessential lover and romantic hero every girl wanted. As the legend Amitabh Bachchan turned 80 years old today, Shah Rukh Khan took to social media to express his love for the actor and wished him a very happy birthday. In a heartfelt note, SRK wrote that one thing he has learnt from Big B is to never back away. The actor also shared a throwback video with him in which the duo can be seen singing the song, Ek dusre se karte hain pyaar hum. One thing to learn from this great man, actor, superstar, father and superhuman is to never back away.instead learn.level up and launch again and again.forever. May you always be healthy and entertain our grand children also. Love you sir, Shah Rukh Khan wrote on his Twitter handle. See the tweet here - One thing to learn from this great man, actor, superstar, father and superhuman is to never back away.instead learn.level up and launch again and again.forever. May you always be healthy and entertain our grand children also. Love you sir @SrBachchan pic.twitter.com/2biJ6bK9xU Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) October 11, 2022 Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have worked on several films together in the past including popular films like Mohabbatein (2000), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006), among others. Recently, Shah Rukh Khan also played a cameo as Vanarastra in Ayan Mukerjis Brahmastra which starred Amitabh Bachchan in an important role. On the work front, Amitabh Bachchans latest film Goodbye has been released in the theatres. The film also stars Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta and Pavail Gupta in pivotal roles. Shah Rukh Khan, on the other hand, is gearing up for his highly anticipated comeback film Pathaan which will hit the theatres in 2023. New Delhi: International Girl Child Day 2022 is being celebrated today, 11th October. The International Girl Child Day, declared by the United Nations was conceptualised to discuss the challenges and issues faced by girl children in the world. On International Girl Child Day, Sukanya Samriddhi Account could be one investment plan that you could think about your girl child so that you can build a decent fund upon maturity of the scheme. Sukanya Samriddhi Account can be opened in the name of a girl child till she attains the age of 10 years. Account can be opened in Post offices and notified branches of commercial banks. The rate of interest on Sukanya Samriddhi Account is 7.6% Per Annum (with effect from 01-04-2020), calculated on yearly basis ,Yearly compounded. (Also read: Get Rs 58,950 pension whole life by paying single premium) Account can be opened with a minimum of Rs 250 and Maximum Rs 1,50,000 in a financial year. Subsequent deposit in multiple of Rs 50. Deposits can be made in lump-sum No limit on number of deposits either in a month or in a Financial year. (Also read: Here's how to get Rs 26 lakh by investing just Rs 1000 per month) Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana: How to get Rs 66 lakh by Investing Rs 411 daily Thus, you can build a Huge corpus for your girl child when she attains 21 years. Assuming, you invest the entire tax free amount of Rs 1.5 lakh in a year. In 15 years, you will invest a total of Rs 22,50,000 which means per day you will have to set aside approximately Rs 411. After attaining 21 years, your daughter will get the maturity amount of Rs 65,93,071 (Rs Rs 22,50,000 + the interest on of Rs Rs 43,43,071). The Sukanya Samriddhi Account gives major tax benefits to the subscribers. Here are four prominent ones: 1. Investments made in Sukanya Samriddhi Account are eligible for tax deductions under Section 80C of the IT act. 2. Deduction of up to a limit of Rs 1.5 lakh is allowed annually on Sukanya Samriddhi Account. 3. The interest that accrues against this account which gets compounded annually is also exempt from tax under Section 10 of the Income Tax Act. 4. The proceeds received upon maturity/withdrawal are also exempt from income tax. New Delhi: Garena Free Fire releases redeem codes on an everyday basis. The 12-digit redeem code consists of alphabets and numbers. Players can get rewards such as skins for in-game weapons and characters to improve their gaming experience. Garena Free fire is banned in India. However, if you are located outside India, you can access the reward codes and redeem them. For that you will be required to visit official Garena Free Fire reward site and log in to your Facebook, Google, and Twitter IDs to access the Free Fire redemption page. (Also read: WhatsApp entering film-making biz, movie to premiere on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube) Check out the Garena Free Fire Redeem Codes for October 11, 2022 YT2D HNEJ KT6O Y9KT 70P8 LKUO CIX7 A6QR EDC2 3GHR UFDX YSTG R5JT 6LOY 9I8B UY1N MRKL 5T6Y H98G VC7Y E21C 2VBH J4UI 5T8F 7Y6X FDGR NJKT L1YI UHYH FKTI 6YXX ZQ12 345T YBHJ KLIU 34ZX G345 SJKI J1IT UH7V NXMK AI9Y (Also read: OMG! An 18-year boy hacks Uber, employees' thoughts someone is joking) How to Redeem Garena Free Fire codes for today, October 11, 2022 Step 1: Go to the official Garena Free Fire redemption portal Step 2: Log in on the portal with either your Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google, VK, or Huawei ID. Step 3: Enter a redeem code in the designated text box. Step 4: Click on the Ok button to get free rewards in your game account. (Disclaimer: Garena Free fire is banned in India. Hence we advise people to adhere to government rules) New Delhi: Day 9 in the 'Bigg Boss 16' house starts positively as Sumbul clears the air with Stan and Shiv about yesterday's argument. Archana praises Gautam's decision of going against Shalin and also influences Sumbul to not do Shalin, Tina's chores. On the other hand, Archana and Soundarya get into an ugly fight and many abusive words get exchanged. Priyanka again jumps in between and Soundarya says that if Priyanka marries Ankit, his mom will cry for life. Archana badmouths Soundarya and says, 'pure Mumbai mein iska naam kharab hai...' Gautam on the other hand, assigns new duties as a captain. Shalin again flirts with Soundarya, Gautam gets pissed. The captain is very possessive about her and likes her a lot. Here comes the fight! Gauri, out of nowhere just starts irritating the Kitchen staff Sreejita, Tina and Sumbul, when opposed, she starts screaming and uses vulgar sign language. Sumbul fights her, Gauri screams on the top of her voice. Sreejita and Tina call Gauri uncultured, Sree even comment on her education. Stan takes a stand for his friend and the fight gets uglier. Stan calls its groupism and everyone gets pissed off. Priyanka again jumps in between without context but well, what's new in that! Sumbul cries, hugs Shalin and Stan calls it sympathy seeking, weakness. Bigg Boss, on the other hand, scold Gautam for the discriminatory language in the house, asks the captain to nominate four people. He nomintes Gauri, MC Stan, Tina and Sreejita. Tina is pissed as says, "mujhe koik nikal sakta yahan see, mere fans, meri army baithi hai bahar.." Nominated people, except Shalin distribute the ration amongst all. Gauri takes extra and gets the tag of chor, will be punished by BB according to the captain. Gauri cries as she thinks she is been targeted. Keep watching this space for more updates. The heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on Monday warned of economic headwinds that are raising the risk of a global financial recession. Theres the risk and the real danger of a world recession next year. The advanced economies are slowing in Europe and so well see where it goes into next year, World Bank Group President David Malpass told IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during their discussion. But the currency depreciation means that the debt levels for the developing countries are getting more and more burdensome, Malpass added. The rise in interest rates puts added weight on it. And inflation is still a major problem for everyone, but especially for the poor. Georgieva noted that the IMF has calculated that one-third of the worlds economy will have had at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth this year, with the slowdown costing some $4 billion to the global economy between not and 2026. We are seeing slow down in all three key economies of the world, she said. Eurozone, because primarily of gas prices shooting up. China, because of COVID disruptions and the volatility of the housing sector, we see a very significant problem in China dragging down growth, Georgieva said. And in the United States, still very strong labor market, but also losing a bit of momentum because interest rates are starting to bite. Malpass and Georgievas remarks come as the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates throughout this year in an effort to slow record inflation, raising concerns that the U.S. could be headed for a recession. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Kolkata: The authorities in West Bengal have imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC in the Ekbalpore area after a clash between two groups of people from two different communities that erupted on October 9. According to police, two groups clashed in the area on Sunday evening over some local issues in which several people were injured. Police personnel, including those of the Rapid Action Force, were deployed and Section 144 Cr PC was imposed in the area since Sunday night. West Bengal | Section 144 has been imposed in Ekbalpore area after a clash between two groups of people from two different communities erupted on Oct 9 https://t.co/MDlVZ3nLSX ANI (@ANI) October 10, 2022 Ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition BJP were engaged in a verbal duel on Monday over clashes between two groups in the Khidderpore-Mominpur area in southwest Kolkata that left several people injured. The saffron camp claimed that law and order have worsened in West Bengal, drawing a sharp retort from the ruling TMC, which accused the BJP of trying to vitiate the atmosphere of the state. CPI-M on the other hand said that the incident was engineered by land sharks to take control of slums in the area and blamed both TMC and BJP of trying to make it an issue to gain political mileage. BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar tried to visit the area on Monday but was stopped at the Chingrighata area of east Kolkata and asked to return as prohibitory orders under Section 144 Cr PC had been clamped in the area. He was later arrested and released after a few hours. "Sukanta Majumdar was later arrested and taken to Lalbazar police headquarters. The area is now under Section 144 Cr PC but he was adamant about going there. We tried to persuade him, it did not yield any result," a senior police official said. "I have written to Hon'ble Union Home Minister Shri@AmitShah Ji & Hon'ble Governor Shri La Ganesan Ji requesting them to urgently deploy central forces in the wake of Mominpur violence and ransacking of Ekbalpur police station before the law and order situation of West Bengal gets out of hand," Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari tweeted. The @BJP4Bengal Legislature Party has submitted the following Memorandum to Hon'ble Governor Shri La Ganesan Ji, requesting him to take urgent steps, such as deploying Central Forces, forming a High Level Committee, NIA investigation etc in the wake of Mominpur violence. pic.twitter.com/aU2rtMhggp Suvendu Adhikari (@SuvenduWB) October 10, 2022 TMC hit out at the saffron camp for allegedly trying to "vitiate the atmosphere in the state". Its senior leader Sougata Roy said the police had taken all the steps needed to bring the situation under control. "The miscreants involved in the incident have been arrested. What will Sukanta Majumdar do by going there apart from giving hate speeches? The BJP is trying to vitiate the atmosphere of the state. The BJP should stop politicising every incident," Roy said. Later in the afternoon, Adhikari took out a protest march from the West Bengal state assembly to Raj Bhawan to register the BJP's protest against the arrest of Majumdar. "We had come to the governor to register our protest. Is this the way a state president of the main opposition party is treated? The state government has completely failed to control the situation," he said. The party also took out a protest march from its state headquarters in central Kolkata to the city police headquarters at Lalbazar. BJP cadres in various parts of the state squatted on roads and important intersections, demanding the immediate release of Majumdar. TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh accused BJP of trying to disturb the peace in the state. West Bengal CPI-M state secretary Md Salim claimed that the incident was engineered by land sharks and that the TMC and BJP are trying to gain political mileage from it. (With Agency inputs) Washington: US President Joe Biden pledged to Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy that the United States will provide Ukraine with advanced air systems after a missile barrage from Russia. The US President expressed his condemnation of Russias missile strikes across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, and conveyed his condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured in these senseless attacks. "President Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defence systems. He also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance," a White House statement on Monday said. Biden also told Zelenskyy that the US and its allies and partners would continue imposing costs on Russia, "holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance," the White House said. UN meets on Ukraine hours after Russian strikes The UN General Assembly started debating on Monday whether to demand that Russia reverse course on annexing four regions of Ukraine -a discussion that came as Moscow's most extensive missile strikes in months alarmed much of the international community anew. The UNGA's special session was planned before Monday's barrage, but countries spoke out on the widespread, Monday morning rush-hour attacks that killed at least 14 people and wounded scores. Ukrainian Ambassador Sergey Kyslytsya said some of his own close relatives were imperiled in a residential building, unable to take cover in a bomb shelter. "By launching missile attacks on civilians sleeping in their homes or rushing toward children going to schools, Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways," he said. Russia said it targeted military and energy facilities. But some of the missiles smashed into civilian areas: a park, a commuter minibus, and more. It has said it was retaliating for what it called a Ukrainian "terrorist" attack on Saturday on an important bridge, and Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the assembly that Moscow had warned that there wouldn't be impunity for such an act. The bridge was "civilian infrastructure, critical infrastructure", he told reporters outside the chamber. Ukrainian officials haven't confirmed that Kyiv was behind the bridge attack or other incidents of apparent sabotage but have said they welcome setbacks for Russia in all territory that it has claimed to annex. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was "deeply shocked" by the Russian attacks and spoke Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. Various nations also deplored the bombardment. Turkish UN Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu, whose country helped the UN broker a July deal to get Ukrainian and Russian grain exports flowing, called Monday's attacks "deeply worrying and unacceptable". Hours after the missiles flew, the UN assembly gathered to consider responding to Russia's purported absorption last month of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The move followed Kremlin-orchestrated "referendums" that the Ukrainian government and the West have dismissed as sham votes conducted on occupied land amid warfare and displacement. A proposed assembly resolution would demand that Moscow "immediately and unconditionally" scrap its supposed annexations and call on all countries not to recognise them. The measure, spearheaded by the European Union, also would insist upon the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine's internationally recognised territory. Meanwhile, Russia's ambassador decried the debate as a one-sided exercise in pushing an anti-Russian narrative. "Such cynicism, confrontation and dangerous polarization as today we have never seen in the history of the UN," Nebenzia said. He reiterated his country's claim that the "referendums" were valid and that Moscow is endeavouring to "protect" people in the regions against what the Kremlin views as a hostile Ukrainian government. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, fielding questions on Monday in Australia, declined to say what his country thought of the measure. The full 193-member assembly is expected to vote Wednesday or later. Russia wanted secret balloting, an unusual move that the assembly rejected, 107-13, with 39 abstentions. Russian bids to reconsider the secret ballot idea were voted down. (With AP Inputs) New Delhi: Jesus Salgado, accused of kidnapping and killing a California Sikh family was slapped with charges for the same by prosecutors on Monday. He allegedly kidnapped the parents, their 8-month-old daughter, and her uncle at gunpoint from their family business on Oct 3. Salgado threatening the family at gunpoint outside their trucking business in order to kidnap them was captured on camera. It showed Jasdeep Singh and Amandeep Singh first being led away at gunpoint and the kidnapper returning to take Jasleen Kaur and the baby. Also Read: SHOCKING killing of US Sikh family: 'Baby Aroohi was left to die as parents, uncle murdered' Salgado is believed to have had a long-standing feud with the family and was a former employee of their trucking business. In a senseless act of revenge, Salgado murdered the family. In the beginning, the family consisting of Aroohi Dheri; her 27-year-old mother Jasleen Kaur; her 36-year-old father Jasdeep Singh; and her 39-year-old uncle Amandeep Singh was only suspected to be missing but their dead bodies were found on late Wednesday near an almond orchard in a remote agricultural land in California. The accused tried to kill himself after the kidnappings and murder. However, he was unsuccessful and now faces a lifetime of jail time if convicted. Relatives of the family told investigators that Salgado had sent angry text messages or emails about a year ago after working with the trucking business, Warnke said. A herd of Alpine wild horses. A $25,000 reward has been offered for the arrest and conviction of perpetrators involved in a wild horse killing in the Apache National Forest near Alpine, Arizona, according to Amelia Perrin from the American Wild Horse Campaign. Two nonprofit organizations The Salt River Wild Horse Management Group and the American Wild Horse Campaign have pledged $20,000 toward the reward fund. Another advocacy organization, Animal Wellness Action, has pledged an additional $5,000 toward the reward, Perrin said. Perrin said the reward is in response to the discovery of the death of a herd of wild horses in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest by volunteers from the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group. The groups announced the death toll has risen to 15 horses fatally shot, with 20 still missing and presumed dead. Simone Netherlands, president of the group, said, "The gunmen who are targeting these horses have inflicted enormous suffering on these innocent animals and caused immense trauma to the people who love them. We are offering this reward on behalf of horse lovers from around the world who are demanding the capture, arrest, and prosecution of the cold-blooded killers who are responsible for this crime." In an Oct. 7 release, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests confirmed a number of horses were found dead near Forest Road 25 on the Alpine and Springerville Ranger Districts. The release did not state how many. The investigation is still ongoing. The presence of wild horses in Arizona has been controversial. Some ranchers and conservationists advocate for smaller herds and stricter population management while wild horse supporters have historically decried efforts to remove or sterilize the animals. A 47-page management plan from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests proposed a reduction in the Heber herd's size from around 420 to no more than 104. The Navajo Board of Supervisors said in 2005 that personnel advertised a contract to remove livestock that were accessing the fire-damaged area from the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire, due to concerns that the increased number of free-range horses was adversely affecting the land's recovery. Story continues The Alpine herd is not protected under the 1971 Wild Horses and Burros Act, which declares that, "Wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands." Perrin and the American Wild Horse Campaign hope that the $25,000 reward will incentivize people to come forward with information. "Someone knows something," Perrin said. "There's not just a mass killing of animals at this level without someone knowing something." In January, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests announced a $10,000 reward for information about the death of three wild horses on the Black Mesa Ranger District in eastern Arizona. In 2020, 15 deceased horses were found between Jan. 9 and 14, several of which were confirmed to have died due to bullet wounds. Reach breaking news reporter Vic Verbalaitis at vverbalaitis@gannett.com or on Twitter @VicVerb. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: $25,000 reward offered for arrest of Arizona wild horse killers By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov South Caucasus Weekly Review: 3-9 Oct 22 This project of Azernews is designed to cover major weekly developments in the South Caucasus nations. HIGHLIGHTS Armenia accepts peace agenda with Azerbaijan premier Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders hold peace talks in Prague Armenian, Turkish leaders underline need of direct interaction in Prague Pashinyan attends informal meeting of CIS leaders in Russia EU Council President expresses concerns over imprisonment of Georgian oppositionist Georgia, EU discuss nations European perspective Georgian parliament approves technical cooperation agreement with Germany Baku, Yerevan discuss blueprint for peace in US-organized trilateral call format Baku hands 17 Armenian servicemen over to Yerevan Azerbaijani, Turkish special forces holding joint drills Baku condemns French foreign minister for biased, anti-Azerbaijani remarks ARMENIA Armenia accepts peace agenda with Azerbaijan premier On October 5, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated in Parliament that Armenia will continue to pursue the established peace agenda with Azerbaijan. I confirm that we have adopted a peace agenda. I confirm that I assume responsibility to implement the peace agenda with the formula announced during my last interview. I am expecting the support of the parliamentary majority and the people for implementing this agenda. I am moving on that path and will move on that path. As a result of latest negotiations and content, I see a path to move on. This is the most important, Pashinyan said during the Q&A session in the Parliament. The prime minister believes that the recent conversations and diplomatic efforts have opened some room for progress in peace talks. I spoke about the concept of recognition of territorial integrity by Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the 8 December, 1991 agreement, and there are early indications that this basis, this approach could be mutually acceptable for the parties, Pashinyan added. Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders hold peace talks in Prague Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev came together to discuss future peace deal under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as European Council President Charles Michel in Prague on October 6. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the first European Political Community Summit, which was initiated by French President. Following the meeting, the leaders reaffirmed their adherence to the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, in which both parties accept each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. They confirmed that this will serve as basis for the work of the commissions on delimitation and that the next meeting of these commissions will take place in Brussels by the end of October. Armenia expressed its agreement to encourage the EU civilian mission along the border with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan agreed to cooperate with the mentioned mission to the extent it will be concerned. The mission will start its work in October, for a maximum period of two months. The purpose of the mission will be to build confidence and, through its reports, support the border commissions. Armenian, Turkish leaders underline need of direct interaction in Prague Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan underlined the importance of direct interaction, as well as high-level meetings between the two nations, Azernews reports, citing the Armenian media. The leaders came together on the sidelines of the first the first European Political Community Summit in Prague on October 7. Both sides emphasized the importance of direct engagements and high-level meetings in the framework of Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, highlighting progress toward restoring the mutual ties and potential future steps. The importance of speedy implementation of the agreements reached by the special representatives of the two countries, specially the opening of the land border for citizens of third countries, the implementation of direct air cargo transportation between Armenia and Turkiye was emphasized. Pashinyan attends informal meeting of CIS leaders in Russia Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the informal CIS summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on October 7. The summit was also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakh President Kassym Zhomart-Tokayev, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the Armenian Prime Ministers Office said. President Putin thanked the leaders of the CIS member-states for traveling to Saint Petersburg adding that the meeting will provide opportunity to discuss the details of the upcoming CIS summit due in Astana next week. GEORGIA EU Council President expresses concerns over imprisonment of Georgian oppositionist The President of the European Council's Cabinet emphasizes that they are monitoring Nika Gvaramia's trial and the Georgian Public Defender's statements. Similarly, the President's Cabinet insists that the Georgian government adhere to the political agreement reached on April 19, 2021. Nika Gvaramia, the founder of opposition-minded TV channel Mtavari Arkhi, has been incarcerated for more than five months and has been given a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Frederic Bernard, Head of the Cabinet, thanked representatives of the Georgian media for their letter of concern from May 24 on Nika Gvaramias incarceration. Conforming to the letter, the European Council pays careful attention to Gvaramias court case. We have noted the statement of the Georgian Public Defender, which raises doubts about the Courts reasoning in Mr Gvaramias case, both in terms of conviction and sentencing, Bernard said. The President's Cabinet emphasizes the importance of fundamental rights and due legal process in conformity with the rule of law and international obligations, notably the European Convention on Human Rights. The EU repeatedly called on the Georgian authorities to engage in an inclusive and comprehensive reform of the judiciary, underlined the Head of the Cabinet. This is also one of the cornerstones of the 19 April 2021 political agreement and the recently adopted EU-Georgia Association Agenda, he added. Bernard said that the EU will continue to follow Mr Gvaramias court case and through the EU Delegation in Tbilisi will follow the wider justice reform closely. Georgia, EU discuss nations European perspective Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili met with Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, on the margins of the first summit of the European Political Community, in Prague. At the meeting, the prime minister spoke about the historic decision on granting the European perspective to Georgia, also pointing out that Georgia is doing everything to take the next step toward EU membership and receive the EU candidate status. To that end, Georgia has set out to implement without delay the 12 priorities identified by the European Commission. Garibashvili emphasized that this inclusive process enables every branch of government, alongside the opposition parties and civil society, to become fully engaged in the implementation of the priorities, with working groups put together to accomplish this task. The meeting also touched on the Russian aggression in Ukraine and its impact on Georgia, the region, and the world in general. The prime minister drew special attention to the EUs attempts to ensure peace in the South Caucasus and Georgias commitment to contributing to this cause. The parties discussed Georgias further alignment and infrastructural communication with the EU in the transport, energy, and digital spheres. It was noted that the Black Seas transport infrastructure enjoys a prominent place in the EUs transport and energy policy, and the EU and Georgia are poised to further cooperation in this direction. Georgian parliament approves technical cooperation agreement with Germany The Parliament approved the Technical Cooperation agreement between Georgia and Germany with 92 votes, concluded through the exchange of notes. As the Deputy Regional Minister, Mzia Giorgobiani noted, the Agreement allocates 2 100 000 EURO as a grant to Georgia, to be directed to the project Sustainable Urban Development in Georgia, assigned to the GIZ in cooperation with the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure, she stated AZERBAIJAN Baku, Yerevan discuss blueprint for peace in US-organized trilateral call format A trilateral format telephone call was initiated by US State Secretary Antony Blinken with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in presence to mull the normalization of ties, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. The October 4 phone call was a follow-up to the meeting in Geneva on October 2 that was held as the foreign ministers were tasked by their leaders to draft the wording of a peace treaty as agreed by the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in Brussels on August 31 under the auspices of European Union Council President Charles Michel, the ministry elaborated. The telephone conversation also underlined the importance of the September 19 meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers, organized by the US Secretary of State in New York on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly session, as well as the September 27 meeting held between Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev, and Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan, mediated by Jake Sullivan, US Presidents National Security Adviser, in Washington, DC. During the phone call, Bayramov underlined the details of the Geneva meeting, as well as his expectations for the continuation of discussions on the document comprising the provisions of the peace treaty submitted by Azerbaijan during the Geneva meeting. The minister appreciated the scheduling of the next meeting of border delimitation commissions in October, as well as the discussion of pertinent topics for the resolution of current border tensions. Bayramov emphasized Azerbaijan's commitment to regional peace and stability, as well as its willingness to sign a peace deal. At the same time, the minister stressed that efforts would continue in the post-conflict period to reintegrate the population of Armenian origin residing in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region. Blinken has underlined the need for avoiding military conflicts, hastening discussions on the aspects of the proposed peace treaty, and continuing work within the delimitation commission's framework. Blinken expressed his gratitude for the significant efforts Armenia and Azerbaijan are taking toward a long-term peace accord. In a week that has been marked by too much violence, including the deaths of Armenian soldiers and Azerbaijani civilians in landmine explosions, he welcomed the meeting between the ministers on October 2 as an important step forward in the peace process. The Secretary commended the release of POWs and reiterated our commitment to helping Armenia and Azerbaijan resolve issues peacefully and underscored that diplomacy is the only way forward, US Department of State reported. During the trilateral phone call, the parties discussed various areas of the normalization process, and it was agreed to maintain communication in order to achieve significant progress on the issues. Baku hands 17 Armenian servicemen over to Yerevan Azerbaijan has returned 17 Armenian servicemen to Yerevan, proceeding from the principles of humanism, Azernews reports. The servicemen were apprehended during recent large-scale provocations carried out by the Armenian armed forces near the Azerbaijani border on September 13-14. The handover was agreed upon with the Armenian government through international mediation. Four of the 17 Armenian servicemen were injured and were later treated in Azerbaijan. US Presidents National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has welcomed the return of the Armenian servicemen. We welcome Azerbaijans return of the 17 Armenian POWs from the recent violence. The United States continues to support ongoing efforts to reach a lasting peace agreement, he tweeted. Azerbaijan has repeatedly repatriated detained Armenian military personnel. The most recent transfer occurred on September 8, 2022, when Azerbaijan transferred five Armenian personnel to the opposing side. Azerbaijani, Turkish special forces holding joint drills The underwater offense (SAT) and underwater defense (SAS) units of the Azerbaijan Navy and the special forces of the Turkish Navy are conducting joint drills in Marmaris, Turkiye, Azernews reports, per the ministry. The drills are being conducted at the Aksaz naval base under the approved training plan for 2022. The military personnel of the two nations is carrying out tasks on the development of land and sea tactics, the search for unexploded ammunition and sea mines, as well as their destruction. Individual and group tactical shoots in the day and night mode, combined marches, ambushes, and raids in mixed groups, and long-distance underwater swimming exercises at sea using special underwater breathing equipment are planned for training participants. The training will last until October 14, the ministry said. Baku condemns French foreign minister for biased, anti-Azerbaijani remarks Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva has condemned French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna for her biased and anti-Azerbaijani remarks, Azernews reports. On October 5, while answering a question from a pro-Armenian member of the French National Assembly pertaining to the accusations against Azerbaijan and providing more support to Armenia, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna voiced her solidarity with the Armenian people and made completely groundless charges against Azerbaijan. Abdullayeva stressed that it is not the first time that French officials have demonstrated a one-sided and pro-Armenian stance. She recalled that it is not a secret that Colonna has never called for the investigation into numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Armenia so far. Unfortunately, no calls have been made by French officials in the previous 30 years denouncing Armenia's war crimes. The reason is obvious to us, but it would be preferable if an official from a country that is Europe's leading force, acts as a defender of international legal principles, and wishes to serve as a mediator in the process of normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia would take a neutral, impartial, and fair stance, Abdullayeva stressed. Furthermore, against the backdrop of French President Emmanuel Macron's efforts in achieving peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, minister Colonna's biased and irresponsible remark causes confusion, the spokesperson underlined. We would also like to remind her that in a few days it will be the second anniversary of the missile attack on Ganja, Azerbaijan's second-largest city, by Armenian armed forces, which killed dozens of civilians. No one has been brought to justice by Armenia for this war crime. We ask the French foreign minister to call on Armenia regarding this issue, Abdullayeva emphasized. Tom Felton: Im pro-choice, pro-discussion, pro-human rights across the board, and pro-love' (Getty/Gisela Schober) Tom Felton looks different. It may seem like a cliche to point that out, but its the first thought I have as we shake hands inside a sparsely filled canalside pub in Kings Cross, north London. The man that sits before me couldnt be further from Draco Malfoy. Long gone is the bleached blond hairdo, the snide Slytherin glint in his eye. He wears a white woollen cardigan, and sits drinking tea; before we speak, he politely explains that he has to first make a phone call to his mother. Some villain. Felton is here because he has written a memoir, Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard. Its been 11 years since the final Harry Potter film, The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and more than two decades since he was first cast as the flaxen-haired Draco. Despite a memorable role in 2011s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and supporting turns in Amma Asantes period dramas Belle (2013) and A United Kingdom (2017), Felton, now 35, has struggled to escape Potters huge gravitational pull. In his memoir, he recalls the harsh realities of auditioning out in Hollywood as an adult. It wasnt really returning to auditioning. It was learning to audition all over again, he says. When children are brought in, half of it is, Can you stand on the mark, not look down the lens of the camera, and take basic direction? I mean, really, how good can any seven-year-old be at anything? Going in there as a 20-year-old, especially in Los Angeles, the auditions are far more frequent and cut-throat. Its a lesson not necessarily in brutality, but in acceptance, he continues. The one exception was Apes, a major blockbuster that arrived at his door audition-free. It was an incredible, strange anomaly that hasnt really happened since, he says. Beyond the Wand covers Feltons life, pre-, mid- and post-Potter. The bulk of it comprises affable anecdotes about his time on the franchise his dealings with the other actors, his teenage transgressions off-screen. Towards the end, though, he opens up about his mental health struggles in the years afterwards, which culminated in an intervention and a couple of short stints in rehab, as well as a break-up with his long-term partner, stunt assistant Jade Olivia Gordon. I was encouraged by a few people, Emma Watson specifically, to tell the whole story and not just sort of cherry-pick the fluffy bits, he says. Not just because it was cathartic for me. But also in the hope that sharing those parts of my story will help others that are maybe not going through the best time. Story continues Felton is careful not to label exactly what he was going through; in his book he describes his drinking as the symptom, rather than a cause. But its fair to say back in 2016 he was approaching a point of crisis. I think one of the problems with the word intervention is that it naturally insinuates that there is some specific thing that is a problem in most cases, either depression or substance abuse or whatever it may be, he says. The reality of my experience was that I had a group of people around me that knew me well enough to know that I was not happy. That I wasnt being the Tom that they knew. I wasnt thinking clearly. And it has less to do with what I was doing, and more a case of, they could see that I needed help. I think a lot of people when theyre in the muddiest of waters dont acknowledge how muddy it is. Felton and Emma Watson chatting on the set of this years 20th anniversary Harry Potter reunion (HBO Max) Its perhaps unsurprising that Watson was the one to encourage him to open up. He and the Hermione Granger actor have always shared a bond, dating back to when Watson four years his junior used to follow him around like a puppy desperate for his attention (her words) on the set of The Philosophers Stone. The pairs friendship has long been a point of particular interest to Harry Potter devotees. I think it was only through comic cons that I was introduced to this idea of shipping, he says. (For those who dont know, its the desire of fans for their heroes to get together, in real life or on-screen.) I know Emma and I dont have any problems with it, Felton adds. Felton keeps a lot of eye contact when he talks, breaking only when a dog enters his peripheral vision (Good lord, what a beautiful beast!). As is obvious from the branding of his book, he is not one of those stars to have turned his back on the franchise that made him. He still goes to conventions, speaks warmly of his fans next week hes even off to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on the West End stage. Asked if hed be willing to pick up the peroxide again for some manner of Harry Potter sequel (which almost seems an inevitability at this point), he appears receptive to the idea: Id be lying if I said I wouldnt consider it. Its clear he has tried to move on, even though he remembers the role with nostalgia. I definitely dont miss Draco Malfoy, but I am very affectionately linked to him, he says. My dog doesnt care about Harry Potter. She doesnt care about me being on stage. All she wants to do is chase squirrels Tom Felton It seemed, looking back at it now that Potter would be the only thing in my life, he muses. But there were many, many things ahead of that. Any of his Instagram followers could probably tell you what some of these things are. For one, Felton recently made his West End debut in a production of 2:22: A Ghost Story (I was absolutely terrified and convinced I was going to be awful but Id definitely go back). Then theres music, about which Felton is a fanatic, both listening and playing theres an album already in the works. Theres also his black labrador, Willow, about whom he speaks with real affection. She doesnt care about Harry Potter, he says. She doesnt care about me being on stage. All she wants to do is chase squirrels. Theres something quietly heartbreaking in the way he says that but something hopeful, too. Being around something as pure as that really helps me. JK Rowling is mentioned a few times throughout Beyond the Wand; she could perhaps be considered a conspicuous absence in an acknowledgements section that goes out of its way to thank many of the Potter films cast, crew and others. Rowling has become a polarising figure in recent years, predominantly for her many comments on trans rights, which many LGBT+ people and activists have described as transphobic (something she denies). Felton (centre) as Draco Malfoy in Deathy Hallows: Part 1, alongside Josh Herdman and Louis Cordice (Warner Bros) First of all, I dont know enough about the specifics of what anyone said. My dog takes up far too much time for me to go into such matters, Felton says, appearing to bat away the topic but he goes on. I mean, the obvious things to say are that Im pro-choice, pro-discussion, pro-human rights across the board, and pro-love. And anything that is not those things, I dont really have much time for. It is also a reminder that as much as Jo is the founder of [these] stories, she wasnt part of the filmmaking process as much as some people might think. I think I only recall seeing her once or twice on set. He is, however, keen to express his admiration and gratitude for Rowlings writing, noting that she is responsible for stories that are beloved by people of all ages, of all backgrounds. Honestly, with my friends, we all have differing opinions on various matters, and we celebrate our own choices, he adds. We certainly dont take any pleasure in putting crosshairs on people that may have said things that we disagree with. Our time now is almost up; talk meanders back to the book. Is he not apprehensive about how readers will react to some of the revelations in it his trips to rehab, his mental health struggles? I think one of the joys of creating art music, film, TV, literature, whatever it may be is the journey. What someone else gets out of it is really not up to me, he replies. I can sleep well, with the knowledge that its all true. And I think sharing it will do more good than bad. It may be a modest statement of intent, but its an admirable one. More Gryffindor than Slytherin, at least. Beyond the Wandby Tom Felton is out on 13 October 2022, published by Ebury Spotlight The Sainte Genevieve Museum Learning Center has a busy October ahead, with multiple activities planned throughout the month, including a whole week to celebrate National Fossil Day on Wednesday. Every Friday during the month of October visitors can enjoy fun and interactive activities at the museum. At 10:30 a.m. visitors can discover dinosaurs with a hands-on learning experience in the Hall of Giants. The Hall of Giants allows guests to experience the thrill of being up-close and personal with life-sized dinosaurs and discover the stories fossils can reveal about the past. At 1:30 p.m., guests will enjoy a video presentation on the history of the Missouri dinosaur during the Show-Me-Dino time slot. Also on Fridays, multiple guided tours will be available through the day. The Missouri dinosaur is the Parrosaurus missourienis, a duck-billed dinosaur discovered in Bollinger County, near Glen Allen. While National Fossil Day is Wednesday, the museum has plans for nearly every day of this week. On Wednesday, in celebration of National Fossil Day, the museum will have a guest speaker, who has not been announced yet. This year marks the 13th anniversary of National Fossil Day, as it was celebrated first in 2010 as a fossil-focused day during Earth Science Week. This years event starts at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Thursday is Discovery Playdate. From 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., children ages 2-5 can enjoy a fun and interactive learning activity theme. This months theme for the play date revolves around fossils due to National Fossil Day. Children must be accompanied by an adult, and regular admission will apply. Children 5 and under are free. Friday is the Discovering Dinosaurs exhibit, starting at 10:30 a.m. with the discovering dinosaurs, followed by a video presentation on the history of the Missouri dinosaur. On Saturday and Oct. 28 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., University of Missouri-St. Louis Professor Emeritus Michael Fix will be working to uncover the Missouri dinosaur, which will be uncovered piece by piece, bone by bone, at the Sainte Genevieve Museum Learning Center. The Museum Learning Center will also host a Vintage Tractor Display on Oct. 22 as part of the Rural Heritage Day in Ste. Genevieve. On Oct. 26, the museum is allowing guests to bring in any fossils, rocks, teeth, bones, and more to get an experts opinion on what the item is, where the item came from, and when the item originated. This event starts at noon and end at 3 p.m. Located at 360 Market Street in Ste. Genevieve, the museum can be contacted by phone at 573-883-3466, email at contact@stegenmuseum.org, online at stegenmuseum.org, or Facebook under Sainte Genevieve Museum Learning Center. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and features exhibits such as the Hall of Giants, ancient cultures gallery, and a gallery all about the history of Ste. Genevieve through the eyes of more than just the French. Two accidents led to four injuries, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. A three-vehicle accident Sunday afternoon in Washington County led to two people being treated for injuries. According to MSHP, at 12:25 p.m. at the intersection of Highways 21 and 47, a 1992 Ford F150 driven by Jonathan E. Jones, 39, of Ironton, was traveling southbound on Highway 21 when a northbound 2005 Chrysler Pacifica driven by a juvenile, 16, of Cadet failed to yield and turned left into the path of Jones. Jones vehicle began to skid and the front bumper struck the right rear quarter panel of the juveniles vehicle and then traveled off the road. The juveniles vehicle then rotated and traveled off the road where the rear left quarter panel struck the right front bumper of a 2007 Saturn Outlook driven by Randolf G. Carver, 57, of Cadet, parked in the entrance to parking lot. Jones and a passenger in the juveniles vehicle, Judy A. Faulkner, 67, of Cadet, were transported by Washington County Ambulance to Washington County Hospital with moderate injuries. According to MSHP, on Monday at 12:15 p.m. in St. Francois County, a 1987 Ford F150 driven by Daniele Ravanelli, 67, of Piedmont was traveling southbound on US 67 at Roberts Lane when the vehicle traveled off the right side of the road and struck an embankment. Ravanelli suffered moderate injuries and a passenger, James L. Burke, 58, of Patterson, suffered minor injuries. Both were taken to Parkland Health Center by St. Francois County Ambulance. Twenty years have now passed since the brutal murder of 62-year-old Peggy Miller. On September 22, 2002, Miller was found dead in her burned-out car in St. Francois County not too far from the Iron County line. Her home in Iron County had been set on fire. Originally we had a task force put together to run down the original leads on it, St. Francois County Sheriff Dan Bullock has said. It was the (Missouri State) Highway Patrol, Iron County and the detectives here. Authorities do not know if she was killed in St. Francois County or in Iron County, so authorities from both counties have investigated leads over the years. They have withheld details about her murder, such as the cause of death. Bullock has said there are things only they know about, so if they do get any new leads, they will know if a person was there and saw what happened to Miller. It was a very specific way that she was killed; only someone who was there would know how it happened. Authorities have had people of interest in the case over the years. In fact, some have been questioned and released. While St. Francois County detectives are kept busy with other cases and no new leads have surfaced in quite a while, authorities still have hopes that an arrest will be made. We are leveraging contemporary investigative methods in the analysis of decade-old evidence, St. Francois County Lt. Det. Matt Wampler said last week. Forensic testing, specifically DNA analysis, is one of the most important tools we have at our disposal. He said applying these modern investigative methods to this case is an important step toward success. We are still persistent and hopeful we will solve this case, Wampler said. We want to provide the friends and family of Peggy Miller reassurance that law enforcement continues to search for answers. We continue to request assistance from the public to help bring justice for Peggy Miller. Another tool he mentioned is that Missouri now has a witness protection program that can be utilized. Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call the sheriffs department at 573-431-2777 or Central Dispatch at 573-431-3131. Millers murder On the day of Millers death, firefighters were called to her home at the intersection of what was then Route W and Highway 21 in the early morning hours of Sept. 22, 2002. Her house had been set on fire. Her body was found in her burned-out car on Indian Creek Road not far from the Iron County line. Police believe the fires were set at about the same time and they do not know which fire was set first. Investigators have said they believe more than one person was involved in the murder and that these people are familiar with the area. They say going to Millers home seems random and unplanned, as there is no clear motive. What police thought was an unusual gas can found at her house and a phone call made at 1 a.m. from her house to an elderly woman in Richland havent netted much in the investigation. Family members have said Miller was not the type of person to make enemies or put herself in contact with people who would commit horrendous crimes. She worked part time at Parkland Health Center, attended church at First Baptist Church in Pilot Knob and was active in her grandchildrens lives. Jeff White has been assisted several times in recent years by crisis response teams that serve some rural counties in Iowa. White, who has depression and schizophrenia, can now call a state-run hotline and request a visit from mental health workers, rather than being admitted to a psychiatric unit or jailed by police (KC McGinnis/Kaiser Health News). This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News. NEWTON, Iowa Jeff White knows what can happen when 911 dispatchers receive a call about someone who feels despondent or agitated. He experienced it repeatedly: The 911 operators dispatched police, who often took him to a hospital or jail. They dont know how to handle people like me, said White, who struggles with depression and schizophrenia. They just dont. Theyre just guessing. In most of those instances, he said, what he really needed was someone to help him calm down and find follow-up care. Thats now an option, thanks to a crisis response team serving his area. Instead of calling 911, he can contact a state-run hotline and request a visit from mental health professionals. The teams are dispatched by a program that serves 18 mostly rural counties in central and northern Iowa. White, 55, has received assistance from the crisis team several times in recent years, even after heart problems forced him to move into a nursing home. The service costs him nothing. The teams goal is to stabilize people at home, instead of admitting them to a crowded psychiatric unit or jailing them for behaviors stemming from mental illness. For years, many cities have sent social workers, medics, trained outreach workers, or mental health professionals to calls that previously were handled by police officers. And the approach gained traction amid concerns about police brutality cases. Proponents say such programs save money and lives. But crisis response teams have been slower to catch on in rural areas even though mental illness is just as prevalent there. Thats partly because those areas are bigger and have fewer mental health professionals than cities do, said Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It certainly has been a harder hill to climb, she said. Melissa Reuland, a University of Chicago Health Lab researcher who studies the intersection of law enforcement and mental health, said that solid statistics are not available but that small police departments and sheriffs offices seem increasingly open to finding alternatives to a standard law enforcement response. Those can include training officers to handle crises better or seeking assistance from mental health professionals, she said. The shortage of mental health services will continue to be a hurdle in rural areas, she said: If it was easy, people would have fixed it. Still, the crisis response approach is making inroads, program by program. White has lived most of his life in small Iowa cities surrounded by rural areas. Hes glad to see mental health care efforts strengthened beyond urban areas. We out here get forgotten and out here is where we need help the most, he said. Some crisis teams, like the one that helps White, can respond on their own, while others are paired with police officers or sheriffs deputies. For example, a South Dakota program, Virtual Crisis Care, equips law enforcement officers with iPads. The officers can use the tablets to set up video chats between people in crisis and counselors from a telehealth company. That isnt ideal, Wesolowski said, but its better than having police officers or sheriffs deputies try to handle such situations on their own. The counselors help people in mental health crises calm down and then discuss what they need. If its safe for them to remain at home, the counselor calls a mental health center, which later contacts the people to see whether theyre interested in treatment. But sometimes the counselors determine people are a danger to themselves or others. If so, the counselors recommend that officers take them to an emergency room or jail for evaluation. In the past, sheriffs deputies had to make that decision on their own. They tended to be cautious, temporarily removing people from their homes to ensure they were safe, said Zach Angerhofer, a deputy in South Dakotas Roberts County, which has about 10,000 residents. Detaining people can be traumatic for them and expensive for authorities. Deputies often must spend hours filling out paperwork and shuttling people between the ER, jail, and psychiatric hospitals. That can be particularly burdensome during hours when a rural county has few deputies on duty. The Virtual Crisis Care program helps avoid that situation. Nearly 80% of people who complete its video assessment wind up staying at home, according to a recent state study. Angerhofer said no one has declined to use the telehealth program when he has offered it. Unless he sees an immediate safety concern, he offers people privacy by leaving them alone in their home or letting them sit by themselves in his squad car while they speak to a counselor. From what Ive seen, they are a totally different person after the tablet has been deployed, he said, noting that participants appear relieved afterward. The South Dakota Department of Social Services funds the Virtual Crisis Care program, which received startup money and design help from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. (The Helmsley Charitable Trust also contributes to KHN.) In Iowa, the program that helps White always has six pairs of mental health workers on call, said Monica Van Horn, who helps run the state-funded program through the Eyerly Ball mental health nonprofit. They are dispatched via the statewide crisis line or the new national 988 mental health crisis line. In most cases, the Eyerly Ball crisis teams respond in their own cars, without police. The low-key approach can benefit clients, especially if they live in small towns where everyone seems to know each other, Van Horn said. You dont necessarily want everyone knowing your business and if a police car shows up in front of your house, everybody and their dog is going to know about it within an hour, she said. Van Horn said the program averages between 90 and 100 calls per month. The callers problems often include anxiety or depression, and they are sometimes suicidal. Other people call because children or family members need help. Alex Leffler is a mobile crisis responder in the Eyerly Ball program. She previously worked as a behavior interventionist in schools, went back to college, and is close to earning a masters degree in mental health counseling. She said that as a crisis responder, she has met people in homes, workplaces, and even at a grocery store. We respond to just about any place, she said. You just can make a better connection in person. Thomas Dee, a Stanford University economist and education professor, said such programs can garner support from across the political spectrum. Whether someone is defund the police or back the blue, they can find something to like in these types of first-responder reforms, he said. Critics of police have called for more use of unarmed mental health experts to defuse tense situations before they turn deadly, while law enforcement leaders who support such programs say they can give officers more time to respond to serious crimes. And government officials say the programs can reduce costly hospitalizations and jail stays. Dee studied the Denver Support Team Assisted Response program, which lets 911 dispatchers send medics and behavioral health experts instead of police to certain calls. He found the program saved money, reduced low-level crime, and did not lead to more serious crimes. Dr. Margie Balfour is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona and an administrator for Connections Health Solutions, an Arizona agency that provides crisis services. She said now is a good time for rural areas to start or improve such services. The federal government has been offering more money for the efforts, including through pandemic response funding, she said. It also recently launched the 988 crisis line, whose operators can help coordinate such services, she noted. Balfour said the current national focus on the criminal justice system has brought more attention to how it responds to people with mental health needs. Theres a lot of things to disagree on still with police reform, she said. But one thing that everybody agrees on is that law enforcement doesnt need to be the default first responder for mental health. Arizona has crisis response teams available throughout the state, including in very rural regions, because settlement of a 1980s class-action lawsuit required better options for people with mental illnesses, Balfour said. Such programs can be done outside cities with creativity and flexibility, she said. Crisis response teams should be considered just as vital as ambulance services, Balfour said, noting that no one expects police to respond in other medical emergencies, such as when someone has a heart attack or stroke. People with mental health concerns deserve a health response, she said. Its worth it to try to figure out how to get that to the population. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. A lawsuit to intercept the effort to melt down and repurpose remnants of Charlottesvilles statue of Civil War general Robert E. Lee inched closer to trial during a hearing Monday. Judge Paul Peatross announced he plans to hold a one-day, non-jury trial on Feb. 1. At stake is the bronze itself. If the plaintiffs win and the Lee statue can be reassembled, they will have stopped the plan of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to create a locally relevant artwork out of that divisive bronze. Charlottesville made a decision about what it wants to do with its statues, said the Centers Andrea Douglas after the morning hearing. Last December the city agreed to give the statue to the Center to melt and refashion that bronze as part of a project called Swords into Plowshares. The city and the Center remain parties in the lawsuit filed by a pair of would-be bidders for the the larger-than-life equestrian statue. The Lee statue attracted hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists to Market Street Park in August, 2017. Their Unite the Right rally never happened as street fighting broke out between the rallygoers and counter-protestors. After the clash broke up, James A. Fields, Jr., a neo-Nazi from Ohio drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others. Today, the eyes of the world are on Charlottesville, said former City Councilor Kristin Szakos during a pre-hearing event outside the courthouse. The Swords into Plowshares project promises to serve as a model to other communities who are grappling with what do to with these symbols of division. While the court of public opinion seems to side with supporters of the Swords into Plowshares concept, at least 50 of whom rallied in advance of Mondays hearing, the plaintiffs have fared better in court. In April, Peatross green-lighted the case for trial by indicating that the amended state law on statues did not give the city the right to melt the statue and that the plaintiffs have legal standing to sue. He went on to indicate that the Virginia Procurement Act appears to give losing bidders the right to attempt to overturn the bidding process. The plaintiffs claim that they were unfairly shut out of the bidding process or otherwise overlooked. One plaintiff is the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation Inc., which is dedicated to saving Americas largest all-cavalry Civil War battle site, located about four miles west of the town of Louisa. The other plaintiff is the Ratcliffe Foundation, which operates a former home of a brother to Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart as the Ellenbrook Museum, located in southwest Virginia. The plaintiffs pressed the judge to help them learn what happened to the Lee statue after it was hoisted off its pedestal last year. All were asking is where its located, who has the possession of it, and what its condition is, said plaintiff attorney Braxton Puryear. He alleged that the defense hasnt been cooperating during the trials discovery process, so he filed a motion to compel the defendants to answer. We would have answered that question had a protective order been in place, replied defense counsel Christopher Tate. We want an extra layer of protection. Tate said a few years without violence doesnt mitigate the risk to contractors and others involved in melting down the Lee statue. Tate took particular aim at Jock Yellott, a former lawyer and now independent paralegal who was sitting quietly at the plaintiffs table Monday. Tate said that Yellott, an officer for a plaintiff in the separate case that long stymied the citys effort to remove the Lee statue, formerly had a habit of urging citizens to serve as protective sentries for the Lee statue. That led to a number of confrontations, said Tate. The judge agreed to force Tate to answer the questions but said hed be signing an order than punishes anyone, including Yellott, who reveals the information about where the Lee bronze has gone. Prior filings indicate that the figures of Lee and his horse Traveller may have already been cut into pieces in anticipation of smelting. Judge Peatross also rejected the citys effort to get a pre-trial appeal in front of the Virginia Court of Appeals. At the same time, he delivered a blow to the plaintiffs by rejecting their motion for a summary judgment, a ruling they sought to give their side a victory without trial. The plaintiffs declined to comment as they exited the courthouse, but defense attorney Tate spoke on the topic of answering what happened to the bronze. All we want is for everybody to be safe, said Tate, expressing confidence in the outcome of the trial. Rocky Mount Town Council candidate Phillip Bane has filed an assault and battery charge against Assistant Town Manager Mark Moore. The charges appear connected to a May 9 encounter involving Bane and members of Rocky Mount town staff. The incident took place in the town office parking lot and resulted in a call to police. The Roanoke Times previously published videos of the encounter. The videos were obtained through a public records request and included two videos taken by town staff and one video from a security camera. The videos show Town Manager Robert Wood exiting the town office and heading to his parked car. Bane, standing outside when Wood exits, walks with Wood to his car. At that point, Moore exits the office and crosses the parking lot to Woods car. Wood enters the drivers seat of his car and attempts to shut the door, but Bane stands between the seat and the door, preventing it from closing. Wood tells Bane to get out of his door. Moore moves between Bane and Wood and, with his back to Bane, backs Bane away from Woods car. Wood gets out of his car and Moore continues to stand between Wood and Bane until the police arrive. Courts and governmental offices were closed Monday due to the Columbus Day holiday, as The Roanoke Times sought to confirm the charge. Town Attorney John Boitnott said Moore has been issued a summons. The summons reads, assault and batter Phillip Bane in violation of section 18.2-57, Code of Virginia. ... We were notified of the issuance of the summons and Mr. Moore has received notice of the summons, Boitnott said. I was somewhat surprised that the magistrate would issue a summons for ... an offense that allegedly occurred over five months ago. In my opinion, this appears politically motivated given the fact that Mr. Banes actions followed the recent articles published by The Roanoke Times, Boitnott said. There are online videos that were posted in connection with those articles that I believe are self-explanatory to anyone who wants to watch them. Bane and town officials have been involved in an ongoing dispute over zoning issues with a downtown property Bane is developing. Police have been called by town officials on several occasions over incidents created by the matter. Bane is one of six candidates in the race for three town council seats. The election is Nov. 8. Former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman is supporting Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger for reelection to Virginias 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. A new campaign television ad features Riggleman, a Manassas businessman and Air Force veteran, applauding her bipartisan record in Congress, according to a release Monday morning from Abigail Spanberger for Congress. In the ad, Riggleman, who served one term representing Virginias 5th District, says Spanberger puts country first and is breaking precedent in an era marked by hyper-partisanship by trying to change Congress, the release stated. This is not a typical political ad, Riggleman says in the ad. Im a Republican Congressman, saying nice things about a Democrat. In Congress, the parties sit apart, and dont work togetherexcept Abigail Spanberger. Shes trying to change Congress and make it work, and shes ranked the most bipartisan Member of Congress from Virginia, and fifth in the country. In the CIA, Abigail worked counterterrorism. She puts country first. Thats why I support Abigail, the former Republican congressman said. Riggleman told the Washington Post on his participation in the TV ad, I think tribal politics is the worst thing we can have. I think thats another reason for Abby [Spanberger], is that shes bipartisan she certainly wants to help the people in her district regardless of if theyre Republican or Democrat, and thats a special trait to have. Spanberger, a former federal agent and CIA officer, is seeking reelection to a third term in a newly drawn 7th District in a race against Republican nominee Yesli Vega, a Prince William County Supervisor with a background in law enforcement. One thing was clear at a court hearing Monday about plans to melt and recast the Robert E. Lee statue into public art that brings the Charlottesville community together. The healing needed defies an easy fix. An organization bent on preserving the symbol of the Confederacy and slavery is going to the mat hoping to make the city pay millions of dollars in damages for allegedly violating a state monument preservation law, public procurement laws and the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. These true believers in The Lost Cause cannot abide the fact that the Charlottesville City Council gave the Lee statue to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center for recasting. The division that separates the sides in the case may never be fully bridged, no matter the outcome of a civil trial now scheduled for Feb. 1, 2023. Judge Paul Peatross showed exemplary judicial temperament Monday in ruling on the merits of motions. He denied a city and heritage center request to go directly to the Virginia Appeals Court to answer a technical question about whether the plaintiffs, The Ratcliffe Foundation and the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation, had the right to sue. But he also nixed a request for summary judgment by the plaintiffs. Peatross hammered out a protective order over who could know the current location of the Lee statue and examine its condition in the run up to the trial. What the judge could not do is establish trust. That was never clearer than when Christopher Tate, a lawyer for the heritage center, singled out Jock Yellott, who was sitting at the plaintiffs table. Yellott, a retired lawyer, has been at the center of multiple attempts to gain control of the Lee statue since its removal began to be discussed in 2016. He serves as para-legal consultant in the current case. Yellott founded The Monument Fund in 2016 to raise money to sue the city, according to the funds website. He brought suit in March 2017 and in May 2017 won a temporary restraining order that prohibited the city from removing the Lee statue. May 2017 was also when white supremacists held a torch rally that surrounded the statue. By then, saving the Lee statue had become a rallying cry for white supremacists and neo-Nazis who eventually scheduled the deadly Unite the Right riot in August 2017. Tate pointed out that The Monument Funds Facebook site had solicited vigilantes to protect the statue which led to a lot of confrontations. Andy Orban of Charlottesville remembers seeing people patrolling the area around the statue in the summer of 2020. They clearly wanted to make their presence known, Orban told The Daily Progress. The Monument Fund did not respond to e-mails seeking comment, but in 2020 a fund spokesman, C.L. Buddy Weber, told the Daily Beast that the fund did not manage the webpage seeking civilian guards. It was run, he said, by a supporter of the fund. Weber said the fund did not condone criminal behavior and neither encouraged nor discouraged civilian guards to arm themselves. Peatross warned Yellott and everyone else who finds out the location and condition of the Lee statue that they will be sanctioned if they leak the information. Still, people who support melting and recasting the statue reacted audibly and angrily when a lawyer for Ratcliffe and Travilian said there had been no violence since 2017. We share their amazement at the audacity of those who attempt to separate the current lawsuit from the violence the city suffered. We see a lot of the same players in the non-violent, but no less real and expensive disruption the city endures for trying to remove a symbol which glorified a failed attempt to perpetuate slavery. The Lee statues preservation effort ties directly to the spring and summer of hate in 2017. Preservation of the Lee statue served as a catalyst that rebranded Charlottesville as the place where racists and anti-Semites made their stand. Like it or not, the Lee statues defenders will always be tied to the most notorious hate crime in the citys modern history. It occurred Aug. 12, 2017 when neo-Nazi James Fields Jr. drove his car so fast into a crowd of anti-racist protesters that he killed Heather Heyer and sent others flying in the air, injuring many seriously. Nobody with a trace of humanity can forget that. Nor should they. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli The expertise in Azerbaijan revealed cases of disfiguring of the bodies of the dead Azerbaijani servicemen, transferred to Azerbaijan during the 2020 Second Karabakh War, Head of the Investigation Department under the Prosecutor-General's Office Nemat Avazov said. He made the remarks at the conference on "Armenia's war crimes against Azerbaijan over the past 30 years", organized by the Azerbaijani Center for Social Research. Avazov stressed that these cases were reflected in the materials of the criminal cases, adding that international organizations havent reacted to this due to double standards. Similarly, he added that an investigation into criminal cases in connection with the video of 'Armenian prisoners' is underway. He stressed that over the past 30 years, Armenia committed numerous crimes against Azerbaijan, civilians, armed forces, and infrastructure. He added what currently is observed is double standards against Azerbaijan. Avazov emphasized that a number of videos were distributed on social media, the source of which has not yet been identified in which allegedly 'Armenian servicemen are killed and their remains are desecrated. The official stated that Armenia is trying to present these videos as a 'genocidal policy' on the part of Azerbaijan. "As a representative of the Prosecutor General's Office, I declare that Azerbaijan is a law-governed state, and each such video should be immediately responded to. A criminal case has been initiated in the Prosecutor-General's Office of Azerbaijan under Article 115 of the Criminal Code; a preliminary investigation is ongoing on 10 criminal cases. If the guilt of the alleged persons and military personnel is proven, then, naturally, the issue of criminal liability can be resolved. Statements by any state or international organization cannot affect the course of the investigation," Avazov added. Thank you for reading! To read this article and more, subscribe now for as little as $1.99. Tina Kotek and Betsy Johnson, perhaps surprisingly, agreed during an online forum about much of what Oregon's next governor should do to help business, housing, transportation and the image of its largest city. But Democrat Kotek and nonaffiliated candidate Johnson predictably disagreed on how state government should deal with them. Republican Christine Drazan was absent from the forum sponsored Monday by the Westside Economic Alliance a coalition of business and community leaders and government officials, primarily in Washington County and five partners. They were Clackamas County Business Alliance, Columbia Corridor Association, Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland, Oregon Smart Growth and Working Waterfront Coalition of Portland. WEA Executive Eirector Elizabeth Mazzara Myers said Drazan, a former House Republican leader from Canby, had confirmed she would take part. But then Drazan's campaign told WEA on Sunday she was bowing out because of a "scheduling conflict." Drazan bowed out of a May 3 debate at the City Club of Portland with four other Republican candidates for governor, giving a two-hour notice but no reason. Drazan and Kotek have run close in several recent public opinion surveys. Johnson, who seeks to be only the second Oregon governor not affiliated with either major party, trails them but still has a greater share of support than any similarly situated candidate since 1990. Each candidate had two minutes to respond to questions submitted by the groups about business, workforce, housing and transportation. There were two rounds of questions; others not asked during the hourlong forum were submitted to the campaigns. The exchanges between Kotek, a former Oregon House speaker from Portland, and Johnson, a former Democratic lawmaker from Scappoose, carried echoes of the four-decade-old re-election campaign waged by Republican Gov. Vic Atiyeh, who proclaimed Oregon as "open for business," in contrast to two-term Republican predecessor Tom McCall, who sought to protect Oregon's environment. Their agreements and disagreements were evident in their responses to how the state should promote more housing construction and industrial land. They agreed that Portland's image needs rehabilitation though Kotek took a swing at Johnson's prior description of it as the "city of roaches" and also agreed that a new bridge across the Columbia River and the widening of Interstate 5 at Portland's Rose Quarter should be priority transportation projects. Housing a priority Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Corvallis Gazette-Times. A study by the Portland firm ECONorthwest, frequently mentioned by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, estimates that Oregon came up 111,000 housing units short of what was needed to accommodate population growth during the past decade. The study says about half are needed for families who earn less than $73,000, the area's median income half above and half below that figure. The office, which is part of state government, estimated that Oregon would have to build about 36,000 units annually over the next decade to close the gap, far short of the current rate of 20,000 to 25,000. Johnson said 580,000 units are needed by 2040. Johnson said one cause of the shortage is the "straitjacket" of Oregon's land use laws, which protect farm and forest land and confine most development within urban growth boundaries. "I want to get the politicians and the outdated rules and regulations out of the way, so that we can increase the supply of housing," Johnson said. The restriction of urban growth boundaries "is cheating us of the opportunity to build more affordable housing, as well as expand our businesses." She also said local governments have to act faster on permits. Kotek agreed that housing must be a priority: "It is the No. 1 barrier to economic growth in our state." She advanced legislation in 2019 to allow more housing within cities, although some cities have resisted rezoning single-family lots for duplexes, triplexes or four-plexes. A 2021 law followed up on that requirement. Kotek focused on what the state can do to prod cities and other local governments, which issue the permits, provide services and charge systems development fees to help pay for them. "In Portland, you need six agencies to get the permits you need to build. It's far too long. Time is money. You've got to bring down the barriers that are keeping things from being built in the metro area," she said. "We need more housing within our existing land use system." Industrial land dispute The same agreements and disagreements cropped up when they were asked about the recent report of a state semiconductor task force, which recommended that Oregon should have more large industrial sites. Intel, Oregon's largest private employer at 22,000 workers, announced plans for chip-making in Ohio closer to the nation's automakers and Micron says it will invest up to $100 billion in manufacturing in upstate New York. Intel's Oregon plants are in Hillsboro and Aloha. The Metro Council chose not to expand Portland's urban growth boundary in 2018 to add to a 20-year supply of industrial land, although four westside cities Beaverton, Hillsboro, King City and Wilsonville were allowed to add land for about 9,000 single-family homes. During 15 years in the Oregon House, Kotek represented North and Northeast Portland, where much of the metro region's industrial land is. "I have been always clear that our land use system must work as intended," she said. "I have fought to maintain our supply of industrial land. Manufacturing should be prioritized at these (industrial) sites," and uses such as warehousing should have lesser priority. She also said that state agencies, specifically the Department of Environmental Quality, should provide "clarity, stability and certainty." "Metro was just flat wrong," Johnson said. She said the announcements by Intel and Micron were "an embarrassment" to Oregon, although Intel's most advanced development facility is in Hillsboro. She described her role as "a cheerleader for economic development," and if she were governor, state agencies would follow her lead. "We need agencies that are nimble and responsive," she said. "Permitting needs to happen expeditiously. We should have agencies that are referees, not participants, in deciding whether a particularly company is allowed to site." Portland's image Johnson said her business has played host to visitors from Asia and Europe who were impressed by Portland International Airport. But she said they also told her: "Too bad you don't have a world-class city to go with it." "We have got to rehabilitate Portland by getting it safer and cleaner and get people off the streets, hopefully into recovery and stable housing," she said. Kotek threw back Johnson's description of Portland as a "city of roaches" in a story published June 28 by The New York Times. Johnson has since said she regrets making the comment. (According to one national listing, Portland isn't in the Top 20 with that problem.) "You are never going to hear me call Portland the 'city of roaches.' You are never going to hear me chastise our state or our city to a national publication," Kotek said. She did agree with Johnson about what needs to be done in Portland. "We have to clean up Portland," she said. "It is incredibly important for the entire state for Portland to be looking better, functioning better and feeling safer. If our major city does not feel like a place people want to be, no one is going to come here and visit or do business here." Agreement on big projects Both agreed with the construction of a new Interstate 5 bridge across the Columbia River the current Interstate Bridge spans connecting Portland and Vancouver, Washington, date to 1917 and 1958 and the widening of I-5 at the Rose Quarter interchange with I-84. "The I-5 corridor is part of a national transportation system," Johnson said. "Those two big projects need attention, and need it now." Oregon seeks initial federal grants of $750 million for the bridge, which awaits a supplemental environmental impact statement required for major projects, and $100 million for the Rose Quarter reconnection with streets in the Albina neighborhood that was divided by I-5 in the 1960s. The estimated price tags are up to $5 billion for the bridge and more than $1 billion for the Rose Quarter project and it's unclear where the money will come from. "We've had a decade of dithering worrying about that bridge," Johnson said. "I would insist that the bridge get built. I don't think tolling is an option for a national piece of our transportation infrastructure." In 2013, Johnson and Kotek voted for Oregon's proposed state share of the bridge, but the Republican-controlled Washington Senate balked, and Oregon shelved the project. It was revived in 2017 after Democrats gained control in Washington. "If Washington hadn't screwed up, we'd have a new bridge by now," Kotek said. Kotek said a bridge is going to have to accommodate cars and other forms of transportation and that federal participation is essential. "As a project of national significance, we cannot pay for the whole thing ourselves," she said. As for tolls or other financing, she added: "We have to be honest with people. If we are going to maintain the infrastructure we need and we're not even talking about new capacity, just infrastructure that needs to be modernized and improved we're going to have to figure out how to pay for it from a statewide perspective. I do not feel we are on the path to do that right now." Your morning rundown of the latest news from overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Denver International and Colorado Springs airports were among several U.S. airports whose websites were targeted by cyberattacks Monday, according to spokespeople from both airports. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli Azerbaijan has completed the social rehabilitation program for Ukrainian children, who were brought to the country, Azernews reports per the Azerbaijani Ministry of Labor and Social Protection. The program was conducted with the support of the Social Services Agency under the ministry. As part of the 15-day social rehabilitation program, specialists organized various events, individual consultations, excursions, group therapy, meditation, yoga classes, and master classes for Ukrainian children in order to stabilize their emotional state, as well as ensure their integration into society. As reported earlier, 28 children, aged 7 to 17, left without parental care, and 4 controllers accompanying them arrived in Baku on August 21. Another group of as many as 29 minors from Ukraine arrived in Baku at the end of September. The Azerbaijani government, as well as Baku and Sumgayit cities, have earlier sent 807 tons of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, consisting of medicines, medical supplies, as well as food products. On July 5, at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport, Ukrainian ambassador to Azerbaijan Vladislav Kanevsky told the media that Azerbaijan had supplied over 1,500 tons of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Another 20 tons of humanitarian aid were dispatched to Ukraine's Dnieper back in May. On February 27 and March 12, 2022, a total of nearly 520 tons of humanitarian aid consisting of medicines, medical supplies, instruments, and equipment, as well as food products, with a total amount of AZN21.5 million (more than 11.5 million) was sent to Ukraine on the orders of the Azerbaijani leadership. On April 21, another humanitarian aid with a total weight of more than 170 tons was sent to Ukraine. The aid included medicines and medical supplies worth AZN3.37 million ($1.98 million), as well as food products worth AZN1million ($590,000). FILE PHOTO: Houston-based Chord Energy Corp. and Lafayette-based Planterra Foods plan to layoff 225 Colorado workers in coming weeks, according to notices the companies filed with the Colorado Secretary of State's office. As mobile and digital money become more widely used across Africa, so public and private bodies are responding to fears of fraud, as recent news from Ghana and Kenya indicates. Vodafone Ghana says that, in partnership with the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, it has been educating Ghanaians about mobile money security and how to avoid being defrauded. Representatives from Vodafone Ghana, other operators, and the Telecoms Chamber recently engaged members of the public on how to protect themselves from mobile money scammers at the Tema Community 1 Main Station, a site in the city of Tema 25 kilometres east of the capital Accra. While the engagement was also an opportunity to highlight Vodafone Ghanas enhanced financial products and services, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, was quoted as saying: We believe we need to come back to the subscribers and customers of our members to bring the service close to them, interact with them, educate them, and create awareness. Meanwhile ITWeb Africa says that Kenya's Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) intends to audit 40 digital lenders after having received over a thousand complaints, including allegations of data privacy breaches. Last month, the Central Bank of Kenya released a list of ten digital lenders licensed to operate. Other service providers, whose applications are pending, have been allowed to operate. Those who did not apply have been barred from issuing credit, though some, allegedly, still are. There has been a surge of applications to provide digital lending services in numerous African countries recently but, the question now is: can the technology involved be used to defraud users or breach the privacy of user data? And, if so, how can this be addressed? Approximately 40 members of the local graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., were among the 1,000 members who attended the organizations Southeastern Region Alabama Cluster in Mobile on Oct. 1. The Southeastern Region consists of chapters in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Retired Army Col. Teresa A. Townsend of Enterprise is the president of the Kappa Pi Omega chapter, which currently has approximately 135 members from the Dothan, Ozark, Enterprise, and Troy areas. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., is the first historically African American sorority. It is currently composed of more than 1,000 graduate and undergraduate chapters with an international membership of more than 300,000 women who engage in programs of service that enhance the social, economic, and educational well-being of their local communities. Christie M. Curtis Named Special Agent in Charge of the Intelligence and Surveillance Division of the New York Field Office Director Christopher Wray has named Christie M. Curtis as the special agent in charge of the Intelligence and Surveillance Division of the New York Field Office. Ms. Curtis most recently served as a supervisory inspector in the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington,D.C. Ms. Curtis joined the FBI as a special agent in 2004. Her first assignment was in the Garret Mountain Resident Agencya satellite of the Newark Field Office in New Jerseywhere she focused on investigating gangs and drug offenses. She transferred to Newarks Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2008 and also worked on the Evidence Response Team. In 2009, Ms. Curtis was promoted to supervisory special agent and transferred to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters, where she managed terrorism investigations run out of several field offices. She also oversaw international investigations, with an emphasis on threats coming from the Horn of Africa. In 2010, she served as the acting assistant legal attache to Nairobi, Kenya. Ms. Curtis transferred to the Los Angeles Field Office in 2011 as the supervisory special agent for the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). During her time on the JTTF, she managed several investigations that led to terrorism disruptions. In 2013, Ms. Curtis was promoted to assistant inspector in the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters. In 2014, she transferred to the Counterterrorism Division and was named the senior detailee to the National Security Agency, where she worked closely with other members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Ms. Curtis was selected in 2017 to serve as the assistant special agent in charge of the National Security and Intelligence Branch of the Louisville Field Office in Kentucky. She was promoted to supervisory inspector in the Inspection Division in 2020. Ms. Curtis earned dual bachelors degrees in criminal justice and political science and a masters in forensic science from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the FBI, Ms. Curtis worked for the Defense Security Service. This story has been published on: 2022-10-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. By Trend The Azerbaijani Army launched a counter-offensive operation, later called the "Iron Fist", on September 27, 2020 in response to the large-scale provocation of the Armenian armed forces along the frontline, Trend reports. The erupted 44-day Second Karabakh War ended with liberation of Azerbaijans territories from nearly 30-year Armenian occupation. Trend presents the chronicle of the 15th day of the Second Karabakh war: - President Ilham Aliyev in connection with the shelling of Ganja: the Azerbaijani side will give a worthy answer to all this! - President Ilham Aliyev: The missile attack on Ganja was carried out from the Vardenis region of Armenia. - President Ilham Aliyev: These dishonorable deeds of Armenia can never break thewill of Azerbaijani people. - First VP Mehriban Aliyeva: I call upon the international community not to remain indifferent to all happened. - The Ministry of Defense issued a statement that the information disseminated by the Armenian side about the alleged killing of civilians in Hadrut by Azerbaijani servicemen - a woman and her disabled son - is groundless, not supported by facts and is aimed at misleading the international community. - The Ministry of Defense issued a statement that the information disseminated by the Armenian side about the missile strikes allegedly inflicted by the Azerbaijani army on settlements in the occupied territories is a lie and disinformation. - Azerbaijani Ganja city once again under fire. - As a result of the next shelling of Ganja by the Armenian Armed Forces, 5 people were killed and 27 were injured. - Information about the shelling of Baku does not correspond to reality. - Armenian armed forces launch missile attacks on Azerbaijani Mingachevir. - Azerbaijani army delivers fire strikes against the Armenian Armed Forces. - Deputy regiment commander of the Armed Forces of Armenia destroyed. - A large number of forces and equipment of the Armenian army destroyed. - On October 11, around 08.00, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of Armenia, which attempted to fly in the Mingachevir direction, was destroyed by the air defense units of Azerbaijan. - The forces and means of the Armenian Armed Forces, which tried to go on the offensive, were destroyed. - The Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan reported that as a result of the shelling of Ganja by the Armenian Armed Forces, 7 people were killed and 34 were injured. - The Armenian Armed Forces fired at an ambulance with a white flag on it, which was picking up the bodies of the Armenian military. - The death toll in Ganja as a result of rocket attacks from the Armenian Armed Forces has reached 9. - The Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan reported that since the beginning of the attacks of the Armenian Armed Forces, 41 civilians were killed and 205 civilians were wounded. - The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry stated that the responsibility for the aggravation of the situation in the region lies entirely with the leadership of Armenia. - Azerbaijan destroys another Armenian UAV. - Video of the moment of the missile strike on Ganja released. - Armenian armed forces suffer heavy losses as result of airstrikes. - Azerbaijani MoD publishes footage of liberated Dashkesan village. - Kub anti-aircraft missile system of Armenian armed forces destroyed. - Azerbaijani MoD publishes footage of liberated Horadiz village. - Azerbaijan shows newly liberated Sugovushan village of Tartar district. Last week residents may have noticed Marianna Fire Department vehicles in the downtown parking lot of the Jackson County Floridan. Department personnel were there conducting rope rescue training and there was no actual emergency. The training, officially named FLUSAR Technician Level Rope Rescue, is a Level II course designed to train rescuers in high angle rescue/recovery. The students are trained on trouble-shooting areas, rope systems, anchor systems, raise/lower techniques, stoke basket operations, high line operations, pick-off techniques, knot-passing and rope theory. Emphasis is placed on safety, raising, lowering, patient packaging, belay operations, as well as moving a victim in high angle environments. One scenario from the training was to rescue a simulated victim from the 4th floor of the Chipola Apartments fire escape. Personnel had to build a rope system, then raise two rescuers and a stokes basket to the 4th floor to rescue the simulated victim. Once on the 4th floor the simulated victim was placed into the stokes basket and secured. The rescuers and stokes basket were then lowered safely to the ground. Marianna Fire Department Fire Chief Michael Hall attended the course and applauded personnel for their efforts. This is a lot of extra time away from family and other commitments, Hall said. We are fortunate to have the dedication to serve the community and the passion to add new service lines to our department. Chief Hall highlighted the emergencies dont stop because of training days. While we were on site personnel had to leave to respond to several calls over the week, he said. Marianna Fire Department wants to thank everyone who made this training possible. We are very grateful to have businesses that support our first responders. 3rd Alarm Public Safety Training LLC taught the training course, he added. Fire Prevention Week is Oct. 9-15 The Marianna Fire Department is teaming up with the National Fire Protection Association to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Fire Prevention Week (FPW), October 9-15, 2022. This years FPW campaign, Fire wont wait. Plan your escape, works to educate everyone about simple but important actions they can take to keep themselves and those around them safe from home fires. Todays homes burn faster than ever. You may have as little as two minutes (or even less time) to safely escape a home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds. Your ability to get out of a home during a fire depends on early warning from smoke alarms and advance planning, said Lorraine Carli, vice president of Outreach and Advocacy at NFPA. The Marianna Fire Department encourages all residents to embrace the 2022 Fire Prevention Week theme. Its important for everyone to plan and practice a home fire escape. Everyone needs to be prepared in advance, so that they know what to do when the smoke alarm sounds. Given that every home is different, every home fire escape plan will also be different, said Michael Hall, Fire Chief of Marianna Fire Department. Have a plan for everyone in the home. Children, older adults, and people with disabilities may need assistance to wake up and get out. Make sure that someone will help them. Marianna Fire Department wants to share these key home fire escape planning tips: Make sure your plan meets the needs of all your family members, including those with sensory or physical disabilities. Smoke alarms should be installed inside every sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area, and on every level of your home. Smoke alarms should be interconnected so when one sounds, they all sound. Know at least two ways out of every room, if possible. Make sure all doors and windows open easily. Have an outside meeting place a safe distance from your home where everyone should meet. Practice your home fire drill at least twice a year with everyone in the household, including guests. Practice at least once during the day and once at night. The Marianna Fire Department is hosting The Ice Box on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Plan to stop by from 2-6 p.m. and get a snowcone as well as apply for the free smoke detector program. Marianna Fire Department will be visiting local schools in support of this years Fire Prevention Week campaign, Fire wont wait. Plan your escape. To find out more about Fire Prevention Week programs and activities in Marianna, please contact the Marianna Fire Department at 850-482-2414. For more general information about Fire Prevention Week and fire prevention in general, visit fpw.org and sparky.org. ENTERPRISEProviding flawless hospitality to Wiregrass visitors is the focus of a two-day training program being held here Tuesday and Wednesday. Flawless Delivery Hospitality Certification is being conducted for local hospitality industry personnel by the Alabama Black Belt Adventures Association through a grant from the Alabama Tourism Department. The program is a partnership with the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development, the Holistic Performance Group and Experience Consulting to provide the Flawless Delivery Hospitality Certification. The state has graciously funded this project, said Dr. Ryan Cate Gibson, from the Decatur-based Holistic Performance Group who is partnering with ALBBAA to conduct the training that includes effective communication, conflict management and maintaining a positive attitude through challenges. Each person is a massively important part of the team, Gibson said. No team can make it unless each individual believes that truly flawless service is a team mentality, and each individual has a desire to really serve. The training in Enterprise is the second location for the Flawless Delivery Hospitality Certification training session. The first was held in Jasper last month. State Sen.-elect Josh Carnley, State Rep. Rhett Marques, and Enterprise Councilman Eugene Goolsby welcomed those attending to the city at the opening of the conference. I am a business owner and I think in any industry its very important to let our customers know that we appreciate them, said Carnley. Sometimes that gets lost in translation. Our communities have a lot to offer and as people pass through, its people like you that give those people the very best of what we have to offer. Gov. Kay Ivey and the Alabama Tourism Department approved funding for the program, which allows ALBBAA to partner with The University of Alabama Center for Economic Development, Holistic Performance Group and Experience Consulting to conduct the training sessions. This is a program close to my heart, said Marques, who serves on the economic development and tourism committee in the state House of Representatives. Taking a regional approach to tourism and economic development is something that makes those of us in the Wiregrass unique. Topics discussed during seminar include the basics of customer service, a 21st century culture of care, and service centered communications. For the next two days we will talk about exceptional customer servicewhat is it and how to provide it, Gibson said. Also to be discussed is how to handle hurdles and dissatisfied customers. The purpose of the course is to give you tools for dealing with stress and give you the motivation and confidence to make every guests encounter a positive one. We stress practical application of skills. You can have all the theories there are but if you dont know how to apply them in real-life situations, it wont do you any good, Gibson said. What we help people walk away from this course with is how to bring their very best self to the hospitality industry. An investor looks at stock prices on a smartphone at a brokerage in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran Finnish investment fund PYN Elite posted its biggest loss in September -- 13.19% -- since March 2020 as the Vietnamese stock market tumbled amid global headwinds. In the year to date the VN-Index lost 30.9% while PYN lost 28.65%. "Vietnamese stocks are already cheap, but they can of course decline further due to weak global sentiment," the funds portfolio manager and board member Petri Deryng said. Vietnams healthy economy and sustainable earnings outlook would push the market quickly back up once the turbulence subsides, he forecast. "After a heavy storm, there is sunshine." The funds top holdings are now VHM of property giant Vinhomes (17.1% of its net asset value), CTG of state-owned lender VietinBank (16.4%), and VRE of retail real estate arm Vincom Retail (10.2%). The stone bench project will start at the end of December, carrying inspirational messages through quotes engraved on it. Inspired by the desire to spread a spirit of business initiatives, Khai Hoan Land will launch a community project including stone benches with famous quotes etched on them. The project will last until 2025. "The project will not only contribute to landscape aesthetics, but also convey meaningful messages in a natural way through famous quotes of entrepreneurs, great authors, writers, and artists...," the chairman of Khai Hoan Group said. Vietnamese enterprises can register to order stone seats to advertise their brand. Khai Hoan Land will also connect with company members, schools, hospitals, and government offices... to offer products. Khai Hoan Land's stone benches with famous quotes. Photo by Khai Hoan Land Established in 2009, Khai Hoan Land is a brand under Khai Hoan Group, active in the field of business administration and with expertise in counseling, executing, promoting, and financing high-end real estate. It has become one of the leading providers of real estate services in Vietnam. The company focuses on investing in key real estate projects in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and other cities with great potential for development, including Nghe An and Vinh Long. A hole created by lightning strike on the hull of a Vietnam Airlines plane at HCMC's Tan Son Nhat Airport, October 10, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Viet Chau Lightning struck a hole through the hull of a Vietnam Airlines plane at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, sending two ground technicians to the hospital. The Vietnam Airlines A321 plane, which had just returned from Phu Quoc to Ho Chi Minh Citys Tan Son Nhat airport, got struck by lightning Monday night. Two employees of Vietnam Airport Ground Services Company Limited (VIAGS) were standing beneath the plane on standby. After the lightning struck, both employees were stunned and given first aid, before being transported to hospital. They were bleeding and vomiting upon admission. Their health is stable as of Tuesday morning. The plane had to stop operations to be repaired. A representative of Tan Son Nhat airport said lightning strikes are common for planes, both for those parked on the ground and those in the air. However, human injuries are rare, it was added. In April last year, a runway at Tan Son Nhat got damaged by lightning, forcing its operation to be suspended for over an hour. One dead, two missing in central Vietnam floods, landslides People wade through a flooded street in Quang Nam Province, October 10, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh At least one person has died and two others are missing from floods and landslides caused by prolonged downpours in the central region in the last two days. In Quang Nam Province, the body of a 37-year-old woman who was swept away by floodwaters in Nui Thanh District on Monday afternoon was found later that day. Authorities in Tam Ky Town said they are searching for a man who was reported missing on Monday night. For the past two days Quang Nam has been battered by rainfall of up to 350 mm. Neighboring Quang Ngai Province has also had heavy rains since Sunday night. Many areas in its mountainous districts of Son Ha and Tra Bong have been flooded, with roads and bridges under around a meter of water on Monday. A landslide occurred at the Ka Tinh hydropower plant in Tra Bong District at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, leaving a worker missing. Local authorities are trying to reach the scene. The rains have been caused by a combination of the northeast monsoon and a cold spell from the north, according to the National Center for Hydro -Meteorological Forecasting. It warned that until Tuesday flooding is likely in rivers from Ha Tinh to Quang Ngai provinces, with water levels rising by three to seven meters upstream and one to three meters downstream. More flash floods and landslides should be expected, it warned. Le Thi Tuyet Mai, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and other international organizations in Geneva, participates in a U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Vietnam pledges to bolster human rights at the 51st session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the foreign ministry said Monday. Ambassador Le Thi Tuyet Mai, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and other international organizations in Geneva, leads the Vietnamese delegation to the 51st session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which lasted from September 12 to October 7, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the session, Mai highlighted Vietnam's priorities and commitments as a candidate for the UNHCR for the 2023-2025 term, reaffirmed its consistent stance and policies to make human beings the center for development and ensure that citizens get to enjoy the fruits of development. She also talked about Vietnams commitment and capacity to contribute to the protection and promotion of human rights around the world, as well as facilitating dialogues and cooperation at the UNHRC regarding issues like sustainable development, climate change response, the protection and promotion of the rights of vulnerable communities, gender equality and the advancement of women. The UNHCR would vote for new members for its 2023-2025 term on Tuesday. Vietnam is a running candidate. That the cost of living rises every year is obvious. Do companies have to adjust workers' salaries for inflation every year? The answer is obvious, again. Whether or not to increase salaries and allowances and when this can happen depends on the agreement between the parties mentioned in the contract or the collective labor agreement, or regulations drafted by the employer. In addition to the regional minimum wage, most other allowances are not specified, which means they can added to the contract that the employees have signed; and the business will calculate these to extract maximum benefit for itself. There are those who can argue that the current minimum wage is enough to serve the basic living needs of a worker. We won't argue this. But what if the worker has children? The expenses for raising a child or children are not included in the calculation of the regional minimum wage. How do those children live? How much should parents earn to raise them? The minimum wage of Vietnamese workers is very low now. The latest adjustment of wages and benefits has barely kept pace with economic development and rising cost of living. The country's minimum wage went up 6% on July 1, two years after remaining unchanged, to range from VND3.25 million to VND4.68 million ($136-196) a month depending on different regions. No wonder Vietnam is a "paradise" for foreign manufacturing companies. The country is politically stable, has fewer long holidays during the year compared to other Southeast Asian countries and provides cheap labor in plenty. At current labor wages in Vietnam, any kind of production would be profitable for many years. Given such advantages, most foreign firms are willing to shift their production chains to Vietnam even though international reports say that the labor productivity of Vietnamese people is lower than most countries in the region and only higher than Cambodia (by 1.6 times). It is the low minimum wage in Vietnam that makes it attractive to foreign investors and to an extent, they have made it possible for local people to have stable jobs and lives. But this has not lasted and workers these days work hard for relatively low remuneration and struggle to meet their daily needs. After providing so many labor advantages for so long, it is time for Vietnam to move towards further sustainable goals such as quality of life. Many studies have shown that reduced working hours have always been accompanied by increased productivity. With at least two days off a week, the service sector will have the chance to develop more sustainably and diversify the country's economy in different service sectors, including dining, tourism and transportation. Workers constantly hope and look forward to timely and effective changes in adjustments to labor policies issued by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and the General Confederation of Labor. We all know that in important salary negotiations, employees always face resistance from representatives of foreign enterprises. So we face the challenge of having all parties on the same page in achieving sustainable development, economic diversity and improvement of the quality of life of disadvantaged and unskilled workers. Only if this happens will our workers' lives get better. Luxury cruise ship berths in Hue with European tourists The tomb of King Minh Mang in Hue is seen from above. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh French luxury ship Le Laperouse arrived in Hue on Monday with 106 European tourists, marking the return of international cruise vessels to the central town. The passengers are mainly from France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. They visited the UNESCO heritage site Hue Imperial Citadel and King Minh Mang's tomb and tried the citys renowned cuisine. The five-star Le Laperouse Cruise is operated by Ponant Company. Before arriving in Hue, the ship had visited Con Dao, HCMC, Nha Trang, Quy Nhon, and Da Nang. It left Indonesia on September 20 after passing through Singapore before arriving in Vietnam. Vietnam reopened its borders to foreign tourists in March this year. It has only received 1.87 million foreign visitors so far or 37 percent of its target for the year. This year marks the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Pakistan diplomatic relations. For decades, said Secretary Blinken, we in the United States have been enriched by the culture of Pakistan. Abroad, Pakistan and the United States have worked together to complete significant development projects like the Mangla and Tarbela dams, which at one time provided some 70 percent of Pakistans power. Both nations launched the Lahore University for Management Sciences, which is training the next generation of business leaders. We continue to work closely on counterterrorism issues, noted Secretary Blinken. We have a shared stake in Afghanistans future after two decades of war. Weve had our differences; thats no secret. But we share a common objective: a more stable, a more peaceful, and free future for all of Afghanistan and for those across the broader region. Well continue to work together toward that end as well as support the basic human rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls. In recent discussions, Secretary Blinken urged Pakistan to responsibly manage its relationship with India. He also stressed the importance of upholding core values like respect for freedom of religion, belief, freedom of expression. The United States and Pakistan continue to deepen their economic relationship, said Secretary Blinken: One of the most important ways to spur economic growth and prosperity is, for example, through empowering women and girls and ensuring that they can participate fully in the economy. Thats the way not only to help them reach their full potential but to help the economy in the country reach its. This year commemorates the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-Pakistan Womens Council, a public-private partnership between the State Department and Texas A&M University that fosters cooperation between corporations and civil society to advance womens empowerment in Pakistan. We also both believe deeply that at the heart of our relationship are our people-to-people ties, said Secretary Blinken. Ultimately, its connections like these that give me the most hope for the future of this relationship. Our people learn with and from one another so that we can make both of our countries better and deliver even more effectively for our people. Secretary Blinken expressed hope that an even brighter future lies ahead for U.S.-Pakistan relations. By Trend First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has made an Instagram post on Armenian armed forces firing rockets on the city of Ganja on October 11, 2020. In a post on her official Instagram page Mehriban Aliyeva says: "Armed Forces of Armenia continue intensive bombardment of residential areas of Azerbaijan which is the blatant violation of the humanitarian ceasefire regime and of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Today, around two oclock in the morning, the rocket strike unprecedented by its cruelty was made against the city of Ganja. As a result of this rocket attack, as the data show, 9 people (including 4 women) have died, 34 are wounded while numerous civilian facilities came under serious blow. It can be said that the attacks against our cities and villages continued the entire previous day. Since the moment of the entry into force of the humanitarian ceasefire regime, the Armenian side has launched 548 shells into several districts of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Entangled by its inability to reconcile with its defeat on battlefield, the Armenian side is deliberately attacking civilian population. I call upon the international community not to remain indifferent to all happened. International organizations, rights advocating entities, mass media and public opinion leaders must firmly condemn such barbaric cruelty to the civilian population of Azerbaijan. Yerevan must stop ignoring international conventions, and UN Security Council resolutions urging Armenian occupational forces to halt aggression against Azerbaijan. Showing a straight disrespect to the agreements reached with the mediation of Russia in Moscow, Armenia provokes a new stir up of war in South Caucasus of which the consequences will be devastating for itself. Dear compatriots! Today, you demonstrate such best qualities of our people as unity, solidarity, compassion and mutual assistance. All it can do is to create a feeling of immense pride! Truth and justice are on our side! We will win! May Allah rest the souls of the dead. I wish the soonest recovery to all injured. May the Almighty Lord protect our Army, our People and our Motherland! Karabakh is Azerbaijan!" ELKO The California Trail Interpretive Center has resumed a five-day per week schedule. Operating hours are Wednesday through Sunday 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Located eight miles west of Elko at the Hunter exit on Interstate 80, the CTIC is a favorite place to visit for the local public and travelers. The winter schedule will allow the public to continue to participate in programming, explore the history of the California Trail and shop for unique items in the gift shop in time for the holidays, said CTIC Manager Paul Brownlee. The facility will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and on federal holidays Thanksgiving Nov. 24, Christmas Day, and New Years Day. The CTIC will continue the popular interpretive programming for all ages to participate in on Saturdays and Sundays. Each weekend will have a different focus, providing something for all interests. Watch for season-specific activities such as snowshoe hikes and more coming up this winter that the whole family can enjoy. Saturdays1st: Trail Treks 2nd: Native American & Pioneer Skills 3rd: Nature in Nevada 4th: History of the California Trail and the West Sundays1st & 3rd: Family Crafts & Activities 2nd & 4th: Bows & Throws: Axes, Knives, Archery and Atlatl A state report on the fatality at Nevada Gold Mines Cortez underground mine in February lists a series of safety failures that contributed to the tragic accident. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has not published its final report on the accident yet, but on Oct. 10 the Nevada Independent and High Country News published a story with a link to the state report that was obtained by reporters Daniel Rothberg and Nick Bowlin. The report from the Nevada Mine Safety and Training Section was written by Nevada state mine inspectors Dan Inman and Yvonne Petersen. According to the report, on Feb. 14, 2022, Marissa Hill was driving a 24-foot mobile maintenance lube truck in the underground mine at about 8:48 p.m. when she inadvertently backed the truck over an unprotected stope edge, falling 60 feet to the bottom of the stope. At about 11:45 p.m. a supervisor and lead miner noticed a chain lying on the ground, looked over the stope and saw a piece of equipment upside down. Until around 2:30 p.m. the next day several attempts were made with drones to gather information to develop a rescue/recovery plan. At around 5:50 p.m. the lube truck was moved to more secure ground and Hill was pronounced deceased. The report said that during the post interviews, several miners stated that several years ago, word had come down from upper management indicating that rather than follow the companys written policy and procedure for barricading a stope, they were to use a chain alone, as an adequate open stope barricade. The states report said NGM had updated its underground barricading and barrier procedures on Sept. 24, 2019. These procedures had specific stope requirements, including a rib-to-rib berm 10 feet from a stope edge. These specific standard requirements were not being utilized underground for the LA4070- 430 stope, the report said. The stope had been mined out since Jan. 7, 2022, and this area was left with no berm or proper open hole barricade in place to warn miners of this imminent danger for approximately 39 days, according to the states report. After reviewing over 120 work area inspection documents, it was apparent that individuals conducting work area inspections lacked a general understanding of hazard recognition, the report stated. The state issued three orders and one notice in response to the accident. The first order deals with the companys failure to provide adequate barriers and warning signs of a dangerous condition at the stope entrance. Another order said the operator failed to conduct an adequate workplace inspection of the stope entrance before allowing work to commence. The post investigation revealed that a documented underground workplace inspection is not required to be performed by supervisors, engineers, survey crews and management personnel, the report said. Consequently, management and supervision are not adequately focusing on ensuring safe work procedures are in place and enforced. The State of Nevada never received any requested work area inspection documents from the supervisor. Another order said that During the course of the investigation, it was discovered that the backup camera was disconnected due to various technical issues. The notice issued by the state said, The company failed to ensure operators kept their cabs free from unsecured items and that During the investigation it was discovered that there was an unsecured toolbox in the cab of the lube truck. The state has not issued any financial penalties following its investigation, but federal regulators could when MSHA issues its final report. The states report documents follow-up training which has taken place at the mine since the accident. In late March mine workers received training on the barriers and barricades policy and on equipment inspection and housekeeping of vehicle cabs. In response to a request for comment, NGM provided statement saying, At Nevada Gold Mines, nothing is more important to us than the health, safety, and wellbeing of our employees and business partners. On February 15, 2022, the State of Nevada issued a notice and orders regarding the fatality that occurred at the Cortez Hills Underground on Feb. 14, 2022. We are also aware of a document from the State dated Feb. 14, 2022, and titled Report of Serious Accident Powered Haulage that includes the Feb. 15, 2022 notice and orders and related information. The Mine Safety and Health Administration, however, has not released the official investigation report. As with any incident, we have already implemented the lessons and awareness from the apparent facts and circumstances of this tragic incident across all our operations. We have and continue to cooperate with the authorities on the matter and await the finalization and release of the MSHA report. We continue to mourn the death of our colleague, Marissa Hill. We remain focused on ensuring the personal safety of everybody in our workplaces, as we work together on our Journey to Zero Harm. The Nevada Independent and High Country News have published several investigative stories on Nevada Gold Mines by Rothberg and Bowlin. Their Aug. 15, 2022 story said they had been contacted by more than three dozen current and former employees. Many said that the jointly owned companys top management has created a culture that appeared to emphasize profits and productivity above all else, seemingly at the expense of safety, the story said. Many of the workers requested to remain anonymous. Rothberg and Bowlins Oct. 10 story on the state report revisited some of these employee concerns about safety. Nevada Gold Mines was formed in 2019 as a joint venture between Barrick Gold and Newmont. It is owned 61.5% by Barrick and 38.5% by Newmont and is operated by Barrick. Regarding safety, Barrick CEO Mark Bristow told board members during a September meeting in Elko that Were definitely not at our destination yet, but weve made a lot of progress. Nevadas got a long way to go to catch up to the rest of our regions around the world on safety, Bristow said. Peter Richardson got started as the new executive managing director of Nevada Gold Mines on Oct. 3, taking over from Greg Walker, who is continuing to work on some projects for NGM before retiring at the end of the year. During his first week on the job as NGM director, Richardson said, The focus for me is to continue improving our safety culture and behavior. Thats really important for me. He commented that the new Training Mine program which started at NGM in August is one of the steps the company is taking to help improve safety. Richardson said NGM has just performed a safety culture survey with an external company. We asked all of our employees a number of questions on safety and how safety is perceived and how we follow rules, he said. Were expecting the results from that survey in a couple of weeks and then well sit down with our safety team and operational sites leadership, and go through and see what is good and continue with that, and what are areas we can improve to make things even better. So were creating action plans to improve safety. Safety is about our people, its about caring, Richardson said. Its fundamental to what we do first and foremost is safety. ELKO Due to cooler temperatures, the Elko District is rescinding some fire restrictions effective October 15. With various hunting seasons ramping up and visitors taking advantage of the cooler weather, there is a greater presence on the landscape. We are asking everyone to continue to be safe, situationally aware, and responsible on public lands, said Gerald Dixon, District Manager. Dixon said fire restrictions reduce the number of wildfires, protect lives and property as well as wildlife and other resources. Special Order Restrictions no longer in effect: Building, maintaining, attending, or using a fire (using wood, charcoal or any other material), campfire, or stove fire except a portable stove using gas, jellied petroleum, or pressurized liquid fuel outside of a developed fee campground or picnic area. Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or building, a developed recreation site, or when stopped in an area at least 3 feet in diameter that is barren or cleared of all flammable material. Welding, metal grinding, or operating acetylene or other torch with open flame. Operating or parking a vehicle or other motorized equipment over or on top of dried/cured vegetation The following Special Order Restrictions are STILL in effect: Operating an off-road vehicle or any internal or external combustion engine without a properly installed and maintained spark arrestor in good working order. Possessing, discharging, using or allowing the use of fireworks, pyrotechnic or incendiary devices. Possessing, discharging, igniting, or causing to burn; explosives or explosive material, including binary explosive targets. Discharging a firearm using tracer, incendiary, or steel-component ammunition. [Use of tracer or incendiary ammunition is always prohibited on public lands]. Using any explosive (except by permit). Any person who knowingly and willfully performs any act restricted by the Fire Prevention Order can be ticketed, fined and held responsible for fire suppression and/or rehabilitation costs. Fire restrictions vary across Nevada; for information on individual agency restrictions, please check the Nevada Fire Information website. LAMOILLE Nestled in the shadow of the Ruby Mountains, the Pine Lodge is moving forward in its seventh decade under new ownership that aims to uphold the history of Lamoille's ranching families. Under the helm of Casey and Mike Gallagher, and Luc Gerber, the bar and restaurant are open four days a week for dinner, Wednesday through Saturday. The bar opens at 4 p.m. with dining room seating starting at 5 p.m., featuring steak and seafood dinner entrees. The new ownership began when Casey Gallagher learned about the Pine Lodge being put up for sale by former owner Stacy Clark. He said that next year, the establishment would mark its 75th anniversary. The place held many memories for Casey as he grew up in Lamoille, and he wanted to ensure it remained in business. "The Pine Lodge will continue to serve the community for years to come," he said. Luc Gerber, who owns Luciano's, said Gallagher contacted him to take over the restaurant. Erin Gerber manages the Pine Lodge while Luc runs Luciano's and oversees the Pine Lodge. The partnership ensures both restaurants remain in local hands, Luc explained. "We combined both to try to make the Pine Lodge a destination again," he said. "Stacy did a great job at it. Covid hit and wore everyone down, but we took off from where she started and we're building it back up and doing amazing things." Erin Gerber said since it opened she has met many Lamoille residents who "come in with fond stories of bringing their kids here. Kids that grew up eating here, ordering their Shirley Temples. Just really good memories for a lot of people, and they are happy to see it back open." "It's a great little community," she added. Since taking ownership, Luc said they are working closely with the other members of the Lamoille community, including O'Carroll's, Hotel Lamoille, the Gallery in Lamoille and Lamoille Presbyterian Church, "to have that sense of community come back and be good for everybody involved." The Pine Lodge will remain a traditional steakhouse with some seafood dishes, and weekly specials that will "pull from local talent," Luc said. Customers will see more farm-to-table collaborations with local ranchers and producers such as Lotspeich Farms, Sue Kennedy ranches, Brough Ranch in Wells and the Bottari family, Luc said. "We want to get some local products featured at the restaurant in our specials." The ranches have good reputations for the humane treatment of their animals, he added. "They're not just this big industry just putting [the product] out there." "Because Lamoille and Elko County are such ranch communities it's important to see that, locally, we support you and appreciate what you're doing for the community," Luc continued. "That is going to be a work in progress and something we're going to push forward more and more." Pine Lodge staff The management and staff of the Pine Lodge Dinner House pose for a picture on Oct. 5. "People get so excited when they see a local product on the menu," Erin added. Luc said through his discussions with Casey Gallagher, most traditional items would remain, but each restaurant would maintain its identity. "They're two separate experiences, I think." "My flair on the menu, some people could say, 'that looks like something Luc would have done,' but for the most part, I do want to keep it separate because we don't need two Luciano's," he said. "Casey and I want to keep it as it was. We don't want to bring something else here." However, some customers are already expecting pasta risotto. "I don't think you will," Luc said. "I'm not sure we're going to head in that direction just to keep it separate." At the bar, they are keeping the Creme Simple Martini that was introduced by Clark at the Pine Lodge, and serving three drinks that use Nevada liquor. "I've got a gimlet made with Nevada gin, and I have some vanilla moonshine made in Reno and Frey Ranch Bourbon for an old-fashioned," Erin said. "I'm trying to feature Nevada liquors." Luc explained that although Hotel Lamoille, O'Carroll's and the Pine Lodge are located yards apart, the establishments do not compete for customers. "We're really not," he said. "If the Hotel Lamoille has big parties they'll send them to us. Or they'll go to O'Carroll's in the morning, which is why we're not doing breakfast or lunch. They're doing an amazing job with that, so why bother doing that and take that away from them." He has also heard stories of customers roaming between the Pine Lodge and O'Carroll's. "Back in the day, people have dinner here and then at 10 or 10:30 switch over to O'Carroll's and finish drinking there." Among the changes to the interior are a large window looking out toward the Ruby Mountains. Another modification to the decor is adding photographic prints of local families, 4-H clubs and events over the years. "Something people could relate to. Featuring more local stuff than just animals." Luc said most of the taxidermied animals displayed in the restaurant had been returned to their owners. "Even if it is part of what the Pine Lodge was, a lot of modern people are put off by it. We'll keep some but feature more pictures." Spurs and bits are now on display in a small, clear case near the entrance as another emphasis on the local ranching culture. Luc said some other features that are being considered are designated drivers for Elko customers "who want to have two or three glasses of wine with dinner." There are also plans to participate in Lamoille's seasonal events with all the local businesses. Although the Pine Lodge is open four days a week, the restaurant could be reserved when closed for private parties. Reservations for parties of more than 20 are encouraged. As the Pine Lodge enters its 75th year, the history and location of the restaurant in the heart of Lamoille at the foot of the Ruby Mountains are not lost on Luc. "This is iconic," he said. "It's beautiful." Deborah Westbrook and Rhonda Forsgerg. Policy, politics and progressive commentary Of the five statewide appellate court races on the ballot in Nevada, only one remains to be decided Dept. 1 on the Court of Appeals, where longtime Clark County chief deputy public defender Deborah Westbrook faces Clark County Family Court Judge Rhonda Forsberg for a seat being vacated by Judge Jerome Tao. Clark County District Judge Linda Bell is running unopposed for Seat A on the Supreme Court, currently held by Justice James Hardesty, who did not seek reelection. Supreme Court Justice Ron Parraguire is unopposed in his bid for reelection. In the Court of Appeals, Judge Bonnie Bulla and Judge Michael P. Gibbons are unopposed. Running a statewide judicial campaign is consuming, says Westbrook, when asked about the dearth of competitive races. You have to be ready to travel up north and spend a significant amount of time in the rural areas and get to know all of the people throughout the state, she says, adding it requires raising more money to get the word out. And theres the sense that you dont necessarily want to run against an incumbent. And you dont want to run against somebody who already has relationships with the community. Its kind of an uphill battle. Westbrook raised $409,989 as of June 30, and spent $129,047. I think the success that Ive had fundraising sort of speaks to the trust that the Nevada legal community has placed in me to serve on the Court of Appeals, adding she has support from both plaintiff and defense attorneys. Her opponent, Forsberg, raised $4,698 and spent $825. She did not respond to requests for an interview. Westbrook says shes seeking election to the Appeals Court because shes actually spent the last nine years exclusively handling appellate matters in the criminal realm. The role of appellate court practitioners is really to point out errors that happened in the District Court and to be able to show why those errors were harmful. Shes also practiced civil law for several private firms. Forsberg is a former family law attorney who applied in 2018 for a position on the Clark County Family Court bench, but was not chosen. The following year, Gov. Steve Sisolak appointed her to the court. She is endorsed by the governor, according to her website. Her application says she volunteered as legal counsel for Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth and was asked to assist the board of directors after that organization suffered a financial scandal. Sisolaks former girlfriend, Kathleen Vermillion, who ran the nonprofit until the alleged scandal, denied any wrongdoing and was never charged. Forsberg wrote in her 2019 application for appointment to Family Court that one percent of her litigation in the previous five years involved appellate court. Forsberg also reported having no involvement in criminal cases, which make up more than half of the docket in appellate court, according to data compiled by the court. My law practice includes divorce, custody, guardianship, adoptions, child support, premarital/postnuptial agreements, and being appointed as court appointed counsel in juvenile dependency, her application said. Unlike most of the judges on the states appellate bench, Westbrook has never been a judge, but she notes that Supreme Court Justice Kristina Pickering went from attorney to the states high court. Shes done an excellent job, but I think it is a little bit more of a challenge if you havent been a judge in the past, Westbrook says. I am a candidate for NV Assembly District 33, which now includes about two-thirds of Elko County, most of Eureka, all of White Pine and Lincoln Counties and about two-thirds of Nye County. I believe it is one of the largest House Districts in the country. We have traveled most of the district and I can report that there are great people in this district who support our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Having lived in Elko County since 1949, I have strong ties to my community and to the State. My wife Lee and I have 4 living children, 12 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. I graduated from the Elko County school system, as did our children and some of our grandchildren; some of our great-grandchildren are attending Elko County schools. As a small business owner, I have along history of putting Nevada and my community first. For over 40 years I have been an active participant in local, state and national legislative and political issues for the Realtors, working constantly to protect private property rights and our personal freedoms. I served as President of the Elko County Association of Realtors twice, as Nevada Realtors President in 1995, chaired the Nevada Realtors Legislative Committee for 4 years, the State Realtors Political Action Committee 4 years, and the NAR Land Use and Private Property Forum. I was privileged to serve as a National Director, and honored to be appointed by Governor Guinn to serve 6 years on the Nevada Real Estate Commission from 2006-2012. My service on various boards includes Head Start, Elko County Sportsmens Association, the Elko County Board of Equalization and the Committee for the South Fork Dam, and I was part of the group that went to the legislature in the early 1980s to get the funding for the dam project. I have also served intermittently on the Elko County Wildlife Advisory Board since the mid-1970s. From 1970 thru 1977, I worked for Area West, starting as a laborer and working up to Project Manager for the Spring Creek Development. After obtaining a Real Estate Brokers license in 1979, I opened my own office here in Elko and am still active in the business. Nearly a decade ago, when then newly-elected leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made its debut at the Great Hall of People after the first plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the world was speculating how the world's most populous nation and second largest economy led by Xi Jinping would reach out to the rest of the global community, and what kind of role the country would play in an era of mounting changes and challenges. During his first overseas trip as Chinese president in March 2013, Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, elaborated on China's vision of fostering a new type of international relations with win-win cooperation at the core and building a community with a shared future for mankind. Over the past decade, under Xi's leadership, China has been committed to the path of peaceful development, and devoted itself to addressing global challenges, facilitating win-win cooperation and making the global governance system more just and more equitable. As we have observed, China's approach is in line with today's zeitgeist, and conducive to maintaining peace and stability, bolstering world economic growth and building a world of common prosperity and with a shared future. WIN-WIN COOPERATION Also in 2013, the Chinese president proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road successively in his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia. This is how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) took shape. Nine years on, the initiative has substantially strengthened partnerships, promoted connectivity and pushed forward common development worldwide. The annual trade volume between China and around 150 countries which have participated in the BRI expanded from 1.04 trillion U.S. dollars in 2013 to 1.8 trillion dollars in 2021, a quantum leap of 73 percent over eight years. According to a World Bank report, the initiative could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million out of moderate poverty globally, and boost trade by 2.8-9.7 percent for participating countries and by 1.7-6.2 percent for the whole world. Mohamed Fayez Farahat, director of Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said China-proposed initiatives reflect the country's contribution to global development and its support for developing countries and emerging economies. "China defends the causes of developing countries on the international stage, and also plays an active role in important international organizations," the expert noted. FOR BETTER GLOBAL GOVERNANCE In a rapidly changing world, one of the world's priorities is the need to improve global governance. The lingering COVID-19 pandemic, regional conflicts, backlash against globalization and other complicated factors are intertwining with each other, and the deficits in peace, security, trust and governance are widening. On various occasions in the past decade, the Chinese president has underlined that the solutions lie in real multilateralism and to the UN-centered international system, as well as in joint efforts to forge a new type of international relations, which features mutual respect, equity and justice, and win-win cooperation, and build a community with a shared future for mankind. In his speech at the general debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Xi called for staying true to multilateralism and safeguarding the international system with the UN at its core. "Global governance should be based on the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits so as to ensure that all countries enjoy equal rights and opportunities and follow the same rules," Xi said. Over the years, China has been walking the talk by actively involving in such global affairs as the pandemic fight, poverty reduction, climate actions and peacekeeping, and the building of an open world economy. China has made itself a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of the international order, a provider of public goods. Shaping a more just and effective global governance needs a collective drive. That is why China has been working relentlessly with other countries, notably the developing world, for this end. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the world's largest and most populous regional institution, stands as a good example of how Beijing is working with its partners to promote the new type of international relations. In its 21-year history, the SCO member countries have been working closely to enhance cooperation in various fields including security, economy and trade, public health and culture. It has developed into a constructive force in improving global governance and promoting stability and development. With the rise of emerging economies, developing countries have become more vocal in global governance, and begun to push the globalization process toward a fairer and more inclusive direction through various multilateral cooperation mechanisms and platforms, said Sheriff Ghali Ibrahim, head of the department of political science and international relations at the University of Abuja. China has proved to be a pioneer, since its concept of globalization has largely promoted a shared future for humanity, with no discrimination, segregation, or exclusion, the Nigerian expert said. A FUTURE SHARED BY ALL The still ravaging pandemic is a constant reminder that people are living in a global village, where the fate of all nations has never been so closely connected before. In order to better respond to such planetary woes in the future, the international community is expected to stand in solidarity and work in harmony with one accord. With a deep insight into the world's shared aspirations, the Chinese president has proposed the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, contributing China's wisdom to eliminating the deficits in peace, security, trust and governance, and highlighting the necessity and importance of building a world with common development and collective security in the profoundly changing global landscape. For Sudheendra Kulkarni, former chairman of Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation, development and security are "two sides of the same coin and both are indivisible." "No country can achieve security if other countries are insecure, and no country can achieve development if other countries' development is in danger. We must consider security and development in a global context," Kulkarni said. Adhering to the concept of building a community with a shared future, China has been working together with the rest of the world to safeguard true multilateralism, maintain stable global supply chains, facilitate free trade and investment, and pursue green and low-carbon development. From its strong support for an open world economy to its firm commitment to carbon reduction and neutrality, China has shown its determination with actions. When attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov was deeply impressed by the motto "Together for a Shared Future." "This (is) a call for the international community to build a community with a shared future for mankind. Whether we are a small country or a big country, in the context of globalization, we all have one future and one destiny," he told Xinhua in a recent interview. In the eyes of former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Xi's call for building a community with a shared future for mankind is highly relevant and necessary in this era. Building a sense of shared future is important for the world to avoid fragmentation and address challenges, and for Asia to safeguard peace and promote common development, Hatoyama said. "On the earth we live, not only the environment functions as a whole, but people are also interconnected." National Grain Security Publicity Week in China kicked off online on Monday and will run through World Food Day, which falls on Sunday, according to the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration. Events publicizing China's achievements in safeguarding national food security and the country's active participation in international cooperation will be held during the week. Effective methods used to reduce food loss during grain production will also be promoted, according to the administration, which is one of the major hosts. Local authorities are urged to launch a series of educational activities such as knowledge contests and online seminars related to grain security to increase public awareness. Referential cases related to ensuring grain security nationwide will be summarized and promoted. Given the ongoing pandemic, military conflicts, climate change and rising prices that affect global food security, the theme of this year's World Food Day is "Leave no one behind for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life." Carlos Watson, representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in China, commended China's remarkable achievement in safeguarding national food security. "We have every reason to believe that China has the full capacity to ensure national food supply and to make sure that the rice bowl be held firmly in the hands of the Chinese people," Watson said. He said he expects the nation to continue playing a bigger role in contributing to world food security. Qu Sixi, representative of the World Food Program China Office, also called for international cooperation to tackle multiple challenges and ensure global security. "Through South-South cooperation, we would like to share the experiences and successful practices of China, providing examples for agricultural and rural development in developing countries," Qu said. President Xi Jinping announced in February last year that China had completed the arduous task of eradicating extreme poverty. The eradication of extreme poverty in a country with nearly one-fifth of the world's population 10 years ahead of the target set by the United Nations for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a remarkable contribution to the cause of global poverty alleviation and building a better and more prosperous world. In order to eradicate extreme poverty and build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the Communist Party of China rolled out the strategy of targeted poverty alleviation, keeping in mind the real conditions in the country. By screening and registering poverty cases, the poverty alleviation officials identified "who exactly needed help". By strengthening leadership and capacity building, they identified "who should implement anti-poverty programs". By implementing tailored programs, the officials ensured all impoverished households were lifted out of poverty. By setting strict criteria for and adopting a gradual approach to poverty alleviation, officials identified households and individuals that had been lifted out of poverty so their names could be removed from the "poverty list".And by monitoring the progress of the poverty alleviation work, they ensured the success of the mission. The measures taken differed from individual to individual, village to village, township to township, and county to county, because the causes and levels of poverty differed from family to family and community to community. In particular, the five effective measures taken to eradicate poverty were increasing production, relocating households, providing ecological compensation, improving education standards, and giving allowances. Industrial development-led poverty alleviation, for example, proved the most straightforward, effective and sustainable, as it created jobs and increased people's incomes. Poverty-stricken areas were encouraged to develop not only industries with local resources and features, but also new forms of businesses such as e-commerce and tourism. E-commerce can directly boost people's incomes, because it enables products from remote areas to be sold not only across China but also in other countries. In fact, e-commerce is said to have created about 7.71 million rural jobs and increased the income of some 6.18 million poor people. Moreover, local Party organizations and members played a key role in eradicating extreme poverty. Party secretaries at the provincial, municipal, county, township and village levels were responsible for poverty alleviation work. By the end of 2020, a total of 255,000 teams and more than 3 million top local officials had been stationed on the front line of the battle against poverty. They fought shoulder to shoulder with over 2 million township officials and millions of village officials to eliminate absolute poverty. The Party mobilized all sections of society, including governments at all levels and the market, to eradicate absolute poverty. In this process, collaboration between the eastern and western regions of the nation proved very effective. For example, the nine relatively well-developed eastern provinces paired up with 14 provinces in western and central China to boost the fight against poverty. Between 2015 and 2020, more than 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) of budgetary funds and social assistance was allocated by the nine eastern provinces to their paired counterparts in the western and central regions, 131,000 officials and professionals were exchanged, and over 1.1 trillion yuan had been invested by over 22,000 eastern enterprises in the impoverished regions. The Party also implemented programs to promote the creativity of impoverished people. For instance, to turn the assistance receivers into helpers in Ximeng county, Yunnan province, poverty alleviation committees introduced special programs to help local lazybones and alcoholics to give up their bad habits and work for the betterment of their families and community. Especially, villagers were encouraged to rely on their own efforts to emerge from poverty. Thanks to the poverty alleviation program, the incomes of poor people have increased dramatically. Rural per capita disposable income in impoverished regions grew from 6,079 yuan in 2013 to 12,588 yuan in 2020 at an average annual growth rate of 11.6 percent. We know from the Party's experience of eradicating extreme poverty that putting people first and following the principle of people-centered development are the key to successful poverty alleviation. Only by doing so can all poverty-stricken people be identified and poverty eradicated. We also know that, in a general sense, a ruling party must build a strong governance capacity. Since poverty alleviation is a daunting task, it is vital that leaders fulfill their commitment to the people and have the capability to mobilize all sectors of society to fight for a good cause and maintain policy continuity and stability, so as to eradicate poverty. In addition, a ruling party must also take the realities on the ground into consideration. In China's poverty alleviation work, the Party refused to blindly follow the practices of Western countries or use the strategies listed in international organizations' reports. Challenging many established assumptions in development economics, China's experience can inspire developing countries to independently explore their own path to poverty alleviation. It is also important that a ruling party shoulder its due responsibility. With the COVID-19 pandemic still to be controlled in many parts of the world, 70 million to 100 million people risk falling back into extreme poverty. The Party believes that some countries getting richer and richer while others remaining stuck in poverty is not sustainable for global development. As such, political parties around the world should honor their commitment to the people and take all necessary measures to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable development in their country, in order to allow the rays of equality and justice to break through the dark clouds of poverty and backwardness and light up the path toward prosperity and a beautiful future. The author is an associate professor in the teaching and research department of Party building of the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily. Analysts forecast nation will contribute more to a peaceful, sustainable world The upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will chart the course for the country's development over the next five years and beyond, and international experts anticipate China will play a bigger role in global sustainability and peace efforts. "The key theme of the international policy would be a responsible great power," said Kitti Prasirtsuk, professor of international relations at Thailand's Thammasat University. Besides addressing domestic issues like the COVID-19 pandemic and rural development, Kitti said he expects China will try to generate more positive outcomes as it enhances international cooperation in such areas as the Belt and Road Initiative and the environment. The Congress will review the Party's work over the past five years and chart a course for the coming five years and beyond, while thoroughly examining the current domestic and international situation. It will also elect a new CPC Central Committee and a new CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Kitti said he expects the Congress to touch on several key foreign policy topics, including the BRI, the global situation, the environment and soft power. "China has been emerging as the champion of free trade, and China would like to protect the world order of free trade and globalization," Kitti said. He pointed out there are challenges since the United States is trying to decouple the supply chain through a trade war and a technological "cold war" against China. Through such initiatives as the BRI, China should continue to engage the global community and help generate socioeconomic advancements, especially in developing countries, said Peter T.C.Chang, deputy director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. Chang said China can share and deploy its green technology and public health expertise to help the world become better prepared and equipped to overcome such challenges as environmental degradation and the pandemic. "The world is undergoing a critical rebalancing of global powers, and China has a vital role in stabilizing this power transition and mitigating the risks of this tense geopolitical reconfiguration," Chang said. While the BRI will play an important role in the international community, Ky Sereyvath, director-general of the Royal Academy of Cambodia's Institute of China Studies, said a key topic to watch at the Congress is China's economic diplomacy, given the tensions surrounding the Taiwan question and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He said China should be involved in the ongoing realignment of the global system. The Congress will provide a chance for the world to learn more about China's successes not only in economic terms but also in governance, democracy and social welfare, said Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, CEO of the Asian Institute of Eco-civilization Research and Development in Pakistan. China can also refine its engagement and share its values and cultural instruments to dismiss misinformation spread by some Western politicians, he said. As for China's cooperation with neighboring countries, Sereyvath highlighted the importance of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to economic ties with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The China-Cambodia free trade agreement is a specific tie between the two countries. "In the past decade, China's economic outreach has helped transform the economies of many countries in the Global South," said Chang from the University of Malaya. He said China can continue to play a central role in leading and driving socioeconomic development in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly through the RCEP and the BRI. Chang said it is important for China to stay committed to the principles of multilateralism over unilateralism, coexistence over confrontation and engagement over "deglobalization". "Maintaining regional stability and global peace is crucial," said Chang, adding that China should remain firm and steadfast in pursuing peaceful reunification and resist being drawn into open conflict with external forces over Taiwan. Kitti from Thammasat University said he believes China will continue to step up its efforts to protect the environment and be a responsible great power. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov The Armenian armed forces have renewed shelling of Azerbaijani military positions along the state border, Azernews reports, citing the Defense Ministry. On October 10, at 2300 hours, units of the Armenian armed forces, using small arms, periodically subjected to fire Azerbaijani military positions stationed in Dashkasan Districts Astaf village from their positions in Basarkhecar (Gegharkunik) regions Garaiman village, the ministry said. Similarly, on the same day, starting from 0955 to 1630 hours, units of the Armenian armed forces, using various caliber weapons, periodically shelled Azerbaijani army positions stationed in Dashkasans Tazakand, as well as Tovuz Districts Aghbulag villages from their positions in Basarkechars Garaiman and Gunashli, as well as Tovuzgala (Tavush) regions Chinarli villages, the ministry reported earlier. On both occasions, the Azerbaijani army units took appropriate retaliatory measures to suppress the opposite side, the report added. The previous similar incidents were registered in the direction of Kalbajar and Gadabay districts on the evening of October 9. Armenia periodically shells Azerbaijani military positions on liberated territories. Since early September, Azerbaijani positions have multiple times come under Armenian fire. The major border clashes since the 44-day war (2020) erupted between the sides on the night of September 12 leading to 13, when units of the Armenian armed forces carried out large-scale provocations along the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border in Dashkasan, Kalbajar, and Lachin directions. Following the October 6 meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders under the auspices of EU Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron, all parties reaffirmed their commitment to the peace negotiations while acknowledging each other's territorial integrity. President Ilham Aliyev praised the EU's efforts in the peace talks during an interview with Azerbaijani TV channels, emphasizing that Azerbaijan and Armenia are gradually reaching peace. I do hope that we are slowly getting closer to peace, and I highly appreciate Charles Michel's work in this area. Because, as you know, several trilateral meetings have been held in Brussels, and we are getting closer to peace every time. This four-sided meeting was organized by Charles Michel and Emmanuel Macron, and this meeting discussed important issues. I believe that this meeting will be of tremendous importance in reaching a peace agreement, Aliyev stressed. Aliyev added that the peace talks are still ongoing and should not be disrupted. The ministers should meet for the second time soon, and we have suggested that after that the working groups of both countries should come together to prepare the text of the peace agreement, perhaps not in one meeting, but over the course of a few days, he underlined. Military boosts building of community with a shared future for mankind The PLA is a well-known abbreviation, standing for the People's Liberation Army, the Chinese military. It also stands for another characteristic of the armed forces: a "peace-loving army". The unique expression was featured in a bilingual promotional video recalling the military's 32-year peacekeeping history and received millions of thumbs-up on Chinese social media on Sept 3, the day that marked the 77th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the World Anti-Fascist War. The broad appreciation for the video shows that the pursuit of peace is ingrained in the nation and that the Chinese people care about the well-being of humanity. President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said that the Chinese army will always be a staunch force in efforts to maintain world peace. Experts and front-line peacekeepers have echoed Xi, saying that the Chinese military, which firmly pursues a national defense policy that is defensive in nature, has always stood for peace and justice, a belief that has been supported by concrete actions. As China honors its responsibilities as a major country, its armed forces will actively promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, fulfill its international obligations and strive for a better world with lasting peace and common security, they said. Such missions are outlined in Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military, which espouses the latest development of the Party's military philosophy and explores what kind of armed forces should be developed to better respond to the realities of the new era and what steps should be taken to build such forces. The Thought has also provided a fundamental guideline for China's national defense policy that is defensive in nature. Under the guidance of the Thought, China's national defense in the new era aims at resolutely safeguarding the country's sovereignty, security and development interests while never seeking hegemony, expansion or building spheres of influence, according to the white paper "China's National Defense in the New Era". To welcome the upcoming 20th National Congress of the CPC, a book chronicling the building of a strong military and national defense in the past decade was published on Sunday, recording achievements in strengthening the military under the leadership of the CPC in the new era. Commitment to peace In 1990, China embarked on its new voyage as a participant in United Nations peacekeeping operations by sending five military observers to join the UN Truce Supervision Organization. So far, it has sent nearly 50,000 peacekeepers to aid 25 UN peacekeeping missions, and it has become the second-largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and the top contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, according to the Ministry of National Defense. Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University's Center for International Security and Strategy, said that the UN's primary task is to maintain world peace, stressing that China has a unique advantage as a participant in the peacekeeping operations. Such participation "combines high-quality equipment, disciplined personnel and a strong political will to maintain peace", said Zhou, who was also the former director of the Center for Security Cooperation at the Office for International Military Cooperation of the Central Military Commission. "These three elements only occur together in the Chinese military." At the UN peacekeeping summit in 2015, Xi announced six measures that China would take to support these operations. All six measures have been fully implemented, including establishing a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, offering 20 training programs to over 1,500 peacekeepers from more than 60 countries, and sending 25 rotations of engineer and medical units totaling 7,001 troops to missions in Africa and Asia. The PLA has become a key force in UN peacekeeping operations and can "send more types of peacekeeping troops in larger numbers to participate in peacekeeping operations at any time" depending on the needs of the operations, said Cai Hui, a senior peacekeeping instructor and an associate professor for military diplomacy and international cooperation at the PLA National University of Defense Technology. Ke Changshui was among the 700 troops in the infantry battalion sent to the UN Mission in South Sudan in 2015, China's first organic unit of its kind to take part in a peacekeeping mission. Ke said that as the military of a responsible world power, the PLA has made an outstanding contribution to efforts to uphold world peace. The missions have cost some soldiers their lives. Since 1990, 16 Chinese peacekeepers have died while serving overseas, and their bodies will never be returned, according to the white paper "China's Armed Forces: 30 Years of UN Peacekeeping Operations", which was released in 2020. Among them were two of Ke's closest comrades Li Lei and Yang Shupeng who were killed in 2016 by a rocket while patrolling a civilian camp in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, amid a fierce armed conflict, in which Chinese peacekeepers helped ensure the safety of over 9,000 civilians. The two soldiers were posthumously awarded the Dag Hammarskjold Medal by the UN. Peacekeeping efforts In addition to participating in the UN peacekeeping operations, the PLA helps maintain world peace in other ways, including sending naval forces to foil pirates aiming to raid ships, actively taking part in global rescue efforts and offering humanitarian aid, Cai said. "Since 2012, the Chinese military has launched or participated in several disaster relief efforts and emergency response operations, including rescue work in the Philippines after the nation was hit hard by Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, the search for the missing MH370 flight in 2014 and the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa," he said, stressing that the PLA has also provided medical aid to numerous countries and armies since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark has visited 43 countries and regions around the globe and provided medical services to more than 230,000 people since it entered service in 2008. "We have cared for life, sown the seeds of friendship throughout the world and maintained world peace by healing the wounded and rescuing the dying, which is humanitarian," said Deng Qiang, captain of the Peace Ark, adding that the ship has been conveying the PLA's peace-loving message to the world. Over the past 32 years, Chinese peacekeepers have left their footprints in over 20 countries and regions across Africa, Asia and Europe, including Cambodia, Lebanon, Cyprus, South Sudan and Mali. Currently, more than 2,200 Chinese peacekeepers are on duty at the UN Headquarters in New York and in seven peacekeeping missions worldwide, according to the Defense Ministry. Although global peace and stability face many challenges as some countries have refused to renounce hegemonism and have provoked wars and conflicts in many areas, and some nontraditional security issues, including terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime and pandemics, have brought more uncertainty to world peace and development China will always be a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of the international order, Cai said. Series of exchanges boost China's international relations During the past decade, the Communist Party of China has expanded its "circle of friends" as it works to forge a global network of political party partnerships to advance the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. As part of Chinese diplomacy, party-to-party exchanges have served as a catalyst to bolster China's relations with the rest of the world and fulfill the CPC's founding mission of promoting human development and progress while seeking happiness for the people. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has steered the world's largest ruling political party over the past 10 years to enhance friendship and exchanges with political parties worldwide for the global good. The CPC maintains regular contact with more than 600 political parties and organizations from over 160 countries and regions, according to the International Department of the CPC Central Committee. Addressing the CPC and World Political Parties Summit in July last year via video link, Xi called for cooperation to be strengthened among political parties to jointly ensure public well-being. As an important force behind human progress, political parties need to set the right course for the future and shoulder their historic responsibility to build broad consensus, promote global development, and work together to address global risks and challenges, Xi said at the summit. The CPC will shoulder its responsibilities as a major political party in a major country to make new contributions to improving the well-being of mankind, he added. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, the Party has paid more attention to developing relations with political parties from countries worldwide to help promote state-to-state ties and people-to-people friendship. It has worked to share governance experience with overseas political parties, enhance strategic trust with them, and develop dialogue and exchanges among various civilizations to build a better world. Xi has said that political parties from various countries should enhance mutual trust, strengthen communication, develop close coordination and explore the new type of party-to-party relations based on the principle of seeking consensus while shelving differences, respecting each other and learning from each other. The CPC will neither import foreign development models nor export the Chinese model, he said at the opening of a high-level dialogue between the CPC and world political parties in 2017. "And we will not ask other countries to copy the Chinese practice," Xi added. Liu Jianchao, minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, said building the new type of party-to-party relations is a "CPC initiative" proposed by General Secretary Xi in response to the profound and complex changes in the international landscape and the development trend among the world's political parties. It has blazed a trail for building a community with a shared future for mankind through cooperation between political parties. On the new journey in the new era, the CPC will work with political parties worldwide to guide countries in shaping and consolidating a relationship of positive interactions with mutual support, Liu said in an article published in the 19th issue of Qiushi Journal, an official publication of the CPC Central Committee, on Oct 1. The Party will also uphold the principle that matters concerning the people should be handled through joint consultation, and the destiny of the world should be jointly held by all countries. The CPC will continue to consolidate and expand its "circle of friends", and join hands with more political parties to stand on the right side of history to promote human progress, Liu said. It will also unite all forces that can be brought together to resolutely safeguard the nation's core interests and jointly uphold international fairness and justice, he added. Over the past 10 years, the mechanisms for dialogue between the CPC and other political parties have constantly improved. Events such as the China-Arab States Political Parties Dialogue Extraordinary Meeting, the UK-China Leadership Forum, and the Pacific Island Countries-China Political Leadership Dialogue have added mutual trust, resilience and vitality to the CPC's relationships with foreign political parties. Poverty alleviation The CPC has had exchanges in various forms with foreign political parties over governance and reforms. As China has blazed a development path that suits the country's actual conditions under the leadership of the CPC, more political parties are keen to learn from China's successful practice to contribute to the progress of their respective nations. In one such exchange, Bounnhang Vorachith, former general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee, visited villages in Hunan and Fujian provinces in 2018 and 2019 respectively to learn about targeted poverty alleviation considering the introduction of similar practices in Laos. Drawing from the CPC's experience, Raphael Tuju, former secretary-general of Kenya's ruling Jubilee Party, said it is exploring the possibility of establishing a school to instill a culture of discipline among party members. With support from the CPC, six parties in southern Africa cofounded the Julius Nyerere Leadership School in 2018 to strengthen self-construction and improve governance capacity. Ilyas El Omari, former general secretary of the Authenticity and Modernity Party of Morocco, said the CPC has become a model for wise governance and the positive management of ideological, political and organizational issues. Eradicating poverty is a common aspiration among people in all countries, and an important objective that political parties strive to achieve. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the 98.99 million rural residents living below the poverty line in China have been lifted out of poverty, enabling the nation to meet its poverty reduction target set out in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 10 years ahead of schedule. During exchanges with overseas political parties, the CPC has made clear it is willing to contribute more Chinese solutions and Chinese strengths to reducing poverty worldwide. While leading the Chinese people in successfully containing COVID-19, the CPC has shared China's response to the disease as well as diagnosis and treatment solutions with more than 400 political parties, and has provided medical supplies and technical support for such parties and organizations in need. It said it would spare no effort to support international cooperation against COVID-19 and to enhance the accessibility and affordability of vaccines in developing countries. Ananda Goonatilleke, president of the Sri Lanka-China Friendship Association, said, "China has made remarkable achievements in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, in poverty alleviation and ecological governance, and witnessed significant improvement in people's living standards in recent years." He commended the Belt and Road Initiative and Global Development Initiative proposed by Xi, and his advocacy for upholding the universal values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom, as well as building a community with a shared future for mankind. "These ideas accord with the general trend of world peace and development and show strategic foresight," Goonatilleke said. Impressive progress As an important part of party-to-party exchanges, the CPC's governance philosophy, particularly Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and its practice in China, has been welcomed by foreign political party leaders and researchers. Adham Sayed, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lebanon, said China has made such impressive progress due to the science-based decisions of the CPC and the concerted efforts of the Chinese people. "The world is going through a very difficult time due to the pandemic, and for other reasons. International society is paying more attention to China and expecting more from it. This year, the 20th National Congress of the CPC will be convened. It will be an important event not only for the CPC and China, but for the whole world," Sayed told People's Daily. Charles Onunaiju, director of the Center for China Studies in Nigeria, is extremely interested in books about modern China, including Xi Jinping: The Governance of China and Up and Out of Poverty, both written by Xi. The governance philosophy in these books is the fundamental reason the CPC has always maintained strong vitality and self-innovation capacity, and provided inspirational governance experience for other countries and political parties, Onunaiju said. Michel-Philippe Nze, second deputy secretary-general of the Gabonese Democratic Party, or GDP, told People's Daily: "The GDP has been friends with the Communist Party of China for more than 40 years. Every leader of the Gabonese party has visited China to learn governance experience from the CPC. They have witnessed the huge changes in China's development and deeply felt the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics. "The CPC adheres to a people-centered approach and always puts people's interests first," he said, adding that this guarantees that China makes constant progress. Benyamin Poghosyan, chairman of the Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies in Armenia, said that unsustainable and unequal economic growth causes the wealth gap plaguing many developing countries. "The CPC always values people-centered development and promotes balanced urban-rural and regional development to lead the Chinese people toward the goal of common prosperity. Political parties in many countries can learn from China's successful experience," Poghosyan said. As a reader of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China, Poghosyan said he was deeply impressed by the remarks made by the Chinese leader. "China upholds that all countries are equal, irrespective of size, strength and wealth. It respects the right of all countries to choose their own path of development, upholds international equity and justice, and opposes imposing one's will on others," Poghosyan said. He added that the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, and the Global Development Initiative proposed by Xi have paved the way for mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation for countries around the world, and are significant for promoting friendship among them. The CPC, which marked its centenary last year, is marching ahead on a journey of leading the Chinese people to build a modern socialist country and realize national rejuvenation. Experts said the Party's "glorious achievements" in international exchanges serve as a contribution to global progress. Wang Lei, an associate professor at Beijing Normal University's School of Government and director of the BRICS Cooperation Center, said that under the strong leadership of the CPC, China is advancing major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics to build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind. As the nation's international influence, ability to inspire, and power to shape continue to rise, China will make significant new contributions to global peace and development, Wang said. A grand exhibition displaying Han Dynasty (202 BC to AD 8) artifacts was staged in the Guimet Museum, France in July, 2014. A total of 153 sets of valuable exhibits from 27 Chinese museums were displayed, attracting large numbers of visitors. Prior to it, another exhibition titled "Great Museums, Famous Masters and Outstanding Masterpieces: the Special Painting Exhibition for Commemorating 50th Anniversary of Establishment of China-France Diplomatic Relationship" was held at the National Museum of China. It showcased 10 hallmark paintings from five major French museums, including the Louvre. The above two art exhibitions were a miniature of the prospering development of the exchanges and mutual learning between China and the rest of the world over the past decade. In recent years, the Chinese art world has fully demonstrated China's artistic ideas through its active interaction with the rest of the world. China's traditional art, presented with new technologies and ideas, has grown more inclusive and open. At the 59th Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art exhibition that takes place biennially in Venice, Italy, a series of Chinese exhibits were displayed in the Chinese Pavilion with digital, virtual and artificial intelligence technologies, demonstrating the ingenious blend of oriental charm and frontier technologies, as well as Chinese artists' consideration of the present and the future. With the new models of exhibition, cultural relics, art works and intangible cultural heritage are forcefully driving cultural exchanges and mutual learning. In 2018, 58 paintings collected by the Beijing Fine Art Academy were displayed at an exhibition titled Elegance and Savour - Life, Wisdom and Art in Chinese Culture in the Liechtenstein National Museum. They presented the Chinese people's lifestyles, cultural traditions and aesthetics. Today, more and more Chinese artworks have won applause from the international community. A batch of Chinese architects have claimed international architectural design prizes, and a number of China-designed products have won international designing awards. Besides, China has also set up a number of awards in design, attracting many excellent foreign designers. Chinese artists have taken an active part in cultural communication and cooperation programs under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), introducing Chinese art to the rest of the world and promoting cultural communication and people-to-people bonds between China and other countries. In 2015, the Belt and Road International Art Project Exhibitions were kicked off by the China National Academy of Painting. The program was joined by over 100 artists from more than 30 countries and regions, who portrayed the Silk Road spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit with their paintbrushes. Their paintings not only demonstrated the economic prosperity of Belt and Road countries achieved through exchanges but also showcased a constant blend of different cultures. They mirrored the positive role of the BRI in building a community with a shared future for mankind. Besides, China has also held many other Belt and Road art exchange programs, which have significantly enriched the artistic creation of Belt and Road countries. As China keeps deepening its cooperation with other Belt and Road countries in infrastructure and other sectors, art cooperation is also expanding. For instance, China Railway Construction Corporation has hosted a fine art exhibition themed on the BRI to tell the stories of the enhanced connectivity among Belt and Road countries. Apart from that, China has launched a large batch of cultural projects, such as the Silk Road International Arts Festival and the Maritime Silk Road International Arts Festival. The International Alliance of Museums of the Silk Road and the Silk Road International Alliance of Art Museums and Galleries have been set up, which have so far developed over 500 member organizations from China and the world. The rich and colorful artworks and activities both reflect the essence of win-win cooperation and expand China's cultural exchanges with the rest of the world, enhancing mutual understanding and friendly exchanges between people. Australian tourists go kayaking at Lan Ha Bay in the northern province of Quang Ninh (Source: Era Cruises) To mark the 20th anniversary of the search engines presence in Australia, Google has recently released a list of the top searched destinations in Australia over the past 20 years. Leading the list was Japan, followed by other locations such as New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, Tasmania, Australia, Cambodia, Bali, New South Wales, and Borneo. According to details given by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the country was also among the top 10 most popular destinations for Australian tourists during the opening seven months of the year. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia had been one of the nations leading source of customers with approximately 383,000 visitors making a trip to Vietnam in 2019, ranking ninth in terms of number of travelers. Before international travel was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan had been the fastest-growing overseas destination in Australia. French cruise ship takes foreign tourists to Thua Thien-Hue province Le Laperouse, a luxury cruise ship of France with 200 foreign travellers, docked at Chan May port in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue on October 9 night, reported Vietnam News Agency. The first group of foreign tourists has returned to Thua Thien-Hue province by sea after two-year suspension due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: VNA) This is the first group of foreign tourists to have returned to Thua Thien-Hue by sea after two-year suspension due to the outbreak of COVID-19, showing a positive sign in the provinces efforts to recover tourism in the post-pandemic period. During their stay, the tourists visited the Imperial City of Hue and Minh Mang Tomb to learnt about the culture and relics of Hue ancient capital. According to Nguyen Van Phuc, Director of the provincial Department of Tourism, Thua Thien-Hue welcomed 184,872 tourists in September, including 25,591 foreign travelers, up 11% month-on-month. Revenue from the tourism sector between January and September was estimated to reach 3.3 trillion VND (139.6 million USD). Le Laperouse is a leading cruise ship of the fleet of Ponant Explorers consisting of six members managed by the Ponant cruise carrier. The tour to discover the coast and famous sightseeing places of Vietnam, lasting from 8 to 11 days, is a new journey of Ponant in Asia. During the journey, the cruise ship will take the tourists to Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa province, Quy Nhon in Binh Dinh, Tien Sa in Da Nang city, Chan May in Thua Thien-Hue province, Hon La in Quang Binh, and Ha Long in Quang Ninh province. Vietnamese pangasius exports to ASEAN market surge Vietnams pangasius exports to the ASEAN market during the opening nine months of the year soared, reaching an estimated US$152 million and accounting for roughly 8% of total pangasius exports to foreign markets, reported the Voice of Vietnam. According to figures released by the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the bloc accounts for a significant proportion of the countrys total pangasius exports, with this trend expected increase in the time ahead. With major breakthroughs and constant growth being recorded over recent years, the import proportion of the ASEAN market from Vietnam now stands nearly equivalent to that of the EU, with Vietnam's pangasius exports to the bloc being anticipated to surpass the EU in the near future. Major markets which make up a large proportion of exports of the item in ASEAN include Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore. Thailand accounts for 3.6% of Vietnamese pangasius export value with pangasius exports to this market by the end of the third quarter of the year exceeding US$70 million, up 81% against the same period from last year. Most notably, September alone saw the Philippines market record the strongest growth with a five-fold rise against the same period from last year. By the end of the third quarter, pangasius exports to this market soared by 92%, duly reaching over US$25 million and accounting for 1.3% of total pangasius exports. Despite making up a modest proportion, other countries in ASEAN such as Cambodia, Indonesia, and Laos have significantly increased imports of Vietnamese pangasius. Amid the sharp increase in transportation costs causing disadvantages for the pangasius export industry, ASEAN markets with a close geographical proximity to the nation continue to remain a suitable option for local pangasius enterprises moving forward. US magazine features four best new restaurants in Hanoi Lifestyle magazine CnTraveller of the United States has recently published an article highlighting the four best new restaurants in Hanoi, including A Ban Mountain Dew, Chapter Dining & Grill Hanoi, Koki House Of Senses, and the Hudson Rooms, reported the Voice of Vietnam. A Ban Mountain Dew The first place mentioned in the list is A Ban Mountain Dew which specialises in serving dishes from the northwest mountainous region. According to the article, a lots of A Bans dishes are wonderfully smoky, with the chef Viet being a native of Son La, a province west of Hanoi that borders Laos. Viet is renowned for serving up tangy and textural dishes, as well as outre servings like fried bugs amidst atmospheric decor which references paddy fields and the upside down architecture of ethnic groups. Chapter Dining & Grill Hanoi is a restaurant located on hip Chan Cam street that opened earlier this year and features technically-accomplished cuisine with a lick of flame and a twist of smoke. Chapter Dining & Grill Hanoi The article highlights the restaurants open kitchen, typical of chef Quang Dungs previous projects such as T.U.N.G Dining and Habakuk Fine Coffee & Bistro. At the restaurant, the cuisine plays around with street food as fine dining, including the spread-eagled chicken foot stuffed with homemade chorizo, with the menu being divided into chapters and ascending from earthly delights to heavenly desserts. At the Capella hotel in Hanoi, the basement features Koki House Of Senses whilst the Hudson Rooms is on the top floor. Compared to the rest of the Capella Hanoi, Koki is a chic and understated underground space which follows a Japanese theme. At Kokis Akio Lounge, the bar team takes guests on a road trip through Japan with cocktails themed after stops along the way. This includes Nikko and its cherry blossom and Oita and its bubbling hot springs. Each one comes with a snack, approved by Juinichi Yoshida, the chef who turned teppanyaki into Michelin-star cuisine at his restaurant, Ishigaki Yoshida, located just outside Roppongi. At Kokis Hibana, chef Yoshida and his team serve the same cuts of premium Yaeyama Kyori beef, sourced exclusively from Okinawas Yaeyama island, as they do in Tokyo, with all meat having a certificate of authenticity with the cows genealogy and nose print. In contrast, the Hudson Rooms is an ode to New Yorks Grand Central Station, with a cocktail menu inspired by the train lines leaving the platform and heading across to Chicago and beyond to LA, north to Canada, or south to Miami. There are bountiful platters of fresh seafood too, and freshly-shucked oysters, before a whistle blows and head bartender William hands out espresso martinis as if youre pulling out Grand Central on the 20th Century Limited Streamliner, one of the worlds most expensive passenger trains in a bygone era./. Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan (L) and Croatian President Zoran Milanovic (Photo: VNA) Milanovic affirmed that Croatia supports the EUs early removal of yellow card warning on Vietnamese aquatic products. He added that the European nation is ready to share its experience in sustainable aquaculture with Vietnam. Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, who is on an official visit to Croatia from October 9-11, stressed that Vietnam always treasures and wishes to boost bilateral traditional friendship and all-around cooperation, which was founded decades ago. She thanked Croatia for providing 60,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses for Vietnam in late 2021 as well as supporting the negotiation and signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and early approval of the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA), which have opened up up opportunities in fields of each countrys strength and demand such as marine economy, agriculture, food processing, logistics and clean energy. Both sides agreed to enhance the exchange of all-level delegations, especially those at high level and reached consensus on measures to intensify bilateral ties, particularly in economy, trade and investment, as well as expand cooperation into the most promising areas such as tourism, transport, education-training and sports. On the occasion, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan conveyed President Nguyen Xuan Phucs invitation to President Milanovic to visit Vietnam. The Croatian President accepted the invitation with pleasure and wished to visit Vietnam at the earliest. On the same day, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan met with Deputy Speaker of the Croatian Parliament Ante Sanader, who considered the Vietnamese delegation's visit an opportunity for Croatia to strengthen its relations with Vietnam. The Vice President stated Vietnam wishes to promote the traditional friendship with Croatia in all fields through all Party, State, government, parliament and locality-to-locality channels. Appreciating the Croatian Parliament for being one of the first in the EU to ratify the EVIPA, she proposed the body continue to encourage parliaments of other EU countries to soon ratify the deal so that it will take effect as soon as possible, creating a legal basis to promote trade and investment cooperation between Vietnam and the bloc in general and Croatia in particular. Both officials agreed to consider the early signing of a cooperation agreement between their parliaments and a possibility of establishing their friendship parliamentarians' groups. Earlier on October 10, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan visited the University of Zagreb, suggesting Vietnam and Croatia soon sign an agreement on educational cooperation, implement join projects on scientific research and innovation, and establish a direct student exchange mechanism between the University of Zagreb and Vietnamese universities. On October 9, she had a meeting with staff at the Vietnamese Embassy in Hungary and Croatia, and representatives of the Vietnamese community there./. Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son (third from left) (Photo: Foreign Ministry) Affirming that the US is one of the leading important partners of Vietnam, Son wished for their comprehensive partnership to continue growing on the basis of respecting each others independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and political regime. The minister spoke highly of the increased exchange of delegations at all levels and via channels, including the National Assembly. He highlighted the need to continue consolidating and expanding the network of the US Congress's members in support of Vietnam. Vietnam supports the US in enhancing cooperation with the region to contribute to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world, he said. The US congressmen expressed their impression on Vietnam and its people. They affirmed that the US Congress considers Vietnam one of the leading partners in the region and consistently backs a strong, independent and prosperous Vietnam. At the meeting, both sides underscored the importance of coordination in dealing with war consequences in the process of reconciliation, healing and trust-building between the two countries. They vowed to step up collaboration in mutually beneficial areas such as sci-tech, education-training, climate change, clean energy transition, investment, and supply chains. On regional and global issues of shared concern, they agreed to bolster cooperation within the framework of the US-ASEAN strategic partnership. During the visit, the delegation met Chairman of the National Assemblys Committee on Science-Technology and Environment Le Quang Huy and had a talk with the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam./. Traditional Vietnamese dance performed by Venezuelan friends (Photo: thoidai.com.vn) Famous Venezuelan artists have displayed dozens of art paintings in honor of beloved President Ho Chi Minh, and the culture, landscape, country and people of Vietnam. Speaking at the event, President of the Venezuelan Artist Association Susej Vera said that she was honored to organize the art exhibition about Vietnam, a heroic country with a tradition of patriotism and struggle for independence, freedom of the nation, as well as the extraordinary energy in the development of the country. Through the exhibition, Venezuelan people have shown their love for the country and people of Vietnam, especially for great President Ho Chi Minh. This is also an activity to help Venezuelan people better understand the culture and country of Vietnam. On behalf of the Embassy, First Secretary Ngo Van Chi expressed his appreciation and thanks to the leaders of the Venezuelan Artist Association for coordinating to organize the meaningful exhibition, helping the Venezuelan people express their love for the country and people of Vietnam. The above activity helps to further cement the friendship between the Venezuelan people and the Vietnamese people, contributing to promoting friendship and traditional cooperation between the two countries, towards the 33rd anniversary of diplomatic relations and 15 years of comprehensive partnership between Vietnam and Venezuela. For her part, President of the Venezuela - Vietnam Friendship Association Carolus Wimmer said that famous Venezuelan artists have painted about a country, with heroic Vietnamese people, rich natural beauty, and especially great President Ho Chi Minh of the Vietnamese nation in particular and of humanity in general. The art paintings displayed at the exhibition clearly showed the deep affection that the Venezuelan people have for Vietnam and the admiration for President Ho Chi Minh - which is the inspiration to create art paintings about President Ho Chi Minh and the heroic people of Vietnam. At the event, the guests also enjoyed traditional Vietnamese dances, such as hat dance, flag dance performed by the dance groups from the Venezuela Vietnam Friendship Association, mixed with traditional Venezuelan dances, contributing to helping Venezuelan people understand more about the Vietnamese culture, country and people./. Honouring 10 oustanding citizen of the capital (Source: VNA) On October 10, Hanoi City Party Committee, Peoples Council and the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Hanoi city held a conference to review 30 years of the citys movement Good People, Good Deeds (1992 2022), honoring outstanding citizens of the city in 2022. The event was also organsied to mark the 68th anniversary of Hanoi Liberation Day (October 10, 1954 2022). In his remarks, Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee Tran Sy Thanh said that the Good People, Good Deeds has become a signature movement of Hanoi. Nearly 30,000 people have been awarded the title of Good People, Good Deedsover the last three decades while 119 others have been honoured as the capitals outstanding citizens, he said. This year, 747 individuals were granted the title of Good People, Good Deeds, while the list of outstanding citizens included people of various professions, including Buddhist monk, doctor, factory worker, educator, businessperson, photographer, athlete, and military and public security officer. Sharing at the conference, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Thi An, Chairwoman of Hanoi Female Intellectuals Association, who is also one of 10 honoured oustanding citizens, said that she always has a passionate love for Hanoi. Having witnessed many ups and downs of the capital's history, Hanoi is not only the place where she grew up, but also the driving force for her dedication. "No matter how hard I try, I can't return what Hanoi has given me," said Ms. An./. Ca Mau forest (Photo: camau.gov.vn) During the program, participants upgraded fences, stretched nets to stabilize Avicennia (Avicennia alba) seeds and monitored the number of reborn Avicennia trees in an area of 50 hectares of the zoning alluvial area in 2020. Particularly, Miss H'Hen Nie talked and shared with more than 50 local people and young people in the camp Experience Ca Mau - U Minh Ha about forest protection and the great role of mangroves in life and livelihoods. In addition, she shared about the great role of mangroves, zoning techniques to promote natural regeneration of forests and directly monitoring the zoning area jointly implemented by Gaia and Mui Ca Mau National Park. Despite the heat, Miss H'Hen Nie and the youth participated in reinforcing fences damaged due to the impact of waves in the past year. While working, H'Hen Nie also chatted online with the public on social networks to spread the message of forest protection and afforestation in Ca Mau. She also counted the number of newly grown Avicennia trees on an area of 50ha of Ca Mau forest that was zoned in 2020, which is expected to consolidate the mudflat and help to extend the terrestrial land toward the sea. Vietnam is one of the six countries most affected by climate change. The impacts of climate change on people's lives are becoming more and more obvious such as saltwater intrusion, prolonged drought in the Mekong Delta, storms and floods causing heavy damage in the Central region. According to Gaia Nature Conservation Center, in the first 5 months of 2022, economic losses due to natural disasters are up to 4,000 billion VND. Therefore, in order to respond to climate change and reduce disaster damage in the future, many urgent and practical solutions need to be implemented. One of the sustainable solutions to be implemented is to plant and restore watershed forests. The Ca Mau forest zoning program also includes communications activities to raise awareness among local people about the protection of mangrove areas. The friendliness and warm sharing of Miss H'Hen Nie helps people feel more encouraged and actively participate in the communications activities. At the program, Ms. Huyen Do, Founder & Executive Director of Gaia Nature Conservation Center, and Mui Ca Mau National Park Management Board shared about the meaning and benefits of mangrove zoning, listened to the feedback and helped answer questions from local people. In addition, a game to help people see the importance of sustainable natural resource exploitation was also organized. Mr. Le Van Dung, Director of Mui Ca Mau National Park, said that Cape Ca Mau National Park has cooperated with Gaia Nature Conservation to zone and promote the natural regeneration of Ca Mau forests from 2020 to present. After 2 years of implementation, the program has shown its effectiveness, contributing to increasing forest area and increasing forest cover. At the same time, this is also a meaningful activity in joining hands to protect the environment and respond to climate change in combination with raising awareness of local communities in the area about the role and meaning of mangrove forests./. By Guangming Daily Research Team The vast land of Xinjiang boasts three mountain ranges and two basins. It stretches as far as eyes can see, to places where lush pastures extend to horizon. Countless flocks and herds roam on the green land, where Chinese of all ethnic groups join hands to transform Gobi deserts into oasis, adding vitality to the beautiful land of Xinjiang. A policeman helps local herdsmen herd sheep in Altay, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, September 3, 2022. (Photo/ Guangming Picture) The ancient Silk Road that connected then Chinese capital Changan and Rome ran through Xinjiang. The vicissitudes of times have seen camels criss-crossing endless deserts, and the sun setting behind the mountains far away. Our great forebears, adventurers and explorers alike, left their footprints in trade and cultural exchanges on the mysterious land of Xinjiang, triggering endless imaginations for future generations. It was here that Lin Zexu, a famous patriot, the loyal minister of the imperial court in Qing Dynasty who fought the opium trade, lived in exile after being sacked. Lin left to us the famous poem that I shall dedicate myself to the interests of the country in life and death, irrespective of personal weal and woe. Lins footprints covered both sides of the Tianshan Mountains, prospecting the territory, encouraging agricultural activities, dredging Kaner wells and leaving behind legacies that benefited one generation after another. It was here that a battalion of Han Dynasty troops took off their military uniforms and settled down for development. They buried the hatchet and turned swords into plowshares, transforming farming villages into cities. They were defending national borders and the ecosystem here. Today, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have taken up a similar role, becoming modern-day boundary markers that will never fade away. It was from here that enchanting melodies spread across the country and became tunes that echo in the hearts of generations of Chinese. Household songs such as the The Girl of Darban City, Alamu Khan, Why Are the Flowers So Red, Xinjiang is a Good Place, The Grapes of Turpan are Ripe and the The Shepherd of Koktokay are odes the beauty of this land, and the infinite love of the Chinese people for Xinjiang. Xinjiang, with its exotic scenery, bountiful produces, unique charm and ever-changing looks, has drawn the attention of the world. Unfortunately, exactly because of its vastness, many people have failed to see its full picture; and few have been there because it sits so far away in the hinterland of the Eurasian Continent. Worse still is the fact that people with ulterior motives are pouring dirty water on Xinjiang ... Then what does Xinjiang really look like today? The Guangming Daily research team recently paid a visit to Xinjiang, walking into its streets and communities, and villages and towns, to find out how the locals live and work, and how they perceive the changes that have taken place. Lets start the journey and walk into a real, full-dimensional Xinjiang. I With great virtue comes great success. Labor has nourished our virtue and shaped the landscape of the places we live. For thousands of years, people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang have explored the land under their feet with hard work and diligence. Today, people in Xinjiang are passing on this spirit. Every ethnic group and every worker deserves a solemn salute, for they have created a prosperous Xinjiang under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. A volunteer helps local farmers pick grapes at a village in Awat County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 20, 2022. (Photo/ Guangming Picture) Against the scorching heat of the vast Gobi in the west of Aksu, we walked into a 65,000-mu (4,333-hectare, or 10,708-acrefruit orchard of Hongqipo Group in late June. It seemed as if we could hear the sizzling sound of apples, pears and grapes turning juicy and sweet under the sun. According to He Zhangwei, technical director of the orchard, only 50 workers are needed to manage the entire orchard. The whole process is mechanized, which improves the efficiency by 90% and reduces the cost by 90%. Now we use tree planters, machine ploughs, straw crushers and electric, intelligent and driverless tractors. He pointed to the drone flying over and said, This is our drone supported by the Beidou navigation system and its spraying fertilizer now. All you need is to mark the longitude and latitude of the orchard on your phone, and the drone will take care of the rest. With two basins sitting in between three mountain ranges, Xinjiang is blessed with over 100 million mu of arable land, where large agricultural equipment can be used to great effect. Science and technology have become the highlight of Xinjiangs agriculture, where the mechanization rate for main crops has reached 85.48%. In Wensu CountyXinjiangs key cotton producer in Aksu Prefecture, hundreds of thousands of acres of cotton is blossoming with milky white, light pink, and light yellow flowers. Although cotton-picking season has not yet arrived, standing here, one can imagine the spectacular harvesting scene in autumn. The ample sunshine, warm wind, and the water melted from snow are blessings for cotton. Quality of the cotton produced here is second to none in the world: the cotton lint is long and soft, and the color is pure and clean. The long-staple cotton in Xinjiang not only has good looks, its highly elastic, durable and wear-resistant. Its fiber is 35% longer than that of ordinary cotton. The air permeability of cloth made of Xinjiang cotton is 5 times that of ordinary cotton. Cotton production in Xinjiang accounts for 89.5% of Chinas total, and 20% of the worlds. A cotton picker is seen working in fields in Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 26, 2022. (Photo/ Guangming Picture) Cotton farms nowadays are increasingly less reliant on human labor. Machines get to do most of the job from plowing the land to picking the cotton. Youd see if you come in autumn, that cotton-picking machines neatly line up in a row, the entire farm could be harvested with only a few round trips. It is such an enjoyable scene. Last year I earned nearly 3 million yuan, and labor cost was only a fraction of that, said Manuti Daouti, a cotton farmer who planted 3,000 mu of cotton. Aymel Tulhong is a large cotton farmer in Xayar County of Aksu Prefecture. Last year, his planting area exceeded 1,900 mu thanks to the alluring income from the cotton business. Cotton picking was completed within one week, and I earned over 1 million yuan because of these machines, he said. Photo taken on Oct. 4, 2021 shows cotton fields at Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. (Photo/ Guangming Picture) Statistics show that the mechanized harvesting rate of cotton in 2021 exceeded 80%, and 95% of the cotton in northern Xinjiang was picked by machinery. There are also some small plots not suitable for mechanized picking and need to be picked by hand. However, in Xinjiang, hand-picking is an attractive job due to the lucrative pay. In the two-month harvesting season, not only locals in Xinjiang rushed to the job, cotton pickers from Shandong, Henan, Gansu and other parts of the country would also join the silver-hunting game. A skilled cotton picker can earn more than 20,000 yuan in two months. Maimaitimin Atagula, a local farmer in Hotan, said that last year he and his wife earned nearly 20,000 yuan after working 40 days in Aksu. Were definitely going again this year, he said. Our reporters heard this Uygur proverb along the trip: The hard-working get to eat lamb leg, and the lazy drink cold water. On both sides of Tianshan Mountains, working has become a spontaneous choice for people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The people of Xinjiang today are creating happy lives by doing decent jobs of their voluntary choice. Statistics show that in 2021, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in Xinjiang exceeded 37,000 yuan, and for rural residents, the figure exceeded 15,000 yuan, both had grown more than 100 times from that of 1978. Today, 2,020 service stations for outdoor workers and 4,622 lounges and breastfeeding rooms for female workers have been built in industrial parks with a high concentration of workers. Xinjiang Siwei Textile Company is a cotton enterprise that came into operation last year in Aksus Awati County. Buyhemuti Toheti, head of the company, said with anger: Some people are so jealous that they smear Xinjiang with forced labor. They must be thinking with their toes: why would anyone force us to pursuit a happy life? The white cotton is the flower of happiness for the people in Xinjiang. In the United States, however, there is a dark history of forced labor associated with cotton. The white cotton in southern US was once soaked with the blood and tears of black slaves its a sin that the US can never wipe off. Black slaves, inadequately clothed and fed, exhausted all their strength for cotton picking under guns and whips. In 1860, cotton production in the US was 130 times what it had been in 1800, behind which was the unimaginable physical and mental devastation of the blacks. The value of labor squeezed from black slaves by American slaveholders amounted to $14 trillion in current prices. According to statistics, in 1850, 80% of US exports were produced by slaves. It was slavery, rather than democracy, that paved the US and Wests way to prosperity. Even today, US immigration law remains supportive of modern slavery, and there is a strong correlation between certain visa types and forced labor. Studies have shown that over 70% of victims of forced labor in the US arrived with a legal visa. To this day, there are still some 500,000 child labors in the US working in agriculture. Many start working from 8 years old, working for up to 72 hours a week. Between 2003 and 2016, 237 child labors died in agricultural accidents in the US, according to US media. Cotton, flawlessly white and pure, is natures blessing to Xinjiang. To boycott Xinjiangs cotton is to reject the gift from nature. The so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act shows how the US is blatantly meddling in Xinjiangs affairs, and flagrantly interfering with Chinas internal affairs to achieve the goal of containing China with Xinjiang. This is a manifestation of bullying and hegemony, and a dangerous, provocative move. But how can anything ever be achieved by inciting the boycott of Xinjiangs cotton? An overseas netizen once launched a challenge to reject Made-in-China products, and the result was a bleak one: the challenger ended up running almost naked on the street, wrapped only in a green bath towel. This is not to say that China is unstoppable, but rather, we live in a global village and are bonded together in one way or another. Xinjiangs cotton has been warming our day-to-day life, and its not something that people can cut off easily. The question for those Western politicians demanding the boycott is, are you ready for a naked run? 5 1 Editor: Zhang Zhou By Trend President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with President of the France Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Council Charles Michel and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in Prague on October 6, Trend reports. According to the statement made following the meeting, Azerbaijan and Armenia reaffirmed their commitment to the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, in which both countries recognized each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. The parties also confirmed that this will become the basis for the work of the commissions on border delimitation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the next meeting of the commissions will be held in Brussels at the end of October. Researcher at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute Robert Cutler commenting on the meeting said that this is not the first time that Pashinyan publicly referred to the Alma-Ata Declaration of December 21, 1991, signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and other post-Soviet countries, recognizing and respecting each other's territorial integrity and the inviolability of the existing borders. Also in mid-September this year, Pashinyan made favorable statements about signing a paper, as a result of which Armenia gets permanent peace and security with its territory of 29,800 square kilometers. That number was repeated more than once. Its very clear that it limits territorial claims to Armenia itself and cannot include any Azerbaijani territory, Cutler noted. Nevertheless, according to him, assuming that Pashinyan can remain committed to the above statement after return to Yerevan, it augurs well for a possible peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. US analyst Irina Tsukerman noted that this major step in recognizing each other's territorial integrity is a major breakthrough, widely praised. It sends a signal to the populations of both countries that the countries are taking each other's national sovereignty seriously and are committed to the fulfillment of the trilateral agreement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war] and to the peace-building process, Tsukerman said. According to her, thus Pashinyan is sending a message that he understands that no provocations on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be acceptable. Does that mean he is also committed to bringing Armenian troops out of the area where they should have been withdrawn from a long time ago? Well see whether his actions speak louder than words, the analyst also noted. For the international community, this means a serious diplomatic achievement that puts an end to propaganda campaigns and lobbying efforts by third parties such as Armenian diaspora in Western countries. No longer can these parties claim grievances, she further said. It's not clear what Armenia was hoping to achieve with the most recent military provocations. After the lack of interest in further propaganda by most of the international community on a political level, Pashinyan finally understood that the time for games is over and that its in the best interests of Armenia to move on with region integration, Tsukerman said. Antonio Ovando (1st L), an asylum seeker who arrived in New York City less than a week ago, picks up clothes dropped off by New Yorkers outside a hotel in Staten Island, New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Yanan) Newly arrived asylum seekers, mostly from the U.S. southern border, are waiting for support in New York City. More importantly, they don't have work permits and have to wait for months, which adds to their anxiety and hardship. NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in New York City, the most populous city in the United States, are facing multifaceted challenges in taking roots amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Antonio Ovando, who arrived in New York City less than a week ago, was expecting some people from the city to bring some clothes on Sunday afternoon when he joined his family members and fellow asylum seekers around the entrance of a hotel in Staten Island. Ovando told Xinhua that he arrived in Texas at the end of September, and then was advised to come to New York assuming they could get material support there. "We have no clothes and no shoes. And we ran out of money," Ovando said. Ovando stays with his wife and two young children in Comfort Inn on Staten Island, which is far from the downtown area and was recently converted into a shelter center for asylum seekers. New York City has contracted over 40 hotels across the city to accommodate over 17,000 asylum seekers since April 2022. Some migrants waiting outside the hotel were in their shorts, when the temperature in New York City had fallen to around 10 Celsius degrees. It was reported that some asylum seekers from the Comfort Inn knocked on the doors of local residents and asked for help. Ovando and other migrants finally picked up some clothes, which were dropped off by some New Yorkers at the hotel. Laborers work at the construction site of a humanitarian emergency response and relief center for asylum seekers on Randall's Island in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Zhang Fengguo) More importantly, asylum seekers don't have work permits and have to wait for months, which adds to their anxiety and hardship. Ovando, who worked as an accountant in Nicaragua, said he needs to find a job though he is thankful for help from others. Jose, who came from Venezuela with his wife and son, said, "Getting a job is the most difficult thing for us who are here from far away." "We don't know how long we will stay here and we're just following instructions," said Ovando. As the vast majority of asylum seekers only speak Spanish, there is a language problem in everyday life and school. Moreover, the newly arrived asylum seekers may find themselves unwelcome in the local community. Shortly after the arrival of asylum seekers at the Comfort Inn, elected officials from Staten Island held a press conference voicing their opposition to placing migrants in the Comfort Inn, which is located in Travis-Chelsea neighborhood. "Travis is not the place for these asylum seekers. It's sad to say, but it's just not going to work here," said Gene Guerra, president of the Travis Civic Association. John Michael, a member of Travis Civic Association, posted a comment recently on the social media suggesting that community members hold a rally and protest against using the Comfort Inn and other hotels in the neighborhood as migrant shelters. Photo shows the construction site of a humanitarian emergency response and relief center for asylum seekers in Randall's Island in New York, the United States, Oct. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) Meanwhile, New York City is building a humanitarian emergency response and relief center for asylum seekers on Randall's Island in Manhattan borough. Dubbed as a "tent city," the transitory relief center is designed to accommodate 500 newly arrived asylum seekers, but the island's relative isolation, as local media reported, would not help migrants interact with the local community. Last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to a record-breaking influx of asylum seekers into the city, mostly from the southern border of the United States. Editor: WXL A temporarily closed Total Energies gas station is seen in Paris, France, Oct. 6, 2022. (Xinhua/Gao Jing) According to the Ministry for Energy Transition, 29.4 percent of service stations in the country were experiencing difficulties with at least one product on Monday, compared to 19 percent on Friday. PARIS, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Strikes in France's major refineries continued on Monday, leading to fuel-related panics in the country. The strikes at TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil refineries will extend to Tuesday, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) said. According to the Ministry for Energy Transition, 29.4 percent of service stations in the country were experiencing difficulties with at least one product on Monday, compared to 19 percent on Friday. Cars line up for fuel at a gas station in Lille, north France, Oct. 6, 2022. (Photo by Sebastien Courdji/Xinhua) French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne organized an urgent crisis meeting Monday evening. According to French media, the government will ban the filling of fuel jerry cans across the country. The strikers' actions have led to a decrease in fuel deliveries, provoking fears and long hours of waiting. School bus transportation was also affected by the strikes. "The French must not be prisoners of this social conflict which does not concern them," said Minister for Energy Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher on Monday. In addition to the strikes, the price of fuel has increased in the last seven days. In order to counterbalance the fuel shortage, the French government has released significant volumes of fuel from its strategic stocks and reinforced fuel imports from Belgium. A temporarily closed TotalEnergies gas station is seen in Lestrem, France, Oct. 6, 2022. (Photo by Sebastien Courdji/Xinhua) Over the weekend, TotalEnergies and the CGT agreed to start negotiations but no agreement was concluded. The strikers demand a raise in salary to compensate for the high inflation that France is experiencing. Editor: WXL Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) by Xinhua writer Yang Shilong NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." The annual event, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and China's Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. "We seek to reveal the differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from West -- only to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both the East and West," said the festival's artistic director Jindong Cai, who is also the USCMI director. Music exchanges play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and China at the current time when bilateral relations are difficult, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard College, told Xinhua at a reception after the concert on Sunday. In the fall of 2018, the Bard College started to offer an undergraduate performance degree program in selected Chinese instruments including erhu, guzheng and pipa. Studio instruction in these traditional Chinese instruments is provided by world-renowned CCOM master musicians, with the use of state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person lessons both on the Bard campus and in Beijing. "It's important to keep it going and music exchanges can bring us closer," said Botstein, an established conductor and music historian, adding that he looks forward to a performance tour in China in June next year. Sunday's concert, "Tales from Beijing," at the Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918 and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing's ancient alleyways -- morning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums -- before finally transporting the audience back to the tranquility of the ancient city. Following were four selections from the opera Rickshaw Boy, specifically chosen and adapted by Chinese composer Guo Wenjing for the concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu. The concert's second half was devoted to Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's Symphony No. 2, The Great Wall. This large-scale work featuring piano, voice, Chinese instruments and symphony orchestra is inspired by the Great Wall, a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China. The second concert program, "Painted Skin," will take place on Oct. 13 at the Hudson Hall, the historical opera house in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center. It features the U.S. premiere of "Painted Skin," a chamber opera based on a ghost story by the early 18th century author Pu Songling, which was originally published in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The last concert program, "Journey to the East," will take place on Oct. 22 in the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Jindong Cai (C), director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, conducts at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Editor: ZAD Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) by Xinhua writer Yang Shilong NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." The annual event, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and China's Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. "We seek to reveal the differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from West -- only to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both the East and West," said the festival's artistic director Jindong Cai, who is also the USCMI director. Music exchanges play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and China at the current time when bilateral relations are difficult, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard College, told Xinhua at a reception after the concert on Sunday. In the fall of 2018, the Bard College started to offer an undergraduate performance degree program in selected Chinese instruments including erhu, guzheng and pipa. Studio instruction in these traditional Chinese instruments is provided by world-renowned CCOM master musicians, with the use of state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person lessons both on the Bard campus and in Beijing. "It's important to keep it going and music exchanges can bring us closer," said Botstein, an established conductor and music historian, adding that he looks forward to a performance tour in China in June next year. Sunday's concert, "Tales from Beijing," at the Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918 and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing's ancient alleyways -- morning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums -- before finally transporting the audience back to the tranquility of the ancient city. Following were four selections from the opera Rickshaw Boy, specifically chosen and adapted by Chinese composer Guo Wenjing for the concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu. The concert's second half was devoted to Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's Symphony No. 2, The Great Wall. This large-scale work featuring piano, voice, Chinese instruments and symphony orchestra is inspired by the Great Wall, a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China. The second concert program, "Painted Skin," will take place on Oct. 13 at the Hudson Hall, the historical opera house in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center. It features the U.S. premiere of "Painted Skin," a chamber opera based on a ghost story by the early 18th century author Pu Songling, which was originally published in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The last concert program, "Journey to the East," will take place on Oct. 22 in the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Jindong Cai (C), director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, conducts at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Editor: JYZ A taxi is seen outside a commercial complex reconstructed from an old building in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Oct. 6, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Photo taken on Sept. 27, 2022 shows the Yichang film park, a popular scenic spot and a business incubation base transformed from former industrial site, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) A tourist poses for a photo in a commercial complex reconstructed from an old building in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Oct. 6, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Serbian Bon Scott (R) serves a client at a bar reconstructed from a basement of a former industrial site, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 23, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Photo taken on Sept. 23, 2022 shows the Yichang film park, a popular scenic spot and a business incubation base transformed from former industrial site, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Tourists walk past a commercial complex reconstructed from an old building in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Oct. 6, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) A staff member makes coffee in a commercial complex reconstructed from an old building in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Oct. 6, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Photo taken on Sept. 27, 2022 shows the Yichang film park, a popular scenic spot and a business incubation base transformed from former industrial site, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) A young entrepreneur promotes products via livestreaming at Yichang film park, a popular scenic spot and a business incubation base transformed from former industrial site, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 27, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) A young entrepreneur makes coffee for clients in a coffee bar at Daijiaxiang alley in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 24, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) A resident walks through Daijiaxiang alley, dubbed "coffee street" after renovation, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing, Sept. 24, 2022. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Photo taken on Sept. 23, 2022 shows the Yichang film park, a popular scenic spot and a business incubation base transformed from former industrial site, in Yuzhong District, southwest China's Chongqing. In recent years, Chongqing has rebuilt and renovated a large number of idle and abandoned buildings in Yuzhong District. The renewed buildings and neighborhoods have attracted many young entrepreneurs to start their business in catering, cultural and creative industries, and also helped promote tourism in Chongqing. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) Editor: JYZ President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky had a telephone conversation with US President Joseph Biden, the parties agreed on priorities for defense cooperation between Ukraine and the United States. "Productive conversation with US President Joseph Biden. Air defense is currently the number one priority in our defense cooperation," Zelensky said on Twitter. "We also need US leadership with the G7's tough stance and with support for our UN GA resolution," the head of the Ukrainian state said. Russia uses ballistic, cruise, guided missiles, reconnaissance and strike drones to attack Ukraine on Mon Zaluzhny Russian invaders used ballistic, cruise and guided missiles, as well as reconnaissance and strike drones to attack Ukraine on Monday, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valeriy Zaluzhny said. "The enemy used air, sea and land-based cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, anti-aircraft guided missiles, reconnaissance and attack UAVs of the Shahed-136 type," Zaluzny wrote on Telegram. He clarified that the air defense forces and means of the Air Force, the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and anti-aircraft crews destroyed most of the deadly missiles and ammunition. "In conditions of such intensity of strikes simultaneously in all directions, they demonstrated professionalism and devotion to the cause," the commander-in-chief emphasized. The general also added that the Ukrainian defenders are forced to repel these attacks, using Soviet-era weapons, which, moreover, are in insufficient quantities. OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, Foreign Minister of Sweden Ann Linde, and Foreign Minister of North Macedonia Bujar Osmani, representing the OSCE Troika, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Margareta Cederfelt (MP, Sweden), OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, and OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Secretary General Roberto Montella strenuously condemned Russia's recent attacks against Ukraine's population. "Residential buildings, squares and streets at rush hour, parks and children's playgrounds are targets of Russian indiscriminate strikes on Ukrainian cities. These heinous military actions represent a total disrespect and breach of international law, including humanitarian law," according to their joint statement, the text of which was published on the OSCE website on Monday. "The only reason behind these brutal and cruel acts is to spread terror and to compensate for failures in achieving tactical and strategic goals. We stand united with the brave Ukrainian nation and remain committed to supporting their noble cause in the defense of our shared values and core OSCE commitments," the document says. As reported, the Russian occupiers launched at least 84 missile and air strikes on the territory of Ukraine on Monday, damaging the infrastructure and civilians of more than 20 settlements. According to the National Police of Ukraine, at least 11 people were killed and 89 were injured as a result of the shelling. Most countries will be in a very vulnerable and unprotected position if the Russian vision of the future prevails, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the UN Serhiy Kyslytsia said, calling for saving the UN. "The only thing that Russia is afraid of is our strong unity of purpose in defense of the UN Charter, in defense of the right of every country to benefit from respect for its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have to save the United Nations. Not for the sake of this Hall, high-level weeks and other procedural and protocol issues that have been our routine since 1945. We need to do it for the sake of ourselves as most of us will find ourselves extremely vulnerable and unprotected if the Russian vision of the future prevails. A future where only nuclear power, size of the armed forces and number of warships and aircraft matter," Kyslytsia said at the 11th emergency special session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday. The diplomat pointed out that on Monday terrorist Russia shelled Kyiv and many other Ukrainian cities across the country, using at least 84 missiles and two dozen UAVs. "The entire world has once again seen the true face of the terrorist state that kills our people," Kyslytsia said. "Suffering defeats on the battlefield, Russia takes it out on the peaceful residents of Ukrainian cities," he said. "Russia now tries its best to bring us back to the 1930s, when Hitler destroyed sovereign nations by invasion, fake referenda and Anschluss. And we are now at a tipping point where the UN will either restore its credibility or it will ultimately fall in failure. And if the latter happens, we should blame nobody but ourselves. Because it's our responsibility to defend the principles of the UN Charter," Kyslytsia said. "A trail of blood is left behind the Russian delegation when it enters the General Assembly; and the hall is filled up with the smell of smoldering human flesh," he added. "That's what we have tolerated too long in Syria, that's what is happening today in Ukraine. Same dictator in the Kremlin, same Russian generals well-known for scorched-earth tactics in wars led in Syria and Chechnya, and today in Ukraine," the diplomat said. Over the territory of Ukraine on Monday, October 10, Russian troops fired 83 missiles of various types and dozens of UAVs. "Yesterday, 83 missiles were fired, dozens of UAVs. Most of the missiles were destroyed by the Air Defense 43 missiles of various types, including cruise ones. Also, 26 kamikaze drones were destroyed... Today [on Tuesday], the enemy continued to attack Ukraine and from night to 5:30 attacked with kamikaze drones. Eight Shahed-136s were destroyed in the south in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions by the forces of the Pivden Air Command," Yuri Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said during a briefing on Tuesday. According to him, since 07:00 on Tuesday, enemy strategic aviation has been operating in Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles. Some 12 cruise missiles fired were intercepted and shot down in the south of Ukraine, two more in the center. As Ihnat noted, the Russian Federation has various types of UAVs in service reconnaissance drones, strike drones and kamikaze drones. "If we are talking about kamikaze drones, which, according to some, should have replaced cruise missiles... But this does not work that way. This is a completely different type of ammunition, 10 times less in power and speed: we can talk about hundreds, about 300 pieces. These are the ones that could 'fit' into the planes that transported them. Probably, there is another option for transporting them from Iran by road," he said. At the same time, Ihnat noted that further Russian strikes throughout Ukraine with high-precision weapons should be expected. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell have discussed the Baku-Yerevan normalization and regional security issues, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. In their telephone conversation on October 10, the diplomats discussed the outcome of the October 6 quadrilateral meeting in Prague between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Council President Charles Michel, as well as the issues arising from it, and the regional situation. Borrell updated Bayramov on the preparations for the European Union's mission to Armenia, as agreed in the Prague meeting. He also highly appreciated the outcome of the Prague summit, emphasizing the EU's commitment to bringing peace and stability to the region. Bayramov, for his part, expressed his expectations of the Prague meeting in terms of its contribution to regional peace. Furthermore, he stressed that elements of a possible peace proposal had been submitted to Armenia during the Geneva summit, underlining the importance of the peace deal, as well as the delimitation of the borders as soon as possible. The Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders came together to discuss future peace deal under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as European Council President Charles Michel in Prague on October 6, on the sidelines of the first European Political Community Summit. Following the meeting, the leaders reaffirmed their adherence to the UN Charter and the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991, in which both parties accept each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. The nations confirmed that this will serve as a basis for the work of the commissions on delimitation and that the next meeting of these commissions will take place in Brussels by the end of October. Furthermore, Armenia expressed its willingness to support the EU civilian border mission. Azerbaijan agreed to cooperate with the mentioned mission to the extent it will be concerned. The mission will start its work in October, for a maximum period of two months. The mission's goal will be to instill trust and support border commissions through its reports. During the massive rocket attacks on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine on October 10, Russian terrorists aimed, in particular, at the facilities of diplomatic institutions of foreign states in Kyiv, according to a comment by spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleh Nikolenko, published on Tuesday. "One of the missiles damaged the visa department of the German Embassy in Ukraine, which is located in one of the office centers in Kyiv, and the second the building where the staff of the EU Advisory Mission works. As a result of the missile attack of the aggressor state, material damage was inflicted on foreign diplomatic institutions, the lives and health of foreign diplomats and employees were put at risk," Nikolenko said. According to him, by such actions, the Russian Federation crossed "a new red line in its criminal acts." "Attacks on foreign diplomatic institutions are a war crime, a gross violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, according to which the premises of diplomatic institutions are inviolable," the comment says. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on the international community to condemn the missile attack of the Russian Federation and to increase sanctions pressure against the Kremlin, as well as to immediately provide Ukraine with modern means of air defense and missile defense. "For its part, the Ukrainian side is ready to provide the relevant diplomatic missions with the necessary assistance to restore the damaged infrastructure, as well as to investigate the next Russian war crimes," the Foreign Ministry said. On October 10, Russian terrorists abducted Zaporizhia NPP Deputy General Director for Personnel Valeriy Martyniuk and he is kept in secret detention, apparently using their methods of torture and intimidation, National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom has reported. "Thus, the Russians are trying to get the information they need so much about the personal files of the workers of the Zaporizhia NPP to force the Ukrainian personnel to work for Rosatom as soon as possible. The occupiers literally use torture against the nuclear workers of the ZNPP, using the most cruel treatment," the company said. Energoatom called on IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and the world community to use all possible measures to immediately release Martyniuk from the captivity of the Russian occupiers and return him to his official duties. "The lawlessness of the invaders at the Zaporizhia NPP must be stopped as soon as possible! To do this, it is necessary to create a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the ZNPP and return it under the full control of Ukraine," Energoatom said. As reported, this is not the first kidnapping of ZNPP employees from ordinary personnel to ex-general director Ihor Murashov. Earlier on Tuesday, the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that representatives of the Russian armed forces and the occupation administration continue to pressure plant employees to force them to receive Russian passports and sign contracts with Rosatom. The Russian occupation forces continue to move Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones to the territory of Belarus, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine has said. "Deliveries of Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones [renamed as Geran-2 in the Russian army] to Belarus continue. As of October 10, thirty-two such drones were delivered to the territory of the country, and it is planned to bring another eight by October 14," it said on the Telegram channel on Tuesday. Belarus also provides the Russian army with its logistical resources and ammunition from its depots, the Ukrainian intelligence said. In particular, a railway echelon with ammunition twelve railway cars 492 tonnes each which departed from the 43rd arsenal for the storage of missiles and ammunition in Belarus (Dobrobush, Gomel Oblast) has arrived at the Kirovskaya station in Crimea. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate, in the near future, it is planned to move 13 echelons with weapons and military equipment (219 platforms), ammunition (28 railway cars) and military equipment from Belarusian arsenals and storage bases. Klitschko: It will take up to three weeks to make glass for pedestrian-bicycle bridge in Kyiv It will take up to three weeks to make glass for the elements of the pedestrian and bicycle bridge damaged by shelling on Volodymyrska Hill in Kyiv, mayor of the capital Vitali Klitschko said. "Today, on the pedestrian and bicycle bridge, specialists dismantled the glass elements damaged by the explosion of the Russian rocket. We order glass. It takes up to three weeks to make it," Klitschko wrote on Facebook. In addition, the staff of Kyiv City Council examined the condition of the illumination of the railings of the structure, it will also be repaired. As reported, on October 10, during the massive shelling of Ukraine by the Russian army, one of the missiles fell near the pedestrian and bicycle bridge on Volodymyrska Hill in Kyiv. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called for a symmetrical response to Russia's actions at the level of the entire Group of Seven (G7) and democratic world. At the level of the entire Group of Seven and our entire democratic world, we must respond symmetrically: when Russia attacks the energy sector and energy stability of our countries, we must block its energy sector with sanctions, break the stability of Russian revenues from oil and gas trade, he said speaking via video link at the G-7 summit on Tuesday. "We need a hard price ceiling for oil and gas exports from Russia zero profit for the terrorist state. It is such steps that can bring the world closer: they encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the disadvantage of war," he said. Zelensky stressed: We must also recognize the obvious fact: there can be no dialogue with this leader of Russia, who has no future. Talks can be either with another head of Russia who will comply with the UN Charter, the basic principles of humanity and territorial integrity of Ukraine or in a different configuration, so that the key terrorist does not have the opportunity to influence key decisions through terror. Now one person is blocking peace and this person is in Moscow. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the leaders of the G-7 countries with a request to provide air defense and missile defense systems of medium and long range. "An air shield for Ukraine. This is part of the security guarantees that are an element of our formula for peace. When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russian terror missile strikes will stop working," he said on Tuesday, speaking via video link at the G7 summit. "I thank Germany and Chancellor Scholz personally for speeding up IRIS deliveries. I thank the United States and President Biden personally for the decision to provide modern missile defense and air defense. And we believe, Mr. President, that these will be medium- and long-range systems that will create a layered defense system," he said. Zelensky thanked "everyone who has already helped us to provide our air defense system, which makes it possible to neutralize some of the Russian missiles and drones. But! Russia has ordered 2,400 Shaheds in Iran alone, according to our intelligence." "And therefore, dear Mr. Chancellor, dear President of the United States, it is important that we have a sufficient number of missiles in the provided air defense and missile defense systems and that these systems are integrated with our defense system," Zelensky said. He asked "tomorrow in the Ramstein format for our defense ministers to discuss this. "Mr. President of France! Mr. Prime Minister of Italy! We are very much looking forward to the delivery of SAMP-T systems. And if possible, they are needed in the coming months," Zelensky also said. NPC Ukrenergo, together with regional power distribution companies, managed to restore power supply to almost the entire territory of Ukraine, which was subjected to an unprecedented attack by Russian troops on the energy infrastructure on October 10, the company said. "Specialists from Ukrenergo and regional power suppliers succeeded in restoring power supply to almost the entire territory of Ukraine after yesterday's terrorist attack by Russians on energy facilities," the company said in a statement on Tuesday evening. According to Ukrenergo, the power supply of the western regions has been stabilized, power supply has been almost completely restored in Kharkiv region, restoration work continues in Kyiv and other central regions. At the same time, Ukrenergo said that its dispatch center and regional power suppliers managed, thanks to the use of backup supply schemes, not to lose consumption levels in the western and eastern regions after a new attack on their energy infrastructure carried out by the Russian Federation on Tuesday. At the same time, the company warned that consumer restrictions would be applied again on Tuesday evening in the city of Kyiv and in the central regions, although they managed to do without them during the day. They once again explained that this was due to the need to unload the power infrastructure to quickly carry out restoration work. Schedules of emergency shutdowns can last more than two hours and are published on the websites of regional power suppliers. The company also thanked the Ukrainians for their response to reduce consumption in the evening, which, according to its calculations, allowed the country to achieve a reduction of 1.5-2 GW (equivalent to the operation of 2 nuclear units), or 13-15%, than in a normal weekday autumn day. "We do not ask you to sit in the dark. We ask you not to turn on powerful appliances at the same time from 17:00 to 23:00, for example, postpone washing for the night, reduce the frequency of turning on electric kettles, turn off the heated floor for a couple of hours, do not vacuum and iron at the same time. Charge your rechargeable flashlights and power banks also at night," Ukrenergo advised. Stoltenberg: It's important for Ukraine to win struggle against Russia, otherwise world will be vulnerable to Russian aggression NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said it is important for Ukraine to win the war against Russia, otherwise the world will be vulnerable for further Russia's aggression. He said this at a press conference ahead of the meetings of NATO Defense Ministers due in Brussels on October 12-13. It is important for everyone now that Ukraine wins the struggle, the war against the Russian occupation forces. Otherwise, if Putin wins, it will be a defeat for everyone that will make the world more dangerous and vulnerable for Russia's further aggression, Stoltenberg said. He also said that the Allies use NATO's stocks to support Ukraine and it is important to replenish them. Egypts Public Prosecution ordered the release of 50 pretrial detainees on Sunday and Monday, a member of the Presidential Pardon committee announced. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said on Tuesday that Egypt is keen on developing cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) to enhance the healthcare system and medical services in Egypt. By Azernews By Sabina Mammadli UK ambassador to Azerbaijan Fergus Auld expressed his condolences to the families of victims of the Armenian missile attacks on Ganja. The remarks were made in a tweet dedicated to the second anniversary of the missile attack by Armenia on Ganja city during the Second Karabakh War. "I want to express my condolences to the families of all those who died during the terrible rocket attacks on Ganja two years ago. I saw these destructions with my own eyes in January," Auld said. At about 0400 am on October 11, 2020, using the Tochka-U missile system, Armenia launched rocket attacks on Ganja, the second-largest city in Azerbaijan with a population of more than 500,000 people, some 80 kilometers off the then frontline. As a result of the brutal attack, three residential buildings were destroyed, 10 people were killed (among them a child and women), and over 40 civilians were injured. In 2020, as a result of Armenia's targeted missile attacks on Azerbaijani cities outside the war zone (Ganja, Barda, Tartar, and others), 100 Azerbaijani civilians, including 12 children and 27 women were killed and over 400 were wounded. Some 181 children lost one parent, five children lost both parents, and members of a family died. In total, 12,292 residential and non-residential buildings and 288 vehicles were damaged. The Palestinians on Tuesday hailed Australia's decision to reverse its recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel's capital despite fierce criticism by Israel. Benchmark US crude oil for November delivery fell $2.64 to $82.82 a barrel Tuesday. Brent crude for December delivery fell $1.59 to $90.03 a barrel. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is eyeing desalination projects in Egypt, water sector expert at the EIB Walid Salem said this week. Coastal protection in Egypt is an area in which the EIB closely collaborates with the national authorities to identify potential investments in line with Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles, Salem told Al-Ahram Weekly. These guide the use and sustainable conservation of oceans, seas, and marine resources. The EIB currently stands as one of the largest investors in water resources worldwide, with close to 79 billion euros invested in over 1,600 projects. According to Salem, water and sanitation projects are high on the agenda when it comes to projects being implemented in Egypt, including large national programmes such as the presidential Decent Life initiative. In collaboration with the European Union, the EIB has provided financing to Egypt worth one billion euros so far to support 23 projects, including integrated development projects for sewage treatment in Alexandria and Kafr Al-Sheikh, projects aimed at reducing pollution in Egypts lakes and the Mediterranean, and the Fayoum Sewage Plant. Egypt is entering a stage of water poverty according to international rates and standards. According to the UN, the definition of water poverty determines the per capita share of 1,000 cubic metres of water per year. Today, the per capita share of water in Egypt has decreased to the equivalent of 550 or 580 cubic metres, about half the water poverty rate. Minister of Local Development Mahmoud Shaarawi announced the figures during his participation in a symposium on water security in Africa on the sidelines of the ninth session of the African Cities Summit (Africites 2022), held from 17 to 21 May in the Kenyan city of Kisumu, according to a statement by the ministry on 19 May. During the symposium, Shaarawi presented where Egypt stands in regard to its water situation. He said that Egypt has a robust policy for rationalising its water resources, seen in its national project for lining canals and the development of a modern irrigation system to conserve water, treat agricultural and sanitary drainage water, desalinate sea water and purify lakes. According to Shaarawi, all ministries and state institutions are making great efforts in all the governorates to implement the directives of the political leadership and the prime minister to preserve every drop of water and get the maximum possible benefit from Egypts water resources. The symposium also emphasised the River Nile as a lifeline for the Egyptian people, pointing to the importance of working for water on the African continent to be a tool of cooperation between the African countries and not one fostering disputes or tension. The water issue is affected by climate change in the countries of the African continent, the minister said, adding that all parties should take into account their water security. The Ethiopian Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has long been a point of concern when it comes to Egypts water security, and Egypt has been vocal over the past decade about its concern that the GERD will reduce its share of the Niles water. Egypt, along with Sudan, has been demanding Ethiopia sign a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation policies of the dam, but the upstream country has yet to do so. However, even before the GERD, Egypt had neared the water poverty line, Haitham Al-Kott, a specialist in water-treatment technologies, told the Weekly. He said that the expansion of desalination projects could offer security, stressing that Egypt was giving special attention to desalination projects among other efforts exerted. Over the past week, Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat said that the government is offering low-cost financial packages to the private sector to carry out water-desalination projects and others through cooperation with financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank. During a press conference on Sunday, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli said projects of water desalination, canal lining, and irrigation modernisation were part of the states efforts to secure every drop of water. He said Egypt has historical rights to the Nile water, but it does not oppose development projects in the Nile Basin countries, and some of the projects are carried out by Egyptian companies working in these countries. Egypt sticks to its water rights, and it does not oppose development projects in the Nile Basin countries, Madbouli said. Environmental and water-resources expert Ahmed Abdallah said that the water-desalination and sewage-treatment projects were necessary at the present time given Egypts internal and external challenges. He added that there was a golden opportunity for the private sector to attract foreign investment to these types of projects. Last month, a government official announced that Egypt would put 19 water-desalination projects out for tender with a combined production capacity of 3.3 million cubic metres of water per day and a combined investment of about LE72 billion. This will be through public-private partnerships. Housing Minister Assem Al-Gazzar said in 2020 that Egypt wants to invest some LE134.2 billion through 2050 to build seawater-desalination plants with a capacity of 6.4 million cubic metres per day of potable water. Egypt last year inaugurated the worlds largest wastewater-treatment plant, the LE18 billion Bahr Al-Baqar plant. Water security remains a key priority for Egypt as threats posed by the GERD and climate change have prompted the government to put water at the forefront of its development plans. *A version of this article appears in print in the 26 May, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly offered assurances to the public on Thursday that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) "is not coercing us into taking any measures that might affect the Egyptian citizen," amid the ongoing negotiations for a new loan deal. Madbouly said the IMF has welcomed the government's recently announced social protection package, saying, "no economic reform programme can be successfully implemented without being paralleled with a social protection programme." "The fund, therefore, has no objection or reservation, but rather welcomes all social protection programmes implemented by the Egyptian state at the time being," Madbouly said at a press conference held in the New Alamein City, where he announced the launch of the new social net safety package. The new package, to be put into effect in September, was devised following a directive by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to help citizens cope with the ramifications of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Madbouly said "There has been a lot of discussions around the current negotiations. However, some people are talking without knowing the details of the negotiations. Some may ask: Then why don't you tell us tell us these details? It is because these details have to remain by their very nature private and confidential until an agreement is reached with the fund." In March, Egypt submitted a request to the IMF for a new loan to back its plans for the economic reforms and to meet the countrys financial needs in response to the global economic challenges amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The first wave of economic reforms implemented by the Egyptian government from November 2016 to July 2019 was backed by a $12 billion IMF loan to Egypt under the under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) facility. The step was followed by two more separate loans totalling $8 billion in 2020 under the IMFs Rapid Finance Facility and Stand-By Arrangement to tackle the harsh impacts of the pandemic. The prime minister said during Thursdays press conference that the current negotiations with the IMF had started before the Russia-Ukraine war. "Once the previous programme was concluded on 30 June 2021, we began negotiating with the fund [on the new one]," he explained. "The Egyptian government has had a vision of maintaining extended relations between Egypt and the IMF, notably amid the prevalent crises such as the coronavirus pandemic." The talks with the IMF until the end of 2021 only focused on technical support to help Egypt complete its economic and structural reform programmes in various sectors, he clarified. "After the Russia-Ukraine crisis put pressures on the hard currency, we thought of adding a financial aid component that could be made available to the Egyptian state," he further said. Madbouly affirmed that the terms of the current negotiations are the same as the programme Egypt was negotiating with the IMF before the Russia-Ukraine war. Talks with the IMF are mainly focusing on maintaining the stability of Egyptian economy in order to avoid the severe shocks of the ongoing crises, Madbouly assured. He expressed his hope that the state will reach an agreement with the international lender as soon as possible on all components of the new aid programme, noting that the details of the programme will be announced as soon as a deal is reached. Earlier in the week, Madbouly said the country is in the final stage of talks with the IMF to conclude the new loan deal. In late July, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said that talks with the IMF had achieved "great progress," and that the government was still working to resolve points of dispute with the international lender. Maaits remarks came a day after the IMF had said that Egypt would be required to make decisive progress on deeper fiscal and structural reforms to boost the countrys economic competitiveness, improve governance and strengthen its resilience against shocks. Search Keywords: Short link: Hamed Abdullah, the commander of the Iraqi border guards, expressed his countrys desire to promote cooperation with the Egyptian military production ministry to benefit from its expertise in all manufacturing fields. In a meeting with Egyptian Minister of State for Military Production Mohamed Salah El-Din in Cairo on Monday, Abdullah praised the technical and manufacturing capabilities of the companies affiliated with the ministry. The Iraqi official expressed his appreciation for these companies for providing for the requirements of the Egyptian armed forces and supporting the countrys plan for sustainable development via participation in various national development ventures. The commander praised Egypts successful experiment in the development field as inspiring, saying his country his county aspires to benefit from Egyptian expertise to achieve similar accomplishments. He also expressed appreciation for Egypts leading role in the region, saying it reflects a deep strategy in countering common challenges and combatting terrorism, maintaining security and achieving development. In this spirit, El-Din expressed the ministrys keenness to provide all available manufacturing, technological and technical assistance to fulfill Iraqs needs. Mohamed Bakr, the ministry spokesman, emphasised the depth of the Egyptian-Iraqi partnership and the production ministrys keenness to develop cooperation and partnership with the Iraqi side in military and civil manufacturing areas. Search Keywords: Short link: The signature of agreements by the outgoing Libyan Government of National Unity carving up the Mediterranean with Turkey are illegal under international law and the Libyan political process. The signing of two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) between Tripoli-based Abdel-Hamid Dbeibahs Libyan Government of National Unity (GNU) and a delegation of Turkish ministers has met with criticism and voices of concern both in Libya and abroad concerning their international implications for the stability of the greater region. They include a series of preliminary economic agreements in the hydrocarbon and oil sectors. Egypt and Greece have coordinated their actions on this matter, as the two countries share the same approach. According to a statement released by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Egypt and Greece have affirmed that the outgoing GNU, whose mandate in Tripoli has expired, is not authorised to sign any international agreements or MoUs. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias have responded to the situation in Libya in the context of the ongoing coordination between the two countries. On an international level, the US and the EU have both rejected the signing of the MoUs as an illegal action that breaches essential premises of international law and the Libyan political process. The agreements signed by the Tripoli-based GNU have also met with strong reactions in Libya itself and been rejected by the Libyan House of Representatives, given the legal end of the mandate of the GNU in December 2021. The signing of the two MoUs follows another questionable initiative three years ago, when the authorities in Tripoli signed a maritime border deal in late 2019. The 2019 MoU delimitating maritime zones between Turkey and the Tripoli government, an illegal action under international law, was immediately rejected by all the Mediterranean states. Egypt and Greece regard the 2019 agreement, upon which the new energy deals are based, as being not only illegal and unfounded, but also as potentially violating their economic rights in the Mediterranean. It is essential to reassert the basic principles of geography and of policies of good neighbourhood. Libyas most important neighbour and future partner is Egypt, the natural hegemonic power in the Arab world that can guarantee the stability and prosperity of Libya in the near future. Egyptian diplomacy has already laid the foundations for a viable future in the greater region. Libyas longest maritime borders are with its neighbour Greece, an essential partner for Libya that can guarantee EU financial assistance. Egypt and Greece, thanks to their multiple memberships of international organisations, can greatly assist the development of Libya. Egypt as a member of the Arab League and the African Union and as a state representing the interests of both the Arab world and Africa is essential for Libyas progress. Greece can help with EU assistance on many levels. Egypt and Greece work closely together and in unison on a variety of issues. This coordination extends to the fundamental issue of international legitimacy and the delimitation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). Egypt and Greece signed an EEZ deal in 2020, which has proven to be of the utmost importance in protecting the national interests of both countries and for stability in the region. It is a partial demarcation agreement that will need to be completed by a full agreement when the time is right. Trilateral contacts on the issue of EEZ delimitation between Egypt, Libya, and Greece would be a huge step forward that would eradicate all zones of ambiguity. In the near future, Egypt, Libya and Greece could sign an agreement for the full delimitation of their national EEZs accompanied by a mechanism for EU assistance. Most importantly, the signing of full EEZ deals between these three countries based on international law would benefit stability in the region, overcome external interference, and allow all three to proceed with economic exploration and the exploitation of available energy reserves in their respective EEZs. If all the parties agree, Egypt could host an initial trilateral meeting to examine such prospects. Great things have modest beginnings, and a bold diplomatic initiative would be of great benefit to all. The Mediterranean is our joint geopolitical space, and energy cooperation for all of us is a primary foreign policy goal. * The writer is a lecturer in geopolitics at the University of Athens in Greece. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: In response to external, and at times internal, pressure, Al-Shabaabs insurgency in Somalia has evolved over time. So have its motivations and goals. Before 2008, Al-Shabaab was a small player within the larger Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The Union was an umbrella entity that emerged around 2003 to provide justice and security in Mogadishu in the absence of a formal state. Ethiopia, in support of the transitional Somali government, militarily defeated the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. Over the next two years, Al-Shabaab broke away from the Union and rose to prominence in Somalia. It transformed from a terrorist organisation, fighting Ethiopian occupation, to something of a de-facto state. It gained territory, eventually controlling most of southern Somalia. Between 2010 and 2013, the group survived military and territorial losses, as well as a significant leadership crisis. Al-Shabaab adapted and honed its ability to conduct attacks. It also established systems to tax businesses and the public, both inside and outside of the territory it controlled. The group began to provide an alternative justice structure based on a strict and harsh interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law), though its understanding of Sharia was highly debatable even among Salafi circles. Today, Al-Shabaab remains the most formidable challenge to the Somali government, and its regional and international partners. Despite the shifts it has experienced over 15 years, some things have remained crucial to Al-Shabaabs mission in Somalia. Scholars have noted three goals that have been continually reasserted, ridding the country of foreign troops, implementing Sharia, and defeating the Somali federal government Fully understanding these motivations, however, can be a challenge. This is because the organisations goals can change with time and the views of the leadership can be different from those of recruits. Yet, examining these motivations offers important and actionable insights into the factors that perpetuate the conflict in Somalia or block efforts to resolve it. Hostility To Foreign Troops Al-Shabaabs nationalist stance against foreign troops in Somalia has been a theme throughout its evolution. Following the US backing of a warlord coalition during the Islamic Courts Union era and Ethiopias military intervention, Al-Shabaab began to spread a message in opposition to the presence of foreign forces in Somalia. There were maximalist and violent pan-Islamist members within the groups leadership ranks at the time. However, Al-Shabaabs outspokenness against foreign forces resonated with deep-rooted Somali hostility against Ethiopia and broader nationalist narratives that existed, separate from Salafi and extremist trends. Ultimately, this served as an incredible recruitment tool. After Ethiopia withdrew forces in 2009, Al-Shabaab shifted its focus to the expulsion of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The missions role included protecting federal institutions. AMISOM has since been replaced by the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, which Al-Shaaab continues to oppose. The group also wants to get rid of the US. This is due to the countrys airstrikes and special operations forces in Somalia. Turkey is another unwelcome foreign power because it supports the Somali federal government. It also advises and trains the military. Al-Shabaab additionally opposes the United Arab Emirates economic interests in Somali ports and military bases. Implementing Sharia Implementing its own version of Sharia (Islamic law) has remained a pillar of Al-Shabaabs agenda throughout its existence. The group embraces a Salafist interpretation of Sharia. This includes the imposition of harsh punishments for infractions and the rejection of Sufi traditions that many Somalis follow. However, this goal has, as researchers have pointed out, taken different forms according to the situation and the strength of the organisation. For instance, in 2006, Al-Shabaab didnt antagonise Sufi orders in the way it did between 2008 and 2009 because it wasnt as powerful. As the group began to experience military pressure and territorial losses in the period after 2011-2012, the implementation of Sharia varied across Somalia, with some Al-Shabaab provincial (wilayat) governors operating more reasonably than others. More recently, in 2019, Ahmed Diriye, Al-Shabaabs current leader, expressed a tougher stance. He declared that Sharia ought to be implemented without concession or compromise. Desire To Govern Defeating the Somali federal government and federal member states is another important agenda item for Al-Shabaab. The group sees itself as an alternative to the Somali government. This is evident in its efforts to govern territory. It also provides security, justice and other services that the government has failed to effectively provide. The organisations influence in the sphere of governance is notable in three areas: justice, taxation and dispute mediation. First, Al-Shabaabs shadow court system has offered pathways to justice for Somalis. It addresses the problems of the population it controls, including divorce, inheritance and land disputes. It then provides rulings it can actually enforce. The governments court and justice system are reportedly less consistent. Its rulings arent always enforced and it faces issues of corruption. Al-Shabaabs courts attract residents from areas outside the organisations immediate territorial control. This is because the courts help solve practical problems. Second, the group maintains a taxation system that has spread beyond government-controlled territories. This likely surpasses the Somali governments own taxation abilities. Through its taxation of businesses, transportation, ports and other sectors, Al-Shabaab provides some services, such as regulating the production of certain export products. However, the main benefit of taxation is protection from the group. The organisation also collects zakat, a charitable contribution required for Muslims. However, it uses much of this collection to bolster its own coffers rather than redistributing it to the community. Third, Al-Shabaab has presented itself as capable of successfully intervening in clan disputes. In an October 2020 press release, the organisation claimed its keen to solve the problems and differences that arise between the tribes, and it has shown remarkable success in settling decades-long disputes among them. Mediating clan disputes is central to Al-Shabaabs ambitions to establish a unified Islamic state. What Next? After 15 years of conflict, Al-Shabaab remains a significant threat to stability in Somalia and its neighbours, like Kenya. Understanding its motives to expel foreign troops, implement its version of Sharia and defeat the government raises questions on how to end their insurgency. With the recent election of Somali president Hassan Mohamud, there appears to be renewed government focus on not just weakening Al-Shabaab, but eliminating it. As part of this effort, the government has hailed mobilisation efforts by local militia (called Ma'awisley) against the group. The new administration has called for the expansion of these resistance efforts. It has sent government troops to join local militia in an offensive against Al-Shabaab. Time will tell if this new strategy will strategically alter the course in the fight against the group. Political engagement with Al-Shabaab is another potential avenue that could complement military operations. However, prospects for negotiation are poor. This is because of Al-Shabaabs reluctance to engage in negotiations, its uncompromising position on foreign troop withdrawal and the governments commitment to eliminating the group. * This story was published in the Conversation Search Keywords: Short link: The Turkish-Libyan maritime deal topped the agenda of the Egyptian and Greek foreign ministers meeting this week. Issues related to energy and cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean region used to have priority in the meetings of Egyptian and Greek officials. But the recently signed economic and maritime deals that Libya has inked with Turkey were of prime concern in this weeks meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias in Cairo. Both officials highlighted that the outgoing Libyan Government of National Unity (GNU) is not entitled to sign international deals, describing these as a threat to regional stability. The signing was widely rejected by the EU and European countries as a deepening of the tensions between Turkey and Greece, which has said that such energy exploration deals infringe Greek territorial waters. Meanwhile, analysts regarded the step as a manoeuvre by Ankara to test how much it can expand its influence in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Turkey is trying to exploit the global energy crisis and the volatile situation in Libya to boost its presence in Libya and the region, according to Rakha Hassan, a former assistant to the foreign minister. Last week, the GNU government headed by Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah signed a series of agreements in the hydrocarbon and oil sectors with Turkey in the Libyan capital Tripoli. The agreements are said to include energy exploration in maritime areas, according to Turkish officials, added Hassan. However, it is likely that Ankara will avoid any exploration in controversial areas so as not to arouse other regional states, he told Al-Ahram Weekly. Following his meeting with Dendias, Shoukri said in a press conference that they had both affirmed that the outgoing GNU in Tripoli does not have the authority to strike international deals and agreed on the necessity for the international community and the UN to take a firm and clear stance to protect legitimacy in Libya, Dbeibahs government was selected in the capital Tripoli in the west of Libya as part of a UN-led peace process last year that granted it an 18-month period for holding parliamentary and presidential elections. It failed to hold the elections due last December, and its mandate ended this June. According to Hassan, while both Shoukri and Dendias challenged the legitimacy of the deal and the GNU, it seems that some regional countries do not consider it to be illegitimate. The EU, for instance, objected to the agreements because they infringe the sovereign rights of third states and do not comply with the Law of the Sea and did not mention the illegitimacy of the Libyan government. Other states including Algeria believe that Dbeibahs government should stay in power until elections are held. Ahead of the 158th Arab League Foreign Ministers Council held last month, Cairo and Tripoli disagreed over who should represent Libya, also this years president of the League. When the GNU appointed its foreign minister, Najla Al-Mangoush, to chair the meeting, Egypt objected and withdrew from the opening session on the grounds that the Libyan House of Representatives (HoR) had withdrawn its confidence from the Dbeibeh government in September last year and appointed the Fathi Bashagha government to replace it in February. The HoR is the sole legitimate legislature in Libya, according to Cairo, and it had formed the new government in collaboration with the Tripoli-based High Council of State (HCS). Outgoing Libyan Prime Minister Dbeibah defended the agreement with Turkey, saying that it would help Tripoli to continue exploring for oil in its territorial waters in cooperation with other states as the global demand for gas is increasing. Its our right to sign Memoranda of Understanding [MoUs], and we have signed hundreds of them in order to promote cooperation with other states, he said. The recently signed deals are based on a maritime border deal signed by Turkey and the then Tripoli-based government in 2019 granting Ankara access to a contested economic zone in the Mediterranean. Egypt, Greece, Cyprus and the EU condemned the deal as a clear violation of international maritime laws. Regarding the internal situation in Libya, both Shoukri and Dendias at their meeting this week called for holding the long-delayed elections in Libya to end the conflict in the country as soon as possible. Shoukri has also reiterated Cairos calls for the removal of all foreign militias from the country as a step towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict that has hit the country since the fall of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafis regime in 2011. On the bilateral level, Shoukri said he agreed with Dendias on continuing political consultations between the two countries and efforts to enhance their economic and commercial cooperation, especially in the field of energy. This comes in the light of the two countries keenness to play a pivotal role in transporting energy via the Mediterranean in a way that achieves our joint interests with regard to energy security in our regional surroundings, he said. Dendias said Egypt and Greece were a bridge between Europe and the Arab world and between Europe and Africa, adding that the relations between the two countries were more than just a strategic partnership. Cairo and Athens have strengthened their bilateral relations in recent years, including cooperation in developing energy resources, combating terrorism, and facing the illegal migration that has recently seen a surge as a result of the deteriorating situation in Libya. In 2020, Egypt signed an agreement with Greece for the demarcation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) between the two countries. On the trilateral level, Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus have cooperated in various economic fields including energy. Several trilateral summits have been held over the past few years to boost cooperation and coordination among the three states in various fields. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: The first in-person Arab summit since the Covid-19 pandemic could take place early next month, though with few expectations on outcomes, reports Dina Ezzat After weeks of speculation that mounted into a mood of scepticism over its fate, the much-delayed Arab Summit meeting now seems set to take place in the Algerian capital Algiers in the first week of next month. The ordinary autumn meeting of Arab foreign ministers early last month agreed to go ahead with the planned top Arab gathering that has been suspended for two successive years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2019, Arab leaders held two successive summit meetings. In the regular spring slot, they met in Tunis for the annual Arab Summit. In May, they met again in Mecca upon a Saudi invitation for an extraordinary Arab Summit meeting that focused on concerns expressed by Saudi Arabia and some other Arab Gulf countries over Iranian regional policies. Algeria was scheduled to host the summit this year in the regular spring spot, but it requested a delay. Up until last summer, there was hesitation at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League about confirming that the summit would meet in the autumn in the Algerian capital. Some concerns related to internal political developments in Algeria, while others related to Algerias relations with other Arab countries that are not without shades of disagreement on Arab and regional policy choices, including developments in Libya, positions on North and East African issues, including the obvious case of the Western Sahara, and positions on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Syria was another key sticking point, given the determination that Algeria has been showing regarding the re-integration of Syria into the conference system of the Arab League after it was ejected in 2011 due to the force used by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to quell the uprising in the country. The situation then turned into an open-ended Civil War that incorporated foreign fighters on the side of a segment of the Syrian opposition and foreign armies and militias on the side of the Al-Assad regime. Algerias determination to bring Syria back into the League meetings was supported openly by the UAE and privately by other Arab capitals eager to turn the page of the Arab Spring. However, many of these were still firmly opposed to Al-Assad. Arab League officials and Arab diplomats say there is no Saudi interest in contesting the brutality of the Syrian regime, which forced millions of Syrians into traumatic displacement, but there is hostility between Damascus and Riyadh from years prior to the Arab Spring. Informed Arab sources say that avoiding an open disagreement over Syrias representation at the summit has certainly helped pave the way towards its convocation. The situation was resolved when Syria offered Algeria a face-saving exit, as it announced that it did not wish to be present at the summit. For the Arab League, this was a turning point, as it put the preparatory phase for the summit in motion. The secretariat of the League has been working closely with Algeria to prepare the logo of the summit, the accommodation of the delegations, the schedule of the sequel of the preparatory meetings that lead to the meeting of Arab leaders, and the agenda and resolutions to come out of the summit. This has been far from a smooth operation. As last week was coming to an end, speculation was still high about the number of heads of state who are likely to show up for the summit, if only for the inaugural session where leaders make their official statements. By Monday, the expectation was not particularly high with a range of seven to eight leaders being proposed, though with the possibility of an increase. The biggest question relates to the possible participation of Moroccan King Mohamed VI or the lack thereof. It has already been over a year since Algeria decided to sever diplomatic relations with its neighbour over alleged hostile action. Earlier this month, however, Algeria sent its minister of justice to Morocco to hand Tebbounes invitation to the Moroccan monarch to either attend or to delegate his crown prince or some other senior state official to come in person. According to an Arab League source, King Mohamed might send the Moroccan crown prince. Algeria, he added, is trying very hard to secure as high-level representation as possible at the summit. Participation aside, there are also question marks on the management of the summit and its possible outcomes. Libya is a major sticking point for the summit, especially as far as Egypt is concerned. Twice last month, Cairo chose to shrug off the incumbent foreign minister of Libya, Najla Mangoush. At the opening of the ordinary Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri walked out as Mangoush started chairing the ministerial meeting in accordance with her role. Later in the month, in New York, Shoukri shrugged off a regular informal meeting of Arab foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly due to the participation of Mangoush. The position is designed to show Cairos dismay over the failure of Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah, the official Libyan prime minister, to act in line with his promises to Egypt on a balanced management of relations with both Egypt and Turkey. Earlier this month, a senior Turkish delegation was in Tripoli for a series of cooperation agreements including a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation on oil and gas, including in unexplored Eastern Mediterranean fields. The MoU was signed by the Libyan foreign minister and her Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, who headed a senior Turkish delegation in Tripoli. Hours after the signing, both Cairo and Athens contested it and said in a joint statement issued by Shoukri and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias that Dbeibahs government had outstayed its legal mandate and was in no position to sign such agreements. It is not clear how Arab delegations that take exception to Dbeibahs political positions would react to his possible presence at the summit at the head of his countrys delegation. The representation problem aside, the management of the resolutions on Libya is equally tricky, given the position of Egypt that the government of Dbeibah is in no position to propose resolutions for adoption regarding the situation. One informed political source said that the Libyan delegation could present a resolution asking for support for the formation of a new Libyan government after elections to be held at the earliest possible moment. But this is far from being something that all the Arab countries, especially those who have lent their support to the Fathi Bashagha parallel government, would agree to. Meanwhile, it is not expected that the summit, despite the intense diplomatic mediation that Tebboune himself has invested in promoting Palestinian reconciliation, will produce any significant positions that could force the rival Palestinian factions, essentially Hamas and Jihad, on one side, and Fatah, under the leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the other, to come to an agreement. Nor it is expected for the summit to take any firm stances against Israel to contest the harsh Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, given the momentum of Arab-Israeli normalisation, which has reached unprecedented levels especially with the UAE and Morocco. There will still be a set of resolutions on the Palestinian cause, but nothing significant enough to match developments on the ground that were recently qualified by a senior Palestinian official as an intifada in the making. No firm stance is expected from the Arab Summit on any of the other long list of Arab problems, including the volatile situations in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan or Somalia, and certainly not on the disputed situation of the Western Sahara that Algeria and Morocco have been squabbling over for decades. A set of resolutions is expected to come out in support of the continued war on terror, economic cooperation among the member states of Arab League, and the movement towards environmentally friendly socio-economic policies, especially since the summit will take place practically on, 1 November, the eve of the UN COP27 Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Egyptian authorities started on Tuesday the process for the release, pending investigations, of 70 pre-trial detainees, the Presidential Pardon committee announced. Members of the Presidential Pardon committee lawyer Tarek El-Awady and MP Mohamed Abdel-Aziz announced that this batch of pre-trial detainees is the largest to be released, pending investigations, since the reactivation of the committee in April in accordance with the directives of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. No further details have been released yet about that group of detainees. The Public Prosecution had ordered in early October the release of 50 pre-trial detainees In recent months, the Public Prosecution has ordered the release of hundreds of pre-trial detainees in groups. In September, authorities released over 100 pre-trial detainees on several occasions, including Ahmed El-Nagdy, a journalist at the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV channel, and prominent leftist activist and lawyer Haitham Mohamadein. Since the re-activation in April of the Presidential Pardon Committee and the preparations, begun in May, for the National Political Dialogue , President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has pardoned many high-profile political activists who had received final sentences. These included Hossam Mones, Yahia Abdel-Hady, Hisham Fouad and others. The committee, which was first formed in 2016, receives the names of prisoners to be considered for presidential pardon through various channels , including the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), parliaments Human Rights Committee, as well as through its official website. The scope of work of the reactivated committee has recently been expanded to include imprisoned debtors. The government and various political factions are preparing for the extensive National Political Dialogue set to begin within a few weeks. The dialogue will discuss pressing political, economic and social issues. Search Keywords: Short link: By Trend The war crimes committed by Armenians are a logical result of asymmetrical warfare, which Armenian side is conducting against Azerbaijan, Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament (Milli Majlis) Nizami Safarov said, Trend reports. The MP made the remark at the conference on Armenia's war crimes against Azerbaijan over the past 30 years, organized by the Azerbaijani Social Research Center. He noted that typical indicators of asymmetric warfare are attacks on the civilian population and civilian infrastructure, the use of prohibited means of warfare - cluster, phosphorus munitions, inhuman treatment of hostages and prisoners of war, torture and murder, causing long-term and large-scale damage to the environment, involvement of mercenaries and children in hostilities, etc. According to Safarov, the investigation of genocide, international crimes, crimes against humanity, the elimination of impunity for war crimes are among the main legal priorities facing the member states of the world community. Among the fundamental problems in the implementation of this priority, one should especially note the definition of the substantive, that is, the material and legal composition of war crimes. "Significant violations of four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 and the provisions of its first protocol of June 8,1977 are terminologically reflected in the authentic texts of these legal acts in English and French. Serious violations include, on one hand, violations of the norms and principles aimed at protecting the victims of international armed conflicts, and on the other hand, violations of the rules restricting the means and methods of conducting hostilities, or the customs and laws of war.It's these two points that characterize the war crimes committed by Armenian Armed Forces and the puppet separatist regime," he stated. "For the systematization of such crimes it's necessary to determine that they violate the 'Geneva Law', that is, specific prohibitions established by the four Geneva Conventions and the additional protocols annexed to these conventions. Armenia acceded to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols of June 7, 1993, and since then, compliance with the provisions of these documents has been a legal obligation. However, the violation of international humanitarian law has become a common occurrence for the Armenian side, which doesn't comply with international agreements," Safarov said. "Among war crimes that Armenia committed are attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. The fourth Geneva convention 'On Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War' categorically prohibits such attacks. According to Part 2 of Article 51 of Additional Protocol I 'On the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts' - 'civilian population and individual civilians may not be the object of attack'. Paragraph 'a' of part 2 of article 85 of this protocol prohibits the transformation of the civilian population and individual civilians into targets of attack, such acts are qualified as war crimes," he said. The MP noted that among war crimes committed by Armenia, are use of prohibited weapons, and in particular cluster munitions. "According to the Dublin Convention, which was adopted on May 30, 2008 and entered into force on August 1, 2010, the production, assembly, and use of this type of ammunition is prohibited. Modern international criminal law qualifies the use of cluster munitions as a war crime," Safarov added. "According to the article 8 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, 'the use of weapons, ammunition and equipment, and methods of warfare of a nature which cause undue injury or suffering or which are indiscriminate' entails individual international criminal responsibility. In addition, among the war crimes of Armenia, illegal settlement - according to paragraph 6 of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention 'On the Protection of Civilian Persons in Wartime' - 'the occupying party may not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population to the territory it occupies'. In accordance with paragraph 'a' of part 4 of Article 85 of the Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I), this is considered a serious violation of this Protocol, that is, these acts constitute a war crime," he said. The European Union (EU) delegation to Egypt has appointed five Egyptian water goodwill ambassadors who will be tasked with raising awareness on preserving water resources and promoting sustainable consumption of water in line with Egyptian government policy. The five ambassadors are researcher and writer Amr El-Shobaki, actress Arwa Gouda, actor Ahmed Magdy, veteran journalist Lamia Radi and Chief of Sky News Arabias Cairo Bureau Samir Omar, the EU delegation to Egypt said in a statement. The EU and Egypt have a long-standing, deep cooperation in the water sector with several infrastructure and water preservation projects. Now we want to put a human face in our efforts and raise awareness about sustainable water consumption and help communities use water more efficiently, according to the head of the EY Delegation to Egypt Christian Berger. The new water goodwill ambassadors will advocate for climate action to address water scarcity. They will also highlight the efforts exerted by the EU to improve the lives of millions of Egyptians throught various projects, including in the water sector, the statement read. In recent years, Egypt and the EU have established firm partnership in various sectors such as water, energy, food, and health, among others. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypts Foreign Ministry urged Egyptians currently staying in Ukraine to leave the war-torn country due to recent escalations and rapid military and security developments. The Ministry issued a warning on Tuesday to Egyptian citizens against travelling to Ukraine due to recent political, military and security developments in the country. The statement posted on the ministry's Facebook page said that Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry instructed the Egyptian embassy in Ukraine to contact all the members of the Egyptian community in the country and to urge them to take extreme precautions and to stay put. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also advised Egyptians in Ukraine to avoid dangerous places and to secure basic necessities in case the situation deteriorates. Earlier this week Russia escalated its attack on Ukraine after the Ukrainian bombing of Crimeas Kerch bridge. With the beginning of the Russian invasion on 24 February, Egypt launched an air-lift to evacuate Egyptians in the war-torn Ukraine via neighbouring countries. Around 6,000 Egyptians were residing in Ukraine before the war broke out, most of whom were students, according to officials. At present less than 100 Egyptian students remain in Ukraine, newly appointed Minister of Emigration Soha Samir told a cabinet meeting earlier in August. Search Keywords: Short link: The United Nations said Tuesday that renewed clashes between armed tribal militias in South Sudan's Upper Nile State have displaced 8,000 civilians. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said renewed fighting was reported between armed factions in several locations including Padit in Kodok Payam, Fashoda County in Upper Nile State between Oct. 6-9. A payam is the second-lowest administrative division below county in South Sudan. "In Padit, the entire population of the village was reported displaced, and the village burnt down, details on civilian casualties are not yet available," OCHA said in its latest report released in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. OCHA explained that the White Army youth reportedly attacked Nyigier, a village located a few km from Kodok town, and as attacks advanced towards Fashoda County, tensions increased with reports indicating that the youth mobilized to protect Kodok town. It said some 23 people sought shelter at the UNMISS compound in Kodok and local sources estimate that 8,000 people from Kodok town and other locations have moved to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) site for safety. OCHA stressed that registrations of displaced people remain pending until the situation stabilizes and humanitarian teams from Malakal can support them. "Humanitarian activities are affected, and some humanitarian personnel relocated from Fashoda County for safety reasons. Much humanitarian staff from UN system members and NGOs moved from their compounds in Kodok town to the Kodok humanitarian hub, near the UNMISS," OCHA said. It stressed that since the beginning of the conflict along the Nile River in mid-August, more than 18,000 internally displaced persons have sought shelter at the Protection of Civilian Site (PoC) in Malakal as of Tuesday. Search Keywords: Short link: The United States and other G7 powers will hold crisis talks Tuesday on Russia's recent bombing blitz across Ukraine that Kyiv's allies said was a mark of desperation and a turning point in the war. Their meeting comes a day after Russian missiles rocked the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months. A defiant President Volodymyr Zelensky responded by warning Moscow that his country "cannot be intimidated". Moscow's forces rained more than 80 missiles on cities across Ukraine on Monday, according to Kyiv. Ukraine's emergency services said on Tuesday that the overall toll had risen to 19 dead and more than 100 people wounded. The United Nations said on Tuesday the wave of attacks may have violated the laws of war and would amount to war crimes if civilians were deliberately targeted. "These strikes may have violated the principles of the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, told reporters in Geneva, adding that intentionally targeting civilians and civilian objects, "amounts to a war crime". Monday's mass barrage came in apparent retaliation for an explosion on Saturday that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the bridge blast and warned of "severe" responses to any further attacks. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes on Monday showed Moscow was "desperate" after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks. Turkey on Tuesday called for a viable ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine "as soon as possible". Speaking in a televised interview, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also called for a "just peace" based on Ukraine's territorial integrity. Ukrainian officials said Russia had fired another four missiles into the county on Tuesday, all of which were shot down by air defences. At an urgent meeting of the UN General Assembly on Monday -- called to debate Moscow's declared annexation of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions -- Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya branded Russia a "terrorist state", noting his own immediate family had come under attack on Monday. "Unfortunately, you can hardly call for a stable and sane peace as long as an unstable and insane dictatorship exists in your vicinity," he said. "Stay the course" Zelensky and G7 leaders were set to convene via video link at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT) on Tuesday to discuss the latest Russian attacks. The office of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss said she would use the gathering "to urge fellow leaders to stay the course". "Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve to help them win it." German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters on Monday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him "of the solidarity of Germany and the other G7 states". French President Emmanuel Macron convened his defence and foreign affairs ministers over the strikes, which he said signalled "a profound change in the nature of this war". US President Joe Biden condemned Monday's attacks in stark terms, saying they demonstrated "the utter brutality" of Putin's "illegal war". In a statement, the White House said Biden had spoken to Zelensky and had pledged to furnish Ukraine with "advanced air defence systems". Ahead of Monday's General Assembly session, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the latest attacks as an "unacceptable escalation of the war", his spokesman said. Though Russia's UN representative Vasily Nebenzya did not directly address the missile strikes at the session, he defended his country's annexation of Ukrainian regions, saying the aim was "to protect our brothers and sisters in eastern Ukraine". "In an instant... it's death" Putin meanwhile was due to meet the head of the UN's nuclear energy watchdog, Rafael Grossi, in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday to discuss the Russian-controlled nuclear plant in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. Moscow recently said it had transferred control of the plant to Russia and fighting around the facility for months has raised fears of a nuclear accident. And on Wednesday, Putin was to meet Turkish leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a summit in the Kazakh capital Astana, a Turkish official told AFP. Residents across Ukraine expressed shock and rage after Monday's barrage. In Dnipro, Ukraine serviceman Maxim was on leave from the front lines for the first time in six months to celebrate his wife's birthday when Russian missiles slammed into the central Ukrainian city, damaging their home. "We are fighting on the front exactly to protect these places" far from enemy lines, he said. "But they still manage to hit them." The strike, he said, had made him more determined than ever to repel the Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine. Since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, more than 7.6 million Ukrainians have become refugees in other European states, while another nearly seven million people have been displaced within the country. Monday's missile strikes prompted a fresh warning from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that more people could soon be forced to flee their homes. Search Keywords: Short link: Ahram Onlike spoke with Dr. Ramzan bin Abdullah Al-Nuaimi, Bahrains minister of information affairs, who talked about the role of Arab media in confronting terrorism and extremism in the region, emphasising the importance of targetting youth. Al-Nuaimi spoke with Ahram Online following The Council of Arab Information Ministers and the Standing Committee for Arab Medias annual meeting in Cairo in September. The meeting was attended by 13 presidents, ministers and senior officials from Arab media organisations in a display of participation unprecedented for many years. During the meeting, the minsters discussed many important topics including Arab media strategy, the Arab Committee for Electronic Media, the role of the Arab media in addressing terrorism, as well as the Arab media map for sustainable development. Ahram Online: Tell us about the importance of cooperation between information ministers through the Arab League, especially in light of the Arab ministerial meeting that you participated in recently. What is the importance of joint coordination in light of the extremely sensitive stage the world is going through? Ramzan bin Abdullah Al-Nuaimi: Without a doubt, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's speech during his meeting with us, the Arab ministers of information, served as a beacon for the joint Arab action system. During the ministerial meeting, I was keen to emphasise the role of the League of Arab States in consolidating common brotherly ties and supporting our just Arab causes, especially in the media field, which is witnessing a number of common challenges that require a unified and serious stance and a common collective vision. The meeting was fruitful and resulted in a set of initiatives aimed at evaluating the course of the Arab media. It renewed our position calling for stopping the foreign media discourse on the culture of our Arab societies, which still lurks in our countries and peoples. This requires balanced thinking and unified and collective approaches that put the country above all considerations. We reviewed all the items on the meeting's agenda, including the media honour charter, the Arab media strategy, the Arab media map for sustainable development and others. We also stressed the importance of continuous coordination between our countries in the field of electronic media. AO: In your opinion, what is the importance of strengthening the Arab media strategy to combat terrorism and extremism? RAN: This strategy was formulated in light of several reasons and in the context of international efforts to combat terrorism and extremist ideology. Our Arab region has suffered from the penetration of this ideology through terrorist organisations that promote their destructive ideas. This strategy is an ambitious roadmap that seeks to unify the efforts of the Arab media in confronting extremist ideas and educating Arab public opinion about the importance of Arab interdependence, especially among the youth, which is the largest proportion of the citizens of Arab countries. The strategy targets them directly, as it calls for protecting young people from the dangers of modern technologies. [It includes] programs and initiatives that seek to achieve the objectives of this strategy in cooperation with all Arab countries. We believe that media and responsibility are two sides of the same coin, and when professional and moral responsibility is absent, the media will turn from a national weapon for construction, development and education, into a shovel that destroys ideas, values and societies. [Our objective was] to come up with practical and constructive work mechanisms and proposals that would enable Arab media to play its national role to the fullest, consolidate awareness of Arab and Islamic values and constants in the conscience of our peoples and revive the feeling of belonging to our just Arab causes, foremost of which is the Palestinian cause. AO: What about media cooperation between Egypt and the Kingdom of Bahrain in light of the protocols and agreements signed between them? RAN: Since the signing of the first agreement in the media and cultural affairs between the two brotherly countries in 1987, many agreements and protocols have followed, including the signing of a protocol for cooperation in the media field during the official visit of King Hamad bin Isa at the invitation of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in 2016. Egypt has long-standing institutions that we are proud to communicate with and exchange experiences and knowledge with, including the prestigious Al-Ahram Foundation, an institution that occupies a great position in the [view of Bahrains] King Hamad. This was embodied when we received a delegation from the Foundation on 5 March 2018. We are interested and keen to create more opportunities for cooperation with various official and private Egyptian media institutions. AO: Bahrain will witness the holding of parliamentary and municipal elections in the coming days. How have you prepared for this event? RAN: The democratic process in Bahrain and parliamentary life is progressing at a steady pace, and the regularity of the elections according to their dates is evidence of that. Throughout Bahrains more than 230 year history, the Shura was an approach to the relationship between the ruler and the people, and the voice of the people was and still is an important factor in national decision-making, which has been framed and preserved within the institutions of the modern Bahraini state. We proudly recall the participation of Bahraini women in all popular elections, leading to a woman becoming the head of the legislative authority in 2018. As for the preparations, I can say here that all the constitutional institutions are working to make this great national event a success, and there is a popular enthusiasm that we saw from the citizens with the first stages of the elections represented in putting up the voters' lists. Search Keywords: Short link: A 12-year-old Palestinian boy died Monday after being shot and wounded by occupation forces during an Israeli raid that took place in September on Jenin refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Mahmoud Samoudi was shot in the abdomen during the Israeli raid, on Sept. 28, which left four Palestinians dead and 44 wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israeli forces said they were "aware of an allegation regarding injuries to a minor who participated in the violent riots and hurled stones at the security forces.'', adding that the circumstances surrounding the event are being examined. Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids across the West Bank after a series of attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people. The army said it had traced some of the perpetrators of those attacks back to Jenin. Since March, Israel has launched hundreds of operations in the northern West Bank in pursuit of alleged militants, including in Jenin and nearby Nablus. Israeli fire has killed more than 100 Palestinians during that time, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone. Local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed, making it the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2015. Israel says the arrest raids are meant to dismantle militant networks. The Palestinians say the operations are aimed at strengthening Israel's 55-year military occupation of territories they want for an independent state. Also on Monday, Israeli forces entered the Shuafat refugee camp and searched homes and shops for a Palestinian suspected in the killing of an Israeli soldier over the weekend. The camp residents responded to the latest excursion by throwing stones at the soldiers who fired tear gas at local residents. Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967 but parts of the territory are nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority, in accordance with terms set out in the 1994 Oslo peace accords. *This article was edited by Ahram Online Search Keywords: Short link: Iraq's parliament will meet Thursday to "elect the president", speaker Mohammed al-Halbussi's office said, in a surprise move seen at trying to end months of political impasse. The oil-rich but troubled country has already made three failed attempts this year to elect a new head of state, in February and March. More than a year after Iraq's last general election, Halbussi's office said Tuesday that the parliamentary session two days later would have "a single item on the agenda, the election of the president of the Republic". Iraqis last voted on October 10, 2021 in a general election brought forward by a wave of mass protests against endemic corruption, rampant unemployment and decaying infrastructure. Ahead of Halbussi's announcement, the United Nations mission had urged political factions to end the deadlock, warning that "Iraq is running out of time". The country has yet to form a new government after the 2021 election, leaving caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi in charge. Iraq's rival Shia Muslim political factions have been vying for influence and the right to select a new premier and form a government. The standoff has seen both sides set up protest camps and at times has sparked deadly street clashes in Baghdad. On the one hand is the fiery cleric Moqtada Sadr, who wants parliament dissolved and new elections. On the other sits the Coordination Framework, an alliance of pro-Iran Shia factions including former paramilitaries that wants a new government before fresh elections are held. Tensions boiled over on August 29 when more than 30 Sadr supporters were killed in clashes with Iran-backed factions and the army in Baghdad's Green Zone, the capital's fortified government and diplomatic district. 'Stifling Crisis' On August 30, current President Barham Saleh urged "new, early elections in accordance with a national consensus", saying these could provide "an exit from the stifling crisis". The largely honorific post of Iraqi president is traditionally reserved for a Kurd. It generally goes to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), while the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) keeps control over the affairs of autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq. But the KDP is also eyeing the presidency and could present its own candidate on Thursday. There are currently two obvious contenders: the PUK's Saleh, the incumbent, and current Kurdistan Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed of the KDP. Sajad Jiyad, researcher at think tank Century International, said he expected quorum -- 220 deputies out of the 329 in parliament -- to be reached and for the vote to go ahead. But he told AFP that much depended on whether the PUK and KDP could compromise. "Has the (Coordination) Framework managed to convince the PUK and the KDP to come to an agreement? "Will there be one candidate? Will it be Barham? Or two candidates, Barham and someone the KDP backs?" he said. Once parliament elects a new president, that person must then designate a prime minister, who is chosen by the largest coalition in parliament. Jiyad said that if a president were elected, the likely candidate for premier would be Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the Coordination Framework's choice for the post. "The Sadrists are not likely to be happy" with this, Jiyad said. "Maybe they will encourage protests and prepare for the next elections." Search Keywords: Short link: Japan and Canada agreed to formally start talks toward signing a military intelligence information sharing accord as their foreign ministers on Tuesday adopted an action plan to strengthen cooperation on defense, economic security and other areas amid growing threats from China and Russia. The launch of formal talks on the intelligence-sharing pact, or General Security of Information Agreement, is part of an action plan announced by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly, after their talks in Tokyo. The two sides aim to reach an agreement "as soon as possible'' to facilitate information sharing and further strengthen cooperation between their militaries, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said. Japan has been deepening defense cooperation beyond its key ally, the United States, in recent years in the face of China's increasing assertiveness in the region, as well as growing concern that Russia's invasion of Ukraine could further embolden Beijing. Japan has similar intelligence-sharing agreements with eight countries, including the United States, Australia, Britain, India, South Korea, as well as NATO. On Tuesday, Japan and Canada also agreed to expand and deepen their military ties by holding joint exercises between the countries as well as with the United States. They stressed the importance of working together to secure the rules-based international order and pledged to achieve a "free and open Indo-Pacific'' vision, which Japan has been promoting with the United States and other democracies that share concerns about China's growing influence in the region. Joly said Canada's developing Indo-Pacific strategy "will aim to complement efforts made by like-minded partners, including Japan's vision." Resource-scarce Japan also is seeking to further cooperate with Canada to secure supplies of liquefied natural gas. Japan and Canada agreed to strengthen technical exchanges on nuclear technology, including those concerning small modular reactors that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has ordered a government panel to consider as a possible option for future development. Energy supply shortages and rising utility cost, as well as pressure to meet the 2050 carbon neutrality goal has prompted Kishida's government to place further emphasis on atomic energy years after many of Japanese nuclear plants were shut down after the 2011 Fukushima disaster Search Keywords: Short link: France will deploy more troops and equipment to Romania in the coming weeks and step up its presence elsewhere in eastern Europe as war grinds on in Ukraine, Defence Minister Sebastian Lecornu said Tuesday. The decision, by President Emmanuel Macron, "to bolster our defensive position on Europe's eastern flank" will be made as part of France's NATO committment, Lecornu told a Senate panel. France is in charge of NATO operations for Romania, where it currently has some 350 soldiers along with Belgian and Dutch units. That number will be doubled in November, and France will also send a dozen armoured personnel carriers and around 10 Leclerc combat tanks, a military source later specified. "We are also going to continue to reinforce our defence position in Lithuania," with additional Rafale jets for patrols, Lecornu said. And in Estonia, a light infantry unit of around 100 soldiers will be deployed next year, on top of the 300 French troops already there, he said. Search Keywords: Short link: Japanese automaker Nissan will sell its Russian assets -- including a factory in Saint Petersburg -- to the Russian government, the ministry of industry and trade in Moscow said on Tuesday. "Nissan's executive committee approved the sale of its Russian assets to the Russian Federation... this includes Nissan's production and research facilities in Saint Petersburg as well as a sales and marketing centre in Moscow," the ministry said in a statement. Search Keywords: Short link: By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Servicemen of the Azerbaijani army have attended a NATO training course in Baku on the use of helicopters in military operations, Azernews reports, citing the Defense Ministry. The course was organized under the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) for 2022 between the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and NATO, with the participation of the Azerbaijan air force personnel and representatives of the Mobile Training Team of Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) at Ramstein. The course participants were first given a briefing on the structure and scenario of the training course, as well as the assigned duties and objectives. It was noted that briefings on arranging activities in key air force units in line with the NATO standards, assuring defense and security measures, as well as other issues, will be delivered during the training held within the framework of the Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC). Activities involving aviation support will also be carried out. The training course will last until October 13, the ministry said. Relations with NATO started in 1992 when Azerbaijan joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. This forum for dialogue was succeeded in 1997 by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, which brings together all allies and partner countries in the Euro-Atlantic area. Bilateral cooperation began when Azerbaijan joined the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program in 1994. Thanks to regular participation in PfP activities, Azerbaijan has been able to contribute actively to Euro-Atlantic security by supporting NATO-led peace-support operations. Azerbaijans participation in the PfP Planning and Review Process (PARP) since 1997 has enabled NATO and individual allies to assist Azerbaijan in developing selected units to improve interoperability with those of the allies. NATO and Azerbaijan started work on a jointly agreed Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP) in 2008 to integrate NATO standards into the teaching methodologies and curricula of the countrys Professional Military Education (PME) institutions. In 2018, Azerbaijan asked NATO to also involve the Military High School, a pre-commissioning school, in DEEP. Two new bills that aim to conserve the environment and stem air pollution are in the works in the Senate Following four procedural sessions last week, Egypts Senate, the consultative upper house of parliament, got down to business this week. On Tuesday, it gave final approval to a new government-drafted bill aimed at establishing a Supreme Council for Vehicle Manufacturing and setting up a fund to provide financing for an environmentally friendly vehicle-assembly industry in Egypt. A report prepared by the Senates Industry and Trade Committee said the new 13-article legislation served the states strategy of turning Egypt into a regional hub for the production and export of electric vehicles (EV), targeting the markets of Africa and the Arab world in particular. The legislation could also attract foreign investments to the vehicle-manufacturing industry, as this represents the central nerve of modern economies, said the report. The legislation will also serve the governments policy of seeking to protect the environment by expanding the use of environmentally friendly clean electric power and reducing transport vehicles with fuel emissions harmful to nature and human health, the report said. The minister of environment and the Environmental Affairs Authority will set out the criterion upon which vehicles are considered harmful to the environment. Head of the Senates Trade and Industry Committee Mohamed Halawa said the Supreme Council for Vehicle Manufacturing will offer incentives and facilities to investors to tap the EV assembly industry. The proceeds of the fund for financing an EV industry will be used to support the states policy of switching to green and clean means of transport and increase spending on the research and technology centres necessary for creating a competitive EV industry, Halawa said. Hani Al-Assal, a senator with the parliamentary majority party Mostaqbal Watan, said the value of the vehicle-manufacturing industry in Egypt is estimated at $4 billion. If Egypt is to become a regional hub for the EV industry, this could go up to $100 billion, he said. But the legislation was rejected by some leftist senators. Mahmoud Sami, leader of the parliamentary group of the leftist Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party, said the legislation setting up a Supreme Council for Vehicle Manufacturing and a fund for financing an EV industry would cost a lot of money. This is not the right time to set up such a council and fund as the country is reeling from a global economic crisis that should force the government to turn to adopting austerity measures rather than spending money to set up councils, Sami said. Sameh Ashour, a Nasserist senator, also rejected the legislation, arguing that it came while industrial investors in Egypt were facing bureaucratic complications. The state should first do more to solve problems facing industrial investors such as simplifying licensing measures, he said. The council will be involved in drafting the general policies, plans, and strategies necessary for developing Egypts local vehicle-manufacturing industry, says Article 2 of the legislation, adding that the council will also take charge of finalising the necessary legislative and administrative framework for this industry, eliminating obstacles and finding solutions to problems facing the auto industry in Egypt, and exchanging expertise and agreements with countries and institutions well-known for their pioneering role and rich experience in the field of vehicle manufacturing. The bill also states that a fund to manage financing will be set up, with its headquarters located in Greater Cairo and with branches and offices across Egypt. To achieve its objectives, the fund will embark on offering a package of incentives and facilities to investors plus spending on the innovation necessary to create a competitive, local, environmentally friendly vehicle-manufacturing industry in Egypt, Article 4 says. Another bill aiming to stem air pollution was also part of the Senates debates this week. Chairman of the Senates Energy Committee Abdel-Khalek Ayad said the amendments to Environment Law 4/1994 were in line with Article 46 of Egypts constitution, which obligates the state to take all measures necessary to conserve the environment and create the conditions for a healthy life. To achieve this, the amendments propose a 2.5 per cent green fee levied on newly imported and locally produced vehicles fitted with engines that cause harmful emissions. This includes vehicles with engines using diesel only, vehicles with engines using petrol only, or vehicles using combined fuel (diesel-natural gas). Vehicles with electric engines or natural-gas-powered engines, plus government-owned and ambulance vehicles, will be exempted from paying the green fee, said the report. Half of the proceeds of the new fee will go to the Automotive Industry Development Fund and the other half to the Environment Protection Fund, it said. The amendment will entrust the Environmental Affairs Agency with the power of inspecting vehicles and issuing environment-adjustment certificates after they pay the fee. The law states that the 2.5 per cent fee could be increased annually by 0.5 per cent to reach five per cent maximum. For locally produced vehicles, the percentage will be calculated according to the producers selling price, said the report, adding that for imported vehicles the fee will be calculated according to the value of the custom purposes bill plus the customs tax and other taxes and fees. In all circumstances, the fee will be imposed on vehicles once only. The report, however, indicated that after consultation with government representatives, the Senates Energy Committee had decided to add a new article (47) to the environment law stating that the Environmental Affairs Agency will be in charge of issuing environment-adjustment certificates to locally produced and imported vehicles using diesel and petrol fuel only after they pay a green fee ranging between LE1,000 and LE50,000 maximum to be paid one time only. This sum will replace the 2.5 to five per cent green fee after members of the two committees raised concerns that the fee violates the constitution in terms of discriminating against vehicles according to their price value, said the report. The Senates Energy Committee also rejected splitting the proceeds of the green fee between the Automotive Industry Development Fund and the Environment Protection Fund. It decided that 80 per cent of the proceeds of the green fee would go to the environmentally friendly electric vehicle-assembly industry, 10 per cent to the Environment Protection Fund, and 10 per cent to the State budget. This new division of the fees will be more effective in achieving the objectives of the amendments in terms of offering the funds necessary for the creation of an electric vehicle-assembly industry in Egypt and at the same time helping the Ministry of Environment to play its role in conserving nature and stemming air pollution, said the report. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Daren Tang, director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was in Cairo recently to take part in the launch of Egypts first National Intellectual Property Strategy (NIPS). During his stay he met President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to discuss Egypts Development Vision 2030 as well as the presidents strong support for the implementation of the Vision and National IP Strategy. Tang told Al-Ahram Weekly how IP can act as an engine for growth, catalyst for jobs and a key feature of the knowledge-based economy. How important is intellectual property to the advancement of world economies today? As products of the worlds oldest continuing civilisation, Egyptian ideas, inventions, and creations have shaped and influenced humankind throughout history. Your country has been an innovation powerhouse for millennia. What is innovation? It is the process through which an idea is commercialised, creating real, on-the-ground impact. Intellectual property [IP] plays a critical role in this process by giving those who create something new brands, designs, technologies, content the ability to prevent others from stealing their ideas, and then the incentive and power to bring these ideas to the market. So when an Egyptian designer like Temraza creates a new design, she can use IP to protect its designs and to ensure that the company can continue growing its business. At the broader level, countries can use IP as a powerful catalyst to create jobs, attract investments, support entrepreneurship and drive economic and social development. This has certainly been the economic strategy pursued by an increasing number of developing countries, including India, Turkey, Vietnam and Brazil, to name a few. As a country shifting to a knowledge-based digital economy, IP will become more and more important in Egypt. Raising awareness of IP, therefore, is fundamental. I was pleased to see that this is one of the main pillars of Egypts recently launched IP strategy. But raising awareness of IP is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Ultimately, we must build the culture of belief in, and respect for, innovation. We must also work to build a more inclusive IP ecosystem that better serves women, youth and small and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs]. Lastly, we must connect IP to peoples everyday lives and make it relevant to everyone moving IP out of the shadows and into the light. It is only by broadening our work and connecting it to a much wider and more diverse range of stakeholders that we will help people to see the value of IP. Egypt launched a national strategy to protect intellectual property. How do you see the challenges which might affect its implementation? Egypts IP strategy is bold, far-reaching, and comprehensive, looking at IP from a horizontal rather than a vertical perspective. This means that it will touch on the work of many different ministries, as well as stakeholders from industry, businesses, research, and other sectors. The challenge will, therefore, be one of coordination across many different stakeholders and actors. However, I am confident that Egypt will be able to meet these challenges. The launch of the National IP Strategy by the prime minister, with many other key ministers in personal attendance, is unprecedented, and immediately sends a signal of holistic and comprehensive support. The ancient spirit of Egyptian innovation and dynamism continues to this day with the country preparing for a new chapter of growth under the umbrella of Egypts Development Vision 2030. This vision of using innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology to create a knowledge-based economy and sustainable growth is very much aligned with WIPOs desire to transform IP from a technical issue into a powerful catalyst for jobs, investments, business growth and, ultimately, economic and social development. What was the impact of Covid-19 on intellectual property rights? Despite the challenges of the pandemic, data collected by the World Intellectual Property Organisation shows that innovation activities continue to grow, powering ever-increasing numbers of economies and enterprises around the world. Although the pandemic has been a great disruptor, it has also been a powerful accelerator, encouraging many companies and countries to re-imagine growth strategies. The answer is increasingly to turn to entrepreneurship, innovation, and digitalisation, areas where IP plays a critical role in success. As a result, more and more countries, including emerging economies, are looking to use IP as a powerful tool for growth and development. For example, I recently visited Cambodia and was impressed by the countrys successful and widespread use of geographical indications to promote local artisanal products in global markets. Similarly, during a visit to Cape Verde, I observed the nations interest in using IP to position itself as a hub for the digital economy through the establishment of technology parks and other cross-sectoral measures. And in a meeting with CEOs of startups from Brazil earlier this year, I noted the resilience of the SME sector in a country that has fostered 26 unicorns [startups with a value of over $1 billion] in recent years. Here in Egypt, you too are emerging from the pandemic to a transformation of the Egyptian economy. Last year, intangible assets including IP, data and know-how passed a symbolic milestone, accounting for more than half the value of Egypts top 15 firms. One example of an Egyptian company whose value is mainly in the form of IP and intangible assets is Fawry, which in 2020 became Egypts first unicorn. Egypts startup ecosystem is now one of the most vibrant in the region, with close to 600 tech startups across the country. And last year, venture capital investment exceeded all previous records, with close to 150 deals agreed, totaling nearly $450 million, and projected to hit $1 billion in two years. But it is not just new firms that are using intangible assets to grow. Last year, the brand value of Egypts top 5,000 companies rose by 150 per cent to $2.8 billion, underlining the increasingly close relationship between enterprise brand value and economic vibrancy. The use of IP to grow a business is also increasingly a feature of Egyptian SMEs and entrepreneurs. Take the story of the fashion firm Okhtein. Formed by two sisters who grew up in Cairo, Okhtein has rapidly established itself as a chic and fashionable global label. Just four years into the companys development, Okhtein bags are sought after and carried by discerning buyers from all over the world. As one of the sisters, Mounaz Abdel-Raouf, describes it: Egypt and the Arab world are full of heritage, so we thought to transform this into a carriable piece of art. How do you see the relationship between the Internet and intellectual property rights? The Covid-19 pandemic placed additional pressure on creative industries. Traditional revenue sources were severely disrupted and in-person events, like concerts and book fairs, disappeared. In addition, the pace of digital transformation accelerated at a time when many industry players, especially those in developing and the least developed countries, lacked the means to respond to it. On the other hand, streaming platforms boomed during the height of the pandemic as we were stuck at home amid a fearful scourge. That created new opportunities not just for the platforms, but for creators across the globe who developed new content to entertain themselves and find new audiences. Look at what the over 50 million content creators in Egypt are doing on TikTok and other social media platforms. With just a mobile phone and a mastery of meme culture, they are making a living from videos they shoot at home or in their neighbourhoods, dancing, singing and generally mixing it up. With Egypt being the media hub of the Arab world, enjoying the highest number of Internet users in the region and experiencing a blossoming startup scene, the Egyptian government is focused on fostering the growth of the digital economy. I saw first-hand how the government is accelerating the countrys digital transformation, investing massively in capacity building and training, digital services reforms and upgrading infrastructure. This means massive opportunities are available in the digital economy for the countrys creators and youth culture generally. During my trip to Egypt, I was able to enjoy the countrys wonders, both ancient and contemporary, and have great hope that Egyptians will continue to draw on their rich innovative and creative heritage and harness new technologies, as you have done through thousands of years of history. WIPO stands ready to help the government, and its people, however it can, to ensure that IP plays an affirmative role in Egypts next period of economic and cultural growth. What role can innovation and the intellectual property system play in advancing global efforts to build a green future that enhances the wellbeing of people? Innovation and technology will certainly play a major role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Our work on this has advanced over the years. Through our global technology matching platform, WIPO GREEN, we are connecting providers of climate change-related technologies with those seeking solutions. While there is no shortage of new ideas out there, their diffusion and adoption can sometimes struggle to keep pace with the scale, size and urgency of the challenge at hand. Through WIPO GREENs acceleration projects, we are supporting industries such as the Indonesian palm oil sector and Latin American agriculture as we explore green opportunities and solutions. This is how IP can help address global challenges on the ground. WIPO is also planning on launching a new knowledge resource later this year that looks at technology products and trends, with the first edition focused on climate change adaptation. We plan to unveil this new publication during the COP27 climate meeting here in Egypt later this year, so stay tuned. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Why has the climate and the issue of climate change often taken a backseat in Arabic literature. Climate change is humanitys most intractable challenge, with leading countries seemingly unable to offer practical solutions to the crisis threatening human existence. Despite the gravity of the issue, world literature be it in the East or the West or the developing or developed countries has lagged behind in addressing the issue of climate change. The climate and changes to the weather are part of nature. They have never been the focus of Arabic literature, even when describing the natural background, such as a flowing river, greenery, or crystalline or dark skies, said Ahmed Al-Khamisi, a professor of comparative literature (Russian and Arabic) and a short-story writer. In Arabic literature, man has generally not been seen as part of nature, and he has not been presented as particularly affected by it, not even in the writings of great literary figures such as Naguib Mahfouz and Youssef Idris, he added. Al-Khamisi has translated Russian literature into Arabic as well as works on Mahfouz and other writers. Climate change alerted scientific circles some time ago, but the international media took note only in the 1970s and 1980s following the release of Hollywood movies on the subject. The first UN Conference of the Parties (COP) on the problem was held in Berlin in 1995. However, despite the general lack, Arabic literature does contain some publications in which man is seen as part of nature, among them Taraneem fi dhil Tamara (Hymns in the Shadow of Tamara) by satirist Mohamed Afifi, who died in the 1980s, Al-Khamisi said. In this book, which was reissued by Dar Al-Hilal in 1996, Afifi writes an extended dialogue between Tamara, a privet tree, and Zahira, a lemon tree, staging himself as sitting in their shade every afternoon in autumn and listening to the talk between plants, animals, birds, and insects. Afifi made himself a window through which the reader observes nature, until he turns the pages of the book into a part of himself, according to Al-Khamisi, author of The Head of the Red Rooster among other books. According to poet and journalist Mohamed Khairallah, there are also hints about climate change in some poems in Arabic literature. If we expand the concept of the climate, we will find that poetry has paid attention to it, he said. Khairallah, also a historian, cites the works of poet Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi, such as Ashgar Al-Assmant (Cement Trees), which objects to modern civilisation and its machines that are robbing man of his humanity. In the 1950s Hegazi released his collection Madina Bela Qalb (A City without a Heart), in which he mourned the death of the urban environment, which he considers to be inhuman, said Khairallah. He added that some Arabic novels have also been concerned about the climate, among them Qadar Al-Ghoraf Al-Moqbeda (The Destiny of Confined Chambers) by novelist Abdel-Hakim Qassem and Fasad Al-Amkena (The Corruption of Places) by Sabri Moussa. For a long time, the latter was considered to be a pioneering novel for its focus on nature and the transformations it has endured owing to mans interventions. Some Nubian novels have also played a role, especially Al-Shamandoura (The Buoy) by Mohamed Khalil Qassem about the flooding of Nubian villages by the waters of the lake formed by the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. The Nubians, mostly living off date production, had to move to other places, some of which are not suitable for agriculture or housing. Despite their different points of view, Al-Khamisi and Khairallah both agree that the mentions of climate change in Arabic literature are no more than hints, because the priority was and will likely remain political and social issues and cultural and individual problems at the expense of climate change, according to Khairallah. Al-Khamisi adds that we have not been concerned with the big issues in the humanitarian sense of the word. Our priorities have been primarily societal. We were not part of the world in a sense. We went in another direction, as if we wanted to be separate from the rest of the world. Because we were formerly Western colonies, fighting for our independence, we also couldnt be part of the Western world, he said. The West controls the world, and it didnt want its colonies to be full parts of it. The colonies did not want that either, and so there was no global sense of solidarity that would lead writers to consider global issues like the climate. Newly independent countries refused to be included within colonial systems such as the Baghdad Pact in the 1950s, and several former French colonies refused to join the Francophone world in the 1960s. There was a desire to restore a sense of history and identity in India, and there was the cultural revolution in China in the 1960s. All these countries wanted to restore their national roots more than they wished to be integrated into a world led by the colonial Western countries. The causes we considered to be a priority, the West had already done with, added Al-Khamisi, citing the novel Al-Ard (The Land) by Egyptian writer Abdel-Rahman Al-Sharqawi. This novel tackled the struggle against feudalism in the Egyptian countryside, which Europe had been through more than a century earlier. Even our generation, who discussed social, cultural, and humanitarian issues and was influenced by schools of realism, addressed issues that the industrial societies had turned their backs on, such as poverty, inhumane housing, illiteracy, religious extremism, and womens rights. Above all, there has not been a science-fiction literature in Egypt and the Arab world, but only rather naive attempts suitable for children. In Egypt, science fiction commenced in the 1990s, but it did not develop further than mediocre stories for teenagers. Our societies dont strongly believe in science, and so there is no fertile soil for science fiction, Al-Khamisi noted. In this sense, Arabic literature has a limited conscience. There is no scene in Arabic literature such as in Dostoevskys novel about a girls trial for the murder of the governor of St Petersburg. When the interrogator asks the girl why she killed the governor, she replied that he was torturing prisoners. The interrogator asks her if she had a husband, a father, or a brother among the prisoners. She said no, but I cannot accept that a crime goes unpunished, Al-Khamisi said. In Arabic literature, we do not defend general, abstract principles of this sort, he added, because the literary conscience is formed over a long period, and our contemporary literary history is only 100 years old. More than a century ago, the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky lamented that Russian literature was no more than 150 years old, while English literature was more than four centuries old. There has been no literary interaction with the hardships that Arab, African, and Muslim peoples endure, said Al-Khamisi. Arabic novels have not discussed epidemics, a kind of natural phenomenon, because the last important epidemics happened before the production of contemporary Arabic novels. Literature is like the state, he said. The state cannot allocate funds to combat climate change if that means reducing spending on education, health, and social protection. Social issues take priority, much as has been the case in literature. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: Three major international developments will weigh on deliberations at next months Arab Summit in Algiers. After three years of the summits absence, Algeria will host the 31st regular Arab Summit meeting on 1 November, with the closing session taking place on 2 November. The Algerian government wanted the summit to take place on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Algerian Revolution in 1954 that led to the independence of Algeria from France in July 1962. The world and the Arab world today are significantly different from what they were in 2019 when the last Arab Summit meeting took place. Not only has the Covid-19 pandemic changed the world since then, but a host of other Arab, Middle Eastern, and international developments have also altered the international and regional context in which the Algiers summit will occur. Three major international events have taken place since the Arab leaders came together in 2019. The first, by chronological order, is the change of administration in the US. After four years of former US president Donald Trumps foreign policy, which sought disengagement from old questions that had haunted previous administrations, current US President Joe Biden has returned to an interventionist US foreign policy based on forming new military alliances while reinforcing existing ones like NATO. The second significant development was the outbreak of the war in Ukraine last February when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a military offensive against the country. The third is the growing US-Chinese tension around Taiwan. These three developments have had direct impacts on the Arab world and are not necessarily favourable to the Arabs whether in terms of food security or the high energy prices that affect the Arab non-oil-producing countries of Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, for example. Regionally speaking, Arab relations with Israel, Turkey, and Iran have witnessed changes that will surely impact the conclusions of the next Arab Summit. Israel, drawing on Trumps diplomacy, signed so-called Abraham Accords with four Arab countries in the second half of 2020. The former Trump administration talked about a process of normalisation of Arab-Israeli relations that was deliberately decoupled from the Palestinian question to the detriment of the Palestinians and peace prospects between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Although the Biden administration from day one committed itself to the two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, unlike the predecessor administration, it has refrained from pushing the Israelis to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians. These came to an end in April 2014. Whereas Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement between Iran and the group of 5+1 countries, in May 2018 after its signature under the Obama administration in July 2015 and adopted a maximum pressure strategy against Iran, the Biden administration has been eagerly working to rejoin the JCPOA in a formula known as compliance for compliance. This means that the US will rejoin the deal and Iran will once again honour its obligations. But if the compliance for compliance formula comes to pass, followed by the lifting of some sanctions against Iran, the Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, will be rightly worried about what the Iranian government will do with the billions of dollars that will start pouring into Iran as a result of renewed oil sales. Will Tehran spend them to develop the Iranian economy, or will it finance pro-Iranian militias in the Arab world? If it does the latter, what will be the US reaction? As far as Turkey is concerned, most people have seen positive developments in Turkish-Arab relations without a corresponding reassessment on the part of Turkey of its strategy in the Middle East, Libya, or the Eastern Mediterranean. The Algiers summit is also taking place after the boycott of Qatar by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain ended in January 2021 and the resumption of diplomatic relations among them. One of the most positive results of such inter-Arab reconciliation was the official visits by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to Qatar a month ago and an official visit by the ruler of Qatar to Egypt last July. Needless to say, this much-needed reconciliation will have positive impacts on the deliberations at the next Arab Summit and its decisions, both politically and economically. I would argue that the summit should pay particular attention to the situation in Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Tunisia. The Arab world has an interest in assisting these countries in successfully managing their respective democratic transitions, in addition to providing emergency financial support to Lebanon, Sudan, and Tunisia. As far as the situation in Libya is concerned, I imagine that the Arab leaders will call on the Libyan political factions to solve the persistent crisis of political legitimacy in their country by holding free-and-fair elections at the earliest opportunity to save Libya from falling prey once again to the use of force that almost tore the country apart three years ago. The regular Arab Summit meeting in Algeria two weeks from today should aim to prove that the Arab world is united in providing Arab solutions to Arab problems and successful to prepare the Arab countries to deal with the challenges of the future. * The writer is former assistant foreign minister. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: There is gold here. Sheikh Rifaa Al-Tahtawi came to this conclusion when he was in Paris. He had been appointed the chaplain of one of the first educational missions (composed of a regiment of the Egyptian army) that Egypts early 19th-century ruler Mohamed Ali Pasha had sent to learn about and transfer knowledge and technologies from France to Egypt. Al-Tahtawi did not have a curriculum to follow. He was in France to guide the students in religious matters while they were studying in this Western land with its strange, and for many corrupting, traditions and ways of life. Quickly, however, Al-Tahtawi became a student not of any one discipline but of French culture and way of life in the early 19th century. He did not need to be convinced that Egypt (and with it the entire East) needed to learn from the West. That, as was discussed in the first article in this series, had already been a given since Napoleons campaign in Egypt at the very end of the 18th century. Al-Tahtawis main insight was that the Egyptian, and the entire Eastern, worldview at the time needed to be widened to include advancements that the West had developed and which, in his view, were crucially needed back home. He focused on his job, which was education. When he returned to Egypt and was later given the responsibility to establish the countrys first bureau of translation, he launched and directed one of the most impressive waves of Arabisation the region has ever seen. At least 2,000 books ranging from literature to military studies were translated (largely from French) into Arabic. The objective was not merely quantity, but also diversity. Al-Tahtawis approach was almost to replicate his own Parisian education and to present it to those who would benefit from the immense body of knowledge that his bureau of translation was making available. He had curated his own education in Paris in a process that was not dissimilar to Al-Azhars classic form of learning in which the seeker of knowledge was expected to acquaint himself with different disciplines and schools of thought without a rigid curriculum imposed on him, but through sailing into the ocean of knowledge, as Sheikh Hassan Al-Attar, Al-Tahtawis mentor at Al-Azhar, put it. As a result, Al-Tahtawi presented his audience with 19th-century French military thought and technical engineering work as well as with the poetry of Racine and treatises on philosophy. He translated commentaries on French law as well as Voltaires satires. But his main focus was political philosophy. He was taken by Montesquieu and Rousseau. From the former, Al-Tahtawi emphasised, primarily in commentaries in the newspaper that he came to edit, the idea of a strong and secular state. This could not have been more timely, as Al-Tahtawi was working during the later period of Mohamed Ali Pashas reign in the 1830s and 1840s when the latter was cementing the new state he had begun building in Egypt three decades earlier. This state, though retaining Islam as an overarching civilisational frame of reference, was edging towards secularism in its laws, in equality between its citizens, and in minimising the role of religion in public affairs. The Pasha was also a foreigner who had come to rule Egypt without having any prior connection to the land or its people and with only a nominal allegiance to the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul whose armies Mohamed Alis son Ibrahim had also crushed. As a result, Mohamed Alis state needed its legitimacy to be continually buttressed, and at the core of that legitimacy, as Mohamed Ali himself saw it, was the modernisation project he was leading. Al-Tahtawi was not just a functionary in this project. He was a true believer. As a result, in translation after translation, and in article after article, and using Montesquieus thought, he propagated the idea that the state that Mohamed Ali was building entailed through the objective behind it of becoming strong, modern, and secular the basis of its legitimacy and why Egyptians must be loyal to it. Al-Tahtawi was not a classic example of a scholar subservient to a ruler, of which Arabic and Islamic history is full. He was awed by Mohamed Ali and his project and by that of his son, Ibrahim Pasha, who wanted to turn the nascent Egyptian state into an empire in the eastern Mediterranean. He was convinced that Mohamed Alis modernisation of the country was the sole means to give rise in Egypt to the strength and advancement and civilised ways of living he had known in Paris. He was also a strong believer in a unique Egyptian identity that was vastly different from any pan-Arabic or Islamic one. A side project he began but did not finish was a succinct history of Egypt anchoring its identity in the pharaonic period. Yet, Al-Tahtawi was also a classic functionary for the regime in prioritising stability and the control of the masses over political freedom. Despite his commentaries on Rousseaus social contract, the contract he believed in and promoted was one based on the ruler leading the country towards progress, improved living conditions, and instilling a vague sense of glory. In return, the people were expected to be docile, willing, and ready to be mobilised in war, as well as to endure acute economic difficulties. Al-Tahtawi was certainly an early adopter of the idea of Mohamed Ali Pasha as a historic leader, the second great Macedonian he called him, in reference to the first, in other words Alexander the Great. Al-Tahtawi entrenched the idea of great men among the first generation of Egyptians to be exposed to modern Western thought, with such great men being selected by the Divine to save their country. In the case of Mohamed Ali, the country was his by possession much more than by belonging. Al-Tahtawis adoption and promotion of the great men idea and the system of governing that flows from it also flew in the face of his fascination with liberal strands of French political philosophy, particularly Voltaires rejection of absolute authority and rigid systems of thought. Given the reverence that Egyptian society and cultural circles accorded to Al-Tahtawi in the middle of the 19th century, he doubtless contributed to entrenching in modern Egyptian culture the idea that the ruler is above the will of the people. But he also made another contribution and one that proved tremendously valuable to modern Egyptian culture. He saw and subtly argued that the Egyptian, and for that matter also Eastern and Islamic, consciousness would have to realise that its sense of self-sufficiency had led to acute problems over the centuries. Through his translations and his writings, Al-Tahtawi no doubt intentionally propagated the idea that the collective consciousness must be opened up to new horizons of thought. He sowed the notion that reference points dating back centuries were no longer enough and that frames of reference needed to be expanded to include what non-Egyptians and non-Muslims had achieved in centuries in which Egypt and the entire East had lagged behind. He educated his audience into understanding that there was a wealth of knowledge that could be gained from learning, thinking about, and assessing the Wests experiences and achievements and not only in the natural and military sciences, but also and equally importantly in the humanities and social sciences. He put this beautifully in the title of his most famous book Extracting Gold from Summarising Paris (a title which rhymes in Arabic). The gold was the knowledge, explicit and implicit, that Egyptians needed to open their eyes to, learn, and internalise. By pioneering the extraction of that gold, Al-Tahtawi earned his place in the history of Egypts modern culture as a true teacher and as a leader of thought and action whose work has had a lasting benefit to society. * The writer is the author of Islamism: A History of Political Islam (2017) and Egypt on the Brink (2010). * *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: This is not just a flagrant violation of international maritime laws. It is also a confirmation that both parties have no intention or desire to support the UN-led international effort to restore stability in Libya by holding parliamentary and presidential elections leading to a legitimate, stable government capable of maintaining the countrys unity and territorial integrity. Debeibahs General Unity Government (GNU) was approved by the UN-overseen Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) in February 2021 to carry out one principal mission during a short transitional period: holding presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 December 2021. This was not the only commitment Dbeibah made when he took over as interim prime minister. Together with the head of the Presidency Council, Mohamed Al-Menfi, he pledged not to take part as a candidate in those elections. Dbeibah failed on both counts. No elections were held on 24 December, and he broke the commitment he had made to the UN and the international community not to run for president. As a matter of fact, since he took over as premier, he has spared no effort to abuse public funds in order to create a popular base that would back him in any upcoming elections within a very divided and fractured political scene in western Libya, dominated by militias and extremist Islamist groups backed by Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood. When Dbeibahs term expired in late 2021, in February the only legitimate Libyan elected body, the Tobruk-based parliament appointed former interior minister Fathi Bashagha as interim prime minister. Not surprisingly, Dbeibah, with military backing from Ankara, ordered the use of military force twice in order to prevent Bashagha from entering Tripoli and taking over his job. Bashagha is no stranger to western Libya, hailing originally from Misrata, but he chose not to forcibly enter the capital in order to spare Libyan blood. Meanwhile, Dbeibah claimed that his term officially expires on 22 June, 18 months after the UN-sponsored agreement, and refused to recognise the decision made by Libyas parliament to appoint Bashagha. That deadline also expired, and the argument reiterated by Dbeibah since then is that he would not hand over his post except to an elected government. Knowing the many difficulties that have come in the way of holing presidential elections, both political and legal, Dbeibahs message was that he would continue to deepen divisions among Libyans and stay in office indefinitely. But the military support Turkey gave Dbeibahs government has obviously not been free of charge. Even before the UN managed to negotiate the agreement that led to the formation of Dbeibahs government in February 2021, back in 2019 Ankara signed an invalid maritime border deal with former premier Fayez Al-Sarraj, granting Turkey access to a Greek economic zone in the Mediterranean for oil and gas exploration. The deal deepened existing tensions between Turkey and Greece, which has said that such energy deals infringe on Greek waters. Neither the Al-Sarraj nor the Dbeibah government had the authority or mandate to strike any international deals or Memorandums of Understandings with Turkey that breach international laws only to maintain its military support, either through Turkish military units under the cover of experts, or mercenaries that Ankara shipped from Syria to fight alongside the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Tripoli governments. This new and latest provocation by Dbeibah and Turkey must be met with a firm stand from the United Nations and all countries involved in the situation in Libya. Following talks between Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri and his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, on Sunday, both called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take a firm position regarding the illegitimacy of the outgoing Libyan government given that the GNU stemmed from an agreement drafted and adopted by the UN. The UN should not remain silent regarding the full and honest implementation of what it has adopted and drafted, Shoukri said. Other Libyan political forces and key world countries have also denounced the recent deals signed by Ankara and Dbeibahs government. The European Union said the energy deals signed in this regard infringe on the sovereign rights of third states and is not in line with the UN Law of the Sea. Greek FM Dendias accused Turkey of trying to take advantage of the turbulent situation in Libya in order to further destabilise the Mediterranean region and establish a regional hegemony. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also seeking to benefit from current world chaos following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine to profit from rising world demand for oil and gas explorations. In their joint news conference on Sunday, Shoukri and Dendias confirmed their commitment to the agreement for the delimitation of the Exclusive Economic Zone signed by the two countries in 2020, and their determination and obligation to defend the sovereign rights of Egypt and Greece stated in that deal. They also reiterated their support for efforts made to pave the way to holding presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya, by helping Libyan factions reach agreement on the steps needed to hold the vote. This certainly does not include signing controversial agreements with foreign nations that have no right to be in Libya in the first place. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: As I followed the news coverage of the award of the Nobel Prize in literature to the French novelist Annie Ernaux (82), I noticed how little attention the Western press has paid to her political views. Ernaux is an active supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to pressure Israel into ending the injustices it perpetrates in violation of international law and Palestinian rights. The movement has gained momentum in France and other European countries where there is a growing tide of solidarity with the Palestinian people who have lived under Israeli occupation for over 70 years. One aspect of BDSs work is to promote an international boycott of Israeli companies based in the occupied territories and utilise the land and resources of the occupied people, and then pass their products off as made in Israel. In 2019 Ernaux signed a letter along with many other French intellectuals and artists calling for a boycott of the Eurovision Song Contest which was being hosted in Israel that year. Last year, she signed another letter denouncing Israel as an apartheid state. It is significant that the Nobel Prize committee chose Ernaux over other likely candidates such as the British writer Salman Rushdie, against whom Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death, or the French author Michel Houellebecq who was prosecuted for inciting racial hatred because of the hostile depictions of Muslims and Islam in one of his novels. Could awarding the prize to Ernaux be an expression of the Nobel organisations support for the need to right the injustices to the Palestinian people? I doubt it. The Nobel has gone to 13 Israelis, the first being Shmuel Yosef Agnon, for literature, in 1966. The next three were Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres and Yitzhaq Rabin for peace. The other laureates were in various fields such as chemistry or medicine. The Nobel Prize committee, in its press release, said the prize was for the courage with which Ernaux defended the causes she believed in. Ernaux is an ardent advocate of womens rights, including reproductive rights and the right of access to safe abortion, the subject of her first novel, Les Armoires vides (Cleaned Out, 1974), and a subsequent novel, LEvenement (Happening, 2000). She treated the theme of womens liberation more generally in her autobiographical novel, Les Annees (The Years, 2008). To Ernaux, it is not enough for a writer to write well; they must defend truth and justice. Not surprisingly, after winning the Nobel she said that it placed on her a greater responsibility to fight the injustices in the world. Search Keywords: Short link: The Egyptian Chamber of Commerce in Alexandria, the first in Egypt and Africa, is celebrating its centenary, reports Ameera Fouad It has been 100 years of success, 100 years of international and local relations, 100 years of developing markets and companies, 100 years of trade agreements, and 100 years of boosting made-in-Egypt products. The Egyptian Chamber of Commerce in Alexandria is celebrating its centenary this year, having been established in April 1922. It was the first national chamber of commerce to be established in Egypt, Africa, and the Arab region. Situated near the Raml Station in Alexandria, it acts as a national economic and business institution that fosters economic and business development in Alexandria and the Arab and Mediterranean region. The idea of setting up the chamber developed after the 1919 Revolution, which demanded the freedom and independence of Egypts industry and commerce. With the agreement of traders and industrialists, the chambers first board members were elected in 1922. Its first elected president was businessman Mohamed Effendi Tawfik. According to a report published by the chamber, 129 members joined it when it was founded, a large number, and in addition to the president 15 board members were elected. The centenary of the chamber coincides with the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the Federation of Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce (ESCAMI). This brings together more than 500 chambers from 23 countries overlooking the Mediterranean and more than 22 million companies. It is headed by Ahmed Al-Wakeel, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Alexandria. The ESCAMI chambers implement regional projects financed by the EU with a budget of more than 180 million euros in the sectors of the food and textile industries, tourism, transport and logistics, new and renewable energy, environment and training for employment, regional development, transport and logistics, and the participation of workers abroad in the development of their countries. There is also a regional programme for the development of trade and investment. At a press conference held to announce the centenary, Al-Wakeel said that the Alexandria chamber was working on automating all the services provided to its affiliates by the end of this year at a cost of LE7 million as part of the countrys larger commitment to digital transformation. The process includes the establishment of an electronic portal for the chamber, in addition to launching an electronic application on mobile phones, Al-Wakeel said. He added that it also includes the internal systems of chamber employees and financial and administrative aspects. The chamber has begun to provide online services to its members, such as obtaining certificates and getting acquainted with the laws that regulate the business environment as well as regulations and tenders. In terms of financial inclusion and the electronic transformation, the chamber is currently studying ideas for signing a protocol with an electronic payments company. During the press conference, Al-Wakeel stressed the leading role played by the software industry, not only at the level of the Egyptian market, but also globally in the light of the availability of suitably qualified professionals. Our professionals compete globally and are considered one of the sources of our national income, he added. He also highlighted the importance of updating the laws on intellectual property rights in Egypt after the launch of the Egyptian Strategy for Intellectual Property, which guarantees the rights of companies and individuals. DEVELOPMENT ROLE: One of the core roles the chamber undertook just after its establishment was to resolve the economic problems that resulted from World War I. Among these problems were the lack of sugar in the markets, the tram tariffs, the issue of reducing freight fees and freight for ships and railways, and reducing floor fees and many more, said Ahmed Sakr, a board member of the chamber. The then council addressed all these problems to meet contemporary concerns and needs. Since its establishment, the chamber has paid special attention to fostering and developing national industry and made-in-Egypt products. In 1940, it held its first permanent exhibition for national industries in Said Al-Awal Street in Alexandria. Then king Farouk visited the exhibition and hailed it as a success. To hold the exhibition, the chamber made an agreement with Banque Misr to allow exhibitors participating in it to pay an interest rate on loans for exhibitions not exceeding two or three per cent. This succeeded in encouraging and assisting manufacturers and Egyptian-made products at the time. A hundred years on, the chamber is still keen on taking the necessary steps to cope with global developments and the environmental changes associated with the climate change crisis. The chamber is one of the first buildings that uses solar energy in its historic building in the Raml Station area, Sakr added. The chamber also uses solar energy in the wholesale market in the Ameriya district, making it the first of its kind in the world to operate on solar energy. The market was opened last February in the presence of Ali Moselhi, the minister of supply, Mohamed Al-Sharif, the governor of Alexandria, and Christian Berger, the EU ambassador to Egypt. We are always striving to play our important role in terms of social responsibility and sustainable development, Sakr said. WOMENS ROLE: Realising the important role that youth and women play in the economic sector, the chamber has helped strengthen their roles in society. It activated an amendment introduced to the chambers law in 2002 that allowed the election of women as board members of the Chambers of Commerce. In 2015, the chamber established its first committee for businesswomen to represent female entrepreneurs and others. The committee aims at helping them to solve their problems and providing them with opportunities and workshops that can help them to promote their own businesses. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Al-Wakeel stressed the importance of womens participation in the economy and comprehensive social and economic development. It is an essential role that works to enhance Egypts long-term prosperity and stability, he said. He expressed his hope for more cooperation with embassies and other chambers in the field of womens economic empowerment. The chamber is seeking networking opportunities and shared experiences with other countries in order to achieve a womens economic renaissance and an effective developmental footprint, he said. Reem Siam, founder of the Economic Council for Businesswomen, reviewed the Alexandria Chambers actions over the past seven years, praising steps taken to support female entrepreneurs and the programmes that the chamber has sought to implement in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Social responsibility: Many people relate the Chamber of Commerce only to industry and trade. But it also plays an important role in society and in facing up to many economic and other challenges. We have faced two major problems, a deadly pandemic and now the Russian-Ukrainian War, in just one decade, Sakr told the Weekly. But at the same time, we are working tirelessly for the sake of members and the wider population so that the markets will remain stocked with products. No one expected that the Russian-Ukrainian war would affect the Egyptian economy in the way that it has, especially the tourism sector. We must open new markets, encourage more types of tourism, and seek new opportunities in every sector, he said. In response to the high prices of commodities and high inflation, the chamber last month inaugurated a Food Commodities Exhibition under the auspices of the Northern Military Region, the Alexandria Governorate, and the Ministry of Supply. The exhibition offers food commodities at discounted prices ranging from 10 to 30 per cent off at the General Abdel-Moneim Riad Complex on the Agricultural Road in the Smouha district of Alexandria. It is divided into 50 sections with the participation of 35 exhibitors and offers discounts on various products. Companies affiliated to the Food Industries Holding Company of the Ministry of Supply, some major commercial chains, fresh and processed meat and poultry companies, and various food commodity companies have all participated in the exhibition. We believe that crises serve as catalysts for major transformations. The present anniversary marks an important point in history where everybody in the chamber is trying out innovative methods using digital technologies, open data, and citizen engagement for the greater welfare of our country, Sakr concluded. *A version of this article appears in print in the 13 October, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly. Search Keywords: Short link: The remarks could be bluster to force more bargaining-table concessions from the U.S. without planning to seek the bomb. Or, as analysts warn, Iran could reach a point like North Korea did some 20 years ago where it decides having the ultimate weapon outweighs any further international sanctions. All this could be put to the test Thursday as Iran, the U.S. and the European Union prepare for a snap summit that appears to be a last-ditch effort in Vienna to revive Tehran's tattered nuclear deal amid the new pressure. That includes one Iranian video online suggesting the country's ballistic missiles could ``turn New York into a heap of rubble from hell.'' Hyperbole aside, the language taken as a whole marks a distinct verbal escalation from Tehran. ``In a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium. ... Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one,'' Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told Al Jazeera in mid-July. Uranium enriched at 90% is considered weapons-grade. Ataollah Mohajerani, a culture minister under reformist President Mohammad Khatami, then wrote in Iran's Etemad daily newspaper that Kharrazi's announcement that Iran could make a nuclear weapon provided a ``moral lesson'' for Israel and President Joe Biden. And finally Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran's civilian nuclear agency, made his own reported comment about a potential military aspect to Iran's program. ``As Mr. Kharrazi mentioned, Iran has the technical ability to make an atomic bomb, but there is no such plan on the agenda,'' Eslami said Monday, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency. Eslami's agency later said he had been ``misunderstood and misjudged'' _ likely a sign Iran's theocracy didn't want him to have been so specific. Eslami's threat also carries more weight than others as he's directly worked for Iranian defense agencies linked to Iran's military nuclear program _ including one that secretly built uranium-enriching centrifuges with Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan's help. But by 2003, Iran had abandoned its military nuclear program, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, America's European allies and IAEA inspectors. The U.S. had just invaded Iraq, citing later-debunked claims of Saddam Hussein hiding weapons of mass destruction. America already was at war in Afghanistan, another nation neighboring Iran. Libya under then-dictator Moammar Gadhafi gave up its own nascent military atomic program that relied on the same Pakistani-designed centrifuges that Tehran bought from Khan. Ultimately, Iran reached its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which saw it receive economic sanctions relief while it drastically curtailed its program. Under the deal, Tehran could enrich uranium to 3.67%, while maintaining a stockpile of uranium of 300 kilograms (660 pounds) under constant scrutiny of IAEA surveillance cameras and inspectors. But then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, saying he'd negotiate a stronger deal including Tehran's ballistic missile program and its support of regional militant groups. He didn't. Attacks on land, at sea and in the air raised tensions across the wider Mideast. And Iran after a year began breaking the deal's terms. As of the last public IAEA count, Iran has a stockpile of some 3,800 kilograms (8,370 pounds) of enriched uranium. More worrying for nonprofileration experts, Iran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity _ a level it never reached before that is a short, technical step away from 90%. Those experts warn Iran has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb. Iranian diplomats for years have pointed to Khamenei's preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wouldn't build an atomic bomb. ``We do not need nuclear bombs. We have no intention of using a nuclear bomb,'' Khamenei said in a November 2006 speech, according to a transcript from his office. ``We do not claim to dominate the world, like the Americans, we do not want to dominate the world by force and need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and explosive power is our faith.'' But such edicts aren't written in stone. Khamenei's predecessor, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued fatwas that revised his own earlier pronouncements after he took power following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And anyone who would follow the 83-year-old Khamenei as the country's supreme leader could make his own fatwas revising those previously issued. For now though, it appears Iran will continue to lean into the atomic threat. Public opinion appears to be shifting as well. A July telephone survey by IranPoll, a Toronto-based firm, suggests about a third of the Iranian public now support abandoning the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and pursuing the bomb. A September 2021 poll found less than one in 10 respondents supported such a move. The margin of error for the firm's two polls of 1,000 respondents was around 3 percentage points. A video recently posted online by an account believed to be associated with Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard bluntly made the missile threat on New York. It described Iran as being ``one step away from a nuclear breakthrough and from joining (other countries) that have nuclear weapons.'' The video's title? ``When Will Iran's Nuclear Bombs Be Awakened From Their Slumber?'' Here's what to know as Kenya's votes on August 9: Fingerprints and photographs After the death of more than 1,100 people in violence after the 2007 election, technology was proposed as a way of bolstering transparency around polls and reducing the delay in announcing results, a major source of tension. In the subsequent 2013 and 2017 elections, results were transmitted electronically, and biometrics used to register voters and identify them on polling day. Biometric voter registration has been a success, boosting the electoral roll from 14.3 million in 2013 to 19.6 million in 2017 and 22.1 million in 2022. On election day, voters provide their fingerprints for identification against a digital database, before casting their ballot in a traditional manner using a pen and paper. Technology comes into play again when polling stations close and votes are counted. To limit the possibility of fraud, the official form displaying the outcome from each polling station will be photographed and transmitted digitally, instead of officials inputting the results manually as was the case in 2017. The photographs are pooled at a constituency level, then forwarded to a national tally centre, where they are cross-checked against the original forms which are physically transported. Chequered history Kenya's first stab at using voting technology in 2013 was not a success -- the system broadly failed, forcing the election commission to return to manual methods. The fiasco damaged public trust in electoral technology. The opposition, led by Raila Odinga, said it was a deliberate act of sabotage by Uhuru Kenyatta, his presidential rival who won the vote. During the next election in 2017, the biometric systems worked without a hitch, but problems in delivering the results electronically formed the basis of Odinga's successful legal challenge to Kenyatta's re-election. The Odinga camp claimed, again, that technology had been manipulated to favour the incumbent. OT-Morpho, the French company that supplied the voting systems, denied any manipulation or hacking had occurred. But in a landmark ruling, Kenya's highest court, citing irregularities in the transmission of results, invalidated Kenyatta's victory and ordered a fresh vote. An observation mission deployed by the European Union to monitor the vote noted an "improved use of technology, but insufficient capacity or security testing". 'Grey area' When the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) ran a test in June, less than half of the 2,900 polling stations successfully transmitted results. Another rehearsal in July, across a reduced number of locations, saw a 92 percent rate, but the outcome didn't inspire confidence. "We have 46,233 polling stations... So that's still a grey area. We don't know with certainty that the system of transmission will work 100 percent," said Mulle Musau from the Elections Observation Group, a Kenyan poll watchdog. This year, nearly 1,300 polling stations are in areas with little to no internet coverage, an improvement on the last election when 11,000 locations were in the dark. The IEBC says results will be transmitted from these locations by satellite, and that precautions are in place to avoid any failure. More than 55,000 electronic machines used for identifying voters and sending results have been deployed across the country, and each is powered by two stand-alone batteries. "It requires internet only when it is transmitting results. It is offline. It cannot be hacked," said Justus Nyang'aya, an IEBC official. Election officials say back-up kits have been provided, and polling officers can fall back on manual methods, like a paper voter registry, as a last resort. Distrust and disinformation "Technology has made our elections much more complex, much more unclear and therefore opaque," Musau said. "When they (voters) feel things are clouded... that is what becomes very dangerous. The biggest problem with our Kenyan elections is one word: trust." British firm Smartmatic, which replaced OT-Morpho as the software provider for this election, has denied criticism that its technology -- used in polls from Uganda to Venezuela and the Philippines -- has flaws. "Unfortunately, election processes, in general, are vulnerable to disinformation. Bad actors systematically disseminate lies to undermine elections by inciting fear, anxiety and distrust among voters and stakeholders," a Smartmatic spokeswoman, Samira Saba, told AFP by email. Episodes of criminality involving electoral technology have undermined public confidence in the security and reliability of these systems. In June, electoral officials said about one million voters had had their constituencies switched without their knowledge on the national database. The changes had been reversed on the registry and three electoral officers arrested, officials said, but the episode did not allay fears about the perceived opacity of these technologies. By Trend Amid rather complex and turbulent modern international relations Turkic states face the necessity to create sustainable models of national economies, and in this context, Turkic integration, which Azerbaijan has been advocating for many years, is of particular importance, Trend reports. Azerbaijan, being the founding country of the Organization of Turkic States, played an important role in uniting the countries of the Turkic world and bringing the relations of these countries to the current high level. In addition to multilateral format of relations, Azerbaijan also attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations separately with each Turkic country, as evidenced by the visits of the Heads of Turkic states to Azerbaijan, during which discussions are held at the highest level. Just this summer President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev visited Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, held meetings and discussions at the highest level. Moreover, presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were given a warm welcome in Azerbaijan's Baku. Thus, during the recent visit of the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov to Azerbaijan, the parties signed a number of documents aimed at strengthening strategic relations between the countries. Kyrgyz political expert Almaz Usuvaliyev noted that Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan always had good relations. "Many Azerbaijanis live in Kyrgyzstan, and feel like they are in their own family. The laying of the foundation of the Azerbaijan Culture and Leisure Park in Bishkek is also a desire to show friendship between the people of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan," he said. The people of Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan are united by friendship and brotherly relations, Usuvaliyev added. He also stressed that today Azerbaijan, being the founder of the Organization of Turkic States, seeks to strengthen the influence of this organization. Thus, along with an active policy of developing relations with European countries, Azerbaijan doesn't forget about important partners in Asia, striving to strengthen its position and develop relations in all areas with its closest strategic partners. However, the group insisted in a statement that it ``has no knowledge of the arrival and residence'' of al-Zawahri in Afghanistan. The statement marked the first time the Taliban addressed Sunday's drone strike that killed the head of the al-Qaida network on the balcony of a Kabul safe house that U.S. officials said was linked to a Taliban leader. The killing of al-Zawahri has further strained relations between the Taliban and the West, particularly as they seek an urgent infusion of cash to handle an economic catastrophe there following the U.S. withdrawal from the country a year ago. The Taliban had promised in the 2020 Doha Agreement with the U.S. that they would not harbor al-Qaida members or those seeking to attack the U.S. In Thursday's statement, the Taliban appeared to address those concerns. They said they ``ordered the detection and intelligence agencies to conduct serious and comprehensive investigations on various aspects of the mentioned event.'' The statement also contained assurances to the West, saying that ``there is no danger from the territory of Afghanistan to any country including America.'' It said that the Taliban want the implementation of the Doha Agreement. The strike early Sunday shook awake Shirpur, once a district of historic buildings that were bulldozed in 2003 to make way for luxury homes for officials in Afghanistan's Western-backed government and international aid organizations. After the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, senior Taliban moved into some of the abandoned homes there. U.S. officials have said al-Zawahri was staying at the home of a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. Haqqani is the deputy head of the Taliban, serves as interior minister in their government and heads the Haqqani network, a powerful faction within the movement. The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamic insurgent group, built around the family of the same name. In the 1980s, it fought Soviet forces and over the past 20 years, it battled U.S.-led NATO troops and the former Afghanistan government. The U.S. government maintains a $10 million bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani for attacks on American troops and Afghan civilians. But the Haqqanis, from Afghanistan's eastern Khost province, have rivals within the Taliban leadership, mostly from the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Some believe Sirajuddin Haqqani wants more power. Other Taliban figures have opposed the Haqqanis' attacks against civilians in Kabul and elsewhere during the insurgency. During the first half of 2022, al-Zawahri increasingly reached out to supporters with video and audio messages, including assurances that al-Qaida can compete with the Islamic State group for leadership of a global movement, a report by the United Nations' Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said. The needs of displaced persons living in and outside camps, and returnees remain high said the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM). After seizing swathes of Iraq in 2014, IS jihadists carried out horrific massacres, including in the northern region of Sinjar where the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi minority -- a monotheistic, esoteric community -- has long been rooted. A lack of adequate shelter and basic services such as running water. electricity, health care and education is making durable solutions difficult for Yazidis returning home or seeking to do so. "Families are forced to focus on meeting their most basic needs rather than on meaningfully rebuilding their lives," the IOM said. IS destroyed around 80 percent of public infrastructure and 70 percent of civilian homes in Sinjar city and its surrounding areas, the Geneva-based agency said. IS fighters also destroyed the region's natural resources and farmland. "Mass executions, forced conversions, abduction and enslavement, systematic sexual violence and other heinous acts" perpetrated by IS "reflect a genocidal effort to destroy this historically-persecuted ethno-religious minority," the IOM said. More than 2,700 people remain missing, the agency added. Some are known to be held by IS, which persecuted Yazidis for their non-Muslim faith, but the whereabouts of others is uncertain. Generational impact Survivors among the non-Arab, Kurdish-speaking minority are unable to mourn lost loved ones, many of whom lie in unmarked and mass graves still awaiting exhumation, said the IOM. "The scale of the atrocities committed against the Yazidi community is such that it will have an impact on generations to come," said Sandra Orlovic, IOM Iraq's reparations officer. "The government of Iraq and the international community need to create conditions that will assure Yazidis that such atrocities will not happen again and support them in healing and rebuilding their lives." The Norwegian Refugee Council said in May that violence and sluggish reconstruction had prevented Sinjar city's Yazidi, Muslim Kurdish and Arab residents from returning home, as had a surge in violence earlier in the month. "A staggering 99 percent of those who applied for government compensation had not received any funding for damaged property," the aid group added. In early May, fighting broke out between Iraqi troops and Yazidi fighters affiliated with Turkey's banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). More than 10,000 people fled the fighting, adding to the displaced population. The worst plane crash in Air France history killed people of 33 nationalities, and families from around the world are among the plaintiffs in the case. They have fought for more than a decade to see the case come to trial. The investigation found multiple factors contributed to the crash of Flight 447. The trial is expected to focus on pilot error, and the icing over of external sensors called pitot tubes. An Associated Press investigation at the time found that Airbus had known since at least 2002 about problems with the type of pitots used on the jet that crashed, but failed to replace them until after the crash. Air France is accused of not having provided sufficient training to deal with problematic pitots. The companies say they are not criminally responsible. Air France has already compensated the families of those killed. The A330-200 plane disappeared from radars over the Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and Senegal with 216 passengers and 12 crew members aboard. It took two years to find the plane and its black box recorders on the ocean floor, at depths of more than 13,000 feet. The accident later prompted changes in how pilots are trained and new regulations on airspeed sensors. Many women and children were among those trying to escape the floodwaters in the Ogbaru council area of Anambra on Friday, Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency said. "Eighty-five of them packed into a single boat and the weight overpowered the boat," said Godwin Thickman, the regional head of the emergency management agency. He said the boat could not move freely because it ran into submerged trees and the roofs of houses. "It capsized and only nine survived. The remaining 76 were yet to be found,'' he said. Nigeria is battling its worst floods in a decade blamed mainly on the release of excess water from Lagdo dam in neighboring Cameroon and unusual rainfall. More than 300 people have been killed this year by the floods. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has urged rescue officials to do all they can to account for the missing passengers. Rescue officials, though, have not found any additional survivors over the last two days, suggesting there is little chance of survival for many of those missing. In a statement released by Lebanon's Presidency, Aoun said he "hopes to complete all the arrangements related to the demarcation of the southern maritime borders within the next few days, after the indirect negotiations led by the American mediator Amos Hochstein made good progress, and gaps between the two parties narrowed." "Reaching an agreement on maritime border demarcation will enable the exploration for oil and gas in the Lebanese fields located within the exclusive economic zone, which will achieve a new momentum for the process of economic revival," said the statement. Hochstein has been in contact with both Lebanon and Israel during the past months, hoping to settle their dispute on maritime borders. The negotiations on maritime border demarcation between the two sides were launched in 2020 under the auspices of the United Nations with American mediation and then stopped in May 2021 due to differences between the two parties over disputed area. In an interview with an Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington DC, Samuel Warburg, the regional spokesman for the US State Department, stressed the importance of the coming climate change summit in Sharm El-Sheikh (COP27) and discussed various regional issues. During the interview, Warburg also reiterated the USs commitment to mitigating the effects of the Ukraine war on Egypt and other regional countries, especially when it comes to energy and food security. He discussed the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations in Vienna, saying that Washington was prepared for any outcome. The regional spokesman echoed the administrations support for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians towards a two-state solution, saying that Washington does not want to focus on other files, such as full Palestinian membership in the United Nations. Finally, he addressed the situation in Libya, acknowledging its importance to Egypt and stressed that any solution must come from within Libya itself, and cannot be imposed from abroad. Ahram Online: First, how do you see the Egyptian efforts to make the climate summit a success? And what can the US administration offer in this regard? Samuel Warburg: There is no doubt that the climate summit, which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh next November, is of great importance as it comes at a crucial stage the world is going through, evidenced by the participation of high-level officials from the United States in it. It is necessary to stress that the United States and other major countries such as China bear the responsibility and should not unload them on the developing countries, but rather help them to take the necessary measures to address climate change. The summit will come out with positive results. There is a common vision. The exchange of ideas and the development of proposed solutions must be a collective effort. AO: Do you think that President Biden's speech attacking Russia might affect Putin's decision-making and cause him to retract his threats to use a nuclear weapon or do something else? SW: Regarding President Joe Biden's warning to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin against the use of a nuclear weapons, I say that so far it seems that this war was chosen by one person without a doubt, and without the will of the Russian people who know nothing about it and do not support it because the Russian government has prevented any news about it. In this war, the United States, in coordination and cooperation with our allies, will continue to provide defence and military assistance to the Ukrainian people. Putin and his government bear all [responsibility for] the negative repercussions and effects on food security, supply and energy in Europe. As long as Putin continues this war against the Ukrainian people, we will continue to provide military and defence assistance to Kyiv, and also help countries that suffer from the repercussions of this war, including challenges from food security, energy, etc. President Biden, in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly, talked about how we are providing an additional $3 billion for food security and related projects. We know that many Middle Eastern countries and their people suffer from food shortages, especially since all wheat sources are now closed in Ukraine, and this is a big challenge. Therefore, the United States, through the International Development Agency and through our participation and contribution to the World Food Program, will continue to support them. Al-Ahram Correspondent in Washington DC Sahar Zahran interviews Samuel Warburg, the regional spokesman for the US State Department AO: The negotiations in Vienna over the Iranian nuclear agreement have reached a dead end. What are the USs options? SW: We do not see that we have reached the end of these negotiations if we take into account the course of the negotiations through 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. I mean, these negotiations took us a lot of time. But this does not mean that we should sit silently for several years. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken were clear that it is imperative that the negotiations lead to a result. Biden was clear from the beginning that he would not allow the Iranian regime to possess nuclear weapons. Washington is ready for all scenarios, whether with a return to the nuclear agreement or without it. AO: Could Israel take a unilateral step that would surprise the world? SW: It is not possible for me to speak on behalf of the Israeli government. The United States, as we have heard for years from different administrations, supports Israels right to self-defence. If we talk about Irans role in financing terrorism or we talk about Hamas and Hezbollah, we say that Israel has the right to self-defence. AO: There are demands for Palestine to become a full member of the United Nations. How can the United States of America support this request? SW: In this regard, I would like to express my gratitude to the Egyptian government for the role that President El-Sisi played in ending the recent violence in the Gaza Strip and for all the efforts made by the Egyptian government to calm things down. As President Biden has said, the Palestinian and Israeli people deserve prosperity, stability and security. The United States believes that the two-state solution is the most appropriate solution. We in this administration have resumed dialogue and relations with the Palestinians, which were unfortunately severed by the previous US administration. We have resumed humanitarian and economic assistance not only to the Palestinian people, but also to the United Nations and UNRWA. The United States does not dictate to Israel what steps it should take to achieve this, but we are talking about the current situation and the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Biden administration urges all parties to refrain from any unilateral steps, including settlements and anything else, because these steps do not create the appropriate conditions for the resumption of dialogue between the two sides. In general, we have contact now with the Palestinian people and Palestinian officials, and we will continue to do so and will build on this communication to urge the two sides to sit at the negotiating table. Regarding Palestines request for full membership in the United Nations, I think that the Palestinians should focus on direct negotiations and the United States supports the right of the Palestinians to have a homeland in which the Palestinians live side-by-side with the Israelis, and this is our focus now. The administration believes that the most appropriate solution is the two-state solution. AO: What about Security Council reform? SW: President Biden, in his address to the General Assembly, called for reforming the Security Council and said the time has come for that at the General Assembly. AO: Regarding the existing divisions in the Middle East, especially in Libya, do you think that the US involvement in this regard is weak? SW: The US supports the sovereignty of the Libyan state and believes that any solution in Libya must be between the Libyans themselves. It is not possible for the United States, Russia, Turkey, or any other country to impose any solution on the Libyan people. Therefore, the special envoy is in contact with all parties and had some meetings in New York on the sidelines of the General Assembly, and dialogue took place with all parties. We know that some countries in the region have a great interest in the affairs inside Libya. There are challenges, no doubt, and without a government, consensus or a common vision, this will lead to a vacuum that will unfortunately be exploited by the militias. Therefore, we are in contact with the Egyptian government because we know that the chaos in Libya will affect our friends in Egypt. Search Keywords: Short link: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said on Tuesday that Egypt is keen on developing cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) to enhance the healthcare system and medical services in Egypt. El-Sisi's remarks came during his meeting on Tuesday with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in the presence of Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar in Cairo, Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady said. Related WHO chief to attend 69th session of Regional Committee for East Mediterranean in Egypt The Egyptian President valued the WHO's role and efforts, under Ghebreyesus, during the coronavirus period. El-Sisi also noted that the State is keen to apply the universal health insurance system across the nation as a national priority in line with Egypt Vision 2030. Meanwhile, Ghebreyesus lauded Egypt's health efforts, especially the 100 Million Health initiative, which remarkably contributed to offering better services for the Egyptians, saying WHO is keen on promoting cooperation with Egypt to benefit from its expertise as a successful one at the global level. Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Egypt on Sunday to attend the 69th session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean (RC69) taking place 10-13 October in Cairo. Search Keywords: Short link: Deadly Russian missile strikes hit the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv Monday as part of what Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted was a "massive strike" against Ukraine in response to the recent destructive attack on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. The Ukrainian military said Russia launched a barrage of 84 cruise missiles and 24 drones, hitting at least 14 areas of the country, and killing at least 14 people. Most of the attacks on Kyiv hit the center of the city, killing at least six people there and wounding 12 others in populated areas, including parks and tourist sites. The attacks also caused a blackout in much of the country, with hundreds of thousands of people without power Monday night. U.S. President Joe Biden and Western allies were quick to condemn the attacks and vowed to continue to send armaments to Kyiv's forces to help fend off Moscow's invasion, now in its eighth month. Biden said in a statement that Russia's latest missile launches "once again demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr. Putin's illegal war on the Ukrainian people." "These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes," Biden said. "Alongside our allies and partners, we will continue to impose costs on Russia for its aggression, hold Putin and Russia accountable for its atrocities and war crimes, and provide the support necessary for Ukrainian forces to defend their country and their freedom." In a phone call later Monday, Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington would provide Ukraine with advanced air defense systems, according to a statement from the White House. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was "shocked and appalled by the vicious attacks on Ukrainian cities. Putin's Russia has again shown the world what it stands for: brutality and terror." Putin told a meeting of his security council that the strikes targeted Ukraine's energy, military and communications infrastructure, and that they were in response to an attack Saturday on a bridge linking Russia to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Moscow illegally seized in 2014. "It is obvious that the Ukrainian secret services ordered, organized and carried out the terrorist attack aimed at destroying Russia's critical civilian infrastructure," Putin said. Airlines are reluctant to boost flights to Japan and other overseas destinations despite a surge in demand, which is driving up ticket prices. Travelers are expected to keep paying double or triple the pre-pandemic prices. Round trips from Incheon to Osaka cost between W500,000 and W800,000, from Incheon to Tokyo's Narita between W400,000 and W600,000, and more than W700,000 from Gimpo to Haneda (US$1=W1,412). Back in 2019, plane tickets to Japan cost W100,000-200,000 for the round trip. Travel bookings to Japan at Hana Tour surged 1,268 percent in the first three weeks of September compared to a year ago and at Mode Tour 2,400 percent, but airlines are dragging their feet putting on more flights. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un watched seven short- and mid-range missile launches that simulated nuclear attacks on South Korea in recent weeks, state media said Monday. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the launches were designed to simulate striking major South Korean facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. In a frenzy of activity from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, the North fired ballistic missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,500 km, sometimes at a rate of two a day. "Even though the enemy continues to talk about dialogue and negotiations, we do not have anything to talk about nor do we feel the need to do so," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. He added the nuclear combat forces would defend the North's "dignity, sovereign rights and rights to live," and pledged to "further strengthen the forces in every way." Monday marked the 77th founding anniversary of the Workers Party. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has arrived in Kyrgyzstan for a state visit. A guard of honor was arranged for President Ilham Aliyev at Bishkek Manas International Airport decorated with the national flags of the two countries. The Azerbaijani leader was welcomed by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's wife Ri Sol-ju made her first public appearance for some time during an inspection of missile drills targeting South Korea and the U.S. It is the first time that Ri, whose activities are normally limited to more ladylike pursuits such as musical performances, has made an appearance at military drills. On Monday, the 77th founding anniversary of the Workers Party, the Rodong Sinmun and other state media outlets illustrated reports of Kim's inspection of the drills from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9 with photos that showed Ri by his side. KYODO NEWS - Oct 11, 2022 - 17:23 | World, All Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced Tuesday he will run in the election that will be held within the next few weeks. The 97-year-old, who nearly died when he suffered a heart attack last December, told a press conference that he will defend his parliamentary seat for the northern constituency of Langkawi, a popular tourist island. Mahathir said in a press conference after chairing a party meeting on preparations for the poll that he will defend his seat in Langkawi "but not as the candidate for future prime minister." "We didn't decide who will be the prime minister. A prime minister candidate is only relevant if we win," he said. Current Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of parliament on Monday paving the way for a general election that must be held within 60 days under the constitution. It is widely expected that polling will be conducted before mid-November to avoid the monsoon season that usually brings flood across the country. Mahathir said he believes the election was called because the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization, wanted to take advantage of the "weak and disorganized" opposition. Political analysts predict that the rainy season will mean a low voter turnout and that will favor UMNO. Mahathir held the record as the world's oldest head of government when he returned to the top job for a second run at age 94 after leading an opposition alliance to an unexpected win in the May 2018 election. He was the longest serving prime minister in his first turn from 1981 to 2003. He returned to active politics in 2018 in his quest to defeat his predecessor Najib Abdul Razak. Najib is currently serving a 12-year jail sentence over the scandal involving the state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad in which authorities estimated some $4.5 billion had been misappropriated and millions of dollars later found its way into Najib's personal bank accounts. Mahathir's second stint was short-lived. His government lasted barely two years before political desertion led to his coalition's breaking up and he resigned in February 2020. Mahathir now heads an ethnic Malay-centric party called Pejuang, which has formed a coalition with other pro-Malay parties and nongovernmental organizations called Gerakan Tanah Air. The coalition had planned to run in the election under the GTA banner, but it has yet to receive government approval. Mahathir said GTA members will use the Pejuang flag and logo in the election. Related coverage: Malaysia PM dissolves parliament for early general election Malaysia's jailed ex-PM Najib likely to attempt comeback: Mahathir Ex-Malaysian PM Mahathir readmitted to hospital but stable: kin KYODO NEWS - Oct 11, 2022 - 23:02 | All, Japan An Israeli resident of Japan who was being held at a detention center near Tokyo after being charged in 2020 for smuggling drugs into the country has died, his lawyer said Tuesday. The facility and the Yokohama District Court had refused to approve special treatment for Amnon Hanoh Tenenboim, 60, even though he was suspected of having a heart condition, lawyer Takashi Takano said. But the Yokohama detention center said the same day that Tenenboim had been found lying on a bed in a solitary cell with an elastic hair band stretched from under his chin to the top of his head, suggesting that he may have committed suicide. Tenenboim had undergone heart surgery in Israel around a month before Kanagawa prefectural police arrested him for smuggling a large amount of illegal stimulants in November 2020, according to Takano. Tenenboim had complained of poor health immediately following the arrest, but his applications to prefectural police and the detention center for medical assistance from March 2021 were not approved. Last month, Tenenboim asked the court to suspend his detention so he could receive professional medical treatment, but his request was similarly denied. Tenenboim was forbidden from seeing anyone besides his lawyer, which also contributed to his mental distress, according to Takano, who maintains that his client was innocent. "I requested (Tenenboim's) detention be suspended while providing a doctor's opinion that his condition was worsening, but the request was not granted. It was inhumane," Takano said. The court declined to comment on the matter. Related coverage: Japan gov't not to resubmit immigration bill in fall parliament Sri Lankan family seeks Japan panel review over detainee's death State told to pay damages for detainee's injuries at Japan immigration KYODO NEWS - Oct 11, 2022 - 21:37 | All, Japan The foreign ministers of Japan and Canada agreed Tuesday to begin negotiations on signing an agreement for exchanging intelligence to boost security cooperation. Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his Canadian counterpart Melanie Joly announced the two nations' action plan toward realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific region at a joint press event held after their meeting in Tokyo, with the plan envisioning an agreement on the intel-sharing accord "as soon as possible." The move comes as the Group of Seven industrialized nations, including Japan and Canada, deepen their defense cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region where China has been ramping up military presence, while pressuring Russia over its invasion of Ukraine with sweeping economic sanctions. Hayashi and Joly also expressed their "strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo including those by force in the East and South China seas," in a veiled counter to Beijing's growing maritime assertiveness in the area. "Japan, together with Canada, will play a leading role to meet the international community's most important strategic challenge in securing peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region," Hayashi told the press. Joly referred to Beijing's "escalatory actions" in the East and South China seas as well as its "coercive military actions" in the Taiwan Strait as "unacceptable threats to the regional stability and security." Canada and Japan are united in condemning such actions, she said. Japan has already concluded similar intelligence-sharing pacts with the United States, France, Australia, Britain, India, Italy, South Korea and Germany, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to the Foreign Ministry. Japan and Canada also pledged to expand their defense cooperation such as joint drills and personnel exchanges, and to work together in securing supplies of energy resources such as liquefied natural gas, according to the action plan. Amid fears that North Korea may be preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test, its first since September 2017, the two ministers confirmed their close cooperation in dealing with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development, and its illegal ship-to-ship transfers of goods. As members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal, they also vowed to uphold its high standards for market access and rules, and the principle of not tolerating "economic coercion and unfair trade practices," apparently reflecting their cautious stance toward China's bid to join the 11-member pact. Joly is on a trip to South Korea and Japan from Sunday through Saturday, according to the Canadian government. Related coverage: FOCUS: Yen weakness likely to mute impact of Japan's reopening for airlines Japan says Britain may join trans-Pacific free trade pact this year G-7 reaffirms support for Ukraine, raps Russia's "sham referenda" By Rudy Madanir, KYODO NEWS - Oct 11, 2022 - 10:23 | World, All A radical Indonesian Muslim cleric, thought to be behind the 2002 terrorist bombings that killed 202 people on the resort island of Bali, said in a recent interview that he still believes Indonesia should implement Islamic law, vowing to work to make it happen. Abu Bakar Bashir, 84, who was freed last year after serving time in a separate case for funding a militant training camp, spoke with Kyodo News last month near Solo on the main island of Java ahead of the bombings' 20th anniversary on Wednesday. Bashir is the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group to which the perpetrators of the Bali attack belonged. The group is also linked to the international terrorism network al-Qaida. The attack on Bali nightclubs crowded with foreign tourists killed 88 Australians, the most among foreign nations. Two Japanese also died. Indonesia experienced a slew of terror attacks in subsequent years, including the bombing of an upscale hotel in Jakarta in 2003 that killed 12 people. Days after the Bali attack, Bashir was arrested over a separate case and later imprisoned. After being released in 2004, he was sent to prison again in 2005 for conspiracy over the Bali bombings but was acquitted by the Supreme Court the following year. In the interview, Bashir said the attack was wrong but that he believes three men executed in 2008 for their involvement in the bombings had "good intentions and purposes" because they were trying to "get rid of sinful deeds" such as music and alcohol that go against Islamic law. During his trial over the bombings, Bashir was found to have given his blessing when the plan was insinuated prior to the attack. The Supreme Court overturned the determination, finding no orders given by the cleric or conspiracy involving him. Bashir repeated in the interview that he is not a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and never ordered the attack. About Indonesia being a secular democracy and the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, with more than 230 million adherents who primarily practice a moderate form of Islam, Bashir rejected it as a mistake. "What we have to do now is work hard to make Indonesia implement Islamic law because Indonesia is actually supposed to be an Islamic state. But successive governments have not been willing to implement it," the cleric said. "I have sent two letters to the president after being released from prison," Bashir said, adding he plans to write more letters to President Joko Widodo to urge him to accept his idea. Bashir said Indonesia partially implements Islamic law, such as through religious affairs offices, which deal with Islamic marital registration. He called for establishing an Islamic state, saying that is the only way to practice perfect Islamic law. Wearing a white robe, the white-bearded Bashir still routinely leads an Islamic prayer five times a day at a big mosque at the center of his Al-Mukmin Islamic school. Despite a worsening health condition, he forces himself to receive guests and walk within the school complex and around his residence located inside the complex. He uses a wooden stick and is aided by his son to walk. The school, which he founded, marked its 50th anniversary this year. It is attended by hundreds of students coming from all over the country. In August, an association of school alumni, now numbering around 14,000, held an Independence Day flag-raising ceremony in the school compound, attended by, among others, members of the military and police, and government officials in addition to some 600 students, Bashir said. In 2011, Bashir was handed a 15-year jail term after being found guilty of funding a terrorist training camp in the westernmost province of Aceh. He was released in January last year after his sentence was shortened for good behavior. KYODO NEWS - Oct 12, 2022 - 04:30 | All, World TOKYO - Leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized countries on Tuesday warned Russia that any use of a nuclear weapon would be met with "severe consequences," as they reaffirmed their resolve to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Moscow's aggression. The G-7 leaders got together following a wave of Russian attacks in retaliation for an operation attributed to Ukrainian forces late last week that damaged a bridge connecting Russia with Crimea. Moscow responded by unleashing one of its largest missile strikes on Ukraine since its invasion began in late February. "We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms," the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union said in a joint statement, highlighting that civilian infrastructure and cities across Ukraine were targeted. "Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime. We will hold (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin and those responsible to account," they said. Fears are also mounting that Russia may use a tactical nuclear weapon for a limited strike in the war against its neighbor, with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida telling reporters, "We must not make Ukraine a new bombsite of nuclear weapons." People remove wreckage on a street in Ukraine's capital Kyiv on Oct. 10, 2022, after Russia's missile attacks earlier in the day. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo After the G-7 virtual meeting, Kishida said the member nations confirmed that Russia's attack on citizens and civilian areas in Ukraine "cannot be justified," while agreeing to strengthen cooperation in tackling Moscow's aggression against Kyiv. "Threats and use of nuclear weapons by Russia must not happen," Kishida said, adding that the world "must continue the history of no use of nuclear arms." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared at the outset of the videoconference, saying he cannot hold dialogue with Putin and urging the G-7 countries to reinforce their sanctions against the Russian energy industry. Zelenskyy, who has been trying to bolster economic and military ties with the G-7 nations, called Putin a "leader without future." The G-7 leaders deplored in their joint statement what they view as Russia's "escalatory steps," including the partial mobilization of reservists and nuclear saber-rattling. "We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support and will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes," they also said, adding that they are committed to supporting Ukraine in meeting its winter preparedness needs. Russia has said its missile strikes on Monday against Kyiv and other major cities targeted military and energy facilities, while Ukraine said at least 20 people were killed across the country. Kishida also said Putin's declaration last month of the annexation of four occupied regions amounting to some 15 percent of Ukraine's territory, as well as the supposed referendums in the areas through which Moscow has justified the move, are "unacceptable." Kyiv and the West have condemned the polls as illegitimate. The G-7 states have been tightening their economic sanctions against Moscow, such as a freeze on assets held by Putin and the country's central bank, and pledging to reduce their reliance on Russian energy resources including natural gas and crude oil. The virtual summit also came after Japan reopened its embassy in Kyiv last Wednesday following a seven-month closure due to Russia's invasion, in an effort to show the unity of the G-7 states. The six other G-7 nations already resumed operations at their embassies in Ukraine earlier this year. Earlier Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference that Tokyo has no intention to scale back or stop diplomatic operations in Ukraine's capital again at this juncture. During the G-7 videoconference, meanwhile, Kishida said he called for the international community to pursue further responses to military threats from North Korea in the wake of a spate of recent ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang. Related coverage: No imminent signs of Russia nuke use after Biden warns of Armageddon Belarus, Ukraine, Russia rights activists win Nobel Peace Prize U.S. offers new security aid to Ukraine after Russia's annexations BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Nearly a decade ago, when then newly-elected leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made its debut at the Great Hall of People after the first plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the world was speculating how the world's most populous nation and second largest economy led by Xi Jinping would reach out to the rest of the global community, and what kind of role the country would play in an era of mounting changes and challenges. During his first overseas trip as Chinese president in March 2013, Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, elaborated on China's vision of fostering a new type of international relations with win-win cooperation at the core and building a community with a shared future for mankind. Over the past decade, under Xi's leadership, China has been committed to the path of peaceful development, and devoted itself to addressing global challenges, facilitating win-win cooperation and making the global governance system more just and more equitable. As we have observed, China's approach is in line with today's zeitgeist, and conducive to maintaining peace and stability, bolstering world economic growth and building a world of common prosperity and with a shared future. WIN-WIN COOPERATION Also in 2013, the Chinese president proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road successively in his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia. This is how the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) took shape. Nine years on, the initiative has substantially strengthened partnerships, promoted connectivity and pushed forward common development worldwide. The annual trade volume between China and around 150 countries which have participated in the BRI expanded from 1.04 trillion U.S. dollars in 2013 to 1.8 trillion dollars in 2021, a quantum leap of 73 percent over eight years. According to a World Bank report, the initiative could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million out of moderate poverty globally, and boost trade by 2.8-9.7 percent for participating countries and by 1.7-6.2 percent for the whole world. Mohamed Fayez Farahat, director of Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said China-proposed initiatives reflect the country's contribution to global development and its support for developing countries and emerging economies. "China defends the causes of developing countries on the international stage, and also plays an active role in important international organizations," the expert noted. FOR BETTER GLOBAL GOVERNANCE In a rapidly changing world, one of the world's priorities is the need to improve global governance. The lingering COVID-19 pandemic, regional conflicts, backlash against globalization and other complicated factors are intertwining with each other, and the deficits in peace, security, trust and governance are widening. On various occasions in the past decade, the Chinese president has underlined that the solutions lie in real multilateralism and to the UN-centered international system, as well as in joint efforts to forge a new type of international relations, which features mutual respect, equity and justice, and win-win cooperation, and build a community with a shared future for mankind. In his speech at the general debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Xi called for staying true to multilateralism and safeguarding the international system with the UN at its core. "Global governance should be based on the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits so as to ensure that all countries enjoy equal rights and opportunities and follow the same rules," Xi said. Over the years, China has been walking the talk by actively involving in such global affairs as the pandemic fight, poverty reduction, climate actions and peacekeeping, and the building of an open world economy. China has made itself a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of the international order, a provider of public goods. Shaping a more just and effective global governance needs a collective drive. That is why China has been working relentlessly with other countries, notably the developing world, for this end. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the world's largest and most populous regional institution, stands as a good example of how Beijing is working with its partners to promote the new type of international relations. In its 21-year history, the SCO member countries have been working closely to enhance cooperation in various fields including security, economy and trade, public health and culture. It has developed into a constructive force in improving global governance and promoting stability and development. With the rise of emerging economies, developing countries have become more vocal in global governance, and begun to push the globalization process toward a fairer and more inclusive direction through various multilateral cooperation mechanisms and platforms, said Sheriff Ghali Ibrahim, head of the department of political science and international relations at the University of Abuja. China has proved to be a pioneer, since its concept of globalization has largely promoted a shared future for humanity, with no discrimination, segregation, or exclusion, the Nigerian expert said. A FUTURE SHARED BY ALL The still ravaging pandemic is a constant reminder that people are living in a global village, where the fate of all nations has never been so closely connected before. In order to better respond to such planetary woes in the future, the international community is expected to stand in solidarity and work in harmony with one accord. With a deep insight into the world's shared aspirations, the Chinese president has proposed the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, contributing China's wisdom to eliminating the deficits in peace, security, trust and governance, and highlighting the necessity and importance of building a world with common development and collective security in the profoundly changing global landscape. For Sudheendra Kulkarni, former chairman of Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation, development and security are "two sides of the same coin and both are indivisible." "No country can achieve security if other countries are insecure, and no country can achieve development if other countries' development is in danger. We must consider security and development in a global context," Kulkarni said. Adhering to the concept of building a community with a shared future, China has been working together with the rest of the world to safeguard true multilateralism, maintain stable global supply chains, facilitate free trade and investment, and pursue green and low-carbon development. From its strong support for an open world economy to its firm commitment to carbon reduction and neutrality, China has shown its determination with actions. When attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov was deeply impressed by the motto "Together for a Shared Future." "This (is) a call for the international community to build a community with a shared future for mankind. Whether we are a small country or a big country, in the context of globalization, we all have one future and one destiny," he told Xinhua in a recent interview. In the eyes of former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Xi's call for building a community with a shared future for mankind is highly relevant and necessary in this era. Building a sense of shared future is important for the world to avoid fragmentation and address challenges, and for Asia to safeguard peace and promote common development, Hatoyama said. "On the earth we live, not only the environment functions as a whole, but people are also interconnected." A Chinese constructor in Pakistan has donated relief supplies to Pakistan's flood-affected areas. Produced by Xinhua Global Service Foreign ministers of Egypt and Greece held talks in Cairo on Sunday, following a recent oil and gas exploration deals signed between Turkiye and the Libyan Government of National Unity. Produced by Xinhua Global Service BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Argentine President Alberto Fernandez reshuffled his cabinet on Monday, appointing three new women ministers, the office of the presidency said. Fernandez "has called on three women of different ages, geographic origins and extensive experience in their fields to be part of his cabinet in order to deepen the breadth of views and management efficiency," his office said in a statement. The president appointed Buenos Aires congresswoman Victoria Tolosa Paz to head the Ministry of Social Development, replacing Juan Zabaleta, who held the position since August 2021. Raquel Olmos, an economist and current vice president of the Bank of Foreign Trade and Investment, will take over at the Labor Ministry, succeeding Claudio Moroni, who held the position since December 2019. Fernandez appointed Ayelen Mazzina, current secretary of Women, Diversity and Equality for the province of San Luis, to lead the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity, replacing Elizabeth Gomez Alcorta, who held the post since December 2019. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys spokeswoman Leyla Abdullayeva has urged the international community to hold Armenia accountable for the missile attacks on Azerbaijani cities during the 44-day war in 2020, Azernews reports. Abdullayev made the statements at a round table discussion to mark the second anniversary of Armenia's terrorist missile assault on Azerbaijan's Ganja city on October 11, 2020. She stressed that Armenia committed numerous war crimes during the occupation of Azerbaijani territories over the past 30 years. Speaking of the terrorist incident in Ganja in 2020, Abdullayeva underlined that the missile strikes were planned to be carried out at night to kill as many people as possible. This is definitely a war crime, as well as a flagrant breach of the Geneva Conventions, of which Armenia is a signatory, Abdullayeva stressed. The diplomat said that local and international media representatives witnessed the aftermath of Armenia's missile strikes on Ganja. "All the materials were collected according to the protocol and an appeal was made to the International Court of Justice. We are talking about violations of human rights, crimes committed on the basis of hatred, she noted. According to the convention's provisions, since the targeted rocket attacks on Ganja were perpetrated out of hatred for the Azerbaijani people, international organizations should take a fair stance on the subject and exert pressure on Armenia, she added. Azerbaijan will do its best to bring the perpetrators to justice. Unfortunately, so far, not a single person has been brought to justice for the war crimes committed by Armenia," the spokesperson added. Today marks the 2nd Anniversary of vicious attack on the city of Ganja of Azerbaijan by the armed forces of Armenia killing 10 civilians & injuring 40. No one held accountable so far for this war crime in Armenia. Perpetrators of this crime should be brought to JUSTICE! Abdullayeva tweeted. The Armenian armed forces launched missile strikes on Ganja city five times on separate days in October 2020. On October 4, the first missile attack was carried out, killing one person and wounding more than 30 others. The second missile attack occurred on October 5, injuring three individuals. On October 8, a third missile strike was carried out but no casualties were registered. On October 11, a fourth missile attack killed ten civilians and injured more than 40 more. On October 17, the fifth missile attack occurred, killing sixteen civilians and injuring 55 others. The attacks caused significant damage to the city's infrastructure, homes, and vehicles. Children and women were among those slain and injured in Armenia's brutal onslaught. BEIJING, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Taikonauts aboard China's Tiangong space station will for the first time livestream a science lecture from the Wentian lab module, the China Manned Space Agency said on Tuesday. The class is scheduled to begin at 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday (Beijing Time). The Shenzhou-14 taikonauts Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will amaze audiences with their introduction of the lab module, micro-gravity performances of sci-tech experiments, and presentation of in-orbit plant growth research. The three space teachers will also interact with students on Earth during the class, which is aimed at popularizing the knowledge of manned space flights and encouraging young people to develop an interest in science, the agency said in a statement. Wednesday's class is the third from the Chinese space station. Part of the teaching content has been selected from the suggestions given by young people. The previous two lectures of the "Tiangong Class" series were delivered by the Shenzhou-13 taikonauts from the station's core module Tianhe. Wentian is the first lab component of China's under-construction space station. It was launched on July 24. Taikonauts will also invite students to carry out related experiments on the ground, to perceive the differences between space and Earth, and discover the fun derived from such explorations, the agency said. WENCHANG, Hainan, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Long March-7 Y6 carrier rocket, tasked with sending China's space station cargo vessel Tianzhou-5 into orbit, has been transported to the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of Hainan on Tuesday. The rocket will undergo assembly and testing together with Tianzhou-5, which arrived earlier, the China Manned Space Agency said on Tuesday. China will carry out four more missions -- the launch of the Mengtian lab module, the Tianzhou-5 cargo craft, and the Shenzhou-15 manned spaceship, as well as bringing the Shenzhou-14 crew back to Earth -- before it completes the in-orbit construction of the space station by the end of this year. The Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China is gearing up for the manned spaceship launch and return missions. The Shenzhou-15 crew members are also stepping up training for their spaceflight, the agency said. ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's government affirmed its need for international economic and development support to confront obstacles, including the humanitarian crisis, the country's state television reported on Tuesday. Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed held a meeting with Joyce Msuya, United Nations (UN) assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator, in the Yemeni southern port city of Aden on Monday. "The repercussions of international crises doubled the humanitarian situation in our country," said Maeen, noting "it is important for the government to balance between humanitarian and development work in Yemen." During the meeting, the prime minister reviewed the reforms implemented by his government "in the field of strengthening the role of state institutions, supporting vital service sectors, and addressing many distortions that afflicted the national economy as a result of the war." He also reiterated the Yemeni government's commitment to partnership with the UN and facilitating the work of humanitarian organizations through accurately identifying areas of need in Yemen. For her part, the UN official said that she will convey to the UN and donors, "which would increase humanitarian support for Yemen in the coming period." She also expressed her aspiration to renew the truce between warring parties in Yemen. Previous reports released by the UN described Yemen's humanitarian crisis as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world due to the years-long military conflict. Last week, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg announced that no agreement had been reached to renew the expired truce between the Yemeni warring parties and called for continued efforts to facilitate the truce. The truce first went into force on April 2, and then renewed twice through Oct. 2. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia stormed several northern cities and forced the Saudi-backed Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. A prominent Turkish scholar has said that the "Chinese miracle" created by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the past decades will continue. Produced by Xinhua Global Service BEIJING, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- The 2022 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Prize for Girls' and Women's Education award ceremony was held on Tuesday in Paris, France. Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping and UNESCO special envoy for the advancement of girls' and women's education, sent a congratulatory message to the award ceremony. Peng extended sincere congratulations on the ceremony, and best wishes to the award-winning organizations from Cambodia and Tanzania. Peng said that girls' and women's education is not only related to women's own development, but also an important aspect of promoting sustainable development of the human society. The recently-held United Nations Transforming Education Summit highlighted the important role of education in promoting gender equality, and called for the empowerment of women through educational transformation, she said, adding that China has always attached great importance to girls' and women's education, and that women's ability to participate in economic and social development and related contribution have been continuously improved. Peng stressed that as the UNESCO special envoy for the advancement of girls' and women's education, she would like to work with all parties to gather strength with love, convey confidence with persistence, and jointly promote the development of girls' and women's education in a more fair, inclusive and quality direction, so as to contribute to promoting global sustainable development and building a community with a shared future for mankind. The UNESCO Prize for Girls' and Women's Education, jointly established by China and UNESCO, is the only award of the organization in promoting girls' and women's education. The prize plays an important role in promoting the concept of gender equality and excellent practical experience in education, as well as implementing the global priority of gender equality. It has received wide attention and high praise from the international community. JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Israeli and Lebanese leaders announced on Tuesday that the final version of the proposal to demarcate the maritime border has been reached. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on the day that he will convene the cabinet and government to approve the U.S.-brokered deal on Wednesday, according to a statement issued by his office. "This is a historic achievement that will strengthen Israel's security, inject billions into Israel's economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border," Lapid said. For his part, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Tuesday that the final version of the proposal is satisfying to Lebanon, according to a statement by Lebanon's Presidency. Lebanon's Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab received the final version of the proposal from U.S. Energy Envoy Amos Hochstein late Monday evening and assured that Lebanon succeeded in getting what it asked for. Aoun will conduct the necessary consultations with the house speaker and the prime minister to discuss the final version of the agreement, Bou Saab added. The negotiations on maritime border demarcation between the two sides were launched in 2020 under the auspices of the United Nations with American mediation and then stopped in May 2021 due to differences between the two parties over the disputed area. The years-long dispute concerns an area in the Eastern Mediterranean where at least two natural gas fields are located, the Israeli-developed Karish gas field and Qana, a smaller gas field that has yet to be explored. Xu Furong prepares medicine at an ICU ward at Hunan Provincial People's Hospital in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan) CHANGSHA, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- An intensive care unit (ICU) nurse in central China's Hunan Province, Xu Furong has for 14 years delivered intensive care to patients during the most vulnerable times of their lives. "ICU nurses guard lives of those who are on the brink of death. It is our duty," said Xu, a delegate to the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and a head nurse at Hunan Provincial People's Hospital. In February 2020, she volunteered to join the Hunan medical team sent to help battle the COVID-19 epidemic in Huanggang City in neighboring Hubei Province. Within three days of their arrival in Huanggang, Xu and her colleagues set up a temporary ICU and admitted 15 patients who were in critical condition. In the span of 42 days, Xu and other team members treated a total of 49 critically ill patients. None of the medical staff was infected. On the day they left, residents lined the street to see them off. "It's all worth it," Xu said. Not long after returning from Huanggang, Xu, once again, offered to join a 12-member team of medical experts of Hunan Province to aid the fight against COVID-19 in Africa. Xu and other team members visited more than 70 institutions and units in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. They offered guidance to local communities and hospitals on improving treatment procedures and plans. They also went to isolation wards and discussed cases with local medics. Before returning to China, the team submitted proposals on COVID-19 epidemic control and prevention to the two countries. Xu recalled being asked by a World Health Organization official why so many Chinese medics volunteered to offer help in areas hit hardest by the epidemic. "We will all take the initiative to rush to the frontline when there are difficulties in our country, regardless of the cost and our own lives. It's a kind of consciousness that is already in our blood," she answered. Xu and her team have thus far kept an ICU journal for 19 patients, including a 34-year-old male patient surnamed Tang, who was admitted in February 2021 for severe acute pancreatitis. Tang felt so desperate and helpless in the beginning that he thought of giving up. Encouragement and meticulous care from Xu and her team revived his aspiration for life. Xu gave a copy of the journal to him when he recovered in 95 days. "This is the most precious gift I have ever received," he said. Xu and her team have also been exploring the development of online hospital, making services outside the hospital available for some seniors in need, and patients with chronic diseases and tumor. Patients in the provincial capital of Changsha could "place an order" on the phone and there will be nurses making house calls. Xu calls it "an utmost honor" and "a huge responsibility" to be elected a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress. "I want to contribute more to the improvement of the health of the people," she said. Xu Furong poses for a photo at Hunan Provincial People's Hospital in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan) Xu Furong (C) and her colleague check the hospitalization information of patients at an ICU ward nurse station at Hunan Provincial People's Hospital in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan) Xu Furong (C) and her colleagues take care of a patient at an ICU ward at Hunan Provincial People's Hospital in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, Sept. 9, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Sihan) Xinhua correspondent visited suburban homestays in Beijing's Huairou District near the Great Wall. The bed-and-breakfast business has become an up-to-date industry for locals to generate incomes A man stands with his children outside their house surrounded by floods after heavy rains hit the Mabar District, Dhamar Province in Yemen on Aug. 23, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua) Reports released by the UN described Yemen's humanitarian crisis as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world due to the years-long military conflict. ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's government affirmed its need for international economic and development support to confront obstacles, including the humanitarian crisis, the country's state television reported on Tuesday. Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed held a meeting with Joyce Msuya, United Nations (UN) assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator, in the Yemeni southern port city of Aden on Monday. "The repercussions of international crises doubled the humanitarian situation in our country," said Maeen, noting "it is important for the government to balance between humanitarian and development work in Yemen." A malnourished child lies on the bed, waiting for the doctor to treat her, at the malnutrition treatment department of a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on July 16, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua) During the meeting, the prime minister reviewed the reforms implemented by his government "in the field of strengthening the role of state institutions, supporting vital service sectors, and addressing many distortions that afflicted the national economy as a result of the war." He also reiterated the Yemeni government's commitment to partnership with the UN and facilitating the work of humanitarian organizations through accurately identifying areas of need in Yemen. For her part, the UN official said that she will convey to the UN and donors, "which would increase humanitarian support for Yemen in the coming period." A child collects water at the Dharawan camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) near Sanaa, Yemen, on March 25, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua) She also expressed her aspiration to renew the truce between warring parties in Yemen. Previous reports released by the UN described Yemen's humanitarian crisis as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world due to the years-long military conflict. Last week, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg announced that no agreement had been reached to renew the expired truce between the Yemeni warring parties and called for continued efforts to facilitate the truce. Yemeni students are seen at the destroyed Shuhada-Alwahdah school in Al-Radhmah district, Ibb province, western Yemen, on April 11, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua) The truce first went into force on April 2, and then renewed twice through Oct. 2. Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia stormed several northern cities and forced the Saudi-backed Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa. The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million, and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia has registered encouraging socioeconomic progress despite man-made and natural challenges, Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde has said. The Ethiopian president made the remarks while addressing the joint session of the House of Peoples Representatives (HoPR) and House of Federation (HOF) Tuesday. Results gained in the macro-economic sector imply that the government has implemented effective policies that helped stand the economic instability globally, state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) quoted Zewde as saying. The president emphasized that socioeconomic progress was achieved despite challenges emanating from the ongoing conflict, drought, flooding as well as global economic instability. She said the East African country achieved "promising results" in the export trade, in which the mining and agricultural sectors have contributed the greater share of the country's export trade. Zewde further emphasized that the Ethiopian government was able to create more than 2.3 million permanent jobs for citizens during the concluded 2021/2022 Ethiopian fiscal year which ended on July 7. According to the president, the agriculture sector saw 43 percent growth while the service sector witnessed a 32 percent increase during the previous Ethiopian fiscal year. Zewde further emphasized that the Ethiopian government is working hard to ensure food security and self-sufficiency through large investments in the wheat production sector. Meanwhile, Zewde underscored that Ethiopia will continue strengthening its green development endeavors to tackle threats of food insecurity and mitigate the impacts of climate change. She further noted ongoing efforts that are underway to generate more income from the tourism sector. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is on a state visit to Kyrgyzstan, has visited the Ata-Beyit National Historical and Memorial Complex in Bishkek. President Ilham Aliyev laid a wreath at the monument. The head of state also visited the grave of outstanding Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov and put flowers at his monument. Ata Beyit Memorial Complex was constructed on July 8, 2000 with the aim of restoration and preservation of the historical memory of the most important stages of development of the Kyrgyz statehood. The memorial was named Ata-Beyit ("Resting Place of our Fathers") upon the proposal of prominent writer Chingiz Aitmatov. The total area of the Ata-Beyit Complex is 3.087 hectares. The complex contains the documents and photographs of the political development of Kyrgyzstan in the 1920-1930s, materials about the victims of the Chon-Tash burial. The cemetery is located in the center of the complex. The complex includes monuments, sculptures and a museum built in the form of ? yurt. Urkun monument at the complex in memory of the tragic events of 1916 symbolizes the struggle by the Kyrgyz people. KIGALI, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is seeking ways to advance gender equality in societies, officials said Tuesday at the opening of the 145th assembly in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The assembly, which will run until Saturday, is held under the theme "Gender equality and gender-sensitive parliaments as drivers of change for a more resilient and peaceful world." It gathered more than 1,000 delegates, including speakers and deputy speakers of parliaments from across the globe. "Gender equality and gender-sensitive institutions are drivers of peace," said Martin Chungong, the secretary general of IPU during his opening remarks. "At this assembly, we will be looking to identify ways to accelerate progress to achieve our shared goal of gender equality and to ensure that all women and girls fully enjoy rights and freedoms on an equal footing with men and boys allowing them to live dignified lives free from all forms of discrimination, mistreatment and violence and control of their own bodies and following their own minds." Addressing the assembly via video, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the lawmakers to raise their "ambition to ensure women everywhere have the same opportunities to sit at the decision-making tables as men." Women constitute 26 percent of the global average gender proportion in parliaments. With more than 61 percent women representatives, Rwanda leads countries with the biggest proportion of women lawmakers. Opening the meeting, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said despite steady gains, inequality between men and women continues to be widespread. While setting quotas takes us a step closer to equal representation, it does not address the full spectrum of inequalities in parliaments, and in society at large, said President Kagame. He observed that gender equality is better achieved when all people acknowledge that it is a right for everyone, everywhere. "Women are the backbone of resilient and peaceful societies," he said, adding that the fight against gender inequality is a shared responsibility, where "men have a duty to speak up, and not just be bystanders." "All over the world, parliaments exist to protect the interest of citizens. This objective cannot be met, without the full and active participation of women in our parliaments, especially in leadership positions," said Kagame. Other topics to be discussed by the assembly will include environmental degradation and its effects on the proliferation of terrorism, the impact of war and atrocity on the civilian population, and war and climate change as triggers of global food insecurity. NAIROBI, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's apex bank on Tuesday announced the successful separation of telecommunications and mobile money business of the country's second-largest telecom, Airtel Kenya, a first in the east African nation. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said it had welcomed the milestone done by Airtel Networks Kenya Ltd, which sets a foundation to enhance governance over its mobile money business and strengthen its operations. "This move allows the telecoms to safeguard their CBK-regulated activities from shocks emanating from other business activities, enhance resilience and help in the realization of the National Payment Strategy of 2022-2025," the CBK said in a statement issued in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. The separation paves way for the country's leading telecom Safaricom to follow suit. However, Kenya is a late-entrant in the east African region in effecting the model that is touted as the best practice globally. Uganda in May 2021 implemented a law that separated mobile money from the telecom operations of all service providers. This saw the central bank regulate mobile money as telecom service operations were left under the Uganda Communications Commission. In 2017, Tanzania became the first country in east Africa to separate mobile money from the telecom operations of firms in the country as it sought to boost accountability and efficiency in the sector. In Kenya, the matter had been controversial as proposals for market leader Safaricom to separate M-Pesa from its telecom business faced headwinds. CANBERRA, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Australia's national science agency has launched a mission to help regional areas become low emissions economies. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) on Tuesday announced that 90 million Australian dollars (56.6 million U.S. dollars) will be invested in the Towards Net Zero Mission to help industries with high carbon emissions, including steel and agriculture, to halve them by 2035. The mission will bring together governments, researchers, industries and communities in a collaborative approach to reducing emissions. Larry Marshall, chief executive of the CSIRO, said transitioning the industries would create significant economic growth opportunities on top of solving a global problem. "Our hard-to-abate industries like resources and agriculture are critical Australian advantages and are deeply embedded into the fabric of our regions -- regions that our country is built on," he said in a media release. "So, our Mission must be co-developed not just with those in the hard-to-abate industries, but also in partnership with their communities to understand the impacts and opportunities arising from new science-enabled technologies and ways of doing business. "The transformation of these hard-to-abate industries and regions is critical to our nation's future prosperity, and Australian science will ensure no one gets left behind in this enormous transition. Every Australian is part of the journey to net zero." In addition to the CSIRO, the Climate Change Authority, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources will jointly work on the mission. They will aim to identify what is needed to develop low emissions steel and aviation sectors and support low emissions agriculture. "We know that the transition to net zero involves more than just low emissions technology. If these technologies are to be widely adopted, we need to create pathways for them that support prosperity and generate other benefits to the environment and society," mission lead Michael Battaglia said. NEW DELHI, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- China's prosperous development over the past decade and its contributions to other countries have made it a role model for building a community with a shared future for mankind, said Mohammad Salim, a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in a recent interview with Xinhua. Salim has been to China to attend an international conference of Asian political parties, during which he got the opportunity to visit Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Noting that China is a "fast-growing country," he said it is the new governance practices of China that are in conformity with its prosperous development. Salim said that China has finely managed the regional imbalance. "It's not the rivalry between the developed and less developed, but as a fellow feeling, hand-holding, and taking it together," he said. He also believes that China has gone a long way in helping others apart from helping its own people, saying that the way China is diplomatically, financially and commercially coming closer to developing countries and underdeveloped countries is a classic example of building a community with a shared future for mankind. Over the past years, Salim has been closely watching India-China relations. He suggests that India needs to strengthen its relations with China in various fields. Salim said that to promote regional and global development, China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). "So many countries joined the BRI initially and they have been benefited, therefore India, being the next-door neighbor of China, should take advantage of the opportunity," he said. He also said that a Chinese value is that the world is one and humanity is one. "So now is the time we should open. Our doors and windows and our minds should open. And that will help us not only to grow, but to make a more prosperous society as well as a more liveable Earth for our next generation and future," said Salim. PARIS, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A dearth of data in many countries, including the United States, on the race and ethnicity of people arrested or killed by police presents a major barrier to tackling systemic racism, France's state-owned international news television network France 24 reported. After the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man, in Minneapolis by a white U.S. police officer, a group of UN experts said it was "vital" to make systemic racism "visible" around the world. In the United States, there is no centralized system to collect statistics across more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies, France 24 reported, citing UN investigators. But according to Collette Flanagan, who founded Mothers Against Police Brutality after her black son Clinton Allen was killed by police in Dallas, Texas in 2013, a black person was "2.5 times more likely to be shot" to death by police in the United States. Her son was unarmed, yet the white officer who shot him seven times "perceived my son as a threat," she told UN experts. And the officer escaped all criminal and civil accountability for killing her son. It is a "crucial need to collect, analyse, use and publish data, disaggregated by race or ethnic origin," said Yvonne Mokgoro, a former South African judge who heads the group of UN experts. For her, racial profiling and excessive use of force during and after interactions with law enforcement officials and the criminal justice system are reported but not shown in official statistics. It is "an essential first step to highlight the magnitude of systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent," she said. Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) by Xinhua writer Yang Shilong NEW YORK, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." The annual event, a collaboration between the U.S.-China Music Institute (USCMI) of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and China's Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of music from contemporary China through an annual series of concerts and academic activities. "We seek to reveal the differences in culture and tradition that have historically divided East from West -- only to break them down and, through our artistic experience, create something new that belongs to both the East and West," said the festival's artistic director Jindong Cai, who is also the USCMI director. Music exchanges play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and China at the current time when bilateral relations are difficult, Leon Botstein, president of the Bard College, told Xinhua at a reception after the concert on Sunday. In the fall of 2018, the Bard College started to offer an undergraduate performance degree program in selected Chinese instruments including erhu, guzheng and pipa. Studio instruction in these traditional Chinese instruments is provided by world-renowned CCOM master musicians, with the use of state-of-the-art video conferencing facility and in-person lessons both on the Bard campus and in Beijing. "It's important to keep it going and music exchanges can bring us closer," said Botstein, an established conductor and music historian, adding that he looks forward to a performance tour in China in June next year. Sunday's concert, "Tales from Beijing," at the Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center, opened with Hutongs of Peking, which was composed by Aaron Avshalomov, a Russian-born Jewish-American composer who lived in China for 30 years beginning in 1918 and became a leading figure in pioneering modern Chinese music. Written in 1931 and premiered in 1933, Hutongs of Peking is a symphonic poem of old Beijing that lovingly depicts the sounds of Beijing's ancient alleyways -- morning temple bells, the calls of street vendors, the lyrical strains of Peking Opera, the mournful cacophony of funeral drums -- before finally transporting the audience back to the tranquility of the ancient city. Following were four selections from the opera Rickshaw Boy, specifically chosen and adapted by Chinese composer Guo Wenjing for the concert performance to showcase the grand symphonic, dramatic and lyrical nature of the opera and the tragic romance of the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and Huniu. The concert's second half was devoted to Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang's Symphony No. 2, The Great Wall. This large-scale work featuring piano, voice, Chinese instruments and symphony orchestra is inspired by the Great Wall, a magnificent physical and spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation. The symphony is divided into nine movements, drawing on folk music of the many ethnic groups who live along the Great Wall from the foothills of Beijing to the Western areas of China. The second concert program, "Painted Skin," will take place on Oct. 13 at the Hudson Hall, the historical opera house in New York, and Oct. 15 at Rose Theater, Jazz at the Lincoln Center. It features the U.S. premiere of "Painted Skin," a chamber opera based on a ghost story by the early 18th century author Pu Songling, which was originally published in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The last concert program, "Journey to the East," will take place on Oct. 22 in the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Jindong Cai (C), director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, conducts at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Artists perform at the concert "Tales from Beijing" of China Now Music Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, on Oct. 9, 2022. China Now Music Festival, a leading force in introducing music from China to the United States, kicked off its fifth season on Sunday at the Lincoln Center in New York City, with fusion music works that "belong to both East and West." (Photo by Winston Zhou/Xinhua) Home Opinion Nepal is a secular country, but it has some anti-secular laws. It should change now File: Nepals national flag Nepal became a secular state after the promulgation of the 2007 interim constitution. Before that, Nepal had been an official Hindu state since 1962 as declared by the then constitution and an unofficial Hindu state before that time. Perhaps because of that, there are still some anti-secular laws in Nepal. While anti-secular laws seem natural given the majority of the Hindu population here, it seems unfair as some minor religious groups struggle for their identity. The current constitution of Nepal, which came into force in 2015, retains the states secular character introduced by the interim constitution in 2007. However, the present constitution defines secular to mean the protection of religion and culture being practised since ancient times. But, in that case, religious and cultural freedom can be interpreted as offering special status to Hinduism. To say that Nepal is secular is like saying there is religious freedom and the government must protect those traditional religions and customs practised since ancient times, which it seems does not apply to religions that are less ancient (or Sanatan). The same idea also governs some anti-secular laws in Nepal. Blasphemy laws: Back to Hindu state? The Muluki Criminal Code, 2017, which came into force in August 2018, retains a range of provisions prohibiting and criminalising proselytism, in a manner that is incompatible with international standards. But, the code also contains several vague and overly broad anti-blasphemy provisions that criminalise hurting religious sentiments and feelings. Section 156 of the code criminalises the hurting of religious sentiment, and section 158 prohibits religious conversion and undermining or jeopardising religions or faiths. The offence triggers a punishment of up to five years in custody and a fine of up to Rs 50,000. The offence also carries other consequences, for example, deportation if the offender is a foreigner. The provisions related to blasphemy in the new Penal Code are incompatible with Nepals international human rights obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 18 of the ICCPR, in particular, guarantees the right of every individual to freedom of religion or belief. Nepali laws are kind of similar to blasphemy laws that exist elsewhere in the region, including in India, Pakistan and Myanmar, where their enforcement has resulted in widespread abuse, mainly because these so-called religious offences have been instrumental in the persecution of people belonging to the minority religions. Vishal Arora, a journalist based in India, rightly questions Would the Nepali people see nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives, whose constitutions and anti-secular laws accord special status to Islam as their role models? Are these nations peaceful? How about Buddhist Sri Lanka? Are minorities happy in Sri Lanka? Are extremist Buddhist groups protecting their religion or giving it a bad name? Making blasphemy laws in a secular country like Nepal has welcomed these long-term problematic issues and it has become a big fallacy to say we are a citizen of a secular state. Judiciarys non-secular stance In the case of Chirbahadur Gahatraj et al v Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Nepal Law Journal 2012 (2068BS), Vol 10, Decision No 8707, justices Prakash Wasti and Kamal Narayan Das pens, When more than 80 per cent of the population are Hindu who follow Hindu culture and religion, which has been ongoing since ancient times, the state has to preserve and protect such religion and culture. This interpretation appears to be discriminatory and indicates a preference for Hinduism over other religions and beliefs. It hence became an example of anti-secular laws in Nepal. Similarly, the apex courts interpretation in the case of Charles Mendes et al v His Majestys Government, Nepal Law Journal 2046, Vol 6, Decision No 3855 is also relevant in this regard. In this case, it was explicitly mentioned that the constitution only protects the religion that exists from time immemorial. This precedent is still clearly resembled in the explanation portion of Article 4 of the constitution. At the end Secularism means that the state shall not discriminate against any citizen on the grounds of religion only. That means the state shall have no religion of its own and all citizens shall be equally entitled to the freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise, and propagate religion. However, we are wrongly saying that there has been a great departure of Nepal from a Hindu-dominated nation to a secular state as there are still anti-secular laws. What are the types of secularism? Has our constitution been proposed by giving a unique definition to it? Why is the judiciary still interpreting the laws in favour of Hindu fundamentalists and monarchists who have moral and material support from the national and international power spreading Hindutva? Hence, there should be a robust debate on secularism and the existence of anti-secular laws in Nepal. Photo for representation only: Wikimedia Commons Kathmandu, October 11 Nepal imported over 53,000 smartwatches in the first two months of the current fiscal year, according to the Department of Customs data, showing how the gadget is getting popular in Nepal. As Nepal imported 53,349 smartwatches between mid-July and mid-September 2022, the country spent Rs 73.9 million on them, according to the data. In this period, the government collected Rs 23.3 million in customs charges on the watches. This amount is slightly less than what the government recorded in the same period last year. Between mid-July and mid-September 2021, the country imported smartwatches worth Rs 79.8 million, giving the government Rs 24.4 million in revenues. Smartwatches are getting popular in Nepal at a steady pace thanks to their practical benefits in monitoring health status and their potential as a fashion statement. Meanwhile, the country spent Rs 6.18 billion on the import of 438,985 units of smartphones and Rs 468.6 million on 460,000 units of bar phones between mid-July and mid-September 2022. (Updates prices, adds details) By Harry Robertson LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Italian 10-year bond yields rose on Tuesday after a German official dismissed a report that the country's government planned to support the issuance of joint European Union debt. German yields fell, having jumped the previous day after Bloomberg reported that the government would support issuing joint EU debt to tackle the energy crisis. However, a German government official later on Monday told Reuters that "such plans are not known in the government." Italy's 10-year government bond yield was last up 9 basis points to 4.701%, although it remained below the 9-year high of 4.927% touched on Sept. 28. Yields move inversely to prices. The yield on Germany's 10-year bond was down 2 bps at 2.307% on Tuesday, although it remained well above Friday's closing level, having risen 13 basis points on Monday. Under a joint debt issuance plan, EU countries would effectively combine their creditworthiness, pushing up borrowing costs for stronger economies such as Germany, but pulling them down for bigger debtors such as Italy. The Reuters report "has helped to stabilize Bunds while BTPs are under pressure, or at least reversing some of the gains that they had yesterday after the Bloomberg story," said Christoph Rieger, head of credit research at Commerzbank. German government bonds are known as Bunds, while their Italian counterparts are commonly called BTPs. Rieger said worries about disorder in Britain's bond markets and a costly German 30-year Bund sale likely added to selling pressure in Europe on Tuesday. Germany and the European Union saw lacklustre demand for long-dated debt sales that raised a combined 14 billion euros, demonstrating the challenges for borrowers in a market rattled by the ramifications of Britain's budget and the potential for further debt issuance to tackle the energy crisis. The gap between Italy and Germany's 10-year yields widened 14 bps to 238.85 bps, after falling 25 bps on Monday. Analysts watch the so-called spread closely, as a sign of the differing pressures on Europe's economies. Story continues Traders in euro zone bond markets were also nervously analysing the latest intervention from the Bank of England, which was forced to start buying index-linked government bonds on Tuesday as the country's market turbulence continued. The Bank of England confirmed it bought 1.947 billion pounds ($2.15 billion) of inflation-linked British government bonds on Tuesday, its first emergency purchase operation for gilts of this type.. The yield on British 10-year bonds fell 5 bps to 4.418%. It nonetheless remained around 130 bps higher over the last month. "Definitely there's a lot of jittery moves," said Ravin Seeneevassen, senior portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors. "The fiscal situation is coming to the front again, whether that's in Germany or in the UK." As traders weighed up reports on mutual debt issuance, the EU kicked off a fixed income sale on Tuesday. It will raise 11 billion euros from the reopening of a 2029 bond and the sale of a new 20-year bond that will back its COVID-19 recovery fund and macro-financial assistance programme, according to a lead manager memo seen by Reuters. ($1 = 1.0311 euros) (Additional reporting by Yoruk Bahceli and Lucy Raitano; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Bernadette Baum) By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijani Mine Action Agency chief Vugar Suleymanov and German ambassador to Azerbaijan Ralf Horlemann have discussed the cooperation in demining Azerbaijans liberated lands, Azernews reports. Suleymanov briefed the ambassador on the agency's history, general directions of activities, demining operations undertaken on the liberated territories, and the most recent technological method and equipment employed by the agency. During the conversation, perspectives were exchanged on Germany's potential help for humanitarian demining operations in Azerbaijan. Suleymanov also congratulated the ambassador on his appointment to the post and wished him good luck. Horlemann said that he was impressed by the progress of the reconstruction work, as well as the large-scale activities carried out to solve the mine problem, which is the biggest impediment to creating a secure environment in Karabakh. Azerbaijan, along with partner countries, is carrying out demining activities on its liberated territories. Moreover, the State Border Service and the Defense Ministrys engineer-sapper units have also been engaged in demining activities in the liberated lands. Armenia deliberately and constantly planted mines on Azerbaijani territories, in violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention, thereby being a major threat to regional peace, security, and cooperation. Moreover, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said that the ongoing planting of landmines by Armenia causes massive casualties in the liberated lands. Indiscriminate use and still ongoing placing of landmines by Armenia against Azerbaijan cause superfluous injuries and suffering. The number of victims in the last 30 years stands at 3,336, including 38 women & 357 kids. Among these 257 are victims since the 2020 war, Bayramov tweeted. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The " Atole Market in North America by Product and Distribution Channel - Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026 " report has been added to Technavio's offering. According to the report, the market size is expected to increase by USD 7.69 million between 2021 and 2026. However, the growth momentum in the market is expected to decelerate at a CAGR of 3.19% during the forecast period. The market generated maximum revenue in the market in offline segment. The expansion of the organized retail sector is increasing the sales of atole through offline distribution channels. Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Atole Market in North America 2022-2026 The full report on the atole market in North America provides a comprehensive analysis of the key revenue-generating segments, product launches by vendors, and other important statistics to help businesses make informed decisions. Start by Downloading Sample PDF Report Atole Market in North America 2022-2026: Segmentation The global atole market in North America is segmented as below: Product The demand for nut-flavored atole is increasing in North America. The growth of the segment can be attributed to the increased preference for nut-flavored beverages among consumers. In addition, the increased availability of multiple nut-flavored atole mixes in the market will contribute to the growth of the segment. Distribution Channel By distribution channel, the offline segment will have the maximum share of the market. The segment includes supermarkets, hypermarkets, mini-markets, kiosks, convenience stores, and others. The increased demand for convenience food coupled with the proliferation of supermarkets in North America will drive the growth of the segment. Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our atole market in North America report covers the following areas: Atole Market in North America 2022-2026: Vendor Analysis We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the atole market in North America, including some of the dominant vendors. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the atole market in North America are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support. Story continues Grupo La Moderna SA de CV: The company offers atole such as chocolate-flavored, walnut-flavored, and strawberry-flavored atole. HERMEL S.A. de C.V.: The company offers atole such as Hermel Maicena which contains NutraFlora. Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico: The company offers atole such as Blue Corn Atole. Nestle SA: The company offers atole such as Nestle Abuelita Atole which is prepared with cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. PepsiCo Inc.: The company offers atole such as Quaker Oats Old Fashioned atole. The Klass Company SA de CV: The company offers atole such as Klass Atole Tradicional. Unilever PLC: The company offers atole such as Knorr Maizena Atole which contains vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, and zinc. The market will be driven by the increased consumption of atole in Mexico, increased demand for tamales, and the rising demand for chocolate-based atoles. However, home preparation of atole by consumers will challenge the growth of the market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Identify major segments and regions to invest in over the forecast period. Request Sample Report Now Atole Market in North America 2022-2026: Key Highlights CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2022-2026 Detailed information on factors that will assist atole market growth in North America during the next five years Estimation of the atole market size in North America and its contribution to the parent market Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior The growth of the atole market in North America Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of atole market vendors in North America Related Reports: Atole Market in North America Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2021 Forecast period 2022-2026 Growth momentum & CAGR Decelerate at a CAGR of 3.19% Market growth 2022-2026 USD 7.69 million Market structure Concentrated YoY growth (%) 3.07 Regional analysis North America Key consumer countries US, Mexico, and Canada Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Grupo La Moderna SA de CV, HERMEL S.A. de C.V., Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico, Nestle SA, PepsiCo Inc., The Klass Company SA de CV, and Unilever PLC Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table Of Contents: 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview 2 Market Landscape 2.1 Market ecosystem 3 Market Sizing 3.1 Market definition 3.2 Market segment analysis 3.3 Market size 2021 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2021-2026 4 Five Forces Analysis 4.1 Five forces summary 4.2 Bargaining power of buyers 4.3 Bargaining power of suppliers 4.4 Threat of new entrants 4.5 Threat of substitutes 4.6 Threat of rivalry 4.7 Market condition 5 Market Segmentation by Product 5.1 Market segments 5.2 Comparison by Product 5.3 Nut atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.4 Fruit atole - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.5 Others - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 5.6 Market opportunity by Product 6 Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel 6.1 Market segments 6.2 Comparison by Distribution Channel 6.3 Offline - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 6.4 Online - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 6.5 Market opportunity by Distribution Channel 7 Customer Landscape 7.1 Customer landscape overview 8 Geographic Landscape 8.1 Geographic segmentation 8.2 Geographic comparison 8.3 US - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 8.4 Mexico - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 8.5 Canada - Market size and forecast 2021-2026 8.6 Market opportunity by geography 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 9.1 Market drivers 9.2 Market challenges 9.3 Impact of drivers and challenges 9.4 Market trends 10 Vendor Landscape 10.1 Overview 10.2 Vendor landscape 10.3 Landscape disruption 10.4 Industry risks 11 Vendor Analysis 11.1 Vendors covered 11.2 Market positioning of vendors 11.3 Grupo La Moderna SA de CV 11.4 HERMEL S.A. de C.V. 11.5 Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico 11.6 Nestle SA 11.7 PepsiCo Inc. 11.8 The Klass Company SA de CV 11.9 Unilever PLC 12 Appendix 12.1 Scope of the report 12.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist 12.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ 12.4 Research methodology 12.5 List of abbreviations food allergy among consumers: There is an increase in the number of people suffering from food allergies globally. Food allergy is caused when the immune system reacts to the ingestion of certain foods. Ingredients of packaged foods and meats that can create allergic reactions in some people include (but are not limited to) milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish (e.g., crab, lobster, and shrimp), tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, and pecan), peanuts, wheat, and soybeans. Even consumption of small amounts of food allergens can trigger signs and symptoms such as digestive problems, hives, and swollen airways. In some people, a food allergy can cause severe symptoms, or even a life-threatening reaction is, known as anaphylaxis. For example, in the US, nearly 3% of the adult population suffers from shellfish allergy. About Us Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: media@technavio.com Website: www.technavio.com/ Atole Market in North America 2022-2026 Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atole-market-in-north-america-to-record-usd-7-69-mn-growth-offline-segment-to-account-for-maximum-market-share--technavio-301644903.html SOURCE Technavio Billionaires Rob and Karen Hale have been donating about $1 million a week this year across 52 nonprofits, reports John Hyatt for Forbes. While the collective $52 million sum is far from paltry, it doesn't leave a huge dent in the Hales wallets. As the cofounder and president of Granite Telecommunications and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, Rob Hale is worth about $5 billion, per Forbes estimation. He and his wife have long been philanthropists, this time seeking to allocate their money toward smaller organizations. Most of these donations will be charitable endowments, a pool of invested money intended to generate an annual income stream from which nonprofits can tap into a certain percentage of annually. These are great, impactful organizations, but they're on a wing and a prayer, Hale told Forbes of the recipients. They have no financial certainty. By late September, the Hales have donated $28.5 million to 29 different organizations, including those that address environmental issues, cancer, the need for shelter in the Dominican Republic, and greater access for Boston youth who want to participate in service missions ($17 million donated are non-endowment gifts). Eleven other organizations have received pledges and are in the books for donations, leaving 12 charities to go before reaching their goal. It's put the Hales a bit behind schedule, according to Forbes. The money makes a big difference to these nonprofits, many of which Forbes reports have yearly revenues of less than $5 million. Nonprofit organizations didnt have it easy during the pandemic. Many struggled to hire in a tight labor market and experienced difficulties fundraising in a virtual environment. Large organizations (with more than 21 employees) were about twice as likely to say they were surviving or thriving than smaller nonprofits, according to a CAF America survey conducted in August 2021. Hale hopes that the nonprofits will invest their $1 million so the funds can increase over time and drawdown at least 5% a year, per Forbes, equivalent to $50,000 (if the money is invested, that dollar amount should be larger). Story continues "That gives them more of a stable future and it gives them the ability [to] say, 'OK, we know where money is coming from and we can focus on doing great work, Hale told local newspaper the Patriot Ledger, adding that the endowments set up them up for long-term success. The Hales are not alone in trying to re-distribute their wealth. During the pandemic, the worlds richest people accounted for 11% of the global wealth, according to the World Inequality Labs World Inequality Report from 2021. As billionaires rake in more cash, theyre starting to look to give some of their excessive wealth away. The Hales join the ranks of billionaire philanthropists like MacKenzie Scott and Warren Buffett, who are conscious of the wealth gap and using their own resources to chip away at it. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com . - McCown is the newest sports personality to join BetRivers' growing team of brand ambassadors - CHICAGO, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - Rush Street Interactive, Inc. (NYSE: RSI) ("RSI"), a Chicago-based online gaming and betting company, announced today the signing of sports talk radio legend Bob McCown to the BetRivers brand ambassador team. The partnership includes a multi-year deal to represent the brand through various commercials and to create exclusive content for the BetRivers Network. Rush Street Interactive, Inc. (CNW Group/Rush Street Interactive, Inc.) McCown's legendary career spans more than three decades and includes hosting and anchoring some of Canada's favourite sports shows, such as SportsLine, TSN's The Business of Sports and Sportsnet 590 The Fan's Prime Time Sports. McCown is currently the host of his own podcast - The Bob McCown Show featuring John Shannon, which broadcasts daily across the Sirius XM satellite radio network. As part of the partnership, The Bob McCown Podcast will air across the BetRivers Network. McCown will also appear at various meet and greet events with audiences across the country, along with podcast co-host John Shannon. Additionally, McCown will be featured in upcoming BetRivers ad campaigns and commercials across Ontario. "If there's one thing I've learned through my career, it's that sports fans want to go beyond surface level game calls and get into what's really driving their favorite players," said McCown. "I'm thrilled to team up with an industry leader like BetRivers and work with them on delivering the insights and stories Canadians really want to hear." McCown joins the BetRivers brand ambassador team of Canadian sports broadcasting personalities, which include Dan O'Toole and Natasha Staniszewski. "We've been hard at work since our entry into the Ontario market to build a best-in-class team of brand ambassadors," said Richard Schwartz, CEO of RSI, which operates BetRivers.ca . "Bob's unmistakable voice and brand of top-tier commentary are instantly recognizable to any Canadian sports fan, and we're incredibly lucky to have him join our growing roster of sports personalities." Story continues About Rush Street Interactive RSI is a trusted online gaming and sports entertainment company focused on markets in the United States, Canada and Latin America. Through its brands, BetRivers, PlaySugarHouse and RushBet, RSI was an early entrant in many regulated jurisdictions. It currently offers real-money mobile and online operations in thirteen U.S. states: Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Arizona and Louisiana, as well as in the regulated international markets of Ontario, Canada, Colombia and Mexico. RSI offers, through its proprietary online gaming platform, some of the most popular online casino games and sports betting options in the United States. Founded in 2012 in Chicago by gaming industry veterans, RSI was named the 2022 EGR North America Awards Operator of the Year, Customer Services Operator of the Year and Social Gaming Operator of the Year, and the 2021 SBC Latinoamerica Awards Sportsbook Operator of the Year. RSI was the first U.S.-based online casino and sports betting operator to receive RG Check iGaming Accreditation from the Responsible Gaming Council. For more information, visit www.rushstreetinteractive.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. RSI's actual results may differ from their expectations, estimates and projections and consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, RSI's expectations about its arrangement with Bob McCown, what RSI's anticipated offerings and benefits arising from that arrangement will include and its future performance with respect to that arrangement. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Most of these factors are outside RSI's control and are difficult to predict. Factors that may cause such differences include, without limitation, changes in applicable laws or regulations, unanticipated product or service delays, and other risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in RSI's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, including those under "Risk Factors" therein, and in RSI's other filings with the SEC. RSI cautions that the foregoing list of factors is not exclusive. RSI cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. RSI does not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. SOURCE Rush Street Interactive, Inc. Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/11/c4995.html Chase Buchanan Chase Buchanan Wealth Management continues to expand, opening a new office in Tenerife to provide trusted financial advice to foreign nationals living in the Canary Islands. Paphos, Cyprus, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The established private wealth management firm has announced the opening of a new office location in the Canary Islands, complementing the existing provision in Spain, ensuring expats in the EU have region-specific advice and support. Local Expat Financial Advice from an International Team Chase Buchanan Wealth Management is an international firm providing quality advisory services in a range of locations. European hubs include Belgium, Malta, Portugal and Spain, alongside the headquarters in Cyprus and now the new Canary Island service in Tenerife, headed up by Private Client Manager, Adele Thomas. The European locations underpin Chase Buchanans global advisory positions that also include the US and Canada. Chase Buchanan, Private Wealth Manager, Adele Thomas said, I am delighted to now be working with Chase Buchanan, opening a private wealth management service for those living locally in Tenerife and the Canary Islands. Many of the larger outfits have now left the area, supporting their existing clients from mainland Spain, but we know that local advice and a personal service is as important as ever. From their new Canary Island office, Adele and the Chase Buchanan Wealth Management team are available to work with expats looking to restructure assets, establish an estate management plan, review their investment portfolio or make plans for retirement and other major life events. They offer a full range of financial advisory services to expatriates from any country of origin now resident in Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, La Palma, Tenerife and the smaller islands within the archipelago. Canary Island New Office Chase Buchanan Canary Islands Wealth Management Services The company focuses on personal advice and local knowledge, with an in-house tax advisory team and specialists in each regional location providing up-to-date, accurate and detailed guidance to support clients in understanding national and global legislation and regulations. Story continues Tax regulations differ between mainland Spain and the Canary Islands, including variations in indirect and consumer taxes. The company advises that expatriates in this region should seek on-the-ground advice to avoid receiving generalised guidance that is not specific to their place of residence. There are multiple complexities for foreign nationals living overseas due to cross-border taxation, dual nationality and tax residency rules. Group CEO, Lee Eldridge said, The Canary Islands represents a further step for Chase Buchanan to provide local knowledge across the globe. Trusted advice made simple isnt just a motto, but more of a mantra, and one we intend to deliver to new locations with local demand. We are delighted to welcome Adele onboard, her passion, experience and local understanding is a great combination for the Islands. Please visit the to download free expat tax guides, more information about team locations, services and other complementary guides covering a range of knowledge areas around tax advice, expatriate residency and retirement. Media Contact: Natalie Karr Chase Buchanan Ltd +357 2501 0455 The city of Beijing wants all its taxis to switch from fossil fuels If you want to understand how governments can fuel the rise of new technologies, look no further than the taxi fleets of Beijing. Five years ago, the city revealed plans to ban the introduction of fossil fuel-powered taxis. Today, thousands of the cars run on batteries instead. And the drivers of these electric vehicles (EVs) don't have to worry about wasting time at charging stations, either. Many electric taxis in Beijing, and dozens of other Chinese cities, just go to a battery-swapping station where a machine plucks out the depleted battery and installs a charged one in mere minutes. "They want to drive out there and earn some money so they definitely don't want to wait two hours for EV charging," explains I-Yun Lisa Hsieh from National Taiwan University. This is just one facet of the increasingly diverse and booming market for electric cars in China. Members of the public are also snapping up EVs in unprecedented numbers. Half of the world's electric car sales are made in China In July, the China Passenger Car Association predicted that 6 million new EVs would be registered in the country in 2022 - a revision of its previous forecast of 5.5 million EVs to be sold this year. Tesla had its best ever month in China in September, according to its most recent figures, selling 83,135 cars. Nearly a quarter of all cars newly registered in China are now electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, meaning that the country is ahead of Europe and well ahead of the US in adoption of these technologies. Half the world's EVs are sold in China. And this is largely driven by government mandates and incentives, says Mr Hsieh. For more than a decade, the Chinese government has subsidised EV purchases. The value of these subsidies has fallen over time, and they are due to end by 2023, but there are still plenty of reasons why buying an electric car is a financial no-brainer. Many buyers of new fossil fuel vehicles in China have to pay out, not only for the car, but the licence plate as well. "It's really expensive," says Mr Hsieh. A new licence plate in Shanghai costs nearly 100,000 yuan (12,500; $14,000). Story continues There are other perks if you opt for an EV instead, though they differ from city to city. In Liuzhou, authorities have allowed EV owners to drive in bus lanes. And they get access to free parking spaces as well. Then there is the potentially irresistible price tag of some vehicles. The Wuling Hong Guang Mini EV bucks the trend of EVs being a relatively expensive option. Affordable electric cars like this Wuling Hong Guang Mini EV have helped boost the Chinese market The entry-level version of this dinky, no-frills car costs the equivalent of just 4,200 and appeals to city-dwellers and first-time car owners, says Jon Hykawy, president and director of Stormcrow Capital, a consulting and research firm. "These are vehicles that could be sold through a big chunk of Asia as well," he adds. The Hong Guang Mini is currently China's most popular EV. But there are a host of options at the other end of the price scale, such as Tesla's Model Y (49,000) or Xpeng's P7 (30,410). Both are in the list of top 10 best-selling EVs in China. The Chinese EV market is enormously competitive and lots of companies are vying for a place in it. Even an airline, Juneyao, wants to start making electric cars, according to a recent report from the Reuters news agency. "It's a very good environment for these manufacturers to develop technology," says Pedro Pacheco, an analyst at Gartner, noting that the range offered by some battery EVs in China is particularly good. And manufacturers are filling higher-end EVs with infotainment systems and other gadgetry in a further attempt to woo consumers. High-end cars like this Lotus are selling well But two big questions hover over the frenzy for electric cars in China. Firstly, will it last? And secondly, how will it shape the global EV market? Ana Nicholls, director of industry analysis at the Economist Intelligence Unit, says she has been surprised at just how quickly EVs have flown out of dealerships in China lately but argues that, with the removal of subsidies for purchasers of new vehicles, the appetite for EVs could wane. "It's hard to see how the EV market can carry on expanding at quite this rate in the future," she says. Charging infrastructure remains unevenly distributed and subject to supply issues - some charging stations were curtailed recently thanks to a fall in electricity production caused by the mega drought affecting parts of China. More technology of business: Usually, more EV owners means rising demand for electricity in general and China faces an uphill battle in supplying all of these new vehicles at the same time as the country is trying to cut coal consumption at its power plants. This is one reason why some analysts, including Mr Hykawy, argue that hybrid electric vehicles are a better option than cars that run on batteries alone, since they will be less reliant on the grid. They also require less lithium, given their smaller batteries, which could be important given potential shortages of lithium expected in the coming years. As for how the Chinese EV market could influence the rest of the world, the jury is still out. But it is already starting, with Chinese firms marketing EVs in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere. High-end manufacturer Nio is also bringing its battery-swapping stations to Norway and has just opened its second such station in the country. Battery-swapping stations are becoming common in China Mr Pacheco argues that more major car brands would have to adopt battery swapping for the technology to become widespread in Europe. But he highlights the success of ultra low-cost EVs in China - such as the vehicles offered by local brands Wuling and Chery. "In China, they already have affordable EVs," he says. "In Europe, we're not there yet." In emerging markets, these are exactly the kind of vehicles that could catch on. Time to conquer the world? Maybe. But there's another school of thought that says, well, the world can wait. "As long as the Chinese market is booming, they may as well just sell locally," says Ms Nicholls. "I mean, why wouldn't you?" Analysts tend to agree that it will be very interesting to see what happens when the subsidies run out. That could push Chinese EV makers towards other markets - and maybe we'll all fall in love with EVs thanks, indirectly, to the policies of Chinese authorities. We'll have to wait and see. SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's securities regulator has given the greenlight to the country's first mutual fund targeting top Chinese and South Korean chipmakers, an official at Huatai-PineBridge Fund Management Co said, amid an escalating Sino-U.S. tech war. The China Securities Regulatory Commission's approval comes amid heightened geopolitical tensions between the world's two largest economies. The Biden administration published a sweeping set of export controls on Friday, seeking to hobble China's chip industry. Huatai-PineBridge made the application for regulatory approval on Aug. 9. The exchange-traded fund (ETF) will invest in top Korean semiconductor firms including Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc, as well as Chinese chipmaking giants such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and Montage Technology Co. "The Chinese and Korean semiconductor industries are expected to be closely integrated," creating synergies, Huatai-PineBridge said in prepared marketing material for the ETF, whose launch date has not yet been determined. The fund will also benefit from China's accelerated pace towards tech self-sufficiency amid U.S. sanctions, according to the marketing material, which mentioned the U.S. blacklisting of China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, and the recently enacted CHIPS and Science Act. In 2021, South Korea was China's second-biggest exporting country in equipments, including chipmaking tools, and Chinese exports to South Korea have also been rising, the fund manager said. South Korea said on Saturday there would be no significant disruption to equipment supply for Samsung and SK Hynix's existing chip production in China from the U.S. move. The new U.S. export controls are an abuse of trade measures, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Saturday. The newly approved ETF will track the CSI KRX China-Korea Semiconductor Index. The index was launched as part of a broader cooperation agreement signed last year between the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Korean Exchange (KRX) to promote cross-border investment between the two markets. (Reporting by Samuel Shen and Brenda Goh; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa) Crypto exchange Bittrex settled charges alleging it inadvertently violated federal sanctions with the U.S. Treasury Department, agreeing to pay just under $30 million in fines and keep a closer eye on its compliance program. The U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the federal governments sanctions enforcer, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Treasurys money laundering watchdog, announced the settlements on Tuesday. Alongside the monetary penalties, Bittrex has already taken remedial action to correct these issues, OFAC said. Between 2014 and late 2017, Bittrex allowed around 1,800 people in sanctioned jurisdictions including Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Crimea to conduct more than 116,000 transactions worth roughly $260 million through its platform, according to the settlement. The Seattle, Washington-based exchange has since taken action to better comply with sanctions blacklists. OFAC has a number of comprehensive sanctions actions, prohibiting U.S. persons defined as anyone on U.S. soil and U.S. citizens located abroad from interacting with or providing services to people in these jurisdictions. Bittrex acknowledged years ago that it had allowed users from some sanctioned jurisdictions, such as Iran, to sign up for its platform. The exchange reached out to some of these customers in 2019 to offer to return their funds. In a company statement, Bittrex said that it maintained anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance processes, and tapped unnamed third parties and service providers to assist it with verifying accounts and screen for sanctions compliance. As a growing company, during the period in question, we routinely assessed and improved these functions, the statement said. OFAC said there were a number of mitigating factors, including the fact that Bittrex was a small and new company at the time and the company provided substantial cooperation with OFACs investigation. Story continues In response to the Apparent Violations, Bittrex swiftly took a series of subsequent remedial measures that significantly curtailed the Apparent Violations, OFAC said, including blocking the IP addresses tied to sanctioned jurisdictions, restricting sanctioned jurisdiction account holders and using new tools to improve compliance. The maximum possible penalty for the OFAC allegations could have exceeded $35 billion, OFAC said, but given the various factors, the final fine is just over $24 million. SARry While OFAC focused on the alleged sanctions violations, the FinCEN settlement focused instead on suspicious activity reports (SAR) that the regulator alleges Bittrex failed to file during that same time period. Bittrex failed to file SARs tied to 200 transactions moving more than $140,000 worth of cryptocurrency, and 22 transactions touching over $1 million, FinCEN said. Bittrex failed to implement effective transaction monitoring on its trading platform, relying on as few as two employees with minimal anti-money laundering training and experience to manually review all of the transactions for suspicious activity, which at times were over 20,000 per day, FinCEN said. FinCEN fined Bittrex $29.8 million, but said it would credit the exchanges $24 million OFAC fine, meaning the company will only pay an overall total of just under $30 million. In its statement, sent through a company attorney, Bittrex said it was pleased to have settled the charges. The settlement provides full resolution of both OFACs inquiry into transactions in sanctioned jurisdictions that occurred predominantly through 2017, and FinCENs assertion that Bittrex did not fully implement all of its Anti-Money Laundering Program controls through 2018, the statement said. ... Importantly, both FinCEN and OFAC acknowledge that Bittrexs longstanding responsive remedial efforts have significantly curtailed the risk of continued violations. Adroit Market Research Diatomite has a wide range of uses and is used as a raw material in hundreds of goods, making it more well-liked and the material of choice for many different industrial processes. Dallas, Texas, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The ability to maximize the absorption of nutrients and fight parasites will significantly boost the growth of the global diatomite market . Diatomite serves as an excellent water filtration element used in industries. Diatomite is extensively used as a filtration medium for the elimination of suspended solids from liquids. The construction industry has several utilities of diatomite including interior decoration owing to their capability to provide temperature adjustments and an in-house purified atmosphere. Diatomite is widely used for construction purposes to strengthen concrete for building purposes. Diatomite is an excellent insecticide source that can be used in agricultural fields and homes to control pests. The global diatomite market will achieve an estimated market value of USD 2.83 Billion with an expected CAGR of 6.12% by 2032. For Right Perspective and Competitive Insights, Get Sample Report @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/408 Key players operating in the global diatomite market are: Imerys S.A, EP Minerals LLC, Showa Chemical Industry Co., Ltd, Calgon Carbon Corporation Dicalite Management Group, Diatomit SP CJSC, Jilin Yuan Tong Mineral Co., Ltd., Qingdao Sanxing Diatomite Co., Ltd., Skamol Group, Diamix Group, Olympus SA Industrial Minerals, TURKMAG, Hudson Resources Ltd, Reade International Corp. The ability to provide resistance against heat and corrosion will immensely benefit the demand for the global diatomite market. The vast availability and simplified methods involved in the diatomite filtration process will significantly boost global market growth. Increased focus on developing hygienic beauty products will maximize demand for the global diatomite market. Diatomite provides excellent methods to form heat insulation brick for construction purposes which contributes to the increase in worldwide demand for diatomite. The porosity property of diatomite makes it an excellent filtration material to eliminate impurities from beer and refine vegetable oil. The use of automated vehicles and technologies is driving the demand for diatomite in the global mining industry. Story continues Furthermore, the diatomite market can be classified into calcined, flux calcined and natural types. Calcined diatomite helps to provide ease of grinding in the cement industry. Calcined diatomite is treated at higher temperatures and serves as an excellent filtering agent. Calcination of diatomite provides improved hardness making it ideal for construction or building purposes. Reducing the surface area and providing increased strength will significantly boost demand for calcinated diatomite. The demand for diatomite for agricultural purposes has been maximized due to its capability to provide protection to the seeds and help in moisture retention. Classical thermal cookers make use of diatomite due to its providence of excellent thermal properties. Diatomite serves as an effective agent for marking nutrients in livestock. The utilization of diatomite as a dehydrating agent for insecticides and pesticides will immensely help the global market growth. Enquire before purchasing this report at: https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/enquiry-before-buying/408 In October 2021 a total seeding fund of USD 7 Billion was raised by Moltan to strengthen the companys market position and widen its market reach. The expansion of the construction industry and increased focus on wastewater filtration methods will immensely benefit the regional market growth. The major proportion of the global market will be held by China due to the presence of key market players and advancements made in the construction industry. The focus on improving crops and agricultural efficiency will boost the diatomite market growth in the region. The expansion of the food processing industry will also contribute to the growth of the regional market. Table of Contents: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Research Methodology Chapter 3 Executive Summary Chapter 4 Market Outlook Chapter 5 Diatomite Market by Type 5.1 Introduction 5.1.1 Natural 5.1.2 Calcined 5.1.3 Flux calcined Chapter 6 Diatomite Market by Application 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Filter aids 6.3 Filler 6.4 Absorbents 6.5 Construction Materials 6.6 Others Chapter 7 Diatomite Market By Region Chapter 8 Competitive Landscape Chapter 9 Company Profiles Get Discount on this Report: https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/discount/408 Access research repository of Upcoming Reports @ https://adroitmarketresearch.com/upcoming.html About Us: Adroit Market Research is an India-based 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 (Bloomberg) -- Asian refiners snapped up at least 12 million barrels of US crude oil in the past two weeks as a strike in France dims demand from one of Europes largest buyers. Most Read from Bloomberg Refiners, mostly from South Korea, have bought flagship West Texas Intermediate Midland for January delivery at a premium of around $9 a barrel to the Dubai benchmark, according to traders. That price level has opened a door for US sellers, making WTI more attractive relative to Middle Eastern barrels, which Asian refiners can typically source more cheaply because of the shorter distance. Oil is flowing to Asia as a refinery workers strike in France enters its third week, drastically reducing demand there. France accounts for about 5% of US crude exports. The strike which has affected almost two-thirds of the nations capacity, is also forcing fuelmakers to reprogram deliveries of crude oil. Exxon Mobil Corp diverted a crude tanker to its Fawley refinery in the UK, away from Le Havre in France, its original destination, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Spring, Texas-based company is also said to be offering West Texas Light oil in the market, a grade thats typically processed at its refineries in Europe. Exxon declined to comment on commercial matters. In September, when the strike began, eight tankers laden with over 8 million barrels of US crude set sail for French ports, tracking data showed. Besides one vessel that was diverted to the UK, three have delivered their cargoes in France, while two more are waiting to discharge. The rest are still shown to be en route to France. The European nation imported 185,000 barrels a day of US crude in July, according to the Energy Information Administration. Story continues Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Baku will host a regular meeting of the committee of chiefs of staff of the Commonwealth of Independent States' (CIS) armed forces on October 12, Azernews reports, citing the Defense Ministry. The chiefs of staff of the armed forces of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the deputy chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, as well as the Tajik military attache to Russia will attend the meeting. Azerbaijani First Deputy Defense Minister, Chief of the General Staff of the Azerbaijani army Col-Gen Karim Valiyev will chair the meeting. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was founded in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Meetings are held periodically on a rotating basis at the CIS countries capitals. Forums include the council of heads of states, the council of prime ministers, and the council of foreign ministers. The CIS performs its activities on the basis of the charter, adopted by the council of heads of states on 22 January 1993, which stipulates the goals and principles of the commonwealth, and the rights and obligations of the countries. Ghislaine Maxwell and Elon Musk attend the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. Kevin Mazur/VF14/WireImage Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly asked Elon Musk to destroy the internet in the famous photo of the two. Musk has previously said that Maxwell's appearance in the picture was a photobomb. The photo was taken at a Vanity Fair event in 2014, but didn't surface on social media until 2020. Elon Musk's picture with Ghislaine Maxwell may have been more than a photobomb after all. The photo was taken in 2014 at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in California, but it didn't make a splash on social media until 2020, when Musk took to Twitter to say he didn't know Maxwell "at all." "She photo-bombed me once at a Vanity Fair party several years ago," he tweeted in July 2020. "Real question is why VF invited her in the first place." But, the story seems slightly more complicated, according to a recent report from The New York Times. When the photograph was taken, Maxwell asked Musk if there was a way to delete information about oneself off the internet, the Times reported on Tuesday. Maxwell also told the Tesla CEO she wanted him to destroy the internet, a Vanity Fair worker who was standing next to the pair told The Times. The staffer, who chose to remain anonymous due to potential repercussions, said the pair also discussed aliens and Musk brought up his theory that reality could be a simulation. Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication. The photo of the billionaire alongside Maxwell, a known associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was widely shared on Twitter earlier this year as well after the billionaire initially offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April. It showed up on Twitter again last week, only this time with a new context note as part of Twitter's new feature Birdwatch, which aims to curb misinformation on the platform by inviting users to vote on helpful context. A tweet featuring the photo had a note at the bottom that said: "The photo of Musk and Maxwell was captured at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party im 2014. It's the only picture of the pair. There's no photo evidence that suggests they conversed. Musk later responded about the picture and said he didn't know Maxwell, and that she 'photobombed' him." Story continues Nearly a week later, though, the note is gone. Twitter confirmed to Insider that a context note can be removed from a tweet if its "helpful" status changes. Context only appears with a tweet if enough Birdwatch contributors with opposing viewpoints vote on it as "helpful." Only a select test group of Twitter users can submit and vote on context right now, but everyone in the US can see the notes. In June, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of sex-trafficking girls for Epstein. In 2020, Insider reported that Epstein introduced Musk's younger brother, Kimbal Musk, to a woman in his entourage in order to get close to the Tesla CEO. Kimbal and the woman dated from 2011 to 2012, and Epstein had received a tour of Elon's company SpaceX in 2012, sources told Insider. At the time, SpaceX denied Epstein received a tour and Musk also said on Twitter that Epstein never toured SpaceX "to the best of our knowledge." Read The New York Times' full story on its website. Read the original article on Business Insider The Believe in What You're Building Photo Trip Giveaway Includes Tools and Mentorship to Help Photographers Advance Their Careers. BELLEVUE, Wash, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- To help photographers build their portfolios, Identity Digital , a leader in connecting the online world with domain names and related technologies, creative agency CP Collectives , and leading photography magazine PetaPixel , have teamed up to present the 'Believe in What You're Building Photo Trip Giveaway.' Through November 18, 2022, photographers can enter to win the grand prize of the portfolio-building trip of a lifetime while getting expert guidance. Photographers who already have a .photography domain name can gain ten bonus entries for more chances to win. Believe in what you're building giveaway The grand prize is a five-day, four-night photo trip in the spring of 2023 to the winning photographer's destination of choice: New York, London, Iceland, or Jamaica. The winner will also receive a one-year free subscription to Zenfolio's ProSuite plan . Besides the grand prize, the winner's photographs will be featured on CP Collectives' Instagram page and select entrants and their portfolios will be profiled on @cpcollectives and in PetaPixel articles this upcoming December, January, and February. (Selection for these features doesn't affect the odds of winning the grand prize.) "As more and more professional photographers choose a .photography domain, it's becoming the differentiator among aspiring pros who want to clearly establish who they are and what they do," says Trang Nguyen, Identity Digital's VP, Vertical Growth. "Our goal is to provide photographers with the most authentic and relevant domain names to express their digital identities. We can empower them to make every word count and express who they are from the very first impression before and after the dot." Michael Zhang, publisher of PetaPixel, comments, "A digital presence is essential for aspiring photographers working to elevate their brands and showcase their art. A .photography domain is a great way to increase visibility online and reaffirm commitment to their craft. We're excited to partner with Identity Digital and CP Collectives on this great opportunity for them to grow their skills, portfolio, and business." Story continues "It's great to partner with Identify Digital to give one lucky photographer this amazing opportunity to build an impressive portfolio and learn new skills that can help launch a professional career," Ian Harper, director at CP Collectives, adds. Photographers can enter the 'Believe in What You're Building Giveaway' by Nov. 18, 2022, with their existing portfolios at buildyour.photography. There is no purchase or payment necessary to enter or win. Entry is open to legal residents of 50 United States and Washington D.C. who are at least age 18 upon entry. To enter: (i) submit a completed entry using the online form provided at buildyour.photography and (ii) agree to these Official Rules. The winner will be announced on November 30, 2022. About PetaPixel Established in May of 2009, PetaPixel is a leading publication covering the wonderful world of photography. PetaPixel's mission is to inform, educate, and inspire in all things photography-related. For more information, please visit PetaPixel . About CP Collectives CP Collectives is the community behind the creative agency CP Creatives. CP Creatives started in 2016 and produces work for hotels, brands, and destinations around the world. For more information, please visit cpcreatives.com . About Identity Digital Identity Digital Inc. simplifies and connects the online world with domain names and related technologies to empower people to build, market, and own their authentic digital identities. With the world's largest portfolio of nearly 300 TLDs such as .live, .technology, and .restaurant, Identity Digital operates around 25 million domains on its innovative registry services platform. In addition, they enable customers to discover, register, support and use high-quality domain names with its registrar, Name.com . Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, Identity Digital is a global company with approximately 250 employees. For more information, please visit identity.digital. Contact Sacha Arts Bella Vista Communications (408) 458.6316 sacha@bellavista.agency Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/giveaway-offers-aspiring-photographers-a-once-in-a-lifetime-portfolio-building-opportunity-301644342.html SOURCE Identity Digital, Inc. Just 7% of government leaders feel their organization has met its digital transformation goals Digitalization is being held back by a lack of capabilities and outmoded ways of working Struggle to retain existing digital talent is among the top three barriers to delivering better public services LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Governments around the world are at risk of failing citizens through lack of digitalization, according to EY research presented in a new report: "How can government workers and technology align to serve future citizens?". Less than one in ten (7%) government leader respondents believe that their organization has achieved their digital transformation goals; and the momentum for digitalization that built up during the pandemic is in danger of being lost. The new report indicates that responding government workforces are ill-prepared to capitalize on the enormous potential benefits of digitalization. This includes improving access to digital services; using data analytics to predict when vulnerable people will need more assistance; and increasing efficiency across the board. Many respondents find themselves constrained by a combination of issues including a lack of digitally aware leaders; a lack of digital and data skills and the training to access them; and an organizational culture that is reactive and uninspiring, hampering the efforts to attract the best digital talent. Coupled with the fact that 38% of Gen Z government worker respondents say they plan to leave their jobs in the next 12 months, governments must also meet the challenge of retaining the digitally literate talent they already possess, as an aging public sector workforce nears retirement. While several global trends are converging to disrupt governments, these present challenges and also significant opportunities for the digital transformation of the public sector. In order to tackle these issues, the report recommends a framework of four key actions for governments to follow when looking to create a workforce equipped for the future: Story continues Adopt dynamic workforce planning. Take a longer-term view of capacity and capability needs and creating strategies to access skills. Scale digital capabilities. Upskilling or reskill existing employees, sourcing fresh talent and emphasize purposeful careers to rebrand the public sector to make it more attractive. Foster digital leadership and culture. Managing digital transformation requires leaders who can challenge the status quo, articulating a compelling vision for change while reassuring and educating employees on a digital mindset. Reimagine the employee experience. Create tailored employee experience that treats every worker as a unique individual, offering structured career paths to help workers progress and fulfil their career ambitions. Arnauld Bertrand, EY Global Government Consulting Leader, says: "During the pandemic we were offered a glimpse of the potential of the digital state and how it could deliver for citizens. Working from home became the norm and more services were moved online. In a post-pandemic world, we must not allow this momentum to be lost. The data shows that governments understand there is more to be done, but there remain many barriers to success. "To truly embrace a digital government and deliver for citizens we collectively must continue to help build future-fit public sector organizations with digitally aware leaders and a plan for building the right capacity, skills, culture and employee experience. These will need to be encouraged and developed across the public services with new ways of working and new systems. If they don't, opportunities to improve services through harnessing data and technology will be lost. The chance to individualize and target services will be squandered and with it the ability to better allocate taxpayer resources and deliver maximum benefits as and where needed. Most concerningly, society's most vulnerable people will suffer if public services deteriorate due to inadequate capacity or skill levels. It all hinges on getting in the right people with the right skills." EY analysis shows that citizens now expect levels of quality, speed and convenience on a par with the private sector, with immediate, seamless access to services through a variety of channels. Citizens expect digital to improve the way they conduct many aspects of their lives and they expect governments to keep up. Governments are responding by trying to become more focused on the needs of citizens. According to EY research, 43% of government respondents rank a focus on the customer/citizen experience as one of the top three factors driving successful transformation. This calls for better use of technology and data to understand people's needs and circumstances, as well as new skills such as user experience research and design. Employees also want a digital workplace that keeps pace with their personal experience and feel that governments are not doing enough. The 2022 EY Work Reimagined Survey shows 63% of respondents believe extensive or moderate changes are needed to enhance their workplace digital tools and technologies. Shalinder Bakshi, EY Global People Advisory Services Leader, Government & Infrastructure, says: "The opportunity here is massive and if governments get it right they will be rewarded with a more efficient state, slicker services and most importantly, happier citizens. That being the case, the stakes are high. Governments need to urgently seize the opportunity to reconfigure the workforce to attract, retain and motivate the skilled employees they need. It is also essential that they put human skills at the center of their digital transformation. Data and technology do not get you very far without the buy-in and skills to go alongside them. "Our framework outlines vital areas for transformation, but it is important to realize that these actions are not linear. They work together holistically all at once and one at a time. While it is of utmost importance governments make these changes, there are examples of governments a step ahead of their peers, excelling in their digital transformation providing opportunities to learn from their progress." Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to favor shorter job tenures and to seek greater purpose and fulfillment, with 63% of Gen Z public sector employee respondents saying they value a clear connection between their job and the overall purpose of the organization above monetary compensation. Meanwhile, people of all ages want a healthier work/life balance. Attracting and retaining younger workers is especially important given that many public workers are approaching retirement (nearly one-third of central government workers in the OECD are over 55) and the 2022 EY Work Reimagined Survey shows that 29% of government worker respondents will likely leave their job in the next 12 months, rising to 38% for those in Gen Z. Bertrand says: "When it comes to offering a job with purpose, governments are at a distinct advantage; and it is an opportunity they can seize. The job of the public sector is to provide better lives for citizens. In the ongoing quest for talent across all sectors, this is a unique element to civil servant roles, which governments should be putting front and center when it comes to recruitment. However, without using technology to offer a strong work/life balance, a compelling career path and clear pathways to train their workforce to become more technologically literate, they run the risk of failing to retain recruits who want to deliver the best for citizens." Notes to editors About EY EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today. EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com. This news release has been issued by EYGM Limited, a member of the global EY organization that also does not provide any services to clients. How EY's Global Government & Public Sector can help your organization Around the world, governments and not-for-profit organizations are continually seeking innovative answers to complex challenges. They are striving to provide better services at lower costs and to create sustainable economic development, a safe environment, more transparency and increased accountability. EY combines private sector leading practices with an understanding of the public sector's diverse needs, focusing on building organizations' capabilities to deliver improved public services. Drawing on many years of experience, we can work with you to help strengthen your organization and achieve lasting improvements. Our Global Government & Public Sector brings together teams of highly skilled professionals from our assurance, consulting, strategy, tax and transaction services. We are inspired by a deep commitment to help you meet your goals and enhance public value, for today and tomorrow. Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/governments-need-new-ways-of-working-to-seize-digital-opportunities--ey-report-301646583.html SOURCE EY Global OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced that the Governor General of Canada, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, will travel to Reykjavik, Iceland, from October 12 to 15, 2022, where she will attend the Arctic Circle Assembly and deliver a keynote address. During Her Excellency's visit to Iceland, which comes as Canada and Iceland celebrate their 75th year of diplomatic relations, the Governor General will engage with local, international, and Arctic leaders on Canada's approach to issues of diplomacy, environmental change, and reconciliation within the northern circumpolar region. In Reykjavik, the Governor General will meet with over 115 Canadian delegates attending the Arctic Circle Assembly, and will participate in a panel discussion on gender equality and diversity in Arctic leadership. Her Excellency will also meet with other world leaders participating in the Assembly, including the President of Iceland, Guni Thorlacius Johannesson, and the President of Estonia, Alar Karis. Quote "The Governor General's participation at the Arctic Circle Assembly is a valuable opportunity for Canada to engage with Icelandic leaders and other international partners on shared priorities, including addressing climate change, advancing reconciliation, and ensuring sustainable economic development throughout the Arctic." The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada Quick Facts Canada and Iceland's bilateral relationship is founded on longstanding Arctic cooperation; sustainable, inclusive, and rules-based trade; and people-to-people ties. Over 100,000 people of Icelandic descent live in Canada, comprising the largest Icelandic diaspora in the world. Established in 2013 in Iceland, the Arctic Circle Assembly is the largest annual international gathering on the Arctic. Participants include governments, Indigenous organizations, universities, and environmental associations. Canada is represented in Iceland through an embassy in Reykjavik. In Canada, Iceland maintains an embassy in Ottawa, and consulates general in Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. The Governor General travels abroad at the request of the Prime Minister. This is Her Excellency's third international visit and the first to an Arctic state since her installation in July 2021. She has previously visited Germany and the Middle East. Story continues Associated Links This document is also available at https://pm.gc.ca SOURCE Prime Minister's Office Cision View original content: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/11/c7304.html One of Gov. Kevin Stitt's biggest policy achievements during his first term was winning legislative approval to change the way Medicaid is managed in the state. Gov. Kevin Stitt is defending his push to outsource management of the states Medicaid program, one of his biggest policy achievements that Joy Hofmeister, his Democratic challenger, says she would work to undo if elected. In a state plagued by poor health outcomes, some of the lowest rates of insured residents in the nation and a rural health system crippled by hospital closures and a shortage of healthcare workers, Stitt successfully pushed lawmakers to allow private entities to bid on managing SoonerCare, Oklahoma's Medicaid program that serves around 1 million low-income Oklahomans. We want better outcomes in health care and we want to hold hospitals accountable, that was the reason we changed that, said Stitt, while speaking to voters last month. The state is currently in the process of soliciting bids for the management of Medicaid dental benefits, regular medical benefits and specialty plans for children in the custody of the state. Evaluations of the bids will take place over the next several months with final selections expected to be announced around March or April of next year. But Hofmeister, who has called the "privatization" of SoonerCare management a scheme, said she would not move forward with the plan if she became governor in January. We would not go further (with it), Hofmeister told The Oklahoman. Managed care model seen by the governor as a way to improve health outcomes Because the governor can select a majority of the members on the Oklahoma Health Care Authority board, Hofmeister could effectively control whether bids are accepted to manage SoonerCare. The governor also hires the agency's director, a power the state Legislature gave Stitts office in 2019. The disagreement over Medicaid reform between the top two candidates for governor not only signifies their differences on how much state functions should be given up to non-government entities but also highlights the claims each has made that their election would be best for improving Oklahomas woeful health outcomes. Story continues Oklahoma is a bottom 10 state in child health and life expectancy, and was one the hardest hit states by the coronavirus pandemic. More:While it did improve some, Oklahoma still ranks low for child well-being in new report With some of the highest rates of poverty and lack of health insurance, access to health care in Oklahoma is a challenge for many, making the states Medicaid program an important lifeline for about one-fourth of the state's residents. This is a pivotal time for health care in our state and Sooner Select is the significant opportunity to positively change lives for our fellow Oklahomans, said Kevin Corbett, Oklahoma secretary of health and mental health, referring to the name of the states program that will outsource the management of Medicaid. In 2021, Stitt pushed forward a managed care model that would privatize Medicaid, incentivizing providers to improve patient health. That effort was halted by the state Supreme Court, which said the governor needed Legislature approval in order to overhaul the Medicaid system. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt gives the State of the State address to a joint session of the Legislature on Feb. 7, 2022. This year, Stitt was able to get approval from lawmakers for a similar managed care program, which will contract with up to three entities. The state will give preference to local providers in awarding the contracts, and each would be paid a flat fee for every person covered, with the idea that the providers will have a financial incentive to improve health care outcomes. "Weve set up a system under the belief that value-based care is a better way for us to improve the health outcomes of the people of Oklahoma than what we have been doing," Senate Floor Leader Greg McCortney, the bill's author, said when the program was approved in May. Stitt sees the push to managed care as the best way to improve health outcomes. He said the new program would closely monitor various health metrics and hold providers more accountable. I have a vision to make Oklahoma a top 10 state in everything that we do, Stitt said earlier this year when the new program was announced. We track all the different metrics, whether it's roads and bridges, or tourism or the economy visits to our state. Health is certainly at the top of the list. While managed care may work for larger hospitals and those part of a larger system, Hofmeister believes smaller facilities will have a much harder time with the new payment process, she told The Oklahoman. Because hospitals will get a flat amount per patient, Hofmeister said small hospitals that see just a handful of really sick patients could be devastated financially. Its going to lead to more hospitals closing or keep getting swallowed up by the bigger systems, Hofmeister said. Hofmeister said she was unsure what specific steps she could take to stop managed care from being implemented but that she would consider all options. The Oklahoma Health Care Authority board is required to approve the agencys ability to fund the contracts but will not have to approve the selection of contracts. That responsibility will fall to an evaluation team with the agency. Because the switch to managed care also requires approval from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a new governor calling for a pause could also result in the federal government holding approval. The state has an aggressive goal of launching the new model of care by next October, so any delays could push back the start date, although state officials said there would never be a disruption of care to Oklahomans. Candidates want to increase the healthcare workforce Also challenging the states healthcare industry is a shortage of skilled workers, including nurses and doctors. The shortage has been especially severe in rural Oklahoma. Shelly Wells, president of the Oklahoma Nursing Association, told lawmakers last month that the state has needed more nurses for decades but the problem is reaching crisis level. We now find ourselves in the middle of a critical (nursing) workforce shortage that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, Wells said. Stitt has played up his efforts to hire more nurses when talking to voters, including his push to get the University of Oklahoma to accept more nursing students. More:Joy Hofmeister, seizing on voucher plan, says Kevin Stitt would kill rural schools During a speech last month, Stitt said the state had plenty of applicants, but the University of Oklahoma would not accept them all. Sometimes academia gets in their own head. They don't think like a business person, Stitt said. I just hammered them and said you've got to accept them all. This year, the University of Oklahoma nearly doubled the number of new nursing students it accepted. Supporters of the states new managed care model say it would also help retain doctors in the state because the program includes increased payments for physicians who meet specific health metrics. Stitt also recently endorsed a plan to increase the income cap for expecting mothers to receive Medicaid coverage, and a plan to extend postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months. Hofmeister said the idea is something she has pushed for the entire campaign and was long overdue. "I would have already been looking for ways to expand care for Oklahomans," Hofmeister said. "Thats something we could have done for a long time now." Oklahoma state government reporting is supported in part by a grant from the Kirkpatrick Foundation. The Oklahoman retains editorial control. To support work like this, consider purchasing a digital subscription to the Oklahoman today. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Hofmeister opposed Medicaid management change implemented by Stitt Shopify B2B merchants can now offer customers the option to defer payment by up to 60 days New Hokodo plug-in requires no development work Hokodo is the only B2B BNPL provider with a Shopify integration LONDON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading B2B Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider Hokodo has today announced a new plug-in for multinational e-commerce platform Shopify . This integration will enable B2B merchants with a Shopify webstore to offer instant credit terms to their limited company and sole trader buyers, while getting paid up front and remaining protected from the risk of non-payment and fraud. This integration is the first of its kind, positioning Hokodo as the only viable choice for Shopify's B2B merchants who want to offer customers the ability to defer payment by up to 60 days. The plug-in is available to Shopify merchants operating in the UK, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. "Our new Shopify integration has been designed with the merchant experience in mind, and can be installed in just a few steps with no development work required," says Sami Ben Hatit , Hokodo's co-founder and CTO. "This will be welcome news to SME merchants who don't have the technology resources to spare for a several weeks long integration." Sellers who offer Hokodo's deferred payment solution at the checkout have seen an uplift of 40% in conversion rate and a 30% increase in basket size. Meanwhile, business customers benefit from the opportunity to 'buy now, pay later' on their purchases, ultimately promoting healthier cash flow for both parties. How it works A Shopify merchant instals Hokodo's plug-in to make credit terms available to their business customers. The customer visits the Shopify store of the merchant. At the checkout they choose to pay later. Hokodo's bespoke APIs run real-time eligibility checks on the buyer's credit score and fraud risk. The buyer selects their preferred payment terms and settlement method (credit card, direct debit, bank transfer etc.), and confirms their order. Story continues The customer pays Hokodo back in line with their payment terms, while the merchant receives up front payment when delivery of the goods is confirmed. Hokodo handles the collections process, and thanks to backing from Lloyd's of London, merchants are always protected against non-payments. For more information: Visit http://www.hokodo.co/shopify-integration Email contact@hokodo.co Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hokodo-launches-shopify-plug-in-enabling-b2b-merchants-to-offer-trade-credit-to-customers-301643757.html SOURCE Hokodo (Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc has spent the past six months fighting calls from its largest shareholder to split up. That isnt stopping the bank ramping up its own dealmaking program. Most Read from Bloomberg The London-based lender expects to increase the amount of acquisitions it makes in the coming years, a person familiar with the companys thinking said. Further disposals are also expected but will likely be matched by purchases, the person said, declining to be identified discussing private information. Such a shift underlines the lenders changing stance to dealmaking. Since the global financial crisis, the bank has made few acquisitions while exiting more than 20 countries and selling dozens of businesses, even some that were previously seen as core to its operations. Such disposals wont stop. Last week, HSBC said it was examining a sale of its Canadian business that could be worth about $10 billion, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The decision to look at selling up in Canada came after several expressions of interest in the business, the person said. It comes after last years disposal of its French and US retail operations. Over the summer, Bloomberg reported on plans for an initial public offering of HSBCs Indonesian operations and the possible sale of its Omani and Russian units. Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn last month hinted at further disposals, saying that more transactions were in flow. There are a few markets where I deem to be -- or businesses where I deem them not to be wholly strategic and not delivering acceptable returns, Quinn told a Bank of America Corp. conference. Breakup Campaign Ping An Insurance Group Co.s push to break up HSBC has focused on the value of the banks sweeping global network. To the Chinese insurer, HSBCs worldwide operations are a millstone around the neck of its profitable Asian business, which it would like to be spun out. Story continues If they are now selling successful parts of the franchise, such as Canada, then it does suggest all this value of the global franchise is more theory than reality, said Edward Firth, a banks analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. I suspect that Ping An are making progress and that any part of the franchise outside of Asia is now available for the right price. But these sales can also be viewed as part of HSBCs long-running efforts to reposition itself. And in the past couple of years, HSBC has announced the purchase of an Indian asset manager, a Singaporean insurance business, the remaining 50% in HSBC Life Insurance Company in China and an increased stake in its Chinese securities joint venture. This strategy fits with HSBCs Asia pivot as it shifts billions of dollars of capital from west to east, predominantly to China and India, to capitalize on the regions rising economies. None of these deals fundamentally changes the size and scope of the business, but taken together show how the lender is regaining an appetite for acquisitions largely lost in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. Last summer, the bank hired Will McLane as head of global corporate development to rebuild its acquisition capabilities. Still, executives have discouraged investors from expecting a return to mega-deals such as HSBCs ill-fated acquisition of Household International in 2003, the subprime lender that ended up costing the company billions of dollars in writedowns. Im acutely aware that about 20 years ago, we did a bunch of things that probably didnt create too much value for shareholders, said Chief Financial Officer Ewen Stevenson, speaking at a Barclays Plc financial services conference last month. I dont think were actively looking at anything large at the moment. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Attributes success to their people and business diversification. BROOKFIELD, Wis., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hydrite announced today that it ranked No. 37 on Deloitte's Wisconsin 75, a ranking of the 75 largest private companies in Wisconsin, based on sales revenue. Hydrite, a family-owned company established in 1929, is one of the largest independent providers of chemicals and related services in the United States. Headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Hydrite has a network of manufacturing facilities, warehouses and laboratories located in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, California and Texas with nearly 1,000 employees in more than 25 states. Hydrite's chief executive officer, Paul Honkamp, credits employees and business diversification with the company's accomplishment. He said, "As Deloitte recognizes the 20th anniversary of the Wisconsin 75, Hydrite is honored to be ranked 17 of the 20 years. Hydrite is a stable and secure business as we focus on operational excellence and safety, and reinvestment into our business. We also strive to be an employer of choice. All these elements are fundamental to our success." "For the 20th year, Deloitte is proud to recognize the economic and community impact of the largest 75 private companies in Wisconsin the Wisconsin 75. This year we will not only celebrate the individual successes of each of these organizations, but also the collective impact of private companies in powering Wisconsin's economy and community," said PJ DiStefano, Wisconsin managing partner of Deloitte LLP. Hydrite previously ranked 39 on the Wisconsin 75 list and has been featured on the list 17 times. About Deloitte's 2022 Wisconsin 75 Deloitte's annual Wisconsin 75 list salutes the largest privately held Wisconsin-based companies. These companies play a key role in the state's economy. Wisconsin 75 award winners are selected based on annual sales revenue. To be eligible for Deloitte's Wisconsin 75 recognition, companies must have a majority ownership by an individual(s), family, employee stock ownership plan, or private equity firm. Public companies are eligible when greater than 50 percent of the value or vote of the shares are owned by individuals, family, an employee stock ownership plan, or private equity. Additionally, companies must have annual sales revenue of at least USD 50,000. The Wisconsin 75 excludes cooperatives and accounting, tax, legal, and consulting service companies. Story continues About Hydrite Hydrite, a family-owned company established in 1929, is one of the largest independent providers of chemicals and related services in the United States. Headquartered in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Hydrite has a network of manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and laboratories located in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, California, and Texas with nearly 1000 employees in more than 25 states. Hydrite owns and operates a private fleet of over 255 units including tractors, van trailers, tankers, and railcars. Hydrite offers expertise in chemical manufacturing and distribution, food and dairy sanitation, organic processing, liquid sulfites, foam control and water treatment chemistries. With over 5,000 items in its product portfolio, Hydrite's dedicated chemists, engineers, and technical service staff have extensive knowledge and experience to solve the most challenging formulation problems. Hydrite offers superior products and innovative solutions, and has a strong commitment to safety and quality. www.hydrite.com About Deloitte Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. Media Contact: Judy Allen judy.allen@hydrite.com Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hydrite-ranked-number-37-most-successful-private-company-on-deloittes-2022-wisconsin-75-301644926.html SOURCE Hydrite Fortune Business Insights Companies covered in hydrogen peroxide market are Solvay S.A. (Belgium), Evonik Industries A.G. (Germany), Arkema S.A. (France), Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Inc. (Japan), Kemira Oyj (Finland), Taekwang Industrial Co., Ltd. (South Korea), Thai Peroxide Ltd. (Thailand), Hansol Chemical Co. Ltd. (South Korea), OCI COMPANY Ltd. (South Korea), Nouryan (Netherlands), Indian Peroxide Ltd. (India), Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd. (India) and more players profiled. Pune, India, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to Fortune Business Insights The global hydrogen peroxide market research is projected to grow from USD 1.69 billion in 2021 to reach USD 2.20 billion by 2028 and exhibit a CAGR of 3.8% during the forecast period. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) provides a myriad of functions across the household, industrial, and commercial applications. The wide applicability of the product due to its high versatility is expected to be the prime factor driving market growth in the upcoming years. Fortune Business Insights has presented this information in its report titled, Hydrogen Peroxide Market, 2021-2028. The market size stood at USD 1.64 billion in 2020. H2O2 is widely utilized by chemical, textile, water, pulp, cosmetics, home care, and specialty applications, including pharmaceuticals, electronics, and food & beverages. The key players investments in upscaling the production capacity have increased in recent years and are likely to boost the market's growth in the coming years. Request a Sample Copy of the Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/hydrogen-peroxide-market-103920 List of Key Players in the Global Market: Solvay S.A. (Belgium) Evonik Industries A.G. (Germany) Arkema S.A. (France) Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company Inc. (Japan) Kemira Oyj (Finland) Taekwang Industrial Co., Ltd. (South Korea) Thai Peroxide Ltd. (Thailand) Hansol Chemical Co. Ltd. (South Korea) OCI COMPANY Ltd. (South Korea) Nouryan (Netherlands) Indian Peroxide Ltd. (India) Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd. (India) Story continues COVID-19 Impact- The sudden emergence of the coronavirus pandemic has hampered several industries' and markets' growth and created drastic challenges for the global economy. However, the demand for chemical disinfectants has surged during the pandemic significantly. The product is approved as a sterilizing and antimicrobial agent, which has increased the product demand. Also, the FDAs focus on decontamination of N-95 respirators through vaporized H2O2 sterilizers has provided significant traction to the market. The market is expected to gain monumental growth in the upcoming years. Report Scope & Segmentation: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2021-2028 Forecast CAGR 3.8% 2028 Value Projection USD 2.20 Billion Base Year 2020 Hydrogen Peroxide Market Size in 2021 USD 1.69 Billion Historical Data 2017-2019 No. of Pages 190 Segments Covered By Grade, By Type, By Application and Regional Hydrogen Peroxide Market Growth Drivers Myriad of Applications to Augment Growth of the Market High Production and Consumption of H2O2 to Boost Growth in Asia Pacific Inquire Before Buying This Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/queries/hydrogen-peroxide-market-103920 Segmentation- On the basis of grade, the market is bifurcated into >35% and <35%. On the basis of type, the market is segmented into bleaching agents, disinfectants, and others. On the basis of application, the market is categorized into specialty applications, home & personal care, water purification, textile bleaching, chemical synthesis, and pulp & paper. Geographically, the market is classified into Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. Report Coverage- Provides a comprehensive analysis of the market. Emphasizes key factors, such as applications, leading companies, and others. Provides crucial insights into the regulatory scenarios of the market. Highlights the key market trends and the latest industry developments. Assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drivers & Restraints- Myriad of Applications to Augment Growth of the Market H2O2 is widely used across the different household, commercial and industrial applications. It is used as an antimicrobial and antiseptic agent in healthcare. Textile and paper industries benefit from its strong bleaching properties. It acts as an exemplary oxidizing and disinfecting agent in food, personal care, water purification, and home care applications. The myriad of applications is anticipated to bolster the global hydrogen peroxide market growth. The products antimicrobial and bleaching properties are useful in instant tea, cheese manufacturing, and other applications in the food industry. Moreover, major businesses such as Mitsubishi Gas Chemicals Company and Solvay S.A. are investing in the production of super-pure grades for electronic applications in Taiwan and China. Hence, the rising product adoption across electronic and food applications is expected to significantly stimulate market growth. However, the products strong oxidizing nature can pose potential health hazards and hinder the markets growth. Regional Insights- High Production and Consumption of H2O2 to Boost Growth in Asia Pacific Asia Pacific is projected to gain the largest portion of the global hydrogen peroxide market share. As per the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Asia Pacific accounts for the largest production and consumption of paperboard and paper. The bleaching properties of the product create huge demand in prospering textile industry across India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and China. This is likely to boost the market growth in Asia Pacific. Europe is expected to grow with the second-largest share in the global market due to the high product demand. The high presence of water purification, textile, paper, personal care, and home care industries create a huge demand for H2O2 and are anticipated to drive the market growth. North America is expected to gain considerable growth due to the rising R&D activities to develop extended product applications across healthcare, and specialty applications are expected to drive the regions growth. The Middle East & Africa, and Latin America are likely to witness high growth by the end of the forecast period. Competitive Landscape- Key Players Adopt Inorganic Strategies to Graner Growth The key players emphasize upscaling their production capacities to fulfill the increasing product demand globally. The businesses operating in the market are devising innovative growth strategies such as new product launches, technological developments, mergers, partnerships, acquisitions, and collaborations to accumulate growth in the market. For instance, Evonik Industries A.G. acquired PeroxyChem in February 2020 for USD 640 million. The company aims to strengthen its sustainable disinfectants portfolio across North America and the world. Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report with TOC: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/hydrogen-peroxide-market-103920 Detailed Table of Content: Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions Executive Summary Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Emerging Trends Key Insights Key Emerging Trends For Major Countries Industry SWOT Analysis Regulatory Analysis Recent Industry Developments - Policies, Partnerships, New Grade Launches, and Mergers & Acquisitions Qualitative Insights Impact of COVID-19 on Global Hydrogen Peroxide Market Supply Chain Challenges Steps taken by Government/Companies to overcome this impact Potential opportunities due to COVID-19 outbreak Global Hydrogen Peroxide Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Size Estimates and Forecast By Grade (Value/Volume) <35% >35% By Type (Value/Volume) Disinfectants Bleaching Agents Others By Application (Value/Volume) Pulp & Paper Chemical Synthesis Textile Bleaching Water Purification Home & Personal Care Specialty Applications By Region (Value/Volume) North America Europe Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa TOC Continued! Speak to Our Expert: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/hydrogen-peroxide-market-103920 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): 1. Is the Impact of COVID-19 on hydrogen peroxide industry growing? Answer: The market is projected to grow from USD 1.69 billion in 2021 to USD 2.20 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 3.8% during the 2021-2028 period 2. Who are the key players in the the Impact of COVID-19 on Hydrogen Peroxide Market? Answer: Thai Peroxide Ltd. (Thailand), Hansol Chemical Co. Ltd. (South Korea), OCI COMPANY Ltd. (South Korea), Nouryan (Netherlands), Indian Peroxide Ltd. (India), Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd. (India) Read Related Insights: Chromium Oxide Market to Worth USD 740.30 Million by 2029 | Chromium Oxide Industry Exhibiting a CAGR of 4.5% during the Forecast Period 2022-2029 Masterbatch Market Size to Reach USD 16.35 Billion by 2026; Owing to Increasing Popularity of Lightweight Vehicles Worldwide, Says Fortune Business Insights Sterilization Pouches Market Size to Hit USD 44.61 Billion by 2027; Escalating Demand for Efficient Sterilization Solutions in Healthcare Facilities to Feed Market Growth, Says Fortune Business Insights About Us: Fortune Business Insights delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in. Address: Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd.9th Floor, Icon Tower, Baner Mahalunge Road, Baner, Pune-411045, Maharashtra, India. Phone: US: +1 424 253 0390 UK: +44 2071 939123 APAC: +91 744 740 1245 Email: sales@fortunebusinessinsights.com LinkedIn Facebook Twitter invIOs GmbH VIENNA, Austria, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- invIOs GmbH (invIOs), a privately held biotechnology company developing novel therapies for cancer, today announces its participation at three upcoming industry and investor conferences: BIO-Europe, Inv$tival Showcase and the Jefferies 2022 London Healthcare Conference. BIO-Europe 24-26 October 2022, Leipzig, Germany Peter Llewellyn-Davies, CEO, and Dr. Romana Gugenberger, CMSO, will be on site and available for meetings. Peter Llewellyn-Davies will also speak on a panel discussion about innovation in the life sciences sector in Austria. A digital company presentation by Peter Llewellyn-Davies is available now online via the event partnering system. Panel discussion : Austria Where innovation moves mountains! 24 October at 2:00 pm CEST, Exhibition Hall Stage To request a meeting at the event in Leipzig or during virtual partnering on 1-4 November, please use the partneringONE system. Inv$tival Showcase 14 November 2022, London Peter Llewellyn-Davies and Dr. Mario Kuttke, Head of Cell Therapy, will be in London and available for 1-on-1 meetings. Peter Llewellyn-Davies will present invIOss cell therapy platform, EPiC, and pipeline of clinical and pre-clinical assets on the Biotech Late Growth Stage. Company presentation : 14 November at 2:15 pm GMT To request a meeting with invIOs, please use the LSX 1:1 partnering system. Jefferies 2022 London Healthcare Conference 15-17 November 2022, London Peter Llewellyn-Davies and Dr. Mario Kuttke will attend the conference and are available for meetings. To set up a meeting, please contact your Jefferies representative. About invIOs invIOs is a privately held biotech company based in Vienna, Austria, focusing on the discovery and development of innovative cancer immunotherapies. EPiC, invIOss proprietary cell therapy platform for intracellularly modifying gene expression, enables rapid treatment of patients in an out-patient setting using their own fresh immune cells. Once clinically validated, this novel concept will allow access to and treatment for indications not previously addressable by immunotherapy. The first EPiC-based candidate, APN401, is already being evaluated in human patients. Story continues APN401 is the first candidate treatment that leverages the EPiC platform. It is a first-in-class out-patient approach to strengthen immune reactivity by targeting the intracellular master checkpoint inhibitor Cbl-b. APN401 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1b clinical trial in patients with advanced solid tumors. INV441, the second candidate from the EPiC platform, is a tumor-specific cell therapy that targets Cbl-b to activate local, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). It is in pre-clinical evaluation for the treatment of patients with glioblastoma. Thirdly, INV501 is a novel small molecule candidate designed to activate anti-tumour immune responses. It addresses a novel, undisclosed IO target. For further information, please visit www.invios.com and connect with us on LinkedIn. Investor contacts invIOs Peter Morley Head of Communications T +43 1 8656577 121 Email: investors@invios.com MC Services AG Raimund Gabriel, Laurie Doyle, Dr. Regina Lutz T +49 89 210 228 0 Email: invios@mc-services.eu An expanded meeting of the First Interstate Council of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan format took place with the participation of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov in Bishkek on October 11. Making a speech at the meeting, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said: -Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, Dear members of the delegation. A very warm welcome, dear Ilham Heydar oglu, to the delegation of the Republic of Azerbaijan you are heading in the Kyrgyz Republic. Let me express my deep gratitude to you for accepting our invitation and for paying a state visit to our country. We attach particular importance to your visit as a logical continuation of the strategic partnership between Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. We are facing the task of defining strategic goals and an algorithm of actions, as well as the parameters of the directions, content and nature of our relations in the future. We are ready to maintain interstate relations at a high level, to step up all contacts on existing and future cooperation mechanisms. There has been a meeting in a narrow format. In the meeting in a narrow format, we already discussed a number of highly important issues of our cooperation, noted its main directions and priorities, and we will continue discussions within the framework of the Interstate Council meeting. Speaking about trade and investment cooperation, I want to note with satisfaction that we have reviewed the important role of the Kyrgyz-Azerbaijani Development Fund, which should become a catalyst for accelerating and an effective mechanism for attracting Azerbaijani investments to Kyrgyzstan and implementing mutually beneficial business projects. It is gratifying that we have an understanding of the need to increase trade between our countries. Its current level is still far from its potential. We welcome the business community of the Republic of Azerbaijan in our market and are open to further partnerships. We guarantee the protection of investors and are ready to provide the most favorable conditions. Dear Ilham Heydar oglu. Regarding the deepening of cultural and humanitarian cooperation between our countries, I would like to note the following. I am very glad that we have a common history, roots, culture, traditions and national features. From time immemorial, our ancestors bequeathed to us friendship and cooperation. We attach great importance to the development of relations in the field of culture, education, science, tourism and sports. In this context, I would like to state with special satisfaction the importance of implementing landmark projects that contribute to the deepening of mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation between our countries and peoples, such as the joint opening of two general education schools named after Heydar Aliyev Aliyev and Nizami Ganjavi in the capital of our Motherland, the city of Bishkek, which will take place tomorrow. I am glad that our youth, the future of Kyrgyzstan, will receive education in these excellent schools. I am sure that our boys and girls will become a bridge of friendship and cooperation between fraternal Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. I am also pleased to note that we will take part in the opening of the Friendship Park of Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, the construction of which was completed the day before with the help of our Azerbaijani friends. I do hope that this wonderful park will become a favorite spot for the recreation of our citizens. I remember quoting our great compatriot and writer Chingiz Aitmatov in our meeting in Baku. As we all know, he is also close to our Azerbaijani friends. He said that the leading theme of the Kyrgyz spiritual heritage, coming from the depths of centuries, which is the epic Manas, is unity. We deeply appreciate unity, honor and justice. It is gratifying that the same qualities are also inherent in our Azerbaijani brothers. In the Kyrgyz and Azerbaijani languages, the word namyz has the same meaning and is translated as honor, conscience, and reflects different shades of speech. I would like to quote the words of the great son of the Azerbaijani people and national leader of the country, respected Heydar Alirza oglu, who, upon his arrival in Kyrgyzstan on a visit for the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Manas epic back in 1995, noted that we feel and understand each other with our hearts. For our part, we also want to emphasize that we are ready for fruitful work with our Azerbaijani brothers in all areas of cooperation. Thank you for your attention, dear Ilham Heydar oglu. Once again, I am glad to welcome you. You have the floor. Please. *** President Ilham Aliyev said: -Dear Sadyr Nurgozhoyevich, thank you for the kind words. I fully share your assessment of both the fraternal nature of relations between our peoples and the current state of Kyrgyz-Azerbaijani ties. I would like to thank you again for the invitation to pay a state visit to fraternal Kyrgyzstan. I am very pleased to be making this visit today. I have visited the fraternal Kyrgyz land twice before, but those were visits related to my participation in international events. This is my first official state visit to Kyrgyzstan, and it takes place literally six months after your official visit, which is a demonstration of the fact that we are determined to intensify our relations. For my part, I would also like to note the common historical and cultural roots that bring our peoples together and form a solid foundation for interstate relations. Today I visited the Memorial to the Fallen, as well as the grave of the great son of the Kyrgyz people, Chingiz Aitmatov. I had the pleasure of meeting him in Baku and recall those meetings with warmth. He is rightfully the source of pride not only for the Kyrgyz people, but of the entire Turkic world. Today, the Turkic world is gaining new potential, and both Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan are actively contributing to the strengthening of fraternal relations between Turkic speaking states. The summit to be held next month, I think, will be another step towards strengthening our unity. We must be closer to our roots, we must rely on our traditions, on the covenants of our ancestors, and preserve and protect the unique culture of our peoples in order to always follow the path of independence and national dignity. For six months now, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan have officially been strategic partners. The Declaration was signed in Baku during your visit, and today, at a meeting in a limited format, we exchanged views on how it is being implemented successfully. We will fill it with even more specific content. I think that the decision to create a joint investment fund is one of such factors. We have already said that we are waiting for specific proposals on the activities of the fund, on the directions of its capital investments, so that we could quickly contribute to the increase in trade without wasting time. I agree with your assessment, and I got acquainted with the materials of bilateral relations on the eve of the visit and, of course, I saw that the turnover between our countries is purely symbolic, so to speak, but there are good opportunities. The reforms that are being carried out in Kyrgyzstan, I am sure, will contribute to rapid economic growth and the creation of new opportunities for business and for foreign investors. As for Azerbaijan, we have been an investor in friendly countries for many years, and our investments have always served the cause of strengthening cooperation with the countries where we invest and mutual interests they create jobs and new opportunities for business development. So I think the creation of a joint fund is one of the important results of my visit. Of course, for the first time we are holding an Interstate Council. We are essentially structuring our relations under the auspices of the Interstate Council in order to give more dynamism and have more opportunities to control decision-making, including those within the framework of trade and economic activities. As we have already noted, the meeting of the intergovernmental commission was held in Baku relatively recently and will be held in Bishkek next year. The Interstate Council and the Intergovernmental Commission are the mechanisms that will constantly allow us, as they say, to keep our finger on the pulse and see what we must do to reach the goals that we have set ourselves. The relations between our peoples actually have a long history. You mentioned the cooperation in the humanitarian sphere in your speech. We are very grateful for such respect for the memory of the founder of the Azerbaijani state, Heydar Aliyev. One of the big schools in Bishkek is named after him. Also, another school has now been named after Nizami Ganjavi, the great Azerbaijani poet and thinker. We regard this as a sign of respect for our people and highly appreciate it. I share your assessment that the Kyrgyzstan-Azerbaijan Friendship Park will be a place of recreation and one of the new projects that will decorate the developing face of the Kyrgyz capital. Once again, thank you for the invitation and hospitality, and I express great respect for the fraternal Kyrgyz people on behalf of the Azerbaijani people. Thank you. *** President Sadyr Japarov: Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, thank you very much for your kind words. *** The event participants then made speeches on the current state of and prospects for bilateral cooperation. *** The heads of state then made speeches. President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov said: Distinguished members of the delegation, thank you for your speeches. Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, dear members of the delegation. The Kyrgyz Republic attaches great importance to the development of interstate relations between our countries and considers Azerbaijan as a reliable friend and partner. I want to note with deep satisfaction that the Kyrgyz-Azerbaijani cooperation is developing dynamically. There are no political contradictions between our countries. We intend to strengthen political dialogue, establish and develop closer economic ties, including the joint implementation of large investment projects, active interaction on international platforms, as well as further building up of cultural and humanitarian cooperation. I am sure that through joint effort we will ensure further building up of constructive cooperation within the framework of international organizations and regional associations. There is no doubt that the friendly ties and fraternal relations between our countries, which are based on centuries of history, common traditions, language and cultural and spiritual heritage, have all the prerequisites for further development and deepening. I am convinced that the documents signed today will further expand and strengthen cooperation between our countries. Thank you for your attention. *** President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said: Dear Sadyr Nurgozhoyevich, dear members of the delegation. In this composition today, we listened to the comments by members of delegations on important areas of our cooperation. This once again confirms that both sides are focused on a specific result. I think that the information that was provided on cooperation in the economic sphere, the transport sphere, the cultural and humanitarian sphere and investment projects will have a concrete result, because there is a common opinion on bringing our countries and peoples closer together in all these areas. We have already determined the cultural agenda for the next year and beyond. The holding of the Days of Culture of Kyrgyzstan in Azerbaijan and of Azerbaijan in Kyrgyzstan will allow our viewers and listeners to get acquainted with the rich culture of our countries and enable even closer contacts at various levels. Today, during the meeting in a limited format, we also spoke about issues related to education. I think that it is also necessary to define a specific program for the training of our students in the leading universities of our countries and establishing contacts between the younger generation, because in the future they should, like us, be attached to their roots, traditions and sentiments between our countries. I would like to emphasize the importance of cooperation in the transport and transit sector at the current stage. As noted, the new transport routes that already exist and are being planned on will allow us the opportunity to bring our communications even closer together, as they say. First of all, we are talking about the railway, and we support the decision to build the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway with access to the Caspian Sea. On our side of the Caspian up until European consumers, there is already an extensive transport infrastructure rail, road, air, and also taking into account the potential of our cargo air transport. Today, having no access to the world ocean, Azerbaijan has already created an important transport network. Of course, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway will be part of the Middle Corridor. The fact that this is happening now is also understandable, of course. But the main thing is that all projects that are being implemented in your region and in the region of the western Caspian should be synchronized so that we can plan both to increase and expand our port capabilities. It has already been said that we are planning in fact, much earlier than we planned before to expand the potential of the Alat Trade Port from 15 to 25 million tons. In principle, such plans were there from the very beginning, but we were looking at that as something distant, as a distant future. But today, on some days, there are even traffic jams in the port because the amount of cargo is growing rapidly. The figure has already been announced here 60 percent growth in nine months is a significant indicator in the transportation of goods. The North-South corridor also passes through Azerbaijan, which also has a very great potential. At certain junction points in Azerbaijan, these two corridors naturally intersect, creating opportunities to expand the potential of both the South-West and North-West corridors. Therefore, I think that within the framework of the intergovernmental commission and perhaps within the framework of perhaps more frequent consultations on the transport sector, it is worth creating, at some stage, a special working group that would be in constant contact. Because the issues related to information about ongoing projects and their synchronization are highly important. We must be ready to expand our transport potential when infrastructure projects are ready in your region so that investments are timely and, as they say, more efficient. Therefore, I think that there is a very serious potential in this and indeed in all other directions. We went over a broad agenda today. I am sure that everything we have planned on will be carried out. We as presidents will exercise control over the implementation of decisions. The Interstate Council will meet on a regular basis. Therefore, I call on all members of the delegation to work hard and focus on results. Thank you. President Sadyr Japarov: Thank you, Ilham Heydar oglu. I do hope that the proposals and thoughts you have mentioned will soon be implemented. Lebanon Israel (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) Israel and Lebanon will settle a decades-long dispute over the maritime border between the two nations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea with a US-brokered agreement that will allow both countries access to valuable undersea natural gas reserves. The government of Israel and Government of Lebanon, have agreed to formally end their maritime boundary dispute and establish a permanent maritime boundary between them, said a senior Biden administration official who said the deal is the result of months of negotiations to end the long running dispute of multiple decades. Israel and Lebanon first started talks over the maritime border dispute over a decade ago, but those talks came to a halt in 2020. The US-led negotiations started in fall 2021 and continued through 2020. The official said the renewed negotiations were part of seeking for a different paradigm shift that would allow for a breakthrough. That breakthrough happened over the last few weeks, and over a very intensive last several days and very long nights, they added. The official also said President Joe Biden has spoken with both Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Lebanese President Michel Aoun to offer congratulations. Both leaders confirm their readiness to move forward after this breakthrough, and to begin discussing implementation, the official said. This is not been an easy negotiation but the agreement is historic. And we expect that there may be other difficult moments as we implement this agreement. Moving forward, the United States continues and will continue to offer its help in facilitating any discussions in the future. In a statement, Mr Lapid called the deal a historic achievement and said it would strengthen Israels security, inject billions into Israels economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border. Mr Aoun previewed acceptance of the agreement earlier on Tuesday when he wrote on Twitter that the final version of the offer would be satisfactory for Lebanon. Story continues He added that the agreement answers [Lebanese] demands and preserves [Lebanons] right to its natural wealth. The agreement, which was reached after negotiations assisted by US diplomats, only applies to the maritime border between the two countries. It does not have any effect on the 50-mile land border which has been the subject of another long-running dispute that is monitored by a UN force. The Biden administration official said the agreement would provide a needed boost to the Lebanese economy, which is currently in a crisis which has left residents with fewer than two hours of power per day. This gives the country and the people of Lebanon hope, something that is desperately needed, they said. They added that the deal would give Israel the kind of security and stability in the eastern Mediterranean necessary to continue to rely on those waters for a lion's share of the electricity in the country and the ability to export and be part of the solution for the global and European energy crisis. Win McNamee/Getty Images; Maja Hitij/Getty Images JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC he hopes tech billionaire Elon Musk "cleans up Twitter." He expressed concerns about the number of spam accounts on the site. Musk cited bot accounts when he backed down from his Twitter takeover deal earlier this year. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that tech billionaire Elon Musk should put Twitter in order, in part by removing bot and spam accounts. "I hope Musk cleans up Twitter," Dimon told CNBC at the JPM Techstars conference in London. "Why can't Twitter know who you are when you come on board, so they can eliminate all those people in the public square who are robots and emails and stuff like that?" he added. Twitter says that bots make up less than 5% of the platform's monetized daily active users. Research by the digital-intelligence provider Similarweb backs up these claims, but found that because these accounts tweet so much, between 20% and 29% of US Twitter content is generated by spam accounts. Musk, who is the world's richest person and CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, is in the midst of a tumultuous $44-billion deal to buy the social-media platform. Musk first offered to buy the company in April after accumulating a 9.2% share, making him its biggest shareholder, and trying to join its board of directors. But the next month he seemed more hesitant on the deal, tweeting that he'd put it "on hold" until Twitter gave him more data related to the number of bots on the platform. He also told his lawyers to "slow down" the deal, text messages show. In early July, he sent a letter to Twitter terminating the deal, which he attributed to a lack of data on bots. In some cases Twitter had refused to share data, while in others it gave him "incomplete or unusable information," Musk's lawyers said. Within days, Twitter sued Musk, accusing him of "refusing to honor his obligations." Musk countersued later in July, alleging that the company intentionally miscounted the number of spam accounts as part of what he called "its scheme to mislead investors about the company's prospects." Story continues But after months of Musk trying to abandon the deal, it is now back on the cards. Musk and Twitter came close to agreeing a deal at a roughly 8% discount for the tech mogul. In the end, however, Musk's lawyers sent Twitter a letter renewing the original offer on October 4. Banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclays are helping Musk raise a total of $13 billion in financing through the debt market, but JPMorgan isn't among the group of lenders. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that Musk has spurned the bank for years and that Musk and Dimon have personally clashed. But in the interview with CNBC, Dimon praised Musk. "In my view, Elon is very smart," he said. Dimon also spoke about the US economy, which he said is likely to enter a recession in the next six to nine months. Read the original article on Business Insider After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, many Royal fans are wondering: when is King Charles IIIs coronation? Moments after the Queens death on September 8, 2022, Charles was proclaimed King. Due to royal tradition, days later on September 10, 2022, the Privy Council proclaimed the sovereign. The clerk of the council said, Charles III, by the grace of god of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of his other realms and territory, 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. God Save the King. More from StyleCaster However, His Majestys coronation, that is, the formal ceremony in which hes crowned King, isnt as immediate. According to Daily Mail, the new King is set to break coronation conventions and be significantly different from when his mother was crowned. The King has stripped back a lot of the Coronation in recognition that the world has changed in the past 70 years, an insider told Daily Mail. The coronation has been planned for years under the name Operation Gold Orb. Read below on when his coronation will be, how long the coronation will be, where the coronation will take place and how many guests will attend. When is King Charles IIIs coronation? Click here to read the full article. Image by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images When is King Charles IIIs coronation? Buckingham Palace confirmed the date of King Charles IIIs coronation will be on May 6, 2023. Royal tradition dictates that the country will remain in mourning for an appropriate period of time following the passing of the former monarch and many sources speculated that the coronation would take place a couple of months following Queen Elizabeths passing. Queen Elizabeth, herself, ascended to the throne on February 16, 1952, but was crowned 16 months after her father King George VI passed. King Charles IIIs coronation isnt expected to be as far away as Queen Elizabeths. The Telegraph predicted before Buckingham Palaces announcement that King Charles IIIs coronation would take place in the spring or summer of 2023. There was also speculation that the coronation would take place on the anniversary of the Queens coronation or the day after on June 3, 2023. Story continues How long will King Charles IIIs coronation be? Image: Henry Nicholls-WPA Pool/Getty Images How long will King Charles IIIs coronation be? King Charles IIIs coronation will be significantly shorter than Queen Elizabeths coronation. The new Kings ceremony will only take place for just over an hour while Queen Elizabeths took over three hours. The ceremony is supposedly shortened due to the Kings age and a reflection of a more modern monarchy. Where will King Charles IIIs coronation take place? Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Where will King Charles IIIs Coronation take place? Its expected that King Charles IIIs coronation will take place at Westminster Abbey where the coronation is traditionally held. The subsequent activities will take place at Buckingham Palace for the traditional waving at the balcony with Queen Consort Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton who took their place as the Prince and Princess of Wales. Theyll be accompanied by their children George, Charlotte and Louis. How many people will attend King Charles IIIs coronation? Image: Chris Jackson/Getty Images How many people will attend King Charles IIIs coronation? It is expected that over 2,000 people will attend King Charles IIIs coronation. The number is significantly less than Queen Elizabeth IIs coronation when over 8,000 people saw her take the crown in 1953. People who are not guaranteed spots at the coronation include members of Parliament and peers. Sources told The Telegraph that the people who are invited will be representatives of different faiths and community groups. Commonwealth leaders and diversity of religions will be prioritized among the congregation. The King is also said to have expressed a wish that it reflects the ethnic diversity of modern Britain. Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Mather told Daily Mail the reasoning behind the new invites, There are about 700 peers, well they wont all be there, he said. The same with MPs: they wont all be present because hes not being crowned for them. Hes being crowned for the people. How will King Charles IIIs coronation differ from Queen Elizabeth IIs coronation? Image: Paul Edwards WPA Pool/Getty Images) How will King Charles IIIs coronation differ from Queen Elizabeth IIs coronation? King Charles III is expected to cut back different aspects and rituals of the traditional coronation to reflect the monarchy in a modern setting. According to The Daily Mail, the presentation of gold is likely to be axed from the ceremony where an ingot or wedge of gold of a pound weight was presented to the monarch by the Lord Great Chamberlain before being placed upon the altar. A source told the outlet, In an age where people are feeling the pinch, this is not going to happen. In the same vein, King Charles III reportedly expressed the wish that the service is considered good value and the service will not be as expensive as expected. What will King Charles III wear at the coronation? Image: Polly Thomas/Getty Images What will King Charles III wear at the coronation? According to Crisscut Magazine, Charles will be wearing jewelry that is estimated at $4.2 billion. The gemstones include the St. Edwards Crown, Sovereigns Ring, Imperial State Crown, Sovereigns Sceptre with dove, Sovereigns Sceptre with the cross, Sovereigns Orb, Gold Ampulla, the Spurs, and the Sword of Offering. The iconic St. Edwards Crown is made of solid gold and has more than 400 gemstones, including rubies, garnets and sapphires. What is the dress code at King Charles IIIs coronation? Image: Dominic Lipinski for WPA Pool/Getty Images What is the dress code at King Charles IIIs coronation? The dress code for King Charles IIIs coronation is reportedly more relaxed than Queen Elizabeth IIs coronation. According to The Daily Mail, discussions were held where they wanted to relax the requirement for peers to wear so-called coronation robes. A cloak of crimson velvet, the rank of the peer is indicated by rows of erminea stoats white winter fur and black tail endon the cape. Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Mather, who started the plan for King Charless coronation told the outlet, No coronation robes. Give them to a museum where they belong. Its not going to be a tweed jacket and pair of jeansbut morning suit or lounge suit. Will Camilla be crowned as Queen Consort with King Charles III? Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Will Camilla be crowned as Queen Consort with King Charles III? Camilla will be crowned alongside King Charles III during his coronation ceremony. Camilla will be crowned as Queen Consort for the first time since the Queen Mother in 1937 (Prince Philip did not take the King Consort title due to the longstanding tradition that King is reserved for the reigning monarch). Camilla will be crowned with a platinum crown, decorated with 2,800 diamonds including the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor. Image: Courtesy of Random House. Buy: Elizabeth the Queen by Sally Bedell Smith $7.95+ For more about the British royal family, check out Sally Bedell Smiths 2012 biography, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. The New York Times bestseller, which includes the real story behind several storylines featured in Netflixs The Crown, follows Queen Elizabeth IIs life from her childhood as the heiress presumptive to her father, King George VI; to the moment he met her husband, Prince Philip when she was 13 years old; to her ascension to the throne at 25 years old in 1952. Elizabeth the Queen, which also includes interviews with Buckingham Palace sources and never-before-revealed documents, provides a deep dive into the Queens legacy as one of the most famous monarchs in recent history. Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think youll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission from the sale. "Watch This Space" - Amazon Prime Video Best of StyleCaster AS LHV Group LHV UK Limited, a subsidiary of AS LHV Group, has made an offer to Bank North Limited, a UK based credit institution, to acquire its small and medium-sized enterprises ('SME') lending business. With this move, LHV UK Limited, which is currently applying for a UK banking license, enters the UK SME lending market. LHV Group currently holds a 9.3% stake in Bank North as a financial investment. Bank North was Authorised with Restrictions and it entered the mobilisation period in Q3 2021. The mobilisation period usually lasts up to 12 months and enables new banks to complete the build-out of their bank and fully capitalise the bank. Although the bank saw substantial loan demand, Bank North was unable to raise the required capital due to falling activity in the capital markets. Therefore, on 30 September 2022, the company decided to initiate the Solvent Wind Down process. For LHV Group, liquidating Bank North means an additional write-off of its financial investment in the amount of EUR 2.2 million in September. Bank North with the help of liquidation advisers conducted a tender to sell its business activity or loan portfolio, where LHV UK made the best offer. The acquisition of the business would include the loan portfolio of approximately 17.9 million pounds, 20 employees, information technology systems for managing the customer relationships and loan portfolio, alongside agreements with commercial brokers. Employees include the business development and client relationship team, underwriting, valuation and IT teams. The transaction price is 110% of the loan book value at the time the transaction completes. The transaction is scheduled to be completed in October. LHV UK will finance the transaction from its own funds and does not need additional capital to carry out the transaction. For LHV UK the acquired loan portfolio would start generating interest income right after its transition. Longer term financial effect of the transaction will be disclosed with the LHV Group financial plan in February 2023. Story continues Comment by Madis Toomsalu, CEO of LHV Group: "Lending to enterprises has been the main activity of LHV Group since the establishment of LHV Pank. Bank North's activities have proven that the demand for SME loans in the UK remains strong and that an efficient and fast decision-making process makes it possible for a new entrant to the market to grow a lending business. Bank North's strengths have been faster lending process compared to competitors, regional focus and great relationship with commercial brokers. The lending business aligns with LHV UK's strategy and business plan, which envisages the next expansion of existing activities into the SME lending market, enabling a significant acceleration of current plans. LHV UK plans to continue sales through existing commercial brokers and also continue operating the physical branch in Manchester. For a bank the size of LHV, the question in UK is not about demand for loans, but about having enough capital to meet the demand." LHV UKs growth strategy in the UK is underpinned by three business lines: banking services for financial intermediaries, SME lending and banking services for e-merchants. LHV UK is currently focused on obtaining a banking licence. For providing new SME loans, LHV UK must register as an Annex 1 financial institution. LHV Group is the largest domestic financial group and capital provider in Estonia. LHV Group's key subsidiaries are LHV Pank, LHV Varahaldus, and LHV Kindlustus. The Group employs more than 820 people. As of August, LHV's banking services are used by 359,000 clients, the pension funds managed by LHV have 132,000 active clients, and LHV Kindlustus protects a total of 149,000 clients. LHV's UK branch offers banking infrastructure to 200 international financial services companies, via which LHV's payment services reach clients worldwide. Priit Rum Communication Manager Phone: +372 502 0786 Email: priit.rum@lhv.ee This new Patient Service Centre reflects LifeLabs commitment to provide expanded access and testing services to Ontarians LifeLabs Opens its Newest Ottawa Location The Hon. Dr. Merrilee Fullerton (KanataCarleton), Minister of Children, Community and Social Services and Erica Zarkovich, Senior Vice President, Government Markets for LifeLabs, mark the grand opening of LifeLabs Patient Service Centre in Kanata, Ontario. Ottawa, Ontario, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LifeLabs recently hosted the grand opening of its newest Patient Service Centre in Kanata. Dr. Merrilee Fullerton, MPP for KanataCarleton, joined LifeLabs to celebrate this milestone in bringing care closer to home and expanding access to high-quality diagnostic tests for residents in Greater Ottawa region. LifeLabs has a long and strong history in Ottawa, collaborating with healthcare providers, long-term care and retirement homes across the city and surrounding areas to service the Greater Ottawa community. Todays grand opening in Kanata marks the seventh Patient Service Centre in Ottawa and surrounding areas and the first in Kanata, providing residents in Eastern Ontario with reliable diagnostic testing to help them manage their health in their own communities, closer to home, said Erica Zarkovich, Senior Vice President, Government Markets at LifeLabs. The new addition of the Patient Service Centre in Kanata exemplifies our growing network of clinics and lab services. As we continue to expand services, LifeLabs remains dedicated to improving access to diagnostic services across Ontario. "This LifeLabs announcement is great news that will strengthen our local network of health care services," says Dr. Merrilee Fullerton, MPP for KanataCarleton. "As the City's west end continues to grow, LifeLabs' facilities and expertise are a welcomed addition in Kanata, providing families and individuals the diagnostic testing they will require, here locally." Each year, LifeLabs supports Ontarians by performing over 80 million laboratory tests to help diagnose, treat, monitor, and prevent diseases. With seven testing labs and 239 Patient Service Centres across Ontario, and flexible care options, LifeLabs serves over 80 hospitals, Long Term Care and Retirement Homes, and 33 remote and rural First Nations communities. LifeLabs employs more than 4,600 people in Ontario. Story continues About LifeLabs LifeLabs is Canadas leading provider of laboratory diagnostic information and digital health connectivity systems, enabling patients and health care practitioners to diagnose, treat, monitor, and prevent disease. We support 20 million patient visits annually and conduct over 100 million laboratory tests through leading edge technologies and our 6,000 talented and dedicated employees. We are a committed innovator in supporting Canadians to live healthier lives, operating Canadas first commercial genetics lab, and the countrys largest online patient portal, with more than 5 million Canadians receiving their results online. LifeLabs is 100% Canadian owned by OMERS Infrastructure, the infrastructure investment manager of one of Canadas largest defined benefit pension plans. Learn more at lifelabs.com. Attachment CONTACT: Media Team LifeLabs media@lifelabs.com Many Americans feel comfortable treating their advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which partially automate certain driving functions, as full self-driving systems, according to a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The survey explored habits, expectations and attitudes among regular users of General Motors Super Cruise, Nissan/Infiniti ProPILOT Assist and Tesla Autopilot. A total of 604 participants spread more or less evenly across the different brands took part in the survey from January to November 2021. All three groups were found to be more likely to engage in non-driving related activities -- like texting or eating -- while using their systems than when driving manually. That was especially true for Super Cruise and Autopilot users, who were more likely to report performing activities that would take their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road. Super Cruise and Autopilot users also said they could perform these types of tasks better and more often while using their systems, according to the study. A total of 53% of Super Cruise users, 42% of Autopilot users and 12% of ProPILOT Assist users said they were comfortable treating their systems as self-driving. The study's publishing follows a series of incidents involving the safety of Tesla's Autopilot system, and by extension, its "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) system, the company's more advanced ADAS. Last month, some Tesla drivers filed suit against the company for falsely advertising the autonomous capabilities of Autopilot and FSD, something California's Department of Motor Vehicles has also recently accused Tesla of. In August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asked Tesla to provide more information about its cabin camera -- which is meant to monitor the alertness of drivers using Autopilot and FSD -- as part of its ongoing probe into 830,000 Teslas that include Autopilot. NHTSA is currently investigating 16 crashes in which Tesla owners had potentially engaged such systems before crashing into stationary emergency vehicles. The agency has opened a total 39 special investigations into Autopilot-related crashes since 2016, 37 of which are currently still open. Story continues GM's Super Cruise, by comparison, has been probed by NHTSA only twice in the same timespan, according to NHTSA data. Since Super Cruise launched in 2017, the ADAS has appeared on over 40,000 vehicles, so it's a smaller pool than Tesla's Autopilot which comes standard on all new Teslas. Super Cruise's safeguards have also been described as more robust than Tesla's. Consumer Reports issued ratings for ADAS on certain vehicles earlier this year, and found that Super Cruise and Ford's Blue Cruise were the only automakers to receive two extra points for having systems that encourage safe driving. During CR's tests of different GM vehicles, the agency said that each delivered "multiple warnings to grab an inattentive driver's attention." "If the driver still does not react, the system will start to slow the car down on its own, eventually bringing it to a stop. The system wont operate if the camera is covered," according to a statement from CR. With Tesla Model Y and S vehicles with software version 11.0, drivers could use Autopilot even with the vehicle's cabin camera fully covered, according to CR. If the camera detected the driver's eyes were off the road, it would shorten how long the driver could take their hands off the wheel. However, as long as the driver's hands remained on the wheel, CR found no warnings if the eyes were off the road. The IIHS survey found that some drivers in the survey said such user safeguards, like attention reminders and lockouts, were annoying and they would try to circumvent them. However, most people said they found those safeguards helpful and felt safer with them. The study suggests that driver monitoring systems and "multifaceted, proactive user-centric safeguards" are key to shaping proper behavior and understanding about drivers' roles while using partial driving automation. "Some regular users have a poor understanding of their technologys limits," the study reads. "System design appears to contribute to user perceptions and behavior." This article was updated with special investigation data from NHTSA and the number of vehicles with Super Cruise from GM. Growth Plus Reports Pune, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global medical laser market is expected to clock US$ 13.93 Billion by 2030. The global medical laser market is driven by the growing demand for minimally invasive surgical procedures, a high level of support for complex surgeries, increased cancer cases, and the high adoption of ophthalmic applications. The high cost of laser devices and laser-based procedures and the risks associated with laser surgery impede the growth of the global medical laser market. Download PDF Brochure of Medical Laser Market Size - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis with Strategic Developments at: http://growthplusreports.com/inquiry/request-sample/medical-laser-market/7867 Growth Drivers Myopia is a visual refractive error that most commonly affects children and the elderly. Patients with myopia may experience blurry vision and headaches due to eyestrain, and untreated myopia is one of the significant causes of distance visual impairments worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, 2.2 billion people worldwide have distance and near vision impairment, and at least 1 billion have a vision impairment that can or should be treated. The most common causes of vision loss are cataracts and uncorrected refractive errors. Myopia can be treated by LASIK surgery. A particular type of cutting laser is used during LASIK surgery to precisely modify the shape of the lens to improve vision. The increasing prevalence of myopia is contributing to the growth of the global medical laser market. Medical lasers treat or remove tissues by directing a high-wavelength light source in a single direction and causing transmission, scattering, reflection, re-emission, and absorption in tissue. The laser reduces the risk of inflammation and bleeding during a surgical procedure. Compared to traditional surgical methods, using a laser reduces the risk of tissue damage. As a result, healing time and post-operative discomfort are reduced compared to conventional methods. Medical lasers have wide applications in cosmetic surgery, dentistry, ophthalmic, urology, and gynecology. Story continues The global medical laser market has been analyzed from five perspectives: product type, application, end-user, and region. Excerpts from by Product Type The global medical laser market based on product types has been segmented into: Solid-State Gas Dye Diode Laser Systems The solid-state laser system is leading the global medical laser market owing to the high precision technology and wide application in different therapeutic areas. Additionally, technological advancement and substantial improvement in the performance of the solid-state laser systems are contributing to the growth of the global solid-state laser system segment. Excerpts From by Application Based on the application, the global medical laser market has been segmented into: Ophthalmology Dermatology Gynecology Dentistry Urology Cardiovascular Others Ophthalmology has dominated the global medical laser market as the increasing cases of hyperopia, astigmatism, myopia, and presbyopia augment the demand for LASIK surgery and cataract surgery. Additionally, the advantages of medical lasers, such as high precision, shorter procedural time, and the introduction of artificial intelligence in LAISK surgery, contribute to the growth of the global ophthalmic laser segment. Inquiry Before Buying: http://growthplusreports.com/inquiry/before-buying/medical-laser-market/7867 Excerpts from by Region Segmentation The global medical laser market has been segmented into: North America Europe Asia Pacific Rest of the World The global medical laser market was dominated by North America, followed by the Asia Pacific. The prominent position of North America can be attributed to rising developed infrastructure, healthcare expenditures, and technological advancement. Furthermore, the presence of key players, favorable reimbursement policies, and an increase in chronic diseases in the region are driving the North American medical laser market. The Asia Pacific medical laser market is expected to grow exponentially due to government initiatives for laser surgical procedures, evolving reimbursement policies, increased novel technology adoption, and the growing burden of chronic diseases and cancer. Excerpts from Competitive Landscape The prominent global medical laser market players are Alcon Laboratories Inc American Medical Systems Inc AngioDynamics Corp Bausch & Lomb Holdings Biolase Inc CANDELA CORPORATION Cardiogenesis Corporation Inc Cynosure Inc El.En. S.p.A Ellex Medical Lasers Ltd IRIDEX Corporation Lumenis Ltd Novadaq Technologies Inc Photomedex Inc Sisram Medical Ltd Spectranetics Corporation Syneron-Candela Topcon Corporation Table of Content INTRODUCTION Market Ecosystem Timeline Under Consideration Historical Years 2020 Base Year 2021 Forecasted Years 2022 to 2030 Currency Used in the Report RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Approach Data Collection Methodology Data Sources Secondary Sources Primary Sources Market Estimation Approach Bottom Up Top Down Market Forecasting Model Limitations and Assumptions PREMIUM INSIGHTS Current Market Trends (COVID-19 Perspective) Key Players & Competitive Positioning (2021) MARKET DYNAMICS Drivers Restraints/Challenges Opportunities GLOBAL MEDICAL LASER MARKET - ANALYSIS & FORECAST, BY PRODUCT TYPE Dye Lasers Systems Diode Laser Systems Solid-State Laser Systems Gas Laser Systems GLOBAL MEDICAL LASER MARKET - ANALYSIS & FORECAST, BY APPLICATION Gynecology Dentistry Ophthalmology Dermatology Urology Cardiovascular Others TOC Continued VALUE PROPOSITIONS RELATED TO THE REPORT: Powered with Complimentary Analyst Hours and Expert Interviews with Each Report Comprehensive quantitative and qualitative insights at segment and sub-segment level Covid 19 impact trends and perspective Granular insights at global/regional/country level Deep-rooted insights on market dynamics (drivers, restraints, opportunities) and business environment Blanket coverage on competitive landscape Winning imperatives Exhaustive coverage on 'Strategic Developments' registered by leading players of the market CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS: Distributor Landscape Assessment Pricing Intelligence Customer Base Assessment Investment & Initiatives Analysis 'Business Profile' of Key Players Directly Purchase Premium Copy of Medical Laser Market Growth Report (2022-2030) at: http://growthplusreports.com/checkout?_token=PgYYOC3MNLTmUtG3PcnPkhwe6YBZPzv1Lm2UfWmv&report_id=7867&license=Single About Us: Growth+Reports is part of GRG Health, a global healthcare knowledge service company. We are proud members of EPhMRA (European Pharmaceutical Marketing Research Association). Growth+ portfolio of services draws on our core capabilities of secondary & primary research, market modelling & forecasting, benchmarking, analysis and strategy formulation to help clients create scalable, ground-breaking solutions that prepare them for future growth and success. We were awarded by the prestigious CEO Magazine as "Most Innovative Healthcare Market Research Company in 2020. CONTACT: Manan Sethi Director, Market Insights Email: enquire@growthplusreports.com Phone no: +91 96545 76783 Web: https://growthplusreports.com/ The LER infrastructure will allow students to easily amplify their education credentials, skills and employment records to many more employers, making it easier to find good jobs. Employers will be able to easily find and connect with job-seekers who have the exact skills they're seeking. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In the current job market, applicants are usually asked to provide a broad resume that lists the basics of their qualifications including college degrees and past work experience. It's an outdated and inefficient system and one that Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) is now helping to improve. (PRNewsfoto/Central New Mexico Community College) Thanks to a grant from Walmart, CNM produced a comprehensive report that researches several independent efforts underway in order to build a model for creating a national Learner and Employment Records (LER) infrastructure. An LER enables the exchange of skills-based digital records that facilitate more efficient pathways from learning to earning. An LER is more efficient and secure for both employers and job-seekers because it uses blockchain technology to provide security, trust, and transparency. Blockchain allows for independent verification of all the credentials put forth by an individual and allows for significantly more detail than a typical resume. For example, students and employees can list specific hard and soft skills as well as trainings and certifications instead of just degrees and past employers. Conversely, employers can search LERs to find exact skills and work experience, and can be confident that the information is accurate. In addition, blockchain provides a trusted environment that allows an individual to control their information and determine who gets to see it and use it. "At CNM we know how important it is to be able to match the educational goals of individuals with career pathways that will lead to quality life outcomes. We also know that it is critical to help employers find the talent they need to prosper as businesses," says CNM President Tracy Hartzler. Story continues More broadly, a national LER system will also have important impacts on equity. People who are not able to complete a four-year degree but can complete a skills course such as CNM's Deep Dive Coding bootcamps will be able to use the LER system to advertise and elevate their credentials and improve their marketability. "Doing away with a system where a degree is the only way to signal your skills will open up a much more diverse pipeline of workers," says Bill Halverson, senior technology advisor for CNM Ingenuity , an arm of CNM that provides accelerated skills training to support key workforce needs. Critical to the successful development of a National LER is interoperability, or the exchange and readability of data from and across multiple technology systems. That's why CNM Ingenuity collaborated with a number of experts while creating the nationally-broadcast report. Partners include IBM, which developed IBM Digital Credentials , a blockchain-based platform that manages the exchange of skills-based credentials; SOLID, a company that's using blockchain to help military members verify their skills so they can find civilian employment after leaving the armed forces; Randa, which is enabling teachers to use a digital wallet to verify everything from their credentials to their lesson plans; Public Consulting Group, which is leading North Dakota's statewide efforts on deploying K-12 blockchain learner records; and Western Governors University, a national higher education leader in building a skills-based learning and work ecosystem. "With a focus on a national infrastructure for the overall learning and employment records ecosystem, CNM's report can help advance pathways for workers so they can move from learning skills to starting careers," says Sean Murphy, Senior Manager of Opportunity at Walmart. "Our investment in this effort is based on our belief that building educational and career pathways based on skills will open up opportunities for all." The final LER report is called " A National Learning and Employment Record Infrastructure : Progress Towards a Skills Economy." It was reviewed by more than 20 LER pioneers and leaders who provided feedback on the concepts, architecture, and recommendations. Long-term, the report is not only designed to be informational but also provides state officials, CIOs, and ed tech providers with the "nuts and bolts" needed to understand and then start developing LER systems. "LER infrastructure development is at a critical juncture in the United States, requiring the engagement of state and national leadership to help craft policy, convene key stakeholder groups, and designate funding to advance the adoption of data standards and LER systems designed for universal access and interoperability," says Halverson. "We think this report is an important step toward the adoption of a national LER infrastructure to meet the demands of the new workforce and a dynamically changing economy." Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-mexico-college-publishes-report-to-advance-a-national-learning-and-employment-record-for-skills-based-credentialing-and-hiring-301646414.html SOURCE Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) Acumen Research and Consulting Acumen Research and Consulting recently published report titled Microprocessor Market, Analysis Report and Region Forecast, 2022 - 2030 TOKYO, Oct. 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Microprocessor Market Size accounted for USD 111.3 Billion in 2021 and is estimated to achieve a market size of USD 163.8 Billion by 2030 growing at a CAGR of 4.5% from 2022 to 2030. Microprocessor Market Statistics Global microprocessor market revenue was worth USD 111.3 billion in 2021, with a 4.5% CAGR from 2022 to 2030 Asia-Pacific region leads with more than 45% Microprocessor market share in 2021 As per study, the Asia-Pacific consumer electronics market would be worth USD 400 billion in 2020 Among application, personal computers sector has captured 38% of total market in 2021 By technology, the RISC category accounted highest revenue share of over 36% in 2021 Request For Free Sample Report @ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/request-sample/2647 Microprocessor Market Report Coverage: Market Microprocessor Market Microprocessor Market Size 2021 USD 111.3 Billion Microprocessor Market Forecast 2030 USD 163.8 Billion Microprocessor Market CAGR During 2022 - 2030 4.5% Microprocessor Market Analysis Period 2018 - 2030 Microprocessor Market Base Year 2021 Microprocessor Market Forecast Data 2022 - 2030 Segments Covered By Technology, By Application, And By Geography Microprocessor Market Regional Scope North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa Key Companies Profiled Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Toshiba Electronic Devices and Storage Corporation, Intel Corporation, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Report Coverage Market Trends, Drivers, Restraints, Competitive Analysis, Player Profiling, Regulation Analysis Microprocessor Market Overview A microprocessor is a part of a microcomputer that controls how it operates. It is built on a chip and has the ability to communicate with other connected devices as well as conduct ALU functions. A microprocessor is made up of three parts: a Control Unit, a Register Array, and an ALU. The ALU implements arithmetic and logical operations, the Control Unit supervises the flow of data and instructions through the computer, and the Register Array stores accumulators and data. Additionally, increasing application of cloud-based software and data centers, advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions, as well as demand for household appliances and vehicles, is likely to fuel the microprocessor market value. Story continues Microprocessor Market Growth Factors Growing adoption of microprocessors in clinical applications Continuous growth of autonomous vehicles in Europe and North America Rising demand for portable electronics and Smartphone Microprocessor Market Dynamics Market Driver The rapidly expanding demand for mobile phones and tablets is likely to drive the microprocessor market growth throughout the forecast period. This occurs because a microprocessor optimizes smartphone performance by improving the efficiency and speed of smartphones. The performance of any cellphone is directly related to the efficiency of the microprocessor. Moreover, with the introduction of smart gadgets, electrical goods such as television screens, cameras, personal computers, and wearable technology provide a wide range of sophisticated technology such as touch screen monitors flat screens, and displays, as well as Bluetooth, necessitating a greater number of ICs. These factors will drive the microprocessor market trend over the next few years. Market Restraint On the other hand, factors such as high production costs for microprocessor integrated circuits, circuit design expenses, increased sales of low-cost mobile devices, decreased shipment of computer systems, and escalating raw material prices are likely to hinder market expansion over the predicted years. However, due to improvements in server processing units such as the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI), they are now chosen above regular desktop processors based on the application. Check the detailed table of contents of the report @ https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/table-of-content/microprocessor-market Microprocessor Market Segmentation The global microprocessor market has been segmented by Acumen Research and Consulting based on technology, and application. By technology, the segment is separated into CISC, RISC, DSP, ASIC, and Superscalar. According to the microprocessor market forecast, the DSP category is predicted to develop significantly in the next years. Moreover, the market is divided into smartphones, personal computers (PC), tablets, servers, embedded devices, and others, based on the application. In terms of application, the PC category has ruled the global microprocessor market. Microprocessor Market Regional Overview The global Microprocessor market is separated into several geographic regions: Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. According to a microprocessor industry analysis, Asia-Pacific is predicted to have the greatest market share in the global market in 2021. The region's rising usage of cell phones and other electronic devices such as computers, cellular phones, personal computers, and tablets is attributed to the increase. Emerging nations like India and China are also helping market growth, thanks to factors like fast digitalization, the rapid expansion of high-tech electronics, and improvements in vehicle electronics. Moreover, increased IoT usage, large government IT investment, and a growing preference for cloud-based solutions are likely to boost the regional market throughout the projection period. Aside from that, North America is predicted to grow moderately during the projection period. The increase is linked to the considerable presence of important firms in the region, including Qualcomm Technologies Inc., Intel Corporation, as well as Texas Instruments Inc. In the current context, the United States leads the American market. Additionally, the continued advancement of consumer technology items, medical monitoring systems, and hybrid and electric automobiles is a major driver of market expansion in the United States. Buy this premium research report https://www.acumenresearchandconsulting.com/buy-now/0/2647 Microprocessor Market Players Some of the prominent microprocessor market companies are Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Intel Corporation, Texas Instruments, Toshiba Electronic Devices and Storage Corporation, Qualcomm, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Microprocessor Market Strategies Some of the key strategies in microprocessor market: In April 2018, 2018, Samsung Electronics, collaborated with Avnet ASIC Israel. Customers will benefit from novel ASIC engineering solutions executed using the most modern processes and technologies and a broad range of silicon-proven IPs as a result of this collaboration. Samsung announced the Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFETM) in January, assuring close collaboration among Samsung Foundry, ecosystem partners, & customers in order to create competitive and strong SoC designs. AAI is a Design Service Partner (DSP) in Samsung's SAFETM program and will work closely with Samsung to just provide specialized and adaptable technical solutions to suit a broad range of customer needs. In June 2017, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc., declared the launching of a new product namely, "MD EPYC 7000 series". At today's introduction, the world's top server manufacturers, including HPE, Asus, Gigabyte, Dell, Inventec, Sugon, Supermicro, Tyan, as well as Wistron, launched devices based on AMD EPYC 7000-series processors. Microsoft, Red Hat, & VMware exhibited optimized EPYC support, while important server hardware industry partners Samsung Electronics, Mellanox, as well as Xilinx also featured EPYC-optimized systems. Questions Answered By This Report What was the market size of Microprocessor Market in 2021? What will be the CAGR of Microprocessor Market during the forecast period from 2022 to 2030? Who are the major players in Global Microprocessor Market? Which region held the largest share in Microprocessor Market in 2021? What are the key market drivers of Microprocessor Market? Who is the largest end user Microprocessor Market? What will be the Microprocessor Market value in 2030? Browse More Research Topic on Semiconductor Related: The Global Fire Protection Systems Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 7.2% from 2020 to 2027 and expected to reach the market value of around USD 97.5 Billion by 2027. The Brushless DC Motor Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 9.9% from 2020 to 2027 and expected to reach the market value of around USD 24.2 Billion by 2027. The Pressure Sensor Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 8.8% from 2020 to 2027 and expected to reach the market value of around USD 24.5 Billion by 2027. About Acumen Research and Consulting: Acumen Research and Consulting is a global provider of market intelligence and consulting services to information technology, investment, telecommunication, manufacturing, and consumer technology markets. ARC helps investment communities, IT professionals, and business executives to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and develop firm growth strategies to sustain market competition. With the team size of 100+ Analysts and collective industry experience of more than 200 years, Acumen Research and Consulting assures to deliver a combination of industry knowledge along with global and country level expertise. For Latest Update Follow Us on Twitter and, LinkedIn Contact Us: Mr. Richard Johnson Acumen Research and Consulting USA: +13474743864 India: +918983225533 E-mail: sales@acumenresearchandconsulting.com BARCELONA, Spain, Oct. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- MEDSIR , an international independent oncology research company, signed on October 7th 2022, at its headquarters in Barcelona, a strategic alliance with Oncoclinicas, the leading oncology group in Brazil and Latin America. An operation whose objective is to promote independent cancer research worldwide. The alliance opens the doors of Brazil to MEDSIR, the country with the greatest research potential in South America. From left to right: Maria Campos, Bruno Ferrari, Javier Cortes, Antonio Llombart, Raoni Larena The signing of the agreement brought together in Barcelona Bruno Ferrari, medical oncologist, CEO and founder of Oncoclinicas, Javier Cortes and Antonio Llombart, medical oncologists and co-founders of MEDSIR, and Maria Campos, also co-founder of MEDSIR. Investment of 2,75 M into MEDSIR capital With this agreement, Oncoclinicas acquires 49% of MEDSIR, for a fixed price of 5.75 million euros and an additional variable price of 3.5 million which will be accrued in the coming years subject to the achievement of specific business goals. The initial transaction includes the direct capital investment of 2.75 million euros in MEDSIR, thus allowing the company to accelerate its international expansion both in Latin America and in the United States, where it was already present. Likewise, the agreement also contemplates the possibility of additional equity investments over the next years, showing a clear commitment of Oncoclinicas on MEDSIR's differential business model in the oncological clinical trials industry. This agreement also reflects the global commitment of Oncoclinicas to the fight against cancer and the support for independent research. Maria Campos, CEO and co-founder of MEDSIR, has stated that "it is a strategic agreement to accelerate independent oncology research, so that companies that investigates new treatments can benefit from using an environment of clinical and molecular data verified by medical expertise. It will also facilitate the development of intelligent tests that allow us to work through a disruptive model of continuous interaction in the research activities". Story continues Dr. Bruno Ferrari, medical oncologist, CEO and founder of Oncoclinicas, has highlighted that "the Alliance strengthens the set of skills of the genomics and diagnosis platform of Oncoclinicas Precision Medicine (OCPM), by adding MEDSIR experience in precision medicine and in the creation of international clinical trials". One of the world's largest oncology research networks With the entry of Oncoclinicas capital, MEDSIR accelerates its international expansion, which began five years ago, and goes on to lead one of the largest global research networks in oncology. Going forward the company will count on the medical expertise of more than 1,900 specialists, on the genomics and diagnostics platform to design new trials based on artificial intelligence, and with the infrastructure to be able to offer oncology research to many patients in Brazil. Dr. Javier Cortes, oncologist and co-founder of MEDSIR, highlighted "the benefit for cancer patients of counting on the excellent international research resulting from the Alliance between MEDSIR and Oncoclinicas". Additionally, Dr. Antonio Llombart, oncologist and co-founder of MEDSIR, has insisted that "the international collaboration in the fight against cancer and promoting oncology research is key, allowing patients to benefit from the access and participation in world-renowned clinical trials". The new agreement represents an extension and improvement of Oncoclinicas' current services portfolio (radiotherapy, personalized medicine, telemedicine and complementary treatments) by now adding to it the most innovative clinical and molecular research, while broadening its range of scientific collaborations, which so far includes the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel). Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-most-innovative-research-arrives-in-latin-america-from-the-hand-of-medsir-301644713.html SOURCE MEDSIR By Azernews By Vugar Khalilov Azerbaijan has put a number of mercenaries, who fought on Armenia's side against it during the second Karabakh war on the international wanted list, Azernews reports, citing Junior Counselor of Justice Ilgar Safarov, Senior Assistant to the Prosecutor-General for Special Assignments. He made the remarks at roundtable discussions, marking the second anniversary of the Armenian missile attacks on Ganja on October 11, 2020. He underlined that some of the mercenaries, who fought for Armenia, have been put on the wanted list. "They will be held criminally liable following the relevant laws of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan," Safarov said. He further stated that as part of the criminal procedures, Azerbaijani operational bodies recorded calls for terror on social media platforms by the Armenian military-political leadership. "The investigative authorities have taken corresponding decisions. Azerbaijan is now making every effort to bring these persons to justice. The identities of those persons were revealed by the relevant agencies of Azerbaijan," Safarov stressed. "We have reported on this during the 44-day war as well. The mercenaries hope that time will pass and this will be forgotten. However, they have become perpetrators of war crimes," he added. He emphasized that the international community should offer a legal evaluation of Armenia's crimes. The Armenian armed forces launched missile strikes on Ganja city five times on separate days in October 2020. On October 4, the first missile attack was carried out, killing one person and wounding more than 30 others. The second missile attack occurred on October 5, injuring three individuals. On October 8, a third missile strike was carried out but no casualties were registered. On October 11, a fourth missile attack killed ten civilians and injured more than 40 more. On October 17, the fifth missile attack occurred, killing sixteen civilians and injuring 55 others. The attacks caused significant damage to the city's infrastructure, homes, and vehicles. Children and women were among those slain and injured in Armenia's brutal onslaught. "Fowl" Sculpture Nigerian 18th Century, Court of Benin, Fowl, mid 18th century, brass with cast iron supports, overall with base: 52.3 18 46.9 cm, 30.391 kg (20 9/16 7 1/16 18 7/16 in., 67 lb.) Kaywin Feldman and Professor Abba Isa Tijani Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art, and Professor Abba Isa Tijani, Director General of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments. Washington, DC, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This morning the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) held a ceremony to mark the transfer of ownership of the National Gallery of Arts sole Benin Bronze to the Nigerian National Collections along with 29 sculptures from the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of African Art (NMAfA), and one sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum. These 31 objects from the National Gallery, NMAfA, and RISD Museum are among the first Benin Bronzes to be repatriated to Nigeria by American institutions on the basis of the 1897 British colonial raid of the Royal Palace of Benin. Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, delivered remarks at the ceremony held at the Smithsonians National Museum of African Art, saying The National Gallery of Art is pleased to work with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments to repatriate this sculpture and return the remarkable work where it belongswith the people of Nigeria. We are honored to join with the Smithsonian Institution and RISD Museum in this historic moment, as the first American institutions to return Benin Bronzes stolen 125 years ago from their place of origin. Nigeria is immensely gratified at the commendable decision of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Rhode Island School of Design to return these artefacts that left Africa over a century ago. Nigeria looks forward to working with these institutions on joint exhibitions and other educational exchanges. By returning the artefacts, these institutions are together writing new pages in history. Their brave decision to return the timeless artworks is worth emulating, said the Honorable Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture of Nigeria. Story continues I am very delighted that these transfers to Nigeria by these eminent institutions are actually taking place. This event opens a new vista regarding American cultural institutions relationship with Nigeria. The event is a harbinger of greater things to come as other museums and institutions here in the United States with collections of Benin Bronzes are expected to follow suit. We hope for great collaborations with these museums and institutions and we have already opened promising discussions with them concerning this. The entire world is welcome to join in this new way of doing things. A way free from rancours and misgivings. A way filled with mutual respect, said Professor Abba Isa Tijani, director general of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM). Remarks were also made by Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Ngaire Blankenberg, director of the National Museum of African Art, Professor Abba Isa Tijani, director general of the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the minister of information and culture of Nigeria, and Prince Aghatise Erediauwa of the Benin Kingdom. Following the ceremony, representatives signed documents officially transferring ownership of the objects to the NCMM. While it is National Gallery policy not to deaccession objects from its collection, in rare and special cases it may determine that objects should be deaccessioned for restitution or repatriation. Following years of research by the National Gallery staff into the provenance of the Fowl, the National Gallery of Arts Board of Trustees voted on May 7, 2020, to deaccession the sculpture. Subsequently, the National Gallery communicated its interest in repatriating the sculpture to the Oba of the Royal Court of Benin. Since then, the National Gallery has worked with the NCMM to transfer ownership of the object on a mutually agreeable schedule and terms. The Fowl was reportedly taken in 1897 from the Royal Palace of Benin, in present-day Nigeria, by colonial British forces during a punitive expedition. In addition to exiling the Oba and burning the palace, the British forces looted the royal treasures, distributing some to individuals involved, but selling most at auction in London to pay for the cost of the expedition. The Fowl was acquired by Alexander A. Cowan, a British merchant who worked for trading firms based in Nigeria, and sold at Sothebys, London, in 1954. The object was then purchased in 1955 from J.J. Klejman Gallery, New York, by Mr. and Mrs. Winston F.C. Guest and given later that year to the National Gallery. The sculpture has been installed in the galleries of the National Gallery periodically and has been lent several times to the National Museum of African Art. The Fowl is considered one of the finest extant examples of Benin sculptures of roosters. It is believed that these objects were placed on royal altars honoring queen mothers. The rope border along the base of the copper-alloy sculpture suggests a date in the reign of Oba Eresonyen (17351750). The double-twist pattern represents the rope of the world, a royal emblem and symbol of infinite wisdom. Attachments CONTACT: Anabeth Guthrie National Gallery of Art 2023163540 a-guthrie@nga.gov Air monitor alarms at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Monday left workers at the nuclear waste repository temporarily staying indoors, although no radiological release was reported outside of section of the site where waste is prepared for disposal. At about 3:10 a.m., continuous air monitors (CAMs) designed to detect radiation set off alerts at a waste handling bay at the WIPP site where nuclear waste readied to be buried underground. WIPPs Emergency Operations Center was activated at about 5:22 a.m. Swipes from the waste handling bay did not pick up any contamination after workers entered the area, per a report from WIPP at about 11:45 a.m. More:New Mexico nuclear waste disposal at site near Carlsbad exceeds goals after state pressure Filters from the CAMs were removed and were being tested for contamination, per the latest report. After the CAM alarms were reported, WIPP staff conducted radiological testing outside the bay and found no contamination, per WIPP spokesman Donavan Mager. The order for workers to stay inside was lifted at about 8:30 a.m. More:What is consent? Nuclear waste site near Carlsbad opposed by State, supported by locals WIPP officials reported there was no risk to the public or the environment, as no contamination was found outside of the waste handling bay. The bay operates under negative air pressure, Mager said, meaning no air is releases from the building until it is directed through high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters before being exhausted. It was unclear if the alarms were related to a waste shipment. The waste, brought in from Department of Energy sites around the country, is disposed of via burial at WIPP in a salt deposit 2,000 feet underground. More information will be released by WIPP officials when it becomes available. More:Nuclear repository partners with Holtec to transport waste to federal site near Carlsbad Nuclear waste shipment problems reported at WIPP throughout year This event was the latest in a string of incidents reported at the WIPP site this year, delaying waste handling activities and shipments from DOE sites, and leading to an inquiry from the New Mexico Environment Department the permitting agency of the WIPP site. Story continues On Aug. 23, an oil substance was found on a waste drum in shipment from Idaho National Laboratory, leading to workers being evacuated and waste handling paused that day, records show. No contamination was found, and the liquid was discovered to be hydraulic fluid leaked from loading equipment at the lab where the shipment originated. More:Nuke waste managers work to improve safety after incidents at repository near Carlsbad The fluid was cleaned off and the waste was emplaced in the WIPP underground. Earlier that month on Aug. 9, a waste box from Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico was found missing a filter vent needed to prevent particulate matter from escaping the drum while gas is released. That also led to an evacuation, and the vent was later found uncontaminated in the bay and reattached, records show. More:4 nuclear waste incidents at Carlsbad repository prompt state inquiry of operations This followed another drum from Idaho on Aug. 2 where an initial air survey from within the drum showed elevated levels of radiation, but no air escaped, per the DOE, and the shipment was sent back to Idaho. The first incident this year was reported April 9, when an unknown liquid was found on a drum from Idaho, and dripped on the floor of the bay, testing positive for contamination. No contamination was found in the air and the drums were decontaminated, per the DOE. Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter. This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Air monitors alert at nuclear waste repository. No threats reported A new research report from ActiveOps', Are you recession ready? Do more with less, indicates that operations leaders in the US believe a recession is likely, but 91% of organizations are yet to begin preparing. NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New research from leading management process automation company ActiveOps, has revealed that despite 77% of US operations teams believing a recession is likely in the next 6-12 months, more than 90% of US operations teams are yet to begin preparations. As well as this, three out of five operational employees across North America, the UK and Australia believe businesses are not equipped to deliver organizational objectives in the event of a global recession. ActiveOps Recession Ready Research Paper PR image The report, Are you recession ready? Do more with less, analyses the current state of play in financial organizations, and surveyed 1,000 employees within operations teams across North America, the UK and Australia. Preparedness in the face of economic crisis is a significant theme in the report, which provides insight into whether operations employees are anticipating a recession, how employees feel their organizations are preparing for it, and what the likely impacts of those preparations are. Findings in the report indicate that 77% of US respondents are anticipating a global recession in the next 12 months, however, less than 1% of senior and junior employees across financial operations believe that their organization is currently prepared. Respondents in the US are also more likely than those in Australia and the UK to not feel equipped to deliver against organizational objectives in the event of a global recession. As well as believing there is a lack of preparedness, 100% of operations employees think that their organizations will be impacted by a financial crisis. Almost half of US respondents think the biggest cuts will be made to existing employees in the event of a global recession, compared to 45% of UK respondents and 40% of Australian respondents. Story continues Specifically, 35% believe that the biggest negative impact to their organization's operational teams in the event of a global recession will be mandatory redundancy. Many businesses are already facing a staffing crisis due to COVID-19 and the subsequent 'Great Resignation', indicating that many will be forced to 'cut the fat' where there is little to cut. "The World Bank is warning that a recession is on the horizon, and that means organizations need to start considering how they will prepare for that eventuality," said Bhavesh Vaghela, Chief Marketing Officer at ActiveOps. "Worryingly, our new report indicates that operations teams in the finance sector simply aren't prepared." "Many banks and financial services operations teams have already been working at reduced capacity for some time and so it is unsurprising that those in the US feel underequipped to face recession. The fear that a recession will lead to further redundancies is one that is shared across the Atlantic and so it is no surprise that both regions will seek out greater capacity from their existing teams. Technology will be key in gathering, understanding and implementing the data required to uncover this capacity." Compared to the UK and Australia, US-based respondents are likely to think their organization will absorb increased workload with fixed staffing levels first in the event of a global recession at 35% and 34% also foresee having to review their existing processes. "The last major recession of 2008 holds lessons for today's leaders; however, we live in a vastly different time compared to just 14 years ago. Importantly, the way financial organizations run their operations has changed beyond recognition. As a result, lessons from 2008 aren't enough to respond to a recession in 2022 or beyond," said Vaghela. 40% of respondents anticipate that recession preparations will begin in the next 2-6 months, however the volatility of the global economy means that every day preparations are delayed is a potential cost to business. Organizations are considering the 'usual' crisis responses should a recession hit. Senior respondents identified that their business will likely review processes to find efficiencies, while juniors are expecting that their organizations will absorb increased workload with fixed staffing levels. Vaghela added: "Our survey data, combined with the opinions and experiences of experts, shows that organizations face difficult times ahead. If recession bites, an organization will likely find itself unable to respond without severely damaging the customer experience, the employee experience and operational capabilities." "As a result, the quality of service provided to customers will suffer, and employees that aren't lost to redundancy may leave rather than struggle with low morale and being overworked. Ultimately, these factors will cost revenue and profit. The sooner you start planning, the better chance you have of avoiding this fate." To read the full report, Are you recession ready? Do more with less, click here. Notes to Editors ActiveOps' industry report is based on data gathered by our research partner, Censuswide, investigating attitudes towards a recession and its impact on back-office operations among employees in banks and the financial sector. We spoke to 1,000 individuals, across a range of demographics, geographies, and seniorities, and with a variety of different working models, asking them questions on topics including: Whether a recession is likely to happen Their organization's preparations for a recession The likely impacts of a recession on their operations, people, and customer experience About ActiveOps We help operations teams do more with what they have. Operations teams in banks, insurance and healthcare businesses are constantly under pressure to reduce costs, drive up efficiency, all while trying to maintain a great customer experience. This is easier said than done. Many have invested in all sorts of technology and process principles to help drive efficiency, but still find themselves struggling to meet SLAs and operational targets. That's where we come in through our software and approach we help operations teams find capacity and enable them to use it much better. The result - our clients typically see customer turnaround times increase significantly, including double-digit improvements in productivity with work in progress materially down. They can also leverage the capacity created to invest in non-core activity, as well as reduce levels of new recruitment. Ultimately, our clients talk about how they are now in control of workload, rather than feeling reactive to it. That's our aim and purpose. For more information about ActiveOps visit our website or follow our social channels on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1917568/ActiveOps_Recession_Ready_Research_Paper_PR_image.jpg Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/operations-teams-across-north-america-arent-prepared-for-impending-recession-industry-report-reveals-301645056.html SOURCE ActiveOps Leading Duchenne Organization Expands Certification of Clinics that Provide Optimal Care for People with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy with 1st Clinic in New York City metropolitan area WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) , a nonprofit organization leading the fight to end Duchenne muscular dystrophy (Duchenne) , announced the expansion of their renowned Certified Duchenne Care Center (CDCC) Program with the certification of Stony Brook Children's Hospital, in Stony Brook, New York. This is an exciting addition to the CDCC Program as it is not only the first certification on Long Island and in the NYC metropolitan area, but brings comprehensive, multidisciplinary Duchenne clinical care to a heavily populated, but underserved region. Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy logo. (PRNewsfoto/Parent Project Muscular Dystr...) Rachel Schrader, MS, APRN, CPNP-PC, PPMD's Vice President of Clinical Care and Education says the certification of Stony Brook is an exciting addition to the CDCC network, particularly in relation to the number of families affected by Duchenne living in the area. "We have an extraordinary number of families affected by Duchenne living on Long Island or in the New York City area, and until now, they've had to travel quite a distance, even out of state, to access optimal Duchenne care. We are thrilled to add Stony Brook Children's Hospital to our growing CDCC network not only because of the amazing work they are doing, but because of the access to care it creates for so many families," said Schrader. The Duchenne care program at Stony Brook Children's Hospital has grown significantly over the past several years, particularly due to a generous donation from Hope for Javier, a family foundation and longtime PPMD collaborator. Jen Portnoy, Hope for Javier's co-founder and a Long Island resident, was passionate about improving care for New York families and committed a grant to the hospital to help establish a Duchenne clinic. Led by program director Dr. Peter Morelli, the Stony Brook team worked closely with the organizations to model the new clinic after the PPMD CDCC Program standards. Story continues "We are deeply humbled and grateful that PPMD has chosen to certify the leading destination for Duchenne care in the New York area Stony Brook Children's Hospital. As the co-founder of Hope for Javier, my dream has always been to find ways to provide the highest levels of care to children with Duchenne through advocacy, funding, and research. By securing the seed funding behind the Duchenne Center at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, we wanted to continue to build upon this dream. This certification will do just that allowing medically underserved boys in the region to access the most robust and comprehensive care standards, ensuring their needs are met and they are exposed to the latest in research and care," said Portnoy. The Stony Brook program is led by neuromuscular specialist Dr. Simona Treidler and program director Dr. Peter Morelli, with PNP coordinator Dawn Dawson. According to Dr. Morelli, "Our Duchenne program has expanded from only 10 or 11 families in our first year, to now over 70 and growing. Stony Brook Children's has made a huge commitment to improve the lives of families affected by Duchenne. Working with PPMD for the last two years to achieve designation is an important part of this commitment. We are very proud now to be a Certified Duchenne Care Center." PPMD's Certified Duchenne Care Center Program supports standardized, comprehensive care and services for all people living with Duchenne. Certification means centers maintain the highest standards in clinical and sub-specialty services, rapidly apply new evidence-based knowledge, minimize heterogeneity in clinical research outcomes, and comply with standards in clinical care that were established by the CDC's Care Considerations . As part of its ongoing mission to end Duchenne, PPMD continues to insist that all people with Duchenne receive comprehensive care. To learn more about PPMD's Certified Duchenne Care Center Program, visit PPMD's website . Click here to learn more about the history of PPMD's Certified Duchenne Care Center Program and to access PPMD's first published article on the program. ABOUT PARENT PROJECT MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY: Duchenne is a fatal genetic disorder that slowly robs people of their muscle strength. Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) fights every single battle necessary to end Duchenne. We demand optimal care standards and ensure every family has access to expert healthcare providers, cutting-edge treatments, and a community of support. We invest deeply in treatments for this generation of Duchenne patients and in research that will benefit future generations. Our advocacy efforts have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and won five FDA approvals. Everything we doand everything we have done since our founding in 1994helps those with Duchenne live longer, stronger lives. We will not rest until we end Duchenne for every single person affected by the disease. Join our fight against Duchenne at EndDuchenne.org . Follow PPMD on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and YouTube . ABOUT STONY BROOK CHILDREN'S: With 104 beds, Stony Brook Children's Hospital is Suffolk County's only children's hospital. Part of Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook Children's has more than 180 pediatric specialists in 30 specialties. The hospital is Suffolk County's only Level 4 Regional Perinatal Center and Level 1 Regional Pediatric Trauma Center. It is home to the nation's first Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center and also offers a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Center, Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity Center, Healthy Weight and Wellness Center, Cystic Fibrosis Center, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program, Pediatric Cardiology Program, Pediatric HIV and AIDS Center. To learn more, visit www.stonybrookchildrens.org. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/parent-project-muscular-dystrophy-announces-pediatric-certified-duchenne-care-center-at-stony-brook-childrens-hospital-301646192.html SOURCE Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) Global Market Insights Inc. Eminent photoelectric sensors market participants are Rockwell Automation Inc., OMRON Corporation, KEYENCE CORPORATION, Schneider Electric, and Eaton. Panasonic Corporation, SICK AG, ifm electronics gmbh, Pepperl+Fuchs, and Banner Engineering Selbyville, Delaware, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The photoelectric sensor market is expected to cross a valuation of USD 3 billion by 2030, according to latest research report by Global Market Insights Inc. The widespread incorporation of IIoT across an array of manufacturing and industrial units is likely to be a major factor propelling the industrys growth. The incorporation of IIoT technology enables the organization to enhance production efficiency while ensuring worker safety, thereby improving business profitability. Besides, the supportive government outlook for Industry 4.0 will encourage the adoption of IoT and automation in the industries, which is likely to impact the market trends during 2022-2030. Request a sample of this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/3353 Powerful product features to fuel the demand for photoelectric fork sensor The North America photoelectric fork sensor market held more than 25% of the revenue share in 2021. The photoelectric fork sensor is best suited for fast detection and counting operations where precision and dependability are crucial. Several other features such as contactless interface, convenient installation, and affordable assembly, are expected to aid product acceptance in the packaging and assembly sector, impelling the overall business share by 2030. Increasing applications of retro reflective photoelectric sensors in automotives The Germany photoelectric sensor industry captured around 45% share from retro-reflective segment in 2021. The retro reflective segment is gaining traction, attributed to a number of benefits, including streamlined deployment, low maintenance, user-friendly optical axis, and reduced installation costs. The automakers are using these sensors in parking assist systems owing to these qualities. Moreover, the heavy investments by the leading enterprises to extend their sensor product range through advancements will push the market forward. Story continues Usage of 1,001 mm to 10,000 mm ranged photoelectric sensors in automated guided vehicles In 2021, the 1,001 mm 10,000 mm range type in Spain photoelectric sensors market crossed USD 10 million, on account of increasing deployment of AGVs and advanced mobile robotics in a plethora of industries. As per the report, there is expanding usage of sensors with sensing range of 1,001 mm - 10,000 mm for automated guided vehicles in the industrial sector. The long transmission range of AGVs help to prevent collisions and mishaps in industrial sites. Numerous smart city projects to augment product adoption in building automation applications The Asia Pacific photoelectric sensor market from building automation applications valued at around USD 35 million in 2021. The growing government initiatives to favor infrastructure development and smart city construction will fuel the demand for photoelectric sensors in the coming years. Robust technological advancements by industry participants to facilitate the integration of automatic doors, automated building operations, etc. will transform the industry dynamics by 2030. Increasing popularity of self-driving cars in APAC The photoelectric sensors market in Asia Pacific region captured for nearly 40% share in 2021 and is poised to showcase impressive growth trends in the next 8 years. Consumer awareness and widespread acceptance of autonomous vehicles is cited as the key growth factor. Notably, different sensors, microcontrollers, and switches are needed in self-driving cars to improve safety features and ensure appropriate system operation. The constant efforts of the local government to encourage automakers, academic institutions, and tech firms to speed up innovations in autonomous vehicles is expected to surge the regional demand for photoelectric until 2030. The espousal of advanced technologies to strengthen the competitive outlook In order to sustain their industry position, the manufacturers are focused on launching new products with advanced technologies and staying ahead of the curve. The companies like Rockwell Automation Inc., OMRON Corporation, KEYENCE CORPORATION, Schneider Electric, and Eaton are among those that compete in the photoelectric sensors market. Several other well-known players are Pepperl+Fuchs, Banner Engineering, ifm electronics gmbh, Panasonic Corporation, and SICK AG. Request for customization of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/roc/3353 Partial Table of Contents (ToC) of the report: Chapter 2 Executive Summary 2.1 Photoelectric sensor industry 3600 snapshots, 2018-2030 2.2 Business trends 2.2.1 TAM, 2023 - 2030 2.3 Regional trends 2.4 Product trends 2.5 Type trends 2.6 Range trends 2.7 Source trends 2.8 Application trends Chapter 3 Photoelectric Sensor Industry Insights 3.1 Introduction 3.2 COVID-19 impact 3.3 Russia-Ukraine war impact 3.4 Photoelectric sensor industry ecosystem analysis 3.5 Profit margin analysis 3.6 Technology & innovation landscape 3.7 Patent landscape 3.8 Key initiative & news 3.9 Regulatory landscape 3.10 Industry impact forces 3.10.1 Growth drivers 3.10.1.1 Rising integration of photoelectric sensor in automated assembly lines 3.10.1.2 Increasing demand for photoelectric sensors in building automation systems 3.10.1.3 Government initiatives to support modernization in food & beverage industry 3.10.1.4 Growing penetration of packaging and logistics sector in North America and Europe 3.10.1.5 Growing trend towards industrial automation and IIoT in developing nations 3.10.1.6 Increasing developments in pharmaceutical industry amid COVID-19 pandemic 3.10.2 Industry pitfalls & challenges 3.10.2.1 Low performance associated with diffused-type photoelectric sensors 3.10.2.2 Availability of substitute sensors in the industry 3.10.2.3 High cost associated with maintenance of retro-reflective photoelectric sensor 3.11 Investment portfolio 3.12 Growth potential analysis 3.13 Porters analysis 3.14 PESTEL analysis Browse Our Reports Store - GMIPulse @ https://www.gminsights.com/gmipulse About Global Market Insights Inc. Global Market Insights Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider, offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy, and biotechnology. CONTACT: Contact Us: Aashit Tiwari Corporate Sales, USA Global Market Insights Inc. Toll Free: +1-888-689-0688 USA: +1-302-846-7766 Europe: +44-742-759-8484 APAC: +65-3129-7718 Email: sales@gminsights.com Pixium Vision Pixium Vision announces the publication of peer-reviewed clinical data of the Prima System in Dry AMD in the Journal of Neural Engineering Distance between the implant and the target cells was stable over the long-term follow-up No significant thickness changes of the retina after an initial phase of minor thinning Paris, France, October 11, 2022 07:00 CET Pixium Vision SA (Euronext Growth Paris - FR0011950641; Mnemo: ALPIX), a bioelectronics company that develops innovative bionic vision systems to enable patients who have lost their sight to live more independent lives, announces today the publication of a paper in the Journal of Neural Engineering outlining further data from its Prima System, a photovoltaic substitute of photoreceptors providing simultaneous use of the central prosthetic and peripheral natural vision, implanted in human patients with atrophic dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) to partially restore their vision. The peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Neural Engineering, entitled "Long-term Observations of Macular Thickness after Subretinal Implantation of a Photovoltaic Electronic Prosthesis in Patients with Dry Age-related Macular Degeneration," authored by Mahiul MK Muqit, Yannick Le Mer, Frank Holz and Jose-Alain Sahel, outlines the changes in neurosensory macular structures associated with subretinal implantation in geographic atrophy secondary to AMD. It was important to assess the retinal changes with PRIMA implants since the success of retinal stimulation with micro-electrodes largely depends on the distance between the stimulation electrode (in the implant) and the target cells. The Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT) images of three patients with subretinal implantations enrolled in the French feasibility study were analyzed to [1] measure the retinal thickness, [2] measure the distance between the array and the inner nuclear layer (INL, the layer of the retina made up of a number of closely packed cells, including bipolar cells) and [3] evaluate any potential macular changes from the surgical trauma. Story continues The analysis found that the surgical delivery of the photovoltaic subretinal implant led to a stable retinal thickness over 36 months with no adverse structural or functional events after causing minor retinal thickness changes that settle after three months. "We are very pleased to announce the publication of these peer-reviewed data in the well-respected Journal of Neural Engineering showing that the surgical implantation of the Prima System in patients suffering from dry AMD leads to a stable retinal thickness three months after implantation," said Lloyd Diamond, Chief Executive Officer of Pixium Vision. "The PRIMA implant's small size and wireless design enable minimally invasive surgery. Previously, the data from the French feasibility study already demonstrated that the Prima System is well tolerated. The data in this paper now further demonstrate the stability and minimal impact of the implant once in position. We are confidently looking forward to the read-out from our pivotal PRIMAvera study on the Prima System due at the end of next year and our planned submission for market approval in Europe shortly afterward." Key take-aways The key take-aways from the data published in the Journal of Neural Engineering are: No significant changes in the distance between the surface of the implant and the INL (the Inner Nuclear Layer, the layer of the retina made up of a number of closely packed cells, including bipolar cells) were detected Total retinal thickness above the implant decreased by a mean of 39 m during 3-months post-implantation, but no significant changes were observed after that, up to 36 months of the follow-up The observations support the hypothesis that the retina on the different areas on the implant are equally supplied with nutrition and oxygen Pixium Vision's pivotal PRIMAvera study, which aims to demonstrate the safety and benefits of the Prima System, is ongoing in Europe, with a read-out expected towards the end of 2023 and regulatory submission for market approval due soon after. In the US, a feasibility study is also ongoing. The full peer-reviewed Journal of Neural Engineering paper is available online here. About Pixium Vision Pixium Vision is creating a world of bionic vision for those who have lost their sight, enabling them to regain visual perception and greater autonomy. Pixium Visions bionic vision systems are associated with a surgical intervention and a rehabilitation period. Prima System sub-retinal miniature photovoltaic wireless implant is in clinical testing for patients who have lost their sight due to outer retinal degeneration, initially for atrophic dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD). Pixium Vision collaborates closely with academic and research partners, including some of the most prestigious vision research institutions in the world, such as Stanford University in California, Institut de la Vision in Paris, Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, Institute of Ocular Microsurgery (IMO) in Barcelona, University hospital in Bonn, and UPMC in Pittsburgh, PA. The company is EN ISO 13485 certified and qualifies as Entreprise Innovante by Bpifrance. Forward-Looking Statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties which could cause the Company's actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements to differ from those contained in the forward looking statements, please refer to the Risk Factors (Facteurs de Risques) section of the Companys 2021 Half-Year Financial Report and other documents the Company files with the AMF, which is available on the AMF website (www.amf- france.org) or on the Companys website. For more information: http://www.pixium-vision.com/fr Follow us on @PixiumVision ; www.facebook.com/pixiumvision www.linkedin.com/company/pixium-vision Contacts Pixium Vision Offer Nonhoff Chief Financial Officer investors@pixium-vision.com +33 1 76 21 47 68 Media Relations LifeSci Advisors Sophie Baumont sophie@lifesciadvisors.com +33 6 27 74 74 49 Investor Relations LifeSci Advisors Guillaume van Renterghem gvanrenterghem@lifesciadvisors.com +41 76 735 01 31 PROVIDENCE They have spent little to no money, have no attention-grabbing ads on TV, and barely registered in the first publicly-released public opinion poll since the Sept. 13 primary. But they are on the Nov. 8 ballot, running for governor as independents. They are passionate about the issues that, they say, drove them to run outside the two-party system. And they have been invited to take part in the gubernatorial forum The Journal and The Public's Radio are hosting on radio on Thursday that will potentially include, for the first time this season, the voices of all five candidates for R.I. governor on the Nov. 8 ballot. Along with Democratic Gov. Dan McKee and Republican Ashley Kalus, the five candidates include: Independent Paul Rianna Independent Zachary Hurwitz Independent-Libertarian Elijah Gizzarelli Who are they? One led protest rallies against the COVID vaccination mandate for health-care workers. Another is a University of Rhode Island freshman. And the third is a Libertarian candidate who fought hard to get on the ballot to try to establish a toehold for his party. Here's what we know: Zachary Hurwitz filed his initial paperwork to run for governor on his 18th birthday in April. Zachary Hurwitz, independent candidate for Rhode Island governor. He graduated from North Kingstown High School a few weeks later and then, a day after swimming, biking and running the Block Island Triathlon, set off on a journey across the world to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. With little time to go door-to-door between his ROTC Air Force training in Connecticut, flying lessons, and his classes as a URI freshman, Hurwitz' campaign has relied, for the most part, on free media coverage. Asked how else he reaches people, he told The Journal last week that he spoke to a civic engagement class at the Exeter-West Greenwich Regional High School. He has also been invited to speak on "Candidates Day" to a North Kingstown High School group about "my campaign, about what I stand for." Story continues What does he stand for? He told The Journal in July that his top issue is making the state provide free lunches and breakfasts to all students at public K-12 schools. "If elected, I promise to do everything I can to make sure that no child goes hungry." Hurwitz has also posted a series of position statements on his campaign website on his pro-choice stance on abortion, the value in his eyes of targeted tax cuts, the need to address climate change and education accountability. Why is he a better option than McKee or Kalus? Citing the $2.3 million Kalus spent ahead of the primary, he told The Journal last week: "With that much money she's buying her way to the top. She just moved here. She doesn't know our state or the people in it." And McKee? "I am not a career politician. I am not in it for the wealth. I am not in it for the power that comes with being the leader of the state. At the end of the day, I am here because I care about the R.I. people." While Hurwitz was traveling this past summer, friends and family collected the 1,000 signatures needed for the college freshman to qualify for the gubernatorial ballot. It did not go entirely smoothly. A pair of North Kingstown teenagers were charged in August with forging signatures on his nomination papers. Hurwitz was in Tanzania preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro when the charges came down, his father Peter Hurwitz told The Journal. A posting on Hurwitz's campaign website said: "Those signatures were rejected and therefore not included in those that were validated and certified by the Secretary of State." All but $100 of the $200 Hurwitz has reported raising so far came from his own pocket, and that other $100 from his father. It's a long shot, to say the least, but if Hurwitz were elected he'd be the youngest Rhode Island governor ever. William Sprague was 30 when he became governor in 1860, the youngest to do so under the state Constitution, according to State Librarian Megan Hamlin-Black. (William Coddington Jr. of Newport was 32 when he entered office in 1683 under the old Royal Charter.) The last independent to be elected governor was Lincoln Chafee in 2010. That year Hurwitz was 6. What would he give up if, by fluke or fate, he actually won election? "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said last week. "But at the end of the day my first and foremost priority is to the R.I. people and I would not turn my back on them. I would do anything it takes." His college majors: International Relations and Diplomacy and French. His career goal: to become an officer in the Air Force. The Libertarian candidate Elijah Gizzarelli has described himself as a self-employed, 35-year-old West Warwick contractor with strong views on many issues including "bodily autonomy." Elijah Gizzarelli, Libertarian candidate for Rhode Island governor. The LIbertarian Party of Rhode Island (LPRI) successfully went to bat for him this past summer after the secretary of state's office determined he did not have the 1,000 signatures needed, on his nominated petitions, to get him on the ballot. In the wake of that victory, LPRI Chairman William Hunt alleged: The private corporations, known as the Democrat and Republican parties, have a vested interest in keeping third parties off the ballot." Added Gizzarelli: "We won the appeal, but we lost a month of time and energy that could have been used campaigning. This is exactly the type of thing the old parties do in order to stifle competition and prevent voters from having any real choice of any consequence in elections....This must change." His goal, regardless if he wins: to get 5% of the vote in the upcoming gubernatorial election to qualify LPRI to become a recognized party. A graduate of Cranston High School West, he says, he went into home renovations after five years in the Army as a translator and another year and a half in the National Guard. In his first run for public office, he is shooting for governor because "there's a lot of things going on in the state I don't agree with," including "corruption" and "hypocrisy." He called it hypocritical, for example, for McKee to sign an order extending the state's COVID health emergency while candidates are expected to knock on doors and greet people face-to-face, asking for their signatures. "There's a whole bunch of layers of hypocrisy. ... Is it healthy to go out in public and approach strangers for signatures, or not? he asks rhetorically. Though he personally opted against getting vaccinated against COVID-19, he told The Journal in July: "I am not an anti-vaxxer." His argument: individuals need to make their own personal risk assessment, and that kind of decision "is not in the realm" of lawmakers and other government officials. His campaign pitch? "Im the only candidate that will end the drug war here in Rhode Island. Im the only candidate that will bring back flavored vapes, and to be frank, I am the only candidate with any common sense." Gizzarelli kicked off his campaign at Bos Bar and Billiards in Warwick on Sept. 17 with this broadside at Governor McKee: McKee has been a failure. If a sitting governor getting primaried doesnt tell you all you need to know, he also barely won. More Democrats voted against him than voted for him, Gizzarelli said of McKee's narrow win over four Democratic challengers. McKee won with 33% of the Democratic primary vote. The governor claims hes doing all kinds of wonderful things to help small businesses and the economy, but Rhode Islanders arent stupid," Gizzarelli continued. McKee and his partner in crime, [former governor Gina] Raimondo, destroyed small businesses here in Rhode Island during their COVID-19 lockdowns. They forced our local mom-and-pop shops to close while allowing big box stores to stay open, taking choice away from customers and creating an unfair playing field for businesses. Gizzarelli also took issue with McKee's "claim that he promoted affordable housing." "The goal should be to lower housing costs so Rhode Islanders dont need government housing assistance. Turning to Ashley Kalus, the GOP candidate for governor, Gizzarelli said: "Not all of us can make millions off sweetheart government contracts for COVID-19 testing." As for his own chances," Gizzarelli says: I have no delusions; this is an uphill battle. "Im competing against Democrats and Republicans and they get to make the rules. They dont play fair; their red tape already cost me a month of campaigning, but I am going to win one way or another." The last effort to create a recognized third political party was successfully mounted by software entrepreneur Ken Block, who later abandoned the Moderate Party he created to run for governor as a Republican in 2014. Running as 'The People's Governor' Paul Rianna of Providence was most often seen during the pandemic with a bullhorn in hand, on the front-lines of the "my body, my choice" protests against the state's COVID vaccine mandate for health-care workers. Paul Rianna, independent candidate for Rhode Island governor. His unwillingness to get inoculated against the coronavirus cost him his job as a CNA at Fatima Hospital. That remains a sore point, but not his only issue. The day Rianna announced that he was running to be "The People's Governor," he promised to "protect religious freedoms... protect our medical freedoms... and support our Second Amendment rights." He also promised to "create the office of inspector general with the goal of eliminating the corruption that [has] plagued Rhode Island...Address the housing crisis...Focus on improving behavioral health...[and] ensure that all patients receive the proper care incentivized healthcare workers and improve staffed patient ratios." Rianna, 38, who is now back at Fatima Hospital as a CNA/mental health worker, lost his job for eight months during the height of the pandemic for bucking the R.I. Department of Health's COVID vaccine mandate for health-care workers. Asked why he resisted, he told The Journal it went against his religion Christian Science and his belief that "no one should be forced to be vaccinated, especially [with] a vaccine that was so rushed." He also talks about, what he viewed, as "hypocrisy" and inconsistency in the vaccine drive. He said workers who had tested COVID positive were allowed to work, as long they showed no symptoms, while the unvaccinated could not. Asked what prompted his first run for public office, Rianna cited what he calls then-Gov. Gina Raimondo's "nursing home crisis, the way she fumbled the ball with the elderly population (early in the pandemic)... Then Dan McKee and his mandates." Talking about the early days of the pandemic under Raimondo, he said: "We had to recycle PPE, recycle masks. We had to spray Lysol on our gowns, wear the same gloves from room to room... We should have been prepared for [any emergency] being in the medical field." "Rhode Island needs a fresh pair of eyes," he says. "Our Constitution is being taken over day by day." His examples? "We don't have the right to choose...how many guns we own, magazines. The State House was closed (to the public) for [hundreds] of days. We are still in a state of emergency and there's festivals and all that are going on." "Dan McKee is using it as a funding stream because there really is no state of emergency." What's wrong with taking advantage of federal relief dollars to address long-standing problems, such as the housing shortage? "We can't take that for granted because we actually have a spending problem in Rhode Island ... Eventually, the federal funds are going to stop. And then what?" "The United States can't just keep printing money." His thoughts on the vaccine mandate, guns and abortion are spelled out in his Twitter feed. Take for example his response to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's June 23 tweet lamenting the Supreme Court's "outrageous" decision to "recklessly [strike] down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons." "The courts will do the same when its comes to the ridiculous gun laws in Rhode Island that were made to infringe on peoples rights. [T]he constitutions will prevail," Rianna tweeted. Responding to a McKee tweet lamenting the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade, he tweeted: "The hypocrisy @DanMcKeeRI U say you believe in body autonomy but forced healthcare workers to get vaccinated to maintain their livelihoods." Last spring, Rianna denounced the "disgusting" bonuses given R.I. Convention Center Authority employees while "people like the healthcare workers were forced out of their profession." "It is sad that the hardworking tax payers in Rhode Island keep getting screwed, while the wealthy elites keep giving and getting bonuses to each other." This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: 3 RI independent gubernatorial candidates reach for the brass ring PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Renovus Capital Partners ("Renovus"), a Philadelphia-area based investment firm, announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in Premier International Enterprises, LLC ("Premier" or "the Company"). Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Chicago, IL, Premier is a technology services firm offering solutions that reduce the risk associated with complex data challenges through innovative technology and consulting services. Premier leverages its proprietary software tool and team of business consultants, software developers, and subject matter experts to deliver its data-related services to the Company's deep customer base of large enterprises. (PRNewsfoto/Renovus Capital Partners) Renovus' investment comes during a period of exceptional growth at Premier, which was recently named to the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. With Renovus' support, Premier plans to use the investment to further improve its software product, pursue strategic acquisitions and enhance its service offerings to clients. "Renovus brings significant experience investing in the technology services industry, and we are excited to leverage their knowledge to refine our strategy, scale our delivery resources, and expand our offerings both organically and inorganically," said Craig Wood, CEO of Premier. "We remain focused on accelerating the future for our clients by bringing transformative data solutions to them and we are confident Renovus and their investment will unleash the full potential of Premier to support that goal." "As organizations scale and the market for big data grows, enterprises have been more and more focused on having clean, quality data in a centralized location," said Atif Gilani, Founding Partner at Renovus. "Premier is well-positioned to capitalize on these trends due to its differentiated data migration offerings coupled with new capabilities recently introduced, including master data management and data governance." Story continues As a platform investment for the firm, Renovus is actively identifying potential acquisitions that will help expand the current product and service offerings of Premier. "With Premier's strong leadership team and clear vision for the future, we are excited to provide the necessary resources to accelerate the growth and success of the Company," said Jane Buckley, Senior Associate at Renovus. Ascent Advisory Partners served as financial advisor to Premier. DLA Piper served as legal counsel to Renovus. About Premier International Enterprises Premier International Enterprises, LLC is a Chicago-based technology consulting firm specializing in data migration. The company's innovative services and Applaud software reduce the overall risk in a technology transformation and ensure projects remain on track in even the most complex environments. Founded in 1985 and with over three decades of successful execution, our solutions have a proven track record across a wide array of industries and applications. We have the knowledge and understanding to provide our clients with tailored solutions to address their specific data migration challenges. For more information, please visit www.premier-international.com. About Renovus Capital Partners Founded in 2010, Renovus Capital Partners is a lower middle-market private equity firm specializing in the Knowledge and Talent industries. From its base in the Philadelphia area, Renovus manages over $1 billion across its three sector focused funds and other strategies. The firm's current portfolio includes over 25 U.S. based businesses specializing in education and training, healthcare services, technology services and professional services. Renovus typically partners with founder-led businesses, leveraging its experience within the industry and access to debt and equity capital to make operational improvements, recruit top talent, pursue add-on acquisitions and oversee strategic growth initiatives. More information can be found at www.renovuscapital.com. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/renovus-capital-partners-acquires-leading-data-solutions-provider-premier-international-301646073.html SOURCE Renovus Capital Partners Allied Market Research Increase in incidence of melanoma and non-melanoma type of cancer and surge in demand for immunotherapy and targeted therapy-based treatments drive the global skin cancer treatment market. Based on region, North America accounted for the highest share in 2021, and is expected to maintain its dominance by 2031. Non-melanoma cancer patients were at a higher risk of infection by the Covid-19 disease and needed special and rapid treatment. Portland, OR, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the global skin cancer treatment market generated $7.2 billion in 2021, and is estimated to reach $14.5 billion by 2031, manifesting a CAGR of 7.3% from 2022 to 2031. The report offers an extensive analysis of changing market dynamics, top segments, value chain, competitive landscape, and the Covid-19 pandemic impact. This report provides detailed information for market players, stakeholders, investors, and startups to help them devise strategies for gaining competitive edge and sustainable growth. Download Free Sample Report- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/17975 Report coverage & details: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 20222031 Base Year 2021 Market Size in 2021 $7.2 billion Market Size in 2031 $14.5 billion CAGR 7.3% No. of Pages in Report 251 Segments covered Type, Therapy, Distribution Channel, and Region. Drivers Increase in incidence of melanoma and non-melanoma type of cancer Surge in demand for immunotherapy and targeted therapy-based treatments Opportunities Supportive initiatives taken by government for the management of skin cancer Development of the advanced therapies for the effective skin cancer treatment Restrains High cost of chemotherapy and immunotherapy Covid-19 Scenario: Non-urgent cancer treatments were postponed due to possibility of cross-contamination among cancer patients in the hospitals. Also, hospital staff was shifted to take care of increase in number of patients infected with coronavirus. This, in turn, reduced the number of staff members to take care of cancer patients. According to the paper published by the name "The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on quality of life in skin cancer patients," non-melanoma cancer patients were at a higher risk of infection by the Covid-19 disease and needed special and rapid treatment. This, in turn, raised the need for diagnosis and demand for cutting-edge and innovative medicines to effectively treat patients. The research provides detailed segmentation of the global skin cancer treatment market based on type, therapy, distribution channel, and region. The research discusses segments along with their sub-segments to identify the largest revenue-generating and fastest-growing segments for market players and startups. Market size and estimations for each segment and its sub-segment are offered in the report to identify the steps that can be adopted for achieving the growth. Based on type, the melanoma segment held the highest share in 2021, accounting for more than four-fifths of the total share, and is projected to continue its leadership status during the forecast period. However, the non-melanoma segment is expected to manifest the highest CAGR of 8.8% from 2022 to 2031. Based on therapy, the immunotherapy segment accounted for the highest share in 2021, contributing to more than three-fifths of the global skin cancer treatment market, and is projected to maintain its lead in terms of revenue during the forecast period. However, the targeted therapy segment is expected to manifest the highest CAGR of 8.6% from 2022 to 2031. The report also analyzes the chemotherapy segment. Based on distribution channel, the drug stores and retail pharmacies segment contributed to the highest share in 2021, holding nearly half of the market, and is expected to dominate in 2031. However, the online providers segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR of 8.5% during the forecast period. The research also discusses the hospital pharmacies segments. For Purchase Inquiry- https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/17975 Based on region, North America accounted for the highest share in 2021, holding more than two-fifths of the global market, and is expected to maintain its dominance by 2031. However, Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow at the fastest CAGR of 8.6% during the forecast period. The research also analyzes regions including Europe and LAMEA. Leading market players of the global skin cancer treatment market analyzed in the research include Amgen Inc., Bristol Myers Squibb Company, F.Hoffman La-Roche Ltd., GlaxoSmithKline Plc., LEO Pharm A/S, Novartis AG, Merck KGAA, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Inc., and Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. The report analyzes leading players and highlights different strategies such as partnerships, collaborations, new product launches, expansion, and others adopted by them to increase their market share and strengthen their positions in the market. The report provides a detailed analysis that offer business performance, product portfolio, operating segments, and developments by every market player. Trending Reports in Healthcare Industry- Mass Spectrometry Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2030 Asia Pacific Advanced Wound Care Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030 Cryotherapy Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030 Electronic Health Records (EHR) Market- Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030 Pneumonia Vaccine Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030 Empty Capsules Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030 Biomaterials Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030 AVENUE- A Subscription-Based Library (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) Offered by Allied Market Research: AMR introduces its online premium subscription-based library Avenue, designed specifically to offer cost-effective, one-stop solution for enterprises, investors, and universities. With Avenue, subscribers can avail an entire repository of reports on more than 2,000 niche industries and more than 12,000 company profiles. Moreover, users can get an online access to quantitative and qualitative data in PDF and Excel formats along with analyst support, customization, and updated versions of reports. Get an access to the library of reports at any time from any device and anywhere. For more details, follow the link: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/library-access We have also published few syndicated market studies in the similar area that might be of your interest. Below are the report title for your reference, considering Impact of Covid-19 Over This Market which will help you to assess aftereffects of pandemic on short-term and long-term growth trends of this market. About Allied Market Research: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. 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Contact David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States Toll Free: +1-800-792-5285 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1-855-550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com Follow Us on: LinkedIn Twitter By Trend French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne arrived on Sunday in Algiers for a two-day visit to boost cooperation with Algeria, Trend reports citing Xinhua. Leading a delegation of 16 senior officials, she held talks with her Algerian counterpart Ayman Benabderrahmane and laid a wreath of flowers before the Martyrs' Memorial to commemorate the victims of the Algerian War of Independence, which lasted from 1954 to 1962. Amid the ongoing international energy crisis, analysts say Borne's visit aims to boost cooperation between France and Algeria, notably in the gas field. Her visit to Algeria came six weeks after the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron in late August. Adroit Market Research Market research on skin care services focuses on the key trends prevailing in the global business sector. Many reasons and segments are playing the vital role in increasing demand of skincare products and service. Landing in the skincare services industry? This report provides industry trends and forecast. Dallas/ Texas, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Growing demand for organic skincare products, an increase in the consumption of anti-aging products, and consumer awareness of the health benefits of skincare products, such as better skin and protection from pollution, are all contributing factors to the global Skincare Service Market growth. The category of creams and lotions is anticipated to grow at the fastest CAGR throughout the course of the projection period due to rising consumer demand for high-quality products. Market overview and forecast Face moisturizers and creams are becoming increasingly popular on a global scale as individuals become more sensitive to their physical appearance and more worried about skin conditions and skin cancer. Due to consumers' growing concern for animal welfare and the environment, the market for skincare products and services that are vegan or predominantly composed of plant-based ingredients is also growing. At a projected CAGR of 4.3% during the projection period, the global skincare services market is expected to increase from $101.19 billion in 2021 to $187.9 billion in 2029. Additionally, a significant element in the market's expansion is the growing popularity of men's skincare products made with sustainable components. As demand for organic components rises, well-known firms in the sector are putting more and more emphasis on green formulas. For instance, the Brickell Men's Product and Organic OM4 create, produce, and sell a wide range of organic and natural skincare and other grooming products for men. Free sample copy of report @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/3504 Story continues Scope of the report Report Attribute Details Market Value in 2021 $101.19 billion CAGR for 2029 4.3% Forecast period 2022 to 2029 Historical data available 2019 to 2019 Market Value in Billion USD Top Manufacturers Beiersdorf AG LOreal Avon Products Inc. Unilever Shiseido Co. Ltd Procter & Gamble Revlon Johnson & Johnson Avon Products Beiersdorf Ag and Natura & Co Colgate-Palmolive Company etc,. Segment of Industry End-user Application Product Services Packaging Gender Distribution Regions Report coverage Top Brands Market Forecast Company Share Analysis Competition Intelligence Challanges Revenue generation DROT Analysis Market Dynamics and Growth structure Key Regions North America Europe South America Asia-Pacific Middle East & Africa In order to maintain and improve the appearance of human skin, skincare products are used. A number of products sold on the market contain alpha-hydroxy acids, beta-hydroxy acids, and retinol, including cleansers, toners, oils and serums, body lotions, and creams. These treatments help the skin's aging cells to naturally renew themselves, and fine lines, reduce wrinkles, and age spots, and keep the skin's overall health. Make an inquiry before buying @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/contacts/enquiry-before-buying/3504 The biggest revenue share was held by face creams and moisturizers, and this dominance is anticipated to continue during the projected period. Face creams and moisturizers are among the items that are used the most on the face and are therefore quite popular. In addition to offering benefits like immediate hydration, reduced breakouts, and regenerated skin, moisturizers are an easy, hassle-free, and quick solution to treat dry skin. Regional insights Globally, skincare products will grow at the fastest rate in the Asia Pacific region. A rise in awareness, the availability of more advanced skin care products, and an increase in wellness expenditure in the Asia Pacific region are some of the reasons contributing to the market growth for skincare products. The growing consumer knowledge and income levels are driving up demand for skin care products in the Asia Pacific region. Additionally, the growth of e-commerce platforms and offline distribution channels like hypermarkets that specialize in the sale of skincare products are anticipated to fuel the region's market growth over the course of the projection period. These factors should also help foreign companies become more well-known in the area. For instance, the well-known American product company Hale Cosmeceuticals debuted Date Palm Deep Moisturizer and Natural AZA Cleanser in June 2021. Direct purchase the report @ https://www.adroitmarketresearch.com/researchreport/purchase/3504 About Us: Adroit Market Research is an India-based 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 CALGARY, AB, Oct. 11, 2022 /CNW/ - As previously announced, on September 26, 2022, Sugarbud Craft Growers Corp. (TSXV: SUGR) (TSXV: SUGR.DB) (TSXV: SUGR.WR) (TSXV: SUGR.WS) (TSXV: SUGR.WT) (OTCQB: SBUDD), together with its subsidiaries (collectively "Sugarbud")) commenced a restructuring process by filing notices of intention to make a proposal (the "NOI") under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada), as amended (the "BIA"). Alvarez & Marsal Canada Inc. is acting as proposal trustee (the "Proposal Trustee"). Sugarbud Craft Growers Corp. Logo (CNW Group/Sugarbud Craft Growers Corp.) Pursuant to an order granted by the Court of King's Bench of Alberta on September 29, 2022 (the "Initial Order"), Sugarbud and the Proposal Trustee have commenced a sale and investment solicitation process (the "SISP") in respect of Sugarbud's business. The SISP is intended to solicit interest in, and opportunities for, a sale of, or investment in or refinancing of, all or part of Sugarbud's assets and business operations. The SISP is a two-phased process. Interested parties who wish to submit a bid must deliver a non-binding letter of interest to the Proposal Trustee in accordance with the SISP, no later than 5:00 p.m. (Calgary time) on November 4, 2022. During Phase 2 of the SISP, the deadline for submissions of final and binding proposals is 5:00 p.m. (Calgary time) on December 9, 2022. Copies of the Initial Order, SISP Procedure Document and other Court filed materials are available at: www.alvarezandmarsal.com/sugarbud. Interested parties who wish to obtain additional information and participate in the SISP may contact the Proposal Trustee at: bkrol@alvarezandmarsal.com. About Sugarbud Sugarbud is a consumer-driven craft cannabis company focused on the cultivation and production of superior, select-batch, craft cannabis products. Federally licensed in Cannabis 1.0 and Cannabis 2.0, Sugarbud operates out of a 100% owned, 29,800 square foot cultivation and processing facility in Stavely, Alberta. Our vision and mission are to become a trusted and well-respected consumer brand renowned for providing exceptional high-quality craft cannabis products to legal markets by delighting the most discerning of cannabis consumers. Story continues Websites: http://www.sugarbud.ca/ http://craftcannabiscollection.ca/ Advisory Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and future oriented financial information. These statements relate to future events. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements or future oriented financial information. The use of the words "anticipates", "should", ''may", "expected", "expects", "believes" and other words of a similar nature are intended to identify forward-looking statements or future oriented financial information. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements or, as applicable, future oriented financial information. Such statements include the statement with respect the expectation that the SISP is intended to solicit interest in, and opportunities for, a sale of, or investment in or refinancing of, all or part of Sugarbud's assets and business operations . Although Sugarbud believes these statements to be reasonable, no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements and future oriented financial information included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. Any number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to: Sugarbuds's continued viability as a going concern; the risk that Sugarbud may not become profitable; the Proposed Trustee's ability to complete a transaction pursuant to the terms of the Initial Order; currently contemplated expansion and development plans may cease or otherwise change, production of cannabis may be lower than expected; ability to ship cannabis products may be lower than expected; demand for Sugarbud's products, assets or property may be lower than anticipated, results of production and sale activities; results of scientific research; changes in prices and costs of inputs; demand for products; failure of counter-parties to perform contractual obligations; failure to maintain consumer brand recognition and loyalty of customers; reliance on relationships with wholesalers and retailers for distribution of products and failure to maintain strategic business relationships; intense competition, including from illicit sources; uncertainty and continued evolution of markets; product liability litigation; reliance on information technology; infringement on intellectual property; failure to benefit from partnerships; sensitivity of end-customers to increased sales taxes and economic conditions; failure to comply with certain regulations; departure of key management personal or inability to attract and retain talent; actions and initiatives of federal and provincial governments and changes to government actions; initiatives and policies and the execution and impact thereof; the ability to implement corporate strategies; the state of domestic capital markets; the ability to obtain financing; changes in general market conditions; industry conditions and events; the size of the medical marijuana market and the recreational marijuana market; government regulations; including future legislative and regulatory developments involving medical and recreational marijuana; construction delays; risks inherent in the agricultural business, such as insects, plant diseases and similar agricultural risks which can have a significant impact on the size and quality of the harvest of cannabis crops; competition from other industry participants; and other factors more fully described from time to time in the reports and filings made by Sugarbud with security regulatory authorities. Forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of prevailing economic conditions, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Sugarbud. Although Sugarbud believes these statements to be reasonable, no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release represent Sugarbud's expectations as of the date hereof and are subject to change after such date. Sugarbud disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities regulations. Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. SOURCE Sugarbud Craft Growers Corp. Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2022/11/c2315.html (Adds Yenisei River, Bu Samra, Aamira, Gaslog Hongkong, Diamond Gas Met Olis; shows Lusail is docked; updates arrival date for Wilpride) Oct 11 (Reuters) - The following liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers are expected to arrive in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands in the coming weeks. Estimated arrival dates, often revised by port authorities and AIS Live ship-tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon, are updated below. Some tankers heading for Belgium and Britain may be loading at the terminal. Those expected to load are indicated with an (L). Those likely to perform ship-to-ship transfers are indicated with (STS). Tankers that have docked are indicated with (A). Floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) terminals are added to the table when they become fully operational. As of Sept. 30 2022 this includes the Eemshaven terminal in the Netherlands. For the Reuters LNG guide, click here: LNG TANKER CAPACITY in EXPECTED ARRIVAL FROM PORT cubic metres BRITAIN Gaslog Windsor 176,000 Oct. 10 (A) United States Isle of Grain Kool Firn 174,000 Oct. 10 (A) United States South Hook Traiano Knutsen 180,000 Oct. 14 United States South Hook LNG Bonny II 173,000 Oct. 15 United States Isle of Grain Attalos 174,000 Oct. 16 Trinidad and Tobago Isle of Grain Cool Runner 158,000 Oct. 17 United States South Hook Elisa Aquila 174,000 Oct. 19 United States Isle of Grain Sonangol Etosha 158,000 Oct. 20 Angola Isle Of Grain Bu Samra Oct. 21 Qatar Isle 261,000 of Grain Maran Gas Ithaca 170,000 Oct. 29 United States Milford Haven BELGIUM Lusail 143,000 Oct. 10 (A) Qatar Zeebrugge Clean Planet 159,000 Oct. 12 Russia Zeebrugge LNG Enterprise 174,000 Oct. 13 Norway Zeebrugge LNG Phecda 174,000 Oct. 13 (L) N/A Zeebrugge Yenisei River Oct. 14 Russia 152,000 Zeebrugge Shagra 261,000 Oct. 19 Qatar Zeebrugge Al Jasra 137,000 Oct. 19 Qatar Zeebrugge Aamira Oct. 24 Qatar 261,000 Zeebrugge Gaslog Oct. 30 United Hongkong 174,000 States Zeebrugge NETHERLANDS Gaslog Greece 174,000 Oct. 9 (A) United States Eemshaven Wilpride 156,000 Oct. 12 (L) N/A Gate Santander Knutsen 170,000 Oct. 10 United States Eemshaven Nikolay Urvantsev 169,000 Oct. 11 Russia Gate Maran Gas Roxana 170,000 Oct. 14 United States Eemshaven Adam LNG 159,000 Oct. 20 Trinidad and Tobago Gate LNG Schneeweisschen 177,000 Oct. 21 Unites States Gate Diamond Gas Oct. 24 United Gate Met Olis 174,000 States Sources: Ports, AIS Live ship tracking, Refinitiv Eikon data. (^) Partial unload (*) Arrival date estimated based on flows data (Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo) Semiconductors, also called microchips, are a highlight of technology. They exist in almost every aspect of our lives. From freezers to computers, they allow the devices we rely on daily to work smoothly and efficiently. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing TSM, the worlds largest circuit foundry, is on deck to report quarterly results this week. TSM is a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) with an overall VGM Score of an A. How does the company stack up heading into its print? Lets take a closer look. Share Performance TSM shares have struggled notably in 2022, down more than 40% and widely lagging behind the S&P 500. Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Over the last three months, the downward trajectory has continued, with shares losing more than 14% in value and lagging behind the S&P 500 in this timeframe also. Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Sellers have been in control of TSM shares all year, no different than the majority of the market. Valuation TSM shares seem reasonably priced; the companys 11.2X forward earnings multiple is well beneath its 19.9X five-year median and represents a sizable 45% discount relative to its Zacks Computer and Technology sector average of 20.5X. Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Quarterly Estimates A singular analyst has lowered their outlook for the quarter to be reported, with the Consensus Estimate Trend slipping marginally. Still, the Zacks Consensus EPS Estimate of $1.69 reflects a stellar 57% Y/Y uptick in quarterly earnings. Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The companys top line is also in great shape; the Zacks Consensus Sales Estimate of $20.9 billion suggests Y/Y revenue growth of a double-digit 40%. Quarterly Performance TSM has a strong earnings track record, exceeding the Zacks Consensus EPS Estimate in seven consecutive quarters. Just in its latest print, TSM penciled in a solid 3.4% bottom line beat. However, top line results have left some to be desired; TSM has fallen short of revenue estimates in three of its last four quarters. Below is a chart illustrating the companys revenue on a quarterly basis. Story continues Zacks Investment Research Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Additionally, its worth noting that shares have moved upward following three of the companys last four quarterly prints. Putting Everything Together TSM shares have struggled across multiple timeframes, indicating that sellers have been in complete control. The sell-off has caused its valuation levels to a potentially attractive spot; shares trade well below their five-year median and Zacks Sector average. A singular analyst has lowered their outlook for the quarter, but estimates reflect double-digit percentage increases within revenue and earnings. Further, TSM has consistently exceeded bottom line estimates, but revenue has consistently come in under expectations as of late. Heading into the print, Taiwan Semiconductor TSM carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) with an Earnings ESP Score of -3.8%. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSM) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The pressure for the United States to send Ukraine more advanced air defense systems reached a new high Monday after Russia escalated its war on the country with a barrage of deadly missile strikes. The Kremlin attacks, which targeted civilian areas that for months had enjoyed a relative calm, has produced anew the argument that the West send Ukraine more high-tech air defense weapons, including those similar to Israels Iron Dome missile interception system. Washington has long resisted providing Kyiv with such lethal aid, fearing it could escalate the conflict and arguing it would be too complicated to train Ukrainian troops on the advanced systems. But the latest Russia atrocities could shift the wind in Ukraines favor, experts say. Ukrainians have shown over and over again, if you give them the right tools to defend themselves, they will. Hopefully this moves the needle, said John Spencer, a retired Army major and the chairman of Urban Warfare Studies at the research organization Madison Policy Forum. If there are people on the other side of that fence, hopefully this is more supporting information that they needed to show that if we have something whether its a rocket or an air defense system we can give it. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a rain of cruise and ballistic missiles on Kyiv and nine other Ukrainian cities, killing at least 11 individuals and injuring at least another 64. Putin said the attacks were a harsh response to a Saturday explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a crucial Russian rail and road line to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. The bridge is viewed as a key supply route for Moscows military offensive on the south of Ukraine. The strikes also follow embarrassing Kremlin losses in its so-called special military operation, with Russian troops pushed from thousands of miles of territory in a lightning counteroffensive by Ukrainian armed forces starting in September. Story continues Russias escalation has prompted international condemnation, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to Telegram to plead for more air and missile defenses from the West and soon. About 84 missiles were launched on Ukraine but its air defenses were able to down 43 of them, Kyivs forces said, pointing to successes with the Western-supplied military aid. Zelensky later on Monday revealed he had a productive conversation with President Biden on the matter, stressing that air defense is currently the number 1 priority in our defense cooperation, he wrote on Twitter. The White House released its own statement confirming the call and said that Biden pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems. The release did not give further details on what specific systems were discussed. Zelenskys call for the protection of Ukrainian airspace is nothing new, as he has made the plea to the West since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. The Ukrainian leader initially pushed for the United States and NATO to help establish a no-fly zone, but the ask was rejected by the administration and lawmakers in both parties. In order for such a plan to work, officials argued, the U.S. and other European countries would have to enforce it and shoot down Russian planes that came into Ukrainian airspace, potentially setting off a third World War. In recent months, Ukraine has refocused on its lethal aid wish lists in asking for Western help, specifically requesting more advanced air defense systems including the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS). The U.S.-Norwegian made system was recently promised to Kyiv by Washington but is not expected to get there for at least another month. What makes the medium-range air defense system so indispensable is its ability to identify and take out aircraft, cruise missiles and drones, protecting major assets or civilian populations. The Biden administration in late August approved the shipment of six NASAMSs to Ukraine but none have been sent yet. To speed along the systems delivery, Ukraines top parliamentarian Ruslan Stefanchuk on Monday sent letters to U.S. congressional leaders calling on Washington to prioritize the shipments, Foreign Policy reported. The letter also reportedly asked for defensive weapons, including counter-rocket, mortar, and artillery systems, armaments that appear to now take precedent over the fighter jets and long-range rocket systems that Kyiv has asked for over the past several months. Another weapon at the top of Kyivs wish list is the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), a surface-to-surface missile that can travel four times farther than anything Ukraine has now in its fight against Russia. The former Soviet nation has pressed the U.S. for ATACMS for months to protect against Russians invasion, but Washington has so far resisted, afraid the system would be used on targets within Russias borders. Ukraine, meanwhile, has stressed the missile would instead be used on Russian positions within Ukrainian borders. Retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, a former NATO supreme allied commander, even suggested that Ukraine needs air defenses similar to Israels Iron Dome missile interception system. Well, it needs to be able to have some sort of air cap, or Iron Dome or some way to be able to take that initiative away from the Russians, Joulwan told CNN. And weve been kicking this around now for some time, but they need a way to protect themselves from both air and artillery strikes, which is the strength of the Russian military. Ukraine has also turned to European leaders for help, with Zelensky noting that he had also spoken with the heads of the United Kingdom and Canada regarding the protection of our skies, and to stress that Ukraine needs an air shield to protect civilians and critical infrastructure. Beth Sanner, the former U.S. deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, accused bigger allies, including Germany and France, for not standing up and providing more to Ukraine. Germany promised four air defense systems in June. Not one has shown up and if they dont want more refugees coming from Ukraine its in their interest to do all they can to shore up Ukraine, Sanner said on CNN Monday. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht later on Monday said the delivery of the vehicle-mounted Iris-T SLM systems was slated for the end of the year but will be sped up in light of the Kremlin rocket strikes. The renewed missile fire on Kyiv and the many other cities show how important it is to supply Ukraine with air defense systems quickly, Lambrecht said in a statement. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola also urged the EU to provide Ukraine with more military equipment in the wake of the Russian attacks. I think all countries could and should do more, Metsola told CNN. What weve seen today shows that Russia will continue to escalate further How are we going to respond? If our response is not proportionate to the escalation, then were just going to keep seeing him killing more people. Lawmakers also joined in on the pressure campaign, with House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Michael McCaul (R-Texas), urging the administration and U.S. allies and partners to immediately ramp up security assistance to Ukraine in response, including longer-range artillery and additional air defense systems. Putin must be made to understand such brutal escalation and war crimes will not break the United States and the free worlds support of Ukraine, McCaul said in a statement. This story was updated at 7:59 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Company Logo Dropper Market Dropper Market Dublin, Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Dropper Market - Forecasts from 2022 to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The dropper market is estimated to augment at a CAGR of 3.09% from a market value of US$1,210.671 million in 2020 to achieve a market value of US$ 1,497.792 million by the end of 2027. A dropper is an insert for a bottle closure system and is mostly utilized where small doses are required. The major applications include essential oils, cosmetic and personal care applications, medical remedies, research purposes, and nutraceutical applications. The growing importance of essential oils is augmenting the market demand in the forecast period. The rising prevalence of diseases that necessitate the administration of small amounts of drugs fuel market demand during the forecast period. The increasing prevalence of diseases requiring drug administration in small amounts is the further impetus in propelling the market demand in the forecast period. As per the FDA, Droppers are categorized under Class I medical devices and are exempted from GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) regulations. These are also exempted from the premarket notification requirement. Hence, with the growing medical device industry, dropper manufacturing and sales also hold significant growth prospects during the forecast period. The growing geriatric population suffering from age-associated diseases further contributes to increasing the market growth in the forecast period. Furthermore, dropper bottles and assemblies provide primary packaging solutions for varied applications. , h Hence, with the growing packaging industry, the market will continue to grow significantly during the forecast period. North America is projected to hold a significant market share in the global dropper market. On the other hand, the Asia Pacific and Europe are predicted to hold a substantial market share during the forecast period. High disease prevalence in these regions contributes to surging market growth in the forecast period. Advancements in drug delivery have come up with innovative dropper products with unique features, such as technological advancements that are providing an opportunity for the market to thrive in the forecast period. The presence of companies offering dispensing systems further adds to the increase in market growth during the forecast period. Adelphi Healthcare Packaging provides a range of drug dispensing systems. These include droppers as well. The complete product portfolio includes dropper assemblies, dispenser tubes, refillable polymer syringes, refillable glass syringes, oral dosing pipettes, applicator pipettes or syringes, intramammary injectors, short-form oral dosing pipettes, dosing cups, drop dispensing bottles, and REDIPAC single-use tubes. The dropper assemblies product category deals with providing integrated screw caps and dropper pipettes. The product description includes rubber bulbs sourced from the leading manufacturers around the globe, a selection of caps, including tamper-evident, is also available, a variety of pipette tip designs and drop sizes, Type I and Type II glass, plastic pipettes, and printed pipettes. Another company, Williamson Manufacturing, is a supplier of quality plastic caps and dropper assemblies for the pharmaceutical and wholesale packaging industries in Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asian countries. The company offers dropper assemblies containing plastic stems with an option of printed graduations. It also offers dropper assemblies with glass stems. In addition, the products contain an option of child resistance or tamper resistance. The growing consumption of essential oils at the global level is augmenting the market demand in the forecast period. Hence, the increasing consumption of essential oils will strongly impact the market's growth during the forecast period. Additionally, companies manufacturing droppers for essential oils further contribute to the market's growth. This is because essential oils are utilized in small amounts; hence, droppers are suitable for their accurate release. Covid-19 Impact on Dropper Market Story continues Most businesses around the globe have been adversely affected by Covid-19. This is due to the massive disruptions in their corresponding production and distribution operations due to multiple cautionary shutdowns and other limitations placed by governing authorities around the world. The same holds for the global Droppers market. Furthermore, consumer demand has subsequently decreased as people are now more focused on eradicating non-essential expenditures from their specific spending. These factors weigh the global Droppers market's revenue pathway over the forecast period. Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Research Methodology 3. Executive Summary 4. Market Dynamics 4.1. Market Drivers 4.2. Market Restraints 4.3. Market Opportunities 4.4. Porter's Five Forces Analysis 4.4.1. Bargaining Power of Suppliers 4.4.2. Bargaining Power of Buyers 4.4.3. Threat of New Entrants 4.4.4. Threat of Substitutes 4.4.5. Competitive Rivalry in the Industry 4.5. Industry Value Chain Analysis 5. Dropper Market Analysis, by Type 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Vertical 5.3. Horizontal 6. Dropper Market Analysis, by Material 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Glass 6.3. Plastic 7. Dropper Market Analysis, by Application 7.1. Introduction 7.2. Essential Oils 7.3. Medical 7.4. Research Purposes 7.5. Cosmetic Applications 7.6. Nutraceutical Applications 8. Dropper Market Analysis, by Geography 8.1. Introduction 8.2. North America 8.2.1. North America Dropper Market, By Type, 2020 to 2027 8.2.2. North America Dropper Market, By Material, 2020 to 2027 8.2.3. North America Dropper Market, By Application, 2020 to 2027 8.2.4. North America Dropper Market, By Distribution Channel, 2020 to 2027 8.2.5. By Country 8.2.5.1. United States 8.2.5.2. Canada 8.2.5.3. Mexico 8.3. South America 8.3.1. South America Dropper Market, By Type, 2020 to 2027 8.3.2. South America Dropper Market, By Material, 2020 to 2027 8.3.3. South America Dropper Market, By Application, 2020 to 2027 8.3.4. South America Dropper Market, By Distribution Channel, 2020 to 2027 8.3.5. By Country 8.3.5.1. Brazil 8.3.5.2. Argentina 8.3.5.3. Others 8.4. Europe 8.4.1. Europe Dropper Market, By Type, 2020 to 2027 8.4.2. Europe Dropper Market, By Material, 2020 to 2027 8.4.3. Europe Dropper Market, By Application, 2020 to 2027 8.4.4. Europe Dropper Market, By Distribution Channel, 2020 to 2027 8.4.5. By Country 8.4.5.1. UK 8.4.5.2. Germany 8.4.5.3. France 8.4.5.4. Others 8.5. Middle East and Africa 8.5.1. Middle East and Africa Dropper Market, By Type, 2020 to 2027 8.5.2. Middle East and Africa Dropper Market, By Material, 2020 to 2027 8.5.3. Middle East and Africa Dropper Market, By Application, 2020 to 2027 8.5.4. Middle East and Africa Dropper Market, By Distribution Channel, 2020 to 2027 8.5.5. By Country 8.5.5.1. United Arab Emirates 8.5.5.2. Israel 8.5.5.3. Saudi Arabia 8.5.5.4. Others 8.6. Asia Pacific 8.6.1. Asia Pacific Dropper Market, By Type, 2020 to 2027 8.6.2. Asia Pacific Dropper Market, By Material, 2020 to 2027 8.6.3. Asia Pacific Dropper Market, By Application, 2020 to 2027 8.6.4. Asia Pacific Dropper Market, By Distribution Channel, 2020 to 2027 8.6.5. By Country 8.6.5.1. Japan 8.6.5.2. China 8.6.5.3. India 8.6.5.4. Thailand 8.6.5.5. Indonesia 8.6.5.6. Taiwan 8.6.5.7. Others 9. Competitive Environment and Analysis 9.1. Major Players and Strategy Analysis 9.2. Emerging Players and Market Lucrativeness 9.3. Mergers, Acquisitions, Agreements, and Collaborations 9.4. Vendor Competitiveness Matrix 10. Company Profiles 10.1. Carow Packaging, Inc. 10.2. Comar, LLC. 10.3. Paramark Corporation 10.4. Pacific Vial 10.5. Remy & Geiser GmbH 10.6. Williamson Manufacturing Pty Ltd For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/7odcuv Attachment CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood,Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./ CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 Spotsylvania School Board members are now defendants in two lawsuits moving through the county judicial system. Last week, two county residents, Jeffrey Glazer and Christina Ramos, filed a petition in the Circuit Court requesting a temporary and permanent injunction against the hiring of Mark Taylor, and on Tuesday morning, Circuit Court Judge Ricardo Rigual heard arguments appealing the dismissal earlier this year of a petition alleging the School Board violated the Freedom of Information Act at its first meeting in January. The petition filed Oct. 4 by Glazer and Ramos, who are the parents or legal guardians of students who attend Spotsylvania County Public Schools, cites Virginia Code section 22.1-87, which permits any parent, custodian or legal guardian to request judicial review of action by a School Board. Glazer and Ramos are requesting judicial review of the School Boards decisions on Sept. 15 and 16 to offer to and negotiate a contract with Taylor, an attorney and former administrator with several Virginia counties who has no background in education, for the position of superintendent. We intend to show that under code, the actions of the Spotsylvania County School Board were both capricious and an abuse of discretion in direct violation of [Virginia Code], the petitioners wrote. A Circuit Court clerk on Tuesday confirmed that all seven members of the School Board have been served with notice of the petition and that a hearing date will be scheduled. The petition argues, among other points, that Taylor has a personal relationship with School Board Chair Kirk Twigg that should have been considered a conflict of interests, and that the board ignored public will in hiring a candidate with no background in education. It also argues that Twigg acted improperly in informing the Virginia Department of Education staff that Taylor was the final candidate before the board voted to recommend him and by signing a final contract with Taylor without board approval. In addition, Glazer and Ramos are requesting an emergency hearing on their petition to take place prior to Nov. 1, when Taylors contract is to take effect. Also on Tuesday morning, Jeremy Capps, an attorney representing the School Board, and Fred and Jenna Edwards, attorneys representing former Spotsylvania student Makaila Keyes, were in Circuit Court to present arguments related to a petition Keyes filed in March alleging the violation of her rights under FOIA. The Edwardses are appealing General District Court judge John Martins decision earlier this year to dismiss the case, which alleges that Twigg and School Board members April Gillespie, Lisa Phelps and Rabih Abuismail violated Keyess rights by proposing and approving an agenda for the Jan. 10 meeting that had not been made available to the public in advance, by going into a closed meeting that was not on the agenda and by not properly voting to go into the closed meeting. The closed meeting in question resulted in the firing of former superintendent Scott Baker without cause. Capps argued before Rigual that the case should be dismissed again because FOIA, as described in Virginia Code section 2.2-3707, only requires the date, time and location of public meetingsnot the agendato be posted three days in advance. He also argued that the law doesnt preclude public bodies from discussing matters that are not on a published agenda, and that Keyes does not have standing to bring the lawsuit because she does not have any rights and privileges that were denied her by the boards actions. He said the second closed meeting was exempt from FOIA requirements for a legitimate reasonto discuss personnel mattersand that therefore no privileges were denied. Fred Edwards responded by quoting Virginia Code, which states, The provisions of [the Freedom of Information Act] shall be liberally construed to promote an increased awareness by all persons of governmental activities and afford every opportunity to citizens to witness the operations of government. I believe [the right of any member of the public to claim the denial of privileges] is the teeth the legislature intended FOIA to have, Edwards said. They dont want this to be a meaningless law. FOIA is a social contract. If it doesnt have teeth, how would it be enforced? Jenna Edwards argued that the law isnt explicit about what rights and privileges are provided by FOIA. What it does is provide requirements for public officials to follow, she said. Fred Edwards said Capps is asking the court to rule that any public body can tell the public it will do one thing and then pull a bait-and-switch. The publics understanding was it was a closed meeting for the board to discuss hiring a new attorney. Chaos ensued when the board went into a second closed meeting that was not on the agenda, Edwards said. FOIA is designed to prevent this. Do we want to set the precedent that government can do whatever it wants? Or should the statute be meaningful? Rigual said he was not going to make a decision right away, but that one would be forthcoming in a few weeks. The commanding officer of Marine Corps Base Quantico hosted a briefing last week to update community leaders from surrounding jurisdictions with the latest news from the joint-service military training installation that touches Stafford, Prince William and Fauquier counties. I consider Marine Corps Base Quantico your installation, said Col. Mike Brooks, commanding officer of the base. As long as we are transparent and continue to be partners, its winwin, but it takes clear communication. Throughout the morning session, Brooks and several other leaders from the base spoke to representatives from Stafford, Prince William and Fauquier counties, as well as the towns of Quantico and Dumfries. We want to make sure that the community understands that were trying to work with them and be a good neighbors, said John Kiersma, assistant chief of staff. With our Marines living out in the community and our civilian Marines working out and living out in the community, we have to make sure we foster that relationship. It was the first gathering of its type that Brooks has conducted since he assumed command of the base last July. Brooks relieved Col. William Bentley, who served as Quanticos commanding officer since July 2018 until his retirement from active duty. Fauquier County Sheriff Jeremy Falls, who assumed his own office in January, said Thursdays briefing was the first time he has interacted directly with members of the military base that touches the southeastern corner of his county. Thats the first time that Ive ever really interacted with any of the folks from the command aspect of it, Falls said. I attended the (FBI National Academy) back in 2014 and I didnt realize the base was that big. It was also the first opportunity since Brooks assumed command to meet leaders outside the perimeter of the 59,000-acre base that hosts 27 tenant commands and includes about 184 square miles of special-use air space. I feel really good, Brooks said. I didnt know what quite to expect when we first came in, but as soon as I got in front of everyone I could just feel the excitement in the air, especially when youre talking about future opportunities to partner with each other. About 50 guests attended the nearly 2-hour session that began at 10 a.m. at the Clubs of Quantico. Kiersma told the audience that Marine Corps Base Quantico has a $5.88 billion financial impact locally and employs about 27,000 people working in about 46,000 jobs. Other base officials also provided updates for the guests on infrastructure projects either in progress or in the pipeline, including a new 100,00-square-foot warfighting activity center coming next year, a new 3,400-square-foot visitor control center and a new water treatment plant that will replace the existing plant that was built in 1918. The new plant is expected to produce more than double the current capacity of fresh water delivered to the base. Officials from the base also said three years from now, the base expects to open an extra-large child care center near its main gate to support over 300 children each day. Brooks said the base has 1,137 military housing units for military service members and their families in seven separate housing communities on the base. While Brooks said only about 20% of Marines and their families assigned to Quantico for duty live in those quarters, 80% reside in surrounding communities outside the gates of the base, where the cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment can be a substantial financial burden, especially for young Marines on a budget. Were talking about housing. Affordable housing, Brooks said. Its the quality of life that Im responsible for providing those who work and live aboard this base. Housing Forward Virginia reports while the median gross apartment rental cost average in Fauquier County is $1,353 each month, the price increases to $1,559 in Stafford County and even higher in Prince William County, where rents average $1,738 per month. Fredericksburg came in at $1,287 in the same report. Brooks said he is working with local officials to find ways to open up additional housing opportunities for those who are assigned to Marine Corps Base Quantico. Were working with Stafford County, were working with Prince William County trying to figure out new ways to meet that need right now, Brooks said. If awards have value, it is this: They remind us that individuals are successful only when they place the communities theyre involved in above themselves. That realization was front-of-mind for me Monday night at the Fredericksburg City School Board meeting, where I received a Virginia School Boards Association award. A humbling experience, because my workwriting columns about educationhas meaning only because of the extraordinary work that teachers, administrators, and support staff do every day, often without recognition, and too often in the face of withering criticism. One teacher in particular was on my mind that evening, my sister-in-law Violet Nelson. For more than 30 years, she taught in Martinsville, Virginia. Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, its a city whose natural beauty is counterbalanced by the crushing economic collapse that followed the shuttering of the textile and furniture industries in the 1970s and 80s. In that struggling community, Violet spent her life with the citys gifted and talented students. She helped them recognize and reach for what was possible, while instilling in each a sense of pride about where they grew up. She did this because she believed above all else in the power of education to shape a better future. Just an hour prior to receiving the VSBA award, I learned that Violet had lost her battle with cancer. Throughout the evening, I thought of her as I watched some of Fredericksburgs best and brightest students be recognized. Students like Nicole Webber, a freshman at Georgetown University and recent graduate of James Monroe, who last night was the James Monroe High School Donation/Girl Scout Gold Star Recipient, the Girls Scouts highest award. While at JM, Webber saw a need that most of us see with our eyes, but not our hearts. Aware that several students at the school did not have ready access to a washer and dryer to clean their clothes, she worked with administration to find, fund, and set up the appliances at school. Today, they are open to any student free of charge. Or students like DaNiya Johnson, who received the JM Humanitarian Award for her participation in service-learning that promotes and supports human health and welfare. She recently had traveled to Vietnam as part of a program for promising students who hope to become physicians. Her successfully scaling that height will ultimately rest in the hands of the professors and clinicians who train medical professionals. But her preparation for that arduous journey, and her commitment to reaching her goal, is in the hands of those teachers in Fredericksburg who both nurture her talents, and challenge her mind. I wondered about the Nicoles and the DaNiyas who Violet touched, and where they might be today. And I thought about the war that parents-rights advocates and their affiliated supporters on school boards and in Richmond are launching against teachers and students right now. What is driving them? Why would they demonize and criticize those who do nothing but give to their children and their community everything they have so these children can succeed? I can only conclude that somewhere along the line, these people failed to grasp a simple truth. Education is about the community. About a group of people working together for a greater good. Its a fundamental truth of democracy that parents rights supporters refuse to accept. Their concern is only for their rights, and what they can control, not those around them. And so they have declared war on the very people who want only to serve their children. Teachers and schools are not at war with parents. Teachers want parents to come alongside them as they push students to ever-greater challenges. Teachers want to build upon the lessons that students parents taught them, and then take them further. And when parents fail or are absent, teachers work to build a moral scaffolding under these students and support them with a community of other teachers and adults, thereby giving these students a chance to reach their fullest potentials. The parents right movement will fail because it places self above community. And without community, there is no meaning. Rather than elevate self, let parents give of themselves a fraction of what the teachers in Fredericksburg and throughout our community give of themselves. Or give as fully as Violet did throughout her too-short, but highly significant, life. What we do matters, after all, only when we place community above ourselves. By Trend The Department of States Bureau of Energy Resources Assistant Secretary Geoffrey R. Pyatt will travel to Istanbul, Turkiye, Bucharest, Romania, and Sofia, Bulgaria, October 10-14, where he will meet with government officials and energy sector leaders to advance bilateral and commercial energy relationships, Trend reports citing the press service of Department of State. The Assistant Secretary will discuss joint efforts to promote European energy security, reduce Europes dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and further the clean energy transition. "In Istanbul, he will address the Atlantic Councils Regional Clean Energy Outlook Conference, highlighting transatlantic cooperation on energy issues. In Bucharest, his meetings will promote civilian nuclear energy cooperation and commemorate 25 years of the strategic partnership with Romania. In Sofia, he will meet with government officials and private sector groups to strengthen business ties and energy security coordination," the press service said. Local McDonalds owner-operators of the McDonalds Great Plains Business Unit are launching a new 10K in a Day fundraising initiative to support Ronald McDonald House Charities in Omaha (RMHC). On Wednesday, Oct. 12, customers can Round Up their order at all McDonalds restaurants throughout Nebraska to support RMHC. The goal of this event is to raise $10,000 in just one day to support local families staying at RMHC. Ronald McDonald House Charities in Omaha relies heavily on donations to provide services to sick children and their families in the community. While it costs RMHC Omaha $120 a night to house a family, they ask guests to donate only $20 per night, and no family is ever turned away due to the inability to pay. $10,000 will help house a family staying at the Ronald McDonald House for over 83 nights. Customers can always round up their order every day throughout the year with proceeds benefiting our local Ronald McDonald House. Hi, everyone. Well, it has been a struggle but Im trying to get back into the swing of things. I guess I was gone too long, but it sure was fun. Our veterans dinner is coming up on November 11. We will have more information next week for you. On October 12, Fransican Health will be here for toenail trims and blood pressure checks at 11 a.m. Please call for an appointment for the toenail trims. Also, Jill Lewis with Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department will be here at 10:30 a.m. for a flu shot clinic. If you cannot make it that day, there will be another clinic with Fransican Health on November 9. Its garage sale time! It will be Friday, October 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday, October 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Its time to clean out your closet again. I sure wish this would work for me!! Anyway, if you would like to make a donation please give me a call to make sure someone is here to take it when you come by. Please, no big furniture. We appreciate your donations, this is a great fundraiser for us. A local agency is planning an event designed to shine some light on domestic violence. The Bridge will have its 23rd Annual Candlelight Vigil starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, in the Olson Student Center on the Midland University campus in Fremont. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the event is designed to raise awareness of the prevalence of domestic violence. Its also intended to unite people to work together to help make communities safer, said Suzanne Smith, executive director of The Bridge. During the vigil, a survivor will share her story. The public is encouraged to attend the event and to consider volunteer opportunities. The Bridge also accepts paper products, hygiene products, used cell phones and monetary donations. At the vigil in 2021, attendees learned that pandemic-caused isolation led to a dramatic increase in domestic violence situations. During that past year, The Bridges crisis line received 3,400 calls for help, provided crisis support and intervention for 729 people and 661 children, and volunteers with The Bridge gave almost 10,000 hours of work for the organization. The Bridge is a private, nonprofit organization that provides confidential services to individuals who have been emotionally, physically or sexually abused by someone they care for in Dodge, Washington, Burt, Cuming and Saunders counties. Services available include: A 24-hour crisis line (888-721-4340); Crisis intervention counseling; An emergency safe shelter; Life skills, group support and education to individuals who have been abused and their family members. Services are available in Spanish and English. The Bridge also provides prevention and education programming to children and youth on topics including: Healthy relationships. Internet/texting safety. Sexual respect. Social media. Peer pressure. Bullying. It provides community training and education on topics such as identifying and responding to: Dating violence. Domestic violence. Sexual assault. Stalking. Threat and risk assessment. Coordinated response. The Bridge is committed to eliminating violence in the lives of women, children and men through empowerment, education and social change. If you are interested in volunteering or donating call the office at 402-721-4340. More information is available on the organizations website at: bridgefromviolence.com/. Marzia and Hajar Mohammadi, cousins and best friends, were inseparable during their short lives. Now, the young Afghan women are buried next to each other in a graveyard in western Kabul. The 18-year-olds were among the nearly 60 people, mostly girls and women, who were killed when a bomb tore through a packed educational center in the Afghan capital on September 30. No group has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, which triggered international condemnation and sparked days of protests by women across Afghanistan. The attack occurred in Dasht-e Barchi, an area in Kabul that is predominantly inhabited by members of the Shiite Hazara community. "They were so attached that they spent 12 out of every 24 hours together," Maryam Mohammadi, Marzias mother, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "They did everything together." That included reading the works of their favorite writer -- the Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak and American author Rachel Hollis. "Both were eager to meet their two favorite writers," Abdul Zahir Mudaqiq, Marzia's uncle, told Radio Azadi. Marzia's diary reveals that meeting Shafak was on her bucket list, which also included learning how to ride a bike and play the guitar, walking in the park at night, visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and eating pizza at an Italian restaurant. "No excuses, with or without electricity, I have to continue my studies," Marzia wrote on another page in her diary. "I have to prove to myself that I'm stronger. Marzia can do it. I believe [in] her." But those dreams ended when Marzia and Hajar lost their lives in the bombing at the Kaaj Higher Education Center in Kabul. Hundreds of students were packed inside the center, some taking practice university exams, when the suicide bomber struck. Marzia's elder sister, Aneesa, said both young women aimed to get top marks in the upcoming exams. "She wanted me to take many pictures of her so I could add the best one to her Facebook profile photo if she topped the exam," she recalled. "Now, I have a photo of her grave as my profile photo. Following the attack, Hajar's father, Ghulam Ali, rushed to nearby hospitals in search for his daughter. "I found Marzia's corpse in the hospital and Hajar in another one," he told Radio Azadi. "They were barely recognizable." The bombing at the educational center triggered some of the largest and most sustained protests against Taliban rule since the militant group seized power last year. Defying the Taliban's ban on unsanctioned rallies, women held rallies in the cities of Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, and Ghazni and the provinces of Bamiyan and Kapisa from October 1-4. The protesters rallied against the Taliban governments restrictions on female education and its inability to protect ethnic and religious minorities. The attack was the latest against Hazaras, a long-persecuted minority in Afghanistan. During its oppressive rule from 1996-2001, the Taliban terrorized Hazaras, wrestling control of Hazara regions in Afghanistan through a campaign of targeted killings. Since seizing control of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban has tried to assuage Hazaras' fears of discrimination and persecution, although rights groups have documented the evictions of Hazaras by the Taliban in parts of the country. Most of the attacks on Hazaras have been blamed on the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group, which considers Shi'a as apostates who should be killed. According to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) last month, IS-K has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras and has been linked to at least three more since August 2021. These attacks killed and injured at least 700 people, said HRW. Despite the latest attack against the community, many Hazaras remain defiant. Hajar's mother, Aziza Mohammadi, said she is determined to educate her three remaining children. "We are not afraid of death and still want to educate our children," she told Radio Azadi. For Marzia's mother, Maryam, educating her seven children has been a lifelong mission. She herself never went to school. "The current [Taliban] government must ensure our security," she told Radio Azadi. "I don't want my other children to end up like Marzia." Written by Abubakar Siddique based on reporting by RFE/RLs Radio Azadi Bright Health Group, Inc. announced Tuesday it will no longer offer individual or family healthcare plans in Colorado starting January 2023, according to a news release. For decades, critics have urged Colorados judicial branch to do more to ensure the quality of court appointed evaluators, but the judiciary has been slow to regulate the profession. An investigation by The Gazette found dozens of cases of incompetent, inaccurate and biased custody evaluations by court-appointed evaluators, several of whom put children at serious, even life-threatening risk. In 2002, a blue-ribbon judicial branch commission on families in the Colorado courts urged the judiciary to develop an assessment process to ensure those receiving appointments in divorce cases are meeting established standards. That commission also urged the judiciary to create a system that allows for removal of individuals who are not competent and develop an appropriate process for identifying individuals who are not performing competently. In 2012, Michael Bender, then-chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, rejected a recommendation from a judicial committee urging creation of additional regulatory oversight at the state court administrators office for child and family investigators, though he agreed to create a statewide roster among other changes. The costs associated with expanding regulatory oversight are undefined and the current economic climate limits the availability of resources, Bender wrote in a letter explaining his reasoning. The judicial committee had recommended a centralized complaint office or super board for child and family investigators because judicial district administrators reported they do not have the requisite skill or expertise to investigate complaints of mental health professionals serving in that role. In addition, officials at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, which licenses mental health professionals, reported at that time that they dismissed roughly 60 CFI complaints annually due to lack of jurisdiction, expecting court officials would handle those complaints. It wasnt until this year that the state court administrators office adopted standards or oversight for parental responsibility evaluators. The court administration finally acted because legislators demanded it last year by passing HB 21-1228, sponsored by Froelich, the Democrat from Greenwood Village, and Sen. Jim Smallwood, a Republican from Parker. The law requires the judicial department to establish a complaint process for parental responsibility evaluators. The legislation also required evaluators and child and family investigators to complete six hours of training on domestic violence and six hours of training on child abuse. Every two years thereafter, they must complete an additional four hours of renewed training on domestic violence. The law also required the state court administrators office to create an eligibility roster for parental responsibility evaluators, standards for their court practice and a new complaint process. Still, the system the court administrators office adopted this year has hurdles for those wanting to file a complaint. Complaints wont be investigated without a finding from a judge that the evaluator failed to follow a court order or violated a standard of practice, though there are exceptions to that requirement for pressing cases where an evaluator committed a crime or failed to keep up with the new training. The rationale for requiring judicial officers and judicial districts to monitor the work of CFI and PRE is because the court is responsible for managing the case and the trial processes, said Rob McCallum, a spokesperson for the State Court Administrators Office, in a statement. The court and local officials are in the best position to understand the facts of the case, the credibility of the parties, and best positioned to understand the demographic, economic and geographic realities in their communities. However, studies suggest that the states new minimal training requirements wont solve all issues. A guidebook the State Justice Institute developed for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges noted that expertise in the mental health field does not automatically make a parental evaluator competent to assess the presence of domestic violence. Even though some jurisdictions are now requiring custody evaluators to take a minimum amount of training in domestic violence, that basic training by itself is unlikely to qualify an evaluator as an expert, or even assure basic competence, in such cases, the guidebook states. The guidebook recommends that court jurisdictions have designated evaluators with expertise in domestic violence issues available for appointment in custody cases with allegations of violence. Two studies funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, one in 2011 and one in 2012, found evaluators often discount violence, with one review finding they ignored documented evidence in roughly one out of every five cases where such documentation exists. Even in the presence of severe violence and controlling behavior, evaluators reported they would most likely recommend unsupervised visits for the father, the latter study found. And, in 2019, a study published in the Journal of Child Custody of 27 custody cases that were reversed due to later reports of child abuse found flawed parental evaluation reports that pathologized mothers when they reported child abuse played a significant role. The abuse often became increasingly severe and the childrens mental and physical health frequently deteriorated, the study found. A Colorado Springs nonprofit must pay a $1,000 penalty after the deputy secretary of state found the organization violated Colorado campaign finance laws when it made prohibited campaign donations last year to two El Paso County commissioners running for reelection in November. Last September, civic nonprofit Colorado Springs Forward made campaign donations of $5,000 each to commissioners Holly Williams and Cami Bremer, who are running for reelection in districts 1 and 5, respectively. Colorado law prohibits corporations from contributing to candidates or political parties. Additionally, the $5,000 contributions were over the $2,500 campaign donation limit a county candidate may receive under state law. The Secretary of State's Rules on Campaign Finance stipulate that at least a $100 fine and 10% of the amount contributed be assessed to organizations or individuals who make prohibited campaign contributions. In this case, the recommended fine would be at least $1,100. But "given (the nonprofit's) efforts to cure and responsiveness to the (state Elections Division) ... the Division finds that a $1,000 penalty is consistent with the rule," the Oct. 4 settlement agreement states. "Accordingly, the Division finds that a penalty of $1,000 is sufficient to further the purposes of Colorado campaign finance law." Lynette Crow-Iverson, chairwoman of the Colorado Springs Forward nonprofit board, said Tuesday she thought the nonprofit shouldn't be subject to any fines. The Secretary of State's Office dismissed other similar complaints against the Colorado Springs Forward political action committee and against Williams and Bremer, she said. "But we are glad it's finished and put behind us," Crow-Iverson said. Both Bremer and Williams returned the contributions before the June 28 primary election, and the state Elections Division requested Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Beall dismiss the complaint against Colorado Springs Forward. Both candidates won their primary races. The nonprofit had a related political action committee, known as Colorado Springs Forward State Political Funding Committee, that could have legally donated to the campaigns, Katie Kennedy, the political action committee's registered agent, told secretary of state officials in a letter. This likely caused confusion about the source of the contributions to the candidates' campaigns, she said. The prohibited donations "were made in error by volunteers for an organization that had not made a contribution to state candidates since 2016 and did not realize that the contributions were prohibited," Kennedy wrote. Former El Paso County Republican Party Treasurer John Pitchford filed an initial complaint over the donations in February focused on the committee he thought was the donor based on campaign finance records. He later filed complaints against the commissioners for accepting the prohibited donations from a nonprofit, among other violations, when additional information came to light through the secretary of state's investigation. The Secretary of State's Office ultimately dismissed the complaint against the political action committee, as well as the complaints against Williams and Bremer. Beall said in his Aug. 12 order denying a motion to dismiss the complaint against the Colorado Springs Forward nonprofit that Kennedy's assertions were "not plausible on their face." The checks were signed by Phil Lane, the registered agent of the Colorado Springs Forward nonprofit. Lane, who is also the CEO of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum, signed the checks "as an officer of the corporation, not a 'volunteer,'" Beall wrote. The state's investigation also found the nonprofit Colorado Springs Forward, through an independent expenditure committee, made two donations of $180,000 each to Springs Opportunity Fund in support of electing certain school board candidates last November. Beall said in his Aug. 12 order those contributions show the nonprofit understands how to legally spend money to support political candidates. Once the secretary of state issues a receipt of payment for the $1,000 fine, the state Elections Division will move to dismiss administrative proceedings against the nonprofit, the settlement agreement states. By Trend The terrible events of that night two years ago are still before my eyes, Sevil Babazade, the grandmother of little Nilay, who lost both parents at the age of one year and ten months as a result of the missile attack on Azerbaijans Ganja by the Armenian armed forces on October 11, 2020, told Trend. We didnt know that a rocket hit my daughters house. We were told that the explosion occurred on the territory of the plant. My brother-in-law and I immediately went there, she said. When we got to that place 10 minutes after the incident, I saw that part of the building in which my daughter lived was completely destroyed. A rocket fell near the balcony of their apartment, Babazade said. My brother-in-law, who saw all this, died five months later. I was there for the last time that night, I cant go there, I have no spiritual strength," she noted. During the second Karabakh war, Ganja, Barda, Yevlakh, Beylagan, Tartar, Gabala, Goranboy, Aghjabadi, Khizi and other cities and districts of Azerbaijan were shelled by Armenia with ballistic missiles and other heavy artillery. Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that the district attorney's office requested for Alford's charges to be downgraded. An El Paso County judge has ordered that a competency evaluation be performed on Brian Alford, the man accused of killing a man on Aug. 19 at a Colorado Springs convenience store. The motion for the competency evaluation was filed by Alford's defense attorneys, and Judge Samuel Evig on Monday said that the motion raised some "concerning" questions that prompted him to decide the evaluation was necessary. The competency evaluation will determine if Alford is mentally competent to stand trial, and not if he was competent during the time of the killing of Jeremy Diaz. The motion filed by the defense has been sealed by the court. A preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Alford Monday afternoon, but the motion for the evaluation was continued until the results are returned to the court. The prosecution did not object to evaluation order. The last time Alford, 25, was in court, he had his charges downgraded from first-degree murder to second-degree murder at the request of the district attorneys office. According to an affidavit acquired by The Gazette, the shooting stemmed from an argument between Alford and Diaz at the Kum & Go at 3025 Hancock Expressway. The affidavit alleges that Diaz and Alford began to argue while standing in line at the register, eventually leading Alford to pull out a handgun and fire several times at Diaz, killing him. Arrest records state that afterward, Alford "calmly walked past (Diaz's son) and exited the Kum & Go." Alford got into a tan Ford Explorer and drove off. Diaz, 36, was a father of eight children. Alford, who appeared in custody on Monday, is being held in El Paso County jail on a $500,000 bond. In addition to second-degree murder, Alford faces second-degree and third-degree assault charges in a separate case in El Paso County in July. Evig scheduled for a review hearing to be held in 4th Judicial District Court on Nov. 14, to see if the results of Alford's evaluation have been returned to the court. Three dozen parents, students and community members staged a protest before Thursday nights Academy School District 20 Board of Education, calling for the resignation of board President Tom LaValley because of a videotaped statement he made for a church event last month. In the video clip, a three-minute statement exclusively for Church of All Nations, LaValley asked parents to trust, but verify what their kids are being taught in schools. Hold the district, school and teacher accountable, LaValley said, in part. Stroll through the school library. If you see objectionable material, go to the teacher or librarian or better yet, take several others with you who are like-minded. Several people delivered scathing rebukes of LaValley during the public comments, saying that his videotaped statement supported book-banning and encouraged parents to bully and intimidate librarians and teachers. A handful of speakers, like Bernadette Guthrie, read statements from D-20 teachers who either couldnt make the meeting or were afraid to attend. Throughout my decades in education, never have I witnessed a more dire time, including during COVID, Guthrie read on an anonymous teachers behalf. The suggestion that district staff are somehow grooming children is not only demonstrably false, it puts us all at risk. Meanwhile, nearly two dozen speakers many of whom belong to the community group Advocates for D20 Kids expressed unwavering support for LaValley, saying he was simply advocating for parental rights. I want to say Thank you to this school board all five of you and President Tom LaValley in particular for your leadership, said Joel Sorenson, a D-20 alumnus. LaValley said he was asking parents to take an active role in their childrens education and did not mean to upset anyone with his comments in the video. I want to say to any teachers, principals or other employees who watched the video I made this past July that my intent was simply to encourage parents to be involved, he said. I never intended to upset or offend anyone. Teachers are the backbone of this district, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for each of them. Near the end of the meeting, Superintendent Tom Gregory announced that he intends to retire effective June 30. Gregory, who has been with the district as a teacher and administrator since 1991, said he made the announcement seven months early in order to give the board time to find a successor. My 32 years at D-20 has been an adventure of experiences, rewards and challenges that have essentially become part of my being, he said. Simply put, I believe it is my time (to retire). LaValley thanked Gregory for his years of service and promised a thorough search for his successor. You have been a great superintendent, and you will be missed. Rest assured that this board will ensure a smooth transition, and we will hire an excellent superintendent who will carry on the great traditions of this district and will continue the pursuit of academic excellence and character development. The armed burglary suspect killed by Pueblo County Sheriff's deputies in Colorado City last week has been identified as 51-year-old Troy Garcia, the Pueblo County Coroner confirmed Monday. Around 11:45 p.m. on Oct. 5, deputies responded to a burglary call at a residence on Santa Fe Drive where they encountered Garcia, the Sheriff's Office said in a release. The release states that "shots were fired," but did not specify whether Garcia exchanged gunfire with deputies. No deputies were injured. Garcia was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. The identities of the deputies involved have not been released. The Sheriff's Office said the events of the shooting are under investigation by the 10th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team, consisting of members of the Pueblo Police Department, the Colorado State Patrol, the Pueblo County District Attorneys Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations and the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office. The city of Colorado Springs is weighing whether to gate Old Stage Road to reduce late-night shooting across private property, vandalism, lighting fireworks, dumping and other illegal activity. You voted: Non-oil trade of Dubai Airport Free Zone (DAFZ), part of the Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ), rose by more than 36 percent year-on-year in 2021, reinforcing Dubais strength as a global hub for trade and commerce. Figures shared by the DAFZ in cooperation with Dubai Customs showed that the free zones non-oil trade exceeded AED162 billion ($44.1 billion) last year compared with AED119 billion the year before, said a Wam news agency report. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of DIEZ, said: We are proud of these exceptional results that highlight the strategic contribution of DAFZ under the umbrella of DIEZ. These results have been pivotal in promoting economic recovery in Dubai and the UAE. The free zone has fully recovered from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, with trade returning to pre-2020 levels. This has reinforced its mission to enhance its strategic goals and contribute to strengthening Dubais position as a global trade hub. DAFZ contributed 10.7 percent to Dubais non-oil trade in 2021, exceeding expectations across all sectors. The free zone also recorded a trade surplus of AED9.3 billion. This growth was fuelled by the massive 48 percent year-on-year increase in imports, exceeding even the record levels achieved in 2019 and resulting in a quadrupling of exports, reaching AED1.4 billion in 2021. Dr Mohammed Al Zarooni, Executive Chairman of DIEZ, said: These exceptional results highlight the success and effectiveness of the strategic plans developed by Dubai to enhance the growth of the non-oil trade sector and develop its operations by following a new and comprehensive organisational structure. This has resulted in establishing the integrated business environment of DIEZ, which heralds a new stage of excellence and growth across all levels, in addition to offering flexibility in adapting to regional and global conditions and turning challenges into real opportunities for all parties. In 2021, DAFZ achieved exceptional growth that contributed to surpluses in various sectors, particularly in the machinery, equipment, and appliances and precious stones, metals and jewellery sectors. These two sectors achieved growth between 36 percent and 46 percent and made up an average of 94 percent of DAFZs overall trade. Machinery, equipment, and appliances were the main contributor to DAFZs trade in 2021, making up 74.6 percent of exports with a value of AED63.9 billion, and 77.1 percent of imports with a value of AED58.9 billion. Precious stones, metals, and jewellery made up 19.3 percent of exports with a value of AED16.5 billion, and 16.7 percent of imports with a value of AED12.7 billion. In terms of DAFZs trading partners, Asia accounted for 43 percent of DAFZs total trade with a value of AED69.5 billion, followed by the Middle East and North Africa with 37 percent and a value of AED60.7 billion, and Europe with 13 percent and a value of AED21.6 billion. DAFZ launched a series of economic stimulus packages to support international companies and SMEs during the pandemic to overcome the economic challenges that affected most business sectors. This was in line with Dubais strategic vision to offer companies and businesses effective packages and incentives to provide flexibility in their operations and help them tackle the challenges posed by the pandemic, the report said. FILE PHOTO: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz speaks with paralegal Melissa Sly during a break in the penalty phase of Cruz's trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S., September 1, 2022. Cruz previously plead guilty to all 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the 2018 shootings. Amy Beth Bennett/Pool via REUTERS News Vietnam Vietnamese citizens now tour Japan without travel restrictions Underlining Dubai's leading position as a destination for future innovations and a hub for leading multinational companies to launch their latest technologies in global markets, Dubai International Chamber hosted today the worlds first public flight of the pioneering eVTOL flying car X2 designed by Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer XPeng at Skydive Dubai. The event was co-organized by Dubai International Chamber and XPeng, and supported by Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism and Dubai World Trade Centre Authority. After taking off in Dubai, the X2 flying completed its historic 90-minute test flight, marking an exciting new era of short-haul flights and intelligent mobility solutions. The futuristic two-seater eVTOL flying car X2 is equipped with an intelligent flight control system and autonomous flight capabilities and is the latest generation of flying cars developed independently by XPengs affiliate XPeng AEROHT. The X2 emits zero carbon dioxide and is designed with low-altitude city capabilities in mind, with a maximum flight speed of 130 kilometres per hour. The choice of Dubai as the destination for the test flight is attributed to Dubai International Chambers efforts to attract leading multinational (MNC) companies to the emirate, and the efforts of its China office since 2021. Dubai International Chamber, one of three chambers operating under Dubai Chambers, works closely with government stakeholders to promote Dubai as a gateway to exploring the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) markets. The event was attended by HE Li Xu Hang, Consul General of China in UAE, Hassan Al Hashemi, Acting President & CEO of Dubai Chambers, Dr Brian Gu, Vice Chairman and President of XPeng, Mohammad Al Kamali, Deputy CEO, Dubai Industries and Exports, government officials and members of the business community, as well as local and international press. Attracting investments Dubai International Chamber has been working closely with XPeng to explore wider international markets using Dubai as a gateway. The Chamber promoted the company's first survey mission to the emirate and coordinated several meetings with relevant government entities and departments in Dubai, including the Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, and Dubai Civil Aviation Authority among others. The Chamber also helped facilitate the X2 flying cars first public flight on the sidelines of Gitex Global 2022. The Chinese companys partners include Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai Future Foundation, Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority and Skydive Dubai. The Chamber collaborated with the company to obtain all relevant approvals to comply with security, safety and operational guidelines. Innovation incubator Addressing attendees at the event, Hassan Al Hashemi said: Led by the vision of the UAEs leadership, Dubai has become a magnet and testbed for companies from around the world that bring cutting-edge technologies to the market that support the emirates innovation strategy. The decision to debut the X2 flying car in Dubai is a testament Dubai's position as global innovation leader and hub for future technology. He added that the success of test flight would boost confidence in Dubai as global business hub and support Dubai International Chambers efforts to attract multinational companies from around the world and promote the emirate as a gateway that these companies can leverage to expand their global reach and access exciting growth opportunities. Trixie LohMirmand, Executive Vice President of Events Management at Dubai World Trade Centre, Gitex Global's organiser, said: "Gitex has played host to pivotal moments over the years. Today, we are proud to support the first public flight of the pioneering flying car XPeng AEROHT X2 in partnership with the Dubai International Chamber. Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft are the future of travel, and it is incredible to witness history in the making today. Hosting this momentous event puts Gitex Global at the heart of the global shift to low-carbon urban air mobility." Dr Brian Gu thanked its strategic partner Dubai International Chamber for its assistance in navigating the Dubai market and valuable support in facilitating the successful test flight in Dubai. The next generation flying car will be intelligent, electric, vertical take off and landing, air-land coupling. The product has begun to develop since 2020 and is scheduled to be mass produced and delivered in 2024. We hope that our flying car will be a perfect match for Dubai, to jointly explore and build the future of 3D transportation, so that everyone can fly freely in the sky, Dr Gu added. Dubai International Chambers strategy focuses on strengthening Dubais position as a global business centre, attracting 50 multinational companies to Dubai within three years, and supporting the expansion of 100 companies from Dubai to priority foreign markets within two years. The strategy also focuses on enhancing Dubai's business environment to become a driver of economic growth focused on multinational companies as well as to encourage and support these companies to be listed on the Dubai Financial Market.--TradeArabia News Service More information Even if you've got the money to spend -- starting around $3,000 -- you might have to wait a few years to get your own, custom bamboo fly rod at South Creek Ltd. Maker Mike Clark has a long wait list. But you can check out pre-used rods at the shop, where Clark also keeps a personal collection. 415 Main Street, Lyons; 303-823-6402, southcreekltd.com Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy The Microsoft Cloud will generate about $39 billion over four years and create close to 100,000 jobs in the UAE, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) study released at Gitex Global 2022 in Dubai World Trade Centre. The IDC Infosnapshot, sponsored by Microsoft, Microsoft Cloud Dividend Snapshot for the UAE shows that between now and 2026, the four-year accumulated total for new revenue from the Microsoft Cloud will be $39 billion, with 16.6% accumulated benefit emanating from its cloud data centre regions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. This revenue will be generated by the Microsoft Cloud ecosystem, made up of Microsoft, its partners, and its cloud customers. IDCs findings are confirmation that Microsofts efforts to support the government, business community, citizens, and residents of the UAE are bearing fruit, said Naim Yazbeck, General Manager, Microsoft UAE. Since we opened our Abu Dhabi and Dubai data centres in 2019, the trusted, versatile, flexible Microsoft Cloud has been driving investment in economies, the creation of jobs, a reduction in carbon emissions, and progress in sustainability. IDCs snapshot is a projection of how our continued efforts will bring further successes for the communities we serve. Large cross section Customers and partners benefitting from the Microsoft Cloud in the UAE and beyond come from a large cross section of industry and government and include Abu Dhabi Digital Authority (ADDA), the Ministry of Education and leading banks such as First Abu Dhabi National Bank and Mashreq Bank, transport hubs such as DP World and DXB Airport and retail conglomerates including Majid Al Futtaim Retail among others. Microsoft and its partner ecosystem, in support of growing local businesses, will spend about $3.4 billion in the UAE data centre regions for services and products in local economies. And the new regions will also help eliminate some of the barriers to cloud adoption within the region. The snapshot report also shows how benefits accruing to partners will continue to rise. Microsoft partners in 2023 can expect to make $6.40 for every dollar generated by Microsoft through its UAE cloud locations. By 2026, this figure is expected to be $8.49. Meanwhile, Microsoft, its partners, and its customers will add over 97,000 jobs to the UAE economy, either through direct employment or through the indirect generation of jobs in other organisations. This will include an estimated over 29,000 new skilled IT jobs, highlighting the ongoing need for collaboration between public and private entities on skilling programmes to ensure that qualified professionals are on hand to assume these roles. Microsoft has long been a trusted partner in the UAEs growth journey, Yazbeck added. We guide individuals, enterprises, and governments to leverage our products, platforms, and data-driven services to thrive in a connected world. We pledge to continue investing in infrastructure, research, and people to ensure a future that is prosperous and sustainable for everyone in the UAE.-- TradeArabia News Service Eligible individuals who want to cast their ballot on Election Day must register to vote by Friday, Oct. 14. Individuals who miss that deadline may register and vote at the same time during the one-stop early voting period, Oct. 20-Nov. 5 at any early voting site in their county. County-by-county early voting sites and schedules are available at the State Board of Elections One-Stop Early Voting Site Search. To register, eligible individuals have the following options: If you have a North Carolina drivers license or other DMV identification, you may register to vote online. Any eligible resident can complete a Voter Registration Application in English or Spanish on paper and return it to their county board of elections office by 5 p.m. October 14. The Rockingham County Board of Elections Office is at 240 Cherokee Camp Road in Wentworth. If an application is received after the deadline, it will be accepted if it is postmarked on or before Oct. 14. If the postmark is missing or unclear, the application will be processed if it is received in the mail no later than 20 days before the election. Otherwise, the application will not be processed until after the election. If submitted by fax or email, the application must be received by 5 p.m. Oct. 14, and a hard copy of the document must be delivered to the county board office by 20 days before the election. We encourage all eligible individuals to register to vote and make their voice heard in 2022, said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the State Board of Elections. Its easy, and theres still time, either through the regular process or at any one-stop early voting location in your county. North Carolina residents may not register to vote on Election Day, unless they become eligible after the Oct. 14 registration deadline due to becoming a U.S. citizen or having their rights restored following a felony conviction. Seventeen-year-olds who will be 18 by Nov. 8, Election Day, are eligible to register and vote. To register to vote, a person must: Be a U.S. citizen Live in the county of his/her registration and have lived there for at least 30 days before the date of the election Be at least 18 years old or will be by the date of the general election. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds may preregister to vote. Not be in jail or prison for a felony conviction. Updating your voter registration Voters who need to update their existing voter registration may use the DMV website or a regular voter registration application to do so. Those with a North Carolina drivers license or other DMV identification may update their residential or mailing address and party affiliation through the DMV online service, but may not change their name through that service. If using the paper application to update a registration, it must be signed and mailed to the voters county board of elections by Oct. 14. Updates to name, address (if within the county), and party affiliation must be signed, but can be provided by fax or email to your county board of elections. If a voter is using the paper form to update their residential address to a new county, they must return the paper form by mail or in person. Registered voters may also update an existing registration at a one-stop early voting site during the early voting period. GREENSBORO With cold weather approaching, the City Council approved a plan Monday to buy pallet houses to temporarily house the homeless, as well as provide a safe overnight parking area for people living in their cars. By a 7-1 vote, the board agreed to pay $535,014 to Pallet PBC to purchase 40, two-person units. The money is contingent on the approval of the structures by the citys fire marshal and Technical Review Committee. The units are not actually built out of wood pallets. They are constructed with fiberglass-reinforced plastic with a foam insulating core and aluminum framing, according to the Washington-based companys website. Each prefabricated unit is 64 square feet and would include a 1,500-watt heater and air conditioning. They are estimated to last up to 10 years. There is ventilation for circulation, Assistant City Manager Nasha McCray explained. It is pest-proof. It is mold resistant and mildew resistant as well. The units would have temporary electricity, water and sewer connections, but could also operate on solar or generator power. For up to 20 units, there would be separate restroom facilities with two sinks, two toilets and two showers. The pallet houses would be grouped in a village-type setting. Michelle Kennedy, director of the citys Neighborhood Development department, said city staff is assessing potential sites. The city wants to locate the village and parking area near medical and social services that homeless people already are using. McCray also said both the pallet house village and the safe parking area could have case management personnel to help homeless people access the services they need. The city would seek a request for proposals from organizations interested in providing those services. I think this is the one time we need to do something immediately before we have people freezing on the sidewalks, Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter said. However, Zack Matheny, who voted against the proposal, said the city needs to look at other options. I dont think weve exhausted all the resources on how we can think about this, Matheny said. There are plenty of empty big-box stores that have bathrooms and have a lot of space that I think we can utilize for a lot less money and house just as many if not more people. Scott Jones of Tiny House Community Development also spoke against the plan, saying the money would be better spent putting people up in motels. Lets work in a collaborative effort with all of these hotels, said Jones, adding that the pallet houses dont meet North Carolina building codes. This is too quick. This is a lot of money. Kennedy said Guilford County spent about $800,000 to house 85 people in hotel rooms early during the COVID-19 pandemic. So that also is a pretty expensive proposition, she said. Councilwoman Tammi Thurm agreed, saying that at least the city would still have the pallet houses to use for emergency situations. The hotel stay is cash outlay over and over and over again every year, she said. And it gives us no flexibility for emergency housing. Scott and Emma Holland, who also spoke at the meeting, complained that the Guilford County Continuum of Care was not consulted. The organization is a countywide coalition of nonprofits and businesses tasked with helping the homeless. Kennedy said the partnership has shown little interest in immediate solutions. There comes a time where we can continue to meet and plan the next meeting or we can act, Kennedy said. And we are at a place that we need to act. Matheny also criticized the cost associated with the safe parking idea, which would be about $290,000 when case management, security and bathroom facilities are included. You can essentially put folks in some type of residential unit for $1,500 a month, he said. Kennedy agreed that housing people in buildings would be better. However, the reality of the current moment is we dont have those units available, she said. Other emergency shelter options included in Mondays presentation were temporary housing at the old Regency Inn & Suites on OHenry Boulevard and opening the warming center at the Interactive Resource Center on extremely cold nights. The combination of all these programs will allow us to accommodate between 200 to 250 individuals, Kennedy said. We know the number (of homeless individuals) is much greater than that. Matheny has been critical of the city money spent on Regency Inn. The city loaned the nonprofit Partnership Homes $3 million to buy the motel and remodel it to house homeless people, and although it was used as an emergency homeless shelter last winter, it hasnt been used since April. Kennedy said last week the delay is because Partnership Homes doesnt have the money it needs to rehabilitate the property. She said the nonprofit submitted a request to Guilford County for $6.5 million from its American Rescue Plan Act money. However, the county did not approve the request. I dont see how we can support just spending another million dollars to buy something else when were not taking care of what we own, said Matheny, referring to the citys interest in the Regency Inn. GREENSBORO Walmart has rescinded its policy that restricted how misoprostol was dispensed in North Carolina after receiving legal clarification from the states Board of Pharmacy, Congresswoman Kathy Mannings office announced Tuesday. Manning, who represents Greensboro, was among the legislators who contacted Walmart last week after seeing reports that its pharmacies across the state have restricted or refused to fill prescriptions for misoprostol. The medication is used for the treatment of stomach ulcers and arthritis and also has multiple uses in obstetrics and gynecology, including for the management of a miscarriage. Misoprostol also can be used together with Mifeprex (mifepristone) to end an early pregnancy, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The reversal of this misguided policy is a victory for the health and fundamental rights of the women and girls of North Carolina, Manning said in a news release Tuesday afternoon. Walmart said in a letter dated Monday to Manning that after receiving official guidance from the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy, it updated guidance previously shared with North Carolina pharmacy associates on Aug. 1. That earlier guidance was intended to comply with a state law requiring prescribing providers be present with patients when the first drug or chemical is administered during a medication-induced abortion. Jay Campbell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy, said he spoke with a representative from Walmart on Friday and believes they had misinterpreted the law. That law does not apply to pharmacies or pharmacists, Campbell said Friday. When pharmacists dispense a medication, they are not administering a medication. Campbell said he understands the challenge that Walmarts legal department faces while trying to interpret the various and changing laws in states after the Supreme Courts decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade. We continuously monitor our policies and make adjustments where appropriate in furtherance of compliance with applicable laws and serving our patients, Walmart executive Bruce Harris, vice president, federal government affairs, said in the letter to Manning. Manning was joined by Democratic Reps. David Price, G.K. Butterfield, Alma Adams and Deborah Ross in sending a letter dated Oct. 4 to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon that said denying access to misoprostol constitutes discrimination and jeopardizes the lives of patients who are experiencing miscarriages and subjects them to intrusive inquisitions from pharmacists. According to Walmart, the company serves patients across North Carolina at pharmacies in 193 Walmart stores and 22 Sams Club locations. The N.C. Board of Pharmacy has received no similar complaints about other pharmacies, or any complaints from consumers about access to that particular drug, Campbell said. In the race for Lewis and Clark County Attorney, its an assistant attorney general who has spent more than two decades as a prosecutor versus a deputy county attorney with broad work experience in the U.S. and abroad. A criminal prosecutor for 22 years, Dan Guzynski came to Montana for law school in 1997 and later worked as a deputy county attorney in Cascade and Flathead counties. He joined the Montana Department of Justice in 2007 and now manages a team of 13 criminal prosecutors and support staff as chief of the DOJs Prosecution Services Bureau. Kevin Downs is a Helena native who worked with people with disabilities in Ireland and orphaned teens in Honduras before becoming an attorney in 2014. He has worked for the Montana Attorney Generals Office, the Montana Supreme Court, the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington state and New York, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in New York during his law career, and he spent the last two years as a deputy county attorney for the Lewis and Clark County Attorneys Office. The successful candidate in the Nov. 8 election will replace County Attorney Leo Gallagher, who is retiring after 22 years in the position. Dan Guzynski In his role with the Prosecution Services Bureau, Guzynski said he helps train and mentor county attorneys across the state. He said he has prosecuted criminal cases alongside county attorneys in most Montana counties, advocating on behalf of victims of violent crimes and sexual assaults. After losing the first child sexual assault case he prosecuted as a new attorney in Flathead County in 2001, he said, he realized he could have done better and set out to learn everything he could about sex assault prosecution. He said he cant think of a sex assault case he has lost since then, and other prosecutors are now asking him to train them. You actually learn from your failures, he said. The one case I lost was probably the most transformative. As a member of the Montana Commission on Sentencing, Guzynski worked to strengthen the state law that requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison for most offenders convicted of sex crimes against children who are 12 or younger. If were going to be good at one thing and one thing only, we have to protect our children, he said. Guzynski said he would make some changes to the county attorney's office if elected. He said the office needs more structure, and he would add a chief deputy and probably some lower supervisory roles to the organizational chart. With more supervision comes more mentoring, he said, and its important to make these changes as the community grows and the office gets busier. Guzynski also said he wants to continue to modernize the office through technology and address high turnover to help the staff complete their important and technical work. Youre taking away somebodys liberty. You better be right when you do that, he said. You better follow best practices, you better follow every rule and procedure, and if you get it wrong the stakes are so high because an innocent person may be found guilty or a guilty person may go free. While some state laws demand a presumption of probation or deferred imposition for certain crimes, he said its important for prosecutors to be transparent during plea negotiations. Its never appropriate to plead a case just because you didnt want to do the work, he said. You need to be able to move forward and get justice for the victims. Guzynski noted that he has worked for both Republican and Democratic attorneys general during his time with the Department of Justice, adding we dont get involved in politics. The reason I want to do this job is because this is my home, he said. Helena, Montana, theres no other place like this on the planet. Im in Helena, Montana because I want to be here. Kevin Downs Downs emphasized that the county attorneys office does more than prosecuting those suspected of committing crimes. The office also handles civil issues and advises county commissioners and department heads on legal issues, he said. It is involved in youth court, drug court and family court proceedings, he said. It works with victims and witnesses and handles dependency and neglect cases and involuntary commitments of those who are believed to be a danger to themselves or others. This office does a lot, and what I bring to that is 20 years Ive been doing public service, he said. I havent just been doing prosecution. Ive done a whole smattering of things that have impacted this community, communities and jurisdictions across this country and also other parts of the world. Downs said the county attorneys office also works with local organizations such as AWARE, the YWCA and the Court Appointed Special Advocates, and he would like to see it doing more educational outreach. Our office has a huge opportunity to be proactive in the community, and thats outreach and speaking with groups and schools, he said. While Gallagher has taken an active role as a prosecutor in the courtroom, Downs said he would focus more on management and oversight if elected. I dont foresee that Im going to take on that many cases because I think some of this oversight is really important, he said. Downs described the county attorneys office as a flat organization that needs more hierarchy, adding that he would like to appoint criminal and civil division chiefs to serve as point people and provide consistency when issues arise. He said the office recently started using an online case management system, and it is important to continue modernizing the office to help ensure staff and attorneys are making the most of their time. Theres more work than we have staff, he said. He said staff turnover is a natural part of any profession, but what I hope is that our office is a place that people want to come and work. Downs acknowledged that many cases result in plea deals but noted that there is a lot of thought that goes into them. The defendants criminal history, the victim's wishes, the communitys safety and the resources needed to go to trial are among the factors taken into consideration when plea deals are made, he said. When theres a plea agreement in place, rest assured that whoever is handling that case is putting a lot of thought into why an offer is made the way it is, he said. While incarceration may be necessary for violent or repeat offenders, Downs said, its not the best option in every case. Putting a person in custody doesnt necessarily make the solution better, because youre putting someone in custody who could otherwise be on probation and working or paying back restitution or bail, he said. If theyre sitting in jail, its hard to do that. The Lewis and Clark County Republican Central Committee has censured House District 82 candidate Alden Tonkay less than a month before the Nov. 8 general election, saying his recent actions have tarnished the trust and reputation of the committee and its candidates with Helena voters and businesses. The committee, in an Oct. 10 resolution signed by Chairman Darin Gaub, notes that Tonkay tried to pay vendors with bad checks, misreported at least $2,264 in debts and expenditures, failed to report accurately and timely to the state Commissioner of Political Practices Office and paid campaign expenses only when exposed through local media despite claiming on his reports he already had. The resolution vows to work together in the next election cycle to vet and select a conservative Republican candidate to run for House District 82. They will withhold any future funding and support in his House race against Democrat Mary Caferro in the Nov. 8 election, unless the committee finds reason to the contrary. They call on Tonkay to appear before the body at its next monthly business meeting, which is Nov. 14, and note they are aware it is after the Nov. 8 election. The action comes after the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices found Oct. 7 that Tonkay tried to pay vendors with bad checks and misreported accrued debts as expenditures, the Montana Free Press reported. The matter was referred to the Lewis and Clark County Attorney for possible prosecution. Tonkay told the commissioners office repeatedly he would send a response to the complaint as well as a full accounting of his campaign finances, but never delivered, Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan noted in his decision. The COPP also found the Helena P.O. Box associated with his campaign to be inactive and believes Tonkay no longer lives in the district. One of the checks Tonkay attempted to pay a vendor with listed an address in Three Forks different from both the physical and mailing addresses recorded in his statement of candidacy. Tonkay, former communications director for the Montana Republican Party, said Tuesday he was aware of the Lewis and Clark County Republican Central Committees action, but that his campaign is moving forward and he is a Helena resident. I have nothing to say to the central committee, Tonkay said, adding he has not attended one of their meetings for four months. The central committee is a bit of a joke, he said, declining further comment. He no longer works for the Montana GOP. Gaub, who said several attempts were made to contact Tonkay and have him attend the meeting, said Tuesday the resolution was passed in a unanimous voice vote by about 30 precinct officers. He said there was no discussion about waiting for the election to play out, especially when there are ethical and accountability issues at play. There was no reason to wait, Gaub said, adding it is important for people to be held accountable for their actions. And he said it was important for people to know the committee first and foremost will clean up its own house before it looks at anyone elses. If we do not look to hold ourselves accountable, no have no right to look at others, he said. Caferro said Tuesday she had no comment on the action taken by the Lewis and Clark County GOP central committee. "Its their decision and I am not involved," she said. "My campaign strategy has not changed. I am working my tail off and meeting with Helenans and talking with them to hear what is important to them so that I can better represent them." She said the businesses involved in the situation with Tonkay were her No. 1 concern. "I do hope he gets the help and support he needs," Caferro said. "I wish him well. I harbor no resentment or ill will." The LGBTQ2S+ Coming Out Day service at Helena's Big Sky Unitarian Universalists church opened with the reading of a poem called A Prayer for My Queer and Trans Siblings. Here you are. Here, in this holy space, on this ground that is holy because you are here. Here you are, in flesh and bone, filling up this body that belongs to you alone. Your pumping heart is a wonder because it keeps you alive. Your loving heart is a blessing because it keeps all of us alive. The Spirit of Love has a home in you. May we all see that love in you and let our hearts become mirrors for the compassion at your core. The Spirit of Justice has a home in you. May we light our wicks from one another until we are all aflame, until we burn out every prejudice we carry in these bones. Here you are. Holy as you are. Blessed be. Service leader Lennon Keppen, who read the poem by Jess Reynolds, explained that the 2S on the end of LGBTQ+ stands for Two-Spirited Native Americans who are traditionally both male and female or a third gender. Keppen is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and is non-binary. Sunday's service was held in advance of National Coming Out Day on Tuesday. We create LGBTQ2S+ inclusive religious communities as a core part of who we are," Keppen said during the service. "All of who you are is sacred. All of who you are is welcome here in this space. Oct. 11 is National Coming Out Day where people nationwide celebrate LGBTQ+ loved ones who have come out." On Oct. 11, 1987, around 500,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. This was the second demonstration in Washington, D.C., for the LGBTQ+ community. The date was chosen to celebrate National Coming Out Day because of its historical significance to the community, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Lay member Cass Mitchell read a story out loud as the children at the service gathered around her. The story was Pink is for Boys by Scott Stuart. The theme was that colors dont have genders, and that anyone can wear or be what they want. Music was provided by Judy Fjell and Cheryl McKenty throughout the service. One of Fjells original songs was played called We Arise (No More Silence). Fjell is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. She grew up in Big Timber and became interested in music when she bought a guitar at a garage sale in high school. She plays the guitar, ukulele, piano, trumpet, some fiddle, and more instruments. Shes written over 300 songs and over 20 albums throughout her music career that has been grounded in compassion and justice. Shes a music teacher and runs musical workshops and summer camps. Music to me is the basis of existence, said Fjell. One of my callings has been to empower people to make music, and particularly women because women are so disenfranchised for voices. Fjell was out as a lesbian before National Coming Out Day even was celebrated. She recalled how difficult it was to be out decades ago. (Coming out) was very painful having been a ... Lutheran kid from a small town, very difficult, said Fjell. It was a process. Its always a process. Fjell spoke of one of the songs she had written called Oh Yes I Know about how isolating the process of coming out can be. And who would have thought when I told them I was gay that old Red Sea would come together and sweep me away, sings the bridge of the song. It seemed those waters had parted for everyone but me, and I was left alone, so alone. The song ends with newfound hope: My friends, now its me and you. Those waters are parting for me and you. Fjell has been a member of the Unitarian Universalist faith since the 1980s, and a member of BSUU since 2012, when she moved to Helena to be closer to her partner of about 10 years now. At this point being 72 and just seeing all the things that Ive lived through, all the perceptions of other people that Ive witnessed, well its an interesting life, stated Fjell. Throughout the service, the flaming chalices candle flickered quietly. This Unitarian Universalist (UU) tradition dates back to World War II, and today when it is lit, it stands for hope, truth, reason, and creates a sacred space for reflection. The flame was extinguished at the end of the service, and words were read that were written by Elizabeth Selle Jones, a UU minister who died in 2006. We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we carry in our hearts until we are together again. etisalat by e& will participate in the Nafis initiative that will involve the hiring and empowering of more than 500 Emirati professionals in its retail, customer service, technology and IT space over a span of five years. For this it has announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council (ETCC). Providing the new hires with the skills, expertise and platform to excel, the initiative strongly supports their career progression in the telco industry and significantly contributes to the UAEs national agenda to move towards a knowledge-based economy. Emiratisation The MoU was signed by Masood M Sharif Mahmood, CEO of etisalat by e&, and Ghannam Al Mazrouei, Secretary General of the Emirati Talent Competitiveness Council - the federal entity responsible for Nafis - at Gitex Global 2022, one of the regions largest technology events. Senior officials from both entities witnessed this significant moment. The signing acts as an extension of etisalat by e&s Emiratisation efforts and builds on the success of the partnership held earlier this year with the Rulers Court in Al Dhafra Region. As per the latest agreement, etisalat by e& will focus on hiring 100 UAE nationals by the end of 2022. It will also facilitate training programmes that contribute to developing and enhancing their skills and expertise in their current roles. Equipping with competence Commenting on the agreement, Al Mazrouei said: Nafis reflects the interest of our wise leadership for UAE citizens to equip the next generation with competencies that are founded on curiosity, openness and a diverse range of professional skillsets. This can only be achieved by providing them with opportunities that meet their aspirations and ambitions for the future. Since the inception of Nafis, the programme has collaborated with key private sector partners to provide job opportunities that meet the qualifications and aspirations of capable and talented UAE nationals. The Nafis agreement with etisalat by e& meets these requirements, highlighting the joint effort to create opportunities for 500 UAE nationals and contribute to the overall growth of the UAE economy. The telecom sector has always been a major enabler of job creation, especially in information technology, marketing and technical areas, as well as customer service and sales. This is a positive development for the younger generation who are actively looking to participate in the retail sector. Al Mazrouei indicated that the recruitment plan with etisalat by e& will take place in a phased manner, making sure the UAE Nationals are equipped with the tools to take on their new roles in the telecom, technology and retail sectors. Thanks to partners like etisalat by e&, these opportunities will go a long way in benefitting the immense talent in the country and adding value to their career path of choice. Critical role Mahmood said: We are proud to be part of the Nafis initiative and play a critical role in contributing to the UAE leaderships vision of creating opportunities for Emiratisation in the private sector. We will work closely with the potential candidates to identify their competencies and support their career growth in the communications and IT sector. This is a testament to the continuous efforts etisalat by e& has put into investing in UAE National talent and guiding them to become the future leaders, in line with the aspirations of the government. In the telecom and technology sector, one of the most vital sectors that contribute to the countrys economy, these new hires will play an integral role in progressing the countrys digital economy and raise its competitiveness across various global indicators. Ali Al Mansoori, Chief Human Resources Officer, etisalat by e&, said: For more than four decades, we have worked tirelessly to explore limitless possibilities for hiring and empowering Emirati talent with the right skills and working environment. The partnership with Nafis will enable etisalat by e& to ramp up efforts in providing new job opportunities across our departments, mainly in the sales, customer service, technology and IT departments. We plan to appoint 100 UAE nationals in these areas, making them brand ambassadors. This will also include empowering new employees with training and upgrading their skills and knowledge, chiefly through our partnerships with globally renowned universities so that we can meet the varying requirements of the departments and prepare them for the future. The collaboration between etisalat by e& and Nafis includes supporting initiatives and programmes aimed at encouraging UAE nationals to work in the private sector and enjoy the benefits that will serve their long-term professional interests. etisalat by e& is also committed to encouraging other private sector partners to participate and register with the Nafis programme and implement such initiatives and programmes within their organisations. As part of the initiative, new employees will undergo a 33-day training programme comprising product and soft skills training, mainly training them on the sales framework, transaction system and interaction guide, whilst upgrading their business know-how and knowledge of various products and services.-- TradeArabia News Service I have been a Montana lawyer for 45 years. James Brown, who is running for the Montana Supreme Court, recently asked me for a contribution. I responded that his record disqualifies him for the court. The substance of my letter follows. I could not find any objective evidence Brown has established himself as either a reputable attorney or a legal scholar. I had never heard of him, although we practice in the same city. I checked the leading legal peer-review service Martindale-Hubbell. It rates the skills and ethics of attorneys based upon the honest opinions of both judges and lawyers. The most qualified receive "AV" ratings and the less qualified receive B ratings or less. Stunningly, Brown had no peer review rating at all despite practicing for over a decade. I then searched for Brown in the databases of reported court cases. They showed he had appeared only a few times before the Montana Supreme Court. None of his cases in the lower courts were significant enough to be reported. Based upon reputation, research and ratings, I concluded Mr. Brown hasnt established himself as a significant advocate or legal scholar. This doesnt disqualify him from serving as a judge, but certainly is a major point against him. More concerning is what I dug up on Brown in the political arena. Hes been a registered corporate lobbyist and partisan political operative for many years. While there is a place for such partisanship in the political legislative and executive branches, there is no room for partisan political operatives on our Montana Supreme Court. Our court, obviously, must be independent from politics. It actually referees the political battles in the other two branches of government, calling foul when laws and regulations are passed which violate our constitution or favor corporations over the rights and interests of actual people - individual Montanans. A corporate lobbyist and political operative cannot possibly be a fair referee. Electing Brown would be like putting a fox in the hen house. But my greatest concern arose when I learned Brown was the lawyer for Western Traditions Partnership Inc., the most notorious corrupter of Montana politics in modern times. In the case of Western Traditions Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, 2011 MT 328, the court determined this foreign corporation was created to solicit and anonymously spend the funds of other corporations, individuals and entities to influence the outcome of Montana elections. Browns client informed its anonymous wealthy donors they were not required to report [their] names or the amount of any contributions.... [They could] just sit back on election night and see what a difference [they had] made. Now, everyones entitled to an attorney, but I cannot believe an attorney who voluntarily chooses to represent a corporation, whose expressed purpose is to corrupt Montanas government through dark money, is qualified to sit on our Supreme Court. Brown also was spokesperson for Western Traditions in the PBS Frontline documentary, Big Sky, Big Money, which can be viewed at pbs.org/video/frontline-big-sky-big-money/. Like our court, Frontline exposed Browns client as an out-of-state corporation that had corrupted Montanas government through millions of dollars of dark money. Both Republicans and Democrats testified Western had undermined their campaigns through slanderous campaign ads and mailers. Montanas Commissioner of Political Practices (COPP) discussed how its investigation revealed Western was basically a corrupt organization of liars. It was nothing more than a Colorado post office address, which served as a front and cover for anonymous big money out-of-state corporations and wealthy individuals who wanted to control our government so they could carve up Montana. Western received the largest fine ever assessed by COPP, over $880,000. Brown was evasive when Frontline questioned him about Westerns wealthy anonymous donors and why they were so intent on corrupting Montanas politics. This is not the honesty and integrity expected from a person asking Montanans to put him on our highest court, which is charged with protecting Montana not exploiting it. For these reasons and as a lifelong Montana attorney, I must steadfastly oppose Browns candidacy. It would be a very sad day for Montana if he were to gain a seat on our Supreme Court. It was no surprise to open the paper last week and learn that the Public Service Commission had approved a $92 million interim rate increase for Northwestern Energy. In this case, "interim" means step one of the much larger requested increases amounting to 25.6% for electricity and 11.1% for gas. If I had to bet, Id put money on the current members of the commission approving that increase as well. Thats why we need a change. Beyond the sheer size of the increase, along with the short notice, other aspects of the commissions decision are also concerning. In its Interim Order, the PSC describes the rate increases as a reasonable means of providing interim relief to NorthWestern. For 2021, NorthWestern reported net income of $187 million ($30 million more than 2020) and the 2021 compensation for its top six executives was a combined $9 million. These numbers do not strike me as consistent with a company needing relief. NorthWestern is "investor-owned." If its investors gain when the company does well, then they also need to share the risk when the company trips up even if that means just buying some time. Also, one commissioner was quoted as saying If the final bill comes in lower then a year from now NorthWestern customers would receive a rebate, plus interest The PSC is agreeing to have the ratepayers finance NorthWestern? On the surface, a rebate plus interest sounds great, but it really would be a loan and I suspect that most Montana families and businesses are not interested in carving out some of their budget to provide NorthWestern a financial cushion. If interest is paid, maybe the rate should be like the one on your credit card. I also find it interesting that the final bill is open-ended. We are in this together with NorthWestern. We rely on NorthWestern to provide safe, reliable energy and I can appreciate that the costs to do so are not always easily predictable, and they do go up. But NorthWestern is a sophisticated company that we also rely on to manage and forecast their costs. Pushing increases to the customers, especially in such short order, should be a last resort and the PSC should ensure that it is. Unfortunately, most of us dont pay attention to the workings of the PSC until its too late and it hits our pocketbook. None of this will change until Montanans elect commissioners who have the skills for the job and the will to challenge utilities on behalf of ratepayers. Thats why Im running. If elected PSC commissioner, I will bring my 40 years of business experience and expertise to proactively represent you and make our system of utility regulation work the way it should. Montanans deserve better than what we are getting. With apologies to Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, Old Man River is no longer rolling along. You may be a long way from the Mississippi River, but it is only a short distance from Central Illinois farmers. And some of them who quickly realize the precariousness of the situation are becoming frantic. Soon, all will be. Their grain will be on a barge stuck in the mud, somewhere between St. Louis and New Orleans. A quick glimpse at a U.S. Geological Survey map, or consultation with a neighborhood fifth grader, will remind one that about two-thirds of North America is drained by the Mississippi River. All the runoff into the Upper Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and Arkansas rivers flows into the Lower Mississippi. It floats untold numbers of grain barges headed downstream and launches ocean freighters full of grain to global ports. That massive watershed is dry. The soil is dry. Drought has cut crop yields, burned up range land, and has spread from the western United States to the Midwest over the past two years. Now, it is drying up the rivers needed to transport grain to the world and deliver a variety of products you never thought you could live without. Going into the past weekend, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard reported nearly 3,000 barges tied up along riverbanks because the channel was no longer wide enough nor deep enough for passage without getting stuck. That number will increase every day until until it rains. Rain has become something of a novelty. Over half of the country has a drought-designated number and label that indicates severity of the drought. Within the watershed of the Upper Mississippi, Minneapolis had its driest September ever. Dubuque, Iowa, registered its third driest September, and Peoria and Paducah report the sixth driest September. Kansas City was at nine and Ann Arbor, Michigan, at No. 10. USDAs Midwest Climate Hub at Ames, Iowa, says it will be difficult for the winter wheat crop to get established this fall. Field fires are a significant hazard. Dry soils will have issues absorbing fall nitrogen applications. While an October devoid of rain is a welcome opportunity for a quick harvest that every farmer would appreciate, most would want to shut the machine shed door just in time for a daily inch of rain throughout November and much of December. That would recharge soil moisture that is severely depleted and begin to refloat the barges on the Mississippi. Restoring river transportation is more important than most people realize. Currently, U.S. grain exports have been stalled during harvest because of low river flows. The additional costs of lost time in getting grain to New Orleans grain terminals is rapidly reducing Midwestern grain bids. While farmers are watching their income decline daily because of the river, non-farmers who depend on northbound commodities will realize it later. As prices for road salt, swimming pool chlorine, and lawn fertilizer double, remember the river delivers those things. Old Man River is running out of water to roll along. DECATUR After a summer of negotiations, Decatur officially has a new ambulance service provider. Abbott EMS officially assumed coverage of the Decatur and greater Macon County service areas on Oct. 7 as previous provider Decatur Ambulance Service closed its doors. Aside from a few minor technological glitches on the dispatch side, the transition has gone smoothly, said Abbott EMS Regional Director Brian Gerth. Things have been going pretty well, Gerth told the Herald & Review. And I think over the next few weeks, any bumps that we find, we'll smooth them out and continue to refine. Decatur Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe called the service transition seamless at a Decatur Regional Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting ceremony welcoming Abbott on Tuesday. Were excited to have you as part of our team, Moore Wolfe told Abbott employees. HSHS, which purchased Decatur Ambulance Service in 2018, announced it would be closing the service back in June due to staffing issues and the cost of maintaining equipment. Theresa Rutherford, president and chief executive officer of HSHS St. Marys Hospital, said the hospitals decision to shutter the ambulance was heart wrenching. We had to find a partner who could collaborate, and the city has helped us do that, said Rutherford, who attended Tuesday's event. The city of Decatur announced Abbott would be the citys new licensee for ambulance services on Aug. 15. Three other interested ambulance service providers were also considered: Rural Med, Echo Ambulance and Lakeside EMS. Abbott EMS was chosen, in part, because of its national recognition and level of experience, officials said in a city ambulance working group report. The company provides services in Evansville, Indiana; Owensboro, Kentucky; Macomb, Illinois; and portions of the Chicago and St. Louis metro areas. Those nearby operations mean more readily available access to temporary backup in the case of staffing vacancies in Decatur, city officials said. Abbotts primary focus, Gerth said, is ensuring that Decatur-area residents have access to 911. Once the company gets settled, it will begin working begin working with Decaturs hospitals to coordinate non-emergency hospital transfers. As a member who lives in this community and who needs to ensure that there's a 911 response on the other end of my phone, it is critical that we made this as smooth as possible, Rutherford said. Part of executing a smooth transition included re-hiring some previous Decatur Ambulance Service employees. Abbott officials said it contacted and extended application offers to all previous Decatur staff. Abbott has retained approximately 85% of the previous staff, Gerth said, and a new class of hires will arrive and begin orientation next week. Still, the company hopes to continue recruiting more employees. We'll continue to add staff as we move along, Gerth said. Abbott will also lead an earn while you learn class with Richland Community College next year in hopes of recruiting new workers, Gerth said. Students selected for the course, which will begin Jan. 9, will be hired by Abbott and earn a paycheck while attending class. Gerth said Abbott also plans to eventually add new supervisory staff and a clinical education specialist, as well as extending its deployment to six advanced life support trucks and a new quick response vehicle. Like Decatur Ambulance Service, Abbott will be the sole provider of ambulance services in Decatur. Though the citys ambulance license technically only applies to the city of Decatur, the city-licensed ambulance company has traditionally covered a much larger service area including all of Macon County and portions of Christian and Shelby counties. Abbott will continue to service full area covered by Decatur Ambulance Service. In addition to its license with the city of Decatur, Abbott has a similar agreement with the city of Shelbyville. Gerth said Abbott was interested in contracting with the city of Decatur because it believed no other service provider could meet Decaturs quick deadline. Were always looking at communities that we can partner with, and where we believe we would be a good fit, Gerth said. And when this presented itself, I mean, it was rather abrupt, right? We knew that we were going to probably be the only ones that would come close to any kind of timeline and get things moving. Additionally, Gerth said, Abbott can leverage a nation-wide network of connections through its parent company, Global Medical Response, that werent previously available to Decatur. Those connections recently helped Abbott get 14 new power stretchers from medical company Stryker quickly delivered to its new Decatur location. Gerth said the company has high hopes for its future in Decatur. For the residents of Decatur, thank you for trusting us with your emergency needs, he said. We look forward to a long future here. New Braunfels City Council members on Monday will consider the first reading of a proposed ordinance amendment that would prohibit retail pet New Braunfels, TX (78130) Today Mainly clear skies. Low 44F. NNE winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear skies. Low 44F. NNE winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. " " Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, meets Buddhist monks at Hong Kong's Wong Tai Sin Temple shortly before the official handover of the territory to China in 1997. Bill Rowntree/Mirrorpix/Getty Images Colonialism always has been a tricky concept for nations to justify morally, since basically, it involves seizing control of someone else's land and resources. That conflict became strongest in the 1800s in Europe, when European societies began embracing liberal ideas about freedom and self-autonomy, even as they took over and exploited weaker, less-advanced countries in Africa and elsewhere. One way that countries rationalized that aggression was to argue that the inhabitants of those places weren't yet capable of self-government, and that colonial rule would help them to progress in that direction [source: Kohn and Reddy]. There were other rationalizations as well. One was what that these colonists were bringing "enlightenment" to dark places showing underdeveloped civilizations better methods of agriculture, education and technology, for instance. Or they were bringing Christianity to the natives. Advertisement Of course, the motives were mixed. Many missionaries did establish needed schools and hospitals. Sometimes, the colonists stopped harmful practices. The Spanish, for instance, outlawed human sacrifice among the Aztecs. And some writers point out as if this is an excuse that these colonized countries often already had their own forms of slavery or imperialism. Or that the clash of civilizations was in the end good for mankind [source: Duke]. But was it? While some former colonies have become prosperous, democratic nations, others still struggle. Political scientists say that because colonies lived under authoritarian rule and had governments that were mostly concerned about extracting natural resources and as much wealth as possible, they created a template that was too easy for post-colonial dictatorships to follow [source: Acemoglu, et al.]. In Africa, the borders drawn by colonial powers, which don't reflect Africans' ethnic and cultural heritage, have led to disunity and political strife [source: Fisher]. According to the U.N., there are still 17 "non-self-governing territories" essentially, colonies left in the world, comprising less than 2 million people. They range from the Cayman Islands and Bermuda in the Caribbean, which remain under British rule, to French Polynesia. Most of these remaining colonies may not necessarily want independence. In a 1995 referendum in Bermuda, 73 percent of the population voted against independence; in 2017, a former premier felt the matter should be revisited [source: Lagan]. In 2011, a year before Jamaica's 50th anniversary of independence from Britain, a poll showed 60 percent of Jamaicans felt that the country would be better off if it was still under British rule [source: Daily Gleaner]. The poor economy and high crime made many believe (rightly or wrongly) that these ills would not have happened with Britain in charge perhaps when they consider how Bermuda remained a colony and is in much better shape financially. But in 2022, a trip by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to three former colonies that still retained the British monarch as head of state, was met with lukewarm reception or outright protests, perhaps signaling these countries were ready to become republics. A 2020 YouGov survey of eight countries that used to have empires found that 32 percent of the British public saw their nation's former empire as something to be proud of, down from 59 percent in 2014. This put them in second place to the 50 percent of Dutch respondents who thought their former empire was something to be proud of. However, just a quarter of respondents in both countries wanted their nations to still have imperial status [source: Smith]. That's another sign that the era of colonialism has come to an end. Advertisement Originally Published: Jan 24, 2018 Employers want to make sure you're not taking too many breaks. Photo: Shutterstock A third of surveyed managers want their employees back in the office full-time so they can track them and make sure theyre not taking too many breaks, according to a new study. A Fiverr Business survey of 1,000 managers and executives in the US, along with 1,000 employees, found some of the reasons why many companies are resisting the global push for hybrid or full-time remote work. The main reason identified by the study is that employers believe their staff are more productive and disciplined when in the office, and that theyre already paying for real estate for these offices. But they face an uphill battle to reinstate the in-person office, with 42 percent of the surveyed workers saying theyd consider quitting their current job if they were forced to work five days per week in the office. The COVID-19 pandemic has revolutionised the way we work and introduced working from home for many professionals. This is now commonly in the form of hybrid work, where employees work some days from home and some from the office, or permanent remote working. Were watching you According to the Fiverr research, 33 percent of the managers surveyed want their employees back full-time so they are more motivated when they know they are being watched by their bosses. Just under a quarter of the executives surveyed said they also believe employees are likely to take shorter breaks if they are in the office. This could well be unfounded though, with Gartner research showing that 55 percent of employees are high performers when provided with radical flexibility, while only 36 percent are when working full-time from an office. The push for a return to the office is being driven by large corporations, the research found. Nearly 70 percent of the executives surveyed from companies with more than 500 employees said they want their staff back five days a week in the office. A quarter of these managers said this is because they are paying for real estate, while more than 40 percent said they believe employees can more easily access and communicate with company infrastructure from the office. But its going to take a lot to convince employees to return to the office. According to the survey, more than 60 percent of those surveyed said theyd only return to the office if they got a salary increase, while one in five said that no incentive at all could convince them to do this. Forty-two percent of those surveyed said theyd consider leaving their job if they had to return to the office. Fiverrs survey reaffirms that employees want flexibility and autonomy, Fiverr Business general manager Shany Malbin said. Freelance to become new norm High performing American workers dont want to be watched by a manager at all times. They do not want to be timed when they are taking a break. It is attitudes like this that are fuelling the growth in the number of highly skilled workers turning to freelancing as a full-time career. Its been predicted that about half of the entire US workforce will be freelance by 2030. Employers need to think about building flexibility into their workforces, not just to retain their current employees, but also plan for hiring independent workers in preparation for this evolving workforce, Malbin said. Another recent survey also found that nearly all workers want remote or at least hybrid work. This study also found that remote jobs are paying on average $US3,000 more across three countries, with 15 out of the 17 countries studied paying more for remote roles. One large company which has embraced remote working is Australian tech giant Atlassian. The software firm recently launched a recruitment drive to hire 1,000 remote workers across Australia as part of its work from anywhere policy, which was launched at the start of the pandemic and has since been made permanent. Bosses looking to track what their employees are doing across the day are warned not to turn to bossware, or employee monitoring software. A survey conducted by Morning Consultant earlier this year found that nearly half of tech workers would quit if subject to such monitoring, which would offer employers a way to monitor what their staff are doing even when theyre not in the office. A survey by Digital.com found that 60 percent of companies with remote staff are using monitoring software, and this is likely on the rise. CPX Holding, a leading provider of digital-first cybersecurity solutions and services, has signed an agreement with Microsoft to collaborate in helping organizations across the UAE to mitigate unprecedented security risks in an increasingly digital economy. Together, the two parties aim to establish joint practices and solutions built on Microsoft Security Technologies to serve the UAE market, said the statement from CPX Holding. This will include sharing relevant information and resources, while exploring go-to-market strategies that assist organizations in the enterprise and corporate space to reduce their exposure to digital threats and increase opportunities to innovate, it stated. "At CPX we aim to help our customers collaborate in a safe and secure way and thrive in the UAE digital economy, said its CEO Khaled Al Melhi after signing the MoU with Naim Yazbeck, General Manager of Microsoft UAE, on the sidelines of Gitex Global 2022. Established in 2022 in the UAE, CPX provides end-to-end cybersecurity capabilities to ensure organizations are compliant with stringent cybersecurity standards and can in turn focus on driving value and growth. "We constantly aim to create awareness that organizations need more than reactive cyber security strategies. Our ambition with partners like Microsoft is to create a security aware culture that enables an always-on protection, to ultimately establish a safe cyber security ecosystem. We serve in a unique domain, for what we do today adds value to others future," he stated. Yazbeck said in order to accelerate digital innovation and drive economic growth, organizations need scalable, highly available, and resilient tech solutions that empower them to innovate at scale. "Through it all, however, security needs to remain at the center, says Naim Yazbeck, General Manager of Microsoft UAE," he stated. "At Microsoft, we invest significantly to offer our customers trusted tools and solutions that bring security, compliance, identity and management together to address the most challenging threats facing the world today, said the top official. "Our partnership with CPX will play a pivotal role in enabling public and private businesses to innovate securely and strengthen the UAEs digital economy," he added.-TradeArabia News Service It is another great week to Discover Fun in Kannapolis. This weeks events are: Stuff the Truck Food Drive, Fire Truck Parade and Kids Firefighter Costume Contest, Laureate WayThe Kannapolis Fire Department will host the Fire Truck Parade and the Kids Costume Contest at 5:45 p.m. today, Oct. 14. The parade will proceed along Laureate Way and North Research Campus Drive, between City Hall and the North Carolina Research Campus. Immediately after the fire truck parade, join community members for the Childrens Fire Costume Contest at the corner of Watson Crick Drive and Laureate Way, near Kannapolis City Hall. Kids aged 12 and under are encouraged to dress in a fire-related costume. Prizes will be awarded for the Most Original, Most Similar to Kannapolis Fire Department, and Chiefs Choice Award. Registration is not required. That same day, Kannapolis firefighters are sponsoring a food drive to benefit the Cooperative Christian Ministry Food Pantry. Drop off nonperishable food items from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at Kannapolis City Hall, 401 Laureate Way. Meet Kannapolis firefighters as they accept donations and stuff the fire truck. Shred EventSaturday, Oct. 15, 9 a.m. to noon at the Public Works Facility, 1401 Bethpage Road. The Kannapolis Transportation and Environmental Services Department will host a free document shredding event for Kannapolis residents only. Document shredding is limited to five file boxes per person, which is the equivalent of two 40-gallon trash bags. No businesses please. For more information, call Transportation and Environmental Services at 704-920-4444. Sunday Music Series: Carolina Gator Gumbo Sunday, Oct. 16, 1-3 p.m. at Veterans Park, 119 N. Main St. Free concert featuring Carolina Gator Gumbo, a Cajun music band. Children 18 and under must be accompanied by a parent/guardian. No pets or smoking allowed. Outside alcohol is not permitted. Food and drinks will be available for purchase, or attendees can bring their own. Lawn chairs are welcomed. Kannapolis Police Department Open House & Recruitment Event Monday, Oct. 17, 5-8 p.m. at Kannapolis City Hall & Police Headquarters, 401 Laureate Way. The Kannapolis Police Department invites the community to attend its open house from 5-8 p.m. on Oct. 17 at Kannapolis City Hall and Police Headquarters, 401 Laureate Way. This event is free to the public. During the event there will be guided tours of the police department, displays and demonstrations from each individual police division. Meet the police officers and K-9 officers. Child fingerprinting kits will also be available for parents. Enjoy free popcorn and slushies. Anyone interested in becoming a police officer is welcome to attend a recruitment event that same evening at 7:30 p.m. to speak with officers and learn more about working for the Kannapolis Police Department. Q: Could you explain what are the laws regarding the ability of felons to vote? B.A. Answer: According to the N.C. State Board of Elections website, a North Carolina superior court ruled earlier this year that it is a violation of the state constitution to deny people who are serving a felony sentence outside of jail or prison their right to vote. The decision is being appealed, but the N.C. Court of Appeals said that while the appeal is being heard, the decision should go into effect as of July 27, 2022, according to the website. That means that anyone who is serving a felony sentence and not in jail or prison can register to vote, if they meet other voter registration requirements. Those requirements are: Be a citizen of the United States, have lived in North Carolina at least 30 days prior to the election, and be at least 18 years old by the next general election. Those in jail or prison for a felony conviction are not allowed to register or vote. If a person is in jail awaiting trial for a felony but has not yet been convicted, they retain their voting rights. In North Carolina, a person never loses their voting rights for a misdemeanor conviction, according to the website. Q: I live in a townhouse community in Forsyth County. Our HOA has been putting down highly combustible pine straw mulch since I moved here in 2005. Recent articles have indicated what a fire hazard the pine straw is to homeowners. According to a December 2021 article, the Winston-Salem City Council will prohibit pine straw or other highly combustible material to be used within 10 feet of businesses and multi-family residential buildings which will go into effect Nov. 15, 2022. Why is pine straw mulch prohibited in the city but not the county? This was brought up at our HOA meeting once, but the HOA officers and management chose not to act on it. M.G. Answer: Gary Styers, the deputy chief/fire marshal for Forsyth County Emergency Services, said that the Forsyth County commissioners have adopted an ordinance prohibiting the use of pine straw. On August 25, 2022, the county commissioners did vote to adopt a very similar ordinance to Winston-Salems. The county ordinance will become effective on August 25, 2023. The citys ordinance becomes effective a year from its adoption, which will make their ordinance enforceable November 2022, he said. Q: I put my bins on grass next to the street, but the trucks empty them and replace them in the marked bike lane. A local biker is apparently irritated. Whos correct here? R.A. Answer: Johnita Campbell, the deputy director of sanitation for the City of Winston-Salem explained what the crews are to do. Our crews are instructed to place emptied carts back into place which should be on the curb, if possible. We will work to make sure carts are being returned to the proper place, she said. Rural Halls year-long legal battle appeared to end Monday. A Forsyth County judge ruled in favor of the town in a lawsuit officials filed last year against former Town Manager Megan Garner. The lawsuit was over a nearly $150,000 settlement agreement, which Garner said she was owed after leaving the job. Town officials alleged that the agreement was invalid because Garner and three town council members violated state law and town protocols in negotiating it. Garner denied those allegations and said she had to get the settlement agreement as a way to escape what she described as a hostile work environment and constant harassment. Things took a bizarre turn when town officials filed an amended lawsuit that alleged Garner violated the towns ethical rules by having a sexual relationship with the towns former fire chief, Andy Marshall. Garner and Marshall denied having an affair, though Marshalls ex-wife has filed a pending alienation of affection lawsuit against Garner. All of this started at a meeting in October 2021, when Garner and three council members John McDermon, Ricky Plunkett and Jesse Stigall resigned abruptly after the settlement agreement was approved. The next day, Garner accepted a job as city manager in Graham in Alamance County. She never got the money, though. Thats because the towns transaction limits would not allow the transfer of the money into Garners accounts. Town officials declined to say how much money was involved in the settlement agreement, even though the information is public record under state law. The amount, $150,000, was released only after Garner filed a written answer and counter-claim to the towns lawsuit. Randy James, the interim town attorney, argued in court that this really was a simple issue. Garner, he said, had no right to get a settlement agreement from the town for two main reasons: She failed to get a stamp on the agreement certifying that the towns finance director, Wade Gilley, had done a pre-audit, and she did not get the towns council to approve a budget amendment to ensure there was enough money to pay for the settlement agreement. James said the law is clear that both of those things had to be done before Garner could get a settlement agreement. James also said there was another reason why Garner shouldnt have gotten a settlement agreement: She resigned and took another job. The lawsuit alleged that Garner needed to give a 90-day notice, and that she could not leave to take another job. June Allison, one of Garners attorneys, conceded that a pre-audit certification was not done and a budget amendment was not approved. But she argued in court that between August and October 2021, D. Barrett Burge, the town attorney at the town, Garners attorneys and Patrick Flanagan, an attorney representing the towns insurance company, negotiated the settlement agreement. Garner, Allison argued, believed that the town was operating on a good-faith basis. She resigned, thinking that the town would provide the pre-audit certification stamp and seek a budget amendment, Allison said in court. In court papers, Garners attorneys have argued that the town breached a duty of good faith and fair dealing when town officials refused to pass a budget amendment and place a stamp on the agreement certifying that it was pre-audited. Allison said in court that settlement agreements have historically been approved and then the town officials would pass a budget amendment and place a pre-audit certification stamp on the agreement afterward. Garner also had no way of knowing that McDermon, Plunkett, Stigall and Burge would all also resign on the same night, Oct. 21, 2021. Judge Richard Doughton didnt buy Allisons arguments, saying that Garner should have known as town manager what was required for a settlement agreement. In court papers, Garner argued that she and her attorneys had gone to the town in private to complain about what Garner called false allegations against her about her personal life, including the allegations about her having an affair. She said certain town officials and residents had been waging a smear campaign against her because she is a woman. The town alleged in its lawsuit that Garner had engaged in outrageous behavior but never sought to fire her, Allison said in court. Allison called the allegations contained in the towns amended complaint scurrilous and designed to embarrass Garner. The settlement agreement contained a non-disparagement clause, and Allison said in court that the town had simply continued to harass her. This has been a nasty litigation, she said. Correction The headline on this article has been edited to reflect the fact that a judge ruled in favor of Rural Hall as it sought to invalidate a settlement agreement made with former Town Manager Megan Garner. An 18-year-old and a juvenile are in custody after an incident late Monday night that involved shots fired at the vehicle of an off-duty deputy, Winston-Salem police said in a news release. The Forsyth County deputy contacted Winston-Salem police at 11:43 p.m. after observing several people breaking into vehicles at an apartment complex within city limits. The deputy began to follow the subjects in a vehicle, reporting their location to police. In the area of Country Club Road and Vinegar Hill Road, the subjects began to shoot at the deputy, striking his vehicle, police said in the news release. Winston-Salem police and Forsyth County deputies located the suspect vehicle at Coliseum Drive and University Parkway and began a vehicle pursuit, which ended at the dead end of Grove Avenue. Two of the three subjects who ran from the scene were apprehended, police said in the news release. Police determined that the suspect vehicle was stolen. Two firearms were located and seized, as well as stolen property from the auto break-ins. No one was injured during this incident. Alexis Rodriguez Mendez, 18, of Winston-Salem, is charged with possession of a stolen motor vehicle, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and resist/delay/obstruct an officer, police said in the news release. Additional charges may be filed. Information about the juvenile in custody is not available. Authorities ask anyone with information to call the Winston-Salem Police Department at 336-773-7700, Crime Stoppers at 336-727-2800, or in Spanish at 336-728-3904. Jeffrey Foster, the program director at the Shalom Project, greeted the man whod walked into the nonprofits offices Thursday morning like he was a regular customer at the corner store. Which, in a way, he was. The man had popped into the Green Street United Methodist Church currently a main location for the Shalom Project, a nimble do-everything nonprofit that meets those in need where they live because he needed a few items. Clothing and toiletries mostly. Foster had seen him the night before at Shaloms free walk-in health clinic on Fourth Street and made sure the man Craig knew that he was welcome. We know a lot of people by first name, Foster said. I like it that way. Its a good thing to hear peoples stories. Like many clients, Craig didnt need to ask directions to the Shalom Project. They just know. But thats about to change. And fast. After 20 years on Green Street and five for the groups standalone medical clinic downtown on Fourth Street the Shalom Project is hunting for a new home. And they have three months to find one. Adapting to change Unless youve been to the Shalom Project as a client, volunteer or a guest, it can be difficult to succinctly explain what it is they do. The Shalom Project website describes it as outreach programs that challenge the cycles of poverty in the community. But since its founding in 2000, its become much more concrete. Our programs have morphed based on needs, said Eileen Ayuso, the executive director. As billed, the Shalom Project started as an outreach project targeting the working poor living along the Peters Creek Parkway between Ardmore and West Salem. Between the slopes, Ayuso calls it. It began as a project of Green Street United Methodist with a clothes closet. A food pantry followed and then the walk-in medical clinic. Shalom turned into a standalone nonprofit in 2006 but remained in the basement of the church. We had an afterschool program for a while that the (YMCA) took over and a computer lab, Ayuso said. Remember when Internet cafes were a thing? Shalom changed along with the needs of the community. We kept asking the question, What do people need? Foster said. Available data plus their own eyes and ears steered the nonprofit toward the basics: food, clothing, shelter and medicine. The clinic, which started at the church as well, was a huge step forward. Dr. Stephen Bissette, a family practitioner, basically took it on as his own from the beginning and grew it into what Ayuso describes as the only free walk-in clinic in town first-come, first-served, no appointments needed, every Wednesday night. He started this mess, Ayuso said with a laugh. That mess now sees 1,500 patients a year in a sprawling clinic on the bottom floor of a building owned by Centenary United Methodist Church. Some 100 volunteers including physicians, nurses, medical students and pharmacists tend to the needs of the un- and underinsured homeless and working poor. They can treat everything from cuts and scrapes to chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. Patients can be examined and have prescriptions filled on site in under three hours. And thats in addition to the 1,200 families (4,000-some men, women and children) who rely on the food pantry at Green Street to fill gaps in refrigerators and cupboards, for the clothing store to supply gently-used apparel and, in some cases, for diapers and other toiletries. If youre paying 80 percent of your income for rent, how can you afford everything else? Ayuso said. What do you skip? Meeting peoples needs, in other words. Oh, and that doesnt include the Peters Creek Community Initiative, an offshoot of the Shalom Project that will soon be building 62 new affordable housing units on land along Peters Creek Parkway where a run-down Budget Inn once stood. We got that with the help of the city and county, Ayuso said. We own the land, and now weve got $1.2 million in tax credits helping move it forward. Looking for a creative solution Like every other nonprofit worth its salt, the Shalom Project has become adept at scrounging, writing grants and stretching its annual $450,000 budget. Theres probably a better way, Foster said. But thats an annual dance, a way of life for organizations that largely depend on donations and outside sources for operating capital. The more immediate need is finding a new home, one that will allow for constant change and expansion. Thats been prompted by a recent decision by Centenary to sell buildings it owns on Fourth Street, among the last under-utilized and undeveloped properties downtown, including one where the walk-in clinic set up shop five years ago. Green Street had some modernization to do in its building, so something needed to be relocated to accommodate the work. The clinic, which had outgrown its space, was the logical candidate. The move was supposed to be temporary, less than three months perhaps. That was five years ago. Centenary offered room in one of its buildings, and a partnership of sorts was forged. Nothing remains the same, and so it is with real-estate in a remade downtown. But there are no hard feelings. Far from it, in fact. The church has been nothing but good to us, Ayuso said. Theyve been very gracious to us for five years. Rounding up staples and sorting donated clothing is one thing; finding a new location especially for a health clinic moving and setting up shop in a few months time is a different matter entirely. Because the Shalom Project serves a population for which basic transportation can be an obstacle, a new place will need to be on (or very near) bus lines. Ayuso and board members have started looking at potential new homes. Ideally, Ayuso said, the Shalom Project could find space where it could consolidate all of its operations a convenient, open one-stop shop. That could be in a building owned by the city or county government or a private owner looking for a creative and tax-deductible use for an empty warehouse. The time crunch, however, may mean a temporary move for the medical clinic while the rest stays put at Green Street. Its hard, Ayuso said. Expensive, too, especially for a nonprofit. Until a solution presents itself, folks at the Shalom Project will try to focus energy on meeting basic needs without interruption. Still, its difficult not to wonder what might happen if time runs out. I dont know, Foster said. I like that were pretty nimble and can get things done fast. But I dont know. T.W. Garner Food Co. has been sued by a Los Angeles man claiming he was deliberately deceived because Texas Pete products, which have been produced in Winston-Salem since 1929, are not made in the Lone Star state. The complaint, which contains five counts, was filed Sept. 12 in the U.S. Central District of California by Phillip White. White is requesting an undeclared amount of compensatory and punitive damages related to his purchase of a $3 bottle of Texas Pete Original Hot Sauce in a Ralphs supermarket in September 2021. He also is seeking injunctive relief to enjoin defendants misconduct to prevent on-going and future harm that will result. By representing that its Texas Pete brand hot sauce products are Texas products, when they are not, (T.W. Garner Food Co.) has cheated its way to a market-leading position in the $3 billion hot-sauce industry at the expense of law-abiding competitors and consumers nationwide who desire authentic Texas hot sauce and reasonably, but incorrectly, believe that is what they are getting when they purchase Texas Pete, according to the complaint. What moved the lawsuit from being considered as potentially frivolous is that California law has a low bar for proving violations of business and professions code, as well as false advertising and breach of contract. Garner said in a statement Monday that we are aware of the current lawsuit that has been filed against our company regarding the Texas Pete brand name. We are currently investigating these assertions with our legal counsel to find the clearest and most effective way to respond, the companys statement said. White claimed he believed that when he bought the Texas Pete sauce that he was getting a product made in Texas, in part because of the logo featuring a notorious Texan cowboy throwing a lasso on the front label. The cowboy and lone star symbols are famously and inexorably linked to the state of Texas. Had White known the product was not made in Texas, he would not have purchased the product, or would have paid significantly less for it. White claims that Garner created and authorized the false, misleading and deceptive advertisements and packaging for the products. In seeking class-action status for his complaint, White claims other people have been similarly deceived by Texas Pete marketing, resulting in significant profits to defendant, all to the damage and detriment of the consuming public. Texas Pete story Garners website included a page dedicated to the history of how Texas Pete came to be in 1929. So how is it that a tasty red pepper sauce made in North Carolina happens to be named Texas Pete anyway? according to the webpage. Legend has it that, when Sam Garner and his three sons Thad, Ralph and Harold were trying to come up with a brand name for this spicy new sauce they had created, a marketing advisor suggested the name Mexican Joe to connote the piquant flavor reminiscent of the favorite foods of our neighbors to the south. Nope! said the patriarch of the Garner family. Its got to have an American name! Sam suggested they move across the border to Texas, which also had a reputation for spicy cuisine. Then he glanced at son Harold, whose nickname was Pete and the Texas Pete cowboy was born. White claims that by naming the products as Texas Pete, the company was trying to take advantage of consumers willingness to pay a premium price that are authentically connected to a significant geographical area. He cited as examples authentic Mexican tortillas, Belgian chocolate and wines from Napa, Calif. He claims as another marketing deception that Texas Pete is based on a Louisiana-styled hot sauce. A hot sauce is distinctly Texas if it is made in Texas, using Texas ingredients and flavor profiles, according to the complaint. The 49-page document contains sections that cite hot sauces made in Texas, which White claims have been financially impacted by the Texas Pete branding and marketing. Krispy Kreme complaints The overarching claim made by White is very similar in legal language to at least three lawsuits filed against Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. in 2016 and 2018. At the heart of those complaints two of which were voluntarily dismissed and one with an undisclosed settlement is the claim that the company knowingly sells fruit- and maple-flavored doughnuts that do not include real ingredients. Those plaintiffs said they had bought blueberry and other fruit-flavored doughnuts believing they were buying real fruit containing health benefits. One of the lawsuits sought $5 million in damages. Attorneys representing Krispy Kreme said the plaintiffs failed to prove how doughnuts comprised of fried cake and yeast mixes coated with icing would mislead a reasonable consumer into believing they contained ingredients that help protect against heart disease, neurodegenerative disease and cancer. Sharjah Airport Authority (SAA) is showcasing cutting-edge technologies implemented in passenger services at the Government of Sharjah Pavilion at Gitex Global running from October 10-14 at Dubai World Trade Center. The smart technologies which have been implemented across all its passenger operations have provided enhanced services, greater efficiency and virtual communication with airport staff, bolstering passenger experience at Sharjahs International Airport. Sheikh Saud bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Higher Committee of the Sharjah Government Pavilion at Gitex Global and Director of Sharjah Digital Office welcomed Ali Salim Al Midfa, Chairman of Sharjah Airport Authority at the pavilion today (October 11). Ali Salim Al Midfa said: Gitex Global is the ideal platform for evaluating contemporary innovations and practices that have emerged as a result of the digital revolution. We will leverage this opportunity to showcase the most recent services and technologies implemented by the Sharjah Airport Authority in its operations to enhance overall customer satisfaction and solidify its position as one of the leading airports in the region. The Authority is participating in Gitex Global as an entity of the Government of Sharjah. Through this participation, we intend to interact with participants from the public sectors, both locally and internationally, and demonstrate the technologies it has implemented to improve the efficiency as well as manage time effectively in its daily operations. The Authority recognises the significance of implementing innovative technologies and smart services, as they help satisfy the needs of travellers and customers, as well as develop the best possible innovative environment that fosters our staff's skills and expertise, Al Midfa added. The state-of-the-art technology at the airports Smart Information Desk allows travellers to virtually communicate with customer service staff including navigating the airport, accessing airport services for limited mobility services and video call sign language support from staff. Self-service kiosks provide end-to-end services to travellers from self-check-in, to baggage drop off and passport and boarding pass verification at control gates. Digitisation and employing innovative technologies have provided improved services to passengers at Sharjah International Airport, positioning it as one of the leading airports in the Middle East and the world. Sharjah Airport Authority is one of 10 Sharjah Government entities participating in Gitex Global. The Government of Sharjahs Pavilion at the Arena Hall hosted workshops today by leading tech professionals and international companies. Mohamed Salama, Senior Partner at Unity Technologies, spoke about the merits of Web 3.0 and the paradigm shifts of the internet. Hani Khalaf, CTO, Internet of Things and Digital Cities META at Dell Technologies discussed a digital citizens journey in the city of the future and the technologies that are enabling cities to become smarter. The topic of energy digitisation for a smart and sustainable future was tackled by Nitin Joshi, Senior Strategy and Marketing Expert at Huawei Digital Power. The workshops were well attended by technology experts and members of public. TradeArabia News Service Nebraska is among 11 states getting $1 billion in funding under the State Small Business Credit Initiative, the U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday. The state's cut is $64 million, to be split equally between a loan participation program and a venture capital program. The loan program will provide companion loans for up to 50% of the principal loan amount through the Nebraska Growth Loan Fund. The venture capital program will provide direct investments through seed and Series A investment rounds distributed by the Nebraska Seed and Development Fund. The program is a direct investment model with a focus on underserved small businesses. This is an historic investment in entrepreneurship, small business growth and innovation through the American Rescue Plan that will help reduce barriers to capital access for traditionally underserved communities, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in a news release. Im excited to see how these SSBCI funds will promote equitable economic growth across the country. The small-business credit program has been around since 2010, but it was expanded as part of the American Rescue Plan Act to provide up to $10 billion to the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and tribal governments. The latest grants to Nebraska and the other states bring the total to $4.8 billion in funding to 31 states. With the $64 million, Nebraska has now gotten $177 million in federal grants in just the past two months, including $88 million from the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund to expand broadband in rural areas and $25 million from the Build Back Better Regional Challenge to establish a robotics cluster at Nebraska Innovation Campus. After a couple of years of irregular appearances, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is on the increase in Nebraska, right on its usual fall-winter schedule. Dr. Russell McCulloh, pediatric infectious disease specialist and hospital medicine physician at Children's Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, said the state is seeing a steep increase in the number of children visiting emergency rooms and being hospitalized with the virus. The majority of the increase in emergency room visits, according to the state's respiratory illness dashboard, is occurring among kids 4 and younger. Not all cases are reported to the state. RSV, McCulloh said, is one of the most common causes of upper and lower respiratory infections. The vast majority of people infected with RSV have cold symptoms. But the virus can cause much more severe illness in younger children, particularly those born prematurely, and in older adults and people of all ages with chronic health conditions. A similar increase is occurring nationally, according to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The virus also is one of the most common reasons children visit health care providers at this time of year, McCulloh said. About 150,000 a year are hospitalized, although the vast majority recover and do well. Only a small number, up to a few hundred a year, suffer permanent injury or death. RSV also is an illness for which health care providers commonly test. Many hospitals and clinics use a four-panel test that covers influenza, two kinds of RSV and COVID-19. The current increase in RSV, however, is coming on schedule, McCulloh said. During the past two years of the pandemic, peaks occurred outside the usual fall-winter season. The same infection-prevention measures intended to interrupt the transmission of COVID did double duty in interrupting the transmission of other viruses. "Our normal seasonal peaks that we expect to see some time in the winter and fall months didn't occur at the usually expected times," he said. Last year, for instance, the state and nation saw a steep increase in RSV during the summer months, which coincided with the relaxation of many infection-control measures in the spring. McCulloh said some other viruses also are circulating at slightly increased rates, but health care providers typically don't test for them and none are reaching the level of RSV. So far, influenza is not among them. "We're not seeing any significant flu activity in the state right now," he said. Health officials are, however, predicting that flu numbers are likely to return to pre-pandemic levels now that mitigation measures such as masking have largely ended and most people have returned to school, work and other activities. They're also looking to the more intense flu season that just occurred in the Southern Hemisphere. That flu season often presages what happens in the north. Outbreaks of norovirus, the highly contagious intestinal bug, already were approaching pre-pandemic levels by the 2021-2022 surveillance year, which wrapped up July 31, according to a Sept. 23 CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. That period ran from Aug. 1, 2021 to July 31. Nebraska is one of 12 states in the norovirus tracking network CDC established in 2012. The number of norovirus outbreaks in the 2021-2022 season also was nearly three times the number reported during the 2020-2021 season, when COVID-19 mitigation measures were in greater force. While there's no vaccine for RSV, McCulloh said, a monoclonal antibody therapy is available for a small group of infants and children at risk of suffering the worst effects of the virus. Parents of at-risk children should talk to their health care provider about the therapy, which is given in a series of five doses. Getting kids vaccinated for COVID and influenza can prevent serious illness from those two viruses, McCulloh said. Preventing those two viruses also reduces the risk of kids' being infected with multiple viruses at one time, a combo that puts them at greater risk of severe disease. "Just because you're infected with RSV doesn't mean you have to be only infected with RSV," he said. Sick people, who likely won't know they're infected with RSV, should wear masks around young children who may be at higher risk from the virus. Sick people also should stay home from work or school if possible. Caregivers should avoid exposing kids, particularly young ones, to tobacco smoke and practice good hand hygiene. "The more we mix," McColluh said, "and when we get into a season where we're naturally going to be indoors more, the more we're going to be swapping viruses." COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Nebraska continue to move in a positive direction, with cases falling for the fifth straight week. Nebraska recorded 1,028 new cases last week, down 16% from 1,224 the previous week, according to data compiled from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Case numbers have dropped more than 75% since the end of July and are now at their lowest level since late May. Nebraskas case trends mirror those nationally, as the majority of states have seen declining numbers since July. U.S. cases are at their lowest levels since April. Nebraskas overall case levels are 11th lowest among the states. The state has tallied more than 538,000 COVID cases. What the virus will do next, however, isn't entirely clear. Fall and winter brought surges in both 2020 and 2021 as people retreated indoors and new variants took over. While cases are down in the U.S., they are up in some European nations. Health officials are urging Americans to get the new bivalent booster shots, which cover both the original strain of COVID-19 and the omicron variants now circulating. So far, however, uptake has been slow. By the end of September, about 7.6 million eligible people had gotten the updated shot, which became available for people 12 and older over the Labor Day weekend. Some 200 million people are eligible. The agency recommends the shots for healthy people if it has been at least two months since their last vaccine dose, whether that was the last shot in their primary series or their latest dose of the original booster. It doesn't matter how many boosters people have had before as long as they have completed a primary series, according to a recent post by Nebraska Medicine. People who recently have had COVID-19 may consider delaying the new booster by three months from when their symptoms started or they first tested positive. The CDC has an online tool to help people determine when they need boosters. Health officials also are encouraging people to get flu shots in order to avoid a dual outbreak that could strain hospitals. The agency has said people can get both shots at the same time. An average of 137 Nebraskans were hospitalized with COVID last week, down from 142 the previous week. That's the lowest level since early June, similar to the national trend. The state also added nine deaths last week to bring its toll of confirmed and probable deaths to 4,551. The nation as a whole saw deaths drop below 400 a day after hovering above that number for weeks. Police are seeking a 17-year-old Sioux City, Iowa, boy and his 16-year-old accomplice for their alleged role in a June shooting at Seacrest Field that hospitalized two people, according to new court filings. A Lancaster County judge Tuesday signed a warrant for the arrest of Omar Armell, charging the Iowa teen with two counts of first-degree assault and one count of use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, according to the court filings. Prosecutors also charged Dontavious Sledge, whose address is unknown, with two counts of aiding and abetting first-degree assault in the shooting, which occurred at 2:30 a.m. June 26 in the stadium's parking lot, near 70th and A streets in east Lincoln. Two Lincoln residents 19-year-old Isaiah Craig and 24-year-old Bobbi Fulton were critically injured in the shooting, police said in June. It's unclear what led investigators to Armell and Sledge. The affidavits for their arrest public documents outlining what gives police probable cause to make an arrest were sealed by the court at the request of prosecutors. In June, Lincoln Police Capt. Todd Kocian said at least two vehicles entered the Seacrest Field parking lot shortly before 2:30 a.m. June 26 in an apparent confrontation with a group that was already there. It's unclear why the two groups were feuding, said Kocian, who wasn't sure then how many shots had been fired or if any shell casings were recovered. Responding officers found Craig with a gunshot wound near the scene of the shooting. They found Fulton near 70th and O streets after she had left the scene in a vehicle. The two suspects had not been arrested as of Tuesday. Authorities deployed a spike strip and rammed a stolen vehicle to a halt before arresting two Omaha men in rural Butler County on Monday after they fled an attempted traffic stop in Lincoln, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. The incident started at about 9:30 p.m. Monday, when a trooper saw a Honda Insight, stolen earlier Monday in Omaha, speeding on Interstate 80 near the 56th Street interchange in Lincoln, the agency said in a news release. As the sedan exited the interstate and headed south on 56th Street, the trooper initiated a traffic stop, but the vehicle refused to stop, performed a U-turn and fled north on U.S. 77 at speeds of than 100 mph, the patrol said in the release. Upon reaching Wahoo, the Honda turned west on Nebraska 92. As the vehicle passed north of Brainard, a Butler County Sheriffs deputy deployed stop sticks a tire deflation device to slow the vehicle before a trooper performed a "tactical vehicle intervention" to stop the Honda, according to the release. Troopers arrested both occupants the driver, 22-year-old Than Tun, of Omaha, and Kyaw Wah, 21, of Omaha and took the men to the Butler County jail. Tun was arrested on suspicion of felony theft by unlawful taking and possession of burglary tools, the Patrol said. Wah was arrested on suspicion of possession of burglary tools. The entire pursuit lasted about 30 minutes. Susanne Shore, wife of Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts and Nebraska's first lady, has endorsed Democratic congressional nominee Patty Pansing Brooks in Nebraska's 1st District House race. "My life's work has always been about serving others, but especially our kids," Shore said in a video message aired online Tuesday by the Pansing Brooks campaign. "I'm passionate about helping all our children thrive and succeed: mine, yours and those across Nebraska," Shore said. "I want to be sure those who can't always advocate for themselves have a person in their corner fighting for them. "During my time as your first lady," Shore said, "one legislator has proven that she will always use her voice to fight for not only those kids and their families, but all Nebraskans that's Patty Pansing Brooks." Pansing Brooks, a Lincoln state senator, is matched against newly elected Republican Rep. Mike Flood of Norfolk in the 1st District House race. Flood, a Norfolk state senator at the time, defeated Pansing Brooks in a June 28 special election to serve the remaining six months of Rep. Jeff Fortenberry's term after he resigned from the House following his conviction on charges that he lied to federal officials about illegal foreign campaign contributions to his 2016 reelection campaign. Voters will determine in the Nov. 8 general election rematch who will serve the next two-year term beginning in January. Shore's endorsement came in the form of a video message that is being used to raise campaign funds for Pansing Brooks. "From her work to guarantee legal counsel for our youth in the juvenile justice system to her advocacy for survivors of heinous sex-trafficking crimes, Patty has shown that she is not only tough on crime, but relentless in her work to uplift those who need it the most," Shore said. "Patty is exactly the type of leader I would be proud to call my congresswoman," she said. How do you defend someone who has admitted to committing a crime and that there is undeniable evidence that the defendant did what they are accused of doing? You say the defendant had to do what he did, or you say no crime was committed at all, or that the prosecution is unconstitutional, or you say all three. Thats the plan for the defense of the Racine County man who admitted to requesting absentee ballots using the names of two elected officials he doesnt like to prove it is possible. Wisconsin Republicans are hoping Tim Michels will defeat Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in November, but even if Evers prevails they could still reshape the battleground state by winning enough seats in the Legislature to override vetoes. If Republicans can flip five seats in the Assembly and one in the Senate theyll have the two-thirds majority they need. They would be free to rework state politics at will, including the state budget and election administration. My first goal is to elect Tim Michels, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said. If for some reason we are unsuccessful in defeating Evers, a veto-proof majority is the second priority. Evers is a major stumbling block. Its about being able to get things done that the people of Wisconsin want. That echoes what Vos told The Journal Times after he won a close August primary over conservative challenger Adam Steen, but Steen said he would continue the challenge via write-in campaign. The enemy is now Tony Evers. We need to unite and make sure Tim Michels wins, Vos told a Journal Times reporter last month. Vos and Michels have appeared together at several Republican events, while former President Donald Trump has endorsed Michels and Steen but not Vos. Evers has blocked almost every piece of major GOP legislation over the last four years, including proposals that would have tightened restrictions on absentee voting and unemployment benefits, expanded the right to carry concealed weapons and curtailed the governments ability to respond to COVID-19. Democrats are aware of the risk. There is no higher priority than making sure Gov. Evers stays in his role and we hold onto the veto, said Morgan Hess, executive director of the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee. The GOP has controlled the Legislature for the last decade thanks to district boundaries the party drew in 2011 to consolidate its power. The U.S. Supreme Court this spring upheld district lines Republicans redrew last year to reflect census changes, a major ruling that solidified their grip on both houses for the next decade. The party that controls the White House typically fares poorly in midterm elections. And Republican strength has been growing in rural areas. The GOPs plan for winning a supermajority targets a handful of open seats and Democratic incumbents in rural districts. Republicans hold a 57-38 advantage in the Assembly with four open seats held by outgoing Republicans. They need 66 seats to gain a two-thirds majority. If they hold all their seats and flip five theyll get it. On the Senate side, Republicans go into Election Day with a 21-12 majority. Twenty-two seats would give them a supermajority. Republicans are targeting four seats held by retiring Democrats, including two Assembly seats and one Senate seat in far northwestern Wisconsin along Lake Superior. That region has leaned liberal for decades, but its overwhelmingly rural. The Democratic Assembly incumbents, Nick Milroy and Beth Meyers, narrowly defeated GOP challengers in 2020. Both decided earlier this year to retire, with Milroy saying he wanted to spend more time with his children and Meyers citing the five-and-a-half hour drive to the Capitol in Madison. The Senate incumbent, Janet Bewley, narrowly defeated Republican Dane Deutsch with 51% of the vote to win the seat in 2014. Her race against James Bolen in 2020 was just as close. She decided this year not to seek reelection. Running to replace her are Democrat Kelly Westlund, a former staff member for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and a one-time congressional candidate, and Republican Romaine Quinn, a former state representative. Westlund said the new district boundaries include a larger portion of Republican-leaning Burnett County. She said the GOP is going for what she called a three-fer with the three open seats in northwestern Wisconsin, and acknowledged that Democrats face an uphill climb in such a rural area. Theyve drawn this line around the district trying to make it more and more red, Westlund said. Were not taking anything for granted. Were knocking on doors every single day. I dont think people realize how much is at stake at times. Quinns campaign didnt respond to a message. The other open Assembly seat in Republican crosshairs is in Oshkosh, about 50 miles south of Green Bay in northeastern Wisconsin. Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Gordon Hintz won the seat in 2007, but Trump won the county in 2016 and 2020 and Hintz announced earlier this year he was done. A handful of Democratic incumbents in rural districts are in the Republicans sights as well, including state Rep. Steve Doyle and Sen. Jeff Smith in west-central Wisconsin and Rep. Katrina Shankland in central Wisconsin. Doyles district covers eastern La Crosse County and most of Monroe County. Trump won Monroe County in 2016 and 2020 but lost La Crosse County to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, due largely to the Democratic-leaning city of La Crosse. Doyles district doesnt include the city, which makes him vulnerable to the rural vote. This time around he faces challenger Ryan Huebsch, the son of Republican Mike Huebsch. The senior Huebsch held the seat from 1995 until 2011, when he resigned to take a job in Gov. Scott Walkers administration. Doyle won a special election later that year to take the open seat. Doyle said Republicans have targeted him ever since, but the stakes are higher with Evers veto authority potentially on the line. Ive always been a Democrat in a Republican-leaning district, he said. Ive always known I have to work twice as hard as anyone else. That sense of urgency has been there since 2011. I knock on doors election years and non-election years. That has continued, and (it has been) very intense in that regard. Ryan Huebsch said hes working to win an Assembly seat and isnt worried about achieving a veto-proof majority. Smith won his seat with just 51% of the vote in 2018. He faces former police officer and bull rider David Estenson in November. Shankland, meanwhile, will have to contend again with Republican opponent Scott Soik, a gun shop owner she defeated by 3,500 votes in 2020. The district includes most of rural Portage County, which Clinton and Biden won in 2016 and 2020. But this spring conservative John Pavelski won the county executive race, giving Republicans hope. Shankland said she understands Democrats must protect Evers veto powers. She said she has been campaigning at meet-and-greets and knocking on doors until 1 a.m. most days, mindful of her vulnerability as Republicans eye the rural votes that might come their way. I think they probably looked at the voting patterns over the last decade and wanted to set their sights here, Shankland said. Soik didnt return messages left on his cellphone. When youre looking for seats to flip, you look for the low-hanging fruit, and more rural districts are low-hanging fruit for Republicans, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political scientist Anthony Chergosky said. Republicans essentially dominate rural Wisconsin. So much is based on geography. The question here is can Democrats make a last stand in some of these rural districts they have to protect? Adam Rogan of The Journal Times contributed to this report. Responses to the Wisconsin State Journals candidate questionnaire. The election is Nov. 8. Mike Bare Party: Democratic Age: 39 Address: Verona Family: Wife, two sons Job: Research and program coordinator, Community Advocates Public Policy Institute; Co-Owner, Biergarten at Olbrich Park; Dane County Board supervisor Prior elected office: Verona City Council, 2013 to 2014; Dane County Board, 2020 to present Other public service: Verona Plan Commission member and Verona City Parks Commission Chair; longtime aide to former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold Education: Bachelors degree in political science and philosophy from American University; masters degree in political science from American University Jacob Luginbuhl Party: Republican Age: 31 Address: Verona Family: Girlfriend, Maggie Job: Owner of Wisconsin Event Barn Prior elected office: None Other public service: Associate director, Heartland Credit Union, one year Education: UW-Platteville, business and entrepreneurship Q&A Why are you the best candidate for this office? Bare: My experience, accomplishments and perspectives will make me a good lawmaker. I have the most experience working with policy, and I would hit the ground running. I have worked at every level of government. I have served on the Verona City Council, and Im currently on the Dane County Board. I have a strong record of getting things done for people I represent, and Im proud of my accomplishments. Luginbuhl: I am the best candidate for my district because I am from here. I remember it before there were stop lights on every major intersection in our small towns and I have been here for their growth along the way. From growing up on my familys farm in rural Verona to starting and operating my own business for 10-plus years I have developed a vast array of knowledge and common sense for fixing problems. What is the most important issue in this election and how would you address it? Bare: Everywhere you look our families and communities are hurt by our dysfunctional government. We must first defend and strengthen our democracy. Im ready to fight for voting rights, to end partisan gerrymandering, and to stop the purposeful spread of disinformation. I would address this by building bipartisan and stakeholder-driven coalitions, which is work I have been doing well for many years. Luginbuhl: This election cycle is a reform on public safety. For two years we have watched criminals violently protest and burn our cities/businesses while the current administration told law enforcement to stand down. As a representative in the Legislature, I would support our law enforcement and make sure they have the resources to ensure our laws are enforced and violent criminals stay off our streets. What changes, if any, would you make to the states election system? Bare: We should work to expand voting rights, not suppress voting to preserve political power. We should eliminate gerrymandering in favor of a nonpartisan process similar to the one I participated in as a Dane County Board member. We also must secure election equipment and records across the state to protect from interference. Luginbuhl: We need to be able to trust that our elections are fair and honest. We have to make sure that our rules and procedures are followed uniformly in every precinct. If there are problems, they need to be addressed and ensure they do not happen again in the future. What are your priorities for the states $5 billion surplus? Bare: I would use the surplus on a mix of individual tax relief for those who need it most, and spending that makes sense, including helping school districts that are struggling financially and going to operating referendums. Unfortunately, the Republican-led Legislature hasnt been willing to spend that surplus because they think it would help the governor politically. Previously, they spent it quickly. Luginbuhl: I would like to be a part of returning a portion of it back to the taxpayers. We are facing uncertain times following the pandemic. It would be unwise to create new programs that would deplete it to zero. One of Wisconsins greatest strengths is that no budget can be passed with a deficit. We can be thankful for smart leadership in the Legislature for the surplus we have today. Should abortion be legal in all cases, illegal in all cases or something in between? Explain. Bare: Abortion should be legal in all cases. Access to safe reproductive health care is a fundamental right, which gets my full and unconditional support. We also must invest more in prenatal health, maternal health and mental health, Birth to 3 programs and more. And the out-of-touch Supreme Court is sending signals that show we should codify protections for contraception, gay marriage and more. Luginbuhl: I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I understand this issue is very important to a lot of people. We cannot allow the extremist abortion positions coming from Democrats to become law. I am appalled by the number of candidates and their Democrat supporters who want to allow an abortion up until birth or because it is the wrong gender/race. Ill oppose these extremes. How should the state improve educational outcomes, especially in the wake of how the pandemic affected student achievement? Bare: A quality public education is a right. The zero-dollar per-pupil increases in the current state budget for schools have been devastating, so we must properly fund education. Teachers know how to do their job, but they need hefty raises, better benefits and their collective bargaining rights restored. Finally, we must make schools safe from gun violence with a comprehensive approach. Luginbuhl: Curriculum should be focused on the three fundamentals: reading, writing, arithmetic. Responsibility has to be taken by poor leadership in the current administration. State aid to schools has increased every year for the last 9 years, yet students are still struggling to succeed. When do we acknowledge its not a problem we cannot solve with more money? Its time for some accountability. How should the state address its workforce challenges, both in the public and private sectors? Bare: We should raise our minimum wage, create vast New Deal-type transitional jobs programs, reform our tax code so that nobody working full time ends up in poverty, and better help working parents afford child care. We should roll back state laws that have made it easier for employers to discriminate, lower wages, and bust unions. Public workers should have collective bargaining rights restored. Luginbuhl: We can start by not closing down our businesses and schools ever again. We need to fill positions with qualified candidates who want to work. We also must enforce the time limits and qualifications for collecting unemployment benefits. We have to make sure every individual that wants to work has the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families. Was the Michael Gableman investigation of the 2020 election a good use of taxpayer resources? What follow-up should there be? Bare: No. It was an embarrassing sham that was intended to placate former President Trump and boost his Big Lie about the 2020 election. Taxpayers should get a refund from Michael Gableman and his fitness to practice law in Wisconsin should be investigated. Luginbuhl: I am focused on the upcoming election and ensuring that it is fair and every legal vote is counted. 1. Yes. Its important to cast my votes early and avoid the lines on Election Day. 2. Yes. With nearly two weeks of early voting, its a more convenient way to take part. 3. No. Its better to wait until Election Day, in case any last-minute information surfaces. 4. No. Im not planning to vote early or on Election Day. It isnt worth my time. 5. Unsure. It depends on how the campaigns are shaping up. Ill play it by ear. Vote View Results JAKARTA, Indonesia Thiolina Marpaung still panics when she smells smoke, immediately recalling the bomb explosion that upended her life 20 years ago. Marpaung, now 48, was in a car with her colleagues on the Indonesian resort island of Bali in 2002 when the blast shook their vehicle from behind. Marpaung was temporarily blinded as shards of glass pierced her eyes. She remembers calling out for help and someone bringing her to the sidewalk, before an ambulance raced her to a hospital with other victims. I was traumatized by the sound of ambulance sirens, Marpaung said. She is one of dozens of Indonesian survivors who were outside of Sari Club on the night of October 12, 2002, when a car bombing there and the nearly simultaneous suicide bombing at nearby Paddys Pub killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, including 88 Australians and seven Americans. Marpaung later had surgery in Australia to remove the glass from her eyes, but the pain still bothers her and requires treatment to this day. At the urging of her psychologist, she has thrown away and burned photographs, news articles, clothing and other reminders of that day. She even tossed the shards of glass that were removed from her eyes onto Kuta Beach in Bali, not far from the attack site. That's made me feel better until now, she said. Two decades after the Bali bombings, counterterrorism efforts in the world's most populous Muslim country remain highly active. More than 2,300 people have been arrested on terrorism charges, according to data from the Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies, since a national counterterrorism unit, known as Densus 88, was established in the wake of the attacks. In 2020, 228 people were arrested on terrorism charges. The number rose to 370 last year, underscoring authorities' commitment to pursue suspects even as the number of terrorist attacks in Indonesia has fallen. But the aggressive police work has also prompted concerns about potential overreach. The governments recent move towards expanding the definition of the threat of terrorism by going after non-violent, ideologically conservative organizations can undermine the legitimacy of its counterterrorism efforts if the public begins to see anti-terrorism as something of a political thing rather than a law enforcement effort, said Sana Jaffrey, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta. The pursuit of suspects related to the Bali bombings has also continued, even in recent years. In December 2020, police arrested Aris Sumarsono, 58, whose real name is Arif Sunarso but is better known as Zulkarnaen, in the southern town on Sumatra island. He became the latest person arrested over the 2002 bombing, and the court sentenced him to 15 years in prison for his role. Indonesian authorities also suspect him to be the mastermind of several other attacks in the country. In August, Indonesia's government considered granting an early prison release to the bombmaker in the Bali attack, Hisyam bin Alizein, 55, better known by his alias, Umar Patek, who has also been identified as a leading member of the al Qaida-linked Southeast Asian Islamic radical group Jemaah Islamiyah. Indonesian authorities said Patek was an example of successful efforts to reform convicted terrorists and that they planned to use him to influence others not to commit terrorist acts. Ni Luh Erniati, who lost her husband in the Bali bombing and has raised two sons as a single mother the past two decades, met Patek at a prison in East Java province last month. She's met other convicted terrorists too, saying she believes the meetings can help relieve her grief. I told him that I worked at Sari Club and I met my husband at Sari Club, and then I had to lose my husband at Sari Club. It is a memory that is very, very unforgettable and tragic. And I said, because of that incident, I lost my true love, and I told him my life after that. He was crying, really crying, Erniati said. Patek begged for her forgiveness, she said. Finally, I couldnt help but take it. He knelt down. I held his hand, I said, Yes, I have forgiven you. He was crying louder, Erniati said. I also told him, lets work together to protect our beloved country so that the same tragedies dont happen in the future. He was still crying, she added. Although she forgives him, Erniati says the decision over his release is now up to the government, which is deciding whether to free him after he served half of his 20-year sentence. Indonesias Minister of Law and Human Rights Yasonna Laoly says Patek has fulfilled all requirements for parole as recommended by Indonesias counterterrorism agency. But the Australian government has expressed its strong opposition to his possible release. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described Patek as abhorrent. Peter Hughes, another survivor of the 2002 bombing who hails from the Australian west coast city of Perth, has visited Bali more than 30 times in the past 20 years after overcoming his physical and psychological trauma. Hughes spent a month in an induced coma after suffering burns to 55% of his body in the Paddys Pub explosions in Bali. He said he plans to visit again for the 20th anniversary commemoration service. Im mainly going back because Im on holiday and while I was there I just thought Id pay my respects. Thats a given, Hughes said. United Methodists have for generations been a mainstay of the American religious landscape one of the most geographically widespread of the major Protestant denominations, their steeples visible on urban streets, in county seats and along country roads, their ethos marked by a firm yet quiet faith, simple worship and earnest social service. But the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members this century amid debates over sexuality and theology. In annual regional gatherings across the U.S. earlier this year, United Methodists approved requests of about 300 congregations to quit the denomination, according to United Methodist News Service. Special meetings in the second half of the year are expected to vote on as many as 1,000 more, according to the conservative advocacy group Wesleyan Covenant Association. Scores of churches in Georgia, and hundreds in Texas, are considering disaffiliation. Some aren't waiting for permission to leave: More than 100 congregations in Florida and North Carolina have filed or threatened lawsuits to break out. Those departing are still a fraction of the estimated 30,000 congregations in the United States alone, with nearly 13,000 more abroad, according to recent UMC statistics. But large United Methodist congregations are moving to the exits, including some of the largest in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The flashpoints are the denominations bans on same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy though many see these as symptoms for deeper differences in views on justice, theology and scriptural authority. The denomination has repeatedly upheld these bans at legislative General Conferences, but some U.S. churches and clergy have defied them. This spring, conservatives launched a new Global Methodist Church, where they are determined both to maintain and to enforce such bans. A proposal to amicably divide the denomination and its assets, unveiled in early 2020, has lost its once-broad support after years of pandemic-related delays to the legislative General Conference, whose vote was needed to ratify it. Now the breakup and the negotiations are happening piecemeal one regional conference at a time. New York Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the Council of Bishops, issued a statement in August denouncing a constant barrage of negative rhetoric that is filled with falsehood and inaccuracies by breakaway groups. In particular, he disputed allegations that the church is changing core doctrines. But he said the denomination seeks to find a balance between encouraging churches to stay yet enabling them to go. Its a both/and, Bickerton said in an interview. We want people to know straight up front that we dont want them to leave. We need traditionalists, we need centrists, we need progressives willing to engage in a healthy debate to discern what Gods will is. But more departures are expected next year. In just the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference, about 300 of its 800 churches have begun inquiring about the process of leaving by the end of 2023, according to the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Not all may follow through, but some see it as inevitable. We feel like to stay the same in our mission and theology, we need to change denominations, said the Rev. Steve Cordle, lead pastor of Crossroads Church. Based in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, it's one of the largest congregations in the conference. It's considering going independent or joining the Global Methodist Church. A few miles away in Bethel Park, another Pittsburgh suburb, Christ United Methodist Church remains committed to the denomination. The Rev. Chris Morgan said his church has a big tent of liberals and conservatives with most congregants leaning in toward the center." The church recently hosted an educational series on hot topics including the schism, guns, abortion and COVID-19. Instead of becoming like society, were trying to become an example of what it looks like to disagree and still treat people with respect and care and love, Morgan said. He was far from the only one to see a parallel between the Methodist debates and broader societal polarization. "We live in a world of division. Just look at our political front, said Bishop David Graves, who oversees the South Georgia and Alabama-West Florida conferences. Both conferences have dozens of congregations moving to the exits, though the large majority are staying for now. Graves said he wants to help enable churches to leave if they want to but has spent long hours urging them to consider all the factors and be sure it is God's will. Its very taxing, he said. Those are intense meetings." KEARNEY A Kearney man is being held in jail on a $100,000 bond, accused of sexually assaulting a teen. Nathan Lilienthal, 41, is charged in Buffalo County Court with three counts of felony first-degree sexual assault of a child at least 12 years old but less than 16. The charges allege sexual penetration between June 1, 2021, and August 31, 2021. In Nebraska there is no statute of limitations on sexual assault. Lilienthal was arrested Sept. 30 on a Buffalo County warrant. Court records detailing the allegations are sealed. Lilienthal remains in custody at the Buffalo County Jail, and he is scheduled to appear in court later this month. KEARNEY The Kearney Public Schools Board of Education approved a 2022-23 property tax request of $52.57 million at its board meeting Monday evening. The board unanimously approved the resolution that would see a 3% increase in the tax rate from the 2021-22 budget. The total assessed value of property differs by 5.51% from last year. The tax rate would be about $1.13 per $100 of assessed value. The total operating budget for 2022-23 is $90.57 million, an increase of 19% from the previous year. Also, during the meeting, the board adopted the states College and Career Ready Standards for Mathematics. Director of PK-5 Education Sara Paider and Director of 6-12 Education Clint Edwards presented the standards to the board. They informed the board that the Nebraska State Board of Education are required to review and update the standards every seven years. Paider explained that the standards are organized by four content strands for K-5 and five strands for 6-8, including number sense, algebra, geometry, data, and ratio and proportions (6-8 only). It also identifies mathematical processes that are necessary for success in math at each grade level, including problem solving, representations, communication, connections and reasoning. Since the standards were approved in September, KPS has gone over the standards and started looking at different curriculums. They have identified different math curriculums they are piloting in the elementary and middle schools this year. In April, they plan to pick a new curriculum for the 2023-24 school year. KPS Board Secretary Alex Straatmann asked Paider and Edwards if they have seen any red flags in the curriculum. Paider noted there was nothing concerning in the new curriculum. In other business, the board: Appointed Vice President Drew Blessing as the KPS Board of Education representative at the 2022 Nebraska Association of School Boards Delegate Assembly. Approved the Superintendent Evaluation Instrument. JIM FALLS Ronald E. Woodford, 79, passed away peacefully on Oct. 9, 2022, at home on his farm in Jim Falls surrounded by family after a long goodbye. Ronnie was born on Jan. 4, 1943, in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, to Earl and Agnes (Anderson) Woodford. He grew up on the family farm in Jim Falls, attended Vance School and graduated from Chippewa Falls Senior High in 1961. Ronnie married his high school sweetheart, Barb Crowley, on Feb. 22, 1964, and together they spent 58 years farming south of Jim Falls on his little piece of paradise, raising three kids, three grandkids and a menagerie of critters, including his dairy and beef cattle, horses and sheep. After high school, he worked at the Falls Dairy Cheese Plant, retiring after 13 years to live out his farming dream. Ronnie milked cows for 45 years and then down-sized to only his beef cattle, horses and crops. His farm became a haven for geese, bird watchers and his grandchildren. He was an avid hunter, unintentional conservationist, horseman and craftsman, building his current home from logging timber to the beautiful woodwork within. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him for his many stories, cocky grin and twinkle in his eye. Ronnie was preceded in death by his parents; and brothers-in-law, Roger Ewings and Thomas Crowley. He is survived by his loving wife, Barb; two sons: Dan (Diane) Woodford of Jim Falls and Jim (Michele) Woodford of Rhinelander; one daughter, Dawn (Kevin) Parks of Sun Prairie; two brothers: David (Shirley) Woodford and Mark (Debbie) Woodford both of Jim Falls; one sister, Karen Ewings of Jim Falls; three grandchildren: Jacob Parks, Sierra Woodford, and Nick Parks; and many nieces, nephews, and friends. The funeral service will be at noon Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, at Pederson-Volker Funeral Chapel, 44 E. Columbia St., Chippewa Falls, with a visitation beginning at 10 a.m. The interment will be in Copp Cemetery in Anson at a later date. The family would like to extend a special thanks to the staff of St. Josephs Hospice for their support and kindness provided, as well as, our special neighbors and angelic family caregivers who kept us going and allowed Dad to go out on his terms. Pederson-Volker Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services, Chippewa Falls, is serving the family. Please share your memories and condolences online at pedersonvolker.com. Police are seeking a second suspect linked to a controlled drug buy last year. Raymond J. Bolstad, 54, La Crosse, was charged Friday in a La Crosse County Circuit with a single felony charge of possession of methamphetamine with a intent to deliver. Judge Gloria Doyle issued a warrant for his arrest Friday. According to the criminal complaint, police used a confidential informant Aug. 24, 2021, to purchase 15.7 grams of methamphetamine from Bolstad and Antrell R. Thomas. Thomas was arrested a short time after the controlled buy and was charged with other drug crimes. He was charged with his role in the buy with Bolstad Oct. 5 and is being held in the La Crosse County Jail on a $2,500 cash bond. His next court appearance is a Nov. 16 calendar call. Bolstad also has an open drug case in Crawford County, wheres charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. He was released from the Crawford County Jail in January after posting a $2,500 cash bond. SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) Early voting began Tuesday across New Mexico on a limited scale at county clerk's offices, as election regulators began mailing absentee ballots by request to registered voters. More than a dozen people formed a line to cast ballots outside the Santa Fe County Clerk's office, including U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez as she seeks reelection in a race against Republican engineer Alexis Martinez Johnson. Many counties will add more early voting locations on Oct. 22. Polls close Nov. 6-7 prior to Election Day on Nov. 8. Three first-term congresswomen are seeking reelection in contested New Mexico races, as voters also consider a long list of candidates for statewide elected offices, including governor, attorney general and secretary of state. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is seeking a second term in office against GOP nominee Mark Ronchetti in a contest highlighting concerns about urban crime, abortion access and spending priorities amid a windfall in state government income from oilfield production. Ronchetti hopes to unseat the incumbent governor with calls for a new approach to combatting crime amid a record-setting spate of homicides in Albuquerque and a proposal to provide annual rebates linked to oil and natural gas production. Lujan Grisham has cast herself as crucial advocate for expanding early childhood education, tuition-free college and continued access to abortion. In 2021, she overturned a dormant state ban on most abortion procedures, while Ronchetti wants a statewide referendum in an effort to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy with limited exceptions. In southern New Mexico, Republican U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell is seeking a second term in a congressional district that has been redrawn in ways that could help Democrats by adding portions of Albuquerque and dividing a politically conservative oil-producing region. Democratic Las Cruces Councilman Gabe Vasquez hopes to reclaim the swing district that Republicans flipped in 2020. In the secretary of states race, incumbent Democrat Maggie Toulouse Oliver is seeking reelection after expanding ballot access through same-day registration against Republican nominee Audrey Trujillo, a proponent of new voter ID requirements and new restrictions on absentee voting. New Mexico's primary election in June drew national attention when a handful of rural counties considered delaying certification of the results, as angry crowds gave voice to unproven conspiracy theories about voting systems. Albuquerque-based District Attorney Raul Torrez is vying in an open race for attorney general against Republican attorney and U.S. Marine veteran Jeremy Michael Gay of Gallup. Voters will also decide on a statewide ballot referendum that would increase spending on K-12 schools and early childhood education by about $200 million a year through greater distributions from the states oil-based permanent fund. The entire state House is up for election. Democrats are defending a 45-seat majority, with 24 Republicans and one unaffiliated legislator. In recent elections, Democrats have consolidated control over every statewide office, the state Supreme Court and broad majorities in the state House and Senate. Editors note: In this occasional series, the Kenosha News takes a look at the life of a Kenosha County resident who has recently died. We share with you, through the memories of family and friends, a life remembered. Friends remembered Jerome Epping for his energy, motivation, work ethic and love for motorcycle riding. Epping, 67, of Salem Lakes, died Oct. 3 following injuries he sustained in a two vehicle crash. Epping was operating his motorcycle eastbound and a car was traveling west bound when they collided on Stateline Road in the Town of Sharon, according to Walworth County sheriffs authorities. The crash remains under investigation. Epping was owner of Breezy Hill Nursery, the sprawling, successful nursery and landscape design firm in the village that has served the community and beyond for more than 40 years. Prodigious work ethicDennis Elverman, fellow landscaper and retired Kenosha County Board supervisor, remembered Epping as a go-getter and aggressive in his approach to knowing all he could about the business. His work ethic was nothing short of prodigious, Elverman said Monday night. Dennis Elverman Dennis Elverman, candidate for KC Board, District 23 The landscapers in Kenosha County are kind of a close knit family, said Elverman, who worked with Epping at the Paul Swartz Nursery in Burlington when they were younger. I knew Jerry quite well. And, then he was a very good employee and he was an aggressive man, Elverman said. He was definitely going to go somewhere (in the business). He started his business and they bought the property where they have their main office there on Highway 50 and he grew that thing and he amazed everyone. Breezy Hill Nursery Inc., 7530 288th Ave., according to its website, began as a small design/build firm in 1980. He and his wife Colleen, started the business with just the essentials: three employees, a couple of wheelbarrows, and a dump truck. Over the last four decades, the business has flourished employing 250 seasonal and full-time workers, while providing landscape design and construction services in southern and southeast Wisconsin, Milwaukee, northern Illinois and the Chicago area. Breezy Hill also owns 1,000 acres of farmland dedicated to nursery production in Salem Lakes, Menomonee Falls and Clinton. Jerry was one who you wanted on your crew he was a go-getter type of person and very bright man, Elverman said. Ive always been impressed with him. The last time he saw Epping, we had a nice talk, he said. It had been a while since we had a chance to talk and he was doing so well. He had had some health problems and it was great to see him, Elverman said. Its a real loss, you know, to his family and the community. He was very knowledgeable and a real asset to everyone around him and all the people that work for him. Its a big loss for many people. `Problem solver County Executive Samantha Kerkman said she first met Epping when she worked as a legislative aide for then state Rep. Cloyd Porter, R-Burlington. Porter and his staff would later take a photo with Epping in a gazebo overlooking a lake. Epping was being recognized for an award. He had won a nursery of the year award, she said. Kerkman said Epping was a problem solver. He was one that would try to help out others in different situations, she said. And he worked hard. You know, he was the first one in the door and the last one to leave, she said. According to his obituary, Epping died on the day he would have his 67th birthday. Jerry did everything with great excellence and had a sense of accomplishment in his work. He lived and led by his motto of work hard/play harder in everything he did while activating others potential, the obituary reads. Among those who shared memories online at Haaselockwoodfhs.com was friend Mike Kelly. High character, high competence, high energy. An unfathomable loss, Kelly wrote. You will be missed Jerry! Epping also had a passion for cooking, which he loved to share with friends and family. But he especially found freedom and life riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle cross country, according to the obituary. The family plans a celebration of his life from 1-4 p.m., with the services at 4 p.m. at the Twin Lakes Country Club Red Barn Outdoor Pavilion, 1230 Legion Drive. The family has requested that those attending wear outdoor attire and Harley gear. Haase-Lockwood & Associates Funeral Home and Crematory of Twin Lakes is serving the family. One by one, many municipalities in Walworth County have been passing ordinances to allow ATVs and UTVs on their municipal roads. When those ordinances are passed, it allows drivers to go on municipal roads in that jurisdiction where the municipality allows. It also allows them to go on county or state roads where the speed limit is 35 mph or less but not county or state roads that are marked over 35 mph. Now the county is looking at establishing an ordinance that would authorize ATV/UTV riders access to County roads regardless of posted speed limits where municipalities have existing ordinances come July 2023. Municipalities, however, could restrict ATV/UTV access where they see fit to do so. Use of state highways would still be restricted to only areas with a speed limit of 35 mph or less. The municipalities that have passed ordinances allowing ATVs and UTVs are: Village of Bloomfield Town of Bloomfield Town of Darien Town of East Troy Town of Sharon Village of Sharon Town of Walworth The Village of Walworth has also passed an ordinance allowing UTVs, but not ATVs, but, their law is technically in violation of state law, said Richard Hough, Walworth Countys director of public works, who is working on the county ordinance for the countys public works committee. An email that Hough received from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources about routes that allowed UTVs, but not ATVs, stated, Can ATVs be excluded entirely from operating on an ATV route, then allow only UTVs to operate on that ATV route during all times? The answer is no. There is no mechanism to enact solely an UTV route. There is no definition or a pathway for an UTV route in statute. The Town of Troy could be the next municipality to enact an ordinance because Troy has a referendum on its November ballot. The county ordinance is still in draft form and in discussion with the public works committee, which meets next on Oct. 17. A few issues are still under discussion, including enforcement of the laws and signage. One question is who will pay for the signage on county roads? Will the county or the municipality? Either way, Hough said, referring to signs, Its going to take a while to get that ordered. That is one of the reasons he is looking for the ordinance to go into effect next July and not sooner. In addition, he said, a July implementation would give time for a public safety campaign and development of a map for people to see where they can and cannot drive the vehicles. Captain Robert Hall of the Walworth County Sheriffs Office said with all the different municipalities having their own laws about UTVs and ATVs, It has the potential to become somewhat of a quagmire when it looks to enforcement of the law. Can I enforce it in this town? No you guys want it, but on this side of the street its forbidden and I cannot do it. Hough said those concerns have come up with the working group he is part of and the hope is that a GIS map can be creating showing the different areas where ATVS and UTVs are allowed to make it more clear for people. Correction: An earlier version of the story said that the Town of Troy had already enacted an ATV/UTV ordinance. But it has not. But the town does have a referendum on the November ballot, asking residents if they want to enact an ordinance. MOUNT PLEASANT Residents of a suburban neighborhood are breathing a collective (but nervous) sigh of relief following the removal of a vicious dog from its owners home after it bit two people in one day, but not until after a year of complaints and the dog getting loose again more than a month after the initial bites. But for many of the neighbors, questions linger as to why it took so long for the village to take action. The case has escalated and could lead to a change in local laws. And now, the village attorney is negotiating with the owner of the dog, saying the village will stop seeking to have the dog put down if the owner agrees to never own another dog. Two women bitten On Aug. 31, the Mount Pleasant Police Department was dispatched to an animal complaint, wherein it was reported that multiple dogs were actively attacking and biting at least one person near where Entrada Drive meets Cardinal Court in a neighborhood west of Meachem Road and south of Taylor Avenue. Mount Pleasant Police Officer Casey Smith reported that when he arrived on the scene there were two dogs barking aggressively at people standing in front of a two-story home. The owner of the home, a 78-year-old woman, was bleeding from her arm and leg in the front yard. Body camera footage obtained by The Journal Times shows that when Officer Smith arrived on scene, he initially got out of the squad car but quickly got back into the drivers seat. He wrote in the police report that he saw a pit bull charging at him. I aint getting bit, the police officer said over the police radio, body camera video shows. Moments later he told the owner of the dog, If it starts biting people, Im going to have to shoot it. Another officer told Officer Smith later that, had he been in Smiths position, he would have just shot the dog. Thankfully I just went straight back into my car or else wed have a plugged dog, Officer Smith said in retrospect when talking to the other officer. Within a couple minutes of police arriving, the owner of the unleashed dogs, Angelica Lugo, rallied the dogs into her vehicle and got them back inside her house. The brown dog named Coco, who was the dog that bit multiple people, is the dog who charged towards me, Officer Smith later wrote in the police report. Coco was foaming at the mouth, running around, barking at people. I could see slobber from Cocos mouth foaming, being thrown around as Coco aggressively barked. Coco, Lugo said, is a 1-year-old female pit corso a mix of the pit bull and cane corso breeds; pit corsos stand about two feet tall and typically weigh just shy of 100 pounds. Body camera footage shows Lugo appearing shocked when Officer Smith informed her how many tickets she was facing, seemingly surprised that she would be ticketed for all three of her dogs running loose and not just for Coco biting two people. Obviously theres no way I cant issue tickets for this, the officer told Lugo. They (the neighbors) will be calling every time the dogs get out, which will probably be more tickets and probably going to be some kind of action by the village. Officer Smith said later, Id be mad too if Im one of these neighbors with these dogs out all the time. The two people who were bit have been identified as Ann Kulas, a 78-year-old woman who sustained lacerations to multiple limbs; and Jennifer Willems, who sustained minor lacerations after running to help Kulas after she heard screaming outside. The attacks occurred on Kulass driveway. Lugos dogs were unleashed, ran across the street and, seemingly unprovoked, charged at Kulas, according to the investigation. Lugo was able to prove that all three of her dogs vaccinations were up to date, but none of the dogs had been registered with the Village of Mount Pleasant. Lugo was given at least six citations on the spot and Coco was subsequently declared vicious pursuant to the Mount Pleasant Municipal Code of Ordinances thereupon prohibiting Coco from leaving Lugos premises without being muzzled and leashed. A hearing on the citations is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 12. After Coco bit Willems and Kulas, neighbors said it was unacceptable for Coco to be allowed to remain in the home, since they said Lugos dogs get out of the house often, despite more than a dozen police calls and complaints dating back more than a year prior to Aug. 31. The reports included allegations that Lugos dogs were running through neighbors yards unleashed, appearing to charge at people and defecating throughout the neighborhood. Im afraid to go outside Dozens of neighborhood residents showed up at a Sept. 12 Village Board meeting to elevate the issue. We are all living in fear, said Kelly Gallaher, a frequent critic of village government through her A Better Mt. Pleasant social media pages at the meeting; she led much of the community response to the dog attacks. Im afraid to go outside, added Carol Cameron. Im 75 years old. And these dogs have chased me up my own driveway. We all feel unsafe. We want to prevent another incident from happening. The owner doesnt care, said Jim Lang. Ive personally called the police numerous times and often the officers seem just as frustrated. What are we supposed to do? Those dogs are still there and so are we. Im not scared of dogs, but now I am, after I saw them maul my 78-year-old mother, Suzanne Kulas said Sept. 12, fighting back tears. I hear those dogs barking to this day. I cringe. I cry. That was the worst day of my life, to see your mother being attacked. And Jenny (Willems) if it wasnt for her, it would have been so much worse. She came in like a hero. On Sept. 26, Gallaher again went before the Village Board and submitted a petition signed by 60 people, demanding an amendment to the villages existing animal ordinances and proposing it correlate more closely with the neighboring City of Racines and the Village of Sturtevants. In Racine, unlicensed animals can be seized by police and impounded at the owners expense until proof of licensing is presented. The laws Mount Pleasant have on the books currently are relatively vague, not strictly enforced, and officers largely are not aware of them. Body camera footage shows Officer Smith, upon responding to the Aug. 31 attack, at one point asking another officer What all does the village do with these? No matter what, were going to have to send this to the village but who do we even send it to? After a first offense in Racine, at-large animals can be microchipped by authorities at the owners expense, can be neutered or spayed at the owners expense for a second offense, and the police chief can declare an animal to be vicious and required to be removed from the city limits. Those actions are not currently allowed in Mount Pleasant, but could be soon if a proposed legal change is approved by the Village Board. Gallaher told the Village Board Sept. 26, and in a later letter to village officials, it would only be a matter of time until Lugos dogs would get loose and possibly attack again. She was right. On Oct. 1, Coco did get loose again. Police were called again following a report of the pit corso chasing a man. Again, Coco was not immediately removed from the neighborhood. Mount Pleasant does have a law on the books that allows police to take and euthanize an animal deemed vicious and/or if it has bitten someone, but it hasnt been enforced. In an email addressed to Mount Pleasant Police Chief Matt Soens and Village Attorney Christopher Smith, Gallaher wrote, When Coco escaped and terrorized our neighborhood on Saturday, Oct. 1, the police were called. Imagine our surprise to learn this morning Oct. 4; a full two days after Coco got loose again Coco was still at home: not impounded or seized. A representative in Chief Soens office told me when I called today that the village was exploring the legal options to remove Coco. Later that day, Coco was taken from Lugos home, Chris Smith told Gallaher in an Oct. 5 letter. In that letter, the attorney wrote, On Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022, Mount Pleasant police were called because Coco was running at large, unmuzzled. Due to that violation, Coco became subject to seizure pursuant to Section 10-6(b)(1) of the municipal code. On Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022, Coco was seized and is now in the custody of the Wisconsin Humane Society, Chris Smith wrote. Additionally, Angelica Lugo was issued another citation for that incident. Coco can live, if owner enters unusual agreement Chris Smith further explained that a court date had been set for Oct. 17 to determine whether Coco should be euthanized. The attorney said that he believes the village does not have cause to remove any additional dogs from Lugos residence. But, he is trying to get Lugo to enter into an agreement to have all the dogs removed from the home. With the potential of thousands of dollars in fines hanging over her head, Chris Smith said he hopes Lugo will agree to relinquish ownership of all dogs and in an incredibly rare legal move to give up the right to own dogs on her property forever. In exchange, Lugo would receive an unspecified reduction in the amount of forfeitures currently pending and the village would give up its petition seeking to have Coco put down. On Monday, Oct. 10, the Village Board is expected to consider a revised vicious dog ordinance. That proposal includes: Giving police officers the power to seize and impound any animal found running at large. Impounded animals can be euthanized that poses an imminent threat to the health or safety of itself or any other person or animal. There is no definition for imminent threat in village ordinances. An animal deemed vicious but not euthanized must be leashed and muzzled whenever it is outdoors or not locked within a kennel of some sort. Any animal deemed vicious must be microchipped and the owner must be insured in an amount not less than one-million dollars for any personal injuries inflicted by the dangerous dog. Would require the owner of an animal that bites a person or animal while at large to pay a fine of $200-$2,500. Some doctors believe COVID-19 restrictions that kept many people at home over the last two years reduced the number of flu cases. However, many countries have removed pandemic restrictions. Now, cold weather is coming to the northern half of the world, and doctors think the upcoming winter may bring a bad flu season. Flu, short for influenza, causes millions of infections in the U.S. each year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the number has been as low as 9 million and as high as 40 million depending on recent years. Doctors in the U.S. expect to give out about 180 million flu shots this year. They are asking seniors, or people older than 65, to get a special, stronger flu shot if it is available where they live. Flu shots are recommended in the U.S. for people starting at six months of age. Richard Webby is a doctor who centers his work on the flu at the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He said older people should ask for the kind of shot that is right for their age group. He said three of the shots available this year work better for older people. Younger people have choices, too. There are versions of the flu vaccine that work for people who are allergic to eggs and those who do not like injections. Strong flu season ahead Another flu expert is Dr. Andrew Pekosz of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland. He said Australia recently had its worst flu season in five years. Pekosz said what happens in the southern half of the world can help predict what will happen in the northern half of the world. He said a strong flu is dangerous for young children who have never gotten the virus before. Jason Newland is a childrens doctor who works on infectious diseases at Washington University in St. Louis in the state of Missouri. He said doctors are already treating children for infections like flu that affect the lungs. He said, we will see a true influenza season like we saw before the pandemic. The doctors said one reason for increased infections is that most people are no longer wearing face coverings. During the main part of the COVID-19 pandemic, they did. The CDC said people should get a flu vaccine by the end of October. But the agency said the shot can still be effective later in the year. Current vaccines take longer to make because scientists must grow the virus that will be used in the vaccine in a laboratory. Sometimes, the version of flu will change, or mutate. That means the vaccine become less effective. Future vaccines Companies that made the vaccines for COVID-19 are now working on flu vaccines. That makes medical observers hopeful that doctors will be able to contain the flu more easily each year. The mRNA vaccine technology, which is used by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, is currently being tested for flu. If the tests are successful, scientists believe the mRNA vaccines will be able to be changed quickly if the flu virus changes. Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on a report by The Associated Press. ________________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story shot n. injecting a medicine or vaccine into the body using a needle allergic adj. related to a condition caused by a strong reaction to some substance which includes swelling or breathing problems ________________________________________________________________________ We want to hear from you. Do you think you will get a flu shot this year? 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. Billionaire businessman Elon Musk recently confirmed he is still interested in buying the social media service Twitter. The move came after Musk withdrew an earlier offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion. In a recent tweet on the subject, Musk wrote: Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app. Musk did not provide details on his brief statement. The tweet has led many people to question what he meant by the everything app. Reuters reporter Sheila Dang sought to explain what kind of app this might be. She noted that everything apps, often called "super apps," have become very popular in Asia. Because of this success, technology companies across the world have tried to copy the idea. What is a super app? A super app, or what Musk calls an "everything app," has been described as one that offers a series of services for users. This could include messaging, social networking, direct payment services and online shopping. Scott Galloway is a New York University professor of marketing and co-presenter of the technology podcast Pivot. He said last year that so-called mega apps are widely used in Asia because mobile devices are the main way people get on the internet. What are some examples of super apps? One industry estimate shows that Chinese super app WeChat has more than 1 billion monthly users and is a huge part of daily life in China. People can use the app to call up a ride-share or taxi, send money to friends and family or make payments at stores. In 2018, some Chinese cities began testing WeChat for an electronic identification system that would be linked to users' accounts, the South China Morning Post reported. Another leading super app across Southeast Asia is called Grab. It offers food delivery, ride-sharing, on-demand package delivery, financial services and investing. Why does Elon Musk want to make a super app? During a question-and-answer event with Twitter employees in June, Musk noted that there is nothing like a super app like WeChat outside of Asia. "You basically live on WeChat in China," he said, adding that he saw a chance to create such an app. Adding more tools and services to Twitter could also help Musk reach his high growth goals for the company. During his meeting with employees, Musk said he wanted Twitter to grow from its 237 million users to "at least a billion." Some of Musk's phone records were released during his legal disputes with Twitter over buying the company. The records showed that people close to the billionaire had repeatedly texted about the idea of adding digital payments to Twitter. Have other U.S. tech companies tried this? The parent of messaging app Snapchat, Snap Inc., introduced in the past a direct payment system called Snapcash. But the company ended the service in 2018. Snap also expanded into mobile gaming, but recently ended that offering as part of a cost-cutting plan. Metas Facebook and Instagram services have also tried to expand beyond social networking and messaging into online selling activities. Im Bryan Lynn. Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from Reuters and The Associated Press. _________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story accelerant n. something that makes something move faster app n. a computer program that performs a special function, usually found on mobile phones deliver v. to transport goods from one place to another _____________________________________________________________________ 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. Each food product in the United States must show a "best before" date on its container. The goal of placing the date on food is to tell the buyer when the food will be at its freshest. Some people call the date the expiration date. Many people believe it is unsafe to use the product after that date. But some observers say "best before" labels have nothing to do with safety. They worry that the information will lead consumers to throw away food that is good to eat. People around the world are thinking about ways to prevent wasting food. They think that best before labels are one cause of waste. Patty Apple is a manager at Food Shift in Alameda, California. It is a nonprofit group that collects and uses expired or bad looking foods. "They read these dates and then they believe that it's bad, they can't eat it when these dates don't actually mean that they're not edible or they're not still nutritious or tasty," she said. Some food sellers in Britain recently removed "best before" labels from prepackaged fruit and vegetables. The European Union may soon announce changes to its labeling laws. It may even end the requirement to include a date. In the U.S., there is no similar effort to do away with "best before" labels. But there is a movement to make changes to labels that will help educate buyers about when food can be eaten. Some big food store owners and food companies are pushing for the U.S. Congress to pass new laws on the subject. Dana Gunders is executive director of ReFED. It is a nonprofit group in New York state that studies food waste. Gunders said the level of support for the new laws is growing. Wasted energy ReFED says as much as 35 percent of available food goes uneaten in the United States. That adds up to a lot of wasted energy. The waste includes the water, land and labor that goes into the food production. The group says it also means more greenhouse gases coming from landfills, where people bury waste. But ReFED estimates that seven percent of U.S. food waste comes from peoples misunderstanding of best before labels. That percentage is equal to about 3.6 million tons each year. Date labels first appeared in the 1970s but there are no federal rules controlling them. The food producers themselves decide when they believe their products will taste best. Only baby formula must have a "use by" date in the United States. Since 2019, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended that producers use the label "best if used by" for freshness. The FDA recommends "use by" for perishable goods, based on opinion studies showing that consumers understand those expressions. Good for years Richard Lipsit owns a store called Grocery Outlet in Pleasanton, California, that specializes in low-priced food. He said milk can be safely used up to a week after its "use by" date. And you can safely eat canned goods and many other packaged foods for years after their "best before" date. The FDA says people should look for changes in color, thickness, or feel to learn if foods are all right to eat. "Our bodies are very well equipped to recognize the signs of decay, when food is past its edible point," Gunders said. "We've lost trust in those senses and we've replaced it with trust in these dates." Clearer labeling and donation rules could help groups like Food Shift. The group trains cooks using outdated food. If new laws are approved in Congress, food could be donated to food rescue organizations even after its quality date has passed. Food rescue describes efforts to find uses for outdated food. Currently, the Associated Press says at least 20 states ban the sale or donation of food after its quality date has passed. Im Jill Robbins. Dee-Ann Durbin reported on this story for the Associated Press. Jill Robbins adapted it for Learning English. _____________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story label n. a piece of paper stuck to containers that tell about the product inside customer n. a person who buys goods or services edible adj. safe to eat and not poisonous. prepackaged adj. something that has been put in a package for sale and usually has been prepared for use upon opening formula n. a food for babies that is similar to mothers milk perishable adj. something, esp. a food, likely to spoil or deteriorate confusion n. a situation in which people are uncertain about what to do or unable to understand something consumer n. a person who buys a product to use it for themselves canned adj. put in a metal container decay n. rot that is a result of bacterial, fungal, or chemical action _______________________________________________________________________ What do you think of this story? 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 a 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. Financial messaging system SWIFT has released plans for a worldwide central bank digital currency (CBDC) network. The plan is the result of eight months of tests using different technologies and currencies. SWIFTs tests looked at how CBDCs could be used internationally and changed into traditional money if needed. For the last month, the trial has involved France and Germanys central banks and international banks like HSBC, Standard Chartered and UBS. Around 90 percent of the worlds central banks are now using, testing, or studying CBDCs. Reuters reports that they are struggling with its technological complexities. Nick Kerigan is SWIFTs head of innovation. He described SWIFTs plan as a bicycle wheel in which 14 central and business banks are connected to a central point, its main hub. The tests will be followed by additional testing over the next year. The idea is that once the plan is in place, banks may need only one main international connection rather than thousands of connections with each partner Kerigan said, We believe that the number of connections needed is much fewer. He said this would likely mean that there will be fewer breaks in the chain and that it will likely be more efficient. However, CBDCs have also raised concerns about privacy and central control of private financial dealings. SWIFTs trial also tested a group of different CBDC technologies known as Distributed Ledger Technologies. But, the use of many different technologies presents a barrier to quickly putting the plan into effect around the world. A separated trial was carried out with financial companies Citi, Clearstream and Northern Trust. It involved tokenization. Tokenization is a measure used to secure sensitive information. The test aimed to use digital tokens to trade property like stocks and bonds. Some countries such as the Bahamas and Nigeria say they already have CBDCs. China has been developing a digital currency called the e-yuan. And Reuters says the Bank for International Settlements has also been running cross-border trails. SWIFT says it is in a good position because it has an existing network used in over 200 countries and connects more than 11,500 banks and funds. SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative group based in Belgium. It gained attention after it cut most of Russias banks from its network to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. Kerigan said a new CBDC system could also bar countries from taking part in it. But he did not know whether it would stop countries from joining one. He said most central banks want to provide CBDC for the people, the businesses, and the organizations in their areas. He added, So a solution that's fast and efficient and that gains access to as many other countries as possible would seem to be an attractive one. Im Gregory Stachel. Marc Jones reported this story for Reuters. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English. _______________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story digital adj. using or characterized by computer technology currency n. the money that a country uses innovation n. the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods chain n. a series or group of things or people that are connected to each other in some way efficient adj. capable of producing desired results without wasting materials, time, or energy fund (mutual fund) n. an investment that contains many different kinds of securities that is supervised by financial experts access n. a way of being able to use or get something attractive adj. having a feature or quality that people like _______________________________________________________________________ What do you think of the use of digital currencies? 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. Demo day had firefighters nostalgic, and racing around to find some hidden treasures before the building came down. Authorities say a border bridge connecting the U.S. and Mexico near Brownsville, Texas has been closed temporarily. The U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros, Mexico, said on social media Friday that the Gateway Bridge between Matamoros and neighboring Brownsville on the U.S. side of the border was closed Friday because of a protest. Authorities didn't elaborate on the nature of the protest or how many people were involved. U.S. citizens were being urged to avoid the area, notify friends and family of their safety and monitor the media for additional information. The border bridge is about 480 miles south of Dallas in southern Texas. DOH Leon Marks National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October October 11, 2022 DOH-LEON PROMOTES EARLY DETECTION AND TREATMENT TO FIGHT BREAST CANCER Tallahassee, Fla. The Florida Department of Health in Leon County (DOH-Leon) joins the American Cancer Society in recognizing National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. DOH Leon encourages all women to receive regular screenings to promote early detection and treatment of breast cancer. Aside from non-melanoma skin cancers, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Over the last decade, survival rates have increased, however, early detection continues to be critically important. According to the American Cancer Society, it is estimated that more than 43,000 people this year will die from breast cancer in the U.S., with an estimated 281,550 new cases of invasive breast cancer being diagnosed. According to Florida Health Charts, in Leon County, the incidence rate for breast cancer was 123 per 100,000 women for 2019. "This month serves as a crucial reminder to spread awareness and encourage our loved ones to schedule routine mammograms as well as personal breast exams, said Brandi Knight, MPH, DOH Leon Health Administrator. We know that one in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime and that early detection is key. While we recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, our efforts to increase awareness and support for fighters and survivors continues year-round." Some of the warning signs and symptoms of breast cancer are: New lump in the breast or underarm (armpit) Thickening or swelling of part of the breast Irritation or dimpling of breast skin Redness or flaky skin in the nipple area or the breast Pulling in of the nipple Nipple discharge other than breast milk, including blood Any change in the size or shape of the breast Pain in the breast These symptoms can happen with other conditions that are not cancer. If you notice any of these symptoms, talk to your health care provider right away. DOH Leon will be working especially hard during the month of October to call attention to this deadly disease, with a focus on the importance of early detection. The Florida Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (FBCCEDP) provides access to the breast and cervical cancer screenings doctors recommend. The screenings are free or low cost for women who meet program eligibility requirements. Individuals can call DOH-Leon at 850-404-6404 to learn more about this program or call the American Cancer Society National Hotline at 1-800-227-2345. Additionally, DOH Leon is joining dedicated healthcare partners for several events to help educate and empower women during breast cancer awareness month. They include: Leon County Board of County Commissioners Present a Proclamation Commemorating Breast Cancer Awareness Month October 11, 2022County Commission ChambersCounty Courthouse, 301 S. Monroe Street Tallahassee, FL 323013:00 p.m.DOH Leons Health Officer will receive the proclamation. Conversations on Breast Health and Community Resources October 21, 2022Neighborhood Medical Center3013 Jim Lee Road Tallahassee, FL 323019:00 am 1:00 pmOne-on-One InteractionsInformation on free/low-cost Breast Cancer Screening ProgramScheduling Assistance and Transportation SupportGiveaways Breast Cancer Awareness Health Fair October 25, 2022Bond Community Health Center1720 S Gadsden St, Tallahassee, FL 323018:00 am 1:00 pmFree or Low-Cost Screening for patientsTech Care X-Ray on-site for scheduled patientsBlood Pressure ScreeningEducational InformationGiveaways For additional information and guidance on breast cancer, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. ### About the Florida Department of Health The Department, nationally accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board, works to protect, promote, and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county, and community efforts. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @HealthyFla. For more information about the Florida Department of Health please visit www.FloridaHealth.gov. Pamela Saulsby | Public Information OfficerFollow DOH Leon on Twitter @Healthyleonfl CHI Health's Nebraska hospitals are continuing to experience problems from a cyberattack on their parent company in the past week. Taylor Miller, a spokeswoman for CHI Health, said its parent company, CommonSpirit Health, was forced to take some of its systems offline after an unspecified "IT issue." That has led to impacts at some of its facilities, Miller said. "We continue to provide patient care and our clinics and hospitals remain open," she said in an emailed statement. "We have, however, made some temporary adjustments, including rescheduling or delaying certain appointments or procedures on a case-by-case basis." It's not clear if Lincoln's two CHI Health hospitals, St. Elizabeth and Nebraska Heart, are being affected and to what extent. CHI Health also runs a number of clinics in Lincoln, and it's not clear how they are being affected. WOWT reported last week that an Omaha man showed up to CHI Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy for his colonoscopy appointment only to be told all appointments had been canceled. Other media reports indicate canceled appointments and other issues at CommonSpirit hospitals in a number of states. Miller encouraged people with upcoming appointments to call their provider's office to ensure schedules haven't changed. She said there might be increased wait times at hospitals and clinics. "We are working to resolve the issues as soon as possible," Miller said in the statement. "We are grateful to our staff and physicians, who are doing everything possible to minimize the impact to our patients. "We take our responsibility to our patients very seriously and apologize for any inconvenience," she said. LEXINGTON Fire weather concerns are once again in the forecast for later this week due to the ongoing drought conditions and several days of low humidity and higher wind gusts. The stagnant weather pattern of the summer, dominated by high pressure systems in the southwest United States, is now giving way to the more active fall pattern. There will be a number of cold fronts passing through the region in the coming days. With those fronts, comes a transition and increase in the wind speed. Both Wednesday and Thursday will see widespread wind gusts of 25 to 35 mph, with some reaching as high as 40 to 45 mph, according to the National Weather Service Hastings. These gusts could be combined with relative humidity values around 20 to 25 percent that could lead to near-critical fire danger days, but conditions could deteriorate to Red Flag days according to NWS Hastings. During a Red Flag warning the public is advised to be extremely careful with open flames. NWS issues a Red Flag Warning, in conjunction with land management agencies, to alert land managers to an ongoing or imminent critical fire weather pattern. NWS issues a Red Flag Warning when fire conditions are ongoing or expected to occur shortly. Underlying these possible fire weather days is the ongoing drought throughout the local area and Nebraska as a whole. Dawson County and the eastern half of Gosper County continue to remain under severe drought, D2, conditions, as they have for the past several months. The western slice of Gosper County was upgraded to moderate drought, D1, conditions after rainfall helped improve conditions in September. There was a small sliver of one category degradation running north to south through Gosper County, from D1 to D2 conditions. From Sept. 27 to Oct. 4, for a vast majority of the NWS Hastings coverage area, it was a very dry week with rainfall ranging between none and perhaps 0.05. However, the local area picked up slightly greater amounts of 0.05 to 0.30 inches prior to the 7 a.m. Tuesday data cutoff, per NWS Hastings. The Lexington area saw some of the most rainfall in the NWS Hastings area in September, with a total of 3.96 inches. Looking at the state, there are swaths of exceptional drought, D4, conditions in the northeast and southwest areas of the state. The overall coverage of this most severe drought condition increased from 10 percent to 11 percent this week. Currently there is 31 percent of the state under D3 or D4 conditions, while 76 percent is under D2-D3 conditions. All of Nebraska is under some type of drought condition. Soil moisture, and crop conditions support a 1-category degradation for southern South Dakota, southwestern Nebraska, and parts of Kansas, the U.S. Drought Monitor stated. "The fall climate outlook is calling for an increased chance for warmer- and drier-than-normal conditions," Martha Durr, Nebraska State Climatologist, told the Lincoln Journal Star. After that, she said, odds appear to be 50-50 for whether winter will be drier or wetter than normal. The U.S. is expected to experience La Nina conditions for the third straight year. That typically means warmer and drier summers in Nebraska, Durr said, which is what has occurred the past two summers. Given the likelihood of a warm and dry fall and the fact that winter months are typically the driest of the year, "drought conditions are expected to remain or degrade in the coming months," Durr said. The drought has already wreaked havoc across the state this year, cutting crop yields, forcing ranchers to sell cattle herds early and sparking numerous wildfires, the most recent of which destroyed the Nebraska State 4-H Camp at the Nebraska State Forest near Halsey. The National Weather Service in a drought report on Thursday listed other drought-related agriculture impacts, including more than 80 percent of both topsoil and subsoil being short of moisture and 80 percent of pasture and range land rated as poor or very poor. The lack of rain also has led to declining lake and river levels. The Platte River dried up completely in parts of central Nebraska and flows at Ashland, where Lincoln draws its drinking water, dropped from around 10,000 cubic feet per second in May to less than 1,000 in early September before rebounding to around 1,800 cubic feet per second in the past week. The Weather Service also reported that the Big Nemaha and Big Blue rivers, the North Fork of the Elkhorn River and Turkey Creek have been especially dry over the second half of the summer months. Farther west, Lake McConaughy was at 37.6 percent of its capacity as of Monday, according to a news release from the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District. That's down from about 57 percent capacity at this time last year and is actually lower than during the drought of 2012 and 2013, but it's nowhere near the all-time low of 20 percent in September 2004. The effects on Lake McConaughy could be seen from space. The NWS North Platte posted a weather satellite photo that showed the low water levels exposing more of the white sandy shoreline around the body of water. Despite those conditions, there have been few, if any, water restrictions. Omaha's Metropolitan Utilities District has asked people to only water lawns on alternating days, and the city of Hickman instituted a 10-day voluntary water restriction last month. Durr said water conservation is always a good thing, even when there is no drought, but she said those efforts may not be sufficient if the drought continues. "Certainly, the longer we remain in a precipitation deficit, the more likely we will be to have restrictions put into place," she said. Droughts are among the most costly weather-related events. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the U.S. has sustained 265 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 265 events exceeds $1.775 trillion, per the NWS. The U.S. Drought Monitor is a multi-agency effort involving NOAAs National Weather Service and National Centers for Environmental Information, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), state and regional center climatologists and the National Drought Mitigation Center. Information for this statement has been gathered from NWS and FAA observation sites, cooperative and volunteer observations, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other sources. LEXINGTON The Pride of the Minuteman Marching Band competed at the Elkhorn Sounds of Excellence Marching Invitational and earned first place in Class A and third place overall on Saturday, Oct. 8. For the Pride of the Minuteman Marching Band, it is their second time attending the Elkhorn event. In the past the first competition for the band had been the Links Marching Contest at Lincoln High School. The Elkhorn Sounds of Excellence is a joint effort of the high Schools in the Elkhorn Public Schools district. It is meant as a celebration of high achievement in marching band and an opportunity for bands to receive valuable insights in the week before the Nebraska State Marching event, according to the Midwest Marching website. The competition at the event was stout, Lexington was one of the Class A bands, while there were several Class AA bands, including several from Lincoln and Omaha. The band this year numbers around 185 members. Another distinguishing factor for Lexington, they march all of their students from every grade level. Some of the larger bands have separate ensembles for their freshmen, who dont march with the sophomores, juniors and seniors. Lexington started off with a preliminary performance in the afternoon, with the chance to perform in the finals later in the evening if they did well enough. Lexington was able to make it to the final round of performances during the evening, performing under the lights for the finals. The band received a superior rating at both prelims and finals. I was excited for the band when they announced the finals list, said LHS band director Sarah Ernst, We felt very proud of all the hard work they'd done, and I was very impressed with the band to see them step up and perform. When asked about the comments from the judges, Ernst said, All of the judges comments were very helpful and attainable goals for the rest of our season. One comment that stood out to me was for our lovely vocal soloist. The percussion judge was amazed by her talent and even thought it was a sample patch, Ernst said, I also would like to give attention to our two tuba players, they received a few compliments from the judges on our strong tuba sound. In practice this week the band directors plan to look at several small details that the students can fix. Ernst also said they will work to clean up the drill and make the adjustments that were mentioned in the judges tapes. When asked if they would add anything to the show after their first performance, Ernst said they may add a visual or two at the end of the show for added effect. The band will now take this week to prepare for the Lincoln Public Schools Marching Band Invitational, hosted at Seacrest Field on Saturday, Oct. 15. The band will perform at 2:15 p.m., with awards being announced at 6:30 p.m. The last competition the band will perform in this year will be in the Nebraska State Bandmasters Association State Marching Contest at the west festival site at Kearney High School on Saturday, Oct. 22. The marching band is performing Thrones, this year, a four movement show visually and musically inspired by Game of Thrones, the HBO epic, based on the novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, written by George R.R. Martin. The show was composed by Michael Pote and features an innovative percussion book designed by David Reeves, it also features Funeral Music for Queen Mary and When I am Laid in Earth by Purcell in different movements. The first movement will feature the introduction of the Queen, which is a chosen member of the color guard. The second movement is percussive and aggressive, meant to symbolize conflict or battle, according to the show notes. The third movement is slower and will feature a flute solo and likely be a moment for a color guard feature. The last movement has a sweeping and triumphant sound to close out the show. EatStreet, the Madison-based online food-ordering company, abruptly closed HungerHub, a commercial kitchen and grocery concept it started late last year with three Madison hubs. HungerHubs main outlet was at 422 State St., in Forkful Market by EatStreet, with others on Whitney Way on the West Side, and Pflaum Road on the East Side. Shanna Pacifico, HungerHubs former director of operations, confirmed that HungerHub closed. They shut them down on Friday, she said Monday, not wanting to answer other questions about the closure. Its just a very difficult time right now. Pacifico said she doesnt know what shell do now. It all just happened very quickly and Im not sure yet. EatStreet CEO Matt Howard didnt respond to emails Monday and Tuesday. HungerHub ran three EatStreet ghost kitchens, or commercial spaces where food is designed for delivery. The concept took off nationally during the pandemic. In August 2020, EatStreet started Taco Royale and Midcoast Wings, ghost kitchens in collaboration with The Great Dane Pub and Brewing Company. With HungerHub, EatStreet added three more: Papa di Parma, for old country Italian classics; Boxcar Birria Tacos (take your taco obsession to the next level); and Clover Grains + Greens, a healthy bowls-and-salads concept. Food from Taco Royale and Midcoast Wings is still available through EatStreet, but the HungerHub ghost kitchens are no longer operating. A customer service representative with EatStreet said Forkful Market is also closed. The convenience store had a pick-up window but was mainly geared toward delivery of a small number of grocery essentials. HungerHub had about 20 employees a year ago, and intended to increase to 35 or 40 as the business grew. Howard co-founded what is now EatStreet in 2010. Headquartered at 316 W. Washington Ave., the company serves about 250 cities and 15,000 restaurants. Turkish Kitchen on Madisons West Side reopened Oct. 6 after it was closed for about three weeks for a kitchen expansion. Huseyin Gurhan Cokugurluel, 44, opened the restaurant at 749 S. Gammon Road, in late 2019, then got sidelined in mid-March 2020 by COVID-19 before reopening in January 2021. With the kitchen remodel, he can provide a larger menu. But more than serving delicious food, Cokugurluel said, Turkish Kitchen is about making people happy. In Turkey, hospitality is the most important thing, he said. We have to be extremely polite. If they leave here with a big smile on their face, thats most important. Thats a big, big reward to me. Cokugurluel, who goes by Gurhan, brought his identical twin brother, Mustafa Korhan Cokugurluel, to Madison to work in the restaurant and own it with him. Mustafa, who goes by Korhan, said his wife, Olga, who is from Ukraine, works in the restaurant with them. She helps a lot, Korhan said. She learned many things from my mother because they lived together for 10 years. She really knows about Turkish food. Gurhan Cokugurluel said he and his brother got COVID-19 early in the pandemic and had to close the shop. We were just paying the rent and having a really bad time, he said. He said he created his restaurant from zero in what had been a Taekwondo business. Cokugurluel came to Madison in 1998 after he met a young woman from Madison who came to his hometown of Adana, a major city in southern Turkey, on a student exchange program. They dated for two years, partially long distance, then moved to Madison together when he was 20. Madison is a very beautiful city, Cokugurluel said. He studied English and marketing at a community college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because he didnt need to take an exam to get in. He lived there for a year and a half. Cokugurluel hadnt previously worked in restaurants but said cooking is something hes passionate about and has done since childhood. Before opening the restaurant, he worked for 10 years at Smart Motors as a salesman and sales manager. At Turkish Kitchen, Cokugurluel sells five types of kebabs, including the Adana kebab, named after his hometown. Its minced beef and lamb on a wider skewer than on shish kabobs. He also offers shawarma, with meat served in thin slices. With the grilled items, he was doing mostly takeout, but he has added tables and is now up to 10 with 24 seats and is looking to double that. Cokugurluel has also added a steam table and offers five rice dishes and fish that he can serve quickly. Turkish Ottoman cuisine is very unique, very old. There are hundreds of different dishes. So we will bring in several of them here. The restaurant also serves hummus, baba ganoush, ajvar (a grilled eggplant and grilled red pepper spread) and cacik, a Turkish yogurt sauce. Cokugurluel said he loves to see the reaction on customers faces when they taste his freshly made ajvar and other dishes. Its the most crucial thing because people 5 years old to 100 years old, it doesnt matter people know the good, delicious food. And if someone wants extra rice or salad, he said he doesnt charge them. In Turkey, its like, Hey, can I get a little bit more salad? No problem. We just want you to be full. Thats all. You dont have to spend fortune. Turkish Kitchen is halal, and Islamic law prohibits alcohol, so none is served at the restaurant. Cokugurluel said he sees customers of all nationalities. Everybodys culture is different. And we respect them, everybody equally. And people see that respect. TUESDAY, Oct. 11, 2022 (American Heart Association News) -- It started with the ultrasounds. Every time Anita Naglieri had one, her OB-GYN said she could only see half her baby's heart. "Don't worry," the doctor told her. "It's probably just the way the baby's positioned." But this pregnancy her fourth felt different. By 34 weeks, her doctor still couldn't see the baby's whole heart. So she sent Anita to a hospital with more sophisticated ultrasound. Now the picture became clear. "Your daughter's quite the anomaly," a doctor told Anita. There were problems with her heart. And a problem with her spine. She had no tail bone. And no nerves at the bottom of her spine. Anita had more tests, including a fetal echocardiogram, to get an even closer look at the baby's heart. The tests revealed so many problems that doctors decided the best chance to save the baby's life would be to induce her birth so they could begin repairing them. Anita and her husband, Michael, gave the baby a name: Karlee Rose. It blended Anita's desire for something unique with Michael's desire to honor his Italian grandmother, Rosie. At 36 weeks, Karlee Rose entered the world and went straight to the neonatal ICU. Her parents weren't allowed to hold her before she left. She wouldn't even be in the same hospital. Only then did Anita and Michael learn just how unique their little girl was. Karlee Rose had rare congenital heart defects involving the right side of her heart, including a narrowing in the pulmonary valve in the artery connecting her heart to her lungs. This meant her heart couldn't send enough blood to her lungs. Two days later, Karlee Rose underwent a heart catheterization procedure. Doctors needed to open her narrowed pulmonary valve. But this was only the first of several corrective procedures she'd need. A NICU nurse told Anita that she had seen babies with a lot less wrong never make it out of the NICU. That was 11 years ago. Today, Karlee Rose is a competitive dancer. She can do almost anything other 11-year-old girls can do, though she's smaller than the other children and tires easily after competitions. That she can dance at all hinges on the performance of an artificial pulmonary valve that doctors implanted at age 2. The valve, which won't last forever, allows blood to flow more easily from her heart to her lungs. As she grows, it will eventually need to be replaced, probably more than once. But her cardiologist, Dr. Amanda Cook, said she has an "excellent prognosis." "All four chambers of her heart are a normal size now and have normal function," Cook said. She sees Karlee Rose, who lives in Linwood, North Carolina, twice a year to monitor her heart function. But their relationship goes much deeper. Outside the office, Cook follows Karlee Rose's accomplishments through Anita's social media. "I've known this family for 12 years," Cook said. "I have followed Karlee Rose since she was a fetus." The two share a mutual admiration. In fact, Karlee Rose looks up to Cook so much that she wants to be her. Whenever there's a career day at school, Karlee Rose hangs a stethoscope around her neck and pulls her hair back to look like Cook. "I want to be a cardiologist, just like mine," she said. "I want to help people." She also wants to dance. Dancing makes Karlee Rose feel free free from worrying about her heart, from the threat of the migraines that can plague her, from having to sit out some outdoor activities when she gets too heated. "I've been dancing since I was 4," she said. "I do it everywhere. Even if I'm not with my dance group. I dance in my living room. I dance from my bedroom to the bathroom." But Anita never stops worrying about her daughter. Even when Karlee Rose insists it's not necessary. "When we go to the cardiologist, she knows I worry and she will say, 'Mommy, it's OK. It's going to be just fine.'" American Heart Association News covers heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved. If you have questions or comments about this story, please email editor@heart.org. By Laura Williamson, American Heart Association News TUESDAY, Oct. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A ransomware attack at one of the country's largest hospital chains disrupted care at hospitals from Seattle to Tennessee last week. The attack on CommonSpirit Health, the fourth-largest U.S. health system with 140 hospitals, led to delays in surgeries, patient care, and appointments. The Chicago-based company did not share information about how many hospitals were affected but said last week it had experienced "an IT security issue." Someone familiar with efforts to fix the IT issue said it was a ransomware attack, NBC News reported. CHI Memorial Hospital in Tennessee, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle, and some St. Luke's hospitals in Texas said they were affected. Ransomware attacks have been common for more than two years. In some instances when these attacks happen, doctors and nurses cannot access patient records to recommend appropriate care. At least 15 health care companies representing 61 hospitals have had ransomware attacks so far this year, Brett Callow, an analyst at Emsisoft, a cybersecurity company that specializes in ransomware, told NBC News. A Texas woman said that she and her husband had arrived at a CommonSpirit-affiliated hospital on Wednesday for a long-scheduled major surgery. Her husband's doctor recommended delaying the procedure until the hospital could resolve its technical issues. The surgeon "told me it could potentially delay post-op care, and he didn't want to risk it," the women, who did not want to use her name to protect her husband's medical privacy, told NBC News. A federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency report revealed death rates are higher after a ransomware attack at a hospital because it stresses its capabilities. Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas will retire from the bench in December, Colas wrote in a letter to Gov. Tony Evers on Monday. In the letter, Colas, 65, who has served Branch 10 since 2008, when he was appointed by then-Gov. Jim Doyle, said he has decided to retire, adding that for personal reasons it is best to do so this year. I am grateful for the privilege Ive had of serving the people of the State and Dane County in this capacity for what will be nearly 15 years, Colas wrote to Evers. Colas was on vacation and not available for comment Tuesday. His retirement is effective Dec. 17. Evers will appoint a successor to Colas, who was re-elected in 2021 to a six-year term. Under state law, because the vacancy in Branch 10 will happen after Dec. 1 but before the next spring election, the person appointed by Evers would be required by state law to run for election in spring 2024 to retain the seat for a full term. Colas was a longtime state assistant attorney general when he was picked by Doyle to become Dane Countys first Hispanic circuit court judge. He succeeded Angela Bartell, who had retired. In his career, Colas had also served as an assistant public defender and legal counsel to former Gov. Tony Earl. Colas has lived in Madison since 1968. He was born to Spanish parents in Colombia and came to the U.S. in 1962 at age 5. His father, Antonio E. Colas, was a professor at UW-Madisons medical school. Colas graduated from Edgewood High School and received his bachelors and law degrees from UW-Madison. During his time on the bench, Colas has been assigned to hear civil cases and juvenile cases, and issued rulings on such issues as the 2011 Act 10 legislation that took away most collective bargaining rights from most public workers. Colas had ruled key parts of Act 10 were unconstitutional, a ruling later overturned by the state Supreme Court. More recently, in 2021, Colas ruled that the state Assembly must remove redactions in copies of records it provided to media organizations in the sexual harassment case involving former state Rep. Staush Gruszynski, D-Green Bay. The Assembly appealed the decision, and no ruling has been issued yet by a state appeals court. Colas is currently mulling whether to appoint a special prosecutor to decide if criminal charges should be filed in the 2015 police shooting death of Tony Robinson in Madison. A man who was released from jail in July on cash bail for an alleged sexual assault Downtown was charged Tuesday with an attempted sexual assault that was reported early on Oct. 2, also near the UW-Madison campus. A criminal complaint filed Tuesday charged Safwan E. Takar, 19, of Madison, with attempted second-degree sexual assault for the Oct. 2 incident in which a woman awoke in her apartment on North Park Street to find a stranger spooning her in her bed. The complaint states it appears someone had entered the womans apartment through a window, which was found to be slightly open and missing its screen. Takar was also charged with burglary and felony bail jumping. Takar was charged in June with second-degree sexual assault for an incident on Langdon Street early on June 3 when its alleged he met a woman in a Downtown bar, gave her a meandering ride in his car back to her apartment, then grabbed and groped her after she got out of his car and had begun to walk away, according to a criminal complaint in that case. A person who lives at the same Atticus Way apartment as Takar posted $5,000 bail to get Takar released from jail on July 7, according to court records. On Tuesday, Dane County Court Commissioner Mark Fremgen set cash bail for Takar at $15,000 for the attempted sexual assault case. While Fremgen agreed with Takars attorney, Mark Maciolek, that Takar had made all of his required court appearances, he said it was just as important for Takar to follow all the conditions imposed on him, not just show up for court. One condition always required of defendants is that they do not commit any new crimes. Maciolek said Takar is from Somalia and lives with his family in Madison. He had been a UW-Madison student, Maciolek said, but has since enrolled at Madison Area Technical College. June assault In the complaint for the earlier sexual assault case, a woman told police she was at a bar with friends and spoke off and on with a man who later offered to give her a ride home. After driving around for a while, he stopped in a driveway on Langdon Street, where the woman got out and said she would walk home. But as she started walking away, she told police, the man grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth and assaulted her. The woman still had the mans Snapchat profile on her phone screen which identified the man as Takar. A police officer also recognized Takar from security video at the bar as someone who had been a suspect in a burglary she investigated in January. Takar was charged in January with identity theft and criminal trespass for that case, in which Takar is alleged to have taken cash and a credit card from the dorm room of someone he knew. At the time of the June sexual assault incident, Takar was free on a signature bond in the identity theft case. Get out of here According to the criminal complaint in the attempted sexual assault case filed Tuesday: The woman told police that after finding Takar in her bed, she stood up and told him, I dont know who the (expletive) you are, get out of here. She said he mumbled something about his phone being dead. She said she led Takar down the stairs to the front door of her apartment, during which he claimed to be from Egypt, adding, Its different there. He also claimed he had met the woman at a bar, but she told police she hadnt been at a bar that night. Ring doorbell video footage from the apartment showed someone attempting to open the door around 3:50 a.m. After Takar was kicked out of the apartment around 4:20 a.m., according to the video, he returned around 4:55 a.m. and once again tried to get inside. He also returned around 5:05 a.m. The woman told police neither she nor her roommates knew Takar. But an officer recognized Takar from the June incident and said he had also seen Takar walking around Downtown on weekend nights. The woman told police on Oct. 5 that she had received a Snapchat story from a friend that showed a man who looked like the one who had been in her bed, though she was not completely certain it was him. But when she looked at Takars photo on his LinkedIn account, she told police, It was scary. It was to the T. The way he looks in that picture is exactly how he looked in my apartment. She added, If its not him, then he has to have a twin. Madison police are investigating after receiving multiple reports of a man entering unlocked apartments near the UW-Madison campus. Officers responded to The James apartment complex, 432 W. Gorham St., just before 2:45 p.m. Sunday, police spokesperson Ryan Kimberley said in a statement. One victim reported being sexually assaulted while the man was in their apartment, Kimberley said. Police describe the suspect as being a Black male in his late 20s approximately 6' tall with short dreads. Police ask that anyone with information on the incident contact them at 608-255-2345. Tipsters may remain anonymous by contacting Madison Area Crime Stoppers at 608-266-6014 or P3Tips.com. Individuals contacting Crime Stoppers can receive a reward of up to $1,000 for tips that lead to an arrest. Governance management of Vietnamese enterprises is still low: experts The management level of large enterprises in Vietnam is still very low, compared with countries such as Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, according to experts. CellMech International Vina Co, Ltd, in Vinh Phuc Province. Business development has not met expectations as the number of enterprises was unlikely to reach the set target of 1.5 million enterprises by 2025. Hoang Quang Phong, vice president of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said Vietnam would build an independent and self-reliant economy in the context of international integration, adding the Party has properly understood and appreciated the role of businesspeople in realising the goal of building an independent and self-reliant economy, especially in the current context of deep integration. Phong said such efforts helped the team of entrepreneurs and businesses to grow. By the end of 2021, Vietnam had nearly 860,000 enterprises in operation, about 15,300 non-agricultural cooperatives and about 5.1 million business households. Phong announced six local entrepreneurs had entered the top "dollar billionaires" globally in 2021 and 124 businesses with 283 products that are national brands, saying some brands resonate and affirm their brand value in regional and international markets such as Viettel, Vinamilk, VinFast, Thaco, TH True Milk and ST25 rice. From another angle, he said business development still faced many difficulties and has not met expectations as the number of enterprises was unlikely to reach the set target of 1.5 million enterprises by 2025 while the quality of enterprises in value chains and global production networks were still limited, and have not yet taken full advantage of the opportunities brought by FTAs. There are still some businesspeople who violate ethics, traditional culture and even the law, he told a seminar held by VCCI on September 27 aimed to improve competitiveness for the business community to develop and grow the local economy. It is necessary to build a team of Vietnamese entrepreneurs who are not only talented but also have business ethics and culture, thus contributing to making Vietnam a developing country by 2030, have modern industry, high average income; and become a high-income developed country by 2045 as said in the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress. Deputy Director of the Department of Enterprise Development, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Bui Thu Thuy told the seminar: There are about 878,600 enterprises operating in the whole country; of which 97.2 per cent are small and medium sized. She added despite being ranked as a large enterprise, the average size of large enterprises in the private sector in Vietnam was also much smaller than the average in other countries in the ASEAN region. At the same time, Vietnam's stock market is home to the largest concentration of private enterprises with a large number of listed companies compared to other stock exchanges in the region, said Thuy. According to newly updated data, although Vietnam's stock market has a good growth rate, the average capitalisation of enterprises listed on the two exchanges in Hanoi and HCM City was still still far behind other countries in the region. Compared with countries such as Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, the governance level of Vietnam's large enterprises was still very low, only half of that of countries with high corporate governance scores. This may partly explain the ability of large enterprises to grow and reach the regional and world level in these countries, which is still much higher than that of large enterprises in Vietnam. According to the assessment, Vietnamese enterprises still have many limitations in risk management issues; information disclosure and transparency; activities of the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board. Not to mention, good corporate governance practices in recent times have added to the assessment of environmental protection policies in the practice of production and business activities of enterprises. This is a very new criterion for most Vietnamese businesses. Le Xuan Sang, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, said that in the process of building an independent - self-reliant economy associated with integration, Vietnam has seen many important achievements with increasingly diversified industries, and enhanced production capacity, strong development of private businesses and large corporations of international and regional stature. Sang said in order to seize opportunities, deal with challenges and be a link, enterprises need to be proactive and active in improving their own capacity and competitiveness. Sang suggested enterprises change management and administration methods, have a brand development strategy, actively register and manage product trademarks for legal protection; improve the ability to participate in the global value chain in the stages of product design, product distribution, supporting research and training development. To overcome the limitations of small scale and limited capital, small and medium enterprises should attract external capital; promote association and cooperation activities with other enterprises. Along with that, experts at the seminar said they should focus on developing human resources, improve professional qualifications and pay attention to deeper understanding of rules of origin; Intellectual Property; and administrative procedures - customs, especially commitments under free trade agreements. A rally that took place on Wednesday was organized to support a victim of a recent alleged sexual assault that occurred off of school grounds between two East students. Lilyian Jenkins, a senior at East and one of the organizers for Fridays walkout, said the Friday event was a strike for a list of demands meant to help students feel safe at school. Increasing the pay of food service workers in the Madison School District has improved student meals that were lackluster at the start of the school year, according to district officials. The school district faced criticism from parents at the beginning of the year for a lack of nutritious school meal options. Administrators blamed ongoing staffing shortages, abating now because of a $5-an-hour pay increase given to support staff members last month. I have to say, the timing of the $5 salary increase was incredibly opportune, said Josh Perkins, the districts director of food and nutrition. Perkins said the department faced resignations and other attrition over the summer and leading up to the school year, on top of an already thinned workforce, leaving it with very few options. The pay increase immediately revitalized the interest in positions, Perkins said. As of Monday, when staff gave a presentation to the Madison School Board at a work group meeting, 23 new food service staff members had been hired, cutting vacancies in half from the start of the school year. The hires have helped the district get back to made-from-scratch cooking in its production center, producing more diverse and nutritious meals. A lot of the staff working in the production center had to fill vacancies around the school district to assist with meals, halting scratch cooking. So that was really the crux of the matter. As they return back, you will start seeing more robust items, said Cedric Hodo, the associate superintendent operations officer of building and auxiliary services. Because of the pay increase, Madison is now one of the highest-paid districts in the state. It previously lagged behind other districts. I think that thats a really, really great thing that the district has done, said Jennifer Gaddis with the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology, who has been working with the district to improve its food service program. Planning ahead The district is partnering with a number of groups to improve sustainability efforts and the use of local produce in meals, and to expand its scratch cooking operations. Some of these efforts include a composting pilot program at two elementary schools this year, and evaluating and replacing outdated equipment. Sherri Swartz, a food service worker at Anana Elementary School, told the board on Monday that food quality and variety have improved since the start of the school year, but had questions about the future. It looks like theres a lot of exciting ideas out there, and Im excited to see how many new staff we do have coming on board, Swartz said. But she said as an employee who is literally at the bottom of the food chain that she wanted to make sure food service workers werent being left behind. Frankly, right now things are still pretty shaky, pretty bumpy. We have a long ways to go just to get back to even normal, regular food service functioning, Swartz said. She said it will take time to get the many new staff members up to speed on operations, especially on the computer system used for ordering, payments, menus and more, and she had concerns about the time staff had to support students during meal times. She also still has questions about communication, especially around menu changes. Hodo said his team would work better at communicating changes in menus to staff and schools. I do think our team can do a better job at notifying so our community members can plan better, Hodo said. For the second consecutive year, UW-Madisons freshman class is the largest in the schools history, despite the university sending acceptance letters to fewer students than in previous years. This years freshman class stands at 8,628, up nearly 2% from last years class, UW-Madison announced Monday. Of those, 3,787 44% are in-state students. Overall enrollment is up nearly 2,000 students over the prior year, with another record enrollment of 49,886. Applications to UW-Madison grew by nearly 12% over last year, topping 60,000. The university admitted 3,000 fewer students, UW-Madison Provost Karl Scholz said, but ended up with a larger class after about 3% more admitted students decided to enroll than the year before. The percentage of students who choose to enroll has been on the decline for nearly a decade, Scholz said, and university officials were heartened by this years uptick. I think maybe the initial surprise (was), Were going to have how many students? But then people really did a nice job working together, rolling up sleeves and accommodating the students that we have, Scholz said. UW-Madisons enrollment has been trending upward for the past five years. In 2017, UW-Madison had an enrollment of 43,820; in the last two years alone, enrollment has increased by over 4,000 students. Some of UW-Madisons growth in the past two years had been planned, Scholz said. This years enrollment increase required additional course sections so students could meet their general education requirements. It also put University Housing in a crunch. Some dorm rooms have been reconfigured to accommodate additional residents, with lounges converted to sleeping quarters. UW-Madison is one of three University of Wisconsin System schools in which enrollment increased this year. UW-Green Bay and UW-Superior had increases, and UW-La Crosses enrollment stayed even, as overall System enrollment decreased by 1%. UW-Madisons rate of out-of-state students has increased since 2015, when the UW Board of Regents lifted the percentage cap on the number of nonresidents the university could admit. Last year was the first time out-of-state students made up more than 50% of the freshman class. Prior to 2015, only 27.5% of UW-Madison-admitted students could be nonresidents. Now, UW-Madison must enroll at least 3,600 in-state students and 5,200 students who are either in-state, transfers or from Minnesota, where students receive reduced tuition under a reciprocity agreement. We had a record number of Wisconsin students in our first-year class, Scholz said. Our commitment to the state of Wisconsin, if anything, is undiminished ... because the number of students graduating from Wisconsin high schools continues to fall. Increasing financial need About a tenth of the freshman class qualifies for Buckys Tuition Promise, which covers remaining tuition and fees after scholarships and financial assistance for students whose families make less than $60,000. About 3,600 of all undergraduates are in the program. Of the 932 new students who qualify, 794 are freshmen who will have tuition and fees waived for eight semesters; a further 138 are transfer students who get two years covered. In 2021, 961 new students qualified for the program. The freshman class will have its highest percentage of low-income students, with 16% qualifying for Pell Grants. Freshman Matthew Rilling, of Omro, is one of hundreds of students in his freshman class who will receive assistance under the tuition program. Cost had been a concern for him, as his mothers teachers salary wouldnt have been able to cover his expenses. Graduating from college has been something that Ive wanted to do since I was a kid. I always knew I was destined for college, he said. I think that it just gives me a head start in the future, and I can be more responsible at a younger age. Buckys Tuition Promise is in its fifth year at UW-Madison. Starting in fall 2023, the University of Wisconsin System will pilot a nearly identical program, the Wisconsin Tuition Promise, for students at the other System universities. Increasing representation This years freshman class is also the most diverse; almost a third (2,695) are students of color. Thats up more than 500 from the previous year and twice that from fall 2020, when students of color made up less than a quarter of the freshman class. Of the freshmen students of color, half are underrepresented people of color, which UW-Madison defines as those who are Black, Hispanic, American Indian and some Southeast Asian nationalities. Underrepresented people of color equal 16.6% of the overall freshman class, compared with 14.8% last fall. Editors note: This is the first in an occasional series by the Wisconsin State Journal to provide readers with the rest of the story about claims made on the campaign trail between now and Nov. 8. As independent fact-checkers have verified, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes does not support abolishing ICE or defunding the police. Thats what Barnes campaign spokesperson Maddy McDaniel told CNN when it approached her for comment on reporting by the cable networks KFILE investigative team that Barnes, Wisconsins Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has indeed previously signaled his support for removing police funding and abolishing ICE U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. McDaniel sent the State Journal three links to support her assertion, two from Madison CBS affiliate WISC-TV, known online as Channel3000.com, and one from PolitiFact, a project of Florida-based nonprofit journalism group The Poynter Institute, which also owns the Tampa Bay Times. The first WISC piece references a 2018 photo of Barnes holding up a shirt that says abolish ICE and reports that while some Democrats are vehemently in the abolish ICE camp, Mandela Barnes is not among them. As proof, it points to statements he made in February 2022 to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he does not support abolishing ICE and on his campaign website that he supports immigration reform. The piece also refers to statements Barnes makes on his campaign website saying he supports giving police the resources they need. The second WISC piece is a story about endorsements Barnes received from eight current or retired police officers and again refers back to the public safety section of Barnes website. The PolitFact piece concerns itself with a statement by the National Republican Senatorial Committee that Barnes supports abolishing ICE. PolitiFact rated the statement mostly false. It notes that the NRSC did not provide any direct statements from Barnes that he holds this position and that Barnes has said he was holding the abolish ICE shirt in solidarity with immigrants who were being separated from children at the border. PolitiFact acknowledges that while Barnes appeared at an event held by a group that supports abolishing ICE, the event itself was about voting rights. As for CNNs reporting, the network focuses on a commercial from Barnes campaign in which he says claims that he wants to defund the police and abolish ICE are a lie. It then points to social media posts and public comments in 2012, 2018, 2019 and 2020 to reveal a different and more nuanced picture in which Barnes often signaled his support for such positions: Five abolish-ICE tweets in June, July and September of 2018 that Barnes liked , although only four remained liked as of Monday. in which he says he needs an abolish ICE T-shirt. of him holding an abolish ICE T-shirt. in which he quips the wrong ICE is melted. in which he favors policies to slightly decrease law-enforcement budgets. in which he suggests money be reallocated from bloated budgets in police departments to neighborhood services and programming. in which he says there is a mismatch in funding police compared with funding other services in Milwaukee. So whats the rest of the story? Barnes announced he was running for Senate on July 20, 2021. In the years before that, he repeatedly signaled support for abolishing ICE and was sympathetic to reducing police funding. After mounting his campaign, he has said he favors neither. With the Nov. 8 election less than a month away, Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday offered little interest in proposals by some Republicans, including his GOP challenger Tim Michels, to keep Wisconsins 1849 abortion ban in place while adding exceptions for rape and incest. While fielding questions at a Rotary Club of Milwaukee event co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Press Club and WisPolitics.com, the Democratic governor offered a stark contrast to Michels, co-owner of Brownsville-based Michels Corp. Michels recently shifted his stance on abortion by saying he would sign a bill that provided exceptions to the 1849 law triggered by the U.S. Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade. No, I wouldnt sign it because that leaves the underlying law in place, which is just a ban on abortion because politicians here in Wisconsin decided they know more than the women who want to have reproductive decisions made by themselves, Evers said when asked if he would sign a law to add exceptions for rape and incest. I think we should codify Roe v. Wade, get back to the way it had been for the last 50 years here in the state of Wisconsin, Evers added. The states current law, which Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul has challenged in court, prohibits abortions from the time of conception unless its necessary to save the mothers life. Evers has supported that lawsuit. Evers has called for two special sessions, one seeking to repeal Wisconsins 1849 abortion ban and another that would put the matter before Wisconsin voters, but both were rejected by the Republican-controlled Legislature. The Marquette Law Schools September poll found that 63% of respondents oppose the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, while 83% said the state should allow a woman to obtain a legal abortion if she becomes pregnant as the result of rape or incest. Ten percent of respondents said abortions should not be allowed in those instances. Michels had previously said the 1849 law is an exact mirror of my position and my position is an exact mirror of the 1849 law as well. The Marquette poll also found Evers maintaining his narrow lead with support from 47% of respondents, compared with 44% for Michels. Marquettes latest poll will be released Wednesday. Officials with the Milwaukee Press Club said Michels has not responded to an invitation to take questions before the November election. The gubernatorial candidates will take part in one debate, scheduled for Friday. The topic of abortion has become a rallying cry among Democratic candidates across the country, with many, including Evers, making it a primary campaign talking point. In addition to criticizing Michels stance on abortion, Evers took aim at his GOP challengers previous comments that the 2020 election was maybe stolen and his opposition to red flag laws that would allow judges to take guns away from people deemed a danger to others or themselves. Michels, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, earlier this year said that decertifying the elections results would be on the table if hes elected governor. His spokesperson Anna Kelly said earlier this month Michels would accept the Nov. 8 results, provided the election is conducted fairly and securely. Recounts, reviews and court decisions have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated Trump by about 21,000 votes in the 2020 election. Theres been no evidence of widespread fraud. Facing heavy GOP criticism over the parole of state inmates convicted of violent crimes, Evers told the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board last week hes open to giving the victims of those crimes a voice at the table. Michels has taken aim at the Democratic governor as being soft on crime and sent a letter to Evers last month demanding he suspend all prison releases a move that is outside the governors power. The governor appoints the Wisconsin Parole Commissions chairperson, but the agency operates independently and some paroles are mandated by law. The commission is also required to parole felons who have completed certain release programs. We can look at it and talk about it until weve got it resolved, but the fact of the matter is I dont make those decisions on parole, Evers said. We could change some laws as it relates to the victims of the crime, making sure they have adequate ways to interact with that parole commission, Evers added. Asked about criticism hes received over his response to violent protests that broke out in Kenosha after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in 2020, Evers reiterated previous comments hes made on the topic that he responded to every request made by local officials, including sending the Wisconsin National Guard. Both Kenosha and the parole commission have become repeated points of criticisms by Michels, who has derided Evers as being soft on crime. Kelly also took aim at Evers use of civil disruptions to describe the Kenosha protests, accusing the governor of minimizing the events, as well as the parole commission dubbing the governor Early Release Evers, in an email. Michels has not said what specific changes hed seek on the parole commission, but said at a news conference last month the number of paroles hed seek as governor would be more than zero but less than the number granted under Evers. Some Wisconsin health care providers that stopped or greatly reduced medical debt collection lawsuits early in the COVID-19 pandemic have escalated actions this year, according to a report Tuesday that doesnt list Madison hospitals among them. Nineteen of 29 providers studied have restarted collection actions after pausing during the pandemic, including 15 whose litigation rates are now higher than before the pandemic, according to the report by ABC for Health, a nonprofit public interest law firm in Madison. Providers with the highest rates of collection actions this year or highest increases since before the pandemic, according to the report, are: Waukesha-based Emergency Medical Associates, Appleton-based Association of Hospital Anesthesiologists, Southwest Health Center in Platteville and Central Wisconsin Radiologists in Stevens Point. The collections machine is back, Bobby Peterson, executive director of ABC for Health, said in a statement. Some providers and collectors are making up for lost time. Peterson and other advocates say providers should work harder to help low-income patients get insurance and avoid medical debt collection, a significant cause of personal bankruptcy. Hospitals say they try to help patients sign up for coverage, such as Medicaid, disability insurance or marketplace plans through the Affordable Care Act. They offer charity care, or free or discounted care to patients who qualify. Advocates worry the medical debt situation could get worse once the federal government ends the COVID-19 public health emergency, currently expected to continue at least until mid-January, when many people are expected to lose Medicaid coverage continued during the emergency. Emergency Medical Associates, which stopped suing over unpaid bills at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, filed 181 such lawsuits in the first half of this year, the report said. Association of Hospital Anesthesiologists filed 15 such lawsuits in 2020, 36 last year and 147 this January through June. Southwest Healths litigation rate, the third-highest in the first half of this year, is up nearly nine-fold since before the pandemic, the report said. The rate for Central Wisconsin Radiologists is up 11-fold from 2017-2019. The providers did not respond to messages seeking comment. Peterson said UW Hospital, which stopped collection lawsuits in March 2020, has not restarted them, according to ABC for Healths analysis of court records this year. UnityPoint Health-Meriter, which has a joint operating agreement with UW Health, also apparently did not have any cases this year. The report didnt include specific information about St. Louis-based SSM Health, which owns St. Marys hospitals in Madison and Janesville, along with St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo and other facilities. Until late last year, ABC for Health had a contract to work with SSM Health in Wisconsin to help patients find coverage and avoid medical debt. Last year, when the Wisconsin State Journal reported on medical debt actions, a UW Hospital spokesperson said the organization would reevaluate its policy once the government declares the pandemic over. Meriter and SSM Health had resumed some actions after pausing early in the pandemic, spokespersons said at the time. UW Hospital and Meriter spokespersons said Tuesday their situations remained the same. SSM Health did not respond. An ABC for Health study in June 2021 found that UW Health and four other health systems La Crosse-based Gundersen Health System; Childrens Hospital of Wisconsin near Milwaukee; St. Louis-based Ascension, which had a dozen hospitals in Wisconsin; and Advocate Aurora, based in Milwaukee and Illinois sought $10.4 million in medical debt in 2017-2019, receiving judgments in 4,110 cases. UW Health sought nearly $1.4 million in 932 cases and received judgments in 751. A study in December by researchers at Yale and Stanford universities found that lawsuits over unpaid bills by Wisconsin hospitals rose 37% from 2001 to 2018, with small, rural hospitals suing the highest proportion of patients. The share of cases resulting in patients having their wages garnished to pay back medical debt increased, and Black patients were sued more than whites, the study suggested. NEW ORLEANS (AP) Gopher tortoises burrowers whose extensive homes shelter many other animals are generally doing well and need federal protection only in the small area where they were declared threatened 35 years ago, the government said Tuesday. Thanks to extensive conservation work and recently discovered populations, Georgia's state reptile is no longer a candidate for protection in the bulk of its range: Florida, south Georgia, most of coastal Alabama and a sliver of South Carolina, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. An environmental group which sued for protection across the entire range called the decision indefensible. It ignores devastating urban sprawl thats decimated the tortoises habitat and will continue to drive the species ever closer to extinction, said Elise Bennett, Florida director and an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. The Fish and Wildlife Service said small, disconnected populations remain threatened in southeastern Mississippi and bits of Louisiana and Alabama, which together make up about 12% of the tortoise's range. Efforts to improve conditions for the gopher tortoise have been effective, and it is important that scientists, experts and wildlife professionals continue to strategically use our best resources to help recover the gopher tortoise where its most vulnerable, Leopoldo Miranda-Castro, the services southeastern regional director, said in a news release. Although gopher tortoises average 9 to 11 inches (23 to 28 centimeters) long, researchers have found burrows up to 40 feet (12 meters) long. More than 360 kinds of animals have been found in occupied or abandoned burrows; the 60 vertebrate species include dusky gopher frogs,eastern indigo snakes and burrowing owls. Logging and development are two of the gopher tortoise's biggest threats. It lives in sandy upland forests with widely spaced trees, including longleaf pine savannas that once covered an area larger than Germany. Those once-extensive forests are now down to about 5% of that area. Longleaf pine restoration, however, is among many programs that have helped gopher tortoises, the Fish and Wildlife Service said. Gopher tortoises were among more than 500 species listed in 2011 as possibly needing protection to settle lawsuits brought by two environmental nonprofits, Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity and New Mexico-based WildEarth Guardians. Bennett said Tuesday that the decision was made even though the federal agency expects populations to decline range-wide over the next 80 years with the largest drops in Florida and the western part of its range. State programs, particularly in Florida the heart of their range are just not working, she said Friday, as the service's deadline approached. Florida is largely just moving them out of areas under development and into smaller and smaller habitat. And fragmentation is a problem already. The federal statement said Florida has 50 long-term relocation sites covering more than 120 square miles (310 square kilometers) of gopher tortoise habitat. Many populations in the nearly 109,700-square-mile (284,100-square-kilometer) eastern area are in good condition despite threats that include climate change and sea-level rise as well as habitat loss and fragmentation, the federal agency said. Future projections ... show that many healthy populations will remain across the range, it said. In the 15,000-square-mile (39,000-square-kilometer) western section, though, populations are smaller and reproduction is lower, and they have a low ability to rebound from population or environmental changes, the agency said. The Fish and Wildlife Service said gopher tortoises currently live on about 161 square miles (417 square kilometers) of the area and are threatened not endangered. Because gopher tortoises are long-lived, they will remain on the landscape for several decades despite current and ongoing threats, it said. To follow Associated Press coverage of climate and the environment, go to https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Neither gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels nor U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, has promised to accept the results of the 2022 election. It appears they are setting the groundwork to claim the election is rigged in case they lose. Q: Is there a solar farm being built southwest of Rogerson? A:Yes There is a solar project south of Rogerson along Highway 93, Idaho Power spokesman Sven Berg said. The 120-megawatt Jackpot Solar project in Twin Falls County is the organizations first utility-scale renewable energy project in the state and, once complete, it will be the largest solar facility in operation in Idaho, according to a news release by Duke Energy. Jackpot Solar will provide energy to Idaho Power through a 20-year power purchase agreement. Berg said Construction began April 28. It is expected to be complete by the end of 2022. A news release reported Idaho Power is working toward its Clean Today, Cleaner Tomorrow goal of providing 100 percent clean energy by 2045. When the company buys certified renewable energy as its doing here, it sells the associated renewable energy credits (RECs) to offset power supply costs and to keep customer prices low. An Idaho Power news release said the agreement will replace energy produced by the North Valmy coal-fired plant in Nevada, where they recently agreed to end operations. Were excited to enter into the Idaho market and be a part of the states transition toward a cleaner energy future, said Chris Fallon, president of Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions. Jackpot Solar will help diversify the states energy infrastructure, bring additional economic benefits to the state and Twin Falls County, while also supporting Idaho Powers clean energy goals, the news release said. Providing 100 percent clean energy is an important goal for Idaho Power, and more and more customers are telling us it is important to them, too, Idaho Power President and CEO Lisa Grow said. We have a great head start, thanks to our clean hydropower plants that remain our largest source of energy. SOLV Energy is the engineering and construction for the project, which is located on 952 rural acres south of Twin Falls. Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions own and operate the project. Approximately 200 workers will be employed on the project during peak construction, Berg said. Along with indirect economic benefits that accompany solar project development, such as increased local spending in the service and construction industries, the Jackpot Solar facility will also have a positive economic impact on the local community by providing significant tax revenues for the Filer Consolidated School District, the news release said. Additionally, the Duke Energy Foundation awarded a $15,000 grant to the Shoshone Basin Rangeland Fire Protection Association to support the organizations efforts to enhance the safety of the citizens in rural areas of Twin Falls County. Safety is a top priority for us, Fallon said. Were proud to be a part of this community and help fund the equipment and services that will enable the Shoshone Basin emergency responders to continue to maintain the safety of area residents and businesses. Idaho Power will buy the energy from the solar array at among the lowest prices on record for solar energy, Berg said. Well integrate it on our grid to serve customers across southern Idaho and eastern Oregon. Have a question? Just ask and well find an answer for you. Email your question to Kimberly Williams Brackett at timesnewscuriousmind@gmail.com with Curious Mind in the subject line. TWIN FALLS The fire-ravaged Radio Rondevoo building is coming down. There is no way to save what remains of the iconic downtown structure, which burned in April, owner Alex Castaneda said. Its structurally unsafe, Castaneda said. Whats left of the building on Main Avenue West is expected to be removed by Thanksgiving Day. Since the April 12 fire, the building has been ringed by a temporary chain link fence dotted with signs warning people to stay out. Castaneda sounded apologetic to nearby business owners for the length of time it is taking for the building to come down. Its an eyesore right now, he said, and that is such a pretty area of town. Insurance claims have taken time to be processed, he said. Workers recently began to salvage metal beams that were once part of the roof. Ironically, it is possible the effort might have triggered a small fire at the building Saturday morning, Castaneda said. The Twin Falls Fire Department was dispatched to the building at 6:01 a.m. to put out the fire. Fire engines left the scene at 7:33 p.m., Battalion Chief Aaron Hudson said. Once demolition is complete, the foundation will be examined, Castaneda said, and its condition will likely play a factor on what is done with the property. Hes been in contact with an architect and builder, and we will price it out, he said. If he builds another structure, it wont necessarily be another event center. I do want to do something with it, Castaneda said. I know its significance, so I want to have something worthy of its location. The Castaneda family turned the historic 1940 building into an event center, hosting weddings, quinceaneras, baptisms, birthdays and concerts. Because of the building being in the Twin Falls Downtown Historic District, the design of the buildings front would need to gain approval of the historic district, Castaneda said, to ensure it fits with surrounding structures. One thing from the building, which held 80 years of memories, is going to be rescued, Castaneda said, and that is the green and white marquee that hung in the front of the building. It received minor damage in the fire, and will be placed on the new building that will hopefully rise from the ashes, he said. The Idaho fire marshal listed the cause of the April fire as unknown. Remember the old saying: If it aint broke, dont fix it. Idaho has been a state since 1890. We may not agree with everything thats gone into or come out of state government since the time the states constitution was adopted, but its worked pretty well in that time. What makes the Legislature think it needs to call itself into a special session at any time for any reason? Thats what we could be looking at if a majority of voters go to the polls Nov. 8 and approve the amendment known as Senate Joint Resolution 102. If the amendment is approved, the Legislature could call itself back into session within 15 days of a written request by 60% of the members of the Idaho House of Representatives and 60% of the members of the Idaho Senate. The Senate brought it up for approval, and in 2021 the Senate approved the resolution 24-11 followed by a 54-15-1 approval with a two-thirds majority required in the House on a largely Republican vote to put it in front of voters, with only eight Republicans voting against it. The Idaho Constitution says the governor has the sole power to call the Legislature back in session. Since SJR 102 passed, theres been a push for the states legislative branch to assert its power more while pulling back a bit of the power from the executive branch. Lets remember what was happening in that 2021 session. There was a battle involving conservative legislators over Gov. Brad Littles COVID-19 orders, and the rhetoric from that hasnt totally gone away. As the resolution was debated in 2021, Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said neither the legislative, executive nor judicial branches of state government should be able to control the other, and he suggested the executive branch wields a bit too much power. In the case of the executive branch, it has a huge bully pulpit that it can use daily to promote its authority and to broadcast to the public what a great job it is doing for the taxpayers of Idaho, Winder said then, adding that the Legislature is just a small blip on the radar scope of balance of power. Republican proponents say legislators would not use the amendment to turn the Legislature into a full-time lawmaking body, but with only a 60% majority being able to call special sessions, thats what it could turn into. If the amendment goes through, why not have a two-thirds supermajority required to call them as is the case with other states? If its required for bond elections, why not have it required for special sessions? That 60% mark is a level that could remove the minority party from having a part in the decision-making process. Too many questions surround the possibility of legislators calling themselves into these sessions. Are they taking into consideration the time it would take for proper vetting on each bill thats proposed? What kinds of bills would be brought up for debate? Could we see a return of something along the lines of House Bill 666 and its move to keep a close watch on librarians? Would we see more debates along the lines of critical race theory being taught in schools? Any concerns whether large or small, real or unreal, when it comes to voting rights? Where would we draw the line when it comes to the things that bring legislators to feel the need to call a special session? There is some irony in this amendment. Conservative Idahoans have boasted about keeping its government small. Even Democratic Rep. Brooke Green from Boise is on the record as liking the lighter touch of government. Does this amendment keep state government light? And what about the cost of bringing legislators back to Boise x-number of times between regular sessions? According to a report in the Idaho Capital Sun from January, a three-day session last November to consider a response to COVID-19 requirements from employers and President Joe Biden cost taxpayers more than $46,000. No laws came out of it, just a nonbinding resolution against federal vaccine rules. Meanwhile, $36,033, was spent over those three days for legislators per diem with no legislators returning or declining that per diem. There was $13,392 for travel expenses submitted for reimbursement, nearly $8,952 for legislative session staff, and nearly $1,249 for additional security costs paid to CBI Security Services. As we all know, the cost of everything has gone up. Are calls for additional special sessions a sign of being fiscally conservative? As has been shown for well over 100 years, the duties of the Idaho Legislature have been handled pretty well as the states constitution has stood. In the case of SJR 102, why try and fix something that isnt broken? TWIN FALLS After years of looking for ways to make downtown a more connected, continuous neighborhood, City Hall is exploring federal funding options to divert traffic around the core of the city and away from two one-way avenues. Traffic on U.S. Highway 30 shifts east and west across Twin Falls County. Through the city of Twin Falls, the federal highway splits into two one-way streets, Second Avenue South/West and Second Avenue North/East, sometimes referred to as The Seconds. The two streets serve to move traffic quickly through and across downtown. On Monday, city council authorized the city to apply for a federal planning grant to conduct feasibility studies and outline a path forward for the project. Council also approved commitment of $120,000 general funds to the project, if approved. Weve actually been talking about this for 45 years that Ive lived in Twin Falls, Mayor Ruth Pierce said after the vote. Mandi Thompson, assistant to the city manager, said if approved, a federal planning grant would make it more likely the city would receive funding for the actual construction project. It was always such a big chunk to bite off as far as the project itself, Thompson said, and where would we get the funding to actually complete the project, it really continued to stop before it got started. In 2018, the City Council formally requested the Idaho Transportation Department reroute the highway, routing through traffic on to Washington Street, Sixth Avenue West and Minidoka Avenue. ITD did not act on the request. As more funding options have become available from the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill passed by Congress earlier this year, the city has pivoted to explore other ways to move ahead with the project. The study will cost a total of $660,000, of which the city will contribute a 20% match of $120,000 from the general fund. The grant is made available from the U.S. Department of Transportation, as part of the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Discretionary Grant program. This program is specific to communities that have a highway or a railway or both that bisects their community, Thompson said. This grant is almost tailormade for the city. If approved, the feasibility study will include traffic studies, traffic modeling for the proposed alternative routes of Highway 30, and provide guidance in the process to obtain right of way and move forward toward construction. McDowell County has agreed to work with Burke County in the development of a mega site near the county line that could attract new industries and hopefully improve the economies for both. On Monday, the McDowell County Board of Commissioners held the first regular meeting for October in the Jubilee Arbor at Historic Carson House. The commissioners traditionally hold their October meeting at the historic home and museum, which served as the first seat of county government for McDowell in the 1840s. One of the items discussed Monday concerned a cooperative project between McDowell and Burke counties to develop industrial properties. Chuck Abernathy, director of the McDowell Economic Development Association (MEDA), spoke to the commissioners about this effort. The state of North Carolina defines a mega site as property that is approximately 1,000 acres. These properties are submitted for larger and more substantial inquiries received by the state from possible company locations. An example of this would be the creation of an automotive plant, according to Abernathy. Three to five of these mega sites exist already in North Carolina. There is not a good large site like this now in western North Carolina. But there is a 1,200-acre site located in Burke County just to the east of the McDowell line. This land is next to Interstate 40 and is at Exit 94. In addition, there is another site in McDowell County that is approximately 250 acres. Both properties are owned by Great Meadows Corp., which is based in Spruce Pine, according to Abernathy. During Mondays meeting, the McDowell commissioners were presented with an agreement with Burke officials on how the two counties might cooperate on the potential development of the large site. Burke and McDowell would perform the due diligence and Great Meadows would continue to own the two sites. Whatever company chooses to locate there would purchase that particular property from Great Meadows, said Abernathy to The McDowell News. In order to be competitive, the sites will need a series of required reports about such matters as wetlands and endangered species as well as an archaeological assessment, soil borings, utility lines and grading estimates. Without this information, sites are normally eliminated from consideration, said Abernathy. The proposed agreement with Burke is simply a statement of cooperation and would begin the process of discussing how the property might be jointly be developed and the benefits mutually shared. It does not commit McDowell County either financially or as making new policy, said county officials. Burke County has gotten a $50,000 grant from Duke Energy and this money could be used to produce several of the required reports. Also, the N.C. General Assembly has appropriated $1 million for the assessment of mega site locations. Burke County officials thought that the lease for the site should be held by the economic development commissions for both counties. McDowell officials have agreed by consensus with that. At Mondays meeting, the commissioners voted to approve this agreement with Burke County. Abernathy said he understands the agreement is still being considered by Burke officials and their final approval has not been given yet. In addition, the commissioners heard a report from City Manager Bob Boyette and Marions Planning Director Heather Cotton about the further development of the old Drexel Heritage site. Cotton and Boyette appeared before the commissioners to talk about several grants that would help with the additional cleanup of the property and its transition into a new use. One of the grants that are being sought would require that the city of Marion become the sole owner of the property. Previously, it has been jointly owned by the city and the county. Both local governments agreed to become owners of the old furniture plant site after the previous owner abandoned the demolition and left behind massive piles of debris and sections of old buildings. Now that debris is cleared from the property, 12 monitoring wells were installed in areas where soil sampling was done. These wells monitor the water quality on the land and will remain in place until further cleanup can occur. Officials are now working on the next phase of the cleanup, which at this point would include removing asbestos and contaminants buried in the ground, underground storage tanks, unusable industrial rail lines and a large wall that would hinder future development of the property. Clean fill dirt would then be used to replace contaminated soil so that the land will be ready for development, according to previous stories. The city is now seeking a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency but it would require that the property come under sole ownership. Cotton said the site could be redeveloped into a place for new industries and possibly a passenger rail station. After hearing from Cotton and Boyette, the commissioners agreed to deed over the countys portion of the property to the city of Marion and make the city the sole owner. They also adopted an interlocal agreement with the city that protects the countys interest. In other business, the McDowell County Commissioners: Recognized Charlie Mae Mace, who has recently retired after more than 60 years working for the McDowell County School System. She started her career with the schools in August 1961 and has worked alongside 10 superintendents, numerous Board of Education members, board attorneys and Central Office administrators, program directors and office professionals in the state and nation. She served as president of both the state and national associations for office professionals. Heard a report from Tax Assessor Tammy Wylie about the schedule of values for the 2023 property revaluation. A public hearing about the schedule of values will take place at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20 Received a report from architect Patrick McMurry from the firm of Holland & Hamrick about the improvements planned for the Recreation Center on West Court Street. The plan presented calls for the removal of the old swimming pool and the building of a new one as well as a splash pad. There are also a variety of improvements suggested for the ballfield. McMurry said the bids for the swimming pool work could be accepted in March. Commission Vice Chairman David Walker said he would like to see an earlier timeline so it could be ready by summer of next year. Approved a grant match and a master plan update related to the Maple Leaf Complex, which specifically includes adding an area for a playground and picnic shelters. If awarded, McDowell County could get a grant of $500,000, which would require a local match of $100,000. The commissioners have previously set aside $50,000 for this effort and an additional $50,000 would need to be budgeted over the next fiscal year. Also, this effort would need an update to the countys 2014 parks and recreation master plan. Awarded the contract for grading work at the Universal Technology Park to Site Development Corp. of Cliffside, which submitted a low bid of $746,586. Heard an update on water-related projects which include expansion of the Nebo water system, the Hoppy Tom Hollow water effort, the extension of water around Exit 90, a study of water service to the West Marion Elementary area and a grant for water service along N.C. 126. Talked about administrative items. One of these concerns the use of a section of the countys mental health building. RHA, a tenant in that building, wants to use a small portion of their space for a small pharmacy. The concept would be to have an in-house dispensary of medication for their clients. The countys lease requires the commissioners give their approval for the sublet. On Monday, they approved it. Heard an overview from County Manager Ashley Wooten about sales tax revenue. Approved the closing of a road for the Glenwood Christmas parade. The McDowell County Board of Education met Monday for plenty of student and staff recognition, including honoring Foothills Community School for earning the title 2022 NC STEM School of Distinction. FCS is an option for all sixth- to eighth-grade students in McDowell County Schools. It is located at West McDowell Middle School. FCS integrates subjects through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) by focusing on the local community and participation in service learning and career projects and programs. To identify and recognize exemplary STEM schools and STEM programs, the STEM Schools of Distinction recognition program was developed at the state level, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Schools have an opportunity to submit an application providing narrative and evidence of their schools distinguished STEM approaches to leading and learning. Melissa Elliott is principal of FCS. In other business, the board: Accepted the N.C. School Board Association Silver Bell Award, which recognizes professional development and training. Saluted Tracey Widmann, who was recently named Principal of the Year for McDowell County Schools. Recognized the local chapter of Future Farmer of America, which has grown to 152 members. Noted National School Lunch Week. Said members were examining the dress code policy following public comment at last months meeting. Held a closed session. Three days after the general elections, the official results came in on Monday, October 10 in Lesotho. The ruling party confirmed its decline and said it would not be able to form a government. The task will fall to the Revolution for Prosperity party (RFP) and its leader, Sam Matekane. Lesothos richest man surprised everyone by winning 56 of the 120 seats in the National Assembly. Sam Matekane entered politics out of disgust with coalition governments. Since 2012, these heterogeneous assemblies have never lasted until the end of their terms, hence the political instability of Lesotho. While Sam Matekane is expected to be named the next Prime Minister, he has failed to win an absolute majority. He had hoped to obtain at least 61 seats to govern without concessions. He failed. Despite its very good results for a party launched in March, the Revolution for Prosperity won only 56 seats. This is a slight setback for the party that had hoped to have a free hand to run Lesotho as it runs its businesses. He will have to talk to the other parties. There is a wide choice: 14 political parties will get seats thanks to a dose of proportional representation. The ruling Basotho Coalition (ABC) did not win any constituencies, but proportional representation gave it eight seats. The elections were marked by an extremely low turnout: only 37% of registered voters turned out at the polls. The next governments task will be to rebuild the country and restore public confidence, and its strength will depend on the coalition currently being negotiated. The approval by consensus among the three parliamentary benches of the New Single Wage Scale (TSU) shows how much the Mozambican Parliament is following the Executive, say analysts, who argue that it is necessary to rethink the way in which Mozambique elects its representatives. The new salary scale had already been approved in a previous session of Parliament, which has specialized committees, and the question is how it was approved as it was, without any criticism or comment from the deputies. And this happened again last Friday, an approval that received prolonged applause from all deputies, being one of the few documents that received unanimous support. The jurist and political analyst, Tomas Vieira Mario, says that these practices of the Assembly of the Republic have been common, of it being reduced to a notary service, in other words, stamping the documents that come from the Government, without any added value that comes from the deputies themselves. He noted that this shows the weak technical capacity that the Assembly of the Republic has, because unlike other parliaments, Mozambican deputies work alone, they dont have technical offices that advise them, that give them technical inputs, because parliamentarians cannot know everything. The Single Wage Table for public administration is an instrument defended by the government as essential for staff retention and salary justice in the state. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, promulgated the law that introduces the Single Wage Table (TSU) in the Public Administration, says a statement from the Presidency of the Republic. The President of the Republic of Angola, Joao Lourenco, talked on the phone yesterday with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the subject discussed was the military conflict in Ukraine. According to information made available on Joao Lourencos official Facebook page, the topic discussed was the military conflict in which Ukraine has been involved since last February, without further details. The Angolan President has also been in telephone contact with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, with whom he broached the subject in April. Joao Lourenco, who defended in his inauguration speech, on September 15, that Moscow should take the initiative to avoid escalating the conflict, is fluent in Russian, having studied in the former Soviet Union between 1978 and 1982. The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine has already caused the flight of more than 13 million people more than six million internally displaced and more than 7.6 million to European countries according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). The Russian invasion has been condemned by the international community in general, which has responded by sending arms to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia. The UN has reported that 6,221 civilians have been killed and 9,371 injured since the war began, stressing that these figures are far from the real ones. Mozambiques Economy and Finance Minister, Max Tonela, on Monday in Washington called for support from the African Export and Import Bank (Afrixembank) for the countrys private sector, noting the financial constraints facing the business community. We would like the support to be focused on the development of micro, small and medium enterprises, as part of the countrys economic recovery effort, Tonela said, quoted in a statement sent to Lusa. The minister was speaking during a meeting with Denys Denya, executive vice-president of Afreximbank for the areas of finance, administration and services, in the scope of the annual meetings of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are being held this week in the US capital. Tonela said that micro, small and medium Mozambican companies need financial strength in order to take advantage of the potential that the country has. The government, he continued, is betting on the participation of the Mozambican private sector in taking advantage of the existing value chain in the hydrocarbon sector and other economic areas. Another area where the involvement of Afreximbank, an institution linked to the African Development Bank (ADB), would be important is infrastructure, energy and agriculture, Max Tonela added. Indigenous populations continue to suffer significant barriers and disparities in health care, due in part to the federal government failing to provide adequate health support and services for these communities, says the American College of Physicians (ACP) in a new position paper. ACP says that policymakers have an obligation to fulfill the federal trust responsibility to provide equitable health care and other services to Indigenous populations in the U.S., including sufficient financial resources to support their care. The full position paper is published in Annals of Internal Medicine. In recent years, Indigenous populations have experienced high rates of chronic diseases, death due to unintentional and intentional injuries, and infant mortality. These disparities have arisen in-part from the historical trauma associated with decades of racism, discrimination, and violence; subsequent poor social drivers of health; the degradation of Indigenous traditions, culture, and society; and inadequate access to and chronic insufficient funding of health care services for Indigenous populations. ACP offers several recommendations for public policymakers at the federal level to strengthen the health and well-being of Indigenous populations in a manner that reflects the need for self-determination and collaboration while ensuring federal obligations are met. Specifically, ACP believes: Increased funding is needed for health services for Indigenous people, particularly given the identified disparities and inequities in federal funding. Community-driven public policy, developed under the leadership of Indigenous leaders is necessary to remedy the injustices, disparities, and inequities experienced by Indigenous individuals and communities. Improved support is needed to prioritize health and wellness promotion, chronic disease prevention, and other public health interventions addressing morbidities with high incidence in Indigenous communities; and that policy makers must team with Indigenous leaders to address the full range of underlying social drivers of health associated with disproportionately high rates of poverty experienced by Indigenous communities. A multidisciplinary approach, developed by Indigenous populations in collaboration with other experts in the field, is necessary to implement culturally appropriate interventions to address the underlying drivers that exacerbate physical, mental, and behavioral health issues and contribute to catastrophic rates of suicide in Indigenous communities. Community-driven collaboration is needed among relevant governments, agencies, and Indigenous leaders to develop plans to mitigate the high rates of violence experienced in Indigenous populations. ACP also supports actions to increase Indigenous representation in medical school student bodies and the medical workforce. Explore further Life expectancy gap is closing for Indigenous Aussies in the Northern Territory More information: Supporting the Health and Well-Being of Indigenous Communities: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians, Annals of Internal Medicine (2022). Journal information: Annals of Internal Medicine Supporting the Health and Well-Being of Indigenous Communities: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians,(2022). DOI: 10.7326/M22-1891 Editor's Note Coming in 2023: AfricaFocus 3.0 I have been editing this publication and its predecessors since 1995, which is a long time 28 years! It began as an occasional listserv published first for the Washington Office on Africa, then for the Africa Policy Information Center, and then for its successor Africa Action. Ill call this AfricaFocus 1.0. Since November 2003, I have published it as an individual project. I think of this as AfricaFocus 2.0. As regular readers will have noticed, I have sent out very few issues this year, and none at all in the last few months, although the website and Facebook pages have continued to function. This summer has been a time for travel and for reflection. Cathy Sunshine and I visited Durham, North Carolina, where I used to work for Africa News Service (now AllAfrica.com). We went to Toronto for our daughter Cynthias wedding in August. And we took a two-week road trip last month, traveling between DC and Capitol Island, Maine. At the end of that trip we celebrated my 80th birthday with old friends in their home on the Hudson River. I plan to continue sharing news and analysis occasionally on this list, but the format will be shorter and the content more varied. Im still working on what AfricaFocus 3.0 will look like, beginning in 2023. For now I will be occasionally sharing some experimental samples, of which this is the first. Today, on Indigenous Peoples Day, I want to encourage all my readers, particularly those in the United States, to read Not A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion, the latest book by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, recently released in paperback. It is available from Bookshop.org in the United States (here) and in the United Kingdom (here). Or order directly from the publisher, Beacon Press. The publisher's description provides an excellent summary: Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the USs history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today. While some of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, others are descendants of white settlers who arrived as colonizers to displace those who were here since time immemorial, and still others are descendants of those who were kidnapped and forced here against their will. Dunbar-Ortiz always writes clearly, dispelling conventional wisdom and avoiding empty rhetoric. This book, in my opinion, is a fundamental contribution to understanding the history which has shaped all of us who live in the United States of America. AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. For an archive of previous Bulletins, see http://www.africafocus.org, Current links to books on AfricaFocus go to the non-profit bookshop.org, which supports independent bookshores and also provides commissions to affiliates such as AfricaFocus. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. To subscribe to receive future bulletins by email, click here. For patients with complicated urinary tract infection (UTI) or acute pyelonephritis caused by gram-negative pathogens, cefepime/enmetazobactam is noninferior and superior to piperacillin/tazobactam for clinical cure and microbiological eradication, according to a study published in the Oct. 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Keith S. Kaye, M.D., Ph.D., from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues conducted a randomized trial at 90 sites in Europe, North and Central America, South America, and South Africa to examine whether cefepime/enmetazobactam was noninferior to piperacillin/tazobactam for the primary outcome of treatment efficacy in patients with complicated UTIs or acute pyelonephritis. The prespecified noninferiority margin was 10 percent; a superiority comparison was also prespecified if noninferiority was established. A total of 1,041 patients were randomly assigned, and 995 completed the trial. The researchers found that the primary outcome (proportion of patients who achieved overall treatment success, defined as clinical cure combined with microbiological eradication) occurred in 79.1 and 58.9 percent of patients receiving cefepime/enmetazobactam and piperacillin/tazobactam, respectively. Treatment-emergent adverse events occurred in 50.0 and 44.0 percent of patients receiving cefepime/enmetazobactam and piperacillin/tazobactam, respectively; most were mild to moderate in severity. "Further research is needed to determine the potential role for cefepime/enmetazobactam in the treatment of complicated UTI and pyelonephritis," the authors write. Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Allecra Therapeutics, which is developing cefepime/enmetazobactam and funded the study. More information: Keith S. Kaye et al, Effect of Cefepime/Enmetazobactam vs Piperacillin/Tazobactam on Clinical Cure and Microbiological Eradication in Patients With Complicated Urinary Tract Infection or Acute Pyelonephritis, JAMA (2022). Keith S. Kaye et al, Effect of Cefepime/Enmetazobactam vs Piperacillin/Tazobactam on Clinical Cure and Microbiological Eradication in Patients With Complicated Urinary Tract Infection or Acute Pyelonephritis,(2022). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2022.17034 Sonali D. Advani et al, Cefepime/Enmetazobactam for Complicated Urinary Tract Infections, JAMA (2022). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2022.15228 Journal information: Journal of the American Medical Association Copyright 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Changes to Australia's isolation rules, which come into effect on Friday October 14, remove the mandate for people to isolate if they test positive for COVID. Isolation requirements will remain for high-risk settings such as aged care, disability care, Aboriginal health care and hospitals. Workers in these sectors who can't access paid leave while isolating will still be able to access financial support, but pandemic payments won't be available to the rest of the population. (Casual workers without sick leave in other sectors, however, may be eligible for state government support. Victoria, for example, offers a sick pay guarantee for up to 38 hours of work lost to illness.) While isolation won't be mandatory for most, it's still important to be aware of your own infection risk and be careful around others if you test positive for COVID or have respiratory symptoms. Should you still test? If you're worried you've been exposed to someone with the virus, or start to see symptoms, it's always better to know your COVID status. Ignoring it can put yourself and others at risk. Knowing you're COVID positive is especially critical for people who are at greater risk of severe infection because they are severely immunocompromised, aged over 50 (or over 30 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) with two additional risk factors, or those aged 70 and above. A positive test enables people in these groups to access antivirals, which need to begin within five days of symptom onset. Antivirals can prevent an infection escalating into a severe illness or hospitalization. A recent Israeli study of the antiviral Paxlovid found it effectively reduced COVID severity in people 65 and over infected with omicron. Hospitalization rates dropped from 58.9 per 100,000 days of follow-up to 14.7. This is a four-fold decrease and comparable to rates in younger adults. If you are at-risk and have symptoms, try to get a PCR test, if possible, as this can detect an infection earlier than a rapid antigen test (RAT). I've tested positive, so how long should I isolate? The infectious period starts a day or two before symptoms and can continue for more than ten days. As time goes on, the viral load drops away, so you're less infectious. The general advice used to be to isolate until 48 hours after symptoms resolve. But many infections may not have obvious symptoms, and some symptoms continue after the infection, so so it's worth monitoring using a RAT. RATs perform best a few days into an infection. So while they may not pick up all infections initially, they can indicate whether you are still infectious at the end of your infection. A recent US study of mostly young, vaccinated people concluded that for people with lingering mild symptoms, such as a persistent dry cough, a negative RAT could guide when it was safe to stop isolating. However, half those with a positive RAT didn't appear to be infectious. Still, it's better to err on the side of caution if you work in high-risk settings or mix with people vulnerable to serious disease. Isolate while you have symptoms in summer Symptoms remain an important way to identify risk. As we move out of the cold and flu season, there will be fewer other respiratory infections around. So coughs with fever will more likely be a sign of COVID and should be assumed so, regardless of testing. A March 2022 U.K. survey reported 1,687 of 6,260 of infections, or just over one-quarter of those with known symptom status, were in people without symptoms. What's more, 1,343 people tested positive who did have symptoms, but did not have typical COVID symptoms. So, just under half of the infections detected in this study might not have been recognized as COVID infections without testing. Due to high rates of vaccination and previous infection, a larger proportion of people with COVID may be asymptomatic rather than having tell-tale symptoms. Monitoring for COVID symptoms will therefore not identify all infections. So take care, especially when around vulnerable people Masks work when omicron exposure risk is high In the U.K. during delta and the omicron BA.1 waves, surveys of randomly selected participants reported 1336% higher infections rates in people who said they only sometimes wore masks (4.3%) or rarely wore them (5.2%) compared with those who said they always wore masks (3.8%). This gap diminished after the omicron BA.1 peak, as infections declined. But masks do help reduce the risk of infection with omicron, especially when infection rates are high. So when you're in crowded indoor spaces such as public transport, it's best to assume the virus is present and mask up. Why avoid infection? Long COVID can be debilitating Although things have improved in terms of severe acute disease, minimizing risk of infection remains important given the risk of long COVID, which can be debilitating for some, even after mild infections. Among omicron infections, 4.5% of 56,003 people experienced long COVID. This compares with 10.8% of 41,361 delta cases. However, vaccination reduces the risk. Studies show vaccinated people are 60% less likely to develop long COVID than unvaccinated people, and 70% less likely after a booster dose. COVID is here to stay The removal of isolation mandates does not mean we ignore COVID, or stop isolating, or give up managing the risk we might pose to others. It will take ongoing efforts to manage the risks individually and globally. Vaccines help reduce severe illness and long COVID. But with infections already on the rise overseas and other omicron sub-variants emerging, we need to be thinking ahead. This is now the long game, so monitoring our exposure risk, being aware of our symptoms, testing when we suspect we have been exposed, and isolating when we need to, will continue to be the best way to protect ourselves, and those around us. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain COVID-19 has scrapped many large holiday celebrations during the last two years. But with the pandemic in a lull and plentiful resources available to help thwart the worst the coronavirus has to offer, there's hope that fall and winter gatheringsincluding Halloween, Thanksgiving and other end-of-year holidayscould be closer to normal for many Californians. "People should plan on being able to get together with the people that they love," Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said recently. But that optimism, as always, is tinted with caution. Families with members who are at high risk of developing severe COVID-19 illness should consider taking some additional precautions, officials say. There's also the lurking possibility of a resurgence over the colder months, as has happened each of the past two years, and any significant upticks in transmission could warrant additional intervention. "As we have learned throughout the pandemic, each surge and each variant brings with it unique characteristics relative to our neighborhoods' and communities' specific conditions," including level of immunity, the California Department of Public Health wrote in a statement to The Times. "As we enter the next phase with COVID-19, we will be ready to build on what we have learned over the past two years to meet the COVID-19 challenges that lie ahead." First and foremost, officials say now is the time for residents to get both an updated omicron COVID-19 boosterformulated to combat BA.5, the dominant coronavirus strain circulating nationwideand a flu shot, if they haven't already. Since both flu and COVID-19 vaccinations take time to reach full potency, getting the shots now will help ensure optimal protection heading into November and December. "Because the bivalent booster has great potential for providing significantly increased protection against omicron, which is what's circulating now, this boost to the immune system has the potential to make a big difference in reducing disruptions and heartache this fall," Ferrer said. Ferrer said it is still possible for people to recover from COVID-19 and get reinfected several weeks later. Among them was Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla, who said he tested positive for the coronavirus in mid-August and then tested positive again in late September. In a statement, Bourla said he hadn't received his company's updated bivalent omicron booster yet, since he was following CDC recommendations to wait three months after a prior infection before getting the updated shot. The ongoing risk of reinfection is one reason why layers of protection remain sensible, health experts said. "Vaccinationor negative COVID-19 test result verification, especially indoorsremains an important strategy to reduce transmission in large gatherings, especially where masks are removed for eating [and] drinking, and where activities that increase transmission risk are occurring, even when masks are being worn," according to the state public health department. For indoor gatherings that include higher-risk individuals, Ferrer recommended guests get tested on the day of the event. Doing so lowers, although does not eliminate, the risk that an infected individual who's asymptomatic or presymptomatic may unwittingly expose others. Fresh airflow is also important, as that can help flush out viral particles. If an event is held inside, opening windows or doors can also help maximize ventilation, officials say. And while that's usually not a problem in Southern California, such a step may be tougher as temperatures drop. Those at higher risk also might feel safer if they wear a high-quality, high-filtration mask, such as an N95, KN95 or KF94, according to Ferrer. "We should all take advantage of the fact that we can be together with the people we love this holiday. We're just going to have to be careful if there are people that we're gathering with that are at higher risk," she said. The caveat is that people should pay attention to coronavirus transmission rates. California last month replaced its broad recommendation for masking in indoor public settings with a more nuanced set of guidelines tied to the COVID-19 community levels established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC sorts counties into three tierslow, medium and highbased on their levels of coronavirus transmission and the impact that spread is having on local hospitals. When a county's COVID-19 community level is high, the state recommends everyone 2 and older mask up in indoor public places. In the medium level, masking is recommended in crowded indoor spaces for those at higher risk. Everyone else is advised to consider wearing a mask in indoor public settings. And in those counties where the COVID-19 community level is low, state health officials say people at higher risk should consider wearing a mask in public indoor places, but for everyone else, it is a matter of personal preference. As of Thursday, virtually all California countiesexcept for three in the state's far northwere in the low community level. In Los Angeles County, coronavirus case rates continue to decline. For the seven-day period that ended Friday, L.A. County was recording about 1,100 cases a day, a 12% decrease from the prior week. Still, that is well above the springtime low of about 600 cases a day. On a per capita basis, the latest case rate is about 79 a week for every 100,000 residents; a rate between 50 and 99 is considered substantial, while 100 or greater is high. The case rate hasn't been this low since mid-April, between the first omicron wave that began after Thanksgiving and the second in the late spring and summer, fueled by a variety of subvariants, including BA.5. The COVID-19 death rate has fluctuated since a summer peak in early August and remains elevated. Since August, L.A. County has been recording an average of 70 to 125 COVID-19 deaths every week. By contrast, in May, there were 25 to 50 deaths per week. While coronavirus transmission is lower, it's still substantial, Ferrer said. And there are a lot of vulnerable L.A. County residentsmillions with underlying health conditions, who are 65 and older or who are unvaccinated. "I worry a lot about the potential for our death rate from COVID to rise again this winter, disproportionately affecting those who are older," Ferrer said Thursday. "However tired we may be of dealing with this shape-changing, mutating virus, I hope we can rally as a community and make every effort to protect our most vulnerable residents. This new fall bivalent booster can save lives." There is much to suggest coronavirus transmission is not currently increasing, Ferrer said. Data she presented recently show relatively low numbers of new clusters at worksites and schools, and a relatively low percentage of recent emergency room visits are related to COVID-19. Still, officials are closely watching coronavirus levels in L.A. County's wastewater, which no longer are dropping and may have plateauedlikely signifying "that viral transmission in L.A. County is no longer decreasing," Ferrer said. This illustrates why it remains important to take steps to thwart transmission, including getting the new booster shot, she said. "Getting a bivalent booster helps you retain and update the protection you already have, and this is very important as we move into the cooler months when we spend more time indoors and more time gathering for celebrations and holidays." Explore further Los Angeles County avoids new mask rule as COVID stabilizes 2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Women in sub-Saharan Africa continue to have an elevated risk of death following childbirth long after the 42-day postpartum limit the WHO uses to define pregnancy-related deaths, a new analysis shows. Researchers analyzed data from 12 sub-Saharan African countries to examine whether the 42-day definition accurately captures deaths following childbirth. The analysis found that while the risk of death fell substantially throughout the 42-day postpartum period (relative to a comparison period of 12-17 months postpartum) the risk of death was still estimated to be 20% higher from 42 days to four months following childbirth. This has major policy implications for the improvement of maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa and other low- and middle-income countries. The team included researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at LSHTM and the Kenya Medical Research Institute-Center for Global Health Research. The research is published in The Lancet Global Health. Ursula Gazeley, lead author from LSHTM, said, "It's vital that we have up-to-date evidence and action to make childbirth safer for every woman. To measure pregnancy-related deaths, there must be a time limit on the definition but it is concerning that the risk of death remains 20% higher from 42 days until around four months after childbirth. In light of this, we are calling for the WHO to extend the 42-day postpartum limit currently used in the definition of pregnancy-related deaths. Our results also suggest that national and international guidelines for postpartum care should include visits beyond 42 days for women who experience chronic morbidity." Dr. Momodou Jasseh, author from MRC The Gambia at LSHTM, said, "This demonstration of an increased risk of death for mothers beyond 42 days postpartum in Sub-Saharan Africa suggests that the true burden of pregnancy-related mortality may be substantially underestimated in the region. Unless concerned governments commit to enhancing health management information systems that generate the requisite data on maternal outcomes after 42-days postpartum, the real burden will remain elusive." Dr. Sammy Khagayi, author from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, said, "Despite the reduction in mortality around childbirth for both mothers and babies in areas with limited resources like Western Kenya, it is vital to go a step further to provide quality care for the mothers beyond the recommended postpartum period. Ante- and post-partum pregnancy monitoring would go a long way in reducing late maternal deaths. This will be achieved if we invest in data collection platforms to monitor and track women from pregnancy to 6 months postpartum." This large, multi-country study analyzed almost 30 years' worth of data from 1991-2020, from 30 Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS), across 12 African countries. In total, 647,104 births and 1,967 deaths within one year of giving birth were recorded in the HDSS. This analysis was based on deaths after childbirth from any cause. To plan interventions and prevent deaths, the authors call for urgent further investigation on the causes of death after 42 days postpartum in low- and middle-income settings. Explore further More than half of hospital-based maternal deaths occur at times other than childbirth More information: Women's risk of death beyond 42 days post partum: a pooled analysis of longitudinal Health and Demographic Surveillance System data in sub-Saharan Africa, The Lancet Global Health (2022). Journal information: The Lancet Global Health Women's risk of death beyond 42 days post partum: a pooled analysis of longitudinal Health and Demographic Surveillance System data in sub-Saharan Africa,(2022). From 1999 to 2020 there were 4,090 firearm fatalities among Texas school-age children. Following significant declines from 1999 to 2013, firearm fatality rates significantly increased. Credit: Alex Dolce, Florida Atlantic University Firearm-related deaths in school-age children are dramatically increasing in the United States where homicide rates are about six to ninefold higher than those in comparably developed countries. Firearm-related deaths also are the second-leading cause of death in children ages 5 to 18. This epidemic poses increasing major clinical, public health and policy challenges. In the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, a new study by Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators, investigated firearm-related deaths among school-age children 5 to 18 years in Texas from 1999 to 2020. They utilized the Multiple Cause of Death Files of the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. Results of the study, published in the Texas Public Health Journal, show that from 1999 to 2020 there were 4,090 firearm fatalities among Texas school-age children. Following significant declines from 1999 to 2013, firearm fatality rates significantly increased. Rates were statistically significant for boys; non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic white, and Hispanic children; residents of large central metropolitan areas, medium metropolitan, large fringe metropolitan, and smaller areas; for residents of the Texas-Mexico Border and non-Border areas; and for residents of counties with a military base. From 2013 to 2020, rates were highest among non-Hispanic Black children, followed in order by non-Hispanic white, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander children. Homicide accounted for most deaths among black and Hispanic children while suicide predominated for white children. Black school-age children ages 5 to 14 experienced statistically significant increases in firearm-related deaths beginning in 2013. From 2013 to 2017, racial inequalities in firearm-related deaths between black and white school-age children increased significantly among those who were 5 to 14 years old, as well as those who were 15 to 18 years old. "The increasing rates from firearm deaths in the U.S. among school-age children are not unique to Texas," said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.PH, senior author, the first Sir Richard Doll Professor of Medicine, and senior academic advisor, FAU Schmidt College of Medicine. "These rapidly increasing rates have been noted across the entire country. It is sobering that, in 2020, more than 4,500 U.S. school-age children were killed by firearms compared with 45 police officers who were killed in the line of duty." Statistically significant increases in firearm-related deaths in the U.S. began in 2009, with the first epidemic among those who were 5 to 14 years old, followed by a second epidemic that began in 2014 among those who were 15 to 18 years old. Each of these epidemics has continued through 2017, the most recent year for which U.S. mortality data are currently available. Percentages of all deaths due to firearms were 5.6 at ages 5 to 14 and 19.9 at ages 15 to 18. "Further analytic studies are needed. However, in the meanwhile, there are important clinical, public health and policy challenges," said Hennekens. "My colleagues and I believe that combatting the epidemic of death due to firearms among school-age children without addressing firearms is analogous to combatting the epidemic of death from lung cancer due to cigarettes without addressing cigarettes." Explore further Study shows alarming increases of firearm deaths in US school-age children More information: Robert S Levine et al, Increasing firearm fatality among Texas school-age children (5-18 years)1999-2020, Texas Public Health Journal (2022);74(4):29-35 Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The enforced isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns may have impeded the social communication skills of babies born during these periods, suggests research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Fewer such milestones were met during the first year of life, the findings show. It's to be hoped that these delays will be reversed as "normal life" resumes. But it may be worth monitoring these children's development to school age to make sure there are no long-lasting effects, the researchers suggest. The development of language in babies is complex, with younger babies fixating on the eyes of caregivers during interactions while older ones tend to shift their gaze from the eyes to the mouth, explain the researchers. Before the advent of coronavirus vaccines, mass lockdowns and mask wearing were deployed to curb the spread of COVID-19 infection, limiting babies' interactions with people outside the home and potentially restricting their access to visual and facial cues for language development. To gauge the potential impact these measures might have had, the researchers assessed 10 parentally reported developmental outcomes for 309 "pandemic" babies at 12 months of age. The babies were part of the CORAL (Impact of CoronaVirus Pandemic on Allergic and Autoimmune Dysregulation in Infants Born During Lockdown) study, and had all been born during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic (March-May 2020) in Ireland. The 10 developmental outcomes included the ability to: crawl; sidestep along furniture; stand alone; pick up tiny objects with thumb and index finger (pincer grip); stack bricks; finger feed; know their own name; express one definite and meaningful word; point at objects; and to wave "bye-bye." These outcomes were compared a year after birth with those of 1629 infants from the BASELINE (Babies After SCOPE: Evaluating the Longitudinal Impact using Neurological and Nutritional Impact) study, which included babies born in Ireland between 2008 and 2011. CORAL study babies were born slightly earlier, on average, than the BASELINE study babies, and there were significantly fewer first-born CORAL study babies: 45% (138) vs. 84% (1364). The proportion of mothers educated to or attending tertiary-level education (postgraduate certificate or higher) was also higher in the CORAL group: 94.5% (292) vs. 88% (1431). Comparison of the outcomes showed that slightly fewer CORAL study infants had reached social communication developmental milestones, as reported by their parents than had BASELINE study infants. More CORAL study infants were able to crawl (97.5% vs. 91%), but fewer expressed one definite and meaningful word (77% vs. just over 89%), could point (84% vs. 93%) and could wave "bye-bye" (88% vs. 94.5%). After accounting for potentially influential factors, including the child's age when the questionnaire was completed, gestational age in weeks, birth order, and mother's educational attainment, differences in outcomes between the two groups were still evident. CORAL study infants were less likely to have one definite and meaningful word by the age of 12 months, less likely to be able to point, and less likely to be able to wave goodbye. They were still more likely to be crawling at the age of 12 months than their BASELINE study counterparts, however, which might be because they were more likely to have spent more time at home and on the ground rather than out of the home in cars and strollers, suggest the researchers. In a bid to explain the other findings, the researchers suggest that lockdown measures may have reduced the repertoire of language heard and the sight of unmasked faces speaking to them, while also curtailing opportunities to encounter new items of interest, which might prompt pointing, and the frequency of social contacts to enable them to learn to wave goodbye. This is an observational study, and as such, no firm conclusions on cause can be drawn about cause and effect. The two groups weren't exactly the same and the findings relied on parental recall, acknowledge the researchers. "While neurodevelopment is part genetically mediated, parental education and social exposure have a significant role to play. Teasing out the direct effect of early enrichment is extremely difficult," they add. They conclude, "Pandemic-associated social isolation appears to have impacted on social communication skills in babies born during the pandemic compared with a historical cohort. Babies are resilient and inquisitive by nature, and it is very likely that with societal re-emergence and increase in social circles, their social communication skills will improve. However, this cohort and others will need to be followed up to school age to ensure that this is the case." Explore further Birthweights below the 25th percentile linked to later developmental concerns More information: Social communication skill attainment in babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic: a birth cohort study, Archives of Disease in Childhood (2022). Journal information: Archives of Disease in Childhood Social communication skill attainment in babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic: a birth cohort study,(2022). DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2021-323441 The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of random forest models with variables sequentially included following the order of the median of Gini importance index from 50 replications. Credit: BMJ Health Care Inform (2022). DOI: 10.1136/bmjhci-2022-100544 Medical insurance claims might do more than help pay for health concerns; they could help predict them, according to new findings from an interdisciplinary Penn State research team published in BMJ Health & Care Informatics. The researchers developed machine learning models that assess the connections among hundreds of clinical variables, including doctor visits and health care services for seemingly unrelated medical conditions, to predict the likelihood of autism spectrum disorder in young children. "Insurance claim data, which is de-identified and widely available in marketing scan datasets, provides thorough, longitudinal medical details about the patient," said corresponding author Qiushi Chen, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering. "The scientific literature in the field suggests that kids with autism spectrum disorder also often have higher rates of clinical symptoms, such as different types of infections, gastrointestinal problems, seizures, as well as behavior indications. Those symptoms are not a cause of autism but are often manifested among kids with autism especially at young ages, so we were inspired to synthesize the medical information to quantify and predict that associated likelihood." The researchers fed the data into machine learning models, training it to assess hundreds of variables to find correlations that are related to an increased likelihood for autism spectrum disorder. "Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability," said co-author Guodong Liu, associate professor of public health sciences, of psychiatry and behavioral health and of pediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine. "It takes observation and several screenings for a clinician to make a diagnosis. The process is usually lengthy, and many kids miss the window for early interventionsthe most effective way to improve outcomes." One of the commonly used screening tools to help identify young children with an elevated likelihood of autism spectrum disorder is called the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), which is normally given at routine well-child visits at 18 and 24 months old. It consists of 20 questions focused on behaviors related to eye contact, social interactions and some physical milestones such as walking. Guardians answer based on their observations, but, according to Chen, development varies so significantly at these ages that the tool may misidentify children. As a result, children often are not officially diagnosed until they are four or five years old, meaning they miss years of potential early interventions. "Our new model, which quantifies the sum of identified risk factors together to inform the likelihood level, is already comparable toand in some cases even slightly better thanthe existing screening tool," Chen said. "When we combine the model with the screening tool, we have a very promising approach for clinicians." According to Liu, it would be practically feasible to integrate the model with the screening tool for clinical use. "A unique strength of this work is that this clinical informatics approach can be easily incorporated into the clinical flow," Liu said. "The prediction model could be embedded in a hospital's Electronic Health Record system, which is used to chart patient health, as a clinical decision support tool to flag the high-risk children so that both clinicians and the families could take actions sooner." Chen is working with Whitney Guthrie, clinical psychologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Autism Research and assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. They are analyzing precisely how well the combined hospital record data and screen results predict autism diagnoses, as well as exploring other potential screening tools that could better equip clinicians to help their patients. "Not only is the current tool missing many children on the autism spectrum, but many children who are detected by our screening tools experience long waitlists because of our limited diagnosis capacity," Guthrie said. "Although it does detect many children, the M-CHAT also has very high rates of false positives and false negatives, which means that many autistic children are missed, and other children are referred for an autism evaluation when they may not need one. Both problems contribute to the long waitoften many months or even yearsfor further evaluation." "The consequences for children who are missed by our current screening tools are particularly important because delayed diagnosis often means that children miss the window for early intervention entirely. Pediatricians need better screening tools to accurately identify all children who need an autism evaluation as early as possible." Part of the problem is the limited number of psychologists, developmental pediatricians and other experts in pediatric development who can make an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. According to Chen, the solution may exist in industrial engineering. "The key idea is improving how we use resources," Chen said. "With Dr. Guthrie's clinical expertise and my group's modeling capabilities, we aim to develop a tool that primary care physicians without specialized training can apply to make confident assessments to diagnose children as early as possible in order to get the care they need as soon as possible." Explore further First large-scale study of universal screening for autism raises questions about accuracy More information: Yu-Hsin Chen et al, Early detection of autism spectrum disorder in young children with machine learning using medical claims data, BMJ Health & Care Informatics (2022). Yu-Hsin Chen et al, Early detection of autism spectrum disorder in young children with machine learning using medical claims data,(2022). DOI: 10.1136/bmjhci-2022-100544 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Unlike shorter duration events like natural disasters or other trauma, the COVID-19 pandemic doesn't involve a "clean break" to indicate it's over, making it difficult for many people to make sense of what they've experienced. This is especially true for first-year college students, who were getting accustomed to the college environment in spring 2020 just as the COVID-19 pandemic caused many colleges to temporarily shut down, said Jordan Booker at the University of Missouri. Booker, an assistant professor of psychological sciences, and colleagues reveal in a new study that storytelling, or narratives, can be an effective tool in helping people make sense of these types of events. In particular, the researchers found first-year college students who used stories to express more personal growth and opportunities for maturation in their young lives during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic reported less stress and more confidence in their schoolwork both in spring 2020, while many students were quarantining, and a year later, when most students were back on campus. "Humans are natural storytellersand storytelling is this rich and conscious opportunity for us to make sense of our lives," said Booker, whose appointment is in the MU College of Arts and Science. "When taken broadly, we would expect this notion to translate into experiences with the pandemic as well. But, when we asked these students to provide details at the beginning of the pandemic in a clear and organized manner, we found it was hard for them to do. Developmentally, we would usually expect them to do that task well, but in this case, it is hard to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end." Typically, after a major traumatic event, Booker said narrative researchers like him are able to observe people using storytelling to express thoughts about what has occurred. "People tend to differ in their approaches to storytelling, and these differences are important," he said. "Traumatic experiences are very painful, but they often involve a 'clean break' to signify the end of the experience and a chance to make sense of things. However, this has not been the case with the pandemic. COVID-19 has been impacting our lives for multiple years now." Initially, the team of psychology researchers from MU, Emory University, University of Kansas, University of Utah and Western Washington University expected the pandemic to be a short-lived event, so they wanted to capture, in the moment, what life was like for these students. Then, they planned to follow up after some time had passedlike they've done with other major traumatic experiencesto see if there were any differences in how people approached storytelling. These changes would have allowed researchers to anticipate any ongoing recovery in the students' lives. However, while that aspect of the project did not materialize the way they had expected because the pandemic is ongoing, Booker said the broader idea of their project was maintained. "We were able to broadly examine the personality differences or individual differences that students had in how they developed their stories, and whether those differences could help us anticipate how they were coping or adjusting against the backdrop of the pandemic," he said. For instance, the storytelling revealed some students were expressing growth from their pandemic experiences, Booker said. "In some ways we may think that storytelling in the midst of a broad disruption in life, like the pandemic, is an opportunity to say, 'You know, I've made it this far, I can absolutely persevere through this,'" he said. "This was the case for some students." For example, one student wrote: "I have learned more and have accomplished more on my daily schedules then when doing In-person classes. As a highly productive person, it was a shift but something I think helped me mentally. This explains both my dedication to school but my embrace of understanding sometimes you need to step back and get lots of work done. This has not only shaped the way I learn and think, but me as a person." Booker also said while some students were experiencing growth, they saw some students struggling with how to move forward, or forge a "path ahead." For example, one student wrote: "Staying home most of the day, makes me feel unmotivated and feel like I am not moving forward with my life. I like being around my family but not all the time [ ] I feel like because of this, I became more lazy and unhealthy." A lifelong interest in storytelling Booker's interest in the field of psychology began during his junior and senior years of high school after he took a psychology course that included reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel, "Crime and Punishment." At the time, his interest in psychology was broadly defined. After initially entertaining the idea of enrolling in medical school and pursuing a double major in psychology and biology with a minor in medicine and society, he decided medicine wasn't for him. "As I was trying to figure out what's next for me, some colleagues reached out and suggested I look at doing something with research," he said. Booker came to appreciate developmental science and how certain emotion skills and social skills are shaped in children. He did his early work as an undergraduate and graduate student at Virginia Tech while working with Julie Dunsmore, who is now a professor of psychological, health, and learning sciences at the University of Houston. Booker then wanted to expand his skill set to be better prepared for a role as a professor. So, he became a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University and worked in the lab of Robyn Fivush, who is now the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and a co-author on the storytelling study. "Robyn is a thought leader in bringing life stories, particularly through narrative approaches, to psychology," Booker said. "So, I got to experience working with her in her lab for about three years, and through that experience I was able to combine my existing interests in emotion and personality with some growing interests in how identity was important in the lives of young people. Storytelling captures of all these elements. People tend to talk about their lives in fairly comparable ways, but they tend to differ in how those experiences are handled, and those differences tend to be important for how people function day to day." The research was published in Psychological Science. Explore further Study shows family support, awareness benefit Latino college students More information: Jordan A. Booker et al, Early Impacts of College, Interrupted: Considering First-Year Students' Narratives About COVID and Reports of Adjustment During College Shutdowns, Psychological Science (2022). Journal information: Psychological Science Jordan A. Booker et al, Early Impacts of College, Interrupted: Considering First-Year Students' Narratives About COVID and Reports of Adjustment During College Shutdowns,(2022). DOI: 10.1177/09567976221108941 Skin is the largest organ to contact thirdhand smoke and may thus receive the greatest exposure. Credit: Celeste Lum. Thirdhand smoke, or THS, comprises the residual pollutants from tobacco smoke that remain on surfaces and in dust after tobacco has been smoked. It can remain on indoor surfaces indefinitely, causing potentially harmful exposure to both smokers and non-smokers. A team led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has found that acute exposure of the skin to THS elevates biomarkers associated with the initiation of skin diseases, such as contact dermatitis and psoriasis. "We found exposure of human skin to THS initiates mechanisms of inflammatory skin disease, and elevates urinary biomarkers of oxidative harm, which could lead to other diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and atherosclerosis," said Shane Sakamaki-Ching, a former graduate student at UC Riverside who graduated with a doctoral degree in cell, molecular, and developmental biology in March 2022. "Alarmingly, acute dermal exposure to THS mimics the harmful effects of cigarette smoking." The study, published in eBioMedicine, is the first to be performed on humans exposed dermally to THS. The clinical investigation, which took place at UC San Francisco, involved the participation of 10 healthy, non-smokers who were 22 to 45 years old. For three hours, each participant wore clothing impregnated with THS and either walked or ran on a treadmill for at least 15 minutes each hour to induce perspiration and increase uptake of THS through the skin. The participants did not know the clothing had THS. Blood and urine samples were then collected from the participants at regular intervals to identify protein changes and markers of oxidative stress induced by the THS. Control exposure participants wore clean clothing. "We found acute THS exposure caused elevation of urinary biomarkers of oxidative damage to DNA, lipids, and proteins, and these biomarkers remained high after the exposure stopped," said Sakamaki-Ching, now a research scientist at Kite Pharma in California, where he leads a stem cell team. "Cigarette smokers show the same elevation in these biomarkers. Our findings can help physicians in diagnosing patients exposed to THS and help develop regulatory policies dealing with remediation of indoor environments contaminated with THS." Prue Talbot, a professor of cell biology in whose lab Sakamaki-Ching worked, explained that skin is the largest organ to contact THS and may thus receive the greatest exposure. "There is a general lack of knowledge of human health responses to THS exposure," said Talbot, the paper's corresponding author. "If you buy a used car previously owned by a smoker, you are putting yourself at some health risk. If you go to a casino that allows smoking, you are exposing your skin to THS. The same applies to staying in a hotel room that was previously occupied by a smoker." The THS exposures that the 10 participants were subjected to were relatively brief and did not cause visible changes in the skin. Nevertheless, the molecular biomarkers in blood that are associated with early-stage activation of contact dermatitis, psoriasis and other skin conditions were elevated. "This underscores the idea that dermal exposure to THS could lead to molecular initiation of inflammation-induced skin diseases," Sakamaki-Ching said. Next, the researchers plan to evaluate residues left by electronic cigarettes that can come into contact with human skin. They also plan to evaluate larger populations exposed to longer periods of dermal THS. Sakamaki-Ching and Talbot were joined in the study by Jun Li of UCR, Suzaynn Schick of UC San Francisco, and Gabriela Grigorean of UC Davis. Explore further Human skin can be damaged by exposure to thirdhand smoke and electronic cigarette spills More information: Shane Sakamaki-Ching et al, Dermal thirdhand smoke exposure induces oxidative damage, initiates skin inflammatory markers, and adversely alters the human plasma proteome, eBioMedicine (2022). Journal information: EBioMedicine Shane Sakamaki-Ching et al, Dermal thirdhand smoke exposure induces oxidative damage, initiates skin inflammatory markers, and adversely alters the human plasma proteome,(2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2022.104256 Interaction effect between contingency condition and IDD-C score on control bias. Credit: Collabra:Psychology (2022). DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/xq24r Are depressed people simply more realistic in judging how much they control their lives, while others view the world through rose-colored lenses, living under the illusion that they have more control than they do? That's the general idea behind depressive realism, a theory that has held sway in science and popular culture for more than four decades. The problem is, it's just not true, new research finds. It's an idea that exerts enough appeal that lots of people seem to believe it, but the evidence just isn't there to sustain it, says Professor Don Moore, the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair in Leadership and Communication at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and co-author of the study in the journal Collabra:Psychology. The good news is you don't have to be depressed to understand how much control you have. Depressive realism The concept of depressive realism stems from a 1979 study of college students examining whether they could predict how much control they had over whether a light turned green when they pushed a button. The original research concluded that the depressed students were better at identifying when they had no control over the lights, while those who weren't depressed tended to overestimate their level of control. Moore and his colleagues set out to try to replicate those findings as part of a broader effort to restore trust in scientific research, much of which is woven into the fabric of the scientific community and wider culture. Researchers are revisiting bedrock studies to shore up the most basic of scientific principles: Can the researchand its conclusionsbe replicated? Why test the theory of depressive realism in particular? Its decades-long infusion into science, culture, and even potential mental health treatment policy makes it important, Moore says. The original study, for instance, was cited more than 2,000 times in subsequent studies or research, according to Google Scholar. At the top of the list of reasons why we ought to revisit this particular article is its widespread acceptance in both the scholarly and popular literature, says Moore, who studies overconfidence, confidence, and decision-making. That means a lot of people are building theories or policies premised on this effect being true. If it's not, it's really important to establish that. Replicating the original study Moore co-authored the study with University of California Berkeley psychology professor Sheri Johnson and former undergraduate student researcher Karin Garrett, BA 21, along with University of Miami doctoral student Amelia Dev, BA 17. The authors studied two groups of participants, whom they screened for depression via a questionnaire. The first group of 248 participants came from Amazon's Mechanical Turk, an online service that provides paid survey-takers and study participants from a range of backgrounds, in this case all over 18 years old. The second group was made up of 134 college students who participated in return for college credit. The researchers added or used more modern and robust measurements for the study. For example, they added a mechanism to measure bias, and experimentally varied the amount of control participants actually had. Participants performed a task similar to that in the 1979 study. In 40 rounds, each chose whether to press a button, after which a lightbulb or a black box appeared. Each was told to figure out whether pushing (or not pushing) the button impacted whether the light came on. After the rounds, each reported how much control they had over the light. Both the online groups and college student groups were split into three experimental conditions. Each condition experienced different relationships between the button and the light during the 40 rounds. The participants in the first two conditions had no actual control over the light's appearance, yet saw it illuminate one-quarter or three-quarters of the time, respectively. Participants in the third condition had some control, seeing the light three-quarters of the time after pushing the button. The researchers were unable to replicate the original study's results. In fact, people in the online group with a higher level of depression overestimated their controla direct contradiction to the original study. That finding may be driven by anxiety rather than depression, the researchers note, an observation Moore says merits further study. In the college student group, depression levels had little impact on their view of their control, the authors found. Researchers also tested for overconfidence. Study participants were asked to estimate their scores on an intelligence test. Depression had no impact there, either. Results undermine the theory The results, Moore says, undermined his belief in depressive realism. The study does not suggest that there are benefits to being depressed, so no one should seek depression as a cure to their cognitive biases, Moore says. Imagine, for example, a manager hiring someone who is depressed because they believebased on the original studythat the person is less likely to be overconfident and will have better judgment. That would be a mistake, Moore says. While depression may not improve judgment, the issue of how to accurately gauge our level of control in various situations has broader implications throughout life, Moore says. We live with a great deal of uncertainty about how much control we haveover our careers, our health, our body weight, our friendships, or our happiness, says Moore. What actions can we take that really matter? If we want to make good choices in life, it's very helpful to know what we control and what we don't. Explore further Is stroke linked to depression before it occurs? More information: Amelia Shepley Dev et al, Sadder = Wiser: Depressive Realism is not Robust to Replication, Collabra:Psychology (2022). Amelia Shepley Dev et al, Sadder = Wiser: Depressive Realism is not Robust to Replication,(2022). DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/xq24r Will Assyrians Become Strictly a Religious Minority in Iraq? Many Assyrians describe the silence by most Assyrian political groups and many nationalists, since the outcome of the 2018 Iraqi elections, mysterious. For the first time since 2005 Iraqi elections, not a single independent Assyrian group secured a seat in the Iraqi Parliament. Yes, the Shi'a Arabs and the Kurdish political groups stole the parliamentary seats assigned for the Christians by picking up puppet candidates and then had non-Christians vote for them. It was a dirty and unfair game played by the Shi'a Arab and the Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), but Assyrians did not react to the foul play enough or appropriately. Have Assyrians given up on Assyria? Have they succumbed to being good Christians who accepted Kurds as their saviors and representatives? Did Assyrians forget what the Kurds committed in 2014 when ISIS attacked Mosul, the Nineveh Plain and Khabor regions? First, the Kurdish peshmerga disarmed the Assyrians and then fled when ISIS attacked, leaving the Assyrians to face yet another genocide. Since this is true, why do Assyrian patriarchs and majority of the bishops claim that Kurds are Assyrians' brothers? These claims are full of fallacy -- they are unequivocally misleading and untruthful. These claims perplex and confuse the various Assyrian congregations. To insinuate that the martyred Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun and Abd al-Salam Barzani were close friends who respected and admired each other, as stated on Sept 12, 2022 during the opening of the new Assyrian Church of the East patriarchate in Arbil, is idiotic. Did the Assyrians forget how Simko, the murderer of Mar Benyamin Shimun, is still treated as a Kurdish national hero and is forced as such on the Assyrians students in the Kurdish region's history curriculum? Such overtly and regularly repeated claims about the so-called brotherly Kurds began to spread considerably by the Chicago based late Patriarch Mar Dinkha who visited Arbil few times. One would expect that these complimentary claims about the Kurds by the various church leaders and the cooperation or complete submission of most of the Assyrian political groups that are headquartered in northern Iraq should have led the Kurdish leaders to genuinely forge a fair, just and admirable policies towards the indigenous Assyrians (and Yezidis), still, the Kurds did not. The Kurdish leaders have proved that they were only delaying, because they know that instability, lack of opportunities and insecurity were forcing more and more Assyrians to flee Iraq. The Kurdish leaders and their conspirators accelerated the process of emptying the Assyrian lands and dispersing the indigenous Assyrians by not having any serious clashes with ISIS to stop or delay the invasion of the last strongholds of the concentrated Assyrian regions of Nineveh Plain (Iraq) and Khabor (Syria) regions. Some Assyrians argue that in fact the Kurds conspired in the creation of ISIS. The Kurdish leaders have continued to bet on time in their plans to control more Assyrian lands. They have done it since the Kurds began their revolt in the 1960s. The revolt caused instability and in time has slowly forced the Assyrians to leave their villages. Even during times of peace between the Kurds and the Iraqi government, the Kurdish leaders encroached on Assyrian lands one meter at a time, under different pretexts. The Kurdish leaders understand that the essence of the struggle between the Assyrians and the Kurds is land. If they just keep forcing the Assyrians out, those vacated lands become Kurdish subsequently. They have expanded the Kurdish region systematically by the kurdification of Assyrian villages and towns one village and one town at a time. To have a better picture of what goes one, lets consider these examples. In 1996, the Kurdish authorities stated that they were going to move a number of displaced Kurdish families from the Iraqi borders region and settle them temporarily as guests on lands on the outskirts of Sarsink. Until the 1960s, the Assyrian owners were using those lands for agriculture and pastures but have stopped using them due to the Kurdish revolt. The Kurdish government had promised that those displaced Kurdish families will be relocated as soon as the security conditions improved. However, that temporary housing has turned today into the large Kurdish city of Azadi. As if that was not enough, the encroachment and Kurdish settlements began to take place in the village of Sarsink itself. Under false pretexts, the Assyrians of Sarsink are not permitted to build houses on their vast nearby meadows and vineyards that they owned and inherited since the creation of the Iraqi Republic in 1921. They do however have the permission to build on fields that are directly adjacent to their residences. Meanwhile, the Kurds can build whatever they desire on those Assyrian vineyards and meadows. Badarish is part of the subdistrict ( nahiya) of Sarsink, which in turn is part of the district ( qadha') of Amadiya. The Assyrians have lived in Badarish before Iraq was officially created in 1921. Today, the Kurdish harassment of the Assyrians of Badarish and their encroachment on the town continue principally in similar manner followed in Sarsink. The problem the Assyrians have faced repeatedly is that a group of Kurds would built few homes nearby the Assyrian villages, expand with time, begin to harass the local Assyrians, force them to leave and finally take over the village. In other cases, a Kurd will appears out of nowhere, uses the privilege of having the government backing, obtains a fake document claiming that the land belongs to him, he then settles in and with time more people arrive and take over. Consider also the situation in the Assyrian village of Rabedke in Nahla region. In 1992 a decision from a committee with the highest agricultural court in the KRG and the governor of Dohuk gave the ownership of the village to the Assyrian owners. Even today, half of the village is not planted because the Kurds have not allowed the Assyrians to plant them. Even when Assyrians win court decisions regarding Kurdish encroachments or illegal seizure of Assyrian lands, those court decisions rarely get implemented. For example, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) issued a decision on May 12, 2012 about the Assyrian village of Qarawula. Around 1200 sq meters had been planted by a Kurd who claims that the land belongs to him and he refuses to vacate. The court decision gave the ownership of the land to the local Assyrians. Even today, after 10 years of the decision, the order to vacate has not been executed. More than 70 Assyrian locations face the same problem. Kurdish clan leaders, politicians, Islamic leaders, business men have power that the KRG does not confront. Have we forgotten the Kurdish cleric who issued a fatwa to destroy Assyrian properties or businesses and the local government did not prosecute anyone? This non-action is in fact an encouragement for others to do the same. The KRG does sometimes issue a ruling in favor of the Assyrians based on a court order but it comes short from executing those orders. Assyrians must refuse to see their history and existence in northern Iraq transforming into a simple footnote in the Kurdish self-rule region. The Kurdish leaders need to understand that Assyrians are the indigenous people of Iraq and the heirs of Assyria (northern Iraq). Even if one Assyrian remained in northern Iraq, the Kurdish leaders will in time have to deal with the indigenous status of Assyrians as an ethnic group, original owners of the land and not just a Christian minority. The Kurdish encroachments on, and illegal grabbing of, Assyrian lands are in reality a well planned scheme that lead to demographic change in occupied Assyria. The plan aims in principle to eliminate Assyrians on two fronts: One, undermine their presence as an indigenous ethnic group by presenting them as a Christian () minority. Two, eliminate any dense Assyrian presence in any particular region. Barzani's plan is to leave Assyrians weak and scattered throughout northern Iraq (Occupied Assyria), living under a reinvented Ottoman dhimmi status with a Kurdish twist. The latest village sign below erected recently by the authorities in the Assyrian village of Chalik is a good example where it does not indicate that the village is Assyrian rather a "Christian". The Assyrians must fight so that they are recognized as Assyrians and their lands, villages and towns as Assyrian and not simply Christians. NEW ORLEANS (AP) A New Orleans health care nonprofit is acquiring three hospitals from a national chain in a deal that will leave two major players on the city's hospital care scene. New Orleans-based LCMC Health will acquire three Tulane hospitals from HCA Healthcare. The deal includes Tulane Medical Center in downtown New Orleans, along with two suburban hospitals, Tulane Lakeside Hospital and Lakeview Regional Medical Center. The deal leaves LCMC and Ochsner as the two major hospital care providers in the New Orleans area. The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported that its a $150 million deal. It was announced in a joint statement Monday by LCMC Health and Tulane University. The university has been a minority owner of the hospitals but will not have an ownership interest when the deal is completed. If you think about LCMC health and our nonprofit mission and Tulane University being a nonprofit, both here located in New Orleans, where dollars are reinvested in New Orleans from that standpoint, a partnership just makes sense, said LCMC Health CEO Greg Feirn. All employees will be retained, according to the news release. Under the new agreement, the majority of services at Tulanes downtown hospital will move to nearby University Medical Center and East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie. Tulane University will no longer have ownership interest in the hospitals. However, the Tulane Medical Center facility, with 1.4 million square feet on five acres, will revert back to Tulane University after closing and become an integral part of our downtown campus revitalization, Tulane University spokesman Keith Brannon said in an emailed statement Tuesday. In addition to the $150 million payment to HCA, LCMC has agreed to invest $220 million in East Jefferson and Tulane Lakeside hospitals, both in Metairie, as well as Lakeview Regional in Covington. The downtown medical center will be repurposed to house a new nursing program, clinical research programs and more space for students in medical fields. Tulane University has committed $600 million to revamp the downtown campus. Such mergers help hospitals cut costs in a few different ways, Walter Lane, a health care economist at University of New Orleans, told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. There really are some cost savings centralizing all the back office stuff, as well as the supply chain and things of that sort, said Lane. And the bigger system will have more negotiating power against suppliers and insurance companies. The agreement is dependent on approval from the state attorney generals office. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing sweeping changes in the way chicken and turkey meat is processed in an effort to reduce salmonella illnesses from food contamination. But those changes could require meat companies to make extensive changes to their operations. The agencys Food Safety and Inspection Service will begin a lengthy process of proposing new rules by holding a public hearing on Nov. 3 to get input from the poultry industry and others. The government wants new regulations rolled out beginning next year and completed within two years. Proposed changes include testing incoming flocks of chickens and turkeys for salmonella before they enter the slaughterhouse and limits on how much certain strains of salmonella can be on meat sold to consumers. Missoulas first court program dedicated to handling domestic violence cases with a cohesive, expedited approach is underway in the Missoula County Justice Court. The court aims to accelerate the criminal justice process for domestic violence cases, thereby shrinking the time survivors and offenders spend enveloped in the legal system. It takes a two-prong approach: working to improve safety for survivors, and making behavioral treatment more accessible for domestic violence offenders. Women have been explaining domestic violence to men forever, Justice of the Peace Alex Beal said. Too often we dont listen, we dont take it seriously, we dont do anything to address it. He described the process as outcome-neutral, meaning it aims to maintain fairness for everyone involved. Beals department took over all domestic violence-related cases Missoula Countys Justice Court sees to bolster continuity in case proceedings. Our goal is to expedite the time between someone being arrested and a resolution to that case, he said. The announcement was part of a series of events planned by Missoula County for domestic violence awareness month, which runs through October. One in three women and one in nine men report experiencing intimate partner violence. Locally, partner or family member assault (PFMA) is one of the five leading reasons people get booked into the Missoula jail, Director of Missoulas Community Justice Department Shantelle Gaynor said at Tuesdays press conference. Domestic violence is a pervasive problem across the U.S., she said. Violence impacts every kind of community across the spectrum. Gaynor noted Missoula has already made strides in addressing domestic violence, such as support groups, court-based advocacy, emergency shelters for people fleeing violence and specialized services at UM for students. This court is the next step in that, she said. Its another brick in our foundation to improve services and outcomes in our community. Domestic violence cases can take up to six months to a year to make their way through the system. The program hopes to cut that number down to two or three months. In that time period, defense and prosecution attorneys will work to resolve the case while simultaneously wrapping survivors in services and resources. Domestic violence cases are different from others in the legal system, Missoula County Deputy Attorney Ryan Mickelson said. Oftentimes survivors and accused abusers share children, homes and finances. When cases take over six months to resolve, mitigating contact with the offender isnt always possible, Mickelson explained. Simply cutting ties is not necessarily possible in these cases as it is in other cases, he said. Its a very unique dynamic. In Montana, the PFMA statute is charged as a misdemeanor for the first two offenses. If someone is charged a third time, it becomes a felony. Missoulas Justice Court sees misdemeanor PFMA cases in the county, as well as initial appearances for domestic violence cases involving felony charges such as strangulation or assault with a weapon. Beal said his court saw roughly 144 PFMA cases (including felony PFMA charges) in 2021, and 92 from Jan. 1, 2022 to Oct. 11, 2022. The domestic violence court is zero-cost right now, but that might change down the line if it receives grant funding. The court draws from similar courts in Tucson and Boise. Members of Missoulas Justice Court and County Attorneys Office, along with the Missoula Community Justice Department, met with those courts to learn about what is and isnt working in their domestic violence treatment courts. Were going to see if this has the impact we hope it does, Beal said. About 150 items considered sacred by the Sioux peoples that have been stored at a small Massachusetts museum for more than a century are being returned, museum and tribal officials announced Monday. The items including weapons, pipes, moccasins and clothing about seven or eight of which are thought to have a direct link to the the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre are due to be formally handed over during a ceremony scheduled for Nov. 5, Ann Meilus, president of the board at the Founders Museum in Barre, said during a news conference on a day that several people present noted is more commonly being celebrated as Indigenous Peoples Day. This is not our history of Barre. This is the Lakota Sioux's history, and we should honor the Lakota Sioux and what they desire, she said. It is a repatriation project that has been decades in the making. The return of the items is a chance to begin that process of healing," Kevin Killer, president of the Oglala Sioux tribe said. The items being returned are just a tiny fraction of an estimated 870,000 Native American artifacts including nearly 110,000 human remains in the possession of the nation's most prestigious colleges, museums and even the federal government that under federal law are supposed to be returned to the tribes under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, often referred to as or NAGPRA. While the Barre museum maintains that as a private institution that does not receive federal funding, it is not subject to NAGPRA, returning items in its collection that belong to Indigenous tribes is the right thing to do, Meilus said. Wendell Yellow Bull, a descendant of Wounded Knee victim Joseph Horn Cloud, said the items will be stored at Oglala Lakota College until tribal leaders decide what to do with them. Upon the return of the items, there will be a mass meeting and a very meticulous discussion on how and what we're going to do with the items," he said. Most of all, there are items from the massacre site, so a lot of preparations and ceremonies must take place in order for us to proceed forward." More than 200 men, women, children and elderly people were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in December 1890 in one of the countrys worst massacres of Native Americans. Congress issued a formal apology to the Sioux Nation for the massacre in 1991. The Barre museum acquired its Indigenous collection from Frank Root, a 19th century native of the town about 70 miles (112 kilometers) west of Boston. He was a traveling shoe salesman who collected the items on his journeys, and once had a road show that rivaled P.T. Barnum's extravaganzas, Meilus said. The items being returned to the Sioux people have all been authenticated by multiple experts, including tribal experts. The museum has other Indigenous items not believed to have originated with the Sioux. Artist Michael He Crow used his expertise of traditional Lakota Sioux artwork and craftsmanship. I am able to recognize some of the designs and the colors that the Lakota used at that time," he said. There was a time when specific designs could be traced back to a particular family, but because those designs have been reproduced and replicated so many times over the years, that is now nearly impossible, he said. A chase that looped around Burke County for about a half hour Tuesday afternoon came to a slow stop on N.C. 18 when the vehicle apparently ran out of gas. Autumn Burhans, 28, was charged with felony speeding to elude arrest, possession of a stolen vehicle and larceny of a motor vehicle, along with a slew of traffic offenses including speeding, careless and reckless driving and driving while license revoked, according to multiple law enforcement sources involved in the investigation. The ordeal started Monday, when Billy Greene said he was trying to help a friend and took them to Walmart in Morganton. Greene told The News Herald he was in the store for about five minutes and came outside to find his Ford Explorer missing. He flagged down an officer, and the Morganton Department of Public Safety took a report of the stolen vehicle, said MDPS Sgt. J. Beaver. Agencies in the area were alerted to be on the lookout for the stolen vehicle. Beaver said he drove by the Explorer on North Green Street near The Gate on Tuesday afternoon and could see it was driven by Burhans. He turned around and tried to catch up to the vehicle, but lost sight of it. MDPS officers flooded the area looking for the vehicle, and Beaver said a message was relayed to deputies with the Burke County Sheriffs Office to be on the lookout for it. Thats when a deputy got behind the vehicle on Salem Road and attempted to pull it over, said Sheriff Steve Whisenant. The vehicle fled, launching a chase down Salem Road. The vehicle made its way back to Burkemont Avenue, then to Interstate 40, Whisenant said. The chase continued east on I-40 to Exit 112, at times reaching speeds of 102 mph. The vehicle turned right onto Mineral Springs Mountain Road until it got to N.C. 18 South and headed back toward Morganton city limits, Whisenant said. Burhans pulled over on N.C. 18 South when the vehicle apparently ran out of gas, Whisenant said. Greene showed up at the scene to retrieve the vehicle, where he took a few minutes to clean it out, finding multiple hypodermic needles in the vehicle along with other assorted items. Blown away, just absolutely blown away, Greene said. I cant believe what people will do these days and what measures they will go to to make things happen. Just blows my mind. He showed The News Herald messages he exchanged with a Facebook profile he said belonged to Burhans, begging her to bring the vehicle back to his house. So I have found out you have seriously called the law and you aint getting (expletive), said one of the messages to Greene. A records check on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety website showed Burhans had previous convictions of interfering with an electronic monitoring device and larceny after breaking and entering. Burhans bond was set at $21,000 secured with her court date set for Thursday, according to information from the Burke County Jail. The North Carolina State Highway Patrol and Valdese Police Department stood by with stop sticks to deploy if the chase neared them. NCSHP also monitored the chase at a distance in case BCSO units needed additional assistance. The MSDH Criminal History Fingerprint unit processes background checks for all Mississippi licensed Health Care and Child Care facilities. All background checks are processed through the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and are transmitted through the Mississippi Criminal Information Center and Federal Bureau of Investigation databases to complete the requirements for state and national background checks. Portals for Child Care and Health Care Facilities Child Care Background Checks For additional information regarding interstate background checks, please contact Julie Henderson at 601-364-5059, or e-mail CHRCUnit@msdh.ms.gov Health Care Background Checks If you live and work in Mississippi, you can request a comprehensive background check for work in a Mississippi licensed health care facility. LiveScan Fingerprinting If you are in the process of being hired or completing an application for an MSDH licensed health care or child care facility, you may request an appointment for a background check at one of our 25 health department offices offering LiveScans. Please have available upon arrival to LiveScan appointment a completed LiveScan Fingerprint Information form (see below), and picture ID. For available locations and appointment times, click here. LiveScan printing in our Jackson office is available by appointment only on Tuesday, 1:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m. and Thursdays, 9:30 a.m.-11:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Please e-mail Brittany.Orr@msdh.ms.gov or call 601-364-5062 to make an appointment in our Jackson office. Butte police reports Fire destroys garage A garage was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived around 4:30 a.m. Sunday in the 1100 block of Nevada Avenue. A woman was reportedly living inside, using a wood stove that had not been vented properly. Firefighters were on the scene for over an hour. No one was injured. Battery thief A call came in about 10:44 p.m. Thursday that a battery had been stolen from a truck while it was parked near Emmett Avenue and Galena Street. The owner of the truck watched it being stolen and reported he saw the thief place the battery in the back of his get-away truck. The resident came out of his house carrying a bat and allegedly told the thief to put the battery back. Instead, the thief got back in his truck and the man responded by hitting the get-away truck with the bat. Closer to 1 p.m., the alleged get-away truck was seen on Granite Mountain Road, with what appeared to be a dent made by a bat. When stopped, the driver, Joseph Patrick Brian Jr., 45, of Butte told police he was not the culprit, but when the battery was clearly seen in the back of the truck, admitted he was there, but did not take the battery. Brian was jailed for the felony offenses of robbery and probation violation. Family fight A family disturbance in the 1800 block of Reynolds Avenue late Thursday night resulted in the arrest of Jennifer Lee Schneider, 47, of Butte for misdemeanor partner or family member assault. Couple arrested A trooper with the Montana Highway Patrol took two residents of Grand View, Washington, into custody Thursday night, near the intersection of Meadowlark and Harrison Avenue. Alyssa Valencia Rodriquez, 27, had four felony warrants out for her arrest, including two out-of-jurisdiction and two counts of possession with intent to sell. Added to the offenses were misdemeanor theft and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was put on a 48-hour investigative hold. Fidel Gonzalez, 28, was brought to the jail on two felony counts of possession with intent to sell and the misdemeanor offenses of theft and possession of drug paraphernalia. Causing a disturbance On Thursday morning, Brandon Joel Wood, 36, of Butte was reportedly causing a disturbance in the 800 block of West Park Street. An officer arrested him on a warrant for misdemeanor criminal trespass to property. Brought to Butte U.S. marshals from Missoula County brought Christopher Lee Rasmussen, 38, of Butte to the Butte Detention Center Thursday morning. He was jailed on two Butte District Court warrants for felony burglary and felony possession of dangerous drugs. Man punched It is alleged that early Thursday night, Justin Tanner Foottit, 26, of Butte punched another man in the 600 block of South Idaho Street. He was jailed for misdemeanor simple assault. Hanging out At 4 a.m. Saturday, Tyler Andrew Collins, 27, of Butte was sitting inside a 2001 Dodge Ram parked just below the Big M. Collins told an officer that he was just hanging out, but the officer learned he had a misdemeanor warrant out for his arrest out of Beaverhead County and took him to jail. No headlights At 2:15 a.m. Saturday, an officer noticed a woman driving with no headlights near the intersection of Mercury and Arizona. Rachel Elizabeth Boothe, 40, of Butte was pulled over near Mercury and Ohio. She appeared to be intoxicated and failed sobriety maneuvers, and was jailed for misdemeanor driving under the influence. Bond of $50,000 On Sunday afternoon, some residents living in the 1800 block of Wilson called about a woman who appeared to be hiding in a nearby garage. The woman turned out to be Angela Sharon Jester, 36, of Butte, who had a felony warrant out for her arrest out of Beaverhead County. She was jailed on a $50,000 bond. Driver hits pole An accident just before 9 p.m. Sunday on Front and Utah, resulted in the arrest of Nicholas Johnson, 29, of Butte for the misdemeanor offenses of aggravated driving under the influence, reckless driving, driving without a valid drivers license and no liability insurance. Johnson was booked and released Sunday night after hitting a pole with his truck on Front and Utah, and knocking it down. He and his passenger were not hurt. Suspicious activity A call came in late Saturday night about some suspicious activity at the Town Pump, 531 S. Montana St., where a woman was allegedly heard screaming. When officers arrived, they found two men and a woman standing on the north side of the store. One of the men, Blayne Kyle Brady, 31, of Butte told officers he was just walking home but soon began running from them. Brady allegedly jumped over a fence to get away from the police, but was stopped in the 600 block of South Main Street. He was arrested on the misdemeanor counts of obstructing a peace officer and criminal contempt. Not going anywhere Laurie Lynn Catalino, 60, of Butte was not welcome at the Butte Rescue Mission so tried her luck Friday night at St. James Healthcare, where she was found sleeping on a couch in the lobby area. Security personnel asked her to leave, but she allegedly said she wasnt going anywhere. That response got her arrested for misdemeanor criminal trespass to property. Camping out Early Friday night, Nathan Earl Eggleston, 43, of Butte, with shopping cart in tow, was allegedly camping out on the side of Zip Trip, 2801 Harrison Ave. When officers arrived, he was lying on the ground, refusing to leave. He had warrants out for his arrest for the misdemeanor offenses of theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Possession of drug paraphernalia was added to the list. Officers assist Butte officers assisted Adult Probation and Parole in the arrest late Friday afternoon of Matthew Clayton Lamb, 37, of Butte, who was jailed for felony parole violation. During a search of a residence early Friday night in the 2800 block of Silver Bow Boulevard by Adult Probation and Parole, a baggie of suspected crystalized methamphetamine was found. Officers arrested Rocky L. Knapp, 62, of Butte for felony parole violation and felony possession with intent to sell. Yelling and screaming Sean Patrick Stokes, 36, of Butte reportedly spent a good deal of his time Friday afternoon walking into traffic, yelling at drivers, and screaming in the parking lot at St. James Healthcare. For his continued efforts, he was arrested for misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Already in jail Stephen Ray Stafford, 44, of Butte was already in jail when he was cited for misdemeanor simple assault. Stafford allegedly got into a fight with another inmate Friday morning. Several offenses Sherri Lynn Kingston, 53, of Butte was arrested just before 9 p.m. Monday for felony motor vehicle theft and the miscellaneous offenses of aggravated driving under the influence (second offense), no license plates, criminal contempt, criminal trespass to property, and operating a vehicle without current registration. According to a police report, Kingston was found inside a dumpster outside the Town Pump corporate office at 600 S. Main St. It was determined she had been driving a stolen truck parked nearby. A man inside the truck, Everett Leroy Jones, 64, of Anaconda was also arrested. He was jailed for felony parole violation. Fast and furiously Late Monday afternoon, an officer recognized Benjamin Michael Bryant, 33, of Butte as he drove by on his pedal bike. The officer knew Bryant had a warrant out for his arrest, but Bryant refused to stop, pedaling fast and furiously to get away. He then abandoned the bike and took off hiding in some tall grass. He was arrested for felony parole violation and the misdemeanor offenses of obstructing a peace officer and possession of drug paraphernalia (glass pipe). Recent reports The passenger-side window of a car parked on Milky Way was shattered. A man living in the 2300 block of Yale Avenue loaned his cell phone to another man, but it has yet to be returned. License plates were taken from a vehicle parked in the 1800 block of Porter Avenue. Someone helped themselves to some vape pens from an unlocked vehicle parked near Park Street and Prospect Avenue. A 3500-watt Predator generator was stolen from the back of a trailer parked in the 600 block of South Clark Street. Two people were reportedly doing some practice shooting on Palomino Road, deciding who could shoot the best. The contest got heated when one person shot over the head of the other. Police were called to intervene. A resident living in the 1900 block of South Montana lent out his 1988 Honda Accord. The problem is the friend who borrowed it has not returned it. A white 2017 Ford Focus hatchback was stolen while parked in the 1300 block of Sunset Road. Someone was reportedly shooting off fireworks in the 3100 block of Wharton Street, but whoever was the culprit was long gone when police arrived. A person living in the 2500 block of Farrell Street reportedly heard two gunshots. Officers could not find any evidence of the incident. A 2008 Dodge Ram was stolen while parked at the Comfort Inn, 2777 Harrison Ave., but was later recovered. A woman was parked near the Butte Civic Center when a man reportedly tried to open her car door, which was locked. She quickly left the area. Plywood and a stove were stolen from a garage in the 700 block of South Main Street. A trailer hitch was stolen from a vehicle parked at Fairmont Hot Springs. It was 2 in the morning and an officer out on patrol told a man and woman at Clark Park to move it along. When Angela Howe-Parrish didnt hear anything regarding her application to a fashion show in Paris, she assumed she wasnt selected. I kind of gave up, she said. But one day in June, Howe-Parrish opened an email she never thought shed receive. She had been accepted to participate in the third annual Paris Indigenous Fashion Week, an event that has provided Indigenous designers with a global platform, helping them break into the mainstream fashion industry. Howe-Parrish printed the email immediately. She sat at a table in her bedroom in Billings holding the print copy and read it again. Then she rushed to tell her husband, Christian Parrish Takes the Gun, also known to many as the rapper Supaman. Oh my gosh! she told him. My dreams are coming true. Howe-Parrish began to cry. It didnt feel real. Be ready Fashion is in Howe-Parrishs blood. She grew up learning from her mother, Donna Howe, who was a seamstress and home economics teacher. To make some extra money, Donna started a side hustle sewing clothes with Native designs. She named her brand Choke Cherry Creek, after what the Crow people used to call the Bozeman area. When Howe-Parrish was in eighth grade, her mother taught at Plenty Coups High School in Pryor. Because the school was small now serving about 70 students Howe-Parrish was allowed to attend prom. Howe-Parrish was thrilled to showcase her new skills. She sewed her own dress, complete with a black, shiny bodice top and a flared metallic midi skirt with black lace detail. Howe-Parrishs grandmothers and aunts were excellent beaders, and when Howe-Parrish was about 19 or 20, she was desperate to learn from them. I remember my grandmother gave me a medallion that was half done, and she said, You bead the rest of this just how I beaded the first half, Howe-Parrish recalled. The quality of her beadwork was just exquisite. It was perfect. I had to take mine out and redo it a few times. But thats how I learned. As she grew older, Howe-Parrish, who is Crow and a Blackfeet descendant, worked in sales and as an entrepreneur, and she continued to sew and bead for fun. She helped design some items for Good Medicine Clothing, part of her husbands brand. She made some regalia. She sewed some outfits for herself for events. And she beaded for her family members. Over time, friends and family encouraged Howe-Parrish, now in her 40s, to sell and showcase her work. Howe-Parrish entertained the idea, but it didnt become real until her friend Cora Chandler approached her with an opportunity. Chandler helped organize the first annual Big Sky Indigenous Women in Fashion and Art Gala in April. I remember she told me, Im planning this. I want you to be part of it. So be ready, Howe-Parrish recalled, adding that, at the time, she feared she wasnt up to the job. But Howe-Parrish was ready. It was her first fashion show, and she showcased 12 looks. More than 500 people were in attendance. The event was a success. People wanted to follow Howe-Parrish. Community members congratulated her. They wanted to buy her work. They wanted to know where shed go next. Howe-Parrish was thrilled. Howe-Parrish began featuring her work in more shows. And a little more than a month later in May, with her mothers permission, Howe-Parrish launched Choke Cherry Creek, a company featuring her contemporary Apsaalooke, or Crow, designs. Paris In September, Howe-Parrish and her family, flew from Montana to Paris so she could show her work at Indigenous Fashion Week. About a dozen other Native designers participated, and she was the only Montana designer there. Howe-Parrish created 16 looks for the show in a collection called, Honoring My Mothers and Grandmothers. About half of the pieces were ready-to-wear looks, and half were couture. All of the outfits featured contemporary Apsaalooke designs and geometric shapes. The collection featured a gold dress with imitation elk teeth, which Howe-Parrish calls her showstopper. Howe-Parrish said Indigenous models walked in the show, and every makeup artist was Indigenous as well. Howes 13-year-old son Brayden modeled in the show, and her older son Samuels girlfriend, Corrin Lamere, wore the show-stopping dress. It was such a high for me, Howe-Parrish said. Its amazing were in these spaces. Native representation is important. You can use this platform as an opportunity to share who we are, that we are still here and that we have our beautiful culture. Its really special. Theres so much meaning in each piece. Thats what I love about it. Howe-Parrish said the fashion world has opened doors. Her business has become increasingly popular and she fields more clothing orders and fashion show invites. Her success in the industry has brought opportunities to her community as well. People were asking me if Corrin was signed with an agency, she said. Its so awesome to see and have that impact. Events like this can inspire someone to sew or bead or create something for themselves. Its been the biggest joy. Howe-Parrish hopes to continue to inspire and encourage local youth. This month, she plans to visit St. Labre Indian School in Ashland and Lodge Grass Public Schools to speak with students about fashion, self-love and confidence. I like going to these communities and using young people in my fashion shows, she said. I like putting them in my clothes and seeing their confidence boost knowing that the clothes have meaning and tribal designs. They take pride in that. They like it. And I like seeing their joy. Howe-Parrish is hoping to launch her new Resiliency Collection in November. The line will include mens wear, casual wear and dresses all complete with Crow colors and geometric patterns. For more information, visit Choke Cherry Creek on Facebook or Chokecherrycreekdesigns.com. Lawyers and judges are in positions of great power and responsibility when it comes to our justice system. For that reason, they must abide by strict but sensible codes of conduct to ensure their behavior is ethical. Unfortunately, a former justice of the Montana Supreme Court, one who as a retired judge can still be called upon to hear cases, has flagrantly broken those codes of conduct. Justice James Nelson recently wrote a widely-distributed email attacking a candidate for the Supreme Court with falsehoods and asked recipients to forward on his slander. In the email, Nelson accused Public Service Commission Chairman and current Supreme Court candidate Jim Brown of being responsible for screwed up financial records that interfered with an audit and for a wrongful termination settlement that cost taxpayers $175,000. Justice Nelson knows full well that those things happened before Jim Brown was elected to the Public Service Commission. As a close watcher of the Montana Legislature (based on his frequent newspaper columns), Justice Nelson also knows that Jim Brown has in fact received strong bipartisan praise from legislators and other officials for his successful efforts to clean up problems at the PSC that predated his tenure there. In simple terms, Justice Nelson knowingly lied about Jim Brown to try to hurt his campaign. At this point, the reader may be thinking dirty tricks and lies during election season, whats new here? The difference is that given his position, Justice Nelson should be subject to sanction for violation of judicial ethics rules. Rule 4.1 (A) (10) of the Montana Code of Judicial Conduct requires that a judge shall not knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth, make any false or misleading statement. Rule 8.2 of the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct states that A lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrityof a candidate for election or appointment to judicial or legal office. Notably, Rule 4.1 of the Code of Judicial Conduct also explains that when an independent third party has made false attacks on a candidates opponent, the candidate should disavow the attacks, and request the third party to cease and desist. Jim Browns opponent, Ingrid Gustafson, has not disavowed Nelsons false attacks or to my knowledge requested him to cease his slandering. Unsurprisingly, given her record, Gustafson is therefore also violating judicial ethics every day she doesnt address Nelsons lies. These violations merit complaints to the Judicial Standards Commission, the entity charged with investigating judges for misconduct, against both Nelson and Gustafson. But the JSC moves too slowly and opaquely to address this matter before the election. These unethical dirty tricks are unbecoming of a judge, even a retired one like Nelson who doesnt know where his personal opinion ends and the law begins. If you want strong ethical standards at the Montana Supreme Court, Jim Brown is the only candidate who deserves your support. It is inescapable that every decision made by every leader reflects the character or principles of the man or woman making the decision. Character is the lens through which a leader perceives the path to be followed. The principles we speak of are the timeless values of humility, prudence, integrity, and faithfulness to our constitutions. These values are the foundation stones upon which our constitutions rest, and upon which our democracy depends for its very existence. It is only by universally and voluntarily applying these principles that it becomes possible for us to preserve our union. And, it is only from that union that our liberty and independence spring forth. We have been involved in the political life of Montana and the nation for many decades. We have worked with an infinite number of candidates and elected officers from both political parties. We know that political parties can facilitate honest discussions and fair comparisons upon which our fellow citizens can make informed election decisions. But we have also know that our highest loyalty must always be to our nation and state, and not to our political parties. We have known Ryan Zinke for a long time. After having served one term in the Montana Legislature and one term in Congress, Zinke was appointed by Donald Trump to the office of Secretary of the Interior in January, 2017. In less than two years at Interior, however, a withering series of allegations of dishonesty, as well as violations of ethics rules, were leveled at Zinke. In the aftermath of those accusations, Zinke faced intense pressure from the White House to resign from his position, which he did in January, 2019. In the spring of 2021, Zinke announced that he was again running for Congress in Montanas newly created First Congressional District. His most significant rival in the Republican primary election was former state senator, Dr. Al Olszewski, also from Zinkes home Flathead County. While the race was close in the rest of the district, Olszewski easily won in the county they both call home. After announcing his candidacy, Zinke sought and received Donald Trumps endorsement, describing Trump as a kingmaker in terms of his sway with the voters. Thereafter when top secret documents and other government records being held at Trumps residence, in violation of federal law, were retrieved, Zinke impulsively jumped to Trumps defense and hyperbolically announced that as of today, we are in a police state where the FBIcan do whatever they want without cause. It may be an understatement to describe Ryan Zinke as an acolyte and enabler of the feckless former president, Donald Trump, who has been and is, a clear and present danger to the survival of the longest functioning democratic republic in the history of humankind. Trump destroys the bonds of our union by exploiting our human insecurities, resentments and fears, and then supplants our better angels with malice, slander, grievances, cruelties, vengeance, and scorn. In doing so, he has desecrated the Constitution and poisoned the political life of America. As we have come to know her, Zinkes Democratic opponent, Monica Tranel, may be a few clicks to the left of us on some issues. But, most importantly, Monicas life is marked by integrity, hard work and reverence for our constitutional government. We cannot entrust our future to a candidate who has not revealed the principles and priorities essential to serving the best interests of our state and nation, nor one who would continue to enable the vandalism of our democracy by his political patron. With these things in mind, we will be voting for Monica Tranel. LANSING, Mich. (AP) Over 150,000 Michigan voters have cast absentee ballots a month before the Nov. 8 election that will decide the state's governor, secretary of state, attorney general and whether access to abortion will be a constitutional right. A total of 1.6 million people have requested absentee ballots so far, surpassing the 1.16 million who chose the option in the 2018 midterm election. The numbers indicate that 2022 could be the most votes ever cast in the state for a gubernatorial election, Secretary of State spokesman Jake Rollow said Tuesday. A record-breaking 3.3 million people in Michigan voted absentee in the 2020 presidential election at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Rollow said he expects the state would end up with about 2.25 million absentee ballots submitted if things were to play out along similar trend lines, to the 2020 election. The Secretary of State will continue to release absentee numbers weekly in the leadup to the election. A 2018 voter-approved constitutional amendment that allowed for no-excuse absentee voting, in addition to the pandemic, has led voters in the state to increasingly vote absentee rather than at the polls on Election Day. In addition to the high-impact races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, a ballot initiative this November seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution is expected to lead to high voter turnout. The low percentage of absentee ballots turned in as of Monday puts increased importance on a gubernatorial debate Thursday between Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Republican challenger Tudor Dixon. The debate will bring increased exposure for Dixon, who has struggled to boost favorability among voters on television due to a lack of fundraising and attack ads from pro-Whitmer groups. A $3.5 million ad buy from the Republican Governors Association will begin running pro-Dixon ads in Michigan on Wednesday. While early voting in the state began on Sept. 29, clerks can only begin processing the returned ballots the Sunday before Election Day under an agreement reached last month by Whitmer and the Republican-controlled Legislature. Clerks are allowed to remove absentee ballots from their outer envelopes but still cant remove secrecy sleeves or count votes until 7 a.m. on Election Day. Delays in results in the battleground state, which has one of the most decentralized election systems in the country, has left room for the spread of misinformation in the past. Michigan does not require voters to identify party affiliation when voting in a general election, making it unclear whether more Democrats or Republicans are turning in absentee ballots. Kristina Karamo, the Michigan GOP nominee for secretary of state, and GOP attorney general nominee Matthew DePerno have both pushed claims during their campaigns that absentee voting leads to increased fraud. At a recent rally for former President Donald Trump in Warren that featured Michigan GOP state and congressional candidates, MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell encouraged voters to wait to vote until Election Day because absentee voting makes it easier for them to cheat. Michigan-based pollster Bernie Porn said polling by his firm, EPIC-MRA, has shown that more Democrats were planning to vote absentee in the upcoming general election than Republicans. An initiative on this years ballot brought on by Promote The Vote, a voting rights group that helped pass the 2018 no-reason absentee voting amendment, would further increase accessibility to absentee voting. Among other things, the initiative would allow people to join a permanent list to receive absentee ballots every election, along with requiring nine days of in-person early voting. Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. This story first moved on Oct. 11, 2022. MUSCATINE This week, the Musser Public Library welcomes its new assistant director, Molly Garrett. Although not an unfamiliar face to the Musser Public Library, Garrett shared that she is still happy to be in this new position. Im really excited, she said. Everything seems to be going really well. I really love the type of library that Musser is. Its like the perfect blend of big city but small town and is just a perfect size, so Im excited about pretty much everything. Over the past 19 years, Garrett has gathered experience at several different libraries, starting with her hometown public library in Wilton, where she served as a page in addition to being part of that librarys teen board at the age of 16. It was a great experience sharing hours with the librarian there who worked with the teens, Garrett recalled. She was really great about allowing the teens to have a voice and really be active in the library community. So we did fundraising for the new building, we helped plan programs and we got to suggest books. It was really that ownership that showed me this was something I could do, too, and got me passionate about programming and libraries. Following this, she earned her associate degree from Muscatine Community College and then transferred to the University of Iowa, where she earned a bachelors degree in English as well as a masters degree in library science. From there, she traveled to libraries in Coralville, Cedar Rapids and back to Wilton, working positions at each of them before forming connections with Muscatines Musser Public Library. Working alongside Chad Yocom, she helped produce as well as co-hosted the program Libraries Alive! I originally just reached out (to Musser) because I wanted to get to know the librarians and the directors in the county, so I just wanted to know how they did things and how we could possibly collaborate and work together, and that kind of turned into dreaming big and doing all kinds of cool stuff, Garrett continued. When asked about her hopes and ideas for her new position, Garrett said that she planned on bringing more innovative ideas and special forward-thinking projects to the library, including more programming for adults and teens. One of the things Im really passionate about is people, she said. Im passionate about how people interact with the library space and what the library can bring to the community, how we can partner with people different organizations and different groups and really highlight what we have while also highlighting and shining a spotlight onto what the city as a whole brings. Thats something Im really excited to bring. In a public statement, Musser Director Robert Fiedler shared his approval of Garrett taking on this role. We are delighted to welcome (Garrett) aboard and look forward to working with her in creating new, dynamic programming, Fiedler said. (Garrett) will be a great addition to the Musser team and brings a wealth of experience that will complement the librarys mission and goals. The Musser staff so far has been so welcoming and so wonderful, and its been a really amazing library to step into, Garrett added. GRANDVIEW Since the destruction of the Grandview Post Office, people wanting their mail will temporarily have to travel to the Wapello Post Office to pick their mail up until mail boxes can be installed in Grandview. According to Shane White, postmaster of the Wapello Post Office, there is already a plan to install temporary postal boxes people can pick their mail up from as quickly as possible. The plan is awaiting the final OK from the postal headquarters. If approved the proposed location is in front of Grandview City Hall, just a few doors down from where the Grandview Post Office was. He said if the plan is approved, seven boxes would be installed and the post office needs to find nine more to install to ensure all households have a box. He said everyone would be given a key for their postal box. There is no plan for how the keys will be distributed. Ive never dealt with a situation like this, White said. I dont know about the time frame for a permanent solution to be established. White also commented he does not believe there has been discussion about the future of a Grandview Post Office yet, as the building only recently burned. I hope people will be patient with us, he said. I cant make some decisions. I have to wait on the powers that be to tell me what to do, but we are working toward a solution as quickly as we can. The Grandview Post Office was one of four buildings that were destroyed by fire Friday evening. The Louisa County Sheriffs Office reports about 4:30 p.m. Friday Louisa County dispatch wasinformed the shop behind the building at 114 S. Main St., was on fire. Louisa County deputies and local fire departments arrived soon after. The fire reportedly spread very quickly to the three different buildings. All the tenants of the buildings were removed before fire overtook the buildings and the mail was removed from the post office. Departments who responded include: Alliant Energy, Columbus Junction Fire, Columbus Junction Police, Conesville Fire, Fruitland Fire, Grandview Fire, Iowa State Patrol, Letts Fire, Louisa County Ambulance, Louisa County Emergency Management, Louisa County Sheriffs Office, Morning Sun Fire Department, Nichols Fire, Oakville Fire, the Iowa State Fire Marshals Office, the Red Cross, Wapello Fire and Wapello Ambulance. Several bystanders also assisted during the fire. On Tuesday morning, the Iowa State Fire Marshals Office said that no cause for the fire had been determined and that the investigation was ongoing. Louisa County Sheriffs Office chief deputy Brandon Marquardt said the Fire Marshals Office investigators had been on-site most of Monday and that the sheriffs office is still conducting interviews of people who lived nearby. He hopes the investigation will be done in about a week. We know it started in the shed that was connected to the back, Marquardt said. We know there was a large amount of lumber and things that can easily catch on fire. There are still a couple of things being looked into. He said some of the walls had burst out due to the head. As fire crews had arrived they sprayed the side of the building leading to the post office with water, trying in vain to keep the fire from spreading in that direction. Donations for the 13 people who were displaced by the fire are being collected by the Grandview Community Bible Church. More information can be found at https://gcbchurch.com/give. The sheriffs department reported that there are other donation sites online, but none of the others can be verified as authentic. Fewer Russians have crossed into neighbouring countries in recent days, according to local authorities, despite persisting anxiety over the partial mobilization the Kremlin launched less than two weeks ago to bolster its forces fighting in Ukraine. The mass exodus of Russian men began Sept. 21, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the partial call-up of reservists. In Russia, the vast majority of men under 65 are registered as reservists, so airline tickets to destinations abroad sold out within hours. Shortly after, long lines of cars formed on roads leading to Russias borders. Over 194,000 had entered Kazakhstan, Georgia and Finland by Tuesday. But according to officials from all three countries, the daily influx has decreased by the end of this week. The St. Helena Public Library Friends & Foundation will host a "Wine & Words" event with Diane L. Rosenfeld, author of "The Bonobo Sisterhood: Revolution Through Female Alliance," at 3 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, at Trinchero Family Estates. This is the first in a series of "Wine & Words" events where the foundation will present an author at a local winery for an information afternoon of literary discussion with wine and cheese. Rosenfeld will participate in a discussion moderated by Laura Levy-Shatkin, a member of the foundation's board and editor in chief of Napa Sonoma Magazine. According to her publisher, Rosenfeld is an internationally renowned legal expert who has made it her lifes work to address the problem of patriarchal violence. After years of advocating for victims in the courtroom, teaching at Harvard Law School, creating its Gender Violence Program, and spearheading groundbreaking changes to legal policy, Rosenfeld found the secret to revolutionary change in an unlikely source: the bonobos, our closest evolutionary cousins. These animals, in stark contrast to other primates, have evolutionarily eliminated male sexual coercion by forming female alliances. Registration is $50 at wineandwordsbonobosisterhood.eventbrite.com. Proceeds support programs and services at the St. Helena Public Library. Monday, Oct. 3 0907 Someone broke a window on Grayson Avenue. 1023 Someone broke a window on Adams Street. 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. 1158 Police picked up a puppy from Spring Street and contacted its owner, who picked it up that evening. 1813 Construction plates had slid out of place near Main/Charter Oak. PG&E was notified. 1905 Police assisted with a child custody exchange at the police station. Tuesday, Oct. 4 0823 Police cited a driver on Pratt Avenue. 0836 Police cited a driver near Pope/Edwards. 1044 Police contacted the owner of a wallet that was found. 1241 Police cited a driver near Charter Oak/Main. 1243 Police cited a driver near Charter Oak/Main. 1306 Police cited a driver near Pope/Silverado. 1326 Police cited a driver near College/Pope. 1556 Medical aid on Rosebud Lane. 1911 Police cited an unlicensed driver near Main/Grayson. 2022 Report of a reckless driver on Highway 29 near Lodi Lane. 2102 Police cited an unlicensed driver near Pope/Chiles. 2230 Report of an ongoing issue with a black Infiniti with a loud exhaust system that leaves the Elmhurst/Main area around 11 p.m. Police were asked for patrol due to the speeding and nuisance issues. Wednesday, Oct. 5 0134 Police cited an unlicensed driver near Main/Hunt. 0335 An Allison Avenue resident reported an ongoing issue with a suspicious vehicle that keeps parking in front of their house and driving off as soon as they leave the house. 0500 Police cited a driver near Main/Grayson. 0758 Police cited a driver on College Avenue. 0830 Police cited a driver on Spring Mountain Road. 1323 Police cited a driver near Vidovich/Main. 1537 Non-injury accident near Main/Mitchell. 1648 Report of kids drinking and smoking in a pickup near Crane Avenue. Police contacted the occupants and found no sign of drinking or smoking. 1746 Report of a truck idling on Hunt Avenue since 11 a.m. 2010 Report of a verbal altercation at a Signorelli Circle home. Police responded and made sure things hadnt gotten physical. 2048 Report of a man urinating in public near Fulton/Railroad, as the caller and two children walked by. The man drive away toward Main Street. Thursday, Oct. 6 0817 Report of someone stealing water from a hydrant on Pratt Avenue. Police took a report. 1152 A man found a small baggie containing a crystalline substance at his business on La Fata Street. Police took a report. 1347 Police stopped a car on Main Street and cited a 31-year-old Lathrop man for an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. 1400 Police assisted with a matter involving a juvenile on Hillview Place. 1632 A loose dog was returned to its owner. 1733 Someone shattered a glass window at a Stockton Street house. 1743 Report of a suspicious man trespassing in a backyard on Stockton Street. He told the caller he was trying to jump over his fence to go into his parents house. It happened about 10 minutes earlier. Friday, Oct. 7 0712 Police received a complaint about a leaf blower on Charter Oak Avenue. 1101 Police cited a driver on Charter Oak Avenue. 1138 Report of a water leak flooding a neighbors yard on Edwards Street. 1243 Someone found a wallet belonging to a local resident. 1535 Police cited a driver on Main Street. 1638 Report of a reckless driver near Main/Fulton. 2143 Police cited a driver near Silverado/Pope. 2316 Report of a sprinkler gushing water at a vacant house on Mariposa Lane. Saturday, Oct. 8 0124 Police cited an unlicensed driver on Main Street. 0850 Police cited a driver near Main/Saint Andrews. 0921 Police took a report following a traffic stop near Main/Elmhurst. 1224 Report of a chihuahua and a pit bull biting a mailman near Church/Pope. Police determined that the mailman had been able to scare away the dogs without being bitten. 1506 Police cited a driver near Grayson/Main. 1543 Report of a woman smoking drugs in a long pipe on Railroad Avenue. Police contacted the woman and determined everything was OK. 1733 Report of a vehicle parked in a no-parking area on Voorhees Circle. 1755 A pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses were reported stolen. 1824 Police cited a driver near Main/El Bonita. 2105 Police cited a driver near Highway 29/Inglewood. 2130 Following a traffic stop near Main/Madrona, police arrested a 47-year-old Catonsville, Maryland man on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs. 2312 Report of a possible drunk driver near Silverado/Pratt. 2319 Police assisted a motorist near Silverado/Deer Park. Sunday, Oct. 9 0209 A man reported being held hostage by a woman on Adams Street. The woman came on the phone to say the man had grabbed her and slammed her head on the wall. Police arrested the man, a 68-year-old Jackson, Wyoming resident, on suspicion of domestic battery. 0958 Police cited a vehicle parked in a crosswalk on Monte Vista. 1147 Report of a water leak in front of a house on Spring Mountain Road. 1257 Multiple callers reported a reckless driver on Silverado Trail. 1525 Police cited a driver on Pope Street. 2148 An officer found paintings outside a Main Street property. Police contacted the business manager, whod left them out there for anyone to take for free. 2230 Police cited a driver on Main Street. Monday, Oct. 10 0015 Police cited a vehicle with expired registration that was parked in the wrong direction near Spring/Main. 0044 Police stopped two cars near Main/Madrona. One driver was warned about speeding and the other was cited for having blue headlights. 0235 Police took a report after contacting two suspicious people on Pratt Avenue. 0533 Police cited a driver near Madrona/Vineyard. 0854 Police cited a driver on Spring Mountain Road. 0907 Medical aid for a possible stroke victim on Stockton Street. 0914 Report of a possibly neglected dog on Vallejo Street. Police determined the dog has a medical condition with its hip but is otherwise happy and well cared for. 1039 Report of an abandoned car on Pratt Avenue. 1124 Medical aid on Peppertree Circle. 1134 A parked car was damaged in a non-injury hit-and-run. 1258 Police cited a driver near College/Pope. 1627 A woman tripped and fell on an uneven sidewalk in the 1300 block of Main Street, causing significant injury to her shin, knees and elbow. Her relatives took her to the hospital. Police took a report. 2207 Report of a suspicious man near Pratt Avenue. Tuesday, Oct. 11 0705 Report of a man bothering customers, eating sugar packets and acting strangely at a business near Main/Spring. Police arrested the 23-year-old Fairfield man for three outstanding felony warrants. 0932 Report of a brewing argument between a disgruntled motorist and a construction worker on Whitehall Lane. The driver had reportedly brandished a handgun. Police found the suspect and the case was handed to the sheriff's office. 1119 Police cited a driver near Main/Dowdell. 1206 Police cited a driver on Main Street. 1228 Medical aid for a teen having a severe allergic reaction to shellfish on Main Street. 1909 Police cited a driver near Main/Vintage. The St. Helena Rotary Club and St. Helena Preschool For All families celebrated the culmination of a month-long fundraiser at Crane Park on Saturday. There was an abundance of food and joy as the parents shared their gratitude, and Rotarians got to meet the children who benefit from the program. The Rotary Club thanks the generous donors who raised $25,316 for scholarships for 3- and 4-year-old children to attend one of the several participating preschools in St. Helena, Angwin and Calistoga. It was the worst California heat wave ever recorded in September an epic grilling that disabled one of Twitter's main data centers, pushed the power grid to its limit, and triggered a succession of weather and safety alerts. 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. For 10 grueling days, meteorologists tracked record-setting temperatures as they boiled across the state 114 degrees in Napa, 116 in Sacramento, 109 in Long Beach. But for all the data on soaring temperatures, there was little information on the heat wave's human toll, or how many people had been sickened or even killed. The state's ongoing struggle to account for heat wave illnesses and deaths despite promises to improve monitoring has frustrated some public health experts who say the lack of timely information puts lives in jeopardy. "We're not respecting the most important natural disaster that we do get," said David Eisenman, co-director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters. "We're not really giving it the attention it deserves, and the state releasing data is not some abstract thing people need to know how harmful it was if they're going to start to respect it." Last year, a Los Angeles Times investigation found that California has chronically underestimated heat fatalities even as heat waves become more frequent and more deadly. Although the state Legislature recently agreed to the creation of what is known as a syndromic surveillance system, which will collect real-time data from emergency departments, it remains unclear when such a network will become operational statewide. Currently, the California Department of Public Health said it tracks heat-related illnesses and deaths "using data sets that are available at approximately a 6- to 18-month lag time," due in part to how long it takes to certify deaths as being heat-related. As a result, they were unable to provide any numbers for illnesses or deaths due to the recent heat wave. The department also said it was "still assessing the landscape for the implementation of statewide syndromic surveillance," and did not yet have a time frame for when that system would be online. Napa's unhoused residents try to survive heat wave Many of Napa's unhoused residents have borne the brunt of the current heat wave, though they've been supported by outreach efforts. Napa County has not reported any deaths related to the September heat wave, "but the data is only as good as the cause of death coding by the health care provider," the county's public health officer Dr. Karen Relucio said in an email Monday afternoon. Data on the causes of death or illness comes from the health care system, not the county Health and Human Services agency. Much like the state health department, Napa County has a delay of about 12 to 18 months in receiving data about deaths and hospitalizations caused by extreme heat, according to Relucio, who said that information about 2021 heat illnesses has only recently become available. Officials in California's most populous county were able to provide only slightly more information than the state. In response to a public records request, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which operates county hospitals and the Emergency Medical Services agency, said fire departments responded to 146 calls classified as "heat" defined by the agency as environmental hyperthermia during the 10-day period of Aug. 31 to Sept. 9. There were only 10 such calls in the prior 10-day period. The county's Department of Public Health also reported a sevenfold increase in the percentage of emergency department encounters classified as heat-related illnesses during Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3-5, compared to the entire month of August. It said the estimate should be viewed with caution, however, because it was based on a small number of heat-related illness reports only 81 out of more than 9,100 emergency department encounters on the peak temperature day of Sept. 4. For its part, the L.A. County coroner's office ran a query into heat-related deaths during the peak heat days of Aug. 31 to Sept. 5 and said it "did not come up with any." While it is possible that there was minimal death and illness caused by the heat wave, it's unlikely, Eisenman said. His own team's analysis predicts that there are at least eight extra deaths per day in Los Angeles County during extreme heat events, with that number increasing to 10 or more as heat waves wear on. "This was a long one and it was pretty severe, and we haven't done enough in Los Angeles or California to have prevented deaths, to have mitigated the harms," he said. "We have no reason to think that we're avoiding death with something that is known to cause the most amount of harm of all weather events." Unlike other natural disasters such as hurricanes, extreme heat "comes and goes invisibly," Eisenman said. That can make it difficult to adequately communicate its dangers. But extreme heat events are also increasing in severity and length in California, and it is critical for people to understand the threat. Napa County girds for peak of fire season Napa County is amid the dry part of a peak fire season that will last until substantial rains kick in. He noted that after the brutal Pacific Northwest heat wave of 2021, officials in Oregon, Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia reported information on heat-related illnesses and deaths within days which was not the case in California after the heat wave last month. What's more, health departments in the state have been releasing COVID-19 data daily during the pandemic, so they do have the capability to track information in real time. Among those most vulnerable to extreme heat are children, the elderly, homeless people and pregnant women. Farmworkers, construction workers and factory workers are also at risk, as are people with underlying health conditions such as kidney disease and diabetes, which can make their bodies less able to handle dehydration and heat, Eisenman said. Part of the difficulty in tabulating heat deaths, according to state and local health officials, is that "heat" is not coded on death certificates. Because of this, a person who dies from a heart attack while suffering from heat-related illness, for example, may be recorded as dying from the heart attack. If a death is later determined to be the result of excessive heat, the physician who signed the death certificate may update the cause of death, according to Relucio, the Napa County health officer. Under such circumstances, the only way to determine the number of heat fatalities during a given heat wave would be to perform an "excess deaths" analysis, where the number of deaths that occurred during a heat event is compared with the number of deaths that occur under normal conditions. However, such an analysis requires a sufficient amount of time to have elapsed since the heat wave "at least several months," the Los Angeles County Health Department said. The department does have its own syndromic surveillance system, but said it would not release that data publicly because the system collects only limited information on patients' complaints during emergency department visits. As a result, "there can be significant underreporting and misclassification of health conditions," it said. Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the group Climate Resolve, said he could understand why the county would not want to release imperfect data, but that not doing so was a mistake. "They're missing the forest for the trees," he said. "There is the big-picture reality there are many more hospitalizations and emergency room visits and incidents of deaths during heat events, and the public doesn't know this. And so if it's off by 5% or 10%, that's not the point. The point is that there is a significant impact on public health during extreme heat events." Paul English, director of Tracking California for the Public Health Institute, agreed. He said officials must conduct such an analysis for the last heat wave. "Did the state do enough? Well, we need to get the data," English said. "Are they going to look at the excess mortality and morbidity and get the true picture of how people were affected? They just need to run that analysis, and I hope they do it, and publicize it so we know the full impact." While California is still struggling with data on heat illnesses and death, state and local officials said they took immediate action to respond to the September heat wave. The state Department of Public Health said one of its top priorities was "to get the word out for people to be aware of the health risks of extreme heat," including negative health outcomes and the threat of potentially concurrent wildfires. In particular, the agency said it focused on providing guidance to local health jurisdictions, schools, first responders and others working to protect the most vulnerable, and worked with other state agencies to disseminate information. The agency said it also updated its extreme heat website with new guidance and added a "Flex Alert banner" to its homepage, posted public service announcements in Spanish and English on social media, provided communication resources for local health jurisdictions and shared safety tips about wildfire smoke and ash, among other actions. However, English noted that his own team has encountered far more than two languages while working on air pollution issues affecting farmworkers. "They need to be able to get this messaging in a culturally appropriate way," he said, and "those type of alert systems don't really exist for those specialized populations." Experts this year were also hoping for the passage of Assembly Bill 2076, a measure that would have established a chief heat officer for the state and mandated the coordination of more than a dozen state agencies. The bill died in committee in the Senate. "We still don't have a comprehensive approach to dealing with extreme heat in the state it's still fragmented and piecemeal, and that's an issue," said Enrique Huerta, legislative director for Climate Resolve. There have been some successful efforts to address extreme heat, however, including the passage of Assembly Bill 2238, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, which will establish a statewide warning and ranking system for extreme heat events by 2025. Also passed last month were AB 2420, which will review research on extreme heat among pregnant women, and Senate Bill 852, to allow for the creation of climate resilience districts for investing in infrastructure that mitigates heat and other climate impacts. Los Angeles this year also named its first chief heat officer, Marta Segura, who has been tasked with improving the city's preparation and response. Huerta noted that the state last year budgeted $400 million for extreme heat, including $300 million for climate resiliency. He hoped the spending would focus less on long-term mitigation and more on "solutions that can be done tomorrow," such as cool pavement installation to immediately reduce ambient temperatures for the most imperiled residents. "If that money is managed and administered effectively, it can go a long way to reduce heat illness and death," Huerta said. But September's heat wave came and went with few of those ambitious bills, projects or tracking systems off the ground, and UCLA's Eisenman said the sense of urgency has never been greater. "If the numbers are what we think they are at least 10 extra deaths per day in L.A. County a portion of those are preventable if we start to get those programs up and running," he said. Napa Valley Register city editor Howard Yune contributed to this report. Darlene Elia, a nearly 20-year employee of Napa Police and president of the Napa Police Officers Association, filed a lawsuit against the city of Napa late last month, alleging several cases of gender and age discrimination, harassment and retaliation during her long tenure, as well as inaction by the city in response to her complaints. Napa Police is also named in the complaint, as are police Chief Jennifer Gonzales and Capt. Gary Pitkin. The city of Napa doesnt comment on pending litigation, City Manager Steve Potter, himself the citys former police chief, said Friday. The complaint, filed Sept. 26 in Napa County Superior Court, asserts various discriminatory and retaliatory acts targeting Elia from 2003 a year after she graduated from the Napa Valley College police officers academy through this year. 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. One of Elias attorneys, Mark C. Peters of the Duckworth & Peters law firm in San Francisco, said that Elia has been passed over for promotion multiple times in favor of male or younger employees, for reasons that Peters said appear to be pretextual meaning that they believe the truth of why she was rejected was covered up by a false reason. Darlene has been through a long history of discrimination in spite of her performance record at the department, Peters said. Its pretty outrageous whats gone on in terms of passing her over. Elias complaint states the first such case of gender-based discrimination occurred in April 2003, when Elia was treated like a secretary by her sergeant at the time, Terry Gonsalves. Gonsalves assigned Elia to make fliers and copies of documents for the team and treated her differently from her male counterparts by making derogatory statements towards her, and unjustifiably belittling and reprimanding her, the complaint alleges. Elia became a corporal and field training officer for the department in 2007, and was selected to fill a vacancy for a detective position in 2008. The complaint claims that, upon information and belief a legal term that refers to statements made based on secondhand knowledge Elia believes are true she received that position because her female predecessor in the role raised complaints about gender discrimination in NPDs promotion practices and was thereafter promoted. In or around 2012, Elia tested for a sergeant position but was bypassed in favor of a male employee, Aaron Medina, who the complaint alleges was less qualified. The lawsuit further claims that Medina didnt pass the probationary period in the role and was ultimately demoted back to an officer position. Additionally, Gary Pitkin then a lieutenant allegedly ignored repeated complaints from multiple female officers that Sgt. Medina engaged in gender and age discrimination and created a hostile work environment for women, the complaint says. Upon information and belief, rather than take their complaints seriously, Pitkin instructed Sgt. Medina to write up the female officers for insubordination. Elia was passed over for promotion to sergeant, as well as special assignments, several more times in the following years, according to the complaint. The lawsuit further states that in early 2013, Elia began experiencing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder because of her work as a detective investigating child sexual assault and child pornography cases. She went to her sergeant for assistance with her PTSD symptoms and concerns, according to the complaint, but her request for assistance was ignored and she was diagnosed with severe PTSD, depression and anxiety in June that year. She then requested Potter a police commander at the time assign her back to patrol in order to lessen her exposure to such cases. But she wasnt permitted to transfer assignments without completing her open caseload as other officers had been allowed to do, the complaint alleges, and she was reprimanded by the department for not completing her open child sexual assault cases. Elia became a field training officer in 2015, according to the complaint a position that is responsible for training junior officers but Napa Police didnt give her a trainee for two years while she held the position. In October 2017, she inquired about the absence of trainee assignments in a meeting with then-chief Potter and Lt. Brian Campagna, and was told there were issues and concerns with her job performance, the complaint says. During the meeting, Elia pointed out the disparate treatment at play in her role. For example, she pointed out that a male colleague received trainees, even though he had left his SWAT team rifle in the trunk of a taxi after a night of drinking, and was well-known for being a mediocre (at best) employee, the complaint says. Elia also pointed out that same male colleague was also given a corporal/lead officer position. At the end of the meeting, chief Potter ordered the lieutenant to assign Elia trainees, but he took no other action on Elias complaints of discrimination. Elia went on leave for a work-related wrist injury that required two operations and months of rehabilitation in July 2018. The complaint alleges the city attempted to push her into early retirement in early 2019 entirely because of her PTSD diagnosis. Chief Robert Plummer, who had never met Elia, had recommended she not be permitted to continue to work as a police officer, the complaint alleges. A workers compensation judge later cleared Elia for full-duty work in March 2019, the complaint says. The city cleared her for light duty later that year because of her arrest, but the citys human resources department then told her she would be put on leave until she was cleared by a psychologist, the complaint alleges. A psychologist confirmed Elia could perform her work without restrictions in June 2019, and she returned for light duty in the investigations division at the police department. The complaint alleges that Pitkin later said he was concerned about Elias inability to work on sexual assault cases, though she was cleared to work without restrictions. Nevertheless, Pitkin subsequently emailed Elia that she was not permitted to work on any sexual assault cases anymore (regardless of her position), the complaint says. In January 2020, Tommy Keener, a sexual offenses liaison officer (SOLO) with Napa Police, was selected to fill a position in the Napa Special Investigations Bureau, which the complaint says historically meant the SOLO position would open up, given that the NSIB position isnt with the police department, has odd working hours, and isnt typically available for immediate support. At least three Sergeants'' told Pitkin that Elia be selected to fill that role, but Pitkin made the unprecedented decision to permit Officer Keener to remain SOLO while at NSIB, the complaint alleges. When Jennifer Gonzales was promoted to police chief in August 2021, she promoted Pitkin to captain. Elia, in response, met with Gonzales to voice her concerns about Pitkins promotion based on his alleged "multiple issues with female officers throughout the department as well as his alleged lack of leadership and continued incompetency in his job, according to the complaint. Elia tested for the SOLO position that September as she had previously, successfully, in September 2020 and was placed first on the eligibility list, the complaint says. Keener was promoted to sergeant in April of this year, which left the position open. But the position instead went to detective Kevin Skillings, the only other eligible officer for the position, the complaint says. Elia was called into a meeting with Pitkin and captain Fabio Rodriguez on May 19. Pitkin explained to Elia that they were choosing Skillings over her because they wanted someone with gang experience, which she believed was pretextual, the complaint says. Afterward, Elia met with Gonzales and complained Pitkin had discriminated against her on account of her age, the complaint says. Gonzales insisted Pitkin did not mean it that way and gave various reasons for Napa Police not selecting Elia for the SOLO assignment, including her purported work attendance, dependability, performance and attitude, according to the complaint. Contrary to Gonzales assessment, however, Elia has never been informed that there were issues with any of those items, the complaint alleges. In fact, after the meeting, Elias sergeant informed her that he had not been consulted about the selection at all, and that he had no issues whatsoever with Elias attendance, dependability, performance, or attitude. Gonzales followed up in an email dated June 7, alleging that Elia had missed scheduled trainings and then (was) unavailable for the make-up session, according to the complaint. But, the complaint states, Elia had only missed training during periods of leave, sick or taking care of a sick child, and shed never been counseled for missing a training. For Ananya Bapat, getting to UC Davis was a feat of coordination. In her second year at De Anza College, Bapat spent her fall semester contacting counselors and admissions officers at the community college and the UC, trying to ensure that her hard-earned credits would transfer to a new campus. The conflicting advice they gave her, she said, only added to the confusion of the transfer experience. 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. The process itself can be really overwhelming coupled with (the fact that) youre a second-year in college, youre transferring on top of classes and everything, said Bapat, who is currently a fourth-year student at Davis and a peer adviser at the universitys Transfer and Reentry Center. A new pilot program may make it easier for students like Bapat to transfer to the University of California system starting next fall. Under the dual-admission program, high school seniors rejected from the UC can enroll at a California Community College with a conditional offer of admission to one of six UC campuses. Theyll have access to the UC campus from the first day of their community college career, and can use UC libraries, attend transfer events and receive advice from special dual-admission counselors. The program specifically targets students who have missed at least one of 15 high school courses required for UC admission, but earned a high school grade-point average of 3.0 or higher. During a UC Board of Regents meeting last month, Provost Michael Brown touted the program as advancing academic equity in the state. He added that personal challenges or a lack of UC-required courses at high schools can prevent students from preparing for admission, through no fault of their own. At the same time, the program aims to address some of the obstacles preventing community college students from transferring. Only 19% of California Community College students who intend to transfer to a four-year university successfully do so within four years, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Abeeha Hussain, a fourth-year UCLA student and the transfer student affairs officer for the UC Student Association, said she believes students will take advantage of dual admission, as long as UC campuses actively promote the program to local high schools. It really creates this incentive for students to be like, Im not getting rejected because Im not good enough for the school, Im being deferred to admission later, said Hussain, who transferred from Palomar College. Of course Ill go to my community college if it means that Ill eventually get to go to the UC of my dreams. About 10,000 high school students apply to the UC every year without meeting freshman eligibility requirements, UC admissions director Han Mi Yoon Wu said at the Regents meeting. Of this population, 3,700 students have not met the UCs high school coursework requirements but have GPAs of 3.0 or higher, making them eligible for the pilot program. Students who receive a freshman offer of admission to the UC are excluded even if they join the 7,000 individuals who annually turn down their UC acceptance to attend a California Community College. The UC may also exclude some majors from the dual admission pilot, which will admit students until fall 2025, including computer science and engineering at certain campuses. A similar program is in the works at California State University, where it will also include students who were admitted but are unable to immediately attend due to financial or personal challenges. More support for transfer students Entering community college with a clear path to a UC campus can set transfer students up for success, said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. He added that the early offer of admissions distinguishes the pilot program from existing transfer pathways at the UC, which dont admit students until spring and lack the same access to UC campuses and support. Dual admission could be really powerful in connecting a student with the campus or campuses that theyre interested in going to, Johnson said. Regent Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the former chancellor of the California Community Colleges, said he believes the program will promote greater geographic diversity among UC transfers by providing a clear pathway forward for students in underserved regions of the state, such as the Central Valley and Inland Empire. Students of color, as well as individuals who are low-income or the first in their family to attend college, may be more likely to apply to the UC without meeting admission requirements and have the most to gain from the pilot program, added Jessie Ryan, executive vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a research and advocacy group. Logan Ueno, a fourth-year transfer student at UC Davis studying political science, said regular visits to a UC campus can help transfer students make informed decisions about their futures and get the feel of attending a larger school. Coming from the community college, going to a UC is so much bigger, and theres so much more resources that can be utilized on campus, Ueno said. I know that Ive taken advantage of some of the resources on campus since Ive transferred to Davis, and its really helped alleviate some of the stress about going to a UC. Having access to a coordinator who can act as a liaison between the UC and California Community College systems will also benefit students, who often shoulder the responsibility of navigating the transfer system themselves, Bapat said. That will help you on both ends of the transfer, Bapat said. I think (the coordinator) would clear up a lot of confusion and make the process even more streamlined. The UCs pilot follows a handful of other dual-admission programs across the nation. In Virginia, George Mason University has partnered with Northern Virginia Community College to provide students with automatic admissions to the university. The program, which began in 2018, has drawn attention for its robust support for community college students, who can spend time on the George Mason campus and take courses there as they earn their associates degree. The UC also created its own dual admission program in 2004, but the program faced an early end after cuts to funding in the 2004-05 state budget. Only 67 students joined the fall 2004 dual admission cohort, despite the fact that more than 37,000 were able to apply. Oakley believes the UCs new program will fare better than its predecessor. I think now the governor is behind this pilot, I think the legislature is behind the pilot and I believe the regents are behind the pilot, said Oakley, who left the community college system to become president of College Futures Foundation, which helps fund CalMatters higher education coverage. I do think it has a much better chance of succeeding. Most-selective campuses are excluded However, UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego remain glaringly absent from the new pilot program. Some Regents criticized the three highly selective campuses for failing to participate. Student Regent-designate Merhawi Tesfai said the three campuses face some of the greatest challenges in admitting and enrolling students from underrepresented backgrounds. I feel like theres the idea that (dual admission) would help that problem in some ways, Tesfai said. I would really want us to consider those three campuses being involved. Demand for the three campuses is high among transfer students. Forty-five percent of students who receive guaranteed admissions to a UC campus through one of the universitys existing programs end up instead enrolling in UCLA, UC San Diego or UC Berkeley, despite the lack of guaranteed admission pathways at these schools, Brown said during the Regents meeting. However, he added, offering dual admission at high-demand campuses may unintentionally displace other deserving applicants. Every guarantee program displaces, he said. We also have a goal of being as fair as we can in admission processes, too. By creating a clear and affordable path to the UCs, Oakley said he hopes the pilot program will boost community college enrollment, which was on the decline prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued to fall. Californias community colleges have lost 350,000 students since the 2019-20 school year, a drop of more than 16%. I think the more students see themselves as transfer students, the more theyll take advantage of their local community college, Oakley said. Tagami is a fellow with the CalMatters College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation. At 18, Luis Avila decided not to cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election. It wasn't because he thought it was unimportant. Instead, the thought of voting for the first time left him overwhelmed. 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. "I don't know how to do this," Avila recalled telling his older brother. "Like, it's a huge step. I don't want to make the wrong decision." Young voters like Avila are often misperceived as too apathetic or too self-absorbed to care about elections. But rather than being dismissive of politics, some of the country's least experienced voters say they feel unprepared to make such weighty choices. "If I can't even get to school on time, or I can't make my bed in the morning ... then why should I be able to go make a big decision at a voter's booth?" said MacIntyre Garbani, who cast his first vote in 2016 only under pressure from his parents. He was uncomfortable with the thought that his choice could affect others, he said, gesturing toward classmates at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia. This sense of paralysis is a key, but underappreciated, dynamic among this crucial voting bloc of 18- to 29-year-olds, whom politicians tend to court with cringeworthy social media stunts. It's a sentiment pollsters pick up time and again. Oftentimes young voters say they didn't have enough information or campaigns didn't contact them, said Wasay Rasool, a lead strategist for Avalanche Insights, an information technology company that conducts polls. Rasool and other experts say voters would be better served by a more robust civic education, and by politicians visiting campuses and offering up strong and savvy social media presences to highlight issues that directly affect young people. Rasool boiled it down to the "confidence piece knowing enough to actually take action to actually get out there and vote." How and where to vote in Napa County this fall This guide from the Napa Valley Register will guide you to the nearest ballot drop sites and voting centers, and includes important dates leading to Election Day, information on registering to vote, and contact information for the Napa County Election Division. But the problem isn't just intimidation. For about 35% of young people, the biggest barrier to voting is politicians not delivering on the issues that most resonate with them, according to a national poll Avalanche Insights recently conducted with Rise Inc., an organization that advocates for free college, and Voto Latino, a nonprofit that aims to galvanize Latino and Hispanic youth to vote. When young people show up to vote, their impact is significant: Turnout among voters younger than 30 surged in 2018, when they helped Democrats take control of the House, and in 2020, when they were instrumental to Joe Biden winning the presidency. The annual Harvard Youth Poll, released in April, found that nearly half of young Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Yet the poll also forecast that youth turnout is expected to meet 2018's record-breaking turnout. This midterm election, Democrats are at risk of losing control of Congress. Their slender hopes of hanging onto the House could hinge in part on two highly competitive Central Valley races. In Merced County and the surrounding area, Democratic Assemblymember Adam Gray is competing with Republican farmer John Duarte for an open seat. To the south, Democratic Assemblymember Rudy Salas is vying to unseat Republican Rep. David Valadao in a district straddling Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. If young adults as well as Latinos show up to vote, they could create an opportunity to elect the first Latino member of Congress representing the Central Valley, said political analyst Paul Mitchell. Salas is Latino; Valadao is of Portuguese ancestry. Of the 3.5 million registered voters in the valley, about 21% are young voters, according to data Mitchell gathered. In the last few months, the overturning of federal abortion rights, high gas prices, the cancellation of some student debt, and major federal action on climate change have captured young voters' attention. Recent studies have shown that grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives made young voters more aware of their power at the ballot box. "This is a voting bloc of young people who are really just very involved in their communities, and are really seeing the links clearly between what's happening in their local community and the politics of who's actually representing them," said Jessica Ronan, program manager for the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University. Yet this daunting sense of responsibility could still be a barrier for newer voters, especially in places like the San Joaquin Valley, which is beset by widespread poverty and inequities in education. Those challenges make youths acutely aware of the stakes that come with voting. Many of these young adults are the first in their family to vote after their parents migrated from Mexico to work in agriculture, Ronan said, so they don't get much guidance on the mechanics of voting. "I think that comes with ... a little bit of pressure," especially because young people understand the impact their vote could make at home, she said. Discussing politics puts Erika Yanez on edge. The 20-year-old college student has seen the rush of political campaign ads on TV. She is alarmed that the winter season in the valley has shortened over the years. She cares how policies might affect her goal of becoming a dental hygienist. The Tulare resident said she registered to vote in high school, but didn't go to the polls in the last presidential election. Instead, she said, she left that responsibility to her older sister. Yanez remains cautious about forming political opinions. Her parents didn't talk about politics when she was growing up, and her high school senior class on economics and U.S. government was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yanez's shaky political foundation has left her frustrated this campaign season. "It's hard for me to keep up," she said, even though politics that affect her personally are important to her. For many, politics rank low on the list of personal priorities. As teens graduate high school and venture into the next chapter of life, it's common for them to think about whether they'll move out of their parents' home or what college they'll attend, said Tom Holyoke, a political science professor at Fresno State University. "Typically, once you have that worked out to some degree, then you start thinking about more abstract issues like 'who should I vote for?'" he said. Garbani, 25, now feels ready to shoulder the responsibility of voting; he finds himself wanting to know more about the ballot propositions and Congressional candidates he will see on his ballot. He plans to cross-check candidates' claims with library databases, talk to trusted neighbors in Visalia and watch speeches. It's often as teenagers become adults that they realize how events can directly affect them. Amid a recent triple-digit heatwave blanketing the valley, Angel Sanchez sought relief underneath a tree after working on a project with peers. He faced a five-hour gap before his next class at College of the Sequoias. Returning home to Corcoran, nearly 30 miles south of the Visalia-based school, for a few hours was not an option time-wise or financially. The high cost of gas is motivating Sanchez, 21, to vote in this election. The no-party-preference voter said $15 used to buy enough gas for him to drive his 2007 Ford Mustang GT to work at Target. The cost has since doubled to about $30, he said. Sanchez said he "should have voted" in the presidential election even though he doesn't truly feel represented by either party. Avila's interest in politics was piqued last year when redistricting got underway. He worried how new boundaries would affect his home of Farmersville. Then he started thinking about his father, a fieldworker toiling in unpredictable weather. Now his sense of responsibility for his parents has motivated him to step up and vote, because he's no longer thinking about just himself. "My dad's getting older," he said. "Obviously, I'm going to have to take care of him." According to a tweet published by the EU on October 10, 2022, Turkiye denies one more time a flag state consent request from IRINI to inspect MV Matilde A. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link The Greek flagship of Operation IRINI, HS Aegean. (Picture source: OpIrini) The European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operation IRINI (EUNAVFOR MED IRINI) was launched on 31 March 2020 with the primary mission to enforce the United Nations arms embargo to Libya due to the Second Libyan Civil War. Operation IRINI is a European Union military operation under the umbrella of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). The operation is expected to use aerial, maritime and satellite assets. The headquarters of the operation are in Rome, Italy. Italy and Greece alternate the Force Commander every six months (together with the rotation of the flagship). On 10 June 2020, the Greek frigate Spetsai under the command of IRINI operation attempted to inspect the Tanzanian-flagged cargo vessel Cirkin which was suspected of carrying arms to Libya, but was ordered to retreat after warnings from Turkish frigates accompanying the cargo vessel. According to sources, the Turkish commander's message was that 'the Turkish ship is under the protection of the Turkish Republic'. Later, on 17 June 2020, France also accused Turkish ships of harassing a French warship from the NATO Operation Sea Guardian as they tried to inspect the Cirkin and that the Turkish Navy was using their NATO call signs while accompanying Turkish vessels suspected of breaking the UN arms embargo on Libya. According to French officials, when the French ship tried to inspect the vessel, the Turkish vessel switched off its tracking system, masked its ID number and refused to say where she was going, while the Turkish frigates flashed their radar lights three times against the French warship, suggesting a missile strike was imminent. The European Commission is working on a way to provide Ukraine with around 1.5 billion of budgetary support per month next year, officials with knowledge of the discussion told Politico Monday. The EU in May pledged 9 billion in so-called macro financial assistance to Ukraine, but of that, only 6 billion has received the backing of EU countries, and only 1 billion has been disbursed to date. A discussion on how to provide the remaining 3 billion is ongoing. "Provision of short term relief in macro-financial assistance to Ukraine has so far been done in an ad-hoc basis," EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn told a conference in Brussels. "In view of the continued need for relief, a more structural solution could be contemplated for a higher degree of predictability, and Im working hard with [EU countries on a way] that allows us to have more structured, predictable and automated support at least for next year," Hahn added. Kyiv estimates its budget gap will be around $3.5 billion per month next year, and the U.S. has pledged to cover $1.5 billion per month, asking allies to do the same. The Commission is discussing with EU finance ministries how support could be provided. The total figure, as well as how much of would be grants or loans, are still under discussion, officials added. Proposals could come as early as next week, or ahead of conference on Ukraine reconstruction in Berlin on October 25, co-hosted by the German G7 presidency and the Commission. YEREVAN. Hraparak daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: Collective West demands from [PM] Nikol Pashinyan to sign the peace agreement [with Azerbaijan] before the end of the year. According to our source, the matter was discussed also on October 6, in Prague, behind closed doors. There are reports that [Azerbaijani president] Aliyev proposed to sign the agreement on November 9. 2 years ago, on the same day, the capitulation declaration was signed after the war; now he wants to repeat his victory. Pashinyan opposed [to this proposal], saying that that day has a bad meaning for the Armenian people, people may assume that the peace agreement will not open new doors for usas he is trying to convince, but that it will be the second capitulation. Apart from that, Nikol Pashinyan raised the matter of the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the RA sovereign territory, saying that he will not sign an agreement until the troops withdraw from the RA territory. And Azerbaijan has not lost its appetite to get a corridor through [Armenias] Meghri [city], and even the authorities circles do not rule out the risk of a new escalation. An influential U.S. senator on Monday called on Washington to suspend all cooperation with Saudi Arabia over Riyadh's decision to support Russia's war in Ukraine by cutting oil production. Last week, Riyadh, Moscow and other major oil producers agreed to make significant production cuts to boost oil prices. The United States condemned the move as a concession to Moscow that would hurt the global economy. "You simply cannot play both sides in this conflict: either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping out an entire country, or you "The United States must immediately freeze all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia, including any arms sales and security cooperation beyond what is absolutely necessary to defend U.S. personnel and interests," Menendez said in a statement. "I will not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough," Menendez said. Menendez is horrified about attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. "There simply is no room to play both sides of this conflict either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping off an entire country off of the map, or you support him," Menendez said in an apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yerevan Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan uses administrative resources. Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Project Director at Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center, expressed such a view in an interview with Pastinfo, and referring to the activities of Armenias former Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, who was recently appointed the Deputy Mayor of Yerevan. The source writes that the next elections of the Yerevan Council of Elders will take place in the fall of 2023, but Avinyan is already conducting tours in various communities of the Armenian capital, during which he meets with residents, visits kindergartens, makes promises and, in fact, using the position of deputy mayor, is already campaigning from today. It was he who had announced that he was the ruling Civil Contract Party candidate for the Mayor of Yerevan, sometime thereafter he was appointed the Deputy Mayor, and now the Yerevan Municipality covers his activities much more actively than the current Mayor of Yerevan. "In this case, I call it the use of an administrative resource. The use of administrative resources is accepted in all countries of the world, and it is the unwritten advantage of the ruling political powerincluding in the most democratic countries. It's a good thing or a bad thing, we can find out if other forces hadnt done it or didn't do it," Hoktanyan said, adding that it is necessary to consider which aspect of that activism in particular can affect the aforesaid elections. According to him, abuse of administrative resources in Armenia is understood in a narrow sense, when it is carried out during election campaigning. Formally, according to the Electoral Code, we are dealing with the abuse of administrative resources when the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announces the elections, the relevant timetable is presented. But in this case, purely from the point of view of the legislation, we are not dealing with the abuse of administrative resources. According to Hoktanyan, in this case, we are dealing with the use of administrative resources, which is not a new phenomenon. Varuzhan Hoktanyan considers the ruling power's appointment of Vahagn Hovakimyan, a former ruling force MP and a former journalist of PM Nikol Pashinyan's family newspaper, as the new CEC chairman, as an abuse of legislative resources, Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center also had joined the NGO's statement in this regard. "The abuse of administrative resource has several types: abuse of power resource, abuse of electoral legislative resource, procedural abuse of how legislative and sub-legislative decisions are implemented. From the point of view of abuse of administrative resources, the appointment of Vahagn Hovakimyan as the CEC chairman has much more serious consequences, whereas what Avinyan is doing now, I would define as the use of administrative resources, which is an accepted practice. It would be an abuse if he mobilized his supporters from today through the directors of schools, polyclinics and other ways in Yerevan; moreover, through pressure," explained Hoktanyan, adding that if there are such facts, we can only talk about abuse of administrative resources by Avinyan. "Now he is the deputy mayor and, as the deputy mayor, he has the right to go and meet with the residents. It is, of course, not very welcome from an ethical point of view, but it is an accepted way in the world. But the appointment of Vahagn Hovakimyan is an abuse of administrative resource because a person who was a party member until the last minute became the CEC chairman. The bad thing is that all the bad traditions that existed in the past continue now. And nothing has changed because what happened in April, May 2018, it was supposed that these practices should be completely eliminated; but they are not eliminated," Varuzhan Hoktanyan concluded. If Ankara is thinking about becoming a mediator in talks on the situation in Ukraine, Russian and Turkish presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan will meet this week in Astana, they will have an opportunity to discuss this, in general Moscow is ready to listen to any proposals, but it is impossible to say in advance whether this or that process will lead to the result, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. "It is clear to me that if Turkish colleagues are thinking about it, they will have a great opportunity this week during the meeting of Presidents Erdogan and Putin, who will be together at events in Astana, to put such questions to us," he added. "We have heard nothing but public announcements," Lavrov said during the 60 Minutes program on the Russia 1 channel, responding to a question about possible negotiations on the situation in Ukraine mediated by Turkey. The head of the Foreign Ministry complained that it was not the first time when Russian partners announced some initiatives publicly, drawing attention to them, and then looking at the reaction of other countries. Is there any understanding that the slogan of the President of Azerbaijan: "We will restore Karabakh and Zangezur" is a clear recipe for disaster? Permanent member of the Armenian delegation Armen Gevorgyan stated in his speech within the progress report of the PACE Bureau and Standing Committee on Monday, which was published on the PACE website. He noted in particular: "Dear President, In the context of the continuous aggression of Azerbaijan against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh I would like to raise the following questions: Our organisation had preferred to limit itself by vague and unaddressed statements which would put signs of equality between and among the parties to this conflict. Hence, I would like to be told: what's the clear and unambiguous position of our organisation: is Azerbaijan an aggressor state, and should it withdraw troops from the occupied soveriegn territories of Armenia? There are two paths forward in Nagorno Karabakh and only one of which, I believe, the Council of Europe must encourage and endorse: namely, the respect for the right of people to self-determination. The other alternative is silent indulgence of the authorities in Azerbaijan to gradually annihilate and uproot the Armenians from their historic homeland - just as they did in Nakhijevan. What's the preferred choice for the Council of Europe? It has become a "new normal" to witness when democratic norms, freedoms and traditions are being sacrificed for geopolitical interests and access to energy resources in the Caspian. I would like to know when has Azerbaijan been a more democratic state for the Council of Europe - when it was actively fighting against the Armenian population in Nagorno Karabakh, or today - as it engages in war crimes and other forms of crimes against humanity against the people in Republic of Armenia? It's clear by now, that in those international forums, where Turkey and Azerbaijan do not partake or have dominant roles, the issues of Nagorno Karabakh or armed aggression against Armenia are being discussed more objectively. Do I understand it right, that in our organisation the issues of human rights, democracy and rule of law are being decisively influenced by lobbying and resources by certain national delegations? Is there any understanding, that the slogan posted by the President of Azerbaijan We will restore Karabakh and Zangezur" is a clear recipe for disaster? It is a grave violation of the fundamental norms of international law, second it is a grave disrespect towards the international partners in the peace process, and third it is an open call to arms aimed at redrawing the political map of South Caucasus in accordance with the Turkic aspirations for a new Turkic World - at the expense of sovereign territories of Armenia?" YEREVAN. Azerbaijan is worried that UNESCO experts may witness the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage; that is the reason that hinders the work of the independent technical mission. Ambassador Christian Ter-Stepanian, Permanent Delegate of Armenia to UNESCO, announced this during Tuesdays plenary session of the UNESCO Executive Board. Also, the envoy expressed hope that the Director General of UNESCO will continue to make efforts to send a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and nearby areas, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia informs NEWS.am. In his address, the Permanent Delegate of Armenia to UNESCO spoke also about the current situation as a result of the aggression unleashed by the armed forces of Azerbaijan on September 13, towards the sovereign territory of Armenia. In particular, he emphasized the importance of ensuring the continuity of education during this difficult period. As a result of the recent Azerbaijani military aggression, 24,873 schoolchildren in 172 schools and 5,808 preschoolers in 69 kindergartens in Syunik, Gegharkunik, and Vayots Dzor Provinces of Armenia have been deprived of the right to education. In addition, Ambassador Ter-Stepanian drew the attention of those in attendance to Azerbaijans most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, which testify to the extremely high level of Armenophobia rooted in the Azerbaijani society. In the worst-case scenario, Europe's energy crisis could cut car production by nearly 40% or more than 1 million cars quarterly by the end of 2023, S&P Global Mobility reported. The auto industry supply chain, which has already survived the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, could face severe pressure from soaring energy prices or even blackouts. Given Europe's skyrocketing energy prices...a harsh winter could put some auto industries at risk of not being able to keep their production lines running, the report said. Vehicle production costs have already risen to 687 and 773 per car, up from pre-energy crisis levels of 50, putting a strain on smaller suppliers in particular. Beginning this quarter and through the end of 2023, S&P Global Mobility predicts that quarterly production at European auto assembly plants will be between 4 and 4.5 million units. But"with potential utility constraints, it could be reduced to 2.75 to 3 million units per quarter. According to the forecast, as European suppliers export parts around the world, all automakers will be affected one way or another. Edwin Pope, chief analyst at S&P Global Mobility, told Reuters that the analysis was done before the likely sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines late last month. Events like this will inevitably tip the scales toward the lower end of what we predicted, especially in terms of how long it will take to repair things like this, Pope said. While the auto industry will be able to survive this winter, if Europe doesn't have a plan for next winter, many suppliers may not survive, he said. Moscow has not received any specific proposals through diplomatic channels to hold talks in Turkey between Russia, Germany, the United States, Britain and France, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing. "At the moment, while I was preparing for the briefing, there was nothing additional to what the Russian side stated yesterday. Russia has not received any specific proposals through diplomatic channels to hold talks in Turkey between Moscow, Berlin, Washington, London and Paris," she said. "The situation is developing dynamically, I do not know what will happen next. At the time of the briefing I can say again that no such information has been received." On Monday, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia had not received any specific proposals through diplomatic channels for talks between Moscow, Berlin, Washington, London and Paris to be held in Turkey. According to the press secretary of the Russian leader, before speculating on the hypothetical possibility of such negotiations, "we need to understand the purpose of such a meeting, to understand why, with whom, and what could be the result of such a meeting." Peskov did not rule out that Russian and Turkish leaders Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan might discuss Ankara's initiative for such negotiations in Astana. Beijing's growing power is a national security issue that will determine our future, said head of the British Cyber Intelligence Agency (GCHQ) Jeremy Fleming. He accused China of trying to rewrite the rules of international security, saying Beijing was using its economic and technological clout to suppress at home and establish control abroad. According to him, Beijing's authorities want to gain a strategic advantage by shaping the world's technological ecosystem. When it comes to technology, the Chinese state's politically motivated actions are becoming a growing problem that we must recognize and address, Fleming said. He added that this changes the definition of national security to a much broader concept. Technology has become not only an area of opportunity, competition and cooperation, but also a battleground for control, values and influence. Relations between Britain and China have become increasingly chilly in recent years, as British officials accuse Beijing of economic tricks and human rights violations. British intelligence agencies are giving increasingly negative assessments of Beijing's influence and intentions. Last year, MI6 head Richard Moore called China one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies, the AP reported. Fleming warned that China is seeking to fragment the infrastructure of the Internet in order to increase its control. He also argued that China seeks to use digital currencies used by central banks to track users' transactions and as a way to avoid future international sanctions, such as those imposed against Russia. Fleming argued that China's BeiDou satellite system, an alternative to the widely used GPS navigation technology, could contain a powerful anti-satellite capability with a doctrine of denying other countries access to space in case of conflict. He said the world's democracies cannot afford to fall behind in advanced fields such as quantum computing, and warned of potential weaknesses in semiconductors, critical microcircuits used in everyday electronics.